GardenDesignOnline

Happenings February 2018

 SELECTED EVENTS AROUND THE COUNTRY

Exhibitions:

thru August 31, 2018, "Cultivating America's Gardens," Washington DC
National Museum of American History, sponsor: Smithsonian Gardens & Smithsonian Libraries, 202-633-1522

ORCHID SHOWS:
thru March 11, Orchid Mania, Cleveland Botanical Garden, 216-721-1600
thru March 25, Orchid Extravaganza, Longwood Gardens, Kennett Square, PA 610-388-1000
Feb 3-March 25, Orchid Mania, Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis, MO. 314-577-5100
Feb 10-March 25, Asia in Bloom, Chicago Botanic Garden, Glencoe, IL, 847-835-5440
Feb 10-April 1, Orchid Daze, Atlanta Botanical Garden, Atlanta, GA 404-876-5859

Events: 

Feb 2, Today's Horticulture Symposium, Kennett Square, PA
8am-4pm, Longwood Gardens, 610-388-1000
Feb 2-4 Nashville Antiques & Garden Show, Nashville, TN
"A Sense of Place," Music City Center, 888-491-6310
Feb 2-11, Great Big Home & Garden Show, Cleveland, OH
Cleveland IX Center, 448-248-5729
Feb 3, Midwest Perennial Plant Symposium, Lisle, IL
8:30am-4:30pm, Morton Arboretum, 630-968-0074


Feb 6 & 13, Designing Gardens for Small Spaces, Framingham, MA
8:30am-noon, Garden in the Woods, workshop, 617-436-5838
Feb 7, Native Plants: Inviting the Wild into our Gardens, Cambridge, MA
7pm, Cambridge Public Library, Lecture, 781-790-8921
Feb 7-11, Northwest Flower & Garden Show, Seattle, WA
Washington State Convention Center, 253-756-2121

Feb 16-19 Great Backyard Bird Count
Help Audubon & the Cornell Lab of Ornithology keep track of our birds.
Feb 20, Japanese Plants in North America, San Marino, CA
7:30pm, Lecture, The Huntington, 626-405-2100
Feb 21 & 28, Rooftop Gardening, NY, NY
6:15-9:15pm, Midtown Center, NY Botanical Garden, 718-817-8700
Feb 22, The Gardener's Garden: Allt-y-Bela, Bronx, NY
10am, Lecture, British designer Arne Maynard, NY Botanic Garden, 718-817-8700
Feb 22, LA Phoebe McCormick Lickwar, Forge Landscape Architecture, Philadelphia, PA
6pm, Lecture, Penn Design, 215-898-6591
Feb 22-25, 37th Connecticut Flower & Garden Show, Hartford, CT
CT Convention Center, 860-844-8461
Feb 22-25, New Jersey Flower & Garden Show, Edison, NJ
NJ Convention & Expo Center, 732-749-7499
Feb 23, Green Matters Symposium, Silver Spring, MD
8am-4pm, "Restoring Urban Landscapes," Sponsor: Brookside Gardens, 301-495-2517
Feb 24, WEBINAR, "Native Plants for Urban Design"
11am EST, Ecological Landscape Alliance
Feb 24, Mid-Atlantic Perennial Plant Symposium, Baltimore, MD
8:30am-4:30pm, Conference Center at Sheppard Pratt, 202-591-2470

 LOOKAHEAD:

March 3-11, Philadelphia Flower Show, Philadelphia, PA
March 6, Davidson Horticultural Symposium, Davidson, NC
March 7-8, ELA Conference & Eco-Marketplace, Amherst, MA
"Sustaining the Living Landscape," UMASS Amherst 617-436-5838
March 15,18th  Land Ethics Symposium, Doylestown, PA
March 24, Spring Symposium, Kenmore, WA
NW Hort Society, "Gardening on the Pacific Rim," 206-780-8172
April 14-16, Colonial Williamsburg Garden Symposium, Williamsburg, VA
72nd Annual Symposium, "Ordinary to Extraordinary," 757-565-8937
April 21-28, Historic Garden Week, Virginia
May 22-26, Chelsea Flower Show, London, UK
Sept 8, Hollister House Garden Study Weekend VIII, Southbury, CT
9am, Heritage Hotel, "A Passion for Plants," Garden Conservancy, 845-424-6500

 

Books: Flower Combos for Easy Design

It's always the old conundrum:  what to plant next to what.  Make your life easy and pick up a copy of The Flower-Powered Garden: Supercharge Your Borders and Containers with Bold, Colourful Plant Combinations (Timber Press, 2018).  British author Andy Vernon, a writer and horticultural consultant in the UK, offers 15 super-charged combos of annuals and perennials that can be used in either containers or gardens.

Chocolate Limes is a takeoff on sweets and candybars ... including dark and white chocolates, shades of cocoa, caramel and coffee, and for the hard, lime-colored candies, hues of green and burgundy.  Think Heuchera 'Green Spice', Hydrangea paniculata 'Little Lime', Dahlia 'Mexican Black' and Verbena 'Babylon White', just to mention a few.

There are gorgeous bold colors in Mexicolour, and lovely violets and blues in Seaside Chic.

Each page has photos of several plants that would all look great together in a container, bed, or border, just take your pick.  It makes the guesswork of plant combinations very easy indeed.

Vernon admits he's a plant "addict" obsessed with color.  His book will turn you into one as well.

In the Magazines Jan-Feb 2018

Fine Gardening Jan-Feb

*Designing in Layers
*Designing for Continuous Color
*Easy Maintenance Plants
*All About Rodgersia

 

Sunset February

*Multi-purpose landscape in Los Altos by designer Leslie Bennett of Pine House Edible Gardens in Oakland.
*No-fuss, drought-tolerant houseplants

 

Horticulture Jan-Feb

*Profile: Anderson Japanese Gardens in Rockford, IL
*Atlanta History Center's Historic Gardens
*Bloedel Reserve on Bainbridge Island, WA
*Winterthur in Delaware
*Design Ideas from the Desert in Southern California

 

Landscape Architecture - January

*Free Digital January Issue at ASLA.org
*How to integrate the edges between paving & planting
*Cranberries to wetland restoration in Plymouth, MA

 

 

New Plants 2018 - I

Nice new offerings this year from Monrovia:

photo courtesy Monrovia - click to enlarge

Strawberry Shake™ Hydrangea
(Hydrangea paniculata 'SMHPCW'

Compact paniculata, just five feet tall and four feet wide, with stems supporting huge white flower heads that mature to a soft pink, and both are apparent on the shrub at the same time. Blooms can either be used fresh or dried for arrangements.  Zones 4-8.

photos: Doreen Wynja for Monrovia

Sunburst™ Black Hills Spruce
(Picea glauca densata 'MonChet')

Bright yellow new growth sets this spruce apart.  Its resistant to winter injury & provides a great nesting site for birds.  It has a compact, pyramidal growth habit, reaching 30 feet high x 15 wide. Needs part to full sun and regular watering.  Zones 2-8.

Seaside Serenade® Martha's Vineyard
(Hydrangea macrophylla 'HORTMAVI')

This is one in a series of similar big-leaf hydrangeas with long-lasting blooms that are not influenced by soil pH.  The flower take on a green tinge with time, and it's a compact variety, just 3.5 feet high and 3 feet wide.  Zones 4-9.  Also look for Seaside Serenede Hatteras -- (ruby-red); Cape May (pink or blue depending on soil pH) and a serrata hydrangea; and Outer Banks (pink or blue).

FloralBerry™ Chardonnay St. John's Wort
(Hypericum x inodorum 'KOLCHAR')

Yellow flowers and yellow berries, what more could anyone want? At three feet tall and wide, small shrub suitable for borders and containers, a specimen or low hedge.  Semi-evergreen, it's hardy in Zones 5-9.   Also check out Floralberry Champagne, with white berries; Floralberry Pinot with purple-red berries and Floralberry Rose with pink berries. 

Pony Up for Beatrix

The classic Cherry Tree Walk at Dumbarton Oaks in DC ... one of Beatrix Farrand's famous landscapes. 

Just found out from a column by Robin Lane Fox in last weekend's Financial Times that horticulturist Anne Cleves Symmes -- who recently directed the restoration of Bellefield, an 18th century house next to FDR's former home in Hyde Park, NY -- is making a documentary about Farrand entitled Beatrix Farrand's American Landscapes.  It's to be narrated and guided by Lynden Miller, former director of Central Park's Conservatory Garden.

Major support for the film project has come from the Oak Spring Garden Foundation -- and if the final $300,000 can be raised, the film is set to premiere at the NY Botanical Garden in the fall of this year.  Spread the word, and make a contribution to the film yourself to the Beatrix Farrand Garden Association.

New Roses I - 2018

New this year from David Austin Roses:

photos: David Austin Roses; click to enlarge

Rosa 'Roald Dahl'

Love the peach color on this English shrub rose, with few thorns (yay!), glossy dark olive-green leaves and peach blooms that open from orange-red buds.  It has a medium strong tea scent and is suitable for the garden or even in a container.  Size is about 4 feet tall by 3 wide, and it's hardy in Zones 5-9.  It's an English musk hybrid ('Desdemona' and 'Olivia Rose Austin'), named for the 100th anniversary of the birth of British author Roald Dahl.

Rosa 'Bathsheba'

This is an apricot-colored climbing rose that is repeat-blooming from early summer until frost.  The fragrance is a strong, floral myrrh, and Austin ranks it among its top five climbers for scent.   It blooms from the ground up, and the leaves are a mid-green color.  Grows to 10 feet in height, and is hardy in Zones 5-9.  Looks like a real winner. Name inspired by the heroine of Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd.

Rosa 'Imogen'

A rose that could be called lemon meringue, the flowers on this shrub open soft lemon and fade to almost a cream color, with a classic button eye.  It starts to bloom along with the peonies, and continues to produce flowers until frost.  It has mid-green glossy foliage and a light to medium fragrance that's reminiscent of apple and almond blossoms.  Size is about 4 feet high by 3 feet wide, and it's hardy in Zones 5-9.  Named after the daughter of King Cymbeline and wife of Postumus in Shakespeare's Cymbeline.

Urban Tree of the Year 2018

photo: Steve Cothrel / SMA

The Society of Municipal Arborists has announced it's Urban Tree of the Year, and this year the award goes to the Tulip Tree, Liriodendron tulipifera.

It's not for the average suburban yard, but where there's a lot of room, this majestic native tree deserves consideration.

It's fast growing, reaches a height of 60 to 90 feet with a spread 30 to 50 feet and is named for its striking flowers, which are reminiscent of tulips.  The tree's distinctive leaves, 3 to 8 inches long and wide, turn a golden yellow in fall. 

The Tulip Tree was nominated by Jocelyn Knerr, assistant forester in Dublin Ohio.  Knerr noted that the tree is good for wildlife and is a resident favorite because of the "attractive leaf shape and flowers as well as its bright yellow fall color."

Tulip tree can tolerate partial sun, and occasionally wet soils, but it does not tolerate drought or salt.  Liriodendron comes from Greek, meaning "Lily Tree," and tulipifera is Latin for tulip-bearing.

There are a number of cultivars, including 'Ardis', at about 30 feet high, and 'Fastigiatum' at about 50-60' high and 15-20' wide.

The Society of Municipal Arborists said it recognized the underutilized and attractive tree for its "service to urban forests" and encourages its use "as part of a diverse urban tree inventory."