Blends clockwise from top left: ‘Beyond Baroque’, ‘Stop the Car’, ‘Saints Parade’ and ‘Charm Offensive’.
All bulb photos from the ColorBlends site.
Plant of the Week
Sometimes it’s a pretty flower, sometimes it’s a useful shrub, this week, it’s like a sail in the wind. The Magnolia macrophylla, or bigleaf Magnolia, has one of the most dramatic leaves in my garden, especially at two times of year: when they are big and bright and green in spring, and then when they are big and dull and brown and actually on the ground in fall. I love how they bully all the other little leaves on the playground. Or maybe they are just covering them like a protective blanket.
Hard to tell.
Guest
Tim Schipper is a third generation bulbsman who started ColorBlends, which is my favorite place to buy spring bulbs. He and I talk about how he figured out how to do the ‘blends’, examples of which are seen below. He needs to think about color, bloom time, and height to make a good blend, and daffodil blends are just that little bit more challenging because… well, because there aren’t so many cool colors to play with.
ColorBlends was created for landscape professionals and for “the ambitious residential gardener” because they are not in the business of selling small amounts. It’s go big or go home, and I would rather go home to a home with hundreds and hundreds of flowering bulbs.
It’s easy to talk about the divas of the spring bulb world, but Tim and I also mentioned some of the lesser used but still beautiful bulbs, such as Camassia (quamash), Leucojum (snowflake), Eranthis (winter wolf’s bane) and Chionodoxa (glory of the snow), seen from top to bottom below.
The Play List
At the beginning of this episode I mention an article my husband Jeff had sent me about the possibility of a Lyme disease vaccine. Looks like it’s a ways off, but nice to know there is progress!
When planting bulbs, you want to remember that what is shady in summer could be decently sunny for early flowering bulbs in winter, not only because of the absence of a canopy of deciduous leaves, but also because of the lower angle of the sun. Very effective on a south facing hill or bank, especially.
Also, don’t feel sorry for yourself, or punish yourself, for that matter, if your tulips don’t come back well or if your other bulbs that are more perennial peter out over the years. We often plant bulbs in crowded beds with lots of other plants that have strong water needs over the summer, which is just when more flower bulbs would love to be dusty dry.
If you are the victim of impulse shopping (happens to me all the time) and end up with a small amount of bulbs that may look lonely in the landscape, consider potting them up to be in a container next spring, or forced a little early indoors. I’ll put some info on that in next week’s Blog & Pod.
‘Hotpants’ from White Flower Farm. So popular we have to wait for next year.
Oh, and because we all MUST HAVE Hotpants tulips now that we know about them from my daughter— wait! what’s this I see? Sold out? Oh NO! My daughter probably got the last two dozen. Oh well, here’s the link in case you want to get some next year.
My favorite, never-am-without gardening tools are my soil knife and my hand pruners (or secateurs), which I actually have attached to my belt when I garden like a complete nerd. What kind to I use? Okatsune, which you can get right here, and they would be especially great for you if the ones you use seem a little bit big or dull.
Listen
Joe Gardener talks about how to have your live Christmas tree survive the season on this YouTube video.
And Tom Christopher of the Growing Greener podcast interviewed Eric Fleisher of F2 Design on his December 1 episode and I wouldn’t call the whole thing riveting, unless you are okay with a healthy dose of science and a dearth of humor in your podcast choices. But it was eye opening for me, because when I harp about leaving the leaves, I usually have insect habitat in mind. Fleisher’s wording when he described the state of a piece of land from which leaves are removed year after year got my attention. He called an ecologically disturbed site. Rather damning, don’t you think?
The depletion of the soil that is deprived of the hugely important process of leaves breaking down to feed the soil makes it so. What happens in your garden in the fall? Are leaves removed? From all parts? Could you think about any adjustments?
Worth a ponder at least.
