Pack it up Pack it in -- Squeeze more blooms into your garden with flowering vines

Grow Up! – Blooming vines for the garden

By Amy McDowell

Heighten the drama in your garden with in-your-face blooming vines. For shady spots, plant silver lace vine or climbing hydrangea. For sun, plant clematis, wisteria or trumpet vine. If you are used to having flowers at your feet, you will soon be into flowers over your head as these climbers reach for the sky.

   Clematis is the star of the climbing show. Clematis needs full sun and a couple of annuals or perennials around the base to shade the ground around the root system. They come in all shades and combinations of red, purple, pink and white. By planting a variety, you can have blooms from May through September. Clematis does best on a wire trellis; the leaves and stems tendril around the trellis for support as they climb.

   Silver Lace Vine (Polygonum auberti) is a little-known vine that offers a gorgeous show. From a distance, it looks like a waterfall with masses of delicate draping white panicles of blooms. It will grow and bloom in shade. Silver lace vine grows quickly to 20 feet and blooms in August and September. It will climb anything except a flat vertical surface.

   Wisteria is a behemoth—no ordinary trellis or latticework will hold this woody monster. A solid arbor with 4 x 4 or 6 x 6 posts and a sturdy canopy will make a good home for wisteria. Only buy wisteria that is in bloom or has evidence of spent blooms on it. Some gardeners struggle for decades to get wisteria to bloom. If it is blooming when you buy it, you can trust it to rebloom faithfully in the garden each spring. Wisteria bloom lavender or white in May.

   Climbing Hydrangea take a season in the ground to get established before they really leap with new growth. Elegant flat white panicles of blooms appear in June and last for nearly six weeks. They have dark green glossy foliage and attractive bark during the winter months. Climbing hydrangea can grow to 60 feet and will adhere to any surface. Plant them in shade.

   Trumpet Vine (Campsis radicans) is an aggressive and rampant grower. Plant one of these and you'll forever find them running out from the base and sprouting up in the garden. Hummingbirds love their red, orange or yellow blooms. Trumpet vines prefer full sun and grow to 30 or 40 feet. They will climb anything, using their aerial roots to grasp and adhere like glue on surfaces.

Viburnums will fill the void

Garden missing something?

Fill the void with Viburnum.

By Amy McDowell

“A garden without Viburnums is akin to life without music and art,” says world-renowned woody plant expert Michael Dirr.

Vibrunums are native Iowa shrubs that have been long overlooked. They’re durable and trouble-free with foliage that varies from glossy smooth to woolly rough. Their blooms in May and June are primarily white, although some are light pink or have pink buds. Blossoms are followed by edible berries that not only help feed birds through the winter, but make tasty jellies and preserves. Fall color is primarily deep red but V. dentatum, V. opulus, V. sargentii and V. trilobum also turn yellow or orange.

Choosing Viburnums is challenging because there are 225 species and almost all have some desirable attributes. I’m showcasing a few here that make outstanding contributions to central Iowa gardens.

V. cassinoides has beautiful blooms, chameleon-like berries and glossy foliage that turns a heart-throbbing deep burgundy in the fall. Tiny pistils protruding from the center of each blossom make the white flower clusters look fuzzy. The berries begin greenish white and turn pale pink, darken until they’re red, change to blue and finally age to black. It’s not unusual to see different colored berries creating vivid contrast in the same cluster. V. cassinoides generally grows to about 6 feet tall and wide with a rare 15-foot potential.

A couple of taller Viburnums such as V. prunifolium and V. sieboldii can be pruned into shapely tree forms and used to anchor perennial gardens. V. prunifolium (nicknamed Blackhaw) flowers in late May. Berries begin pink and age to blue-black. Fall color is bronze to red, and this Viburnum grows 12 to 15 feet tall and 8 to 12 feet wide. As for V. sieboldii, the shiny dark green foliage doesn’t usually turn to anything special in the fall, but it is smothered with white flower clusters in June. The showy fruit begins rosey pink and turns to red, then black. V. sieboldii matures to about 15 to 20 feet high and 10 to 15 feet wide.

V. dilatatum is nicknamed Linden Viburnum, supposedly because the foliage resembles that of the linden tree (Tilia species), although I don’t see a striking resemblence. Broad 3- to 5-inch clusters of blooms are abundant in early June and red or yellow berries (depending on cultivar) create a dazzling fall show. The fruit is a last resort for birds, who wait to eat the shriveled berries in February and March when other food sources have been depleted. I’ve even read that the berries are fermented enough by late winter that the birds can actually become intoxicated from eating them!

Several varieties, including V. x burkwoodii, V. x carlcephalum, V. carlesii, V. ferreri, V. x juddii and V. x pragense, have fragrant flowers. In recent years, breeders have introduced white- or yellow-variegated V. lantanas and a yellow-foliaged V. opulus.

This is just a sample of the bounteous choices. If your garden is missing something, try a Viburnum to fill the void.

Scent in the garden

Fragrance in the Garden

By Amy McDowell

Gardening is a full-immersion hobby. Unlike reading or watching television, gardening tantalizes all five senses—from the soothing sight of a leaf unfurling and the sound of birds singing to the taste of tangy tomatoes and the sting of a rose thorn—our senses tingle to life when in the garden. And the fragrance! Thousands of plants scent the air, not to enchant our noses but to attract pollinators. We might as well admit it; their sex scents seduce us, as well.

If you’d like to add fragrant plants to your garden, consider the following list.

Aromatic Annuals – Garden centers offer ready-to-plant packs of these scented annuals: Alyssum, snapdragons, Nicotiana and Viola. Also look for larger pots of Heliotrope and scented geranium (Pelargonium). Sow seeds of the following annuals directly into the ground: Datura, Nasturtium, four o’clocks and sweet peas.

Tantalizing Tropicals – Expand your repertoire to include tropical plants that easily overwinter indoors. Brugmansia, Jasmine, Gardenia, Stephanotis, night-blooming Cereus and citrus plants top the list.

Perfumed Perennials – These guys will return year after year to scent your garden: Achillea, Allium, Candytuft (Iberis), Hosta, Iris, Lily of the Valley, Monarda, Peony and Scabiosa. Although butterfly bush (Buddleia) is a woody plant, it frequently dies back to the ground during our winters, so it’s a good idea to mentally place it into the perennial category.

Scented Shrubs – Lilacs come to mind first because they are blooming as I write this. I always cut stems and bring them inside in massive heavy glass vases. But the long list of fragrant shrubs offers generous choices. Consider Roses, Caryopteris, allspice (Calycanthus), Clethra, Daphne, Mock Orange (Philadelphus) and Viburnum. In addition, a couple of fragrant Forsythia varieties can kick your spring off with scent including F. geraldiana and F. ovata. For Viburnum, look for V. x burkwoodii, V. x carlcephalum, V. carlesii, V. fragrans and V. x juddii.

Fragrant Trees – Thousands of scent-free Crabapples on the market have led us to believe they are not fragrant. But look for Malus sargentii, M. coronaria, M. hupehensis and M. transitoria ‘Golden Raindrops’. Other scented trees include fringe tree (Chionanthus), snowdrop (Halesia), golden chain tree (Laburnum), Magnolia and Pine.

Voluptuous Vines – In addition to the tropical vines listed above, there are few winter-hardy vines, including climbing roses, Wisteria and honeysuckle (Lonicera).

Finally, a word of caution: not all plants are pollinated by bees, butterflies and birds. Some, like the Hawthorn tree (Crataegus crusgalli) are pollinated by flies. And what scent attracts flies? You got it—rotten meat.

It's ALIVE! Soil and Mycorrhiza

Mighty Mycorrhiza – Super soil staple or snake oil scam?

By Amy McDowell

Promises, promises. We’ve all heard advertisements making promises about some amazing new product and what it can do for our homes, our lives, our gardens. A healthy spirit of skepticism has become part of our nature.

So what is the scoop on mycorrhiza? At least 25 mycorrhiza products are available in garden centers across the U.S.—oddly named products like Myke and Myco Stim to name just a couple. What are these products, and what will they do for your garden?

Mycorrhiza is a beneficial relationship between plants and fungus. “Mycorrhiza is a natural part of the soil and a part of plant nutrient uptake,” writes Ted St. John, Ph.D. in The Instant Expert Guide to Mycorrhiza, 2000. “The fungi are the dominant soil microorganisms, and soil biology depends heavily upon the presence, density, and types of mycorrhizal fungi.”

Mycorrhizal fungi are easily destroyed when the plants are removed and the soil disturbed. “They are always missing from freshly graded sites,” St. John writes.

Adding mycorrhizal fungi spores to your soil (called inoculating) will not necessarily produce big, robust plants, as many of the products claim. Being familiar with soil biology, I was thrilled when companies began packaging micorrhizae for home gardeners. In recent years I’ve tried several of the products in my garden without noticeable results. Although there are greenhouse and field studies that show amazing differences in plant growth, I’ve learned that it’s unlikely that you would notice differences like that in a trial in your own garden.

“Plant growth response in itself is not likely to tell the story. If uninocculated plots have been kept healthy by fertilization, any mycorrhizal effects will have been masked,” St. John writes.

Realistically, you can expect inoculated plants to be stronger, better able to survive harsh weather conditions, and protected from disease. Your site will be more resistant to invasion by weeds and most important, mycorrhiza will improve soil structure.

St. John recommends looking for a “propagule” or spore count on the label so you know what you are getting for your money. Mix the micorrhiza product with seeds as you sow or apply it to all sides of the root ball as you put plants in the ground. You can sprinkle mycorrhizae over the surface of the soil or till it in, but it doesn’t begin working until it connects with live plant roots.

Although he warns gardeners to be wary of hype and exaggerated claims, St. John solidly backs mycorrhiza as beneficial for gardens. “What is very clear, from every study that has done the tests, is that inoculation is greatly superior to no inoculation,” he writes.