Design trends

All You Need to Know About Wisteria

The wisteria blooming now are spectacular. I almost forget about them during the dormant season as I’m not fortunate to have one in my garden but once they start to flower they seem to be everywhere, even growing up into the redwoods in many places. Who hasn’t longed for their fence, arbor or pergola to be covered with fragrant wisteria? Bees and hummingbirds love them, too.

Those you see most often are probably Cooke’s Purple with clusters of fragrant blue-purple flowers 20 inches long.It blooms twice per season which is a plus but there are many other varieties available now.
Chinese wisteria like Cooke’s Purple can take up to 20 years to mature enough to produce flowers, but once it has matured, the plant is very long lived and can live up to 100 years.

Amethyst Falls American Wisteria has become very popular because it’s perfect for smaller spaces. Growing to only about a third of the rate of Asian wisteria, it blooms at an early age with lightly fragrant purple racemes. Grow in a container for your porch or patio, train up an arbor or trellis or train as a small free-standing tree.

Another smaller variety to try is Shiro-Beni Silky Wisteria with its highly scented dark pink smaller flowers that open all at once. Consider also Iko Yama Fuji Silky wisteria with long violet buds that open to highly fragrant pale lilac blooms in late spring. Also beautiful is Kaptain Fuji a white silky variety.

Japanese wisteria like Texas Purple, White and Pink Japanese wisteria are most effective when grown on pergolas so their long flower cluster can hang freely.

Kentucky Blue Moon is one of the hardiest wisteria. It blooms up the three times in a growing season once established producing beautiful foot-long racemes of fragrant, pea-like lavender-blue flowers.

Wisteria are one of nature’s most resilient survivors. They are able to withstand and recover quickly from difficult conditions. To some they are a little too tough for their own good with a growth rate rivaling bamboo during the summer. If you dream of a wisteria-covered pergola shading your patio here are some maintenance tips that are sure to keep both gardener and vine happy.

Wisteria are so vigorous they can be pruned at any time, keeping them in bounds and clearing out unwanted or dead growth. Prune out any stems you see extending into eaves, windows or shingles. If yours has gotten away from you, you can even prune it down to the ground and start over with training although you’ll have to wait a few years for your vine to bloom again.

To their control size major pruning is done during the dormant season. Start by trimming the long tendrils that grew over the summer back to about 6 inches from the main trunk. Cutting the tendrils back in this way will initiate flower bud development, neaten the plant up, and show off the attractive trusty, gnarly character of the vines.

Whatever time you do renovation pruning remember the response of the wisteria to aggressive pruning is to literally explode with new runners. They put energy into new vegetative growth at the expense of flowering. Make sure you keep up on ongoing maintenance pruning by removing all unwanted runners right to their point of origin. Then prune back the others to 3 buds or sets of leaves. Repeated pruning of these runners is what will eventually give you spurs of wood, short laterals that in turn will provide you with flower clusters. You need to prune these runners all season long which ends up being every 3-4 weeks.

Do not fertilize your wisteria. They do not flower well if there is an over abundance of luxuriant growth. Over feeding also ends up giving them the means to become un unmanageable monster. If you have trouble getting your vine to flower an application of a high phosphorus fertilizer may promote blooming.

Maintaining a wisteria requires some diligence but the reward is worth the effort. Remember this especially during winter pruning season to make summer maintenance easier. If you find that the wisteria vine has invaded a nearby bed, cut roots with a shovel below the soil line to control any that have wandered.

All parts of the wisteria vine contain a toxin known as wisterin which can cause stomach upset. Growers should also be wary of pets and children eating the flowers or seed pods.

Design trends

Earth Day 2025

My friend Grace learning about horses and our environment with Lucy.

The theme for Earth Day 2025 is Our Power, Our Planet. Emphasizing the importance of renewable energy and aiming to triple global electricity generation from renewable sources by 2030.

Earth day is a day of education about environmental issues. Celebrate it in your own backyard by being outside. It’s your own personal outdoor living room – a safe place for pets and kids to play. Just get outside, maybe trim some shrubs, plant something for the birds and pollinators. When you become a steward of your own yard, you are helping to preserve your own corner of the ecosystem. Our connection to the earth is one of the most valuable lessons we can share with our children.

For Earth Day 2025, kids can improve renewable resources by reducing waste, conserving energy and water and enjoying nature by planting trees or participating in cleanups, all while learning about the environment and inspiring others.

We can reduce waste by avoiding single-use plastics, bringing reusable containers for lunch and choosing products with less packaging. You can find creative ways to repurpose old materials like Turning old magazines into art.

This sounds simple, but recycle properly, ensuring that all your recyclable materials are sorted and placed in the correct bins. Save energy and water where ever you can.

Engage in nature-based activities like planting trees in your yard. Clean up littler where ever you find it. Go for walks in parks or nature trails and learn about the plants and animals that live there. Make a nature-based craft like a bird feeder or bee hotel.

Finding things to do in the garden is easy. You probably already have some edible flowers in your garden. Flowers like tuberous begonias, calendulas, carnations and marigolds are all edible. Last year Grace & I planted zinnias for the Swallowtail butterflies. This year will be cosmos to attract more butterflies. Fragrant flowers and herbs are fun for us to smell. She noticed that some of the yellow primroses were fragrant and I have lemon verbena, peppermint, spearmint to enjoy also.

And make sure you take photos of everything you discover in nature and share them with others to show the beauty of our planet.

To share one’s excitement and knowledge of the outdoor world with a child is fun and rewarding. The wonder on a young person’s face as they discover a swallowtail butterfly, a flower just starting to open or a bird feeding in the garden is priceless. And be sure to leave some time after a busy day out in the garden for kids to draw what they’ve enjoyed outside.

Get a kid into gardening and nature and they’ll be good stewards of the land for a lifetime. Plus you’ll have a lot of fun in the process.

So plant a tree, clean up litter, do something in the garden, hike in the woods, enjoy a walk among the wildflowers and just be in contact with the soil, breathe fresh air and think about ways to promote our renewable resources.

Design trends

Vegetables in the Shade

Hopefully my Tasmanian Chocolate tomatoes will look like this by mid -summer and ripen by dummer’s end.

Being the type who doesn’t take no for an answer, I’m going to try growing veggies on my shady deck again. I wasn’t very successful a couple years ago. I thought that 3 hours hot midday sun would be enough for green beans but alas, it was not. That is unless you consider 12 delicious green beans over the course of the growing season a success. So maybe green beans is not the answer. This year I’m going to stick with those I know will deliver for me. No sense wasting valuable space on my deck for edibles when I could grow perennials that the hummingbirds would love. Now that I think about it, I’ll grow both.

Early season veggie starts have arrived at the nurseries plus I see lots of good choices from Renee’s Garden Seeds.

Shade tolerant vegetables for your brightest spots – the partial shade areas – include beans, peas, potatoes, pumpkin, summer squash and early maturing tomatoes like Early Girl, Stupice, San Francisco Fog, Isis Candy as well as other cherry tomatoes. Corn and peppers will be lankier and bear later and only modesty in partial shade.

Root crops and leafy plants can tolerate more shade than fruiting crops. Beets, carrots, potatoes, celery and turnip will grow quite happily in partial shade. So will shallots and bunching onions, cilantro, garlic, chives, kale, leeks, parsley, oregano, cilantro and thyme. Leafy plants can tolerate partial to light shade because their leaves grow larger to absorb the sunlight the plants need. In very light shade areas concentrate on leafy green like Swiss chard, lettuce, spinach, arugula, radishes and tarragon.

Shade can be decidedly helpful to some crops. Leafy greens will be more tender and succulent, without the bitterness they tend to acquire when conditions are too hot. A combination of a bit of afternoon shade and an abundance of moisture will help cut-and-come-again crops like broccoli, lettuce, cabbage and celery stay in good condition longer in hot weather.

I’ve always wanted to enjoy carrots from my own garden. From Renee’s Garden Seeds, I think I”ll try growing some Babette French Baby Carrots. They germinate quickly and grow quickly. I plan to harvest while they’re still small- 3-4 inches long. I eat a lot of spinach so I’m going to grow Little Hero, Container Baby Leaf Spinach. The catalog says it has a mild, nutty flavor, is fast growing and highly ornamental in containers. And I might try my hand at an heirloom tomato for containers like Tasmanian Chocolate. They sound delicious and would be worth fighting the squirrels for.

Whatever plants you grow in your shady garden, be sure not to crowd them. Plants tend to sprawl there and if placed too close together they will compete for available light. Place your vegetables plants wherever they will get the most light even if it means putting different crops in separate places. A small harvest is still better than no harvest at all. Your vegetables may take a bit longer to mature without full sun so be patient.

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