Indholdsfortegnelse for July/August 2023 i Horticulture

The main headline on this issue’s cover is Boldly Grow. It’s meant to capture a major theme running throughout the magazine. You’re going to read articles that urge you to keep on striving for the garden of your dreams: Are you trying to achieve nonstop color? “A Lasting Impression” (page 54) offers perennials that can help. Some bloom for a long period or at a crucial moment; others rebloom just when needed; others provide a bonus of interesting foliage or seedheads. Could a few quirky plants be just what your garden needs to set it apart? Check out “Pineapple Lilies!” (page 48); and don’t miss Jeff Cox’s column, this time on ‘James Roof’ garrya (page 10); and try a few of the cultivars developed by Hans Hansen! He has a…

I HAVE GREAT RESPECT for what you learn in horticultural schools. I am very grateful for all that was taught to me in the Student Horticulturist Program at the New York Botanical Garden. Still, with the knowledge you get at such an institution, you also tend to absorb, and later take for granted, the attitudes of your teachers. So I’ll admit to a prejudice about gardening: I am most interested in the practices of self-taught gardeners. Sometimes, lacking the standard answers that are given in school, autodidacts come up with novel and imaginative solutions. For example, there is Benjamin Vogt. Benjamin is a poet and a former university professor who became fascinated with gardening as a way to connect with nature in the suburb outside of Lincoln, Neb., where he…

BloomStruck® bigleaf hydrangea, 'Fireball' marigold and 'Mary Francis' bearded iris. Marigolds, sweet alyssum and violet-colored bearded iris. These are the garden scents of my childhood that immediately transport me back to my mother’s garden. Hydrangeas remind me of my aunt; she grew one that magically bloomed pink, blue and purple all at once. The image of gorgeously pink ‘Helen Elizabeth’ poppies in a sea of ‘Johnson’s Blue’ geranium conjures days at my beloved old perennials-nursery job. This is the way it has always been with plants for me. Whether it’s their scent or their blossom, some get forever associated with cherished places or those who adored or shared them. Even in my fortieth year of gardening, I have iris and primula from my childhood. I know many other gardeners still…

The source of a plant’s common name isn’t always obvious, but in Eucomis it’s impossible to miss. Known colloquially as pineapple lilies, these strappy-leaved South African bulbs bloom with a flower plainly reminiscent of a certain tropical fruit. Demanding little in both care and space, they make a fun conversation piece in the summer garden and prove worthy of winter storage where they’re not hardy. In summer, the bulb puts up a thick scape topped with a dense raceme of buds that open to reveal small white, greenish or purple flowers. These open along the stem from bottom to top. In full bloom, the raceme resembles the textured rind of a pineapple, thanks to the flowers’ star shape. A tuft of green leaves top the flower structure, mimicking a pineapple’s…

BRILLIANT ENGLISH GARDENS by Clive NicholsClearview Books, 2022 In Brilliant English Gardens, renowned garden photographer Clive Nichols offers a visit to more than two dozen gardens in England. This book allows the reader full immersion into each place through its generous imagery. Nichols provides a brief written introduction to each garden, describing its location and background information, such as history and size, and pointing out a few significant features or key plants that are then revealed in the images that follow the text. Indeed this is overall a visual book, with most of the pages devoted to photographs alone. What’s more, the photos do not share space, but instead stand as a full page or spread across facing pages. This allows the reader to really explore the gardens, examining the…

GARDENING LIFE GROWING THINGS is a multidimensional activity. When you start to take your garden seriously, you learn about soil and the microorganisms that live in it; about bugs, both beneficent and those less kind to your plants; about the wide world of pollinators. You may learn about plant breeding, seed saving and propagating. And, like me and many gardeners I know, you may find yourself branching out in surprising but adjacent directions. You may learn about the many facets of food preservation. You may end up a birder as you notice avian visitors to your plants. You may find yourself learning to make percussion instruments or birdhouses from your gourds. And you may become a curious and adventurous cook, inspired and spurred on by the bounty that you grow.…

The famous American nurseryman Michael Dirr once wrote that roses will be a part of our gardens for as long as Americans have gardens at all. But when he wrote those words, was he including South Florida in this prediction for the USA? That’s not a swipe at Dirr. I’ve studied his work for more than 20 years, and I have only the highest respect for him. But overwhelmingly, most discussions of roses in America focus just on what I call the “everyman” USDA Zones of 3 through 9, leaving South Florida’s tropical Zones 10 and 11 in a state of benign neglect. We’re the Jan Brady (albeit with a tan) in a nation full of Marcias. To some degree, the attitude is understandable. When you think of South Florida,…

Perennials are a staple of the garden, providing colorful blooms that draw our eyes to various parts of the landscape. Unfortunately, these plants often present a problem. The flowers that captivate us quickly fade into nothing more than a shriveled lump of petals. It’s hard to imagine a garden without perennials, but this drawback often steers people away from these beautiful plants in favor of annuals, which may bloom longer but come with their own set of downsides. Happily, we can find perennials with a long bloom period. These options reduce maintenance because they do not require deadheading, and unlike annuals they needn’t be replanted each year. Often they help support pollinators, too. Here are some of my favorite perennials for extended color in the garden. Some you may recognize,…

FOR MY FIRST FOUR decades, I lived within 100 miles of the Atlantic Ocean. Over those decades, I became familiar with a great deal of the flora in the region. The oaks, hickories, maples, beeches, hornbeams, birches, hemlocks and basswoods of the mixed forests were like old friends. I’d know them anywhere. I knew that moosewood (Acer pensylvanicum) tends to grow where sassafras (Sassafras albidum) thrives, and that the tulip tree (Liriodendron tulipifera) takes over forests where sturdier hardwoods have been logged out again and again. I knew where the yellow trout lilies (Erythronium americanum) bloomed when sunlight reached the forest floor before the tree canopy’s leaves came out. And I knew that the tall white wands of black cohosh (once Cimicifuga racemosa, but now Actaea racemosa) repel bugs, hence…

GARDEN VIEWS A LIFELONG PLANT LOVER, Hans Hansen followed his passion to a career in plant breeding. He currently serves as Director of New Plant Development at Michigan’s Walters Gardens, Inc., a leading wholesale perennial grower. Through both hybridizing and field work, Hans has introduced hundreds of perennials to the gardening market. SCOTT BEUERLEIN: You were into plants even as a child. Tell us about that and your education. HANS HANSEN: I remember always being interested in plants. My earliest memories include planting onions with my mom and dad at age three. I grew up on a dairy farm in southwestern Minnesota. Although I didn’t know it at the time, my parents were my greatest source of encouragement. I’m sure they were very busy with raising three kids and running…

When Christina Salwitz began creating gardens and seasonal containers at Carol Ann O’Mack’s home on Ames Lake in Redmond, Wash., she received one request: “Just go crazy!” It was music to the noted designer’s ears. “She just wanted lots of color,” Christina recalls of the late Ms. O’Mack, who was a client for about five years. This simple mandate allowed her to go big and bold in her combinations for beds, borders and especially pots, which play vital roles in her work, including the practical purpose of housing perennials and woody plants ultimately destined for garden beds. “My (container) choices are often based on what can be planted out in the future,” she explains, noting that she replants pots twice a year for her clients in greater Seattle (USDA Zone…