37: Oakleaf Hydrangea, Lizzie Fox of The Rose Press Garden, Brooklyn bridge Park

We got caught up on some rain here this week, which is great as I still feel like we are behind. Also, when I run around and divide and shove perennials this way and that the day BEFORE we get 2.75 inches, hey, I don’t have to get out the hoses. 

Plant of the Week

After choosing non-natives for several weeks in a row, I am happy to have a bit of reprieve by having, this week, the eminently native and simultaneously awesome Oak Leaf Hydrangea. This is a real 4 season winner: bright green promising foliage in spring, white-to-pink flowers in summer, Cra-MAZING wine dark foliage in fall, and exfoliating bark in winter. There can be bitty ones like ‘Pee Wee’ and ‘Little Honey’ (don’t grow the latter for flowers, but instead for lime green foliage), great big ones like ‘Alice’ or medium sized ones like ‘Ruby Slippers’. Who thinks of these names? I think that would be a fun job.

Photo courtesy of Cleveland.com

Guest

Lizzie Fox is wowing the UK with her fresh new approach to selling seeds. They aren’t for veg and they aren’t for old people—well they certainly can be, but one must be young at heart, because it is so joyful to open a beautifully packaged selection from the The Rose Press Garden! She is also a quickly growing force on social. Her Instagram is so cheerful and her videos teach you how to deal with whatever beautiful seeds she sends you in the mail and more. No doubt this thing will continue to grow, as Lizzie’s enthusiasm and knowledge is encouraging people who may not have known ANYTHING about gardening to give it a go. Her most watched YouTube is literally How to Plant…a Plant!

Lizzie and I talk about her business model and why it’s so important to get Into the Garden (you know, I pretty much agree!) and to encourage others to. And, they don’t have to be pensioners to do it!

Lizzie Fox of The Rose Press Garden

The Play List

I mentioned the impact of lighting your garden in the pod, and here is some science on it. It definitely should be carried out thoughtfully because of how it can throw off wildlife. Have a look at this Science Daily article.

• Pruning in general: not right now for big jobs unless the branch is dead, diseased, or will whack you in the head.

• Terra cotta and other ornaments that may get battered about by temp changes. Bring the fragile bits indoors.

• Cut back what you want but mind some of the woody ones—sage, thyme, lavender, perovskia (russian sage), and some people say mums—as they prefer to be left alone until late winter or early spring.

• Weather—Time to drain the hoses? Mind the frost warnings.

• Bulbs—plant away, but Sister Sue Ann and I will have lots of tips next week!

• Think about your containers and annuals in the border—it’s up to you whether you put in your fall or winter displays now or wait. Seems silly to remove perfectly good plants, but then again, a sudden freeze before a dinner party or house guests, and you have one more thing to do…

• Cut away annuals in beds instead of pulling to leave the soil intact.

Listen
I had such a lovely time listening to Tom Christopher’s interview with Rebecca McMackin on the October 20 Growing Greener podcast. Rebecca is the Director of Horticulture at the Brooklyn Bridge Park, and the park is a completely man made nature-palooza! Old piers on the previously disreputable East River now support an ecosystem that would be enviable anywhere, but especially in one of earth’s most urban environments. Just goes to show, if you build it, they will come!

Believe it.

36: Anemones, Chisty Wilhelmi on Compost, and more Compost

Last week, I wrote about being on the brink of the change of the season; this week, I question why my flip flop collection still occupies prime real estate in my closet.

It’s getting real, people.

Honorine Jobert, in all her glory!

Plant of the Week

If you have listened or read for a while, you know I struggle from a serious but treatable native plant guilt complex. How do I treat it? By heralding native plants in this section of the Blog & Pod at least as often as I succumb to the temptations of the Asian beauties. But, gosh, it’s been a while. So this week, I atone for my sins by double dipping on the POW.

1. The Japanese anemone, starring right now in a garden near you. Japan is in the name, but it actually hails from China, and I really hope that doesn’t mean it’s not twice as non-native.

But what a beauty—tall or short; pink, dark pink, light pink (oh c’mon, just pink), or white; with its charming little buttercup-like flowers… The gold standard cultivar (literally award winning—Royal Hort Society and Perennial Plant of the Year) is ‘Honorine Jobert,’ which was discovered in Verdun, France in 1858. It seems that by just being that beautiful you end up with an elegant name. I assume this because my requisite 10 minutes of dedication to a google search yielded no additional theories.

1. The Anemone virginiana, or Tall Thimbleweed, is a similar plant. It blooms in spring instead of now and has no cool girl cultivar name, but is really very pretty.

And I’m not just being hypothetical about this one—I am actively shopping. And not just because I already have lots of Japanese anemones. It’s because I really want it!

Apropos of nothing except that I said I would put it in the show notes, if you are interested in becoming a Master Gardener with the Piedmont Master Gardener group, go here to learn more about their introductory meetings on October 26th and November 3rd. 

Guest

Christy Wilhelmi is a wonderful resource for small space vegetable gardening who hails from California, has her own podcast, Gardenerd Tip of the Week (oh, hey, I was a guest on that last month— see?), and an adorable and informative website too. Last time I had her on, we talked about a variety of garden topics, and this week we stayed true to form in terms of not sticking with one topic… we touched on composting, fruit trees in small spaces, no-dig gardening, and even mini meadows.

Christy reminded me of a YouTube on Ruth Stout I watched years ago. Stout was born in 1988 and for years used typical plowing, commercial ferts, and poisonous sprays to raise her vegetables because that is the way she was taught. But one year, the guy with the plow simply didn’t show up and she started treating everything like asparagus, as in, ‘can’t you do your thing without me having to work so hard?’ You have to watch the video; it’s mesmerizing.

The Play List

~ If you live in a colder climate, take away anything that is bumming you out, and leave behind anything that is not, including leaves and seed heads. 

~ You may be planting bulbs, or you may be able to wait until close to Christmas!

~ Remember, no big pruning now—your projects can wait until things are dormant.

~ Mow your leaves into your lawn, or ask your lawn gentlemen or ladies to do that for you.

~ Remember that you should be able to control the volume and intensity of leaf clean up at your home! Talk to whomever is doing that, even if it’s yourself, and see if you can’t dial it back or down a little bit.

~ If you have a water feature, you may have to net it at this time of year because of the falling leaves. This year, I’m going to let mine go a little bit and hope I don’t gum up the pump too much. Birds need to drink in fall too!

Listen

In this podcast, I talk about Step 3 in my compost routine. Step 1 was to collect garbage in the kitchen, neatly and cleanly without odors or pets (fruit flies); Step 2 was get your sealable container out the door and someplace sensible before Step 1 doesn’t go as planned. Step 3 is to take those accumulated sealable containers and dump them into a tumbler with some copies of the Wall Street Journal (but any carbon source will do—paper bags, leaves, the Washington Post). The point of Step 3 is to make it so that what was recognizable as food to critters will evolve not to be so.

All of this is great info (oh for sure!), but you will be truly informed if you listen to Margaret Roach’s podcast A Way to Garden, where she has a low key conversation with the U.S. Composting Council’s Cary Oshins. And yes, there is a U.S. Composting Council. Oshins has the professional chops to be able to inform us about all the science, rules, temperatures, and ingredients, but instead he gives a totally freeing and relaxed talk about how you can do this a bunch of different ways and still achieve the two main goals: to keep nitrogen out of landfills (hence less in terms of methane > greenhouse gases > climate change) and to feed the soil on your land to grow more wonderful plants, be they food, native ornamentals, or Asian guilty pleasures.

35: Rex Begonia, Marianne Willburn, The Soil Knife

Do you feel it? It’s happening here. True, it almost hit 80 today as I wrote this, but only for an hour or two. Blankets, fires, cuddles are coming! And coming inside? Plants. I have been dipping, scrubbing, inspecting, finding the right sized saucers, and my glass porch is beginning to take on a lovely jungly smell with all the tenders I am bringing inside.

The ones that I am most interested in making it through the winter under my care—and that’s scarier than any Halloween movie—are the Rex begonias.

I mean. How fun is this foliage? I collected some tiny specimens from Milmont Greenhouses last spring, mainly for a client at that time who had a charming shaded courtyard full of containers, and what do you know? Some ended up in my containers. 

I love this plant with its fleshy stems full of promise and with foliage that has so many patterns and shapes. Even a snail shape!

Now it’s just a matter of getting them all inside, and though I said on the pod that I would have it done by Thursday night, that was, indeed, magical garden thinking. Some of my tropicals and tenders will have to get through a few more nights outside. But no matter! The problem with my procrastination would normally result in a lovely looking plant having to stress out and adjust to indoor temperatures once we flick on the furnace. But my plants, most of them, anyway, end up on my glass porch, which is just above outdoor temps. So the stress of going from the 50’s to the 70’s won’t happen for me. If it will happen for you, you may want to try to avoid it.

Guest

Marianne Wilburn—in her second of what I hope are many visits because she is so fun to talk to—gives us the low-down on bringing plants in for winter. As the author of the book Tropical Plants and How to Love Them, Marianne is well-versed on all of her multitude of charges, and she has a ton of them! In the pod, she quickly walks us through what we did last spring: getting them outside. I’m a tough love slacker on that too, and sort of just say “get out, good luck.” Then, we drill down on the strategies of getting them ready to come back into your house. Avoiding the hitchhiker beasties that also want to come in, making it easier on yourself in terms of care (making sure you can SEE the mister, that way you may actually USE the mister), and understanding how some plants may not even want to be a part of your life over the winter, but would instead rather be forced into dormancy and checked on a couple of times. These are all things Marianne helps us to know more about.

Marianne Wilburn in her tropical paradise

The Play List

Got a cute photo from Mary Wright Baylor of the DC area. She liked the tips that Steph Green provided in Week 32 so much that she sent in a photo with a fall refresh that she had done on one of her containers. Look at the wonderful arrows! (Below). She used ‘the c-word’, chrysanthemum, very well indeed. Charming—the arrangement and the feedback! She made my day and Steph’s too, as of course, I passed it along.

I used some of those tips on a couple of mine too, but there is still more to do. Hard to know (when it is still in the 80s), whether I should jump right to pansies and cabbages or fill in with all those coleus I have rooted recently. Probably a bit of both is the way to go.

Next Step for the Kitchen Compost

In last week’s Play List, I told you how I collect the garbage and am usually successful in getting all the kitchen scraps out the door before we get the eewww factor going too strongly and before ‘pets’, i.e. fruit flies, come join us. Then where does it go? Those little sealable half gallon containers end up in the garage, waiting until they get to about 8 or 10 in number, and then they are emptied into my tumbler. I used to just settle for the anaerobic fetid mess in the tumbler knowing that I would later add that to my regular pile and the N and C would even out. But since I started adding some brown, in my case the WSJ, it has really helped the smell as you are walking by the tumbler and the outdoor ‘pet’ population, too.

Nothing really wrong with those critters outside, but if you don’t have a lot of space and you are not loving them, adding the brown layer really does the trick!

Eeewww don’t get too close. But it actually doesn’t smell bad.

Enjoy your garden while this glorious weather lasts

• Make a note of pruning jobs wood on shrubs and trees— the work should wait now until the plant is dormant. A few snips are fine anytime.

• Order or BUY your seeds. A bird in the hand—I stopped by Stranges in Richmond after speaking to the Ford’s Colony Garden Club in Richmond and came away with about 3/4 of my heart’s desires at their generous seed racks.

Listen

I recommend leaves falling again this week, but here’s a recommendation of a different type: my favorite tools. Let’s start with the soil knife, which is a trowel, weeder, bulb depth measurer, and if you wear it on your belt like I do, a badass accessory, too! The bright orange plastic helps you find it more easily, and I added the green tape to keep mine straight from the crew’s—back when I had a crew.

Sister Sue Ann often gets alarmed when I wave it too close to Ginny while filming a Tuesday Tip. But Ginny doesn’t seem to mind.

34: Chysanthemums, Sister Sue Ann and Fall Gardening Chores (fun)

From Unsplash by Yoksel

It’s finally feeling a little bit like fall, and the shorter days are signaling to plants that it will soon be time to snooze. Bright fall colors, decrepit summer perennials, switching to bourbon at cocktail hour, and pansies on the shelves at the nursery are all signs.

But still plenty of action in the garden. Don’t forget you can use the dahlias with shorter stems to float in a pretty bowl with some water. Delicious. And you can have some dried beauty in your house by putting Hydrangea stems in just an inch of water and letting the water evaporate over the course of a week or two. As the Brits would say, it works a-treat!

Plant of the Week

The chrysanthemum, as sold in (half) spherical ubiquity at this time of year, is not something that I personally go for, but one of the many beautiful things about gardening is that there are no rules, and if you like them, I will leave them on the nursery shelf for you! Those round fellows do look pretty good in a classic urn, and if you have that urn in the shade, it takes care of my other charge against them, which is a disappointingly brief bloom time.

Now that I have registered my complaints, on to their many qualities! The chrysanthemum is an easy perennial, but depending on the cultivar, it can get the flops if it is not pre-pruned a couple of times over the summer. I employ ‘stadium’ style pruning (here’s an article I wrote for Fine Gardening Mag that shows it better): cutting the front of a patch severely, less so in the middle, and only a bit in the back. The stems become more stout and strong with the pruning, and this helps with support.

Colors span the entire color range and include the pumpkin spicy rusts and browns that evoke the season. They ask for nothing special in the perennial border except for their exuberance to be edited, easily done, and in pretty full sun. You don’t even have to do that pre-pruning bit, but it does help maintain order.

And speaking of pruning, check out what the real experts can do with them in these photos from the Longwood Garden Chrysanthemum Festival.

Guest

My little sister Sue Ann and I chatted this week about all things fall gardening. What’s growing, what’s going on by, what to do, and what not to do. And, there was talk of breaking the 10th Commandment—what is your neighbor growing that you covet?

Instead of plants, my goal is to improve the fall look in general by grouping a few fall bloomers together so the borders won’t look so spotty/dotty, which is what happens if a standout purple aster has nothing to play off of except green masses of perennials gone by.

Aster ‘Jin Dai’ flopping fetchingly by the stream.

Sue Ann wants to get started with some asters, and I can help, especially with the Aster tataricus ‘Jin Dai,’ which is getting a little out of bounds for me.

And the mums—the garden border is where I love them with their natural look, and since they are spreaders but easy to pull, I will put them on the list for her too.

The Play List

• Order your bulbs (have you heard this one? :).

• Divide and move perennials BUT only if they need it (dying out in the middle?) or you want to. You can NOT do that, or wait and do it anytime before the ground freezes.

• Bring your indoor plants back indoors, (inspect, wash, get a saucer, don’t forget terra cotta absorbs water, so don’t put those on wood floors) and wait to listen to my chat with Marianne Wilburn for much more on that topic next week.

• Start thinking about seed ordering.

Coffee, veg, and in that paper towel are crunched up egg shells. I do that to get them cooking— egg shells take a while to break down.

Think about your leaf removal this fall. Does your garden need to be neat as a pin? Can you or your landscapers adjust the volume/use rakes sometimes/leave the leaves on the gardens? Do get them off patios and the lawn, but think about your other spaces: what good habitat leaves make for nature, and how good they are for your soil. Also consider your eardrums and your neighbors’.

Compost tip: I don’t like ‘pets’ (fruit flies) in my kitchen, so I use a re-sealable half-gallon tub for all kitchen scraps except meat, as Ginny would not be so pleased without her tidbits. I have a bunch of these bins, so when full, I take them out to the garage to wait for me until I am in the mood to dump them into my tumbler. More next week…

33: Zinnia, Gregory Britt, Jumping Worms

The Plant of the Week was almost superseded by information about the not nearly as attractive Asian Jumping Worm, but both are worthy topics. I chatted with non-scientist Brad Johnson, an Instagram gardening friend (@garden.evolution) about what a regular gardener will come up against, and he has, dear me, with the AJM in his garden. But there’s another Brad who knows more than we do: Brad Herrick of the University of Wisconsin Madison Arboretum. Reader’s Digest edition of the AJW:

• very wiggly worms that rob the nutrients from the O level of your soil, rendering it far less healthy

• their activity make your soil look like coffee grounds, so they break down the structure and it won’t hold moisture

• they are traveling from state to state very easily (Wha—? they are worms!) via tiny egg casings (oh.)

• gardeners have 007 status— if you see them, bag them, throw them in garbage

If you want more info, here’s a charming (everything is relative) little news story with Brad, and here is a full-on hour long lecture on the topic. If you watch that one, I will be impressed.

Zinnia “Queeny Orange Lime, photographed by me in portrait mode to save your eyes from the mildewed chaos that reigns in the background.

Plant of the week is the Zinnia! Such a late season classic, and although mine are flopping, mildewing, and badly in need of deadheading, the vigilant gardener who hasn’t been traveling 3 of the last 4 weeks should be enjoying a bounty of all colors and sizes that attract pollinators and hummers. You may want to reserve seeds for next season now— this is such an easy, giving plant. And they don’t have to flop, and you don’t have to stake: there are dwarf varieties!

Guest

Gregory Britt is “that nice guy who creates epic floral artistry” and I went to visit him at his studio on the busy Gordonsville Road (sorry about the occasional zooming in the background!). We chat about everything from what it takes to match well with a bride (not from a groom perspective— from a floral/styling perspective), to Gregory’s garden, to his amazing indoor plants.

Gregory’s shop is expanding, and he will feature more plants, more antiques and garden decor, and even flower arranging classes.

His shop— where all the magic happens, including house plants for sale!

The Play List

• Order your bulbs (still)

• divide and move perennials at your whim—meaning, you can, but you don’t have to

• enjoy native grasses and if you don’t have the Little Blue Stem in your garden, shop

• start to bring in indoor plants—their vacation is ending!

Listener Catherine Dugan was kind enough to share info about two good public gardens near her in northern New Jersey: the Leonard Buck Garden, and the Cross Estate Gardens. And she also shared photos of her own lovely gardens (below)! I love the “woodland walk” look on the left (trying to do that sort of thing in mine), and her huge stand of Amsonia hubrichtii (blue star) on the right as it plays with other wonderful textures. Well done, Catherine!

Listen

More on our current darling, the Asian Jumping Worm! Episode 211 on the Joe Gardener Podcast. Joe interviews our current darling AJW scientist, Brad Herrick. I don’t even know Brad, and I am totally exploiting his expertise here. Hope he doesn’t mind!

32: The Pansy, Fall Containers with Steph Green, Rusty Gear Live

Pansy (photo credit: Missouri Botanical Garden) 

Plant of the Week

The lowly (as in short) but wonderful pansy is sure to make an appearance in my fall containers this year. As I describe the pansy, I’m literally talking about violas. Here’s some garden trivia for you: All pansies are violas, but not all violas are pansies… 

The pansy is a short lived perennial shrub that grows in zones 6-10. It reaches 6” tall and up to a foot across. The pansy comes in pretty much all the colors of the rainbow, including bicolors. Its habit is to bloom like crazy--it blooms best in full sun although it will still bloom for you in shade (just less), and it's not finicky about soil or water. You can even eat them--decorate your cake with them or throw them on your salad! Unfortunately, deer also like to eat them. 

Pansies do get leggy in the heat so you may want to hold off on these for another month or two. If you already have them, don’t worry! Just cut back your pansies post-warm spell. I always put them in my fall containers because they last from now until next June. They may even self sow for you too! Such a happy plant. 

Guest

Returning to the pod this week is Steph Green from Contained Creations in Richmond, Virginia. Take a look at her Instagram @contained_creations to see her fabulous arrangements. If you’ve been watering, fertilizing, and deadheading, you might not need to update your containers. Some of us less diligent gardeners were left with dry, crusty, and heat-sick plants. This calls for a fall container refresh! 

As a retailer, Steph has to consider weather and customer demand. With one eye on the farmer’s almanac and the weather report, Steph balances meeting the consumers’ needs and respecting the constraints of mother nature. Patience is key! Pansies, violas, and cabbages--those fall container favs--don’t fare well in 90 degree heat. Hold your horses if you don’t want rubbery cabbages and droopy flowers. 

Steph’s go-to fall container formula:

1. Thriller: ornamental grass

2. Spiller: a modest trailing plant

3. Cabbage (Steph recommends Osaka Red and the Nagoya Series)

4. Flowers (pansies, perhaps?) 

Steph’s go-to color combos:

1. The Classic: yellows, oranges, reds, and rusts.

2. The Blues: purples, plums, blues, and silvers (Steph’s favorite!) 

3. The Wine Series: everything burgundy (e.g., Dragon's Breath Celosia, red cabbage, red fountain grass, and burgundy pansies.)

Steph’s hack:

You’ve already completed your arrangement when you step back and realize your container is in need of a pop of color or there’s a gaping hole that needs to be filled. Fear not! Steph gave us permission to cheat a lil. 

By using corn husk pumpkins, moss covered lotus pods, pinecones, and more, you can improve the arrangement and multiply the whimsy.

Steph recommends using this sealant to protect your ornaments from the elements: https://www.krylon.com/products/clear-sealer/

Tune into the pod for even more tips and tricks from Steph (and some light chrysanthemum bashing--sorry not sorry!)

The Play List 

• Order your bulbs!!!

• Edit your perennials--spread what you like, ditch what you don’t

• Fall containers? At least start to think about it

• Leaves--enjoy them and talk to your landscaper, your spouse, or yourself about the possibility of letting them stay on garden beds as mulch. 

• Don’t let leaves pile up at the base of boxwoods or trees, particularly new ones, which need air circulation to remain healthy and continue developing. 

• Keep an eye out for the spotted lanternfly. (Just wait till I tell you about the Asian jumping worm on next week’s pod… Yikes!)

Listen

Rusty Gear (writer of my theme song) graces the podcast at minute 41:40 with a live performance and mini-interview! 

Rusty’s website: https://www.rustygearmusic.com/

His latest EP extended play: https://www.rustygearmusic.com/my-songs

31: Begonia Grandis, Marianne Willburn, Spotted Lanternfly

Beware the Spotted Lanternfly

Source: http://www.invasivespeciesva.org/species/spotted-lanternfly

A quick PSA before we get to the pod: 

The spotted lanternfly has been spotted (ha!) in Albemarle county. This Chinese invasive is quite a menace, striking fear in the hearts of all farmers and gardeners. Please keep your eyes peeled for these guys—they’re not hard to identify given their striking spots. If you come across a spotted lanternfly, please follow these simple steps:

1. Kill it (Sorry, it’s a harsh world out there, folks!)

2. Report it here 

Plant of the Week

Begonia grandis is the perfect share plant. Also known as the hearty begonia, this perennial is a noninvasive native of China. It spreads by seed, although I’ve seen little bits survive in my compost pile just like a choleus might. It grows in zones 6-7, which seems narrow, but given the C-shape of the zone, this includes the Northeast down to the Carolinas, Tennessee, over to Arizona and even parts of the Pacific South West. I like Begonia grandis for its good-looking foliage—pale olive green and heart-shaped leaves. Don’t let “grandis” fool you, its flowers aren’t big or bombastic, but rather subtle and sophisticated small pink flowers. It will accommodate wet or dry soil, and anywhere from partial sun to full shade. Very easy to edit and share, keep an eye out for Begonia grandis at your next plant swap. 

Guest

This week, writer and gardener Marianne Wilburn joined me on the pod. She is a monthly columnist for the American Gardener Magazine, as well as a writer for Garden Rant. You can also find her personal blogs here. We talk about all things plant marketing, plant sharing, even the native vs. nonnative debate and the oh-so-controversial Lawn. I found her article “In Defense of Plants without Press” to be particularly inspiring. In the world of plant patents and marketing campaigns, what happens to those older plants without a publicity team? Wilburn and I discuss what is at stake in this new marketplace, and how we can preserve fantastic cultivars and species by being mindful consumers. 

We also discuss these two of her more controversial takes: “In Defense of Inclusive Biodiversity” and “In Defense of Lawn.” We debate whether vilifying nonnatives and lawns and moralizing gardening can deter would-be gardeners from participating, leading to less biodiversity and less food for our precious pollinators. Is perfect the enemy of the good, here? Listen in and decide for yourself! 

I had SO much fun chatting with Marianne Willburn. I could’ve talked to her for hours (really), but I spared you all. 

Find Marianne on Instagram @smalltowngardener and on Facebook at The Small Town Gardener. Oh, and do go and check out her books Big Dreams, Small Gardens and Tropical Plants and How to Love Them. 

The Play List 

I’ve got one thing and one thing only to say to you: Order your spring bulbs RIGHT NOW!

This is not a drill, they are running out as we speak! I recommend the Colorblends bulb catalogue. I like them for their nifty bulb collections and the fact that they use plain english, my favorite kind of english. I also like Brent & Becky’s Bulbs. 

Listen

Speaking of Brent and Becky, Brent Heath joined Joe Lamp’l on episode 224 of the Joe Gardener Show. Here are some of the highlights:

1. Order your bulbs now (seriously guys!) 

2. Don’t forget you can plant in pots. Your tulips will be safer from hungry deer on your porch than in your yard. 

3. Plant bulbs among perennials to hide the browning foliage.

4. Plant in full sun if you want your plants to perennialize. 

5. Treat tulips as annuals and you’ll never be sad, only pleasantly surprised. 

Listen in!

30: Snow on the Mountain, Peggy Cornett at Tufton Farm

Plant of the Week

Euphorbia marginata is a really unique plant! An annual native to North America, it really stands out at this time of year because of the fresh green leaves with white margins. You may see Snow on the Mountain (its common name), but I see the fresh green of spring. Reminds me of half of a preppy color combo from the Talbots catalogue in the 80’s. Get some seeds from The Thomas Jefferson Center for Historic Plants, where I visited Peggy Cornett, Curator of Plants at Monticello.

This great photo shamelessly stolen from Wikipedia. i was having too much fun chatting with Peggy to remember to take photos, silly me.

Guest

Peggy Cornett was one of the early guests on the show last spring, and we talked a lot about Monticello. But this time I visited her at Tufton Farm, which is about 2 miles from Monticello, and was owned by Thomas Jefferson. This property is now home to the Thomas Jefferson Center for Historic Plants. We had so much fun wandering around and talking about plants that caught our my eye (she was very patient with my questions), and some of the ones that we chat about are the Iris domestica (formerly Belamcamda chinesis—which Mr. Jefferson grew!), the Amsonia ciliata (Sand Hills Blue Star), and the Noisette roses. I almost typed in Nicoise. Huh, must be time for lunch cuz I’m pretty sure that’s a salad. But the Noisette roses were in good bloom, especially for central Virginia in August in drought, and they are good ones for you to look into because they are fairly disease resistant, repeat blooming, clearly drought tough, and historical! Here’s an article on TJ’s site outlining the history.

For more information on garden related events at Monticello, you can visit Peggy’s Monticello Farm and Garden Facebook page. Have a look!

The Play List

Have you seen that funny bit on the 12 seasons of Charlottesville Weather? Yeah, I sort of got caught in the False Fall thing, because as I was recording I was all ‘cooling down!’ and ‘move and divide your plants!’ but as I write this I am more ‘where’s the sprinkler’ and ‘oh lord, make it stop’ with 90 degrees coming in soon. This is life in Virginia, and maybe where you are too.
So if you do get a break on temps, or if you can make sure you are going to water, then yes, do…

• Divide and transplant things where you want them

• Shop for tatty perennials on sale. If the roots are good, take it home and the foliage will follow suit next season

• Oh gosh, I FORGOT to mention that you should be buying bulbs! Because everyone else is. Except me—we need to get on this now before all the organized people take the good stuff!

Listen

Such silliness, but there is an Aussie country tune called Snow on the Mountain. A cultural note, and I can say this because I have lived in Oz (I mean, not more than 17 months altogether, but still, more than most): Buddy Williams, the artist, doesn’t try to hide his accent like current recording artists with accents do. Laugh is “loff’, have is ‘half’, mountain is ‘montayne’. It’s pretty adorable.