Innehållsförteckning för Mar/Apr 2018 från Garden Gate

Seeing the spring garden come to life is like welcoming an old friend into your home after you haven’t seen him or her for a while. The winter months can seem like an eternity as I wait to see signs of plant life emerging. I can almost always depend on my hellebores to bloom, even with a bit of snow sprinkled on and around them. But the one flower I hold my breath for is the tree peony. Of course I’m always concerned that this rather expensive plant made it through the winter. But the real reason is the huge, red, fragrant blooms that catch your eye from across the yard. It’s just spectacular. You’ll see what I mean when you turn to page 22 and explore the depth and…

It’s not hard to find flowers for spring gardens, but it can be hard to create beautiful compositions. Plant one of everything you like, and the result may end up looking messy. Here are four spring ideas that will have friends singing your garden’s praises from early to late spring. The combinations utilize striking shapes, colorful foliage, beautiful stems and usually a repeated color to tie all of the elements together. Let’s take a look! Play with shapes Allium’s distinctive globe shapes instantly grab attention, especially when they’re 6-inch beauties like ‘Gladiator’! After the purple color fades, the wheat-colored globes remain—sometimes all summer unless you get tired of them and pull them out. The foliage will wither away in summer. Here, the surrounding perennials and shrubs will cover the bare…

WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE White clover is a low-growing, perennial weed that spreads by seed and creeping stolons. Each leaf is comprised of three oval leaflets marked with a white chevron (above). Rounded clusters of white flowers, measuring ½ to 1½ in., appear in early summer. WHERE TO FIND IT This non-native weed is most often found growing in soils with poor fertility, including in lawns, along roadsides and in pastures. At one time, white clover was included in lawn seed mixes, as it is useful for fixing nitrogen in the soil. HOW TO GET RID OF IT Before attempting eradication, recognize the benefits of white clover, which include feeding pollinating bees, redirecting hungry rabbits to eat your clover rather than your favorite flowers and shading out nastier weeds. Healthy,…

1| NEW! GARDEN GATE ART You can now decorate your home with gorgeous garden-themed watercolor and photography straight from the pages of the magazine. Check out Garden Gate’s Fine Art America store and find our artwork in print form or in a variety of options, such as tote bags, notebooks and even shower curtains! Fine Art America, www.fineartamerica.com/profiles/garden-gate(prices vary by product) 2 | HONEY BADGER GLOVES First, we chuckled at their funny appearance. Then, we tried these gloves in our test garden and loved them! The hard plastic-tipped fingers are perfect for tasks that wear and tear garden gloves, the long “claws” get to the root of weeds, replace a trowel in loose soil and can be used like a rake when cleaning debris. Until May 31, 2018, use a…

Juice lid pot feet Sandra Kaltsas, New York Sandra kept her plastic juice bottle lids because she saw an opportunity to use them to protect her patio. When she had saved four lids, she used them as pot feet, below. She also put them under the legs of her iron plant stand to prevent rust stains. Floating flowers Karen Nickel, Wisconsin Worried about the safety of the fish in her pond while the water lilies were beginning to grow, Karen came up with a way to provide protection from raccoons and other predators. She bought 12-by-12-inch squares of cork-board from a craft store and cut out multiple quarter-sized holes. Using 1-inch flower plugs, she teased apart the roots on the bottom half of the plug and rinsed the potting soil…

Sow stories with heirloom seeds Have you ever grown something so special to you that you had to share it? For Grandma Ausilio Riccelli, her treasure was a red pepper grown by her mother and passed on to her children and grandchildren. Even though the pepper is delicious and versatile, she grew this vegetable because it was her heritage. Heirloom plants are rooted in gardeners who valued what they grew so much that they preserved the seeds and passed them on to be grown, harvested and regrown for many years. CHERISHING HISTORY Lee Buttala is one of those gardeners. As executive director of Seed Savers Exchange in Decorah, Iowa, he not only grows his own heirlooms but shares the stories of hundreds of heirloom seeds. Seed Savers Exchange is a…

Want to get your neighbors talking? Here are 11 great spring plants that’ll add some excitement to your garden. And they aren’t the tulips, daffodils and lilacs that you’ll find in every yard on the block, either. Try something new and fresh this spring! SPRING HAS SPRUNG When, exactly, does spring begin? That can vary from region to region, with “early” meaning February in some areas and April in others. No matter when spring starts for you, though, it’s a good idea to plan for several waves of color, from early spring through early summer, to keep your garden looking gorgeous. Check the bloom times on these plants as you’re reading to figure out how to fit them into the spring bloomers that you already have. LAYERS OF COLOR It’s…

Just when you thought a trowel was a trowel, a trip to the garden center might prove you wrong. Who knew there were so many variations on the basic design? Each of the hand trowels at left has a reason for its shape and a job it will do best. No matter what style you choose, a good hand trowel’s handle should be smooth and fit to your palm. You may have to try a few out to see how they feel—one may have cushioning or a curve in the handle that doesn’t work with the size and shape of your hand. Telescoping handles can help folks who have trouble bending low. And curving ergonomic handles can give gardeners better leverage or ease discomfort for those with arthritis in their…

As you’re stocking up on supplies for container gardens this spring, you’ll likely come across lots and lots of options for potting mix. Though you might just be tempted to buy the first (and cheapest) one you find, all potting products aren’t the same. For containers, hanging baskets and house plants, you don’t really want potting “soil.” You want a soilless mix. The terms are sometimes used interchangeably, but a true potting soil includes actual soil from the ground, and will be heavy and stay wet. Potting mixes are soilless, so they’re much lighter and better for containers. That said, how do you know which potting mix to use? Let’s answer a few questions you might have about this garden necessity. If there’s no soil in potting mix, what is…

There’s nothing shy about the delicate-flowered Santa Cruz ™ begonia that rains down in a shower of fiery red-orange blossoms from spring to frost without deadheading. It will glow in the shady spots you typically grow begonias. But Santa Cruz is also highly tolerant of sun, heat, humidity and dry soil. It needs relief from scorching afternoon sun only in the warmest climates. This begonia grows quickly into a bushy, trailing mound of dark green, serrated foliage. Clusters of 2- to 3-inch-long, four-petaled flowers appear at the tips of each branch. As a flower matures, its petals open to reveal a tiny cluster of yellow stamens. If you’re lucky, you’ll witness a hummingbird or butterfly enjoying them. SHOPPING TIPS In spring, this plant’s shape might look more upright in the…

Red is fiery, passionate and attention-getting. Want someone to stop? Erect a red sign. Want your garden to be traffic-stopping? Big, bold red flowers should do the trick. But too many of them might be more anxiety-inducing than spotlight-grabbing. How do you use this intense color effectively? Let us show you! TURN UP THE HEAT! Want to intensify the impact of your red flowers? Give them a dark background. Here, a burgundy-black grass guarantees these begonias’ (Begonia hybrid) flaming red blooms practically blaze with color. Red is always an attention-getter, so you might use it to do that. Or maybe you’d like to direct attention away from a less-than-desirable view. A mass of red like this in the opposite direction should do it. THE POWER OF RED Because it’s such…

With our increasingly demanding schedules and hectic pace, many of us are in need of a quiet oasis, a place to be still. Let green help. Restful, healing and balanced, the color green can restore the senses. From a color psychology perspective, green is an emotionally positive color, a natural peacemaker. It combines the optimism of yellow and the calming effects of blue. Because green is so ubiquitous in the garden, it is often taken for granted and may be overlooked as an important tool. When used thoughtfully, green functions with equal success as a backdrop or as a richly varied main stage color. GREEN COMES ALIVE This planting scheme explores combinations of greens of varying tints and shades to add depth and dimension. The lighter greens with mounding forms…

Get inspired by adding a little blue to your garden this season. A blue environment has been shown to make us more responsive to new ideas and increase creativity. Blue has a calming effect and can be used to encourage relaxation. Make time to enjoy the blues from nature—lie under the clear summer sky or listen to the tides roll in from the deep blue sea. With these great qualities, it’s no surprise blue is a favorite color for many people. Not too long ago, blue was considered an unattainable garden color. Now new blues are introduced each year and today the gardener has options from powdery silver-blue to deep royal. TRUE BLUES The massing of deep blue lobelia (Lobelia erinus) is striking in the front of the border, and…

Eastern tailed-blue butterfly Everes comyntas APPEARANCE These dainty little butterflies add sparkle to your garden. The males have cobalt blue wings while the females (above) are a bit more gray, and both have orange spots with a small tail-like extension along the bottom edge. But this beautiful color is hard to catch as they have a small wingspan of about 1 in. and don’t often rest with their wings all the way open. Caterpillars begin green and turn brown with fine hairs and a faint stripe on the back. LIFE CYCLE This butterfly lays its eggs on flower buds. Caterpillars then eat the buds, flowers and seeds of the plant. Their favorite hosts plants are in the pea family, such as vetch (Vicia spp.), clover (Trifolium spp.) and wild pea…

“What peonies! One poem per flower will not do.” - Ryumin Tree peony’s luscious blooms have been the subject of paintings and poetry in China and Japan for more than a thousand years. It’s easy to see why when you study the petals of ‘7 Gods of Good Fortune’ at right. But you don’t have to admire these exotic shrubs from a distance—grow your own and you can enjoy those beautiful flowers every spring for years to come. You’ll find tree peony flowers in shades of pink, rich red, purple, white and even yellow or salmon. Blooms can be single, semidouble or packed-with-petals doubles. Even the foliage is interesting, with deeply cut leaves in shades of plain green to blue-green. Once the foliage drops in fall, a tree peony’s woody…

You’ll need an 18-in.-diameter or larger container for this multicolored masterpiece you can grow in part sun to part shade. It features one prominent thriller (the cordyline), one feathery textured filler (the coleus) and two contrasting spillers (the begonia and golden creeping Jenny). A Cordyline Cordyline australis ‘Red Star’ Tender shrub; tall, spiky, burgundy red foliage; full sun to part shade; 3 to 4 ft. tall, 18 to 24 in. wide (when grown as an annual); cold-hardy in USDA zones 8 to 11, heat-tolerant in AHS zones 12 to 1 B Coleus Solenostemon scutellariodes Flame Thrower™ Chili Pepper Tender perennial; intricately patterned green, red and purple foliage; part sun to part shade; 12 to 18 in. tall, 16 to 20 in. wide; cold-hardy in AHS zones 10 to…

In many cultures, yellow represents sunshine, happiness and cheerfulness. The color of spring pansies (Viola hybrids) and summer sunflowers (Helianthus annuus), yellow typically has an uplifting and positive effect on people. But proceed with caution—yellow can be loud and intense and with all of this high energy, it can become overbearing. Yellow is the most highly visible of all the colors of the spectrum and is the first color processed by the eye. As a warm color it commands attention, and for that reason, yellow may be more successful as a “statement plant” in a mixed color planting than as a main color in your design. GENTLE SPRING The pale yellow ‘Akebono’ tulip (Tulipa hybrid) is a welcome sight, a reminder that the trials of winter are coming to a…