Hits & Misses: Shapely lavender & safety first
Question of the Week: I just bought some drought tolerant plants. Do I have to water them?
Science & Technology: Sexist scent

Ice cubes popping out of potting soil? Yes, it was a little bewildering to one customer who witnessed the rise of what looked like ice cubes from the soil of her patio planters. The cubes were actually supersaturated Moisture Mizer granules, and they appeared after several days of heavy rain. The product is a hydrogel—a fine-crystalline structure capable of absorbing large quantities of water, and is touted as being able to prevent containers from drying out. But do they work? Well, the reality is that hydrogels will, at best, buy you a few more hours between waterings. So although, they’re not a miracle product, give them a shot if you have a hot, dry spot. Just don’t be alarmed if the blobs rise from the soil like zombies.

Given the right conditions,
hydrogels can look like ice cubes.

Hits & Misses
Hit: Shapely Lavender
Lavender’s purple flowers, which remind me of bursting fireworks, always stand out from the crowd. They’re even more dramatic when pruned into a tree-form with the blooms set against spherical shaped foliage. These tree-form lavenders are unique-looking potted plants. They’re perfect for patio tables and are sure to get the barbeque crowd talking. And, of course, they smell wonderful too.

Miss: Safety First
Most of us (or maybe it’s just me) have a tendency to use a new product first and to read the label second—usually after the product doesn’t perform as expected. For some products, the worst that happens is you waste your money. But for others, the consequences can be much more serious. I had a customer who erroneously assumed he could use Doktor Doom House and Garden Insecticidal Spray to control bed bugs in his home. Thankfully, he’s okay, although he did suffer from dizziness and need medical attention. The important lesson is that pesticides must be used only for specified purposes—labels must be read thoroughly and followed exactly. The customer’s story ended well, but reinforced the point that you should read first, use second.

Question of the Week
I just bought some drought tolerant plants. Do I have to water them?
You sure do. Just because a plant can withstand drought doesn’t mean it will thrive without watering. It’s also important to regularly water newly purchased drought-tolerant plants until they’re well established.

Science & Technology
Sexist Scent
Women have a greater sensitivity to odours than do men but as always, there’s an exception to the rule. In the May issue of Science, researchers from Linkoping University in Sweden report men are more sensitive to the chemical (bourgeonal) that gives lily-of-the-valley its distinctive fragrance than women are. Strangely enough, in lab experiments the researchers also found that sperm cells make a beeline toward bourgeonal. They don’t know why this is the case, but I know there’s a joke inside that data just screaming to get out…

Did You Know?
The word horseradish probably came from the old German word meerrettich, meaning sea radish, which aptly describes the plant that grew wild in European coastal regions.

“The average pencil is seven inches long, with just a half-inch eraser—in case you thought optimism was dead.”
–Robert Brault

The first strips of energy-saving shade cloth slid (or were wrestled, as I witnessed) into channels on the interior of the Enjoy Centre roof. The reflective material in the heat retention curtains coupled with double-paned glass are expected to save 30 percent more energy than would be possible in a traditional single-pane greenhouse operation. The material will be installed in both the retail and production greenhouses and, depending on the weather, will work to help keep heat in or out of the building.

first published May 13, 2010

I’m expecting some bee-like behavior from gardeners this spring. Just as bees do waggle dances (yes, that’s what honey bees’ figure-eight movements are called) to alert their hive mates about a new patch of flowers, so too will gardeners react with exuberance to this year’s hot bedding plant introductions. OK, maybe not everyone will dance, but the beauty and quirky characteristics of these new varieties will make you take a second look. So, if you’re like me and have a penchant for the new and unusual, here’s a look at some of the showstoppers.

Pretty in pink takes on a whole new meaning with ‘Fireworks’ pennisetum grass. It’s dramatic and flashy with rich pink, variegated leaves and pink flowerheads. This annual ornamental grass is stunning as a centrepiece in pots and planters, or as a stand-alone feature in a bed. For the richest tones, plant it in bright sunlight to intensify the colour.

With a name like ‘Pretty Much Picasso,’ you know this petunia is going to possess a certain quirkiness. Picasso was known for mentally breaking apart real-life objects and reassembling them on canvas, and these petunias look as though the great artist had his hand in the breeding. The beautiful pink flowers have a distinct band of rich-green adorning the petal edges. It almost looks as if petunia leaf margins have been sewn onto the petals. I absolutely love the effect.

Another petunia, ‘Raspberry Blast,’ is a variety I also find irresistible. It has pink blooms edged in deep cerise-violet. I got hooked on Raspberry Blast last year when it practically jumped out from the other petunia varieties we were trialing in the greenhouses. I’d describe Raspberry Blast as the flamboyant cousin to the Picasso variety.

A type of St. John’s Wort (Hypericum androsaemum) also really caught my eye in last year’s trials. We grew ‘Ignite Scarlet Red’ in planter boxes, and I was struck by its appealing duality. What I mean is it displays both flowers and fruit concurrently. The rich green foliage provides a nice background for the small yellow flowers as well as the bright-red berries. It’s definitely something unusual to put in a container.

‘Million Kisses Elegance’ begonias are striking because of their bright, iridescent flowers that, at times, look as though they’re lit with fibre optic cable. This variety has a nice orangey hue. It’s a Begonia boliviensis and has a completely different look than tuberous or Rex begonias have, but all are queens of shade. These begonias have a mounding and trailing habit, and work well in hanging baskets where they will add an extra punch of colour.

It’s always challenging to find plants suitable for really shady spots, but the ‘Upside Down’ fern is up to the test. Its name alludes to the fact the leaves look as though they were attached upside down. The most prominent ribbing on plant leaves is usually on the underside, but with this fern it’s on the upper side of the leaves. Ferns always make great additions to shady areas. Most people will use it as an annual plant, although it is marginally hardy for our area. To overwinter the upside down fern, plant it into the ground in the fall, top with organic mulch and then keep it covered with a thick layer of snow. Other fern varieties also make great additions to shady areas, but if you want some extra texture, Upside Down is the way to go.

As always, my recommendation is to try at least one new variety each year. This list includes just some of the new and outstanding bedding plant introductions creating a buzz this year. But I’m sure you’ll agree that at least one of the short-listed varieties rates a 10 out of 10 on the waggle scale.

Rain isn’t something anyone in the plant business ever curses, but in the construction business, that’s not always the case. At the Enjoy Centre where the soil has been stripped away, even a little bit of moisture makes for mucky conditions on site. You can imagine then that the paving and curbing of the parking lot has been a much-awaited step in the project for myself and others who are on site daily. Happily, that work has begun and should be finished soon. Meanwhile, the steel framework for the third floor is going up this week and, just this morning, the cement floor for the lower level vestibule was being poured.

Hits & Misses: Spectacular statements & mismatched plants
Question of the Week: I’ve over fertilized and burned my lawn in places. What can I do?
Science & Technology: Fighting moss

I may have discovered the world’s toughest plant. It, or rather four of them, are growing in a window box outside our office door. They’re ‘Jade Frost’ silver nettle vines (a.k.a. archangel), which are normally thought of as annuals in our area. Well, let me tell you what these plants endured last winter. They were left in long, narrow window boxes that contained only about 10 cm of soil, the boxes sat atop a retaining wall where they were exposed to howling winter winds (at least one day with –43°C), they had no snow cover, and still haven’t gotten a speck of water. Today, in spite of it all, they’re not only producing vines, but also flowering. Now, I’m not endorsing this kind of treatment for Jade Frost…but if its true that cockroaches are one of the few creatures that would survive a nuclear holocaust, you might just find them using this plant as nesting material.

‘Jade Frost’ silver nettle vine is tougher than it looks.

Hits & Misses
Hit: Spectacular Statements
As far as planting in the greenhouse goes, this is my favourite time of year. That sentiment is due entirely to the fact that the gargantuan pots destined for outdoor patios are being planted up. There are few sights more spectacular than five-foot-tall pots filled with a myriad of colourful bedding plants (and possibly a few interesting shrubs) welcoming you to a patio.

Miss: Mismatched Plants
You know, there are a lot of plant combinations that work well with impatiens in hanging baskets —ivy and bacopa being just two choices that come to mind. But somehow, no matter how lush and green a sow thistle looks, I don’t think it complements impatiens at all. How a sow thistle found its way into an impatiens basket of ours is anyone’s guess, but its weeks of pampering came to an abrupt end as this photo proves.

Question of the Week
I’ve over fertilized and burned my lawn in places. What can I do?
First, rake the burned areas to remove the dead grass. Then, water heavily to help flush away the excess fertilizer. Wait a couple of days and flush again. Then use a grass repair kit (which has grass seed embedded in a growing medium), or add 1–2.5 cm of rich loam and scatter grass seed overtop. Water at least once a day for the first two weeks to ensure germination. Then, water twice per week until the grass is well established.

Science & Technology
Fighting Moss
According to researchers from Kansas State University, sodium bicarbonate (a.k.a. baking soda) is quite effective at killing moss in creeping bentgrass, which is used on putting greens. The Department of Plant Pathology researchers dissolved about 40 grams of sodium bicarbonate in a litre of water and drenched the moss patches. They found the mixture outperformed some standard moss control products. Keep in mind that sodium bicarbonate is not registered for use on lawns in Canada and, therefore, I cannot endorse its use…although I can’t imagine being sued for misuse of baking soda.

Did You Know?
Nicotine was the first insecticide to be extracted from a plant.

“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I’ll try again tomorrow.”
–Mary Anne Radmacher

Hits & Misses: Surprise petunias & concrete wonders
Question of the Week: I’ve never grown potatoes before; what do I need to do?
Science & Technology: Prey-preferred colours

I’d say our ‘Sum and Substance’ hostas would do writer Oren Arnold proud. In case you’re wondering, he said: ”Dear God, I pray for patience…and I want it right now!” Sum and Substance hostas are truly gargantuan and perfect for gardeners who want big plants now—not three years from now. The multi-stemmed plants with massive lime green leaves are about a metre wide and tall. If you plant one of these monsters, you can guarantee that when your neighbours and friends see them, they’ll want you to reveal what fertilizer you used. I tell my friends it’s the result of years of careful nurturing. No need to reveal who did the nurturing…

Hits & Misses
Hit: Surprise Petunias
Petunia plant breeders have really outdone themselves with petunias. Blue, red, white, yellow, green, double, single, trailing, mounding, hedge forming, fragrant…there’s at least one to suit every gardener. One of my favorite petunia series is called Surprise. These trailing petunias are outstanding candidates for window boxes or containers. One variety in the series, ‘Raspberry Blast,’ really jumps out from the pack with its bright pink and deep cerise flowers.

The showy ‘Raspberry Blast’ petunia
is just one of this year’s outstanding varieties.

Miss: Concrete Wonders
I’ve seen TV ads for a grass mixture that will “even grow on concrete!” Well, I’ll let you in on a little secret: every single plant at our greenhouse grows on concrete or asphalt. We add potting soil to our pots, sow seeds or pop transplants into the mixture and place the pots on…our floors! Essentially, the same thing applies to the grass in the ad—except that the seed and soil mixture is placed directly on concrete. In the ad, time-lapse photography shows the grass shoots bursting out from the mix—which is nothing miraculous. What would be miraculous is if that same grass looked good in a year’s time.

Question of the Week
I’ve never grown potatoes before; what do I need to do?
Potatoes are easy to grow and here’s how. Plant certified seed potatoes either whole or cut into thirds or quarters. Ensure each piece has two or three eyes (the dimples on tubers where the buds sprout). Allow cut pieces to dry for several hours or suberize (form a protective corky layer) before planting. Plant the tubers 10–15 cm deep and about 30 cm apart. When the plants are 15–20 cm tall, use a hoe to mound soil around the plants, creating hills about 20 cm deep. This will protect the tubers from sunlight, and is a better environment for tuber formation. The potatoes can be dug whenever they’re large enough to eat. Depending on the variety, you could have small potatoes about 60 days after the plant emerges. You also need to know that blooms are an indication, rather than an assurance of maturity. So, before you pull out a plant, carefully dig down with your hands, and unearth a couple potatoes to see if they’re big enough.

Science & Technology
Prey-preferred Colours
Aphids come in a variety of colours, and according to a recent article in Science, their colour has a direct influence on which beneficial insects prey on them. Apparently, ladybugs tend to prefer red aphids, while beneficial parasitic wasps (not the ones that steal hamburgers from your picnic table) prefer green aphids.

Did You Know?
Coir fibre is actually the stringy material that surrounds coconut seeds.

“Learning is not compulsory…neither is survival.”
–W. Edwards Deming

The latest edition of Enjoy Gardening is hot off the presses and on our shelves just in time to inspire gardeners as they make their spring purchases. But, much to the chagrin of our editor, it sat for two days last week in our warehouse before she found it.

At the time, the warehouse was jammed full of plants that needed protection from frosty nights, and our usual receiver was on holiday. So, there’s an explanation why our editor wasn’t immediately told about the arrival of the magazine. But it made me think, yet again, about the systems that need to be developed as we transition to the new space at the Enjoy Centre. The warehouse space at our new facility will be 1,500 sq m (16,000 sq ft), which is about 1.4 times bigger than our total current storage space, including the warehouse. For efficiency, we’ll need a more formalized warehouse management system to control the movement and storage of materials. Otherwise, finding things such as magazines could take a lot longer.

first published April 29, 2010

If you want to send chills up the spines of seasoned gardeners, just mention clay. Images of cracked soil and hopelessly stunted plants will instantly come to mind. But unless this garden bad boy is dominating your soil, it doesn’t really deserve its bad rap. To gain an appreciation for clay, you’ll need to know what it is. Here’s the scoop.

Clay is one component of what’s known as mineral soils, which are prevalent on the Prairies and throughout the world. Organic soils are much less common and more than half of their solid contents consist of decomposed plants, animals and microorganisms. That’s why if you scoop a shovel of soil from a typical prairie garden, you’ll likely find that 90 percent of the solid components will be minerals and the rest organic matter.

The mineral fraction includes sand, silt and the often-maligned clay. By and large, what differentiates the components is the size of their particles. Sand particles are relatively large, silt somewhat smaller and clay the tiniest. In fact, clay particles are about 100 to 1,000 times smaller in diameter than sand grains. That’s part of the reason why it can be problematic in soil. It tends to fill in spaces that would otherwise hold air and water. And, without this critical pore space, roots have a difficult time infiltrating soil. But here’s the good news. Because clay particles can also swell and absorb water within their lattice-like structure, they provide a valuable water reservoir for plant roots. As well, clay is adept at retaining plant nutrients that roots can feed from as required. It’s only when the clay percentage becomes excessive that problems arise.

Recognizing when you have too much is rather self-evident—you’ll have large cracks on the surface and hard clods. If you need other corroboration, take a handful of your soil, add some water to it and start to roll the mix out between your hands as if it were Plasticine. If you can roll it out to the diameter of a pencil or less, that’s a sure sign your soil’s too rich in clay.

If that’s the case, it’s time to roll of the sleeves. Your first inclination might be to resolve the issue by adding sand. Don’t do it! Adding sand is the worst thing you could do because it turns clay-heavy soils into concrete-like soils rather than opening them up, which is the theory behind this ill-advised solution. The best solution is to entirely replace your soil with high-quality loam. Yes, I know it’s not an easy solution, nor a cheap one. But the short-term pain can save years of laborious, and often fruitless, efforts to transform heavy soil into a perfect-textured medium.

But if your percentage of clay isn’t too disproportionate, adding organic matter (compost, well-rotted manures and the like) will significantly improve the soil quality. Likewise gypsum, the white powdery stuff found in drywall, can also be useful. Gypsum binds the particles together thereby creating spaces for water and air to move more freely. It’s by no means a replacement for organic matter. But products such as Clay Buster, which contain both gypsum and organic matter, are helpful amendments

Keep in mind that plants will grow successfully in soils with varying ratios of sand, silt and clay. So, you don’t need to fear clay, but rather respect its role in the garden. Granted, in too high a concentration, it’s horrible looking stuff…unless, of course, Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze are working with it.

Hits & Misses: War on dandelions & below the surface
Question of the Week: Why are my spring flowering shrubs blooming so sparsely?
Science & Technology: Point-and-shoot analysis

Insects—microscopic and large, live and preserved—were a big hit at our open house last Saturday. Much to the delight of bug lovers, Lisa Lumley (a U of A entomology grad student) brought live tomato hornworms along with other preserved insects. And our integrated pest management expert, Sherrie Lang, showcased the predatory insects we use as biological controls in the greenhouse. Kids (and adults) loved looking at magnified beneficial insects and watching ladybugs eat aphids. The kids even got to eat a few ladybugs—chocolate ones wrapped in foil, of course.

Hits & Misses
Hit: War on Dandelions
If you’re panicking about dandelion control because of the new Alberta ban on weed-and-feed products (effective January 1, 2010), you don’t need to. Other more ecologically friendly products are making their way into the market. We’ll have three in our garden centre this spring: corn gluten to inhibit dandelion seed germination, Sarritor (a fungus) to attack mature dandelions and an iron-based spray (available mid May) to kill dandelions and clover. Of course, you can still purchase old standbys, such as Killex, but these new products are exciting alternatives in the war on dandelions.

It’s always easier to conrol weeds when they’re small
and haven’t gone to seed.

Miss: Below the Surface
The pros and cons of plastic and fabric groundcovers for weed control were a topic of discussion on my regular CBC radio appearance on Monday. Porous landscape fabrics, used sparingly and in the right place, are usually fine, but impervious plastic sheets are never a good choice for gardens. A case in point was the experience of a CBC technician who couldn’t understand why the plants in the yard of his newly purchased home were growing so poorly. That is until he noticed a tiny piece of blue tarpaulin poking out of the ground. He discovered the tiny piece was, in fact, one of many tarps buried on the property. The previous owners apparently thought they could eliminate weed problems with the tarps but, instead, caused desirable plants to suffer. Plants, like icebergs, have a large amount of mass hidden below the surface. As good gardeners and good mariners bothknow, ignoring what’s below the surface can make the journey perilous.

Question of the Week
Why are my spring flowering shrubs blooming so sparsely?
This year, my bet is that dry conditions are a factor. But the reason could also be that some sensitive buds have been injured by the cold. Cold snaps can wipe out flowerbuds, depending on the plant species, the degree of cold and the stage of bud development. Flowerbuds are typically more sensitive to cold than are leaf buds.

Frost can be the cause of uneven
blooming on trees and shrubs.

Science & Technology
Point-and-Shoot Analysis
Near-infrared spectroscopy. Yes, it’s a mouthful, but that’s the name of the latest technology being used to look at the chemical composition of plants and soils. The Star Trek-like NIR spectrophotometer looks like a gun and when aimed at a plant leaf, it measures the amount of reflected light. An analysis of that measurement reveals a picture of the chemical composition of the plant. The point-and-shoot analysis for a wide range of plant nutrients still has a way to go, although meters already exist for the analysis of chlorophyll levels in crops such as corn. But sorry, Trekkies, it’s not called a tricorder.

Did You Know?
Corn plants grow prop roots for support.

“When we tug at a single thing in nature, we find it attached to the rest of the world.”
–John Muir