45: All kinds of Christmas Plants and Dogs in the Garden with my sister Kim

Plants of the Week

You may have lots of extra plants around the house right now, so I thought it would be fun to talk about a few, and let us start with the Christmas tree. If you are thinking that a fake tree is better for the environment, check out this guest Garden Rant post by Joe Lamp’l. Apparently, the fake guys just don’t last that long, and because there is an industry devoted to the cultivation of Chistmas trees that are designed to be planted and harvested year after year, and because fake trees don’t smell like Christmas trees, cut trees are a good way to go. Real trees ready to be planted again are also a good choice, but you should know what your are doing. Here, Joe, who is practically writing this blog post for me, explains some good steps on how to do that.

Daughter-in-law goofing a few years back

But which tree? We fell in love with the Frasier fir years ago, and it has been our go-to because of the ornament hanging— small needles with stiff branches means you can load them on with abandon. Here’s an article on The Spruce (good choice, right? ) that names it as #1! So winning, but I have seen others articles that name the Balsam and the Douglas ahead of Frasier.

Check out my Amazon storefront for some Paperwhite accoutrements. I think they look best seen through glass, and either a tall vase or some attractive twigs and ribbon can keep them from flopping. Growing them in bright light will help too, Or, fix them a cocktail. If you start giving them booze when they are a few inches tall, you will stunt their growth, but only in height— the flowers will be just as lovely as if they were tea totalers.Here’s the study on it, with details, from Cornell University, called Pickling your Paperwhites.

How about a Christmas cactus? I had no idea that Thanksgiving and Easter each claim their own holiday cactus, but here’s a good video from Garden Answer on the differences among the types and how to care for them.

And lastly, the popular Poinsettia. Legend has it that they are extremely poisonous, but that is incorrect. They are simply … toxic, which most plants are! As my sister Kim points out during our chat, the number of plants that would give you a tummy ache, or worse, if you ate one is like the number of stars in the sky. Well, perhaps that is hyperbole, and many plants are edible, as we learned last week with Ellen Zachos The Backyard Forager. But you have to know which ones.

Poinsettias, like Amaryllises, can be kept as plants for years by knowledgeable and motivated gardeners. In the case of these two plants, I do not count myself among them, and choose to shop each season. Here are 2 simple tips to get them through that first season, though!

1. That shiny foil stuff holds water in which their roots would choose not to sit. Take it away or cut holes in it so the water can drain into a saucer.

2. Even a brief exposure to cold temps can make them drop their leaves so rush them around from store to house like the hot house divas that they actually are.

Guest

I am one of four siblings, and many of you know my sister Sue Ann. Brother Michael has not been on the show, but here is sister Kim, who is a professional dog trainer in Alexandria.

Okay, first, the promised puppy photos. These are all from her Instagram and she is @Canine_connection_va. And here is a link to her website.

Oh wait, this one is my granddog, Fez!

We talked about lots of ways to deal with dogs in the garden. Some of the basics were…

~ A dog should know and respond to his name

~ Positive reinforcement for good behaviors is really helpful to building a good and trusting relationship

~ If your dog is digging in your garden, you could set up a dedicated dig box for him to enjoy

~ If he’s got something objectionable is his mouth, you can train him to ‘trade’ for something suitable

~ “Leave it” an important cue, and of course recall (coming when called) is essential for having the kind of control that would enable your dog to be loose in your garden.

I have spent many wonderful hours with my various dogs in my garden— it just adds to the pleasure of being out there when you are with a peaceful, non-judgmental pal. Even one who can’t pitch in for lack of opposable thumbs.

Kim the trainer and a charge

I guess the garden isn’t the only good place to hang out with Ginny

Kim in her garden with the flower boxes her Tom made. In summer the back wall is green!

Listen

Listen to your family members and enjoy being around them.

Merry Christmas!

44: Amaryllis, Ellen Zachos The Backyard Forager, Bulbs in Pots

Plant of the Week

The Amaryllis! Which is the Hippeastrum! The taxonomy of which you don’t really have to know or care about!

But I like learning a bit as I go, and although I had known there was some minor kerfuffle about what the ‘proper’ name for this beauty is, it was fun to actually get to the bottom of it. Read on, fellow nerds… but remember, this is me, and we won’t go deep into science. The shopping part is coming soon.

In brief, the Amaryllis is a monotypic plant hailing from South Africa.

Unsplash by lynnebeclu

Monotypic means there is only one species in the genus. That is quite unusual (think Aardvarks and Gingko trees). The Amaryllis is not what you get when you shop for the bulbs that get you those beautiful flowers. Botanically, you are enjoying a Hippeastrum, which is a genus with 90 species, and they are native to the Caribbean and Central and South America.

Do you really care? The fact may serve you in some trivial situation (trivial, and about trivia, get it?) but I think we should get back to pretty flowers.

Here is a link to my Amazon storefront, and I have picked out some gorgeous ones for you! They won’t cheer you at Christmas, but hey! January and February could use a splash of color!

Janet Mavec Blog

It was fun to be featured in Janet’s blog this month. She has the most gorgeous jewelry inspired by nature, so Ginny and I posed with her Cicada Wing earrings.

I mean, they would have looked great on Ginny but probably would have gotten caught in her tendrils…

Here is her shop— you can get lovely gold jewelry at the same time you will be sporting leaves, acorns, oysters, seed pods, and of course flowers.

Below are some stunning examples of her work.

AND there are cocktails!

This one is called Roses and Rye

Guest

Ellen Zachos’s defining moment came because of a very boring sandwich. She had her eyes opened to the world of unexpected tastes taken from the wild by a colleague who grabbed a ‘weed’ and immediately improved her American cheese, mayo and white bread by sticking it into the mix.

Since then, the gardener/forager/podcaster/writer/teacher has helped spread the word to so many others, and her answer to my question of why you would even think to do this foraging thing was the best answer possible: to experience tastes that you never would know about otherwise.

It’s not easy, this foraging thing. Knowledge is the most important piece (never, no don’t ever, eat something from the wild unless you are certain it’s okay) and you can learn from Ellen by signing up for one of her courses.

Doesn’t she look like fun?

What the hell will she find in there?

Look at the lovely little starter course (for a lovely little price) that could let you know whether this is for you. And I could see how one could get hooked: it would be so satisfying to commune with nature, poking around your yard to see what is good, understanding more about the plants around you, and eventually aspiring to have a garden like Ellen’s— she has an ornamental garden containing only plants that can spice up her palette. She calls them ‘unbuyable flavors’.

Ellen is a garden writer and presenter, and she and C.L. Fornari have a charming weekly podcast called Plantrama. Their tag line: Science, Art, Dinner.. it’s all in your backyard.

Loved talking to Ellen because her enthusiasm was infectious, her knowledge was vast (quite QUITE important in this field) and, as she says on her web site, '“plants can feed body and soul”.

Garden List of Things

~ How about you put off putting away those hoses and keep watering until we get through this drought around here?

~ How about if you live up north and your haven’t yet, you drain your hoses and cut off your outdoor taps?

~ How about you finish planting those bulbs (talking to myself here) but realize that some of them could go in pots?

So many ways to do that well, and here are some links to some articles that give some good info.

Here’s one from Longfield Gardens

And here’s one from White Flower Farms, the home of the sold out, can’t wait for next year Hot Pants Tulip. Their article is called “it’s easier than you think, and it really is!

must remember to order HotPants early next year!

Lots of ways to do it right, but here are some things to avoid (from personal experience)

1. Tell Siri to tell you to make sure your pots are not dusty dry if you have them stowed in the garage or shed or some forgettable place. Check them every 3 weeks or so. They don’t want to be wet! Just not dusty dry.

2. If you have planted them in containers currently outside and planted with pansies or decorated with seasonal greens, maybe you think about whether squirrels will get into them and protect accordingly

3. Don’t do what I did and not protect tulips planted in pots then sunk in the ground. Read below, and weep a little.

Listen

Handel’s Messiah and you can learn the parts here!

Soprano Alto Tenor Bass

And here’s a local, but not really because it’s virtual (and free) chance to learn about controlling invasive alien plants in winter. Join Blue Ridge PRISM for their 2022 Winter Meeting on January 5th, 11:30 am – 1:00 pm. There will be an update of recent PRISM activities by Rod Walker, Blue Ridge PRISM President followed by your questions to our expert panel on how to control invasive plants during the winter.

Blue Ridge Prism Event

Next week, the adorable creature below, the one on the right, will join me as we talk about dogs in the garden. That’s my other sister, Kim.

She does not teach puppies to bite. Quick toy/epidermis swap right after this photo was taken.

43: Magnolia macrophylla, Tim Schipper of ColorBlends, bulb tips

Blends clockwise from top left: ‘Beyond Baroque’, ‘Stop the Car’, ‘Saints Parade’ and ‘Charm Offensive’.

All bulb photos from the ColorBlends site.

Plant of the Week

Sometimes it’s a pretty flower, sometimes it’s a useful shrub, this week, it’s like a sail in the wind. The Magnolia macrophylla, or bigleaf Magnolia, has one of the most dramatic leaves in my garden, especially at two times of year: when they are big and bright and green in spring, and then when they are big and dull and brown and actually on the ground in fall. I love how they bully all the other little leaves on the playground. Or maybe they are just covering them like a protective blanket.

Hard to tell.

Guest

Tim Schipper is a third generation bulbsman who started ColorBlends, which is my favorite place to buy spring bulbs. He and I talk about how he figured out how to do the ‘blends’, examples of which are seen below. He needs to think about color, bloom time, and height to make a good blend, and daffodil blends are just that little bit more challenging because… well, because there aren’t so many cool colors to play with.

ColorBlends was created for landscape professionals and for “the ambitious residential gardener” because they are not in the business of selling small amounts. It’s go big or go home, and I would rather go home to a home with hundreds and hundreds of flowering bulbs.

It’s easy to talk about the divas of the spring bulb world, but Tim and I also mentioned some of the lesser used but still beautiful bulbs, such as Camassia (quamash), Leucojum (snowflake), Eranthis (winter wolf’s bane) and Chionodoxa (glory of the snow), seen from top to bottom below.

The Play List

At the beginning of this episode I mention an article my husband Jeff had sent me about the possibility of a Lyme disease vaccine. Looks like it’s a ways off, but nice to know there is progress!

When planting bulbs, you want to remember that what is shady in summer could be decently sunny for early flowering bulbs in winter, not only because of the absence of a canopy of deciduous leaves, but also because of the lower angle of the sun. Very effective on a south facing hill or bank, especially.

Also, don’t feel sorry for yourself, or punish yourself, for that matter, if your tulips don’t come back well or if your other bulbs that are more perennial peter out over the years. We often plant bulbs in crowded beds with lots of other plants that have strong water needs over the summer, which is just when more flower bulbs would love to be dusty dry.

If you are the victim of impulse shopping (happens to me all the time) and end up with a small amount of bulbs that may look lonely in the landscape, consider potting them up to be in a container next spring, or forced a little early indoors. I’ll put some info on that in next week’s Blog & Pod.

‘Hotpants’ from White Flower Farm. So popular we have to wait for next year.

Oh, and because we all MUST HAVE Hotpants tulips now that we know about them from my daughter— wait! what’s this I see? Sold out? Oh NO! My daughter probably got the last two dozen. Oh well, here’s the link in case you want to get some next year.

My favorite, never-am-without gardening tools are my soil knife and my hand pruners (or secateurs), which I actually have attached to my belt when I garden like a complete nerd. What kind to I use? Okatsune, which you can get right here, and they would be especially great for you if the ones you use seem a little bit big or dull.

Listen

Joe Gardener talks about how to have your live Christmas tree survive the season on this YouTube video.

And Tom Christopher of the Growing Greener podcast interviewed Eric Fleisher of F2 Design on his December 1 episode and I wouldn’t call the whole thing riveting, unless you are okay with a healthy dose of science and a dearth of humor in your podcast choices. But it was eye opening for me, because when I harp about leaving the leaves, I usually have insect habitat in mind. Fleisher’s wording when he described the state of a piece of land from which leaves are removed year after year got my attention. He called an ecologically disturbed site. Rather damning, don’t you think?

The depletion of the soil that is deprived of the hugely important process of leaves breaking down to feed the soil makes it so. What happens in your garden in the fall? Are leaves removed? From all parts? Could you think about any adjustments?

Worth a ponder at least.

42: Winterberry and Carolyn Mullet of CarexTours

Photo by Myna on Unsplash

This week lucky listeners got a baritone version of my voice because of a head cold, and while I am griping, I may as well mention, again, that we need rain! Generally the ‘put away your hoses’ thing does not coincide with the ‘water your plants’ thing, but don’t forget that plants that are new and precious, particularly evergreens that are new and precious, will need to start the winter with some reserve moisture in the soil.

Plant of the Week

Way back in Episode #2 I mentioned this one: the Ilex verticillata, or Winterberry. You may say, c’mon, have you already run out of Plants of the Week? No, but I honestly don’t remember what inspired me to feature it back at the end of February. Maybe I saw some with the berries hanging on, but chances are pretty good that it had fed the birds by that time of year. Right now, however, you will see the green foliage right next to those red berries, making the scene very ho-ho-ho-ish. 

Image from Proven Winners. Because this plant is a winner.

This plant is native to the Eastern US and Canada, feeds all kinds of coveted songbirds, will tolerate wet soil, AND can help you out with Christmas decorations. 

One thing you need to know—it’s one of those dioecious plants, which means that the male bits are in one entity, while the female bits are found in another. That is how most humans can also be described, but it’s fairly unusual in plants (most plants are hermaphroditic with all the junk needed found in a singular plant). 

So if you want the berries, you have to get yourself a non-berrying male Winterberry too. You can plant his homely self off behind a bush somewhere so you don’t have to look at him. 

Guest

Carolyn Mullet started CarexTours for a very good reason: she was a professional garden designer who never had time to go look at beautiful gardens. Having fine-tuned the logistics of getting Americans into the loveliest public and private gardens in Europe (7-9 day trips, 10-15 gardens, great meals and accommodation), Carolyn had to take a pause during the pandemic, but is now planning for some enticing excursions in 2022. 

More information will be available on her website in the coming weeks, but it’s not too soon to start dreaming and hinting about a very special Christmas present, is it? 

Carolyn has tons of followers on Facebook and Instagram, where she posts amazing photos of her trips. She and I discussed the natural perennial movement, citing Piet Oudolf as the father of the trend—a trend that has lasted decades and shows no signs of wavering.

The Play List

Henry from Alexandria wanted to know about putting roses to bed, and the tea on that (get it? tea? tea rose? ummm, there’s something called a Hybrid Tea Rose but that pun makes me think I am getting punchy and should probably wrap this up…) is that there is no call to action at this time. Roses LOVE a good scalping in winter and early spring because they produce more flowers on new canes, and you will inspire new canes with the scalping!

Another proponent of this movement is American garden designer Kelly Norris, whose book New Naturalism is highlighted in Episode 6 of Into the Garden with Leslie.

As you can see from these photos borrowed from Carolyn’s Instagram—all Oudolf designs—the basics include texture, movement, ornamental grasses, and even seed heads. 

I would always ‘hill up’ my roses with leaves and/or mulch in winter when I lived in Connecticut, but not here in Virginia. Mine haven’t gone dormant yet!

Other calls to action in the garden this week? If you don’t have a nasty head cold, you can go outside and plant your bulbs. 

Listen

And if you do have a nasty head cold, just sit tight and wait for Episode 43, which will be all about bulbs, again, as I quiz the owner of my fave bulb source, ColorBlends. Tim Schipper and I talk all about bulbs, including, thank goodness, that it’s not too late to plant them!

Big Ups, one of the Blends that Tim and I will chat about.

41: Red Twig Dogwood, Steph Green on Christmas Containers, and pruning

I gathered the few Red Twigs I have (remember, it’s a new garden, and I keep sawing on them each winter) to make these foraged arrangements.

Photos courtesy of East Coast Garden Center, Millsboro, DE

This week on Into the Garden with Leslie, I garden-splain about why I whisk away all foliage from the perennial borders at the front of my house. You could say I am “borderline” defensive in my explanation, but perhaps that’s because I am more and more cognizant of how beneficial it is to leave things for winter. So lucky to have a large yard, most of which will be wild and unkempt all winter—some of it all year. 

It’s interesting to think of garden maintenance as ‘selfish,’ but I will be true to my aesthetics in the places where it makes me happy. It’s my garden on our planet. I hope you enjoy your garden on our planet the way you want—neatening and fussing a bit, leaving a bit for the birds and other beasties, and never feeling like any chemical is needed to help make it better for you. Because it’s yours, and ours, and it’s theirs (the beasties who wouldn’t want the chems). 

Plant of the Week

The Red Twig Dogwood is one of the most Christmas-y of all plants, and now that Thanksgiving is over (9 hours ago as I type this) we are moving on to the next event, people! 

This plant is native to much of the US, and it can grow in damp soil, which makes it a great choice for rain gardens created to help with runoff (I should do an episode on those…)

I grow the Cornus sericea, which is lovely in spring, fall, and of course, winter, but it is a bit of a green blob in summer. Four season interest is easy to achieve if you go for the Cornus alba ‘Elegantissima’ or ‘Bailhalo,’ which is pictured at left in tempting four season detail. 

This plant is so willing to be propagated that I wager half of my snips for my containers will root over the course of the winter and become new plants. All they seem to want is to have the soil that is holding them in place kept a little moist. 

And another tip is that, like roses, it’s good to prune out the old and leave the new. In terms of roses, newer branches will carry more flowers. In terms of Red Twigs, newer branches will simply be more red. 

And Christmas-y!

Guest

Steph Green is a frequent flyer on Into the Garden with Leslie, having talked us through container gardening more generally in Week 22 and then refreshing summer containers in Week 32.

It’s another change of season, and we need more Steph! She walks us through the how-to’s of putting greens together, including a tip I had never employed before I heard it from her—mounding up the soil to help show off even higher elevation for your thriller! Whether you buy cut greens or walk around your backyard to cut what you already own, fresh is best. Don’t forget that you can use an anti-desiccant spray or dunking solution to get greens to last for months.

Steph has lots of hacks to get some glitz into the mix easily, such as buying inexpensive, non-breakable (best for wind risks) balls, nicking out the hanger bit, and getting out the glue gun to jam a pick in—she makes it sound so easy, and it can be!

Steph makes sure we know that if the traditional colors float your boat, go for it, but don’t be afraid to turn away from just red and green toward something fresh and different.

For the cohesive and sophisticated look, match or at least share elements of all decor in sight—the wreath and the urns at the front door should speak to each other in color and/or texture, and if there are swags or garlands in the picture, add the same elements to them.

Steph brought up the talented group called The Hunt Country Gardeners because she is ‘obsessed’ with their use of food as decor, and not in the straight-laced Williamsburg way. If foraging is your thing, these folks take it beyond the backyard and may actually be foraging at the farmer’s market.

At the other end of the spectrum, she cited Verve Home Furnishings, the vintage store in Richmond. Lots of her clients use these exuberant (‘visible from the moon’) wreaths, and in order to tie them in, she needs some intel on the look. I mean, their tagline is “Just the right amount of wrong.” Nailed it.

And it’s not just Richmond that can get in on it. Verve is on Chairish too.

The Play List

I talk about pruning a lot in this section, and that’s ironic because fall is the one time of year when you generally want to hold off on that. But then again, we need holiday decorations, so snip away. Don’t you love conflicting gardening advice?

A Steph Contained Creation: the balls and pine cones aren’t just sitting there. They are attached to ‘picks’ or wooden sticks that anchor them into the soil below. 

Hungry? Look at this loveliness from The Hunt Country Gardeners.

Verve: You can’t argue with the energy!

Why is this image so tiny? I don’t know. I’m a gardener,

not a website expert. Clearly.

So how to reconcile these concepts? ‘Snip’ is the operative verb here. My crew and I ‘snipped’ all of the material you see in the photos to the left in order to decorate client containers.

Miscanthus puffs (take care using those if that plant is invasive in your area, or get out the hair spray to keep them in check), Magnolia foliage, Nandina berries (ditto with hair spray) or any kind of evergreen can add to the merriment.

I go over rejuvenation pruning, which is so harsh that it’s the sort of pruning you do only if you are willing to part with the plant if it dies. Most woody shrubs jump back to life after a hard prune, but if you are willing to take the chance on that, you should also be willing to replace the plant if it fails. AND, rejuvenation pruning is best done in winter, which is probably when I will chat about it more with you.

But snipping is fine, as is shaping things up that were previously hidden by a season’s worth of herbaceous perennial growth, a la my green meatballs in the front border, seen at left.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

For gardeners close to me—I will harp on this in week 42—central Virginia is quite low on water at this stage, with little rain in the long-range forecast, and this will matter for new plants and evergreens.

New plants—that’s pretty obvious. They need the wet stuff to get settled in.

Evergreens—they slow down in winter but do NOT go dormant, continuing to transpire (think of that as the botanical ‘perspire’) all winter. Your established ones are probably fine, but I will be lugging water to my new and precious ones, as I did finally put the hoses away.

Listen

Just a tiny bit of torture from me, and lucky for you, most of the singing is from Johnny Mathis, because it is indeed Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas.

40: Anthony Bellomo Arizona Cypress

Plant of the Week

Don’t you love the blue of this evergreen? Can’t you imagine snipping some to augment an actually green wreath? And the Arizona Cypress, or Hesperocyparis arizonica, complements fall foliage beautifully. When I was doing up fall or Christmas containers for clients, this little fellow was always one I fell for, but like many potted evergreens on sale in nurseries at this time of year just before the cut trees take over (Christmas is coming!) he will end up being 50’ tall and a slim-ish 20’ wide. I have 3 in my garden: one in a good spot with room to grow (and looking very intentional and color-coordinated with the blue bridge), and two wedged into quite small and silly spots. So the question is: do I move them, or let them age in place but never grow, under the care of my hand pruners?

Hmmmm, time will tell…

The Arizona Cypress makes a beautiful contrast with fresh green in spring, steps slightly into the background but still adds a layer of texture in summer, makes all the fall colors brighter in autumn, and is a joy in winter. Not locally native (its home is SW US and Mexico) but not at all invasive—maybe it’s one you should try if you live in zone 7-11. Sorry to my Yankee pals—maybe I will snip some for you at Christmas time.

One of my formerly pot-sized Hesperocyparis arizonica ‘Carolina Sapphire’ wedged into a spot it can’t stay, but I love the color for now. 

This guy! From landscape architect to shopkeeper but a gardener the whole time.

Guest

Anthony Bellomo appreciates the years he put into designing large public spaces as a landscape architect and believes that experience serves him well when concentrating on smaller scale and more personal beauty in his new shop Orangerie in Millbrook, New York. He gets to sell the plants and aesthetic he really cares about, taking care that visitors get a visual delight and a shopping experience for deep pockets and conservative budgets alike. 

From Orangerie, he runs a design studio that allows him to tap into his LA background, while the personal garden that he shares with Christopher Spitzmiller at Clove Brook Farm is a constantly creative oasis for both of them. And dogs. And chickens. And geese.

I’m convinced. Going to drive up from Greenwich with my daughter next week!

Above: Anthony’s design offerings via Orangerie Garden.

The Play List

Do we feed indoor plants over the winter? No, actually—just let them hunker down and get through it. They don’t grow that much in winter, and there’s no reason to encourage an activity that, cellularly speaking, they don’t instinctively take on. Thanks, Kim!

What’s the best way to avoid walking back to the shed for yet another tool? I find I can get almost all of what I want to get done by strapping on my hand pruners and soil knife. But I can’t seem to keep the shovel and shears strapped on, so it’s back to the shed I go for those. Thanks, Becky!

What’s the best bucket or trug to use? My go-to trug is the Red Gorilla trug. I have tried the standard 5 gallon bucket, but it’s too narrow—I like to toss from afar, and the handle isn’t comfy if you need it to carry water. I have tried imitation trugs, but they don’t last long. Red Gorilla makes the best one. And they don’t even sponsor me! Yet. 

• Stow your hoses and turn off the outdoor taps for winter

• More bulb planting

• Leaf patrol 

And lastly, get ready for Christmas! Steph Green will be back to help us plan in episode 41. 

Listen

Christy Wilhelmi takes 8 minutes to clearly and scientifically explain the difference between compost and fertilizer in this YouTube video. I took almost that long to make a hash of her explanation on this week’s pod, so maybe take your 8 minutes and go there instead. 

39: Fall Fiesta, Erin the Impatient Gardener

Plant of the Week to Eradicate

The Burning Bush is SO not the plant of the week. Pictured below, it has so much fall beauty that it is actually still sold in some nurseries. If you were to see it in a nursery, far be it from me to recommend strident indignation, but if you would politely (kindly, even) inform the buyer (perhaps leave a note for him or her if some wide-eyed cashier, definitely hired for retail skills instead of horticultural prowess, gives you no hope of comprehension) that the Euonymus alatus is an alien invasive that is taking over native plant habitats. 

Such a beautiful no no! The Burning Bush won’t be able to hide in your yard at this time of year. Seek and destroy. Please.

Plant of the Week to Celebrate

On the other hand, Acer saccharum ‘Bailsta’ Fall Fiesta, would be more of a ‘seek and procure’ plant. It has amazing fall colors of yellow, orange, AND red. Native to the northeastern U.S., these well-formed, fast-growing trees are what drives peepers to book the B&Bs a year in advance. Choose a place in your yard carefully, as it grows to 50 feet.

Gorgeous.

Guest

Erin Schanen the Impatient Gardener lives in southeastern Wisconsin, and she has a wonderful garden blog. She is very knowledgeable and shares garden goodness on Facebook, Instagram, and her YouTube videos. Erin and I had a wide-ranging chat from garden styles to native plant theories—she sort of sees it the same way I do: any plants at all (well, maybe not alien invasives) are better than just a lawn. But she doesn’t seem to suffer from guilt like I do, which would be much more freeing. I need to look into that.

She plants tons of natives, though, and recently designed a naturalistic garden that she described for us in pretty good detail on the pod. Here’s a recent YouTube that she posted about augmenting the garden with spring bulbs. She thinks she planted too many. I think you can never plant too many, so our slightly guilty complexes are reversed on this topic.

One of the many things I loved about talking with Erin was her great attitude. No stuffiness, no rules—just experimentation, learning, fails, and fun. Here’s an example: a video entitled Four Plants that Look Terrible in my Garden Right Now.

The Play List

Divide a perennial: Shovel it up and slice it into 2-3 pieces using your soil knife or your shovel. If it’s really recalcitrant, jump pogo style on the shovel. Re-plant a third and spread the other bits around. Remember, big groups of plants are often more attractive than the polka dot look.

Plant a tree: Small is good, not only for the patient and thrifty gardener, but for the health of the tree. Dig a hole 2-3 times as wide as the roots but no deeper, and make sure there are no roots wrapped around the trunk that would strangle it later. If it’s Ball and Burlap, remove the twine, remove the wire, and remove as much of the burlap as you can. Planting a tiny bit too high (it will settle) is always better than too low. The tree needs to breathe where the trunk flares out.

Plant some bulbs: Check out last week’s blog and pod for more.

Use your compost: Not so much, right now… I mean you could, but with all that free top dressing falling out of the trees, you may just want to let it sit and cook a while.

Drain and store your hoses: do you think that including this in the list for several weeks now will FINALLY inspire me to do that? Fingers crossed.

Listen

Simply classic: Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong’s Autumn in New York.

And Autumn in Charlottesville isn’t too shabby.

38: Ajania pacifica, Sister Sue Ann, Bulbs

Plant of the Week

The final curtain is about to go down in terms of blooms in my garden, and the last up to the plate, ready to steal the show for the game-winning touchdown is the ultimate buzzer beater. If you are still reading after all that silliness, you must be interested to know that the Ajania pacifica is a very, very late-blooming perennial! Hailing from Asia, like most of my guilty garden pleasures, this compact, front row performer sits quietly all season with its subtly variegated foliage. I do a pre-prune or two, but may not need to, as I have never seen it flop. It wants full sun and drier-than-not average soil. After behaving itself all summer and into the fall, little cute dots of yellow joy visit me! The common name of Silver and Gold is very apt.

Guest

When Sister Sue Ann from Delaware comes on the show, I try to play the expert to her normal gardener status. While my expertise is never all that impressive, we always have fun! And, truth be told, I have planted more bulbs in my life than the average bear, so I felt pretty confident on this topic. 

When— really anytime from September through December, before the ground freezes or your cute toes might. 

How deep— about 2-3 times the size of the bulb. Go deep for those huge Alliums, but there is not much exercise involved in planting crocuses and Glory of the Snow, which are tiny.

Where— most bulbs come from Central Asia or the Mediterranean—places with really good drainage. Except for one of my favorite late ones, the Camassia, avoid boggy soil and try for full sun. 

How— That depends on the look you want. You can plant a LOT of bulbs very quickly by using a big shovel, stabbing down, flipping the soil up, shoving the bulbs in, and then just letting the flap of soil close over the top of the bulbs. If you want the formal look, get a soil knife or even an auger and go one at a time, 2-3 inches apart.

Critters?— The only ones that are well and truly critter-resistant—both for the bulbs in the ground and the flowers in spring—are Snow Drops, Daffodils, and Snow Flakes (Leucojum). They contain licorice, I mean Lycorine, which is toxic to animals. For the others—do your best, and there are peppers and sprays which can help protect. 

See the silver? See the gold? Riches of autumn loveliness.

Stock photo shamelessly stolen from Unsplash.

I got an email that was titled $20 for 20 million acres and that got my attention! Doug Tallamy and Michelle Alfandari are raising money, in a most tempting way, to try to get the word out about the Home Grown National Park! Go have a look and sign up, and part with that tiny amount for an excellent cause. Even if it’s not the amazing real estate transaction it sounds like, it still feels good to participate!

Hey, I forgot to keep going with the compost info… In Week 34, I talked about how to get the kitchen stuff collected without inviting fruit flies and threatening your marriage. In Week 35, we got the goods out to the tumbler and added carbon in the form of the WSJ. This week, I talk about how to get the stuff out of the tumbler and into a regular compost pile. So simple that I don’t need a photo:

1. Wait until you will need a shower anyway (you don’t feel really clean when you do this step). 2. Take an old handleless shovel and scoop it out of the tumbler. 3. Bury it in a ‘real’ debris compost pile, and you will never know it was ever banana peels and coffee grounds. It’s like magic! 

Next week, I will talk about what to do with compost in the garden, but if you want more info on how easy it can be, don’t forget to listen to Margaret Roach’s interview with Cary Oshins that I mentioned in Week 36. 

The Play List

Plant garlic and shallots— it’s the perfect time here in central VA, and I am going to put them in my front ornamental border for kicks, a la Brie the Plant Lady!

Leaf control— control leaves on the lawn and on any little plants you still want to see, but also try to restrain your volume of leaf control—rakes are nice. 

Killing frost— it’s funny how just a few degrees can make a difference. Last night, it got down to 32 here, and some of the more exposed coleus is toast, but others aren’t and all other annuals are fine!

I am talking the talk, but not yet walking the walk (this week!!) of draining and storing hoses.

Listen

To me! As if you haven’t done that enough, but if you would like to hear my presentation to the All Hallows Guild of the National Cathedral about getting Frederick Law Olmsted into your garden, go here. It’s too late for him to visit you, unfortunately, but he and his son had some good ideas about landscape design that you could take advantage of!