Issue 136
August 2023
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Looking for more summer color?
Try summer blooming Azaleas!
Every summer when it seems like it’s the very first scorching hot day, I notice my summer blooming Azalea just beginning to flower. Typically, this is mid-July in the Pioneer valley. If you love Azaleas and Rhododendrons, it’s great to have options to extend the blooming season past the spring and early summer. The summer blooming Azaleas are hybrids between some of our native species, this imparts them with increased cold tolerance and superior flowering. What is the difference between Azaleas and Rhododendrons? Botanically they are in the same genus or family, Rhododendron. They are categorized by anatomical differences in their flower forms. Azaleas have tubular or funnel-shaped flowers. Rhododendron flowers tend to be bell-shaped. Azaleas have one flower per stem, but the shrub produces so many stems that the shrub appears covered in blossoms. Rhododendron flowers grow in round clusters at the ends of branches.
Last winter was extremely hard on many species of spring flowering plants, and many gardeners had sparse or no flowers on their Azaleas and Rhododendrons. The warm winter followed by a sudden extreme temperature drop over the weekend of February 4TH caused the death of flower buds on many spring blooming trees and shrubs. So, I was very surprised to see my Azalea ‘Lollipop’ bloom as if nothing happened at all when other Azalea species had no flowers this year. Lollipop has very showy trumpet shaped flowers with long frilly stamens, bloom in a shell pink color, with vibrant, peachy-yellow throats. They are also very sweetly fragrant, as a bonus. This class of Azalea are deciduous plants, and their leaves turn brilliant shades of red and burgundy in the fall before they drop.
‘Lollipop’ Azalea
This shrub does best in full sun to partial shade. You may want to keep it away from very hot, dry locations that receive direct late afternoon sun, but mine is planted against the south side of my house off the driveway, and it thrives there. It does best with evenly moist well-drained soil for optimal growth. Like all Azaleas it prefers rich, acidic soil with added organic matter to improve water retention. It’s helpful to apply mulch around the root zone to protect it in exposed locations or colder microclimates, and to help conserve soil moisture.
‘Lemon Drop’ Azalea
Weston Nursery in Hopkinton, MA have bred over a dozen cultivars of interspecific Azalea hybrids. They range in color from pure white: ‘Innocence’ Azalea, to deep red: ‘Red Salute’. ‘Lemon Drop’ Azalea’s blooms are butter yellow, and some outstanding summer blooming Azaleas in pink shades too. At maturity they will grow 5-8 ft tall x 5-8ft wide, depending on the cultivar. Most are very fragrant, and blooms times can range from June through the end of July.
‘Innocence’ Azalea
Another summer blooming member of the Rhododendron family is our native Rosebay Rhododendron, R. maximum. If you have the space for it, Rosebay Rhododendron is a good candidate for a low maintenance hedgerow or screen, that also attracts bees, butterflies, and other pollinators. This species will grow into a massive, rounded shrub, that can spread via suckering, forming a natural fence. It is considered hardy to zone 3, so it is very cold tolerant. Blooms occur in July; pink buds open to apple-blossom pink clusters of flowers. R. maximum lives up to its name; at maturity can reach 15-20 ft tall x 15-20 ft wide.
Rosebay Rhododendron
August’s to-do list
As we begin the month of August, I can’t help but reflect back to August 2022. We were in desperate need of rain, all of MA was in drought. So, when I wrote in last month’s newsletter going forward into summer, we should be prepared for anything; nothing could have prepared me for the events of last Friday, 7/21/23. Two weeks after the drenching heavy rain and floods locally, and terrible damage in NY and VT, the town of Deerfield received upwards of 10” of rain in just a few hours. This has caused millions of dollars in damage throughout our town. We personally had a landslide from the force of the water running down an embankment in our backyard, bringing down tons of mud, huge rocks, and debris. I’m left trying to sort out how to fix this and manage the problem going forward.
What a way to start August! On a positive note, I did harvest the garlic before the deluge, and it is nice to know that we will enjoy the bounty from our garden in the months to come. The rest of the veggie garden is not doing well with all the heavy rain, and I may have to resign myself to this being “One of those years.” Fingers crossed.
If you have empty garden beds after the first flush of harvest, re-seed with arugula, lettuce, chard, beets, and spinach. These fast-growing crops all love the cooler weather of late summer/fall. Stagger sowing your seeds every 10 days so, they won’t all be ready at once. Lettuce, arugula, spinach, radish, and even garden peas can be successfully grown as a fall crop. A fresh crop of young basil would be excellent to pair with the bounty of summer tomatoes available this month. These fresh plants will also adapt better to indoor life, should you want to bring them in as potted herbs, than older, basil plants. I have successfully dug up and potted parsley for life as an indoor plant in late summer. It beats buying bunches of cut parsley that always seems to go mushy in the fridge. They thrive on any sunny windowsill. I can cut leaves as needed.
Make spring 2021 a bit more beautiful, by planning to add to or start a new bulb garden. Bulbs are easy to plant, and bulb planting is a fun, kid-centered project too! Order your spring blooming bulbs now for the best selection. Choose varieties that will bloom during early, mid, and late spring for an extended bloom season. Although deer and rodents are known for eating Tulips and Crocus, there are many species of showy spring blooming bulbs that they won’t eat. Daffodils and Narcissus have a noxious substance that deters browsing, and ornamental Onions (Alliums) also repel animals from eating them. Other animal resistant bulbs to try: Camassia, and Fox-tail lily, Snowdrops, and winter Aconite for outstanding blooms in your spring garden.
It’s been a tough summer for roses, but nature prevails, and they will naturally begin to slow their growth with shorter days ahead. Allow roses to begin their ‘hardening off’ for winter by discontinuing fertilizer application. If you routinely use rose spray for mildew, you should continue to do so; all our wet weather has created ideal conditions for mold growth. To minimize overwintering of mold spores and insect eggs, be sure to clear away any diseased leaves, and deadhead any spent flowers. During a mild fall, we may still have rose blooms right up to a hard frost.
Peonies are very long-lived perennials that require minimal care but do benefit from occasional division. If you’ve had a clump growing for a long time, it may be time to divide them to reinvigorate the plant. Dividing your peonies allows the ‘mother-plant’ some room to spread out in a crowded flower bed. It also gives you the benefit of getting some healthy clumps to plant in other places; particularly advantageous for a special variety you’d like to have more of.
Some houseplants need a bit of cooler weather to initiate bud development, for example the Christmas and Thanksgiving cacti (not cacti at all, but their common name). But most of our houseplant varieties are tropical species, and don’t like nighttime temperatures much below 50’F. Begin to make your houseplants ready for indoor life again, so you don’t need to rush during the first cold snap. You may need to re-pot those that have outgrown their containers. Take steps to prevent bringing in insect pests, by applying a systemic pesticide, or spraying with neem oil or Safer’s soap solution.
Need a hand dividing your peonies or planning a bulb garden? Contact our office: info@countrysidelandscape.net or (413) 458-5586
Can adapting our planting habits create
happier plants?
If we observe how plants grow in the wild, it can illustrate how truly different our cultivated gardens are. Plants are social creatures; having evolved to be members of diverse social networks. For example, in the wild almost all the soil is covered with groups of interconnected plants. In our garden beds, plants are often arranged as solitary specimens surrounded by seas of bark mulch.
Many plants have adapted to grow amongst other plant communities; Asclepias tuberosa, a monarch attracting plant, will push forth flowers at the same height as the grass it grows with. It has developed leaves and roots equipped to grow through the dense foliage and fibrous roots of its companion plants.
Native Asclepias tuberosa growing through other native plants
According to Thomas Rainer; author with Claudia West of “Planting in a Post-Wild World: Designing Plant Communities for Resilient Landscapes”, the next wave in horticulture will be planting in communities of interrelated species. This concept is a hybrid of ecology and horticulture, fusing the functionality and biodiversity of ecology, with the beauty, color, and order of horticulture.
Research developed by Richard Hansen & Friedrich Stahl created a scale to rank a plant’s ‘sociability’ and inclination to spread on a scale of 1 to 5. A low sociability plant is almost always found growing by itself in the wild. A high sociability plant will spread to form large colonies. Plants are arranged by the sociability ranking. Plants with low numbers (1,2) will be set individually or in small groups, higher ranking plants (3-5) get planted in swaths of 10-20, arranged loosely around the other types.
This helps to explain why sometimes our plant grouping just always seem to need help to grow well. Large groups of Echinacea (Purple Coneflower) always seem to flop over, and masses of phlox and Monarda (Bee Balm) invariably get mildew (both are ranked as level 1 in sociability) in the wild, tall phlox usually grows up through much shorter plants (providing support), and because of good air circulation, never gets mildew.
Purple Coneflower growing through native grasses
There is a wealth of accessible information, virtually at our fingertips, on what species of plants to grow for different environmental conditions, but little written about how to group them so they will co-exist harmoniously. If we study a plant’s shape, this will help us to understand its sociability ranking. Upright or spiky plants with low or minimal basal (very low to the ground) foliage have adapted to grow up and through other plant groups. Spreading, and suckering plants are adapted to grow beneath other taller species.
‘Layering’ your garden plants this way will create a biodiverse ground-cover layer, and a more design-oriented upper layer. So, take a second look at your garden; how social are your plants?
Thinking ahead…
I love to surround my outdoor sitting areas with colorful plants and flowers. With a bit of planning and daily care, my payoff is weeks of colorful foliage and flowers. To be assured of getting the best performance from my plants, I try to pick mainstays that will bloom through adverse conditions and over as many weeks as possible. Sometimes I may fill in here or there with a showy filler annual bedding plant. I also use my collection of tropical plants to create a unique garden space. Here are my recommendations for perennials that can take whatever nature brings, and bloom for at least four weeks.
Echinacea purpurea, Purple Coneflower. Although the common name of this prairie native is ‘Purple Coneflower’, the most marketed varieties now are the fancy orange, pink or red flowered types. For hardiness and reliability, you can’t beat the cultivars Magnus or the petite ‘Kim’s Knee High’. Purple Coneflowers do best in full sun, the tall types can grow 3-4 feet tall, dwarf cultivars can range 18-24” tall. A good deer Resistant plant, and a pollinator magnate.
Echinacea purpurea
Asclepias tuberosa, native Butterfly Weed loves hot and dry garden beds. It is much loved and sought out by butterflies, especially Monarchs, hummingbirds, and bees. There are several cultivars available, so you can choose between yellow and orange varieties. Butterfly Weed is not fussy at all about soil type, but they do want a higher pH (7.0) than most plants. Asclepias tuberosa grows 2’ X 2’, needs at least 6 hours of sun daily, will bloom the whole summer if dead-headed; makes a good cut flower. Deer will not typically browse this plant.
Asclepias tuberosa
Geranium cantabrigiense ‘Biokovo’, perennial Cranesbill has a lot going for it, for a diminutive plant. Growing only 6-12” tall, Biokovo blooms for weeks from late spring to early summer. The fragrant leaves form a tight mat, so this Geranium also makes a good ground cover, or front of the border plant. As a bonus, the leaves blush brilliant reddish-purple in the fall, creating a lush purple carpet before winter.. Geranium Biokovo will grow in full sun to mostly shade, including dry shade. A good deer resistant plant.
Geranium cantabrigiense ‘Biokovo’
Perovskia atriplicifolia, Russian Sage is not a member of the Salvia or true sage family. It is related to mint and has mildly aromatic silver foliage, that does smell like sage. Lilac purple flowers bloom for weeks on long spikes that resemble lavender flowers. Russian sage is sometimes called a sub-shrub because it will form a woody framework of branches each season, then die to the ground over winter. Perovskia will bloom from July through September, and neither heat, drought nor pests bother it, including deer. Russian Sage grows 3-4’ tall and thrives in full hot sun. Attracts bees, butterflies and other pollinators.
Perovskia atriplicifolia
Salvia nemorosa ‘Plumosa’, meadow sage, also produces good cut flowers. Unusual plume-like spikes of deep rosy-lilac bloom for many weeks. Crinkled silvery leaves add texture to the garden also. Salvias like full sun and prefer well drained soil. ‘Plumosa’ grows to 18” tall x 18” wide. Attracts bees, butterflies, and other pollinators, but is also deer and rabbit resistant.
Salvia nemorosa ‘Plumosa’