Ann Acheson

December 29, 2017

Roy Diblik - "They share the space unselfishly"

Ann Acheson

December 29, 2017

He had already inspired me with his book "Know Maintenance Perennials" but I had no idea how wise, cool, down-to-earth, innovative, knowledgeable, hilariously funny - shall I go on? - he is until he spoke at our NYBG LDSA meeting in December. All thanks to Hanna Packer - shout-out to her expertise; visit her website www.hannapackerdesign.com

He talked to us about Plant Communities, and somehow it ended up being about human communities as well. A plant community will thrive only if it has all the building blocks, including good soil and a diversity of plants to support a wide variety of insects. Living and dying roots are what regenerates the soil. "Remnant prairies" (untouched soil) have 18 - 24 species of plants per sq meter - all thriving and occupying their niches happily and benefitting each other. They share the space unselfishly. So it should be with human communities as well.

But lets move on to some of Roy Diblik's wisdom that I managed to capture:

You have to get to know the plants. It's not "fair" to the plant to ask it to do what you want it to do - you should find out what it wants to do and where it wants to be to thrive."

P.S. this is how we should treat people as well!

Pachysandra, vinca, euonymus etc are the "default landscape -

he grows 32,000 sedges in his nursery and uses a mixture of sedges as ground cover

Turf and boxwood" landscapes have no pollinators, no birds.

You don't need mulch, organic amendments, fish emulsion etc - Everything you need falls from the trees in autumn and all the soil needs is roots living and dying.

Thugs" are opportunistic - if you disturb an area they will take over - that's simply their nature

You have to put a plant community together in a way that eliminates agricultural weeds. If you can reduce the light reaching the soil to below 1000 ft-candles (or better, below 200 ft-candles) then weed seeds won't germinate.

Contractors are being paid to keep bad from getting worse

A plug will equal a 1G container in 5 weeks

Ornamental grasses sporobulus, seslaria, schizachyrium as the "grout" between the plants. For example, Allium 'Summer Beauty' and seslaria live together fruitfully (not competitively)

He usually uses a balance of 60:40 grasses:flowering plants

Seen below: pictures of Roy Diblik's matrix plantings at the Chicago Art Institute, Chicago's Shedd Aquarium and the Lurie Garden

Lurie Garden Chicago - the interplay of sun and shadow and the colors of the grasses, with the amsonia just beginning to turn its bright yellow autumn color, is mesmerizingly beautiful to me.

Roy Diblik at the birth of the Lurie Garden

Roy Diblik says: "Learn about 20 plants in depth, then gradually learn another 10 or 20 - that's all you'll need"

He creates "quilt patterns" - each module is interchangeable and they can be mixed and matched

Geranium 'Magnificum' from Roy Diblik's Nursery

The composition of your design sets up the plant community but also creates spirit and emotion

Allium, Calamintha, Stachys and Echinacea

He gave us info about some of the plants he uses: (I mostly tried to capture his own words)

Carex flacca ('Blue Zinger') is an example of a carex that quickly covers ground and can take some foot traffic, but when its crown touches another crown it stops spreading
Monarda bradburiana prefers avg to dry soil (unlike some other monardas)
Salvias love to mix with one another but they can't survisie getting watered 3 times per week
Don't use Salvia 'May Night' because it doesn't rebloom. Instead use Salvia wesuwe that reblooms constantly
A combo he likes: Geranium sanguineum, allium cernuum and ornamental oregano
Covering the growing points of perennials with wood mulch kills them
Northwind has an Echinacea tenneseensis hybrid that tolerates clay soil
Sporobulus and sedges are very natural-looking in a woodland garden; also mixtures of sedge and Geranium macrorrhizum in shade
Commercial prairies that are started from seed usually end up being 5 native plants living together. It will take 15 years to get a diverse/"real" prairie with 18-24 species per sq meter

Words of wisdom: "Sedges give you the opportunity to outsmart weeds"

One plant he mentioned that I hadn't known was Gillenia trifoliata (also Porteranthus trifoliatus). Common name: Bowman's Root (Also known as Indian Physic or American Ipecac; sounds lovely!). Bowman's Root is an easy-to-grow native for bright shade or partial sun and it tolerates tree root competition well as long at it has a nice layer of organic mulch. Bowman's Root is lovely in a mass planting where its lacy white flowers can shimmer in a light breeze. It makes a nice filler - think Gaura for shade! A compact, rounded plant, it is topped in late spring with ethereal white flowers growing in a few loose terminal panicles, with red petioles and mahogany stems. Clean, disease-free foliage often turns deep bronzy red in fall and contrasts beautifully with the more typical oranges and yellows in the perennial border. Interesting form and unique seed heads persist into winter. Great for cut flowers!

Ann Acheson

September 12, 2017

Proven Winners Shrubs to keep an eye out for

Ann Acheson

September 12, 2017

I saw a couple of these varieties this season, and hope to see more and try some of them next season. (Note that pictures appear beneath each plant description)

Weigela 'Spilled Wine' - I'm not a big fan of weigela because I think it gets to look ratty later in the season and the older varieties needed to be pruned constantly in order to look like anything in the landscape. But this variety was named 2018 Landscape Plant of the Year "selected by landscapers and growers who understand the needs of the market and the range of challenging climatic conditions acrosss North America". Is it the Big Mac of weigelas? Available anywhere and always tastes the same? Well, here's the description in the Spring Valley Nursery catalog:

"Weigela florida 'Bokraspiwi' Spilled Wine has dark red, waxy leaves and a spreadinbg habit. Its hot-pink-magenta flowers are similer to Wine & Roses weigela, but this is a smaller plant that is wider than it is tall, Perfect for edging or filling in spaces in a sunny border"

Zone 4, 2-3' tall and 3' wide, spring bloom, deer resistant - could it be a sub for 'Concorde' barberry?

Buddleia 'Miss Molly' - The reddest buddleia - a really beautiful jewel-tone color for when you get sick and tired of purple - stands out in the garden. It's a "compact form" (4-5 ft) and is an interspecific hybrid that is non-invasive. Now that buddleias are better-behaved (not so gigantic and weedy-looking) and non-invasive, I'm using them a lot again.

Buddleia X 'Miss Molly' — *Buddleia* X 'Miss Molly'

Callicarpa 'Purple Pearls': saw it, loved it, instantly bought it, installed it. Deer walked by and didn't eat it. That's the first good sign. Its another inter-specific hybrid, with the nice dark eggplant-ish foliage of one parent and the pink flowers of the other. Lots of big berries in fall. Also and upright habit. For my money, you can't go wrong!

Chaenomeles 'Double Take Orange' - same thing - saw it just at the end of its flowering, instantly bought it, installed it, deer walk right on by. Flowers are quite a bit more noticeable than the non-double-flowered forms, but the shrub still has a quirky yet interesting habit. Plant along the top of a wall where the flowers can be at or above eye level. You will eventually have to prune it (grows 4-5 ft tall)- try to wait until late winter so that you can bring the trimmings inside and force them. No thorns; no fruit. Don't move away from the non-double chaenomeles completely, though, because the fruit is unexpected, pretty, and you can bring them inside to act as natural air fresheners instead of buying expensive quince candles!

Clematis - PLANT MORE of them! What can I say, but that they give you bang for buck. They're really not hard to grow after all, at least not some of the newer varieties (as well as some of the good old tried-and-true ones). These Proven Winner ones have been selected for vigor, disease-resistance and flower power. Try 'Sweet Summer Love' and 'Brother Stefan'. 'Brother Stefan' is one of the of the ones developed in Poland - it is a late spring bloomer (old wood) with sporadic rebloom later on new wood. The flowers are "true blue" - unusual, as we know, in the plant kingdom and therefore eye-catching. 'Sweet Summer Love' is another cultivar from Poland that flowers late in the season on new wood - meaning that it can be cut back hard evey spring. The small but prolific flowers are cranberry-violet colored and fragrant. Plant and go. Not particularly deer-resistant but not one of their favorite foods either.

Brother_Stefan_clematis_Franczek_vine_easiest_garden.jpg

Cornus obliqua 'Powell Gardens' Red Rover (Silky dogwood) - I haven't seen this one around anywhere yet, but if I do I will definitely try it. Its native, and is proported to have a compact habit, purple-to-red fall foliage color and showy blue fruit. Also red stems in winter. What's not to look - it's a great selection for moist sites and a pollinator resource and sounds far less blah than "regular" silky dogwood.

Heptacodium miconoides 'Temple of Bloom'. I am a HUGE fan of Heptacodium and would like to plant one at each job just like Lagerstromia. Unfortunately, they're not so easy to find as young trees, also because they are very gangly and some would say almost ugly as young trees. I think they have personality and don't mind some asymmetry. But they do have to be pruned as they grow to have a nice shae (or you can buy them bigger of course, so that they've already been trained). This new variety from Proven Winners is described as being a compact cultivar with extra-large flowers and extra-red bracts - an improvement over the species that begins to flower earlier as well, for a longer blooming season. If nothing else, it will be containerized and have some sort of decent-looking habit if its going to be sold in that coveted white pot.

Hydrangea paniculata 'Bobo' - buy it immediately if you see it! Its a dwarf PG hydrangea with white flowers that are more round than conical and held upright, giving the overall visual of the shrub being totally engulfed in flowers. No flopping, starts blooming earlier than some PGs and is "plain" - i.e. no half-pink-half-white, just a calm fade to pink, surprisingly quite a different "look" than 'Limelight' or 'Little Lime'.

Hydrangea paniculata 'Little Quick Fire' - same bloom time as 'Quick Fire' but only about a third the size. The flowers transition from white to burgundy-red fairly quickly, which I like, and the plant has a beautiful and somewhat unusual orange fall foliage color. Several of my clients have thought that 'Quick Fire' is the "best" PG hydrangea, so though I haven't seen 'Little Quick Fire' in bloom yet, I'm looking forward to installing it.

Itea virginica 'Scentlandia' - I haven't seen this one yet either. But its billed as a "game changer" because it is the most fragrant Itea ever, has superior bud hardiness, still has great fall color and has a compact habit like 'Little Henry'. Definitely one of my favorite natives. Itea is described as being deer-resistant, but I think sometimes they munch it a little bit. In my experience with 'Little Henry' I've noticed that the flowering has been a little uneven - maybe this new cultivar will help solve that problem which I had previously thought was due to deer browse not lack of bud hardiness. The fall color, though, is definitely worth the price of admission!

Parthenocissus quinquefolia 'Red Wall'. I've seen the nightmare of having an ivy-covered stucco façade, where the only solution is to rip off the ivy and re-stucco the house. But some houses just look so nice with vines growing on them! Enter, Virginia creeper. It is much less damaging to the house, and of course turns a beautiful fall color. Its native, has berries and I think could be beautiful even on a chain-link fence if not a house. But, beware, it is a strong grower and will jump over onto trees in a heartbeat!

Viburnum nudum 'Bulk' Brandywine - has the most beautiful berry display in the world of viburnums - green to ivory to pink and blue. 'Brandywine' sets fruit without a pollinator, so in that sense a wiser choice then 'Winterthur' (which has been one of my all-time favorites). It has the same symmetrical habit, those same glossy leaves and maroon-red fall color as 'Winterthur', though. If you add 'Brandywine' to an existing planting with 'Winterthur' in it, you'll find them both setting lots of berries. But V. nudum has "stinky flowers" - so put it in the second layer or in the hedgerow.

Ann Acheson

July 27, 2017

The Legacy of Pierre Bennerup The American Gardener Nov/Dec 2013

Ann Acheson

July 27, 2017

Pierre Benerup, CEO of Sunny Border Nurseries is the person who came up with the idea of selling perennials in containers! Up till then perennials were sold mostly as bare root plants. Like other perennial garden "greats" we know, like Piet Oudolf and Roy Diblik, Bennerup has a passion for plants and a wealth of hands-on learning. He also had a solid background in sales and marketing, which is how he decided to plant in containers - it was sheer practicality.

In the early 1970s, perennial plants were primarily sold bareroot. Wholesale growers such as Walters Gardens in Zeeland, Michigan, and Springbrook Gardens in Mentor, Ohio, grew hundreds of acres of perennials in sandy soils and shipped nationwide to mail-order firms. In turn, the firms put their inventory into coolers until it was time to ship in spring and fall. Perennials such as moss phlox (Phlox subulata) and evergreen candytuft (Iberis sempervirens) were field-dug, thrown into two-quart wooden baskets, and placed on sale in retail nurseries, but few other perennials had the durability to withstand that kind of rough handling.

In the '50s and '60s, Sunny Border had converted a large part of its operation to field-grown production of yews (Taxus media) in order to meet the huge demand for foundation plantings created by the boom in home construction following World War II. The soil in that area of Connecticut is a clay loam, ideal for producing balled-and-burlapped yews, but not for perennials, which couldn't be dug after rains as quickly and easily as they could in the sandy soils of Bennerup's bigger competitors.

With the market for perennials expanding in the 1970s, Bennerup needed to come up with a solution. It was at this point that he decided to take the digging out of the equation and grow plants in pots.

As a wholesale nursery, Sunny Border sells to independent garden centers and directly to landscapers. Bennerup's guiding philosophy is that foliage-not flowers-is the key to successful gardens and landscapes. He elucidated this in the letter he wrote in his 2013 catalog, under the theme "Green is a color, too." Taking issue with what he terms "lipstick landscapes," Bennerup stated,

"I believe a good perennial garden is mostly foliage-various shades of green, bronze, silver, and gold. It's soothing. It's cooling." He adds, "Flower color in the garden should be savored in small portions like dessert. Too much color causes garden obesity."

"Perennial gardening is about subtlety, form, fragrance, texture, calm, and sometimes even sound and motion; in fact, all the senses, not just sight," he says.

"I get so much enjoyment from gardening and plants," he says. "It's such a great gratification. We are connecting with the real world."

A FEW BENNERUP FAVORITES

In addition to being a fan of perennials with interesting foliage, Pierre Bennerup says his favorite plant "tends to be whatever is blooming at the moment." He does admit to affinities to certain families or genera, such as the primrose family, the ranunculus family, the genus Epimedium, the genus Hakonechloa, the genus Saxifraga, and the genus Phlox. Here are some of his favorite individual perennials, including a few introductions by Sunny Border.

Tiarella fall and early winter foliage colors

David Culp, Author of "The Layered Garden", is VP of Sunny Border Nurseries

Ann Acheson

May 16, 2017

APLD Brochure: An APLD Guide to Sustainable Soils Available on the APLD website www.apld.org

Ann Acheson

May 16, 2017

This brochure is a really good basic summary of soil - and we all know its all about the soil!

"The bottom line is that soils should be valued and preserved, because, literally, life depends upon it."

Recommendations for Designers include:

Design for your soils. Aim to restore the site's soil back to its native composition. In most cases, avoid overbuilding soils into something beyond what is natural for your area.
Know the biology of your soils by sampling and testing the soil using a competent soil biology lab.
Do not till or physically disturb a healthy, mature soil. Physical disruption severely damages or destroys the mature soil food web.
Physical soil compaction during construction has a long-term damaging effect on soils and is difficult to remedy after the fact. All efforts should be made to protect soils prior to and during any construction phase.

The brochure also has a nice summary of the role soils play in sustainability:

Soils are the foundation of the ecosystem.
The living systems occurring above and below ground are determined by the properties of the soil. Soils store and cycle nutrients needed by these living systems, supporting life all the way from microbes to humans. A healthy, diverse ecosystem is critical for life, and it begins with the health of the soil.
Soils store carbon
Soils manage water. Water enters the soil through the channels created by vegetation and the activities of organisms such as earthworms. It fills the empty pore spaces and is taken up by plants. Healthy soils have sufficient open pore space to absorb the water and allow it to infiltrate the soil, recharging the groundwater. Wetlands, also known as hydric soils, manage large quantities of water and also serve as buffers and filters in addition to supporting a vast array of wildlife.

On the other hand, degraded soils exhibit erosion, which occurs when soils are not covered by vegetation, and rainfall both compacts the soils, forming a crust on the surface, and carries the top layer of sediment away. Compacted soil compresses the pore spaces so that air, water, and plant and animal life cannot penetrate.

Soils filter, buffer, degrade and detoxify potentially harmful chemicals
Soils influence climate. Soils moderate temperature fluctuations, as soil heats more slowly than air and can absorb more heat on a hot day. Soils absorb heat during the day and radiate heat at night. Darker soils, which tend to have higher organic content, absorb the most heat. Soil temperature affects plant growth, which in turn affects climate.

Soils and Water

Our soils have changed.

When considering the loss of the eastern deciduous forest (75% gone) and the transition from native prairie / savanna plant systems to the mono-crops of industrial agriculture, we are looking at an incredible change within our soils. The depth and bulk of our current root systems no longer exist as they did two hundred years ago. Trees have extensive root systems in the top 24" of soil, and can reach five to eight feet or more in depth. The prairie existed on a root system depth between two and three feet, with some plants reaching four to six feet deep. The extensive root systems of our original "ground cover" opened up the soil, allowing for a deep penetration of precipitation and the slow exhale of moisture back up into the atmosphere through plant transpiration.

Not any more: corn, soybeans, wheat and other annual crops have temporary root systems in the 12 to 18 inch range. Perennial turfgrass, our American lawn, covering an area about the size of Wisconsin, has a root system of around six to twelve inches in the best of conditions. Precipitation run-off is now something we have to plan for after almost every rain.

Garth Conrad, APLD Garth Conrad Associates, LaPorte, IN