GardenDesignOnline

Happenings December 2013

Thru May 2014: Chihuly Exhibit, Phoenix, AZ
Desert Botanical Garden, 480-941-1225
Thru Dec 31, Landscape Legacy of Dan Kiley, Boston, MA
Boston Architectural College, sponsor: TCLF, 202-483-0553
Dec 4, "Larger Landscapes," Boston, MA
6PM, Lecture, Landscape architect Ken Smith, The Landscape Institute, 617-585-0100
Dec 17, Design: A Manhattan Townhouse Garden, Bronx, NY
1-3PM, NY Botanical Garden, 718-817-8700

 HOLIDAY SHOWS:

thru Dec 30: River of Lights, Albuquerque, NM
ABQ BioPark Botanic Garden, 505-848-7182
thru Jan 12: Holiday Train Show, Bronx, NY
NY Botanical Garden, 718-817-8700

Nov 23-Jan 6, Gardenland Express, St. Louis, MO
Train Show, Missouri Botanical Garden, 314-577-5100
Nov 28-Jan 5, Season's Greetings, Washington DC
US Botanic Garden, 202-225-8333
Nov 28-Jan 12, A Longwood Christmas, Kennett Square, PA
Longwood Gardens, 610-388-1000
Nov 29-Dec 31, Las Noches de las Luminarias, Phoenix, AZ
Desert Botanical Garden, 480-941-1225

Nov 29-Jan 1, Holiday Lights, Largo, FL
Florida Botanical Gardens, 727-582-2100
Nov 29-Jan 5 Holly Days, Boylston, MA
Tower Hill Botanic Garden, 508-869-6111
Nov 29-Jan 5, Glow, Cleveland, OH
Cleveland Botanical Garden, 216-721-1600
Nov 29-Jan 5, Garden of Lights, Wheaton, MD
Brookside Gardens, 301-962-1400
Nov 29-Jan 5, Wonderland Express, Glencoe, IL
Chicago Botanic Garden, 847-835-5440

Nov 29-Jan 13, GardenFest of Lights, Richmond, VA
Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden, 804-262-9887
Nov 30-Jan 5, 50 Shades of Green, Ann Arbor, MI
Matthaei Botanical Gardens, 734-647-7600
Dec 7-30, Garden of Lights, Encinitas, CA
San Diego Botanic Garden, 760-436-3036

LOOKAHEAD:

Jan 5-6 Western Trade Show, Overland Park, KS
New Plants, Exhibits, Lectures, more 888-233-1876
Jan 9-10 Mid-Atlantic Trade Show (MANTS), Baltimore, MD
Baltimore Convention Center, 800-431-0066
Jan 24-26 Southern Gardening Symposium, Pine Mountain, GA
28th Symposium, Callaway Gardens, 706-663-5153

 

New Plants 2014 III

New Proven Winners introductions from Spring Meadow Nursery:

images: Spring Meadow - click to enlarge

Double Play® Blue Kazoo™ Spiraea
(Spiraea media 'SMSMDPBK')
Not something you see every day: a spiraea with blue leaves and huge white flowers.

 

New leaves emerge with a hint of burgundy, and they turn a deep red color in fall.  It's a compact, mounded plant at 2-3 feet high and wide that's hardy to Zone 4.  Great for small gardens, massing, and low hedges.  It's also deer resistant and attracts hummingbirds.

Little Goblin™ Winterberry
(Ilex verticillata 'NCIV1')
Another dwarf winterberry that's not just a pollinator! This one has extra-large berries on a plant that's just 3-5 feet high and wide. Developed by Dr. Thomas Ranney of North Carolina State University, it's hardy to Zone 3 and would be great in smaller gardens.  The pollinator for this Ilex is Mr. Poppins.

Yellow Wall Virginia Creeper
(Parthenocissus quinquefolia 'Yellow Wall')
Sometimes you just want yellow in the fall instead of red, and so this is one of your plants.  It's a companion vine for Red Wall, and of course it will cover anything very quickly.  To Zone 3, 20-30 feet high/wide.

Sugar Mountain™ Balalaika™ Haskap (Blue Honeysuckle)
(Lonicera caerulea 'Stimul')
OK, this is a shrub native to North America, hardy in Zone 1 to Zone 6, with heavy crops of blue berries that are said to taste like a cross between raspberries and blueberries, high in vitamin C and anti-oxidants. 

Sounds like something we all ought to try. It grows 5-6 feet high and wide, and best fruiting occurs when two varieties are planted together (ie, Sugar Mountain Blue Haskap).   This will not be available until 2015, but you could plant the Blue Haskap now and wait for the new variety.

 

Garden Design: Meadows

image: NDAL - click to enlarge

Meadows are big in the landscape design field these days, and a presentation on the topic by top experts at last weekend's ASLA annual conference in Boston was absolutely jammed -- standing room only.

If you've ever wondered why your little bluestem flops, just ask Larry Weaner of NDAL (New Directions in the American Landscape), one of speakers at the ASLA forum. It flops because the soil is too rich and the site has irrigation.  Little bluestem thrives in dry, infertile conditions.  Weaner's point was that you can't just plant a meadow.  You need to study plant communities and find out which ones will do well in the kind of soil that prevails on the site.  The plants in natural plant communities complement each other and also inhibit weeds, a major problem in many meadows.

If you're eager to learn more about the subject, sign up for one of NDAL's annual two-day January seminars, either at Connecticut College in New London or at Temple University in Ambler, PA.  2014 marks the 25th anniversary of the conferences, and the subject is "Assessing and Reassessing Ecological Landscape Design."  Top-notch speakers, and well worth the fee.  For a preview, log onto NDAL's website here for more info about the conference and to hear a podcast on the subject by Larry Weaner.

Designer Magazine - Free Subscription

The Association of Professional Landscape Designers (APLD) decided recently to make digital subscriptions to its quarterly magazine free for anyone who would like to subscribe.

I've been editor of the magazine since 2009 -- a position I'm giving up as of next year.  In any event, the magazine has a lot of info on the design process, designers and related issues, most articles written by APLD members.  If you would like to subscribe, click the link here.  And if you prefer, you may also order a print subscription.

 

 

New Plants 2014 - II

Sweet Spot™ Decorator Rose™

... a new rose from Tesselaar Plants that will be on the market in 2014. The company calls them "Decorator Roses" because they come in a variety of colors, each with a bold, deep color in the center.  Shown here is the peach sweet spot rose with reddish/deep pink center.  "Calypso," pinkish-red and yellow, and the deep pink "Ruby" have the same color centers, while the yellow version has a orange/red center.

These are compact roses, just 24 inches high and 20 inches wide, a great size for patio containers.  They flower from mid-spring to early fall and have good disease resistance and drought tolerance.  There's no fragrance, but a lot of bloom for the buck. To Zone 5.

First Editions® Strawberry Sundae® Hydrangea
(Hydrangea paniculata 'Rensun')

From Bailey Nurseries, a First Editions plant, a compact version of the very popular Vanilla Strawberry Hydrangea from the French breeder Jean Renault  is new for 2014.  It's 4 to 5 feet high and 3 to 4' wide, with numerous white blooms that turn pink and finally mature to a strawberry red. It takes full sun to part shade, Zones 4-8.  Good choice for a small garden or even for a container.

First Editions® Jetstream™ Hydrangea
(Hydrangea quercifolia 'PllHQ-l')

Well, if this is truly a non-flopping oakleaf hydrangea, it'll be a real winner, at 5-6' high and 4-5' wide.  Plus, it's resistant to leaf spot and the foliage turns orange-red in fall.  The classic white oakleaf flowers mature to pink.  This shrub is rounded and compact, takes full sun, and is hardy to Zone 5.

Endless Summer® BloomStruck™ Bigleaf Hydrangea
(Hydrangea macrophylla 'PlllHM-ll'

This is the newest of the Endless Summer hydrangeas, a compact plant just 3-4 feet high and 4-5 feet wide. The flowers are either blue, pink, or purple, depending on the acidity of the soil, and the stems are ruby red, giving the plant a distinctive look. It's said to also have good tolerance for heat, and the leaves turn deep burgundy in fall.  Good for smaller gardens, great for massing.

 

 

Books: Virginia Woolf's Garden

I've never associated Virginia Woolf with a particular garden, as Vita Sackville-West is associated with Sissinghurst.  But for most of her writing life, Woolf drew inspiration and solace from the garden at Monk's House, a property in Lewes, England, that she and her husband, Leonard, purchased in 1919 as a country retreat.

In Virginia Woolf's Garden (Jacqui Small LLP, 2013), author Caroline Zoob tells the story of the garden at Monk's House, the garden of Woolf's writing life.  Zoob and her husband lived at the property for 10 years as tenants of the National Trust, who has owned the site since 1980. 

 

photo: Monk's House

Woolf wrote most of her novels in a small lodge at the back of the orchard, which was filled with apple and pear trees.   Among the garden's bloom-filled "rooms" are an Italian Garden, the Millstone Terrace, the Walled Garden, the Fig Tree Garden, as well as a bowling lawn, a vegetable garden, a fish pond, and a dewpond.   Most of the garden was created by Leonard, but Virginia had a hand in it as well.   In a foreward to the book, the couple's nephew, Cecil Woolf, says that gardening "was not just a pleasure in itself, but also a means of unwinding after a week spent in London, pursuing their careers:  Virginia as a writer, publisher, and pivotal figure in the Bloomsbury group, and Leonard as a publisher, writer, and editor."

 There are separate chapters on each part of the garden, detailing the design of the gardens, Woolfs' life at Monk's House and their many fascinating visitors.  There are beautiful photographs of the gardens throughout, and selected historical images that bring the story of the garden to life.

A wonderful book for anyone who's a Virginia Woolf fan, or anyone who's entranced by classic British gardens.

In the Magazines Nov-Dec 2013

Sunset November
*Landscape designer Brandon Peterson designs a studio garden filled with grasses for Seattle artist Kristie Severn.
*Garden checklist plant focus: Black Mondo Grass
*Garden tips for fall: grow Chinese pistache (Pistacia chinensis) and heavenly bamboo (Nandina domestica)
*An easy kit for vertical gardens from plantasy.us

Landscape Architecture November
*Meeting climate change challenges in New York, Kansas, Bridgeport CT & elsewhere.
*Cornelia Hahn Oberdorfer designs a landscape for food security near the Arctic Circle
*The continuing influence of Dan Kiley
*Remembering James van Sweden

  Fine Gardening December
*The best of the native plants, region by region
*Top-performing ornamental grasses
*Designing with foliage
*Update on edibles

 

 

Horticulture Nov-Dec
*New 2014 plants
*Exotic garden plants

*Designing with variegated foliage plants
*Profile: RI Nurseryman Ed Bowen

Design: Oudolf at the NYBG

 

image: newplantsandflowers.com

Actaea 'Queen of Sheba', shown here, is just one of the new plants you probably have never seen before. It's one of the new plants going into the Seasonal Walk at the NY Botanical Garden, designed by Dutch plantsman & author Piet Oudolf.

The Seasonal Walk will be planted by Oudolf next week, and it opens to the public in September 2014.  Oudolf is planting some 8000 bulbs and perennials in the 200 foot long double border, plants that will last through the seasons.

 

Bulbs are to include minor bulbs and daffodils, tulips, allium and fox tail lilies; perennials rarely seen in the US include Phlomis tuberosa 'Little Amazone', Thalictrum x 'Elin' and Datisca cannabina.

Many combinations are repeated throughout the plan, and as the seasons progress from spring to summer to fall, the colors in the border get bolder.  According to the NYBG, this will be a "flowery" garden for Oudolf, one that will show off his "new perspective on naturalistic design."