University Place

Creating a Garden for All Seasons

[Erin Clark, Nursery Manager, Schonheit Gardens]

All right, so thank you again for coming today, I appreciate it. Today we’ll be talking about creating a garden for all seasons. Sometimes we have a really gorgeous garden in the summertime, and then other times we look at it and it’s kinda not doing much of all.

So, I always like to start off with a plan, where are we headed today? So first we’re gonna talk about the five basics of gardening. If we are putting in a garden, I think we should all know kind of the general idea of how to make that successful. Then we’ll go through some basic design principles, so you have a really aesthetically pleasing garden.

[Slide with Whats the Plan?, covering the topics to be discussed – The 5 basics of gardening, basic design principles, plan for interest all four seasons and maintenance, mulch and watering]

And then we’ll jump into the meat of it and plan for all seasons, making things look gorgeous. And then of course, how to maintain it, mulch it, water it, keep it looking gorgeous once you’ve got it all planned out.

[slide with the title The 5 Basics of Gardening with an illustrated flower underneath]

So, the five basics of gardening.

[new slide with the title The 5 Basics of Gardening with the list of temperature, light, water, nutrients and air listed below]

They are temperature, light, water, nutrients and air.

[slide titled Temperature with 4 photos, one of a map of Wisconsin with the U.S.D.A. hardiness zones indicated on it and 3 of plant information cards with the temperature zone recommendations circled on the info cards in red]

For temperature, I’m just going to touch on the hardiness zones. We need to make sure that we know what plant will survive where we are. The U.S.D.A. hardiness zones range from 1 to 11, and here in the Madison area, we are zone five. We are recently updated from zone four, thanks to global warming –

[Erin Clark]

– which isn’t always good but does give us a little bump. Theres a couple people – some people are still not quite on board with that, so if you want to be safe, get zone four plants.

When you’re at the garden center, how do you know what zone the plant is? If you look on the I.D. tag, you can flip that over and it’ll you the zone. As long as your zone is in between the number range given, you should be able to grow it without any trouble.

Light.

[slide with the title Light with 3 photos of plant I.D. tags with the amount of light needed circled on the tags in red. Additionally, the varying definitions of sun versus shade]

This seems to be a big, big question when folks come into the nursery. It’s one of the first we ask, Is your garden sunny or shady? Well, people kinda stop and stutter, and Oh, I’m not really sure. So, a full sun situation is at least six hours of sunlight a day. Part sun to part shade is between three and six hours of sunlight a day. And then a full shade situation is considered less than three hours of sunlight a day. Now I know we have a lot of boundary pushers as gardeners out there. So, keep in mind –

[Erin Clark]

– that morning sun is gentler than the afternoon sun. So, if you have, say, oh four hours of sunlight situation and you’re really pining after a shade-loving plant, if you’ve got that for hours of sun in the morning, you can probably get away with it. But if it’s between, say, one and five in the afternoon, don’t try that. [chuckles] You’re going to fry it.

Also, a full sun plant will not bloom properly or as vigorously if you put it in the shade, and variegations tend to suffer if they’re not properly sited.

So, most of us are familiar with a lot of sun loving plants. A lot of gardens are sunny –

[slide with the title Sun Loving Plants with a list of them below]

– so, you have things like most of your trees and evergreens, hydrangeas. They can kind of do both, depending on which one you’re choosing. Things like coneflowers and salvia and geraniums. Lots and lots of options out there.

[slide titled Shade Loving Plants with a list of them below]

Shade loving plants. You can use a pagoda dogwood for a nice understory tree. Again, some hydrangeas, depending on the one that you’re choosing. Things like hostas we all know, and ferns. Helleborus, heuchera, pachysandra. A lot of fun options there too.

[slide with the title Water and two lists below, one listing plants that prefer Damp situations and ones that prefer Dry situations]

Water. This is a big talk. We’re not going to talk too much about water but just touch on the extremes. So, if you have a really damp situation, maybe a ring garden that you’re putting in or just in the area where water tends to pool anyways. Things like birch, willow, dogwood, bottle gentians, Siberian iris and Joe-Pye weed, those will all do nicely in a damp situation.

If you have a dry situation just by soil type, or maybe you’re intentionally doing some xeriscaping, you can still have a really gorgeous garden. I think sometimes people think, you know, if they have one extreme or the other, they can’t garden as nicely as other folks, but you really can. The picture here in the bottom right is from Chanticleer Gardens in Wayne, Pennsylvania, one of my top favorite public gardens out there. It’s a bit of a drive, but it’s absolutely gorgeous. And here they’re having a dry situation and you’ve got some absolutely gorgeous purple poppy mallows, that hot pink in the corner. You’ve got probably lavender in there, as well as Pearly Everlasting and grasses and milkweed. It’s gorgeous. So, don’t fret if you do have a damp or a dry situation.

[Erin Clark]

Nutrients. That could be a whole semester-long class on its own, so we’re just going to really shorten that down.

[slide with the title Nutrients and a listing of the major nutrients below along with two pictures, one of Miracle Gro and one of Jacks Classic Blossom Booster with their labels circled]

Nitrogen is really important for leafy growth. Phosphorus helps with root development and flowering, and potassium helps the plant get ready for overwintering and disease resistance. These are probably the three that you will encounter most and needing to know about. They’re known as N, P and K and you’ll see that on fertilizer containers and that sort of thing. So, if we look at the Miracle Gro container in the upper right-hand corner, you’ll notice that it’s a 20-20-20. That means it’s nice, all-purpose, kind of good for whatever you need it for. But Jack’s Blossom Booster, if you notice that middle number is elevated compared to the others, that means that it’s good for the flower development because that P, the middle number, is higher.

Then of course you have secondary macronutrients, the sulfur, the calcium and magnesium. And then micronutrients as well. Basically, you should be okay. A lot of gardens are just fine. If you notice that things –

[Erin Clark]

– are getting a little funky, maybe you have yellow leaf growth or things just don’t look right, then you can take either a tissue sample or soil sample and take it to the U.W. Lab and they’ll help you figure out what might be going on with your plants.

Air. So, I like to think about air in two different ways. One, above ground; and secondly, below ground. For above ground, think about how the air is going to affect the plants that you’re planting. Things like grasses and Quaking Aspen look really gorgeous on a windy day. I mean Quaking Aspen, it lives with the wind, right? It’s beautiful. And secondly, it kind of helps you know what maybe you can grow. We have a lot of folks come into the nursery really looking for a Japanese maple. They’re beautiful. They look kind of exotic. And my first question always, Are you in town or are you in the country? If you’re in the country, I usually say, You know, let’s try to find something different. That’s because of the windy nature. You know, if you’re surrounded by farm fields and you’ve got a lot of wind, it’s so borderline hardy that it’s just not going to do that well. If you happen to be in town and you’ve got a lot of houses around you, kind of a nice microclimate. Yeah, play around with it and see if you can get that Japanese maple to grow. I mean we’ve all seen it around town. They look beautiful, so you can do it, but it’s borderline.

Secondly –

[slide with the title Air with two lists, one of factors to think of above ground and another list of factors to think of below ground]

– and maybe more importantly, below ground. We all need air to breathe, and so do roots. So, you need to make sure that you’re not overwatering your plant. If you overwater the plant, the soil is going to get bogged down. It’s not going to be able to breathe properly. Bacteria will start growing. You’ve got root rot, and you’ve got death. So, we’ll talk more about how to water properly. But just keep that in mind.

[new slide with the title Consider Your Soil with a list of the main types of soil below it]

Okay, so we went through the five basics of gardening, but I always like to include a sixth, the soil, right? Like basically, everything is going to be grown in soil. So, you’ve got clay, sand and loam. Clay has really small particles and small pores. This is great that it holds on to nutrients and water really well. If you have clay soil –

[Erin Clark]

– you also know that this is a really tricky gardening situation. Sand, on the other hand, has large particles and large pores, which is great for aeration, but the water tends to zip through pretty quick, as well as the nutrients. So, you might find that your plants tend to be a little more hungry in this situation. Now the perfect gardening soil is loam. We all wish we had loam. It’s ideal because it’s got that nice mix of enough small particles and small pores to hold on to the water and nutrients, but enough space too to let things breathe properly so you don’t get that root rot we talked about earlier.

We have a lot of people go, All right, I have clay soil. If I add sand, we’ve got small particles and the big particles and it’ll work, right? It sounds good, but you’ve just made concrete.

[laughter]

Right? Because that’s what concrete is. So, compost, compost, compost is what you really want to add. And I recommend that no matter, even if you have that perfect loam soil that we’re all wanting, just add compost anyways. It’s always going to make it better.

[return to the Consider Your Soil slide]

[new slide of Basic Design Principles with an illustrated flower underneath]

Okay, so basic design principles. We know essentially how to make a garden work. Now how do we make it lovely?

[new slide with the title Design and a list of things to consider underneath]

So, I want you to keep in mind four steps. One, what are my conditions? So, that’s kind of looking at the basics of gardening. Two, what is the look I’m going for? This is where the dreaming happens. This is where we all start. Then I want you to look at the big picture. Think about things in your garden and – and how things relate to one another there. We’ll talk about it a little bit more here. And then you can start picking out the plants, those specific plants that you love, and you really want to add.

[new slide titled Designing – My Conditions listing the choices of Location and Special Circumstances]

Okay, so my conditions, do you have sun or shade? That’s top for me, sun or shade. Then are you particularly dry or wet? What other things are going on in your area? Do you have special circumstances? Do you have a walnut that is really kind of giving you a hard time and has that toxic stuff coming out of it? You need to be careful. Do you have a really salty situation? Maybe the garden you’re trying to put in is by a driveway or something that gets a lot of salt in the wintertime?

[Erin Clark]

Do you have some animals that maybe you wish weren’t there, like deer and rabbits? Think about those things first. This will help let you know if the plants you’re choosing are going to work.

Now we can start dreaming. What colors do you like? Do you like hot colors, like your reds, your oranges, your yellows, it gets you really invigorated and going? Do you like cool colors? Maybe the pinks and the purples and the whites? That’s where I am, I love those. Maybe you have deer and rabbits that you don’t want. Do you have birds and butterflies that you do want to bring in, help the pollinators a little bit? Do you want to add some fragrance to the garden, add things like lilacs?

[new slide with the title Designing – My Look with the considerations of Themes, Categories and Considerations and ways to Gather Ideas]

And then the dreaming is here, right? So, go get ideas. Go to those great garden walks. Olbrich has a fantastic one every summer. A lot of the area towns have their own little garden walks. This is where you can really see where gardeners in your area are finding things that are successful and getting great ideas from. Go to botanical gardens. There are educators, they’re a great place. We’ve got Olbrich in Madison. You’ve got the Rotary Gardens in Janesville. You’ve got the Green Bay Botanical Gardens in Green Bay, right? And lots of other botanical gardens across the country.

Then you can also look at magazines and do to the home and garden shows on public television and elsewhere. Remember when you’re watching the shows or maybe a national magazine? Maybe that bougainvillea isn’t hardy here.

[Erin Clark]

Just have to keep that in mind.

Okay, so this is the big picture. This is when we’re kind of starting to put the pieces together for our garden. I always like to think of it, so you’re kind of looking at it through hazy eyes. Where do you want that big tree to go? Where do you want a nice shrub line or maybe a perennial bed? What colors are you going for? What’s kind of the general look? Let’s think about this in general terms.

Maybe you walk in and right by the front door, you’re thinking you want a shrub. Needs to be maybe three, four feet tall. White flowers would go with the house nicely and nope, you don’t want it to be evergreen. Okay, so now we start thinking about the choices that we have. Do you on a Limelight hydrangea, or sorry, a Little Lime? Limelight is going to get a lot bigger on you. A Little Lime hydrangea, it’s got the nice poofy flowers. You can enjoy it, let’s say, probably summer through fall. If you leave the seed heads up, you’ve got nice winter interest as well. You can also cut them for cut flowers at a number of stages and enjoy them that way.

Maybe you want to do a Tor spirea. The flowers are smaller, but you’ve got great fall color going on there. Or maybe a chokeberry. You’ve got the flowers in the springtime, you’ve got some great fruit maybe for the birds –

[slide with the title Designing – Look at the Big Picture and a list of ways to look at the big picture from hardscaping to starting with largest and working to smallest and considering size, form and color]

– in the summer, and then fall color as well. So, then you can start picking out your favorites and where you want to go with that.

[new slide with title Designing – Look at the Specifics with a list of the aspects of different plants with a small photo of a plant garden]

So, of course, that takes us to the specifics. A lot of people often think right away of flowers. And flowers are beautiful, they give us that punch and pizzazz right away. But there’s so many other cool aspects to a – a plant, right? You’ve got the color of the leaves. Maybe they’re patterned, maybe they have a really fun texture. What about the bark on some trees? You know, this is where you start thinking about everything and – and drawing in to get that interest year-round. That bark is going to be really important in the winter when the flowers and the leaves are gone, right?

So, if you look at the picture I’ve got here, this is from a garden to where I went on years ago. I loved this shady little garden. Maybe one of you has this garden. But it’s really pretty, right? You’ve got some nice texture, you’ve got a pattern with the lungwort there, and it’s still really cool and there’s really not a flower there, just a little hint of a Hosta flower in the bottom. But it’s really interesting. So, this is a way that you can get really neat stuff happening even if you don’t have flowers.

[Erin Clark]

Okay, and then you’ve got your plan. You say all right, I know how this is going to work. I’ve got my plants picked out. Maybe I even drew out a plan of where it’s all going to go. I went to the garden center; I bought my plants. Please take time to prepare the soil. This is where you’re adding your nutrients. If you’re a little nervous get, a soil test. See if you maybe need to switch things around a little bit, add your compost now. It’s going to be a heck of a lot easier than once – when all those plants are in the ground. Oh, we carried on here, didn’t we? There we are. So yeah, make sure you take time to prepare the soil.

Now this is what you’re all here for, right?

[slide with the title Plan for Interest in All Four Seasons with and illustrated flower underneath]

How do we make this gorgeous all year round?

[new slide with the title Seasonal Interest – Winter listing those plants and trees that hold viewing interest in the winter]

Okay, so let’s start with winter. Winter is the hardest, right? There’s not much going on, it’s kind of the non-gardening season, but you still want to look out on some gorgeous things. This is when you start thinking about the bark and the twigs and the structure. So, the dogwood here is gorgeous. It really shines against the – the white snow. The seed heads have been left up on the hydrangeas. They look beautiful when the snow falls on them. Maybe you want to leave up seed heads on things like echinaceas, so the birds have something to eat. Crabapples have that gorgeous lingering fruit that’s just cherry red and stunning with the snow. Things like Harry Lauder’s Walking Stick. It’s not a favorite of mine, but it sure looks awesome when the leaves are gone, and you’ve got that cool contorted branching. That’s really when I think Harry Lauder shines. You also have weeping plants –

[Erin Clark]

– that add some interest then. Evergreens, of course, are always going to look gorgeous in the wintertime. And then think about statuary. Maybe you want to put some cool statues out there that kind of add some interest for the wintertime.

Winter is when you’re really thinking about the bones of the garden. When everything else is gone, what do you have left for the wintertime?

So, here –

[slide with 5 photos of plants that work well in the winter, Dogwood Artic Fire, Arborvitae Mr. Bowling Ball, Arborvitae Sunkist, Dogwood Baton Rouge and False Cypress Golden Mops]

– we’ve got a lot of plants that would look beautiful in the wintertime. You can add some golden color with a Sunkist Arborvitae or a Gold Mop Chama cypress maybe? The dogwood here – we got Baton Rouge into the nursery a couple of years ago just to try. We were all blown away. We loved how absolutely bright red those stems were. And you can cut in the wintertime as well using winter decorations. Leave some out there as well to look beautiful out in the landscape.

[new slide with 5 more photos of winter plants, Boxwood Chicago Green, Juniper Blue Star, Juniper Medora, Euonymus Moonshadow and Pinus mugo Slowmound]

Boxwood or junipers. We can just barely see it on the screen there, but the bottom left is juniper blue star. It’s a little prickly like junipers are, but that blue color sparkles in the sunshine. It’s absolutely beautiful on a sunny day. Euonymus Moonshadow is going to look beautiful throughout the – throughout the growing season, evergreen, and give you some interest that way as well.

[new slide with 6 photos of other winter features including, perennials and grasses, colorful stems, lingering fruit, branching structures, shrubs and broadleaf evergreens]

And then of course when the snow falls, I have to admit I just cruised around Olbrich earlier this year after we had a – a snowfall, and how beautiful are these things? The crab apples, I was just stunned with. They looked so beautiful with the snow on them. And the branching structure there in the bottom middle, it really was highlighted once the snow was on it. And broadleaf evergreens, you actually can get flowers and evergreen together in a rhododendron, right? So, consider all those things in the wintertime.

[new slide titled Seasonal Interest – Spring with a list of spring flowers and shrubs]

Okay, spring. We’re probably all here right now because we’re itching for spring, right? We got a little bit of a hint today. We’ve got some warmer weather. Maybe you want to start buying some stems of daffodils to force inside.

[Erin Clark]

This, to me, bulbs, are a must in a garden. We’re all so starving for something beautiful. We’re done with the snow; we’re done with the muck. We want color. Add bulbs. Please, please, please add bulbs. Things like your tulips and your crocus and your daffodils are just gorgeous right in the spring. They’re the first to come up and get you invigorated for the new growing season.

[return to the Seasonal Interest – Spring slide]

You have woodland ephemerals. Those that just come up so quick and then they’re gone but add such joy to the garden if you have a shady situation. Things like your cherries and crabapples. There are festivals around these plants. They’re beautiful. Iris and iberis will start going, and who can’t miss the – the gorgeous carpets of creeping phlox? That’s, you know, right early in this season as well.

[new slide with photos of 5 spring blossoms, Viburnum Cayuga, Forsythia, Crabapples, Lilacs and Magnolia Royal Star]

And then of course the Asiatic lilies are just at the tail end of spring and early, early summer, but they really help bridge that gap so that you don’t quite have that everything is gorgeous with the bulbs and then we haven’t quite started summer blooming. So, here’s some shrubs and trees that will look beautiful. Forsythia. You know, we know it’s spring when the forsythia starts blooming. And lilacs of course, all waiting for that gorgeous scent to come out.

[new slide with 6 photos of more spring blooms, Creeping Phlox, Iris, Dicentra Bleeding Heart, Peony, Ajuga Bugleweed and Bergenia Pigsqueak]

Things like the creeping phlox. And bugleweed, maybe you know it as a great ground cover, but it’s got stunning flowers in the spring. They’ll even poke their heads out a little bit in the fall too if you’re lucky. The bottom right is Bergenia or Pigsqueak. Those little pink bell flowers are beautiful. And the leaves tend to be semi-evergreen as well, and they get nice fall color. So, that’s a small plant that maybe you’re not familiar with that adds a lot of seasons of interest.

Peonies are gorgeous, and you can get all different colors, the single petals, the big puffy ones. Cut them for cut flowers. Bring them into the house. Irises, of course, and Bleeding Heart as well.

[new slide with 6 photos of more spring blooms, Baptisia False Indigo, Iberis Candytuft, Tiarella Foamflower, Asiatic and Oriental Lilies, Brunnera and Galium Sweet Woodruff}

Things like Baptisia, one of my top favorite plants. People always ask gardeners, What’s your favorite plant? And Im –

[Erin Clark]

– Oof, I don’t know, there’s so many beautiful ones, I don’t have a favorite. I do now, Baptisia. They come in purple or like a lavender color. You’ve got yellows, you’ve got white, you’ve got some, kind of, purply, muddy, pinky things going on. Those aren’t my favorite. But they’ve got great tall spikes of beautiful flowers in the spring. They’ve got kind of a medium green leaf, great texture. It’s nice and sturdy, you don’t have to stake them or anything. It makes a really great backdrop for a lot of other lovely plants. And then you’ve got seedpods that come on in the fall.

And the best thing, you just cut it down. And then if you have a spot where you need to dump some soil from the driveway, or sorry, snow, you wouldn’t really want to dump soil from the driveway, snow from the driveway in the wintertime, you aren’t going to damage the plant at all, and it’ll actually insulate it a little bit and keep it happy over the winter.

Galium or –

[return to the slide featuring Baptisia and another 5 spring blooms]

– Sweet Woodruff is nice little ground cover in the springtime and smells really nice. Brunnera or the perennial False Forget-me-not. Iberis, I love as well, and, of course, we talked about the Asiatic lilies kind of bridging the gap between spring and summer.

[new slide with 6 photos of more springtime plants and flowers including, Virginia Bluebells, Mayapple, Ferns, Maidenhair Fern, Bloodroot and Hepatica]

So, here’s some of our woodland plants that are stunning. Things like bloodroot and hepatica, the mayapple. These I love for spring, just going out on a – a woodland walk. If you have got a shady area, these are great to incorporate as well.

[new slide with the title Seasonal Interest – Summer and a list of plants and flowers for the summer season]

Okay, so summer. This is when most of us probably have a pretty good-looking garden. We’ve got a lot of plants that bloom in the summertime. You’ve got a nice mix of colors. You’ve got things like monarda and salvia. Maybe you’ve got some Siberian irises that are blooming. The clematis are going crazy and looking beautiful. Daylilies are a nice, easy plant and they add a nice splash of color.

Keep in mind that perennials have –

[Erin Clark]

– a shorter window that they tend to bloom. So, maybe you’ve got this great time and then a few weeks later, things kind of don’t look great. Well, go visit the garden center. Go see what’s blooming right then. If it’s blooming at the garden center, it’s going to be blooming in your garden, right? So, just kind of go back. See what might fit into your garden. Now don’t fall in love with something that doesn’t fit in your garden. Go back, think about those four things, right? What are your conditions, what is the look you’re going for, and what needs to happen in that empty spot?

If you fall in love with a hot pink plant but the rest of your garden is red, orange and yellow, it’s going to stick out like a sore thumb. So, love it and go see it at the botanical garden.

[laughter]

So, here’s some shrubs –

[slide with 6 photos of shrubs and plants that are good for summer including, Roses, Hydrangea, Hydrangea Trees, St. Johns Wort and Potentilla Mango Tango]

– in kind of your hotter color situation. Hydrangeas are a must for me. They do a lot of wonderful things and they come in a whole range of sizes and colors. You can even get a hydrangea tree. It’s just limbed up a little bit, so if you – if you want to plant something underneath, you can. Make it big and gorgeous and lovely.

Things like roses are always tried-and-true. And breeders are coming out with some that are really easy. They’ve got fragrance, they’ve got gorgeous color, their disease-resistant and you don’t have to spend every day out there getting the spray out to keep them healthy.

[new slide with 6 photos of summer friendly foliage including Honeysuckle Cool Splash, Ninebark Diablo, Spirea Tor, Spirea Mellow Yellow, Buckthorn Fine Line and Honeysuckle Kodiak Orange]

Here you can focus on your foliage. Remember we said don’t just think about the flowers? Maybe you want to have darker leaves of a Ninebark. Or Fine Line buckthorn is a favorite plant of mine. It’s not invasive. It – it has less seeds, or basically no seeds. It can grow in sun and shade. It’s nice and narrow and tall, fits in a lot of great places and has just a beautiful texture. So, it’s got some of the good qualities of an invasive, if there are good qualities, but it behaves itself too. So that’s wonderful.

The Tor Spirea we touched on earlier. If you want the ease of a spirea but you, kind of go, Ugh, spirea? Check out Tor or – I don’t have it up on the slide. Oh, no I do, the name is cut off but the little guy in the bottom middle is Ogon, or Mellow Yellow. It has chartreuse strappy little leaves and gorgeous little white flowers. It’s really pretty and no one will know that you’re going a spirea –

[Erin Clark]

– unless they’re a true gardener. [chuckles] And the Kodiak orange honeysuckle, beautiful, beautiful fall color. So, start thinking about those characteristics that you want to draw in. The fall color for me. Flowers in the summer. Think about fragrance, trying to find plants that do more than one thing, especially if you have a small yard. This is huge, you have limited space, you need your plants to do a lot for you.

If you are a pink, purple and white lover, here some plants for you.

[slide with 6 photos of more summer blooms including, Weigela Tango, Roses, Hydrangea Pinky Winky, Weigela My Moment, Weigela Dark Horse and Hydrangea Tuff Stuff]

Pinky Winky really comes on beautifully as the season wears on and gets a really nice color to the flowers. The Weigela Dark Horse, those dark leaves with the hot pink flowers against it really pops in my mind. Roses, of course, any multitude of colors. And Hydrangea Tuff Stuff is a real unique hydrangea that we can grow here.

[new slide with 6 photos of perennials that are summer blooms including, Coreopsis Tickseed, Delosperma Ice Plant, Aslepias Milkweed, Helenium Sneezeweed, Hemerocallis Daylily and Coreopsis Tickseed]

So, on to some perennials. Again, we’re at our hot colors. Daylilies are pretty easy for folks to grow. They’re tough, they’re hardy. Milkweed for a dryer situation, help the butterflies out a little bit. The Delosperma or ice plant is definitely hardy here. You might be having trouble with it if it gets too wet in the wintertime. It really needs to stay dry over the winter. So, if you’ve fallen in love with it and you’ve tried it and it’s not quite working for you, that might be a reason why.

Tickseed is a really great plant, I think. It comes in real short little guys, tall ones, lots of colors and really blooms its head off.

[new slide with 6 more photos of summering plants including, Echinacea Coneflower, three types of Clematis, Hemerocallis Daylily and Centranthus Red Valerian]

Again, with our pinks and purples, things like clematis. The daylilies of course here as well. Centranthus or Red Valerian, I really, really love this plant. It’s a beautiful cup flower, it blooms reliably, it likes it dry. It might flop a little bit on you, let’s be honest. So, if you cut it back once it gets ooh, let’s say-

[Erin Clark indicating about 2 feet with her hands]

– this tall or so, cut it by half. And then if you still have trouble, just put a little puny cage around it or something. But I wouldn’t have a garden without it even with that.

[return to the 6 photo slide featuring the 3 types of Clematis]

Coneflowers. You can go more native and they’re going to be really hardy and wonderful. Personally, I think the fancier they get, the less hardy they get. But there are those who have really good luck with all the exotic, wonderful, beautiful coneflowers as well, so give it a shot. Maybe don’t buy en masse right away. Try it first, see if you – if you’re one of the lucky ones.

[new slide with 6 more photos of summer plants including, Scabiosa Pincushion Flower, Leucanthemum Daisy, Phlox, Veronica, Callirhoe Purple Poppy Mallow and Centaurea Mountain Bluet]

Let’s see here. The Purple Poppy Mallow. So, this is a favorite plant of mine, but it can look really leggy sometimes. It kind of sprawls around, but I saw a garden once that mixed the Purple Poppy Mallow with Moonbeam Coreopsis and holy moly did that look great. We’ve got basically the same-sized plant height wise –

[Erin Clark]

– and the bright yellow flowers from the coreopsis, and then you have that magenta color just weaving through. It was really gorgeous.

[return to the 6 photo slide featuring the Purple Poppy Mallow and others]

And the Mountain Bluet. I love as well a nice, heavy bloomer. Daisies of course are always beautiful as well.

[new slide with 6 more summer blooms, Lamium Deadnettle, Chelone Turtlehead, Astilbe, Vinca, Hosta and Ajuga Bugleweed]

If you have a shady situation, I’ve got plants for you too. Don’t worry. The bugleweed comes in a lot of different leaf patterns, and we’ve got that nice blue flower to look forward to. Hostas, tons and tons and tons of hostas. I started off not really being a hosta lover and then I saw what was out there. So many different sizes and colors and textures to the leaves and patterns. If you are one of those hosta haters, take a peek at some other hostas. There’s sure to be one for you.

Lamium is a great ground cover. You’ve got beautiful little flowers usually in pink, white or purple, and I like to mix them. You’ve got different patterns on the leaves as well. Some are kind of all green with a little silver splash. Some are mostly silver. If you just mix them all up, they look absolutely gorgeous.

And Turtlehead is a nice bloomer for later in the summertime.

[new slide with 6 more photos of shade loving summer plants including, Hakonechloa Japanese Forest Grass, a new Hosta, Actaea Snakeroot, Chelone Turtlehead, Heuchera Coral Bells and Lysimachia Creeping Jenny]

And don’t forget about adding a pop of color in the shade. You might really like those dark leaves, and they look great. But in a shady situation, it’s hard to see the darker colors. So, if you add pops of chartreuse throughout your garden, it’s going to brighten that shady spot. You can get it with different – different flower colors. Say you’ve got, oh I don’t know, the Creeping Jenny, and then you’ve got a nice pink flower next to it. It’s going to make that pink look brighter and more lovely.

Heuchera, tons of different leaf shapes. Or not shapes but patterns and colors. And the breeding is coming a long way, so the flowers are really lovely on a lot of these as well.

[new slide with the title Seasonal Interest – Autumn and a list of fall favorite plants and shrubs]

So, on to autumn. We have made it through summer. We went to the garden center if we had some gaps. We filled it in, had it makes sense for our garden, our conditions, our look. So, now we’re on to sum – or on to autumn. So, this is when fall color really shines for me. It’s kind of mother nature’s last hurrah before we rest a little bit for winter.

You’ve got things like asters that are coming on beautifully. The sedum is starting to flower. You’ve got the Rozanne geraniums still blooming. Yes, still blooming all the way until frost. Grasses of course are really coming into their own now as well, so be sure to look for plants that have fall color –

[new slide featuring 5 photos of fall plants and trees including, Maples, Ornamental Pear, Japanese Maple, Birch and Ginkgo]

– for a lot of interest here. So, here’s some trees that look gorgeous. Maples, of course. Who can pass a sugar maple in the fall and all its glory and not just smile? Ginkgoes have that nice, crisp yellow color. Ornamental pear, I think, is a real nice all-season plant. You’ve got flowers in the springtime. Fruit, not edible, I tried it. It’s not good.

[Erin Clark]

Then, you know, we have to be good salespeople. People ask and you say, Well, it’s edible, but let’s see what happens, Hmmm, it’s not tasty. But it has really nice fall color. And birch, as well.

So, then if you are a smaller area –

[slide with 6 photos of good fall shrubs including, Buckthorn Fine Line, Spirea Tor, Chokeberry Autumn Magic, Crabapples, Oakleaf Hydrangea and Blueberries]

– and you want some nice shrubs, these are some great ones. That Fine Line buckthorn we talked about that kind of has those great qualities of an invasive but isn’t invasive, gets really great fall color as well, a nice yellow. The Autumn Magic chokeberry and this Tor spirea, we touched on.

Oakleaf hydrangea. Okay, so we probably have a hard time getting them to actually flower, right? But plant them any ways. The fall color –

[Erin Clark]

– is really lovely, and the texture of that leaf is outstanding in my mind. And –

[return to the 6 photo fall shrubs slide]

– blueberries, you might be growing them for the fruit, but they have gorgeous fall color.

[new slide with 5 more fall color plant options including, Black-Eyed Susan, Amsonia, Sedum, Aster and Coneflower]

We touched on some of these earlier in the presentation, the coneflowers. The asters are looking beautiful. The Amsonia really starts to color up and get a nice clear yellow color. And that beautiful texture and in the wind, it’s – its lovely.

[new slide with 5 more fall plant options including, Toadlily, two types of Sedum, Hibiscus and Rozanne Geranium]

Hibiscus. Maybe your hibiscus didn’t come up until mid-June, and you’re waiting for that gorgeous tropical flower? It’s coming. [chuckles] And early fall is when those hibiscuses really are –

[Erin Clark]

– looking gorgeous. And the Rozanne geranium, we talked about.

[return to the slide of 5 fall plant options]

Rozanne is a great plant that people always say, I want a perennial garden, I don’t want to have to take care of it, but I want it to look lovely all the time. What plant does that? Rozanne does that. This picture was taken after a frost, and it’s still looking beautiful. It gets maybe 18 inches tall or so and just kind of spreads out to this lovely mass of – of color.

[new slide with 6 photos of different types of fall grasses]

Grasses, we all know grasses. They’re beautiful. You can get them tall and lovely with the really gorgeous plumes for Miscanthus. You can get things like the switch grasses maybe that have a little better fall color. Lots and lots and lots of choices here.

[new slide with the title Seasonal Interest – Multiseasons! with a list of plants and shrubs that can last multiple seasons]

So, I talked a little earlier about getting plants to do a lot of things for you. There are some plants that are those really great multi-season plants.

[Erin Clark]

The pictures here kind of show the cycle of the autumn brilliance, Serviceberry or Juneberry or Saskatoon Berry, or however you like to call it. It has beautiful white flowers in the spring that just cover the plant. Then in the summertime, you’ve got berries that are not only beautiful, but these are delicious. [chuckles] They taste somewhere between a blueberry and a raspberry. You just have to make sure you get to them before the birds do, but they’re delicious. And then it’s got really great fall color as well.

We touched on the joys of hydrangeas, how they come on nicely in the summertime. You’ve got the beautiful flowers to enjoy. In the fall, it starts antiquing a little bit, getting a little pink –

[Erin Clark]

– a little red. And then if you leave them up, you’ve got some great winter interest as well. The spring is the only time they don’t look so hot. Blueberries and chokeberry –

[return to the Seasonal Interest – Multiseasons! slide]

– we discussed as well. Amsonia has nice flowers in the springtime. Good foliage that’s really great for cut stems, as well. Cut the amsonia and just have it as a nice foliage filler for your bouquets. And then the fall color, the geranium Biokova, we talked about Rozanne. But Biokova does some different things. It’s got the beautiful, whitish pink flowers earlier in the season, followed by nice, fragrant, rich green leaves, and then you get fall color, right? That’s a nice bonus.

Sedum of course looks beautiful a lot of the time as well. And Baptisia, I already went at length about, my favorite.

[new slide titled Annuals with tips for annuals]

So, annuals. There’s a place, annuals are great because they give you that lasting color all the time. You can leave some pockets in your garden just to plant some annuals to give you that color that lasts the whole time while your perennials are going through their cycle.

[Erin Clark]

You can put containers out. You can put them either, you know, just by your front door or something like that, or you can even incorporate them into the garden as well and get some nice color that way. Rotate them out with the seasons. Put pansies in the spring, put your petunias in the summer, add some mums in the fall-

[return to the Annuals slide]

– make it look gorgeous all the time.

[new slide titled Maintenance, Mulch and Watering with a small illustrated flower below it]

Okay, then we’ll quickly touch on maintenance, mulch and watering.

[new slide titled Maintenance with a list of things to do]

So, any garden is going to need some maintenance. Even if you make a low-maintenance garden, you have to do a little something with it. If you mulch, you’re really going to reduce the amount of weeding that needs to happen. It keeps the soil moisture up and looks gorgeous as well.

Deadheading and dead leafing keeps your perennials blooming more often. Keeps it tidy, tends to reduce disease. Pruning. For trees and shrubs, you want to keep up with pruning just for aesthetics and health, getting those dead branches out, keeping disease down. Spring and fall cleanup I recommend depends on when you have the time, if you have the enthusiasm in the spring to clean it up or do you have more time in the fall to clean it up? I usually am a fall person.

Dividing, you need to do it every once in a while. Things like grasses and hostas will really be a dead giveaway when you kind of get that doughnut look. You’ve got a gorgeous plant on the outside. And death in the middle. t’s time to divide. And watering of course.

[new slide titled Mulch! with a list of the benefits of mulching below]

So, mulch we talked about. Keeps the moisture level up. Keep the weeds down, feeds the soil, looks great. We recommend either shredded leaf mulch or –

[Erin Clark]

– a nice, shredded bark mulch. Woodchips aren’t the best. The dyed stuff, not so great. And rocks, I know you guys probably have it but it’s not the best. It tends to bake the soil, bake the roots, make it harder on the plant. So, if you have the dreams of switching over, maybe switch to a bark mulch for less maintenance but still a lot of benefit.

[slide titled Watering with a list of what to look for in watering]

Watering. Pay attention to the needs of your plant. Do you have that dry situation? Or do you have the damp situation? Did you sight your plants properly? Keep all that in mind.

Also, what are the soil conditions, or sorry, the weather conditions? Has it been sunny and hot and windy? You’re probably going to have to water a lot more than if it was cool or cloudy. Newer plants, of course, need more water. And containers, you’ll basically have to do daily.

[new Watering slide with more watering tips]

Okay, that all sounds good but how do you do it in the garden, right? So, we like to call it the quickie test or the knuckle test. Stick your finger in the soil.

[Erin Clark indicating her first knuckle]

If it is dry up your first knuckle, it’s time to water. If it’s still damp, you’re okay. When you do water, don’t just sprinkle a little on top. Water slowly and deeply. Really get that water down into the soil. This will help get the roots down to the soil so it’ll be more drought-tolerant later and they can fend for themselves a bit later on.

[return to the second Watering slide]

[new slide titled Schonheit Gardens with location and hours of operation]

All right. So, I have to put my tiny plug in, right? So, I am from Schonheit Gardens. We are opening for this season –

[Erin Clark]

– on April 22. We’re combining that with a great Earth Day celebration. We’ll have seed bomb making, dirt cups, lots of fun. We have other great events planned throughout the year. We’re also always looking for good helpers. So, if you love gardening, if you love being outside, if you want a 25 percent discount on plants, check out our website and see if you’d like to join our team.

So, thank you all so much for coming today. I appreciate your attention and have a great rest of your day.

[applause]