George's Current Ramblings and Readlings

8 Landscaping Ideas Worth “Borrowing”

March 31st, 2015

No sense reinventing the wheel if you’re thinking about sprucing up the ol’ landscape this year.

Wider foundation beds mean more plants and more variety, as the Coopers display here in their Hershey front yard.

Enough gardeners already have come up with enough excellent ideas that it’s easier to just “borrow” (OK, steal) a few of the ones that also might look good in your yard.

Here are eight ideas from uber-gardeners…

1.) Boost Those Bed Sizes

It’s hard to radiate much impact with those tightwad 3- or 4-foot beds most people have skirting the house. Landscapes that turn heads have foundation beds of 6, 8 or even 10 feet or more of width.

That gives you more plants to work with, and that means more color, more texture and more chance for seasonal change. It also opens the door to creative pairings of plants that look good with one another.

Lean toward low-care, hard-working plants that do more than one thing in one season, and layer them back to front, tallest to shortest.

2.) No Fear Out Front

The whole front yard is a garden in this Hampden Twp. yard.

Veteran gardeners have no qualms about planting gardens in the front yard. Under-confident or time-strapped yardeners, on the other hand, tend to be timid about biting off a front-and-center garden where everyone will see their failures and maintenance lapses.

So they stick with the typical, boring, grass-heavy front landscape – maybe with a tree or two and a conservative island bed at most.

Yeah, the pressure’s on when you convert some of that familiar lawn into gardens. The key is good plant selection. Pick compact plants that don’t need much pruning and that are unlikely to run into bug or disease problems.

Also take baby steps. You don’t have to replace all of the grass in one fell swoop. Try expanding the foundation bed first. Then build a garden along the front walk or driveway. Then carve out an island bed or two.

3.) Building Privacy

This Buffalo, N.Y., back yard uses a mixed garden to screen out the neighbor’s yard.

Most people like a little privacy in their back and side yards. The obvious choice is either a fence or a planting of those upright, evergreen arborvitae that line so many suburban borders.

A more “gardeny” way is to plant a mixed border around the boundaries. Instead of planting 37 arborvitae in a straight line, use several different kinds of evergreens, small trees and tall shrubs.

If you have the space, dig enough lawn to allow for two or three layers of these plants – similar to the foundation-bed approach above.

If space is limited, go with a fence. But don’t let it bare. Plant a garden in front of it, using a combination of upright shrubs and evergreens, vines trained up trellises, ornamental grasses and assorted perennial flowers.

Spring Is There… Maybe Here, Too, One of These Days

March 24th, 2015

I’m just back from a weeklong tour of glorious gardens of South Carolina, and I can assure you that spring really is on the way.

The daffodils are in full bloom under this live oak tree at Brookgreen Gardens in South Carolina.

As our Lowee’s Group Tour bus of 38 winter-weary northern gardeners motored south on I-95, the grass got greener with each passing mile.

By the time we hit Charleston, S.C., spring had sprung.

Birds were singing, trees were budding, and even the azaleas were starting to open. Daytime highs were nestling around 70 degrees – very pleasant and a sign of what we should be getting in another 4 weeks or so.

Our intrepid group only got rained on once – the day we did a walking tour of Charleston’s historic downtown neighborhood followed by its garden tour, considered one of the country’s biggest and best.

Otherwise, the days were warm, and the nights just chilly. None of the snow or sub-freezing weather Harrisburg can’t seem to shake.

Two venues stood out as our group’s favorites.

The Charleston Tea Plantation has acre after acre of trimmed camellias.

One was the Charleston Tea Plantation, which is North America’s only tea-growing and tea-production farm.

People were fascinated to see acre after acre of Camellia sinensis plants, the tender broad-leaf evergreens whose sheared-off leaves are used to make black, green and oolong teas.

The day we were there, one of the farm’s long-legged cutting machines was shearing off last year’s growth to make way for this year’s first flush. The young first leaves apparently make the best tea.

When all of the cutting is done, fields full of camellias sport crew cuts – boxy, even and glistening in the sun.

We also saw such great, old southern gardens as Middleton Place, a formal garden that took 100 slaves 10 years to build in the mid-1700s, and Magnolia Plantation, a mostly shaded pleasure garden with Monet-like bridges and more camellias (27,000) than any other garden in the world.

But the stop that people enjoyed more than any other was Pearl Fryar’s 3-acre private yard in rural Bishopville, S.C.

Don’t Be Too Eager

March 17th, 2015

The melting of the snow, the return of sane temperatures, and the arrival of St. Patrick’s Day – the unofficial central-Pa. pea-planting milestone – has stir-crazy gardeners chomping at the bit to get out in the dirt.

The snow might be retreating, but this area is still too wet to dig.

Not so fast.

I know you’re antsy, but before you dig, give the ground a chance to dry out.

Even though the snow cover is gone, the moisture it left behind will take some time to drain and evaporate in most yards.

Digging in or walking on soggy soil can ruin its structure by forcing out air spaces, leaving you with compacted clods that roots struggle to penetrate – especially in clay soil.

Once you mess up the soil structure, it’s hard to fix.

This is the time when raised beds and compost-amended, well drained soil really pay off.

Those kinds of gardens dry out within days of a snow melt and also warm quicker, giving raised-bed gardeners a jump on gardeners still staring at a cold mud pit.

Of course, raised beds also dry out faster in summer, so the tradeoff is more watering then in exchange for an earlier start now.

How do you know if the soil is ready for digging and planting?

America’s Tropical Rainforest

March 10th, 2015

Quiz question: Where is the only tropical rainforest in the U.S. Forest Service? (Hint: It’s not Hawaii.)

The fern-covered floor of El Yunque Tropical Rainforest.

If you guessed Puerto Rico, you get an A+ in both ecology and geography. (Puerto Rico is a commonwealth of the United States.)

And if you know the exact place is the El Yunque National Forest, you’re ready for Jeopardy.

I got to see El Yunque (pronounced YOON-kay) last month on a Caribbean cruise excursion, and it was my first look at a real tropical rainforest.

El Yunque was a little different from what I expected from watching Amazon-jungle documentaries. I saw no swinging monkeys, no murky rivers with deadly piranhas, and no football-sized tarantulas.

Surprisingly, El Yunque felt somewhat similar to Pennsylvania woods, except that the trees were palms, breadfruits and tree ferns instead of oaks and locust, and the vegetation was noticeably bigger and denser due to some 200 inches of rain per year and year-round mid-70-degree temperatures. That sounds like Heaven if you’re a plant.

For a plant-lover, the most striking feature is that many of the native plants growing out of this tropical volcanic soil are what we know as “houseplants.”

10 Tips for Making the Most Out of Garden Shows

February 24th, 2015

Garden-show-touring can be tiring, taxing and sometimes a tad bewildering – especially in the case of cavernous, cattle-herd shows such as the 10-acre Philadelphia Flower Show.

Garden shows can be tiring, so plan your day to make the most of your energy.

Five gardening and landscape-related shows happen late this month into next within day-trip range of Harrisburg (see the list below).

If you’re going to any/all, I thought you might make use of some tips on how to maximize your time and energy. Here are 10:

1.) Pick your spots. Weekend days are typically the busiest, especially Saturdays. Weekdays are generally a little less crowded, and crowds start to thin around 4 p.m.    At a big show like Philly, you may be able to see and do as much between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. as in twice that time during midday hours.

2.) Watch for discounts. Most shows offer discounts for tickets bought in advance. Some have special pricing deals, such as the Pennsylvania Garden Expo’s Senior Day $5-off discount or the Pennsylvania Garden Show of York’s $15 package price for all three show days. The Philadelphia Flower Show gives free admission to members of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, the show’s sponsor.

3.) Check the schedule. The speaker, demo and event lineups change daily, so pick your day and time to be there for any of particular interest to you. All shows post their schedules on their websites in advance. The Philadelphia Flower Show has an app that’s handy both for planning and for navigating the show floor.

 4.) Footwear for the occasion. I never wear heels to start with, but it puzzles me when I see women show up at garden shows in them. The floors are hard and concrete – and sometimes uneven over mulch or landscape pavers. You’ll be on your feet for hours. Be kind to them. Wear comfortable and safe footwear. 

 5.) Outerwear strategy. It’s usually cold outside during show time, so you’ll probably need a coat to get there. Once inside, shows are usually cool. Wearing or carrying a heavy coat all show is a burden you can ease by checking your coat (either free or a couple of dollars at most). A sweater or light jacket is all you’ll need for maneuvering inside.