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.
Overwintering Plants Indoors
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.
How to Prune Petunias
Salpiglossis
I’ve always liked the annual Salpiglossis. Great blooms that shine out of the garden. I saw this one at Chicago Botanic Gardens last week and thought I’d share it with you.
Pansies and Parsley
Who says they don’t go together?
Impatiens for Full Sunshine
I ran a few trials last year on Viva Sunpatiens. They were planted out in the full hot sunshine with absolutely no protection of any kind - I’m mean let’s make it a test.
My observations.
Don’t let this plant dry out. I had it in a somewhat sandy soil and if the soil moisture got too low, the plant wilted. It was almost an indicator plant that showed how much moisture was there. First to wilt.
Bloomed heavily almost all summer from a mid-June planting. We were late getting the plants but they grew well as soon as I figured out they needed more water then the rest of the plants in this area.
All colours did equally well with the exception of the variegated plant. You can see the results of this in the picture above. That plant didn’t do well at all and never did fill up the area I assumed it would. The other colors, (red, orange, violet) were equally good in this location. Do note that the soft pink flower in the variegated form I was growing wouldn’t have given much of a contrast even if it had produced growth and flowers.
Bottom line. If you wanted to grow impatiens in the full hot sunshine, this plant deserves a trial in your garden. It grew well in mine and I’d have it back again if I needed those color ranges. Just don’t count on the growth or flowering of the variegated variety and do water them regularly.
As for container use - it will do very well there but if you tend to let your baskets go dry, this might not be a good choice for being abused that way. I suspect growing it in a slightly shadier spot would give better performance and require less water but hey - they called it a *Sun*patiens so that’s where it went.
Let me know if you tried it in your garden and how it grew for you.
Blue Flowers
Blue is the colour of my ….
Well, maybe I shouldn’t be singing old ballads but if I were, I’d be singing about blue flowers this week.
But don’t get excited.
Blue Rose
It seems the Japanese plant company Suntory (biotech, whiskey distilling, seeds) have inserted the blue genes of a pansy into a rose to give us a true blue rose.
But.
You can’t get it.
It’s being released in Japan to cut flower growers and “maybe” to some cut flower growers in the U.S. Maybe.
So maybe you can get it as a *very* expensive cut flower next yeasr (no idea but the rarity of this is going to send the price well into the premium cut flower standards) but you can’t get it for your garden.
And just when you thought I was teasing you about blue roses.
Blue Impatiens
I read that there’s a blue impatiens (pictured above). Thompson and Morgan have introduced a blue impatiens from China. The original seed was collected but the flowers are sparse and the plant leggy. They have been working to make it more compact and floriferous and are about to release a new variety.
In the U.K.
Not in North America.
Yet.
You can apparently obtain the species seed in the U.S. so you can have ugly blue flowering impatiens plants but not the good ones.
But have patience. You have to believe that this is only the first wave of breeding and the really good ones either are or will be in the pipeline for distribution.
Every gardener I know wants to sing the blues in their garden.
