Container Plantings Designed for Fall

Summer annuals have had it, and it’s time to revv up my containers for a fall show. This year I’m adding a bright yellow cushion mum, yellow-chartreuse creeping jenny and a few little ornamental gourds to a container that already holds Nanina for height, a dwarf juniper and some trailing Asiatic jasmine.

After pulling out and composting the annuals, I add fresh potting mix where the root balls formerly grew. For continued growt h of the woodies already growing, I space three plant food spikes evenly around the container and push them down the sides. This adds nutrients to pot bound plants. To keep mold and bacteria from attacking the ornamental gourds I’m setting them on some cork I had left from lining my kitchen cupboards.

I plan to set this container next to a big pumpkin on the front porch, and hope my entranceway will be the cutest on the block through Thanksgiving, when I'll prepare another arrangement to go through winter.

  

Meet & Greet Gardeners, Landscapers, Writers, Designers & Architects

This week I’m headed to an annual conference in Dallas, Tx. Sept. 10-14; to the Garden Writers Association Annual Symposium. Each year GWA travels to a different city, and I expect Dallas will be pretty warm! I’ve been attending on and off for years, so I’m looking forward to seeing about 500 of my closest writer and photographer friends again. The meeting is filled with networking, several tracks of lectures and classes from which to choose, photography sessions, garden tours and public gardens. The Trade Show is always a great treat, and exhibitors bring their newest tools, seeds, books, plants and inventions to share with those that communicate them to the public.

Exhibiting at GWA for the first time, Garden Debut® will be representing a consortium of plant breeders, nurserymen and growers dedicated to the introduction and marketing of new and improved plant varieties for the landscape. They’ll be bringing new plants for 2010 and some not yet released that are slated to appear in 2011. A knowledgeable Rep will be on hand to answer questions. See you at booth #219.

At the very same time, Garden Debut® will be represented at the American Society of Landscape Architects Meeting & Expo held at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, Washington, D.C. and filled with 6,000+ Landscape Architects from around the world. Workshops, classes, tours and field sessions fill the program.  Tell Jim Thompson from Garden Debut® “Hi” if you go.

September is an extremely busy month for Garden Debut® because the Association of Professional Landscape Designers will hold their 2010 International Design Conference in Dallas Sept. 27-Oct 1 and once again Garden Debut® will exhibit new plants and landscape solutions at that meeting.

Garden Debut® will have information about and examples of new plants already in the 2010 marketplace, as well as plants scheduled for release next year. This is an exciting time in history for the nursery business; with genetics, tissue culture and advances in propagation there are many new and exciting cultivars being evaluated. These plants offer longer blooming seasons, brighter and richer colors, better cold hardiness, variegated leaves, improved fall color or even reduced maintenance. 

Come and see what Garden Debut® has planned for the market with Predictable Quality and superior new plant introductions. 

Photos:

Kokomo Sunset Daylily 2010

Snow Flurries Black Gum 2011

Unusual Variegated-Leaf Shade Tree: Snow Flurries™ Black Gum

 An easy-grow native shade tree in the Dogwood Family, Snow Flurries™ Black Gum is a real attention-getter and selected for its unbeatable summer color, rare in the world of shade trees. Snow Flurries™ has attractive white-edged variegated leaves! The generous white margins surround green centers. Overall, the variegated leaves are narrower and smaller than the species, turning a ruddy color early in fall.

This Garden Debut® introduction is easy-care and trouble-free. Snow Flurries™ is adaptable to an extremely wide variety of soil moisture conditions, from poorly drained soils and low spots subject to periodic flooding, wet, acid bottomlands, through garden soils, to dry sites, aided by its deep tap root. One of its common names, swamp tupelo, is derived from the Native American Creek ito opilwa, meaning swamp tree. Its growth habit is vigorous reaching 30 - 40 feet with gracefully draped lower limbs creating an oval form.  It’s Cold Hardy to – 20 to -30° F. (Zone 4 - 9), and full sun exposure is recommended, but it will grow in part shade.

The genus Nyssa is highly sought after by bee keepers because the multitudes of small flowers of Snow Flurries™ are a great nectar source and attract honey bees, providing excellent bee and butterfly forage and resulting in prized Black Gum or “Tupelo” honey. The honey has a special taste and is non-crystallizing.

Small, dark bluish black, football-shaped fruits are a favorite of birds and wildlife in August - October, and do not stain decks or paving. Black Gum is an important species for non-suburban wildlife of North America: wood ducks, wild turkeys, robins, foxes, and black bears depend on the dark blue fruit as a source of food in the fall.

Black gum has tough wood suitable for tool handles, flooring and railroad cross-ties, while veneer is made from larger trees. Another common name is ‘Pioneer’s Toothbrush’ because broken twigs produce a fibrous bundle of woody strands and were used as tooth brushes.

In landscapes Snow Flurries™ Black Gum (Nyssa sylvatica 'Grechrist') is an attention-getting specimen, excellent native shade tree, adaptable to wet soils. Its clean, variegated leaves are untroubled by pests and disease problems. It is native to wet soils and adaptable to periodic flooding, but grows readily in a wide variety of soils with pH levels of 5-8.

Contact Garden Debut to get a license to propagate and /or sell patented plant parts. 

Sweet Potato Vine; I discovered it flowers!

I’ve had a long love affair with sweet potatoes. As a child, I stuck a regular sweet potato with toothpicks and submerged it halfway in water in a clean pickle jar, then set it on my windowsill and enjoyed watching the green vines grow to frame the window during a long Ohio winter. Later, restaurants served delectable sweet potato chips, and after that our children’s Montessori teacher served raw sweet potatoes as an in-school snack.

About 10 or 12 years ago I came late to visit the UGA Summer Flower Trials in Athens, Georgia. I found everyone gone, but there was still a truck piled with free samples, including a brand new but totally wilted yellow ornamental sweet potato vine. Never dreaming that such wilted cuttings would survive, nevertheless I took a couple and stuck the cut ends in my water bottle for the drive back to Atlanta. By the time I was home, the vines were perky and the leaves all stood erect. They went on to root and grow into a wide mat in the garden that year.

Marguerite sweet potato vine is the chartreuse variety that turns almost yellow in full sun, and takes the hottest sun and abuse, dry, south-facing window boxes, hell strips, or containers set on hot concrete paving, and yet grows luxuriantly. Though wilted in the hot afternoon sun the 6 foot container (left) will be refreshed in the morning, or sooner if it gets some water. 

Marguerite’s original partner, Blacky, (right) had dark, purple-black leaves and has been joined by a new cut-leaf black version called Midnight Lace that was sent to Garden Writers and widely marketed in 2009.

Then this year, imagine my surprise to find some Ipomoea morning glory-type flowers on my Blacky vines! Though small and pale pink, they are the same, familiar, trumpet-style, Convolvulus family flowers. 

Have I been unobservant? I never noticed any flowers before this. What about you? 

Tansy, a Controversial Herb

On my trip to the Rockies I was attracted to a beautiful yellow flower growing alongside a dumpster, and recognized Tansy from herb gardens in Atlanta. My Colorado friend cautioned me that, yes, although it was Tansy, it is considered an invasive exotic weed and not welcomed in the West.

Common Tansy, Tanacetum vulgare is a European herb documented in medieval herbals as a medicinal and culinary plant used as a cure for intestinal worms, aid to rheumatism, digestive problems, fevers, used to heal sores. Meat was frequently rubbed with common Tansy to repel insects and prevent decay. More recently, common Tansy has been cultivated for its insect repellent, disinfectant and preservative effects.

Known for its flat-topped clusters of bright yellow buttons, the disk flowers of Tansy have no ray florets so it looks like the center of a common daisy. Thriving in full sun and well-drained soil, the leaves of common Tansy (or the even more beautiful leaves of fern-leaf tansy) are lovely and can take the place of a fern in a sunny garden.

About 20 years ago I got a recommendation to plant Tansy to repel ants, so I did plant it in an Atlanta herb garden, and confusingly had a large anthill grow up around it. Furthermore, Tansy is toxic in large quantities and is not used medicinally nor for culinary purposes today.

Like Purple Loosestrife, in northern and western regions of the US, common Tansy has escaped from gardens and is considered an invasive exotic weed, even listed as 'noxious' in some states because its many tufted seeds are dispersed by wind and water, while new plants form from even the smallest root fragments, making it hard to eliminate.

I guess it just goes to show that one man's ceiling is another man's floor.

.

Top 7 Benefits of Garden-Related Travel

This week I'm writing live from an anniversary trip to Colorado, and I've been struck by the many impressions of travel. 

New plant hardiness zones  Upon arrival, Colorado’s huge population of blue spruce jumped out as the most outstanding plant feature of the landscape. Sweet peas and columbine are still blooming in the gardens; long since past in Atlanta.

New ecosystems  High plains grassland vegetation is so different from the familiar mixed conifer forest of my home in Atlanta. The Denver Botanic Garden has devoted a section to the native grassland, in bloom in mid August, mixed with bright daisies and coneflowers. Was that tumbleweed rolling amidst the solar farm at the Denver International Airport?


New permutations of old weeds It struck me that both the Shepherd’s Purse and Ragweed were small and stubby compared to luxuriant examples of these weeds at home, and there were slightly different species of bitterweed and yellow composites from the familiar ones in the SE US.

Breathtaking New Sights Off to the west the mountains appear extraordinary. A trip to Red Rocks and Dinosaur Ridge outside Denver produced a totally unfamiliar natural scenery. Traveling expands the mind and creates new memories.


Different culture Check out the intriguing native motif of tile mosaic on the floor of the Denver International Airport, the paintings and prints of wild mustangs hanging throughout and continued influence of the wild west filtered through several generations. 


Activity So much to do, so little time. The demands of a 20 hour day, from an early rising at 3:45 am Atlanta time to dinner with friends ending around 10 pm Denver time, is more than I typically put in at home. Traveling really gets the blood flowing.

Stress relief benefits of traveling The luxury of a departure from the ordinary; of renewing friendships with old friends; of sleeping in; of seeing things you have only read about; are all quite a thrill. 

Vining Hummingbird Magnet for the Garden and Landscape

Garden  Debut® offers a Trumpetcreeper that is a hybrid between the rampant-growing, native Campsis radicans and the showy-flowered Chinese Campsis grandiflora. Madame Rosy® exhibits the best features of both. (Campsis x 'HOMR' PP18394 Madame Rosy®) is a beautiful hybrid that begins blooming in late May and continues through September. Flowers are rosy colored and exhibit a somewhat flattened trumpet shape, 2"-3" across, much larger than the native version. The trumpet-shaped flowers are big and beautiful and attract hordes of hummingbirds from miles around, since it produces quantities of nectar-rich blossoms all summer long. 

The vine grows best in full sun, but light shade and cool temperatures enhance the rosy color. These abundant flowers are produced in terminal racemes 12"-24" long on new growth all summer, and continuous flowering is guaranteed because the vine produces no seedpods. This well-mannered trumpet vine is adaptable to a wide range of soil and climatic conditions. Madame Rosy® is hardy in USDA Zones 6-9.

Because the aerial roots use a powerful adhesive substance to cement themselves to supports, Trumpetcreeper is not recommended for planting near structures but makes a great addition to fences, trellises or arbors. These attractive flowering vines are strong, reaching 10'-15' in 4 to 5 years.

Trusty Garden Knife Divides Plants

Well-used serrated knife 

Today I am writing in tribute to the indispensible knife I use in my garden. It started life as a serrated bread knife originally purchased 20+ years ago at a discount store for $3.65, and it has served me well for all these years.

Division is economical and quickly yields a modest increase of plants for the garden. One caveat: hundreds of beautiful plants can be legally propagated, but when propagating by division, be careful to respect the plant patent rights and trademark rights of others.  If a plant is patented or trademarked it cannot legally be asexually propagated. Check the nursery label. 

large clump of daylilies

The primary use for my garden knife is the form of plant propagation known as division. Division is the dividing or breaking up of a large plant clump into multiple smaller segments, each with a shoot and some roots. These segments (known as divisions) are then replanted and each one grows into a new plant identical to the original one.

The photos illustrate plant propagation by division using an old clump of tall, maroon daylilies I'm planning to share with a friend. 

Determine where to cut

For example, if I need more Hosta for a new location, I choose an overlarge clump, carefully dig the plant, loosening the roots and lifting the plant from the soil.  I shake off extra soil so I can see the separate shoots, but I do not advise washing off the soil in water, as that turns into a muddy mess. (The hardest plant I ever divided was yellow flag Iris pseudacoris growing in the water at the edge of a pond; it was huge, heavily rooted, wet and muddy.)

slicing through the crown & roots

While some Hostas separate readily into divisions and can be teased or broken apart with my hands, others have a solid crown. With these I use my trusty garden knife to saw through the crown of the plant, creating three or four smaller sections to plant in the new spot.

Crown (white spot in soil) cut in half

Another reason to lift and divide perennials is if they become overgrown, lose vigor or produce fewer flowers. Vigorous growth typically occurs on the outer edge of the clump which has grown into new soil, while the center of the plant languishes. If I notice my daylilies are performing less well because they have gotten too crowded, I carefully fork them out of the ground, remove the soil and separate them into new divisions imagining myself to be a master surgeon. 

Trim away half of leaf surface

None of those old directions: “split apart the main clumps with a hatched, or with two spades inserted in opposite directions” for me. I -refer to investigate where the shoots arise from the crown and consider the optimum placement for each cut. Old growth from the center of the clump is generally discarded. Leaves are trimmed off to reduce water lost to transpiration.

4 vigorous divisions from original clump

Sometimes outside segments of a plant like summer garden Phlox paniculata can be removed and replanted without disturbing the rest of the plant. 

Potted up for future planting

A good rule of thumb is to divide fall-flowering perennials in spring and spring- and summer-flowering perennials in fall, after bloom. And ornamental grasses are best divided in spring because they prefer a long hot period to re-group.

Success! Now I have four strong plants in a large nursery pot to share with a friend who just bought her first house. 

What’s on with the American Community Gardening Association?

In addition to woody ornamentals and flower gardening, I’ve been interested in garden vegetables (and eating them!) since I can remember—planting lettuce seeds and seeing the tiny chartreuse cotyledons against dark brown Ohio soils at ~age 4 ½. I grew up with gardening, but many haven't. This weekend the American Community Gardening Association (ACGA) held its 31st annual conference in ATL, so I applied for a scholarship, was granted a partial one, and off I went. The conference was filled with folks dedicated to being a force for good. What’s not to like?


The program was densely packed with tours of community gardens across Atlanta and with a great variety of educational sessions. Programs ranged from childhood obesity, rainfall retention, biointensive gardening, school programs to raising chickens and goats in community gardens, and from healing gardens to how to preserve the harvest by canning. Several classes addressed the problem of losing garden land, while fundraising and grant writing were not neglected.         
             
First Lady Michelle Obama addressed the group via video message as did the Secretary of Agriculture, Ferry-Morse attended and gave away wheelbarrows of free seeds to community gardeners representing 37 states and 6 countries. There were plenty of both networking and fresh vegetables on the menu. All in all it was a great conference. Thanks to ACGA for my scholarship and thanks to the local planning committee for their hard work.
 
Author's photos of Sugar Creek & Oakhurst Community Gardens.  

Atlanta August Gardening Calendar for City Cafe' on WABE-FM

I had a real treat this morning. I was invited to chat with John Lemley about gardening at the NPR affiliate in Atlanta. The WABE-90.1 FM studio is only one half mile from my garden. Another bonus is that it was taped in advance (today) and producer Kate Sweeney promised to make us sound g-r-e-a-t! So I'm posting the notes I made prior to the interview on gardening during the month of August.

For warm climate gardeners the month of August brings a second chance at growing a garden especially if you can garden in the relative cool of the morning. There are plenty of gardening tasks for August that will keep your flower and vegetable gardens going longer. Midmonth is the time to think of cool weather crops.

Grow-Your-Own-Veggies / Locavores

Reasons to grow food in the garden: Save money, enjoy gardening, cut carbon footprint, veggie gardens are beautiful, don’t want salmonella or pesticides on the tomatoes

Summer crops like tomatoes, squash, cukes that were planted when it was still raining regularly should be coming in now. Pick squash, cucumbers and okra regularly. One over-ripe vegetable (with mature seeds inside), left on the vine will stop bloom production.
Therefore, make arrangements for neighbors to harvest and water your garden while you are on vacation.

Too many zucchini? Cook the blossoms before they turn into squash! Dunk Vidalia onion rings, squash-, daylily- or elderberry blossoms in tempura batter to make delicious fritters.

August 1st is not too late to plant more hot weather summer veggies that will allow time to mature before frost: Tomato starts, cucumbers, squash and snap bean seeds. Choose quick-ripening ones.

Still plenty of time to plant container-grown veggies- compact varieties but still need lots of water. Check on GA Governor Perdue's watering restrictions- no watering between 10 am and 4 pm.

tomato Problems we are seeing in August:
Buds but no tomatoes = too hot at night must be lower that 68-70 degrees F for fruit set
Yellowing, rotting or cracking tomatoes = too much rain
Blossom end rot = drought

Fragrant & Culinary Herbs
Cut back herbs like basil, mint and oregano by a third or a half, to prevent them from producing seed and keep them producing more fragrant leaves. 2 stems will grow after each pruning cut so the plants get bushier.

Plant small container-grown herb plants from the nursery any time: Add lime, plant in containers, in flower beds, in pine islands. Keep watered while establishing, and harvest leaves frequently

Native Rabbit-Eye Blueberries are nearing the end of their run. Pick-your-own, or make a note to plant some shrubs in your garden this fall for fruit next summer.

Prune Figs lightly now, removing the tall shoots in the middle of the bush. Fruit on horizontal limbs will dwvelop best. Water plants for plumpest figs.
Next month (September) plan and plant your cool season veggie garden with crops like lettuce, arugula, radish, carrots, kale, parsley, cilantro. (still too early for peas, sweetpeas, garlic)

Ornamentals/Flowers / Woody Shrubs

Hydrangeas, cut off faded pink and blue flowers and cut back stems by 1/3. The new growth that occurs between now and winter will produce next summer's blooms. (Everblooming varieties like PennyMac or Endless Summer can bloom on new wood from same season)

Crape myrtles are lighting up Atlanta in full bloom now! There are many sizes from low-growing 15-inch tall Rosey Carpet Crape Myrtles from Garden Debut(R) to 40-foot tall Natchez varieties.
Plumleaf azalea = red azaleas! now beginning to bloom (logo of Callaway Gardens) Rebloomers too.

Check the houseplants you've stationed outdoors for insect pests. Use soapy water to wash off insects if you find any. Fertilize houseplants. They are getting much more light now and can use the food to grow bigger, but hold the fertilizer as the days grow shorter.

Dead-Head faded flowers from salvia, zinnia, coneflower, annuals and especially petunias to encourage bushiness and the production of more flowers.

Still time to plant seed of marigold, cosmos, cleome, zinnia and dwarf sunflower. They'll make a spectacular flower show in six weeks: mid-September.

Receiving Bulb Catalogs now, writing my “Wish List”. Order spring-flowering bulbs in soon: narcissus, tulips, hyacinths, small bulbs, but plant in Oct/Nov (except for daffodils and true lilies which shouldn’t stay out of the ground longer than necessary) Trumpet Lilies crossed with Oriental Lilies = Triumphator

Pruning: Last Call to severely cut back overgrown shrubs – new growth will ripen before cold weather

Cut back mums, ironweed, swamp sunflowers, dahlias to half their height. Fertilize and water the plants now to produce a crop of late fall flowers.
Bring bouquets of garden flowers in from the garden!

Lawns

Sharpen blades of lawnmowers- so they slice the leaves of grass and clover rather than tearing them.

Zoysia / Bermuda lawns—warm season lawns; dormant throughout winter. Add lime in August, and it's still the optimum time to lay sod for a new lawn because grass grows quickly in the heat.

Fescue lawns-- cool season lawn; stays green and grows throughout winter; best in early spring- wait another month and reseed Sept 1, fertilize Oct 1.

I wonder which of our topics will make the cut, down from an hour interview to 3 or 4 minutes on air? It is due to run on City Cafe 90.1 FM on Tuesday, August 10 around noon.

photo credit open source for zucchini blossom fritters

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