Digging Tips

In our eagerness to clean up the garden and start new outdoor projects, we often use muscles groups we haven’t exercised for most of the winter months. At the end a spring day in the garden, we frequently experience sore muscles. A day of digging can tire your feet and back if you don’t do it properly. If you are like most, no one ever showed you how to dig properly. Follow these tips, and you’ll be able to dig more with less discomfort.

1. Get a long-handled digging shovel with the right lift and keep it sharp for easier digging. Bob Denman, Red Pig Garden Tools Boring, Ore., can help match you with the correctly sized shovel. If the top of the handle is chest height and tilts away to arm’s length, you have the right size shovel.
2. Put the blade in straight (the handle will tilt away from you); step down onto it. Pull the handle back to your chest; let the shovel do the scooping, not your back. Take smaller bites of soil to make the work easier.
3. Slide one hand towards the blade and the other out towards the handle’s end. Drop your fanny and lift with your legs. Pull up with one hand and push down with the other to lift the load.
4. Never twist at the waist. Always drop the dirt just to one side or the other, or out in front.

A Tree Worthy of Janet: Stewartia pseudocamellia

By Gardennia nutii
I lost a gardening friend this past fall; my neighbor Janet who was one of the most wonderful people I've met. She made it a point to look for the positive, live in every moment, and find ways to continue to grow and experience new cultures, ideas, people and plants. We shared a passion for gardening and spent many afternoons sitting outside planning all the fun things we were going to do with our yards. One day while sitting atop a long grass hill, she looked at me and said, "Don't you just want to roll down this hill? What fun that would be!" Janet was in her 80s and I believe common sense won out that day, but she never lost sight of her inner-child and opportunity for adventure.

It's with Janet in mind that I planted Stewartia pseudocamellia yesterday. This tree is a true specimen and offers something for every season: foliage emerges bronzy purple in spring, develops to dark green in summer, and turns bright red-orange in the fall. In midsummer white camellia-like flowers open in random succession and are followed by pointed brown seed pods. And the bark...wow! Stunning bark exfoliates in strips of orange, gray, and reddish brown. A slow-growing tree for a smaller areas, it reaches approximately 20 feet in 20 years. (It can reach up to 40 feet if given the right growing conditions or can be grown as a multi-stemmed shrub up to 12 feet).

My new stewartia is planted between our driveways, placed so I see it every time I leave, come home, or sit in my front room reading. It will remind me of a lovely lady and how I should live life to the fullest...a reminder that beauty can be attained in every season of life.

Sneak Peek

Random Acts of Gardening readers got a sneak peek at the construction of the Yard, Garden & Patio Show (YGP) display gardens on Wednesday, Feb. 10, two days before the show opened. Autumn Leaf Landscaping, Green Leaf Design, LLC and the Dennis' 7 Dees Landscaping & Garden Centers' crew talked to the group about their design concepts and display garden construction challenges. Allan Niemi, OAN director of events and education, and Brian Bauman, Bauman Farms and chair of the YGP volunteer committee, shared information about the production of the event. A drawing for several new-to-the-market plants topped off the RAG event. We hope to plan a tour of a wholesale or specialty nursery during the summer months so stay tuned.

Breeding Heavenly Hellebores

Condensed from a Pacific Coast Nurseryman article by Kathleen Pyle, February 2010
Photos courtesy of Terra Nova Nurseries

Hellebores are a favorite of many gardeners at this time of year. I recently read an article in a nursery trade publication about a well-known Eugene breeder of Hellebores. I thought you might be interested in the process of breeding the winter blooming perennials. (In my opinion, no garden should be without at least a few hellebores!)

Marietta and Ernie O'Byrne are the proprietors of Northwest Garden Nursery, a wholesale nursery in Eugene specializing in hellebores (be sure to take the virtual tour on their Web site of their spectacular garden). "In the 1980s when we operated a landscaping business, hellebore flowers were pretty much pale and undistinguished, but they do bloom at a convenient time of year and stay evergreen," observes Marietta. "When I read a book called The Gardeners Guide to Growing Hellebores and saw the variety of flower colors coming out of the United Kingdom, I began to get excited about hellebores."

The O'Byrnes' hellebore project started with seed and stock plants from several European growers. Then they began the painstaking work of hand pollinating, bagging pollinated flowers, carefully labeling seedlings, and ultimately selecting and culling the results. "Hellebore breeding isn’t quick work," Marietta explains. "The plants can be very long lived, to 20 years or more, but they start slowly. The seed doesn’t germinate for about a year and then it takes one to two additional years for the plants to produce their first blooms."

Hybrid hellebores sold today represent the bloodlines of 16 or 17 different species, originating in Europe and Asia. "The process of seedling selection is very personal and represents the taste of the individual breeder. I tend to favor seedlings that produce flowers in nice clear colors, nothing murky or spotted," Marietta comments.

Aptly christened Winter Jewels®, the O'Byrne's hellebore introductions span the spectrum from deep maroon black to apricot, yellow, and raspberry edged white. Pedicel length (pedicels are the branches or stalks that hold each flower in an inflorescence that contains more than one flower) and flower angle, especially in the single-flowered types, also rank high as a breeding focus. Short pedicels are desired because the flowers tend to face vertically, not bow downwards.
Winter Jewels strains are gems among the many hellebore varieties in the market because they are seed-propagated strains, not tissue cultured, so they are very vigorous, disease resistant plants. Flower shades are vibrant and the double bloom types are fully double.

The holy grail hellebore breeders may be reaching for in the future include double and complex colors, contrasting petal edges, and brightly colored flower backs. "Because double flowers nod, the backside should be visually striking, too," says Marietta. A new double-flowered form much like a dianthus, with frilled sepals is also a direction being pursued by breeders. (In hellebores, the flowers actually have sepals, not petals; the sepals modified to look like petals.) No one prototype represents perfection in the hellebore world. To the O'Byrnes, perfection is a continuous pilgrimage with beautiful results at every bend in the road.

To learn more about hellebores, check out Hellebores: A Comprehensive Guide by C. Colston Burrell, Judith Knott Tyler, Richard Tyler, and Daniel J. Hinkley.

Mindfulness

Paying attention—really paying attention—to the small or everyday things, can bring wonder, joy and happiness into our lives. The garden is a perfect place to cultivate this type of awareness and mindfulness. Every time I lift the face of a flower to see its symmetry and complexity, I am awed and fully grounded in the moment. The same is true when I’m pulling barb-like needles from my two giant sequoias from Barney’s (my adorable golden retriever) fur. This quote from an interview with Thich Nhat Hanh, a Buddhist monk, in the March issue of O Magazine spoke to my desire to nurture happiness in my life (I took the liberty of inserting “gardening” in lieu of “walking” as it was printed in the article):

“As you [garden], you touch the ground mindfully and every step can bring you solidity and joy and freedom. Freedom from your regret concerning the past, and freedom from your fear about the future.

“Practice mindful [gardening] in order to heal ourselves because [gardening] like that really relieves our worries, the pressure, the tension in our body and in our mind.”

Reflect on the beauty of the present moment and find ways to make gardening—even the simplest task—a mindful act. Ommmmmm.

Plant Discovery

Garden shows always prove my lack of will power when it comes to resisting plant purchases. The Yard, Garden & Patio Show was no exception, although I resisted until the last day of the show. What started my plant slurge? A purple-leaved hardy geranium! Geranium pratense 'Midnight Reiter' will have deeply cut plum-purple (also described as chocolaty-purple) leaves if planted in full sun to part shade (the more sun it has, the more purple the leaves). The plant's description on the package from specialty nursery Woodland Gardens (Washington) states the flowers are nearly true blue. And it offers a very compact form, only 9 inches by 15 inches. I was very tempted to buy more than one, but at $15 for a dormant root, I decided to see how it does this year at the front of my well-drained sunny border. What cool plants have you found this spring?

For your spring plant buying, don't miss the annual Hardy Plant Society Spring Plant Sale and Garden Festival.

When: Saturday & Sunday, April 17-18, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Where: The Expo Center, Hall C, in Portland.

This season there will be 79 specialty nurseries and wholesalers, 25 garden artists, community organizations, book sales, 6 tables of botanical samples, and garden experts. Free admission.

For more information: 503-224-5718 or www.hardyplantsociety.org/plantsale.htm

If you want to connect with other gardeners, have access to open gardens virtually year 'round, and attend insightful garden programs, become a member of HPSO. It's worth the very reasonable $35 for individual memberships (or only $40 for individual + one membership). Find out more about member benefits at www.hardyplantsociety.org.

"Charmed, I’m sure."

If the adjective "charming" manifest in the flower world, I think it would have to be as the common snowdrop from the Galanthus family. Having the power to delight or attract people is the definition of the word charming and that’s exactly what this little bulb does each time I see one.

Last year for my January birthday, a friend gave me a tiny blue and white vase filled with these delightful winter blooms. I was charmed and smitten. They also had a light, sweet fragrance as I recall...an added bonus (and they sport my favorite color of green on their petals!).

This year, as I've walked Barney (my adorable golden retriever) around the neighborhood, I've come across several patches of snowdrops and they inevitably make me stop and smile. They cause me pause—in my purposeful walk and in my busy mind. What a wonderful gift of the present and happiness they give me.

But even with all this goodness, I don't have any in my garden...yet. Their cousin Leucojum is a larger, later blooming version of the early snowdrop and I did succumb to buying 50 of these bulbs from Wooden Shoe Bulb Company in the fall, but I think my woodland garden needs the spirit of the snowdrop, too.

Celebrating Valentines Day

Valentines Day is Sunday, February 14. Celebrate with us at the Yard, Garden & Patio Show and have a chance to win for you or your sweetheart one of these great prizes:

Updated:

• Resort at the Mountain and $100 dining certificate at the Resort at the Mountain

• Trip to Victoria B.C. to visit the beautiful Butchart Gardens (complete with hotel)

• A Pandora Bracelet.

The first 300 people each day of the show receive a free gift, compliments of show sponsors and exhibitors. February 12-14 @ Oregon Convention Center

2.5 million a year and counting

In our own backyard resides the largest indoor florist azalea grower in the country. Imagine that. (We also have the world’s largest Thuja occidentalis, a.k.a. arborvitae, grower...but that’s a story for another time.) Woodburn Nursery & Azaleas Inc. operates out of Woodburn and ships its florist azaleas across the country. For Valentine’s Day this year, the nursery shipped florist azaleas to all 50 states in the union as well as Canada. It is the largest of three florist azalea growers in Oregon. Add in the one other grower in Florida, and you have the sum total of nurseries growing florist azaleas. There used to be quite a few more but the market is shrinking as access to other potted flowers—largely imports from South America, such as orchids—expands.

Florist azaleas have a German heritage and are used because of their heavier bud set. Typically, they are hardy to Zone 7 and can be planted outside in the Willamette Valley after blooming. With regular watering, my florist azalea lasted two months before heading outdoors. A good floral investment, I’d say.

Considered “the Cadillac of potted plants,” it takes 14 months to grow an azalea into a market-ready 4-inch pot and two years for a 6-inch pot. The nursery grows seven crops a year timed to respond to peak demand. They sell them either as “in color” or “budded.” (Budded azaleas, which are ready to force into color, are sold to other greenhouse growers around the country.) The most popular holiday for florist azaleas is Valentine’s Day, followed by Mother’s Day, Easter and Christmas. Five weeks in the cooler is needed for vernalization and the plants are shipped in temperature-controlled trucks set at 38° to 40° Fahrenheit. Interestingly, the nursery uses highly mechanized flooded-floor greenhouses to water the finished product. What water isn’t absorbed by the plants, recedes into the floor and is filtered and reused until the next scheduled watering.

Well known for its consistent quality, Woodburn Nursery & Azaleas started as a farming operation in 1962. They first started growing florist azalea liners in 1968 then added a budded line in 1972 and finally started shipping azaleas in color in 1990. To diversify their crops, they added nursery stock. Like so many nurseries in Oregon, they are family-owned with three generations involved in running the company.

Your slip is showing...

I see lots of white plastic plant tags stuck in the ground and tags wrapped around the branches of trees as I look upon my garden at this time year. I plant the tags along with the plants in an effort to remember what I’ve planted and where. It’s not very attractive and does nothing to enhance the appearance of my winter garden. The plastic crumbles in a year or two or the name fades in the sun and then I’m at a total loss as to plant names. I know one person who alphabetically files all her tags in one place. I’m just not that organized. Years ago, I tried inscribing copper tags but they got bent and disappeared. I’ve heard that writing in pencil won’t fade so maybe I’ll experiment on the metal tags I found when cleaning out my garden shed. Have you had success marking you plants? Please share what’s worked for you so I can give it a try.

PS: This is one reason (of several) why I’ve never had an open garden. I couldn’t tell you the variety or name of many of the plants in my garden…and I know you’d ask!

Plant Focus: Mahonia ‘Soft Caress’

By Gardennia nutti
Last summer we put a foundation drain around our house. This was a pretty gross project from a financial standpoint, but it gave me the excuse I needed to rip out the foundation plantings (mainly overgrown sheered hedges with no character) and put in cool new gardens. The challenge I faced with these new gardens was finding plants that would do well in moderately dry shade. This challenge wasn't without some fun however, because it meant visiting many nurseries and talking to wonderful nursery staff about the plants they would recommend for these areas.

One day while wondering the greenhouses at Dancing Oaks Nursery, I came upon Mahonia 'Soft Caress' (Mahonia eurybracteata 'Soft Caress' PP20183) with delicate evergreen bamboo-like foliage that stopped me in my tracks. I picked it up, crossed my fingers, and took it to a staff member:

“Will this grow in shade?” I asked.

“Yes” she replied.

“How about drier conditions?”

“Once established – yes. This is Mahonia ‘Soft Caress’ and it’s a great plant for many areas; it’s zone 7-10 so it will do well even with a tough winter.”

“How large does it get?”

“4 to 6 feet. It’s great as a specimen plant in gardens, foundations plantings, borders, or containers.”

I grabbed a few of these fine discoveries (along with many other plants) and planted them in several different areas around my house. My new mahonias are starting to grow and spread their leaves now and what an amazing addition they have made to my yard, adding evergreen, delicate leaves and beautiful yellow flowers all winter.

Looking for a cool new plant? Join us at the Yard, Garden & Patio Show February 12 – 14. Discover new plants, ideas, and fun! You'll find Dancing Oaks Nursery and their wonderful plants in booth #977 (across the aisle from Bauman Farms).

How long does it take?

Did you know it takes more than eight years to grow an Alberta spruce into a #5* spiral? If they “stuck” the Alberta spruce liner in a #1* pot today, it would be ready for sale in the year 2018. And really, who can guess how many #5 Alberta spruce spirals the country will want in eight years?!?

*To create a common language for growers and buyers, and to comply with new consumer regulations, pots sizes should no longer refer to volume. For example, plants sold in what we used to commonly refer to as 1-gallon pots, are now called #1 containers. The #2 and #5 pots referred to in this article essentially correspond to a 2-gallon and 5-gallon pot, respectively.

I asked Brian Jacob from Monrovia’s Dayton nursery to share with me what it takes to produce a quality Alberta spruce in it’s more natural conical share and in topiary form. After seeing his descriptions of the labor and other inputs required to grow the plants, it seems to me that they are a bargain at just about any price.

#2* Spiral form
• #1 plant is shifted to a #2 container and is placed on the ground can-tight (cans all pressed tightly together) to conserve space since the foliage is far from reaching the perimeter of the can
• #2 plants are moved into a spaced pattern after about one year before foliage from adjacent plants begin to touch
• Initial shaping into spiral eight months later
• Two additional prunings refine spiral form one and two years after initial shaping
• Typically sold about four years after #1 plant canned into a #2 container


#5* Conical form
• #1 plant is shifted to a #5 container and is placed on the ground can-tight
• #5 plants are spaced about 15 months later and are immediately sheared to define ideal conical form and give the plant greater density
• Another light pruning nine months later defines the final form
• Typically sold about two years after #1 plant canned into #5 container

#5* 3-Ball Poodle form
• #1 plant is shifted to a #5 container and is placed on the ground can-tight
• #5 plants are spaced about 15 months later
• Initial shaping into poodle form 11 months later
• Two additional prunings are done to refine spiral form one and two years after initial shaping
• Typically sold about 3- 1/2 years after #1 plant canned into #5 container

Additionally, Monrovia individually stakes each plant to the ground with metal stakes with an air hammer to prevent them from blowing over.

Alberta spruce is susceptible to several bugs and the nursery regularly scouts for mites and aphids and treats as necessary. Early detection of any pest problem allows them to use labor and the least toxic chemicals, if any, to control the pests.

A pre-emergent herbicide is applied in winter to reduce the amount of hand weeding although they also pull by hand any weeds that appear in the containers.

Monrovia does not top dress with fertilizer; instead they incorporate fertilizer into their soils and inject a small amount of nitrogen into their irrigation water. Though any irrigation run-off is collected and contained on our property, they have reduced the amount of nitrogen in their fertilizer water to minimize the chance that nitrates could leave the nursery and enter the ground water.

To view Monrovia’s beautiful online plant catalog, visit www.monrovia.com. They have a very informative Web site.

Life is good in the garden

Why is life good in the garden? For some, it’s relaxing with friends and family over a meal, ice tea or glass of wine. Or watching the kids race around playing games, laughing all the while. For me, a notable introvert, it’s having quiet interludes with a few friends walking around the garden to discover new flower buds or leaves emerging, admiring a plant combination that works particularly well, picking and sharing a sweet pea or ripe tomato, or sitting still in the Adirondack chairs watching the moon rise. I also use the garden as part of my exercise routine, especially for an upper body and gluteous maximus workout (though I may have to hire some help for the first time for hauling the mounds of the heavy stuff this year to save the back muscles).

Shameless pitch to encourage you to attend the Yard, Garden & Patio Show...
Virtually every element of outdoor living and creating the good life can be found at the Yard, Garden & Patio Show. Display gardens are rich in style but well within reach. All your senses will be tickled, and you’ll probably even find a little magic. All this while the kids have a place to play and the adults have lots of places to relax and enjoy locally crafted beverages, locally designed garden spaces, and the work of local and regional artists. You can even get a little to exercise playing bocce ball or dancing to the local musicians, or learn how to use that outdoor kitchen or grill with some cooking lessons.

Please join us. Life is good in the garden is the theme of this year’s Yard, Garden & Patio Show. The show is brought to you by the nursery industry and we want to share our passion for good living with you!

Circle of Forgotten Plants

By Gardennia nutti
The past few years I’ve made a concerted effort to introduce more fall and winter interest plants to my front garden. Part of that effort included planting a mass of asters which replaced diseased-ridden and lack-luster roses. I really enjoyed the late season color the asters brought to the garden the first few years, but this past fall decided some ‘extreme thinning’ was necessary to retain the look I wanted. I didn’t get around to moving them in the fall as I’d hoped but the beautiful weather we had this past weekend gave me the inspiration I needed to don my dirty clothes, get out the shovel, and make my design aspirations come true!

Why am I telling you all this? Well...I dug up most of the asters and carted them to my backyard for transplanting. In the process of digging new holes for my lovely asters I unearthed many plants I’d forgotten about. I’d dig a hole in an area that looked like it needed some fall aster pizzazz...and presto...unearth healthy roots associated with a plant I’d long forgotten. How is it I can completely forget a plant in only a few short months?

I’ve read article after article describing methods to combat the challenge we all face when trying to remember what is planted in our gardens; staking and labeling, taking photos of your yard throughout the seasons, or drawing a planting plan. These are all great ideas, but for some reason I just never take the time to implement any of them; I’d much rather spend my time digging.

For now I’ll just have to hope that the new homes I found for the plants I’d forgotten and accidentally unearthed are appropriate for their shape and size. If not, I’ll make a note to move them this fall, run out of transplanting time, don my grubbies next spring, and proceed to move them to a place where I have other forgotten plants.... It’s the circle of forgotten plants that brings me added surprises every year.

What plants have you unearthed accidentally? Do you have a method to combat the challenge of remembering all that you’ve planted in your yard? Let us know!