Easy Rain Gardens, Walk-in Tomato Cages and More from a Baltimore Master Gardener

Even the weeds are better

Right Plant, Right Place in the Junque Garden

The flowers – annuals and perennials and a few that hadn’t yet made up their minds which way to go – were stuck in a far corner of our greenhouse, abandoned to their fate.

The mix included verbena, lantana, salvia, the euphorbia ‘Diamond Frost’ and a few others whose names escape me. One of the problems with being considered a garden expert is you know in your heart you really don’t know that much.

Some of those flowers been grown from seed, about 25 cultivars we had carefully selected from catalogs in January, planted in a heated greenhouse in March and babied until planting times. Those came with the most emotional attachment.

Other flowers – all perennials – came from plugs. We had ordered a few hard-to-find cultivars which came, of course, with a minimum of 20 to 30 each, way the hell more than wanted or needed. My attachment to them was more financial.

The ‘Diamond Frost’ – a perfect name for that white-speckled, frail-looking number – came from a nursery or box store; the mind wanders at the scale of keeping up with all my plants. ‘Diamond Frost’ has long been a favorite of my wife. I could apparently take it but mostly left it.

At any rate, when the spring planting was done a few of each ended up in that far corner of the greenhouse. In most cases they were the runts of the litter, locked away in too-small containers, root-bound, water-needy, sad-looking and in need of Osmocote and more love then I had time to give.

I was seriously considering just chucking those puny outliers into the compost pile lest some true gardener wander by and wonder what those orphans were doing there.

But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I had some time, money, material and pride tied up in those plants. Looking at it from their perspective, they were still hanging on. They deserved a chance to live, to at least get out of those containers and into the ground.

The immediate problem was all my regular garden areas were taken by annuals and perennials doing pretty darn well. I didn’t want to crowd them. So I found a place for those Most Needy in perhaps the worst possible place – an area that had once been the home of container shrubs when I was in the nursery business.

As such, the site had been alternately covered in gravel, small rock, compost and mulch. It received about four hours of brutal afternoon sun. It was also bordered by old, decomposing railroad ties. Perfect.

I know what you’re thinking: Those plants would have been happier in the compost pile. The good news – sort of – was that the new site was also in a high-traffic area. Those plants, if they considered living, could be witnessed and adored by all.

Best I remember I took those plants over by the new site and let them sit there for a few more days, generally forgotten. Once in a while I would water the pack, but mostly left them alone to contemplate their fate.

Come planting day I was very surprised to see just how rocky that soil was. I could barely dig in three or four inches, considered using my tree spade, but stayed with the sharp trowel.

In about 45 minutes I had all of them in the alleged ground and covered with what could be considered fine gravel. Not a real good gardening site, I was thinking, but drainage shouldn’t be a problem.

I did water the site fairly regularly – as did others. There was some guilt involved in this whole process. I also tossed down a fine layer of Osmocote; hope does spring eternal. I also decided to name this site my “Junque Garden” – a guy can’t be too optimistic.

I was giving the garden a week, maybe two, to brown up and frizzle in that late afternoon sun. It refused to comply. The bright yellow lantana did well, of course. Once established it will grow in center-lane asphalt. The purple verbena was no big surprise either. It likes some sun and good drainage. The same with red salvia.

But wait a minute. In a few weeks my Junque Garden had a bit of the pastel look of Monet’s Giverny. It flowed in green with bursts of pink, purple and yellow from those other flowers whose names escaped me.

The garden was bold and stunning and peaceful right there in screaming afternoon sun and bordered by decaying railroad ties. It was the most beautiful and mesmerizing garden on our place – Railroad Tie Section. Only a genius could have designed this.

And the ‘Diamond Frost’! My God that frail-looking beauty owned the garden. It is thriving in rocky soil in late afternoon sun. No longer will it be relegated to containers and wedding and funeral bouquets.

In fact, the always modest, low-key Proven Winters website gave ‘Diamond Frost’ a chance to speak her own mind:

I want to thank my parents, my breeder and especially the millions of fans who have made me the Most Award-Winning Plant in Proven Winners History.

At my 2005 debut I was just a new 12 to 18 inch Proven WinNERS Euphorbia…you later praised my mounded habit and how well I tolerate heat and drought…If I could, I would keep you with me in full sun to part shade forever…”

Or at least in what will be my expanded 2020 Junque Garden.

Right Plant, Right Place in the Junque Garden originally appeared on GardenRant on August 24, 2019.

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Good News from DC – it’s Tops in Green Roofs!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Did you know that Washington, D.C., with 1.2 million square feet of green roofs as of 2014, won bragging rights as the greenest U.S. city? No, really. (Source: EcoWatch.)

If you’re still doubting, a new report from the nonprofit Green Roofs for Healthy Cities gives DC its highest ranking for green roofs, for the fourth time. Their press release credited DC’s great policies and programs, including rebates of $7-$15 per square foot per green roof installed and credits that reduce stormwater fees. But let’s be honest – it also benefits from all the new federal buildings going up in the city, all of which are covered with green roofs, as far as I can tell.

I’ve seen a few around town but in May of this year, I was part of a regional GardenComm gathering that visited a 17,000-square-foot roof-top farm above a new mixed-use development in a Maryland called Pike and Rose. The manager told us that all their buildings have green roofs, which earned the whole neighborhood a Gold LEED rating.

So this is a positive story (couldn’t we all use one?) that demonstrates some of the additional benefits of managing stormwater well – like feeding people, and giving young gardeners a job.

Young gardeners like Farmer Sara here, who works for the very cool company Uptop Acres, which is contracted to take care of this and 23 other roof-top farms in the DC area. She’s the Farm Manager at this location.

(The entrepreneurs at UpTop were inspired by a similar company in New York – Brooklyn Grange.)

Sara told us that the 1/3-acre farm is composed of 42 beds and that the CSA distributing their harvest had 40 customers last year, and wholesale customers, too.

So what’s Sara learned from roof-top farming? Carrots, onions, eggplant, strawberries and okra do very well in what’s essentially a Mediterranean climate up there. Hoop houses have worked well for them. Staking up tomatoes, not so much.

The worst pests she has to deal with? Not deer or rabbits, we know, but invaders from the sky – the damn geese and crows!

As described in this video, Uptop Acre’s partner in all this is the University of Maryland, which is working with them to develop soils and other best practices for growing food on roofs.

Good News from DC – it’s Tops in Green Roofs! originally appeared on GardenRant on August 6, 2019.

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What to Plant Along Sidewalks and Edges of Borders?

Readers, this post is a nakedly self-serving attempt to get free garden design advice. To wit: what are good plants along high-traffic and high-visibility borders?

Above, to line the border at my co-op’s business office, I first used Liriope spicata, even knowing it would soon march like Sherman across all the other perennials and maybe threaten the shrubs, too. The non-thuggish L. muscari would have been better, but the spicata is what I had plenty of for free.

This year I found better uses for the Liriope and replaced it with two types of Sedum, both plants I have plenty of.

Above is S. sarmentosum, which will fill in, I’m guessing, within a year.

The other Sedum I’m trying is S. takesimense, my favorite groundcover for sun. The photo above was taken in my garden, where it’s completely filled in and keeps out weeds like a champ. It’s a bit taller, at 5-6 inches.

I’ve found that groundcover sedums neither bully neighboring plants nor flop over where they don’t belong.

But are they tough enough to recover from the occasional careless pedestrian? (As a city head of horticulture once told me, if plants CAN be stepped on or driven over, they will be. He uses a lot of boulders.)

And stepping back, do places like this even need groundcovers, or are generous amounts of mulch the answer? Whatever – it has to look good enough all year and be easy to maintain.

A much bigger groundcover question the co-op is asking is what to plant along our sidewalks. The rules (correctly) require that plants be kept off the sidewalks but also (correctly) require that soil in our yards be covered.

My first thought is Liriope, seen above near my house. While it flops over a bit, I’ll come to its defense because it stops run-off and erosion, feels fine against the ankles of passersby (unlike the juniper behind it) and flops over no more than 3-4 inches.

As opposed to the unfortunate hostas and daylilies on the right, which only cover the ground part-year and are too tall for along sidewalks.

Readers, any suggestions? I’m still learning as a landscaper for public spaces, with their special challenges. (As I write this, nothing has been destroyed YET by pedestrians but I’m steeling myself for the worst.)

What to Plant Along Sidewalks and Edges of Borders? originally appeared on GardenRant on August 2, 2019.

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