Convention is a source of inspiration to green industry professionals.
The jam-packed exhibition hall at the New England Grows event in Boston. |
February is a slow month for garden and landscape businesses in New England. That makes it a perfect time for people in the gardening business (like me!) to visit New England Grows, the biggest winter gathering of green industry professionals in the Northeast. The three-day trade show and educational event in Boston is the place to catch up with colleagues and suppliers, learn about new plants, tools, techniques and trends, and get jazzed about the spring season.
I always look forward to this opportunity to see what's ahead for the new growing season. This year, I roamed the aisles of the trade show looking for innovative products and ideas. The more than 600 exhibitors included manufacturers, plant growers, pest-control suppliers, purveyors of garden art, publishers and representatives from public gardens. Here are a few of the coming trends, products and ideas that I brought back:
1. A focus on earth-friendly products. West County Gloves is changing the fabric they on the back of their gloves to include fibers from recycled water bottles. A wholesale nursery offered landscape roses in biodegradable Eco-pots instead of black plastic containers. The number of companies offering natural pest controls increases each year as the companies offering chemical controls lose ground.
2. An emphasis on plant foliage, form and color. Sophisticated and traditional containers planted with succulents, ferns, grasses, coleus, and tropical plants with nary a bloom in sight. The lack of colorful flowers at the show was noticeable!
3. Native plants and cultivars are hot. Garden center customers shouldn’t have any trouble finding perennial echinacea, phlox, baptisia, gaillardia, and grasses to fill their landscapes this spring.
4. Folk art and rustic garden décor. Woven willow fences, stone and pottery animals, antique-looking furniture and handmade pottery with an ethnic flair were poised to take up residence in the garden.
Despite gloomy economic projections for 2009, I felt optimistic and hopeful as I walked among the potted trees and shrubs, picked through the seed packets, admired the newest perennial offerings, and chatted with vendors. We all had the sense that we are in the right business to help bring peace and renewal back to our customers and communities. It's still February, but spring's promise is right around the corner.
Even first-time gardeners can succeed with a Potato Bin.
Our Potato Bins shown late in the summer, growing in our Burlington, VT, display garden. |
Last year, we used the bin to grow some purple potatoes. A good blend of varieties can be found in our Flowering Potatoes. Harvesting is easy: Just pick up the bin and dump it. |
Maybe you're not ready to jump into vegetable gardening just yet. But what about a small adventure? How about growing some potatoes in a bag? The Potato Bin allows even first-time gardeners to get a good harvest — up to 13 pounds -- without the need for digging or weeding.
The Potato Bin is actually a 15-gallon fabric "pot" that measures 18" across and 14" tall. The porous fabric makes the pot lightweight and easy to locate in almost any sunny spot. Just fill it up with a couple shovelfuls of good soil or a bag or two of topsoil.
Potatoes are traditionally grown in rows that are about 18" wide. Once the potato plants get a few inches high, gardeners "hill up" the soil around the base of the plant. Since potato tubers develop along the plant's stem, the more of the stem that's covered with soil, the more potatoes will form. With the Potato Bin, the whole burying part is super easy. The potatoes get planted near the bottom of the bin in about 4 inches of soil. As the plants grow taller, you cover the stems by adding more soil to the bin. It's pretty much foolproof.
In our test gardens, we have experimented with a number of different fabric pots, and this Potato Bin gave us the best results. One of our testers here at Gardener's Supply was Diane, a first-time potato grower. With little effort, she harvested 13 pounds from one of her bins. "I used a variety called Green Mountain, because they were developed at the University of Vermont and I'm a proud UVM alumna." Diane says it is important to monitor the bins for moisture, so they're neither too dry nor too wet. During the heat of the summer, she watered almost every day.
For more on the Potato Bin, read the detailed instructions.
-David Grist
Online Content Coordinator, Gardener's Supply
Photo Contest winners offer inspiration to winter-weary gardeners.
Himalayan blue poppy by Ann S. of Southworth, WA: "I took it with a Nikon D50, a digital SLR. The shady location, and the often gloomy weather we have here, seems to work well for shooting plants." Take a look at the full-size photo or See more photos from the 2008 Dutch Gardens Photo Contest. |
In the middle of winter, this gardener's heart longs for flowers. Unfortunately, it'll be awhile before I can get out into the yard. But it's amazing how one beautiful photo, such as the poppy at left, can enlighten and inspire me. It's from the garden of Ann S. in Southworth, WA. I look at her photo and say, "I'm going to grow that this season"!
Then, I write it down on a list. The list goes in my wallet. When April comes, with its overwhelming crush of plants and chores, I pull out the list. It keeps me from becoming distracted by the array of plants in the garden center. The list give me focus, and, because it's in my wallet, it's always on hand.
If you're looking for inspiration, take a look at the photos we received for the 2008 Dutch Gardens Photo Contest. You're sure to be inspired by some of the great shots we received. Ann's photo is just one of more than 1,700 we received, and all are on view in the Dutch Gardens Photo Center. Maybe you'll decide to enter a photo of your own in the 2009 photo contest.
This photo, from Cheryl Corrigan of Wixom, MI, won the prize for Best Flower Portrait. Take a look at the full-size photo or See more photos from the 2008 Dutch Gardens Photo Contest. |
As for the blue poppy, it is from the genus Meconopsis, native to the Himalayas. Whenever you read about it, the word "elusive" seems to be in the first sentence. You can buy seeds and plants easily enough; the elusive part is the bloom. This poppy requires consistently moist soil, relatively cool temperatures and some shade. It's not an easy combination in most of the U.S., where cool summers are not the norm. However, if you live in the Pacific Northwest, like Ann, you're more likely to succeed.
"I had seen a large stand of them growing in Lakewold Gardens (a public garden near Tacoma)," Ann says, "and several other places around here and always aspired to grow them. After several failures with this plant I finally had beautiful blooms last year. I'm not sure that I did anything different; the main thing, I believe, is the location. Mine is planted in a small, crowded bed that gets some morning sun but is shady most of the day. What I especially liked about it is that it came up and bloomed and then kept sending up new blooms so that the one plant stayed quite lovely for weeks. It is tall and thin and does not take up much space although I'm hoping it will spread. I don't believe I fertilized it or watered it much, but it is in a naturally moist location. I did stake it since it grew about 2 feet tall."
- David Grist
Online Content Coordinator, Gardener's Supply
If you read this blog on a regular basis, you may be aware of my fondness for canna lilies. This winter I am overwintering eight bags filled with roots.
There's nothing boring about canna lilies!
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If you read this blog on a regular basis, you may be aware of my fondness for canna lilies. This winter I am overwintering eight large trash bags filled with canna roots. Friends are starting to place their requests for planting-size chunks this spring!
I wasn't always a canna fan and I still don't like the full-size flowers very much. My friend and fellow blogger David Grist got me started with two of the smaller-flowered varieties. Intrigue has delicate, bright orange flowers that create a bold contrast with the dusky, purple-burgundy-blue-green foliage. In the slideshow at the end of the post, you can see it in the picture of my cutting garden, planted with amaranth. I also grow Panache, which has long slender buds that open into spidery, pale-peach flowers with hints of yellow and pink. Its foliage is plain green, but the leaves are slightly frosty with a blueish tint. Hummingbirds love both of them.
Panache |
There are lots of ways to use cannas in the garden. I especially like growing them in large pots. You need to be prepared to water heavily almost every day and fertilize generously, but they'll reward you handsomely with big, tropical foliage and soaring flower spikes. Make sure you pick a very large, heavy-duty pot (the size of a half whiskey barrel leaves room for some companion plants). From personal experience, I recommend using a pot that doesn't taper inward at the top. By the end of the growing season the entire pot will be completely filled with canna roots and if the pot is narrower at the top than the bottom, it will be virtually impossible to remove the root ball.
Intrigue |
Another effective way to use cannas is to create a hedge. I was at Cistus Nursery in Oregon last fall and they'd screened their parking lot with a 60-foot hedge of cannas. Wow! That's a fence any neighbor would like. At my house I created a hedge at one end of my cutting garden by interplanting cannas with a dark-red amaranth. The plants seemed to complement each other well, and looked great right into late October. Another hedge-like combination that's been successful in my garden is planting dahlias between the cannas.
Until now I've been able to limit my cannas-growing adventures to the two varieties mentioned above. But last summer I decided it's time to try a canna with variegated foliage such as Bengal Tiger or Tropicana. Check out the slide show below and you'll see what I mean.
To learn more about growing cannas, read How to Grow Cannas and Callas. If you'd like to try growing cannas this year, check out the spring lineup of cannas at Dutch Gardens.
Cannas in the Garden
Some of my favorite cannas, and how they can be used. To see the caption, click on the photo.
Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.
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Related post: Where My Tender Plants Spend the Winter
When it comes to hedges, shearing isn't always the best technique.
Before: Annual shearing had left this hedge with leafy, twiggy "crust" and a leafless interior. |
Last summer, I started working for a woman who needed a little landscaping help. Her trees needed a tune-up, the perennials needed dividing and she had a hedge that was about to close off the entrance to her front walk. The opening was getting smaller and smaller. Within weeks, it would be a solid green wall. Drastic, immediate action was required.
The hedge of dwarf Korean lilac (Syringa meyeri), had been sheared each spring with gas-powered hedge shears. A fine tool indeed — if you're using it for yews, or some other shrub that doesn't mind being sheared like a dog. Lilacs, however, do not respond well to this treatment. The annual shearing had created a leafy, twiggy "crust". Just 10" from the edge of the shrub, there were no leaves at all. And because of the springtime routine, the plant never really bloomed.
Getting this hedge back into shape wouldn't be pretty. I told my customer it would require some tough love. "When I'm finished, you will be startled."
After: Yikes! |
I started by thinning out the older branches in the hedge, cutting them right to the ground. These 5- to 6-foot branches were almost leafless, except for the twiggy tuft at the top. Then, I trimmed branches selectively, lowering the overall height of the shrub and opening congested areas. After several hours with loppers and pruners, I was done. The result was indeed startling. The few leaves that remained did little to grace the transparent, twiggy hedge. The opening to the walkway had been restored, but the hedge looked pretty bad. I reasurred my customer that everything would be fine in a few weeks. She, in turn, reassured her husband that they hadn't just paid someone to butcher the bushes.
As the weeks passed, I worried that the shrub would not recover. Had I been too harsh? What if the dormant buds didn't respond to the light? But they did. Within a month, new growth was evident throughout the shrub. By the end of the season, the hedge had filled out nicely. In my customer's eyes, I was redeemed, and the hedge was, too.
Come June, I hope to see a hedge covered with pale-pink flowers, filling the entryway with fragrance.
-David Grist,
Online Content Coordinator
The renewed hedge, basking in autumn light. |
Miniature greenhouses make indoor gardening stylish and easy.
A slim, unobtrusive T-5 fluorescent light fixture in the peak of the roof provides enough light for nearly any plant in the Wardian Case ($249). |
Wardian cases revolutionized tropical plant collection and cultivation in the 19th century. After Dr. Nathaniel Ward discovered that ferns enclosed in glass cases could survive London's coal-smoke-laden air, explorers and merchants adapted the enclosures to transport and profit from exotic new plants from Australia, New Zealand and other climates far from European shores. Wealthy Victorian patrons embraced the cases for parlor décor and terrace gardens, allowing them to participate in the heady riches of botanical discovery.
Miniature greenhouses and terrariums have lost none of their appeal in the 175 years since Ward’s discovery, but technology has improved them. I’m happy to see modern Wardian cases with bright, efficient lighting, for example. The slim, new T-5 fluorescent bulbs and fixtures are especially well-suited for growing plants in Wardian cases and terrariums. When I started using these bulbs a year or so ago, my African violets and orchids started to bloom more profusely.
The Wardian Case is ideal for displaying small houseplants, such as ferns, African violets, orchids, and bromeliads. |
Gardener’s Supply is offering a Wardian case outfitted with a T-5 fixture that I’ve had an opportunity to play with at work. I like that it stands on the floor on its own legs instead of taking up table space. The leak-proof tray is deep enough to plant in, too, and it’s well-ventilated so that the glass never fogs up. We’ve chosen to line ours with moss and set potted plants on it so that we can change plants easily. When an African violet goes out of bloom, I’ll replace it with another.
The Plant Cottage ($399) is a variation on the traditional Wardian case. The light fixture in the peak makes it ideal for light-loving plants. |
The case is suitable for nearly any plant that can fit inside, thanks to the bright light system. I can imagine a desert theme with succulents and cacti, or a rain forest of ferns, mini orchids and bromeliads. A bog garden complete with live sphagnum moss, pitcher plants, Venus fly traps, dwarf sedges, and sundew would be right at home in this Wardian case, too. It’s easy to see why these have remained popular for nearly two centuries.
-Ann Whitman
Horticulturist, Gardener's Supply
Related post: Tiny Terrariums
Pay attention to light, water and fertilizer and your phalaenopsis will rebloom.
When they're not blooming, you can often find orchids at low prices. |
When it comes to orchids, phalaenopsis (moth orchids) are among the most easy to grow. Blooms can last for several months and you can get them to rebloom without a lot of effort. Well, some folks can. I haven't had such good luck with getting another bloom, and I have the shelf of non-blooming phalaenopsis to prove it. Frankly, I'm a little bit embarrassed.
In an effort to succeed in getting rebloom, I checked in with our orchid expert at Gardner's Supply, Anita Nadeau. She helps customers in the conservatory at our Williston, VT, store (Check out the slideshow, below). Here are her tips for getting your phalaenopsis to rebloom:
Blooming phalaenopsis are available by mail-order and at good garden centers. |
Pay attention to watering and humidity. If you neglect your orchid, it will not reward you with blooms. The plants are growing in a free-draining blend of fir bark, so you need to water regularly. Avoid letting the plant dry out between waterings. Most homes are quite dry during the winter, but you can increase the humidity by setting the orchid pots on a tray of pebbles or a special humidity grid. Make sure the pots are not sitting in the water; they should be just above it.
Fertilize regularly. A fertilizing routine is just as important as a watering routine. Anita recommends fertilizing once a month at full-strength or every week at quarter-strength. For an organic option, consider Orchid Fertilizer from Terracycle. It's a ready-to-use liquid that's made from worm castings.
Make sure plants get enough light—but not too much. Anita says, "When a healthy orchid does not flower, it is usually due to not enough light." Phalaenopsis thrive in bright light, but not direct sun. This means east- or west-facing windows are best. Orchids also thrive under full-spectrum lights.
Orchids in Bloom
A selection of orchids growing in our Vermont conservatory. To see the caption, click on the photo.
Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR. |
- David Grist
Online Content Coordinator, Gardener's Supply
When aphids strike your houseplants, it's fairly easy to gain control.
Aphids suck the juice out of tender leaves, flowers, buds and stems, leaving sticky residue and discarded exoskeletons. |
Stickiness. Uh-oh. Tropical houseplants jostle for space under the grow lights in my basement from October to May, waiting for the summer warmth to return. Like any population living in a crowded, unnatural environment, these plants are prone to pests and disease. Sticky spots on the foliage usually mean insect pests have found a host.
Okay, where did I leave my reading glasses? Closer inspection reveals white stuff stuck to the leaves. The evidence points to aphids. These insects discard their outer shell or exoskeleton as they grow, leaving an-easy-to-follow trail. They excrete a sticky substance that sometimes attracts ants and can foster fungal disease. The symptoms sound bad, but aphids are one of the less complicated pests to eliminate from houseplants. An examination of the softest new growth on an angel-wing begonia and the blooming African violet next to it confirm my suspicions. Green insects about the size of an o are hard at work extracting juice from my plants. Another plant nearby has orange aphids. I need to wear my glasses more often!
Aphids mostly hang out on branch tips and new leaves, buds and flower stems, which makes them relatively easy to find. The begonia and Africa violet are headed for the bathtub, along with a few of their neighbors, just to be sure I haven’t missed anyone.
I use only botanical and other natural pest controls, such as pyrethrins, neem, and horticultural oils. These work just as effectively as chemical pesticides, with fewer environmental side effects. I spritz the entire plant, including the undersides of the foliage, until the spray drips off. Hence the trip to the tub.
As soon as I moved the plants, though, I noticed small black flying insects. Fungus gnats. These critters spend their grub stage in the soil, then emerge as tiny, annoying gnats that seem drawn to faces and computer monitors. The adults are otherwise harmless, but the grubs can damage plant roots. Fortunately, they are also easy to control because the adults are attracted to the color yellow. I hang yellow cards covered with sticky tangle foot from the grow light fixtures and the problem’s solved. Another option is Gnat Guard, which uses tiny nematodes to control the problem.
For photos of other common pests and diseases and their controls, see our Pest and Disease Finder.
-Ann Whitman
Horticulturist, Gardener's Supply
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