Archive for dramatic winter plants – 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

Plum Colored Chinese Fringe Flower for Portland Residential Landscapes

Posted by Carol

· January 24, 2018

Portland Year-Round Color Using Chinese Fringe Flower

As a Portland residential landscape designer, I have many clients who want exciting year-round color in their landscapes. If they love burgundy foliage (either you love it or hate it, it seems) I often consider Chinese fringe flower as a shrub for their landscape.

Year round burgundy foliage

While there are lots of plants these days with red or burgundy foliage, we only have one that holds it’s leaves year round. Chinese fringe flower (also called Chinese witchazel) – Loropetalum chinense var Rubra.

Right plant, right place or picky picky picky

Chinese fringe flower has to be planted in the right location to be able to look good in the winter. I’ve had plants that lived through the winters but look sad with dried out winter burned leaves which is very disappointing if it’s part of your winter view. I had clients who loved it so much for their entry that we tried it in the “wrong place” for about 6 years hoping we would get lucky. It looked fantastic May to December but some years it looked horrid January to May…..we finally gave up.

Best placement of Chinese fringe flower

My best location advice for this plant is three fold: good soil drainage (planted up on a slight mound or above a rock wall), protection from the east wind and no sun until mid-morning. A house, tall evergreen trees or a hill can block both the east wind and early morning sun. It is not a shade plant and will have only green leaves in too much shade. Too much hot afternoon sun can scorch the leaves.

Exceptions

Conversely, or maybe I should say perversely, I have seen a few plants thriving that get 6 am sun. While this puzzles me a little (plants do not read about themselves in plant books after all) where there are successful plantings of Chinese fringe flower, good drainage and some afternoon sun are the common denominator. Should I live to be 100 (and still be practicing as a garden designer), I will not have the exact answers to some plant peculiarities. I have created hundreds of landscape designs here in the Pacific Northwest to inform my opinions but plants may be a bit like cats…..they surprise us with their likes and dislikes.

Low maintenance yes or no?

When sited correctly it is fabulous and gives your landscape a unique focal point. I don’t consider it an easy going low maintenance plant since it may need to be moved or replaced to site it properly. Once it has settled in and is a mature plant, it will need to be irrigated regularly. It will need occasional pruning if it gets too big for the area it was planted in. It’s easy to underestimate how big they will get over time. There are now several different varieties claiming to be compact, but I am skeptical.

Planting companions

Heuchera ‘Midnight Rose’ is a polka dotted burgundy and hot pink foliaged coral bell courtesy of that wild plant designer Dan Heims at Terra Nova . This is a seriously fun combo for clients who like wild color.

Ornamental grasses, heather and dwarf conifer look great with this plant. Chinese fringe flower looks good with many kinds of plants and garden styles from modern to cottage garden. It’s a very versatile plant.

Varieties of Chinese fringe flower

Portland Residential Landscape Designer loves purple foliage

Here are 3 named varieties of Loropetalum to consider for our area:

‘Purple Pixie’ also called ‘Peack’ has a nice shape for growing in a pot. It is supposed to be more compact. Count on pruning it back by ½ every year after it flowers to keep it a compatible size for a patio or entry area.

‘Pipa’s Red’ can be grown as a small tree or large shrub or can be sheared back by ½ or more every year after flowering if you want it to be a 3′ to 5’ tall shrub.

‘Zhuzhou Pink Fuschia’ is also a delight. I’d use it as a small tree or hedge in a landscape design.

If you want to see more year-round color in your garden, contact us for Portland residential landscape design.

Categories : Dramatic Flowers, Garden Tips, Low Maintenance Landscape Examples, Plants I Recommend

Tags : burgandy foliage, dramatic color, dramatic winter plants, pink flowers, red leafed plant, spring flowers

Pruning Nandina easily for Portland residential landscapes

Posted by Carol

· December 27, 2017

Pruning Nandina easily, the perfect low maintenance plant, for Portland residential landscapes

Low Maintenance Shrub (Nandina) for Portland Residential Landscape Design I promised I would follow up from my last blog about Nandina domestica – Heavenly Bamboo and how seriously low maintenance they are. I’ll give you my easy pruning trick for Nandina and you’ll be all set to use this shrub, a low maintenance year round beauty, in your Portland landscape.

What’s the problem with shearing Nandina?

If it’s so easy to prune why do we see so many sad looking Nandina out there? People try to prune them like a boxwood hedge. Boxwoods have a typical shrubs’ woody structure and little tiny leaves. They can be sheared and look pretty good. Nandina are a multiple cane plant with a compound leaf composed of many oval shaped leaves. The best way to ruin their appearance is to shear them into little round balls or squares.

Restore leggy sparse leafed Nandina plants

These photos illustrate embarrassing ugly examples of Nandina out there in commercial and residential landscapes. These sad plants at my local bank have not been pruned at all. If yours look this bad, hold off on tossing them.

Portland Landscape Designer's example of poor pruning technique We could correct these ugly leggy Nandinas’ appearance in one year by applying the pruning technique I have illustrated here. These Nandina domestica ‘Gulfstream’ could look amazing with regular irrigation and pruning once every year or two.

My drawing “Fix Leggy Nandina” illustrates restoring a Nandina that has developed leggy bare canes (or stems if you like). It has no foliage at the base of the plant.

The Cool Trick to Pruning Nandina

The simplest pruning technique is to cut 1/3^rd of the canes to the ground and call it done. This technique will get you a much better plant once the new canes sprout. I control the height by selecting the tallest canes to remove.

You can take your easy pruning a step farther and select another 1/3^rd of the canes and cut them at different heights. If you only have 3 canes to work with it would look like my “Fix Leggy Nandinas” illustration and in one year it would have a new cane with leaves on it sprouting from the ground and the stem you cut back would have new stem and leaves above where you made the cut.

When to Prune Nandina

You can prune nandina any time of year here in the Pacific Northwest. I like to remove canes to use for holiday table decoration in the winter but only from a robust plant with lots of canes. I prefer to do restorative pruning (such as in my illustration “Fix Leggy Nandina”) as early as March or as late as May.

How to Prune Dwarf Nandina

The technique is mostly the same, but dwarf varieties like ‘Firepower’ need almost no pruning to contain height and if they get enough sun, they rarely get leggy. The plant can get too wide so I like to thin a few canes out at the bottom (or up to 1/3rd of my canes) every year to keep the plant from ever getting too wide. This allows the little plant to continue serving as a colorful year round foundation plant for the long term in your landscape. Here is a good video to illustrate pruning the dwarf varieties.

Read my previous blog about Nandina “Colorful Four Season Plant”.

Categories : Garden Tips, Low Maintenance Landscape Examples, New Improved Plants, Plants I Recommend

Tags : dramatic winter plants, evergreen plants w color, fall gardening tips, low maintenance landscape, low maintenance plants, Winter Color in the garden

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

Archive for dramatic winter plants – Page 2

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