GardenDesignOnline

Sweetgums, Slugs and Bird Flu

This should be a tree for everyone's garden, except for those #@*!?$#! gumballs.  But slug season is soon upon us, so gather up those gumballs and get to work.  A ring of sweetgum fruits around your hostas, it's said, will keep the slugs away, much kinder to the environment than slug poison.  Now comes word from scientists at the American Chemical Society that the mace-like gumballs contain a lot of shikimic acid, used in production of the drug Tamiflu(R), which many countries are stockpiling in the event of a global flu pandemic.  At a recent ACS meeting, Thomas Poon, a professor of chemistry at Claremont College in Claremont, CA, said sweetgum trees "may help to alleviate the worldwide shortage of shikimic acid" because "they have lots of potential for fighting bird flu."  How about that!

And as for the tree itself, I'd definitely consider this one if you need a shade tree.  It has a perfect pyramidal shape and lovely, star-shaped glossy dark green leaves that turn stunning shades of yellow, orange, red and purple in fall.  It can get 60-70 feet high and 40-50 feet wide, so give it lots of room.  Zones 5-9.

(photo: J.S. Peterson, USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database; Drawing: USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database)

Happenings April 2006

April 1 Tour of Washington Monument Grounds, Washington DC
Landscape architect Laurie Olin & associates lead a tour of ha-has and recessed paths erected as permanent security barriers. Sponsor, National Building Museum.

April 3, Lecture, SWA Group, Washington DC
6:30PM National Building Museum, Kevin Shanley,ASLA, SWA Group President,will discuss the firm's practice & recent projects.

April 7 Green Roof Symposium, Bronx, NY
NY Botanical Garden sponsors a one-day program exploring the latest trends in green roof design, construction, and horticultural requirements. Featuring Katrin Scholz-Barth of U-PA; Charles Miller of Roofscapes, Inc and Ed Snodgrass of Emory Knoll Farms, Inc.  AM: Lectures; PM: Green Roof Projects in NYC (718) 817-8747

April 8  Private Garden Tours Vero Beach, FL.
Garden Conservancy.Three private gardens featuring 1) herb garden and orchid house 2) a formal rose garden and "living wall" of Podocarpus and 3) a citrus grove, pool gareden and outdoor loggia.  Also open nearby is the McKee Botanical Garden.

April 7-9 Garden Expo, Nashville, TN
Williamson County Agricultural Expo Park

April 8-9 Private Garden Tours Charlotte, NC
Garden Conservancy. Six private gardens, including a bamboo forest, koi ponds and waterfalls, and a hedge of Camellia sasanqua. Two public gardens, Charlotte Botanical Gardens at UNC and Wing Haven Gardens and Bird Sanctuary.

April 14 Allergy Free Gardening, Washington DC
Lecture by author Thomas Ogren, US Botanic Garden 12 noon

Through April 15 Garden Festival Charlotte, NC
Annual Festival of Houses & Gardens

April 15-16 Daffodil Show, Wheaton, MD
Brookside Gardens. Sponsor: Washington daffodil society; one of the oldest East Coast daff shows

April 20-24 Flower Show Cincinnati, OH
Banks of Lake Como at Coney Island

April 26 Lecture, Steve Martino, Washington DC
6:30PM National Building Museum. Landscape architect Steve Martino discusses his use of native plants & bold forms to achieve dramatic desert landscapes.

April 28-30 Daffodil Weekend. Nantucket Island, MA
More yellow.

April 30 Garden Symposium, Williamsburg, VA
Through May 3 Colonial Williamsburg Garden Symposium featuring author Pamela Harper, Brent Heath of Brent & Becky's Bulbs, Landscape Architect & author Julie Moir Messervy.

Garden Conservancy Open Days 2006

Sacramento Area Private Gardens Tour March 31
The Garden Conservancy kicks off its 2006 Open Days in Sacramento, CA, with tours of three exquisite private gardens.  The GC is the premier organization in the country that works to preserve the finest gardens in the United States for posterity, and everyone who's even vaguely interested in gardens should take advantage of these tours -- you won't see finer gardens anywhere.  Two Japanese Gardens and one enormous 50-acre garden are featured on opening day.

Maple Rock Garden (above) in Newcastle features extensive Japanese maples and rocks covered with moss; an English walled vegetable garden; a Japanese meditation garden; a fruit orchard; and a three-level redwood pavilion covered with wisteria, clematis, creeping fig, and azaleas.  And there's much more.

In Lincoln, CA, the 50-acre Gardens of Springhill includes a rose and a knot garden; a shade garden; a cactus & succulent garden; a palm garden; a formal Italian garden and -- under construction -- a 400 foot long cypress avenue with an aquarium.  Hiking trails, ponds, waterfalls and wetlands complete this amazing enterprise.

Finally, stop in Granite Bay to see Myo Wa En, the Japanese World Peace Garden designed in 1985 by then 93-year-old Katsuo Saito.  Take in three Zen gardens, the Japanese tea house, as well as six 50-year-old bonsai Japanese black pines.  Saito authored  several books on Japanese gardens, including Magic of Trees and Stones: Secrets of Japanese Gardening; and Quick and Easy Japanese Gardens. Both are still available at used book sites, including Amazon.com.

The complete Open Days Directory -- with directions to the gardens -- is available through the Garden Conservancy.

(photo: Garden Conservancy - photo by Frenk Andrews)

It's Washington .. It's Spring

(Click on these images for larger views)

The National Arboretum spring ... (left)

                  Dumbarton Oaks in spring (right)

Hillwood Museum & Gardens (left) ... The Japanese Garden.

                                           

                  
                  Smithsonian's Enid Haupt Garden (right)

Enjoy these pictures ... more later on all these gardens and who designed them.

Take That Book Outside & Read

Atlanta got a new garden this week, and what a great story it is. A community reading garden is now in place at the Wren's Nest Museum and Storytelling Center -- former home of Joel Chandler Harris, who gave us B'rer Rabbit, Br'er Fox and others in the Uncle Remus Tales.  The museum's outdoor storytelling area, long overgrown with kudzu and other undesirables, is now aglow with forsythia, azaleas, camellias, and other eye-catching plants. Marshall Thomas, chairman of the Joel Chandler Harris Association, which manages the museum, told the Atlanta Constitution newspaper that the garden enhances the neighborhood.  "It lets people know we have a quiet, serene place of beauty," he said.

The garden was a gift from Troy-Bilt, a manufacturer of lawn and garden equipment, and it is among nine reading gardens that the company is installing in several cities across the country.  The first garden (left) went in earlier this year in Biloxi, Mississippi.  Later this year, other reading gardens will be created in Charlotte, NC, Dallas, Louisville, Chicago, Cleveland, Baltimore, and New York City.

According to Heidi Ketvertis of Troy-Bilt, "a community reading garden brings people together and improves the environment." She said when gardens are devoted to reading "it adds the benefit of encouraging a love of books and learning."
The company is one of the national sponsors of the Keep America Beautiful Great American Cleanup (TM) program.

The Wren's Nest  is a  Queen Anne style farmhouse bought by Harris is 1883.  It became a museum in 1913 and was designated a historic landmark in 1962.  It's located at 1050 Ralph David Abernathy Blvd in Atlanta, (404) 753-7735.
(photos: Atlanta: Troy-Bilt; Biloxi: Keep America Beautiful)

 

 

The Pruning School

What a great day ... pruning class with Peter Deahl (the expert, left) at Tudor Place in DC's Georgetown section.  Deahl runs classes in northern Virginia & other locations throughout the year, and you simply can't get better instruction. Check out ThePruningSchool -- it's packed with information and advice. For all the books I've read over the years on pruning, there's nothing like having an expert show you how to do it and then practicing those same techniques yourself.  First lesson and most important:  DO NOT CUT THE TOPS OFF TREES -- you'll kill them.  Just a few other tips we picked up during the course of the day:  Do not prune plants when they're putting on new leaves in spring or when shedding leaves in fall. Don't shear shrubs over & over -- you also need to thin them from inside to keep them healthy.  Do not flush-cut   trees or shrubs -- or you are inviting decay and eventual death.  Here's a huge boxwood at Tudor Place (right) BEFORE Deahl's crew got to it. They took it down by about five feet (left) in no more than about 15 minutues. When you buy a new boxwood or other plant from the nursery, Deahl recommends leaving it alone for a year or two before you touch it with pruners. And don't forget -- if you're in the DC area, time your visit to coincide with one of Deahl's classes -- you'll never, ever regret it.

(click on images for larger view)

Sounds Plausible, but ...

It's just another one of those Internet rumors that won't go away.  And if you used leaf mulch in your garden, like you should, you wouldn't have to worry about these kinds of things.  In any event, professional horticulturists, the US Dept of Agriculture, the Louisiana Dept. of Agriculture and Forestry -- and many others --  say there's no worry that ferocious Formosan termites are being shipped around the country in mulch and wood chips from all those downed trees on the Gulf coast. Quarantines have been issued for the 12 parishes affected by Hurricane Katrina, and debris is being burned or buried in landfills. And aside from that, most entomologists doubt the creatures could survive the mulch-making process.  So forget about it. It's just another urban legend.

(photo: USDA)

Great Evergreen Spring Groundcovers

Wow! This year the leaves of the  Lenten roses (Helleborus orientalis)  didn't  brown out in freezing weather (at least not yet!).  Not only do these little wonders stay evergreen most of the time -- they're one of the very first cheery signs of spring, and ... aside from the prolific blooms, which last for weeks and weeks .. .the best thing about them is that they spread, and spread, and spread.  Even more wondrous, they spread very slowly, so they're easy to control, but within a few years, you'll have a wonderful carpet under nearby trees or shrubs.  These plants will grow in almost any soil, zones 5-9, but don't put them in full sun.  Related to them is the stinking hellebore or Bear's Foot hellebore (Helleborus foetidus) which has lime green flowers and very deep green, fine foliage.  Once the flowers fade, the foliage, which reaches about 18 inches high, is a beautiful and delicate evergreen complement to almost any other texture and color.  Same cultural conditions as the Lenten rose. And I'm not sure why these are sometimes called  stinking hellebore. They have no noticeable  strong odor.

 

Happenings March 15-31 2006

Through March 19 Bulb Show, Northampton, MA
10AM-4PM, Lyman Conservatory, Smith College Botanical Garden
Bulb Show Sale March 26th, 9AM-3PM, proceeds to Limbe Botanic Garden in Cameroon.

March 15-19 Flower & Garden Show, San Francisco
"Spring Garden Festival," Cow Palace 9AM-8PM Sun 9AM-6:30PM (415) 771-6909

March 16-19 Garden Show, Daytona Beach, FL
Ocean Center 10AM-6PM Sun 10AM-4PM (386) 767-7776

March 16-19, Flower Show, Rochester, NY
"GardenScape," Monroe County Fair & Expo Center (Dome Center) 10AM-9PM, Sun 10AM-5PM (585) 265-9018

March 16-April 15 House & Garden Festival, Charleston, SC
59th Annual Festival of Houses & Gardens (843)-722-3405

March 18 Tour of Private Homes & Gardens, Phoenix, AZ
8AM-4PM, Various Locations

March 22 Designing City Gardens, NY Botanical Garden, NYC
Lecture 6-8:30 PM by author Linda Yang, Cooper Union (718) 817-8747

March 23 Horticultural Therapy Workshop, Washington DC
US Botanical Garden, 10:30-12:30PM & 1:30PM-3:30PM 5th Annual Celebration of Horticultural Therapy

March 24-26 International Orchid Show, Santa Barbara, CA
61st annual Show Earl Warren Showgrounds 9AM-5PM

Flower Show III

I am not a flower arranger, so I'm always mightily impressed by the creativity displayed by those in the know.  This stunning arrangement and blue ribbon winner at this year's Philadelphia Flower Show was created by the Four Countries Garden Club, fashioned from weeping larch, rudbeckia, hydrangea, rose, calla lily, orchid, ti leaf, galax, delphinium, and lisianthus.

To the right is another blue ribbon winner entitled  "Treasures from the Deep" by the Four Lane's End Garden Club.

The tiger at left, an entry by th Philadelphia Zoo, was not a prize winner, but surely a winner in my view.  The topiary of a mother tiger & cub was balanced on a log in a reflecting pond, and the black, white and orange colors were echoed elsewhere in the landscape tableau by black mondo grass, white moss and orange-leaved heuchera.

(click on images for larger view)