Cherry Blossom Time

The cherry blossoms–along with crabapple blossoms–are opening up all over Minnesota. My ‘Bali’ cherry tree began blossoming two days ago. It will look fluffy and white for a week or so before the cherries that ripen in late July or August begin to form. Bali (Prunus ‘Evans Bali’) is a variety developed in Canada, where it is known as the Evans cherry. It’s a pretty, compact tree and said to be hardy to -54 F. I’ve seen size estimates of anywhere between 8 and 20 feet tall at maturity. My little tree has been in the ground less than two years, and is less than 5 feet high.

What sets the Bali cherry apart from other cherries is its prolific fruit production. My friends at Northscaping, a Canadian gardening site, say they have seen gardeners collect 50 pounds of cherries off of a 5-year-old tree. The cherries are technically a sour cherry, but if left on the tree long enough, Bali gets sweet enough to eat raw. It is reportedly a delicious pie cherry. However, if you want to collect any cherries off a Bali tree, invest in a bird net. Last year, I noticed the little cherries were getting ripe, and thought “Better get some kind of net over this before the birds get them.” The next day, the cherries were gone.

Containing My Enthusiasm

“Uh, Mom, why is there a garden in our garage?” I heard that question the other day, as my college daughter surveyed the landscape of plants in flats and nursery pots that consumed half of our garage. The truth is my enthusiasm for plant buying–from the church youth group, several nurseries, and two local plants sales–had collided with cooler than normal spring weather, and it seemed the plants needed a bit more indoor time.

With slightly warmer day-time temperatures promised this week and lows that are not quite so low, I have been slowly planting things out. Many of those plants are finding homes in containers, which are a great way to experiment with annuals, tropicals, and even perennials. You can find books on container gardening, but the basic principles are simple. Find a pot you like. The bigger the pot, the more you can pack into it, although if the pot is deep, fill the bottom with light stuff, like crushed four-packs. Then, pick a “thriller,” a plant that will grow tall or be striking in some other way. Add a couple of “spillers,” plants that will fall out of the container dramatically. Finally, pack the container good and full with a “filler,” a type of plant with lush foliage or pretty blooms. My favorite container from last year was a large, green and white striped pot filled with Lava Rose and Lava Green coleus, Fiesta Ole double impatiens, a fern, and petunias. Here’s the same pot filled with new things for this year: caladium, Supertunia petunias, a fern, and a pink and green coleus.

For the Northfield in Bloom program, many downtown businesses and residences will be planting window boxes and pots with a designated container-formula. The Northfield Garden Club recommends planting dark coleus (thriller), sweet potato vine (spiller) and pink petunias (filler). My two backyard window boxes have a variation on this theme. I could not find any sweet potato vine in town, so I bought vinca vine, which is a little less lime in color, but drapes nicely. One box is planted with Dark Star coleus, an almost black coleus, and the other with a Perilla Magilla, which is not a coleus, but comes from the same family. It looks like a coleus and is a dramatic foliage plant. For petunias, I used a mix of Wave petunias and the youth group petunias, which are called ‘Pink Celebrity.’

All the pots look a little skimpy and cold now, but just give them a few weeks and some warmer weather. What are your favorite container combinations?

Bloomin’ Trash Talk from Florida

Excuse me, but who are these people from Stuart, Florida, already trash-talking Northfield in the America in Bloom contest? I came upon this article from the Palm Beach Post while looking for some information on Northfield in Bloom. It appears we have been challenged, and Northfield’s motto “Cows, Colleges, and Contentment” has been dissed. The Stuart folks have already had their visit from the America in Bloom judges but Northfield will not be visited until late July. Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time to start planting!

Bloom Tuesday

Around town, the magnolias look lovely and many gardens have the hardy pink azaleas in bloom as well. At my house, it’s still all about the bulbs. In the front, four types of tulips are blooming in close formation. In back, the grape hyacinth (Muscari) are blooming near some daffodils. (Though, I have to admit, the daffodils were very poorly placed (by me) and look too much like soldiers in a row, and not enough like a circle of friends. Clusters, not lines with bulbs.)

Three of my neighbors have azaleas in full bloom. Mine are dragging behind, which has been the pattern for several years. I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong, but it’s something, because my bushes are scraggly looking and bloom two weeks after everyone else’s plants. The exposure is identical (southeast, protected, near the house) so that is not it. Anyone know what could be the problem? These are the hardy Northern Lights azaleas (botanically they are Rhododendrons) and they were bred for this climate. Well, mine should be blooming by next week, and–judging by the amount of sneezing I’ve been doing lately–the lilacs should be in bloom next week as well.

A Great Day for Plant Bargains

Yes, the weather was not-so-great, but the bargains were plentiful at area plant sales today. I hit two this morning: the one in Northfield, sponsored by the Northfield Garden Club, and one in Rosemount, sponsored by the Dakota County Master Gardeners. Some of the deals I snagged: $4 for Herbstonne Rudbeckia, a very tall black-eyed Susan (the eyes are actually green); three mature hollyhocks for $3 each; and canna bubs for $2 a piece.

One of the great things about local plant sales is you will occasionally come upon plants with a story. In Northfield, I bought a plant advertised as a “local daisy.” I’m not sure what that means, or what it will look like, but I’ve got a sunny spot to put it in, so why not? The garden club also had a huge selection of 100-year-old daylilies salvaged from an abandoned graveyard in the county. These are the kind of daylilies your grandmother or great grandmother would have planted. They bloom once, usually a bright orange, and then fade.

Mystery Plant

I must have planted these, though I don’t remember when or why. They are coming up in a bed on the north side of my house, and were a pleasant surprise yesterday as I pulled out the last of the brown foliage from last year’s daylilies. I wasn’t sure what they were at first, but a little looking confirmed: Glory of the Snow (Chionodoxa). Glory of the Snow are distinct among the early spring bulbs in that they turn their flower faces upward, unlike the more bell-like shape of the squill bulbs, which are blooming just around the corner from these.

Plant Sales and Self Control

We were in Faribault anyway, so I talked the man in my life into a side trip to Donahue’s, just to look. $57 and change later, we were heading home. This is the time of year when gardeners are so starved for color, so sick of winter, and so ready to cut loose, that we are like sailors on shore leave. Roll that lucky seven, I’m buying a hanging basket full of bougainvillea.

So, how can you get a great garden without going broke? Here are four suggestions I’ve heard (though not always followed!) from savvy gardeners.

• Remember: Plants grow. Look at the mature size of a plant before you buy 10 flats of impatiens. That little coleus may grow to 2 feet tall and almost as wide. The Purple Passion rose I bought in Chicago this past weekend will be 5 feet tall and maybe 3 or more feet wide. That’s a pretty good sized plant.
• Hit the garden club plant sales. This weekend is the big weekend for plant sales in Minnesota. For a complete list of sales, check out the hort society’s calendar. (Northfield readers, head to Bridge Square Saturday morning for the Northfield Garden Club’s sale.) If you are fishing or hanging out with your mom this weekend, some clubs hold their sales next weekend as well. Garden club sales are the perfect place to pick up perennials for a reasonable price. Many of these are divisions of well-established plants grown by careful gardeners. In other words, no wimps that will fade in a few weeks. The real benefit of garden club sales, though, are the club members working the sale. They know gardening and love to talk about it and answer questions.
• Defer gratification. If money is tight, remember that the season for selling plants in this climate is remarkably short. You can wait a few weeks, buy your plants at half price or less, and they’ll still grow and look good most of the summer. Selection may be limited, but sometimes you can find a wonderful plant for much less.
• Stretch out your gardening. You don’t have to re-do your landscape in a single year. Landscapers recommend coming up with an overall plan, then planting it one phase at a time.

If none of these work for you, try doing what one woman I know did to fund her plant habit: Get a job at a garden center!

Bloom Tuesday

With the cold and rain we had last week, the blooming is still behind the past couple of years. But trees are starting to leaf out and more of the spring bulbs are showing. Around town I’ve seen hyacinth as well as daffodils and magnolias (yes, there are magnolias hardy enough for Minnesota) and a few tulips. In my yard, the squill (Scilla siberica) is blooming around the front yard and the pansies in pots look healthy. Two new bloomers have emerged over the past couple of days: daffodils (only one so far, but more coming) and a pretty stand of yellow tulips. (Sorry, I don’t know the name of these.) I hope your garden is starting to bloom, too.

Suffering from Zone Envy

Since envy is one of the seven deadly sins, is zone envy a particularly egregious offense for gardeners? If so, I am guilty after a trip to Chicago this weekend. I went to help my daughter, a student at Loyola University, move home for the summer. Early Friday morning, I left Minnesota amid wind, cold, and threats of snow showers. Traveling across Wisconsin, I was pelted by heavy rain. But on Loyola’s pleasant urban campus, there were azaleas in bloom, tulips filling the planters, flowering crabapples, and near the shore of Lake Michigan, a planter filled with blooming (blooming!!!) roses. Chicago is in zone 5, according to the USDA map, only one zone lower than Minnesota, but the lake may moderate temperatures even more on the campus. Fortunately, I was able to ease my suffering with a bit of retail therapy at Ferraro’s Garden Spot, a small garden store near the hotel we stayed in. Ferraro’s had a good selection of Jackson and Perkins roses, so I bought two: ‘Purple Passion’ and, not surprisingly, ‘Iceberg.’

UPDATE and ADDITION: After I wrote this post, we were back on campus, and what should appear but this fox. My daughter had a startling late-night encounter with a fox several weeks ago. Apparently, the fox is a regular on campus. (Keep in mind, these photos were taken near a building overlooking Lake Michigan and less than a block from North Sheridan Road, a very busy intersection.)

Gardening Like Monet

Not many of us can garden in the fashion of impressionist Claude Monet. Lacking the 5-acre garden, help from a full-time gardener and (most importantly) artistic genius, we instead look at Monet’s paintings, and sigh. There was a lot of sighing, and gasping, and general oohing and aahing at the Minneapolis Institute of Art this morning during photographer Derek Fell’s talk on Monet’s garden. The event was part of the MIA’s annual Art in Bloom, and the auditorium was packed with enthusiastic gardeners and art lovers.

In addition to photographing gardens, Fell designs them so he brings great knowledge and sympathy to his photographs of Monet’s garden. We’ve occasionally used his stock images in Northern Gardener. He recently completed a book on Monet called The Magic of Monet’s Garden: His Planting Plans and Color Harmonies.

At the MIA, he talked about how Monet used color and lines to create the depth and luminescence in his art. Some of these are techniques we regular gardeners can employ. For instance, in order to create the shimmer that impressionists are known for, Monet used white flowers or silver plants. But white shouldn’t be used in a clump, Fell said. A clump makes a hole in the garden; dotted throughout the garden, white plays off the other colors and brightens them. As Fell said (and he may have been quoting Monet), you’ve got to sprinkle it like salt and pepper. Monet used color harmonies throughout his garden. His plantings would be all in cool colors (such as in the painting above) or in hot colors. Cool harmonies include blues and purples, hot ones reds, oranges and yellows. Monet sometimes would plant beds of hot colored flowers in front of beds of cool colored flowers. From a certain angle, the cool behind the hot makes the bed look deeper. Monet also used only straight beds because he wanted to create deep perspective and a sense of walking into infinity.

His famous water garden took the opposite approach, according to Fell. That was a cup garden, where the visitor was called to introspection. Monet, like many smart gardeners, planted at least three of any of the water lilies he chose for his water gardens.

Monet’s interest in gardening grew from his painting. He gardened to create the kind of place he wanted to paint. In the process, he created the kind of garden many gardeners would like to visit.