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Editor’s Note: The following are bonus photos from a profile of the Greanya and Byler gardens featured in the May 2022 issue of Michigan Gardener. To read the full story, pick up a copy of Michigan Gardener in stores or see it in our Digital Edition, which you can read for free at MichiganGardener.com.
photos by Lisa Steinkopf
A unique garden design is a common goal. We all ask the same questions and then go our own ways with the answers. Here are the questions I hear most often, with no-frill answers that you can personalize.
Plant what will thrive in that spot. Avoid what will merely survive. Say no to what will only “tolerate” those conditions. Only when it thrives can a plant be all it can be and take care of itself.
Make the most of experts by taking a list of your site specifics (see the sidebar “Matching plant and site”) to your local garden center and asking for plant possibilities. Then sit down with books or at your computer, search for images and descriptions of those plants, and decide which you will like best. And, where possible, make sure to purchase the plants from the experts who helped you.
Choose only a few, because less is more when it comes to visual impact and low maintenance. Focus on the shrubs and low groundcovers, since plantings heavy on those two elements are the simplest to maintain. Do not make your choices based on flower color but on foliage—flowers last only weeks but gold, gray, maroon, white-edged, or blue-green leaves are there all season, even all year. After foliage, go for naturally crisp plant shapes and non-floral color such as bark or berries.
To make a great match, fill in the blanks or circle the appropriate terms to describe your site. Choose or keep only those plants that fit every category.
Sun: A plant there will cast a crisp shadow for ____ hours each day. More than 6 hours = full sun. Less than 4 = shade.
Soil: The soil is _________ (terms from below that apply)
Irrigation: Is _________ (terms from below that apply)
Exposure: ____ (yes/no) the plant may have a greater than average chance of having to deal with frost, strong wind, exhaust gases, pool splash, pet/child contact or destructive animal(s) including _________.
Resources that list plants by site or provide detailed site info:
Take care in what you ask for. There are good, fast trees (see the sidebar “Shade trees that grow quickly”) but even the best tend to be very large when fully grown, have weaker wood, and host more insects than trees that grow more slowly. Shading a table with an umbrella or covering a sitting area with a pergola or pavilion can give you shade while you wait for a slower species.
If you do plant for speed, give the tree lots of room. Think twice about using such a plant to shade areas where twig shedding and insect fall-out would reduce the tree’s worth. Where space is limited, planned obsolescence is a good strategy—plant one fast tree with a slower tree nearby, letting the speedy one serve for just 10 or 15 years while the other bulks up.
Spaciousness is what’s inviting, refreshing, most complementary of architecture around an entry, enduring—and most often missing in modern landscapes. So plan for equal amounts space and plants at an entry. Give every plant or group of like plants room so that even at maturity it will not touch its neighbors. You can “color” the space between plants with mulch or a very low groundcover.
Choose only what will thrive on the site and strive for calm combinations. A pleasing trio is plenty (see the sidebar “Making great combinations in the landscape”). To place a combination, look at your door as if you are a guest just pulling into the driveway or starting up the walk. Fill that person’s whole view with just one group of plants. If the walkway is long with nooks that are only revealed as a person walks toward the door, or your yard is large enough that you can turn your head to see another view that does not include the door, plant a second combination.
Within the landscape, repeat or give a nod to something in the architecture of the entry. For instance, if the door is painted an accent color, echo that in foliage or pottery. If there is a distinctive shape in windowpane, gable or trim, carry that out into a bench, trellis or sculpted plant.
Combine for natural shape, foliage color and texture. For example, fine-textured carpet juniper ‘Mother Lode,’ fine-mounded barberry, and coarse-textured, vase-shaped smoke bush. For more subtlety, downplay the contrast between elements—make it a ‘Gold Nugget’ barberry with ‘Mother Lode’ juniper and the green-leaf American smoke tree. For more drama, increase the contrast by using ‘Crimson Pygmy’ barberry or purple-leaf smoke tree.
Evaluate the seasons of special interest provided by a combination and begin additional groups with an eye toward filling seasonal gaps. The juniper-barberry-smoke tree combination provides winter interest, particularly vivid spring foliage effects, and July bloom. So a second group might include a June-blooming tree lilac, ornamental grass that turns red in fall and an attractive, winter-hardy planter that can showcase a summer-blooming annual.
Fences grow faster than hedges. Where traditional fencing is not allowed or doesn’t fit the overall picture, use individual sections of fencing or near-solid trellis, strategically placing them between the viewer in your landscape and intrusive elements outside your yard.
Stick with classic hedge material for screening. Those in that category are dense, look good even if sheared, and are dependable across a variety of growing conditions so that they maintain a uniform appearance even when stretched across a property. Privet, boxwood, yew, spirea, burning bush, arrowwood viburnum, barberry, hornbeam, and arborvitae are classics.
Do not crowd a hedge as you plant. Leave room between plants so that roots and new branches can develop in those spaces, or you will probably experience mid-hedge plant losses, uneven growth, and pest problems throughout the life of the hedge.
Be clear in your definition of “soften” when you ask a designer this question. If you mean to interrupt lines that seem too straight or unnatural when seen as part of a landscape, choose a plant with a naturally rounded or irregular form and place it where just part of that plant will overlap a segment of the offending line. Don’t crowd the building and don’t repeat or cover the entire line.
So if it is the vertical line of the house wall you wish to soften, you might position a small, round-topped crabapple such as Sargent, so that one side of its mature canopy will cover part of the wall’s edge. Place the tree so that a person in your primary viewing location will see the trunk as well away from the house—not lined up with that vertical wall edge. If the horizontal line where your house meets the ground is the part of the corner you want to moderate, plant a low, coarse groundcover such as perennial forget-me-not (Brunnera macrophylla) along one portion of that line but do not repeat the entire line with the groundcover.
Sometimes when a person says they wish to soften a corner, they mean to lead the eye less abruptly from an overly large house to the ground. That usually requires a horizontal space apparently as wide as the house wall is tall. This can be accomplished with a deep, wide bed extending from the house out into the yard, or with an island in the lawn. In either space, use plants of graduated size to create a skyline beginning at the height of the eaves and descending to the ground.
Usually, less is best in these spaces which were created by builders, not gardeners. Fill such a space with a mass of low groundcover or with long-interest perennials (see the sidebar “Long-interest, front-walk perennials”). Avoid filling it with shrubs, most of which will outgrow that space unless continually pruned—that means more work and less natural beauty.
If the area is large, punctuate the groundcover with something like a sculpture, a neat clump-forming perennial, a group of boulders, a sinuous and rocky dry stream bed, a lamp, or birdbath. Place the interruption(s) with care so they fit the feel of the overall landscape. A center placement or a line of equally-spaced, matching items works in a formal setting. One off-center item or three similar but unequal items placed to describe an unequal triangle will work better where informality and asymmetry are the rule.
Avoid confusing plantings in this area with “something for the front of that wall.” Do this by keeping your main viewer’s location in mind—if you are in the street, on the public walk, or looking in from the foot of the driveway, anything between you and the house will appear to be in front of the house. Plantings outside the front walk or in the lawn can fill that visual space more gracefully and without the increased work required to maintain plants in small spaces.
For high-profile places, mass perennials that look neat when not in bloom, have an attractive winter presence, and require minimal care. Examples:
Distract the viewer by providing something nice to look at along a different line, then incorporate the unfortunate element within plants or features that frame the more desirable feature. For instance, where a utility box begs attention, you might place a substantial birdbath or decorative scarecrow in the foreground to the left or right of the utility box, then plant a mass of low, dense shrubbery such as dwarf spirea or deutzia to embrace or surround your chosen whimsy. Let that frame swallow the utility box or cross between it and the viewer, obscuring it.
Alternatively, embrace and multiply the ugly feature. Where there is a wellhead that catches your eye, plan to cover it with a fiberglass boulder, but put that rock in a bed that has several clusters of equally or more impressive native stone. Be careful to avoid drawing the bed to center on the wellhead.
As another example of hiding something in plain view: If a square of concrete marks a septic tank cover and irritates your aesthetic sensibilities, give that concrete a crowd to blend into. Add flagstone or concrete stepping stones in a pleasing pattern across the lawn.
Gardens are least expensive and simplest to tend when they are close at hand, so if you want a flower garden, put it here. However, don’t plant it right along the edge of a deck or patio if you cannot see that area from your lounge chair. Narrow borders hidden from everyday view along the foot of a raised deck or patio should be filled with groundcover or simply mulched to reduce weeding and edging chores, and a separate garden placed far enough from the edge to be easily seen and enjoyed.
Use tall features carefully around a sitting area since large, dense objects can block breezes and light, creating an oppressive or claustrophobic atmosphere. Position shrubs or a trellis to block unsightly views but do not mass them or use species so massive that they must be kept sheared.
Cheap plants are not what you need! Look for the right plants in an affordable size at a garden center that produces healthy plants. Make a list of the plants you’ve decided to use—include the scientific name and variety—and take that to a local garden center.
Small, healthy plants grow more quickly than anyone expects. If you planned combinations for pleasing contrast and then tighten the spacing between plants of the same kind to leave a bit more space between groups than between plants of one kind, even small plants have immediate, pleasing impact.
Don’t rush as you landscape. It’s a long-term investment, so take one question and develop one lasting solution at a time.
Article by Janet Macunovich and photos by Steven Nikkila, www.gardenatoz.com.
by Nancy Szerlag
Slugs are the bane of many gardeners’ existence. In the dark of night these slimy characters chew away at the garden, leaving it in tatters by sunup. A mild winter combined with a cool, wet summer can send the dastardly slug population soaring. And a single slug will eat 30 to 40 times its weight in vegetation daily, so a handful of slugs can do a great deal of damage in a short period of time.
Ridding the garden of slugs is a hard fought battle for many gardeners. Commercial slug baits containing metaldehyde are not recommended because they are highly toxic to small animals, children and birds. Also, if used regularly, the slugs seem to build up immunity to the ingredients.
Beer traps (tin cans filled with fresh beer, or a solution of sugar, water and yeast) will lure the slugs to their demise by drowning, but they attract only those sliming around in close proximity to the slug saloon. If you have a large garden, to get any measure of control you have to set out a lot of traps and they need to be cleaned and refilled every few days.
Products with iron phosphate are both effective and easy to use for controlling slugs. Plus, some are organic products that will not harm pets and wildlife. Iron phosphate breaks down to become part of the soil, and is combined with an effective lure that slugs consider a tasty treat.
Because slugs feed mostly at night, it’s best to apply the iron phosphate products in the evening. Slugs like damp areas, so if the soil is dry, wet it before applying. While the granules will not dissolve in the rain, they must be reapplied as they are consumed. To be truly effective the product needs to be in place as the slug eggs hatch out, so it should be reapplied according to package directions throughout the summer. A very heavy infestation of slugs may take two years or more to control.
We are better able to combat slugs effectively, like any garden pest, if we become familiar with their feeding habits and life cycle. Unfortunately, slugs (like worms) are hermaphroditic, having both male and female sex organs, so every slug that reaches adulthood in the garden has the potential of procreating more slugs by laying anywhere from 20 to as many as 100 eggs once or possibly twice a year.
When digging in the dirt, should you come upon a cache of tiny translucent spheres that look like little plastic beads sitting in the soil, you have found a stash of slug eggs. I often find them in the soil under decorative stones and containers that sit in the garden. When I find a mass of eggs, I crush them between my gloved fingers or carefully scoop them up and dump them in the trash. In spring when the ground warms, the eggs hatch and the tiny slugs immediately become active feeders. Mature slugs are able to overwinter in the soil and are ready to feed as soon as tender shoots emerge from the soil in spring.
So, unlike the Integrated Pest Management strategy used for most garden insects, where products are not recommended for use until the insect damage becomes unsightly, if your garden suffered slug damage last year, you should begin control measures as soon as the hostas and other plants poke their noses through the soil in spring.
Using their rasp-like mouth parts, slugs bore through the leaves, fruit and flowers of many plants, leaving telltale round holes behind. Other signs that slugs are at work are the trails of shiny, silvery dried slime left on the surface of the soil. Slugs are particularly fond of hostas, petunias and delphiniums. The leaves of hostas under attack will soon look like Swiss cheese.
Slugs do most of their feeding at night, although they are also active on cool, overcast, rainy days. Because slugs seek shelter in soil cracks and under debris during the day, many gardeners never see them and mistakenly blame other insects for their damage. Treatment with a broad-spectrum pesticide is useless because these insecticides are ineffective for use on slugs, which are members of the mollusk family. However, insecticides unfortunately do kill off a slug’s natural predators, including rove beetles, daddy long legs spiders, centipedes, fire fly larvae and soldier beetles—this helps to increase the slug population. Thus, avoid this scenario.
To check for slugs, peruse the garden with a flashlight a couple of hours after sundown. Be sure to look at the undersides of leaves. Some gardeners enjoy hand-to-hand combat, and delight in hand-picking and dropping their prey in cans of soapy water. But hand-picking can be tedious and tiny hatchlings are easily missed in the dark of night.
It’s not always necessary to treat an entire garden for slug infestations because there are certain plants that are slug resistant. Artemisia, bleeding heart, coral bells, tickseed, goatsbeard, lamb’s ears, candytuft, foxglove, Jacob’s ladder, and most herbs seem to be immune. However, common slug targets include begonia, hollyhock, marigold, primrose, violets, bellflower, geranium, daylily, iris and snapdragon. Lettuce, cabbage and rhubarb are favorite foods of slugs, along with the fruits of strawberries and tomatoes. Ivy and succulents are also prime dining fare.
As a shade gardener and grower of hostas, I’ve battled slugs for a number of years and tried many organic controls including beer traps, organic dusts and repellents. They all work to a degree, but to be truly effective they need to be attended and monitored on almost a daily basis. I don’t have that kind of time. But the iron phosphate products have given me the time to stop and smell the roses. I am happy to say I am finally winning my war on slugs in an environmentally friendly manner.
Nancy Szerlag is a Master Gardener and Master Composter from Oakland County, MI.
by P.J. Baker
If you have quite a bit of shade at your house, everyone says, “Oh, you want hostas. That’s what grows in shade gardens.” Well, if you go out in the woods in Michigan you will find many flowers, but no native hostas. Native to China and Japan, hostas are wonderful shade plants. Used in combination with other shade plants, or using 2 to 3 different hostas together, they can be beautiful.
I have a shade garden that is so full I do not have room for anything else. However, there are no hostas—there is no space left to plant them. I have flowers all summer long and interesting foliage when there are no flowers. My hellebore (Lenten rose) starts blooming in March, with or without snow, and it is evergreen. I like it under trees. The only maintenance is cutting off old dead leaves in the spring. Another early bloomer that has variegated foliage is lungwort (Pulmonaria). These have blue and pink flowers in April or May. This groundcover looks great even when not flowering. Note that it can spread easily by seed.
Some of my favorite perennials for shade are columbine, astilbe, brunnera, coral bells, foxglove, epimedium, geranium and various ferns. Astilbe flowers at different times and if you get several different hybrids, there can be one blooming most of the summer. Some also have reddish leaves and all have lacy foliage. The flowers of brunnera look like forget-me-nots. Coral bells have many variegated and ruffled edges on their foliage. Geranium likes sun or shade, often has fragrant foliage, and has different bloom times. These perennials are just a few of many that are available.
There are also several grasses that can be planted in the shade. This also adds winter interest; the dead flower heads are lovely all winter. Cut most grasses to ground level in the spring. Several grasses for shade are Northern sea oats, tufted hair grass, variegated purple moor grass, Japanese forest grass (Hakonechloa), and many types of sedges. These grasses range in height from 6 inches to 3 feet. The foliage is found in an assortment of colors such as blue, yellow, green, and variegated.
Bulbs for the shade include Spanish bluebell, fritillaria, Italian arum (Arum italicum), dog’s tooth violet or trout lily, winter aconite, and great camas (Camassia leichtlinii). Camassia is a native bulb used by Native Americans for food. For interesting variegated foliage in winter and beautiful orange berries, use the Italian arum. Most of the bulbs bloom in the spring for a lovely early show. Then in late June after the foliage turns yellow, you can plant shade annuals in the area and have an all-summer show.
There are many annuals that can be used in the shade besides impatiens and begonia. I like coleus, with its striking foliage, and torenia.
Shrubs are a staple of the garden and there are several that prefer the shade. If you have a protected area on the north or east side of your house, plant broadleaf evergreens. These include rhododendrons, azaleas, kalmias, and euonymus. There are evergreen and deciduous hollies (winterberry) that also have berries for winter interest.
More shade shrubs include fothergilla, summersweet, smooth hydrangea, panicle hydrangea, oakleaf hydrangea, and Virginia sweetspire. Hydrangeas also offer winter interest with their dead flower heads. If needed, the smooth and panicle hydrangeas may be cut down to about 12 inches in the spring. Some offer great fall color. Oakleaf hydrangea turns red in fall, although because of winter injury it may not flower every year; do not cut it down in the spring. Fothergilla turns yellow in fall. Virginia sweetspire is native and turns reddish-purple, often persisting into winter.
I encourage you to study and look around your neighborhood for a summer before you start your shade garden. Put a plan on paper; you will be grateful you spent the time planning your garden. You may decide to include hosta plants, or like me, you may find you ran out of space.
Last October, I transplanted two climbing roses and a standard rose bush. What should I be doing for them this spring?
There are four basic tasks for transplanted roses. First, carefully remove winter protection about the time you see crocus and tulips emerging from the ground. That indicates the ground temperature is warming slowly and your roses will be taking up moisture soon. If any of your roses were grafted, expose the graft union and check for growth buds on the rootstock (below the graft). You do not want to encourage these rootstock sprouts—remove them. On your climbers, if you have laid the canes down on the soil and covered them up, now is the time to uncover and gently lift the canes up and attach them again to their support structure.
The second task is pruning in April, when you start to see bud swell on the canes and branches, or around the time forsythias bloom. Remove dead branches and prune for air circulation, crossing branches and aesthetic cane length based on the supports.
The third step is their first feeding, which can be done at pruning time. A general slow-release fertilizer blended for roses is great. Spread it at the dripline and gently scratch it into the soil. Roses are heavy feeders. Many rose growers use organic supplements, such as fish emulsion or additional slow-release granular fertilizer, once a month until August to keep them healthy against disease and insect attack.
Lastly, as the roses start to push out leaves and new growth, apply a preventative spray for fungal diseases like black spot. A horticultural oil spray later in May into June can help with insect problems.
by Janet Macunovich
Photographs by Steven Nikkila
Plants are most susceptible to cold after they begin to wake up in spring. Buds, bark and roots that were hardened to the point of being able to weather minus 20 degrees in January become irreversibly soft by late March or early April. Then they may be seriously damaged at 25 degrees and killed outright at 10 degrees. Sudden, large drops in temperature hurt them most, and that’s what April frosts usually are—frigid packets of air that drop from clear skies after a balmy, slightly breezy day goes still at sunset.
Consequences of spring freezes may take days or even weeks to develop and are often lumped in with “winter kill.” We may even fail to recognize them as cold damage because they appear long after we’ve forgotten the frost. Then we see leaf drop, bud blast, aborted flowers, splitting bark, scorched foliage, freeze-dried twigs, stunted growth, susceptibility to disease, and failure to flower or flourish.
We often spend hours in late fall putting special plants to bed with wilt-stop coatings, burlap screens, elaborate mulch blankets and one last watering before the ground freezes. Those measures may have made a difference—that marginally hardy rosemary may have survived in its protected alcove and the rhododendrons and boxwoods stayed moist enough to bring their leaves into April unscathed. Yet what’s alive right now may be relegated to the compost pile and labeled “not hardy” if we let down our guard during this last leg of the journey.
Here are ideas to help your plants pass without harm through these next few, most risky weeks.
You can fight frost with water, but you’ll have to aim the hose at the plants’ roots, not up at the leaves and stems.
An inclination to sprinkle at-risk foliage is understandable if you have seen nursery stock or an orchard protected from spring frost in rather dramatic fashion, by sprinklers that run all night to coat the plants with ice and all morning to ease the ice’s passage. However, this technique is one that warrants a “don’t try this at home” caption. That’s because it’s the creation of ice, not its simple presence, that works the magic. Plants benefit from the heat given off by each new drop of water as it enters an icy state. Standard oscillating and rotating sprinklers can’t deliver the amount of water or relentless coverage needed to foster continual ice formation.
What you can do with water is to stoke the radiator below each plant. Keep an eye on the three-day forecast so you can tend your plants the day before a frost is due. Soak the soil—avoid splashing the branches and foliage. Moist soil absorbs more heat from the air by day and radiates it longer and more steadily into the night than dry soil. That’s one reason that frost is always more likely over sandy ground than clay.
Don’t over-do. If your garden is very well-drained, you may be able to water with abandon but if there’s any chance the soil will become waterlogged, quit. Soggy roots are more trouble to a plant than frosted tips.
Everyone knows that heat rises but many are surprised to know just how much warmth can radiate from the soil. Soil temperature in the Midwest in late winter and early spring may be in the 20s or perhaps 30 degrees from ground level to two feet deep. Below that the ground remains at about 50 degrees. If the soil is loose and airy, that heat rises steadily through and out of the soil. It can preserve plants and plant parts close to the ground during a frost.
Cover a plant with something that seals its connection with this radiator. Within that tent the air may be 5 degrees warmer than in the open.
Don’t use plastic to cover plants, or if you do, place props to hold it well up off the leaves and twigs so it can trap ground-warmed air around all parts of the plant. Since plastic is such a poor insulator, any bit of plant touching the plastic is essentially in contact with the frosty air and likely to freeze as if unprotected.
The better choice for frost protection is cloth, replete with tiny air pockets. You can use old linens and blankets if they’re light enough to cover without crushing delicate foliage. To use heavier materials, first place props to bear the weight.
Lightweight fabrics developed specifically for plant protection are called floating row cover, frost blanket, frost cloth, plant cover, and spun-bond polypropylene—all with various brand names. These products are light enough in most cases to be supported by the plant itself and come in sections or rolls wide enough to cover a shrub or a whole bed of flowers or vegetables. Permeable to light and water, they can be left in place even on cold days without smothering the plant they’re protecting. They are made in a range of weights from about one-half to several ounces per square yard. In general, the heavier the cloth the more light it blocks, but the more heat it can hold—the lightest promise just 2 or 3 degrees of frost protection while the heaviest claim eight.
The traditional cloche is simply a large glass jar that can be inverted over a plant. More recently, sections of glass or plastic clipped together to make tents over individual plants or rows have been included under this term.
Plastic tunnels covering rows of plants are sometimes called cloches, too. They’re made by bending heavy wire into big U shapes, sticking them upside down into the ground, and then covering them with plastic from a roll. Glass is better than plastic in terms of the light, warmth and humidity it affords a plant, but shatterproof plastic is safer for garden use. Plastic cloches can provide protection from hail as well as frost.
Plastic milk jugs and soft drink bottles can be pressed into service as cloches. Cut off the bottom of the jug or bottle and press it firmly into place as you cover the plant so its cut edges sit securely in the soil. If days are warm, remove the bottle cap to vent excess heat.
A modern twist on the traditional cloche are season extenders like the Wall O’ Water. A plant is encircled by this cylinder of compartmented plastic—basically a double sheet of heavy plastic seamed to form pockets that can be filled with water. The water absorbs radiant energy by day and at night releases it to the plant in its embrace.
Our mothers, grandmas and aunties were right—one can catch one’s death in a wind. Cold that wouldn’t otherwise harm a plant can kill if drying winds accompany it. Wind is even more damaging to plants during early spring cold spells than it is during the depths of winter. So keep that burlap screen or snow fencing in its place several feet to the windward side of your broadleaf evergreens.
One reason spring wind is so devastating is that air temperatures during the day are warm enough that a holly, rhododendron, boxwood, pieris or grapeholly leaf can sustain photosynthesis. Those leaves lose water through their pores during that process. Yet a cold snap can freeze the top inch of soil where these plants have many fine roots. The next day, the plant sits in the sun losing water through its leaves but the water the roots need to replace it is locked in ice. When water runs short, the losers are the aerial parts furthest out—tips and emerging buds—as well as leaf edges that have “softened” as they quit the devices that added up to seasonal hardiness. We often don’t see the damage until May, but the scorched tips and leaf margins we see at that time began in that April freeze.
If you wonder whether you should protect plants from wind, look around your neighborhood for trees that stand alone, away from the protection of a grove or any buildings. Are those trees symmetrical or distorted? Distortion on one side can indicate severity and direction of the prevailing winds that dry and kill in late spring.
Mulch is a another strategy that’s important to understory species with shallow roots, such as rhododendron, holly, Japanese maple and magnolia. A study in Wisconsin put a number on the value of mulch. That is, when air temperature falls to 1 degree, the soil there drops to 16 degrees if it has a three-inch mulch blanket, but can stay at about 22 degrees given six inches of cover.
If you begin to rake off special plants’ extra mulch on warm spring days, don’t be too quick to cart it away. A friend has recently recommended sawdust as a material that can be easily peeled back yet replaced in a hurry. I intend to keep some on hand to rectify the silliness of Japanese wax bell (Kirengeshoma palmata), which is forever leaping up too soon and being cut down by frost.
I don’t have many things that I keep on hand especially for frost protection. Like most gardeners, I improvise. Upended plastic garbage pails, five gallon buckets, milk crates, old draperies and cardboard boxes are all in my April bag of tricks. I’ve also grinned over the use of beach umbrellas in one friend’s garden and discussed with another how we might use a hunter’s open-bottom ground blind to protect shrubs and even small trees.
Every spring I vow to eliminate all plants that cause me extra work. Every summer at least a few of them convince me anew that they’re worth the effort. Thank goodness for the existence of perfect plants—species that can handle whatever “normal” happens to be each spring. I’m grateful, too, for ideal places, such as that wind-protected spot about ten feet southeast of my neighbor’s six-foot hedge. It is ground that happens to slope to the southeast so it sheds cold air downhill and catches warming sun early in the year. It’s sandy, well-drained soil there, so it conducts ground warmth well and doesn’t add oxygen deprivation to a root’s winter woes. I can’t ask for more protection.
But I can ask why the spot’s not bigger. I’d like to put my whole garden into it.
Article by Janet Macunovich and photos by Steven Nikkila, www.gardenatoz.com.
As spring bulbs begin to emerge, gardeners often wish they had planted more bulbs last fall. Few “perennials” are this easy to plant, grow, and maintain. However, many bulbs do have shortcomings. Some are planted and immediately become squirrel food. Others bloom so late that gardeners have to wait a few extra weeks for the foliage to die back before annuals can be planted. And the largest concern is their failure to bloom for more than a few years in the garden. Tarda tulip may help you overcome some of these potential problems.
Every year, in late April to early May, each tarda tulip (Tulipa tarda) bulb produces 4 to 6, star-shaped flowers that are about 2 to 3 inches across. The yellow buds open almost flat, revealing bright yellow petals whose lower half is white. Unlike most of the showier hybrids of today, tarda tulip’s flower size and color lends itself to a more refined and subdued display.
Tarda tulip is one of several tulips that can be found in nature, especially if you happen to be walking around the rocky slopes of rural China. Therefore, it is referred to as a species tulip—it hasn’t been bred for bigger blooms or brighter colors. Like several other species tulips, tarda tulip is extremely hardy. Severe winters and hot summers rarely threaten its vigor. This is especially true if you can create well-drained soil that is amended with organic matter such as compost or shredded pine bark. Plant bulbs at a depth of 6 inches in full or partial sun for best results.
The other great feature of this species tulip is its ability to flower year after year after year. Many of the more popular tulip types such as parrots, doubles, single lates, etc., have exceptional flower colors and forms. These, however, rarely last for more than a few years in the garden, even with the best conditions. On the other hand, tarda tulip is a true perennial type and should last for many years with minimal or no effort.
Tarda tulip’s short, yellow and white flowers make excellent partners for slightly taller tulips. Try a rock garden tulip (Tulipa greigii) for a 10- to 12-inch background. Then use the durable blossoms of grape hyacinths as a contrasting blue, spike-shaped flower that grows to about the same six-inch height. Don’t forget spring-blooming perennial groundcovers such as creeping phlox or candytuft. These can be planted right over tarda tulip for a brilliant, double dose of color every spring.
As for the squirrels, I can offer some ideas. The most reliable deterrent is to plant your bulbs under a piece of chicken wire that is buried below the soil surface. It always is effective but can be a chore to install and is especially annoying when it gets in the way of other plantings. Repellents can also be applied to bulbs before planting. These eventually wash away, but usually succeed because bulbs are the most vulnerable for a few days after planting. The good news is that tarda tulip is one of the least expensive tulips available. So, an occasional loss to Mr. Squirrel isn’t as economically devastating as it would be with other, more costly bulbs.
In the fall, tarda tulip can be found at many garden centers alongside other species tulips. Try these true perennials in your toughest areas and take advantage of their durability and beauty. It’s likely that these little gems will outlast your other bulbs and may even spread to fill nearby open spaces. Just remember to watch out for the squirrels.
Botanical name: Tulipa tarda (TOO-lip-uh TAR-duh)
Plant type: Bulb
Plant size: 6 inches tall
Hardiness: Zone 4
Flower color: White tips & yellow centers
Flower size: 2-3 inches across, star-shaped
Bloom period: Late April to early May
Leaf color: Green
Leaf size: 5 inches long
Light: Full to part sun
Soil: Well-drained soil, amended with organic matter
Uses: Perennial border, rock garden
Companion plants: Grape hyacinths, medium height tulips (10-14 inch), spring-blooming perennial groundcovers, such as creeping phlox or candytuft.
Remarks: Species tulip; very hardy; longer-lived than the more common, hybridized tulips.
George Papadelis is the owner of Telly’s Greenhouse in Troy and Shelby Township, MI.
At our upcoming wedding, we want to give a seedling or plant as a wedding party favor. We need suggestions as to what tree or plants can be planted in Michigan in September. Since there will be about 500 guests, the price of each plant must be relatively low.
Congratulations on using a plant as a wedding party favor! One of the best choices for fall planting, and a Michigan native, would be a white spruce (Picea glauca) seedling. These strong conifers transplant easily, and tolerate a wide variety of soil types and sun conditions. They are used for windbreaks, lumber, and sometimes Christmas trees. They have a strong conical form and hold their limbs out horizontally. The dense branching provides shelter and food for birds and other wildlife. What a fitting long-term remembrance of your wedding.
Understanding the large quantity, you want to deal with a local wholesaler/retailer that can offer a practical price. Consider Cold Stream Farm in northwest Michigan (www.coldstreamfarm.net). Please remember that 500 seedlings will likely be prepared in bulk. You will have to separate them and individually wrap their roots in a moisture-retaining mulch and secure in a waterproof sleeve. Therefore, timing your order is important so that the seedlings are not stored indefinitely. Once received, you have approximately one week to separate, rewrap and distribute. Prepare a tag for each tree that tells guests to plant as soon as possible and the optimum soil and light conditions.
University of Michigan: A new study involving more than 100 scientists from across the globe and the largest forest database yet assembled estimates that there are about 73,000 tree species on Earth, including about 9,200 species yet to be discovered.
The global estimate is about 14% higher than the current number of known tree species. Most of the undiscovered species are likely to be rare, with very low populations and limited spatial distribution, the study shows.
That makes the undiscovered species especially vulnerable to human-caused disruptions such as deforestation and climate change, according to the study authors, who say the new findings will help prioritize forest conservation efforts.
“These results highlight the vulnerability of global forest biodiversity to anthropogenic changes, particularly land use and climate, because the survival of rare taxa is disproportionately threatened by these pressures,” said University of Michigan forest ecologist Peter Reich, one of two senior authors of a paper scheduled for publication Jan. 31 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“By establishing a quantitative benchmark, this study could contribute to tree and forest conservation efforts and the future discovery of new trees and associated species in certain parts of the world,” said Reich, director of the Institute for Global Change Biology at U-M’s School for Environment and Sustainability.
For the study, the researchers combined tree abundance and occurrence data from two global datasets—one from the Global Forest Biodiversity Initiative and the other from TREECHANGE—that use ground-sourced forest-plot data. The combined databases yielded a total of 64,100 documented tree species worldwide, a total similar to a previous study that found about 60,000 tree species on the planet.
How do I trellis thornless blackberries? I have several 2- to 3-foot-tall plants that have many hard-to-tame shoots pointing in every direction. I planted them last spring and none had fruit last year. I wound the longest ones around the wire between the metal fence stakes, which are about 3 feet high. How and when do I prune?
Thornless blackberry primo canes tend to grow along the ground like a vine for the first two years after planting. They also do not produce a large crop the first season. Proper pruning and strong wire support are needed. For thornless blackberries, you need two wires at heights of 3 feet and 5 feet from the ground between posts 20 feet apart. Because of the vine-like nature of this bramble fruit, individual plants should be 10 feet apart.
Now for pruning. Cut back the main trailing canes at the top by several inches in late winter to 4 to 6 feet. That would be roughly March, before bud swell. This pruning forces development of sturdier, more fruitful canes. Keep them tied to the upper wire. For wild lateral shoots, select only those parallel to the wires, trimming them back to about 12 inches. Guide and tie them to the lower wire. Remove cane shoots that go out perpendicular from the wire trellis. This forces the plant to concentrate its energy on the remaining canes for healthy growth and better fruit production. Make sure you prune out any damaged or weak, spindly canes. Proper pruning and trellising will bring your thornless blackberries to an enjoyable production level.
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