This week I feature two Magnolia trees that bloom in April with great color! Magnolias in our area prefer full sun but some wind protection. Neighboring mature trees, houses, or other buildings work great to shield them from hot summer wind from the south to west. Magnolia are not drought tolerant, they prefer to be watered regularly. They also prefer to be fed regularly with a fertilizer for acid loving plants like a Rhododendron fertilizer.
Black Tulip grows to 15 to 20 feet tall and 6 to 10 feet wide. It has large dark burgundy, tulip shaped flowers that begin in early spring before the leaves. It’s smaller habit works well in smaller yards that need some spring impact!
Felix Jury Magnolia grows to 16 to 22 feet tall and 5 to 7 feet wide. It boasts 12 inch wide blooms of hot pink. Another tree that would work well small spaces that need lots of spring color!
This week’s featured plants shine bright all winter long providing color when there is not. Both of these handle full hot sun!
Winter Sun Pine is a type of mugo that reaches 6 feet tall and 4 feet wide. In the warmer months it’s a standard pine green but come winter it’s an electric yellow. It’s very cold hardy and tough to handle our hot summers. Winter Sun Pine works well for along a fence or house corner for a winter focal point. This would work well with redtwig dogwoods, or blue spruces for winter interest.
Golden Sword Yucca are great for hot sunny spots. They get 3 to 4 feet tall and 5 feet wide. White bell shaped flowers appear in the late spring. The yellow variegated blades pair well with russian sage, lavender, ornamental grasses, red barberry or mugo pines.
The snow is gone and here somethings that are in bloom! Helebores prefer afternoon shade (12 to 5) to all day shade. They enjoy alkaline soils making our area very welcoming to them. These perennials flower from January to March, this year of course it was March to April. Helebores are great for in front of Hostas Hydrangeas, Hinoki Cypresses and Rhodies. They also contrast Hostas and Coral bells well too with their dark green foliage. Maintenance for them is easy. Simply fertilize, cut out spent blooms and remove older leaves.
Camelot is pink one that reaches 12 to 15 inches tall and 20 inches wide. It starts with pink buds and opens to pink cream.
Double Fantasy is a double white that grow to 8 to 12 inches and 16 inches wide. The clean white is striking.
Here is a video from Garden Answers going over Helebores.
The Lil’ Kim Rose of Sharon is a dwarf version of the high blooming plant reaching only 3 to 4 tall! Like other Rose of Sharon they need lots of heat grow and bloom so full sun spots are great. They flower from July to September. This would be great as a foundation plant under windows or to add color to boxwood hedges in a nice pattern.
The Contorted Filbert is a non fruit bearing Filbert that is most know for it’s twisted branches in the winter. They grow 8 to 10 feet tall and wide. They can handle full to part sun. I like to use the Contorted Filbert as a backdrop for perennials and smaller flowering shrubs. Once fall happens it’s time for the Contorted Filbert to take the stage. You can also trim the branches to use for craft or floral projects.
It’s hard to believe it is March 11th with all the snow on the ground and Feb like temps. Usually, we would be unpacking the nursery from winter but right now we are working on signage and organizing things before spring hits. Once spring hits, we will be working quickly to welcome it! Here is some flower color to help push spring along.
The Supertunia Vista Fuchsia Petunia is like it's hot pink cousin Bubblegum, featured a couple of weeks ago. The only difference is the deeper pink color. Like Bubblegum you feed it, water it, and you will be rewarded with continuous blooms as well no need for deadheading. Vista Fuchsia is a mounding petunia that grows to about 12 inches tall and up to 3 feet wide. Vista Fuchsia grows well in the ground or in pots. It loves sun and our heat too! You can plant this with Bubblegum and enjoy a wonderful show all summer long.
Saint Patrick Rose is green to light yellow rose that seemed fitting to mention for St. Patrick’s Day! It is a long stem rose (Hybrid Tea) that flowers through summer with a deadheading every couple of weeks. It grows to about 4 to 5 feet tall and prefers at least six of hours of sunlight. Being a light yellow in the heat of summer they can fade to white quickly but the color holds well in temps below 90 degrees. This color plays well with purple or dark pink flowering plants like lavender, salvias, garden phlox or spirea for a nice contrast.
With the snow soon to begin melting with warmer temps, fortunately you haven’t missed out on too many garden activities, you just going to have to be ready to do some of the chores in a quick fashion because it’s going to change quickly when it does.
Prevention Spraying with Dormant Oil and Copper Fungicide as long as the buds are hard and it’s a day above 40 you can still spray with the dormant rates on the label. If you miss it follow labels instructions on what to do for the different stages of growth for the plants you are spraying for.
Applying Crabgrass Control. You actually have a lot of time for this as in before May. In fact it would be easier to apply and activate when the irrigation water comes on in April vs applying it when the Forsythia bloom and timing it with rain to activate it.
Dormant Pruning for Roses
This can be done as long as the leaf buds have not begun to pop. The basics for pruning roses are to cut them back to 2 feet then remove diseased, damaged, dead and crossing canes. For climbing roses, go ahead and leave tall just remove the diseased, damaged, dead and crossing canes.
Dormant Pruning Fruit and Berries
This can also be done while the buds are hard. To check this you want to feel the bud with your finger. If it’s hard and doesn’t give or squish under light pressure you are good.
Fertilizing your lawn, trees, shrubs and perennials.
Feeding your plants is a good thing but wait until April like normal because the plant will be awake enough to feed upon the fertilizer as well it is easier to water in with your watering systems.
Cutting back ornamental grasses
Cut them down as soon as the snow melts because once it warms up enough they will begin to grow again for the season and you will only be able to cut them back to as far as they have emerged to.
Cutting back perennials
Either pull off the dead material with your hand or cut it down. Unlike grasses it easier to see the new foliage emerge that you work around it and completely remove all the dead stuff.
Spraying weeds
Round up, Burn Out and other similar herbicides actually work best when temps are in the sixties, so there is plenty of time for this. No need to jump the gun. If the winter weeds are bothering you too much, you can always pull or hoe them out after the snow has cleared.
Applying Pre-emergents
This can be down actually any time of year but it is easier to do when the water is on to water the product in. Just remember to weed or spray the area really good beforehand.
Planting trees, berries and fruit trees
Your time will be short for bare root stuff but potted and B&B trees you have plenty of time.
Planting shrubs and perennials
Most of these plants are potted and can be planted year round. So once the ground is workable again until it’s over 90 you can plant these.
Planting annuals
Annual flowers like petunias and marigolds its best to plant those more toward May when the ground warms up. Primroses and pansies would be good to plant when the snow clears.
The Golden Ruby Barberry is a dwarf barberry with coral orange foliage. It gets two feet tall and wide without trying to be rangy like it’s fellow cousins. Golden Ruby can handle being in sun or shade spots but it’s color is best when it gets at least 6 hours of sun. I like to use it for a border plant to contrast perennials and larger shrubs. It also fits in tight spots that are now wider than 3 feet.
Gold Finger Potentilla is an old favorite for places that have lots of heat, sun and not the best soils. Gold Finger keeps to about 3 feet tall and wide. Flowers in summer with deep yellow blooms. Though it can get rangy over time, these plants can handle a lot of and are easy to care for. I like to use these in desert landscapes or less formal design that needs something colorful and tough. To keep them from getting rangy I like to prune them hard every three years to encourage new branching in late Feb/March. Potentillas play nice with perennial salvia and lavenders.
I wanted to share the two most popular plants that we took to Regional Home and Garden Show.
The Pink Dawn Viburnum is one of the best “Welcome Spring” plants there are on the market. For it is a tough plant that can take full sun to part shade, handle wind and our cold temperatures. Pink Dawn Viburnum grows to 8 to 10 feet tall and 6 to 8 feet wide. In late winter to early spring it flowers fragrant soft pink blooms. They almost remind one of lilacs. In fall, their green leaves turn to a rusty red. I like to use this plant as a height and surrounded by summer flowering perennials. You can also use it for privacy screening by a patio to take advantage of the fragrance.
The Blue Short Needle Japanese White Pine attracted people at the Home Show because of it’s blue-green foliage and irregular shape. It grows to 20 feet tall and 15 feet wide. It doesn’t grow fast which allows it to be used in smaller spots that can’t have full size pine growing there. They enjoy full sun to part shade conditions and enjoy well drained soils. It would work great to serve as a backdrop to perennials and shrubs while providing year round interest.
These two featured plants are summer bloomers that don’t show well in winter; but I’m tired of the snow and wanted to share some color.
The Supertunia Vista Bubblegum is an annual that is very easy to care for. Feed it, water it, and you will be rewarded with continuous hot pink blooms. One plant fills a big pot all by itself. I was impressed with how well this plant did in my own planters. I didn’t have to deadhead spent blooms or trim it. Vista Bubblegum is a mounding petunia, so it is more ideal for grand filler statements. It gets about 12 inches tall and up to 3 feet wide. It loves sun and our heat too!
Neil Diamond is a striped Hybrid Tea, one bloom per stem. The pink/red with white stripes pattern varies from bloom to bloom. It reaches 5 ft tall and resists disease very well. Like other roses it starts flowering in May and goes until it gets cold like October/November. Roses are easy care for if you: give them space, plant them in sunny spots, feed them and then don’t water them on a nightly basis. It’s really that simple with roses in our area or at least that’s what my roses get. If you prune out spent blooms on Hybrid Teas at least monthly, it promotes more blooms.
The Ivory Halo Dogwood is a great plant for winter interest whether it’s snowy or not; with it’s bright red stems. They grow to about 6 feet tall and wide. You can keep them in check with shearing if the space doesn't allow for it. Ivory Halo works well in full sun, as long as it gets plenty of water. The leaves during the growing season are medium green with white edges. This allows it to contrast plants like roses, pines, ninebarks and weigela. It can handle a wide range of soil conditions from being on a drip system to being on a river bank with saturated soil. Ivory Halo is great for parts of the yard that are always wet. Ivory Halo would be glad to take up the water.
Here are some videos on pruning berries going into spring. Enjoy!
Our soils are alkaline (pH above 7) because of the areas low annual rainfall and the lack of organic matter. Alkaline soil can be problematic to some plants because if the soil pH is too high it makes it hard for some plants to take up vital nutrients. By selecting plants that enjoy these soil conditions it a lot less work to keep them happy. A good looking landscape with minimal effort, is much easier to maintain.
Below is a list of plant families that thrive in alkaline soil with little to no pH adjustments. From here you can find a variety that fits your yards needs and personal taste.
Ornamental Grasses
Maiden grasses
Switch grasses
Feather Reed grasses
Fescue Grasses
Fountain Grasses
Fountain Grasses
Shrubs
Sumacs
Junipers
Hydrangeas (though big leaf varieties are pink in alkaline soils)
Spirea
Barberry
Bluebeard
Forsythia
Lilacs
Butterfly Bush (sterile varieties)
Potentilla
Pines
Juniper
Spruces
Photinia
Ninebarks
Common Snowball Bush
Cistena Plum
Mockorange
Viburnums (Deciduous)
Smokebush
Cotoneaster
Perennials
Lavender
Daylily
Sedum
Candytuft
Daisy
Sages
Hosta
Astilbe
Helebores
Red Hot Poker
Catmint
Russian Sage
Black Eyed Susans
Blanket Flowers
Mums
Asters
Yucca
Yarrow
Trees
Bald Cypress
Serviceberry
Golden Rain Tree
Honeylocust
Pines
Bur Oak
Redpointe Maple
Hedge Maples
Persian Parrotia
Sycamore
Willows
Maackia
Green Ash (Urbanite is resistant to Ash Bore)
Catalpa
It’s so fuzzy! The Tiger Eyes Sumac is a yard friendly cutleaf sumac that looks like antlers in the winter; including having the velvet. It reaches 6 feet tall and wide. Tiger eyes leafs out in the spring with yellow to chartreuse green leaves. It's shape and texture resembles a Japanese Maples; but Tiger Eyes enjoys our hot summers. The only complaint that is tries to colonize but if you pull up the suckers keeps it in check. Enjoy the fall colors of oranges and red for a grand finale to the growing season.
Yellow Trumpet Vine is great for when you need yellow summer flowers that attract pollinators. The Trumpet Vine is aggressive so it does need to be kept in check with frequent trimming. Yet, if you need a narrow privacy screen this one works for it provides a thick foliage screen. It enjoys full sun and likes water. Don’t give it too much nitrogen to help keep it in check. Otherwise enjoy the flowers in the summer time.
The Green Spiral Fir is a small weeping tree, it provides a rich green color to the landscape with great texture. It gives the appearance that the needles spiral out of the trunk. It can handle full sun but needs to have consistently moist soil. Green Spiral reaches 25 feet tall and 15 feet wide with a mounding habit. Use this plant as a focal point and mix with dwarf Hydrangeas, daylilies or bee balm.
Hot and Cold Hot Poker is a hot and dry loving plant. It enjoys full sun and doesn’t mind being in hot gravel. The orange to cream torch flowers appear throughout the summer with deadheading. The flowers also attract pollinators really well. Hot and Cold reaches to 2 to 3 feet tall and wide with the torch flowers rising above grass like foliage. Red Hot Pokers play well with lavenders, yarrows, sumacs and junipers.
This week features plants that show well on cloudy winter days! We even took these photos on a cloudy day to show off their glow.
Goshiki False Holly is a medium shrub for afternoon shade spots. It grows 3 to 5 feet tall and wide. The leaves emerge pink, then tune green with splashes of yellow. Goshiki prefers well drained soils so it will go well with azaleas, rhododendrons and astilbes. It works great in small areas and can be trimmed easily to keep in check.
Chollipo Euonymus is a sun loving yellow variegated plant that grows to 12 feet tall and 6 feet wide. It can be used where you need a vertical height and for darker spaces. Chollipo can handle part shade to full sun spots. Like the Goshiki it prefers well drained soil, to be regularly watered and fertilized. Also trim to keep it in bounds if needed.
The Black Hills spruce is a smaller growing, tough spruce that doesn’t have as sharp of needles as the Colorado Spruce. It’s green color makes a nice specimen for Christmas lights. They grow to 35 to 40 feet tall and 15 to 20 feet wide. It handles all of our area’s landscaping quirk of sun, heat, cold and soil pH.
The Midnight Rose Coral Bells is a dark purple variety with flecks of hot pink that stand out in shade gardens. Coral bells prefer afternoon shade in our area (noon to 5) and would prefer to have well drained soil. In spring it flowers white. Midnight Rose Coral Bells with their dark foliage contrasts well against bright green foliage to yellow foliage plants like hostas, hydrangeas, or astilbes.
Here are 5 newer shrubs that have been introduced in the last couple of years that I have found to be: exciting, easy to care for, perform well in our area and will be in inventory this spring.
Purple Pillar Rose of Sharon-Purple Pillar is a columnar Rose of Sharon that only gets to 2 to 3 feet wide. Blooms purple with red centers from July to September. It enjoys full sun and heat for best bloom performance. Purple Pillar works well on corner of houses, narrow beds that need height between windows, or for hedge plant to add color to an evergreen hedge.
Diamond Rouge Hydrangea-Diamond Rouge is a sun loving Hydrangea that blooms white and turns to raspberry pink earlier and doesn’t depend on temp to trigger the color change. It also has a nice upright habit and is less prone to flopping over while in bloom like previous varieties which means less pruning needed. They grow to about 4 to 5 feet tall and 3 to 4 feet wide. Another bonus is the red fall color it turns in October.
Fireside Ninebark-Fireside Ninebark is a dwarf ninebark that features the rich red purple foliage but keeps a more compact form of 5 to 7’ tall and wide. The foliage has the appealing larger leaf of Diabolo that grows to twice the size of Fireside. It enjoys part sun to full sun spots, and doesn’t mind our winds. Works well as a hedge for privacy or where you need a color contrast against a fence or flower bed. Ninebarks are also thorn-less.
Fire Island Hydrangea- Fire Island Hydrangea is great for afternoon shade areas of the yard. It is a dwarf Hydrangea that only grows to about 3.5 feet tall and wide. It starts blooming in early summer and goes into fall for it blooms on both new and old wood. So you get blooms no matter how hard a winter is on the plant. The pink/white colors of the bloom shows nicely in shade.
Lil’ Flirt Spirea -Lil’ Flirt Spirea is a tiny Spirea that is just as durable as it’s bigger cousins. It grows in pretty much any soil condition to 2 1/2 feet tall and wide. It enjoys partial to all sun as well. Lil’ Flirt stays compact and starts blooming in May with repeat blooms throughout the summer. More so if you shear off the old blooms periodically. The compact habit lends this Spirea to work well in perennial beds or as a border plant.
The Weeping Norway Spruce is a classic, durable weeping evergreen for the Tri-Cities. It handles full sun to part shade, our range of temps from summer to winter and our soils with ease. The Weeping Norway Spruce is also flexible to how you train it. You can twist it, train it upward, or let it creep along the ground. The versatility is endless. It’s mature spread is 6 to 10 feet.
The Fiji Rose of Sharon is for full sun spots and has a long bloom season. The pink/white blend stands out well whether it’s a sunny day or in moonlight. This plant is available as a shrub for privacy or accent as well as a small “tree” for focal points. It grows to about 10 to 12 feet tall and six feet wide. The more sun it gets the better for it needs heat to bloom like it’s cousin the dinner plate Hibiscus. Keep it well fed and hydrated so Fiji won’t disappoint.
Angel Falls White Pine is a weeping pine with blue green foliage. It’s needles are soft to the touch versus the spiny feel of the Austrian Pines. The blue green foliage lends itself to contrasting red, dark green, or yellow leafed plants. The Angel Falls mature size depends on how tall you train it. 12 to 15 feet would be the tallest it grows upward if trained. Training Angel Falls upright is simple, you tie it to a bamboo stake, move the stake upward and retie as needed. The flexibility of training the plant lends itself well to focal points near the corner of the house, blank walls or corner where something tall is needed. Angel Falls prefers at least 6 hours of sunlight.
Whipcord Western Red Cedar is a dark green mop-head evergreen. This one is just cool when put in the yard. It breaks away from the standard upright globe shaped plants. The dark green plays well with different shrubs and perennials. It also enjoys full sun (at least six hours) and moist but well drained soils. Whipcord grows to about 4 to 5 feet tall and wide.
The Baby Blue Eyes Spruce is a dwarf Colorado Blue Spruce that reaches 20 to 30 feet tall and 10 to 15 feet wide. It’s slow growing, so it takes awhile to that large. It enjoy a wide range of soil conditions and like the rest of the Colorado Spruce family they do very well here. Our sunny weather actually bring out the blue color! It’s great to use for bird cover, Christmas lights and focal points.
Sheila’s Perfume rose is a delightful Floribunda Rose (flowers in clusters). It grows to about 4 feet tall and wide. It’s blooms resemble a Hybrid Tea in form and size. Sheila also isn’t prone to powdery mildew but it’s still best to not water her going into the night and making sure she has at least 6 hours of sunlight a day. Sheila has a strong fragrance which is nice to enjoy in the garden or in a bouquet.
