'Go For The Gold' with Julia Hofley

Hey All,
  Over the Weekend I had the opportunity to attend a seminar at a local garden center where Julia Hofley talked about incorporating golden plants into your landscape. She had an amazing show of 120 plus plants that are a golden, chartreuse, or  lime green in foliage or in  flowers to brighten up dull areas.
 It is important to use a variety of shapes and color into your landscape, otherwise it can be very dull or monotonous with the same green color everywhere.
This picture, for example, pulled off the Internet, shows a landscape that has a nice layout of shrubs and trees, but it lacks color and pizazz that makes the landscape beautiful. Imagine                                                               that yard with the color below.

That's Julia's point in her presentation. You don't have to settle with just green. Colors come in may forms and shapes, and is not just limited to only flowers or annuals. There are many perennials shrubs, trees, and even evergreens that come in a wide array of colors. Besides just the yellows that Julia dove into in her seminar there are reds, pinks, purples, whites, browns, and burgundy colored leaves to spruce up a colorless yard. Flower color goes beyond these colors, and many plants flower at different times of the year so that  you have color all year long even into the dead of winter with the brightly colored stems of the flame willow or the red stemmed dogwood. There is almost a limitless color pallet to play around with for the shady and sunny areas of your yard.

I'm just going to list a few of the plants she talked about because they were so exquisite, and because the fact that I have worked in a garden center for 3 years and never knew these variations existed. I'd love to share them all but I think there would be copyright infringement of some sort in there, don't want that.

This one blew me away. It is the Goldrush Hydrangea. Absolutely gorgeous!!!
It is for zones 6-9 and produces pink flowers in the summer on a compact 4-5' shrub.





The next one that I loved was the Northern Lights Series Azaleas. Definitely need to get a few of these in my yard. These beauties are for zones 4-8, and typically get 4-5' tall. Best thing about these besides the yellow flowers, is this plant RE BLOOMS in the fall with the red fall foliage!!

Next one that is worth a mention is the Gold Cascade Heucherella. I already have a few lime green coral bells and the Iced Tea Foamy Bells, but I need some of these.

Hardy in zones 4-9 and gets pink flowers on the taller stalks.  Best aspect of this cascade is that they form runners and keep on growing making a very nice groundcover.

My last mention is the Color Guard Yucca. I love this! Good for zones 4-10 and produces white flowers in early to mid summer.

Julia had lots of great information on these plants and so many more. She gave ideas on how they fit well into garden beds and what other plants they mix well with. She also mentioned a few local gardens to view. Why wouldn't you want to go view someone else's garden and get new ideas for your own?

I strongly encourage you to follow Julia on facebook (Julia.Hofley) and check out her website at Juliasbiglife.com (I think it's still under construction) and also you can email her at Julia@juliasbiglife.com. She is a member of the Garden Writers Association, North American Rock Garden Society, American Conifer Society, and many others, a freelance garden writer, and lecturer. She is such a great person and always has so much information to share. I can't wait til I can attend another one of her lectures.

Thank you Julia for such an awesome lecture on these golden plants.

So get out there and color your landscape!

Til next time-

Shanny

Seed Catalog Time!!

Hey all,
Now that February is here, for us Northern gardeners it's time to start thinking about what you would like to grow in your garden. Hopefully you've already ordered some catalogs, if not here's a good site to get some free ones. homegardenfreebies
First thing to do is to look at what Hardiness zone you're in. What is a Hardiness Zone?
A hardiness zone is based upon the average low temperatures for any given area. Ranges of temperature are then given a zone number such as 2, 3, 4 and so on. If you are in an area that falls between two zones then the number will be an "a" or a "b" after the number depending on which category it most represents.

A closer look at Michigan. (that's where I'm at)

I'm in zone 6a,~ 6b, near the Detroit area.
6a means that I am in zone 6 and may experience some temperatures like that of zone 5. 6b means that I'm in zone 6 but may experience temperatures like that of zone 7. Some maps may list zones as only numbers with no letters, while some maps may have only 6 and 6b, no 6a.
Not many people know this but there is also a Heat Hardiness zone map that tells how many average days a given area gets temperatures above 86 degrees F. Why is this important you may ask? Plants start suffering more damage at this temperature. The ground dries out faster and  plants can get sun scald quicker and among other things.

I'm in Zone 5 for heat. My area gets 30 to 40 days that the temperatures gets above 86 degrees. Some plants can take heat and some can not. I can get away with plants that do better in warmer climates by putting them in the sun in the early summer. I may be able to grow plants that are cool weather plants by growing them in more shady areas to stay out of the heat of summer. Its a thing that can be played with. You're welcome to experiment and try these things. It's fun. Be sure to keep a garden journal to record your progress of such experiments.


Now that you've found your hardiness zones, time to dive into those seed catalogs.

Seed catalogs may or may not say the zones plants are good for depending on if the catalog is sent across the country or if it's made just for its local area. Always good to check first.

Seed catalogs will be divided into sections such as veggies, herbs, flowers, and then categorized even further by tomatoes, peppers, corn, annuals or perennials and then by specific plants.

You may notice in the description of a plant there reads, for example, 54 days. This means the plant reaches maturity 54 days after transplanting out seedlings. This does not account for germination, which can take up to 4 weeks, and this also does not include getting the new seedling to transplanting size, which can be 4 inches or more depending on the plant species. Plan to spend 6 to 8 weeks  more than the 54 days growing your plants from seeds either indoors or direct sow into the garden beds. Plan your seed growing according to how long of a growing your area has. You don't want to start sunflower seeds that take 120 days to mature into full flowers when you only have 80 growing days in your season.

Some plants are hybrids. this means that the plant has been bred with certain strains that show disease resistance. this sample from Tomato Growers Supply shows the letters VFFNT in the name. These letters mean that this plant hybrid is resistant to verticillium wilt, 2 strains of Fusarium wilt, Nematodes, and Tobacco mosaic virus. I personally believe its better to have these hybrids available because they are easier for the gardeners to grow and you are not using chemicals to fix the problems that you may have with less resistant varieties.

Other than these few tips, what you want to grow in your garden is totally up to you. Get lots of catalogs, do some research and have fun finding new and amazing varieties to try at home.

If you have questions please leave them in the comments and I will be sure to answer them for you. Or if you would like to write about a certain topic let me know.
Good luck and happy planting!
Shannon

Why I started a garden

I started a garden way back in 2003. I always wanted to garden and never had the space at my moms house. When my boyfriend purchased a new home with a large backyard I begged for an area to have a garden. How cool would it be to have a quiet place where I can interact with nature and grow my own food.
I found a spot behind the garage that was semi-sunny that would support a small garden. The first year I grew Broccolli , cauliflower, onions, hot peppers, sweet peppers, and plenty of herbs. It was the greatest feeling in the world to grow all this from seed and to be able to walk out the back door and collect peppers and herbs to make dinner. Now I have had my garden for 13 years this year and I still love every minute of it, and cant wait for spring to get here to start a new garden.

New to Blogger

hey there,
I'm new to blogger. I've tried to use blogger in the past for my fish breeding page but never really got anywhere with it. excuse the mess while I get the hang of things.