Dear Gardener...

We started fertilizing our gardens this week. It is nice to get this done while the plants are still small enough to get around them easily without having to move the foliage. Our gardens are filled with good topsoil manure, and every fall a thick layer of bark is added, so the fertility is so good that to jump over a year seems to be fine for most plants. If your soil isn't that good, the performance of the plants really does improve with a yearly or twice a year fertilizing program. We use a slow release fertilizer like Osmocote around all the gardens for the regular perennials. For trees and shrubs we use Fertilome's Tree & Shrub Food as well as a sprinkle of bone meal on the flowering shrubs like Lilacs, Hydrangeas and Forsythias. On Azeleas we use an acid fertilizer, also from Fertilome, and on bulbs like tulips and daffodils, as well as lilies and ornamental onions, we use a good Bulb Food. For Roses we have started using Bayer's 3 in One. This is an insecticide, fungicide and fertilizer all in one. This has worked very well keeping diseases in check for our Roses. Usually we add one more application of fertilizer to long blooming and high feeding varieties like Delphiniums, Daylilies, Roses and Heliopsis a little later in the season, like in July. These plants need that extra push to keep performing. In the shade gardens we add Urea to the Hostas. This is a 45-0-0 (nitrogen) fertilizer that really gets the Hostas going (read growing). Ferns and woodland wildflowers grow fine on their own as long as the soil is a nice humus with lots of organic matter. So if your woodland plants perform poorly try adding compost or manure and especially a good layer of bark mulch every year.

Ninebark 'Summer Wine'' Physocarpus opulifolious is a new purple ninebark hybrid that resulted from a cross between Physocarpus o. 'Nana' and its taller cousin Diabolo'. We have used 'Diablo' several places around our display gardens over the last 8 years and have been very happy with its performance. Where Diablo is taller and more upright, 'Summer Wine' grows to only 5-6' tall, has the same attractive wine colored foliage, but features a dense, compact habit and is about 1/2 the size of the regular 'Diablo'. Both are hardy to zone 3 and prefer full sun. We have one planted in part shade and yet even there it maintains its wonderful foliage color. Ninebarks are quite adaptable to difficult situations like acidic and alkaline soils. They are also fast growing and have few, if any, pest problems. 'Summer Wine' Ninebark is an easy way to introduce dark purple foliage into your yard. Use this shrub as a bold accent or part of a mixed border. 'Summer Wine' may even be cut for use in flower arrangements. Pruning and other maintenance is rarely needed. It can be pruned or pinched back if appearance becomes leggy and can be pruned back harder if you wish to maintain a shorter size. When blooming is over, 'Summer Wine' sets fruits that attract birds and other wildlife.

If you click the website address on the top bar, go to our website and look under Plant Guides, you will find a very handy Perennial Pruning Techniques list. This shows the varieties of plants that will benefit from being cut back or pinched during the spring and summer period. These techniques are gathered partly through our own experience and partly from the very informative and inspiring book called 'The Well-Tended Perennial Garden' by Tracy DiSabato Aust. By pruning taller, and just emerging varieties back by 6 inches or by half, you delay the bloom time slightly but get much fuller and less floppy plants out of it. The time you do this does of course vary greatly by how early the spring arrives and where in the state you garden, so keep that in mind!
Experiment a little and try pruning one kind in different heights and see how it works in your garden. Keep in mind that there are some perennials you shouldn't try this on, like Peonies, Liatris, Lilies etc., but you can't go wrong as long as you stick with this list we have made. If you have deer in your area and haven't got out to spray the plants yet, you may already have benefited from their munching on the Phlox! In that case consider those done. But spray them now with some Liquid Fence or Repellex deer deterrent. These two kinds work really well.

Happy gardening for now!
 

All the flowers of all the tomorrows are in the seeds of today.

 - Indian Proverb