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1. Allegheny Viburnum (Viburnum rhytidophylloides ‘Allegheny’)

This plant works great when you need a large shrub to add structure to the back of a bed or as a screen in the back yard.  it is not tidy enough to be used as a specimen plant or in any highlighted position With care it can grow to 12 feet tall in less than 5 years.  I have several planted as a screen against a shed in my backyard and I have pushed them hard – but they are over 15 feet tall in just 5 years. 

The shrub has thick 6” leaves that are thickly textured and beautifully colored.    It has a surprising delicate white flower that persists for Most of May and then ripen into bright red fruits by October.  I call it semi-evergreen because about 1/2 the leaves stay attached for most of the Winter.

This is one of my favorite plants and I recently used it in a  very fun project that turned out very well (despite the quality of the photographs).  These will grow beautiful and provide the perfect screen for this deck and offers an alternative to the overused juniper and arborvitae.  

 

2. Sweetbay Magnolia (Magnolia virginiana)

Magnolias often come and go as peoples favorite plants.  However, this one has and always will be my  favorite for planting in Kansas City landscapes.  It is better suited than many for our zone and grows luxuriously well.  My favorite form is when it is grown as a multi-stemmed shrub.  It has a striking upward growing habit that gives it a strong architectural presence and lends itself well to be a focal plant in landscape planting. 

I have two of these planted as pillars on the front corners of my house.  They have performed very well for about 4 years now and have grown taller than the roof of my raised ranch. 

3. Hardy Banana  ‘Musa Basjoo.

The Hardy Banana plant is a plant that grows VERY well in Kansas City.  I have had them growing at my house for going on 4 years and a customer has had them successfully growing for over 8 years. 

These pictures show them growing in my yard in early July.  By September they had pushed leaves higher than the roof of the porch you can see there.  That is approx 18 feet high. 

Although these look very tropical they are easily grown  even in our unpredictable KC winters.   They will die back to the ground in the winter and begin to grow again in the spring.  The more protection you give them the bigger they will get the following year because you will protect more of the plant – giving it a head start on next years growth. I try to protect several of the biggest plants so they will grow as large as possible the following Spring.  I protect them by building 4’ tall  cages around them and filling them with leaves.  This si the secret to really big plants.  However, even unprotected plants will reach 10’  

Another bonus – they reproduce madly.   You will easily triple your number of plants every year as new pups sprout around the base of the mother plant.

4. Walker’s Low Catmint (Nepeta x faassenii)

I would choose this plant as one of my all time favorite perennials to use as a llandscaper.  Not because of how showy it it or how rare it is  or for any ONE attribute.  Rather,  because it has so many very good uses and it has never let me down.

This plant has small bluish green leaves that are highly fragrant leaves that smells like mint.  The plant grows in a mound about 1 foot high and 2 feet across.  however after its first season in the bed you will not be able to tell its shape because it will have spread through runners and be taking up much more space than that.  In fact this may be the only time I would not use catmint – is if you need it to stay perfectly contained because it is so hardy and likes to spread.  The flower begins blooming in June.  If about 3 weeks later you shear off the old blooms you can easily extend its blooming into late summer.  The blooms are a pale lavender and spread across the plant like a purple mist.

It was named Perennial of the Year in 2007 for its versatility and hardiness.

5. False Indigo (Baptisia australis)

I have been in love with this plant since the first time I saw it in full bloom when driving past a very neglected garden in the middle of July.  Everything else in the garden had died including what looked like remnants of stella d’ oro’s and some poorly placed care-free roses.  I quickly took a mental note and the next time I was at my favorite nursery I bought a couple plants. 

I was not immediately impressed.  The plant just stood there for the entire season.  The next year it was about the same.  But, by the third year it had really taken off and is now one of the plants people always notice when they walk around and see that part of my garden.

Baptisia has since proved its worthiness in many designs and ahs often become a favorite plant to use in landscape designs.  It does have it quirks though.  Number one – it is a plant that you have to plant and leave it alone.  it does not transplant well once it is established in your bed because of it unique rooting structure (which is also responsible for its durability.  Secondly – I have found it is incredibly sensitive to any kind of sprays.  In my incessant meddling I am always trying things that will supercharge my plants. During one of these ‘experiments’ I was spraying a mixture of compost tea and iron on  few plant in my garden around the Baptisia – and it turned black over night – the entire plant.  The plant recovered fully – but it took a while.  I have since learned that any foliar spray will have varying degrees of the same effect.

6.  Little Henry Sweetspire (Itea Virginica)

This shrub is a great plant that fits into almost every kansas city landscape in some part.  In order for a plant to become a favorite of mine, it has to be versatile, tough and at least interesting in all season.  Sweetspire does this.  It is deciduous shrub that can grow up to 5 foot tall in a roughly globular fashion.  There is a very similar variety call Little Henry’s Sweetspire that is nearly identical – but more compact.  This shrub has two times of the year that it is a knockout.  One time is in early June when it shows off its long beautiful blooms.   It is equally beautiful in the fall when the foliage turns into a striking shade of crimson…and…the leaves persist well into mid winter.  

7. Drift Roses (Rosa ‘Meijocos’)

I will have to admit that although I hate to admit it I do love Knock Out Roses.  I was one of their first big proponents and had a bush that was kind of secretly handed to me before they were publicly being sold.  However, in the last 10 years they have become victims of their own success and are now way over planted and used in every subdivision entrance, every front yard bed and around every park sign.  Now I feel a little guilty when I  reach out for the knock-out rose once again for the customer that says they want low maintenance year-round color.  There just is not another plant that can match up in those situations – unless – you were looking for something smaller.

From the same breeders who gave us the knockout rose we now have the Drift rose.  This is essentially a groundcover rose (around 3 feet high) with all of the great benefits of the knockout rose, but in a  smaller package.  It blooms from early spring until the first frost, it is disease resistant, and it is extremely cold hardy. 

I find it works great to line a walkway with when you do not want the height offered by a knockout rose.  It can also work great planted at the edge of a rocky wall.

 

I am going to continue this list – so check back soon – or better yet sign-up here to get regular updates.

Frost coming to Kansas City Landscaping

Many of the plants we love to plant in the fall are chosen especially because they are fairly frost tolerant. Flowers such as pansy, kale, ornamental cabbage, Hardy Mums are all frost tolerant and can extend the beauty of your garden by several weeks. A complete list of frost tolerant plants

Your lawn will not be so strongly affected by the frost. Its correlation with lowering soil temperatures will have an effect but the actual grass tissue will likely not be harmed by the frost in any way. The only caveat to this is that if you walk on frosted turf you can damage the grass blades and they will turn brown if conditions are just right. This is because when you step on the turf while frost is on the grass, you can explode the frozen tissue causing it to die away. This is just cosmetic damage but can stay visible for a long time until next Spring when new growth replaces the killed tissues.

My primary suggestion when dealing with fall frost is to allow nature to decide when its time for this years growing season will end — knowing some seasons will be longer and other will be shorter.

There has been a near media blitz this year informing Kansas City Gardeners.  However while looking at an Overland park landscape last week I saw more mulch volcanoes. 

I can fin no excuse that there are professional landscaping companies out there who still continue to pile mulch around trees.  It make me very sad to know that there continues to be companies and residents who are having there landscaping ruined by either ignorant or careless landscapers.

Here you can see the results

Notice how the bark has already started to rot away.  The darker color indicated the bark that was dying and ready to peel off.  Additionally, the picture doesn’t show it well.  However there were also multiple insect holes in the bark under the mulch.

Kansas City Landscaping with

Webworms

Have you seen webs in your trees that look similar to this?

Well, you’re not alone.  They have appeared all over Kansas City this summer.  The good news is they are relatively harmless tot eh trees they are in.  They are the protective casings made by caterpillars while they feed on the leaves of the tree.  Although the space where they are feeding will lose its leaves – next season you will not even be able to tell they are there.

They especially like birch, walnut and ash tress in my experience.

Here is a quick video that shows webworms alive in there webs.

Spraying is not necessary.  If they are unsightly – a broom works well to remove them from trees.

The old adage – Plant a $5 plant in a $25 hole holds true in Kansas City’s Landscaping.

On a  recent project I planted over 70 Hostas, Coral Bells and Astible in an existing garden.  This garden had gravel already put down and the soil underneath was not great.  Normally, when making a new bed it is best to amend the entire bed with high quality organic compost.  However, this is not possible in a bed that already is covered with several inches of gravel.  So you have to amend the planting hole.  You have to be careful when doing this though.  You have to make the hole quite large in comparison to the plant you are planting.

Start by removing the rocks from where you are going to dig the hole.    Notice that the hole is about 3x as big as the plant itself.

The laws of geometry then say that you are not just increasing the volume of the hole by 3 – but closer to 9x the original plant container size so you will need to add a considerable amount of extra compost.  I use a high quality compost made from landscaping debris.    It is tested regularly to ensure its purity of toxins. 

After mixing the compost with the native soils – carefully plant the plant.

With Coral bells specifically – Be careful of their crown and make sure that crown of the plant is carefully planted just below the surface.

Then slide the rocks back in place around the plant.

Each plant can take upwards of 10 minutes to plant carefully and correctly.  So it truly is a $25 hole for a $5 plant.  However, The long term growth and vigor of the plants will be worth it to the customer.  However, with 70+ plants to plant – it is not a quick job.

This year, Kansas City Landscaping has seen a Spring that was more gradual than in past years.  This has been good for the plants and lawns in Kansas City .  Consistently cool Kansas City temperatures with only rare and short warm-up have allowed us to gradually slip into Spring and avoid the landscaping pitfalls of moving too fast.  Landscapers like slow springs because very few plants have been hurt by April freezes this year and although it has been fairly dry the plants have faired well.  However, gradual will soon give way to rapid growth as soon as we get some heat.  Lawn Mowing will soon be the most common weekend chore for most Kansas City homeowners. 

Blue Grass and Fescue lawns have thrived in this slightly cooler temperature.  They have been growing laterally and down for the last several weeks.  The imminent heat will spur rapid upward growth – we will soon be mowing VERY often!

One of the negatives of this low soil temperature ahs been for any new spring lawn seeding.  The grass has not grown much at all if any.  That is again due to cooler than normal soil temps.  This may not be a great thing for Spring seeded lawns since it simply will not have the time needed to grow before summer heat sets in.  However, if my inside sources at NBC Action News are accurate, we may have a cooler than normal Summer which would be good for all of Kansas City’s lawns. 

Its a purely human phenomenon – really. If you see a mistake repeated often enough then it becomes perceived not as a mistake, but as the way things should be done. This is being done in Kansas City Landscapes right now

This is the case with the dreaded Mulch Volcano. Mulch volcanoes are not a Kansas City landscaping phenomenon, they effect cities all over the US

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Despite recent public campaigns by The Johnson County Extension Office and the City of Overland Park, there are still instance found all over the city.

The above example was just yesterday ata very nice office park. I am sure that the manager of this office park paid good money to a “reputable” landscaping company to maintain their landscaping. However, what has now happened is that these trees have been forever weakened by this ignorant practice

When mulch is spread more than 2″ thick against the base of a tree several things happen — and none of the m are good. First, the mulch will hold moisture against the trunk pf the tree. This si dangerous because it encourages rotting and disease. It will also rot the bark away adding additional avenues for insects and disease to attack the flesh of the tree. Roots are also damaged by the moisture held in the mulch because they will grow upwards seeking this moisture. As they do they will begin to circle the trunk. These circling roots will eventually kill the tree byessentially strangling it.

How should trees be mulched then? Trees should be mulched 2″ – 3″ thick (about one finger deep) and all mulch should be pulled away from the trunk of the tree truck 2 or 3 inches. Think doughnut instead of volcano. How big you want the mulch ring to be is up to you. Ideally — it should extend to the drip line of the tree — but that is not always practical or aesthetically the best choice. However, a good minimum is a 6′ diameter.

Here is what a tree looks like when you peel away the mulch volcano after several years. This particular was at a new customer in Overland Park that I started working with this season. I did not pull the mulch away — it was done before he had moved in. You can see that this tree will NEVER be a beautiful specimen again and will likely die prematurely from earlier neglect.

Mulch volcanoo aftermath

A Hard freeze is coming up Monday night and will effect Kansas City Landscaping plants for sure.  However, I wanted to help people see HOW to protect the plants.  When you put a cover over the plant it needs to go all the way down to the ground and preferably be staked to provide air flow around plants of 1 –2 inches.

The reason is, by covering the plant you are holding in latent heat from the ground and sheltering from the wind.

This person, who I came upon my walk yesterday, had NOT done that.  She did everything wrong.  First she used plastic – a terrible insulator and second she didn’t help the plant out at all because the air in the bag is going to be just as cold as the air outside of the bag.  To cover this plant well she should have places something over the plant that would have gone all the way to the ground.  This would have helped keep the temperature around the plant just a couple degrees warmer and protected it from the blast of cold air we received.

Excuse the poor picture please – it was taken with a camera phone while holding a three year old and being pulled by a dog in a 30 mph wind.

Here are some general guidelines for the frost hardiness of plants in Kansas City Gardens

Vegetables

Annuals

Hardy	Tolerant	Tender	Warm Loving
Corn Flower	Black Eyed Susan	Aster	Ageratum
Ornamental Cabbage	Calendula	Nicotiana	Balsam
Pansy	Coreopsis	Petunia	Begonia
Primrose	Dianthus	Scabiosa	Celosia
Violet	Snap Dragon	Statice	Cosmos
	Sweet Pea	Sweet Alyssum	Impatiens
	Torenia	Verbena	Lobelia
			Marigold
			Portulaca
			Phlox
			Salvia
			Vinca
			Zinnia

Thank you to the University of Purdue for supplying information needed to create this informative chart.