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Fritz Creek Gardens Newsletter

Posted August 5

End of Season Sale!

Plant Sale It's the last days for Fritz Creek Gardens this year -- we're closing for the season at the end of the day on Sunday, August 12. We'll be having huge sales of many kinds before we close, and we'll alert you to them. Right now, it's buy three perennials and get two free! The usual stuff applies: same price, size, etc. but not the same plant. It's okay to mix and match them. Just ask us. As we get time, we will be moving the plants we never put on sale to the winter storage sites (e.g., primrose, vines and hosta) but until we get those moved, they will be included in the sale.

Vines and More Vines

We've talked about vines before but I must not have been effective. Vines are almost like trees and shrubs in the gardens. They can add height or they can weave between shrubs, roses, trees or they can be used as a very low-maintenance ground cover. Imagine an area in which you are seeking low maintenance. Cover that area with typar (driveway cloth) available at most hardware stores (SBS here in Homer). Burn a few holes and plant some hardy vines. Then, cover the typar with nice rocks, gravel or big rocks, beach rocks or just bark. The vines will meander all through the rocks and the typar will keep the weeds out of everywhere except for the burned holes. If you decide you need a bit more color or interest, add a few ornamental pots.

Vines are easy to grow. There are no mysteries. I don't know how they got the reputation of "hard to grow." As far as the type to prune or the type not to prune, if you do nothing but cut out dead wood later in the summer, you're fine. Actually, if you do nothing, you'll be fine. I haven't pruned my yellow Clematis 'Tangutica' in eight years (photo at right). Note the silver seed heads that stay all winter. Birds will thank you for nesting material, too.

Take a look at the vines section of this web site for more pictures and information about vines.

As far as the rule about needed cool roots, well, we are in Alaska. And then there is the feeding. I feed mine each spring with composted steer manure and IF I remember, I'll water them a few times during the summer. Yes, the moose can eat them in the winter but they are easily protected with chicken wire.

Our stock of vines is included in the buy 3 get 2 free right now until we have time to move them to their winter storage areas. Hurry on out! If you are a bartering type person, come on in. I'm in the mood!

Posted July 31

Our Future Gardener!

I wanted to share this photo with you because, well, that's what proud grandparents do! This is my first great grandson. His name is Dylan. He will be one year old August 8. When he visits us at Fritz Creek Gardens, he runs as fast as he can to find a gardening trowel. Then with a very wide toothy grin he starts digging and messing around the gardens, in this case with the water. He gets very serious about his adventure. We think he has a good future at Fritz Creek Gardens!

Delightful Delphiniums

I got the giggles last night reading an article about delphiniums. Did you know to leave plenty of room because they can get three feet tall? They were talking about the New Zealand doubles that get at least six feet in my gardens. A perfect example of taking information (including plant labels) with the "grain of salt," as most have never had any experience with Alaska conditions. I'm sure first-time gardeners doubt my statements sometimes after they have read the "factory" labels.

Delphiniums are not hard to grow and there is not another plant we can grow here that is more magnificent. There is not another plant in our gardens that gets as many oohs and ahhs as delphiniums. And no, there is not anything mysterious about growing them.

Most of the really tall delphiniums were started or crossed from the original D. elatum varieties. As with most plants these days, they have been "messed with" or hybridized to be bigger, better, have more flowers, double flowers, taller, shorter, chunkier, better color etc. There are so many varieties I won't take your time with that except to say the New Zealand Hybrids are the really fat doubles, the Pacific Hybrids are the best in my opinion of the elatums and the Knights of the Round Table series within the Pacific Hybrids are my favorites. Those are 'Guinevere' (blue bicolor) 'Astolat' (lavender) 'Black Knight' (dark purple) 'Galahad' (white) and 'King Arthur' (dark blue). The color of the bee, the center of each bloom, can make the colors appear deeper or lighter. Leave plenty of room between these plants if you want the elatums to reach those fantastic heights, sometimes eight feet! If they're crowded, they will not be as tall. If tall is a problem for you, there are many shorter varieties.

The Magic Fountain series is a shorter version for those with a lot of wind or smaller gardens, and the D. belladonna hybrids are also shorter, with fewer blossoms. I'm not a scientist or botanist and I'm not sure how much we really need to know to grow and enjoy these beauties, but delphinium blooms are really bracts and the little center squiggles are the flowers, so I've read. They look like blooms to me, eh?

Delphiniums are heavy feeders. We use composted steer manure and apply each spring. Most of the new hybrids are not as long-lived as the older ones, so be prepared to plant a new one or two every few years to keep your display full.

Staking, you say? I know that is a bad word for many folk. Okay, so you aren't a delphinium person then. For the rest of us, there are ways to minimize the staking. My husband, Leroy, built me a surround or cage out of good sized twigs that are tall and have criss-crosses. Often this is enough. If we are experiencing a lot of rain, I will stake some of the taller blooms. In the past I thought all delphiniums needed to be soldier straight. Now, a bloom bending over the edge is quite acceptable to me. Another "no stake" method I've seen is to take fencing with the four-inch holes and lay it out at about three or four feet in height. The delphinium grows through the holes in the wire.

My favorite partner for delphinium is Thalictrum. There are several varieties of lavender that I find extremely attractive with their fragile cotton candy appearance against the upright heavy duty delphinium blooms.

Paeonies, Paeonies, Paeonies

I hope I don't get burnt out on these lovelies but after about 4,500 of them, well, they are starting to lose some of their glamour. I'm sure though when they start blooming I'll be enthralled all over again. But for the average gardener, six, eight or maybe even a dozen is sufficient.

As a result of our purchasing the high numbers of tubers, we get a very good price. We can spare a few for you, too. These tubers are of highest quality with three to five minimum eyes. When we pot them up we sell them for $16.50. If you come out in the next few days while we are planting, we'll offer a tuber for $8.00. They are easy to plant. Really, it's just after about 3,000 you start wondering.

Posted July 16

Support for Your Plants

A quick note to bring to your attention a couple of things: first of all, isn't the rain we are getting here in Alaska great? Now I know which plants should have little hidden fences around them.

When I plant something such as the tall sedums or other really full tall plants, I put little fences around them. I use wire fencing and I cut it for height and size. It's not that hard and then the plants cover the fencing as they mature. I leave all these little "fences" up forever, so one time is it for installation. I see today the Lamiastrum 'Herman's Pride' needs a fence. Usually the caragana or weeping pea shrubs protect them but the rain/wind must have been just right. They are totally sprawled. For me it is actually painful to see. Oh well, I'm sure I'll recover when I discover some new buds somewhere else in the garden.

Visitors Come and Go

How many visitors are you enjoying this summer? We dropped off our granddaughter Sam on Monday night and picked up my brother and his wife last night. We'll drop them off on the 25th and pick up Stephanie Cohen. That's part of living in Alaska, having guests, isn't it? Wish I could clone myself to enjoy them more. But the purpose of sharing my visitors is to tell you about the following item.

Stephanie Cohen Coming

Stephanie Cohen is a world famous horticulturist. She is a writer, lecturer, teacher (that's different), gardener and a good friend. I'm proud to say I've known Steph for about 10 years now. I first met her in Oregon at the Farwest Show. I had just come out of my hotel and was headed for the stop light to cross over to the convention center. There at the light stood this very short woman with a huge stack of papers, books etc. The stack was almost as big as she was. I asked her if I could give her a hand. She immediately noted my "badge" for the convention and gave me a big smile and handed me the entire stack of books and started jauntily walking across the street, completely hands free grinning from ear to ear. That is Stephanie, always laughing and joking, especially about short people. She definitely would have to reach for the five foot mark. See our special page regarding more information about this event. I promise, this is one lecture/slide show you will remember forever. She's hilarious and of course extremely knowledgeable. The lecture will be about "New Plants for Cold Climates."She will talk about combinations etc. I truly believe this will be a sell out lecture, so come early.

Naturalizing

If you've been trying to naturalize a field with wildflowers etc. we've got something for you. We've just dug up two wheel barrows of the really tall (not native) blue geraniums. These guys bloom more than the natives and are taller but they are the same color. I'm certain they would provide many years of color for your "wildflower" gardens. You wouldn't want to plant these guys in your manicured flower beds but for big splashes, they are great. And the price is great, too. Out of the pot, $5 and planted in 2-gallon pots (yes, they are that big) they are $8.00.

Rose Sale

It's that time of year. Our annual buy 3, 4th one free rose sale. When I left to pick up my visitors there were 217 roses left for the sale. I noticed lately that number is going down very nicely, thank you. These roses are hardy to at least minus 30F and very easy to grow. Plant them correctly (and I can guarantee that Tarri and Beth will make sure you have your instructions before you leave with your new rose) and you will enjoy these roses for many, many years. We have roses great for hedging, for covering that utility box, or for specimens or features in your perennial gardens. From 1.5 feet to 10â, from pure white through the color spectrum to bright red, there has to a rose perfect for your needs. Don't procrastinate or you'll miss out!!

Summer Hours

I hate it when you come to my greenhouse and I'm closed! Please note we are closed now on Monday and Tuesdays for the rest of the season. It seems such a waste. I work hard to entice you here and you work equally hard to take the time to come and I'm closed! A big disappointment for both of us. Sunday we are open noon to 5 p.m., closed Monday and Tuesday and open Wednesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. If you need a "special" appointment, give it a try. I'm always open to trying to make it work.

A Few of Our Favorite Shrubs and More

Posted July 8

Well, gardeners, it's early July and it's raining. This makes it a perfect time for gardeners to do their transplanting, pulling weeds and fertilizing. Hot sun is absolutely not the right time for this.

New Summer Hours

It's that time of year when we cut back on our open hours. We are closed now on Mondays and Tuesdays. Sundays we are open from noon to 5 p.m. and the rest of the week 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. If you have a special time outside of these new hours you need me, just give me a call and I will see if I can accommodate you.

Huge Ground Cover Sale!

Every year we have our first sale of the season over the 4th of July holiday weekend. But we couldn't figure out when that weekend was, since the 4th this year was on a Wednesday, so we're having it now through Thursday, July 12. That should do it! All ground covers are on sale -- buy three and the fourth one is free. Check out our special Ground cover Sale page to learn more. There are tons of plants that qualify as ground covers. If you have our plant list, look down that column. We will have a full current list of what is available at the greenhouse.

A Few of Our Favorite Shrubs

In addition to hundreds of varieties of perennials and groundcovers, Fritz Creek Gardens sells a wide range of trees and shrubs. Just take a look at a few of our favorite shrubs in the photos here and see if one or more doesn't deserve a place in your garden. Want to learn more? Come out and see them for yourselves in our display gardens.

Cornus 'Elegantissima' is one of my favorite shrubs, shown here in our Asian garden (photo at top of page). The foliage is terrific, the red stems are great in winter and the clusters of white flowers are just an added bonus. We may not have this exact one right now but we have similar ones.

Physocarpus 'Diablo' and 'Dart's Gold' (photo at right) grown together is a real show-stopper.

Honeysuckle 'Arnold Red' is a very easy-to-grow shrub that can get quite large if you don't want to prune it.

Clematis integrifolia was featured in a previous newsletter. I thought you'd like to see what it looks like now with blossoms. Just check out this photo (on left). Wow! We did find a few more of these guys hiding out for sale.

July's Featured Plants

Posted July 1

It's hard to believe summer is here! We take a look at our gardens in early July and show off several featured plants and plant combinations, culled from our July e-mail newsletter.

Plant and Garden Combinations

Posted June 27

Our late June e-mail newsletter went out with lots of photos (12) to help illustrate how you can try different combinations of plants in your garden, just as Fritz Creek Gardens has throughout its 13 display gardens. See our special page on Plant Combinations to learn more. Many of the plants featured are in stock, so if you like what you see, you can buy them from us.

The Wonderful World of Vines

Posted June 15

I love vines. They are not mysterious or hard to grow or manage. Really! However, as with most plants, here in Alaska the rules are a bit different.

Cool roots. That's what you will read. Well, our soils are always cool so forget that rule. Prune this one, don't prune that one. Prune this one in the fall, that one in the spring, this one immediately after it blooms. Yadda, yadda, yadda. I never prune my vines (I'm going to get into trouble over this I know). If you prune at the wrong time you can lose the whole kit and caboodle so I just don't. When I see a dead stem around the second week of June, I'll prune that one out. Or if it is growing in such a way that I can't live with it, I might prune something. Most Clematis bloom on old wood here in Alaska. It looks like it is dead but it isn't. So be patient.

I do fertilize my vines. I do it very early in the spring before I even see anything alive. I fertilize on faith. I figure the fertilizer has to go a long way up that vine so I want it to get an early start. I use composted steer manure. I water thoroughly when I fertilize and then leave it alone for a couple of weeks at least.

I will admit I have a small problem with my Clematis 'Tangutica' that is about seven years old (photo at right). I have never pruned it (or almost never) and I may have to abandon the gate it is growing over now. So for the scientist among you who really understand what and when to prune, my hat is off to you. For the rest of us, relax and let nature take its course. However, in our Plant List I give the recommendations for pruning as per the "books," even though I don't practice it.

Varieties are another exciting topic however. Clematis are the safest perennial vines for Alaska. There are others but nothing seems to be as reliable as Clematis. Many are hardy for zone 2 (-40 to -50F) that will pretty well cover most of Alaska.

The C. alpina and the C. macropetela have smaller flowers but are usually covered with blooms and many of these varieties have very attractive seed heads. 'Tangutica' with its nodding yellow blossoms has a very large silver, silklike tassel seed head that is almost as attractive as the blooms.

By planting several vines with different bloom times in the same location it is possible to have something blooming in a vine setting almost all season. Several vines will have a second bloom period later in the summer if we have a good summer.

The macropetela varieties are terrific climbing a tree or meandering among your perennials. I especially like to grow Clematis among my Paeonia (peony). The Paeonia have wonderful leaves long after their blooms are gone. Having blooming Clematis scampering among those nice leaves is quite a treat.

There are shrub Clematis! Yes the Clematis integrifolia only gets about 15 inches tall at most in my gardens (photo at right). This is the one you all raved about last year with its leaf pods that explode with a bright blue/purple flower right before your eyes. I grow this one in my regular flower borders. Also a shrub is the 'Heracleifolia.' The real bonus with these blue hyacinthlike blooms is their wonderful violet fragrance.

Gardening Lecture 101: Suck it Up

Posted June 7

Okay, Alaskan gardeners. You are an Alaskan gardener, right? We gripe and complain a bit but we are all here for the challenges Alaska provides. Yes, it did seem like a long winter, and yes it is a late spring but -- you know you love the tests Alaska puts us through to prove who we are. We are Alaskans. There are no others like us. We are special. And our gardening experiences are no different; they are special, too.

Take a look at the image on the right of my gardens one morning in late May. Now, how can we not appreciate the beauty we are allowed to enjoy provided by just the things we are griping about this spring? Cool springs mean sturdier plants, more intense colors and longer bloom times.

Note: Many of the the plants in the photo at right are Primula. Most of the yellow and purple in the foreground are Primula auricula. They come back every year and self-propagate, but do not produce so many that you won't appreciate them, however. The foliage is evergreen, which means when the snow melts you will have nice green foliage immediately. The other Primulas in the picture are called Dorothy. The blue flowers you see in the background are little minor bulbs that get planted in the fall, grape hyacinths.

Gardening Lecture 102: Drainage

When gardener extraordinaire Dave S. tells me he lost bleeding hearts he has had for 15 years, and 20 other gardeners tell me the same, including Rosie B, who had the most beautiful display I've yet to see, it's pretty obvious that our plants experienced a hard winter. Again, look at the image of my gardens (see photo) and see if it looks like they suffered.

I can almost guarantee if your gardens have excellent -- and I do mean really excellent -- drainage, you probably didn't lose many plants. Most of our Alaska Hardy® plants are hardy to minus 30F and we didn't see much of that this winter, so it wasn't the cold that got them, it was poor drainage.

Several factors cause poor drainage.

Compacted soil is of course the definition of poor drainage. Don't walk in your gardens. Have stepping stones that allow you to maintain and weed without stepping on the soil. Sounds simple but this is extremely important.

When I start a new garden I always add sand and compost. Heavy clay soils equal certain death from the wet winters. If the water can't wick away from the plants, that's it. They will surely rot over the winter.

Raised beds in Alaska are an absolute must. I don't mean boxes above the ground, I mean to raise the area just where the garden is to be at least 6 to 8 inches. A natural slope will help but at the bottom, you will still have the same problems.

If you surround your raised beds with big rocks, you will not only have the walls to hold the raised beds, but you will have little furnaces that heat up your soil earlier in the day and hold the heat longer into the evening.

Good News And Bad News

It's been very hectic around here. The bad news is we've actually ran out of some plants. We've completely sold out of aspen and 'Fat Albert' spruce and forget those orange hued potentilla are long gone! In the perennial department it's the same story: sold out of many of the special can't-get-anywhere-else Primula varieties, and we're sold out of a lot of lily varieties, etc. The good news is we still have more than enough of everything to make you happy. At least 300 varieties of perennials are here waiting for their new home. Tarri has some spectacular flowering crab apples and of course about a 1,000 other trees and shrubs -- plus at least 45 of the 55 varieties of roses we started the season.

Perennial Plant Of The Year

Every year the Perennial Plant Association (PPA) awards this title to a plant that is reviewed and voted on by members from all over the world. I was particularly excited about this year's selection, as it is a zone 3, that's hardy to minus 40F and very easy to grow. Nepeta 'Walker's Low' catmint blooms continuously throughout the season if properly pruned. Bees, butterflies and other pollinating insects love this beauty but moose and rabbits do not.

Brush by the leaves and experience a wonderful aroma. Grow this great plant in full sun, well drained soil and neutral pH. The plant is almost a bush with its lush full foliage reaching about 10 inches. 'Walker's Low' is drought-tolerant and salt-tolerant once it is established.

Because of its long blooming habits, this Nepeta is a good companion for both early and late summer season combinations. It's great with Dianthus, Veronica, Achillea (yarrow), Iris, purple-leaved sedums like 'Black Jack' and short grasses such as Festuca 'Elija Blue.'

For an old-fashioned, romantic look pair 'Walker's Low' with foxgloves, peonies, dianthus and Siberian iris. We sell this plant for $7.50.

It hasn't been announced yet so don't tell anyone, but the 2008 Perennial Plant of the Year is Geranium 'Rozanne.' This wonderful geranium is a favorite of one of our local garden designers as it blooms forever, has huge bright blue flowers and the foliage is quite attractive with almost a marbled look. We sell this plant in a one gallon pot for $8.50.

Photo courtesy of the Perennial Plant Association.

Containers

This is the perfect spring to emphasize my feelings about containers. We have a zillion or so ceramic pots that we scatter around our gardens each year. Because I start them inside, they are usually way ahead of our real gardens, which is very important this year. But the most important use is they fill up my "holes." When I have a not so successful experience with a plant (yes I do have those, too), I can fill the "hole" with a fabulous pot full of fresh blooms. I also use containers to trial plants. I will try growing them in certain sunlight conditions, or shade or windy etc. I just move them around until they seem happy then I have a better idea what they really like in my own gardens. All gardens have their own particular peculiarities that no one can tell you about until you experience them yourself. We did get our first shipment of ceramic pots delivered and will get the second shipment by early June or so. We try to keep these pots reasonably priced just for our customers so they can experiment also.

Don't forget frilly, moundy and spikey for your ceramics. Ask me?

Hope to see you at the greenhouses soon.

Rita Jo

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