It's Time To...

Along with sunshine and a bit of warmth, spring brings a lot of responsibility for those of us who love the garden! In zone 7 the first of March means an end to sitting in the chair thinking about how much we hate winter. (If you are in a colder zone [2-6] , you will need to do these things, but later in the year. I think it's 2-4 weeks later per zone. If you live in zone 8, you should have already started in February, and if you live in zones 9-10, you never stopped working in your garden and you grow different plants!)

Zone 7 is the pink zone. I'm in the light pink part - 7a - so I am 5-10 degrees on average cooler than dark pink - 7b. The greens - zone 6 - are 10 -20 degrees cooler than the pinks, an so on. The other things one has to consider are type of soil and PH. Central Virginia is highly acid and has heavy clay soil. If you move to the coast of Virginia, where the soil is sandy and they have more ocean warming, you are in zone 8.

It's time to get moving and start doing! So, here's a short list of things you need to start working on this month:

• Cut back the liriope. Doesn't matter what variety of Monkey Grass you have, it needs to be cut back. The easiest way is to drag out your lawn mover, set it at three inches and just mow the liriope. The goal is to cut off the old growth to allow the new growth to come up and not be all choked in last year's leaves. It will start growing by the middle of the month, so you need to do this soon. If you wait until later, you may end up with the new grown all being cut straight across the ends. Not a tragedy, but it will look a little hinky.
  

• Finish your fall clean-up. You know you didn't finish! We got snow early and then rain, rain, rain, so everyone has more clean-up to do. I still need to cut back the dead growth from last summer on many perennials - some of the Shasta daisies, sedum, and asters for sure. And, some cleaning up in the xeri-garden.
  

• Plant cold weather veggies. Technically, around here one should plant the peas by George Washington's birthday - now nearly two weeks ago. I have dug the bed and bought the seeds, so today will plant them. The next step will be to put up something to support them as they grown up, and a fence to keep out the rabbits. Other cold weather veggies you might want to consider are spinach, any of the "kole" family - broccoli, Brussels sprouts - or other leafy greens.

• Prune your shrubs. Most of your deciduous shrubs will start leafing out by the end of the month, or by mid-April - so now is the time to do whatever light pruning you need to do. Never, never, never take off more than one-third of the plant! Never! But if you need to shape up plants it's easy to do now while you can see the structure. If you have branches that grow into the plant instead of outward, you want to remove them as close the the branch as possible. This will provide air and light into the center of the shrub and promote more growth and a healthier plant. For plants that grow from canes (Nandinas, for example) you want to keep them from looking too leggy, so cut one-third of the canes back to the ground, one-third about a foot shorter than you want the top of the plant to be and one-third in between these two. As the plant fills out this summer you will get growth at all three levels and end up with a fuller plant. Evergreen shrubs - boxwood or arborvitae - only need to be selectively trimmed for "wild hairs" or lightly sheared. Flowering shrubs should not be trimmed until after they have bloomed.
  

• Start planning your spring and summer projects. You have probably been doing some of this over the winter as you looked at catalogs. Your plans might change based on what winter damage you have gotten. At the moment, I don't have but one small project. Am really waiting to see how bad the damage is from the standing water. Be sure to make a list. You know it won't get done if you don't write it down.

The important thing about March is not to do too much. It's so easy to get wrapped up in the "need to do's" that we forget to really enjoy the first stirrings of life in the garden. March is the time to enjoy the rebirth that happens every day!

After weeks hidden under snow
and ice the hellebores have gone
crazy with blooms.

The First Hints of Spring

Finally some progress! the first little peeks of spring showed up this week. This is a clump of Stokesia laevis 'Mary Gregory' that won't bloom until June, but suddenly it's come up and appears to be growing well.




In the xeri-garden I was surprised to find the first basal growth of the sedum "Brilliant" coming up. I had not expect that for at least four to six more weeks. The rest of the bed looks awful, but there certainly is hope.




Tucked away in odd spaces all over the yard are little bulbs coming up. These are mini-daffodils next to the drive way. Mitchell gave me the original corms at least 15 years ago. He gave me a membership in the nearby botanical gardens and they came with the membership. We moved them from our old house and they are always the first thing to bloom in our yard. It will still be weeks, but at least I know they survived the monsoon rains, heavier than usual snow, and all the standing water. It gives me hope for other things surviving.


A sure harbinger of spring is this dogwood tree. We transplanted it two years ago and this will be the first time it has bloomed. A poor photo, but you can see the little buds that are ready to go... soon.





But best of all, the hellebores have finally bloomed. In a normal winter, they start blooming in mid-December and last until June. This year we got our first heavy snow on December 18th. It weighed them down - smashed, actually! In January they were pancake flat and no buds or blooms visible. Suddenly this week here they are!


In another two or three weeks much will change. I can hardly wait!

Harry Leu Gardens

The third garden of our recent trip was the Harry P. Leu Garden in downtown Orlando. We chose a sunny, but windy day and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. This garden and estate were donated to the city of Orlando about 40 years ago by the Leus after they spent another 40 years developing it. Earlier owners had built much of the house and landscaped a bit, but it was Harry Leu's love of camellias that led to this lovely oasis in the city. The grounds are an interesting mix of styles with about three miles of paved walkways to make access easy. The property also has a lake down one whole side, so there are some lovely vistas out over the lake, and at one point a walkway over the water. When we arrived a wedding was just ending in the rose garden, with the guests moving inside for the reception, and there were fairly many visitors in the garden.

Located on 50 acres this garden combines a somewhat traditional southern garden with the natural flora of central Florida. There is the largest camellia garden outside of California - developed over years as the Leus traveled abroad and brought back specimen plants. The house is now a museum furnished mostly in possessions of the Leus and surrounded by kitchen gardens of herbs and annuals, and a huge rose garden. There is also a natural area of native Florida plants and an educational garden where they grow "idea gardens" designed to give recreational gardeners ideas of things to try at home. The camellias were almost finished blooming, but the area was filled with mature shrubs - many 10 feet or more tall and in diameter - and covered with their final blooms of the season. I particularly liked this flower, that was a very dark coral color.

Another thing I liked was that they painted with their bromiliads. At the garden in Naples the designers have used huge swaths of the same variety of bromiliad. When they are older/larger it will create large drifts of the same plant. Here they have mixed plants of the same size, but different colors to create a different, softer look that I liked a lot. In a way it's more natural looking like a rock garden, but also charming - at least to me.



In the educational "idea" garden, there were many small planting areas more like we have at home, than those normally found in a large scale garden like this. There is also a series of delightful sculptures of people having fun and playing together. As you can see from the photo, there was not much going on in the plantings, but it was early February after all! In some beds there were "leftover" annuals - things that we wouldn't consider trying to grow this time of year in Central Virginia - and clear signs that they are getting ready to start a new round of planting for their upcoming season.

There were many plants that were not familiar to me. One I particularly liked was this "orchid tree". A young man passing by was also intrigued with it. He was pretty sure it is actually a legume of some sort. The tree was probably 20 feet tall with a very open growth habit and covered with these gorgeous dark purple flowers. They were not true orchids at all, but certainly gave the general impression of orchids. They actually remind me more of hibiscus flowers with five major petals and a few insignificant ones with a prominent pistil.


Another spot that we particularly liked was the pond walk were we could see hundreds of water lilies just waiting for a bit more sun and warmth to open. We walked all the way to the end of the pond walkway - past all the "do not feed the alligators" signs - to see the lilies. You can see how hard the wind was blowing by the raised leaves in the water.

All around the pond were huge water oaks and palms and many philodendron vines climbing both. For those of us who are used to philodendron as part of a dish garden, or perhaps working its way across our desk and up over the door to our office, this was the most steroidal plant ever. The leaves on this plant ranged from two to three FEET long and the vine was as large as my wrist.

The final fun thing in this garden is the flower clock. I have never seen one, but apparently this one is patterned after one the Leus saw in their travels. It will be gorgeous in the later spring when it really fills out in annual blooms. In case you are wondering.... the time was correct!

Harry P. Leu Gardens is definitely worth the time to visit. On a prettier day we could have spent three or four hours wandering. We didn't really see as much of the camellias or the natural areas as I wanted, but the wind was cool and we decided to move on to a warm bowl of Pho in the nearby Vietnamese section of Orlando. The arts district was also close by, so if you find yourself in Orlando and looking for an alternative to the Mouse, head over to northwest of downtown and visit some different things. This one was fun and interesting.

Bok Tower and Gardens

Can you believe we had the opportunity to visit not one, but three, botanical gardens in our 10-day trip to Florida? The second on our list was the Bok Tower and Garden - a national historical site - in Lake Wales, Florida.

Although we went on a cool, overcast day it was a delightful place to be. Built originally in the late 1920's the trees and shrubs are mature and full - a big contrast to the newly opened Naples Botanical Garden that we saw earlier in the week. Designed by Frederick Law Olmstead, Jr., this garden has the feel of the big stately garden grounds - like the Biltmore Estate or Central Park - but in this setting a very different sort of vegetation. It does come complete, though, with sculpture and a moat with swans - as any proper formal garden should.

We were there in Camellia season, but it was also interesting to see azaleas in bloom. In Central Virginia we get camellias in November through March, but the azaleas don't start blooming until April, so the two don't normally overlap. In this setting, tho, they are very complementary. And I loved the juxtaposition of the deciduous shrubs with palm trees and Spanish Moss.

As you can see from the map, there are large lawns and planted areas surrounding a lake and the tower itself. The tower is located on the highest point in Central Florida. It is situated in such a way that it is completely reflected in the lake at its feet. [I suspect that has more to do with the way the lake was sited, but they describe it in terms of the tower. Good PR there.] The elevation here is actually something near 300 feet - which for most of us is nothing, but in Florida is quite remarkable. The gardens spread around it on three sides, but on the fourth side the land actually falls away sharply creating a shelf only a few hundred feet behind the tower and giving the visitor the impression of standing on a cliff looking down on the town far below. It's an optical illusion, but a nice one.

The large planting areas included many camellias and azaleas, but also orange trees and various palms and Youpon holly. But there were also beds of annuals [well, at least where I live] and some gorgeous big agaves. These do not grow at all in my zone, so I am always fascinated by them.

There was also a variety of statuary. Some if it was "traditional" bronze figures, but the best, to my eye, were modernistic sculptures of flowers. These were scattered around the flowering beds that surround the education center.

The Tower itself is interesting. Over 200 feet tall, it is built of native stone and marble with gorgeous mosaic windows at the top. It contains a wonderful carillon, which is played frequently. When we were there they were celebrating its anniversary, so there were live concerts every afternoon and we were there in time to hear one. Other days they have recorded concerts. And, when the days are longer they have them in the evening as well. We did not stay to meet the carilloneur, but we could have! [They are doing some repair and renovation, so you can see scaffolding at the top.] If one has the appropriate level of membership (financial support), one can go into the Tower, but we were only poor travelers on the road, so we were satisfied with an exterior viewing.

An historical note here. Mitchell remembers his grandparents and aunt driving from Virginia to Florida in the 1940's to visit the Tower and Gardens. They made many trips to visit gardens, so this is not a big surprise. It was a surprise, however, that as we were driving from Naples to Orlando, when he spotted the sign he started looking for the tower. And, it was he who pushed to go see it.

One final note. I think it's always wonderful to find an idea that one might use in one's own garden and I found a great one at Bok Tower. It's not one I can use in my climate, but Elizabeth has a new house and is working on her landscaping, so I think she might want to give this a try. At the entrance/education building there is an enclosed courtyard with sidewalks around it and a garden in the center. Along the walks - and I suspect to dissuade walking into the garden - are "walls" made of plants. They have strung "air plants" together with wire and suspended them at one-foot intervals along the walk. The plants are staggered and they have used several different types of plant. I actually didn't know that air plants came in so many varieties, or grew so large. That's one of those zone things again! If you live far enough south (or perhaps west) that bromiliads will make it through the winter, or if you can figure out a way to shelter them, this might be a good idea for you, too.