One of a gardener's or landscaper's great frustrations is to do all the “right” things in planting and care for their newly planted shrubs only to see them languish, turn yellow, wilt, develop ugly black spots, drop leaves and eventually deteriorate to mush. Did you know that plants also can wilt due to too much water? The usual response to wilting plants is to water, add fertilizer to yellow leaves, fungicides for black spots, scream and throw up your hands as leaves drop and call for help! The “too little, too late” help comes from your extension office, garden center or knowledgeable gardening neighbor that shares that the squoosh you hear when you move the plant back and forth means the plant is in a poorly drained site and has died due to suffocation. It can not take up water because the roots are dead. It Drowned! What do I do now?

First, understand that plants need oxygen. In early school grades you learned that plants were great for the balance of nature because they gave off oxygen. They do replenish our oxygen but the roots also are very involved in respiration. If a soil is filled with water, there is no room for air, or very little. Azaleas, Leyland cypress and many other plants will not tolerate soggy soils, low in oxygen. The answer to the problem is to build a raised bed or put in a drainage system to pull the water away from the roots so oxygen can fill the voids. The other and simpler alternative is to pick the plant to fit the site. Which plants tolerate or thrive in wet soils? There are many shrubs, almost shrubs or shrub wanna-bes that can serve this purpose nicely.

Two shrubs that I include in my gotta-have-it files are Clethera alnifolia and Itea virginica (Summersweet and Virginia Sweetspire). They are two native plants that do not roll off the tongues of most gardeners and are not related. However they have some common traits that make me plant them together and lump them together. Aside from both having sweet in their names, they both do well in sun or shade and of course wet locations. They both colonize or sucker and spread but are not invasive. They both have wonderful fragrant abundant flowers occurring in long racemes. Virginia sweetspire blooms in late spring/early summer whereas Summersweet blooms, as the name implies, in July and August. Summersweet is a little taller (6’ to 8’) and more upright in appearance. Sweetspire is arching, drooping and lazy in its growth habit rising only about ½ as tall as Sweetspire. They combine well in mass plantings where they form natural drifts and fill in blank spaces. Fall color displays from both plants is another trait that makes you pause for a second look and sigh with the reassuring thoughts that life is beautiful. Clethera offers more yellow and yellow/browns whereas Itea contrasts with burgundy/red to orange. They do not have to be planted together but I usually speak of them in the same breath. These are two wet area plants that will allow you to stay in your hammock. The books list possible problems of spider mites but I would not own a sprayer if these were the only two plants in my landscape.

Clethera has three relatively easy cultivars to find, select and collect. Hummingbird is a more squat white flowered selection and Ruby Spice and Pink Spires offer a light pink color to the wonderful fragrance. People with an eye for Itea virginica have found Henry’s Garnet and Little Henry to offer great fall color and a smaller selection of Sweetspire. These plants are an investment in your well-being! Buy some and propagate some for your neighbors. Share your treasures.

Another great plant that does not get the attention it deserves for a foundation plant is Ilex glabra or the Inkberry holly. Most houses are built, by necessity, on highly compacted foundations. Many landscape contractors select Japanese hollies such as Compacta or Helleri hollies to place along the foundation wall. These are great plants, but poor selection for poorly aerated and drained sites. Inkberry hollies offer a much better choice and are very tolerant of these conditions. Most novices could not tell the difference between the two since they both have nice small evergreen leaves and form a mounded 2 to 4 ft plant. Dwarf Yaupon holly (Ilex vomitoria) is another very tolerant species of holly used for foundation plants. The large weeping form of yaupon hollies is great for accent plants at the edges of the building or framing an entrance. These hollies are commonly used and easy to find.

Aronia arbutifolia (Chokeberry), what a name! This is one of our great native plants for show but you have to work to sell a name like Chokeberry. Actually, Chokeberry refers to the fact that birds do not eat the berries which are incredibly beautiful in the fall. It has glossy green leaves in the spring with red fall color as it drops the leaves in the fall. It grows to about 6 feet by 4 feet. The white flowers in the spring are nice but would not stop a crowd to admire their beauty. It is another suckering, colonizing plant that is great for massing in full sun in moist soils. Get the cultivar, Brilliantissima, for the best show. Plants with similar great fruit displays are deciduous holly species Ilex verticillata or winterberry and Ilex decidua or possumhaw. Red Sprite is one of my favorite winterberries that has large red fruit and is a more compact plant than the species. Warren’s Red possumhaw is prominently displayed at the entrance to the Birmingham Botanical Gardens and makes you stop and stare to see the bright red berries against the gray stems of this plant. Birds like the fruit of these plants. To be assured of fruit, get the matching pollinators Jim Dandy and Apollo. One good male will do the trick.

Sambucus canadensis (American Elder) is a plant that graces very few gardens. It is often seen on roadsides but rarely in a garden center. It is used much more in Europe and can be a very beautiful plant. It meets the criterion for plants that tolerate wet areas. It is a spreading, 10 to 12 ft plant that offers attractive flowers in June and fruit in the fall. You would have to search the internet to find some of the cultivars available but it is worth the search. There are yellow leaf and cut leaf forms that offer great texture and color to the landscape. It is best if you cut them back each year to keep them neat and in control.

Damae racemosa - Alexandrian-laurel or I often heard it called Poet’s laurel. This is a graceful, arching evergreen shrub, 2 to 4 feet tall that has a unique appearance that would fit well in the landscape. I used to see it used frequently in Raleigh, N.C. It is at Callaway Gardens and I saw them displayed at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens. I brought back good memories of a nice plant. The reason for the rarity of this plant is that it is propagated by division and seed. It takes about 3 years to get a saleable plant from seed. It is sometimes hard for a nursery to get their money back on a plant that takes 3 years to get to the Market. Piccadilly Farms in Bishop,Georgia specializes in some of these plant treasures and oddities that others do not want to grow. Poet’s laurel stretches the limit for tolerance to wet soils. It is very much at home in moist soils but not standing water and it needs shade or north and east exposures.

Other shrubs that you may want to evaluate for wet areas are Southern waxmyrtle (Myrica cerifera), Redtwig dogwood (Cornus stolonifera), Florida leucothoe (Agarista populifolia), Florida anise (Illicium floridanum), Bottlebrush buckeye (Aesculus parvifolia), Sweetshrub (Calycanthus floridus) and Loblolly bay (Gordonia lasianthus). Ask your garden center to see some of these plants. Others are more obscure and you will need to ask you garden center to special order or begin to find the small entrepreneurs on the internet.

Under the heading of almost shrubs are four plants that may border on the tree side and actually fall into the tree category but for 8 to 12 years you could call them large shrubs. They branch to the ground and fall into that category of shub wanna-bes. These four make great screen plants and are jewels of any garden. Southern magnolia and Sweetbay magnolia, Pond cypress, Nellie R. Stevens holly and White cypress are four good screen plants for wet areas.

If you ask someone to recommend a plant for a quick screen, eight out of 10 answers you will receive will be Leyland cypress. Leyland cypress is a good plant but it will not tolerate wet! A prolonged rainy season and your beautiful long green row of leylands will look like black, rotten teeth in what was a pretty smile. Although not a fast growing plant like Leyland cypress, the magnolias, cypress and hollies fill the gaps in a reasonable amount of time. Little Gem, Alta and Hasse southern magnolias (Magnolia grandiflora) will turn into trees but many of us will be buried beneath them before they reach that size. They all have smaller leaves and a narrower, upright (fastigiate) growth habit than our standard southern plantation magnolias and will tolerate wet soils. Alta and Hasse offer leaves that turn up at 45 degree angles and give a more formal appearance. Little Gem is one of the cash cows of the nursery industry because it is so beautiful with fragrant, full-sized magnolia flowers blooming off and on throughout the summer. The elegance and tradition of southern magnolias make them a great choice and these new cultivars offer a better selection for the smaller lots of today’s landscapes. Sweetbay magnolias (Magnolia virginiana) is a cheater evergreen. Many leaves are thinned from the branches by early spring but there are still enough remaining to give a good screen effect. The wonderful beauty of a sweetbay magnolia is the silver backed leaves that shimmer in the bright sun. All the magnolias will take some shade but will do better in full sun giving more flowers and a denser screen. Many people complain about magnolias dropping leaves throughout the year. If you allow or train the branches to sweep the ground, most of the leaves trickle through the tree and form a mulch layer beneath the tree. Tie bricks to the lower branches to pull them to the ground. For the leaves that land on the perimeter, lift the limbs like a good throw rug and sweep the wayward leaves back beneath the branches.

Washington, D.C.— The American Nursery & Landscape Association (ANLA) announces the release of the 2004 American Standard for Nursery Stock (ANSI Z60.1-2004 – the “Standard”). Approved by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) on May 12, 2004, the revised Standard is an essential reference for every landscape architect, designer, garden center or distribution firm buyer, grower, or landscape installation firm. Since 1923, the Standard has established the fundamental terminology used in nursery stock transactions.

A critical component to profitable nursery crop production is the proper use of fertilizer, particularly deciding on the proper amount as under-fertilization can reduce growth, lower quality and render plants unmarketable. Over-fertilization, on the other hand, is wasteful and can potentially cause plant damage and contaminate surface and ground water. Growers need to fine-tune their fertilizer regimen. This study examined the effect of fertilizer brand, fertilizer rate, method of application, and summer reapplication on the height, caliper, and number of branches of Amelanchier x 'Autumn Brilliance'.

The authors of this study found that: "Growers using an 8-9 month controlled-release fertilizer may not realize any growth benefits to a summer reapplication. Growers using Polyon^R may wish to incorporate to maximize caliper; growers using Osmocote Plus^R may wish to top apply in order to maximize caliper. Growers may wish to fertilize with the high rate of Osmocote Plus^R in order to achieve maximum caliper. Growers using Osmocote Plus^R may wish to top apply in order to increase branching."

Topdress had no significant effect on the number of branches, caliper or height and none of the treatments on Autumn Brilliance impacted their height. Plants treated with Osmocote Plus^R had significantly more branches than the control. There were significantly more branches with the high rate of Osmocote Plus^R than the high rate of Polyon^R. Osmocote Plus^R topdressed trees resulted in the greaest number of branches. Method of application had no efect on the number of branches for the Polyon^R treated trees. How fertilizer was applied had a significant effect on trees treated with the high rate of fertilization. Topdressed, highly fertilized trees resulted in more branching. At the medium fertilizer rate there were no significant differences observed. A high rate of Osmocote Plus^R resulted in greater caliper than those treated with the high or medium rate of Polyon^R or the control. Incorporating the fertilizer significantly increased the caliper for the Polyon^R treated trees compared to caliper from topdresing and the result was just the opposite for the Osmocote Plus^R treated trees.

(from "Effect of Fertilizer Brand, Rate, Application Technique, and June Reapplication on Growth of Amelanchier x 'Autumn Brilliance' by Amy Fulcher, Winston Dunwell, Dwight Wolfe, Robert McNiel, University of Kentucky, Department of Horticulture).

The objective of this research was to determine the effects of fertilizing at two rates (the labeled medium rate of 100 grams and the double medium rate of 200 grams) of a Harrell’s Inc. 5-6 month release fertilizer on Acer campestre, Acer x freemanii Autumn Blaze^R, Betula Renaissance Reflection^TM, Malus ‘Spring Snow’, Prunus ‘Mt. St. Helens’, Quercus muhlenbergii, and Zelkova serrata. Good leaf color and new growth are important aspects of plant quality according to retail consumers so determining which rates of fertilizer would best impact these traits would benefit growers.

There was an interaction between plant and fertilizer on chlorophyll levels but no difference from fertilizer rate on caliper development. Autumn Blaze, Renaissane Reflection and Zelkova serrata were significantly taller when the double fertilizer rate was used. All trees fertilized at the double rate averaged significantly more leaf area than those fertilized at the single rate.

(from "Effect of Fertilizer Rate on Growth of Seven Tree Species in Pot-in-Pot Production" by Amy Fulcher, Winston Dunwell, Robert McNiel, Dwight Wolfe, and Lloyd Murdock from the University of Kentucky, Department of Horticulture.)

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Auburn Plant Disease Report - June 2004
(Jackie Mullen)
June was a very busy month as is usual for June. We received 193 plant samples in June with many of our usual summer diseases being submitted. Pythium root decay on a variety of plants and Cercospora leaf spot diseases were commonly seen problems. Bacterial leaf spots were also more numerous than usual.

Birmingham Plant Disease Report - June 2004
(J. Jacobi)
We received 143 samples during June/ Spider mites on evergreen continued to be common problems. Other diseases included Dutch elm disease on winged elm, web blight on vinca and Boston fern, and Rhizoctonia stem rot on impatiens.