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garden planning

Shrubs for Fall Planting: Choose Formal or Informal!

October 25, 2021

Fall is a great time to plant shrubs, and there are so many choices! One way to narrow your selection and save yourself some frustration in future years is to picture where you want to plant your new shrubs and how you want them to look.

Roles for shrubs
Shrubs can play many roles in your landscape. These include:

  • Foundation plantings
  • Screens for privacy—or to block a view
  • Hedges to define areas within your property or to define property boundaries
  • Serve as a woody groundcover
  • Source of fall color, flowers, and/or fruit
Formal foundation planting with conifers
Informal hydrangea hedge
Shrubs serving as a woody groundcover on a slope
Beautyberry with fall color and fruit
Formal planting of evergreens

Considerations
Once you’ve decided where you want to plant shrubs and for what purpose, consider how they’ll look before you choose. As you think about landscapes you admire, you’ll likely notice how formal or informal they look. Shrubs are often a good indicator of formality.

  • In formal landscapes symmetry and geometric shapes are the rule—shrubs are typically pruned to have clean lines, whether rounded or angular.
  • In informal landscapes, shrub forms are left to more natural shapes.
Improper pruning decreases the number of flower buds

This may seem an unusual first step in choosing a shrub, but the desired appearance of your shrub may affect several aspects of your choice:

  • If your shrub is evergreen or deciduous—most shrubs that take to shearing are evergreen rather than deciduous
  • If your shrub flowers or fruits you will typically want a less formal shape because shearing may remove flower buds—and prevent the flowers and/or fruit that follow—one exception is if you espalier fruit trees to shrub-size plantings (see “Specialty pruning” section in General Pruning link below)
  • The distance you plant your shrubs from structures or other plantings—shearing will limit height and perhaps width of your shrub, depending on if your shrub is planted as a specimen or in a hedge.
Many holly species can be pruned to formal shapes


Choices!
For formal shrubs, think typically evergreen and smaller-leaved. Many dwarf and smaller conifers will grow into pleasing shapes and stay small with little pruning. Although boxwoods are the classic selection for shearing, the devastating appearance of boxwood blight makes this a riskier choice. Some of the evergreen hollies (Ilex spp.) are suitable replacements:

  • Inkberry hollies (Ilex glabra) are native to NC, slow-growing, and tend to grow in a rounded shape that requires little pruning. There are dwarf varieties that grow only to 3 feet tall, and the species typically tops out at 5 to 8 feet.
  • Yaupon hollies ( I . vomitoria) are also NC natives, suitable for shearing, but faster growing, larger, and less hardy—only to USDA hardiness Zone 7a, so not suitable for colder parts of Buncombe County.

Note that Japanese hollies (I. crenata), which tolerate extensive pruning and are often used for topiaries, is an invasive plant and has been reported along the Blue Ridge Parkway in Buncombe County.

For informal landscapes, both evergreen and deciduous shrubs can provide a variety of sizes, shapes, colors, and seasons of interest. In addition to many varieties of hydrangeas and viburnums—some of which are evergreen—there are many lesser-known shrubs that are excellent choices for WNC landscapes. A few that are also native include:

  • American beautyberry (Callicarpa americana) has arching branches, is 3 to 8 feet tall and 3 to 6 feet wide. Small flowers attract pollinators in late spring/early summer and distinctive purple berries and yellow foliage make this shrub a stand-out in fall. Some varieties have white or pink berries; all beautyberries are attractive to birds.
  • Carolina allspice/Sweetshrub (Calycanthus floridus) forms rounded shrubs 6 to 12 feet tall and wide with fragrant, showy red flowers in spring are visited by pollinators. Unusual seedpods form in fall.
  • Red chokeberry (Aronia arbutifolia) is typically vase-shaped, 6 to 10 feet tall and 3 to 5 feet wide. It has four-season interest, with white flowers in spring that attract pollinators, shiny green leaves in summer, attractive red fall foliage and red berries that feed birds and mammals, and exfoliating bark during the winter.
    Sweetshrub flowers in early summer
    Red chokeberry has beautiful fall foliage and berries

Planting
Now is the time to plant! Autumn planting encourages strong root growth—cooler temperatures and fall rains make for lower maintenance, too. Give your shrubs a great start by digging a planting hole that is only as deep as the root ball, but 2 to 3 times as wide. Backfill with existing soil rather than other materials. Mulch lightly, keeping the mulch away from the stems, and keep well-watered throughout the winter months. Enjoy!

Article by Debbie Green, Buncombe County Extension Master GardenerSMVolunteer

 

For more information:

Planting and caring for shrubs: https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/extension-gardener-handbook/11-woody-ornamentals

Pruning trees and shrubs: https://chatham.ces.ncsu.edu/2015/02/pruning-trees-and-shrubs-2/

General pruning: https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/general-pruning-techniques

Landscape design: https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/extension-gardener-handbook/19-landscape-design

 

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Categories General Gardening, Shrubs Tags fall garden chores, garden planning, landscape planning, shrubs

Garden Questions? Find Internet Answers!

March 13, 2021

We know you have lots of gardening questions. You know you can call (828-255-5522) or email (buncombemg@gmail.com) Extension Master Gardener Volunteers to get answers! But what if you need an answer NOW, or you are interested in a general gardening topic or a complex garden project? Where can you find reliable information? Here are some tips!

Learn about North Carolina State University Extension Service resources
There are lot of resources tailored to our state that should be your first stop.

  • For Buncombe County information you can use the Resources link and the search box on this blog page and check out the Buncombe County Extension lawn and garden page: https://buncombe.ces.ncsu.edu/categories/lawn-garden/
  • For choosing or learning about the needs of specific plants, the NSCU Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox is a perfect first stop: https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu

  • For help in how to use it, start here: https://extensiongardener.ces.ncsu.edu/how-to-select-a-plant-using-extension-gardener-plant-toolbox/ Of course, for WNC, you’ll want to select the Mountain region!
  • If you are concerned about plant diseases or pests, look at the “Be on the Lookout”—BOLO lists for each month:  https://pdic.ces.ncsu.edu/bolos/
  • If weeds are a special concern, check out these sites:
    https://www.turffiles.ncsu.edu/weeds-in-turf/
    https://projects.ncsu.edu/goingnative//howto/mapping/invexse/index.html
  • If you have general topics you’d like to explore, such as vegetable gardening, houseplants, or native plants, the North Carolina Extension Gardener Handbook is available online: https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/extension-gardener-handbook

Using Search Engines
When you search on the internet it is all about how you frame your search question and where you search!

How to search
Think about the key words you need to include to find the answer to your question.

Focus on the specific issue and type of gardening or plant. For example: “vegetable gardening” or “carrot pests.” For NC Extension information, include “NCSU” after your topic.

  • Avoid extra words! Don’t bother to say: “How do I learn about my backyard vegetable garden? NCSU” or “What are those destructive pests on my carrot? NCSU”
  • Try different search words if your results are too broad or too narrow
    • Focusing on specific locations and seasons is often necessary for garden info! So “spring vegetable gardening WNC NCSU” brings up the most specific information for our area.
    • Using the correct terms or more specific details may improve your results. “carrot critters NCSU” does not get you to specific information about insects; “carrot pests NCSU” does!
  • If your key word search is coming up empty, try an image search! Click on “images” rather than “all” in your search engine.
    • If you don’t know if it a pest or disease affecting your plant, you could use “carrot problems NCSU” to look at images to try to find something that looks like what you’re seeing! Look at the information with the image; you will often find better words to use in your search.
    • Image searches can also help with plant ID if you’re not sure what the plant is! Here a description is useful: “shrub with large pink flowers NCSU” or “spring-blooming white flower with five petals NCSU” or “tree with yellow fall leaves NCSU” might lead you to further clues to its identity.
Looking at images may help to identify more information for your word searches.

Where to search
You likely have a favorite search engine, such as Bing or Google, but have you tried One Search for Extension? This is a specialized Google link that will bring up Extension sources across the United States: https://extension.org/search/

  • To find information for North Carolina, enter your topic and include “NCSU” for North Carolina State University or try just “WNC” to focus on the mountains.
  • If the information from NC sources is limited, search the topic without a location—information from other Extension sources may be helpful.
    • For indoor gardening most Extension information will be applicable to our area, but for outdoor gardening be sure to consider that growing conditions or pests and diseases may be different!
    • Information from Kentucky, Maryland, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia Extension sources is often the most useful.
There is little information on growing citrus in North Carolina, even indoors.
Information from other states about growing citrus indoors can be helpful.

Happy searching!

 Article by Buncombe County Extension Master GardenerSM Volunteers

 

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Categories General Gardening Tags garden planning, gardening help, internet, search engines, vegetable gardens, websites

Garden Planning: Think Small!

January 31, 2021

 

Fairy gardens are the ultimate in thinking small

Looking forward to a new gardening year, we often think big: We’ll have the biggest vegetable garden ever—grow all the flowers we’ve been meaning to try—or how about starting an herb garden—replacing foundation plantings? While it’s cold and we’re dreaming we can be most ambitious—but also most creative! So consider how thinking small might mean your best gardening year, yet!

Some ways of thinking small
Now is the time to map out your garden projects, buy seeds, start preparing for planting—and the time to consider how to garden smart.

Incorporating edibles into your landscape
  • Rather than starting a whole new garden for vegetables, fruits, or herbs, consider integrating edibles into your existing landscape. A recent North Carolina Extension publication (see references below) provides sample plans for both in-ground and container plantings for a variety of sun/shade conditions.
  • Consider using smaller plants as well as smaller gardens.
    • Many vegetables and fruit trees come in “dwarf” or “compact” varieties, allowing you to grow more produce in smaller spaces.
    • Minigardens/container gardens may use these smaller plants, but also capitalize on closer spacing of plants in the ground or using unused above-ground space on decks, driveways, patios, and porches to grow plants in containers.
    • If you have existing gardens, consider replacing overgrown plantings with trees/shrubs/perennials that better fit the space available.
Patio tomatoes don’t need staking and can be planted in containers

Maintenance
It’s easy to think about great times in your garden when you’re stuck inside, but now is the time to think about the gardening tasks you hate as well as those you love! I share a plot in our local community garden, and it is always sad to see all the number of plots abandoned in midsummer when weeds or insects or diseases overwhelm. Shrubs and trees in many home landscapes look just as abandoned!

Dwarf fruit trees are easier to maintain than full size fruit trees

Some ways to minimize maintenance:

  • Reduce areas you need to water
  • Reduce areas you need to weed
  • Choose disease-resistant varieties of vegetables and herbs
  • Choose shrubs and trees that need little pruning to keep looking good and staying within the space—both horizontal and vertical—that’s allotted
  • Avoid plants that need frequent deadheading or cutting back—including lawns
  • Mulch unplanted areas

 Article by Buncombe County Extension Master GardenerSM Volunteers

 For more information:

Growing edibles in the Landscape:
https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/growing-edibles-in-the-landscape

Dwarf tomatoes:
https://extension.psu.edu/dwarf-tomatoes-save-space-and-taste-great
https://www.dwarftomatoproject.net

Growing vegetable in minigardens:
https://www.tnstate.edu/extension/documents/GrowingVegetablesinMiniGardensContainers.pdf

Low maintenance landscaping:
https://extension.missouri.edu/publications/g6902

 

 

 

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Categories General Gardening Tags garden planning, vegetable gardens, winter garden chores

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