VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Summer means gardening, but taking care of your lawn can eat up a lot of your money.

Lauren Mostowyk with Scotiabank’s EcoLiving has some tips for saving a lot of green and water – starting with a soaker hose.

“It’s a really cool hose that has tiny holes all along the length of the hose,” she explains. “Rather than pushing at the water on one end, so you really save some of the evaporation of water in the run-off as you use it, and then put a water timer with it. You’re never going to forget the water’s on, you’re never going to over use water.”

She adds that a good alternative to traditional grass is white clover, as it’s drought-resistant and doesn’t need to be mowed as often.

“If you think of a four-leaf clover, imagine that blanketing your lawn,” she says. “Soft and interesting-looking.”

Make that Rhodochitons — four little plants in a row, in a nice new planter; perfectly healthy when I bought them, all twisted and ratty a few days after I transplanted them.

Not enough sun? I moved them to a sunnier spot.

Not enough water? I watered them enthusiastically. I fed them. I talked nice to them. They just lay down and died.

How embarrassing is it to fail at Rhodochiton.

Garden guru Jeff Lowenfels once declared it the unofficial flower of the Alaska State Fair. The fair wouldn’t have a flower that’s hard to grow, right? I figure it’s like failing at chickweed.

Every gardener has at least one irritating problem to deal with — moose eating the broccoli, aphids eating the tomatoes, slugs eating everything. My burden is The Evil Rosebush: It was already an adult when I bought my house 20 years ago. I never liked it much but left it alone, even when it sent out endless traveling roots that caused multiple baby rosebushes to pop up where they weren’t wanted. But no big deal. I just clipped them off at the ground.

This year I decided to completely redo the garden.

I took the rosebush out, and stuck a pitchfork in the ground to pull up the root pack. Surprise, surprise. A 20-year tangle of roots ran from one end of the yard to the other, miles of them, tied in huge knots, woven like an underground tapestry, hard as cement.

Everywhere I stuck a trowel, I hit another mess of rose roots, leading to hours of digging and chopping and yanking. (It took me a while to realize I can never win this battle because the roots are growing up from hell. But I digress.)

Anyhow, as I saw it, I didn’t deserve dead Rhodochiton. I needed to know what I did wrong. Luckily, we have the transplant titans of the universe right here in Anchorage: The muni greenhouse puts 80,000 plants in the ground every spring in less than three weeks.

Horticulture foreman Stephen Gray soothed my shame by assuring me that Rhodochiton, a fast-growing vine with amazing flowers — blackish pendants hanging under bright pink umbrellas — is kind of finicky this far north. The muni doesn’t grow it.

Gray didn’t know why my transplants failed, but offered some general tips for successful transplanting, especially for new gardeners:

1.

Choose “tried and true” plant species and buy them from a local grower. Some of the plants offered by the big box stores just don’t do well in Alaska, he said. Local greenhouses know what works for us.

2.

Plant or buy as early as possible and shift small plants up to larger pots for several weeks before transplanting them.

The bigger a plant is before you put it in the ground, the better it’s going to do.

3. Improper watering is probably the major cause of transplant failure, he said. Never plant a dry root ball. Water it before transplanting and let it sit a while. Water it again after you put it in the ground.

This assumes you’re dealing with a plant that is mature and well-rooted enough to transplant. You actually have to be careful not to overwater very small plants and overwhelm their wispy roots.

4. Many planting directions talk about the need for good drainage, but effective watering is also necessary. Just because it rained and the ground looks wet doesn’t mean water is getting down to the roots where it’s needed, Stephen said.

“Stick a trowel in and see how far down the wet goes.” Chances are it’s dry 4 inches down.

Gray said people are always getting annoyed at him, asking “Why are you watering in the rain?” But we rarely get a truly soaking rain here, even during the August wet season, so you have to water.

As for my Rhodochiton, I went to the source. State Fair Head Gardener Becky Myrvold said the fair started growing the showy climber back in the ’80s but stopped a couple of years ago. She confirmed that Rhodochiton can be difficult to grow. In fact, people used to marvel at how well hers did and ask for her “secret.”

They didn’t believe her when Myrvold said she didn’t have one. Asked why hers did so well, she suggested — emphasizing it’s just a guess — that Rhodochiton likes a soil-heavy plant mixture, which she used. Most nurseries use peat-heavy mixtures.

Also, she said, a Rhodochiton doesn’t like to be transplanted.

You can be a fashionista, a remodelista and now a gardenista. Gardenista.com is an online sourcebook dedicated to all things garden, from sustainable rooftop gardening to backyard DIY projects.

Former New York Times columnist Michelle Slatalla is the new website’s editor.

“Gardenista is about the idea of living and eating seasonally to connect you to what’s going on seasonally around you in the natural world,” Slatalla said. “It’s about the little and big ways you can incorporate the natural world into your daily life.”

Gardenista has some of the most popular features of its parent website, Remodelista.com, such as Steal This Look, 10 Easy Pieces and Design Sleuth. But Gardenista also has its own unique twists, from do-it-yourself garden projects to advice on urban gardening.

Last week’s installment of Chef’s Garden spotlighted the edible garden and beehives on the rooftop of San Francisco’s Fairmont Hotel, with chef J.W. Foster. In the Gardenista spirit of accessibility and DIY, the post also includes a recipe for House Honey Bruschetta (bit.ly/LOA42F).

Gardenista is also very social media savvy: You can check out the website on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest, or browse the website via an iPhone app.

“Social media helps to create a community. It helps people feel more involved and to have a two-way conversation. To that extent, it’s really valuable,” Slatalla said.

Elena Kadvany is a Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: home@sfchronicle.com

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. – Susan Bradley loves the beach, especially Grandview Nature Preserve near her home in Hampton, Va./pp When she can’t get there, she enjoys a bit of beach at home – as part of a new miniature fairy garden in her back yard./pp In a corner, there’s a sandy shore done with desert sand. Itsy bitsy sunglasses rest on a small round table next to a beach chair, and flip-flops smaller than a fingernail are flung in the sand. A beach pail the size of a thimble holds a collection of seashells; a fishing pole waits to be used./pp That corner of the garden was only the beginning for what is now a 3-by-5-foot landscape that she and son-in-law, Joey Lawrence, built with 2-by-10s, 2-by-4s and 4-by-4s. It stands on legs for easy viewing from the back porch, and is filled with a mushroom compost and sifted topsoil mix./pp Once the beach was done, Bradley added a graveled walkway that leads to a fairytale-style stone house where a smiling fairy greets you. Two more fairies are seen in the landscape created with living miniature trees and shrubs – Fairy Hair Japanese maple, dwarf cypress and a Corokia contoneaster, commonly called wire-netting bush. White-flowering bacopa trails across a black metal arbor. Koi swim in a pretty pond, and a bird bath waits for visitors./pp “The sky is the limit on what you can do,” says Bradley, her sun-tanned face beaming like a child at Christmas./pp “You can theme your garden however you want./pp “I now just wish I had made it bigger.”/pp After researching and planning, Bradley ordered her house and most accessories online, choosing everything for a 1-to-12 scale. She paid $300 for the house but much less for other mini accessories like a picnic table, grill, push mower, shovel and spade, working wishing well and fence./pp Bradley purchased her plants locally, paying $80 for the special maple and $5-$16 for other plants. She uses Elfin thyme for grass and other herbs for accent plants; mosses and succulents work nicely, too./pp “I would rather hold and see the plants in person,” she says./pp For Jennifer Leslie, fairy gardens bring back warm childhood memories. She’s done several small container and hanging-basket styles for her yard in nearby Newport News, Va., and recently ordered a gazebo with a weather vane and other accessories to create more./pp “I grew up playing with miniature dollhouse,” she says./pp “It has always been a project on my list to restore the dollhouse that my dad made me when I was 10. The miniature fairy gardens give me the pleasure of creating and caring for a miniature garden without the time and expense it would take to restore my dollhouse./pp “I often find myself lollygagging about my yard, gazing at the miniature gardens. One morning, the lemon thyme was waving back and forth, and I found a miniature praying mantis living in one. How perfect!”/pp 10 FAIRY GARDEN TIPS/pp Place your fairy garden where everyone can enjoy it – near a path, next to a bench or by a main entry./pp Locate it in a part-sun location – morning or afternoon, but not both – for best plant health./pp Use a container with good drainage and fill with a high-quality potting soil; make it freeze safe, too./pp Pay attention to plants – the size of the leaf matters as much as the overall plant or tree size./pp Use dwarf conifers as tiny shrubs and trees as garden structure first, creating the “bones” of the garden./pp Keep furniture, accessories, stones and gravel in same scale; large rocks make good “boulders.”/pp Add patios, walls, bridges and other hardscape items./pp Protect the garden from heavy rains and wind./pp Enjoy it seasonally – plant a mini tree to decorate for Christmas; add a tiny bale of hay or resin pumpkin for Halloween; fly a flag for patriotic holidays; and place some hearts for Valentine’s Day./pp Consider an in-ground garden – they are little work, only need weeding and fresh mulch annually. These gardens can go indoors, too./pp “I think the fascination of these gardens is the imagination they inspire for young and old,” says Pam Shank, owner of Landscapes in Miniature in Harrisonburg, Va.; LandscapesInMiniature.com or 540-443-7562./pp Find more tips and photos from Landscape in Miniatures at Kathy’s blog: roomandyard.com/diggin/pp NEW BOOK/pp “Fairy Gardens:A Guide to Growing an Enchanted Miniature World” by Betty Earl tells what fairy gardens are and how to make and care for them, relates fairy lore, introduces the plants associated with fairies, and describes miniature plants for fairy and mini gardens, indoors or out. There’s information on building or buying accessories for these fantasy gardens. $20; Mackey Books at mackeybooks.com and amazon.com/pp Kathy van Mullekom is gardening columnist for the Daily Press, Newport News, Va.; e-mail her at kvanmullekom@aol.com; follow her at roomandyard.com/diggin, Facebook.com/kathyvanmullekom, Pinterest.com/digginin and Twitter.com/diggindirt.

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Omaha rose grower Don Swanson said that potential rose gardeners should mind a few basic rules:

Pick the rose you want for its size and color. Shrub and floribunda roses are less trouble typically. Pick the right rose for your site. Does the rose spread? Is it a climber? Is it vigorous? Does it need a lot of attention?

Prepare the soil well. Use an organic mulch, such as OmaGro, perlite (to keep the soil loose) and sphagnum peat moss (to help hold moisture).

Provide six or more hours of sunlight a day.

Provide 1 to 2 inches of water per week, at the base of the plant. Getting the leaves wet, especially if watering too late in the day, can set the stage for black spot.

If a potted rose is kept well watered, you can plant it from spring into the end of September. Bare-root roses, those that are not potted when they arrive by mail-order, need to be potted in April, not later.

Kathleen Cue, a horticulturist for the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension for Douglas and Sarpy Counties, had this to add about the current weather and rose-planting:

“As long as we’re cycling with periods of cool temperatures, it’s OK to plant roses. Also, since our nights have been cool, it gives plants relief from the higher daytime temperatures. The big thing is to maintain even soil moisture — not bone dry, not soggy wet. So as we cycle to hotter temperatures, check the soil moisture daily. Also, hot dry winds are hard on all plant tissues, so erecting a temporary windbreak (a bit of latticework mounted between two sturdy stakes) is a good idea.
Night-time temperatures can be as high as 76 degrees to be considered cool enough to plant roses.”

Don’t let the labels confuse you
Bush roses include hybrid teas, grandifloras, floribundas, patio roses and miniatures. Except for hybrid teas, all of these roses are full and bushy. Use them as you would any flowering shrub.

Are you planting things next to the roses? Make sure they have the same water, sun and air-circulation needs.

Pay attention to height. Many rose varieties can grow up to 20 feet high when mature.

Hybrid tea roses feature desirable characteristics such as fragrance and color, created by crossing the tea rose with certain hybrid roses. Hybrid teas produce large, long-stemmed roses and should be planted in groups rather than rows.

Floribunda roses have clusters of small to medium-size flowers, created by crossing polyantha (which have clusters of small flowers) and hybrid tea roses.

Grandifloras, which produce large to medium-size flower clusters on long stems, are created by crossing floribunda and hybrid tea roses. Grandifloras and floribundas are used as foundation plantings, hedges, accents and background plants.

Miniature roses have small blooms and tend to be grown in pots; they can be grown in good light indoors. Miniature and patio roses make excellent edging plants and also work well in groups in mixed borders or massed in beds.

Many Midlands rose growers value Buck roses because of their beauty and hardiness. Iowa State plant breeder Dr. Griffith Buck started breeding roses around 1950 using strains of cold-hardy roses combined with modern hybrid teas and others. His test was to plant them in a field and those that survived temperatures of 20-30 degrees below zero without any protection would be the seedlings he would choose to introduce. These disease-resistant roses also have been tested in Iowa’s hot, humid summers. While other roses need protection in Zone 5, the Buck roses do not. Some protection in Zone 4 is advisable.

The rose is the ultimate flower, a symbol of love, beauty, friendship and fragrance. It’s also the national flower, just as the eagle is the national bird. Roses even have their own month: June.

But the rose also has a reputation as a needy diva that will only grow for the gifted gardener.

Over the past two decades, rose breeders have quashed that stigma. The’ve introduced roses that bloom nearly continuously, requiring little care other than watering during a dry spell and pruning in early spring. Now, even the novice gardener can grow roses.

The rose varieties making brown thumbs green are known as landscape roses. Perhaps the best known landscape roses — carpet roses, introduced in the early 1990s, and Knock Out roses, introduced in 2000 — have become as common as yews and arborvitae in new neighborhoods.

Landscape roses are typically one-dimensional. They have few petals, like a wild rose. But they produce a mass of blooms and are available in a range of colors.

If they have a problem, it’s that they look good from the street but they’re not the iconic American beauties with long stems and many layers of petals.

But long-stem roses are where beginning rose gardeners often start. That’s where Omahan Jerry Wegiel began a little over 10 years ago.

He started with four long-stemmed hybrid tea roses, ‘Mr. Lincoln,’ and when three of the four plants died after one winter, he started over.

“He’s brand new at this,” said Don Swanson, a master rose gardener and officer in the Omaha Rose Society. “But he’s one of our most enthusiastic members.”

“That’s totally correct. I’m a novice and I’m draggin’ along a couple of newbies,” Wegiel said of his children, Julia, 8, and Jeremy, almost 10.

Wegiel’s rose garden started as a gift to his wife after they bought their new house in 2001. Their home in the Cinnamon Creek subdivision near 180th and Q Streets had no landscaping. They planted one tree, as most bare-canvas homeowners do, but they were essentially looking at a sun-drenched landscape with no trees and no shade.

That’s perfect for roses. They require six to eight hours of sun a day.

Before getting started, Wegiel researched roses online. He wasn’t sure which he might like, but he wanted them to look like the long-stem beauties florists sell for Valentine’s Day — and they should be fragrant.

“I’ve got three or four Knock Outs for the back yard, but I really don’t like them,” Wegiel said, noting that he removed two of them recently. “A hybrid (tea rose) is more robust, more attractive. It has lush, green leaves and a long stem. It looks like a rose should.”

Ultimately, he bought the four ‘Mr. Lincoln’ roses and several Knock Out roses to fill the gaps as he extended the front-yard rose bed to the back yard.

Relying on advice from friends, family and books, Wegiel and other beginners said they learned the importance of preparing the rose plant’s bed, keeping up with watering, fertilizing and spraying for bugs and diseases, and removing dead blooms so that more will appear.

Wegiel also learned that mulch can lead to mold in a rainy season. Mold can take months to overcome and will suffocate roses. He also learned about Japanese beetles that can move in and quickly chew through leaves, buds and blooms. Now he knows to hand-pluck the pests and exterminate them in a bucket of soapy water.

While learning more about rose gardening, he met hard-core rose experts Mike and Anita Eckley of Bellevue. Mike Eckley is president of the Omaha Rose Society and the couple volunteer in various community rose gardens. They also have a garden that has been on past rose society tours.

Wegiel sees that kind of garden in his future. The count so far: 22 rose bushes, including three Knock Outs.

The 44-year-old business development manager for defense contractor Raytheon has already produced some winners. He and his children entered a recent rose show competition at Lauritzen Gardens and placed with 10 of 11 entries. And he’s determined to have a show-worthy rose garden by this time next year.

He said he sees rose-growing as a way for young families to be outdoors together.

As for the evolution of his rose garden, he said he has a trip planned to a rose distributor in St. Joseph, Mo. There, he’ll pick up a few hybrid tea roses that he’s had trouble finding here.

“It’s infectious. When they say you catch the bug, you really do.”

Contact the writer:

402-444-1059, rhonda.stansberry@owh.com

The University of Illinois Extension Master Gardeners will host an Open House at the Open Gate Demonstration Garden at Drost Park on Schiber Court, Maryville June 28 from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Volunteer master gardeners will be on hand to discuss different kinds of plantings and care techniques including plants of the year, perennials, butterfly gardening, vegetable gardening, trees and shrubs, and maintenance tips. There will also be a day lily sale with 150 varieties available for purchase. For more information call the extension offices in Edwardsville at 618-650-7050, the Belleville office at 618-236-4172, or Waterloo at 618-939-3434. Those needing accommodations to attend the event can call 618-650-7050 by June 25.

12:00 AM

Revealing garden tour raises funds

Friends of the Eastern Prom organizes the event to help protect the 68-acre park.

By Beth Quimby bquimby@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer

PORTLAND – Jane Bayer and Steven Goodman stood in their Munjoy Hill yard Sunday welcoming a parade of strangers into their gardens.

Visitors walk through the garden of Steven Goodman and Jane Bayer on Morning Street during the Hidden Gardens of Munjoy Hill Tour on Sunday in Portland. The participants got a peek at landscapes that are usually hidden from public view.

Photos by Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Staff Photographer

Sharon LaFrancis of Windsor, Conn., photographs a salad table garden. Gardeners said opening up their yards helps raise money for a good cause, and they get gardening tips from their visitors.

Additional Photos Below

“This is a weeder’s paradise,” Bayer announced, as people bent over her burgeoning raised vegetable beds and admired the water fountains gurgling away between roses and day lilies.

The couple, who moved to 89 Morning St. from Brooklyn, N.Y., three years ago, and nine other neighborhood homeowners volunteered their gardens and patios for the Hidden Gardens of Munjoy Hill tour. The tour, in its seventh year, is organized by the Friends of the Eastern Promenade, a community group that works to protect the 68-acre Eastern Promenade park.

The tour coincided with the Society for East End Arts Open Studios Tour, with neighborhood artists opening up their work areas to the public.

Visitors, some in sun hats, some carrying parasols, got a peek at landscapes that are usually hidden from public view.

The gardeners said opening up their yards helps raise money for a good cause, and they pick up gardening tips from their visitors.

“It’s nice to have gardeners in. You learn things,” said Aynne Doil.

Doil’s garden at 118 Eastern Promenade is filled with plants with names that relate to friends and family members.

She planted Invincible Spirit hydrangeas in memory of her next door neighbor who died of cancer, an Always and Forever rose bush in memory of her late husband, and Sweet William for her grandson William.

At 1767 Eastern Promenade, Geri Rose of North Yarmouth aimed her camera at a moveable salad table garden filled with red-leaf lettuce, nasturtiums and arugula.

“You get ideas, not that I do them all,” Rose said

Friends Ann Marie Knoepfel of Portland and Kathleen Egan of South Portland said they couldn’t pass up the tour.

“I have done this tour five times. It is beautiful and inspirational,” said Knoepfel.

Staff Writer Beth Quimby can be contacted at 791-6363 or at:

bquimby@pressherald.com

 

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Today, our resident garden expert, Laura Stone of Vineyard Gardens has the following hot weather gardening tips for the weekend:

1. Water your plants in the early morning or early evening. When you water your plants you need to water them deeply so that the plant’s root system gets the refreshment that it needs during the long and hot day.

2. Provide a light blanket of mulch on top of mature plants to retain the cool water longer. This is important to help keep weeds down and insure moisture retention.

3. Use a drip irrigation system for your plant for maximum water conservation capabilities. If you are concerned about the high cost of your water bill each month try this old tried and true way of watering.
 
4. Plant drought tolerant plants in your garden beds. This seems like an easy one but some people don’t think about the lovely variety of succulents that are out there.
 
Happy Summer … It’s gonna be a scorcher!!