September Blooms: Caryopteris 'Blue Mist'

Continuing our spotlight on fall flowering plants:





Caryopteris ‘Blue Mist’ Zone 6-9

(Although we have had great result with this shrub in zone 5.) Compact shrub with berry-like buds that open into clusters of blue fragrant flowers in late summer and hold their color through the fall.

You can see from the top photo that 'Blue Mist' came by its name honestly. From afar it offers a hazy swath of light blue color, and up close its architectural, star-like flowers are literally buzzing with activity. Bees and butterflies vie for spots on the multi-leveled branches.

September Blooms: Gentiana 'True Blue'

We think September has a bad reputation because of back-to-school drudgery. It is the ultimate buzz kill month. It marks the end of summer. The end of fun and freedom. And those associations die hard even for those of us decades out of school. But the gardening season is far from over!

September in the garden can be a lush, colorful, and full of exuberant blooms - with the right plants. All this month we will be featuring plants that offer not just color in the fall (fall foliage, ornamental seed heads, etc.), but truly bonafide blooms.




Gentiana “True Blue’ Zone 4-7

A ‘True Blue’ bloomer, Gentiana produces deep indigo flowers from midsummer to early fall. Gentiana grows 24” to 30” inches and is deer resistant too!

We are so impressed with these lovely late bloomers. Deep blue buds are just as attractive as the fully opened bloom.

Top Five Post Irene Garden Salvage Tips

Post Irene Clean-up Tips

As power is slowly restored to our area, the extent of destruction from Irene and the flash floods she caused are surfacing, accompanied by horrifying images and videos.

We hope you and your loved ones are safe. There are still people in the Catskill area stranded by the destruction. Watershedpost.com so far seems like the best resource to see the effects of the storm on some of our neighboring communities, but for information on Rosendale, Youtube and Facebook seem to be the best resources. Watershedpost.com has a forum to report anyone you believe stranded or missing. There is also a collaborative Google map marking road closures, bridge closures or outages, and other damage.



We are hearing from some of our clients, that although they experienced minor damage to their homes, they have experienced major damage to their gardens.


Here are some tips for cleaning up the types of damage we've seen so far:

Plants uprooted from the soil:

Replant uprooted plants as soon as possible, even if you plant it in a temporary holding area, like a pile of fresh garden soil off to the side of your yard. Set the plant upright and firm the plant into soil, being sure to cover all of the exposed roots.

Plants covered in mud:

If you have power and water, rinse any mud off the plant's foliage in particular. Mud encrusted leaves will harm the plant, hindering its ability to photosynthesize and feed itself. (If you don't have power and water, you can brush off the dried mud the best you can. Use a soft tool, like a duster if you have one. It won't damage the leaves and it will give extra reach if you need it.)

Broken branches:

Prune off snapped branches. Cut off the damaged limb at the first health Y-branching. You want to leave a clean cut, not a ragged edge so use cleaned and sharpened pruners, loppers, or saws.

Damaged Foliage:

Trim off beat up foliage, especially on your big leafed perennials like ligularia. We also have been cutting the flowers off damaged plants, because the plant will waste energy flowering and producing seed, when it needs that energy to repair root damage and in general strengthen its root structure.

Damaged Bark:

Bark that was scrapped away or gouged, leaving open scars, should be cleaned with plain water and kept clean. Tree bark, like human skin, will heal itself (It just takes much longer). Don't paint the open wound with any type of product, that will only inhibit the tree from healing itself. The only thing you can do is watch out for an insect infestation (they can attack the tree at the wound), keep the tree well watered, and encourage root growth with a root treatment like Espoma Bio-Starter.

DO NOT FERTILIZE!!!

Don't even put down compost. You do not want to add nitrogen to your soil right now, because it will stimulate foliage growth. The only thing you should add to you soil, especially to uprooted plants is the previously mentioned root treatment, Espoma Bio-starter.

Fluff Your Plants:

It may seem ridiculous, but we've seen a significant improvement and a quicker recovery when plants are fluffed up by hand. Number one, it ensures that you are carefully inspecting for mud and damage plant by plant, and number two, you are countering the downward force of the heavy rain, flood waters, and possibly the force of swiftly moving mud streams. The plants will perk up from your attention.

Call For A Clean-up:

If the job is simply too big for you, call Victoria Gardens for a clean-up. We have experience in garden reconstruction and we can help you salvage your damaged plants. (845) 658-9007

Unfortunately, we believe it will be a much easier task to put back together gardens than it will to put back together the towns and lives uprooted by the floodwater.

Our thoughts and prayers are with all of those who suffered so much devastation. If you have updates you would like added to Watershedpost.com you can contact:

Julia Reischel: julia.reischel@watershedpost.com

Lissa Harris: lissa.harris@watershedpost.com

Spectacular Late Summer Shrubs

What’s Fabulous at Victoria’s?

Clethra ‘Pink Spire’ blooms July through August, soft pink, fragrant cone-shaped flowers. Oh, and what a fragrance! As sweet as roses, but more potent, and certainly less trouble. You will love this plant. Very low maintenance, deciduous shrub can take full sun to part shade, and can tolerate moist soils, even wetlands or pond side. Grows 6’ by 6’ in maturity. Attracts bees and butterflies.

Vaccinium spp. Everyone loves blueberries! And you can grow your own. Victoria Gardens has healthy and well-grown blueberry shrubs in stock. Blueberries are great because they have fewer pests than most of the other fruit trees and shrubs. The key to their success is making sure they are grown in acidic soil. Blueberries also serve double duty in the garden because they offer spectacular fall color.

Vitex (Chaste Tree) Deer resistant and late blooming, Vitex is a shrub Victoria uses often. Vitex has proven to be cold hardy. It is very late to leaf out, but delivers a great late show. Flowers are similar to a butterfly bush, but the Vitex has better structure. Come in and see what Victoria has been raving about. Blooming now!

And that’s not all…

Viburnum ‘Summer Snowflake’ is a deer-resistant shrub that produces lacey white blooms all summer. We mean it - it will bloom until Septemper! Albizia julibrissin 'Rosea' (Silk Tree) is a zone 5 cold-hardy tree often confused with the Mimosa tree (zone 6). This small tree only grows 20’ tall and wide and is covered in July through August with pink, feathery flowers. Very showy- th small green leaflets form a long compound leaf that has a tropical feel to it. Physocarpus opulifolius 'Diabolo' (Ninebark Treeform) The perfect small tree with dark purple leaves and striking white flowers mid-July through August. Grows 10' to 12' high and 6' to 8' wide in full sun to part shade. Styrax japonicus fargesii (Japanese Snowbell) This is a tree more people should know, deer-resistant, full sun to part shade, and grows 20' to 30' tall and 20' to 30' wide. "A delicate beauty...dark leaves perched like butterflies above the white, bell-shaped flowers." - Dirr's Hardy Trees and Shrubs

Late Blooming Annuals - How to use Annuals Now!

Before you exclaim, “It’s too late for annuals,” I want to remind you that the gardening season extends long after the summer vacation from school comes to its end! The first frost date is usually around October 20th, which means there are are twelve weeks - eighty-four more days to enjoy your garden. Keeping that in mind, annuals are a flexible and colorful way to maximize your garden space, even though you may not have room in the garden for more shrubs or perennials.

Where your daylily flowers are fading, you can still have an abundance of color and blooms by planting Verbena bonariensis (Brazilian Verbena) in even narrow spaces between your perennials stands. In fact, anywhere your garden is past peak, you can fill in with the lovely scented Nicotiana (tobacco flower), Snapdragons, Pansies, late-blooming annual Salvia or Pineapple Sage (one of Victoria’s Favorite’s).

For striking foliage color, plant Persian Shield (Strobilanthes dyerianus), which has unusual glossy pointed leaves with saturated purple veining. The result is foliage that shimmers like miniature stained glass panels of blue and violet. Another late summer star is Colocasia esculenta, also known as Elephant Ear. Two or three of these large leafed plants can transform any garden into a lush paradise. Even a shade garden can be supplemented late in the season with various colored coleus, which will provide pop right up until frost. A true workhorse of the late summer garden is annual Purple Fountain Grass. Tall decorative grasses like Pennisetum setaceum ‘Rubrum’ can also transition nicely into a fall display with mums and jack-o-lanterns.

There are still twelve more weekends for hosting bar-b-ques or outdoor dinner parties, eighty-four more evenings of solitary strolls through your garden beds, so pump up your gardens with late season color, and enjoy!

Join Us this Weekend for Coffee in the Garden: Late Blooming Annuals!

Sunday Aug. 7th - Coffee in the Garden - 10am - Late Blooming Annuals

We're going to talk about the how, whats, and whys of using late blooming annuals.

"Plant annuals now?"

YES!

Last year our clients who filled in holes now had full and flowering gardens all the way through last year's mild October - that's tree months worth of full gardens -

"That's fantastic!"

YES!

Sat. & Sun. July 23rd & 24th - Rosendale Street Festival

Join us next weekend at The Rosendale Street Festival!