by Patrick on September 9, 2011
Clematis davidiana
“A garden is never so good as it will be next year.” Thomas Cooper
I’m still writing off this year and reassessing plant choices. I just got my latest Kansas State Extension weekly bulletin including a little piece on late season bloomers. Among the usual suspects of sweet autumn clematis and crapemyrtles were two blue flowers I was not that familiar with. Clematis davidiana is a violet blue flowered shrub clematis. I’ve seen this in catalogs for years but had no idea it’s a classic fall selection. The hyancith-like flowers are highly scented. Female plants bear interesting seed heads that carry through winter. The plant needs a hard shearing in early spring to help maintain the shape of the plant. Mature height is 3′.
Caryopteris 'Dark Knight'
Commonly known as bluebeard, blue spirea or blue mist shrub, Caryopteris clandonensis is another blue option for the fall garden. With mature dimensions of 3-4 X 4′ wide, some of the best performing cultivars include ‘Dark Knight’ and ‘Longwood Blue’. According to the highly respected High Country Gardens, ‘Dark Knight’ has the bluest flowers of them all with a tidy upright growth habit and a profusion of flower spikes that makes it an essential part of the summer garden. ‘Longwood Blue’ blooms a consistently 2-3 weeks later than ‘Dark Knight’ to extend the bloom season. Since it blooms on new growth, plants should be cut back in late winter or early spring according to KSU.
So all this pining for blue made me think of other true blue options out there in all seasons for the Midwest gardener.
'Caesar's Brother'
While we’re on perennials I must herald the Spring flowered Caesar’s Brother iris. Sure there are plenty of blue bearded iris but our Midwest winds can destroy flowering stems without much effort. So unless you have a very sheltered sightly, I would never consider and let’s face it, the foliage can look unsightly as the season progresses. That’s where Caesar’s is different. After the deepest knock your sock’s off blue flowers, the leaves look good to provide a foil to wider leave perennials such as ‘May Night’ Salvia, ‘Orion’ hardy geranium or ‘Becky’ Shasta Daisy. Read more →
by Patrick on August 25, 2011
It’s been a long, hot summer and its time to revaluate the strengths in your garden. One plant you should reconsider or consider based on its continued high performance season after season is the boxwood. Boxwoods “Man’s Oldest Garden Ornament,” have been with us since Roman times and before. The first boxwoods were planted on American soil at Long Island in 1653 brought over from Amsterdam.
The three most popular types of boxwoods grown in the United States are “American” (Buxus sempiverens), “English” (buxus sempivirens ‘Suffruticosa’) and Buxus microphyllum. Sempivirens is latin for evergreen. Hybrids from ‘sempivirens’ and ‘microphyllum’, like most hybrids that are marketable, are generally faster growing and more disease resistant.
Happy Under The Knife
Boxwood can grow very well in the Midwest as long as two very important needs are met.
They require good drainage AND they do not “like their feet wet.” By this I mean plant them a little higher than soil level so they can drain. If the drainage is poor then leaves will discolor and depending on the severity may even die. Also, both soil and heavy mulch should not hug or smother the trunk of the shrub.
The top image and image at left are from the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis. The Blanke Boxwood Garden does justice to the species. I saw the Garden in its first season before I moved from St. Louis to Shawnee. So I only saw the hardscape and the young plantings but all the potential. I look forward soon to see the Rosendo . Visitor enter through a brick wall courtyard catching glimspes of the center of the garden. The entry walk leads visitors with plantings showing the perfect interplay of perennials and boxwood along the way. The center of the garden is an oval boxwood parterre accented by flowers and ground covers. A parterre is a garden where flower gardens, beds and path are arranged to form a pattern. The lower hedges map out he initials of the founder, Henry Shaw. (A future issue will have more about this fine gentlemen) Read more →
by Patrick on July 25, 2011
Its the middle of summer, we hope, and the millions and millions of Red ‘Knockout’ roses planted in this country are in bloom or between flushes right now. (Can you imagine how much money Bill Radler, the breeder, has made globally to date?) Yes, I do miss my hybrid teas but I’m trying not to be a buzz kill on red Knock Outs.
My simple plea is can’t landscapers and garden designers open up the color palette to the single pink more? It seems to have the same garden performance of red Knock Out but the bubblegum pink bloom against the darker foliage is a beautiful sight to behold. If they were used more by commercial landscapers and designers, then more homeowners would be asking for the pink.
I’m just sick of seeing commercial landscaping dumbed down to red Knockouts and the ‘Stella D’Oro’ daylily. The green foliage of the daylily creates a traffic light troika of color. It’s not the right mood for every locale. There are so many other combinations out there beyond the traffic light one. At least everyone together, please try planting single pink Knockouts. You’ll be glad you did.
by Patrick on July 13, 2011
Tonight I was doing some late night blogging and was commenting on a hen and chick flower display from a PNW blogger, www.oneadayinthegarden.blogspot.com. Hens and chicks are a succulent plant where there is one large rosette of leaves (the hen) surrounded by several small rosette plants (the chicks). After the mother hen is done with its glorious flowering, she withers and dies. The chicks continue to grow into the void left my the hen and the process begins again.
While commentating, I reread my comment and thought to myself, Patrick, that’s pretty profound for you. So I hope it looks profound in the morning. Here goes: “I like to think that hens and chicks remind us of how we should live our lives. Be a loving parent and show our children how to get the most you can out of life. And when it is cur time to go, they are prepared to do the same”.
What do you think?
by Patrick on July 2, 2011
I’ve been writing my Patrick’s Picks column about outstanding plants for four years now and I’ve never taken the time to think what the best of the best list would look like. That was until this horrendous year for gardeners. I had big plans for perennials but I could not in good conscious dig in wet soil. Bottom line, you can’t dig in wet soil because it destroys the structure of the soil making it hard for the plant uptake oxogen. Basically, you’re suffocating your plant and it will take years for the plant and soil to get over it. One symptom of this drowning is some yellow leaves and the new growth appears stunted. So this year we didn’t plant any perennials. We’re just keeping down the weeds until we rototill the soil this Fall. So this year was all about containers and window boxes
So with the garden on pause, I’ve reviewed the last four years of columns to select the very best for me and for you. So with no further adieu, here’s the very best of four years of Patrick’s Picks:
The most heavily lauded selection I’ve written about is ‘Prairie Dropseed’ Ornamental Grass
describes Sporobolus heterolepis as a “lovely tuft of fine blades that somewhat reminds me of Tina Turner’s hair. The inflorescences are not colorful but open, airy and light reflective”. ‘Prairie Dropseed’ has the Plants of Merit distinction from the Missouri Botanical Garden and matures to 2′ high and wide.
It might sound like an oxymoron, but there is an easy care David Austin rose variety. Branhagen says “the ‘Tamora’ Hybrid Tea Rose doesn’t “bolt” into a monster come summer, so stays compact to 3’ to 4’ wide and high plant. The only downfall of this rose is it is VERY thorny” The flowers are an apricot-tone of pink with yellow and extremely fragrant. The peak bloom times are late spring and late summer with sporadic flowering through the season. “Foliage is resistant to most maladies but not immune”.
'Celebrity'
Larry Moore is the anchor of KMBC in Kansas City and recognized as this area’s tomato growing aficionado. His favorite main producer is ‘Celebrity’ Tomato ripening in about 70 days. With superior disease resistance, this All American Selection from 1984 has stood the test of time as a high-yielding variety. Larry says “They turn out 7-9 ounce tomatoes during the most trying of conditions–too much rain, drought, cool nights or extreme heat. The flavor is superb and the yield is tremendous.” Read more →
by Patrick on July 2, 2011
Because of their simple flower form, daylilies are so easy to breed which explains why there are currently 66,000 varieties registered with the American Daylily Society. How do you wade through so many varieties to come up with extra special plants? I believe you need to focus on a specific color or flower form. And for me that’s daylilies with distinctive eyes. What I mean by eyes is multi-colors in the throat of the flower that give each blossom more depth and impact.
Jack and Jo Roderson are owners of American Daylillies & Perennials in Grain Valley, MO. T he company was started 33 years ago and currenty has 40 acres in cultivation. Jack has been hybridizing daylilies for over 30 years. His biggest success to date has been ‘Black Eyed Stella’. Jo says He worked for ten years to get an eyed variety that bloomed like ‘Stella de Oro’. Eyed varieties have great appeal, and so do repeat bloomers like this selection. During its first year on the market, the company sold over 750,000 fans of ‘Black Eyed Stella! So this month I’m asking the Rodersons, what are their favorite daylily varieties with a distinctive eye?
The Roderson’s believe Eye Yi Yi is a “must have” daylily. The bright orange blooms with a cherry eye are 5 ½” and appear atop 30” scapes (the height of the flower stalk). The plant is semi-evergreen in the area. It’s an early bloomer coming in around mid June in Kansas City and repeating blooms later in the season.Jo says “This color combination is probably the most stunning among eyed daylilies and is always a favorite of gardeners. Jack and I will never forget the first time we saw it about ten years ago. We were touring a garden in Oregon with others of the industry, and someone in our group spotted Eye Yi-Yi. We were all struck by its strong eye appeal and beauty and we fell in love with it on the spot.”
Stella’s Pink Valentine’s red eye surrounds a chartreuse throat and contrasts the clear pink petals. The small 3 ¾” blooms appear in late June atop 16-21” scapes. Then it repeat blooms again following a rest period. It forms a full clump quickly for creating a great color display quickly. It was selected by the breeder not only for its beauty, but because it is such a strong grower, rapid increaser, and good performer across all USDA zones 4-10. Read more →
by Patrick on June 8, 2011
I have very fond memories of my childhood visiting my grandparents on their farm on the edge of the Australian Outback. It is here where I learned the basics of how to garden. One of my earliest lessons was all about pinching plants. My grandmother said “Paddy, the more flowers you pick, the more flowers you will get.” As I recall, she demonstrated this quite well with, of course, zinnias, roses, dahlias and geraniums.
I would learn the science behind the phenomenon years later in my training to be an Extension Master Gardener in Johnson County, Kansas. Each stem on a plant has a tip where the future bud develops. The plant will put all the energy from its leaves to aid in the strongest growth of that bud. This will ensure the flowers allowing for the biggest crop of seeds to ensure survival of the species. When that bud is cut pinched out, all the side branches are allowed to develop thus rendering more flowers and vegetables. Don’t be intimated by pinching your plants. As the above photograph simply demonstrates, all you need to do is take your hands and pinch out the flower bud and a few leaves at the tip of the plant. The other way of course is just keep cutting your flowers and the side branches of the side branches will deliver flowers galore.
One of the best examples for pinching is the top image. Coleus get treated just like other plant but you want to create bushy plants with healthy leaves of instead of leggy plants with insignificant flowers.
Earlier in the season, you should pinch new annual flowers as soon as you plant them. The seed companies are breeding plants to look great in the pack bloomAnd continued pinching of perennials gives more flowers but more importantly, it creates stockier plants less susceptible to wind and storm damage.
And the most dramatic example of the benefits of pinching has to be tomatoes. A couple of good pinches before the plants set will at least double your food harvest. The same goes for peppers, eggplants and even vine vegetables. And don’t forget about basil for your pesto. WOW, will you see a huge difference with it.
So you newbies or lazy experienced gardeners, get out there and pinch and cut and turn your garden into a beautiful, prolific paradise. Nan, even if you didn’t know the science behind it, you were absolutely spot on and now what you shared with me is being passed on to a new crop of gardeners. Thank you, my dear.
