Fall is coming!

Posted on September 3, 2012 by jessica

 

Summer is drawing to a close, and fall chores are ahead. This is a great time of year to aerate and overseed your lawn. Grass seed planted in the fall will be much more established by next summer’s heat, which will stress out any spring planted seed. Also it may limit your ability to use pre-emergent herbicides to keep weeds out of your turf.

Falling Leaves…can be pretty but also a chore. Make sure to clean your gutters out often in the fall so they don’t get clogged with debris.

Bulb planting…almost but not quite yet. While some bulbs are quite forgiving, Tulip bulbs (for those of you lucky enough to not have deer!) really should not be planted until the ground has cooled. But now is the time to plan and order your bulbs for the best selection. Some bulbs I adore: Daffodils – I know they aren’t exotic, but they sure are reliable, come in an almost infinite array of varieties with different sizes, colors, forms and bloom times. Deer and squirrels also leave them alone, which is a big plus for many of us. Snowdrops are also great, they will naturalize and are a welcome sight after a long winter. I prefer species tulips, they may be small, but they are much more reliable to return year after year. Some other bulbs to try: Crocus – another great naturalizer and early bloomer, Hyacinths – Beautiful, colorful and fragrant, Muscari (Grape Hyacinths) – naturalizes well, Scilla sibirica – small but pretty, Fritillaria – From the towering imperialis to the many species, they are distinctive additions, Leucojum (Summer Snowflake) – a later bloomer. All of these except the species tulips are deer resistant. My favorite bulbs by far are Hardy Lilies. I am a Lily fanatic. By choosing different species and varieties you can have an extended show of gorgeous showy flowers that are great for cutting. Some, like the orientals in particular are extremely fragrant. Like all bulbs, the foliage needs to ripen in order for them to gather energy to return next year, so don’t cut them with long stems for the first couple years. They will get stronger, taller and spread, then it is time to cut them for the house. You can dead head them after bloom, but leave the main stalk as tall as possible until fall. There are so many lilies it is hard to find space for all of them! But luckily they are vertical and can fit in small spaces. Unfortunately, deer adore them as much as I do. I’ll be browsing very soon to decide what new bulbs to add this year. If you are gradually filling in your gardens with spring bulbs (as most of us are who are on a budget) instead of marking the bulbs you have, consider marking the spaces you want to fill next year. A simple popsicle stick in the ground can give your direction on where to plant in the fall. So next spring, walk around and identify spaces you could fill in the fall. Or take pictures of the gardens in the spring so you can have a better idea where to add what in the fall. Our memories usually fail us by the time the bulbs go dormant.
Some Spring Bulbs:
Pruning – Don’t trim your evergreens too early. Trimming them in early fall can cause a new flush of growth that won’t have time to harden off for winter. Wait until the temperatures have dropped so you don’t encourage new growth. For those of you with Knockout Roses (One of my favorite shrubs), don’t be shy about cutting them back if they are established. Bloom can go on until Thanksgiving in our area, so now is not the time, but once it has really gotten cold, take the hedge trimmers to them and knock them down to size. If they are new plants, they probably can just be tip pruned for shape, but after several years they can get huge if you don’t stay on top of them. No special pruning is required, just hack them down to about 18″. Next spring they will be bushy and full and re-grow faster that you can believe. The double varieties don’t seem quite so vigourous to me, so handle those a little more gently. You can cut back those butterfly bushes in the fall also, but don’t go too far…the plants need some wood over the winter to survive. In the spring you can be much more aggressive. I like to just cut them back by half in the fall, then again in the spring. Don’t prune your Azaleas, Forsythia, Hydrangeas, Rhododendrons, or Pieris in the fall. They have already set their flower buds for next spring and you will be cutting off your future flowers! Prune these spring blooming shrubs immediately after they flower.

Annuals – Some are looking really tired by now. Lantana (the banner picture right now) is an exception. It is just reaching it’s stride. For those of you lucky enough not to have those tiresome destructive deer, planting pansies can really freshen up the landscape and give you a bonus of spring color next year. Other fall annuals are dianthus, dusty miller, alyssum, osteopspermum, and even calibrachoa (Million Bells). Calibrachoa will weather light frosts very well. Time to pull out those impatiens though. At least before the frost. Oterwise they are a slimy mess. That is if you didn’t get hit by the downy mildew epidemic this year. It seems every impatien planting I have seen has been devastated. It was a huge problem this season. So don’t blame yourself if your impatiens gave out on you, Downy Mildew may have been the problem.

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Pruning Shrubs and Hydrangeas

Posted on March 25, 2012 by Jessica Fox

Did you know that the best time to prune most of your deciduous shrubs is NOW?  Call today and get them correctly pruned and shaped to enjoy their beauty and keep them at a managable size. Azaleas, Rhododendrons, Forsythia, Lilacs and many other spring blooming shrubs should only be pruned immediately after flowering. If you wait too long and trim them in the late summer or fall you will lose flowers the following spring.See further below for an explantion of Hydrangea pruning, which is dependent of the type of the plant. We will address more about the correct pruning of Lilacs in a future article. Butterfly Bushes (Buddleia davidii varieties) generally only bloom on “New” wood – the growth of the current season, and should be pruned very hard in early spring. Otherwise the plants will become overgrown with and only flower at the tips. Butterfly Bushes will rapidly regenerate and grow back to a good size, even after this severe pruning.

Some informtaion about Hydrangeas that we hope will be helpful to you:

Would you like to change the color of your hydrangeas? Many varieties of Hydrangea macrophylla (Mophead Hydrangeas) will change color depending on the soil chemistry. The amount of Aluminum that the plant ingests can drastically change the flower color. Aluminum uptake is dependent upon the pH of the soil. It is much easier to change a pink hydrangea to blue than it is to change a blue hydrangea to pink.

If you want Pink flowers, you need to keep the plant from absorbing aluminum. Here are a few ways to do this:

  • Use a fertilizer with a generous amount of Phosphorus. Phosphorus is the middle number in the fertilizer formulation. (the “P” in “N-P-K”) This will help keep aluminum from being absorbed into the plant.
  • Apply dolomitic Lime several times per year. This will increase the soil pH, which will also keep aluminum absorbtion down. Try to keep the pH level between 6.2 and 6.4. But if the pH is too high, the plants will have a hard time taking up iron and show signs of iron deficiency.

To create a BLUE hydrangea, we want to increase the amount of Aluminum available to the plant.

  • Add Aluminum sulfate. This should be done after the plants are throughly watered since too much can burn the roots.
  • Decrease the soil pH. This will make help the Aluminum be available for absorbtion. Try for between 5.2 and 5.5.
  • Use a fertilizer with lower in Phosphorus and higher in Potassium. Potassium is the last number in the fertilizer formulation (The “K” in N-P-K) (“K” is the chemical symbol for Potassium)

White Hydrangeas are not affected by these methods. Neither are Oakleaf (Hydrangea quercifolia), Pee Gee types (Hydrangea paniculata var.), ‘Annabelle’ types (Hydrangea arborescens) or climbing Hydrangeas (Hydrangea anomola ssp. petiolaris). Some varieties also tend towards one color or another due to genetics, but will be affected slightly by the above methods. (For example, the dwarf Hydrangea ‘Pia’ tends to be pink, and the large variety ‘Nikko Blue’ tends towards blue) The intensity of the coloring is also determined by the variety, so if you are purchasing new hydrangeas, it is best to do some research first if you have a preferred color in mind. Just don’t be fooled by the color of the plant when you purchase it. Container grown hydrangeas will usually change color once they are adapted to the soil you plant them in.

There are many new and exciting varieties of Hydrangeas available. Breeding has produced new plants that are much more reliable bloomers, since they bloom on both new and old wood. Most older varieties of H. macrophylla (the Mopheads) bloom only on growth from the previous season. A few standouts are: ‘Penny Mac’, ‘All Summer Beauty” and “Endless Summer”. There are also some fascinating varieties of ‘Lace Cap’ hydrangeas, like “Tokyo Delight”. The “Lace Cap” hydrangeas have a beautiful, delicate appearance and should be more widely grown. The common Variegated Hydrangea is usually a Lace Cap variety, but unfortunately it is very sensitive to cold winters so it rarely flowers in our area unless it is in a protected location or if we have a mild winter. The foliage is attractive without flowers however, as it can bring a welcome contrast to other green leaved plants.

Pruning hydrangeas can seem daunting. It isn’t that complicated actually. Older ‘Mophead’ types, and Oakleaf Hydrangeas (H. quercifolia varieties) do not really need any pruning at all, other than removal of dead branches or to keep them smaller. They bloom on ‘Old’ wood (The stems that grew the previous season) so it is important not to cut them back in fall, winter or spring. You can cut them back in June and July without affecting next years blooms. You can deadhead (cut off old flowers) anytime. You can trim the stems back to keep the plants smaller, but it is better to choose a variety of the appropriate size for your garden. If you have one of the newer, improved varieties that bloom on both old and new wood, the same guidelines apply, although with these you will still get some flowers even if you prune them incorrectly. One exception to these guidelines is if you have an older plant, and then you may want to consider ‘Rejuvenation’ pruning. This means removing about 1/3 of the stems regardless of their age. This will perk up older plants.

If you want to use the blooms as cut flowers, it is fine to cut them with long stems in June and July. After the first of August, cut them with shorter stems so you don’t reduce next season’s bloom. Of course as with anything, there are exceptions to this rule (There is something called ‘remontant’ hydrangeas, like ‘Endless Summer’, that will regenerate flower buds if cut off or damaged by frost) but if you follow these guidlines you should be rewarded with good blooms. Unless, that is, MOTHER NATURE interferes! Lack of blooming, even when plants are healthy and pruned properly is usually due to the flower buds being harmed by cold. Hydrangeas vary in their hardiness, so it is important to choose one that will tolerate our winters. The plants that are sold as forced blooming houseplants sometimes are very tender varieties that won’t bloom in our region. So just because it had flowers when you bought it doesn’t mean that it will ever flower again!! Late hard freezes can also seriously affect hydrangea blooms, but there is little we can do to control this.

All of the above comments apply to H. macrophylla varieties. But what about the other types? Well, some hydrangeas do the exact opposite, and bloom on ‘New’ wood, that is new growth of the season. “Pee Gee”and “Annabelle” types (H. paniculata,  H. arborescens varieties) can be cut back anytime except when they are preparing to bloom. (They can be cut back in Fall, Winter or early Spring)

We hope this information is useful to you, and please feel free to Contact Us if we can be of any assistance.

 

 

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Welcome

Posted on February 8, 2012 by Jessica Fox

Thanks for visiting our blog. We will try and provide you with useful information and tips to keep your landscaping in top shape. Please feel free to submit any questions about landscaping, landscape design or landscaping materials and we will try and answer as many as possible.

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