GARDENER - American Horticultural Society

T h e A m e r i c a nGARDENERT h e A m e r i c a nGARDENERThe Magazine of the American Hort icul tural SocietyThe Magazine of the American Hort icul tural Society July / August 2007July / August 2007

®®

pleasures of theEvening Garden


Hardy Plants forCold-Climate Regions

Evening Primroses

Designing with See-Through Plants

Hardy Plants forCold-Climate Regions

Evening Primroses

Designing with See-Through Plants

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3July / August 2 0 0 7

5 NOTES FROM RIVER FARM

6 MEMBERS’ FORUM

7 NEWS FROM AHSAHS award winnershonored, President’sCouncil trip to Charlotte,fall plant and antiques saleat River Farm, America inBloom Symposium inArkansas, Eagle Scoutproject enhances RiverFarm garden, second AHSonline plant seminar onannuals a success,Homestead in the Garden Weekend.

14 AHS PARTNERS IN PROFILEYourOutDoors, Inc.

44 ONE ON ONE WITH…Steve Martino, landscape architect.

46 NATURAL CONNECTIONSParasitic dodder.

48 GARDENER’S NOTEBOOKGroundcovers that control weeds, meadowrues suited for northern gardens, newonline seed and fruit identification guide,national “Call Before You Dig” numberestablished, saving wild magnolias, Unionof Concerned Scientist call for public’spledge to protect forests, the legacies ofnurseryowner and plant breeder WilliamFlemer, III, and plantswoman andarboretum founder Polly Hill.

52 GREEN GARAGE®

Solar power in the garden.

54 BOOK REVIEWSBurpee The Complete Flower Gardener,Foliage: Astonishing Color and TextureBeyond Flowers, and A Pattern Garden: TheEssential Elements of Garden Making.

Special focus: Summer reading.

58 REGIONAL HAPPENINGS

62 HARDINESS AND HEAT ZONES AND PRONUNCIATIONS

ON THE COVER: The Abyssinian gladiolus (Gladiolus callianthus, syn. Acidanthera bicolor) adds avioletlike fragrance to the evening garden in summer. Photograph by Susan A. RothT

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contentsVo l u m e 8 6 , N u m b e r 4 . J u l y / A u g u s t 2 0 0 7

F E A T U R E S

16 PLEASURES OF THE EVENING GARDEN BY PETER LOEWER

Enjoy the garden after dark with appropriate design, good lighting,and the addition of fragrant, night-blooming plants.

22 THE LEGEND OF HIDDENHOLLOW BY BOB HILL

Working beneath the radar,Harald Neubauer is one of thepropagation wizards whokeeps wholesale and retailnurseries stocked with the lat-est woody plant selections.

28 SHEER INTRIGUEBY JANET DAVIS

Use plants that have airy, see-through flowers and stems as scrimsand screens to add texture, drama, and a hint of mystery.

34 EVENING PRIMROSES BY MARCIA TATROE

Conjure magic in your garden at dusk with the diverse membersof the genus Oenothera and its relations.

39 HARDY PLANTS BY CAROLE OTTESEN

These reliably hardy perennials, shrubs, and trees thrive in cold-weather regions.

D E P A R T M E N T S

page 39page 39

page 7

page 22page 22

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4 the American Gardener

American Horticultural SocietyPRESIDENT Deane H. Hundley

Board of DirectorsCHAIRMAN Susie Usrey Dayton, Oregon

F IRST VICE CHAIRMAN Don E. Riddle, Jr. Davidsonville, Maryland

SECOND VICE CHAIRMAN Leslie Ariail Alexandria, Virginia

SECRETARY Albin MacDonough Plant Baltimore, Maryland

TREASURER Arnold Steiner Birmingham, Alabama

IMMEDIATE PAST CHAIR Arabella S. Dane Center Harbor, New Hampshire

Allan M. Armitage Athens, Georgia ■ Suzanne Bales Oyster Bay, New York ■ William E. Barrick, Ph.D.Theodore, Alabama ■ Katherine Belk Charlotte, North Carolina ■ Kurt Bluemel Baldwin, Maryland ■ Katherine

Stark Bull Washington, D.C. ■ John Alex Floyd, Jr. Trussville, Alabama ■ Carole Hofley Wilson, Wyoming

Margaret Kulp Louisville, Kentucky ■ Caroline Lewis Coral Gables, Florida ■ Melissa R. Marshall Pittsburgh,

Pennsylvania ■ Carol C. Morrison Palatine, Illinois ■ Shirley Nicolai Fort Washington, Maryland

J. Landon Reeve IV Woodbine, Maryland ■ Harry A. Rissetto, Esq. Falls Church, Virginia

Michel Sallin Groveland, Florida ■ Jeanne Shields Greenville, Delaware ■ Gail Smith Belville, North Carolina

Steven Still Hilliard, Ohio ■ Howard McK. Tucker Alexandria, Virginia ■ Robert D. Volk San Marino,

California ■ Daryl Williams Lake Buena Vista, Florida

PRESIDENT EMERITUS Katy Moss Warner

AMERICAN HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY7931 East Boulevard Drive Alexandria, VA 22308-1300(800) 777-7931 fax (703) 768-8700 www.ahs.org

Making America a Nation of Gardeners, a Land of Gardens

President’s Council

CHAMPION'S CIRCLE Ms. Judy Daniel ■ Ms. Frances Velay

CHAIRMAN'S CIRCLE Mr. and Mrs. John H. Ariail, Jr. ■ Mrs. Katherine Belk ■

Mrs. Susan M. Cargill ■ Mitchell Petersen Family Foundation, Inc. ■ Mr. and

Mrs. Harry A. Rissetto, Esq. ■ Jeanne Shields ■ Mr. Arnold Steiner ■ Mr. and

Mrs. W. Bruce Usrey

LIBERTY HYDE BAILEY CIRCLE Mr. Richard C. and Mrs. Katherine Stark Bull ■

Mr. and Mrs. Edward N. Dane ■ Mrs. Elisabeth C. Dudley ■ Mrs. Marion

Greene ■ Ms. Minako Henderson ■ Mr. and Mrs. Robert E. Kulp, Jr. ■ Ms.

Joann Luecke ■ Mr. and Mrs. J. Landon Reeve IV ■ Mr. John Ulfedler

HAUPT CIRCLE Nancy J. Becker, M.D. ■ Mr. and Mrs. John B. Burke ■ Mrs.

Richard W. Hamming ■ Mr. and Mrs. Richard W. Hanselman ■ Mrs. Carole

S. Hofley ■ Mr. and Mrs. Albin MacDonough Plant

COUNCIL MEMBER’S CIRCLE Mr. and Mrs. Carter Bales ■ Ms. Marietta E.

Bernot ■ Mr. and Mrs. Anthony Bigos ■ Mrs. George P. Bissell, Jr. ■ Mr. and

Mrs. C. William Black ■ Dr. Sherran Blair ■ Mr. and Mrs. Robert L. Bogle ■

Count and Countess Peder Bonde ■ Mr. and Mrs. Michael T. Bradshaw ■ Mr.

and Mrs. Charles E. Carr ■ Mr. and Mrs. Nicholas Demisay ■ Mr. and Mrs.

Robert Duemling ■ Mrs. Walter Fletcher ■ Dr. and Mrs. John A. Floyd, Jr. ■

Ms. Marguerite Peet Foster ■ Mr. and Mrs. Joel Goldsmith ■ Dr. and Mrs.

William O. Hargrove ■ Mr. and Mrs. Allan L. Holmstrom ■ Mrs. Elizabeth

Hooff ■ Mr. Philip Huey ■ Mr. Deane H. Hundley ■ Ms. Mary A. Lambert ■

Mr. and Mrs. Robert B. Lindsay ■ Mrs. Dorothy Marston ■ Mrs. Barbara

McClendon ■ Ms. Lillian McKay ■ Mrs. Paul Mellon ■ Mrs. Rosalyn

Milbrandt ■ Mr. and Mrs. Egon Molbak ■ Dr. and Mrs. David E. Morrison ■

Mrs. Kathryn A. Moss ■ Mrs. Shirley Ann Nicolai ■ Mr. and Mrs. James T.

Norman ■ Dr. Julia Rappaport ■ Mrs. Josephine Shanks ■ Mr. and Mrs.

Emanuel Shemin ■ Mr. and Mrs. Charles Henry Smith, Jr. ■ Mrs. P.M. Spreuer

■ Mrs. Juliet Sproul ■ Dr. and Mrs. George E. Staehle ■ Mr. Harold Stahly ■

Mr. and Mrs. John B. Strasenburgh ■ Mr. Howard McK. Tucker and Ms. Megan

Evans ■ Mr. Joe Viar ■ Mr. and Mrs. Robert D. Volk ■ Ms. Katy Moss Warner

■ Mrs. Agnes Binder Weisiger ■ Mr. and Mrs. Harvey C. White ■ Mr. and Mrs.

John W. White, Sr. ■ Mr. and Mrs. Klaus Zech

HONORARY PRESIDENT’S COUNCIL Mrs. Enid A. Haupt ■ Mrs. John A. Lutz ■

Mr. and Mrs. Bruce Miller

Education SponsorOXO International

Corporate PartnersBradfield Organics ■ The Care of Trees ■ Chapel Valley Landscape Company

EarthBox™ ■ Homestead Gardens ■ Monrovia ■ NaturaLawn of AmericaOsmocote ■ TerraCycle, Inc. ■ Your OutDoors, Inc./Perfect Garden Tool System

Horticultural PartnersAmerica in Bloom ■ Bellingrath Gardens and Home ■ Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Garden

Symposium ■ Cox Arboretum & Gardens Metropark ■ Epcot International Flower & GardenFestival ■ The Gardeners of America/Men’s Garden Clubs of America ■ The Homestead

in the Garden Symposium ■ Inniswood Garden Society ■ Leonard Haertter Travel CompanyMagic of Landscapes ■ Morris Arboretum ■ Oklahoma Botanical Garden & Arboretum

Oklahoma Horticultural Society

Clarissa Bonde, Washington, D.C .

Walter Bull, Columbia, South Carolina

Anne Bucher, Silver Spring, Maryland

Elaine Burden, Middleburg, Virginia

Patty Bush, St. Louis, Missouri

Skipp Calvert, Alexandria, Virginia

Philip Catron, Frederick, Maryland

Dr. H. Marc Cathey, Davidson, North Carolina

Russell Clark, Boston, Massachusetts

Bartie Cole, Owings Mills, Maryland

Jim Corfield, Geneva, Illinois

Edward N. Dane, Center Harbor, New Hampshire

David and Kitty Ferguson, Westwood, Massachusetts

Ben Griswold, Glyndon, Maryland

Carolyn Marsh Lindsay, Ponte Vedra, Florida

Mickey Lynch, Dunmore, Pennsylvania

Bob Malesardi, Easton, Maryland

Robert and Joanna Martin, Menlo Park, California

Mrs. Malcolm Matheson, Mt. Vernon, Virginia

Barbara McClendon, Alexandria, Virginia

G. Ray Miller, Brandon, Florida

Egon Molbak, Bellevue, Washington

Dean Norton, Mt. Vernon, Virginia

Nancy Keen Palmer, Nashville, Tennessee

Bob Patterson, Washington, D.C.

Dr. Julia W. Rappaport, Santa Ana, California

William Sadler, St. Louis, Missouri

Deen Day Sanders, Norcross, Georgia

Josephine Shanks, Houston, Texas

Barbara Shea, Owings Mills, Maryland

Holly Shimizu, Glen Echo, Maryland

Charles Henry Smith, Jr, Middleburg, Virginia

Tom Szaky, Trenton, New Jersey

Nancy Thomas, Houston, Texas

Bryan Thomlison, Haddonfield, New Jersey

Jeff Trunzo, Port Orange, Florida

Pauline Vollmer, Baltimore, Maryland

Joyce and Harvey White, Nashville, Tennessee

Joannah Williams, Sebring, Florida

Sheryl Wood, Middleburg, Virginia

2007 Advisory CouncilBeverly Hanselman, Nashville, Tennessee – Chair

The 2007 password to access themembers-only portion of the AHSwebsite, www.ahs.org, is dogwood.

5July / August 2007

T h e A m e r i c a n

GARDENEREDITOR

David J. EllisMANAGING EDITOR AND ART DIRECTOR

Mary YeeASSISTANT EDITOR

Viveka NevelnEDITORIAL INTERN

Courtney CapstackCONTRIBUTING EDITOR

Rita PelczarCONTRIBUTING WRITER

Carole Ottesen

EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD

CHAIR Richard E. BirBrevard, North Carolina

Allan M. ArmitageAthens, Georgia

Nina L. BassukIthaca, New York

Steve BenderBirmingham, Alabama

John E. BryanSan Francisco, California

John L. CreechColumbus, North Carolina

Panayoti KelaidisDenver, Colorado

Richard W. LightyKennett Square, Pennsylvania

Elvin McDonaldWest Des Moines, Iowa

CONTACT US The American Gardener7931 East Boulevard DriveAlexandria, VA 22308(703) 768-5700

ADVERTISING & E-MAIL: [email protected]

PARTNERSHIPS

EDITORIAL E-MAIL: [email protected]

The American Gardener (ISSN 1087-9978) is published bimonth-ly (January/February, March/April, May/June, July/August, Septem-ber/October, November/December) by the American HorticulturalSociety, 7931 East Boulevard Drive, Alexandria, VA 22308-1300,(703) 768-5700. Membership in the Society includes a subscrip-tion to The American Gardener. Annual dues are $35; two years,$60. International dues are $50. $10 of annual dues goes towardmagazine subscription. Periodicals postage paid at Alexandria, Vir-ginia, and at additional mailing offices. Postmaster: Please sendForm 3579 to The American Gardener, 7931 East Boulevard Drive,Alexandria, VA 22308-1300.

Botanical nomenclature is based on The American HorticulturalSociety A–Z Encyclopedia of Garden Plants, on A Synonymized Check-list of the Vascular Flora of the United States, Canada and Greenlandand on the Royal Horticultural Society Index of Garden Plants. Opinionsexpressed in the articles are those of the authors and are not necessar-ily those of the Society. Manuscripts, artwork, and photographs sent forpossible publication will be returned if accompanied by a self-addressed,stamped envelope. We cannot guarantee the safe return of unsolicitedmaterial. Back issues are available at $8 per copy.

Copyright ©2007 by the American Horticultural Society.

Printed in the U.S.A. on recycled paper.

YOU, OUR MEMBERS, the readers of this magazine, are our most importantconstituent group. Our goal is to bring you a broad range of gardening infor-mation that will be of value to you—and inspire you—in your personal and

professional life. This issue features a special focus on evening gardens, and you willfind numerous ideas and inspirations for creating a haven to be enjoyed after dark.Other articles include a profile of Harald Neubauer, a Tennessee nurseryman whopropagates new trees and shrubs for many of the country’s top wholesale and retailnurseries, and a feature on hardy plants for cool-climate gardens.

During a recent meeting of our Board of Directors, a great deal of discussion re-volved around the American Horticultural Society’s national mission and goals. Or-ganizations such as ours frequently revisit the mission to ensurethat the information and programs we are providing to ourmembers remain timely and valuable in an ever-changing world.Over the next few months, we will be conducting a study anddoing some surveying to help us refine our guiding principlesand member services.

In June, we held our annual national awards ceremonyhere at River Farm to honor the winners of the Society’s 2007Great American Gardeners Awards and Book Awards (an ar-ticle on the awards ceremony can be found on page 7). Therecipients of these awards are people from all across this country who have madea difference in diverse sectors of the gardening world. From the perspective ofsomeone who was attending the awards ceremony for the first time, it was truly amemorable experience. Several of the winners gave very emotional speeches. Nurs-ery owner Paul Saunders, winner of the Paul Ecke Jr. Commercial Award, broughthis wife, children, and grandchildren up to share the podium with him.

What rang through loud and clear, however, was just how touched each andevery one of them was that the American Horticultural Society sponsors this na-tional awards program. After the ceremony, one of them came up to me and said,“Thank you for honoring me for doing the work that I love.” In the near future,we will be launching a campaign to permanently endow all of our awards to en-sure that these dedicated people and companies will get the recognition and sup-port they deserve for their life’s work.

It’s an exciting era at the American Horticultural Society. In the coming monthswe will be sharing with you details of some new initiatives we are getting ready tolaunch. I invite you to pass along any ideas you might have in this regard, as wellas to add your input to the discussion we will be having during our “2010 Mission”planning process.

I look forward to the opportunity to speak with you at one of our upcoming na-tional programs. These include the National Children & Youth Garden Symposiumin Minneapolis, Minnesota, on July 19-21; the Annual Gala with the theme “Musicin the Garden” here at River Farm on September 29; and the Garden School hostedby Yew Dell Gardens in Crestwood, Kentucky, on October 4 and 5.

CNOTES FROM RIVER FARM

—Deane H. Hundley, President & CEO

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THE STORY OF ‘GOLDSTURM’I enjoyed Pam Baggett’s article on thegenus Rudbeckia in the May/June issuebut wanted to clarify an occasional mis-understanding about the cultivar ‘Gold-sturm’. The first distributed plants werenot vegetativelyproduced by di-vision, but ratherwere seed-raised.Over the years,nursery catalogshave sometimesoffered whatwas thought tobe the “original”‘Goldsturm’ butthere was none.T h i s a w a rd -winning black-eyed-Susan is simply a botanical varietyof Rudbeckia fulgida and very rarelyshows any variation from seed. Indeed,there is some suspicion that the plantmight be apomictic—producing seedwithout fertilization.

Several years ago, Klaus Jelitto of Jelit-to Perennial Seeds shared this interestingstory about ‘Goldsturm’ discoverer Hein-rich Hagemann, who was chief gardenerfor German nurseryman Karl Foerster anda long-time mentor and friend to Jelitto.

In the 1930s, Hagemann visited theGebrueder Schuetz Nursery at Olo-

mouc, in what is now the Czech Repub-lic. He was impressed with a group ofnearly 50 plants of Rudbeckia fulgidavar. sullivantii Schuetz had receivedfrom the botanic garden at Graz in Aus-tria, which in turn had obtained seedfrom the United States. Unfortunately,no one knows where in the United Statesthe seed originated. Upon his return toFoerster’s garden, near Potsdam, Hage-mann told his boss about his discovery,but Foerster was dubious that the plantscould be more attractive than Rudbeckiaspeciosa (now more commonly renderedR. fulgida var. speciosa).

Hagemann later returned to Schuetzand was given 10 of the special rudbeck-ias. They were planted in Foerster’s gar-den and flowered for the first time thefollowing year, in 1938. Foerster walkedquietly among these new black-eyed Su-sans and said to Hagemann, “You wereright, young man. This one is better thanRudbeckia speciosa. But the name, sulli-vantii! It is no good!” Two days later, Fo-erster triumphantly announced, “I havefound a name. It shall be called ‘Gold-sturm’”—German for “gold storm.”

Vegetative propagation commencedimmediately, because they did not realizeat the time that the botanical varietycomes true from seed. Contracts weremade with several German mailordercompanies, but World War II inter-vened, and it was not until 1949 that asmall number of plants was first distrib-uted. These were all seed grown. It hasbeen suggested that Foerster had con-ducted breeding work—or even selecteda special form—on the initial plants thathad been smuggled across the Germanborder, but Hagemann repeatedly re-futed this claim.

By the 1950s, ‘Goldsturm’ had be-come a best-selling perennial in Ger-many and slowly made its way acrossEurope. Ironically, the plant did not be-come popular in its native continentuntil the 1980s, when nurseryman KurtBluemel and landscape designer Wolf-gang Oehme began planting and pro-

moting it because they had learned of itduring their apprenticeships in Germany.

Allen BushJelitto Perennial Seeds

Louisville, Kentucky

HELENIUM MISIDENTIFICATION?In the article by Jo Ann Gardner in theMay/June 2007 edition, the heleniumshown on page 22 is identified as ‘Moer-heim Beauty’, but it looks very different

from the “warm glowing bronze-red”(Frances Perry Collins Guide to BorderPlants) flowers of the ‘Moerheim Beauty’that I know so well in my own garden. Isthere a chance your photo is misidentifiedand shows a different selection, such asHelenium waldtraut or H. ‘Chelsey’?

In our garden, ‘Moerheim Beauty’gives a better second round of bloomafter deadheading than any other heleni-um we have grown.

David G. Clark (Reverend)Sevenoaks, Kent, United Kingdom

Editor's response: We are inclined to agreewith you; the sneezeweed in the photo,shown above, seems quite different frommost published images of ‘MoerheimBeauty’. We are trying to confirm its iden-tity and welcome suggestions from readers.

CMEMBERS’ FORUM

PLEASE WRITE US! Address letters to Editor, TheAmerican Gardener, 7931 East Boulevard Drive,Alexandria, VA 22308. Send e-mails [email protected] (note Letter to Editor in subject line).Letters we print may be edited for length and clarity.

‘Goldsturm’ rudbeckia

Helenium ‘Moerheim Beauty’—or not?

MAGAZINE ISSUES WANTEDAn AHS member is in search of sev-eral back issues of The American Gar-dener that are no longer in stock. Ifyou are willing to part with your copyof any of the following issues, pleasecontact Rene Lipshires at (508) 429-2706 or email [email protected].

1996: March/April1997: July/August1998: July/August1999: July/August

News from AHS PROGRAMS • EVENTS • ANNOUNCEMENTS

AHS Award Winners Honored RECIPIENTS OF the AHS 2007 Great American Gardeners Awards and Book Awards were honored on June 1 during an evening banquet and ceremony at the Society's headquarters at River Farm. A veritable who's who in the green industry from all over the United States were on hand to receive awards for their outstanding contributions to horticulture, landscape design, garden communication, and other related fields.

Kri s Jarantoski of the Chicago Botanic Garden received the

Professional Award from Awards Committee Chair Bill Barrick and

AHS Board Chair Susie Usrey during the June awards ceremony.

The evening culminated with the presentation of the Liberty Hyde Bailey Award for woody plant guru Michael Dirr, an author, professor, and plant breeder who is about to retire after more than 20 years as a horticulture professor at the University of Georgia. AHS Board member Steven Still accepted the award on behalf of Dirr, who was not able to attend the ceremony.

"These award winners represent the highest levels of achievement in nearly every sector of the horticulture industry," says AHS President Deane H. Hundley. "It's our privilege to recognize them for their dedication, creativity, and all-around passion for plants and gardening."

Nominations for next year's Great American Gardeners Awards are being accepted until September 28. Turn to page 8 for more information and a nomination form, or call AHS Education Programs Coordinator Jessica Rozmus at (703) 768-5700 ext. 137.

President's Council Excursion A RECORD-BREAKING 37 AHS President's Council members attended the exclusive trip to Charlotte, North Carolina, rhis past

July / August 2007

spring. Members enjoyed tours to public and private gardens in the surrounding area, including Wing Haven Garden & Bird Sanctuary, Elizabeth Lawrence House & Garden, and a behindthe-scenes tour of rhe Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden.

Next year, members of the AHS President's Council will be offered the opportunity to tour the gardens and nurseries of the Willamette Valley and in Portland, Oregon.

The President's Council consists of six donor levels: the Champion's Circle, Chairman's Circle, Liberty Hyde Bailey Circle, Haupt Circle, Council Member's Circle, and Honorary President's Council. Donor benefits include special travel oppor- The President's Council tour

tunities, autographed gardening inc luded a visit to Daniel

books, two tickets to rhe AHS annu- Stowe Botanical Garden.

al gala, and a private, guided tour of rhe AHS headquarters at River Farm. For additional information, call Sue Dick at (703) 768-5700 ext. III or e-mail [email protected].

Fall Plant and Antiques Sale MARK YOUR CALENDARS for the AHS's first annual Fall Plant Sale and the National Capital Area Garden Club's (NCAGC) Antiques RiverShow at River Farm. On Sunday, September 23, local plant vendors will be selling fall-blooming herbaceous plants, new releases for the 2008 season, and hard-tofind perennials, shrubs, ferns, and bulbs.

In conjunction with the AHS Fall Plant Sale, the NCAGC will host an Antiques RiverShow fundraiser. Modeled on the popular public television program "Antiques Roadshow," the event will feature professional antique appraisers who, for a fee, will be available to assess items brought in by visitors. Antique dealers will

IT'S SEED SAVING TIME!

As plants in your garden begin to

set seeds this summer, consider

saving seeds to share with fellow

members in the AHS Ann ual Seed

Exchange. Each winter, members

can choose from a variety of peren

nials, annuals, vegetables, and

other plants. Participating in this

popular member benefit is a cost

efficient, easy way to increase vari

ety in your garden. The deadline for

seed submission for the 2008 ex

change is November 1, 2007. Visit

www.ahs.org or call (703) 768-5700 for additional information.

also be selling specialty antiques. For additional information, visit www.ahs.orgor call (703) 768-5700.

JULY/ AUGUST 2007 7

Call for Nominations

It’s an Honor…

Since 1953, the American HorticulturalSociety’s Great American GardenersAwards Program has recognizedindividuals and institutions that havemade significant contibutions toAmerican horticulture. Nominations arenow being accepted for 2008.

Nominate your “horticultural hero”—a memorable professor, a favorite gardenbook author, or the driving force behindan incredible community project.

Use the nomination form on theopposite page. For additionalinformation, visit www.ahs.org or call(703) 768-5700 ext. 137.

Nominations must be submittedby September 28, 2007.

Liberty Hyde Bailey AwardGiven to an individual whohas made significantlifetime contributions to atleast three of the followinghorticultural fields:teaching, research,communications, plantexploration, administration,art, business, andleadership.

H. Marc Cathey AwardRecognizes outstandingscientific research that hasenriched the field ofhorticulture.

Paul Ecke Jr.Commercial AwardGiven to an individual orcompany whosecommitment to the higheststandards of excellence inthe field of commercialhorticulture contributes tothe betterment ofgardening practiceseverywhere.

HorticulturalCommunication AwardRecognizes effective andinspirationalcommunication—throughprint, radio, television,and/or online media—thatadvances public interest

and participation inhorticulture.

Landscape Design AwardGiven to an individualwhose work hasdemonstrated andpromoted the value ofsound horticulturalpractices in the field oflandscape architecture.

Meritorious Service AwardRecognizes a past Boardmember or friend of theAmerican HorticulturalSociety for outstandingservice in support of theSociety’s goals, mission,and activities.

Frances Jones PoetkerAwardRecognizes significantcontributions to floral designin publications, on theplatform, and to the public.

Professional AwardGiven to a public gardenadministrator whose

achievements during thecourse of his or her careerrepresent a significantcontribution tohorticulture.

Catherine H. Sweeney AwardRecognizes extraordinaryand dedicatedphilanthropic support ofthe field of horticulture.

Jane L. Taylor AwardGiven to an individual,organization, or programthat has inspired andnurtured futurehorticulturists throughefforts in children’s andyouth gardening.

Teaching AwardGiven to an individual whoseability to share his or herhorticultural knowledge withothers has contributed to abetter public understandingof the plant world and itsimportant influence onsociety.

Urban Beautification AwardGiven to an individual,institution, or company forsignificant contributions to urban horticulture andthe beautification ofAmerican cities.

2 0 0 8AWARDS

UV

AMERICANHORTICULTURAL

SOCIETY

2008 GREATAMERICANGARDENERSAWARDS

Norman Lownds, 2007 Jane L. Taylor Award

America In Bloom Symposium“ROCK ‘N ROLL” into Rockford, Illinois, for the sixth annu-al America in Bloom (AIB) Symposium and Awards ProgramSeptember 27 through 29. The program includes keynote pre-sentations by Illinois En-vironmental ProtectionAgency Director Dou-glas Scott and landscapearchitect Doug Hoerr,concurrent information-al sessions, and inspira-tional learning tours. Itwill conclude with a galaand awards ceremony tohonor winners fromeight different popula-tion categories.

“The symposium is avery inspiring event,”says AIB AdministratorLaura Kunkle. “In addition to being fun, the sessions and toursprovide real take-home ideas that people are excited about im-plementing in their own community.”

For more information, contact (614) 487-1117 or visit the AIBwebsite at www.americainbloom.org.

Eagle Scout Project at River FarmWITH THE HELP of 14 fellow Boy Scouts in Troop 1509, EagleScout Colin Amerau earned a badge that elevated his scoutrank in June by enhancing the facilities in The Growing Con-nection Demonstration Garden at River Farm. Amerau, wholives in Alexandria, Virginia, designed and helped build an out-door classroom consisting of six benches and a demonstrationtable. The Yacht Haven Garden Club of Alexandria generouslydonated the lumber used for the project.

Created through a partnership between the Food and Agri-cultural Organization of the United Nations and the AHS, The

Growing Connection is an international program that educateschildren about nutrition and growing food in a global context.

“Colin and his troop have created a great learning space toconduct The Growing Connection’s teacher trainings anddemonstrations,” says Jessica Rozmus, AHS education pro-grams coordinator. “Their craftsmanship will greatly enhanceour ability to show middle-school teachers how to grow veg-etables, herbs, and other plants in self-contained planters calledEarthBoxes. The teachers then use what they learn from ourtraining to develop lesson plans that teach students the sciencebehind growing food, nutrition, math, and other subject areas.”T

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9July / August 2007

Eagle Scout Colin Amerau at the demonstration table that he helpeddesign and build for The Growing Connection garden at River Farm.

The AIB symposium includes an optionaltour of Rockford’s Sinnissippi Gardens.

• JULY 19–21. National Children & Youth Garden Symposium.Chaska, Minnesota. Hosted by the Minnesota Landscape Ar-boretum Public Policy Programs.

• AUG. 4. Lecture with The Care of Trees Entomologist.George Washington’s River Farm. Alexandria, Virginia.

• AUG. 24–26. The Homestead’s In the Garden Weekend. HotSprings, Virginia.

• SEPT. 23. Fall Plant Sale and Antiques RiverShow. GeorgeWashington’s River Farm. Alexandria, Virginia.

• SEPT. 25. “Bulbs that Work.” AHS online seminar hosted byAllan Armitage.

• SEPT. 27–29. America in Bloom Symposium & Awards Ban-quet. Rockford, Illinois.

• SEPT. 29. AHS Annual Gala. George Washington’s RiverFarm. Alexandria, Virginia.

• OCT. 4 & 5. AHS Garden School: “The Amazing World ofPlants.” Yew Dell Gardens. Crestwood, Kentucky.

• OCT. 23. Dr. H. Marc Cathey Day. George Washington’s RiverFarm. Alexandria, Virginia.

• DEC. 3–21. Holiday Trees Display. George Washington’s Riv-er Farm. Alexandria, Virginia.

• DEC. 13. Annual FORF Holiday Reception. George Washing-ton’s River Farm. Alexandria, Virginia.

AHS NATIONAL EVENTS AND PROGRAMS

2007 CALENDAR

Mark your calendar for these national events that aresponsored or cosponsored by the AHS. Visit

www.ahs.org or call (703) 768-5700 for more information.

Homestead In the Garden WeekendJOIN AHS horticulturalpartner the Homesteadresort, located in pic-turesque Hot Springs,Virginia, for its upcom-ing ninth annual “In theGarden Weekend,” heldAugust 24 to 26.

The program featurespresentations by horticul-turist and author AndréViette, native plant ex-pert Richard Bir, horti-culturist Robert Lyonsof Longwood Gardens,landscape architect Gor-don Chappell of Colo-nial Williamsburg, andmany other horticulturalluminaries.

In addition to the ed-ucational presentations, participants will also enjoy a welcomereception, afternoon tea, and a guided hike. “This year, we have

a complimentary Gorge Hike through the Cascades Gorge,where participants can learn about many of the native plantsand see 13 beautiful waterfalls,” says Eileen Judah, marketingdepartment head at the Homestead.

For additional information about this symposium, visit theHomestead’s website at www.thehomestead.com or call (800)838-1766.

TGOA Photo Contest ARE YOU PROUD OF your garden and interested in showingit off to gardeners across the country? Consider capturing thosetantalizing plant combinations and perfect blooms on film for TheGardeners of America/Men’s Garden Club of America(TGOA/MGCA) 2008 Photography Contest.

Two AHS members who submitted images for the 2007competition will have their photos published in the 2008TGOA/MGCA calendar. AHS Immediate Past Chair Arabel-la Dane’s photo will be the featured image for the month ofJuly, and a photo by Anne C. Allen, from Brownsville, Ver-mont, will grace the October page.

The deadline for submissions to next year’s competition isFebruary 13, 2008. For additional information, contact JudySchuck, the TGOA/MGCA national photography and calen-dar chairman, at (913) 362-8480 or visit www.tgoa-mgca.org.

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The Homestead will be hosting itsGarden Weekend in late August.

An exclusiveahs garden school

THE AMAZING WORLDOF PLANTS

New trends in plant selection and their influence on garden design

October 4 & 5, 2007Yew Dell Gardens, Crestwood, Kentucky

Join noted plant breeders and gardendesigners at Yew Dell Gardens, the former

estate of the late plantsman, Theodore Klein,for a behind-the-scenes exploration of thelatest trends in plant breeding and selection.Learn from the pros how new plantintroductions, along with time-tested classics,can be integrated into landscapes of all styles.

For more information on how you can be partof this exciting event, visit www.ahs.org or call(703) 768-5700 ext. 137.

Featuring guesthorticulturistGraham Rice,editor-in-chief of theAmericanHorticultural Society’sEncyclopedia ofPerennials and authorof numerous booksincluding The All-in-One Garden and TheUltimate Book of SmallGardens.

REGISTRATION OPENS JULY 15

Background: Toronto Music Garden, designed by Julie Moir Messervy

September 29, 20075 p.m. to 10 p.m.

River Farm, Alexandria, Virginia

Honorary ChairJulie Moir MesservyAward-winning landscape designerand author

Please join the American Horticultural Societyfor an elegant evening under the stars to

support our national education programs and the stewardship

of River Farm.

For more information about the gala or to request an invitation, please e-mail Kyle Marie Harpe, volunteer coordinator,

at [email protected] or call (703) 768-5700 ext. 124.

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Second AHS Online Seminar Presented in MayAHS MEMBERS from 33 states plus the District ofColumbia and one Canadian province participatedin the second AHS webinar, “Annuals That Work,”on May 10. Through their computers, they watchedan hour-long presentation given by University ofGeorgia horticulture professor and garden authorAllan Armitage on new and unusual annuals. Someannuals Armitage is particularly excited about in-clude Euphorbia ‘Diamond Frost’, naranjilla(Solanum quitoense), and eyeball plant (Spilanthesoleracea). At the end of the webinar, Armitage alsoresponded to questions from the audience.

“These sessions are super,” says LindaLehmusvirta of Austin, Texas, who attended boththe AHS’s first webinar on perennials in Marchand the annuals webinar. “I learned so much andI’m looking forward to more.”

“Bulbs That Work,” the final webinar in the se-ries presented by Armitage, will be held on Sep-tember 25. Visit www.ahs.org to register. �

News written by Editorial Intern Courtney Cap-stack and Assistant Editor Viveka Neveln.

Can you recommend afew petunias that havethe good old-fashionedscent that just hangs inthe air in the evening?

Jesse Bell Claremore, Oklahoma

What with the insanebreeding in petunias andother annuals, fragrancehas often been forgotten.Look for seed packages—I doubt garden centers willhave these as plants—of P.integrifolia, or “old-fash-ioned” petunias. The flow-ers are smaller and usually

in pastel colors and theplants are taller, but thefragrance will fill theevening air.

What are some goodflowering annuals forshady areas?

Dora Rouse Worthington, Ohio

Shade is a moving target; ifyou are talking aboutheavy shade most of theday from big trees orbuildings, there is little tochoose from other thanimpatiens and begonias. If

you have shade for abouthalf the day, salvias,nierembergias, lobelias,and a few others will work.

How do you recom-mend fertilizing pottedplants?

Mary SebringKent, Ohio

If I am going to keep aplant in a pot or grow it ina container, I use a slowrelease fertilizer, such asOsmocote. I apply a table-spoon at planting and an-other in midsummer.

During “Annuals That Work,” Allan Armitage answered several questionsfrom participants. Here he responds to a few of the questions he was not ableto address during the webinar.

BMW of ArlingtonMr. and Mrs. Edward N. DaneMs. Judy DanielEdwaldan FoundationDr. and Mrs. John A. Floyd, Jr.Mrs. Richard W. HammingMs. Rosalyn MilbrandtMonrovia Nursery CompanyMTR Landscape Architects, LLCMrs. P. M. Spreuer

In memory of Marjorie “Midge” OrrMr. and Mrs. Alan AllertMs. Margaret S. BinneyMs. M. Vivian BoleyMrs. Ann GreenleeseGood Shepherd Catholic ChurchMr. and Mrs. Herbert LivingstoneMr. and Mrs. Werner MichelMs. Myra L. Withers

In memory of Max DeSilvaby Mr. and Mrs. James Smith

In memory of Coulter Cookseyby Mr. and Mrs. James Smith

In memory of Roxanne Ewanby Mr. and Mrs. Werner Michel

In honor of Arabella Danefrom The Little Compton Garden Cluband The Hanover Garden Club.

In addition to vital support through membership dues, the American Horticultural Society relies on grants, bequests, and other gifts to support its programs. We would like to thank the following donors for gifts

received between April 13 and May 31, 2007.

If you would like to support the American Horticultural Society as part of your estate planning, as a tribute to a loved one, or as part of your annual commitment to charitable giving, please contact: Sue Dick, (703) 768-5700 ext. 111 or [email protected].

Gifts of NoteGifts of Note

Confidence shows.Because a mistake can ruin an entire gardeningseason, passionate gardeners don’t like to takechances. That’s why there’s Osmocote® Smart-Release® Plant Food. It’s guaranteed not to burnwhen used as directed, and the granules don’teasily wash away, no matter how much youwater. Better still, Osmocote® feeds plantscontinuously and consistently for four fullmonths, so you can garden with confidence.Maybe that’s why passionate gardeners havetrusted Osmocote® for 40 years.

Looking for expert advice and answers to your gardening questions?

Visit PlantersPlace.com — a fresh, new online gardening community.

© 2007, Scotts-Sierra Horticulture Products Company. World rights reserved. www.osmocote.com

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FO U R Y E A R S A G O , Ray Millerhad a heart attack, jeopardizing hisability to enjoy one of his favorite

pastimes: gardening. Upon discoveringthat conventional garden tools were tooheavy and imbalanced for his new foundneeds, Miller designed “The Perfect Gar-den Tool System,” a multi-purpose toolfor users of all ages and abilities.

In 2006, Miller, an entrepreneur whosecareer included stints in the telecommuni-cations and medical software industries,founded YourOutDoors, Inc., to manu-facture and distribute his new product andother garden hand tools. Since then, thisFlorida-based company has expanded intoa rapidly growing business, forming part-nerships with nine universities and gar-dening organizations (including theAmerican Horticultural Society), donatingfive percent of all revenue earned to theWorld Craniofacial Foundation, andboasting a core management staff whosebackgrounds range from senior positionsin start-up companies to Fortune 500s.

A TOOL FOR ALL GARDENERS“The Perfect Garden Tool System,” theinitial product offering of YourOutDoors,Inc., was designed for maximum versatil-ity. “I wanted to create a garden tool thatfits everyone,” says Miller. “We selected 13of the most popular garden tools on themarket and combined them into one.”

The unique handle, designed er-gonomically to increase stability, replaces

the traditional pole handle on most gar-dening tools, and a “Quick-Snap Connec-tor” allows the desired activity-specifictool—such as a hoe, rake, or shovel—toconnect to the base of the handle, creatingone streamlined tool. The tool, says Miller,“supports both the standing and kneelinggardening positions” to enable gardenersof all ages and abilities to “work more effi-ciently with less muscle pain.”

A youth version of the tool system fea-tures a handle that is two-thirds thelength of the adult handle. “By givingchildren a tool they can enjoy using,”says Miller, “we hope more young peo-ple will become involved with gardeningand gain a stronger connection to theoutdoors.”

BRINGING GARDENING TO CHILDRENTo further expand its reach to the youthgardening community, YourOutDoors haspartnered with the University of FloridaMaster Gardener Program, Florida Nurs-ery, Growers and Landscape Association,and the Epcot International Flower &

Garden Festival to create the FloridaSchool Garden Competition. The compe-tition is open to both public and privateschools, and each competing school re-ceives one set of tools with extra handles sochildren can grow their own gardens. Chil-dren then write a 500-word essay compar-ing “The Perfect Garden Tool System”with conventional garden tools.

YourOutDoors hopes to expand thiscompetition to children across the coun-try. “This industry is dependent on gettingyoung people involved with gardening,”says Jeff Trunzo, president of YourOut-Doors. “Cool, innovative, unique gardentools will help get them interested.”

SHARED GOALSA sense of shared values was instrumentalin fostering the partnership between theAHS and YourOutDoors. “We respectthe work the AHS has done and itsgoals,” says Miller. Barry Goodinson,AHS director of development, recognizedparallel goals between both organizations.“YourOutDoors has great energy, enthusi-asm, and a solid commitment to youthgardening,” says Goodinson. In support ofthe AHS’s youth gardening initiative,YourOutDoors has agreed to donate a gen-erous collection of “The Perfect GardenTool System” tools to attendees at thisyear’s AHS National Children & YouthGarden Symposium in Minnesota.

Recovered now from the heart attack,Miller says,“I’m 67 years old, and I gardenas much or more now than ever.” Thepromise of influencing a new generation ofgardeners through his invention also keepshim looking ahead. “We set about to helpaffect a change in gardening tools,” saysMiller. He sees the partnership with theAHS as another step toward turning thatdream into reality. �

Courtney Capstack is an editorial internfor The American Gardener.

AHS PARTNERS IN PROFILE

YourOutDoors: Creating a Multi-functional Gardening Tool

by Courtney Capstack

The Perfect Garden Tool System comes insizes suitable for adults and for children.

For more information aboutYourOutDoors, Inc., visit its website atwww.perfectgardentool.com.

To learn more about establishing acorporate partnership with the AHS,please visit the AHS website atwww.ahs.org or e-mail Sue Dick [email protected].


BY PETER LOEWER

Enhance your enjoyment of the garden

after dark with appropriate design,

good lighting, and the addition of

fragrant night-blooming plants.

the American Gardener16


BY PETER LOEWER

Enhance your enjoyment of the garden

after dark with appropriate design,

good lighting, and the addition of

fragrant night-blooming plants.

AB O U T 2 0 Y E A R S A G O , I be-came intrigued by the idea of anevening garden. My garden pique

was the result of subscribing to MajorHowell’s International Seed Collectionfrom Cobham, Surrey, England. The goodmajor collected seed from a number ofbotanical gardens around the world andusually featured 2,000 named varieties.

In 1984, I read his entry on Hemero-callis citrina, the night-blooming daylily,and immediately sent for the seed, know-ing this might be an unusual addition tothe garden. The seed arrived, germinat-ed, and two years later my evening gar-den—along with the germ of an idea fora book—was launched.

REWARDS OF EVENING GARDENSSo, you might ask, why develop anevening garden?

My answer at that time (which is evenmore timely today) was with anotherquestion: What’s left of your day afteryou’ve met commitments to family, home,pets, the job, and your community?

From a city terrace to a country deck,an evening garden is the perfect site forboth relaxing and thinking about the daythat’s passed. Without the distractions ofthe day, the night gives us a better chanceto think about the grand scheme of things,at least in the world of the garden.

The evening garden is also a great spotfor entertaining. My wife and I have par-ties on summer nights with friends andneighbors who come over to watch themoonflowers open with their slow flair orto enjoy the sweet fragrance of the eveningprimroses in the night air.

DESIGNING AN EVENING GARDENIt’s a great idea to plan a small garden de-voted to the night, where the plan is builtaround a terrace, a deck, or a small piece ofground close to a home or apartment. Mymost successful evening garden was an areaof 10 by 15 feet located next to a terrace justoff the dining room of our former countryhome in the Catskills of New York.

The terrace included a number of in-teresting containers. One held a mass ofmoonflowers that twisted about a wood-

en trellis attached to the side of the house.Three great pots held brugmansias, an-other a potted palm hung with fairy lights.More pots contained schizopetalons and avery old and large night-blooming cereus.Here and there were pots with variouswhite-flowered plants that were particu-larly beautiful under moonlight, includ-ing geraniums, nicotianas, pansies,impatiens, and begonias.

The garden next to the terrace washome to a small pond full of night-bloom-ing tropical waterlilies, a bank of eveningprimroses, night-blooming daylilies, yuc-cas, a free-standing trellis vined withgourds, and low-voltage lights through-out. (For more on garden lighting, seesidebar on page 19).

FAVORITE PLANTS FOR THE EVENING GARDENUntil I wrote The Evening Garden in the

early 1990s, most books included only aslight mention of night bloomers or trop-ical nocturnals, and those were British gar-dening books, too. They usually referredto a few well-known plants that eitherbloomed at night or were redolent withfragrances that swelled when the sun setand the moon rose.

Most gardeners in America live in partsof the country where winter temperaturesfall below freezing. Because the majorityof nocturnal plants are tropical in origin,plants for the evening garden are oftenchosen from what I term annuals that arereally tropical perennials that bloom thefirst year from seed; others are time-hon-ored perennials.

While researching my book, I com-piled a list of plants available in the Unit-ed States. The following represent just afew of my favorite choices. (A chart listing

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Opposite page: The jasminelike evening fragrance of flowering tobacco more than makes up for its somewhat bedraggled daytime appearance.This page, top: A “moon garden” of white flowers and silvery foliage at the Olbrich Botanical Gardens in Madison, Wisconsin, includesflowering tobacco, cleomes, dusty miller, cosmos, and petunias.

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dozens of other night-blooming plantscan be found in a special link to this arti-cle on the AHS website at www.ahs.org).

ANNUALS AND TROPICAL PERENNIALSLady-of-the-night (Brassavola nodosa) isone of many orchids suited for a spot in theevening garden. One of the easiest orchidsfor home gardeners to grow, the plantblooms from late September into Febru-ary, bringing its lush perfume to the latesummer garden. The flowers have a whiteflaring lip surrounded by greenish whitesepals and petals, with an average of fivebuds per stem.

Pot up the orchids in clay orchid pots(with drainage slits) and allow the orchidgrowing mix to dry out between watering.Keep them away from the piercing sum-mer sun by hanging them under a tree orshrub, then move the pots directly to thegarden when they flower.

Angel’s trumpets (Brugmansia spp.)are one of the stalwarts of the evening gar-den and make great patio plants becausethey flower profusely during the summermonths. A new compact cultivar, ‘IncaSun’, reaches a six-foot height and whenthe temperature climbs, it flowers contin-uously with light yellow-peach bloomsthat are especially fragrant at night.

Provide evenly moist, rich soil in a spotwith as much sun as possible, and try toprotect plants from temperatures below60 degrees Fahrenheit at night, althoughan occasional plunge won’t hurt. Theflowers are open during the day, but asevening approaches the blossoms sendout a heady, sweet scent.

The night-blooming cereuses havebeen symbols of the evening garden for

centuries. Marie Antoinette asked Pierre-Joseph Redouté to paint one for her; Dr.Thornton featured it in his magnificentbotanical art series, The Temple of Flora;and in his Journals, author John Cheeverwrote about walking up the hill at night tosee a neighbor’s cereus in bloom. In manyan old Spanish-American home, a fiestawas held the night the cereus bloomed.

The name night-blooming cereus is ap-plied to many cactus-family members withnocturnal flowers, but the one I’m most fa-miliar with is Epiphyllum oxypetalum, theplant that blooms in my garden.

From November to February, it lives inmy greenhouse, where it’s contained in a14-inch hanging pot made of enameledwire. The pot is lined with sheets of sphag-num moss and contains a soil mix of onepart each of potting soil and sharp sand.

Once frost dangers are past, the pot andthe plant go out to the garden, hopefullyto brighten up warm summer nights inAugust and September with their blooms.

Whether saluting the evening garden orjust for patio entertainment, every gardenshould sport some moonflowers (Ipomoeaalba). Moonflowers are perennial vines in

Top: The large, fragrant white blooms of moonflowers open at dusk. Above: Like otherbrugmansias, the delicately colored flowers of ‘Peach Blossom’ are open all day, but theirfragrance is most pronounced in the evening.

NIGHT-BLOOMING WORDSThere are three words used in the studyof night-blooming and night-fragrantflowers. Vespertine means “of or donein the evening” and refers to flowers thatopen at that time. The word is derivedfrom the Latin for the evening star. Cre-puscular means “activity at dusk or twi-light” and comes from the Latin wordfor twilight. Nocturnal means “occurringat night,” and refers to plants thatbloom only at night. —P.L.

the tropics or a warm greenhouse, but areusually treated as annuals in northern gar-dens because they bloom the first yearfrom seed. The vines reach a height of 10feet or more in a good summer season.

The flowers are pure white with just theghost of a teal-green tint where the trum-pet petal folds before opening. They’re soattractive and so beautifully scented, theyoften become the highlights of a party asguests gather to watch the flowers open.

With warm weather, they can flowerwithin six weeks of sowing but eight weeksis the norm. To help break through thehard seed coat, nick them with a file orsoak overnight in warm water. Plant themin fertile, moist soil in full sun or a bit ofshade down south. But remember to pro-vide strings or a trellis, or plant them onthe edge of a wall and the stems will spillover, creating a grand effect.

The fruit of the bottle or penguin gourd(Lagenaria siceraria) is best known as thesource of materials for the manufacture ofbird houses, dipping spoons, or artful gar-den toys, but its musky-scented flowersopen at night and the female flowers showthe potential fruit just below the petals.

A trellis is needed for this viningplant, and at dusk the developing podshang down like shapely sandbags faintlyreminiscent of the pods from the classichorror movie Invasion of the Body Snatch-ers. Around them the opening blossomslook like cellophane stars gleamingagainst the dark green of the leaves.

Easy to grow, bottle gourds need onlyaverage soil with a bit of compost mixedin, plus full sun and plenty of water, espe-cially as the gourds develop.

Evening stock (Matthiola longipetalasubsp. bicornis) exudes a wonderful scentheavy with the perfume of jasmine. Stocksare annuals and are best described as strag-gly. The small pink or purple four-petaledflowers have a white center and look likebits of rain-washed tissue paper. Easilyoverlooked by day, they become stars ofthe night border.

The English call them melancholygilliflower because of their sad presenceduring the day, but numerous garden writ-ers have penned purple prose to salute theirnocturnal fragrance. To enjoy the per-fumes throughout the summer, sow newseeds every 10 days or so, at least throughthe middle of July.

Mirabilis jalapa, the miracle flower ofPeru, or four o’clocks, have been cultivat-ed since the 1540s. Known for bearing dif-ferent-colored flowers on single plantsopening around four o’clock in the after-noon, they also have a very pleasant lemo-ny scent.

A number of colors are available in-cluding red, yellow, white, or rose, andmany flowers will be striped or dashedwith other hues.

In tropical America they are perenni-als, forming large tubers just like dahlias.You can dig up and save the tubers for theM

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BASICS OF NIGHT LIGHTINGLighting a garden at night used to require an outlay of thousands of dollars paid tohigh-end night-lighting landscapers—or you made do with variations on Malibu lightsfrom California.

Then, almost in answer to the prayers of the evening gardener, low-voltage light-ing hit the mass market. Today, even local hardware stores have complete kits of fivelamps that use a special step-down transformer that reduces regular—and danger-ous—household current of 120 volts to a safe 12-volt system. And it’s truly safe: Ifyou accidentally touch a bare wire used in a 12-volt system, you’ll not get a shock.

There are even a number of solar lighting options available now, although theselights have obvious limitations related to the amount of daylight they receive. (Formore on solar lighting options, see “Green Garage” on page 52.)

Today, design choices abound and even the big box stores feature install-it-yourself night-lightinglamps and wiring that willenhance the most elegantof gardens.

Costs are reasonable,and with an investment ofunder $100 and a weekendof laying cables (a simplejob), you will be able towalk the evening gardenwith safety and ease.

Design techniques varyfrom downlighting (this is abit more work as the lightshang down from overheadtree branches); uplightingusing beams that turn theleaves above into shimmer-ing pools of light; accent orspot lighting (you just light afavored tree or garden area);and path lights (small lightshelp you find your way).

Remember that all thosepolished fixtures you see inlight displays quickly losetheir sheen when exposed to the elements. Try to buy copper, as it ages to a darkbrown or deep green patina that blends into a background of plants. When buyinglights with a black surface, look for fixtures that feature a durable black polyesterpowder coating.

The only caveat from my vantage point: Use color filters with care. Most instal-lations advise using a warm white light but some Floridians recommend using a pinkfilter with tropical plants. —P.L.

Lantern lights cast a romantic glow in this garden invitingvisitors to wander along the stepping stones.

next year but they often bloom just asquickly when grown every year from seed.

The capa de oro (Solandra maxima) hasvery fancy flowers, even for nightbloomers. The ripe yellow, cup-shapedblossoms are about seven inches long andsix inches across. Five dark purple lines rundown the tube from the lip—where theedges of the cup are folded back—ready toguide a moth to the bottom of the floralwell. As the flowers age, they assume tintsof orange. Although the scent of capa deoro closeup reminds me of really cheapsoap, it mellows with distance. I grow themfrom seed and treat them like any tropicalvine, giving the plant a place to climb andprotection from the hot sun of high noon.

Flowering tobacco (Nicotiana alata) isanother somewhat sorry-looking daytimegarden inhabitant. But around 6 p.m., itstrumpet-shaped flowers open along stemsthat may reach five feet tall. Their fra-grance might remind you of jasmine. It isnative to tropical South America, where itis perennial, but here we grow it as an an-nual. Breeders have worked to extend itsflowering into daylight hours, but this hascome at the cost of fragrance.

BULBOUS PLANTS AND HARDY PERENNIALSAs mentioned above, the night-bloom-

ing daylily (Hemerocallis citrina) launchedmy interest in evening gardens. Some-times called the citron daylily, plantswere originally found in central China,discovered in 1890 by a Catholic mis-sionary, Guiseppe Giraldi, who sentplants to Italy.

Immediately, hybridizing began—thegoal being to extend the one-day bloom ofa daylily to two days. The nursery indus-

try pushed and pulled for almost a centu-ry and succeeded only in scattering thegenes throughout the daylily clan, result-ing in a number of cultivars having night-blooming tendencies.

But nothing beats the species. In addi-tion to opening late in the afternoon—only melting with the coming of the nextday’s noon—it’s a carefree perennial,growing almost anywhere you providemoist, mildly fertile soil and, in the Amer-ican South, some protection from thenoonday sun. In addition, as they mature,plants produce hundreds of flowers andhave a fountain of leaves, unlike the lim-ited foliage of most daylily cultivars.

The tuberose (Polianthes tuberosa) isamong the sweetest scented flowers of thenight. Plant it beneath an open window soyou can enjoy its rich fragrance indoorsand out. There are two selections: the fourfoot tall ‘Mexican Everblooming’ and thedouble flowered ‘Pearl’, which reaches aheight of only 16 inches. Tuberoses growfrom bulblike rhizomes; they take a rela-tively long time to produce flowers, sostart plants indoors about four weeks be-fore the last spring frost. Except where theground never freezes, the tender rhizomescan be dug and stored for winter in awarm dry place.

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Solandra maxima is a tropical vine withglossy green leaves and strongly scentedyellow flowers that age to gold.

The waxy white blooms of the tuberose retaintheir delicious scent even when cut forflower arrangements.

ResourcesThe Evening Garden by Peter Loewer, Macmillan Publishing Co., New York, 1993.

The Moonlit Garden by Scott Ogden, Taylor Publishing Co., Dallas, Texas, 1998.

SourcesThe Fragrant Path, Fort Calhoun, NE. www.fragrantpathseeds.com. Catalog $2.(Seeds only)

Logee’s Greenhouses, Danielson, CT. (888) 330-8038. www.logees.com.Catalog $3.

Nichols Garden Nursery, Albany, OR. (541) 928-9280. www.gardennursery.com.

Park Seed, Greenwood, SC. (800) 213-0076. www.parkseed.com.

Perennial Pleasures Nursery, East Hardwick, VT. (802) 472-5104.www.antiqueplants.com.

Thompson & Morgan, Jackson, NJ. (800) 274-7333. www.thompson-morgan.com.

The Abyssinian gladiolus (Gladioluscallianthus, syn. Acidanthera bicolor), is abulbous plant in the iris family. Itscreamy white blossoms have a decorativerich chocolate maroon center. They fillthe evening air with a sweet smell remi-niscent of violets. Growing from corms,these plants are hardy only in USDAZones 7-10, but in cooler regions theycan be planted in April and then dug upin fall and overwintered much likedahlias. They bloom in July to August,depending on the region.

Another bulbous plant for the eveninggarden is the Madonna lily (Lilium can-didum). The fragrant white flowers unfurl

on six-foot stems in mid- to late summer.Unlike most other lilies, Madonna liliesmust be planted so the top of the bulb isonly an inch or two deep.

The evening primroses (Oenotheraspp.) are another favorite group of plantsfor the evening garden, although a few arerambunctious enough to be best relegatedto the wild garden. These biennials andperennials are covered in a separate articlein this issue (see page 34), but I mentionthem because there is a short period oftime on summer evenings—10 to 15 min-utes at most—when the atmosphere takeson a luminous quality, magnifying the yel-low flowers of many selections—and theresults are quite beautiful. It’s then thatsphinx moths descend to drink the nectar,adding to the spectacle.

There are a number of species of yuc-cas (Yucca spp.), but my favorite gardenentry is Adam’s needle (Y. filamentosa), aclump grower that in midsummer sendsup flower panicles that can reach 10 feetbut are usually a little shorter. The spine-tipped leaves are gray-green, up to 30 inch-es, and edged with long, curly threads.The fragrant blossoms are white.

During the day the six-petalled blos-soms hang down like bells, but at dusk,

they turn up to the evening sky, openwide, and release a sweet soapy scent to thenight air. The odor attracts time-honoredpollinators, the yucca moths (Tegeticulayuccasella), small unassuming insects thatare responsible for all the yucca seeds even-tually released to the winds.

SEIZE THE NIGHTBack in the late 1980s, upon entering myfirst evening garden, the die was cast.Today my wife and I hold full-moon gar-den parties (with pathways marked withluminarias) and visitors often bring aglass of wine in tow as we amble along,taking in the sights, the sounds, and thewondrous perfumes of the garden atnight. Despite the scourge of mosqui-toes, my garden continues to be a terrif-ic respite from the trials and tribulationsof the modern world. Spending a fewevenings in the garden this summer willprobably not completely unplug the tele-vision set, but I’m sure your electric billwill go down just a bit. �

Peter Loewer is a garden writer and artistwho lives in Asheville, North Carolina. He isthe author of more than 15 gardening books,including The Evening Garden.L

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Above: One flowering stem (scape) of the citron daylily may produce up to 50 flower buds.Top left: Abyssinian gladiolus (Gladiolus callianthus) blooms in midsummer from cormsplanted in spring. Bottom left: The flowers of Yucca filamentosa turn upward at dusk.


IT IS WELL WORTH the dusty tripalong winding Buncombe Road insouth central Tennessee just to walk

with Harald Neubauer through the fieldsof his family nursery. The vigorous 66-year-old’s face is tanned, his hair almostwhite, his enthusiasm contagious.

Behind him, the sun-bright leaves ofthousands of field-grown redbuds—Cer-cis canadensis ‘Forest Pansy’ and ‘Heartsof Gold’—stretch out in long, undulat-

ing ribbons of purple and warm gold to-ward the surrounding green hills. Con-tinuing the redbud parade are theglossy-green leaves of ‘Traveller’, a weep-ing redbud, and ‘Silver Cloud’, a white-on-green variegated redbud introducedby legendary Kentucky plantsmanTheodore Klein.

Their long rows join almost 100,000other diverse shade and ornamental plantsthat Neubauer and his son, Alex, have

budded in the field and offer in their Hid-den Hollow Nursery catalog.

GRAFTING MAGICThe trees are the product of an outdoorpropagating technique Neubauer all butpioneered; he was the first American nurs-eryman to bud thousands of magnoliasand witch hazels in the field. Budding is aform of grafting in which a single bud of adesired plant is inserted into a slit in the

BY BOB HILL

PHOTOGRAPHS BY MICHAEL HAYMAN

Working beneath the radar, Harald Neubauer is one of the propagation wizards who keeps

wholesale and retail nurseries stocked with the latest woody plant selections.

the Legend ofHidden Hollow

Surrounded by rows of field-grown ‘Forest Pansy’ and ‘Hearts of Gold’ redbuds, Harald Neubauer carries a harvest of freshly cut budwood.

the Legend ofHidden Hollow

BY BOB HILL

PHOTOGRAPHS BY MICHAEL HAYMAN

bark of a stock plant. He perfected thetechnique the hard way—bent like ahuman horseshoe over his rootstocks forlong hours in the Tennessee sun.

“I didn’t want to propagate indoors be-cause I didn’t want to water plants everyday,” Neubauer recalls. “I decided to throwthe book away and write my own.”

He is still easily able to bend at thewaist and place the palms of his handsflat on the ground, but with Alex joiningthe nursery full-time about nine yearsago, Harald has cut back his graftingschedule, which lasts three months eachyear, from seven days a week to a meresix. “I’m slowing down,” he says.

Father and son will annually bud the100,000 plants on their 10 acres, well upfrom the “couple thousand” redbuds Har-ald budded 22 years ago when he firststarted the nursery.

The budding understock is eithergrown from seed or purchased in huge lots.Using irrigation lines, fertilizer, and atten-tion to detail, the Neubauers can annually

coax six to eight feet of growth from eachtiny bud. It is “biological magic with aknife, bud sticks, and rootstocks,” saysMichael Dirr, a University of Georgia hor-ticulture professor and woody plant expert.

ALWAYS SOMETHING NEWScattered among the long rows of plantsare many new selections found by garden-ing friends around the world and sent tothe Neubauers to evaluate and propagate.One of the challenges for plant growers isrecognizing worthy new plants; another ismeeting the demand for their production.“Harald makes the best of the new varietiesavailable quickly,” says John Elsley, horti-cultural director of Klehm’s Song SparrowNursery in Avalon, Wisconsin.

Neubauer’s intuition and productionefficiency both came into play with the in-troduction of ‘Hearts of Gold’ redbud.The plant, with its golden yellow leaves inspring, was discovered in 2003 growingnear a dentist’s office in North Carolina,and was referred to Neubauer by North

Carolina horticulturist Jon Roethling. “I was told if I needed someone to

propagate a redbud, Harald was theman,” says Roethling. “He’s one of thebest budders and grafters there is.” So hesent a piece to Neubauer. Within a fewyears Neubauer had hundreds flowingacross his fields, in anticipation of the de-mand for the new selection.

When Dirr saw ‘Hearts of Gold’ for thefirst time at the JC Raulston Arboretum inRaleigh, North Carolina, he says, “I couldnot contain my enthusiasm.” He inquiredwhere he could get one and almost imme-diately received one sent by Neubauer viaa mutual friend. “He already had the plantin production,” marvels Dirr. “He’s alwaysahead of the curve.”

Steve Hottovy of Beyond Green nurs-ery in Dayton, Oregon, had a similar ex-perience with the ‘Wildfire’ black gum(Nyssa sylvatica), which sports dramaticburgundy new growth in spring. At first,Hottovy thought the plant was a photiniathat had popped up in a batch of seedlings.


“Harald is one of the great people in the business. He, like the noble DonShadow, can put roots on a telephone pole.”

—Michael Dirr, woody plant expert

Above: Harald Neubauer and his son and business partner, Alex,right, stand amid a field of a yet-unnamed variegated dogwood varietythat features an attractive reddish blush on new growth, left.


He mentioned the plant when Neubauerwas visiting Oregon. The following year,Hottovy sent Neubauer some scion wood.

“He sent back eight-foot trees in oneseason,” Hottovy says. “It was amazing.”

EARLY UPHEAVALSIt is also amazing that Neubauer endedup in rural Tennessee at all. He was bornin 1941 in Silesia, a strongly German areain what is now Poland. When the Russ-ian Army approached the region at theend of World War II, his father, a railroademployee, smuggled out his wife andfour children in a railroad car. The fam-ily fled to Torgau on the Elbe River,

which, after the war, was part of Com-munist East Germany.

Neubauer’s childhood playground waslittered with the refuse of war: guns, phos-phorus grenades, and airplane fuel tanks.His first garden was a collection of smallcacti. After about 10 years in Torgau,Neubauer’s father arranged once again tohave the family concealed in a railroad carcompartment and smuggled past armedguards across the Iron Curtain to WestGermany, where he met them.

“It must have been rough on my par-ents,” says Neubauer. “That was twicethey left everything behind.”

LEARNING THE TRADE After high school, an uncle with a nurseryin Berlin helped Neubauer get a job at anursery in Elmshorn, where he learned tograft plants such as willows, currants, andgooseberries. The experience got him

hooked. “It seemed like magic,” he says.In 1964, at 23, he brought what Elsley

calls “a traditional nursery backgroundand a European sensibility” to the Unit-ed States for a one-year apprenticeship atthe Shadow family nursery near Win-chester, Tennessee. There he workedwith Don Shadow, another nursery leg-end in the making, establishing hisAmerican roots. Hidden Hollow wouldeventually be located only a few milesfrom Shadow’s nursery.

Neubauer returned to Germany to at-tend college and after graduation went towork for a veneer manufacturing compa-ny. His first assignment was a six-monthjaunt along the barely navigable roads ofSouth America in a Volkswagen bus insearch of veneer. “It was quite a trip,” hesays. “I didn’t speak a word of Spanish.”

Over the next few years, as he traveledthrough Central and South America,

Bud grafting in the field requires a strong back, as Alex Neubauer and a nursery employeedemonstrate, above, while budding 'Tennessee Pink' redbuds onto a row of rootstock. Theprocess, left, involves removing a section of bark from the rootstock where a bud of thedesired plant, or scion, will be attached.

Neubauer learned to speak Spanish, Eng-lish, Dutch, and Portuguese.

He met his future wife, Susie, on ablind date while back in Tennessee for avisit. They were married in 1970 andlived for a time in Honduras. ButNeubauer missed propagating plants.“You cut down a lot of trees in the veneerbusiness. I thought it was time to payback.” So the Neubauers decided to re-turn to Tennessee and start a nursery.

A FAMILY AFFAIRIn the early days, Neubauer raised cattle onthe farm while grafting Japanese maples forDon Shadow. But he stubbornly began

field grafting redbuds and witch hazels forhimself. “I love witch hazels,” he says, buthe was told they’d be difficult to sell sincethey would already have bloomed by thetime the garden centers opened in spring.“I said, well, all of Europe can’t be wrongbecause everybody has a witch hazel intheir yard,” says Neubauer.

Susie Neubauer worked with her hus-band in the fields and handled the officework. Neubauer honed his techniqueswhile increasing his stock and client base.

Over time, the Neubauers expandedtheir small house, nursery, and family. SonsNick and Alex both worked in the nursery,but it was Alex who developed the most in-

terest in plants and propagation. After at-tending the University of North Carolinain Asheville, Alex returned to Tennessee tohelp with the family nursery. Now co-owner of Hidden Hollow, he and his wife,Amy, and their two children live in a housenear the propagation fields.

REDBUDS, DOGWOODS, AND MOREOf the 100,000 plants they propagate, onlyabout half end up as stock the Neubauerswill ship all over the United States and theworld. The rest are culled in the interest ofquality control. “We have a reputation forgood plants,” says Neubauer.

Shipping season means 90-hour workweeks for everyone. The Neubauers pushto keep the plants going out the door—and their ever-growing customer base sup-plied—has been matched by another chal-lenge: finding new plants to propagate.

One of Neubauer’s most significantcontributions to the garden industry, ac-cording to Elsley, is “the wider availabilityand greater selection of redbuds.” In addi-tion to ‘Forest Pansy’, ‘Hearts of Gold’,‘Traveller’, and ‘Silver Cloud’, there are‘Appalachian Red’, a glowing pink-red in-troduction from the late Max Byrkit ofHagerstown, Maryland; ‘Tennessee Pink’,a Neubauer introduction with true pinkblooms; and ‘Royal White’, a prolificwhite-flowered selection.

And redbuds are only part of the show.The fields include dozens of rare cultivarsof dogwood (Cornus kousa and C. florida),yellowwood (Cladrastis kentukea), sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua), tulippoplar (Liriodendron tulipifera), magnolia(Magnolia spp.), witch hazels (Hamamelisspp.), zelkova (Zelkova serrata), and blackgum (Nyssa sylvatica).


Harald Neubauer was the first to mass-produce Lavender Twist® weeping eastern redbud (Cerciscanadensis ‘Covey’), a small variety featuring purplish-pink flowers and contorted branches.

Neubauer found this variegated native witchhazel (Hamamelis virginiana), which he hascloned at Hidden Hollow Nursery.

Hidden Hollow Nursery214 Tanager Hill LaneBelvidere, TN 37306. ■ Hidden Hollow is a wholesale nurs-ery and is not open to the public. Forinformation about wholesale plant orders and availability, e-mail AlexNeubauer at [email protected].

The Neubauer propagation fields typ-ically include 35,000 dogwoods, 15,000redbuds, and 7,000 witch hazels amongthe other woody treasures.

Eastern dogwood (Cornus florida) se-lections include red-flowered ‘CherokeeChief ’ and white, double-flowered ‘Plena’.Hidden Hollow also offers three newmildew- and anthracnose-resistant dog-woods from the University of Tennessee:‘Appalachian Blush’, ‘Appalachian Snow’,and ‘Appalachian Spring’.

Chinese dogwoods (Cornus kousa) in-clude the heavy-blooming ‘Milky Way’,the pink-flowered ‘Satomi’, and the green-and-white variegated ‘Wolf Eyes’.

There are also his homegrown surpris-es to be evaluated; the variegated, dwarf,upright, or weeping plants the Neubauersfind popping up among their own stock orin the surrounding fields and woods.“Every spring you get new stuff,” saysNeubauer. “They start coming out like lit-tle kids and you want to run over to seewhat they’re turning into.”

With his eye for recognizing remarkableplants and his gift for propagating them,Neubauer has helped introduce numerousvarieties that might otherwise have been

lost. He “saved many one-of-a-kind plantsfor us from a single, dying stick of wood,”says landscape architect and plant explor-er Ozzie Johnson of Chamblee, Georgia.

Neubauer combines his skills with pa-tience, hard work, and a demand for qual-ity. Johnson observes that Neubauer’s“uniqueness begins with his honest, opendemeanor and hospitality and ends withthe great contributions he has made to theintroduction of great garden-worthyplants.” As Dirr notes, “Our gardens arericher for his passion and efforts.” �

Bob Hill is a columnist for the LouisvilleCourier-Journal and a co-owner of HiddenHill rare plant nursery and sculpture garden.


HARALD NEUBAUER’SINTRODUCTIONSHere are some of Harald Neubauer’sfavorite selections—both in cultivationand under evaluation.

Black gum (Nyssa sylvatica) ‘Autumn Cascades’ (a weeping form) ‘Red Rage’ (clean green leaves) ‘Wildfire’ (red-tipped new growth)Cornelian cherry (Cornus mas)‘Kintoki’ (a dwarf cultivar with

bright green leaves)Eastern dogwood (Cornus florida)‘Appalachian Spring’ (a white-

flowered plant resistant to anthracnose)

Redbud (Cercis canadensis)‘Appalachian Red’ (brilliant reddish,

pink flowers)‘Hearts of Gold’ (golden-yellow

foliage) ‘Tennessee Pink’ (Neubauer’s own

selection with a true pink flower)‘Traveller’ (a weeper with glossy

green leaves) Sweet bay magnolia (Magnolia virginiana)‘Coosa’ (dwarf form)‘Green Bay’ (evergreen)Sweet gum (Liquidambar styraciflua)‘Slender Silhouette’ (can grow 60

feet tall and six feet wide)Tulip poplar (Liriodendron tulipifera)‘Little Volunteer’ (dwarf form)Witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana)‘Little Susie’ and ‘Little Daddy’

(dwarf forms)‘Mohawk Red’ (red flowers)Zelkova (Zelkova serrata)‘Ogon’ (yellow-green leaves and light

orange bark)

Top: ‘Wolf Eyes’ is one of several Chinese dogwood cultivars propagated at Hidden HollowNursery. Above: Harald Neubauer takes cuttings from a new variety of dogwood producedfrom a cross between Chinese and American species.

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MO S T G A R D E N E R S under-stand the importance of cre-ating a bed or border around

plant characteristics such as color, height,and shape. These, after all, are the sturdybuilding blocks of successful garden de-sign. But there’s another, more etherealquality shared by a relatively small rosterof plants that makes them ideal for

adding movement, light, and even asense of mystery to a planting scheme.

These are the “see-through” or “scrim”plants. In theater parlance, a scrim is agauzy, transparent curtain that allows theaudience to see through it to a scene beingplayed out in the background. In gardendesign, it defines a plant that fulfills itsown role while letting viewers look

through it to other plants or distant cor-ners of the garden. See-through plants canalso be used to create seasonal effects; forinstance, serving as a partial screen arounda patio or pool in summer, to soften butnot completely obscure the view.

The best see-through plants feature tall,wiry stems or very loose, airy flowers or in-florescences that move easily in the wind,

Sheer Intrigue

BY JANET DAVIS

Use plants that have airy, see-through flowers and stems as scrims and screens to add texture,

drama, and a hint of mystery to the garden.

The tall stems and airy panicles of purple moor grass provide a delicate screen through which clumps of rudbeckia blooms are revealed.

Sheer Intrigue

swaying in delicate contrast to their morestolid neighbors. If placed well, their leaveslook spectacular backlit by late-day sun.Ideally, their foliage should be very fine orgrow in a basal clump that does not inter-fere with the hazy effect above.

HERBACEOUS PERENNIALSPerennials with tall, branching stemstopped with cloudlike inflorescencescomposed of numerous tiny flowers areexcellent to use as gauzy screens.

Giant kale (Crambe cordifolia), with itscoarse basal leaves and tiny white flowersheld aloft on airy stems is one; lime-lovingbaby’s breath (Gypsophila paniculata) withits masses of tiny, white, summer flowers isanother; and false aster (Boltonia asteroides)topped with small, white daisies in earlyfall is a third.

These plants look lovely screening otherperennials, of course, but really sparkle infront of dark-leaved shrubs such as theninebark (Physocarpus opulifolius) cultivarT

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Above: The narrow, spiky, olive green leavesof dasylirion weave a loose scrim throughthis garden of cacti and succulents. Left: Inearly summer, the tall, loosely arrangedblooms of meadow rue (Thalictrum roche-bruneanum) rise above blue-green foliage tocontribute a seasonal scrim and gentlemovement to the mixed border.

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‘Monlo’ (Diabolo®) or purple smoke bush(Cotinus coggygria ‘Purpurea’).

Of the many meadow rues (Thalic-trum spp.) with loose panicles of tiny blos-soms, two of the best see-throughs are T.rochebruneanum and T. delavayi ‘He-witt’s Double’. Though the latter mightlean a little without staking, the effect ofits small pink or white flowers twinklingin front of other early summer shade-lovers such as astilbe is magical.

For midsummer effect, try gaura(Gaura lindheimeri), a native of the Amer-ican Southwest beloved for the fluttery ef-fect of its white and pink flowers, heldabove the foliage on arching stems. Excel-lent cultivars include ‘Crimson Butterflies’(two to four feet with crimson flowers) and‘Whirling Butterflies’ (two to three feetwith white flowers). Golden lace (Patriniascabiosifolia) has chrome-yellow, late sum-mer flowerscapes that make a brilliantscrim for other late bloomers such as redcardinal flower (Lobelia cardinalis) and fall-blooming asters. Most patrinias have mus-tard-yellow flowers, but P. villosa has whiteflowers and grows up to three feet.

Many perennials feature tall, wirystems topped with colorful, button or bot-tlebrush flowers that seem to dance infront of a contrasting foliage or floral

background. Renowned Dutch gardendesigner Piet Oudolf is fond of using thedark red flowers of Japanese burnet (San-guisorba tenuifolia ‘Purpurea’) and greaterburnet (S. officinalis) as a scrim, some-times in front of the feathery whiteblooms of white fleeceflower (Persicariapolymorpha). As he notes in his book, De-signing with Plants (Timber Press, 1999):“Their being spaced out on stems means

that it is possible to see through clusters ofbuttons; they are effectively transparent,in the same way that groups of narrowstems are transparent.”

Perennials with a similar habit includeMacedonian scabious (Knautia mace-donica) with its burgundy-red pincush-ion flowers; giant scabious (Cephalariagigantea) with small yellow flowers onrangy stems; and shade-loving master-

Top: Yellow false oxeye (Heliopsis helianthoides) and purple spiked gayfeather (Liatris spicata)are easily viewed through the wispy white blossoms of baby’s breath (Gypsophila paniculata).The delicate flowers of Gaura lindheimeri appear to hover above the foliage like butterflies.

DESIGN TIPS■ Since the scrim effect is a visual oneintended to engage viewers, it’s bestachieved with tall or mid-sized plantsthat can be enjoyed at eye level whilesitting or standing in the garden.

■ Keep your combinations simple anddramatic. While it’s fine to use drifts ofthe same scrim plant in front of drifts ofmore substantial plants, don’t layermore than one type of see-throughplant or the design will look cluttered.

■ Many see-through grasses are beauti-ful when backlit, but for backlighting tobe successful, you need to determinethe track that the sun follows over yourgarden and situate plants in such a waythat late afternoon sun shines behindthem and is not blocked by obstaclessuch as fences or trees.

wort (Astrantia major) with small blos-soms in white, rose, and red. Then thereare the spiky flowers of sea hollies (Eryn-gium spp.) and the prairie native rat-tlesnake master (Eryngium yuccifolium),which are loosely-branched, architectur-al perennials that tolerate dry conditions.

A good American native see-throughis culver’s root (Veronicastrum vir-ginicum), a summer bloomer that fea-tures candelabra spikes of white, pink, orlavender flowers. And the creamy-whitespires of the tall, summer, and fall snake-roots (Actaea spp.) look luminous placedin front of a dark-green hedge. Otherplants that have slender or airy spikes in-clude rusty foxglove (Digitalis ferruginea)and drought-tolerant Russian sage (Per-ovskia atriplicifolia).

GRASSESOrnamental grasses with tall, wispy inflo-rescences can be dramatic scrim plants, re-sponding to the smallest breeze withconstant movement and swishing sound.Among the best are the tall moor grass cul-tivars (Molinia caerulea subsp. arundi-nacea) ‘Skyracer’ and ‘Transparent’—anOudolf favorite—whose strong but slen-J

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The stiff, steely blue flowers of amethyst sea holly (Eryngium amethystinum ‘Sapphire Blue’)provide both architectural interest and a view of the bright blooms of maiden pinks (Dianthusdeltoides ‘Flashing Lights) in the background.

MORE SEE-THROUGH PLANTS

Plant Name Height/Width Description and Bloom Time USDA/AHS(ft.) Zones

Actaea simplex ‘Brunette’ 3–4/2 dark purple, fernlike foliage and tall, arching stems of 4–8, 12–1(autumn snakeroot) purple-tinted, white flowers in fall

Agastache rupestris 11/2–3/11/2 aromatic leaves and spikes of orange flowers with lavender 5–9, 9–1(sunset hyssop) calyces in summer

Artemisia lactiflora 5/2 deeply cut leaves and long-lasting, loose, white flower heads 3–7, 7–1(white mugwort) from late summer to fall

Aruncus dioicus 4–6/3–4 large, fernlike leaves, loose pyramidal panicles of white 3–7, 7–1(goatsbeard) flowers in early summer

Chaerophyllum hirsutum 2/2 tiny soft pink flowers in showy umbels from late spring to 6–9, 9–6‘Roseum’ early summer

Dasylirion texanum 5–8/5 long, narrow, stiff, pointed leaves emerge from crown; 8–11, 12–10(sotol) white flowers in summer on five-foot stalk

Deschampsia cespitosa 6/4–5 tussock forming evergreen grass with arching panicles of 5–9, 9-1(tufted hair grass) silvery spikelets in summer

Limonium latifolium 2/11/2 basal leaves with wiry, loosely branched stems of 7–9, 9–7(sea lavender) lavender-blue flowers in late summer

Pennisetum alopecuroides 2–5/2–4 tufted grass with linear leaves and oblong panicles of green 6–9, 9–6(fountain grass) or purple spikelets in summer

Sporobolus heterolepis 11/2–2/2 clump forming grass with bright green leaves and drooping 3–8, 10–2(prairie dropseed) panicles of pale pink flowers in late summer

der stems and airy flowers make a delicateveil and a delightful foil to summer daisiessuch as false oxeye (Heliopsis helianthoides)and sneezeweed (Helenium autumnale).

The zingy little flowers and seeds of na-tive switch grass (Panicum virgatum) areconstantly in motion and look lovelyscreening the big, bold flowers of swamphibiscus (Hibiscus moscheutos). Similarly,the airy flowers of prairie dropseed(Sporobolus heterolepis) make a lively, tex-tural scrim for other prairie natives, suchas pink-flowered Echinacea purpurea.

Many grasses with thin, silky leaves andflowers, such as tufted hair grass (De-schampsia cespitosa), look transcendentwhen backlit by late-day sun. Other ex-cellent see-through grasses are pink muhlygrass (Muhlenbergia capillaris); blue oatgrass (Helictotrichon sempervirens); feath-er reed grass (Calamagrostis ✕acutiflora‘Karl Foerster’); giant feather grass (Stipagigantea); and Mexican feather grass(Nasella tenuissima).

BULBS AND ANNUALSBulbs and annuals can also have a see-through effect. Drumstick allium (Alliumsphaerocephalon) is a hardy summer bulbwith spherical, crimson flowers on bob-bing stems. ‘Lucifer’ crocosmia (Crocos-mia ✕crocosmiiflora) bears numerous

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Top left: Pink muhly grass (Muhlenbergiacapillaris) bears thin three-foot-tall flowerstems in late summer and fall. Left: The airyflowers and narrow gray-blue leaves of blueoat grass (Helictotrichon sempervirens)lighten a bed of brightly colored flowers.

ResourcesDesigning With Plants by Piet Oudolf.Timber Press, Portland, Oregon,1999.

Encylopedia of Grasses for LivableLandscapes by Rick Darke. TimberPress, Portland, Oregon, 2007.

Planting Design: Gardens in Time andSpace by Piet Oudolf and NoëlKingsbury. Timber Press, Portland,Oregon, 2005.

scarlet flowers on arching stems in early tomidsummer. A more unusual choice isfairy wand or angel’s fishing rod (Dieramapulcherrimum), a native of southern Africathat has small pink, purple, or white flow-ers on slender dancing stems to six feet.Grow this plant in free-draining soil whereit will receive regular water in summer.

As for annuals, lacy-leafed umbelliferssuch as dill (Anethum graveolens), fennel(Foeniculum vulgare), and bishop’s lace(Ammi majus) have sparse umbels con-sisting of hundreds of small florets. Theseplants have the added benefit of cateringto a variety of pollinators and other bene-ficial insects, but they also self-sow readi-ly, so be sure to deadhead them.

And there’s no livelier see-through an-nual than Brazilian verbena (Verbenabonariensis) with its butterfly-friendlypurple flowers topping tall, wiry stems.Try this self-seeder in a mass planting ofZinnia angustifolia ‘Profusion Orange’ forspectacular summer color.

GETTING STARTEDThe best way to perfect a plantingscheme using see-through plants is to doa little research first, checking out someof the plants mentioned here in booksand at botanical gardens and snappingphotos of good combinations you comeacross in your travels. (For a few designtips, see the box on page 30.)

Above all, make sure your cast of“screen stars” performs well in your own

garden. In warmer areas, for example, del-phiniums can be divas, and fennel tendsto self-sow aggressively in the mid-Atlanticregion and in California. But once you’veassigned the starring roles and directed afew performances, the scrim scenes inyour garden are sure to garner rave reviewsfrom all who see them. �

Janet Davis is a freelance writer and photo-grapher based in Toronto, Ontario.T

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Clump-forming Mexican feather grass(Nasella tenuissima), above, bloomsthroughout summer, adding a thin screenbetween other plants and gentle movementin the garden. Right: Fairy wand (Dieramapulcherrimum) grows from a corm and bearssmall pink, purple, or white flowers on wirystems that grow three to six feet tall.

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This snub might be due tothe slightly vexing habitevening primroses have ofclosing their flowers duringthe heat of the day, so whengarden centers are open, theflowers are not, making theseotherwise desirable plants ahard sell. This trait is more ob-vious in sun-drenched cli-mates—and not all species ofevening primroses close in thedaytime. In regions where theweather is misty or skies aregenerally overcast, even even-ing-blooming varieties maydeign to stay open all day.

THE GENUS AT A GLANCEEvening primroses belong tothe genus Oenothera, and areclosely related to Calylophus(see sidebar, page 38). Both aremembers of the evening prim-rose family (Onagraceae),which includes other Ameri-can natives such as gaura (Gaura spp.) andclarkia (Clarkia spp.).

There is much disagreement about thederivation of the genus name, but it ap-pears to be a case where a name connect-ed with a different genus was assignedwithout a clear rationale. Reportedly,

Oenothera combines the Greek oinos(“wine”) with thera (“booty”) because—according to one source—consumptionof evening primrose root allowed the im-

biber to drink more winethan might be prudent.

Flowers are four-petaledand the color yellow predom-inates, but a few species, mostnotably Oenothera caespitosa,are white, and several of theyellow species have white vari-ants. Many of those withwhite flowers have pink un-dertones that become morepronounced as they age. Cer-tain selections of O. speciosaare true pink. For the mostpart, the flowers are an inch ortwo in diameter, but, in a fewcases, they are enormous,reaching up to six inchesacross. All have the satiny, lu-minescent quality typical offlowers that bloom at nightand so rely on reflected moon-light to attract night-flyingpollinators such as hawkmoths. Most are also sweetlyscented.

Foliage varies but is generally narrow orlance shaped. In more than one species, theleaves are every bit as attractive as the flow-ers, their edges ruffled or the surface silvery.Leaves or stems of several cultivars have areddish cast that is typically more pro-nounced in spring or autumn.

Evening PrimrosesConjure magic in your garden at dusk with the diverse members of

the genus Oenothera and its relations.

BY MARCIA TATROE

THE DIVERSE evening primrose clan lays claim to some of the largest and showiestflowers of America’s native flora. Brightening roadsides from coastal Florida to the desertsof California, these intrepid wildflowers are also among the most amenable to garden

culture. So, why aren’t evening primroses in every American garden? A major reason is that ofalmost 200 species of annuals, biennials, and perennials from a wide variety of habitats acrossNorth and South America, only a dozen or so of the showiest evening primroses have made theirway into cultivation. Many big-name retail purveyors of herbaceous perennials offer nary a one.

Missouri evening primrose (Oenothera macro-carpa) blooms from late spring to early autumn.

In form, evening primroses run thegamut from stiffly upright to low andspreading. The latter are ideal for cas-cading over walls. Smaller, more com-pact types are unbeatable for rockgardens, particularly in areas where sum-mers are too hot and dry for true alpines.Taller evening primroses are strikingfillers for the traditional border or mead-ow planting. Dryland western speciesadd color to xeriscapes.

Seeds form in late summer in elongat-ed capsules—some with prominent paperywings—that turn brown as they mature.

CARING FOR EVENING PRIMROSES Garden culture is as variable as the eveningprimroses’ wide geographic distributionsuggests, but most are obligate sun-lovers.Many will not bloom unless sunshine isfull on their face. In general, they grow bestif planted in free-draining soil; westernspecies in particular succumb if the soil re-tains moisture in winter.

Evening primroses have few pests ordisease problems when their cultural re-quirements are met. One exception is theflea beetle, which, in bad years, can filigreethe foliage in short order. Kelly Grum-mons of Timberline Gardens in Arvada,Colorado, recommends controlling thesepests with lemon-scented dish soap mixedthree to five tablespoons per gallon ofwater and sprayed once a week for up tofive weeks starting when the beetles firstappear in June. Insecticidal soap or horti-cultural oil is also effective.

WESTERN SPECIESThe bulk of evening primroses native tothe western half of the United States areshort and best suited to rock gardens, usedas accents along dry water courses, orplaced at the front of xeric borders. Two ex-ceptions are Bridges evening primrose (O.longissima, USDA Zones 6–9, AHS Zones10–6), found in Bridges National Monu-ment in Utah and throughout the GreatBasin region, and Organ Mountainevening primrose (O. organensis, Zones5–8, 9–5), from the Organ Mountains inNew Mexico. Although rare in cultivationand usually only available through seed ex-changes, both are easy to start from seedand have large, showy flowers.

Oenothera longissima grows in micro-climates where moisture collects. It reach-

es three to four feet in height and producespale yellow flowers from mid- to late sum-mer. It is short-lived but can self-sow, andseedlings are easy to dig up and transplant.Also yellow, but with a sherbety-orangewash, Organ Mountain evening primroseis the longest enduring evening primrosein my garden, at 15 years and counting. Itreaches two feet tall when watered weeklyand blooms on and off all summer.

Of the western evening primroses,Oenothera caespitosa (Zones 4–8, 8–1) isunquestionably the most widely recog-nized and beloved. Depending on localcustom, you might find this wildflower re-ferred to as morning lily, tufted evening

primrose, handkerchief plant, gumbo lily,rockrose, or alkali lily. Whatever you call it,O. caespitosa is ubiquitous along roadsides,from the western edge of the high plains ofNebraska and the Dakotas, west to thescrub deserts of California, and south intoArizona and New Mexico. Despite its har-diness, this plant performs best in semi-arid regions. It tolerates pure clay inbadlands habitats but is more successful ingardens if the soil is moderately welldrained and when watered once or twice amonth; it does not tolerate wet feet.

The silky white flowers of O. caespitosacan be as large as four inches across, eachpetal forming a perfect heart. The fragrantJ

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Borne in summer, the fragrant flowers of Oenothera caespitosa can be four inches across.

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flowers open late in the day, and, in a fewsubspecies, fade to pink the followingmorning before collapsing at midday. Afterthe first flush of flowers in late spring, O.caespitosa blooms on and off throughoutthe growing season, each rainstorm bring-ing forth another flush of flowers. Silverygray leaves, slightly furry to the touch andirregularly toothed along their margins, aretypically held in a ground-hugging rosette.Oenothera caespitosa subsp. eximia is theexception—its 12-inch-long stems arch outfrom the center like legs on a spider.

In his book Jewels of the Plains (see“Resources,” below), the late Claude Barrcalled Oenothera brachycarpa “an un-equalled treasure for the night garden.”Now generally reclassified as O. howardii(Zones 4–9, 9–4), this treasure remainsmostly undiscovered, even though itgrows on dry, rocky hillsides over much ofthe interior West. When winter and

spring rains have been generous, its lumi-nescent, saucer-sized flowers light up thefoothills west of Denver near my home.

The sweetly fragrant flowers, whichbloom from May through August, open atdusk and close by mid-morning, fading tobronze—hence the common name bronzeevening primrose. Its sage green foliage isas distinctive as the flowers, the wavy mar-gins of each leaf edged in white.

I suspect O. howardii is not in everyxeric garden west of the Mississippi onlybecause it is so similar to the Missourievening primrose, which is much morewidely available. While not nearly asdrought tolerant as O. howardii, its east-ern cousin can handle a greater range ofcultural conditions.

EASTERN EVENING PRIMROSESThe Missouri evening primrose (O.macrocarpa, Zones 5–8, 8–3) is abundantacross the central states on dry prairies,badlands, and bluffs. The flowers are spec-tacular, three inches across and radiant,traffic-stopping yellow. So sensitive arethese flowers to changing light conditionsthat once, when my husband and I weretrying to photograph them in a friend’sgarden, we observed the flowers open andclose as clouds passed overhead.

The botanical name for Missouri

evening primrose, sometimes calledOzarks sundrops, has been a source ofconfusion and controversy over the years.Originally named O. macrocarpa by itsdiscoverer, plant explorer Thomas Nuttall,it was published as O. missourensis in Cur-tis’s Botanical Magazine in 1813. The mis-spelling has in many cases been correctedto O. missouriensis, but some botanicaldetective work in the 1960s restored Nut-tall’s original name.

Plants are variable, with several sub-species and selections, mainly distin-guished by differences in foliage. Theleaves of the type species, Missouri eveningprimrose (O. macrocarpa subsp. macro-carpa), are glossy and dark green. Those ofFremont’s evening primrose (O. macro-carpa subsp. fremontii), from the chalk hillsof Nebraska and Kansas, are long, narrow,and silvery. A newly introduced cultivarfrom High Country Gardens (see“Sources,” this page), ‘Shimmer’, lives upto its name, with bright yellow flowers andsilver-gray leaves that resemble a Califor-nia poppy.

From dry habitats in Kansas and souththrough the Texas panhandle, O. macro-carpa subsp. incana ‘Silver Blade’ is anoth-er stunner with its large blue leaves frostedsilver. Selected for red stems that stand outagainst silvery foliage, O. macrocarpa ‘Co-

Although individual flowers of Oenothera fruticosa are only two inches across, they appearin showy clusters throughout summer, forming a colorful groundcover.

SourcesBluestone Perennials, Madison, OH.(800) 852-5243. www.bluestoneperennials.com.

Forestfarm, Williams, OR. (541)846-7269. www.forestfarm.com.

Great Basin Natives, Holden, UT.(435) 795-2303. www.greatbasinnatives.com.

High Country Gardens, Santa Fe, NM.(800) 925-9387. www.highcountrygardens.com.

Siskiyou Nursery, Medford, OR.(541) 535-7103. www.siskiyourareplantnursery.com.

Resources“A Garden Study of Sundrops andEvening Primroses.” Plant EvaluationNotes, No. 26. Chicago Botanic Gar-den, Glencoe, Illinois, 2005.

Jewels of the Plains by Claude A.Barr. University of Minnesota Press,Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1983.

manche Campfire’, selected by HarlanHamernik of Bluebird Nursery in Clark-son, Nebraska, is also a real knockout.

All subspecies of O. macrocarpa tend tosprawl, making them ideal for cascadingdown walls. To keep plants more compact,cut long stems back to the center foliagerosette at any time during the growing sea-son. Although they are drought tolerant,supplemental watering guarantees moreand larger flowers. Good drainage in win-ter is vital. Stephanie Cohen, author ofPerennial Gardener’s Design Primer, reportsthat the selection ‘Silver Wings’ performswell in her Pennsylvania garden. Extremehumidity in the South is another matterentirely. In the experience of Tony Aventof Plants Delight Nursery, none of the O.macrocarpa varieties he has tried have sur-vived the humid and moist summers ofRaleigh, North Carolina.

Gardeners in damp, humid regions dohave some choices, however. Commonevening primrose or sundrops (O. fruti-cosa, Zones 4–8, 8–1) is native to the east-ern United States and excels in the Southand in the Midwest. Its flowers are yellow

and only two inches across, but they aredisplayed in clusters, so you get a lot ofbang for your buck. And its flowers stayopen during the day.

There are a dozen or so named selec-tions available with subtle variations in

flower color. ‘Fyrverkeri’ (Fireworks), forexample, has orange-red buds and bur-gundy fall foliage. This particularly florif-erous cultivar was one of the top-ratedperformers among evening primrose se-lections during a five-year evaluation ofthe genus conducted at the ChicagoBotanic Garden in Glencoe, Illinois (see“Resources,” page 36). The buds on ‘Son-nenwende’ (Solar Solstice) are deep redand the leaves become reddish in autumn.Avent and Cohen are both partial to‘Cold Crick’, a floriferous selection intro-duced by Peggy Rowley of Cold CrickNursery in Virginia. It grows eight to 12inches tall and has bright yellow flowers.

Common evening primrose can sur-vive dry spells in the East, but extendeddrought will kill it. These plants look theirbest with regular watering but have a ten-dency to drop their lower leaves late insummer. If they become unsightly, prunethem back to their basal foliage.

A few evening primroses are nomadic.But as long as they are sited with care, evenaggressive spreaders can have their uses.And care is definitely the watchword forT

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‘Cold Crick’ is a cultivar of O. fruticosa withfoliage that turns bright red in autumn.

MORE EVENING PRIMROSESName Height Flower Color Notable Features Origin USDA/AHS ZonesHooker’s evening primrose 2–3 feet pale yellow, good in mixed California, Mexico Zones 7–9, 9–7(Oenothera elata var. hookeri) aging to orange bordersMagic evening primrose 5 feet pale yellow flowers open like of cultivated origin Zones 3–8, 8–1(O. glazioviana clockwork at dusksyn. O. erythrosepala)

Oenothera versicolor 2 feet pale pinkish can be grown as species native to Zones 5–9, 9–6‘Sunset Boulevard’ orange an annual South America

Saltillo evening primrose up to 1 foot pale yellow good groundcover Baja, Mexico Zones 7–9, 9–7(Oenothera stubbei, for xeric gardenssyn. O. drummondii)

Left to right: Oenothera glazioviana,Oenothera versicolor ‘Sunset Boulevard’,Oenothera stubbei.

the seductively pretty showy eveningprimrose (Oenothera speciosa, Zones 5–8,8–1). This is one of the few plants I haveactually evicted from my garden—after itcrossed a three-foot-wide concrete side-walk and smothered an entire flowerbedon the other side. My experience is notunique; Avent calls it one of the worstweeds he’s ever encountered.

There is no question that O. speciosais an attractive perennial. Sweetly scent-ed and day-blooming, it produces flow-ers in such profusion that they nearlyobscure the plant—and they keep com-ing all summer long on stems 12 to 18inches tall. White forms are more

northerly in origins and generally morewinter hardy than their pink southerncounterparts. This species tolerates ex-treme humidity and does best with week-ly watering. Long, hot, dry spells can killit in desert climates. There are severalnamed selections, among them white-flowered ‘Alba’ and ‘Woodside White’,and pink ‘Rosea’ and ‘Pink Petticoats.’The pink-flowered cultivar ‘Siskiyou’ wasalso rated highly during the evaluation atChicago Botanic Garden.

Westerners have their own bad actor inthe invasive pale evening primrose (O.pallida), which hails from sandy places inWyoming and South Dakota, and south

through Oklahoma and New Mexico.The only safe place to grow tenaciousgroundcovers such as O. speciosa or O.pallida might be a median strip in themiddle of a wide boulevard or a dry, rockyslope where nothing else will grow.

UP TO THE CHALLENGEThe evening primrose’s rarity in Ameri-can gardens might also be another one ofthose cases where familiarity breeds con-tempt. We gardeners have a long historyof turning up our noses at any wildflowerthat grows along roadsides or in vacantlots, deeming them too common for thegarden proper.

But recent trends are beginning to re-flect new attitudes. We are starting to valueour native plants, especially those that cantake care of themselves. And when it comesto plucky, few native wildflowers can holda candle to the evening primrose. Theverspertine selections offer a perfect excuseto gather friends in your garden at dusk towatch as the buds unfurl and the pollina-tors arrive to do their thing. �

Garden columnist for the Denver Post,Marcia Tatroe lives in Centennial, Col-orado. Her most recent book is CuttingEdge Gardening in the IntermountainWest (Johnson Books, 2007). L

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Despite its name, showy evening primrose’s (Oenothera speciosa) flowers open during the day.This plant can spread aggressively, so be sure it is contained in the garden.

CALYLOPHUS: THE OTHEREVENING PRIMROSE

Variously called sundrops and eveningprimroses, the genus Calylophus con-sists of long-lived perennials and sub-shrubs invaluable for xeric gardens andlandscapes. Calylophus plants are dis-tinguished from oenotheras by yellow

square-shaped flowers with wrinkledpetals that could have been fashionedfrom crepe paper. They also have per-sistent, slightly woody, stems. Thesewildflowers bloom all summer if wa-tered once a week, but they can with-stand significant drought in xeric plant-ings. All are native to harsh places inthe West and are quite hardy.

Fendler’s sundrops (Calylophushartwegii subsp. fendleri, Zones 5–8,8–5) bears two-inch-wide clear yellowflowers that age to pale orange. Theyopen at the end of the day and closelate the following morning. Leaves aregreen on foot-long stems that tend tosprawl. The flowers of lavenderleafsundrops (C. lavandulifolius, Zones4–8, 8–4) are similar but paler yellowand the foliage is grayish-green.

Sawtooth evening primrose (C. ser-rulatus, Zones 3–9, 9–4) is more shrub-like, typically 10 inches tall, with smallbut profuse flowers that stay open dur-ing the daytime. A compact selectioncalled ‘Prairie Lode’ bears larger, fullerflowers on a six-inch plant. —M.T.

Calylophus hartwegii flowers havewrinkled petals typical of the genus.

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IT IS NOT surprising that many gar-deners tend to think of low tempera-ture as the be-all, end-all limit to

plant survival. This notion has been rein-forced by what we have read and the waythat plants are sold. The tags on nurserycontainers and the descriptions in manyplant catalogs and other garden literatureoften measure plant suitability only by the

degrees of cold a plant will tolerate corre-sponding to the hardiness zones of eitherthe U.S. Department of Agriculture’s nowvery out-of-date Plant Hardiness mapor—for Western gardeners—Sunset mag-azine’s Climate Zone Map.

The publication of the American Hor-ticultural Society’s Heat Zone Map in1997 encouraged us to examine what we

have been conditioned to disregard: Heatcan be as great a barrier to plant perfor-mance and survival as is cold.

In fact, some plants like it cold. Le-gions of plants inhabit the planet’s frostyregions. When they are transplanted intogardens, they live better, longer, or at allonly where winter temperatures plummetand summers are cool.

The preference for a cooler climate maynot always be obvious to those of us whogarden in more temperate climes. Peren-nials such as Joe Pye weed (Eupatoriummaculatum), Canada mayflower (Ma-ianthemum canadense), fireweed (Epilobi-um angustifolium), and trillium (Trilliumgrandiflorum) seem to grow and flower sat-isfactorily in the South. It isn’t until we seetheir behavior in the wee zones, where theymultiply into vast colonies, that their clearpreference for cold climates is manifest.

Likewise, some of the most outstand-ing stars in northern gardens—lilacs,lupines, and peonies, for example—maysurvive below the Mason-Dixon line, butthey never put on quite the same dazzlingshow that they present in northern gar-dens. Nor do lady’s mantles (Alchemillaspp.), coral bells (Heuchera spp.), and cer-tain lilies seem as lush, big, and healthy inUSDA Zone 7 as they do in Zone 5.

When heat causes plants to fail, the“aha!” moment, when the gardener real-izes it’s the temperature that’s causing theproblem, can be slow in coming becausethe effects of heat on plant performancecan cause a gradual demise that is attrib-uted to, and often invites, other problems.At other times, heat’s effect on a treasuredplant is swift and devastating. Some plantssimply can’t abide it.

Hardy Plantsfor cool-climate gardensThese reliably hardy perennials, shrubs, and trees thrive in

cold-weather regions. BY CAROLE OTTESEN

Above: Bunchberry (Cornus canadensis) blooms abundantly in May and June, then sporadicallythroughout summer. Top right: Its showy fruit has been used to thicken sauces and puddings.

THE ICE QUEENRhodora (Rhododendron canadense,USDA Hardiness Zones 3–6, AHS HeatZones 6–2) is the poster child of the chillyweather plant, one that demands moistcold to survive. It doesn’t take well to do-mestication either, but grows freely andblooms beautifully in the wild. Thispropensity prompted Ralph Waldo Emer-son to write:

Rhodora! if the sages ask thee whyThis charm is wasted on the earth and sky,Tell them, dear, that, if eyes were made

for seeing,Then beauty is its own excuse for Being.

Unique among native azaleas, the rose-purple flowers have a more deeply dividedcorolla, elongating the petals and lendingthem a tousled appearance. The flowers al-ways seem both too vivacious and dispro-portionately large for the modest shrublets.Like many native azaleas, rhodora is de-ciduous and stoloniferous. Unlike most, itrarely grows over three feet tall in themoist-to-wet areas where it colonizes hum-mocks. Those who canoe the boundarywaters between Minnesota and Ontario inMay are treated to splendid displays ofrhodora in bloom.

With few exceptions, rhodora can onlybe enjoyed in the wild. But, thanks to theUniversity of Minnesota’s Woody Land-scape Plant Breeding and Genetics Pro-gram, gardeners can enjoy azaleas with

rhodora genes and some of rhodora’s win-ning characteristics in their own backyards.

Since 1957, the Woody LandscapePlant Breeding program has developedazalea cultivars “sufficiently hardy forUSDA Zone 4,” states Associate ProfessorStan Hokanson. One of the program’sstars is Lilac Lights™, a cross of R.canadense and R. ✕kosteranum, made in1979. It captures the vivacity of rhodora’sflowers; long, tousled lavender petals witha contrasting purple blotch.

“Lilac Lights is an improved version of‘Orchid Lights’—an earlier hybrid—thatpossesses stronger lower flower petals,”says Hokanson. “It is also a larger plantthan ‘Orchid Lights’ that flowers on aver-age one-and-a-half weeks later.”

Lilac Lights grows just over three feettall but spreads to four or five feet wide.Unlike its rhodora parent, this azalea hasbeen domesticated and adapts easily to lifein the garden.

GOOD PLANT, BAD RAP Not all wild beauties require chromoso-mal domestication. Just as it is, sheep lau-rel, (Kalmia angustifolia, Zones 1–6, 6–1)would be a popular garden plant by anyother name. But this low-growing nativeshrub suffers from bad publicity. Its com-mon names—lambkill, wicky, calfkill,and sheep-poison—attest to the toxic na-ture of its narcotic leaves and do little torecommend a potentially good plant forcold gardens.

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Rhodora, left, puts on a spectacular flowershow in late spring. Lilac Lights, above, owesits showy flowers to its rhodora genes.

Some plants that merely survive in warmer climates grow with wild abandon in cooler locales. Left: Spotted Joe Pye weed colonizes ahillside in Canada. Right: Cool summers are required for lupines to perform best.

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Its flowers are more dome-shapedand, typically, more deeply colored thanthose of its southern relative, mountainlaurel (K. latifolia), blooming pink to redin June. Like mountain laurel, sheep lau-rel is evergreen, but it is significantlysmaller, ranging from one to three feettall, depending upon exposure. It is ex-tremely hardy and tolerates a wide rangeof soil textures, but grows best in moist,well-drained acidic soil in full sun orlight shade.

Uncommon in the trade, sheep laurelcan be found at native plant sales and theoccasional nursery. Cultivars include thecompact ‘Royal Dwarf,’ the white-flow-ered, stoloniferous ‘Candida’, dark-roseflowered, stoloniferous ‘Hammonasset’,and two selections with lustrous leavesthat originated in Maine, ‘Kennebago’and ‘Poke Logan’.

COVERING COLD GROUNDCultivated bearberry, also called kinnikin-nick (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi, Zones 2–6,6–1), is easier than sheep laurel to find inthe trade but harder to find in the wild.Historically, bearberry grew wild across abroad swathe of the northern tier of NorthAmerica, from British Columbia to

Labrador, and south along mountainranges into California and Virginia.

Bearberry’s usefulness contributed toits disappearance in natural areas; today, itis listed as rare, endangered, and extirpat-ed in parts of its natural range. Not onlywere the berries eaten, the leaves weresmoked, used to tan leather, and havebeen put to medicinal uses since Romantimes. Highly astringent, the leaves wereused to treat urinary diseases as well as dis-orders of the kidneys.

A far better use of bearberry is as agroundcover. A subshrub, it stays undera foot high, but its trailing stems rootslowly outward to six feet or more. Inspring and summer, small lily-of-the-val-ley type flowers appear. Waxy white topalest pink, the flowers bear witness tobearberry’s heath family ties and, conse-quently, its needs.

Bearberry thrives in well-drained,sandy, acidic soils in full sun to very lightshade. While tricky to transplant, onceestablished, this tough, low-growingevergreen will survive in extreme cold,wind, infertile rocky, bone-dry soil, blis-tering sun, or salt spray and needs nopruning or fertilization.

Older cultivars of bearberry include‘Vancouver Jade’, a vigorous introduc-tion from University of British Colum-bia Botanical Garden in Vancouver, withlarger, glossier leaves that turn wine-redin the fall, and ‘Massachusetts’, a disease-

Sheep laurel (Kalmia angustifolia) grows only one to three feet tall, but up to five feet wide,and blooms in late May and June.

Bearberry (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi) is anexcellent groundcover for dry, sunny siteswith infertile, acidic soil.

SourcesFairweather Gardens, Greenwich, NJ.(856) 451-6261. www.fairweathergardens.com. Catalog $5.

Forestfarm, Williams, OR. (541)846-7269. www.forestfarm.com.Print catalog $5, free online.

Greer Gardens, Eugene, OR. (800)548-0111. www.greergardens.com.Online and free print catalog.

Landscape Alternatives, Inc.,Shafer, MN. (651) 257-4460. www.landscapealternatives.com.Online catalog.

Meadowbrook Nursery/We-Du Natives,Marion, NC. (828) 738-8300.www.we-du.com. Online and freeprint catalog.

Western Native Seed, Coaldale, CO.(719) 942-3935. www.westernnativeseed.com. Online catalog.

EXPERTS' PICK OF COLD-HARDY PLANTS BY REGION

MIDWEST: WOODLAND PLANTS FOR SHADY GARDENS

Neil Diboll, president of Prairie Nursery in Westfield, Wisconsin, calls these "the

hardiest of the hardies, everything you could expect in a perennial: tough, long

lived, low maintenance, and tolerant of extreme cold as well as heat."

American wild ginger (Asarum canadense, Zones 2-8,8-1)

False Solomon's seal (Smilacina racemosa, Zones 4-9, 9-1)

Lady fern (Athyrium filix-femina, Zones 4-9, 9-1)

Large flowered bellwort (Uvularia grandiflora, Zones 3-7, 7-1)

Northern maidenhair fern (Adiantum pedatum, Zones 3-8, 8-1)*

Wild geranium (Geranium maculatum, Zones 4-8, 8-1)

*needs shelter from strong wind.

SOUTHWEST: SHADE-TOLERANT PLANTS FOR DRY CLIMATES

David Salman, president and chief horticulturist at High Country Gardens in San

ta Fe, New Mexico, suggests the following plants for dry, shady places.

Comfrey (Symphytum 'Hidcote Blue', Zones 4-7,7-1)

Horehound (Marrubium sp. 'Green Apple' or 'Apple Green', Zones 4-9, 9-1)*

Plumbago (Ceratostigma plumbaginoides, Zones 5-9, 9-4)

Prairie poppy mallow (Callirhoe involucrata var. tenuissima, Zones 4-6, 7-1)**

Yarrow (Achillea mille folium 'White Wonder', Zones 3-9,9-1)

*an obscure reseeding Marrubium that thrives in dry shade

**semi-shade or dappled shade

ALASKA: DOUBLE-DUTY PLANTS FOR EXTREME WEATHER

Co-author of Chicken Soup for the Gardener's Soul, Marion Owen, the UpBeet

Gardener from Kodiak, Alaska, likes these plants because they provide food and gar

den interest.

Chives (Allium schoenoprasum, Zones 4-8, 12-1)

Currants (Ribes hudsonianum and sp., Zones 1-5, 5-1)

Johnny jump-up (Viola tricolor, Zones 3-9, 12-1)

Red-twig dogwood (Comus sericea, syn. C. stolonifera, Zones 3-8,8-1)

Rhubarb (Rheum rhabarbarum, Zones 3-8,8-1)

42 THE AMERICAN GARDENER

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resistant bearberry with abundant flowers and fruits. The long-lasting red berries, technically "drupes," are eaten by bears and also provide an important food for other wildlife.

In addition to A. uva-ursi, some new Arctostaphylos selections have been introduced through the Plant Select® program. Administered by Denver Botanic Gardens and Colorado State University with horticulturists and nurseries throughout the Rocky Mountain region, this program finds and promotes the best plants for landscapes and gardens from the intermountain region to the high plains. Two cultivars of an interspecific hybrid bearberry (Arctostaphylos xcoloradensis, Zones 4-8, 8-3), Mock Bearberry'" manzanita and Panchito'" manzanita, were chosen in 2005 and 2006 respectively. "Both are cold hardy to USDA Zone 4b and hardy to about 7,000 to 7,500 feet elevation. Both came from the Uncompahgre plateau in western Colorado," says Jim Klett, professor and Extension landscape horticulturist at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. Both bloom between February and April and "are xeric once they are established," says Klett.

Like bearberry, bunchberry (Cornus canadensis, Zones 2-7, 7-1) makes a good groundcover and is named for its brilliant red drupes that also have been used both medicinally and in cooking. Another common name, puddingberry, derives from its use in making traditional New England plum pudding.

Fortunately, bunch berry is abundant. It grows from coast to coast in Canada and the northern United States and on mountaintops further south. It thrives wherever summers are mild and acid soil stays cooler than 65 degrees Fahrenheit.

A tiny, three-to-six-inch shrublet, bunchberry cohabits with blueberries and other heath family plants in moist, welldrained soil. It will grow in sun, but in shade, bunchberry spreads outward by rhizomes and by seed into vast, thickly populated colonies. As it covers the ground, cleanly cut whorls of leaves present appealing and uniform evergreen to semi-evergreen texture that become red to mahogany in color in fall.

In May and June and sporadically through the summer and into fall, showy white dogwood-type flowers appear. As

with dogwood trees (Cornus spp.), thetrue flowers are actually small, encircledby white bracts that look like petals.

Bunchberry flowers pollinate curiouslyand explosively. When an insect lands onone of the true flowers, the flowers catapultpollen onto the visitor, a phenomenon thatlasts only a micro-second. Scientists spec-ulate that the explosion disperses pollenonto the body of the insects where it isharder for them to eat it, thus enhancingthe chances for the pollen to be transferredto another flower.

SUPER-NATURALLY HARDYBerries are a lasting and reliable ornamentin northern gardens that have the added

advantage of supporting wildlife. Follow-ing “abundant, showy, and long-lasting”June flowers, the berries of the Americanmountain ash (Sorbus americana, Zones3–5, 6–1) provide “an equally abundantfruit harvest for our birds,” says NovaScotia gardener and birder Beth Kent.Even in the midst of the North’s extrava-ganza of blazing fall foliage, the mountainash’s berries are standouts.

The extremely hardy moun-tain ash is the perfect size andshape for a residential land-scape. Reaching about 20 feettall, it also makes a good speci-men tree. The leaves aresumaclike and deciduous.‘Dwarfcrown’ (Red Cascade™)is a compact cultivar that growsonly about 15 feet tall.

Bill Cullina, director ofhorticultural research for theNew England Wild Flower So-ciety, is partial to showy moun-tain ash (S. decora, Zones 2–7,7–3), which has a similar nativerange to American mountainash but flowers and sets fruit aweek or two later. “It’s a beauti-ful tree, and I frankly prefer itto American mountain ash forboth foliar and fruit effect,”writes Cullina in his book Na-tive Trees, Shrubs, and Vines: AGuide to Using, Growing, andPropagating North AmericanWoody Plants (Houghton Mif-flin, 2002).

While the mountain ash isvalued in northern NorthAmerica, its European coun-terpart, the rowan, (Sorbus au-cuparia, Zones 4–7, 7–1) hasenjoyed thousands of years of

adulation in northern Europe and is an-other good choice for cool-climate gar-dens. Its common name, “rowan,” revealsthe awe in which this plant was held.“Rowan” is derived from the word rune,which means “magical” or “secret” (fromthe Old Norse rogn, an ancient word thatfigures in Scandinavian mythology).

It isn’t too hard to imagine why our an-cestors deemed a plant magical when it re-mained unscathed and insouciant in theface of cold so deadly, it threatened humanlife. If not magical, plants that revive tobloom lustily in the tentative springs thatfollow fearsome winters are awe-inspiring.Impervious to ice and snow, these hardysurvivors bloom and bear fruit in placeswhere the temperature plummets and icywinds howl through the bitter nights—and they like it that way. �

Carole Ottesen is a contributing writer forThe American Gardener.C

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The arching branches of the rowan tree(Sorbus aucuparia) bear white flowers inspring followed by brilliant red berries.Right: Folklore attributes magical powers tothe rowan tree’s glossy berries.

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CONE ON ONE WITH…

Linda McIntyre: Having studied artand architecture in college, how didyou wind up in landscape design? Steve Martino: I feel all architectsshould be landscape architects; the de-signers of buildings should not turn thesite over to others. I had planned onbeing an architect, but early in my career,I had a chance to work on a project thatincluded several buildings as well as thespaces in between. The latent landscapearchitect in me began to emerge, and Ifound that engaging the full site reallyadded to the project.

I took a job with a landscape architectfor a couple of years to learn some skills.During that time, I started looking morecritically at the landscaped areas we live inand realized the desert ecosystem wasmore interesting than anything in the city!I saw the desert as a model for how tolandscape.

What sparked your interest in usingnative plants? While I was with the landscape architect,we worked on a townhouse project nextto a remnant desert site. We were usingMediterranean plants—they’ll live in the

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT Steve Martino has been designing gardens with native plants for morethan 30 years, long before it was considered “cool.” Even more impressive, he began doing it in a

place—Phoenix, Arizona, and its environs—where much of the landscaping followed a regionally inap-propriate and uninspired pattern of lawn and foundation plantings.

Martino has received many awards for his pioneering efforts. In 2006, the Ameri-can Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) presented him with the ASLA DesignMedal. As Reed Kroloff, dean of the Tulane University School of Architecture, said inhis letter nominating Martino for the medal, “Without Martino’s influence, Phoenixwould be wall-to-wall Bermuda grass. What would be left of the water table could becarried around in a Mason jar.”

This year, Martino is the recipient of the 2007 American Horticultural Society Landscape Design Award.Linda McIntyre caught up with him recently in the busy three-person office of his firm, Cactus City Design,to talk about his work creating gardens that promote the beauty of the desert landscape.

by Linda McIntyre

Steve Martino: From Heretic to Hero in the Desert Southwest

desert but they need a lot of attention andirrigation. Next to the property there wasall of this great mesquite (Prosopis spp.)and creosote bush (Larrea tridentata).When I asked why we were using high-maintenance Mediterranean plants whenthose others would grow naturally in ourconditions, I was told they were “weeds.”That answer wasn’t good enough for me.

How did you find plants for your pro-jects before there was an establishednative plant movement and a networkof growers? I found a local nurseryman, Ronald Gass,who knew just about every plant in thedesert. I’d bring him seeds and we’d alsogo out collecting together in southernArizona and Mexico. I even worked forhim as a propagator for a while.

It’s been a great relationship from thebeginning, when I needed a source for na-tive plants and he needed a market. Hestarted out growing plants in soup canscollected from local elementary schools.He has a big operation now—MountainStates Wholesale Nursery in Glendale,Arizona—and I’m still working with him.

How do you use native plants in yourdesigns? I sometimes call my approach to design“weeds and walls.” I like to contrast theforms of our desert plants with hard-scape. The sun here is so bright that itflattens out texture and washes out color.Plants such as cactus cast great shadows;they act as a sort of sundial against a wall.

Beyond their aesthetics, are there otherqualities that draw you to natives? Native plants are tough; I consider them“high tech.” They represent the state ofthe art of the evolution of a place. We re-cently had a freeze out here that wipedout exotic plants all over town, but thenatives, which have long adapted to theidiosyncrasies of our climate, survived.

Native plants also attract a variety ofpollinators and predators to the garden,making it a habitat.

Have other designers and home gar-deners started to embrace natives?A lot of my clients come to Phoenix fromother places, and they really want thedesert experience. When I was starting

out decades ago, the plants I used seemedso unusual that they stopped people intheir tracks. Now, the trend in the designworld is to use native plants in regional-ly harmonious landscapes. I like to sayI’ve gone from heretic to hero by doingthe same thing!

Do you have favorite plants? I love trees. Mesquite and palo verde(Parkinsonia spp.) are a couple of partic-ular favorites. I love their bark, the beans,their habit, the way they evoke the desert.

But each and every plant can offer afascinating look into another world. Ionce had a volunteer plant in my owngarden that turned out to be jimsonweed(Datura stramonium). One night, I saw ahuge, dinner-plate size moth on it, amoth that only pollinates that plant. Ilived in the city and the moth lived outin the country, but somehow it foundthis plant. When these sorts of thingshappen, you realize that a garden is muchmore than decorative. �

Linda McIntyre is a freelance writer wholives in Washington, D.C.


Left: Peaks in the PhoenixMountains Preserve provide arugged backdrop for this residentialyard designed by Steve Martino. Awater trough reflects the naturalbeauty of the sky and mountains.Surrounding it are plants native tothe Sonoran Desert, includingmesquite (Prosopis velutina),ocotillo (Fouquieria splendens),desert iron wood (Olneya tesota),brittlebush (Encelia farinosa), andblue palo verde (Parkinsoniaflorida).

Opposite page: Echoing the desertmountains both in color and inspirit, the undulating wall on thiscommercial property sets off acolorful border of creosote bush(Larrea tridentata), octopus agave(Agave vilmoriniana), Eaton’spenstemon (Penstemon eatonii),desert marigold (Baileya multi-radiata), and other native species.

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CNATURAL CONNECTIONS

A DEPENDENT NATUREThe plant’s characteristics have earned itsuch epithets as devil’s-hair, witches’shoelaces, lover’s knot, and tanglegut. De-pending on the species, the plants producesmall pink, creamy, or white flowers inclusters from late spring through fall on fil-amentlike green, orange, or yellow stemscovered with minute leaves resemblingscales. The fruit is about one-eighth inchin diameter and usually contains four seedsencased in a thick heat- and fire-resistantcoat that allows the seeds to retain viabili-ty for many years. A single dodder plantcan produce more than 16,000 seeds.

Seedlings produce a tiny ephemeralroot but negligible amounts of chlorophylland sugars and, therefore, must quickly lo-cate a host plant to provide food. “Dodderseedlings that fail to find a host usually diein about 10 days,” says Colin Purrington,associate professor of biology at Swarth-more College in Pennsylvania.

Twining counterclockwise in its searchfor a host, the dodder vine coils aroundeverything in its path. Once a suitable hostis found, dodder encircles it in a strangle-hold. Adventitious rootlets called hausto-ria develop from tiny buds where thedodder stem touches the host, penetratingthe host and extracting carbohydrates,minerals, and water. The root that hadoriginally anchored the dodder to the soilis no longer needed and dies off.

Growing three to six inches per day, thevine produces more and more haustoriauntil both hosts and non-hosts near themare barely perceptible beneath a tangledmass of the parasite’s spaghettilike stems.

Younger, less established plants usual-ly succumb to the parasite after an attack.A mature host is more likely to survive,but in a weakened state that makes itmore susceptible to disease. Dodder alsotransmits a number of plant diseases. Aninfestation can have huge economic im-plications for vulnerable crops such as al-falfa, beets, corn, cotton, flaxseed,potatoes, and tomatoes.

SNIFFING OUT A HOSTHow does dodder locate a preferred host?Professors Consuelo M. De Moraes andMark C. Mescher and graduate studentJustin B. Runyon, all of Pennsylvania StateUniversity, set out to find the answers.

They knew that tomato is a preferredhost of five-angled dodder (Cuscuta pen-tagona). “In a series of experiments usingC. pentagona and tomato plants, we ruledout the ‘random’ theory,” Mescher says.“We discovered instead that the dodderwas drawn to the host by detecting theairborne chemical compounds that werereleased by the host plant.”

Volatiles released by plants serve animportant purpose: drawing pollinatorsto flowers; stimulating surroundingplants to produce chemical deterrents topests; and luring predators of pests. Inthis situation, however, the parasite de-tects the scent of another plant’s volatilesand uses them to its advantage!

ALTHOUGH NOT A COMMON PEST, the parasitic plant, dodder (Cuscuta spp.), can be a serious prob-lem when it occurs. Of the approximately 170 species worldwide, about 50 are found in the United

States, most of which are annuals. The genus is included on the Federal Noxious Weed List administeredby the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, although some native or widely scatteredspecies are excluded from “noxious” status.

by Kathryn Lund Johnson

Avoiding the Stranglehold of Dodder

Delicate-looking flowers belie the strangling ways of five-angled dodder (Cuscuta pentagona).

PREVENTION AND CONTROL The best way to control dodder is toavoid introducing it in the first place.Once established, the parasite is almostimpossible to eradicate. Care must betaken to avoid transporting seed inad-vertently from an infested area to anoth-er location by way of clothing, shoes, orgardening tools.

In the home garden, dodder can behand pulled before seed is produced; afterhaustoria appear, this usually requires re-moval of both the dodder and the hostplant. Household vinegar has proven to beeffective in controlling dodder when it issprayed on the seedlings before they attachthemselves to the host plant. Removeddodder plants should be placed in a se-curely sealed plastic bag and disposed of inthe trash. In some cases, it may be neces-sary to use post-emergent herbicides to killboth the parasite and the host to preventfurther spread of the dodder.

Growing non-host plants is a reliableand effective measure for home gardens.Non-host plants may also be used as ro-tation plants in areas where dodder has

been a problem. The parasite may appearthe first year, but it will be weak and un-able to establish itself. Planting with dod-der-free seed is crucial. It’s also importantto remove any weed hosts of dodder, in-cluding pigweed, nightshade, lambs-quarters, and field bindweed.

W. Thomas Lanini, weed ecologist forthe University of California’s cooperativeExtension, has been studying doddercontrol in relation to the planting dates

of crops and ornamentals. Lanini pro-vides an example: “Garlic is susceptibleto dodder when it is planted in thespring. Dodder generally germinates andemerges in the spring, so the seedlinggrowth of the two coincides, making gar-lic an easy mark for dodder. Planting gar-lic in the summer or fall reduces itschances of becoming a host plant. Tim-ing a planting can offer an alternativemethod of control to weeding or usingherbicides.

Using transplants is also helpful.“Dodder has a difficult time attaching tothe larger stems of the transplants, com-pared to the stems of the smallerseedlings,” says Lanini.

While dodder remains a threat bothin the wild and in gardens, awareness ofthis parasite is increasing, along with re-search that may help control it. Homegardeners can do their part in stemmingits spread through pre-emptive measuresand proper cultural practices. �

Kathryn Lund Johnson is a freelance writerwho lives in Middleville, Michigan.


ResourcesDodder by W.T. Lanini, et al., Univer-sity of California–Davis. www.ipm.ucdavis. edu/pdf/PESTNOTES/pndodder.pdf.

Introduction to Parasitic FloweringPlants by Daniel L. Nickrent and Lyt-ton J. Musselman, American Phy-topathological Society. www.apsnet.org/education/IntroPlantPath/PathogenGroups/Parasiticplants.

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WEED-BUSTING GROUNDCOVERSIf you’re looking for a pesticide-free wayto control weeds in your garden, why notbeat them at their own game and growplants that can out-compete your unin-vited guests. This is exactly what re-

searchers from Cornell University, incooperation with the New York State De-partment of Transportation, decided totry when looking for non-toxic alterna-tives to dealing with weeds along road-sides and other managed landscapes.

In a five-year study of more than 150herbaceous perennials, the researchersfound that “the most successful ground-covers exhibited the ability to establishrapidly, overwinter in USDA Zones 5 to 7,and form a dense canopy of foliage that re-duces light penetration at the soil surface,thereby suppressing weed germination.”

Some of the top low maintenance, pestresistant performers include catmint(Nepeta ‘Walker’s Low’), fall goldenrod(Solidago sphacelata), lady’s mantle (Al-chemilla mollis), and several Sedumspecies. “For shady sites, we love fernssuch as Japanese painted fern (Athyriumniponicum var. pictum),” says Leslie West-on, associate professor of weed manage-ment and natural products chemistry at

Cornell who worked on this study. “Theysuppress weeds and provide color and tex-ture in the landscape.”

A full list of plants in the study, com-plete with each plant’s weed-suppressingrating and other cultural information, canbe found on Cornell’s Allstar Groundcov-ers website (www.gardening.cornell.edu).

MEADOW RUES FOR NORTHERN GARDENERSThe genus Thalictrum, a member of thebuttercup family (Ranunculaceae), com-prises about 130 species of rhizomatousor tuberous perennials, many of whichoffer attractive fernlike foliage and airyflowers to gardens. The Chicago Botan-ic Garden recently released a comparativestudy on 26 meadow rue species and cul-tivars conducted from 1995 through2003, which evaluated ornamental traits,disease and pest resistance, culturaladaptability, and winter hardiness.

Kyushu meadow rue (Thalictrum kiu-sianum), native to Japan, was the small-est species evaluated, reaching a mere twoinches tall without flowers. The speciesearned a four-star rating—the highestscore possible—for producing abundantpink flowers and exhibiting no winter in-jury or major disease problems. The

tallest at 10 feet, the North American na-tive T. pubescens, also received four starsfor “heavy flower production and robusthabits.” Additional top ratings went tonine other taxa including the hybrid‘Elin’, T. flavum subsp. glaucum, and T.rochebruneanum.

Due to weak flower production, lowplant vigor, and excessive winter injury,T. actaeifolium, T. delavayi, and T.ichangense received poor overall ratings.

For a copy of the meadow rue evalua-tion, call the Chicago Botanic Garden at(847) 835-5440 or visit www.chicagobotanic.org.

NEW ONLINE SEED AND FRUIT IDENTIFICATION GUIDE Seeds can range from microscopic to twopounds in weight, and come in an arrayof colors and shapes. This amazing di-versity can make it a challenge to cor-rectly identify them, particularly when itcomes to ensuring exotic invasive speciesdon’t end up in the United States.

To help make this job a little easier, sci-entists with the Agricultural Research Ser-vice (ARS) in Beltsville, Maryland, havecreated an online database called the “Fam-ily Guide for Fruits and Seeds.” It contains418 plant families and more than 3,000photographs that will help Animal andPlant Health Inspection Service agents, re-searchers, and others identify the world’sseeds and fruits. Even gardeners who comeacross an unlabeled packet of homegrownmystery seeds may find it useful. Access thedatabase at http://nt.ars-grin.gov/sbmlweb/onlineresources/frsdfam/.

NATIONAL “CALL BEFORE YOU DIG”NUMBER ESTABLISHEDWhen planning to build a pond, plant atree, put in a fence, or start other projectsthat require digging, it’s important toknow the location of underground utilitylines. The Common Ground Alliance, anassociation that works to prevent damage

Horticultural News and Research Important to American Gardeners

CGARDENER’S NOTEBOOK

‘Elin’, a hybrid meadow rue, performed wellin a Chicago Botanic Garden study.

Master Gardeners plant a roadside ground-cover research plot with a mix of species.

to underground infrastructure, hasset up a new national hotline to“eliminate confusion caused bymultiple ‘call before you dig’ num-bers across the country.” Peopleanywhere in the United States candial 811 to have their utility linesmarked for free. Operators willroute your call to local utility com-panies who will send out a profes-sional locator in a few days. Learnmore at www.call811.com.

WILD MAGNOLIAS IN JEOPARDYAccording to a recent report fromBotanic Gardens ConservationInternational (BGCI), Fauna andFlora International, and theGlobal Trees Campaign, many ofthe world’s wild magnolia species are atrisk of extinction. As stated in the RedList of Magnoliaceae, 131 out of a globaltotal of 245 species are threatened to be-come extinct. “The main causes of thedecline of Magnolia species in the wildare loss of habitat and, for some species,over-exploitation—either for timber or

medicinal products,” says Sara Oldfield,secretary general of BGCI and one of theauthors of the report.

Not only is this “potential catastrophicloss of magnolias” a threat to the family’s

genetic diversity, but these speciesare also a “highly sensitive indica-tor” of the forest’s health. “We nowhave a choice,” says Oldfield. “Wecan use the new information toconserve these important trees andrestore their forest habitats or wecan catalogue their extinction.”

Approximately two-thirds of allmagnolia species are found in Asia,of which more than 40 percent arenative to southern China. Accord-ing to the report, “half of all wildChinese magnolias are at risk ofextinction.” A similar finding isemerging in the Americas. For ex-ample, more than 30 of Colom-bia’s native magnolia species are indanger of extinction.

For more information, visit the BCGIwebsite at www.bgci.org.

VIRTUAL VEGETABLE PROBLEM SOLVERWhen your cucumber plants start inex-plicably wilting or something is makingholes in your tomatoes, it can be frustrat-ing if you don’t know the cause. To helpC

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Magnolia dawsoniana growing wild in theSichuan province of its native China.

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gardeners with pesky problems that cancrop up in vegetable gardens, the Univer-sity of Illinois Cooperative Extension Ser-vice has created a new online resource,“Common Problems for VegetableCrops.” Users can search by vegetable or byproblem, in either English or Spanish. In-sect pests, diseases, and other problems arebriefly described with recommended con-trol measures and photographs of eachsymptom. Visit www.urbanext.uiuc.edu/vegproblems for tips and suggestions forsolving your next veggie pickle.

NATIVE PLANTS DESIGN CONTESTRosicrucian Park, headquarters of the Eng-lish Grand Lodge of the Rosicrucian Orderin San Jose, California, attracts thousandsof visitors annually with its large lawns,rose gardens, fountains, and statues. How-ever, to help reduce water use and cutmaintenance costs, the Rosicrucian Orderwants to replace two of its lawn areas andis inviting the public to help with a new de-sign. The organization is looking for “abrilliant landscape design that comple-ments our Egyptian architecture and gar-dens, using California native plants thatrequire little to no water once they reachmaturity.” Two first-place prizes are beingoffered. The deadline for submission isSeptember 15. For more information, visitwww.rosicrucian.org/nativeplantscontest.

PLEDGE TO PROTECT FORESTSMany insects and plant disease-causing or-ganisms have arrived as stowaways fromother countries, devastating North Amer-ican forests when inadvertently spread bytransporting wood products out of infest-ed areas. Because of this, it is illegal totransport firewood across certain statelines or out of quarantine areas.

In an effort to stem the spread of non-native insects and diseases such as emer-ald ash borers, the Union of ConcernedScientists is asking the public to pledgenot to transport firewood from one siteto another, an issue that becomes moreimportant as the summer camping sea-son gets into full swing. Instead, they rec-ommend using only local firewood.Make your pledge at http://ucsaction.org/campaign/5_22_07_firewood_pledge. �

Written by Assistant Editor Viveka Nevelnand Editorial Intern Courtney Capstack.

PEOPLE and PLACES in the NEWSIn Memoriam: William Flemer, IIINurseryman and plant breeder William Flemer, III, died in April in Princeton, NewJersey, at the age of 85. Representing the third generation of the family-run Prince-

ton Nurseries in Allentown, New Jersey, he was known in-ternationally as an innovative plant breeder, introducingmany new cultivars of trees and shrubs still widely used todayin American landscapes. These include ‘October Glory’ redmaple (Acer rubrum), ‘Greenspire’ linden (Tilia cordata),‘Green Vase’ Japanese zelkova (Zelkova serrata), and ‘Prince-ton Sentry’ ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba). In total, Flemer heldpatents on more than 45 trees, shrubs, and vines.

After serving in World War II, Flemer completed bachelor’sand master’s degrees in botany from Yale University in 1946 and 1947. He thenbegan working at Princeton Nurseries, founded in 1913 by his grandfather, WilliamFlemer, Sr. Working in partnership with his brother, John W. Flemer, he was pres-ident of the business from 1972 to 1992. They expanded the business to includegrafted and containerized stock on more than 2,500 acres.

Flemer wrote and lectured widely on topics such as plant propagation andshade tree selection and also published four books. He served on the WhiteHouse Grounds Committee, the U.S. National Arboretum’s Advisory Council,and the Visiting Committee for the Arnold Arboretum. He also served on theAHS’s Board of Directors from 1973 to 1976.

Among his many professional accolades, he received the International PlantPropagators Society Award of Merit in 1973, the Garden Club of America Medalof Honor in 1983, the Arthur Hoyt Scott Medal and Award from the Scott Ar-boretum of Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania in 1987, and the American Hor-ticultural Society’s Catherine H. Sweeney Award in 1992.

The Legacy of Polly HillCentenarian Polly Hill, known as the founder of the eponymous arboretum inWest Tisbury, Massachusetts, died in April at her home in Hockessin, Delaware.

The arboretum preserves her legacy of collecting and grow-ing 1,700 taxa and selecting more than 80 improved vari-eties of garden plants.

Hill earned a music degree from Vassar College in NewYork in 1928 but later studied botany and horticulture atLongwood Gardens in Pennsylvania and at the University ofDelaware. In her 50s, after she inherited her family’s sum-mer home on Martha’s Vineyard, she began experimentingwith seed-grown varieties of many shrubs and trees including

azaleas, dogwoods, magnolias, hollies, and crabapples. Hill was renowned for the meticulous records she kept as well as her boundless

curiosity, patience, and perseverance in the garden. She had a keen eye for supe-rior varieties among her many seedlings, which she often named after her familymembers. Rather than selling the plants herself, she gave them to colleagues andnurseries to introduce to the horticultural market. In 1996, she established a pub-lic arboretum that preserves her 70-acre property on Martha’s Vineyard and theplants she cultivated there for four decades.

Over her lifetime, Hill garnered many awards, including the Arthur Hoyt ScottMedal and Award from the Scott Arboretum of Swarthmore College in Pennsylva-nia in 1990, the Thomas Roland Medal from the Massachusetts Horticultural So-ciety in 1993, and the Catherine H. Sweeney Award from the American HorticulturalSociety in 1996. She also served on the AHS’s Board of Directors from 1964 to1965 and from 1968 to 1970. �

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CGREEN GARAGE®

WH E N D A Y T I M E summertemperatures soar, the out-doors is often more inviting

after the sun goes down. Well-placedlighting extends your enjoyment of thegarden into the evening. Paths and stepscan be marked off for safe foot traffic,garden features can be highlighted, and adeck or patio can be bathed in the softglow of lanterns.

Solar lights offer an easy-to-install,economical way to brighten the eveninglandscape. Unlike standard or low-volt-age systems that draw electricity fromhousehold current and must be connect-ed to the power source by wires, solarlights can simply be placed in any sunnyspot in the garden. And, best of all, theydon’t cost anything to use.

TECHNOLOGICAL UPGRADESImprovements in the past few years havemade solar lights more practical than ever.New designs are suited to a wider range oflandscaping styles and uses. Solar collectorshave become more efficient, and many bat-teries can be charged even on overcast days.These and other advances translate into so-

lar lights that shine brighter and stay illu-minated longer than earlier versions.

Solar lights basically consist of a lightfixture and a photovoltaic (PV) cell. ThePV cell, which collects solar energy andconverts it to electrical energy, is usually lo-cated in a panel on top of the fixture, butmay be housed separately. For greatest ef-

ficiency, the solar collector should beplaced in full sun, facing south.

The electrical energy is stored in arechargeable battery made of nickelmetal hydride (NiMH) or nickel cadmi-um (NiCAD). NiMH batteries have alarger capacity than similarly sizedNiCADs; some NiMH batteries canstore enough energy for up to five con-secutive days before they are recharged.

Low-powered and efficient light-emit-ting diodes (LEDs) have no filaments andgive off minimal heat, lasting much longerthan other types of bulbs. Their light canbe directed or diffused in a number ofways by reflectors and directional optic de-vices, depending on the effect desired.

A feature available with some solarlights separates the solar collector from thelight fixture, connecting them with a thin,easy-to-hide wire. Separating the compo-nents allows illumination within a shadygarden, as long as the collector is placed ina sunny spot. This feature makes possibledramatic lighting effects such as uplight-ing a tree from beneath its branches orspotlighting a garden feature from aboveby securing the fixture to a branch.

by Rita Pelczar

Solar Power in the Garden

These Two-in-One Flexi Spot Solar Path Lightshelp illuminate a garden walkway at night.

MORE SOLAR GARDEN PRODUCTSSolar fountains are an easy way to add a dramatic water feature to your landscape andare simple to install. They are available in a wide range of sizes and styles, includingsingle or multiple fountain heads, multi-tiered cascades, floating fountains, and foun-tain birdbaths. Both Plow & Hearth and Gardener’s Supply offer a wide selection.

If your notion of spending an afternoon weeding includes listening to music or theplay-by-play of your favorite sports team, consider a solar radio such as those offeredby the Freeplay Energy Group. No need to worry about outlets, wires, or batteries—theradio runs on batteries charged by the sun, with a wind-up handle as back-up.

Solar Home offers two solar pest-control devices: The waterproof Solar Pest Repellerpromises to drive away moles and other rodents using sound and vibrations that will pro-tect an area of approximately 6,000 square feet. The aboveground NiCAD battery isrecharged by the sun, and the repeller works both day and night. And for mosquito biteprotection without chemicals, its Anti-Mosquito Guard emits an ultra-high frequencysound that keeps the pests at bay within a 15-foot radius. —R.P.

This attractive birdbath from Solar Homefeatures a solar-powered fountain.

RIGHT LIGHTBefore purchasing solar lights, considerwhere you want light, what you want to il-luminate or what effect you want to create,how long it should stay lit, and what stylesuits your landscape. Most solar lights fea-ture a sensor that automatically turns thelights on at dark and off during the day-light hours, when their batteries recharge.

Many solar light fixtures are mountedon in-ground stakes that keep them inplace, others are freestanding and can beplaced on a table or hung on hooks.

Solar path lights are designed for safe-ty as well as aesthetics. The fixtures typi-cally direct the light downward orprovide a soft non-directional glow. Theyneedn’t be exceptionally bright, but theyshould mark a path clearly, particularlywhere it turns or where the level varies.

Some solar path lights, including step-ping stones or lit pavers, are designed tobe incorporated into a garden path oroutdoor stairway. There are even solaredging bricks to outline walkways.

If you need light in a shed, barn, orgreenhouse, Gama Sonic offers “Light MyShed,” a kit that combines a roof-mount-ed collector with two eight-watt fluores-cent bulbs that, when fully charged,provide up to five hours of illumination.

The range of solar lighting optionsand the efficiency of their componentscontinues to grow. And as technology ad-vances, the cost of solar lights is begin-ning to come down—another incentivefor going solar in your landscape. �

Rita Pelczar is a contributing editor for TheAmerican Gardener.C

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Above left: Solar strip lighting can help make outdoor steps in sunny locations safer to use at night.Above right: Illuminated “cattail” decorations add whimsy to the evening garden.


Burpee The Complete Flower Gardener: The ComprehensiveGuide to Growing Flowers OrganicallyKaran Davis Cutler and Barbara W. Ellis. Wiley Publishing, Inc., Hobo-ken, New Jersey, 2007. 488 pages. Publisher’s price, hardcover:$34.95.

LIVING UP TO the words “complete” and “comprehensive” inits title, this book does far more than just explain how to care for

flowers the organic way. It looks like acoffee table book, reads like a work ofliterature, and works like a how-to orreference manual.

Good soil is the foundation of anyorganic garden, and so it’s not surpris-ing that there’s a chapter devoted to thatsubject, one to managing pests and dis-eases organically, and another to plant-ing seeds and caring for flowers. Thebook also focuses on design principles

and color theory, and includes specific suggestions for plant com-binations. If you’re looking for ideas for a theme garden, you’ll findit here with lists of plants to attract butterflies, another for hum-mingbirds, as well as ideas for an edible flower garden, a “moon”garden, a dyer’s garden, and suggestions for specific environmentssuch as a hillside, pathside, and woodland.

About half the book is an encyclopedia of flowers, but thisone goes far beyond the usual bulleted basic information aboutheight, bloom time, light and soil preferences, and flower color.Here you’ll learn all sorts of fascinating tidbits about each plant.For example, did you know that Allium moly was an antidoteto Circe’s poison, thus protecting Odysseus from being turnedinto a swine? Or that the name Coreopsis is from the Greek for“like a bug” because of the seed’s appearance? Hence the plant’scommon name, tickseed.

You have to read through a lot of text to find the basic in-formation, but, in the process, you’ll learn all sorts of interest-ing things, and the index is helpful if you want to skip right toa specific topic. But beware, you may be looking for average lastfrost dates for your region and find yourself sidetracked, ab-sorbed in an explanation of phenology, the study of recurringnatural signs to predict local weather conditions: “When thedogwood flowers appear/ Frost will not again be here.”

—Catriona Tudor Erler

A resident of Charlottesville, Virginia, Catriona Tudor Erler is theauthor of eight garden books, and she has contributed to many more.Her next book, Design Ideas for Home Landscaping, will bepublished in spring 2008.

Foliage: Astonishing Color and Texture Beyond FlowersNancy J. Ondra. Storey Publishing, North Adams, Massachusetts,2007. 304 pages. Publisher’s price, softcover: $24.95.

MY BACKGROUND in textile design has made me a diehardfoliage gardener, so I admit to having a predisposed positive biastoward Foliage, the attractive and accessible new book by NancyOndra. I view arranging differently textured, shaped, and col-

ored foliage plants as a gardener’s ver-sion of designing an art quilt withprinted fabrics ranging from tinydots to graphic splashes.

Ondra and photographer RobCardillo provide newfound inspira-tion for foliage choices and combina-tions. For these collaborators, foliageis more than mere space filler in the

landscape. Foliage, Ondra writes, “greatly extends the seasonalinterest of individual plants, and of the garden as a whole.”

Chapters in this useful reference are organized by foliage color:gold-yellow-bronze, red-purple-black, silver-gray-blue, and varie-gated-multicolored plants. Plant icons indicate spiky, bold, medi-um, fine, and lacy foliage textures, helping to guide the gardendesigner in each of us. I especially appreciate that sun and shadefoliage plants are identified, as well as the section on how to dealwith the common diseases and pests that strike foliage plants.

For each palette, Ondra offers a botanical Latin primer ti-tled “What’s in a Name?” For example, many of us alreadyknow that aurea indicates “gold-colored,” but did you knowthat flavida means “yellowish?” Or, how about that nishikimeans “brocade,” as in a patterned fabric?

Plant profiles are the heart of this book, in which Ondrawrites with a confident voice. When she describes a plant, Iknow she’s grown it herself. Among Cardillo’s photos are sev-eral taken in Ondra’s own garden in Pennsylvania.

For someone like me, who is still in horticultural shock fromleaving Seattle (USDA Zone 8) for Los Angeles (Zone 10), I amgrateful for the “alternatives” offered with each plant entry. WhenI moved to southern California, I left behind a collection of Zone5 to 8 Japanese maples. Instead, Ondra suggests I try growing se-lections of African rose mallow or cranberry hibiscus, which havepalmately-lobed, maplelike, deep red leaves and grow happily inZones 8 to 11. That tip alone is worth adding Foliage to my shelf.

—Debra Prinzing

Recently transplanted from Seattle to southern California, DebraPrinzing is a garden and design writer. Her next book, Stylish Sheds& Elegant Hideaways, will be published in 2008.

CBOOK REVIEWS

Recommendations for Your Gardening Library

A Pattern Garden: The Essential Elements of Garden Making Valerie Easton. Timber Press, Portland, Oregon, 2007. 216 pages.Publisher’s price, hardcover: $34.95.

A PATTERN GARDEN starts with a simple premise: You canmake a garden feel more welcoming and comfortable if you ef-

fectively include specific design ele-ments—what the author terms“patterns.” Valerie Easton says in thebook’s introduction that she wants tomake the garden-making process moreaccessible for home gardeners bydefining what are often intangible ex-periences or “felt senses.”

She also acknowledges that thisbook pays homage to A Pattern Lan-

guage by Christopher Alexander (Oxford University Press,1977), a bible of sorts for architects, interior designers, and any-one trying to make a house become a home. That book influ-enced Easton for many years before she decided to reinterpretsome of its key ideas for gardeners. According to Easton, thesedesign patterns are essential because they “deal with the under-lying patterns of behavior and form that shape our experienceand stir the emotions.” In other words, they appeal to arche-typal human experiences.

Easton has successfully distilled complex design theory into14 distinct patterns that can be interpreted in countless ways,

regardless of a garden’s size, location, or other factors. They in-clude creating a sense of arrival, instilling feelings of shelterand refuge, making a journey with paths that are relevant to asetting, balancing enclosure and openness, using appropriatescale, creating destinations and focal points, and incorporat-ing water features, containers, and garden art. For example, the“gates” pattern describes various ways to create portals thatconceal or frame views into a garden.

Easton discusses both practical and psychological issues toconsider in using patterns to foster intrigue, meaning, coher-ence, and sheer delight. She emphasizes that personalized andrelevant renditions of these patterns imbue a garden with anaura of being a special and memorable place.

This book offers an abundance of beautiful photographsand inspiring and well-organized design ideas, but also pro-vides insights into why these things matter. A Pattern Gardenexplores garden making as an enlivening process that draws onevery aspect of human experience. It tackles and translates bigconcepts into language and images that are likely to trigger“aha” moments for the reader. In turn, that’s likely to inspireaha moments in your garden. �

—Virginia Small

A former senior editor at Fine Gardening, Virginia Small is now afreelance writer, editor, speaker, and garden consultant based inWoodbury, Connecticut. She is currently writing a book on gardens ofthe Berkshires to be published in 2008.


2008 “Gardener’s” CalendarThere are 13 prize-winning colors taken by

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WITH SPRING’S FLURRY of planting, pruning, andweeding done—or mostly so in my case—gardenersfinally get to enjoy fresh tomatoes, bouquets of flow-

ers, and other summery delights. However, during the dog dayswith the heat, humidity, and mosquitoes in full throttle, I findmyself darting out of doors only long enough to hose down a fewparched plants on the verge of a crispy death. While I wait out thesultry weather, a book starring plants helps me get the rest of mygardening fix. Here are some fun and fascinating titles that justmay give the summer’s latest beach novels a run for their money.

If you’re in need of a vicarious road trip, ride shotgun withScott Calhoun for a rollicking romp around the Southwest in

Chasing Wildflowers: A Mad Searchfor Wild Gardens (Rio Nuevo, 2007,$16.95). The book chronicles a series ofvisits Calhoun made to six states fromUtah to Texas as well as parts of Mexi-co over a period of two years to hunt forindigenous wildflowers. A self-con-fessed plant nerd, Calhoun often pullsover to investigate a promising flash ofcolor on the shoulder of a sun-baked

highway, and does “take pains to correctly identify” the plants heencounters with common and botanical names. He also blendsin tidbits about local cuisine (he has quite a propensity for fishtacos), people he meets along the way, and even advice for stay-ing at Motel 6. Many of his wildflower photographs further en-liven this compelling book.

For a divergence into a world of limousines and Frenchchateaus, there’s The Landscape Diaries: Garden of Obsession

(Ruder Finn, 2007, $24.95). Aptlynamed, this engaging tale readssomewhat like a private diary inwhich Carole Rocherolle, daugh-ter of the late business magnateLester Avnet, describes how she lit-erally ran away from her privilegedyouth to marry a member ofFrench nobility. However, after sheand her new husband, Jerome, fall

into the nursery and landscape business, they are no strangers tohard work and the rewards it brings. The book follows the 30-year trajectory of their horticultural development, including es-tablishing Shanti Bithi Nursery in Connecticut, traveling theworld in search of unusual plants, and the creation of their mostimportant legacy, the private Steinhart gardens in New York,complete with stunning color photographs.

Fans of Elizabeth Lawrence will want to get their hands onBeautiful at All Seasons (Duke University Press, 2007,

$24.95), a new collection of 132 columnsthis beloved garden writer penned overa period of 14 years for the Charlotte Ob-server beginning in 1957. Those unfa-miliar with Lawrence will findthemselves enchanted with her thought-ful and conversational writing, akin to amodern day blog. Organized by themessuch as “Seasonal Flowers” or “Garden-ers and Gardens,” these short piecesrange widely over gardening tips and in-

sights as well as places, literature, and people that influencedher. The book even includes a small collection of black andwhite photographs of Lawrence and her garden.

After coming across an ancient Chinese almanac that dividesthe year into 72 periods of five days each, author Liza Dalby felt

this system makes a lot of sense for gar-deners because “every week in the gar-den is a different season.” In EastWind Melts the Ice (University of Cal-ifornia Press, 2007, $24.95), Dalbyweaves her observations about the nat-ural world and Asian cultures into elo-quent and incisive essays as she chartseach of these little seasons in her owngarden in Berkeley, California, and inthe larger natural world. Part garden

journal and part memoir, this book presents an intriguing newperspective—for Westerners at least—on the minute but inex-orable seasonal changes happening every day.

Another essay collection, More Papers From the PottingShed (Frances Lincoln, 2006, $24.95) comes down more on the

wry side of things. Charles Elliottbegan gardening in New York andMassachusetts, but for the last 20 yearshas been ensconced in the British gar-dening scene. Many of the pieces, de-rived from a column he wrote forHorticulture magazine, take a humor-ous look at various gardening quirks inthese cultures—for example “Britishhedge-rage” versus Americans who“conduct their lives in full view of their

neighbours (sic), to say nothing of every snoop wanderingdown the street.” Elliott also weighs in on “a fairly preposter-ous range of topics, from medieval grafting practices to excus-es for banning leaf blowers, from [his] own adventures withbirds to the history of guano.” �

—Viveka Neveln, Assistant Editor

CGARDENER’S BOOKS

Summer Reading


NORTHEASTCT, MA, ME, NH, NY, RI, VT

RAP JULY 21. Garden Furniture Design.Workshop. Berkshire Botanical Garden.Stockbridge, Massachusetts. (413) 298-3926. www.berkshirebotanical.org.

RAP JULY 28. The Art of Cottage Garden-ing. Workshop. New York Botanical Garden.Bronx, New York. (718) 817-8747. www.nybg.org.

JULY 28 & 29. Garden Walk Buffalo. Gardentour. Buffalo, New York. (716) 879-0123.www.GardenWalkBuffalo.com.

AUG. 9–12. Beantown Digs Community Gardens. Conference. American CommunityGarden Association. Boston, Massachusetts.(877) 275-2242. www.communitygarden.org.

Looking aheadSEPT. 11. The Great Victorian Trees ofChateau-sur-Mer. Garden tour. NewportMansions. The Preservation Society of Newport County. Newport, Rhode Island.(401) 847-1000 ext. 154. www.newportmansions.org.

SEPT. 14. Gardening in a Changing ClimateII. Conference. New York Botanical Garden.Bronx, New York. (718) 817-8747. www.nybg.org.

SEPT. 15. Art Goes Wild Gardener’s Festival.New England Wild Flower Society. Framing-ham, Massachusetts. (508) 877-7630.www.newfs.org.

SEPT. 22. Gathering of Gardeners: A Recipe for a Perfect Garden. Workshop.The Master Gardeners of Cornell CooperativeExtension of Monroe County. Rochester,New York. (585) 461-1000 ext. 225.http://GatheringOfGardeners.com.

MID-ATLANTICPA, NJ, VA, MD, DE, WV, DC

JULY 20. Pond Care. Workshop. Ladew Topi-ary Gardens. Monkton, Maryland. (410)557-9570. www.LadewGardens.com.

JULY 20. Woody Plant Conference. The ScottArboretum of Swarthmore College. Swarth-more, Pennsylvania. (610) 328-8025.www.scottarboretum.org.

RAP JULY 23–27. EcoExplorers. Summercamp. The State Arboretum of Virginia.Boyce, Virginia. (540) 837-1758 ext. 242.www.virginia.edu/blandy.

JULY 24–26. Penn Atlantic Nursery TradeShow (PANTS). Pennsylvania Landscape &Nursery Association. Atlantic City, New Jer-sey. (800) 898-3411. www.PLNA.com.

RAP JULY 28. Water Garden Tour. TheDelaware Center for Horticulture. GatewayGarden Center. Wilmington, Delaware. (302)658-6262. www.dehort.org.

RAP AUG. 3. Using Native Plants in YourLandscape Design. Lecture. Green SpringGardens. Alexandria, Virginia. (703) 642-5173. www.greenspring.org.

AUG. 5. Cactus & Succulent Show. BrooksideGardens. Wheaton, Maryland. (301) 962-1448. www.BrooksideGardens.org.

RAP AUG. 15 & 16. Invasive Plants: Re-search, Removal, and Renewal. Conference.Mid-Atlantic Exotic Pest Plant Council. Mor-ris Arboretum. University of Pennsylvania.Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (215) 247-5777 ext. 156. www.ma-eppc.org.

Looking aheadRAP SEPT. 11, 18, & 25. Become a TreeTender. Tree training workshop. Pennsylva-nia Horticultural Society. Landsdowne,Pennsylvania. (610) 489-4315. www.pennsylvaniahorticulturalsociety.org.

RAP SEPT. 13–15. Fall Plant Sale. Lewis Gin-ter Botanical Garden. Richmond, Virginia.(804) 262-9887. www.lewisginter.org.

SOUTHEASTAL, FL, GA, KY, NC, SC, TN

RAP JULY 19. Roots of Gardening Series.Lecture. Georgia Golf Hall of Fame’s BotanicalGarden. Augusta, Georgia. (706) 724-4443.www.gghf.org.

RAP JULY 23 & 24. Eastern Region Interna-tional Plant Propagator’s Society Area Meet-ing. Yew Dell Gardens. Crestwood, Kentucky.(859) 257-1273. E-mail: [email protected].

RAP JULY 28. Butterfly Days. Festival.Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden. CoralGables, Florida. (305) 667-1651.www.fairchildgarden.org.

AUG. 1. Gardens of Japan. Lecture. Bellin-grath Gardens and Home. Theodore, Alaba-ma. (251) 973-2217. www.bellingrath.org.

AUG. 9–11. SNA 2007: Researcher’s Confer-ence and Trade Show. Southern Nursery Asso-ciation. Atlanta, Georgia. (770) 953-3311.www.sna.org.

AUG. 15–17. 2007 Summer Green Show.The North Carolina Nursery & Landscape Association Inc. Greensboro, North Carolina.(919) 816-9119. www.ncnla.com.

RAP AUG. 16. Planning Your Autumn Vege-table Garden. Lecture. Atlanta BotanicalGarden. Atlanta, Georgia. (404) 876-5859.www.atlantabotanicalgarden.org.

AUG. 21. Tennessee Green Industry FieldDay. Tennessee Nursery & Landscape Asso-ciation Inc. Franklin, Tennessee. (931)473-3951. www.tnla.com.

Looking aheadSEPT. 6 & 7. Southern Plant Conference.Southern Nursery Association. AlabamaNursery and Landscape Association. Mobile,Alabama. (770) 953-3311. www.sna.org.

RAP SEPT. 15 & 16. Carolinas Dahlia Soci-ety Annual Show. Festival. The North Caroli-na Arboretum. Asheville, North Carolina.(828) 665-2492. www.ncarboretum.org.

NORTH CENTRALIA, IL, IN, MI, MN, ND, NE, OH, SD, WI

JULY 17. Summer Turf Problems and Solu-tions for Where You Live, Work, and Play.

CREGIONAL HAPPENINGS

Horticultural Events from Around the Country

Events sponsored by or including officialparticipation by AHS or AHS staff membersare identified with the AHS symbol.

Events hosted by botanical gardens andarboreta that participate in AHS’s ReciprocalAdmissions Program are identified with theRAP symbol. Current AHS members showing avalid membership card are eligible for free ordiscounted admission to the garden or otherbenefits. Special events may not be included;contact the host site for details or visitww.ahs.org/events/reciprocal_events.htm.

Regional seminar. Ohio Turfgrass Founda-tion. Centerville, Ohio. (888) 683-3445.www.ohioturfgrass.org.

RAP JULY 26 & AUG. 2. Math for Gardeners.Workshop. Chicago Botanic Garden. Glencoe, Illinois. (847) 835-8261.www.chicagobotanic.org.

JULY 27. NNLA Field Day. Festival. NebraskaNursery & Landscape Association. Omaha,Nebraska. (402) 450-7192. www.nnla.org.

JULY 28. Gorgeous Gardens PromenadeWalks. Garden tours. Grout Museum Dis-trict. Waterloo, Iowa. (319) 234-6357.www.groutmuseumdistrict.org.

RAP JULY 28. Journey Gardening Class.The Journey Museum and Gardens. RapidCity, South Dakota. (605) 394-6923.www.journeymuseum.org.

JULY 28. Tour Le Jardin. Garden tour. ElmBrooke Garden Club. Milwaukee, Wauwa-tosa, and Elm Grove, Wisconsin. (414) 578-2513. E-mail: [email protected].

AUG. 5–11. 25th Perennial Plant Symposium& Trade Show. Perennial Plant Association.Columbus, Ohio. (614) 771-8431.www.perennialplant.org.

RAP AUG. 7. MSU Garden Plant Showcase.Workshop and tour. Michigan State Univer-sity. East Lansing, Michigan. (517) 355-0249 ext. 1339. www.hrt.msu. edu/planttour/MSU_showcase.htm.

AUG. 11. Wildflower Garden Birthday Bash.Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden & BirdSanctuary. Minneapolis, Minnesota. (612)370-4903. www.minneapolisparks.org.

RAP AUG. 25 & 26. Dahlia Show. OlbrichBotanical Gardens. Madison, Wisconsin.(608) 246-4550. www.olbrich.org.

Looking aheadRAP SEPT. 14–16. Antiques & Gardeners’Fair. Franklin Park Conservatory & ChihulyCollection. Columbus, Ohio. (800) 214-7275. www.fpconservatory.org.

SOUTH CENTRALAR, KS, LA, MO, MS, OK, TX

JULY 20 & 21. Watermelon Festival and Garden Show. Valliant City Park. Valliant,Oklahoma. (580) 933-5050. www.valliantchamber.org/watermelon_festival.html.

RAP JULY 21–29. Cactus Show and Sale.Henry Shaw Cactus Society. Missouri Botan-ical Garden. St. Louis, Missouri. (314) 577-5100. www.hscactus.org.

JULY 27–29. Iris Rhizome Sale. Oklahoma Iris

Society. Will Rogers Garden Center. Okla-homa City, Oklahoma. (405) 843-7130.www.okhort.org.

RAP JULY 28. PlantWise: Native Alternativesto Invasive Plants. Workshop. Lady Bird John-son Wildflower Center. Austin, Texas. (512)292-4200. www.wildflower.org.

RAP JULY 29. Iris Show. Botanica, The Wi-chita Gardens. Wichita, Kansas. (316) 264-0448. www.botanica.org.

AUG. 16–19. Nursery/Landscape Expo 2007.Texas Nursery & Landscape Association.Dallas, Texas. (800) 880-0343.www.tnlaonline.org.

Looking aheadRAP SEPT. 5. Landscape Design Work-shop. Garvan Woodland Gardens. Hot

Springs National Park, Arkansas. (800)366-4664. www.garvangardens.org.

SEPT. 13–17. Fall National Convention &Rose Show. American Rose Society. St.Louis, Missouri. (314) 469-6691. www.arsconventionstl.org.

SEPT. 28–OCT. 2. Get Your Gardening Kicks onRoute 66. Symposium. Garden Writers Asso-ciation. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. (703)257-1032. www.gardenwriters.org.

SOUTHWESTAZ, NM, CO, UT

RAP JULY 19. Desert Vegetable Gardening101. Desert Botanical Garden. Phoenix,Arizona. (480) 941-1225. www.dbg.org.

RAP JULY 21. Garden Art Auction. WesternCO

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Wildflower Garden Centennial CelebrationPARTICIPANTS OF this year’s American Horticultural Society National Children& Youth Garden Symposium have the exciting opportunity to help celebrate the 100thanniversary of the oldest public wildflower garden in the nation. Various events and cele-brations are scheduled at the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden and Bird Sanctuary inMinneapolis, Minnesota, in honor of this milestone.

Under the concerned petition of schoolteacher EloiseButler and additional botany colleagues, the MinneapolisPark Board preserved three acres of land on April 27, 1907,as a refuge for native flora. Since then, the Eloise ButlerWildflower Garden and Bird Sanctuary has expanded tocomprise 15 acres of woodland, wetland, and prairie ecosys-tems. The sanctuary resides within the Theodore WirthRegional Park, the largest regional park in the Minneapo-lis Park and Recreation system. One full-time garden cu-rator, one seasonal part-time naturalist, and more than 60volunteers manage the 500 woody and herbaceous plantspecies and 140 resident and migratory bird species in thepark. Open from April through mid-October, the gardenreceives approximately 60,000 visitors annually.

To help commemorate the centennial anniversary, anEloise Butler history exhibit is on display at the gardensthrough September 30. Additional celebrations include an Eloise Butler Birthday Bashon August 11, and “100 Trees for 100 years,” a tree planting event and guided tours of thegarden, on September 29. For additional information, visit the Minneapolis Park &Recreation Board website at www.minneapolisparks.org or call (612) 230-6414.

Perennial Plant Association Symposium in OhioTHE 25TH ANNUAL Perennial Plant Association (PPA) Symposium will be held Au-gust 5 to 11 in Columbus, Ohio. This special anniversary celebration features an impres-sive slate of lectures from prominent industry experts, a trade show, and tours of the area’sfinest garden centers, nurseries, and public and private gardens. Always a highlight of theyearly calendar for green industry professionals and plant enthusiasts, the PPA symposiumis “the only annual program dedicated solely to perennial education.” For additional in-formation, please call (614) 771-8431 or visit the PPA website at www.perennialplant.org.

—Courtney Capstack, Editorial Intern

Eloise Butler


Colorado Botanical Gardens. Grand Junction, Colorado. (970) 245-9030.www.wcbotanic.org.

RAP AUG. 4. Highlands Art Garden Tour.Denver Botanic Gardens. Denver, Colorado.(720) 865-3500. www.botanicgardens.org.

AUG. 10. Southwest Horticulture Annual Dayof Education (SHADE). Arizona Nursery As-sociation. Scottsdale, Arizona. (480) 966-1610. www.anza.org.

RAP AUG. 25. Native Seed Collecting.Workshop. Red Butte Garden and Arbore-tum. Salt Lake City, Utah. (801) 581-4747.www.redbuttegarden.org.

WEST COASTCA, NV, HI

JULY 21 & 22. Orchid Show. Kaimuki OrchidSociety. Honolulu, Hawaii. (808) 734-3839. www.bsteele.com/mirror/orchids.

JULY 28. Getting Started Garden Design. Work-shop. The Watershed Project. Youth ScienceInstitute. Saratoga, California. (510) 665-3430. www.thewatershedproject.org.

JULY 28 & 29. Culver City Garden Club Show& Sale. Culver City, California. (310) 203-1482. E-mail: [email protected].

AUG. 11 & 12. Edible Gardens Festival.COPIA: The American Center for Wine, Food & the Arts. Napa, California. (707) 259-1600. www.copia.org.

AUG. 18. Roof Water Catchment. Workshop.Occidental Arts and Ecology Center. Occi-dental, California. (707) 874-1557.www.oaec.org.

AUG. 31–SEPT. 3. Northern CaliforniaWomen’s Herbal Symposium. Black OakRanch. Laytonville, California. (707) 824-1429. www.womensherbalsymposium.org.

Looking aheadSEPT. 4–8. American Begonia Society Convention. Palos Verdes Branch of TheAmerican Begonia Society. Los Angeles, California. www.begonias.org.

SEPT. 16. Carmel TomatoFest. Tomato har-vest celebration. Carmel, California. (800)965-4827. www.TomatoFest.com.

NORTHWESTAK, ID, MT, OR, WA, WY

JULY 20–22. Sequim Lavender Festival.Farm tours, crafts, food tastings, anddemonstrations. Sequim Lavender GrowersAssociation. Sequim, Washington. (877)681-3035. www.lavenderfestival.com.

JULY 21 & 22. Northwest Herb Fest 2007.Herbal Transitions. Pleasant Hill, Oregon.(541) 736-0164. www.herbaltransitions.com.

JULY 26–28. East Meets West: Conifer Artistry of Man and Nature. National meeting. American Conifer Society. Seattle, Washington. (336) 945-0483. www.conifersociety.org.

JULY 31–AUG. 3. Nurturing the Written Word:Further Adventures in Creative Garden Writing. Center for Urban Horticulture. University of Washington Botanic Gardens.Seattle, Washington. (206) 543-3889.www.wwbotanicgardens.org.

RAP AUG. 4 & 5. Anchorage Garden ClubFlower Show. Anchorage Garden Club. Alas-ka Botanical Garden. Anchorage, Alaska.(928) 770-3692. www.alaskabg.org.

AUG. 23–25. The Farwest Show. Oregon Asso-ciation of Nurserymen. Portland, Oregon.(800) 342-6401. www.farwestshow.com.

RAP AUG. 25. Bug Day. Festival. IdahoBotanical Garden. Boise, Idaho. (208) 343-8649. www.idahobotanicalgarden.org.

RAP AUG. 25. Xeriscapes of the BotanicGardens. Summer garden tour. CheyenneBotanic Gardens. Cheyenne, Wyoming.(307) 637-6458. www.botanic.org.

CANADA

JULY 22. Plant Show and Sale. VancouverShade Garden Society. VanDusen BotanicalGarden. Vancouver, British Columbia. (604)602-6644. www.vandusengarden.org.

AUG 3–9. International Plant Cold Hardiness Seminar. University ofSaskatchewan. Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.(306) 966-8617. www.8ipchs.usask.ca.

AUG. 12–15. Northern Nut Growers Association Annual Meeting. Carleton University. Ottawa, Ontario. www.auntiesocial.net/NNGA98.

Looking aheadSEPT. 8. Arboretum Auxiliary Plant Sale. TheArboretum at University of Guelph. Guelph,Ontario. (519) 824-4120. www.uoguelph.ca/arboretum.

SEPT. 12 & 13. 2007 CanWest Hort Show.Horticulture trade show. Vancouver, British Columbia. (604) 574-7772.www.CanWestHortShow.com.

SEPT. 16–19. Annual Meeting of the EasternRegion of the International Plant Propaga-tors’ Society. Educational sessions, tours,and plant auction. Montreal, Quebec. (631)765-9638. www.ipps.org/easternna. �

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CLASSIFIED AD RATES: All classified advertising must be prepaid. $2.75 per word; mini-mum $66 per insertion. Copy and prepayment must be received by the 20th of the monththree months prior to publication date. To place an ad, call (703) 768-5700 ext. 120.

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Wish List of Goods & Serviceshow you can make a difference to the AHS

We are looking for…Education /Programs

• Digital camera• Electronic weather station

(with Internet connectivity)• Hi-lumen LCD projector• Library bookcases• Weather-proof web camera• Retractable motorized

projection screen

Communications /Publications• Laptop computer• File cabinets• Lawyer’s bookcases

Gardens & Buildings• Garden carts• 4WD garden utility vehicle•Rugs and carpeting (please

contact Trish Gibson at ext. 114 for more information)

• Lightweight 6-foot foldingtables

• Seasonal mowing and edging services

Membership /Development• Computer task chairs•Desktop paper-folding

machine

Don’t have any of these items butwant to help? Please consider a donation to the AHS Annual Fund.

In-kind donations of goods or services by individualsand businesses are an important way of supportingthe American Horticultural Society. Perhaps youhave something that you no longer need but wouldbe very useful to the AHS staff. Gently used or newitems are preferred and arrangements need to bemade for items to be delivered to the Society’sheadquarters in Alexandria, Virginia. (However,there is an exception to every rule, so please get intouch with us to discuss your particular situation.)

To donate a wish list item or to inquire about donations of other products or services, pleasecontact Tom Underwood, Director of MemberPrograms/COO, by phone at (703) 768-5700ext. 115 or e-mail [email protected].

Before dropping off an item, please call or sendus an e-mail in advance to make sure that we stillneed it and to help us prepare for your donation.Donations are tax-deductible.

Many thanks to those who have helped supportthe AHS through your in-kind donations ofgoods and services.


CPRONUNCIATIONS AND PLANTING ZONES

A–DAllium sphaerocephalon AL-ee-um sfeer-o-SEF-uh-lon (USDA 4–11, AHS 12–1)Ammi majus AM-ee MAY-juss (0–0, 9–1)Anethum graveolens uh-NEE-thum gruh-VEE-o-lenz (0–0, 12–1)Arctostaphylos ✕coloradensis ark-toh-STAFF-ih-loss kol-ur-uh-DEN-siss (4–8, 8–3) A. uva-ursi A. YOO-vuh-UR-sy (2–6, 6–1) Astrantia major uh-STRAN-tee-uh MAY-jer (4–7, 7–1)Boltonia asteroides bohl-TOH-nee-uh ass-tuh-ROY-deez (4–8, 9–2)Brassavola nodosa bras-uh-VO-luh no-DOH-suh(min. 55°F, 11–7)Calylophus hartwegii subsp. fendlerikal-ih-LO-fus hart-WEG-ee-eye subsp. fend-LER-eye (5–8, 8–5)C. lavandulifolius C. lah-van-dyew-lih-FO-lee-us(4–8, 8–4)C. serrulatus C. sair-yew-LAY-tus (3–9, 9–4)Cephalaria gigantea sef-uh-LAIR-ee-uh jy-gan-TEE-uh (3–7, 7–1)Cotinus coggygria ko-TY-nus ko-JEE-gree-uh(5–9, 9–3)Crambe cordifolia KRAM-bee kor-dih-FO-lee-uh(6–9, 9–6)Crocosmia ✕crocosmiiflora kro-KAHZ-me-uh kro-kos-me-ih-FLOR-uh (6–9, 9–3)Deschampsia cespitosa deh-SHAMP-see-uh sez-pih-TOH-suh (5–9, 9–1)Dierama pulcherrimum die-uh-RAH-muh pul-KER-rih-mum (8–10, 10–8)

E–KEpilobium angustifolium eh-pih-LO-be-um ang-gus-tih-FO-lee-um (3–7, 7–1)Epiphyllum oxypetalum ep-ih-FIL-um ok-sih-PET-uh-lum (11, 12–1)Eryngium amethystinum ee-RIN-jee-um am-uh-THISS-tih-num (3–8, 8–1)E. yuccifolium E. yuk-ih-FO-lee-um (4–9, 12–1)Eupatorium maculatum yew-puh-TOR-ee-ummak-yew-LAY-tum (5–11, 9–1)Foeniculum vulgare fee-NICK-yew-lum vul-GAY-ree (4–9, 9–1)

Gaura lindheimeri GAW-ruh lind-HY-mur-eye(6–9, 9–6)Gladiolus callianthus glad-ee-O-lus kal-ee-AN-thus (7–10, 10–7)Gypsophila paniculata jip-SOF-ih-luh pan-ik-yew-LAY-tuh (4–9, 9–1)Helenium autumnale heh-LEE-nee-um aw-tum-NAL-ee (4–8, 8–1)Helictotrichon sempervirens hel-ik-toh-TRY-konsem-pur-VY-renz (4–9, 9–1)Heliopsis helianthoides hee-lee-OP-siss hee-lee-an-THOY-deez (4–9, 9–1)Hemerocallis citrina hem-er-o-KAL-liss sih-TRY-nuh (3–9, 9–4)Ipomoea alba ih-po-ME-uh AL-buh (min. 45°F, 12–10)Kalmia angustifolia KAL-mee-uh ang-gus-tih-FO-lee-uh (1–6, 6–1)K. latifolia K. lat-ih-FO-lee-uh (4–9, 8–3)Knautia macedonica NAW-tee-uh mass-uh-DON-ih-kuh (5–9, 9–5)

L–OLagenaria siceraria laj-eh-NAIR-ee-uh sih-suh-RAIR-ee-uh (0–0, 11–4)Lobelia cardinalis lo-BEEL-yuh kar-dih-NAL-iss(2–8, 8–1)Maianthemum canadense my-AN-theh-mum kan-uh-DEN-see (3–8, 8–3)Matthiola longipetala subsp. bicornis mah-tee-O-luh lon-jih-PEH-tal-uh subsp.by-KOR-nis (8–10, 10–8)Mirabilis jalapa mih-RAB-ih-liss jah-LAP-uh(9–11, 12–1)Molinia caerulea subsp. arundinaceamoh-LEEN-ee-uh see-ROO-lee-uh subsp. uh-run-dih-NAY-see-uh (5–9, 9–1)Muhlenbergia capillaris mew-len-BUR-jee-uhkap-ih-LAIR-iss (6–10, 10–5)Nasella tenuissima nah-SEL-luh ten-yew-ISS-ih-muh (7–11, 12–7)Nicotiana alata nih-ko-shee-AN-uh ah-LAY-tuh(10–11, 12–1)Oenothera caespitosa ee-NOTH-ur-uh sez-pih-TOH-suh (4–8, 8–1)O. fruticosa O. froo-tih-KO-suh (4–8, 8–1)

O. howardii O. how-WARD-ee-eye (4–9, 9–4)O. longissima O. lon-JIS-sih-muh (6–9, 10–6)O. macrocarpa O. mak-ro-KAR-puh (4–8, 8–3)O. organensis O. or-guh-NEN-sis (5–8, 9–5) O. speciosa O. spee-see-O-suh (5–8, 8–1)

P–ZPanicum virgatum PAN-ih-kum vur-GAY-tum(5–9, 9–1)Patrinia scabiosifolia pah-TRIN-ee-uh skay-bee-o-sih-FO-lee-uh (5–8, 8–5)P. villosa P. vih-LO-suh (5–8, 8–4) Perovskia atriplicifolia peh-ROV-skee-uh at-rih-plih-sih-FO-lee-uh (5–9, 9–2)Persicaria polymorpha pur-sih-KAIR-ee-uh pah-lee-MOR-fuh (4–9, 9–4)Polianthes tuberosa pol-ee-AN-thees too-bur-O-suh (8–11, 12–7)Rhododendron canadense ro-doh-DEN-dron kan-uh-DEN-see (3–6, 5–2)Sanguisorba officinalis san-gwi-SOR-buh oh-fiss-ih-NAL-iss (3–8, 8–1)S. tenuifolia S. ten-yew-ih-FO-lee-uh (9–7, 7–1)Solandra maxima so-LAN-druh MAKS-ih-muh(11, 12–6)Sorbus americana SOR-bus uh-mair-ih-KAN-uh(3–5, 6–1)S. aucuparia S. aw-kew-PAIR-ee-uh (4–7, 7–1)S. decora S. deh-KOR-uh (2–7, 7–3)Sporobolus heterolepis spor-OB-o-lus het-ur-o-LEP-iss (3–8, 10–2)Stipa gigantea STY-puh jy-gan-TEE-uh (8–11, 12–1)Thalictrum delavayi thal-IK-trum deh-luh-VAY-eye (4–7, 7–1)T. rochebruneanum T. rowsh-broo-nee-AY-num(3–8, 8–4)Verbena bonariensis ver-BEE-nuh bo-nair-ee-EN-siss (6–11, 12–1)Veronicastrum virginicum ver-on-ih-KASS-trumvir-JIN-ih-kum (4–8, 8–3)Yucca filamentosa YUK-uh fil-uh-men-TOH-suh(4–11, 12–5)Zinnia angustifolia ZIN-ee-uh ang-gus-ti-FO-lee-uh (0–0, 11–1)

Most of the cultivated plants described in this issue are listed herewith their pronunciations, USDA Plant Hardiness Zones and AHSPlant Heat Zones. These zones suggest a range of locations wheretemperatures are appropriate—both in winter and summer—forgrowing each plant.

While the zones are a good place to start in determining plantadaptability in your region, factors such as exposure, moisture, snowcover, and humidity also play an important role in plant survival. Thecodes tend to be conservative; plants may grow outside the rangesindicated. A USDA zone rating of 0–0 means that the plant is a trueannual and completes its life cycle in a year or less.

To purchase a two-by-three-foot glossy AHS Plant Heat ZoneMap for $9.95, call (800) 777-7931 or visit www.ahs.org.

GARDENER - American Horticultural Society

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