easy garden

So here we are this past week, buying – and tasting – fruit from the farm stand down the road:

Maya (our 3-year-old daughter), delighted in feeding Jeff and me blueberries. We also picked up some peaches for a fruit salad I was bringing to my brother-in-law's birthday party.

I'd made a point of going to the farm stand (run by Sunscape Farms, which happens to grow its plants in the field right next to our subdivision) instead of the grocery store. I think sometimes we just run computer programs in our head like "Go to Grocery Store" or "Go to Home Depot" every time we need something. And I realized I needed to stop running on autopilot and start patronizing more fruit and veggy stands, farm markets and independent garden centers. I'm glad I did, since I've found so many sales (like $1 packs of annuals at the farm stand and family-friendly activities like an ice cream stand (and a haywagon to eat it in) at Wambach's garden center):

I'd first heard the rumblings of a growing "buy local" movement a few years back when Rochester, NY food, wine and gardening show host Michael Warren Thomas started a Savor Independents project, encouraging people to patronize local restaurants and eateries instead of the big chains. "Did you realize that we could add millions of dollars to the local economy by patronizing local, independent businesses? he asked. "for every $100 spent at a chain, only $13 stays in our community," he added.

Then, as I started to join and read garden blogs and web forums, I noticed how people kept mentioning "localvores" and how they were going out of their way to patronize independent garden centers and farm markets. It wasn't just that they wanted to boost the local economy – they believed that locally grown and sold plants would thrive better in their landscapes.

Indeed, I saw evidence of this when shopping at one of the local independent garden centers in my area – Bristol's Garden Center in Victor, NY, which I love because I know I'll find the Volcano^® Phlox, Bonfire^® begonias and large selection of Flower Carpet^® roses I know I won't find at Lowe's, Walmart or Home Depot. On the ground near me was a nicely designed plastic plant tag from a white-bloomed peony, "Locally Grown - to thrive in your landscape."

Then, just a few days after that, I got a notice from local legislator David Koon (D), encouraging everyone to "buy local."

I have to admit: It's all too easy to buy garden plants at the big-box stores and produce at the supermarket. But it only takes a few minutes more (not even that, sometimes) to patronize local businesses growing and selling garden plants and produce. Take the challenge, and try to buy local at least once before the summer's over!

Do you make a point of buying local when it comes to your garden and the food on your plate? Post a comment and tell me all  about it!

Looking for a colorful, heat and drought-tolerant landscape plant that lasts in containers and hanging baskets or that fills a lot of space in the garden and landscape? Then check out today's guest post on the red-hot, Bonfire begonias, from Sabina Reiner, brand manager for Selecta First Class, Inc.

The Bonfire series, which now includes the Bonfire Choc varieties featuring dark "chocolate" foliage, was developed by Tesselaar Plants and is now sold through the Ball Horticultural Company network as part of the Selecta First Class catalogue of products.

There are lots of begonias on the market, but Bonfire has brought them to the forefront again. Tell us all about it, Sabina!

Sabina Reiner

Bonfire begonia

Bonfire — the HOTTEST begonias on the market

By Sabina Reiner

The Bonfire series of begonias is not only one of our best-selling single varieties — it's one of the top consumer plants out there. Bonfire begonias are a great convenience plant for consumers, first and foremost, because they require less water and recover easily from drought stress.

Bonfire begonias also take the heat and perform like a champ, with brilliant, dramatic color all summer long.

These beautiful begonias are a great choice for visual appeal and interest in your garden or on your patio. They're high-impact, low-maintenance plants, creating continuous color and vibrant floral displays with a minimum of effort.

As a home gardener, I tested this series in my own garden. The key, I learned, is to not overwater it. It flowers from early summer through early frost, handling more heat and cold than many other begonia varieties. It also loves humidity. Although it'll tolerate shade or partial shade, it'll flower most profusely and produce the most vibrant color in full sun.

And yes, you can overwinter Bonfire begonia indoors (see "Overwintering Bonfire" below).

Last year, Selecta added Bonfire Scarlet (with brilliant red-orange blooms) to its product collection:

Bonfire (Scarlet) begonia in hanging basket

Bonfire in the landscape

Now, for 2010/20111, we're adding the dramatic, dark-foliaged Bonfire Choc series.

In addition to exciting, new, dark "chocolate" foliage, the Bonfire Choc varieties offer a great upright to mounding habit, making them perfect for containers, hanging baskets and landscaping. And like the original Bonfire series, Bonfire Choc varieties are extremely drought-tolerant and heat-tolerant while delivering colorful flowers and fantastic foliage all summer long.

Bonfire Choc Red

Bonfire Choc Pink

Bonfire Choc won rave reviews when it was introduced at this year's California Spring Trials (the annual event unveiling many new plant introductions about to hit the market). Choc Red, in fact, was one of garden guru Allan Armitage's top picks at the trial! Southern Living's Grumpy Gardener also praised the Bonfire series there.  

Design tips

I've found that the Bonfire and Bonfire Choc varieties look most provocative when paired or grouped with deep burgundies, true purples and/or silver foliage. 

Overwintering Bonfire

Gardeners in cold climates can overwinter Bonfire begonias indoors. Just let the plant rest in a cold (not freezing), dry place. The images below show the progression of Bonfire coming back to life in the spring.

Pancake-like Bonfire begonia tubers starting to wake up:

1½ months later:

 And I look forward to it returning to its glorious state:

Thanks so much for contributing, Sabina!

Also check out the great post by Margaret Roach, author of the popular A Way to Garden blog, on her love of Bonfire begonias and her success in overwintering them. Bonfire begonias were also the Featured Plant of the Week in this May 19 post by Valley View Farms (one of the largest and most complete independent garden centers in the mid-Atlantic region)!

The original Bonfire begonia was also named as one of 10 “basket-worthy annuals that can take the heat and the sun” in the May 7 PennLive.com post (featuring a picture of Bonfire) by George Weigel (garden writer for the Patriot-News in Harrisburg, Va., circulation 102,000).  Bonfire and Bellfire begonias also star in the annual edition of Container Gardening magazine (by Fine Gardening, circulation 140,000).

Have you grown Bonfire begonias, or tried to overwinter them? Please post a comment, and include some pics!

OK folks…your eyes are not deceiving you. This is my husband actually spray painting the grass green after going hog-wild with Roundup^® the other day trying to kill some weeds. Of course, he plans to reseed, but the house next door is up for sale and they were about to have a showing. So, he reasoned, green spray paint looks better than dead grass.

I think that's debatable. But hey, real life is messy. I can laugh at my husband all I want, but I'm my own whirlwind of destruction when it comes to gardening with little time.

Exhibit A:

This is my husband's Miami Dolphins birdhouse … after I threw it across the yard yesterday. I'd just smashed my head into it for the fourth time while trying to dig up some hostas and irises in the 45 minutes or so I had to myself while my husband and 3-year-old daughter ran to Target for "together time." The sweet little welcome sign that used to hang over the front door is now ripped off and flung across the stones. As of this writing, I still haven't told my husband…

And this….

 … is the carnage I left behind … I was trying make room for new easy-care gardening plants in the only full-sun spot left in our yard. It was frustrating work, since I only had leverage with the shovel from one side. I just kept flinging clumps of greenery and clods of earth onto the nice landscaping stones surrounding the pool (my husband, incidentally, was none too pleased about that – or the about the fact that I ripped up beautiful, full, mature landscaping around the deck of our new home. But the Mad Plant Collector in me must have more!) 

I've only planted irises before, never dug them up, and I have to say, I felt like a deranged killer hacking away at them in their prime. A pang of guilt ran through me as my shovel cut through each rhizome, leaving behind a pink, fleshy cross section looking not unlike a piece of raw meat. And as I pulled on the carcass to drag it to the stones, its clear, gooey juices ran like blood across my hands. I ran to the pool to wash off the guilt … 

Since, according to this GardenWeb post on irises, I CAN transplant irises after the last frost date in my area (which is now), I'll have to do this soon. But they won't be all nicely clumped together and may not bloom for another year after being moved… Plus, I have limited direct sun and these guys need at least six hours of it (according to the same post, above). They may have to go in the front yard, which my husband would like left alone, since it was professionally landscaped and I've already torn apart the back yard.

Meanwhile …

Here sits the spaghetti factory of bajillion-foot hose my husband ran out to get for me the other day, after I planted Flower Carpet^® roses in the back 40 of our lot and then realized I had no way to bring water to them. Notice the nice housing unit with reel that he got and fastidiously set up, winding the hose perfectly around the reel. (The face-down Dora the Explorer doll is also a nice touch, I think). Of course, as soon as I tried to use the hose to water the roses yesterday, the connector in the housing unit came apart and all that hose was too heavy for me to unreel with the little hand crank on the side. So, the bull-in-a-China-shop that I am, I just tore back the lid and started yanking out hose like a clown pulling scarves out of a hat.

Also note the nice, red sprayer attachment my husband dutifully attached to the end of the hose. Well, with the connector piece (black and white, connected to the black section of hose in the foreground) disconnected, water started coming out of that end, instead of the sprayer end. So I figured, just twist off the sprayer attachment and put it on the connector thingy. Which I did, turned on the hose and the water pressure blew the sprayer right off, along with a nut that makes the trigger work. "Darn it all," I said (not actually saying "Darn it all" but something much more offensive). After searching in vain for this one little part, I ended up throwing the sprayer next to the bird house and using the connector end (and the short run of hose with actual water running through it) to drizzle a few sploshes over my newly transplanted lettuce. 

And that was it…Bzzzzzz! Time up! My husband and daughter came strolling across the lawn. Another gardening session done on Mom Time. But hey, that's life. You gotta do what you can do in the time that you have. And today, I'll do it all over again – as soon as I glue my husband's birdhouse back together.

 I just returned home from a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Maui! My husband (with me, below, on a sunset cruise we took there) won the trip as part of some work performance award. Nice, huh?

Well, anyway, of course I had to whip out the camera and snap a pic of every tropical garden and plant I came across. And with such a colorful buffet of tropical foliage and fantastic flowers in front of me, it got me to thinking, "Why can't I have some of that in my Zone 6a garden?" OK, maybe I can't line a whole walkway with it, since it'll die over winter. But on the other hand, why not just put a few of these stunners in a container on the patio, or feature them as colorful, exotic specimen plants? After all, my home is my personal retreat … why can't I have some vacation there, too?

The best way to go about using tropicals in your garden or landscape, I've since learned, is to buy them for use as indoor houseplants during the cold season and then move the container to your landscape or patio in the summer (you can even bury the plant in the pot, to fake the look of an established tropical plant in your garden). And while you're at it, heck — bring all your houseplants outside for the summer for a tropical flair in your beds, borders and containers. Just make sure to look up each plant's particular requirements or ask a local garden center that sells tropicals for advice on how to grow these beauties inside and out in your area. Some tropicals, for instance, will survive in lower light levels indoors during the cold season (perhaps without blooms or as vivid colors, but will nonethless survive), but they need misting and higher temperatures to thrive. Conversely, when taken outdoors, tropicals that grow as understory plants in the rainforest might not be able to handle constant, direct sunlight. Still others are so heat-loving that the chill of cold water direct from the garden hose will make their leaves drop.

Also check out this WONDERFUL  St. Louis Dispatch article on using tropicals in your garden.

 So moving right along, here are some of my tropical plant pics from Maui — along with some ideas on how to use them in your landscape. If you live in a warmer climate and can grow these tropicals year round, take note of where, how and with what other plants the landscape designers have used them. If you're like me and live in a colder climate, you might have to resign yourself to using them as colorful, dramatic accents or treat them as annuals and ditch them at the end of the season.

First, here's some spiky, swordlike phormium (New Zealand flax) in purple-brown, complemented by a green spike of dracena and a ti plant's burgundy and pink tropical foliage. Of course, I think this container combo would look even more dramatic with Tesselaar's darker, glossier, burgundy-black Black Adder™ Phormium, with its elegantly nodding, pendulous tips. 

Another beautiful  tropical plant I saw a lot of was bromeliads. The top image here, of the purple-blue bloom atop lemon-lime, waxy foliage, is aechmea. Below that is a giant, yellowish-orange bromeliad nestled in a bed of tropical fern (I believe it's Phymatosorus grossus, or laua'e (maile-scented fern). Third down is a red-centered bromeliad accented by a green, wavy-leaved tropical fern. Below that is what I like to think of as the 'lollypop planter' of red, orange and yellow flowered bromeliads. Fifth down is that orange-yellow bromeliad as a tall, architectural backdrop for an otherwise common bed of impatiens. Below that you'll see the same bromeliad atop a purple-black groundcover (what a stunning contrast, especially with the companion planting of yellow-green bromeliads. Seventh down shows the view of a bromeliad from above, with its tell-tale pool of water in the center. The bottom shot shows how a mass planting of bromeliads, in different colors, makes a strong, tropical statement.

 Bromeliads, by the way, make some of the best houseplants on earth. For more information on growing bromeliads indoors and out, check out this great eHow article on bromeliad care.

Here's a raised bed with more aechmea, rainbow-leaved croton, and what looks to be either a variegated dracena or carex (could be Tesselaar's own Everest™) and one of my favorite new plants ever — tradescantia (the purple-pink spiky plant down in front). And below that is a close-up shot of the same plants backlit by the morning sun. Awesome!

Here are other images of croton … virtually unmatched in its brilliant colors and many leaf forms (this is one of those plants, however, that can't take chilly water. For more information, check out this great article on croton.

Or, of course, if it's rainbow-colored foliage you crave, and you're not sure how well croton will do in your yard, you can also plant Tesselaar's Tropicanna^® Canna (the bottom picture in this set shows it used along with coleus, Mexican sunflower and caladium in the winning design of Garden Gate magazine's 2009 "Container Challenge" design contest.)

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Well, that's all I could stuff in one post for now. But stay tuned for more tropical plant photos — and videos! — from my trip to Maui. In the meantime, if you want to see more pics from my trip (including the set where Adam Sandler, Jennifer Aniston and Dave Matthews were shooting their next movie!) check out my Flickr site.

As I’ve mentioned in several of my previous posts, I just moved to a new home with a huge yard just begging to be gardened. And now that it’s spring – prime rose-planting time for many – the first plants to go in will be Flower Carpet roses.

In particular, I’ve been eyeing Flower Carpet^® Amber (at right), not only because of its unique, luscious color (orange yellow with a brighter yellow center aging to soft pink) but because like all roses in the Flower Carpet line, it's virtually a low-maintenance (or no-maintenance) rose. One of three new Next Generation Flower Carpet roses (offering 15 years of extra breeding for better heat and humidity tolerance on top of the original line’s 25 gold and international awards).

Not only did Amber just win the coveted designation as an All Deutschland Rose (the world’s highest honor for disease resistance) – it and the two other Next Generation Flower Carpet roses (Scarlet and Pink Supreme) also outperformed three out of four home testers’ other roses, perennials and shrubs in a nationwide survey last summer. On top of that, they did better than all other roses tested between 2006 and 2009 at Cornell University.

While it’s hard to argue with scientific tests, first-hand testimonials sealed the deal for me. I loved how Flower Carpet fans, for instance, recently rushed to defend the brand’s honor on the iVillage’s GardenWeb rose forum (in response to a landscaper’s claim that the roses are “falling out of favor because they don’t live up to their claims.”)

Says jacqueline3: “They have thrived. Once a year I shape them with a hedge clipper and throw on some Osmocote …They DO NOT get any disease that I have ever noticed.”

Adds terryjean: “Blackspot pressure is very high here in the Midwest … and my FC roses are spotless. I don't spray them and they're clean … I don't take any extraordinary winter protection for these guys, either; just oak mulch at their feet and they've survived happily for 6 years …”

And finally, from lainey 6b va: “Years ago when the original dark pink Flower Carpet came out, they advertised that it would grow in any soil, so I planted it in hardpan clay with blue streaks in it …  It thrived, grew and bloomed nonstop for fifteen years. It might occasionally get a black dot on its leaf, but it just shrugged it off.”

Well, that’s more than enough for me, a busy stay-at-home mom who works part-time from home. Between meeting deadlines and keeping my almost-three-year-old from drawing on the dog with a Sharpie marker, it’s nearly impossible to consistently remember to water, deadhead and spray for black spot.

So, I’ve already prepared a raised bed in full sun (well, up to four or five hours of full sun, but I’m the one who chose the yard with all the shade from mature trees. Good thing Flower Carpet can grow well in the shade, maybe slightly fewer blooms – but what’s a few less out of a thousand or more per bush?)

I must admit, my “raised bed” (at right - and yes, that's me) is just a hill of dirt left by the former owner’s pool excavation. But it’s an ideal for mass planting because it’s a big, sloping area that needs to be covered. (Next year, I’ll probably add Flower Carpet roses to the deeply sloping, curved walkways (at right) bending around both sides of my house to the backyard). Plus, if I can grow Flower Carpet in hardpan clay (see above) I’m not going to pay for a truck full of topsoil). I just weeded the pile, raked in several bags of manure and organic compost and watered it all in. Of course, I’m so busy I haven’t gotten around to doing a soil test in my yard for acidity and nutrients, but I know I’ll get a little sachet of the perfect fertilizer with each Flower Carpet rose (guaranteed to work in all kinds of soil). So that saves me another step – figuring out what kind of food – and how much – to feed my new roses. To keep in moisture and snuff out weeds while I’m waiting for Flower Carpet Amber to show up at Home Depot, I’ve topped off the raised bed with black pine bark mulch.

While Flower Carpet roses are great for flower beds, mass plantings, large containers and even as standard tree roses, my personal preference is to plant them, en masse, as a groundcover. Not only do mass plantings of one kind of plant make a more dramatic impact and visually “read” better from a distance, I’ve got so much yard – almost an acre – to work with, so I think an occasional rose bush here and there would get lost. While mixing any of Flower Carpet’s 14 colors would be fine, I like to keep the color the same for a bolder statement.

So, since I’m planting Flower Carpet as a groundcover (shown here, at right), I’ll space these compact, tidy bushes with their green, glossy foliage two to three per square yard. (In his video on mass planting Flower Carpet roses, GrowingWisdom.com host Dave Epstein suggests using seven to 13 in a 10-foot-square area. I guess it depends on how dense you want the planting to look. Either way, the roses will eventually knit together, since each plant grows to be about 4 feet wide when mature.)

There’ll be more posts on all this when I get the plants from Home Depot. But till then, watch Dave Epstein’s great videos on planting Flower Carpet roses – not just the mass planting one, but on using Flower Carpet roses to beautify a walkway and using Flower Carpet roses with other plants.

That’s all for now. Happy rose planting and see you here next time on Your Easy Garden by Tesselaar!

Just got home from the grocery store, and couldn’t help noticing how many people were buying potted spring plants for indoor decor! Now that the bulbs are blooming and branches are blossoming, it’s a perfect time to forage in your yard or garden. Just grab a pair of pruners or scissors and let that frustrated artist out to play!

  Here, I just mimicked what I always see in the Pottery Barn catalogs – a long, arching flowering branch (here I used forsythia) in a clean-lined contemporary vase. (Tip: for longer-lasting blooms on woody stems, smash the bottom of the stems with a hammer or meat mallet. This increases the surface area of the woody fibers and allows them to take up more water).

Pussy willows can look downlight wintery if put in a heavy ceramic vase in an earthy color. Instead, lighten up the look with a vintage-style bottle tinted a robin’s egg blue. When choosing vases or containers for spring floral designs, I always keep in mind the advice of Charles Arena (of Arena’s Florist, here in Rochester, NY): use clear glass or shiny, cool-hued metal (like the silver of a garden tea party set or the galvanized metal of watering cans). Pussy willows, by the way, can be put in a vase without water to keep their furry, silvery buds just the way they are, or you can put them in water and watch their green leaves sprout.

Spring bulbs (like these purple-blue hyacinths) often look great in a low, chunky vase like this one, with a few pebbles on the bottom you can just pick up in the yard. A minimal look is key:  Trim off all leaves and just leave the stem, and cut the stem so the bloom just peeks over the top edge of the container. (You can even put them within a taller vase so they can be viewed through the glass).

Here’s another flowering branch – of the beautiful, white, flowering magnolia ‘Royal Star’ – in that same tall, clean-lined contemporary vase I used for the forsythia. I love the Asian/Zen flair of this design – maybe it’s because the organic architecture of branches is something celebrated in the Japanese art of bonsai (training small trees and shrubs in pots) and ikebana (Japanese flower arranging).

Another cool look Charles Arena taught me is to create a terrarium or miniature landscape within an apothecary jar (like the ones you’d find in old-time drug or candy stores – with knobbed glass lids on them). Here, I just lined the bottom with moss I found in a shady area (it lifts right off, like a little rug), then added some stones and some lilac buds and a sprig of creeping juniper). I love terrariums … they sort of recapture the Victorian era’s "Wardian cases" full of miniature plantscapes. Click here to learn more about (or buy) terrariums or replicas of Wardian cases.

Here are those magnolias again – this time in a galvanized can embellished with spring touches like raised designs of butterflies and a coat of pastel-pink, distressed paint.

And this time in a shiny cool-hued, galvanized metal watering can.

Here’s another trick: Do a series. Here, I just stuck the hyacinths in three juice glasses with a sprig each of inkberry from the bushes out front. See? You don’t need fancy vases - or even fancy plants. Just using a grouping of the same or similar items (usually odd numbers like three, five, seven or more) can make a stylish statement – and boost your mood!

For more pictures of my easy floral designs, go to my Flickr account. I sure had fun putting all of these together! What do YOU do with spring flowers, blooming branches and foliage? Post a comment and tell me about it!

See you here next time on Your Easy Garden by Tesselaar!