walterandersen.com facebook.com/walterandersens twitter.com/walterandersens online store videos San Diego’s Independent Nursery Since 1928 TM MAY 2019 Summer Flowers Cheat Sheet! By Kate Karam, Monrovia Nursery IN THIS ISSUE Summer Flowers Cheat Sheet! 1 Our Sunbelievable Sunflower 1 Daffodils, Harbingers Of Spring 4 To Do List: May 4 Old Ben: Facts About Bats 5 Old Ben’s Specials 5 Cheerful Calylophus 6 What’s New? Dragon Fruits 6 Special Event: Growchella 6 Poway Rose Show Details 7 Dahlia May Classes 8 Flowers are the eye candy of the sum- create a whole new “plant painting” May Specials! 8 mer garden and if you’re not already with minimal effort. Poway Vendor Day 8 shopping for them, you probably will Here’s a quick cheat sheet of a few heat- be soon. Who can resist all of those loving flowers you’ll see in our stores garden center racks and tables laden and ideas about how to use them. with instant color? Are you envisioning cascading window boxes, edge-spil- Sun Worshippers: ling containers, hanging baskets, and Many of the flowers we love to use for blank spots instantly filled in with summer color originated in warmer cli- bright color? Every year you get to continued p2 Love Our Unbelievable Sunbelievable Sunflower By Melanie Potter 20th Annual Walter New to both stores as of May 1 is Sun- Andersen Nursery Believable™ Brown Eyed Girl Helianthus, Rose Show a sun flower. It has extraordinary summer color with large, vibrant blooms. This award- Walter Andersen Nursery will hold winning, multi-branching, heat tolerant, non- its 20th annual rose show May 11-12 invasive annual produces up to 1,000 flowers at its Poway location. This popular in a single season, throughout summer until event is free to enter and view, and first frost. Sunny yellow petals with a dash continues to grow, with last year of rich red surround the large brown center seeing more than 100 entries. Entry of each sensational flower. It is excellent in registration will be held from 8am- borders and containers. 10:30am on May 11. Judging will take • place that day from 11am-1pm. • 05.19 2 Summer Flowers continued from p1 Angelonia ‘Summer Snapdragon’ Calibrachoa ‘Million Bells’ mates like the southern United States, when blooms are almost Mexico, and South America. That’s why fully open for indoor bou- (with a bit of care) they sail through the quets. Both stores have heat of summer, even in full sun. Here tall varieties as well. Lantana are just six of the amazing varieties Verbena available this summer. I like these for their chameleon-like ability to work in When it comes to quickly softening just about any design scheme. hard surfaces or covering bare spots, few do it better than verbena. Pillow-y Summer Snapdragon and spill-y, it’s a spreading low grower. Angelonia is a heat-lover that’s perfect Butterflies go nuts for it. Up to 8” tall for upright, spiky interest. Mix the and 3’ wide. Ideas: Hanging baskets, rainbow of colors—white, pink, purple, of course, but also gentle slopes and rose, red—or mass in a single hue. Deer berms. and rabbit resistant! Up 14” tall and Geranium wide. Ideas: Plant them in humming- bird gardens, cottage planters, and Pelargonium (geraniums) are THE clas- rose gardens. sic choice for containers and window boxes. Sun and heat lovers, they also Million Bells tolerate partial shade. And the colors!! Calibrachoa’s petunia-like blooms are Up to 16” tall and 24” wide. Use: Juxta- a billowy mass of color that thrive all pose its formality by planting in a Verbena summer, even in heat and humidity. blowsy cottage garden. Great in pots, but also an excellent, Lantana many that actually appreciate a unexpected bedding plant. Up to 15” respite from summer’s direct, over- tall and wide. Ideas: Suspend hanging Continuous summer color from large head rays. When choosing plants for baskets in groups of three at different flower clusters on a compact, water areas that are not full sun, it’s a good heights. wise, sun-loving plant that tolerates idea to observe before buying. Note heat and humidity. It is perennial in Dahlia the light conditions at 8am, 11am, mild winter regions. Up to 16” tall and 2pm, and 4pm—this will give you Happy and carefree, bedding and bush wide. Ideas: Use in wildlife gardens to the best information on how much dahlias are shorter and more compact, attract bees and butterflies. sun your spaces gets, and at what serving up ultra-bright, all-season color Who Likes Shade? time of the day. These sun lovers are to borders and beds, and also as cut a great place to start. flowers. Up to 18” tall and wide.Ideas: While few plants bloom enthusiasti- Adds height to window boxes. Cut cally in very deep shade, there are continued p3 05.19 3 Summer Flowers continued from p2 Fuchsia Caladium New Guinea Impatiens Fuchsia massed, but also use them to contrast taller, grassy foliage plants. A large family of flowering shrubs, sev- eral species are grown as frost tender Sweet Potato Vine container plants that are also ideal for A distant relative of the Morning Glory hanging baskets. Seriously, look at vine, sweet potato vine, whether it is those drooping, tubular flowers! Up to black, green, or brown, grows big and 1’ tall and wide. Ideas: Add tiny white fast. It works in sleek modern settings lights to a hanging basket of fuchsia or cottage gardens. Trailing, 16” tall for a lush, living chandelier. and 24” wide. Ideas: Tie the long stem Caladium up onto a trellis for a quick, green screen. The only difficult thing about Caladiums is deciding which to choose. Splotched, How To Keep Them Healthy striped–choose one that makes you & Happy Sweet Potato Vine smile. Perennial in temperate, frost- Choose carefully in terms of light needs free regions, annual elsewhere. Up and watering requirements. Look for to 18” tall, 12” wide. Ideas: Use in low, well branched, bushy plants, and then trough planters where they can flutter get them into the ground ASAP! in even a light breeze. • Feed regularly to keep them healthy New Guinea Impatiens and to ensure a near constant supply Unlike classic impatiens which are of blooms. Always make sure to water shade lovers, New Guinea impatiens well before applying fertilizer (liquid can tolerate up to half a day of sun or dry) to avoid shock. in most parts of the country. Flowers • These plants do not have very deep are bigger, too. Up to 18” tall, 9” wide. root systems and can dry out quickly Ideas: Use where you need a carpet of on a hot day. In the morning, grab your Coleus near endless color. And, in butterfly coffee, grab a hose and give them a gardens! disappear, but the stems will get good, deep soaking. In the evening, leggy. Around midsummer, prune Coleus grab a drink and do the same! Water back by several inches. You’ll be whenever the soil feels dry about one Such a valuable, colorful wonder for rewarded with a fresh flush of new inch below the surface. areas that always seem to be on the foliage and flowers.• damp side (but that drain well). Many • Pinch (use your thumb and fore- colors and leaf shapes—you could finger) to remove spent flowers as become a collector. Pinch often! Up needed. Many newer varieties are self Let Us to 18” tall and wide. Ideas: Lovely cleaning so the flowers sort of Remember This Memorial Day 05.19 4 Daffodils, True Harbingers Of Spring TO DO LIST: By Ken Andersen May CONSERVE WATER Mulch under and around plants and open areas with decorative bark to reduce evaporation. Water in the early morning or cooler evenings to reduce evaporation. Consider replacing sprinklers with drip irrigation. We sell easy-to-use conversion products. FERTILIZE For lawns, use Marathon Fertilizer for tall fescue, and Bonide DuraTurf Weed & Feed to feed grass and control broadleaf weeds. Feed ornamentals with Gro-Power. Feed Yellow daffodils, white daffodils, and red tulips let you know spring is near! vegetables with Gro-Power Tomato and Vegetable Food or Dr. Earth On a recent trip to Borrego Springs to season is ending the daffodil flower Organic Tomato and Vegetable view the Super Bloom, our family took spikes will come up through them let- the route over Wynola Road down to ting you know spring is close at hand! Food. Feed citrus, Avocado, and the 78 which bypasses Julian proper. fruit trees with Gro-Power Citrus Easy to care for, they like feeding with While on this very scenic stretch of and Avocado Food. Feed palms a good rose and flower food while road, we noticed thousands of daffodils blooming, then resting once they go and tropicals with Gro-Power Palm in bloom along the roadside. Julian dormant. The most popular daffodil Tree and Tropical Food. and the surrounding areas are known variety in the Julian area is the King for their abundance of daffodils in the PEST CONTROL Alfred type yellow which both stores spring. Some time ago, the Poway stock during the fall bulb season. If Watch for insects beginning to store was supplying daffodil bulbs you would like to enjoy some of these invade the garden. Pay close by the hundreds for planting in and early bloomers in your garden, make a attention for Aphids, Whitefly and around Julian. They would purchase note to pick some up this fall! them in bags of 500 bulbs each and • Scale.