What’s the most common mistake folks make? Pruning in fall. You might think it would be safe, because these shrubs bloom in late spring, but they set their new buds right about now, and if you lop them off, you’ll get nothing next spring. Most horticulturalists will tell you the cutoff date is July 31; in warm climates you can push it a bit, but absolutely not into September.
That said, sometimes any plant needs an emergency trim. You should never hesitate to prune your azalea or rhododendron — or anything else, come to it — if you see dead or infected wood. Cut well below the damaged part and get the branch out of the garden pronto. If you keep a stack of garden debris for burning, all the better. Just don’t put it on the compost heap, or the disease might spread to your new soil.
Now, many an azalea and rhodie have gone their whole lives without ever being pruned, and this is just fine. They don’t need it to stimulate bud production, and most are pretty nicely shaped just as they are. But sometimes they outgrow their spot and you don’t want to move them. Other times you have to move them, in which case you should do a root prune if you possibly can. More about that in a sec.
Here are some general guidelines for pruning these shrubs:
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Are these Orchids okay to plant in the garden?
No. They are for indoor use, in containers.
Are they annuals?
No. They are long-lived, but because they’re houseplants, the hardiness zones don’t apply. The ones we’re shipping are all at least 2 years old, and they have many, many productive years ahead of them.
Do I need grow lights?
Nope! Just a bathroom with a window. Of course, if you have plant lights, they like those too, but there’s no need for them.
Do I need to mist the leaves?
No. Resist the temptation, because if the crown of the plant stays wet for too long, it will rot.
Do they need high temperatures?
No. (Hey, my answer for everything is “no” today!) Room temperature is fine, and even a little cooler in fall to stimulate the growth of flower buds.
Why the bathroom?
The combination of diffuse light (most of us don’t have big sunny windows over the commode) and periods of intense humidity from taking showers and baths is similar to these Orchids’ native climate, and they love it.
What is the parentage of these Wayside Kisses?
Every Wayside Kiss Orchid will come with two tags — one our usual kind, with the name and growth info, the other from the grower. The grower tag has code on it that contains the parentage of the plant. If a customer is interested in finding out exactly how their Wayside Kiss was bred, we can send them to the grower to decode their tag.
What should I do after the plant blooms?
Let the flowers drop and leave the plant be. It will continue to grow and prepare for another cycle of bloom next year. But don’t think you’re going to go months without flowers — these blooms you’ll be getting in a couple of weeks can last for months!
What is this bump on the stem of my plant?
That’s the flower bud. Leave it alone and it will open, probably within a week or so. These Orchids are ready to pop!
Can I take my Orchid to the office or the hospital?
Not sure on this one, but my inclination is to say no. I don’t think they’ll mind the fluorescents so much as the heavily conditioned air. You might try it with a dish of moistened pebbles under the pot, but I’d be inclined to say keep them at home.
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- Phalaenopsis is an epiphyte (meaning that it grows attached to the branches of trees) native to Asia. In cultivation it is grown indoors, in diffuse light (bathrooms with good air circulation are ideal) and soil that is allowed to dry out a bit between waterings.
- Our plants, the Wayside Kisses, are interspecific crosses, each between 2 and 3 years of age and each unique. That is, they are distinctive enough in color to warrant the 4 separate varieties we have developed, but within each variety not every plant will be identical. This is one of the great merits of the Kisses; each plant is truly unique.
- When talking about these Orchids, their common name is Moth Orchid (because of their shape), and the central swag of color is called the “lip.”
- They bloom along very long (2 foot or so) stems that arise straight from the top of the plant and may be supported or allowed to loll over the sides of baskets, tall flowerpots, and so on. The plant itself is less than a foot high, but the spikes add another 2 feet or so.
- They have broad, flat leaves near the base of the plant.
- Discourage the myth that Orchids should be misted. They do appreciate a humid environment such as the loo, but they need some drying out, and they absolutely cannot survive with wet crowns. If the home is very dry, they can be grown above a dish filled with water and pebbles, but do not encourage customers to mist or otherwise moisturize the plant directly.
- For the same reason that they cannot take wet aboveground growth, they also need very well-drained soil. Avoid potting soils with peat. Special Orchid mixtures are available, but not required.
- Over time they will actually grow a second plant near the first. This is called a keiki and is the beginning of a colony for the lucky gardener!
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The new Shrub Hybrids such as Knock Out are brilliant, of course, but for those gardeners who like their Roses with a bit of history, many of the Old Garden varieties cope better with black spot than most modern hybrids. (They didn’t last for hundreds of years by taking ill at the first prolonged rain every summer, after all!)
The lovely old Bourbon climber Zephirine Drouhin has grown on the north side of my parents’ house for donkey’s years. The epitome of “low maintenance” (purely a euphemism in our gardener’s mind for doing absolutely nothing, ever), old Z.D. gets about half a day of sun, when she’s lucky, and a barrow full of manure in good years. In a fit of ambition back in the 1930s or so, some long-departed gardener created a frame for her around two of the back bedroom windows, and at some point Z.D. was trained up and into this frame, then left to fend for herself. By the time my brother and I came along and took possession of the two bedrooms, Z.D.’s chief purpose in life was providing footholds for our trainers as we scrambled from the garden into our rooms (and later, as teens, out of our bedrooms and through the night garden to freedom!). I can verify that this Rose is “nearly” thornless, as we always say. More to the point, it really does put up with an amazing amount of abuse, and not only stays free of black spot but seems impervious to mildew as well.
New Dawn is another old Rose, though not reaching back to Victorian times or boasting French origins like Zephirine Drouhin. It debuted in the U.S. in 1930, a perpetual-flowering sport of the renowned ‘Dr. W. Van Fleet,’ and it received the very first patent ever issued to a Rose. Its glossy foliage is legendary, and I maintain that it is still the climber with which to decorate an arbor or pergola, for it’s simply so reliable you never worry about it. Use it as background, if you must, with newer, flashier climbers twined in, but don’t be surprised when they’ve done their bit by July 1 and New Dawn is still pushing out sweetly scented pink blossoms as August turns to September! I like to imagine the Rose lovers of 1930, a bit flummoxed by the stock market crash and the talk of a national Depression, somewhat guiltily splashing out on New Dawn, never dreaming they had just invested in one of the most dependable, beautiful, and flower-filled cultivars ever grown.
Iceberg is another older favorite for black spot resistance. Actually Kordes didn’t introduce it until 1958, but the instant it arrived, it seemed it had always been with us! The original Iceberg was a Floribunda, but ten years later a climbing sport was found in England, and it is this climbing version that I believe really outdoes itself in disease resistance. Its masses of white blooms are far more fragrant than their Floribunda parent’s as well, and borne over a seemingly endless summer season. There are few things in a garden more useful than a fragrant white Rose, and Iceberg needs no fussing over.
Finally, no Rose lover’s garden is complete without Rosa chinensis Mutabilis, the fine old single-flowered China Rose said by some to have turned up in Italy in the 19th century, and certainly given in 1894 to the Swiss gardener Henri Correvon by Prince Gilberto Borremeo. Graham Stuart Thomas, that consummate lover of old Roses, offers a description of many early “sightings” of this Rose in his stupendous The Graham Stuart Thomas Rose Book; from all these we can deduce that this was an extraordinary Rose, marked by everyone who grew or even saw it, and destined to survive into modern times by its easygoing adaptability and robust vigor. I confess that it is among my very favorite Roses, not least because it does not act like a Rose in the garden, and I scarcely think of it as such. Set in the sunny perennial garden, it flowers continuously all summer, its deep orange-red buds opening to blooms that change from butter yellow to rich pink to bold crimson during their short display. There is no time to mourn their passing; they are replaced by newcomers too abundant to snub! In my garden this shrub grows 6 feet high, but I confess to considerable pampering (and that hot southern U.S. climate); whether it reaches 3 feet or 9, it is exactly the right size, and will be adored.
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Black spot gets a foothold in the garden when leaves stay wet too long, or when a black spot-infected shrub comes into contact with another through crowding in the garden, infected leaves or canes lying in the planting bed, etc. It’s a problem in any climate, and is especially challenging for gardeners in areas with lots of rain or high humidity — the South, Midwest, etc.
Here are some things gardeners can do to keep this troublemaker away:
- use drip irrigation (a soaker hose) or a hand-held hose so that only the base of the Rose gets wet when you water, not the leaves.
- if that’s not an option, water early in the morning to give the moisture a chance to evaporate as the day warms up.
- don’t crowd Roses in the garden. I like the wild natural look myself, but Roses do best when their leaves don’t overlap with other plants a lot. And if black spot does develop, overlapping foliage will spread it like wildfire.
- by the same token, plant Roses in an open setting, rather than a close, confined area like a walled patio. Good air circulation goes a long way in preventing black spot.
- keep the area around Roses very clean and free of fallen leaves.
- Of course, a certain way to prevent black spot is to spray your Roses. There are many excellent black spot sprays that work not only before the fungus appears, but even after you have spotted a yellow leaf or two.
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Gardening must be the last best refuge of optimists.
In what other endeavour do you hear quite reasonable people say, “It looks a little sparse now, but in five or ten years . . . ” Or spend an entire weekend digging in the garden, only to finish the task with the satisfaction of seeing . . . a lot of bare soil, without the promise of a green shoot for six months or so. (Bulbs may be easy, but they aren’t quick.)
Sometimes even fast-growing perennials and shrubs take a few seasons to shine, a lesson I learned the hard way when Customer Service called me last week to settle a dispute about the naming of Hydrangea ‘The Swan.’
Apparently customers have been asking what on earth is swan-like about this Hydrangea paniculata hybrid. And our ladies in Customer Service, ever resourceful, have offered a range of responses:
1. The blooms are white. (Brilliant; full marks for simplicity.)
2. The petals are much larger than those of other Hydrangeas . . . the same way a swan is a very large bird. (Well . . . half credit for effort, perhaps.)
3. The enormous bloom trusses lean over a bit toward the tip, like a swan elegantly inclining its neck. (Right — no more caffeine after 10 a.m. in Customer Service, full stop.)
The real reason, it turns out, is that The Swan begins its life as . . . have you already guessed, then? . . . an ugly duckling. As a young shrub, this quick-growing Hydrangea is about as rangy and off-kilter as they come. (With any luck nobody in Customer Service has suggested that the plant’s silhouette looks like a swan flapping its wings. That might be uncomfortably close to the truth.)
Mind you, like most ugly ducklings, The Swan offers plenty of hints about its true merit. It flowers from an early age, and the blooms are truly spectacular, with petals 5 times the size of other Hydrangeas. It is hardy straight through zone 4, and not just able to thrive but determined to bloom — when the inevitable freakishly late spring frost nips back every bud, a lush second set will arise in late summer on new wood.
Yet a 2- or 3-year-old Hydrangea Swan is an ungainly thing. If it could move, it would be flailing.
But if you hang on for a season or two, developing a convincing story for garden visitors about The Swan’s gangly appearance (“The wheelbarrow toppled right over on top of it, flattening the entire plant; we thought we’d lost it . . . “), this shrub will suddenly fill out, straighten up, and sail to victory. Where once there were random branches of varying lengths, abruptly there will be a bushy fullness that resolves itself into elegant layers. Where once there was a shrub appearing in dire need of a good shearing, now there will be a broad, fat, clever plant that will drive garden visitors to envy. And that faint rustling noise you hear? –It’s the sound of baggies being opened inside purses, as your guests surreptitiously reach for their Swiss army knives and perform a little illicit plant propagation.
Whatever you do, don’t stop them from stealing cuttings. Think what fun it will be to visit their gardens in a few years and stare in puzzlement at their unlovely young Swans, declaring, “I can’t imagine what you’re doing wrong.”
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So, what’s up with your butterfly bush? I wish I could tell you that it’s playing possum, and if it were a Daphne, that might just be true. But this is probably a case of, if it looks like a duck and walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…
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Earlier this month, a friend asked me to help her design a few plantings along a pathway through a wooded part of her land here in Greenwood. Wooded areas are often difficult to plant in, as you need low-maintenance, deer-resistant, full-shade plants. Hopefully she’ll be pleased when I show up in a few weekends with a truck-bed full of medium-sized stones and a mix of unique ferns, including Japanese painted ferns and my favorite fern, the Athyrium ‘Okanum.’
As most gardeners well know, not many plants do well in full shade. Ferns are a great exception to this, though, and as shade gardening is becoming more and more popular with each passing season, ferns are gaining in popularity by leaps and bounds. Part of the appeal of hardy ferns is the simple fact that they do so well in shade, but another huge point in their favor is the amazing diversity they present. There is a fern for almost any shade area in your garden, from drought-resistant ferns to some moisture-loving examples that will thrive in constantly damp areas that will destroy almost any other plant. They range broadly in color from the traditional green to the stunning Japanese painted ferns, which can be red, purple, silver, green, or any combination thereof.
Hardy ferns are also a great choice because they’re so easy to care for. If you are careful to consider soil type when choosing your ferns, often they’ll do just fine with very little work out of you, which is great for those difficult-to-fill border plantings, or even for planting areas along pathways through wooded areas. Most ferns are also deer-resistant, so that won’t be a problem in planting areas that get less traffic, like my friend’s pathway, though I hope that, once I’ve planted those beds, it will get a lot more visits this year.
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