George's Current Ramblings and Readlings

Expo Gleanings

February 28th, 2012

I thought the crowds, the gardens and the nice mix of things to do at this year’s Pennsylvania Garden Expo were better than ever.

Hope you got to see this three-day show over the weekend at the Pennsylvania Farm Show complex.

This year’s Best of Show went to The Greenskeeper of Palmyra, which won for the second year in a row.

Eric Allebach and crew pulled out all the stops and built a display with just about every landscape feature you could imagine – a playhouse with sandbox, a two-level water feature, a bridge, a pergola-covered patio, bubbling columnar rock fountains, a hot tub, a fireplace with patio and a variety of specimen plants (including one of my favorites, the weeping Alaska cedar).

The garden also won the People’s Choice popular vote on Saturday and Sunday.

Second place for Best of Show went to Hummel’s Landscape of Harrisburg, which paired up with Dreamscapes Watergardens of Lebanon on a backyard get-away with a covered outdoor kitchen and a hot tub next to a natural stream.

Third place Best of Show went to Chris Archibald Landscape Design of Harrisburg for its pergola-covered patio and very cool paver fire pit surrounded by a half-circle seating area made out of matching pavers.

The People’s Choice award for Friday went to the Hummel/Dreamscapes display.

Other winners were:

Garden Oscars

February 14th, 2012

   The motion-picture industry gives out its annual Academy Awards for best performances on Feb. 26.

   If I could give out Oscars for the best stars of our central-Pennsylvania landscapes, here’s what would get my vote:

Shrub rose 'Pink Double Knock Out'

   * Best Lead Actor (Sun): ‘Knock Out’ roses. Yeah, they’ve become so common they’re almost over-used, but these no-spray, long-blooming roses do so well with so little care in so many places that they’re already a legend. They’re the Tom Hanks of horticulture.

   The four best ones are the original ‘Knock Out,’ ‘Double Knock Out’ (twice the petals), ‘Pink Knock Out’ and ‘Pink Double Knock Out.’

   * Best Lead Actor (Shade): ‘Forever and Ever’ hydrangeas.Also low-care and very showy, this seven-color series of mophead hydrangeas blooms on both old and new wood. That means it’s in flower most of the season.

Hydrangea 'Forever and Ever Blue Heaven'

   Especially nice: the rich blue ‘Forever and Ever Blue Heaven.’ These all do best in morning sun and afternoon shade.

   * Best New Actor: Dwarf butterfly bush ‘Lo and Behold Blue Chip.’ This compact new butterfly bush blooms its head off all summer and fall in classic cone-shaped blue-purple flowers. But it does it at a size of about 2 feet tall and maybe 4 feet wide.

   It’s also supposed to be sterile, meaning no unwanted seeding around like so many butterfly bushes.

   * Best Supporting Actor: Creeping sedum ‘Angelina.’ Showy enough to be a star, this 3-inch-tall, gold-leafed, succulent, ferny-looking groundcover looks great as a carpet under just about any tree, shrub, evergreen or tall perennial where I’ve seen it used.

The Trouble with Out-of-Whackness

February 7th, 2012

   So here it is the second week of February, and Punxsutawney Phil – that famous weather-forecasting rodent – is telling us to expect 6 more weeks of winter.

No more snow-covered winter snoozes for central-Pennsylvania plants. (Photo by Netherlands Flower Bulb Information Center)

   I’m wondering when winter is going to start, not when it’s going to end.

   We’ve been hovering mostly in the 40s and 50s since November with just one half-hearted snow. That’s drastically different from the winters I remember when we’d have a snow cover most of the time from December through early March and at least a few bouts of zero degrees – or less.

   This warmer weather is becoming the new norm, a change verified 2 weeks ago when the U.S. Department of Agriculture updated the official Plant Hardiness Map for the first time in 22 years.

   Based on the more recent temperature data from 1976 to 2005, the map shows most of the United States is a half of a growing zone warmer than it used to be.

   That means we probably can get away with growing some so-called “borderline-hardy” species that previously wouldn’t even have been sold here – something alert gardeners have noticed for years.

   In other words, Harrisburg is the new Baltimore.

The Land of No Groundhogs

January 31st, 2012

   When you weren’t looking, my wife and I sneaked away on a 12-day cruise to St. Thomas, St. Kitts, St. Lucia, Antigua and St. Maarten.

Here's a January garden I like... St. Peter Greathouse on St. Thomas.

   It was magnificent, and it not only lopped nearly 2 weeks off winter, it gave me a look at plants and gardens of the Caribbean. Click here to see a slide show of pictures from the trip.

   Here are my top 10 observations on how gardening in the Caribbean is different from gardening in central Pennsylvania:

   1.) Caribbean gardeners don’t have to worry about deer, groundhogs and rabbits. However, goats might eat your pineapples on Antigua, and gardeners on St. Kitts gave up growing bananas because of the wild monkeys (two for every one person on the island).

   2.) Pest bugs are surprisingly rare. No Japanese beetles, no emerald ash borers, and people don’t even have screens in their windows. One of the main worries is a moth the size of a bat that produces one heckuva leaf-eating caterpillar.

   3.) Be careful when picking your mangos on St. Maarten. You might grab the tail of a very large tree-climbing iguana.

   4.) Like our tomatoes, bananas are so much sweeter when picked fresh. Coconut water is still bland – fresh or packaged – and cocoa beans are much better after they’re processed into milk chocolate. The beans are slimy but sweet. St. Lucians suck on them raw and call them “jungle M&Ms.”

On the Road Again

January 24th, 2012

   One of the most fun things I get to do is lead bus loads of gardeners on tours of some really cool gardens.

   Most of them are bus day trips, but these botanical jaunts also have taken me to Ireland, the Pacific Northwest, South Africa and this April, to the Netherlands.

   I love seeing what’s possible with plants in different settings. The diversity never ceases to amaze me, and I usually come home with at least a few new ideas and new plants I just have to try.

A scene from last year's Philadelphia Flower Show.

   If you’ve never been along on one of these trips, click here to check out the new 2012 schedule.

   A good “starter” trip would be one to see the Philadelphia Flower Show. This is an unbelievable spectacle that even non-gardeners appreciate, and it’s strategically placed at the beginning of March when we all can use a day among wall-to-wall blooming plants.

   A bus is by far the best way to see this show. It’s held in the middle of Philly (the Pa. Convention Center), and it’s a hassle to drive to, what with fighting the Schuylkill traffic, paying tolls and then spending another $20 to park.

   With the bus, you get dropped off and picked up at the front door. The driver deals with the hassles.

   The trips I do through Lowee’s Tours of Harrisburg have the added bonus of a traveling garden seminar on the way down. Besides playing garden trivia and giving away prizes, I’ve got a PowerPoint to help you get the most out of your show trip.

   It’s kind of like a military-strike plan. I show you the streetscape to plan lunch, the show floor to maximize flower-ogling time and some little secrets to escape the crowds (and get yourself some of the best bread this side of Europe).