Plants & Horticulture – Page 2 – thewelldressedgarden.com

HELP STOP THE CRAPE MAIMING!

February 2, 2016/5 Comments/in Plants & Horticulture /by mturner

It’s time for my yearly cry for mercy.

Every winter, my normally low blood pressure shoots skyward, as the Crape Maiming season begins in earnest. I fancy becoming a Crape Maiming vigilante every January, but, after being chased down the street by an ogre of a “pruner” once, I’ve wimped out on that front. So please, help me spread the word that our beloved Crapemyrtles are being senselessly butchered every year, depriving us of one of the pleasures of the cultivated landscape. Join my Facebook and Instagram campaigns, and post your own sightings.

I just missed the perps who committed this horrific maiming. Note the fresh sawdust mulching the ground.

The Crapemyrtle (Lagerstroemia indica) is one of those special trees that provides four seasons of interest. In spring, the leaves emerge late, casting filtered sunlight below. In summer, the flowers cover the tree for up to two months. In fall, most Crapes have outstanding red or orange foliage that persists (much to the chagrin of leaf rakers) almost until December. In Winter, a properly pruned tree is one of the season’s most striking silhouettes in the garden, with its gracefully tapering branches and mottled bark.

WHAT IS CRAPE MAIMING?

Crape maiming is the practice of topping a Crapemyrtle during dormancy. Crape Murder is the most popular term used for this butchery. The lawyer in me calls it maiming, because the severe pruning rarely kills these tough trees. Instead it disfigures them.

Crape maiming occurs when a pruner tops — or prunes — each of the tree’s branches, stopping short of a bisecting branch. You see the cut backs in varying degrees. The tree above has the antlers look.

My guess is that the landscaper who pruned the trees pictured above, at Short Pump Town Center, thinks he did not commit Crape Maiming, because he only cut the spent flower stalks. But he is wrong. This is also maiming, and it ruins what could be a beautiful winter vista. The only thing this pruning accomplished is putting extra money in the landscaper’s pockets for doing unnecessary work.

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at this hatchet job.

WHY OH WHY DO THEY DO IT?

Why the maiming? I hear two excuses. First, it is claimed that a Crape must be topped so that it will produce more blooms. At some point, somebody put the Crape in the category of Butterfly Bush (Buddleia davidii), Beautyberry (Callicarpa americana), Annabelle Hydrangea (Hydrangea arborescens) and Limelight Hydrangea (H. paniculata). Those plants do benefit from aggressive late winter/early spring pruning. But a Crape, if planted in the right place, will bloom profusely year after year without such topping or aggressive hacking. We don’t top Dogwoods, another tree with a graceful branching habit, so why do we do it to Crapes?

Second, Crapes are topped because they are too big for the places they were planted. If a shrub or tree needs to be pruned on a yearly basis because it is outgrowing its spot, it needs to be replaced with a plant that has room to grow to its mature height and width.

The beautiful grove of Crapemyrtles above, at Furman College, are the result of proper Crape pruning.

HOW TO PRUNE A CRAPE

This pruning, during the tree’s dormancy, will give your Crape a light, airy appearance:

1. Cut any suckers to the ground that grow from the base of the tree.

2. Cut out any diseased or dead branches.

3. Prune any branch crossing or rubbing against another.

4. Remove shoots growing into the center of the tree, and remove any wayward, awkwardly growing branches to create more open space and allow sunlight and air to penetrate.

5. Cut back spindly branches at the intersection of a lower growing branch.

Sweetbay Magnolia (Magnolia virginiana), Saucer (or Tulip) Magnolia (Magnolia x soulangeana), Japanese Maple (Acer palmatum) and Chastetree (Vitex agnus-castus), pictured below, also benefit from these pruning techniques.

The Crapemyrtle below, in Charleston, South Carolina, has been selectively thinned to allow it to grow close to the house and the sidewalk.

The Crape below exemplifies the dormant look of a tree that is topped yearly. The poor tree is bracing itself for this year’s hacking.

What would you rather see in the winter landscape?

This?

Or this?

CRAPE CULTURE

Crapemyrtles thrive in full sun and well drained soil. They benefit from an amendment of the soil with compost, but they do fine in average soil too. Once established, Crapes are drought-tolerant.

One word of caution when planting a Crapemyrtle: avoid planting it near terraces, driveways and pools. I hated Crapes when I lived in Charleston, because I parked under one at the courthouse. The dark pink blooms covered my car everyday, the humidity giving it a nice decoupage look.

While every tree sheds something at some time, Crapes shed spent blooms beginning in July (depending on the cultivar and that season’s weather), continuing into fall, followed soon after by the leaves, which also shed over a long period of time. Thus, you will be continually sweeping or blowing your terrace or driveway from July to November. Better to plant the Crape where you can enjoy its beauty without cursing its natural cycles.

CHOOSE THE RIGHT CULTIVAR FOR YOUR GARDEN

There are scores of cultivars from which to choose. Crape cultivars are available as shrubs, small trees and towering 30 footers. Bloom colors range from white to pink to purple. Take note of a tree’s mature height and width, its color, whether it has exfoliating bark, and whether it is resistant to disease when choosing your Crape.

Here are a few exceptional choices, all with good disease resistance:

Osage: 10-20 feet, clear pink

Sioux: 10-20 feet, vibrant pink

Natchez: over 20 feet, white

Tuskegee: over 20 feet, dark pink

Muskogee: over 20 feet, lavender

Biloxi: over 20 feet, pale pink

Choctaw: over 20 feet, bright pink

For more information on selection and care of Crapemyrtles, check out the Virginia Cooperative Extension Service’s report.

For those of you who wonder whether a Crape that has been maimed can be rejuvenated, I offer you this tree in my back yard. Note the “knuckles” in the tree where cuts were made many years ago. While this tree will always bear the scars of the long-ago hatchet job, it is shaping up pretty nicely (but is in need of thinning the spindlies). As for the ragamuffins dwelling in the tree, they’re Trouble.

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THE LAST OF THE GREAT ENGLISH KITCHEN GARDENS

January 27, 2016/2 Comments/in Featured Gardens, Plants & Horticulture /by mturner

In a prior post, I wrote about the great William Robinson’s creation of the gardens of Gravetye Manor, a 16th century manor house sitting on over a thousand acres in West Sussex, England. Will Ingwerson, a neighbor and owner of a nursery on adjacent land, summed up Robinson well in an introduction to Robinson’s tome Gravetye Manor or Twenty Years’ Work Round an Old Manor House: “During his long and eventful life, Robinson was at odds with many established horticultural conventions and preached his own Gospel of Gardening. . . . He did not suffer fools gladly, and made enemies — but what revolutionary with ideas ahead of his time does not? . . . Our gardens of today owe a great debt to William Robinson.”

The kitchen garden, one of the last great kitchen gardens in the English countryside, was so spectacular that I felt it needed its own blog post.

When Robinson began building his gardens in 1885, he immediately dismissed the present location of the kitchen garden. “Determined to do away with the old kitchen garden, which was right against the house and had a poor effect,” he wrote in Gravetye Manor, p.1. Robinson had the walls torn down and began an orchard in its place.

In 1898, Robinson turned his attention to a new kitchen garden. Ingersoll wrote, “true to his early days in horticulture he created, above the house, a mighty circular walled garden for fruits and vegetables. It was completed in 1900 and was a major engineering feat, being laid on sloping ground facing south.” Gravetye Manor, p. xiv.

Robinson wrote, “Commenced to build in early Summer a stone wall round new kitchen garden, chosen after much and long thought as to the site. For various reasons chose the open hill above the House (where the spring that supplies House arises) as the best, and indeed only good, site near the House for the kitchen garden.” Gravetye Manor, p.108.

Robinson used sandstone, quarried on his own estate, to build the 12 foot high walls that enclosed one and a half acres for the garden. As Francine Raymond wrote for The Telegraph, the garden was angled to catch the light and the sun’s warmth, and to take advantage of the shelter the walls provided (click on Raymond’s article for an aerial photograph of the garden to fully appreciate its layout).

Robinson’s garden design provides rewards for the garden stroller every step from the house to the kitchen garden. After passing through the formal gardens, up the stone steps, and across the croquet lawn (above), a dramatic iron gate with stone columns beckons up yet another incline (below) — this time through one of his “wild” woodland gardens.

Just outside the kitchen garden gates is a rose-covered shed that, on the day I visited, was just about to burst into blooms (below).

The sun rises early in England in June. Dying to walk the grounds at sunrise, I dragged myself out there at 5 am, too late to catch the crack of dawn, but close enough. When I stepped through the heavy iron gates into the kitchen garden, I was blown away.

Head gardener Tom Coward’s horticultural expertise and willingness to innovate are evident everywhere in the kitchen garden. Ninety-five percent of the fruits and vegetables served at Gravetye are grown there.

Upon stepping through the quatrefoil iron gates, a wide center path runs east-west down the center of the garden, and is intersected in the center by a similarly wide path running north to south. Another path circles the garden, bisecting the rows of vegetables, herbs, fruits and flowers.

At the north terminus is a lovely stone bench and etching paying homage to Robinson, and signifying the year the workmen began to build the garden’s sandstone walls (above).

Flowers abound in the kitchen garden. They serve the dual purpose of providing cuttings for arrangements throughout the house (below) and a pollination source to ensure continued productivity (above).

According to Raymond, the gardeners moves the bantam hens around the beds, so that they can fertilize and scarify. Of course, they also provide eggs for the kitchen.

Since I visited in June, Gravetye Manor’s restaurant was awarded its first Michelin Star. Chef George Blogg’s close working relationship with Coward is crucial to the success of the manor’s kitchen. According to Raymond, the men “get together with the seed catalogues over a pre-Christmas drink and decide quantities and varieties, and then place their order”, always experimenting with new varieties. Coward keeps a “cropping diary so the kitchen knows what’s available for the menus, and the chef visits the garden every day.”

I filed away (for the veggie garden I will try to bring back to life this year) this effective method of plant spacing.

Raymond noted in her article that Coward uses homemade potting compost made from local horse manure, “green manure from the plot and debris from the henhouse. The mixture is turned three times with a tractor.”

I enlisted the help of my good friend Clare Shapiro— Richmond’s resident foodie expert — to identify some of the plants grown in Gravetye’s kitchen garden. Clare generously took the time from her crazy schedule writing her column, filming her show and working on her upcoming book to help me out. She used it as a time-honored gardener’s excuse to sit down by a cozy fire and lose herself in old gardening books — in this case, her mother’s old English gardening books.

Clare thinks the leafy vegetable above is purple sprouting broccoli. This may be post-harvest of the stalks, as the PSB (as it’s called by the Brits) peak harvest ends in May. I had never heard of PSB before, so Clare steered me toward an article by one of her favorite British food writers, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, who wrote about it for the Guardian.

Gooseberries (Ribes genus) (above). I thought they were young apples or pears!

Young raspberry plants (Rubus, genus) (above)

Red-flowering Runner Beans (above).

For more pictures of the garden, see the Gravetye Gardener’s Journal.

Early spring vegetable planting is just around the corner. Until then, get out those seed catalogues!

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ROBINSON’S MASTERPIECE: GRAVETYE MANOR

January 18, 2016/4 Comments/in Featured Gardens, Landscape Design, Plants & Horticulture /by mturner

As winter finally sets in, I thought I’d distract you from the cold weather by taking you across the pond to gardens in lovely England. I plan to do a handful of blog posts on the exceptional gardens I visited last June, and I begin with the grounds of Gravetye Manor.

In 1884, William Robinson began a decades-long journey to put his revolutionary landscape philosophy into practice at Gravetye Manor in England’s lush Sussex County. When he began his work, the vast grounds of the manor house, built in 1598 by Richard Infield, had been used primarily for livestock grazing. Vast woodlands made up much of the remainder of the estate.

Robinson, a prolific garden writer (The English Flower Garden is legendary), was a leader in the movement toward the Wild Garden (he wrote a ground-breaking book of the same name). He rebelled against the rigid formality of the Continental landscapes, writing, “the greatest and the most lasting improvement ever made in English gardens was the breaking away from the old idea of gardens of barrack-yard uniformity.”

After Robinson’s death, the Manor was neglected until hotelier Peter Herbert undertook a renovation of the house and garden in 1958, guided by Robinson’s meticulous writings about his work on the property in the book Gravetye Manor; Or Twenty Years’ Work Round an Old Manor House. Herbert transformed Gravetye Manor into a glorious country house hotel, restaurant and garden. After Herbert’s retirement in 2004, the property again fell into neglect until Jeremy Hosking bought the property in 2010. Hosking made the brilliant decision to hire Tom Coward, below, as Head Gardener. Tom came to Gravetye with extensive experience, including time at Great Dixter under Fergus Garrett.

I had the luck of running into Tom during his evening stroll through the garden. It is obviously a time that he and his dog Vera cherish. This delightful man told me that this was the time he could reflect on the progress and challenges of the garden, and contemplate plans for the days, months, and years ahead, As he continued on his daily rounds (below), I found myself envious of Vera, wishing I could tag along to soak up just a sliver of Tom’s knowledge.

What Tom and his team of dedicated and talented gardeners have done at Gravetye is jaw-dropping. Their mission is “not only to conserve and re-create Robinson’s work but also to progress the garden in homage to his experimental style of gardening.”.

In a break from the formal Renaissance era gardens in continental Europe, Robinson looked to the land to lead the design. He wrote, “a garden should grow out of its own site, if we are to have the best of it. One should think of the spot and what can best be done in it, instead of following set models.”Robinson’s formal layout adapted to Gravetye’s topography, transitioning to the rolling fields with a rustic arbor (recently rebuilt) and more loosely defined beds and plantings, below.

The arbor is draped in White Wisteria and underplanted with soft violet Bearded Iris.

Eschewing the practice of “bedding out” so popular at the time, Robinson instead sought to create planting schemes more in keeping with the patterns and groupings found in nature. He said, “Almost everything was planted in groups, varying the sizes and shapes, holding some apart and some together by turfing plants beneath and spaces of repose around, letting other groups merge one into another, suitable plants intermingling. This destroyed all set pattern to such an extent that it was impossible for the eye to take in the arrangement or contents of any single bed from one standpoint.

Robinson wrote, “before the English invented and carried out landscape gardening, the foreigner, like ourselves, was content with the mason’s idea of a garden.” By that, he meant, “so few plants that architects made gardens of stones and a few clipped trees with geometrical tracery.”

Don’t mistake Robinson’s disdain for the mason’s garden with a dislike for use of stone in the garden. Gravetye Manor is a testament to Robinson’s brilliance in using hardscape to shape and define a garden. The stone steps, above, illustrate his talent for blending the functional and the beautiful. Here he softened the formal layout of steps by using an informal style of masonry and his wild style of planting schemes.

Robinson was extremely critical of the Europeans’ treatment of plants as mere instruments to create barriers or define geometrical spaces or boundaries. He wrote, “having seen for many years the evils of disfiguring trees and shrubs by clipping . . . I naturally did not follow a plan so evil in its results. It is a common cause of hard and ugly lines in gardens, and usually so needless as well.”

After years of begging landscapers to leave their hedge trimmers in their trucks when working on my clients’ gardens, and requiring only hand pruning of shrubs, I was ecstatic when I read the following from the great gardener: “we abolished the shears and clipped no more. . the forming of dividing lines and shelters should be easy without the aid of the shears.” In the picture above, a beautiful barrier was created using Rhododendron, not a formal hedge with all life and personality sheared out of it. How much more beautiful the hedge is when the Rhodos are allowed to maintain their natural graceful shape!

The meadows at Gravetye Manor are spectacular (above and below). Robinson was also a pioneer in replacing mowed turf with wild meadows, and in naturalizing bulbs. When I arrived, the spring bulbs had faded, and the summer wildflowers were in their glory.

I may have missed the spring bulbs, but I’d say my walk along a carpet of Rhododendron petals more than made up for it. And that bark!

Enough discussion of this special place, its history and the immensely influential gardeners and patrons who have made it possible for the rest of us to enjoy. I leave you with a few more images to soak in until you, too, can walk the paths of Gravetye Manor’s gardens.

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PLANTS THAT WELCOME THE DELUGE

October 4, 2015/0 Comments/in Plants & Horticulture /by mturner

After the gazillionth inch of rain along the east coast, thanks to a tango being performed by Joaquin and a pesky nor’easter, it seemed appropriate to fire off a list of plants that will tolerate, and even welcome, wet soil. I took the picture above while visiting Camden, Maine during one of its wettest months on record. Ferns and Hostas are perfectly happy under such conditions.

Magnolia grandiflora (Southern Magnolia) is native to Virginia.

Magnolia virginiana (Sweetbay Magnolia) is native to Virginia.

Betula nigra (River Birch) is native to Virginia.

Hydrangea (Hydra=water), with the exception of Oakleaf Hydrangea, tolerates wet soil. Above is the classic Hydrangea macrophylla.

Hydrangea arborescens ‘Annabelle’ (Smooth Hydrangea); the species is native to Virginia.

Hydrangea paniculata ‘Tardiva’ (Limelight and Pee Gee are other cultivars of this species)

Calycanthus floridus (Eastern Allspice) is native to Virginia.

Callicarpa americana (American Beautyberry) is native to Virginia. I took this picture along a trail on Jamestown Island.

Aronia arbutifolia (Chokeberry) is native to Virginia.

Tradescantia virginiana (Virginia Spiderwort) is native to Virginia.

I took this picture on Richmond’s wild and natural Belle Isle.

Myosotis sylvatica (Forget-Me-Not)

Iris siberica (Siberian Iris). Many Iris, including the native Iris versicolor (Blue Flag Iris)

will tolerate continuous bog conditions.

Panicum virgatum (Switchgrass) is native to Virginia.

Mertensia virginica (Virginia Bluebell) is native to Virginia.

This rain garden (installed by Capital Trees as part of the renovation of Great Shiplock Park) filters polluted storm water from the park’s parking lot before it enters the historic James River and Kanawha Canal. Native plants, including Eutrochium purpureum (Joe Pye Weed), Chasmanthium latifolium (Northern Sea Oats) and Panicum virgatum (Switch Grass) thrive in the garden. Ilex glabra (Inkberry), Itea virginica (Virginia Sweetspire), Clethra alnifolia (Sweet Pepperbush) and Callicarpa americana (Beautyberry) — all native shrubs that tolerate wet soil– border the state-of-the-art biofiltration planters.

LATE SPRING GARDEN CHORES

June 4, 2015/1 Comment/in Plants & Horticulture, Seasonal Garden Chores /by mturner

double file viburnum

Most spring bulbs are spent, and spring flowering shrubs are shedding their blooms.

Thus, It’s time to:

PRUNE

spirea

Prune spring-flowering shrubs, if needed.

Most shrubs and trees that flower in spring (like the Vanhouteii Spirea above, Lilac, Azaleas, and Deutzias, to name a few) begin to set their flower buds for next spring within 4 to 6 weeks of blooming. Thus, if you wait to prune the plant after that 4 to 6 week window, you will be cutting off next year’s blooms.

White Camellia

Only prune your shrubs if they need it to control size or to shape the plant (e.g., limb up or espalier) or to remove dead or diseased branches. Use hand pruners, and be sure to take a branch all the way back to a lateral branch (vs. shearing all of the top growth). Camellias (above) need very little pruning, as they have a graceful growing habit. Mock Orange (Philadelphus coronarius, below) is a straggly grower, and can use more help. Mock Oranges are best planted toward the back of a mixed border where they recede after blooming.

Mock orange

DON’T prune summer flowering shrubs, such as Gardenia, Butterfly Bush (Buddleia davidii), Caryopteris and Beautyberry (Callicarpa).

deadheading daffs

Cut back dying foliage of spring-blooming bulbs, including Daffodils, Tulips and Hyacinth. Capital Trees members Mary Anne Burke and Noni Baruch, above, deadhead the Daffodils planted along Dock Stree in Shockoe Bottom. Spanish Bluebells (beautifully photographed below by Helen Horseley) multiply over the years.

Photo by Helen Horsley

lady banks

Cut out all rogue branches on your Lady Banks Rose (above). You can tell a rogue branch -or sucker – because it is thicker, straighter, and produces no lateral branches.

climbing rose

Continue to train other climbing roses. Don’t be shy about removing many older canes to allow for a lighter, more elegant climber, like the one in Charleston, above.

rose

Continue to deadhead repeat-blooming shrub roses. Some of the heritage roses at Hollywood Cemetery, including the Doswell Rose, above, are still blooming. I did a blog post recently about the incredible treasure these roses are at the historic cemetery.

iris

Remove spent flower stalks from perennials, such as Bearded Iris (Iris germanica), above, and Peonies (Paeonia), below. Some Bearded Iris will bloom again in late summer or early fall.

peony

Photo by Melinda Hardy

Pinch back mid to late summer blooming perennials that tend to get leggy, such as Asters (above), Bog Sage, Daisies, Rudbeckia. This will prompt the plants to grow lateral stems and create a bushier plant with more blooms.

Vinca minor

Keep Vinca minor (pictured above) and other aggressive ground covers pruned for a neat appearance.

Cut back to the ground any unproductive Hydrangea branches. An unproductive branch is one that has no or little growth, or is brittle to the touch.

Maine ivy

Prune Climbing Hydrangea (Hydrangea petiolaris) after it finishes blooming. Prune other climbers to keep shape.

Climbing Hydrangea is not just for walls — it’s fun to let it scamper across a bed or a low stone wall.

lenten rose

Cut to the ground browning leaves and spent flower stalks of Lenten Rose. Both Lenten Rose (Helleborus orientalis, above) and Stinking Hellebore (Helleborus foetidus, below) will generously self seed if not heavily mulched.

helleborus foetidus

Prune evergreens, if needed.

Evergreen shrubs, such as Hollies, Laurels and Ligustrum, tend to generate uneven growth that can be straggly looking. It is fine to prune these shrubs now to shape them. A couple of caveats: don’t prune Magnolias or other evergreen shrubs blooming now, if you want to enjoy their blooms. Only prune Sasanqua (fall-blooming) Camellias in early spring before they begin forming flower buds.

sweetbay mag

Prune multi-branch trees, such as Sweetbay Magnolias (Magnolia virginiana, above), Japanese Maple (Acer palmatum) and Serviceberry (Amelanchier, spp.) to open up the plant and assist in developing a beautiful shape, by cutting out any volunteer sports and straggly branches. You can also cut suckers and stragglies of Chaste Tree (Vitex agnus-castus), but don’t cut back main branches, as they will be blooming in the next month.

wisteria

Prune Wisteria before it sets next year’s flower buds.

PLANT

Sam veggies

Plant summer vegetables and herbs

morning glory

Consider planting Morning Glory seeds for old-fashioned late summer blooms. The vine twines through Japanese Anemone, above.

lotus

If you have a water garden, consider planting a Lotus (the native Nelumbo lutea).

I’d given mine up for dead and yanked the empty pot (empty except for mud) this spring. As usual, my procrastination (laziness?) saved a life. I went to toss the pot last week and, lo and behold, new Lotus leaves were emerging. Can’t wait to see it bloom like it did last summer, above.

Fill your containers with summer annuals,which will reward you until a hard frost. Be sure to regularly fertilize, as frequent watering depletes the nutrients from the soil. The window box below, on Meeting Street in Charleston, is filled with Begonia and Fern.

ferns and begonia

Add annuals to beds to replace plants that have gone dormant. New Orleans gardeners love to plant Caladiums in their otherwise evergreen borders for a shot of contrast. You can also plant masses of Lantana or Plumbago for color all summer. If you are planting in beds containing bulbs or dormant perennials, be sure not to disturb them.

EDGE

Edge your beelines and lawn borders. The person who tends the garden below is on top of it! Maintaining an edge between the lawn and pavement and between the lawn and planting beds helps keep the shape of the beds and prevents weeds from spreading.

Edge

WEED!!!!!!!!!!!!

HELP STOP THE CRAPE MAIMING!

THE LAST OF THE GREAT ENGLISH KITCHEN GARDENS

ROBINSON’S MASTERPIECE: GRAVETYE MANOR

PLANTS THAT WELCOME THE DELUGE

LATE SPRING GARDEN CHORES

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