Diggin' It
Peace and beauty in a quiet, green Hawaiian garden
The Transplanted Gardener had already glimpsed Hawaii’s Allerton Garden several times before his island-hopping vacation and didn’t even know it. You’ve probably seen it, too.
The Kauai estate’s picture-perfect beach [photo above] was a secluded setting in the movie “South Pacific.” Its leggy, snakelike banyan trees [first photo at left] were home to dinosaur eggs in “Jurassic Park.” We caught a glimpse of it in “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” And “Fantasy Island” – you know, “Boss, da plane”? That was the Allerton Garden as well.
To paraphrase another movie: It was not Iowa, but it might have been heaven.
The strongest feature of this once-residential garden is in its construction of garden “rooms” – in this case, imposed settings but with mostly native plantings. The Allerton is a green garden, a quiet one, its drama orderly and understated. Ornament and structure are used sparingly, and so to great effect. [See second photo at left.]
The Allerton is also a garden of stone and water, of stability and movement. [See third photo at left.] And when the trade wind picks up in the bamboo grove, it is a garden of gentle sound as well.
Chicago cattle heir and Mayflower descendant Robert Allerton transformed himself from failed artist to premier landscape architect in the carving of this 80-acre formal garden where Hawaii’s Queen Emma once raised taro and rice.
Fifty years ago, the famous photographer and writer Cecil Beaton, writing in Harper’s Bazaar, called the garden “a well-ordered paradise (where) nothing appears artificial, yet nature is so under control that not a leaf is out of place.” It still is.
For more information: The Allerton Garden, 4425 Lawai Road, Koloa, HI 96756. Phone: (808) 742-2623.
Editor’s note: Craig Summers Black, The Transplanted Gardener, is one of eight garden writers who blog regularly at Diggin' it. Look for more of what he's written by clicking here. The Monitor’s main gardening page offers articles on many gardening topics. And you can access all our Diggin' It blog posts.These are new URLS, so you may want to bookmark them so you can return easily. See also our RSS feed. You may want to visit Gardening With the Monitor on Flickr. Take part in the discussions and get answers to your gardening questions. If you join the group (it’s free), you can upload your garden photos and enter our next contest.
Great seed companies you may not know, part 1
A decade ago, heirloom and open-pollinated, or OP, varieties of vegetables and flowers as well as certified organic seeds were the domain of small, regional seed houses. Today, most mainstream seed companies, such as Johnny’s, Stokes, Burpee, Park’s, Vessey’s, Harris, Thompson & Morgan, and Jung also offer these choices, a change that put many of those small, alternative companies out of business.
Some are still around, however, and new names appear regularly. If you want to try some blue-highway seed companies, to steal William Least Heat-Moon’s title, try some of these less-well-known seed sellers. Most but not all also publish a print catalog.
Marianna’s Heirloom Seeds: This family-owned Tennessee company grows and sells “extraordinary heirloom and Italian seeds,” hundreds of tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants. You can find tomatoes from near white to near black and both sweet and hot peppers, but even more special is the eggplant collection: 28 varieties in white, apple green, orange, amethyst, rose, pink, lilac, violet, and best of all — at least on the color scale — “electric purple with white clouds.”
Ronniger Potato Farm: The Ronniger family has been growing certified seed potatoes — “the best all-round bundle of nutrition known” — for more than 30 years. Theirs is a rainbow inventory, everything from ‘Red Thumb’, ‘Purple Peruvian’, and ‘All Blue’ to yellows like ‘Yukon Gold’, their bestseller. Traditionalists wedded to white-fleshed spuds can find plenty to like, including the heirloom ‘Early Ohio’ and ‘Atlantic’, guaranteed for potato-chip making.
Nichols Garden Nursery: Sixty years old this year, Nichols is still family owned and operated and still sells a topnotch manifest of seeds from its location in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. Gardening conditions there are the “best possible,” but its seeds — vegetables, flowers, but especially herbs — will grow anywhere. Even a Connecticut Yankee or a Georgia peach will love its agrimony-to-wormwood herb inventory. Where else can you find 22 basils?
Diane’s Flower Seeds: A new kid on the block, Diane Linsley also grows many of the seeds she offers, especially hard-to-find varieties. Heirloom, rare, and endangered flowers are her metier, but she also offers 100 heritage tomatoes and a small array of old-time vegetable varieties. Most special are her perennial flower seeds — achillea to viola — which are suitable for patient gardeners not demanding blossoms the first year.
High Mowing Organic Seeds: Tom Sterns, a hero of the sustainable farming and buy-local movement in Vermont, lists 450-plus varieties of certified organic vegetable seeds, a mix of heirlooms, OPs, and hybrids — plus a handful of flower seeds. What seeds Sterns can’t produce on his farm he purchases from other independent growers and a few wholesale seed companies that “stand out in terms of their commitment to organics.”
Filaree Farm: Filaree is a vampire’s nightmare: it produces more than 100 strains of certified-organic garlics on its 20-acre farm in north-central Washington. Order early, as “Sorry! Sold Out” is the catalog’s most frequent annotation for everything from ‘Aglio Rosso’, a Creole garlic from the Abruzzo region of Italy, to the the large, artichoke garlic ‘Chopaka Mountain’, described as mild “with a tingle.”
Gary Ibsen’s TomatoFest: Tomatoes — seeds for the “best tasting, non-hybrid, non-genetically modified, old-fashioned and rarest heirloom tomatoes from around the world” — are the stock-in-trade of this California firm. It’s a fest and a feast, and choosing from the many isn’t easy. The most-ordered varieties were ‘Chocolate Stripe’ and ‘Italian Heirloom’. Not your cup of tea? There are 598 alternatives.
Seeds Trust: “Vegetable, wild flower, native grass, and herb seeds for a sustainable future” remains the mantra for this company, now in its third decade. The warehouse operations have moved to Arizona from Idaho, but propietor Bill McDorman still focuses on cold-hardy, short-season varieties for people with their heads in the clouds. For a start, he offers “43 trialed, tested, and notably early and vigorous tomatoes,” most from Siberia.
Karan Davis Cutler is one of eight garden writers who blog regularly at Diggin’ It. She's a former magazine editor and newspaper columnist and the author of scores of garden articles and more than a dozen books, including “Burpee - The Complete Flower Gardener” and “Herb Gardening for Dummies.” She now struggles to garden in the unyieldingly dense clay of Addison County, Vt., on the shore of Lake Champlain, where she is working on a book about gardening to attract birds and other wildlife.
Editor’s note: To read more by Karan Davis Cutler, click here. The Monitor’s main gardening page offers articles on many gardening topics. See also our Diggin' It blog archive and RSS feed. You may want to visit Gardening With the Monitor on Flickr. Take part in the discussions and get answers to your gardening questions. If you join the group (it’s free), you can upload your garden photos and enter our next contest.
Meet Rita Buchanan: author, gardener, and craftswoman extraordinaire
Getting to know a powerhouse is daunting. In this case, she's accomplished in so many areas, and so generous with her time, that I feel quite lazy by comparison.
Rita Buchanan first showed up on my radar screen with the detailed and accessible book, "A Weaver’s Garden." It discusses fiber plants – such as cotton, flax, and ramie – so the reader can grow, harvest, and turn them into usable fiber for spinning or weaving fabric. The same for the world of dye plants and soap plants. How to grow them and use them successfully is all there.
Later, I attended a two-day dye workshop that Rita taught at a sheep farm in Bunker Hill, W.Va. She was friendly and patient, but mostly excited about what she was showing us. We saw yellow indigo-dyed wool turn bright and gorgeous blue in the air. It was like magic.
Rita has continued to write garden books, including an indispensable guide to dye plants and several Taylor guides, including their landscape book. Her writing style is so clear and free of obstacles that following her advice is natural and easy.
Our acquaintance continued and every once in a while I have had the opportunity to visit her in Connecticut and share a bowl of soup. On my most recent visit, Rita was making a new blanket (from scratch), designing beautiful rugs based on garden photos, and making boxes from iris leaves, stems, and bits from the garden.
At the same time, we talked about feeding citrus plants through the winter, groundcovers that tolerate wet areas, and some of the exquisite artwork that her husband, Steve, has been doing.
Just thinking about accomplishing so much is daunting. To observe her footsteps is an inspiration. She is a no-nonsense gardening author who exemplifies clarity, simplicity, accessibility, generosity, and fascination with the natural world. Pick up one of her books as the snow melts and think spring.
Donna Williamson is one of eight garden writers who blog weekly at Diggin' It. She's a master gardener, garden designer, and garden coach. She has taught gardening and design classes at the State Arboretum of Virginia, Oatlands in Leesburg, and Shenandoah University. She’s also the founder and editor of Grandiflora Mid-Atlantic Gardening magazine, and the author of “The Virginia Gardener’s Companion: An Insider’s Guide to Low Maintenance Gardening in Virginia.” She lives in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.
Editor’s note: To read more by Donna, click here. The Monitor’s main gardening page offers articles on many gardening topics. Access all our blog posts here (keep scrolling down to access more), If you don't want to miss any of our gardening coverage, consider subscribing to the RSS feed of the gardening page and the RSS feed of Diggin' It. You may want to visit Gardening With the Monitor on Flickr. Take part in the discussions and get answers to your gardening questions. If you join the group (it’s free), you can upload your garden photos and enter our next contest.
With these tips, anyone can grow lavender
Visit the Mediterranean coast or warm, dry interior valleys along the Pacific Coast, and fields of brilliant blue aromatic lavender are everywhere. Those are the climates in which lavender flourishes.
Many of us don’t live in paradise but contend with humid summers or frigid temperatures six months out of the year. So, if you want lavender, you coddle it. I do.
Lavender is notorious for taking its poky time to flower in gardens, usually not hitting its peak until the second season. But lavender grown in containers is a different story. You can enjoy fragrant flowers in a couple months if you plant correctly.
Rapid drainage, alkaline soil, plenty of light, heat, and excellent air circulation are musts, according to my friend Rose Marie Nichols-McGee, herb and lavender expert.
She gave me these tips on how to grow lavender in containers, which have proved invaluable:
1. Start with large pots, as lavender plants can grow to the size of small shrubs. Twelve- to 16-inch containers do the job nicely. Fill the bottom inch or two of the container with Styrofoam peanuts or gravel to facilitate swift drainage. Add a tablespoon of lime to the potting mix after filling the container. Put one plant in the center of each pot, and situate it so the plant’s crown sticks up about an inch above the soil line.
2. If the potting mix doesn’t contain timed-release fertilizer pellets, sprinkle a half cup over the surface of each pot and scratch it in with a fork. I use alfalfa pellets, which are a slow-release organic food with triacontanol, a growth stimulant.
3. Mulch with a two-inch layer of turkey grit or white landscaping pebbles up to the plant crown. White mulch reflects light on to the plants for rapid growth and keeps air circulating so that plant stems dry out fast after rain or watering and don’t rot. You can find turkey grit at farm and pet stores and at some garden centers. It’s inexpensive.
4. Place pots in an area that receives at least eight hours of full sun daily; shade reduces growth and fragrance. In cooler summer areas like mine, put pots a concrete surface such as a patio or sidewalk to amplify the sun’s heat.
5. Water when soil is dry to touch (under the mulch) and then drench so that water flows freely out the bottom of pots. Feed weekly with a balanced water-soluble fertilizer. I use compost tea or fish meal emulsion.
6. Lavender pots can be stored over the winter for the next season. Bring them into an unheated garage or porch that is sheltered from wind. Potting mix may freeze, but that isn’t a problem. If the soil thaws out during the winter, water plants every two weeks so that roots stay hydrated.
Any lavender variety will grow in a container, but some are better suited than others. Dwarf Blue, Munstead, Hidcote, Sweet, Sharon Roberts, and Lavender Lady produce flowers fast and stay a manageable size in pots.
Harvesting tips
– Cut lavender stems when the lowest blossom opens. Make the cut slightly above the first set of leaves. Color will be more vivid when dried.
– Harvest stems early in the morning. Fragrance is the strongest then, and the blossoms will keep most of the perfume oils present, even when dried.
– Keep cutting blooming stems to encourage more growth. Plants can flower up to three times during a summer.
– Dry lavender in bundles hung upside down in a warm dark place for the deepest color. More essential oils will be retained, too.
Doreen Howard, the Edible Explorer, is one of eight garden writers who blog regularly at Diggin' It. If it’s edible and unusual, Doreen figures out a way to grow it in her USDA Zone 4b garden. She’ll try anything once, even smelly Durian. A former garden editor at Woman’s Day, she writes regularly for The American Gardener and The Old Farmer’s Almanac’s Garden Guide.
Editor’s note: To read more by Doreen Howard, click here. The Monitor’s main gardening page offers articles on many gardening topics. See also our blog archive and our RSS feeds. You may want to visit Gardening With the Monitor on Flickr. Take part in the discussions and get answers to your gardening questions. If you join the group (it’s free), you can upload your garden photos and enter our next contest.
The top easy-care roses
For many years the Queen of Flowers has been labeled as one of the most chemically dependent plants in the garden. And to be honest, a good number of roses are fussy and high maintenance.
That’s because over time, in the pursuit of what was hoped to be a more appealing bloom, disease resistance was bred out of many varieties. And casual gardeners found them too frustrating or time-consuming to bother with.
Now two developments are changing all that. First, the introduction of new varieties that bloom happily throughout the season without the need for constant attention. And secondly, the movement to curtail chemical spraying in both private and public gardens.
Peter Kukielski, curator of the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden at the New York Botanical Garden, had to rethink his plans for 3,800-plus bushes after a no-spray rule was implemented there.
When I first interviewed him, the staff was observing a large group of newly planted roses selected for hardiness and disease resistance. He was immediately impressed with the line of Kordes Fairy Tale roses.
Now almost three years later, 845 roses have been evaluated for performance and beauty. And after receiving countless requests to name which roses he considers the best of the best, Peter has listed the garden’s Top 100 Performers.
The judging guidelines followed those used by the Earth-Kind Program, which conducts field trials to designate varieties that excel with minimal care. Roses at NYBG were rated on a scale of 1 to 10, and only repeat bloomers were considered for the list.
The winner? Ta da! The light-pink shrub rose Quietness, hybridized by the late Griffith Buck. Rosarians in various parts of the country have described it as nearly perfect, blooming in full sun or partial shade. It's fragrant, cold hardy, and supposedly doesn’t attract dreaded Japanese beetles.
Home Run, a shrub with Knock Out in its parentage, placed second. Ducher, a white China rose, snagged third.
Although not in the first three, the folks at Kordes need not be disappointed. Their roses including the climber Aloha, Brothers Grimm Fairy Tale, and Elegant Fairy Tale captured the remaining spaces in the Top 10. In fact, 16 of the disease-resistant Kordes roses made the top 20 and were listed as "Superior."
And what about Knock Out, the modest rose that started the movement towards carefree, chemical-free rose gardening? It came in a respectable 28th.
It wasn’t the pick of the posies, but don’t count out the trailblazer. Newer varieties may be turning heads, but it was Knock Out that convinced many gardeners to take another look at growing roses.
PSSSST: When available, I’ll post a list of the entire 100 Top Roses here.
Lynn Hunt, the Rose Whisperer, is one of eight garden writers who blog regularly at Diggin' It. She's an accredited horticultural judge and a Consulting Rosarian Emeritus for the American Rose Society. She has won dozens of awards for her writing in newspapers, magazines, and television. She grows roses and other plants in her garden on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.
Editor’s note: To read more posts by Lynn, click here. The Monitor’s main gardening page offers articles on many gardening topics. Access all our blog posts here. (These URLs have recently changed, so you may want to bookmark them so you can return easily.) See also our RSS feed. You may want to visit Gardening With the Monitor on Flickr. Take part in the discussions and get answers to your gardening questions. If you join the group (it’s free), you can upload your garden photos and enter our next contest.
Five tips for creating natural-looking waterfalls
What makes one backyard waterfall look as though it’s been pouring over the rocks for centuries, and another look like cement blobs were thrown at a hillside? I wrote about naturalistic rock placement in another posting, but today let’s look at falling water.
In my ongoing search for how to re-create the natural look in gardens, I turn to one of my favorite waterfall builders — Gerald Roulette, of G & O Landscaping in Sherwood, Ore. You can use Gerald’s tips when planning your own waterfall — whether you want a charming trickle or mighty stream.
Every garden benefits from the addition of water, and now’s the time to think about what you want once spring arrives, either DIY or with a builder.
Gerald tells me he looks to nature for his inspiration. “You never see anything in the wild that resembles a retaining wall,” he says. So he often spends his time hiking up streams to Oregon’s ubiquitous waterfalls.
1. Consider the source. In nature, even the most thundering falls can have modest beginnings. The source of Oregon’s crashing Metolius River shows itself first as a series of springs that emerge from a mossy bank at the base of arid Black Butte — quite a subject of contemplation when you realize how dramatic the water becomes on its downward journey.
TIP: Create a naturalistic start. Many garden falls are constructed with biological filter boxes at the top. These need to be hidden by rocks and surrounding plants —leaving plenty of access for maintenance — or constructed to resemble a still pool, as if water is arising from a wellspring.
2. Stories in stones. All flowing water carries a history of how the stream formed. For instance, Gerald studies the sharper rock edges on a falls, where the earth has been scoured away by the rushing water, revealing the underlying slabs, often tilted at the same angle. He notes, “In any falls, the water is exposing the rocks, making them appear as if they are coming out of the ground.”
TIP: Bury your spill rocks. Plan on seriously hiding large parts of the rock that make up your falls. You want the stone to look as if it’s emerging from the earth, all at a similar angle, not plopped on top.
3. Erratic behavior. Other falls in nature are completely made up of rounded rocks, tumbled for eons by water and glacial action. In the wild places, such as the Cascade Mountains or even New York’s Central Park, you’ll find dramatic house-size boulders called “erratics,” rounded and rubbed by long-gone glaciers, often deposited far from where they were originally formed.
TIP: Ground your boulders. Trying to reproduce erratic placement in your backyard tends to look spotty-dotty. If you like the high-mountain look, tuck plants and smaller rocks around large rocks to help them fit in. The accompanying rock garden-type plants appreciate the extra drainage these planting pockets afford.
4. Water works. Streams move straight downhill in steeper areas, stopped only by rocks that form pools. The area under a falls is dug out by the force of the stream, pushing smaller pebbles up to the outer edges.
TIP: Place the deepest part of your pool under the falls. If you have a drain, that’s where it should be. Arrange the basin’s pebbles so they curve up to the surrounding rocks and plants.
5. Sounds, not silence. When you go to see waterfalls in nature, don’t forget to listen. Try to determine what makes the water’s various notes. A cascade pouring off a ledge resonates differently from one trickling around large rocks. Water splashing into a deep pool can be distinguished from water hitting partly submerged stones.
TIP: Avoid “Niagara syndrome.” That’s the term artists George Little and David Lewis shared with me to define, as David puts it, “Too much volume of water in too small an area, without considering the intimacy of the site.” Installing a pump that allows for flow control solves the problem.
Mary-Kate Mackey is one of eight garden writers who blog regularly at Diggin' It. She is co-author of “Sunset’s Secret Gardens — 153 Design Tips from the Pros” and contributor to the “Sunset Western Garden Book,” writes a monthly column for the Hartley Greenhouse webpage and numerous articles for Fine Gardening, Sunset, and other magazines. She teaches at the University of Oregon’s School of Journalism & Communication. She writes about water in the garden for Diggin’ It.
Editor’s note: To read more by Mary-Kate, click here. The Diggin' It blog archive has everyone's posts (scroll down]. The Monitor’s main gardening page offers articles on many gardening topics. See also our RSS feed. You may want to visit Gardening With the Monitor on Flickr. If you join the group (it’s free), you can upload your garden photos and enter our next contest.
Amaryllis flowers brighten winter
This is the time of year that if you live in a cold climate, you're longing for some color (besides brown and white).
Sure, you can bring home some new houseplants or buy some potted tulips at the supermarket. But if you want to make a bold splash, try an amaryllis. This tropical Americas native grows from a huge bulb (many are about the size of a mango) and has a stalk and flower to match.
Colors range from many shades of red, pink, and orange to white -- and combinations of those (red and white is a personal favorite).
If you're convinced, what now?
The easiest way to get started with amaryllis is to buy an already potted, already growing bulb. You'll find them at home stores, garden centers, florists, nurseries, and the floral departments of grocery stores.
If possible, choose one that has big flower buds on it that have not yet opened. (If the flowers are already open, you won't get to enjoy them for as long as if you buy the plant with buds.)
Make sure the plant is wrapped against the cold if you're taking it home when outdoor temperatures are in the 30s F. You don't want it to get chilled.
Once it's at your house, place it in a warm spot. (70 degrees F. and above is ideal, but it will be OK down to 60 F.) It also needs bright light, including a bit of sun, so don't stick the plant in a dark corner or in the middle of the coffee table.
You also don't want to let the soil dry out. Most amaryllis bulbs are potted in peat moss and once it has become dry, it's very difficult to wet again all the way through.So feel the soil's surface each day, and as it starts to dry slightly, water again. (Warm water is best.) But don't let the bottom of the pot stand in water.
After your amaryllis has finished blooming, you can cut the stalk back and continue to grow it as a green houseplant. You can even make it flower again next year. Here are the National Arboretum's instructions on doing that.
This time of year you can often find loose amaryllis bulbs on sale. It's fun -- and cheap -- to buy these, pot them up yourself, and grow amaryllis flowers from scratch. Here's all you need to know to do that.
If you're thinking about Valentine's Day, there won't be enough time to have the plant in bloom. (That takes a minimum of five or six weeks), but you can still have one almost ready to flower if you start now.
Editor’s note: The Monitor’s main gardening page offers articles on many gardening topics. See also our blog archive and our RSS feeds. If you join Gardening With the Monitor on Flickr (it's free), you can upload your garden photos and enter our next contest.
Winners of our Flickr garden-photo contest
The Monitor's gardening section has had several photo contests running on our Flickr group page. Today we'll announce the three winners of the fruit photos competition. Then, as soon as we've heard back from the winners, we'll show you the top three photos in the "What does your winter look like" contest.
The winners among the fruit photos were chosen by Joanne Ciccarello, the Monitor's photo editor.
First place went to Carolyn Hopper for a pomegranate photo titled "Remember Persephone?" [See Photo No. 1, above.] It definitely looks good enough to eat, doesn't it?
Carolyn says: "My husband Dan loves pomegranates. One morning as he was eating one at breakfast I noticed how the sun was playing on all the surfaces
and had to take a picture on a colorful plate that I love. The story of the pomegranate makes it an interesting fruit to get to know and they are a tasty treat."
Her prize is "P. Allen Smith's Container Gardens Deck: 50 Recipes for Year-Round Gardening" (Potter Style). It's a packet of 50 cards that contain easy-to-follow directions for container gardens of all types.
Jayne Hanlin took second place with an interesting shot of a dragon fruit that she took in a very unexpected place. [See Photo No. 2, above.] She explains:
"On the way to the railroad station, our Chinese guide had the tour bus stop at a huge, crowded Wal-Mart Supercenter in Beijing so that we could buy snacks for our overnight train ride to Xian. Looking for them, I couldn’t resist taking colorful photo of these exotic dragon fruit."
Jayne wins "The World of the Monarch Butterfly," by Eric S. Grace (Sierra Club Books), which explores the life of the insect with the longest migration.
Third place went to Susan Mitchell for an appealing photo of figs. [See photo above left.] She says these fruits make interesting subjects for photography:
"I love figs and every summer we get hundreds of them from people who have fig trees, but don't like figs.The bulk of them go into my own recipes for cooking and preserving them, but we keep the very best ones--the plump, fat, perfectly ripe ones -- to eat fresh.
"These gorgeous, perfect fruits are not only wonderful for eating, they are also wonderful subjects for photography. I had put these two in a bowl and was going to sit on the porch and eat them, but noticed the way their shadows highlighted their elegant shape, and how the sun brought out the green and brown and purple of the skin. I decided that eating could wait, and spent the next ten minutes or so taking photos of my "figs in a bowl"from different angles. This one was my favorite primarily because of the distinct shape of the shadow on the bowl."
We will be sending Susan a copy of "The Family Kitchen Garden," by Karen Liebreich, Jutta Wagner, and Annette Wendland (Timber Press). It's a photo-filled book that gives step-by-step instructions for growing vegetables, fruits, herbs, and flowers.
Thanks to all who entered. The quality of the photography was so high that Joanne had a tough time picking just three winners.
And stay tuned to Diggin' It for announcement of the winners of the winter photo contest.
Editor’s note: The Monitor’s main gardening page offers articles on many gardening topics. See also our blog archive and our RSS feeds. If you join Gardening With the Monitor on Flickr (it's free), you can upload your garden photos and enter our next contest.
Lily-of-the-valley cultivars are beautiful, not so invasive
One of the first flowers I ever picked as a child was a fistful bouquet of lily-of-the-valley (Convallaria majalis) from a neighbor’s yard. Our neighbor, an elderly lady of German ancestry, mesmerized me with fantasy tales of fairies bringing dew in the thimble-sized cups for the queen’s breakfast, of how the blossoms ring when fairies sing, of fairies using the thimble-shaped flowers as a charm against witches’ spells, of how the flower sprigs are added to bridal bouquets to insure a good marriage, and even such notions that the ambrosial scent induced visions of heaven.
Easily captivated, I spent hours and hours with my nose in those blossoms – but somehow, those sought-after visions never materialized.
The stalwart of all English gardens, May bells, Mary’s tears – or lily-of-the-valley, as it’s more commonly known -- is a sweet little shade-loving deciduous perennial. This old-fashioned, extra-hardy plant (Zone 4), standing a mere six to eight inches high, is a floral giant in any woodland garden. It is especially well-suited for use as a ground cover under shrubs and trees as well as long north-facing walls where few other plants will grow, much less blossom.
The very sweet-scented, white, dangling, bell-shaped flowers, though minuscule, pack a powerful punch. Four or five tiny springs can perfume a room, while a small patch in the landscape fills the yard with their intoxicating scent in early spring.
Though completely comfortable in deep shade and easily grown under almost any condition, lily-of-the-valley prefers dappled shade, the rich loamy soil of mature woodlands and ample moisture.
Yes, it's important to know that it can be invasive. And sure, sited in full sun with no additional moisture, it can look bedraggled during the dog days of summer. But site it correctly, contain its spread with barriers, divide it every two to three years, and you will be rewarded with one of spring’s most captivating highlights.
Having a thick carpet of blooming lily-of-the-valley in your beds and borders may be the stuff of your dreams, but before you are tempted to plant those bare-root or potted rhizome divisions, or “pips” as they are called, be forewarned: Like many other plants in your garden, including daffodils and foxglove, every part of this plant is mildly toxic. So keep it away from curious pets and inquisitive toddlers.
As likable a plant as the common lily-of-the-valley is, there are superior cultivars available now that will add additional sparkle and dimension to your garden. Best of all, most of these little charmers exhibit better manners and tend to spread less vigorously than your grandmother’s plants did.
Notable cultivars
Variegation adds a whole new dimension to Convallaria plants. Along with the spring display of dainty, luxuriantly scented white bells, the foliage of ‘Albomarginata’ has white-edged leaves. ‘Albostriata’ is another variegated variety with white to creamy striping on the leaves that fades to light green in summer. And the adorable minx of my gardens, ‘Aureovariegata’, [see photo at left] has dark green leaves and clearly defined yellow stripes that are bright yellow in early spring, fading only a bit in summer.
The sassy enchantress ‘Rosea’ shows off scads of dainty pink cups, but care must be taken when purchasing this cultivar for there is great diversity. Some plants sold under this name – ‘Rosea’ – sport a barely noticeable wisp of pale pink coloration, while others have strong mauve/pink tones. [See second photo at left.]
‘Dorien’ is of typical height but with larger dancing flowers. ‘Bordeaux’ (12 inches) and ‘Fortin’s Giant’ (18 inches) improve on the favorite with greater stature, longer stems and larger dangling bells. ‘Flore Pleno’ (12 inches) displays double blossoms, and ‘Prolificans’ enhances this flowering pleasure even more by blooming with a wild abundance of single little bells.
More and more of the newer cultivars sport yellow. I fell in love with golden-edged ‘Hardwick Hall’ when I visited its namesake a few years back and then couldn’t pass up the outstanding, larger Convallaria with its cheeky moniker of ‘Cream da Mint’, also with golden edges.
But one of the latest of my prized possessions in this collection is ‘Fernwood’s Golden Slippers’, a sport of ‘Cream da Mint’. Emerging in early spring is radiant chartreuse-yellow foliage, which darkens somewhat in summer, yet never turns totally green. It glows like handfuls of yellow glowsticks when backlit by the sun.
Betty Earl is one of eight garden writers who blog regularly at Diggin' It. She's the author of “In Search of Great Plants: The Insider’s Guide to the Best Plants in the Midwest,” is one of eight garden writers who blogs regularly at Diggin' It. She also writes a regular column for Chicagoland Gardening Magazine and The Kankakee Journal and numerous articles for Small Gardens Magazine, American Nurseryman, Nature’s Garden, and Midwest Living Magazine, as well as other national magazines. She is a garden scout for Better Homes and Gardens and a regional representative for The Garden Conservancy.
Editor’s note: To read more by Betty Earl, click here. For more Monitor gardening, see our main gardening page and previous posts of Diggin' It [they're there if you keep scrolling down]. Both of these have new URLs, so we hope you'll bookmark them and return. Want to be notified when there's something new in our gardening section? Sign up for our RSS feed.
For a successful garden, know your soil
As you flip through seed catalogs assembling this year's wish list, think about dirt. It’s the most important element for success with fruit, vegetables, and landscape plants. Find out what type of soil is in your garden. It affects how and what will thrive for you.
Eons ago, the Rock River Valley, where I live in northern Illinois, was carved out by the Wisconsin Glacier, leaving deposits of silt, sand, loam, and clay, along with plenty of tumbled rocks and limestone. Because of the glacier's action, yards here may have more than one soil type. Mine does.
My acre is at the steep end of a glacier moraine. The front yard is the outwash of the moraine where plenty of silt was deposited. The 18-inch layer sits upon four feet of sandy clay loam. The rest of the yard is the moraine end with an eight-inch layer of loam, on top of two feet of clay loam and more than five feet of gravely loam underneath.
The pH (measure of acidity or alkalinity) is high, because 40 percent of the soil is calcium carbonate (limestone). The front yard is much lower in lime concentration, only about 16 percent. In short, I have good soil in the front and challenges elsewhere due to high pH. Click here to see what high pH does to plants.
I found this detailed soil analysis at a United States Department of Agriculture website. They’ve mapped the country, analyzed soils, and made the data available to all in a free comprehensive report.
Click on the big WWS green start button, then click on Address to enter yours. A map will come up of your neighborhood. Click on the AOI button and place the red box around your yard. Then click on the Soil Map tab and follow directions.
At the end, click on Shopping Cart to order your custom report. Download it immediately or have it sent later via email. It’s free.
Once you know your soil type or types, you may have to improve the ground before planting. Amending a planting hole is a limiting action. Plant roots won’t spread beyond the altered soil.
Instead, dig a hole, insert plant, and backfill with excavated dirt. Improve the top of the ground in a five- to 15-foot radius, depending upon the mature size of the plant. Sprinkle sulfur to lower pH or add lime to raise it.
Top with a half-inch layer of compost or a scattering of slow-release fertilizer. See package for recommended amounts. Top that with organic mulch – two to three inches of shredded leaves or wood chips. Nutrients will filter into the soil, enticing new plant roots to grow outward.
Consider rubbing a mycorrhizal fungi inoculant on plant roots before putting them in the ground. The fungi are symbiotic, attaching to the plant roots, growing 20 feet or more in every direction to gather nutrients and water to feed the plant. It also thwarts many plant diseases. Look for mycorrhizae at garden centers that stock organics or do an Internet search for mail order sources.
Doreen Howard is one of eight garden writers who blog regularly at Diggin' It. If it’s edible and unusual, Doreen figures out a way to grow it in her USDA Zone 4b garden. She’ll try anything once, even smelly Durian. A former garden editor at Woman’s Day, she writes regularly for The American Gardener and The Old Farmer’s Almanac’s Garden Guide.
Editor’s note: To read more by Doreen Howard, click here. The Monitor’s main gardening page offers articles on many gardening topics. See also our blog archive and our RSS feeds. You may want to visit Gardening With the Monitor on Flickr. Take part in the discussions and get answers to your gardening questions. If you join the group (it’s free), you can upload your garden photos and enter our next contest.
