Spring arrives - better late than never

It is early May, 2014, and Spring is finally, really, definitely here.  I start this season with a discussion of fruit trees because they are in spectacular bloom right now, and because time-is-a -wastin'.

One of two plum trees

This plum tree, in spectacular flower, gives the neighborhood an exotic reminder of the snowy winter we just endured.  Everything was late this Spring - I did not see any crocuses until early April - but the plants are making up for lost time.

With limited time, choices have to be made about where you devote your energy.  We have four fruit trees - 2 plums and 2 peaches, several raspberry bushes and a few blueberry bushes.  They all need attention NOW  if we want to be eating fruit later in the season.

I bought my husband a book called The Holistic Orchard, Tree Furits and berries the Biological Way  by Michael Phillips because I wanted to get away from all of the pesticides and man-made fertilizer we had been using.  Plus, we had one really good year, followed by one really bad year, and I wanted to see if there was a way to have more really good years without decimating the environment.

The book is full of information - more than I will ever be able to use.  However, there are two practices I am using to encourage a higher fruit yield.

The first is encouraging fungal growth on the surface around the tree and below ground at the tree's  roots.  You do want to promote this growth, contrary to what just about everybody believes about fungus.  Fungus below the ground actually increases the root system's ability to absorb nutrition exponentially.  More nutrition, happier, more productive tree.

One of the simplest ways to promote these fungi is to apply ramial wood chips around the base of the tree in the spring.  Ramial wood chips are small clippings from deciduous trees - no more than an inch in diameter.  If you prune your trees and you have all of those little pieces, put them around your fruit trees and bushes.  The thin pieces of wood have a relatively high concentration of nitrogen.  As the wood on a tree gets older and thicker, the relative concentration of nitrogen goes down and the concentration of carbon goes way up (which is why it is good to burn big pieces of wood).

 
Here is a picture of the area around my plum tree - I will be adding more tomorrow.

It helps to have a bored college student around to cut all of the little branches into sections around 6" long.  Thank you Becky.

Tomorrow, I will spread all of the wood chips I have around my remaining trees and bushes.

The second thing I do (or rather, my husband does), is spray the tree and the ground around it with neem oil.  This job should have been started in March, but since it was really cold in March, the job will have to be done this weekend.  The neem oil  helps jolt the tree with nutrition after the long winter.

I suggest that you get and read The Hollistic Orchard   if you are interested in growing fruit trees and bushes.

One last note about fungus.  Obviously, not all fungi are good.  If you have a healthy plant, and a healthy environment, it is easier to promote the good fungi and minimize the bad.

 

The Problem with Primaries

You might think that designing a garden with just primary colors would be a good, safe choice.  It turns out that it isn't safe, it is just dull.  I painted an abstract design to demonstrate the limitations of using only primary colors (red, blue, yellow), and how to modify them to create a dynamic color scheme.

Here is a section of my painting with just yellow and blue.  There is nothing that links the colors together, save the bit of green where the paints mixed a bit.  There is no relationship.

This next picture shows the whole painting.  Even though the colors still have no relationship to each other, there is a strong light/dark design.

This use of Notan makes the design better than the first image because it is interesting.  The light value (yellow) is well balanced with the dark value (blue).  There is flow, too.

This design can be made even more interesting by modifying one of the colors.  In this case, I added some blue and red to the yellow to create a yellow ochre.  The yellow sections now have both a primary yellow and a yellow ochre.

The primary blue was modified by adding some yellow and red.




Because a garden has lots of green, the problem with primaries is lessened.  The green removes the monotony of the primary color scheme because it links the primaries.

The yellow ochre in the last picture bridges the primary yellow and the primary blue.  It helps your eye make sense of the picture because it creates a relationship between the primary hues.

The primary blue was also changed.  Whenever you are dealing with color, decide what the dominant color is going to be.  I chose yellow.  I subordinated the blue to the yellow by giving it some "yellow" qualities.  The blue now has a faint green quality to it (without actually being green).

  

Chrysanthemums

Every fall chrysanthemums arrive at the local garden center and take over.  I don't care for most of them.  The colors tend to be garish.  If they are not placed properly in a garden they distract the eye because that is all the eye goes to.  They remain stiff until they turn brown and die.  I have no problem with bringing them inside to introduce seasonal color, or to having them on a patio or porch.

It is a shame that most people associate chrysanthemums with the artificial-looking plants sold widely throughout the fall.  I do not know enough about Asian horticultural practices, but I do know that many types of chrysanthemums were used.  Flowers often had long, elegant petals. 

My garden has one long-lived, inelegant chrysanthemum that I value throughout the growing season.  It was placed years ago in the front of one of my borders.  Throughout the spring and summer it has a solid, satisfying shape.  Even though it is relatively small, it anchors the garden.  If I were to anthropomorphize it, I would call it "steadfast".  

Now that it is blooming, one of its other stellar qualities emerges - it looks good in the fall sun.  Many plants look best in the summer sun, when the angle of the rays is steeper at noon than in the fall.  The shallow angle of the fall sun promotes glare.  It is quite difficult to see plants on a sunny day - the sunlight bouncing off most leaves is almost blinding.  The chrysanthemum is easily visible in the fall sun because the flower and leaf have a matte texture.  Many summer-loving plants have shiny leaves and flowers.  I strongly recommend this plant for the front of a sunny border. 

Fall Colors

Fall is a good time to learn about color, and nature is a good teacher.  Flower and foliage hues generally become muted.  These calmer colors work well together; put a bright, summery color into a fall landscape and the effect is shockingly discordant.

Something else is going on as well.  There is a common thread that pulls these colosr together.

 
This collection of hydrangeas, russian sage and boltonia are all linked by gray.  The leaves and stems of the russian sage and boltonia are gray-green.  The blooms of the hydrangea are fading to gray-green and gray-violet.  Contrast these flowers with the same hydrangeas mid-summer;  there the flowers are clear blue and violet-magenta. 

A rule I learned in a color class is to find the dominant color, then make sure that there are aspects of that color in every other hue in the composition.

In a garden, find the dominant hue or "feel" of a color.  During springtime, pastels dominate.  In summer, bright, clear colors rule.  Fall is the time for muted, grayed colors.  Winter is influenced by whites and blues.

There are exceptions.  Deciduous trees, especially maples, glow with reds, yellows, and oranges.  The leaves soon fade to muted browns, ochres, and umbers.

You can use this information to put together an outfit, decorate a room, paint a picture, and of course, design a garden.

Shade Perennials

I was inspired by a recent trip to the Cleveland Botanical Garden Center to tackle the shade section of my long border.  Following one of my own rules, I finally moved three early blooming astilbe to the middle of the border, and relocated a pink turtlehead chelone lyonii 'Hot Lips' to the front.  I bought another turtlehead and put it next to the transplanted one.

 The plant with the yellow flowers in the middle of the above picture is a yellow waxbells Kirengeshoma palmata.  This plant was also in Cleveland.  It will get big - up to about three feet.  I hope that I like it when this section has matured.

I also put in two windflower plants Anemone 'September Charm'.  Their blooms appeared right away on wiry stems.  The other day I was walking past my neighbor's house and noticed that they had the same windflower.  Theirs, however, was huge - about four feet by four feet. I'm not sure what I will do if mine get that big.

 

The plant on the right is liriope.  It has started to bloom.  I volunteered at Elm Bank, a Massachusetts Horticultural site, this past weekend, spent time weeding liriope, and learned a few tricks on dealing with its aggressive growth habit.  First, it's better to divide in the spring.  If you are going to divide in the fall, get a garden knife and cut away at the root ball.  Good luck trying to divide it with a spade.  When I do divide, I am going to put some of the plants in my front beds.  Lots of gardens in Washington, DC use liriope as a ground cover for their shrubs, and it looks very elegant.   

Keep the Eye Moving

I was  going to call this post "Moving Day", but decided that title conveyed the wrong message.  I did move a lot of plants last week.  While I was moving them, I realized what was really important about the changes I was making.

The section of border I worked on is dominated by pastels.  I did have three white summer phlox in the back left, though.  The phlox have been imperfect - too much mildew, but a very nice fragrance.  One issue that crystallized as I worked was that the viewer's eye went immediately to the blooming phlox and stayed there.

 
(This picture was taken last year - the asters in the front center died and were replaced with veronica.)

I wrote earlier this summer that I moved three veronica to the center front, and put cranesbill geranium and pincushion flower scabiosa c. 'Pink Mist' behind them.  I took the unusual step of putting a tall plant in front of  shorter ones because the veronica re-blooms profusely after it is deadheaded.  I discovered this summer that there is an excellent second bloom, but that the time gap between flowerings was too long for a plant in the front of the border.

 

I wish that I had taken a picture when the veronica was out of bloom and the phlox was blooming - that would have driven my point home better.

Even though the veronica has bloomed beautifully for weeks, I decided that it was time for a major overhaul.

I bought two ornamental kale plants (annuals), a white butterfly flower, gaura linaheimeri, and three garden asters 'Blue Henry I'.  I took out all of the phlox and much of the lady's mantle (chartreuse flower, spreads aggressively.)  I moved some of these to a nursery border in my back yard.

The lady's mantle were put in the back, against the fence.  Two delphinium were put in front of these in the center.  The gaura was placed in the middle.  The veronica were moved to the middle left, the asters were moved to the middle right.  The pincushion flowers were planted in the center front, flanked by the ornamental kale.  Finally, the geranium cranesbill were put behind the pincushhion flower.

 

By placing the gaura in the center I hope to avoid the unbalanced effect of having a non-pastel colored flower off to the side.  I will see how it works as the season winds down. 

Shade Perennials

The shady section of my long border is ignored most of the year.  A recent trip to the magnificent Cleveland Botanical Gardens convinced me to give this section a little more love.

I am as guilty as most people of thinking that shade plants only bloom in the spring and early summer.  Think astilbe, bleeding heart, fuschia.  Late bloomers include hosta and liriope, which I tend to think of as groundcovers instead of flowering plants.  My shade border also includes a tree peony, regular peonies, and siberian iris.

A walk through the woodland section of the Cleveland Botanical Garden opened up my eyes to plant pairings and choices that I would not have thought of on my own.

One such pairing is turtlehead (chelone) with lobelia cardinalis.  

 I think of lobelia cardinalis as strictly a sun lover, albeit one that likes moist soil.  It turns out that this plant can be quite happy in the shade as well.  In addition to being a beautiful red flower with a long bloom time that attracts hummingbirds, it also helps the soil retain moisture.  That would not work well with asclepias tuberosa, which loves drought conditions, but does work well in a shade garden, especially when there has been little rain.  

I happen to have a turtlehead hidden in the back of my shade border.  Soon I will move it to the middle of the border, and relocate the astilbe that is currently there to the mid-back of the border.

Another surprise was the number of hydrangeas that thrive in the shade.  I think of these plants as sun lovers (that like a drink of water in the late afternoon.)  Lacecap and black stem hydrangea were two species that I noted.