Welcome to spring! OK, so it hasn’t been the warmest of days leading into spring, but the calendar doesn’t lie. The warmer weather will soon be here and that means color will be returning to your garden. In fact, it may have already arrived! Take a walk through your garden and then through your local garden center. You will be surprised by the amount of color you will find in each! Another sign of spring? Gardenpalooza! The 7th annual garden event will be here in just a couple of weeks! Check out the Gardenpalooza website to preview some of the 40 different vendors that will be at Fir Point Farms on the 4th of April.
This week we featured...
Garden Chickens
One of the hottest trends in gardening is the idea of growing your own food. For some that means a vegetable garden. For others, they want to go a little further and bring poultry to their gardens. The benefits of chickens are many. They can help control insects and pests by eating them. They can help with fertilizing by just doing their ‘business’ as they walk around your garden. They can also bring you fresh eggs. Plus there is the added benefit of just looking cool!
To learn more about chickens we stopped by Linnton Feed and Seed (503-286-1291) to talk to Dan. If you have decided to have chickens in your garden you will want to get a few items to help them thrive. First of all you will need to get at least 3-4 baby chicks to start. In Portland the law says you can have 3 hens in your backyard. Remember to check with your town or county to see what the regulations are for your area. In some towns they don’t allow backyard poultry at all! Sometimes one of the chicks turns out to be a rooster and then you will have to get rid of it. Chickens are also social creatures and they are happier if they have company in the garden. As far as supplies you will need equipment for feeding and watering them. Smaller chicks will also need a heat lamp to grow. Then you will also need shelter for them. Even when they grow larger, chickens are not self-sufficient. You will need to feed them and make sure they have all that they need to thrive. Also, people move them around the garden from time to time to give them a fresh place to scratch and peck. If you would like to get started on having chickens in your garden, you can stop by Linnton Feed and Seed and use their coupons in the Chinook Book to save some money. Learn more about the Chinook Book by going to the Eco-Metro website. Chickens are a cool way to bring the family farm to your backyard!
Chinese Garden Spring Plants
Today and tomorrow (March 21-22) you can enjoy a family outing and getting some great plants for your garden. This weekend is the big annual plant sale at the Portland Classical Chinese Garden (503-228-8131). We wanted to see what they had for sale so we stopped by the garden to meet with Glin and get a preview. She had pulled a few plants out of the greenhouse for us to look at. First, we started with a fragrant favorite, Daphne Odora ‘Marginata’. This one is in the garden and in full bloom. You can smell it before you see it, because the fragrance is so strong. Next we saw the short and twisted Flowering Quince ‘Contorta’. This one is almost a ‘bonsai’ looking plant with its low to the ground profile and great flowers. Next was another fragrant beauty, the Edgeworthia or ‘Chinese Paperbush’. This one is found around the garden and is in bloom also. It is very unique with its golden flowers and branching habit. We also saw some of the bamboos that the garden carries. Bamboo can be plant that can get out of hand very quickly, but these varieties are clumping and they are much better to control. The variety we saw was the Fargesia robusta ‘Green Screen’. We then move to 2 different types of rhododendrons. The first one was the ‘Linearfolium’ this one has very fine leaves and tiny, lacy flowers when it blooms. The other one was the ‘Sinogrande’, which has very large leaves and big flowers. Neither one looks like a rhododendron! Finally we went to a plant that has a big cultural significance in the Chinese garden and that is the Flowering Plum. This variety was ‘Kanko Bai’. Plum blossoms are seen as an example of resilience and perseverance in the face of adversity and signal the beginning of spring in the Chinese garden.
This plant sale is also the beginning of a week full of activities at the garden. You can hear lectures about Chinese plants, learn Chinese arts and crafts, and even learn a new Chinese dish at a cooking demonstration. Check out the Portland Classical Chinese Garden website for more information.
Planting Roses
Roses are a great plant in any garden. But to get them to perform well in your garden you need to give them a good start. We stopped by Heirloom Roses (503-538-1576) in St. Paul to visit with Chris and learn how to plant your roses correctly so you can enjoy a summer full of fragrance and color. The first step is to dig a good hole. In planting any plant, but especially roses, you will want to put your time, effort and money into preparing the soil. Chris recommends a 2 foot by 2 foot hole, 2 feet deep and 2 feet wide. She found clay soil so she amended the soil with a couple of inches of small gravel (to help drainage) and then mixed in some composted steer manure, potting soil and some of the old clay soil together to use when she planted the rose. She then placed the plant in the hole and left it a little high so she could allow for settling of the soil. Heirloom Roses are own-root roses. That means they have their own roots and are not a rose ‘grafted’ on to another type of root stock. This makes a difference when you are planting them. If you have own root roses you can bury the plant right up to the canes. With a grafted rose you will not want to bury the graft. If you do, you may promote growth of the root stock and that could mean a weaker flower. If you have any questions you can contact our friends at Heirloom. Better yet, take the short drive and check out their store and gift shop, and get your questions answered in person.
Seed Starting Supplies
Now is the time to start planting your summer garden, indoors! You can get a jump on the growing season by starting your plants now and it is easy to do if you have the right supplies! Michelle Moore from the Greenhouse Catalog (800-825-1925) walked us through the materials you will need to be successful. First we started with a seed tray. This is one of the basics supplies you will need to start seeds. We then moved to a kit that had the seed tray, and a heating mat. A heating mat will help with germination and make them a stronger plant. Another way to provide heat outside is with a heating coil. We also saw the new Wonder Soil Tablets. When you start your seedlings in a tray, you just drop this in the bottom and they will provide the nutrients they need to grow. We also saw some of the different pots you can use when your seedlings need a little more room. We saw the new Smart Pot, which can be used directly in the garden as a mini raised bed. We also saw the Cow Pots, which are made of sterilized cow manure and can be planted in the ground when your plants are ready to go outside. Then the final touch, lights. There are a bunch of new LED lights that are energy efficient and designed to promote plant growth. They also have the right materials if you want to try propagating cuttings from your existing plants. No matter where you live you can get everything you need at GreenHouseCatalog.com.
Larsen Spring Blooming Plants
With all the bulbs and smaller plants starting to bloom in the garden we thought we would look for some taller blooming plants that will accent the spring colors in your beds. Ryan at Larsen Farm Nursery (503-638-8600) in Wilsonville brought out a handful of the taller plants you will find in your garden center right now. First we saw a couple of old favorites. Forsythia ‘Magical Gold’ was the first one we saw. This one is a compact grower, only getting 5 feet tall instead of the 12 feet of the older variety. The other ‘old favorite’ was ‘Valley Valentine’ Andromeda. This one is great because of its wonderful spring color. The hot pink/deep red of the flowers are a great contrast to the evergreen foliage.
We then moved to the newer additions to the garden center. Rhododendron ‘Rock Rose’ is an early blooming rhodie that starts out with small pink buds that open to a bright white bloom. The red stems are an added bonus! We then found a Redbud. These have been around for quite a while but ‘Avondale’ is a stand-out because of the compact shape and the spectacular deep purple blooms that appear before the leaves. The final plant we saw was the Fragrant Forsythia (Roseum). This one is very fragrant and stays small with white blooms that end up with an arching habit.
This spring add one of these to your garden and make your spring a little more colorful.
Espalier Fruit Trees
Sometimes finding small trees for small spaces can be very difficult, but one of the recent trends in fruit trees features smaller trees with multiple varieties on one trunk. We saw William and Judy show us how easy it is to trellis or espalier a small pear tree on a wire between a couple of posts. By training a tree on a fence, wall or posts, you gain the benefit of the fruit production without the tree taking over your garden. Another way of growing fresh fruit is to try a columnar apple tree. These are trees that are a single trunk or shoot the produces apples without branching. Check your local garden center to see the many different varieties of dwarf fruiting trees.
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