Your Secret Garden

Planting for Privacy

By Amy McDowell

The garden is a place to get away from the world—to escape from everyone and everything. Shed that cloak of stress and step into nature’s embrace. Your deck or patio can be an intimate, private retreat. It doesn’t matter if your neighbors are delightful—you can engage them in conversation if you choose—but you must create a space in your garden that is isolated from the outside world.

Privacy fences are tremendously popular because they create a visual barrier that takes little space and little care. There are many wonderful plants you may use to create a softer barrier. Here are a few shrubs to help create privacy in your garden. They are just about as easy to install and maintain as a fence.

Emerald arborvitae (Thuja occidentalis ‘Emerald’) is a narrow, upright evergreen commonly used for screening. It creates an attractive deep green backdrop for other plantings—flowering perennials look stunning in front of arborvitae. Emerald arborvitae grows slowly, reaching twelve feet tall and four feet wide at maturity. Pruning is not necessary to keep them looking sharp. Some arborvitaes suffer winter burn that creates brown patches, but emerald arborvitae is hardy and durable.

Lilacs (Syringa vulgaris) form a terrific hedge as long as you have the space for them. The deliciously fragrant blooms will fill your garden in May. You can find lilacs that bloom in every shade of purple, pink, and lavender, and even white or pale yellow. The common lilac grows fifteen feet tall and about eight feet wide. The best way to prune a lilac is to cut out no more than one third of the oldest, woodiest branches close to the ground. This will encourage new suckers to sprout at the base, keeping the overall size reduced and the blooms within range of your nose, rather than above your head.

Viburnums come in many shapes and sizes. Arrowwood viburnum (Viburnum dentatum) is named for its arrow-straight upright branches, and Koreanspice viburnum (V. carlesii) is named for its fragrant blooms. Arrowwood viburnum will grow to eight feet tall and six feet wide, and Koreanspice viburnum will mature to about five feet high and wide. Viburnums have rich dark green foliage and are extremely hardy here in central Iowa. In addition to these two, there are many other excellent varieties to choose from; each with its own wonderful characteristics.

Your list of plant choices is blessedly long and diverse. If your deck is elevated, your site may call for a small tree or a cluster of them. Imagine your deck or patio embraced in privacy. Picture a lush green barrier in your mind. Your new plantings may not give you the instant privacy of a fence, but it won’t take long. Take a deep breath. Soon you will have that delightful, secluded pocket of heaven in your garden.

How NOT to trim a tree

Tree Topping is a Tragedy

By Amy McDowell

“Forfeit his hand, he who beheads a tree.” John Evelyn, Sylva, published in 1664.

Those words were written 347 years ago, but incompetent morons are still topping trees today. My heart lurches with horror when I see a tree butchered like the one in this photo.

(Photo by Larry Costello)

Trees do need pruning from time to time, but they NEVER need a severe heading back or topping. In fact, a tree will never fully recover from being topped. It will scramble to replace all of that food-producing leaf surface, but the rapid new growth is always weaker.

“Don’t do big, drastic pruning once every 15 years,” says Dr. John Ball, a professor of forestry at South Dakota State University. “Tree care should be life-long and low-intensity.”

At a recent arborist conference, Ball shared his advice on tree care. Training young trees is ideal, because you can set them up to live a long and healthy life. Most often, however, people wait until the trees are mature and then prune them. “You cannot make a tree healthy by making it smaller,” writes Dr. Alex Shigo. And over thinning the canopy, says Ball, is like bleeding a tree to death. “Branches are independent, not parasitic. Each one must produce its own food.”

ISA Certified Arborists can look at a tree and recognize what to prune. You can trust that an ISA Certified Arborist will do what is best for the tree. They sometimes laugh that their clients expect to see a huge pile of tree trimmings when they are done working. A trustworthy arborist is one who is most concerned with the safety and health of the tree and not concerned about creating a large pile of brush to impress their clients.

There are more than two dozen ISA Certified Arborists in and around the Des Moines area. You can find arborists in your area by visiting www.TreesAreGood.com.

I’d like to thank Dr. John Ball of South Dakota State University for the inspiration for this column. The photo, taken by Larry Costello, was provided by the International Society of Arboriculture.

Perfection is an Illusion

No such thing as perfection in the garden

By Amy McDowell

Catalogs packed with photos of dreamy plants and immaculate gardens arrive in the mailbox every day, reminding me of the first time I ever ordered plants by mail. The photos, of course, were so beautiful I had trouble choosing what to order—I wanted it all. But when the plants arrived they were nothing like the lush and colorful catalog images I had daydreamed over for hours. I unwrapped clumps of roots packed in stringy peat and wet shredded newspaper and it was two years before the little plants began to resemble the catalog photos.

The flawless images in garden catalogs and magazines are just as misleading as the flawless models in fashion magazines. That kind of perfection is unachievable in the garden—at least if that’s what you expect every day of the season. The garden is ever changing: sometimes immature, sometimes overgrown and sometimes just a little rough around the edges. The moments of sheer garden glory are nestled somewhere in between.

Gardens, by their very nature, are supposed to be a little messy. We all know that the healthiest soils are those with bits of decaying plant matter strewn about. Outdoor fabrics do fade and fray, and the flat-tine pitchfork always ends up with one finger out of alignment. And even if the garden appears like a perfect Eden to visitors, the gardener can always name at least a half dozen flaws they plan to work on.

My garden is comfortable. I’ve spread shredded leaves over the beds again this fall and when I walked by one of the beds on a recent chilly evening, I noticed a leaf had tumbled from the bed onto the grass. I smiled and felt goofy about it. The disarray of decaying fall leaves sent a shiver of pride down my spine. My garden will never be perfect, but I love it for all its flaws. The joy is in the evolution of it and the insight that I glean from growing right along with it.

Amy McDowell is an Iowa Certified Nursery Professional. She has a degree in horticulture and has worked in the field for ten years. She lives and gardens in Polk County.

Where are the labels?

Show or no – your garden’s purpose

By Amy McDowell

I stepped forward to the railing and the garden that unfolded below me was one I had seen in a calendar photo some fifteen years earlier—the image so beautiful that I’d saved it and pinned it on my office wall for better than a decade. Vast fluid strokes of color washed through the valley below. It was the famous Sunken Garden at Butchart Gardens in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, and it took my breath away.

Wordlessly, I ascended into the garden like wandering through a dream world. The grating voice of some crotchety tourist behind me broke into my mind. “Where are the labels?” she complained loudly. “None of the plants have any labels on them!” In the wonder of it all, I couldn’t have cared less about plant labels. They were ordinary plants, after all; common, everyday annuals planted in spectacular sweeps of color.

Rounding a bend in the path, we came across a gardener planting mums. The grump pounced on him about plant labels. With a loose swing of his arms, the gardener flung his hands out, palms up, and said, “This is a show garden, not a botanical garden!”

That simple statement made clear the garden’s mission. No apologies, no question about it—Butchart and the gardeners on staff there know exactly what they want to create. And I have no doubt that their clear vision is how they do it so successfully.

So what about your garden? Do you have a clear idea of what you are trying to create? Of course, there is much to be said for tottering in the garden somewhat aimlessly, whiling away the time and loving every moment of it. But a mission statement for your garden is the one way to assure that you eventually achieve what you set out to do. Without one, you never actually “set out to do” anything.

Every garden has some purpose; it may be something simple like dressing up the home, producing edibles or for personal enjoyment, solace or healing. The mission may change over the years as your family grows or your lifestyle changes. With a mission statement, you won’t waste time, energy, money or even thought on plant labels when your garden’s purpose is for show.

Amy McDowell is an Iowa Certified Nursery Professional. She has a degree in horticulture and has worked in the field for ten years. She lives and gardens in Polk County.

Boughs of Holly

Deck your Halls

By Amy McDowell

After we put away the turkey, some of us will soon find ourselves decking the halls. Holiday music and a swig of eggnog may help put you in the spirit.

Pretty Poinsettias

While visiting Hawaii several years ago, I was amazed to see poinsettias grown as shrubs around the foundations of homes. They looked spectacular, growing to about five feet tall and wide. The leaves (bracts) had colored to deep red on their own.

Red is the rage, but poinsettia breeders have created burgundy, white, salmon, pink, purple, and bicolors with marbled leaves. Today’s poinsettias can be kept looking terrific for at least eight weeks with the right care.

Put your poinsettia in a sunny window. They like bright light and are happiest when daytime temperatures are between 65 and 70 degrees and nighttime temperatures drop to the 55 to 65 degree range. If your home is too warm, you may see the lower leaves yellow and drop off.

Water thoroughly when the soil surface feels dry. Those plastic or foil wrappers on poinsettia pots can be detrimental to the plant’s health. A poinsettia that sits in water will droop and drop leaves if the roots begin to rot. Use a saucer under the pot, and cut holes in the wrappers so water will drain out where you can see it and dump it out.

Christmas Trees and Greens

The holiday atmosphere in your home will be festive whether your Christmas tree is fresh cut or artificial. Fresh cut trees, however, need a little extra TLC.

The needles on your fresh cut tree won’t dry out as quickly if you spray with an anti-transpirant like Wilt Pruf before bringing the tree into your home to decorate. Newer tree stands are designed with larger water pans, which ease your daily watering chore and prevent drying out. They are more expensive than basic tree stands, but worth the investment if you get a fresh cut tree every year.

If your tree is artificial, a few cut evergreen branches will bring the fresh evergreen smell into your home.

Amy McDowell is an Iowa Certified Nursery Professional. She has an associate’s degree in commercial horticulture and has worked in the field for ten years. She lives and gardens in Polk County. 

Amaryllis

Showy and Vibrant Amaryllis

By Amy McDowell

My first amaryllis only bloomed once and then it died. Yes, I followed the directions. I tucked the bulb, pot and all, into a cool dark closet and left it there—too long. Oops. By the time I pulled it out of the closet, the bulb had shriveled up to a dry papery husk. It turned out the directions were poor and I had guessed wrong on a few of the important details. It was years before I grew amaryllis again, but I’m so happy I gave them another try. Here’s how to do it right so they will bloom year after year for you.

Potting Amaryllis

·         Amaryllis blooms are stunning, but buying three bulbs and planting them all in a wide, shallow pot is even more breathtaking.

·         Buy quality potting soil. It will work much better than that light, dusty peat mix that comes in amaryllis kits.

·         Place the bulb so that the top half is above the soil level. The bulb needs to have about an inch of space on all sides.

·         Water it well over the sink, and then set it in a warm location. If you set it on top of a warm appliance, like the refrigerator, the bottom heat will push it to flower more quickly. Don’t leave the pot on a bottom heat source for more than a week.

Care after Blooming

·         You can remove the blooms as they fade, but wait until the bloom stalk starts to whither and collapse before cutting it off.

·         The bulb will still have leaves, so treat it like a regular houseplant until spring.

·         In late May or early June, set the pot outdoors in a shady spot where you will remember to water it. You will have healthy green leaves all season, which are making energy for the next bloom cycle.

·         In late September, let the pot go a little drier, and then in early October, take it into a cool dark basement. You are pushing the bulb to go dormant and rest for about eight weeks. Don’t cut the leaves off until they have turned brown on their own. Little or no water is needed.

·         In early December, bring the pot out. You only need to repot the bulb if it is bursting out the sides of the pot. Water thoroughly, and the blooms are on their way again.

Amaryllis are available with single blooms, double blooms, and in miniature. They come in red, orange, pink, peach, blush, white, and bicolors. You can find amaryllis at the local garden center, or by contacting any of the following sources: Amaryllis Bulb Co. at 888/966-9866 or www.amaryllis.com; McClure & Zimmerman at 800/883-6998 or www.mzbulb.com; John Scheepers, Inc. at 860/567-0838 or www.JohnScheepers.com.

Amy McDowell is an Iowa Certified Nursery Professional. She has an associate’s degree in commercial horticulture and has worked in the field for ten years. She lives and gardens in Polk County.

 

Forcing Bulbs

Flowers for your winter windowsill

By Amy McDowell

Snowflakes are flying and the tulips I ordered last spring sit naked in the breezeway, huddled together in their mesh sack. Shame on me. They should’ve been tucked snugly in the ground a month ago. But I know I’m not the only one. During a potting soil expedition to the garden center two days ago, I saw crate upon crate of bulbs—and they weren’t even on clearance sale.

Now, with my huge 3-cubic-foot bag of potting soil, I’ll pot those leftover tulips, chill them and force them to bloom indoors this winter.

Tulips, Daffodils, Hyacinth, Crocus and Muscari are all great for forcing into bloom indoors. Their tender presence will usher spring into your home.

Any pot will do—potting can be as simple as placing one bulb in a disposable plastic party cup with decorative aquarium gravel for support and water to the bulb’s base. I’m not sure how tulips would fare in this environment; they seem to require potting with a little more dignity, but most Daffodils, Hyacinth and Crocus bloom easily when grown in a simple setup. Hyacinth and Crocus vases designed to suspend the bulbs above a water reservoir are another easy solution, and with extra bulbs stored in a paper bag in the fruit drawer of your refrigerator, you can pop a new bulb into the vase each time the bloom fades.

For potting, use quality lightweight potting soil. Press soil into the bottom of the pot, set the bulbs in snugly with the pointy side up and cover with soil. Vigorous bulb roots in containers will heave the soil, so leave the soil an inch below the rim of the pot. Cover the soil with decorative pebbles or moss if you wish. Then place the potted bulbs into a cold storage area. Temperatures between 35 and 48 degrees Fahrenheit are ideal. If you store them in a cold frame, unheated garage, attic, porch or breezeway, you’ll have to insulate them with several heavy blankets or a generous layer of mulch or straw. Allow a 15-week cold period for Tulips, Crocus and Muscari, 14 weeks for Daffodils and 12 weeks for Hyacinth.

Here’s hoping every one of those leftover bulbs at the garden center brings a scent of spring into someone’s home this winter.

Amy McDowell is an Iowa Certified Nursery Professional. She has a degree in horticulture and has worked in the field for ten years. She lives and gardens in Polk County.

Add a little curb appeal

Forays into the front yard

By Amy McDowell

The 100-foot tall honeylocust in my in-laws’ front yard was the tallest tree in their neighborhood. It had a trunk nearly 4 feet wide. It stood on the corner of their front yard and shaded their two-bedroom cottage for all of the 15 years they had lived there. Leafing out golden yellow in spring, it filled the sky with a light green canopy of dappled shade during the summer and showered the ground in the fall as tiny golden leaflets fluttered down like confetti. A wren house mounted on the side hosted a dainty couple and a new brood of hatchlings each season.

Then an October ice storm eight years ago brought the honeylocust crashing down in a shattered wreck of jagged wood and leaf litter.

Although devastated, my in-laws took little time to grieve. Ever anxious to keep a tidy yard, they sprang into action. They bagged leaves and twigs and piled branches on the curb for city yard waste pickup, hired one company to drop and haul off the decapitated trunk that had been left standing, and hired another company to grind out the stump.

While I was still mourning the loss of the tree, my mother-in-law was brushing the sawdust from her gloves and envisioning something new for her front yard. “I’d like to put in a new bed,” she said. “Something with a lot of color.” And off she went to the garden center. She returned with a tree, a half a dozen shrubs, some annuals, a concrete birdbath and a new wren house.

We hauled in three granite boulders and edged the two lower sides of the bed with stone pavers. My in-laws planted the ‘Autumn Sunset’ maple first, about five feet from where the honeylocust had stood. My mother-in-law hung the birdhouse on a high branch with the hope that her annual visitors would return to the strange new surroundings. Groupings of red pygmy barberries and golden privet fill the bed with color, and clusters of bright red annuals sing along the sidewalk. The wrens did return, and the birdbath drew crowds. My mother-in-law so enjoyed the activity through her kitchen window that she added a bird feeder.

Before their front yard venture, their neighborhood had nothing but garnish-around-the-turkey, home-hugging landscapes and driveway-to-driveway turf. My trendsetter in-laws were the first to break ground with an island bed in the front yard, but by the following spring, many neighbors were following suit and planting new front yard beds.

With this one bed, my in-laws added curb appeal, reduced their mowing and maintenance, attracted wildlife and began a new landscaping movement in their neighborhood. The loss of their immense shade tree ended up turning into something wonderful. “Yeah, it was pretty amazing,” says my mother-in-law.

Amy McDowell is an Iowa Certified Nursery Professional. She has a degree in horticulture and has worked in the field for ten years. She lives and gardens in Polk County.

Monster Spider in the Praire

Prairie Life

By Amy McDowell

My little brother and I saw the giant sinister spider at the same time, and our voices combined into one terrified, high-pitched squeal. Screaming nonstop, we raced through the prairie up the hill towards home, Mom, and safety. I was perhaps five, so Jeremy would’ve been four, and the tall prairie grasses towered several feet over our heads. The prairie was a labyrinth, but we knew home was up the hill.

We spewed, screaming, from the wild prairie onto our neatly mown lawn. Wide-eyed and breathless, we told Mom about the horrific spider. She was fascinated, and said she’d like to see it. Jeremy and I stared at her with our mouths hanging open. Surely, she was joking. Nope – she wanted to see the grotesque monster spider.

We agreed to go only after Mom promised that she would stay right by us. Reluctantly, we led her back into the prairie, seeking the spider. We looked and looked, but couldn’t find it. Our fears subsided and it became a challenge to find it, to prove to Mom how really scary it was.

Finally, we gave up and went back to the top of the hill. Mom returned to her laundry on the clothesline, and Jeremy and I stood on our tiptoes peering down the hill over the prairie. It was the next season before we had the guts to venture in by ourselves again.

My memories of the fear are distinct, but details of the spider’s appearance are long gone. Today I think the spider we saw was probably an orb weaver. The black and yellow argiope orb weavers have bold markings and perch in the center of their large flat webs. They can grow to be three inches from toe to, well, toe.

These days I see orb weavers in the summertime garden frequently, but my reaction to them has changed. I feel joyous, for I take them as a sign that my garden is environmentally healthy. I know they won’t harm me; they are predators of the insects in my garden. They are doing me a favor.

I have grown to love prairies and the fascinating hum of life within them. When I visit the 5,000-acre prairie at the Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge near Prairie City, the sound of the wind through the tall grasses soothes me to the soul. It is so peaceful it takes my breath away.

Amy McDowell is an Iowa Certified Nursery Professional. She has an associate’s degree in commercial horticulture and has worked in the field for ten years. She lives and gardens in Polk County. 

Tropicals and Frost

Tropicals, take cover. F – f – frost is here.

By Amy McDowell

It’s time to blast the bugs off and bring your tender houseplants inside. Use a one-two punch on those insects to make sure you don’t bring them into your home. First, sprinkle systemic insecticide granules on the soil. When you water, the systemic is absorbed by the plant’s roots and circulated throughout the plant, making it toxic to insects. A systemic can last in the plant’s system for three months. Your second punch is to wash the plants thoroughly—tops and bottoms of the leaves and all along the stems—with a firm blast of water from the hose. Soft-bodied insects like aphids and spider mites can’t survive an aggressive washing. Let the plants drip dry outside before taking them in.

No doubt your tropical plants have grown over the season. You may want to prune and reshape them before taking them inside. Many plants suffer shock from being transferred indoors – you will see the telltale leaf drop. Pruning before you relocate them will not only improve their appearance, but may reduce your leaf cleanup later.

Dig ‘em up

Tender bulbs and tubers should be dug up and stored now – things like cannas, dahlias, and gladiolas. After our wonderful regular rains throughout most of the season, you will find those canna tubers underground are now huge. Pry them out of the ground with brute strength and as much gentleness as you can; they will bruise. Cut the stems back to about four-inch stubs, brush the soil off, and store them in an uncovered crate or open box in your basement. The care is the same for dahlias and glads.

Put ‘em in

Spring bulb sales in the U.S. have been declining for several years, and people in the industry believe it may be because spring bulbs don’t provide the instant gratification that other flowers in the garden do.

Here in Iowa, we tuck bulbs into the ground in October and wait for about six months before we see their bright blooms in spring. Who needs instant gratification? Just knowing those spring bulbs are nestled in the ground under the ice and snow gives us something to look forward to all through the blustery winter.

Even just a few dollars spent on a handful of bulbs can provide a cheery bouquet next spring and for many springs to come.

Amy McDowell is an Iowa Certified Nursery Professional. She has an associate’s degree in commercial horticulture and has worked in the field for ten years. She lives and gardens in Polk County.

Composting Leaves

Keep Your Leaves

By Amy McDowell

Asters, mums, and plump orange pumpkins are adorning our porches and perching on our steps.  There are corn stalks, straw bales, and gourds – evidence of a generous fall harvest.  It’s beginning to look a lot like autumn – everywhere you go.

This is a great time of year to begin that compost pile you’ve been thinking about.  Composting is simple, and it keeps valuable resources on your lot that you can never replace, no matter how much money you spend.

Healthy soil is loaded with organic matter – that is, decaying plant debris – and all kinds of microscopic organisms. One gram of healthy soil will have 37 billion bacteria and 4 million fungi, plus larger organisms like protozoa, paramesei, and nematodes. Healthy soil means healthy plants, whether they are flowers, shrubs, trees, or turf.

Composting can be as simple as raking your fall leaves into a pile and tossing a few shovels full of soil on top. The leaves will break down more quickly if you shred them first. There are several styles of inexpensive leaf shredders on the market, or you can shred the leaves by running over them with your bagging mower. Shredding the leaves is not necessary, but it is helpful and speeds up the composting process.

If you are wondering where to get the extra soil, consider digging a shallow pit for your leaves and leaving the excess soil around the edges to sprinkle over the top.

You can always till leaves directly into your garden or spread shredded leaves across the surface if you don’t want to make a compost pile. Whatever your method, the key is to keep your leaves, grass clippings, and all of your yard waste except sticks and branches.

Why is your yard waste such a valuable resource for your yard?  In the soil, bacteria and fungi break down plant debris into smaller and smaller pieces for microbes to feed on.  With no plant debris, there is no food source. The soil is unhealthy and barren. In the typical urban environment, the soil is starving because there is no organic matter. Chemical fertilizers are a temporary fix, and they cannot replace precious organic matter.

If you live in an area where the soil has been disturbed by new construction, rest assured that the soil can recover, but it may take decades. The more organic matter you can add to the soil, the more quickly the soil organisms can heal the damage.

As the trees are beginning to shed their leaves, now is a wonderful time to begin composting and recycling your yard’s priceless resources.

Amy McDowell is an Iowa Certified Nursery Professional. She has an associate’s degree in commercial horticulture and has worked in the field for ten years. She lives and gardens in Polk County. 

Fall Color

Raging Red and Flaming Orange

Bold fall colors for your garden

By Amy McDowell

Iowa is blazing with spectacular fall color. You still have time to plant some color in your garden this year. Take a trip to your local garden center and take a look at the vibrant rainbow of warm colors available in trees and shrubs.

Some of the most glorious trees right now are the red and sugar maples decked out in red and orange, and the white and green ashes wearing fall purple and golden yellow hues. Red maples (Acer rubrum) mature to about 40 to 60 feet tall with a rounded canopy. Sugar maples (Acer saccharum) reach 60 to 75 feet tall and tend to be taller than they are broad. Red and sugar maples turn to stunning reds and oranges in the fall. White ash trees (Fraxinus americana) will generally color to royal purple in the fall and green ash (Fraxinus pennsylvanica) will turn vibrant golden yellow. Depending on the variety, ash trees range from 40 to 70 feet tall.

At the garden center, you will find named varieties of maple and ash trees. Named varieties are essentially clones sharing the same genes. The advantage to a clone is that you can be guaranteed genetic traits such as spectacular fall color. Trees grown from seed are genetically diverse and fall color will vary from one plant to another.

If you are thinking about planting shrubs rather than trees, take a look at the intense colors of sumac, burning bush, fothergilla, viburnum, and witch hazel. Sumac (Rhus typhina) is the brilliant red you see along roadsides right now. It is a suckering shrub, so it forms a loose mound about 15 feet tall and about as wide as you will allow it to spread. Burning bush (Euonymus alatus) will stay in bounds at about ten feet high and wide. It is often used as a hedge, and can be kept to a more compact height if you prune it. Fothergilla (F. gardenii) will mature to around four feet and colors to a fiery red-orange-yellow combination in the fall. Viburnums (V. species) are Iowa natives, so they are tough and resilient. To choose a viburnum with great fall color, buy them right now. They turn shades of red and orange, but some species are bold while others are bland. Witch hazel (Hamamelis vernalis) is another red shrub you may see on roadsides right now. It will grow to about eight feet tall and ten feet wide.

Finally, there is the fierce red maple that is too short to be a shade tree, but pretty tall to be a shrub. It is the amur maple. You will see drifts of these along Iowa’s roadways that have been planted by the Department of Transportation. The stunning amur maples (Acer ginnala) often have a multi-stem trunk and grow to about 18 feet tall.

Amy McDowell is an Iowa Certified Nursery Professional. She has an associate’s degree in commercial horticulture and has worked in the field for ten years. She lives and gardens in Polk County. 

Spring-Blooming Bulbs

Spring blooms come to those who plant fall bulbs

By Amy McDowell

After tearing down the fall bulb display at the garden center where I once worked, we swept up two dozen miscellaneous bulbs from the floor. “You want those?” my boss asked, ready to pitch them from the dustpan into the garbage. Smiling, I gathered them into a paper bag and took them home. It was late in the season and the weather was chilly, but the ground was not yet frozen. I planted them in a small cluster where some annuals had collapsed after a frost. The ragamuffin group would bloom in a haphazard tapestry in the spring, I imagined, but better that they create a goofy patchwork of color in my garden than rot in a landfill.

In the spring, to my surprise and delight, that little cluster of leftover bulbs charmed both me and everyone else who visited my garden. Tiny purple and yellow crocus trumpeted spring from just four inches above the earth, followed by eight or ten daffodils in gold and white and a dozen crisp tulips in red, gold and purple. The sweet fragrance of purple and pink hyacinths could seduce me to visit the riotous hodgepodge bed from the moment I stepped outdoors.

You can’t go wrong with spring bulbs, it turns out. Springtime success will greet you whether it’s 7,000 bulbs in vast beds of color, as I once planted for an employer, or a handful of delicate bluish-purple Scilla siberica next to a path.

Daffodils are my favorite spring-flowering bulbs because they return loyally year after year. Pests won’t dig them up and eat them like they do with tasty tulips, so they multiply over the years, forming generous clumps where a single bulb was once planted. Among the thousands of varieties, you’ll find trumpets, large-cupped, small-cupped, doubles and split coronas. I went crazy for miniature daffodils for several years, growing every one I could find. The most darling, in my book, is 'Tete-a-Tete' for its bright little blooms and short stature. It blooms beautifully with the purple Crocus tommasinianus ‘Ruby Giant’.

I plant a couple dozen tulips each fall to please my husband, who loves them as much as I love daffodils. The peony-flowering varieties planted in the front yard are visible more than a block away.

Finally, I’ll plant a dozen bold orange ‘Treffer’ Asiatic lilies this fall because I’ve been crazy over the Asiatics all season. You won’t find a lot of orange in my garden, but I can surely find a spot for a vivid orange zing. Orange, after all, is the new black, according to my friend Katherine.

Plant some bulbs this fall; the time is right. Plant daffodils, tulips and lilies. Fill the nooks and crannies of your perennial borders with little cuties like Iris reticulata, Pushkinia, Scilla, Galanthus and Crocus. Bulbs are fun, foolproof and rewarding.

Amy McDowell is an Iowa Certified Nursery Professional. She has a degree in horticulture and has worked in the field for ten years. She lives and gardens in Polk County.

Fall Spectacular - Ornamental Grasses

Ornamental grasses for the masses

By Amy McDowell

Rippling gently in the breeze and shimmering in the sunshine, ornamental grasses enliven landscapes in late summer and fall. Grasses come in every size, shape and color, and the plethora of choices may overwhelm browsing shoppers at the garden center.

If you’ve got room in the garden for just a couple of grasses, plant a feather reed grass (Calamagrostis ‘Karl Foerster’) for its striking upright growth and compliment it with the rounded growth of a fountain grass (Pennisetum alopecuroides ‘Hameln’). Karl Foerster feather reed grass grows five feet tall and has dark burgundy seed heads in the summer that fade to beige in the fall. The mounded ‘Hameln’ fountain grass grows two feet tall and has pinkish-brown foxtail-like seed heads.

Regardless how much space you have in the garden, ornamental grasses soon get to be like so many new garden adventures—addictive. Soon you’ll want to experiment with the broad palette of different colors.

For white variegation, consider ribbon grass (Phalaris arundinacea), which tops out around two and a half feet. Striped feather reed grass (Calamagrostis x acutiflora ‘Overdam’) is roughly the same height with burgundy seed heads in the summer like ‘Karl Foerster’. Miscanthus sinensis ‘Variegatus’ has creamy white variegation and a rounded four-foot grass.

For yellow variegation, plant Alopecurus pratensis ‘Aureovariegatus’ or golden hakone grass (Hakonenchloa macra ‘Alboaurea’). Alopecurus grows upright to about one foot and has bright yellow variegation in the spring and red-brown foxtails. Golden hakone grass needs some shade, where the floppy golden grass looks terrific with blue hostas. It grows about 18 inches tall.

Everyone who grows annual purple fountain grass wishes it were a perennial, and the way plant hybridizers work, it won’t be long before we see it. In the meantime, the best red grass that will survive our winters is Japanese blood grass (Imperata cylindrica ‘Rubra’). It isn’t as striking as purple fountain grass, but its green leaves are streaked with blood red edges and tips.

Finally, ornamental grasses can add crisp blues to the garden. Blue fescues are the best known, but they require well-drained soil in order to survive our winters. Grasses are tough perennials and killing a blue fescue with heavy soil is aggravating. Panicum virgatum ‘Heavy Metal’ is a sharp blue-gray grass that grows to three feet. It has arching leaves and airy panicles of burgundy seed heads.

Don’t be afraid to dabble with ornamental grasses. Betcha can’t plant just one.

Amy McDowell is an Iowa Certified Nursery Professional. She has a degree in horticulture and has worked in the field for ten years. She lives and gardens in Polk County, Iowa, United States.