Perennials – Page 33 – Ellis Hollow

Motherplants: Where green roofs are born

The mother plants at Motherplants (above) and demo dog house (right).

This morning, I stopped by Motherplants — a woman-owned nursery specializing in plants for green roofs. Marguerite, a friend and co-worker, is one of the operation’s principals, and I’ve been having her save up some ‘seconds’ for me for my Mudman project. (More on that later.)

The business is thriving. Marguerite is propagating and growing for projects small (the dog houses are for demo purposes) and large (one order for 18,000 square feet is keeping her hopping) from Alabama to Manhattan. But the nice thing about growing plants for living roofs is that they thrive on neglect. If being a little late to ventilate the greenhouse is going to kill your plants, you probably aren’t growing the right plants for the stressful conditions they’re going to encounter later in life.

Motherplants’ plant list includes nearly 50 sedums and a couple dozen other species, including Armeria, Delosperma, Dianthus, Festuca, Opuntia, Sempervivum, Thymus and more.

Motherplants’ primary product has been flats of plugs. But more and more they’re custom planting modules that are installed directly on the roof, eliminating transplanting on-site. Another twist along these lines is the living wall unit Marguerite is holding (right). The planting cells are angled slightly to help retain the media.

Plant ’em. Grow ’em. Hang ’em. Nothing to it.

Mother plant pad

Demo dog houses

Caltha palustris, lone apple

About 6 of our 7 acres (here’s an aerial view) is pretty scrubby woodland. I suspect that it was once apple orchard and/or pasture on pretty poor soils that were further compacted and depleted for 100 years or so of use and abuse. (Our house dates to 1863, and there was also a small cheese factory on the site.)

With the lousy soils, disturbance and heavy deer populations, there isn’t much exciting going on plant-wise out in the woods. But along the small stream and wetland that define the south edge of our yard, there is a great showing of Caltha palustris, aka marsh marigold or kingcup. (palustris = of the marsh.)

It’s not rare. You can find it in wet areas across northern North America, Europe, Russia and Asia. It’s poisonous and a skin irritant, so the deer leave it alone. Here’s a nice botanical drawing from 1885 and a double-flowered variety from a co-workers garden. The photo is fuzzy, but it’s a spectacular plant.

There’s a little bit of high ground that extends into the wetland, where there’s more grass than cattails. Growing out of that high spot is what I call the lone crabapple, but I suspect that it’s a seedling from one of the trees that formerly dotted the property, maybe with some cider apple lineage in it. There is one huge (30-foot-tall) ancient apple tree on the edge of the wood that looks dead in winter but leafs out every spring. It’s flowering profusely this spring. When it does manage to produce a few fruits, they are white-skinned, usually with a little green algae-like cast to them.

Anyway, the lone crab is on an alternate-year flowering schedule. This year is its year and it’s covered with flowers. On off years, there’s a mirror image of it flowering 200 yards away to the west on the other side of the main wetland. You can see it from the kitchen and bathroom windows. It couldn’t be better placed, though I would never have thought to put it there.

The flowers close up.

Post-dated pix

What with the fast-paced spring and being away, I’ve got a backlog of pix on the hard drive from the past two or three weeks that I need to purge now or they’ll be lost forever. Click images for large view (in most cases).

Doronicum.

Drumstick and ‘regular’ primulas.

Close up of the drumsticks.

Two views of double-flowered bloodroot (~~Sanguisorba~~ Sanguinaria canadensis ~~‘Flore Pleno’~~ ~~from memory~~Â ssp flore plena best I can tell.)

Mertensia and dragonfly.

Muscari and bleeding heart. (Sorry don’t know the variety.)

I’ve decided to start coordinating animal and plant colors.

Rescued tulips (w/poll)

One of the most common questions I get in winter is what to do with forced bulbs after they’re done flowering. I answer that most people treat them like cut flowers and compost them. But I add if that’s what they plan to do to please bring me the pot and plants.

I’ll deadhead them and put them in a sunny window or a cold frame if spring is fast approaching. When the leaves die back, I clip them off and stick the pots some place where they’ll stay bone dry.

Some of the bulbs will rot. Some will whither. But come October, I stick the sound bulbs in the ground. As you can see, it can be worth the effort.

I never buy tulips. They have a tendency to fade away rather than mulitply. And the deer love them, though they seldom graze on the ones I plant close to the house. I think it was Elizabeth over at GardenRant who wrote that the clown colors of tulips like these are a tad gauche. I tend to agree. But for a week or so every spring they make me smile.

{democracy:3}

{democracy:4}

May Garden Bloggersâ€™ Bloom Day Scans: Cool (w/poll)

Too many things blooming to fit them all on one scanner bed, so here are the blooms from the cool side of the color wheel, more or less. (The warm blooms are here.)

I did them with a dark and light background. Take the poll below to let me know which you like best. Click on images for a larger view.

{democracy:2}