• 

Elephant ears are part of a decor trend this spring.

For drama, place huge pots of elephant ears right into the garden where they become vertical accents amidst the other plants.

Lakewood, NJ (PRWEB) April 02, 2013

This spring, many gardeners are turning to elephant ear plants for drama, placing huge pots of the big-leafed tropical-looking foliage right into the garden where they become vertical accents set amidst the other plants. A second exterior décor trend is to group pots of large elephant ears as versatile accents on patios, decks and balconies.

These spring-planted summer wonders excel as oversized-exclamations in garden beds or large containers, sometimes both simultaneously. Here are some timely tips on planting elephant ears from an expert at Longfield Gardens.

“It’s time to plant elephant ear bulbs when frosts are past and soil is warm, about the time for planting tomatoes, ” says Hans Langeveld of Longfield Gardens an online retail source for quality bulbs and perennials

In fact, three different plants are commonly called elephant ears: Alocasia, Colocasia and Xanthosoma. “All three are genera of the plant family Araceae, grow from tuberous roots, and prefer moist soil,” says Langeveld. All three are popular for garden beds, containers and water gardens. Following are tips from Langeveld on catching the elephant ear trend.”

• Alocasia prefers part shade and wet but well-drained soil. Colocasia and Xanthosoma are not picky about light and want their soil moist, even soggy and can be grown in pots without drainage holes. Most potted plants need good drainage, but not these two. They’ll grow fine in any pot, even in pots under water.
• To tell which is what at a glance, examine the leaves. If the leaves are shiny and heart-shaped with leaf tips pointed up or outward, it’s an alocasia aka the Upright Elephant Ear. Colocasia leaves are also heart-shaped but pointing downward and tend to bob in summer breezes, drooping off resilient stems. Xanthosoma leaves point downward, too, but are typically arrow-shaped.
• Within the elephant ears group, plant and leaf sizes are highly variable, some are petite and low-growing others are gargantuan and towering, achieving heights of five to ten feet. Whatever their size elephant ears are hugely unappealing to animal pests large and small.
• For drama, place huge pots of elephant ears right into the garden where they become vertical accents amidst the other plants. Grouped pots of large elephant ears are also versatile tools for exterior décor on patios, decks and balconies.
• At season’s end, in frost-free zones, leave plants to carry on in the garden. In colder areas, treat the tender bulbs as annuals or save indoors to grow again the following season.

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Now that the first day of spring has passed, gardeners are busy creating or fine-tuning their landscapes to achieve a beautiful setting that complements home, patio, or balcony.

In selecting plants that will thrive in your garden and landscape, an important consideration is whether they are suited to your climate, soil and site. Know a plant’s growing requirements before choosing them.

Soil testing, which measures soil fertility, is important. Growing plants need a supply of the major nutrients nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. Some plants prefer soils rich in all nutrients, while a few grow just fine in soils that are not.

A soil analysis will also indicate the pH of soil. Knowing the pH level, will aid in selecting plant material suitable for your site. While many plants grow well in moderately alkaline soil, others, such as camellias, azaleas and dogwoods, will not thrive in alkaline soil. A pH of 7 means that the soil is neutral. A pH below 7 indicates acidity; one above 7 indicates alkalinity. For information on soil testing visit the website at soiltesting.tamu.edu

Where to find plants

Plants offered at the Brazos County Master Gardeners 2013 plant sale on Saturday will focus on heat- and drought-tolerant perennials selected for Brazos County growing conditions. Vegetables, herbs, trees and roses will be sold also.

Bring your wagon and arrive early for the pre-sale walk-thru from 8 to 8:50 a.m. It’s a wonderful opportunity to preview plants before the sale begins at 9 a.m. at the Texas AM AgriLife Extension at 2619 Texas 21 West in Bryan.

If the March freeze took a toll on your vegetable garden, all is not lost. The plants in the sale are large and ready to plant in your garden. Offerings include seven kinds of peppers, five types of tomatoes and 4 different eggplants to choose from, including Raveena, an unusual and small eggplant that can be grown in containers.

Tycoon, a Florida hybrid tomato that produces high yields of 12-ounce red globe-shaped fruit, is expected to do well in this area. Other tomatoes are Bush Champion, Fourth of July, Viva Italia and Sunsugar an early producing, golden yellow cherry type.

The pepper selection offers everything from mild to hot. Choose from red, yellow, orange or even a lilac bell pepper. The Giant Marconi is a sweet Italian pepper and the Mucho Nacho Jalapeno is on the very hot side.

Perennials and herbs

A large selection of perennials, many sun-loving and those that prefer shade, are for sale, including some native plants. There is a large selection of salvias, lantana and rudbeckia that are known to be drought-tolerant. Also, small trees, Texas Red Buckeye and Fireman’s Cap, both with bright red spring blooms.

The sale includes a selection of 13 herbs, like oregano, sage, thyme, dill, cilantro, mint and some hard-to-find basil varieties, such as African Blue, boxwood and Genovese compact.

If you have a sunny spot with good drainage, be sure to take a look at the wonderful selection of roses. Featured is a climber — Peggy Martin — that is spring blooming and thornless.

For more information about the plants for sale, go to www.brazosmg.com or call the Brazos County Extension Office at 979-823-0129.

Resources to select plants

The Texas Urban Landscape Guide (http://UrbanLandscapeGuide.tamu.edu) rates plants for eight Texas gardening zones based on resource efficiency categories: drought, heat and pest tolerance, and soil and fertility requirements.

Texas Superstar plants (www.texassuperstar.com) have undergone rigorous testing and observation by horticulturists with the AgriLife Extension Service and Texas AgriLife Research.

Earth Kind Roses (http://earthkindroses.tamu.edu) are among the most thoroughly tested and environmentally responsible roses for Texas landscapes.

On serious gardening days, I pull off the wedding rings, pull on the garden gloves, and head outside with my tools and my goals. • I become a purpose-focused machine. I get hot, tired, and yes, after a few hours, bored. But I get ‘er done. • Other days, though, I give myself permission to wander aimlessly. I weed here, prune there, act on inspirations. I forget the gloves and abuse the jewelry, but wow, I feel really good when I’m done! • In a salute to short attention spans, today I give you three short, unrelated garden vignettes. A little prune, a little weed, a little inspiration. Hello, spring!

Advice from my 93-year-old pen pal

Frances Mallett is a Port Richey native who’s been gardening for as long as she can remember.

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For a few years now, we’ve been email pen pals. I love Frances’ feistiness, her fun-loving good nature, and how she has found gardening work-arounds to accommodate the infirmities of age.

I asked her to give some thought to her nine decades of gardening. What advice could she offer that I can’t find anywhere else?

“I’m always learning,” she replied. “I only wish I could do more. … I am not a know-it-all. I can learn from you ‘kids.’ “

See why I love this lady?

Despite her disclaimers, Frances has some great tips:

• “First, I do most of my gardening in containers — juice barrels cut in half and holes drilled in the bottom for drainage. It saves on water and fertilizer.

• “You have to be ruthless. If a plant comes up and doesn’t grow well and fast, just pull it up and try something else in that spot. Or move it.

• “Always plant flowers to attract bees. The coral vine is the best I’ve used. The bees really love it.

• “Do not spray your garden with anything that will kill the bees. The University of Florida recommends 2 tablespoons of Ivory dish detergent with 2 tablespoons of cooking oil to a gallon of water. That should take care of the worms and chewing bugs, and it isn’t harmful to the environment.”

(Thanks to Frances’ daughter, Susan Eckstein, who facilitates our emailing, and to her garden helper Sue Wilson, who makes sure Frances stays grimy.)

Holiday symphony of angel’s trumpets

The wonders never cease, no matter how long you’ve been gardening!

Late last month, as the faithful of one religion celebrated Passover and those of another celebrated Holy Week, master gardener Norma Bean of South Tampa watched in awe as her enormous angel’s trumpet tree burst into hundreds of golden-yellow blooms.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” she says. “No one would believe me if they didn’t see it themselves!”

Norma’s tree, less than 4 years old, is about 18 feet tall and even bigger around. And — get this — she started it from a cutting. In the past 12 months, she says, it doubled in size. And then BAM! A starburst of pendulous foot-long blooms.

“Angel’s trumpets are supposed to be heavy feeders, but I don’t fertilize it at all,” Norma says. “I don’t understand it.”

Happy accident or small miracle? Sometimes, it’s nice just to wonder.

Snap judgments

Most gardeners I know eventually become pretty good photographers. It’s hard to see something amazing —a blossom, a butterfly, a clever bit of yard art — and not want to share.

I’m just such a gardener and recently, I had to buy yet another camera, my third in three years. I really liked Kodak’s affordable Z-series, but they don’t last, and Kodak doesn’t make them anymore.

My search for something reliable, easy to learn, and with great macro (super close-up) capability made me think I surely can’t be the only gardener with this problem!

So I contacted Jerry Pavia, the national garden photographer who shoots for top publishing houses like Timber Press and Taunton. He came to Tampa a year ago and visited a couple dozen local gardens. (His photos of Rick and Flip Miller’s garden are featured in Container Gardening magazine, which hits newsstands this month, and he put Mary Mirabal, of Garden Whimsies by Mary, on the cover of Flea Market Gardening magazine.)

What does Jerry recommend?

“I would not purchase a point-and-shoot but an SLR camera from a reputable company like Canon, Nikon, etc. And buy one lens, a zoom that goes from 24mm to 105mm,” he says.

Save up for a brand-name 100mm macro lens for super close-ups. Don’t be tempted by cheaper off-brands, he says

But it’s not just the camera.

Shooting is all about the light, Jerry says, and you can’t fix that with computer software.

“The light in Tampa is so harsh that to capture a garden in its best possible light means shooting at dawn and sunset, unless you get a rare cloudy day,” he says. “When I was in Tampa, I was up at 3:30 a.m. to get to a garden by sunrise.”

Bottom line: No matter the camera, pay attention to the light.

For the record, I got a Canon Rebel T3. Love it!

Penny Carnathan can be reached at pcarnathan49@gmail.com. Find more garden stories at facebook.com at Diggin Florida Dirt. Follow her on Twitter @DigginPenny.

Pelargonium ‘Pacific Black Knight’ (PA photo/Paul Debois/ Which?)

As gardeners pore over what patio plants to include in their displays this summer, a new trial reveals some of the best performers

Wondering what to put in your patio containers this summer? My pansies and violas are looking so forlorn I’m already thinking I’ll ditch them in favour of some higher achievers in this unpredictable British weather.

Help is at hand, in the form of a new trial from Which? Gardening, the Consumers’ Association magazine, which last summer tested 47 new varieties of plants for containers or hanging baskets, bought as plugs or young plants in April and then planted into suitable containers.

The young plants were grown under cover until the threat of frost had gone and planted in container compost with added slow-release fertiliser.

The trial found that the easy-care plants which produced plenty of blooms included Argyranthemum ‘Yellow Empire’ (Mr Fothergill’s), a classic marguerite with bright yellow daisy-like flowers which – with some deadheading – produced masses of flowers throughout the summer.

Another winner, which combined well with the marguerites, was Bacopa ‘Atlas’ (Dobies, Mr Fothergill’s, Suttons), a blue and white variety which makes a background for blowsier plants in a mixed planting. This variety also produces unusually large flowers, almost 2cm across, and trails brilliantly. Those trialled flowered continuously for 18 weeks.

Diascia ‘Blue Belle’ (Plants By Post, J Parker’s), a new variety launched at the Chelsea Flower Show last year, cascaded over the sides of the basket and didn’t need deadheading, while Petunia ‘Queen Bee’ (Spalding Plant Bulb Company) proved a vigorous grower, producing a plentiful mix of yellow and deep purple blooms and a succession of flowers despite heavy rain.

Among the best rain-tolerant plants tested was the Pelargonium ‘Pacific Black Knight’ (Dobies, Suttons), an ivy-leaved variety with velvety flowers, which continued to flower until the trial ended in October.

If you want to grow flowers for cutting, have a go with Dianthus ‘Green Trick’, an unusual hybrid sweet William with large, fuzzy green heads, which last at least 10 days in a vase.

There are ways to help your patio plants along. Use big pots, if you can, so there are more nutrients for the plants to root out, and the more compost there is, the more water is retained.

Water the compost thoroughly rather than little and often, to allow the water to seep deep into the pot and encourage healthy root growth, rather than just wetting the surface.

Make sure your compost doesn’t dry out because it can be difficult to rehydrate. If you are using hanging baskets or smaller pots, they may recover if you dunk the base in a bucket of water for a while, to allow the water to soak the compost from below.

It’s also worth adding water-retaining crystals and slow-release fertiliser to the compost before planting, to help retain moisture and avoid the need for regular liquid feeds throughout the summer.

And if it rains – which knowing our inclement weather, it is bound to do – carry out a regular slug patrol on your young plants and pick them off by hand, to save young shoots and leaves from being eaten.

:: The full report is in the April edition of Which? Gardening magazine. Sign up to Which? for a one-month trial for £1 to access its product reviews, test scores and Best Buy or Don’t Buy ratings. For more information, visit www.which.co.uk/signup

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Bastrop Gardens Organic Garden Center, 316 Old 71, Cedar Creek, will host a free seven-week series of professional speakers from the gardening industry for the community every Saturday at 11 a.m. beginning April 6.

Bastrop Gardens has a mission of education, gathering fellow professionals to provide information on the most current subjects of interest to gardeners.

The scheduled Saturday events are:

• April 6 – “Fire Wise Landscape Maintenance” – Perimeter, fire zones and combustible plants. Buddy Burrow, retired chief, Bluebonnet VFD.

• April 13 – “Rain Water Harvesting” – Advantages of harvesting rain and how to create your own collection system. Doc Jones, Central Texas Rainwater Collection Co.

• April 20 – “Want Hummingbirds? Think Lasagna.” – Planting to attract hummingbirds by Mark Klym, co-author “Hummingbirds of Texas.”

• April 27 – “Building Healthy Soils” — Jay Mertz, founder of Rabbit Hill Farm.

• May 4 – “Rain Barrel Workshop,” Hands-on construction of rain barrels. Instructor, Jeff Long, Texas licensed irrigator (LI 7348).

• May 11– “Soils from the Ground Up” – George Altgelt, owner of Geo Growers of Austin, premier custom soil blenders.

• May 18 – “Home Brew for the Garden – Aerobic Compost Tea,” complete recipes and how to by Jeff Long, licensed irrigator (LI 7348).

For more information, contact Deena Spellman at 512-303-5672, or visit their website at bastropgardens.com.

UGA Cobb Cooperative Extension is hosting “From Your Garden to Your Table” from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. today at Cobb Extension Office located at 678 South Cobb Drive, Suite 200, Marietta.

Gardening tips, such as site selection, garden planning, soil testing, soil preparation, mulching and maintenance, vegetable culture and common diseases and insects will be provided.

Canning tips, such as an overview of canning equipment, food safety, pressure canning, water bath canning and freezing will be covered. Light refreshments will be provided. There will be a $10 fee at the door.

Pre-registration is required by calling 770-528-4070.

As part of my ever-expanding media empire, I have launched a new podcast, a Green Man radio show you can listen to at your leisure, on your computer or smartphone.

Download: Green_Man_Apr_1.mp3

On deck in this episode, my co-host Mike Bell and I interview urban farmer Julia Smith (www.urbandigsfarm.com) about her CSA business. CSAs are like a contract you buy from a farmer for an entire season’s worth of veggies delivered to your home every week. Julia is also breaking new ground with Beasty Boxes, ethically raised meats, including bacon from her own pigs.

Two American bloggers declare war on Canada’s iconic home lunch, Kraft Dinner Mac and Cheese. Are the dyes Kraft uses to give KD it’s familiar day-glo orange hue. Some countries think so. A petition demanding the removal of two food coloring agents has collected 270,000 signatures.

In reader mail, we tackle crazy potato tricks, the scourge of the West Coast Creeping Buttercup and fertilizer tips.

This week Frank Sharum walks us through his immaculate greenhouse. Strolling down the aisles, we see Petunias, Azaleas, Magnolias, Banana Trees, Dwarf Japanese Maples, and much more!

You might recognize a few of Frank Sharum’s landscape designs at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Baum Stadium in Fayetteville, the University of Arkansas Bell Tower in Fort Smith, and several other places.

For more information on Sharum’s Garden Center, click here.

Stay tuned every week for springtime gardening tips and tricks!