Let’s look at three basic “tricks” used by even the most intuitive of professional garden designers, and then illustrate them with some container plantings now on display in Cleveland Botanical Garden’s Sun Patio in the new Inspiration Gardens.  When we’re done, I think we’ll choose our summer flowers with brighter, keener eyes.

“One” is to follow the color wheel, and choose a palette for flower and leaf.

Red-Orange-Yellow-Green-Blue-Violet; that’s the color wheel.  Easy.  Now, “Google” a color wheel.  Colors run in the R.O.Y.G.B.V. sequence around the wheel.  What’s directly across from, say, red?  Green…and that makes complementary dyad with red.  Starting with red, what other two colors are equidistant around the wheel?  Yellow and blue…and they’re a complementary triad with red.

Any dyad or triad selected from the color wheel like this is a guaranteed match!

Be careful with a few things.  If in doubt, don’t mix “saturated,” or intense, colors with pastels.  For instance, a pastel pink impatiens with bright yellow marigold is a color clash.  Also, if in doubt, don’t mix warm and cool colors.  Warm (towards the sun) and cool (towards the moonlight) can work together, but avoid them until we are sure of our "eyes."

Use white flowers to frame or “dot” your color palette; white often adds informal cheer, and dilutes color intensity.  Use black/dark foliage to frame color palette; black adds drama/elegance and strengthens color intensity.

“Two” is to consider plant structure and form, and choose harmonious suite of shape and texture.

Use leaf variety to accentuate our color choices, and to help give our containers gesture and flow.  Whaaat?  Look at the accompanying pix.  Dark, broad leaves inflame the greens and the reds; ultra-violet leaves rise dramatically like midnight  flames.  That is gesture and flow.  If all leaves in a container are similar size/shape, they look "busy."

“Three” is to remember plant needs, and to choose plants that grow well together.

This is easy with annuals.  Most annuals like full sun and plenty of water.  Pelagoniums (geraniums), verbenas and marigolds are a few dry-land rule-breakers that come to mind.  For instance, pelargoniums develop yellow leaves if heavily watered alongside canna.  And—ahem—as we can see in the pic, I broke this rule on the Sun Patio!

Color acts on us physically, biologically, and psychologically. Complexity!  Harmonious interaction of texture and form have been debated surely since the days of Lascaux Cave Painting, and the discussion is still lively today.  That’s right, our One-Two-Three design rules are a beginning…without end.

And please visit our Sun Patio to see some well-designed summer annuals plantings.  Colorful or dramatic, or both?  I do know they set the garden afire!

Posted by Mark Bir

P.S.: I’ll make this a continuing series…if you show interest.  Hey, lemme know.

So with this week’s (er—month’s) blog entry, I am going to attempt to not-so-much brief you, dear reader, on a common flower growing here at Cleveland Botanical Garden, as to put that plant into specific and particular context.

Meet ‘Mandarin Twist.’ (Shake hands here.) Mandarin Twist is a brilliant orange-blooming cultivar of the so-called calendula or pot marigold, Calendula officinalis. This once-native of the Med is classed as a hardy annual, which in Cleveland means that it behaves pretty much like a regular old annual. Start it from seed in a cold frame—easy—about April Fool’s Day, and plant it outside a week or two before Memorial Day. A fortnight after an early planting, ours began to bloom…and bloom and bloom. Now, pot marigold is widely reputed to Peter out when the temperature soars. But even with our recent July fire days, our Mandarin Twist has stayed true to the colorful course. What have I done to aid and abet? I deadhead ours with snippers down to the next leaf nodes once a week. A little fertilizer high in the last two numbers every third week (or-so), some supplemental water recently, and that’s been it for care. No bugs, no rusts or molds or other phyto-FUBARs have found ‘em here. Flowers galore.

It’s in the aster family, and sets copious seed, so if you want to be a seed-saver, just let some of the August blooms stand for seed. Might put mesh bags around ‘em soz they don’t make birdfeed. Although it is a cultivar, Mandarin Twist is not too far removed from its wild progenitors, so I’m betting they’ll breed near to true, with a few interesting variations popping up in your seed flats, as well.

Inspect Mandarin Twist at Cleveland Botanic Garden in the sunken garden between the library and the Japanese Garden. Find it rising in a mass from behind the central stone bench. Can’t miss it, like sparks issuing from a fire. It is framed by dramatic contrasts that punch-up the orange heat: 1) a low foreground of across-the-color-wheel black sweet-potato vine and purple alternathera (pow!); 2) bold “N” exotic canna leaves like stage curtains to either side (bif!); 3) inky pools of shadow in the background (wham!).

Calendula is doubtless a common annual, but one that I feel is underused in our fair city. Go orange, give ‘Mandarin Twist’ a try. BTW, the name “Calendula” has a curious etymology. But I’m not gonna tell you…gotta Google it yourself!

Posted by Mark Bir

This is all wasted energy and time, in my humble opinion, as well as the authors of Living With Wildlife: How to Enjoy, Cope with, and Protect North America’s Wild Creatures Around Your Home and Theirs. I have personally owned this book for over 15 years, find it incredibly useful, and was very pleased to see we have it in our very own library.
 

Here are a few reasons why we can all just chill out about chipmunks in our yards: 

1. The natural diet of chipmunks consists of acorns, nuts, berries, and seeds. They readily climb up on birdfeeders

2. Most chipmunks find the taste of daffodil bulbs yucky and don’t eat them.

3. I guess chipmunks may go after crocus or hyacinth, but I’ve got lots of them in my yard and lots of chipmunks and have had zero problems.

4. Chipmunks prefer to live in brush or wood piles, or will burrow underground. The burrows typically do not harm landscape or structures. If you have extensive burrows in your yard you probably have moles which are not NEARLY as cute.

5. Chipmunks are not as prolific as a lot of people think. Chips have 2 litters of 4-5 babies per year. Compare that to mice (8 litters of 4-7 babies/year) or voles (10 litters of 4-5/year), and it’s not so bad.

And really, let’s keep this all in perspective. This book was put out by the California Center for Wildlife, so there are sections on living peacefully with bears, mountain lions and moose. At least we aren’t fighting those out of our Cleveland yards, right?
 

On the occasion of the Garden’s 80th anniversary year, here’s the first in a series of short videos we’re featuring on The Garden Variety this summer based on a new Around the Garden in 80 Minutes self-guided tour that you can download for yourself on our website.

Cleveland Botanical Garden introduced this month a new way for you and your child to connect with nature at home and in Hershey Children’s Garden.

Families who pick up a Family Activity Booklet at the children’s garden front gate will find activities they can do with their children at home and on a garden visit. Each month families have five new activities they can do on a garden visit and five activities they can do at home. Each month the suggested activities and themes change. June is about fairies and trees while next month is all about water. Families receive a stamp in their booklet each time they participate in an activity. Complete any five activities, collect five stamps and earn one free admission for a child. Now there are more ways to make each visit special. . .earn a friend a free visit to enjoy new ways to have fun with you.

Herbarius Latinus, incipit tractatus de uirtutibus herbarum

When I think of field guides I picture a colorful Peterson’s guide full of everything you need to know about a plant accompanied by glossy and attractive photographs. Today I had to opportunity to flip through one of the most unusual and interesting field guides I have had the privilege of viewing. Arnoldi de Nova Villa’s 1491 Latin field guide, titled Herbarius Latinus, incipit tractatus de uirtutibus herbarum. Touching a book that was printed 519 years ago feels incredible and humbling. The intricate drawings feature German woodcuttings and are accompanied by frequent notes (in Latin) by a previous owner.

Incredibly I find that my life is a mere 20 years of those 500 that have passed since Leonardus Achates published not only this book, but also the first printed folio of Virgil’s works, Euclid’s findings and calculations, and Crescenzi’s manual on agriculture, some of which are now stored in Britain’s Royal Library.

In the past 500 years many wars have been fought, inventions integrated into our everyday lives, and empires have crumbled and new ones built to replace them. The magnitude of this realization profoundly astonishes even the most experienced bibliophile.

Cleveland Botanical Garden acquired the guide in the mid 20^th century, through the generous donation of Warren H. Corning, whom had previously had an extensive collection of rare horticulture books. The Warren H. Corning Collection of Horticulture Classics was split among the Cleveland Botanical Garden, The Holden Arboretum, and the Allen Memorial Medical Library at the Case Western Reserve University.

In contemporary horticulture and biology Arnoldi’s book may seem outdated for science research and practical application, however as a sociological artifact, readers and anthropologists can unravel the ways in which scientific knowledge was spread throughout Europe in the 15^th and 16^th centuries. Books such as Herbarius Latinus are invaluable as collector’s items, as anthropological artifacts and as interesting reads for bibliophiles that enjoy Latin field guides.

‘Volcano’ is the term coined for that mound of mulch that folks pile around a tree this time of year. Even though all the credible references advise against this, it somehow seems to be very popular. I drive through developments in which landscapers have generously heaped the mulch into a nice pyramid around every tree.

After spending a fair amount of money on new trees, you would think a homeowner would want to protect that investment. One of my neighbors recently built a series of volcanoes around the trees throughout his yard. It looks kind of cool, but just like Mount Vesuvius, these volcanoes can be deadly. That pile of mulch heats the base of the tree and holds moisture up against the bark. Not only does this encourage pests and diseases, but the tree responds by sending out new roots into that pile of mulch. Instead of spreading outward, these new roots grow inside the pile and over time can girdle the tree as they expand.

The International Society of Arboriculture recommends mulching tree root zones to help retain moisture in the ground and act as a weed barrier. But to avoid decay, disease and pests, ISA calls for mulch to be kept one to two inches away from the base of the tree. So a good gardening practice after mulching is to go back and sweep away any that might have piled up on the tree flare.

The trees will thank you.