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Vitreographs: Series 1
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The Beauty of the Moss Garden
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Growing Unusual Fruit
A Fungus, Among Us!
On the Green Road with Tosca and Forest
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Smithsonian Archive of American Gardens
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Some months ago I promised to run the old column on what you can grow in the vicinity of walnuts. Walnuts, as most gardeners know, produce a poison known as juglans, a chemical that attracts a number of other plants causing them to languish, then slowly fade away. But there are a number of plants that appear to be immune. Because I generally write about ornamental plants and limit vegetables to those purchased at the organic market or grown in containers on our deck, I give such plants short shrift. So vegetable growers living within a walnut's sphere of influence, please note the following:
In the world of vegetables, avoid all membesr of the Solanum or tomato family, parsley, blackberries, and raspberries. Vegetables such as alliums, beans, carrots, melons, can be grown. Fruits allowed are peaches, nectarines, cherries, plums, pears, and black raspberries. One important thing to remember is cleaning up leaves, etc. from under the walnut when they fall. With flowers, eschew marigolds.
So here's the column:
Walnut Trees: A few months ago on WCQS our roundtable received a phone call about plants that are impervious to the threat of death presented by walnuts to many members of the plant world. Seems more than the average number of gardeners had old black walnut trees on their properties and while having problems raising other species in the trees' vicinity, wanted to keep the walnuts.
Perennials include:
- Ajuga reptans, bugleweed
- Alcea rosea, hollyhock
- Asarum europaeum, European wild ginger
- Astilbe spp.
- Campanula latifolia, bellflower
- New York Asters Aster spp.
- Chrysanthemum spp., hardy chrysanthemum
- Doronicum spp., leopard's bane
- Dryopteris cristata, crested wood fern
- Galium odoratum, sweet woodruff
- Geranium robertianum, herb Robert
- Geranium sanguineum, cranesbill
- Hemerocallis fulva, common daylily
- Hieracium aurantiacum, orange hawkweed
- Helianthus tuberosus, Jerusalem artichoke
- Heuchera x brizoides 'Pluie de Feu', coral bells
- Hosta fortunei 'Glauca', H. lancifolia, H. marginata, H. undulata 'Variegata'
- Hydrophyllum virginianum, Virginia waterleaf
- Iris sibirica, Siberian iris
- Monarda didyma, bee balm
- Monarda fistulosa, wild bergamot
- Oenothera fruiticosa, sundrops
- Onoclea sensibilis, sensitive fern
- Osmunda cinnamomea, cinnamon fern
- Phlox paniculata, summer phlox
- Polemonium reptans, Jacob's ladder
- Polygonatum commutatum, great Solomon's seal
- Primula x polyantha polyanthus primrose
- Pulmonaria spp., lungwort
- Sanguinaria Canadensis, bloodroot
- Sanguinaria canadensis 'Mulitplex', double-flowered bloodroot
- Sedum acre, gold moss
- Sedum spectabile, sedum
- Stachys byzantina, lamb's ear
- Tradescantia virginiana, spiderwort
- Trillium cernuum, nodding trillium
- Trillium grandiflorum, great white trillium
- Uvularia grandiflora, great merrybells
- Viola Canadensis, Canada violet
- V. sororia, woolly blue violet (and note that under a walnut, the Canada violet is almost as much of a thug as it is elsewhere in the garden).
- Clematis spp. 'Red Cardinal'
- Parthenocissus quinquefolia, Virginia creeper
As to bulbs, there are:
- Chionodoxa luciliae, glory-of-the-snow
- Endymion hispanicus, Spanish bluebell
- Galanthus nivalis, snowdrops
- Muscari botryoides, grape hyacinth
- Narcissus 'Cheerfulness', 'February Gold', 'Geranium', 'Sundial', 'Tete a tete', 'Yellow Cheerfulness'
- Tulipa spp., Darwin 'White Volcano', parrot 'Blue Parrot', Gregii 'Toronto'
- all of the crocuses (Crocus spp.)
- Eranthis hyemalis, winter aconite
- Scilla siberica, blue squill
There are a number of shrubs, including:
- Daphne mezereum, February daphne
- Forsythia suspense, weeping forsythia
- Hibiscus syriacus, Rose of Sharon
- Lonicera tatarica, Tatarian honeysuckle
- Rhododendron periclymenoides, pinxterbloom, R. spp. Exbury 'Gibraltar', Exbury 'Balzac'
The trees include:
- Acer palmatum, Japanese maple
- A. palmatum 'Dissectum', cut-leaf Japanese maple
- Tsuga Canadensis, Canadian hemlock
Finally, for those gardeners in a hurry, here are a few annuals:
- Begonia spp., fibrous cultivars and B. 'Nonstop', a tuberous begonia
- Ipomoea spp., 'Heavenly Blue'.
If I learn of more species, I'll post them ASAP!
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