Innehållsförteckning för November/December 2020 från Horticulture

Henry David Thoreau wrote, “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” This quote came to mind when I spoke with Katherine Macdonald and Joann Vieira of The Stevens-Coolidge Place, a Massachusetts public garden, for “Rising to the Occasion” (page 60). Kathy and Joann described how last fall, garden staff and volunteers planted 30,000 tulip bulbs in preparation for the Tulip Festival to be held in April 2020. Who could know that a global pandemic would mean no visitors could enjoy the bulbs in bloom? Yet the intrepid Stevens-Coolidge gardeners, like staff at similar venues around the world, looked at the closed gates and saw an opportunity to share beauty in new and meaningful ways, like donating those lonely tulips to front-line medical workers. Their act…

COMPOST CAN BE a gardener’s best friend. It can deliver dramatic improvements in soil quality and nutrients to nourish your plants throughout the growing season. But unless you use the right techniques, you may also find yourself with a bumper crop of weeds. “Composting is a biological process that decomposes leaves, lawn clippings and other organic materials until they look like rich soil,” said Dr. Gary Wade, extension horticulturist with the University of Georgia. “But many of the rich ingredients in the mix can also be a source of weed seeds.” When lawns are mowed, for example, seeds can be collected with the clippings. Seeds can also survive in leaf debris or on mature weeds that you pull from your garden. TIME AND TEMPERATURE If you want to keep weed…

BALL FLORAPLANT http://www.ballfloraplant.com 1 Bee’s Knees petunia Bee’s Knees brings the most intense yellow petunia to your garden. It blooms into a lush, flower-filled plant and puts on a high-impact show all season long with very little maintenance. Great in baskets or landscapes, it grows 8 to 10 inches tall and 16 to 22 inches wide. Full sun. Annual. 2 Cha-Cha Diva Hot Pink calibrachoa A new series, Cha-Cha plants are 25 percent more vigorous than other calibrachoa, with large, cascading blooms. They’re easy to grow, with a gorgeous habit that makes them perfect for large baskets or containers. They reach 6 to 12 inches high and 12 to 24 inches wide. This series features the most vibrant colors, including the color-shifting Diva Hot Pink. Full to part sun. Annual.…

Choosing flowers of different shapes, sizes, colors and bloom times helps create a garden that will feed a range of bee species. However, there are some parameters that narrow the options. First, choose simple, single-petaled flowers rather than fancier cultivars. “Dense, double-petaled selections may not accommodate a pollinator since the nectar glands and pollen-laden stamens are more difficult to locate,” writes Rebecca Finneran in “Gardening for Pollinators,” an article from Michigan State University Extension. The Honeybee Conservancy agrees and adds that if you’re considering a cultivar, be certain it is not sterile, since sterile flowers will have little or no pollen. This brings up the question of whether cultivars are ever a good choice when planting for pollinators. A cultivar is a variation of a plant species that has been…

Dahlias — These can be cut partially or fully open, but be sure that the rearmost petals are still firm. Deadhead flowers that you’ve missed cutting, to spur more. Calla lily (Zantedeschia) — These are a good option for cutting gardens that receive more shade. Cut calla lilies when they have opened fully; those that have not yet started to release pollen will have the longest vase life. Let the stem ends soak in water for several hours before trimming and arranging them. Gladiolus — When the bottommost flower on the stalk opens, it is time to cut a gladiolus. The rest should open in the vase. As the lowest flowers fade, remove them and recut the stem to shorten it. Lilies (Lilium) — If you wish to keep the…

1 MEADOW PHLOX Phlox maculata Meadow phlox attracts butterflies and hummingbirds with its tubular purple flowers that appear in late summer and autumn. It is fairly resistant to powdery mildew and it prefers damp conditions, given its natural habitat of damp meadows and riverbanks of eastern North America. Full sun to light shade. USDA Zones 3–8. 2 LYRELEAF SAGE Salvia lyrata The lavender-blue late-spring flowers of lyreleaf sage draw bees and butterflies. Adaptable to wet or drier soils, this salvia species hails from eastern and central portions of the United States. Full sun. Zones 5–8. 3 CALICO ASTER Symphyotrichum lateriflorum A late bloomer, calico aster keeps the garden flowering well into fall, when its small daisy-like blossoms continue to feed native bees. It can tolerate periodic flooding. Full sun to…

OF ALL THE ROTTEN THINGS in the world, the most appalling is betrayal. Who are history’s most loathsome people? The treasonous! Judas, Brutus and Benedict Arnold. Recently, I discovered that many of my perennials have been traitors. They have aided and abetted my worst enemies—such vile foes as sorrel, chickweed, annual bluegrass, crabgrass and other weeds I cannot name but loathe. You know them. That filthy ilk. I have long been aware, of course, that certain perennials are unapologetic weed enablers. Iris, for instance. They’re like the Mae West of plants. So openly and eagerly do they invite the rabble in that it’s almost cute. Among their shoots they will present to you anything from barnyard grass to silver maples to Rudbeckia ‘Goldsturm’ seedlings. They do this about the same…

Here is a 10-step formula for building an effective compost pile, based on advice from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the University of Georgia’s College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Cooperative Extension Service: 1 Select the right site. You’ll need a level location with good drainage. While a compost bin or wire mesh structure can be helpful, it isn’t a requirement. You can start your pile directly on the ground. 2 Build from the bottom up. Use a coarse layer of woody material as your base. This will create better air circulation and a chimney effect that will help to heat your compost pile. 3 Add organic waste. You’ll need an 8- to 10-inch layer of leaves, grass, plant trimmings or similar material. One caution: Don’t use grass clippings…

According to research there is estimated to be close to 20,000 different species of bees in the world, only one of which is the honeybee. Additional investigation shows that this large group of insects is primarily attracted to plants that produce blue, purple, violet, white or yellow flowers. Bee populations are declining, a phenomenon that can be attributed to many factors, including pesticide use, mites and viruses. One of the major reasons is the loss of native plants due to encroachment by agriculture, and urbanization into habitats that once supported myriads of wildflowers. You can help mitigate this by planting some bee-friendly plants in your yard and garden each and every year. WHAT TO PLANT Two of the best trees for attracting a multitude of bees are black cherry trees…

A cutting garden, where the flowers are grown for use in fresh bouquets, often relies on long-blooming annuals and repeat-blooming perennials in order to prolong the harvest season. With the right plants and a layout that maximizes the space (e.g., planting in grids or rows), this garden can provide fresh-cut flowers from spring into fall. Because many kinds of bulbs bloom just once, the category is often overlooked in cutting-garden plans. Yet bulb flowers offer gorgeous seasonality to arrangements for the home or for giving, and they require little room or care. These space-saving plants can be incorporated into an existing cutting-garden plan, or they can be used to try out the cutting-garden concept. They can serve as a short-term cutting garden in a space that will take another purpose…

YOU KNOW HOW parents who may be nice looking but are no movie stars can have a kid who’s just gorgeous? Well, something like that seems to have happened in the family of the buckeyes. On the one hand, we have the stately horsechestnut tree (Aesculus hippocastanum), with its big, palmately compound leaves and its conical flowers—white panicles about five inches wide and ten inches tall, perched out on its branches, making it look like a Christmas tree with candles aglow in early May. The tree is native to the mountains of Greece and Albania and now planted through Europe. It was much planted in New England and other eastern states in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Some might say overplanted: Its leaves are susceptible to a brownish…

Here are some helpful hints for attracting a multitude of bees to your garden: • Use locally native plants if you can. Research suggests that native plants are four times more attractive to native bees than exotic plants. • Choose different colors of flowers, bearing in mind that purples and blues are most noticeable to bees. • Use flowers of different shapes and sizes. Bee species grow to different sizes and have different tongue lengths. They will feed on flowers that are suited to their particular characteristics. • Plant bee-friendly plants that flower at different times of the year to keep the bees coming around from season to season. • Plant flowers in clusters of the same type to attract more bees. A patch four feet or more in diameter…

Tulips — Tulip stems continue to grow after they’ve been cut, so err on the shorter side to avoid later flopping. They will turn to face the light, so keep that in mind with elaborate arrangements. For the best vase performance, tulips should be cut when the buds are still mostly green. Daffodils — Don’t cut daffodils until the buds have started to open, or they may not open at all. Rinse the sap out of the stems by soaking them in water until it is no longer oozing from the cut end (20 to 30 minutes). Then arrange them in fresh water. Alliums — For the longest vase life, cut alliums when about a third of the individual flowers that make up the head have opened. Change the water…