Indoor - Outdoor Plants

 

Today many products are marketed as “indoor-outdoor.”  Indoor-outdoor carpeting, slippers, thermometers, plant stands… the list is long.  Why not add a few plants to this category? 

Numerous houseplants will thrive outdoors in summer months; be careful if you notice them getting damaged by insects (not all houseplants are candidates for outdoor living in summertime in Wisconsin.)  Of course, your houseplants must go through acclimation (a gradual adjustment from indoor living to outdoor living.)  I consider JUNE 1 – SEPT 1  a sensible timeline for moving plants outdoors for their summer vacay.  All your houseplants should be placed in a shady location initially; then they can graduate to a part-sun location if appropriate. 

NOTE: Even if your houseplants thrived in a sunny window while living indoors, a southern or western sun exposure outdoors might be TOO INTENSE.  Consider their foliage is not accustomed to HARSH RAIN, WIND nor DIRECT/FULL SUN; some protection for your houseplants is appropriate. Monitor your plants often to be sure each specimen is in a happy place outdoors.

My favorite plant that thrives outdoors each summer JUNE 1 – SEPT 1  is a 10-year-old tropical hibiscus.  It handles dappled shade and produces multiple flowers every summer.  This plant hates cool nights, so I always bring it back indoors before nights drop below 50 degrees. Even though September DAYS are warm enough to support a tropical hibiscus, if it gets cold at night, it will likely defoliate completely and won’t be a pleasant sight during winter!  Bring it in by SEPT 1st, and you should enjoy deep green foliage throughout fall/winter/spring.

Outdoor plants often will thrive INDOORS, given the correct environment.  By mid-September, my annual geraniums (genus Pelargonium) have been transplanted to pots and placed under a grow-light assembly.  Although some horticulturists recommend pinching off blooms during off season, I disagree.  Let them flower and flourish all winter long; then transplant to outdoor containers next June.  

(Don’t soak roots; geraniums prefer dryer soil so water just twice/month.)

Additional outdoor plants that can thrive indoors are herbs like rosemary and oregano in pots. My variegated ivy plant (Hedera helix ‘Mint Kolibri’) thrives indoors and out (in a shady location.)  A favorite rosette-shaped succulent is in the genus Echeveria; it handles a sunny window indoors, but outdoors this plant thrives in partial sun only.

Even an unlikely specimen can thrive indoors and out: Carex buchananii ‘Red Rooster’ is an ornamental grassy plant that is actually a sedge.  The specimen shown in photo has been “wintered over” for three years. By late May, I can take it back outdoors for another summer vacation!  It has tripled in size so I might have to divide this perennial before replanting.  (This plant is a perennial if you reside in USDA zone 6 – 9, but sadly, it won’t survive our WI winters!)

When you’re searching for “just the right plants” for your 2022 garden, consider those varieties which might be able to join you indoors during fall and winter.  It is such a pleasure to witness a few plants blooming and thriving in your home on a blustery, snowy day!

M. Lynn Schmid, Master Gardener
A.A.S. Landscape/Horticulture/Arboriculture

Clematis & Climbers!

Grace your special garden with a climbing, flowering vine (hugging a trellis) and you will be blessed with blooms AND blooms AND more blooms!   Whether you choose a sweet pea vine or a clematis cultivar, vining plants require a fairly small footprint.  With vertical gardening on the rise, clematis and climbers need consideration to determine if they will work in your garden environment.  My favorite climber is Clematis ‘Etoile Violette’ shown here in living color!

Despite our recent droughty conditions in Southern Wisconsin during May and June, this clematis planted in 2009 survived and thrived with little care.  Some watering was required, but not every day.  Although it needs full sun conditions (six hours or more daily), the root zone area needs protection and some shade.  I used shredded hardwood mulch to cover the entire root zone, and also planted two specimens directly south of the plant to create a “shade pocket” to keep roots happy and cool throughout summer months.  (One is a peony and the other is a broadleaf evergreen, ‘Emerald Gaiety.’ This combination provided sufficient shade to keep ‘Etoile Violette’ cool and comfortable in spring/summer.)

Take care when choosing a place to site any clematis, since this vine can live fifty years or more; provide loose, organic soil and fertilize once per year.  Wind desiccation can be detrimental to thin clematis vines, so wrapping entire vine loosely in burlap can help during winter months.  (Some years, I pruned all the way to the ground— that is another option.) If older vines are left intact on the trellis, the new growth vines seem to climb over them and latch on.  As foliage fills in, the older, brown vines are no longer visible. Although I reside in a USDA Zone 5 area, apparently this clematis is hardy to Zone 3 and 4 as well.

BONUS: This spring, a mating pair of house wren chose our clematis to build their nest. We could hear chicks chirping often; dense foliage provided protection for the young. When this vine sheds its leaves in fall, we should be able to see a tiny nest clinging to vines; nest isn’t visible just yet— too many blooms obstructing view!

M. Lynn Schmid,   Certified Master Gardener
A.A.S. Landscape/Horticulture/Arboriculture

Mother's Day is on the Way ~

 

Mommies & Grandmas & Aunts… oh my!

Transitioning from April to May is a welcome event in Southeastern Wisconsin.   This April provided a sufficient amount of warmth and sunshine to encourage spring bloomers to emerge and thrive.  We received light snow for one day in April, but no serious storms to disrupt our enjoyment of those vibrant springtime blooms.  

Daffodils—both yellow and white—just shook off the snowflakes and continued to adorn our landscape! 

Tulips have also joined the party, looking beautiful and bright as long as rabbits are kept away.  

(In previous blogs I mentioned using a cylinder of hardware cloth to surround clumps of tulips; this deters rabbits without injuring them. I leave hardware cloth in place until blooms have expired. Then I cut back stems only, leaving the leaves to “recharge” bulb for next spring’s bloom.)  

The transition from April to May also brings us to the celebration of Mothers’ Day. Mommies, Grandmas and Aunts are honored on second Sunday in May every year in this country.  (Other countries may choose a different day to honor Mothers, but the theme remains the same.)  

As Mothers’ Day approaches, consider honoring your Mothers, Grandmas, or Aunts in a traditional or non-traditional way:  Bake her favorite cookies or cupcakes. Purchase a gift and wrap it creatively.  Place a few small potted plants in a basket filled with sheets of colored tissue paper.  Give a gift certificate offering to cut her lawn or weed her garden.  Ask your children to make homemade cards or drawings to accompany the gift. You can even gift her with a gift card from her favorite garden center or florist.  If you cannot visit in person, a FaceTime® visit is perfectly acceptable.  

Whatever you choose will be much appreciated by that special lady in your life!

M. Lynn Schmid,  Certified Master Gardener
 A.A.S. Landscape/Horticulture/Arboriculture

Sweet Bunnies, Bold Bunnies!

During March it seems grocery store shelves are well stocked with edible, sweet bunnies… white chocolate, milk chocolate, foil wrapped.  

Gift shops also are well stocked with an assortment of delightful bunnies… furry, soft, cuddly… bunnies seem to be everywhere. 

All of these adorable, desirable bunnies bring smiles to the faces of children and adults.

The bunnies that are NOT so adorable are those that frequent our gardens during every season, particularly winter and spring.  Even when shrubs are deep in snow, cottontail rabbits roam the landscape and boldly chew any exposed branches.  This chewing results in straggly, uneven branches when the snow melts exposing an unsightly shrub or plant.

This spring a bold bunny attacked my Japanese Barberry shrub, covered with tiny thorns; this bunny consumed several inches of top growth from each branch.  This barberry carries the botanical name Berberis thunbergia ‘Orange Rocket’ and it is a specimen plant next to our front entrance.  

Its dramatic coral colored foliage in spring looks striking against the terra cotta shades of our brick, and in past years, it was quite attractive. (‘Orange Rocket’ turns from coral to shades of green in summer with burgundy foliage in fall.) This winter several 24” stems were chewed down to barely 6” which I will manually prune to encourage new growth.  This plant normally has a vertical growth format, but with all the auxin hormone gone from each stem tip, it might grow in an erratic shape this season.  

(Although this bush has been planted in same location since 2015, this past winter was first evidence that a bunny could consume its thorn-covered branches.)

    Another shrub called Euonymus ‘Emerald Gaiety’ had a     similar fate from bold bunnies.  Footprints in the snow        leading up to this shrub were unmistakably bunny               prints. 

    This plant is a broadleaf evergreen; a bold bunny feasted     on branches and left most foliage fall to the ground.  

    In the genus Sylvilagus, the cottontail has a ravenous        appetite for several species of shrubs and plants. 

Cottontails also love to gnaw tender foliage of newly emerged tulips; these can be protected by placing a cylinder of 18” tall hardware cloth around each clump of tulips.  Even when tulips are in bloom, they can be admired through the hardware cloth. 

Since I don’t wish to place chemicals around tulips to deter rabbits, this cultural practice works well.  

Although we need to coexist with creatures in the natural world, gardeners also need to protect plantings that will beautify the world around us.

M. Lynn Schmid,   Certified Master Gardener

A.A.S. Landscape/Horticulture/Arboriculture

Stop the Snow Mold this Spring!

 The Spring weather has begun! The sunshine is back, temperatures are warming up and the birds are singing! It makes you want to get out and rake up your yard, right?!

One of the best things you can do in the beginning of Spring is to clean-up your yard & get out in that sunshine! Grab your rake & help your lawn, while getting some exercise in also!

Take a good look at your lawn, look closely and spot the snow mold.

There is no more snow out there... so what is snow mold?

Snow mold is a fungal disease that appears after the snow melts off the lawn. It was a long winter, with alot of snow - a long time on our lawns. It's time for your grass to breathe!

Look for straw colored spots or areas where your lawn is matted. It could look like a cobweb in the grass. There is gray snow mold and even pink snow mold - but it's not pretty.

Snow mold can cause allergies & asthma attacks - so it's best to clean-up, rake and clear it up early in the season.

Gently rake areas to lift the mold and help the grass to dry out. There's been much snow and moisture sitting on your grass since the beginning of the year. Raking your lawn will also clean up excess leaves, branches and debris that Winter left behind. There's always plenty of that when the snow melts too!

If the snow mold sits on the lawn too long, it will begin to kill the grass and areas will die off. If this happens, the bare areas will need to be overseeded after your raking is completed.

Pick up a good quality soil & compost mix to scratch the bare areas and add the soil mix too. Overseed with a quality grass seed & make sure the areas are watered. Many times the Spring rains will give your lawn a great jump start for the season. An application of Milorganite organic fertilizer will also give your new & existing grass the nutrients it needs to take off into Spring!

Questions on snow mold or products to help your lawn become stronger this season? Give us a call at 262-677-3010 or stop in this Spring! We're here to help you enjoy your yard :)

What are you waiting for... the sun is out & your rake is calling! Have fun cleaning up your yard :)

Sheila Yoder, Horticultural Manager

LAMMSCAPES!

www.lammscape.com

Weird but Wonderful: FROST!

As we turn our calendars to March and the coming of spring weather, we can look back at a weather phenomenon that many Wisconsinites experienced in January & February.

There were several weird-but-wonderful FROST events early in 2021 in various locations throughout our State of Wisconsin.  Frost is actually water vapor which turns to a solid.  Typically, areas that have high humidity and lots of fog are prone to heavy frosts.

National Geographic online offers the following explanation: “Frost forms when an outside surface cools past the dew point. The dew point is the point where air gets so cold, the water vapor in the atmosphere turns into liquid. This liquid freezes.  If it gets cold enough, little bits of ice, or frost, form.  The ice is arranged in the form of ice crystals.” 

Frost formations can be quite different from each other; there is rime frost, and hoar frost as well as the one-dimensional frost that forms on a single-pane window. Each type of frost has different characteristics.   Hoar frost usually forms on clear, cold nights with minimal air movement (virtually no wind); it sometimes coats the edges of foliage and branches and is white and bright!    

Rime frost forms quickly in cold wet climates; it can even form during windy weather. It has feathery ice crystals and clings to branches… it’s another form of frost that beckons you to take pictures.  

HINT: Frost photo ops can disappear quickly; when wind speed increases or sunshine warms the air, those unique frosty-and-glittery photos can be lost.  When you wake up to fresh frost formations, grab your phone or camera and enjoy the outdoors! 

(When you come back indoors, enjoy some tea or hot cocoa and check on line for more info on frost.  Google on “images” for hoar frost and rime frost for more examples. Breathtaking!)

M. Lynn Schmid,   Certified Master Gardener
A.A.S. Landscape/Horticulture/Arboriculture

Autumn Foliage ... Autumn Strong!

   

Although the year of 2020 has provided numerous issues and disappointments for many, our autumn season this year is NOT a disappointment!  Fall foliage remained on many trees through October, and a few trees are still holding their foliage in place in early November.  Despite severe winds many days, the trees held foliage longer than normal, and we were able to enjoy those rusty golds and peachy orange shades for several weeks. (In southeastern Wisconsin, we have also enjoyed several 70-degree days in November—quite unusual!)

On a hiking trail during October, I encountered an amazing red oak (Quercus rubrum) with deep shades of brick red against the blue sky. Soil acidity and nutrients must have been perfect for this tree—it was truly in a happy place!

In my home garden, some plants performed nicely into early November:  Heuchera ‘Cherry Truffles’ has lovely deep burgundy leaves and is still going strong today, despite a few snow flurries and -30 degree temps some nights.

American cranberry bush (Viburnum trilobum) was also so special this autumn; the lime green foliage turned various shades, and leaves are lovely against those striking red fruits.  (This shrub has persistent fruit so it will remain on the bush all winter through April/May; then the migrating cedar waxwings will discover it and usually consume all fermented fruit in a single day… great fun to observe!)

Most geraniums are considered summery plants, but I have one variety of Pelargonium with lime green/brown foliage.  It is attractive for fall décor as well. This plant needed to be covered during some cold nights, but it was dazzling throughout October.

I’d like to mention one additional great performer this autumn: dry leaves!   Teaching a toddler how to gather up handfuls of leaves and toss them in the air is a perfect stress reliever for anyone.  (When you’re finished, those leaves can be tossed into your compost bin to decay in months ahead and create organic matter for future gardening.)  

Hope you have found ways to enjoy the outdoors throughout this magnificent, colorful season.  

This fall deserves to be called Autumn Strong!

M. Lynn Schmid – Certified Master Gardener
AAS  Landscape/Horticulture/Arboriculture