Archive for Summer Garden Tips – Page 3

Portland Landscape Designer’s Advice on Watering

Portland Landscape Designer’s Advice on Watering

carol lindsay portland landscape designer with lupe

Portland Landscape Designer Carol Lindsay (with client’s puppy Lupe)

You know how Facebook gives you that reminder about something you were doing a year ago today…………Well! Let me tell you, a year ago today I was sick with worry about my clients’ gardens because of the horrible, everlasting,  record breaking,  summer of hell.  Do you remember?  It was unseasonably and unreasonably  hot early in our spring and it stayed that way all summer.   I grew up here and I was in shock and a kind of grief actually.  I missed our normal summer.

As a Portland landscape designer I’m always trying to teach  my clients about how to water.  Did you know you can train your plants roots to grow more deeply? This has many health benefits and one of them is that the plants will be less stressed in high heat periods, another is they won’t need as much water which is nice for your water bill and for the environment in general.

People who don’t know the tricks of proper watering really struggled with their plants and lawns and had many plant losses.  Most were busy watering every day and either rotting their plants or doing such a light watering that the only thing that grew well was their water bill.  A big shock for me was the number of clients whose lawns did not come back at all due to the extreme heat.  They let their lawns go dormant, something that thrifty Portlanders have been doing for decades.  The lawns did not come back with the fall rains.  This had never happened to anyone I knew before.  The spring of 2016 was very busy for Portland landscape design professionals.  People were replacing their dead lawns and remodeling their landscapes.  So now it is July of 2016 and it’s just starting to get hot.  Whether your landscape is mature or has recently been installed it’s not too late to learn how to water properly and protect your investment.

So it’s time to share my watering tips with you again.  SUMMER WATERING TIPS

Summer Heather – Perfect for year round color

Calluna vulgaris - Summer heather is 4" tall with summer flowers in Woodland Park Landscape DesignSummer Heather – Perfect for year round color

Summer flowering heather can be easy care

I use heather at my vacation house because it’s so easy.  I’m there once a month, have no irrigation system and I have hungry deer.  It’s got to be a tough plant to make it!  Lots of people buy heather, plant them and they die quickly.  Without knowledge specific to heathers, success is tenuous, but with a little knowledge this is a very tough drought tolerant winner of a plant in my book.  It has year-round beauty, is great food for bees and it can be the evergreen plant that holds a summer garden together visually through the winter.

Calluna-vulgaris 'Firefly' Photo from Great Plant Picks

Calluna Vulgaris ‘Firefly’ Photo from Great Plant Picks

Planting Tips:

Honey bee on spring heather in Sellwood Moreland garden designHeathers need good drainage but if you have clay soil don’t despair.  Heathers planted on a burmed planting bed or  on a low mound do well.  Heathers are perfect for  sunny slopes.

A designer pal plants her heathers in pure barkdust.  I’ve done this and had excellent results as long as it was on a slope or berm.  Don’t try this crazy bark dust idea in a flat landscape with heavy clay unless you berm up.

Watering well the first year is critical.  If heather plants dry out to the point of  wilting, even just a little bit, they will die.  There is no rescuing it with water and having it “perk up” as many other plants will do.   When the tiny fine foliage wilts or dries the plant stops taking in water with its roots.  Avoid this first year problem and take advantage of the benefits of a fall planting.  You still have to water carefully the first summer after a fall planting but it is not so edgy.

Pruning Tips:

Pruning is important and easy.  The most important year for pruning is the second spring after you have planted the plant.  Prune before new growth starts.  You must trim to just above the previous years wood; trim too much and you will have ugly holes in your plants that may never fill in.  Avoid pruning late in fall or winter.

Calluna -Summer Flowering Heather

Calluna Vulgaris at Heaths and Heathers nursery in Shelton Washington

Trim too little or not at all and  in a few years you will have an ugly plant with bare wood stems in the center of the plant.  When this happens we can’t simply cut it back severely which we can do with many plants to fix the problem.  Trimming every year before new growth starts (February or March for Pacific Northwest) will keep your plants attractive long term.  Who knew low maintenance was so much work right?  Once you know what to do, you have a plant that will work beautifully for decades with a once a year trim.  That is low maintenance.

 

Heather at Harstine

Calluna Vulgaris ‘White Lawn’ w Sedum ‘Xenox’ and Sedum ‘Voo Doo’

 

Summer heather/Calluna Vulgaris is a great plant for hot sun situations.  This summer for the first time ever, I actually had foliage burn.  They got no water for 45 days in record breaking heat, but since these plants have been there for five years there was not permanent damage or loss.  New plants would not tolerate that amount of drought but mature plants took my neglect in stride.  6 months later there was no sign of any damage.  My kind of plant!

 

Hot Time in my Summer Garden

Daizzie in the garden, it's almost a year since she arrived.

Daizzie in the garden, it’s almost a year since she arrived.

Wow, having a garden of any kind has been challenging in this unusually warm year.  For some plants it’s been touch and go as a result of the heat.  In my veggie garden I have learned a lot this year.  My tomatoes would not set fruit if the evening temperature was too high (in June and July) so what looked like a potential bumper crop of tomatoes quickly changed to dead flowers and no fruit set when the temps soared.  Now that it is cooler (as of two days ago) I see some new flowers on my tomato plants and am hoping for more fruit to set before the next heat wave comes.

South side container garden for tomatoes.

South side container garden for tomatoes.

 

I also learned to plant lettuce and dwarf petunia under my tomatoes that were in containers.  They blocked the sun by covering my soil, which cooled the soil and now the leaves of my tomato plants look so much better.  They were tip burned and turning yellow.  I also have tomato plants on the south side of my floating home and they get a lot of sun and heat.

Radicchio shades tomato root zone.

Radicchio shades tomato root zone.

We have a mole family in our community garden and we can’t set one of those nasty traps with the teeth since kids or sometimes pets could go in there.  Today I put chili powder down the holes but probably all that will happen is that they will move to a neighbors raised bed and then come back to mine when the chili smell is gone. I’m adding soil to fill their holes and I imagine an entire freeway of holes and passageways from one raised bed to another.  It’s only comical until one of my Kale wilts,  faints and dies because of no soil under the roots, then I tend to growl.

Daizzie is getting used to our new scarecrow.

Daizzie is getting used to our new scarecrow.

Dogs are no longer allowed in the garden, which is probably a good thing since Daizzie is afraid of our new scarecrow anyway.  Sharing the garden with my neighbors is so much fun and we all water for each other so vacations are not a problem.

I’ve tried some greens called Deer Tongue; ok bad name but tasty and found them to be very heat tolerant and my New Zealand Spinach is loving this heat and producing all the greens I can eat.  By the way, don’t cook them, they turn to slush; which is strange because this spinach has an oddly thick leaf.  They are meant to be eaten fresh.

My neighbor Betty and I (mostly Betty) will be starting seeds for our fall gardens – I’ll get my chard, collard greens and lettuces going to enjoy until frost.

Summer Watering Tips for Portland Area Landscapes

Water feature in Portland Area landscape designSummer Watering Tips for Portland Area Landscapes

First Rule…Do No Harm.  If you are watering every day, this is harmful and as far as you can get from the ideal watering practice for your plants’ health and for growing in your design.  Plus you will be accidentally training your plants to be shallow rooted and water hogs.  One is not good for the plants and the other not good for your wallet.  If this is how you have been watering for years and you want to change, let’s talk.

Watering  First Year Plants

I consider any plants that have not been through a summer to be a first year plant.  I typically have clients start watering first year plants every 2 weeks in April (depending on weather conditions in the Pacific Northwest).  This can continue into the mild temperatures of mid-May most years but by the end of May, the temps can go up dramatically.  New plantings and first year plantings should be getting watered thoroughly twice a week in late spring. When we start having 85 to 90 degree weather, first year plants should be watered thoroughly 2 to 3 times a week maximum, not every day and not just a splash.  We want to manage the plants heat stress with other methods besides watering.

Plant delivery for portland area landscape design

New plants need more water than established plants, but don’t over water.

Don’t wait until you see signs of stress to check the soil moisture with your hands – it can be hard to get moisture back into clay soils once they dry out.  Do you see leaves wilting, scorching, crumpling, or dropping even though the soil is moist?

Here are Tips to Prevent or Minimize Heat Stressed Plants

Protecting Portland Area Plants from Heat Stress

(1)  Sprinkle water on the leaves to cool them off in the evening when light is not on the leaves, or very early in the morning (before 8 am).  Never sprinkle water on leaves after 9 a.m. in sunny weather, this will cause scorched and damage leaves and flowers.

(2)  The Sheet Trick – Cover your plants’ leaves for up to 3 days.  Covering plants helps them conserve water loss and deal with the shock of temperature change.  When not exposed to the sun, the cells in the leaves will close.  When closed, the leaf cells do not release water.  Covering the leaves conserves the existing water in the roots and leaves.

Portland area landscape designer uses binder clips to secure covers over heat stressed plantsTo cover the plant take a lightweight fabric (a white or light colored sheet is ideal) and attach it to the plant during the most extreme heat.  I like to use black office clips on individual trees or shrubs.  Or use rocks to hold the fabric down if you are covering an entire bed.  Note:  This is also an excellent way to protect a plant from drought stress after transplanting new plants.

(3)  In late summer when heat spikes up to 100 degrees you could add one additional watering per week.  Check your soil a few inches down with your hand.  If it’s still moist, watering is not the solution and may be the problem.

Dead twiggy plant due to irrigation leak

Clogged irrigation equals plant loss – check emitters regularly.

Watering Established Plant Material

Plants 2 or 3 years old are established plants.  If you have heavy clay soil you may need to water twice a week even in early summer.  Apply the water slow and for a long period of time.  You do not want the clay to dry out.  Its very difficult to get it to accept water after that.   All plants will respond to sudden change in temperature, for instance mild early summer weather interrupted by 3 days of intense heat, you will see leaf droop or slight wilting regardless of whether the soil is moist or not.  As soon as the intense heat retreats, the plants leaves return to normal typically.  The only way you will know if they need additional watering over and above your typical practice is if you check the soil.  Remember, too much moisture and too much heat equals root rot.  Remember first rule, do no harm.

For more about protecting plants from heat see Hydrangea Love.

 

 

Unusual Flowers to Attract Hummingbirds

Unusual Flowers to Attract Hummingbirds

Today I want to share “Hummer” plants with hot colors for summer that are unique.  I will also list a few very colorful plants that  feed the overwintering hummingbirds in winter.

imagesHardy Fuchsia may be considered common for feeding hummingbirds 8 months out of the year.  Here are 3 varieties that are available locally (Portland, Oregon) that are a little different.  This type of fuchsia is a perennial and not anything like the fuchsia baskets that live in shady patios.  These fuchsias need sun and will come back year after year with simple care.

‘Golden Gate’ Hardy Fuchsia has hot gold leaves and shocking red pink flowers.  It is much smaller than the typically ‘Aurea’ and is an upright shrub instead of a wide vase shape.  It will fit into a smaller garden much better than ‘Aurea’ which can grow 4′ across easily.  We have a local source, a wholesale grower, Jockey Hill, who sells retail at Scappoose Saturday market.

Fuchsia Magellnica ‘Isis’ – this is great against a wall and while the leaf and flower are tiny, it can become a tall column (8′ – 10′) or it can be cut back hard every year and kept in the 4’ range.  Hundreds of flowers will interest many varieties of the larger bees as well as hummingbirds.

President’  Hardy Fuchsia.  It has a dark maroon leaf which is very unusual. This can be hard to find.  We have a local wholesale grower, Jockey Hill, who sells retail at Scappoose Saturday market.  It grows into a wider than tall shrub with purple and red flowers.

agastache-kudos-mandarin Terra Nova photoAgastache, also called Hummingbird Mint, are hot plants for long flowering summer color and for hummingbirds.  My old favorite variety is called ‘Apricot Sunrise’ and is an Agastache aurantica.  There are many new varieties of Agastache that I am very excited about.  ‘Summer Fiesta’,  ‘Summer Sunset’, ‘Kudos Manderin’, and ‘Kudos Coral’ are newer varieties that are more compact.  All of these Agastache are fragrant and smell strongly like mint or apple mint depending on the variety.

If you provide good drainage (think about planting on a low mound of soil), and don’t over water or fertilize …… it can live for years.  I often mulch around these plants with a cup of tiny crushed rock or pumice and I also tend to plant Hummingbird Mint in a raised planting.  Even 4” above the rest of the soil will improve drainage.

Agastache ‘Summer Glow’  did very well in a client’s gardenagastache-kudos-coral until a local rabbit ate them to the ground one too many times.  I love this exact variety, ‘Summer Glow’, because even after the glowing creamy yellow flowers are gone, the mulberry calyeces (under each tubular flower) stay on the plant until frost.  This color is soft but truly does glow especially in the evening.  This variety, like the hummingbird magnets above, results in 3 months of color in the garden.  It’s not red so isn’t as attractive to Hummers.

Here are three great hummingbird attractors for winter:

191 spring promise camellia

Camellia Sasanqua ‘Springs Promise’

 

 

 

Hybrid ‘Springs Promise’ is a new vivid rose red winter flowering Chinese Camellia.

 

 

Correa 'Dusky Rose'

Correa ‘Dusky Rose’

 

 

 

Correa ‘Dusky Rose’ Australian Fuchsia is available locally at Cistus Nursery on Sauvie Island.

 

 

 

Arhtu Meziezies Mahonia

‘Arthur Menzies’ Mahonia – photo from Forest Farm.

Mahonia x media ‘Arthur Menzies’   Think small tree so 15’ by 8’ wide.  The fragrance alone is amazing.  It is a coarse but attractive blue green leaf, the flower is a soft but strong yellow and is beloved by the Anna Hummingbirds.  At times you can find it at Portland Nursery, Cistus Design Nursery or Xera Plants, Inc.

You can also order a small plant from Forest Farms

 

 

 

For typical plants that attract hummingbirds go to my video for About.com. http://landscaping.about.com/video/Best-Flowers-to-Attract-Hummingbirds.htm