Saturday, April 30, 2016

The Street Plants of New Orleans

I'm on vacation, so there will be no gardening news until I get home.  Until then, I thought you might enjoy these photos of the container plants and other streetside and public plantings in the Central Business District of New Orleans.


Roses, already?



Good to know that ivy thrives here too.





Also, totally off topic, but I really love the various street clocks of New Orleans.


Home soon.

Monday, April 25, 2016

In Which Liz Arrives Bearing Plants

I actually want to start off tonight by showing off my new macro lens.  Let's take a look at my Jim Dandy winterberry holly, which is about to bloom.


All those little spherical objects are buds that will soon be tiny holly blossoms.

The English holly down the street is already blooming.


However, having only my male holly bloom does no good.  The male and the female holly both have to bloom at the same time for pollination to occur.  Fortunately, Jim Dandy is not only an early bloomer but a long bloomer, so Red Sprite has a little while to catch up.  Which is a good thing, because though I stare intently at her every day, so far there's no budding action.  I occasionally hallucinate a single bud at the center of a group of leaves, but I think it's probably just more leaves.


If Red Sprite doesn't bloom, I'll get no berries this year, and berries are pretty much the whole point of winterberry holly.

Now I want to tell you about the plants my friend Liz brought me last night.  Liz has a house in Connecticut where she can grow plants in the ground like a normal person.  She very kindly brought me three shade-loving perennials for my collection.

First is the lamium (Lamium maculatum),  One website describes it as a "tough yet showy perennial groundcover."  Sounds like my kind of plant.


I planted the lamium with Red Sprite, though it may get a little crowded in there.


As you can see, I moved Red Sprite closer to Jim Dandy in the hope that pollination will eventually occur.

Second is the European Ginger (Asarum Europaeum).  It too will spread to become a ground cover.


I put it under the Dwarf Alberta Spruce.


As Liz pointed out, it's a bit leggy.  "Leggy" as applied to plants is a term I've learned only recently - basically, it means that the stem is longer than you'd want it to be.

Finally, the Astilbe (Astilbe).  There are 18 different species of Astilbe, and I have no idea which of these species this one belongs to.


Astilbe is one of the few flowering plants that really love shade.  I'll be looking forward to seeing what color this one turns out to be.


It's moved in with Mr. Bowling Ball and the New Guinea impatiens.

I am definitely running out of room.  Fortunately, there's only one plant that still hasn't arrived.

Thursday, April 21, 2016

I May Have Gone a Little Overboard on the Hostas

We're coming close to the end of the "a new box has arrived" posts, but we're not there yet.  Today, a box arrived from Wayside Garden.  And, as the title of this post suggests, I may have ordered a few too many hostas this year.  But there are so very many varieties to choose from!

First up, the "Touch of Class" hosta.


Touch of Class is a blue hosta with a touch of gold, though this one looks to me as though it's green with a touch of green.  The blue is caused by a wax in the leaves, and I've found one website that says that various things (stress, too much sun, pesticides) can turn your blue hosta green, and once it's green it'll stay green for that year.  We'll see if that's true. 

Touch of Class joined Raspberry Sundae and Victory in my little hosta garden at the base of the Jim Dandy holly.  This is becoming my favorite pot.



Next, the Blue Mouse Ears hosta.


These seem a little bluer than Touch of Class.  Blue Mouse Ears was Hosta of the Year for 2008.  It's a miniature hosta, so I bought four of them to try to form a ground cover under the Japanese Maple.



Finally, not a hosta.  This is a Ghost Lady fern (Athyrium x Ghost), which is a cross between a Japanese Silver-painted fern and a Lady fern.  It's supposed to have "silver-gray fronds so luminous they appear to glow."


Again, I just see green.  And mine doesn't appear to be glowing.


It looks perfectly nice next to my Upright Japanese Yew and Paprika Heuchera, but the fact remains that it's entirely green. I guess this is what I get for titling my blog "Grey to Green garden."

Monday, April 18, 2016

Odds and Ends

First of all, I've been meaning to give a big shout-out to my international readers.  Greetings to (in order of number of visits) my readers in Germany, the U.K., the Netherlands, Poland, Canada, Finland, Mexico, Spain, and Ireland.  I'm so glad you've visited.

My U.S. readers are welcome too, of course, but I have a better idea who you might be.

Second, I stopped by the Greenmarket on Sunday - they were giving away a free (very small) bag of compost to anyone who dropped off kitchen scraps.  We have some fabulous Greenmarkets in NYC - the best is the one at Union Square Park - but I went to the one closer to home, near the Museum of Natural History.  Right across from the composting stand was the plant stand - so, of course, I bought three new plants.  I didn't really need three new plants, but they were only ten dollars total, so what the heck.


The first is a New Guinea impatiens (Impatiens hawkeri).  Impatiens has traditionally been one of the go-to ground covers for shade, but over the last few years, apparently, something called downy mildew has been wiping out impatiens all over the country.  Who knew?  (Well, gardeners knew, and even the New York Times reported it, but the news passed me right by.)  But the New Guinea variety of impatiens is not affected by downy mildew.

I thought Mr. Bowling Ball looked lonesome, so I planted the New Guinea impatiens  by him.


The second is a succulent, of the variety known familiarly as hens-and-chicks (Sempervivum tectorum).  I'm dubious about the prospect of a succulent overwintering outdoors, but I'm giving it a try.  I planted the succulent with the Dwarf Alberta Spruce.


The third is a Victory hosta.  Victory is a giant hosta, which I did not realize until I got it home - it can grow to three feet wide and four feet high.  (I feel a little like I just adopted a St. Bernard puppy without knowing how big it would grow.)  It was named Hosta of the Year for 2015.  I think it eventually will need its own pot, but for now, it's in with the Jim Dandy holly., the English ivy, and the Raspberry Sundae hosta.



Third, I wanted to give you an update on how some of my plants survived the unexpected low temperatures of last week and the week before - basically, two separate cold snaps.  The good news is that everything is still alive, though as you can see from the photo above, the Dwarf Alberta Spruce is still doing whatever the opposite of "perking up" is.

The Bleeding Heart looked just terrible after it got frosted - all of its flowers and leaves were dead.  The hellebore too - dead, dead, dead.  So I took the pot inside to avoid the second cold snap, and both plants immediately put out new growth.  The pot's been back outside since mid-last week.  Here's the Bleeding Heart, with plenty of new growth.


The hellebore has only one new shoot, the little one in between the two dead stalks.


And then there's Dwarf Alberta Spruce, who really needs a nickname.  It would be mean to call it "Dead Al," though.  I told you the buds were opening, and that was true - but because the buds were so dry and brown, the needles inside came out very pale green and dry, and they haven't been gaining any bright green color.  Now, I don't claim to be an expert on botany, but I do know that you need chlorophyll for photosynthesis, and those sparse, pale needles don't seem to have much in the way of chlorophyll. So I'm not wildly optimistic.  Maybe I should just declare the Dwarf Alberta Spruce dead and give its planter to the giant hosta!

Thursday, April 14, 2016

Bring Me a Shrubbery

Two big boxes from ForestFarm arrived today.  I feel like the stars of the show have finally appeared, and I want to tell you about them all tonight.  So first, let's have a round of applause for...

The Upright Japanese Yew!


The Upright Japanese Yew is notable for its verticality, unlike other yews, which are likely to be hedgier.  This is not a moral judgment; it's all about shape.  Also, its needles are longer than those of a true yew.  The Latin name is Cephalotaxus harringtonii Fastigiata (genus, species, cultivar).  The plant was first known as the Japanese Plum Yew, but it's not actually a yew at all, never mind a plum.  It is, however, Japanese, so they got something right.

Sadly, when it arrived, the Upright Japanese Yew was quite root-bound.


I have only recently learned what "root-bound" means, but it's what happens when you grow a plant in a pot that's too small for it.  The roots have nowhere to go, so they wrap around the root ball.  It's

Wednesday, April 13, 2016

Vertical Plant Wall

I had a meeting in midtown Manhattan today.  I arrived early, so I strolled around the neighborhood for about 15 minutes, and I'm so glad I did, because I saw this.



Up close, it's a series of 4 x 6 inch boxes, stacked together in six-by-six grids, then stacked again.  Each box contains one plant - ivy, pachysandra, heuchera, or some kind of decorative grass I can't identify.





Above each six-by-six grid is a pierced tube that I assume functions as an irrigation system.


The individual boxes must have holes too, so that the water can drip down from box to box.  Also, the soil must be packed in pretty tight to prevent the plants from falling out!

Anyway, whoever does the landscaping at

is my new hero.  Any of my friends want to build me one of these vertical plant walls?

Saturday, April 9, 2016

The Plants Are Coming, Part II

I promised you two more new plants, and here they are.

First, the "Raspberry Sundae" Hosta:


The "Raspberry Sundae" part refers to the red on the stem, which you can just make out on the one tall leaf.  You can also see some coloration at the very bottom of some of the other leaves.  I'm not sure this one is going to thrive in my garden - hostas with variegated leaves usually need more sunlight than plain-green ones.  On the other hand, the nursery that developed this variety, Terra Nova Nurseries, recommends full shade, and I figure they should know.  Hostas are said to be virtually unkillable, so they are a good choice for this project!  (They are also total catnip to deer, but I am 99.99% certain that my garden will never attract deer.)  As it turns out, I accidentally planted this one in the wrong pot for my garden plan, so I will be moving it once its taller friends arrive next week.

Thursday, April 7, 2016

The Plants Are Coming! The Plants Are Coming!

Well, actually, some of the plants are already here.


My first box arrived today.  The folks at Bluestone Perennials had promised to ship the plants after the last chance of frost, and frankly, they timed it well, because they just missed the cold snap of earlier this week.  I'm quite sad about the cold snap because it did some damage to almost everything in my garden.

But today I'm going to talk about the happy plants.  Maybe I can nurse the sad plants back to health before I have to show them to you.

As you probably know, perennials are plants that grow back each year (as opposed to annuals, which have to be planted anew every year.)  There were four types of perennials in the box, but I'm only going to show you two today because then I can save the other two to tell you about this weekend.


First I filled up a nice planter with potting soil.  Then I opened up the cardboard box.  Inside, the plants were nicely wrapped in cardboard and appeared to be in excellent health.


Inside the cardboard, they were in little biodegradable planting pots that get planted with the plant.



First I planted my two Lysimachea Aurea, also known as Golden Moneywort or Creeping Jenny.


It's the type of plant that will trail down over the edge of the container as it grows - like this.  In some areas, Creeping Jenny is considered invasive - but that's not really a problem here.  I mean, it's in a pot - what's it going to invade?

Then I added three hydrangeas:


These are called "Edgy Hearts" hydrangeas, and in theory they will produce heart-shaped petals edged in white, looking something like this.  I'm dubious about whether any flower will ever bloom in my great big Alley of Shade, but we shall see.  Incidentally, the myth that you can change the color of your hydrangeas by planting them with pennies is false.  The acidity of the soil determines whether your hydrangeas are pink or blue.  If your hydrangeas are white, they will stay white.

I left room in the middle of the big pot for something that probably won't be here until next week.  You'll just have to wait and see.