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?

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?

Gardening Bloom Day

I have to confess that these coneflowers are one of my favorite plants, I particularly like the way they collect morning light.

If you want to see other plants in bloom right now in the blogosphere, Carol at MayDreamsGarden has a full listing on her blog right here.

But I note the only problem with having a plant looking great in the morning light is that you actually have to get up to see it.

Red Spider Hemerocallis Flower

Another of Barry Matthie’s 2008 introductions. What can I tell you? I love ‘em and will be building a garden simply to feature some of this kind of flower.

My Favorite Perennial

While I normally say that whatever plant is in bloom at any given time is my favorite, I recently went out and counted the number of different varieties I have in my garden of the backbone plants. You know, the plants that form the bulk of flowering throughout the season. I have several species for each of spring, summer and fall and normally lots of varieties of each.

So in this mid-summer period, my Hemerocallis seem to be outnumbering the rest of the group. Mind you, it was that way in my old garden as well with well over 300 varieties. I’ve only got about 20 different varieties out there right now but they’re all either award winners or rebloomers. Unfortunately, I’ve lost all the tags. Given the number of moves these plants have had in the last 4 years (4 moves) I’m fortunate I still have the plants - never mind the tags.

Basket of Gold - Aurinia saxatilis

This is a weedy little thing in the rock garden but who can get upset wtih it when it looks like this. Mind you, say goodbye to it because it’s on the spot where the backhoe is going to dig up the foundation (insulating for winter heat loss prevention). I’m sure it will volunteer somewhere else (like a ton of other weeds in this garden)

Easy for the full sun or part shade. Blooms in the mid-spring in USDA zone 4/5. Can be short lived (particularly when I hoe it out of cracks here and there) but self sowing in my gardens.

Growing Peonies Make My Garden

The tulips are pretty much over for this year except for one clump of late ones that somehow crept into the garden. They need pruning and the garden needs its first weeding so you can picture me out there this week doing these housekeeping jobs. The mulch is working nicely keeping most weeds down but given this is the first year of this garden being turned from grass to garden, I expect to see a few perennial weeds come back. The old armstrong weed system goes into play this week. I pulled a few this morning to get into the mood (I have to work up to this amount of work) and put half of them in the composter and half right back down onto the mulch to rot there. Mind you, I did hide the weeds behind some plants so you can’t see dead weeds in the garden but I figure there’s nothing wrong with letting the weeds do a little double duty of mulching the good plants while they rot down to enrich the garden.

The peonies are in mid-bloom now. The early species peonies are pretty much finished off while the yellow Japanese-type with its single blossom style is looking fantastic. I do like this plant and I think it’s going to have to be moved into another spot where I can see it better. Right now, it’s tucked into the back of the garden and I”m thinking mid-way would be better. That’s the advantage of perennial plants, they can be moved around until you’re happy with plant combinations and the look of your garden. And with peonies, remember they like to be moved in the fall. Not only that but they don’t like to be buried too deeply or they won’t be enthusiastic about blooming.

If you have a peony that isn’t blooming, then generally either the light levels have changed because a shrub or tree grew up to block the light (move the plant) or the plant is too deeply buried. The trick for being too deeply buried and low bloom production is to dig the peony root up in the fall and replant at the correct depth. I like to have the eyes (the red pointy parts) at or “just” below the soil line. Bury these points too deeply and you’re never going to see blooms on this plant even though you’re getting a ton of leaf growth. Some perennials stop blooming after a few years and want to be dug and divided, but a peony is generally good for 20 years on one spot before it needs attention.

Right about now, somebody is trying to figure out how to prop up those developing buds and dreading a storm about mid-bloom that will drive the heavy blooms to the ground. Here’s my trick. I take a coat hanger - undo it so I have a long length of wire. Make a loop at one end. Wrap the coat hanger wire around the peony at the top of the foliage and stick the straight end into the looped end and turn it back on itself so the length of wire is tight enough to hold the plant upright but not so tight as the peony looks strangled. If the shape of the peony is about the same as when you started, the wire is tight enough to stay up there itself and the buds are above the wire, you’re close to having it right. The wire will disappear into the foliage (unlike ugly string and posts) and will hold the plant upright. So even if you get a storm, it will only bend the blooms over and not let them hit the ground and be wrecked. The wire can stay on for the rest of the season. I forget I wired them and remember only when cleaning up in the fall.

Do this once or twice and you’ll quickly get a feel for how tight to pull the wire and even make a small collection of looped coat hangers to stake up your peony plants. Just when you think you’ve got it straight, you’re going to find the cut flower enthusiast in the house is sneaking those loverly flowers into flower arrangements where they’ll last for a very long time. This is something I can’t help you with although I’d recommend planting some other peonies to make you both happy.

And for the record, ants do not help or hinder peonies opening or closing or doing anything much at all for the plant. They’re up there enjoying a bit of sweet “juice” from the flower bud. It won’t hurt the bud, won’t hurt the plants and will make the ants happy. Given that ants are one of your primary weed seed consumers (ants and mice get over 90% of all weed seed produced) you want to keep them happy. And yes, you can get rid of ants in your paving stones by pouring hot water slowly into the nests. And you can get rid of ants on your lawn by mowing taller; you won’t see them that way.

If I was to summarize how to grow this plant, I’d do it this way. Great gardeners know that a single shovel of compost is all you need to keep this plant blooming from year to year. Beginning gardeners try all kinds of funky fertilizers. Plant it properly, stake it or not depending on your mood, and defend against cut flower fiends. Relax on this plant because if you’ve got it planted properly, toss a shovel of compost and stake it, the two of you are good for the next twenty years.

Or at least the peony is.

Karma

Over the years, I’ve written (fairly clearly I think) about not allowing certain kinds of plants into your garden.

There are the outright garden thugs. And these include plants such as Crown Vetch, Goutweed (variegated and green leaf) and Artemesia ‘Silver King’. This would certainly include grasses such as Phragmites (variegated ribbon grass) and a few others that deserve to be planted far from my gardens.

Simple garden thugs would include a range of vicious spreaders such as Euphorbia epithymoides (Spurge).

My new garden has all of these planted by previous owners.

Karma.

Whatever it was, whoever it was to. I apologize profoundly and sincerely.

Red Hellebore

Hottest Container Plant for 08

I’ve been to a few flower and trade shows this spring and I can now confirm the hottest plant you’re going to see in containers and gardens this spring is the Sempervivum (Hens & Chicks). I’m seeing these things tucked here, there, and everywhere in display gardens and containers.

And frankly, why not? This is one plant your mother-in-law can’t kill. You can do anything you like to it, including going away on holidays for 2 months and the darn thing will be alive when you get back. The rest of the container will be stony-dead but this plant will be alive.

How to grow ‘em? Wave them anywhere near soil. (or simply bury the roots a bit but not the fleshy part). Water for the first week to establish and then ignore. Tuck them between other perennials at the edge of containers or use all by themselves (plant several different varieties together) in flower pots. Overwinter by putting in garage or plunging the pot.

The only thing you really need to know is to *never* purchase a flowering plant. The thing about this plant is that the mother plant usually dies after flowering. Leaving the babies around the edge to grow.

And yes, it survives quite nicely if you feed and water it (not waterlog) and grows like stink. I ran some experiments once to see if it was worth propagating this plant commercially. I was able (on average) to get 12 babies per year per mother plant with a regular fish-emulsion feeding. (weekly) And no, I never did propagate them for other nurseries. Too much bending up and down and digging to harvest them on a small to mid-size scale.
photo credit: Gertrud K.

Names of spring flowers

Who could wax poetic about the names of spring flowers? I mean think about it for a minute.

We’ve got Narcissus - named after a guy who couldn’t stop looking at himself in the mirror and which are one of the most poisonous of spring bulbs.

We’ve got Brunnera, named after Samuel Brunner, a Swiss Botanist in 1851.

Or how about Crocus which might come from the Greek word for egg yolk. Read more

Coralbells / Heuchera Article

I just posted an article on new Heuchera aka Coralbells that I’m going to be planting this year. It may be of interest in that I also discuss some of the plant combinations I’m making in the new shade garden with Heuchera.

If you’re interested in this leafy wonder, click here.

Perennial Plant of the Year Online Book

This is an online version of the free ebook download about Perennial Plants of the Year.

Have fun!

To read the ebook, click on the bottom tabs. It will also allow you to upload the ebook to different social network sites by using the buttons on the bottom right of the image.

As an aside - if you click on the image itself or the bottom links to open up the image to full size readable format, it comes in a new window - a popup. This is happening on the Issu site that is hosting this application. (in other words, I’m not sending you a popup box) but you may have to accept the popup if you want to see the larger image (I know some of you block popups - as do I)

I just thought it was kind of a fun way to do some Internet reading.

Let me know what you think…

Columbine revisited

If I told you that you could grow a plant named both after an eagle as well as a dove, would you be interested?

Origin of Name

I would hope so because it is an easily grown perennial that will self-sow and delight you for years by popping up here and there throughout the garden. Aquilegia is the name of this delightful plant – aquilegia comes from the Latin word aquila meaning ‘eagle’ and if you look at the individual petals, you can see the resemblance to an eagle. Well, OK, you have to use your imagination but I can see one. Columbine is the other name for this plant and this comes to us because the upside-down flowers resemble a circle of drinking doves. Columba is Latin for ‘dove”. I’ve also heard Aquilegia called Culverwort but that’s easily explained because the Saxon word for ‘pigeon’ is culfre and ‘plant’ is wort. But, no matter what bird is drinking or sitting around in a circle, this is a great garden plant.

Grows Best

It grows best in the full sun in my garden although it will tolerate some light noonday shade. I’ve also found that it grows best on a well drained soil; it dies out if given clay or wet soils. Think of it as a woodland edger or meadow plant; it requires adequate moisture to continue flowering but good drainage so that the roots don’t sit in moisture. The height of different species varies between 3 to 36 inches so there’s a drinking dove to fit any space in your garden. We’ve had a full range of colors of this plant – from blues, pinks, whites and yellows as well of shades and combinations of almost all of them.

Bloomtime

Depending on your viewpoint, the flowers are either one of the earliest summer bloomers or latest spring bloomers. They start easily from seed and after a few years, you’ll find them popping up all over the garden. The major problem with aquilegia is the leaf miner. Simply squeezing the ends of the tunnels eliminates the miner and its unsightly tunnels.

Plants to Look Out For

A. alpina is a delightful plant with deep sky-blue flowers on 12 inch plants and it is wonderful for the front of the border or rock garden.

However, A. bertolonii is my favorite columbine. This 6 to 8 inch tall plant is wonderful for the rock garden and its blue and cream flowers are the earliest to bloom in my garden. You’ll likely find this one from seed catalogues rather than in garden centers.

A. caerulea is the Rocky Mountain Columbine and it grows 18 to 24 inches in my garden and has blue and white flowers. An attractive plant, I’m told it is one of the parents of many of the hybrid forms on the market today.

A. canadensis is a smaller plant. It thrives naturally at the front of my farm and stands about 18 inches tall in full sun and part shade spots. The flowers (red and yellow) are smaller than the garden center hybrids but equally charming. It is easy to naturalize and grow (I didn’t do anything – they just arrived one year to colonize the area). The textbooks say they prefer moist shady areas but mine are growing on poor, rocky, thin soils in full sunlight.

A. flabellata is one of the parents of modern columbine breeding. One of the nicest forms is the pure white form ‘nana’. It is only 12 inches tall with glistening white flowers reaching to 18 inches.

The columbine known in Europe as Granny’s Bonnet is really A. vulgaris and it grows 18 to 24 inches tall. This plant is the parent the Vervaeneana group that have variegated or gold flecks in the leaves. Many doubles have also been bred from A. vulgaris genetics. The old stand-by ‘Nora Barlow’ with pink and green colored flowers, is quite stable and has bred true year after seeding year in my garden.

Growing up to 3 feet tall, A. chrysantha and its delightful yellow flowers are one of my favorites. The flowers are large with long spurs so it stands out in the garden. This is the plant that brought the yellow gene to the columbine breeding program. Unfortunately, it has also been one of the shortest- lived columbines in my garden, seldom living longer than two to three years.

In hybrids, ‘Biedermeier’ is offered by many seed companies. The blue and white Biedermeier is acceptable – other colors are muddy and not worth growing.

The excellent ‘Dragonfly’ hybrid is a color mix and grows to 24 inches tall.

‘McKanna Hybrids’ are 18 to 24 inch tall hybrids quite commonly found in commercial nurseries. They’ve had good color ranges in my garden.

The ‘Music’ series is one of the better hybrids at 18 inches because the colors are more intense than other varieties.

Sexy Plant Alert

I have to tell you that Aquilegia are also promiscuous. They interbreed quite quickly and easily so it is quite difficult to maintain a pure line of species plants. After a few years, the hybrids will self sow and produce offspring quite different in appearance from the parents. The gardener has a choice at that time; to select the blooming plants they like and allow these to go to seed or to pull the offending plants and re-purchase the hybrid. I note that some of the colors of the hybrid offspring will be quite terrible and I recommend digging out the ones you don’t like. A few years selecting the most desirable colors will produce a relatively stable population.

So, call them pigeons or eagles but just make sure they are in your garden next spring. They’ll take you away on flights of fancy.

Updated Free Perennial Ebook

I have a free ebook on the Perennial Plants of the Year and I’ve just finished updating it. If you want a free copy, simply click here to go and download it.

Do let me know what you think about it.

Echinacea or Coneflower

I rather like Echinacea or Coneflower and given that I have way too many varieties of this plant in my garden, this is probably a very good thing. I just made a short video on growing them. You can find it here.

Perennial Plant of the Year 2009

The Perennial Plant of the Year for 2009 has just been announced and it’s Hakonechloa macra ‘Aureola’. I’ve been growing this wonderful grass for some time now in both USDA 4 and 5 gardens and it has done well for me. Well…. in a tough year in Zone 4 it won’t be really happy.

Here’s the deal.

Full sun to part shade. The more sun you give this plant, the more “washed-out” the leaves will be. So for maximum gold color, grow it in the part shade.

If you have clay - forget it. This one likes a rich, loamy soil with no waterlogging but no drought either.

Propagation is by division and is easy in the spring. Just whack off a bit with a shovel.

I love this grass because it doesn’t spread quickly. It is a slow grower rather than some Attila of the Garden.

And at 12-24 inches tall, it makes a perfect plant for the edge of a border or next to smaller perennials.

If you want to know how to say the name and grow the plant, check out this video I just made.

3 Step to Better Shade Gardening

And to follow up on the previous post - here’s a video about 3 Steps to Better Shade Gardening

3 Steps to Great Full Sun Perennials

Interested in finding the three main things you need to do in order to grow great perennial flowers in full sun? There are some decent pictures in the video (if you like perennial flower pictures)

And when it comes to full sun perennial plants, there are some things you want to think about. For example, there are only a few plants that will tolerate full sun and drought. So if you’re looking for a great perennial border in the full hot sun, then get used to the idea you have to water. After all, the first thing that happens when you restrict the watering is that bloom production drops off.

There are some other hints like this in the video. Let me know what you think.