Join Marianne Binetti on June 22 at 11:30 for a “Rosey Day Out” garden tour of cottage garden plants and roses at the Christiansons Nursery in Mt. Vernon. For more information, head to www.christiansonsnursery.com.
The third week of June is when your roses will be blooming and with good planning, the naked knees of your rose plants will be hidden behind other flowering perennials. Plants that reseed or are easy to divide or share are called Cottage Garden Plants and Western Washington enjoys the perfect climate for many of these flowering perennials inspired by the cottage gardens of England. We share the same cool, wet summer weather that makes our gardens so lush and colorful.
There is still time to add annuals such as petunias, geraniums and marigolds to your pots and beds and warm season plants such as coleus, tomatoes, peppers and impatiens will be happy that you waited for the cold nights to pass before setting them out this week.
Q. What was the yellow rose plant you posed on your Instagram page a few weeks ago? You said it was a fragrant rose with a multitude of blooms. I don’t go on social media but my wife does and she mentioned it to me as a birthday suggestion. Of course I forgot to write it down and her birthday is this month. F.H., Enumclaw
A. That fragrant yellow rose is called “Julia Child” and I hope this cooking hot rose will get you out of hot water. I have seen it for sale at Windmill Nursery but this time of year you may want to call around to find a nursery that has it in stock. June is a good month to purchase potted roses and then keep them in their large nursery pots all summer and enjoy as patio plants. Just remember that roses in pots need more water and fertilizer than roses growing in the ground. Next spring while the rose is still dormant or leafless you can more easily remove it from the container and transplant it into the ground. Tip: Visit nurseries now for potted roses so you can more easily see the colors and smell the fragrance before you commit. Happy Birthday to your practical wife who favors rose plants over cut roses.
Q. I would like your opinion on Lady’s Mantle. I would like to use this plant as filler in my new perennial garden but my neighbor has warned against adding this plant as she says it is invasive and would jump into her garden. I see it used in English gardens so I don’t’ see how it could be such a bad plant. W. K., Sumner
A. This lady (Alchemilla or Lady’s Mantle) is indeed a bit of a bed hopping tramp but she is so easy to control. Just snip off the foamy yellow blooms when they start to fade and you will not only have tidier beds but by removing the spent flowers you will be stopping the spread of the seeds. This plant reseeds from spent flowers but will not spread by underground roots into your neighbor s garden. Invasive grasses and bamboos are the culprits that most often escape and make for bad neighbor relations and law suits. Lady’s Mantle has been used for medicinal uses for hundreds of years especially for women’s health. Cut the stems when in bloom for long lasting vase flowers that pair perfectly with roses.
Q. I have a Nandina or Heavenly Bamboo plant in a pot. It had grown tall but is bare at the bottom with brown stems showing. Is it too late to prune this shrub down and if so how low can I go? Anon
A. You can take it almost to ground level if you want to do a drastic makeover of your Nandina shrub. Early summer is not too late to severely prune Heavenly Bamboo or Nandina especially if you need to get rid of dead foliage or to shorten a plant that looks out of proportion for its container. Nandina comes in many delightful new dwarf forms, some with red leaves that grows to three feet (Sienna Sunrise Heavenly Bamboo) and the taller purple Nandina that grows to five feet called Nandina ‘Plum Passion’. Nandinas are evergreens with colorful foliage that look great in the landscape either massed together in groups or used as specimen plants. They do well in full sun or partial shade and can even survive in dry shade situations near cedar trees. If grown in very dry soil, theses shrubs grow very slowly and the leaf color is more muted. Not to be confused with the very invasive true bamboo, Nandina domestica does not spread via underground roots and is well behaved as a landscape shrub and adapts to life in a large container.
Marianne Binetti has a degree in horticulture from Washington State University and is the author of “Easy Answers for Great Gardens” and several other books. For book requests or answers to gardening questions, write to her at: P.O. Box 872, Enumclaw, 98022. Send a self-addressed, stamped envelope for a personal reply. Copyright for this column owned by Marianne Binetti. For more gardening information, she can be reached at her website, www.binettigarden.com.
