Echinacea (Coneflower)
You may already love Coneflowers for their impressive tolerance of high heat, humidity, drought and other environmental stresses, but those aren’t the only tricks this perennial has up its sleeve. Did you know that the root of Echinacea angustifolia was originally used to treat toothache, tonsillitis, and pain in the bowels? The story goes that Native Americans discovered the healing powers of this flower when they noticed that sick Elk would seek out and eat the plant. Ever since then, Echinacea has been a popular natural remedy in America, revered for its immune-boosting effect. It has been used to treat everything from the common cold all the way up to rattlesnake bites!
Scientific analysis of Echinacea has found that the fat-soluble alkylamides in the plant have an immunomodulatory effect, increasing our immune system’s ability to fight antigens. The chemical basis for this is complex, and the exact chain of cause-and-effect has not been determined yet, but the prevailing wisdom is that Echinacea can temporarily boost your immune system, which makes it a great thing to take when you first feel a tickle in your throat, or when someone in your household comes down with a cold. I personally wouldn’t rely on Echinacea to save me from a snake bite, but I have found it effective so far at keeping the cold and flu at bay.
The potent medicinal value of this timeless perennial is one of many reasons that back in 2014 the National Garden Bureau named it the “Year of the Echinacea”!
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One of the numerous negative ecological effects of urban development is a higher rate of soil erosion. Forests naturally hold on to soil with their roots. Trees slow the fall of raindrops to keep them from disrupting the soil. The natural bumps and hillocks in the landscape break up the flow of water, giving it more opportunity to be absorbed by plant roots and filtered through the soil before it winds its way into creeks, streams, and rivers. These natural soil-defense mechanisms do not exist in developed land, where rain falls on rooftops, asphalt, and flat lawns covered in relatively sparse, shallow-rooted plants. All this means that on developed land, wind and rain carries off much more top soil, dumping it into storm drains and into the water table. This not only degrades the soil quality, but also dumps soil into the local water supply, along with oils and often-toxic pollutants.
For the sustained health of your garden and your community, you should try and minimize erosion and runoff as much as possible with careful garden design. Where downspouts empty onto your yard or where storm waters flow through it, you should take every effort to absorb and filter this water. A well-designed garden will capture water effectively, keeping plant roots moist much longer while also holding on to the soil’s nutrients and keeping pollution out of the local water table.
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Comparison of Bareroot Hibiscus (left) and 1 Quart Monarda (right).
The dry, sparse appearance of bareroot perennials can be alarming to the novice gardener, but in reality ordering bare root is often the smarter choice. Foliage and blooms can be seductive, but the health and long-term potential of a plant truly lies in its roots. Bareroot plants have several advantages over plants in containers—bare roots are less expensive to ship, they are less likely to be harmed in the shipping process, their timing is easier to control, and they are field-grown for larger, healthier root systems. This is why Wayside Gardens has had great success with bare root plants, and you can too!
Shipping plants bare root makes more economic sense for several reasons. Container plants are costlier because the nursery has to supply a pot and soil as well as a large box and lots of inserts and packaging to protect the plant’s foliage. These larger, heavier boxes are significantly more expensive to ship.
Additionally, it is safer to ship plants in bareroot form because there is no risk in harming new growth, and therefore the plant actually has a better chance of making it safely into the customer’s garden.
And thanks to refrigerated storage, the timing of bareroot perennials can be precisely controlled. “(Bareroot perennials) are dormant,” explains JPPA Lead Horticulturist Benjamin Chester, “But as soon as they leave the refrigerated storage they’ll begin breaking dormancy.” And once the plant ‘wakes up’, it is ready to begin the growing season in earnest, which means it will quickly catch up to the level of container plants.
The most important benefit of bareroot perennials is that they can be field grown rather than confined to containers. The bareroot Cherry Cheesecake Hibiscus pictured here perfectly illustrates the difference between a field-grown perennial and a containerized one. Wayside Gardens used to offer this variety in a quart container, like the Monarda next to it. But the Hibiscus was simply too cramped in that space, so Wayside switched to growing it in the earth and selling it bare root. The result is a thick, fibrous mass of roots that used to fill up several cubic feet of soil and which, even in its bare, pruned form would be too large to fit back into the 1 Quart container. What a difference a little space makes! While small and slow-growing cultivars can start well in containers, large and vigorous cultivars like Cherry Cheesecake need more room to stretch out and develop a solid root system.
For more information on planting and caring for perennials, visit waysidegardens.com or contact us directly by calling our public relations department at 1-864-941-4521.
Happy gardening!
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Cherry Blush Rodgersia doesn’t mind wet soil.
The arrival of spring means it is finally time to get back in the garden, but for a lot of the US the soggy conditions are making this impossible. The combination of spring rains and the melting of this winter’s substantial snow has led to a lot of flooding and standing water, which means that for most of us, our soil is too muddy to work with right now. In these soggy months, take this opportunity to evaluate the movement of water through your property and design a garden that goes with the flow rather than against it.
Don’t let your yard become a bog; manage rainwater wisely with this 3-step process: First, observe your property during rain storms and get a feel for how water is flowing through it now. Second, deal with your lawn’s storm runoff and boggy areas by creating a rain garden. Third, improve your land’s dry areas by creating swales and/or xeriscaping.
1. Get the Lay of the Land.
There is no one right answer for how to make the most of rainfall. The answer is always “it depends.” It depends on how much slope there is on your property. It depends how compacted or how well-draining your soil is. It depends how deep your local water table is. It depends how much rain you get. It depends how much water your gutters or driveway are dumping on your lawn. Every situation is unique, so you have to pay careful attention to your yard and find the problem areas that you want to address.
Smart garden designers always evaluate the area and come up with ways to work with the existing water flow rather than imposing their own vision. If you try to add a rain garden or a swale where it doesn’t belong, you might end up with an unattractive mud pit. So be sure to figure out the natural flow of water on your property and develop your plan from there.
The first thing you will probably notice is any areas of standing water. These are usually dips or low-lying areas of the landscape that retain water. These are potential sites for rain gardens or at least good sites for water-loving plants. Look at step 2 for instructions on how to create your rain garden. Next, take a look at areas that are more dried out, where plant growth is sparse. This often happens on the slopes of hills, where all the water quickly drains after rain. Here you can try to improve water retention with a swale, which I will explain in step 3. Xeric plants, which tend to originate from desert-like conditions, are also great for these areas because they are highly drought tolerant. These plants can replace water-thirsty lawns with beautiful perennials that, most years, won’t need a drop from you!
You need to determine two other things about your land that might not be immediately obvious: 1. How good the drainage is, and 2. How high the local water table is. You can determine both of these things with a very simple test: just go out to your back yard and start digging a hole. Make this hole about 1’x1’x1′.
1. The Spot.
2. The Hole (Note the Red Clay).
If you hit water, or if the hole begins to slowly fill up, then your water table is obviously very high, and this means it can be extremely difficult to achieve good drainage in this spot. In this case, you could either try and rise above the water table with raised garden beds, or you could simply plant water-loving plants that don’t mind wet feet, like Japanese Water Iris , Rodgersia, Calla Lily, Weigela, Astilbe, Lobelia, and Joe Pye Weed.
3. Full of Water.
4. After 12 Hours of Drainage.
If, on the other hand, you get to a good depth without hitting water, then there is hope. Your standing water is probably just a drainage problem. Next do a drainage test: Fill your foot hole with water and then keep an eye on how long it takes to drain. If it takes 4 hours or less (about 3 inches per hour), then your drainage is adequate for a rain garden or other planting. If a lot of water still remains after 4 hours, then you need to improve the drainage.
Above you can see my own results for this test. After 4 hours the hole was still about half full, which indicates some pretty poor drainage. If you look at the earth extracted, you can see the culprit. My yard has that red clay that is prevalent in much of the South–good for staining your car, driveway, shoes, and carpet, but not great for growing plants. The hole is on a sandier spot, as you can see from the shiny specks in the earth. This gives it SOME amount of drainage–by the next morning (~12 hours later) the hole was drained. To grow anything here, we need to improve the drainage more and add a lot more organic matter: hence the necessity of my compost pile you can see to the left of the hole.
Other ways to improve soil drainage are by adding gravel, pipes, or tile underground and/or by conditioning your soil. Sometimes soil is just compacted and needs worked with a spade or tiller to loosen it up and allow drainage. If the soil has a high clay content (like mine), then you should amend it with compost and/or sand. Another way to improve soil drainage is to add in some Garden Gypsum, which gathers the clay into pellets and allows water and air to flow through.
Next time we will talk about how to create a rain garden, and why you absolutely should!
Feature image courtesy of hdwallpapersuk.com
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Spring Garden Preparation Checklist
Spring is right around the corner, which means the gardening season is starting! Make sure you are prepared with this article from Wayside Gardens, including information like what plants to prune in spring, how to properly plant a tree, how to make the most of your compost, how to divide daylilies, and more!
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Gardeners have a love/hate relationship with winter. The cold is one of the biggest killers of plants, but at the same time many plants have a chilling requirement—having adapted to a cold climate, they now require a certain length of wintry conditions to allow them to undergo the mysterious process of vernalization.
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