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Vol. 4, No. 2 — February 15, 2008
In This Issue:
Growing Dwarf Citrus Trees
Magazine Excerpt: Delightful, Dependable Daffodils
February To-Do List
Spotlight Special: Hollybrook Orchards Brand Fruit Trees
Reader Contest: Capital Home & Garden Show Passes
Local Gardening Events
Welcome to the
Washington Gardener Enews!
This is the free sister publication of Washington Gardener Magazine.
Both the magazine and enewsletter share the same mission and focus — helping Washington DC area gardens grow — but our content is different.
In this monthly enewsletter, we will:
address timely seasonal topics and projects; post local garden events; and, include a monthly reminder list of what you can be doing now in your garden.
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The January/February 2008 Washington Gardener magazine is available now. If you subscribe by February 25, you can start your subscription with this issue. Single copies of this issue can be purchased directly from Washington Gardener. The issue is also on sale at area Borders, Barnes and Noble, and B. Dalton book stores plus many independent stores like the USNA's Arbor House. This issue's cover story is "Dealing with Deer: Gardeners vs Bambi" Also in this issue: Great New Plants for 2008; Orchid Fever; Delightful Daffodils; Our Favorite Garden Tools; and, much, much more.
Growing Dwarf Citrus Trees
Many of us look with envy at our friends in southern Florida and California who can go out to their backyards and pick a basket full of ripe citrus whenever they like. Until global warming really kicks in, we in the Mid-Atlantic will have to settle for growing our citrus indoors and at a much smaller scale. Even if they never fruit, their flower scents are heavenly. Here are a few cultivation tips to get you started:
- You can grow citrus from seeds and cuttings. Or purchase a dwarf citrus plant from a local garden center.
- Citrus plants need full sun. Choose a bright, south-facing window in winter. In summer, they can vacation outside, but protect them from harsh afternoon sun.
- Keep them cool at night (in the 50s) and about 65-68 degrees by day.
- As with most container plants, do not over water or let them sit in a wet saucer.
- Use distilled or rain water as citrus do not like salt build-up in their soil.
- They love humidity. Mist often. Add a pebble tray. Set up a cool-mist humidifier nearby.
- Use a high-nitrogen, acidic fertilizer from spring through summer.
- Prune any growing tips back often to maintain a bushy, full shape.
- Rotate the citrus plant a bit every week for even growth.
- Remove any suckers or root growth below the plants graft point.
Happy Growing!
Kathy Jentz
Editor/Publisher
Washington Gardener
P.S. Our Washington Gardener bus trip to the Philadelphia Flower Show on March 5 is over half-full now. Sign up quickly to ensure you have a seat with us. Go to chevalsgardentours.com for details.
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Local Gardening Events
Here is a selection of upcoming events (February 16-March 15) in the greater DC area of interest to gardeners:
DC
Gardening to Attract Hummingbirds
February 21, 12:00-1:00pm
United States Botanic Garden Conservatory, 100 Maryland Avenue, SW, foot of the U.S. Capitol
Do you enjoy watching hummingbirds in your garden? Do you wish you had more hovering among your flowers? This lunchtime talk with Bill Hilton, Jr., Executive Director of Hilton Pond Center for Piedmont Natural History, will emphasize native plants that are suitable for attracting hummingbirds in our local gardens.
Fee: $5. Pre-registration is required.
For more information: call 202.225.8333 or www.usbg.gov.
30th Orchid Auction
March 1, 10:00am-4:00pm
National Arboretum, Administration Building, 3501 New York Avenue, NE, Washington, DC
Hosted by the National Capital Orchid Society. Hundreds of Gorgeous Blooming Orchids to bid on. Checks/VISA/MasterCard are okay to use.
Fee: $0/Free. Registration is not required.
For more information: call 202.245.2726 or go to: www.usna.usda.gov.
48th Annual 2008 Washington Home and Garden Show
March 13-16
DC Convention Center Halls B & C, 801 Mt. Vernon Place, NW, Washington, DC
The show has everything for decorating, remodeling, or furnishing your existing home plus expert advice, great ideas, and hot new products. And everything for the garden; the latest landscaping ideas from Washington’s best landscapers and exotic garden treasures.
Fee: $10 for Adults, $5 for children 6-12. Pre-registration is not required.
For more information, visit washingtonhomeandgardenshow.com.
MD and PA
No End to the Banana
Now through March 30, weekdays (except federal holidays), 8:30am-4:30pm
USDA National Agricultural Library, 10301 Baltimore Ave., Beltsville, MD
Going well beyond the banana’s familiar image as a popular breakfast and snack food, the multi-media exhibit features a wealth of information related to the biology, cultivation, and use of bananas in their many varieties around the world.
Fee: $0/Free. Registration is not required.
For more information: www.nal.usda.gov or call 301.652.9188 ext. 16.
Rain Gardens Workshop
March 7 OR March 8, 10:00am-1:00pm
Brookside Gardens, 1800 Glenallan Ave., Wheaton MD
Let staff from Montgomery County's Department of Environmental Protection show you how to create a rain garden in your yard. This is a specially designed, miniature wetland that receives and stores rainfall, and then uses that moisture to nourish interesting plant communities reminiscent of lush streambanks and freshwater marshes. Please bring a bag lunch or snack, if you'd like.
Fee: $0/Free. Pre-registration is required.
For more information: www.brooksidegardens.org.
“Extreme Gardening: Landscape Solutions for Unpredictable Weather
March 15, 2008, 8:30am-2:30pm
Montgomery County Cooperative Extension, 18410 Muncaster Rd, Derwood, MD
Volunteer Master Gardeners of Montgomery County will teach other home gardeners how to plant and maintain their yards to withstand such extreme weather conditions as drought and downpours.
Entry Fee: $45 includes a box lunch. Pre-registration is required.
For more information, email mgmont@umd.edu or call 202.549.4942.
VA and WV
Maymont Flower and Garden Show
February 21-24
Greater Richmond Convention Center, Richmond, VA
Virginia’s long-standing harbinger of spring, will offer you the latest in horticulture, gardens, seminars and a marketplace filled with goodies that will have you dreaming of spring.
Fee: $10 Adults. Registration is required.
Call 800.332.3976 for details or visit www.maymontflowershow.com.
4th Annual EcoSavvy Gardening Symposium: Techniques for Keeping Our Planet Healthy
February 23, 8:30am-4:00pm
Green Spring Gardens, 4603 Green Spring Rd., Alexandria, VA
EcoSavvy Gardening Symposium brings together experts to share practical information on environmental issues. The 2008 symposium focuses on the Chesapeake Bay Watershed and the impacts of community upon the environment.
Fee: $45. Registration is required.
Call 703.642.5173 to register. More details at www.greenspring.org.
Backyard Woods Workshop
March 8, 9:00am-3:00pm
McCoy Conference Room, Sudley North Building, 8033 Ashton Avenue, Manassas, VA
Create and enhance natural areas around your home and be better stewards of your property. Whether you are interested in converting lawn to forest, creating wildlife habitat, or providing a useful outdoor space for your family, this workshop is for you. Includes The Woods in Your Backyard manual.
Fee: $20/person or $30/couple. Pre-registration is required.
For more information, call 703.792.7747 or visit www.pwcgov.org.
Washington Gardener Special Events
2nd Annual Washington Gardener Philadelphia Flower Show Tour
March 5, Wednesday, 10:00am-10:00pm
Departing from and returning to downtown Silver Spring, MD
The Philadelphia Flower Show is the largest indoor flower show in the world. This year's theme is New Orleans Jazz. Enjoy the award-winning displays, hear a lecture, watch a demonstration, and shop the marketplace. Lunch is provided. Dinner is on your own. Surprises and prizes will be awarded along the journey. Wear comfortable walking shoes.
Fee: 90 ($5 discount for Washington Gardener magazine subscribers). Registration is required by March 1.
For more information: www.chevalsgardentours.com or call 703.395.1501.
For even more area garden event notices than we can't possibly squeeze in here, become a member of our free online discussion group. To join the email list serv, just send an email to: WashingtonGardener-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.
To submit an event for this listing, please contact: editor@washingtongardener.com and put "Event" in the email subject head. Our next deadline is March 12 for the March 15 edition of this enewsletter featuring events from February 16-March 15.
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Spotlight Special: Hollybrook Orchards Brand Fruit Trees
Demand for traditional and new varieties of quality fruits, healthy eating and the heritage of growing at home are the roots for Eastern Shore Nursery of Virginia’s Hollybrook Orchards brand of fruit trees, berries and nuts. From the Golden Delicious apple to the Russian goumi berry, Hollybrook Orchards out of the gate offers the broadest selection of fruit trees in the East.
“We have fruits your grandmother enjoyed to exotics from across the globe,” says Robin Rinaca, general manager of Eastern Shore Nursery of Virginia. “Hollybrook Orchards offers 200 varieties of fruiting trees, plants and nuts. We grow from selected root stocks to produce very high quality, properly-sized trees that will provide the homeowner with fruit in the first year of planting.”
Eastern Shore Nursery has been growing fruit trees for 12 years and now is bringing it all together under the Hollybrook Orchards brand. Proven favorites like McIntosh apples, Elberta peaches and Anjou pears are mainstays along with new varieties such as sweet cherries from the Cornell University breeding program, which are specifically developed for the Eastern climate. Rinaca says she’s seeing a growing trend she calls “orchyarding,” where people are planting their favorite fruit trees in small orchards in their yards.
Based in Keller, VA, on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, Eastern Shore Nursery will begin shipping the Hollybrook Orchards brand in February, 2008. The wholesale nursery provides high quality, container-grown trees and shrubs to garden centers, re-wholesale nurseries, and landscapers from North Carolina to Maine and west to St. Louis and Chicago -- primarily in zones 5 and 6, and some markets in zone 7.
Details on this new brand are available at www.hollybrookorchards.com.
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Reader Contest
For our February 2008 Washington Gardener Reader Contest, we are giving away passes to the upcoming CAPITAL HOME & GARDEN SHOW Thursday, February 21 through Sunday, February 24, 2007 at the Dulles Expo Center in Chantilly, VA.
The popular annual consumer show features more than 750 exhibits showcasing all types of products and services for your home and garden, as well attractive garden landscape displays, celebrity appearances, entertaining workshops and much more.
Learn how to craft cool containers and avoid gardening blunders from Don Engebretson, the Renegade Gardener™, appearing Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
This prize package is a set of two passes worth $10 each for a total prize value of $20.
To enter to win the CAPITAL HOME & GARDEN SHOW passes, send an email with "Cap H&G Show Contest" in the subject line to WashingtonGardener@rcn.com by 5:00pm on February 19. In the body of the email include your full name and address. The pass winner will be announced and notified on February 20.
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February To-Do List
Here is our comprehensive garden task list for gardens in the greater DC metro region for February 16-March 15. Your suggestions and additions to this list are most welcome:
- Cut some branches (forsythia, quince, bittersweet, redbud, willow, etc.) for forcing indoors.
- Put suet out for birds.
- Keep birdfeeders filled and provide a source of water.
- Check outside plants and trees for animal (deer) damage.
- Mist indoor plants and set up pebble trays to increase humidity.
- Rejuvenate holly bushes with a hard pruning.
- Plan landscape design projects.
- Check evergreens for sign of desiccation.
- Start seeds of cool season vegetables and flowers.
- Keep ice melting chemicals away from garden beds.
- Prune any dead or diseased wood off trees and shrubs.
- Fertilize trees, shrubs, and evergreens.
- Prune roses.
- Begin tilling beds (when the earth is dry enough to work - mot muddy) and work in compost.
- Plant or transplant trees or shrubs including berries, roses, and evergreens.
- Feed the lawn with a spring lawn fertilizer.
- Protect tender plants by covering them with some type of cloth material, if an unusually cold day or night is forecast. Be sure to uncover them as soon as it warms up.
- Weed.
- Trim ornamental grasses such as liriope, mondo, and pampas.
- Dividing overgrown or crowded perennials such as daylily and shasta daisy.
- Scan houseplants for insect activity.
- Dust your house plants with a slightly damp cloth.
- Clear out perennial beds of any dead plant parts and debris.
- Clean and organize the garden shed.
- Clean, sharpen, and oil the tools. If not done last Fall.
- Walk your yard and check plants for heaving and place them back into the ground. Placing more mulch to prevent further heaving.
- Apply dormant oil spray to ornamentals and fruit trees before dormancy breaks.
- Check and tune-up power equipment (mowers and trimmers).
- Build garden furniture.
- Spread new gravel on paths.
- Mulch bare areas.
- Design new beds and gardens.
- Pick up new gardening books and magazines.
Have a wonderful 2008 growing season!
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Magazine Excerpt: Delightful, Dependable Daffodils by Kate Tyndall
When it comes to beauty of form and flower and ease of cultivation, daffodils rule!
Even deer and squirrels refrain from eating them, though not out of any appreciation for their comeliness, but rather because of the poisonous alkaloids the bulbs contain. Still, it’s an additional boon for the gardener, since so many bulbs — tulips come immediately to mind — are catnip for squirrels and other rodents.
From the double-flowered ‘Acropolis’ to the paperwhite ‘Ziva,’ daffodil (genus Narcissus) hybrids and named cultivars number in the thousands — more than 13,000 by the reckoning of the American Daffodil Society (ADS). Their legions are spread among roughly 25 species and individual daffodils are categorized into one of 13 divisions. Thus, the paperwhites that you may have forced into bloom for Christmas or given as a gift, are slotted into the tazetta category, while golden ‘King Alfred,’ a stately large-flowered trumpet daffodil that is an inhabitant of many an established garden, is a member of the trumpet group. Other divisions that will seem obvious are small-cupped, larged-cupped (the most popular daffs), and split-cup daffodils.
Growing up in the South, I knew the tall, golden yellow flowers with their flaring trumpets as jonquils, though that name is more properly given only to daffodils in the jonquilla division. My favorites of all the daffodils that grew on my grandfather’s farm were the ones we dubbed scrambled eggs, for the fluffy mass of white and yellow petals that clustered in the flower’s center. How I wish I had it now! As a child, my delight was in picking the flowers for my grandmother, alas, not in saving bulbs for a future garden.
Those daffs, or jonquils as I still like to think of them, were hardy plants — they had to be because they received not one iota of care from anyone, but they returned year after year in full vigor and increased number. I’m sure they would be there still, had their real estate not been annexed for development.
Whatever the size of your garden, there is room enough for a few daffodils, even if it is only a handful of small ones, like ‘Golden Bells,’ one of the hoop petticoat daffodils, with their belled out cups and tiny, twisted petals, or little white-flowered ‘Segovia’ with its golden cup. If you are lucky enough to have acreage, you could plant large drifts, the way English gardener Gertrude Jekyll did at her Surrey home, Munstead Wood.
Whatever you choose, the requirements for growing daffodils are quite simple...
Read the rest of this article and learn about sources for great daffodils in the January/February 2008 issue of Washington Gardener magazine.
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Next Issue
The March 15, 2008 issue of Washington Gardener Enews will explore Early Spring Veggies.
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Edited by Kathy Jentz
Contact: editor@washingtongardener.com or 301.588.6894.
©Washington Gardener 2008
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