Growing Plumeria from Cuttings

Plumeria, the tree that the Hawaiian lei flower comes from, can be grown from a 'cutting'.

All you have to do is gently break off about 8" from a branch tip and place it in a well drained pot. Water the Plumeria a tiny bit every 2 days and make sure it has partial to full sun. They can't take the cold!

The image is of a pink Plumeria I started from a cutting about 2 months ago and it pushing through its first leaf. I'm excited!

I'll post more photos as it grows so you can see the progress.
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Ground covers around stone steps

I love stone steppers, but finding a ground cover that legitimately grows between 'foot trafficked' stones can be difficult. Here is one I love, Rubus. If you have a decently moist and partial shade area, Rubus will follow the soil between and looks great!
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Girdled trees

When you're buying nursery trees, there are many things you have to look for aside from the basic aesthetics. One of the most common root health issues for boxed trees is when the nursery doesn't move the trees into a larger box soon enough and the roots begin curling around each other called root girdle. Here is a picture showing signs of root girdle. Sometimes it's less obvious than this and you need to pull the dirt away a little to check. This will stunt the trees growth and lifespan. There are root cutting methods to try and salvage a tree in this state, but most of the time the tree will not fully recover.

Simple and impacting

Who needs an expensive sculpture when you have a $100 pot and a $75 Chrondipetalum? (I'd better check my spelling on that plant).

Living focal pieces can be as memorable as water features if you pick a plant with foliage that moves with the wind. Keep in mind you background and work to compliment or contrast in color.

Textures

Sometimes all you need is one type of grass that you like as with this Italian Timothy. Then you mow a path through and your blade contrast is created by the mown to unmown transition. Very simple planting design can be best.

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The Silhouette

This may be jumping a bit ahead to go right into lighting design, but I want to share one of my favorite lighting techniques. I call it the 'Silhouette'.

The idea is to have a soft glow behind your plants so that the outline of the plants is defined by their shade side. It reminds me of the old comedies where they would have people with a light on in a tent or behind a curtain and their silhouette makes them look like they're being naughty... then they show the characters and they really aren't even close to each other, it was just an optical illusion. Did I lose everyone on that one?



Anyway, this technique works best with these ingredients:

- Character or sculptural planting such as bamboo


- A backdrop to catch the light behind the plant subject such as a plaster wall or smooth fence

- Wide angle, filtered, low voltage, lighting. You want the light close enough to the backdrop to illuminate and create a silhouette, but not so close that you create 'hot spots.'


I really do not like to see the source of lighting, so in-grade up-lights with a 'hood' to hide the lens from the onlooker works best. In these applications where the source is being hidden, do not waste your money on expensive brass or bronze fixtures. You want it to be hidden anyway. The black, high-density plastic ones are fine. Check your warranty and enjoy!

Design Basics

Try and keep your plant palette simple. Once you've decided on a planting style (modern, zen, cottage, formal, etc) and filtered through planting zone, light and soil requirements, you probably have a list of plants you have no idea what to do with from there. Here are some more filters to run your palette through:

Hierarchy: Have few focal pieces and build your garden around them. Many times, depending on the size of the place, one focal piece per area is plenty. More than one will become busy and start to look like your neighbor's place who has gnomes and stones with sweet sayings on them lining the walk. It is better to do one 'big move' than many little choppy bits.

Height Layers: Know the mature height or the height you intend to maintain your plants and layer them into the landscape accordingly, giving rhythm and balance.

Contrast: Color among other attributes can be very powerful when used sparingly. Take note of the colors of green that work together as well as bloom colors. Also, make sure the colors work with your structural backdrop. Red, orange and pink do not work together! Sometimes it's best to use one or two colors and mix variations of the same color throughout.

Texture: This is something you probably won't be able to do from images. Go to the nursery, and pull leaves from the different plants you are interested in and put the leaves together. Do the textures work well together or are they fighting each other? Leave size and pattern also play a big role. Spiky then leaves aren't typically going to go well with soft, lobed leaves.

We will get into many other design aspects in later posts. I just thought it was good to get some basics down before jumping right into plant species.

I hope you enjoyed!