As Digital Content Editor Christine Alexander explains, pollinators play a vital role in our ecosystem and we should all be doing our part to support their populations:
21.07.2023 - 23:09 / awaytogarden.com
WITH THE FIRST SNOW FORECAST, and juncos and other winter birds showing up in fast-increasing numbers, my thoughts (and theirs) these colder, windy days are turning to the importance of conifers. There are no better woody plants to tuck into if you’re a bird, and no more beautiful ones to look out at when you’re tucked inside if you’re a gardener. Doesn’t that branch of the weeping Alaska cedar (above, last winter) look like a drapey shawl? Another look at some of my favorites, after a quick tip about browning needles: As I mentioned in October’s garden chores, it’s disconcerting when suddenly all your evergreens looks like they’re turning brown from the inside out (like the golden hinoki cypress, above). As long as what’s dead is on the inner portion of the branches or twigs, it’s simply the normal shedding of the oldest foliage, which lasts several years then fades in fall. If it’s unsightly, I rub the dead bits off with a gentle pass of my hand, or just wait until nature does the job.Favorite Coniferous Trees(click any green type to link to the profile of that plant)
Golden hinoki cypress, Chamaecyparis obtusa ‘Crippsii’
Japanese umbrella pine, Sciadopitys verticillata
Concolor fir, Abies concolor
Weeping Alaska cedar, Chamaecyparis nootkatensis ‘Pendula’
Korean fir, Abies koreana
Lacebark pine, Pinus bungeana
Favorite Coniferous ShrubsRussian arborvitae, Microbiota decussata
Golden spreading yew, Taxus baccata ‘Repandens Aurea’
Dwarf white pine,Pinus strobus ‘Nana’
Conifer SlideshowIf you missed it earlier this year, tour the above favorites and more in my slideshow of favorites conifers.
Categoriesconifers for beginners trees & shrubsAs Digital Content Editor Christine Alexander explains, pollinators play a vital role in our ecosystem and we should all be doing our part to support their populations:
Flowers are usually the first things that grab our attention when we are selecting plants to add to our landscapes. However, most plants only flower for a short period of time, so it behooves us to consider plants’ other attributes—and there are many! Sometimes the same flowers that seduced us into opening our wallets are replaced with an amazing fruit display. Colorful fruits of all shapes and sizes can add drama to our landscapes throughout the year. In addition to their visual beauty, many fruits are important sources of nutrition for wildlife, particularly birds. Here are a few examples of awesome plants whose fruit shines in the garden in summer, fall, and winter.
Living and working in northwestern Oregon, garden designer Wesley Younie is no stranger to dealing with challenging environments. When presented with this garden’s elevation changes, drainage management, and extreme climate conditions, he devised a plan that addresses it all—along with a specific functional wish list from the homeowners. Want to know which plants he used? Here are the plant IDs for this beautiful, sustainable landscape.
In their original environments, invasive plants are restrained by their natural adversaries, with whom they co-evolved. However, when they are introduced to a new environment without these natural enemies, some plants can flourish and spread uncontrollably, ultimately becoming invasive.
The abundance of beautiful and well-grown houseplants gives a special sense of comfort at home. Apart from being pleasing to the eye, some house plants have the ability to purify the air quality.
There are two common species of larch Larix kaempferi (aka leptolepis the Japanese Larch) and European Larch Larix decidua. As the name implies the Larch looses their tufted leaves in autumn. They grow in most conditions but do not like wet or chalky soil
Fritilliary in damp shade
Grasses are just not limited to meadows anymore, some of them are prized for their aesthetics and grown in containers for their architectural appeal! Moreover, it’s becoming a trend to grow them indoors, which is why we’ve selected 9 Best Ornamental Indoor Grass varieties that you can grow as a houseplant.
Each year, I look forward to watching the bleak winter landscape begin to come to life as if transitioning from black and white to Technicolor. Yellow is one of the first colors to appear with the flowers of forsythia and our state flower, yellow jessamine. As I was driving to work this week, I noticed a new color emerge amidst the roadside trees.
First, the disclaimer. I know I said the plant is specifically Pinus strobus ‘Nana,’ and that’s how mine came to me, but here’s the wrinkle: ‘Nana’ is kind of a grab-bag name for many relatively compact- or mounded-growing Eastern white pines, a long-needled species native to Eastern North America, from Canada to Georgia and out to Ohio and Illinois.Today, you can shop for named varieties that are really compact, with distinctive and somewhat more predictable shapes, like‘Coney Island’ or ‘Blue Shag’ (to name two cultivars selected by the late Sydney Waxman at the University of Connecticut, who had a particular passion for this species).I could have pinched the tips of the new growth, or candles, by half each year to keep
At the time of the transplanting of the young umbrella pine, I had never seen another except in botanical-garden collections; unusual or rare was the word. Now they’re at nurseries, but usually quite small and always quite expensive, and they’re pretty easy to kill, at least at first. But what did I know when I uprooted the tree and had it put in that truck?I was just getting really serious about plants, and was a beginning garden writer, meaning I had the privilege of getting paid to visit gardens and nurseries and interview experts for stories. Those years formed my advanced education in horticulture—and also my downfall in self-control. Everybody showed me or told me about something I simply had to have. Or two or three.An umbrella pine first spoke to me in a come-hither voice at Planting Fields Arboretum in Oyster Bay, Long Island, a place I’d visited a lot as a
SOMETIME AGO, I overheard visitors to one of the country’s finest public gardens recounting their experience. “I liked it,” said one woman, who called herself a professional gardener, “but I didn’t like that all the plants touched.” I think perhaps she missed the point: That’s the best part, the making of botanical mosaics, the weaving-together of things; the part when the mulch disappears.