Monthly Tips

July - Plant of the Month

Flowers for Cutting

I'll make a bouquet out of almost anything. Dried up flower heads and seedpods? Sure. Tiny flowers in a teeny-weeny vase? Of course. Prunings meant for the compost heap? Absolutely.

I once pruned a red japanese maple that was in bud and placed the cuttings in a clear blue vase. It was quite lovely and I particularly liked the portion of the stems that was submerged. They were all about the same girth and criss-crossed in a very pleasing way. Good thing I didn't pick an opaque vase.

[Bouquet]

Bouquet with lilies, roses and honeysuckle

Random cuttings and dried up flowerheads (hydrangeas and alliums are great) are all very well and good but sometimes, particularly in the height of summer, you want some big gorgeous beauties to bring into the house. Roses, with the exception of rugosas which shatter, make excellent cut flowers. I particularly like those that give me clusters of flowers like floribundas or some shrub roses. A small pitcher filled with nothing but a nosegay of roses is a total delight.

Other flowers with strong forms can be the focal point of a display. Lilies make fantastic cut flowers. I pop off the anthers outside because they can be messy and staining. Rhodies, delphinium, hydrangeas, dahlias and many of the daisy-like flowers give a lot of pow and hold up well in the vase.

As for the filler, the this and that, fern fronds are an obvious choice, but try anything you have around. Play with form and color. I'm currently using the leaves of Angelica 'Vicar's Mead' a biennial (lasts 2 years and self sows) which has deep, deep burgundy stems and dark olive green leaves. Variegated dogwood (Cornus sp) works well as does purple smokebush (Cotinus coggygria cvs). Big, bold hosta leaves can really showcase many flowers. Nigella, an annual whose common name is love-in-a-mist (or devil-in-a-bush) has fabulous seed pods. I've also used many broad-leaf evergreens like bay leaves, sarcococca (sweet box), skimmia as well as the scale-leaf conifers like western red cedar.

To help your cut flowers last longer you want to provide water and food and keep mold and bacterial growth to a minimum. Try any or all of the following to prolong your floral delights. Re-cut the stem under water. Cut flowers take up water but an air bubble will form that inhibits this if it is cut in the air. Cut the stem at an angle and re-cut every few days to keep those waterways open.

For food, add floral preservatives or sugar (1 tsp/quart) or lemon-lime soda (not un-sweetened, 1 part soda to 3 parts water). Several different steps can be taken to inhibit the growth of life-shortening nasties. Remove leaves that will be under water. Replace the water every few days. Add a few drops of bleach.

So go on, get out your shears and your soft drinks and bring a few armloads of beauty into the house.




July - Tip of the Month

Mastering Perennial Weeds

I hate morning glory. I know other perennial weeds are just as bad or worse but there is something diabolical about morning glory. It has that delightful white flower to lull you in. It is herbaceous so it disappears in the winter and you think (oh so wrongly) that it is gone. Then there are the roots. They are brittle and every little piece is the beginning of a new plant. And I swear morning glory hides. I can walk past an area day after day and see none and then one day, boom, there it is winding its way up everything. Clearly, I have morning glory issues that will take years of therapy to resolve.

[Morning Glory]

So what's to be done with morning glory and its perennial pals - ivy, blackberry and dandelions? First, you should know I don't use herbicides like Roundup. If you choose to use them know that repeated applications may be needed and read the instructions. Many herbicides only work when a plant is actively growing or don't work at certain temps, etc.

So leaving out the chemicals, what should one do?

Dandelions - Don't let them set seed and dig them out. Usually if you get 4-5" of root, the rest will rot. The digging works better when the soil is damp. Try a variety of long implements until you find one that works for you - an ipod and possibly several martinis might be useful as well if you have a lot of dandelions to deal with.

Blackberry - Cut it back (or mow it) at least 4 times per year. The idea is that it grows from food stored in its roots and without its top growth to make more food, the stores eventually get used up and the plant dies.

Ivy - If on the flats, Ann Lovejoy says to smother it with 12-24" of mulch. She says about 80% will be dead in 3 months and you can pull the rest. Ivy in rockeries you just have to pull and keep pulling.

Morning glory - Pull, pull, pull. Remove tops at least every week. Again the idea is to deplete its reserves and not let it put on top growth to make more. According to Ann Lovejoy, you can also do the smother mulch thing using coarse bark. After about 3 months you rake away the mulch and haul out armloads of roots. Replace mulch and repeat. If the roots are coming in under a fence, install a bamboo barrier.

To sum up, don't let weeds get started (mulch!), get them young when they are easier to pull and before they set seed, and then pull, pull, pull, cut, cut, cut. Good luck.