Hello Friends & Fellow Gardeners!

Great new plants at Behmerwald
 

We first saw this plant from a distance in a trial garden and had to get a closer look. This picture does not do it justice! The fragrant white flowers can be over 12" long! They go in all directions like Einstein's hair. This is a selection of our native Clethra alnifolia.
It's taken us three years to locate starter plants and grow them to a saleable size plant, but we finally have a nice crop to sell.  

Mondarda Bee You Bee Happy

This monarda is an important pollinator source for bees, butterflies and hummingbirds and absolutely outstanding in the garden. Those of you that have always loved Monardas, but have been plagued by foliage issues or flopping plants, will love this plant with its sturdy compact habit and superb disease resistance. These plants are currently in production and will be ready by mid spring.

 

 
Heucherella 'Brass Lantern'
This is shaping up to be one of our favorite plants of 2018. Heucherella is a cross of two great native plants, Heuchera (Coral Bells) and Tiarella (Foam Flower) and this cultivar has beautiful foliage, as you can see, and nice white flowers in spring. These are actively growing for us and will be ready in a few weeks.

Sedum Chocolate Cherry
Everyone loves chocolate! This sedum has nice dark foliage with serrated edges and produces a nice dark red flower in late summer. The habit is fairly compact reaching only about 14". We think this plant is a great option for hot and sunny spots like your mailbox. Ready to plant Mid spring.

So many plants, its hard to pick what to spotlight! 

Proper Mulching

We deliver and use a lot of mulch here at Behmerwald Nursery. Proper mulching works well to help reduce weed growth and promote plant health if done properly. While going through some old folders this winter we found a copy of an old newsletter and thought this column was worth sharing again.
 
Sometimes things are not as they seem.  If a child sees a butterfly struggling to break free from its cocoon, the first impulse is to help it. Yet this good intention can be fatal to the toiling butterfly. Though it seems cruel, the best solution to the situation is to simply stand back and watch.
If a little bit of something is good, doesn't that make a lot better? That is the "good intention" of the gardener. One of the common areas in which this problem arises is in the mulching of the garden
.Moderation and correct application are the keys to successful mulching. When it is used properly, mulch provides numerous benefits to the garden. 
Mulch maintains consistent soil temperatures, helps to control weeds, conserves water, and limits erosion. In addition to all this, it makes the garden appear neat and "finished".
After seeing the benefits the question is: "How do I mulch correctly?" The answer can be found in a series of Do's and Dont's.
Do:
1.Turn your mulch over every year before adding an fresh mulch to your garden. By lightly mixing the existing mulch into the soil, decomposition is promoted, and an excessive layer of mulch is avoided. If mulch is allowed to accumilate over the years it can form a formidable barrier, and prevent water from reaching your plants' roots. This barrier can also suffocate the plant by reducing necessary gas exchange.
2. Be cautious about the type of mulch you select., A shredded hardwood mulch makes an excellent choice, and will provide the best results. Avoid dyed mulches; they are normally ground up wood chips and/or pallets and will rob nitrogen from your plants as they decompose.
Don't:
1. Use the "more is better" policy. Two or three inches are sufficient for aesthetic purposes, and provide for the garden's needs. Dumping on six to eight inches of mulch is not advisable, because a barrier is quickly built above the soil level.
2. Pile mulch around the base of plants. Covering a plant's base with mulch is effectively pronoucing a death sentence to it and a decline will follow. The damage often comes from organisms that cause stem rot, which are attrracted by the consistently moist, covered base of the plant. Another source of damge is the tendency of the plant to send new roots up into the the mulch while the original roots suffocate; then, when temperatures drop in the winter, the shallow roots are killed.

As spring and time for mulching have arrived, be sure to use moderation. In this case more is less.

Spring Mulch Special!: Order your mulch online at http://www.behmerwald.com/order-mulch/ before 4/15/18 for delivery before 5/1/18 and we will refund your delivery charge in the form of a gift card.

 

Roses in the Landscape  

A few years ago we decided that it was best for our customers to stop selling all roses. This was a very tough decision since the Knock Out series of roses were some of our best selling plants. We saw that there was, and still is, a major problem for these and all roses; Rose Rosette Disease, RRD. RRD is a fatal disease to all of the currently propagated roses. This February there was a very informative webinar about this issue which can be viewed here: https://www.starrosesandplants.com/articles/tips-expert/managing-rose-rosette-disease-landscape. The information provided reaffirms our decision to stop selling roses. In our opinion the recommended control procedures of spraying every two weeks is unrealistic at best and extremely environmentally unfriendly. The collateral damage that will occur by that frequency of spraying is in our opinion completely unacceptable. If you have roses that are still healthy now is the time to spray horticultural oil on them to kill any overwintering pests. The other recommendation that we do agree with is to clean up all debris on and under the roses by hand- do not use a leaf blower. The microscopic mite can be spread by wind so the leaf blower may unintentionally introduce or spread the disease. 
If you do have infected plants they should be removed and destroyed. We welcome the opportunity to recommend alternatives. Bring a few pictures to the nursery and lets find a plant that you don't need to spray! Hopefully the rose breeders will breed a disease resistant rose but that's more than a few years down the road.