Category Archives: perennials

bare root plants, California Native Plants, fertilizing, perennials, plant care, pruning tips, trees, weather

January To-Do’s for the Santa Cruz Mtns

Leave a comment

A new year in the garden. I'm already starting to make journal entries for January. Not much to shout about in the weather department. We've had dry Decembers before but if January turns out to be the start of 6 weeks of Caribbean-like weather like last year we'll never catch up.

The weather affects how things grow as much as the soil that plants grow in. Remember the cool spring and summer we had while you waited for your tomatoes to ripen? I was just looking at the weather forecasts for 2010 that the Farmer's Almanac predicted. Last May when I first wrote about them they were way off for the first half of the year and at best were hit and miss for the latter half. October did bring rain for us as predicted but they hedged their bets for November calling for "bands of showers" off and on during the month. December for us brought lots of frost and a heavy wind storm.  Although the frost was predicted by the Almanac, I didn't see any "light to moderate rainfall" in December. I put my trust in the satellite map, internet weather sites and my own common sense to judge when to start planting, pruning and transplanting for the season.

This year I'm going to start off right by noting on my calendar at the beginning of each month just what I need to do to ensure a happy, healthy garden.

Here are the tasks to do in the garden in January:

  • Plan for spring. Bareroot fruit, nut, berry and ornamental season runs through the end of February. Don't miss this inexpensive way to add to your edible garden or your landscape.
  • Cut back hydrangeas if you haven't already done so. Apply soil sulfur, aluminum sulfate or other acidifier if you want to encourage blue flowers. You must do this before they set flower buds or it won't help.
  • Prune fruit, nut and shade trees and spray with horticultural oil, lime sulfur, liquid sulfur or copper dormant spray. You should get one more spraying in about Valentine's Day. This is actually the most important one as it's just before bud break. Don't use lime-sulfer on apricots, though.
  • Cut back summer flowering deciduous shrubs and vines.  Don't prune spring flowering varieties like lilac, flowering cherry, plum and crabapple, rhododendrons, azaleas, camellias, weigela and spirea until after flowering but you can cut some during flowering to bring in for bouquets.
  • Control overgrown honeysuckle, potato vine, morning glory, trumpet creeper and pink jasmine by thinning now or even cutting back low to the ground if  they are a big tangled mess.
  • Prune roses towards the end of the month. I'll tell you how to do this later but it's not as hard as it sounds.
  • Bait for slugs and snails

And here are the tasks you should not do in January:

  • Don't cut back grasses yet if you get frost in the area where they grow.
  • Wait to prune back perennials that may have their new foliage damaged in a late frost
  • Wait until February to prune frost  damaged shrubs  if you can tell how far down the die back goes otherwise wait until growth starts in the spring.
  • Wait to prune fuchsias and other perennials until February.
  • Don't fertilize houseplants until March. Because they are resting at this time of year, they use little water.  Don't overwater.  Be sure they are dry before watering.

As always, if you have any questions, feel free to email me. I'd love to hear from you.

California Native Plants, garden design, perennials

Diamond Heights ceanothus, Sunroses & Ligularia

Leave a comment

Some plants have become the darlings of the garden while other perfectly good plants are being left in the dust ( no pun intended ) and ignored. Take Hot Lips salvia, for instance. Seems every garden now has a few. I know, I know, I’m as enamored with this variety as anybody and responsible for extolling its virtues but I want to give credit where credit it due to some underused but awesome plants. Who are these forgotten all stars?

One of my favorite groundcovers for sunny areas that looks beautiful as it fills in between other low water use plants is Ceanothus ‘Diamond Heights‘.  Carpet an area with a dense, low mat of golden yellow and lime-green variegated foliage that looks great year round.  The pretty light blue spring flowers take second place to the leaves.

This is one of those versatile plants, performing just as well in dry soils and tough situations as it does in sheltered gardens with partial shade and rich soils. If you want a spectacular effect, plant it as a group. Each plant covers 3-5 ft. Because the foliage makes a cover that weeds seldom manage to penetrate, it’s a real maintenance saver. Use it on difficult sites such as banks as well as in garden beds and raised beds. It’s also a stunner as a container plant, the foliage spreading wide on all sides.

What looks good with Diamond Heights? Try putting it with wispy, grey-blue lavender Little Spires perovskia and Hidcote lavender or Blue-eyed grass and coffeeberry.  It’s vibrant foliage also brightens the ground beneath native oaks.

Another perennial groundcover that I love to use in a tough, particularly problematic spot is Helianthemum or Sunrose. If you have enough thyme in your garden, it’s time to branch out and try this plant. Masses of colorful, inch wide flowers appear in early summer and last well into autumn. Colors include soft yellow, pinks, oranges, apricot and reds.

While the flowers are the main attraction, I find the range of foliage almost as wonderful. Some varieties have soft, grayish leaves, others a light green while some even have crinkled bright green foliage. Sunroses are work horses, hugging the ground and making an excellent low ground cover 2-3 ft across for a sunny location. They are very drought tolerant when established and don’t mind poor soils or even sandy soils.

My favorite cultivar is Belgravia Rose with its bright rose-pink flowers and grey leaves but compact Wisley Primrose covered with bright yellow flowers is also high on my list. This tough plants is rarely bothered by pests or diseases as long as there is good drainage and are attractive to bees and butterflies adding to their garden appeal.

Rounding out my list of favorite underused plants is one for shade gardeners. Because there are not many yellow flowers for the shade garden, Ligularia dentata Othello is a perennial that I like to include in a border. It’s like adding a little sunshine. This clump-forming perennial with bold leaves and 4" daisy-like golden flowers in July and August are born on plants that reach 2-3 ft tall and 2-3 ft wide. This variety likes moist soil. Plant them with other moisture loving plants such as ferns, hostas and Japanese forest grass. Ligularias are deer resistant.

These are just a few of the plants that I use in landscape designs to add punch to a garden. If you’re looking for something different in your landscape give them a try.

 

color in the garden, fruit trees, perennials

August to-do’s

Leave a comment

In case you haven’t been keeping track, summer is winding down. True we will be enjoying great weather for months to come but nature uses daylight hours to mark its calendar. And even though I’m busy visiting reader’s gardens, camping, hiking and painting there are some tasks I need to in my own garden.

Around this time of year, annual and perennials in containers and hanging baskets can become leggy with flowers only at the end of long branches. At the same time, overly rambunctious growers can overwhelm neighboring plants, crowding or even suffocating them for lack of light and air.

Renew them by cutting back about half of the stems 2/3rds of the way to the base. When those stems grow back and begin to bloom in about two weeks, cut back the remaining stems the same way. While you’re at it, cut back aggressive growers as far as necessary to give surrounding plants space for healthy growth. Fertilize with a soluble plant food to keep them blooming through October.

Deadhead flowering annuals and perennials in the ground as often as you possibly can. Annuals like zinnias and cosmos will stop blooming if you allow them to go to seed. The same is true of repeat blooming perennials like dahlia, scabiosa, marguerites and lantana.

These plants know they’re on this earth to reproduce. If they get a chance to set seed, the show’s over- they’ve raised their family. Try to remove fading flowers regularly and you’ll be amply rewarded.

Fertilize shrubs lightly one last time in August or September if you haven’t already done so this month. All shrubs, especially broad-leaved evergreens such as rhododendron, pieris, camellia, hebe, need to calm down, stop growing and harden off to get ready for the winter cold. Some plants have already set next year’s buds.

Roses especially appreciate a bit of fertilizer now, encouraging them to bloom another round in September and October. To keep them blooming make a habit of pinching and pruning off old flowers. Always cut back to an outward facing branchlet with five leaves. There are hormones there that will cause a new rose to grow much sooner than if you cut to one with only three leaves.

Here are more to-do’s for late August for this area:

Prune fruit trees that have already finished fruiting. Wait to prune others until after harvest, although many see summer pruning as a way to thin an overabundant crop.  Summer pruning opens the tree to light, producing bigger, healthier fruit. Overall summer pruning will slow the growth of a tree by removing energy wasting water sprouts, helping keep dwarf trees a manageable size.

Sow root veggies such as beets, carrots. leeks, onions and parsnips directly in the ground and start germinating cool-season veggies- broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, chard, lettuce, and spinach -so they are ready to plant in mid-September.

Now that you’ve taken care of your chores reward yourself by adding perennials to your garden for color in late summer through fall. Good choices include aster, chrysanthemum, coreopsis, gaillardia, gaura, Japanese anemone, echinacea, rudbeckia, Russian sage, scabiosa, Mexican marigold, verbena ad yarrow.
 
Blooming shrubs  that will flower well into fall are abutilon, blue hibiscus, butterfly bus, cape fuchsia, plumbago, lavatera, princess flower and salvia.