A Container For All Seasons

I have been on a mission to find every plant I need to fill my daughter-in-law's containers.  My dear friend and I visited three nurseries the other day and I went to a final one yesterday in order to complete the plant list for these large pedestal type cast iron containers.  They are very impressive and lead up to the front door of a Nantucket style home.

I know I said I was going to do a Cezanne arrangement for these pots, lots of color!  I think we have achieved our goal with pinks, whites, blues, yellows, purples, magenta and of course lots of green. 

Our tall background plant is Dracena Bauer, which in the tropics will grow to ten feet, not in our container.  In front of that we will plant Dahlia Mystic Beauty, encircled by Lobelia, petunias, zinnias,  coleus, sweet potato vine, dusty miller and creeping jenny.

What most of us do not realize is that it takes a lot of plants to fill out a container.  They need to be packed tight to make an impact.  You can shake away some of that dirt to squeeze them in. These full pots also need to be fed at least every two weeks and watered daily if necessary.  I am also going to add some water absorbing crystals to the soil and fertilize.

I took a tour one day of the village where I live to really notice how well containers enhanced the homes where they resided.  To my surprise, many of them were too small for the size of the home and so many did not compliment the style of the specific residence.  When you place containers at the entrance of your home or garden, stand back and look at them from the perspective of approaching your entry or passing by from the street.  Containers should be large enough to make an impact but not overpowering.

When choosing plants for containers, take into consideration the style of the home and also the color of the brick/siding, roof and fencing.  I am not a fan of Dusty Miller, but I am going to use it to peek out from this container to pick up the color of the siding and draw your eye from the plantings to the home.

Heucheras - Not Like They Used To Be!

I really do like Heucheras, mostly from the Villosa strain.  I did grow them many years ago and was never impressed by their leaves or flower display.  However, with the cross breeding they have done in the past few years, they are spectacular!

I began with Heuchera Villosa Purpurea, a large dark Heuchera with white bridal type flowers.  It was wonderful, but I kept losing them after the winter.  After several replacements, I began putting in some of the more recent hybrids like, Brownie and Mocha.  They blend well with Purpurea but are not as large and certainly do not have the same presence.

I have also added Raspberry Ice, Georgia Peach (gorgeous already) and Southern Comfort.  I have had Plum Pudding for several years but it hasn't done much.  They look especially beautiful with ferns, Japanese Painted Fern, and ground covers, mine is Lirope Spicata.

Heucheras do well in containers withstanding the cool temperatures of the spring and fall and even the heat of summer.  Their leaf color is as beautiful rivaling most flowers.  The newer varieties will grow beautifully in the shade or sun.

Just Wrap It Up

I haven't had to do this in many years, maybe decades, where I ran around my garden with plastic bags, sheets and landscape stakes bundling up my plants against the expected frost.  Usually it is safe by Mothers Day to plant annuals in the Chicago area, but every once in awhile we get caught.

I remember my last experience in a hooded raincoat with sleet beating down on my head laying sheets everywhere in my old old house garden, with my husband behind me placing bricks to hold them down.  I am not too worried about the geraniums, petunias, ageratum and pansies as they all can take a patchy frost.  But impatiens, tender vegetables like peppers, tomatoes and basil will succumb to anything near a frost.

I wanted everything to look so nice for today as I am hosting my daughter's birthday and Mothers Day for several relatives.  Well, it will look like a Halloween Party with all of the black plastic bags I have everywhere!  I am not going to remove them as there is a real frost warning for tonight.  Notwithstanding the work of replanting everything but the expense of the single pot annuals is a downer.  My garage is filled with plants that I had not put in yet (thank goodness), my car trunk is filled with the plants I dug for the plant sale tomorrow with the Garden Club, and I even bought flowers today for the table.

I took my daughter on a Kitchen Walk yesterday and we had a really great time seeing several beautiful homes and kitchens in the area.  She took the day off work for her birthday, we did lunch, and really enjoyed doing something we previously were never able to do because we were always working.

So when you think about it, in the scheme of things, how much does a little frost matter?

Pruning Time For Beautiful Flowers

Pruning trees, shrubs and clematis is a garden art form.  We worry so much about taking so much off that the plant will look unsightly. Unfortunately, the opposite is true - not enough pruning promotes an unhappy plant.

I see so many beautiful specimens around me that have been pruned at the wrong time sans blooms the following year, or not pruned at all with a few paltry blooms at the top of the shrub.

As soon as your lilac, magnolia, viburnum, forsythia, bridal wreath have bloomed in the spring, prune, shaping the top of the shrub and removing one third of the old growth each year to the bottom of the shrub.  This has to be done pretty quickly as the shrubs begin to set flowers for the following year.  One year, I waited too long to prune the Magnolia which hung over the walkway and I had very few flowers the following spring.  I have already trimmed back my Viburnum Carlesi.  Hydrangeas have pruning requirements also, some growing on old and new wood, some growing only on old wood.  I happen to have the types that I can cut down quite a bit each year and get beautiful new blooms the following summer and late summer. 

My Hydrangeas are Endless Summer, Unique and Limelight.  I shape my Limelight in a semi-circle when I prune and it is a gorgeous specimen come August.  Unique., I cut down to about two feet and it is spectacular in the late summer.  With Endless Summer I wait to see how much growth is coming and then trim whatever is not viable.

Don't be afraid to heavily prune damaged or overgrown flowering trees.  My daughter's Crabapple is over fifty years old and we pruned it heavily last year because it had more suckers than anything else.  I pruned my Pagoda Dogwood because it had been so heavily damaged by the Cicadas and grew in all different directions.  Both trees have had the best blooms ever!

I think I have finally figured out my Little Henry's Garnet (Sweetspire)- tons of little beginning flowers this year.  In one of my previous posts I noted that I had to bring out the big guns for this shrub and feed it a systemic.  I noticed an improvement almost instantly.  I also cut it down to about 12" high.  I will do the same this year after it blooms and see if this is the answer to a very finicky shrub for the six plus years that I have tried to grow it.

Clematis, we all learn the hard way with this lovely plant, meaning if you cut it down in the spring and it is not a type 3, you will get very few blooms or they will be very small.  I went through this many years paying no attention to the different types.  Guess what, type 3 is easy, but some beautiful blooms are passed up if we don't also try the type 1 and type 2.  It is a challenge remembering which is which.  One final note, you have to fertilize if you want maximum bloom, acid based for Hydrangeas and other acid loving shrubs, general fertilizer for others, equal numbers if possible 5-5-5 or 10-10-10, not too high in nitrogen or it will again cut down on the blooms

The Pergola Of All Pergolas

I fought this pergola for a long time, just feeling it was an unnecessary expense and I didn't really mind the sun later in the day because I didn't go out there!

I lost, my husband was obsessive regarding the building of this pergola.  He had at least six landscape/pergola people stop by the house to give estimates on this wooden creation.  Finally, he settled on a person who was a carpenter and a landscape designer.  Our patio was irregular so it was not the easiest pergola to design. 

After many consultations, it was decided that the pergola would have grooves in the headers to accommodate a product called Shade Tree http://www.shadetreecanopies.com/ which are constructed of sunbrella fabric that draw along grooves with tracks inserted to cover the pergola.  This is not a popular product in the Midwest so here we go again doing something that nobody knows what we are talking about!

I have Green Velvet Boxwood in the raised bed along one side of the patio and I use containers that can be moved if required

Well, it's up and we did buy covers this year so we don't have to take it down, and I must admit it does a great job keeping that intense sun from the patio.