Conifers are trees and shrubs that bear cones instead of flowers. Conifers add structure to the landscape. And because most are evergreen, they are especially appreciated in a barren winter setting. Think how naked my garden shed would look without the evergreens in this image!

The large plant to the left is a blue spruce, Picea pungens ‘Glauca’, prized for its distinctive gray-blue color. I repeated the color with the upright juniper next to the shed door. This is a Wichita Blue juniper, Juniperus scopulorum ‘Wichita Blue’. It has thrived in this hot and sunny site. The little “roundy moundys” at the corners of the shed are yews, Taxus sp., transplanted from elsewhere in my yard after the shed was built. I wouldn’t say they are thriving, but they are hanging in there. Finally, to the right and behind the shed are some arborvitae, Thuja occidentalis ‘Emerald’, hiding an ugly fence. You can just see them as backdrop behind the leafless Dawn Redwood, Metasequoia glyptostroboides, and a dormant tan-colored switch grass, Panicum virgatum.

Among the best conifers for Cincinnati are the spruces. The fast-growing Norway spruce, Picea abies, has a stiff pyramid shape that becomes rugged with age as the older branches droop. It’s extremely hardy and wind resistant. Isn’t it fabulous?!

Considered by some to be the most attractive spruce is the Oriental spruce. This is Picea orientalis ‘Skylands’. There are a number of cultivars of oriental spruce, but ‘Skylands’ has beautiful golden foliage. And just look at the spring cones! I wish this plant was in my garden, but I took the picture at Hidden Lake Gardens in Michigan last spring.

The image above shows Canada hemlock, Tsuga canadensis. This is a large deep green tree with an unusually graceful appearance. Numerous dwarf, weeping and variegated selections are sold. This is one of the conifers, along with the yews, that will do well in shade. In fact, it suffers in our hot dry summers if not given afternoon shade. I especially like the Sargent’s weeping hemlock. You can see a magnificent example at the Civic Garden Center here in Cincinnati. I love the small cones!

The dwarf Hinoki Falsecypress, Chamaecyparis obtusa ‘Nana’, is another of my favorites. This small evergreen is a slow grower, putting on only 2-3 inches a year and reaching perhaps 6 to 8 feet after many years. I love its fat conical shape for structure in the garden. I took this picture at the Cornell Plantations on the Cornell University campus.

Chamaecyparis pisifera ‘Filifera Aurea’, golden threadleaf Sawara cypress, is a shamelessly bold plant with bright golden yellow, thread-like branches. It will grow 15-20 feet tall and makes quite a statement in the garden. The more compact ‘Filifera Aurea Nana’ is a denser, much smaller shrub, shown above. I see this compact form used more often in Cincinnati, as a foundation shrub or for color accent.

Lest you should think that all conifers are evergreen, let me recommend the Dawn Redwood and the Bald Cypress. Both lose their needle-like leaves in the fall, but still make a statement in the winter garden with their beautiful bark, pyramidal shape and interesting cones. In the top picture, the deciduous tree to the right of the shed is a Dawn Redwood. I love this plant! I can see its roughly shredded reddish bark from my kitchen window, although it doesn’t show up well in the image.

Happy Gardening!

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A friend has asked me how to grow herbs indoors during the winter. Since she started using fresh herbs, the dried version just doesn’t cut it any more. She spends a lot of money on the little sprigs that are for sale in the grocery store produce department. She would prefer to save that money and the hassle of going shopping for her herbs by growing her own.

Probably the easiest herb to grow indoors is basil. You can start it from seed, or do what I did for the above plant: grow it from cuttings. Basil sprigs often (but sadly, not always) root really well from cuttings. Near the end of summer, I often pinch off a few of the growing tips – about 3 inches long – from my outdoor plants and root them in water. In this smaller image, you can see a few basil cuttings and a lot of coleus cuttings that I took last fall, just before a killing frost was predicted.

Removing all of the leaves that will be underwater, I simply place a half-dozen cuttings in a glass of water and set the glass in my bright kitchen window. After lots of roots have formed, I pot up the cuttings using regular potting soil and a 4-inch pot. Since the roots are all tangled together, I don’t even try to separate them, but pot up the whole batch together to make one rather full pot.

Sometimes you can find rooted cuttings or small plants of herbs in the produce department at the grocery store in winter. These plants or rooted cuttings are supposed to stay fresher longer than the typical cut herbs used for cooking. You might experiment with potting up or rooting them. If the plants start to wilt, then just go ahead and use them up in your recipe instead of trying to grow them on.

Unfortunately, woody-stemmed herbs like rosemary and sage do not root as easily as basil. Parsley and cilantro are grown from seed. Basil, along with oregano and marjoram, are the easiest of the herbs to grow from cuttings.

Happy Gardening,

Sue

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December 15, and what is blooming? Not much. We are having an unusually warm spell (60 degrees!) and continuous drizzle, though I’ve braved the elements to get these few images. And I’m finally learning that the only thing normal about Cincinnati weather is . . . that it is never normal!

Above, the intrepid perennial Hellebore. This one is Helleborus Cinnamon Snow (TM). I’m expecting it to keep blooming through next March, at least, if it behaves like it did last year. Below is just a seedling of Black-eyed-Susan, or Rudbeckia sp. Obviously, the seedlings are more tenacious than the cultivars!

I could only find these two flowering plants to photograph. Luckily we have evergreens, berries and seedheads to keep our interest. And since the berries and seedheads developed from flowers, I’ll show you a couple on this bloom day to round out my post.

The bright red berry cluster is on a Heavenly bamboo shrub, Nandina domestica. This plant is marginally hardy here in zone 5, but does well in this protected spot against the east wall of the house.

The seedheads below left are on the perennial Sedum ‘Autumn Fire’, which grows in front of the Nandina.

On the right are the seedheads of the wonderful, blue-spiked chaste tree, Vitex angustifolia, best grown as a shrub in our zone.

Happy Bloom Day and Happy Gardening!

Sue

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In the winter, it’s especially nice to have green plants around the house as an outlet for our “green thumbs”.

In my opinion, though, it’s a lot easier to grow plants in the garden than in the house. My houseplants often suffer in the winter because of the low light conditions, dry air from the heating vents and accumulations of dust. Not to mention that it’s a lot trickier to get the watering right in an indoor environment – I tend to err on the dry side.

Despite all this, it’s definitely worth the effort to grow houseplants. After all, they’ve been linked with lowering stress, purifying the air, and improving morale. They add interest and warmth to your decor, and may even serve as conversation starters. Most people who see my calamondin orange tree, above, with its flowers and tiny oranges, make some sort of comment!

Selecting the right plants for the environment makes all the difference. That’s why I like the Better Homes and Gardens list of 24 of the Easiest Houseplants You Can Grow. Each plant description shows a great picture of the plant growing indoors and contains complete growing  information. I agree with almost all of the choices: these are plants that most people could easily grow!

• Pothos (shown at right)
• Philodendron
• Zeezee Plant
• Arrowhead Vine
• Grape Ivy
• Hoya (shown in the middle image with jade plant)
• Corn Plant, Green Dracaena, & Dracaena
• Ponytail Palm
• Rubber Tree
• Schefflera
• Fiddleleaf Fig
• Cast Iron Plant
• Chinese Evergreen
• Jade Plant (shown in the middle image with Hoya )
• Deiffenbachia
• Pepperomia
• Snake Plant (shown at the bottom with Boston fern)
  

Here are my exceptions to their list, and why:

• Croton – if you let it get too dry a single time, it’s toast! On the other hand, if you water too much, it loses leaves from the bottom up.  But I love the colorful foliage!
• Boston Fern – starts shedding terribly part way through the winter. This is because it’s hard to get water into the dense root ball without taking the plant down from its hanging spot and submerging the entire pot in a sink full of water for 20 minutes or so; then letting it drain before returning it.  Having said that, it does usually live through the winter, and perks up when cut back and set outdoors in spring.
• English Ivy – some years it does well for me. In other years, it either dries out or gets spider mites or both. Could go either way.
• Norfolk Island Pine – a great little tree. But this is a plant from a temperate climate – not a tropical plant. It wants a cool, moist winter and just isn’t entirely happy indoors. I treat it as a seasonal guest in my home.

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It is the 15th of the month, and that means it’s Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day, when we bloggers report on what is blooming in our gardens. I’ve done a lot of garden clean-up this past week, but I left the cool season annuals that were still blooming intact. Cool season annuals do best in the cooler spring or fall weather. Think of pansies, violas and ornamental cabbages. And then there are these . . .

Above is an image of pot marigold, or Calendula officinalis. This perky annual is easy to start from seed and freely self-sows around the garden. It has edible flower petals that look cool in a salad. Calendula is a staple of the herb garden, where it is used in cosmetics and to lend blonde highlights when used as a hair rinse. I always grow some in my vegetable garden to help attract pollinators.

A few years back, I broadcast a seed packet of forget-me-nots, Myosotis oblongata ‘Azure Bluebirds,’ from Renee’s Garden. Now I’m rewarded with plentiful tiny blue blooms each spring, and a few in fall, too.

Snapdragons, Antirrhinum majus, actually prefer cool weather. When I lived in the San Francisco area, we grew them right through the winter. Here, they persist until we get a hard freeze. They have an edible flower, too. The fuzzy gold foliage in the background of this image is my asparagus patch!

This is not the best picture, but it shows a purple snapdragon  towards the right with a single blossom of Gaillardia ‘Mesa Yellow’ to the left, amid a plethora of the round seed heads. The real surprise is the white Alyssum ‘Snow Princess’ in the foreground. This Proven Winners introduction is like regular old-fashioned garden alyssum on steriods. One plant covered a two foot circle, even in my less-than-ideal clay soil, and thrived through the heat of summer as well as our early frosts. I’ll definitely be growing it again.

One last surprise – the short-lived perennial plant Scabiosa, or more pleasantly called Pincushion Flower. I cut this plant back in late summer, and it rewarded me with this cute bloom now.

There is always something interesting to look at in the garden, even on a rainy day in November. Happy Gardening!

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On Veteran’s Day, I want to thank my dad and all of the Veterans who have worked to keep our country safe. Thanks a lot!

Eleven seems to be the magic number today. I’m celebrating 11/11/11 by providing the top 11 gardening chores for November. Here’s what I’ve been working on this past week, and hope to complete in the next few days:

1.  Planting bulbs. I’ve added 100 tulips, 50 daffodils, and 100 crocus bulbs. This is the time to plant garlic, too. Here’s how to plant garlic. You can continue planting bulbs right up until the ground freezes.

2.  Moving plants. This is a great time to re-arrange plants to make more pleasing combinations and relieve crowding. I must do this now, while my ideas are fresh in my mind!

3.  Creating walkways. All gardens need paths for the gardener to enter to cut flowers, pick vegetables, collect seed or do other maintenance chores. Some of my paths are single stepping stones that are hidden once the plants grow up in summer. . .

While others are more definite.
4.  Removing faded annuals. I cut off their tops at the soil line. I usually chop up the tops and leave them in the bed, too – unless they are too full of seeds. The roots and tops decompose over the winter to enrich the soil.

5.  Cutting back perennial plants.  Just those whose tops have turned brown and crisp. But I try to leave some intact if they have seed heads to feed the birds. Here is more information on cutting back perennials.

6, 7, 8.  Weeding, Edging, Mulching. I’m going through each landscape and flower and vegetable bed, giving them this cleanup treatment. It is very satisfying to see the beds all cleaned up and mulched with wood chips or chopped up leaves – or both. Here are some pointers on edging your beds.

9.  Fertilizing the lawn. Apply the last “winterizer” fertilizer application some time during the next few weeks.

10.  Composting. I set up a pile just off my patio, to use for kitchen waste when the ground is too snowy or muddy to tromp out to the composting area behind the shed. (See above – I’m using the Compost Sak) I have also started several bins of just shredded leaves,  for covering the food scraps in my winter piles, and to make soil-improving leaf mold or mulch. Here is a post on how to get started with composting.

11.   Citter control. For deer and rabbit control, I’m using a combination of repellant sprays and wireless deer fence. Learn more about deer control. For moles, voles and field mice, I set out mousetraps, baited with peanut butter. These are set in activity areas, at the end of tunnels, underneath an overturned bucket or flower pot. I’m using a castor oil mole repellent. Also, wire mesh tree guards protect tree trunks from rodent damage.

For more November Gardening Activities, see the handy gardening calendar at the Trusty Gardener website.

Happy Gardening, and Happy Veteran’s Day!

Sue

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Last spring, my husband removed some really overgrown burning bushes, also called winged euonymus or Euonymus alatus, from the garden at the top of the driveway.

I was surprised that he wanted to do this – he usually balks at felling plants that are still alive – but I was overjoyed at the chance to get rid of these shrubs that are considered to be invasive because they are encroaching on our native plants in nearby woods and wild spaces. More about this at the end of the post . . .

The excavation exposed a large blank wall, our air conditioner unit, and at one end, some yews that need to fill in where the burning bushes used to reside. Not a pretty picture.

So we put up some trellising to hide the air conditioner, and then I planted some tiny Arbor vitae, roses and other treasures. I never spend big money on big plants, and these were actually free sample plants, so think of four-inch pot size. You really have to use your imagination to visualize this garden full grown!

In the mean time, I filled in with some annuals that I started from seed. You can see that the sunflowers are towering above the height of the garage door, almost to the second story window . . .

These sunflowers are loved by birds, but I am hoping to harvest some of the seeds myself to make a tasty snack. There are some purple Amaranthus, which are grown as an edible “grain” crop, and the leaves are also eaten as a salad green. The third edible plant in this garden is the hyacinth bean vine, Dolichos lablab. The beautiful purple bean flowers mature into a broad, purple bean pod. Both the pod and the individual seeds are edible, but should be thoroughly boiled first.

Decorative plants in this garden that are not edible include orange and yellow Zinnia angustifolia, some ‘Kiwi Fern’ and ‘Trusty Rusty’ coleus started from cuttings, and the feathery-foliaged, red-flowered cypress vine shown below.

You can’t see the woody plants amid the annuals, but they are there and will increase each year. For now, I kind of like the riot of colorful annuals that greets me each time I pull up the driveway.

Happy Gardening!

Sue

FYI: What exactly is an invasive species? According to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, invasive plants like the burning bush usually have fast growth rates, high seed production, and efficient seed dispersal and germination. Since these plants are not native to Ohio, they lack the natural predators and diseases which would naturally control them in their native habitats. There are about 60 species on the list of Ohio’s Invasive Plant Species, including a few that are regularly used as landscape plants in Ohio. Check it out!

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When your broccoli plants look like this, it's time to start over!

I’ve been spending some time cleaning up the garden – removing spent plants and those ravaged by the heat and dry weather; cucumber plants that suffered an attack of mites brought on by the hot, dry weather; broccoli and lettuce plants that have gone to seed because of the heat, and stuff that I didn’t get around to picking because I’ve been out of town a lot – oh, and also because of the hot, dry weather . . .

Are you sensing a theme here?

As I take out the emaciated or brazenly blossoming vegetable plants, I’m not only making the garden look better, but making room for a fall garden.

Don’t think of a garden as something to be planted only in spring. You can grow a fall crop of your favorite cool-season vegetables and lovely fall flowers from seed started during the next week or so. It will be a pleasure to tend them once the weather has cooled this fall.

Here is what I’m planting in my cleared spaces:

• Root Crops, like beets, radishes and carrots
• Leafy Plants, including lettuce, spinach, Swiss chard, salad greens and kale
• Herbs, like cilantro and parsley
• Flowers, including calendula and forget-me-not’s

It helps to select varieties that are fast-maturing to ensure a harvest before the cold weather hits. You may also want to extend your planting season even more by growing some of these crops under cold frames or row covers.

Sowing seeds or setting out transplants at this time of year is more stressful to young plants than seeding during cooler, wetter spring weather. Be sure to keep the soil moist as seeds are germinating. Protect the young seedlings with shade cloth or plant them near taller plants, such as corn or tomatoes to provide shade from the hot afternoon sun.

Transplanting pre-started seedlings works best for lettuce and spinach, whose seeds don’t germinate as well when soil temperatures are high.

Now is also a good time to start seeds of many flowering perennials. Sown in fall, many will be ready to start flowering by the following spring or summer.

Happy Gardening!

Sue

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Most gardeners know that lettuce is one of the cool season crops. This means that lettuce plants perform best in the cooler spring and fall temperatures. When I lived in Northern California and coastal North Carolina, where winter brings frequent frosts but only occasional hard freezes, I was able to grow lettuce and other salad greens right through the winter.

Conversely, lettuce languishes in the heat and humidity of a Cincinnati summer. Not only does it struggle to grow and get sunburned by the hot summer sun, but the leaves often taste bitter, too. Yuck!

Having said that, I’ve been pretty successful at growing summer lettuce. All these images are from my garden, taken in July, the bottom three taken this morning after two weeks of heat wave. I use these three tricks to make it work:

1. Use heat tolerant lettuce varieties. Some types have been bred to tolerate heat better. Others have been saved and passed down through the generations because of their heat tolerance.  Above is an image of Cimarron leaf lettuce from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. I’m providing plenty of water to keep it from getting bitter – note the drip hose in this image. The top image shows Tintin, a baby romaine variety from Kitchen Garden Seeds.

2. Grow summer lettuce in the shade. This batch of Wine Country Mesclun, from Renee’s Garden Seeds,  is doing pretty well in the shade of some Beauregard sweet potato plants that I’m training up a trellis. Dappled sun or morning sun is adequate to keep the plants growing, so they do well to the north of taller crops or under a cucumber or bean trellis. Again, providing plenty of water is essential.

3. Grow summer lettuce in pots. If you grow it in pots, you can easily move it around to suitable conditions and keep it well watered.

You can also use container lettuce as a centerpiece at your next dinner party. I’ve attended a party where the hostess provided little pairs of scissors to each guest, and allowed them to cut from the lettuce and basil centerpieces to add to their salad and pizza. It was a real hoot!

You have to convince the guests that cutting back is good – that it forces the plants to branch out and grow bushier. Once they realize they aren’t totally destroying the plants, they will cut back with abandon.

Happy Gardening!

Sue

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I haven’t been growing corn these past few years, deciding that it took up too much garden real estate.

You must plant corn in such a way as to get adequate pollination. Corn is dioecious – it has separate male and female flowers. Pollen from the male flowers in the tassels, at the top of the stalk, must reach the female flowers that occur in the leaf axils along the stalk.

Pollination occurs by wind rather than insects, so an adequate sized block of corn plants is needed to ensure enough pollen will fall, or blow, or otherwise happen along in the right places to have full ears of corn kernels.

Most gardeners agree that a minimum block of 4 by 4 square feet is best. The corn can be spaced 9 to 12 inches apart (more water and fertilizer needed at the closer spacing), so this is a block of around 16 – 36 plants. And you get one or two ears per stalk.

This year, I planted many of the vining crops that are also space hogs– honeydew melons, watermelons, pumpkins – at the feet of my berry bushes, freeing up space in the raised bed vegetable garden to plant corn.

To maximize output from a section of raised bed that is 4 by 10 feet, I decided to plant it along with other crops in a configuration called the three sisters garden.

The Three Sisters

According to legend, corn, beans, and squash are three inseparable sisters who only grow and thrive together.

Native Americans planted the crops this way, and taught the method to early settlers. This traditional interplanting of corn, beans and squash in the same space ends up being a very sophisticated, sustainable system.

Corn provides a natural pole for bean vines to climb. Beans fix nitrogen on their roots, improving the fertility of the plot. Bean vines also help stabilize the corn plants, making them less likely to blow over in the wind. Squash plants become living mulch, shading out weeds and keeping soil moist, thereby improving the overall chances of survival.

The squash leaves are rough and the stems spiny, which supposedly helps to discourage predators from approaching the corn and beans – although I have caught bunnies in the act of eating the beans several times this season!

Corn, beans and squash also complement each other nutritionally, and the large amount of crop residue from this planting combination can be incorporated back into the soil at the end of the season to build up the organic matter.

To be successful, you must plant the corn seeds first to let it germinate and grow a bit. Two weeks later, add the beans. Two weeks after that, when the bean plants start leaning towards the corn, plant the squash seeds.

I planted two kinds of corn: Honey and Cream and Ambrosia, two kinds of beans: Emerite and Dragon Tongue (shown at left), and a mixture of winter squashes called Winter Squash Medley.

Things are coming along quite nicely – it will be interesting to see what my total harvest from this space will be.

Happy Gardening!

Sue

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