13,520 Garden Web Discussions | Perennials
Thank you for the kind words!
The Hansa has a sort of suckering habit but I don't mind it--it's easy to relocate a chunk! I love the Katsura--that and the Dogwoods are my favorite trees! The Juniper I've decided to not be snobby about--can't beat that evergreen color, so I'm embracing the Junipers LOL. Of course, it helps that I'm trying to cover bare ground. I wish I'd planted more trees early on, for sure! I need some Japanese Maples, I think!
GH, yes I have lots of room to garden--only presently cultivating a couple of acres or so.
I've certainly had my share of troubles with Heuchera also in the past and swore off of them for many years after spending money on several cultivars that left the greenhouse looking robust and healthy only to slowly dwindle in the garden.
I started trying Heucheras again when they began releasing the hybrids crossed with H. villosa, which is supposed to impart heat tolerance. It's been a totally different ballgame. The ones that have performed well for me include: 'Creme Brulee', 'Miracle', 'Pistache', and 'Southern Comfort'. They are planted in well-drained and somewhat dry soil in shade. Our summer has been one of the hottest I can remember with periods of no rain and 'Pistache' and 'Southern Comfort' particularly have been exemplary performers.
Camp, it is called WORK IN PROGRESS. Not even a A "work in progress" but WORK in progress. The "A" would connote that i possibly have a plan with an ultimate goal and maybe even a vague schedule with a completion date. HA!. I have black pots strewn around from incremental building up of beds on a rocky hill side, Rocks strewn around waiting for more rocks to magically appear. Raccoon traps . seeding and cutting trays. My signs of hope for the future. Mean while the work that is in progress is happening in my studio and helping with the clean up on the Blanco river. God that is a mess of 500 year old bald cypresses thrown like pick up sticks. So sad.
Ho, Mara. For UK tree lovers (which is pretty much the entire population), 15th October, 1987 was the night of our horrendous and legendary hurricane -115mph winds which tipped over 15 million trees - massive oaks and gigantic beeches, gone like kindling...but what an opportunity too. Replanting, clearing, regeneration - it was phenomenol...and 25 years on, the landscape was restored to greater health, diversity and utility. It was hard to feel hopeful at the time, but life will always persist and endure.
tlbean, you might want to add your zone and location information to your name. This type of question sometimes has different answers depending on where you are and it will save us having to ask every time you post.
To do that, go to Your Houzz in upper right of every page, click Edit Profile, and on the left side click advanced settings. Well down the advanced settings page is a blank labeled Climate Zone for Garden Forums along with a link to find your zone.
If you add info on your state or the nearest large city you will get even better information since zone only relates to average coldest winter temperatures.
Then return to the top of the page and click Done Editing.
(Warning for any super sensitive readers -- I think science as much as pretty and Disney. A few months ago, some hypersensitive soul got rattled of my very blurred phone photo of a hawk and its prey -- no detail observed. So it you share that sort of anxiety about real life, pass up reading this and maybe all of my posts. But I do understand -- I often do not want to watch when those PBS nature programs show a crocodile or cheetah doing what they do; I sometimes just flip the channel -- seen it before....)
Oh, boy! Can I relate to TICKS TICKS TICKS. When outside w tuck out long trousers into our socks, spray with DEET and Sawyer's (only on clothing for the latter). That helps a lot, but isn't much fun in hot weather. They deer ticks (Ixodes scapularis) hitchhike in on the dog. He's small and white and I do checks on him, but the ticks sometimes don't make themselves apparent for 20 minute or more when I spot them on his nose.
We have stone walls and that means lots of hiding places for white footed mice and chipmunks. We're in a clearing in the woods, but I even have ticks in the grass. I've tested +ve for the Lyme antibody and the doxycycline (oral, short term) seemed to keep me from getting the disease.
Roxanna, do you know what the tree company used? I don't want to harm the bees or good crawlies, but I am about ready to drop a "warhead" on these dreadful things. They can carry other disease organisms in addition to the spirochete causing Lyme disease. There is now a viral pathogen that is in the deer tick population (positive testing in New England, including MA).
You'd think some creative genius would come up with a birth control agent for this horrid little pest. Are deer ticks really "needed" for anything?
What to spray? Or should I pave the whole area. I will experiment with some home-made tick tubes (you can stuff the material into stone walls, wood piles (we heat with wood), or use doubled toilet tissue tubes (on inside the other) coated with paraffin.
I've had them attach to me in January. I've spotted them seeking on l high canes and brush. I've woken up to spot one on my pillow or the sheets. Thanks, pup-dawg. These critter exceed in detecting a suitable host (they run towards CO2, ammonia, lactic acid and other pheromone like chemicals we and other hosts give off (if in combination, the better). One way researches trap deer ticks (Ixodes scapularis) is to use dry ice (CO2) in a perforated Styrofoam box. You have to hand it to these ticks, very well evolved to do what they do. Each stage, larval, nymph, and adult, "know" just how high they need to go to get the best opportunities to attach to a host.
If you can stand it, play around with some of them--engorged ones move slower, but still move at a good clip. I took some video of an engorged one last year. It consistently walked away from the desk lamp (light). Watch how they turn themselves over or switch direction -- they apparently have some sort of air bladders that they use to alter their center of gravity.
As I was taking my phone video, I appreciated that few others would be "nuts" enough to spend an hour watching a fat tick ambulate. However, I was happy to see that some kindred spirit already has a YouTube video of her engorged deer tick in motion. Check it out.
Me, too! Your post reminded me that this was the year I wanted to clear the hill and plant climbing hydrangea on our chain link to hide the neighbor's spite fence. :)
Sigh, my yard will never be as lovely as yours, so keep the photos coming! I will live vicariously!
Thanks for the kind words! :-). The 'green garden' is our favorite part of the garden too. The front garden is the showy 'public' face of the garden. The backyard is the 'real' garden that speaks to my heart and soothes my soul (to be a bit poetic about it...!)
With azaleas, I think of an all-one-color planting as a formal one & a mix of colors as informal, more playful. The single color is always safe & uniform, but can be rather boring to me, too, unless the color sings to me. Picking a single or mixed colorway, always helpful to imagine how it will play with other colors in visual range, repeating the color or contrast with other elements. Also consider the strength of the color in various lighting. White shows up in any light, as do those shades of pink & lavender. Red can "disappear" in evening or moonlight, but the cherry & salmon reds often sidestep that issue. When I'm unsure how colors will act, I'm apt to buy the plants in bloom, arrange them & eye them from various vantage points & light exposure until I find what I like best. I'd buy two of each of the colors you're considering from a merchant with a good return policy, explaining why, and give them a tryout in their pots in my yard, returning those unwanted within a day or two. Might buy a few more to land in mixed beds for repetition to knit the garden together.
Also, looks like the size of each is different. Double Pink grows 42-54" high by 36-48" wide, as does Lavender (which you didn't mention). Red grows 36-48" high & wide, so 6" less in height with the same width as the first two. White is the smallest at 30-36" high & wide. so you need to know how much garden space you have & plan on how many of each would mature to that area, whether you want them to touch or stand apart. http://tinyurl.com/ojff984
Various sizes & colors of azaleas planted 20 years ago by the original owner here. There's a long double white hedge along the drive balanced by a triple planting of the same on the opposite corner of the house. Several low-growing reds in a similar shade to the one you're considering were planted along the porch with other low evergreens. We removed & redid that bed years back & carefully relocated some of those azaleas below a clump of mature maples halfway between the trunks & the canopy. They didn't thrive there & were later moved to another location. Keep in mind these had huge rootballs when transplanted, and when removed again two years later, tree roots hadn't grown into their root space. Would think younger plants would grow more easily in a similar situation, since other perennials planted within the roots of the maple clump have done well for years. There was one area where the individual tree roots overlapped & I couldn't find space to plant anything but bulbs (which have flourished & colonized). Planting between major roots has worked fine. If I were thinking about what you're considering, I'd first explore between the roots by digging to find out if planting there would work. When planting in those rootzones, I didn't chop off any roots, anchor or fibrous. Instead dug around them to expose them & held them to the side, putting them back in place as I planted. Knowing wherever you prune a root, more will grow, took this tack. Another mixed perennial bed skirts a large oak & the same strategy was used creating that bed & planting its roses & companions years back.
In my experience, white azalea blooms age the least gracefully, often browning & hanging on - the dirty kleenex effect - and often need to be removed for appearances sake, especially in wet weather. Colored spent blooms are barely noticeable & can be plucked or left for the petals to fall on their own. My favorite azalea planting here is a large mixed bed of reds & pinks & whites around an old apple tree. It's an entire symphony in bloom. Depending on the weather, I often need to deadhead the whites, but they do highlight the other colors & shapes beautifully. If you go with the pink, red & white mix, might place the white in the center for its smaller stature & plant the pink & red at an angle on the sides to fill in with their larger branches. If you want plants of a similar growth habit, you could center the red between the lavender & pink or bookend it with the pinks. If you prefer uniformity, you can always prune the larger ones to shape, but I rather prefer the natural look. If you can swing it, choose several of each in bloom to audition placement till they please you. You could also opt for heavily insulated individual pots or urns to bypass the planting & tree roots issue. Let us know what you decide...
Do you know the name of your lime green spirea, Marie? When it blooms, what color are the flowers?
I had two different ones and after a few years, dug both of them out. Both got much larger than the tag said they would and like you, I didn't want to spend a lot of time pruning to keep them in check. Too much trouble!
One of the nice things about the spireas is that you don't have to spend much time pruning them. You can whack them off to 6" in early spring and they will regrow and fill in within a few weeks. Mine grow where snow and ice dump off the roof and so often need this treatment and it causes no issues. I was hesitant to try it the first time, but it really does work.