Happy Gardenblogger Bloom Day, and this time I’m going to play by the rules by showing you what’s actually blooming today in my actual garden.  Here we go.

Salvia ‘May Night’ (above left)  is super-common – because it does so well here.  On the right, the spiderwort (Tradescantia virginiana) may be considered an obnoxious weed by some, but with the right care it’s a winner.  The key to making this native plant garden-worthy is to whack back its foliage after the first bloom, when the foliage looks like crap.  Then new leaves appears and the gardener is happy once again.

Speaking of weeds, here are two more of my favorite garden plants that some consider a weed.  First, creeping Sedum acre is at its bright-yellow best.  It arrived here as a weed and does so well, I chose it as one of my top two lawn-replacement plants.  The Evening primrose blooming in pink is another volunteer.  It does seed freely and because I wanted it, that’s a good thing.  Free plants and plenty of ‘em!  Also shown here in the photo above are some lambs’ ears and the lovely ‘Ogon’ spirea in chartreuse.

Above in my adopted garden (next door) is a short-lived but stunning pairing of Siberian iris with peonies.

Above are two of the lawn-substitute groundcovers in my front yard at their bloomingest.  On the left is creeping cinquefoil and on the right, a Thyme – not sure which.  (Sorry – I moved them too many times to keep track.)

Also in the front yard, anchoring a corner quite nicely, is the Spirea nipponica ‘Snowmound’.  It blooms after the more common bridal wreath-type spirea and in a more angular, less fountainesque shape.  Both are do-ers and as close to no-maintenance as plants can be.

My Floral Carpet and Knockout roses are all blooming and they’ll keep it up til Thanksgiving or so.

With so many people interested in adding native plants to their garden, I thought it was time to weigh in with a list of my favorites. That’s based on their actual performance in my garden, y’all.

I’ll fess up that this ‘Little Henry’ Virginia sweetspire isn’t mine, though.  My full-size Itea is doing well and since seeing its little brother here in someone else’s garden, I ran out and bought 5 of them.  Now it’s “Grow, Henry, grow!”

File this under Reasons to Blog for your Favorite Garden  Center – freebies.   Because the blogger needs to “trial” plants and report the findings, ya know.  (Anything for science!)

The fun started when I proposed to Homestead annuals manager Kerry Kelley hat I grow, photograph and report on some cool annuals for pots, and damn if she didn’t start hauling flats straight from the greenhouses to arrange FOR me, then loaded it all into my plant-hauling vehicle.  Home and potted up, they’re ready for their close-ups – with updates coming every month throughout the season.

“Experiments” pictured here include, on the left, as a focal point in a sunny border: Canna ‘Emerald Sunset’, Lantana ‘Pot of Gold’,  Angelonia ‘Serena Purple,’ and some deep purple sweet potato vine.  And on the right is one of four pots on my front porch, which is sunny all afternoon.  This one holds one ornamental millet, two ‘Vancouver Centennial’ geraniums, and a “Trixi”, whatever that is.

Honestly, as a shrub+perennials type of gardener, annuals are almost intimidating – who’s ever heard of these things?  And why don’t they have common names I might actually remember?  Though “ornamental millet” is easy enough to remember and makes me wonder why I’ve never seen one before – it’s so gorgeous and dramatic right out of the greenhouse.

Or I guess if you’re Down Under, Happy Autumn.  No matter.  It’s just an excuse to post some some scenes captured yesterday on my street.

Girl in a Redbud

Hmm, I don’t seem to remember her name – my bad.  But I’m on it!

Pretty house with forsythia in bloom

Tulip poplar petals

by Author and Professor of Horticulture Jeff Gillman (His quarterly updates are archived right here.)

If you’ve ever wondered where new plants that come out of university or USDA breeding programs are first mentioned, then you should read the journal HortScience. There is a special section in that journal which concentrates on new cultivar and germplasm releases. Here researchers publish the first official reports on new plants that are being released, including information about the plant and where the plant can be obtained. Most of these plants will never really “make it” with consumers and so will die a slow death, but some will. For your enjoyment, here are the new cultivars listed in the February issue of HortScience.

• ‘Replantpac’ which is a plum-almond hybrid that serves as a rootstock for grafted plums.
• ‘Blue Suede’ which is a southern blueberry already licensed for production at McCorkle nursery — a big, well known Georgian business. This cultivar is supposed to be good for the backyard gardener and, if I were to bet on which of the plants here has the best chance to succeed, I’d say this plant.
• ‘Syrgiannidis’ a pear which matures early and which was bred in Greece (it may or may not ever reach the US).
• ‘Charleston Scarlet’ sweetpotato which has remarkably red skin which will, supposedly, make it attractive to consumers. It is also highly resistant to many pests. Right now it is considered good for the backyard gardener or the small organic grower.
• ‘Champagne’ fig, a fig for southern states which has good fruiting characteristics.
• ‘Wyldewood’ elderberry, a heavy yielding elderberry named after Wyldewood Cellars Winery, a big Midwest producer of elderberry wine.

And now the research reports:

1. Are Habanero leaves hot?
On the off-chance that you have been wondering about the amount of capsaicin (the stuff that makes hot peppers hot) in the leaves of habanero peppers, you don’t need to concern yourself any longer. Researchers in Mexico used sensitive chromatographic equipment to determine that there isn’t any.

2. Weigelas for Serious Winters.
Weigela is a plant common in the northern part of this country, but not all Weigelas are made equal when it comes to being able to survive the winter. Newly introduced cultivars were tested for their cold hardiness and the cultivars ‘Pink Popper’, ‘Dark Horse’ and ‘Ruby Queen’ were the hardiest, followed by ‘Alexandra’, ‘Evita’ and ‘Sunny Princess’.  All of these are likely to do fine in zone 4a (think Minneapolis). The cultivars “Brigela’, ‘Carnaval’, ‘Elvera’, ‘Goldrush’, and ‘Rubidor’ are not likely to handle zone 4a.

3. Yes, but would you choose this color if it weren’t Mother’s Day?
We have preferences for different color flowers depending on the holiday (or lack thereof), our age, and many other factors. For example, red and bronze colors are preferred for anniversaries and Christmas, but not blue and purple. White and yellow are preferred for Easter, and peach and pink flowers are preferred for mother’s day. Additionally, higher income female consumers over 55 prefer peach and pink flowers more that their lower earning peers, while higher earning females 40-54 years old prefer blue and purple flowers more than their lower earning peers. Most men, regardless of age or income, buy red and bronze flowers….

4.  Trees for the best shade?
Believe it or not, there are significant differences between the air temperature and soil temperature in the shade provided by different trees. In a test conducted in Taiwan (subtropical – think northern Florida) it was determined that how lightly the leaves were colored, the density of the canopy, the leaf thickness, and the leaf texture all had an effect on the air and soil temperature in the shade around trees. So, which tree provided the coolest shade? Chinese elm and Rose wood.

Photo:  Weigela ‘White Knight’.

]]> http://www.sustainablegardeningblog.com/archives/4932/feed 1 http://www.sustainablegardeningblog.com/archives/2688 http://www.sustainablegardeningblog.com/archives/2688#comments Sun, 22 Nov 2009 21:45:59 +0000 Susan Harris http://www.sustainablegardeningblog.com/?p=2688

Actually, pictured are SIX more reasons, and they're just a few of the groundcovers that look just fine here in late November (photos taken 11/22).  My point is that all of them are all  much nicer to look at than dead leaves.  Isn't winter dreary enough without covering up our evergreen groundcovers?

Now if you garden in, say, Buffalo like my friend Elizabeth, your beds are going to be covered with snow all winter anyway, so what the hell. But here in balmy  Zone 7, we get to see plants..

Clockwise from upper left are: Hellebore, lambs' ears, Vinca minor, Pulmonaria, Carex 'Ice Dance', and Ajuga.