Shrubs

Inside Westminster Abbey, eight 20-foot-tall live trees lined the center aisle during the wedding of Kate Middleton and Prince William. The trees transformed the space, doing what even the most elaborate floral arrangement could not — providing a natural, living sense of permanence and an air of drama. The move was unexpected, unpretentious and bold. A potted tree on your patio or deck can have the same effect. While not every tree is well-suited for a container, there are a surprising number of options, ranging from crape myrtles to hollies.

B'more Green generally stays away from touting commercial products or companies, largely because we lack the time or resources to vet them.  But my green-thumbed colleague Susan Reimer passed this along, and it seemed too worthwhile to ignore: Nature Hills Nursery , which claims to be the largest online nursery and garden center in the nation, is offering to award a total of $4,500 in plants, shrubs and trees to four noteworthy community gardening...

At first glance, it looks like a host of white-robed fairies are fluttering along a hedge. Then, you realize it's hundreds of crepe- paper blooms on the hedge itself. "I wanted a hedge, but I didn't want evergreen [shrubs]," says Allison Ditmars, a landscape designer in Still Pond. The property was already planted with plenty of yew, a common evergreen hedge. Ditmars wanted something different, something deciduous. "We use the side yard in summer, but not in winter, so privacy was not an issue," she explains.

Tropicals will be hot this gardening season. Forgive the pun, but growers and garden centers are responding to a demand from homeowners for the luxurious foliage and lipstick colors of plants more suited to the South. And they are offering much more than the bread-and-butter varieties of hibiscus and mandevilla we are used to seeing in greenhouses. "People want color," said Stephanie Thompson Fleming, owner of Behnke's Nursery in Beltsville. "The economy is terrible, and they want to make the place where they live look great.

Q. I am looking for a tall flowering shrub to plant in a partially shaded area of my back yard. Will crape myrtle grow well in partial shade? A. I have seen crape myrtles (Lagerstroemia indica) growing in partial shade, however, they grow best in full sun. When grown in partial shade, they tend to get overly leggy and their flowers are typically smaller and fewer. In addition, many crape myrtles are susceptible to powdery mildew disease, which worsens in shade. If it were my yard, I would try something else.

Question: What's the trick to making pruned shrubs look good? Mine look hacked up and then don't grow the way I want. Answer: Try to work with the plant's natural growth habit. If it wants to cascade, don't try to make it round or square. If its natural inclination is to have multiple trunks, you can make it a single trunk, but it will need continual pruning of new trunks. Shrubs look more natural if you cut back to a larger branch or a bud. The direction a bud or branch is pointing, is the direction new growth will go. Thus you can control the direction of your plant's branch by cutting to a bud that faces the direction you want.

Q. We would like to move several shrubs in our yard. Is this a good time to transplant them, and do you have any suggestions that will help ensure that they survive? A. There are a few exceptions, but the period between late October and early December is a great time to move most plants. The success of the transplant will largely depend on the age and size of the plant, and your ability to get a nice root ball on your plant. In general, it is best to move plants while they are young and relatively small.

Do I need to water the shrubs I just planted, since it rains a lot in the fall? While fall plantings typically have the advantage of three moist seasons before a droughty summer spell, the weather doesn't always cooperate. September and October are often dry, and it is extremely important to ensure that new plants enter winter with adequate moisture available to their roots before the ground freezes. Monitor new plants for their first two years, and water as needed. I'm tired of planting tulip bulbs for squirrels to eat. What bulbs won't they eat?

Now that my rhododendrons and azaleas are over, I have no shrubs flowering until next spring. What shrubs would you suggest that bloom in summer, besides the usual hydrangeas and butterfly bushes? Good possibilities include: abelia, some native azaleas (highly fragrant), bottlebrush buckeye, small crape myrtles, potentilla, rose of Sharon (try sterile varieties that won't seed everywhere), and summersweet (Clethra alnifolia -- wonderfully fragrant). Several roses will repeat bloom or bloom lightly all summer.

Q. We have a small yard but would like to add a few shrubs with colorful fall foliage. Can you recommend some small trees or shrubs that grow well in the Baltimore area? A. There are a number of shrubs that will provide excellent fall color, and many of them also have nice flowers or fruits. Several large shrubs you could plant are serviceberry, witch hazel, crape myrtle, viburnum (some species), and small Japanese maples. Some good medium-sized shrubs are oakleaf hydrangea, chokeberry, sweetshrub, compact burning bush and beautyberry.

We are moving into a new home and purchased a number of plants for landscaping. Our landscaper recommended that we postpone putting any of the plants in the ground. He says that planting them now will not be beneficial because the ground will not provide the nutrients they will need. Instead, we still have them in their pots with mulch all around them. Is this a good solution, or would we be better off going ahead and planting them now? Many plants will not survive if soil temperatures around their roots dip too far below freezing.

Maria S. Taylor, a gardener called the "Picasso of privet hedges" after she transformed a suburban front yard into a topiary menagerie, died Saturday after a fall at her home in the Lake Falls section of Baltimore County. She was 71. "Though it's rush hour, traffic slows to a crawl along Lake Avenue as motorists study the exotic wildlife — and the well-dressed woman who gives the creatures haircuts and shaves," a 1994 Baltimore Sun article said of her. Born Maria Swandell in Glasgow, Scotland, she was raised by nuns in an orphanage.

Concern on the part of the Havre de Grace Historic Preservation Commission over the installation of outdoor gas meters in the historic district seems just a bit much. The commission -  led by Ron Browning, who writes a community column for this newspaper's sister paper, The Record -   sent a letter to BGE saying it would be preferred that gas meters not be installed in front of historic buildings. When BGE went ahead and installed meters in front of the buildings, the commission expressed anger.

Question: What's the trick to making pruned shrubs look good? Mine look hacked up and then don't grow the way I want. Answer: Try to work with the plant's natural growth habit. If it wants to cascade, don't try to make it round or square. If its natural inclination is to have multiple trunks, you can make it a single trunk, but it will need continual pruning of new trunks. Shrubs look more natural if you cut back to a larger branch or a bud. The direction a bud or branch is pointing, is the direction new growth will go. Thus you can control the direction of your plant's branch by cutting to a bud that faces the direction you want.

Can vegetable seeds from last year still be used? The life expectancy of vegetable seeds depends on the species and the conditions under which you saved them. Ideally, cucumber seed can last five years; tomato and eggplant, four years; bean, three years; corn, two years; and so on. Test your seeds by sprinkling 20 on a moist paper towel. Roll it up and place in a plastic bag in a warm place. After five to seven days, check for germination. Adjust sowing rates accordingly. If the rate is as low as 50 percent, discard the seeds and buy fresh seed.

If ground ivy is permitted to climb a tree, will it eventually kill the tree? We believe you are referring to English ivy, not ground ivy, which is a lawn weed also known as Creeping Charlie and cannot climb trees. It is true that English ivy should not be allowed to grow up trees or shrubs; it envelops branches and blocks sunlight, causing branch dieback and potentially fatal weakening of the tree. The added weight also makes trees susceptible to blow-over during storms. To begin controlling English ivy, cut it off at the base any time of year.

Q. We replanted our front foundation with new shrubs in November. Should I water these plants during the winter months? A. One of the great advantages to late fall planting is that the plants need very little after-care. This includes watering. Unless you are growing water-loving plants, I would not water until the first extended dry spell. If the dry spell occurs, it is unlikely to come before mid-spring or early summer. Q. In catalogs, some plants are listed as "varieties" and some are sold as "cultivars."

In the spring, trees and shrubs produce a dazzling blaze of light and color. From the earliest forsythia to the dogwood, lilacs and azaleas, finishing with the rhododendron and laurel, our world from March through May is transformed by large flowering plants. Then things quiet down, and the trees and shrubs, instead of being front and center during the summer, provide a cooling background of green. A well-chosen few that bloom then give interest to the landscape.Two caveats seem necessary here.

Fall isn't just for planting bulbs. It is also an ideal time of year for more ambitious garden projects, such as planting a mature tree that will shade the sliding glass door on your deck next summer. Or replacing those generic foundation plantings with shrubs that are not only lovely in spring and summer, but also offer food and shelter for winter's creatures.

Two weeks ago, I pruned four shrubs (an evergreen, a flowering species, a prickly bush and a green-yellow spotted leaf). Wish I knew the names. I pruned them way back. I'm worried that I may have pruned too much. In general, avoid pruning woody plants from late summer until plants go dormant. Pruning stimulates growth. New growth may not harden before winter and be killed, wasting the plant's energies. Since different shrubs require different pruning regimens, get your plants identified before pruning.