ITS NEWISH NAME SOUNDS LIKE something you’d take antibiotics to kill off, but in fact Eleutherococcus sieboldianus ‘Variegatus,’ or five-leaf aralia, is the plant that you can count on for spots where everything else dies. (It should have been called cast-iron plant, I think, but Aspidistra long ago laid claim to that common name.) A splashily cream-variegated shrub of maybe 6 or 8 feet high and wide for any condition but waterlogged soil—sun to substantial shade—it’s moderately deer-resistant, too. It’s so cooperative, you can even shear Eleutherococcus as a hedge. I bet you have a spot for such a wonderful and willing thing, deserving not just of problem-solving garden spots but also front-and-center placement. [read more…]
deciduous
tough beauty: the shrub called eleutherococcus
June 16, 2013 at 6:21 am
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building raised beds, and choosing crabapples: radio q&a
May 7, 2013 at 7:26 am
AS PROMISED: On this week’s public-radio show (available anytime as a podcast, too), I answered some of your recent Urgent Garden Questions. The topics ranged from how deep to build a raised bed for vegetables, to a whole range of crabapple inquiries: What’s the best crabapple variety for jelly, the crabapple with longest-lasting fruit, and more. All the details–plus the links to the show if you prefer to listen, not read. [read more…]
growing native fruit trees: pawpaws and persimmons, with lee reich
April 29, 2013 at 12:23 pm
APPLES TREES—the fruit everyone thinks they want in their backyards—aren’t easy to grow East of the Rockies, as those who have tried probably noticed when they produced blemished fruit (or required multiple pest-defeating tactics on a strict schedule). And if you’re keeping track, apples aren’t native. Fruit expert Lee Reich offers up two unusual but delicious American native fruit-tree beauties that require little more than to be planted. In print or the latest public-radio podcast, how to grow pawpaws (top photo) and persimmons to perfection. [read more…]
beating forsythia to spring’s flowering-shrub punch: a slideshow of earliest-blooming stars
April 28, 2013 at 9:41 am
LOCAL FORSYTHIA opened fully this last week, but even if they hadn’t, I’d already be on my eighth species of spring-flowering shrub, happily surrounded by delicate blossoms, some of which are even fragrant. My best early blooming shrubs you may wish to invite into your home landscape, too, with a slideshow: [read more…]
pruning willow, and the best salix varieties
April 13, 2013 at 8:15 am
‘IT’S ENDLESS,” plantsman Michael Dodge of Vermont Willow Nursery was saying over the phone the other day, alluding to the possibilities of the genus Salix—the willows to which he has been devoting the recent chapter of his impressive horticultural career. We narrowed it down to some best-of willow selections from more than 150 in his collection—best willows for outsmarting deer; winter interest; abundant flowers and even best for making honey if you’re a beekeeper—and I also got a brutal tutorial on willow pruning (also known as coppicing) to share with you. [read more…]
