Are you tired of seeing the same old spireas year after year in your landscape? Well, let us bring you up to speed on a newer addition to the spirea line up that is turning heads at the garden center both with our staff and customers. Brought to you by Proven Winners®, the Double Play® Doozie is sure to please. Check out the link to learn more about this head-turning spectacle!
We just received a new shipment of Double Play Doozies this week! Stop by and grab one of these beauties for yourself!
Do you secretly compete with your neighbor on who has the best looking yard? Maybe who’s yard looks more colorful the latest into the fall? Well do we have the best kept secret that’s not so secret for you. GRASSES!
Grasses are a great addition to the landscape because there are so many choices to pick from. There are tall grasses and short grasses, and red grasses and blue grasses. There are small flowers and big flowers and grasses for sun and grasses for shade. How many grasses can there be? No matter your landscape needs, there is most likely a grass that will fill your needs.
Take a trip to the garden center and ask our staff about their favorite grass and they can show you the best fit for your landscape.
What is deadheading and why deadhead? It is simply removing the old faded and spent flowers from a plant to encourage it to bloom longer. Once an old flower produces seed, the plant generally stops blooming. To deadhead, simply snip off the old flower. Deadheading to some people is a tiresome job, to others it may be therapy, and to others they simply enjoy being in the garden and love the look of clean plants. So, IF you are tired of deadheading, here are a few plants that do not need dead heading. Some ANNUALS are Angelonia, super petunia, biden, calibrocha, impatien, begonia, lantana, lobelia, and salvia. Some PERENNIALS include coneflower, hydrangea, astilbe, blanket flower, peony, bleeding heart, columbine, daylilie, modern rose shrub, hyssop, black eyed Susan, heuchera, and sedum. This is not an all inclusive list but contains the most common flowers in our area. You still may deadhead these if you like the look of a clean plant. If you are unsure, try googling the flower as the internet is a wealth of information.
July, in our area, is probably the highlight month of our gardens. The burst of spring blossoms is now behind us and summer color is popping all over. Gardens are blooming with coneflowers, lillies, roses, hydrangeas, and so many, many more. If your garden needs some color, consider stopping in as we carry over 30 different hydrangeas, over 25 varieties of roses, more then 20 varieties of coneflowers, and so much more. We may not always have every variety in stock, but we keep restocking every week. It is probably safe to say that we are the areas’s largest supplier of plants. Go to our home page and click on Plants and Products, then click on perennials, shrubs or whatever and you will be taken to a list of our plants. Note that this is not an all inclusive list as when new varieties are made available to us, we probably will stock them.
Summer is just days away. Monrovia has several plans for summer shade and sunny gardens that attract birds, bees, hummingbirds and pollinators in the summer. If you would like to see them, just click on the following link:
Bee A Winner and win free plants from Monrovia Nursery. Just click on the following image and it will take you to the entry page
Are you looking for the perfect bloom for morning exposure in your landscape? Why not try a hydrangea from Monrovia’s Seaside Serenade ® Collection. With over a dozen color and size options there is a hydrangea for almost anyone.
Here are some of the varieties we carry.
Hydrangea Seaside Serenade Bar Harbor
Photo courtesy of Monrovia Nursery
Hydrangea Seaside Serenade Cape Lookout
Photo courtesy of Monrovia Nursery
Hydrangea Seaside Serenade Cape May
Hydrangea Seaside Serenade Crystal Cove
Photo courtesy of Monrovia Nursery
Seaside Fire Island Hydrangea
Photo courtesy of Monrovia Nursery
Hydrangea Seaside Serenade Hamptons
Photo courtesy of Monrovia Nursery
Seaside Serenade Martha’s Vineyard
Hydrangea Seaside Serenade Martha’s Vineyard
Photo courtesy of Monrovia Nursery
Hydrangea Seaside Serenade Newport
If you are not a peony lover, then have you read about the Itoh Peony? If so, you know it is expensive. However, when you consider that peonies can live for 100 years, and the Itoh produces 50 to 100 blossoms a season, they really are quite cheap and well worth the initial investment. Stop in today as we have quite a few colors of the Itoh peony in stock along with the original peony plants. Read the attached article and you may just change your mind about becoming a peony lover.
https://www.monrovia.com/be-inspired/peony-care-guide.html
Paeonia Itoh Misaka peony
Photo courtesy of Monrovia Nursery
Paeonia Itoh Simply Scrumptious peony
Photo courtesy of Monrovia Nurse
Paeonia Itoh Singing in the Rain
Photo courtesy of Monrovia Nurser
Paeonia Itoh Coral Louise
Photo courtesy of Monrovia Nursery
Itoh Keiko pink peony
Most gardeners hope their gardens will be a magnet for hummingbirds and butterflies. How fun it is to watch them flit around your colorful garden. Click on the link below and it will take you to Monrovia Nursery’s tips to achieve that garden. Just remember we are a Zone 4 with some plants doing ok in Zone 5a.
https://www.monrovia.com/be-inspired/garden-tips-and-plants-for-hummingbirds-and-birds.html
Is your garden ready for them by having plants that will be blooming to provide food for their arrival? It is SO important to feed these pollinators after their long journey as they are vital for producing crops and fruits along with the survival of plants. Click on the red link below and you can read about these early blooming plants.
How about some gorgeous spring blooming bushes? A couple that are outstanding due to their many blossoms are Rhododendrons and Azaleas. Azaleas do best with morning sun and afternoon shade. Their blooms are vibrant colors, i.e. oranges, yellows, pinks and reds, with a mild fragrance. Plant a couple of these together and they will be showstoppers.
Rhododendrons are an elegant spring blooming shrub. They will do ok in full sun but do nicely with afternoon shade. The common one is PJM, a soft purple/lavender. New varieties have sensational larger blossoms. Both of these shrubs come in various sizes. Click on the shrub name below to read more about it.
Northern Hi-Lights Azalea
Photo courtesy of Bailey Nursery
Azalea Mandarin Lights
Photo compliments of Baileys Nursery
PJM Rhododendron
Photo courtesy of Bailey Nurseries
Nova Zembla Rhododendron
Photo courtesy of Monrovia
Rhododendron (Ramapo)
Photo courtesy of Monrovia Nursery
Purple Gem Rhododendron
Photo courtesy of Baileys Nursery
Witch hazel is a vase-like shrub that can grow to 15′ tall. However, with pruning you can keep it shorter and shaped. The spring and summer foliage is green. In fall the leaves turn to a stunning yellow/gold and apricot. Then in mid-October to mid-November (or later) the tree produces its spidery yellow spicy fragrant flowers. This particular witch hazel (common) needs cooler weather before it blooms, tolerating 20 degrees. Flowers are pollinated by flies, moths, bees, wind and also self-pollination. Even though the flowers were already pollinated in fall, fertilization of the ovaries doesn’t occur until spring when fruits (brown capsules containing seeds that develop over summer) are formed and then explode in early fall. The seeds are consumed by wild turkeys, northern bobwhites, jays, chickadees, woodpeckers, titmice, nuthatches and others. Interestingly, the forked stems of this plant has been used as “divining rods,” where the stems dip down when held over underground water. This plant is a real stand out winner in fall.
common witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana)
Photo compliments of Bailey Nursery
Witch Hazel flower
Photo by Eva Bronzini (pexels)
