JCHC Garden Tonight

Watered today...

 Liatris is now blooming!

As well as Clematis 'City of Lyon' (or 'Ville de Lyon) and Coreopsis 'Full Moon' below:

Dear Iris - Heuchera

Did someone say ‘Heuchera?’  Do I say ‘gesundheit?’

 'Tiramasu'

 By KATHY TOLLENAERE, Master Gardener | Jun 21, 2012

The genus Heuchera (pronounced hoo-ker-a) of the family Saxifragacea contains at least 50 native species. These are an herbaceous perennial native to North America commonly called coral bells or alumroot. Plants you find in nurseries will most predictably be modern cultivars. Depending upon the individual variety, coral bells will thrive in zones 3 through 9.
Since the mid-1990s an “explosion” of sorts has occurred with regard to the development of new hybrid varieties. You can find hybrids with varying leaf size, shape, and color as well as flower stems varying in heights (up to 2.5 inches) and blossom color of white, pink, salmon, coral, or red bell-shaped flowers. You might enjoy a trip to an area nursery as well as a search on-line to view the variety of hybrids available. Most plants would be best suited to either the front of the garden or just behind it.

Generally, coral bells do best in light shade or dappled shade, at least during the hottest part of the day. Planting in full sun runs the risk that the foliage may discolor by scorching or die back during very hot spells in the summer. Most of my coral bells receive direct sunlight for up to four hours in the afternoon with dappled shade at other times. I have placed other plants in conditions receiving only dappled shade with very little direct sunlight. As a contrast, however, I’ve given “Green Spice” an especially large challenge, as once the deciduous oak tree leaves appear, it never sees sunlight. It doesn’t flourish as it would under better conditions, but it has continued to do fairly well during the past eight years, and it offers a nice contrast in foliage to the surrounding plants.

For the most part, Heuchera desire well-drained, neutral to rich soil. They do, however, tolerate many soil types. Plants in rich soil will be quite different looking – taller, and lusher, than they would in leaner soil. Under ideal and/or good conditions, these plants have few disease or pest problems. A problem I have experienced is “frost heave,” resulting in a plant that has been forced out of the soil when spring arrives. My answer to that problem seems to have been resolved by either of two solutions: 1) Adding additional soil and leaf mulch in the autumn, or 2) Adding additional soil and replanting in early spring.
Remove the old, unattractive leaves in the spring to encourage new growth. Deadheading (removing) spent flowers and their stalks encourages re-blooming over the course of the summer. Re-blooming is always a pleasant bonus!

Heuchera are truly quite complimentary plants. I do recommend your research and purchase. They don’t take much room! For “richness” in appearance, a gardening approach might be to plant several plants together. I would also suggest not only planting several of one variety, but also to plant different varieties together as a contrast in both leaf and flower. If planted as an “edger,” that is, a row of them at the front edge of your flowerbed, they are quite effective.
Heuchera is not the sound of a sneeze, but I’d accept your “Gesundheit!” any day!

Kathy Tollenaere is a Master Gardener.

A Garden Walk in Washington, IA

Sunday, July 8, 2012 from 1:30 to 5:00 P.M.

(Actually, this is part of my own backyard...)

Five gardens:

Shirley Steele 609 South 3rd Avenue

Gary and Jeanne (Prochaska)Kos  615 West Adams Street

C.J. (Griff) and Vivian Griffith  1512 North 3rd Avenue

Steve and Tammy Roth  914 South Iowa Aavenue

Sunset Park Flower Beds and Log Home Tour

Price $8.00

Tickets may be purchased at any of the five gardens

or in advance at the two shops below:

Wolf Floral - 105 West Washington

Jaz It Up - 121 West Washington

All proceeds for restoration of the DAR Alexander Young Log House

A Garden Tour - Check It Out!

ISU Extension Linn County Master Gardener Garden Walk - Cedar Rapids/Marion, Iowa

Saturday, June 23, 2012 from 10:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M.

 $5 per adult or $10 per family

Explore 5 diverse Linn County Master Gardener gardens that will inspire you with ideas you can apply to your own garden or landscape or simply provide you the opportunity to tour beautiful private gardens.  Gardens will include ornamental grasses, conifers, vegetables, perennials, containers, rain gardens, raised beds & will range from a facility garden to an acreage garden.  You will also see ideas for landscaping even the most difficult of terrains.   Master Gardeners will be at all of the gardens to answer your horticulture-related questions.

Download a Brochure as your Tour Guide - here.

There are Five Gardens, for your inspiration and enjoyment, on the tour.  You may begin at any garden and proceed from there.  Grab some friends and have a Wonderful Day!

Dear Iris - Garden Pests

Garden pests can be repelled naturally

By Aideen Vega-Van Auken, Master Gardener | May 31, 2012

Deer, rabbits, raccoons, rodents, birds and insects. Not many of us automatically include insects when we think of wildlife, but they certainly don’t knock on your door and ask if they may chow down on your tomatoes, do they? Crop rotation, companion planting, interplanting, biodiversity, attracting beneficials, hand picking, barriers and spraying are all natural ways of repelling insects that invade your garden.
Crop rotation is not planting the same crop (green beans), crop family (soybeans) or similar crop (peas) in the same spot as last year because the soil nutrients needed for this year were depleted by last year’s planting. In addition, you’ll avoid soil borne diseases and pests that congregated and ate that crop last year.
Companion planting is growing two or more different types of plants together that like and/or enhance each other. Interplanting is growing different crops at the same time in the same space. Trap crops are sacrificial plants so the intruder will stay away from the crop you really want to harvest, and a good example is zinnias distracting Japanese beetles. Biodiversity is a blending of interplanting, companion planting and trap crops on a grander scale by planting a wide variety. Unwanted insects are confused by something they will not touch being planted around something they love to munch.

Remove troublesome insects via sprays, handpicking, trapping, barriers or introducing beneficial insects. What to spray on plants depends on which insect is attacking. If it is a chewing or biting insect like caterpillars, cutworms or grasshoppers, garlic, onion and pepper sprays may work. Sucking insects such as aphids, squash bug nymphs and flies are asphyxiated by soap solutions. Trap slugs under damp boards or with a saucer of beer. Earwigs can be trapped in dark places such as an upside down container full of shredded paper. Barrier examples: tar paper collars around brassicas for cutworms or white maggots and Vaseline for ants. Consult an insect book to make sure what is on your plant is an unwelcome guest before picking them off. Sometimes an insect is unwanted or beneficial depending on the stage of growth.Yarrow, lavender, bee balm and the aster, carrot, onion and mint families attract beneficial insects that’ll make meals of the pesky ones.

Following is a list of plants and sprays that chase off unwanted insects.
Ants do not like pennyroyal, spearmint, or tansy. Catmint, garlic, nasturtium, nicotiana, artemisia family, spearmint, stinging nettle, soap or garlic spray will take care or aphids and pot marigold will ward off the asparagus beetle.
Plant mint or wormwood to guard against black flea beetle, and black horehound or stinging nettle for black flies.

Cabbage worm moths do not like anise hyssop, mint, rosemary, sage, thyme or Artemisia and Carrot rust flies do not like sage. The Colorado potato beetle will be kept at by with catmint, eggplant, flax or green beans while radish, nasturtium, zinnia and aster are plants that the cucumber beetle does not like.
Rue or tansy will keep flies away. Datura, grapes, white roses and white geranium are some plants that Japanese beetles don’t like. The Mexican bean beetle will avoid potatoes, and mosquitoes don’t hang around legumes.
Lavender, mint, sage and stinging nettles deter moths. Potato bugs avoid eggplant and flax.
If you sprinkle your plants and surrounding soil with dried and ground hot peppers, root maggots will leave them alone.

Diatomaceous earth or lime keeps slugs and snails away from susceptible plants.
Squash bugs don’t like catmint, nasturtium or tansy spray, while borage and dill guard against tomato cutworm/hornworm.

Weevils won’t eat garlic. Perhaps they don’t like the smell.
None of these are foolproof, but they do make your gardening against pests easier.
Part II of repelling garden pests naturally will cover deer, rabbits, raccoons, and rodents.

Aideen Vega-Van Auken is a Master Gardener.

Maasdam Barns are Beginning to Look Great!

Recent photos taken by Master Gardeners At Work include the following:

Happy Day!

Missing - Hardy Geraniums...

Wanted: Plant photographers, not plant thieves

By MARSHA LAUX, Master Gardener intern | May 24, 2012

Have you ever walked through a park or along a neighborhood flowerbed and wanted to pluck a beautiful, fragrant flower? “Just one,” you rationalize to yourself, “the owner wouldn’t mind if I picked just one of those pretty flowers.” You might have enjoyed it so much, that you just couldn’t resist, so you plucked, “just one” or “just a few” of those pretty flowers. “What does it hurt to help yourself?”

Stealing is stealing. When you help yourself to something that isn’t yours, it is in fact theft. Why is it that taking a live plant (or part of it) is any less a theft than the theft of a neighbor’s bicycle, a stranger’s car, a fish when trespassing, or morel mushrooms from a private wooded acreage?

According to Webster’s definition, theft is the act of stealing, specifically: the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it. Also, when you take plants from a garden (or a node), whether public or private, you are not only stealing, but you are vandalizing. Vandalism, according to Webster is “willful or malicious destruction or defacement of public or private property.” Those are crimes, and as such are punishable in a court of law.

Within the last few weeks, someone stole some hardy geraniums, dug them up, roots and all from a downtown public garden area! Whether public or private, the plants stolen did not belong to the thief. Yet, there are gaping holes in the ground where someone just couldn’t resist.

A gardener carefully chooses the plants, creates a design based upon the colors, textures, heights, dates of blooms and on various stages of plant cycles. Like an artist with a palette, the gardener paints the earth. The medium is natural, rooted in the earth, dependent upon sun, rain and soil compatibility. The art form is even more challenging than the sculpture’s clay or the painter’s watercolor on canvas, as it constantly evolves over time and needs continual tending. It is a masterpiece that is created with foresight, care and hard work. The garden designer must understand the soil types, the scale and the proportion of the plants in relation to the hardscapes, the buildings and the open spaces where they are planted. Plants are grouped and visual interest is achieved by using an array of various colors of blooms or leaves, and attention to the minute details such as texture and the characteristics of the plant materials.

The manner in which we choose to show our appreciation for the beauty in nature is important. Instead of just plucking out the blooms, consider that taking away those few bursts of yellow or red will change the overall effect of the masterpiece. That plant often will not have another bloom. It cannot be replanted until the following year and have the same impact. The growth cycle has been disrupted, and the symphony of the garden has been irreparably altered.

As a new Master Gardener intern, I have a new appreciation for the work and planning that it takes to keep public places looking nice. The ambiance of our cityscape and our landscapes are greatly enhanced by the use of shrubs, trees and flowers. It is those living plants that connect us to the earth; that we all walk past and truly enjoy, (and that a few just can’t resist taking for themselves).

If you are going to take, I’d like to suggest taking a photo instead of the bloom or the plant. As an amateur photographer, I’ve found that photographing nature is very rewarding. A photo lasts longer and is something you won’t have to water or weed, and it won’t die on you. Taking photographs is easier, especially with cameras in many cell phones. Take a photo (it’s free) and submit it to a contest, frame it, share it with a friend, but find a way to capture the beauty that doesn’t take away from the beauty. Leave the artist’s plants the way you found them; carefully chosen and artfully placed in the living masterpiece that it is.
Marsha Laux is a Master Gardener intern.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Questions are welcome and can be directed to Master Gardener Intern and Ledger photographer Julie Johnston at photo@ffledger.com.