© Janet Davis

All-America Selection: One of the smartest ways to buy annuals is to look for those that have garnered AAS (All America Selection) awards. These are plants that have undergone rigorous testing at AAS test gardens across North America, including seven in Canada. Apart from the testing, the plants are also grown in 23 separate Canadian display gardens. For more information on AAS winners, visit their Web site at http://www.all-americaselections.org/.

Bountiful Begonias: If you want non-stop flowering in the containers you plant in shade, you can’t do better than “Non Stop” hybrid begonias. In luscious colours of apricot, scarlet-red, orange, yellow, white and pink, they’r trouble-free and absolutely gorgeous. Non Stops are pretty with trailing vinca or German ivy. Or for an interesting foliage companion, tuck in some tiny tropical ferns from the greengrocer.

Compost & Clotheslines: Enjoy drying your laundry outdoors in summer but hate seeing those undies fluttering above the dahlias? Can’t stand looking at messy compost piles or ugly bins? Create a “utility” area in your garden and tuck it behind a fast-growing cedar hedge, a thicket of tall, pretty rugosa roses or a handsome lattice screen supporting morning glories and tomatoes.

Datura Danger: Every summer, we read about foolhardy kids (usually teenage boys) who’ve tried some angel’s trumpet seeds “on a dare” to see what might happen, with dire results. A few years ago, a Windsor, Ontario teen sustained permanent heart damage and suffered terrifying hallucinations for 3 weeks after inadvertently eating datura seeds that had been sneaked into his food by another youth. GARDENERS AND PARENTS TAKE NOTE: Pretty as they are with their fragrant white trumpet flowers, all daturas contain three highly toxic, potentially fatal, mind-altering alkaloids!

Earthworms: As spring weather warms, resist the temptation to “clean up” by raking all last year’s autumn leaves from your garden. Leave a good supply for foraging earthworms which ingest them along with soil, adding microbes to break them down before excreting them as nutrient-filled “casts”. Tunnelling earthworms also aerate and condition garden soil.

Fertilizer: If you’re too busy to remember to fertilize your container plants, use a slow-release granular fertilizer like Osmocote or Nutricote. They’re especially made for planters and will provide a slow, steady stream of nutrients for several months.

Holly Harem: Given up on growing holly? All hollies, including the hardiest blue holly (Ilex x meservae) like moist, slightly acidic soil in an east-facing location -- no afternoon sun or harsh wind, please, to prevent leaf scorch. And to get berries, remember to grow at least one male cultivar, e.g. ‘Blue Prince’ or ‘Blue Stallion’ within a 10 foot proximity to fertilize the fruit-producing flowers of 1-8 females such as ‘Blue Princess’ or ‘Blue Maid’.

Iberis Innovations: One of my favorite gardeners shears her perennial candytuft (Iberis sempervirens) into a neat little hedge which borders a path meandering down a hillside planted with azaleas. Cheaper, if less substantial, than boxwood or yew (and the candytuft needs regular shearing anyway.)

June and Japanese? Beetles, of course. Once the rains come in spring, lawns seriously infested with the root-chomping larval grubs of these beetles can be treated with predatory beneficial nematodes that come in packaged solutions under names like Bio-Safe or Scanmask. Although nematodes are an organic treatment, they can still upset the natural balance in your lawn so should not be used as a preventative or on an ongoing basis.

Kerria Kindling: Some years back, I had significant winter-kill on my kerria shrubs. A few hours of pruning later, my furnace room was piled with neatly-tied kerria kindling bundles, perfect for starting next winter’s fires. If mother nature hands you lemons…..

Littleleaf Linden: If you’re one of those control freaks who’d like to some “pleaching” (intertwining in an arch) or “pollarding” (lollipop pruning), Tilia cordata is a good tree, started young, to produce these formal effects.

Maple Roots: Lots of gardeners give up trying to grow anything in the dry, shady, root-filled soil under old maples, especially dense Norway maples. Experiment with native ginger (Asarum canadense), vinca, violets, rugged old hostas like H. ventricosa or H. lancifolia. Make a toehold for new groundcovers by trimming the tree’s surface feeder roots a tiny bit (they grow back immediately anyway), then add humus-enriched soil and water well until the plants establish. (In the greedy root system of my 90-year old silver maple, I grow scads of crocuses, tulips, grape hyacinths, small-flowered rhodos, sedums, catmint, penstemon, echinacea and dozens of other plants.)

New York Bound? Don’t visit the Big Apple without seeing its best gardens! There’s New York Botanical Garden and Wave Hill in the Bronx, Brooklyn Botanical Garden in Brooklyn, the beautiful Conservatory Garden in Central Park and Bryant Park beside the New York Public Library. Read more about New York’s fine gardens.

Oil Sprays: An organic way to deal with over-wintering mites and scale insects (sometimes in combination with lime-sulphur if there is also a fungal problem) on your fruit trees, roses and woody ornamentals. Can be applied both pre-season before leaf buds emerge when it’s called “dormant” spray and in summer when it’s mixed in a less concentrated formulation to prevent damage to foliage.

Plinth: Isn’t that just a pedestal that went to Oxford? Seriously, if you want to carry on a conversation with people familiar with architectural garden ornamentation -- things like parapets, porticos and balustrades -- you should master a few classical design terms. Example: “Some day, my plinth will come.” Or, “I was the only one at the party who wasn’t pilastered.” (Well, maybe not….).

Queen Elizabeth: Unlike its human counterpart, this is an absolutely wonderful rose, introduced in the Queen’s coronation year, 1954, that never has an annuus horribilis. A tall, vigorous grandiflora with healthy foliage and clusters of gorgeous, big, clear-pink blooms that make superb cut flowers.

Rye with Ice: No, not that rye. It’s Canada rye grass used as a fall-sown “green manure”. Once winter’s snow and ice have retreated in spring, the rye grass is dug under to add lots of good nitrogen to the soil in readiness for planting desired crops.

Squirrel Strategy: Although some people try to keep squirrels out of spring bulb borders with cayenne pepper, animal-lovers tell us that this is a very inhumane way to deal with the rascally rodents, who burn their eyes as they rub them with their peppered paws. Better to use some wire mesh just below the soil where they dig or plant narcissus bulbs which are poisonous, therefore ignored. I’ve found a thick leaf mulch keeps them from digging up newly-planted bulbs in fall, but nothing much keeps them from chomping off flowerheads of tulips and crocuses in spring.

Transgenic Tomatoes: It started with the FlavrSavr™ late-ripening tomato, engineered by California-based Calgene. Now much of the world is in an uproar over the ethical issues surrounding genetically-altered agricultural crops, including canola and corn that are bred to be resistant to the herbicides that kill the weeds around them.

Uvularia: A charming, little, spring-flowering perennial native to Eastern North America, its common name is merrybells or bellwort. Slender, bamboo-like leaves with nodding, yellow, bell-shaped flowers. Not showy, but a fine shade plant.

Verbena ‘Homestead Purple’: One of the hardest-working annuals you’ll find for hanging baskets, pots or groundcover. Discovered by the side of the road near Homestead, Texas, it has brilliant violet flowers on trailing stems and blooms through an astonishingly long season.

Walnut Woes -- where nothing grows. Owners of black walnut trees (Juglans nigra) know the misery of coping with the toxic side effects of juglone secretion by their roots, leaves and nuts, shown at left. Juglone is an allellopathic agent for the tree, meaning it discourages the growth of many other plants at its base. As the owner of half of a towering black walnut (it’s on the property line), I’ve had success growing hostas, martagon lilies, Asiatic lilies, bittersweet vine, monkshood, snakeroot, clematis, ostrich ferns and many wildflowers in its shadow. Forget roses, rhododendrons and tomatoes: they cannot tolerate juglone.

Xylem….or phloem? Quick now, which goes up? Here’s a nonsense rhyme that gives a hint: Xylem seeks asylum high up in the tree, while phloem keeps flowin’ downhill. Xylem tissue is responsible for the “upward translocation of water and solutes” from the roots to the leaves for photosynthesis. Phloem carries sugars and other nutrients from the leaves to the roots.

Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: No, not a Sophia Loren movie, but the common name for Brunfelsia, a conservatory plant with impatiens-like flowers that age over a few days from rich purple, to pale lavender, to white.

Zinnia: Zinnias are notoriously bad transplanters so when buying your nursery plants, shop early to find stocky little ones that haven’t yet set buds. Be extremely careful not to disturb or expose the roots, and water them in well. Best zinnia bets are the easy and disease-resistant ‘Profusion’ series.

Adapted from articles that appeared originally in Toronto Gardens

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