What is looking good?

Hello again! I'm back from getting married and going to the lovely land of Northern California. It's good to be back, but I already miss the majestic trees that surrounded me not so long ago. Thanks are due to Nate Jackson and Christa Orum-Keller for their work on the blog while I was gone. I appreciate that greatly, and I believe the readers enjoyed the information that you conveyed.

Upon my return, I was surprised by how different a landscape can look in just two weeks. I've never been away from Midwest Groundcovers in June. So much happens in that time frame. It's possibly the best time to be here. But alas, I really wanted to get married so leaving once in June to do that seemed appropriate. Below are some of the nicest things I've seen this week.
Aesculus parviflora
For the time that it blooms, there are few plants as beautiful as these. Our mass planting is peaking now. It is quite a sight. What I find most amazing is the diversity of insects on the plants. I counted 5 different types of bees alone. Many other pollinators were there as well.


Hydrangea 'Quick Fire'
This is a great panicle Hydrangea. This plant has taken the place of 'Pink Diamond' in our catalog. We did this because of the sizes are comparable and 'Quick Fire' blooms earlier. It is already showing the pink aging that gives Quick Fire its name. Other Hydrangea paniculata in the landscape are just starting to flower.

Monarda 'Raspberry Wine'
This is an oldie but goodie. It is like a beacon in the Piet Oudolf garden. It replaced some Monarda that we didn't carry that had died. Good reason not to carry it right? But this one is bright and bold. It can be paired with Perovskia for a nice combination or it can be in the back of the border with Salvia or Achillea fronting it.



Acanthus spinosus
For three years, I've wondered if I should take this plant out of the landscape. The foliage has been there, but it never flowered. When I got back, I was amazed to see that it had two large flower stalks. What an exciting plant. Though I think of it more as a novelty for the upper Midwest, it surely is nice. If you have time to wait three to four years for flowers, try Bear's breeches.

Dianthus 'Raspberry Swirl'
There are many different Dianthus flooding the market as we speak. We would like to know your interest. Do plants like this excite you? Do you find it easy to use them in landscape designs. Is the fact that they are drought tolerant a benefit that you see or are most of your jobs irrigated? These are many of our questions that we'd love you to answer by emailing us at mgplanttrials@gmail.com

Coreopsis 'Red Shift'
The new Coreopsis hitting the market are definitely interesting. Whether you are interested positively is the question. This is a highly regarded Coreopsis that we are now trialing in production. This plant was at the Chicago Botanic Garden. It starts a creamy color and shifts to the red you see here. What do you think?


Spigelia marilandica
This is a plant native the the eastern portion of the continent. It is still questionably hardy for our zone 5 gardens. These are plants again at the Chicago Botanic Garden which I will be looking for next year. They are quite the curiosity. As the Earth changes, plants like this may become more valuable for this area. While I know it has been a cool summer so far, the climate is definately changing.
Echinacea 'Coconut Lime'
Not your mothers Echinacea eh? And no, I didn't go to Canada for the honeymoon, I just like saying eh. This one has performed much better than expected in the landscape. It is blooming with very large flowers and exceptionally clean foliage. I'll watch the foliage this year to see if that continues.

Echinacea 'Tiki Torch'
I've been waiting patiently for this plant. When I saw it the other day in bloom, I was impressed. The orange flowers are truly unique to any of the other orange coneflowers on the market. This was a young plant at the Botanic Garden. The best news is, we have these available starting the 13th of July. These have not yet been tested in our landscape, but they will be going in shortly.

Stachys minima
When you look on the Royal Horticultural Society's website, you will not find Stachys minima. What does that mean? It is not a universally accepted nomenclature for this plant. However, this is how we found the plant and the name truly describes what you get. A real dwarf betony. These are just phenomenal right now. They would look great paired with Leucanthemum 'Snowcap' to give you a disc shaped flower with these spikes.

Piet Oudolf designed garden:
This part of the garden is mostly inspired by Piet. The plantings here were designed by Roy Diblik and myself. We decided that the Allium sphaerocephalum would look really good with the Schizachyrium 'Carousel' and the Echinacea paradoxa. I never would have thought it would look as good as it does. This combination looks great late into the season as the Carousel will change colors and flower and the Allium will be more of a structural plant than the beauty you see here. But everyone likes little spheres floating in the air right?

One more piece of trivia for the day. I spent time at the Chicago Botanic Garden this week with the group Perennials in Focus. You'll find out more about that at a later time. But we met with Dr. Jim Ault, breeder of the Echinacea Meadowbrite series as well as the Prairieblues Baptisias. He was asked why he doesn't use Echinacea pallida in his breeding. I didn't ask the question, but I had always wondered the answer. The reasoning is because E. pallida is a natural tetraploid, which means, somewhere along the line it evolved from other plants. Therefore there are not the right amount of chromosomes for him to hybridize with it. I thought it was interesting enough to pass along.

It's great being back and communicating with all of you. Thanks for keeping up with us. Until next time, have a great day!

The Power of Color!

By Christa Orum-Keller
A couple of entries ago, we talked about color. The way in which color can be used as a unifying element in planting design. While color can be an 'easy' way to unify your design work, it requires attention and a deliberate focus. That can be tricky when working with plants. You can't pull out the color wheel and put the bloom colors side by side to choose your plant combinations. Them there's also that element of timing - do they bloom together? And how do they look as they approach and fade from peak bloom?

I recall a visit to Sissinghurst Gardens some years ago. It was amazing and something of note, to see how carefully the planting designers had chosen and paired bloom colors in perennials, annuals, bulbs, shrubs and foliage. It stopped me in my tracks! Not sure if these combinations will do quite that for you, but have a look at some successful combinations in our gardens this week. Beginning to notice color hue, intensity, saturation, changes as blooms fade and all the subtle qualities of color is a start to a more refined and inspirational planting design.

Vibrant, vivid purple blue, bright, energetic, excellent pairing Geranium Jolly Bee & Stachys Hummelo

















Contrasting blue and yellow, primary colors, medium vibrancy

Phlox, Salvia & Amsonia















Yellow and pale lavendar, calming colors, pale hue - an improvement would be to eliminate the blue Veronica

Coreopsis & Veronica Eveline















Pair the next two plants for a vibrant, energizing coupling of pink on pink

Achillea trial










The Dark stemmed Echinacea from Chicagoland Grows which we were seeking input on for names. "Pink Eyelashes" was one suggestion.











A monochromatic relationship, lavendar, pink, purplish pink, all in the family - plus the unifying element of flower shape and form

Achillea trials on Perennal Island














Shades of yellow into green, side by side on the color wheel, calming and refined

Alchemilla mollis & Hosta

Yellow foliage and red flowers - complimentary and with an equal vibrance, calmed by the deep green of the rose foliage

Scarlet Flower Carpet Rose with Sedum Angelina

An interesting exercise in the relationsip between pink and red. Red is often a challenge, especially in plants - is it red red, blue red, pink red or purple red? This photo illustrates the power of a color backdrop.

Echinacea & Red Flower Carpet Rose







Pairing of orange foliage with orange flowers - the entire planting is offset with the Salvia's blue, great complimentary contrast, medium intensity of color pulls the entire composition together

Echinacea Meadowbrite & Heuchera Caramel








If you have inquiries on specific plants which may not have been named precisely in the blog, send us a comment and we can help.

Perennial Pest Problems

It's that time of year; its hot, its muggy, and while we are sweaty and uncomfortable, the insect world is thriving. I am back this week for my second installment to talk about some very common issues now and in the next couple of weeks that might be plaguing your garden. First and foremost, I would like to introduce you the concept of degree days and what are called indicator plants. Degree days can be figured out in a number of ways, but I'll describe the most commonly used method which is called base 50. Degree days are the cumulative sum of the average temperatures in a given day minus 50. On a day like today, it is about 90 for our high and lets just say 70 for our low. The average of that is 80; subtract 50 and you have 30 DDB50 for that day. Each day is added to the prior and the cumulative number is the number of degree days you have at any given time. This is extremely useful information as it can be used to directly correlate phenological activity of 'indicator plants' to insect emergence. An example of an indicator plant is catalpa sp. - it begins to bloom right around 500-600 DDB50 which is when euonymus scale is active. This is what we use in the nursery industry to determine what to spray and when. We see a specific plant blooming or at another stage and know that coorelates with a certain insects feeding time or stage in their life cycle. Below I will describe a number of pest issues and what plants you can look out for to determine if its the ideal time to treat that particular pest.

Two spotted spider mite - this is one of the industries biggest pest. Along with aphids, more money goes into treating these little guys than any other single insect (actually its not an insect, its a mite). There are a variety of mites out there, but two-spotted spider mite is one of the most common and most damaging of them all. They are very small, about the size of a pencil tip, and can be found on the underside of leaves. They love both annuals and perennials alike and thrive in hot, dry weather. In a matter of days, a small population can explode into 1000s causing massive defoliation. The picture to the left displays some webbing, a tall-tale sign that they are present in extremely high numbers, if it gets to this point, you are better to just prune out the infected material. The individual mites suck the juices out of individual leaf cells causing small speckles all over the leaf, something we refer to as stipuling. It is unlikley they will kill any woody plant, but they could easily take out an annual such as geraniums or impatiens. For outside crops, look for this insect around the time Spiraea 'vanhoutii' is done blooming (late May) through August. A simple oil or insecticidal soap will take care of small populations and plants with large populations should be discarded.

Euonymus scale - this very tiy critter can cause massive damage to both upright and low growing euonymus species. It is what we call an armored scale (has a hard covering) which makes it impervious to chemical control. However, right around the time you see Catalpa blooming, new eggs hatch and vulnerable 'crawlers' emerge. Crawlers are the immature stage of this insect and can be killed with oils, soaps, or insecticides. You can tell you have this problem if you are seeing die back, yellow spotting, or a general lack of growth on your euonymus. Look at the older growth and you might find small, white, elongated things stuck all over it. That is the scale under its covering sucking the sap from the stem. If left unchecked, this pest can kill a large shrub in one or two years. It tends to reproduce in extremley high numbers and the small 'crawlers' can blow onto other euonymus crops. Its importnat to look for this pest at the right time and when you see small, yellowish dots accompanying the larger white scale, its time to treat them.

Viburnum borer - each year I get more and more calls about this particular pest. Viburnum borer is a clear-wing wasp that is present right around this time (500-700 DDB50). The adult has yellow and black stripes, does not sting and actually does no damage to plants as an adult. However, when its ready in late June, it lays its eggs at the base of certain viburnum and in about 2-3 weeks, the eggs hatch and the small larvae begin tunneling into the trunk of the plant. Inside, they chew out a large piece of the xylem limiting nutrition and water uptake causing a portion of the plant to die off. If this problem persists, the plant will most likely die in 1 to 2 growing seasons. There is little you can do to prevent this problem, but buying a pest free, quality product to begin with is your best bet. this insect is attracted to stressed and dying specimens, so keeping a healthy viburnum will ensure that this problem will not happen to you. If you have viburnum that are not flushing out in the spring, check at the base around the soil level for a soft spot in the trunk - it will most likely be the pupating borer inside and at that point, the plant should be discarded and replaced.

Black Vine Weevil - the final insect I want to touch on is black vine weevil, a small (about the size of a penny) black beetle-like insect that chews notches in the edges of your leaves. It only feeds at night and will hide in and around leaf debris or large soil clots during the day. If you look closely at the picture, you can see how it has a long, squarish snout - this is important due to the fact that when it feeds, the damage is the same general shape as their mouth parts - squarish and always on the leaf edges. In general there is very little damage that the adults can do and what is done is generally aesthetic. However, in mid-summer an adult female will lay up to 250 eggs in the soil creating a number of grub-like larvae that chew on plant roots. If you have enough larvae present, they can kill a small plant through the fall and into the spring. Look for notched feeding on the edges of plants such as euonymus, clethra, ittea, rosa sp, and other relativley soft leaved deciduous specimens (they also love taxus). If you see feeding, purchase a general insecticide that is labeled for beetles and spray the leaves at dusk. This will ensure the adults are killed and are not able to reproduce and cause an even bigger problem.

I could go on for pages and pages on the many insects that we encounter in the nursery and in our gardens at home. These are a few that are present this time of year and can cause some significant problems. Utilizing degree day information from a local extension office (http://ipm.illinois.edu/degreedays/) can help determine when to look for things and the best time to treat particular problems. The vast majority of insects are absolutley harmless and an essential part of the delicate balance of life, so dont assume that anything and everything is doing harm; most will do more good than anything. Buying a high quality product from a trusted source is always step one in keeping plants healthy and keeping them watered and fertilized will help keep any harmful critters at bay. I hope you enjoyed learning a little about insects and diseases, I sure had a good time talking about them; enjoy the rest of your summer!!!

Natives Now!

By Christa Orum-Keller

There's never been a better time for Native Plants!

Midwest has long been a proponent of using native plants, some might say we have been so before our time, but if ever there were a time for using native plants, it is now.

A few reasons to plant natives:

• Native plants are preferred by the Sustainable Sites Initiative
• Native plants are preferred by many city, county, state and federal institutions
• They can help reduce maintenance costs, particuarly in relation to mowing and turf chemical costs
• Most species offer disease resistance
• Native plants can help reduce runoff
• Deep roots on so many species make them more drought resistant
• Native plants are a resonsible ecological landscaping alternative
• Most native plants are winter hardy, durable and long lived

The American Beauties Native Plant program offers an easy way to help the public, landscape designers and contractors use native plants - in all native plantings, or in combined plantings. They have an excellent website http://www.abnativeplants.com/ and attractive containers and labels. And the American Beauties Native Plant program partners with the National Wildlife Foundation (NWF). The American Beauties program is promoted by the NWF. By using American Beauties Native Plants, you can help your customers obtain their NWF Wildlife Habitat Certification. Learn more here: http://www.nwf.org/gardenforwildlife/certify.cfm?campaignid=

But most of all - Native Plants are BEAUTIFUL!!!

We are approaching the height of color and interest for many of our prairie species. In fact, here are just a few of our American Beauties Native Plants which are blooming in our St. Charles trial gardens right now.

Geum triflorum
Prairie Smoke
12-18"
Full sun

Small statured, under-used, graceful little plant. Beautiful in flower and a peculiar little surprise which explains its name after flowering.











Eryngium yuccifolium
Rattlesnake Master
3-4'
Full Sun

Wonderful toothed edged blue green foliage, later in summer, whiteish blue round spikey flowers - amazing!












Penstemon digitalis
Foxglove Beardtongue
4-6'
Full Sun to part shade

Clouds of striking spikes of flowers right now!













Echinacea pallida
Pale Purple Coneflower
3-4'
Full Sun

Pastel, gentle petals fall away from seedhead and float romantically with its prairie partners.












Amorpha canescens
Lead Plant
3'
Full Sun

Delicate blue green foliage will make a perfect backdrop as soon as the blue/purple flowers open.












Silphium terebinthinaceum
Prairie Dock
3' foliage with 6-8' flowers
Full Sun

King of the prairie if there ever was one - broad, rough leaves create an impressive broad texture and backdrop for delicate folaige and flowers. Wonderful when paired with the fine texture of Sporobolus.























Silphium laciniatum
Compass Plant
3' foliage with 6-8' flowers
Full Sun

If you're lost, you can easily find the foliage of Compass Plant and you'll find your way!














Heliopsis helianthoides
False Sunflower
5'
Full Sun to partial shade

The perfect happy yellow!

Tradescantia ohiensis
Spiderwort
3'

Full sun to part shade

Rain, rain go away!!!

Greetings everyone. My name is Nate Jackson and I am the horticulture and propagation manager here at Midwest Groundcovers. What the heck is that you ask? Basically I am in charge of plant health, soil, water, fertility, and propagating new plants (reproduction through cuttings). Its quite a handful but I can't think of a more enjoyable position to be in. While Kevin is out 'tying the knot' he asked me to fill in and share some disease issues we see in the nursery and that you might be experiencing at home. I think it is a very pertinent topic for the type of year we have been having here in northern IL and I hope it helps you understand the nature of various plant diseases a little better.

As I'm sure most of you who live in the Chicagoland area are aware, we have had an abundance of rain this year. While rain is important to keep gardens thriving, it also promotes one of plants biggest enemies - foliar disease. When talking about foliar problems, there are two main types of issues that you run into; one is fungus and the other is bacteria. It is important to know what you are dealing with because the cure for each is different (for concrete diagnosis, you should take your sample to your local arboretum or contact your local university extension office). However, the way they grow and develop is very similar. To make it very simple - fungus or bacteria are all around us; in the air, soil, leaves, etc. Like any living organism, they need nutrients to thrive and unfortunate for plant lovers, many of those nutrients are found in the foliage of our favorite trees or shrubs. The majority of the pathogens need moisture to develop as well; hence the problem with continuous rains. The spore or pathogen lands on the leaf, begins feeding and is helped along with a little water and before you know it, leaf spot is present. Once the problem has developed, the rain adds to the outbreak by literally splashing spores or bacteria around, spreading them to other leaves making a small problem a very big one rather quickly. Below is a picture of a very common fungal pathogen that I'm sure anyone with roses in their garden has seen- rose black spot.

Most of these diseases are simply cosmetic and will not kill the plant unless they get very out of hand, something that rarely happens on good cultivars planted in most personal gardens. However, continued infection and defoliation will lead to a much smaller plant and hinder its overall growth and development; and frankly, who wants a plant without leaves! So what is the solution you ask. Its not simple, especially if you already have bad infections, but here are a few guidelines to help keep things clean and beautiful, even when we have this much rain.

1) Start with a good plant - buying disease free plants and cultivars that are disease resistant is the number one thing you can do to keep a healthy garden. Simply googling disease free roses, for example, will give you a plethora of options that are resistant (not immune) to certain foliar diseases. There are few things that are completely resistant to pathogens, but resistant varieties offer a good starting point.

2) Begin spraying early - if you decide it is in your best interest to use chemicals to control disease, make sure you start early. Once disease develops, it's difficult to completely kill. Start spraying as soon as buds break and spray on a 14-21 day schedule on things that you have seen major problems with in past years. Thoroughly covering all your foliage is important and following all labeled directions will ensure personal and plant safety. Look for general fungicides in your local garden center or box store and read the label carefully to see what it treats - only spray things that it is labeled for.

3) Try not to overhead water - as I mentioned earlier, one of the biggest proponents to disease development is free flowing water. You can add to the problem by watering over your infected foliage, spreading spores and disease. Watering from the base of your plants and keeping foliage as dry as possible will help curtail any disease development and spread.

4) Do some cleaning in the Fall - The vast majority of foliar diseases can easily overwinter in the soil, on canes, and on dead, fallen leaves. This is where they start in the spring and is the main reason you see the same problem from year to year. Making sure to clean up all leaf debris around diseased plants is the number one most effective thing you can do to ensure disease does not pop back up next year. As soon as the plant defoliates, clean as much material as you can to ensure a good start for the next year.

With all of this rain we have had, it is very difficult to keep disease in check. However, if you follow those simple guidelines, it will help with future development and hopefully will stem the spread as well. There are thousands and thousands of different types of pathogens that effect plants, but the vast majority will only cause aesthetic damage. If you can stay away from chemical applications and just prevent the problem by buying a quality product and keeping things clean, it will not only make less work for you, but will help out mother nature as well. I hope this helps one or two of you out there and I'll be back next week to talk about some common creepy crawlers that may be causing you problems. Happy gardening!