Masterpiece Landscaping Blog

January 13, 2012

2012 - The Winter without a January

Filed under: Bulbs, Plant health, battling the Minnesota climate, shrubs and trees — glenn @ 3:18 pm

at least thus far fellow Northlanders…..

Previous to yesterday the vast majority of my grounds was bare of snow.   Where snow did exist, there was no accumulation, but only a dusting here or there in areas beyond the reach of the Sun.

As most of you readers know, I am thoroughly in favor of our Twin Cities moving into Horticultural zone 5.   In some grounds we are almost there, but msot of those grounds are in the Twin Cities themselves.

Last year we didn’t have a January either exactly.   As you remember we had the abundance of snow fall on November 13.   The ‘dump[ reached 32 inches most places on my grounds.   December came and went, dumping more ‘on the place below”.   And January came and went without any January thaw at all.  

It was good for our snow removal business for we could remove the endless number of ice dams on Twin City roofs.   Suddenly, mid February,  warm breezes, the tantalizing kind feigning Spring, ruined the money-making.   We had to wait another six weeks before the landscape gardening season began in earnest. 

Are there troubles assoicated  with a winter without a January?  

You bet there are.   Last evening the temperature hit our season low, zero degrees Fahrenheit after a month of March weather, but March weather without March snow…..the heavy wet kind. 

Some folks noticed tulip foliage already beginning to pierce the soil line on the south locations of their  house.    Although it is possible some Dutch bulbs might be already lost due to this warm and snowless winter followed by this sudden deep freeze,  it depend upon what temperatures are ‘on the horizon’. 

If there is an extended period of below zero temperatures   without any snow cover, any damage to  tulips will be nothing compared to what might happen to countless far  more valuable woody plant materials of borderline hardiness…..such as the Emperor Japanese Maples,  Forsythia blooms (although nearly all Forsythia shrubs themselves are hardy in the Twin Cities, the exposed wood of the Black Beauty Elderberry,  dieback also on many smokebushes to the ground, although their roots probably will survive.   

Young newly planted hemlocks, yews, yellow foliaged Japanese yews especially might be hard hit, depending upon the quality of the soil in which they have been  planted. 

Dwarf ginkgos might be killed.   Some of those other plants you spent $200 per unit for are also likely to be victimized.

As a rule “dwarfs’ of both deciduous and evergreen shrubs or trees are less hardy than their standard parents.   The ones most susceptible to winter kill from snowlessness are those from parents hardy only to zone 4, and most woody plants of horticultural zone 5. 

What to do to avoid the loss  of some of your favorite more sensitive plants?  

If your landscape garden or garden  border, or flower garden bear  no winter mulch added to the soil around their crowns already and you haven’t a bag or two or twenty filled with oak leaves, unchopped, you might think about applying rags or old sheets around the crowns of the plants possibly endangered.  

Tree  and  Intersectional  peonies might be susceptible to damage…..which reminds me as I write this article I have forgotten   to tend to them thus far.

So I have to run folks!  These peonies demand my attention!

May 3, 2011

A Report on Spring 2011

Filed under: Bulbs, Plant health, battling the Minnesota climate — glenn @ 10:54 pm

May first is the normal time for Leonard Messel or Dr. Merrill Magnolias to begin blooming in my landscape garden.   Normal meaning over the past thirty years.   Normal meaning this year….despite the relatively miserable Spring….more accurate ……the absent Spring  thus far.

Dutch bulbs have done well.   At last my Siberian Squill have weeded enough to cover masses of space with the most beautiful blue matching any in the world.   For you beginning your landscape garden world, keep note that it does take about ten years for these masses tobecome  large enough to make a powerful floral statement….for about a week to ten days.   Those with only half day sun bloom a few days behind those in the open.  

There will be a down side when the foliage sinesces…in about two or three weeks.  Don’t fret and do not cut the foliage back after bloom.   Any of these minor….or major …..Dutch bulbs need their greenery after bloom to restore the bulb with energy to produce another display next season.  It’s a good time to fertilize with a fertilizer a bit higher ratio  in phosporous.

The yellowing Siberian Squill (also called Scilla) foliage will last about a week, often less, but will disappear without your interference.   Squill will spread throughout any area in which the soil is exposed and not under water.  

Snowdrops are earliest bulb bloomers in my grounds.   Winter aconite would show second, but not this year.   They were a no show.   I have trouble keeping them for any length of time.  Perhaps artificial watering is a problem.

Remember all Narcissus are  immune from rodent munchings.  Unfortunately the  color selection isn’t very broad.  Hyacinths with their exceptional fragrance aren’t particularly bothered by rabbits in my grounds.   Crocus and tulips are another matter.

Some years ago I was planting some crocus at a client’s garden.   I had several dozen crocus in an open box on the bed of my pick up truck, which was in sight from where I was planting crocus.  

I happened to look up just in time to see two squirrels  leaving the truck bed looking very pleased with themselve…..and I immediately guessed why.   They had ripped into the webbed bags containing the crocus.   About ten of the  fifty were gone and some remains were apparent what had happened.

Some seasons I had the viscious purple crocus bloom at the same time as the swaths of scilla…..and exceptional sight, but a few years later the crocus had disappeared.

Puschkinias bloom at the same time as Siberian Squill and Chionodoxa….and they all have been in great display during this past verycold week and are still blooming.

The evergreen groundcover, Pachysandra terminalis, is also in bloom now.   In masses one can pick up their sweet fragrance on the warmer spring days……   The dwarf Frittilarias are also blooming.

Most cookie cutter landscapes don’t use many if any of the countless new evergreen varieties on the market these day.   As their new foliar buds swell the colors, usually a lighter and sometimes a brighter shade than the more mature foliage, make them appear to be in bloom as well.

So many of this year’s more mature conifers look crappy even if they did survive without severe damage from last winter’s onslaughts.   I have lost two Hetz Junipers, one Tendergreen Juniper and one deGroot’s Arborvitae all of which were leveled by the November 13, 2010 wet and heavy 24-30 inch snowfall.   Two Woodward Arborvitaes were crushed and one mature Techny broke in half.   The storm damaged twenty or more other major plantings…..destroying an Indian Summer crapapple, ripped a major branch off an unknown named  pure white blooming cultivar…..and ravaged my White Pine.

Well, there is always tomorrow, if the sun will decide to appear…..and  my white rockcress opened up today.  What a white.   I have four or five beds of this unfailing white flowering groundcover, Arabis caucasica.   Last Spring all beds were in bloom for a day short of a month.

April 14, 2010

What’s That In Bloom?

Filed under: Bulbs, boulders and stone, garden seasons — glenn @ 8:24 pm

Well, what is that in bloom around the Twin Cities this year……April 9-20 depending on location of specimens?  

Among the trees there are the magnolias, pink being Leonard Messel and the white, the Merrill Magnolia.  Both are pleasantly fragrant.

The bright yellow flowering shrubs are the forsythias, probably Meadowlark or Northern Sun.  They have been in bloom in most locations for about a week already.  In older plantings one might see Nankin Cherry, a large ten foot high and wide rose family shrub with soft white flowers coverning the plant.  My own PJM Rhododendron opened its pinkish lavender blossoms in full force this very morning.  It is over 30 years old, twelve  feet by twelve  feet in size. 

The Amelanchiers both shrubs and trees will be beginning their flowering now, as well.   Floral displays are an off white.

The masses of stunning pure white among the groundcovers now in bloom is white arabis….or rockcress.  It is an evergreen spreader, and does like to spread, but is not at all weedy.  If wattered reliably the bloom might last for over three weeks.

My Lenten roses are in their third week in bloom….and might continue for another couple weeks. 

Most of the earlier Dutch bulbs, eranthis, snowdrops, crocus, dwarf fritillarias, scilla (Siberian squill) and Chionodoxa are either in full bloom or are past their prime in the more sunny exposures.  All of these bulbs must be planted in the fall.   Scillas are the one super reliable minor (small) Dutch bulb in our northern gardens.  They will last and spread in the grounds for decades and decades.  There is no more beautiful  penetrating  blue in nature.  It is too bad they are so small……but then, a spread of  a hundred or more square feet of them is spectacular.   An issues arises after the plant fades and disappears in a month.  What is going to happen next in their space is often a question. 

My lone marsh marigold clump will begin opening  tomorrow morning.

Many of the narcissus (daffodils) are in bloom now.  Remember these bulbs are not eaten by rodents.  Unfortunately, they do not bare colors outside the yellows and whites, but they do bloom about the same time as the early rhododendrons which together is a color scheme no family member or neighbor will fail to appreciate.   They also are available in miniature sizes.  Again these must be planted in autumn as well. 

Tulips are sold as early, middle, or late season bulbs.   Early season was yesterday and the week up to yesterday.   I like the Kaufmanias.  They are shorter and therefore more attractive abutting boulders.   I much prefer bulbs, flowering perennials in general, whose blooms and foliage are under 18 inches for these smaller sizes make my garden boulders looks bigger. 

Most hyacinths will be blooming next week.  They are tremendously fragrant.  The big fritillarias are much later,  after all they become  a rather large plant in adulthood. 

If you keep track of bloom times of any flowering plants in your garden, you will notice by the records you’ve kept, that not every Spring is the same in sequence of bloom. 

This spring in my garden the season is about ten days further along than last year at this time.  The steady weather in March helped to lengthen  Spring. 

Gardeners should remember that, in general, the best location for flowering plants and those shrubs and small trees which might be a bit more sensitive or delicate for one good reason or another, is the grounds to the East of the house or where the plants are exposed to morning light.

Why?   Here’s a hint. 

Remember your explanation when you do your plantings.

Azaleas and Rhododendrons, those hardy for our northern areas, do their best in full morning light, especially in floral display.  They would be unhappy in afternoon sun throughout the summer.

September 15, 2009

Should One Tiptoe Through The Tulips?

Filed under: Bulbs — glenn @ 9:58 am

No.  Neither necessary or adviseable.  If you are a devoted landscape gardener, and you live in Minnesota, and I were in charge of your psychological well being, I would advise planting not tulips, but another “Dutch” bulb, the narcissus.  “Daffodil”  is the “street” name for these bulbs.

Are the bulbs in the world of the daffodil more beautiful than tulips?

Not in my view.  Nor likely in the view of the Dutch according to history.  Tulips offer a much, much broader rainbow of colors….blue is missing, but that is a difficult color to display with any genus of garden plants.   Most tulips have a very pleasant up close scent.  Others have very attractive foliage.

There is a tremendous difference, however, between growing narcissus  in ones landscape which raises the narcissus far above any other “Dutch” bulb in its value to make it more soothing to the gardener’s sense of well being.  A fact to remember:

Narcissus, i.e. daffodils are totally immune as food to any and all of your landscape garden visitors called RODENTS.

Usually when this fact is fully digested, the value of white and yellow in the spring garden suddenly dramatically increases.  As long as these bulbs are not planted  in peaty or other soils high in organic content, and they can get enough sun to a space not overly wired by elm or maple roots, most narcissus can last in their space for decades.

Some of the newer hybrids of tulips, no matter how beautiful they may be, often live for only a few seasons.  That may be true of some narcissus, but I have not yet noticed this.

Some narcissus are  strongly fragrant, some very tiny.

For those enjoying the beauty of well placed boulders in their landscape garden, home owners should, as a rule, plant dwarfish Dutch bulbs among the boulders in order to exaggerate the mass of the boulder rather that dwarf it.

Note:  Dutch bulbs are called “Dutch”, neither because they are tough on spending money, nor because they “pay” equally for the evening “out”, as in the expression, “going Dutch”.  Or even because they are native to Holland.

They are called “Dutch” because, when “independent” Holland was rising as a sea power exploring the world new to the human experience during the 17th century, it went beserk over the beauty of the tulip.  Fortunes rose and fell speculating on the value of the tulip bulb.  Narcissus were less valued.

Perhaps the Dutch had fewer menacing rodents in their landscapes.