29: Coleus, Dean Norton of Mount Vernon, Founding Gardeners

Plant of the Week

As I say on the pod, I cannot tell a lie: General Washington did not lend a hand in helping me choose the Plant of the Week. Chosen because the last several weeks’ weather stymied me in terms of the fun of shifting, dividing, moving, or planting, I turned to propagating, and I will (should!) have dozens of coleus to play with in the fall containers and borders. More about that on The Play List. Coleus is a wonderful foliage plant for the following reasons:

1. It has a ridiculously long botanical name (Plectranthus scutellarioides) but also the good grace to be called the same common name by everyone, so as not to confuse us.

2. It can be grown in sun (with new cultivars, sometimes full on scorching sun) and shade.

3. It can be pinched to take on the shape you need.

4. The pinchings can provide new plants

5. It comes in every color imaginable!

Guest

Dean Norton has worked at Mount Vernon since 1969, and there is no mistaking the pride he takes in, the fun he gets from, and the knowledge he has of this amazing place. When you watch the video below, it sounds like we are authentically in a stage coach or something, but that is just the golf cart rattling. Washington paid special attention to how his home would be revealed to visitors, and you can see the tiny Mount Vernon through the non-windshield in the photo. From there, the traveler would go back into the woods, then later come up over the rise to see it again, then go back into the woods. Next time the visitor sees the house, the visitor has arrived. The General had a flair for the dramatic, it seems!

There are few trees that survive from Washington’s time, but I got to see two Tulip Poplar specimens. One was growing on the side of a road, and the root system adapted beautifully and architecturally. The other is growing between the Bowling Green and the Upper Garden, below. There are only about 7 trees left from Washington’s time, and Dean and his crew look after them carefully. 

Can you see the dramatic appearance of Mount Vernon, looking tiny between the trees way back there?

One of the Tulip Poplars from George Washington’s time. This one’s root system adapted to being beside a road.

One of the famous fleur de lis in the Pleasure Garden. Buxus ‘Morris Dwarf’ 

Another of the ‘witness Tulip Poplars

The Play List

Not much to say except to keep watering until the weather breaks, but here is a photo that will help you understand the easy steps of propagating coleus.

1, Top left: snap the top of the plant off, just above a leaf node

2. Top right: admire your specimen, then remove most of the leaves

3. Bottom left: admire your new scalped specimen, happy in the knowledge that you have removed most of the foliage it would have to work hard to keep alive

4. Bottom right: plant the soon-to-be plant, and keep watering

Listen

Andrea Wulf has written lots of books that you should read, but the one that I will recommend this week ties in well with the General, and it is ‘Founding Gardeners’, which outlines the contributions of Washington, Jefferson, Adams, and Madison.

Into the Garden Week 28

Plant of the Week

Dahlias are the big, blowzy, look-at-me ladies of the late summer garden. Irresistible in their beauty and ostentation, almost everybody wants to grow them, but it’s not SO easy to grow them well! Here in Virginia, you can take a chance and let them stay in the ground over winter; low temps usually don’t kill them. But these tubers do not like to be moist, so digging them up and bringing them in is the safest bet. Willing to live dangerously, and also quite willing to shop, I leave mine in the ground. And where to shop? Have a look at the large and wonderful Swan Island Dahlias. Oh and hey, looks like they are having a sale… but there are also smaller purveyors, and I have had great luck with Frey’s, family-owned since 1982.

Bev Lacey amongst the bounty

Do you have a good source? Share it with me on IG and let’s spread the word!

Guest

I visited Beverly Lacey of Blue Heron Farm in Nellysford, VA and learned SO much about dahlias, from not planting them out until just the right time to digging them up at just the right time (carefully!) and everything in between. Have a look at this video—we are in one of her fridge rooms with all the cut flowers of the moment, and Bev is talking about how many dahlias she grows. Oh, right, you can’t really hear what she says because that’s a loud fridge room, but the answer is about 50 different types, and about 3k plants.

This next photo shows the initial cut—the first pinch. She doesn’t want a long, leggy thing with a few flowers at the end. She’s trying to make a living here! Lots of flowers needed. Seems to me the home gardener would have the same goal…

She would have made this cut in July. The side shoots will react and take on some substance. But she’s not finished pinching. Check out the video below. Now, she needs 18” stems and you probably don’t, but if you are okay with fewer, bigger flowers, then follow her lead.

If you want to know how to divide dahlias, the last video is for you. There’s something to it, but it isn’t too tough, and it sounds like use makes master—you will improve. Because of being able to see the ‘eye,’ this is easiest to do in spring. Bev and her crew can’t operate then because they are crazy busy. They get it done in the fall. The tuber she uses to show me is almost no longer viable. She literally keeps old ones around to be able to show people how to work the magic.

I had SUCH a fun visit to Blue Heron Farm, and was sent on my way with a beautiful bouquet, a fat yummy tomato, and tons of information and inspiration. Thanks, Bev!

The Play List

• Dahlias need LOTS of food and water. Needy little buggers.

• Prune low branches off of your azaleas, hydrangeas, and other shrubs if they are crowded at the bottom.

• Prune the ‘crazies’ coming off the top of your shrubs like bad hair, if only to remind the neighbors that you still live there.

• Pull your Hairy Crabweed, also called Mulberry Weed (Fatoua villosa). It’s a late season annual weed native to Asia with an insignificant-looking flower that has significant self-sowing abilities

Listen

Listen to me next week as I go Into the Garden with Dean Norton of Mount Vernon! But also listen either to a podcast named Tiny Vampires hosted by Raven Forrest Fruscalzo, or to the Joe Gardener episode #222 with her interview. Great information about mosquitos, even if it’s not totally cheerful. We just don’t have as much control as some pest services would have us believe. If you are considering hiring one, maybe ask them these two questions:

1. How does what you spray on my yard impact bugs that are not mosquitoes?

2. Does your spray control my neighbor’s mosquitoes too?

Into the Garden Week 27

The Plant of the Week is actually the Border of the Week

…and that would belong to my mother-in-law, Betty Taylor of Hilton Head, South Carolina. Her gardener, Karen Geiger, is a local talent and her business is Karen Creates.  Here’s a plant list of heat loving things that look good together and are all sunbathing up a storm by her pool. 

• Zinnias and Crossandra (which I forgot to mention on the pod, but they are good pops of different colors)

• Gomphrena, Madagascar vinca and Pentas in the front row

• Veronica and Artemesia, some lovely, delicate, light lilac perennials. 

•  ‘Powis Castle’

• Four types of Salvia! S. guaranitica ‘Black and Blue,’ S. ‘Amistad,’ S. farinacea ‘Victoria,’ and S. ‘Mysty’ (but it could be ‘Mysty Spires Blue’ (Mysty is more compact—maybe that is what I have because it’s only about 2’ and Betty’s is 3’

• The tropical back row: Plumbago auriculata and Ruellia simplex

Oh, you may want to know the story behind the statue, which we fondly call ‘The Humping Turtles’. I don’t think Betty calls it that. Betty’s mother, Sally, (b. 1897) was an inveterate shopper, and they came across a clay rendition at Alfred University years ago. Sally had 2 casts commissioned, and one has always been in Betty’s garden. The other was donated to the University.

This is one of the first things I ever saw, at age 20, when I met Jeff’s parents at their home in Wellsville, NY. It made an impression on me, though I was far more interested in Jeff than gardens at the time. 

Guest

Scott Beuerlein is the Manager of Botanical Garden Outreach at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden. Also, he writes articles that make me chortle. Find him here, his monthly Horticulture Magazine column here, and his amusing correspondence with Marianne Willburn on Garden Rant blog here. By the way, Marianne will be joining me on the pod in a few weeks!

In our chat, we discuss what to do about the August garden if it’s getting you down, and we don’t exclude the strategy of ignoring it all together. That’s an option. Others include looking around at what’s bad, swearing under your breath, daydreaming about how/what to improve, appropriating ideas from neighbors, botanical gardens, magazines—even your mother-in-law.

I think Scott has it all in good perspective, on this topic and others, and you should check out his writing.

The Play List

I got a little random on the pod in this section, but the basic takeaways are you CAN improve your August garden by means of:

• weeding, watering, removing browns and downs

• cutting back for new growth on annuals and perennials that have gone past

• giving up and going shopping

A couple of other random bits…

• Cats are the number one cause of birds’ deaths. Number one. Think about a bell for your adorable little savage

• How to prune a fig:

• - remove dead, diseased, interior or skinny branches

• - choose your main fruiting branches (4-8) and

• prune a different 1/3 of them every year to have constant production

• How to cook with figs. Go here. 

• Mugwort. Insidious stuff. Look how it has rambled through Peter Daniel’s Blue Star Juniper and Allium millenium. Ugh. Get busy pulling, Peter, and I hope you don’t have to dig it out and start again…

Listen

Pretty simple—Bunny Williams On Garden Style is available on Kindle!

Into the Garden Week 26

Plant of the Week

What’s in a name? In this case, not the cure that some people may have been looking for back in the day from the beautiful Lobelia siphilitica, or more pleasantly, the Great Blue Lobelia. Sorry about that. But it does cure many other ills by being deer-resistant, native to the Eastern US, a wonderful pollinator, attractive to hummers, and a pretty blue flower at a time of year when there is a bit of a lull, at least in my garden, of color. Tiny tubular flowers on a 2’ stalk can bloom in sun or some shade, and this perennial loves wet soil. And, it self-sows!

Guest

Bunny Williams is an icon of interior design, and as many of her fans know, her interest in gardens is deep and enduring also. Her book On Garden Style not only inspires one through gorgeous photos of her and others’ gardens but additionally it breaks down simple design elements for all to learn from. My chat with her was equally inspiring because of her simple philosophies such as letting nature lead you, dealing naturally with pests, and using symmetry and design elements to enhance your garden.

Photo by Sari Goodfriend

Sounds easy, but if you know Bunny’s work, you know that she has a gift for creating visual beauty that we can strive to emulate, but we may not quite get there. However, I feel closer to a higher aesthetic after chatting with her, and, after finding out that her manicurist laments her fingernails.

I hope you participated in the giveaway of Bunny’s book (running August 14th and 15th on my Instagram) by liking the Giveaway post, commenting on what you love about gardening, and tagging someone else that you think may be interested, but if you didn’t, or didn’t win, check out this great article on One King’s Lane on Bunny’s garden ideas. And here’s a link to Bunny’s blog—articles that deal specifically with gardening.

The Play List

• Spider Mites—you can make your plants quite inhospitable for them by using a hard hose, or even the kitchen tap on houseplants, to get rid of their little spider-mite webs.

• Brown grass may not mean dead grass. Remember, its roots may survive what the blades may not, and it will rain again, someday!

• Are your annuals flagging? Ugh, some of my petunias are woeful… here’s what to do:

  • pinch them for new growth

  • feed them for new growth

  • go shopping!  :)

Listen

Paul Tukey’s book The Organic Lawn Care Manual, which I have ordered and await, makes me want to end the understanding I have with Husband that the lawn is only his domain. I think our lawns, all of them, become everyone’s domain if the chemicals applied to them go on to impact nature outside of our property lines.

Listen to Tukey’s interview with Joe Lampel (Joe Gardener—I mentioned him on Episode 24 because of his work with Brie the Plant Lady) on growing a greener world here. He was recently on Tom Christopher’s “Growing a Greener World” talking specifically about what your lawn weeds may indicate about your soil. And here’s an interview with Molly Hill of Maison Pur sustainable living podcast.

Into the Garden Week 25

Plant of the Week

Pinus strobus from Maine.gov web site

Plant of the Week

The state flower of Maine, voted into existence by those rugged individualistic Down Easters in 1895, is not, botanically or even aesthetically speaking, a flower. It’s the White Pine cone and tassel, and if that’s what they like as a flower, that is what they should have. Pinus strobus is a native tree from Canada down to the Bayou, and it’s a fast-growing evergreen that is home to many insects and birds. Its wood makes good lumber, and it’s easy to ID because of the 5 needles per cluster instead of the 2 or 3 for many other pines. My tree ID skills are meager, so I will try to remember that little nugget of info. Speaking of remembering… Here is the link to the magical nursery in Kennebunk, Snug Harbor Farm,  that our daughter made sure we visited (“this is not a drill!”), and she did the right thing.

Guest

Andy Brand of the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens is someone whom I have followed for a while on Instagram, and he was kind enough to chat with me after I had two hours to walk around this impressive site. The only negative about our convo was that it was clear I would need another day or two to really see the gardens well. Ahhh, such are gardens, especially good ones. Started in 2007, this amazing resource has already had to go back to the drawing board in terms of increased visitor amenities (more than two football teams could square off in the new car park, and guess what they did with the old one? Aye-yuh, new gardens). The plants were enough for me, but it would be hard to ignore the 25’ tall trolls created by Thomas Dambo, a recycled art activist. They are currently trolling all visitors, including ones that may not have thought botanical gardens were their thing, about how to protect the environment. Oh, and they may have magically become influencers along the way. 

The Play List

• Shake some seeds around your garden for more plants. Foxglove, columbine and rose campion are brown and crispy and just asking for distribution help.

• Peony foliage—if it’s brown or white from mildew, it sure isn’t photosynthesizing, so do you still have to look at it? Cut it back and feed the tubers with a bit of triple phosphate.

• Plant out fall veg such as broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, collards, kale, kohlrabi, and mustard.

• Start seeds of beets, carrots, lettuce, radish, spinach, and turnips.

• Keep in mind that I don’t know much about veg, and I get my info from here. They’re nice to share. 

Listen
American singer and songwriter Rusty Gear kindly provides the music for Into the Garden with Leslie, and although I have mentioned him before, we need to talk about his new album, Delivery Man. My podcast music is the instrumental version of “Forgiveness After All,” which I like for its ballad-like sound. Two new favorites of mine on this latest album are “We Know Too Much” and “Gold on the Horizon,” the latter of which has a wholesome romantic video to accompany. Sweet!

Into the Garden Week 24

Plant of the Week

Plant of the Week

Pycnanthemum muticum is the sort of plant name that makes a great argument for common names, unlike last week’s POW, Phlox paniculata, which has the not so helpful common name of garden phlox (the genus has 67 species, and can’t they all grow in a garden?) But back to mountain mint, an excellent plant for so many reasons.  P. muticum is also called short-toothed mountain mint or clustered mountain mint. I am in love with the tiny silvery buttons surrounded by garden gnome scale petals. This plant is deer-resistant, drought-resistant, grows as well in shade as it does in sun, and is an amazing native pollinator. It spreads, yes, but wouldn’t you want something so good to spread? Very easy to edit with all your friends in mind to extend the joy, and offers the ability to make a Mountain Mint Julep.

Guest

Brie the Plant Lady is a foodscaper extraordinaire, author of two books on the subject, excellent speaker, YouTuber, and TV star on the PBS show Growing a Greener World with Joe Gardener. She and I chatted about all of that, and she gives great ideas on how to easily incorporate edibles into your landscape. You could build a separate veg patch if you want to, but why not think of these edibles as ornamental too? Rice instead of pennisetum. Basil instead of coleus. Not only will you provide food for yourself, but if you use deep rooted grains, you can bust up clay soil and bring nutrients up to the surface to benefit all of your plants. Talking with Brie makes me want to give up the Farmer’s Market and get going in my own garden.

Brie mentioned another great foodscaper, Rosalind Creasy, and the web site Ample Harvest, for sharing the piles of food you are sure to grow if you follow Brie’s advice.

The Play List

• Get yourself some Mountain Mint. I’ll share— I’m serious!

• Water water water water water do a rain dance water water water...

• Be sure you know the difference between the similar purslane and spurge, the former being a nutritious edible and the latter having a milky sap that you really don’t even want on your skin, much less in your belly. Get more info here. Those two are very much happening right now.

• If you missed the tick information that I talked about in Episode 21, here is that link again for TickEncounter.org.

Listen

The Temps keep running through my mind, cuz I wish it would rain.

Into the Garden Week 23

Plant of the Week

Happy bee, happy gardener. This is right out my kitchen door.

Another sentinel of summer, Phlox paniculata is just a good old-timey plant that defines the late summer garden. Sometimes described as a brazen hussy of color, there are also some subtle hues to employ, and the white ones stand out when the evenings come on earlier. (Lord, it was just July 4th and I am already going there? Sorry!)  They’re also outgoing in the form of offspring, and I remember a pal observing that the garden of a mutual friend had basically evolved to be a phlox garden. She wasn’t trying to be nice, by the way. Yet the garden looked magical.

Try some of the ones that don’t get that icky powdery mildew, such as David for a white, Jeana for a pink, and the Fashionably Early series, with their thicker, darker leaves and early show as a season beginner.

Guest

Sister Sue Ann joins in again and this week our topic is getting ready for a garden party. We delve into what to do and when, but we aren’t talking menu planning and tablescapes—we will leave that to you. We are Into the Garden for gardening. We want the place looking great for when you and your guests settle down to G&Ts. Make mine Hendricks with a splash of bitters.

The Play List

• We are still watering, and if your container is smaller rather than larger, there is less earth to soak up and retain moisture.

• Pinchy pinch pinch, including all those annuals I have been harping on plus

• Cleome—if the lead flower starts to have a huge population of seed heads, cut it off and let the lower ones have their place in the sun.

• Tomatoes—that little part that grows out above a branch that I call the armpit hair should go before it becomes a whole new part of the plant that you haven’t accounted for in your staking scheme.

Listen

99% Invisible is a great podcast. It’s based on architecture and design, but there’s a ton of history and culture involved. Here’s that link to the 15 most popular episodes on Podcast Review and here are two more that are garden related:

• Guerilla Garden of Eden: The Death and Life of an Urban Microtopia

• Fruit Walls: Before Greenhouses, Walled Gardens created Urban Micro-Climates

Thumbs up to the amazing table scape Caspari did for Historic Garden week!

Into the Garden Week 22

Coneflower is one of those sentinels of high summer.  A native perennial, great pollinator, and cut flower—you could even make echinacea tea with it! After native bees, moths, and butterflies feed on it for months, goldfinches love to peck at the seeds.

If you would like a deeper dive into some of the types you could grow, go to the Mt Cuba Center trial results for all kinds of detailed information. If you just want to find out if your fave cultivar won, read on:

“The best performing Echinacea included in our trial are E. purpurea ‘Pica Bella’, E. ‘Sensation Pink’, E. ‘Santa Fe’, E. ‘TNECHKR’ (KISMET® Raspberry), E. ‘Snow Cone’, E. ‘POST301’ (Postman), E. ‘Glowing Dream’, E. ‘Purple Emperor’, E. purpurea ‘Fragrant Angel’, E. ‘TNECHKIO’ (KISMET® Intense Orange), E. ‘Balsomcor’ (SOMBRERO® Hot Coral), and E. ‘Julia’.”

Yes, my Fragrant Angel won. And yes, I am smug.

If the Mt. Cuba trial sounds familiar, I mentioned it a couple of weeks ago during my P.O.W segment on Monarda. 

Guest

I have been tracking Steph Green’s amazing container game for a few years now. She puts together luscious combinations for her lucky clients down in Richmond. Contained Creations also has an envy-inspiring Instagram feed, and besides knowing what to put into elegant containers, Steph knows how to keep the creations looking good. This week, we share tips on dealing with soil, ferts, colors, scale, and maintenance!

The Play List

There are some pests in the garden right now, and I have some ideas on how to deal with them.

• Bunnies

  • Chase, yell, terrorize (it’s a work out).

  • Use bad smells such as Deer Scram (contains dried blood—your dog will love it, so be careful. It won’t hurt your dog, but bunnies won’t smell it anymore if your pooch loves it), or REALLY hot cayenne pepper.

• Japanese Beetles

  • Go out in the early morning to pinch or drop into a bucket of soapy water.

  • Spray with soapy water.

  • Please try not to use Sevin—bad for bees!

  • Using a trap attracts more beetles than your trap can handle—not good, because they will look around to see what else is tasty in your garden besides the overflowing trap party.

  • Prune your plants after the wee beasties have had their way, and wait for them to be gone (mid-late August).

• Ailanthus Trees (Tree of Heaven)

  • Pull while small—the ONLY thing they have going for them is that they are easy to pull.

• Japanese Stilt Grass

  • Again, mercifully easy to pull, so if you have a little, pull now before they go to seed.

  • If you have a lot, strim (string trim/weed whack) them down before they set a jillion seeds.

Listen

• Maybe just listen to the birds and buzzing this week… I checked out the song behind the very popular hashtag #hotgirlsummer because I thought I was being so cool using #hotgardensummer. Turns out, there’s a reason we don’t hear that song on the radio!