January Decisions...

Happy January!!

Out in the field, we are often tempted to do that late winter pruning as these January days hover in the 40's to low 50's. But hold back the pruners a bit from things like the Red-twig dogwood and Cotinus and don't go whacking that Miscanthus grass down quite yet. The swing from freeze to thaw and back are inevitable. Some selective cuts can be made, but the big work should be done in a month.

The other day, one of our landscape crew-leads was hovered over a few seed catalogs with highlighter and pencil in hand making some decisions about her spring vegetable garden. Despite what some may think, I've been reminded that early to mid January is the prime time to be purchasing (in store or on-line etc) those seeds that you'll want to have growing in April. If you want to do some veggie gardening, now is the time, especially if you are going to be one of the ambitious ones and start them in-doors. Many early vegetables need to be started in mid-february. So get started!

After the freeze there is Life...

Back to work from a busy holiday season and in my garden today, I saw the heads of the first crocus peaking up! It was a good thing since the rest of the place looks like a flopped mess. THere are a few hebes around town that look worse for the ware, but we're just leaving them in (mostly) for now as January moves along. The really dead ones are coming out, but some could survive a hard late spring cut-back.

All day long the sky is a gloomy gray. Under the dirt its all sleeping. Or is it?...

Here's another dispatch from the desk of Sara Lawrence....

Hey everyone…It’s really winter! Yesterday there was sunshine all day and then last night the first frost (on the first of December)! Walking to work I had to knit my fingers into my coat sleeves to hold my new kitten inside my coat at chin level. (Yes, we’ve rescued a new kitten at City People’s! Come in to the landscape office to meet this little two month old tiger darlin’.) Winter is really the time for puffy down coats and kittens. It’s also the time to celebrate warmth, color, and gathering together. I’ve just finished the containers for the store and you’ll have to tell me if they radiate the warmth of winter indoors. I wanted to capture the fun of being surprised by the silver lining in life... I chose colors in a brighter rang and higher contrast than usual, brilliant yellow, lime, silver, orange, and purple to cut through the grey days and put us in the mood for parties!

I’ve labeled most of the plants so if you like any of the combinations you can step inside the store and find what you like on the shelves… but some of my favorite moments were those references to silver lining… placing Dryopteris erythrosora ‘Brilliance’ (autumn fern) by the edge of the pot so the fronds wave to reveal their orange stippled seeds on their soft underbellies. The pink delicate skin of Bergenia ‘Winterglut’ (elephants ears) blushing underneath, or the multicolored yucca f. ‘Color Guard’ standing out like a ribbon bow on a present. There is Leucothoe fontanesiana ‘Scarletta’ creating a dark purple waterfall against an orange container and a kind of negative space on which the Yucca recurivifolia ‘Pendula’ can splash across.

Calluna vulgaris ‘Gelb Maassen’ is not normally a heather I would choose on its own but paired with Helleborus ericsonii ‘Silvermoon’ and Hebe ‘Quicksliver’ I love how it looks like lamp light blazing against carefully wrought iron work. Euonymus fortunei ‘Emerald N’ Gold’ creates a buzz of variegation to draw the eye into the magic of a subtle fanning motion near a Carex ‘Cappuccino’ as well as a yucca. Helleborus foetidus ‘Gold Bullion’ and Mahonia x media ‘Winter Sun’ are the only flowers in bloom besides the heathers but they are the explosion from which all the other motion in the containers flow. Maybe we’ll get a humming bird to visit the Mahonia since I added this at Anne Janisse’s suggestion and our landscape designer has added a few of these into her stunning new sidewalk planting as well. We’ll have to keep our senses tuned for their quick movements and small chirpings amongst the newly planted grasses. Luckily we’ll have the kittens natural instincts contained behind store windows!

Ahh… to sit back and enjoy ones own creations. This particular container design was so fun to come up with! Heathers were my first point of inspiration then I found the Helleborus foetidus ‘Gold Bullion’. Once I had those few pieces and some of the evergreen components of the containers that had been already established I started to get really excited to fill in the extra spaces. I hope you have a great time exploring nurseries and finding just the right plants for your winter pallet. Be sure to share your beautiful creations with us… ‘tis the season!

Sara

Fall to Winter: A Mess of reds and yellows...

Look at the colors out there in the world. Where do you see reds that red and golds that gold!
Pretty cool. Here are a few shot from my as yet untouched fall garden.

It's been a while. I really haven't touched my yard (or this blog) in a while. But the year was a good one for my garden. Established plants taking on the jb of form, function and pop. The abelias, fuchsias and even the Nandinas have performed well.

This weekend I'l rake the leaves from the lawn and sidewalk into the beds. I'll cut back the remaining spent twigs of astilbe, lilies, mum and other perennials that have given up for the year. If there are some seed pods that still look ok, from Iris or other I'll let them stay a little longer. The deciduous grasses (miscanthus etc) will get a bit of tidying, but will stay until late winter. There's enough leaf debris this year that I don't think be needing need a fall composting. A Katsura, Quaking Apen, Serviceberry, the Maples and a Honey Locust have all made some nice leaf debris.

I'm continually amazed by this Fuchsia. It keeps going and going and has even survived several midsummer onslaughts by the three year-old boy pulling the "Dancers" off and trying to make them fly.






Note to self: when using dead/fallen tree snags to encourage the varieties of critters and a more full eco-system in the garden, keep the dead logs away from the kid's sandbox. About midway through the summer, a nest of bees decided to take up residence in this log. THe rest of this tree is still standing very nearby and had a nest of Northern Flickers in it, which is more what I had in mind, but this group of tree parts, with the resident bees, made for difficult sandbox play...

Enjoy the Autumn...

From the Desk of City People's Container Guru; Sara Lawrence

Greetings. At last, a new post. This time I've asked my good friend and colleague Sara Lawrence who is City People's Container Designer to say a few words and take a few pictures. The following is her entry. Enjoy!...

Hello !

The sweet smell of summers end is in the air as deciduous leaves begin to turn color and fall… Accompanying this falling of deciduous leaves of course is the hibernation of perennials and the passing of annuals. Perhaps you have been feeling this seasonal change and want to extend the warmth and color of summer.

I find focusing on container plantings as sweet as pulling out the candles and sweaters from their summer storage. This time of year I’ve often felt that the sun has transmuted itself into the leaves, reflecting back all its brilliance in golden citron, persimmon orange, fiery scarlet and burnt plum tones. This vibrancy lives inside me too in fall. It makes me reach for water colors, pencils, and books, to capture the feeling of contentment that this languorous moment between summer and winter provides.

In the Northwest we have a smaller plant palette to work with into winter than our neighbors father south, but that makes the bond with each plant variety all the stronger: Heathers, Hellebores, Heucheras, Hebes, hardy Ferns and Grasses, Pansies, Cabbage, and Cyclamen are what you will need to nestle in front of an evergreen or structural element like Boxwood, or Witchhazel.

Walking down the aisle of City Peoples to pull together a few pictures to share with you I see some of my favorites: Heather Wickwarflame, Helleborus Fotideus, Hebe Quicksilver, and Dryopteris erythosora Brilliance. The Pansies in our stacked trays are a visual equivalent of watercolors to be painted or planted anywhere. Don’t be afraid to be bold and plant a container of just one variety, or go out on a limb and plant a small tree asymmetrically that won’t bloom till late winter; nothing like a good tease…

If you’re like me and need conversation to get any project started come by the store and talk with anyone on our plant passionate staff about the containers you want to create. If you don’t have time to experiment with color and texture combinations yourself feel free to give me a call. How ever you choose to celebrate these golden months don’t forget to take time to let the honeyed hues create a buzz inside to sweeten the feeling of coming home this winter…

Fullness of a Crazy Summer- Time for a cleanup

The season rolls on and just after this full moon, I've noticed the turning edges of euphorbia blooms and spent iris and columbine blooms and all sorts of signs that we're in deep summer. The redtwig dogwoods are full and pushing beyond their space. Some trees (fruits, maples and magnolias for example) are in need of some control pruning. My loose leaf lettuce is goint crazy (in a good way) but my spinach bolted too soon (ah! the neglect of a summer vacation.) THere's a lot that can be done in the next few weeks to help maintain the garden and to prepare for the fall.

A gardener needs to be a bit careful about what to do and how much to do. Mid-season mistakes can make the next few months of looking at a shrub or tree less than pleasant. It's a good time to identify the plants that have outgrown their space, to see where the bulbs or anemones have spread out of their range and what plants may just not like being where they've been planted. Let them stay, but take note.

Also, if you haven't composted yet, now is not a bad time to do some spot composting to help your soils hold water. You'll want to be careful about the surface roots and trunks of some of your more tender plants. We don't want to let too much heat build up in the soil. But the chance for soil to retain water and to still have some great food introduced is a plus.

Let City People's Design and Landscape know if there are some maintenance projects you'd like to have done. We'd be happy to brave the heat and help that garden look even better!

Looks lIke August, But I'm not complaining...

Sometimes it feels like I'm posting some sort of weather blog here, but I gotta say, we're not used to having such dry weather in June. We had almost no rain all month. (.18 inches through 6/29...wow) I had to go to Lake Michigan to get a few nice summer thunderstorms just to rinse the Seattle dry off.

Plants in my garden are still going crazy (even after the neglectful watering). I was talking to a longtime regular client about watering. She was asking about how often she should water various things in her garden. The more we talked, the more I realized there were some things to clear up. I thought I'd give my view on this issue.

We tend to try to make a blanket set of rules for all plants and all situations and this leads to a lot of over watering (and in some cases under watering too).

New plantings, whether the tag says drought tolerant or not, need regular initial watering in order to survive. We can't be starving our new plant friends now can we... So 2- 3 times a week of deep watering should be great. Now some of you out there see the clouds in the sky and then a few drops come and you think oh, cool, no need to water. The amount of rain we get in these summer sprinkles is usually very minimal and won't even fill a shot glass. Plants need more than a shot of h2O, especially new ones.

Established gardens. Ok, here's the trick on this. We can wean the older, more established plants off the need for so much water. Many of the plants that grow well here in the PNW seem to understand the natural cycle. They seem capable of drinking a lot in the winter, spring and fall and starve all summer without much of a problem. The roots go deeper in summer which seems to have the added effect of making the plant stronger over all.

My garden goes with very little water through out the Summer. Some of the older more established plants never get water except perhaps incidental runoff from the neighbor washing his grill or the cat dish getting turned over. When I plant a new shrub in the garden, I'll water it in and I might get a few others with a splash or two, but I've found that the others don't need as much water as we might think. Perhaps we have a tendency to water these established plants more than we need to. If you are going to reduce the water for your garden, do it carefully and gradually. Some plants in our climate will let you know right away that they need more. Hydrangeas for example, will sulk pretty quickly if neglected for too long. Others will take the gradual reduction and build deeper root systems. A smartly designed and maintained irrigation system can account for the variations and can be set to water more efficiently.

Containers? Yes, they need water more often than in ground plants. They are pockets of soil, usually jammed with competing root systems that can dry out pretty quickly in the sun. Containers in shady areas can go with a bit less watering, but still need some to thrive. We recommend 2-3 times a week of a good deep soaking.

Lawn? I say don't bother. Let it brown. It'll come back as soon as the first drizzle hits. But if one is very interested in a very green lawn (grass lawn) you will note that the lawns installed in deeply tilled and well amended soils that got good initial watering, don't seem to need nearly as much watering as the poorly installed lawns.

ANyway, enough said for now. Write in with your comments or questions!

Be well..