Many of the roses and fruit trees sold from Wayside Gardens are grafted plants. Grafted plants are simply your desired plants grown on top of a hardy rootstock. The top part of the plant, the part that matters, is called the scion. The scion bears all of the fruit, flowers, or foliage that we want.
Grafted plants are beneficial because they serve to increase variety, improve quality, and reduce prices. The extra hardy rootstock ensures survival for plants in zones that would normally be way too cold, allowing you to grow plants which would otherwise be off-limits. When a fruit tree is grafted to a mature rootstock allows fruit production much sooner than if you had to wait for the original roots to mature. You also know exactly what you are getting. Your plant has been cloned and will be exactly what you wanted. Clonal reproduction is also much quicker than growing from seed, making it more cost-effective.
Plants are grafted onto very similar plants, usually the of same genus. Most of Wayside Gardens’ grafted roses are grafted onto ‘Dr. Huey’, a hardy old rose with flat blooms that are deep crimson with a golden center. You will see them often at old home sites where the scions have long died off, and the Dr. Huey rootstock has flourished. The Wayside Gardens fruit trees are often grafted onto strong, wild versions of themselves. For example, there is pear rootstock, which, left to it’s own devices, would grow tangled branches with nasty thorns. Make sure you trim back the growth from your rootstock if you don’t want it to take over. Sometimes, in a case where the delicate scion cannot take the extremes and dies back, the rootstock may take over completely. Make sure you pamper your young grafted plant until it gets established.
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We have been shown the importance of color from the artistic point of view, your garden as a masterpiece, colorful and pretty. But what do those colors mean? Why do plants have color and what causes plants to be different colors? Almost everyone has heard of chlorophyll, but have you heard of the other two type of plant pigment? Do you know what their functions are?
It is not exactly simple, and most gardeners might not even care. However, I think it would be safe to make the assumption that for just about every person who sees their garden as a medium for artistic expression there is another who could only describe a flower in terms of its morphology and functional benefits for the particular plant. From my experiences here at Wayside Gardens, I can also promise you that neither will do so with more or less passion.
American kids officially learn about chlorophyll in seventh grade life science, though they may be introduced to it a little earlier. So we’ve all heard of it. We know what photosynthesis is- the method by which plants turn light into usable energy. Plants store this energy, animals eat the plants, animals eat animals that ate the plants, and humans eat plants and animals. Ultimately, almost all energy for growth and movement on Earth comes from the Sun via photosynthesis. Yay! Everyone give a round of applause to plants for shouldering such a huge responsibility for the rest of us.
Chlorophyll is the pigment responsible for absorbing most of the light during photosynthesis. There are two different kinds: a, green to blue-green and b, red. Chlorophyll a is the most common. Thus, most leaves are usually green. You’ll notice, in the summer that trees are completely covered with leaves because this is when they are doing the bulk of their growth.
Butterfly™Rainbow Marcella Echinacea shows off its pink and orange tones
Carotenoids are the pigment that give plants, carrots for example, colors ranging from yellow to orange. They have many functions in nature, and though they are important to many animals, they cannot be synthesized and must be ingested. In plants they also have functions in photosynthesis. During Autumn, the leaves of deciduous trees change color because they no longer need to collect sunlight and the green chlorophyll thins out revealing the colors of the carotenoids and another reddish chlorophyll before the leaves fall.
Flavonoids are the third kind of pigment and provide the largest variety of color to flowers, ranging from red to blue. When combined with the first two, the overall combination determines the look of a particular plant.
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While probing for ideas that might add a little intrigue to the pitifully uninspiring flora of my backyard, I was told by a friend to check out bog gardens. My first thought was of a marsh or swamp, something more appropriate for a wildlife preserve or ghost story than my simple little yard. However, trusting my source, I dove, head-first into that murky swamp of information, the all-knowing internet.
Apparently, if you have a low spot in your yard that never completely dries and you plant some elephant ears there, you have not created a bog garden as some of the sources I found would lead you to believe. It is a clever way to turn a problem into an asset, but not a bog garden. A bog is actually a type of wetland formed from a deposit of dead plant matter, most commonly some type of moss or lichen. Its moisture comes almost completely from precipitation and tends to be slightly acidic. An exotic environment for exotic plants- It’s exactly what I was looking for.
I also found that recreating this environment on the small scale is not very difficult; some people even create indoor bog gardens in terrariums, which would be a perfect way to display those bog-loving carnivorous plants and make an excellent conversation piece. I just needed a place that will hold moisture and that I could fill with peat. I had the perfect place, that gross little pond insert that I installed two seasons ago, or as I like to call it, my “mosquito nursery”. I just cleaned that out and poked a few holes in the bottom for drainage- lined the bottom with coarse sand and filled it with moistened peat. The moss maintains the acidity and I use a soaker hose to keep my bog damp. I planted an Iris, this very interesting Juncus Effusus Unicorn, and two Pine Hibiscuses. Situated in the center of my garden, accented with two lawn gnomes and a pink flamingo, my bog has definitely added spice to my back yard.
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