Dianne Benson, famed garden author and fashion designer, joins the H. Potter Knowledge blog as a monthly Guest Author

Posted by hpotterblog on August 11th, 2010in Charlotte Germane, Dianne Benson, Gardening Products | No Comments

by Charlotte Germane, Editor of the H. Potter Knowledge blog

Dianne Benson in her East Hampton garden.

Dianne B. and Hamptons style

Dianne Benson took her design flair from her Dianne B. clothing stores in Manhattan and transplanted it to her first garden in the Hamptons 20 years ago.

The novice gardener’s dramatic and highly personal planting style was quickly noted in the beach towns of Long  Island, and reached an international audience with the publication of her cult classic book, DIRT: The Lowdown on Growing a Garden with Style. Packed with unusual plant suggestions and practical guidance for the gardener, DIRT is an essential. You’ll soon be able to buy an autographed copy of DIRT here at H. Potter.

The Best @ Dianne B.

Dianne B. also has a new online store, The Best @ Dianne B. She combines her passions for top quality and great value in her selection of the Ten Garden Essentials in tools and accessories for all gardeners.

Take a minute to see her custom-made Tool Belt, the engravable stainless-steel shovel, her favorite plant markers, and—well, if you’re like me, you’ll want all Ten Garden Essentials.

Every month Dianne B. will bring her distinctive garden design concepts and plant combinations to the H. Potter Knowledge blog. Her first post is coming up!

Subscribe to the blog now (on the upper right-hand side of this page) so you won’t miss any of Dianne’s lively posts.

Swiss Chard Stars in Edible Container Gardens

Posted by hpotterblog on June 29th, 2010in Charlotte Germane, Garden Planters, Gardening Products | No Comments

By Charlotte Germane, Editor, H. Potter Knowledge blog

Whether you want to grow healthy food or you’re on a color-in-the-garden kick, the rainbow possibilities of chard will make you happy. One of the glamour vegetables for edible container gardens, Swiss chard has it all—form, color and nutrients.

You can see how handsome it looks massed in the copper Grand Urn. Confession: I got carried away and the plants are a bit too close together, inhibiting your view of the glorious, multi-colored stems of ‘Bright Lights’.

Plant chard alone for simple drama or try these zingy container combinations. Swiss chard will grow about two feet tall.

All-edible container combinations:

• Chards ‘Orange Fantasia’, ‘Yellow Lights’ or ‘Bright Yellow’ have colorful stalks and ribs. Nasturtium ‘Alaska Mix’ has orange, yellow, cream and mahogany flowers with distinctively marbled green-and-white foliage, and grows 8 inches tall.
• Chards ‘Rhubarb’ or ‘Ruby’ have red stalks and ribs, and may bolt in high heat. Nasturtium ‘Empress of India’ is an heirloom with crimson, single flowers set against emerald leaves, a naturally compact habit, and grows 12 inches tall.

*In “Cooking from the Garden”, author Rosalind Creasy and Alice Waters of Chez Panisse agreed that the nasturtiums with the best flavor were ‘Alaska Mix’ and ‘Empress of India’.

Edible and non-edible container combinations:

• Chard ‘Fordhook Giant’ has white stalks and ribs. For an elegant look, plant it with trailing white petunias.
• Chards ‘Bright Lights’ or ‘Magenta Sunset’ are show-stoppers with the petunia cousin Calibrachoa Catwalk ‘Terra Sorta’ (cherry pink petals with orange-golden undertones).

How to plant chard

Place your container in full sun and fill it with rich potting soil. Plant chard starts 12 inches apart and allow 12 inches depth for roots.

Water well with a fine spray after planting and keep the soil consistently moist.

Add two inches of compost as mulch in the container, keeping the mulch away from the base of the starts.

Through the seasons

How to harvest and fertilize chard

Cut the outer leaves off the chard and use them raw or cooked. Chard is another “cut and come again” crop that grows new leaves throughout the season. Unlike other greens the bigger leaves are not necessarily tougher.

Swiss chard likes to have lots to eat and drink. Beef up the soil with nitrogen-rich organic fertilizers such as fish or soybean meal, and renew the compost mulch every two weeks. Water as often as needed to keep the soil moist.

If you have a searingly hot summer you might move the chard container to a partly shaded spot, or use shade cloth during the heat wave days.

With mild winters you may be able to keep on harvesting chard leaves for an entire year. Snow will knock out the chard—but you can plant again in the spring.

Watch a new video of this copper urn.

Read on for a great chard recipe from Patti Bess!

How NOT to Buy a Garden Trellis

Posted by hpotterblog on June 19th, 2010in Charlotte Germane, Gardening Products, Trellis | No Comments

By Charlotte Germane, Editor H. Potter Knowledge blog

How NOT to buy garden trellises

1.  Wake up the day before your outdoor summer party.

2.  Sit down with a cup of coffee and write out your shopping list of party supplies. Don’t include a garden trellis.

3.  Get dressed, and choose the smallest car available for your shopping trip.

4.  Buy refrigerated food, chilled drinks, and bags of ice for your party, and load them in your car.

5.  Notice that it’s getting pretty hot outside.

6.  Drive past a colorful display of plants in front of a drugstore.

7.  Decide that the plants might make a fun addition to your party.

8.  Park at the far side of the parking lot in the only spot left. Leave your windows rolled up because you have expensive items in the car.

9.  Wander among the flowering plants for sale and fall in love with a clematis vine.

10.  Don’t read the label on the clematis to see how tall it grows.

11.  Buy the clematis and jam it into your front passenger seat, next to a bag of melting ice.

12.  Knock loose the clematis plant tag and read that it will grow eight to 10-feet tall.

13.  Walk back to the drugstore and ask for a 10-foot, sturdy trellis in a dark color.

14.  Buy the last six-foot, wire, white trellis they have in stock, even though it’s bent at the top.

15.  Carry the trellis across the parking lot. Attempt to fit the trellis in the car.

16.  Attempt to tie the trellis to the roof of the car.

17.  Return the trellis to the drugstore.

Now go home and buy a real trellis for that clematis from H. Potter. Here’s a new video of one of our favorite trellises.

The Most Beautiful Tomato Cage in the World

Posted by hpotterblog on May 28th, 2010in Charlotte Germane, Garden Planters, Gardening Products, Trellis | No Comments

By Charlotte Germane

Are you like me, with a tomato plant growing in a garden container on the deck?

Every summer morning when we eat breakfast outside we check the tomato plant’s progress.

If you’re living up-close-and-personal with a tomato plant you don’t want to look at a shaky, rusty and boring tomato cage.

H. Potter to the rescue! For an edible garden with style, you came to the right place. What a hit the Hoop Skirt Lawn Ornament and Pedestal Planter make.

You see why I call it “the most beautiful tomato cage in the world”?

Form and function too: six feet of solid-iron trellis with an all-weather, powder-coated finish. Perfect for small-space gardens where every item has to earn its keep, or use it on a large patio or deck as a unique accent. The heirloom-quality copper planter gives it that extra design oomph.

Most of us grow indeterminate tomatoes (the kind that ramble around and produce for many weeks)–and we need a tomato cage to support each plant.

Tomatoes grow best, resisting pests and diseases, when they have the extra air and light that comes with a cage or flat trellis.

How to choose which tomatoes to plant

Your local growing conditions are the most important factors in selecting tomato varieties.

The short-season classics that work well in most areas are ‘Early Girl’,  ‘Better Boy’ and the cherry tomato ‘Sweet Million’.

For the real skinny on what’s best in your garden, consult the academics and Master Gardeners in your region. Here are some links to put you in touch with your local experts:

• California: University of California Cooperative Extension and Master Gardeners
• New York: Cornell University Cooperative Extension and Master Gardeners
• Connecticut: University of Connecticut Cooperative Extension and Master Gardeners
• Comprehensive list of cooperative extension programs in all 50 states.

Kale: A poster child for edible gardening

Posted by on May 5th, 2010in Charlotte Germane, Garden Planters, Gardening Products | No Comments

by Charlotte Germane

I haven’t stored my favorite winter sweaters yet and I haven’t turned my back on my favorite winter vegetable–kale.

A poster child for edible gardening, kale makes a sculptural statement in a copper planter and gives you so many vitamins it’ll make your head spin.

You can’t beat kale in the cool-weather garden. Its season is winding down now, but remember kale for fall planting. Kale does just fine in winter temperatures as low as 10 to 15 F. The frost deepens its color and sweetens its flavor. What a pal in winter and snowy spring.

Colorful varieties of kale

• Plant the ‘Redbor’ variety of kale and watch it send out long, purple leaves. The color contrast with a copper garden planter is all a landscape designer could ask for. To keep going with the purple theme, tuck in some red-violet or blue-violet pansies for extra pow.
• Feeling blue? For an understated look, try ‘Dwarf Blue’ kale with blue-green, curled leaves.
• Do you have a black front door? Punch it up with a container of curly, black kale. This exciting and yummy variety goes by many names, so choose the name you like best and speak to your plant in Italian (Buon giorno, cavolo nero) or English (Hello there, black Tuscan kale).

How to plant kale

Place your container in full sun and fill it with rich potting soil. Plant kale starts or seedlings 12 to 18 inches apart.

Water well with a fine spray after planting and keep the soil consistently moist. Fall rain and winter snow should do most of that work for you.

Add two inches of compost as mulch in the container, keeping the mulch away from the base of the starts.

Kale through the seasons

How to harvest and fertilize kale

Cut the lower leaves off kale and cook them for supper. Kale will grow new leaves for you. It’s what the nursery pros call a “cut and come again” crop. Keep it happy with nitrogen-rich organic fertilizers such as fish emulsion or soybean meal.

Hot temperatures make kale leaves bitter, so don’t plan to feature it at summer barbecues. When summer arrives, harvest the last of your kale and say goodbye until sweater season rolls around again.

Watch a new video of our copper planters.

Read on to learn how to cook up all that colorful kale.

New Shade Foliage Plants for your Copper Window Box

Posted by on April 22nd, 2010in Charlotte Germane, Copper Window Box, Gardening Products, Window Boxes | No Comments

by Charlotte Germane

Shady Chic!

Light up the shade and delight your neighbors with copper window boxes and this cutting-edge combination of foliage plants.

Sophisticated and subtle, this group of plants was put together by the California landscape designer Susan Morrison during the 2010 San Francisco Flower & Garden Show.

These foliage plants thrive in part-shade and the stylish apricot, burgundy, and yellow-green leaves make a statement. Contrasting with each other in shape, each one has a dynamic relationship with the shine and color of the copper window box.

• Heuchera ‘Caramel’ (Coral bells) Hardy in USDA zones 5-8, the foliage will grow 12” to 18” tall and 1’ to 2’ wide, with pale pink flowers in spring. This variety is in demand for its new color and its heat tolerance.
• Weigela ‘Midnight Wine’ Hardy in USDA zones 5-8, this dwarf form will be 12” to 18” tall and wide, with dark purple leaves and pink tubular flowers.
• Hakonechloa macra ‘All Gold’ (Japanese forest grass)  Hardy in USDA zones 4-9, 18” tall and wide, this is a new, golden variety of a popular plant.

How to plant shade window box plants

Fill your window box planter almost to the top with rich potting soil. Place the weigela in the middle and flank it with the heuchera and the hakonechloa.

Water well with a fine spray and keep the soil moist.

The plants will be tall enough to be seen and enjoyed from inside the house, and will be a distinctive touch for the exterior.

Shade window box plants through the seasons

The plants bloom in part-shade but many gardeners prefer to grow them only for foliage. Feel free to snip off the flower stems as they appear.

The heuchera sends up a pale pink flower in June, and the hakonechloa has a brighter pink flower that attracts hummingbirds.

When you want a new look in your window box planter, move this trio to a part-shade area of your garden and create a groundcover vignette. Transplant them into soil that is enriched with compost.

Watch a new video of a favorite copper window box.

I can’t talk now, I’m busy with my Ornamental Garden Trellis

Posted by on April 15th, 2010in Charlotte Germane, Gardening Products, Trellis | No Comments

by Charlotte Germane, Editor of the H. Potter Knowledge blog

My pal, the Ornamental Garden Trellis

My Ornamental Garden Trellis

The Ornamental Garden Trellis is my new best friend. We’re spending a lot of time together while she helps me plan my summer garden design.

Six-feet tall, broad-shouldered (32”) and lovely, she’s not just a pretty face but a strong garden assistant.

Going plant shopping with the Ornamental Garden Trellis is such fun

She volunteers to stand in the sun or the shade, and looks good in any color.

With her on my team I feel liberated–free from worrying about what USDA hardiness zone I live in.

No, I’m not delusional, I’m waking up to the fact that the warm season is right around the corner, bringing me at least five months of frost-free weather.

I can plant whatever tender vine my horticultural heart desires and the Ornamental Trellis promises to support my choice in any spot in the garden. I can lift her myself and she has 12” stakes to keep her steady where I place her.

Tender vines for a garden trellis

Spoiled for choice, I’m focusing on tender vines for full sun. The three finalists:

• Moonflower (Ipomoea alba) has round, white flowers that open as the sun sets. Perfect for the white garden next to the deck where we sit on summer evenings.

• ‘Heavenly Blue’ morning glory (Ipomoea tricolor or Ipomoea purpurea) is a true blue that would be a fun morning shot of color at the back of my blue border.

• Cup and saucer vine (Cobaea scandens) is the most dramatic vine on this list. The cup-shaped flowers open cream and turn purple, with wavy stamens. Ideal as a vertical accent near our front door.

I could start any of these from seeds, but this year I’ll go for instant gratification and buy a vine at the garden center. With that head start I’ll get earlier blooms. Which is the whole point of these vines.

Garden trellis vines through the seasons

Moonflower and morning glory vines are annuals and die at the end of summer.

If you live in a frost-free climate, cup and saucer vine will be a perennial. If it snows in your neighborhood then this vine is one of the fleeting joys of summer, to be savored on your garden trellis each warm day.

*My friend the trellis is now starring in a new video — check it out!

Don’t miss any of Charlotte’s gardening tips! For a free RSS or email subscription to this blog go to the upper-right section of the sidebar. Your email address will not be shared.

Easy to Grow Mesclun

Posted by on April 9th, 2010in Charlotte Germane, Garden Planters, Gardening Products | No Comments

By Charlotte Germane, Editor, H. Potter Knowledge blog

Wouldn’t you love to have this collection of greens waiting for you at dinner time?

Grow it in a copper planter near your front door or on your back deck–wherever it can catch admiring glances. Your own little salad garden, but instead of a picket fence surrounding it you have the luxe of a copper edge.

This is no vegetable patch to hide away in a sunny corner of the garden–the assortment of decorative greens is called mesclun.

Mesclun is French (that makes anything taste better, doesn’t it?) for a mixture of lettuces and other salad greens such as chicory and endive. Your garden center will have starts or seedlings as soon as it is safe to plant. If there is a late freeze or frost in your area put the mesclun container under the eaves until the freezing temperatures are past.

How to plant mesclun

Choose a sunny location for the container and fill it with rich potting soil. I use Masters Pride Professional Potting Soil because it has valuable organic additions such as bat guano (something I find hard to gather on my own, not being on speaking terms with any bats).

Place the seedlings five inches apart and press the soil firmly around them. Water well with a fine spray after planting and keep the soil consistently moist but not soggy.

Mesclun through the seasons

How to harvest and fertilize mesclun

Pick leaves for salad when the plants are more than 4 inches tall. Keep an inch or two of leaves on each plant so you get another crop. Snip leaves off with scissors.

Each time you harvest add fish emulsion fertilizer to stimulate more leaf growth. With that extra boost your mesclun can give you two or three crops.

Mesclun grows in the cool season. Enjoy it this spring and when the weather heats up move the planter to a spot with afternoon shade. When the temperatures are just too hot for mesclun I’ll tell you about another pretty edible to replace it.

Watch a new video of our copper planters.

Now that you have a gleaming planter with a growing crop of mesclun, read on for a special mesclun recipe.

Clematis montana ‘Tetrarose’ romps over an arbor or gazebo

Posted by on April 5th, 2010in Arbor, Charlotte Germane, Gardening Products, Gazebo | No Comments

By Charlotte Germane

Add some oomph and perfume to your garden with Clematis montana ‘Tetrarose’.

A great grower, it reaches 25 to 30 feet when mature.

Fabulous on an arbor or gazebo, it’s about as fragrant as a clematis can get, according to Linda Beutler, Curator of the Rogerson Clematis Collection in the Portland, Oregon area. She calls the scent “vanilla with a spicy tone to it”.

Imagine sitting under that cloud of fragrance.

‘Tetrarose’ has showy rose flowers that begin to bloom in April and go on for 6 weeks, with a second, perfumed bloom at the end of summer (if the plant is cared for). The mass of bronze leaves is beautiful as a foil for the flowers and on its own.

Perfect clematis combinations with ‘Tetrarose’

For a knock-out garden picture on a large gazebo, Linda suggests adding a second clematis, Clematis armandii (Evergreen clematis or Armand’s clematis), on the opposite corner from ‘Tetrarose’.

Clematis armandii grows to 20 feet and blooms 2 to 3 weeks earlier than ‘Tetrarose’. Its evergreen leaves present a pretty complement to the bronze foliage of ‘Tetrarose’. Two popular armandii cultivars that you can easily find:

• ‘Snowdrift’ with fragrant, delicate, white flowers
• ‘Apple Blossom’ whose flowers have the pink and white look of the fruit blossom

Ready to go to the garden center and buy clematis? Wondering how to pronounce the word? When asked if the plant should be called CLEM-a-tis or clem-AT-is, Linda’s response is, “Yes.”

As with the to-MATE-oh or to-MAHT-oh debate, you can suit yourself.

How to plant clematis

Most clematis can thrive in USDA zones 5-10 (click here to find your zone). Traditional garden lore has it that clematis need their feet in the shade and their heads in the sun. Linda says well-watered soil is what the feet really need, with a site in full sun or part-sun.

Plant them in good garden soil that is rich in compost.

Water thoroughly after planting. If you get weekly rain in the spring and summer you do not need supplemental water. Gardeners in dry summer areas should water deeply, once a week.

Clematis through the seasons

How to fertilize clematis

Twice a year apply rose or flower food, when the buds emerge, and then again after blooming.

How to prune clematis

‘Tetrarose’ does not need annual pruning. If the plant gets bigger than you desire, cut it back after the first flowering. If you prune during the flowering season be sure to fertilize at the same time.

‘Tetrarose’ loses its leaves in the fall.

The vines can form woody trunks at the base. If that is not the look you want Linda suggests planting morning glories or other annual vines to cover the trunk.