George's Current Ramblings and Readlings

Solution Gardening: How Most People Pick Their Plants

June 1st, 2021

   When people head to the garden center to buy plants, most of the time they’re not there looking for a certain plant.

So many plants… which ones to pick?

   They’re generally looking to carry out a goal or solve a problem.

   A disconnect happens when would-be plant-buyers find that the gazillion plants available aren’t grouped by goals or problems but by their type (perennial, shrub, tree, etc.) – usually arranged in alphabetical order.

   Dr. Allan Armitage, the prolific garden-book author and horticulture professor emeritus at the University of Georgia, believes it’s time to rethink that strategy to better help people zero in on the plants that’ll get their job done.

   Armitage coined the idea “solution gardening” to describe how most people shop for plants.

   He says the problem is compounded because the average person doesn’t know enough about plants to determine which ones solve which problems or address which goals.

   Some garden centers attempt to help by producing lists of plants that address different issues, i.e. Plants that Deer Don’t Like, Plants for Under Trees, and Plants for Wet Areas.

   Others publish lists online, as do some Extension services, growers, and other plant organizations.

   If you’ve never noticed it, my website has a “George’s Handy Lists” section in which I post a few dozen of these lists – all free for the viewing.

   And I’ve put together an 18-page “Survivor Plants of Pennsylvania” booklet that zeroes in on hundreds of the best varieties with sizes, bloom times, and other important attributes that help gardeners get the right plant in the right place. It’s available as a $5.95 download on my “Buy Helpful Info” page.

   The best point-of-sale option is the good old-fashioned, ask-the-expert-at-the-garden-center. But that chews up a ton of time and requires lots of sales staff, especially when everyone compacts their plant-shopping into the same few weeks in spring.

   That’s practically non-existent at box stores, and even solid independent garden centers don’t have the size and expertise of sales staff as in the past.

   Unless/until Armitage’s solution-gardening suggestion catches on, I thought I’d weigh in with Pennsylvania-geared solution-gardening lists of perennials, shrubs, and evergreens. I’ll start here with seven of the more common issues and cover 14 more over the next two weeks.

Deer usually don’t mess with Virginia sweetspire.

Plants that Deer Don’t Like

Perennials: agastache, ajuga, amsonia, artemisia, baptisia, barrenwort, bleeding heart, brunnera, butterfly weed, campanula, catmint, coreopsis, euphorbia, fern, goldenrod, globe thistle, helleborus, iris, lamb’s ear, lamium, liatris, lavender, lungwort, monkshood, ornamental grasses, peony, poppy, Russian sage, salvia, sedum, sneezeweed, sweet woodruff, turtlehead, yarrow, yucca

Shrubs: abelia, aralia, bayberry, beautyberry, beautybush, butterfly bush, caryopteris, deutzia, fothergilla, rose of Sharon, spirea, sumac, summersweet, St. Johnswort, Virginia sweetspire

Evergreens: birds nest spruce, boxwood, cotoneaster, falsecypress, Japanese plum yew, juniper, leucothoe, pieris, Russian cypress, sweetbox

Garden Trips Are Back

May 24th, 2021

   It was nice to do something normal for a change.

This hillside water feature was one of the highlights at Pheasant Run Bed and Breakfast, one of our Lancaster County stops last week.

   Last week marked the first time in more than a year that Lowee’s Group Tours and I ran a garden trip – a day trip to a pair of Lancaster County gardens and a pair of Pa. Dutch country plant nurseries with a lunch at the Shady Maple smorgasbord wedged between.

   Other than the masks (and disposable gloves at Shady Maple), it seemed like old times wading through gardens and plants with familiar faces.

   With vaccination rates fast rising and venues reopening to business-as-usual levels, travel is poised to resume.

   If/when you’re ready, your next shot at one of our 2021 trips is June 7, 8, 9, or 11, when we’re doing day trips to the first-ever outdoors Philadelphia Flower Show, being held over 15 acres at Philly’s FDR Park.

   Then we’ll be visiting Mt. Cuba Center and the new Delaware Botanic Gardens on June 25, then America’s biggest garden tour – Garden Walk Buffalo – the fourth weekend of July (July 23-25).

   I’ll lay out the whole rest of the year’s trips – plus a spring 2022 tour of the Netherlands and Belgium featuring the Floriade 2022 expo and the fabulous Keukenhof bulb gardens – in pictures this Thursday, May 27, at 6:30 p.m.

   The program is free, and you’re invited. You can register and get a link by going to this address anytime in advance: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJAtd-uqqDIuG9el5Uyp9-Q1Tw0W8i95kPB_

   Or just go to this Zoom link at the above time: https://zoom.us/j/94002269413

The 17-Year Cicadas and Your Plants

May 18th, 2021

   If you live in an urban setting or other more-populated/less-tree’d area, you may be wondering what all the hubbub is over Brood X cicadas, that bug that emerges en masse only once every 17 years.

Check out the bulging eyes on these 17-year cicadas.
Credit: Marcus Schneck

   It’s entirely possible you may not see (or hear) a one.

   However, if you’re in an area where this family of cicadas laid eggs 17 years ago, you might be wondering if this spells the end of your landscape as you know it.

   The short answer is no.

   Although these bugs seem threatening and foreboding in their incredible numbers and screeching choruses, they do surprisingly little plant damage.

   They don’t bite, they don’t sting, they don’t spread disease, and they don’t even eat leaves or fruits. That ranks them fairly low on the scale of insect mayhem.

   “If you’re freaked out by bugs in general, you’ll really get freaked out by these,” says Dr. Jared Ali, a professor of entomology at Penn State University. “But cicadas look worse than they really are.”

   Ali says the main landscape threat is from the bug’s egg-laying habit.

   After mating, female cicadas use tiny saw-like appendages on their abdomens to cut slits in young tree branches. There they lay little white eggs in rows of 24 to 28 eggs, up to as many as 600 eggs total.

   This cutting can cause branch tips to wilt or die from the egg-laying point outward, a condition known as “flagging.”

   “The only trees to worry about are smaller ones, ones with quarter-inch to half-inch branches,” Ali says.

12 Annual Flowers that Can Take the Heat

May 11th, 2021

   Pennsylvania keeps getting hotter and hotter in summer, with 90-degree days more common than ever.

Vinca is one of the heat-toughest annual flowers. This is Tattoo Raspberry.

   Climate forecasters say this is no fluke, that the Harrisburg area is on the road to a climate more akin to Arkansas than past norms.

   If that’s the case, it makes sense when picking our annual flowers each spring to lean toward choices best equipped to handle increased heat.

   One good measure is picking annuals that bloom non-stop right through the triple-digit summers of Dallas.

   Dallas Arboretum conducts trials each year and gives “FlameProof” honors to the heat-toughest flowers.

   If a flower is FlameProof in Dallas, it should have no problem in Dauphin, Dillsburg, or Dallastown, Pa., right?

   Following are a dozen of the best heat-tough annuals you’ll find in local garden centers. Most also aren’t deer or rabbit favorites.

1.) Vinca

   These foot-tall annuals with the glossy leaves can take the worst heat and drought you can throw at an annual. They come in nickel- to quarter-sized flowers of white, pink, rose, red, lavender and pale blue and do best in full sun.

   Good varieties: ‘Jaio,’ ‘Heat Wave,’ and the Titan, Cora, Pacifica, Soiree, Tattoo, and Valiant series.

Both blue and red salvia are heat-tough.

2.) Salvia

   Both the blue-blooming and red/purple types thrive in heat. The spiky, butterfly-attracting flowers grow on 12- to 15-inch stems. Full sun to light shade.

   Good varieties: ‘Signum,’ ‘Rhea’ and ‘Victoria’ (blue), ‘Red Hot Sally,’ ‘Salsa’ and ‘Sizzler’ (red).

3.) Zinnia

   The dwarf types are best at holding off mildew as well as tolerating heat.  Most are hot colors (orange, red, gold), but a few come in pink or white. 15-18 inches tall, full sun.

   Good varieties: ‘Zowie Yellow Flame,’ and the ‘Profusion,’ Zahara, Holi, Preciosa, and Zesty series.

The Best Little Bulbs that Hardly Anybody Grows

May 4th, 2021

   Most people know tulips and daffodils. So it’s no wonder those two spring bulbs show up in a lot of yards, even though tulips are leading snack targets of deer, rabbits, and rodents and tend to go downhill after a stirring debut performance or two.

Siberian squill is my favorite of the least-used bulbs.

   A fair number of people also know and grow crocuses and hyacinths.

   But beyond those four, I think a typical yardener would be hard-pressed to name any other spring-blooming bulbs.

   From the earliest little white snowdrops that can bloom even under a February melting snow to the softball-sized purple orbs of giant alliums that lead us into summer, lots of other bulbs do well in our climate.

   Yet few people grow them, most likely because 1.) they don’t know about them, or 2.) they figure something must be difficult about them or else they would be more common.

   From what I’ve seen over the years, most of these lesser-known bulbs are reliable growers that come back year after year, often get better with age, and seldom get eaten by animals.

   They also bloom at different times as the season unfolds, making it possible to have something in color non-stop from the end of winter right through June, when the summer annual and perennial flowers take over.

   To help paint a real-life picture of what to expect, I put 10 different so-called “specialty bulbs” to the test in my new yard.