 |
• The New Perennial Club
• Newsletter/Archive
• About Us
• Contact
• Media eMail Alerts
• In the News
• Top Sellers
• Feedback
• Bug Report
• Poisonous Plants
• Dealer Locator
• Learn How to Search
• Plant Tag Symbols
|
|
 | In the News |
I was noticing just yesterday that one of my favourite little fall moments has not yet happened — the magical day when our patch of Solomon's-seal (Polygonatum) turns brilliant yellow. There is usually a lovely sunbeam in that special moment that is almost like a beacon of golden light making the whole patch glow in such a special way. Depending on the wind and rain, this moment lasts anywhere from one afternoon to a week or so, and I always wait for it! Sometimes a mound of Hosta will do the same thing. It just sort of depends on the timing of the fall frosts whether a Hosta plant ends the season with a bang of foliage colour, or just turns to brown mush instead. Time will tell what they do in my village in the next couple of weeks.
It's fun when a plant that you put in the garden for one purpose surprises you with a second little surprise moment. It could be the brilliant red stem-tips on a mound of Sundrops. Perhaps the bizarre pink seedpods on a Magnolia bush, or hoarfrost on the dead tops of a Zebra Grass.
Speaking of grasses, there is a garden down the street from us with a rather lovely south-facing border of various fall-flowering ornamental grasses, Sedums and Russian Sage. A couple of days ago they completely cut everything back to the ground. Why do some people do this?? In my mind, that border was just coming into its own and would have provided nice interest all winter long, right into April. Wrong choice of plants for that particular gardener, I figure. Some people just don't "get" winter interest and there is no changing them! Then there are lazy gardeners like me that understand winter interest but leave all the cleanup until spring then wonder why it feels so overwhelming. Hopefully wise gardeners are somewhere in between the two extremes.
— John Valleau, Editor
• SMOKE BUSH: a personal favourite
 Here in our village there are some awesome specimens of Smoke Bush (Cotinus coggyria), and visitors often stop to look and ask about them when they are blooming or displaying their wonderful large, puffy seedheads.
I do love the flowers and the puffs that appear during summer, but there are other reasons to grow Smokebush: the foliage is absolutely fantastic as a backdrop to, or mingling among perennials!
This is one shrub that takes exceptionally well to being pruned hard every couple of years, right back to stumps only 6 to 12 inches tall — a pruning method known as "coppicing". This is done during winter or early spring, and what results are entire new stems that bear exceptionally large and beautiful leaves that are almost tropical in appearance. This sacrifices the blooms for a year, but it's also a method of height control and the big foliage is certainly spectacular. This technique is best started after the plant has been in the garden for a couple of years, to build up a framework of branches and also to build up strength in the root system.
While generally rated as hardy to Zone 5 or so, this refers to hardiness of the woody stems. I've seen a few Smoke Bushes growing in prairie gardens where they die back to the ground or to a foot or so in height — basically coppicing themselves — so they are well worth trying in Zones 2 through 4.
The species itself has green foliage with pinkish to white blooms, but much more popular are the many purple-leaved selections as pictured here. These often have purple or bronzy flowers and puffs. There are also a couple of very handsome gold or yellow-leaved forms that have been introduced in recent years, so really it should be easy to find one to work with a particular colour scheme. Look for Smoke Bush in the nursery department at your favourite garden centre.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
