Innholdsfortegnelse for March/April 2024 i Horticulture

The story idea came to me last fall. I’d removed the summer’s annuals from my large containers. I had a dwarf Alberta spruce (Picea glauca‘Conica’) still in a nursery pot, so I thought, Let’s try it in the gray planter by the front steps. This put the spruce next to one of my favorite shrubs, Jade Waves false cypress (Chamaecyparis obtusa ‘Mon Yur’, shown above). Done potting, I admired how the tightly conical spruce played against the false cypress’s irregular silhouette, which is formed by its pliable, upward-curving branches. But I’d thought about the different growth habits of conifers before. This duo helped me zero in on another detail: their different leaf types. What a contrast between the spruce’s short, stiff needles and the flat, feathery foliage of the false…

IN THE 1980S, Steve Castorani founded North Creek Nurseries with Dale Hendricks. Sharing an interest in native plants, natural landscaping and ecological restoration, the two focused their southeastern Pennsylvania company on the propagation of North American perennials, supplying these in plug form for landscape architects, finish growers and retail centers. Today North Creek remains a major wholesaler of choice native perennials, with Steve still at the helm. SCOTT BEUERLEIN: Tell me a little about your history and how it led to the formation of North Creek Nurseries. STEVE CASTORANI: I’m first-generation Italian American, and my family always kept a garden. As a young adult, I started taking care of our property. I enrolled at the University of Delaware to prepare for a teaching career, but I was discouraged with the…

I GREW VERY TIRED of hearing about English gardens when I was a horticultural student at the New York Botanical Garden in the mid-1970s. They filled the role of a very talented older sibling whom you were urged to emulate, with the unspoken assumption that you would never match their accomplishments. Indeed, British colleagues did often boast of their endless collections of exotic plants, always (it seemed) with the pitying remark that, of course, we in the New World couldn’t grow them in our less benevolent climates. Over the last generation, however, the most exciting advances in garden design have been occurring on our side of the Atlantic, arguably. This is largely due to those same maligned climates of ours, which indeed often challenge those trying to grow the traditional…

WHEN I STARTED my first vegetable garden more than 30 years ago, I puzzled over whether to direct sow my seeds in the soil or start them indoors on a windowsill. “Or maybe I should just buy a bunch of seedlings from a local garden center and plant those.” So many options! I soon learned that I didn’t need to pick just one planting technique. In fact, vegetable gardeners generally use a combination of direct sowing and transplanting, with the planting method based on the individual crop and the length of the local growing season. For example, tomatoes are typically transplanted because the growing season for most gardeners in North America isn’t long enough for direct-sown plants to grow, flower and produce mature fruits. Spinach, on the other hand, is…

Gardening can seem like a never-ending battle, especially in places with dry shade and extreme cold. And did I mention the hungry deer? My family has a cabin in the Northwoods of Wisconsin, on the border of USDA Zones 3 and 4. The scenery is beautiful, but a gardener faces significant challenges. After years of attempting to grow hosta there, I decided to look for perennials that might appeal less to deer while thriving in the dry shade. The results haven’t been perfect, but it’s amazing what can be done with a little research and experimenting. FACING DRY SHADE Dry shade can feel like a gardener’s nightmare. After all, you don’t have enough sunlight for plentiful blooms, and the dry soil makes it hard for plants to grow. Instead of…

Gardeners are taking notice of an ancient gardening technique said to reduce watering, need less fertilizer, improve soil diversity and quality and sequester carbon—all while saving them time and money. Called hügelkultur (hoo-gull-culture)—a German phrase which translates roughly as hill, or mound, culture—its central principle combines soil and wood to create a sustainable, low-input growing system that can be adapted to suit various scales and climates. As the wood decomposes it acts like a sponge, supplying the plants with water. The original purpose of this centuries-old practice was to make use of woody material to help build soil in cold climates. Popularized by Austrian permaculture expert Sepp Holzer, it has been widely embraced in the permaculture community. Now, mainstream gardeners are discovering its benefits, too, amid the challenges of climate…

FOR MANY OF US who love gardens and gardening, planning the spaces we “plantify” and working outside among plants are potent forms of creative expression. From year to year, we may decide a certain corner of the garden needs more blue flowers, so we might seed some bachelor’s buttons (Centaurea cyanus) or Delphinium. Or the area near the side door would look good with a greater variety of textured foliage, so we propagate some Plectranthus or peppermint geranium (Pelargonium tomentosum) from a friend’s garden to address that fancy. We might plant jasmine near a fragrant wisteria to take advantage of the aromatic blend when both plants are in bloom. Some of us may photograph favorite blossoms or pollinators that visit the garden, or our cat napping adorably under a lilac…

NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO recently reported that the Vatican has opened a public exhibition called “Life and Death in the Rome of the Caesars” that features a Vatican Necropolis, a Roman burial ground located a few feet beneath St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. The necropolis heretofore was opened only to academics and other specialists. It contains marble sarcophagi, tombs dating back to the first century, Roman frescoes and beautiful mosaics. Enslaved people, artisans and middle-class Roman citizens—many who were employed by the infamous emporer Nero—are buried there, according to epigraphs at the site. Nero became Caesar at the age of 16 in 54 CE and reigned until 68 CE, when he committed suicide. (The Senate had turned against him.) Remembered as a cruel and eccentric tyrant, Nero was nonetheless reported to…

Sedges have enjoyed unprecedented attention the last few years. Articles in The Washington Post (2017), Horticulture (2022) and Landscape Architecture (2023) introduced many gardeners to plants in the genus Carex, which are commonly referred to as sedges. While there are colorful, variegated selections from Asia that have been in cultivation for decades, it’s the North American natives getting the press. A 2023 trials report by Mt. Cuba Center put them squarely in the spotlight. The research team evaluated 70 different species and cultivars of native carex for the Mid-Atlantic region. That may seem like a big number, but it’s a fraction of the more than 500 sedges native to North America. Given the range of species, there’s a sedge for every landscape situation. However, the availability of native sedges may…