Loudoun County Master Gardeners

Lessons from a Remarkable Garden

by Jill Johnson, VCE Loudoun County Master Gardener

From spotting unusual plant combinations to ideas for creating garden rooms, there’s nothing like a visit to Blandy Arboretum in Boyce, VA or the Loudoun County Master Gardeners’ Demo Garden in Leesburg. I recently visited a 20 year-old one acre garden in Fauquier County that has been featured in Southern Living and Virginia Gardening magazines- I left in awe and inspired! The following are lessons learned from this garden.

Lesson 1 is avoid putting a onesie-twosie patchwork of plants. Select a palette of colors and stick to it. Three of a kind is better that one. Linda Hofstetler, owner of the garden I visited, is both an artist and a designer, as well as a Master Gardener, and her artistry is evident in the stunning colors she uses. Her chosen palette is primarily red, blue, and yellow with many, many shades of green, and the same colors are repeated throughout the garden. That is lesson 2. Repetition is a key concept in design that helps the eye unite various parts of a garden.

The third lesson is to consider textures when buying plants. Linda selects and groups plants with a variety of textures and shapes that provide contrast. One spot in her garden features a Japanese maple with fern-like cut leaves, underplanted with the large rounded shapes of hostas and the sword-like foliage of Japanese fountain grass. Another area featured a blue ceramic fountain edged with boxwood balls, two needle-tipped evergreens, with flag iris providing the linear shape.

Curving paths of stone lead to a number of hidden destinations, or garden rooms. This has the effect of making her one acre seem much larger and the same can be achieved in a smaller garden. Linda has many seating areas hidden throughout the garden, and a cobalt blue color is the unifying element. One “room” has a blue fountain, one a blue painted wrought iron bench, another blue iron arbor.

This garden also has few bare spots. Trees are not circled with rings of mulch but instead are underplanted right up to their trunks. Some of the plants used are epimedium, hellebores, native ginger, Japanese painted ferns, trilliums, and Virginia bluebells.

Finally, have patience. Gardeners have a saying about perennial plants: that in the first year, they sleep, in the second year, they creep, and in the third year they leap. Imagine your garden in twenty years!

If You Love Roses, You Should Know About Rose Rosette

By Nancy Caldwell, Loudoun County VCE Master Gardener

Roses add undeniable beauty and interest to the garden. And the newer varieties promise disease resistance and long bloom times.

Sadly, disease resistance does not mean disease free. Even the popular Knock-Out roses are susceptible to a deadly virus known as Rose Rosette Disease, or RRD. Spread by tiny wind-born mites, RRD is popping up with increasing frequency in our communities and home landscapes.

How do you know if your roses have the disease? You may notice thicker canes with larger, more numerous thorns. There may be dark red foliage at the tips and discolored, multi-branched leaves, known as witch’s broom. Flowers and buds may be discolored, or disfigured.

Unfortunately, once a plant is infected it can’t be cured.  It usually dies within a few years; however, if left in the landscape a diseased rose can infect other healthy roses nearby.  While some gardeners believe that pruning out the diseased canes can possibly save the plant if caught early, this method hasn’t been proven. Virginia Tech and the Virginia Cooperative Extension recommend removing it completely, including all root material. The diseased plant should not be recycled or composted, since the virus will survive and could end up as mulch in someone else’s garden. Instead, dispose of it in the regular trash or burn it (if allowed in your community).

While RRD can’t be cured, it may be possible to prevent your roses from becoming infected by applying horticultural oil or insecticidal soap to plants once a week until July when mites are most active.  Watch your plants carefully—if you see signs of the disease act quickly to remove it from the garden and dispose of it properly. Then disinfect your pruning equipment with bleach or isopropyl alcohol.

It is possible to replace the diseased rose with another, but take care to remove any remaining roots or plant material from the area.  A safer bet is to find a different plant to take its place. The good news? Rose Rosette only affects roses, and will not harm other plants in your garden!

Learn more about Rose Rosette online at https://pubs.ext.vt.edu.

Our Top Ten Things to Do for Your Garden in May

By Jill Johnson, Virginia Cooperative Extension Master Gardener

# 1. Hold off on putting in tender perennials until just past Mother’s Day, because Loudoun’s last frost date is May 15.

# 2. Don’t plant invasive English ivy. If English ivy is already climbing your trees, our Master Garden Tree Stewards strongly recommend removing it before it kills your tree. For detailed information about ivy and its removal see: http://loudouncountymastergardeners. org/programs/tree-stewards/english-ivy/

# 3. Let the foliage remain on your spring flowering bulbs no matter how unsightly. Remove it only when the leaves have turned brown and are easily pulled off. The foliage is manufacturing food for the bulb and which is vital for next year’s flowers!

# 4. Add more native plants to your garden. Check out plantnovanatives.org to learn why we should plant natives and which ones are best for our area.

# 5. Request a visit from the Master Gardeners Healthy Virginia Lawns team. They will take a soil sample of your lawn and determine just how much fertilizer and lime you really need to use (There is a $20 fee for this service). Download a request form at: https://loudouncountymastergardeners.org/programs/healthy-virginia-lawns/

#6. Learn how to properly prune your shrubs and trees and don’t allow branches to be hacked or “topped”. Trees are often topped in our neighborhood landscapes, which eventually kills the tree. Virginia Tech has a “Guide to Successful Pruning: Stop Topping Trees!” at http://pubs.ext.vt.edu/430/430-458/430-458.html.

#7. Start your summer vegetable garden. Join Master Gardeners at the Demonstration Garden at Ida Lee Park in Leesburg for “Saturdays in the Garden”. On May 2 the free presentation will be “Transitioning from a Spring to Summer Vegetable Garden.” As a bonus, you’ll see the Demonstration Garden in all its May glory.

#8. Don’t make mulch volcanos. Apply mulch only 2-3 inches high and keep it 4-6 inches away from the trucks of trees and shrubs. Try leaf mulch instead of shredded bark mulch. It’s a beneficial soil conditioner and adds humus, nitrogen and other nutrients to the soil.

#9. Find out how to create an environmentally friendly landscape that will attract birds, butterflies, frogs and other wildlife. Attend the free lecture given by Audubon Society of Northern Virginia past president Terrence Liercke, May 7, 7pm at the Loudoun Extension Office, 32 Catoctin Circle, Wells Fargo Bank Building in Leesburg.

#10. Sit back and enjoy your garden on Mother’s Day and Memorial Day weekend!

It’s Spring!

by Jill Johnson, Virginia Cooperative Extension Master Gardener, Loudoun County

Spring cleanup continues this month but only when the ground is not soggy.  Carefully remove matted leaves that are covering up spring bulbs and ephemerals and cut back ornamental grasses, sedum and other perennials whose skeletons were left standing for winter interest.  As you cut back plants and tidy garden beds, you may uncover new growth that can be divided and move to fill in bare spots or create new beds.

Master Gardeners get together for plant swaps to trade their divisions – maybe you could start a plant swap in your neighborhood. It’s a fun way to get new plants and the generosity of gardeners is amazing.  Staying on top of weeding this month is a challenge and so is knowing what a weed is and what may be a desirable seedling.  A good weed identification guide can be found on http://oak.ppws.vt.edu/weedindex.

Need a little motivation to get you kick started?  “Landscaping with Heirloom Plants and Herbs – Smithsonian style” is our free lecture on Thursday, April 9, at 7 pm in the Extension Office Conference Room, 30 Catoctin Circle in Leesburg.  Smithsonian horticulturist Erin Clark will share secrets of creating fragrant and colorful cutting and herb gardens using old-fashioned plants that many people overlook now but that are tried and true.  The Smithsonian Heirloom Garden is a treasury of these favorites from what may be considered the classic American flower garden.

“Get Started on a Great Vegetable Garden” will be presented free in the Demonstration Garden at Ida Lee Park on April 11 at 10am.  Experienced Master Gardens will share the secrets of soil preparation and seed selection and participants will learn how to plan and plant a great vegetable garden and grow healthy food at home.

Next, visit the Master Gardener booth at the Leesburg Flower and Garden Festival on April 18 and 19 where  Master Gardener volunteers  will help you select from the variety of home-raised seedlings, including  tomatoes, peppers, and assorted other vegetables and herbs.   We grow about 5000 plants for their annual sale. This year’s selections include the purple calabash tomato that Thomas Jefferson grew at Monticello, which has been grown in Virginia gardens since at least 1782!  Or try Arkansas Traveler, an old Ozark sweet-tart heirloom that was the winner of the 2014 Loudoun County Master Gardener Tomato Taste Test.

March – the Month to Get Gardening!

By Jill Johnson, VCE Loudoun County Master Gardener

Daffodils and crocus are coming up and March looks promising even though the weather doesn’t always cooperate. Saint Patrick’s Day on the 17th is a traditional date to plant peas but last year on that date we had one of the heaviest snows of the winter, so you never know. At any rate, garden soil needs to be crumbly and workable before you plant peas, not wet and frigid. Peas will germinate as soon as the soil warms to 50 degrees. I will plant my favorite heirloom Mammoth Melting Sugar snow peas again this year, and will do a better job of providing adequate trellising to support the 6 foot plus vines.

I’ll pick the first nice day this month to get serious about garden clean-up. I didn’t cut back my perennials in the fall, so that’s on my to-do list, as well as cutting down ornamental grasses, and cleaning up dead leaves from hellebores and epimediums. You can divide perennials now if the ground is dry enough. Just think, free plants if you do the work. Yank those nasty perennial weeds like garlic mustard and henbit and the annuals like chickweed, bittercress and deadnettle.

Click for March Gardening Tips .