Ground Breaking Banter - Rick
Looking for an easy way to make the holidays a bit more special – or perhaps to keep some antsy kids or nosy relatives busy while you make food? The answer is right in your backyard! In this episode, we share ideas of common garden and landscape plants that make a perfect little accent for your holiday table. Whether it’s a sprig on a napkin, a touch of greenery as a placeholder, or a whole arrangement, and open-minded walk around your backyard may reveal options you’ve never before considered – and will impress the heck out of your guests.
Join us at the YouTube link above or on your favorite podcast platform for our whole conversation on decorating for the holidays from your backyard.
Putting together a cute little botanical place setting, or an arrangement from the garden, are great ways to keep antsy kids busy yet productive on a holiday – or as a way to get a little break from the hecticness of the day yourself. It’s also a meaningful way to make your garden part of a special day and get even more enjoyment from your plants. Of course, evergreens are a classic choice, and most people usually have at least something nearby that can be used – though between us, I think arborvitae are one of the best choices for holiday arranging and table décor for several reasons:
– They are abundant and easy to find just about anywhere
– Their foliage is beautifully fragrant and forms nice “fans” that are easy to use and lay more or less flat
– Their foliage isn’t prickly so it’s easy to handle for you and your guests
– Healthy arborvitae have so much foliage that cutting some won’t even be noticeable
So, lots of good reasons to include arborvitae. And as lovely as that little sprig of green is, a little color on the table is very welcome. You could use small stems from the classic red or yellow twig dogwood like Arctic Fire Red and Arctic Fire Yellow, but there’s another element of color that may already be in your backyard that you haven’t considered: rose hips.
Rose hips have been enjoyed in décor, cosmetics, and food for centuries, and at Eastern European groceries, you can easily find rose hip syrup, juice, and more. But overall, they weren’t really considered a garden design element until pretty recently, thanks to the introduction of disease resistant landscape roses like today’s plant on trial, Ringo Double Pink rose. Back when people mostly grew hybrid tea roses, few American gardeners would have known what a rose hip was. But the introduction of those landscape roses meant that the rose flowers were primarily single or semi-double and hence offered the possibility of pollination and that they no longer needed deadheading to continue blooming all season, so people started to see them.
Basically, a rose hip is simply the fruit of the rose. They’re usually round or oblong red to orange berry-like fruits, with a prominent calyx at the end. The rose family includes many popular edible fruits like apples, pears, plums, and peaches, so the connection there is clear. The exact color and shape of a rose hip does vary by variety. Some will be tiny and bright, forming airy clusters, while others will be much larger. The hips of Ringo Double Pink rose are the later, and are a lovely bright orange that’s perfect for the Thanksgiving table.
Ringo Double Pink rose comes to us from Chris Warner, who has developed so many of our outstanding, award-winning roses – and a great number of his roses have excellent hips. Getting the best hips on Ringo Double Pink rose is simple: just don’t deadhead. Like other roses, grow it in full sun. It is hardy to USDA zone 4 and heat tolerant through USDA zone 8.
If you’d like to add Ringo Double Pink rose – or any of the 320+ Proven Winners ColorChoice Shrubs – to your garden or landscape, you’ll find a list of local retailers here.
Gardening Mail Bag - Stacey
This is a great question, as with the 2024 emergence of broods 13 and 19 in large portions of the Midwest, a lot of people will probably also be wondering the same thing. Or, they’ll see similar damage on their plants and wonder what the heck happened. But it’s not a cause for concern and won’t lead to rot or disease entering the plant, and pruning won’t actually prevent the eggs from hatching: that happened 6-8 weeks after the female made those incisions, and the tiny larvae have already burrowed into the ground to wait their next chance to emerge.
It’s certainly possible that this was struck by lightning, but there are other explanations. One is “southwest disease,” which isn’t actually a disease but a condition that can develop on trees that face southwest. This causes them to warm up during the day and the sap to begin to flow, only to be followed by a sudden plunge at night which causes the sap to freeze. The rapid change in pressure can cause bark to crack or flake. It could also be due to borers or injury. Whatever the cause, with damage this severe, your tree is not long for the world because the flow of water and nutrients from the roots to the top has been so dramatically disrupted over so much of the tree, so you might consider having it removed.
Do you have a question for us? We’re happy to help! E-mail us or use the contact tab above. Due to high volume, we may not get to your question, so if you need an answer quickly, please reach out via the Proven Winners website.
Branching News - Rick
How do you feel about the scent of paperwhite narcissus? It’s not for everyone…but fortunately breeders are working on removing the smell. Another complaint that people have about paperwhites is that, when forced indoors, they tend to flop. But there’s a solution to that: booze. Begin watering your paperwhites with a dilute solution of 4-6% alcohol when shoots are about 1 -2” above the top of the bulbs (solution should not exceed 10%!). Rubbing alcohol as well as distilled spirits such as gin, vodka, whiskey, rum and tequila, are all fine. Beer and wine are not fine because of the sugar. To determine the correct dilute solution, take the % of alcohol on the label and divide by 5. (Example 1: a bottle of gin says 40% alcohol. 40 divided by 5 = 8. I need an 8-fold dilution to yield 5% alcohol, so I will mix my solution of 7 parts water to 1 part gin.). They will stay shorter and sturdier, eliminating flopping.
Worried about your decorations getting musty when you pack them up and store them for the next year? Save yourself the stress and put some cinnamon sticks in the box with your decorations. This will ensure that when you pull out your favorite garlands, wreaths, and other decorations next year, they already smell like the holidays.
Have you ever heard of Romanesco? This cauliflower-like vegetable is a beautiful lime green and the florets form in tower-like swirls for a fractal effect. It’s almost too pretty to eat, but you’ll want to, because it’s also delicious and healthy. Try growing this unique variety from seed yourself this season – you won’t typically find it in stores.
