A kumquat, two limes, two lemons, and one big, juicy navel orange: an impressive array of citrus trees are available from Wayside Gardens this season. And these aren't just any citrus trees — each one is a unique specimen of it's genus, a rare and impressive variety. Like many of you, I love citrus trees and citrus fruit, especially limes. Lime is my favorite flavor and probably my favorite fruit.

Limes 'Bearss' and 'Mexican Thornless' are very different, but each serves its intended purpose well. 'Mexican Thornless' limes are edible ornamentals, perfect for the patio or home, and they produce wonderful tangy limes great for flavoring drinks or salsa. 'Bearss' is a serious culinary lime, preferred by professional chefs and bartenders — they have a perfect lime taste that's not too acidic, preferred by many over keylimes and other mainstream varieties.

I have one of the 'Bearss' Lime trees in a big pot that moves all around the house and sometimes in and out the back door. The limes are amazing — sometimes I will just eat them straight off the tree (don't do that — it's bad for your teeth).

This week's Wayside Gardens' Plant of the Week is one of the most popular climbing shrubs on the market and the best climbing hydrangea around, Hydrangea anomala ssp.petiolaris. It will climb any wall, arbor, or tree with no additional support, and will keep on growing for up to 80 feet! If it has nothing to grow on, it will also make an excellent groundcover.

Care is simple: just let it keep going! The foliage, beautiful white blooms, and dense habit make it interesting all season long. Hydrangea anomala ssp.petiolaris prefers rich, well-drained soil and performs best in partial shade. Water thoroughly, especially in warm or dry climates.

Cornus kousa Venus® is a brand new dogwood with bigger blooms, improved drought and cold tolerance, and better resistance to the most common dogwood diseases.

The huge snow-white blooms float on the outside of this peculiar tree like big butterflies. Venus® has an odd but interesting habit, with branches all the way to the ground, creating a cloud of large, bright blooms from the ground up. It will reach as tall as 20 feet and at least that wide and requires very little maintenance.

Dogwoods are notoriously thirsty, but Venus® shows a stronger tolerance of dry periods than her fragile cousins. This tree also thrives in cooler climates where dogwoods are usually unavailable (up to zone 4). And, since it's resistant to the most common dogwood ailments, Venus® maintains beautiful deep green foliage right into fall.

Standard Dogwood Care Tips:

• Soil: Dogwoods need a good balance: a blend that drains well but also contains enough organic matter to retain some moisture.
• Mulch: A layer of mulch goes a long way in maintaining soil moisture levels and protecting your roots from climate fluctuations.
• Pruning: Only to remove unsightly dying limbs if necessary.
• Water: Water deeply every couple of weeks, at least for the first year.
• Fertilizer: Use an all-purpose flowering-plant or shrub fertilizer. Rich organic material, like compost, worked into the soil will usually provide more than enough nutrients for your tree.

Hydrangeas are a great choice for containers! With their
interesting foliage, beautiful blooms, and enticing fragrance, they're a lovely,
low-maintenance selection for the small-space garden.

One variety that performs particularly well in containers is the
dwarf marvel, Hydrangea CitylineTM Venice. Venice's compact habit
contrasted with huge leaves and bright pink blooms makes for a pronounced look
that works really well in patio gardens. It produces more flowering stems than
your average hydrangea, and the leaves maintain their beautiful deep green from
spring until frost.

Buxus is the most popular hedge shrub in the US – it's deep-green foliage and dense habit makes it perfect for the trimmest formal
hedges. Borders, fences, topiaries, or knot gardens can be grown to
architectural perfection with the right pruning and training, giving
your garden impressive structure and depth.

This week's Plant of the Week is an especially attractive boxwood,
Buxus 'Green Velvet'. As the name suggests, this variety of boxwood
boasts beautiful deep green foliage, while maintaining an easy to
prune, dense, compact habit. Green Velvet tolerates full sun, cold
winters, and severe pruning. This is the perfect tough little topiary
shrub.

Born in Cambridge, England, Graham Stuart Thomas was a world famous horticultural artist and garden design who studied in the University Botanic Garden at Cambridge University. He won many awards and medals for his work from The Royal Horticulture Society, the National Rose Society, and the Garden Writer's Guild. The famed rose breeder, David Austin, even named a rose after him.

He combined the art and science of gardening in perfect harmony. While beautiful and passionate, his paintings were accurate enough to be featured in the most scientific gardening publications. Mr. Thomas pass away in 2003 leaving a legacy of wonderful creations–making the wonders of nature a little more accessible for the rest of us.

Wayside gardens was fortunate enough to have Mr. Thomas create two series of exclusive limited-run print, one in the seventies, and the other one in 1988. Wayside is now exclusively offering limited-supply reproductions of these amazing historical garden prints for less than a third of the original cost of the 1988 exclusive prints, which, adjust for inflation, is an amazing deal.Graham Stuart Thomas Prints

If you subscribe to the Wayside Gardens Newsletter you may have already gotten this week's "Plant of the Week" newsletter featuring Heuchera 'Midnight Rose.' (Actually you may have gotten it twice – it was sent out without pictures the first time. Oops!)

This is a really beautiful perennial that will add foliage interest and depth of color to your shade garden. 'Midnight Rose' is very tolerant of heat and humidity, and it thrives in part shade. It may tolerate full sun in the cooler zones. This exotic Heuchera starts out black, speckled with bright pink, and slowly transitions to a deep purple as the season progresses. The foliage stays bright and colorful from spring until fall. This plant is a great shade-garden companion to the brighter foliage of Hostas, Hydrangeas, and other Heucheras.

This week's Wayside
Gardens Plant of the Week is Wisteria 'Amethyst Falls'!

'Amethyst Falls' is a noninvasive, native cultivar that offers many benefits over other Wisteria. This award-winning plant is disease resistant, drought tolerant, deer resistant, and it attracts butterflies and other pollinators into your garden!

This Wisteria is sure to put on a beautiful show from spring to fall with some of the most beautifully fragant blooms of any Wisteria on the market. Being a native cultivar also has the benefit of being a more subtle addition to your landscape. Where other Wisteria tend to spill over into the rest of your garden, 'Amethyst Falls' likes to keep to itself.

It is also very easy to care for:

• Plant in full sun to part shade.
• Plant in moist, well-drained soil.
• Prune in the late winter before the plant starts to bud.