colorful foliage, fall foliage

Fall Color- Foliage and Flowers

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"May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. May your rivers flow without end…down into a desert of red rock…where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you_"
_Edward Abbey

A friend and fellow columnist, Carol Carson, ends her emails with this quote and it never fails to get me to thinking and appreciating this place, this planet  we call home. I hope you enjoy it, too. And then I hope you’ll enjoy some time in the garden. Here are some tips for this month.

Now that we’ve had a bit of rain it’s time to get serious about fall planting. One could almost hear the landscape sigh with relief and drink up when the first drops started to fall. Everything looks brighter and more vivid now. I can even get a shovel in the earth to turn over the soil in those dry spots where I’d love to plant a new tree or shrub. The soil is still warm and will nurture new root growth. It’s a good time to plant a new fruit tree, edible shrub like a blueberry or maybe even something with beautiful fall color.

I’ve got my eye on a new Sango Kaku Japanese maple. Their upright growth is perfect for the smaller garden or that nook near the entry that needs an accent. They are one of the earliest maples to start coloring in fall and make quite a statement in the garden when combined with warm-toned foliage plants like heuchera Creme Brulee and fall blooming plants like liriope. Other early fall color I’m seeing these days comes from Chinese pistache and liquidambar trees. Deciduous viburnums, like my favorite Doublefile viburnum, have beautiful bright red foliage now.

container gardening, succulents

Succulents for Color

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Fresh from a day spent among the spectacular world of succulents I’m excited about using these unique plants in new ways. Succulent Gardens in Moss Landing hosted a day of speakers, tours and demonstrations showcasing these  fabulous, unearthly-looking plants. I’ve always liked succulents grown along a walkway, around accent boulders or tucked between perennials. Now I’m creating awesome vignettes in containers that I can move under an overhang to protect from excess rainfall and frost if necessary. There are so many impressive varieties to choose from. Here are some of my favorites that I enjoyed on the tour.

Many showy succulents need only a bit of protection during our winters.  Aeonium decorum Sunburst is one of the showiest species with spectacular variegated cream and green 10" rosettes. This plant  grows 2′ tall and looks terrific with black Voodoo aeonium in a pot. Sunburst is hardy to 28 degrees while Voodoo will go down to 32 degrees. Aeoniums do so well in our climate as they come from Arabia, East Africa and the Canary Islands where winter rainfall is the norm.

Aeoniums propagated from tissue culture are now affordable. There was a time when a 2" seedling cost upwards of $100. Tissue culture involves taking the cells from the core of the plant and growing it in a sterile medium like agar. The resulting plants are exact copies of the mother plant and mature quickly.

Echeveria grow naturally in higher elevations of central Mexico to northwestern South America and so do well in our our cool wet winters. After Glow is frost tolerant and looks to be painted with florescent paint. There are spectacular hybrids being developed every year. These are not as hardy as the traditional hens and chicks but well worth the effort to find a place where they can survive a freeze. Frilly Mauna Loa sports turquoise and burgundy foliage while echeveria Blue Curls looks like an anemone in a tide pool.

Aloes from South Africa and Arabia are old world plants. Many like the medicinal aloe vera are frost tender but some, like the tree-like aloe plicitilis, are hardy down to 25 degrees and look great either in the garden or in pots.  Did you know the Egyptians used aloe in the mummification process or that there are no known wild populations of aloe? In South Africa, an aloe called ferox is used in the same way as aloe vera for burns and stomach problems. This variety is hardy down to 20 degrees and blooms in January.

When potting succulents in containers, be sure to use a quality potting mix as good drainage is essential. There are special succulent mixes available but succulents are forgiving as long as the soil drains freely. A great tip I got from Debra Baldwin, author of Designing with Succulents and Succulent Container Gardens, is to add Dry Stall to regular potting soil. Dry Stall is a horse bedding product made with pumice. It is similar to perlite although heavier and less expensive.

Her recipe for succulent soil mix differs with the size of the leaf. For fat, juicy leaves use 75-90% pumice of perlite to potting soil. Fine-leaved varieties thrive in a soil mix of 25% pumice to 75% soil and all the rest get a mixture of 50/50. Don’t add gravel or clay shards at the bottom if planting in a container as this impedes drainage. It work best to fill the entire pot with soil, top to bottom.

Because succulents use little water they are easy to care for. If you hate the idea of having to water after you get home from work, create the garden of your dreams with succulents.

bulbs, pests, sustainable gardening

Squirrels Control for Sustainable & Interesting Bulbs

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My resident squirrels are busy burying acorns for the winter. On the go from first light in the morning until dusk they scurry up the oak trees to collect this prized food source and then deposit them in the ground and in the pots on my deck where they will surely forget where most of them are. Their antics are frustrating because I want to start planting bulbs sooner than Thanksgiving this year. I usually have to wait until later in the season when the squirrels have finished loading up their pantry to get them in the ground. Daffodils and narcissus are safe but what would spring be without  all the other gorgeous bulbs to welcome in the season?

This year I’m going to try some different varieties of bulbs and to foil the squirrels I"m going to plant them really deep in areas that have excellent drainage. Squirrels rarely dig far under the surface so they aren’t likely to reach the bulbs. If you have less than stellar drainage, your bulbs will rot if you plant them deeply, so use chicken wire cages or gopher baskets when you plant them. Next year when they emerge from the soil, if the squirrels start eating the tops of the stems, spray the buds daily with hot pepper spray. All mammals except humans hate hot peppers. I’ve also heard that paprika and egg shells deter them.

I love those huge, showy tulips as well as the new colors of daffodil and narcissus coming out each year. Can’t live without them. But I want to add to the show next spring. Maybe I’ll plant Spring Starflower or Ipheion. Their starry white flowers bloom over a long period in spring and they naturalize easily. Spring Snowflake ( leucojum vernum ) will also naturalize in the garden. The flowers are small and bell shaped, white with a green or yellow spot and have a slight fragrance. And I want to include some species tulips. They will rebloom year after year just like they do in the wild in Europe, North Africa and Asia.

Another bulb I’ve wanted to grow for a long time is Ixia viridiflora. They need to be completely dry in summer so planting in pots will be perfect for this most striking and unusual bulb. Few plants can beat it for sheer brilliance of flower. Each flower is a brilliant turquoise green with a purple-black eye in the middle. The dark eye is caused by the deep blue sap of the cells of the upper epidermis. The green color is due to the effects of light being refracted from the cell wall and granules embedded in the pale blue cell sap. Amazing flower.

I think tucking several huge allium bulbs among clumps of summer-flowering perennials will make quite a statement next year and the deer generally avoid them as they are in the garlic family. The flowers from in clusters and are best known in the round pom-pom form, but they can be star or cup-shaped or nodding pendant-shaped. They look great with foxglove, monarda and hardy geraniums. The flower heads can be left on the plant to dry as they look attractive in the garden and can be cut for arrangements.

A bulb native to our area that I’m also interested in trying is Tritileia or Triplet Lily. There are several species of this brodiaea bulb found here in grasslands and serpentine soils. They are undemanding plants and make good cut flowers, lasting for 7-10 days in water.

Other interesting bulbs that I want to try include  hyacinthoides, hermodactylus tuberosa and bellevalia. All of them are beautiful. Don’t let October and November go by without planting a few bulbs to enjoy next spring.
 

color in the garden, colorful foliage, compact shrubs, Deer Resistant Plants, drought tolerant plants, fall foliage

Better Choices for Old Favorites

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Thinking about planting a new area or redoing a part of your garden that has gotten out of control? If many of your old favorites just get too big, insects and diseases plague them or they  take too much time to prune you need some new favorites.  What’s a gardener to do these days when we want our yards to be sustainable?   Here are some substitutions for good plants gone wrong. This time it’s gonna be the right plant in the right spot.

Phormiums have been popular for many years now. This plant from New Zealand looks great in low water landscapes providing architectural interest but usually grows much wider and taller than anticipated and next thing you know it’s taken over. One of the cultivars that behaves itself is called Jester. This phormium has beautiful 2-3 ft long pinkish leaves that have an orange midrib and lime green bands near the leaf margins. Combine it with teucrium  chamaedrys germander for an awesome combination.

If you want a similar fountain-like plant in your landscape that never reverts to plain green, try a cordyline Festival Grass. Vivid burgundy red leaves to 2-3 ft tall arching over so the tips reach the ground. Tiny pale lilac flowers appear in the summer, with a jasmine-like fragrance.  Plant in full sun to part shade and water regularly. Plants in shade have a darker more purple color while sun grown plants have more red.

What’s deer resistant with fragrant, gold foliage, uses little water once established and stays compact? Danny’s Sport Breath of Heaven is a bushy, finely textured shrub of the citrus family. They have slender stems and tiny narrow leaves which give off a spicy, sweet scent when crushed. Bright yellow new growth is upright, growing to 3- 5 ft tall. They thrive in sun or light shade and are hardy to around 18 degrees or less. Use it as a foundation plant, informal hedge or specimen plant. They are very showy in the landscape.

Ornamental oregano is a great perennial to use in a border or to tuck between other plants. Most oregano varieties are wonderful while in bloom but offer little interest after the main show is over. Oregano Santa Cruz is a better choice. Antique-toned, dusty rose-colored hop-like flowers, are offset by bright green calyxes and remain all summer on branched red stems. This plants grows 18" – 24" high and 3 ft wide. For a pleasing fusion of color, combine it with penstemon Blackbird or another rich burgundy penstemon. Add a grass such as muhlenbergia capillaris to complete the vignette.

Everybody loves clematis. They come in so many styles but how do you prune them for best flower production? Plant a Sweet Autumn Clematis ( clematis terniflora ) and your worries are over. They are a gorgeous sight now covered in pure white, lightly fragrant flowers. Later in the fall the vine will become a silvery mass of fluffy seed heads. This small-flowered species looks impressive covering an upscale arbor or even embellishing a plain fence of garden shed. It blooms on new growth so you can easily keep it in check by cutting stems back to 12" in the spring. It will bloom well in partial shade, too.

A smaller cultivar of the old favorite oak-leaf hydrangea is Sikes Dwarf. This lovely plant provides year-round seasonal interest.  At this time of year their huge, whitish-pink conical flowers turn a papery soft tan color. In later autumn, the leaves will take on striking shades of crimson and bronze-purple, and through winter the dry flowers persist above the branches lined with exfoliating copper-brown, cinnamon and tan bark. Oakleaf hydrangeas are fast growing and accept full sun or partial shade in rich evenly moist soil. They’re real lookers in the garden.
 

cool season flowers, cut flowers, flowers, vegetables

Sweet Peas & Cool Season Veggies

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Fall is in the air – sort of. The sun is setting earlier each day but our days are still beautiful. The autumnal equinox on September 23rd marks the beginning of fall when day and night are of approximately equal length. Gardeners living in Minnesota and Maine are thinking about "battening down the hatches" for winter already. Us, we’re just starting our fall planting season. There are so many possibilities for fall and winter edibles as well as colorful flowers, berries and foliage. For the biggest show there’s no better time to plant than early fall.  Let the fun begin.

While most of the summer annuals and perennials will bloom until at least October, there are cool season varieties that come into their own as our nights cool and last through the winter.  Try  colorful combinations of snapdragon, pansies, violas, sweet alyssum, calendula, chrysanthemum paludosum, forget-me-not, Iceland and shirley poppies, ornamental kale and cabbage, primrose, stock or sweet peas.

Who doesn’t  love old-fashioned sweet peas? A small bouquet will perfume a room with a delicious scent. They remind me of my Aunt Ruth who grew them every year and let me pick a bunch each spring whenever I went to visit. There are many new varieties and colors these days but back then her sweet pea vines were covered with the classic mixed colors of violet, blue, pink, peach and white.

Sweet peas have been around for a long time and many different countries claim that they originated there. One story is that a monk, Father Cupani, first harvested them in the wild on an island off Sicily in 1695` and sent the seeds to the Netherlands. In the 1800’s, an Scottish nurseryman named Harry Eckford began hybridizing and introducing larger varieties in a wider range of colors where they became quite a sensation. The most famous and perhaps the most important use of this flower was the extensive genetics studies performed by Gregor Mendel. Since they self-pollinate, their characteristics such as height, color and petal form could easily be tracked. But whether they came from Ceylon- the modern day Sri Lanka, China or Sicily, heirloom sweet peas are as exquisite in the garden and they are in the vase.

I like to plant early blooming types of sweet peas in October or early November. These varieties flower in the shorter days of late winter. Winter Elegance and Early Multiflora are common early flowering types. Also plant some of the more fragrant spring flowering heirlooms and Spencer’s at the same time to extend your harvest time. My very favorite sweet pea with long stems for cutting and an intense fragrance is called April in Paris. Large ruffled blossoms are a soft primrose cream, tinted at the edges in dark lilac that deepens and increases with age. You can’t go wrong no matter what color or style sweet pea you choose. They are all beautiful.

Now that the weather has cooled, plant cool season veggie starts like broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, chard, lettuce, spinach, brussels sprouts, bok choy, onions and leeks in soil enriched with 4-6" of compost as summer vegetable crops will have used up much of your soil’s nutrients. You can sow seeds of beets, carrots, radishes, spinach, arugula, mustard and peas directly in the ground.

This is also the time to start perennial flowers seeds so that they’ll  be mature enough to bloom next year. Happy Fall.
 

meadows

How to Create a Meadow

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Have you thought about creating a meadow but don’t know where to start? Need some inspiration to get going? Take a hike through the breathtaking meadows in Lassen Volcanic National Park like I did recently and you’ll get all the ideas you need to create the meadow of your dreams in your own backyard.

A wildflower meadow in Mt LassenNature is not subtle when painting a scene and neither should you. In Lassen I hiked through waist-high meadows of blue lupine and pale lilac coyote mint. White corn lily spikes grew tall and majestic providing contrast and drifts of goldenrod and Indian paintbrush added just the right amount of  punch. The meadows took my breath away.  I marveled at swaths of mariposa lily, pussy paws, alpine aster, scarlet gilia. So many wildflowers – so little time. You can have the same thing each spring and summer. Here’s how.

Meadows can supply an ever-changing display of seasonal colors and textures. A natural meadow has grasses of varying heights, bloom times and colors. Self-sowing wildflowers mix in between perennials and grasses in drifts. Sure there are lots of different flowers in a meadow, but mixed throughout are drifts or large patches – and it’s the combinations of both that makes a meadow look natural. Around the borders of your meadow make sure to plant insect-magnets such as rudbeckia, agastache, monarda and Russian sage or other perennials.

Establishing a meadow requires a bit of patience but once you’ve gotten rid of existing weeds your drifts of wildflowers, perennials and small shrubs will take care of themselves with just a little follow up weeding. Weed control is essential and should be accomplished prior to planting. Now is a good time to start by working in compost, watering the area to bring up the weed seeds and then hoeing them off in about 3 weeks.

If you plan to include grasses in your meadow, get them established first before starting wildflowers from seed or the wildflowers will overwhelm the young grasses. You can mimic nature by using native shrubs to form the bones of your meadow. Try coffeeberry and toyon and then fill in around them with flowering natives such as monkey flower and monardella. A meadow of California natives might feature a colorful carpet of seaside daisy, golden aster, blue-eyed grass and checkerbloom or simply a blend of dune sedge and yarrow. Just remember to plant in drifts to get the most impact.

Another good combination for a hot, sunny meadow would be buckwheat, silver lupine, salvia and foothill penstemon. Or try combining rockrose, agastache, russian sage and gaura interspersed with some drifts of wildflowers. What about penstemon, gaura and Mexican primrose mixed in the lion’s tail?

Shade gardeners might enjoy a meadow of bush anemone,Pacific Coast iris, columbine and wild ginger. Or try combining salal, dicentra eximia, hellebore and campanula in the shade.

Some gardens have nearly year round natural moisture. Good choices for this type of meadow are miscanthus grasses, daylily, asters, monarda and cornflowers from seed. Wild columbine, hardy geraniums, gloriosa daisy and asclepsia also work in a moist meadow as would chondropetalum, yellow flag, calla lily and lobelia cardinalis.

Most meadows can be cared for with an annual pruning in early winter. Wait until some of the wildflower seeds have ripened before cutting to insure a new crop of wildflowers and grasses next year. Weed between plants until they have had a chance to become established and fill in. The shrubs and other perennials might need a little cleanup in the spring. too.

If you would like to see some of the other wildflowers I enjoyed, check out the Lassen National Park website.
 http://www.nps.gov/lavo/naturescience/Lassen-Wildflowers.htm

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