Tag: Japanese anemones

  • ‘Honorine Jobert’ is a lovely late Japanese anemone

    ‘Honorine Jobert’ is a lovely late Japanese anemone

    ‘Honorine Jobert’ Japanese anemone blooms in mid-September. (Photo from www.PerennialResource.com)
    ‘Honorine Jobert’ Japanese anemone blooms in mid-September. (Photo from www.PerennialResource.com)

    Although the season is beginning to gently shut down, the parade of Japanese anemones is carrying on in my garden. First to bloom was ‘September Charm’ (Anemone x hybrida ‘September Charm’, Zone 6), with pink petals (technically tepals) and a darker pink flush on the reverse. It began blooming at the beginning of August and will continue for four weeks. My favourite of these plants is sparkling white ‘Honorine Jobert’ (A. x hybrida ‘Honorine Jobert’, Zone 6). It begins flowering about the middle of September, and I’m looking forward to the display this year.

    ‘Honorine Jobert’ is a tall plant, sending up sturdy 48-inch (120-cm) stems carrying lots of daisy-like flowers with flat white petals and bright yellow stamens surrounding a button centre. This cultivar is part of the tallest group of fall anemones, and it blooms in partial shade under a weeping ‘Red Jade’ crabapple tree. By happy coincidence, its flowers open just when the crabapple fruits are at the peak of their red colour, making an ideal combination. The tall stature of ‘Honorine Jobert’ gives it architectural presence, and is certainly part of the plant’s allure. I’d like to pair it with other tall perennials of similar heights blooming at the same time, such as dusty pink Joe Pye weed (Eupatorium maculatum Atropurpureum Group, Zone 4) and the tall autumn coneflower with reflexed gold petals and tall brown centres (Rudbeckia laciniata ‘Herbstsonne’, Zone 6).

    Considering how much pleasure Japanese anemones provide, I think the garden could accommodate a few more. I’m looking for ‘Lady Gilmour’ (48 inches / 120 cm), with two-tone pink petals and leaves partially crimped and curled like parsley. If you like the idea of two-tone petals (light pink flushed with darker pink), but want a more compact plant, try ‘Margarete’ (36 inches / 90 cm) or ‘Hadspen Abundance’ (32 inches / 80 cm). The deepest colours I’ve seen are on deep rose-pink ‘Serenade’ (40 inches / 100 cm), and ‘Pretty Lady Susan’ (16 inches / 40 cm) with dark pink-purple flowers and glowing yellow centres.

    If you’re looking for something special, keep an eye out for Wild Swan Japanese anemone (A. x ‘Macane001’), a super hybrid developed through tissue culture. Wild Swan is a tall, robust plant with white blossoms, each flushed with violet-purple on the reverse of the tepals. It blooms from mid-June through frost.

    I’m of two minds about some of the more extreme double Japanese anemones, such as bright pink ‘Party Dress’ (36 inches / 90 cm) with exceptionally large flowers of twisted and whorled petals surrounding a vivid orange-gold ring of stamens. The extra petals do make a more dynamic flower, but it begins to look like a dahlia to me. (However, you may well not think of dahlias at all when you see it.) Two semi-doubles, light pink ‘Alice’ (27 inches / 70 cm) and white ‘Whirlwind’ (30 inches / 75 cm), are more restrained and manage to be double without becoming dahlia-like.

    Japanese anemones are ideal plants for partial shade in areas that receive reasonable moisture throughout the growing season. They don’t need copious amounts of irrigation, but they do resent drought and dry soil, so be sure to think of them when rain is infrequent. It’s a mistake to remove the anemone stems as soon as the plants finish blooming, as I learned one late autumn. I had done virtually no garden cleaning, and noticed the anemones seedheads were opening into fuzzy white balls that bobbed about in the frosty breeze. This was an added bonus from an obliging plant that wants nothing more than a partly shaded spot to bloom its head off from late summer through frost.

  • Signs of change in the garden

    Signs of change in the garden

    A juvenile downy woodpecker freshens up. (Photo by Brendan  Adam-Zwelling)

    With autumn creeping in, there are changes in the garden. The foliage on lilacs and phlox has a grey cast to it, which is powdery mildew. This fungus infection is around gardens in late summer, when days are sunny and dry and the nights are cool. Fluctuating high and low humidity levels are an invitation to the powdery film, which is unsightly, but causes no lasting damage.

    The roses are still blooming, but hips have formed where I’ve left spent flowers on the plants. These orange and red seed capsules are attractive and hold their colour until bitter frost turns them black. Each morning the rhododendron flower buds grow more prominent, and will be visible, but tightly closed, on the shrubs all through winter, until next spring’s warmth causes them to swell and open.

    The Japanese anemones (Anemone  hupehensis var. japonica cvs.) are in full swing, too, holding their pretty flowers high and bouncing around in the wind. ‘Robustissima’ began flowering in mid-August. ‘September Charm’ has been in bloom for two weeks and ‘Honorine Jobert’ opened its first flower this week. Did you see Stephen Westcott-Gratton’s article about these and other anemones in the fall issue of Garden Making? I don’t think anyone can resist these gorgeous, trouble-free plants.

    The window by my computer overlooks a birdbath, and business has been brisk. In particular, a juvenile downy woodpecker takes a daily splash, while his parents watch from neighbouring shrubs. It’s a grand season.

     

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  • Taking advantage of dormancy

    Taking advantage of dormancy

    I’ve just returned from a long weekend in Algonquin Park (Zone 4), where the milkweed pods are crisply split open and the tree leaves are already more than half down. The vivid autumn foliage colours peaked early, about September 26, and one morning there was thick hoar frost coating plants and lawns. These are early signs of what I can soon expect in my Zone 6 garden, and weather outlooks are predicting a cooler than usual November. So it’s time to get going in the garden!

    Lowering autumn soil temperature initiates the gradual process of dormancy. Over a period of approximately six weeks, plants cease the production of carbohydrate energy and drop their leaves. Herbaceous perennials die back to their crowns, and woody plants withdraw moisture from cells and harden their tissues to withstand winter cold. As plants progress deeper into dormancy, they’re less sensitive to movement and this presents opportunities for gardeners. October and November are ideal times to move woody shrubs and roses, without causing root trauma or any check in growth.

    If you have the urge to start moving shrubs around (and what gardener doesn’t?), wait for crisply cool days and night temperatures between 5° and 10°C (40° to 50°F). (It’s also possible to move shrubs in cooler weather, so long as the ground isn’t frozen.) First dig the new hole and amend the soil with organic material such as peat moss and leaves; and then use a spade to carefully thrust down around the root ball and lever the shrub out of the ground, retaining as much soil as possible around the roots. Transport it in a wheelbarrow (or drag it along the ground in a child’s plastic snow sled) to the new hole. Determine which side is the front of the shrub and settle it in at the same level as it was previously, backfill half the soil and then provide a generous amount of water into the hole. When the water has drained, finish backfilling the soil, water again, and put a three-inch (8-cm) thick mulch of leaves around the shrub. Wait until spring to provide a feeding of liquid transplant solution. If you’re transplanting roses, set the bud union three to four inches (8 to 10 cm) below ground level and hill them up with eight inches (20 cm) of leaves, compost or potting soil. Step back and enjoy the satisfaction of a successful move!

    Other related articles on Garden Making:
    Hole depth affects tree health
    Growing better with plant stimulants

    Bulb foliage, hiding in plain view

    Keep planting bulbs! But think about partnering them with perennials that will hide the bulb foliage as it ripens. Daylilies make an early growth start and their long blades are good cover for narcissus and daffodil leaves. Tulip leaves can stand next to expanding peony foliage and hardly be noticed. The large leaves of rhubarb will camouflage the long strappy foliage of huge ornamental onions, such as Allium giganteum ‘Globemaster’. Siberian irises are clever partners with the grass-like leaves of their earlier and shorter cousins, Iris reticulata and I. danfordiae. Crocus and chives are also suitable partners, sharing similar leaf forms. Bulb foliage requires about six weeks to make energy for next year’s flowers, and hiding ripening bulb leaves next to perennial partners will keep you from being tempted to cut back the leaves before their work is done.

    Still blooming: toad lilies & Japanese anemones

    Toad lily (Photo by Brendan Zwelling)
    Toad lily (Photo by Brendan Zwelling)

    The Japanese toad lilies (Tricyrtis hirta, Zone 5) are out and looking like orchids among shady rocks at my front door. Their arching stems and symmetrical ladder-like leaves are an architectural statement worth showing off all season.

    My most trusted perennial plant authority, Allan M. Armitage, says, “That the flowers tend to be spotted and brownish maroon like a toad is simple bad luck, because no matter how shamelessly one promotes the plant and flower, it is not until you see it in its glory that it can be appreciated.”

    Well, he’s right. I think the one I have is Formosa toad lily (Tricyrtis formosana var. stolonifera, Zone 4), with purple and mauve shades and dots on a white background. These are such late bloomers that last year the flowers froze before opening. But this summer’s heat has really brought them along early, and I’m enjoying their small and exotic charms.

    Anemone (Photo by Brendan Zwelling)
    Anemone (Photo by Brendan Zwelling)

    Just across the path are some clumps of Japanese anemones, their sprays of bright flowers suspended atop thin and springy stems, another enthusiastic autumn flowering plant that never fails to open in chilly air.

    I’ve finally got the staggered heights just right: semi-double Anemone x hybrida ‘Honorine Jobert’ is blazing white on five-foot (1.5-m) stems and towers over 40-inch (1-m) raspberry-pink A. hupehensis ‘September Charm’. I dug out the insipid blush-pink A. tomentosa ‘Robustissima’ (a big name for a mostly unsatisfying plant), which had the bad manners to run roots all over the place.  Getting these anemones in position (taller in back, shorter in front) is like trying to arrange a choir with a lot of gangly-legged kids. They keep mixing it up and making a ruckus.

    Timely garlic

    October is the most perfect month to plant garlic, so do it. Read Gayla Trail’s article on garlic growing in the fall issue of Garden Making, and then find some fat cloves (even if they must be from the supermarket) and thrust them into soil. You’ll never regret it. Garlic is an amusing plant that makes you smile—watching it grow is better than television!

    Hope to see you again, here at Garden Making.

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