If you are looking for a permanent low-maintenance accent to your landscape design, and would really love the elegance of a rose bush. Don’t stress, Try a Knock Out Rose or Kordes Rose – both lines have been specifically bred to be the toughest plants in your yard. They will resist all sorts of fungal and insect pests, and they will persist beautifully in extreme weather conditions that would kill most roses. The Knock Out roses are especially tolerant of heat and drought. Kordes roses are known to be very cold hardy, and will thrive in zones where other roses cannot.
The shrub roses are the classic rose bushes that most people are familiar with. Landscape roses are almost always shrub roses. They are generally between 3-6 feet tall and about that wide. Shrub roses can be seen anywhere from old homesteads to urban landscape plans. They are an easy way to add classic beauty to any garden. The newest varieties like many of the Kordes Roses and the Knock Out Roses are super disease resistant and hardy against the toughest elements, making them a great choice for any gardener looking to save themselves a little trouble.
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Birds and butterflies are beautiful, majestic creatures. Hummingbirds and songbirds bring energy and life to any space, singing happy tunes or feeding baby birds in the nest. Butterflies are more delicate, fluttering about without a care in the world. Not to mention, if a butterfly lands on you, it’s good luck! Why wouldn’t you want to lure them into your garden? Here are some tips on how to do just that:
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Euonymus, also known as ‘Spindle’ was given this name because, once upon a time it was used in making spindles used in spinning wool into yarn. It is native to most of the continents in the northern hemisphere. It home gardening it is used as an ornamental, a groundcover, or a hedge.
The species and cultivars vary greatly. They can be deciduous or evergreen, trees, shrubs, or vines with shiny, leathery leaves, small flowers in the spring, and berries in the fall. Most of their appeal comes from the wide range of foliage colors.
Good drainage is very important. Plants may be pruned at any time. Keep watered, and lightly feed plants in early spring with all-purpose slow release fertilizer worked and watered well into soil surface.
A couple of popular Spindle varieties:
E. radicans Winter Creeper– Clinging Vine. Zone 5. Held to support by root-like protrusions. 1/2 – 2″ evergreen leaves. Hardiest evergreen vine available.
E. fortunei Gold Splash– Compact Shrub. Zone 5. Most adaptable variegated Euonymus shrub. 2 – 4′ tall. Uses: Foliage Interest , Hedge , Border , Containers. Additional Features: Fall Color , Bird Lovers , Easy Care Plants , Evergreen , Variegated.
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Winter’s icy mitts still have a stranglehold on most of the country, and countless gardeners are tapping their feet and wearing out their gardening catalogs. So, for those of you itching to get some green on your hands, here’s a little late-winter project that will brighten your home!
You are going to have to prune your trees anyway, so why not clip off a few nice branches with some plump buds and bring them in the house. You can force these branches to bloom and bring a little springtime ambiance into the abysmal botanical breach of winter.
This is a simple little project that anyone can do, at least that’s what the Wayside Gardens Horticulturist said. After your blooming trees have had time to overcome dormancy, usually around 8 weeks of winter weather, cut off a few branches that are a good length for displaying indoors, a foot or more. Make sure you get pieces with plenty of buds, and you will know when it’s time to cut them because the buds will have started to swell. Make sure you cut the ends at a slight angle to ensure your branches will take up water.
As soon as you get them inside, put the ends in some water, and, if possible, submerge the whole branches overnight in a tub or sink to further force them out of dormancy. For the first few days keep the ends in a bucket of water in a cool place like a garage and make sure to keep misting the branches, keeping them covered with light plastic or burlap to maintain high levels of moisture. Change your water if it starts to look cloudy to prevent your branches from rotting.
After a week or so, when your flower buds are starting to bloom and show color, you should go ahead and set them out for display. Do not put them in full sunlight or a really warm area because they may dry up and you will lose your blossoms. Put them in a bright area and make sure they stay in a container with clean water, and they should last for a while. Moving them to a cooler place at night will also prolong their lifespan.
A list of shrubs and trees that you might want to try this with:
- Magnolia
- Hazel
- Apple
- Cherry
- Pear
- Wisteria
- Puince
- Forsythia
- mockorange
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Fruit trees can be a fun addition to your home, whether you are adding them to your garden outside or growing them in containers. Having a gorgeous citrus tree full of fruit on your patio or a cute blueberry bush in your garden full of colorful berries is really rewarding. However, many people forget to consider amount of time it takes for a young plant to produce fruit.
In truth, you must wait patiently. Most fruit trees will not fruit until they mature, which usually takes about three years. Fortunately, many of the trees we sell have grafted rootstock that decreases this time somewhat. But the key is patience and to take proper care of your tree while you wait.
If you are desperate, and your tree has long matured but is still not producing fruit, here is one way that you can force a tree to fruit. We do not recommend this method to the novice gardener because there is a very strong possibility that the tree will die. So, try this method at your own risk.
In spring, after the tree has budded, tie a wire tightly around the trunk. This will trap the sugars in the tree and force them into the buds. You will start to see a bulge above the wire in the tree. If it works, there will be fruit. If not, you might have to call someone to remove a stump. Like we said, it is quite the risk and should only be used as a last resort. As they say, ‘Nothing ventured, nothing gained!’
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Many of the roses and fruit trees sold from Wayside Gardens are grafted plants. Grafted plants are simply your desired plants grown on top of a hardy rootstock. The top part of the plant, the part that matters, is called the scion. The scion bears all of the fruit, flowers, or foliage that we want.
Grafted plants are beneficial because they serve to increase variety, improve quality, and reduce prices. The extra hardy rootstock ensures survival for plants in zones that would normally be way too cold, allowing you to grow plants which would otherwise be off-limits. When a fruit tree is grafted to a mature rootstock allows fruit production much sooner than if you had to wait for the original roots to mature. You also know exactly what you are getting. Your plant has been cloned and will be exactly what you wanted. Clonal reproduction is also much quicker than growing from seed, making it more cost-effective.
Plants are grafted onto very similar plants, usually the of same genus. Most of Wayside Gardens’ grafted roses are grafted onto ‘Dr. Huey’, a hardy old rose with flat blooms that are deep crimson with a golden center. You will see them often at old home sites where the scions have long died off, and the Dr. Huey rootstock has flourished. The Wayside Gardens fruit trees are often grafted onto strong, wild versions of themselves. For example, there is pear rootstock, which, left to it’s own devices, would grow tangled branches with nasty thorns. Make sure you trim back the growth from your rootstock if you don’t want it to take over. Sometimes, in a case where the delicate scion cannot take the extremes and dies back, the rootstock may take over completely. Make sure you pamper your young grafted plant until it gets established.
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