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Top 10 Lake & Garden features
September/October 2008
A Winning Combination
Colorful annuals, perennials and shrubs create a stunning lake landscape
Viewed by land or by boat, Don and Karin Mullendore’s garden is a winner. Planted on a steep slope, the potentially difficult situation has been used to great advantage so that the garden is “presented” like a painting on an easel to viewers looking up from below. From above, it is an abstract design of shapes, colors and textures. Then there’s the flower garden overlooking the swimming pool where a medley of flowers provide summer-long interest. It all adds up to a spectacular scene worthy of the top prize in our first Lovely Laker Landscape Contest.
On the largest sloping face of the Mullendore’s yard, Gold Mop false cypresses (Chamaecyparis pisifera ‘Gold Mop’), Rosy Glow barberries, Burford hollies and Japanese maples provide the backbone to the design. The Gold Mops and barberries are planted in swaths, creating an undulating design of merging gold and pinkish red foliage punctuated with the red tinted foliage and distinctive arcing shape of a Japanese maple. Planted on a diagonal down the slope, Burford hollies cut a line through the free form planting, anchoring it with their dark green foliage and pruned spherical shape. A narrow brick path cuts across the slope through the shrubbery, leading down to the dock.
The flower garden planted on the upward slope along the path that leads to the swimming pool is the crowning jewel in the garden. Inspired by the English cottage gardens where a wide variety of flowers are crowded together in happy profusion, Karin has combined perennials, shrubs and annuals that flourish in our hot, humid summers.
The centerpiece to the flower garden is a Knock Out® rose that blooms nonstop from spring through the first frost and requires a minimum of care. A Rosy Glow barberry just behind it adds an appealing color echo, while a Gold Mop false cypress inserts a golden yellow accent. Towering over the composition is a white-flowering crape myrtle. At the feet of the shrubs is an abundance of perennial flowering plants, including phlox, black-eyed Susan, coreopsis, coneflowers and Shasta daisy. Annuals and biennials such as Wave® Petunias, impatiens, salvia, verbena and violas fill in the gaps.
As any true gardener will admit, getting the flower bed to where it is today has been a process of trial and error, and the experimentation continues as Karin learns what works well to give her continual bloom.
“Every spring I make the rounds of the nurseries to get flowers,” said Karin. “I started out with annuals, but gradually I’ve moved to perennials. I just use the annuals as fill.”
Shrubs have been removed to make more room for the perennials, and each year she looks at the composition with a critical eye, making plans to expand and refine the design for the following year.
A recent addition to the garden is the stone planter built across the length of the lower covered porch. Before the planter, shrubs hid the porch foundation. But when the Mullendores had masons on the property to build the stone retaining wall for the swimming pool, Karin asked them to build the planter so she could have flowers to look at while sitting on the porch.
“Up until this year, I’ve put annuals in the planters,” said Karin, “but this year I’m trying the red Flower Carpet Roses® planted with blue flowering verbena.”
So far, the combination is a success. Both bloom prolifically throughout the summer, creating a colorful foreground to the view of the lake.
Twenty-two years ago when the Mullendore’s first bought the property, the garden was nothing more than a few foundation shrubs put in by the builder. The homeowners’ vision and hard work has transformed the site, but the garden still isn’t done.
“It’s a work in progress,” said Karin. “The garden definitely isn’t finished.”
March/April 2008
Allergy-Free Gardening
Create an environment that’s beautiful and non-irritating
As spring approaches and the pollen count rises, it seems only natural that allergy sufferers are experiencing mixed feelings about the floral bounty of the season.
Allergies are a common problem in this country. More than 50 million people suffer from hay fever. Add to that the asthma sufferers and those with chronic sinus problems, and you have a lot of people who are leery of going out into the garden, let alone working in it. Fortunately, it’s possible to plant a garden that is virtually free of allergy-inducing plants. With carefully selected plants and thoughtful garden-management techniques, even people with severe allergies can experience the joy of gardening.
Qualities of Less-Allergenic Plants
Airborne pollen is a major source of allergies. Any plant that spreads its pollen by wind is going to be an allergy troublemaker. But not all airborne pollen is equally offending. Heavy pollen falls quickly to the ground fairly near the plant and does not cause too many problems. Lightweight pollen floats about on the air, covering everything with a fine yellow dust. Therefore, you’re better off choosing plants that produce heavy pollen. In general, plants that are pollinated by insects rather than by air will be better for sensitive gardeners.
There are flowering plants that are completely pollen-free. Here’s why: Some plants produce separate male and female flowers on a single plant, others have both male and female parts in each of its flowers. A third group of plants is single-sexed, either male or female. In the case of separate-sex plants, the males produce plenty of airborne pollen, while the female plants are pollen-free. In the case of species such as willows, ash, poplars, hollies and maples that have a reputation for causing allergy problems, it is the male plants that are the culprits. The females are blameless. The females get a bad rap, because they are considered messy when they drop berries or fruit, but if there isn’t a male plant in the vicinity, they won’t produce any fruit and will be perfectly clean.
Unfortunately, nursery tags don’t often give the sex of separate-sex plants. When applicable, it helps to know the cultivar name of the species you want so you’re sure to get a female variety. In the maple family, for example, opt for Acre x Freeman ‘Autumn Fantasy’ and ‘Indian Summer.’ For a red maple, choose A. rubrum ‘Autumn Glory,’ ‘Dave Red,’ ‘Doric,’ ‘Embers’, Festival,’ ‘Fanksred,’ ‘October Glory,’ ‘Red Skin,’ or ‘Red Sunset.’
Curiously, flower color and form influence the potential for allergies. Small, pale-colored flowers tend to be the worst offenders. Off-white and greenish-colored blossoms are notorious for provoking discomfort. In contrast, boldly colored trumpet-shaped flowers are a good choice for sensitive people, because the pollen is tucked down in the bottom of the cup where the insects crawl to collect it and where the wind can’t blow it around. Snapdragons are a great choice for an allergy-free garden. A bee has to pry open the flower to get to the pollen, and the flower pops back shut once the bee emerges.
Duration of the pollen release is another important factor. Some trees release pollen for only a few days a year. While it may be an uncomfortable few days, it’s usually tolerable. In contrast, trees such as the Arizona cypress and some eucalyptus flower throughout the year, creating an ongoing allergenic irritant.
For an excellent list of plants rated for their potential to irritate allergies, see Allergy-Free Gardening: The Revolutionary Guide to Healthy Landscaping by Thomas L. Ogren.
Minimizing Allergies in the Garden
There are lots of tricks to minimize your exposure to allergy-inducing irritants in your garden. Here are a few:
• Wear a face-mask filter when you mow your lawn to avoid exposure to the dust, pollen, mold spores, and chopped insect bodies that are blown into the air by the mower. Rotary power lawnmowers are particular offenders for dispersing irritants into the air. Instead, opt for a reel mower. Also, avoid mowing early in the morning when most grasses release the most pollen. If you hire the “mow, blow and go” gardeners to care for your lawn, close the windows while they’re working to cut down on exposure.
• Many shrubs produce small, allergy-promoting flowers. Shear them regularly to cut off the flowers before they develop. Likewise, give deciduous trees an annual trim, cutting back the ends of all branches to remove flower buds. This task is particularly important for trees that produce tiny flowers that are easy to overlook.
• Plant to attract birds. The birds will eat a huge number of insects, lowering allergy potential.
• Keep your plants healthy. The healtheir they are, the more resistant plants will be to pests and diseases that increase allergenic substances such as mold and insect dander. A disease- and pest-free plant is a less-allergenic plant.
• Molds are terrible for inducing allergic reactions. Fortunately, even in the garden you can minimize their presence. Good air circulation and sunlight are anathema to them. So to discourage mold in your garden, keep woodland areas pruned with a laced canopy so light can penetrate and fresh breezes can blow through. Some molds reside in compost heaps. Get someone else to turn the heap, and discard any plants infested with molds or mildews in the trash. Whether or not you suffer from allergies, never compost diseased plants. Natural fertilizers such as manure also may harbor mold spores. It’s not uncommon to blame a newly sprouted lawn for an allergy outbreak when in fact the real cause may be the molds that were unwittingly spread along with the fertilizer.
Your garden does not need to be a source of allergy irritants. With thought and creativity, you can create a beautiful environment that’s both comfortable and healthy.
November/December 2005
Lake-friendly gardening
Low-maintenance buffer gardens provide a beautiful way to prevent runoff
Smith Mountain Lake has been rated one of the cleanest on the East Coast. But as development around the lake and the nearby watershed areas grows increasingly intense, the Lake’s water purity may be at risk. Fortunately, there is much that local homeowners can do to protect this valuable resource.
One of the major sources of pollutants for the Lake is water runoff from gardens. Fertilizers and other garden chemicals used by the thousands of people who live within the lake watershed area, as well as silt and animal waste, all leach into the lake. This pollution problem is intensified when homeowners strip the Lake shore land of all or most of its natural vegetation, and in its place plant a lawn that goes right down to the water’s edge.
American Electric Power’s recently enacted Shoreline Management Plan now prohibits lakefront homeowners from cutting down native vegetation within the 800 foot contour unless they substitute with other native plants that fulfill the same environmental function as the plant that’s removed.
But for properties that have already been stripped of natives, homeowners can still help by planting a buffer garden of native plants along the waterfront.
Called a riparian buffer (riparian refers to the banks of a river, stream or lake), ideally the bed should extend a minimum of 25 feet behind the rip-rap, and cover 50 percent of the shoreline frontage. However, even a small buffer is better than nothing.
There are many benefits, both aesthetic and practical, to planting natives along the shore:
•The shoreline plants filter rainwater and melting snow from the surrounding watershed, preventing fertilizers, pesticides, and other pollutants from entering the Lake.
•Sturdy plants, these natives survive adversity by establishing extensive root systems that burrow 3-8 feet deep, improving the soil structure and its ability to hold water. This network of roots is like living cement, adding strength to existing rip-rap, or possibly delaying the need to install it.
•Increased plant diversity adds to the beauty and interest of the shore, as well as reducing the risk of a pest or disease infestation due to growing just a few plants intensely.
•The plants are an important habitat for wildlife, including butterflies.
The plants act as an effective barrier to geese and ducks, keeping them out of your garden and off your lawn.
•Native plants are very low maintenance. They require no fertilizing (they grow leggy and unattractive if fed) and little or no watering once they’re established.
•By reducing the size of your lawn, turning over some of the garden space to native plants, you’ll save time and money on mowing and fertilizing.
What to Plant
A riparian buffer zone should contain a mixture of native trees, shrubs, wildflowers (known as forbs), grasses, and sedges.
The palette of available native plants, including many that have showy flowers, is extensive and attractive, so a buffer garden does not have to look like a weedy mess. Nor should it block your view to the water. Create your design so that the buffer planting frames your water view, adding depth and ever-changing seasonal interest. On a level lot, there may be a tree or shrub that obscures a portion of the view, but that can enhance the overall effect, creating patterns, silhouettes, and filtered glimpses of water.
How to Plant
The ideal planting time is the fall (spring is the next best), but before you set to work digging, you first need to make your plan. Begin by measuring the length of shore you plan to plant, and multiply that by the depth to get your square footage. If the space is too large to manage in one go for energy or budget reasons, start with a portion for this year, and enlarge the bed as you can.
Draw a plan on graph paper, placing grasses and sedges in a loose grid approximately 3 feet apart. Then add in a variety of wildflowers, spacing them within the grid of grasses and sedges. On average, plan on one plant for every 1.5 square feet, with approximately half being grasses and sedges, and half wildflowers.
Also add some trees and shrubs to give structure and mass to the design. On sloped lots, you can plant both trees shrubs at the water’s edge without obscuring the primary view from the house. Don’t forget that a framed or filtered view is more interesting than an uninterrupted expanse. Generally plan for 6 feet between shrubs, and do not plant anything more than 2 feet from their base.
You do not need to amend the soil for native plants, however if you already have grass planted, you’ll need to kill it. The best way to smother the lawn is to cover it with layers of newspapers or cardboard. Spread out the paper, and then wet it so it becomes soft and soggy. Then cover the entire area with organic mulch several inches deep. Plant through the mulch, paper and grass, making sure the new plants’ roots make contact with the soil. They will dry out and die if just planted in the top layer of sod. As you plant arrange the mulch around each plant so it is about 1/2 inch away from the stems. Finally, water well so the roots get a deep soaking.
By spring the covered grass will be dead, and the organic remains will nourish the newly planted natives.
Caring for Natives
The great benefit of growing natives is they require a minimum of maintenance. They don’t want to be fertilized, and once they’re established, all you’ll need to do is tidy up dead vegetation in spring and pull the occasional weed. However, the first two years you need to be vigilant about seeking out and pulling weeds so that the desired plants can get a firm hold. Check every two weeks, and pull any weeds you see. Also provide supplemental water the first year until the root systems are well established. A weekly deep watering is more beneficial than frequent shallow splashes. Shallow watering trains roots to stay near the surface. A good layer of mulch between the plants will help restrain weeds and keep moisture in the soil.
Invest now in planting a riparian buffer for the long term dividends of a beautiful landscape that requires less work than the traditional suburban garden, that attracts wildlife and promotes a cleaner lake.
MayJune 2009
The Great Outdoors
Growing home trend enhances warm-weather entertaining
It’s summer time and the living is easy at Smith Mountain Lake. Life moves outdoors for activities on and around the lake as well as for relaxing and dining. In order to spend as much time outside as possible, many homeowners are creating outdoor "great rooms," incorporating a living room, dining room and kitchen for family gatherings and outdoor entertaining.
Elements in a well-appointed outdoor room include a seating and dining area with perhaps a focal point of a fireplace or fire pit, a cooking space, lighting and a water feature. To meet this growing garden trend, manufacturers are offering outdoor furnishings and fabrics, kitchen appliances, and lighting fixtures that have a high level of refinement, quality and durability.
Furnishing outdoor rooms
No outdoor room is complete without ample furniture for dining and lounging. Attractive, high-quality outdoor furniture also provides a smooth transition from the indoors to the outdoors and helps define the space as an extension of your home. In addition to chairs, consider furnishing an outdoor room with a love seat or two, end tables, and a coffee table to make a comfortable seating arrangement. Also don’t overlook the possibility of an indoor-outdoor carpet designed to withstand all that weather can throw at it.
Karen Cromwell, Smith Mountain Laker entertaining columnist who lives on the Blackwater, laid an all-weather carpet over the paved area of her patio to provide a softer flooring for the "living room." Because the seating is in the middle of a much larger open space overlooking the lake, the carpet also visually defines the seating area.
Charlie and Nancy Marshall have furnished their large deck overlooking the lake for both dining and outdoor lounging with matching, comfortable cushions on all the chairs. When Nancy sets her glass top table for entertaining, it looks as elegant and pretty as an indoor dining table.
Today, outdoor fabrics are almost indistinguishable from normal indoor upholstery material, and they come in a wide range of textures, patterns, and colors. In addition to being weatherproof, they are resistant to fading and staining. The colors remaining crisp and bright even when the fabric is dipped in chlorine bleach, and they wipe clean when splotched with staining food such as ketchup. You also don’t have to be limited to a narrow selection of pre made cushions. Indoor-outdoor fabric is available on bolts for custom made cushions and pillows, and shoppers can take home swatches to test.
Fireplaces and fire pits
You can extend the outdoor living season and provide a pleasant focal point in your outdoor living room, with a fireplace or fire pit. Just as indoors, homeowners can opt for either wood burning or gas-fired hearths. Gas is less messy than word-burning fireplaces and fire pits, and makes log storage and fire-building a task of the past. You also eliminate the problem of wood smoke blowing in an unwanted direction, but you miss out on the pleasant crackle of a traditional fire as well as the special smell of burning wood.
If you don’t have a built-in fire pit as part of your landscape and patio design, you can derive the same pleasure from the portable fire bowls available at most home supply stores.
Outdoor kitchens
Whether it's a simple hibatchi or kettle style barbecue; a high-end kitchen complete with cook top, refrigerator, sink with running water, warming drawers, and a dishwasher; or a specially constructed outdoor pizza oven, cooking outdoors is a prime summer activity.
You don’t need a lot of extra space to have a well-appointed outdoor kitchen. On a narrow wall on their deck overlooking the lake, Jerry and Janet Potter had enough space for a built-in barbecue and counter space with a sink and a refrigerator and storage space under the counter. They loved cooking and dining al fresco so much, they built a second kitchen on their dock.
"In the summer, Jerry cooks breakfast on the dock every morning," said Janet. The dock is furnished with a picnic table, so family members can enjoy their pancakes hot off the griddle. Ron and Colleen Toothman always loved making pizza, so an outdoor pizza oven was a must for them when they designed their lakeside outdoor kitchen. Now an invitation to one of their pizza parties is highly coveted; guests love constructing their custom pizzas, choosing from a wide array of toppings that Colleen spreads out on her outdoor kitchen counter.
The oven is not limited to baking pizza. The Toothmans usually cook a beef brisket after a pizza party, taking advantage of the cooling oven temperature. Other pizza oven recipes range from baking breads to cooking meats, fish, vegetables and even desserts.
While the Toothmans opted for a large, built-in oven, portable ones also are available at high-end cook supply stores such as Williams-Sonoma and Sur la Table.
Lighting
Outdoor lighting extends the usefulness of outdoor living rooms into the evening and adds atmosphere to the space. In addition to landscape lighting to illumine pathways and uplighting and downlighting to highlight plants and architectural features, consider stringing fairy lights in a nearby tree, hanging an outdoor chandelier from an overhanging tree bough or stringing Japanese lanterns between trees.
Water features
The sound of running water can have a musical quality that enhances the pleasure of being in a space. Reflecting pools also are appealing as they mirror the cloud patterns as well as any nearby plantings, and fish and lily ponds provide endless fascination.
Possible water features for an outdoor garden room include a free-standing fountain, a wall fountain with a catch basin, a raised or in-ground pond or a spa pool. Raised ponds and fountain catch basins have the added benefit of providing extra seating along the edge. Consider including underwater lighting to illumine the water and fountain features after dark.
May/June 2008
Dress up your dock
Containers can add a punch of color to your favorite outdoor space
Beautify your dock and enhance the experience for passersby on the water by decorating with containers brimming with color. “Ah,” you may say. “Great idea, but I’m not at the lake often enough to keep them watered.” Not a problem. Fortunately, a lot of good container plants thrive in heat and drought, and you can amend the planting medium so it retains moisture, significantly reducing the watering requirements.
Container Choices
New, modern materials have added a whole range of container styles that are lightweight, durable and attractive. One is molded fiberglass, cast and finished so it resembles stone, clay or a metal such as wrought iron, lead, rusted iron or bronze. They are available shaped into planters, urns and tubs.
Another modern material for garden containers is polyurethane foam, which is formed to resemble terracotta, cast stone, wood and even rattan. Like the fiberglass containers, they are more durable than ceramic or clay, able to withstand year-round extreme temperatures and exposure to sunlight without cracking or fading. These planters also are easier to lift and maneuver because they are 90 percent lighter than clay pots.
You might also consider opting for something totally unexpected. What about an abandoned rowboat? Or a leaky pair of fishing waders? Build containers into a bench or attach window boxes along the rim of the dock.
Most docks cover a large expanse of space, so your containers need to be large to fit with that scale. Anything too small will look insignificant, and too-small containers risk blowing over in a gust of wind. If you’ve already got containers, but they’re smaller than ideal, group them together to create a larger visual mass. Grouped containers also enhance the effect of a bountiful bouquet or flower garden.
Planting Medium
The term “potting soil” is misleading because, in fact, you should be using a soil-less mix for your containers, not top soil or soil taken from your garden. Real soil is too dense for container plants, discouraging quick root spread and draining poorly.
Although more costly than homemade potting mix, you can save time and trouble if you purchase a good quality potting soil from a local nursery. Look for a mixture that has time-release fertilizer and water-absorbent polymers (also known as hydro gels, polymer crystals or water gels). The fertilizer will feed your plants for weeks during the growing season and the polymers will help the mixture retain and release moisture to the plants when you aren’t there to water. When properly used, the polymer crystals can reduce watering frequency by 50-75 percent in potted plants. Add a few extra scoops of peat moss to the mix and stir in well. It will help prevent the containers from drying out.
As a guideline to how much potting mix you will need, a two-cubic-foot bag will fill 4-6 one-gallon containers, 2-4 two-gallon containers or two five-gallon containers.
Choosing the Plants
The fun part of this project is choosing the plants. Head off to a good nursery and gather together a variety of plants. Experiment with different combinations, setting plants next to each other in their containers to see how they look together. As a rule of thumb, you want something tall in the center of the pot, lower plants in the next row, and cascading plants along the edge. Plan to overfill the pot so you have a full display.
Don’t overlook the possibility of foliage interest as well as flowers. Small shrubs, such as the beautiful Caryopteris Sunshine Blue® PPAF with its golden foliage and sky blue flowers in late summer or the 2007 introduction Weigela My Monet®™, which grows only 12-18 inches tall and has colorful green, cream and pink foliage, will provide season-long interest. Vines are another good possibility. Set the container next to one of the dock support posts and train the vine to grow up it.
Other plants that add interesting color and texture to your container compositions include oregano, parlsey, ornamental grasses, trailing vinca, and of course the long-flowering annuals such as geranium, angelonica, zinnias, pansies (both upright and trailing), million bells (Calibrachoa), and Gerbera daisies. If you’re really concerned about drought conditions, pick a medley of succulents for both water-free care and gorgeous colors and textures.
For best results, fill the containers with lots of different plants to create a bountiful, textured mixture.
Planting the Pots
When you’re ready to set up the containers, take all your supplies down to the dock. Position the containers, cover the drainage hole with wire mesh or a pot shard, and partially fill the containers with your potting mix so the soil level is about 1 inch below the pot rim plus the depth of the rootballs of the plants you are going to use. Water and allow the mixture to settle. Add more planting mix to bring back up the level. Then, with the plants still in their little pots, arrange them in the large container.
When you’re happy with their positions, slide each plant out of it’s little pot and place it in its new home. If the plants are rootbound, break up the root ball or tear away some of the outer roots to encourage new growth. Continue adding plants, filling in any gaps between the root balls with additional planting mix. When finished planting, tap down the soil and rootballs and water again, soaking the container thoroughly.
Within a few weeks you will have a colorful plant display to delight you and your family as well as passersby on the water.
September/October 2007
Flights of Fancy
Staircase design can be beautiful as well as functional
When confronted with a difficult garden problem, the famous 18th Century landscape gardener Lancelot “Capability” Brown used to say that he saw “great capability for landscape improvement.” So it is on Smith Mountain Lake. The challenge that hillside lots present for accessing the water is a design opportunity.
Unfortunately, many people take the efficient approach to staircase design. Adhering to the theory that the fastest way to get from point A to point B is in a straight line, they run their stairs directly down the slope – like a plumb line to the water’s edge. Since nature generally doesn’t have straight lines the result often looks like a scar on the landscape. In addition, the straight line visually extends the apparent length of the staircase, making the hike up and down the hill look longer than it is. The long, straight stairs also makes the journey up and down more tedious because there is no variation or rest area along the way.
A second common problem is purchasing ready-made flights of stairs that in steep situations sit high above ground level, standing out dramatically on the slope. A hand rail, which is required by code if a structure is more than 30 inches off the ground, adds more busyness to the composition. In addition, the homeowner has to pay for more building materials to create the rails. Another common cost-saving measure is to leave the face of the rise open, exposing the structural underpinning of the stairs. While that does save a little money on materials and labor, these stairs can look unattractive from the Lake, which is the primary viewing point most people have of your home and garden.
A better solution is to build a staircase that follows the contours of the land, winding its way down the slope in graceful curves or zigzags.
Materials for Steps
The look of a stairway to the water can be as different as the many architectural styles that are such fun to look at on the Lake. The obvious construction materials for steps include stone, wood and brick. These can be used alone, such as for a wooden or stone staircase, or combined in all sorts of creative ways. For example, steps may be formed by landscape ties or logs and then filled in with gravel, shredded bark, concrete pavers, bricks or flagstones.
Your choice of material will most likely be driven by budget considerations, but also by the design of your house and dock. For example, a rustic cabin or A-frame probably calls for wooden steps. A contemporary house may look better with brick or stone, or perhaps some other modern material that is used in the house design.
Designing Steps for Comfort
The height of each step, called the rise, affects the length of your stride. If you are going up a stair with a very tall rise, you will tend to take short strides because you need the leg length to reach the next step. In contrast, if the rise is short, your stride will tend to be longer. As a rule of thumb, a comfortable guide to use to determine the best combination of tread depth and riser height is that the two numbers should add up to between 18 and 20. For example, if the tread is 12 inches deep, the rise should be about 7 inches. A deeper tread, say 15 inches, should have a short rise of about 4 inches.
A steep rise per step is much more tiring to walk up and down than a short step. Even a half an inch makes a huge difference. A 6-inch rise per stair is much easier and less tiring to climb than a 6½-inch rise, and a 7½-inch rise or more is exhausting. On a steep slope you can reduce the rise requirement by running the stairs across the face of the slope, rather than straight down.
A change in pace relieves the journey. A landing is always a welcome addition to an indoor staircase because it breaks the climb. The same is true outdoors. Vary your staircase with landings, using them as an opportunity to change the direction of the stairs or to change the rise if the slope contour becomes more or less steep at that point.
Here also is an opportunity for an arbor or gazebo with a bench so people can sit midway up the slope for a brief rest or to enjoy a different perspective on the Lake. The structure also will be an interesting focal point on the slope.
Stairs from the house to the dock are a major landscape focal point. For those who are up and down steps to the water several times a day, it’s also an important thoroughfare – so it’s important to get it right. Next time you ride around the Lake on your boat or personal watercraft, notice the different ways people have found to get to the water. You’ll find lots of good ideas for aesthetically pleasing as well as ergonomic solutions to a tricky problem.
March/April 2010
In Full Bloom
Lake-area nurseries offer a broad range of services and specialties
There are horticultural treasures at our fingertips at Smith Mountain Lake available at a wide variety of nurseries. Each nursery has a different strength or focus. Together, they add up to an excellent resource for both the avid gardener and those who want a low-maintenance landscape or who just want to express their creativity with a few well-planted containers.
The Growing Place
From the road you’d never guess the horticultural wonders available under the triple hoop houses at The Growing Place. In the 64,000-square-foot space, you’ll find a huge selection of perennials, including a wide choice of fern species, the latest exciting coral bells hybrids, sedums, hellebores, native plants, and hybrid coneflowers in a wide array of sunset colors. In the spring, you’ll find 50 varieties of tomatoes and an excellent selection of herbs, vegetables and hanging baskets. Owned by the Bayer family since 1982, Rachel Bayer, daughter of the founders, has been running The Growing Place since 1993. The Bayers grow 95 percent of their stock from tiny plugs, seeds and rooted cuttings. That’s a boon to customers because it means they are able to offer a wide selection of high-quality plants at low prices.
Lakescapes Nursery
A full-service nursery with two locations, Lakescapes provides landscape design and maintenance, has an excellent selection of trees, shrubs, annuals and perennials, and an informed staff to help customers make educated choices. But what makes Lakescapes stand out from other local nurseries is the incredible selection of ceramic containers. You’ll find hundreds of glazed pots in a wide variety of colors, shapes, sizes and designs ranging from traditional to avant-garde. It’s filled with a treasure trove of awesome amphora and urns.
Walter’s Greenhouse
A family owned business, the Walters grow a wide assortment of annuals and perennials which they sell in 2 ½-inch to 4-inch pots as well as in larger sizes. They also feature beautifully planted containers with creative, eye-catching flower and foliage combinations. You can buy one ready planted, or be inspired to create your own design. Another outstanding feature is an A-to-Z selection of herb, tomato and pepper varieties in starter-size containers. You’ll find heirloom as well as modern tomatoes, mild to tongue-exploding chili and pepper plants, and just about any herb you can think of, including named varieties of rosemary (different growth habits, flower color and hardiness) and lavender. Don’t miss the topiary animals, such as cats with “fiber optic” grass whiskers. A bit down the road from SML, but worth the trip.
Willowtree Nursery
Willowtree Nursery is the place to go for a wide selection of homegrown Proven Winners-brand plants as well as trees; shrubs, including natives; and Belgard landscape pavers and wall systems. Owner Brad Moles, who opened Willowtree Nursery in 1988, grows 30-40 varieties of the Proven Winners plants, which are tested and proven to perform bountifully in gardens throughout the country. An excellent plantsman with a Landscape Horticulture degree from Virginia Tech, Moles also provides landscape-design services, including lakeside buffer gardens that meet American Electric Power shoreline requirements.
Blackwater Nursery
Dave Jones’s family has been in the nursery business in Carroll County since 1902. In 1984, Jones opened his own nursery in Rocky Mount, and has been overseeing the family run business since. Son Bryan handles the landscaping- and hardscaping-design services while daughter Jillian manages the retail side of the business. Dave focuses on growing the trees and shrubs. “We grow about 80 percent of what we sell,” he said, which is great news for lake residents because you know you’re getting plants that are well adapted to this area.
Moneta Farm and Home Center
Moneta Farm and Home Center has been offering garden and farm supplies (plants as well as seeds, fertilizers, mulch, compost, manure, top soil, pest- and weed-control products, and statuary and ornaments) since 1973. You’ll find an excellent power-equipment department, including lawn mowers (push and riding), tillers, weed whackers, and electric or gas-powered hedge trimmers offered at competitive prices. The power-equipment department, which also provides full-service maintenance and repairs, is run by Jim Woodford, one of several members of the family’s third generation to be involved in the business. A one-stop shop for many products, you’ll also find products associated with farm and hardware stores, as well as an assortment of items hard to find anywhere else.
Lake-Area Nurseries
The Growing Place
Owner: Rachel Bayer
8747 Booker T. Washington Hwy., Wirtz
540.721.2574
Open March through October or early November depending on the weather.
Closed Sundays.
Lakescapes Nursery
Owner: Tim Tingler
Southlake
11509 Old Franklin Turnpike, Union Hall
540.576.2781, lakescapesnursery.com
Open year-round.
Westlake
13080 Booker T. Washington Hwy., Hardy
540.719.0028, lakescapesnursery.com
Open March to late December.
Walter’s Greenhouse
Owners: Rosalin Walter, Evelyn Walter Elwell, Janet Walter
1356 Coopers Cove Rd., Hardy
540.427.3578, waltersgreenhouse.com
Open mid-February to July 1.
Willowtree Nursery
Owner: Brad Moles
300 Old Mountain Rd., Penhook
540.576.3031
Open year-round.
Blackwater Nursery
Owner: Dave Jones
21367 Virgil H. Goode Hwy., Rocky Mount
540.334.3415
Open year-round.
Moneta Farm and Home Center
Owners: Stuart and Jim Woodford
11739 Moneta Rd., Moneta
540.297.5558, monetafhc.com
Open year-round.
November/December 2008
Naturally Festive
Use nature’s bounty to decorate for the holidays
If you’ve got visions of sugar plums dancing in your head as the holidays approach, then decorating your home with the bounty from the garden, your larder and nearby woods and fields is an obvious choice.
There are countless ways you can bring nature indoors to deck the halls for the holidays, ranging from simple arrangements of fruit and foliage and garlands made from ropes of evergreens to elaborate craft projects that combine pine cones, dried flowers and grasses, feathers and other materials to make striking holiday centerpieces and wreaths.
Rachel Yungman of Hardy is a master at working with dried plant material. She has an artist’s eye for the shapes, patterns, textures and colors of her dried materials, transforming them into beautiful arrangements and craft projects. For Thanksgiving she makes a turkey out of pine cones, seed pods and dried plants that is worthy of gracing any Thanksgiving table.
To make her turkey, Yungman glues individual pine cone scales onto a Styrofoam™ form in overlapping rows like shingles to create the neck and head. The body and tail are a mixture of dried seed pods and flowers stuck into an oasis base. Celosia serves as the wattle. Spiky flowers such as lavender, giant agastache, horehound, candle tip celosia and miniature cattails create the wide spread tail, and a turkey tail fungus tucked under the tail in back lives up to its name.
Mickey Stansbury, also of Hardy, is renowned for her tabletop trees made with nuts, acorns, shells, cinnamon sticks, dried pods and flowers, boxwood, holly and other natural materials.
There are three different bases she uses, depending on the tree. Styrofoam™ cones are ideal for nut trees (the nuts are baked at 250 degrees for two hours to kill any bugs) and trees made with dried hydrangea flowers. A waterlogged florist oasis block trimmed into a conical form is the best choice for trees made with living plants such as boxwood sprigs, holly, or other winter greenery. For larger trees with heavier greens and decorations, Stansbury opts for wire frames stuffed with oasis blocks.
In addition to trees that are purely decorative, Stansbury also makes edible ones for holiday parties. A guest favorite is the shrimp and vegetable tree. Stansbury covers a Styrofoam™ cone with red-leaf lettuce attached with floral pins. Then she skewers shrimp, grape or cherry tomatoes, black and green olives, and cut up vegetables such as carrots and zucchini with toothpicks and secures them to the tree in an attractive pattern. A bowl of dip placed at the base of the tree is a tasty accompaniment to the edibles on the tree.
For a bit of sparkle on your mantle or tabletop, consider making sugar-frosted fruit. It’s a simple project that provides dramatic results. Pears, plums, oranges, lemons, limes and grapes are all ideal candidates for frosting. The first step involves covering the fruit with an adhesive material so the sugar will stick. Possible adhesives include light corn syrup, spray glue or an egg white diluted with a tablespoon of water and beaten until frothy. Coat the fruit with one of these adhesive materials (if you are using spray glue, skewer the fruit and rotate it as you spray the glue), and then roll it in fine granulated sugar (regular granulated sugar works, but gives a coarser texture). Allow the fruit to dry on wax paper before arranging it on a platter or stacking the pieces in a decorative tower held together with bamboo skewers. Add ribbon or evergreen sprigs to finish off the display. The fruit will last well for about a week.
The ever-popular Williamsburg Christmas decorations are another source of inspiration for natural decorations. Simple pyramids of oranges or lemons with sprigs of boxwood or holly tucked in the gaps look elegant on a side table or mantle. Place a row of four pieces of fruit on the bottom, three on the next row, two and then one on top. If necessary, use bamboo skewers to hold the fruit in place.
A field trip to Colonial Williamsburg (see article on Page 56) at this time of year will provide a host of ideas for decorating with natural materials, as well as resources for frames and structures to facilitate making some of the decorate displays.
The possibilities for decorating for the holidays with materials from gardens, nearby woods and the produce aisle of the grocery store is limited only by your imagination. Celebrate the bounty of nature as you celebrate the holidays.
MayJune10
Craft Time!
Enhance a kid's day at SML with fun gardening projects
The grandchildren are visiting and they've worn themselves out boating, swimming, jet skiing, wakeboarding, fishing and generally having a good time in and near the water. They need a break, but television and computer games aren't what you have in mind. Why not try a gardening project?
There are numerous books on the market geared toward introducing children to gardening. One I particularly enjoy is Gardening with Kids by Catherine Woram and Martyn Cox.
Gardening with Kids is rich with ideas and tips to help parents and grandparents inspire a love of gardening in children, and beautifully illustrated with captivating photographs of children enjoying the described activities.
The first section provides a basic overview of the rudiments of gardening with a focus on children, but it is the subsequent chapters that come alive with step-by-step garden-related projects suitable for kids of varying ages.
The projects include simple activities like planting fast-sprouting seeds such as radishes and cress in egg shells decorated with faces. When the seeds sprout, the egg person has a fine head of "hair."
Another fun project in the "Growing" chapter is creating a tower of plants by stacking pots of diminishing size on top of each other and then planting the edges with succulents, herbs or flowers.
The book's "Making" chapter includes a number of fun possibilities - pressing flowers; creating an elf house with twigs, twine, acorns, felt and pipe cleaners; making pine cone animals; and potato printing.
Last summer, we asked two young Lakers to "test drive" two of the book's activities. Ben Gibson, 10, and McKenna-Kate Gaudio, 7, spent an afternoon painting flower pots and creating a bird bath from a plant saucer.
"My favorite part was coming up with the design ideas," McKenna-Kate said.
Ben added, "It was fun making both of them. I liked using the different colored stones and rocks."
The supplies were inexpensive, easy to find at a craft store and garden center, and the children loved taking their completed projects home. Of course, your little ones may want to leave their crafts behind for you as a memento of fun times spent together at Smith Mountain Lake.
The grandchildren are visiting and they've worn themselves out boating, swimming, jet skiing, wakeboarding, fishing and generally having a good time in and near the water. They need a break, but television and computer games aren't what you have in mind. Why not try a gardening project?
There are numerous books on the market geared toward introducing children to gardening. One I particularly enjoy is Gardening with Kids by Catherine Woram and Martyn Cox.
Gardening with Kids is rich with ideas and tips to help parents and grandparents inspire a love of gardening in children, and beautifully illustrated with captivating photographs of children enjoying the described activities.
The first section provides a basic overview of the rudiments of gardening with a focus on children, but it is the subsequent chapters that come alive with step-by-step garden-related projects suitable for kids of varying ages.
The projects include simple activities like planting fast-sprouting seeds such as radishes and cress in egg shells decorated with faces. When the seeds sprout, the egg person has a fine head of "hair."
Another fun project in the "Growing" chapter is creating a tower of plants by stacking pots of diminishing size on top of each other and then planting the edges with succulents, herbs or flowers.
The book's "Making" chapter includes a number of fun possibilities - pressing flowers; creating an elf house with twigs, twine, acorns, felt and pipe cleaners; making pine cone animals; and potato printing.
Last summer, we asked two young Lakers to "test drive" two of the book's activities. Ben Gibson, 10, and McKenna-Kate Gaudio, 7, spent an afternoon painting flower pots and creating a bird bath from a plant saucer.
"My favorite part was coming up with the design ideas," McKenna-Kate said.
Ben added, "It was fun making both of them. I liked using the different colored stones and rocks."
The supplies were inexpensive, easy to find at a craft store and garden center, and the children loved taking their completed projects home. Of course, your little ones may want to leave their crafts behind for you as a memento of fun times spent together at Smith Mountain Lake.
JulyAug05
A Garden by Night
After years of enjoying a simple A-frame house on the lakefront point property in Huddleston, the owners decided to expand. In addition to enlarging the house, they brought in landscape architect Robert McDuffie, who also is a professor of horticulture at Virginia Tech, to redesign the garden and Clay Johnston, president of Union Hall-based Outdoor Lighting Perspectives of Southern Virginia, to design the outdoor lighting. The third key person on the project was Kathy Smith of Smith Mountain Landscapes in Huddleston. She installed all the plants and made major contributions to selecting and placing them.
Plans for the garden and its illumination proceeded while the house was still under construction. To take advantage of the almost-level lot, McDuffie created a stroll garden with generously wide, paved paths that meander through the large property. Large-scale beds follow the contours of the paths and sweep away in graceful curves and swoops. A rich, green lawn connects and unifies the composition, providing open space and horizontal vistas between the beds.
The garden beds are masterfully planted with perennials and shrubs that provide a mixture of heights, foliage color and texture, and floral interest in different seasons. Individual species are planted together in large swaths suitable to the scale of the beds, giving coherence to the design. Mass plantings of annuals fill in the gaps in summer and provide pools of continuous color in the season. Taller plants screen views from one part of the garden to another, making some of the space feel more enclosed and intimate, as well as adding a sense of mystery about what’s around the curve of the path or just over the shrub.
McDuffie made a point of saving many of the indigenous trees that were already growing on the property, trimming them up so that the trunks are like architectural pillars and the leafy canopies provide dappled shade. They give a mature, established look to the garden, and on the lake side, frame the views of water and mountain.
The gently curving path that leads from the driveway to the front door spreads into a wider, circular space with a spectacular, three-tier Italian fountain that welcomes people with the musical sound of falling water.
At the fountain, one branch of the path continues to the front door, while another heads off in another direction. This path runs underneath a classic, vine-covered arbor. Two benches with mosaic tile seats face each other under the arbor so people can sit and enjoy the garden in a shady, bower setting.
On the lake side of the house, paved terraces overlook lawns that curve around beds that have a paisley-like pattern of swirled, abstract curved shapes.
Using the site plan for the house and landscape design, Johnston created an elaborate, sophisticated lightscape to enhance and complement McDuffie’s garden plans. It’s a flexible system, all low-voltage, so lights locations can be adjusted as the plants grow.
At the project’s onset, the owner’s one mandate was that the property should be well enough lit so that he could find it from the water when he returned home from a nighttime jaunt on his boat. Johnston also wanted to create a design that would enhance the landscape, adding to the nighttime allure of the property, highlight architectural features, and address the rather mundane, but necessary safety issues, such as adequately lighting paths and terraces.
To show off the beautiful architectural features of the house, Johnston put upward-facing lights just off the house walls, illuminating them in a technique called “uplighting” that brings out the texture and features of objects. Selected trees also are uplit, showing off the wonderful texture of their trunks and illuminating the leafy canopy from below. Well lights angled to focus the light appropriately shine on the arbor columns, drawing the eye to this delightful garden feature and encouraging visitors to enjoy its shelter on warm summer evenings.
The other major feature in the garden is the tall, elegant fountain. Seven underwater lights, three in the lowest basin and two each in the next two tiers, shine upwards, glowing on the golden colored stone and casting dancing water pattern reflections on the undersides of the basin above.
A necklace of copper lights line the paths and follow the curves of the many garden beds. In most cases the fixture’s full, circular hoods direct the light down onto the path or beds, but in situations where the light won’t shine in anyone’s eyes, Johnston used half hoods that let the light illuminate the nearby shrubbery and perennials as well.
In his lighting design, Johnston has created a harmonious whole with softly lit areas merging into the more brightly lit living spaces. This soft transition between bright and dark helps the eye to move smoothly through the composition to the different points of interest rather than leapfrogging unassisted over dark gaps to the next bright spot.
McDuffie’s masterful landscape scheme draws people into the property and leads them through varying experiences to the stunning view of the water. Complementing the whole and extending the access to the garden into the night, Johnston’s outdoor lighting design creates a welcoming atmosphere that enhances the unique features of both the landscaping and house of this very special lake property.
November/December 2005
Lake-Friendly Gardening
Low-maintenance buffer gardens provide a beautiful way to prevent runoff
Smith Mountain Lake has been rated one of the cleanest on the East Coast. But as development around the lake and the nearby watershed areas grows increasingly intense, the Lake’s water purity may be at risk. Fortunately, there is much that local homeowners can do to protect this valuable resource.
One of the major sources of pollutants for the Lake is water runoff from gardens. Fertilizers and other garden chemicals used by the thousands of people who live within the lake watershed area, as well as silt and animal waste, all leach into the lake. This pollution problem is intensified when homeowners strip the Lake shore land of all or most of its natural vegetation, and in its place plant a lawn that goes right down to the water’s edge.
American Electric Power’s recently enacted Shoreline Management Plan now prohibits lakefront homeowners from cutting down native vegetation within the 800 foot contour unless they substitute with other native plants that fulfill the same environmental function as the plant that’s removed.
But for properties that have already been stripped of natives, homeowners can still help by planting a buffer garden of native plants along the waterfront.
Called a riparian buffer (riparian refers to the banks of a river, stream or lake), ideally the bed should extend a minimum of 25 feet behind the rip-rap, and cover 50 percent of the shoreline frontage. However, even a small buffer is better than nothing.
There are many benefits, both aesthetic and practical, to planting natives along the shore:
•The shoreline plants filter rainwater and melting snow from the surrounding watershed, preventing fertilizers, pesticides, and other pollutants from entering the Lake.
•Sturdy plants, these natives survive adversity by establishing extensive root systems that burrow 3-8 feet deep, improving the soil structure and its ability to hold water. This network of roots is like living cement, adding strength to existing rip-rap, or possibly delaying the need to install it.
•Increased plant diversity adds to the beauty and interest of the shore, as well as reducing the risk of a pest or disease infestation due to growing just a few plants intensely.
•The plants are an important habitat for wildlife, including butterflies.
The plants act as an effective barrier to geese and ducks, keeping them out of your garden and off your lawn.
•Native plants are very low maintenance. They require no fertilizing (they grow leggy and unattractive if fed) and little or no watering once they’re established.
•By reducing the size of your lawn, turning over some of the garden space to native plants, you’ll save time and money on mowing and fertilizing.
What to Plant
A riparian buffer zone should contain a mixture of native trees, shrubs, wildflowers (known as forbs), grasses, and sedges.
The palette of available native plants, including many that have showy flowers, is extensive and attractive, so a buffer garden does not have to look like a weedy mess. Nor should it block your view to the water. Create your design so that the buffer planting frames your water view, adding depth and ever-changing seasonal interest. On a level lot, there may be a tree or shrub that obscures a portion of the view, but that can enhance the overall effect, creating patterns, silhouettes, and filtered glimpses of water.
How to Plant
The ideal planting time is the fall (spring is the next best), but before you set to work digging, you first need to make your plan. Begin by measuring the length of shore you plan to plant, and multiply that by the depth to get your square footage. If the space is too large to manage in one go for energy or budget reasons, start with a portion for this year, and enlarge the bed as you can.
Draw a plan on graph paper, placing grasses and sedges in a loose grid approximately 3 feet apart. Then add in a variety of wildflowers, spacing them within the grid of grasses and sedges. On average, plan on one plant for every 1.5 square feet, with approximately half being grasses and sedges, and half wildflowers.
Also add some trees and shrubs to give structure and mass to the design. On sloped lots, you can plant both trees shrubs at the water’s edge without obscuring the primary view from the house. Don’t forget that a framed or filtered view is more interesting than an uninterrupted expanse. Generally plan for 6 feet between shrubs, and do not plant anything more than 2 feet from their base.
You do not need to amend the soil for native plants, however if you already have grass planted, you’ll need to kill it. The best way to smother the lawn is to cover it with layers of newspapers or cardboard. Spread out the paper, and then wet it so it becomes soft and soggy. Then cover the entire area with organic mulch several inches deep. Plant through the mulch, paper and grass, making sure the new plants’ roots make contact with the soil. They will dry out and die if just planted in the top layer of sod. As you plant arrange the mulch around each plant so it is about 1/2 inch away from the stems. Finally, water well so the roots get a deep soaking.
By spring the covered grass will be dead, and the organic remains will nourish the newly planted natives.
Caring for Natives
The great benefit of growing natives is they require a minimum of maintenance. They don’t want to be fertilized, and once they’re established, all you’ll need to do is tidy up dead vegetation in spring and pull the occasional weed. However, the first two years you need to be vigilant about seeking out and pulling weeds so that the desired plants can get a firm hold. Check every two weeks, and pull any weeds you see. Also provide supplemental water the first year until the root systems are well established. A weekly deep watering is more beneficial than frequent shallow splashes. Shallow watering trains roots to stay near the surface. A good layer of mulch between the plants will help restrain weeds and keep moisture in the soil.
Invest now in planting a riparian buffer for the long term dividends of a beautiful landscape that requires less work than the traditional suburban garden, that attracts wildlife and promotes a cleaner lake.
A Winning Combination
Colorful annuals, perennials and shrubs create a stunning lake landscape
Viewed by land or by boat, Don and Karin Mullendore’s garden is a winner. Planted on a steep slope, the potentially difficult situation has been used to great advantage so that the garden is “presented” like a painting on an easel to viewers looking up from below. From above, it is an abstract design of shapes, colors and textures. Then there’s the flower garden overlooking the swimming pool where a medley of flowers provide summer-long interest. It all adds up to a spectacular scene worthy of the top prize in our first Lovely Laker Landscape Contest.
On the largest sloping face of the Mullendore’s yard, Gold Mop false cypresses (Chamaecyparis pisifera ‘Gold Mop’), Rosy Glow barberries, Burford hollies and Japanese maples provide the backbone to the design. The Gold Mops and barberries are planted in swaths, creating an undulating design of merging gold and pinkish red foliage punctuated with the red tinted foliage and distinctive arcing shape of a Japanese maple. Planted on a diagonal down the slope, Burford hollies cut a line through the free form planting, anchoring it with their dark green foliage and pruned spherical shape. A narrow brick path cuts across the slope through the shrubbery, leading down to the dock.
The flower garden planted on the upward slope along the path that leads to the swimming pool is the crowning jewel in the garden. Inspired by the English cottage gardens where a wide variety of flowers are crowded together in happy profusion, Karin has combined perennials, shrubs and annuals that flourish in our hot, humid summers.
The centerpiece to the flower garden is a Knock Out® rose that blooms nonstop from spring through the first frost and requires a minimum of care. A Rosy Glow barberry just behind it adds an appealing color echo, while a Gold Mop false cypress inserts a golden yellow accent. Towering over the composition is a white-flowering crape myrtle. At the feet of the shrubs is an abundance of perennial flowering plants, including phlox, black-eyed Susan, coreopsis, coneflowers and Shasta daisy. Annuals and biennials such as Wave® Petunias, impatiens, salvia, verbena and violas fill in the gaps.
As any true gardener will admit, getting the flower bed to where it is today has been a process of trial and error, and the experimentation continues as Karin learns what works well to give her continual bloom.
“Every spring I make the rounds of the nurseries to get flowers,” said Karin. “I started out with annuals, but gradually I’ve moved to perennials. I just use the annuals as fill.”
Shrubs have been removed to make more room for the perennials, and each year she looks at the composition with a critical eye, making plans to expand and refine the design for the following year.
A recent addition to the garden is the stone planter built across the length of the lower covered porch. Before the planter, shrubs hid the porch foundation. But when the Mullendores had masons on the property to build the stone retaining wall for the swimming pool, Karin asked them to build the planter so she could have flowers to look at while sitting on the porch.
“Up until this year, I’ve put annuals in the planters,” said Karin, “but this year I’m trying the red Flower Carpet Roses® planted with blue flowering verbena.”
So far, the combination is a success. Both bloom prolifically throughout the summer, creating a colorful foreground to the view of the lake.
Twenty-two years ago when the Mullendore’s first bought the property, the garden was nothing more than a few foundation shrubs put in by the builder. The homeowners’ vision and hard work has transformed the site, but the garden still isn’t done.
“It’s a work in progress,” said Karin. “The garden definitely isn’t finished.”
March/April 2008
Allergy-Free Gardening
Create an environment that’s beautiful and non-irritating
As spring approaches and the pollen count rises, it seems only natural that allergy sufferers are experiencing mixed feelings about the floral bounty of the season.
Allergies are a common problem in this country. More than 50 million people suffer from hay fever. Add to that the asthma sufferers and those with chronic sinus problems, and you have a lot of people who are leery of going out into the garden, let alone working in it. Fortunately, it’s possible to plant a garden that is virtually free of allergy-inducing plants. With carefully selected plants and thoughtful garden-management techniques, even people with severe allergies can experience the joy of gardening.
Qualities of Less-Allergenic Plants
Airborne pollen is a major source of allergies. Any plant that spreads its pollen by wind is going to be an allergy troublemaker. But not all airborne pollen is equally offending. Heavy pollen falls quickly to the ground fairly near the plant and does not cause too many problems. Lightweight pollen floats about on the air, covering everything with a fine yellow dust. Therefore, you’re better off choosing plants that produce heavy pollen. In general, plants that are pollinated by insects rather than by air will be better for sensitive gardeners.
There are flowering plants that are completely pollen-free. Here’s why: Some plants produce separate male and female flowers on a single plant, others have both male and female parts in each of its flowers. A third group of plants is single-sexed, either male or female. In the case of separate-sex plants, the males produce plenty of airborne pollen, while the female plants are pollen-free. In the case of species such as willows, ash, poplars, hollies and maples that have a reputation for causing allergy problems, it is the male plants that are the culprits. The females are blameless. The females get a bad rap, because they are considered messy when they drop berries or fruit, but if there isn’t a male plant in the vicinity, they won’t produce any fruit and will be perfectly clean.
Unfortunately, nursery tags don’t often give the sex of separate-sex plants. When applicable, it helps to know the cultivar name of the species you want so you’re sure to get a female variety. In the maple family, for example, opt for Acre x Freeman ‘Autumn Fantasy’ and ‘Indian Summer.’ For a red maple, choose A. rubrum ‘Autumn Glory,’ ‘Dave Red,’ ‘Doric,’ ‘Embers’, Festival,’ ‘Fanksred,’ ‘October Glory,’ ‘Red Skin,’ or ‘Red Sunset.’
Curiously, flower color and form influence the potential for allergies. Small, pale-colored flowers tend to be the worst offenders. Off-white and greenish-colored blossoms are notorious for provoking discomfort. In contrast, boldly colored trumpet-shaped flowers are a good choice for sensitive people, because the pollen is tucked down in the bottom of the cup where the insects crawl to collect it and where the wind can’t blow it around. Snapdragons are a great choice for an allergy-free garden. A bee has to pry open the flower to get to the pollen, and the flower pops back shut once the bee emerges.
Duration of the pollen release is another important factor. Some trees release pollen for only a few days a year. While it may be an uncomfortable few days, it’s usually tolerable. In contrast, trees such as the Arizona cypress and some eucalyptus flower throughout the year, creating an ongoing allergenic irritant.
For an excellent list of plants rated for their potential to irritate allergies, see Allergy-Free Gardening: The Revolutionary Guide to Healthy Landscaping by Thomas L. Ogren.
Minimizing Allergies in the Garden
There are lots of tricks to minimize your exposure to allergy-inducing irritants in your garden. Here are a few:
• Wear a face-mask filter when you mow your lawn to avoid exposure to the dust, pollen, mold spores, and chopped insect bodies that are blown into the air by the mower. Rotary power lawnmowers are particular offenders for dispersing irritants into the air. Instead, opt for a reel mower. Also, avoid mowing early in the morning when most grasses release the most pollen. If you hire the “mow, blow and go” gardeners to care for your lawn, close the windows while they’re working to cut down on exposure.
• Many shrubs produce small, allergy-promoting flowers. Shear them regularly to cut off the flowers before they develop. Likewise, give deciduous trees an annual trim, cutting back the ends of all branches to remove flower buds. This task is particularly important for trees that produce tiny flowers that are easy to overlook.
• Plant to attract birds. The birds will eat a huge number of insects, lowering allergy potential.
• Keep your plants healthy. The healtheir they are, the more resistant plants will be to pests and diseases that increase allergenic substances such as mold and insect dander. A disease- and pest-free plant is a less-allergenic plant.
• Molds are terrible for inducing allergic reactions. Fortunately, even in the garden you can minimize their presence. Good air circulation and sunlight are anathema to them. So to discourage mold in your garden, keep woodland areas pruned with a laced canopy so light can penetrate and fresh breezes can blow through. Some molds reside in compost heaps. Get someone else to turn the heap, and discard any plants infested with molds or mildews in the trash. Whether or not you suffer from allergies, never compost diseased plants. Natural fertilizers such as manure also may harbor mold spores. It’s not uncommon to blame a newly sprouted lawn for an allergy outbreak when in fact the real cause may be the molds that were unwittingly spread along with the fertilizer.
Your garden does not need to be a source of allergy irritants. With thought and creativity, you can create a beautiful environment that’s both comfortable and healthy.
November/December 2005
Lake-friendly gardening
Low-maintenance buffer gardens provide a beautiful way to prevent runoff
Smith Mountain Lake has been rated one of the cleanest on the East Coast. But as development around the lake and the nearby watershed areas grows increasingly intense, the Lake’s water purity may be at risk. Fortunately, there is much that local homeowners can do to protect this valuable resource.
One of the major sources of pollutants for the Lake is water runoff from gardens. Fertilizers and other garden chemicals used by the thousands of people who live within the lake watershed area, as well as silt and animal waste, all leach into the lake. This pollution problem is intensified when homeowners strip the Lake shore land of all or most of its natural vegetation, and in its place plant a lawn that goes right down to the water’s edge.
American Electric Power’s recently enacted Shoreline Management Plan now prohibits lakefront homeowners from cutting down native vegetation within the 800 foot contour unless they substitute with other native plants that fulfill the same environmental function as the plant that’s removed.
But for properties that have already been stripped of natives, homeowners can still help by planting a buffer garden of native plants along the waterfront.
Called a riparian buffer (riparian refers to the banks of a river, stream or lake), ideally the bed should extend a minimum of 25 feet behind the rip-rap, and cover 50 percent of the shoreline frontage. However, even a small buffer is better than nothing.
There are many benefits, both aesthetic and practical, to planting natives along the shore:
•The shoreline plants filter rainwater and melting snow from the surrounding watershed, preventing fertilizers, pesticides, and other pollutants from entering the Lake.
•Sturdy plants, these natives survive adversity by establishing extensive root systems that burrow 3-8 feet deep, improving the soil structure and its ability to hold water. This network of roots is like living cement, adding strength to existing rip-rap, or possibly delaying the need to install it.
•Increased plant diversity adds to the beauty and interest of the shore, as well as reducing the risk of a pest or disease infestation due to growing just a few plants intensely.
•The plants are an important habitat for wildlife, including butterflies.
The plants act as an effective barrier to geese and ducks, keeping them out of your garden and off your lawn.
•Native plants are very low maintenance. They require no fertilizing (they grow leggy and unattractive if fed) and little or no watering once they’re established.
•By reducing the size of your lawn, turning over some of the garden space to native plants, you’ll save time and money on mowing and fertilizing.
What to Plant
A riparian buffer zone should contain a mixture of native trees, shrubs, wildflowers (known as forbs), grasses, and sedges.
The palette of available native plants, including many that have showy flowers, is extensive and attractive, so a buffer garden does not have to look like a weedy mess. Nor should it block your view to the water. Create your design so that the buffer planting frames your water view, adding depth and ever-changing seasonal interest. On a level lot, there may be a tree or shrub that obscures a portion of the view, but that can enhance the overall effect, creating patterns, silhouettes, and filtered glimpses of water.
How to Plant
The ideal planting time is the fall (spring is the next best), but before you set to work digging, you first need to make your plan. Begin by measuring the length of shore you plan to plant, and multiply that by the depth to get your square footage. If the space is too large to manage in one go for energy or budget reasons, start with a portion for this year, and enlarge the bed as you can.
Draw a plan on graph paper, placing grasses and sedges in a loose grid approximately 3 feet apart. Then add in a variety of wildflowers, spacing them within the grid of grasses and sedges. On average, plan on one plant for every 1.5 square feet, with approximately half being grasses and sedges, and half wildflowers.
Also add some trees and shrubs to give structure and mass to the design. On sloped lots, you can plant both trees shrubs at the water’s edge without obscuring the primary view from the house. Don’t forget that a framed or filtered view is more interesting than an uninterrupted expanse. Generally plan for 6 feet between shrubs, and do not plant anything more than 2 feet from their base.
You do not need to amend the soil for native plants, however if you already have grass planted, you’ll need to kill it. The best way to smother the lawn is to cover it with layers of newspapers or cardboard. Spread out the paper, and then wet it so it becomes soft and soggy. Then cover the entire area with organic mulch several inches deep. Plant through the mulch, paper and grass, making sure the new plants’ roots make contact with the soil. They will dry out and die if just planted in the top layer of sod. As you plant arrange the mulch around each plant so it is about 1/2 inch away from the stems. Finally, water well so the roots get a deep soaking.
By spring the covered grass will be dead, and the organic remains will nourish the newly planted natives.
Caring for Natives
The great benefit of growing natives is they require a minimum of maintenance. They don’t want to be fertilized, and once they’re established, all you’ll need to do is tidy up dead vegetation in spring and pull the occasional weed. However, the first two years you need to be vigilant about seeking out and pulling weeds so that the desired plants can get a firm hold. Check every two weeks, and pull any weeds you see. Also provide supplemental water the first year until the root systems are well established. A weekly deep watering is more beneficial than frequent shallow splashes. Shallow watering trains roots to stay near the surface. A good layer of mulch between the plants will help restrain weeds and keep moisture in the soil.
Invest now in planting a riparian buffer for the long term dividends of a beautiful landscape that requires less work than the traditional suburban garden, that attracts wildlife and promotes a cleaner lake.
MayJune 2009
The Great Outdoors
Growing home trend enhances warm-weather entertaining
It’s summer time and the living is easy at Smith Mountain Lake. Life moves outdoors for activities on and around the lake as well as for relaxing and dining. In order to spend as much time outside as possible, many homeowners are creating outdoor "great rooms," incorporating a living room, dining room and kitchen for family gatherings and outdoor entertaining.
Elements in a well-appointed outdoor room include a seating and dining area with perhaps a focal point of a fireplace or fire pit, a cooking space, lighting and a water feature. To meet this growing garden trend, manufacturers are offering outdoor furnishings and fabrics, kitchen appliances, and lighting fixtures that have a high level of refinement, quality and durability.
Furnishing outdoor rooms
No outdoor room is complete without ample furniture for dining and lounging. Attractive, high-quality outdoor furniture also provides a smooth transition from the indoors to the outdoors and helps define the space as an extension of your home. In addition to chairs, consider furnishing an outdoor room with a love seat or two, end tables, and a coffee table to make a comfortable seating arrangement. Also don’t overlook the possibility of an indoor-outdoor carpet designed to withstand all that weather can throw at it.
Karen Cromwell, Smith Mountain Laker entertaining columnist who lives on the Blackwater, laid an all-weather carpet over the paved area of her patio to provide a softer flooring for the "living room." Because the seating is in the middle of a much larger open space overlooking the lake, the carpet also visually defines the seating area.
Charlie and Nancy Marshall have furnished their large deck overlooking the lake for both dining and outdoor lounging with matching, comfortable cushions on all the chairs. When Nancy sets her glass top table for entertaining, it looks as elegant and pretty as an indoor dining table.
Today, outdoor fabrics are almost indistinguishable from normal indoor upholstery material, and they come in a wide range of textures, patterns, and colors. In addition to being weatherproof, they are resistant to fading and staining. The colors remaining crisp and bright even when the fabric is dipped in chlorine bleach, and they wipe clean when splotched with staining food such as ketchup. You also don’t have to be limited to a narrow selection of pre made cushions. Indoor-outdoor fabric is available on bolts for custom made cushions and pillows, and shoppers can take home swatches to test.
Fireplaces and fire pits
You can extend the outdoor living season and provide a pleasant focal point in your outdoor living room, with a fireplace or fire pit. Just as indoors, homeowners can opt for either wood burning or gas-fired hearths. Gas is less messy than word-burning fireplaces and fire pits, and makes log storage and fire-building a task of the past. You also eliminate the problem of wood smoke blowing in an unwanted direction, but you miss out on the pleasant crackle of a traditional fire as well as the special smell of burning wood.
If you don’t have a built-in fire pit as part of your landscape and patio design, you can derive the same pleasure from the portable fire bowls available at most home supply stores.
Outdoor kitchens
Whether it's a simple hibatchi or kettle style barbecue; a high-end kitchen complete with cook top, refrigerator, sink with running water, warming drawers, and a dishwasher; or a specially constructed outdoor pizza oven, cooking outdoors is a prime summer activity.
You don’t need a lot of extra space to have a well-appointed outdoor kitchen. On a narrow wall on their deck overlooking the lake, Jerry and Janet Potter had enough space for a built-in barbecue and counter space with a sink and a refrigerator and storage space under the counter. They loved cooking and dining al fresco so much, they built a second kitchen on their dock.
"In the summer, Jerry cooks breakfast on the dock every morning," said Janet. The dock is furnished with a picnic table, so family members can enjoy their pancakes hot off the griddle. Ron and Colleen Toothman always loved making pizza, so an outdoor pizza oven was a must for them when they designed their lakeside outdoor kitchen. Now an invitation to one of their pizza parties is highly coveted; guests love constructing their custom pizzas, choosing from a wide array of toppings that Colleen spreads out on her outdoor kitchen counter.
The oven is not limited to baking pizza. The Toothmans usually cook a beef brisket after a pizza party, taking advantage of the cooling oven temperature. Other pizza oven recipes range from baking breads to cooking meats, fish, vegetables and even desserts.
While the Toothmans opted for a large, built-in oven, portable ones also are available at high-end cook supply stores such as Williams-Sonoma and Sur la Table.
Lighting
Outdoor lighting extends the usefulness of outdoor living rooms into the evening and adds atmosphere to the space. In addition to landscape lighting to illumine pathways and uplighting and downlighting to highlight plants and architectural features, consider stringing fairy lights in a nearby tree, hanging an outdoor chandelier from an overhanging tree bough or stringing Japanese lanterns between trees.
Water features
The sound of running water can have a musical quality that enhances the pleasure of being in a space. Reflecting pools also are appealing as they mirror the cloud patterns as well as any nearby plantings, and fish and lily ponds provide endless fascination.
Possible water features for an outdoor garden room include a free-standing fountain, a wall fountain with a catch basin, a raised or in-ground pond or a spa pool. Raised ponds and fountain catch basins have the added benefit of providing extra seating along the edge. Consider including underwater lighting to illumine the water and fountain features after dark.
May/June 2008
Dress up your dock
Containers can add a punch of color to your favorite outdoor space
Beautify your dock and enhance the experience for passersby on the water by decorating with containers brimming with color. “Ah,” you may say. “Great idea, but I’m not at the lake often enough to keep them watered.” Not a problem. Fortunately, a lot of good container plants thrive in heat and drought, and you can amend the planting medium so it retains moisture, significantly reducing the watering requirements.
Container Choices
New, modern materials have added a whole range of container styles that are lightweight, durable and attractive. One is molded fiberglass, cast and finished so it resembles stone, clay or a metal such as wrought iron, lead, rusted iron or bronze. They are available shaped into planters, urns and tubs.
Another modern material for garden containers is polyurethane foam, which is formed to resemble terracotta, cast stone, wood and even rattan. Like the fiberglass containers, they are more durable than ceramic or clay, able to withstand year-round extreme temperatures and exposure to sunlight without cracking or fading. These planters also are easier to lift and maneuver because they are 90 percent lighter than clay pots.
You might also consider opting for something totally unexpected. What about an abandoned rowboat? Or a leaky pair of fishing waders? Build containers into a bench or attach window boxes along the rim of the dock.
Most docks cover a large expanse of space, so your containers need to be large to fit with that scale. Anything too small will look insignificant, and too-small containers risk blowing over in a gust of wind. If you’ve already got containers, but they’re smaller than ideal, group them together to create a larger visual mass. Grouped containers also enhance the effect of a bountiful bouquet or flower garden.
Planting Medium
The term “potting soil” is misleading because, in fact, you should be using a soil-less mix for your containers, not top soil or soil taken from your garden. Real soil is too dense for container plants, discouraging quick root spread and draining poorly.
Although more costly than homemade potting mix, you can save time and trouble if you purchase a good quality potting soil from a local nursery. Look for a mixture that has time-release fertilizer and water-absorbent polymers (also known as hydro gels, polymer crystals or water gels). The fertilizer will feed your plants for weeks during the growing season and the polymers will help the mixture retain and release moisture to the plants when you aren’t there to water. When properly used, the polymer crystals can reduce watering frequency by 50-75 percent in potted plants. Add a few extra scoops of peat moss to the mix and stir in well. It will help prevent the containers from drying out.
As a guideline to how much potting mix you will need, a two-cubic-foot bag will fill 4-6 one-gallon containers, 2-4 two-gallon containers or two five-gallon containers.
Choosing the Plants
The fun part of this project is choosing the plants. Head off to a good nursery and gather together a variety of plants. Experiment with different combinations, setting plants next to each other in their containers to see how they look together. As a rule of thumb, you want something tall in the center of the pot, lower plants in the next row, and cascading plants along the edge. Plan to overfill the pot so you have a full display.
Don’t overlook the possibility of foliage interest as well as flowers. Small shrubs, such as the beautiful Caryopteris Sunshine Blue® PPAF with its golden foliage and sky blue flowers in late summer or the 2007 introduction Weigela My Monet®™, which grows only 12-18 inches tall and has colorful green, cream and pink foliage, will provide season-long interest. Vines are another good possibility. Set the container next to one of the dock support posts and train the vine to grow up it.
Other plants that add interesting color and texture to your container compositions include oregano, parlsey, ornamental grasses, trailing vinca, and of course the long-flowering annuals such as geranium, angelonica, zinnias, pansies (both upright and trailing), million bells (Calibrachoa), and Gerbera daisies. If you’re really concerned about drought conditions, pick a medley of succulents for both water-free care and gorgeous colors and textures.
For best results, fill the containers with lots of different plants to create a bountiful, textured mixture.
Planting the Pots
When you’re ready to set up the containers, take all your supplies down to the dock. Position the containers, cover the drainage hole with wire mesh or a pot shard, and partially fill the containers with your potting mix so the soil level is about 1 inch below the pot rim plus the depth of the rootballs of the plants you are going to use. Water and allow the mixture to settle. Add more planting mix to bring back up the level. Then, with the plants still in their little pots, arrange them in the large container.
When you’re happy with their positions, slide each plant out of it’s little pot and place it in its new home. If the plants are rootbound, break up the root ball or tear away some of the outer roots to encourage new growth. Continue adding plants, filling in any gaps between the root balls with additional planting mix. When finished planting, tap down the soil and rootballs and water again, soaking the container thoroughly.
Within a few weeks you will have a colorful plant display to delight you and your family as well as passersby on the water.
September/October 2007
Flights of Fancy
Staircase design can be beautiful as well as functional
When confronted with a difficult garden problem, the famous 18th Century landscape gardener Lancelot “Capability” Brown used to say that he saw “great capability for landscape improvement.” So it is on Smith Mountain Lake. The challenge that hillside lots present for accessing the water is a design opportunity.
Unfortunately, many people take the efficient approach to staircase design. Adhering to the theory that the fastest way to get from point A to point B is in a straight line, they run their stairs directly down the slope – like a plumb line to the water’s edge. Since nature generally doesn’t have straight lines the result often looks like a scar on the landscape. In addition, the straight line visually extends the apparent length of the staircase, making the hike up and down the hill look longer than it is. The long, straight stairs also makes the journey up and down more tedious because there is no variation or rest area along the way.
A second common problem is purchasing ready-made flights of stairs that in steep situations sit high above ground level, standing out dramatically on the slope. A hand rail, which is required by code if a structure is more than 30 inches off the ground, adds more busyness to the composition. In addition, the homeowner has to pay for more building materials to create the rails. Another common cost-saving measure is to leave the face of the rise open, exposing the structural underpinning of the stairs. While that does save a little money on materials and labor, these stairs can look unattractive from the Lake, which is the primary viewing point most people have of your home and garden.
A better solution is to build a staircase that follows the contours of the land, winding its way down the slope in graceful curves or zigzags.
Materials for Steps
The look of a stairway to the water can be as different as the many architectural styles that are such fun to look at on the Lake. The obvious construction materials for steps include stone, wood and brick. These can be used alone, such as for a wooden or stone staircase, or combined in all sorts of creative ways. For example, steps may be formed by landscape ties or logs and then filled in with gravel, shredded bark, concrete pavers, bricks or flagstones.
Your choice of material will most likely be driven by budget considerations, but also by the design of your house and dock. For example, a rustic cabin or A-frame probably calls for wooden steps. A contemporary house may look better with brick or stone, or perhaps some other modern material that is used in the house design.
Designing Steps for Comfort
The height of each step, called the rise, affects the length of your stride. If you are going up a stair with a very tall rise, you will tend to take short strides because you need the leg length to reach the next step. In contrast, if the rise is short, your stride will tend to be longer. As a rule of thumb, a comfortable guide to use to determine the best combination of tread depth and riser height is that the two numbers should add up to between 18 and 20. For example, if the tread is 12 inches deep, the rise should be about 7 inches. A deeper tread, say 15 inches, should have a short rise of about 4 inches.
A steep rise per step is much more tiring to walk up and down than a short step. Even a half an inch makes a huge difference. A 6-inch rise per stair is much easier and less tiring to climb than a 6½-inch rise, and a 7½-inch rise or more is exhausting. On a steep slope you can reduce the rise requirement by running the stairs across the face of the slope, rather than straight down.
A change in pace relieves the journey. A landing is always a welcome addition to an indoor staircase because it breaks the climb. The same is true outdoors. Vary your staircase with landings, using them as an opportunity to change the direction of the stairs or to change the rise if the slope contour becomes more or less steep at that point.
Here also is an opportunity for an arbor or gazebo with a bench so people can sit midway up the slope for a brief rest or to enjoy a different perspective on the Lake. The structure also will be an interesting focal point on the slope.
Stairs from the house to the dock are a major landscape focal point. For those who are up and down steps to the water several times a day, it’s also an important thoroughfare – so it’s important to get it right. Next time you ride around the Lake on your boat or personal watercraft, notice the different ways people have found to get to the water. You’ll find lots of good ideas for aesthetically pleasing as well as ergonomic solutions to a tricky problem.
March/April 2010
In Full Bloom
Lake-area nurseries offer a broad range of services and specialties
There are horticultural treasures at our fingertips at Smith Mountain Lake available at a wide variety of nurseries. Each nursery has a different strength or focus. Together, they add up to an excellent resource for both the avid gardener and those who want a low-maintenance landscape or who just want to express their creativity with a few well-planted containers.
The Growing Place
From the road you’d never guess the horticultural wonders available under the triple hoop houses at The Growing Place. In the 64,000-square-foot space, you’ll find a huge selection of perennials, including a wide choice of fern species, the latest exciting coral bells hybrids, sedums, hellebores, native plants, and hybrid coneflowers in a wide array of sunset colors. In the spring, you’ll find 50 varieties of tomatoes and an excellent selection of herbs, vegetables and hanging baskets. Owned by the Bayer family since 1982, Rachel Bayer, daughter of the founders, has been running The Growing Place since 1993. The Bayers grow 95 percent of their stock from tiny plugs, seeds and rooted cuttings. That’s a boon to customers because it means they are able to offer a wide selection of high-quality plants at low prices.
Lakescapes Nursery
A full-service nursery with two locations, Lakescapes provides landscape design and maintenance, has an excellent selection of trees, shrubs, annuals and perennials, and an informed staff to help customers make educated choices. But what makes Lakescapes stand out from other local nurseries is the incredible selection of ceramic containers. You’ll find hundreds of glazed pots in a wide variety of colors, shapes, sizes and designs ranging from traditional to avant-garde. It’s filled with a treasure trove of awesome amphora and urns.
Walter’s Greenhouse
A family owned business, the Walters grow a wide assortment of annuals and perennials which they sell in 2 ½-inch to 4-inch pots as well as in larger sizes. They also feature beautifully planted containers with creative, eye-catching flower and foliage combinations. You can buy one ready planted, or be inspired to create your own design. Another outstanding feature is an A-to-Z selection of herb, tomato and pepper varieties in starter-size containers. You’ll find heirloom as well as modern tomatoes, mild to tongue-exploding chili and pepper plants, and just about any herb you can think of, including named varieties of rosemary (different growth habits, flower color and hardiness) and lavender. Don’t miss the topiary animals, such as cats with “fiber optic” grass whiskers. A bit down the road from SML, but worth the trip.
Willowtree Nursery
Willowtree Nursery is the place to go for a wide selection of homegrown Proven Winners-brand plants as well as trees; shrubs, including natives; and Belgard landscape pavers and wall systems. Owner Brad Moles, who opened Willowtree Nursery in 1988, grows 30-40 varieties of the Proven Winners plants, which are tested and proven to perform bountifully in gardens throughout the country. An excellent plantsman with a Landscape Horticulture degree from Virginia Tech, Moles also provides landscape-design services, including lakeside buffer gardens that meet American Electric Power shoreline requirements.
Blackwater Nursery
Dave Jones’s family has been in the nursery business in Carroll County since 1902. In 1984, Jones opened his own nursery in Rocky Mount, and has been overseeing the family run business since. Son Bryan handles the landscaping- and hardscaping-design services while daughter Jillian manages the retail side of the business. Dave focuses on growing the trees and shrubs. “We grow about 80 percent of what we sell,” he said, which is great news for lake residents because you know you’re getting plants that are well adapted to this area.
Moneta Farm and Home Center
Moneta Farm and Home Center has been offering garden and farm supplies (plants as well as seeds, fertilizers, mulch, compost, manure, top soil, pest- and weed-control products, and statuary and ornaments) since 1973. You’ll find an excellent power-equipment department, including lawn mowers (push and riding), tillers, weed whackers, and electric or gas-powered hedge trimmers offered at competitive prices. The power-equipment department, which also provides full-service maintenance and repairs, is run by Jim Woodford, one of several members of the family’s third generation to be involved in the business. A one-stop shop for many products, you’ll also find products associated with farm and hardware stores, as well as an assortment of items hard to find anywhere else.
Lake-Area Nurseries
The Growing Place
Owner: Rachel Bayer
8747 Booker T. Washington Hwy., Wirtz
540.721.2574
Open March through October or early November depending on the weather.
Closed Sundays.
Lakescapes Nursery
Owner: Tim Tingler
Southlake
11509 Old Franklin Turnpike, Union Hall
540.576.2781, lakescapesnursery.com
Open year-round.
Westlake
13080 Booker T. Washington Hwy., Hardy
540.719.0028, lakescapesnursery.com
Open March to late December.
Walter’s Greenhouse
Owners: Rosalin Walter, Evelyn Walter Elwell, Janet Walter
1356 Coopers Cove Rd., Hardy
540.427.3578, waltersgreenhouse.com
Open mid-February to July 1.
Willowtree Nursery
Owner: Brad Moles
300 Old Mountain Rd., Penhook
540.576.3031
Open year-round.
Blackwater Nursery
Owner: Dave Jones
21367 Virgil H. Goode Hwy., Rocky Mount
540.334.3415
Open year-round.
Moneta Farm and Home Center
Owners: Stuart and Jim Woodford
11739 Moneta Rd., Moneta
540.297.5558, monetafhc.com
Open year-round.
November/December 2008
Naturally Festive
Use nature’s bounty to decorate for the holidays
If you’ve got visions of sugar plums dancing in your head as the holidays approach, then decorating your home with the bounty from the garden, your larder and nearby woods and fields is an obvious choice.
There are countless ways you can bring nature indoors to deck the halls for the holidays, ranging from simple arrangements of fruit and foliage and garlands made from ropes of evergreens to elaborate craft projects that combine pine cones, dried flowers and grasses, feathers and other materials to make striking holiday centerpieces and wreaths.
Rachel Yungman of Hardy is a master at working with dried plant material. She has an artist’s eye for the shapes, patterns, textures and colors of her dried materials, transforming them into beautiful arrangements and craft projects. For Thanksgiving she makes a turkey out of pine cones, seed pods and dried plants that is worthy of gracing any Thanksgiving table.
To make her turkey, Yungman glues individual pine cone scales onto a Styrofoam™ form in overlapping rows like shingles to create the neck and head. The body and tail are a mixture of dried seed pods and flowers stuck into an oasis base. Celosia serves as the wattle. Spiky flowers such as lavender, giant agastache, horehound, candle tip celosia and miniature cattails create the wide spread tail, and a turkey tail fungus tucked under the tail in back lives up to its name.
Mickey Stansbury, also of Hardy, is renowned for her tabletop trees made with nuts, acorns, shells, cinnamon sticks, dried pods and flowers, boxwood, holly and other natural materials.
There are three different bases she uses, depending on the tree. Styrofoam™ cones are ideal for nut trees (the nuts are baked at 250 degrees for two hours to kill any bugs) and trees made with dried hydrangea flowers. A waterlogged florist oasis block trimmed into a conical form is the best choice for trees made with living plants such as boxwood sprigs, holly, or other winter greenery. For larger trees with heavier greens and decorations, Stansbury opts for wire frames stuffed with oasis blocks.
In addition to trees that are purely decorative, Stansbury also makes edible ones for holiday parties. A guest favorite is the shrimp and vegetable tree. Stansbury covers a Styrofoam™ cone with red-leaf lettuce attached with floral pins. Then she skewers shrimp, grape or cherry tomatoes, black and green olives, and cut up vegetables such as carrots and zucchini with toothpicks and secures them to the tree in an attractive pattern. A bowl of dip placed at the base of the tree is a tasty accompaniment to the edibles on the tree.
For a bit of sparkle on your mantle or tabletop, consider making sugar-frosted fruit. It’s a simple project that provides dramatic results. Pears, plums, oranges, lemons, limes and grapes are all ideal candidates for frosting. The first step involves covering the fruit with an adhesive material so the sugar will stick. Possible adhesives include light corn syrup, spray glue or an egg white diluted with a tablespoon of water and beaten until frothy. Coat the fruit with one of these adhesive materials (if you are using spray glue, skewer the fruit and rotate it as you spray the glue), and then roll it in fine granulated sugar (regular granulated sugar works, but gives a coarser texture). Allow the fruit to dry on wax paper before arranging it on a platter or stacking the pieces in a decorative tower held together with bamboo skewers. Add ribbon or evergreen sprigs to finish off the display. The fruit will last well for about a week.
The ever-popular Williamsburg Christmas decorations are another source of inspiration for natural decorations. Simple pyramids of oranges or lemons with sprigs of boxwood or holly tucked in the gaps look elegant on a side table or mantle. Place a row of four pieces of fruit on the bottom, three on the next row, two and then one on top. If necessary, use bamboo skewers to hold the fruit in place.
A field trip to Colonial Williamsburg (see article on Page 56) at this time of year will provide a host of ideas for decorating with natural materials, as well as resources for frames and structures to facilitate making some of the decorate displays.
The possibilities for decorating for the holidays with materials from gardens, nearby woods and the produce aisle of the grocery store is limited only by your imagination. Celebrate the bounty of nature as you celebrate the holidays.
MayJune10
Craft Time!
Enhance a kid's day at SML with fun gardening projects
The grandchildren are visiting and they've worn themselves out boating, swimming, jet skiing, wakeboarding, fishing and generally having a good time in and near the water. They need a break, but television and computer games aren't what you have in mind. Why not try a gardening project?
There are numerous books on the market geared toward introducing children to gardening. One I particularly enjoy is Gardening with Kids by Catherine Woram and Martyn Cox.
Gardening with Kids is rich with ideas and tips to help parents and grandparents inspire a love of gardening in children, and beautifully illustrated with captivating photographs of children enjoying the described activities.
The first section provides a basic overview of the rudiments of gardening with a focus on children, but it is the subsequent chapters that come alive with step-by-step garden-related projects suitable for kids of varying ages.
The projects include simple activities like planting fast-sprouting seeds such as radishes and cress in egg shells decorated with faces. When the seeds sprout, the egg person has a fine head of "hair."
Another fun project in the "Growing" chapter is creating a tower of plants by stacking pots of diminishing size on top of each other and then planting the edges with succulents, herbs or flowers.
The book's "Making" chapter includes a number of fun possibilities - pressing flowers; creating an elf house with twigs, twine, acorns, felt and pipe cleaners; making pine cone animals; and potato printing.
Last summer, we asked two young Lakers to "test drive" two of the book's activities. Ben Gibson, 10, and McKenna-Kate Gaudio, 7, spent an afternoon painting flower pots and creating a bird bath from a plant saucer.
"My favorite part was coming up with the design ideas," McKenna-Kate said.
Ben added, "It was fun making both of them. I liked using the different colored stones and rocks."
The supplies were inexpensive, easy to find at a craft store and garden center, and the children loved taking their completed projects home. Of course, your little ones may want to leave their crafts behind for you as a memento of fun times spent together at Smith Mountain Lake.
The grandchildren are visiting and they've worn themselves out boating, swimming, jet skiing, wakeboarding, fishing and generally having a good time in and near the water. They need a break, but television and computer games aren't what you have in mind. Why not try a gardening project?
There are numerous books on the market geared toward introducing children to gardening. One I particularly enjoy is Gardening with Kids by Catherine Woram and Martyn Cox.
Gardening with Kids is rich with ideas and tips to help parents and grandparents inspire a love of gardening in children, and beautifully illustrated with captivating photographs of children enjoying the described activities.
The first section provides a basic overview of the rudiments of gardening with a focus on children, but it is the subsequent chapters that come alive with step-by-step garden-related projects suitable for kids of varying ages.
The projects include simple activities like planting fast-sprouting seeds such as radishes and cress in egg shells decorated with faces. When the seeds sprout, the egg person has a fine head of "hair."
Another fun project in the "Growing" chapter is creating a tower of plants by stacking pots of diminishing size on top of each other and then planting the edges with succulents, herbs or flowers.
The book's "Making" chapter includes a number of fun possibilities - pressing flowers; creating an elf house with twigs, twine, acorns, felt and pipe cleaners; making pine cone animals; and potato printing.
Last summer, we asked two young Lakers to "test drive" two of the book's activities. Ben Gibson, 10, and McKenna-Kate Gaudio, 7, spent an afternoon painting flower pots and creating a bird bath from a plant saucer.
"My favorite part was coming up with the design ideas," McKenna-Kate said.
Ben added, "It was fun making both of them. I liked using the different colored stones and rocks."
The supplies were inexpensive, easy to find at a craft store and garden center, and the children loved taking their completed projects home. Of course, your little ones may want to leave their crafts behind for you as a memento of fun times spent together at Smith Mountain Lake.
JulyAug05
A Garden by Night
After years of enjoying a simple A-frame house on the lakefront point property in Huddleston, the owners decided to expand. In addition to enlarging the house, they brought in landscape architect Robert McDuffie, who also is a professor of horticulture at Virginia Tech, to redesign the garden and Clay Johnston, president of Union Hall-based Outdoor Lighting Perspectives of Southern Virginia, to design the outdoor lighting. The third key person on the project was Kathy Smith of Smith Mountain Landscapes in Huddleston. She installed all the plants and made major contributions to selecting and placing them.
Plans for the garden and its illumination proceeded while the house was still under construction. To take advantage of the almost-level lot, McDuffie created a stroll garden with generously wide, paved paths that meander through the large property. Large-scale beds follow the contours of the paths and sweep away in graceful curves and swoops. A rich, green lawn connects and unifies the composition, providing open space and horizontal vistas between the beds.
The garden beds are masterfully planted with perennials and shrubs that provide a mixture of heights, foliage color and texture, and floral interest in different seasons. Individual species are planted together in large swaths suitable to the scale of the beds, giving coherence to the design. Mass plantings of annuals fill in the gaps in summer and provide pools of continuous color in the season. Taller plants screen views from one part of the garden to another, making some of the space feel more enclosed and intimate, as well as adding a sense of mystery about what’s around the curve of the path or just over the shrub.
McDuffie made a point of saving many of the indigenous trees that were already growing on the property, trimming them up so that the trunks are like architectural pillars and the leafy canopies provide dappled shade. They give a mature, established look to the garden, and on the lake side, frame the views of water and mountain.
The gently curving path that leads from the driveway to the front door spreads into a wider, circular space with a spectacular, three-tier Italian fountain that welcomes people with the musical sound of falling water.
At the fountain, one branch of the path continues to the front door, while another heads off in another direction. This path runs underneath a classic, vine-covered arbor. Two benches with mosaic tile seats face each other under the arbor so people can sit and enjoy the garden in a shady, bower setting.
On the lake side of the house, paved terraces overlook lawns that curve around beds that have a paisley-like pattern of swirled, abstract curved shapes.
Using the site plan for the house and landscape design, Johnston created an elaborate, sophisticated lightscape to enhance and complement McDuffie’s garden plans. It’s a flexible system, all low-voltage, so lights locations can be adjusted as the plants grow.
At the project’s onset, the owner’s one mandate was that the property should be well enough lit so that he could find it from the water when he returned home from a nighttime jaunt on his boat. Johnston also wanted to create a design that would enhance the landscape, adding to the nighttime allure of the property, highlight architectural features, and address the rather mundane, but necessary safety issues, such as adequately lighting paths and terraces.
To show off the beautiful architectural features of the house, Johnston put upward-facing lights just off the house walls, illuminating them in a technique called “uplighting” that brings out the texture and features of objects. Selected trees also are uplit, showing off the wonderful texture of their trunks and illuminating the leafy canopy from below. Well lights angled to focus the light appropriately shine on the arbor columns, drawing the eye to this delightful garden feature and encouraging visitors to enjoy its shelter on warm summer evenings.
The other major feature in the garden is the tall, elegant fountain. Seven underwater lights, three in the lowest basin and two each in the next two tiers, shine upwards, glowing on the golden colored stone and casting dancing water pattern reflections on the undersides of the basin above.
A necklace of copper lights line the paths and follow the curves of the many garden beds. In most cases the fixture’s full, circular hoods direct the light down onto the path or beds, but in situations where the light won’t shine in anyone’s eyes, Johnston used half hoods that let the light illuminate the nearby shrubbery and perennials as well.
In his lighting design, Johnston has created a harmonious whole with softly lit areas merging into the more brightly lit living spaces. This soft transition between bright and dark helps the eye to move smoothly through the composition to the different points of interest rather than leapfrogging unassisted over dark gaps to the next bright spot.
McDuffie’s masterful landscape scheme draws people into the property and leads them through varying experiences to the stunning view of the water. Complementing the whole and extending the access to the garden into the night, Johnston’s outdoor lighting design creates a welcoming atmosphere that enhances the unique features of both the landscaping and house of this very special lake property.
November/December 2005
Lake-Friendly Gardening
Low-maintenance buffer gardens provide a beautiful way to prevent runoff
Smith Mountain Lake has been rated one of the cleanest on the East Coast. But as development around the lake and the nearby watershed areas grows increasingly intense, the Lake’s water purity may be at risk. Fortunately, there is much that local homeowners can do to protect this valuable resource.
One of the major sources of pollutants for the Lake is water runoff from gardens. Fertilizers and other garden chemicals used by the thousands of people who live within the lake watershed area, as well as silt and animal waste, all leach into the lake. This pollution problem is intensified when homeowners strip the Lake shore land of all or most of its natural vegetation, and in its place plant a lawn that goes right down to the water’s edge.
American Electric Power’s recently enacted Shoreline Management Plan now prohibits lakefront homeowners from cutting down native vegetation within the 800 foot contour unless they substitute with other native plants that fulfill the same environmental function as the plant that’s removed.
But for properties that have already been stripped of natives, homeowners can still help by planting a buffer garden of native plants along the waterfront.
Called a riparian buffer (riparian refers to the banks of a river, stream or lake), ideally the bed should extend a minimum of 25 feet behind the rip-rap, and cover 50 percent of the shoreline frontage. However, even a small buffer is better than nothing.
There are many benefits, both aesthetic and practical, to planting natives along the shore:
•The shoreline plants filter rainwater and melting snow from the surrounding watershed, preventing fertilizers, pesticides, and other pollutants from entering the Lake.
•Sturdy plants, these natives survive adversity by establishing extensive root systems that burrow 3-8 feet deep, improving the soil structure and its ability to hold water. This network of roots is like living cement, adding strength to existing rip-rap, or possibly delaying the need to install it.
•Increased plant diversity adds to the beauty and interest of the shore, as well as reducing the risk of a pest or disease infestation due to growing just a few plants intensely.
•The plants are an important habitat for wildlife, including butterflies.
The plants act as an effective barrier to geese and ducks, keeping them out of your garden and off your lawn.
•Native plants are very low maintenance. They require no fertilizing (they grow leggy and unattractive if fed) and little or no watering once they’re established.
•By reducing the size of your lawn, turning over some of the garden space to native plants, you’ll save time and money on mowing and fertilizing.
What to Plant
A riparian buffer zone should contain a mixture of native trees, shrubs, wildflowers (known as forbs), grasses, and sedges.
The palette of available native plants, including many that have showy flowers, is extensive and attractive, so a buffer garden does not have to look like a weedy mess. Nor should it block your view to the water. Create your design so that the buffer planting frames your water view, adding depth and ever-changing seasonal interest. On a level lot, there may be a tree or shrub that obscures a portion of the view, but that can enhance the overall effect, creating patterns, silhouettes, and filtered glimpses of water.
How to Plant
The ideal planting time is the fall (spring is the next best), but before you set to work digging, you first need to make your plan. Begin by measuring the length of shore you plan to plant, and multiply that by the depth to get your square footage. If the space is too large to manage in one go for energy or budget reasons, start with a portion for this year, and enlarge the bed as you can.
Draw a plan on graph paper, placing grasses and sedges in a loose grid approximately 3 feet apart. Then add in a variety of wildflowers, spacing them within the grid of grasses and sedges. On average, plan on one plant for every 1.5 square feet, with approximately half being grasses and sedges, and half wildflowers.
Also add some trees and shrubs to give structure and mass to the design. On sloped lots, you can plant both trees shrubs at the water’s edge without obscuring the primary view from the house. Don’t forget that a framed or filtered view is more interesting than an uninterrupted expanse. Generally plan for 6 feet between shrubs, and do not plant anything more than 2 feet from their base.
You do not need to amend the soil for native plants, however if you already have grass planted, you’ll need to kill it. The best way to smother the lawn is to cover it with layers of newspapers or cardboard. Spread out the paper, and then wet it so it becomes soft and soggy. Then cover the entire area with organic mulch several inches deep. Plant through the mulch, paper and grass, making sure the new plants’ roots make contact with the soil. They will dry out and die if just planted in the top layer of sod. As you plant arrange the mulch around each plant so it is about 1/2 inch away from the stems. Finally, water well so the roots get a deep soaking.
By spring the covered grass will be dead, and the organic remains will nourish the newly planted natives.
Caring for Natives
The great benefit of growing natives is they require a minimum of maintenance. They don’t want to be fertilized, and once they’re established, all you’ll need to do is tidy up dead vegetation in spring and pull the occasional weed. However, the first two years you need to be vigilant about seeking out and pulling weeds so that the desired plants can get a firm hold. Check every two weeks, and pull any weeds you see. Also provide supplemental water the first year until the root systems are well established. A weekly deep watering is more beneficial than frequent shallow splashes. Shallow watering trains roots to stay near the surface. A good layer of mulch between the plants will help restrain weeds and keep moisture in the soil.
Invest now in planting a riparian buffer for the long term dividends of a beautiful landscape that requires less work than the traditional suburban garden, that attracts wildlife and promotes a cleaner lake.
