GardenDesignOnline

Happenings Jan 2008

Jan 4-6 Home & Garden Show, Indianapolis, IN
Indianapolis Convention Center
Jan 5-6 Peninsula Orchid Society Show & Sale, Redwood City, CA
10AM-5PM, Community Activities Bldg
Jan 7  New England Wildflower Society, Framingham, MA
2008 Native Seed Catalog Arrives Online (508) 877-7630
Jan 9-11 Mid Atlantic  Nursery & Trade Show, Baltimore, MD
Baltimore Convention Center (800) 431-0066
Jan 10-11 18th Annual Landscape Design Symposium  New London, CT
Jan 16-17 (same program) Villanova, PA
"Native Landscape Design for the Real World"
sponsors: Morris Arboretum (215) 247-5777; CT College Arboretum (860) 442-0631
Jan 14 "Lessons from Chelsea," Del Mar, CA.
6PM, Lecture, Surfside Race Place.  Author & TV host Nan Sterman speaks on International Ideas for Sustainable Gardens, San Diego Hort Society (760) 730-3268
Jan 14 "Roots in Art," Charleston, SC
6:30 PM, Lecture, by Garden Conservancy Chairman Tom Armstrong, Charleston Museum Auditorium (843) 579-9922
Jan 14-15 Grading & Drainage I Workshop, Glenview, IL.
American Academy of Landscape Design (847) 657-7900
 Jan 17 "The Magic of Water," Bronx, NY
10AM, NY Botanical Garden, Lecture by British author & designer Anthony Archer-Wills (718) 817-8747
Jan 18-20  18th Southern Gardening Symposium, Pine Mountain, GA
Callaway Gardens (800) 225-5292
Jan 18-20 Home & Garden Show, Oklahoma City, OK
State Fairgrounds of Oklahoma
Jan 20 "Creating the Well-Designed Mixed Bed, Columbus, OH
8AM-5PM Seminar sponsored by Perennial Plant Assn; speakers include author & landscape architect Scott Scarfone, author Stephanie Cohen, Roy Klehm & others. Columbus Convention Center. (614) 771-8431. CEU's avail.
Jan 23 "Gardens of the Jazz Age," Philadelphia, PA
6PM, Lecture by Garden Historian Jenny Rose Carey, PA Horticultural Society (Preview for this year's PA Flower Show Theme) (215) 988-8869
Jan 24-25 Grading and Drainage II Workshop, Glenview, IL.
American Academy of Landscape Design (847) 657-7900
Jan 30-Feb 3 Southeastern Flower Show , Atlanta, GA
GA World Congress Center (404) 351-1074

Garden Titles (III) for Christmas

New Books on Plants - Older Books for Xmas

It's always hard to find exactly what you want in plant identification books. Not enough detailed photos, no mention of common problems, not enough emphasis on the best cultivars or plant sizes.  The Homeowner's Complete Tree & Shrub Handbook: The Essential Guide to Choosing, Planting, and Maintaining Perfect Landscape Plants by Penelope O'Sullivan (Storey Publishing, 2007) solves a lot of those problems.  The introductory section discusses how to use plants in the landscape, then moves on to choosing the right plant for the right place, with excellent lists of trees and shrubs for sun & shade, wet & dry soils, etc.  In addition, the author has lists you seldom see elsewhere: top choices for standout barks, colorful evergreens, unusual textures, striking silhoutettes.

Another section on plant care covers major diseases, pollution-tolerant plants and also planting, pruning, and rejuvenating shrubs. Each entry in the A to Z list of trees and shrubs has a general plant description, an excellent section on landscape use, followed by "Designer's Choice" -- a listing of the best cultivars on the market. Photographs by Karen Bussolini would be quite helpful in identification.

This book would make a wonderful Christmas present for almost any gardener you know.

 

For Viburnum Lovers

If you don't yet have a viburnum in your garden, you're missing out on one of the greatest versatile shrubs in the plant kingdom.  As is his custom, horticulturist Michael Dirr has strong opinions about plants, and in this volume, Viburnums: Flowering Shrubs for Every Season (Timber Press, 2007) they are most welcome.  He lets you know which viburnums are the best in terms of flowers, berries, fall color, form, and size.  There are extensive lists of cultivars for each entry, and Dirr also lets you know how to use each plant.  Accompanied by gorgeous photos, this book will make gardeners all over the country make room somewhere for several of these spectacular plants.

A Must-Have for Hostas

I can't say enough good things about this series of plant guides, and the latest, the Timber Press Pocket Guide to Hostas (Timber Press Pocket Guides) by Diana Grenfell is no exception.  This handbook, small enough to fit in a medium-sized handbag, is indispensable when you're shopping for hostas. It lists plant size and leaf shape, color and texture for almost 300 of the best hostas on the market, both old cultivars and new ones. Excellent photos help you identify which ones you really want.

(click on image or text link to purchase book)

In the Magazines Dec 07- Jan 08

The American Gardener Nov-Dec 07

• Winter gardens for birds: VA creeper, spruces, viburnums, hollies, dogwoods, junipers, many more.
• Shrubs that provide winter blooms: Chinese & VA witch hazels; winter-blooming jasmine (one of my favorites, especially for slopes -- and you can also train it over an arbor); daphnes, camellias, quinces, mahonias, and .... read more.
• A profile of Na 'Aina Kai Botanical Gardens on Kauai. Well worth a trip, obviously.

Fine Gardening Jan-Feb 08

• New ways to plant borders by author Debra Prinzing: loose forms, see-through plants, masses and drifts.
• Colorful containters for winter
• How to design with spiky plants like agave, yuccas, phormiums, sea hollies, pirckly pear.
• How to select trees for structure
• The many-roomed garden of Dennis Schrader and Bill Smith in Mattituck, NY

Horticulture Dec 07-Jan 08

• Rock gardens: berms, raised beds, slopes, and of course, rocks.
• All you need to know (and grow) agaves.
• Part I of a special series on Invasive Plants by C. Colston Burrell
• Color in the winter garden

Garden Gifts (Small Stuff) 07

10 Years of Horticulture

No chance of missed issues with this present ... 10 years of Horticulture Magazine on CD-ROM, 1996-2006, searchable by subject, author, etc. Original text, photos, artwork, you name it.   A lot easier than piles or files filled with old magazines with an article in there somewhere that you'd like to find ...

For the Sun-Challenged

Many of my landscape design clients are bothered by plant requirements for "full sun," "partial sun," and the like.  Now, here's a device from Burpee that'll supposedly take all the guess work out of the equation.

You push the calculator into the ground, let it sit there for awhile, and it'll tell you how much sun that location receives.  Presumably you can move it around the garden and figure out which beds are best for sun, part-sun, etc.  Sounds like it's worth a try... it gets good comments on the Burpee site, although I doubt they'd put up any bad reviews. 

Easy Carry-Alls

I've had one of these flexible carry-alls from Gardener's Supply  for several years, and I highly recommend them for gardening chores.  They're lightweight, washable, stackable, and they won't tip over when you fill them with soil or weeds or cuttings or crops or whatever else.

And now, they come in a variety of cheerful colors.  Believe me, you won't regret having a couple of these containers, and you'll likely end up throwing out all those other useless carry-alls piled up in the garden shed.

(images from respective suppliers)

NY Botanical Gdn to Barcode Trees

BARCODING TREES

The New York Botanical Garden has launched a two-year project called Tree-BOL to DNA barcode all 100,000 species of the trees of the world.  The garden received a grant of more than half a million dollars from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to undertake the program.

A number of researchers and other institutions from around the world will participate in Tree-BOL, and the garden will sponsor an international symposium in 2010 on Plant DNA barcoding at the end of the project.

James Miller, the garden's VP for Science, said the garden will "bring together scientists from around the world in a concerted effort to advance the field of plant DNA barcoding." Miller added that the goal of the international scientific community is to barcode 500,000 species in the next few years.

Trees were selected for the current project because they constitute 25 percent of all plants; have economic value as sources of fuel, fiber, food, flowers and medicine; and produce nearly half the oxygen necessary for life on Earth. In the first phase of the project, scientists hope to barcode all the trees in Europe, half the trees in North American, and all threatened or endangered trees that are protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

(image: US Botanic Garden Plant Barcode Exhibit, Feb. 2007)

Garden Titles (II) for Christmas 07

A New Take on Old Ideas

A revolution is taking place these days in garden design. Outdoor designs should be artworks in and of themselves ... not just plants and materials and time-tested design concepts.  In his new book, Making the Modern Garden  (Monacelli Press, 2007), British landscape architect  Christopher Bradley-Hole introduces the landscapes of many practitioners that are in the forefront of modern design.  "Making gardens," he says, "should be a liberation, an opportunity for freedom of thought and expression."

And that's exactly what you get in the simple and serene amphitheatre designed by Stephen Stimson Associates of Falmouth MA.  It's levels are defined by concentric arcs of grass and stone and punctuated by an irregular planting of trees that echo the natural plantings in the adjacent woods.

Bradley-Hole's own striking designs are scattered throughout the book, along with small axonometric drawings that illustrate exactly how these new gardens are put together.  There are stunning photographs of almost unimaginable new design concepts, from the dancing water jets of Andrew Ewing at the Hannah Peschar Sculpture Garden in Surrey, UK to a Texas wildflower meadow planted by Neil Diboll of the Prairie Nursery in Wisconsin to the ultra-modern landscape designed by Andrea Cochran and Topher Delaney for the Portland, OR Art Museum.

In every chapter, Bradley Hole connects the old to the new and demonstrates how any designer can meld the traditional with the bold and new in gardens that are definitely 21st century.

(click on image or text link to purchase book)

Garden Gift Suggestions (II) 07

Gifts for Outdoor Spaces

I really like the idea of this garden pole lantern containing a generous-sized candle from H. Potter, where you'll find a lot of unusual items for your patio, your pool, your outdoor dining terrace.  Birdfeeders are often quite unattractive, but the one shown here would look great viewed from any inside window (although the birds might not appreciate the mod design).

I also liked many of H. Potter's copper urns, window boxes and planters, in particular the Zen planter shown here, a great addition in any garden that features a lot of bamboo or other asian-style plantings.

H.  Potter also carries garden furniture, arbors and trellises,  outdoor  garden screens, and many good-looking outdoor lighting fixtures. A lot to choose from for the discerning gardener.

(images: H.Potter)