I’ve included a variety of events that are on the Western Shore, but still close by. April 19 to 21 (Thursday to Saturday) the American Daffodil Society will be holding its national convention and a flower show in Towsend. The list also contains several seminars and lectures, plus bonsai and Ikebana events at the National Arboretum. There also are plant sales at Adkins Arboretum, the University of Delaware Botanic Garden in Newark, and at the National Arboretum in Washington, D.C.

I’ll continue to look for more events to add, but I hope you will all peruse the list, and plan to attend an event or two. NEW EVENTS. If you know of any lectures, plant sales, or other events that would interest Eastern Shore Gardeners, I would like to know about them! Please send details to me at hackberrypoint@gmail.com so I can add them to the calendar.

Attention proofreaders: This is obviously not my specialty! I had to choose between making it perfect and making it available. Please let me know if you find anything egregious or if any of the links don’t work.

Above: Winter aconites (Eranthis hyemalis)

Despite these early bloomers, I don’t have many bulbs over all in the garden yet, and if you are in the same boat, I hope you’ll take the pledge I’ve taken: I swear I’m going to get more of them planted this year! When I build beds, I prepare site and soil then add shrubs, trees, and perennials. I plant bulbs last, because I find it’s too easy to dig into them by mistake when I am planting something else. I’ve now got enough ground prepared that I no longer have an excuse.

Above: Snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis)

There’s nothing more lovely than spring bulbs blooming in a winter garden. Winter aconites and snowdrops are among the earliest, but crocuses, Siberian squill (Scillla siberica), and early daffodils are not far behind. Plan to make space for some of these early treasures. Bulb catalogs now arrive in spring, so you can order and plan where bulbs are to go in the garden while plants are up and growing. It’s also helpful to look at  bulbs in the gardens of neighbors and friends for ideas and plants to try.

One of my favorite bulb sources is Brent & Becky’s, who grow bulbs over on the Western Shore in Gloucester, Virginia. (They have open houses, anyone up for a road trip?)  In addition to a spring bulb catalog, they also have a summer bulb catalog with great cannas, dahlias, and other summer-blooming plants.

The snowdrops in my garden are the plane-Jane species, but I have been sorely tempted over the last few days by a fancier sort: Carolyn of Carolyn’s Shade Garden has been posting about rare snowdrops and the galanthophiles that prize them. The differences are subtle, but that’s to be expected for bulbs that bloom this early. I may have to add one or two of these treasures to the garden this season as part of my bulb build-up!

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2012

Perennialy Inspired: Perennial Plant Association/Horticultural Society of Maryland Seminar

Speakers include David Culp, Carol Long, Allen Bush.

When: Saturday, February 25, 2012; 8:45 a.m. to 3:45 p.m.

Where: Sheppard-Pratt Conference Center, 6501 N. Charles Street, Towson, Maryland
Cost: $89 for members ($99 after February 3); $99 for non-members ($109 after February 3). Lunch and snacks are included.

The Perennial Plant Association and the Horticultural Society of Maryland have a great speaker line-up for this all-day seminar. Speakers include David Culp of Sunny Border Nurseries; Carol Long from Winterthur; Allen Bush of Jelitto Perennial Seeds; Dan Benarcik of Chanticleer; and landscape architect Thomas Ranier, who is one of my favorite bloggers.  For full details on the program, see PPA/MSH Seminar.

SATURDAY, MARCH 31, 2012

Half-Day Seminar: Native Plants: Design and Maintenance

Tracy DeSabito-Aust, author of The Well-Tended Perennial Garden and The Well-Designed Mixed Border

When: Saturday March 31, 2012, 9:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.; (Registration opens at 8:30 a.m.)

Where: Anne Arundel Community College, 101 College Parkway, Center for Applied Learning and Technology, CALT Building, Arnold, MD 21012.

Cost: $60.00. A light breakfast is included. Book signing after the seminar.

This half-day seminar on Maryland native plants, design, and maintenance is sponsored by Unity Gardens, an organization dedicated to “empower local groups to build leadership and partnership through the creation of neighborhood greening projects that enhance the quality of life throughout Anne Arundel County.” The seminar is approved as advanced training for Maryland Master Gardeners. For more information, see Native Plants.

SATURDAY, APRIL 21

Outdoor Living Extravaganza: A Retreat and Seminar with Proven Winners

When: Saturday, April 21, 2012; 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Where: Airlie Conference Center, 6809 Airlie Road, Warrenton, Virginia 20187

Cost: $80.00. Includes a catered luncheon and snacks.

This day-long seminar is organized by people who bring us Proven Winners brand plants and focuses on using color and getting the most out of the garden. Speakers include Proven Winners Program Manager Kerry Meyer; garden designer and speaker Kerry Mendez; Walter’s Gardens Marketing Manager Susan Martin; and gardening expert and TV host Joe Lamp’l. Participants will receive a gift bag and the chance to win a wide variety of prizes. To register, go to provenwinners or call 877-865-5818.

The plant that caught my eye is ‘Brigadoon’ Aaron’s beard (Hypericum calycinum ‘Brigadoon’). I have to say I haven’t particularly noticed its yellow, five-petaled flowers, which appear in late spring, but the golden yellow new growth is certainly eye-catching this January. (Plants are semi-evergreen, so they are primarily valued for late summer to fall foliage value; it seems that the weather this year makes January an extension of fall!) Since my clump isn’t growing in full sun, it’s a mix of yellow foliage mixed with older bronzy green stems.

Hypericum calycinum tolerates most soils, provided they’re not constantly wet, and my clump of ‘Brigadoon’ is growing on a slope in the backyard in a spot that’s very well drained and only gets watered occasionally. The fact that it tolerates both shade and dry soil make it especially valuable. Established plants also tolerate dry soil in sun.

‘Brigadoon’ ranges from 15 to 18 inches tall and spreads to at least 2 feet, although my plant is sprawling and probably only 10 to 12 inches tall. It already looks like it will go farther than 2 feet, too, although it isn’t spreading invasively. Plants are stoloniferous, and clipping, shearing, or mowing them back in late winter helps encourage more new growth and thus more golden foliage. (I haven’t sheared mine before, but plan to this year.) The species is native to southeastern Europe and Asia minor. It is hardy in Zones 5 to 7.

Growing with ‘Brigadoon’ is one of my favorite shrubby ground covers Maryland Dwarf American Holly (Ilex opaca ‘Maryland Dwarf’. I have three plants in the garden, all growing in sites with dry soil and ranging from full sun to partial shade. Plants range from 3 to 4 feet at maturity; mine are all still in the 12- to 18-inch range. Mature spread ranges from 6 to 8 feet. I have had a bit of trouble with branches splitting in wintertime, and have lost a couple branches for this reason. I’ve also had others recover with the split healed over and the branch held at a slightly lower angle.

Also nearby is a mixed planting of orange-flowered Epimedium x warleyense, native pachysandra (Pachysandra procumbens), and a native sedge (Carex spp.) All are tough customers that grow well in partial to full shade with dry soil.

When: 11:00 a.m., Tuesday, January 3, 2012.

Where: Church hall of Emmanuel Episcopal Church, 101 North Cross Street, Chestertown, MD 21620

Topic: Befriending the Bay: Creating Bay-Friendly Gardens and Landscapes.  Join local gardener and garden expert Barbara Ellis for a practical look at what gardeners can do to benefit the bay. Learn how principals like reducing lawn and runoff as well as attracting wildlife can help you create beautiful, unique gardens and landscapes that also help the Bay.

Hope to see some of you there! I’ll have books and a few tools available for purchase.

TIP: Weeds on the March!

The winter weeds in my garden—and over at Victory Farm Community Garden—have evidently enjoyed our warm, wet fall as much as I have. We weeded at the Community Garden last week, and I’ve started pulling here, too.

At the risk of being the bearer of bad news, I though I’d post a warning. It’s worth bundling up and spending some spare time pulling some of the offenders. Otherwise by spring, they’ll have taken over major ground!

I’ve got good-size drifts of henbit, ground ivy, chickweed, and bittercress, to name a few. And while I also have mullen seedlings, I’ll leave those in place until they begin to bloom. I happen to love the rosettes of woolly white leaves.

Anyway, if I’m completely on board with any plant that Nancy recommends, and this book features 20 of the best performers from her garden. I grow a number of them already, although undoubtedly not as well as she does, and the rest just jumped to the top of my list of plants to add to the garden. I should mention that Nancy gardens near Quakertown, Pennsylvania, so her recommendations are all suitable for our region.

This isn’t just a plant-list book, though. Nancy is a real gardener, and she has a wonderful way of communicating exactly why a plant makes a wonderful addition to a garden. Entries list each plant’s cultural needs, discusses the plant’s features and drawbacks, and provides ideas for using it in the garden, including suggested  companion plants.

Best of all, the book features loads of Nancy’s photographs of her garden. If you’ve visited her blog at www.hayefield.com, you know what to expect here. Tried and True Perennials features loads of photographs of the featured plants as she has used them in her garden.

Getting a Copy

Tried and True Perennials is self-published, and it is available as a traditional print book for $19.99 or as an electronic book for $9.00. Go to  http://hayefield.com/tried-and-true-perennials/ for more information to order either format. The electronic version is on sale for $6.00 through December.

I downloaded the electronic version, which is in a PDF file. It’s large, 40 MB, so you do need a fairly good internet connection to download.  A WiFi connection works great. (Don’t make the mistake I did the first time: Make sure you click that you want to save the file at the start of the download! Otherwise, it disappears when you turn off your computer.)

The PDF version works great. The photos show up really well on both my computer and my iPad. Nancy has included links from each plant name on the table of contents to the corresponding entry, so you can get around the book quickly. Plus there is a link on each page to the Table of Contents or the index. I should mention that I have the book on my iPad via an app called GoodReader.

So, Tried and True Perennials will add a few plants to everyone’s “must have” list. Many of them are native species, and all will make great additions to Eastern Shore Gardens

My tarp is nothing special.  The one I use is about 6 feet by 8 feet. It is big enough to collect a fair amount of garden debris, but not so large that it gets heavy or cumbersome to pull along the ground, which is the method I use for transporting whatever I’ve collected to the compost pile.

A tarp is perfect for gathering up garden clippings. Just spread it out next to a bed and heave from wherever you are working. Tarps are also great for collecting leaves, because all you need to do to move a pile is rake it onto the center. As long as you don’t collect too much on top of it, you can pull a tarp wherever you need it just by grabbing a corner.

A tarp also comes in handy for containing the potting soil and other mess when filling and planting containers in spring. Or use it when transplanting: Place plants to be moved on the tarp. Or when digging holes: Shovel soil from the hole onto the tarp to keep it off the grass.

Fortunately, a tarp is as inexpensive as it is handy. The one I have is a standard two-layer type. (It’s green on the top and brown on the bottom, but there are many other color combinations.) Mine has reinforced hems and also grommets along the edges. You can find them in any hardware store for about $10.00 . There also are economy and heavy duty tarps. I would recommend against the single-layer economy type just because heavier construction will withstand more wear and tear. A heavy duty tarp isn’t necessary. Not only will it weigh more, it will also be stiffer and more cumbersome to use.

Another great reason a tarp makes a wonderful tool is that it also doesn’t take up any space in the toolshed. Just fold it up and stick it on a shelf.

Above: Tupelo and holly on the creek.

Outstanding fall foliage is high on my list when considering trees and shrubs to plant. Tupelos (Nyssa sylvatica) probably top my list here. The one I planted on the bank along the roadside this fall won’t rival the ones growing along the creek during my lifetime, but I’m still happy that it’s there. I’ll get my share of enjoyment from it, and with any luck it will be here for the next person to own this place. I’ve also managed to transplant a couple of oak seedlings that showed outstanding fall color—I think both are black oak hybrids (Quercus velutina). They seem to have established themselves as well. Oh, and then there’s my little, newly planted ‘Ruby Slippers’ oakleaf hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia). Now there’s some great fall color!

Above: Oakleaf hydrangea ‘Ruby Slippers’ has maintained scarlet foliage since October.

Today, though, I wanted to highlight a fall favorite of mine that is sort of  accidently sited in the garden: Three-flower maple (Acer triflorum). My plant came from my Pennsylvania garden, where I had tortured it in a pot for a few years while dithering about where to plant it. Here at Hackberry Point, I popped it into in a holding bed with the intention of eventually moving it to a permanent location. Add seven years to that intention, and its holding bed location has become permanent. Fortunately it seems to be well sited. Red cedars (Juniperus virginiana) behind where the holding bed originally was located form a nice dark backdrop and set off the glowing fall foliage beautifully. The plant is simply stunning this time of year.

Above: Three-flower maple (Acer triflorum) with Amsonia hubrectii.

A small, fairly slow-growing tree, from 20 to30 feet at maturity, three-flower maple features three part (trifoliate) leaves that are dark green for most of the summer. Fall foliage includes reds, oranges, and yellow. (Here, my photographs express the color better than words.) Woody plant expert Michael Dirr also says the bark is outstanding, although I have to admit I’ve never really looked at it.

This is a great small specimen tree or a nice addition to a shrub border. Hardy in Zones 5 to 7, it is native to Manchuria and Korea. Mine is growing along the driveway in an area that is becoming a mixed border. At any rate, I’m sure this isn’t the last time I’ll write about this lovely small tree. I should also say that my plant has thrived happily without being watered since I popped the plant into a temporary holding bed back in 2004. That’s another reason to recommend it!

Sorry, it doesn’t have a common name, but as a Sanseveria it is related to the plants commonly known as mother-in-law’s tongue and snake plant. (I have something of a collection of them, but won’t go into detail here, because someone may try to cart me away to the loony bin if I mention another plant collection.) Sansevieria kirkia var. pulchella is native to southeastern tropical Africa. It is as tough and undemanding a houseplant as you can find.

It’s really hard to catch the full effect of the flowers in a picture. The individual tubes measure 7 inches from the base to the tip of the pistil. A bit of a search on the internet yielded pictures of other gardener’s plants that are producing much more spectacular flowers than mine did. Still, I’m thrilled.

The flowers are composed of many 7-inch-long tubes that are maybe 1/8 inch wide. Watching the tubes open is an experience in and of itself. They split at the tip into lobes that roll up to reveal spidery stamens and a pistil. Alas, each flower only opens for about 24 hours before wilting, but all the flowers in an umbel don’t open on the same day, which helps spread out the show a little bit.

Like most sanseverias, this one is quite drought tolerant and bears tough, leathery, evergreen leaves. Unlike many, the leaves are primarily horizontal. Since individual leaves can reach 2 feet in length, it’s easy to end up with a really handsome clump that spans 4 feet. (It takes planning to get mine into the house every fall!)

As I finish this post, sloppy wet snowflakes are pounding my office windows. It’s nice to have started the winter season with flowers in the house already!

Recent plant purchases are driving yet another garden expansion here at Hackberry Point. This time I’m digging on the north edge of my front garden, where cultivated space meets rampant weeds. Although I knew the garden would eventually expand here, I think I’ve been waiting until the work itself would somehow be easier. Gardening doesn’t exactly work that way, though.

Above: Honeysuckle on the edge of the garden, ready to meet its demise.

On its north edge, the front garden ends in a mass of weeds that cover a very steep drop-off. Clearing the site was a necessary first step in the expansion. In this case, the weeds are primarily non-native invasives: Common periwinkle (Vinca minor) and Japanese honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica). Driving the expansion and waiting patiently to anchor the new garden edge, is ‘Ruby Slippers’ oakleaf hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia), one of several new plants I picked up at Rare Find Nursery recently.

I started the operation at the top of the slope by pulling up easy weeds like grass and dandelions. Then I moved on to cutting back and winding up some of the honeysuckle. I also pulled a few seedling weed trees and marked a native redbud (Cercis canadensis) to save. The saved redbud is growing on the side of the slope very near a large mature one, but since redbuds aren’t particularly long-lived trees , I expect I’ll want a replacement at some point. Plus, a little extra shade would be lovely

Next, I started pulling up honeysuckle in earnest. Former owners mowed and string-trimmed this slope for 30 years, so the ground is quite compacted, soil organic matter is completely depleted, and woody weed roots are healthy. Pulling them up is tough work. The lost $100,000 funniest video prize comes in at about this point. As I worked down the slope, I got more tired and less careful. I was standing nearly upright but leaning forward into the hill, yanking up the offending roots with both hands. Suddenly they let loose. I flipped over backward like a misguided pole-vaulter, landing on my back, head down on the slope. I lay there for a few minutes, blood rushing downhill from my feet to my head (nothing bleeding, thankfully!). I took a minute to be thankful that rocks are rare here on the Eastern Shore and that I hadn’t left any sharp tools just below me on the slope.

After rolling over and around to get head above feet, I stood back up. Instead of cashing it in for the day—it was obvious I would be really stiff and sore once I sat down for the day—renewed determination filled my veins. The offending clump of honeysuckle had to pay the ultimate price. It took another hour to send the entire clump to the weed graveyard. Even though I didn’t get ‘Ruby Slippers’ settled into her new home, that was good enough for me.

Above: Casey, squinting into the sunlight, with the remains.

Future hillside weeding endeavors will be accomplished on my knees, or at least with in a position that features a much lower center of gravity. Still, I’m not kowtowing to the invasives. I’m just renewing my resolve to create an invasives-free zone that will give the front garden a finished edge—without more bodily damage.