Planting Perennials from Monrovia
For anyone passionate about gardening, it's always so rewarding to plant new specimens and watch them flourish.
Recently, I received a large assortment of beautiful plants grown by Monrovia, a wholesale plant nursery specializing in well-nurtured shrubs, perennials, annuals, ferns, grasses, and conifers with several nursery locations across the country. I decided a selection of hostas, heucheras, and lady's mantles would look perfect in the new expanded beds behind my Tenant House and around my Basket House. Last week, my gardeners Ryan McCallister and Brian O'Kelly, placed them and planted them before the heavy rains.
Enjoy these photos.
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- As a serious and passionate gardener, I am always looking for ways to add more beauty and texture to all my garden beds. I was so excited when these plants arrived from Monrovia. Ryan and I already had many ideas about where to place them.
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- Here’s Brian loading some of the potted plants onto the pick up truck to go to their new locations.
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- This selection includes a variety of hosta plants. Hostas, with a palette of so many different colors, textures, and sizes have tremendous landscape value and offer great interest to the garden. Hosta is a genus of plants commonly known as hostas, plantain lilies, and occasionally by the Japanese name, giboshi. They are native to northeast Asia and include hundreds of different cultivars.
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- Here, near my Basket House, we also decided to plant heuchera – this one is dark burgundy. Heuchera is a genus of largely evergreen perennial plants in the family Saxifragaceae, all native to North America. Common names include alumroot and coral bells.
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- And here is a collection of Lady’s Mantle. Lady’s mantle, Alchemilla mollis, is an herbaceous perennial. The plant is fairly low-maintenance, blends well with other spring bloomers, and does well as a ground cover. It will be planted close to the footpath.
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- Whenever we get new specimens, Ryan positions the plants first before any holes are dug. When choosing locations for plants, always take into consideration the height and spread of the plant when it is mature, and give it ample room to grow in the garden bed.
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- This area in front of my Basket House will look so beautiful with hostas and heucheras.
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- All the areas to be planted are given a good sprinkling of fertilizer. Here we used an all-purpose formula with a good balance of nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium.
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- Brian starts by digging the hole at least twice the size of the plant’s root ball.
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- Since this day was so warm and humid, Brian decided to dig all the holes first in the morning and then plant. Here is one of many, many holes.
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- After each hole was dug, Brian placed the potted plant into the hole – it’s a good way to keep track of what goes where when planting a large amount.
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- This is a ‘Northern Exposure Silver’ Heuchera. The burgundy foliage becomes heavily frosted with silver, forming a dense mound. This plant also features sprays of small pink flowers on red stems that rise above the foliage from spring through summer.
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- Monrovia’s ‘Sirens Song™ Orange Delight’ Heuchera has lively peach and orange tones on large leaves. The plant grows into a full mound that is exceptionally heat tolerant. Dainty flowers appear on spikes above the foliage in spring.
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- Lady’s Mantle is a grayish green large circular, scallop-edged leaves. In late spring and early summer, the plant produces small delicate chartreuse blooms.
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- This garden already has several smoke bushes, so we added a few more. This is Cotinus coggygria ‘Lilla’ – a compact, upright, bushy, deciduous shrub with oval, maroon leaves turning red and orange in autumn, and feathery panicles of pink flowers in summer.
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- Another heuchera is this ‘Northern Exposure™ Sienna.’ It is long lived, hardy, and rust resistant and adds a pop of bright color to the shade garden. New leaves emerge green, then transform in summer to burnt-orange with yellow edges. Bright pink flowers and stems appear above the compact foliage in spring.
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- And this is a ‘T-Rex’ hosta. Right now, the leaves are young and small, but they will grow to gigantic green leaves measuring 18-inches long and 14-inches wide with a matte finish and a slightly wavy texture.
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- Before planting, Brian uses his hands to scarify the roots of every specimen. Scarifying stimulates root growth. Essentially, he teases small portions of the root ball to loosen the roots a bit and create some beneficial injuries. This helps the plant become established more quickly in its new environment.
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- Next, Brian places it into the hole and backfills, tamping down gently to ensure good contact between the plant and the surrounding soil.
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- Many of the plants in this area are under the dappled shade of these majestic bald cypress trees, Taxodium distichum – a deciduous conifer. Though it’s native to swampy areas, the bald cypress is also able to withstand dry, sunny weather and is hardy in USDA climate zones 5 through 10. These trees do so well here at the farm.
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- After a few hours, all the plants are in the ground. Here is one area all planted. I know these plants will thrive here. My Tenant House can be seen in the distance. This house is where my daughter and grandchildren stay when they visit. The surrounding beds are already filled with many beautiful shade-loving plants, trees, and shrubs.
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- All hostas need some sunlight. Choose them wisely. Blue, green, and variegated hostas will do better in slightly deeper shade, while yellow and gold ones need more light to bring out their bold colors.
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- And here is another area, near the new footpath we created. The combination of burgundy and green will look stunning. I can’t wait to see these plants grow and fill in the spaces. The dark plants are ‘Northern Exposure Red’ Heuchera – bold burgundy-red rounded leaves with fluted edges that form a tidy, dense mound with sprays of small greenish-yellow flowers.
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- And here is the area in front of my Basket House. I am glad to use more of the space for plantings instead of grass, which will save on mowing. I will be sure to share more photos of these areas as the plants grow.
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