Summer | Deborah Silver & Co.

Some Like It Hot And Dry

Choosing plants for summer containers can be complicated, especially if you are as serious about them as I am. I have to be serious, as I plant them professionally for a wide range of clients. But lacking any clients, I would still be serious about them. They are seasonal expressions of the landscape confined by a finite world known as a container. The idea of this enchants me. A great container planting is a condensed expression of color, mass, line, texture, mass, shape and mood. Like the best chocolate mousse you ever ate. The thoughtful landscape and garden builds and endures and reinvents itself from year to year. Like a great stew. Seasonal containers provide an opportunity to express an idea or point of view that needs no more commitment than one season. If this year’s annual containers do not satisfy, the next summer season is not so far away. Landscape design and installation can be a lengthy affair. The road to maturity is long, and not always easy. The death of a tree is momentous; a petunia lost is no cause for alarm. That container plantings last for one season is such a blessing. As much as I embrace the tough and long road designing and implementing a landscape, I value those gestures that are quick and true. I design containers by instinct. Every season, a plant that interests me, or a group of plants that seem like they will create a neighborhood gets my attention. But long before I shop, I scout the long range weather forecast for my zone.

A forecast for much above average temperatures, and dry conditions means I started paying special attention to those seasonal plants that will thrive in those conditions months ago. I have always been a fan of those old fashioned cutting flowers-the zinnias. If we have a rainy or very humid summer, they are a magnet for mildew and all manner of fungal disease. Reading the forecast in March, I started researching zinnias. A dry hot summer would be the perfect moment to plant lots of them in front of the shop. I was especially interested in unusual forms, vigor, resistance to disease, and and that old fashioned charm they are known for. In reading about zinnias, I came across a blog post from Floret Farms. They grow armload after armload of the most beautiful cut flowers I have ever seen-just like the cut zinnias you see in their picture above. I did take some of their recommendations to heart. Interested in the article? http://www.floretflowers.com/2014/03/flower-focus-growing-great-zinnias/

Zinnia Queen red lime has very unusual and muted coloration-unlike many of the varieties that feature intense color.

It’s sister cultivar, Queen Lime, is a much improved version of the old lime green zinnia “Envy”.

Benary Lime tends towards the greener side of lime. From the Johnny’s Selected seeds website: A classic and superior strain of zinnia originating from a historic German seed company, the Benary’s Giant Series features large, double blossoms of approximately 4–5″ in diameter, in multiple magnificent colors. Recommended by the Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers for their vigor, uniformity, productivity, and carefree cultivation across a range of growing zones and conditions. From Swallowtail Garden Seeds: The 3-4 inch, double chartreuse flowers are superb for cutting, blend with almost any color. Outstanding massed in the landscape; the flowers are jaw-dropping in mixed bouquets. Plants are rain, heat, and mildew resistant. Somewhat shorter than others in this series, growing 24-26 inches tall.

I first read about this zinnia at Floret Farms. Uproar Rose is a hot pink zinnia that is reputed to produce flower heads at 5″-6″ across all summer. It makes an excellent cut flower, and is resistant to fungal diseases. Floret favors this zinnia, as it has lots of side branching – meaning it will bear lots of flowers. I added this zinnia to my collection.

The Zinderella series, in both peach and lilac represent a very unusual anemone type form. I see not every flower on the stalk is quite as double as the ones in my pictures, but that is not enough to discourage me from growing them. They grow about 24 inches tall. I mixed all of the sizes and colors of zinnias for a loose look, and I have twice as many lime zinnias as all of the other colors. That lime will make it so much easier to appreciate the color and shape of the other varieties.

Zinderella Lilac

A little splash of white is the perfect accent for a garden with lots of bright color. This is the tallest of my zinnias, topping out at 40″. Polar Bear white is an appropriate name. It cools off the collection.

Zinnia Canary Bird rounded out the tall zinnia group.

I did not want to neglect the shorter and more compact zinnias. I did opt to grow the Zahara series. From Park Seed: The Zahara series introduced in 2009 immediately became famous for its resistance to mildew and leaf spot, its nonstop blooms, and its larger flower size.These blooms are fully 2½ inches wide. Renowned for its ability to withstand heat, humidity, drought, and just about anything else, Zahara is the first bedding Zinnia that can truly claim to be disease-resistant. Mildew is a traditional enemy of the Zinnia, but Zahara’s got it licked!

Zahara Starlight White is especially beautiful.

The wicker pots out front are planted with elegant feather, tall yellow marigolds, marguerite daisies, pink petunias and lime licorice. We dug around the stone plinth, and planted Zahara zinnias.

a fist full of zinnias

Yes, I planted them on the roof too. We’ll see how we do with them.

Posted on: June 4, 2016 8 Comments

Filed Under: flowers, Color, container planting, Summer, Detroit Garden Works Tagged With: zinnias

The First Container Planting

Every year, the prospect of having a full roster of container gardens to plant makes me want to black out. I spend the first three weeks of May utterly certain that I cannot plant one more pot. That I am out of ideas. Luckily, time passes by, and and I start shopping. A client I have worked for as long as this one is easy to shop for. I had a pair of giant banana plants to pick up at our farmer’s market at 5:45 am. I was ready at 7am to let Dan know that we would need two pallets-130 bags – of our custom container soil blend, and 30 bags of bark. We would need moss fabric for a pair of wire urns, and a ladder to tie the mandevillea to the steel plant climbers.

I had shopped with David and Riley on Friday. They put all of our plants on racks, and loaded them onto our trucks. At the end of the day Friday, I was ready in the plant regard. I had an inkling of an idea about what I would plant. Of course I was going over that inkling, critically. I had from 6-8am Saturday morning to print the photographs from last year, and write on them what materials we would use in them this year. Two hours gives me enough time to change my mind. Once my crew is ready to load, I am too. I take extras and alternates, just in case.

Once every pot had gotten filled with bark for drainage, and our container soil mix, all of the centerpieces get planted. Then I lay out the scheme for the rest of the pot. I was entirely absorbed and focused on how each plant would grow out, and interact with its neighbor. I favor containers that have a beautiful overall shape by the time they mature. My favorite part of this planting for a group of Italian terra cotta pots? Orange geraniums. Geraniums, as they provide an incredible amount of color when properly grown. They are heavy feeders. But more so than the bloom habit, that orange would contribute an interesting variation to a warm color palette. The red mandevilleas and red geraniums are a bluish red. The orange geraniums have just enough yellow to make the combination interesting. My client is keen about the drama that can be created by intense color.
This pair of Italian pots can handle the size and textural drama of a pair of large scale bananas. Not yet visible are a collar of strobilantes, or Persian shield plants that will ring the trunks of the bananas. The chartreuse leaved Persian Queen geraniums and misty lilac waves petunias will highlight the iridescent red-violet of the Persian Shields.

Lime green is a key color in this planting scheme. All of the warm colors are all the more intense, by their proximity to lime green. The red represented in this container is red sunpatiens. They will grow quite large. The lime licorice will lighten that load of red.

This big scented geranium will have pale pink flowers intermittently over the summer. But they are primarily grown for their bright apple green foliage that can be clipped into shapes. We gave this geranium the most rudimentary clip. My client has a lot of formally trimmed shrubs maintained by the company that prunes our boxwood at the shop. Her crew will put a skilled set of hands to the spherical shape of this geranium. It is under planted with an orange geranium of a different sort than the big growing zonal geraniums. Caliente geraniums come in a wide range of colors, and are extremely easy to grow. The pink and white bicolor trailing verbena “Lanai Twister Pink” is a beautiful addition to this series.

There are two containers in fairly dense shade. The color of the lime dracaena “Janet Craig” brightens any shady area. The dracaena is under planted with bird’s nest ferns. The leaf form is simialr to the dracaena, but is a darker green.

A boxwood topiary on standard is under planted with Persian Queen geraniums, red geraniums, and vista fuchsia petunias. The low terra cotta bowl features hot pink XL dahlias, black cherry supertunias, and a bicolor trailing verbena.

3 terracotta boxes get identical treatment. Hot pink zonal geranium towers, and lime creeping jenny.

This old cast iron rectangular cauldron sits in a garden bed which is so shady that very little grows there. It is planted with a a pair of lime green fleck leafed dieffenbachia “Camouflage”, Janet Craig dracaenas, and Black Gold Xtreme sansevieria. The sansevieria in the box is repeated in ground at each end. This planting will thrive all summer long with next to no water.

By 2pm, you would never know we had been there. It was a splashy beginning to our container planting season.

Posted on: May 29, 2016 24 Comments

Filed Under: Color, Deborah Silver and Co Inc, flowers, container planting, Summer Tagged With: orange zonal geraniums, annual container planting, container gardens

88 Degrees

Though our summer has been mostly moderate and regularly rainy, we are in the throes of a hot spell. It is hot enough to make working in the garden a sweat fest. Oh yes, the hot days have gone on for a while. If I can’t be outside at 6am, I would rather wait until 6pm. Do the tropical/seasonal plants in my pots mind an 88 degree day? Not at all. Many of them originate in very hot climates. They have been waiting for this heat since late May. It is important to differentiate between what you would like on a hot day, and what your container plants would like. I do not water my containers when it is hot. I might like a cool shower after a hot day outdoors, but tropical plants thrive in the hot heat. I only water them when they are dry, or in imminent danger of becoming dry. I water dry plants, not hot plants.

I have no scientific evidence to support the following-just my experience and instinct. On an 88 degree sunny day, I do not water my pots from the top. I would rather keep the foliage dry. Wet and heat put together is a reliably good recipe for disease. Mildew in a container – what gardener needs that? I use one hand to raise up the trailing plants on the edge, and the other to direct water to the surface of the dirt. No matter the size of the pot, I move the wand to different locations on the edge of the pot, so I am sure all the soil gets watered evenly. All around. Watering in one spot will invariably leave some other spot dry. I water the soil, all around, in hot weather.

When plants get large, it is not always so easy to see where the interior of the pot actually is. There’s no sense to watering outside the pot.

This chocolate soldier plectranthus has gotten so large that it takes my whole arm to to flip up the trailing portion, and direct water to the soil. As this pot is located in the corner of my deck, it isn’t feasible to go all the way around it with my wand. The best part for this plant – no water goes on the foliage. The water need to go to the roots.

Watering a seasonal container properly takes a little finesse. This container needs water at the center. A rim watering is not enough. My left hand has located the surface of the soil in the middle, while my right hand delivers the water. How do I know how this pot needs water? I touch the soil. If it is hard and crusty, (as soil tends to get towards the end of the growing season, when the plants are heavily rooted) I water until that soil softens, and feels spongy to the touch. This pot I may need to water twice, to get it sufficiently soaked. I will not water again until the soil has dried out.

Flipping the leaves up in a container gives me a look at the soil below, and helps me to direct the water horizontally across the surface of the soil. Plants are more forgiving of their leaves being handled as a group. Handling a single leaf can result in breakage. Water directed to the roots of plants in need is life giving.

The German ivy at the lower left in this picture is trailing just about to the ground now. As the vines are very juicy, heavy, and brittle, I move the leaves just above the rootball as gently as possible, and water from the top. I wouldn’t want to risk breaking an entire branch. I would not flip up German ivy trailers in search of the soil surface. I shine that water down on its root ball, as best I can. Every plant in a container needs to be watered differently.

Dichondra, on the other hand, is a light weight and pliable vine. The round leaves do a decent job of repelling water, should I water from the top. The best way to get the water to the roots of a dichondra is to get the leaves out of the way. Once I have watered those roots, I set the vines back down. Gently.

This pot full of belamcanda lilies is thoroughly rooted. All of the growth is upright, so watering at the bottom is easy. On an 88 degree day, I flood the soil until the water comes up to the rim. After the water drains, I will refill the pot until I see evidence of water draining all of the way out the bottom.

The rush in this pot is very fond of water. The Cuban oregano-it is happy to be dryer. Some pots need selective watering. I make the time to do this. I pour the water to the rush, and water the oregano every so often.

This pot planted with a rose scented geranium and a number of phormiums-I water it from the top. I cannot really explain why. The rose scented geranium does not bend much. The phormium is vulnerable to breakage at the crown. Why all this talk about watering? Container plantings need regular and thoughtful watering. People regularly ask me why my pots look good so late in the season, and during really hot weather. It’s the watering.

Posted on: August 18, 2015 31 Comments

Filed Under: container planting, Summer Tagged With: summer containers, container plantings

August

By the time August comes around, I am ready to take a vacation from the work of my garden, and just enjoy it. In May I might renovate a spot that has gotten a little tired or overgrown. I added a new strip of pachysandra this year in the fountain garden. The yews have grown a lot, and the grass is not happy in their shade. For better or for worse, I make decisions about what to plant in my pots, and get them planted. In June, the problems generated by the previous winter become obvious. Replacements go in the ground. 4 all but dead rhododendrons get removed. In the case of my rose garden which finally completely succumbed to the insult of two bitterly cold winters, I decided to do nothing. We not only need a new roof this fall, we need a place to shovel off the old roof.

When the weather finally warms up in July, I might start watering here and there. I do not run my sprinkler system on a regular program. I water what I think needs to be watered. I only rarely run all of the zones at once. Once the water goes on, broken heads, or a need for a change in coverage become obvious. Sprinkler repairs-July work.The seasonal pots begin to settle in, and put down roots.

Once August comes, I want to take the time to enjoy the garden. The watering and maintenance of the pots is not a chore. I enjoy that. It is a perfect way to wind down from the day. I water. I tinker with this or that leaf that needs to be removed. The maintenance of the pots is about falling in to the pleasure of a garden. I sweep up all of the maple helicopters. I make the effort to appreciate what is there, and not worry about what should be there. Fall is a much better time to make changes in a landscape. Mid seventies during the day, and upper fifties at night is not the norm for Michigan in August. Why not enjoy that? A temperate August in Michigan is a gift that should be treasured. Buck and I visit each garden every day after work. The corgis come along. This August is temperate. We are eating outdoors every night. No matter the menu, there is always Michigan grown corn and tomatoes.

Even the simplest spots that are completely familiar look good to me. Most of the plants have been there a long time, and seem happy. Those that aren’t will be dealt with some other time. Right now is for what is good about it. I feel like I am on vacation when I am home, and that seems like a good thing.

So why is my August garden vacation on my mind? I met with a client late last week who just days ago moved into a new house. The house she left was a beautiful turn of the century home on a big piece of property. She had invested an incredible amount of time in the landscape and gardens. The decision to move was a family decision. Decisions like this are made by people all the time, including those people who have a passion for, and work the garden. Most people have important obligations and commitments, and that includes gardening people.

She has only been in her new house for a few days. The property is astonishingly large. There are some old trees, and lawn as far as the eye can see. The house is almost completely obscured by overgrown shrubs. A typical suburban foundation planting had been left to its own devices. In one spot was the largest and tallest stand of Canada thistle I have ever seen. The house had not been occupied for quite some time, and that landscape had been neglected. She did tell me quite a bit about the garden she had just left. How she had planted all of the landscape and gardens herself, and how she managed to maintain it, in addition to having a job and family to look after. That discussion was about more than her loss. It was about helping me to understand what had been important to her. I did not ask her what trees, shrubs and perennials she liked. I did not ask her about color or style. I wanted to know why she called me.

She answered without hesitating. She told me she was a gardener, and not a designer. What she was looking for from me was a plan. An outline of how to go about creating a landscape and garden that would make her new house feel like a home. A way of making sense of 2.5 acres of wide open space. She knows as well as I do how much time and effort that will take. She already has a plan to remove all of the overgrown foundation plantings this fall. Her August will be very different than mine.

That said, I could sense her resolve. I could tell that she has the energy to take on a project of this size, and see it through. She is a gardener, after all. With some time and thought, I think I can provide her with a place to dig in. She is counting on me for that, and I plan to give it to her.

Her situation is not unknown to me. When I was her age, I had a new house and property. For years I did nothing to it. I was too busy getting Detroit Garden Works off the ground, and tending to my landscape practice. But there came a time when I wanted to make time for it. That was all it took. If this client wants to make time for it on day two of her possession of the new house, you can rest assured she is serious. She will make something beautiful and interesting of her property.

When I got home later that day, I was glad I had persisted over a period of years making a landscape and garden. It was, and is, worth it. On top of this, a new client whose love of the garden is a call I will do my best to answer.

On my deck today, many shades of green. On my mind, an avid gardener with a new house lacking a landscape.

Tonight, I have little in the way of obligations. On a Sunday in August, I do my best to enjoy the fruits of all of my work. The deck pots look good to me.