SOME PARAGRAPHS NEED PUNCTUATION, and my garden’s like that–in need of the occasional exclamation point, specifically. So for the first time in 30ish years of gardening, I’ve gone and done it: adopted an evergreen “!” to help me state the case. My choice was a columnar American arborvitae, Thuja occidentalis ‘Degroot’s Spire,’ but there are others (especially if you garden in a slightly warmer zone than my 5B). That’s it doing improvised temporary duty in a pot, above, while I figure out where it will really go. More on the topic of vertical accents, in print or podcast: [read more…]
trees & shrubs
punctuating the garden: columnar evergreens
May 10, 2012 at 8:15 am
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must-have (for you and the birds): crabapples
May 1, 2012 at 10:43 am
IT’S HARD TO THINK OF ANOTHER TREE that gets more appreciation here from me and the birds. (And don’t forget: I know what birds like, even beyond crabapples.) This last week has been crabapple time on my hillside (above), and it made me think about how much I love these extra-showy members of the genus Malus, and not just in flower. [read more…]
beloved conifer: prostrate japanese plum yew
April 15, 2012 at 10:06 am
I KILLED, OR AT LEAST MAIMED, ITS UPRIGHT COUSIN. TWICE. But the prostrate-growing Japanese plum yew, Cephalotaxus harringtoniana ‘Prostrata,’ just keeps happily stretching its legs—and arms—on my back hillside. A handsome, heat-tolerant conifer that creates a sprawl of semi-glossy green groundcover in the shade…even though it’s many times wider than any book or other reference promised. More of a good thing, I guess you could say, and also deer-resistant. [read more…]
pruning time (in print or on the podcast)
March 19, 2012 at 11:59 am
LAST WEEK, BETWEEN edits on my next book, I gathered some friends and the proper tools and pruned–trying to erase more damage from last October’s snowstorm, and also the general stuff one needs to do late winter here each year. Lots more to go, but we’re off to a good start–which got me thinking you might be wondering what to prune when and how. That’s the topic of this week’s radio podcast–and also of some useful stories in the A Way to Garden archives: [read more…]
giveaway: q&a with broken arrow’s adam wheeler
March 9, 2012 at 5:19 pm
WHAT I MISS MOST about my Martha job: I had other garden geeks as colleagues, and the chance to talk plants nonstop. These days I pester people like Adam Wheeler of Broken Arrow Nursery in Connecticut instead. The latest in my series of nursery and seed-company Q&As: a chat with Adam about everything from outstanding wildlife shrubs and underused hydrangeas and magnolias; to using variegation in the garden, growing giant pumpkins and more. Plus: a chance to win one of two $25 Broken Arrow gift certificates I’ve bought to share with you. [read more…]
all warm and fuzzy about the world of willows
February 6, 2012 at 12:08 pm
IMARCHED UP THE HILL and stuck my face in a stand of twig willows and dogwoods the other day, starved for some color in this relentlessly mud-toned non-winter. The world looked really bright and shiny through their gold and red twigs, and then I remembered the giant pussy willows (Salix chaenomeloides, cut and stuck in a vase, above) down by the road and went to pay them a visit as well. Time to sound another cry in favor of these easiest of plants–and offer a new source of an incredible variety of willows, in particular. [read more…]
great shrub: intermediate hybrid witch-hazels
January 28, 2012 at 2:55 pm
ILOST A LOT OF SHRUBS last year, between deliberate culling required by the garden’s age (twenty-five overgrown years!) and a freakish late-October snowstorm that then took even more than were in my giveback plans. One silver lining—or should I say golden and coppery, perhaps?—was that spots opened up for some witch-hazels, or Hamamelis, and I’m enjoying the first rewards from my young plants like the intermediate hybrid called ‘Jelena’ (above) right now. [read more…]
body count: what the october snowstorm took
November 13, 2011 at 10:13 am
THE TALLY IS COMPLETE, though I avoided facing it for nearly two weeks. My dear neighbor, Herb, with the smaller of his trusty chainsaws, did the deed: took down the disfigured or otherwise devastated woody plants that the freakish October 2011 snowstorm maimed. I walked around with him the other day, once I had gotten past the initial shock, and pointed: Take the left side of this; this one goes completely; remove the three broken stems from that one. And then I went out for the afternoon, returning only after all evidence was erased. (Wimpy, I know.) The body count: [read more…]
giveaway: dirr’s dangerous new woody-plant bible
November 9, 2011 at 11:44 am
MAKE ROOM ON THE SHELF—a big, fat space in a prominent spot, since you’ll be reaching for it a lot—and also in your garden. With Mike Dirr’s massive new “Dirr’s Encyclopedia of Trees and Shrubs,” all 3,500 photographs and 3,700 species and cultivars of it, the man we’ve relied on for decades to tell us what’s what in woody plants outdoes even himself. By the time I’d gotten through the “A’s,” I had a list so long of new must-have’s (Abies and Acer, especially–oh, those firs and maples!) that I’d have to rate this book as not just “smart, opinionated, comprehensive, wonderful,” which is what it says in my blurb on the back cover, but “dangerous,” too. So like I said, make room–maybe for the copy that I bought to share with a lucky one of you? [read more…]
