"Tropical" Plants

I love going to Hawaii, especially seeing the plants! I'm always trying to have a little "Aloha" spirit at my house. I've had the most fun creating what I refer to as my "Tropical" garden.
You'd be surprised some of the tropical plants we can grow here, but my garden is enveloping my patio on the north side of my house, and when we have cold winter weather the soil stays frozen there for weeks. This does not bode well for semi hardy plants like Bananas. Guess I'll have to start another "Tropical" garden in front of my house!
When I started planning my garden I decided to find a tree that would make a nice open canopy that had large leaves and could reach out over the patio. I went with Rhus typhina or Sumac.
In this picture it is showing it's early fall color. In the summer the foot long leaves are a lush light green. In the fall it is absolutely stunning, starting off with this burgundy green and evolving through dark red to bright orange as the season progresses. It loses it's leaves in the fall, which of course wouldn't happen in the tropics, but that's ok because I don't sit in the shade on my patio in the winter much anyway!

Another feature I like about this Sumac is the flowers and seeds. The flowers are tight spires about 8 inches tall with tiny light green and pale pink flowers packed together, attracting lots of bees. In late summer they become bright red, and hold on the tree through winter.

I planted this tree about 3 and a half years ago and it is now about 15 feet tall and 15 to 20 feet wide, providing the perfect canopy over my tropical garden. Sure it suckers all over the place, but they're easy to pull out and I like my tropical garden to be wild and unruly!

Sunflower Fields Forever

I love Sunflowers. I love just about everything about them - their huge cheery flowers, the big stalks they grow on, the birds they attract with their late summer bounty, and, best of all, you really only have to plant them once!

Last year I planted an entire side of my yard with Sunflowers and when fall came I just let them fall where they were. We had lots of Stellar's Jays eating the seeds right out of the flowers. Many of the seeds got covered with leaves and mulch through the winter.

This spring they started popping up all over the same area, so many that I had to thin them to about 12" apart so they would have enough space to develop into the big Sunflowers that I love so much.

We also had a happy accident, we tried out some new bird seed in a feeder in another part of the garden and look what happened!

I decided not to thin these Sunflowers and see what happened. It turned out really great, they bloomed much later than the others, not opening until the middle of September. It's November now and we still have some blooming! They aren't producing much in the way of seeds, but the 3 to 6 inch diameter flowers on 3 to 4 foot stalks have been perfect for my wife to use in flower arrangements around the house.

This little garden experiment required almost no work and will hopefully perpetuate itself next year. If not, I guess I'll have to use that birdseed again!

Ready, Set, Garden!

OK, I know it's actually the middle of Winter, but our Northwest Winter has taken a turn for the warm! I got up at 3 am this morning during a very strong windstorm, worried that the beautiful hand painted hummingbird feeder my sister gave me for Christmas would break. I grabbed my wifes bathrobe and braced myself for a bone rattling shiver. I stepped outside into the blustery wind and...it was warmer than inside! We had a very strong wind coming from the south bringing with it very warm air.

So now our plants (and some of our brains) are convinced that Spring is nearly here. Normally I would recommend pruning your fruit trees now and holding off on roses for a few more weeks. But this year the rosebuds are already popping and I thought it would be a good time to demonstrate basic rose pruning.

There's probably no such thing as a perfect pruning job, but there are guidelines and what I like to think of as a "pruning goal." When we're talking roses the goal is described as an upward facing open hand. To understand this turn your hand palm side up, bend your fingers up like you're going to balance a basketball on the tips, and spread your fingers out evenly. You'll end up with your fingers fanning out and an empty space in the center.

We strive for this to provide the most amount of sunlight to the different canes (branches) in the bush, and increase air circulation to help prevent diseases. The rose I pruned here is a Rugosa rose. This is a very hardy family of roses that are impervious to disease, so the air circulation is not as much of an issue, but I prune them like other roses just as a matter of habit.

When you approach your rose you'll probably find many canes coming up from a central base. First you want to decide on 3 to 5 of the healthiest looking canes that are fanned out basically evenly. All of the other weak, damaged, dead, or diseased canes can be removed right down to the base.

Next you want to cut back the canes you are keeping to outward facing buds, this keeps the bush growing in an open shape to maintain good air circulation. Buds are easy to find. If the buds aren't obvious, like the one in this picture, simply look for a semicircle around the cane. The dot above the semicircle is a dormant bud!

Many people think that roses need to be butchered down to 12 inches tall every winter. Not true!

People who need a few large perfect Hybrid Tea blossoms for the competition they are entering should prune their roses hard.

The rest of us, who want more flowers sooner, should prune our roses back by about 30 to 50 percent. I especially like to let English Roses reach their full potential, some of them 6 to 8 feet tall!

So sharpen your pruners, spray them with a little WD40 and get on out there!

Plant Protection!

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Athough a plant may be hardy in our region, that doesn't mean it's bulletproof. Hardy means it's probably not going to die in the Winter. I have a lot of plants in my garden that are called hardy, but require differing amounts of protection, and different methods.

Today I'm going to talk about a plant by my front door that I just love, Daphne odora marginata or Winter Daphne. It's a small evergreen shrub that gets to about 2.5 feet tall and 3 to 4 feet wide. It has shiny green leaves with a small variegation around the margin. The amazingly fragrant flowers appear in small pale pink clusters in early spring.
This is a hardy plant. The problem is, last Winter with our huge snow storm and this year before even the official start of Winter, we've had several days with low temperatures in the teens and even below! When this happens, without any protection, the leaves get burnt and turn brown. Not too appealing when those flowers start to pop out in the Spring.

What to do?
Sometimes you'll see people put a sheet over them or some brown paper bags. My solution is Christmas lights! Not only are they pretty, they also produce a few degrees of heat, which is just enough to protect the leaves and flower buds even down the the 9 degrees farenheit we hit in my garden last week. Here's an important thing to keep in mind: don't use the new LED lights! You'll save money on power, but they hardly produce any heat. Use the old strings of twinkle lights that have the little bulbs in them. For a little extra protection, you can also put a light sheet or thin tarp over the top to help hold in some of the heat.
I'm using a string of "Net lights" that I can just drape over the top of it at night, and easily pull off in the morning so as not to permanently weigh the plant down to the ground and turn it into a groundcover.
These techniques can be used on any marginally hardy broadleaf shrubs like this Daphne, Bay Laurel, Hebes, and Hardy Gardenia.

Lesson learned!
Okay, next year I'm going to follow my own advice and use the lights combined with an old sheet. As you can see from this picture, the net lights were not perfect and a few branches poked through. These branch tips are not dead, but the leaves are brown and ugly and won't be very attractive next to it's gorgeous flowers. I would have cut these stray branches off anyway to keep the shape balanced, but not until I've enjoyed the flowers.

Gardening in the winter!

Yes it's Winter, well Fall, but it's almost Winter and it has certainly felt like it for the last couple of weeks in the Northwest. At my house we've had two nights in a row that were below 10 degrees!
I guess that makes this the perfect time to start a blog about gardening! It's definitely not the frozen soil that has me inspired, nor the 4 layers of clothing required to ventured outside. But there is a lot going on with our plants right now, and a lot that needs to be done!
My wife has been giving me funny looks each night when I venture outside in my slippers and jacket cursing the frigid temperatures. Why would I do such a thing? First and foremost because of I love plants and secondly because I love what my plants do for me. Thus, I have certain responsibilities to keep them healthy and happy. And so I've decided to start my blog with tips on caring for our plant friends in Fall and Winter.
I hope you find helpful information here, and are inspired to observe what's happening in your garden all year, even when you're looking out at it instead of relaxing in it.