The Gateway Gardener May 2020

Gateway Gardener

MAY 2020

THE

®

Your Guide to Enjoyable Gardening and Easy-Care Landscapes

Milkweeds for the Garden

Choose What’s Right for You!

Top 6 Perennials for Beginners Virtual Annuals Shopping Trending Tomatoes FREE Courtesy of:

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Gateway Gardener THE

®

Your Guide to Enjoyable Gardening and Easy-Care Landscapes

MAY 2020

Volume 16, Number 3 Celebrating 15 Years

Founded in 2005 by Joyce Bruno & Robert Weaver Publisher and Editor Robert Weaver Columnists Diane Brueckman Rosey Acres Abby Lapides Sugar Creek Gardens Steffie Littlefield Edg-Clif Winery Jennifer Schamber Greenscape Gardens Scott Woodbury Shaw Nature Reserve

Printing: Breese Publishing, Breese, IL The Gateway Gardener® is published 9 times/year by Double Dig Communications, Inc. to promote enjoyable, successful gardening and livable landscapes in the St. Louis greater metropolitan area. The magazine is distributed free to the public at designated garden centers, nurseries, garden gift shops, lawn equipment rental, repair and sales establishments, and other locations supporting sound gardening, lawn and landscaping practices.

Please send letters-to-the-editor, questions, event announcements, editorial suggestions and contributions, photos, advertising inquiries and materials, and any other correspondence to: The Gateway Gardener Magazine® PO Box 220853 St. Louis, MO 63122 Phone: (314) 968-3740

info@gatewaygardener.com www.gatewaygardener.com The Gateway Gardener® is printed on recycled newsprint using environmentally friendly soy-based ink, and is a member of the PurePower® renewable energy resources network.

Inch by inch, row by row I’m gonna make my garden grow All it takes is a rake and a hoe And a piece of fertile ground.

From the Editor

Botanical Gardens Horticulture Answer Service (HAS) at (314) 5775143 or email to plantinformation@ mobot.org. St. Louis County MU Extension also has a gardening answer service at (314) 400-7657 or email to stlgardenhotline@gmail. com. St. Charles Master Gardeners’ number is (636) 875-7457 or email mgstcharles@gmail.com. And U. of Illinois Extension’s hotline is (618) 344-4230.

L

ast winter, before we’d heard the first stories of this mysterious virus, and certainly before I realized I’d soon have hours of time on my hands, I decided to reconnect with the guitar I’d abandoned some 40-plus years ago after my young kids outgrew my rendition of “Puff the Magic Dragon” (“dragons live forever, but not so little boys…”). At nearly 70 years of age, the puppy love and protest lyrics that comprised so much of my repertoire all those years ago didn’t quite resonate as they once did, so I searched for new material. It shouldn’t surprise that one of the first songs I Iincluded in my new senior set was “The Garden Song”, written by a lesser-known folk singer, David Mallett, but popularized through the years by Pete Seeger and others.

The song, which was one of the first Mallett every wrote, came to him, he said, while helping his father plant a garden. He has said, since then, that the song was a gift.

their limited staff is far too busy filling those curbside orders.

But we’re here to help as much as we can. We try to answer many of your questions in the pages of this magazine, and encourage you to review past issues on our digital archive at Issuu.com/ TheGatewayGardener, as well as articles on our website at GatewayGardener.com.

Beyond our pages there are plenty of other resources for you, including email and phone-in garden answer services, such as the Missouri

Our gardens can provide gifts in many forms. Many new gardeners are hoping to reap those gifts this summer, as they plant what many are calling “Victory Gardens 2.0”.

Vegetable gardens are all the rage now, as garden newbies seek to find a sense of control in a world that offers little such opportunity.

Along the way, many will find that it’s often not as easy to control a garden’s output as some would suggest (reference the book The $64 Tomato). In normal times you would be able to get fast answers from your professionals at neighborhood independent garden centers. Now,

On the Cover...

The University of Missouri Division of Plant Sciences is also offering a series of virtual Town Hall Meetings for Home Gardeners, for which you can register at https://ipm.missouri. edu/TownHalls.

If the lines are busy, just remember this: Plant your rows straight and long, Temper them with prayer and song.

Mother Earth will make you strong If you give her love and care.

Good Gardening!

Ed. Correction:

Careful reader and subscriber Linda Massey noted that the photo described as Geranium maculatum in our March issue (Geraniums Explainiumed, pg. 5) didn’t appear to be the same plant that she has been growing in her garden for years. She is correct. I have two native plants that grow in my garden that share common names of popular porch pot annuals, wild geranium and wild petunia. In my mid-winter confusion, I grabbed a photo of the petunia (Ruellia humilis) instead of the Geranium maculatum. Thanks, Linda, for the catch. Pictured here are both.

Photo of R. humilis (top), by Robert Weaver Photo of G. maculatum (right) by Linda Massey

Everyone loves butterflies, and butterflies love milkweed! These butterfly milkweed may be just the thing for your garden! See page 10 for more ideas. (photo courtesy Scott Woodbury)

IN THIS ISSUE 4 6 Perennials for Beginners 8 Assists for Virtual Annual Shopping 10 Right Milkweeds for Your Garden 12 Trending Tomatoes 14 Roses Need Not Social Distance

S

Top 6 Perennials for Beginning Perennial Gardeners

By Abby Lapides

ometimes choosing the right perennial can be a daunting task for a novice gardener. Some plants are pickier than others about water requirements, sunlight, or even soil pH. The many parameters can often become overwhelming for someone trying to get their feet wet. Try some of these easygoing plants to start perennial gardening on the right foot.

Salvias or sage are one of the easiest perennials to grow for sunny spots. They can tolerate just about any soil condition, except for consistently moist, and are very tolerant of dry soil. Coming in colors of dark to light blue-purple, pink and white, there’s usually a spot for

gardening abilities. One of my favorite varieties is ‘Peachie’s Pick,’ which is one of the heaviest blooming of all stoke’s asters.

Salvia ‘Caramia’ a salvia. A newer variety named ‘Caramia’ features dark purple erect stems that bloom wave after wave all season, starting

LIFE IS BETTER WITH

COLOR

Offering a big flower show with little care makes Astilbe a superstar in the shady garden.

One of my favorites, ‘Visions’, features hot cherry red fluffy flowers that electrify the garden.

Astilbes easily grow in average soils in part shade, but can tolerate wet spots. They bloom once early summer, providing a show-stopping display for about a month.

Another excellent shade plant in spring. The only maintenance is Solomon’s seal. This exciting salvias require is to be sheared foliage plant is one of the few back to the crown once each wave of blooms has passed.

Stoke’s asters, Stokesia, is one of the more exotic looking of the easy perennials. Usually coming in periwinkle blue, stoke’s asters bloom most of the summer with only a light shearing required after the first flowers are spent.

This practically disease- and pest-proof plant will bring a beginner confidence in their

Stoke’s aster ‘Peachie’s Pick’

2832 Barrett Station Rd, Ballwin, MO 63021 www.greenscapegardens.com

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The Gateway Gardener™ MAY 2020

Variegated Variegated Solomon’s Solomon’sSeal Seal

garden

S T U N N I N G B E A U TY F R O M

table

Robert Weaver

to

prolific of the summer blooming perennials. Their happy flowers dance on top of delicate stems.

But don’t be fooled by their dainty appearance, these plants are tough as nails. Tickseeds exhibit one of my favorite qualities in most prairie plants – large root systems that cause them to be extremely drought tolerant. Once these beauties are established they need almost no supplemental watering. The classic butter-yellow flowers on ‘Moonbeam’ is still a showTickseeds are one of the most stopper, but new varieties like perennials to thrive in the trickiest of all spots-dry shade.

Forming into dense patches, this taller groundcover easily will grow to 3’ wide, if not wider in a few years. I prefer the variegated variety to bring extra texture to the garden.

Small dangling white flowers add a delicate touch, but it’s the foliage that shines on this plant.

I particularly love it mixed with the lilac flowers of the woodland phlox, but it also pairs well with astilbe and hostas.

Cont’d on next page Abby Lapides is owner and a speaker at Sugar Creek Gardens Nursery. She has degrees from the University of Missouri, and is a member of the Landscape and Nursery Association of Greater St. Louis.

You can reach her at (314) 965-3070.

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5

Cont’d from previous page

Support Your Local Garden Centers Most are still offering phone-in / email ordering and curbside pickup and/or delivery.

See their ads on these pages or the article on page 24 for contact information.

Gardening is NOT Cancelled!

It’s a Good Time to Garden!

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Find plant descriptions, images and growing instructions with the click of a mouse!

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the pink ‘Sweet Tart’ are finding flowering pruning. new places in my heart and Photos courtesy Walters garden.

Gardens, Inc., except noted.

A magical perennial that needs to be in everyone’s garden is Indian pink. Tubular red flowers with yellow throats that end in a Indian Pink star pattern really wow in early ‘Lttle Redhead’ summer. This plant easily grows in sun to light shade, in average to dry soils. ‘Little Redhead,’ a selection of the Missouri native that features a more uniform height, will keep you enchanted as its spectacular blooms will attract hummingbirds in droves.

This is just a small sampling of easy-to-grow perennials. Others that deserve mentioning include cranesbill, catmint, black-eyedSusan and stonecrop. Perennials take about three years to mature and most benefit from post-

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BRING YOUR GARDEN TO LIFE Bayer’s Garden Center Imperial, MO St Louis, MO www.bayergardenshops.com Crabapple Cove Nursery St Louis, MO Tel.: (314) 846-4021

6

Garden Heights Richmond Heights, MO www.gardenheights.com Greenscapes Garden & Gifts Manchester, MO www.greenscapegardens.com

Haegele Nursery & Garden Center St Louis, MO www.haegelenursery.com Passiglia’s Nursery Wildwood, MO www.passiglia.com

Sherwood’s Forest Nursery & Garden Center Ballwin, MO www.sherwoods-forest.com

OK Hatchery Feed & Garden Store Kirkwood, MO (314) 822-0083 Timberwinds Nursery Ellisville, MO www.timberwindsnursery.com Sugar Creek Kirkwood, MO www.sugarcreekgardens.com

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7

5 Assists for Virtual Annual Container Shopping

by Robert Weaver

T

he experts always advise to have a list prior to shopping for annuals to avoid expensive impulse buys. I never took that advice. My spring tradition, perhaps like many of you, was to make a list of the containers I needed to fill, then wander aimlessly among the rows and rows of colorful annual flowers at my local garden center. It usually worked out, if in fact I did always end up with a hodge-podge of leftovers.

Today, we’re forced to follow the experts’ advice. Unable to roam those aisles, we have to place our orders sight unseen. But there are some aids to help us make our shopping decisions in Spring 2020. Here are a few.

Look Back to 2019 Containers For years, my sister-in-law Pam in New York has shared Facebook pictures of flowers from her garden/containers every Friday (Friday Flowers, she calls them). Did you take pictures of your previous years’ containers to share with friends or just to revisit in the dreary months of winter? Scroll through your phone images or computer photo library from summer 2019, enlarge them, and see what worked well last year. There’s nothing wrong with repeating the past, if only for one year.

Visit Garden Centers Virtually In this time of curbside-only sales, some garden centers have installed virtual shopping guides on their websites. Sugar Creek Gardens, for example has an “Online Plant Shop” where you can scroll through pictures of annuals much as you would strolling through their aisles. Others have photo galleries than can provide some brain ticklers to remind you of what that plant was that did so well last year.

Check Out National Online Resources Whenever I need a photo of a beautiful container planting for the magazine, my go-to site is ProvenWinners.com. Their website is full of inspirational images (click on the Gardening Ideas menu item at the top of the page, then choose the first item, “Container Gardening Recipe Search”. They have 85 pages of great mixed annual container images. And best of all, when you hover your curser over the picture, it lists the plants AND quantity of each needed to recreate the container in the photo!

Just wing it!

If all else fails, just wing it. Most local garden centers are operating on greatly reduced staff levels, and so no longer have the ability to chat with customers for long periods of time. But many can still use their creative skills to put together some dazzling combinations for you. Just tell them how many containers you have and what light conditions they’ll require.

Final Thoughts When pondering what plants to buy, keep in mind the gardening mantra of “Thrillers, Fillers and Spillers”. Thrillers are the taller plant or plants that provide height to the center, fillers fill in around the “thriller”, and spillers cascade over the edge. Or just plant a pot full of red wing begonias! Works for me!

Determine how many pots/baskets you need to fill and their sizes.

Then calculate how many plants you’ll need. Figure a spacing of about 4” for six-pack annuals, wider spacing for 4” potted annuals.

Closer if you want immediate fullness.

Think about your color scheme as well as the texture of various plants. Varied texture and complementary colors usually work best. Again, though, do what you like.

Group plants within a single container that have similar light and moisture preferences. They’ll be happier and it will be easier carrying for them.

Lastly, consider the seasonality of plants. Most of the cool-season annuals won’t be offered by May, so it’s probably not an issue. But if you see a beautiful container of pansies and snapdragons on the internet, realize that these plants won’t like the heat of summer.

That’s about it. Enjoy the adventure, stay safe and healthy, and support your local garden centers!

Look Through Your Seed Catalogs We all rely on direct mail seed and plant catalogs to get us through the dreary months of winter. While it may be too late to order from them, you can still dig them back out and use them for your local order to remind you of the name of that one plant you liked so much from last year. Or to gain inspiration from their pictures.

8

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9

Naturally Natives Choosing the Right Milkweed for Your Garden Text and Photos by Scott Woodbury

Tall Green Milkweed

Marsh Milkweed

M

Purple Milkweed

Sullivant’s Milkweed

ilkweeds are great garden plants, but each species has milkweed, which grow well in a variety of soil types including wet its own sun and soil moisture requirements to grow and dry clay soil. The rest have more specific garden requirements well. There are exceptions, like common and marsh for success. All milkweed species are the larval food source for monarch butterfly caterpillars and a great source of nectar for bees, butterflies, and other insects. Here is a list of milkweed species that are worth growing and are available commercially in Missouri, although some species are easier to find from growers than others.

Missouri Wildflowers Nursery 9814 Pleasant Hill Rd Jefferson City MO 65109 www.mowildflowers.net mowldflrs@socket.net 573-496-3492, fax: 573-496-3003

Due to the virus, plant sales in the St. Louis area are either cancelled or likely will be. Some sales, like the Shaw sale, might be postponed to a later date.

We’re open for sales at the nursery, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday and Noon to 5 p.m. on Sundays.

You can also preorder & prepay for plants to be picked up at the nursery or we can ship by UPS to your residence. Ordering by website or email is best now.

Watch for coronarvirus-related cancellations on our website and Facebook page.

We are taking precautions to keep ourselves and our customers from contacting the virus at the nursery.

Please respect the 6-foot distance at all times, and remain outside of the sales building.

10

Tall green milkweed (Asclepias hirtella) is a clump-forming perennial that grows wild in tallgrass prairies. It has creamy white flower clusters along the sides of erect 3- to 4-foot stems. Leaves are long and narrow resembling those of prairie blazing star. In gardens, plants prefer well-drained or sloping sites.

Marsh or swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) is a clumpforming perennial growing 3 to 4 feet tall. It is a wetland species that tolerates poorly drained clay soils with low oxygen. It also tolerates periods of drought and so is an ideal rain garden plant (rain garden soils fluctuate widely from wet to dry). Pink flower clusters attract a wide variety of pollinators and predators in late summer.

Monarchs frequently lay their eggs on this species. It sometimes is short-lived and performs best in full sun and moist soils.

Aquatic milkweed (Asclepias perennis) is an emergent aquatic species that grows at the edge of water in full sun to part shade.

Plant it at the edge of a pond or in a pot submerged in a water garden or small pond. It can grow in water up to 18 inches deep or in soil that is permanently saturated. Its flowers resemble marsh milkweed, but tend to be more white than pink.

Purple milkweed (Asclepias purpurascens) is a woodland perennial growing 3 feet tall. It grows in open woodlands, woodland edges, and occasionally prairies and glades. It is sought-after by gardeners for its fragrant reddish purple flower clusters that bloom in early summer. It is one of the top butterfly and pollinator attractors.

The Gateway Gardener™ MAY 2020

Tips and Resources for Growing and Landscaping with Sustainable Native Plants Common Milkweed

Butterfly Milkweed

flowering stems emerge densely from the ground, hence the other common name—horsetail milkweed. Its stems are upright with narrow leaves and tiny greenish-white fragrant flowers in clusters along the stem in late summer. This plant is sometimes considered aggressive by gardeners, though it is slow to get established.

Performs best in full sun to part shade and dry to average soils.

Find suppliers of milkweeds at www.grownative.org, Resource Guide.

Performs best in light shade and dry to average well-drained soils.

Plants usually are clump-forming, but occasionally seedlings will sucker moderately.

Sullivant’s milkweed (Asclepias sullivantii) is a moderately suckering perennial growing 3 to 4 feet tall in wet prairies. Its flowering stems are widely spaced, appearing by surprise 5 to 10 feet away from parent plants. Because it meanders in gardens, it makes an excellent choice for green mulch and designed plant community gardens. It looks similar to common milkweed, but not as aggressive. Flowers are pink with salmon-pink leaf veins. It performs best in full sun in wet to average soils.

Common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) is a moderate to aggressive suckering perennial growing 3 to 4 feet tall. Its flowering stems are widely spaced. It has fragrant flowers in mid to late summer that attract a variety of pollinators and predators that ambush the pollinators. It grows wild in tallgrass prairies, along roadsides and at the edges of farm fields. It is a preferred milkweed of monarch butterflies, which lay eggs on the leaves. It performs best in full sun but tolerates partial shade. In part shade, it is less aggressive but also flowers slightly less.

Butterfly milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa) is a clump-forming perennial growing 2 feet tall with orange to reddish orange flowers in summer. It grows wild in dry prairies and sloped roadsides. In gardens it requires well drained soils, and can be a successful garden plant, although likely half the gardeners I know report having poor success growing this species. It is one of the top butterfly and pollinator attractors and performs best in full sun and dry soils.

Spider milkweed (Asclepias viridis) is a clump-forming perennial growing 1 to 2 feet tall. It grows in dry prairies and roadsides. It has the largest flowers of Missouri-native species with greenish-yellow flowers and purple speckles in early summer. This is a lesser-known species among gardeners, but well worth considering. Performs best in full sun and well-drained dry or rocky soils.

Whorled milkweed (Asclepias verticillata) is a suckering perennial that is 1 to 2 feet tall. It colonizes in full sun, less so in part shade. Its MAY 2020

The Gateway Gardener™

Horticulturist Scott Woodbury is the Curator of the Whitmire Wildflower Garden at Shaw Nature Reserve in Gray Summit, MO, where he has worked with native plant propagation, design, and education for 28 years. and which is supported by the Missouri Department of Conservation. He is also an advisor to the Missouri Prairie Foundation’s GrowNative! program.

Now’s the time to

CONNECT with NATURE...

…and, also with your mom. Why not plant a native tree or perennial garden...with or for her?

Your mom will love you for it. And, so will Mother Nature.

Call or check website for current hours.

88 Forrest Keeling Lane | Elsberry, MO 63343 | 800-FKN-2401 | forrestkeeling.com

11

The Cornucopia Corner

Tips for Growing, Buying and Cooking Fresh, Locally Sourced Food for Your Table

Trending Tomatoes

By Steffie Littlefield

I

love growing all types, colors, shapes and sizes of tomatoes, but not everyone has as much room as I do. But one thing is sure whether you have a large garden, a single raised bed or containers on a balcony you will want to include tomato plants in your kitchen garden plan. The real question is which ones. There are so many new varieties, old revived heirlooms and a huge range of types it can be hard to choose.

May is the time to get your tomato plants out in the garden so I did some research for my daughter’s balcony garden in NYC and to fill my 50-plant

plan at Edg-Clif Farms. In my quest I looked at what the judges at AARS deemed noteworthy (a few of which you may have seen in the March issue). I also checked the most reliable seed companies and my neighboring market grower for his favorites.

Here are some fun ones for you

Celano

to try!

Celano is a patio-type grape tomato with a strong bushy habit. It is best grown with some support, such as a tomato cage.

This semi-determinate hybrid tomato is an early producer of sweet oblong fruits weighing about 0.6 oz. each. Plants grow to 40” in height and spread to 24” and have excellent late blight tolerance. In comparing it to other grape tomatoes on the market, one judge summed it up by saying “(Celano) is sweeter, the texture is better, the color is deeper, the plants are healthier, and the yield is phenomenal.”

Early Resilience

Galahad

parents are resistant. Galahad is a high-yielding, great tasting tomato that grows on a strong sturdy, determinate, 4’ plant.

Judges agreed that the sweet, meaty flavor is better than that of the comparison varieties and boasts of being crack resistant.

Broad shoulders and large, clean fruits ripen in 75 days and are good for canning and salsas.

Chef’s Choice Bicolor

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Early Resilience is a rounded Roma tomato with a deep red interior color, uniform maturity and good quality flesh for canning and cooking.

Determinate, bushy plants that are only 2’ tall. The AAS Judges noted that this variety was very resistant to blossom end rot, resulting in a high yield and less fruit loss. Great taste with nice balance of sweetness and acidity and a healthier plant and fruits. Overall, this is an excellent variety that would be a home canner’s dream.

Chef’s Choice Bicolor is one of the best beefsteak types you can grow this season, with a sweet and slightly savory flavor and smooth texture. Judges also complimented this tomato variety for how attractive it looks in a garden with its yellow-orange fruits that resist cracking despite their thin skin. A single plant can yield about 30 meaty fruits, usually weighing about half a pound each. The fruits mature early, Galahad is a new tomato variety usually in about 75 days, but this that has a high level of Late variety can keep producing new Blight resistance because both The Gateway Gardener™ MAY 2020

tomatoes well into September in the Midwest. The plants are indeterminate, but only grow to five feet tall in full sun. This is also my neighbor’s favorite yellow, gorgeous.

Buffalosun Buffalosun lives up to the lofty reputation of heirloom tomatoes for being the most flavorful; according to judges, with a sweet taste and better texture than other popular heirloom tomato varieties, it is never mushy. Buffalosun tomatoes are a beautiful combination of yellow, orange, and red, and have a high yield with minimal cracking (splitting skin on the fruit). The plants reach maturity in 70 (for transplants) to 110 days (for seeds), and are indeterminate and can reach up to six feet tall. Judges also noted that Buffalosun kept producing more and more fruits throughout the season (each hefty orb usually weighing over a pound), even after other varieties had stopped yielding new tomatoes.

Big Yummy

Big Yummy produces deep red, smooth fruits weighing in at 8 to 10 ounces on average. This is a great all-purpose size, ideal for slicing, canning, freezing, and saucing. The plant habit is determinate, meaning that it sets its entire crop within just a MAY 2020

few weeks, instead of bearing small amounts continuously all season. This is ideal if you like to can or freeze your crop, because you can do it all at once.

(Of course, you can also create a longer season of fruiting by staggering the times at which you sow your ‘Big Yummy’ seed and transplant the seedlings into the garden. Try it every 2 weeks for a really long season of production!) A combination of sweet, succulent, sharp, and acidic flavors throughout this meaty yet juicy tomato makes it unforgettable. ‘Big Yummy’ is a hybrid with superb disease resistance, making it a great choice for first-time gardeners as well as those who have had problems growing tomatoes in the past.

flower pot. Dwarf plants grow to only 8 to 12 inches high and bear loads of 1 1/4-inch, deep red, extra-sweet fruits with real-tomato flavor. Also works well in hanging baskets, set on windowsills or outdoor patios.

Fahrenheit Blues

Photo credits: All photos are courtesy of All-America Selections, except for Big in intense sun. Very good flavor Yummy and Dwarf Red Robin, for a blue variety too! Growth courtesy ParkSeeds.com, and habit is indeterminate, however Fahrenheit Blues, courtesy fruit maturity is 65-75 days.

Oregon State University

Dwarf Red Robin

Dig Deeper.

Dwarf Red Robin bears fruit in 55 days. It is determinate and the ideal variety for an 8-inch

Apple Yellow Apple Yellow is a super-cute, aptly named tomato that looks like tiny yellow apples growing on the vine. Trial judges were impressed by their sweet, citrusy taste, matching their fruity appearance. Apple Yellow can reach maturity in 110 to 120 days, depending on if you start it from seeds or a transplant, and it is indeterminate, meaning the plant will keep growing and producing until the first frost.

When grown in full sun, the plant can reach about six feet in height and produce up to 1,000 tomatoes.

Fahrenheit Blues tomato is a spectacular cherry tomato with intense blue coloration!

‘Fahrenheit Blues’ bears nice sized cherry fruits in clusters of 8-16, with fruits ripening to a dark blue color with red beneath.

Fruits take on a very rich color

The Gateway Gardener™

Visit GatewayGardener.

COM for Articles, videos, projects and more!

Steffie Littlefield is a St Louis area horticulturist and garden designer. She has degrees from St. Louis Community College at Meramec and Southeast Missouri State and is a member of Gateway Professional Horticultural Association, Missouri Botanical Garden Members Board and past president of the Horticulture Co-op of Metropolitan St. Louis. She is part-owner of Edg-Clif Winery, Potosi, MO. www.Edg-Clif.com.

Healing the Earth one yard at a time.

ST. LOUIS CHAPTER stlwildones.org

13

Roses Need Not Social Distance!

by Diane Brueckman

I

David Austin Roses, Ltd.

have always been “I don’t have room for a rose fascinated with the garden” or “Roses, they are diversity of roses. Not too hard to grow” or “I have a only in the classes of roses, perennial garden. I don’t grow Hybrid Tea, Floribunda, roses.”

Grandiflora, Climbers, Articles are appearing on Ramblers, Old Garden Roses, companion plants for roses but Miniature etc. but each of the what about roses as companion classes is so varied in color, plants to other roses? Plant fragrance, flower size and climbers on a fence with shorter shape, as well as plant size and hybrid teas and floribundas in shape. Whatever your style, front of the climbers. Mix roses you can find a rose to enhance with single blooms (7 petals or your garden. It was not so long fewer) among roses with fully ago that a rose garden had only double blooms for a variety roses in it and usually those of textures. Every rose class roses were hybrid teas. Hybrid comes in a multitude of colors teas tended to be tall leggy plants with bare legs. If you This English Rose ‘Tottering-By-Gently’ is perfectly happy being and flower shapes. Plant habits vary, as well, some of them asked a gardener what roses a companion to other garden perennials like summer phlox. are very upright and others are they grow the answer might be shorter with broad, bushy habits. The David Austin gardens are great examples of mix and match roses that give you a solid border of color. The new DA roses for 2020 are shown in pictures with perennials resulting in a charming display of color.

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So many of the shrub roses and Old Garden Roses are perfectly suited to the perennial border. There are many reasons for using roses in an existing garden. Roses bloom from late spring until frost and even after a light frost. With colors ranging from pure white to the deepest reds and every color in between except

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The Gateway Gardener™ MAY 2020

blue. Most perennials bloom for a few weeks so the roses give a constant source of color. It is easy to change the color scheme and texture in your garden as the season progresses by planting a variety of perennials and annuals.

Having a diverse planting also helps with pest control. Plants that attract birds and beneficial insects help to cut down on spraying. Long ago a lady came through the garden during the Japanese beetle infestation. This lady worked at a public garden in Indianapolis where they put out planters with white geraniums. She claimed the beetles were deterred by the geraniums. The beetles were temporarily knocked down by the strong scent or perhaps they bit into the leaves leaving them “dopy” at least for a time. I don’t know if that was true or not but she believed it. Garlic is another plant that is supposed to ward off some pests. Plant allium for spring color and also some daffodils to give early spring color. Agastache is a great companion and attracts hummingbirds to the garden.

One word of caution, plant plants that share the same requirements as roses. You don’t want plants that prefer a dry garden or you will be watering individual plants to keep them all happy. The opposite is also true. Plants that like to be in wet areas are not going to be happy with roses.

Another consideration is nutrients.

Be sure your companions do well with a pH of 6 to 7 like the roses.

Fortunately conditions for roses are really pretty common for many plants, so finding companions will not be difficult.

YOUR TREES DESERVE THE BEST CARE

Tim Gamma – B.S. Horticulture Board Certified Master Arborist Tom Gamma ISA Certified Arborist

Diane Brueckman is a retired rosarian with Missouri Botanical Garden, and currently owns Rosey Acres in Baldwin, Illinois. You can reach her at (618) 785-3011 or droseyacres@ egyptian.net.

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