Wall Fern

Polypodium

Polypodium aureum
A tropical Wall Fern, reaching up to 3.3 x 6.5 feet, that is native to tropical America.
The leaves, up to 5 x 2 feet, are composed of leaflets up to 12 x 2 inches.
Hardy zones 10 to 12.

* photo taken on Jan 2011 in Deerfield Beach Arboretum, Florida

Polypodium interjectum
An excellent, low groundcover Fern, forming clumps up to 2 x 6 feet, that is native to central and eastern Europe as well as parts of Scotland.
Unusual for Ferns, its new foliage is produced from August to October and persists late into winter.
The leathery, pinnate, narrow triangular, evergreen fronds, up to 20 x 3 inches, are wider than that of other species. The new fronds develop over a period lasting 4 weeks during early to mid summer. The foliage is mid-green.
Hardy zones 5 to 8 in partial to full shade. It is east to grow, even in containers.
Deer resistant. Tolerates wet soil.

Polypodium polypodioides ( Ressurrection Fern )
A Fern native to the United States that is named due its habit of withering up and playing dead during drought and springing back to life when moisture returns.
The fronds on this low growing Fern only reach 8 inches in height with the oblong leaf being divided into pairs of leathery deep green leaflets that are up to an inch in length.
Hardy zones 7 to 9, tolerating zone 6 on protected sites. It prefers partial to full shade on moist soil but is heat and drought tolerant.

Polypodium scouleri ( Coast Polypodium )
An evergreen, groundcover fern native to the west coast of North America from British Columbia to Baja California.
The stiff, leathery pinnate fronds, up to 24 x 11 inches, are glossy deep green.
Hardy zones 7 to 9 in partial to full shade on fertile, well drained soil. Very tolerant of summer drought.

Polypodium virginianum ( American Wall Fern )
A dense, mat-forming, evergreen groundcover Fern, native to eastern North America and eastern Asia. In North America, it is native from eastern Alberta to Newfoundland; south to Arkansas to northern Georgia. In eastern Asia, it is native to eastern Siberia, Mongolia, Korea and Japan.
This Fern is very similar to Polypodum vulgare except that its leathery, pinnate fronds are smaller, to 16 x 4 inches. The new fronds appear during early summer as the previous years fronds begin to die.
It is also hardier in the far north, thriving from zones 2 to 7 in partial shade.
It is often found growing out of cliffs and rocks.

Polypodium vulgare ( Common Polypodium )
A moderate growing, evergreen groundcover Fern, forming clumps up to 2 x 6.5 feet, that is native to temperate and cold regions over much of the Northern Hemisphere.
The mid to deep green fronds, up to 2 feet in height, are narrowly erect with a leaf, up to 12 x 6 inches, that is divided into leathery lance-shaped leaflets, up to 2 The new fronds appear in early summer, developing over a period lasting 4 weeks.
Hardy zones 2 to 8 in partial to full shade. Thrives on both alkaline, acidic and even dry stone soils. Very adaptable and easy to grow it is even found growing out of stone walls.


* photo taken on April 18 2010 @ U.S. National Arboretum, D.C.


* photo taken on May 1 2010 @ U.S. National Arboretum


* photos taken on May 5 2010 in Columbia, MD




Bifidum
The fronds have forked pinnae.

Uulong Island
A clone originating in Korea, it is much more hardy in the hot humid southeastern U.S. than the species.

Read More

Yikes!!! My Tomatoes!

If any of you out there are avid gardeners and enjoy fresh home grown tomatoes like I do... watch out for these pesky buggers!



This is a picture of the Tomato Horn Worm which later turns into the Five-spotted Hawkmoth. It can make a meal of your tomato plants in a hurry... leaving you nothing to enjoy for the rest of the gardening season. If you find this silent invader in your garden plot try a quick and green solution of hand picking them and disposing of them from the garden area.

I have heard of cornmeal being used... the worms eat the corn meal and are not able to digest, which results in their death. Other hopeful solutions is to let nature deal with them as they make wonderful meals for birds and they can also be attacked by wasps.

In my many years of being around Tomato gardens, I have only seen the worm once... they are hard to see from a distance but easy to recognize (4 inches long) when you find your tomato leaves being eaten.

Read More

Pool Design

Read More

The Healthiest Fruit on the Planet Happens to be a U S Native

If I could plant only one woody plant in my garden, and I wanted one for year-round beauty, wildlife habitat, and ethnobotanical curiosity, the Aronia shrub would be a top choice. Tolerant of wet or dry soils, clay or sand, sun or even a little shade, this easy going native plant is beautiful and adaptable.

This genus is recently receiving international acclaim for its purported health benefits. The berries of the native Aronia melanocarpa (Black Chokeberry) apparently have the highest amount of antioxidants of any fruit yet measured. The USDA gave the Aronia berry an ORAC score (Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity—a measure of total antioxidants) of over 16,000, almost triple the amount of antioxidants of other powerhouses like acai, blueberries, or blackberries. The intense concentration of flavonoids and anthocyanins in the Aronia berry helps the body fight off viruses, allergies, and carcinogens.

In addition to antioxidants, the berries have been proven to aid with diabetes, cardiovascular health, and the circulatory system. A recent study by the USDA showed that regular consumption of Aronia berry extracts actually slows the intake of insulin in the body, thus inhibiting weight gain. Theoretically, these findings suggest that Aronia might lead of lower risk of diabetes and heart disease.

[Image from Fine Gardening.com]

While Aronia was widely used by Native Americans for teas, medicines, and cooking, European settlers generally ignored this plant. Commonly called Chokeberry, the plants berries have a sharply sour and sometimes astringent taste. The unpleasantness of the raw fruit can be overcome by cooking or processing it into jams, salsas, or baked goods. The internet abounds with recipes that show how to tame the sharp taste of the raw berry.

Aronia cultivation is now growing in the Midwest. Farmers are taking advantage of this native plants’ easy culture to cater to an increasing demand for the healthful berries. The organic farm, Sawmill Hollow, in Iowa cultivates 13,000 chokeberries and hosts an annual Aronia Festival in September. The farmers allow locals to come and pick berries, and sell Aronia jams, syrups, barbecue sauces, and salsas. A recent article from the Des Moines Register features the farm.

ORNAMENTAL VALUE

I’ve longed loved the Aronia genus for its ornamental value long before I knew its health benefits. Because I plant in large masses of perennials or grasses, the Aronia is an ideal companion shrub. The plant’s loose, upright character allows you to underplant them with other ornamental native perennials or grasses. The plant does not shade out the ground plane. Since the plants are somewhat spindly, I’ve had good luck by massing five or ten of them together to form a bit of a thicket. They are deciduous, so consider placing them in front of a hedgerow, or in the back of your flower border for best effect.

And the effect is indeed wonderful. In late spring the glossy leaves are loaded with clusters of white flowers which pollinator’s love. By late summer, the flowers turn into showy red or black berries which will attract a wide range of local or migratory birds. The fall color is possibly the most outstanding feature of the plant. Most Aronias turn a brilliant red color with strong oranges, purples, and yellows.

 [Aronia arbutifolia Brilliantissima in background shown at maturity for planting I designed while at OvS.]

My favorite ornamental cultivar is Aronia arbutifolia ‘Brilliantissima’. The upright habit, full blooms, bright red berries, and intense fall color are outstanding on this plant. If you want to grow the plant for its healthful berries, I would recommend Aronia melanocarpa ‘Viking’. This European cultivar is apparently one of the more productive black-berried plants. For a compact cultivar, try Aronia melanocarpa ‘Iroquois Beauty’, developed by the Morton Arboretum. The wonderful folks at Lazy S’s Farm sell a wide variety of Aronia cultivars mail order through the internet. Here is a link to that page.

Read More

The Importance and Benefits of Landscaping

Why Landscaping?

Landscaping is not only for the homes, but also for all places with green spaces. It does much than just to decorate our properties and to increase its value. Landscaping is an integral part of every culture. It plays an essential role in the grade of our environment. It has a hand in shaping our economy and our physical and psychological health. Landscaping is one of the most cost-effective tools for improving and sustaining the quality of life, whether in the city, the suburbs, or the country.

The Economic Importance of Landscaping

Landscaping can be applied by blending aesthetics with the pursuits of the economy.
Landscaping has lots to do with plants. Plants can increase tourism revenues. Tourists are willing to spend money visiting sceneries where greeneries and foliages are rich. Hotel and resort guests are willing to pay extra per nights for rooms overlooking jungle-like displays. Hotels, resorts and gardens with stylish gardens or parks tend to draw more visitors than establishments without anything green.

The horticulture and Landscaping business offer job opportunities, reason that gardeners and landscape artists are not out of work. Many residential and commercial premises are adopting the greenery, going for a park look, thus employing landscape artists to arrangement their gardens and gardeners to maintain them.

Business establishments with parks, gardens or any green place can see an increase in workers productivity. Psychologists have found that plants and green spaces offer workers a sense of rest. Workers with more access to plants and nature tend to be more productive than workers who dont have access to plants. Moreover, the views of plants can increase job satisfaction. Employees with plants on the desks or even those with outside view of plants experience less job pressure and stress and greater job satisfaction than employees viewing man-made objects or having no outside view. Workers with greater views of plants report less headaches and other work-related illnesses too.

Landscaped establishments are unlikely to be vandalized. Landscaped areas are relatively graffiti-free while open, non-landscaped areas are easy targets for vandals.

How Landscaping Benefits to the Surroundings

Landscaping is a wonderful practice to appreciate nature. Landscaping is an art of taking care of the environment. It has many Benefits to the surroundings.

Plants protect water and air quality. Appropriate Landscaping reduces nitrite leaching from the soil into the water supply. Landscape plants, such as shrubs and turf, remove smoke, dust and other air pollutants.

Appropriate Landscaping also helps decrease soil erosion, mudslides, floods and dust storms. Plants and mulch hold soil in place, helping to keep sediments out of lakes, streams, storm drains and roads.

Landscaping can also contribute to the betterment of our natural resources. Trees can modify temperatures and protect against trees, thus reducing the use of fossil fuels.

Landscaping also help lessen noise pollution. A landscape of trees, turf grasses and shrubs absorb harsh sounds significantly better than pavement, gravel, bare ground and other hard surfaces.

Landscaping plays a large part in preserving our cultural heritage such as historical buildings, famous sites and landmarks, and other invaluable assets. In this way, Landscaping keeps a nations spirit and soul intact.

How Landscaping Improves Lifestyles

Gardening is the healthiest and the excellent of all exercises, a great stress buster and a good way to spend time at home. Routine gardening tasks similar to mowing the lawn, weeding, raking, watering the plants and clipping the plants can measure up to the exertion rates of aerobics, jogging, cycling, push-ups and lifting weights. Want to lose weight or build muscles? Just do gardening.

Gardening has therapeutic effects for people affected by diseases and illnesses. Working with and around plants can improve level of life through psychological and physical changes. Garden helps restore the health of people who are injured, sick and stressed out, helping them to recuperate and regain their health and confidence. Some hospitals are building green spaces to aid their patients in that aspect.

Having a great landscaped garden in your residence can offer you privacy and peace of mind. Landscape plants screen out busy street noises and decrease glare from headlights. A landscaped garden is also a great spot for learning and meditation.

Finding Quality Landscaping Sydney Services

Landscaping services dont need to cost much, but finding a Landscaping Sydney service that can work around the vision of your ideal garden without compromises can be difficult. There are Landscaping companies that focus mostly on the aesthetics, but not on the essential groundwork such as irrigation, soil testing, bush fire prevention, and greenery maintenance. The initial thing you should look for in a Landscaping service is not the rates but the services it offers.

There are numerous ways to go about using a Landscaping Sydney service. You just have to know whats available for you.

Read More

The Enchanted Gardener

There is a mythical sort of gardener that the celebrity gardeners spin us - living an idyllic life of home grown home cooked food in a self decorated house surrounded by beautiful objects all made or found by loved ones.

When the celebrities then offer us a catalogue of all these things to be found around them, and all for sale, the image tarnishes and the reader feels like a child who has bitten into a plastic strawberry.  For money cannot buy the life style they are promising, and magazines cannot teach us to be original.

What a breath of fresh air then, a bolt from the skies, to meet a true Enchanted Gardener. An artist by calling and gardener by bent, Charlotte Molesworth lives in a cottage tucked behind a village green hidden from view. The cottage belonged to Cherry Ingrams gardener (He of Japanese Cherry fame - of whom Vita Sackville-West said his advice is good enough for me, and should be good enough for anyone).

When Charlotte and her husband arrived there was no garden, and they set about creating rooms and vistas armed with box snippets and cuttings they took themselves. 

The result is a delightful haven of exquisite shapes and eccentric structures - a summer house crowned in branches like antlers peers between what could be enormous chess pieces of topiary.

But no Wonderland would exist without an Alice, and the true delight of this visit is to sit and drink a cordial  (nettle and aloe with a twist of lemon) and listen to the stories of the making of the garden, the treasures found and put to use, the rescued donkeys in the vegetable patch and chickens in the watering cans.

Charlottes mother gave her rare primulas and other items were reclaimed from design jobs -  a copper urn becomes a water butt and an old tennis court surround makes a fabulous fruit cage.

Charlotte is incredibly generous with her knowledge, a topiary expert and member of the European Box Topiary Society amongst many things, she explains how to take cuttings, and how important it is to study each shrub to see which way it grows before choosing a shape to tame it in to.  Larger prunings are used as part of her floristry designs, which she does for weddings and social events.

If invited, a sneaky peak inside the house reveals a mini Charleston, with cupboard doors covered in decoupage and woodblock prints and paintings strung up high into the rafters under the cat slide roof.

The last visit I took there was in February to see the bones of the garden with a Garden Design class - I  cannot wait to visit again when the buds have burst in May.

Read More

Gardening After the Apocalypse

The very nature of nature is changing. What then about our gardens?

Derek Jarmans Prospect Cottage at Dungeness. Photo by Michael Peters

I’m no doomsday watcher. I scoffed at Y2K, ignored the Mayan calendar, and can’t even bother to keep a Homeland Security-endorsed emergency supply list. But lately it has become increasingly hard to ignore the fact that something is stirring in the waters.

First, there are the climate-related problems: the continuing drought in the Midwest; hurricanes like Katrina and Sandy; and the fact that 13 of the warmest years on record have occurred in the past 15 years. Zone maps are changing, species invasions are increasing, and extinctions are rising. I don’t care whether you believe climate change is man-made or just some temporary blip; there simply is no normal anymore. Gardeners more attuned to seasonal changes are the first to notice a difference. In my own garden last year, I noticed several bugs I have never seen before; I lost several perennials because the winter was not cool enough; and my daffodils started to emerge in December.

Throw in some global political instability (the American fiscal cliff, the European debt crisis) and there’s only one reasonable conclusion one can make about the future: the only certainty is a whole lot more uncertainty.

Ok, ok, so maybe the sky is not falling yet, but it is reasonable to say that the threats we hear about in the news lately are particularly ominous. Perhaps more catastrophic in nature. Globalization has linked us in many wonderful ways, but it has also exposed the fragility of world systems. Thus, a single financial firm (Bear Stearns) declares bankruptcy, and the global economy collapses. A water shortage along the Mississippi River causes food prices to skyrocket in China. Volatility breeds volatility.

It’s with this context in mind that I think about gardening. What does it mean to garden in an era when the threats we face are apocalyptic? The very nature of nature is changing. What then about our gardens?

Or to put the question more pointedly: Do we continue to grow marigolds even as the emergency sirens blare?

photo by Michael Peters

Ive been thinking lately about the garden of the late Derek Jarman near Dungeness, England. Jarman was a British film maker and writer. Toward the end of his life, he created Prospect Cottage, a simple wood house that stood on the shingle beach of southwest England. For me, the garden is prophetic. The cottage is one of several fishermen’s shacks, wedged on the beach between the English Channel and the Dungeness nuclear power plant. It is a brutal landscape. Nature is overwhelming: sun, wind, and sea salt continuously scald the beach. The horizon stretches in all directions, only interrupted by power poles or the flashing lights of the power plant. Yet within the sunbaked shingles, a garden grows. Sea kale and poppies bloom among the flotsam that Derek arranged throughout the garden.

Dungeness nuclear power plan on the horizon. Michael Peters

To attempt to create a garden—a paradise of sorts—in one of the bleakest corners of the earth is one of the most optimistic acts I can imagine. Frivolous? Yes. Pointless? Of course. But what a joyful, life-affirming act of defiance! Prospect Cottage’s poignancy is sharpened by the fact that Jarman created it while dying of HIV. Jarman’s imminent death did not stop his act of creation, but instead infused it with new vitality. It is a testament to the irrepressibility of love amidst the cruelty and indifference of nature.

A garden is an extravagance. So creating and maintaining any extravagance seems particularly silly in an age of dire threats. We weed, dig, and plant all while the storms gather on the horizon that will wash it all away. We are helpless to control nature and the weather, yet we gardeners still engage in acts of care for our plots. We live in a post-Edenic world, yet as Robert Pogue Harrison writes, “Fortunately for the gardener, there is enough of Eden in the mortal earth that despite the vagaries of the weather, the miracle of life erupts and blossoms year after year.”

And thats just it, right? We are addicted to that miracle. From the miracle of compost, to the miracle of a seed germinating, to the miracle of a bud opening, we are hopelessly hooked to shepherding life into the world. “Gardening is an opening of worlds,” writes Harrison, “of worlds within worlds—beginning with the word at one’s feet.” Whether the weather supports our plans or destroys it, the point is that we become most fully human when we engage in thousands of acts of care and love. It is why we need the garden more now than ever.

Perhaps focusing on cataclysmic doom is really a way to put my own mortality in perspective. I may survive mega-storms and mega-recessions, but my time is coming. And when it comes, I want to be in the garden. Not under trees, with their cloak of longevity. Not with the shrubs, who promise another season. Instead, you will find me pondering the annuals. These one-season wonders understand it best: that time is merciless.

Yet at the nadir of their existence, they choose the ultimate act of defiance, an irrepressible impulse to live:

They bloom.

Read More