AT MY PLACE EVERY MANNER OF PLANT CAN GO IN POTS: annuals, perennials, young trees, shrubs. And some of the things in pots go, pot and all, into the water. How about we take a swim?
everybody into the pool, er, pots
June 5, 2008 at 7:06 am
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on garden visiting: ‘if only…’
June 4, 2008 at 5:32 am
SERIOUS GARDEN-VISITING SEASON KICKED OFF for me on Monday, meaning visitors besides the usual amphibian suspects like this guy who wait on the doorstep for me to come play each day. Them I can deal with, but the human types! Yikes. My brain spirals, and I keep hearing the same thought over and again in my head while walking guests around: If only you’d come last week (when the lilacs were still blooming). If only you’d come week after next (when the next wave of perennial geraniums and later alliums are happening, since all that’s happening now are faded early ones of each). Shoulda, coulda, woulda…if only. Seeing the holes, not the whole. Bad girl. And more visitors (you, maybe?) are coming soon. Uh-oh.
from the forums: pruning viburnums
June 3, 2008 at 3:47 pm
WHEN TO PRUNE VIBURNUMS? That timely question was raised this week on the Urgent Garden Question Forums. “When is the best time to prune large viburnum shrubs?” asked Forum member ZSteinberg. “Two are double-file, three are American cranberrybush and I don’t know the names of the other three. Any general recommendations?”
I have grown a lot of viburnums over the years, and have pruned them at various times of year for one reason or another. Usually viburnums need relatively little pruning, assuming you planted the right cultivar in the right-sized space (for example, not ‘Mariesii’ among the doublefiles, shown, but ‘Watanabei’ if you only had a smallish area). Even the lightest form of pruning, the removal of spent flowers called deadheading, isn’t needed with most viburnums, since what you want is fruit after the flowers (unlike all that deadheading with lilacs, for instance, to prevent messiness).
species peonies, part 2
June 2, 2008 at 6:49 pm
JUST OVER TWO WEEKS AGO, the earlier of my species peonies got their portraits taken and a chance to show themselves off to you. Now Paeonia veitchii, from alpine meadows and steppes of northwest China and thereabouts, wants your attention. Interested?
