Everywhere, It Is Now: HANGING BASKET TIME!

If you're looking for this year's hanging baskets of choice for your property, NOW is the time to get them. They are arriving in full force at major retailers and independent nurseries & garden centers. They will get picked over quickly, and there are seldom any quality "clearance" baskets.

You can expect to pay about $12 and up for any kind of decent basket. Walmarts may charge less, but I find the soil used in them dries quicker, so you will gradually see your plants wither and diminish throughout the summer, no matter how fast you chase them with water.

For the shade I find you can use almost anything, but for the sun I recommend New Guinea Impatiens. They take just about all the sun you can throw at them - just be sure the soil in their pots is heavy enough to retain decent amounts of water. Kmart in particular currently has new shipments of these, and they are $11.99 apiece. I also recommend Kmart for all of your New Guinea Impatiens needs!

HOW TO: Properly Planting a Root Ball Using Entirely Native Soil.

A major challenge in PA gardening is properly planting trees, shrubs, and perennials when the most of the soil around here is tightly packed hard clay that cannot be broken up and is consequently of no use to the plant roots. You can easily dig a hole through the clay, minus a few rocks or roots that can be dug/cut out and removed with some additional effort. But what's the best thing to use as backfill around the rootball once you have planted it? I will now share what works pretty good for this area and will yield healthy plants - this is only using naturally occurring materials you should already have access to. Step by step, it is as follows (please read thoroughly before following, the steps are co-dependent):

1. Choose a time to work that suits, e.g. early morning or late evening, and preferably a dry day or two after it has last rained. Otherwise, you may find yourself hot, overexerted, soaked, or muddy. Dig your hole, using normal procedures (make it deep enough so the crown of the plant is level with the surrounding terrain, dig hole twice the diameter of the root ball). Remove any roots or rocks. If the debris is too many or too large, consider more serious excavation (saws, digger bars, back-hoes, augers) or a different plant location. Discard roots as far away from your garden as possible, or at the far end of a compost pile (where you throw sticks, etc). Lots of rocks around here make fine garden accents or pathway  stones, so you may decide to keep any rocks for future use. Beats hauling it somewhere else, right?

2. Don't discard your excavated soil! Shovel into empty pots or containers for "processing." You may find that the top few inches of what you dug is richer in organic matter. Shovel that into one 3-gallon pot, and shovel the heavier clay (from the bottom of the hole) into a different pot. You will be reusing the good soil.

3. Set your plant / rootball into the hole and make sure the crown is level with the surrounding terrain. You may have it 1-2 inches higher, but NEVER lower. Make sure the plant is oriented in the center of the hole, and there is enough room to get a few inches of backfill all the way around the roots. Also, make sure the body of the plant is in an attractive or productive position - you don't want to dig and replant later because you decided you don't like which way the plant is facing!

4. Process what you have dug. The pot containing the richer soil will be *some* of the backfill for the hole, around the rootball and up to 3 inches from the crown. Using hands or a trowel, break it up into the finest consistency, and backfill. Press the soil firmly into the space around the bottom of the ball. Then add some water to it all, to the point where you can *just barely* see a standing water puddle that looks like a moat.

5. Now here's what could be but shouldn't be a challenge. Find an area of your property, or a communal area rich in soil directly from composted vegetation, e.g. one where you know people have dumped materials for the purpose of composting. Dig down just to where you get into soft black or brown compost, which should have the appearance of coffee grounds, and have a neutral or lack of smell. A funky smell could signify stagnant water, in which case you should select a different compost area. Fill an empty 3-gal pot 2/3 full and carry it back to your work site.

6. Use your pot of compost to fill the remaining 3 inches of "moat" around the roots all the way up to the crown, packing firmly with your hands as you go. Then, water it down with no more than 2 quarts of water, and pack down again later after the water has settled. Place a light coating of mulch atop the area where the hole was dug.

7. Take your pot of heavy clay, carry it to the compost heap, and break it up with your shovel. As it dries, it will become part of future usable compost! If you have your own compost heaps, periodically work them with a shovel, rake or pitchfork to speed up the composting process.

Need Roses? McTighe's Garden Center = a winner!!

For some reason, McTighe's Garden Center on Route 8 (Butler Street) in the Glenshaw/Shaler area was one of my last places to visit in 2012, BUT it was certainly one of the best in many ways.

In short, they have a HUGE selection, are packed-full with stock, decent pricing, and a sizeable staff. And if you need Rose shrubs, look NO further - McTighe's carries the largest selection I have ever seen, a.k.a. the most brands and colors - I counted at least 50 different. To boot, no single rose price seemed to exceed $25, which is phenomenal.

When you arrive, parking is angled off-street along the front of the property. You DO have room to back out of your space without potruding into Route 8. Whether you're starting from the north end (Roses) or the south (shrubs/perennials) you'll be aghast at how long it takes to make your way from one end to the other. You can't spend less than 20 minutes here unless you've already been before and know what you're looking for.

Now, onto the nitty-gritty. Their selection is highly intuitive, as their perennial selection in particular is honed in specifically on cant-go-wrong / no fuss specimens. In other words, perennials you buy here SHOULD perform year after year as long as you provide the most basic of garden maintenance. The pot size that impressed me the most were one-gallons, which are only running in the $7 range. There are a few places that sell cheaper, but can you get 2-foot tall astilbes at this size/price anywhere else? Probably not.

McTighe's annual and vegetable selection is also top-notch. Their hanging baskets and containers are competitively priced, and you can spend from $15 all the way up to $100 on single containers if you want to get real fancy.

The only personal disappointment for me was the lack of hydrangeas. Being a collector and all, I'm always looking for new specimens to add. But aside from some Dooley's and basic Proven Winners paniculatas, they did not have anything else to tickle my fancy. But once again, McTighe's leans toward the least finicky of plants (which hydrangeas aren't), so at least they are true to form.

Rain, Rain... Thank You, Mother Nature! (Plus, last freeze date has now passed!)

So we've had record-setting rains here in the Pittsburgh region the last day or two. But welcome it is, since we've had a mostly dry Spring, which combined with late freezes has gotten plant growth off to a slow start. Now the ground is saturated, and we shouldn't have to worry about much of any watering for another week or so!

This has also been a good time to check and see if your drainage and irrigation systems are working properly. In the garden, these are usually successfully accomplished by cutting shallow trenches along the fronts of borders, and making slopes by mounding garden soil to one side or another. In the end you want everything to a) get watered, and b) drain so that standing water does not accumulate for too long of a time. Now, with this heavy rain you may still notice washouts and irregular buildups of mulch, silt, or other organic matter. These must be cleared! If not, these buildups will cause you more headaches later in the season, such as drainage problems in the garden or the erosion of pathways and lawn edging. There's also the possibility of water going other places you don't want it to, such as garages, basements, foundations, and adjacent properties.

But I will put in a few more words about the last Spring freeze. Ever want to know the best way to tell this in southwestern PA? Listen for the call of Baltimore Orioles. They are migratory birds and distantly related to robins. Each Spring from April to May they return here, staking out positions high in the treetops to start their yearly mating rituals. My mother once told me "Whenever you hear an Oriole, you know it's safe to plant (annuals)". And uncannily true this turned out to be, as the DAY after our last Spring freeze of 2012, I heard one out back!

Visited: Michael Bros. Nursery in Russelton, PA

Yesterday, I decided to visit Michael Bros. Nursery in Russelton, PA. If you are in the Pittsburgh area and you have no idea where this is, it's more or less located just northeast of the Route 910 corridor out of Harmar Twp and Cheswick borough. You can hit (47) Michael Rd from Saxonburg Blvd or Rich Hill Rd. It's set in a mostly still-rural area dotted with farms and small towns, but also has new high-end housing plans popping up. You can't miss the property, as their large annual greenhouses come right up to the roadway. Their sign is a painted wooden one that stands about 8' tall. From the road, there is a packed gravel drive that leads to a sizeable gravel lot that can hold about 20 cars. From the lot looking north, the annuals, veggies and herbs are to the left along with the shop. Directly ahead is the perennials greenhouse (about 50x150' in size). And to the right is mainly the tree and shrub area. There are also some perennials in long hoophouses (about eight in total) of the tree and shrub area.

I'd like to start by saying that for the pot sizes they carry, their prices on plants blows lots of other nurseries' prices out of the water! The selection is what you'd call traditional or "expected", but is also very large, with large quantities of a wide range of specimens that are hardy to PA. For these reasons, both novices and experts can easily find things to suit their needs.

Most 3-gallon shrubs run around $24, which is an excellent price and is competitive with even the big box stores. I got a Wine & Roses Weigela at this price, which was three times as tall as the same plant at Lowe's, which have all been pruned down to 12" and go for $27. Some other noteworthy things I saw included 5-gallon magnolia trees, for which they charge $40-60, where most other places charge from $80-120.

I'd recommend Michael Bros. to anyone who doesn't mind making the short trip. Their staff is friendly, knowledgeable and present, just as advertised on their website. You can learn more about them at www.michaelbrosnursery.com