Witchy Wisteria

We just received an e-mail from a Horticulture reader about wisteria—another plant that will win you over with its beauty but may take over your life if you plant it. When I was at Long Hill the other day (see my May 8 post) my fellow tour-takers were very impressed by the wisteria climbing the rear of the house. It wasn't in leaf or bloom yet, but we all sighed imagining how pretty it must look later in the season. Our guide, the gardens' superintendent Dan Bouchard, agreed it is pretty but explained the lengths to which he must go to keep the vine from swallowing the house. My mother had the same experience with a wisteria at her father's house; it didn't seem so beautiful when she was hanging out the upstairs window trying to prune it, or when it ran under the sidewalk and attempted to scale a telephone pole.

Here's the message Jim Lewis, of Columbus, North Carolina, sent, along with a great picture of how he now grows wisteria:

"Wisteria is indeed one of the most beautiful vines and flowers imaginable. But down here in the south, it also is one of the most invasive of plants. I doubt you could find an extension agent south of the Mason-Dixon line who would recommend either Wisteria sinensis (the Chinese wisteria) or W. floribunda (Japanese wisteria) as a garden vine. It has taken over, twining high into trees where it is beautiful, but where it shades out other—perhaps native—species. It's not kudzu, but it's not nice, either.

"Wisteria can be grown, however. In pots. I grow mine in bonsai pots. And once I get them to bloom, I carefully cut away any seeds that form afterward and destroy them. It takes several years to get a wisteria bonsai to bloom, but once it does, the wait is worth it. I have attached a photograph of mine this spring."

Thanks for writing to us, Jim. Readers, to share your thoughts just click "Comments."

5/18/2007 10:22:03 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0] 

Forget-Them-After-All?

I'm rethinking my forget-me-not seedlings after a comment left on my May 2 posting. (You might note I was hoping to plant them out that weekend...still hasn't happened.)

Doris noted that she's been pulling forget-me-nots ever since she planted some, because "they take over." I have a space it might be okay for them to take over—as long as I can keep them in that one area, which I'll have to think about before I plant them.

In the meantime, here's a plant I wish I hadn't planted last year: Canadian anenome (Anenome canadensis). It had pretty whitish flowers from spring into early summer, and the foliage looked good all summer. But this spring it has proven to be a vigorous spreader (a phrase some translate as invasive plant). I have removed it entirely from one section of my garden. I'm leaving it in another corner, which I sectioned off with brick edging. Any of it that shows up outside the bricks is getting pulled.

I'm looking into other anenomes that might not be so vigorous. There was a very pretty blue-flowered one at Long Hill. Does anyone have any suggestions or experience with this particular species? Should I just pull it out altogether? Anything you wish you'd never planted? Leave a comment if you wish!

5/16/2007 4:17:45 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [2] 

Long Hill

When I was growing up my father planned all our family vacations to include a visit to some historically significant site, usually a fort. Sometimes he threw in a tour of an estate for good measure. I generally viewed these “old places” as speed bumps on the way to the hotel pool, which, to me, was the main point of our journey.

Lately I’ve realized that somewhere along the way I picked up an interest in seeing “old places,” especially if they have a preserved or restored garden. This past weekend I visited Long Hill in Beverly, Massachusetts. Between 1916 and 1979 it was the summer home of Ellery Sedgwick, an editor and publisher of the Atlantic Monthly magazine (whose offices, coincidentally, used to sit right around the corner from Horticulture’s). Sedgwick’s first wife, Mabel Cabot Sedgwick, designed and planted beautiful gardens there. After her death, Sedgwick married Marjorie Russell, also a great gardener. She added her own touch to the gardens (including many unusual trees) while maintaining what Mabel had begun.

The gardens include formal elements, such as geometric terraces, a croquet lawn, and framed long views. At the same time, they fit wonderfully in their deciduous forest setting; they truly blend with nature. I don’t know how much I can blend my own garden with its surroundings, which includes a wooden fence and a chain link fence, too, but we’ll see what I come up with. Besides the inspiration to improve my design, I came away from the Sedgwick gardens with a list of plants to look up and maybe grow myself. I'll write more on those soon.

If you are making any changes in your garden this year, I recommend visiting a historic garden (Long Hill itself, if you are anywhere nearby!).

As for me, maybe it's time for a return to Fort Ticonderoga.

A couple photos I took at Long Hill, looking up at the house and down from it. Those huge flowering cherry trees are 75 years old.

Read Sara's blog

5/8/2007 5:00:35 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0] 

Doing Hard Time

The Johnny-jump-ups and forget-me-nots that I started from seed in March are about ready to be planted out. I moved the seedlings up from their starter pots into bigger pots a few weeks ago, but they are rapidly outgrowing those. (Especially since I didn’t have enough pots--or the heart to toss any of the seedlings--and ended up putting bunches in pots together.)

The weather is still cool here, but we’ve had some warm days too. These are two annuals that can take cool temps, anyway. If anything were to cause them a problem I think it would be too much moisture. I’m hoping we don’t have a May like last year’s, when there was record rainfall and flooding in my area over Mother’s Day weekend.

Last week I started hardening the seedlings off, or getting them used to being out in the fresh breezy air and bright sunlight. I put them out on the deck during the day and brought them back indoors at night. Everything I’ve read about hardening off says you should only put them out in the sun for an hour or two the first day, then a few more hours, and so on over a week. What’s a working plant-mom like me to do? I had to put them out at 7 a.m., and I wouldn’t be able to bring them in until evening.

This is the strategy I used: I put them in deep cardboard boxes the first couple days, so they would be sheltered from the wind. The sides of the boxes gave them some shade. The next couple days I put them under the eave, where they got only morning sun and a little breeze. Finally I put them against the deck rail. They receive mostly sun there, with a little shade and shelter from the posts of the railing.

I hope to plant them in the garden this weekend.

Read Sara's blog

5/2/2007 11:11:31 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [1] 

"Just talk to yourself"

In the past week the violets and bleeding hearts in my garden have (just barely) started to sprout up. I am particularly excited about this because I transplanted them from my grandparents’ garden late last spring, just after the house was sold. I dug them up and drove them home on impulse, wanting to have a memento of the yard in which my mother and her siblings had grown up and in which my cousins and I had also played. I am happy that these plants seem to have survived their first year in my garden.

These plants are also special to me because my grandparents once tended them. My grandfather was a great veggie gardener and my grandmother had a pretty flower border. In the last year of my grandfather’s life he and I had some nice conversations about the value of gardening. He felt strongly that everyone should try his or her hand at growing something. He saw great benefits in being out in the fresh air, keeping active and being constructive, and creating something of which to be proud. Gardening also presents a great opportunity for you to “just talk to yourself,” he would say. I wasn’t sure what he meant by this at first, but now I relish my time in my garden or working with my houseplants because it does give me the chance to think quietly. Any worry I might have usually seems much less worrisome after some time in the garden. If I have a problem, I often find a creative solution or at least a brighter perspective after a chat with my plants.

I mentioned in my last post that I was looking forward to seeing some goldfinches as the weather warmed. About two days after I wrote, and about every day since, four of them have been visiting the bird feeder. The four are always together. I thought they wouldn’t be here until late spring. I just looked them up in my National Audubon Society’s North American Birdfeeder Handbook and learned they live in my area year-round. I also learned they are brownish gray in winter, and in spring the males become bright yellow and the females, yellowish. Maybe they have molted and that’s why I’m noticing them? The book also says that they feed on tree seeds, thistles, dandelions, evening primrose, sunflower, goldenrod, and lettuce seed. I want to make my yard and garden a safe, welcoming place for birds and pollinators this year. I have just started reading Letters from Eden by Julie Zickefoose (published last fall by Houghton Mifflin). It is very inspiring.

Read Sara's blog

4/18/2007 1:42:53 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0] 

What’s Up?

We had good weather this past weekend (sunny and near 60 degrees), which made me want to garden. I did a few chores out back and took stock of the signs of spring.

First, the bird activity is way up. We have black-capped and Carolina chickadees, tufted titmice, cardinals, and juncos (my favorite) at the feeders all winter, but there seem to be more of them lately and they are flying and singing with more vigor. The blue jays are also around more, as are the mourning doves. Neither of these really thrill me. The mourning doves can be cute, though, when they hunker down in a patch of sun or waddle around pecking in my garden. There were lots of robins in the grass this weekend, too. I am looking forward to the goldfinches that come with the warmer weather. Last summer there was one that used to sit on the top of a big blue columnar cactus that I put out on the deck once it gets warm enough (nights over 55).

In my garden, I noticed columbines, tiger lilies, perennial phlox, and sedum are starting to grow. The neighbors’ daffodils are up, but not yet blooming.

I started Johnny-jump-up (Viola tricolor), forget-me-not (Myosotis sylvatica ‘Blue Bird’), and dwarf morning glory (Convolvulus ‘Blue Enchantment’) seeds indoors several weeks ago. They sprouted sooner than I expected (in about five days rather than the ten days indicated on the packets) and now have their first sets of true leaves. I plan to start other Viola species this weekend.

On the light stand at the office I have candytuft (Iberis sempervirens) seedlings, alongside Liz’s cucumbers, tomatoes, and strawberries. I saw candytuft in a display at the New England Spring Flower Show, fell in love, and bought a packet of seeds. I’m not sure where I’ll plant it in my yard, but there’s time to figure that out; we had a nice weekend, as I mentioned, but the temperature has gone downhill since then!

4/3/2007 2:22:48 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [0] 

“Eureka!” on the Lighting Aisle

I went to Lowe’s the other day with my sister, who is remodeling her bathroom. We picked out some switch plates and towel bars then headed over to the lighting department. My mind started to wander to the houseplants I had planned on watering that day but had abandoned for this home-improvement excursion. Then I had a plant-related “Eureka!”

We were looking at over-the-sink sconces. The display shows a great many different, yet nearly identical, wall-mounted bare-bulb fixtures. Underneath these are rows of glass lampshades in different colors, shapes, and textures. You choose your basic fixture, then whichever shade you want to go over the light bulbs.

I realized that one of these shades would make a perfect cover for a small humidity-loving houseplant. Placed over the plant, it acts as a mini greenhouse, letting in light but trapping moist air. Because it is open at the top as well as the bottom (the narrow end would screw into the light fixture, if I had bought one of them, too), it allows some air to escape, so the environment won’t get too damp or stale.

It also looks pretty cool. I chose a clear shade with bubbles embedded in the glass. It cost about $5. Here it is over one of my young (six months) African violets, Saintpaulia ‘Stormy Rage’.

3/14/2007 10:13:39 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)    Comments [2] 

A Good Weekend

Over the weekend I visited Kane’s Flower World, a greenhouse and nursery in Middleton, Massachusetts. I needed to get a cactus to fill a space in one of my dish gardens, and my baby African violets were ready for dividing, so I needed some supplies.

I had started these violets from leaf cuttings. Last summer I ordered leaves from Lyndon Lyon Greenhouses, an African violet specialist. I got two leaves each of ten different cultivars, and stuck them in plastic pots of potting mix with extra perlite. Nearly all of the leaves produced a baby plant; some produced more than one.  

I divided some of them several months ago, planting the babies into one-inch clay pots. Huge mistake! The size and make-up of these pots mean they dry out very quickly. It has been nearly impossible to keep those violets watered. The majority of them died.

So I bought three-inch square plastic pots at Kane’s for the ones I was dividing this weekend. I also bought some vermiculite to mix into the potting soil, to help retain moisture. (I add perlite, too, to lighten the mix; violet roots have trouble moving through heavy soil.)

Now I have 14 baby violets in 14 plastic pots on a cookie sheet by the window. I had some pots and mix left over, so I started cuttings from a mature violet and a streptocarpus.

And, besides the cactus I needed to fill that space, I bought three more and made another dish garden. It was a good weekend!

Read Sara's blog

2/20/2007 4:49:05 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [7] 

A Field Trip in the City

“New England Grows,” an annual green industry trade show, took place this week in Boston. Landscapers, garden designers, nursery owners, arborists, groundskeepers, teachers, and other garden professionals come to this event to see the plants and equipment that will help them do their best work in the coming year. The show includes a series of lectures and demonstrations, too.

Liz and I had a chance to visit the show yesterday. It was a cold, windy walk from our office to the Convention Center, marked by a few wrong turns. But the sight I saw when we finally got there warmed me right up. (With help from the hot chocolate we managed to hunt down.) The front lobby looks down on the main exhibition floor, which, being covered with garden supply exhibits looked much like spring.

Besides admiring the exhibits of plants, pots, and tools, we sat in on a pest-management lecture given by Leanne Pundt of the University of Connecticut. The talk was geared toward industry people (naturally, that being the audience), who are trying to fight pests and diseases on a large scale. But I did pick up some tips to use in my own garden:

1. Learn the cultural requirements of my plants and meet them as best I can. Healthy plants are more able to fight pests and diseases.

2. “Scout” my garden regularly. Look for symptoms on plants, the pests themselves, and the activity of pests’ natural enemies. Inspect new plants as I get them.

3. Choose native plants, which are more likely to attract beneficial insects and the pests’ natural enemies.

From the slides I recognized that last summer some of my columbines (Aquilegia) had columbine leafminers. The columbines were some of my favorites of what I planted last spring. I have Aquilegia canadensis ‘Little Lanterns’, A. alpine ‘Alpine Blue’, and A. vulgaris plena ‘Rose Barlow’. I will follow Leanne’s advice to be sure to choose native columbines. (Of the three that I have so far, only A. canadensis is native, and I do think it was not affected by the miners, though I’m just going by memory. I have to keep better notes!)

Read Sara Begg's blog

2/9/2007 11:33:45 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [1] 

    My interest in plants and gardening began in my childhood. It is something I picked up from my mother. (Judging by letters we’ve already received from readers, this is a common scenario!) My mum has always had a great collection of houseplants, and I always enjoyed helping her care for them. One of my earliest memories is of helping her create a terrarium to give as a birthday present to a girl down the street. I was about four. I remember feeling a great sense of wonder at looking at the tiny forest we had just built inside a fish bowl—and feeling more than a bit jealous when we gave it to the neighbor.

    As I got a little older I became very interested in cacti and other succulents. I enjoyed making desert dish gardens, reading cactus books, rearranging my windowsill display, and starting from seed. Actually, I still enjoy doing all those things. But I have expanded my indoor plant collection to include other types of plants. I am building a collection of African violets, some of which I propagated from plants belonging to my mother.

    Working at Horticulture inspired me to start an outdoor garden. This spring will start my garden’s third year. It is only a small bed, about eight by eight feet. The first year I did all annuals; last year I added some perennials. I’m using my space to figure out what outdoor plants I like best, to learn by doing, and to just have fun.  I’ll fill you in as I go.

Read Sara Begg's blog

1/26/2007 3:46:48 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)    Comments [4]