How I spent my Sunday afternoon

After attending church this morning and lunch with special friends, we really wanted to work outside for the afternoon, but the wind was wailing and it was very uncomfortable. I decided it was a good opportunity to catch up on a few little jobs I had procrastinated on for awhile.


First off it was time to separate and transplant the Primula x polyanthus 'crescendo' seedlings. I was amazed to end up with 82 plants! The doubles haven't fared quite as well with only about 50% germination. The Gold Lace polyanthas are still germinating and so far I'm not impressed with the numbers. I also started 200 Beesiana primulas and they seem to just now be germinating after having been planted months ago. I will have to hold off transplanting these latter three varieties for quite awhile as they need to develop quite a bit first.


The next task was to burn the exposed fiberglass fibers off the two hyper-tuffa containers I made awhile back. I really had hoped to create many more but it will be awhile with all else that needs doing. Once I had taken care of the fibers, I decided to plant up the two large containers and a third smaller one.


Here's a rundown of some of the plants I used...

Pinus thunbergiana 'Yatsubusa Watnog'

This particular pine will eventually create a dwarf mound that could get too large for a hyper-tuffa container, but like most pines is very amenable to candle pruning and shaping via that technique... it's normal growth is about 4" per year so eventually I'll probably move it to the ground or a larger container.

Pinus parviflora 'Ogon Janome'

This is the Dragon's Eye Japanese White Pine and definitely not normally a plant for a hyper-tuffa container. Here's the thing however... these are tiny specimens at this point and can be maintained small for a few years... eventually, this particular plant can do a foot of growth per year, but I'll hold it back for as long as possible. By the way, this pine will have grey-green foliage with each needle having a yellow spot, hence the name.

Juniperus horizontalis 'Blue Pygmy'

Now here's a real miniature of a creeping juniper. It was discovered by the head propagator of Jeddeloh Nurseries in Germany about 1990. In 10 years, this will grow to 2" high by 8" across... I don't anticipate doing much pruning on this!

Acer palmatum 'Ukigumo'

I have admired the beautiful variegated acer known as 'The Floating Cloud Plant' on some of your blogs many times. This is said to be a strong growing acer for a variegated plant and after ten years should be about 8' x 5'. Maybe, but one thing I am certain of... plant this in my garden and the rabbits would wipe it out in no time. I figure on letting it grow in a trough for a couple years and then do a transplant if it survives.

Juniperus horizontalis 'Gold Strike'
with Pinus mugo 'Slowmound'

Now here's a colorful little plant that I've wanted ever since I read about it on Ed Remsrola's  'The Amazing World of Confers' blog... (which I highly recommend by the way!) I'm referring to the 'Gold Strike' of the two plants pictured above. This is from 'Mother Lode' which I've been growing in my gardens for years. This little plant grows about 3-6" a year and can be easily trained as a brilliant groundcover for my hyper-tuffa gardens. It will turn from it's brilliant yellow in the spring, to a bronze purple in the fall and it's hardy to minus 40 degrees! Hardier than me I'd say. Imagine my excitement when I located three plants at Culver's Nursery in Marion, Iowa.... of course I grabbed all three instantly!

The plant pictured behind this particular Gold Strike is Pinus mugo 'Slowmound'. Slowmound is just that... growing only an inch or two a year... and of course it's a pine so can be candled if desired, but I really can't imagine needing or desiring doing that... in ten years it will grow between 1' and 2' wide... I would hazard a guess that it would be the lesser in the confined situation of a hyper-tuffa container.

Gold Strike with Pinus mugo 'Teeny'

No, this isn't the same plant combination... this is actually a 'Gold Strike' with Pinus mugo 'Teeny'.  Iseli Nursery describes it as being a very uniform plant with needles held radially and spreading out from the center of a great many short branches and being very dwarf, similar to Slowmound... personally, I just love the name! Were you aware that these mugos are hardy to minus 50 degrees? Wow, that has to be a good thing!

Fagus sylvatica 'Mercedes'

The little tree pictured here is a european beech. A linearlobum variety, it is perhaps the smallest beech known reaching only 3' by 3' after many years. I'll include a photo once it leafs out!


So there you have it... this was the plant material I used to plant up three hyper-tuffa containers today, all for full sun situations. It was hard to get decent photos of the completed containers as the greenhouse is getting so full, there is barely room to turn around... better photos will come later when it gets a bit warmer outside.

Container one is closest to the viewer and combines the miniature juniper 'Blue Pygmy' with Ogon Janome... a partnership that will probably last only a season or two. I'm hoping the brown moss will come back to life once outside. The second container has Gold Strike and Slowmound backed up with Yatsubusa Watnog on the left and Ukigumo on the right behind the 'boulder'. The third container has a 'Gold Strike' backed up by 'Teeny' with the Mercedes beech and a few sempervivums including Sempervivum arachnoideum 'Emily'. Time will tell how these hold up in this situation. This container could well last for years with the proper pruning. So there you have it, but many more to come as I get more troughs made. Take care, Larry

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