Terrain Horticulture in Dallas

Bouquet of Early Summer Garden Roses

I gathered a collection of some of my favorite roses from our bushes across the grounds a few weeks ago to create this sample bouquet as both a gift and to illustrate just how different garden roses are to work with than floral "farmed" roses:

Among the varieties are David Austin English Roses 'Glamis Castle' and 'Charity' as well as Drift Rose 'Peach' and Antique varieties 'Mademoiselle de la Malmaison' and 'Spice'. It's a buttery blend of sunset hues and makes a gorgeous, fragrant bouquet that really makes you want to bury your face in its petals.

Floral roses from farmers and brokers are typically pinched, picked, trained and sprayed into artificial perfection on long, straight stems. The flowers are typically very uniform in size and shape, and all are--again, typically--at the same stage of being open/closed. So, for those of us that want to work with varying stages of "openness" for variety in both visual and tactile texture and form, we have to manipulate them stem by stem--with temperature, water, and our tools--to manually create this variation.

Garden roses, however, are in all stages of development, often all on the same shrub. One can gather a bunch of blossoms and have a fantastic visual variety. The drawback, however, is often very delicate stems, varying stem length, delicate corollas that release their petals easily, and myriad other factors that can bring a whole new collection of challenges to creating a good composition.

The greatest part of working with natural garden roses, though, is the exquisite beauty of these flowers--and their intense perfume. You can achieve a softness and creamy petal texture with these that's unmatched, and no harvested and long-chilled floral rose can rival their scent. Incredible!

Why Everyone Should Have Lilies in the Garden

They're incredibly beautiful, and the colors are intense--there are so many hues and variations available everyone has a favorite. Perhaps they're so exotic and gorgeous they just give the impression of being fussy and difficult, but these Asiatic Lilies are anything but.

While many plants have common names with 'Lily' somewhere in them, true Lilies are those plants belonging to the genus Lilium. They grow from bulbs with fleshy, overlapping scales and tend to have sturdy stems and strap-like, narrow leaves that give off a distinctive smell when crushed (at least to me they do!). These are true Lilium asiaticum, 'Asiatic Lilies' (not hard to remember no?) and are incredibly easy to grow. They're not fussy about soil, they're very hardy (to USDA Zone 3 or further) and give off a lovely fireworks display of rich blossoms each year in late spring.

They're easily found in garden centers and by the armload in big box stores packed in baggies of sawdust. When choosing from these, give the package a few gentle squeezes to make sure the bulb within is firm--similar to selecting an onion. You'll have the best luck if you treat the plant to amended soil, so add some compost and cultivate to a depth of 8" or more before planting, and make sure the spot you've chosen receives at least six hours of direct sunlight per day.

While they make excellent cut flowers, I like to leave them in the perennial border until completely bloomed out. They make multiple blossoms per stem, but are not repeat bloomers, so enjoy the show. As with all bulbs, leave the stems and foliage until fully yellowed after blooming so that the plant may continue to photosynthesize and "charge the battery" for next year.

These will multiply rapidly in both the garden and in containers, so be prepared to divide every few years. These were a gift from a garden client of ours, and have thrilled everyone with unexpected colors--hers have always been all yellow, and we got this fabulous fiery orange-red and a rich rose-pink, too. Now, don't you want to add some to your garden?

Excellent Perspective on Hiring a Garden Designer

Here's a fantastic link to May Dreams Garden's post Five Things I've Learned So Far from Working with a Garden Designer. We read this from APLD's web post on the same topic, and found it an excellent "food for thought" list for anyone wondering whether or not they should make the investment. Here's Carol's list, excerpted from her original post:

1. Lawns should have a shape.

2. It really is nice to come home and find that someone planted something in my garden while I was at work.

3. I’m actually okay with my lawn mowing time being reduced by about half in the back yard.

4. No plan is cast in stone.

5. I can turn into one of those clients who asks the same question more than once, hoping the answer will change.

6. Don’t be afraid to invest in hardscape.

7. A garden designer will help you get plants that you haven’t seen in the garden centers.

8. Dump your plant prejudices in the compost bin; you might like some of those plants you thought you didn’t like if they are planted in the right place in your garden.

9. Having a garden designer work with you doesn’t “de-personalize” your garden. My garden still feels like my personal space.

And the tenth and final thing I've learned so far from working with a garden designer...

10. I should have hired a garden designer years ago.

Excellent notes! Thank you, Carol!

The Succulent Project, Stage 2

As of yesterday, our custom wall boxes were finished, screened, trimmed and stained:

We used a very simple trim, but I'm already thinking of some funkier alternatives, and sourcing some more deep, detailed carving from our Antique scrap dealers. Now, while these were being completed, the cuttings from Friday were waiting patiently on the drying screens, fully calloused and ready to go:

"Why", do you ask, "are they covered in droplets of water if they're on "drying screens"? "Because," I will tell you, "Irma did not get the memo"....thankfully only one pass, and after they were properly calloused. So, moving on:

We cooked up another custom planting mix: NHG potting soil, lots of coarse sand, a pinch of peat moss, and a good bit of extra fine gravel:

After the boxes are properly packed and vibra-tamped and ready to go, cutting selection and placement begins. I started with darker shades paired with bright gray-blues in the upper left corner, and then placed a large Kalanchoe piece toward the lower right to anchor the composition, then worked in around:

Now, I found that some of my cuttings were a bit long for comfort: you really need at least .25" work of stem to work with, and I went a bit overboard, allowing in some cases for up to an inch--it doesn't do you any favors. I found that .25"-.5" is ideal, depending on the thickness and sturdiness of the stems:

Some of the species have FAT stems--theoretically, you could whittle them down to whatever you wanted, and allow it to callous along with the blunt cut. I didn't want to cause them any unnecessary grief, though, so I decided it was my screen that would take the cuts, and worked everything with a pair of pointed wire snips, and had scissors, my switch razor utility knife, and needle-nose pliers at the ready:

At this point, I've prepared myself an extensive palette of plant cuttings with which to work: many hues, many forms, many textures. The project is now rather like painting, which I love to do, and I use all types of paints (and soils!). The cool thing with these is that you're also working in 3-D, with really neat little botanical personalities. Here's one of my favorites:

After about two hours--and these are the small frames, each about 2' x 1', roughly--we have a finished composition, still up on my black plastic bulb crate step-stools (the greatest recycled utilitarian container ever):

As these beauties grow in--we'll be allowing them 3 to 4 weeks before they go vertical--they'll tighten up with offsets and babies. These plants are prolific in the creation of pups and offsets, and they've been generous, especially the Sempervivum. We'll use special reinforcements, as the small box weighs around 65 lbs, and that's before any water. From this more mixed palette, I'm going to begin working with various monochromatic compositions with a definite "sharp" pattern, and some other composition ideas. These prototypes, however, remind me of an underwater reef garden, as though they're pieces of coral and bits of shells. Very nice, and I can't wait to see them on the wall. 

We'll be working up custom orders with special trim work, paint and stain concepts, and succulent mixes. Stay tuned!

The Succulent Project, Stage 1...

It's already growing into one of my favorites...I only have a few beginning photos of our prep work, which began back in January with an initial investment of $350.00 (very small) for our first gathering of assorted succulent plants:

From these, we propagated out about 1,000 cuttings--all experimental--some struck (rooted) and some didn't. We discovered tips and tricks in the process, and got to know each genus better and its individual temperament in propagation:

We've been working on our custom frame boxes, and although there's just a beginning photo of the bare frames:

 

they're now stained and screened, and finished off with trim. More pictures to come, and soon! Cuttings are now in the drying or "callousing" process, and they'll be ready to plant on Monday, after about three days time. More photos to come!

Custom Orchid Wall Planter

...and after today's work, the big wall trough planter is finished! Total length is 8' and height is just under 2' (this photo dwarfs it, but the pots below are quite large!). We built it from plywood and construction wire doubled to give a sturdy mesh, which is then covered with exterior-grade landscape shade fabric to give a breathable barrier. Lastly, it's dressed with sheet moss for aesthetics, but also to assist in creating a more humid environment and offer more consistent soil moisture.

It holds Phalaenopsis Orchids, Dendrobium Orchids, Cymbidium Orchids, an array of bromeliads, a glaucous Phlebodium fern, and various other odds and ends. The overall effect is pretty dramatic, and stands nearly 2' from the wall. The structure is flexible and forms something of a hammock, so it adjusts readily to varying weight. I custom blended our soil mix, including activated charcoal, orchid mix, NHG potting soil, and peat moss. It's nice and light and airy.

We worked some lateral slits into the wire scaffold to allow some side planting pockets, and finished it off with some great Staghorn ferns. Once a blank wall, now a living work of art! So much to see and enjoy.

Focal Wall Planters with a New Twist

These beauties are pictured freshly planted, so we're excited to see how they grow in. We used the Pamela Crawford Side Planting Baskets from Kinsman Garden Company as they are so very convenient--we've done our own custom welded structures before (see Petunia towers, the giant obelisks) but these have handy pre-punched liners. Clients love them, we love them, and they grow in fabulously.

A friend and garden buddy brought some great photos of a tropical twist done using Woolly Pockets out of Los Angeles, and we loved the dramatic placement of the bromeliads. Granted, they last practically forever there, and we'll be happy to get a solid year here, but they are great conversation pieces. We used the very nice Aechmea 'Rembrandt' here, along with a mix of succulents, Wavy Cloak Fern, Fittonia, Dracaena, Pothos (yes, Pothos, but the fantastic bright chartreuse Golden), Anthurium, Pepperomia, Staghorn Fern, Cryptanthus, a variety of colorful Rex Begonias, and others. Each basket is different:

Now, we're still working on the custom wall art pieces done with succulent cuttings, and I'll be hopefully finishing my 8' long custom orchid/bromeliad wall planter today in the greenhouse. I'm keeping about a thousand cuttings going to supply triage to all of these as well as "tuck-ins" for any little holes that come about--and since these are in such an extremely high-traffic breezeway, interesting little plants have a tendency to be mysteriously plucked out and taken home....I think these will be respected, though.

There are 10 of each basket--10 x 16" single tier and 10 x 20" double tier. The breezeway is constant bright shade other than perhaps an hour or two of morning sun, which is really ideal. They're given nothing other than a periodic drench of Hasta-Gro (an old standby favorite) and potted in the wonderful new NHG potting soil, the BEST potting soil available right now. 

They make a great view, and people are really enjoying them. Now, photos of the huge custom planter to follow soon!