Armani Peony
Check out the latest press release for a rundown on how to grow you own cut flowers, and soon you will be supplying your friends and loved ones with gorgeous and fragrant flower arrangements all season long!
Read our 7 Cutflower garden tips here.
Read MoreWhen you are shopping for fertilizer, the main thing to compare is the N-P-K ratings on the front of bag. The N, P, and K are all elemental symbols for the three primary nutrients: N for Nitrogen, P for Phosphorous, and K for Potassium. The numbers represent the total percent of the fertilizer’s weight in those available nutrients. For example, a balanced 10-10-10 fertilizer contains 10% Nitrogen, 10% Phosphorous, and 10% Potassium by weight. Fertilizers have different compositions based on what they are trying to achieve. For example, tomato food is usually 3-4-6 (3% Nitrogen, 4% Phosphorous, and 6% Potassium), while lawn fertilizer is 4-1-2 (4% Nitrogen, 1% Phosphorous, and 2% Potassium). To know whether your plants need more Nitrogen, more Phosphorous, or more Potassium, we have to understand a little about how plants feed.
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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”!
Read More(Note: This is Part 3 in a series. For more info on this topic be sure to check out Part 1 and Part 2).
If your problem is not too much rain, but too little, again we can look to nature for solutions. In nature you don’t see lush tropical plants trying to grow in the desert. Rather, the flora follows the climate, with plants growing only as full and lush as the local water sources allow. We can learn from nature’s wisdom by adapting our gardens to suit our climate and by making good use of every raindrop the sky gives us! We can mimic the water cycle by carefully conserving and re-using our water supplies. We can mimic deserts and prairies by landscaping with drought-tolerant native species rather than “thirsty” turfgrass and ornamentals. And for those of us that are really ambitious, we can mimic the way that forest landscapes hold onto rain by utilizing techniques like Hugelkultur and swales.
Read MoreWe gardeners know how hard it can be to raise living things. It seems like some plants are just too fussy to live–you plant them at the right time of year, you do your research and carefully amend the soil, you water them religiously, you fertilize them at the appropriate time, and still they wilt and drop their pouty leaves to the ground. It’s enough to make you want to yank them out and toss throw them in the compost!
Well, being a mother must be like that, only approximately a million times more challenging and frustrating. Children are the fussiest perennials. Children grow and blossom year after year, but they also need their diapers changed. They also learn how to say ‘no’. They learn to walk around and get into trouble–they get in fights at school and run away from home.
The fact that you and I are still alive is purely because we had a mom that was always patient, that always took care of us, and that never gave up hope. So, here’s to those mothers that never stopped nurturing us, no matter how fussy we were!
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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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