Archive for Winter Gardening – Page 3

New Shrubs Expand Designer’s Palette

Posted by Carol

· November 4, 2015

Add to Your Drought Tolerant Landscape Design

Drought tolerant Ceanothus G. 'Hearts Desire' Picture from Xera

California Lilac Ceanothus Griseus ‘Hearts Desire’ Picture from Xera Plants

I’m excited about these new plants for Portland gardens.

Many of us are familiar with California Lilac and its blue flowers. Beloved by bees, including our endangered native bumble bees, it’s also a host plant for Swallow Tail butterflies. However, it has its problems in a home landscape. Many varieties are short lived because they receive summer irrigation along with your other plantings. They need infrequent or no summer water to be a long term plant. Most of all keeping them a manageable size is difficult for many gardeners. Ceanothus Griseus ‘Hearts Desire’ is different. It can handle some summer irrigation and unlike all the other varieties of ground cover type California Lilac, it grows to only 4 inches tall and grows slowly to 24 inches wide. It is easy to tip prune so can be confined. These new habits make it a very useful plant for smaller landscapes. It can take a lot of dry so we can plant it in the xeriscape dry tolerant gardens that have no irrigation or it can receive some summer irrigation. I see this plant as a major improvement over old varieties like ‘Anchor Bay’ or ‘Points Rey’. Xera Plants is growing ‘Hearts Desire’ but expect other growers to jump on the plant wagon soon. I’d use ‘Hearts Desire’ under limbed up fir trees, on SW facing banks or in “hellstrips”. I will be trialing this new variety of California Lilac in my xeriscape garden.

Manzanita needs little to no watering after first year.

Manzanita Photo from http://www.laspilitas.com/nature-of-california/plants/74–arctostaphylos-pungens

Manzanita is a shrub or large tree known for its colorful bark and picturesque windswept shapes on the northern California coast. Here in Portland it’s too wet or too cold for most Manzanitas. News flash! Some of the California Manzanita species have been hybridized (designed by humans) into cold hardy evergreen ground covers and shrubs. I love the leaves and the bark color and will be using these two specific varieties of Manzanita in my designs more frequently. My favorite is ‘St. Helena’ which grows to 24 inches, and can take irrigation if it must.

Hummingbird sitting on Manzanita plant

For success with Manzanita don’t feed the soil with compost or fertilizer at all, not even when doing initial soil preparation. Work with the existing soil. It needs to be watered through its first summer and then little to no irrigation is best. This year (2015) my clients will be instructed to water it through its first winter as well since we are expecting a very dry winter but most years this would not be necessary. Note: hummingbirds love Manzanita flowers. Pacific Horticulture Society has an in depth article about Manzanita/Arctostaphlylos for the NW; by our revered plants man Paul Bonine.

Callistemon viridiflorus ‘Xera Compact’ Picture from Xera Plants

Callestemon or Bottle Brush is well known to Californians. They have many varieties with hot red flowers and they attract hummingbirds like crazy. Their loose needles have a tropical feel to them and they can look wild or messy depending on your point of view! While talking with Greg Shepard at Xera Plants, I got good news about the varieties of this plant that we can grow here in Portland. A few of these make very attractive tidy evergreen shrubs. I’m always looking for soft textured evergreen shrubs with winter good looks that don’t get too big. Hummingbirds are attracted to all of the Bottle Brush plants but deer are not. Pretty great huh?

Here are 2 varieties I am most interested in for my clients:

1. Callistemon Pityoides ‘Corvallis’. Yes found in Corvallis, Oregon the original plant withstood 20 years of cold and everything an Oregon winter can throw at a plant. It grows 5’ tall and 3’ wide in ten years. It can take regular water or can be trained into drought tolerance easily. It flowers twice in a season with soft yellow bottle brush flowers that remind people of baby ducks. Deer usually leave it alone unless they are desperate.

2. Callistemon viridiflorus ‘Xera Compact’ grows to 4 ½’ feet tall. It is VERY heavy blooming for 6 weeks. The flowers are chartreuse and yellow brushes 3 inches long, the leaves are deep green in summer and take on hints of red in winter.

For more information on other drought tolerant landscape plants, go to my contact page.

Categories : Dramatic Flowers, Garden Tips, Gardening Green, Low Maintenance Landscape Examples, New Improved Plants, Plants I Recommend, Winter Gardening

Tags : drought tolerant plantings, evergreen plants w color, food for hummingbirds, garden tips, plants to attract birds, Winter Color in the garden

Portland Rain Garden with Year Round Color

Posted by Carol

· April 1, 2015

Portland Rain Garden Plants with Year Round Color

Downspout disconnect rain garden in Raliegh Hills. Designed by Carol Lindsay and D & J Landscape Contracting

Downspout disconnect rain garden in Raleigh Hills. Designed by Carol Lindsay and D & J Landscape Contracting

As a Portland landscape designer I like my rain garden designs to have year round color. Many Portlanders have rain gardens in the front yard so it’s important to have year round color. Without careful plant selection rain garden plantings can look forlorn in the winter months with no leaves or color present. I love a good hit of color to offset our typically gray winter season.

To select plants for a rain garden I start by thinking about the areas of a rain garden that have different degrees of wetness. There are fewer evergreen plants that work well in the wettest areas and a wider range of plants for the sides and the top which are less wet. Knowing which plants will thrive in this situation ensures I select the right plant for the right place.

Rain Garden Planting Design in Raleigh Hills, Portland, Oregon

Southwest Hills Portland Rain Garden Plantings used: Miniature Golden Sweet Flag is a 4″ tall chartreuse evergreen blade. Use the Latin name, Acorus gramineus ‘Minimus Pusillus Aurea’, to get the right plant. The evergreen narrow gold tufts form a somewhat flattened pinwheel which adds interesting texture. It will take standing water that drains away so it’s perfect for the wettest areas of a rain garden. If the area is a lake for a week at a time, that is too wet. Miniature Sweet Flag is unique because it also thrives in dryer sunny areas. I don’t use it in heavy shade designs.

Flowering Tree with Beesia, Fatsia, Hosta plantings underneath

Beesia can also be used as a ground cover in partial shade here in a NE Portland landscape design.

False Bugbane – Beesia deltophylla has glossy evergreen heart shaped leaves. It’s a perfect companion plant for the narrow blades of the Miniature Gold Sweet Flag; together they make a perfect year round color combination. The Beesia would die planted in the lowest wettest area so I plant it above the Golden Sweet Flag in a rain garden.

Designers know Compact Inkberry Holly – Ilex Glabra ‘Compacta’, will survive temporary standing water but there are few if any other choices for the Pacific Northwest. I’ve used Compact Inkberry Holly, on the sides of a rain garden. It works as a house foundation planting too. Don’t be fooled by the word “compacta”. It will happily grow to 4′ tall. Fortunately you can prune this shrub once or twice a year and keep it 2’ by 2’.

North Portland Rain Garden Landscape Design

Ilex Glabra (Inkberry) is a great plant for rain gardens because it is evergreen. Few wet tolerant plants are evergreen. Photo from Proven Winners

Not convinced about wet soil and evergreen shrubs? I will restrain myself to listing just 5 evergreen that die a sad little death in overly wet winter soil: Azaleas, Escollonia, Pieris, Rhododendron, and a variety of conifers to include expensive little dwarf Hemlocks. Ouch!

Portland courtyard entry rain garden with red twig dogwood, boulders and Acorus grass

New rain garden design gets rid of the winter lake in this entry courtyard. My client built it herself.

Portland Courtyard Rain Garden Planting Design

A winter lake flooded this small entry courtyard every year for weeks at a time. My client installed her own rock and plantings from my design but had the pipe that carried away the water installed by professionals. After the rain garden was installed we added two vine maple on either side. The vine maple trees on either side of the rain garden would be dead instead of showing their glorious fall color. Vine maple hate poor drainage and prove it by promptly dying.

Dwarf 16″ tall red twig dogwood “shrublets” Cornus Sericea ‘Kelseyi’ and a 12″ tall Golden Sweet Flag called Acorus gramineus ‘Aurea’ adds interest and year round color.

Get the Right Plant for Your Rain Garden

Lots of people love red twig dogwood. It’s a great plant for year round color and its important to get the right plant!

Some varieties of dwarf red twig dogwood get 6′ tall. Other red twig dogwood can get 15′ tall. Cornus sericea ‘Kelseyi’ is 12″ to 18″ tall. This dwarf dogwood variety has short colorful red twigs in winter but can get unattractive fungal leaf spots in spring. I don’t know of a dwarf variety of red twig dogwood that is free from spring fungal leaf spots. It’s a very useful plant. Life is too short for spraying plants with chemicals and really dear reader, who has time to intelligently apply fungicides?

Rain garden in Willamette Heights Portland Oregon with ferns, grasses, and boulders

Dry stream bed in Willamette Heights Portland Oregon with ferns and grasses

NW Portland Hillside Rain Garden Plantings

This hillside garden was designed to be seen from the master bedroom. There is a lot of water that moves through this hillside so it has a dry stream bed to collect the water with a drain at the bottom. It doesn’t have any plants inside the winter water area so I don’t consider it a true rain garden. The plants were installed behind a low retaining wall which is hidden by the plants foliage which spills over the walls. These clients are gardeners so I use a wider variety of plantings for their design than I would for non gardeners. Ferns carry the garden for 9 months of the year. Evergreens such as native Oregon Oxalis – Oxalis organa, Japanese Soloman’s Seal Polygonatum Falcatum (evergreen Soloman’s Seal), Hardy Geranium – Geranium Macrorrhizum and Carex grass provide year round color. Toad Lilly – Tricyrtis hirta, provides exotic color in the fall. Out of all these plantings only the Carex grass can handle excessively wet winter soil. See more about this NW Portland Natural style Landscape.

Industrial/Modern rain garden design style for downspout disconnect. Designer Barb Hilty

Portland Industrial Modern Style Rain Garden

Landscape Designer Barb Hilty designed this rain garden using no plants at all. The full season interest relies on the ornamental rain chain, the shape of the steel boxes and the black rock to carry the day year round and allow this home owner to disconnect the downspouts in style.

Contact us

We love to work with Portland rain gardens and naturalistic dry stream beds as part of an overall design for your property. Contact us for a collaborative approach. The best design comes from talking at the kitchen table.

Categories : Garden Tips, Gardening Green, Low Maintenance Landscape Examples, Plants I Recommend, Rain Garden, Winter Gardening

Tags : downspout disconnect garden, dry stream bed, hillside dry stream bed, plants for rain garden, Rain Gardens

Winter Flowers Feed Bees

Posted by Carol

· February 17, 2015

Saving Bees? Feed them. Plan for flowering plants from early spring until mid-fall. Don’t use any pesticides. Then you don’t have to try to figure out if the claim that it won’t harm bees is true or not.

Winter flowers feed bees. It’s easier to provide flowers for bees in our cool early springs than you might think. What we are learning about saving bees can be made very simple. Feed them! Use a diverse plant palette with flowers from early spring until mid-fall. Don’t use any pesticides and then you don’t have to try to figure out what is safe and what isn’t or who to trust.

I have always found summer easy to provide a diverse collection of flowers for all kinds of bees but early spring requires thought and planning. My beach house landscape on the Olympic Peninsula is a great example of a very low maintenance and bee friendly garden. The plants I list in this article are from my experiences there and from my landscape design practice here in Portland, Oregon.

Erica darleyensis ‘Mary Helen’

If you’ve read any of my blogs, heather comes up a lot. I love to use heather in my personal landscape and for clients where we can create good drainage. By the way, I had to learn how to grow it well. The fact that many varieties of spring heather feed bees at a critical time is a huge bonus to an already great plant. Deer don’t bother it, and it’s a glorious and tough ground cover. Spring heather, native plants and early flowering Spanish lavender feed bees in late winter and early spring. I start out with heather varieties that flower in late January and into early spring. These plants Erica Carnea – spring heather not summer heather – are especially great for our native bumble bees who are out and about earlier than honey bees. The bumble bees can protect themselves from sudden changes in temperature by nestling down in the thick foliage if they get too cold. I’d use the word cuddle but my inner 5 year old who hated the heather at our front walk because it was buzzing with bees . . . won’t let me! Heather provides a lot of nectar for the bees because of the hundreds of tiny flowers on each plant. The flowers are just the right depth for different sizes of bees. Some tube like flowers are better for hummingbirds but the heather flower (which is a tiny little tube) is just right for bees. Here are some early flowering spring heather varieties I like:

‘Bells Extra Special’
Foliage goes to a whiskey color with flecks of orange in the cold, the flowers are a strong purple red and best of all it’s only 4 inches high. It spreads to about 16” wide January to May. This short compact plant is unusual among the spring heather, most are 6 to 8 inches high.

December Red
Clean dark green foliage with Cabernet red flowers – 8” high and spreading to 18” November to April.

Adrianne Duncan
Has a strong violet purple flower and is more compact than typical, 6” high by 18” spread. It flowers later than Bells Extra Special. I like to put these two together for foliage contrast.

Erica darleyensis ‘Mary Helen’
Sports an interesting gold bronze foliage in winter and lots of flower power in February to April. These plants are grown locally by Highland Heathers in Canby, Oregon. This grower supplies retail nurseries, special plant sales such as HPSO Hortlandia spring plant sale and you can buy directly if you make an appointment. You won’t find these varieties at a big box store. The common varieties get too big for most landscape situations and then you end up hacking at them and then they are ugly and out they go.

Three things to pay attention to for success with heathers

Soil prep
Proper watering
Yearly Pruning

A lot of my other early spring flowering plants are Pacific NW natives. Rubus spectabilis, Salmon Berry, has a spectacular colorful spring flower with 75 to 100 stamens which will keep bees busy for a long time. This flower calls the early bumble bees by the droves. This shrub has thorns and needs a bit of room so think first and plant second. Our Oregon grape, Mahonia aquifolium, my evergreen huckleberry, Vaccinium ovatum, and the hot pink red flowering current edge the light woods around the house and provide for the various local bees. Some people don’t like Oregon grape because the leaves can get winter damage and have ratty looking leaves by early spring. I say no problem, let them flower to provide for wildlife and then cut them down to the ground. They will re leaf into glossy and good looking foliage for the rest of the year.

We know English lavender is great for bees in the summer. Like heather, all lavender has hundreds of tiny flowers and is an abundant source for nectar. Spanish lavender flowers much earlier than English lavender and provides for mid spring to early summer nectar. We need good drainage to be successful with with Spanish lavender but this often just means mounding up a few inches. Don’t over water Spanish lavender. I water mine once a month and am not sure it even needs that now that the plants are old.

Lavender at Joy Creek Nursery

Lavandula stoechas ‘Winter Bee’

There is a newish variety called ‘Winter Bee’ grown by Blooming Nursery, a local wholesale grower. They claim it flowers 3 weeks earlier than other Spanish lavender and have named it accordingly, Lavandula stoechas
‘Winter Bee’ PP #20,840.Up at my vacation house my Spanish lavender flowers in early April to mid summer. I have seen flowers on them in March. After the main flowering, I cut it back about 1/3^rd and get another lovely hit of flowers in late summer into early fall. Here are three spring flowering Spanish lavender varieties I have grown: ‘Blueberry Ruffles‘, ‘Hazel, and ‘Mulberry Ruffle’s‘. Blooming Nursery sells to many of the larger garden centers but don’t look for their plants at a box store; they won’t be there.

This unusual variety is compact and flowers earlier than most Spanish Lavender.

This unusual variety, ‘Mulberry Ruffles’, is compact and flowers earlier than most Spanish lavender.

Last of all, the best early flower for bees at our beach property isn’t what you would think of as a flower probably. It has to be the huge old Oregon Big Leaf Maples down at the edge of the beach. When they flower, the sound of bees is a low roar, I am not kidding. My grandkids are a little nervous and tend to stay out of that area for a while. Bees will earn respect if need be but otherwise I find them easy to get along with. I do flinch when a bumble bee takes a dead run at me… and then I scold them for being bossy. There is enough room in the garden for everyone.

Categories : Garden Tips, Gardening Green, New Improved Plants, Plants I Recommend, Spring Gardening, Winter Gardening

Tags : bee friendly garden, Erica Carnea, heather, long blooming flowers, saving bees, spring flowers, Winter Color in the garden

Hummingbirds in Your Winter Garden

Posted by Carol

· January 7, 2015

During our recent cold spell I was reminded that our overwintering hummingbirds need support to survive. It’s so much fun to see them feeding on the bright red flowers of Camellia Sasanqua ‘Yultide’. I got an e-mail and photo from my client Lois showing me the numerous flowers and telling me how happy her hummingbirds were.

Hummingbird feeder in winter

My client, Diane Nowicki, has had a hummingbird nest in her front yard, conveniently located a mere foot away from large windows. The nest is in her native Madrone tree, a tree her first landscape designer campaigned for over 20 years ago. I was thrilled to see this Madrone doing so well in an east exposure. Pacific Northwest Madrone, Arbutus Menziesii is one of my favorite trees.

: Photo credit Watershed Nursery

It was very interesting to watch the daily doings of the mama hummer and her babies. Diane and her husband Ed also got to watch the mama hummer spread her wings and clamp them down over the nest during a wind storm. The nest was so small; it was bouncing up and down in the wind. The young hummers would have been bounced right out of the nest.

Keeping hummingbird feeder from freezing

If you feed hummingbirds with sugar water, you have an obligation to continue in freezing weather as the birds become dependent on you. They do eat insects under the bark and wherever they can find them but to keep the sugar water viable, consider using Christmas lights to warm the liquid. Also, the chemical hand warmers can be tied to the tube and it is said this will keep the liquid from freezing for up to 7 hours. This photo shows a home owner supplied pie tin and everything else was purchased at Backyard Bird Shop.

Categories : Garden Tips, Winter Gardening

Tags : food for hummingbirds, plants to attract birds

Planning for a Cheery Winter Landscape

Posted by Carol

· December 10, 2014

Let’s start with art. An art object does not need pruning, watering or fertilizing. Art, particularly large art, is a way to get a powerful all season effect in the landscape. Place it so you see it from the most used room of the house. Add a little night lighting and really get your money’s worth.

Shapely trees and large shrubs with attractive branch structure will make 75% of your most dramatic winter picture. Buy trees or shrubs already pruned and shaped beautifully. There are specialty growers who do this as part of their marketing niche, or hire a landscape gardener or an arborist to turn your trees and shrubs into winter beauties. Out here in the NW it’s Nancy Buley with Treephoria and while her plants are grown way out in east county she comes in to some of the farmers markets to make it easier for you to connect with her.

Red Camellia in L. Waldron Garden

Here’s a series of shapely shrubs/small trees with cheerful bright winter flowers. My favorite of the chinese camellias is still Camellia Sasanqua ‘Yuletide’ but the growers have created a whole line of plants similar to Yuletide but in different flowering colors and different flower timing. Here are a couple of new ones I’m excited about. ‘Springs Promise’ a chinese camellia from Monrovia has an unusual orange red flower, a color hard to find in winter. The tree can be trained into a vase shape, an espalier or a thick shrub. We will see if the hummingbirds like it as much as they do the true red of the Yuletide variety. ‘Pink a Boo’ also has the smaller dark green glossy leaves (like Yuletide) but is that perfect frosty intense but pale pink. Camellia Sasanqua ‘Marge Miller’ is the only plant with a weeping shape. I’ve only used it once and am eager to get photos this January when my client Karen’s plant starts to flower.

calluna-vulgaris-robert-chapman360 port nursery

Calluna Vulgaris ‘Robert Chapman’ lights up in winter cold.

To have a cheery winter landscape we need plant color low on the ground with a dark mulch or hemlock bark to dress the raw earth. Too much mulch or raw muddy earth looks unfinished especially for a front yard. In the back yard your dog will happily churn up that mud and bring it in so I like to see it covered. Many people here in the Northwest like to have the soil covered with plants to conserve water, lessen the chore of weeding and for style. Others find it too busy and want to see the space around the plants as part of the design. No one wants mud so we all agree on that. Plant selection: Use plants that turn on the color in winter cold. The foliage of heathers light up in reds, russets, ambers, and golds.

Calluna Vulgaris ‘Winter Chocolate’

Cornus Sanguineum ‘Midwinter Fire’

For a January pick me up, we cannot beat a red twig dogwood or scarlet willow, although planning for space is an issue with these plants. The twig dogwood shrubs and small trees light up in hot reds, burgundy and yellow.

Notice what is going on outside. If you have become a person who never ventures out in the winter……give yourself a gentle little shake, put on some warm clothes and get out there and see what is going on. Slow down enough to notice light on the tree stems, chilled dew on a leaf, and the leaf buds swelling on your Japanese maple in preparation for spring. This is good for our spirits and our minds.

Categories : Dramatic Flowers, Garden Tips, New Improved Plants, Plants I Recommend, Winter Gardening

Tags : curb appeal, dramatic winter plants, Winter Color in the garden

Archive for Winter Gardening – Page 3

Hummingbirds in Your Winter Garden

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