Building ideas: plant

Showing posts with label plant. Show all posts

Saturday, March 8, 2014

Plant Flowers to Climb Your Garden Obelisks

Annual and perennial vines have long been used to cover unsightly walls or structures in the landscape. The vines soften the hard architectural lines of fences and buildings. They create living sculptures of other structures, such as Garden Obelisks, ramshackle sheds, outbuildings, tree stumps, and assorted "cast-offs" given new life in the Garden.

Use Garden Obelisks to create a vertical growing space for annual or perennial vines where there is no existing structure for the vines to grow upon. Make them the centerpiece of a perennial Garden, line them up to define the border of an annual flower bed, or to separate Garden "rooms." Planted with brightly colored flowering vines, Garden Obelisks are an imposing presence in the landscape.

Grow these annual and perennial flowering vines on your Garden Obelisks:

Morning glories and/or moonflowers: Members of the sweet potato family, they open their blossoms only at certain times of days: the flowers of morning glories, Ipomoea purpurea, open in the early morning and close by midday. Moonflowers, I. alba, open in late afternoon, stay open all night and close shortly after dawn. Plant both kinds to climb up the same structure and enjoy blooms from late afternoon through mid-morning. Start seeds indoors for the earliest blooms.

Ornamental sweet potatoes: Distinguished by their colorful foliage, ornamental sweet potato, Ipomoea batatus, vines grow 12 feet or more in length over the course of a growing season. Available in varieties with foliage in red, bronze or various colors of green, including chartreuse. Their leaves look just like those of edible sweet potatoes. They are often included in container Gardens, Planted near the edge of the pot to cascade over the sides. Ornamental sweet potatoes will quickly grow to cover even the tallest Garden Obelisks.

Clematis and autumn clematis: Often called the queen of vining flowers, clematis, Clematis paniculata, produces light lavender blossoms on woody vines. Its cousin, autumn clematis, C. maximonowicziana, produces smaller, less showy, but more fragrant flowers in autumn. Both types of clematis prefer morning sun and protection from the afternoon sun, although autumn clematis is more tolerant of all-day sun. Mulch them well, they prefer their roots kept cool and evenly moist.

Honeysuckle: A prolific flowering vine, honeysuckle, Lonicera sempervirens, also called "coral honeysuckle," quickly grows to cover any Garden structure. It produces many tiny, trumpet-shaped, coral, yellow or red, fragrant flowers from mid-spring through autumn. Native to the Americas, coral honeysuckle grows best in sun to partial shade. Do not Plant Japanese honeysuckle, L. japonica, as it is a rampant, invasive vine that has escaped cultivation in North America.

Climbing hydrangea: A shade-loving flowering vine, climbing hydrangea, Hygdrangea anomala subsp. petiolaris, is relatively care-free. Its large, white flowers bloom in summer and look just like the flowers of shrub-like hydrangeas. The vines are woody and can become quite heavy on a large specimen; ensure any Garden Obelisks or other support structures it grows upon are substantial and secure. Mulch their soil and keep them evenly moist for the greatest number of flowers.

Covered with any of these flowering vines, Garden Obelisks become living art in your landscape.

Copyright Sharon Sweeny

Sharon Sweeny specializes in all things Gardening, as well as self-sufficient, do-it-yourself lifestyles. Read more about intensive Gardening at http://moxieGardener.com and decorative Garden structures at http://eGardenObelisks.com.

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Umbellifers Selections from my Favorite Plant Family

As an admitted plant-aholic, it is pretty easy for me to fall for a plant. I have a bad habit of seeing virtue in almost every green darling. Of all of my plant crushes, one in particular stands out: I am particularly crazed about umbels.

The plant family Apiaceae (also referred to as Umbelliferae) is a family of aromatic, hollow-stem plants most commonly known for their lacey, umbel-shaped flowers. For herb and vegetable gardeners, you are probably quite familiar with many characters in this cast: carrots, parsnips, cilantro, chervil, cumin, dill, fennel, lovage, and parsley. It was the family’s usefulness for cooking that initially attracted me, but it is their striking forms ultimately seduced me.

Umbels often have low basal foliage from which mostly leafless stems arise to support striking disk-shaped flowers. From the side, the flowers look like an umbrella turned inside-out by the wind. A close look at the tiny flower clusters (umbels) is a joy in itself, as radially-symmetrical fractals reveal hundreds of sparkling blooms. Staring into an umbel, I have the same thought as I did when I gazed upon the rose window in Chatres cathedral: how can there be such exultant power in so much delicacy?

Tom Stuart-Smiths 2010 Laurent-Perrier Garden, Chelsea. Photo by Allan Pollok-Morris

Usually flowers with such intricacy lose their effect from a distance. But seeing umbels from a distance is precisely my favorite vantage point. Think about the frothy and effervescent effect of Queen Anne’s Lace (Daucus carota) tossing among a tall grass. Placed in a smaller, garden setting, few plants are as evocative of larger, wild landscapes as umbels. Their spumous blooms channel the ephemeral like few plants are capable of doing.

While I have long loved these plants, I have not gardened with them enough. Seeing Tom Stuart-Smith’s use of Cenolophium denudatum stunning 2010 Laurent-Perrier garden has convinced me of their power in designed landscapes. Stuart-Smith has the rare ability to create plantings with a dreamy, ethereal quality, but I am convinced his use of Baltic Cow Parsley gave this garden its transcendent, fairy-tale like quality.

Here are few seeds I have ordered for next year’s border. I’d love to know if any of you have gardened with them:

1. Ammi majus, White Bishop’s Weed. An annual, these showy-white flowers look like a cultivated form of Queen Anne’s Lace. 36-48” height. I plant to sow them among medium-height, ornamental grasses.

Astrantia Hadspen Blood, Plant-pictures.net

2. Astrantia major ‘Hadspen Blood’, Crimson Astrantia. According to Sir James Edward Smith’s 1805 Exotic Botany, “the more refined admirers of nature” rate Masterworts as one of their favorites. Sir James, couldn’t agree more. ‘Hadspen Blood’ was introduced by the great British gardener Nori Pope. Few plants give a natural look quite like Masterworts. Plant them close to a path or terrace so their detail can be appreciated.

Eryngium yuccifolium, photo by Prairie Moon Nursery

3. Eryngium yuccifolium, Rattlesnake Master. Is there a cooler common name than that? This American native might be my favorite plant, hands down. Round, white globes emerge from strappy, yucca-like foliage. Like all members of this family, pollinators love this plant.

H. maximum, photo by Phyllis Weyland

3. Heracleum maximum, Common Parnsip. The only member of the Hogweed genus native to North America. This very tall plant has larger leaves than most umbels. Native Americans peeled and ate the young sweet leaf and flower stalks (please don’t confuse it with Water Hemlock, a deadly plant). A larval host for the Anise Swallowtail. Prairie Moon Nursery has seeds available.

4. Sellenium wallichianum, Milk Parsley. Of all the umbels, nursery owner and writer Carol Klein says Sellenium wallichianum might be her favorite. It’s easy to see why. The leaves are as nice a feature as the flowers, as billowing clumps of ferny foliage create a lacey foundation for the plant. The stems are bright red and the flowers, oh those huge, creamy blooms. E.A. Bowles, one of the great British gardeners of the 20th century, called S. wallichianum, “the queen of all umbellifers, with its almost transparent tender green-ness and the marvellously lacy pattern of its large leaves . . . the most beautiful of all fern-leaved plants.”