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. 

   Do you like weeding the garden?   After a good rain, and the soil is loosened up, I sometimes enjoy pulling weeds.  It can be a relaxing chore if you see easy progress.  Lately though it has been quite dry and the weeds frequently break off when pulled on.  That leaves behind a root system that will grow an even healthier weed!  

I know the trend is to go green but there are times when I find it more practical to use a few chemicals.  Which one do you use?  Here is a good rule of thumb.  If you are spraying grassy-type weeds, a product containing glyphosate, like Round Up, will work great.  If the weed is broadleaf, and that includes most every other weed you will find, a Brush Killer product should do the trick. 

There are always exceptions and weeds that are very difficult to kill.  Ortho makes a Poison Ivy killer that works quite well.  If you have tough weeds to kill, a second or third application a few days apart helps a lot.

    Keeping weeds out of your lawn keeps them out of your garden.  A lawn full of dandelions will spread into your garden very easily.

    Have you noticed any tan colored, irregular shaped blobs laying on top of your bark?  It is a fungus called Snow Mold and it is quite harmless in outdoor plant beds.  It will fade out by itself but if you don’t like to look at it, you can remove it and it probably won’t come back again this year.

    The weather man is predicting a warm, dry week so stay ahead on watering.  Early morning watering is the most effective but if you want to water in the heat of the day, use drip or direct watering instead of overhead with sprinklers.

    Have you pruned your late spring flowering shrubs yet?  Lilac, Weigela, and Spirea are just a few that should be trimmed this month.  These can be fast growing shrubs so be sure to remove enough foliage to keep them looking nice until next years flowers appear.

    The Hydrangea are showing beautiful blooms right this summer.  My ‘Annabelle’ Hydrangea are growing in full sun and starting to fade just a little but a later, taller variety is right behind them getting ready to take over the flower show.  I like to cut off the blossoms with long stems attached and dry them upside down in a cool, dark place.  In December, I lay them on the branches of my Christmas tree.  The long stems help to keep the dried blooms in place.

    With all the warm weather we’ve been having, it’s a great time to enjoy having a water feature.  But,how does the water look in your water feature right now?  It can get embarassing to show off a pond that is full of string algae or a fountain that is green and stinky.  Here are a few tips to have a water feature worth enjoying and showing to your friends and family.

  For a fountain, a bubbling boulder, or a pondless waterfall, maintenance is a snap.  Depending on whether or not you have any plants or fish in the water, you can “lightly” add bleach, swimming pool chemicals, or most any pond cleaning product.  

    To keep a pond clean, you need to discipline yourself to add your products at the correct intervals.  I have had great success with Algaefix and the beneficial bacteria called Microbe-Lift from Stoney Creek/Easy Pro Products.  About 1x/month I put SAB (String Algae Buster) from Aquascapes into the water.  It clouds the water for a day but does a great job of releasing the string algae from the rocks.  Be sure to scoop up the algae as it drops to the bottom of the pond or else it will just turn into fertilizer for future algae.  The leaf net will also need the algae to be cleaned out of it frequently for a day or two.  Call my office if you need any products.  We pick up supplies about twice a month and could pick yours up too.

    The very best thing you can do to keep the pond water clean is to have enough fish and plants to create a balanced ecosystem.  Once I put enough fish and plants in my pond and stream bed, the water cleared right up and has been looking great all season.  If you feed your fish, be careful that you don’t feed them too much.  I rarely feed my fish so they will consume more algae. 

    Many aquatic plants can be taken out of their pots and planted directly into the pond rocks.  They will be better able to naturalize the area (thin the plants if they get too invasive) and the plants will obtain their nutrients from the pond water and starve out the algae.  Keep large Cattails and Iris in a pot as they can be hard to thin without disrupting the boulder arrangement.  By using these techniques, you should have a great looking water feature!

    What do we do about this? I set out JB traps.  I have my JB traps set about 10′-15′ down wind from plants that I know are chewed on every year.  The reason for the distance is so the beetles are attracted away from their favorite food and hopefully less damage is done.  Do the traps attract JB from other areas too?  Probably, but I find it difficult to stand by and watch my plants be defoliated.  It is also very satisfiying to watch the beetles fly into the traps!

    Biological control is a great idea.  If you provide a variety of plants in your yard, you will be drawing different types of birds that eat the JB.  Starlings, Cardinals, Grackles, Meadowlarks, Crows, Chickens, Pheasants, Ducks, Geese, and even Guineas are all great predators of the JB.

     Due to the soaring fuel costs, many of us are doing sta-cations this summer instead of taking vacations.  We are staying at home and enjoying our own surroundings.  We will be spending leisure time in the yard and we might even be doing more outside entertaining which means everything will need to look its best.  One spot that is frequently missed is pruning of the evergreens.  

    The proper tools to use are hand pruners or pole pruners for the top leaders and long bladed hedge clippers for the sides.  The Christmas tree growers trim their trees with long machetes for speeding up the process.  That is a skill I have not learned!  

A good question came in this week I wanted to share with you along with my answer to try to solve their problem.

Q: We have a question about a tree that we transplanted from a farm to our front yard 2 summers ago (it is probably 15 feet tall). It is a maple tree that seemed to do fine last year. This year we had one of those plastic bases that contain mulch and then weeds won’t grow up in the mulch. I put quite a layer of bark mulch in the tray at the base of the maple tree and I don’t know if that contributed to it or not, but all of the leaves have shriveled up and it looks like it is pretty much dead. We thought that maybe the black plastic ring with mulch was too hot for the roots and might have caused it to die. We have underground sprinkling so it has been receiving water. Our other maple tree that we had transplanted seems to be doing fine. Do you have any ideas for what might have caused the leaves to brown and shrivel up and is there anything we can do to save it now?
Kimberly K., Byron Center, MI

A: I have never seen one of these mulch rings before so I’ll do my best to answer you. One big problem I see with some homeowners mulching their trees is they put huge piles of bark or grass clippings right against the trunk of the tree. This can cause the bark on the lower part of the tree to rot from being in a consistently moist environment. Once that bark is rotted, and the tree is “girdled,” the tree roots will not be able to send water up to the leaves. Pull off the mulch ring and examine the bark to see if it was resting directly against the tree trunk. I don’t believe the color of the black plastic ring was an issue but it is possible there was a chemical on the mulch that was harmful to the tree. (Was it made in China?)

We have also had some long, hot, dry weather that may have caused the tree to simply dry out. Maybe the stressed tree is in full sun and on a slope where the water would run off and the healthy tree is in a low area in the shade. Watering is a tricky thing. Underground sprinkling for lawns is not sufficient for watering trees. Trees need a lot more water than grass. If you think this might be a possibility, lay a hose on the top of the root ball and let the water trickle slowly into the root zone for an hour. Do this 2 times/week and see if the tree pushes new leaves.

Spring is blooming! As you see the Forsythia bushes bloom with their bright yellow flowers, it is a reminder that the ground is now warm enough to put Crabicide down on the lawn.

If you are enjoying the flowering bulbs and are wishing you had planted bulbs in your yard last fall, now is the time to plan for their location. Bulbs are less particular about soil than most other plants, but drainage is important. Areas where water stands several hours after a rain storm should be avoided.

Don’t spread bulbs too thin. It is usually more effective to plant thickly in one area than it is to scatter the bulbs thinly all over the garden. Spring colors and heights of blooms may change from day to day. Before you judge the season, wait until flowering is completely finished.

Tulips or daffodils make great cut flowers for a vase. Cut the flowers as soon as they are beyond the tight bud stage and are just beginning to show color.

If you want to encourage tulips to bloom the following spring, remove the spent flowers. Snapping off the top 3 inches of stem diverts energy from seed formation to bulb growth. There is no benefit to removing daffodil flowers except to tidy up the planting bed.

At this time of the year, I look for any opportunity I can find to spend time outside in the sunshine. What a joy to see bulbs starting to grow! Our gardening efforts begin now that the weather is cooperating. It is time to start spring clean up of the landscape beds.

This includes cutting down to stubble all ornamental grasses and any remaining perennials left standing that are herbaceous and not evergreen. Rake out leaves and debris and apply a fresh layer of mulch if needed.

The more tender perennials, such as butterfly bush will appreciate being uncut and surrounded with a protective layer of mulch or evergreen branches for a little longer yet. They can be susceptible to being killed off with a heavy frost. Wait until the temperatures get a bit warmer to trim these back.