Today in the garden…

Now is a good time to prune many of those Spring blooming shrubs such as Azalea and Rhododendron. Most have just finished blooming by now and haven’t gotten to work on creating next years flower buds so it is perfect.

Nothing I hate worse than and Azalea that looks like a meatball because it is pruned too perfectly, too late in the season! We have all seen them, where the flowers are only on parts of the shrub because they were pruned off on other parts to make the shrub rounded? Yikes!

Many Spring blooming shrubs like Azaleas and Rhodies set their buds before going dormant for the season so they are able to bloom that early. Take a look this Fall and you will notice all the flower buds are ready to go. Because of this it important not to prune them too late in the year.

It has been a busy week in the garden with so much to do!!

Just as the plants in your garden should be growing like weeds this time of year, so will the actual weeds. It is important to stay on top of weeding in the late Spring.

Weeds are just like plants; there are perennial weeds and annual weeds. Perennial weeds are the ones that come back every year, the same plant, the same place.  Whereas annual weeds are the ones that complete their life cycle in one growing season and generally come from seed from the ‘parent weed’   (picture a child blowing the seeds of a dandelion)

There are tons of herbicides and chemicals that people use to keep the weeds at bay. Some are non-specific, meaning they will kill any green plant they come in contact with (Roundup), others are specific as they do just that – target specific types of weeds. Any way you look at it – chemicals are chemicals.

As an advocate of a more organic approach, I strongly discourage the use of chemicals and recommend the use of manual elimination and mulch. Manual elimination is just plain old skool weeding. Pulling them out by the roots. This can be accomplished literally by hand or by any number of garden tools available to help with the chore.

Knowing a little about some of the more common weeds roots systems can help with knowing how to get rid of them. Most weeds can be removed by simply pulling them out by grasping them close to the soil line. (always easier when the soil is wet – after a rain or the sprinkler) This method is  going to work in a very large percentage of weeds, however those with a tap root are a bit more difficult.

Picture a carrot. That is a tap root. If you have ever pulled up a dandelion, then you have seen  a tap root. They are a bit more difficult to remove as they go deeper straight down and getting them out of the ground can be more difficult.  A great tool to have in your gardening tool box and that comes in handy for this use is a Hori-Hori knife http://www.leevalley.com/garden/page.aspx?c=2&p=10504&cat=2,51810 It gets down next to the root and allows you to loosen the soil around it so it can be plled more effectively.  It is important with tap roots to get it all out as leaving some of it will allow the weed to reestablish itself.

If you have a large area that contains ONLY weeds and plants that you do not want, another way (a lot more passive) to get rid of weeds is to suffocate them. This is also an easy way to create a planting bed where you currently have lawn.  Called “Lasagna Gardening” or “Sheet Composting”, it is pretty simple.  Cover the entire area weeded area using thick layers of newspapers or cardboard and then wet it down so it stays in place. Be sure to overlap the edges so no light gets in. You may want to create some kind of border as ultimately your beds will end up being raised.

Next add a few inches of peat moss, then a few inches of organic mulch and alternate each layer, wetting it down as you go. By the time you are done, the beds should be over a foot high.  Cover the entire area with black plastic and then let it ‘cook’! In about 6-8 weeks you should have a nice new planting area ready to go!! Some people will plant in the bed as it cooks forgoing the black plastic layer altogether.

It is very important no matter what method of elimination you choose once you do get rid of the weeds that you do use mulch to suppress the growth of any further weeds, or within weeks you will be back to square one.

There are different types of mulch, but I recommend  an organic mulch that will break down in the soil. Mulch accomplishes a few things; it covers the soil so that weeds can’t germinate or get enough sunlight to sprout, it keeps the roots of your wanted plants cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter and it helps to nourish the soil as an organic amendment as it breaks down over time.  Heck, it even looks nice, giving the garden a finished look. The types I am talking about shredded wood mulches, cedar, bark mulches. Anything organic that will break down over time.

To fabric or not to fabric? I am not a big proponent of landscape fabric, although many people swear by it. My reasoning is, if the mulch I am using is organic and will break down over time, then in fairly short order I will have a growable plant medium both below and now above the landscape fabric.  So the weeds will come anyway within a year or two. At that point then the fabric is a pain the get rid of.  Also, the fabric prevents what I WANT to happen, which is the mulch decomposing and adding organic amendments to the soil itself!  A lot of time, labor and expense for something that ultimately doesn’t work!!  OK, off this soapbox…

What you can do in place of the landscape fabric and in the spirit of recycling is to lay down a thin layer newspaper on the soil before you put down the mulch. A good 2-4 inches of mulch on top of the newspaper in all your planting beds will help suppress any weed growth and give the beds a nice finished look – get weeding!!

I decided to add a blog to our design site to be able to share gardening stories and tips with our friends and our clients.

This week we began planting annuals for our clients. We do containers and bedding plants, as well as herbs and veggies.  I think the most fun and creative part of it has to be containers…

Sometimes the container itself can be creative, as in years back I used to use practically anything that could hold soil as a container, be it an old boot, or a watering can, or I even built a planter into a wooden baby’s high chair… gave that one to my kids’ pediatrician! What ever the container is, just be sure you have drainage!! I have also come to learn that most times it really isn’t about the container itself, but the plants you put in it!

Ok, so once you have your container, you have to fill it. Tip: If it is a large container I generally place ‘filler’ material in the bottom before I fill it with my planting medium. Filler can be anything that is waterproof and preferably something you are recycling. So you can use old water bottles, plastic planting pots, milk jugs and the like.  Something that takes up space and that is less expensive than potting soil.

Be sure you use a ’soilless’ mix as your planting medium. I always wondered “why ’soilless’? Isn’t that the idea to have soil?” As it turns out actual garden soil, or plain old dirt, isn’t good for container plants, indoor plants or seedlings. Garden soil (which really isn’t dirt – that is another conversation) can contain bacteria and fungi that could be harmful to green things that are pretty much held captive by the confines of the container we put them in. Generally it is also too dense for proper aeration and drainage in a container. So a soilless mix, sometimes called a sterile mix is always best. Generally the mix’s main ingredient is  peat moss, which some say is non renewable resource.  [According to an issue paper entitled "Canadian Peat Harvesting and the Environment," published by the North American Wetlands Conservation Council (Canada)] Peat is renewable and in terms of its accumulation, peat in Canada is growing more than 70 times as fast as it is being harvested.

There are many ready to use potting soils and I recommend using them rather than mixing your own. Fill your container with the medium to a couple of inches from the top of the container. The reason we don’t fill it up all the way is that the plants we place in the pot will displace some of that space and also, when it is done and we water the container, we want the water to stay inside the planter, not roll over the sides due to too much soil!

Once your planter is filled with potting soil you will want to add some amendments to the container. The products I use are from Plant Health Care.

First I mix some Terra-sorb Hydrogel. Terra-Sorb is a  potassium-based  gel that increases the water-holding capacity of soil. It absorbs up to 200 times its weight in water and slowly releases it to nearby plant roots. Your containers have to be watered less, as less of the water evaporates. A good Green choice!

Next I mix in PHC for Flowers. It is a fertilizer that is formulated to improve the nutritional health of flowering plants. It contains  minerals combined with yucca plant extracts and a lot of other good stuff!  Remember how I mentioned that container plants are pretty much held captive by the container we put them in? So be sure to feed them, they’ll love you for it.  I promise.

Be sure to take your sun exposure into consideration when choosing plants for your container. There is nothing sadder than a full sun plant like the tropical Canna trying to make a go of it in the shade.  So read those tags that come with the plants at the nursery, they don’t lie.  While we are on the subject , please don’t place those tags in the container (or beds) when you plant your flowers (pet peeve!!)

So now we are ready to roll with the fun stuff!! The right recipe for a good container is you need a  Thriller, a Filler and a Spiller.

A Thriller is something tall and almost the centerpiece (it doesn’t have be in the center though) of the pot. Something that will give the pot its personality and some vertical height. Old skool is the dreaded spike. Puh-leeeze don’t use a spike. There are so many more beautiful and different things to use. For example in this light blue pot I show, I used a Canna. I used a Canna and I didn’t place it in the middle of the pot. Thriller placement always depends on where the container will be viewed from. If it is to be viewed from all sides, then in the middle it goes. that way there is no real front of back to the planting. But if there are two and they are flanking a front door try placing them, on mirror opposites of the pot. It gives a real nice look.

On to our Spiller layer… Depending on where my Thriller was placed I decide how where to place my Spillers. Your Spillers will cascade over the side of the container and don’t necessarily have to be the same. You can mix them up if you like, just try to take notice (from those little tags) of how they will perform together.

Something more delicate with a fine texture might not mix well with something that is a vigorous grower with a bold texture if placed too close together. Sweet Alyssum (Lobularia maritima) for example tumbles over the edge of a container rather daintily, where as Licorice Plant (Helichrysum petiolaris) has a bolder form and would ramble right over the Alyssum if placed too close.

It is probably a good time to talk about colors and textures.  You may want to decide on a color scheme for your container, or your scheme may be not having one at all. I am of the mind that flower colors don’t clash unless you think they do. If you place two unlikely colors together, somehow they will work. Take two hot combinations right now – purple and red or purple and orange.  They work. As long as you remain true to whatever your scheme is, it will work. More important is to mix up the textures in a container. While big leafed tropicals are gorgeous, a container containing ONLY tropicals will be lost, nothing will stand out.

Moving on now to the Filler. The Filler is just that, plants that fill the space between the Thriller and Spiller. I don’t mean to downplay the importance of the filler in any way, shape or form. Each of the three components add to the overall composition of the design in their own way. I think of the Filler as generally the most colorful and floriferous (is that a word?) component of the three. The Thriller, being more architectural, giving height, the Spiller is more of a softening layer, but the Filler is where all the action is. I guess it is partially due to the fact that most Filler layers are comprised of more than one type of plant so also adds dimension to the arrangement.

Don’t be afraid to cram some in there. Planting a lot of plants kind of close together takes advantage of their natural tendency to compete for light and water and makes them grow larger.

So now you know the basic formula and your container is pretty much complete.  I am sure it looks beautiful! Give the container a BIG drink of water and place it in its permanent summer location and enjoy!!