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Tips for creating a subtropical landscape

When I first moved to Central Florida, I thought that with little effort I was going to have a yard with gorgeous tropical plants. I wanted my yard to look like it was from the set of Tarzan or Jurassic Park. Little did I know that most lush, tropical foliage plants need moderate amounts of water and plenty of relief from the afternoon sun.

After my first investment of fuchsias kicked the bucket within a month, I knew it was time to rethink my landscape plans.

One of the reasons I have difficulty growing tropicals at my home is because Lake County is in a transition area. We are considered to be in a subtropical climate, which is between tropical and temperate. Some plants like ixora and tibouchina are best suited for Orlando, Tampa and south Florida. These plants have no business being planted as a perennial in our area.

After my failure with both fuchsias and tibouchinas, I was on a mission to find plants that looked tropical but would survive Central Florida’s frosts and freezes. I poured through magazines and Internet resources to find ways to achieve that tropical look. Large, thick and bright foliage seemed to be a recurring theme.

There are several plants we can grow in Lake County that fit this description. One example is variegated shell ginger.

This plant grows along the front entrance of Discovery Gardens to give the viewer that lush tropical feel. It has large, yellow striped leaves and is hardy in our area. It can withstand most frost and freezes, especially if grown under a tree canopy. Var iegated shell ginger does prefer light shade but can take both full sun and full shade. Shell ginger without variegation (yellow markings on the leaves) is a similar option.

Bromeliads give instant gratification to the home gardener as you don’t have to wait for a bloom to enjoy their beauty. Their foliage is coarse, thick and colorful. Colors can vary from light orange, to chartreuse green and burgundy red. The heights can also vary as some bromeliads can reach three feet tall while others may only reach six inches.

Bromeliads will need protection from frosts and freezes and most will benefit from afternoon shade. Morning sun is also beneficial as it brings out foliage color.

When shopping for bromeliads look for cold hardy types such as puya, aechmea, nidularium, and vriesia.

Other favorite tropical plants include the green, white and hot pink stromanthe, the wall-climbing magenta bougainvillea, and the variegated pothos vine.

Plant any foliage plant with large leaves and bold colors and it may look like Tarzan will walk out of your yard, too.

“Saturday in the Garden” is a new speaker series offered by UF/IFAS Extension, Lake County on the first Saturday of each month. The speaker series will be held at 10 a.m., June 1, and will feature an hour-long class on Florida friendly landscaping.

Learn how you can have a beautiful, low-maintenance landscape while protecting Lake County’s beautiful environment.

To register for the Florida friendly landscaping class, go to http://june2013saturdayinthegarden.eventbrite.com. The fee for the class if $5 for adults, and free for children under 16 years of age.

Following the class, feel free to explore the Discovery Gardens, our 3.5-acre gardens next to the ag center. The gardens will be open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on June 1 and every first Saturday of the month. You may enjoy the gardens without attending the class, and picnics are encouraged. Entrance to Discovery Gardens is free.

Visit both our plant clinic and Discovery Gardens from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., weekdays, at the ag center, 1951 Woodlea Road Tavares.

Hawken students restoring garden

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Hawken School’s seventh-grade students continue taking steps to restore and improve the environmental landscape at one of the 23 Cleveland Cultural Gardens in Rockefeller Park near University Circle.

Unanimous approval by the Cleveland Cultural Federation was given to the students’ Master Conceptual Plan for the American Cultural Garden, which the school has overseen as a delegate since 2008.

The garden was then known as the American Colonial Garden. The idea to adopt it as part of a commitment to active community service and involvement came from former seventh-grade teacher Karen Doyle, now a staff member in the admissions department.

“Karen learned the cultural federation was looking for a delegate to take over the garden and she brought the idea to the seventh-grade team, who decided to go with it,” said Anna Tuttle, a seventh-grade science teacher at the middle school at the Lyndhurst campus.

Since that time, Tuttle said the biggest accomplishment has been the recent creation of the master plan, which was begun by last year’s seventh-graders. It includes benches, walkways, trees, and landscaping that will include native plants and an American flag made of seasonal flowers at the garden that sits between Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and East Boulevard.

She said it’s a challenge because anytime a visual change is proposed, a plan has to be presented for approval by the executive board of the CCF, who then must give a recommendation to the city of Cleveland about the change.

Also at the garden will be a grand ellipse that will feature the busts of Mark Twain, Booker T. Washington and Anna Ochs, a Clevelander who originally founded the American Garden in 1935 with donations of pennies from schoolchildren.

Tuttle said she learned that many busts formerly in that and other gardens were vandalized decades ago and removed, but she said some students did some research to uncover one of theirs.

“Our students did some great detective work to find the bust of Mark Twain in a box in the basement of Public Hall. After that, they had to gain possession of it from the city of Cleveland and restore it before bringing it back to the garden,” said Tuttle, who notes there still are missing busts of Abraham Lincoln, John Hay and Artemas Ward.

Each year, the seventh-graders at Hawken, 67 of them this year, work on the project specifically by joining one of four committees headed by the seventh-grade teachers. The committees are dedicated to community outreach, history, landscape, and event planning and fundraising.

“The committees offer a diverse opportunity as they tap into the different interests of the students,” said Tuttle, who oversees the community committee with Middle School Director Matt Young.

Strides have also been made in providing water access for the garden. In March, students Andrew Gerace, David Kim and Anna Shaulis, along with their faculty advisor, researched the issue and set up a meeting with the Cleveland Water Commission to discuss that need. It resulted in a commitment of partnership with the Federation from Interim Water Commissioner Alex Margevicius and his staff.

It is now their hope that a fully functional water flush box, giving them access to tap into the water supply, will be opened before summer.

“We’ve been working on gaining water access for years,” said Sheila Murphy Crawford, president of the CCF, “and are so thankful for the assistance of Hawken’s persuasive students.”

Besides using the garden for curriculum, the students engage in various events there each year, including a scavenger hunt in the fall and community picnic, currently scheduled for May 24, in the spring. The latter is open to all, especially students from Michael R. White Elementary School, the nearest school to the garden and whose students collaborate with Hawken’s.

Grant proposals and fundraising are slated for the next school year. Tuttle estimates at least $10,000 is needed to make the master plan a reality.

The master plan for the garden was drawn by Dorer Associates landscape architects and can be seen, along with the history of the garden, at http://bit.ly/Z6gmav.

See more Lyndhurst news at cleveland.com/south-euclid-lyndhurst.

6 tips for Manitoba gardeners this long weekend

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Planting the garden on the May long weekend is a rite of spring for many Manitobans, but with cooler than usual temperatures earlier this season, should gardeners wait?

Some garden experts say those with itchy green thumbs should hold off on putting some plants in the ground, especially those that came from a greenhouse, in order to avoid damage from spring frost.

But for those itching to get into the garden — even with rain in the forecast for much of the weekend — there are at least six things that can be done right now, according to David Hanson, founder of Sage Garden Herbs in Winnipeg:

Weed your garden.
Clean up your perennials. Trimming out the old growth would allow more room for them to grow.
Plant seeds for vegetables that can withstand cooler ground temperatures, such as beets, carrots, potatoes, peas and lettuces. Raised beds are great for these.
Plant seeds for flowers like calendula sunflowers and poppies.
Get your planters and pots done. A smaller amount of mud warms up faster. And since it’s not in the ground, you don’t need to worry about frost.
Pick up trees and shrubs from the greenhouse that have wintered outside. These can be put into the ground now.

As for whether to plant now or wait, Hanson is in favour of waiting.

“The farmers’ tradition would be to wait until the first new moon in June, which can actually be up to the second week of June. The reason for this is there’s still cold coming up out of the ground,” he said.

“If you take those nice greenhouse-grown plants and you put them into the somewhat chilly ground, even if the air temperatures have gotten beautiful, they resent it a little bit.”

Nicole Bent of Shelmerdine Garden Centre is also urging impatient gardeners to wait, especially if they want to plant annuals or perennials.

“You do not want to plant your tender annuals into the ground, or any planter that’s difficult to move,” she said.

“Spring frost is going to do serious damage to any annuals or even perennials…. Most of the perennials that you find in your garden centres are greenhouse-grown, so they are just not ready for the outdoors just yet.”

Bent estimated that spring frost in June occurs about once every four years.

Home, garden stores will be busy

Meanwhile, garden and home stores are expected to be packed this weekend with customers keen to work on their homes, yards or cabins.

Ron Borthistle, one of the owners of the Home Hardware in Selkirk, Man., said it’ll be one of the busiest weekends of the year at his store.

“There’s a lot of basics going on there, from yard cleanup, patching roofs, fixing that plumbing that maybe failed over the course of the winter, raking lawns, staining decks,” he said.

Borthistle said despite the long lines, customers are generally pretty cheerful because it’s a holiday weekend.

What is your long weekend plan?

Gardening Tips Are Just a Click Away

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With the long Memorial Day weekend just around the corner, chances are more than a few Land O’ Lakes residents are preparing to dig in and tackle a lawn or landscaping project.

Those with questions on how to proceed to make sure their efforts pay off with a look that can survive Central Florida’s drought-prone climate might want to check with the Pasco Cooperative Extension before getting started.

On its website, the extension office features a variety of resources for homeowners that want to make landscaping improvements that are environmentally friendly.

Some of those resources include:

Principle of Florida-Friendly Landscaping
Tips on lawn care and irrigation
Information about pests that might be chewing up yards

To find out more, just visit the Pasco Cooperative Extension online.

What’s the biggest challenge you’ve faced in your garden? How did you beat it? Tell us by commenting below!

Top gardening tips from the experts

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Top gardening tips from the experts

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Master Gardeners: A day to peek inside three Kentfield gardens

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Click photo to enlarge

WHAT ARE YOU doing June 1? I hope it includes visits to three magnificent and entirely different private gardens in Kentfield. I promise you will not be disappointed.

The Garden Conservancy’s Open Day offers an opportunity to visit gardens rarely available to the public. Hidden behind deer resistant gates, tucked into hillsides not readily visible from the street, these magnificent gardens filled with rare and unusual plants and cutting edge garden design are available to the public for one day only.

“By providing access to some of America’s finest private gardens — more than 300 in 19 states just last year — the Garden Conservancy underscores our mission of saving and preserving gardens for public enrichment'” says Tiburon’s Sandra Swanson, organizer of the Garden Conservancy Marin Open Day. “No other national institution has done more for America’s gardens.”

I recently had an opportunity to visit two of the gardens with designers Davis Dalbok and Tim O’Shea, who

have been involved in the evolution of these gardens for many years. They have worked closely with the homeowners to create welcoming outdoor rooms that reflect the individual owner’s lifestyles. Both designers will be on hand to answer your questions regarding plant selection, care and design process.

The gardens

“Cor-Ten Zen” at

211 South Ridgewood welcomes the visitor with stately bamboo “Robert Young” (planted in concealed barriers to discourage runners), sculpted mugho pines, and Liriope “silver dragon.” Water flows softly from a dramatic, naturally formed stone basin imported from Bali and disappears into a field of smooth river stones, bringing a quiet calm to the entry way.

A stunning steel moongate beckons you through to a natural stone path lined with native and varietal maples, assorted bamboos, and shiny leafed Camellia sasanqua (the Christmas or yuletide camellia) then leads you on to the back of the house where you gaze down upon a sun-filled pool area accentuated with vibrantly colored roses and a magnificent mountain view.

“Vista Garden” at 6 Live Oak Way invites you through a stylish metal gate to a level frontyard, anchored by four silvery olive trees, featuring sculpturelike Agave americana (Century Plant) resting on crisp green lawn. A meadow mix of grasses and sun-loving perennials adds color and texture to one corner of the front garden. A very private morning room, with a prehistoric equisetum hedge, provides a hidden retreat, filled with tranquil sounds emanating from a sheer water wall.

Wander down a path lined with clumping bamboo “Giant Timber” to the backyard, where a jaw-dropping view of Mount Tam invites you to sit a spell, surrounded by an abundance of mature succulents under specimen olive and palm trees.

A bamboo lined path leads to another outdoor room featuring a sunny pool deck backed by oaks, palms and maples. Ornamental containers filled with interesting and unique succulents surround the deck.

“Geraniaceae Garden and Nursery” at 122 Hillcrest may be familiar to some of you. Robin Parer has owned and operated it for the past 30 years, and she has collected and propagated more than 500 geranium species.

I first visited her one-acre demonstration garden during my Master Gardener training in 1997. At that time, I thought a geranium was just that pink thing on my grandmother’s porch. What an eye-opener I experienced! Practically in our own backyard is a vast collection of species plants, scented leaf pelargonium, angel and pansy face pelargonium and rare pelargonium species from southern Africa. Her garden will open your eyes to a vast variety of geraniums that you may never have known existed. As a bonus, they are reasonably easy to care for and will continue to be your garden friends for many years.

But this garden is not limited to the vast geranium collection. You’ll also find mature trees, clematis, roses, rare ferns, shrubs and perennials on this property Parer has designed and tended for more than 38 years.

Whether you are looking for inspiration for your own outdoor space, specific plant ideas for your garden or a place stroll and appreciate beautiful plants incorporated in expertly designed spaces, this day is for you.

The University of California Marin Master Gardeners are sponsored by UC Cooperative Extension. For questions about gardening, plant pests or diseases, call 473-4204 from 9 a.m. to noon, and 1 to 4 p.m. weekdays, or bring in samples or pictures to 1682 Novato Blvd., Suite 150B, Novato.

IF YOU GO

What: The Garden Conservancy’s Marin Open Day
When: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. June 1
Where: Three gardens in Kentfield
Admission: $5 per garden
Information: www.gardenconservancy.org/opendays

Architecture in the garden: making connections to improve San Diego landscape …

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Learn about the connection between home and garden for insight into effective San Diego landscape design. Photo Credit: Can72, Photos.com.

By Paul Benton

Here in San Diego, landscape design offers architects a wealth of opportunity. We are blessed with a great variety of plant materials, and challenged with demanding needs that often result in fascinating and innovative garden settings. Of particular interest to me, as an architect, is the way in which homes and garden designs intersect. Read on to find out how connections between structure and landscape can result in stunning, sustainable and synchronized spaces for everyone to enjoy.

Where the home leads to the garden

To begin, let us consider the way in which different vantage points within the home allow us to view the garden. First there is the living or family room that opens directly to the outdoors, and then another room on the second floor – be it a bedroom or sitting room – that overlooks the garden view. These are two distinct views, each of which lends the viewer a different experience. Furthermore, the prospect change throughout the day, and alters further with the changing of the seasons.

The view from above, with the colors and plants at your feet, is a literal overview: one can see the vegetation and pathways stretching into the distance, and easily comprehend the pattern laid out below. Accent and variety are provided by the colors of the flowers and re-growth of leaves through the seasons. But looking down from above, it helps to also have a view of the garden entrance – maybe an arch or a stair – in order to comprehend the entirety of the design and enter the space, first with our minds, and eventually with our bodies as well. Finally, we need to see a connection between the garden and the home: a bit of roof or an eave or a trellis that extends from the home into the garden, a segue from one space to the other.

Next, consider the view from downstairs. Now the garden is at eye-level, the cover of the trees is overhead, and one can see the shade and cool spots where the garden is working its magic. Just as important are the trunks and branches of the trees that support this effect, a collection of vertical and spreading elements that come together to create the space for us.

From this ground-level perspective, the man-made entry to the garden is also overhead. The trellis extends above us, offering a greeting from the house to the garden, blending in with natural, rigid materials like wood or steel, doing it’s best to imitate the branches and yet, at the same time, offering a contrast that simultaneously links and distinguishes home and garden from one another. Imagine yourself into this space, and end our virtual tour with a walk out of the home and into the garden. The trellis and eaves provide a transition, a bit of shade to protect you as well as a frame and a structure that give way to the great outdoors.

A portal into the natural world

This is just one example of how the garden and the home might come together. But wherever and however this is accomplished, it is important that there be a thoughtful, mindful transition in place. Our gardens protect us and tell us about the seasons, the weather, and our place in the world. Good architecture in the garden is our way of entering that world.

To learn more about San Diego landscape architecture and design, or to discuss a remodel or building project, contact us at Alcorn Benton Architects today for an individualized consultation. Our team is dedicated to creating the best, most beautiful and sustainable structures and landscape designs in San Diego. Find out more about us and our work at www.alcornbenton.com.

Did you know? Frank Lloyd Wright’s architectural philosophy was rooted in his appreciation of the way that plants grow, and the expansive views of the plains and farms he experienced in the Midwest. Wright believed that an architect can and should design architectural elements and buildings that mimic the organic processes of nature. The best examples of this in his own work include his trademark stained-glass windows and placement of roofs and entrances within the building. He worked with straight lines and sharp angles, and then composed them so that the final result would be made up of many repeated elements with a variety and pattern that follows nature in its deceptive simplicity.

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City plans to hire downtown consultant

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EDMOND —
Conceptual ideas about how the City of Edmond may plan for downtown development were shared this week by David Forrest with members of the business community.

The Central Edmond Urban Development Board has revisited plans made in a 1998 Downtown Master Plan through public meetings and presentations to protect the future development of Broadway. Recommendations by the group will be taken into account by future city councils.

The 2012-13 city budget included $150,000 for a downtown feasibility study that will pay for a consultant, said Steve Commons, assistant city manager.

“In terms of the selection process, there was a committee that reviewed it. They’ve selected a firm to proceed forward,” Commons said. “That means we’ll develop a scope of work to give to them and then say, ‘price this scope of work.’”

The formal hiring of the consulting firm by the City Council is expected within a 60 days, Forrest said at the 4 o’clock Forecast event presented by the Edmond Economic Development Authority.

Edmond’s Central Business District area goes from Danforth to Ninth Street, to slightly west of the railroad tracks and then borders the University of Central Oklahoma and then to Ninth Street and Boulevard, said Janet Yowell, EEDA executive director.

Streetscaping, landscaping and the Festival Market Place are recommendations that have already come to fruition from the 1998 Downtown Master Plan process.

The Downtown Master Plan considers water features and a possible railway transit station being studied for an area south of Edmond Road and west of Broadway, said Forrest, a commercial Realtor. A traffic circle is recommended to be at Fifth Street and Broadway to signal people they are entering the downtown district, Forrest said.

“We also need the real infrastructure that will carry more development,” Forrest said. “That would be sewer, water and more utilities as well.”

Another idea is to make downtown more pedestrian friendly with fewer cars. An illustration showed cars parking diagonally down the middle of the street with the current two lane traffic on both sides reduced to single lanes.

David Chapman said Boulevard “is a scary place” south of Danforth.

“Navigating that Boulevard seems to me as big a problem as choking off Broadway for the few blocks you need downtown,” Chapman said.

Forrest agreed that calming the downtown traffic could put more traffic on Boulevard.

The proposed Pedestrian Bridge is also part of the master plan, Forrest said. The bridge would be east of the railroad tracks crossing West Edmond Road where it would link to more parking, he said.

In 2009 the Benham Company presented a bridge design that would cost the city a little more than $1 million, which also includes a $485,000 new parking lot with 142 spaces on the south side of West Edmond Road just west of Broadway. The cost of the bridge itself was projected at $565,500 in 2009. That project was delayed at the time in light of the need to pay for a new Public Safety Center, which is now being paid for by a half-cent dedicated sales tax.

Forrest said none of these ideas are concrete, but the city hopes a consultant will provide information and ideas on how to shepherd future downtown development.

East End homeowner uses color and form in creative ways in her garden

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Think about a garden with a patchwork of colors and whimsical form, working in harmony with the natural environment. Ponder an eclectic use of textures and geometric shapes, all coming together to complete a botanical “quilt.”

Concepts like these keep Sandra Beebe busy during the warmer months, when she’s not at work inside her house making ornate fabric quilts. This longtime Boisean draws from her vast quilting experience to create an eclectic garden space that accentuates her East End Victorian-era home just off Warm Springs Avenue.

“Gardening, like quilting, is about dividing it up into color and function. In your yard, you’re essentially working with patterns,” Beebe explains, pointing at a cluster of ready-to-burst delphiniums, skirted by a locally hewn sandstone-block border that leads to a small pond.

She has created an environment around her house that is both floral and edible, based on a belief that home gardens should produce food as well as ornamental plants. Her property is an amalgam of flowering fruit trees, mature rose bushes, perennial flowers, berry brambles, raised vegetable beds and scattered-about culinary herbs.

“I’m a haphazard gardener. I do what I feel like,” Beebe says.

“I’m open to anything. I just planted some hops next to my garage. I like the way they creep up like ‘Jack and the Beanstalk.'”

Her yard, which boasts a colorful array of native and non-native plants, has a country feel to it, especially for being so close to Downtown Boise.

“I told my daughter that I wanted five acres in the city. Well, I came close,” she says with a chuckle, surveying her almost one-acre property near the Boise River.

In 2006, Beebe purchased the two-story Queen Anne-style house (built in 1898) after living in the same neighborhood and admiring the place for many years. But not long after moving into her new digs, she realized the landscaping needed a serious overhaul.

“The yard was an unfriendly, uninviting place. I tore down a big, ugly fence that was blocking the flow from the front yard to the back, and there was an oak tree I had to remove to make some light for my vegetable garden,” Beebe recalls.

“But the yard had good bones, you know, a good structure to work with.”

In order to get her yard in balance, Beebe hired her close friend Nancy Day of Cottage Gardeners (cottagegardeners.com), a Boise company that specializes in landscaping and garden design, to join the evolving project.

“I helped her more with plant selection and maintenance than I did with the actual design of her garden,” Day says.

“Sandra is an artist. Because of her quilting background, she understands the importance of color, and she’s an excellent gardener.”

There is a reason why Beebe and Day carry on like old friends: The two used to run in the same circles back in their younger days when they were growing up in Southwest Portland, a much wetter climate than the high desert of Boise.

Day often works on projects that involve mature landscaping, typically found in the yards of older houses. She told Beebe what she tells her other clients when they buy a home that’s been around for decades.

“People have to think about how to use the existing plants, or if they want to use them at all. This can sometimes be a challenge, ” Day says.

In Beebe’s case, it was all about her and Day coming up with a master plan, one that included supplementing what was already growing there.

“Some things came with the house, and I wanted to work those into my landscaping ideas,” Beebe says.

She also had creative input from family members, like her daughter and son-in-law, Heidi Beebe and Doug Skidmore, who are both architects. They designed and built the garden space – four sections of raised vegetable beds, with a spiral of grass – in the front yard. This is the spot in Beebe’s yard with the heaviest output of food production, even though there are edible plants everywhere around her house.

“I grow more zucchini than most people would even want to, because my daughter makes these delicious stuffed squash blossoms with them,” she says.

Beebe also grows strawberries, green beans, basil, radishes, carrots, tomatillo-like ground cherries and a variety of heirloom tomatoes, to name a few, some of which get canned in the late summer.

Her yard is not without its natural enemies, though. Beebe’s dog, a friendly yellow Lab named Ruby, if left unattended, is capable of mass destruction.

“She likes to dig and chew on stuff, and occasionally she jumps in the pond,” Beebe says, looking down at a trench that Ruby recently scooped out in one of the raised beds.

Outsmarting the deer is an ongoing game for homeowners near the Boise River as well.

“Everyone around here has no tulips because the deer eat the buds before they can bloom,” Beebe states.

A few years back, Beebe commissioned local iron artists to fabricate a front gate and fence, a rustic creation that looks like giant blades of grass, but that doesn’t always keep hungry deer from dining in her yard.

“They eventually got in and ate some flowers,” she says.

Beebe admits there aren’t as many unknowns in quilting as there are in gardening. When it comes to the garden, though, she believes in just going with the natural flow of the seasons, considering each year presents its own set of problems, and seeing how things pan out.

“I do try to keep a notebook for garden journaling, but I don’t always get my ideas down on paper,” Beebe says.

“But my garden usually turns out pretty good.”