"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!