PLANT ADDICTS CHAT #7

Interesting, I didn't know there was a temperate rain forest in Juneau!

And Juneau's zone 7!

Getting closer to our Zone 6 LOL It was a beautiful garden we have pics to share later.

That Plectranthus 'Mona Lavender' certainly is a weak plant that breaks easily. I lost bits of it just transporting it from the car to the backyard.

But it's a hummingbird moth MAGNET! I wish I could have taken a picture of it, but my hands were filthy.

Just found out that another palm and my most fav. the Bismark Palm might be hardy for my area so I will be checking out that one this winter as well.

Hey addicts, suggestions requested:

Friend wants a shrub to screen the alley, grow up to 6 feet but not too huge, and narrow better than wide (yeah, always the tough thing) And a lot of shade, north side of house, plant them about six feet from the house. 3 or 4 of them would be enough to block the view into her windows.
OR she could have a trellis or light fence of some sort 6 or eight feet tall, with a vine for summer green and color, again, shady, and nothing like the wisteria she finally got ripped out. Any ideas welcome.

Not on the plant to grow----BUT..........

A panel of Lattice is 4' x 8'. Comes in wood or white Vinyl. HD does not cut it!
If you stand it on end--your fence would be 8' tall. You can zip-tie the panels
together to form a fence. Use wood posts to hold it up.

Morning Glories are always pretty--but you will have hundreds re-seeing
for years!!!
One of my favorites is Cardinal Climber--small red blooms on a vine.

Not sure what would grow in shade???? How about a nice ivy?

Gita

Sally, I have Emerald Green arborvitae in pretty deep shade and it has done well. The only issue is that they would eventually grow beyond 6 ft, and I don't think they like being topped.

There are narrow-growing boxwoods that don't mind being sheared regularly and would handle the shade well, too.

Prunus laurocerasus 'schipkaensis'
Cephalotaxus harringtonia 'Fastigiata'
Viburnum acerifolium


I don't know, that's all I have right off the top of my head.

Thanks, guys. She is a gardener so she will do some maintenance of whatever. And that's a lot more than I had of the top of MY head (zero) after other friend got done telling this lady what a great gardener I am (pffft)

I just thought of a few more!

Sky Pencil holly
Gold Dust acuba
Narrow growing Taxus, like Taxus cuspidata 'Fastigiata,' Taxus baccata ‘Fastigiata,' or Cephalotaxus harringtonia 'Fastigiata'

thanks ssg! I was giving it a little longer before making a list.

That's okay Sally, it's tough to perform when the pressure is on. LOL. That's why you have all of us.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkyqRP8S93Y

trying the embed link- nope, DG doesn't let me embed the video

This message was edited Sep 26, 2015 8:10 AM

Sally, at HD today, I saw Sky Pencil hollies that were already 6 feet tall. I think they were around 26 dollars each.

thanks for the tip!

I just sent out a "blast" since the discussion and ordering on the lily group buy is ramping up! Is anybody not on my list for Dmail "blasts" about group buys that would like to be? Please let me know! Bulbs, gloves, moisture crystals, spring plants, it's all fair game. I like organizing co-ops with our very co-operative group! If anybody wants to take a turn hosting or co-hosting (like Terri did this fall, handling the delivery & distribution of the bulb order), that's great also. I'll help however I can. :-)

We're doing an order with B&D Lilies for fall planting, and we're also placing an order asap with Ednie Flower Bulbs for spring-planted lily bulbs (distributed from Frederick and/or at the Spring Swap). Depending on what's on ADR's list the first week in December, we may add them to the mix. It's all good!

Just placed a couple orders for some new plants. I may be too busy this spring to plant the usual spring orders so I decided to place a couple now.

Gardens of the Blue Ridge:

1 - Heuchera americana (Alumroot)
4 - Maianthemum canadense (False Lily of the Valley)
1 - Scutellaria ovata (Heart-leaved Skullcap)
1 - Silene virginica (Catchfly)
1 - Asplenium platyneuron (Ebony Spleenwort Fern)

Heritage Flower Farm

1 - Parthenium integrifolium (Wild Quinine)
4 - Cornus canadensis (Creeping Dogwood)
1 - Pycanthemum virginianum (Mountain Mint)

All will be shipping on Monday so I'll have them for planting next weekend. You guys should check out both places. They have some cool stuff on there.

I'm trying to start a collection of galanthus (snowdrops) in the fern bank garden. These are so much more popular in the UK. Can easily find elwesii and nivalis at US sources, but anything other than those are few and far between. Also, the few that I'm finding are fairly expensive, so I guess I'll just "spot light" with a pitiful 5 bulbs of each kind. Brent & Becky's carries a few, and I just ordered some to start my collection. They came yesterday, and 25 small bulbs should take no time at all to plant, but it doesn't look like this weekend will work out weather wise. I can just see me out there with dibbler in hand in the middle of Joaquin - not... The only other US source that I've been able to find for galanthus is Carolyn's Shade Garden, so if you great googlers find anything else, let me know!

'Viridi-apice'
'Sam Arnott'
'Hippolyta'
'Magnet'
woronowii

I would like to visit Carolyn's Shade Gardens some time. I'm on her newsletter and it seems like a really cool place.

Glad you were able to find some snowdrops. I didn't think they were a hard to find item but I haven't been looking either.

Jeff, you should check out Longview Nursery, 557 Hackman Rd, Lititz. Mom-and-Pop operation, open Thursday through mid-day Saturday. Shrubs $5.97.

Maybe I'll go up there on Saturday since it will be raining and I won't be able to work in the yard.

"may be too busy in spring"

Jeff, is there some sort of news you'd like to share?

*whistling*

Need your advice. Do you have any guidance on planting a Corylus avellana ' contorta'? I want to surprise my husband. Should I get seeds or plants? Are there places that you like where I should buy from? I haven't seen a lot of them but found a couple of places, including Dave's Garden of people who will trade - http://davesgarden.com/community/trading/search.php?search_text=PFPID:937. Much appreciated.

I'm pretty sure the contorted form can only be propagated by cuttings. Many commercial ones are grafted, and mine always tried to put up a lot of straight shoots from its woodstock -- be sure to prune those off right away, or they'll take over.

I had mine for probably 12 years, and I loved the look of it when the leaves were off or small... in summer, it looked like a pile of kudzu LOL, but in summer it was a green backdrop to other plants. It got a blight and gradually declined, then didn't make it through the winter last year... Apparently they are subject to that sort of thing, but it grew a lot while I had it! :-)

Dutch Plant Farm in Frederick nearly always has them, and I think I've seen them at Home Depot & Lowes in spring. Look for the name "Harry Lauder's Walking Stick" or "Contorted Filbert" on the label (or when you're asking somebody).

For what it's worth, mine was planted by the front corner of the house, facing north, and it did well there for years. Maybe a sunnier location would have helped prevented the blight issue, but that's uncertain. We had pretty nasty clay when we moved in, and I remember digging in some claybreaker amendment, but otherwise it just got mulch every year or two. I also ran a soaker hose by it so I could water deeply once a week in dry weather.

Let's just leave it at I 'may be too busy in the spring' for now :-)

Thamng: If it were me, I'd get a potted plant from a nursery. Forest Farm and Sooner Plant Farm are both listed as vendors who carry it. You might want to check them out; both are excellent sources.

Very helpful. Thank you!!!

Potomac Farms is another to try, near Frederick.

Behnke's will have them also, but they're about the same price as DPF.

I picked my Contorted Filbert when I was working at Lowes I got a great price on it but it does keep sending up straight branches and I keep cutting them off. I figured it must be a graft but I didn't notice that at the time I would have bought it anyway.

I had never seen Contorted Filbert at HD in Germantown or Gaithersburg but I'll keep an eye out for it. Thanks!

I know we had them at my HD last year. I remember the yellow tassle-blooms.

Pricey!!!!! $50 or $60. Not sure. Gita

I think ours might have originally been an $80 plant. I think they sold me it for $40 and I remember it was at least discounted at 1/2 price and maybe more. Not sure how many they had to begin with but mine was the last one in the garden center. I wasn't too happy when I realized that it was a graft. I never think to look or ask about that. It still looks very nice but I don't think that it has put out any new branches that aren't straight. It was one of the plants that got a good bit of attention at the picnic even though it is planted in a nook and not

I tried to root some branches of mine when I trimmed it (had to take out a couple of the lowest branches... mostly, this one should be left alone!), but they didn't "take." I didn't go about it seriously with rooting hormone & bottom heat, so I can't say an own-root one wouldn't work. I don't think I've ever seen an own-root one for sale, though. It could be that the grafted ones are more vigorous. Give yours time, Holly -- mine took off after a few years and put out plenty of new branches.

DPF had some small and (relatively) inexpensive ones last spring, but I know you want it now. :-) Fingers crossed for your DH today! I still remember the question that threw me for a loop -- and I got it wrong. At the very end of my orals, my advisor grinned like a Disney villain and asked, "Do frogs have teeth?"

Hehehe, actually, frogs have vomerine teeth. If I remembered that correctly.

yep. 3 points for you! I was at the Smithsonian a year later, had to run ino Natural history to check the bullfrog skeleton. I was pulling my hair out during the exam, though, drawing out cladograms, finally just making a WAG (wild guess) -- and getting it wrong.

Sequoia, Gardens of the Blue Ridge has a nice selection of native plants. Have you ordered from them before?

Nope I've never heard of them even until they came up in a Google search for something. I checked them out against the DG Watchdog and they seemed fine. I called and they said they were still shopping for this season. Hopefully the plants will be good quality.

So I got an interesting piece of mail yesterday. The water company wants me to call them today because they think I have a leak somewhere in our water system due to a spike in usage last quarter. To my knowledge nothing is leaking. I have to laugh when I think about it though because I think the usage spike is from all the watering I had to do. We'll see, I'm going to call them later to find out but I think that's what it is. Kind of funny anyway.

This message was edited Oct 7, 2015 7:48 AM

LOL Jeff, that's what I always think first when my water usage goes above the minimum!

Just yesterday morning after a fine start to my birthday, I noticed that my driveway parking area had not dried out and infact seemed wetter after all the rain and down slope drainage should have cleared. There was even a trickle of water across my drive to the ditch.

I called the Water Dept as they had recently made repairs to the old service line on my street and alerted them to a possible leak. The supervisor said he'd be over in a couple hours. I didn't think much more of it as when they did the repairs I had them check and verify that when I had all of the fixtures in my house turned off that my meter did not show any usage at all.

As I waited outside I began to investigate the wetness further and to my dismay found pools of standing water/muck about 40 feet up from my meter just where my water line angles over to my house. I poked around with a metel pipe and soon found a gusher above my line on the part of the meter that I have to pay for plus any repairs. The last water line repair, in that same area 25 yrs ago cost almost 3K. I started calling plumbers for estimates but the two I called were scheduling work for end of Oct! I packed as much clay into the area and then put a heavy log on top trying to slow the flow and went in the house and filled the bath tub and lots of water bottles so I could at least have the Water people turn off my service while I tried other plumbers.

By then Wayne was back from second job and neighbor and Harold from Water Dept came to investigate. Harold, bless his heart was just so great and helpful! So, now that we have a 4x4x4 foot hole above the water line leak and some guidance on repairing and another nice couple of gays, I think Wayne and I can DIO do it ourselves! And since it won't be cold for a long while we can take our time filling in the hole and (Plant Addict Alert) selecting a shallow rooted shrub to plant there! Either that or I'll have my first water feature!

Oh my gosh Coleup, what a terrible birthday present. It would have been cool had it been a natural spring that opened up but not your water line. Hopefully you'll be able to fix it for not much money.