Plant Profile: Aquilegia canadensis 'Little Lanterns'

AQUILEGIA CANADENSIS 'LITTLE LANTERNS'

DEER RESISTANT SHADE PLANT - LOW MAINTENANCE - ATTRACTS HUMMINGBIRDS
zone 3
10 - 12" tall and wide
blooms: April - May

We're open Easter Day from 10am to 4pm with gifts and indoor plants and flowers for your holiday table!

Sunday April 24th - Happy Easter - We're open from 10am to 4pm with gifts and indoor plants and flowers for your holiday table!

Don't forget we're open for Easter!

Gifts, cards, potted spring bulbs!

Plant profile: Brunnera macrophylla 'Jack Frost'

BRUNNERA MACROPHYLLA 'JACK FROST'

DEER RESISTANT SHADE PLANT - LOW MAINTENANCE
zone 3
12 - 15" tall and wide
blooms: mid-spring to late spring

The blue blooms of Brunnera are similar to those of forget-me-nots, but even after the blooms have faded the silver veined foliage will continue to add color and texture to your shade garden all season long. Can tolerate part sun to full shade. Pair with painted ferns, pulmonaria, and other silver leafed shade plants.

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Early Spring Annuals Are In!

Frost resistant Bacopa, cascades and mounds.






Cool weather annual Nemesia has an intoxicating fragrance!




These dark velvety Petunias are spring show stoppers!

Plant your containers now and extend your season of enjoyment. Click here to read about cool weather annuals. And click here for container design tips.

Join us this morning for Coffee in the Garden with Ken Green!

Sunday April 17th - Coffee in the Garden - 10am - Hudson Valley Seed Library founder Ken Green joins us to discuss heirloom seeds, vegetable gardens, and more!

Join Ken Green from the Hudson Valley Seed Library Tomorrow at Coffee in the Garden!

Have you seeded greens? Peas? Onions? Leeks?

Why not? It's that time!

Join us for coffee in the garden this Sunday 10 am, when Ken Green will get "seedy!"

We've organized our veggie seed collection into "Start Outdoors Now," "Start Indoors Now," and "Start Outdoors Later," to help you get organized and get that veggie patch started!

Today is Garden Day at Ulster Community College

Saturday April 16th - Garden Day at Ulster County Community College hosted by the Cornell Cooperative and the Master Gardeners of Ulster County!

This all day event will take place at SUNY Ulster located at 491 Cottekill Rd. in Stone Ridge from 8:30am to 4:15pm and boast 16 hands-on and how-to classes for all gardeners from the newest beginners to the most advanced veterans. This year’s theme, “Going Native” features an array of experts talking on a variety of the hottest trends in gardening designs from all over the globe.

Everyone will gather in the Student Lounge at 9:00 am to begin the day with Key Note Speaker, Carolyn Summers. Summers, a landscape architect and author of
“Designing Gardens with Flora of the American East”, will discuss the importance of native plants and how to use them in your garden.

The Marketplace, which will be open during the lunch break, will include many local garden and gardening related vendors. Master Gardener volunteers will also be on hand to answer your gardening questions, perform FREE soil tests & plant identification and diseases diagnosis.

Participants can choose 4 separate classes for the day. Pre-registration is recommended to ensure class choices. The cost for 4 classes and a full day of garden advice is $35 per person before Friday, April 8, or $40 at the door. A boxed lunch may be pre-purchased for $8 or participants may bring their own lunch.

Victoria Coyne from Victoria Gardens will be teaching the class “Green Wall” at Garden Day. She will be exploring the hows and whys of green walls and green roofs, as well as chronicling her own “Green Wall” project - the process, the plants, and the pitfalls! There will be a slide show, a lecture, and a Q&A session afterward.

Even if you didn't preregister, you can go to Garden Day too!

One-day Gardening Extravaganza

Cornell Cooperative Extension of Ulster County’s Master Gardeners will present the 14th annual Garden Day, Saturday, April 16, 2011! Participants can choose 4 separate classes for the day. The cost for 4 classes and a full day of garden advice is $40 at the door. Participants should bring their own lunch.

Victoria Coyne from Victoria Gardens will be teaching the class “Green Wall” at Garden Day. She will be exploring the hows and whys of green walls and green roofs, as well as chronicling her own “Green Wall” project - the process, the plants, and the pitfalls! There will be a slide show, a lecture, and a Q&A session afterward.

This all day event will take place at SUNY Ulster located at 491 Cottekill Rd. in Stone Ridge from 8:30am to 4:15pm and boast 16 hands-on and how-to classes for all gardeners from the newest beginners to the most advanced veterans. This year’s theme, “Going Native” features an array of experts talking on a variety of the hottest trends in gardening designs from all over the globe.

Everyone will gather in the Student Lounge at 9:00 am to begin the day with Key Note Speaker, Carolyn Summers. Summers, a landscape architect and author of
“Designing Gardens with Flora of the American East”, will discuss the importance of native plants and how to use them in your garden.

The Marketplace, which will be open during the lunch break, will include many local garden and gardening related vendors. Master Gardener volunteers will also be on hand to answer your gardening questions, perform FREE soil tests & plant identification and diseases diagnosis.

For more information contact Master Gardener Coordinator, Dona Crawford at
845-340-3990 ext. 335.

This one-day gardening extravaganza is a community educational program presented by the Cornell Cooperative Extension of Ulster County Master Gardener Program.

Don't miss it!

EARLY SPRING CONTAINERS: Lengthen your season, extend your enjoyment and feel free to experiment!

There have been many articles written about the three elements of container design - often-called “Thrillers,” “Spillers” and “Fillers.” For an interesting and balanced container, combine a tall upright plant, a cascading plant that spills down the pot’s sides and a filler to add fullness and color. This spring Victoria Gardens in Rosendale proposes to extend the container season with early spring annuals. With these cool weather annuals you can plant your container mid-April instead of waiting until mid-May! Cool weather annuals, which have been hardened off, will survive the light frosts of late April and push the envelope of your planter’s performance and your enjoyment of it as well.

THRILLERS – Osteospermum and Argyranthemum are both vigorous, upright plants with striking daisy-like flowers, exceptional compact habit and branching that makes them ideal for both containers and landscapes. Plants grow 10’ to 18’ high by 12’ to 24’ inches wide. You can also use early blooming bulbs such as Daffodils, Fritillaria, or Tulips as your upright element and then fill in with a new “Thriller” after the bloom fades. (Think of your planter as your laboratory where you can experiment on a small scale with color and plant combinations. Have fun. Isn’t that what gardening is all about?)

Ostespermum the Zion series is an eye-catching hybrid with large flowers and an array of unusual bloom colors. We are looking forward to ‘Zion Copper Amethyst’, ‘Zion Orange’ and ‘Zion Pink Sand’ – their names describe them as well as I can - one intense color gradating into another along the pedal. Truly stunning!

Argyranthemum grow slightly larger than the Osteospermum. They are part of the aster family and so offer a little more of a cottage garden aesthetic. They are heat and cold tolerant and several new varieties are available this year including a fully double, blood red variety called ‘Madeira Crested Merlot’ and a romantic, antique pink variety called ‘Madeira Crested Violet’.

SPILLERS - Calibrachoa, Bacopa, and Petunias are cascading plants that will perform from the cool early spring all through the season to the end of a mild October.

Calibrachoa are early flowering, brilliantly colored, petunia-like flowers, which self-deadhead (the spent flowers simply fall off –low maintenance!) and grow in full sun or part shade. Often called “Million Bells” because of their profusion of blooms. They are heat-tolerant and stay compact and bushy even when they are stressed. The variety we are looking forward to the most is ‘Double Amethyst’ – a new amethyst-blue variety. We can’t wait!

Bacopa is also a heat-tolerant, abundant flowering cascading annual covered in cheerful, stout, five-pedal flowers. We love it in white, because of it’s versatility, but it is also available in pink and blue. Besides being a sturdy and well performing container plant, we have experimented with this annual in the garden. When planted in the ground Bacopa becomes an adorable semi-mounding ground cover.

Petunias were your grandmother’s favorite for a reason! Petunias perform in dry hot sun, in cool shade, in containers, in the garden. I have seen petunias self-seed themselves into cracks in concrete or asphalt! These flowers are tough as well as beautiful. This year we are looking forward to ‘Pretty Much Picasso’ a new variety with a dark pink center and petals edged with bright green, and ‘Phantom’ a black base color with a distinctive yellow star pattern. These are not your standard ho-hum varieties!

FILLERS – Diascia and Nemesia also bloom all season long, but perform best in the spring and fall, and appreciate a little shade during the heat of summer. We also recommend shearing these plants mid-season to improve their performance. Plants grow 8’ to 12’ tall and wide.

Nemesia ‘Serengeti Upright White’ is one of our favorite varieties. The upright habit shows off the multitudes of delicate white blooms with yellow and purple inner accents.

Your planter will bring a smile to your face all through the spring. Then in July, if any of the cool weather annuals such as Diascia and Nemesia are not performing as well in the heat, remove them (you can plant them in a shady spot in your garden and they will revive and flower through the fall) and replace it with a heat loving “Filler” like Euphorbia ‘Diamond Frost.’

Cold Hardy Annuals - Annuals you can plant outside in April!

Our growers are now offering a limited selection of cold-hardy annuals!

Every year we wait patiently as the days and nights get warmer, waiting and waiting for May 15th so we can plant our annuals in the garden and most importantly in our containers. This is the point in the season deemed safe from frost and extreme cold, when we can expose those tender container plants to the elements. But many annuals actually benefit from being planted out earlier and will consistently grow better under the cool, moist conditions of late April and early May. Just as cool weather crops like spinach and broccoli rabe benefit from early spring conditions, so too will ornamental annuals like Calibrachoa, Bacopa, Petunias, Osteospermum and Argyranthemum. For annuals like Diascia and Nemesia the cool weather is the time of their peak performance. They falter in the hot dry conditions of mid-summer, only to rebound and rebloom in the fall.

The only thing that all annuals have in common is that they can’t survive our winter. Beyond that one commonality, annuals are a group of plants as diverse in their origins and requirements as perennials. So, despite everything you’ve heard in the past, there are varieties of annuals who can not only live through a series of light frosts, but will grow bigger and better through out the season because of their cool season head start.

We are incredibly lucky to have forward thinking and innovating growers. And they are doing the extra work needed to harden off early annuals to extend the season for us. Starting April 15th we will have a selection of cool weather annuals! You can plant your containers early and extend the season of enjoyment!

Garden Design Ideas: Spring Vignette

Spring is a time of optimism, reassurance, and resurgence. We all just feel better. Yes it’s the longer days, yes it’s freedom from the oppressive blanket of snow, and we are literally shedding that which has weighed us down: winter jackets, hats, scarves, gloves. The lightness we feel, the spring in our step is partially due to the lack of heavy boots on our feet! But it is also all the new colorful life emerging in the dull brown landscape. Don’t you find yourself cheering them on?

When crocus, snow drops, winter aconitum, and hellebores break dormancy and bloom, those little flecks of color signal the finish line. From an evolutionary standpoint, I imagine we’re all so happy and relieved because we and our little flower friends survived another winter. Yay! Go team!

Or perhaps they are our cheerleaders?

With that in mind, let’s talk about garden design. Knowing that each spring you feel delighted and encouraged by those harbingers of the season, why spread them out, dotted here and there? Why leave them as solitary specks, overwhelmed by the still sleeping landscape. Why not concentrate the earliest bloomers into a spring vignette (or several) placed where you will either pass by them on your way in and out of the house, or an area you can see as you gaze out your window? Why not strategically group them where they will have the greatest impact on your mood?

For a lovely blue and white combination, plant a mix of the small early blooming shrub like the white Korean forsythia and early blooming bulbs like, snow drops (Galanthus nivalis), Scilla siberica, grape hyacinth (Muscari) with hardy perennials such as ajuga ‘Chocolate Chips’ Helleborus ‘Josef Lemper (pure white flower), white bleeding heart, pansies and violas.



By including Candytuft (Iberis), forget-me-nots (Myosotis sylvatica), Virginia Blue Bells (Metensia Viginica), and Blue Lungwart (Pulmonaria 'blue ensign'), your blue and white vignette will transition floriferously into April.

The fragrant spring blooms of Daphne
‘Carol Mackie’ are not the only winning features of this shade tolerant, deer
resistant shrub. The delicate, variegated foliage is an attractive addition to the garden all season long.

If pink is your preference, mix Pieris Variegata with American cranberry, a stunning evergreen ground cover (Vaccinum macrocarpon), with Helleborus ‘Rosemary’ or ‘Ivory Prince.’ The thick rosy foliage of Berginia ‘Baby Doll’ precedes its pink flowers and adds a great texture to not only garden beds but also container plantings. Add Ajuga ‘Pink Lighting,’ pink Primula or creeping Phlox and your vignette will blush with blooms and color all spring long.



Epimediums flower in several different colors: Epimedium x rubrum has not only diminutive, deep pink fairy flowers, but the ruby tinted leaves will add even more color to your early spring garden.



Another early pink option is Jacob’s Ladder ‘Stairway to Heaven’ (Polemonium reptans) because even though later the blooms will be blue, the new spring foliage is a stunning pink.



If high drama and deep purple are more your speed, mix the stunning dark pinkish purple buds of Pieris ‘Dorothy Wycoff’ with the green, near black, white and pink blooms of Helleborus ‘Royal Heritage.’ Add in the dark purple Fritillaria persica and ajuga ‘Black Scallop’ and you will have a sophisticated spring vignette with attitude.

For a more fiery combo, plant Hamamelis x intermedia ‘Diane’ (a red blooming witch hazel), winter aconite (Eranthis cilicica), Helleborus foetidus 'Gold Bullion', the yellow blooms of perennial Allysum and Lamiastrum ‘Herman’s Pride’ plus the golden foliage of Euphorbia ‘First Blush.’ And of course bulbs like Daffodils 'February Gold' and Daffodils 'Tete a Tete', mixed with tulips like ‘Banja Luka’, ‘Texas Gold’ or ‘Appledorn’ or perhaps some orange Fritillaria imperialis Rubra Maxima.



Although most spring blooming bulbs are planted in the fall, this spring we have a selection of spring blooming bulbs in pots for sale now. Instant gratification! For varieties that are not available now, mark your calendar for Labor Day weekend, which is when our stock of bulbs usually arrives. Or you can join our email list to be reminded.

For a peachy full-sun spot try, Quince (Chaenomeles) with English Daisies (Bellis), Rockcress (Arabis), Helleborus ‘Brandy Wine’, Daffodils 'Delnashaugh', Daffodils 'Parisienne', and Daffodils 'Fragrant Rose'. Sedum are a great full sun choice as well, especially the varieties of sedum and sempervivum that change color in the winter. Right about now you will see bright green leaves emerging from the red or orange winter versions of themselves.



Or what about an all green flowering combo with the pendulous yellow-green flowers of the Spike Winter Hazel shrub (Corylopsis spicata) as a back drop for the green blooms of Helleborus foetidus, Primula polyantha 'Francesca' or Fritillaria 'Ivory Bells'? Add in different shades and textures of green with a variety of ferns.




Or mix and match the colors of your early spring vignette so that it is a raucous explosion of color from March to May. Add an early blooming Magnolia, flowering cherry, or Eastern Red Bud tree to any of these vignettes and you will have a garden of boisterous cheerleaders branding their blooms like pompoms in celebration of spring and survival.

Sign Up For Cornell Cooperative's Garden Day!

One-day Gardening Extravaganza

Cornell Cooperative Extension of Ulster County’s Master Gardeners will help gardeners add style and flair to their gardens with the information they present at this year’s Garden Day, Saturday, April 16, 2011!

This all day event will take place at SUNY Ulster located at 491 Cottekill Rd. in Stone Ridge from 8:30am to 4:15pm and boast 16 hands-on and how-to classes for all gardeners from the newest beginners to the most advanced veterans. This year’s theme, “Going Native” features an array of experts talking on a variety of the hottest trends in gardening designs from all over the globe.

Everyone will gather in the Student Lounge at 9:00 am to begin the day with Key Note Speaker, Carolyn Summers. Summers, a landscape architect and author of
“Designing Gardens with Flora of the American East”, will discuss the importance of native plants and how to use them in your garden.

The Marketplace, which will be open during the lunch break, will include many local garden and gardening related vendors. Master Gardener volunteers will also be on hand to answer your gardening questions, perform FREE soil tests & plant identification and diseases diagnosis.

Participants can choose 4 separate classes for the day. Pre-registration is recommended to ensure class choices. The cost for 4 classes and a full day of garden advice is $35 per person before Friday, April 8, or $40 at the door. A boxed lunch may be pre-purchased for $8 or participants may bring their own lunch.

Victoria Coyne from Victoria Gardens will be teaching the class “Green Wall” at Garden Day. She will be exploring the hows and whys of green walls and green roofs, as well as chronicling her own “Green Wall” project - the process, the plants, and the pitfalls! There will be a slide show, a lecture, and a Q&A session afterward.

For more information contact Master Gardener Coordinator, Dona Crawford at
845-340-3990 ext. 335.

This one-day gardening extravaganza is a community educational program presented by the Cornell Cooperative Extension of Ulster County Master Gardener Program.

Registrations forms can be downloaded from the Cornell Cooperative website http://www.cceulster.org/ under the sidebar heading PROGRAM REGISTRATION FORMS and then under the link: Garden Day 2011 Information and Registration Form - Registration Deadline 4/8/11