You're Never too Smart to Learn

I learned something this morning at the Garden Rant blog.  That there is an even better blog at The Garden Professors!  I may never make it back outside.  Anyway, it seems that each post on The Garden Professors is a short lesson suitable for Advanced Master Gardener Training.  The Friday Puzzlers are always great, and even though it is only Wednesday, I have one to share.

In the photo above you see a planting of Chamaecyparis pisifera probably 'Mops', well established for over ten years, healthy and yes, they are all the same species planted at the same time.  I think there are six plants total.  No trick photography, just a nice picture taken on a January day in Indiana.  As you can see there is a great deal of variation in the coloring.  They are supposed to be bright yellow as exhibited in the plant on the left.  So what is going on here?

You can post your thoughts and I will let you know if you are correct.

In the meantime, I would like to report that the learning continued at the Porter County Master Gardener Show in Valparaiso, IN this past weekend.  It was fantastic as usual.  Kudos to the Lake County MGs who also helped.  We always take a large group to this show because they have such great presenters including Connor Shaw of Possibility Place Nursery, Galen Gates from the Chicago Botanic Garden, Rich Eyre of Foxwillow Pines Nursery, Kunso Kim and Donna Smith from The Morton Arboretum, garden writer Jean Starr and several local MGs who lead programs as well.  The vendors are fantastic, too particularly Gene and  JoAn Bush of Munchkin Gardens, and I hear the food is good, but I never get away from the presentation room long enough to find out.  All this for $7, what a deal!  Gee I said that last year, too.

It's About Time

As you can tell, it has been almost a year since I posted anything.  Needless to say, it was a busy year.  My gardener friend Diane and I spent a great deal of the year restoring a Jens Jensen landscape in Indianapolis at a private residence.  The project is important to me on so many levels, and I am anxious to see the plantings develop over the next several years.  Diane and I had help from our husbands and various other people on occasion, but for the most part it was her mostly and me and the homeowner out there in the yard.

Here is Diane watering in a super quality native Hawthorne from Possibility Place Nursery.  It took some effort to find the native species plants indicated in the original Jensen design, but we are sure it will be well worth it.  In all we put in thousands of plants ranging from daffodil bulbs and tree seedlings to 1 3/4" caliper crab apples.  Diane and her husband also spread two semi loads of mulch on this 3 acre project.

The original stone paths were found by the homeowner during prep of the site.  It was completely overgrown with locust trees, honeysuckle and big leaf winter creeper.  The large oaks and maples were saved.  Here is a new bench placed per the design near the pond.  It looks lovely at the base of this tree.  A "house of bugs" was found at the base of the bench which turned out to be yellow jackets.  They were sprayed repeatedly and finally cleared out.

Here is the witch hazel in full bloom in October.  It is a glorious specimen at least 30' tall and wide.  We planted several more to form a colony.  I have no doubt that this was an original from the 1920s. Way in the back of this photo you see the neighbor's house.  They were so upset by the removal of all of the vegetation that they had a row of very large arborvitae planted right on the property line as a screen.  How sad that they will miss out on the view of a Jensen design out of their windows.

Diane and I will be preparing a program about this project  that we will present at our local Master Gardener meeting in November 2010.  We will have a whole year of photos to share.  I'll keep updates on the landscape's progress on this blog.

Book Review of "50 High-Impact, Low-Care Garden Plants"

I have read the new book from Timber Press by Tracy DiSabato-Aust and I am glad that it was not an expensive book to buy. The theme of the book ties in to the current desire of many home gardeners to have it all; high-impact plants that don't require much work. The work that most want to avoid includes spraying for pests, controling invasivness, frequent division to maintain vigor, and providing additional water. I repeatedly hear people ask for something they can just put in the ground, that looks great all summer, and that they never have to do anything with. So I think that gardeners will buy this book thinking that it has all the answers. Well, it doesn't and further, the included plants are not all what I would even consider for a book of this topic. I have most of the plants included and have experience with growing them. Some are plants that I recommend regularly; others I would never consider for anyone but a serious gardener.

Here are some specific problems I find with this book. Several of the plants listed are not readily available at a wide range of nurseries or garden centers. They are plants that a gardener would need to special order through a full service nursery.  All of that means "expensive".   For example Paeonia obovata - $45 plus shipping from Plant's Delight. Most gardeners are not willing to spend that much for a perennial. Syneilesis acanitifolia is nearly impossible to find. Perhaps it will be more readily available in the new future.

There is a list of nurseries in the back of the book. Some are wholesale only which means the public can't buy from them. Others are ones that I am familiar with. My suspicion is that these are nurseries that sell Timber Press books, but I don't know that for certain.

I will not go through and pick it apart plant by plant. Here are some of my specific thoughts. I concur on the most of the suggestions of trees, grasses and shrubs. Just be forewarned that some are hard to find an are expensive. I have to take exception with 'Endless Summer' which garden writer Jean Starr accurately called 'Endless Bummer' in her remarks at the Porter County Garden Show. Hydrangea macrophylla  as a whole are not worth the effort to gardeners in zone 5 or further north due to winter kill of the flower buds. H. arborescens, H. paniculata, H. quercifolia and H.serrata all have wonderful selections with big impact.

Itea virginica 'Henry's Garnet' is a great shrub that I use regularly, but it does send up suckers and can become invasive. It requires the use of a shovel and a bit of hard work to remove suckers and can be a problem if it has suckered into an area with bulbs or is coming up between the boards of the deck. But plant it where it can roam and it is great.

Another roamer that is included is the bamboo Indocalamus tessellatus. Even if it doesn't run as much as other running bamboos, it will still require special equipment to dig out if the homeowner decides they don't want it anymore. That has to be a consideration in garden design/landscape design. How difficult will it be to get rid of a plant when I get tired of it or it gets out of hand? For that reason I also question the recommendation of Yucca filamentosa 'Color Guard'.

As for the perennials, I was surprised to see the inclusion of Dicentra spectabilis 'Gold Heart' and Papaver orientale since both are gone for long period of the year. They do put on a big show for a short period of time, but I think its better to go for plants that will be there for awhile. Rather than recommend Iris sibirica 'Caesar's Brother' I would go with Iris ensata 'Variegata' for wet sites or Iris pallida 'Variegata' for drier sites. The foliage looks great all summer even after the blooms are gone.

Where were the viburnums? I can't imagine a garden without Viburnum carlesii or V. judii. I also always recommend Fothergilla gardenii as a great shrub in the mixed border. And in this time of choosing plants that are drought tolerant, I expected to see an Epimedium. They have year round interest and need no attention once established. Ligularia dentata 'Britt-Marie Crawford' is a great plant, but not for the average gardener. Most people will be put off by her afternoon wilt and not understand that it's just in her nature.

My final comment to those of you who actually buy garden reference books is to check this one out of the library and spend your money on the latest edition of "The Well-Tended Perennial Garden" by the same author. That book is much more serious and functional.