Category: Flowering Shrubs

mountain laurel in bloom

Evergreen Shrubs / Flowering Shrubs / Garden Design / Heirloom plants / Native Trees / Ornamental Shrubs / Poisonous Plants / Spring / Wildlife Gardening

 by Elizabeth McCoy

Mountain Laurel, A Native Shrub to Love

  I love finding mountain laurel growing in large, lovely masses in the wild.  Its creamy pink flowers glow softly in the forest.  Wild mountain laurel, Kalmia latifolia, sometimes grows along the undeveloped banks of creeks and rivers in Eastern Virginia.  It grows as an understory shrub in our oak, beach and pine forests. These evergreen shrubs, almost small trees, simply blend into the fabric of the woods through much of the year before bursting into bloom, suddenly elegant and...

Citizen Science / climate change / Flowering Shrubs / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Nature's Notebook / Phenology / Wildlife Gardening

 by Elizabeth McCoy

Timing is Everything- Nature’s Notebook

  We saw the first green leaf unfolding on a weeping willow tree today.  It was a tree growing in the loop of the off ramp from Route 199 onto Mooretown Road.  I can only wonder whether the heat from the road and passing vehicles enticed it to unfold so early, or if others all over the area are also opening on this warm, early February afternoon.     It can be hard to remember from year to year exactly...

Carbon Garden / Climate Change / Flowering Shrubs / Garden Design / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Heirloom plants / Native Trees / Soil Conservation / Tree Care / Weather

 by Elizabeth McCoy

Planting Trees and Other Hacks to Manage Wet Soils

  Water may be a blessing or a curse.  Gardeners usually want abundant rain to nurture their plantings and generally have a back-up irrigation plan for dry spells.  Providing the right amount of water for each plant is one of the keys to a gardener’s success. Working With the Water Cycle Just as leaves absorb carbon from the air, so roots absorb water from the soil.  The water, and any chemicals or elements dissolved in it, may be stored in...

Quince blossom

Edible Plants / Flowering Shrubs / Spring

 by Wendy Hamrick, Master Gardener, Class of 2017

Quince, An Early Bloomer

Most gardeners know this as Chaenomeles speciosa, (pronounced kee-NO May lees) commonly known as flowering quince. One of the first quince varieties introduced here in Virginia by English settlers and a native of Southeast Asia, it’s a member of the Rosaceae family replete with its own thorns. An effective barrier when planted in hedgerows, by 1720 Quince cultivation was thriving here in VA. Drought resistant Flowering Quince is a deciduous small flowering tree or large shrub with a long life...

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...