Tag: dwarf conifers

I love weeds! (or, I find them to be highly tolerable)

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This may seem odd to you, whatever your current level of gardening enthusiasm, but I love pulling weeds. Sometimes it takes me a little while to get myself into the proper mindset for the task since weeding seems to have a very negative reputation in our society. Once, many years ago, when I was working at a small local nursery during the summer, I had misbehaved in some way and was sent off to a remote location to pull weeds by myself. I loved it!

We have had one of our unusually nice, dryer springs this year which has given me more opportunities to spend time in the garden, and the motivation keep the weeds under control. As you may recall, last year I spread a healthy layer of yard-debris compost over my garden beds as a mulch. It may have had some effect on the number of weeds that I have been pulling this year, but since weed seed blows in from all around the area, more than enough weeds were able to germinate in that nice mulch and keep me busy.

The late spring garden all cleaned up!

One of the reasons I love weeding has to do with that layer of compost mulch. I like to either use a garden fork or trowel when removing weeds so that I can remove the roots along with the green leafy material. In doing so, I am aerating the soil and allowing the compost to drop down into the cracks and crevices. If I find the soil to be particularly cloddy, I’ll use the tool at hand to break up the clods and mix the compost in a bit and then smooth the area over, leaving little visual sign of my activity.

Many people find this process to be slow and monotonous, but I have found that I actually enjoy this excuse to slow down from the fast pace of my busy life. I may do some of my best  thinking while down on my hands and knees, digging in the soil. Viewing the garden from this lower perspective seems to stimulate my imagination and I allow my mind to drift off into all kinds of adventures while my hands are digging and pulling and mixing  and smoothing. I was actually a little disappointed the other day when my wife and I realized we had finished all the weeding. Fortunately, there are plenty of weed seeds to go around, and I expect more will find their way to my garden before too long.

Being on the ground also puts me in a good perspective to view and evaluate the overall health of my garden. While I am down close to my plants, I take time to inspect for any insect or disease problems. Pulling weeds is part of creating and maintaining a healthy garden. A good healthy garden requires good healthy soil — and soil that drains well, retains moisture and has a lot of organic matter is great for growing conifers and other exciting plants.

Ed-
Conifer Lover

Limiting false expectations

Published on by edremsrola8 Comments

“Argue for your limitations, and sure enough they’re yours.”

This quote from the book, Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah by Richard Bach, has stuck with me for over thirty-five years. I have found encouragement from these words many times as I’ve encountered one challenge or another. Although, I have come to the conclusion that sometimes it is good to understand our limitations so that we don’t stumble through life with false expectations. I have met quite a few people with false expectations regarding dwarf conifers.

For example, here are three actual quotes from friends I have encountered recently:

Several Picea abies ‘Pendula’s were trained into this living fence.

“I’m looking for a dwarf conifer that will grow to five feet tall and not too wide at maturity.”

“I need something that will grow fast to screen the neighbor’s junk, but the trees need to stop at ten feet so we don’t lose our mountain view.”

“I read about this dwarf conifer that max’s out at three feet – that sounds perfect for filling in under the window.”

One of the really cool things about conifers is as long as they are alive, they keep growing. None of them will grow to a specific “mature” size and then just stop getting larger. Conifers do grow at different rates, or perhaps more accurately, they put on different amounts of new growth each year. Some grow two or three feet per year while others just two or three inches (or less), they push their genetically pre-designated annual growth, whether it be feet or fractions of an inch over the same period of time. It’s just that some put out a much greater amount of new growth than others. We tend to say that they are faster or slower growers because in the same ten, fifteen or fifty year time period, some become very tall trees while others might remain comparatively quite small.

This is a great opportunity to discuss a group of plants whose characteristics allow them to fill a great number of needs in the garden from filling in low spaces to screening the undesirable while preserving important views as well as standing alone as a premium focal point. The wonderful group I’m referring to is The Weepers. (No, not that new pop group that cries throughout their overly dramatic performance of sorrowfully sad love songs.) I’m talking about cool conifers that without a little help from their gardener friends, would be essentially sprawling ground-covers.

Tsuga heterophylla ‘Thorsen’s Weeping’ may be staked to any height.

Fir, Hemlock, Juniper, Pine and Spruce all include at least one great weeping form that may be available from your local independent garden centers, but I’ll be mentioning  just few of my favorites here today. First off, one of the hardiest, most versatile and most readily available may be Picea abies ‘Pendula’. This cultivar is generally found in the local garden center trained up a stake to four or five feet tall. Once the central leader is no longer trained, it will fall over and join all its other branches in their cascade down to the ground. Younger trees may be found that are not as tall and could be allowed to sprawl at whatever height the gardener desires. With proper training, Picea abies ‘Pendula’ will make a densely clothed screen to block an unsightly view and yet be easily maintained at whatever height one might desire without the need for shearing like more conventional hedges.

Tsuga heterophylla ‘Thorsen’s Weeping’ is a fine textured alternative which could also be planted and trained as a living fence, but I prefer this one as a stand-alone focal point which would meet the needs of my first friend quoted above. This “Cousin Itt” plant could easily be trained to any height and it will simply grow as a slender mound, slowly filling out over the years as foliage builds up. Once the branches fall to the ground, they will begin to spread becoming a dense carpet. Of course, the branches could be trimmed to prevent the spread if one desired.

Pinus strobus ‘Stony Brook’ gives the feeling of flowing water in the garden.

Another favorite that is perfect for filling in under a window is Pinus strobus ‘Stony Brook’. This mounding and sprawling Eastern White Pine has an irregular mounding form which, as it grows, will spread and sprawl along giving a water feature effect without all the trouble and mess. Usually found in the garden center trained just a foot or two off the ground, ‘Stony Brook’ will remain low growing and fill the need of my third friend.

Even though each of these friends had something else in mind, once I spent the time discussing growth rates and the pros and cons of buying an extremely slow-growing form in a really large size to fill their need, they began to realize that cost would be prohibitive for them. By helping them think outside the box and by choosing weeping conifers that filled their needs, they were very satisfied with the investment they made in each of their gardens.

Ed-
Conifer Lover

“That’s one big tuna!”

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I am frequently reminded by my friends, living in much more harsh climates than we enjoy in the Pacific Northwest, that they have a much more limited pallet of dwarf conifers to choose from for their gardens. Those folks must endure hotter and more humid summers and far more colder winters with sub-freezing temperatures, that I can only imagine. Here in my corner of the world, I am able to grow almost any but the most tropical conifers. When a friend from Plentywood, MT asked me for advice for their new landscape, I must admit it was a real challenge to find an assortment of plants that would create a pleasing garden, with year-round interest, in their very harsh climate.

This young specimen of ‘Big Tuna’ is six to eight years old and stands nearly 36 inches tall.

One of the most hardy conifer “families” that I know of are the mugo pines. These tough plants are native to the high elevation mountains of Europe and have endured cold temperatures and freezing winds for thousands of years. There are many wonderful dwarf selections of these extremely hardy pines available to local gardeners through independent garden centers.

Many of the quality cultivars of mugo pine, which are commonly available, grow as low, mounding plants with dark green foliage. There are some whose color changes to shades of gold through the winter months, and they all have different growth rates from the tiniest miniatures to larger, more open growers. One in particular stands out from the crowd due to its upright, oval shape.

I remember hearing Jean Iseli and Don Howse talking about the day they were walking through a field of Pinus mugo seedlings. This field was probably 10-12 years old and there were thousands in a wild assortment of shapes and sizes of these young conifers. The two men were looking for special characteristics – extraordinary form, shape, growth rate, needle size, color — anything that they believed would make the plant worthy of reproducing and bringing into production at the nursery. As they were walking along, Jean came across one small tree and exclaimed, “That’s one big tuna!” They tagged the plant and continued on their way. That following winter the plant began to be propagated and was given the name, Pinus mugo ‘Big Tuna’. Personally, at the time, I was very skeptical about the name, but the plant is extraordinary! It is definitely one of my favorite mugos, and if I had a top-ten list of conifers, it might even be on that list.

This brilliant old specimen is the mother of all ‘Big Tuna’s. Standing nearly 15 feet tall and close to 40 years old, this ‘Big Tuna’ is showing the added value of seasonal color. Sprinkled in among the foliage are pinkish-orange pollen cones. Later, dark burgundy seed cones will become visible to the discerning eye.

Pinus mugo ‘Big Tuna’ is a dwarf, but it might be considered to be within the intermediate growth rate as designed by the American Conifer Society. When young, it shows great vigor and will advance with 6-8 inches of new growth per year. As the tree matures, that rate seems to moderate and the tree will form a large oval shape, somewhat taller than wide. The original mother of all ‘Big Tuna’s was planted in the Iseli Nursery main office landscape back in the mid-1980s and is a beautiful specimen today. I estimate that the tree is close to 15 feet tall and nearly 12 feet wide at its broadest point, about midway up the tree. Discovered in a group of seedlings planted in (or prior to) 1976, this excellent specimen is nearly forty years old!

‘Big Tuna’ is a great specimen, not only for those folks living in our colder climates, but also for those of us gardening in more temperate areas of the world. I can image a row of ‘Big Tuna’s making a formidable hedge in time. Its uniform shape and compact habit would make it useful in a formal landscape in place of plants that may require annual shearing to maintain their tidy form.

Versatile, compact, unique shape, reliable and extremely cold hardy. I suggest that you go out and catch a ‘Big Tuna’ for your garden!

Ed-
Conifer Lover

Miniscapes and the hot date

Published on by edremsrola6 Comments

My wife and I had a hot date last night. Before you allow you mind to wander, let me clarify. We are currently in the midst of one of our rare, warm and sunny springs. Back in the 1980s, I remember several years in a row when we enjoyed temperatures during the month of May that exceeded 80 degrees for weeks at a time. That weather was, of course, far from what may be considered normal in my corner of the Pacific Northwest.

A miniscape is simply a miniature landscape in a container. In this case, including the miniature chair and garden tools adds to the fun and whimsy of the little garden. Some miniscapes might include a great deal of detail and be themed for fairies, or sports teams – anything you might imagine could become the theme of your own miniscape. (Chamaecyparis obtusa ‘Nana Gracilis’, Taxus cuspidata ‘Nana Aurescens’, Chamaecyparis pisifera ‘Cumulus’ and Buxus sempervirons ‘Variegata’.)

So, yesterday, my wife and I went on one of our garden center dates, and it was HOT! Sunny warm weather, gorgeous wife by my side, and ultimately, a cart full of all kinds of plants for the garden. We Picked up a couple of tomato plants since we just don’t need as many as we would end up with if we planted a pack of seeds. I wanted two or three eggplants (they had some really cool heirloom varieties in stock) by my wife assured me that we would only need one. We also came to agreement on a flat of Marigolds, plus we found an assortment of herbs that we wanted to add to our herb garden.

Along with the conifers (Chamaecyparis obtusa ‘Verdonii’, Abies koreana ‘Cis’, Juniperus horizontalis ‘Mother Lode’) there are a couple Sempervivums and a tiny, slow-growing holly named, Ilex crenata ‘Dwarf Pagoda’

I managed to sneak a few cute little conifers into the cart along with some new miniature  Sedums and Sempervivums so that I could plant a couple of new containers that we had picked up from our favorite pot lady back when she had great sale prices a month or two ago. My wife gave me quite a look at the checkout stand when the girl scanned the new conifers, but when I explained my plan to fill the new containers, her gaze quickly morphed from a cold stare to something a bit more warm and inviting.

By the time we arrived back home, I had explained my plans for the new miniscapes that I would be creating and it seems that things did heat up just a degree or two with a squeeze here and a pat there — I decided that the potting up of those two ceramic pots would certainly hold off until today.

Miniscapes are perfect additions to the deck or patio. While making a gentle transition from patio to garden, they also bring the feel of the garden into the smaller and more intimate space of the garden room. (Picea glauca ‘Jean’s Dilly’, Picea abies ‘Pusch’, Juniperus communis ‘Effusa’ and Chamaecyparis pisifera ‘Golden Mop’.)

One of the new miniscapes that I planted up today will end up as a housewarming gift for a couple of very nice, young friends that have recently purchased their first home. I am hoping to get them started off right with the year-round color, low-maintenance and tremendous joy of gardening with dwarf and miniature conifers. Once they have success with their new potted miniscape, I think I’ll be able to persuade them to branch out from more common or traditional landscape plans, and create a beautiful garden space built around the incredible pallet of color, texture and form of conifers!

My wife and I will also enjoy a new miniscape of dwarf and miniature conifers, and other cool little plants to add year-round color and interest to our patio. With the weather turning nice earlier than it has in many years, we expect to be spending a lot more time in the outdoor room of our patio, so it is always nice to have a collection of potted plants and miniature gardens to beautify that space.

I hope that springtime will arrive in your garden soon!

Ed-
Conifer Lover

Golden Wilma and the seven dwarfs

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I am very excited that one of my friends has just recently decided it is time to overhaul his backyard. He is ready to transform it from an ugly duckling of abused sod, to a beautiful swan of a garden, featuring the year-round color and low maintenance of dwarf conifers!

Cupressus macrocarpa ‘Wilma’ makes a brightly colored focal point in the garden.

“Ed, I’ve been thinking, since we just have the one dog now, and he doesn’t dig and tear up the backyard like the other two, I’d like to start planting the back into a nice garden like you’ve been suggesting.”

“Great! I’ll bring my tiller over as soon as the soil dries a little!”

Now, being the Pacific Northwest, that might not happen until the month of June, but in the meantime, I’ll continue to generate interest and enthusiasm in my friend by drawing a simple design, listing the plants I recommend, and point him to pictures of specimens on the internet!

In one corner, I have a nice combination of plants in mind that will utilize a dandy little ensemble of dwarf and colorful conifers that will provide nice contrasts in shape, texture, size and color. We will be starting with fairly small plants – probably nothing larger than a #3 container – so my friend will enjoy watching this space grow and mature for the rest of his life.

For the main specimen, I will use a Cupressus macrocarpa ‘Wilma’. It will be the tallest plant in the grouping and will grow to about 12-15 feet tall by 4-6 feet wide over the next 15 to 20 years. It is a bright lemon-yellow color which takes on a more golden hue during the winter – definitely a focal point in the garden.

Pinus mugo ‘Big Tuna’ will mature into a full-figured specimen in the garden with a compact habit and great rich green color.

Pinus mugo ‘Big Tuna’ will fill in nicely as a second plant which will add some height to this space. Not growing quite as quickly as ‘Wilma’, ‘Big Tuna’ will also be more broad as it matures into a small tree of about 6-7 feet tall by 4-5 feet wide in the same 15 to 20 year time span. It’s dark green needles and clumping, mounding form will be a nice contrast to ‘Wilma’s small, fine-textured foliage.

Growing into a broad, mounding form, ‘Spiraliter Falcata’ will add a very unique texture to the garden.

Next on my list is a really cool little conifer with yellowish-green, needles which twist and curve completely around their wavy branches creating small cords of foliage appearing to wriggle their way about the plant. Like my first two selections, Cryptomeria japoncia ‘Spiraliter Falcata’ is one of the larger growing plants in this grouping, though it does respond very well to annual pruning if one is so inclined to create a more densely growing plant and slow its overall march toward its ultimate height. Left to grow naturally, we might expect ‘Spiraliter Falcata’ to grow into a broadly upright specimen of 6-8 feet tall by 6 or 7 feet wide over the next 15 to 20 years.

Upon closer inspection, one discovers the fascinating foliage characteristic which lends ‘Spiraliter Falcata’ its unique overall texture. Small, thick, curving needles wrap themselves around the small curving twigs giving a cord-like appearance to the foliage.

Cedrus libani subs. brevifolia ‘Kenwith’, a dwarf Cedar of Lebanon, will add another element of both color and texture to this space. ‘Kenwith’ is a very slow grower with very small, sharply pointed, light green needles. Growing just a couple of inches per year, this cool little conifer will grow into a small, broadly pyramidal tree of just 2-3 feet tall in 15 years and be a little taller than it is wide. Not a densely growing dwarf, It has open, curved branches which suggest a windswept tree and it may be fun to prune this one to enhance this natural tendency.

Cedrus libani subs. ‘Kenwith’ reminds me of something one might discover under the sea with its tiny needles covering small, curved branches appear as though they are under the influence of gentle undersea currents.

Next time I will describe the smaller dwarf and miniature forms which will be the tiny specimens in this corner design. Of course, we will not be limited to the eight plants in these two posts. There will be room for other ground covers and flowering plants for my friends to plant and enjoy. Be sure to check back next time for the four final conifers on this list!

Ed-
Conifer Lover