Tomato Supports

Here’s how to make an easy tomato support or an instant garden fence. Lash the poles together and either use string to train your tomatoes up or hang netting over the support for pole beans or morning glories (or any other climber you fancy growing) up the netting.

This easy system takes 5 minutes to construct and will easily last all summer. It does create quite a windbreak when the plants are fully grown so you may want to anchor it into the ground in a windy area. Last year, our bean support blew over in a windstorm (luckily at the end of the season).

Planting Tomatoes

It’s been so cold here that we’ve just planted our tomatoes and aren’t sure what’s going to happen with the yields. Here’s how I do it - nothing fancy but fast and easy.

Remember the cardinal rule and you’ll be fine - only leave 6 inches of stem showing above ground (more or less, it isn’t rocket science) and the stem will root.

And water thoroughly after you plant.

What else do you need to know? Oh yeah, I’ll be showing you other updates on tomato staking etc in future videos.

Number One in Vegetable Gardening

There’s a certain satisfaction reaching number one in any endeavor and it’s particularly satisfying when your book goes to the top of the sales charts. Here’s a screen shot of my book numbers on Amazon.ca today.

What you have to squint to see is

1 in Books > Home & Garden > Gardening & Horticulture > Regional > Canada
#3 in Books > Home & Garden > Gardening & Horticulture > Vegetables

#1 in Gardening in Canada and #3 in Overall Gardening>Vegetables.

Life seems sweeter some days.

Ground Covers

I think we’ve just entered that specific time of year we all love to read about - the annual “guys-search for less work in the garden and less-mowing question time”. In answer to those burning questions about ground covers, which ones work and how they can replace lawns, here are the practical details.

Ground covers work really well in garden settings where you can control weeds. Because contrary to established wishful thinking, weeds do invade ground covers and the only way to remove them is to hand-weed. So if you’re thinking of pulling out the lawn and installing some funky ground cover because it’s less work, let me assure you that you’ll be exchanging an hour of mowing for an hour of hand weeding each week. And unlike the lawn, if you let it get away from you and get really bad, you can’t just whack it to the ground and let it regrow. You’ll have to go in and really do the weeding. Keeping grass and weeds out of ground cover beds can be a lot of work. Ground covers are, in my opinion, a gardening answer to what would look good in masses, not the answer to what will replace grass and be less work.

Climbing Hydrangea as Ground Cover

Don’t ground covers stop weeds? Well, yes and no. Once they’re well-established and growing nicely, they shade the soil. This shade will stop most weed seeds from germinating. Notice the qualification of the word, “most weed seeds”? Garden reality is that there is always maintenance to be done because there are always seeds being introduced via the wind, animals and birds. No matter how thick your ground cover, there are always some plants that will try to take over that area. That’s how Mother Nature works in plant succession; taller plants invade shorter ones, and taller plants invade those until you have tall forests shading the ground where you started with creeping thyme. Give a plant a toehold and it will take root, propagate itself and before you know it, you have a problem of weeds and other “stuff” where you least want it. Before you ask, I think weeding in ground covers is a major pain because no matter how careful you are, it always seems you pull out or disturb as many ground cover plants as you do weeds.

The number two question about ground covers is the hopeful one of what will grow under a (insert one- pine, cedar, big blue spruce tree)? The problem here is that grass won’t because it wants a lot of sun. The space under a dense evergreen is just too dry and shady to support much great growth of darn near anything. So plants struggle on the edges of evergreen plants but underneath them, not much will grow. I suggest a thick layer of attractive mulch and don’t cut up the lower branches of the trees but allow them to spread the way Mother Nature intended them to. If you water heavily and grow on the edges of the tree shade, you can grow a garden but you’ll need more light and water than this kind of tree is willingly going to give.

Another favourite this time of year is what can I do with that slope? It’s too hard to mow and sometimes too dangerous. This is a tough one. The deal with slopes is that they require something that will hold the soil from eroding. But you want them to look good at the same time, you want neat, orderly and good looking. Mother Nature wants great root growth and plant variety. There’s a conflict there that sometimes defies solution. So if you just want to hold a shady slope in place then plants such as vinca are wonderful. They’ll grow quite quickly once established and will do a nice job of stabilizing a slope. Weeds will invade and that’s OK if the objective is to stabilize. You could use spreading ornamental grass or vines such as Virginia creeper in sunnier spots to hold the bank. It won’t look cultivated after a season or two, but it will hold the bank. While I’ve written about this before, if you objective in growing is to reduce work and have the bank look good, then my suggestion is you go with shrubs, evergreens, landscape fabric and mulch. Garden it up with larger spreading plants rather than try to ground cover it up with plants that will require high levels of maintenance. Or allow it to grow wild and let nature take care of its own. There are no middle grounds here for this kind of location.

This probably sounds as if I’m death on wheels on ground covers. Not so. I just want folks to use them appropriately and understand what they do. I think there’s a ton of marketing information that’s given out in bad faith about how these plants really work, just like there are implied promises that all perennials live for a very long time. The reality is that all plants have a role in the garden, you simply have to understand their strengths and weaknesses. If you want a broad swath of plants and if you’re prepared to prepare the ground properly and maintain them both while they are establishing and afterwards, a ground cover bed can be a stunning bit of landscaping. There are few things nicer in a cool, shady garden area than a bed of hosta as ground covers or the shiny-leaved Pachysandra ‘Green Sheen’. Sunny areas and huge swathes of daylilies or shrub combinations can be absolutely stunning on a large scale or patterned thyme varieties on a much smaller scale.

Just understand what it is you need to accomplish and what Mother Nature and the plants have in mind.

Hellebore in Bloom

One of the delights in coming home after a long, tough winter in the Keys (hey, it got down as low as 55F one night!) is seeing the Hellebore in bloom. We rolled in the driveway and after getting the important stuff into the house (the Princess’ stuff) - I wandered out to see how the garden looked.

No snow - lots of nice blooms in both the pink and white H. orientalis hybrids that should flower this year. I was pretty pleased.

First night back, I woke up to the shore across the channel obscured by snow squalls and the ground around the house totally white. What’s with this? I thought my contract called for no snow or winter this year but I was told there’s a fine print clause inserted by Mother Nature. (something about she gets to do what she wants independently of what I want)

But the bottom line in case you’re wondering is that I don’t really care. Tough spring bloomers such as Hellebore and the spring bulbs will be fine with snow and temperatures in the mid-20’s to 30’s F. They’ll simply shrug off the snow and provide me with a quick look at spring in Canada.

Sigh. Where’s a mojito when you need one?

Vegetable Gardening Because

There’s a media feeding frenzy developing over vegetable gardening. Who woulda thunk it? Only a few short years ago, vegetable gardening was the poor Cinderella who never got to go to the ball, had to leave early and was downtrodden at every turn.

Seems the Prince found both the magic slipper and the princess and we have vegetable gardening being deified every time you look around.

We get to read about the Obamas having a white house vegetable garden. Right. There’s the Prez and company out on the lawn making the garden - taking all that sod and developing a garden with rakes. Oh yeah, now’s there’s an idea. Let’s all go out and get rid of sod with a rake - that’s a great tool for the job. The report that after the photo-op a tiller and tractor loader was brought in to do the real work only makes sense.

Mind you, before this was reported, there was breathless prose about the entire affair and how good it is for the U.S. But we all know the involvement of the first family is symbolic anyway so what’s the big deal. Take a few minutes, go out for a photo-op, then back into running the known world. Take it with the grain of salt it demands.

As a non-American during this excitement, all I can wonder is “What took you folks so long?” Keeping your presidents occupied in the garden is probably a really good thing for the rest of the world - at least they can’t get the rest of us in trouble if they’re out there weeding. Speaking for the rest of Canada, a position I adopt reluctantly, we just want to get politely back to our gardens and tell you to get back to tending your back yards. And no, we have gardeners to take care of our important gardens. The actual leader of our country - the Governor-General - has a magnificent garden and the last time I visited it did indeed have a vegetable and herb section (haven’t been there recently so need a confirmation on that).

Then there’s the Victory Gardening folks. Some of these are good friends but really, what’s it a victory over? Some greedy bankers?

Victory Gardens operated during the First and Second World Wars in all the major warring nations: Germany, the U.K (where it goes back to the 1600’s), Canada, the Aussies (??? please confirm if so - couldn’t find a reference) and the U.S. and although the US didn’t enter the first world war until it was well underway (War starts officially on June 28, 1914 - the United States declared war with Germany on April 6, 1917, and on December 7, 1917, with Austria-Hungary while the Armistice Treaty was signed on Nov 11, 1918) your leaders thought Americans should be prepared for the rationing that was going on in other parts of the world - given the preponderance of US readers of this blog, here’s a link to the US Victory Garden history. http://knol.google.com/k/pamela-price/the-american-victory-garden-past-present/ywdp8×5jtr5l/2#

So if you’re looking to promote gardening, I guess you could call it a Victory Garden but as soon as peace is declared do folks stop vegetable gardening again?

Not only do we now have breathless prose for Victory Gardening, we also have the pundits arguing about how much it costs to actually have a vegetable garden. Good grief. Don’t these people have anything better to air-head about? It must be a slow day in the idea-department. Of course your garden is going to be expensive if you have to write off a brand new anythings against that single tomato plant. The last time this kind of “debate” raged was back in the 70’s when we all knew it was tongue-in-cheek to cost out the roto-tiller, the fencing, the nanny to watch over the kids, the 4×4 to haul the produce to market etc etc etc. And equally spurious is bragging about how much money you saved on your garden - how do you do the damnable accounting (all accounting is damnable - not just garden-accounting)?

I should tell you that at least Joe Lampl is having fun with the idea and is actually working with the idea of the $25/garden. Go Joe. In fact, go there and have fun trying to do the same thing.

Me? Nah, I’m still accounting my new John Deere against the cost of my garden.

I garden for myself - not for victory over bankers and politicians who decide that greed is acceptable. I garden because I love the taste of fresh food, not for the economics. I garden because it makes me feel good inside - not because it makes me patriotic. I garden because …well, just because.

I don’t need your Victory Garden, I don’t need your gardening jingoism. I just want my garden.

March Garden Chores

It would appear that March came in like a lion and I’m told there’s a whole lot of hoping it’s going back out like a lamb this year. Does this mean anything to our flower gardens? Not much. The perennials are still well and truly dormant, the bulbs are sleeping away in no danger of waking up and our shrubs are still tightly-budded waiting for a glimpse, any glimpse, of spring. So you can stop worrying about all those things, even if they are having a problem there’s not much you can do right now. There are however, several things you can be thinking of in the ornamental garden right now.

Pruning Shrubs and Roses

The first of those is pruning back shrubs and big rose bushes. As soon as the snow even begins to give us some working room around the plants, you can get out there and prune, clean up and renovate your old summer-blooming shrubs. Do not do this with spring blooming shrubs such as lilacs or forsythia if you want to see flowers this spring. Remember that their flowers are already in the buds, just waiting for spring to release them and if you prune them off, you’re going to remove those flower buds. If that plant requires a renovation pruning, you are going to have to suck it up and accept a year without blooms. If you’re not renovation pruning, then wait until the spring blooming shrub has finished blooming before you take the shears to it. The big rose bushes can, for the most part, be pruned back heavily as soon as the snow disappears. The majority of them bloom on new growth and renovation pruning will produce scads of new shoots and new buds.

Fruit Trees

If you have fruit trees, then now is a great time to go outdoors and start cleaning them up and pruning for next year’s growth. Yes, you will be removing some buds in the pruning but if you’re doing it right, you’ll be increasing the harvest next year. This is why pruning fruit trees tends to be a yearly affair; you’re constantly trimming and making the plant ready to produce a good harvest the next year. Even if you’re not interested in pruning the trees, a still and slightly-above freezing day in March is the absolutely best time to spray the tree with dormant oil. I rather like the dormant oil and lime combinations on the market but straight dormant oil is fine. Spray in the morning on a nice day when the weather won’t freeze that day. A non-freezing day will allow the water in the mix to evaporate leaving the oil in place on the plants. The oil will, if you’ve sprayed heavily enough, coat all the cracks in the bark and do its job of smothering overwintering disease and insects. This is step one in protecting all fruit trees and even bushes. Do read the label because there are some plants dormant oil will wreck and you don’t want to kill your own garden with kindness.

Container Gardening Reality Check

I’m told that March is a great time to get out the flower pots, clean them up and get ready for spring planting. I confess I’ve never done this. My flower pots get used from year to year with no cleaning whatsoever. I figure that old soil on the bottom worked hard to stay there all winter so who am I to take it out with some hard elbow-grease. Frankly, it’s the elbow-grease I object to so I don’t do this work. And nope, I’ve never seen a problem with soil diseases from my somewhat dirty pots. I do knock most of the soil out of them if I’m going to be using new soil but I never clean the insides past a cursory hand-swipe. Reminds me of how I clean my office.

Gardening Catalogs

One of the other things I should be doing this March is browsing catalogues and finding that last minute plant for that special spot in the garden. And I would be for sure if our house wasn’t going to be renovated later on this coming summer. Anything I did within 10 m (30-feet) of the house is either going to be trampled by the carpenters or squished by the backhoe. Outside of that range, I’m building raised beds for plant trials, vegetable gardens and a massive shade garden. There’s just not enough soil on this property so all the beds are going to have to be raised so I can garden properly. For the most part, gardening this year is one of having a bigger vegetable garden, growing trial plants and collecting one or two new plants later in the year for fall planting in the shade gardens. But you should be dreaming now, you should be wandering lustfully through magazine ads and requesting catalogues as fast as your email can allow. Sorting through all the new stuff making lists to take to your favourite garden shop this spring might help you while away a few of these all to brief snowy winter evenings. Or not. I’m working my way through the new plant lists on the wholesale suppliers so I can get a handle on what you might be seeing this spring, Canadian information on new available plants is pretty thin compared to U.S. sources but next week, I’m going to give you a few plants to look for.

Starting Vegetable Seeds

The last thing I’d be doing toward the end of the month is sowing seeds such as tomatoes, peppers and cole crops. I wrote about timing of these plants a few weeks ago and I’m hoping it helped with your seeding scheduling. A bit later is often a bit better than earlier which is a good thing because I do tend to put this off a bit more than I should.

Prune, spray and dream your way through March. I can hear that lamb in the wings.

Vegetable Seeding Dates

This is the everything you ever wanted to know about vegetable seeding dates post. I get asked for this info on a regular basis so here it is in one spot, in one column for you to cut out and pin somewhere.

Let’s break the plants down into different families with the same kinds of needs. The first and easiest are the cole crops. These would include Brussels sprouts, cabbages, cauliflower and broccoli, To get nice transplants, sow indoors between February 15 until March 15. Any time now is fine for an indoor sowing. You can also sow cauliflower outside at the end of May for a late season crop. Cabbage seed can be planted outside from the middle of May until the middle of June for late crops. Broccoli can be planted outside from the middle of May to the middle of June.

Tomatoes, eggplant and peppers should both be started indoors if you want to get maximum yields and the time to this is from the beginning of March through to the beginning of April. The rough rule of thumb is that you count back 8 to 10 weeks from the time you want to plant them in the ground and that’s when you sow the seed indoors. Seeds planted a week or two after April 1 are not going to have enough time to grow and produce a good harvest in our area. Outdoor seeding is not recommended in our region for these plants. If you plant these seeds too early, they’ll get long and leggy and will require special handling in the spring.

There are some seeds that thrive on early plantings; for example, as soon as you can work your garden soil you want to start planting peas. Plan on sowing peas in mid-April and then again on August 1 for a fall harvest. Don’t plant later than the end of April as the oncoming heat will reduce harvests. The plants will grow well, they just won’t give you many peas when compared to earlier plantings.

Beets are another seed that thrive on mid-April planting but in this case, you can plant every 10 days until July if you really like beets.

Spinach and Swiss chard are two other plants that really want the early plantings so plan on getting them in the ground at the same time and stopping by mid-May. Both plants do not do well in summer heat so later plantings will tend to bolt and go to seed.

Contrary to what many folks believe, lettuce is also an early spring planting and it too can go into the ground in mid-April. The trick with this plant though is to plant a few seeds every week right through to July when the heat gets too intense for lettuce production. Stop for July and start again in late August for the cooler fall season.

Finally, if you’re not tucking a few seeds of radish here and there among the rest of the seedlings, you’re missing out. Do not grow an entire row of radish as they tend to get bitter very quickly. Grow a few here and there and harvest them as early as you can. Keep on sowing these right through the summer. Just don’t let them mature and expect to enjoy them.

Onions are one of the cool season crops as well and if you purchase sets, these can be planted along with the other cool season crops above. If you’re starting from seed, the seed can either be started indoors in mid-February to early March or it can be sown outside in mid-April. Transplanted seedlings can go into the ground in late April or early May through to mid-June.

On the other hand, beans can be sown outdoors (never indoors) from the long weekend onwards. Sow a new crop every 10 days until the end of July for an ongoing harvest all summer long. Sweet corn can also be planted from mid-May onwards until mid to late June.

Plants that want warmer soils include the squash family and melon family along with the cucurbit family. Putting these outside too early is a sentence of death rather than a gardening wish. So your giant pumpkins get started in mid-April and so do the watermelons.

Sow cucumber seed indoors from the middle of April to the beginning of May. They are both very fast growers and only require 3 to 4 weeks in their own small pot before you put them outside in the garden. You can plant them directly into the garden but do not do that until early June to give the soil a chance to warm up.

When it comes to the other salad plants, corn salad goes outdoors from mid-April until the beginning of May.

Endive is planted in mid-April and then again the first week of July for a fall crop.

Turnips can be used as either greens or roots and they’re planted in late May.

Collards start on June first and are planted weekly until early August.

Mesclun, which is simply a mix of lettuce and other greens, can be planted in mid-April and should be resown weekly until early July.

The small specialty root crops such as celeriac and kohlrabi are started early outdoors and can be resown every week until the end of June. Parsnips are an early to mid-May outdoor started seed.

I understand there’s a lot of information compressed into a few short words, but I hope it helps you sort out when you can plant for maximum harvest. Give the plant what it wants and you’ll both be happier.

Potted Tulips

There’s a sea of potted tulips in the stores now and I suspect more than a few have drifted into assorted kitchens in the guise of Valentine’s Day presents. What follows is a quick and dirty guide to the growing and rescue of these bulbs.

Enjoy and How To Extend the Bloom

The first step of course is to enjoy the blooms for as long as possible. You can extend the bloom time by keeping the plant as cool as possible. Hot air (whether from furnaces of protestations of undying love) will shorten the length of time the flowers will last. Keeping the soil slightly damp will also extend the bloom time; use the finger-test, if the soil is damp, leave it alone. If the soil is dry, soak it. Drying the plant out and keeping it warm are two quick ways you can eliminate the plant, I’ll have to leave it to you about how you get rid of the unwanted suitor. So cool and slightly damp will do the trick if you only want a few blooms. If you want to get this plant to bloom again, you have to take it a few steps further.

Conditions To Get it to Rebloom

To get a potted tulip (or any outdoor bulb for that matter) to bloom again, you have to treat it as if it were outside. The first rule is to grow the foliage. This means that when the flowers are fading and falling apart, you snip off the stem of the flower as close to the base as you can. This gets rid of that silly flower and it’s desire to set seed. You’re left with some rather ugly leaves but these leaves are critical for next year. They’re making all the sugars that get pumped down to the bulb so the bulb can produce another flower for next year.

One Bloom Session Per Year

And no, sorry you only get one flower show per bulb per year. You want full sun or as much light as you can provide in a nice cool area of the house. You won’t grow if you don’t eat and it’s the same thing with a bulb. Not only does it need sunshine, it requires plant food. So get some houseplant food, read the directions and follow them with this lovely bulb. Those directions are going to tell you to feed it once a week in the growing season and this is it. Full sunlight and plant food will help the bulb grow strong enough to produce another flower.

Leaf Management

You don’t want to tie up the leaves, cut them off or do anything to them other than allow them to grow as big and strong as they can. That’s it. Easy gardening. All you’ll do between now and late May is feed and water and try to keep those leaves growing. If you don’t give them enough sunshine, they’ll get long and ugly. Relax, the odds are that you simply can’t give them enough light and this is to be expected. So by the end of May, you’ve done well if the leaves are alive, dark green but long and ugly.

After Frost - Out it Goes

At the end of May or when you believe all danger of frost is over, take those ugly leaves and potted bulbs out to the garden. Plant them (soil and all) into the garden where you’d like them to live. Plant them so the level of the soil is at the same level of the potted soil. The bulbs themselves will adjust their depth over the next few years to where they want to be. When the leaves finally go yellow and die, you can cut them off. You’ve done it! Next spring, those same Valentine’s Day potted tulips will rebloom in your garden as a reminder of this year’s gift. It’s up to you if you really want to remember or not.

In the House Again? Or not?

Now the fun thing is to decide you want to grow these same potted tulips in the house again. Maybe you don’t have an outdoor garden, maybe you just want to keep potted tulips around to remind you of Mr Hunk. (or Ms Gorgeous - I’m an equal opportunity writer). You plant them outdoors, the leaves go yellow. Then you dig them up. If you’ve grown them properly between now and then, the bulb has enough energy for a new flower. You’re a winner! Leave them sit cool and dry for the summer. Don’t bake them, don’t put them in the freezer, just leave them alone (in a place where you’ll remember where they are) in a well-ventilated spot to contemplate their future.

First Steps in Mid-October

This future is going to start again in mid-October when you replant them and turn them into your own potted tulip farm.

The simplest way is to take a 15 cm (6-inch) pot, put 3 cm (1-inch) of soil in the bottom and arrange the bulbs so they’re just touching each other (not jammed in but no large spaces between them) and then cover with soil to the top of the pot. I suggest labelling the pot but that’s up to you. Soak the pot with water and then put outside until freezeup.

We need to give them 14-16 weeks of cold weather. So you can put them in a garage or shed but you don’t want to let them get really cold - as in deep freeze. A guideline is that you can use the refrigerator (and you can) for this but not the freezer. The important thing is to ensure the 14-16 weeks of cold.

Timing Those Blooms

Approximately 21-25 days before you want to see potted tulip flowers next spring, you bring them into the warmth and start the process all over again. I note this include the hugging and kissing that started the entire thing but that’s as far as this family column will go. The growing instructions are here, you’re on your own for the rest of it.

Five Easy Herbs

One of the things that’s going to be very hot in the gardening world this year is the grow-your-own garden. We’re talking filling up your garden with plants you’re going to use - to eat, to spice up your cooking, or to decorate with. This week, I want to bring a few really no-work herbs to your attention. These are plants that belong in every garden, even if they’re only tucked here and there among your other plants. You see you really don’t need a separate “herb” garden to grow these plants. They are attractive enough in their own right to deserve a spot in your garden.

Take Sage for example. Most of us only use a few sprigs of it in dressings at Thanksgiving and Christmas. But this is a hardy perennial plant with lovely blue flowers that will thrive in a sunny spot with very little encouragement. With a bit of water and food, it will self sow from year to year and a single plant will wind up giving you a good clump; more than you’ll ever need for that Christmas bird. So tuck a plant into the middle of a perennial garden in the full sun to light shade. It’s going to bloom in mid-summer with lovely blue blossoms and while some of the newer hybrids (they all taste the same) have bigger blossoms, the old-fashioned species plant has always been good enough for me. Take a handful of leaves and dry them by hanging them upside down in the kitchen. Or, even spread them out on an old window screen for a few days of sunshine. Don’t let them get damp or they’ll rot rather than dry. Once dry, crush them up and store in a dark glass container until you need them. Next summer, toss out any you haven’t used and start all over again with good fresh leaves. A pack of seeds can be spread on the garden this spring, can be started now indoors for a very early plant or you can even buy a plant this spring.

Another no-work herb is thyme. The trick with this plant is to put it into the full hot sun in a well-drained spot. I don’t care if that spot is gravel; just avoid a rich lovely garden soil or a clay soil that holds water. The trick is well-drained soil. Once this plant is established you’ll have it for a very long time with absolutely no work involved. It is covered in small bluish flowers in early summer and is a charming rock garden or ground cover plant. Now, some magazine articles say you can walk on this plant and while it will take a very small amount of foot traffic, it isn’t going to be a walkway type of plant. It really is a small woody shrub and once you crack the branches, they’ll die. It will take more foot traffic in the spring when the growth is flexible than later in the summer when the plant starts to harden off. Again, we don’t tend to use a lot of thyme so a few plants (they spread) is all you’ll need. Tuck them around paving stones or in a rock garden for the easiest and best results.

Parsley is a great plant for the lazy gardener. If you sow the seeds now, you’ll have a fine plant by May when you want to put it outdoors. Put it in the full sun in a decent soil and harvest as you need the sprigs. Cut the outer and lower leaves - leaving the top growth to produce more shoots and bigger plants. Parsley is a biennial and this means it will grow like stink the first summer in the garden when you can give it regular haircuts for your herb harvests. In a mild winter or protected garden, it will live over the winter. But, here’s the problem. The second year all this plant wants to do is set flowers and seed. It really doesn’t give you any decent leaves the second year. So in my garden, in the fall right before frost, the parsley would be dug up with as little root damage as possible. Then put into a big enough pot to handle those roots and put on a sunny windowsill in a cool room. I’d harvest the heck out of the plant because it will produce a goodly amount of fresh leaves for the next month or so. The light levels will go down, the plant will want to go dormant and it will stop producing new leaves. That’s the sign that it goes right to the compost bin. End of story. But it is an easy plant to grow and you can plant it right next to the back door (or in an easy to reach sunny spot) and harvest the heck out of it all summer. Plant it in the second row of a perennial garden so it can provide some top foliage to add some variation to the look of the garden but where you can harvest the lower leaves and the legginess of the plant won’t show.

The real message in this column isn’t that some herbs are easy to grow and others aren’t. The real message is that they’re all pretty easy to grow and you don’t need a specialized herb garden for them. The herbs that you only use a bit of, such as sage or thyme, can be planted anywhere in a sunny spot and will be a great perennial performer. Herbs that get cut up and look awkward can be planted in the second row of the perennial garden where that cut-up look is hidden by better looking plants.

Put your basil behind the daylilies, your parsley tucked amongst the coneflowers and don’t think just because we call it an “herb” that you can’t grow it anywhere you have a bit of space. That’s easy herb gardening.

Garden Planning and Crop Rotation

Garden Planning and Crop Rotation are important parts of getting (and keeping) a vegetable garden to give it’s best yields. Here’s a very simple and straightforward way of setting up a crop rotation system that you’ll find easy to remember.

Let me know what you think below.

Vegetable Garden Seminar Starting

The Vegetable Gardening Seminar is launching at the seminar site. If you’re interested in helping design your own course on growing veggies, this is the time to make your comments and requests.

I’m reading through all the requests and designing the course to get the most important things covered over the next month. Going to take the next few days to sort it all out and start putting some downloads and information together.

You can sign up to be part of the proceedings and receive the course materials.

Five Easy Vegetables

To continue the series on easy plants to grow in the garden, let me suggest you take a deep breath right now and consider the five vegetables you like to eat. Or will eat may be more to the point. I say this because many folks start gardening and decide they’re going to grow some of everything; a noble goal but only in the spring. By August, they’re bogged down, wondering why things aren’t growing, amazed at how many weeds there are out there and staggered by the amount of work it takes to actually grow food. Frankly, it’s no darn wonder that we have farms and we no longer do all this work ourselves. It can be hard. I have two things to say to this. First, the taste of fresh vegetables right out of your garden can’t be beaten by anything you can buy. And second, the first column in this series talked about labour saving techniques to help you reduce your work. Without further ado, I give you five easy veggies.

The most popular plant in the vegetable garden is the tomato. Man, we grow a lot of these; largely because they’re easy to grow and so useful in the kitchen. The first thing to understand is that this plant loves warm soil so the first week of May, you’re going to lay some clear plastic on the garden, weight down the edges and walk away. You’re going to turn this area into a mini-greenhouse to warm up the soil. You’re going to plant tomatoes the third or fourth week of May; but remove the plastic just before you do. If you don’t remove the plastic, the soil will get too hot and kill off the plants. Plant your transplants so that only the top 12-15 cm (6-inches) is showing, the rest can be buried and will form roots along the buried stem. Two points: if you have a mulched garden, pull the mulch back to lay down the plastic and then return the mulch after planting and plastic-removal and yes, can lay down compost without digging it in, simply toss it around the base of the plant. The rest of the summer is about making sure the plants have adequate water. I’ve written entire books about growing tomatoes but getting them started properly is the single most important thing you can do in our region to ensure a good yield.

Peas are one of the easiest vegetables to grow if you follow a few really simple rules. The first is to plant them in mid-April. This is perhaps the earliest seed to go into the ground and if you do this, you’ll get great crops. If you wait until the soil warms up and plant them along with the rest of your garden, you’re going to be very disappointed in the harvest. Do try some of the wonderful sugar snap style peas; being an edible podded pea, I dare you to not eat any as you harvest or walk to the kitchen. These tasted amazingly wonderful right from the vine. Plant them about 1 cm deep and keep damp until the new shoots start poking through the ground. We grow ours up a trellis to save garden space and make them easier to find. Do make the supports quite sturdy because this plant will develop quite a weight and will knock down a flimsy support. The advantage of growing peas is that while they’re giving you a crop to eat, they’re also producing nitrogen in the soil for the following crop. After the peas are finished, pull them out and plant some seeds in there for fall harvests.

Most folks like a good salad and growing several of the main ingredients will make your taste buds jump. Lettuce and spinach form the basis for many a salad and (mostly) take the same growing conditions so let’s deal with them in one section. Plant these early if you want to eat them. I’m talking getting both of these plants into the garden about the same time as peas. You want them early. Now, you can start them a few weeks beforehand in the house and transplant or simply plant the seeds. I prefer seeding because you get good germination, can eat the thinnings and it’s less work. You want to plant them early because a late planting will turn lettuce very bitter and spinach will grow and produce seeds in the heat. Try planting 1-2 metres of row every week so you’ll have multiple crops coming along. Harvest the outer leaves and when the temperatures start to rise, and the lettuce get bitter, switch to spinach salads. Stop planting through the heat of the summer but start again in mid to late-August when the nights start to cool again. You’ll have great fall crops of both of these easily grown plants.

The most easily grown squash is zuchini. Put this plant anywhere near the ground and you’ll have more summer squash than you know what to do with. Let me suggest however that you only grow one or maybe two plants. Anything more is overkill and you won’t be able to eat them. Trust me, your friends and neighbours don’t want them either as vegetable quickly becomes a glut on the market. The best two tips I can give you with this plant are to sow seeds (the seeds can be easily saved for several years) when the ground warms up (about the last week of May) and to harvest the squash when they are about 20-25 cm (8-inches or so) long. After the fruit reaches 30 cm or so, it starts to become woody and not good eating.

Those are the five easiest growing vegetables I can think of and those with the most use in the kitchen. Having said that, grow what you’ll eat and enjoy - that’s the most important gardening decision.

Five No-Work Annuals

I want to enlarge on the notion of organic gardening and making a no-work garden this week. We’ve already looked at the basics of compost and perennials so let’s take a quick look at annuals you’re going to consider.

Impatiens

Leading the list has to be impatiens. Yes, I know that everybody grows them and yes, I know they’re everywhere but they are used because they’re so good. They bloom all summer, don’t need pruning, don’t need deadheading and are bothered by very few insects that are going to knock back their blooming. The only problems you’ll have are drying them out or not feeding them properly so the blooms are sporadic. If you’re looking to have some colours that the neighbours don’t have, start your own seed around the middle of February. This will give you something different from the standard red and white so commonly sold in garden shops. Understand that double impatiens don’t give you nearly the colour show of the singles and avoid these for garden beds. They do well in containers or as houseplants but are a waste of time if you’re looking for the biggest show for the least buck. Don’t plant impatiens until the ground is warm (towards the end of May). I know that most of you want to plant them earlier and if you do, simply understand that they’ll just sit and sulk if the ground is cold and only start growing once the ground starts to warm up. This is the number one plant for shade and you can even plant them out in more sunlight if you water them adequately and try to protect them from the blazing sun between 10 am and 2 pm. Plant slightly closer together than the tag suggests if you want them taller.

Petunia

The counterpart of this plant for full hot sunshine (and not shade) is the petunia. But not your basic petunia, we’re talking about the advanced breeding plants such as the Waves and other heavily flowering plants that don’t require deadheading. Stay a long way from the old Floribunda-types with their huge blossoms that require deadheading every day to keep the plant growing and flowering well. The new floriferous plants might cost a bit more per plant but because they grow several feet across, they wind up costing you the same amount of money. The one thing that most gardeners don’t know about these plants is that they’re greedy feeders and you’re going to have to feed them with a liquid plant food ever week or two if you want to see a lot of blooms. If you’ve ever not been happy because the petunia didn’t grow well enough, I can almost guarantee that you didn’t feed it enough. Full sun, good feeding, good drainage and the modern work-free hybrids and you can have a no-work annual bed of colour that will blow away passers-by.

Seed Generated Geraniums

Now another plant I’ve long recommended for no-work gardening is the seed-generated geranium. These plants have single blossoms and not the big double flowers of the vegetatively produced (from cuttings) varieties. The big doubles are wonderful in hanging baskets and containers where you see them up close but they have to be pruned and deadheaded regularly or they get really ugly and fungus-flowered quickly. The seed geraniums on the other hand aren’t as good looking up close but because they outbloom the vegetative plants by a good margin and because the flower petals fall off rather than rotting, these are wonderful in the sunny garden where you need a splash of colour. Spend a few minutes once a week taking off the spent flower stalks and enjoy summer-long colour from a distance. The other advantage to this plant is that it is usually at least half the cost of a fancier double bloom.

Coleus

Another plant for sun or shade is the coleus. The leaves on this plant are getting bigger and splashier and can give you season-long colour with absolutely no work. The trick here is to make sure you get sunshine-varieties for the sun and shade varieties for shadier spots in the garden. And don’t mix them up! Coleus varieties that will stand hot sunshine do not produce the ugly flower spikes and have leaves that will handle the sunshine without burning and fading. These keep on growing and looking good without pruning all summer-long. Varieties best suited for the shade will be wonderful and hold their leaf colouring there (but fade in the sun and produce flowers immediately). You really want to use both in the garden bed and in containers throughout the garden. This is a no-work plant; give it enough water and a fertile soil and you’re going to get a great background or contrast plant all summer long.

Tall Cleome and Nicotiana

For tall or mid-sized summer blooms consider either cleome or nicotiana. I’m not sure I’ve ever pruned either of these plants. Both come in different colours and heights and are well worth a place in your garden. I’m going to be picking up some of the old-fashioned, fragrant Nicotiana sylvestris this spring and sowing this 1m (3-feet) tall plant throughout the garden. The dwarf varieties don’t have fragrance but they do sport a huge colour selection and equally no-work garden performance in the full sun to part shade. Cleome isn’t fragrant but is quite showy and is equally a no-work plant. You’re going to find it in different colours and heights for your mid to back of the garden areas. I saw some lovely new eye-shocking colours this past summer in garden trial gardens.

Those plants should help you with your objective of a no-work garden. They have a prominent place in my garden planning but that’s not because I’m a lazy gardener. It’s only because I need to show you how to have a garden without having to work at it. Leading by example as it were.

Christmas Flower Roundup

So here’s Christmas and with it comes an amazing assortment of flowers; the marketers have done themselves proud this year for sure. So I’m going to take a break from the no-work gardening series to give you the basic how not-to-kill the holiday plant and what to do with it after Christmas article. I’ll pick up the no-work garden next week again.

Let’s run down the list of plants out there and give you the basics you need to know. The most commonly found plant this year has to be the silk poinsettia. There must have been a deal in the silkworm factories because these things are darn near everywhere. I have videos of rows and rows of them. Generally, I’d recommend you use those as outside ornaments; telling all your friends that they’re new hardy varieties guaranteed to live in our climate. Make up something about genetic modification and you’ll be fine with it. After Christmas of course, pull ‘em up or just pop off the blooms and call them an evergreen until the spring bulbs distract the viewers.

Real Poinsettia

Real poinsettia are trifle more finicky than the silk ones; they love to be warm, out of drafts and kept slight damp. Doug’s beginner’s guide to “points” says simply, “avoid extremes”. Keep them out of drafts, keep them from getting too hot or too cold, not too wet, not too dry and you’ll be fine. And above all, not to worry about them. You’re going to toss them into the compost in another three weeks so all you need to do is keep them alive for the next little while and you’re a horti-hero. Now, the only problem comes when the unsuspecting newbie decides they want to keep the darn thing over for next year and get it to bloom again.

At that point, you either have to take it to Mexico where it will grow naturally, or you have to mimic those conditions in your home. That really means keeping them out of drafts, feeding lightly during the winter and then stepping up the feeding in March. As soon as summer arrives, they go outside to grow like weeds all summer. Then you read the detailed instructions on my website on how to get them bloom again. Hint: you don’t put them in a closet. Trust me on this one - it’s a ton easier to buy a new one every year.

Rosemary Plants

Some of you might have rosemary plants trained into Christmas trees. After Christmas, take off the red bow (or not) and give it as much light as you have. Some folks think this plant can dry out but my experience is that you and the plant are going to be much happier if you water it like any other houseplant. Soak it when your finger comes away dry after touching the soil and leave it alone if your finger comes away damp. Keep it a nice and cool though so it won’t get long and leggy with new growth. In the spring, start feeding weekly and repot into a pot one size larger. After all danger of frost, this can go outside (sink the pot into the soil) and grow for the summer. It will become huge and I’d recommend you keep it pruned to whatever shape you like or it will turn into a monster bush. In the fall, bring it indoors and enjoy it.

Forced Bulbs

I’ve seen forced bulbs on the retail shelves as well. Now, those poor daffodils are way out of sync but you can keep them going. Again, water when dry and leave alone when damp. Give them full light and very cool temperatures; in fact, as cool as you can make it for this plant after it has finished blooming. If you get it to spring (after frost) with the leaves still green, simply put it outdoors. If those leaves go brown, let the soil dry out and then dig up the bulbs and replant in the garden in the spring. They may sprout green leaves or may simply sit there. No matter, ignore whatever they do and they’ll bloom the following year. You won’t likely get a repeat blooming from them this spring.

Not-so-forced Cyclamen

I also understand that a few of you received Cyclamen this year; or you should have given the number on the shelves. This is a frost-tender houseplant and will not survive in our climate outside (unlike the Poinsettia ‘Silk-Flowering” form that thrives year round). Cyclamen persicum, the houseplant, will have large, bright pink, red or purple flowers and if you want them to keep flowering, you really have to pay attention here. They have to be kept cool to keep blooming. Keep this plant under 20C(68F) during the day and cooler at night, even as low as 15C (59F) It will be quite happy as low as 7C (45F) . If you let it get warmer, the plant will stop blooming, drop it’s flowers and go dormant. And it will happen relatively quickly and you’ll think you’ve killed it. To add to this plant’s charm, it doesn’t want to be too wet nor too dry. Given a choice of too wet or too dry, it will perform better when slightly dry but, and it’s a huge but, the line is quite fine between just dry enough and killing-dry. So keep the finger going and try to keep it on the dry side of damp. Overwatering and high temperatures are a sure way to put this plant into the compost bin. Don’t worry about feeding it during the Christmas season, you only have to do this if you want to try to bring it to bloom in another year. This plant if watered properly and kept cool will bloom for the longest time of any Christmas plant.

And let me take this moment to wish you all a very happy Christmas season. May the simple gifts of life be yours this coming year.

Five Low-Maintenance Perennials

Let’s look at some good no-work perennial plants. The main criteria for getting onto this list is that the plant is rock-hardy, flowers for a long time, doesn’t need a lot of effort to grow it, really doesn’t require pruning, training or any other care than weeding. And fragrance, if possible, delivers bonus points. So how am I doing so far? The following plants are sunlovers; we’ll get to shade loving no-work perennials in another column.

Daylilies

Heading up the list has to be daylilies. But not just any old daylily but the modern new hybrids bred for extended blooming. This plant lives in full to part sun and thrives in almost any kind of soil you can deliver to it. You can’t give it too much heat or cold and it will bounce back like the true champion it is. The amazing thing about this plant is that it now comes in a bewildering array of flower shapes, sizes and even fragrances. You can get tall varieties, short varieties and you really need to look for the reblooming varieties. Just stay away from anything listed as “evergreen” because those are Southern varieties and really not hardy enough here. Luckily the only place you’ll find those is via mail order but just watch those. And yes, I know the modern reblooming hybrids are more expensive than the old-fashioned or short blooming plants but you get to pick here. Both are no-work and no-brainer choices for the no-work garden but one gives you three times the amount of blooms.

Geraniums

A second plant that really deserves a place in any garden is the Geranium. I’m not talking about the annual plant (really a Pelargonium), I’m talking about the true, bone-tough perennial Geranium. Again, this plant will thrive in the part to full sunshine garden, is rock-hardy and will, if you pick a modern hybrid, bloom literally all summer. While I note that old varieties will often rebloom if you shear them back after the first bloom, modern plants such as the award-winning Rozanne, will bloom all summer with no pruning, no deadheading and no disease. This is the real definition of a no-work plant for my garden. It is so easy to grow that you can also plant it in almost any soil in any light condition other than full shade and it will thrive. There’s not as much as a price differential in Geraniums as there is in other modern plants so either look for this variety or pick ones that have extended or long-blooming on their label. The only real drawback is that the flowers aren’t fragrant; the leaves have a mint-fragrance if crushed though.

Echninacea

A third plant that fits almost all of our criteria is the coneflower or Echinacea. This plant for the back of the border really prefers full hot sun but will grow almost equally well in a light-shade garden. It prefers a soil that is well-drained because too much water around the roots in the late fall and early spring are going to rot it out. My apologies to those of you with clay soils, this plant isn’t going to like your garden. For the rest of us, it blooms nicely from mid-summer to mid-fall and again with no work. Plant it and forget it. ‘Fragrant angel’ a white flowering variety advertises itself with fragrance but you have to stick your nose into it (or darn close) to get a whiff. The wonderful thing about this plant is of course all the new colours the breeders are giving us. And by using the entire colour range, you can create a garden of multiple colours that is magnificent from mid-summer through mid-fall. I’ve experimented with simply leaving the seedpods in place rather than pruning them down. The birds get most of the seeds and the odd seedling that pops up can be quickly removed in the spring. So this plant qualifies as a no-work perennial as well.

Peonies

What about peonies? I include them here because once properly planted by making sure the growing points are a single centimeter below the soil surface, this plant is good for decades in one spot of the garden. While other plants require a digging and dividing every 3 years or so, this one simply sits and blooms with no attention. It’s fragrant as all get out and you can lose yourself in this full sun charmer’s delight. It will take a light shade and keep on blooming but you might find a tad more leaf fungal problems in shade. I can hear you complaining that you have to stake peonies and that’s work. I never do. I either grow the singes with their much-lighter blooms or I grow them next to plants such as Coneflower that are stiff enough and upright enough to support them so they don’t flop over. And I only feed them compost so they don’t get tall and lanky and floppy. Again, those single blossoms come in a wide colour range and will blow your mind with the fragrance in early to mid-summer.

Veronica

Try one of the new Veronica plants. The long-blooming, no-work style of this plant started with the old ‘Sunny Border Blue’ and has continued to the much newer hybrids. Look for those that advertise themselves as “upright” and “long blooming”. These plants love full hot sun but also do well enough in part shade that I grow them there as well. They throw blooms in a range of blue-violets, pinks and whites from mid-summer to late-fall and have been pretty much insect and disease resistant in my garden. If you can bear to cut them, they make great cut-flowers but that never happens in my own garden.

There are five no-work and no-hassle perennials that will make a perennial garden bloom most of the summer. What more do you want?

Overwintering Plants Indoors

Now I know that there are more enthusiastic gardeners out there right now than I am. I’m about to enter winter-sleep mode and simply think about gardening for a few months rather than actually do anything.

But I know there are determined folks who intend to garden all winter long in their windowsills greenhouses, basements and back bedrooms. And I want to thank all of you because you’re probably going to be reading my columns every week instead of those slackers, like me, who intend to stop gardening for a bit and take a break. It’s good to know that folks like you keep on going to shame folks like me who can’t imagine working away all winter long. So in celebration of your somewhat-crazed behavior, let me pass along a few tips you might find useful. I used to pay attention to this kind of thing when I grew way too many plants as well.

Really! Clear off the Insects Now

The first thing is to make sure that your plants are clear of any insects and problems. Do it now. You really do want to take that insecticidal soap spray and start spraying the bejabbers out of all your plants. Do it weekly if you see any pests on the plants. Trust me on this one, there are hitchhikers such as spider mites or aphids that have come indoors with all your plants and they’ll lie around for the next month or so just building up energy and then wham! - you’ve got a serious infestation on your hands. So just assume you have some problems and soak those plants.

Spray both the tops and bottoms of the leaves until the spray runs off (do this on plastic sheets as you’ll have soapy water everywhere otherwise) the leaves and make sure that all the leaf axils (where the leaf joins the stem) are soaped up. If you have stems that are a bit old and barked-over, then ensure the spray gets into all the cracks in the bark where the pests like to hide. Be as thorough as you can with these initial sprays because you’ll save yourself a lot of grief later.

Water and Feed or Die

The second thing to consider is your watering and feeding routine. I’m a great believer in feeding plants if you want them to grow. But at this time of year, when the plants are taking a bit of a rest with the lowered light levels, then I’d back the fertilizer off to half or even quarter strength. And I feed every two weeks instead of weekly. So the plant is still getting a bit of food when I water but not much. Enough to keep it ticking over but not grow like stink. So do cut back on the feeding but don’t quit. Too many folks just quit feeding and then wonder why their plants are long, leggy and pale green in another few months.

The pale green comes because not only is there not enough food, there’s not enough light to grow plants. That is unless they’re acclimatized to low light levels and have never been outdoors in the summer. Those are your problem.

My advice concerns those plants that have come indoors with us to try to overwinter alongside us. Those poor outdoor plants are wondering what in heck happened to them with the lowered light levels. They’re struggling.

Hey - it’s your choice here

So you have several choices here. Those who are truly plant-berserkers should consider getting grow lights and keeping the light levels high enough so the plants don’t stretch and go pale-green. Keep the grow lights within inches of the top of the plant and you’ll be amazed at how the plant responds to this light-love. Those who simply want to keep the plant alive for the winter can find a nice sunny windowsill in a cold room somewhere. The cold temperatures will help slow the plant growth down so it doesn’t require as much sunlight. It will still stretch out but not as much. The worst thing you can do is put them in a warm room in north-facing or dark windowsill where the temperature makes them want to grow but the light levels aren’t enough to give them the energy to grow. You’re almost better off killing the plant outright rather than torturing it all winter like that.

Broken Record on Watering

And I’ve written so many times about only watering when the soil is dry that I’m starting to sound like a broken record, even to myself. But that’s important in the winter. Touch the soil and if it’s dry, then water. If it’s wet, don’t water. There’s no finer way to learn how to garden than to have to watch the winter water needs of a bunch of plants. They’ll all be different with their own needs.

Better Growing Temperatures

I always found that keeping overwintering plants a tad on the cool side gave me a much better looking plant than if I tried to keep them at the optimum growing temperature. Now those houseplanty-type things really need their warmth but outdoor plants you’re overwintering (remember, I’m not overwintering a darn thing) do much better if you keep them cool. Where optimum temperature outdoors might be 22-24C (mid-70’s F) optimum indoor temperatures for winter are better off around 14-15C (low 60’s F). These cool temperatures slow down growth and allow the plant to rest a bit. And you want it to rest, even though it is an outdoor annual, because about February when the light levels are coming up, you’re going to push it into growth to take slips and cuttings to get even more plants to overwinter for next year. But how to do that is another column entirely.

Enlightenment Comes to Few

Now of course, I’m much more enlightened about such things. I believe in visiting the plants in their native Southern habitat rather than trying to brutally force them to grow in mine.

Hedychium ‘Tahitian Flame’

I have this variegated-leaf Ginger in a pot on my front porch but alas, it doesn’t have this bloom on it. In fact, I’ve never been able to get this tender plant to bloom. I go away for the winter and this plant languishes in my basement where it is simply too cold for it. It also gets a tad on the dry side as well. It starves and struggles all winter and when I bring it out to the sunlight in the spring, it (and I) are happy it’s still alive.

I took this picture at Terra Nova Nursery out in Portland in their trial gardens. I won’t say I was jealous of their fragrant blooms. I won’t say that I lusted after the plant (I have it after all) but what I will say is if this is how it’s going to look, I’m going to take very good care of the plant this winter and I’m going for the big blooms next year myself. Nice flower, nice fragrance.

I note this bulb grows in just about any light exposure - from full sun to full shade but is only hardy to USDA zone 8 (I really have to get a Southern garden).

Paeonia mlokosewitschii

Otherwise known as Molly-the-Witch, this delightful seed pod is just another reason to grow this plant. Unfortunately, this isn’t in my own garden but it is on my “lust list”. For the record, the blue seeds are fertile and the red are not but the contrast between them is wonderful.

Plant Review: Euphorbia ‘Jessie’

I’ve just planted a Euphorbia ‘Jessie’ that I got from Barry Glick at Sunshine Farms and Nursery.

‘Jessie’ is a cross between the tender E. griffithii - a really tall species and E. polychroma (epithymoides) only about 18″ tall but very hardy and self-sows with abandon to earn a spot on my thug-list. Barry assures me the seeds from this particular cross are sterile and won’t be a problem. This is a patented plant and a first for Barry so he’s quite excited about it.

Now Barry is a bit of a plant collector (understatement if there ever was one) and a bit of an enthusiastic marketer (also understated given his penchant for wearing purple robes and crowns) and a good guy. So you can imagine how excited he is about this plant.

I’m going to run this plant in a USDA zone 4 garden and we’ll find out how hardy it is. But I have to tell you I’m a little excited about a 5 foot tall Euphorbia in my garden. The link above is to Barry’s website where he describes the plant and offers it to you for sale as well. As you can see, the bracts are a bright yellow and according to Barry, we’ll likely get a good 6-8 weeks of show in mid-summer and then a fall display as the Euphorbia foliage takes on the species yellow/red combinations.

Ah yes, just one last tidbit to entice you - and one more reason I’m pleased to have this plant - it is deer proof as are all Euphorbia. I mean - deer don’t eat it unless they’re out and out starving and then it’s the last thing they’ll pick.

I’ll be updating these posts as the plants emerge next year and we declare the survivors and then the winners in plant performance.

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