Author: Maureen Gilmer

Maureen Gilmer is celebrating her 40th year in California horticulture and photojournalism as the most widely published professional in the state. She is the author of 21 books on gardening, design and the environment, is a widely published photographer, and syndicated with Tribune Content Agency. She is the weekly horticultural columnist for the Desert Sun newspaper in Palm Springs and contributes to Desert Magazine, specializing on arid zone plants and practices for a changing climate. She works and lives in the remote high desert for firsthand observations of native species. Her latest book is The Colorful Dry Garden published by Sasquatch Books. When not writing or photographing she is out exploring the desert on her Arabian horse. She lives in Morongo Valley with her husband Jim and two rescue pit bulls. When not writing or photographing she is usually out riding her quarter horse.

Swanky Succulent Container Gardens

Succulents - Maureen Gilmer - Feature Image — Succulents: Elegant pedestal urns feature rounded mounds of succulent plants topped with a crown of spiky leaves.

Nestled into opulent coastal southern California is a nursery where I go to find out what’s hot in the world of container gardening. Decades ago Rogers Gardens was founded on flower-filled hanging color baskets so fabulous they draw tour buses daily. I worked there in the early 80s and today I return to see how they display every hot trend in container gardening. Most of what I see can be recreated using Black Gold specialty potting soils to make your home garden just as exciting this year.

Mesclun - Maureen Gilmer — Mesclun: Integrating colorful lettuce into pots and gardens makes more opportunity to snip for dinner.

GREENS

Edible greens are proving to be one of the most interesting plants for both ornamental and food gardens. At Rogers they are displayed in glorious color from purple kale to pastel mesclun mixes of curious gourmet lettuce and greens. Potting them into decorative containers is easy when you use Black Gold Natural & Organic Potting Soil. Blend these with edible flowers and culinary herbs for beauty you can snip and pinch into salads, soups and as decorative garish.

Flax - Maureen Gilmer — Flax: Latest looks include dark burgundy Aeonium and bright red striped Phormium combine in terra cotta.

SUCCULENTS

Growing succulents in containers demands fast draining Black Gold Cactus Mix. Such porosity allows you to cram dozens of colorful rosettes into the same pot without concern for rot setting in. The latest look is combining vivid autumn colored foliage plants such as New Zealand flax hybrids with gobs of succulents for perfect compatibility.

Mediterranean - Maureen Gilmer — Mediterranean: Woody rosemary topiary sits atop high-contrast succulents.

MEDITERRANEANS

Demand for drought resistant plants and popularity of Spanish inspired architecture puts Mediterranean species front and center. The creation of topiaries from rosemary and fruitless olive provides excellent form and fragrance with other less European selections. Fruitless olive and its dwarf cousin ‘Little Ollie’ are hot right now to accent Mediterranean inspired architecture. Blend them with succulents or low profile herbs in traditional terra cotta pots for focal points on patio and terrace. Use Waterhold Cocoa Blend Potting Soil to retain moisture and reduce the need to water often, making these creations even more water conservative than Mother Nature planned.

Herb Box - Maureen Gilmer — Herb Box: Old boxes repurposed at Rogers for a small space herb garden or a super gift idea.

HERBS

Every foodie needs an herb garden filled with the best culinary species. At Rogers this year they’ve used old wood crates to create rustic herb gardens perfect for an apartment balcony, a condo courtyard or even a small roof garden. It’s truly amazing how useful they are when ganged together like this, offering lots to pinch and pluck. Since so many herbs come from arid climates that lack summer rainfall, try Hy Porosity Natural and Organic Potting Soil which helps them stay high and dry during rainy summers.

During my years at Rogers I learned that one potting soil doesn’t fit all plants. That’s why Black Gold offers so many options. Use the right ones so you can be just as successful with your succulents, Mediterraneans, edibles and herbs no matter where you live.

Colorful Flowers for Shade Gardens

Columbine grow well in full sun to partial shade. (Image by Jessie Keith)

The bright treasures of the shade garden often come from our nation’s most beautiful forests. Beneath the canopies are perennials that evolved to grow and bloom on the forest floor, which botanists call the understory. Here the litter of leaves, thin soils and root competition caused by so many trees may be similar to your own yard’s shaded spaces. What you plant there likely came from the forest floor, and these treasures really flourish when you offer similar soil conditions.

Heuchera - Maureen Gilmer — Hot-colored foliage of *Heuchera* ‘Amber Waves’ brings sunset oranges to the shade garden all season long.

The leaf litter accumulation is known as a duff layer, which is the natural mulch for shade plants. Recreate this protective layer using Black Gold Garden Compost Blend and Garden Soil. It’s equally useful for amending poor soil and clays with organic matter that improves drainage.

Of all the understory perennials, four top choices offer color, romance and elegance to shaded beds and borders…

Heuchera

Today’s Heucheras and are by far the most exciting group of new cultivars. Breeders have crossed western native Heuchera species with the traditional coral bells. The result are new varieties that not only bloom extravagantly, but their foliage color is nothing short of outstanding. Here you’ll find mounds of vivid foliage in reds to purple, black, gold and many shades of green for color long after flowers fade.

Bleeding Heart

From Asian forests come the old-fashioned bleeding heart (Dicentra spectabilis), often the first flower of spring. This frilly perennial is the most romantic shade bloomer with wands of dangling heart-shaped pink flowers. These nod and sway in the slightest breeze adding gentle animation to shaded nooks in the garden. This species was also bred to our western native Dicentra to expand flower colors into dark red and white.

Columbine

No flower can compete with the elegance of columbine (Aquilegia spp.), which is found in northern forest around the globe. Those we grow in gardens are hybrids of European species crossed with our many natives to produce a wide range of flower size and color. They also attract bees and hummingbirds.

Bigleaf Hydrangea

Perhaps the hottest shade garden plant is bigleaf hydrangea (Hydrangea macrophylla), the big leaf or mop head type. It brings early summer color to shade gardens with a bonus of blue or pink flowers to cut and dry. This is a great problem solver for beds and borders lacking much sun. Beware that mature hydrangea flowers are so fabulous they are routinely stolen from front yard plantings.

Hydrangea - Maureen Gilmer — Huge flower heads of big leaf hydrangeas offer cut flowers in pink or blue depending on the variety and soil conditions.

When you set out to bring color to your shaded garden, there is less light to make the foliage and flowers stand out. To increase visibility, plant groups of the same variety in small drifts or masses. Before planting, recreate the forest floor conditions by mixing lots of compost into your soil, or amend it on a plant by plant basis in each, individual hole. Once all are in the ground, spread a thick layer of mulch around each plant to create your own duff. Above all, remember that trees are greedy and applying water in the heat must be enough to please them and these colorful denizens of the understory too.

Give Roots Incentive to Grow Downward

Planting fruit trees, grape vines or blueberry shrubs? To make sure yours are really productive, give them an incentive. Sprinkle a measuring cup of organic fertilizer into the bottom of your planting hole, then cover it with a few inches of soil before you set the root ball on top. Then deep water often to send moisture down there to activate this fertilizer so its ready for roots when they arrive. Such incentives drive roots downward into the soil where they are far better able to find moisture under hot dry conditions later this summer.

Big Planting Pots, Big Rewards

If you’re gardening on patio, porch, deck, roof or terrace, you need the right pots. Choose big planting pots large enough to support long lived woody plants that offer big rewards of beauty and food. Insist on a mouth wide enough to accommodate a 5-gallon nursery pot to ensure the rootball fits without crushing.

This will support fruiting or flowering trees, shrubs and vines that can instantly change the nature of outdoor space. Obtain enough Black Gold® Waterhold Potting Soil to fill the pot to 3 to 5 inches below the rim with the new plant in place. This “freeboard” is a time saver that lets you apply a lot of water all at once so you can do something else while it slowly percolates into the root zone.

Start Vegetable Seeds Indoors Early

Inner-city kids from Head Start programs perform at much higher levels of literacy and language than kids of the same socioeconomic groups who did not attend the program. Likewise, starting vegetable seeds indoors while it’s still cold helps gardeners get a head start in the spring and summer garden. Many vegetables perform much better when they are nurtured indoors before outdoor planting.

Timing Planting

Start different vegetables at varying times before outdoor planting. For example, the rule of thumb for tomatoes and peppers is to sow them six to eight weeks before the estimated planting date, which is usually a couple of weeks after the last frost of spring. To accomplish this, start them in late February or early March. At planting time, tomato and pepper starts should be six inches tall or more.

Seedling Web — Seedling: You can protect tiny seedlings much easier indoors, then transplant into the garden after the last frost.

Where summers are short, starting early means harvesting early. (Planting early-to-produce vegetables also ensures an earlier harvest.) Warm outdoor soil and strong root systems will make them vigorous growers after transplanting.

Home Seed Starting Advantages

The advantages of starting seedlings at home are that they cost less, seed catalogs offer more choice than nurseries, and, if you are an organic gardener, you can be confident that your plants have been grown organically. (OMRI Listed Black Gold Seedling Mix is approved for organic gardening.) Seed catalogs carry wonderful specialty vegetables and heirlooms that are often tastier and a lot more fun to cook with.

The Seed Starting Environment

Growing seeds indoors requires a sunny windowsill, sun porch, greenhouse, or cold frame. Choose a south-facing window that provides at least 6-hours of sunlight. If that’s not available, consider investing in full-spectrum grow lights to start seeds.

Head Start: It’s easy to start a garden in new or recycled containers.

Before you begin sowing seed, it’s important to gather all the materials you’ll need ahead of time. A quality growing mix is essential. Black Gold’s Seedling Mix is light and airy for reliable germination and root growth.

Other Materials Required:

Black Gold’s Seedling Mix
Seed
Plastic pots or cell packs with water-holding flats and clear plastic cover
Mister and small watering can
Four-inch pots to upgrade seedlings
Black Gold Natural & Organic Potting Soil
Waer-soluble fertilizer

Read these additional Black Gold articles about seed starting.

Growing Roses in Containers

Balboa Island Roses — Balboa Island: Rose planting is maximized by three tiers of planting in a space less than five feet deep.

If you love big roses but are short on space, here’s a great way to layer them in for more blooms per square foot. Using the vertical plane, this urban home features three tiers of planting: in ground, a raised bed and large window boxes. Hidden behind are two large pots that support the coral flowered climbing roses. All of this fits into a space just five feet deep from sidewalk to house wall.

Because roses are heavy feeders, fill your raised planters and containers with Black Gold All Purpose Potting Soil. It contains controlled-release fertilizer, so it will give newly planted ever-blooming Flower Carpet or small shrub roses the food they need for a vigorous start. After a couple of months, it also helps to feed again with rose and flower fertilizer.

Flowering Kale: Beautiful Edible Color

Lowly kale has a modern cousin that brings vivid color and food to early spring gardens. Flowering kale features dense and leafy heads in exotic purple and pink foliage as well as some odd thread-leaf forms that offer bold textural differences. You can blend kale with early season edible flowers like violas and calendula to make rainbow salads from a single potted composition. To make sure all edible leaves and petals are chemical-free, fill pots and troughs with Black Gold Waterhold Cocoblend Potting Soil before planting your kale. Then refresh the soil and replant with heat lovers when the kale bolts to flower around June.

Sterilize Containers for Planting Seeds

Whether you recycle nursery containers or reuse those from last year’s garden, make sure all are properly sterilized before planting seeds. Containers for planting seeds must always be clean as can be before planting!

Wash out all remnants of soil or organic matter sticking to the sides. Then dip each clean container into a bucket containing a 10% bleach solution to kill any remnants of prior diseases that could attack your seedlings. Wait until your clean, sterilized pots dry before adding OMRI Listed Black Gold Seedling Mix for a safe, sterile germination bed for your seeds. Not only does it do a great job, but this mix is approved for organic gardening!

Fast-Draining Soil for Succulents

“Water applied must drain through the soil in fifteen seconds. If it fails to do so, the soil is too dense.” Such advice came to me decades ago from an old school nurseryman who specialized in cacti and succulents. Back then I thought this fifteen second law regarding fast-draining soil for succulents was ridiculous. After moving to the desert I learned what native cactus ground looks like. Water applied instantly vanishes into the soil. The nurseryman was right.

Today about half my collection of succulent plants are grown in small pots that come into an unheated south facing greenhouse for the winter. They are planted in Black Gold Cactus Mix, which drains within the fifteen second rule.

Soil is Everything

What many new succulent gardeners fail to understand is that, because cacti root differently, soil is everything. Standard plants go deep to catch ground moisture after the surface soil dries out. In the desert, cacti adapt to short periods of rainfall by spreading out shallow roots over a large area. These roots are capable of rapidly taking up water before it water drains through porous ground. This water is immediately stored in a succulent’s specialized tissues that hold it between widely spaced rain events. Shallow rooting is the reason why most cacti do best in low, wide pots, pans and bowls with large, open drain holes.

Succulent Pot - Fast Draining Soil for Succulents — This low, wide pot allows for plenty of surface root development beneath the surface gravel.

Cactus potting soil contains perlite, which looks like little white pieces of popcorn. While it is excellent for a root zone, it floats to the surface when I water. This and little bits of organic matter become entangled in the spines or settle in nooks and crannies of smooth surface skin. This is not only unsightly, it brings soil born bacteria in direct contact with the plant skin which may begin the rotting process.

To control these floaters, succulent aficionados apply a layer of fine gravel on top of the potting soil to keep it all in place when water is applied. White rock is popular for modern style containers with a more graphic look. I prefer washed gravel because it’s more naturalistic and blends with the rocks I find on walks to use as an accent stone. You can also use aquarium gravel for more unusual or brightly colored composition of succulent, pot and surface material.

Transplant Gently

Even the smallest damage to the skin of a plant can allow pathogens to enter and begin the process of internal cell damage which leads to softening rot. When transplanting cacti, I handle each plant carefully to avoid the slightest damage. Once removed from the original pot, I do not replant immediately but allow it to sit bare root in the open air for a few days. This lets any damaged roots or skin heal over or callus before repotting in new soil. Failing to do so brings soil pathogens into direct contact with a wound, which inevitably infects internal tissues.

When your soil is sufficiently well drained for cacti and gorgeous succulents, it becomes downright difficult to over water them. The warmer months of summer are their rapid growing season. During this growing season, water often, feed modestly, and above all, make sure you use Black Gold Cactus Mix to be sure it drains in about fifteen seconds.

Grow Organic: All or Part

Grow Organic Artichokes — Edible artichokes make outstanding perennials accented with petunias.

Call it botanical profiling. It’s gone on since the beginnings of agriculture. Tomatoes, corn and lettuce belong in the organic food garden. Flowers grow in the ornamental garden. The primary reason for such a division is that food growers are all about a clean, edible harvest. Flower growers put the emphasis on an abundance of perfect blooms throughout the season. They often use synthetic fertilizers to achieve that end. This is not necessary. Continue reading “Grow Organic: All or Part”

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