Sanhedrin Nursery – Garden Blog

• Plant sunflowers now from seed. Choose either the multi-stemmed kinds for cut flowers or the giants for edible seeds.

• Evergreen candytuft is a hardy perennial with bright white flowers set against dark green foliage. They bloom now and make a fine border plant.

• Spring feeding of trees and shrubs can begin now. Mulch with manure or apply fish emulsion or commercial fertilizers.

• Prepare for planting season! Turn in cover crops and do a soil test if your garden had trouble last year.

• Plant sweet peas for bouquets of delightful blooms.

Look What’s Blooming for Easter!

The cold, wet weather has certainly slowed down gardening activities, but many of the early bloomers in the garden are doing their best to remind us that spring is not far away.

Daffodils are real troopers in this weather. Day after day, they hold their flowers up high against the weather beckoning the sunshine. A drift I saw at the base of a clump of white birch trees was especially cheerful. Grape hyacinths make a carpet of blue in my garden where they are impervious to the weather.

Forsythia branches covered with bright golden flowers standout in the garden, and so do the leaves of variegated Euonymus, which look particularly bright yellow at this time of year. Purple wallflower, Erysimum ‘Bowles Mauve’, now adds its bright mauve flowers to the springtime palette. And the slender, green stems of Kerria japonica are about to burst forth with their double yellow “Japanese rose” flowers. Is it any wonder that purple and yellow are “Easter colors”?

The Tulip Trees or saucer magnolias are coming into their glory. Their pink or purplish red blooms are 4-inches across or more, and they cover the branches of this beautiful small tree.  For the month that is in bloom it is extraordinary. 

Viburnum ‘Spring Bouquet’ is living up to its name, and is so beautiful right now, that you want to stop and see what that glorious plant is. This hardy, evergreen shrub should have a place in every garden. One of its close relatives, Viburnum burkwoodii, has fragrant white flowers that appear in early spring from dense clusters of 4″ pink buds. The upright, multi-stemmed shrub has an open habit that is very lovely in the shade garden.

Some varieties of Rosemary are now in full bloom. Their bright blue flowers are very attractive set against the dark green, aromatic leaves. Given good drainage, they are one of our toughest and most versatile plants.

Camellias are an old-fashioned shrub that has stood the test of time. Some older specimens, which were probably planted when the houses were built, are as tall as the eaves. Their perfectly formed red, pink or white flowers cover the plants in April and are an invitation to come enjoy their singular beauty.

Dainty azaleas are just beginning to bloom. These profuse flowering shrubs can be used as a low hedge, in borders or in massed planting for an impressive color display. The flowers come in pink, red, white, purple and lavender and cover the evergreen leaves while they are in bloom. It’s best to plant hardy varieties in our climate.

Eastre, the Teutonic Goddess of Fertility, is rich with promise and potential life. At this time of new beginnings, we look forward with hope to a bountiful growing season ahead.

• Sweet peas, with their memorable fragrance, can be planted now from nursery starts for wonderful bouquets later this spring.

• Potatoes like to grow in the cool weather of spring. Plant them as soon as possible.

• Wildflower seeds can be broadcasted now on hillsides for colorful blooms and erosion control.

• Lettuce, cabbages, broccoli, onions and other cool-season vegetables can be set out with no frost protection. They will give you a delicious early harvest.

• Mouth-watering strawberries should be planted now for delicious berries this summer. Plant them in a sunny, well-drained bed.

Crisp, crunchy carrots

Carrots are one of the most popular vegetables, loved by young and old alike. And fresh carrots right from the garden are really a treat.

Carrots are easy to grow and every garden should have a good-sized plot of them. A loose, sandy soil that is free from stones is their main requirement. Rocks and hard clods make the roots deformed and cause them to split. Raised beds are ideal for carrots, just make sure the bed is deep enough for the roots.

Prepare the soil with compost but don’t add too much fertilizer. Carrot seeds are tiny and germinate best in damp soil when the soil temperature is between 50 and 60 degrees.

Sprinkle the seeds down a shallow trough and cover with a quarter inch of fine soil. Firm the soil and water gently.

The seeds must be kept constantly moist during the two to three weeks they take to sprout. If you have trouble getting carrot seeds to sprout, cover them with a layer of vermiculite, which will retain moisture, or lay a piece of burlap over the seed bed until the seeds germinate. As soon as they have their true leaves, when they are half an inch tall, it’s time to thin them. For baby carrots, thin plants to 1 inch apart, and for full-sized carrots, 2-4 inches.

Carrot varieties range from three inch miniatures to 12-inch tapers that need deep, well-worked soil.

‘Little Finger’ is an extra-early tender, sweet baby gourmet carrot that are nearly coreless. ‘Danvers’ is a popular variety with a strong top and smooth, tapered root that pulls up easily.

‘Chantenay’ is a standard variety that grows 5-8 inches long and does well in all types of soil. ‘Nantes’ and ‘Scarlet Nantes’ carrots are nearly cylindrical in shape, and are blunt and rounded at both the top and tip. Nantes cultivars are often sweeter than other carrots and have fine flavor that is sweet and full of carotene. They are excellent eating when young and tender, and also make good storage carrots.

‘Juwarot’ is an excellent variety for juice as it has twice the normal vitamin A content, and is a very tasty carrot. ‘Saint Valery’ is a large carrot, 10-12” long with 2-3” shoulder. Its flesh is fine-grained, sweet and tender with very little core, and it stores well in the ground.

‘Imperator’ carrots are the carrots most commonly sold whole supermarkets; their roots are long and tapered.

‘Solar Yellow’ and ‘Dragon’ will add variety to your carrot patch. ‘Solar Yellow’ is a variety of Danvers, and grows about 6 inches with a sweet flavor. ‘Purple Dragon’, or ‘Dragon’, is a purple skinned carrot with a bright orange interior that is very sweet. ‘White Satin’ carrots are sweet and juicy with a smooth flavor. They have more fiber than other carrots.

April is a fine month for planting carrots. Keep the soil moist and the bed weeded and in 2-3 months you should have a bed of carrots worth bragging about!

• Last call for bare root fruit trees. This is the most economical way to plant an orchard, so choose your trees now.

• Plant sweet peas for bouquets of delightful blooms.

• Forsythia, with its bright yellow flowers, is one of the first shrubs to bloom in the spring. Plant one in a sunny spot where you can enjoy its cheery flowers.

• Plant peas in well-drained soil for a spring crop. Protect from birds with bird netting or lightweight row cover.

• Primroses are bright and showy and bloom beautifully throughout the spring.

Tulip Trees make a dramatic focal point

To most people the term “tulip tree” refers to the beautiful saucer magnolias that are now coming into bloom. There are others who know the “tulip tree” to be the Liriodendron, a huge tree native to the eastern states. But this article is about magnolias.

“Tulip trees,” so called because of the shape and bright colors of their flowers, originated as a chance seedling from a cross of two species of Magnolia made by M. Soulange-Bodin near Paris, about 1820. They are named after him as Magnolia soulangiana. Unlike many other trees, they will bloom when still very small, making a nice show at only 2-3 feet tall. Blooms open in early spring before the leaves emerge.

Also known as saucer magnolias, there are many varieties with flowers ranging in color from white, to pink, to deep reddish purple. Blooms are six to ten inches across appearing before the leaves begin growing in the spring. The effect is very spectacular. ‘Rustica Rubra’ is a vigorous grower with large, reddish-purple flowers. ‘Alexandrina’ has large tulip-shaped blooms that are purplish-pink on the outside and pure white on the inside.

Saucer magnolias make fine lawn ornaments. They grow as large shrubs, with many stems, rather than single-trunked trees, and like the extra water that a lawn receives in the summer. They can be planted in full sun, or in partial shade, and grow to 20 or 25 feet tall, and almost as wide.

The star magnolia, Magnolia stellata, is another deciduous magnolia which comes to us from Japan. It produces white flowers in early spring before the leaves. The blossoms are composed of several long, strap-shaped petals that give a star-like effect. They are 3 to 4 inches in diameter. The variety ‘Royal Star’ has pink buds that open to fragrant, blush-pink blooms on a plant that grows 15 feet tall and 10 feet wide.

Star magnolia is a dense shrub or small tree and makes a fine specimen plant. It has twisting, irregular branches with pretty gray bark. The long, narrow leaves are thick and dark green, turning an excellent bronze in the fall. It is the first magnolia to bloom in the spring and one of the most attractive.

‘Dr. Merrill’ is a particularly fine variety with large, star-like white flowers that are fragrant. It grows to 25 feet tall and wide and when in bloom, the tree is a blizzard of white.

Magnolia ‘Elizabeth’ is a rare, yellow-flowered tree with tapered buds that open to large, primrose-yellow blooms. An upright, pyramidal grower to 30 feet tall and 15 feet wide, it makes a fine specimen tree.

Saucer magnolias are often planted along the edge or property line in combination with evergreen shrubs where they may get lost in the crowd until the showy blooms arrive in late winter. Magnolias thrive in full sun, but they flower satisfactorily under the high shade of neighboring trees.

“Tulip trees” and star magnolias are prize plants that add a touch of class and beauty to any yard.