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The joys of gardening
Local nurseries can help add magic to your yard
by Kate N. Nichols
Nurseries are filled with containers of colorful flowers and unusual foliage so customers can walk out the door with a garden. Perhaps your garden needs the the Ivory Prince hellebore pictured here.
Fields of red and yellow tulips are blooming in Skagit Valley against the backdrop of the Cascade Mountains; purple and white violets are peeking out of the ground. The yearly procession of flowers has begun.
It is time to visit nurseries to see what new plants are available, like the “Ivory Prince” hellebore and “Ruby Slippers” dogwood, which was developed locally. Nurseries are filled with containers of colorful flowers and unusual foliage so customers can walk out the door with a garden. If a homeowner needs help deciding the fate of a winter-damaged plant or making a choice about a new one, this corner of the Northwest has excellent resources.
Although gardeners’ fingers are itching to get back in the dirt, “watch the foothills and wait a week or two after the snow has melted out of them,” to determine when it’s safe to plant, says long-time gardener Linda Quintana, owner of Alpine Farms in Deming.
This is the season for home gardeners “to take the time to amend the soil,” she recommended. “Don’t forget lime to sweeten the soil, taking care to work it around established plants.” She also adds liquid kelp or fish fertilizer. It’s still too cold at night to put out most tender plants except for peas.
Now a gardener can assess the damage from this year’s harsh winter. The cold weather in November came before plants were dormant so there is significant damage to some plants, even natives.
Let the experts help
Are you tired of the way your yard looks? Cloud Mountain Farm in Everson is a great resource to help you perk up your yard.
Tom and Cheryl Thornton own Cloud Mountain Farm. Their landscape service offers as much help as a homeowner wants, from amending soil for the home gardener to work in, to designing and planting a landscape. Tom Thornton said, “we work with people on all levels.”
A landscaper is an “artistic technician,” he said. Although “homeowners know their property,” Thornton knows the properties of plants. He has been working with them for 30 years. “We can tell a homeowner if the plants are spaced properly or shading sun-loving plants. I can tell them the future size of the plant – how big will it get in three to 10 years, 15 to 25 years.” He knows what plants work “in combination and in seasonal succession.”
Kevin Burke, Cloud Mountain’s landscape designer, has formal art and design training plus more than 20 years of experience. Typically an onsite consultation takes 1 to 1-1/2 hours and costs $75 per hour.
Thornton helps homeowners think through their goals for the yard. “How do they want to use the space and what is the reality of what they will maintain?” He sees “more people staying home who want to use their yard as an outdoor extension of their house. Whether it is two people who want to sit in the privacy of a small patio or to entertain large groups.” Homeowner’s requirements are often challenged with conflicting desires, such as lots of sun and big trees.
When there are existing beds that a homeowner wants to “make more interesting and exciting” Thornton can “design on the spot.” After a consultation, the customer can go out to the nursery and pick out plants. Then Thornton brings the plants and places them in the beds. “When the homeowner is satisfied with the way their yard looks, they can plant the plants themselves or let Cloud Mountain landscapers do the work.”
Cloud Mountain grows 80 percent of its plants, but buys plants from 20 to 25 different nurseries in the Northwest. If a homeowner wants a particular plant that Cloud Mountain doesn’t have, they can order it. Often there is a reason they don’t carry it and Thornton can explain to the homeowner why a particular plant might not work in their garden.
Cloud Mountain landscapers try not to have a “typical look” with a signature plant. They respond to the homeowners’ vision.
Landscaping trends
Debbie Hewlett, marketing director at Skagit Gardens, a wholesale nursery, generally sees trends that “match lifestyle changes, although people still want pretty gardens.” She identifies three current landscape trends:
• The first is a desire to have “plants that have a longer season of interest,” sometimes by having unique foliage or bark; plants that are interesting year round.
• Another trend among homeowners is that they lead busier lives, so they “are not digging in the dirt and loosing themselves in the work, they want instant landscaping.” Homeowners often use containers of plants as decorative pieces that they change from season to season.
• Gardens have downsized, yards are “more suited for urban gardens,” so people are looking for “more compact and well-behaved” plants.
Other garden considerations are suitability to our climate, deer resistance and drought tolerance in the summer, said Zoe Howell at Christianson Nursery in Mount Vernon. She also mentioned that people like “tropical plants.” Terry Maczuga, nursery manager at Cloud Mountain, agrees that homeowners often desire plants that aren’t hardy enough for this climate, what she calls “zonal denial.”
The demand for fruit trees and shrubs is a constant said Maczuga. Last year Cloud Mountain brought some of their nursery stock to the Farmer’s Market for the first time and customers were clamoring for apple trees with tastier fruit, such as the Esposus Spitzenburg: heritage apples from English stock from the mid 1500s. Maczuga, who lights up when she talks apples, said people are also starting to grow apples to make hard cider and want a variety of flavor. Cloud Mountain is now propagating custom apple trees for customers.
Bamboo for year-around interest, tropical look
When looking for different plants for a garden, bamboo is coming to mind more often. Anne Schwartz and Michael Bondi own Blue Heron Farm and Nursery in Rockport. They specialize in growing more than 150 varieties of bamboo, which they sell all over Puget Sound.
Normally the phrase “harvest it, eat it, try it, you’ll like it” isn’t associated with grass, but Schwartz reminds customers that tender new bamboo shoots are edible. Although most people appreciate bamboo for its graceful, Asian appearance and soft rustling sound, it has multiple outdoor uses. The sturdy canes can be made into wind chimes, furniture and fountain water spouts. The leaves can be used for weaving. It is “an amazing plant,” she raves.
Bamboo can create an evergreen screen of differing heights up to 50 inches. The canes can be yellow or black or different shades of green. Some varieties can be used as a ground cover.
Bamboo has a bad rap for spreading, but “if it is properly maintained, it can be controlled … by harvesting or mowing” or by root barriers that prevent it from wandering into the neighbor’s yard or under sidewalks. There is an increase in the number of clumping bamboo, varieties that won’t run out of the garden. This versatile grass will add interest to any garden, any time of the year.
Garden art – adding whimsy or a traditional look
Most folks driving down Highway 20 heading toward Anacortes have noticed the sculptures along the fence at Barone Garden Art. The park of resting deer, lions, frogs, laughing pigs, menacing gargoyles, serene Virgin Marys and angels ranges from the whimsical to the traditional with benches, fountains and gazing globes.
“Smiling Buddhas, oriental lanterns, deer and other animals are the most popular items,” said Kay Kim. Kim and her husband, Tim Kang, run the business. Some people “spend all day looking, they are having fun. Some buy small and then come back for more,” said Kim.
Wrought iron gates and handcrafted granite sculptures offered at Barone come from China, but most of their pieces are manufactured in the United States from lightweight concrete. The “cast stone” process has a long tradition dating back to 1138. Concrete is poured into molds; the end pieces have the appearance of sculpted stone. One of the companies that they buy from, A. Silvestri Co., are fifth generation Italians casting original and reproductions of European pieces.
Kim and Kang also make pieces on site, including custom stepping-stones, and they will custom paint purchases. If customers don’t want to get out of the car, they can drive through the yard and stop in front of the shop to buy their art. It’s worth stopping by to see the creatures and statutes and even to bring home a bit of magic.
Downsizing with imagination
Despite a small size, urban yards can grow orchards with a variety of fruit trees. Cloud Mountain carries fruit trees that can be grown four feet apart and in containers on a deck. Maczuga said that a 6-foot apple tree could yield 50-60 pounds of fruit annually.
No room for a vegetable garden? What about mixing vegetables among the flowers? Linda Quintana suggests planting scarlet runner beans to run up a trellis for their bright red-colored blossoms or purple pole beans or even lemon cucumbers. Other vegetables that she is enthusiastic about tucking between greenery are purple broccoli, red cabbage and rainbow Swiss chard.
When thinking about the texture of leaves, squash isn’t the first one come to mind, but the ”sun through squash leaves,” is one of Quintana’s favorite sights. She likes to let squash amble through her flowers. “Root vegetables like beets and carrots don’t work well in flower gardens because of the holes they leave after you harvest them. But, lettuce mixes are great along a border garden, allowing other plants to shade it,” she said.
Nurseries have responded to the demand for container gardens by having them available already planted.
How a new plant is developed Wells Nursery LLC in Mount Vernon celebrates its 70th year as a family owned business in the horticulture industry as a grower, wholesaler and retailer of choice conifers, many that they introduced.
At Wells, they seek to generate high-end ornamentals that are not widely available. They want “plants of merit,” highly regarded plants because they are hardy, pest-free and simple to maintain. They also ask the basic question, do we like it? Because of the length of time to develop a plant they take all of these factors and financial sustainability into consideration.
General Manager Neil Hall, who developed many plants, said, “in most cases, special seedlings have been selected and evaluated over a period of four to five years,” before the grafting process begins. “We graft 65,000-70,000 conifers per year,” and each spring they ship, by refrigerated semis, to the Midwest and East Coast.
Roger Ragusa, retail division manager, said that to develop a new plant, they often use non-typical growth on a plant, called witch’s broom, which shows a pattern or growth in a unique way that can be ornamental. They take cuttings from the area of the plant and graft them on to compatible understock. It takes two years before a plant is ready to put out in the field at the nursery’s Riverbend Farm in North Mount Vernon. It can take 10 to 12 years before there are enough plants for market. When developing a plant the growers at Wells show it to others in the trade both locally and nationally to get feedback.
A couple of successful introductions are the “Mount Vernon” dwarf Japanese white pine and Cornus kousa koreanisis “Ruby Slippers” dogwood, which took 16 years to develop. The original pink dogwood stood out in the field of white dogwoods. They took grafts from it; the progeny has retained the deep pink color that now graces many home gardens. Continuing its innovations, Ragusa said Wells is getting scion (pronounced sign) wood, grafting wood in layman’s terms, from Snohomish to produce a deep burgundy foliated vine maple.
Introductions are “more fast-paced,” than they used to be, but even flowers take time to grow said Hewlett. Skagit Gardens had the exclusive marketing for an English breeder who introduced the hellebore “Ivory Prince.” It took five years for the plant to reach the “critical mass and become widely available,” she said. This year at Seattle’s Northwest Flower & Garden Show, according to Hewlett, “it was seen everywhere.”
“Sometimes a breeder has a vision,” said Hewlett and cross-pollinates plants to create a particular color or characteristic. Such as the breeder in Georgia who created yellow and orange echinaceas from purple coneflowers.
The next trend to watch for is biodegradable decorative containers, said Hewlett.
Purple broccoli, apples from the 15th century, red-and-white-striped beets, who knew gardening could be so exciting? Grab a trowel or the nearest landscaper and add some magic to your yard.
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