by GardenLover | Apr 20, 2012 | Snapshots
By Debra Knapke
Teresa’s favorite tool is my second favorite. The tool that goes with me everywhere in the garden is my trusty, multi-purpose perennial knife. It plants bulbs, busts up soil, renews the edge on a garden and weeds with a vengeance. My first one had a wood handle, but I found that a brown tool in a garden equals a lost tool in the garden. All new perennial knives sport an orange plastic handle, and two of my three wood-handled knives now are wrapped with colored duct tape. In total, I have six perennial knives; three wood, three orange. You are probably wondering why? Our children had to have their own perennial knives. And, when I lost a knife in the garden, I ordered a replacement. Then the lost knives reappeared.
There are only five well-loved and well-used knives in the picture. Time to go hunting.
by GardenLover | Apr 18, 2012 | Snapshots
By Teresa Woodard
Spring gardening chores can be daunting, but the right tools help make the work more enjoyable. Today, I share my hedge shears by Okatsune as we start a mini blog series on our Favorite Tools. This Japanese-crafted set of blades is my go-to tool for trimming the boxwood hedge along the front of our house. While I’ve tried other shears, these deliver much smoother and more precise cuts not crushing or “chewed” cuts. Their sharpness and cutting power is attributed to the blades’ hot hammer-forged “Izumo Yasuki Steel”, which is supposedly used in the making of Japanese swords. Check back for Debra’s and Michael’s favorite tools or comment here with your own favorites.
by GardenLover | Apr 13, 2012 | Trendspotting
Canna 'Intrigue'
By Teresa Woodard
Bring runway style to your gardens with this season’s hot new color – Tangerine Tango. Pantone, the creative industry’s color authority, has designated this daring reddish-orange color as the 2012 color of the year in its Fashion Color Report.
“Sophisticated but at the same time dramatic and seductive, Tangerine Tango is an orange with a lot of depth to it,” said Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute®. “Reminiscent of the radiant shadings of a sunset, Tangerine Tango marries the vivaciousness and adrenaline rush of red with the friendliness and warmth of yellow, to form a high-visibility, magnetic hue that emanates heat and energy. So how do fashion-forward gardeners update their gardens with this trendy color?
Here are a few ideas.
Echinacea x 'Tiki Torch'
- Containers: Add orange punch to your containers with Canna ‘Intrigue’, Calibrachoa ‘Tangerine Punch’ Superbells™, Hibiscus ‘Pipedream Tangerine’ or Zinnia ‘Profusion Orange’. Try a daring combination with purple foilage like coleus, sweet potato vine or fountain grass. For a softer look, mix tangerine colors with other citrus hues.
- Landscape: Bring orange pop to your borders with annuals like Zinnia ‘Profusion Orange’, Impatiens ‘Rockapulco Dark Orange’ or even mainstay marigolds. Also consider orange accents in your perennial beds with Echinacea ‘Tiki Torch’, Geum ‘Cooky’, Hemerocallis ‘Primal Scream’ (daylily) , Asclepias tuberosa (butterflyweed) or classic Oriental poppies.
- Accessories: Don’t overlook the drama of a few tangerine-colored garden accessories. Shop for containers in the season’s bold new color or grab a can of spray paint to update a bench, a trellis or other worn accent. A tangerine-colored mailbox certainly would stop traffic.
by GardenLover | Apr 10, 2012 | Books Notes
The Gardener’s Weather Bible: How to Predict and Prepare for Garden Success in Any Kind of Weather – Sally Roth, Rodale Press, 2003
Reviewed by Debra Knapke
Winter, what we had of it, is now a memory. In an effort to figure out how to deal with a too early Spring that has temperatures spiking into the 80’s and 90’s, I went back to an older book on my bookshelf by Sally Roth. The Gardener’s Weather Bible is a wonderful blend of understanding natural weather phenomena and what to do in the garden when rain, hail, wind, snow, and more, grace or threaten your garden. The first half of the book is all about weather and how it is predictable if you know the signs, yet unpredictable because, well, it’s the weather! As the old adage says: “if you don’t like the weather, wait a moment and it will change;” a sentiment Midwesterners are all too familiar with!
Various garden techniques and planting schemes are nestled into the sections on developing your weather-sense and nature-sense. Learn how to identify cloud types and what they indicate. For example: in cloudy weather divide and transplant perennials to reduce the transplant shock. And, set out slug traps as slugs are much more active on a cloudy day than on a sunny one. Discover how much snow equals 1” of water – hint: it depends on the type of snow. Find out how you can predict whether or not frost will descend upon your garden in the spring and fall and save yourself some time and effort.
Every chapter combines the folklore your grandparents knew, with sound gardening advice. After reading this book, you will be less reliant on the six o’clock news and more comfortable with planning your gardening tasks.
And, one last thought: “Don’t knock the weather. If it didn’t change once in a while, nine out of ten people couldn’t start a conversation.”
― Kim Hubbard
by GardenLover | Apr 6, 2012 | Favorite Flora
Hellebore, Lenten rose (Helleborus x hybrida)
By Debra Knapke
A bowl of hellebore flowers is a spring tradition in our home. Hellebore or Lenten rose isn’t really a rose, but it does bloom during and after Lent, and sometimes before. The nodding flowers are single, double; white to cream to pink to deep dusky purple. They are dotted, spotted, picoteed, shaded and blushed.
If I had to point to a true workhorse in the garden it would be this group of plants. I use the term group, because the complex, hybrid cross is made up of at least five different species, one of them being the original Lenten rose: Helleborus orientalis. Culturally, hellebores are easy to establish and maintain. They grow well in part sun to shade and will tolerate full sun (6+ hours) if most of that sun is from the east and south. They bloom for 2-3 months. You will notice that some flowers are “in seed” while others are just opening. If you are looking for winter interest, the large, glossy, evergreen leaves offer an alternative to bare soil. A bonus is that hellebores do not allow light to filter down to those pesky winter weeds that need light to germinate.
Hellebores take two to three years to establish roots that are drought tolerant. Do not let them dry out the first year and watch them the second and third during dry times and water accordingly. Usually, deer do not eat the leaves, because they are well armed with very sharp serrations, or the flowers which are poisonous. However, if a deer is hungry, all bets are off. If you are a lazy or very busy gardener who doesn’t always get to dividing your perennials, hellebores are happy to grow in the same place for years. I have three-foot-wide plants that have been in the same place for 14 years. When you do divide them, do so carefully, as they are not fond of excessive root disturbance.
So what’s the downside of this plant? They do have a tendency to self-seed; a lot. But, the seedlings are easily raked up and left under the plant to compost back into the soil. Or, thinking about this in another way: you have lots to share.
By Debra Knapke
