Garden Buds™
are proven-performing annuals or tropical plants which blend easily with
perennials and with each other. They add consistent color to the summer
garden and many are excellent candidates for ornamental planters.
Garden Buds™ plants are easy to grow and perfectly suited to hot,
humid Midwest summers. They are drought resistant and give you loads of
color from mid-May through the first frost. Because these plants are annuals,
they die when the temperature dips below 32° F.
Because Garden Buds™ don’t grow well if the temperature is cold, wait until all danger of frost is past to plant - any time after Mother’s Day is fine. Like all heat-loving plants, Garden Buds™ take a few weeks to get established in the garden and in ornamental containers. These photos show how the small plants you put in your garden will explode into large drifts of color in just a few weeks.
HOW-TO GARDENING TIPS
click on one of the tips below to learn more
In
the garden
Like most annuals, Garden Buds™ grow best if they can spread their
roots in rich, loose, weed-free soil. The easiest way to achieve this
is to weed your garden thoroughly and add organic matter to your soil.
Spread organic matter in the form of compost, well-rotted manure, leaf
mold or sphagnum peat 4 inches deep across your planting area. Then mix
it with the top 8 inches of soil with a spading fork, shovel or tiller.
When your soil is ready, it’s time to plant. Take your Garden Bud™
out of the pot. If there’s a thick mat of roots at the bottom of
the soil ball, remove it. This will encourage roots to spread after planting.
Position the root ball in the planting hole so the crown of the plant
(where the plant meets the soil) is at the same depth it was in the pot.
If the plants are placed too high, they dry out easily. If they are too
low, they may rot. Spread the loosened roots and fill the hole with soil.
Firm the soil around the crown and create a small circular dam to hold
water. Fill the area inside the dam with water, let it drain and refill.
In ornamental planters
Many Garden Buds™ are fabulous container plants. Because all of these
plants grow to be fairly large, be sure to use containers that are at
least 18 inches across at the top. Large pots hold more potting mix than
smaller pots, so you don’t have to water them as often and they are
heavy enough that they don’t blow over in strong wind.
Once you have a container, fill it with a loose, soilless potting mix purchased from your local garden center. Products containing composted bark, sphagnum peat and perlite provide a perfect home for plant roots. Miracle Grow makes a good potting mix as does Fafard, Pro-Mix and Metro Mix. Don’t use regular garden soil or any kind of bagged topsoil. Soil is too heavy for big containers and it forms a crust across the top when it dries out that doesn’t allow water to penetrate.
Once your container is filled with potting mix, remove your Garden Bud™ from the pot. If there’s a thick mat of roots at the bottom of the soil ball, remove it. This will encourage roots to spread after planting.
Position the root
ball in the planting hole so the crown of the plant (where the plant meets
the soil) is at the same depth it was in the pot. If the plants are placed
too high, they dry out easily. If they are too low, they might rot. Spread
the loosened roots and fill the hole with potting mix.
In
the garden
Keep a close eye on your newly planted Garden Buds.™ The soil
around their roots should be moist, but not soaking wet, for the first
two weeks. For the next two weeks or so, water when the soil 2 inches
below the surface is dry to the touch. After that, check the garden soil
once a week and water if the soil 3 or 4 inches deep is dry.
To establish durable deep root systems, water thoroughly by soaking the soil slowly and deeply. A good rule of thumb is that many annuals grow well with 1 inch of water per week. The water can come from natural rainfall or from irrigation. There’s an easy way to calculate how long you have to run your watering system to apply 1 inch of water. Remove the tops from several small empty cans such as tuna cans. Wash them out and use a permanent marker to make a mark on the inside of the can 1 inch from the bottom. Dig holes 2 inches deep in various places around the garden and place the cans in the holes. Turn on your watering system and time how long it takes for the cans to fill with water to the 1-inch mark. This is the length of time you need to run your system to deliver 1 inch of water.
One of the best ways to water in dry summer regions is with water-conserving soaker hoses. Water drips slowly onto the soil right around plant roots for several hours. All of the water soaks directly into the soil and down to plant roots without any waste. Additionally, because you are watering the soil and not the tops of plants, you greatly reduce the chance of disease problems that are common when leaves stay wet.
In
ornamental planters
Containers should be checked every day to see if they are moist. Large
containers don’t dry out as quickly as small containers because they
hold more potting mix, and consequently, more moisture. If you put your
finger in the container, and it’s not moist, you need to water. Be
sure to water thoroughly – until you see water running out the drain
hole in the bottom of the pot.
With a few exceptions, most annuals look better if they are pinched when they are planted. Pinching is the process of removing a plant’s growing tips to encourage side branching and bushiness. You might be familiar with the practice of pinching garden mums to make them bushy and produce more flowers. Pinching can also be used to keep a plant in bounds and to shape it.
To pinch a plant, use your fingers or a pair of pruners to remove the growing tips and first set of leaves. Usually, this means you remove 1/2 to 2 inches of each shoot. In some cases, if a plant is very leggy with lots of stem and few leaves, you need to cut it back more severely. This process, called cutting back, involves removing more than 2 inches of growth. In either case, pinching or cutting back, make your cut just above a node (the point where a leaf emerges from the stem).
Pinch or cut back the Garden Buds™ listed below at planting time then continue to pinch them periodically through the summer if they threaten to get leggy or to outgrow their allotted space.
Garden
Buds™ that should be cut back or pinched
All the Sun Goddess coleus
Ornamental Sweet Potato `Ace of Spades'
Ornamental Sweet Potato `Blackie'
Ornamental Sweet Potato `Marguarite'
Verbena bonariensis
Garden Buds™ that should not be cut back or pinched
Elephant's Ear `Black Magic'
Elephant's Ear `Illustris'
Fuchsia `Gartenmeister'
Purple Fountain Grass `Rubrum'
If the leaves of some of your Garden Buds™ get tattered by the wind
or otherwise worn, remove them from the plant. Use a pair of pruners and
cut the leaf off where it joins the stem. Elephant’s ear and purple
fountain grass are the plants that are most likely to benefit from this
practice.
In
the garden
Just like people need vitamins obtained through food or supplements,
plants need nutrients for healthy growth. If you have well-prepared soil,
rich in organic matter, you don’t need to provide your plants with
any additional nutrients. If you garden in sandy soil where nutrients
quickly leach or in soil that has been depleted by continuous planting
with no addition of organic matter or fertilizer, you will probably need
to supplement the soil with fertilizer.
If your soil is not in good shape, incorporate an uncoated slow-release granular fertilizer when you work the soil prior to planting and at mid-season as a top dressing. A balanced formula such as 12-12-12 provides plants with a good mix of nutrients. Uncoated granular fertilizers feed plants for four to six weeks.
Keep in mind that fertilizer can’t improve a plant’s response to poor cultural conditions such as slow draining soil, competition from tree roots or insufficient sunlight. Fertilizer improves plant growth only if it is the limiting factor. And, when it comes to fertilizer, too much does more harm than good. Excessive fertilization leads to leggy growth, burnt leaves and disease and insect problems.
In
ornamental planters
Most potting mixes don’t contain the nutrients plants need to grow,
so plants grown in containers need to be fed on a regular basis. The easiest
way to do this is by using an extended time release fertilizer such as
Osmocote®.
Extended time-release fertilizers are designed to release nutrients slowly over several months. The fertilizer is contained within round capsules coated with sulfur or plastic. As the fertilizer is moistened through rainfall or watering, some of the capsules swell and fertilizer seeps out through the coating until the fertilizer is used up.
Spread the pellets across the top of the soilless mix according to package directions.
