Transatlantic Plantsman

More bird life in the garden

Just a couple of pictures… taken by judy. Thank you!

Our robins have made a nest in a rather exposed place on some trellis under the eaves of the house. In the recent rains, the eggs would have been soaked if mother robin had left the nest. Both birds have been fighting off jays and crows, but robins are about the first birds to lay and if a clutch of eggs is lost they simply lay another. Often they lay two or three clutches anyway.

Down by the lake the phoebes have a nest tight under the eaves of what is laughingly called the boathouse – it’s not big enough for any boat except a little inflatable. They’ve nested on an angled downpipe by the front door in previous years, with mixed success. Things seem to be going well in their new location, plenty of insects for them by the water.

Transatlantic robins

Mentioning blackbirds yesterday reminded me of robins.

This is the European robin, a red-chested bird about the same size as a sparrow – male and female look the same. This is a favorite British bird, partly because it’s so bold… hopping around the flower beds picking up insects and worms turned up by the gardener’s spade, especially in winter. The males sing prettily in the breeding season, even at night. In Britain, many females migrate south for the winter, the males stay put. It’s related to flycatchers and loves mealworms so much it will take them from your hand.

When European settlers crossed the Atlantic they found a slightly larger red-breasted bird – which, of course, immediately became known as the robin. The two sexes are similar, both with rusty red breasts, but are not identical, and they all fly south from here in Pennsylvania for the winter. Belonging to the thrush family, the American robin seems to fill the niche that blackbirds fill in Britain – often nesting in gardens, feeding on the ground eating grubs and insects as well as taking fruit from bushes. Here too, the male has an attractive song. Their British relation the blackbird loves dried fruit so much that it too can be tamed; the American robin seems too wary.

Males in both species react strongly to anything red and will even attack a ball of red wool on a fence post.

We have robins nesting on some trellis in the garden here in PA, they’re proving more cautious than European robins and blackbirds, both of which tolerate gardeners well, but are getting more used to us as we work outside. They realise, rightly, that the local blue jays are a far more serious threat.

This plant won’t be going to Chelsea

Rosy Hardy of Hardy’s Cottage Garden Plants in Hampshire was checking the plants in one of her tunnels yesterday. These are the plants that she’s been carefully nurturing for months for the Chelsea Flower Show in a couple of weeks time.

She was trying to decide if she should keep her prize Rheum for her own display in the Great Pavilion or lend it to Show sponsors Marshalls for their Show Garden - “The Marshalls Garden That Kids Really Want!”.  It’s such a perfect specimen that designer Ian Dexter was desperate to have it for Marshalls.

But as soon as Rosy discovered a Mother blackbird sitting on half a dozen eggs the decision was made. The plant stays put at the nursery in Hampshire!

(Not the greatest picture, I know. Just a quick snap so as not to disturb mother blackbird for too long. For US readers - a blackbird is like a robin without the red chest. More on robins next time.)

Fortunately, stocks of the two new plants Hardy's are introducing at Chelsea are unencumbered by surprise wildlife. And both look good. Campanula carpatica ‘Jenny’ has large, cup-shaped white flowers with a distinct blue central eye while the tall Gaura lindheimeri ‘Rosyjane’ has white flowers with a bright pink edge to each petal. Lovely.

The variable mayapple

Taking a look at the flowers not yet overwhelmed by Japanese knotweed along the Delaware River in New York yesterday, I found some interesting mayapples (Podophyllum peltatum).

With its pairs of umbrella-like leaves and single flowers hanging between, this is a familiar American woodlander often occurring in broad sweeps in deciduous woods. It’s very distinctive.

In these woods along the river, there was a great variety of leaf shapes and colors – at various stages of development – just a few yards apart. In the first picture, a patch of well developed green foliage represent the familiar type. The second picture, taken about 10ft from the first, shows a late developer with bronze tinted foliage. On another site a few miles away, the distinction between early green and late bronze was even more apparent.

A pretty pink-flowered form with bronze-tinted leaves is occasionally listed by nurseries, that’s the one in the third picture – not quite flowering in the garden here.

I’ll be checking he flowers on all of them soon.

BTW – Research has shown that germination of mayapple seed is improved if the fruits are eaten by, and pass through, a box turtle!

My new blog on new plants

I’ve started a new blog.

Going by the impressively catchy title of New Plants and Trials, it began last week on the Royal Horticultural Society’s website. You’ll find it here.

I’m sharing the space with the Trials Office at the RHS garden at Wisley: I’ll be posting about new plants and Ali Cundy, Trials Recorder for the RHS at Wisley, will be posting about the many and varied trials on flowers and food crops which the RHS runs every year.

Why not take a look? I've just started a series of three posts on new hardy geraniums. And while you’re there look over the other RHS blogs including one by the Curator of the garden at Wisley, Jim Gardiner. I’ll post an occasional catch-up list here – just so you know what you’re missing if you don’t pop over and check it out.

That’s my new blog - New Plants and Trials - over on the Royal Horticultural Society’s website.

Most popular new plants in Britain

The latest edition of the Royal Horticultural Society’s Plant Finder came out earlier this month. You know the story: over 70,000 plants, over 700 nurseries, the last word in correct plant names and, for European gardeners, sources for all those 70,000+ plants. It’s indispensable for gardeners across the world – just to help us all get the names right.

There are over 4,100 new plants in the 2008/2009 edition and the top two, judged by the number of nurseries stocking the newcomers, are Brunnera macrophylla ‘Mr Morse’ and Salvia x jamensis ‘Hot Lips’, than any other newcomers.. More nurseries are stocking these two new introductions than any others.

Brunnera macrophylla ‘Mr Morse’ looks like a white-flowered version of the very popular blue-flowered ‘Jack Frost’. The foliage is the same – brilliant silver with narrow green veins – it’s just the flowers that are different. Great in shade, even dryish shade, and deer resistant too.

‘Mr Morse’ originated with Belgian plant breeder Chris Ghyselen. He crossed his own ‘Inspector Morse’, which is like ‘Jack Frost’ but with a fraction more green in the leaves, and white-flowered ‘Betty Bowring’. The result is ‘Mr Morse’. It’s new in Britain this year and available from eighteen British nurseries. In the US you can get it from Garden Crossings and other suppliers.

Salvia x jamensis ‘Hot Lips’ is amazing, dramatic bicolored flowers on twiggy shrubs broader than their 90cm (3ft) height. Tony Avent, on the Plant Delights website, explains its origin. “This wild selection… was introduced by Richard Turner of California after the plant was shared with him by his maid, who brought it from her home in Mexico.” Tony lists it as a form of S. microphylla but the RHS considers it a form of S. x jamensis (a hybrid of S. greggii and S. microphylla). Tony also points out that the flowers become more red in high summer when the nights are warm and, as you can see from the picture, the markings can vary from flower to flower.

’Hot Lips’ is available from fifteen British nurseries and Wyevale Garden Centres. In the US you can get it from Plant Delights and many other nurseries.

Sanguinaria - the spring overture

The Canadian bloodroot, Sanguinaria canadensis, is one of those fleeting spring flowers which is such a joy when it’s out but no sooner has its six- to twelve- petaled white flowers, the inner slightly broader than the outer ones,  been enthusiastically admired - than the petals drop. Fortunately, it has bold foliage for months after so continues to catch our attention.

The fully double form, f. multiplex, is a stunner with all its stamens transformed into petals to make a more impressive, though less delicate, display which also lasts a few days longer. And yes, the correct name for this fully double form is, simply, f. multiplex. The flowers seem to vary in size a little as the plant ages – it seems a good idea to lift, split and replant in good soil every few years.

Here, this is a vigorous plant and has increased from five or six flowers in its first year to about 30 flowers this year, two years on. Tony Avent at Plant Delights reports this form flowering much later than the wild form – not here.

I also grow a semi-double form with 12-16 petals, the outer noticeably broader than the inner, which came from Darrel Probst’s GardenVision nursery under the name of “Tennessee Form” but which seems to be a good match for the correct ‘Flore Pleno’ (aka ‘Plena’). Linc Foster, in his book Cuttings from a Rock Garden, explains in impressive detail why f. multiplex is the correct name for the familiar fully double form while ‘Flore Pleno’ is the correct name for the form with 14-16 petals.

Also from Garden Vision came “Pink Form”. Interestingly, the Garden Vision catalog describes it as opening light pink and fading to shell pink. My plant, has 12-14 petals whose inner surface is white, with perhaps the faintest blush, while the backs are pink with pale veins. The leaf stalks are slightly more pink tinted than the usual form but the plant seems altogether less pink that the catalog description implies. It’s also a slow developer but is lovely in the evening when the petals close and the pink coloring is revealed.

Other names that are occasionally seen are: ‘Paint Creek Double’, a semi-double form with very slender petals (more pictures here); ‘Betty Casto’, which looks very similar, I’m still trying to find out what the difference is supposed to be - and I wonder where Paint Creek is; ‘Peter Harrison’, which looks like my pink form; ‘Amy’ and ‘Rosea’ are also pink but it’s unclear how (or if) these pink forms differ.

This lovely plant is like an overture to the spring here in PA, and as the petals drop hellebores are at their best and epimediums and wood anemones and the first trillums and the various Lathyrus vernus and the rest are all coming into their own. Lots to see, now.

A new woodland raised bed

The soil here is not good: leaf mold over clay with rocks and boulders – some of them almost - in fact completely - immovable. So in order to make some better planting areas in the deer-fenced wooded area – I’m building a raised bed.

I’m using logs as edging, less intrusive than bricks, stone or boards in this more or less natural setting, and rather than use the mainly pine and maple that occasionally comes down naturally in the woods - usually at the point where a woodpecker has made a nest and rot has set in – I bought in some long straight pieces of white oak (Quercus alba) from local arboriculture firm Sequoia Tree Service. They’re straight, and the white oak will last much longer than pine or anything already rotting. The only problem is that white oak is incredibly heavy!

Anyway, here are the logs being delivered. I’ll bring you occasional updates as things progress.

Been waiting years for this bear picture!

When we first came to Pennsylvania, I read somewhere that the emerging skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus) was a favorite food of black bears when they first come out of hibernation in spring. I’d found plenty of mangled plants (see below) but never actually seen a bear feasting.

Finally, here’s a picture of a black bear actually eating skunk cabbage by the little creek alongside our garden. Thank you judy.

Her two cubs (not much bigger than our cats) were scampering around, not really paying much attention, the way kids do, while she munched on the emerging foliage. In the past I’ve seen plants pulled up and the fat roots eaten but this bear concentrated on the emerging unrolling leaves – it’s like she bit the heart out of a cabbage.

Our streamside display of “the American hosta” is going to be a little ragged this summer – but who cares! It was a treat to see – from a distance, with a long lens, of course.

You may have noticed I've posted about skunk cabbage before - here, and here.

Cheap plants – you get what you pay for

We stopped in at our local Lowe's today – and the plants there were very cheap. (For British readers, Lowe’s is more or less the equivalent of a vast B&Q.)

Amongst other things we spotted a flowering dogwood, Cornus florida ‘Cherokee Princess’. The lovely specimen in a 5 gallon pot was nearly 2m (6ft) high and priced at just $24.98 – that’s £12.55 in British money. This is too cheap, far too cheap. All the plants at Lowe's are cheap… Tempting at those prices, but actually worth more.

Now I don’t know which grower supplied Lowe's… But, in general, many people complain about the number of undocumented workers (“illegal aliens”) working in landscaping, horticulture and agriculture in the US yet because they’re on such low wages this is one of the reasons prices are so low. In fact, people complain loudly about undocumented workers in general – but still demand the cheapest possible prices. You can’t have it both ways.

Now, here’s the other side of it all. Low retail prices in any shop or nursery or garden center tends to mean low profit margins which tends to mean limited expense on technical expertise. In the same Lowe's was a batch of coreopsis labelled ‘Crème Brulée’. As you can see, the plants on offer were not ‘Crème Brulée’, the lovely cool, soft yellow form of C. verticillata (needle leaf coreopsis). The plants labeled ‘Crème Brulée’ were a much less special, brash gold form of the broader leaved C. grandiflora, perhaps ‘Elfin Gold’ – perfectly good variety, but not ‘Crème Brulée’.

So, perhaps, in the broad sense, you get what you pay for: a bargain dogwood, the wrong coreopsis – and, by the way, only one single variety of ornamental grass… grasses being just about the most popular of all perennials at the moment. And even that one ornamental grass was frost damaged – as were the acers, pieris and cherries.

What’s that quote about the price of everything and the value of nothing.

OF COURSE, instead, you can, of course, buy Cornus florida ‘Cherokee Princess’ and the genuine Coreopsis ‘Crème Brulée’ in good local nurseries and garden centers.

Alternatively, order Cornus florida ‘Cherokee Princess’ by mail order from Meadowbrook Nursery in North Carolina or from these four British nurseries. You can buy the genuine Coreopsis ‘Crème Brulée’ by mail order from White Flower Farm in Connecticut or from these twenty British nurseries.