Looking for deals on great plants? Try a horticultural sale

I went to a plant sale hosted by our local university's horticulture department a while back and got some great finds. The plants are grown by students for their classes and then sold to keep the lab running.

If you live in a community with any institution that does plant sales (universities, public gardens, etc.) I highly recommend checking one out. Each sale I go to I find some old standby plants to add to my collection and tempting new plants to experiment with. The most expensive plant I bought at this particular sale was the $6 verbana above. The fig trees were $5 each (a steal!) and the rest of the plants were $1-$2, and all were in excellent health. I may never buy droopy, overpriced plants at a big box store or "garden center" again!

My personal favorite discovery was this "pumpkin tree" (Solanum integrifolium), an ornamental member of the eggplant family. It's an experiment but my three-year-old daughter I just about flipped when we saw it. She's desperate to eat one of the little guys so I'll have to figure out how they are typically used (apparently they are used in Asian food but are quite bitter).

There was a beautiful Devil's Trumpet that I couldn't resist. Ours is poisonous in large quantities so I'll plant it with other ornamentals instead of in our food garden.

Our deal of the day were the large fig trees we purchased for $5 apiece. We have one that has thrived on our property for 30 years, and are eagerly adding new ones, watering them when we remember to, and hoping they survive the blistering summer heat. These three are sitting out the summer in the shade of the porch, where we notice the slightest signs of wilt and can be counted on to keep them alive until cooler fall weather arrives.

More Volunteers

I admire the experts who seem to know everything about plants and can identify them in all stages. But I do enjoy the sleuthing required when I find mystery plants in my yard. Like Z's weed, I've enjoyed the bounty of volunteers that crop up in the middle of nowhere.

Last year I transplanted anything that looked a little different, hoping that I might get lucky. I was rewarded for my kindness this year with a sea of blue forget-me-nots complemented by cheery yellow poppies. (We won't dwell on the saga of the yellow hawkweed I nurtured to unforgettable heights before its ultimate identification!)

Forget-me-nots and poppies spread quickly one year after transplanting volunteers from the lawn

This year I found a chocolate lily (which was unfortunately squashed before I could try the transplant and official identification). I also found some low-bush cranberry and dwarf dogwood that are quite happy right where they are.

Another mystery plant that multiplied by itself this year is the dogberry, or timberberry. I was quite curious about the difference in color between individual plants before I read that the variegated specimens are likely taking over roots of other plants, as it is semi-parasitic. Since the berry is reportedly not very tasty, this may be one volunteer I'll send packing!

Low-bush cranberry

Dwarf dogwood

These are both timberberry:

A DIY garden path: Take a walk on the lazy side

My mother-in-law made a great garden path and offered to write about it for Gardenaut. Take it away, Karen:

Gardeners are not what you would usually term a lazy bunch. But even the most energetic of us have a slothful streak every now and then. I tend to look for shortcuts that perfectionists wouldn't think of.

The design and construction of our garden walk was a shortcut of major proportions. Previously in this area was a dreadful path made from pine bark mulch. Weeds cropped up in the mulch on a regular basis and the mulch washed out with every rain. But putting in a standard professional looking paver walkway with the leveled sand base was just too much for me to even consider. So my husband and I came up with this idea. We did have to rake the old mulch out and haul bags of gravel in, but all in all it was a project that we could handle in a few hours each day spaced over a couple of weekends.

We worked in small sections for several reasons. One we could design as we went, a major plus since we were too lazy to draw out plans. Also we did not want to tear the whole yard up at once, just in case we never finished it. Finishing a section at a time gave us more instant gratification, and it was easier to haul smaller loads of gravel from the supply store that way (it was too much trouble to rent a truck).

After raking out the mulch we placed a 4' wide barrier cloth on the ground in 4' x 4' sections. The 4' square section was then bordered with landscaping pavers and a 4" x 4" piece of treated lumber. A square paver placed in the center turned on a diagonal for the visual effect provides a stable walking base. We filled the area around the paver and lumber with sand. To top off the area we used two sizes of gravel, a small pea gravel then a larger river rock on top. Sand was then sprinkled over the top surface several times to fill in the gaps.

The photo shows the walk after a year of use, no weeds, the gravel firmly in place, and it still looks nice. The only problems we have encountered is that the lumber pieces are a little shifty, but we have resolved that by staking the wood with crude wood stakes driven in below the level of the gravel. A few of the pavers have drifted a little too. Maybe someday we will fix those. For now, we're feeling a little lazy.

A hedge on the ten-year plan

I used to hate hedges, kind of like some people hate golf or the color pink. I think it was subliminal reverse-classism on my part. I've since gotten over it, knock on wood). Then I saw Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control, which features a topiary artist (among other eccentrics), shown above. The film taught me to appreciate the fetishized neatness of an ornamental hedge. Especially in my garden, which is quite messy (plants flopping all around, grass hopping the barriers, slugs evident). In that environment, a neatly clipped hedge seems to say "See, I AM capable of control, I just choose not to wield that power."

Still from the film Fast, Cheap and Out of Control

What really hooked me was figuring out you don't have to stick to boxwoods - you can use flowering or berry-producing shrubs and create something interesting that is also beneficial to birds and insects. You can mix up varieties in the same hedge. The only constraint I've found is the plant needs to be small-leaved if it's going to look good sheared.

A 2 year old cutting!

But did you ever realize how expensive a hedge can be? I wanted mine to be made from native huckleberries. At 13 dollars a plant times 20 plants, that's 260 dollars! No way. Luckily, I found one of the closely related vacciniums already in my garden sprouts from cuttings. It's been a couple years since I took these cuttings and they're finally putting on some weight. Maybe in a decade I'll finally have my little hedge. And it won't cost me a dime!

Divide and prune

The Secret Garden was one of my favorite books as a child. I especially love the scene where Mary discovers large green shoots beginning to poke out of the ground: she doesn't know a thing about plants, but she instinctively thinks they won't be able to breathe with all the other plants around, so she clears a space around them. Rob and I are certainly not experts, but we've learned how to trust our instincts while following conventional gardener's wisdom regarding pruning and dividing. Both can help ensure you will have more and bigger blooms.

Our old-fashioned climbing roses are taking over the side of the house. Rob plans to build a trellis for them later this month, which we hope will detract from the old, flaking, peeling shutters - or, alternately, add to their charm.

To prune these guys, wait until the blooms have faded and shriveled and the ground is covered with dry, crunchy petals. Then simply cut off the dead blooms along with the closest pair of leaves. It takes longer than lopping off the stalks to a uniform length, but over the years, we've found it is incredibly effective, encouraging many, many blooms. We'll often even get a second flowering out of them later in the season.

Dividing is one of the easiest things you can do to your plants, and we love it because we feel like we're getting free plants out of the deal! With many plants, you can simply dig out the clump, chop it in half and replant the halves. The timing has to be right, though, so do some research first.

We had some yellow irises along the side of the house which grew to about a foot tall. We liked them so much that we decided to divide them to see if they'd take over more territory. Since they bloomed in the spring, we divided them in the fall.

They don't grow down but rather across, as they're rhizomes (think of the clumps of ginger you see at the grocery store). It was easy to pry a huge clump out of the ground, and I didn't follow the precise instructions of cutting them with a sharp, sterile knife; I just broke them into pieces, each piece with a small bud attached. We replanted the pieces in three places, including their original home, and had 4 or 5 gallon-sized bags of leftovers, which we gave away to friends.

We weren't sure if they'd bloom the next year, but they did. And this year, they have surprised us by growing at least twice as tall. They love the extra breathing room!

The moral of the story is, check with the pros, but trust your instincts. Just like Mary.

Garbage plants

This section of the garden is where I put all the plants I can't fit anywhere else. Imagine my surprise when they matured into this lovely community of leaf shapes, colors and sizes.

Clockwise from bottom left: Extra Foxglove, Russian Sage, Witch Hazel (the only thing planned for this spot), cool Japanese grass, a weird blueberry adapted to the Southern states, Swordfern.

Hope springs eternal

Our house is in the middle of a hill between two wetlands, and for years it that seemed as the snow melted each spring it ran down the hill and seeped up into our basement. After last spring, when it took eight kind neighbors and me five hours to empty the entire soggy basement while the dad was on a work trip, we realized we needed a plan. That fall we decided the way to keep water out of our basement each spring was to re-grade part of our backyard and replace our deck.

We drew up a modest little deck with a small expansion, painstakingly got city approval, and had lumber and a bobcat delivered. he only way to get the bobcat into the backyard, without destroying the aforementioned kind neighbors' lawn, was to drive through one of our side gardens.

The very prettiest garden I had. The one that people out on walks stop and ask about. My pride and joy. Fine. I stood in the garden and guarded the heirloom peonies, originally from my grandma's house, that I had already moved to three different houses. (We wrote it into the purchase agreements.) Everything was squashed.

Earlier this spring a few bulbs came up amidst the gravel and tire tracks. Just the other day I noticed a few other green things. Hope springs eternal...

Silver garden

One of the first things Rob and I wanted to do in our little suburban yard was get a handle on the back corner. The previous owners had bought the house and "fixed it up" only to re-sell it a few months later, so they hadn't been thinking long-term when they ripped out some shrubs and didn't re-plant the area very well. In particular, there was a tenacious species of morning-glory weed that seemed bent on reproducing itself as many times as possible before the frost came. We're still fighting that battle!

It was our very first gardening project, so we made some mistakes, particularly in using some pretty native grasses without containers. One in particular, called "ribbon grass," sends up sweet little pink-and-green shoots that turn into lots of monstrous white-and-green stalks. It really is a nice effect when allowed to go wild, but we had a definite place in mind for it, so it's not as successful here - we just keep ripping it out and cutting it back every year.

In general, though, we're very happy with the way the garden looks. We both love the silvery-green leaves and white blossoms, especially at this time of year!

The plants we used (not all are visible): Spirea; Artemisia; Lavender Cotton; Elijah Blue Fescue; Blue Lyme Grass; Ribbon Grass; Dianthus/Pinks; Creeping Woolly Thyme; Lamb's Ears. We also have French Lavender and Dusty Miller on the other side.

Too much of a good thing

Once again, the sun and rain in our corner of the world have given us entirely too much success. This corner by the front steps is kind of a mess:

Competing for the same space we have:

1. A large white azalea. At its peak right now, and lovely!
2. Resurrection Lilies. Growing through the azalea; the ungainly foliage dies back, and the flowers emerge alone in a couple of months.
3. Arum. Probably the main mistake here; I planted it for the little berry-like red flowers that emerge later in the year, and obviously didn't take into account the huge triangular leaves, which are gorgeous but rather out of place here.
4. Daffodils. Bottom left; planted by the squirrels, who move them around every year.
5. Tulips. Tthis is the saddest part. Look at them, trying so valiantly to be seen! I thought the dark purple/black flowers would be so nice next to the white azalea, too.
6. A lone peony. Can you spot it? We've tried twice to dig up all the peonies in the front and move them to the side, where the blooms last longer in the shade. But this one stalk continues to defy us.
7. Weeds. You'd think there wouldn't be any room left for them, but you'd be wrong.
   

Any suggestions? How can this space be nicer - or at least have some room to breathe?