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. 

Top 10 Tips when Gardening with Children

1. Serene adults with their own enjoyment of the garden provide roles models for the child to imitate. Remember, gardening is caught, not taught!

2. Plan ahead to maximize success. Site the garden in full sun near a water source, and enrich the soil with compost.

3. Easy Does It. Try a small garden plot for starters, 2 x 4 feet or 3 x 3 feet.

4. Quick results are best for short attention spans. For example, try radishes instead of asparagus.

5. Little children tire easily. Let the adults provide the support for the child and do the weeding, but let the kids pick the cukes.

6. The small size of the child calls for appropriately scaled, child - sized tools, providing teaching opportunities for pride of ownership and proper care of tools. Be aware of good quality.

7. Individual adult attention, one-on-one, is a reinforcer in and of itself.

8. External recognition such as a blue ribbon in the Children’s Class of a juried Flower Show, a small cash prize at the Youth Division of the County Fair, or simply a printed certificate at the neighborhood Show & Tell, will be replaced later by pride and self satisfaction.

9. Use the child’s harvest, for example, after the strawberry plants start yielding, take a strawberry shortcake to school for a class treat, or pick some flowers to take to a shut in.

10. Claim your own rewards: renewal of a child-like joy and sense of wonder

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Ferry Morse seed packets for children.

Summertime Heat Tolerance

Plant Hardiness and Heat Tolerance

It’s summertime and the livin’ is easy; fish are jumpin’ and although the cotton is not yet high, the weeks of 90-degree temperatures are upon us. This got me to thinking about how plants get heat-stressed and the entire concept of heat-tolerance ratings. However, since the gardening public is more familiar with the idea of cold hardiness, I’m going to start with that.

Cold Hardiness
Plant hardiness is a complex phenomenon and depends on many variable qualities of individual plants (not of their projected sites). The Royal Horticulture Society (RHS) Shorter Dictionary of Gardening points out some natural adaptations to cold temperatures include deciduous or herbaceous habit, procumbent growth, thicker bark, seed dormancy or accelerated life cycle, among others.

Cold hardiness is a characteristic attributed to plants that are capable of withstanding the rigors of winter without greenhouse protection. Often abbreviated as “hardiness”, the general population sometimes uses the term loosely to mean a general toughness or ability to survive, but that’s not strictly the case. The actual story is really interesting!

Hardiness Zones

Back in 1960 the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), in cooperation with the American Horticulture Society (AHS), produced an ingenious map based on annual minimum temperatures. Isotherms, contour lines connecting points of equal temperature on a map, were developed using data from 124,500 weather stations and analyzed by the Meteorological Evaluation Services, Inc., in Amityville, NY and labeled Hardiness Zones. Brilliant! They extrapolated variable characteristics of hardy plants to Zones on a map, thus producing an approximation; a guide or rule of thumb; shorthand, as it were, to enable people to get an idea of where plants will make it through the winter.

I am too young (!) to remember a time before Hardiness Zones were in common usage in the horticultural world, but this was a real breakthrough. This precious map was widely publicized, often printed on the inside covers of gardening reference books and was/is used extensively. In 1990 the map was revised to include Canada, Mexico, and Hawaii, and later zone maps were also produced by others for Europe, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and China. But keep in mind, theses zones are simply an approximate indication of the coldest temperature band in which the plant will survive. Thus, most gardeners are familiar with the concept of plant hardiness.

Heat Tolerance
However, cold isn't the only factor determining whether plants will survive in the garden. At 86 degrees F. (30 degrees C.) plants begin to experience physiological damage, and with the advent of weeks of 90 degree Farenheit temperatures in Atlanta I really wanted to look at the concept of heat tolerance in plants.

As part of the 75th anniversary celebration of the AHS (1997), a Heat-Zone Map was published, based on the number of days each year that the daily high temperatures reach or exceed 86 degrees. The data used to create the map was gathered and again analyzed by the Meteorological Evaluation Services, Inc. This map has 12 zones which overlap but unfortunately do not follow the hardiness zones exactly, so when using both maps to make selections, two zones are indicated for plant. Each of the 12 zones of the Heat Tolerance Map indicate the average number of days each year that a given region experiences "heat days"-- temperatures over 86 degrees (30 degrees Celsius)-- at the point when plants begin to decline due to the heat. The zones range from Zone 1 (less than one heat day) to Zone 12 (more than 210 heat days). The use of Hardy or Half-Hardy Tropicals (what we used to think of as “houseplants”) in the garden provides an entire category of plants that laugh at heat waves, and it seems to me that this trend became popular after the advent of the Heat Tolerance data.

Plants vary in their ability to withstand heat, not only from species to species but even among individual plants of the same species! Unusual seasons-fewer or more hot days than normal-will invariably affect results in the garden. And even more than with the hardiness zones, gardeners find that many plants will survive outside their designated heat zone because of complications by many factors such as microclimates, rainfall, hot winds or cloud cover.

On the AHS website, H. Marc Cathey, AHS President Emeritus, points out, “The effects of heat damage are more subtle than those of extreme cold, which will kill a plant instantly. Heat damage can first appear in many different parts of the plant: Flower buds may wither, leaves may droop or become more attractive to insects, chlorophyll may disappear so that leaves appear white or brown, or roots may cease growing. Plant death from heat is slow and lingering. The plant may survive in a stunted or chlorotic state for several years. When desiccation reaches a high enough level, the enzymes that control growth are deactivated and the plant dies.”

So the AHS Plant Heat-Zone Map is used the same way that the Hardiness Map is used, but unlike the Hardiness Zone Map, this map is highly proprietary. “The AHS Heat-Zone map is a copyrighted document that is wholly owned by the American Horticultural Society. Any reference to, reproduction of, or attempt to code plants using the map's information without written consent by AHS is a violation of the copyright. Durable full-color posters of the AHS Heat-Zone Map are available for $9.95 each. To order check the website http://www.ahs.org/publications/heat_zone_map.htm or call (800) 777-7931 ext. 119.”

I think because the Heat Tolerance Map is not open source, this resource is less widely used, which I think is shortsighted; too bad. What do you think? Do you bother with the heat tolerance zones when choosing plants for your gardens?

Photo credits: Thermometer-Ohio State Engineering, Hardiness Zone Map-Missouri Extension, Tropical containers-author photo.

Top 10 Tips for Watering the Garden & Landscape

Watering the Garden
Since plants are 90 – 95% water they can quickly wilt if they get too dry. Good gardeners monitor the water available to their plants (rain) and avoid this stressful wilting with extra irrigation. Some plants (thinking Hydrangeas here) wilt every day on hot afternoons but come back by evening. Others (Rosemary) are less tolerant and quickly turn yellow when water stressed.

But too much water isn’t good either. Plants require a balance of both water and oxygen around their roots. Overwatering excludes the necessary oxygen from the soil causing roots to rot and die and resulting in yellow or wilted tops. On the other hand, too little water does not allow the roots to replace water lost by the plant through transpiration from its leaf surfaces. In this case, tender roots shrivel and die, and again we get wilting. In both cases, either too much or too little water, the plant suffers from lack of moisture in its tissues.

I have long been uncomfortably amused by the dark concept of “PWP”. The Permanent Wilting Point is a technical term for “bye, bye baby”, the point of no return when the plant is DEAD.

So I’ve assembled my Top 10 Tips for Watering the Garden and Landscape Plantings.

1. How often to water depends on how often it rains. As a rule of thumb, most plants thrive with about an inch of water a week. Visualize a short, 10-minute downpour every two or three days. Keeping the soil lightly moist prevents it from drying out completely. It’s the fluctuation that is damaging to most plants.

2. How often to water also depends on the soil type. Clay soils hold water a long time, while sandy soils are like a sieve, letting the water quickly drain away below the root zone. Both types of soil can be improved with the addition of organic matter. Organic matter adds lightness and air to clay soils; it acts as “tiny sponges” holding the water in sandy soils.

3. The very best time to water is in the cool of the morning, when the wind is calmed, evaporative water loss is minimal and the rising sun quickly dries off the leaves.

4. Water the soil, not the leaves. When water sits on plant foliage for hours (e.g. overnight), fungus spores can germinate and attack leaves, buds, flowers, and fruit. Plants susceptible to leaf spots, fruit rots, and flower blights are best watered in the morning, when the warming sun will quickly evaporates the water and discourage fungus development. Avoid watering disease-susceptible plants in the evening.

5. Wind and air movement increase water loss from the pores (stomata) on the leaf surfaces, called transpiration. That’s why fuzzy or felted plants like lavender or silvery artemesia do well in hot, stressed situations. Anti-desiccant sprays are available for houseplants or for broad leaf evergreens when the soil freezes up north, but I don’t have much experience with them. Consider microclimates when planting.

6. Plants need more water on hot, bright days when the relative humidity is low, and evaporation is high. An insulating layer of organic mulch is good at reducing the evaporation.

7. Water needs vary with the type and maturity of the plant. Some vegetables and bulbs are tolerant of low soil moisture.

8. Set a rain gauge or two in an open area of the garden to learn how much water the garden receives each week and judge the need for supplemental irrigation accordingly. Use a straight-sided can or purchase a calibrated, easy to read gauge at a garden center.

9. Stand-alone containers or hanging baskets tend to dry out more quickly due to the combination of crowded, intensive planting and increased surface area along the sides of a porous pot, so they depend on careful monitoring. The smaller the container, the more frequently it needs water.

10. Sometimes a wilting plant does NOT need more water. This is true if plants are growing fast and the leaves get ahead of the roots' ability to provide them with water, and is easily corrected. Unfortunately it is also true if the roots are rotted from TOO MUCH water, which brings us back to the PWP.

Notably, young plants and new transplants require more moisture more often at the soil surface to help their root systems take hold. Water lightly but more frequently to accommodate their growth needs. Mature plantings with large root systems are best watered heavily but much less frequently than younger plants. The moisture soaks deep into the soil and encourages the roots to thrive. Follow watering guidelines in your municipality and happy gardening!

Tiny and Tough, Micron® Holly Really Measures Up

Have you heard the old mouse’s tale: “if prickly hollies are brought into the house, the husband is in command, but if smooth-leafed hollies are used to decorate, the wife rules the home”? I'll have to try it. Holly leaves and bark were used for various ailments by native Americans. Some wore sprigs of holly during child birth to ease pain and assure delivery of a healthy baby. Several southeastern tribes brewed a purgative, emetic drink from the leaves of native yaupon holly (memorialized by it species name, Ilex vomitoria) in the spring, which allegedly restored lost appetites, preserved good health and bestowed courage in battle.

Micron® Dwarf Yaupon Holly is super-adaptable to all types of growing conditions. A choice dwarf selection of native holly by Garden Debut®, Micron® is extremely durable and flourishes in a tremendously wide range of conditions, from sun to shade and from wet to dry soils! Much more compact than the typical evergreen dwarf yaupon, Micron® Holly has a characteristic mounding or pillowing habit that makes this shrub distinctive in the landscape. Slow growing so it never needs pruning, Micron® reaches a mature height of only 20 – 30 inches and a wider spread of three feet. Resilient plants are profusely branched and low mounds of rich green foliage add a distinctive rich color to the garden in winter (Zones 7 and warmer).

Micron® Holly is an exceptionally versatile garden performer because it is not particular to the type of soil provided, and while it is tolerant of wet soils it is also more drought resistant than other hollies. Wild yaupon grows along the Gulf and Atlantic coastal plains of the southeastern United States with a range extending from the northern coast of Virginia south to central Florida and west to southern Oklahoma and eastern Texas. This makes Micron® Holly an ideal landscape plant in warmer U. S. gardens for a multitude of uses, including small hedges, garden borders, edging, foundation plantings and massed on slopes to control erosion and to simply look good. Prized for its slow rate of growth and resulting dense wood, pruning or shearing is never necessary with Micron® Holly. Additionally, Micron® is deer resistant and yields a slight fragrance when the tiny flowers bloom in late spring. If you live in the Southeast, look for Micron® at independent garden centers near you.

Top 10 Reasons for Organic Mulch!

Wow! I love organic mulches. Here are the Top 10 Ways Mulch can Benefit Landscape Plants:

1. Moderates soil temperatures like an insulating blanket

2. Moderates soil moisture levels by limiting evaporation of moisture already in the ground

3. Unifies the landscape design by providing pleasing color and texture throughout

4. Reduces erosion and splash-back on residences by softening the impact of raindrops on bare earth

5. Suppresses weed growth by preventing weed seeds from sprouting

6. Enriches the soil by adding nutrients when decomposing, improves the physical properties of the soil and can worked into the beds at the end of the season

7. Encourages the proliferation of earthworms, which aerate the soil

8. Provides a zone of protection from string trimmers for tender trunks

9. Cushions the impact of foot traffic

10. Hides irrigation and power lines, valve boxes, outdoor lights and landscaping hardware

How to Mulch:

A blanket of mulch of about 2 – 4 inches and not much more is best. If the trunks of trees or shrubs come into contact with mulch, ideal conditions for the growth of fungus disease can be present. Reduce this possibility by leaving a 3 – 4 inch space between the mulch and the trunks, or an 8 inch space around mature trees.

I can only think of 2 Reasons Not to Mulch:

1. Ornamental poppy seeds, foxgloves, nigella, and other annuals, perennials and natives like purple cone flower need bare ground to sprout and won't sprout under mulch. So pull back the mulch in an area where you intend to scatter seeds.

2. Pine voles (nasty, stub-tailed, mice-like herbivores) tunnel on top of the soil but under too-thick mulch to gnaw on the crowns of my favorite and rarest plants, especially during the cold months. Still, I think the benefits outweigh any drawbacks.

Let me know your favorite kinds of organic mulch.

Parterre Garden: Embroidering with Plants

While working on my talk on ‘Herbs of Shakespeare’ presented last week, I got re-intrigued with the elaborate evergreen gardens they planted back in those days.

Formal, ornamental gardens of the French Baroque period and English Renaissance were typically laid out on level surfaces adjacent to the grand buildings or halls, par "on", terre "the ground". They were typically bilaterally symmetrical and often foursquare, divided by broad, level paths of gravel, sand, turf or swept earth. A stone or brick curb was often used to outline the design, and within, the planting beds were edged with tightly clipped evergreen hedges, often of boxwood, for four seasons of beauty.

Within the planting beds the woody ornamentals were tightly planted in clipped hedges inscribing decoratively geometric designs. The sensuous shapes of boxwood scrolls and arabesques placed within the very formal, straight lines of the garden’s basic design lent an elaborate gracefulness. The geometry could also be more angular and consist of straight lines and 90 degree angles. A Flower Parterre had a riot of colorful flowers changing with the seasons planted within the compartments of the hedges. Or the clipped parterres need not have any flowers at all. A Plain Parterre had nothing but the basic outline of the clipped evergreen hedges of the planting.

Broad pathways were part of the design, and allowed the garden to be admired by people strolling through it. However the true beauty of the parterre was best viewed from the upper windows of the mansion. This bird’s eye view displayed the design like a pattern of crewel embroidery.

Although today’s gardeners are not about to plant a formal parterre, low evergreen hedges are still useful to contain flowers or define an edge. Consider trying Green Borders Boxwood, new this year from Garden Debut®, for low, informal hedging and when dark green color is needed to provide structure and interest in the landscape.

This littleleaf boxwood displays a sturdy growth habit and dense, dark green foliage. Slow growing, Green Borders reaches a mature height of 2 – 3 feet tall and a slightly wider spread of 3 – 4 feet, making it excellent for informal garden edging and borders. Plants are profusely branched and the glossy, dark green foliage adds a distinctive rich color to the garden in winter.

Not just another green box, Green Borders Boxwood is exceptional because it is tolerant of moist soils. Other notable characteristics include deer resistance and a slight fragrance when the tiny flowers bloom in late spring. Green Borders Boxwood flourishes in conditions of sun to dappled shade. In full sun, shallow-rooted plants appreciate a little mulch to keep soils cool.

Boxwoods have been used for centuries by gardeners for small hedges, garden borders, edging, foundation plantings and as accent plants, prized for their slow rate of growth. Although pruning or shearing is never necessary with Green Borders Boxwood, littleleaf plants may be sheared into tight the geometric shapes or the formal topiary of yesteryear if desired.

Gardening Thoughts on Mother's Day

There is something to be said for celebrating Mother’s Day in the most beautiful month of the year, amidst all the spring flowers. Wikipedia has a remarkable chart listing the timing of Mother’s Day in many countries around the world, and I noticed the majority of them do fall in May. 

My darling Mother showered me with unconditional love and her many talents included watercolor, design, dressmaking and cooking, but I attribute my love of gardening to my Gardening Grandmother. Cozily seated on the sofa with the snow piled up outside Grandmother would let me choose dozens of vegetable and flower seeds from the glossy catalogs to order for the garden. When springtime rolled around, we would plant an organic garden, turning under cover crops and organic mulch, lining out seeds of leaf lettuce, hilling up the cukes, ladling out manure tea. 

Grandmother had a garden that puzzled me, with old fashioned flowers and new hybrid vegetables all thriving together under fruit trees. It was much later that I learned hers was a “cottage garden”. The branches of her plum trees were so weighted down with fruit that 2 x 4s were needed to prop them up and prevent them from breaking. I NEVER remember being asked to weed, but inhabited a privileged sphere and was allowed to pick tiny cucumbers at 3-inches, rub off their prickles and munch them up in the garden still warm from the sun, or to pop the sensitive seed pods of Balsam or Touch Me Nots at will. 

In June, we would go to the annual Community Rose Show just before closing on the last day, and Grandmother would gather up the discarded roses to take home. These were carefully rooted under quart Mason jars, and in later years people would stop their cars to get out and marvel at the display of roses planted the length of the driveway.  She had green fingers and I absorbed the best gardening practices unconsciously.  

I still have a great treasure: Grandmother’s favorite trowel and I use it only occasionally. I have her seed box and I still grow descendents of the balsam and feverfew that used to grow in her garden. I’m a mom and when my sons were small we gardened together too.  One has turned out to love gardening, but the jury’s still out on the other one. I have high hopes of hitting two for two. 

Consider Cotoneaster as a Groundcover

Groundcover plants, often overlooked in the plant pantheon, are hard workers in the landscape and solve many design challenges. Groundcovers help to define space and unify elements of the landscape; they’re used to soften hardscapes, add texture and provide transition between the lawn and taller plants. When sited correctly they can prevent soil erosion and slow weed growth.

Of course lawns are groundcovers, ubiquitously used to frame architecture. But consider that groundcovers can be woody or herbaceous, spreading, running, vining or clump-forming, evergreen or deciduous, and can range in height from an inch to four feet.

Northern Borders™ Cotoneaster is a low-maintenance groundcover choice that is tough, adaptable and requires little pruning, with no serious insect or disease problems. This Garden Debut® introduction is moderate-growing and can be massed for sunny areas in the landscape including banks and slopes where it can also provide some erosion control. A valuable woody groundcover, Northern Borders™ Variegated Cotoneaster hugs the ground, maturing at two to three feet and with a generous spread of five to eight feet! Northern Borders™ sprawls over rocks in rock gardens, cascades over stone walls and mounds at patio edges.

The leaves of Northern Borders™ Variegated Cotoneaster are edged with a shimmer of white.
As far as the beauty goes, Northern Borders™’s outstanding blue-green foliage rimmed in white produces an overall silver effect in the landscape. This beautiful, dense-growing cultivar is fine-textured and semi-evergreen, and the noteworthy leaves persist until late in autumn when they change to a lovely orange-red color. In winter the leaves fall, revealing the celebrated “fan” or “herringbone” branch pattern for which this species is known. An added bonus, this branching provides a good habitat for ground nesting birds.

In the vertical dimension, Northern Borders™ Cotoneaster is a good subject for espalier and offers four seasons of interest no matter what form. The silver-edged leaves are prominent in summer. In spring, rosy buds open to tiny white flowers along the cinnamon-colored twigs. Later, the plant is laden with shiny scarlet fruit (1/4 inch) liberally sprinkled throughout. These berries add color throughout winter, sparkling in the winter sun and providing food for songbirds and wildlife.


Learn more about Northern Borders™ Variegated Cotoneaster at Garden Debut®.

Statistics for Northern Borders™ Variegated Cotoneaster, Cotoneaster horizontalis ‘Variegatus’ Selection

Plant Category: Woody shrub
Mature Height: 2 - 3 feet
Mature Spread: 5 - 8 feet
Mature Form: Horizontal spreading groundcover
Branching: Cinnamon-brown branches with attractive fan or fishbone pattern becoming tiered over time
Growth Rate: Moderate, low maintenance, durable, no serious pests
Sun Exposure: Full sun to partial shade
Soil Type: Loam, Sand, Clay
Soil Moisture: Moist, well-drained; adaptable to drought when established
Roots: Wide-ranging
Flower Color: Tiny rosy buds open to white flowers (1/2 inch)
Bloom Season: May – June
Berries: Bright scarlet red, small (1/4 inch), persistent throughout Winter, excellent songbird food especially after frost sweetens the berries; nesting habitat
Foliage: Blue-green foliage (to 3/8 inch) is edged in white, persists through late fall
Fall Color: Lovely red-orange fall color, becoming deciduous in early winter
pH Level: 5.5 – 7.5
Zones: 5 – 8
Heredity: U.S., Greenleaf Nursery Selection, Park Hill, OK

When performance counts, use Garden Debut® introductions!

White Terrestrial Orchids now blooming in my garden!

   A gaggle of white terrestrial orchids are blooming on both sides of the path in my shady garden. My friend Mary couldn't believe they 1. grew in the ground, 2. liked rain, and 3. stayed outside all winter, and she had to be convinced. I brought her a pseudobulb and planted it in a raised bed in her garden amongst her Lilies-of-the-Valley. Perhaps they will aspire to become more like the orchid.
   I cut off the flowering stem and put it in a bud vase for her to enjoy, thus allowing the products of photosynthesis to be used to form roots rather than seeds and so grow into a strong plant. I realy like the pleated leaves which are about the same height as the flower stems.
   Bletilla striata 'Alba' flowers last quite a while, at least 4 weeks, and the graceful seed pods resemble a gooseneck-- or maybe a swan's graceful curve?-- lasting until next year's flowers.
   I ran across these orchid plants quite unexpectedly at a Big Box store, on a rolling rack pushed in the back by the bags of Nature's Helper, away from the other perennials. Who would have thought? I bought them all. They have been in the ground four years now and have multiplied quite nicely, spreading into drifts. I planted them high, and mulched with leaf litter and compost, but after that I have done nothing else. They're quite easy to look after, at least in Atlanta's Zone 7 climate.

I've got them planted beneath a couple of Pin Oaks, where the soil gets pretty dry. They gets slanting sunshine early in the morning but otherwise are shaded. They're not native, though; you can tell because they're sometimes called China Orchids or Hyacinth Orchids. Normally they do come in an orchid (purple) color, but these are the white form, and I love them! I hear there's a white-flowered, white-variegated- leaf form, but I've only seen it in photos and never for sale.
   My friend Adam of Terrestrial Landscape & Design is installing a whole garden of many types of terrestrial orchids for a client. Doesn't that sound dreamy? Do you grow any orchids in your garden?

   BTW, the vine climbing up the oak trunk is Schizophragma hydrangeoides 'Moonlight'. It has reached the same level as the second floor windows.

Earth Day 1970 to 2010

Background
Back in the day protests were de rigueur and there were Love-Ins, Sit-Ins and Laugh-Ins. The first-ever Earth Day 1970 was intended to be an Environmental Teach-In.

Rachel Carson’s consciousness raising 1962 book Silent Spring had alerted the public to possible consequences of uncontrolled pesticide use. In 1968 NASA’s (Apollo 8) first photos of the whole earth as viewed from space transformed the perception of a limitless and indestructible “Mother Earth” to the model of a beautiful blue planet, our fragile “Spaceship Earth”. People started getting it.

The First Earth Day
Marking the beginning of the Modern Environmental Movement, on April 22, 1970 thousands of local schools and universities organized protests against environmental deterioration including loss of wilderness, oil spills, pollution, toxic dumps, pesticides and wildlife extinction. Anti-littering was big that year, providing an action step people could wrap their heads around.

Founder U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson (Wisconsin) noted “Earth Day worked because of the spontaneous response at the grassroots level. No one had the time or resources to organize 20 million demonstrators and the thousands of schools and local communities that participated. That was the remarkable thing about Earth Day. It organized itself.” In later years, when the national focus had shifted to conspicuous consumption and keeping up with the Joneses, Earth Day was relegated to the back burner, surfacing about once a decade.

Earth Day 2010
Now celebrating its 40th anniversary, this year Earth Day focuses on environmental conservation including climate change and global warming, advocacy, conservation and biodiversity, food and agriculture, recycling and waste reduction, sustainable development, energy and fossil fuel alternatives, and water. Big concepts, but take your own green step and plant a garden, or coach a child to do so. Or maybe your child can coach you, as in Allison Areiff's NYT column today: http://nyti.ms/a9Jniw My goal is to make Earth Day a daily consideration, not just an annual one. What about you?

Baby Gem Boxwood is a Valuable Addition to the Landscape

Boxwood is a versatile evergreen shrub with a broad range of forms and sizes that has long been a treasured hedging plant in the garden. Fossilized boxwood leaves and fruit have been discovered dating back approximately 22.5 million years. In Roman times, atria in affluent villas were landscaped with formal boxwood plantings used to frame garden spaces, paths, or doorways. Sculpted or 3-dimensional topiary was/is another use for boxwood, since the dense branching and small leaves supported close shearing. The shapes act as anchors, finials, and ornamentation in the garden. In the Middle Ages, parterres, rose gardens and knot gardens also employed boxwood.

"Man's Oldest Garden Ornament," was introduced to North America from Europe in the mid-1600s and reached peak popularity in the United States during the early 19th century and again during the Colonial Revival era. There are many classic plantings such as the one at Mount Vernon. When I lectured at Colonial Williamsburg I learned it boasts seven miles of boxwood hedges.

The Latin name Buxus sempervirens was given to boxwood by Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus in 1753. Buxus means “box” and sempervirens means “evergreen.” The wood of boxwood is highly regarded. It is firm, smooth grained, strong, uniform, has great elasticity and its shrinkage is minimal when dried. It has been used to make beautiful jewel boxes, combs, wood inlays, carved ornaments, utensils, tablets, and flutes.

Today, Baby Gem Boxwood, a new cultivar presented by Garden Debut®, is a valuable addition to the landscape. The vigorous littleleaf boxwood is an exceptionally compact plant with a dense, multi-branched habit, easy to grow and robust in the landscape overall. This broadleaf evergreen vigorously grows a little taller than it is wide, resulting in a rounded form.

Fine-textured, the tiny, lustrous leaves are abundant and add a distinctive color note, retaining their rich, emerald-green color particularly well in winter. Baby Gem Boxwood’s extremely small, lustrous leaves provide a matte effect even when formally sheared or sculpted, since the tiny leaves don’t show shearing cuts.

The brisk growth rate makes Baby Gem Boxwood ideal for carefree hedging in a wide area of the U.S. It is an emerald gem of a foundation plant, excellent for edging, and may be clipped for parterres, topiary and formal gardens. The vibrant green hue provides an exceptional backdrop for brilliant annual and perennial flowers and statuary.

Other splendid characteristics of this garden gem include deer resistance and tolerance of dry soils once established. Baby Gem Boxwood flourishes in conditions of sun to shade, and benefits from an organic mulch to keep roots cool. Look for Baby Gem Boxwood in garden centers this spring.

For more information about proper cultivation and landscape applications of boxwood, or to find fellow boxwood lovers, visit the American Boxwood Society website.

Dogwood Blossom Wedding Cake

Here's an addendum to my previous Dogwood post that goes out to all my bride-friends and their Moms.

When assembling a program entitled "20 Favorite Native Plants for Georgia Gardens", of course I included the native flowering Dogwood, Cornus florida among my picks. I came across this wonderful wedding cake image on Google Images, courtesy of Southern Living Magazine.

This also ties into a Huffington Post article I saw today on Tips for a Green Wedding.   http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lauren-elyse-matison/7-easy-ways-to-green-your_b_536063.html.

Happy trails . . .

Gift of a Free Rutgers Dogwood

The 74th annual Atlanta Dogwood Festival is this weekend, and trees all over Atlanta are blooming. Coincidentally, last Saturday night an email from an old friend informed me that she had just dug up a "Rutgers dogwood" and wondered if I would like to plant it in my garden, or if she should put it on Craig's List? Being a Rutgers Alum and a practical sort that loves free plants I said, "Sure I would like it!" even though I had my doubts about planting it this late in the spring. Ideally, woody ornamentals and trees are planted in October or November in Atlanta, while the soil still retains some warmth from the summer and the leaves are off the tree relieving water stress.

Since there’s already a large young Florida dogwood on one side of our house, I actually had been meaning to plant a similar one on the other side, so this offer seemed serendipitous. Considered by many as the best all-round flowering trees, Dogwoods are best-loved for their outstanding display of spring flowers, and there are three main types of dogwoods grown in the eastern U.S.

The most spectacular flower display is delivered by the native Flowering Dogwood (Cornus florida) on bare branches, a brilliant show of bright white or pink flowers in early spring before the leaves emerge. This species is also valued for its horizontal branching habit, interesting red “football-shaped” fruit, and burgundy/red fall color. Unfortunately, the native Dogwood is susceptible to Anthracnose, a fungus disease that killed a large number of trees in the 1980s and 90s.

The Kousa or Japanese Dogwood (Cornus kousa) from Asia flowers nearly a month later after the leaves are out, but its flowers have pointed bracts, not like the familiar native dogwoods. Kousa Dogwoods are valued for their fall color, raspberry-like fruit and interesting bark, and best of all, they are resistant to Anthracnose.

Rutgers Hybrid Dogwoods are the third type, lying between the first two. A long-term project by Rutgers University Prof Dr. Elwin Orton involved inter-specific crosses between the two species to produce hybrids resistant to Anthracnose. The resulting varieties of Dogwood combine many of the good traits of both types of tree.

So Sunday morning we met in the parking lot before church and transferred the tree from her car to ours. The Dogwood turned out to be quite a bit larger than I had realized, nearly 12 feet tall! All but the smallest amount of soil had fallen from its severely-cut root system, making it a bare-root plant. Leaf buds were just beginning to break although there weren’t any flower buds.

I loosened the soil in a 4- or 5-foot circle and centered a planting hole just deep enough to keep the tree at the same level it had been growing. I made sure it was standing straight, then replaced the rich topsoil all around it and watered it in thoroughly. (Photo at left shows the young trunk amidst native azaleas, creeping phlox and assorted perennials.) I’ll be keeping my eye on it, abnd watering to make sure it does not dry out until the roots get established in the soil. I’m not sure which of the introductions my gift Dogwood is, perhaps Celestial, Constellation or maybe even Stellar Pink. Guess I’ll worry about that once I know if it’s going to live.