Sunday, September 16, 2012

5 Tips for Landscaping Your New Home

by David Search

If you've just purchased a new home, your home's landscape is a blank slate for you to shape as you see fit. Completely overhauling the landscaping may feel overwhelming at the beginning, but with a few helpful tips, anyone can make it a manageable task.

1. Plan Your Landscaping

If you've decided to start from nothing with your new landscaping, make a detailed plan before you begin. You can look at other landscapes around your area to get inspiration for your own design. When you start to get an idea of how you want your landscape to look, sketch it out carefully. In your sketch, makes notes of which areas of your garden receive the most sunlight. This is a great time to start thinking about what you plants you intend to use.

A good landscaping plan can take you a lot of time, but it will help your garden succeed and flourish.

2. Investigate Your Irrigation Options

If you plan an ambitious landscaping project, you will need to explore your irrigation options. Your new home may already come equipped with a thorough network of sprinklers, or you may need to install more. Your watering options will significantly impact how well your new plants will thrive.

3. Examine the Soil

The soil surrounding your new home may require some extra help and nurturing before you can begin to plant. If you are buying a newly constructed home, the dirt around the house may be low quality and have suffered the ill effects of nearby construction. You may need to replace this soil with more suitable and fertile soil to give your new plants a chance to grow.

4. Buy the Right Plants

If you haven't already carefully researched the plants you want to use, do so now. If you're new to landscaping and gardening, avoiding buying difficult plants that need frequent care and attention. Native plants are ideal because they require little special care from you. You should also look for the healthiest plants you can find. Avoid purchasing any plants that look sick or tired. You are likely not yet familiar with how well plants will grow around your new house, so choose hardy plants that can survive most conditions.

5. Develop Over Time

After your plants have began to take root and your landscape has started to form, don't hesitate to edit. Over time, as your experience grows, you may find that some plants and flowers just aren't working in your design. Landscaping presents a unique living canvas that you can continually modify. Don't be afraid to try new things and make mistakes. You can always try again with a different plant.
Some individuals quickly discover they undertook more gardening than they could handle. An ambitious project has the potential to go awry and turn into a mess of weeds. If your garden is becoming too much for you to handle, consider hiring help or removing some of the more difficult plants. Your landscape should be a joy and not a chore that consumes all of your free time.

Friday, September 7, 2012

How and Why to Deadhead Plants

~ excerpts from an article by Marcia Leeper



If your goal is to get the most flowers possible, deadheading is a familiar task. But there are other reasons to remove faded flowers besides increasing blooms. 


Why Deadhead? 


Plants survive by flowering and then forming seeds. When you remove faded flowers, not only do you tidy the plant, you interrupt that cycle and prevent seed formation. When you deadhead re-blooming perennials and most annuals, they respond by sending up more flowers, trying to produce seeds. Perennials with a single bloom period redirect the energy they would've used for seed production into their foliage and roots instead, which makes the plants bigger and stronger for the next season. 


Leave These Seeds...


On the other hand, a case can be made not to deadhead certain plants. You may want seedlings from a short-lived perennial, such as columbine, to ensure you'll have more of the plants down the road. And sometimes the seed heads themselves (like those of coneflower) add fall or winter interest and attract birds to your garden.  Finally, the spent flowers of some plants like impatiens usually fall off cleanly on their own and don’t need deadheading.  I'll share nine more of these self-cleaning flowers below in "No need to deadhead."

To help you decide if or how you should deadhead, check out some popular annuals and perennials. You'll learn why and when you should remove the blooms and the fastest way to do it. Each profile also includes some test garden tips to keep your own garden as flowery, and as tidy, as possible all season long.  ~ by Marcia Leeper



Coleus Solenostemon hybrids


WHY DEADHEAD? Grown for their colorful leaves, the flowers aren’t interesting and just distract from the gorgeous foliage display.

WHAT TO DO: Deadheading is a snap – or rather, a pinch. With your finger and thumb grasp the stem below the flowers and pinch it off. Just above a set of leaves is best, but if you pinch lower or leave a stub behind, don’t worry – the plant will be fine. You won’t need to pinch all coleus. Some newer cultivars are bred to flower very little. And others bloom so late that they won’t require pinching. 


Black-eyed Susan


WHY DEADHEAD? Prolong the bloom time of this perennial by snipping off the faded flowers or cutting fresh one for bouquets.

WHAT TO DO: Because the flower stems can be tough, use prunes to cut them. Tidy the plant by snipping just above the nearest leaf. To stimulate a late crop of blooms, cut lower and remove clusters of spent flowers. The resulting blooms will be smaller. Since the seedheads provide food for birds leave some on the plant – especially later in the summer. 


Geranium Pelargonium hybrids


WHY DEADHEAD?  The big bright blooms are stunning, but once they fade, they're an eyesore.

WHAT TO DO:  It may take several weeks for all of the blossoms in a cluster to finish, so until they all fade use your fingers to comb out spent flowers. As the whole head finishes, snap the entire flower stem off at its base. Or if you prefer, use sharp scissors or pruners to cut the tough stem. Cut low so the stub won't show above the foliage.  Eventually it'll turn brown and drop off.


Snapdragon Antirrhinum spp. and hybrids


WHY DEADHEAD? Cutting back the spent flower stems stimulates buds on side stems to open, giving you lots more color.

WHAT TO DO:  In a container or border you want constant flowers, so cut the spent stem down to any side branches that are showing buds. The flower buds on these side stems will open within a week on a shorter, fuller plant. But if you want long stems for bouquets, cut the stem down within a few inches of the ground.   It'll take the plant longer to recover but you'll have taller floral spires.



DON'T WANT TO DEADHEAD?  


Looking to simplify your garden maintenance or just don't want to bother with deadheading? Here are five annuals and four perennials that look fine without having their spent flowers removed.

   Annuals                                                    Perennials


 
• Bidens Bidens ferulifolia                         • Old-fashioned bleeding heart
• Calibrachoa Cafibrachoa hybrids                Lamprocapnosspectabifis
• Fanflower Scaevofa hybrids                    • Peruvian lily Afstroerhea hybrids
• Nemesia Nemesia hybrids                       • Russian sage Perovskia atitplis;jfofia
• Vinca Catharanthus roseus                    • Woodland phlox Phlox divaricata laphamii