Sunrise Landscape Designs

Fall is here and it’s a great time to plant spring flowering bulbs!  Tulips, Daffodils, and Hyacinth are always favorites and for obvious reasons!  However, there are some beautiful bulbs available that are easy to find yet rarely used. 

Fritillaria – a tropical looking bulb that can get about 2’-3’ tall and the flowers hang down with spiky green on top reminiscent of Dr. Seuss!

Tulip Varieties – opening a bulb magazine, you can find pages upon pages of tulip varieties.  From feathered flower petals to red striped leaves you can find it all. 

Allium – From the onion family, this bulb is very deer resistant.  Alliums send up a ball of color on a tall stem.  The largest variety (globemaster) can reach 4’ tall and the flower ball is 10” diameter.  This makes quite a statement!  After the flowers fade, spray paint the flower heads for a couple more months of color!

When choosing bulbs, be sure to choose the right bulb for the spot.  If you have deer or rabbits, look for deer-resistant bulbs.  Otherwise they will have a nice feast come spring!  When planting the bulbs take note of the planting depth and bulb position.  A sprinkle of bulb booster always promises a nice spring show.   If the bulbs are particularly tender, extra bark over the bulbs will protect them in winter.

    I can’t say when I have been more grateful for rain!  My lawn has become so crunchy it hurts to walk barefoot on it and some of my newly transplanted shrubs have dropped their leaves.  I have grown tired of watering and my plants and lawn are showing the effects. 

   The lawn will bounce back quickly with this nice, long rain but the trees, shrubs and perennials might take a little longer.  If you have plants with no leaves or your perennials have no green parts above ground, do not assume they are dead.  Be patient, it is possible for new leaves to appear this fall or even next spring. 

   Evergreen trees do not rebound if let go without water for too long.  Once a conifer tree starts to turn brown, it is too late to bring it back.  It will die in a very short time.       

    If a conifer has a slight yellowish tinge to the needle color, you can remedy that.  That is typically a sign of nitrogen deficiency.  The tree can be fertilized with evergreen tree spikes or a granular 12-12-12 fertilizer.  Within 2 weeks the tree should look a healthier shade of green. 

To give your landscape a polished look, a defined edge to the plant beds is very important. This makes the bed lines stand out nicely delineating the areas of lawn vs. plant beds. A permanent edge can be accomplished with aluminum edging or other materials.

Another option is to create an edge with a spade.
To cut the edge, I use a sharp shovel with a flat blade to make a crisp line outlining the bed. (Rounded shovels make this job a lot more difficult.) I push the spade straight down into the ground about 6″ deep at the edge of the bed. Then, starting about a spade-width of soil away from the first cut line, I cut at a 45 degree angle from the plant bed down toward the base of my first cut. I remove that excess soil so there is a trench around the entire plant bed. When I bark the bed, I fill that area with bark so no one will step in it and twist their ankle. If a heavy rain comes, this also helps to keep the bark from washing into the lawn or onto the sidewalk because the trench will first collect the excess water. This method is less expensive than using edging materials but it will need to be maintained once a year with a quick re-spading.

Can you divide daylillies in the fall? Laurie wrote that her daylillies were ready to be divided and now that the weather is cooling down; what a great time it is to be working out in the garden.

Probably the best time to divide daylilies, and many other perennials, is in the spring when the plants are newly emerging. This way you will do less damage to the leaves when dividing them with a spade. However, you can safely divide daylillies most anytime during the growing season up until about 6 weeks before the first frost (~late Sept.). Perennials overwinter better if they have had adequate time to establish a good root system. Sometimes the freezing and thawing of winter will heave them right out of the ground and the plants may not survive.

So, yes, divide your daylillies! Many divisions can be made from one overgrown daylily plant. Keep them watered until frost arrives.

If you intend to prune any shrubs that have already flowered this year, it needs to be done by the fourth of July. This will allow them time to develop flower buds for next year.

Remove spent flowers from perennials (like Iris) to tidy the landscape.

Some perennials will re-bloom if cut back. My Bachelors Button (Centurea), a blue flowering plant, is just finishing now and if I cut it in half, it will look great in another month or so.

Tall fall mum varieties benefit from a light cutting this time of the season. It makes the plant stouter so it will stand strong in the fall and not fall over with the blooms.

Evergreen trees and shrubs can be pruned right now. The trees should have only one leader branch at the top.

Any branches on Hydrangea, or any shrubs, that never leafed out should be clipped off for a cleaner look. They will not grow any more leaves on those stems this year.

Large containers can look great on the porch or out in the landscape. However, if you fill them with soil or a soil-less mix, the pots can get very heavy and difficult to move. If annuals or perennials are going into the pots, a deep amount of soil may not be necessary for how deep the roots will reach over the growing season.

To reduce the weight, try placing an old inverted pot or pail in the bottom of the container before adding fresh soil. Another idea is to use all-natural 100% hardwood charcoal.

Q: I would like to create a flower bed that starts at my fence and slopes gradually down to the ground. The only problem is that my fence is chain link. I’m worried that erosion will be a big problem along the fence line. Have you had any experiences addressing this problem? Maybe a liner would work?
Nicole

A: You may have a little problem with erosion around your fence if you have sandy soil or if it’s on a steep slope. If that is the case, you should put in plants with vigorous root systems and also bark the area to help from rain washouts. I don’t see a need for a liner. I only use weed mat if a stone mulch is being used. I like the idea of layering your plants down from the fence but I would try to cover the fence with vines or place very tall plants in the back to hide the fence. When you put colorful plants in an area, it draws the eye and you probably don’t want to draw your eye to look at a chain link fence. Ground covers like Myrtle or Sedum would help to hold the soil in place too. The more roots, the better the soil will hold in place. Even steep embankments will hold if covered with a plant root system.

Here is a great gardening tip received from Dick J. in Rockford, Michigan. I am definitely going to try this and see how well it works.

I have been using the NEWSPAPER method of building planting beds over turf and field growth for years and it has worked beautifully. First, mow or cut closely the existing grass or vegetation you want to eliminate. Place four (4) layers of newsprint on the ground. Overlap the sheets of newsprint at least 4″ all around to keep new growth from poking through.
Place 2″ – 4″ of mulch (wood chips or bark mulch) over the paper and water thoroughly. If it is windy, two people works best, and keep a hose handy to wet the paper as you go. Be careful to not tear the paper, if you do get holes or tears, cover with more paper before mulching. Do a small manageable area and then spread the mulch and continue covering an area as large as you want. I only use the actual newsprint paper. I do not use glossy paper or those pages covered with colored inks.

It will take 4 – 6 weeks to effectively kill all the vegetation under the newspapers. I usually prepare beds in the spring, and then do my planting in the fall, at which time there is just good, moist soil under the mulch. Over the years I have used this to create over 1,500 square feet of gardens from lawn area.

Now is the time of the year when seed and garden catalogs start pouring in. Whether you’re working with a vegetable garden, a flowerbed, or a complete landscape, it’s always best to start with a plan. A plan can save you time, space, and money.

The first thing to plan is simple; what kind of garden do you want? You could grow a garden for vegetables, roses, a fragrance garden, cut flowers, aquatics, or start a children’s garden. There are so many fun choices!

Next, plan the location for the garden. Do you have sun or shade? This will influence your plant choices. Different plants have different sun requirements. A garden full of hostas, ferns, and impatiens would do quite well in moderate shade. A rose garden prefers the morning sun to dry the dew off the leaves before mildew sets in. For vegetables, the more sun the better.

The viewpoints are also important. Do you want to view (and smell) the rose garden from the bedroom window? Maybe you want to hide the view of the vegetable garden from the living room or place the herb garden just outside the kitchen door for quick clippings to add to your favorite recipes.

Keep these tips in mind when combing through the catalogs. I will offer more insight into “planning before planting” in your next Great Garden Tip.

With all the high humidity we’ve had this summer, fungus and mold have been growing like crazy! Lawns with signs of Pythium or Brown Patch should improve as the drier air and cooler temperatures come along. Apply a fertilizer with high Phosphorus content; 16-32-4 or one similar. Also, be sure not to water the lawn in the evening.

Snow mold has been growing in the bark beds. This mold appears as a bright yellow glob on top of the bark. It is a harmless mold that you can scrape off or it will just go away on it’s own.

Keep new plantings well watered!