Gardening Aspirations in 2017

 

 

So pleased to have survived 2016, in proper order, family traumas, national political upheaval, and various household appliance and maintenance issues. As the New Year has arrived, I had planned on instituting and avowing to customary resolutions, but after listening to Frank McKinney, best-selling international author, modern realtor extraordinaire, multi-millionaire, and world wide- philanthropist’s philosophy,  I want to outline my gardening aspirations in 2017 for you.  

1.       Make better use of quality #gardening products.  There certainly are quality products in gardening.  Whether it’s DeWit gardening tools, legacy tools which make gardening easier and allow the gardener to achieve their goals in the landscape, to using quality fertilizers like Sunniland TurfGro, RiteGreen, and Bloom Special, to planting quality annuals, perennials, ornamentals, shrubs, and trees, from Proven Winners, Monrovia, Plant Delights Nursery, Annie’s Annuals, and David Austin Roses, and many more![1] You will have healthier landscape and gardens, and a healthier you.

 

2.      Use national organizations, like the National Garden Bureau, to keep up with #gardening trends.  I subscribe to multiple gardening organizations that keep me excited and let me know when the newest plant innovations and best-testing varieties are available.

 

3.      Read and use more catalogs in my design work.  Catalogs can showcase design choices, companion plants, become creative muses, and educate on how to grow plants. 
 

 

4.      Visit more botanical gardens.  In nearly every major city in the world, there are gardens that showcase seasonal and regional flora, imaginative displays and container planters, and implement walkways and hardscape in ways that I may not have thought about. Imitation may be the highest form of flattery, but it’s also a design tool where you can add your own personality, to become a garden that is one of a kind garden suited to your tastes.  

 

5.      Use more art in the garden. One of my greatest memories as a child in the 60’s is of visiting Weeki Wachee, an entertainment venue that featured live mermaids. They had gardens where child-sized vignettes of fairy tales and storybook characters.  I can still see them vividly in my mind.  Fifty years later, as I wander through gardens, I love to see the gardener’s own unique knick-knacks, statues, and artwork on display.  It encourages anticipation, providing memories of your visit for a lifetime.  Adding floating metal flowers, candles, bird baths, bird houses, furniture, or rain chains, in any artistic media will add serendipity to your gardens and create ambiance for your guests to enjoy. 

2017 will be a year of recuperation, soul-searching, and respite from last year’s chaos.  Choose to aspire to a higher form of gardening that reenergizes and rejuvenates by adding beauty, whimsy, a more harmonious design, with quality flowers, shrubs, and trees.  Aspirations in the garden is good for your soul.

All photographs are owned by Teresa Watkins copyright 2017.

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[1]  All-America Selections

    American Meadows

Bailey Nurseries

Brazelberries

Brent and Becky’s Bulbs

Encore Azaleas

High Country Gardens

Irish Eyes Garden Seeds

Messinas

Southern Living Plants Collection

Tessalaar

North Carolina Woods, Florida Style

Have to be honest here. Despite loving the 365-days a year gardening and the sunny winters, I'm not a tropical girl at heart.  I love my native North Carolina and Scotland roots. And hiking through the woods and mountains, whether it's North Carolina, Scotland, or Florida, is my ultimate pleasure.  There's something about foggy mornings, refreshing rain, and the fragrance of forest decay that re-energizes me.

Hiking along Rufus Morgan Trailhead, Franklin, NC.

So, in my backyard I have a pseudo-forest growing. I have substituted subtropical ornamental plants, shrubs, and trees, that give the ambiance of walking a Smokies’ mountaintop.  The landscape grows without me (because I don’t have time) and when I get a chance to walk outside, I love seeing the surprise of flowers and greenery especially after a few days of rain or even during a misty sprinkling. 

I almost missed my surprise this week though.  Blooming through the thickness of Florida native pipestem, Agarista populifolia, loropetalum, and candelabra flowers of Whitefeldia elongata,  the mountain sprite flowers of toad lilies, Tricyrtis ‘Dark Beauty’ have been blooming for awhile and I didn’t notice them for the thickness of the shrubs.

White Candles, Whitefeldia elongata, Toad lilies, Tricyrtis,and Pipestem, Agarista populifolia

Love them! Just made my day.  Toad lilies will grow in Zones 5 – 9.  They will do well in shade, rich, moist soils, and don’t mind being ignored. They aren't inexpensive but they do multiply easily.

 

 

You can get the White Candles at your local nurseries and my favorite catalog and North Carolina nursery, Plant Delights in Raleigh, has a wonderful selection of tricyrtis for your backyard. They even have them on sale right now.  You'll love these forest beauties.  Delight in your candles and tiptoe through the toad lilies with me.  

New USDA Plant Hardiness Map

After years of discussion and debate, the new USDA Plant Hardiness Map is ready. The previous map was developed in 1990. The new gardening zone map, broken into zones of ten and five degree termperature increments, now has thirteen zones with the newest zones 12 and 13 having low winter temperatures  of (50-60 degrees F) and (60 - 70 degrees F). For background on how the new map zones were arrived at, Tony Avent with Plant Delights Nursery in Raleigh, NC, one of my favorite plant catalog nurseries in the world, was a part of it from the beginning and provides history:

On August 18, 2004, USDA formed a technical review committee of 23 people including yours truly. The group consisted of nurserymen, crop researchers, foresters, climatologists, and others. The committee had a number of meetings at the USDA headquarters in Maryland and many subsequent meetings by phone.

The details of the map making process was quite fascinating. The first few meetings were spent hashing out what we wanted in the map. Several of us had pushed for a 30-year map, which would more closely echo short term natural temperature fluctuations, and the USDA agreed. Another of my requests to create an a, b, c, and d breakdown for each numbered zone was delayed until the future.

We also wanted a map that would allow more temperature interpolations between weather stations, which would take into account things like lake and mountain effects which were missing in the previous map. The process then progressed to the USDA to gather the data and create the map with their in-house staff. A complication arose when their in-house algorithm specialist was commandeered by the Department of Defense and sent to Afghanistan to run algorithms to locate Osama bin Laden. During this time, the specialist would join us via conference call from a safe place in Afghanistan...I’m not making this up.

After two years, the map was supposedly ready as the committee members gathered in Maryland for the unveiling. We were never privy to exactly what went wrong, but the map we saw showed all of the US getting colder, which was certainly not the case. My best guess is that someone reversed all the data. After this debacle, the map trail went cold for nearly a year, during which time the USDA decided in 2007 not to complete the map in-house, but instead to outsource the project to the PRISM (Parameter-elevation Regressions on Independent Slopes Model) Climate Group at Oregon State.

After PRISM completed their initial map, we were shown a draft map via phone conference. The rest of the year was spent going back and forth about areas which the review team felt were not zoned correctly. During this time, more data sites were added to those regions of concern, either from Canadian, Mexican, or military data. Finally in April 2008, the technical review team finished their work and the map was back in the lap of the USDA for publication. The subsequent 3 years and 9 months were spent by USDA trying to figure out what colors to make the zones and then finding a website that could host the map without crashing like their previously launched food pyramid...I’m not making this up. Whoever said that the Federal Government moves slowly was spot on...hence the reason the most recent climatic data in the map is 6 years old.

The USDA map has two versions, a static map where you can select your state and zone or the interactive map where you can input your zip code and you go right to your city and find your gardening zone.

The new map reflects the warmer temperatures from microclimates from winds, bodies of water, slope of the land, and urban heat islands but the USDA makes a valid point that this new realignment should not be used as an indication for global warming.

I agree. The previous USDA map from 1990 used data from a twelve year time period of 1974 to 1986.  The new map uses data from the years 1976 to 2005. The weather is cyclical and since 2005 I've seen even colder temperatures during the winter here locally than normal.  It will be interesting to see the next gardening zone map to see if the two-thirds degree higher temps reach one degree.

Find out more about Plant Delights Nursery:  A Delightful Day Filled With Plants

My Top Ten Plant Picks For 2011 - A to Z

With the beginning of a new year, I love to turn over a new leaf and showcase some great flowers, shrubs and trees for 2011 that will do wonderfully here in Florida. I've found some new species and varieties of classics that will have heads turning to find out exactly what is that plant growing in your backyard. While most of these plants won't be cheap or found in your DIY nurseries, you will be able to find them online or at smart nurseries like Apenberry's Nursery in Orlando for a reasonable price. Ask your favorite nursery to order them for you. Click on the photos to view them closer.

1. Sweet Almond Bush, Aloysia virgata. Zone 9 - 11. Very fragrant shrub or small understory tree that can reach 8' to 10' tall and 5' to 6' wide. Attractive to butterflies. Locate near walkways and patios to enjoy the almond scented bush. Grows fast, needs moist soils, full sun or partial sun, neutral pH. Hardy to low 20's.
2. 'Cascade Falls' Bald Cypress, Taxodium distochum 'Cascade Falls'
   Zones 5 - 10. If you have lakefront shorelines but don't want to block the views, this dwarfed cypress tree has lovely cascading branches that will make a good groundcover or a small conifer pyramid for a horizontal effect. Stake the tree when it reaches the height you want and let branches weep. Reaching only 8' and 5' wide, this fast grower will be perfect in compacted soils, Japanese gardens, water gardens, ancient prehistoric themes, or give a Northwest look to your landscape. This cypress needs moist** to wet soils, even growing in water, 6.8 - 7.7 pH, and full or partial sun. Moderately salt tolerant. Soft foliage is beautiful in the fall and winter as it turns orange-brown. They have small cones. In wet conditions, 'Cascade Falls' will have cypress knees. Attracts butterflies and birds. Native.
3. Dyckia 'Burgandy Ice,' Zone 9-11. This deep-red succulent species likes full sun and is one of the most cold-tolerant of the bromeliads. Genus was named for renowned Austrian botanist, Prince Josef Maria Franz Anton Hubert Ignatz (von Salm-Dyck), late 18th century succulent expert. Very low maintenance. Attracts hummingbirds. and butterflies. Hardy to 20 degrees. Grows to 12 inches wide, 12 inches tall. Full sun, handles any pH, but likes soils dry to moist. 'Burgandy Ice's spiny foliage makes a grand architectural statement in garden containers and along walkways. Attracts butterflies and hummingbirds.
4. Sedum rupestre 'Angelina' Zone 9 - 11. Bright chartreuse succulent that is a great groundcover. Perfect to add color and depth to a hanging basket or clay container. Sandy soil, any pH, full sun, minimum watering if no rainfall.
5. Icee Blue® Yellow-Wood, Podacarpus elongatus 'Monmal.' I bought this beautiful blue podacarpus at Apenberry's after I saw it at Leu Gardens. A slow pyramidal grower that likes moist soils, full sun or partial shade, this tree if allowed to attain full height, will reach 15-25 ft. tall by 15-25 ft. wide. With occasional pruning, this evergreen (everblue?) is perfect for hedges, privacy screening for pools, or a specimen tree, yet grows slow enough to be the crowning touch for large containers. Pest-free. In the nine months that I've had mine, it hasn't needed any maintenance. This beautiful tree is available through Monrovia.
6. Yellow Butterfly Pea Vine, Callaeum macropterus(formerly Mascagnia macroptera). Zones 8 - 10. Fast grower. Great for trellises, arbors, fences, and containers. Climbs to 12 feet tall with repeat blooms spring, summer, and fall. Yellow orchid-like flowers that have large green seed pods that look like butterflies. Full sun, dry to moist soil, any pH. Can be pruned in early spring to 2 feet tall to rejuvenate. Photo by Top Tropicals. Looks great as two columns on either side of fence gates.

7. Marlberry 'Chirimen,' Ardisia japonica 'Chirimen.' This is a wonderful groundcover for shade that spreads very slowly. Moderate to fast grower, 5" to 6" tall spreading out to 5' wide. Small pinkish flowers that provide red berries in winter. Needs moist soils. Photo by Monrovia.
8. Blueberries, Vaccinium spp. Zones 6 - 10. Blueberries are one of the featured edible plants at the ReVision House 2011. They need full sun, acidic soils, and depending on cultivar and maintenance can reach 4' to 6' high. The best time to plant blueberries is between December and late February. They make great hedges. Attracts birds. Vaccinium virgatum is a native Florida blueberry.
9. Orange Scepter Butterfly Bush,Buddleia 'Orange Sceptre.' Zones 7 - 10. Beautiful orange flowers that bloom spring and summer. Reaches 8' tall by 5' wide. Deer resistant. Needs full sun, moist soils, not fussy about pH. Foliage is velvety and shrub gets woody without pruning. Photo by Plant Delights.
10. Bangkok Yellow Rain Lily, Zephyranthes 'Bangkok Yellow'. Florida showers bring rain lily flowers. Zones 7 - 10. If you would like flowers that remind you of crocuses, rain lilies are it! These wonderful flowers make great groundcovers or add delight to your garden bed. Pest free, easily naturalizes, and blooms after late summer rain storms. All rain lilies are easy to grow and make great passalong plants! Photo by Plant Delights.

These are great plants that will add color, are easy to maintain, and will infuse your landscape with life. Check them out and see which one will look great in your backyard! I hope you have a healthy and Happy New Year!

** - Caveat: Watering requirements are after establishment.

Hurricane Landscaping

June 1st not only heralds in warmer temperatures, afternoon showers, and humid mornings but also hurricanes. Announcements of hurricane season's opening day is a good reminder to check out your landscape to make sure your property doesn't become a hazard during the storms and will ultimately survive.

Hurricane season is June through September, with August and September being the most active period. NOAA is predicting nine to 14 named tropical storms with four to seven turning into hurricanes. We could see one to three becoming Category 3 hurricanes. Last year we had five hurricanes and a relatively mild storm year.

Tropical storms and hurricanes are one of Florida's main influences on our water supply so while they are not something to look forward to - they are necessary.

Brevard County has great advice on how to make sure your landscape is hurricane-proof:

• Right Tree Right Place – by simply planting larger trees away from your home, power lines, and other structures, you greatly reduce the risk of branches or the tree itself falling on your home or knocking down power lines.
• Regular Pruning and Maintenance – assess trees and shrubs for branches that are dying, too large, lopsided, etc. Regular pruning promotes healthy growth, removes dying or diseased limbs, and can reshape the tree to be more resistant to wind damage. [Teresa's note: Make sure anyone working on your trees or providing a bid to prune is a certified arborist in your area. You can go to the International Society of Arborists to verify certification.]
• Choose Wind Resistant Plant Species – After the previous year’s hurricanes, researchers collected data from all over Florida on the number and types of trees that withstood the storms or were blown over.
• Planting in Groups or Masses – when possible, planting groups of mixed trees together can greatly enhance wind resistance. The trees buffer each other as well as your property and other landscape plants.

Be pro-active in your yard - don't wait till a hurricane is brewing in the Atlantic or Gulf of Mexico. Charges be more costly due to the season and the chances of finding an arborist with an open schedule then will be risky.

Find out how Father Hurricane, a Jesuit was instrumental in hurricane prediction.

I know you've heard of rain lilies, Zephyranthes spp. I bought some beautiful uniquely-colored orange and deep pink rain lilies at Plant Delights Nursery in NC last week. But have you heard of hurricane lilies? They are the Lycoris species in the Amaryllis family with Zephyranthes. Wonderfully pest-free, maintenance free (seriously) hurricane and rain lilies are a great addition to a cottage, woodland, or tropical themed garden.

A Delightful Day - Filled With Plants

Despite the clouds and a brief downpour, I was able to have a soulful visit with Tony Avent, plant collector and nature benefactor extraordinaire. Tony is also the owner of Plant Delights Nursery. I am taking home inspiration and a bountiful harvest from the six acres of themed gardens, test beds, greenhouses, moss-filled shaded pathways filled with 17,000 one of a kind plants. Plants you won't find anywhere else on the planet for sale.

The garden center and Juniper Level Botanic Garden with its' picturesque pathways is outside of downtown Raleigh, NC. it is only open to the public two weekends a year so check out the times first to make sure you can tour. Groups are welcome. While you're making arrangements, go online and order the free catalog. Each catalog with plant details and Tony's experience and insight becomes a piece of well-thought out artwork and garden enthusiast collectible - much like Avent's plants. Written by Tony and his staff, the catalog is intelligent, humor-provoking, and as deep South, and politically uncorrect, as you can get these days. When you're digging in dirt, you might as well dig deep.

I'm going to float all the way back home filled with hope and conservatively, I'll be getting a little dirty myself.



Plant Delights Nursery - May 2009