UGLY LEAVES! WHAT TO DO?

What to do with ugly, dying leaves? It seems that gardeners never tire of creating ways to hide unsightly, yellowing daffodil and tulip leaves!

Once the flower blooms and the petals fall off, if you are crazy like me, you can cut the flower stalks so that the "fruit" won't have a chance to form. That way, the energy that it would take to form the seeds will instead go into the bulb for the next year.

As for the leaves, when they are still green but start to flop over, it is okay to cut off the top half of the leaves, allowing the remaining part of the leaves to continue photosynthesizing, sending food to the bulb (a storage stem). They will stay upright for a while longer. When the leaves turn yellow, you can cut them to the base of the plant. Some people braid them (sorry to say that I once did that), twist them and tuck them under themselves, and/or bend and push them under surrounding plants. All are fine to do and you just have to decide how much labor you are willing to put in.

If you live in the Philadelphia, PA area, don't forget to stop by the Tamanend Art Show, Saturday, May 19, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. You can check out my flower paintings, Bucks County covered bridges, and beach scenes. There will be lots of other artists displaying their work, too. All art will be for sale. Refreshments will be served.

For details http://uppermoreland.patch.com/events/tamanend-park-art-show-93ba8424

Happy Gardening!

Posted by Barbara Rosenzweig

 

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EARLY SPRING BONUS TIME

It’s finally time to get out in the garden and have some fun! One of the many bonuses of gardening is the ability to increase your bounty by dividing your plants. Whether to fill in bare spots, move color and texture to new places, or simply share, dividing has huge payoffs.

For those who haven’t tried it yet, here are a few of the many plants that readily lend themselves to this procedure. You can try it on plants with fibrous roots, as well as those with corms and bulbs, like iris and daylilies.

                                                          Daylilies

                                                          Daylilies

                                                            Iris

Dividing Plants:

Japanese Primrose and Green and Gold (chrysogonum virginiannum 'allen bush'- a great ground cover!) To divide these plants and others in early spring, dig up the entire clump when it is small and carefully ease the individual plants apart, grasping the bottom of the leaves, near the roots. You can see these separate plants by their shared clump of roots. It is best to do this division a few days after a rain, when the soil is not heavy, but not dried out either. Then simply replant the new clumps in their new locations. This can also be done successfully later in the season, even when the plant is in bloom, but expect that it will wilt and need to be watered frequently. If you wait until it flowers, it is best to remove the blossoms (as painful as that may be), to allow the plant to recover more quickly from the shock.

(These plant photos are of my garden.)

                                       Chrysogonum with Wood Hyacinths

                                              Pink Bleeding Hearts

                                              White Bleeding Hearts

                                                      Japanese Primrose

                                                 Primrose (Primula)

These two methods can be used for dividing most plants and it is fun to experiment!

THE POWER OF PURPLE

Early spring is a wonderful season to see how purple blooms, as well as the blues, enhance the depth of your garden. Grape hyacinths, Vinca minor, lungwort (Pulmonaria), and perennial forget-me-nots (Brunnera) all help punch up the contrast to our bright spring blooms – daffodils, tulips, and hyacinths.

                                            Red Parrot Tulip and Grape Hyacinths

                       Tahiti Daffodil with Grape Hyacinths and Vinca minor (Periwinkle) groundcover

                                          Tete-a-Tete Daffodils with Grape Hyacinths

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SPRING GARDENING TIPS

Pack the plants together to keep down weeds and create large sweeps of color.

• Be sure that all dead foliage from last fall is cleared away.
• Now the fun begins!  
• As young perennials continue their spring “rebirth,” you can take advantage of their wonderful ability to be divided.  Masses of a single color can be created and color can be brought to new areas of your garden. Think of your landscape as a lovely painting just waiting to be “completed” with colors from your flower palette. This way, too, bare spots can be filled with the added goal of preventing weed growth. And, of course, you can always share your bounty with gardening buddies

Here again, masses of color are very effective. In early spring, keep dividing perennials and massing them.

• Some of the plants that may be divided now are bleeding hearts, asters, primrose, iris, daylilies, and chrysogonum. This is best done before they get too big. If you wait too long in the season to divide and transplant them, excessive wilting or death may result.
• To make plants bushier, cut back beautyberry, roses, St. John’s Wort, buddleia, and caryopteris in late March, early April.

 Daffodils put on a beautiful early spring show. Use creeping phlox as a ground cover to set them off.

• New study: The Royal National Rose Society gardens in England conducted a rose trial that seems to prove that rose deadheading radically effects its rebloom. “If it is clipped off at the neck, rather than to the first leaf bearing five leaflets, as rose wisdom once dictated, the bush reblooms sooner, with 50% more flowers over the season."

Primrose is another perennial that can be used effectively in masses or borders.

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