Zone out this spring!

April 8, 2007

Ugh. The spring issues of the gardening magazines have hit the racks again. Headlines like &#8220Best 100 Plants for Your Gardens,” &#8220Award-Winning Ideas for Your Dream Garden,” &#8220Top Plants for 2007,” boldly flash across fabulous photographs of gardens you will never see in Zone Three.

Yes, I think we need to make our zone a proper noun. With gardening magazines focusing on folks living in climates most of us can only dream about in mid winter, we need to capitalize on our positive zones.

I'm thinking bumper stickers - &#8220Zone Three Gardener, Eat My Weeds.” (It's mine, don't you dare print that up, dears.)

I found less than 5 percent of the plants in the top 100 listed in one venerable rag to be suitable for our gardens. However, there are new plants on the market that will work for us. But you probably won't see them in these magazine articles that are geared toward the steadily warming climates of Lower 48 gardens. While they're planting their Zone Three perennials in containers so they can move them out of the heat, let's see what new perennials will warm up to our cold-hardy garden beds.

Columbines that look very like a lovely double clematis are new this year and are selling like hot cakes. While there are other clematis-form columbines with flowers that hang like delicate paper lanterns in pink and mauve, the new &#8220clematis red,” &#8220blue,” and &#8220salmon rose” varieties are stout, up-facing flowers with light fresh green foliage. The red form is more of a fuchsia-red tone, while the &#8220salmon rose” looks rather like a winter sunset. The &#8220blue” is a medium blue tone that will pair well with most other colors. And at about 18 inches tall, these columbines will make good cut flowers as well.

Dowdeswell's delphiniums brings us a new group of 3- to 4-foot New Zealand hybrids that are English-types with large, mostly double flowers. &#8220Blushing brides” has a lovely range of pink to raspberry-mauve blossoms that look like frosted glass.

The new &#8220misty mauves” series ranges in color from a deep purple through flashes of cobalt and lavender-mauve. Shorter than the delicate meadow rue &#8220lavender mist,” and the pale lavender sprays of fragrant valerian, these cold hardy Zone Three delphiniums will be a solid supporting cast in your garden.

The new tall Veronica &#8220Sonja” will look stunning in a vase with these delphiniums. At 26 to 30 inches tall, &#8220Sonja's” long spikes of tiny violet-pink flowers add punch to any floral arrangement.

I've had the tall Veronica &#8220pink damask” for years in my stock beds through some of the worst weather winter can throw at us and she keeps coming back for more. These two will pair well with ‘lollipop,” a white Asiatic lily with magenta-pink tips, a splash of lime from lady's mantle, and some creamy, belled campanulas. Mm, sounds like a festive tea party.

While the color trend experts are busy arguing over what's hot for our gardens, there's always one color that keeps coming back.

Surprise, it's black.

Black?

Well it's really a dark wine red that's practically black depending on the light. And the lilies have it! &#8220Landini” is the latest Asiatic lily to hit the black market this year.

An up-facing lily that grows to 3 feet tall with a deep black-red that rivals the black of my prized down-facing Canadian hybrid, midnight rider.

Due to its popularity, I've noticed a purchase limit on &#8220Landini” in the catalogs.

Of course, my supplier shorted me on a hundred lily bulbs, and as luck would have it they couldn't come up with anything to suit my needs. But, &#8220we do have this new lily ‘Landini,' would that do?”

Sometimes it pays to get the short end, eh?

I now have 200 bulbs of four Asiatic lilies of various heights and shades that are all in that dark wine-black range - black out, Marrakesh, Lanzarote, and now Landini.

Oh, well. I think I'll call it my red hot chili mix.

These perennials are cold-hardy introductions that should do well in our gardens, so put those &#8220iffy” zone four and five plants in protected spots or stick them in a container, move them around to warm spots, and pretend you're a Californian.

You can see photos of the plants in this column by going to www.woolwood.blogspot.com .

So, get growing. And remember to buy Alaska Grown nursery products so you won't have to buy the same plant again next year!

Brooke Heppinstall, artist and gardener, is the owner of Wool Wood Studio & Gardens, an art studio and nursery specializing in Alaska-grown perennials and shrubs. Visit online at www.woolwood.blogspot.com.