Innholdsfortegnelse for January/February 2021 i Horticulture

What better activity is there this winter than to hunker down at home and plan 2021’s garden additions and changes? Horticulture is here to help. This issue includes our annual feature on award-winning plants (“The Best of the Bunch,” page 26). It’s an excellent resource for planning spring plantings because it showcases tried-and-true species and cultivars—plants that you can add to your list without worry that they might not perform, or that they may need a lot of interventions. Of course, their success, like any plant’s, depends on the site conditions and local climate. Each description includes basic growing information, and you’ll notice that many of the award programs cater to a certain region or regions. Others identify plants whose good behavior is widespread. Besides their basic purpose, these programs…

I LOVE THE IDEA that my gardening can have a positive effect on the health of the greater landscape. That’s why I was particularly struck by an interview I conducted with Adrian Ayres Fisher for my podcast, Growing Greener, last spring. Adrian served as the Sustainability Coordinator for Triton College in River Grove, Ill. (She recently retired.) Her work included helping to cultivate an on-campus pocket prairie, as well as hand-to-hand combat with invasive buckthorn. In the course of this, she also became an articulate proponent of carbon gardening. Carbon gardening is a back-yard technique for taming the amount of carbon dioxide gas (CO2) that we release into the atmosphere. This gas is, of course, the principal greenhouse gas and most responsible for the increase in temperatures we are experiencing…

EVERY TABLESPOON of healthy soil contains billions of bacteria, fungi and other microbes that are critical to growing healthy plants. But how do you measure soil health when microbes are too small to see? Here are five simple tests that work as well in your garden as they do on a farm. THE MANUAL TEST This first test couldn’t be any easier: just take a scoop of soil and hold it in your hands. Notice what it feels like, looks like and smells like. Healthy soil is dark and it binds together. It should look like chocolate cottage cheese, with air pockets, worm holes and plant materials bound together. If it sifts through your fingers, you are missing the structure provided by healthy fungi in the soil. If it feels…

Large houseplants have become the pièce de résistance of many interior-decorating schemes, and with good reason. Having a large floor plant in your home brings nature indoors in a way that a smaller plant or collection of plants can’t quite do. And with the open-concept layouts and high ceilings so popular today, it’s no wonder large floor plants have come back into vogue. Each plant has its own personality and adds a different feel to your home. A large palm can suggest a Caribbean beach or a Victorian parlor, depending on your frame of mind. A large ficus, be it a fiddle-leaf fig (Ficus lyrata) or a rubber tree (F. elastica), brings an architectural, loft-like feel to a room. An upright snake plant (Dracaena trifasciata, formerly Sansevieria trifasciata) can add…

ALTHOUGH WE HUMANS tend to think of ourselves as something separate from nature—observers of nature but apart from her—that is a misconception. Nature is the tumultuous, inexorable river of life, and all of us animals and plants are swimming in it as we course from birth to death. Gardening is at root our way of manipulating nature to our advantage. All of our fellow creatures are doing the same thing in their own ways. The blind mole digs tunnels through the topsoil to find earthworms to eat. The wild plum tree drops its sugary fruit to the ground, kindling a surge in the populations of soil microbes that feed the tree. The opossum uses the tree to escape the dog and the robin uses the tree to make its nest.…

1 FLORIDA THATCH PALM Thrinax radiata Native to south Florida and listed as endangered by the state, this slow-growing palm is highly tolerant of wind and salt spray and can withstand brief saltwater surges. Its beauty lies in three-foot fanlike leaves and feathery white flowers. Full sun to part shade. USDA Zones 10–11. 2 BUTTERFLY ORCHID Encyclia tampensis An epiphyte, this orchid dwells on the mangrove, live oak, baldcypress and other trees across the swamps and woodlands of Florida. Its grassy leaves erupt with a candelabra of golden flowers throughout the summer. Full sun to light shade. Zones 8–11. 3 PINK SHOWER TREE Cassia javanica Hailing from India and the Philippines, this small tree makes a beautiful specimen thanks to its compound leaves and bright pink spring flowers. It’s also…

During the growing season, it’s easy to know the name of a tree. The clues are familiar, often learned when we were children. It could be the unique shape of a leaf, like the mittens and gloves of the sassafras, or the autumn color of a sugar maple, that gives it away. Perhaps it’s the pink-purple flower that appears as a fuchsia cloud as you roll along the interstate in the spring. Even at 70 mph, that color is so distinctive it could only be a redbud. Knowing a deciduous tree by name in winter is a different story. After the leaves and flowers fall away, a whole new set of clues is needed. This is a varsity-level horticulture skill, and, I think, a pretty cool party trick to play…

If a plant is completely out-of-control big, you can use a propagation technique called air layering to create a new, smaller version. This method is especially handy for schefflera, citrus plants, dragon tree (Dracaena marginata), croton, swiss cheese plant, large-leaved philodendrons and ficus (including fiddle-leaf fig and the rubber plant used in this demonstration). 1 Choose a spot 18 to 24 inches down from the top of a main stem and use a sharp knife to make an upward cut about halfway through the stem. This image shows the rubber plant’s sap. 2 Prop the cut open with a toothpick and wrap damp sphagnum moss around the cut, to about the size of an orange or grapefruit, depending on the girth of the stem. 3 Cover the moss with plastic…

These all did great in Texas and Sydney, Australia, and they’re also doing well here in Utah. They all have one thing in common: They are vigorous. I’m not a fan of stunted, puny flowers. I love plants that fill in and cover the garden with color, like a seasonal duvet cover for the flower bed. WSupertunia series I swear this plant is part kudzu, because Supertunias grow huge almost overnight. Unlike other petunias, they stood up to the heat and humidity of Sydney and Dallas. x Petchoa SuperCal series The best of both parents (Petunia and Calibrachoa)! These plants handled the alkalinity of Dallas soil and they were among my favorites for containers. Lobularia Snow Princess It covers the garden in fragrant, soft white…

IN SOUTHWEST FLORIDA you’ll find the young but undeniably first-rate Naples Botanical Garden. In 2017—not quite 10 years after first breaking ground—it won the American Public Garden Association’s Award for Garden Excellence. Visitors here are met with beautiful displays of plants native to the subtropics. The themed gardens educate guests about palms, orchids, bromeliads and more, covering not just the beauty and care of these plants but also how they relate to cultures around the world. Conservation also lies at the heart of its mission, as wild populations of tropical and subtropical plants face loss of habitat, competition from invasive species and threats related to climate change. The Garden collaborates with similar institutions across Florida, the Caribbean and Latin America to preserve threatened species, restore habitats and research the best…

Each year, organizations across the United States choose plants that are exceptionally garden worthy. These tried-and-true trees, shrubs, perennials, annuals and edible plants are singled out by garden professionals in the hopes that they’ll find their way into more landscapes, because of the benefits that they will bring. ALL-AMERICA SELECTIONS A network of anonymous gardening professionals from various regions of the United States and Canada evaluate new, not-yet-sold cultivars in about 80 test gardens each growing season, judging them against comparable selections that are already on the market. The new cultivars are scored for certain criteria and the top scorers are named All-America Selections. For lists of past winners as well as regional standouts, go to http://www.all-americaselections.org. 1 Candela Pink celosia Celosia spicata Candela Pink 2021 FLOWER WINNER This flowering…

EACH YEAR I LIKE to write a couple of articles in which I share what I have recently observed or learned about gardening techniques or various plants. Sometimes this also brings to mind useful things that I once knew but I forgot. There is an apparent randomness to the items discussed here, but it is for good reason. When something that I think will be interesting to readers pops into my head, I immediately record it. If that happens during the day, I make a notation in a file on my cell phone. If it occurs when I am supposed to be sleeping, I roll over and jot the idea down on an always-present bedside pad. I have always lived by the old adage that the faintest scribbled note is…