Search Results for: mutabilis

Planting The Annual Flowers

I plant better than 80 annual plantings every year. Some are as simple as a pair of pots on the front porch. Others involve multple containers, and in ground planting. I enjoy each and every one of them. That said, the work of this chases me from late May until the end of the first week of July. My late June clients are looking to replace their spring plantings. As Detroit Garden Works is not a full service nursery, I shop for all of my clients, individually.

That shopping takes me to lots of local nurseries and my local farmer’s market. One nursery custom grows a lot of material which I like to use. Whether that material involves new varieties of caladiums I grew last year, or nicotiana cultivars, specialty and unusual plants make the difference between a rote container scheme, and a freshly imagined and exciting planting.

The shopping is the first part. Pickups of plants, and arranging for deliveries is a job in and of itself. Some plantings are so large I arrange for delivery to the site the day of the planting. No matter if I am picking up, or having plants delivered, planning for the job comes first. The planning and designing takes a lot of thought and detail, so the installation goes smoothly and quickly. Once the plants and my crew meets at the job, the first move is to clean up. The spring tulips and weeds may need to be cleaned out. The pots need fresh soil. Steve arranges for our custom blend of soil for containers to be mixed. That soil is delivered to a company who provides bagging, and shipping. We go through 2 semi truck loads of our custom container soil mix a season.

Once the pots get a new planting, and the annuals are planted in ground, we sweep up, and water thoroughly-at least three times. We water until we are blue in the face. Newly planted plants have no ability to take up water from the surrounding soil until their roots reach out. A really good soak makes for a really promising beginning.

The next two days calls for temperatures in the 90’s. We were especially careful today to soak every pot thoroughly. Though this picture seems hardly worth posting, what I like is how wet everything looks. The landscape installation here is 4 years old now. All of the woody plants have taken hold, and are thriving. The flowers add a finishing detail that makes the landscape seem like home.

I make trouble for myself. I will not plant too early. Most of my clients understand this about me, and don’t fuss. I am not so concerned about frosty air temperatures. I am interested in the temperature of the soil. If the soil is too cold, the annual plants are stopped dead in their tracks. Most annual plants are native to tropical locales. They know no cold.

It is hard to wait, given how many plantings there are to get done. But a tropical plant which is planted into freezing soil will be set back. The growth may be stunted. It might take weeks for them to recover from the insult. They may never recover. I like planting in soil that has thoroughly warmed up. This makes the transplanting process take no longer than a blink of an eye.

Coleus and impatiens hate cold soil. Massed plantings of impatiens and fibrous begonias at my local shopping center in early May shrivel before they ever make a move to grow. Looking at these plantings makes me wince. Some clients will call, concerned that they do not have their plantings before Memorial Day. I tell them they are one of the lucky ones. No annual planting before its time means their plants will take hold and grow like crazy.

This may be foolishness on my part with no basis in science, but I do believe that annuals that are planted too early peter out too early. I usually plant my own pots the end of the first week of June. I still have them growing strong into October. If your annual pots give out the end of August, you might want to look at your planting date.

I understand the urge to plant early. Who isn’t ready for the summer gardening season by late April? But April and May means spring in Michigan. The weather can be dicey. Those clients that have to have early plantings miss out on some great plants that will not tolerate the cold. Caladiums, coleus, New Guinea impatiens, heliotrope, angelonia, and begonias all abhor cold soil.

Newly planted containers do not give up what is to come. These boxes will be overflowing with nicotian mutabilis, and nicotiana alata white in another month. The pink petunias which are so much in evidence will be but a foot note, once the nicotiana get going. No annual pot in my zone looks great in June. If you have an idea for a party or event in late May or June, plant for spring. The annual flowers are just getting up a head of steam in late July.

The first order of business on this pool deck is to get the pots out, locate the irrigation lines, and fill the pots with soil.

I photograph all of my annual plantings when they are planted, and when they peak. I draw the design for each pot on the back side of last year’s picture. I use these pictures to tune up my choices in plants. Success with container gardening involves a gardener, a particular location-and whatever else nature has in store to dish out. I try to keep a visual record from which I can learn.

Planting the container gardens is much different than designing the landscape and gardens. But what I especially like about the containers is that they represent the finish. The finishing touches make a landscape very personal. The annual flowers. The right arbor, and that special bench.

I never met anyone who did not like or respond to music. Nor have I ever met anyone who did not respond to to the beauty that is a flower. The summer growing and flowering tropical plants are a taste of Eden in the northern gardens I look after. I plant lots of them at home, and enjoy them every day.

At the end of the day, I would plant pots-the more, the better.

Posted on: May 26, 2012 5 Comments

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Some Like It Hot

The blisteringly hot and persistent heat of the past week has made many a gardener, and the above pictured corgi, miserable. Howard, who would not set foot outside the door if he thought he would get his feet wet, had an alternate plan for yesterday. Strong winds were pushing water over the coping of my fountain. He doesn’t look all that thrilled with his situation, but he had no plans to go elsewhere either. I had to laugh, watching him stand with obvious annoyance in a few inches of water. Just like the rest of us, there was no getting around the heat.

It may be stating the obvious, but plants evolve in response to their environment. Though last week’s Garden Designers Roundtable topic focused on texture in the landscape, there was quite a bit of discussion about how the surface of a leaf says everything about a mechanism for survival. I had never really thought about it before, but plants that live in environments where rain is extremely scarce have evolved to minimize the evaporation of water. Those leaves are thick skinned. Tropical plants where rain is frequent and heavy can survive just fine with thin and jumbo sized leaves.

Petunias are native to Argentina. Many species of helichrysum, like the variegated licorice pictured above, are native to South Africa. The blue-green frosted curls sedge is a cool season grass, meaning it grows best before the advent of hot weather, and after the cessation of hot weather. It tolerates, but does not grow much, in really hot weather. These plants are equipped to handle the heat.

Most of the plants I use in containers are hybrids of non-native, tropical plants. The petunias like to be grown on the dry side, and usually do well in the heat of our summers. They come from places that are routinely hot. New Zealand sedges, of which the hybrid Frosted Curls is an example, are native to a far more temperate zone than mine. They can tolerate our midsummer heat. But not all heat is created equal. Extreme heat is one thing, but extreme heat that goes on for an extremely long time takes a toll.

The petunias are fine, and growing lushly-at the moment. They are dealing with this weather far better than I. The white mandevillea will sit until the weather gets hot-they are native to central and South America. Many mandevilleas are native to Brazil. They grow and bloom like crazy in hot climates. I expect this white mandevillea will get bigger and bloom more should our hot weather persist. Nicotiana species can be found in environements all over the globe. I find mine do quite well over the summer, and rebloom profusely. Nicotiana mutabilis in particular will rev up in the fall, and send out substantial new flowering stalks.

Cassia didymobotrya is commonly known as the popcorn plant. The fragrance of buttered popcorn is strikingly apparent, should you run your fingers across the stems and leaves. It is a shrub, native to South America, that will grow 4 to 6 feet tall in one season. They may grow larger, given a hot season. They make a substantial showing in a container garden. They throw yellow flowers on and off all summer. I am particularly fond of the pea-type leaves. Cassia is a tropical plant with a very airy appearance. Planted in a cast iron cistern placed at the edge of our asphalt street, it looks stress free, and is growing well.

Texas sage is as it suggests-it thrives under desert conditions. I have never had a leucophyllum bloom for me, but perhaps this year I will get lucky. They like desert conditions, but oddly enough require some humidity to bloom well. I cannot believe the usual Michigan humidity is far behind. I know that many grey foliaged plants are native to dry places. Lavenders and grey salvias will not tolerate too much water for long.

I do know there can come a point when heat can severely damage plants. The first line of defense against life threatening damage is to go dormant. Both plants and animals will aestivate, meaning they slow down their activity, in order to conserve moisture and energy. Petunias and impatiens will go out of flower, if they temperatures get too hot, and stay too hot. Our drought-like conditions are not helping one bit with the effects of the heat. Many lawns in my area have gone brown and dormant-they are aestivating. Should the soil temperature gets too high, roots can literally cook. I remember a summer in the mid eighties where many growers in the Cleveland area lost nursery stock from soil temperatures that soared over 100 degrees. There is nothing that can be done to defend against extreme weather like this.

The best I can do to help my plants survive a bout of unusually hot weather is to water them when they need it. Even if that means I am outside with a hose when I would rather be anywhere else. So far, so good.

Posted on: July 1, 2012 2 Comments

The Super Nova Stage

In 1996, I had a shop devoted to fine and fabulous objects for the garden- newly opened for business. Of course I had lots of ideas, not the least of which was a scheme for a landscape out front. Gravel paths, and a slew of buxus koreana from Canada. Marv Wiegand gave me 6 months to pay for these boxwood-this was a huge help to a business just underway. This 1997 view of the shop-the word gawky comes to mind.

This past week tells a different, more recent story about the shop garden. The years of work show. Time is a enormously important design element in the landscape. You may be able to cut in line other places , but any landscape needs some age to represent well. Some new landscapes may be charming and bright at first-this is a super nova stage. But how they look fifteen years later tells the design tale. Great landscapes are about the long vision, and faithful maintenance.

Unlike a landscape, annual pots are a celebration of a single season. They start with small plants that take hold slowly-the spring weather in Michigan can be cold and unfriendly to plants native to tropical climates. It seems as though every plant is the same size, no matter whether it will eventually stay small, or grow 6 feet tall. New plantings are almost always out of scale with the container.

This same pot in late September is just about as good as it will get. The fall equinox-tomorrow. Cold nights will have an adverse effect on the coleus and sweet potato vine. But just before the cold weather begins to bring the annual season to a close, the plants seem to take on a robust appearance. Perhaps the cooler weather, or the sun lower in the sky, makes the color appear more saturated.

In any event, the annual season is brief and sweet. It takes no time at all to find out whether an experiment in color and form is satisfying-or not. Better yet, there is a new season ahead-for those containers that need a better idea.

This is my best effort ever in these two small pots. It took years to figure out one simple thing. Large growing plants do not prosper in smaller pots. Plants that mature at a size proportional to the size of the container put on the best show.

I am always pushing that size restriction with these two urns. One year I grew nicotiana mutabilis in them-hilarious, the outcome. Last year’s coleus-much too big a grower for the volume of soil in this pot.

Today the plantings are as lush as they will ever be. That lush look compliments the urns without overpowering them. The succulent in the front never grew large enough to obscure that Italian goat face.

This Tuscan square was vastly larger than its plantings in June. The steel plant climber that keeps the red mandevillea aloft is a major feature.

Yesterday, the lemon grass was every bit of 7 feet wide-all this from 4 4″ pots planted the first week of June. I have taken lots of pictures of all of my pots this summer-I like keeping a record of how they do. But I will not photograph this one again. This is as good as it gets.

3 6″ pots of swallowtail coleus were planted in this pot. It’s a bushel basket full of green and yellow highly textured leaves today.

This pot might be my favorite of the year. The plectranthus is falling over from the weight of its branches. The variegated miscanthus grass in the center is emerging in a way I never anticipated. The community which resulted from my planting is courtesy of mother nature.

I am very much enjoying this moment.

Posted on: September 21, 2012 9 Comments

Filed Under: Detroit Garden Works, container planting Tagged With: container plantings, annual plants

At A Glance: Pots And Plantings

To follow are some pictures of pots and their plantings that, to my eye, work well together. See what you think. This basket has geraniums, trailing verbena and mini-petunias.