Ugly Plants: Melt Out in the Summer Heat

Spring 2010 brought plenty of rain and the blue hydrangeas were breathtakingly beautiful again, for the first year in many after a brutal 3-year drought. Gardens were thriving this spring and gardeners walked with a bounce in their steps. 


Just as summer officially began we experienced four weeks & two days with no rain at all, and 90+ degree F. temperatures, followed by a continued heatwave but with afternoon thunderstorms and high humidity. Plants that had been holding on through all these changes finally melted out. YouTube: I Melt With You

One example is the heavily felted leaves of Lambs Ears, Stachys byzantina. Lambs Ears is a plant commonly grown in children's gardens or used for edging, because it is easy to grow and the thick felt like leaves are fun to touch. They are native to the Near East, with arid or Mediterranean-like climates and are best suited to sunny, dry gardens with infertile soils. However, the silvery felt-y leaves trap moisture and humidity, encouraging crown rot in heavy clay soils and in climates with high summer humidity. Excessive moisture can result in root rot during dormant periods and crown meltout during summer months. Formerly about a yard in diameter, my patch of Lambs Ears has melted away this summer. I raked off the dead leaves opening up the branches beneath to air circulation, and I’m wondering whether it might come back from the crown this fall. Maybe not.

I had an amazing 5-foot-diameter stand of Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’ that recently bit the dust, too, except for a few plants around the outside rim of the clump that are flowering. Just look at this sad picture.

Even the Daylilies look bad, but I know they'll be fine because their fleshy storage roots and crowns will be unaffected.

Actually, there are still a few nice looking plants in the garden. Apparently Autumn Fern is indestructible, along with the Sun Coleus, native Coneflowers and Black-Eyed Susans. How is your garden doing?

 
 

Container Plantings and Snow-N-Summer™ Asiatic Jasmine

Last fall I was asked to give a talk to a local garden club on container gardening. In addition to my visuals, I rounded up a large container, soil mix, plants and bulbs to do a demonstration. The familiar exhortation to use “thrillers, spillers, and fillers” to round out container plantings had me reaching for a new Garden Debut® introduction, the trailing Snow-N-Summer™ Asiatic Jasmine.


I was “tickled pink” by this cultivar’s outstanding leaf color. The best asset of any Asiatic Jasmine is its glossy, fine-textured foliage, and Snow-N-Summer™ is exceptional with striking pink-n-white new leaves that keep the smiles coming. The emerging new growth of shade tolerant Snow-N-Summer™ Asiatic Jasmine is amazingly variegated. Colors on new sprouts range from soft pink to medium rose, white, dappled green and white, and copper. Later in the season, varying shades of green develop. The best foliage color is produced in part sun to bright, dappled shade, because heavily shaded growing conditions will reduce the intensity of the foliage variegation. The colors intensify throughout the summer and persist into the winter months, perfect for year-round container plantings.

I turned pink with pleasure when I saw the container come together. This beautiful, evergreen accent ground-cover delivers appealing color year-round in the landscape, and makes a strong contribution to decorative mixed containers that are so popular in today’s upscale gardens and terraces. Snow-N-Summer™ Asiatic Jasmine performs beautifully when used in year-round containers with annuals, perennials and even shrubs or small trees. It has a moderate growth rate; in containers it trails delightfully, while in-ground it exhibits a compact spreading to mounding growth habit that can be pruned or sheared to control height and spread. Shearing also promotes new growth emphasizing the beautiful pink and white coloration.

Actually Trachelospermum asiaticum ‘HOSNS’, Snow-N-Summer™ was developed by Bob and Lisa Head, members of the Garden Debut® consortium of plantsmen. Bob notes, "Not many variegated cultivars of Asiatic Jasmine can withstand cold winters, but Snow-N-Summer™ has been evaluated over many years and shows a greater adaptability. The extremely colorful variegation is pronounced all year, and has proven very drought tolerant in above-ground containers. In spring it brightens up very quickly". The plant adapts very well to variable growing conditions and climates, and it makes a wonderful addition to any garden, with very good heat and cold tolerance in USDA Zones 7a - 9b, so it is perfect for Atlanta containers.

Do you have a pet “spiller” you use in containers?

P.S. I planted rosy pink tulip bulbs in the soil beneath the other plants to come up and bloom in the spring.

Scented Pelargoniums and Insect-repelling Plants

So, if it hasn’t rained in so long, why are the mosquitoes and gnats so troublesome this summer? In addition to noisy bug zappers, fans, clothes softener dryer sheets, citronella candles and smoke curls, highly fragrant plants or plant oils will help repel these pesky insects naturally. Pests zero in on the carbon dioxide and water vapor we exhale and the scented plants do the trick by masking these aromas.

Natural insect repellents include plants and plant oils from strongly fragrant plants such as lemongrass, lemon balm, cedar, rosemary, cinnamon, cloves, lemon, eucalyptus, thyme, basil, fennel, lavender, pine, peppermint, pennyroyal, and of course insecticidal (but organic) Neem and Pyrethrum. Scented geraniums contribute geraniol.

I am annoyed when plants are sold by wildly incorrect names. “Mosquito Plants” or “Citronella Geraniums” that I see on sale are often the lovely scented geraniums (more correctly Pelargonium) of the varieties Lemon-Rose or Skeleton Rose that have a strong lemony-sweet smell. Sometimes the diminutive parsley-like Lemon Crispum is also offered. While the true citronella plant, Cymbopogon nardus, is closely related to lemongrass, the scented pelargoniums are a delight in gardens and containers close to the picnic table where guests can stroke them to release the fragrance.

Any one of the three copies I own (!) of the 1967 classic The Fragrant Year by Helen Van Pelt Wilson and Léonie Bell will provide a host of facts; the authors have a lot to say about these appealing plants with aromas of strawberry, nutmeg, apricot, ginger, apple, peppermint, pine, eucalyptus or rose, along with lemon and lemon rose. And I have found these Pelargoniums are exceptionally useful in attracting new gardeners to the fold.

Photo credit U of Minnesota Extension.

Center for Applied Nursery Research

     In 1997 a group of nursery professionals, horticultural educators and industry leaders founded the Center for Applied Nursery Research. I have only recently become aware of this group. One member of the CANR Board, Rodger Flotta of Abbey View Farm in Greensboro, Ga., is also a member of the Garden Debut(R) consortium of growers. 

     CANR is a nonprofit organization whose purpose is to: 

+ Provide funding and protected facilities for needs-driven horticultural Research in an operational nursery setting following usual nursery practices.

+ Provide a managed facility and funding for ornamental horticulture research based on grower needs and conducted under commercial growing conditions.

+ Generate information to keep growers in Georgia, the Southeast and the U.S. on the forefront of new ornamental plant breeding, evaluation and introduction, as well as new nursery production techniques.

+ Provide a forum for the sharing of research results with the ornamental horticulture industry.

Projects funded for 2010 include:

Development of crop production cost analysis for break-even analysis

Pre and post weed control in nursery liners

Effectiveness and cost comparison of low dose PGR compared to manual pruning

Selection of new/under utilized native and ornamental spp for use in breeding

Evaluation of blueberry selections as edible landscape plants

Relationship between irrigation and leaching of nutrients in container production

100 outstanding conifers for the Southeast

Development of sterile plants

Evaluate non-invasive cultivars within invasive species

Indentify pathogens in irrigation water and their associated risk to nursery plants

Determine the water requirements of hydrangeas, effects of plant age, and environmental conditions

Review new University of Georgia introductions  

For more information about CANR, or to read the research results from previous years, visit 

www.CANR.org

A Riot of Summer Flowers

     This time of year my front Cottage Garden is a riot of color. The house faces south, and while this garden gets some shade in the early morning (when these photos were taken), it is primarily full sun. Because our home is so symmetrical with the twin gables, twin windows and shutters, twin window boxes and arched front door echoing the eyebrow window, I have taken special care to add elements of asymmetry like the Lady Banks Rose climbing up only one side of the front porch arch. The stone walk is 8-feet wide between the driveway and the front door but half that width going around to the left toward the Shade Garden. The 'Emerald' Zoysia lawn is like a plush green carpet and withstands the summer heat without irrigation, but in the photos it is dappled with sunlight.

     The color continues year-round, although late June is pretty much a highlight. Now the many Daylilies are blooming in shades from white to pink, purple, red, yellow and orange. Purple Coneflowers, Shasta Daisies and Black-eyed Susans provide a daisy flower shape to contrast with the trumpet shapes of the daylilies. Dark pink Coleus, black Sweet Potato Vine and silvery Lamb's Ears add durable foliage color, while spikey variegated Yucca and sword leaves of Siberian, Japanese and Roof Irises contrast with the horizontal lines of Creeping Thyme. Pink Crinum lilies are blooming with characteristic abandon, and clouds of blue-green leaves on white Baptisia remain as it produces its interesting ballooning seed pods.

     Some of the spring annuals like Love-in-a-Mist (Nigella) or Peony Poppies have seed pods filled with ripened seeds, some of which I am collecting to sow in January and to give to friends. I've been growing and saving seeds of my Gardening Grandmother's Feverfew (Brides Buttons) since 1981. Sometimes Zinnia or Annual Rudbeckia or even Ironweed seeds themselves between the cracks of the stone paving and if it doesn't obstruct traffic too badly I allow it to flower there. 
The Hydrangeas were briefly wonderful this year due to the early rains, but after 15 days straight of higher-than-90 degree F. temperatures and no rainfall the tender flowers have taken a beating. The leaves wilt every afternoon but then come back every morning ready for new solar abuse. They would perfer a little afternoon shade, but I envisioned a bank of powder blue against the ochre bricks when I designed the front border, so they are planted here. Wavy snakes of Foxgloves are filled with ripening seed. In my garden-before-last the Foxgloves actually did reseed, but not so in my last garden. Wonder if they'll germinate in place in this garden? Lavender Garden Phlox reinforces the color of the Purple Coneflowers. 
 
Lamb's Ears are blooming and its flowers around the periphery of the clump do not interfere with the pool of silver provided by the leaves. Showing only green for now are the fragrant Spearmint, Mexican Tarregon (Tagetes) and the late brilliant yellow Chrysanthemums that will bloom from Thanksgiving to late December or early January, when they are finally cut down by a hard frost. These are corseted in perennial hoops economically made from tomato cages cut in half (horizontally) using the super-giant red bolt cutters my Dad gave me so long ago. The exhuberent growth in this garden conceals their aluminium stays, as well as crowding out weeds.
     I heard a statistic that 80% of garden flowers do well in full sun, while 20% of them do better in shade, so I am grateful for the wide pallet of colorful flowers.

Father's Day

     Father’s Day is a special day to celebrate our fathers. In 2010 the third Sunday in June marks the 100th anniversary of the holiday. Thanks and a tip of the hat to the Dads, Step-dads, Grand-dads, Uncles, Cousins, Big Brothers and men who have had an influence in our lives.

     A website with everything you ever wanted to know about Father’s Day can be found at http://www.holidays.net/father/ and there’s a historical list of the Top TV Dads from Huffington Post at http://www.holidays.net/father/tv_dads.htm.

Thanks, Dad!

Photo credit: Rat Race Escape Artists website

Cresting or Fasciation - One of Nature's Conceits

There are some really odd flowers growing in my garden. Instead of the usual round daisy shape of a Black-eyed Susan, they look flattened, crested or ribbon-like. See for yourself. 


The word for these fascinating distortions of the plant world is "fasciation", from the Latin 'fascia' = "to fuse".  


What causes plants to produce fasciated flowers? Mostly science doesn’t know. Some causes of Fasciation include bacterial infection, insect or mite attack, severe pruning, wounding or mechanical damage, chemical damage or experimental applications of plant hormones, or mutations in rapidly dividing cells at the growth tip. However, most appear by chance with no obvious cause.

Humans seem to be fascinated by fasciated plants, and the literature documents fasciation in more than 100 different varieties. Their unusual shapes make them prized by many, like the Fantail Willow that is essential in the world of flower arrangers. According to Dr. T. Ombrello of the UCC Biology Department additional examples are Crested Cockscomb Celosias (which I have propagated by seed) and beefsteak tomatoes. Dr. Ombrello says, “If you have ever wondered why beefsteak tomatoes have such unusual shapes, look at their flowers and you will readily see why”.  Many of the ones perpetuated by vegetative propagation  become cultivars within species.

How about sending in photos of the fasciated plants you come across? We'd love to see them.