END of SEASON SALE!

October 27, 2017 Karen Logan

CAMELLIAS, POPPIES AND CLEMATIS

September 5, 2017 Karen Logan

It has been a great year for the gardens on Martha's Vineyard. The winter was cold but not wicked. When spring broke, it didn’t swing back around and hit us again late as it sometimes does. We had some heat in the summer but not brutal nor lasting. And here we are with cool autumn conditions right on schedule. All in all, it’s been a year we can almost count as a control measure for future extremes.

Here are some of the plants that have caught our attention over the past year.

CAMELLIAS:

“April Remembered” is a hardy Camellia developed and introduced at the University of North Carolina and Camellia Forest Nursery in Chapel Hill, NC. Growing Camellia’s on the Vineyard can be frustrating but when successful, very rewarding. There are many species and selections but most often grown are C. japonica and C. sasanqua. The “April Series” are C. japonica selections that come in a color range from whites to reds to pinks. The plants themselves are reliably hardy outdoors but because they tend to flower in late winter/early spring the flowers are often burnt by freezing temperatures. This doesn’t seem to daunt those who desire their large, formally structured flowers. The plants can become large in time or easily kept trimmed to a neat, tight shrub.

Camellia sasanqua. The flowers on the sasanqua’s tend to be smaller and less formal but are produced in abundance in the late autumn. This works in our favor here on the Island since we tend to have a long, languorous fall season. The sasanqua’s flowers also come in a range of colors from red through pink to white in singles and doubles and have the added advantage of being fragrant. Its not sweet or pungent its more a clean, fresh, woodsy scent that is delightful and unexpected.

Both types are evergreen and somewhat resistant to deer browsing. They prefer a rich, woodsy soil, regular water and some afternoon shade.

POPPIES:

The annual or biennial Poppy (Papaver) is a plant we try to encourage people to use in their gardens and get planted in time, so they establish and produce their finest show.

There are so many wonderful varieties, especially the big P. somniferum types like, “Lauren’s Grape” or the classic P. rhoeas, the Legionnaire Poppy. Both can be sown in the ground from seed with mixed results, but we start them early at the nursery to help get them started. The important thing is to get them in the ground early so they have a chance to develop strong roots before the warm temperatures. People often come into the nursery in June/July and marvel at the poppies beauty. Unfortunately, at that point it is really too late to plant them for their flowers but they will produce seed that can begin to establish in the garden for the following year.

CLEMATIS:

Of all the wonderful Clematis, none performs as well for us here on the Island as Clematis “Étoile Violette”.

Clematis present a real challenge to most gardeners not just the novice. There are about 300 different species of Clematis and hundreds more named varieties. They fall generally into three groups based on habitual flowering time; early, mid-season and late. There are large flowered forms and hybrids and small flowered forms. Some are fragrant, most are not. There are evergreen types but most of them are not hardy here in New England.

The easiest to grow and maintain are the late flowering types like our Clematis paniculata that is festooning the Island with its garlands of fragrant white, starry flowers right now.

The large flowered types are the ones most people want to grow but are also the most challenging and culturally persnickety.

The mid-season types are the easiest to manage in the mixed shrub or flower garden. “Étoile Violette” falls sweetly into this group. It is a selection of C. viticella introduced in 1885. Aside from its beautiful form and color, albeit slightly smaller flowered than others, it is its ease of management that makes it worth growing. It flowers on the top third of its new growth so it can be trimmed back in the spring and allowed to scramble to whatever heights you want. The spring cut back has the advantage of delaying the flowering time to well past the end of June.

There are other C. viticella selections like, “Mme. Julia Corrévon” and “Venosa Violacea” all of which are recommended.

SPRINGTIME IN THE GARDENS

April 19, 2017 Karen Logan

Not every spring is the same, close, but not exactly. If we were to try and define a spring as “typical” it would defy us. So, we take the weather as it comes, that way it never disappoints. This year, so far, its been perfect. We had a relatively mild winter with a few storms, some freezing temperatures and a few sunny days to keep us from getting cabin fever. All this has been good for the spring flora and we’re enjoying every minute of it. We’re seeing clear pinks and reds in the flowers of our Camellias. The Forsythia’s are bursting forth reminding us to apply pre-emergent and fertilizer to our lawns. The Hyacinths are filling the air with their heady fragrance. And the early Azaleas are giving our first strong colors.

AZALEAS: If you would like to branch out from the typical landscape standard “PJM” Azalea another option is the Azalea “Landmark”. Hybridized by Ed and Wayne Mezitt at Weston Nurseries in 1985, it is a cross with parentage including Rh. ‘PJM’ but has a deeper red coloring and shiny, mahogany-colored foliage. “Landmark” is a great plant that’s easy to grow in a wide range of conditions and quickly gets up to around 6’x6’. Easy to prune if it gets bigger than you would like.

TREE PEONY: It always surprises me how early the Tree Peony’s flower. If you haven’t tried them you might want to. They are an easy plant to grow, slowly becoming a fairly substantial shrub with huge single or double flowers opening in May.

HERB and VEGETABLE GARDENS: Year in and year out April is the time to start our Herb and Vegetable gardens. These days it seems more important than ever. In the “Post War” era, after a stretch of real importance in maintaining ‘Victory Gardens’, keeping home vegetable gardens fell somewhat out of fashion. Now though, we are more aware of how important fresh vegetables are to our general health. As more and more produce is becoming available at the grocery stores and our palates become more sophisticated with cooking shows and “farm to table” concepts prevail, there is all the more pressure to ‘grow our own’. Vineyard Gardens has been on the vanguard of the "grow it in your own backyard" movement for decades.

The following pictures illustrate the process of planting seedlings.

First arrival, the seed or feeding leaves, called ‘cotyledons’.

This is the stage when you can feather the young plants apart in order to set them out with proper spacing in the garden.

Vineyard Gardens offer weekly “Garden Talks” to help customers along on their growing journey. Click here for the list of talks that happen every Saturday, through the gardening season, at 11:00am. Events page link: https://www.vineyardgardens.net/workshops/

This past Saturday was the first "Garden Talk" discussing strategies for starting veggies and herbs from seed and getting the soil prepped and ready for growing. Chris Wiley, owner of VG and a seasoned pro, led the talk. She handed out a helpful diagram specifying when various summer vegetables should be seeded and planted in the garden. Vineyard Gardens' home grown seedlings are available at the nursery, coordinated with planting dates, if you don't get your seeds planted on time.

There’s a wide range of leafy greens that can be planted to give variety and interest to your summer salads.

This is also a good time to be planting perennial vegetables like strawberries, rhubarb and asparagus. So if you’re feeling the urge to get started with your own ‘Victory Garden’ now is the time!

COOL WEATHER VEGETABLE PACKS ARE READY!

March 31, 2017 Karen Logan

We have been busy in our greenhouse planting and germinating seeds since the end of February and our cool weather vegetables packs are now ready! You can either sow your own seedlings or you can buy our packs to get a head start. We recommend planting our seedlings first and then planting a row of seeds 6-8 inches away as your second batch.

You can start planting your cool weather crops now through the end of May. We have a fabulous selection of cool weather crops including broccoli, cabbage, kale, collards, mustards, Asian greens, Chinese cabbage, tatsoi, bok choy, spinach, lettuce, arugula, micro greens, mesclun greens. asparagus and strawberries. Asparagus and strawberries are best planted early.

CAMELLIAS:

POPPIES:

CLEMATIS:

EAT LOCAL, GROW IT IN YOUR OWN BACKYARD!