Perennial Gardening

Upcoming Plant Sales

Fri, May 6, 2011 No Comments by Neil

It’s coming up on prime time to get both annuals and perennials in the ground, and we thought it might be useful if we shared this information on upcoming plant sales we copied from The Denver Post.

The Denver Botanic Gardens annual plant sale, May 6-7, 1007 York St. May 6: 8:30 a.m.-6 p.m. May 7: 8:30 a.m.-4 p.m. Free.botanicgardens.org, 720-865-3585. (There’s also a sale preview 4-7 p.m. May 5; tickets are $35 — or $50 at the door if any are left. )

NORTH

May 7, Boulder Garden Club plant sale,9 a.m. to 1 p.m., Eisenhower School, 1220 Eisenhower Drive, Boulder.Homegrown perennials, annuals, vegetables, herbs, shrubs and trees from the oldest garden club in Colorado. Proceeds fund club projects.

May 7, The Gardens on Spring Creek Spring Plant Sale,9 a.m. to 4 p.m., 2145 Centre Ave., Fort Collins.Unusual annuals, heirloom vegetables, herbs, andperennials.fcgov.com/gardens.

May 7, Loveland Garden Club plant sale,8 a.m. to 1 p.m., All Saints Episcopal Church, 3448 N. Taft Ave., Loveland.Annual flower and vegetable bedding plants, perennials, pots, gardening supplies, antiques/ collectibles, fine arts and crafts. Proceeds go to community causes, such as Larimer County area tree plantings, Loveland Youth Gardeners. 970-223-2265; 970-222-3322

May 21 Happy Transplants Garden Club plant sale,9 a.m. to 3 p.m., in the parking lot of Vectra bank, 3300 W. 72nd Ave., Westminster .Sale of perennials, annuals, herbs and vegetables fund community projects and scholarships. 303-423-2923.

May 14-15; 21-22; 28 Growing Gardens Community plant sale,8 a.m. to 4 p.m., 1630 Hawthorn Ave. in Boulder.Thousands of vegetable seedlings, plus annuals and perennials. Benefits Growing Gardens programming such as Cultiva! Youth Project, Able Gardening, and community gardens.growinggardens.org.

CENTRAL

May 14 Front Range Organic Gardeners and Herb Society of America-Rocky Mountain Unit plant auction and sale,9 a.m. to 1 p.m., auction at 11 a.m. at Denver Presbytery Center, 1710 S. Grant St.Large selection of heirloom tomatoes, peppers, herbs, other vegetables, perennials and ground covers. Cash only. 303-744-7871;frogardeners@comcast.net.

June 11 Fairmount Cemetery Heritage Rose Sale,9 a.m. until sold out, at the 1890 Gate Lodge, near the Alameda entrance, 430 S. Quebec St..Hardy, historical roses. Benefits the Fairmount Heritage Foundation. 303-399-0692.

June 12 Colorado Water Garden Society annual plant sale,colowatergardensociety.org. 10 a.m.-2 p.m., Denver Botanic Gardens, 1007 York St.This annual fundraising event features tropical and hardy water lilies, plus other water plants.June 18-19 Rocky Mountain Bonsai Society annual show and sale, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday; 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Sunday, Denver Botanic Gardens.www.rockymtnbonsai.org.

SOUTH

May 5 Dig and Dream Garden Club Plant sale,8 a.m.- noon at Pickens Tech, Buckley Road and East Sixth Avenue, Aurora.Proceeds benefit tree planting for Pickens Tech, club programs and community projects. 303-484-1639.

May 7 Plant sale at the Pueblo Zoo,presented by the Pueblo Zoo and Colorado Master Gardeners. 8 a.m.-2 p.m. at the zoo, 3455 Nuckolls Ave., Pueblo.Perennials, annuals, waterwise plant, rock gardening plants, hanging baskets. 719-561-1452.

May 13-15 Gigantic annual spring plant sale,Presented by the Horticulture Art Society of Colorado Springs, Inc.,hasgardens.com, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday; Monument Park demonstration garden, 170 W. Cache La Poudre Blvd., Colorado Springs.Thousands of plants for sale, from perennials and annuals to shrubs, vines, small fruit and natives.

May 21 Golden Gardeners annual plant sale,8 a.m. to 1 p.m., corner of Washington Avenue and 12th Street in Golden.Offering perennials, annuals, ground covers, day lilies, iris and begonias. 303-271-1830.

May 22 Manitou Springs Garden Club annual plant sale and Home and Garden show,10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 515 Manitou Ave., Manitou Springs.Supports scholarships, community gardens, and Blue Star Memorials

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Pruning 101 – Wood Hardy Flowering Perennials and Shrubs

Thu, April 28, 2011 No Comments by Neil

Post 2 in our pruning series focuses on wood-hardy perennials and shrubs, and things get a little trickier. In general, for flowering perennials and shrubs, a good rule of thumb is to ONLY prune right after the plant blooms. Again, it’s not foolproof, but it’s a pretty good general rule. This is because most of these plants bloom each spring on new wood they created the previous growing season. Lilac is a great example of this – if you prune a Lilac in the spring before it blooms, you’ll see no blooms that year.

People often ask about pruning Clematis. The first thing to keep in mind that if you’ve found a good spot for a Clematis and it’s growing well, there’s very little risk that you’ll hurt your Clematis by pruning it. While picky about location, once you find the right location, Clematis are pretty hard to hurt. By the same token, ignoring them completely and letting them twine and vine untouched for years will delight them. They simply don’t care much whether you prune them or not.

That said, there are three general types of Clematis, and they each have slightly different pruning requirements (if you do choose to prune). Without going into detail, I generally just apply the same “prune after the bloom” logic, and it will generally work. Early in the spring, it’s common for people to worry about their Clematis, as it will look woody and dead. Be patient, and soon you’ll see new growth appearing on those woody old vines, followed by the profusion of green and bloom that make you love the plant so much. Soon after the green appears is a good time to gently look through the bundle of plant, and prune out any pieces that are obviously dead, though there will be fewer than you think!

Image of Lilac from TheFlowerExpert.com

While Lilac is the woody shrub people most often have questions about pruning, it is also the one that is most flexible in terms of how you can prune it. While it can be “trimmed” back after pruning, it’s characteristics are most favorably displayed by pruning it several times a year to resemble a tree more than a shrub. If you do this, then it’s good to get down into the base of the shrub early in the spring (before blooming) and cut out all the suckers coming up from the ground. Then the energy of the root will go into the bloom above. Following the bloom, start to shape the shrub with monthly prunings throughout the growing season, taking care after the first pruning to leave plenty of this year’s growth upon which next year’s flowers will occur.

There are a number of woody shrubs that people typically “trim back” in order to control how big they get. Forsythia and Viburnum would be examples. This pruning should occur right after flowering, and don’t be shy about cutting them back really hard. They might look bad initially, but within a few weeks you’re likely to be happy with the results.

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Pruning 101 – Root Hardy Perennials

Sun, April 24, 2011 No Comments by Neil

Root hardy perennials are pruned every winter by the cold. Their tops die back to nothing, and they start each spring again from the ground. For these, the only reason to prune during the growing season is looks.

For example, Salvia will bloom big and hard late in the spring, and will then promptly spend energy ripening the seeds left by those flowers. However, if we prune those plants back to below the flowers as soon as they’re done blooming, we’ll usually end up with another (albeit slightly less robust) bloom about a month or so later.

Deep purple Salvia in the background in their early bloom

With root hardy grasses, we generally leave them up all winter to add winter structure to the garden, but it’s important to cut them back to within several inches of the ground before they begin to grow in the spring. This isn’t for the health of the plant – it just looks better when the plants start shooting the green up.

There’s an important exception to the generalities here, and that’s the wonderful mums we love to see exploding with color in the fall. With mums, we should be pinching out the buds from the plant all the way up to the 4th of July. Maybe once a week, maybe every two weeks, but on a regular basis spend a little time with the mums as they grow to keep pinching those little buds off. This allows the plant to focus energy on the building of the plant itself during the first half of the summer. Then, when you stop pinching (or pruning) on the 4th of July, the plant shifts its energy from the green part of the plant into the making of the flower buds. The result is that the blooms all explode at about the same time in the fall – covering the plant in color – and the plant itself got to use much more energy to keep itself healthy and strong.

 

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SpringThyme

Tue, April 19, 2011 No Comments by Neil

This is what the plants will look like later in May

I just had a conversation with a customer about some plant that he wasn’t sure whether or not he should cut back. The plant turned out to me Mother of Thyme, and the answer is that it SHOULD NOT be cut back in the spring.

There are many different kinds of Thyme that we plant, but Mother of Thyme (Thymus serpyllum) is among our favorites. (On the plant maps we leave behind you’ll see it called MOT – our shorthand for a favorite plant.

Unlike the creeping thymes, MOT grows as a single plant. It is technically a zone 5 plant, which means that it has some winter kill in the zone 4 regions of the metro area, like Parker. So, in the spring, it’s really common to see a few dead parts of a MOT plant, but as a whole, the plants will generally make it and stay somewhat green throughout winter. It will root from branches that touch the ground, though it’s more common to see new plants emerge from seed.

This is what the plants will look like in bloom - usually later in June - though if in good sun the blooms will be much more profuse

This time of year, they’re starting to green up even more, and look a little more fresh. My mid-May, if you still see some dead patches, go ahead and cut those out of the plant.

MOT is sometimes called Wild Thyme, as this is the form it was first domesticated from.

There are literally hundreds of varieties of thyme you can plant in your garden. Most of them that we plant are some form of the Thymus serpyllum, such as the creeping thymes that we often put into walkways. The other common form of Thyme is Thymus vulgaris, commonly referred to as culinary thyme. This is a misnomer, as many of the serpyllums are also used for culinary purposes.

 

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