From containers and hanging baskets to en-masse plantings in the landscape, Proven Winners award-winning Supertunia petunias unique versatility is unmatched. Learn more about the different types of Supertunias, and how they can prove beautiful and valuable on your porch, patio, balcony and landscape.

THE CLASSIC SUPERTUNIA®

You’ll find the greatest range of colors and patterns in Proven Winners’ standard Supertunia line. They are incredibly versatile, mixing easily with their companions in all sorts of container recipes and growing well in mixed borders. Though the plants are similar in size to Supertunia® Mini Vista, their flowers are larger.

SUPERTUNIA VISTA®

To fill large expanses in the landscape quickly, you can’t beat Supertunia Vista petunias. A single plant will easily fill three square feet, making them an affordable choice as a flowering ground cover. If you plant them in a container, make sure to use an extra-large one.

SUPERTUNIA® MINI VISTA

For the edge of the border or as an accent plant in smaller spaces, choose Supertunia Mini Vista. Though their strong vigor is similar to Supertunia Vista petunias, their mature size is significantly smaller. With their dense growth habit, they are magnificent planted on their own in containers.

SUPERTUNIA® TRAILING

You can’t beat Supertunia Trailing as an all-season flowering spiller for hanging baskets and tall, upright containers. Their natural tendency is to grow straight down, cascading at least three feet long by summer. If your goal is to have the longest trailing flowers possible in your window boxes, choose Supertunia Trailing petunias.

Have a question about Proven Winners Supertunias? Homestead Gardens associates are certified Proven Winners experts and can help you choose the perfect plant, learn how to care for it, and get as excited as you when it blooms and grows. Come visit any of our stores!

The post Proven Winners Supertunias! appeared first on Homestead Gardens, Inc..

Succulents

The Homestead Gardens staff members love mixing and matching varieties of echevaria, agave, haworthia, kalanchoe, sedum and sempervivum succulents because these plants present a beautiful diversity of heights, leaf patterns and colorful flowers. Plant them in rock gardens on the patio or using porous soil in artistic containers for a creative living decoration inside your home. Succulent container gardens work wonderfully in the Chesapeake Bay region because they can be brought inside into a sunny spot during the colder months for continuous enjoyment.

If you haven’t worked with succulents before, you’ll be surprised at how easy it is to design a succulent garden. Try these tips from the Homestead Gardens staff, and you’ll appreciate the resulting beautiful garden.

Steps for Succulent Care

1. Choose your succulents. Visit the Homestead Gardens retail stores to find the cacti that best match your design tastes and personality. Pre-planted varieties are also available for sharing as gifts.

2. Use the correct soil. Succulents don’t like to be wet, so porous, well-draining soil is the best option for your garden.

3. Pick a container. Any vessel will work for succulents, as long as it drains well. Many succulent varieties don’t need a lot of soil and can happily live in a space as small as a large sea shell or a decorative tea cup.

4. Plant and decorate. Use a layer of sand or decorative topping for additional decor. Add some colorful accents like you would for a fairy garden, water once every other week and watch your garden thrive!

The post Gardening with Succulents appeared first on Homestead Gardens, Inc..

Last week, I had the good fortune to take the Homestead Gardens tour to the Philadelphia International Flower Show. I love looking for new ideas in gardening and the show gave ample opportunity to explore. That said, trends in horticulture can be very much like runway fashion—outrageously over the top. Still, all the fun is in looking, if only to get inspired to try something similar on a smaller scale.

Even before entering the city’s convention center, a huge mural by the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society—the show’s organizers—provides a refreshing swath of color against the drab concrete. With the popularity of outdoor living, waterproof art makes “fifth rooms” even more inviting.

Philadelphia

As part of the “Springtime in Paris” theme, a replica of the Eiffel Tower—smaller than the real thing but looming large, nonetheless—filled the convention center entrance with twinkling white lights and gardens filled with spring-blooming bulbs, flowering shrubs, saucer magnolias and large petal-covered insect topiaries.

Vertical gardening is a recent hot topic in gardening, and several booths displayed their stunning interpretations. To translate this look indoors, suspend air plants (found in the houseplants department at Homestead Gardens) from the ceiling in specially-designed small glass containers that require only a bit of indirect light and a weekly misting. For truly creative indoor art, tuck leafy tropical plants into a new product called Wooly Pockets (coming in the next week to Homestead Gardens!) that you can hang on your wall thanks to waterproof lining.

This display of miniature irises highlighted the incredible selection of spring bulbs, and it’s never too late to start planning for early season color next year. Starting in early autumn, scout out the perennials department at Homestead Gardens for smaller bulb varieties and plant them among the hardscaping in your garden. Small boulders are becoming more popular to use in landscapes, and rocks like these were a consistent theme in many of the show’s exhibits.

Speaking of rocks, stone containers were a popular feature, just like the ones made in the hypertufa winter workshop class at Homestead Gardens. Small succulents (available in the houseplants department at Homestead Gardens) and miniature perennials (sold at Homestead Gardens as Stepables and Jeepers Creepers) looked right at home nestled in the containers.

Edible gardening has grown exponentially over the past few years, and gardeners are starting to incorporate herbs and vegetables into landscapes and containers alongside non-edible plants. Ruffled parsley looks right at home next to nasturtiums, begonia and canna, a head of cauliflower makes a great structural element and curly-leaved lettuce adds an interesting thriller to a container. There are no rules in garden design so why not appreciate a plant for its color and foliage before you eat it?

Staying on the subject of edible landscaping, an espaliered apple tree adds a gorgeous European element. Usually, fruit trees are espaliered to grow against a stone or brick building to benefit from the radiant warmth of the wall as it absorbs sunlight. Homestead Gardens sells espaliered apple and pear trees that contain varieties to pollinate each other and require only occasional trimming to keep their shape.

No matter the size of your garden, containers are becoming a creative way to display flowers and to grow edibles. This type of gardening is more inexpensive than digging huge beds, while caring for plants in pots is easier since you can better control soil and light conditions. This front porch showed that containers can be grouped into an inviting display in the garden itself.

Gardeners usually think of bright flowers to add color but a massing different varieties of coleus shows off the rich colors of their foliage without a single bloom in sight.

With their dense shade and fertile soil, woodland gardens have always had an ethereal quality about them. For a garden with lots of shade, ferns add incredible texture and movement and some even change color in the fall.

Getting children involved in gardening is easy when you have creative touches of color and whimsy. A pathway filled with handmade stepping stones, easy-to-grow flowers in painted happy-face pots and a pint-sized chair is all they need to get them outdoors. Add a few brightly-colored tools and a watering can sized for little hands, and they won’t want to come in for dinner.

The post Inspiration & Ideas from the Philadelphia Flower Show appeared first on Homestead Gardens, Inc..

Annuals in Pots

Not all the plants are still here, though – I removed a couple to make room for a red cabbage – because mixing ornamentals and edibles is ever-so practical, right?  Except that this cabbage has clearly fed the cabbage loopers and no one else.  Next year I’ll try some Bt, or switch to spinach, a fall crop that the loopers disdain like kids and broccoli.  But look at those Cali’s, will ya?  That’s the nickname for Calibrachoas, which I won’t even try to remember.

Potted Annuals

Some night soon this nonhardy Euphorbia will bite the dust – or I could bring it indoors and use it to doll up some pointsettias.  (Photos of that combination coming soon).

 

 

The post Annuals in Pots Still Looking Good appeared first on Homestead Gardens, Inc..

Ever since I saw violas displayed with cabbage and salad greens in these cool towers, I’ve wanted them in my garden.   Then Homestead’s head grower Oliver Storm told me they last longer than pansies, and actually overwinter very well.  So this year, I’m trying ’em.

Violas and Cabbage

Next up, ornamental cabbage and kale, which Oliver assures me come back after the snow and look good into March or April.   Here are some cool ones I found on Flickr.

Cabbage photo credits, clockwise from upper left.  Hisgett, Mararie,  marococcia and 2kop.  Viola photo credits, left to right: aogg, texas eagle, and tgerus.  And at the Chicago Botanic Garden, photo by Flatbush Gardener.

The post Winter Annuals Violas and Cabbage appeared first on Homestead Gardens, Inc..

Readers may remember when Homestead’s Kerry Kelley selected plants for my containers, after which I dutifully followed her instructions?  Well, it’s time for my promised update on how they’re faring.  The tension mounts:  Have I killed them yet?  And the honest answer is:  Only one of them – yay!  Details coming right up.

Container Garden

First I have to gush about this dramatic focal point in the middle of a new border in my back yard.   Plants in this large Mexican-style pot include Lantana ‘Pot of Gold’, a chartreuse sweet potato vine, a couple of Angelonia ‘Serena Purple’ and for the “thriller” in this collection, a Canna ‘Emerald Sunset’.   And I’m indeed thrilled with the height on the Canna – rising about four feet out of the top of the pot – and would have been even MORE thrilled if the stalk holding the actual flowers hadn’t broken off somehow.    That stalk added about three feet, so we’re talking seven feet total, y’all, on top of the height of the pot!  I’m betting that the stalk wouldn’t have broken off if I’d planted this baby in the ground where it really wants to be.  Also notice some sunburn on one of the Canna leaves – perhaps unavoidable in this brutal summer we’re having.

Gardening

Now let’s move on to the pots sitting on my front porch, where they receive intense afternoon sun.  This first one includes one Purple Fountain Grass, two Calibrachoa (a ‘Double Yellow’ and a “Compact Orange”), one purple sweet potato vine, and to trail down the sides of the pot (the “spiller”), a Lysimachia ‘Walkabout Sunset’.   With daily watering occasionally amended with a fish-based fertilizer, these all look terrific  – to my eyes.  (And who else needs to love them, after all?)

On the left you see one Calibrachoa ‘Compact Orange’ doing a great job of spilling, two ‘Vancouver Centennial’ geraniums for “filler,” and for the vertical element, one ornamental millet ‘Jade Princess’.   Wild, huh?  All plants I’d never grown before, but will grow again.

And lastly, the all-one-type planting of three Geranium Grandiosa ‘Merlot Red’  has also held up well, with scattered reblooms at all times.

Now for the failure – if it really is one.  My Orange Osteosermum and Burgundy calibrachoa bloomed, then dried up, apparently for good. (You can see them newly potted-up here on my original post – on the right in the second collage.)  I’m hoping that Kerry will solve this mystery for us for us (while hopefully leaving me a shred of gardener dignity when it’s all said and done.)  So, Kerry?

The post Mid-Summer Container Update appeared first on Homestead Gardens, Inc..

In the cute little shed surrounded by annuals at the Davidsonville location, you’ll find container-designer Dena Cameron creating some wild-looking designs, if you ask me, using some plants I’ve never seen before.  So naturally I asked for photos and here’s a few by store greeter Rita Roche.  To see even more designs, check out Melanie McCabe’s photos here are Flickr.  The designs also made a big splash in the Baltimore Sun.

Dena

Dena tells me she pots up containers bought at Homestead OR brought from home – either way.   And in order to customize people’s designs she asks all sorts of questions:  how much sun will it get, is fragrance important, do you have favorite colors or flowers, will the pot be around kids and dogs, and do you have a theme in mind (maybe the ever-popular “cottage”, “tropical” or “beachy”).  You can even ask for evergreens, or perennials instead of annuals.  Lots of choices.

Dena’s available Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays from 9 am to 5:30 pm.   The descriptions below were provided by Dena.

Above, the brown/bronze leaf plant is graphtophyllum pictum, ‘bronze variegata”.  The red flower is salvia, ‘flame’.  The white flower is euphorbia, ‘silver fog’.

Above, the tall green plant is cypress or dwarf umbrella plant.  The yellow flower is a canna. The trailing plant is Lysmachia, ‘goldilocks’.  The two grasses in the back are wire grass.  Other than the wire grass , the other plants could grow in a water garden.

Above, the maroon leafy plant is perilla – it can handle a sunny location.  The other plants are pansy and petunia.  This container was assembled in the spring.  The perilla and petunia will continue on, but the pansy will need to replaced with a sunny, trailing plant, such as lysmachia , dichondra or vinca.

Above, the yellow trailing flower is calibrachoa, ‘million bells’.  The grass is the middle is pennesitum ‘fireworks’.  The silver trailing plant is dichondra, ‘silver falls’.

The post Dena’s Custom Containers appeared first on Homestead Gardens, Inc..

The Front Porch Container Challenge

Twice a year the pots on my front porch are transformed – from easy-care prostrate junipers in winter to the boldest, baddest collection of blooms I can possibly find in the summer, and then back to junipers in early winter.  Yet for years I’ve been suck in the Wave petunia/sweet potato vine two-step.  Colorful, yes, but frankly, I’ve been there and done that too many years to get excited about repeating that particular combination, no matter how successful it is.  (And don’t let me discourage you from using them together because they’re do-ers!)

So this year I enlisted some help – from Homestead Annuals Manager Kerry Kelley – because I needed to think outside the box and when it comes to annuals, I’m woefully ignorant.   But armed with information about available sun, pot size, and what other colors are happening elsewhere in the front yard in the summertime, Kerry suggested a slew of plants I’d never heard of.  She even planned the arrangement in each pot and you see the results here, watered them in and hopefully ready to thrive.

In the top photo you see, on the left, 1 Calibrachoa ‘Compact Orange’ (which trails to 40 inches), 2 ‘Vancouver Centennial’ geraniums, and for the vertical elements, an ornamental millet ‘Jade Princess’.  The very existence of ornamental millet was news to me, and this one’s supposed to grow to 3-4 feet tall!  On the right are 1 Purple Fountain Grass, 2 Calibrachoa (a ‘Double Yellow’ and a “Compact Orange”), one purple sweet potato vine, and to trail down the sides of the pot, Lysimachia ‘Walkabout Sunset’.

Above left, I’m trying a single-species effect with 3 Geranium Grandiosa ‘Merlot Red’.  On the right are 2 Orange Osteosermum and 1 Burgundy calibrachoa.  Now geraniums I’m certainly familiar with,  but “Calis” and Osteos?  Never heard of ’em!  But I’m totally psyched about trying them because like most annuals, they’ll grow fast, bloom continuously, and maybe even create some drama.

Lastly, here’s a pot that’s not on the front porch but near the front of a sunny border in the back yard, where I’m hoping to create an eye-catching focal point.  So Kerry suggested a Canna ‘Emerald Sunset’ as the vertical element, with some Lantana ‘Pot of Gold’, a deep purple sweet potato vine, and a couple of Angelonia ‘Serena Purple’.   More names I’ve never heard of and can’t wait to grow.

Updates Coming

I’ll be recording the progress of these containers throughout the season and posting photos here.   I figure I can’t be the only one whose repertoire of annuals is old and tired and in need of some new (to us) plants to try.  Though now that I’ve announced the plan the pressure’s ON to keep them alive.   Kinda like announcing publicly that you’re quitting smoking – succeed or be publicly embarrassed.  My plan?  Water, water, water, and always with some half-strength liquid fertilizer.

The post Hot Container Plantings, Coming Up! appeared first on Homestead Gardens, Inc..

I have a confession to make.  In decades of gardening I never grew a single vegetable or kitchen herb.  I blame this shocking omission in my gardening life on the fact that I don’t enjoy cooking (that’s confession number two, and counting).  But I DO follow what’s going on and in 2009 that included a White House Garden joining the organic and local food movements and the recession to produce lots of new gardeners, mostly kitchen gardeners.

The First Year

So last year I gave in decided to grow my first vegetables, and the best place in my garden for doing that isn’t in the garden at all – it’s on my large, sunny deck (neighbors have dubbed it the “aircraft carrier”).   Til then, my container plantings had been perfect for a “low-maintenance gardener” (someone my mother would have called lazy)  – all succulents.  Anybody can keep them alive, right?  (Very little schlepping of water was required. )  But vegetables?  I’d heard they needed actual watering.

So I bought some “self-watering” containers, which actually don’t self-water but DO hold a lot of water in their reservoir, which allows a gardener to, say, leave town for a weekend without hiring a waterer.   On my deck, with no hose  nearby, a lot of schlepping was still required to fill those reservoirs, but it was totally worth it for the glorious produce and fun of it all.

First, about the fun.  Even this supposedly seasoned gardener was floored by how fast these plants grow, and how exciting it is to watch them do develop.   And it turned out that – knock me over! – I found picking and cooking home-grown vegetables to be one of life’s cheapest and best thrills.  (My favorite “recipe”?  Simple broiled eggplant.)

Now for the produce.   The sugar-snap peas were the absolute best snacking I’d ever encountered.  Could NOT get enough of them, picked fresh off the vine.  Plus tomatoes, eggplants, squash, zucchini, red peppers, cucumbers, melon, assorted herbs, and salad greens in spring and fall.

Year Two – the Improvements

My biggest mistake last year was in growing plants that were too darn big to stay upright in their containers.  In the garden I could have pounded sturdy supports into the ground and tied everything up but in containers, no can do.  (I posted about the dilemma here. )  So I asked Renee Shepherd, owner of Renee’s Seeds, what I should do and her answer was to grow container-sized plants.  Yep, they actually exist, or at least Renee sells them.  So this year it’s “Super Bush” tomatoes, “Bush Slicer” cukes, “Little Prince” eggplant.  There are even container-size sunflowers and zinnias. 

Something else I learned from the very patient Renee is that most vegetables are really and truly easy to grow from seed sewn outdoors – after the ground has warmed up in early May.  However, we can get a head start on growing three vegetables – tomatoes, peppers and eggplants – indoors in early spring.  Good to know!  So this year I’m doing just that.

Now for my last confession, I bought this nifty seed-starter but NOT one of those grow-light contraptions.  Yes, they’re mandatory according to almost everyone, but just enough people have reported good-enough seedlings from simply moving their little seedlings to a bright window, so that’s what I’m doing.

Wish me luck.   I promise to report the results, even more confessions are required.

The post Newbie Lessons About Growing Vegetables in Containers appeared first on Homestead Gardens, Inc..