Gardening tips and recommendations are intended for use in the Washington Metropolitan Region
(USDA Hardiness Zones 6a-7a). Recommendations and schedules may vary in other locations. Always
read and follow label directions when applying pesticides.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Spring Is Blooming At Merrifield Garden Center!

   At Merrifield Garden Center, we’re very excited about the arrival of spring. This is one of the most beautiful times of the year in the Washington D.C. area. And after a long, snowy winter, we’re craving color more than ever.
   Here’s some early spring blooming plants that’ll bring some much-needed color to your garden:

Annuals and Bulbs

   Primroses are one of the most vibrant annuals you’ll find this early in the season. Their bright yellow, orange, pink, red and purple blooms are particularly gorgeous this spring. Yellow primroses have a sweet citrus-like fragrance.
   Pansies and violas are another two colorful annuals that thrive in cool, spring conditions. Violas are related to pansies, but they’re more prolific and have smaller flowers.

   Sweet alyssum looks delicate, but it’s a tough, reliable low-growing annual for borders or containers. A fragrant plant with white, peach, pink or purple blooms, sweet alyssum performs well in cool spring weather. And it can be cut back to last all through the summer.
   Snapdragons are another great choice. With 18 to 24” spikes in yellow, pink, red, purple or white, snapdragons bring a colorful vertical presence to your garden.
   If you were too busy to plant bulbs last fall, don’t worry. Our horticulturists have taken care of this for you. They’ve planted crocus, daffodils, tulips and hyacinths, which are now beginning to bloom in the annuals sections of our stores. These plants are ready for you to pick up and plant in your own garden or containers.

Perennials

   Helleborus, commonly known as Lenten rose, is a must-have plant for every garden. This evergreen perennial shines in early spring with gorgeous white, pink, rose and purple blooms. After its long-lasting flowers fade, helleborus continues to be an asset in the garden with its dark green leaves. Helleborus looks fantastic paired with ferns and hostas in a shady area of your garden. Deer avoid this plant.
   Candytuft, pulmonaria, euphorbia and tiarella are just a few of the many other beautiful, early blooming perennials. A slow spreading, evergreen groundcover with white or pink flowers, candytuft looks great in rock gardens and as a border in flower beds. It prefers full sun. A low-growing plant that prefers a shady area, pulmonaria sports brilliant blue, pink or white flowers and solid green or variegated leaves.
   Euphorbia is prized as much for its beautiful foliage as its lime-green flowers. The foliage can have green, red or blue tones, making it a great companion plant in container gardens. Thriving in cool, shaded areas, tiarella features attractive leaves with spikes of beautiful white or pink blossoms that resemble foam, hence the name foamflower.

Shrubs

   Witchhazel, forsythia, winter jasmine, sweet box and PJM rhododendrons are some of the shrubs that are wowing us now with delightful colors and fragrances.
   With its intense yellow flowers, witchhazel is sure to give you a case of spring fever. The gorgeous flowers curl up when it’s cold and they uncurl when it’s warm. Witchhazel also comes in an orange-red color that looks like the glow of ambers in a fire. Like witchhazel, forsythia is a popular shrub with breathtaking yellow flowers.
   Winter jasmine is a hardy, low-growing shrub with slightly fragrant, yellow blooms. For an interesting look in your garden, you can train your winter jasmine to grow on a trellis or the sides of a wall. Sweet box features small, white flowers and glossy green leaves. Before you notice the flowers, the heavenly aroma will stop you in your tracks. One of the earliest blooming rhododendrons, PJM rhododendrons feature vibrant lavender blooms and small leaves that often cause the plant to be mistaken for an azalea. PJM is a reliable performer that thrives in full sun and can handle tough conditions. Pieris japonica features sweet-scented flowers and evergreen foliage.
   Azaleas, rhododendrons, spirea, weigela and many others will be flowering soon. Start planning now and you can enjoy a parade of eye-catching color in your garden.
 

Trees

   Nothing says spring quite like a flowering dogwood, the state tree in Virginia. Dogwoods are treasured for their beautiful, large white or pink bracts. The unusual cornelian cherry dogwood from Europe and Asia opened its bright yellow flowers a week ago with a cloud of spectacular color. Our native dogwoods will begin blooming in April.
   Flowering pears are cherished flowering landscape trees in our area. It’s no wonder. They’re prolific bloomers in the spring and they’ll impress you in the fall with their attractive, reddish-purple foliage. ‘Bradford’ is probably the best known variety. Once planted in large numbers, this beautiful tree has been found to have a serious drawback – its dense growth and brittle wood make it susceptible to storm damage. Expert pruning can greatly reduce this problem, but we suggest you choose an improved variety, such as ‘Cleveland’ or ‘Aristocrat.’
   All three varieties will mature to about 30’ tall, with spreads ranging from 15’ to 25.’ Sold under more than one name, including ‘Cleveland,’ ‘Cleveland Select’ and ‘Chanticleer,’ this pear stays narrower than the ‘Bradford,’ making it a great choice for many garden locations. It offers the same beautiful white flowers, glossy leaves and red fall color as the Bradford, but without the splitting problem. The ‘Aristocrat’ also features showy white flowers in the spring.
   There are many wonderful varieties of spring flowering magnolias with purple, pink, white and yellow flowers coming into bloom now. Perhaps the most dramatic of all early blooming trees, saucer magnolia produces large flowers in brilliant shades of pink in March to early April. Prized for its delicate, satiny white petals that are sculpted like stars, the star magnolia unveils its magnificent, slightly-fragrant flowers in early spring.
   Of our Japanese cherries, ‘Okame’ is the earliest blooming and the deepest pink. This gorgeous, small tree is a great performer in our mid-Atlantic area. ‘Yoshino’ will be one of the next cherries to bloom. This is one of the stunningly beautiful trees that bloom during the National Cherry Festival around the Tidal Basin in Washington D.C. Another extremely popular variety that we carry is ‘Kwanzan,’ with its abundant, double carnation-like pink flowers.
   Redbud, one of our earliest blooming native trees, is known for its vivid, magenta-pink flowers that blanket the tree in late March to early April. ‘Forest Pansy’ is a variety with purple-maroon leaves that fade to dark green in late summer. In recent years, we’ve begun to carry two varieties of weeping redbuds, ‘Covey’ and ‘Traveller.’ Their dramatic shape and the deep color of their blossoms make these two varieties quite stunning. Additionally, white and hot pink flowering and dwarf varieties are available.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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10 Tips To Get Your Garden Ready For Spring

      Now that the snow has melted and spring is just a day away, we can get back out in our beloved gardens. Here’s 10 tips to prepare for the start of the spring season. Your garden will look better - and it'll be healthier and easier to maintain, too.
   1. Assess and take care of damage from our record snowfall. Remove any dead or broken branches as soon as possible. Conifers, such as pine, arborvitae and Leyland cypress, have green growing points at the tips of the branches. If a branch is removed or broken beyond the growing points, it won’t regenerate a new branch and the bare spot will remain for many years or possibly the remaining life of the tree. With most other plants, such as boxwoods, azaleas, magnolias and maples, broken branches can be pruned and new growth will eventually fill in the bare spots. If the branch is split, but not completely broken, repair may be possible. Repairing a split branch requires drilling one or more holes through the tree perpendicular to the split, then inserting a bolt or rod through the hole and fastening it at each end with a washer and a bolt. As the tree grows, the hardware becomes imbedded in the tree and shouldn’t be removed. Watch the following video for detailed instruction on how to repair a tree branch.
   We suggest professional evaluation for broken and split branches as well as leaning or uprooted trees to determine if pruning, repair or replacement is the best option. Please call us at 703-560-6222 if you need assistance.
   2. Tidy up your garden. Pick up leaves, branches and other garden debris.
   3. Cut back the weathered leaves of ornamental grasses, liriope and other perennials. The general rule is if the foliage is brown, cut it back. If it’s green, don’t touch it.
   4. Prune your rose bushes. Be sure to prune no more than 2/3 of the bush. If you want, you can seal the cane with grafting wax but it’s not required. Now is also a great time to trim Japanese maples, crape myrtle, boxwood and hollies to the desired size and shape.
   5. Re-edge your garden beds with a spade or garden edger.
   6. Remove any winter weeds while they are still small and easy to pull or dig out of the ground.
   7. Apply a weed preventer, such as Preen, Amaze or an organic alternative - corn gluten meal - to your garden beds.
   8. Early spring is a great time to fertilize trees, shrubs and garden beds. Use Merrifield Tree and Shrub Food for all of your evergreens and shade trees and Merrifield Flowering Plant Food on all blooming plants.
   9. Add fresh mulch to your garden beds. Not only does it look great, but mulch helps conserve moisture, suppress weeds and enrich the soil. Be careful that the mulch doesn’t exceed 3” in depth and don’t pile it up against the trunk of trees or shrubs.
   10. Bring some much-needed color to your landscape. For early spring color, pansies and primroses are tough to beat. Hybridized to handle cold, even freezing temperatures, they’re available in vivid colors that are a welcome sight.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Good Dirt: David Yost Blogs His Gardening Adventures

Finding The Next Big Hit In The Gardening World    I had the pleasure of visiting the United States National Arboretum (USNA) last week. It led me to start thinking about where our garden plants come from and how much we have benefited from this investment in horticulture.    USNA Gardens Unit Leader Scott Aker generously shared some of his time and expertise in showing Peg Bier (horticulturist, co-worker and friend) and I around the arboretum. He gave us a look at some of the things they’re currently working on. We were introduced to some exciting plants that were new to us. And we got a glimpse of what might be coming to our gardens in the near future.    We were especially impressed with a bay laurel that has a distinctive “juicy fruit” fragrance and may prove to be winter hardy in our Zone 6-7 gardens! It’s a beautiful and promising plant, but will require additional trials and evaluations to determine its potential in the landscape. The same is true for a possibly hardy ‘Fatsia japonica.’    We also got a look at breeding programs for ornamental cherries and camellias - and trials for boxwoods, etc. It’s exciting to think about what the future could bring. This is, of course, in addition to the over 650 plants that the USNA has already introduced. You can find a complete list of these plants on their website (www.usna.usda.gov).    While many of our plants come from deliberate breeding programs, some of our most popular plants arrive by happenstance. Consider the stories behind ‘Annabelle’ hydrangea or ‘Carol Mackie’ daphne.    Harriet Kirkpatrick was out horseback riding in the summer of 1910 when she noticed a wild hydrangea in bloom with especially large flowers. The plant was so pretty that she added it to her garden in Anna, Illinois. Fifty years later, the plant was registered as ‘Annabelle.’ This hydrangea is still one of our most popular landscape plants.    Carol Mackie was an avid gardener and an officer of the Garden Clubs of America. After her children left home, Carol and her husband moved to a 20-acre farm. They planted extensive gardens that included three daphne x burkwoodii. One of these plants mutated and produced a branch with variegated leaves. Carol had the insight to take cuttings from this plant and share them with a local nurseryman, who registered the plant. The ‘Carol Mackie’ is prized in many of our gardens.    Every time a seed is planted or a mutation occurs, there’s an opportunity for a new plant to be discovered. It could be a tastier tomato, a hardier magnolia, a new pattern of variegation or almost anything else you can imagine. And what’s really cool is that you don’t have to be a scientist to discover the next big hit in the gardening world!    Spring is here and there’s always interest in what’s new. We’re always watching for plants that look promising and making every effort to bring them into your garden. Several of these plants are featured here in this e-newsletter, but others show up only in the nursery. So be sure to visit Merrifield Garden Center on a regular basis to see what’s new for your garden.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   “I like to add about a quarter of a cup or so of white wine when I’m blooming the yeast,” Chef Lilienne says. “It seems to accentuate the yeast in the dough, which brings out a great sourdough flavor.”
   Pizza must be cooked in a very hot oven. For the best results, Chef Lilienne suggests cooking the pizza in a preheated 500 degree oven. Check after 15 minutes and continue cooking until the crust is nicely browned and the cheese is melted. The key to a crispy crust is a pizza stone. If you don’t have one, a cookie sheet will do, but the heat transference isn’t the same. A pizza cutter is helpful, too.
   When the pizza comes out of the oven, sprinkle it with a little grated pecorino romano - and enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Lawns: Take advantage of the weather and spring rain showers to allow time for newly seeded grass to sprout and establish roots before summer arrives. We offer custom blended grass seed mixtures – Merrifield Tuff Play, Merrifield Sunny and Merrifield Shady – for use throughout the Washington D.C. region for either regular, sunny or shady conditions. We also offer custom blended fertilizers for your lawn. We recommend using Merrifield Select to get your new grass off to a good start. If you don’t need to seed your lawn, we suggest Merrifield Premium to keep you lawn lush and green. Now is also a good time to apply a weed preventer. If you aren’t seeding, you can prevent weeds in your lawn with Portrait or Safe ‘N Simple Preemergence Weed Control (100% organic). If you’re seeding, use Tupersan. Bulbs: To promote flowering and growth, we recommend applying a slow-release fertilizer, such as Merrifield Flowering Plant Food, as your bulbs begin to emerge. Now is a great time to pick up summer bulbs, including canna lilies, Elephant ears and dahlias. You can start them indoors now or wait until May when the soil is warm for outdoor planting. Tender Plants: If frost or chilly weather is predicted, remember to cover tender annuals and plants with frost cloth or a light blanket. Roses: Boxed Jackson & Perkins roses have arrived! Plant now for beautiful color all summer. When planting these bare root plants, remove the box and amend the soil with cow manure or peat moss. Fruits and Vegetables: Plant an edible landscape. Fruit bearing plants have arrived, including easy care selections of persimmon, blueberries and raspberries. Now is a great time to plant cool-season vegetables, such as onion sets, rhubarb, asparagus, lettuce, spinach, kale and potatoes. Planting: With all your planting projects, we suggest that you use Merrifield Planting Mix. This is a custom blended product developed by our horticulturists for the conditions we encounter here in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area. An organic soil conditioner, Merrifield Planting Mix is ideal for planting trees, shrubs, roses, annuals and perennials. It also can be added to existing soil to improve soil structure, fertility and biology.