Garden Fact Sheets

Experienced gardeners know that many plants continue their displays throughout the winter, showing interesting shapes, bright berries or winter blooms that help make up for the loss of summer's bright flowers. Check out this list of Plants for Winter Interest.

Yes, you can - grow Cannas!

Cannas are tuberous plants with colorful tropical looking foliage and brilliant, lily-like flowers. The leaves may be green, yellow, purple or multi-colored with stripes, marginal markings or blotches. The flowers come in colors of white to ivory to shades of yellow, orange, pale to deep pink, apricot, coral, salmon and a variety of reds.

Their common name is Indian-Shot. This refers to the plant's black, very hard seed, which resembles the shot or pellets in shotgun cartridges. Cannas come from tropical and subtropical areas of the Americas and Asia. They are easy to grow, both in the ground or in containers. They can be grown from seed or by saving the tubers from year to year. The leaves may be used in flower arrangements. The flowers only last a day to two, so, do not make good cut flowers.

There are three main types of cannas: lower growing and dwarf varieties include the French or Crozy cannas which grow 3-4 feet tall, with large flower trusses; the Pfitzer Dwarf cannas from Germany, which grow 2½ to 3 feet tall; and the Seven Dwarfs series which only reach about 18 inches. The Italian, or orchid-flowered cannas, are tall 4-5½, and the flower segments are more open and spreading than the French cannas. The third group includes all the other cannas, most of which are the tall, 5-6 feet, old-fashioned varieties with smaller flowers and large leaves.

Because of their tropical look and lush foliage, cannas look great when planted against a plain background and in groups of a single color. They make striking poolside plantings and look great around or in containers on terraces, patios or decks. They are great mixed with hot colors in a perennial border. They go well with tall grasses. Cannas bloom continuously and look good all summer, even through the dog days of August. Read the rest of the post »

Pruning conifers or needled evergreens incorrectly can be disastrous to the appearance and health of your trees. To understand how evergreens should be pruned, you must know how and where they produce new growth. Needled evergreens fall into two basic groups which are determined by their branching pattern; whorl-branched and non-whorled or random branching.

Whorl-branched conifers branch only once a year when new growth occurs in the spring. This results in a whorled growth of branches at the growing tip. In this group, new growth comes from buds at the tips of the branches, buds along the new growth, and from buds at the base of the new growth. Evergreens that fall into this group should not be cut back beyond where there is green growth (or beyond the last whorl) because there are no latent or dormant buds in the bare old wood. If pruned back beyond this point, there will almost certainly be no regrowth on the branch and it will remain a bare stick.

Whorl-branched conifers include: Abies (Fir); Cedrus (Cedar); Cryptomeria; Larix (Larch); Picea (Spruce); Pinus (Pine)

Random branching conifers produce new growth from buds at the tips of the branches and also from buds that are randomly located along the stems. These evergreens have dormant buds and foliage further back on the stem than the whorled branched species. The result is that this group can be cut back harder and still break into new growth. Still, to be safe, you should not cut back beyond where there is green growth.

Non-whorled or random branching conifers include: Chamaecyparus (False cypress); Cupressus (Cypress); Cupressocyparis leylandii (Leyland Cypress);Tsuga (Hemlock); Juniperus (Juniper);Thuja (Arborvitae) Read the rest of the post »