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Posted by Kris Krieger on November 17, 2007, 6:08 pm
>
>
> Kris Krieger wrote:
>
>>
>>
>>I've forgottent the issue with Dogwoods - the most common ones have
been
>>succombing to some blight or another, can't remember what it is - the
>>natives, and the less-commone ones (??Kousa??), seem to be resistant.
>>
>>
> Not totally resistant. The native ones have smaller white leaves than
> the others. The fungus thrives in drought conditions so water, mulch
> but don't water tje tree itself. My largest Cornus Mas (not very
> large), responded to drought conditions by kind of folding in its
leaves
> as if to protect them from the sun. But it began to widen and branch
> outwards for the first time. Unfortunately, it still is not bearing
> much fruit. It is wating for its sister tree to mature a bit. Love
> cornelian cherries, so thought it useful to grow my own. I may have
> been just a tad too far south for it, but who knows? I fugre anything
> from the caucasus will grow mid Atlantic these days.and anything used
to
> depleted soil (pomegranate is a good example) is likely to thrive in
> drought. We'll see...
The hard part is planning for the unusual conditions. If things are
going to be more dry than in th epast, that's something you can plan for,
but it's difficult when you have a generally moist area that's subject to
drought every, say, 20 years or so - the only things one can pretty much
count on is natives, and even there, every plant has to cope with a
combination of climate and location/micro-climate.
THen, of course, there is the problem of availability - it can sometimes
be very challenging to get hold of something that is technically fairly
common, yet almost never available in nurseries...
I didn't plant dogwood because the conditions locally are just too
difficult. Even when I planted my redbud, I planted a variety (or maybe
it's a subspecies?), sometimes called 'Oklahoma', sometimes called
'texensis', because ti is more heat-resistent than the average *Cercis
canadensis*. (It also gets white flowers, since it's located in what I
hope to develop into the "white garden" if we live here long enough, but
I guess that's neither here nor there...))
Pomegrant is interesting - they need to be pruned, but so do most things.
I have a 'nana" (miniature), and the flowers are a truely outstanding
red-orange color, and contrast well with the bright green of the leaves.
But I can go on about plants for far *far* too long... Sometimes I think
I really did miss my calling ;)
>
>>Dang, can't recall more. Native plants are great, tho'.
>>
>>
>>
>>>>Did you plan the landscaping yourself, or did you hire a landscpae
>>>>designer? Just curious.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>a landscape designer/architect did the initial design with major
>>>earthmoving execution and planting by my #2 and #3 sons... Brickwork
>>>ws done by a VA firm that does traditional brickwork, various tree
>>>people removed 17 weed trees, some of which became free mulch, trimmed
>>>(a few times) the 200yr +oak, and cut down a few giant problems, I got
>>>a bunch of free 2x2 bluestone pavers left over from a job by a guy who
>>>gave me too high an estimate but asked me if I wanted them... I went
>>>in the woods for moss, ferns, and vinca minor (periwinkles), started a
>>>row of Bulgarian/Macedonian geraniums (zdravets) from five initial
>>>plants I got from a priest at a former Bulgarian church. Pulled ivy
>>>off one side of the house and removed from one hill and replaced it
>>>with vinca and a strange rock garden.
>>>
>>>
>>
>>Wow, that's a lot of work! I hope the droughts let up soon - the
>>Southest ishaving so many problems with that :(
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
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