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PHS Gold Medal Plants 2014

photos: PHS - click to enlarge

Some of my favorite plants are on this year's list of Gold Medal Plants announced by the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society.  The American fringe tree (Chionanthus virginicus) should be used far more often than it is.  It's a US native that's covered with airy, fringe-like white flowers in spring.  It's not usually beset by disease or pests, and it's rather small, 12-20 feet high at maturity.  It can be grown as a multi-stem shrub or pruned into a single-stem tree (my favorite form).  It takes full sun to part shade, zones 5-8.

If you've never seen a Korean white pine (Pinus koraiensis), then get yourself quickly to a botanical garden or top-notch nursery. If I had room for an evergreen garden, this would definitely be one of the top specimens.  It grows only to 30-40 feet tall and has striking long, blue-green needles that give the tree a lush, full appearance.  You'll never plant another Eastern white pine if you see one of these.  It's also takes stressful conditions and branches do not break easily in ice or snowstorms.  Zones 4-7.

Dwarf Japanese-cedar
(Cryptomeria japonica 'Globosa Nana')
In my Washington DC garden, I had a dwarf Japanese-cedar ('Black Dragon') that was narrow and upright -- but this one, in the right place, would be just as attractive.  It grows 3-4 feet tall and 4-8 feet wide with some years on it.  The notable bluish-green needles turn a bronzy color in autumn.

  Mount Airy witch alder
(Fothergilla x intermedia 'Mount Airy')
Fothergillas, of course, are best known for their bottle-brush flowers in spring and their deep, orange-red-to purple fall foliage.  One of the best long-season shrubs, and it takes sun to shade in zones 5-8.  This cultivar is 6 feet high and 6-8 feet wide, and has a suckering habit that will colonize an area over time.

To see the Gold Medal awards for perennials and groundcovers, visit the PHS Gold Medal page here.  Gold Medal plants are selected for their attractiveness as well as  resistance to diseases and pests.

Books: Food & Flowers

 Author Niki Jabbour wrote a terrific book a few years back on vegetable gardening (The Year-Round Vegetable Gardener: How to Grow Your Own Food 365 Days a Year, No Matter Where You Live) and now, while the subject is related, she's written about some of the best food-producing gardens designed by some of the country's top garden writers, designers, and growers.

In  Groundbreaking Food Gardens: 73 Plans That Will Change the Way You Grow Your Garden (Storey Publishing, 2014), you'll learn much from author Debra Prinzing's Edible Cutting Garden; grower Renee Shepherd's Gourmet Containers; "Tomato Man" Craig LeHoullier's Best Tasting Tomatoes Garden; food historian Dave DeWitt's Chile Lover's Garden; landscape designer Jesse Bloom's Eggs & Everthing Garden; and there are many more. Each of the 73 gardens is profiled in two or three pages, and garden plans are included, along with plant lists, tips and techniques, and easy-to-follow illustrations. Jabbour covers the gamut, from small urban patio gardens to large suburban landscapes.  It's a great resource, and with a little creativity, you could mix & match many of these designs and plants.

And if this long winter is making you pine for spring flowers (not a daffodil yet in sight in my New England yard), you might want to consider The Cut Flower Patch: Grow your own cut flowers all year round (Frances Lincoln Limited Publishers, 2014) by British writer and horticulturist Louise Curley. Curley covers all the basics about cut flower gardening, and she includes advice on the best hardy annuals and biennials to spring and summer bulbs and foliage and filler plants.  The photos of her gardens and cut flower arrangements are simply stunning.  Another great resource, and a good book to give to clients who want a cutting patch included in their landscape design. 

Happenings April 2014

 Thru April 13, Orchid Daze, Atlanta, GA
"Lasting Impressions," Atlanta Botanical Garden, 404-876-5859
Thru April 21, Orchid Show, Bronx, NY
"Key West Contemporary," NY Botanical Garden, 718-817-8700
Thru April 27, Orchid Symphony, Washington DC
US Botanic Garden, 202-225-8333

April 3, Annual Ian McHarg Lecture, Philadelphia, PA
6PM, Lecture by Richard T.T. Forman of Harvard, Penn Design, 215-898-6591
April 5, Garden Conservancy Open Days Tours, Trumansburg, NY
April 5, Colonial Williamsburg 68th Garden Symposium, Williamsburg, VA
2PM-7PM, Home Grown: Turning Garden Pleasures into Daily Pleasures, 600-603-0948

April 11-13, Antiques & Garden Fair, Glencoe, IL
10AM-5PM, Annual Antiques Show, Chicago Botanic Garden, 847-835-5440
April 12, Garden Conservancy Open Days Tours, Monroe County, IL
April 12-13 What's Out There Weekend, Miami, FL
Free Garden Tours, Palm & Miami Beach, The Cultural Landscape Foundation, 202-483-0553
April 12-20, Annual California Native Plant Week, CA
Lectures, garden tours, workshops, more 916-447-2677

April 16, Creating Gardens of Serenity, Bronx, NY
10AM-3:30PM, Workshop,  NY Botanical Garden, 718-817-8700
April 19, Garden Conservancy Open Days Tours, Essex County, NJ
April 19, Northern Gardening Symposium, Randolph Center, VT
9AM-3PM, VT Technical College, New England Wildflower Society, 508-877-7630

April 23, Spotlight on Design, Washington DC
6:30-8PM, Reed Hilderbrand & the Legacy of Dan Kiley, National Building Museum, 202-272-2448
April 24, 100 Years of Landscape Architecture at Penn, Philadelphia, PA
6-8PM, Centenary Celebration, Penn Design, 215-898-6591
April 25-26, Dixon Garden Fair, Memphis, TN
8AM-4PM, Dixon Gallery & Gardens, 901-761-5250
April 25-27, Garden Show, Atlanta, GA
Buckhead Theater: lectures, marketplace & more, SE Hort Society, 404-351-1074
April 25-27, Antique Garden Furniture Fair, Bronx, NY
10AM-5PM, NY Botanical Garden, 718-817-8700
April 26-27, Garden Conservancy Open Days Tours: CA, IL, NJ, NY, TN
CA: Pasadena; IL: Kane County; NJ: Somerset Cty; NY: Putnam & Westchester Cty; TN: Knoxville
April 26, 4th Annual Desert-Wise Landscape Tour, Morongo Basin, CA
9AM-4PM, 20 drought-tolerant gardens, Morongo Basin Conservation Assn
April 26, Garden Dialogues, Los Feliz & Carpinteria, CA
10:30AM & 3PM, Special Tours with Landscape Architects, TCLF, 202-483-0553
April 26-May 3  81st Historic Garden Week -- throughout Virginia
Tours of 250+ gardens, many other activities & events.  804- 644-7776

LOOKAHEAD:

May 9, National Public Gardens Day, Events throughout US
May 20-24 Chelsea Flower Show, London, UK
June 12, Landscape Lectures: Michael Ezban, Boston, MA
7PM, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 617-278-5156

Design: Muscota Marsh Park, NYC

photo: nycgovparks.org

Muscota Marsh Park is the newest public park in New York City ... and there's a fabulous article about it on Thomas Rainer's blog, Grounded Design, written by Harry Wade, a landscape design student at the NY Botanical Garden.

Well worth a read!

Garden Accessories: DALA Planters

images: Dedon. Click to enlarge

Love the DALA planter collection from Dedon. There's a hand-woven mesh structure on the outside of the planter, and it comes in two colors: stone or grass green. This particular planter is 30 x 30 inches, so it's big enough for even a small tree. 

The smaller planter is 24 x 24 inches, and like the larger one, it has an electrostatic powder-coated aluminum frame on the inside.  The planters can be cleaned with a soft cloth and warm water, but keep them away from chlorinated pool water.

Dedon also makes this DALA lantern, with an open weave that lets through candlelight. It can be hung by its leather handle or placed on the ground, and it measures 13.5 x 13.5 inches. It comes with a glass candle holder for the inside -- and a hanger for the lantern.

If you live in the Boston area, you can see these on display at Showroom Boston. Check the Dedon website for other locations.

Pro-designers: join APLD

If you're a professional landscape designer, you should be a member of APLD -- the Association of Professional Landscape Designers.  If you join the organization by April 1st, you'll get three months of free membership.  And if you become a "certified" designer (a peer-review process), you'll have an edge over other designers who do not.  Clients will also appreciate the fact that you're a member of professional organization.

If you go to an APLD annual conference, you'll meet other pros from across the country, all of whom are willing to share advice, tips, techniques, and much more.  Local chapters also offer workshops to further your education and local meetings where you can meet other designers in your area. Great people ... great fount of knowledge, and great fun.  One other thing: don't forget to sign up for a free digital subscription to APLD's quarterly, The Designer.  Free to anyone.

I've been a member for almost 10 years, and the decision to join is one I'll never regret.

Check out the video here of what some of our members are saying about membership in APLD.  

Jane Berger, FAPLD

 

 

Landscape Design: Everlasting Winter

images: Terra Sculpture - click to enlarge

Just got an e-mail from Terra Sculpture, which reminds us all that we need to put things other than plants in the garden to carry us through those times when we have long winters.  Terra's "Embrace" sculpture looks fabulous in the wintry landscape covered with snow --

  And even these trellises -- of various shapes -- let us see the bones of the garden when nothing's yet popping through the earth.  It's sometimes hard to appreciate the overall design when everything's covered in green, so select some objects that will show up in the snow -- or stand out when all else is brown. 

As for my garden, there are buds about to burst on my Cornelian cherry trees and on my winter-blooming jasmine ... and the daylilies (though not any bulbs) are just beginning to peek through.  Spring cannot be that far off, though it's below freezing here again for the next two days.

In the Magazines March-April 2014

Fine Gardening March-April
*Breaking the rules of design
* Easy-care roses
* Designing with different shades of green
* Guide for growing edibles
* Entry garden design tips

 

Horticulture March April
*Tips for placing fragrant plants to best advantage
*Small shrubs with a big design bang
*Managing trees & shrubs to reduce shade on nearby plants
*Designing with plum-colored plants

Sunset March

*The ultimate eco-house and garden in Montecito, CA.
Design by landscape architect Susan Van Atta.
It includes low-water native plants, below-ground irrigation to minimize evaporation, a green roof that harvests rainwater and underground cisterns that hold up to 10,000 gallons.  And much more.
*Author Valerie Rice's edible garden. She blogs at www.eat-drink-garden.com

 

Landscape Architecture March

*The asphalt industry fights to counter sustainable materials that threathen its market share
*The magnificent landscape around the new skating rink in Brooklyn's Prospece Park
*New techniques to deal with the effects of global warming along the west coast.

 

 

Perennials app

Allan Armitage, generally considered the country's top expert on perennials & annuals, has now released an app that can be downloaded to your phone - Android or iOS.

It costs 4.99 and contains info on his favorite annuals & perennials (plus photos); a list of independent garden centers in the US and Canada where you can buy the plants; and his advice for dealing with deer.  Armitage actually rates all the plants on a scale of one to five, one being the plants that deer will not eat, and five being their favorites.

You can search for plants by zone, by shade or sun, and features such as plants grown for flowers or foliage.  There are also links to his many videos on You Tube that show you how to plant, etc.

You can also leave a comment on the app -- or a question that he'll answer. 

The app is by no means as comprehensive as his books ... so I hope that it will be updated one day (even if it would cost more) to include a lot more plants and nurseries.  But he does add to it, so maybe a good investment for the future.

It's a great app for homeowners and amateur gardeners.  The professionals would likely prefer to wait for another app that includes a lot more knowledge.

 

Landscape Design: House & Garden Perfection

Just received a catalogue recently from the Branch Studio, owned by landscape designer Deborah Silver, which reminded me that I never wrote about one of her gardens that I toured last summer.

click to enlarge

Most of us on the tour didn't realize exactly what was going on until we went inside the house and noticed the design on the cabinet doors, above the door lintels, etc. -- a circle within an "x."  Silver carried this design out into the garden, over and over again.

 

 

 

It's used in the basic layout of the backyard, overlooking Lake St. Clair, just northeast of the downtown areas of Detroit.  It's just lawn with a boxwood in the center, but it's very tranquil and soothing, as is the lake. Note the trellis in the background to the right ... there's a matching one on the opposite side that encloses the lawn between them.

Deborah established the Branch Studio, which manufactures garden ornament, to get what she wants for her designs. Note the "x" and circle motif on the planter boxes.  She'll design custom planters, pergolas, fountains -- you name it -- to match her clients' desires and designs.

Nothing is left to chance in this design ... the striking gates that lead from front to fully-landscaped side yard...

Lots of evergreens help carry the landscape through the cold and sometimes windy winter season.

 

 

I also loved this simple shower/grill area in a little alcove between the covered spa/TV area and the side yard.  The shower drains into a simple wooden grate just below it, and the grill is tucked away yet near the kitchen, but you don't have to stare at it all the time.

Other wonderful features include a line of espaliered katsura trees planted in a planter box along the drive court at the entrance to the house.  They separate the drive from the neighboring property and of course are magnificent in autumn. There's a small deck lakeside, for private viewing of the water ... and another small seating area on the lawn with a firepit in the middle to carry the landscape into cooler weather.

Check out Deborah's designs on her website and the garden ornament at Branch Studio.  I guarantee you'll be very impressed by her design skills.