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Winter Protection For Boxwood

Boxwood is one of the most versatile and robust growing evergreens available for planting in my zone. There are a number of great cultivars. Green Velvet matures at 3′ by 3′, and keeps its great color all winter. Green Mountain is virtually identical to Green Velvet, but grows to 4′ tall by 3′ wide. Buxus microphylla koreana, pictured above, is hardy in this full south sun location, and can grow to 5′ by 5′. The winter color is a dull orangy bronze. Winter Gem boxwood is incredibly hardy, and grows slowly to about 4′ by 4′. The leaves are smaller, and narrower than Green Velvet.

There are lots of other hybrids available. Vardar Valley is an outstanding hardy cultivar of buxus sempervirens. It matures at 1′ to 2′. The leaves have a distinctive blue green color. As it is a slow growing variety, it is not routinely offered for sale at local nurseries. Most of the boxwood sold in my area is grown in regions where the season is long enough to permit 2 flushes of growth per season. This means nursery can get a salable product faster. Boxwood is graded by width-not by height. A boxwood takes about 7 years to grow to an 18″-24″ size. This makes them relatively expensive to buy, compared to other ornamental shrubs that grow quickly.

Boxwood is indeed a versatile shrub. They make great hedges, as their growth is uniform, and they are very tolerant of pruning. That tolerance makes them an ideal subject for living sculpture. Boxwood pruned into spheres, squares, cones and cylinders are striking and delightful. The large boxwood in this landscape will be kept pruned in spheres. The small boxwood will be allowed to grow together, and will be pruned flat. This garden will have a much different look in a few years. All of these boxwood are Winter Gem. The fine textured foliage makes them ideal for pruning into a formal, strictly geometric shape. Boxwood are quite friendly to other plants. Provided care is taken in the selection of a cultivar for a specific site, they will stay in bounds. These boxwood rectangles are a beautiful foil for the clipped espaliered crab apples. If the face is pruned on a very slight angle out from top to the bottom, they will stay green all the way to the ground. A boxwood which is hard pruned into a specific shape will stay green on the interior.

Boxwood makes a fine tall ground cover under a tree. They are quite shade tolerant. A small landscape such as this is all the more interesting for a change of level. These boxwood are a welcome visual intermediary between the ground plane, and a linden which has grown to substantial size. That they are shade tolerant means they can be sited in lots of places. Naturally grown boxwood make a lovely backdrop for ferns, hostas and shade tolerant perennials. A boxwood provides a green backdrop for the earliest of perennials to appear in the spring. The small textured foliage makes them a great companion for the bigger textured hellebores, and European ginger.

A boxwood would go so far to oblige a gardener who wishes to grow them in containers. They do need large enough containers so there is room to grow. The root ball of a decent sized and well grown boxwood might be larger in diameter that its leafy component. Boxwood in containers need special attention to proper watering. They need to be well watered prior to freezing weather. They will rely on water stored in the stems and leaves to survive they winter, as the water in the container cannot be absorbed when it is frozen. Boxwood in ground has much more widespread moisture available to its roots, especially given how long it takes for the ground to freeze to any significant depth. A boxwood confined to a pot needs regular water.

Pruning boxwood takes more than a good eye. A great job invariably involved the setting of level lines. Relatively level boxwood has a forlorn and unfinished look. This boxwood has been pruned level with the horizon, even though the driveway drops down to the street. The boxwood at the bottom of this drive is quite a bit taller than those plants at the top. Level boxwood has a serene and solid look to it.

Boxwood can help provide structure to a garden. This densely growing shrub provides a simple and strong contrast to the garden elements. This pruning is loosely formal, and softens the stone wall behind them.

I have written about boxwood plenty of times before – I do like them. It was painful to see how many boxwood in my area were severely damaged or killed outright by our last winter. Some were crushed by the huge snow loads. Others in more exposed locations were damaged by the extreme cold. That cold, in conjunction with sun and wind burned the leaves. Leaves that were completely desiccated, died. It took the coming of the spring weather to see how terrible the damage truly was. Some of the boxwood at the shop died outright. The damaged portions will take years to recover.

If you have ever hung a boxwood wreath on a shaded door for the winter, or used cut boxwood in winter pots, you know those stems will dry out, but stay green until the temperatures moderate. Like many evergreens, by the time a boxwood shows signs of stress, it is too late to remedy the problem. Now that fall is approaching, I would urge anyone with boxwood in my zone to spray them with an antidessicant. An antidessicant is a waxy coating with will slow the evaporation of water from the leaves in the winter.

I have heard talk that this winter looks like it may be a very cold winter. Something like last winter. Though boxwood is hardy in this zone, extreme cold, sun, and drying winds can damage them. Though a boxwood may grow out of winter burn, that look is unsightly come spring. If your boxwood are 15 years old, it will be very expensive to replace dead plants with new plants of the size you already own. Last winter was dramatic evidence that winter protection for boxwood is a good idea. I recommend Vapor Gard. It is widely used as an agricultural antidessicant. The main ingredient is pinolene, a natural polymer made from pine pitch. It can significantly reduce winter burn. You can buy it, dilute it 1 part to 20 parts of water, and spray it on your boxwood. If you have lots of boxwood, your tree care company can spray this for you. It is best done on a dry day, before the weather drops regularly into the low forties. The polymer coating will protect those leaves over the winter, and help them retain moisture. Vapor Gard is a natural and non toxic spray widely used on crops, including cherries. It is an easy way to protect your investment. Do read the label-it is not appropriate for every and any plant. I plan to spray all of my boxwood with it soon; one application will protect them the entire winter. The boxwood pictured above from this past spring-heartbreaking. Interested further? http://www.cdms.net/LDat/ld06L002.pdf

Posted on: October 6, 2014 57 Comments

Filed Under: Fall, garden maintenance Tagged With: winter protection for boxwood, winter damage on boxwood, Vapor Gard, antidessicant spray

The 2012 Espaliers

What would spring be without some fabulous plants on order? The garden shop is a garden shop-not a full service nursery. We have neither the space nor the inclination for that. But I do like to carry specialty landscape plants, plants of distinction, and great plants for containers. My love for espaliers dates back to the mid 80’s. If you shopped with or had a landscape designed and planted by Al Goldner, chances are an espalier was part of that relationship. He grew these specially trained and pruned fruit trees on his farm in Howell-it was next to impossible to find them available for sale, save for Henry Leuthart’s place. Billy drove these to us himself-typical. The care he gives his trees is a full time and then some job.

I buy them every year from a number of places, but this grower is my favorite. He was formally trained in the propagation of fruit trees trained to grow in but two dimensions, as it has been done in France for centuries. He sells no trees before their time. The trunk sizes are substantial, and the primary arms are set and properly grown into their intended shape. You can see in this picture that each tree is planted at the side of the pot-not in the middle. This makes easy work of planting the tree close to a supporting wall. This classical shape is know as a goblet-that should be clear. This tree is older and perfectly grown. The planting and bolting to a wall will be easy.

This old goblet espalier at one time had a supporting framework to hold its arms in place, but now is old enough and sturdy enough to stand alone. Planted at the UBC Botanic garden, this tree is a living fence of beautiful design and form. The history of espaliers is firmly rooted in a French agricultural tradition. Fruit trees trained in two dimensions took up very little room in the garden; severely pruned trees produced huge yields of fruit. Though most of my fruit comes from the grocery store, I find these pruned trees enchantingly beautiful.

We unloaded 10 espaliers, all part of a free standing fence which will run 60 feet. At a young age, a single stem crabapple whip was summarily topped. A pair of shoots emerging at just the right angle on either side of that wound would be trained to grow out, producing the bottom half of a very large vertical diamond shape. This method of growing and pruning multiple trees to create a whole is known as a Belgian fence.

Each tree will be planted exactly 6 feet from its neighbor. You can get the idea of those large vertical diamonds that will be created by this arrangement of trees in this picture. I have seen Belgian fence done on a smaller scale. The smaller the scale, the more difficult it is to keep the diamond shapes clean and crisp. This fence will bloom with white flowers in May, and produce gold fruit in the fall. The form will be so striking in winter. Pruning is somewhat a matter of personal preference. Some gardeners would like their primary branches small and delicate-they prune shoots off the main trunk hard. Another gardener might permit small branches off the main trunks to grow such that the diamond shapes are thick and substantial. Is this discussion not so clear?

This picture makes the idea easier to see. This Belgian fence has smaller diamond shapes. This look is created by planting the individual trees closer together. I cannot really explain why the idea of having 10 trees that when planted together will form a wall with a continuous and geometric pattern appeals to me so much, but suffice it to say it took me all of 30 seconds to speak for these 10 trees.

Four quadruple cordon espaliers were delivered-a pair of apples, and a pair of pears. Cordon refers to the main arms of the espaliers being trained in the horizontal dimension. The vertical distance between each arm is equidistant. This form is common in the pruning of grapes, as well as fruit trees. Branches growing in the horizontal dimension bear heavily. This applies to grapes, apples, pears-and roses. A long cane of a climbing rose attached in the horizontal dimension will bloom to beat the band.

This drawing from Southern Living illustrates the cordon shape. Of course few real trees have long arms that are as obligingly horizontal as this drawing would suggest-but this illustrates the ideal. Branches and fruiting spurs off the main arms are kept closely clipped. There is work to growing an espalier-but it is easy and satisfying work. An espalier is a specialty landscape plant. It is entirely friendly in even a small garden. These trees are grafted onto dwarf rootstock. They produce fruit. The few hours spent pruning them feels good.

An espalier trained as a fan has arms that radiate in every direction from the central truck. Those arms can be grown long on a big wall, or kept short in a confined space. The bamboo stakes you see attached to this tree-travel stakes. Every branch of every tree was firmly secured with bamboo stakes, to prevent any damage during shipping. Though these trees are fairly old, they still rely on a physical support system to keep their shape intact. Very long branches growing at wide angles are subject to damage, if they are not properly supported.

We have installed horizontal wires and bolts on some of the walls at the shop so we can display our espaliers. The 3 bamboo stakes from the shipping phase have been left on, and will not be removed until the tree has been planted, and installed. The process of giving an espalier a home involves bolts and ties into the supporting wall, or fence posts and wires for a free standing espalier.

There is no classical precedent for this espalier shape. It is entirely the invention of our grower. A lively living sculpture such as this makes me want to grow espaliers from scratch. Ours are old and established trees, but yes, they can be grown by any gardener from a single whip available from any number of fruit tree sources in the spring. I was 35 when I saw my first espalier at Al Goldner’s farm-I still remember that day. It feels good, carrying on, making these very special trees available years later. This tree I call the wild at heart espalier.

My latest heart espalier is my 4th-I do not keep them for long. This one, planted and successfully hardy in this large steel box for 4 years now, is happy, and grows vigorously. This picture I took moments before its yearly haircut. Wild at heart-yes! A yearly haircut is not so much to ask in the way of care. The pleasure? Every day. Every season. Year after year.

Posted on: March 4, 2012 1 Comment

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: goblet style espaliers, espaliered apples, espalier trees, espalier crabapples, candelabra style espaliers, espaliered fruit trees, Belgian fence

The Envelope, Please

Over the past few weeks, I have spent a lot of time shoveling out my office. I needed a shovel! Suffice it to say that I went over every square inch of my office in person, with the idea that I needed to sort through and clean up. Some plans from 20 years ago did not look all that good to me, several decades later. Why should they? Client files so old I did not recognize the name-did I need those? Files of inspirational pictures that no longer seemed very inspirational-did I need these? Piles of notes secured with rubber bands that broke when I touched them-I could no longer remember what I was thinking when I wrote them. A point of view changes over the years-hopefully for the better. Some things from the past don’t warrant saving. I reorganized all of my books to include this past year’s purchases. I swept and dusted. What I did not pitch I updated, rethought, and reorganized. Every plan has a file now. How I love the look. Clean, and organized. Why did I the pitch the records and drawings of certain older work? Any plan that seemed immature or unfinished, not interesting or not built-I pitched them. I am happy to be free of them. Vintage does not necessarily imply valuable. But this plan dating back to 2005 still looked good to me. I remember that the architecture of the house was elaborate – winged. The center portion of the structure was parallel to the lot, and the street. A pair of east and west wings angled sharply away from formal structure of the center section.

A residential landscape design needs to consider the siting of a home. That house will always be the most important feature of a landscape, as it occupies the vast majority of the space. The landscape needs to respond to that. The architect clearly felt that a central entry space would be enhanced by wings at an angle. I was not consulted about the architecture-nor should I have been. My job was to come in after the house was built, and design a landscape that would scoop up that architecture, and detail an interesting and thoughtful relationship between the structure and the property.

The front door was immediately adjacent to a tower that housed the stairs to the second floor. The wing of the house off the front door to the east veered sharply to the north. The wing off the formal dining room to the west veered to the north at a different angle. The footprint of the house was complicated, and intricate. My instinct was to generate a landscape plan that would function like an envelope. An envelope, strictly speaking, is a paper structure designed to hold a letter. That letter may address a number of topics, many of which might veer off east and west as well as north and south. An envelope – bear with me – is a an enclosure that houses a complex of written ideas. The plain white envelope that encloses my gas bill is a case in point. The driveway and landscape of the front entry encompasses with a singular gesture the complexity of the architecture. A white envelope. The paving design of the drive court still interests me. The surface of the area immediately surrounding the front door area calls out the entrance-this area was to be blue stone. The areas denoted by diagonal lines was to be concrete aggregate. The dotted areas indicate decomposed granite.

The grade of this property was very high at the street. That grade fell from the street to the back. My idea was to place the grade of the driveway at the same grade as the street. And the same grade as the front door. This would involve cutting into the existing land form, building retaining walls to hold back that soil so high, and ending with a route to the front door at grade -as noted in my drawing. The day I drew this plan, I could imagine how it would be to drive into a steep property, with those hills looming over both left and right, retained by stone. The driveway would be the next best thing to a trip through a tunnel. Leaving the grade high at the street meant that a large house would sit down, and have some privacy from the road. A drawing of a landscape plan never rises to the level of a dream. That takes a plan, and a commitment to a thoughtful installation that has room for revision. Any landscape needs the time and opportunity to speak back. Landscape plans provide a place from which to approach a project. This plan I saved, as it approaches some issues in a way I still think has merit.

Of course, the back yard sees those site lines from various wings of the house beginning to converge. There was no way to avoid this. The driveway garden with an allee of trees pushes way into the back yard. The drive court adjacent to the garage entry is formal. The landscape beyond is equally as formal, and parallel to that drive court. The rear yard design was parceled into three rooms, each one accessed by a gravel path that began at the driveway, and would eventually turn and traverse the entire rear yard. The is gravel path is parallel to the wings of the house. The left wing features a large blue stone terrace that captures a series of intricate twists and turns taken by the architecture. A large portion of the yard off this terrace is a lawn panel. The transition space between the terrace landscape and the pool landscape-a triangular perennial garden. The central room features a large fountain. The property behind this house is a large golf course, so the rear property line would never be a visual issue. The transition from the pool landscape to the formal garden is another triangular shaped perennial garden. The right wing, which houses the master bedroom, features a formal garden on axis, and a pavilion with climbing roses and clematis.

As jarring as all of these angles seem, from a bird’s eye view, the reality on the ground would be much different. The perennial gardens would soften the transition from one space to another. The design makes the most of all of the property available.

The far east side of the property climbs steeply. A four foot stone retaining wall would make that slope less steep. I still like the looks of this master plan. If you are further interested in a closer look at the plans, you can click on each picture for a magnified view. I regret to say that this landscape never got built. Not every landscape plan comes to life. That’s life as any landscape designer knows it. But I still like how it addresses the architecture. I am especially pleased that I had the sense to specify a triangular block of taxus in the front yard, on axis with the front door. This is my favorite part of this plan. This plan, I kept. The idea that a landscape is an envelope still intrigues me.

Posted on: March 1, 2015 5 Comments

Filed Under: Good Design, Landscape Design Tagged With: conceptual landscape design, Garden Design, Landscape Design

Sunday Opinion: Keeping America Beautiful

Keep America Beautiful is an organization which has been devoted to promoting the idea that a clean environment is a beautiful and healthy environment since 1953. The original group of business people and public figures had the idea to link the private and public sector in a campaign to stamp out littering. If you are any where near me in age, you will remember the public service announcements in the 1970’s featuring Chief Iron Eyes Cody and the tagline “People start pollution. People can stop it”. The Ad Council of America considers it one of the most successful public service campaigns ever mounted. It had to have been fairly successful-I still remember it vividly, some 40 years after the fact. I would sooner stuff my lunch trash in my own coat pocket than throw it on the ground. Their role in recent years has been to focus on the merits of recycling. Both technology and human ingenuity have helped to create ways to transform trash into products that can be reused.

Why am I talking about litter? We were downtown last week, decorating 50 planter boxes on Woodward Avenue that feature trees at the center. As the aluminum fencing around each box is about 18 inches tall, I suggested decorating each tree truck with corn shocks, and other decor that suggested fall. The result is a celebration of fall that can be seen from a car, or on foot. So what does this have to do with litter? The boxes themselves were littered. Lots of litter. I would guess that it takes an incredible amount of time and money to regularly clean them. Though there’s no need to litter, it happens.

While we were installing this fall display, a Detroit police officer pulled over to the curb near us, set off his siren, and turned on his lights. Yes, we were startled, and yes we watched. The officer called out to a man on the side walk who had just thoughtlessly dumped his lunch trash and plastic bottle on the sidewalk to pick up his mess, and put it in the trash barrel not 10 feet away. There was much discussion and lots of resistance, but the man finally picked up his mess and put it in the garbage can. I admire that officer who treated littering and polluting as a crime against the environment.

That officer let it be known loud and clear that he expects his city to be orderly, safe, friendly, busy, crime free-and clean. Pollution free-one trashy moment at a time. The incident made a big impression on me. Obviously clean cities happen via groups of concerned people who bring their influence to bear. Clean cities perhaps rely even more on those individuals who take the time and effort to protect the environment. It also occurs to me that a clean and litter free city has much to do with a collective sense of ownership, and stewardship. How can that pride of ownership and stewardship be fostered? One litter free block at a time. One clean day at a time. One proud person at a time.

We were hired to make a statement about fall in the downtown Detroit area. My thoughts regarding the design were as follows. I wanted to celebrate those trees on Woodward Avenue that managed to grow in a thoroughly urbanized city. I wanted to draw attention to the trees, and the planter boxes. I wanted to make anyone who rode or walked down Woodward to be engaged by what we did. I wanted to, for a brief moment, to draw attention to nature. My hope was that attention would foster respect.

I may not get my wish-this go round. If you are a gardener, you understand that it can take a lot of time to develop a garden, or a landscape. It can take more than a lifetime. As for a litter free America, it may take many generations. But I am happy to report that more people than not are informed and supportive of a clean, beautiful, and healthy America. Gardeners have for generations been interested in a clean and beautiful environment.

Gardeners have homes that they choose to keep beautiful and clean. Gardeners who move to another property have been stewards. My idea? I would encourage anyone and everyone to garden. Once you garden, you understand the treasure inviolate that is nature. Would that everyone would be a gardener.

Posted on: October 20, 2013 14 Comments

Filed Under: Fall, Strictly Opinion, Good Design, Upon Reflection, Garden Stories Tagged With: Keep America Beautiful, littering

Search Results for: Latest updated CDCP Test Topics Pdf Spend Your Little Time and Energy to Clear CDCP exam 🌗 Open 【 www.pdfvce.com 】 enter ➤ CDCP ⮘ and obtain a free download 🔊Test CDCP Assessment

Winter Protection For Boxwood

The 2012 Espaliers

The Envelope, Please

Sunday Opinion: Keeping America Beautiful

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