Wayside Gardens Voices

Citrus kumquat 'Nagami': Please All Your Senses

Okay, pleasing tactile and auditory sense organs may be a stretch, but the texture of the fruit is nice, and the sound of rustling leaves on your patio is peaceful. But, my point is, Citrus kumquat 'Nagami' goes a long way towards turning your modest patio garden into a tiny tropical oasis.

The sweet fragrance of the blossoms and the fruits will be the first thing you notice, a refreshingly crisp natural smell, leagues beyond any store-bought air freshener. The bright blooms and glowy orange fruit against the dense green foliage makes for a very classy and cute tree that visitors will love to look at. And the fruit itself can be eaten right of the tree, a sweet tangy summertime treat.

Check out the complete collect of Wayside Gardens Citrus Trees.

Cornus Kousa Venus®: A Hardy Dogwood with Huge Blooms

Cornus kousa Venus® is a brand new dogwood with bigger blooms, improved drought and cold tolerance, and better resistance to the most common dogwood diseases.

The huge snow-white blooms float on the outside of this peculiar tree like big butterflies. Venus® has an odd but interesting habit, with branches all the way to the ground, creating a cloud of large, bright blooms from the ground up. It will reach as tall as 20 feet and at least that wide and requires very little maintenance.

Dogwoods are notoriously thirsty, but Venus® shows a stronger tolerance of dry periods than her fragile cousins. This tree also thrives in cooler climates where dogwoods are usually unavailable (up to zone 4). And, since it's resistant to the most common dogwood ailments, Venus® maintains beautiful deep green foliage right into fall.

Standard Dogwood Care Tips:

• Soil: Dogwoods need a good balance: a blend that drains well but also contains enough organic matter to retain some moisture.
• Mulch: A layer of mulch goes a long way in maintaining soil moisture levels and protecting your roots from climate fluctuations.
• Pruning: Only to remove unsightly dying limbs if necessary.
• Water: Water deeply every couple of weeks, at least for the first year.
• Fertilizer: Use an all-purpose flowering-plant or shrub fertilizer. Rich organic material, like compost, worked into the soil will usually provide more than enough nutrients for your tree.

Container Citrus Trees Give More Than Beauty

This weekend I bought a big bag of kumquats.  I had never actually tried one, though I've been fascinated by the little guys for years.  Not only is it one of the most fun fruit names to say, they're like tiny, perfect little oblong oranges.  I was pretty sure that you're supposed to eat the fruits whole, so I rinsed one off, popped it into my mouth and bit down, ready to savor the citrusy goodness.  Not, as it turns out, how you eat a Kumquat.  The taste of the pulp is much closer to that of a lemon than that of an orange (only even more tart), and when you just eat it like that the rind is very bitter.  To the internet I went, looking for the proper way to eat them (peeling them all seemed just too ridiculous to contemplate).  The trick, I discovered, is to roll the fruit between your fingers before eating to release the essential oils in the rind.  Then you need to chew thoroughly.  The sweetness of a kumquat is in the rind, and it needs to be chewed into the sour pulp.  Once you've got the trick down, though, it is an amazingly delicious, complex fruit.  This, I thought, is a fruit that I want to grow for myself.

It turns out that I can.  Wayside Gardens has several citrus trees that thrive in containers, so all of us can grow delicious citrus fruit almost anywhere in the country.  I might just grab up a Citrus kumquat 'Nagami,' which will produce those great little fruits that I've just discovered I love.  Plus, it's an evergreen that will, in the right indoor conditions, produce intermittently year-round.  If you're looking to grow limes for Mexican cuisine or mixing drinks, you can't go wrong with the seedless lime Citrus 'Bearss.'  You also might consider the Citrus limon 'Meyer Improved,' one of the most popular container citrus trees ever.

Korean Fir: One of the Most Unique Conifers Around

We're always on the lookout for unique and interesting trees and shrubs, and it always pleases us to find a quality plant that will really stand out in your landscape.  Our Korean Fir 'Horstmann's Silberlocke' (Abies koreana 'Horstmann's Silberlocke') is definitely one of those plants.  Korean Fir is a real show-stopper, featuring dark green needles that are recurved back to show the bright, silvery-white undersides, making the irregular branches almost seem to glow.  It produces many cones that sit upright on the branches and are an eye-catching steel-blue with hints of violet.  These cones take several months to mature, meaning you get these interesting accents on your tree for much of the year.  This particular selection of Korean Fir is exciting, because, as natives of the high mountains of Korea, most Korean Firs do not do well in warmer climates.  Horstmann's Silberlocke, on the other hand, is noteworthy for its ability to tolerate the heat all the way to zone 9.

If you are looking for a quick growing tree, Korean Fir is not for you.  It is an unusually slow-growing conifer.  However, the beautiful growth of this unusual plant is more than worth the wait for a majestic tree, and it is stunning almost from day one.  Several of my coworkers are already finding planting spots on their landscapes for this exciting Abeis koreana.

Why You Should Plant a Tree This Year

While on a short day trip to nearby Athens, Georgia this weekend, I had a chance to briefly visit one of my favorite places in the world, the Tree that Owns Itself (or, more properly, the Son of the Tree that Owns Itself).  It is a white oak tree that was propagated from an ancient oak that, according to local legend, was so dearly loved by Colonel William Henry Jackson that he deeded the tree and the land surrounding it to the tree itself, so that it would be protected forever.  The original tree died in the 1940s, but a tree which had been propagated from the original tree (the tree's presume heir) was transplanted to the original tree's site.    The tree is now one of the most loved local residents, and while its ownership of itself is not actually legal, it is under the protection of the city, and hopefully that tree, and perhaps its successors, will stand there for a very long time. 

I love this story of how a tree that hosted much of a man's childhood can become like a member of the family.  Many of us who were fortunate to grow up in an area with regular access to trees can fully understand this connection.  This is a big part of why I always encourage people to plant trees where they can.  They're an extraordinarily important part of our communities, our environment, and even our day-to-day lives.  Planting a tree is a great activity to do with your children, and you get to watch them grow up together, and they'll be able to take their own children to see the tree that they helped plant as children.  Today is Arbor Day, the perfect opportunity to go out and plant a tree, but you don't need a holiday to do it, and the sooner you plant a tree, the sooner you and your family can enjoy it.

The Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, DC

After years of badly wanting to go, I finally got a chance to attend the National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, D.C.  We left on a last-minute (and poorly-planned) whim Friday evening and returned Sunday night.  We were extremely fortunate to have had a free weekend just when the blooms were at their peak, and it was absolutely amazing.  It's kind of hard to imagine without being there, but for a few days out of the year, a huge portion of our Nation's capital turns pale pink.  Hundreds of thousands of people come to the festival each year (more than a million by some estimates).

The Japanese Cherry Trees (Sakura trees) in Washington were a gift in 1912 from Mayor Yukio Ozaki of Tokyo to celebrate the friendship between Japan and the United States.  The initial gift was of around 3000 trees and was reciprocated a few years later with a gift of flowering dogwood trees.  The festival was first held in 1935, but it was suspended just a few years later during World War II.  It was restarted in 1947, once America's relationship with Japan had improved.  More trees were given to the US in 1965.  The US was able to return the favor in 1981, when a flood destroyed many of Japan's Yoshino Cherry Trees.  Cuttings were taken from the cherry trees in Washington and taken back to be planted in Japan.  These Cherry Trees are an important symbol of femininity, beauty, and the fleeting nature of life in Japanese culture.  They are not, however, fruit trees, as are the Cherry trees that most Americans think of.

The festival is absolutely amazing.  Not only were the cherry trees in full bloom, but so were the daffodils, some of the tulips, magnolia trees, and apple trees.  While it rained all weekend here at our home in Hodges, South Carolina, it was a beautiful weekend in Washington.  It was a little overcast, but the bluer light just highlighted the sea of white and pink blossoms surrounding the entire tidal basin.  I've never seen so many kites as there were flying above the Mall.  While we didn't have much time to visit the museums, spending a beautiful day walking around Washington in the peak of the Cherry Blossoms just can't be beat.  I'm putting a few of the pictures I took up here on the blog.  Be kind, though; I'm a writer, not a photographer!

 

Container-Sized Fruit Trees for your Indoor Orchard

We don't all have the good fortune to live in Florida or Southern California.  Some of us have to get our limes, lemons, and avocados the hard way: from the grocery store.  However, there is another option for growing warm-climate fruits in not-so-warm areas.  Some smaller varieties of fruit trees do very well in containers, and even produce fruit.  Just because you live in zone 4 doesn't mean you can't have a little zone 10 fun.

Avocado Don Gillogly: the Indoor Avocado Tree

I love avocados.  They're extraordinarily healthy, full of all sorts of amazing good-for-you fats and nutrients and such.  But really, it comes down to the very simple fact that they're absolutely delicious.  I love avocado on just about anything (except for cake), and I'll rarely turn down guacamole.  The problem is that avocados are pretty expensive, and the ones you find in the store are often second-rate.  Nothing compares to fresh, home-grown avocados, and that's why the Avocado Don Gillogly is such a great plant.  It doesn't just survive when grown indoors, it thrives and produces amazing avocados year-round in two crops, right there in your living room.  It will produce its first crop in around a year, which is unusually quick for a fruit tree.  It's a beautiful, easy to grow plant even without the fruit, and can be left on the patio in warmer months to liven up your garden.

Mexican Thornless Lime

Of course, you wouldn't want to have those fresh avocados around all the time and not make some great Mexican food, and no Mexican feast can be complete without limes.  The Mexican Thornless Lime tree is another fruit tree that does fantastically indoors, is easy to grow, and produces lots of fruit.  Even better, the blossoms that precede the fruit are both beautiful and carry a lovely fragrance.  The fruit ripens from late summer to early winter, but the evergreen foliage makes this citrus tree a wonderful houseplant year round.

Lemon Meyer Improved

The Meyer Improved lemon tree is a prize as an ornamental houseplant.  A prize that just happens to produce armloads of fantastic, juicy lemons.  The lemons grow in huge clusters of six lemons, which are best thinned to three per cluster, to allow them plenty of room to get big (though those early lemons that you thin can certainly be used in your cooking, too).  Check out my friend (and Master Gardener) Anne Moore's article for tips on growing Limon 'Meyer Improved'.

Evergreens For A Little More Privacy

I was at my mother's house this weekend, and I couldn't help but notice that the backyard fence seemed a bit more exposed than usual.  I could easily see out the back window all the way to the road.  It seems that my father's late-summer yard cleanup exposed a bit more than he'd expected.
This isn't uncommon at all.  People often get overzealous with trimming or even eliminating trees and shrubs when they are lush and covered with leaves, only to discover come winter that they've cut away much of their privacy.  Winter, then, is the best time to plan where you'll be planting fast growing evergreen trees and shrubs to serve as privacy hedges.  Evergreens are best for privacy because they maintain a mostly uniform level of screening throughout the year (plus they certainly liven up the yard in the bleak winter months).  Thujas are some of the most popular privacy evergreens, as they grow as much as three to five feet in a single year.  They have thick, dense foliage year-round, so they provide great privacy as soon as the first winter after planting, and they require little or no pruning to keep a wonderful conical shape.  Wayside Gardens carries both the classic Thuja 'Green Giant' and the newer, denser Thuja 'Steeplechase.'  For faster growth, be sure to water thoroughly for the first year or two, and keep in mind when planting that it will need either room to grow to more than 25 feet tall or trimming in a few years.

Fast Growing Fruit Trees

Fruit trees are always popular, but often it takes several years before a tree produces a substantial amount of fruit. But there are a few fast-growing fruit tree varieties that allow you to be growing your own fruit within a couple seasons.

Dwarf citrus trees are small, and mature very fast, but you can only grow these in containers unless you live in a very warm place. Trees from the genus Prunus, like cherries, apricots, plums, and peaches, all grow fairly quickly, and they are so diverse that any gardener will be able to find exactly what they need.

Fast Growing Evergreen Trees

Most pines, cypresses, and thujas grow incredibly fast, and make a great quick fix for most of your garden needs.

A tall pine like a Loblolly or rock pine can reach impressive shade tree heights in a third of the time that it might take many deciduous trees to reach the same height. And, the long dark green, wispy needles give an ephemeral look, making your garden feel like the setting of a great fairytale.

Thujas, also known as "Arborvitae," are the fastest growing evergreens around. There dense green foliage is perfect for blocking outside sites, sounds, and wind--turning your garden into a sanctuary from the hustle and bustle.