THINK GREEN (and yellow and red and…)

Yucca filamentosa 'Color Guard' PP#9,393

Choose from tough colorful shrubs and perennials. Use them for back of the border, punctuation in the middle, or anywhere you need color and low water use. As a bonus, the plants mentioned here are all inhospitable to deer. They are the last choices on deer menus.

Yucca filamentosa 'Color Guard' PP#9,393 is a spiky, yellow and gold punctuation mark that will take hot sun and bone-dry soil. Sand is even OK with yuccas.

Viburnum nudum 'Winterthur' is a multi-tasking shrub. It is a wonderful pollinator for all other viburnums in your garden, like the red-berried Cardinal Candy™, and Blue Muffin™ with, you know, blue berries. Winterthur also has deep blue berries. The foliage turns a bronzy red/purple in the fall. You don’t need a viburnum pollinator for other viburnums, but if you have scores of hungry birds, Winterthur will help set the maximum amount of berries on the other viburnum shrubs.

Here is a barberry (Berberis thunbergii) called Sunjoy Gold Pillar PP# 18082 which shows off in early spring with leaves of red and orange. The true dazzle comes in summer when the leaves turn sunny gold. This plant will zing up a border.

Wild-growing mullein (Verbascum) thrives in very dry conditions and almost pure sand in the wild. This gives you a clue as to how to treat them in the landscape. Any of the verbascums will reward overwatering by dying. Put Verbascum 'Caribbean Crush', V. 'Jackie in Pink' PP#15,735, and V. ‘Jackie' in your poorest sunny spot.

Don’t overlook native grasses such as Panicum virgatum 'Badlands,' a selection of our native switch grass. Grasses add the best movement to a flower border, dipping and bending with the slightest breeze.

Remember, too, to be earth friendly in your choice of fertilizers. Chemical fertilizers feed your plants and give them quick boosts to flower or fruit and even growth. However, they don’t help the soil. Compost and natural products help build up soil nutrients and tilth.

TerraCycle All-Purpose Plant Food was developed by Princeton University students. It is a liquid by-product of vermicomposting (making compost of worm castings). You can use this natural fertilizer on any of your plants. This product is even more earth-friendly. It is packaged in recycled soda bottles.

Sea Magic helps your plants take up minerals they need for proper growth. Another plus, it does not have that distinctive "fish emulsion" odor. Studies done by Dr. T.L. Senn, a Clemson University seaweed expert, show that this product makes plants more drought tolerant. If those attributes are not enough, Dr. Senn also notes that its use minimizes insect damage, crop production is much greater, and because of higher fruit sugar content, the Sea Magic treated fruits and vegetables taste better.

Gardeners relish the fresh air, sunshine, color, and food they grow. This is healthy living. Practice IPM (Integrated Pest Management) which is a philosophy of using the least toxic insect or disease control first, like a blast from a garden hose.

Poisons are non-discriminatory. They kill everything. Learn to tolerate damage in the garden. This is the only way you will allow the good bugs to move in and take over the bad bugs. You want to strike a balance of nature so you don’t have to weigh in with heavier methods.

Really, does your garden have to be "leaf perfect"? A damaged leaf might have been supper for a beautiful butterfly in its caterpillar form. We can be smug in our green worlds, pointing out the not so perfect leaf with a chewed hole as a badge of honor and courage. Think about the earth. Think Green.

---Written by Anne Moore January 14, 2009---