From the category archives:

Shrubs

Roses for Dummies

by Susan Harris on September 12, 2005

Knockout3_1Earlier this summer I coughed up 35 bucks to participate in a "design tour" given by a local nursery’s landscaping department.  I thought they were a little nervy asking us to pay for an all-day advertisement for their services, but I paid anyway and it was worth it.

Our first stop was a large garden tumbling down the banks of a lovely river and when I asked the guide what it had cost he said, "About a quarter."  Me, I don’t live in a world where people spend a quarter million dollars on their gardens, so I just nodded knowingly.

Fortunately the rest of the gardens were more in my league and I acquired a new goal in life: get me one of those "Knockout" roses - today. We’d seen scores of them and they won me over with their plentiful blooms, nice shrubby shape and size - about 4 by 4 - and perfect foliage.  They don’t even need full sun.  I came home with one that blooms hot pink (the other choices were red and blush pink) and I’ve got to say it’s lived up to its billing.  In its first year it bloomed continually, grew a lot, and in September still has those perfect little leaves.  And all that reblooming was without deadheading.

Flowercarpet2_1

And while we’re on the subject of extremely low maintenance roses, there’s one other rose our guides recommended that day - the groundcover "Flower Carpet".  (No, I’m not getting paid for this but that’s not a bad idea.)  My neighbors happen to have these so I can report that they’re also disease-free and still blooming their guts out.   

I’m feeling particularly appreciative of these advances in rose breeding because lately I’ve been seeing so many pitiful-looking hybrid teas.  Neighbors and coachees ask me how to make them look better and I suggest replacing them - please.  At least here in the land of hot and humid summers, hybrid teas look like crap most of the time, even if you spray them every week with fungicide, and who wants to do that??  And I’m only mouthing off on the subject because I’ve been there myself. I’ve tried and later ripped out six roses that I can remember and probably others I’ve forgotten, including two of the much-heralded David Austin roses.  But that was before I discovered roses that refuse to fail. 

 

{ 1 comment }

Dead Rhodo - My Bad

by Susan Harris on August 23, 2005

 

Deadrhodo2I’m telling you right up front that I killed this plant, and it could have been avoided. If only I’d listened to the advice I give people all the time. THE FACTS: I bought three rhododendrons in June and two of them diedly, suddenly like rhodos do, with no helpful warning signs like wilting. That’s a 33 and a third percent survival rate. And here’s the point: I was home every day. I thought I was taking good care of them. I was in my garden probably 13 days out of every fortnight (I have English readers now and I want them to feel included.) I’m not saying my care was perfect, but it demonstrates it has to be perfect if the damn things have a chance of surviving their first summer.

I probably never would have gone public with this but yesterday I wrote about Paul James, about how he gives the exact same advice that I’d so recently ignored, and I just had to come clean with it. And now that I’ve gotten it off my chest I feel I can learn from my mistakes and look to the future, a future of planting in the fall if possible, early spring when necessary.  I feel better already.

 

{ 1 comment }

Hydrangea paniculata ‘Tardiva’

by Susan Harris on August 11, 2005

 

Tardiva4f Check out these babies in bloom. The three below have been pruned at the nursery in standard or tree form; the one on the left less so. There’s also one in my neighborhood that’s at least 10×10 feet and in full shrub form (not limbed up like these.) They like part or full sun and are more drought tolerant than the earlier blooming macrophylla hydrangeas. Talk about your low-maintenance, high-impact plants, huh?

Nativity Note:  Hydrangea paniculata hails from China and Japan.

 

{ 1 comment }

Newer Entries →