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“All things seem possible in May.”
– Edwin Way Teale, 1899-1980, American naturalist and writer
We shipped a lot of wonderful bulbs this spring to a lot of wonderful people – thank you! May they bring you a summer full of beauty, fragrance, and joy, as they have for so many other gardeners for so many years.
Spring is a great time to walk around with your phone taking pictures of flowers you’d like to see blooming in your yard next year. Walk around your own garden, too, taking photos of spots where you want more spring flowers, before you forget where they are. And then – while everything’s still clear in your mind’s eye and you’re feeling inspired – why not start your fall-planted order right now, remembering that you can always add to it later. Next spring, you’ll be glad you did!
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Like many gardeners, you may have some beloved plants in your garden that have lost their names. Calling them “Great-Grandma’s rose” or “that daffodil we found in the woods” doesn’t make them any less wonderful, but sometimes you may wish you knew their real name.
If it’s an iris you’re wondering about, you can now ask the Historic Iris Preservation Society about it. On the HIPS homepage, there’s a green box that says “Need help with iris ID? Click here.” Do that and you’ll be taken to their ID Central.
Don’t be daunted by the long introduction and instructions for filling out the application. All you need to know is that it’s hard to identify nameless iris – roughly 70,000 have been introduced, many look a lot alike, and colors often vary depending on climate and soils – and that “I don’t know” is an acceptable answer to any of the questions.
Do read the “Photo Request” section which explains how and when to take the three required close-ups of your nameless iris. Then enter its height, bloom size, fragrance, and so on, upload your photos, and send it.
If you’d prefer, you can mail in your information and photos. Either way, you’ll get a response from the HIPS experts, and – although identifying an iris is always a longshot – there’s at least a chance that your nameless iris will no longer be nameless. Good luck!
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If you’re still wondering what to send the Duke and Duchess of Sussex to celebrate the birth of baby Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, you might consider a big bouquet of peonies.
In case you missed it, peonies were featured prominently in the royal wedding last May. Meghan Markle has been a flower-lover since childhood – so much so that her mother’s nickname for her was Flower – and according to the London Daily Mail, “peonies are Markle’s favorite flower.”
“After she started dating Prince Harry,” the Mail reported, “she posted Instagram photos of a stunning bouquet of pink and white peonies [pictured here], captioning it: ‘Swooning over these. #peonies #spoiledrotten’.” Earlier she’d also posted “I bought these peonies for myself yesterday because they make me so endlessly happy. Do something sweet for yourself today too. #treatyourself #simplepleasures #favoriteflowers.”
Will peonies make you “endlessly happy”? We can’t guarantee that, but they are easy to grow, incredibly long-lived, and gorgeous. So why not “do something sweet for yourself today” and order a couple for planting this fall!
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May is Preservation Month and a wonderful time to explore historic gardens and landscapes near you.
If you don’t know where those are, The Cultural Landscape Foundation can help. “Cultural landscapes” are historic places ranging from gardens and parks to farmland and ethnographic landscapes. Enter your zip code at tclf.org/advanced-search and you’ll get a list of some of the most important ones within 100 miles of your home.
Another great resource is the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Although traditionally focused on buildings, the Trust has a new motto, “This Place Matters,” and a broadened vision that includes landscapes. For 45 landscape-related articles from its Preservation magazine – including ones about Brooklyn’s 175-year-old Green-Wood Cemetery, historic orchards in California, and “What Type of Historic Landscape Fits You?” – check out “Landscape Stories.”
Of course you could also go for a walk in any old neighborhood near you and look for how the plants and the way things are arranged differ from what you’d see in newer neighborhoods. The past is out there, all around us – and Preservation Month is a great time to enjoy it!
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“Yes indeed,” wrote Rolf Reisgies, in the March 2018 Bulletin of the American Dahlia Society. “Nothing to it!
You may remember we reported on this a couple of years ago when our good customer Jenn Hovland told us that’s what she does. But Ralph grows a LOT dahlias this way, and we thought you might like to see what he has to say about it.
After experimenting with a few the year before, Ralph planted all 200 of his dahlias in one-gallon pots in 2016 and 2017. He potted them up indoors so they’d be sprouted and growing before he planted them outside in his Wisconsin garden in early June. Although some never emerged, most grew and bloomed normally.
That fall after the first frost, he writes, “we chopped off the plants with the machete, waited a few days for things to dry up, and lifted the pots. The difference in the physical work is amazing! One poke with the spade – done.”
Ralph says the tubers in the pots grow four different ways:
“Some develop perfectly normal tubers.
“Some pots have no tubers at all, only measly roots – onto the compost pile.
“Some very large tubers grow inside and outside the pot and we chop them off.
“And some have one massive bundle ... [of] tightly wound-up tubers filling the entire pot” which sometimes even “busts the pot to pieces.”
Ralph leaves them all in their pots for winter storage, which means “there’s no washing and no dividing in the traditional sense.”
In spring, he empties the pots, “if only to see how they survived the winter. Maybe 15% shrivel up. Most of the others call for an executive decision: Those with only small tuber bundles go right back into the pot. If there’s a substantial bundle, chop it once or twice” and you’re good to go.
Ralph says you’ll need to have extra pots on hand in the spring because as many as “a third are no longer usable and need to be replaced.” Although you can buy pots at garden centers and online, if you’re a nature-lover and plastics-hater like me you might try fixing them with duct tape or using gallon milk jugs as pots instead.
So doesn’t that sound easy? If you try it, please let us know how it works for you and if you have any additional tips. We always love learning from our customers.
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Our April newsletter included:
You can read all of our back-issues at oldhousegardens.com/NewsletterArchives – and we’re adding the best articles to our blog!
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