Hostas: Minis or Maxies?
Hostas: Minis or Maxies?
Do you garden large, or in miniature? Whichever your preference, Garden Crossings has hosta varieties that fit the bill. Our favorite of the giant hosta varieties is almost a shrub, it’s so huge. Empress Wu has large deep green leaves, a foot or more in length. The whole plant has a spread of between 5-6 feet and gets up to four feet tall. It’s truly a showstopper.
Are you more of a mini gardener? We have small hosta varieties for you, too. ‘Fireworks’ is a variegated variety with green edges and white centers. This hosta reaches a mature height of 8-10 inches and a spread of 6-8 inches. The leaves grow in an upright pattern, giving it a unique habit.
Heidi Grasman
April 17, 2013
Can you grow a colorful, long-blooming garden without adding annuals? You certainly can! With a little bit of planning and organization, you can plant a garden that blooms and has flashy, splashy color all summer long without the labor of adding annuals.
You love the idea of perennials and not having to plant your plants every year, but you also want a perennial that will bloom all summer. That should be easy to find, right? Actually it is a little tricky to find a long blooming perennial that will give you color for most of the season, most perennials have a couple weeks to maybe a month of bloom time.
I think there is two things that all gardeners have in common, the love for plants and the love of the butterfly. There is nothing more beautiful than the graceful flutter of butterflies frolicking from one flower to another. Add more color to your garden with the beauty of the butterfly.
On days when I am working in the retail garden center at Garden Crossings, I will often get asked “What is your favorite perennial?”. To that my response is “Every week something different is flowering so it is hard to choose a favorite.’ But with that being said I do have one that reminds me of hope for each new season.
Do you ever find yourself saying “I love my garden, but I feel like I could do so much more? All the color is at the ground level, I need more height. But, I don’t want a big shrub or something that will take up so much room…” I know I have areas in my garden where this is my thought exactly, I want height but not width. Well let me introduce to you Clematis, Flowering vines. Clematis is an upright growing vine that can reach anywhere from 3 foot upwards to 20 plus foot and like to climb fences, trellis, ladders, and arbors. Give Clematis a fence and it may spread to around 5 foot, give it a trellis or arbor and the spread will be just as wide as you accent.
The dark evening sky, the mysterious happenings in the night, all of these things set you up for a touch of fear. Right? Well maybe not but it got your attention anyway. Today’s featured plant is ‘Midnight Marvel‘ Hibiscus. ‘Midnight Marvel’ is a new plant introduction for 2013. It is a cross between to other great Hardy hibiscus plants, those plants are ‘Summer Storm‘, known for its dark foliage and also ‘Cranberry Crush‘ known for its deep, rich, red flowers.