“I live in Central Florida, zone 9b, can I grow hydrangeas in this zone? I used to have them in Maryland as they are my favorite flower. Not sure about the sandy soil here.” Question from Eileen of Longwood, Florida
Answer: Many hydrangeas require cold winters to survive, but there are some truly beautiful hydrangeas that will grow well way down South. These are bigleaf hydrangea (Hydrangea macrophylla) varieties. (Click on this link to view many excellent bigleaf hydrangeas from Proven Winners.) Keep in mind, you are right on the most southerly edge of their heat tolerance. They are able to survive in USDA Hardiness Zones 5-9, so you will want to give them extra good care at planting time and protect them from scorching heat.
To keep your hydrangeas protected from the high heat of the day, plant them in a partially shaded location on the north side of your home, and amend the soil heavily with organic matter. Black Gold Canadian Sphagnum Peat Moss and Black Gold Garden Compost Blend will really boost levels of water-holding organic matter. Follow up with a 2- to 3-inch layer of fine bark mulch or pine straw to reduce surface evaporation. If you experience any dry periods, be sure to irrigate your shrubs as needed. It also pays to feed them with a quality fertilizer formulated for flowering shrubs.
The new vegetable gardener will succeed if given the right information from the beginning.
With decades of vegetable gardening experience under my belt, it’s easy to take the years of knowledge for granted. It’s like riding a bike. I garden on cruise control and react or learn quickly when faced with a new challenge. In turn, years of teaching new gardeners have kept me in touch with the challenges they face. Sound, step-by-step advice is invaluable–potentially averting years of mistakes and poor yields. Getting the big picture of a new garden venture from the start will set the wheelbarrow rolling in the right direction. The new vegetable gardener will be quickly rewarded if modest goals are established from the beginning and time is set aside for the project.
Planning your garden on paper will help you visualize and plan for the project.
Plan Ahead: Determine your garden’s location, size, and crops before you break ground. Vegetable gardens require full sun (8-hours or more per day) and soil that drains well. Gardening is a commitment that often takes more time and labor than anticipated. If you have never gardened before, plan small in the first year to keep it enjoyable and manageable. It will help you succeed from the start and determine how to grow your garden in future years. (Click here for a good article about planning a garden, and click here for an article about rotating crops through the season.)
Sod removal takes work but is worth the effort.
Start Clean: Remove all of the turf from your soon-to-be garden bed. That means manually skimming off the sod with a sharp spade or using an automated sod cutter, which can be rented. I recommend the latter if you have planned a large garden. The bed should be small enough for you to reach into from all sides or large enough to add a walkway for easy access. Square or rectangular beds are easiest to mow around and manage.
Enrich your soil from the beginning!
Don’t Skimp on Soil: Your garden is as good as its soil. When siting it, choose a well-drained spot. If low ground is a problem in your yard, opt for a raised bed (Click here to learn more about preparing a raised bed garden, and click here for a raised bed plan). For garden success in year one, liberally feed your soil with organic matter, such as Black Gold Canadian Sphagnum Peat Moss, Garden Soil, and Garden Compost Blend, especially if your soil is rich in clay or sandy. Add at least 3 inches of the amendment to the soil surface, and till it to a depth of at least 8 inches. Use the amendment application formula below to determine the amount you will need.
Amendment Application Formula
([area to cover] ft2 x [depth in inches desired] x 0.0031 = ___ yd3).
Example: If you wanted to cover a 20 square foot area with 2 inches of compost, the result would be: 20 ft2 x 2 inches of compost x 0.0031 = 2.48 yd3.
Berming planting areas and covering with compost and straw will save weeding time and boost crops.
Raise and Cover: Tilling and adding lots of fresh organic material will loosen and lift your soil to enhance drainage and aeration for better root growth. To take it one step further, I always rake or hoe soil up into berms to maximize drainage and keep beds light for better root growth. Berming is especially helpful for root crops, like carrots, potatoes, and beets, and deep-rooted plants, like tomatoes. Finally, I add mulches appropriate for vegetable gardens, like seed-free straw, compost, mushroom soil, grass clippings, or leaf mulch, to keep weeds down. I generally put straw along walkways I’ve established in my garden and compost on the planting areas. Avoid bark mulch of any kind in vegetable gardens because it binds nitrogen, which is detrimental to heavy-feeding vegetables.
A little fertilizer will go a long way.
Fertilize: Good fertilizer formulated for vegetable growing is essential for bumper crops. Any all-purpose granular or slow-release vegetable fertilizer will do, though I recommend feeding tomatoes with a food specially formulated for their needs. Tomatoes are very heavy feeders that require a wide variety of nutrients to perform their best. Follow the product instructions to keep them well fed.
Choose Good Varieties: Don’t pick just any old tomato, pepper, or bean for your garden. Do your research and pick the best when it comes to yields, performance, and flavor. If you are not certain, always select award-winning plants, such as All America Selections Winners. These tend to be as full-proof as you can get. It is also wise to choose disease-resistant varieties, so keep a lookout for these as well. (Click on the links to discover our favorite sauce tomatoes, lettuce, green beans, mini vegetables, carrots, and fast-growing vegetables.)
Lettuce is an easy spring vegetable that needs cool weather.
Know Planting Times: It is essential to know when you can plant a vegetable, what temperature it likes best, and how long it will take to produce. Vegetables are broken down into cool-season and warm-season types, though some will grow well from spring to fall. Cool-season vegetables, like cabbage, lettuce, peas, and radishes, grow best in cool spring or fall weather, while warm-season crops, such as corn, okra, peppers, tomatoes, and squash, need the heat of summer to yield. Some grow very quickly, and others take months to produce. For example, radishes can be ready to harvest in as little as 20 days, but some pumpkins can take 120 days to produce fruit. So, knowing a crop’s days to harvest is important. Finally, you need to know your last frost date (click here for yours) to determine when it is safe to plant tender vegetables and fruits outdoors.
Some pumpkin plants can grow to 20′ across!
Know Plant Needs and Sizes: Identify each plant’s height and width to determine its garden footprint. You also need to know if supports, like tomato cages or bean and cucumber trellises, will be needed. One important tip for tomato growers is that bush (determinate) tomatoes only reach 1-3 feet and need small cages or stakes, but vining (indeterminate) tomatoes can reach 6-8-feet high and wide, so tall, strong cages are required. Follow spacing guidelines to give your vegetable the space they need to blossom.
When ripe, tomatoes are fully colored and give slightly when pressed.
Know When to Harvest: When is it ripe? Tomatoes and peppers will be fully colored when ready to pick. Beans should be plump and reach the advertised length. Zucchini and summer squash are best harvested small but firm. And, you will know when beets, carrots, and radishes are ready to harvest when their bulbous tops become visible along the soil surface. If you are not sure when to harvest a crop, ask us through our free horticultural advice service, Ask a Garden Expert.
Removing weeds as you see them will keep them from taking over.
Keep It Clean: Weed, weed, and weed some more. Even when you mulch your beds, they will arise. Weeds compete with vegetables for resources and can quickly overwhelm a garden if ignored. They may also harbor diseases and attract pests. Pull or hoe weeds as you see them. Even if you weed every few days or even every week, you will have few to no weed problems, which will give you more time to focus on plant care and harvest. Investing in good weeding tools makes the task lighter. I am never without my weeding knife (Hori Hori), strong hoe (Prohoes are the best), and Korean hand plow (Ho-Mi).
Reach out to friends, family, books, and online references when you have gardening questions. There’s always more to learn and new plants to discover. And, if you can’t find an answer, ask us a gardening question for free at Ask a Garden Expert. You can also search the hundreds of questions we have already answered. It’s our goal to help gardeners succeed.
Coneflowers and black-eyed-Susans are two essential summer-flowering perennials for butterflies.
A well-designed butterfly garden should have flowers all season and contain plants that feed the caterpillars of butterflies as well as the adults. You’ll know if you’ve done well when monarchs (Danaus plexippus), painted ladies (Vanessa cardui), swallowtails (Papiliospp.), and other butterflies visit your garden frequently and even stay to grow and pupate.
There are two ways to maintain constant blooms for your butterflies. You can 1) strategically plant spring, summer, and fall-flowering perennials they like, and 2) be sure to also plant ever-blooming annuals for butterflies. So many garden flowers are favored by lepidopterans, the task is easy. Just a couple of visits to the garden center should do it.
Then there is designing your butterfly garden. I have created an example of an easy, beautiful butterfly border design (below) that contains common butterfly flowers. Use it as a guide for mingling perennials and annuals together to offer flowers and larval food for butterflies through the season.
What Makes a Butterfly Flower a Butterfly Flower?
Pentas lanceolata Graffiti Violet flowers are tubular, colorful, and provide a nice landing pad for this Painted Lady butterfly. These are essential traits for a true butterfly-pollinated flower.
The technical term for butterfly pollination is psychophily. Some flowers are primarily pollinated by butterflies because they have suites of traits that attract these insects. In general, butterflies have a poor sense of smell, long curled tongues (proboscises), good vision, and must perch to feed. To accommodate these traits, flowers most adapted for butterfly pollination are:
Not strongly scented
Tubular and filled with nectar
Colorful
Shaped for butterfly perching with flat-topped or domed clusters or wide-petals
If you look for these traits, you don’t necessarily need to know the names of butterfly flowers. You can visually identify them.
Eight Favorite Butterfly Annual Flowers
Zinnias of all kinds are classic annuals for butterflies, such as this tiger swallowtail.
If you are just starting out with butterfly gardening, the fastest, lowest-cost way to attract them is with ever-blooming annuals. These can be started from seed or purchased as starts from the garden center. Here are eight of the very best annuals for butterflies that will not disappoint. All should be planted in the ground after the threat of frost as passed. (Click here to determine your last frost date.)
Bloodflower (Asclepias curassavica): The beauty of this tropical milkweed is that its flower clusters of bright red, yellow, and orange just keep blooming throught the warm months. All butterflies love it, but the plants also feed monarch caterpillars. Often it will gently self-sow from year to year.
Bloodflower is a great tender milkweed for all butterflies, such as this Queen butterfly.
Purple Queen-Anne’s Lace (Daucus carota ‘Dara’): The lacy blooms of Dara Queen-Anne’s Lace are purplish-pink and loved by all butterflies. It is especially important to swallowtail caterpillars, which feed on the foliage.
Madagascar periwinkle (Catharanthus roseus): Butterflies are attracted to this widely popular, low-cost bedding plant, which is easy, beautiful, and can be found at any garden center.
Heliotrope (Heliotropium arborescens): The violet-blue flower clusters of heliotrope are equally loved by butterflies and bees. Keep the old flower clusters pinched off to make way for new fragrant domes of blooms.
Lantana (Lantana camara): Gardeners living in hot, dry places should plant lantana for its multi-colored blooms of gold, orange, pink, and red, which are irresistible to butterflies. Those in the Bandana Series are compact and colorful.
All butterflies are attracted to the long-tubed flowers of Madagascar periwinkle.
Egyptian Starcluster (Pentas lanceolata): Everyone who plants a butterfly garden should grow the effortless Egyptian starcluster. Varieties may have lavender, pink, purple, red, or white flowers. Those in the Starcluster Series have extra-large clusters.
Verbena (Verbena spp. and hybrids): There are so many fantastic garden verbenas and butterflies like them all. Superbenas are nonstop bloomers that come in many exciting colors, and the upright stems of Lollipop Brazilian vervain (Verbena bonariensis ‘Lollipop’) are equally attractive and popular with pollinators.
Zinnias (Zinnia hybrids): Plant any zinnia. Butterflies like them all. My personal favorites are the classic, low, spreading Profusion Zinnias, with the deepest orange-red Profusion Fire being one of the finest colors.
Eight Favorite Butterfly Perennial Flowers
Long-blooming perennials, such as coneflowers are a favorite food of butterflies and other pollinators.
Aster (Aster species and hybrids): Fall is a time when migrating butterfly species are on the move, and asters are one of the best flowers to feed them at this time. Their purple, violet-blue, pink or white flowers are also a delight. The compact, pale violet-blue flowered aromatic aster ‘October Skies’ (Symphyotrichum oblongifolium ‘October Skies’, USDA Hardiness Zones 5-8) is a billowy beauty that flowers in mid to late fall.
Butterflyweed (Asclepias spp.): This is an essential larval plant for monarch caterpillars, and its clusters of brilliant orange flowers are long-blooming and bright. (Watch the video below to learn more about the many different kinds available.)
Butterflybush now comes in very compact forms that fit well into perennial gardens.
Butterflybush (Buddleia davidii): There are so many different Buddleia from which to choose, but new super dwarf varieties make them ideal for perennial borders. The 2-foot Pugster®Amethyst has especially large, pretty, violet flower clusters.
Bluestar (Amsonia species and hybrids): The late spring or early summer blooming bluestar is an early garden flower for butterflies. ‘Storm Cloud’ is a spectacular form that creates a bushy 2-foot mound covered with clusters of pale blue flowers.
Coneflowers (Echinacea species and hybrids): The large daisies of summer-blooming coneflowers come in lots of colors and feed many pollinators. Their dry seedheads even feed songbirds in fall and winter.
Blazing Star (Liatris spp.): With bold spikes of purple flowers, blazing stars make quite a statement in the summer garden. Butterflies can’t get enough of their nectar. Try the Midwest-native prairie blazing star (Liatris pycnostachya), which has massive flower spikes reaching 3-6 feet high from late summer to fall. The more manageable Kobold dense blazing star (Liatris spicata ‘Kobold’) is a spectacular bloomer with loads of rosy-purple flower spikes reaching skyward in midsummer.
Butterflyweed is one of the prettiest perennial milkweeds for the garden.
Tall Phlox (Phloxpaniculata): Butterflies are drawn to all phlox flowers. Two favorite tall phlox varieties for summer butterflies are the heavy-flowering, pure white ‘David’ (4 feet) and the coral-pink flowered Garden Girls™Glamour Girl (3 feet). Both are mildew resistant when most others are susceptible.
Willow-Leaved Sunflower (Helianthus saliciflious): The natural form of this wildflower reaches a whopping 8 to 10 feet, but the heavy flowering variety ‘First Light’ reaches just 3 to 4 feet and becomes covered with yellow daisies in late summer to fall.
Garden Designs
I sketched this warm-hued, 4’x6′ butterfly garden with plants that I like. (front=Profusion Fire zinnias, sides=lantana Bandana Cherry and bloodflower, second row=tall red Egyptian starcluster and orange butterflyweed, third row=purple coneflower and black-eyed-Susans, and last row= First Light perennial sunflowers.
There are several designing rules of thumb when it comes to planting any flower border. Here are the five most important.
Plant taller perennials towards the back or center of a flower garden.
Leave space for colorful annuals towards the front of the beds. Everblooming annuals will extend the floral show.
Consider flower color: Dot the garden with flowers in complementary colors that are pleasing to you.
Consider bloom time: Choose a mix of flowers that bloom in spring, summer, fall, and all season. That way, your garden will never look dull and colorless.
Create a rendering of your garden beforehand to get a sense of what it will look like.
Spring is the time to plan your butterfly garden and procure plants for it. Flower gardens are so much nicer when they feed wildlife, and butterflies are like flowers in flight. The more you have in your garden, the better.
“Can I get rid of Liverwort by burying it in the ground?” Question from Russ of Berkley, California
Answer: It depends on the site’s soil, soil level, and moisture level. Admittedly, I kind of like the common liverwort (Marchantia polymorpha). Sorry! But, they’re kind of cool. The funny little non-vascular plants are close relatives of mosses and a sign of a very moist, shaded, nutrient-rich garden area. With that said, I dislike it when they grow in containers, so I understand why you don’t want them in your garden. Here are some different options for liverwort removal.
Change the Soil and Soil Level
The number one way of ridding liverwort from an area is to reduce moisture and fertility, increase soil drainage and aeration, and increase light if you can. (They can’t tolerate dryness or high sunlight.) You can do this by lifting your garden soil in the area where they are causing trouble and adding aggregate to the soil to improve drainage.
Replant With the Right Plants
Another option is to dig up the liverwort, lift the soil, and plant the area with garden plants for your area that will tolerate moisture and shade. Here are a couple of options.
Wood strawberry (Fragaria californica): The California native wood strawberry produces fruit, likes shade to partial shade and grows well in moist soils. It forms an edible groundcover, which might appeal to you.
Idyllwild rock flower (Heuchera hirsutissima): Here is an upland California wildflower that can tolerate moist and dry planting areas as well as partial shade, and it’s very pretty.
Pigsqueak (Bergenia crassifolia): Though it is not native, Bergenia is a pretty evergreen perennial for the shade that produces clusters of pink flowers in late winter and early spring. It likes moist, well-drained soil.
Here is my midseason asparagus patch. Cutting back wayward stems in summer can also keep clumps tidier. (Image by Jessie Keith)
“What kind of fertilizer should I use in my asparagus patch? What can I use to control the weeds in my patch?” Question from Linda of New Providence, Iowa
Answer: Asparagus is one of those spring vegetables that I think everyone should grow if they have the garden space. It’s so easy and so delicious. Here are some tips for easy weeding and care.
Asparagus Weed Control
When it comes to weed control, I always started by placing a wide cage around each asparagus clump to keep them upright through summer for easy weeding below. Staking and tying are two other options. Any caging or staking system will keep the rows looking good and make them more accessible for weeding. Then I add a layer of newspaper, wetted thin cardboard, or burlap mulch cloth along the sides of the asparagus rows and top it off with a thick layer of seed-free straw, leaf mulch, or grass clippings (sometimes all three). This step makes harvest less muddy, especially in moist springs, and keeps surrounding weeds down. Finally, I hand weed around my emerging spears. The use of a garden knife, or Hori Hori, will allow for effective precision weeding among clumps. If you don’t have a garden knife, it’s a good investment. Just be sure to keep Hori Horis out of reach from children because they are very sharp. I also recommend wearing strong gloves when working with one.
Asparagus Fertilization
When it comes to fertilization, asparagus plants prefer balanced, low-nitrogen fertilizers (5-10-10), according to Stark Brothers, a good source for asparagus. I always used OMRI Listed fertilizer formulated for vegetables, which always worked well for me. I also like to occasionally add a layer of Black Gold Garden Compost Blend around the crown to act as a mulch and provide added organic matter.
My daughter is picking off Colorado potato beetles from potato plants.
For the past 14 years, I have grown my vegetables in a community garden plot, which has provided a real education in plant pests, diseases, and weeds. Why? Because these mega veggie gardens are pest hot spots, and summer is the worst time of year for the beasties. Bad insects always attack my beans, cucumbers, tomatoes, and eggplants–threatening to destroy fruits and foliage, and sometimes spreading disease as they munch and crunch along. I must use every tool in the toolbox to fight them. And, if they beat my crops, I often start them again, if there’s time and the season allows. Sometimes beating pests is just a matter of retooling planting time.
The five most common vegetable garden pests that I battle in mid to late summer are Colorado potato beetles, striped cucumber beetles, flea beetles, Mexican bean beetles, and harlequin cabbage bugs. (Cabbage loopers and squash vine borers are also a problem. Click here to read about cabbage looper control, and click here to read about squash borer control.) Each return year after year with regularity, but some years are worse than others. The severity of the previous winter usually indicates the severity of my pest problems–the milder the winter, the harsher the pest problem.
Last winter was pretty warm, so this summer, the pests are rampant. Here are some ways that I have learned to overcome them.
Colorado Potato Beetle
One often sees Colorado potato beetles mating on top of a potato plant.
The surest way to attract Colorado potato beetles to your garden is to plant potatoes, but if you don’t have potatoes, they will go for your tomatoes and eggplant secondarily. (Fortunately, they don’t appear to be attracted to tomatillos.) The fat, striped adult beetles emerge from the soil in late spring to feed on emerging potatoes, and then lay clusters of orange-yellow eggs on leaf undersides. They yield highly destructive little orange larvae that eat foliage nonstop and grow quickly. You can kill the insects at any stage, but it’s easiest to pick off the adults and eggs. (Click here to view the full life cycle of these beetles.) The beetles can complete up to three life cycles in a single season, so once you have them, you generally have to fight them all summer.
A Colorado potato beetle larvae eating tomato leaves.
These insects are highly resistant to insecticides, so it pays to choose non-chemical methods of control. Time and time again, I’ve found that well-timed cultural control and proper winter cleanup are the best means of battling them. Cultural control is essentially picking off the adults, eggs, and larvae and/or pruning off egg- and larval-covered leaves and branches. I generally smash picked specimens, but you can also drown them in a bucket of water. Beetle picking should start in mid to late spring and continue until all signs of these pests are gone. (To learn everything there is to know about Colorado Potato Beetles, visit potatobeetle.org.)
Spotted and Striped Cucumber Beetles
Here are the symptoms of bacterial wilt, which is spread by the striped cucumber beetles.
As their names suggest, striped and spotted cucumber beetles favor cucumbers, but they also attack melon vines. Small, striped or spotted cucumber beetles look so cute and innocent, but they are so destructive. Every year my cucumber crop is a crapshoot. Why? It’s not because of the damage they cause by feeding on plants and fruits. It’s the catastrophic bacterial wilt that they spread from plant to plant. Once cucumber vines get cucumber bacterial wilt, there is no turning back. The leaves will start to show droop, and eventually, whole stems will collapse, and the vine will die.
These pests may have two to three cycles in a season and are next to impossible to control, even with harsh chemical insecticides. Floating row cloth cover can keep them at bay, but it’s a hassle and does not allow pollinators to reach the plants, though some cucumbers are self-pollinating, particularly Beit-Alpha types like ‘Diva’.
Striped and spotted cucumber beetles are similar in size and color.
Tiny jet-black eggplant flea beetles are the smallest summer pests in this list, but they can devastate an eggplant in a matter of days. They attack many other veggies, like radishes, potatoes, turnips, and spinach, but with less ferocity. The small but numerous insects leave little pockmarks all over a host plant’s leaves. Badly damaged leaves barely function, resulting in poor, weak plants that produce puny fruits.
If you want to grow eggplant, you have to protect them from eggplant flea beetles. There are plenty of insecticides that will kill these insects, but only a few non-chemical cultural practices will stop them. The best method that I have found is protecting plants with summer-weight floating row covers that transmit a lot of sunlight while physically keeping insects from the plants. The key is covering plants early and then securing the row covers at the base, so the tiny beetles cannot crawl beneath them. Holding cover edges down with bricks, pins, and even mulch or compost works. The only caveat is that you may need to hand-pollinate plants for fruit set.
Good fall cleanup of infested crop plants will also keep populations down from year to year. On average, eggplant flea beetles will complete up to four generations in a single season. (Click here to learn more about these pests.)
Harlequin Cabbage Bug
Harlequin bug adults will quickly destroy broccoli, kale, cabbage, and other brassicas.
These ornamental stink bugs are the worst enemy of summer kale, broccoli, and other brassicas. They suck the juices from the leaves, causing pockmarks all over them. The most striking destruction I have ever witnessed was with enormous Portuguese kale that I had nurtured to a bold 2′ in height through spring. Once the numerous beetles started to attack in early summer, the plant had no chance.
There are a few management practices that will help stop these bugs. Floating row covers can also be used, as was suggested for the eggplant flea beetles, but harlequin cabbage bugs are big enough to pick off by hand if you have the time and can handle the slightly stinky smell they emit when disturbed. Spraying them off with a jet of water will also help knock them back. Small nymphs are also susceptible to treatment with OMRI Listed®insecticidal soap.
Two to three generations of harlequin cabbage bugs can occur each season. By late summer, they are no longer a problem, so that you can plant your fall cabbages and kales with confidence. (Click here to learn more about these pests.)
Mexican Bean Beetle
Mexican bean beetle larvae do serious damage to bean leaves.
Like Colorado potato beetles, it’s the larvae of Mexican bean beetles that do the harshest damage to bean plants. The adults emerge in late spring, but they rarely cause major problems on bean plants until midsummer. The adults are orange, black-spotted beetles that lay clusters of orange-yellow eggs below the leaves, much like the Colorado potato beetle. The unusual larvae are fuzzy, bright yellow, and devastate leaves as they feed along the leaf bottoms.
You can control these pests as you would Colorado potato beetles with one exception – destructive harvesting. Destructive harvesting is the harvest and total removal of infested plants from the garden. After picking all the beans from an infested plant, the whole plants should be pulled, bagged, and taken far from your garden. (Click here to view a YouTube video from the University of Maryland about destructive harvesting.) Beans can be replanted as late as mid-August for early fall harvest.
A Mexican bean beetle adult on a bean leaf.
In general, regular weeding, good plant care, and excellent garden clean up, in summer and fall, will help keep pest populations down. Clean the ground of all leaf litter and weeds as needed, and amend the soil with top-quality amendments for vegetables, such as Black Gold® Garden Compost Blend and Garden Soil, and your plants will be more robust to resist the many garden pests that threaten to destroy them.
“We are trying to establish a straw bale garden because our soil up here in the Rockies is so bad after years of ranchers over-grazing the entire area. Any tips on how to make this succeed? Question from Wolf of Westcliffe, Colorado
“Do you have any advice or opinion when it comes to hay bale gardening?” Question from Pamela of Conroe, Texas
Answer: What are the odds of getting a nearly identical question on the same day by two gardeners states away? There are some advantages to straw or hay bale gardening, especially in hot and dry areas. And the method can be cost-effective. These gardens also generate lots of rich organic matter and can yield beautiful crops if done properly.
I have never created a straw bale myself because I worry about voles and mice making homes in the bales and chomping on my crops. I also fear seed-filled straw or hay bales. But, I have seen successful straw bale gardens from start to finish and understand how they work and are created. Here’s an overview of straw bale gardening along with some steps I would take to make one really succeed.
Start with Good Materials
These gardens should be prepared ten days before planting, so they have time to settle and begin to break down internally. To start a straw bale garden, you will need:
Well-bound, seed-free straw or hay bales
Compost, potting mix (the amount depends on the bale number. Maybe ~.5 cu ft/bale)
Planting knife or long trowel
Fertilizer formulated for vegetable gardening
Water
Start with tight, well-bound bales of the best seed-free straw or hay that you can find. Straw is the dry, bare remnants of wheat, oats, and barley harvest. Hay is dried grass used for feeding livestock. Both can contain seed, so ask around and seek out the most seed-free bales available.
When choosing your compost and mix, consider Black Gold Natural & Organic Planting Mix and Compost Blend, which are both OMRI Listed® for organic gardening and perfectly suited for straw bale gardening. For bale prep, use a planting knife, also called a hori hori, or a long, sharp trowel. An OMRI Listed granular fertilizer formulated for vegetables would be your best choice.
Maintain a Tidy Garden
Place your bales on a weed-free plot. Line the bales up singly if you intend to plant small crops, like beets, carrots, lettuce, and bush beans (click on the links to watch videos about growing beets, bush beans, and lettuce). Double or triple your bales if you intend to plant larger crops, like bush squash or vining tomatoes that require caging.
Turn the bales on their sides with the tied sides facing outward. Work up and remove some of the internal straw or hay. You can place the excess around the base of the garden as mulch. (Follow up with further application of either leaf mulch or straw around the base of the gardens to keep the area weed-free.) Fill the bale spaces with compost and potting mix, being sure to work it down into the straw. Once full, water your garden in until it is completely moist. Keep it moist for 10 to 14 days. Then it should be ready for planting. Add more compost and mix at planting time.
Over the summer, the bales will break down. By season’s end, they should be pretty well broken down and settled. The remaining soil will be very fertile and rich in organic matter. That will help build a good base for vegetables over time in either Colorado or Texas.
I hope that this information helps! Happy straw bale gardening.
The beginning of the year is always filled with award shows to highlight the best-of-the-best. In the entertainment industry, there are the Oscars, Grammys, Emmys, and Tony Awards. In the horticultural world, there are All-America Selections, Fleuroselect, RHS Award of Garden Merit (UK), and other more regional awards for the best-of-the-best garden plants. Plant introductions that receive awards are marketed as having better flowers, stronger stems, disease resistance, unique foliage, and different growth habits. Overall, they are somehow improved or different relative to what is already on the market. Growers and garden centers then sell winning plants to lucky gardeners. The following is a small fraction of new or notable plants that have received some kind of award for 2020.
All-America Selections Winners
Tip Top Rose nasturtium (Image thanks to All-America Selections)
One of the most active organizations for plant trials and awards is the All-America Selections (AAS). Founded in 1932, it has introduced award-winning annuals, perennials, and vegetables ever since. Its mission statement is, “To promote new garden varieties with superior garden performance judged in impartial trials in North America.” The AAS has about 200 display gardens coast to coast, which include those in public botanical gardens, arboreta, retail garden centers, university gardens, and municipalities. Where I live in Oregon, there are AAS display gardens at Clackamas Community College in Oregon City, Oregon State University Extension Service in Redmond, and Territorial Seed Company in Cottage Grove. Most states have comparableble publically accessible AAS trial gardens.
Sombrero® Baja Burgundy coneflower has deep violet-red blossoms and makes an excellent cut flower. It was trialed over three tough winters, and the AAS Judges noted that was a standout for hardiness, heavy flowering, and showed very sturdy branching. All coneflowers (Echinacea spp.) are good wildlife plants that attract many pollinators and seed-eating birds.
Tip Top Rose nasturtium, another AAS winner, is a compact, bushy bedding plant with rose-colored flowers that rise above the green foliage. The flowers do not fade as they age, and the strong, uniform plant continues to flower well through the season. Nasturtiums are also excellent choices for pollinator gardens, and both the leaves and flowers are edible. (Click here to discover more edible flowers).
Fleuroselect Winners
Silene ‘Sibella Carmine’ (Image thanks to Fleuroselect)
Fleuroselect is another plant trial and award organization that is international but based in Europe. The current membership is comprised of about 75 bedding-plant breeders, producers, and distributors with a goal of evaluating new bedding plants and contributing to the development and advancement of the industry as a whole. Two promising Fleuroselect Gold Medal Winners for 2020 are Shasta daisy Madonna (Leucanthemum x superbum ‘Madonna’) and nodding catchfly Sibella Carmine (Silene pendula ‘Sibella Carmine’).
Fleuroselect refers to ‘Madonna’ one as the next Shasta daisy star. Unlike most other Shastas, it reblooms. The easy-care perennial forms new flowers over the fading ones and blooms from summer to early autumn. It looks good in pots and containers as well as beds and landscape areas.
When spilling from a hanging basket or pot, ‘Sibella Carmine’ looks spectacular. It bears loads of reddish-purple, semi-double flowers that bloom all season and don’t require deadheading. This is one that will most certainly become a common sight at garden centers across the country. It requires regular moisture to perform to its fullest, so I recommend planting it in Black Gold® Moisture Supreme Container Mix for best success.
Oregon Association of Nurseries’ Winners
Hibiscus moscheutos Summerific® Evening Rose (Image thanks to Proven Winners®)
On a more local level where I live, the Oregon Association of Nurseries (OAN) has its list of winners. Every August, the OAN has a large grower-oriented trade show called the Farwest Show, which Black Gold attends every year. Within the show, there is a section called New Varieties Showcase where growers feature some of their best new plant introductions. This is one of my favorite areas to visit at the show, and I always learn about new plants on the market. Show attendees vote on their favorites, and winners are selected and given an Award of Merit.
Last year, one of my favorite plants from this display was the hardy hibiscus Summerific® Evening Rose (Hibiscus moscheutos Summerific® Evening Rose), which won an Award of Merit. This hardy hibiscus has bright rose flowers and near-black foliage. Hardy hibiscus is becoming more popular in our area, and I now often see it in gardens. They are easy to grow, prefer full sun, and bloom late in the season, giving the late-summer and autumn garden a splash of color.
All of the plants mentioned should be available at garden centers this spring. Many will have special tags to let potential buyers know that this plant has been selected for an award. Award-winners are a safe choice for gardeners looking for something sure to perform beautifully. I always like to try new plants in my garden each year and with offerings like this, my list for 2020 continues to grow.
Cascading licorice plant, feathery Artemisia, and large-leaved silver plectranthus show textural comparisons. (Image by Maureen Gilmer)
Raising a pubescent teen can feel like being pecked to death by a duck. But it’s a lot more pleasant when it comes to plants. Here pubescence is “a covering of soft down or hairs on certain plants and insects.” It serves as a protective adaptation of some plants originating in regions with a long, dry season and can add a grey or silver appearance to leaf surfaces.
What is Leaf Pubescence?
The Mediterranean silver sage is covered with an “arachnoid” pubescence, meaning the hairs are cobweb-like.
A leaf contains thousands of tiny pores, called stomata, through which a plant respires. These openings are vulnerable portals for moisture loss. Plants have developed various strategies for reducing water loss, and one of them is pubescence.
A pubescent leaf will feel soft or fuzzy to the touch. This texture is produced by microscopic hairs (trichomes) that can form a protective layer to help plants stand up to brutally dry conditions. The hairs can come in a variety of lengths and textures: Tomentose (dense, soft, white wool), hirsute (rough, stiff hairs), or villous (long, shaggy hairs) to name just a few.
If you’ve ever experienced the hot winds of the desert, you know how quickly it can draw moisture out of your skin. It does the same to plants. Moisture loss increases with wind speed and sun exposure. Pubescent hairs help deflect air from the leaf surface. Even a minor slowing of air can have a significant effect on reducing moisture loss through stomata. Dense pubescence also helps to shade the leaf surface. Each tiny hair casts a microscopic shadow to protect the leaf’s outer layer from direct solar exposure.
Grey and Silver Garden Plants
Cold-hardy, low, spreading lambs ear is ideal for planting around flagstones. (Image by Maureen Gilmer)
Not all pubescent plants are drought tolerant, so it’s important to know the more moisture-tolerant types, such as silver spurflower (Plectranthusargentatus, USDA Hardiness Zones 10-11) and licorice plant (Helichrysum ‘Silver Mist’, Zones 7-11), which thrive in any climate, provided it’s not too drenched in the summer rain. These are plants from areas with high-intensity sunlight where temperatures remain moderate, such as the South African coastline.
Here are some reliable perennial choices for drier climates and how to use them.
White sagebrush (Artemisia ludoviciana, Zones 4-9) is a fast-spreading perennial with 1-3 foot stems of fragrant, silver leaves that are suited to herb gardens or spacious sunny borders. It is native across North America and Mexico and is more heat and drought-resistant than some silvery garden artemisias originating from Europe, such as the fine-leaved, bushy Powis Castle silver sage (Artemisia ‘Powis Castle’, Zones 6-9), which will grow in practically any garden with full sun and good soil drainage.
The Mexican and North American white sagebrush is a reliable silver native perennial that spreads.
Tender felt bush (Kalanchoe beharensis, Zones 11-12) is a pubescent succulent from Madagascar with foot-long leaves cloaked in fuzzy gray. In California, plant it in the sun on the coast and shaded inland locations. The tropical succulent makes an excellent summer patio specimen and house plant, too. For best-potted performance plant it in Black Gold Cactus Mix.
The popular lamb’s ear (Stachys byzantina, Zones 4-8) originates in the arid Mediterranean and is a low, spreading groundcover ideal for planting along the edges of paths and between rocks and flagstones in most well-drained gardens. A visually comparable, non-spreading mint with wooly white leaves is silver sage (Salvia argentea, Zones 5-8), which is at home in any rock garden or sunny, well-drained bed.
Felt bush was particularly popular in mid-twentieth century modern homes in Los Angeles. (Image by Maureen Gilmer)
Another from the Mediterranean is lavender cotton (Santolina chamaecyparissus, Zones 6-9). It forms a rounded, silver ball of highly aromatic foliage that makes a beautiful spot of silver that develops buttons of yellow flowers in summer. Use it in knot gardens due to its tolerance to shearing.
One of the brightest of the silver-grey set is shining white senecio (Senecio candicans ‘Angel Wings’, Zones 8-11) with its glowing, lightly felty leaves. Plant it in containers or sunny borders.
Designing with Grey and Silver Garden Plants
Pubescent foliage plants look elegant with deep burgundy accents, such as succulent, purple aeonium. (Image by Maureen Gilmer)
Pubescent plants are valuable tools in garden design. First off, they can truly glow under moonlight because the hairs become iridescent. They pop on a cloudy day with reds and other muted colors. Due to interest being in the foliage, they do not visually come and go but retain their fuzzy beauty all season long or nearly year-round in mild climates.
It’s great fun to experiment with contrasts. Play a glossy leaf off a pubescent one in your potting scheme. Play fine-textured needles against large fuzzy leaves. Textural differences make both plants stand out better.
Shining white senecio has some of the most luminescent foliage of all.
The neutrality of gray or silver shades means you can use them with more vivid colors for really striking compositions. Deep burgundy foliage, such as that of purple aeonium (Aeoniumarboreum ‘Zwartkopf’, Zones 9-11), bronze New Zealand flax (Phormium tenax, Zones 8-11), or purple fountain grass (Pennisetum setaceum‘Rubrum’, Zones 9-10) looks outstanding against grey and silver leaves. Burgundy plants create vitality in otherwise subtle, cool-colored gardens in dry climates and have a light value that does not compete with gentle-colored flowers in blues, lavenders, pale pinks, and whites.
With so many silvers and greys out there to choose from, it’s possible to create the coolest perennial gardens within the arid landscape. If you’ve longed for a really elegant tool for eye-catching plantings in your droughty garden, then turn to pubescence to reflect the light. And, if you’re lucky, that other pubescent individual in your life may take notice and put down the Smartphone for a nanosecond to admire the garden fuzz.
Aromatic santolina is known as lavender cotton due to its pubescence. (Image by Maureen Gilmer)
“As an older crippled up fogey, I appreciate raised beds. Do you have plans available for different kinds of raised beds?” Question from Kevin of Belleville, Ohio
Answer: We don’t have raised-bed building plans, but we may in the near future. What a good idea!
