PLANTWISE - September 2009

Garden and Plant Delights

Highlights of my North Carolinian hort adventures

Posted by: Kate Bryant on Sep 28, 2009 at 08:00AM 6 Comments

Nothin’ like a giant Aloe to add drama to a scene. This at the Juniper Level Botanical Garden at Plant Delights Nursery

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Nothin’ like a giant Aloe to add drama to a scene. This at the Juniper Level Botanical Garden at Plant Delights Nursery

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Much-used in NC, this beautiful Muhly grass pictured near a pond at the Juniper Level Botanical Garden is native from Massachusetts to Texas.

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Everybody lingered on the terrace brimming with pots of rare, variegated succulents

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Plant Delights nursery

I’m fresh back from Raleigh, North Carolina where I attended the annual Garden Writers Association Symposium. My last post described some of our pre-conference plant geekery. But there was one more garden pilgrimage planned before the conference started: a personal tour of the specialty plant nursery Plant Delights Nursery in Raleigh with owner Tony Avent. This renowned mail-order firm also has an on-site botanical garden with some 17,000 taxa (unique plants), beautifully arranged and labeled, and an education center with classroom space.

Tony Avent’s politics have earned some complaint letters from progressives and others who object to the (questionably) humorous political mockery displayed on the cover of his catalogs. Still, his plant collection is astonishing and his depth of knowledge of plants and gardening is profound. We were in plant heaven.

After immersing ourselves in the glorious diversity of Plant Delights, the pre-conference gawking was officially over. But I had four more days of GWA-organized plant tours (with a full schedule of sessions and meetings between) ahead of me. Well, me and about 650 other garden writers and plant industry professionals!

First stop: the Sarah P. Duke Garden in Chapel Hill. This 55-acre public garden flanking Duke University consists of four areas: the formal “historic” gardens and terraces designed by landscape architect Ellen Shipman (1869-1950); the H.L. Blomquist Garden of Native Plants; the W.L. Culberson Asiatic Arboretum; and the Doris Duke Center Gardens. There was some really fine container plantings and unusual plant bedding material but the most photogenic by far was the lily pad pond.

Avid garden writers flocking the photogenic lily pond at the Duke Garden

After another few hours of buying plants at Plant Delights (we’d only ogled them with the proprietor the first time ’round), we visited the J.C. Raulston Arboretum in Raleigh. This truly extraordinary garden was named in honor of its late director and founder, a much-admired plantsman and professor of horticultural science at NC State. The garden contains over 5,000 taxa (different kinds of plants). In addition to acres of woody and herbaceous plants laid out in large island beds for evaluation, there was a xeric garden with a wide range of drought-tolerant plants and scree gardens, which display plants native to hot, dry regions of South Africa, Mexico, the Mediterranean and the southwestern US. Unfortunately, it was raining and dusk was falling while we toured the garden so my photos were disappointing.

Raleigh is situated in USDA Zone 7b (winter lows of 5F to 10 F) so there are close parallels to our region’s Zone 8a/7b climate. It was exciting to see so many new plants – if they can grow in Raleigh, there’s a very good chance they’ll grow in Portland, OR. The upshot? In the name of science, I shipped home a bunch of hardy gloxinias, tradescantias, aloes and bulbs so I could try them out myself.

The North Carolina Botanical Garden in Chapel Hill displayed many native North Carolina ecosystems beautifully including the coastal plains, the Piedmont (central North Carolina), and western NC’s mountains, as well as native gardens devoted to shade, fern, carnivorous, and rare plants.

Native perennials of the Southeastern US are more diverse in form and colorful than in the PNW

Devoted to plant and resource conservation, the gardens and building are built and maintained with green principles in mind, from the ecologically sound plantings to the permeable driveway and new green building that will likely be the first LEED Platinum building in NC when finished.

The last garden on the tour was Montrose in Hillsborough. Now a Garden Conservancy property, this amazing garden is the home of Nancy and Craufurd Goodwin. The grounds include several romantic 19th century buildings, rock and scree gardens, woodlands, unusual trees, luscious container plantings, and exquisite meadowy perennial and shrub beds. I first heard of Nancy Goodwin while reading Allan Lacy’s “The Garden in Autumn,” published in 1990 and still my favorite book on the season. Goodwin’s garden had attained quasi-religious status for me so it was an essential visit, even if it meant missing my plane, which I very nearly did. While I didn’t have enough time to savor the exquisitely sensitive interplay between formality and wildness there, I did snap some photos, which I can savor. I hope you can, too.

This is a classic scene of Montrose (minus the nurseryman in the distance)

Some of the borders at Montrose

Red, pink and blue salvias at Montrose. The garden had a tangled elegance about it which contrasted beautifully with the formality of the house and layout of the property

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Tags: Places to Go

Horticultural Slumming in NC

Some fervent plant nerds take a horticultural romp in the Raleigh, NC area.

Posted by: Kate Bryant on Sep 23, 2009 at 01:00PM 0 Comments

Star anise (Illicium) breeding at NCSU is producing beautiful plants with larger, more upward-facing flower and purple-tinted foliage.

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Star anise (Illicium) breeding at NCSU is producing beautiful plants with larger, more upward-facing flower and purple-tinted foliage.

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Many southern native plants are incorporated into the perennial gardens on the property, including outside the hothouse.

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This is what we spent most of our time doing – bending over examining plants. Geeks, like I said!

A few days ago, I joined up with three fervent plant nerds for a horticultural romp in the Raleigh, NC area.

My plant-loving compadres were Dan Heims (President of wholesaler Terra Nova Nurseries in Canby, OR); Kelly Norris of Rainbow Iris Farms in Iowa (also garden writer, plant breeder, botany graduate student and all around genius-child at the tender age of 22) and Bob Pries, avid plant collector, author and publicity point man for the American Iris Society). It has been a wild ride – having never been to NC, I’ve been thrilled just by the distinctly southern tobacco fields, native pine and Liquidambar (sweetgum) woods, and the romantic, mist-shrouded hills. Not to mention biscuits for breakfast every morning! And spending three days talking about plants non-stop with three avid plant breeders and rare plant collectors has been eye-opening, to say the least.

Our adventure began with a personal tour of the NCSU Research Station with Dr. Tom Ranney, plant collector and researcher. Ranney heads up breeding on a variety of interesting landscape plants including Mahonia (Oregon grape, although many are Asian), Illicium (star anise), Miscanthus sinensis (maidenhair grass – a noxious weed in this area), and many other plants including Southeast native perennials, shrubs and trees. Dr. Ranney bred Hydrangea arborescens Invincibelle Spirit, a repeat-blooming, medium pink mophead hydrangea, due for release by Spring Meadow Nursery this coming spring. We rambled through fields, greenhouses and labs and were at times quite dazzled by the plants: favorites included a glorious double white camellia with tiny leaves and some compact, beautifully dark-leaved Physocarpus (ninebark). It was fascinating to see plants in the development phases and to get a sense of exactly what traits the breeders are working on – things like disease resistance, compact size, attractively-colored new growth, stable variegation, winter hardiness, flower size and color, and about a million other qualities.

The next day, our first stop was the Biltmore House in Asheville, NC. Built by George W. Vanderbilt with family railroad money, this mansion (“the largest residence in America”) was inhabited by Mr. Vanderbilt by 1895 and represented the pinnacle of architectural craftsmanship for the time, from the woodwork to the bathroom fixtures. We could have spent the entire day ogling the place.

But we’d come for the gardens, designed by the fabled Olmsted and Olmsted firm. Our trusty leader Dan Heims had set up a tour with Parker Andes, Director of Horticulture at the Biltmore and a major plant aficionado, joined by plant-geek and landscape contractor Hunter Stubbs. To our delight, Parker Andes soon unfurled a copy of the original Olmsted map of the property, which allowed us to see how the landscape would have looked when first planted. Andes and his gardening staff have been restoring the rock work, streams and plantings to their original state. Driving along the entry road to the mansion, he pointed out areas where reconstruction had been done – and what remained. Our tour of the gardens surrounding the house revealed greenhouses stuffed with beautifully tended tropicals and succulents. The rest of the property consists of perennial and shrub beds with many southern native plants, a large formal rose garden, a walled garden, water and bog gardens and, further out from the house, natural woodlands and managed forests.

Our next stop was the wholesale Hawksridge Nursery in Hickory, NC. Dan had arranged to meet up with owner Rick Crowder – another avid plant collector – who showed us plants he’d found in Japan, as well as on collecting expeditions around the South. I was excited about a Loropetalum (fringe flower) with rich, dark burgundy foliage unmarred by brown tones and with vibrant spidery-red flowers. He also had some distinctive variegated forms of Camellia, Ligustrum (privet), Ternstroemia, and Aucuba – all fine evergreen garden plants, particularly in the winter garden. Rick Crowder is the breeder for Abelia ‘Mardi Gras’, a dwarf Abelia with white-variegated leaves and pale pink flowers. I found it really interesting to meet these passionate people who found and bred these new garden plants – who either had the eye to spot the stand-out plants either in the wild or amongst rafts of seedlings in a field or who meticulously pollinated the flowers (or fiddled with genes in a lab) with a particular result in mind until they reached their goal.

By the end of two days, I was teetering dangerously on the brink of mental overload. But that didn’t stop me from getting up at 6 am this morning (fueled by more biscuits, of course) so we could drive to the renowned Plant Delights, a mail-order nursery whose opinionated owner Tony Avent has worked to establish one of the country’s most successful mail order “micro-nurseries” while building the finest botanical garden East of the Rockies. More on that another day.

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Tags: Places to Go

The Ultimate Plant Sale

It Only Happens Twice a Year

Posted by: Kate Bryant on Sep 15, 2009 at 11:00AM 0 Comments

This unusual Rhododendron auriculatum is a tall species with bluish foliage and huge trusses of frilly, green-throated white flowers that appear in late July and early August. The new growth is smouldering pink. The flowers are also intensely fragrant, like lilies. Nice, huh? Well, I found it at the HPSO sale one year.

It’s been a busy few weeks in Portland’s plant world – there has been an endless round of fundraiser dinners, garden tours, and plant sales. But of them all, the Hardy Plant Society of Oregon (HPSO) Fall Plant Sale and Garden Festival, coming up this weekend, is the ne plus ultra – the ultimate confluence of regional horticultural knowledge and wisdom. At this much-beloved plant sale, shoppers can find an amazing selection of interesting and garden-worthy plants from nurseries far and wide.

This twice-yearly event (spring and fall) brings together about 65 specialty nursery vendors from southern Oregon all the way up to south-central Washington, selling a wild diversity of plants. A quick scan of the vendor list turns up growers of ornamental grasses, succulents, rock garden plants, medicinal and culinary herbs, iris, Columbia Gorge natives, Pacific Northwest natives, heathers, ferns, primulas, lilies… as well as growers who just “specialize” in growing rare or fascinating plants like, say, wild selections of high-elevations palms or broad-leaf evergreens that survive our sneaky cold snaps.

I liken the HPSO plant sales to the Portland Farmers Markets: you need only visit one place to gather your “produce” and, by buying directly, you have access to the advice and wisdom of generations of growers and propagators who have worked through all seasons – like any farmer does – to bring these plants to a state of delicious garden-readiness.

Having this opportunity to chat with the specialty nursery owners and growers themselves is what makes this twice-a-year sale special. Not that the neighborhood nurseries aren’t wonderful. But talking with the person who actually stuck the cuttings or sowed the seed back in January adds so much to the experience. Not only can you learn exactly what this plant you’re about to buy needs but you have the pleasure of knowing that your dollars are going directly to the genuine enthusiasts who grew the plants from scratch – and sometimes even collected the seed of the plants from the wilds of some mountaintop in Asia or New Zealand.

In recent years, the HPSO committee has added a garden art fair to the plant sale. I think I remember seeing some swell recycled wood lawn furniture last year, which I hope will be there this year.

So visit the sale and take the time to enjoy the best efforts of our Oregon and Southwest Washington plant growers and garden art creators. They put a tremendous amount of effort into these sales. There’s just nothing quite like it, anywhere else in the country – or maybe anywhere, period.

Hardy Plant Society of Oregon’s Fall Plant Sale

When:
Saturday Sept 19th and Sunday Sept 20th from 10 to 3

Where:
The Portland Expo Center, Hall C
2060 North Marine Drive
Portland, Oregon 97217

Directions here if you wish to drive or bike. If you bike there but can’t fit everything for the return trip, there is a hold area so you can pay for your plants and return for them later, for as long as the sale is open. Or, take TriMet – since car parking costs $7 per car.

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Tags: Plant Sale

Muddy Boot Fest

…and ticket giveaway

Posted by: Kate Bryant on Sep 09, 2009 at 02:00PM 0 Comments

Interested in climate change, overpopulation, sustainable living, and allied issues? Why then, you might like to know about The Muddy Boot Organic Festival this weekend. I haven’t been to it (this is the fourth annual festival) so I’ll just quote the press release:

“…a vibrant, bustling, outdoor sustainability-themed festival featuring stellar live music, organic and sustainable foods and beverages, information booths, sustainable products, educational workshops, and fun activities for families and children. The live music lineup includes musical performers Weinland, Portland Cello Project, Stephanie Schneiderman, Freak Mountain Ramblers, the March Fourth Marching Band and others.

The Muddy Boot Organic Festival’s mission is to promote sustainable living practices within our local communities, thereby enhancing the health of our world, our neighborhoods and ourselves. The theme of this years festival is Connecting Communities in a Changing Climate."

Sounds festive – and interesting. Best of all, I have two free tickets to give away to the keynote speech on Friday night by author and environmentalist Bill McKibben. His talk titled “The Most Important Number in the World” addresses climate change and starts at 7:00 pm this Friday night. Opening remarks will be made by former Oregon Secretary of State, Bill Bradbury.

McKibben is the author of The End of Nature, the first book on climate change aimed at a general audience, Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future and many other works. He is also a cofounder of 350.org – whose mission is to inspire the world to rise to the challenge of the climate crisis. The number 350 is significant because it is the level scientists have identified as the safe upper limit of parts per million of CO2 in our atmosphere. According to scientists, we are already above 350 ppm, and 350.org s goal is to mobilize an international movement to bring our planet back to 350. The founders of 350.org are coordinating a planetary day of action on October 24, 2009, just a few weeks after our Muddy Boot Organic Festival."

So, on to the give-away: the first person to answer this plant-related question correctly on the comment section of the blog will win two tickets to Bill McKibben’s keynote speech on Friday night at 7 pm.

Question: what kind of “cape” is the name of the plant “Cape fuchsia” (Phygelius) referring to? Drop me a line – let me know before anyone else does and we’ll give you two free tickets.

For more information about the festival, please visit www.muddyboot.org

Location:
St. Philip Neri
2408 SE 16th Ave
Portland, OR 97214

Festival ticket price: $15.00 – $20.00

Info Line: 503-231-4955
tickets@muddyboot.org

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Tags: Places to Go

Le Tour des Plants

C’est Bon!

Posted by: Kate Bryant on Sep 06, 2009 at 12:00PM 0 Comments

This lovely vine (Clematis ‘Roguchi’) is the sort of plant you might find at the Rogerson Clematis Collection sale at Luscher Farm on Saturday, 10:30 am to 3 pm. It’s a non-profit organization and plant sales support the preservation of the diverse Clematis collection found there. There will be guided tours, too: check the calendar of events for details.

The fourth annual Tour des Plants runs from September 12 to 20, 2009. Organized by the Oregon Association of Nurseries (OAN), this nine-day extended plant party gathers together some 30 garden centers and nurseries for a smorgasbord of promotional events – plant sales, tours, talks, seminars, demos, and tastings of local foods from tomatoes and apples to olive oil and wine. Most events – and tastings – are free. And many classes offer discount coupons or free gifts with purchase.

There will be events and promotions all the way from southeastern WA to Corvallis (and of course Portland). And while it’s a cliche to say it, there is something for everyone, from horticultural neophyte to rare plant collector. Just review the calendar of events and the map – then follow your fancy. Here are some highlights:

Saturday Sept 12, 19 from 10-12 – a behind-the-scenes tour of Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm nursery. I recently learned they are one of only a handful of Willamette Valley nurseries to be VeriFlora Certified (Certified Sustainably Grown).

Saturday Sept 12, 19 and Sunday Sept 13, 20 at 11 am and 1 pm – walking tours of an olive orchard, olive mill and olive oil tasting at Red Ridge Farms (Yup, olives are being grown commercially in the Willamette Valley now.) I haven’t been there yet so you’ll have to drop a line and let me know what it’s like if you go.

Saturday Sept 12-Wednesday Sept 16 all day, each day – a spectacular sale at Monnier’s Country Gardens, specializing in both hardy and tender fuchsias. This wonderful nursery is closing shop at the end of the season so stock up on these great garden plants (which are also so useful to hummingbirds…)

Thursday Sept 17 at 11 am – a talk by Fred Weisensee of Dancing Oaks Nursery on fall bloomers – and I don’t think he’s talking about autumnal undergarments, either! Later, at 2 pm, he’ll discuss drought tolerant plants – an important subject and one that he is well qualified to speak on, as you’ll see at the garden. If you haven’t been to Dancing Oaks Nursery in Monmouth, get thee hither. It’s a great day trip from Portland and exploring the beautiful hillside display gardens can keep you occupied for many happy hours.

Sunday Sept 13 from 1-4 pm – Pinot and Petanque (French boules) at Daryl’s Nursery near Salem on Sunday, Sept 13. He has one of the best funky-art sheds I’ve ever seen!

You could also get your home garden soil tested; receive free landscaping advice; take a workshop on constructing a “green wall” (aka living wall), succulent wreath or winter planter; attend a zucchini festival; or learn how to prune hydrangeas – among other things.

And the timing’s good, too. While people really want to shop for plants in the spring, autumn is typically better for getting any reasonably hardy new plants established in the ground. The soil is still warm, while cooling air temperatures and increasing rain help minimize stress on newly-planted plants. That all these nurseries are putting plants on sale is just the icing on the cake. So view the map and schedule online, pick up a copy of same (with lots of cut-out coupons to play with) at a participating garden center or call 503-777-1421 for more information.

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Tags: Gardening Events, Places to Go

It’s Not Too Late for (Vege Garden) Love

…but don’t wait too long!

Posted by: Kate Bryant on Sep 03, 2009 at 11:00AM 4 Comments

Purple sprouting broccoli is easy to grow and so very cold hardy. Plant young plant starts now and they will slowly develop over the winter. In March and April, they produce exquisitely sweet, tender baby broccoli sprouts. There are green and purple types – the purple ones are almost too beautiful to eat.

Sure, some very organized vegetable gardeners have all their cabbages in a row and are merrily planning their winter dinners based on their clever succession of plantings. Okay, so I’m kind of talking about myself here. I knew I was going to write about it so I got moving early this year – in mid-July, to be precise. But if you have been busy enjoying your summer bounty and haven’t yet thought about your fall through spring harvest, don’t give up: there’s still time to plant quite a few excellent vegetables. (This is assuming you have a garden ready to receive these plants. If you don’t, check out this article on starting a new garden bed from scratch.)

Yesterday I spoke with a woman named Jolie Grindstaff who works at the Portland Nursery. (I enjoy chatting up the staff there – probably driving them crazy in the process.) Jolie writes a kitchen gardening blog. I asked her what vegetables she is still planting in early September. Here’s what she suggested. (Note: the commentary is mine and I made a few additional plant suggestions, too.)

For fall harvest:

From seed: radish, greens like mustard, and baby greens including mustard, kale, spinach, lettuce, cress, arugula, mache and mesclun salad mixes.

From starts only: Kale, Swiss chard, cold-hardy lettuces like Arctic Tundra or Winter Density, and all previously mentioned mesclun greens. Also, quick-ripening green peas like snow peas.

For winter harvest:

From starts only (through mid-late Sept): leafy greens including mustards, kale, broccoli raab (you harvest the tasty greens), and some fast-growing cabbages, if the plants are strong and healthy. Even more cold-hardy winter lettuce varieties can perish in really cold weather so consider covering your crop with frost cloth or little hoop houses during prolonged cold snaps – or harvest as mesclun greens before a freeze – for details, read this.

For spring harvest:

From seed: Mache, edible fava beans (Windsor, Aprovecho varieties)

From starts only: Overwintering carrots like Merida, overwintering sprouting broccoli, cold-hardy/overwintering cabbage, cauliflower and kale.

One of our best regional sources for cold-hardy, overwintering vegetable varieties is Territorial Seed Company. They clearly indicate which varieties are intended for overwintering.

Finally, I would add that it’s still too early to plant garlic cloves and shallot bulbs – they are best planted in mid- to late October or earliest November. As this is the season when we feel summer slipping regrettably through our fingers, it’s reassuring to know it’s still too early to do something in the garden!

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Tags: Vegetables, Gardening Tips