Savvy Landscaping: Landscape Design, Ideas, Photography, and More » Annuals

Simple Solutions for Three Common Landscape Challenges Facing Homeowners

Jennifer — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 17:36:51 +0000

Homeowners have always enjoyed looking out over their own well-manicured garden or landscape. Yet, creating such a pleasant atmosphere on one’s property can often become a difficult experience, whether updating a landscape’s design or starting from scratch with a new installation project.

“Today’s new crop of low-maintenance perennials, annuals and shrubs is making a big impact in the garden and on homeowners themselves,” says Linda Guy, new product development director of Novalis Plants that Work. “Bred to withstand heat and humidity, and thrive in challenging locales and conditions, these plants — like the ‘Pink Double Knock Out’ Rose — give homeowners confidence to experiment with design and installation creativity.” Easy-care plants also give people inspiration to take a more active role in the care and maintenance of outdoor spaces.

When undertaking a challenging garden or landscape task, completing the project successfully can be accomplished with simple solutions to three of the most common landscape issues facing homeowners. Hardworking plant breeders and growers like Novalis Plants that Work are turning out innovative new plant genetics and an ever-growing, wide array of plant offerings that solve these common landscape challenges.

Problem: Areas of the garden overwhelmed with sun, heat and humidity.

Solution: Plants bred for heat and/or humidity.
Due to varying sun exposure across a property, pockets of the landscape can become scorched by sun, heat and humidity, no matter in which region of the country or USDA Zone one lives. A southerner all her life, Guy understands the demanding environmental conditions for plants grown in sun, heat and humidity. Guy believes that the Novalis Plants that Work — Bring on the Heat program is a favorite because it addresses specific plant needs related to hot and humid conditions while delivering a robust group of plants that tolerate this type of challenging environment. The program, which can be found in independent garden centers across the country, was designed to provide gardeners with a wide variety of top-notch, heat- and humidity-tolerant plants with dark and variegated foliage, and lush bright flowers that are hardy in even the hottest, brightest zones of the country. As the names states, these plants are fitted for specific landscape needs and help to improve gardeners’ confidence in choosing, buying, and planting new as well as favorite varieties.

Problem: What to do with unique, small-scale areas of the garden.

Solution: Plantings for small spaces and special places
Whether rooftop gardens, pathways, walkways, patios, rock gardens, water gardens, terraces, cracks, or crevices, accent plantings embellish the garden area and add life, color, texture, detail, and harmony as well as a natural appearance to the landscape. Incorporating these kinds of plants into a creative garden design for areas that are small or unique in shape serves as garnish, the final decorative touch to the space. “Some cities are giving tax incentives to people willing to install rooftop gardens because it cuts down on the need for air conditioning and heating,” says Guy. “So, Novalis is growing plant material such as drought-tolerant groundcovers, little Hens and Chicks, and sedums from Mexico that gardeners seem to love having planted in these tiny places and distinctive applications.” Home gardeners can choose from a diverse palette of varying color and foliage with the Plants that Work in Nooks & Crannies line when creating their own artistic garden accents.

Problem: Short-lived, feeble annuals that will not last.

Solution: Finer, genetically superior, color bedding plantings.
When used in containers, garden beds and borders, annual color varieties are a bright, rich and vibrant outdoor design component. Yet, numerous annual plant selections cannot survive the first chilly night or burst of extended warmth that many regions of the country are experiencing from frequent spells of environmental instability. Guy says her Plants that Work by Color varieties are cultivated to address the need for more robust plant material. “They accentuate outdoor living, provide solutions for garden beds and borders, and address high-demand for new collections of unparalleled quality in every region of the country.” Ensuring plant selections for the lawn and garden stem from professional growers who trial each new variety provides superior-performing, garden-worthy, annual color plants with heat and cold tolerance.

Guy recommends seeking premium genetic plants in a rainbow of color and form at local independent garden centers to achieve year-round color and diversity for the lawn and garden. “With more than 150 delightful varieties in our program alone, such as Osteospermum Doris Daisy, finding plants for spectacular beds, borders and containers can be an easy and fun weekend pastime for homeowners and their kids.”

“We believe the Plants that Work name serves as a clear tell-tale for gardeners,” says Guy. “The name directly addresses homeowners’ primary fear — that plants won’t grow or perform well in their gardens — and assures them that the plants they purchase will work beautifully in their individual locales.”

To learn more about plants and gardening tips, log onto www.plantsthatwork.com.

Courtesy of ARAcontent

What You Need To Know About Landscape Plants

Jennifer — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 15:01:23 +0000

Landscape plants are very important. Before you start setting up your garden, you need to determine what types of plants are suitable for it. You need to observe harmony and balance in your garden, so you cannot just use any plants you fancy. To help you choose the right type of landscape plants for you, here are some tips.

Perennial Flowering Plants

When it comes to gardens, perennial flowing plants are always winners. These pants can live for several years, so you need not replant them so often. What is really more interesting about these types of plants is that they require less maintenance compared most other types of landscape plants. In fact, this type of plant can survive on just minimal amount of water. Since these types of plants are quite strong, they do not require constant application of fertilizer and pesticides. Planting perennial flowering plants in your garden will ensure that you have seasonal burst of lovely colors each year.

Most of these types of plants often take about one to two years before they bear flowers. Unlike when you plant those annual plants which bears flowers within the year of planting it, you may have to wait for a long time before you can hope to see some flowers from your perennials. Actually, this long wait for the landscape plants to bear flowers is just a small price that you have to pay for the seasonal blooms that you will enjoy in the future.

Annual Plants

If you are in a hurry to bring some colors into your garden, you should buy what gardeners call the “annual landscape plants”. These so called “annual landscape plants” are usually planted during the spring and bear flowers within a short period of time after planting. Plants like cosmos and coreopsis are some of the annual plants that are very easy to grow. These types of plants also reseed themselves. This means that if you want to plant more of these types of flowers, you can just gather their seeds and then plant the seeds somewhere else.

However, the downside about planting annual landscape plants is that these types of plants have very short life span and they do not survive the frost. During the summer, the intense heat can also kill these types of plants. If you use these types of plants in your landscaping, be prepared to replant them ever so often.

Landscaping: Annuals

Jennifer — Wed, 02 May 2007 21:12:54 +0000

Most flowers, and some non-flowering plants, can be divided into annuals, perennials and biennials. Biennials bloom only every other year. Perennials will lose their flowers, but then come right back the following year – often for many, many years. Annuals, by contrast, bloom one year and never again, typically dying out entirely.

As a result, annuals have to be freshly planted every year – hence the name. But as a kind of reward, they offer gardeners and landscapers the widest array possible of stunning color and style choices. Annuals are the brightest, the most intense and among the most beautiful flowers available.

If you want a garden that is full of the deepest colors – shocking yellows, deep purples, vibrant reds – annuals are your best bet. If you want to pack your garden with an effusion of flowering plants, annuals will give you what you’re looking for. Just don’t forget you will have to re-do the effort every year. But then, for some, that’s part of the fun!

Annuals can be further divided into Spring, Summer and Fall annuals. Spring annuals such as pansies, violas or snapdragons can be planted in early Spring. Summer annuals, such as petunias or impatiens should be planted later, in order to avoid exposure to any late cold snap.

Unless you grow from seed, you’ll pick up some annuals already growing, probably already in bloom. Look for soil that has been kept moist but not wet. Excessively wet soil promotes diseases and harmful growths that often don’t show up until after you’ve had the plant for a while. Soil shouldn’t be too dry, either. That leads to sickly plants that sometimes don’t survive transplanting.

Young annuals are fragile and if the conditions in which they were raised before you acquired them aren’t right, they often won’t last very long. Best to invest your time and money in ones that have the best chance for survival.

Give them that chance by planting in loose, well fed soil. For fertilization, fish emulsion or other commercial mixtures containing the right amount of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and other nutrients are a good start. Just follow the directions on the package.

Annuals can be planted close together, provided each has adequate soil, water and nutrients. A good guideline is to observe wild flowers in a densely packed area. Nature has figured out long ago how much room, sunlight and water a plant needs to thrive.

Many annuals are best acquired before they’ve begun to blossom. When you find young ones that have many healthy looking buds, you can bet you’ll have lots of flowers before long. Since they haven’t blossomed yet, they’ll have the maximum life span.

Picking out healthy plants isn’t hard. If it looks healthy, it usually is. Straight sturdy stalks (for those that grow that way naturally), no wilting, bright greens (with little or no browning), and other obvious signs rarely lead you astray.

Don’t worry too much if your first experiments aren’t 100% successful. In some cases, plants will die no matter how well you treat them. Annuals are relatively inexpensive and you’ll have plenty of room in your budget to create that carpet of color you want.