Category: Flowering Shrubs

Flowering Shrubs / Garden Maintenance / Heirloom plants / Landscape Love / Ornamental Shrubs / Rose Care / Tales from the Help Desk

 by Patsy McGrady

Tales From the Help Desk: Rose Rosette Disease

Q.  My Zephirine Drouhin climbing rose looks odd. There are “frilly” growths, and the buds are very small.  Should I be worried? A. The Heirloom Roses website description of Rosa ‘Zephirine Drouhin’ states that it “may be the most consistently blooming, large, flowered climbing rose, with the added benefit that it is thorn-less.” The variety is thought to have originated in France in 1868. Your rose appears to be infected with rose rosette virus (RRV). This is a virus spread...

Beneficial Insects / Birds / Evergreen Shrubs / Flowering Shrubs / Garden Design / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Heirloom plants / Invasive Plants / Keystone Species / Native Plants / Native Trees / Ornamental Shrubs / Permaculture / Poisonous Plants / Wildlife Gardening / Winter

 by Elizabeth McCoy

A Winter Wildlife Garden- “Inviting the Stranger”

  Cardinals nest in a large evergreen shrub beside my kitchen window.  Though the shrub, Ligustrum, is frowned upon by many contemporary gardeners as invasive, the birds don’t know that.  They delight in its abundant berries and the insects that visit year-round. We delight in watching the birds come and go, even as they peer in the windows at us.  We amuse one another.  Cardinals, titmice and other birds also perch in the crape myrtle tree a little further out...

Beneficial Insects / Birds / Carbon Garden / Deer / Edible Plants / Evergreen Perennials / Evergreen Shrubs / Fall / Ferns / Flowering Shrubs / Food Forest / Garden Design / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Keystone Species / Lepidoptera / Native Plants / Native Trees / Ornamental Shrubs / Sustainable Gardening / Wildlife Gardening

 by Elizabeth McCoy

Making the Choice: Native v. Imported Plants

  What do you consider when choosing plants for your home and yard?  We all have a checklist of criteria in the back of our minds.  Our criteria are very personal to our own needs and situation.  You may not purchase and plant as many plants as I do each year, but I’m sure that you enjoy the choosing and the planting just as much.     We gardeners have been encouraged to plant more native plants for quite a...

Beneficial Insects / Birds / Flowering Shrubs / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Lepidoptera / Pollinators / Sustainable Gardening / Watering

 by [email protected]

Water-Wisely, Choose Drought Resistant, Pollinator-Friendly, Plants

Planting and maintaining lovely gardens, while restricting the use of water, is made possible by using a few watering techniques and a choice of plants. The VCE created a brochure, in 2004 entitled Creating a Water-Wise Landscape and twenty years later it still contains some great advice.

Beneficial Insects / Flowering Shrubs / Garden Design / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Heirloom plants / Ornamental Shrubs / Permaculture / Pollinators / Summer Color Plants / Sustainable Gardening / Wildlife Gardening

 by Elizabeth McCoy

Summer Flowering Trees and Shrubs for Pollinators

  Have you ever watched a bumblebee explore a Hibiscus flower?  Each flower is large enough for the bee to crawl around the depths of its funnel shaped petals to collect as much pollen as possible.  Short, powdery stamens grow like bristles on a bottle brush from a long, tubular pistil. The bee emerges white with pollen and satisfied by the flower’s nectar. Hibiscus shrubs, commonly known as Rose of Sharon, bloom from June through November in our area.  Each...

Flowering Shrubs / Spring

 by Marion Guthrie

Forget Forsythia?

One of my favorite garden memories is cutting forsythia boughs in March, before they bloomed, with my Dad. He would give them to Mom who would put them in water in a large glass vase, placed as a centerpiece on the kitchen table. We would watch and sometimes at mealtime discuss, how each day brought small changes that eventually resulted in a bouquet.  I learned some botany from this exercise and the fact that forsythia flowers emerge before their leaves...

Birds / Evergreen Shrubs / Flowering Shrubs / Garden Design / Garden Maintenance / Permaculture / Poisonous Plants / Tales from the Help Desk / Wildlife Gardening

 by Patsy McGrady

Tales from the Help Desk, Poisonous Red Berries

Q. I have heard that Nandina is poisonous to birds. My community has planted many Nandina plants. Should we remove these plants to protect birds?  A. It is true that Nandina (Nandina domestica) berries contain cyanide and are, therefore, highly toxic to birds and other animals. However, the only well documented case of birds dying from ingesting Nandina berries occurred in April 2009 when dozens of Cedar Waxwings were found dead in Thomas County, Georgia. The University of Georgia, College...

Beneficial Insects / Evergreen Shrubs / Flowering Shrubs / Fragrant Plants / Garden Design / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Holiday Plants / Ornamental Shrubs / Permaculture / Wildlife Gardening

 by Camille Fisher, MG Class of 2020

Winter Blooming Camellias!

November and December in Williamsburg bring beautiful fall colors to my backyard which include my blooming camellias. There are two popular types that are late fall/winter bloomers, sasanqua and japonica camellias.  Although caring for them is easy, there are a few things I recommend you do to encourage healthy plants. Your efforts will be rewarded with beautiful flowers and luscious greenery. Mulch Add three to four inches of natural mulch to protect your plant from the cold winter winds. Mulch...

Beneficial Insects / Birds / Bulb Gardening / Container Gardens / Flowering Shrubs / Garden Design / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Herbs / Native Plants / Ornamental Shrubs / Permaculture / Sustainable Gardening / Wildlife Gardening

 by Elizabeth McCoy

Winter Flowers for Pollinators

  Did you notice bees and other insects feeding later than usual last year?  And did you notice how many were out feeding on warm days last winter?  Our roller coaster weather affects insects, birds and other animals.  They may be out and about on warmish days in months when we don’t expect to see them.  And, of course they are hungry! Increased activity translates into an increased need for calories.  Providing winter forage for pollinators and birds presents gardeners...

Animal repellant products / Container Gardens / Deer / Edible Plants / Flowering Shrubs / Food Forest / Garden Design / Garden Maintenance / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Herbs / Perennial Care / Permaculture / Soil Conservation / Sustainable Gardening / Wildlife Gardening

 by Elizabeth McCoy

Planting a ‘Food Forest’ at Home for Sustainable Harvests

For most of human history, families relied on gathering foods growing in their environment for some portion of their diet.  And many of these delicious and nutritious foods grow on long-lived trees or shrubs, from persistent perennials, or from plants that readily self-seed.  This very sustainable form of agriculture allows for food production with few inputs of water, fertilizer or labor, once the plants establish.  Perhaps most importantly, there is minimal disturbance to the soil’s ecosystem.