Oregon-based Terra Nova Nursery has come out with a ‘Soda Series’ of coral bells that include cultivars named ‘Root Beer’, ‘Ginger Ale,’ and ‘Cherry Cola’. We bought ‘Cherry Cola,’ a compact plant with rounded leaves that morph between red and chocolate brown (more red), this year. It grows to be about 6 inches tall and 14 inches wide making it well suited for a container or the front of a border.
But what really distinguishes Heuchera ‘Cherry Cola’ from other colorful coral bells is its flower. In the spring it produces a rich display of cherry red flowers that cover the plant and creates quite a sensation. It is also fairly winter hardy and the deer tend to place coral bells fairly low on their menu. It is happiest in part shade but can handle sun and shade.
For answers to some of the questions that have been left in the comments see this follow-up post.
Ed. note: Earlier this week I went for a walk in the Conservatory courtyard and spotted a beautiful Mandevilla vine growing vigorously in a container. I tweeted a picture of it, and almost immediately we got a reply from Twitter-user Jacqueline Lewis asking what is the best method for over-wintering this beautiful vine. It seemed like a really good question, so I put it to Gardener for Public Education, Sonia Uyterhoeven. Her answer is below. ~ A.R.
Mandevilla (Mandevilla splendens) is native to Brazil. It has glossy leaves and striking trumpet shaped flowers. It is generally grown as a vine but can also be pruned to maintain a shrub-like upright shape. Mandevilla (Mandevilla x amabilis) is a hybrid that grows to be a large vine reaching 8 to 10 feet tall. They are generally grown on trellis.
Both the species and the cultivated variety love light and good drainage. Wait until it starts to dry out before you water. Fertilize your mandevilla every other week with a liquid fertilizer when it is actively growing. Unlike many tropical plants, mandevilla does not like to be pot bound so give it room to grow.
Mandevilla are not hardy in our area, USDA Zone 6, so you have two options if you would like to over-winter your vine. The first option is to bring it into your home. If you have enough space and a bright sunny window then move the container inside once the weather starts to cool down.
We have all heard that ‘cabbage is king’ although I doubt many of us know why.
It is certainly a stately vegetable, its elegant heads outshine all other vegetables in an ornamental vegetable garden. And in past centuries, it was a staple in many diets; it stores well and can easily feed a large family. It also had a reputation for ‘medicinal’ properties. Cabbage is high in vitamin C and fiber, has anti-inflammatory and anti-bacterial properties and historically was used as a cure for ulcers and cancer. But are these reasons for such a regal appellation?
I read on the news recently that a retired dentist, Steve Hubacek, won first place in the Alaska State Fair for the largest cabbage. His entry weighed 126 pounds and measured four feet tall and seven feet across. This year’s entry was just shy of the Guinness World Record, already held by Huacek, of 127 pounds.
I have no idea what you would do with all that cabbage, or if the mammoth beast would even taste good (World Record-holding pumpkins certainly do not). I like sauerkraut but that’s a lot of sauerkraut even if you stretch it out over six months (which is generally the length of time that you can keep homemade sauerkraut).
Even if you’re not planning to compete at the State Fair, you should still consider growing cabbage in your own garden.
An indispensable addition to any late summer garden is the hummingbird mints (Agastache). They are magnets for butterflies and hummingbirds and generally flower from July well into October.
They are heat tolerant candidates for your garden that thrive in xeric gardens with low fertility. They are in the mint family but are the well-behaved cousin that doesn’t run all over the place. With their fragrant foliage, they are deer and rabbit resistant.
We have several cultivars of Agastache in our Trial Bed Garden in the Home Gardening Center. At the end of the Trial Bed we have a tall upright cultivar called Agastache ‘Heatwave’. It reaches between 3-4 feet tall and has deliciously fragrant blue green foliage. It is covered at this time of year with raspberry colored tubular flowers. Based on its growth habit it is an ideal candidate for the middle of a border.
At the other end of the bed is a more compact hummingbird mint named Agastache ‘Acapulco Salmon & Pink™’. It is part of a popular Acapulco series that come in a variety of colors. As the name suggests it has a pretty blend of salmon and pink flowers. The shape of this hummingbird mint is reminiscent of a catmint (Nepeta) and it sprawls to form a low-growing mound that produces colorful spires of flowers.
After several spates of sizzling summer weather, many gardeners were left looking for drought tolerant alternatives to lush perennial garden plantings. One perennial that has been a stalwart of my garden has been tickseeds or coreopsis.
The odd common name of tickseed comes from the fact that people used to think the seed head looked like a tick. There are a number of species of tickseed but one of the most popular and drought tolerant species is the thread-leaf tickseed, Coreopsis verticillata.
Tickseeds are in the Asteraceae family. They tend to form 1-2 foot mounds that are covered with daisy-like flowers. They are tough customers that don’t shy away from the summer heat and have the added bonus of being deer resistant. Many cultivars flower from June through September–and sometimes into October–and are known for their flower power.
The Home Gardening Center features a number of cultivars which include a few winners in the world of coreopsis. One of my favorites is ‘Route 66’. It is an interesting alternative to your predominately yellow tickseeds. This cultivar has a red eye that bleeds into the yellow petals to produce a brilliant contrast.
Last week we looked at coral bells and covered some of the dark leaved options that are grown in this garden and easy to find on the market. This week we are going to look at some spectacular options for sunny sites.
Coral bells were traditionally thought of as shade lovers. Heuchera villosa, however, is a species that is native to southeastern U.S. It is an adaptable species that thrives in full sun to part shade, grows happily in soils ranging from slightly wet to slightly dry and is unfazed by high humidity. Understandably, it is a popular plant for southern gardens.
Hybridizers have latched on to this species and it is now part of the parentage of many successful hybrids. The French hybridizer, Thierry Delabroye has taken the world of coral bells by storm by flooding the market with a number of mouthwatering cultivars that are designed to make you either hungry or thirsty. Delabroye’s offerings include cultivars such as ‘Carmel’, ‘Brownies’, ‘Mocha’, ‘Pistache’, ‘Tiramisu’, ‘Pinot Gris’, and ‘Beaujolais’. We have used a number of these cultivars in container displays. This year we are growing ‘Brownies’ in the Trial Bed Garden in the Home Gardening Center.
The reputation of Heuchera ‘Brownies’ as an attractive and adaptable coral bell is attested to by the fact that it is flourishing in the challenging environment of New York’s High Line park. Its foliage emerges brown and then transforms into a greenish brown with a rich purple-red underside. Like the majority of Heuchera villosa hybrids it features large foliage and has a fuzzy texture. It grows over a foot tall and forms a generous two foot clump.
When I started gardening, I thought of coral bells (Heuchera) as a pleasant choice for the front of a shade border or a nice accent in a tapestry of low growing woodland inhabitants.
I now have a much deeper appreciation for this versatile plant. While some of it has to do with an increased knowledge in horticulture, and a better understanding of the dynamics of design and what constitutes a garden-worthy plant, part of my growing admiration comes from the vast strides that have been made by hybridizers over the past decade.
In our Trial Bed Garden in the Home Gardening Center we have a bed that is devoted to coral bells. It has been there several years so I have been able to watch and see not only how the Huechera have performed during the growing season but also how they have held up over several winters.
On one end of the bed we have planted a coral bell named ‘Black Out.’ One objective of Heuchera hybridizing programs has been a search for the coral bell with the darkest foliage. The results has been a number of newer cultivars that range from chocolate brown to deep burgundy brown, with the ultimate goal of producing a Huechera with true-black foliage.
Heuchera ‘Black Out’ is one of the blackest coral bells on the market. It has glossy deep burgundy foliage that transitions into black with burgundy overtones on its undersides. ‘Black Out’s maple-shaped foliage is medium sized and has a compact shape (without being too small) that makes it ideal for container plantings. All of the plants survived this past winter, although a few of them died back a little and are not as vigorous this year. In general, however, their performance has been good.
Another winner in our Trial Bed Garden is Heuchera ‘Frosted Violet Dream’. This coral bell has deep burgundy foliage that is mottled with silver. The maple-shaped foliage shimmers in a garden setting. It is another medium sized coral bell that is a vigorous grower with a spectacular performance record in this garden. In early to mid summer this coral bell is covered with an attractive haze of dainty pink flowers.
One of the casualties in our garden this year was a cultivar called ‘Sugar Plum’. While it performed beautifully last season, it struggled over the winter and we ended up replacing it this year. We were growing this cultivar in full sun whereas it would normally be happier in part shade. I am not sure if that contributed to its demise; poor drainage is a more likely explanation.
I would love to hear back with your experiences. What are your favorite black coral bells on the market and how do they perform in your gardens? Next time we will look at some coral bells that are ideal for tough, sunny locations: the Heuchera villosa hybrids.
Daylilies start appearing in the garden in June, but the heyday for these flowers is in July. Starting from the beginning of July until the third or fourth week our Daylily Walk is awash with color. This is happening right now at the Garden!
Daylilies are generally grown for their large, trumpet shaped blossoms that jump out at you in a mixed planting, shouting ‘look at me’. And you should; they come in a vast array of shapes, colors and sizes and there are over 52,000 cultivars to choose from–many of them garden worthy companions.
When you are navigating catalogs and descriptions to find a daylily that suits your gardening style there is a basic terminology that is helpful to know. The throat is the interior of the flower, the eye zone lies just above it forming a band of color on the petals, and a halo is a faint band of color.
Some daylilies are bi-colored, some are doubles and some have a graceful recurved (curling backwards) shapes. While size, color and form are generally the attributes that gardeners assess when buying a daylily, fragrance is another factor to consider.
Snapdragons (Antirrhinum) are a terrific addition to an early season annual display but unfortunately once the heat of summer is upon us they tend to fade quite quickly. An easy solution to recapture the look of elegant vertical spires covered with blossoms is to swap them out with summer snapdragons (Angelonia).
This year in the Home Gardening Center our first Trial Bed is full of a number of varieties of summer snapdragons. There are two cultivars in this bed that I am unfamiliar with and am excited to watch them grow.
One is the cascading Angelonia ‘Carita™ Cascade Raspberry’. It reaches only 8-10 inches tall, yet spills over to form a 20 inch cascading mound. It doesn’t require any deadheading and like other summer snapdragons it is deer resistant and heat and drought tolerant. This is a candidate that would be ideal spilling over the edge of a container or at the front of a border. It would partner beautifully with a dark-leaved coral bell (Heuchera).
The other cultivar is called Angelonia ‘Serena™ Lavender Pink’. She gets 10 to 12 inches tall and just as wide. ‘Serena™ Lavender Pink’ has already filled out beautifully in the garden and formed a nice clump. The lavender pink color of the blossom will blend with just about anything. This cheerful annual looks genteel with the silvery foliage of trailing licorice plant (Helichrysum petiolare) and white fan flower (Scaevola ‘Bombay White’).
Other summer snapdragons in the Trial Bed are from the AngelFace® and AngelMist™ series. These summer snapdragons tend to be 18-24 inches tall and fill out beautifully during the course of the summer to form a substantial plant. The other year I accidentally paired the bicolored (purple and white) ‘AngelFace® Wedgewood Blue’ with an apricot nasturtium (Tropaeolum ‘Tip Top Apricot’) for a beautiful display.
While these summer snapdragons are advertised as requiring no deadheading, they do benefit from occasional deadheading which cleans them up and encourages more new growth. They will grow and flower profusely regardless. While they can handle drought they also grow well in average garden soil. This is an easy, no fuss annual that performs consistently all season long.
See a slideshow of the Home Gardening Center’s Angelonia below!
The best pruning jobs begin with a goal, a determination of what needs to be accomplished–reducing size, controlling shape, rejuvenating growth. As with all pruning jobs, removing the dead and diseased wood is the first call of order. Then take a step back and look at the framework before moving ahead with your mission.
The best time to prune azaleas and rhododendrons is immediately after bloom into mid-July. If you wait too long, buds will already have formed for the following year. In general, azaleas and rhododendrons need minimal pruning.
Reducing Size
To reduce the height of an azalea while allowing it to retain its natural appearance, follow the branch targeted for removal down to a lower lateral branch, and make a cut just above the point of intersection. The cut should be slightly above where the two branches intersect so as not to cut into the tissue of the branch that will remain.
Another way of reducing the size of an azalea is to cut it back to just above a whorls of leaves. Also look for circular scars around the stem, where leaves once were. Cutting just above these areas should create good bud break. In either case, make the cut just above new buds, whether they are visible or latent.
Controlling Shape
Evergreen azaleas can be sheared back to form nice mounds if desired. If you are pruning the azalea into a mound, remember to occasionally open up the plant and let some light penetrate into the dense mass of foliage so that it doesn’t get too congested.
If you’d like to make a young azalea or rhododendron more compact and well-branched, the easiest thing to do is to pinch off the vegetative buds in spring. First take a look at the plant to familiarize yourself with the bud system. The fat swollen buds are flower buds. These form in the previous season and overwinter, and you’ll want to leave these alone. They are generally twice the size of the vegetative buds, which are the narrower, pencil-like, smaller buds.
