Gardening With Children

I can't guarantee you that if you garden with your children they will become gardeners.  But I can assure you that if you do expose your children to gardening that the gardening gene within specific children will be awakened.  My gardening gene was awakened by my dear aunt.  So anyone can awaken that gene in a child, parents, grandparents, friends, teachers.

Each year I taught young children, I would pull out the planting cups, children would decorate, fill with soil, push their little finger down and plunk in a seed or two.  Some years we did vegetables, some flowers.  It was difficult to get a nice looking plant years ago because we did not have plant lights in the classroom.  No matter how weak some of them looked, we wrapped tissue around the cups, made beautiful Mothers Day Cards and wondered if they would ever survive the bus ride home.  It wasn't just a gift for their Mother, it was a gift of knowledge for that child.  They learned the basics of plant growth (soil, water, light) and the responsibility of taking care of what they had decided to grow. 

When I began working with children and gardens , we planted in outside gardens, digging through rock-like clay my first year.  Needless to say, the vegetables did not flourish.  The plastic pool seemed like a great idea until we arrived to see it tipped over and our plants strewn all over the playground.   We pulled ourselves up and moved on to the soil berm (couldn't be tipped over), however, the plants could be pulled out and they were!

We really did get very modern through the years, graduating to a double tiered planting greenhouse with lights, a root vue garden (where we could see the roots forming on radishes, carrots, onions) and a raised garden bed outside (behind the school) with our own child-sized shovels and garden gloves.

Gardening at home with my own children seemed to produce less than the desired results.  It was all excitement in the beginning, picking out the seeds, planting them and giving them that first drink of water.  It was a lot like getting the new puppy and guess who ends up taking care of him!  I put in a lot of  time caring for my children's gardens over the years and crossed it off as a lost cause.  But, lo and behold, as adults, they are both avid gardeners!

So, I didn't write about plants today, it's all about the "gardeners" of tomorrow!

Check out http://www.gardenrant.com/ and their article Caitlin Flanagan Demonstrates What A Deficient Education Will Do (In Defense Of School Gardens)

A Plant For All Seasons

In my early gardening days I never had a love affair with the "Daylily."  I thought any plant that produced a flower for only one day was not worth having in the garden!  Boy, was I wrong!  The daylily has become a welcome seasonal anchor in my garden.  My Oakes daylily catalog arrived today, and the first thing that entered my mind was where could I possibly fit another plant. 

I very rarely buy a potted or packaged daylily, mostly ordering from reputable firms over the internet.  The selection is endless finding plants that will never be offered at the garden center.  The daylily is a hardy character and is perfect for being ordered wrapped in newspaper with a rubberband around the scapes.  They do not look very viable when received, but oh what a pail of water can do overnight.  If you take off all packing material, remove the rubberbands and soak, they are ready for planting and wonderful growth even the first year.

There are daylilies that will bloom early, early middle, middle, middle late and late.  What this means is that you can have daylilies blooming throughout the growing season.  If you get excited about the notation that some are rebloomers, well don't, because if you live anywhere in zone 5 or below it is sporadic at best.
Stella D'Oro is the prime example of this, blooms great for the first flush, not much after that, plan on dividing this one often - finally gave all of mine away.  Ditto for Happy Returns - it doesn't return, but I kept this one.

I have finally come to the conclusion that I want a lot of bang for my buck!  It is my large, colorful daylilies that are spectacular in my summer garden.  Please do not think that I have ignored all of those beautiful, delicate or miniature daylilies, I have made some room for them also, but I call them my walk by daylilies not to look at from fifty feet away.

Picking off a mushie (dead flower) will not produce more daylilies on that plant.  It will make the plant look more attractive especially on the larger flowered daylilies.  However, cutting the whole stem to the ground on the professed rebloomers will give you some rebloom. 

Well, I am going to leaf through this great little catalog, thinking to myself I can always make room for a few more!   http://www.oakesdaylilies.com/  http://www.daylilies-hostas.com/ and http://www.seasidedaylily.com/  Martha's Vineyard (they are small and have an email on website).

Deadheading Brings New Life

Don't let anyone tell you differently, but deadheading is a job!  It seems like an endless job if you want to keep your garden in bloom throughout the summer.  We all know about cutting off the spent roses (however, with Knockout, you do not have to prune except for looks and size).  The salvias and nepetas need to be deadheaded if you want rebloom.  May Night is everywhere, and it seems that not many people know that it has to be cut back if you want it to bloom throughout the summer.  The rebloom on most plants will never equal the initial bloom.  I cut my May Night back about four times in a season.  I have several other low growing salvias that benefit from the same practice.  Nepeta, I deadhead less or more often depending upon the plant, Walker's Low once during the season, Six Hills Giant, once and Souvenir d'Andre Chaudron stem by stem.

Certain phlox will bloom most of the summer if deadheaded, one of the most prolific after pruning is Blue Paradise.  I have tried it with David (although my daughter has better luck with David reblooming profusely) Franz Schubert and Eva Cullum with less than spectacular results.  Deadheading Echinacea (coneflowers) is important if you want to extend the blooming time.  I went to a workshop some years ago where the speaker was Tracy DiSabato-Aust who wrote The Well-Tended Perennial Garden (planting and pruning techniques) great book for a beginning pruner as I was.  Some plants do not benefit from deadheading, most daylilies, lillies, asters and peonies are in this category, and I am sure there are many more.   My motto is, if in doubt, deadhead - it can't hurt and it will give you a neater looking plant.

The Mystery of Clematis

I see the grass again!  The Christmas lights can finally be removed from those expensive Chicagoland boxwoods. I know I'm getting ahead of myself, but I began thinking about clematis.  I have a lot of clematis for such a small property.  It takes up such a limited amount of garden space, I just keep adding more each year - I'm up to about eighteen.  I never knew much about clematis, just buying whatever color and size flower appealed to me.  Henryi really taught me everything I know now!  I loved that big white flower I saw on the package, but mine were always miniature versions of that!  When I moved to a new house I decided to try Henryi again on my arbor, and again after the first year, the flowers were much smaller than on the package.  So, finally I pulled out my plant encyclopedia and began reading about clematis.

As I read about all my other clematis' I realized they were all a type 3 (cut down to 6" every spring and they flower like crazy).  Henryi was from a different family, he was a type 2 (don't cut down, trim lightly) and you will get 6" to 8" huge white flowers.  I realized I even had a type 1 (Miss Bateman - just trim off any dead parts) that I had been cutting down each year with the result of very few blooms.

I now have all three types of clematis and my fear is that I will forget which is which.  This new found knowledge has prompted me to pay attention to which of my clematis require full sun like Rouge Cardinal and which can take part shade like Hagley Hybrid and Nelly Moser.

Clematis is easy if you follow the directions (a lesson learned late by me), check out the classification, either 1, 2 or 3 or A, B or C and prune accordingly.  New plants should be put in deeper than the pot they are in, cut back so they develop many shoots, not just a few spindly ones and feed lightly.  You won't get much the first year, but from each year after you should be rewarded with an abundance of beautiful flowers.  http://www.paradisegarden.com/,  http://www.homeofclematis.net/

Boxwood

I know boxwood has been around since the 1600's, but it seems like it has taken on a major rejuvination in the past ten years.  I remember about twenty years ago when I planted  twelve boxwoods around a garden and not one of them made it through the first winter!  I was so upset, I never planted it again until about six years ago when we moved to a new house.  Chicagoland or Glencoe as it is called had been introduced a few years earlier (developed at the Chicago Botanic Garden), so I thought I would give it another try.

I planted five very expensive boxwoods in front of the house and was also going to plant another seven along the patio in the back.  After paying the price for the five, I decided to take a chance on a boxwood called Green Velvet which I purchased at Home Depot.  Well, you probably know what I am going to say, the $16.99 Green Velvets look better than the $50.00 Chicagolands.  Now, I realize that they are growing in different areas but the conditions are similar, not too wet (boxwoods do not like wet) and I have fertilized both varieties each year with a higher nitrogen fertilizer. 

Chicagoland grows a little higher and not as rounded as Green Velvet, but for the difference in price I think I would go with Green Velvet (they look healthier).  Boxwood does experience some dieback each year, dead yellow stems peeking out, cut them off at the main stem.  Hopefully, with good care the bush will fill in to cover any bare spots.  Trim Boxwood lightly each year to encourage growth and for a pleasing shape.

They are lovely evergreens, much more interesting than yews - so historical!