Dec 06
0

Proper herbaceous perennial cutback

By | gardening, Tips | No Comments

Rudbeckia stubs

Rudbeckia


Every fall I shake my head at landscapers rushing perennial cutback by using power shears. To avoid shredding all of the green foliage, they cut the flower stems high, leaving a nasty stub. And because they use power shears, they have to go in and clean up, which means they didn’t save any time at all. (Don’t even get me started on air and noise pollution.)

Instead, I wish they would slow down and enjoy the cutback with hand snips; this allows you to grab a hold of the stems, cut them back close to the ground, leave the green foliage unmolested, and there is no further clean up. Just dispose of the stems you’re holding in your hand.

I find this quite relaxing, even when I have to cutback a large mass of Black eyed Susans (Rudbeckias). Just make sure you can see your fingers at all times as you do the cutback.

Long stubs I detest.

Cutback low.

Enter Christopher Lloyd

There is more to add to my rant. Early into Christopher Lloyd‘s book “The well tempered garden“, he writes about herbaceous perennials and how gardeners cut them back by leaving nasty stubs. They do this so they can remember the plant locations later when not much of the plants remains.

And Lloyd, the late famous English gardener, abhors this practice. That was a nice surprise because I do, too. Too bad I will never meet Mr. Lloyd. I suspect he could be my friend.

Lloyd argues that herbaceous perennials should either be cut right down level with the ground or left standing. Even dead perennials can look awesome covered in frost. See my blog post from December 4.

The problem with stubs

What’s wrong with leaving stubs? Lloyd gives us a nice list. Stubs look awful, they become hard and hollow; and they become a refuge for earwigs and woodlice. They also obstruct new growth in spring. But by far the worst is when people collecting cut flowers hit the hard stubs and stab themselves. (p.16, The well tempered garden by Christopher Lloyd)

Now you know. Start cutting back your herbaceous perennials right down without leaving nasty stubs. Use hand snips and enjoy your time in the garden. Leave your power shears in the shed.

Dec 05
0

Gunnera: late season step

By | gardening, Plants | No Comments
Gunnera

In your face plant

I love Gunneras. They almost make me laugh because they’re so big and imposing with their huge umbrella-like leaves. I happened to run into a few specimens at a garden in Morgan Creek, Surrey, last week but the show was clearly over.

Many of the spent leaves, now completely brown, were drooping into the pond. And this is already a hint: Gunneras require moist soil conditions.

They also need space and shelter. So, whoever designed this large water feature garden knew what she was doing. I found the plants at the pond edge, under deciduous trees where they have shade or semi-shade conditions. They all had plenty of space.

Gunneras work best as specimen plants. Fully grown, they’re hard to miss.

Last step

Gunnera buds are tightly packed around the crown. So, remember this one last step: cut back the leaves and stack them over top of the crown to protect it from frost.

I remember seeing a pile of giant Gunnera leaves stacked high by a creek at Como Lake, in Coquitlam. My first reaction was that someone forgot to clear away the debris. Now I know better, years later. The giant leaves protect the crown from frost.

Because Gunnera require lots of space, we don’t get to cut them back very often. Most strata (multi-family) complexes don’t have large gardens that would fit Gunnera specimens. This one does, so we had some fun cutting it back.

You can tell from the rough leaf piles that we need more practice. Twelve months from now, we’ll try to stack the leaves nicely. I always tell my apprentices to do everything in the field; and experience as many new things as possible. This was one such experience. Now they can file away Gunnera and remember the one critical late season step.

I hope you do, too.

Gunnera crowns

Cut back leaves stacked over the top of the crowns.
Dec 04
0

Fun with early frost

By | gardening, Plants | No Comments

Prerequisite

Yes, you can have some fun with early frost but, first, you have to leave some of your perennials and ornamental grasses standing. If you cut them back too early, you’ll lose out on seeing magic in your garden.

One good example are Sedums. Right now their flowers are still standing and they wear early frost quite well. Also, take a good look and you’ll see new growth at the base, waiting to push out in spring 2022.

If the flowers aren’t looking great or you find them broken up, then cut them back. We can’t do much about that. See one example below.

This Sedum is ready for cutback.

Sedum

Ornamental grasses

Ornamental grasses covered in frost look even better than Sedums. Unfortunately, people cut them back too soon. As soon as one stalk looks amiss, the entire plant gets cut down. And that’s too bad because many ornamental grasses flower in the fall; and, covered in frost, the flower heads look awesome.

Don’t be afraid to experiment by letting your ornamental grasses stand all winter. I have one potted specimen of Calamagrostis on the patio, and it looks fine.

Shrubs and trees

In December we don’t have to do much to our shrubs and evergreen trees, unless they’re in the way. Just watch for early frost and enjoy the show. Like I did recently at a strata complex we service.

Walk into your morning garden and observe it for a few minutes. If you work at a strata property, steal a bit of company time to enjoy the show. Azaleas and dwarf evergreen trees looked fantastic covered in light frost.

Azalea

Frost magic

I love seeing plants covered in light frost. It gives them a new look in late fall. If you want to enjoy the show in your own garden, cutback your plants later or wait until spring.

And don’t forget to share your own pictures.

Jul 11
0

Are you nice to your mailman?

By | Pruning | No Comments

Clear path

During a visit to my buddy’s place yesterday, I made a slightly shocking discovery. As we stood in front of his house, I pointed out a small gap in his front bed. And my buddy didn’t skip a beat. Oh, yeah, he prunes his shrubs every year to make room for his mailman. What?

Yes, it’s true, he intentionally prunes his shrubs so his mailman can shave thirty seconds off his route. That’s so nice. Perhaps next year he’ll put in a few stepping stones so the mailman doesn’t step on plants or compact the soil.

The mailman’s gap.

A better man

Clearly, my buddy is a better man. As soon as I heard gap and mailman, my mind started devising ways of blocking off the bed. Now, I’m sure I’m not the only one. I know people who are very touchy about their landscape. Sometimes you can’t even touch their garden hose; never mind sneaking through their planted beds on a daily basis. I can just imagine neighborhood Karens rising.

So, if you like your mailman, keep on pruning your shrubs for great access and consider installing a few stepping stones. Adding some perennial color might be a nice touch, assuming the mailman has time to notice them.

But what do you do if shaving thirty seconds off your mailman’s route isn’t a huge priority for you?

Prickles

I think a great natural barrier that might stop a mailman would be planting Berberis. It has soft prickles that are annoying enough to make you switch course, but not serious enough to draw blood. We don’t really want the mailman knocking on our door seeking first aid.

Pyracantha, for example, has nasty prickles but the shrub wouldn’t really fit into my buddy’s gap. The smaller Berberis would.

We could also install rocks in the bed edge and plant shrubs densely just behind them to deflect the mailman from his destructive path; and to make it obvious that this isn’t a pathway.

Conclusion

Every day gives us a chance to learn something new. Yesterday I learned something about my buddy and about myself.

How nice are you to your mailman?

Jul 07
0

Are knee pads for softies?

By | health and safety, Reviews | No Comments

Do you need them?

I used to think foam knee pads were for softies. Or, for female gardeners of a certain age, too frail to stay on their knees for more than a few minutes. But now, as my own birthdays pile up, I’m starting to change my mind. Or am I just going soft?

Facing a full day of paver installs, I stopped by the nearest Home Depot to buy the cheapest pair of foam knee pads. In this case, they were Husky foam knee pads, the cheapest pair on the shelf at $8. That’s all I needed because I really only need them for the occasional paver install and annual planting.

The other factor was summer heat. It’s simply too hot in early July on the West Coast for me to give up my shorts. That, of course, leaves my knees exposed. I didn’t find the idea of all day paver installs on my bare knees very appetizing. So, I splurged on a cheap set of knee pads.

They work!

I must say, for a cheap $8 pair, my Husky foam knee pads worked fine. They definitely made paver install and weeding work bearable.

Allegedly they are made of durable EVA foam for extended wear but it’s too soon to comment on that. We’ll see how long they last.

The elastic straps worked fine; and the soft, laminated fabric interior does provide some comfort. Having your skin rubbing against foam would suck; the fabric makes the experience much nicer.

The knee pads come with a limited two-year warranty and you’re welcome to check out Husky’s website for details. At $8, I couldn’t really care less. I won’t be using them that much.

Changed mind

In years past, I openly made fun of landscapers wearing knee pads. They all looked soft, males and females. But, knee pads have their place in landscaping work.

One example is annual flower planting where you have to bend over planted beds all day. That can put stress on your knees.

The other, more extreme case, is paver installs where you have to bend over hard surfaces. Now, in my carpenter pants that might be OK but not in shorts. I happily spent $8 on a cheap pair of foam knee pads to prevent unnecessary suffering.

Get a pair of knee pads if you think you need them. I won’t make fun of you. Not anymore.

Jun 20
0

Another Rhododendron massacre

By | Plants, Pruning | No Comments

Power shearing, really?

I get it, in commercial landscaping time is short. Crews have lots of work during the day and it’s not a good idea to get stuck on one task for too long. But there is a price to pay for this rush, especially when it involves plants.

I thought about this as I waited for my son to get picked up by his buddies and driven to a bike park for hours of fun. As I waited, I examined the landscaping in the roundabout and came across freshly sheared rhododendrons.

Now, this isn’t the first time I blog about this. I don’t think rhododendrons are good plants for shearing but I understand why people don’t want to hand snip them into shape. It takes time. And time may be short.

Ugly!

Rhododendrons are woody shrubs. They’re not soft like, for example, boxwood. The power shearing shreds the plant tissues, leaving stubs and shredded stems and leaves. And it looks awful. It’s like punishing the shrub after it does its job of flowering nicely.

Power sheared rhodo

Whenever I see power sheared rhodos, I feel like reaching for my hand snips and cleaning things up. And, considering that this specimen is next to a high-profile sidewalk, that might not be a bad idea. But again, it would take time.

A rhodo injured by power shears
Remove stubs like this

I also observed injured plant tissues and obvious stubs because rhodos aren’t made for power shearing. It’s important to clean things up with hand snips.

Hand pruning

Hand pruned rhodo

The above rhododendron was hand pruned fairly quickly without air and noise pollution. We removed one to two year’s growth thereby keeping the shrub in its available space; and we pinched off any spent flowers so the shrub doesn’t waste precious energy on seed production.

There aren’t any shredded leaves or stems visible and everything looks fine and green. Also, note the timing of our pruning, right after flowering.

Conclusion

For best results, hand prune your rhododendrons right after flowering. Don’t reach for your power shears to save time. The shrubs look awful after power shearing. Save time elsewhere.

Jun 18
0

The case of shredded Hostas

By | Edging, Plants | No Comments

Shredded Hostas

As soon as you see the client slowly approaching in her car, window rolled down, you know there might trouble coming your way. And sure enough, the poor lady looked distressed.

When her lawn was edged with a vertical line edger, her beautiful Hostas got shredded. She hated it and I hate it, too. It looks awful. She has every right to mention it. Take a look at the photos below.

Does lawn care come first, at the expense of landscape plants? I don’t think so. I can see why the lady would be distressed about her Hostas. It’s spring and they’re finally leafed out and looking great. The only thing left for the Hostas to do is push out their flowers.

Incidentally, this also happens with trees. Do lawn care machines have the right of way? No, they don’t. We have to avoid all tree and lawn care machine conflicts.

If you want to find out why, you can take my inexpensive online course on lawn care mistakes. Click here for details and let me be your teacher.

Solutions

So, what do we do about this problem? We can move the lawn edge out but this would require a lot of extra labor. Plus, the lawn section is already narrow.

We can skip the edging altogether and leave the grass shaggy under the hostas. Until the boss shows up and freaks out.

A better solution would be to use a blade edger but this isn’t a popular choice because it involves a different machine and going back.

My compromise solution was to prune off the shredded leaves so as to remove the source of the lady’s stress. I also pruned off the stems that would very likely get shredded next week. With the lawn edge nicely exposed, the workers should be able to edge the lawn without shredding any plant tissues.

After pruning with the lawn edge exposed.

Conclusion

Lawn care machines don’t have the right of way. Shredding landscape plants is terrible and your clients have every right to express their displeasure. Plants should look healthy; not have their leaves shredded weekly. Be nice to hostas.

Jun 17
0

First lawn care service disaster

By | Lawn Care, machines | No Comments

Not a good start

When you do lawn care for the first time at a new site, you really want to shine and impress your new clients. I know I do. And as a proud Red Seal Journeyman Horticulturist, I expect quality work from myself and my crew members. But earlier this spring things didn’t go well for me.

Eager to get started, I mapped out my section, picked up the line edger and went to work. Then, just three yards into my section, I did a vertical edging job on a small tree well and proceeded to blow out a patio door. Oops, that’s not good. And just think, I have an online course on lawn care mistakes.

Now, normally landscape companies have glass service people on speed dial because accidents like this happen. Except in this case, the patio door had built-in blinds which made in a $1000+ repair job.

Built-in blinds made this a very costly mistake.

Red faced

Accidents like this happen but not to me. It was very humbling, considering my work shirt is outfitted with landscape industry certified patches. I had no idea doors had built-in blinds. That really stung.

The only silver lining is that the crew members got to see the human Red Seal Vas who very occasionally makes a mistake.

Two lessons

There are two lessons we can learn from my costly mistake.

One, danger in lawn care is always seconds away if you get sloppy or cocky. Mowers and trimmers pick up objects easily and cause damage to windows, cars, and even people. Safety first!

Two, it makes no sense to vertical a small tree well with small stones showing. It’s better to ignore it and use a blade edger later. Blade edgers have a metal guard and a rubber flap which makes them much safer to use.

Edging a small tree well wasn’t worth the headache and the steep cost. Use blade edgers for tree wells and put your food behind the machine for extra protection when there is a patio window behind you.

Be careful. Don’t get caught red-faced like I did.

May 29
0

Cheap landscape upgrades

By | Landscaping, Plants | No Comments

We’ve all seen garden design porn with those beautiful, elaborate designs that cost real cash and take time to pull off. I see them on LinkedIn and in magazines like Fine Gardening. They make me jealous because I don’t have the imagination, nor plant knowledge to be a full-time designer. One day.

This blog post covers a humble project that cost zero cash and involved rescue plants. It took only minutes to complete and it solved some real problems.

Gate bed

The area I upgraded is a pretty humble corner bed next to a gate. There is a dogwood stump in the middle of it and bramble grows along the fence. For most of the year this is a dusty entrance area. I don’t even know if anybody notices the bed. But I’m in charge of maintaining the site so I have to keep it clean. That’s landscape maintenance without prejudice.

Let’s examine the problems:

  1. There are empty spaces that just get colonized by weeds
  2. The dogwood stump is visible
  3. There is only one shrub plant layer and nothing below

Solutions

We fight dead space by installing free Sedges (Carex). I scored two large clumps from another site where they were rudely edited out of a water feature zone. I’m not sure why.

I sold one clump on Facebook marketplace so I could compose a blog post about it. If you’re wondering, I sold the sedge in one day for the price of two coffees at Starbucks. I hope it thrives in its new home.

Now, back to the gate bed. Since the clump was too large, I divided it into two with a shovel. You will encounter some resistance if you try this, but keep on trying.

Adding plants eliminates dead space and introduces competition for any weeds trying to get established in the bed. It also brings in a second, lower layer and upgrades the look.

I also wanted to hide the stump until I get around to bringing a chainsaw so I can flush cut it. I believe I succeeded.

Much better.

After planting we rake and cultivate the bed (finesse work). Don’t forget to blow off the lawn edge.

If everything goes well, the sedges will grow out and one day we’ll be able to divide them again. Note that they don’t require any maintenance. Just enjoy them.

Conclusion

You can make simple landscape improvements with free plants and some sweat and time. And maybe, one day, we’ll all create more elaborate designs.

May 22
0

Windmill palm magic

By | Plants, Species, Trees | No Comments

I fell in love with palms when I visited Southern California in 2019. So, it’s nice to know that we also have a palm species growing here in British Columbia: Windmill palm (Trachycarpus fortunei).

I got to see one today, still in its 2 gallon landscape pot, waiting to be planted. While the palm got me excited, I wondered about available space. Take a look at the photo and recall that mature windmill palms reach heights of 15-25 feet, and widths from 6-10 feet. Always consider mature sizes before planting your shrubs and trees.

Note the two windmill palms in the middle.

Considering the mature size of this palm species, I wonder what this planted bed will look like years from now. It could be a disastrous jungle too close to the windows or a beautiful tropical corner unlike anything else on this strata site. Personally, I love the look but I would only plant one of the palms. Not two.

Palm features

  1. The windmill palm is tree-like with hairy brown fibers covering the trunk.
  2. The large fan-like leaves are attractive but the petiole which holds the leaves has sharp points which makes pruning and clean-up tricky.
  3. It’s a good accent or specimen tree
  4. I’ve seen people wrap the top in burlap to protect it from cold temperatures. But the four specimens in the courtyard of my complex do just fine in winter. Remember, palms grow from the tip only. When the tip dies, it’s over.
  5. It looks great near a patio or pool.
  6. $40 retail seems like a bargain. If only I had space.

Strata complex pool deck specimen.

Private residence specimen between outdoor kitchen and pool.

Conclusion

I love palms! If you want one as a specimen by your patio or pool, consider planting the windmill palm. It’s an awesome palm. Just make sure you have enough space for it to reach mature size.