Rescuing Clearance Rack Perennials

June 5, 2019plantsballoon flower, bees, butterflies, coreopsis, daisy, flower garden, flowers, gardening, herb garden, perennials, plants, poppy, speedwellarthurized 1 Comment

While shopping for deer fence T-posts, I happened upon several racks of clearance perennials marked down to $1 each. Of course I loaded up my cart! Some of the blooms were ready for deadheading, but the leaves looked fresh and healthy. I figured these underdogs were worth a chance.

Perennial flowers are fantastic because you do the work of planting once, and are rewarded with year after year of blooms. Given the right growing conditions, most perennials are easy care, requiring only deadheading and occasional dividing.

We purchased these for the herb garden, because that is the sunniest area of our property. They range in height from 6″ to just over 2′ tall, so they shouldn’t shade other sun loving plants nearby.

Thinking about their mature size, bloom time and relation to neighboring plants, I placed them around the garden. I like to arrange them in irregular shaped, odd numbered groupings of 3, 5 or 7 of the same plant. This gives the garden visual ‘flow’ and is more appealing than planting in straight rows, as you would in a vegetable garden.

Here’s what we planted:

Balloon Flowers – one blue, one white
I’ve wanted to try balloon flowers forever. These deer resistant plants are whimsical and fun. They both had tags showing blue flowers, so the white one was a surprise!

Poppy
This one is a mystery plant only because I misplaced the tag. Oops! I seem to recall that it is an orange variety.

Darling Daisy™ Shasta Daisy
Daisies were my husband’s great aunt Ruth’s favorite flower, so I remember her fondly when I see these. This variety is fairly compact, growing to just 12″ tall. I deadhead these about once a week, and they are blooming their little hearts out.

Dwarf Coreopsis
We picked up nine of these, and I’m hoping they will provide a sea of golden blooms. They grow to 12″ tall, and bloom from spring through fall.

Giles Van Hees Speedwell – These tiny flowers bloom in summer. They seem a little finicky and we’ve already lost two of the five that we purchased. (R.I.P., little guys) I’m holding my breath that the remaining three will settle into the garden nicely.

Little Women Daylily – I’m not sure where we are in the bloom cycle, but I suspect that we’re done for the year. I bought three of these for their unusual, peach color which will pair nicely with the nearby lavender.

Hopefully our plants will be happy here, and provide some interest to the garden. They’ve already drawn the attention of neighborhood butterflies, so we think the bees will find them soon as well.

How about you? Do you take pity on the clearance rack plants, and take them home?

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Grow Free Hydrangeas Through Layering

April 24, 2019plantsarthurized home, colorful cottage living, cottage garden, free plants, home gardener, hydrangeas, layering, plantsarthurized 1 Comment

We have five large Nikko Blue hydrangeas, and I’d love to create a long sweep of them in our yard. They’re planted just opposite my kitchen window and bloom from June through the first frost. Last fall, I layered them in the hopes of gaining loads of baby plants (layers) for free. I layered 20 branches and 16 of them have taken root.

The layering process is super simple and I hope you will give it a try. A note about timing: I do this at the end of summer, while the branches are flexible enough to bend to the ground without breaking. In Virginia, this means mid-late October. I’ve read that you can layer plants in the spring, but I haven’t tried it.

You will need:

An established, healthy “mother” hydrangea – ask a friend if you can layer theirs if you don’t have one

Rocks, bricks, small children or other heavy object(s) for weight

Shovel or trowel

Wintertime and patience

Find a healthy, lower branch of the plant. I select branches that are leafy, with no flowers. Without disturbing the leaves at the tip, break off the next lower set of leaves down to the branch. The place where you removed the leaves is the node.

Gently lower the node to the ground, loosen the soil under it and then pile at least an inch of soil on top of the node. Place a rock or brick on top to weight it down securely. Water the mother plant occasionally if needed.

Wait until Spring and check on your plants. New growth at the tip of the branch indicates that your baby plant has taken root.

Leaving the rock or brick in place, snip the branch between the weight and the mother plant as below and give the baby a few weeks of living on its own before transplanting. Be sure to water the layer baby daily until it is established, more often in hot weather. If the baby is very small, you might wish to delay transplanting for an entire growing season.

When transplanting small plants like these, I dig a hole about 12″ deep and 12″ across. Make sure the roots have plenty of loose soil to grow into. I like to mix in a little garden soil to lighten up our heavy clay soil. Once you’ve transplanted the babies, they will need some TLC. Water them each morning for a few weeks and then as needed until they are established.

I’ve only done this with hydrangeas, but I understand this works for other plants such as forsythia, rhododendron, azalea. I would love to know if you try it and how the process works for you.

Happy gardening!

PJM Rhododendrons – A tale of massacre and despair

April 17, 2019plantsarthurized home, colorful cottage living, darn deer, fall gardening, PJM rhododendron, plants, woodland gardeningarthurized 3 Comments

My husband is crazy about rhododendrons. He loves them because they are showy, easy care and grow well in deep shade; which we’ve got in spades. I suspect he also loves them because in order to really see them in their splendor, you must be in the woods; his happy place. Last fall, we planted four PJMs and carefully tended them while they were settling in to their new home.

A few months later, we noticed the leaves turning yellow and falling off. It was an extremely rainy fall; did they get too much water? Maybe we planted them in the wrong area? Were they getting too much sun? We had no idea.

Shortly after that, we saw to our horror, that the neighborhood thugs (also known as deer) had come through and eaten the ends off every single branch of all four plants! They’d shown no mercy. It looked like we had wandered through the yard picking up sticks after a wind storm and decided to shove them into the ground instead of the burn pile.

Deerscouraged – Yes, it’s a word. I just invented it.
deers·cour·aged/dirˈskərijd/adjective
having lost confidence or enthusiasm for gardening in deer country; disheartened. “she must be feeling pretty deerscouraged”

Dejected, we paid a visit to the nursery where we purchased the rhododendrons, looking for a glimmer of hope for these little guys. The owner guessed that the wet weather had contributed to the leaves falling off. She encouraged us to leave them alone and wait until spring to see if they came back.

Well, this story has a happy ending (or middle?) because the plants have budded out and are blooming today. We’re hopeful that healthy leaves will return this year.

UPDATE:
A few weeks later, the leaves have returned to the PJMs, they’re growing like crazy and seem to be very healthy!

If you’d like to try PJMs in your landscape, you can read more about them here:
https://www.monrovia.com/plant-catalog/plants/280/pjm-rhododendron/

Seed Starting Pots – A Recycling Project

March 27, 2019plantsarthurized home, colorful cottage living, garden with kids, plants, recycle, repurpose, seed savers exchange, seed starting, seedsarthurized 2 Comments

Do you know that you’ve got an endless supply of seed starting pots in your home? Well, they’re not pots yet. They’re more commonly known as empty paper towel and toilet paper rolls! (I’m trying to refrain from potty puns.)

If you’re using paper towel rolls, cut them in half or thirds.
(Do you think my background looks like tiny rolls of toilet paper?)

Open up the tube and pinch the first folds together and press flat again to form a square.
Measure across the top; mine is just over one inch.

Use half of that measurement to mark the fold lines. My fold line is 1/2″ from the bottom.

Using sturdy scissors, cut along each of the 4 corners up to the fold line. You don’t have to mark the flaps A, B, C & D. I’ve done that to better explain this step. I hope!

Now fold each flap toward the center of the pot. Starting from the top (A),
work clockwise (B, C). When you reach the flap on the left (D), tuck the top half of it
under the first flap (A). That will secure the bottom of the pot.

You want the pot to close tightly at the bottom so the soil is contained.
If yours has a gap, re-fold the flap a little higher until the gap is closed.

Now you have a little seed starting pot!
But he needs some friends.

Fill with potting soil and plant those seeds!

When your seedlings are ready to transplant into a larger pot or the garden, open the flaps and plant it whole. Or, carefully cut the side of the pot open from top to bottom without disturbing the roots. The pot will decompose over time. Happy gardening!

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