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The Seeds
of a
Good Landscape
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Is your landscape going to
seed? If it is, that’s a good thing. Flowers are
pretty, but if you remember your sophomore biology
class, the flower is just a plant’s way of getting
the bees and the butterflies to do all of that
x-rated stuff with the stamens and pistils, or
whatever the heck you call them, so that the plant
can make it’s seeds. It’s the seeds that are the
really important part of the plant, because without
the seeds the next generation of plants can’t grow.
The birds, and the bees, and
the butterflies are busy all over Wyobraska these
days, making sure that there will be a good crop of
all sorts of seeds on this season’s crop of
landscape plants.
As gardeners and homeowners we
have been conditioned to think that when a plant in
our garden or landscape goes to seed, it’s time to
cut it back, cut it down, or pull it out. In
recent years, one of the new trends in landscape and
garden design is to select and use as many plants as
possible that “go to seed”, but do it with style. |
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Following are some seed plants
that perform particularly well in Wyobraska
landscapes and gardens:
Perennial Flowers
Goldsturm
Rudbeckia—The best perennial for winter seed
interest
r
Autumn Joy Sedum—Late
summer flower bracts become attractive rust color
through fall
Coronation Gold Yarrow—Perhaps
the best yarrow for winter interest
Moonshine Yarrow—Perhaps
the best yarrow for year-round interest
Gateway Joe Pye weed—The
sturdier stems of this cultivar help it hold its
large flower bracts into the winter
Late blooming daylilies—All
the recent attention has gone to the “everblooming”
daylilies, but I like the traditional late blooming
daylilies for their fall and early winter grasslike
foliage and flower stalks
Ornamental Grasses
Feather reed grass—A
great summer grass that retains winter interest
Little blue stem—The
best of the native ornamental grasses has maroon
foliage and seed heads all winter
Red switch grass—If you
have the room for a large ornamental grass, the airy
seedheads of switch grass are unique among
ornamental grasses
Zebra grass—Like feather
reed grass this plant has strong summer and winter
interest
Hardy pampas grass—The
largest ornamental grass with the most impressive
seedheads
Shrubs
Annabelle Hydrangea—It’s
rare for a shade plant to have winter seedhead
interest, the stunning large white summer flowers
become attractive winter seedheads
‘Dark Knight’ Blue mist
spirea—attractive late summer blue flowers
become sturdy light brown winter seed heads
Shrub Roses—Rose hips
are the seeds of shrub roses. Not all shrub roses
have good winter hip displays, but many do in shades
of orange and red.
Baptisia—This plant
should actually be listed as a perennial flower, but
its sturdy foliage behaves more like a shrub. Blue
flowers in late May become attractive seed pods in
winter among very sturdy stems.
Apache plume—One of the
best plants for winter seed interest in a xeriscape
or native landscape.
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Previous Articles
Fractions March 15
Yardner March 8
Urban
Legends of Trees March 22
Que
Serra, Serra March 29
Grocery Store or Garbage Dumpster Plants April 5
Planning Your Landscape Project April 12
Planting
Cool Trees April 19
Keeping
Trees Alive April 26
Thrillers, Chillers, Spillers May 03
Will
You Still Love Them May 10
Ornamental Grasses May 17
In
Memory of Cedar Trees May 24
Gardening is not Childs Play
Versatile
Viburnums June 6
Yardner Plants
June 13
2007
Garden Walk and
Blue Spruce Decline
The Birds
& Bees of Butterfly Gardening June 28
Summer
Landscaping July 5
Cutting Your Lawn Down to Size July 12
Some Like it
Hot!! July 19
When a Tree
Falls on 5th Ave
July 26
Green
Landscaping August 2
American Idol-Landscape Aug 9
Fall is
for Planting Aug 16
Is your Landscape Neat or Messy? Aug 23
2006 Articles |
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This trend is particularly
appropriate for Wyobraska gardens. The soils and
climate of Wyobraska are ideal for many of the best
seed-forming ornamental grasses and perennials, so
they are easy to grow in Wyobraska gardens and
landscapes. Then there’s the matter of our rather
long landscape winter—not the climate season, but
the period between when the leaves fall off the
trees and when the trees get their new leaves again
the following spring. In Wyobraska, that “season”
usually lasts 5 to 6 months. Seed plants can add
valuable landscape interest during what is our
region’s longest season. When planted in
combination with other plants that have winter
interest—like evergreen trees and shrubs—“seed
plants” can help to make Wyobraska landscapes almost
as colorful and interesting in winter as in
summer.
As usual, a few precautions are
in order. Not all landscape plants that form seeds
are attractive in winter. Russian sage, the popular
blue perennial flower is a good example of this.
Most expert gardeners cut back their Russian sage in
the late fall. The seeds of some plants that are
attractive in winter actually think that they should
grow in your garden the next spring (imagine that)
and can become a bit of a maintenance problem.
Purple coneflowers fall into this category. Their
dark brown seed heads sit on top of sturdy stems and
add interest to the autumn landscape, but when the
seeds begin to separate from the seedhead, it’s time
to cut them off and get them out of the garden or
landscape.
And some plants form attractive seeds, but the stems
of the plants are not sturdy enough to withstand the
autumn winds, much less winter winds and snow.
Gayfeather is a good example of this type of seed
plant. Its striking purple flower spike develops a
yellow-brown color in fall that remains interesting
because of its striking vertical form. But the
first wet winter snow will generally bring this
plant to its knees. That said, I like to wait to
cut gayfeather back until early spring, because it
does not tend to reseed very readily. Just don’t
count on it for strong
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