I am missing flowers (both literally and emotionally).

How can I work for a plant nursery and have zero blooms in my yard in the middle of summer? (Maybe because I work for a plant nursery?) I get so excited at the beginning of the season with all the pretty things coming in that I take them all home and plant them. Tulips and Daffodils, Hellebores, creeping phlox’s, Dicentra. Stunning. And then what happens? After the blooms fade and the ephemerals die back, I end up with a lot of green. And then… nursery life goes into full swing and by the time I get to slow down and catch my breath, it is mid-summer.

Where is my color? I need plants. Taking a walk through our perennial lot I notice all the plants that are in full sun with beautiful flowers. I want that! Easy choices are the Rudbeckias. Echinaceas, and Hemerocallis. But what are some less obvious selections? My flower beds have some time in the shade, so in order to get the best show of color, I need varieties that can handle both. So, on my walk, I took a few notes.

Geraniums are a good choice. Full sun or part shade, “Rozanne” can be a good rambler. I need to fill in some space and I know she’s about 20” tall by 28” spread. Very low maintenance and long-lasting blooms throughout the whole season can guarantee a nice show of color through these dog days of summer.

Astilbe’s have always been one of my favorites and we offer a wide array of sizes and color. I’m a big fan of their fluffy, showy flowers. Although we have them in full sun, Astilbe’s actually prefer a bit of shade to cool them down after a long hot day.

Our Chelone “Hot Lips” are just about to pop. 2’-3’ feet high and a 1’ spread, these are great to add a backdrop or color to a dull corner. These will be perfect for this time of year! They can grow in drought conditions until established or they can grow in bog or rain gardens. They are low maintenance and will handle the full sun or partial shade.

Heucheras, I think, are going to be a staple. With many varieties to choose from, they are a great, easy way to tie any color combination into the landscape. Different heights and sizes will be perfect to tuck in around the taller plants. And again, heucheras prefer part shade, can handle sun, like it a little dry. Perfect for my needs!

There is a theme here- low maintenance and lots of color!

And finally, ground cover! Of course, some of that “green” in my yard are weeds. Since I really don’t have a lot of time to throw down mulch every year in the spring I’m going to have to plant something. We have lots of choices here at Christensen’s, however, I have found that Lamium is a great choice for spreading. Vigorous but not invasive, the two-toned foliage is striking and can fill in quickly throughout the season. If I was just looking for a colorful addition, I'd go with 'Orchid Frost'. But, I’m thinking the 'White Nancy' may be a great addition to brighten up and throw some definition into the mix.

I now have a few choices. But there are so many more! Seriously, it’s like choosing a paint color. I know if I took another walk through the perennial lot or into the Hosta House I will have a whole new set of plant varieties, colors, and textures to take home and play with! The choices are plentiful!

I’ve been planting a wide variety of nursery stock from the moment I had a yard to plant in. I bought my first home in the 80’s and after ripping out pretty much everything that was there – it was time for a rehab – I started bringing home my favorite plants from our vast inventory here at Christensen’s. That employee discount got QUITE a workout, let me tell you. Sure, there were failures, for example my attempts to grow daphne, oxydendron, and a succession of acer palmatum, but in my mind a dead plant just opens up a spot to plant something new.

However.

There are some plants I NEVER should have planted. They all have one thing in common – aggressive, invasive growth. It’s not an accident that several of them are vines, plus some perennials that spread underground and come up yards away from the perfect spot you chose for it then proceed to colonize the rest of your yard, and the neighbor’s yard, too. Word to the wise – avoid “plant swaps”. There is a reason people have excess to trade.

I didn’t plant any bamboo, luckily, but the Japanese anemone had to come out, as did the Ribbon grass (Phalaris). I didn’t plant the Aegopodium or the Convallaria, but only was ever able to eradicate the Aegopodium as the bed was contained by the concrete drive. We built a giant sieve out of hardware cloth and I dug up the whole bed and got every scrap of root. The Lily-of-the-valley persists to this day among some hosta I transplanted to my new house, wish me luck.

The beautiful Porcelainberry vine I hid behind the garage is probably still sprouting back in spite of repeated attempts with spade and sprayer, and the gigantic Sweet Autumn Clematis that grew to cover the entire shade structure is likely still trying to swallow Plymouth Township. But it sure was pretty and smelled fantastic. But don’t plant one. It’s horrible.

The number one worst plant I ever planted was the Trumpet vine. Fond memories of plucking the orange flowers and tasting the nectar inside (sorry, hummingbirds) from my Grandmother’s yard at the original nursery on Ann Arbor Road gave me the bright idea of planting one in a tiny spot in the side garden of my postage-stamp yard. I even extended the chain-link fence six feet higher to give it a nice trellis to climb on. Visions of hummingbirds filled my imagination, and I figured in a year, maybe two – OK, FINE, three – I’d be a major stop on the hummingbird highway.

Hah.

The seasons passed with not one single flower. Ever. But the VINE? It ran underground and started coming up randomly, all over the yard. Ten, twenty feet away, no problem. Digging it up was futile. It’s immune to Roundup (apparently). I tried to get rid of it for ten years.

I finally moved.

These days the only vines you will catch me planting are Clematis (which randomly die for no good reason) and Hydrangea petiolaris, which is always well-behaved. A mature one came with my new house, and when the tree it was climbing on died, we left most of the trunk standing, because nobody messes with my Climbing Hydrangea. You really should plant that one.

By Rick Lazzell

(This article of Sticks & Stones is best viewed on a desktop)

I look around at all the landscaping out there (of course I do) and most of it seems repetitious, characterless, and unexciting. Have we gotten complacent in our creativity? Are we too concerned about being like the Joneses?

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Even before supply shortages, not a day goes by at Christensen’s Plant Center that requested nursery items (despite our fairly well-stocked and varied yard) are not available. High demand and scarcity in some areas certainly exist but smaller evergreens and woody ornamentals are in fairly good supply. When confronted with an unavailable or low quantity of a given shrub variety we work too hard to supply the exact variety when there are other ways to solve the problem. Especially in the areas of woodies, there are many interchangeable plant varieties.

During our COVID lockdowns, the one thing most people had was lots of time. There was a huge surge in interest in family histories; there were many searches on Ancestory.com and DNA samples sent to testing sites like 23andME. Discovering our past and finding distant relatives helped to fill the gaps in our social lives. The similar traits and DNA that make people a family exist as well in plants. Just as with people, plants have many traits and characteristics that define them and link them into family groups.

For sake of example, I am focusing on parts of the Honeysuckle Family (Caprifoliaceae). The Korean Spice Bush (Viburnum carlesi) is frequently requested around Mother’s Day. If we run low on this particular plant be assured, that there are a good number of solutions close at hand. Sibling variants, cousinly hybrids, and backcross hybrids are in good supply. What links them all together is the wonderful fragrance of spring after winter’s grasp. The following all offer a possible substitution for the original depending on the application. Larger in form with pinker buds is the well-known V. x juddii; also larger but with many more pink buds and semi-evergreen leaves are V. x burkwoodii and V. x burkwoodii ‘Mohawk.’ A smaller alternative with very large flowers is V. ‘Cayuga.’ These and more offer easy choices without leaving the species.

In a second example, we compare the genera Weigela and Diervilla both of the Honeysuckle Family. The Asian genus Weigela florida is everywhere in our landscapes. W. ‘Wine and Roses’ and others began the flood of pink-dominant flowering varieties. A painter’s palette of foliage colors defines this species of Weigelas. The genus Diervilla of eastern North America is a b & b plant (browsing and bumblebees). In its native circumstances, it has been browsed by moose and deer without ill effect and is an obvious favorite of bumblebees with its clusters of yellow, honeysuckle-like flowers. With the advent of the Kodiak series, Diervilla is now an active participant in landscapes still retaining its native status. These honeysuckles were separated by thousands of miles, but both possess unmatched foliage variety and the ability to flush vibrant new growth after a good trim. They have very similar leaf shapes and their phyllotaxis of alternating leaf patterns attest to their being of the same family.

Linnaeus and the Taxonomy of Horticulture give us the guidelines we need to find solutions to shortage problems. A shortage of plants just gives us an opportunity to expand our imagination and use the tools already at hand.

Walking around Christensen’s this spring you may notice a few distinct differences from previous years. You may see our new signs or the new machines at the hardscape center. However, the difference I am talking about is nothing new at all, it is nothing. The most obvious change for many of us is the half-empty field and the lack of towering evergreens waiting in our yard. As our investor for Deciduous, Ornamental, and Evergreen Trees I have been looking across the country for this material and the simple answer is that it just does not exist in many cases.

Arborvitae are experiencing an exceptionally brutal year on the east and west coast. After severe drought hit the west coast last spring and summer fires started burning across Oregon. We were being sent images of entire fields turned brown due to a lack of rain in what is historically one of the wettest regions in the country. Further east in Tennessee certain varieties of arborvitae have been hit by a yet to be identified disease. Paired with the unusually wet spring they have experienced and high demand these plants are not as readily available in large sizes (7-8’) as they once were. We have been buying up as much as we can stock due to the unpredictability of this crop.  Currently, we are overstocked in 4-5-6’ Emerald Green and have placed them on sale, but it’s hard to say what will continue to happen throughout this season with this genus.

Red Flowering Cherokee Dogwood are experiencing a similar issue. These trees are particularly susceptible to damage from excessive water, but also fungus and mold which thrive in wet conditions. Tennessee’s wet spring has resulted in crop failures and a lack of available material.

These droughts and diseases only account for a small part of the shortages, but they do contribute to the problem.  As we’ve mentioned before, the real disease behind the shortage is the pandemic we have all been living through. In addition to the increased desire to landscape, everyone sitting at home also pointed us towards a recession which was combated with a huge drop in interest rates. This created a boom in the housing market. Now demand for plants was not only surging for renovation but also for new housing developments.

This new housing boom is the largest our country has seen since well before the market crashed in 2008. As we mentioned in Eric’s article, Bring On Spring, trees take 5-10 years to size up, and 5-10 years ago we were on the back end of a huge recession. Due to financial difficulties, planting heavily to plan for the next demand surge was not an option. Pulling ahead on smaller and smaller crops starting in 2020 caused size shortages. This “overselling” is most obvious with evergreens, most large sizes are not available because they have all been sold as smaller trees in previous years.

So here we are in 2022, available product on many popular varieties is down to 6’ and 2” trees. As long as demand stays high, and everyone keeps selling, the next year’s available material will be smaller and smaller. And while the economy is slowing down, historically, an increase in fuel prices drives down vacations and increases investments in homes for “staycations.” If fuel costs stay high, we may be looking at yet another season of homeowners pouring financial resources into their landscapes.

Unfortunately, there are no real substitutes for pine, spruce, and arborvitae but there are some options. While larger sizes of popular varieties such as Emerald Green and Green Giant Arborvitae are harder to come by, similar varieties can be easier to find. We have good quantities of Hetz Wintergreen Arborvitae available which work great as a narrow evergreen and for screening. If you can substitute smaller sizes, check out the Emerald Green Arborvitae sale (see Sticks & Stones e-mail). Crabapples or Pink Dogwoods work as a bright flowering substitute for red flowering Cherokee Dogwoods. Many growers we have spoken with have learned from this unprecedented situation the industry is in. They are planting as much as they can to try and keep up, but it could be 5 years before we see a full recovery.

We’ll continue to keep scouring our sources to keep you supplied with the best plant material as long as this landscaping boom keeps going.

Whether you are going to sod or to seed your next lawn project there are advantages to both. Depending on the job, leveraging your options could give you a competitive advantage with your customers. Here are how the choices stack up.

The biggest advantage that sod has is the instant gratification of a green lawn and immediate erosion control by acting as a blanket to help hold soil in place. Sod has a faster turnaround time for when your customer can use their yard. After about two to three weeks the sod is rooted in and ready for normal lawn traffic. So, for those customers that decided to re-do the whole yard right before the graduation party/outdoor wedding/backyard baby shower, think sod.

The biggest advantage when you choose seed is the initial cost. Both the cost of product and installation start out lower. Having many different choices of blends of seed to make sure that you get the right lawn you are looking for. From Kentucky bluegrass to perennial ryegrass to red fescue, seed allows you to customize your mix to the area you’re planting. Seed can be a boon when you’re working with a discerning homeowner that’s willing to wait a little to get exactly what they want out of their lawn.

Whether you choose to seed or sod, here at Christensen’s we have options for both to make sure you get the right product for your job. When it comes to seed Christensen’s carries three choices for you, sunny mix, shady mix, and fast green mix. If you require a special mix for your job beyond those, we can special order it for you. For those spots that need a little extra care, you can pick up sunny/shady lawn patch.

We also offer several items to make sure that your seed is given the best possible start. Try PennMulch, a mixture that fertilizes, holds in moisture, and holds the seed in place, over top of your seed to speed up germination and fill in quickly. Straw blankets are MDOT approved and help manage erosion, protect seeds from birds and shade the ground to help retain moisture. Talk to a sales rep about EZ Straw, fertilizer, sprinkler towers, and hoses. We stock all of these items to make your lawn and turf endeavors successful.

If sod is your choice, Christensen’s stocks a few pallets of fresh-cut sod in our yard, brought in bi-weekly. However, if you let us know when you are going to be laying the sod we can get as much as you need for your job. Upon ordering, you can pick it up from our yard or, if it meets the quantity minimum, you can have it shipped directly to your job site or yard.

So, whether you are laying sod or spreading seed Christensen’s has you covered.

...through "Guerrilla Art"

I have a friend who earns his living in an unusual field – he is a graffiti artist, commissioned to place his art on buildings. When we met, he oversaw pest management at the greenhouse we both worked at. Since then, his hobby has become his passion and livelihood. He has travelled the country splashing his art on the walls of Miami, Chicago, Kansas City and more. If you’ve been in Detroit or Toledo, you may have seen his work.

I’ve always thought of landscape color plantings as a form of “Guerrilla Art”, which is a term applied to certain forms of street graffiti. There are a lot of similarities if you think about it. Graffiti and landscaping are out in public space for everyone to see and enjoy (or critique). Also, the color theory needed for public space is the same. Both need to consider sight lines for how the art will be viewed. Both need to adjust for mere moments of attention versus minutes or hours of retrospection in a museum or walking garden. If people are speeding by on a freeway, the audience needs to be able to see large blasts of color to interpret the art. Bigger and bolder is most often better. And planning for surroundings is essential to get the cohesive aesthetic the artist is trying to achieve in the outdoor arena.

Do you consider yourself an artist? Most landscapers I know would not. However, it’s hard to deny that the masterpieces they create in yards and public spaces are works of art. I would argue that the medium you use is the hardest to work with, since it is living (or must incorporate the living, if you’re creating a hardscape). Further complicating your living artwork is timing. If you work in annuals, this is less of an issue, but perennials, flowering shrubs and flowering trees all need to be installed with their bloom season in mind. Perhaps you should start listing “Artist” on your business cards… or “Guerrilla Artist” if you want to be edgy.

When I met my friend, he was in a phase of his life where he didn’t express to others that he was an artist, but the transition has transformed his work into his passion and he can’t hide his creative prowess any longer. Obviously, we don’t all need to quit our jobs and become graffiti artists to capture or recapture our passion. We can continue to be artists in our current jobs and turn our love of landscape into artwork the public can enjoy.

For some helpful color theory tips to elevate your art, check out Makenna’s article from last year.

Alliance Lighting’s Bluetooth series of fixtures continue to gain in popularity. What started with the single, yet revolutionary, BL200-BT “bullet” fixture has grown to over 20 different fixtures, which include path light stems, understep fixtures, downlights, uplights, and more in a short period of time.

Let’s talk about how to market these to your clients.

Have you proposed installing these versatile, high-quality fixtures only to be told that your client is not interested in color-changers? Maybe they can’t anticipate ever using anything but white, or don’t want to be locked into “color” only. But here’s the thing - the RGB color change ability is completely optional. These fixtures can stay entirely in the white spectrum, and even have three preset “white” color temperatures. Or you can choose just the right tone and brightness from the graphical interface in the Alliance bt app.

Here’s another selling point - setting up and running your own custom lighting scheme is dead easy. You can group fixtures into zones that all run the same program, for instance. An example might be to zone six directional spots on the front of the house, another with three wide-beam spots on various focal points on the property, and a third for four or five path lights on the walkway to the front door. Each zone can be controlled independently by the client right from the app. Any fixture in your installation can be grouped with any of the others, no need to be on the same run. Also, you can define up to three "scenes" that can be toggled on and off at will.

One more feature: All of Alliance’s BT series of fixtures are dimmable. Clients have the option of changing how bright or how soft they choose to illuminate every aspect of their property, by fixture or by group. There are no additional switches, transformers, or other equipment needed, and changes take effect instantly. The app makes setting lighting schedules easy and they run on their own thereafter.

In conclusion, Alliance's BT series can be zoned, are dimmable, and run from an easy-to-use mobile app. The color change ability is an extra, fun option to use seasonally or whenever the whim strikes, without having to invest in more equipment later. The app is available for Android and Apple devices and is free to download and use.

Landscape lighting just keeps getting better and better. There are few properties that can't be enhanced by outdoor lighting and having a professionally designed and installed system like Alliance's can make a big difference in a client's property value.

When I was growing up my father and I planted gladiolus corms in our flower garden next to the house. I remember their bold colors reliably displaying each summer. When I moved into my own home years later I found all sorts of new and exciting colors available. They were beautiful that first year, but the following year I noticed that most of my glads didn’t come back. After some internet-sleuthing I realized that they are supposed to be lifted and stored inside for the winter. So why did they always come back when I was a kid?

Microclimate perhaps? Our main flower garden was against a south-facing brick wall, with years of compost mixed into our sandy soil. Glads don’t like a wet bum, so our native, well-drained soil was a good match. The sun-exposed brick wall warmed up the soil, tempering the chilly winter ground.

Could it have been the heirloom varieties we grew? I’m generally a believer that local heritage varieties are hardier. This seems to be the case with gladiolus. In my experience the new fancy ones, though beautiful, are hit-or-miss with successfully overwintering in our area.

Here are some tips to help you on your way to beautiful spires of color each year:

Plant in pots

Be sure your pots are large and heavy enough so the flowers won’t blow over, also make sure they have drainage holes. Add rocks to the bottom of the pot, top with a sandy soil mix. For an extended blooming season plant pots a couple weeks apart, or mix varieties in the same pot. You can add supports to help the spires stand up as they grow tall. There are shorter, and even dwarf varieties available that may work well in pots without support or the fear of wind damage on balconies. After the flowers are spent it could be a good time to move the pots somewhere less conspicuous, as the plant does not rebloom. Sometime before the first frost, dump out the pots and collect the corms, set them somewhere where they can dry in the open air for a couple days, then lightly cover them up to dry further. For final long-term winter storage place them loosely in layers in a cardboard box, separating layers with newspaper. Keep them in a cool dark place where they may nap until spring, protected from animals and sub-40f temperatures.

Leave ‘em in the ground

With a little bit of luck and some forethought you can have success simply leaving your glads in the ground! Moisture and extreme cold temperatures are what you’re trying to manage. To this end, I have found that digging trenches in sunny areas that are not prone to spring puddling works out well. Planting next to a sun-exposed wall is even better! Dig the trench about 14” deep and fill the bottom 3” with rocks. Mix some native soil with whatever amendments are needed to build a sand-heavy blend with a modest amount of organic matter. Plant the corms at various depths as you fill the trench with soil. I’ve sunk ‘em down 8” with no problems. Hardier varieties such as ‘Violet Queen’ and ‘Atom’, as well as many old heritage classics may help you gain an edge on the colder weather.

Glads will do well with a mulch covering the soil and a balanced fertilizer after emergence.

How's everyone doing? I think we are now past the worst of the summer heat but to be honest I was ready for fall weeks ago. We may like to complain about the weather but when you are out in the hot burning sun day after day I think it's justified. Congratulations on making it through the dog days! Labor Day is the traditional end of summer but you and I both know there will be weeks of beautiful - even hot - weather before we trade sunscreen and Gatorade for hoodies and Carhartts. But today, let's get out of the sun for a minute and do some shade gardening.

I'm a big fan of shade gardening, and the plants that thrive in shade and partial shade. I used to have an enormous Hosta collection but now that I am gardening in the country I had to scale back on those because they are basically expensive entrées for our hordes of deer. I keep a few favorites behind fences but out in the yard I have better luck with ferns. 

Lest you think that all ferns need daylong shade, I have quite a colony of Ostrich fern that do just fine in nearly full sun. In fact they were getting a little carried away so I had to take some of them out. Here they are happily crushing my baptisia.

You're going to need to provide supplemental water especially under big trees, but established ferns can be surprisingly drought tolerant. Maidenhair fern can be a little fussy but Autumn, Lady, Male and Cinnamon fern are all happy in part sun to full shade, which is also where you will find ME when it's 90° or better. And you should really try to have some Painted fern if at all possible. 

So let's take a break from summer heat and enjoy this word search puzzle created by our very own Jeff Good. (Answers here)