mailorder gardening

Happy New Year!

And happy National Mailorder Gardening Month (at least according to the Mailorder Gardening Association, which offers great information on gardening by mail).

Check out the catalogs

That’s right. Those mailorder catalogs – full of the latest dramatic flowers and fantastic foliage — should be filling up your mailbox any day now. So grab your Snuggie and a cup of coffee – it’s time for a trip to Catalog Land.

Getting to these catalogs and ordering from them early is especially important if you want one of those hot, new introductions that’s in limited supply. And since this blog’s about easy-care gardening, you might also want to add to this year’s shopping list plants described as "low-maintenance," "disease resistant," "pest resistant," "easy to grow," "self-cleaning," or "drought tolerant."

Plan, dream…have fun!

While you’re at it, now’s the time to sketch new garden layouts, plan additions or renovations and play with different plant combinations for your beds and container gardens. Just get out that stack of gardening magazines and 1/4-inch graph paper or your laptop (and try the free, online Plan-A-Garden feature at BHG.com).

Keep those houseplants alive

In addition to the houseplant care tips I provided in my Dec. 15, 2009 post on December garden chores, you’re going to want to think about increasing the humidity. “A lot of plants will benefit just from a misting – once a day, or once every other day,” says Dave Epstein, founder of GrowingWisdom, an online video website for homeowner-gardeners and landscape professionals. “It creates a miniature, more humid environment around it – kind of like a microclimate.”

Schedule tree service

“If you have a tree that’s dead, this is a great time of year to have it removed,” says Epstein. “Contact an aborist, since this is a slow time of year for them. Plus, your ground is probably frozen, so they can bring big equipment onto your lawn without doing any damage.”

Another reason to call them now is to set up a spring health maintenance program for your trees.

Regional roundup

If you live in a wamer climate, check out the fantastic, region-specific "Gardening To Do List - January in the Garden" post by About.com gardening guide Marie Iannotti. And wherever you live, she adds, don’t forget to feed the birds and provide them with fresh, unfrozen water.

Those mailorder gardening catalogs should be flooding in any day now.

And while we all enjoy looking at the latest coneflower, coreopsis and calibrachoa, it’s hard picturing these dramatic flowers and fantastic foliage nestled in among the other plants in our garden or landscape.

So here’s the third of four posts on easy garden design ideas and companion plantings for 2010 introductions by easy-care gardening experts Tesselaar Plants.

Today, let’s take a look at Fairy Magnolia® Blush. And as always, these suggestions can also be applied to any plant with a similar habit, color or form.

First, a quick run-down on this exotic, fragrant plant, since michelias are well…kind of new to a lot of us (also check out this great article and cultural information on michelias, by Fredrik Liljeblad at the Garden Web Forums at http://forums.gardenweb.com). 

The first of the michelia hybrids by New Zealand breeder Mark Jury to be released in the U.S., Fairy Magnolia Blush "could shape up to be the next big thing among savvy gardeners and landscapers,” raved the Taranaki Daily News (in Taranaki, New Zealand, where Fairy Magnolia Blush was bred and first introduced). “Gardeners looking for an alternative to the tried-and-true camellias or the elegant but sometimes too-big magnolias should swoop on this michelia.”

An upright, compact, bushy shrub, Fairy Magnolia Blush has lilac-pink, fragrant flowers  accompanied by evergreen foliage resembling that of a camellia, but without the gloss. It grows 10’ to 14’ high by 8 to 10’ feet wide and is hardy in Zones 7b through 10. It blooms in late winter to early spring when sited in full sun to partial shade. 

When trying to incorporate michelias into your landscape, consider using them as a hedge (as seen in image above, from breeder Mark Jury’s Sept. 9, 2009 “Magnolia Diary” post on his blog “Tikorangi – The Jury Garden,” at http:/jury.co/nz/).  It also makes a beautiful espalier, topiary or specimen.

When it comes to companion plantings, renowned plant grower and developer Monrovia suggests pairing Fairy Magnolia Blush with its other Asian/Zen or tropical beauties like Bougainvillea ‘Cherry Blossom’,  Blood Banana, Hong Kong Orchid Tree and Hibiscus ‘Erin Rachel.’ With the help of a few big containers, this is the chance for cold-climate gardeners like me to create my own patio oasis.