Spring | Deborah Silver & Co.

Planting In March

I know I made much this past week about planting a more beautifully designed hanging basket. The challenge was such, I have the troubled dreams to prove it. All of the notes I made this past summer inexplicably disappeared. The lesson here-any idea, phrase, phone number, concept or design that you really need-write it down, and insure its safekeeping. Notes and notebooks, scrapbooks, file folders, magazine clippings-all of these are a good idea. Some ideas occur way ahead of their time. Keeping them written down, visually documented, and readily available is the best backup to insure that what is close to you heart gets a hearing when the time is right. Well, the time isn’t really right yet, but I was ready anyway.

I wanted to be past the dreams stage. It was time to put my show on the road. I drove out to Bogie Lake Greenhouse yesterday with Pam, and some containers in tow. I had an idea to plant some 50 containers for spring, in addition to the hanging baskets of my dreams. Ambitious, yes. But the big fact of the matter is, as Coach John Wooden once said, “It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.” My big ideas got a dressing down. I am used to planting at the shop; I have already sorted through everything that Mark has available, and have at hand the plants that strike my fancy. This is a highly edited version of his greenhouse. Many of them are in color by the time I get them-I rarely buy plants from a list-I buy what I see, and like. Pam got right to work-she had all of the containers filled in no time. I was cruising the greenhouse with Mark, when reality began to sink in.

Spring plants in mid March are tiny green blobs-a few roots, and not much leaf to speak of on top. I faced an ocean of violas and pansies-all green. They are just where they need to be, perfectly timed-to be perfect in a month. I don’t know about you, but great color combinations in spring pots can be tough to achieve. The blues, lavenders, violets and red violets in pansies don’t always go together. Red violet pansies look great with red ornamental kale-dark purple pansies go blah. It became apparent that I would need to rely on my memory of color, my memory of the colors in the various mixes-or the notes that I could not find. If I was thinking I would have mature plants in color from which I could design-I thought wrong.

You can see from this picture that all of the purple in question has a decidedly red-violet cast. Do I know the names of these pansy and viola cultivars-no. Even when I did manage to match a cultivar name to a picture in a seed catalogue, I did not feel one bit better. Color pictures in a catalogue may give a feeling for a color-or not.

The purple is this bicolor pansy is not at all red violet. It has a heliotrope blue cast, to my eye. Red-violet alyssum in this pot would make me wince. Citron alyssum, which has a decidedly cream yellow cast, would have worked better than the white alyssum you see here.

So I did what I could-all of the schemes came from my head and memory. Pam planted pairs of pots with a variety of spring annuals including pansies, violas, phlox, angelina, osterospermums and so on-and we’ll find out later if I can design in the dark. I didn’t even approach the hanging basket planting project-I see I have to plan them on paper. The time to plan combinations is at the height of the season-when color, texture and mature size is all right there to be seen.

I have new resolve to photograph all of the flower cultivars I like to use-from the start of the season to the close. I will have then a catalogue of my own making, so I can plant green, if need me. We’ll see how far I get with that.

Though these baskets are lush and well-grown, I have something different in mind. To that end, I’ll spend some time planning, before I plant.

Posted on: March 9, 2011 2 Comments

Filed Under: Good Design, Garden Design, Spring Tagged With: spring container plants, annuals for spring, pansies and violas, planting spring containers

Stirring

This past November, I planted a slew of spring flowering bulbs in containers. My crumbly compost based soil came from the most mature of Steve’s compost hills. Friable, this soil. I knew my bulbs would be happy. True bulbs are extraordinary, in that they house the leaves and flowers intact, and ready to grow, in an embryonic state. An entire blooming plant exists inside, ready to grow when the conditions are right. Wow. Though I have been curious, I have never had the heart to slice a tulip bulb in half to see what was inside-it always seemed like such a waste of a life. So I believe what I read about this.

My bulbs were planted in November; they need time to root before the ground freezes hard. Planting them too late can be a problem, should winter arrive unexpectedly early. I have been told that bulbs do not freeze hard through and through when planted in the ground. Should they freeze too hard, they will rot when they thaw. I find this hard to believe, as we routinely have frost that penetrates the ground of a depth of 42 inches, but perhaps a solid freeze is different than deeply penetrating frost. This means container planted bulbs need some winter protection, as their roots are actually above ground. But should they be wintered in too warm a location, they will not get the chilling they need.

We moved the pots into the garage in late December; I did worry I had left them outside too long. The shop garage is much larger than a car garage, so space was available. We placed them as close to the adjacent heated space as possible, although we only heat that space to 45 degrees in January and February. Bulbs require a period of chilling. Cold temperatures induce a biochemical response that triggers the growth of that embryonic flower. Gardeners in frost free zones have a tough time growing bulbs unless they provide a proper chilling period. A refrigerator dedicated to chilling bulbs-I love that idea.

Different bulbs have different requirements for chilling. Tulips need 14-20 weeks. Chionodoxa need 15. Once a bulb has experienced the cold it needs, it can take 2-3 weeks from breaking ground to bloom. My bulbs in containers-I am not forcing them. By this I mean I am not engineering a chilling time that would allow me to have flowers ahead of the normal spring season. I like them to bloom at exactly the same time as they would were they planted in the ground. I just like the idea of bulbs blooming in boxes, or terra cotta pots. I can move them around, or group them on my front porch. I could use a pot of tulips as a centerpiece, or a gift for a friend who is under the weather.

I do not heat my garage space; the extremely cold temperatures we had in February made me worry that the bulbs had frozen too hard. I checked a few pots by knocking the root ball out of some pots-they all seemed well rooted and fine. I cannot account for why this completely unheated space works. Though it is unheated, it probably is not nearly as cold as the out of doors. Perhaps geothermal heat plays a part in keeping the bulb pots just warm enough. No matter the science, I am seeing my bulbs beginning to break ground. You may wonder why I have covered my pots with landscape fabric, as well you should. Our resident cat, MCat, loves nothing better than digging into the dirt, or sharpening his claws on the trunks of old boxwood topairies we store here over the winter.

The landscape fabric and some low tech readily available weights keeps him out of these pots. Like countless other people, we accomodate the local wildlife. As you can see, the bulbs are stirring. I know that many plants go dormant in response to a season that cannot support growth. I know that low temperatures slow the chemical activity in plants as a survival strategy. But I cannot decide if these bulbs have been truly dormant. I think there has been a small fire burning here, all winter.

These pictures of pots of dirts with an occasional green or red shoot hardly seem exciting at first glance-you are right about that. But what is happening below the surface, and barely poking through the surface means spring is not far off-I find that incredibly exciting.

Posted on: March 4, 2011 1 Comment

Filed Under: Garden Design, Spring Tagged With: spring flowering bulbs in containers, planting bulbs in containers, spring flowering bulbs

Loathe To Let Go

May weather in Michigan is likely to be too cold, or too hot. As in, one extreme or the other, irregularly and unpredictably. Yesterday saw the temperature reach 80 degrees, for Pete’s sake. This untoward weather was attended by lots of phone calls from clients worrying that the summer was about to pass them by-could I plant their flowers right away? We do try to get everyone planted as quickly as possible-most people understand this, and are good natured about it. I tell clients the best thing I do for them is to isolate all the world noise, and concentrate on their place. I schedule plantings in an order suggested by the cold tolerance of the plants that need to be planted. I have some clients for whom I have been planting for 25 years-these clients are first up. Those clients aside, I change up plantings dates. If you were so kind as to be planted the second week of June last year, you get an earlier date this year. I grew up in and love a democracy-enough said. My crews are great. They unload the trucks, fill the pots, prep, plant topiaries and centerpieces-they do this rather than talk to me. They wait until we are done, to talk to me. I am crazy about them for this; they know how to set up and get ready-and leave me be to sort everything out. I myself like to plant late, in thoroughly warm soil. I am loathe to let go of the spring. My tulips at the shop have been so beautiful-for at least a month. But they are fading fast in the heat.

The spring pots are just beginning to hit their stride. Improvements in pansy and viola breeding has produced plants with great heat tolerance, and vigorous blooming. I am personally still stuck on the violas, and not yet focused on the summer season. I like the seasons-each one, in turn. The rhododendrons outside my office at home are breathtaking right now-pale pink blooms with a flush of yellow at the throat. Those impossibly long stamens-what an elegant flower graces the rhododendron. They speak to spring. I am listening.

We planted up a number of galvanized troughs such as this one. Spring plants have distinctive color and shapes that are all their own. The kale will eventually bolt and go to seed when the hot weather arrives and stays. Peach melba heuchera and Citron alyssum make a fine spring pair. Lavender violas blushing peach-I know of no other flower that has coloration like this. For the moment, the spring season maturing has my attention.

Spring white, lavender and purple-I am not ready to trade this in for a more summery look. I tour the pots and plantings at the shop every day, first thing. I tour my own garden, last thing, every day. It is not enough to see something briefly in a garden. I like every bit of it to settle around my bones, and take hold. Repeat trips in conjunction with my stubborn point of view; an unexpected change -this best describes my gardening life.

The lettuce pots are beautiful right now. I know this will sound hopelessly archaic, but I eat iceberg lettuce and tuna every day at lunch. Any lettuce, any mesclun roadside weed lettuce mix-a treat. The water that endows all the lettuces-I especially enjoy that which is crunchy and juicy. Spring-eminently juicy. Spring flowering plants are a treat to all of us who are winter weary. Thus lettuce figures prominently in my spring container design work. Juicy and fresh-lettuce is just about the best thing spring has to offer.

I like telling time by what is in bloom. I have no need for an armillary, or a watch. I have grown and tended many perennials-what I like about them the best is how they represent the season. In spring- the hellebores, phlox divaricata, epimediums, European ginger, Solomon’s Seal-the simple violets. Harbingers of the spring season.

I apologize-the light at 7am is dim, and I thought I could skip hauling the tripod outside. Though this photograph is not the sharpest, the idea is clear. These tall thin long tom clay pots are home to burgeoning spring violas-delightful. Spring like.

Spring in Michigan is short and sweet. Very sweet. The tulips-what could be better? This tulip mix-so celebratory of spring. Though I am racing miles ahead of the late spring season to design for summer, I so treasure our spring season.

This pot-a strong arrangement of purple faced pansies, white violas and scotch moss in a very beautiful low bowl-this kind of spring statement sustains me.