An Evening with Allan Armitage

I had the opportunity to spend a few hours yesterday with Dr. Allan Armitage, as part of a small group from the Smith Gilbert Gardens Foundation. As I have mentioned in the past, we are incredibly lucky in Georgia to have Drs. Armitage and Michael Dirr associated with UGA. As a result, those of us in the gardening community in Georgia tend to have access to some cool information.

As always, I was impressed with just how approachable Dr. Armitage is, particularly in light of what a big deal he is in the horticulture world. There were about 12 of us, and we spent an hour strolling the grounds at the Smith Gilbert Gardens, and then another hour getting a sneak peek of some of his new favorites in the world of perennials.

I'll share more information later (my notes are outside in the truck, and it's way too cold to go outside this early), but for now, here are some tidbits from last night:

Dr. Armitage spoke about hydrangeas, and how strong the paniculatas are coming onto the scene. Some of the cultivars have been around for a long time, but some of the new ones like Pinky Winky and Limelight are really making a big splash. It's no secret that I am a bit of a hydrangea "junky," and have lots of them in the stepchild garden, but I can't argue with the statement that the macrophyllas can be finicky, particularly for new gardeners. In contrast, the paniculatas seem to grow most anywhere, loving sun, shade, or a mix of the two. They aren't the waterhogs that the big leafed relatives can be, either. I've had H. paniculata "Unique" for a couple of years, and it's just a workhorse in my own garden, and at the Big House, as well. Guess it's time to add in some others..... (That's Pinky Winky in the photo.)

Achilleas (Yarrow) are coming on again in a strong way. The newer cultivars like "Pomegranate" are better behaved than some of the older strains, and stay lower to the ground. Yarrow is another plant that I personally can't get enough of, even if it does tend to roam all over the garden when it's happy.

Lastly, one of the new perennials Dr. Armitage likes is a wallflower called "Jenny Brock." This is one of those flowers that doesn't get used often in the south, since it doesn't like heat, but according to the trials at UGA, "Jenny Brock" is perennial, and has flowered there from February until July! Wallflower is an old favorite of mine (as a transplanted New Englander), so this is one I'm going to start looking for today!

I'm starting my day at the greenwaste site, then planning to work in the stepchild garden today; I'm sure there are still plants living under the foot of fallen leaves......

Container Mania!

We are currently in the midst of "container mania" at the big house, which means there are a gazillion things in flats all about the pool. I've slowly been chipping away at the major containers, and the first of the spring bedding plants are going into the ground! I am so excited with the "Honey Bee Lantana," with muted pinks, peaches, soft yellows, and whites all on the same plants! That's being planted in the beds under the crape myrtles, where nothing else has the stamina to fight the roots of the trees. Photos to come once it fully opens up.

People keep asking me about container combinations I'm using this year, so I'll get them up on here in the next few days. I'm a big believer that even with the same plants, every arrangement is different, since there is inevitably a different container, and a different "designer's eye" involved. I've borrowed some of my favorite combinations from friends, and find it flattering when people ask me to do the same.

One of my favorites so far for this year: Lion's Head Japanese Maples (Acer palmatum "Shishigashira"), underplanted with "Bonfire" Begonias (Begonia boliviensis "Bonfire"), finished with Creeping Jenny(Lysimachia nummularia "Aurea"). Very simple, very clean, very elegant, and really shows off the tree, which is the whole point.

The Big Chill

This morning brought that inevitable April blast of cold air that happens every year; like always, it's just a 36-hour thing, but enough to disrupt all of the best laid plans!

The greenhouse has quickly become the storage unit, jammed with as many plants as I could get inside, most notably the two "Lion's Head" Japanese Maples that will adorn the front porch at the Big House next week. I decided yesterday it was a time for "better safe than sorry," so anything that was still in a pot is either in the greenhouse or the garage. The garden is dotted with lots of plants wearing their little "frost hats"----everybody's praying to the Hydrangea goddess that it's not as bad as 2007, when we had virtually no blooms on the macrophyllas because of just this kind of a late freeze. The "Saratoga" gingko (which cost about the same as my car payment for a 5 gallon pot) is also hiding out in the garage.

It's hard to believe that it's 34 degrees at this moment in the Atlanta 'burbs, is going to freeze overnight tonight, but will be safely back in the 60's by tomorrow afternoon. Only 8 more days until tax day! I have no interest in giving the IRS anything, but it's always a good day since it's the historic time to plant in this part of the world.

I think I'm going to put on my parka and go hug the Gingko!

The Releasing of the Roses

Since the horse fans have "The Running of the Roses" every May in Louisville, it only seems appropriate that we have "The Releasing of the Roses" in metro Atlanta.

I never knew it was such a big deal until I went to Autumn Hill Nursery this afternoon to pick up the new roses for "Missus." It was like a mad house there, with all of these people picking up roses! I almost got into it with the chick from Sandy Springs who though she was going to switch the tag on my tree form Neptune with hers! (The neighbors won't be hearing from her any time soon.........)

For those of you who don't know Autumn Hill, it is a really awesome nursery in the Hickory Flat area of Cherokee County, where all of those other growers and nurseries are. Autumn Hill is where to go if you're looking for some more unusual things (Cliftonia, Carolina Silver Bell, unusual perennials, etc.), and a great collection of high end containers, fountains, and such.

Pictures will follow once the new Abraham Darby is in place next to the Graham Thomas!

A Bit of Spring Cleaning

After a weekend of cold drizzly rain (which we desperately needed), it was a treat to be in the garden today in the warm sun. It got into the high 60's, and was the perfect day to do some "spring cleaning" in the vegetable garden and the big perennial beds. Can you believe we're only a month from planting summer annuals?

The blueberries are positively covered with blooms, which are pretty in the walled garden, since everything else there is either still dormant or just starting to grow for spring.

I managed to pull out some of the winter cabbages, which had started to bolt with this warm weather, and are developing that funky odor that occurs when they start their decline. Time to move the last of the "Antique Shades" pansies from the nursery area to the displays at the front of the house, since it still needs to look good for another month before the spring things arrive. They are the perfect color for the brick of the house, but a challenging cultivar that needs lots of babying.

Took the broom to the creeping fig that covers the wall in the garden; it starts to look pretty ratty at this time of year, so the broom makes quick work of brushing away the dead leaves, exposing the new growth; it was exciting to have to tiptoe through the spears of asparagus that have just started popping up in the past couple of days! One of the luxuries of being the gardener is standing in the garden, in the silence, in the sun, eating the first stalk of the season's asparagus......

I was raking away the last of the autumn leaves from the vegetable beds (we leave a light covering there for the winter), and discovered the tiny little shoots of sweetpeas around the base of the tuteurs....I can't wait to see them start racing up the slats in the next couple of weeks!

Across the gravel walkway, the peonies are showing their heads (one in a particularly hot spot is about six inches high already), so I got to put out their cages for another spring show. Peonies always make me smile, thinking of my grandmother calling them "Pee-OH-nies" with the New York accent that still came through, even 70 years after leaving her childhood home.

I finished my day giving a haircut to the "Sunny Yellow" Knockout Roses that arrived a few weeks ago, grooming them to go into containers at the pool in a few weeks. There is something magical about spring, when you can literally watch things grow right in front of your eyes!

Leave the dreaded leaf blowers and power mowers in the garage for just another week! Sit back and enjoy the simplicity of the spring garden.....and look for those first spears of asparagus!

PS....The sakurafubuki is getting closer!

The Final Version of the Select Seeds Order

Okay, so I finally sat down and actually ordered the things I "need" from Select Seeds. Go figure, the list is a little longer than originally planned. (Just a note that there is a 5% discount on orders placed by February 28).

I ordered all the things in my last entry about Select Seeds, but here's what I added: "Ballerina Yellow" Datura, to go under the "Betty Marshall" Brugmansia.....I think it's very cool to do the combination of Angel's Trumpet above Devil's Trumpet in one container!

Senecio (Mexican Flame Vine, shown above), which will climb a little iron tuteur in a container

Heliotrope "Frangrant Delight"....pain-in-the-butt plant, but the vanilla fragrance is awesome!

Night Blooming Jasmine.....a magnet for mealy bugs, but a night time fragrance that will knock you over! ( I will be cursing this plant by July, if history is any indicator.....)

Plus some seeds for a really simple new cutting garden we're doing by the house: Cosmas "Rose Bonbon," Zinnia "Benary's Giant Salmon Rose," Zinnia "Oklahoma Mix," and Zinnia "Peppermint Stick.

Lastly, another antique geranium called "Mr. Wren," with has single scarlet flowers edged in white. That's going in a container with a purple trailing geranium I already have called "Taj Mahal".....photos coming in summer!

Now it's off to the Brent & Becky's Catalog, right after I make the credit card payment!

A Bad Gardening Day or a Good Day in the Garden?

This has been one of those weekends with "fence sitting weather," which I usually find very frustrating. Yesterday was in the high 50's with tons of sun, and it was one of those days when we gardeners are just chomping at the bit to get a jump start on the season. I kept starting to work in the garden, then would stop and tell myself it was too early to do this or that, since it is going to fall below freezing for the next few nights. I raked the fallen pine needles off the Creeping Jenny, then raked it back over the tender new leaves; I pulled some old leaves out of the crowns of the hydrangeas, saw the bright green new growth, and put the leaves back. After a couple of hours of this dance, I satisfied myself by raking the lawn and making things look at least a little better....I'm much more casual about where Sadie visits during the winter months, so it was definitely time to rake.

Today I was equally frustrated by having to wait for spring to arrive, though far less inclined to be outside working in the garden with the cold winds that arrived overnight. Not wanting to waste the beautiful sunshine, I decided it was the perfect day to just enjoy the garden. I had to stop at the big house to water the greenhouse, and got this photo of the creek bank. These are the most adorable little daffodils (whose name I don't know), which are amongst the first harbingers of spring.

In my own garden, this morning was a great time to see how things have done over the winter, and I was reminded of how many people have contributed. Alice's yarrow is slowing spreading and filling in lots of empty spaces, the irises I dug with Dad last September are coming up in their new Southern home, Phyllis' gloxinia is showing signs of life, the New Dawn Rose that Frank so nervously selected is bigger and stronger than ever.......

My morning stroll was pleasantly interrupted by Alice calling to say, "I've got bags of Japanese Blood Grass here.....any interest?"

I think I'm rather happy that it's too cold to work outside today!

A Gardenia, Two Lorapetalums, A Hydrangea, and a Rose

I had the chance to run in to the Southeastern Nursery Show late Friday afternoon as things were wrapping up, but was glad that I did! Probably as a result of the economy and the ongoing drought, the show was definitely smaller than in previous years, but there were some special plants to be found in many of the displays. I got to spend some time chatting with Mike Sikes from McCorkle Nurseries, and really fell in love with some of their new introductions.

The Heaven Scent Gardenia is new for this year, and is pretty fabulous! Reblooming, covered with blooms (that were forced for the show), nice fragrance, and a great form. The interesting twist to this little gardenia (matures at 3 to 4 feet) are the great seed pods that turn from yellow to orange to red through the winter, when most gardenias aren't at their most attractive.

Carolina Moonlight Lorapetalum is on my "gotta have it" list for this year. White blooms rather than the usual pink-red, with an olive green leaf. I'm never 100% convinced when I'm told what the mature size will be on a lorapetalum, but this one is supposed to max out at 7 to 8 feet. I have the perfect place to put an informal hedge of five plants!

The "Little Rose Dawn" Lorapetalum isn't new for 2009, but still relatively new on the market (I actually won mine as a doorprize at the GMGA Conference in Athens in January 0f 2008). It has done beautifully at my house, even with this roller coaster weather of the past year, and is starting to show the unusual branching pattern that this cultivar is noted for. One of my favorite plants is the Doublefile Viburnum because of its beautiful "layered branching," and this particular lorapetalum seems to be doing the same thing. It grows wide rather than tall (it's supposed to become pretty massive at 7 feet tall and 15 feet wide)...sort of loose and fluffy looking like a Van Houteii Spirea....picture above.

There is a new hydrangea that will most definitely make it into my garden this season. "Twist-n-Shout" is the newest in the Endless Summer series. My plant snob side always pooh-poohs things like Endless Summer, but this is a pretty awesome plant, and it's a reblooming lace cap....will let you know in August if I'm still so smitten with it!

Lastly, the "Amber" Flower Carpet Rose is just beautiful! Can't wait to use it in hanging baskets off the side of the bridge that goes over the creek! Blooms late spring through late fall, and I'm going to mix it in those baskets with Diamond Frost Euphorbia and Marguerite Sweet Potato Vine....it's going to be like a perpetual bouquet of roses, I hope! (Check out the photo above)

McCorkle doesn't sell retail, but I know Buck Jones carries most of their lines, and I'm sure many retailers will have them this season. It's the rose in the pink pot and the hydrangea in the blue one.

Support Your Local Garden Center!

Many of you know that I maintain the plants at a penthouse residence in B'head, which is, in and of itself, a pretty awesome gardening experience. Do you have any idea what it's like to maintain an Italian cypress in the sun and wind of the 42nd floor? Needless to say, lots of stuff froze solid during last week's cold snap, so I'm hoping things will revive a little bit with this week's thaw.

I was driving around that area today on a quest for one perfect large rosemary plant, and ended up in several different nurseries that I haven't visited in a little while. Between the combination of last week's weather, the season, the drought and the economy, the visits were depressing on one hand, inspirational on the other.

The big orange box store had virtually nothing in stock, short of some shell-shocked pansies and the promise of lots of deliveries coming in daily.

Hastings' in Brookhaven was a little better, but virtually everything there was an indoor plant. Since I readily kill orchids (not on purpose), I didn't spend a dime. It was a good visit, though, since the sun was shining, it was in the mid 60's and there were tons of worker bees running around getting ready for spring shipments. They did have some cool "pot feet" for only $3 each....those of you who shop at Hastings know that $3 usually buys a bottle of water there!...though their plants are pretty fabulous usually.

Over at Ashe-Simpson Garden Center, it was pretty depressing from the street with the plastic shrouding the plant area, but inside was as cool as ever. The ladies had moved all of the camellias, daphnes, etc., into the cold greenhouse, so it was just bursting with color and fragrance! If you aren't familiar with Ashe-Simpson, you need to go there. Carole, Rosemary and crew are extremely knowledgeable, and just plain "good people."

So my point, four paragraphs later, is SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL GARDEN CENTER! There were lots of comments at last week's flower show that things were smaller this year. The truth is that some of the boutique companies are having a hard time making ends meet, much less spending thousands on these shows.

In times like these, with weather like we've had the past couple of years, many of these smaller companies are having a tough time holding on; others, like Perennial Grace, just couldn't keep going for another season, and will be sadly missed in Atlanta. We count on them to introduce new cultivars, give us endless amounts of free advice, listen to our whining, and save the best plants for us personally, so we need to spend some money with them! Consider it your local version of the economic recovery plan! Who couldn't use just one more (fill in the blank) in the garden this year?

A "Sense of Place" in Gardening

I'm finally able to wrap up some things from the Southeastern Flower Show, though my garage still contains a giant tub of plants sitting in moist soil that came out of a number of different containers; one of tomorrow's projects is repotting those things to utilize them in some cool summer display.

I spent much more time at the show this year than I typically do, which gave me the opportunity to really look at some of the awesome exhibits in great detail. The show was smaller this year, but I felt it was much more appealing in lots of ways, as well.

On one of my many forays into the bookseller's booth, I picked up a book called "Great Gardens Great Designers," which starts out talking about how people changed their style of gardening in England at the turn of the last century; specifically they were responding to the Victorian collecting of exotics, and moving in a direction that was geared more to native plants, hardy plants, etc., that were more typical of England. The lightbulb went off for me that this is the same pattern we're seeing now, and it's why there was a certain comfort in this year's display gardens at the SEFS.

It was a treat to see so many gardens that were realistic for Atlanta, and weren't a collection of exotics that need to be disassembled in September to be crammed into the greenhouse for the winter. It seemed that many of the designers featured more of the things that do really well here -- lorapetalum in a million forms, lots of conifers that have proven their value here, azaleas, rhododendrons, gardenias, and such. It was also great to see very little turf being used in the display gardens....let's face it, there is nothing easy about growing a great lawn in Atlanta! What a radical idea to promote plants that actually do well here! Why not have a garden that identifies itself as an Atlanta style, rather than tropical, Mediterranean, or desert?

I was very proud to have only purchased two new plants for my garden at this year's show. First I got an amazing pine (Pinus densiflora "Aurea") with chartreuse needles that is going to be amazing against a backdrop of magnolias and hollies in my garden; second, I got several "Bramble Ferns," which are native. Anyone who know me is clear that I'm not one of the native plant geeks, but this fern is just beautiful, growing about 3 feet tall in and around camellias, pines, azaleas, etc. It's my new filler plant, to bring some sense of order to my wooded area......as if that's possible.....

The Second Incarnation of the Box

Here's the second version of the box, which I tweaked based upon the comments of the first round of judges. If you click on it and blow up the photo, there is an awesome new hellebore called "Pine Knot Select" that came from Ashe-Simpson Nursery, as well as that euphorbia called "Glacier Blue," which is great because it stays that color year round.

I also added in fake diamonds, and gave more explanation to the dragonfly in the "statement of purpose." The Duke of Windsor always believed that dragonflies embody the souls of the dead.
Am I creeping you out yet?

If you're in Atlanta and haven't been to the Show yet, you need to go! It's got some great displays this year!