I think coneflowers are yummy. I heart them. They are sturdy, and chunky, and come in a bunch of lovely colors. They bring wildlife to your yard and are very drought–tolerant thanks to a fabulously deep root system extending 6 feet or so underground. They fit the criteria for anything that is going to stay in my yard for more than one season: I am not going to baby it and it needs to look good in the process.
 

So it has been with great restraint that I’ve allowed others to leaf through the August issue of Fine Gardening magazine (available in our very own library). The cover is plastered with orangey-red coneflowers, enticing you to read the featured article all about “the best of the best” of the genus. And of course they talk about last year’s hottie, ‘Tomato Soup.’ I tried buying this last year from the Nature Center at Shaker Lakes’ plant sale, but they ran out, so I have not been able to obtain this beautiful, red coneflower. Anyone out there have one they want to share?

Most people are familiar with the perennial yellow coneflower or black-eyed Susan(Rudbeckia fulgida). It’s a tough, cheery-looking garden perennial that has earned a place in native gardens, wildlife gardens, and just plain hot, dry difficult sites. Here’s something just a bit different. Like its tough little relative, Giant coneflower (Rudbeckia maxima) is a native perennial with seeds beloved by finches and other songbirds. But once this one starts to sprout in the springtime, it’s like it forgets to stop! Glaucous bluish leaves give rise to vertical stems that keep growing and growing straight up. Seven feet later, a familiar-looking yellow flower with a green cone in the center pops open, ready to do what coneflowers seem to be good at: producing nectar for bees and butterflies and making birdseed. Here at the Garden it is planted in the Sunken Garden area at the base of Hosta Hill, near the Japanese Garden. You can also see it from the big windows in the hallway outside the Eleanor Squirres Library. We think of it as a seven-foot -tall birdfeeder that we don’t have to refill.

What’s there not to love about a book with a foreword by ‘HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCE OF WALES’!? Prince Charles and hostas … who knew?

The book is big and heavy, but still useful enough to carry over to our Hosta Hill and immerse oneself in shady perennials. Dig through this practical tome and see if you can find your own new favorite. Available in our Eleanor Squire Library.

It’s an often-observed phenomenon – the happy accident. Creativity thrives on finding the virtue in a mistake, and turning it into a triumph. This vertical arrangement of Corydalis and Nepeta, growing through the cracks in a weathered retaining wall in the Elizabeth and Nona Evans Restorative Garden, is a thriving, utterly unintentional example of the latest trendy craze – the green wall. And they planted themselves!

Green walls can demand careful engineering to ensure that their living facade will survive and stay decorative. Northern Ohio winters spell certain death for unprotected roots, while the summer sun  and wind make expensive irrigation systems a requirement. The most practical "living wall" in this climate is probably the most natural: a vine, rooted in the earth, and reaching for the sky.

Back to our "unintended consequence." These two self-sown companion plants have taken advantage of the other type of "living wall" design that has potential for the Ohio climate. Earth-backed retaining walls like those along highways and interstates have the insulated root zone, and natural water-holding capacity that makes for succesful vertical plantings. The fact that they bloom together in a nice complementary color palette is just icing on the cake.

Posted by Ann McCulloh

It’s raining today. And cold. It makes me want to nap. But it is also so beautiful outside right now that it makes me want to garden. I think the colors outside are amazing during this kind of weather and I spend a considerable amount of time staring out windows during spring showers.  I may not want to admit that during the work day, but it’s the truth.  So considering the weather, rain gardens come to mind. If you have an area in your yard that regularly holds standing water, you may want to consider installing a rain garden. Good old Wikipedia says that “a rain garden is a planted depression that allows rainwater runoff from impervious urban areas like roofs, driveways, walkways, and compacted lawn areas the opportunity to be absorbed.” A rain garden prevents soil erosion, decreases the water emptying into storm sewers and looks great in the process. The Cuyahoga Soil and Water Conservation District has fantastic resources on their website for rain garden installation and has a kit with all the plants needed for a 100 square foot garden available for purchase. The manual from their website is the best I’ve seen on rain garden installation.  In our library, we have a book called Rain Gardens: Managing water sustainably in the garden and designed landscape. (Why do all books nowadays have to have such long titles? What gives?) In looking through this book, I realize that I need to be careful about information I take from books. This is potentially a very useful book. In Great Britain. The two authors hail from the UK and give many examples and pictures from rain gardens in Europe, which is all fine and well and good. My problem lies in the chart of rain garden plants at the back of the book. At first, I’m all excited – I love lists! And they tell me exactly what I need to know without a ton of reading. But then I see they recommend purple loosestrife, even noting that it can be incredibly invasive. So why are they recommending it? I would never, ever recommend planting purple loosestrife so this book’s value and credibility decreases tremendously in my opinion.  Lastly, we have just broken ground on our very own rain garden here at the Garden which will be complete by the end of May. It is located adjacent to the Woodland Garden and will be a great visual enticer for you to install one of these beauties in your own landscape. This rain garden is being installed as I type this; stop by the check it out, or stay tuned to this space for enticing documentation of this important new garden.

It’s clear that interest in vegetable gardening is growing by leaps and bounds. Seed sales are up by 20 percent and the number of homes growing vegetables also rose by about 20 percent last year, according to the National Gardening Association. More and more people seem to be signing on to the idea of having fresh fruits and vegetables available right outside the back door.

The idea of perennial vegetables may be a bit slower to catch on, especially in our cold winter climate. If someone stopped you on the street, could you name a vegetable that you only have to plant once, then harvest year after year? Some of us could come up with asparagus, rhubarb, maybe artichokes if you have a favorable climate. Another moment or two of reflection and you might name Jerusalem artichokes, or “sunchokes” as they’ve been rechristened. (Did someone say "daylilies"? Yes, edible, and perennial!)

Massachusetts author Eric Tonnsemeier can add more than 100 to that list! Thanks to his recently published book, Perennial Vegetables, from Artichokes to Zuiki Taro, a Gardener’s Guide to Over 100 Delicious, Easy-to-Grow Edibles, my eyes were opened to several that are grown as ornamentals here on the grounds of the Garden. Native “ramps” (Allium tricoccum), aka wild leeks, emerge from the leaf layer in the Woodland Garden in late March every year. Long celebrated in their native Appalachian region with festivals and fund-raising dinners, they have become a prized seasonal ingredient in gourmet kitchens (with a price to match!).

The “root” (actually the underground stem) of the lovely, hardy lotus (Nelumbo nucifera) is a staple in Asian cuisine. Sweet lotus-filled buns and fritters have been favorites of mine for years. I had no idea that lotus could be successfully cultivated in a large tub, and harvested (carefully) before the winter dormancy period. If your pond is deep enough, you can leave it under water all winter.

Many of the vegetables described in the book are hardy in our climate; others are suited to a warmer zone or greenhouse. Tonnsemeier makes a specialty of growing aquatic edibles in his Massachusetts garden. Perennial Vegetables describes a cornucopia of interesting plants, and how to grow them in a well-researched and beautifully illustrated format. The book is offered in the Garden Store’s book section. It will be added to the shelves of the Eleanor Squire Library this April. (Check out the Library’s online catalogue.)

If one of your New Year’s resolutions is to start gardening, this is the book for you. The author is Joe Lamp’l and it was published in 2006. The subtitle, “Your how-to and why-do guide,” really says it all. Information is explained in a very down-to-earth, easy to understand way, and additionally you learn why you should actually be doing various tasks in your garden. Lots of pictures and side notes help further elucidate topics. Lamp’l gives organic resources where possible and even incorporates pets into the landscape – very important! There are chapters on soil, color, lawns, containers, lighting and just about everything else you need to know to have a fabulous yard. This book is available in our library and gift shop. Joe has a great website you should check out too. Not coincidentally, Joe Lamp’l is also the keynote speaker at our upcoming Sustainability Symposium on Saturday, February 6. His presentation will be based on his latest book, The Green Gardener’s Guide, which I’ll blog about next time.

If patience is a virtue, gardeners should be among the most virtuous.

It is tough enough to wait until spring to see the fruits of a bulb display planted back in November.  But some perennials require a few years of gardener endurance and restraint before they achieve the desired results in the garden.  Sometimes nurseries will wisely caution consumers that their new acquisition will follow the three-year “sleep, creep and leap” rule.

I like to think of gardens as living spaces that need to evolve and mature. Instant gardens are certainly more expensive and less sustainable than gardens that start small and grow into a space. This process not only requires good planning.  It requires patience.

A few years ago I was so impressed with an Arum italicum display  that I found a nice shady area in my garden for 100 of them. I had read about how aggressively they can spread so I put them in an area that is somewhat contained. The next spring I checked on them and only a few had come up. Not one bloomed that year. A fellow gardener then told me these plants are classic sleepers, creepers and leapers. Okay. So I waited some more. This past season was supposed to be their creep year. About 50 of them leafed out. About a dozen bloomed. And of the 100 originally put in, only five developed the bright orange berry stalks! I was expecting more.

So now I am waiting for leap year.  This is not only a test of my patience, but a lesson in gardening.  Not only do we need to do our homework so that we select the right plant for the right spot.  We need to allow each plant the time it needs to get established. 

Then enjoy the leap.

Posted by Bob Rensel

Like a refugee from Alice’s topsy-turvy world, the hardy cyclamen (Cyclamen hederifolium) seems to do everything backwards. The pale pink or white blooms appear in mid October before a fine crop of leaves that stay deep green all winter long. The plant virtually disappears in the summer, just when everything else is in full leaf and flower. It reappears to delight us every fall, in various spots around the Japanese Garden.

These delicate-seeming flowers are tough as nails. Their native range includes a large part of southern and eastern Europe, on into Turkey and Greece. They are related to the florist’s cyclamen that appear in shops in early winter, but they will actually thrive in Northeast Ohio gardens.  The fragrance is sweet and refined, a little like that of an heirloom rose. Of course it’s easier to catch a whiff when you are lying on the ground to photograph the flowers!

A reliable and long-lived perennial for shade gardens, their foremost requirement is a nice, dry summer season. Don’t forget their location when digging in the flower beds, either, because it is possible to accidentally damage the dormant plants. Cyclamen hederifolium are hardy to zone 4, and will gradually increase and spread by root and seed.

Posted by Ann McCulloh

Hershey Children’s Garden Cool Plants
(#10 in a series of 10)
Native Bird Food: Little Bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium)

Some adults bring their children to Hershey Children’s Garden and become engrossed in exciting adventures and programs — and possibly miss some of the horticultural nuances of this great garden space. Hershey Children’s Garden is a sophisticated and — now in its 10th anniversary season — mature garden with many plantings that any adult gardener or garden enthusiast would love to have in their personal greenspace. Who can blame them?

Here is the final plant in our series of 10 of our staff’s favorite Hershey Children’s Garden plants, along with their special and unusual properties to appreciate with a child.  

Fall in Hershey Children’s Garden is full of different colored leaves. Fall is also time for flowers that many people overlook. I am speaking, of course, of the perennial grass flowers or flower inflorescence.
There are many different perennial grasses in the children’s garden. Little Bluestem, one particular favorite, originates from the eastern tall grass prairies of North America.

Little bluestem is a native bunch grass with summer blue-green leaves and pretty inflorescence. The leaves change to an attractive multi-colored pattern as the temperature cools. Right now, it is a great plant to examine closely with your children. You can note the purples and reds. See how many different colors you can see.

I highly recommend Little bluestem for children’s gardens. The two to four feet in height makes a great scale for children. They can walk in a prairie of Little Bluestem and not feel overwhelmed amongst extremely tall grass. It is tolerant of a wide range of soil and moisture conditions as well. Also, it has many seasons of interest capped with great fall color.
 

Come see this little seasonal wonder on your next visit. Also, check out our self-guided tour of the children’s garden prairie on our activity cart. It is full of all kinds of information and things to do in the prairie.