George's Current Ramblings and Readlings

Orchids for Christmas?

December 3rd, 2019

   Nothing comes close to the poinsettia as king of the Christmas plants.

Moth orchids have become a popular Christmas plant.

   But lately, there’s an elegant floral queen that’s been closing the popularity gap – orchids.

   This large and diverse family of bloomers used to have the reputation of being expensive to buy and finicky to grow.

   Then mass merchants began carrying relatively easy-to-grow moth orchids, jacking up grower production and driving down retail prices.

   So although poinsettias are still the top-selling potted plant in the U.S. – with almost all of them changing hands between Thanksgiving and Christmas – orchids have moved into the No. 2 position in dollars sold, ahead of both Easter lilies and fall mums.

   Orchids have a few Christmasy advantages.

   For one thing, they still seem pricey and elegant, making them alluring gift choices.

   They also come in lots of colors, are non-toxic and low-allergenic as a houseplant, and some are fragrant.

   Orchids have exceptionally long bloom times, too – usually months.

   And unlike poinsettias, which are generally throw-away plants since they’re difficult to bring back into color at home, orchids can last and rebloom for years (if you know a few care basics, which I’ll get to in a minute).

   Although orchids aren’t as purely seasonal as poinsettias, mums and Easter lilies, many of them have the good marketing sense to bloom in December – a must for Christmas sales.

12 Plants I Wish I Could Grow but Can’t

November 26th, 2019

   The grass is always greener on the other side (unless you’re a fertilizer fanatic).

   The same is often true with plants when you travel to other climates and see what those gardeners can grow that you can’t.

   Warmer winters, different soils, and less erratic/extreme weather add up to a lot of amazing and beautiful plants that we just can’t grow in Pennsylvania.

A protea bloom.

   I’ve seen plenty that I wish I could grow but know that I can’t.

  Here are 12 at the top of my list:

Protea

   I saw these giant, other-worldly flowers growing in South Africa, and they’re so big, colorful, and showy that they make even our zinnias and dahlias look measly.

   Proteas’ crown-like, sunflower-sized blooms shout out attention. No wonder florists turn to them when they really want to make a statement.

Bismarck palm

The blue-foliage form of Bismarck palm.

   I love almost all palms, mainly because they’re the poster boys of beachy weather but also because they’re so textural and energetic on a windy day. Add blue sky as a backdrop, and I could look at that for hours.

   My favorite of all, though, is the Bismarck palm with its 10-foot-wide, pinwheel-like fans of steely blue.

Pride of Madeira

   I first saw the vibrant-blue, two-foot-long, pointed plumes of this shrub-like, Zone 9 perennial while leading a garden trip in Monterey, Calif. Everybody raved over them and wanted to know what they were (botanically, Echium candicans).

   If you think lupines are nice, double the size, turn them blue, and you get something close to pride of Madeira. The name is earned.

Blue poppies

   I tried and failed to grow these fickle perennials, which are really poppy-like, baby-blue flowers called Meconopsis rather than true poppies.

   They grow nicely in the moderate climates of the Pacific Northwest and Great Britain, but our summers are too hot and humid for these delicate beauties.

   My wife once bought me seeds and challenged my botanical manhood to grow them. I got a few seeds to germinate, babied one plant to garden planting, and that one died after one season and no bloom.

Gold Medal Plants of 2020

November 19th, 2019

   One of the best resources for making wise plant picks in Pennsylvania gardens is the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society’s Gold Medal Plant Program.

2020 Gold Medal winner hydrangea ‘Haas’ Halo’ in bloom. (Credit: Scott Arboretum)

   Each year, a panel of regional plant experts gets together to hash out what are some of the best trees, shrubs, evergreens, and perennial flowers that deserve greater use in our landscapes.

   The criteria is that the plants have to be hardy in Zones 5 to 7, have to be solid all-around performers, should be attractive in more than one season, and preferably be resistant to deer browsing but beneficial ecologically.

   The deciding factor is that they’re under-used and/or under-known.

   The PHS Gold Medal panel has been making picks since 1979, originally starting with just woody plants but expanding into perennials five years ago.

   Plants are nominated from submissions by home gardeners, garden designers, horticulturists, landscape architects, nursery owners, and propagators.

   I’ve been on the panel for about a dozen years now, and I can tell you a lot of thought and input goes into the selections. More nominees get rejected than selected. Even one significant drawback can be enough to derail a plant.

   Sometimes we pick a whole species, if the straight species is a superior performer or if multiple varieties of a species are all pretty good.

   Other times, a particular variety is singled out as a Gold Medal-winner.

   I’ve grouped all of the winners since 1988 in a category-by-category listing under the George’s Handy List section of my website.

   PHS recently announced the new set of six winners for 2020. They’ll be on display with other Gold Medal winners at the 2020 Philadelphia Flower Show.

   Here are the 2020 Gold Medal plants:

End of the Erica Era

November 12th, 2019

   For 30 years, Erica Shaffer was Highland Gardens, that small-but-homey neighborhood garden center along South 18^th St. in Lower Allen Twp.

Erica Shaffer in her garden.

   She was the face and voice of the business who answered bug and fertilizer questions, yakked about plants with loyal customers who were more like botanical brethren, and spoke to every garden club in the area.

   She’s the one who drew up those unique, hand-written plant signs that were sometimes blunt and sometimes funny but always filled with hands-on advice that only down-and-dirty gardeners come to know.

   And when it was time to order plants for the garden center? Erica was like a kid in charge of the candy store, filling every corner of Highland’s five acres with cutting-edge and delicious selections that box-store staff never even heard of.

   In case you didn’t hear, Erica resigned a few weeks ago.

   She’s not sick or anything, but Highland Gardens is in the process of an ownership change, and Erica didn’t quite see eye-to-eye on where things were headed.

   So she left her “natural habitat” late last month… for now planning to do private landscape designs, consulting, and personal gardening services. (If you’re interested in staying in touch, Erica has a new Facebook page, and she’ll be doing gardening services through Mother Nature Landscape and Lady Bug EarthCare.)

   She’s also a Reiki master with her own Wildly Crafted Woman website and will be offering sessions at The Wellness Collective across from the Cornerstone Coffeehouse in Camp Hill.

   Come spring, she plans to work several days a week at Black Landscape Center in Upper Allen Twp., where she’ll be making bows, decorating wreaths, and selling her “Gourmet Greens” cuttings this Christmas season.

   Erica carved out quite a reputation among local gardeners.

   Avid gardeners all seem to know her, and when they mention a special plant in their garden, they say they “got it from Erica,” not “got it at Highland Gardens.”

From Jungle to Almost-Landscape

November 5th, 2019

   In the last eight months, I’ve moved two dump truck loads of topsoil, 16 cubic yards of mulch, eight cubic yards of leaf compost, and at least 100 wheelbarrows of wood chips.

The front foundation before.

   I’ve lugged 400 wall stones and two tons of drainage stone up and down steps in five-gallon buckets, laid 100 feet of drainage pipe, and built 25 feet of retaining walls three blocks high.

   I’ve had four bouts of poison ivy, seven stitches after smashing my finger trying to sledgehammer a stake into rocky ground, a month-long swollen knee from overuse-related bursitis, and a constantly sore back from yanking 40-foot vines out of trees and assorted entrenched weed colonies off a huge, 25-foot-deep bank.

   Finally… finally, despite side challenges with deer and rain-fueled gushing waterfalls… the Pittsburgh property that my wife, Sue, and I moved into last winter has turned the corner from jungle to almost-landscape.

The front foundation by the first September.

   I’ve progressed from hacking down and clearing out into actually planting some things. The look is now passable, which is a big improvement over atrocious.

   I now no longer feel like George of the Jungle.

   I knew the place needed work, but I wasn’t figuring on chain-gang levels of labor.

   The main problem was that the previous owners had no interest in outdoor work. Neighbors said they seldom went outside in the last eight years, much less planted flowers or weeded.

   I heard that the borough even cited them for not cutting waist-high grass in the front yard.

   This was a big change of pace for me.

   I’d spent the last 35 years gardening on a level, third-of-an-acre yard in Hampden Twp.

   I improved that yard little by little over the years. Despite plants and garden beds everywhere, I had the work down to aging-friendly puttering.

   Everything grew in that compost-enriched soil.

Read more on why I miss my old soil

   Weeds had no chance to seed and spread in decades.

   It got to the point where I scarcely needed a trowel to plant.

   In Pittsburgh, I’ve been gardening through the clay and rock with a mattock, sledgehammer, and ibuprofen.