If you fall off the horse…

Several years ago I became friends with a gentleman who’s gardening experience was limited to mowing the lawn. Over the years he has recognized that gardening is a passion of mine. He began to ask questions and once a year or so he and his son would help me with some of my larger gardening chores. More recently he has become interested and actively involved in taking care of the garden in his small city-lot. Happily, he is becoming conifer-curious!

This thirty-something year-old specimen of Picea glauca ‘Pendula’ is a little over 30 feet tall in the Jean Iseli Memorial Garden. Perfect for smaller gardens where there is much more vertical space available than horizontal.

A few years back, he called me to let me know that he purchased one of those oak half-barrels folks use for container gardening. I had a small tree that he had admired for a few years and I offered to plant it in the pot for him. He and his wife planted a few flowers to fill out the container and soften the appearance of the old barrel. As it turned out, I didn’t explain watering practices sufficiently and he and his boy pretty much created a bog-in-a-barrel and eventually everything died.

That was three years ago. Earlier this week I asked my friend if he was ready to give his container garden another try (his previous difficulties set his container gardening enthusiasm back a bit). He had filled the container with a fresh batch of good, coarse, composted potting soil and was ready and waiting for advice as to which plants he should try this time.

Back in 2010 I grafted several conifers including a few Picea glauca ‘Pendula’ in my little hobby greenhouse. This year I’ve been planting some of those little cuties in open spaces around my garden. Of course I don’t need all of the new plants that I have propagated, so some of my friends and family have been the happy recipients of the extras. I thought that one of these ‘Pendula’s would be a perfect tree for my friend’s container.

This small tree (with proper watering and care) should thrive happily in its new home on my friend’s patio. My plan is to allow it to grow in this container for several years and by the time it requires more room for root growth, I will help my friend dig a proper hole and plant it in his landscape. This will be a fun way for him to regain confidence in his gardening ability and also provide a nice larger specimen for him to plant into the new garden I have designed for him (filled with conifers, of course).

I believe I may have a new convert.

Ed-
Conifer Lover

Ps, Here are a few things to remember when growing conifers in containers. First, please do not make the same mistake my friends made by over watering. Plants need to breathe too. One good guideline that I use is to check the moisture level with my finger.

Push your index finger into the soil and if the soil is dry, give the container a good soak, if it is moist, don’t. Now, I consider dry as approximately the moisture content that most packaged potting soils are when you first cut open the bag. If the soil becomes too dry, you will have a difficult time re-hydrating. New out of the bag soils soak up water very well.

Frequency of watering will depend on your weather conditions and how full your containers are of plant roots. More plants = more roots + hot temperatures = more frequent watering. Again, please check your moisture content with a simple finger check. When it comes to conifers, smaller, slower growing plants use less water, larger plants that produce more annual growth, use more water.

Too much water = bog-like soil that most plants do not enjoy. Too little water = arid desert conditions, also not good for most plants. Don’t fret about it, you’ll get a feel for watering your containers before long.

I’ve been expecting you

“Mr. Remsrola, I’ve been expecting you.”

These words startled me just a little as I entered the office at Iseli Nursery the other day. I hadn’t actually made an appointment, nor had I intended to visit the Iseli gardens on this particular day. So you can imagine my surprised response to those words as I was about to check in with the receptionist. My photographer friend, Mr. Smith, had seen me arrive and positioned himself just out of sight of the front door. Disguising his voice with a sharp, gravelly tone, the sound of those words truly made me jump.

Mid-spring in the Jean Iseli Memorial Garden – I find that there is always something new to discover!

As it turned out, Mr. Smith had been expecting me. He was certain that I would be showing up to tour the gardens now that spring has finally enticed almost all the plants to flush their new growth. There we were, both of us in an adventurous mood, so we made our way out to the Jean Iseli Memorial Garden, he with camera in hand, me carrying only my enthusiasm.

Picea abies ‘Pusch’ cones loose their solid purplish red color with the onset of maturity.

All the rain and mild temperatures that we have enjoyed over the past few weeks has encouraged the conifers to push an abundance of their lush, colorful new growth. Small cones of quite an assortment of size and color were spotted on many plants. Some, like the Picea abies ‘Pusch’ had grown considerably since my last brief visit. Like mine at home, they had nearly tripled in size from when they were at their apex of color and had faded to mostly greenish with red highlights on the edges of the cone scales.

The tiny new growth begins to emerge on this Abies koreana ‘Ice Breaker’.

The Abies koreana ‘Ice Breaker’ that I mentioned a few posts back, then with its buds still closed tight and coated in hard resin, had pushed most of its ¾ inch annual growth and the needles were beginning to unfurl. This is one tiny little conifer that will be worth the wait for it to become readily available!

We were surprised by the tiny, bright red color of the second push of foliage on the Picea glauca ‘Pixie Dust’.

The next thing I saw, which not only gave us both a jolt of excitement, but something that neither of us could remember observing before – at least to the extent we witnessed on that day. We noticed that the second foliar push on the Picea glauca ‘Pixie Dust’, which we all normally expect to be butter yellow – was red! With careful observation we could clearly see that the red color was quickly fading to the yellow of our expectations. Perhaps the red would last a day as the new buds swelled and began to push. When I arrived home, I immediately gave my ‘Pixie Dust’ a visit finding the very same tiny red tips of new foliage beginning to develop and fading to yellow with a day or two of age.

Overall, it was quite a successful visit and we both learned something new about our amazing world of conifers.

Ed-
Conifer Lover

Baby, I need the blues

My wife and I both love year-round color in our garden. One method we use to pack a lot of color into a smaller space is to use variegated plants. Of course we love the variegated conifers like Chamaecyparis obtusa ‘Snowkist’, Juniperus chinensis ‘Torulosa Variegata, and Pinus parviflora ‘Ogon janome’. It seems appropriate to mention the conifers that push one color in spring and mature into another such as Picea orientalis ‘Aureospicata’, Picea abies ‘Rubra Spicata’, or Picea pungens ‘Niemetz’. And then there are those conifers that are one color through the growing season and morph into another color with the onset of cold temperatures in autumn and winter like,  Juniperus horizontalis ‘Mother Lode’ and Pinus contorta ‘Chief Joseph’.

Chamaecyparis obtusa ‘Snowkist’ has delightful varigation adding color to the garden, but Baby, I gotta have more blues!

Any garden including those nine conifers would be full of year-round color to be sure, but those selections are just small sample of the number of very colorful conifers in our garden. On top of all the color and variegation provided by our conifers, we also have a small collection of beautifully variegated and colorful Hostas and other herbaceous plants. But, I noticed something was seriously lacking in our garden this spring. I don’t know why I haven’t noticed it before. Our garden needs more blue.

I’ve talked about blue conifers several times in past posts, and it wasn’t until this past week that I began to feel the garden was unbalanced in the color spectrum – the yellow to blue ratio was way off!

Perhaps the reason for this new revelation is that the yellows and golds in my garden are absolutely stunning right now. The yellow and gold Chamaecyparis and Juniperus cultivars are as bright and clean-looking as I have ever seen them, and the spring yellow push of my spruce cultivars with that feature have never looked healthier – the foliage is lush and succulent and blemish-free (we’ve had no spring hail to pound the tender new foliage which can leave tiny brown scars on most any garden plant with tender young foliage).

Picea engelmannii ‘Bush’s Lace’ will quickly become a stately specimen with excellent soft bluish green foliage and impressive weeping form.

Baby, I need the blues! If there is any money remaining in my gardening budget after I buy a few units of bark mulch to cover my many garden beds, I will definitely be adding a few new blue conifer specimens this year!

One excellent, large, bluish spruce that is on my Must Find list is, Picea englemanni ‘Bush’s Lace’. This is a very vigorous grower with a distinct weeping habit of all its lateral branches. The specimen in the Jean Iseli Memorial Garden is only about twelve years old, and the past two years I have seen its terminal leader grow at least three feet – each year! I expect this beauty to be very tall, but with a somewhat narrow form, although once the branches weep down to ground level, over time they should spread and create a dense bluish green ground cover.

Some of the bluish colored conifers that are on my list to look for are:
Abies koreana ‘Blauer Eskimo’
Cedrus deodara ‘Raywood’s Prostrate Dwarf’
Juniperus horizontalis ‘Blue Pygmy’
Picea englemannii ‘Jasper’
Picea glauca ‘Echiniformis’
Picea pungens ‘Pendula’
Picea pungens ‘The Blues’
Picea sitchensis ‘Silverzwerg’

May your gardens grow and flourish, bringing you and yours many years of peace and tranquility.

Ed-
Conifer Lover