Archive for Winter Gardening – Page 2

Drought Tolerant Landscaping with Manzanita Plants in Portland

Posted by Carol

· May 2, 2018

Drought Tolerant Landscaping with Manzanita Plants in Portland

Why am I excited about using Manzanita in my Portland landscape designs?

Flowers for pollinators in winter from snow tipped Arctostaphylos in North Portland

Manzanita shrub in Arbor Lodge landscape. Landscape Design in a Day

It’s the water

To advocate the use of Manzanita is to advocate the use of drought tolerant plants. Happily we landscape designers are encountering more clients these days who want a low water landscape or want a completely drought tolerant yard. I can advise about the site conditions drought tolerant plants require and select attractive plants that meet the curb appeal test in addition to drought tolerance.

Unique look

Manzanita flowering in Woodlawn neighborhood of Portland – Garden Design

It’s a new look for the landscape. My younger clients are done with rhododendrons and azaleas, which are somewhat over used here. While Manzanita has attractive flowers, it is the whole package, foliage color, shape of plant, bark color and flower that is creating the popularity. I’m especially happy with the boost these plants give to the winter landscape.

Fusion of modern style with NW Natural

These plants are too naturalistic for formal landscapes but they look great with modern and craftsmen homes. Style-wise Manzanita fit nicely with NW natural, Mediterranean or even a southwestern look. We get strong foliage contrast with leaf blades (Yucca or ornamental grass), tiny needles like dwarf conifer, heather (calluna type), lavender or fat leafed succulents like hens and chicks or sedum palmeri or other sedums.

New kinds of Manzanita to use in landscapes

Drought tolerant Manzanita in Irvington garden design as foundation plant

Drought tolerant Manzanita in Portland garden design as foundation plant.

The fact that we now have more than one kind of Manzanita we can use can be laid at the feet of a handful of people who have crossed different kinds of Manzinita to produce plants that can thrive in our rich Willamette Valley soils. They then tested the plant in different soil conditions and identified the plants that can handle life in an non irrigated garden or landscape.

When I started my Portland landscape design practice in the 1990’s there was a native Manzanita tree from the Oregon coast that “sometimes” survived here. They are so beautiful that I was tempted. Still “sometimes” was not good enough for my designs. I needed cold hardy Manzanita ground covers, shrubs, and small trees that would thrive here in the Willamette Valley and there weren’t any. Now I have them!!!

Less weeding

This benefit could take some time to realize. Manzanita leaves contain a substance that discourages weeds. Leaves that shed from the plant should be left in place. It takes several years for these small leaves to build up enough of the substance in your soil to be effective.

Pruning tip

Arctostaphylos drought tolerant landscape design planting in SE Portland One of the common mistakes with Manzanita is to underestimate the width of the shrubs and small trees. Most cannot be pruned heavily and can be rendered so unattractive by pruning that tries to contain them, they will be removed. If you have no pruning skills (and most people don’t) be sure to place these plants where they have room to mature with yearly tip pruning only.

Where to find these plants?

While Xera Plants, Inc. and Cistus Nursery are the primary resource for retail, there are the Hardy Plant

Contact us

Society Sales (spring and fall) and tried and true mail order plant resources.

If you are wanting drought tolerant landscaping and need a landscape designer contact me, I love to design with Manzanita.

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

Tags : curb appeal, dramatic flowers, dramatic winter plants, drought tolerant plantings, dry garden style, low maintenance plants, low water plantings, Winter Color in the garden, xeriscape plantings

Fun in the sun: Keeping your yard safe for kids and pets

Posted by Carol

· February 21, 2018

Checking for Landscape Safety Hazards

Your kids spend the cold and wet Portland winter months cooped up inside, looking for things to do and ways to burn off a whole lot of pent-up energy. When the weather finally warms up in the spring, it’s a mad rush for bicycles, balls and frisbees. Children know only that it’s finally warm enough to play outside; they’re not thinking about potential yard hazards from winter. If you haven’t examined your home’s exterior carefully, your kids, their friends and your pets may be at risk for a mishap that could turn a long-awaited romp in the yard into a trip to the local ER. While most trips turn into a great story for the kids to tell their pals, it’s hair raising while it is happening.

Checking for safety hazards

You wouldn’t turn your kids loose in your basement or a rumpus room you hadn’t checked for safety hazards. You should approach your yard the same way because children and the family dog are going to spend a lot of time out there.

Trees and shrubs

Clearing away yard debris (fallen branches and sharp twigs) from winter storms, is easy to think of but looking up into your trees to ensure there are no broken but still hanging branches is a less obvious task. Loose branches are a danger to children playing under or near a tree and should be cut down and removed. It’s hard to see these loose branches once the trees are fully leafed. Also, check the ground around trees for unexplained disturbed soil, or excessive limb-drop. Either of these are a sign to call an ISA certified arborist to check on the health of your trees.

Shrubs and small trees can encroach into path and patio areas. Check that branches are not protruding into paths especially at eye level of small children and adults. While not all shrubs can be pruned in late winter and early spring, a single branch or two can and should be removed even when you are not sure about the proper timing for pruning.

Fall Landscape Hazards

Lichen and moss build up on walkways, patios and decks which makes the area super slick and slimy. They must be scrubbed, or pressure washed multiple times in winter and spring especially on the north side of the house or in shady areas. Be sure your lighting for your entry walk is functional especially if you live on a street with no street lights. The lighting needs to extend to the area where your guests park.

Examine the equipment

Your swing set and other play equipment look especially inviting to eager children throughout the winter. Take a few minutes to check it thoroughly before the kids swarm all over it. Make certain that there are no sharp points or edges, or exposed and rusty nails or screws that could cause a dangerous cut. Chains should be secure, and any stakes or stabilizing devices that keep the frame anchored to the ground should be tightly fastened to the ground.

If your swing set is made of wood, keep it stained and sealed to minimize fragments and prevent weather damage. If you didn’t store away detachable components, such as vinyl connecting parts, make sure they haven’t worn down to the point of breaking. Remember that all play equipment should be surrounded by sand, mulch or soft synthetic material to guard against injury.

Patios and wooden decks

Ice, rain and wind can do a lot of residual damage to a deck during the winter. Wooden planks and railings produce fragments and splinters, a danger to kids and pets. That’s why wooden decks should be stained and sealed at least every two years and they will last longer too. The heavy winter rains can wash away soil and undermine paths, patios and walls or re direct water to your foundation. Sometimes these changes happen slowly over a few years, but spring is a great time to assess water issues on your property.

Diligence and maintenance

If there’s one place your children and pets should be safe from harm, it’s their own backyard. Keeping them safe as they play and roam outside is a relatively simple task – it just requires diligence and routine cleaning and maintenance. Doing a thorough check of your property in spring is a great time to do this. It’s well worth it to see your little ones enjoying themselves outdoors after a long winter.

If your Portland area yard is overwhelming you, contact me for help with your residential landscape.

Categories : Dog and Cat Friendly Gardens, Garden Tips, Winter Gardening

Tags : pet safety, pruning, winter yard maintenance, yard safety

Colorful Four Season Plant for Portland Residential Landscape Designs

Posted by Carol

· December 13, 2017

Colorful Four Season Plant for Portland Residential Landscape Designs

I like to use Nandina as a colorful four season plant for my Portland landscape designs.

Advantages

The foliage is colorful year around.

Very low maintenance plants if you know the cool pruning tip.

They are easy to prune successfully so you can keep them for years.

Nandina varieties fit multiple diverse needs in the landscape because they can be small (18″ to 24” tall) or up to 8 feet tall.

They thrive in half or full day sun. Deer don’t typically eat them.

Disadvantages

People prune it wrong and then it’s so ugly they remove them – this is so easy to avoid.

Many varieties require a lot of sun and will look leggy and sparse in the shade. They will look so bad they will be removed. Some varieties will take more shade so you have to know which is which. Best practice is to plant in at least 4 hours of strong sun.

People think Nandina is drought tolerant and they don’t water it in the summer……….this ends badly.

Nandina (from China) doesn’t feed our native insects; therefore, overusing it limits food for our native bird population. I like to select at least a few native plants for companions.

Is this plant overused? Some garden designers snub the Nandina plant because it is used in commercial landscapes. Nandina is useful to my Portland residential landscape design clients who want low maintenance landscapes. With the right plant partners Nandina can sparkle in a home landscape.

How I Use Nandina in Garden Designs

Nandina domestica – Heavenly Bamboo (not related to Bamboo)

There is a variety of Nandina to fit every landscape:

6 to 8 foot tall ‘Moyers Red’ or 4 to 6 foot tall ‘Plum Passion’ dress and soften an expanse of fence, hide the hot tub or garbage area nicely
2 to 4 foot tall ‘Sienna Sunrise’, ‘Moon Bay’ or ‘Firepower’ work well in foundation plantings and entry areas.

Use a tape measure on planting day, assume the size info on the plant tag is being modest and give your plant more room to grow. Some varieties of Nandina will grow 3 to 4 feet wide. To keep your Nandina from getting too wide, I suggest pruning out entire canes at the base of the plant once a year. For varieties that are listed as 3 to 4 feet wide, plant it at least 30 inches off your path.

A new variety called ‘Blush’ is typically 24 inches tall and 18 inches wide. The evergreen leaves turn an intense claret red and hold their color for months, longer and redder than other Nandina. ‘Blush’ was designed for the southern United States where it is fully drought tolerant. In Portland, all varieties of Nandina including ‘Blush’, requires irrigation in summer. Multiple articles on the net enthusiastically state ‘Blush’ is drought tolerant but they do not mean here in the NW. In the high humidity of an Alabama summer I too am probably drought tolerant…..Mint Julep anyone?

Plant Partners

I love to combine Nandina with textured or needled plants that contrast with the narrow Nandina leaves. Dwarf conifers, (Pinus mugo ‘Sherwoods Compact’), heather Erica carnea ‘Adrienne Duncan’ or ornamental grasses like Opiopogon (black mondo grass) work well. NW native plants, like salal, sword fern and huckleberry give contrast and good looks. They also provide food for native insects and for our birds who must eat native insects for food. Pairing Nandina with typical cottage garden plants disappoints my aesthetic; there isn’t enough leaf contrast.

How to prune Nandina

The key to success with Nandina is learning how to prune it which is all about thinning the multiple canes (or stems) of the shrub. Read more in my next blog or check out this u tube video I found to get you started.

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

Tags : curb appeal, dramatic winter plants, drought tolerant plantings, fall color, garden tips, low maintenance landscape, low maintenance plants, Winter Color in the garden

Great Low Maintenance Hellebore Flowers for Winter Cheer

Posted by Carol

· February 8, 2017

All About Amazing Hellebores

Popular Double Hellebore From Englands Ashwood Ashwood Garden Hybrids

Helleborus x hybridus ‘Ashwood Double BiColor Shades’ grown here in the NW by Monrovia.

Red flowered Hellebores are still the holy grail for plant geeks but they are so tough that anyone can covet these and grow them.

‘Peppermint Ice’, ‘Amethyst Gem’ and ‘Ashwood Double Bi Color Shades’ are Hellebore cultivated varieties with red to eggplant hued double flowers. They wow us in late winter with a long vibrant flower display.

As a Portland landscape designer I like to use Hellebore in my designs. The Helleborus x hybridus plants (which is what we are focusing on today) can live for a hundred years, deer don’t like them, they are low water and except for a typically minor problem with aphids, and a little slug activity they are pretty pest free.

Helleborus x hybridus 'Peppermint Ice', Perfect for Portland Gardens

Peppermint Ice has a darker outline around each of the petals. Its adds a lighter touch with pink red flowers.

They are shade tolerant although I tend to use these three in strong morning sun with dappled or full afternoon shade.

Double flowers give us more color than the singles but the singles, with only 5 to 7 petals, are also stunning and low maintenance. ‘Ashwood Double BiColor Shades’ have a wine red petal with a darker edge which is opposite of ‘Amethyst Gem’.

Amethyst Gem a low maintenance NW hellebore.

Amethyst Gem comes from the famous NW Garden Nursery. Double petals with a light edge gives us drama and the contrast needed to appreciate the mass of petals.

Using Hellebore as a cut flower

The flowers last a long time in the landscape but not long as a cut flower because the stems wither quickly. Most people cut the stems off and float them in a bowl. I’ve picked them from my NW Portland garden, knowing they would only look good for a few days. There are techniques for making them last which involve picking them at the right time based on the age of the flower and using an alcohol solution in the vase. Follow this link to NW Garden Nursery and read the bottom of their culture sheet. Now that you are bringing the flowers inside please be aware that all parts of the plant are toxic.

All Hellebore flowers tend to nod down rather than face up. This protects the flowers from cold damage (disfigurement/freezer burn) because water drips off the flower and is not trapped inside. Nature designed this plant to flower in winter.

Great low maintenance Hellebore foliage.

Hellebore foliage looks fantastic with the lacy Himalayan Maidenhair Fern (Adiantum venustum) on this wall of boulders.

Great Foliage Year Round

Of course, it’s not just the flowers that encourage me to use hellebores in landscape designs. The leaves are leathery, attractive and provide interesting contrast with a range of plant material including feathery fern fronds, ornamental grasses or tiny leafed boxwood.

The summer foliage of hellebores look great with many plants including Sweet Flag (Acorus gramineus).

What about aphids?

What about aphids? My only problem with Hellebore is aphids. Some years I don’t have any noticeable aphid activity. When I do it’s so early in the year that handy predators like lacewing and lady bug are still in sleep mode or haven’t hatched yet so I’m on my own. Dealing with them is easy. Use a spray bottle filled with water or 1 tsp of dish soap to 1 gallon of water and spray down your plant. Use your hose or this great gadget called the bug blaster which you can buy at Portland Nursery. (I’ve got to get one this year to use in my veggie garden too.) Don’t use a pesticide because most of them will harm bees even if they are not present when you spray. Aphids have soft bodies and will be damaged by the force of the water or the soapy solution will invade their bodies and disable them. You will have to knock them down with water or soapy water once or twice a week to prevent the temporary cosmetic damage. I’ve never lost a hellebore plant to anything let alone a virus but in recent years virus has spread from plant to plant by aphids. It is only an issue for professional growers or collectors.

Check out this bowlful of hellebore beauties

How to care for your Hellebore

How to care for your Hellebore: I water once or twice a week its first summer and then once a week after that. Drip irrigation would be best rather than overhead sprinklers because drip can water deep into the soil. Established Hellebore become quite a low water needs plant and might be content with every ten days or less. An application of mulch around the plant once or twice a year is a good practice. If your soil is so good that they make seedlings, be aware they won’t have the same flower as your hybridized plant. I cut the old leaves off the plant in late winter so that the flowers are not visually diminished by the previous years worn foliage.

Helleborus x Hybridus 'Peppermint Ice' photo by Terra Nova

Helleborus x Hybridus ‘Peppermint Ice’ has double flowers that hang down but the overall effecting your winter landscape is very colorful. The flowers last a long time.

How to kill a Hellebore

Plant it in a low spot where winter rain will rot the roots. Over water it and fertilize it heavily.

If you are interested in adding the low maintenance, amazing Hellebore to your landscape, contact me for an appointment.

Winter Color provided by Hellebore 'Peppermint Ice'

Helleborus x Hybridus ‘Peppermint Ice’ is another Winter Gem by NW Garden Nursery. It is grown by Terra Nova so is available at local garden nurseries. Photo by Terra Nova.

Categories : Dramatic Flowers, Plants I Recommend, Shade Plants, Spring Gardening, Winter Gardening

Tags : cutting flowers, dramatic flowers, dramatic winter plants, garden tips, long blooming flowers, Winter Color in the garden

Bad News about Slug Bait and Winter Garden Care Tips

Posted by Carol

· November 28, 2016

Winter is just around the corner here in Portland. Here are 5 timely tips to help you care for your landscape right now.

Slugs Last chance to knock out slugs! Control your slug population now in late fall. They lay thousands of eggs that will hatch in spring. I’ve got bad news about using the so called pet safe slug baits. New science says it kills your earthworms and can sicken your pets and other animals. Control your slugs with beer traps or even better an instant coffee spray. Yup coffee! Fill a spray bottle with strong instant coffee or any coffee except de-caf. Spray the leaves of plants they prefer and any slugs or snails you see.

I grow lots of winter greens here in NW Portland so I’ve been out there spraying down the leaves of my beautiful Dinosaur Kale plants to protect them now. Spraying coffee once a week in fall and early winter makes a big difference in the spring hatch of slugs. Read more about why slug bait harms worms.

Its the caffeine that kills slugs or snails. Instant coffee works well.

Mulch. If you only do one thing to improve your soil and care for your plants, mulching is the biggie. Schedule your winter mulch application for the last week of November to mid-December or hire someone to blow in your mulch. Companies such as Bark Blowers will blow in mulch including the newer “living” mulch products that I prefer. One company that provides mulch inoculated with beneficial bacteria is Natures Needs, a product called Recology Compost. McFarlane Bark, Mt Scott Fuel and Grimms Fuel supply basic mulch products. Did you mulch just 2 inches deep? Great! Now go and unbury the crowns of your plants so they don’t die from rot during our wet winter. Burying plants with mulch might be a good practice in Vermont or Montana but not here.

Landscape Design in a Day client’s custom gate. Photo by Lori Aveling

Protect your plants from winter temperatures

The best cold protection for plants in the winter isn’t something that naturally occurs to most people. Over watering and over fertilizing done in summer can cause plants to not go dormant. When cold weather comes, they are not prepared. Read more: Protecting Plants from Winter Cold Starts in Summer

Pruning knowledge There are many plants that should not be cut back in the fall and winter. There are many perennials and grasses that can be cut back to create a more attractive winter landscape. This is a case by case basis which drives new gardeners crazy. Consider consulting with your garden designer who can teach you what to do to your plants and when. It feels good when you know what to do.

Protect your pottery The best winter protection for your pottery is proper drainage and location. Make sure water drains through the pots hole and doesn’t back up. If water sits in the bottom and it freezes, good bye pot. I have had Vietnamese high fired pottery outside and intact for over 15 years. I always put drainage material in the bottom of the pot and a piece of flagstone under the pot or I use those little pottery feet.

If I have expensive pots where they will get east winter wind, the kind of wind that freezes rain to ice on the power line, I would move them into a protected area for winter right now. I hate to even think about that kind of weather but we get our share here in Portland Oregon, especially in January. Its hard to pay attention to the weather report, and besides who wants to move heavy pots around when its icy cold out? Not me.

For more information on how we can help you during winter months with your garden design.

Categories : Fall Gardening, Garden Pests, Garden Tips, Winter Gardening

Tags : garden tips, how to gardening tips, vegetable gardening tips

Archive for Winter Gardening – Page 2

Fun in the sun: Keeping your yard safe for kids and pets

Checking for Landscape Safety Hazards

Bad News about Slug Bait and Winter Garden Care Tips

Winter is just around the corner here in Portland. Here are 5 timely tips to help you care for your landscape right now.

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