treesellcenter - Tumblr blog

[treesellcenter]

What is Foundation Planting?

In the extended plant descriptions and advice which are a unique feature of the Tree Center website – and a great resource for our customers – we often describe a plant as being ‘suitable for foundation planting’. Experienced gardeners will know exactly what we are talking about, but new gardeners may be a little mystified. So let’s talk about this, and look at the features of plants you can choose for this important task.

In a few words, foundation planting is the plants you put immediately around your home, but why is it important, and why are some plants better suited for it than others?

Why Do You Need Foundation Planting?

First, consider your home standing on its lot – big or small. Trees and plants come in every shape, but straight lines and perfect geometry is not a feature of natural things. Your home is all about straight lines, with perhaps rounded arches and circles added. Those two things – the irregular forms of Nature and the strict geometry of architecture – don’t fit together very well. The function of the foundation planting you do is to solve that problem. A famous garden designer called Russell Page once said that close to a house the structures and plants should reflect the formal geometry of the home, and further away they should reflect the natural geometry of Nature. Wise words that are the basis of our approach to laying out any garden, and they sum up exactly what foundation planting is all about.

The foundation planting in your garden is the plants you put around the house, close to the walls, under the windows, and beside the doors. It is both the ‘foundation’ of your garden design, and it goes around the foundations of your home. Those foundations are necessarily visible. Your damp-course is above the soil level, and often homes are built on a low mound, to allow for basement windows, and to keep your house ‘high and dry’ above the surrounding soil. There are often also units like air-con, or meter systems against wall, which look ugly. Those very necessary engineering features only emphasize how ‘alien’ those straight lines and rectangular structures are when placed among trees and rounded shrubs.

The Purpose of Foundation Planting

Because of this uncomfortable fit between a house and the plants around it – already there or yet to be planted – we need to choose the plants and style of this transition area carefully, which will lead us naturally from architecture to nature, from geometry to naturalness, and from what we make to what nature makes.

The secret is to use plants with denser, more ‘formal’ shapes for the bulk of what we put around the house, keeping informal and more casual shapes for further away, so that we have a sense that architecture surrenders to Nature (as it should) once we move away from what we humans have made. By doing this our minds will be more at ease, and we will feel more comfortable in our gardens. Our houses will not stick out as obstructions (no matter how beautiful the architecture is), but instead look like they belong in the wider world, which we all have a right to feel.

We can think of foundation planting as a transition zone, and the plants in it should be neat and dense, often evergreen, and reflect the geometry of our buildings. A formal garden, with its clipped bushes and geometrical layout is really just an extension of this further away from the buildings, and mostly formal gardens do look best when they are attached to a building, rather than sitting out among natural plantings. It is in the foundation areas that our urge to clip and trim can be given free rein. If you love globe forms, narrow columns, pyramids, cones and spirals, then this is the part of your garden to have them. They will look right at home – which is exactly where they are of course!

The Features of Foundation Plants

There are also practical considerations when choosing plants for around your home, some of which are obvious. Let’s look at some limitations and features these plants need, to work well around your house, and be suitable for the long-term.

Limited in size – the most common mistake seen in planting close to a house is planting trees that will grow too large. We have all seen the house with the enormous tree – perhaps a Blue Spruce, a Leyland Cypress or a Maple Tree – planted just a few feet from a home. It has now grown so large it branches obscure all the windows, block the doors, and it towers above the house, threatening to destroy it in a storm. When choosing these plants, look carefully at the potential size – that ‘cute’ little evergreen may be 50 feet tall and wide just 20 years from now.

Not block windows – this is another aspect of size, and important when placing plants in your foundation planting. It may seem obvious, but a walk down any street will show you how common it can be. Rather than have to constantly trim, choose plants that naturally won’t grow above the window sills, even if they take a couple more years to get there. Speaking of windows, you can also take security precautions by planting shrubs like Barberry beneath windows, whose thorns will keep out almost any potential intruder.

Have limited roots – most deciduous trees have large roots, and these can and do threaten the foundations of your home. They can grow against them and under them, causing lifting and developing cracks. You may be looking at expensive tree removal down the road if you make the wrong choices. Even a little further away, some trees – Willow for example – are well-known for invading drainage and sewer lines, causing blockages.

Be mostly evergreen – Since you want to hide ugly features like concrete foundations and air-con units, you want to do it all year round, not just in spring and summer. Most of the foundation plants you choose should be evergreen, particularly when you are screening something specific. Plants like Yew Trees are easily clipped and look great all through the quiet days of winter. In areas with lots of snow there may be issues with snow and ice falling from the roof and crushing plants, so careful placement becomes important. Smaller deciduous flowering shrubs are perfect planted at the edges of your foundation areas, where the lawn or paving begins, and they make a good transition into that more natural look of the rest of your garden. Hydrangeas are great for this, since their rounded or conical heads have a neat geometry.

Have good form and color – rather than have to clip everything into shape, begin with plants that have been selected or bred to be naturally round – Mr. Bowling Ball Arborvitae for example, or Skyrocket Juniper. The different forms and colors of Sawara or Hinoki Cypress are also great choices, and they have good soft mounded shapes that are not totally formal. While it looks best to have plenty of green, adding blues and golds can paint a beautiful picture around your home.

There is a wide and varied selection of plants on our website – begin under ‘Evergreens’ – to create the perfect foundation planting, and to make that essential transition from architecture to nature that will give you a great garden. Happy planting.

[treesellcenter]

7 Top Tips for Spring Clean Up in the Garden

Once warmer weather returns, and the days start to grow longer, the garden tempts up back into it, after a winter of rest, perhaps buried beneath snow. The early-spring garden can look sad, and some early work will pay dividends, as well as getting you out in the fresh air and spring sunshine. Here are some tips to bring your garden back into shape effectively and set you up for a great year.

Prune summer flowering shrubs

The rule is, prune summer and fall flowering shrubs in spring, and spring flowering shrubs in fall. So spring is the time for panicle hydrangeas, buddleia, crape myrtle, roses, and any other shrubs that flower later, at the end of new shoots formed in spring. Lilac would be an example of a plant you don’t want to prune in spring, because they flower in side-shoots from last year’s branches. Spring pruning is best done when the buds are just beginning to swell, which makes it easier to see where to cut and what to take away. Start by removing all dead and spindly growth, leaving a strong, open framework. Then shorten back the shoots that grew last year, to just above a bud. How much you cut back, especially with plants like panicle hydrangeas, will control the quantity and size of the flower clusters. Cutting back hard gives big heads, but fewer of them. Light trimming gives more heads, but smaller ones. Most of the time a moderate trim, removing about one-third of the growth, is the best middle path.

Fertilize evergreens and hedges

Fertilizing the lawns is a spring tradition, but trimmed hedges are like vertical lawns – they do need nutrients to replace all that growth you cut off them last year. Other evergreens, even if they aren’t trimmed regularly, also benefit from feeding, they will grow more densely, and with rich-green foliage.

Pick up a fertilizer blended for hedges and evergreens and follow the instructions. Water-soluble is best for new plants, and granular for older ones. Newer slow-release forms only need one application a year, so once done, that’s it – a big time saver.

Add something new

Spring in the garden is a time of renewal and development. Older plants may have reached the end of their attractive life, a bed may need an overhaul, or some plants simply haven’t done what you expected of them. This is a great time to bite the bullet and remove them. Now you can have the fun of looking for something new and better for those spaces and going shopping. With on-line services, and often free delivery, you can avoid the crowds at the garden center, access the latest varieties, or old favorites, and save time. To a gardener there are few things more exciting than having a truck turn up at the door with a new tree, or a shipment of new shrubs. Go ahead – treat yourself and your garden at the same time.

Mulch your trees and shrubs

Fresh mulch in spring really makes your beds look like you care. The best materials are compost, rotted animal manures, or mushroom compost – available if you have a mushroom growing operation nearby. These richer materials rot down more quickly, but they feed your soil and plants in the process, so that over a few years you get much better soil, and your plants grow and flower so much better too. You save on fertilizers, as richer mulches replace them the natural way. Bark chips and gravels can look nice, and they conserve moisture, but they don’t do anything for your plants or soil, so save them for areas where they fit the design.

As well as mulching beds, put mulch around younger trees you have planted in the lawn. Not only does it feed them and conserve moisture, it will keep mowers and string trimmer away from the base. These very easily damage the bark, especially when trees are young, and the bark is thin. The scarring caused can seriously restrict sap flow, weaken your trees and create long term problems. Remember to keep mulch an inch or two away from the trunks of trees and the base of shrubs, as well as clear of the foliage of evergreens. Cover the root-zone, don’t bury the whole plant. (Save precious time in spring, by doing this job in late fall instead. It is just as effective, and you won’t risk breaking tender new shoots.)

Candle dwarf pine trees

Reducing the length of the new shoots on pines is called ‘candling’ by knowledgeable gardeners. It is the best and easiest way to keep plants like Mugo Pine, dense and compact, since cutting older stems usually leaves them unable to re-sprout. It easy to do. When the new shoots have grown up, but before the needles start to grow out, cut them back, or pinch them with your fingers. The hand method is quicker, and doesn’t cut any needles, but you will need to clean sticky sap from your hands when you have finished. You can take just a little off, which is useful when you still want them to grow taller, or almost the whole stem, just leaving an inch or even less of new growth. The remaining needles will lengthen normally, and several new buds will form for the next year, so you get a denser, more compact plant. On larger pines this is a great way to get a more Asian look, with spreading, flat branches and dense foliage – a sort of in-the-ground bonsai.

Rake up old leaves

If you didn’t do all your leaf raking in fall, it should be job number one in spring. Many leaf diseases, including apple scab, rust, rose black spot and mildew, are carried from one season to the next on fallen leaves. Leaves from trees and shrubs that are susceptible, such as crab apples, lilacs, roses, crape myrtle, and others you might have had problems with last summer, should be picked up, even if they are not an eye-sore.

Usually if they are properly composted the heat will destroy any spores, but if you leave them lying around, they will release spores as soon as the temperatures rise and re-infect vulnerable plants. Even if you have planted resistant varieties – and that always pays if they are available – the heavy release of spores can be enough to cause some effect, since ‘resistance’ is not ‘immunity’.

Don’t forget your planter boxes

If you have shrubs in planter boxes and pots, they will really appreciate some fresh soil. If you can slide the plant out, trim the roots a little, replace the soil, and replant. You will get much healthier growth, especially if they have been in the planters for more than two years. If you can’t take them out, scrape away all the loose soil from the top of the planter, and remove it. Replace with fresh soil, and don’t forget to add some fertilizer too – plants in pots should be fertilized regularly.

[treesellcenter]

The Tough and Colorful Barberry

Would you like to have a garden with bright color for months and months, but your soil is poor, your winters cold, and you don’t really have much time available? If that sounds like you, then the Barberry is your friend. These tough shrubs grow well even in zone 4, they are resistant to dryness, they cope well with poor soils, and they are colorful from spring to fall, never turning into boring green after a few days once a year of flowers.

Few shrubs have such a wide range of leaf colors, from the every-popular purple-reds to the fashionable lime greens, with golds, yellows and oranges in between, you could easily create a whole landscape of color with just this one plant. Available too in a range of sizes, from hardly more than a foot tall to a substantial 6 feet, there are lots of places where you could slip them into your existing landscape. Did we mention hedges? Yes, there too, as a low bed edging, or a taller barrier, Barberry clips easily into great, colorful hedges.

Some gardeners can be put off Barberry because there are sharp little thorns along the branches, but this has a very positive upside. Planted beneath windows they make it a whole lot harder for an intruder to climb in – unless they are wearing cowboy chaps – and a Barberry hedge is an easy way to keep four-legged intruders out of your garden. It takes a brave cat or dog to push through Barberry just for the opportunity to dig around in your beds. And of course, if you have deer, they won’t be munching on those spiny stems either, so not much touches this plant at all.

Easy Color from Spring to Fall

If you are looking at a boring green garden, with little or no color through the seasons, an easy way to tackle it would be to order in a batch of Barberry, in a variety of colors and sizes. Stand back to get a good view and then slip them in here or there around the garden, creating splashes of season-long color in just a few minutes. Once planted there is little more to do than watch them grow, and see your garden come alive.

The Barberry, or as botanist call it, Berberis, is a large group of shrubs, but for our gardens we rely almost completely on one brought into America by plant collectors from the Arnold Arboretum, in the 19th century. Back then there were few garden plants, and this new shrub, with yellow spring flowers, red fall leaves, and red berries in winter, soon became a big hit, and it was widely planted. That Japanese Barberry, Berberis thunbergii, had a lot of tricks up its sleeve, and since the first introduction that green plant has been transformed. Within a few decades French growers had found seedlings with rich purple-red leaves, and then the Dutch – as we might expect from such a small country – found dwarf forms too. In later years a whole palette of color exploded, until we have today’s bounty of shades.

Hardy in winters to minus 30, and easily grown in any soil that isn’t always swampy, all these shrubs ask for is a sunny spot to put down roots in. They will also take light shade for a few hours of the day, but too much shade will ‘green out’ the foliage color, which would be a shame.

Here is a quick guide to some of the best varieties of Barberry, in different colors.

Reds and Purples

Ground zero for dark red leaves – always a top favorite with gardeners – are plants derived from those early French seedlings. These are often called ‘f. atropurpurea’ (where the ‘f’. designates a form that is different from the parent), but that rather tall and leggy original is rarely grown anymore. Much more useful are smaller forms, such as ‘Concord’, which reaches no more than 2 feet tall, with a similar spread. That fat form makes hedges more economical, as you can space the plants as much as 18 inches apart and still quickly create a dense but low hedge. A similar spacing is perfect for mass planting, which fills larger sections of your beds quickly and easily.

Despite its name, ‘Crimson Pygmy’ is taller, growing to 2 to 3 feet tall, and as much as 4 feet across, with the same rich, all-season purple-red leaves. It’s a perfect choice for a slightly larger hedge, or further back in a bed, behind flowers.

If you have some concerns about Barberry spreading into local natural areas – which it has done in some parts of the country – then you can still enjoy them by planting the Royal Burgundy® Barberry, which produces no berries, so cannot be spread around by birds. It is similar in size to ‘Crimson Pygmy’, with an attractive arching form when left untrimmed.

To add to the beauty, the dark leaves of these bushes turn rich oranges and scarlet-reds in fall, making a great showing, before dropping in time for winter.

Oranges and Pinks

If the same color all season is a little boring to you, then the ‘Rosy Glow’ barberry is for you. Starting out purple in spring, the new growth is rose-pink, mottled with bronze and purple. As the leaves mature they darken, so that the shrub has a bright, rosy exterior, with a deeper purple interior, which really brings the colors to life. A taller shrub if left unpruned, it can touch 6 feet, so it is perfect for background planting in smaller beds, and middle-ground in larger ones.

If you love orange, then bring it to your garden with ‘Orange Rocket’. This unique Barberry starts the year with an explosion of rich orange foliage. The color holds well into summer, then turns light green, before a vibrant encore of brilliant ruby-red in fall. This is truly a hard-to-beat source of rich colors season after season.

Yellows and Limes

While reds are always popular, smart gardeners use plenty of yellow foliage, while those up with garden fashions opt for lime-yellow. These colors really ‘pop’ in the garden and bring lots of life and color to your beds.

‘Aurea Nana’ is just that – a small bundle of vibrant golden leaves that hold their color from spring to fall – no summer fading into green with this beauty. 2 to 3 feet tall and wide, it is perfect for a low edging to a bed, or as specimens in smaller gardens. They are also ideal for planters, surrounded perhaps by blue and silver trailing annuals – a great display.

For a more upright form, choose ‘Golden Rocket’, which stays just a foot or two wide but it stand up proud 3, 4 and as much as 5 feet tall. It too holds that color from spring to fall, and it is ideal for building height in small beds.

For that perfect low edging, that keeps changing color in every season, plant the tiny barberry, ‘Daybreak’, which starts orange-red in spring, turns yellow all summer and then bright red in fall. It only grows 18 inches tall, so even left unclipped it is perfect along a driveway or fronting a bed.

Then, for the perfect lime-green accent, plant ‘Lime Glow’, with yellow new leaves that quickly turn the perfect bright lime, looking wonderful across the garden. It grows into a substantial 5-feet tall and 4-feet wide shrub, and makes a wonderful hedge along a boundary, that is both beautiful and impenetrable.

With all this to choose from, the simple solution is to plant a wide selection of these great plants – tough and colorful, and oh so easy to grow.

[treesellcenter]

Spring Care of Houseplants

As spring returns to the outdoor world, spare a thought and a moment for your houseplants, which at this time are usually looking a little sad, after months of low light levels and dry central heating. Here are some tips and thoughts on how to bring them back to tip health and vigor:

Time to Re-pot

Just as plants tire, so does the soil they grow in. Potting soils contain components that break down over time, reducing drainage and turning an open, airy mix into a heavy sludge. Even more important, plants need new roots, because only the growing tips of roots have the root-hairs that can take up nutrients to feed your plants. So encouraging new root growth is a vital first step to re-invigorating your plants. If your houseplants have been growing in the same pot and soil for a year or more, then re-potting will work miracles. Here is how to go about it.

If you can, move your plant into a larger pot. Choose one that is at least two inches wider, and for larger, vigorous plants, make that four to six inches wider. If you need to use the same pot, remove the plant and wash the pot thoroughly, rinsing with clean water.

Make sure the new pot has drainage holes. Lack of flow-through when watering is the biggest single cause of houseplant problems. Water must flow out of the bottom, to draw fresh, oxygen-rich air into the soil, and to remove excess salts from water and fertilizers. Without oxygen the roots will weaken and even die.

Excess salts prevent strong water uptake, causing browning leaf tips and margins, and weakening of the growing points of your plants.

If you use a saucer or outer decorative pot to keep that water off the floor, remember to empty it shortly after watering. If you use a layer of gravel, or those brown light-weight clay pellets, in the bottom of an outer pot, excess water will collect there, so your plant is not standing in water. As that water evaporates it adds helpful humidity too.

Use a suitable potting soil. Never use garden soil for houseplants. For most plants a general-purpose houseplant soil is fine. If your plant is one that doesn’t need a lot of water, try using a cactus soil – the results are often great, even with plants that aren’t technically succulents. For camellias and azaleas, use a lime-free soil blended for acid-loving plants.

Remove the plant from its pot and shake or brush away any loose soil.

If there are a lot of coiled roots in the bottom, cut through these in a couple of places with a sharp knife, to encourage new roots to spread out and explore the new soil.

If there is a single large hole, cover it with some insect screening, or a single stone. Don’t put a layer of gravel or stones in the bottom of the pot.

Place a layer of new soil in the bottom of the pot. So that the top of the root ball will be about an inch below where it was before and add new soil until the pot is full. Leave the top inch of the pot empty of soil to make watering easier. Don’t press the soil down hard – just gently push it into place.

Either stand the pot in a bucket of water until it is thoroughly wet, or water from above with a fine rain of water, until plenty flows out the bottom.

You’re done!

If you have a large plant that can’t be removed from the pot, then scrape out any loose soil from the top, and replace it with fresh, new soil. Potting soil shrinks, so there will probably be several inches of space available for this.

Time to Feed Your Plants

Fertilizer is the secret to good houseplants. Regular feeding with a water-soluble fertilizer mixed into the water is best, because it permeates throughout the soil. Time it to be part of your regular watering schedule, so that you don’t over water. The more light your plants receive, the more fertilizer they need, so in a well-lit spot you can feed every two weeks in spring, then monthly through summer and fall. In darker spots, every month or two is about right. Use a fertilizer that matches the type of plant you have, although for most plants a general-purpose food is fine.

Wash and Tidy Time

Like you, your houseplants enjoy a nice clean-up. Remove neatly any brown or dying leaves and trim out any dead twigs. If some growth is too tall, you can usually cut it back to a side-branch or a leaf and it will bush out. If you can get your plants into the shower and give them a wash with cool water, great – they will love it. If not, put a drop or two of detergent into a bowl of cool water and wash the leave with paper towel dipped in the water. This is great for plants with large leaves. Leaf shine products can be used to remove water spots, and increase the gloss, but only on the upper surfaces.

Plan a Vacation for Your Houseplants

If you have a balcony or terrace, houseplants love a holiday outdoors during the warmer weather. It may be too soon just yet, depending on where you are, but keep an eye on the night temperatures. Once they are above 50 degrees, your plants will be safe outdoors. You can even start standing them outside during the day, and bringing them in at night, if it is still too cool.

You will be amazed what some time outdoors will do. Birds and beneficial insects will clean up a lot of pests for you, and the extra light and damper air encourages lots of growth. Just be careful not to change light levels too much. If they have had a lot of light in summer, many plants will be shocked, and drop leaves, when you bring them back inside again, where light levels are a lot lower. A shady but bright spot is better than a sunny spot for most foliage plants. Plants like citrus and fig trees should get as much sun as possible during their time outdoors, to encourage flowers and blooms.

Wow, Notice the Difference!

These simple steps really make a big difference, and your plants will thank you for them. Houseplants don’t need a lot, but they sure appreciate the care we do give them.

[treesellcenter]

Shrubs for Planters, Pots and Boxes

With the gardens of new homes getting smaller and smaller, and particularly with more and more of us living in town homes and apartments, there is a lot of interest in growing plants in planter boxes and larger pots. Perhaps you just have a patio, or a balcony large enough for a plant in the corner, or perhaps your garden is large enough to have a terrace or paved area that would benefit from some handsome planters, with suitable plants in them. Depending on the choice of plants, you can add neat, formal elements, or casual ones just as easily, to suit your personal style, and the overall look of your space.

Break with Tradition

Traditional planters were filled with bulbs and annual flowers, but that means regular work several times a year, plus of course the annual cost – which adds up over ten years or so. More and more smart gardeners with limited time and lots of other things to do are opting instead to use shrubs for planters – yes, the initial investment is more than some geraniums, but the saving over time in work and money makes shrubs a sound decision. You can create permanent landscapes in larger planters, adding height very effectively, and rely on them entirely, or still add some flowers for the summer and extra color – the choice is yours.

Tips on Starting Well

There are a few basic things to consider with planters and pots, to get good results and see your plants thrive and grow well, so let’s start there, before looking at some ideas for plants.

Pots Need Drainage – number one tip for success is to always use pots with drainage holes in them. Very few plants will grow in soggy, airless soil, and the movement of water through the soil and out the drain hole makes sure your soil stays fresh and sweet, and that salts from fertilizers don’t accumulate and cause problems. Sometimes you need to use saucers, but either empty them after watering, or raise the pots on small feet so they stand above the saucer, not right in it. With larger planter boxes too, they must drain, and a layer of gravel in the bottom is not good enough in the long term. You might need to connect a pipe to the drain hole if water on your balcony is a potential problem, and then lead that pipe away to a drain. Mostly though, a little water on the floor will soon evaporate.

  Choose a Suitable Soil – you cannot use garden soil in planters, so bring in some good-quality potting soil, preferably one designed for outdoor planters. If you can’t find that, then mix regular potting soil half-and-half with soil for cactus and succulent plants – outdoor planters need that extra drainage for good air flow.

  Watering – the secret to success in planters is to water the right way. Never give ‘a little drink’ to your plants. Water thoroughly when you do water, so that at least a little water flows out the bottom. Then don’t water until the top inch or two has dried out. In winter you may not need to water very often, and obviously more in summer. If you have a tap on your terrace, you can attach a hose and long-handled spray, and watering becomes fun. If you have a lot of planters you can set up a watering system, but unless you spend a lot of time fine-tuning it, it is often better to turn it on and off manually, rather than use a timer, unless it is connected to a moisture monitor.

  Fertilize regularly – correction, watering is only the second secret to success, because the first one is to regularly feed your plants. Potting soils don’t contain the nutrients of garden soil, so feeding is a must. Depending on how you feel you can use traditional chemical fertilizers in liquid form, or organic ones, such as those based on fish-meal or seaweed. Today there are lots to choose from, and more important than what you use is simply using it regularly, from spring to early fall.

  Good Plants to Grow in Planters

The best shrubs for planters are slower-growing, more unusual specimen plants, rather than common shrubs, and there is an enormous range of interesting material to choose from. One great thing about growing in planters is that you can control the soil, so if you don’t live on acid soil, you can still enjoy blue hydrangeas, azaleas and camellias, simply by using soil blended for acid-loving plants. These soils lack the trace of lime normally used in potting soil, and often they contain other natural ingredients to guarantee a low pH. Make sure you also choose suitable fertilizer for this group too, and for hydrangeas there are special ones that help make sure you get the very best blue colors.

Here are some ideas for planter shrubs – maybe not ones you might have immediately thought of. When choosing suitable plants, add a hardiness zone. If you are in zone 6, grow plants that are hardy in zone 5, and so on, because for most plants the roots are not as hardy as the top growth, and raised up in planters they can get too cold.

Japanese Maples

To add some height to your arrangement, or for cascading over the edge of a beautiful tall planter, Japanese maples are wonderful for container growing. They will always get enough water, so the leaves won’t burn, and if the pots are moveable you can control the amount of sun too. With so many different amazing varieties, choose one for form – cascading or upright, color – red or green, and size. From tiny dwarfs to larger trees for big planter boxes, this is a great way to grow these beautiful plants.

Knockout and Drift Roses

As a substitute for annual flowers, roses have no equal. You can have blooms from late spring to fall with the Knockout series of roses, in a great range of colors, or even better perhaps for pots are the Drift Roses, with masses of small flowers, blooming continuously, on plants less than 2 feet tall.

Encore Azaleas

In warmer areas these gorgeous evergreen azaleas are perfect for planters. They don’t just bloom in spring, but keep blooming again, continuously, from mid-summer right into fall. This fabulous ‘encore’ makes them ideal, because you get bloom for so long, meaning annual flowers become redundant. Use lime-free potting soil for them.

Dwarf Evergreens

For easy container growing, nothing beats the wide range of dwarf evergreens. Many are upright, or rounded, for a more formal look, and can even be clipped for perfect regularity, if that is your thing. Some, like the Chirimen Hinoki Cypress and the Tenzan Japanese Cedar are so small their ideal home is in a miniature garden planted in a beautiful dish, and others, like the David Golden Yew, make delightful, bright specimens.

Hydrangeas

Another group of plants for acid-loving soil, containers make perfect blue hydrangeas possible for everyone. But blue or pink, with their long bloom period, these are great choices. Don’t forget the smaller panicle hydrangeas either, like Bobo, or Little Quick Fire, which are much hardier, and change color as the seasons pass.

Xeric Plants

If you don’t enjoy watering, are away for long periods, or live in desert areas, then consider some of the xeric plants, which grow as well in containers as they do in the ground, without regular watering. All the Yucca plants, and the Agaves, make great container plants, and so do other drought-resistant plants like Tuscan Blue Rosemary and Texan Sage.

[treesellcenter]

Design Your Garden – Part 2

A couple of weeks back we started talking about designing your garden – something people often want to do in spring. If you read that first part – and if you didn’t, you can find it here – then you already know we are not going to get out the drawing board, or buy some fancy computer program, and then spend hours thinking about the perfect garden. No, much better is to get outside and start doing the garden instead. Not crashing around without a plan, but designing on the ground, by looking around and deciding what you actually want your garden to be. Of course, you will at some point have to start measuring and laying paths and beds carefully, but first you need to get a feel for what you have, and what you want.

If you read and followed that first blog, you will by now have a list of your garden assets – trees and healthy plants you want to keep or views you don’t want to block – as well of things you do want to remove or put some screening in front of. You will also have a ‘wish-list’ of things you want in your garden – a barbecue area, space for the kids to play, a vegetable garden, curb appeal – whatever you want, to enjoy your garden more. You might also have taken a look at garden pictures you like, to see what style you want, and maybe considered how much time you have to take care of this garden – no point in taking on something you can maintain.

Garden Styles

In our thoughts last time we emphasized considering the style of your home and choosing a garden style that fits. Building a full-blown Japanese garden around a colonial home is not going to work, but if your heart says ‘Japanese’ and your house says, ‘colonial’, the solution is the other idea we talked about last time – garden rooms.

Screening and Hedges to make Garden Rooms

Hedges and screens take a while to grow, so it makes a lot of sense to get them in the ground first. They will also define the spaces you have, and when you see those areas, there is a good chance you will be inspired to do something with them. A common mistake is to put a big hedge right around your property – or at least on 3 sides, and then stare at that big, blank space. No, think instead about using screening and lower hedges to create rooms, exactly the way your house is laid out indoors. The ‘walls’ can be clipped hedges, more natural rows of upright-growing plants, or beds of shrubs and small trees.  Beds take up the most room, so while they are great for dividing spaces in larger gardens, in smaller ones they can quickly fill the whole garden, so be cautious. Consider shade too, and don’t put in taller plants where you only want a low screen. The taller the screening, the more shade it throws, and the more limited you will be on planting inside that space, so keep the heights minimal.

We can distinguish between screening that blocks a view completely – an evergreen hedge for example, but remember that even there, a 6-foot hedge will give complete privacy – you don’t need a 15-foot monster! The idea of a boundary can be created with a row of plants just a couple of feet tall, and often that is all you are going to need. If you want that Japanese garden with your colonial house, a hedge you can’t see over will be needed, so you have a private place to create a Zen retreat that won’t clash with the look of your home. On the other hand, if the ‘wall’ is around your vegetable garden, a row or raspberry plants, or thornless blackberries, attached to some wires stretched between poles, will give you visual division, while letting in plenty of light, and still showing off those beautiful rows of lettuce and cabbages.

Lay Out the Pathways

You need to get around your garden, but paths can simply be grass, if they don’t get a lot of traffic. Don’t pave everything over – it’s expensive, and mowing grass doesn’t take so long. Follow direct routes from A to B – no one wants to go the long way around for no purpose, Use straight lines for more formal gardens, and sweeping curves for a more relaxed look. Don’t put the path to the front door straight from the road – how about off the driveway, or coming in from the corner? You get the idea.

Shade and Specimen Trees

Trees give a real sense of permanence to a garden, as well as welcome shade in summer. But many grow large, and there is nothing sadder than seeing a 30-year-old tree being cut down because it has outgrown a space it should never have been planted in. Think carefully about where to plant trees, because they are going to be in that spot for a long time. As a ‘rule-of-thumb’, never plant a tree closer to a building or boundary than half its maximum width. Further away is better. Many traditional trees, like maple, oak, or southern magnolia, grow large, and with today’s shrinking lot sizes, they are simply too big. Consider instead one of the smaller varieties of these trees – the Teddy Bear Southern Magnolia for example, if you love the tree, but don’t have the room for the classic version.

A silver maple can grow over 50 feet tall and wide, and engulf a garden, leaving no room or light for much else. On the other hand, there are fast-growing Japanese maples that grow 15 to 20 feet tall, and they are often much better choices for smaller places. Birch too are fast and throw a nice area of light shade. Flowering trees have leaves too, and many make good shade trees after their flowering, and of course a fruit tree can serve triple purpose, giving flowers in spring, shade in summer, and a harvest of home-grown goodness in fall.

Start with What you Love

Many people spend a lot of time considering what to buy, but if you have some space to fill, a really simple approach is to start of with things you like the look and sound of, and then get a bunch, but for this first round, don’t get too much. Go out into the garden, and start playing around with them, as you might with your furniture indoors. Take a tape and measure how wide they are expected to grow, and just stand them around the garden, thinking about creating those ‘rooms’ for your activities.

Now, what are you missing? An accent plant in that corner over there? Some rounded bushes to soften the edge of your house? Something flowering to plant underneath that tree? Time for ‘round two’, where you now look for quite specific plants, that will complete the picture, the way you got that rocking chair to put in the empty corner of your living room, remember?

Now Start Choosing

Next time, to finish this instant guide to garden planning, we will look at some basic things to consider when making those choices, especially for that ‘second round’, where you really want to achieve a balanced look in your garden. For now, organize those basic hedges and screens we started with, to make your outdoor rooms. Choose your major trees, and start browsing the site, making a note of things you simply like the look of. Check back for Part 3 or this ‘no-plan’ approach to garden planning.

[treesellcenter]

Months and Months of Camellias in Bloom – It’s Easy!

If you live in southern parts of the country, you probably know the camellia, that gorgeous evergreen bush with large, often rose-like flowers, at different times during the winter and spring. If you live in more northern areas, you probably think they are not for you, with their need for mild winters and acid soil, but in reality, if you have a cool, bright place to grow them, they are very easy to keep all year round, and even enjoy the blooms indoors. In the days of grand homes and grand balls it used to be fashionable to bring plants in bloom into the ballrooms, and for the women to wear corsages of the flowers – you probably aren’t planning to do that, but nevertheless, camellias are fabulous shrubs to grow, and with some planning you can have one or more in bloom starting in fall, and continuing into the spring – something that many people don’t realize. Not only are there different natural species that bloom at different times, but enterprising plant breeders have crossed some of them together, to create new forms. With the many different types of blooms, in every conceivable shade of palest pink to the darkest burgundy, plus white, you can enjoy a wonderful display for months and months. Let’s take a look at the basic possibilities.

Sasanqua Camellia

This is the camellia bush, called Camellia sasanqua by the botanists, which is going to start your camellia season for you. These naturally bloom in fall, and they are usually finished blooming by Christmas at the latest, and usually earlier. The reason they are not often recognized as different is that they do look almost identical to the spring blooming camellias (we will look at them in a minute), although the bushes are usually more open in shape, and arching, rather than tightly upright. They also grow faster, which is an added bonus, and because they have longer, more flexible branches they can easily be trained onto a wall or trellis, which is a great way to grow them if you have limited space available, or a small garden.

A great place to start to grow these fall and early winter bloomers is with the October Magic® series. These newer varieties have been specially bred not just to bloom from October towards Christmas, but they are smaller than many others, so they fit perfectly in smaller spaces, and even better, they are ideal for pot growing, which means that whatever type of soil you have, or wherever you live, you can grow them. In the garden you need to have acid soil, with a pH close to 5.5, and not above 6.5, for the best growth, but if you don’t have that, then grow them in pots. Make sure the pots have drainage holes, use potting soil and fertilizer for acid-loving plants, and you can grow them easily.

If you live in zones cooler than zone 7, which is their limit for outdoor hardiness, then you can bring your pots inside once freezing temperatures are approaching. The ideal winter environment is a cool, well-lit place, with bright filtered light. A glassed-in porch is often perfect, and if it doesn’t have any heat, just add a temperature-controlled heater that will come on when the temperature drops below 35 degrees, and you will have them blooming away while the frost bites outdoors. How cool is that! A couple of great choices from the October Magic® series are White Shi-Shi

, with pristine, pure-white flowers in a formal shape of neatly arranged petals in geometric circles, and Sparkling Burgundy

, with more informal flowers in a delicious shade of deep pink, and a cluster of irregular petals surrounded by a circle of outer ones, like a peony.

Japanese Camellia

This species, Camellia japonica, is the most well-known type of camellia, and it is the type most widely grown all over the world where the climate is suitable. This is the plant often called Rose of Winter, or Rose of the South. These have a very upright, dense form, and most grow between 5 and 10 feet tall, and often just as wide. They usually flower between January and March, but some varieties flower earlier or later than that.

With such a wide range of forms, there are Japanese camellias for every taste. As for color, all possible shades between pure-white, cream, pink, and the darkest reds are found. As well, there are exotic forms with white or pink petals splashed with darker pink or red, often with every flower turning out differently. Blooms last a long time in the garden, with the cooler winter weather, and they can be brought inside and dropped into a bowl of water, where they will last for days and days. Maybe another time we will go into more detail, but since we are talking about extending the camellia season beyond spring, let’s move on.

Hybrid Camellias

Some plants casually called ‘sasanqua’ are really hybrids, called Camellia x hyemalis, or Camellia x vernalis, which were created by crossing a sasanqua camellia with a Japanese camellia. As we might expect, these bloom between Christmas and late winter, filling the gap between the two main types. With these in your collection you keep the party going through what otherwise would be a few bloomless months, between the two main types.

A great plant that will usually bloom exactly for Christmas is the variety called ‘Yuletide’, which has the perfect big Christmas-red blooms, in an open form, with a brush of yellow stamens in the center. Sometimes starting in October, this great plant blooms for months, and will usually give you blossoms to decorate the Christmas table – what more could you wish for?

Another beautiful hybrid variety to look for is a Japanese original called ‘Kanjirô’. This vigorous grower is a beautiful mid-pink, and well worth waiting for if you don’t find it immediately. Unlike most other hybrids, it blooms in fall, alongside the true sasanqua varieties.

One hybrid we can’t overlook is the ‘Two Marthas’ variety. We don’t know who the two women were, but we do know what a great fall-blooming variety this is, with its unique lavender-pink blooms. It flowers mostly in October and November, and there are two other reasons to grow this variety. Zone 7, although technically a ‘camellia zone’, can be rough on varieties that bloom in winter. If there is a cold-snap, the flower buds can die, because they are already active, while those on the Japanese camellias are still sleeping, and will survive. But ‘Two Marthas’ can tough it out, and it will bloom reliably in zone 7. Amazingly, it is also a top-choice for Florida and hot areas where many varieties can succumb to the heat. Make sure you give this beauty a go in your garden.

Another great bloomer for late winter, just before the spring flowering camellias begin, is ‘Pink Icicle’, with large, gorgeous shell-pink blooms that will win your heart. Now if you live in zone 6, this one is especially interesting because it is one of the hardiest camellias around, and it will grow and bloom in a sheltered spot in zone 6. If you have it there in a pot, you can have the insurance of bringing into a protected shed or garage for a night or two if there is an extreme cold-snap, so go for it, and be the person in your neighborhood with a camellia in the garden. Depending on where you grow it, this beauty will bloom in February, March or April, long before anything else in your garden gets going.

You can see by now that with all these choices, all it takes is a little careful shopping to fill your garden with camellia blooms from fall to spring, making winter an exciting time in the garden, and filling the time until spring and summer blooms return again.

[treesellcenter]

Design Your Garden – Part 1

With winter drawing to a close in most parts of the country – and flowers already showing on early bloomers in the south – it seems like a good time to put some thought into laying out your garden. Perhaps you have just moved into a new home, with an existing garden that you don’t like, and you picture something much better. Maybe your present garden is overgrown and not what you would like. Whichever is you, creating something better is not as hard as you might think. You don’t need to be artistic, or know all about plants, you just need to know what you want and what you like. This will be the first of a series scattered over the next few weeks, with ideas of how to go about that. Let’s get started.

When most people think ‘design your garden’ they picture either hiring a designer or being able to draw beautiful plans with pencil and paper or use a computer design program. Far better, and easier, is to work standing in the garden, instead of sitting at your computer with a program that you now must learn how to use. It is very easy to get lost in the process and the software, and forget the goal, so let’s forget all about that stuff. Instead, start with what you already have, and what you want.

Your Existing Assets

What trees or larger shrubs are already on your property? Make a list and try to identify them – maybe a neighboring gardener can help with that. If you like the look of them, let’s try to keep them, unless they are obviously in the way of something important you want. In a perfect world you would wait a year to see what your garden does, but that is rarely practical for most of us, who want to get on with thing. Make a list, and if you want, draw a rough sketch showing where they are. Trees take decades to grow, and sometimes a tree can be greatly improved by a tree surgeon, so don’t be quick with that chain saw! Smaller shrubs are much more expendable, and most older gardens have lots of worn-out old shrubs, in old varieties, which can easily be replaced with much better plants, that will grow quickly – so unless they seem special, or are in a good location, treat them as expendable.

Your Wish List

Now sit down and think about what you want your garden for. There are lots of options. Casual barbeques with the family? Entertaining friends? A play area for your children? A secluded place to retreat too with a book/beer/cocktail? A place to grow food to supplement the table, enjoy real freshness and save money? A beautiful welcome on the street for visitors and to raise that all-important curb appeal? Attractive views from windows? A collection of rare and unusual plants?

You can see there are lots of possible choices, so make a list in order of importance. Some of these things are general concepts, but others need particular areas – perhaps a lawn, patio, play-house, vegetable plot, etc.

Create Outdoor Rooms

Your home already comes equipped with rooms for different functions, but your garden is open, and probably has no more than an area between the house and the road, and an area out back. Creating spaces for those activities is a great approach to garden design, with functional areas that satisfy the different activities. Don’t forget – as designers often do – to have a space for compost, storing soil or manure, and perhaps you want an outdoor building for garden tools and supplies, if you don’t have room in, or easy access to, your garage.

Now stand in the garden, at the curb, or at those windows, like the kitchen, and think about how to arrange those spaces. For example, if you have a kids’ play space on your list, you probably want it where you can keep an eye on them from the kitchen, or wherever you spend most of your time. The retreat you dream off will be best in a corner somewhere – just not next to the compost bins! Those too should be tucked away, and while a bed of kitchen herbs is useful just outside the backdoor, a vegetable garden can be further away. If you do have a site drawing to scale, then you can make pieces of paper roughly the size you think you need for those activities, and juggle them around on the plan, but really, standing out in the garden and going, “maybe over here for the barbeque”, is an approach that works better for many people. Some string and sticks are useful to sketch out areas, or a hose. Working on the ground is almost always easier if you are not a designer, as we think better in real situations.

Choose a Style

So now you have a general idea of what you want to keep, and a feel for where you might want to have the functional areas of your garden – including any patio or terraces. Now, time to relax and think about general styling. This is a matter of personal taste, and what kind of an area you already have. For example, if you have an older home, it could be mid-century, or even older (at least in style). A mid-century home looks best surrounded by curved beds and flowing pathways, in the same style as your home. Likewise, if you have a colonial-style home, then a more formal layout, with low hedges and some clipped plants is more appropriate.

If you are not sure what you like, pick up a pile of gardening magazines, or create a Pinterest folder, and collect garden pictures you like. When you look at them all together, your taste in gardens will stare back at you.

If you live in a rural area, you might have a wooded area, so a semi-natural, woodland garden will probably be best. With a town home you most likely have a small, enclosed courtyard-style garden, and something minimal and perhaps Asian-influenced might look perfect. In a larger garden there is a general ‘rule’ that close to the house should be more in keeping with the architecture (modern, formal, etc.) but as you move away the garden should become more relaxed and natural. Even if you are not in a natural area, you can create that look by planting a mixture of shade and flowering trees around the boundary, mixed with larger shrubs and ground-cover, which will gradually become ‘semi-wild’ as the plants grow and mature.

How Much Time do You Have?

This is a vital question to end with for now, before you get too far along the road. This is not about the time to build your garden – which of course is also important, but about how much time you have or want to give to it long term. Every garden needs some attention, particularly at key times of year, if only for general clean up. Features like formal hedges and clipped plants, or areas with bulbs and annual flowers, need more work, so realistically, how much time to you have, and how much time do you want to spend working in your garden? Think of hours per week – zero, two, five, ten? The answer will help you decide what to plan and plant, which we will talk about in the next blog in a couple of weeks. By then you will have all this preliminary looking and thinking sorted, right?

[treesellcenter]

Growing Encore Azaleas in Pots

Encore Azaleas, with their continuous flowering from spring to fall, have become THE most popular azalea in warmer states, displacing the older types, that only flower in spring. Not only are the Encore Azaleas beautiful, they are also vigorous and fast-growing, typically adding 12 inches a year, and soon becoming large plants. Their final size depends on the type you choose but can be anything from 2½ to 5 feet tall.

Everyone wants to grow these beauties, but of course not everyone can, because they are limited by winter hardiness or the soil conditions in their garden. Most Encore Azaleas are only hardy to zone 7, although some will grow well in sheltered spots in zone 6. Like other azaleas, they need acidic soil, and although you can, with a lot of effort, grow them in neutral soils, if your soil does not suit, basically you are out of luck – at least you might think you are.

There is a solution to these problems, that anyone, anywhere, can do, and that is to grow these lovely plants in pots or planters. In any kind of container, it is easy to control the soil conditions, and if you have somewhere suitable to keep them during the coldest weeks of the year, then wherever you live you can enjoy the months of flowering these gorgeous plants bring you. Let’s look at the simple steps to successfully growing Encore Azaleas in pots, so that everyone can easily have these wonderful plants in their gardens. Here at The Tree Center we specialize in them, and you can check out our mouthwatering selection for this year on our web-site. Feast your eyes, then read on to see how easy it all is. . .

Choose the Right Container

The first step in successfully growing Encore Azaleas in pots is to choose suitable containers. It is fortunate that azaleas have fine, fibrous root systems, because it means they will live happily in pots for years and years. Even large bushes thrive in them, but you will need to move young plants up into larger pots as they grow. The root system is shallow, so broad, shallower pots are best, rather than deep, narrow ones. A good size is where the height is two-thirds of the diameter of the pot – these are even called ‘azalea pots’. Simple clay pots are best, because the soil absorbs more oxygen for the roots, but they do need to be watered more often, so if you are not able to do that, plastic pots are fine too. You can put a simple pot inside a slightly larger ornamental one for a more decorative look.

The vital thing about any pots you use, or any planters you use, is that they must have drainage holes – at least one large one. This is essential, and you cannot grow azaleas in pots without drainage.

Use the Right Soil

You are using a pot because your garden soil is not suitable, right? So it follows that you need to use a suitable soil – one that is acidic. You can buy at your local garden center or hardware potting soils labelled for acid-loving plants. This is the soil to use, NOT regular potting soil for houseplants or other shrubs. Buy a good-quality soil, not something cut-price – your plants are going to be in it for their whole lives, so give them a good start.

Pot Them the Right Way

When you buy your new Encore Azaleas, you may be able to grow them in the existing pots for the first season. If the pot looks small for the amount of foliage – they should be about the same volume – then plant into a new pot right away. Soak the plant the night before potting and cover the drainage hole with a single stone or piece of broken pot. Do not put a layer of gravel, stones or charcoal in the bottom – it will reduce the soil available for the roots, and it does NOT ‘improve drainage’.

Put a layer of new potting soil over the bottom of the pot, slide the plant out of its pot, and place it in the center, so that the existing soil level is a little less than one inch below the rim of the pot. There should be no more than 2 or 3 inches a space left around the plant to fill with new soil – don’t plant into pots that are a lot bigger than the existing one. Fill with soil around the plant, press it lightly down around the roots, leaving an inch of space above the soil to make watering easier. Water thoroughly and you are done. There should be just a very thin layer of new soil over the top of the old rootball.

Every year, or every second year as the plants grow older, move into a larger pot in early spring, before the new growth begins. Once the pot is large you can re-pot into the same pot by taking an large kitchen fork and scrapping an inch or two or old soil off the root ball, and trimming the roots a little, before potting back into the cleaned pot.

Feed Them the Right Way

Start feeding as soon as you have re-potted your Encore Azalea. Buy a liquid fertilizer designed for azaleas and Rhododendrons and follow the directions carefully. Usually you will feed in early spring, before flowering, and once a month until mid-fall, but some instructions may differ. Don’t use other kinds of general fertilizers, but only something for azaleas.

Water Them the Right Way

Watering is the key to a long and successful life for your Encore Azalea growing in a pot. Always water thoroughly, and never leave them standing in a saucer of water, especially if you are using plastic pots. It is OK to leave them in a full saucer if you are going away for a week, and are worried they will get too dry, but not as a regular habit – the roots will rot. Always water thoroughly, so that some excess water or fertilizer liquid flows out of the drainage holes. Water again once you see the top of the soil is looking dry, but not if it isn’t. This could be every day or two in mid-summer, and once a week or less in winter. Let the soil be your guide, not the time.

Treat Them Right in Winter

Encore Azaleas like more sun than other azaleas, and one of the advantages of growing in a pot is that you can move them around to get the best conditions. Full sun from fall the early summer, and morning sun in summer is ideal, but they are adaptable, and they will grow in partial shade very well.

If you are in a colder zone, then you can bring your plants indoors when the temperature is approaching freezing and keep them indoors until it warms up again. The ideal place is a cold, well-lit porch or glassed-in terrace that is about 40 degrees, and not hot. Cool is important, as you cannot keep your plants in a hot room for more than a few days. If you have such a space, there is no limit to being able to grow these great plants – simply bring them in during the cold periods and grow them outdoors for the rest of the year.

It’s easy to grow Encore Azaleas in pots, so no you have no reason to miss out on the beauty of these fabulous plants in your garden – enjoy!

[treesellcenter]

White in the Garden

Planting up your garden is a big project, depending of course on how big your garden is, and how complex you want it to be. Along with choosing sizes, shapes, evergreen or deciduous, and what will grow where, there are many possibilities to consider with color, from both foliage and flowers. When we go out to a garden center there is a tendency to be attracted by unusual colors, and plants with dark red flowers, or purple and red leaves, are always big sellers. One color that is often ignored or passed by is white, which is very often seen as ‘boring’, or ‘colorless’. Gardens with only white flowers come in and out of fashion over the years, and they can be seen as either high-fashion or pretentious, depending on when and where they are. But used with other colors white has a lot going for it, so let’s consider how and why using white in the garden is a great thing to do.

White Always Stands Out

A wonderful virtue of white is that it always shows up, and never disappears into the background. A problem with dark colored leaves and flowers is that they can look rich and vibrant close-up, but a few yards away they can disappear. This is especially a problem in shaded areas, where these colors often vanish into the shadows. White will never do this – in fact it glows out of the darkest corner, catching the eye from across the other side of the garden, and opening up the scene. As well, white is at its best in late afternoon and on long summer evenings – which is often exactly when we use the garden, after a busy day at work. The calming effect is clear, and it makes a relaxing and yet sophisticated atmosphere – perfect to chill out in after a stressful day.

The lesson is that while white becomes ‘washed out’ in sunny spots, in shade, in the early evening, or on cloudy days, it really stands out, and the focus on using it should be in those situations. Where you live is an important factor. If you are reading this in New Mexico, then you will almost certainly instead go for bright colors, because the sun is always there. If you live in Oregon, or the north-east, cloud is a fact of daily life, and on those cloudy days your garden will look at its best if you have added plenty of white to the mix.

White Never Clashes with Other Colors

Worrying about what colors go with what is a regular concern of gardeners who want to create a harmonious scene in their garden beds. Sometimes we worry too much about this, because green is a great harmonizer, and if you have plenty of green leaves around the atmosphere will be forgiving in a way that doesn’t happen with interior decorating. Even so, often when we look at a garden, we see nice colors used, but the overall effect is flat and unexciting. Using acidic yellows to lift plantings of pinks and purples is a well-known designer’s ‘trick’, but for all color plantings, white has the same effect. It magically lifts all other colors to a higher level, brightening and intensifying them, and turning a dull bed into a beautiful vision.

Yet because it is often seen as ‘no color’, many gardeners ignore it, and lose out on the beauty it brings. The great historic color-gardener Gertrude Jekyll, who gardened in England in the late 19th century, and invented the idea of blending garden colors, would always grow a supply of white-flowering plants in pots and use them when she noticed dull areas, or where something like bulbs had died down and left a gap. Most of us today don’t have the facilities behind the scenes to do such a thing, but the idea that ‘white will always work’ is a good one.

Where to Use White Plants

Otto Luyken Cherry Laurel

Around our homes we often plant ‘foundation planting’. These shrubs make the transition from the hard, upright lines of a building into the soft, rounded shapes of the garden. The hide foundations and utilities, cover blank walls, and hold our homes in the hands of our gardens. So that it always looks attractive, it is usual to use evergreens for most of this planting. If you are in areas warm enough for flowering evergreens, then choosing white flowering ones makes a lot of sense. No matter what the color of your walls, or if in the future you decide to re-finish them, when the flowers are out there can never be a clash, and everything will look harmonious.

We also often put larger shrubs in the background of beds. ‘Larger’ could be 5 feet in a smaller bed, or 15 feet in a bigger one. I am not suggesting avoiding plants with beautiful colors all together, but a good balance of white blooms in those areas makes the perfect neutral background, so that you can play around in front with roses and flowers without any color problems.

Some Useful Plants with White Flowers

Itea Little Henry

If you live in warmer zones, a great choice for background and foundation planting are the Encore Azaleas. These fast-growing plants will grow well in sun or light shade, such as along the north wall of a house, and as long as you have the necessary acid soil, they are easy to grow. Their big feature is flowering not just in spring, but also through summer, with an ‘encore’ blooming in fall too, bringing flowers for months. In the range of Encore Azaleas there are three with white flowers, that work well for different scale planting.

The smallest is Autumn Ivory, growing just 2½ feet tall and 3 feet wide. It’s ideal for weaving areas of white among brighter colors. Next in size is Autumn Angel, growing 3 feet tall, perfect for smaller beds and the front of foundation plantings. Then there are Autumn Moonlight and Autumn Lily, both between 4 and 5 feet tall, which is perfect for the back of smaller beds, or around the house. Autumn Moonlight is especially useful, because it will reach 5 feet tall, but stay only 4 feet wide, so for a narrow space against a north-facing wall, or between a path and a fence, it really cannot be beaten.

Other good choices for white-flowering foundation shrubs include Cherry Laurel (Prunus laurocerasus), especially one with smaller leaves which flowers profusely with 4-inch spikes of tiny white flowers every spring. This is the Otto Luyken Cherry Laurel, which is the very best choice in all but the largest gardens, as even un-clipped it won’t grow much over 8 feet tall and wide.

Another more uncommon shrub to consider for shade, especially if you have damp, shady areas, is Virginia Sweetspire, or Itea Little Henry, now more correctly called Cyrilla racemiflora ‘Sprich’. Growing just 2 or 3 feet tall, with scented white flowers all summer, its perfect to edge a shady pathway, or between a lawn and a wooded area, and the white blooms will glow out of the shade, just like we suggested earlier that it would.

Once you start looking out for white-flowering plants you will see just how common they are, and have lots of material to work with that won’t disappear into the shade, or clash with other colors – top reasons why white should be your top choice.

[treesellcenter]

Plants for the Beach

The days are beginning to lengthen, and although we are still in the grip of winter in most areas, spring cannot be far away. Within a few weeks it will be time to hit the beach, and if you are fortunate enough to live on the coast, or have a beach cottage, then it is also time to do something about the surroundings – without of course turning it into work. The last thing you want to do at the beach is water and take care of fussy plants, and that could be why, right now, the only plants around your cottage are some wild dune grasses – right?

The beach certainly seems like an inhospitable place for plants, and many people just assume that nothing will grow there – after all, the ‘soil’ is almost pure sand, and it is always dry. Plus, the salt spray from the ocean burns the leaves of many plants, and they soon die. While all this is true, in fact there are many plants that will grow well even right on the edge of the beach, and many more that will grow well a little further back. Some early care is necessary, with regular watering for the first season, but after that you can relax, and get back to the lounger, with some beautiful plants to look at. Let’s look at some of the top choices of easy-care trees and shrubs you can plant around your cottage.

Plants for Beach-side Planting

Pine Trees – Japanese pines, both Black and White, are great, and for something different, plant the Arnold Sentinel Austrian Pine

Wax Myrtle – a beach-front standard, American native and terrific bushy evergreen for the most exposed and driest places. Source of bayberries.

Juniper Trees – always reliable with salt-spray and dryness, but plant the Hollywood Juniper for its already wind-swept and twisted character

Yucca & Agave – desert plants for the hottest and driest spots, surviving in the harshest spots, and growing in pure sand, these are just what you want for easy color

Pine Trees

Rugged pines seem like naturals for the beach, and if you choose wisely, they certainly are. The sensitivity of pines to salt varies, so it’s important to plant the right species. In areas like Long Island, the Japanese Black Pine has been planted for decades, but these trees are declining in some areas, so it may not be the best choice. If you live elsewhere, where this rugged tree is thriving, then it remains a great choice.

There is another pine from Japan – White Pine – which is just as salt tolerant, and it makes a great alternative. Don’t confuse it with the Eastern White Pine, Pinus strobus, an American native tree, which is often seen growing along the shores of lakes, and a great choice for a lake-side cottage, but too salt-sensitive for the beach. Make sure you choose the Japanese White Pine, Pinus parviflora, which is even more salt-resistant than the widely-planted Japanese Black Pine.

Another good choice is Austrian Pine, Pinus nigra, and there is a special upright form of this tree that would look great beside the door of your beach house – Arnold Sentinel Pine. This selected form grows into a narrow column of needles and would be perfect near the beach. Very cold hardy too, it would be great even on the coast of Maine.

Wax Myrtle

It often pays to look at native plants that can be found wild at the beach – after all, they are already perfectly adapted to it. Wax Myrtle is a shrubby evergreen, that botanists call Myrica cerifera. It is perfect for an informal hedge or screen, and the glossy, leathery leaves of this shrub are untouched by salt spray, even right on the shore-line. Once established it will deliver a bonus you can harvest when you close up for the season. The small gray berries you will find among the leaves in fall are bayberries, used to make high-end scented candles. Simmer them in a pot of water to fill the house at Christmas with a spicy aroma – and look forward to the coming summer. This great shrub can reach 15 feet tall, so be careful not to block the view. It can be kept lower and shrubby with trimming or pruned up with one or two trunks into an attractive small tree. No beach garden should be without this reliable drought-tolerant plant.

Junipers

Almost all the Juniper trees are salt and drought tolerant, so they are top choices too. They form dense, upright plants, although some have more character. An outstanding variety for the beach is the Hollywood Juniper, Juniperus chinensis ‘Kaizuka’ (also known as ‘Torulosa’), which, despite its name is hardy to zone 4. This plant and is very different from the normal flat, spreading junipers or narrow upright ones – although they are all perfect choices too. Every individual bush is different, with multiple branches reaching out, and rounded clusters of dense foliage developing as the tree matures. It already has the wind-swept look that makes it perfect along the shore, and it is salt and drought resistant – of course.

Another tough Juniper with a very narrow form is the Skyrocket Juniper, a selected form of a tough plant often recommended for seashore planting. Juniperus virginiana ‘Skyrocket’ lives up to its name and grows into a silver-blue column of foliage – a great contrast with rounded plants like wax myrtle.

Yucca and Agave

Another place to turn for tough plants is the desert. Dryness leads to high salt content in the soil, and the winds are often laden with minerals blown from the ground, so salt-resistance is common in desert plants. The similar looking Yucca and Agave plants are all perfect for the beach. Yucca has drier, leathery leaves, while Agave are thick and fleshy. The Blue Agave, Agave americana, forms huge leaves 6 feet long, in a giant mound, arching out from the center. This striking plant looks perfect near the sea – even its color reflects the water and the sky. Once established it will just grow and grow, until perhaps one day it will send up a giant flower spike up to 30 feet into the air – worth waiting for!

Smaller and more compact are the different Yucca plants, which form clumps of leaves 2 or 3 feet tall. Pick from the Blue Sentry Yucca, or two variegated forms, Color Guard and Golden Sword. All of them are forms of the native Yucca filamentosa, recognizable by the fine threads that grow from the edges of the leaves. The variegated varieties are banded in green and gold, and make a bright splash against plain green leaves, or among blue forms. Fill the sunny areas around the house with them and you will have color and interest all year round.

[treesellcenter]

The Butterfly Bush Debate

Over the last few years there has been an enormous growth in interest in preserving our natural environments. They are under threat from multiple directions, with everything from climate change and logging to too many visitors threatening the great natural areas of this country. In some areas there has been an additional threat – garden plants that are not native to America have escaped into natural environments, especially near cities, and these can spread and make life more difficult for native species. This threat from ‘alien species’ is taken very seriously, and with the rapid communication of social media certain plants have become ‘the enemy’ very quickly.

One plant that has been on the radar as an alien species for some years now is the Butterfly Bush, called Buddleja or Buddleia by botanists. This old-fashioned garden plant is loved by many, both for the beauty and bright coloring of its large flowers, and for the butterflies and other insects it attracts to your garden – to the delight of children. Many people have fond memories of summers at grandma’s, gazing at those beautiful insects fluttering around her butterfly bush, and want to re-create those memories for their own children and grandchildren. As well, this is a very easy plant to grow, thriving in hot, sunny spots, with dry soil, where growing other plants is hard. Then there is the long blooming period, from mid-summer to the first frost, which is amazing for such an easy to grow plant.

The Problem with the Butterfly Bush

The basic problem with the butterfly bush is that it produces lots of seed, which is easily spread into surrounding areas. In some cities these plants are common on waste ground and around abandoned buildings, and they have also spread into completely natural areas, along the edges of woodlands for example. Environmental activists in some states have campaigned successfully to have these plants banned – most successfully in Oregon and Washington state – so that they cannot be sold. Most people are responsive to their environmental responsibilities, and we all want simple answers, so many gardeners have simply stopped growing this plant.

But wait – there must be more to this, because no less an organization than the North American Butterfly Association, a group dedicated to preserving butterflies, and whose members across the country create butterfly gardens, published a special issue in 2014, where some members put another side to this. In particular, Alan Branhagen, the Executive Director of Horticulture at the Kansas City Botanical Garden, studied the spread of Buddleja for 15 years, and found that, yes, it does spread into areas of abandoned ground, but he never saw it growing in any natural wild areas. And here is the thing – when most people see Nature, they see it from their car, or along a trail. Neither of these are natural, and they are sunny spots where Buddleja thrive – not deeper shady woodlands, where this plant is unlikely to flower at all. So are we getting a false picture? How real is the threat to un-touched natural spaces?

The other thing to consider is where you live – location, location, location! The climate in Oregon, with its mild winters and plentiful rainfall for seeds to easily germinate, seems to be a place where this plant does spread. But what about in the Midwest, or North, where harsh winters typically kill this plant to the ground, and only in a garden, with pruning and care, can it be over-wintered at all? What about in drier states, where early heat in spring will shrivel a seedling in a day or two? In many areas there doesn’t actually seem to be a problem, so if you live in places like this, these plants, that provide season-long food for many the adults of many different species of butterflies, might better be seen as an asset, not a liability.

Practical Solutions are Available

In the end it seems that the question is, “On the ground, in your own garden, what should you do?” Fortunately, gardeners are an enterprising group, and once this problem surfaced they set to work to solve it.

At the simplest level, there is a very easy solution. As the flowers on your butterfly bush fade, snip them off. Simple. That way no seed is produced, and no spread from your garden plant is possible. Plus, you stimulate more flower production, and actually help your bush to produce more blossoms – so a double benefit. This job does take a little time, but if you only have one or two bushes it really isn’t difficult. You have a window of a couple of weeks after flowering finishes on a spike before it is anywhere near producing seed, so it doesn’t have to be done every day.

If this sounds too difficult, and you don’t have the time, there are still solutions. The older varieties of butterfly bush are simply selections of the original species collected in China, Buddleja davidii. They produce lots of seeds. But gardeners love to breed plants, and some butterfly bush plants that are easily available, with big flowers and great colors, are hybrids – the result of breeding with another species. These produce very little if any seed, and even the state of Oregon – who have researched this issue extensively, because of their ban – have given the ‘stamp of approval’ to some hybrid varieties, specifically, ‘Miss Molly’, ‘Miss Ruby’, ‘Miss Violet’, and ‘Lilac Chip’. These can legally be sold and grown in Oregon, and of course that makes them good, safe choices for anywhere else too.

Also, plant breeders at Universities, notably Dr. Peter Podaras at Cornell University, plus Dennis Werner and Layne Snelling at North Carolina State University have worked with many different Buddleja species to create new hybrids that they have tested, and which produce no seed. To avoid confusion, many of these have been re-named as ‘Nectar Bush’, and if you see this name, or the names FLUTTERBY

, FLUTTERBY GRANDÉ

, or FLUTTERBY PETITE

, all these plants are safe and legal to grow anywhere. Similarly, any name containing the word ‘Chip’ is a safe butterfly bush to grow, and so are the varieties, ‘Asian Moon’ and ‘Purple Haze’. (‘Miss Ruby’ is shown in the picture above.)

Here at the Tree Center we take our environmental responsibilities seriously. You will find plenty of beautiful butterfly bushes on our site, and most of them will be safe to grow even in Oregon and Washington – or anywhere else you want to be extra careful. When we do sell varieties that can produce seed, we assume that people who buy them either live in colder or drier areas, where these plants don’t pose a threat, or they are happy to carefully remove all the flowers once they fade, making it impossible for their plants to spread. Wherever you live, you can still grow this beautiful plant, and attract butterflies to your garden too, so enjoy them with a clear conscience. If you are still uncomfortable, then there are lots of other great summer flowering plants for hot, dry spots – crape myrtle bushes anyone?

[treesellcenter]

Save Space and Add Beauty – Grow Shrubs Against a Wall

So many plants – so little room! The challenges in small gardens are considerable, but they all have to do with space, such as how to choose plants that won’t grow too large, and how to have continuous color and effect from a limited number of plants. There is one simple way to expand the range of plants being grown and add a whole extra layer of interest to a small space – while taking up almost no room – and that is with wall shrubs. Imagine your walls and fences covered in green, and full of blooms of all possible colors. Instead of hard, drab surfaces, the softness of foliage, and flowers and berries decorating your home and buildings. Sounds great, and it’s easy to do.

Shrubs, not Climbers

For some reason, when people think about covering walls, they usually choose climbing plants, but these can have limitations, and cause problems. If they cling naturally, they will often damage the surface, and even burrow through the walls. If not, they need elaborate trellising, and they can also get onto a roof or chimneys and need to be cut back at some expense.

A better way to cover walls is with shrubs, which can be attached with a simple system, and which are not rampant like many climbers, and can be chosen for their flowers or foliage. As well, growing shrubs on walls opens up the possibility of growing plants that don’t normally survive in your area. A south-facing wall is warmer and drier that the surrounding garden, so you can grow plants from as much as a zone further south, and ones that need a drier climate too. Always wanted a fig tree? It could be possible if you grow it on a warm wall.

Many people are more familiar with growing fruit trees on walls, in the French style called ‘espalier’, often in complex geometrical forms. These take a lot of training and commitment – great for hobby gardeners but not so good for the rest of us who just want a garden with interesting plants that isn’t too much work. But the same methods in a simplified form can be used for almost any flowering shrub, and the results are spectacular. Any shrub with long, flexible stems can be grown this way, as all you need to be able to do is bend them back a little. If you can bend it, you can grow it on a wall, and imagination is the only limit.

What kinds of shrubs are good choices?

Almost any flowering tree can be grown this way. Southern magnolia is magnificent on a wall. It blooms better, and you can grow it a zone further north than normal if the wall is south-facing. Trees like cherry and crab apple make a spectacular picture in spring. Long-blooming shrubs like crape myrtle are a terrific choice, and again you can extend the growing region. A popular choice is the firethorn, which gives a double display when the white spring flowers turn into orange berries in fall and through much of the winter. Other shrubs like butterfly bushes and mock orange are great too. You can also grow evergreens – a holly bush will look lovely all year round, and spectacular in fall and winter with a heavy crop of berries. Then there are less common choices, like a Japanese maple, or even a pine tree. As we have already said, almost anything can be grown, but the best choices are plants with a more open growth habit, which means longer branches that can be bent easily and tie to the wall.

This is what to do:

choose a plant suitable for the light conditions of your wall. South-facing walls are very desirable, as it is there you can grow those plants that find your area a little cold. A west wall is almost as good, and east walls work well too. North walls are more limited, since there is no direct sun at all, but a bright north wall will support a holly tree, for example, and probably a Japanese maple too. Some hydrangeas would work too, especially taller ones like the oakleaf hydrangea, and taller panicle hydrangeas too.

Prepare the planting spot just as you would anywhere else in the garden, by adding compost, rotted manure, rotted leaves or just some peat moss. Add a starter fertilizer, which could just be some superphosphate, to feed the root system.

Plant your shrub close to the base of the wall, to save space and make it easier to attach it. As well, if you are ‘pushing the envelope’ and trying to grow a warm-zone plant that needs drier conditions, then close to the wall stays much drier naturally.

Choose a support system. If you have a wooden wall or fence, then you can choose to just put in nails where you need them, and then tie the stem to the nail head. Usually, though, and certainly if you have brick or stone to deal with, it is better to attach a series of wires across the wall. Insert a row of ring-bolts going up the wall at either end. Space these evenly – 18 inches apart is common, but you can change that depending on what you are growing. Then attach a strong, durable wire to the bolts at one end, and to a wire-stretcher at the other. These are the same as are used for fencing, and they allow you tighten the wires in the beginning, and later, if they stretch a bit, as the often do. The wires need to be tight. It’s a simple DIY job.

Start tying in the stems of your bush, spreading them out across the area. As new shoots develop, keep tying them in as they grow. Use a loose loop of soft but durable string, or a loose twist-tie. Notice the word, ‘loose’. If you tie the branches tightly the ties will cut into them as the stems thicken, eventually strangling and killing them. Use as few ties as possible, and keep an eye on them, in case they break, or become too tight.

Curving branches flower more. While you want height, there is a great benefit to bending the stems more horizontal and also bending the tips over until they face downwards a little. You stimulate side-shoots, and this encourages more flowering than you will see on a plant grown ‘naturally’. Follow the same basic pruning rules for flowering shrubs – prune spring flowering plants shortly after they flower, and prune summer flowering shrubs in late winter or early spring.  This will give you the most flowers, which is of course the goal here. During the first year or two, pay extra attention to watering regularly, since these spots are drier than the rest of the garden, so your plants will dry out faster. Once established the roots will of course grow forward and get the water they need. Otherwise care for your plant just as you would if it was growing out in the open garden.

[treesellcenter]

Plum Yew – a Shade Evergreen You Should Grow

Shade is the gardener’s perpetual problem – just what can I grow in those inevitable shady spots that are found in every garden. Beneath trees or in the shade of buildings, it is almost impossible to have a garden without shade – either from the beginning, or gradually developing as your trees and taller shrubs grow and mature. Gardener’s can be stubborn, and all too often we see gardens where sun-loving plants struggle to survive, rarely or never flowering, and adding a miserable inch or two of growth each year – if you are lucky. If this sounds like you, then the best advice is to re-think the problem, and grow plants that have developed over the millennia to thrive, not suffer, in shady places. Let nature be our guide to easy gardening, and to solving the perpetual ‘shade problem’.

In Europe gardeners rely on spreading forms of the yew tree for their shady areas. This soft-leaved evergreen grows naturally beneath large forest trees, and it is happy in shade. It can be clipped and trimmed as needed, and its rich coloring is perfect to fill the lower levels of a garden, completing the picture. When brought to North America the yew tree proved valuable in areas that were not too cold, and with the help of the more cold-hardy Japanese yew, northern gardeners have a good selection of yew trees to solve most of their shade problems.

Southern gardeners were not so lucky, as the European and Japanese yews like cooler conditions, and the heat and humidity of the South is often just too much for them. Strangely, alongside the Japanese Yew, growing in the southern islands of Japan, there is another, very similar-looking plant that has been passed by. This plant, called the Plum Yew, is hardly known, and rarely planted, yet it thrives in the South and grows in shade. How often in life is the solution right there, if we take a fresh look around?

What Is a Plum Yew Tree?

The Plum Yew is a broad, upright evergreen, closely resembling a yew tree, but with longer, narrower leaves, up to 2 inches long, arranged in two rows along the sides of the stems. They arch upwards slightly, and they are often compared to the wings of a dove because of the ‘V-shape’ they form. The plant can eventually rise to become a small tree, up to 20 feet tall and wide. Although looking like a yew tree, it does not have the bright-red berries often seen on those plants in fall. Instead it has larger plum-like fruits, about one inch long. These are pale green with darker green stripes when young, and they then turn brown as they mature. The fruit is not edible, but it is rarely seen in gardens, because, like yew trees, the Plum Yew has separate male and female trees, and most garden varieties are male. This makes the tree safer to grow around small children, who can find the red berries of the true yew tree fatally tempting.

Growing Plum Yew

The Plum Yew will just about grow in zone 5, with some winter burning, but in warmer zones, from 6 to 9, it really comes into its own. If you garden in hot areas, like the South, then this truly is the plant you need for those shady spots. Unlike the true yew trees it is happy in heat and humidity, and it is also, once established, more drought resistant than any yew tree. It grows best in well-drained soil, with plenty of added organic material, and when young it should be watered regularly during hot weather, to become well-established. It almost never has any pests or diseases, and deer usually ignore it. For a low-maintenance plant it can hardly be beaten, which is good news for busy gardeners. The other wonderful thing about the Plum Yew is that like other yews it can be trimmed into shape, to make hedges, or to simply keep it confined to a particular space. As well, if it should become too large, it can be cut back hard, into old wood, unlike most other evergreens. This means you can ignore it for years, and then do a big ‘tidy-up’ if needed, and your plants will bounce back, totally rejuvenated.

Varieties of Plum Yew for the Garden

In gardens the wild form of this plant is rarely grown, because of its large size. Instead there are two commonly available forms you should be able to find without too much trouble. The most important of these is a spreading variety called ‘Duke Gardens’. This plant was found in 1958 by Richard Fillmore, the Head Horticulturist at the Sarah P. Duke Gardens, part of Duke University, in Durham, North Carolina. More useful because it is smaller, it spreads widely to become a plant about 4 feet tall, and about 6 feet wide, so just a few plants will cover a large shady area with attractive foliage all year round. In time, unless trimmed, it will grow several feet more in both directions. This is a male plant, so no fruit is produced. It can be trimmed as a hedge, or just for generally neatness, or left to grow naturally into a dense, spreading shrub.

The other common form is a dense, narrow, upright form called ‘Fastigiata’, which originated in old Japanese gardens. It has very upright stems, and a more irregular base. If you want a narrower accent in a shady spot, this is a good choice, but because it is not wide-spreading it is less useful for filling large shady areas than ‘Duke Gardens’.

Where Did the Plum Yew Come From?

It seems that the very resemblance of the Plum Yew to other yew trees is why it is not as widely grown as it should be After all, it is not as if the Plum Yew is a new find. It was found growing on the forest floor in Japan by early European collectors, and it was brought to Europe in 1829. Perhaps its close resemblance to the yew tree meant it was overlooked, and indeed it was, in 1839, officially names as a type of yew. The error was soon corrected, and a certain Earl of Harrington grew it and was the first to promote its use. He had the honor of having it named after him, as Cephalotaxus harringtonii. Perhaps that mouthful of a name is also part of the reason for the lack of interest in this plant, but really, if you live in warmer areas, this substitute for the yew tree should be in your garden. You will love it. Even in areas where yew trees do grow well, it is sufficiently different in appearance to be worth growing for variety and interest. So don’t overlook the Plum Yew. You won’t regret the day you planted your first one – it won’t be the last.

[treesellcenter]

Native American Holly Trees

Winter is the time when evergreen trees are most noticeable in our gardens, and few stand out more than holly does. These handsome trees and bushes, with their rich-green leathery leaves, bring structure and form to the garden, and their rounded or pyramidal shapes are perfect additions to any garden. The classic ‘greeting-card’ holly, with its spiny leaves and red berries is an essential ingredient of the holidays, and the season would just not be the same without it. Holly has far more uses in our gardens, though, as it is ideal for hedges and screens, as well as for specimens to decorate the lawn or stand boldly behind smaller shrubs. Many people think one holly is much the same as another, but in fact this large group of plants is very variable and exploring it a little brings to light some terrific garden plants that might otherwise be overlooked.

Holly bushes are found in most parts of the world, and it surprises many people to discover that they are abundant in tropical and sub-tropical countries. The classic holly, Ilex aquifolium, comes from Europe, but when the first explorers and settlers arrived in North America, they discovered holly trees growing wild across most of the country. Yet strangely today, even those that are widely grown are rarely recognized as native American trees. With the present interest in growing native trees rather than alien species, it pays to explore a little more closely just exactly what we have available, and what terrific garden plants they are. With that in mind, let’s take a look at the native holly bushes we can grow in our gardens – you might be surprised at their diversity.

The American Holly

First on the list must be this tree, which most closely resembles the European holly. Known as Ilex opaca, this tree is the Queen of the native hollies, and widely regarded as the best of all the larger, tree-like holly bushes. It naturally grows into a handsome pyramid of rich-green spiny leaves, and in fall and winter it is covered in large red berries. It is more resistant to both cold and heat than European hollies, yet it is just as handsome. Wild trees can grow over 30 feet tall, but most garden forms have been selected for their smaller, more compact growth, and a final size of perhaps 20 feet is normal. The branches can be retained right to the ground, or pruned up to reveal the smooth, light-gray trunk, making a more tree-like specimen. There are many varieties, and among the best is the Greenleaf Holly, with very rich foliage and abundant berries.

Inkberry

Not all holly bushes have red berries, and this native species, called Ilex glabra, has black ones. These may not be as striking as red berries, but this plant has virtues far beyond its berries. Do you have areas of shade, wetter or drier soil than normal, more acidic or alkaline soil, or just spots where not much grows? Then you need the Inkberry. For all those awkward areas where you want a dense, evergreen bushy plant that is easy to grow, undemanding, and yet handsome, this under-utilized shrub is the answer. You may not at first realize it is a holly, since the leaves are smooth and spineless. Choose a smaller, denser selection – the Compact Inkberry is a good one – as the wild tree can become a bit large and need regular trimming. The Compact Inkberry stays just 4 or 5 feet tall, and its bushy form fills spaces effectively, along a stream, or in any wet soil, as well as in ordinary to dry soil. This undemanding plant will grow in sun or shade too, and it looks good in a wild garden or in a more organized one, where an occasional trim will keep it suitably neat. Reflecting its wide distribution across the country, from Nova Scotia to Florida, you can grow this bush almost anywhere, from zone 4 to zone 9.

Winterberry

All hollies don’t have red berries, and neither do they all have evergreen leaves. Look at the narrow, lighter-green leaves of the Winterberry, and you will not think it is a holly at all, but when winter comes and those now-bare stems are covered in bright red berries, you will probably realize it is. Called Ilex verticillata, the Winterberry is hardy into zone 3, and it will bring you holly berries in gardens too cold for any of the evergreen species. This upright shrub will grow to be 4 to 6 feet tall, and it thrives in those damp parts of the garden, in sun or partial shade, where the choices of plant can be limited. Improved forms with names like Berry Heavy Winterberry have been developed, that carry exceptional crops, and cut in vases in winter these stems are popular, especially in the colder states. It grows naturally throughout the east, and don’t forget to include one or two males in your planting – like many other holly bushes the Winterberry fruits best when there are males around to pollinate the flowers of the female berry-carrying bushes.

Other Native Holly Trees

Although not widely grown in gardens, there are other native holly trees of interest. Among them is the Dahoon, Ilex cassine, which grows in warmer parts of the South, in Texas and even across to the Bahamas. Another holly with smooth leaves, and so rather un-hollylike, it grows into a small rounded tree with bright berries. If you want to try it, look for improved varieties like ‘Autumn Cascade’, which carry very heavy crops.

Besides the widely-grown Winterberry there is another native holly that drops its leaves in winter – the Possumhaw, Ilex decidua. Growing from Virginia to Florida it has abundant berries, but it is only suitable for the largest garden, as it grows very large, and suckers vigorously to spread into wide clumps.

Finally, we should mention the unfortunately named Ilex vomitoria, which sounds more appealing under its common name, the Yaupon. Although associated with Georgia, it grows from Virginia to Florida and west to Oklahoma, becoming a rounded tree 10 or 20 feet tall. Perhaps it is the unfortunate botanical name, but this tree is not widely grown in gardens, which is a shame, because it survives almost anything, from wet soil to dry, and both acidic and alkaline conditions, plus salt spray and even the constant trimming of obsessively-neat gardeners. If not over-trimmed it produces good crops of red berries too, and it is available in compact selections that grow only 4 to 6 feet tall. Perhaps some kindly botanist will rename it, and we will see this plant soar up the garden popularity charts.

  As you can see from this brief survey, gardeners committed to growing native trees have lots of choices among the hollies, so no-one needs to go without those beautiful berries in winter. It is also clear that all gardeners can benefit from paying attention to these great native plants, that have so much to offer in any garden, all across the country.

[treesellcenter]

Classic Trees for a Japanese Garden

The Japanese style of garden is enjoying huge popularity in the West. Perhaps it’s the huge interest in mindfulness and Zen, the desire for simplicity, or maybe the realization that it is the perfect style for a small space or enclosed garden. Whatever the reason, more and more people are turning to Japanese influences to create beautiful gardens. When we think of the elements of these gardens, the first thing many of us might see is raked gravel and beautiful stones, with almost no plants. This is true of some Japanese garden styles, but almost all of them do in fact include plants. Indeed, the best way to give a garden a Japanese feel is to put in the right kinds of plants – authentic ones – that immediately create the feel you are looking for. Let’s look at some of them:

Some Classic Trees for a Japanese Garden

Japanese Maple – the most classic of all

Pine – an essential element for style

Plum Yew – perfect for shady corners

Bamboo – avoid it taking over by replacing with Sacred Bamboo

Hinoki Cypress – the most graceful of the evergreens

Camellia – glossy foliage and elegant flowers

Japanese Maple Trees

Literally nothing says, ‘Japanese Garden’ like a Japanese maple tree, Acer palmatum. The delicate leaves are usually divided into narrow lobes and almost look like hands. Although in western gardens the most popular varieties are those with red leaves, for a truly Japanese look, the emphasis should be on leaf shape and fall color, and green summer leaves are loved. Luckily almost all the many varieties of Japanese maple have good fall color, so look first for interesting leaf shapes. A wonderful variety with narrow leaves that look almost like bamboo, is the Koto No Ito Japanese Maple, which really has the right ‘look’. Japanese also love rounded forms that look like a fan, and the Fernleaf Full-Moon Japanese Maple (Acer japonicum ‘Aconitifolium’) is a rarer and high-quality tree with just that leaf shape, and worth seeking out for the most authentic look. It has spectacular fall colors of rich orange, which is an essential feature too. Any of the weeping forms is also a great choice for that authentic look, and since these are often smaller, they add a lower layer to your plant arrangement. They also look fabulous in a container, or even turned into a bonsai tree. Pick from a wide range of these beautiful trees.

Pine Trees

Pine is loved perhaps more than anything else, for its evergreen needles and rugged structure. It is almost always trained, not just allowed to grow tall, so it can be fitted into a small space. For authenticity, choose the Japanese Black Pine, Pinus thunbergii, with dark, rugged bark, or the Japanese White Pine, Pinus parviflora, which has blue-green needles, and a more delicate look. Black Pine, in particular, is very drought resistant, and so its great choice for hot, dry locations.

To give your pines the right look, use stakes to spread out the branches, and keep the crown very open, to show off the bark. Those heads of dense needles you see in the pictures don’t just happen. They are the result of a simple technique called ‘candling’ which keeps the shoots short and dense, and also keeps your tree compact so it fits into a smaller space. In spring you will see long new shoots emerging, with very short needles. Once these shoots have grown long, but before the needles lengthen, and while they are still soft, use your fingers to snap them off to between one-half and one-third of their length. This is the ‘secret’ method used in Japan, yet it is very easy and doesn’t take much time to do. You will love the result, and you will soon see your trees become graceful and truly ‘Japanese’.

Plum Yew

This name may not sound too familiar, but this evergreen bush is widely grown in Japan. Looking a lot like a classic yew tree, and called Cephalotaxus, the great advantage of this tree is its ability to grow in full shade. Beneath taller trees, or on the north side of a wall, it is perfect. It will grow in sun too, so wherever in your Japanese garden you need a deep-green evergreen shape, this should be your choice. The wild tree can become large, so instead choose a more compact form, like the one called ‘Duke Gardens’. Although found in America, this plant has the perfect look, and it can be clipped into the low, rounded shapes loved by the Japanese, who value neatness and order just as much as rugged natural beauty.

Bamboo

Although part of the classic Japanese repertoire, there are issues growing bamboo trees in most gardens, especially in the smaller ones where the Japanese garden look is most popular. They almost all grow very tall, and even worse, they spread and take over even large spaces. Give true bamboo a miss, and get the same leafy look from another Asian plant, the Nandina, or sacred bamboo. A wonderful feature of these bushes is their spring growth, which is often bright red. In fall many of them have vibrant red and gold coloring too, making that season so much brighter.

For height choose the classic natural variety, Nandina domestica, which will reach 6 or even 8 feet tall, with several upright stems. With lots of newer varieties to choose from you can add more color and variety, and fill the lower levels of your garden easily, as most of these grow only to about 3 feet. The variety called, ‘Moon Bay’ stays small, and it has spectacular fall coloring. The spring growth is golden, not red, so it adds variety too. To add rich wine-red foliage all year round, go for ‘Flirt’, which is only a foot or two tall – its perfect for the smallest space, or in a pot.

Hinoki Cypress

With graceful, rounded sprays of foliage, and elegant branch arrangements, the Hinoki Cypress, Chamaecyparis obtusa, should be in every Japanese garden. There are so many different dwarf forms of this tree, which grows wild in Japanese forests as a tall timber tree. Many have golden foliage and bring light and brightness to your Asian-themed planting. Some are densely structured, but other are more open and graceful, like the variety called ‘Confucius’. This is a perfect choice for an Asian garden – even the name is perfect – and its sprays of green tipped with gold bring a wonderful authentic look. The variety ‘Gracilis’ is called the Slender Hinoki Cypress because it makes a narrow column of almost horizontal branches, and it is perfect to bring height without bulk, and fill a corner of your garden.

Camellia

Finally, no Japanese garden would be complete without a Camellia Bush. The Japanese people love flowers, and the delicate look of the flowers on a camellia are highly prized. As well, tea comes from a species of camellia, so having one growing creates a subtle association. Choose flowers that are more delicate and open, not the strict ‘formal’ flowers of many Western varieties. The camellia known as ‘Kanjiro’ was bred in Japan, and it has a more open form that fits in better than the dense shape of many Western varieties. It blooms in fall, and it is the perfect ending to the season. The open flowers are a swirl of deep-pink petals around a golden center. You can contemplate their beauty will sipping green tea in your authentic Japanese garden.

[treesellcenter]

Winter Landscaping Tips

You invest love, energy and money into your garden, so why enjoy it for only part of the year? Winter is a season too, and despite the cold and rain or snow there are ways to make your garden more enjoyable in winter than you might think it could be. With some planning and thought your garden can truly be a ‘4-season’ place, with something happening to see and experience all year round. Let’s consider some ways you can make that happen.

Early Winter – the Structure of Evergreens

Before the snow arrives, but after the fall is over, your garden enters the ‘season of black earth’. Dark, damp soil, (ideally already covered with a layer of rich mulch), fills the spaces between your evergreens, and shows through bare branches that earlier were dense with leaves. This is the time when the ‘bones’ of your garden are most visible. Designers use this expression to talk about the basic structure of a garden, not just from paths and lawns, but from the strategic placement of evergreens. Plants like holly, yew, mugo pine and other evergreens suddenly become dominant features, and their colors and shapes can be truly appreciated. If you have very few of these vital plants, then your garden at this time will be bare and unattractive.

Make sure you include a good selection of evergreens suitable for your climate when you plant your garden – without them it will be a winter desert. Think carefully about their placement too, considering how big they will become after, say, the first ten years.  Evergreens can confound our expectations – they do really just keep growing forever, adding inches every year. That ‘dwarf’ evergreen is just one that takes longer to grow, so don’t overcrowd the garden either, or you will be in for a shock in 15 years. Many of these plants become relatively large, and make beautiful specimens, so consider this and leave room for them to grow.

When hurrying to get indoors from those early chilly winds, take a moment to look around and appreciate the varied forms of your evergreens. The layered branches of spruce, the arching forms of spreading junipers, or the angles of an interesting dwarf pine – these are all visual pleasures that can be too-easily lost in the rush of daily life. Use your garden as a place to draw breath – not just during the joy of summer, but at all seasons.

The Dazzle of Winter Berries and Branches

Besides the greens, silvers and blues of evergreens, this early winter period can have bright color too. Many berry plants will be in full flush, and the bright red of hollies always stands out. Make sure to include some good berry producers among your holly choices, so you too can have the pleasure of their red highlights.  Seek out these plants in variations of berry color. Most berry plants have a dominant color, often red, but orange and yellow variations can occur, and these varieties add interest to your plantings.

In colder areas, the Winterberry is a beautiful source of red berries, as this native American deciduous holly has branches heavy with berries in early winter. Remember to plant a male tree as well, to ensure a heavy berry crop. In warmer areas Pyracantha, the Firethorn, has bright orange berries in winter which can be so dense they almost hide the glossy leaves.  Trained up a sunny wall, there are few sights in winter as glorious.

Planting trees and shrubs with winter berries brings another bonus too. Birds will flock to your garden to feed on them, especially later in winter when other food sources become scarcer. The movement, color and best of all the sounds of them will remind us that spring is already on its way, and their speed and liveliness show us how to survive the long nights and cold of winter.

Always include some deciduous shrubs and trees with colored twigs in your planting choices. The red-twig dogwoods are easy to grow, and a terrific source of color in winter. Both red and yellow twigs are found in different varieties, and some of the newer ones have very bright coloring. Maximize the effect by pruning hard every couple of years, cutting back almost to the ground to encourage many long, highly-colored young twigs. The bark darkens with age, and the color is best on one or two-year branches. (Go easier if you live in very cold areas, where growth is less vigorous.) If you are lucky enough to have a stream or pond, then dogwoods thrive in the damp soil, and look wonderful reflected in the dark water, before it freezes over.

For a taller plant, the Coral Bark Japanese Maple (called ‘Sango-kaku’) has young red branches too, especially when planted in a sunny place. The golden fall leaves drop to reveal this hidden treat for winter from a classic maple that can reach 25 feet eventually.

Remember to Bark up the Right Tree

An often-overlooked element of beauty in the garden is the bark of trees. When choosing trees – small or large – consider the bark too and try to choose trees that have more interesting surfaces. They may not be noticed much when the leaves are out, but just as those evergreens come to life in winter, so does the bark of trees. Often thick and deeply furrowed, it speaks to us of endurance and longevity – a calm resistance to the tribulations of daily life.

The appreciation of winter bark is a quiet and introspective pursuit, but the more you look the more you see. From the splashy camouflage colors of the Bloodgood Sycamore, which always catches attention, to the rich mahogany red of flowering cherry trees, not only can you learn to identify trees from their bark alone, but the variations, from smooth and tactile to the peeling strips of Crape Myrtle trees in winter, bark is endlessly fascinating.

Linger a Little

Finally, no matter what the weather, stop for a moment, or take some time on a crisp, sunny morning to visit your garden in winter. The sights, sounds and feel of it will transport you to another world – and extend your garden enjoyment through all the seasons. A little planning and thoughtful purchases will bring great rewards.