About Us:Art's Nursery Ltd. is one of Metro Vancouver's largest retail and wholesale nurseries and prides itself on offering a huge 10+ acre selection of plants, shrubs, trees and more. We are located at: 8940 192nd Street, Surrey-Port Kells, B.C., Canada Tel: 604.882.1201 www.artsnursery.comReg Hours:
Mon-Wed 9:00am - 6:00pm
Thu-Fri 9:00am - 6:00pm
Sat 9:00am - 6:00pm
Sun: 10:00am - 6:00pm
Extended hours in spring & summer. What's New?:
A few recent arrivals include:
Amarylis Bulbs
Prepared Hyacinths
Perennial Fuchsias
Corokia
Espallier Camellias
LingonberriesFeature Product:
Euphorbia 'Blackbird'A new Euphorbia with dark, purple foliage, bright red stems, dark purple bracts and bright yellow flowers. Bushy compact habit. Ideal for containers and gardens. Excellent for creating a mediterranean look. Comes back year after year.
Did You Know?
Art's Nursery sells turf? Fresh rolls arrive each and every friday in season. Pre-order yours and save. Call for more details. Contact Us:We welcome your comments and suggestions on this email newsletter. Email the editor. | Arts Nursery October 2009 Newsletter October is a great time to enjoy and work in your garden. Many plants are now delivering on their promise of gorgeous yellow, orange and red fall colours. Flowers begin to give way to the other interesting garden attributes, namely foliage, berries and attractive bark. It is also one of the best times to plant new shrubs and trees as it gives them time to root before next spring.
Your Garden In October
Add Bulbs to existing containers. The smaller bulbs that bloom early are easy to add and give your container a whole new look in the Spring. Try crocus, mini daffodils, grape hyacinths, or snowdrops. Why not add a few to the lawn too? If you have a birthday near that time, write the number of years in the lawn with crocus!
Freshen containers with cold tolerant annuals or perennials such as: pansies, cabbage, kale, dusty miller, asters, heuchera, euphorbia, ajuga and more
Buy spring blooming bulbs like daffodils, tulips and hyacinths and do your best to plant them before the ground freezes.
Overseed lawns and feed them with a winter lawn fertilizer.
Divide easy to grow perennials such as, peonies, iris, daylily, bleeding hearts, hardy geranium, hostas, and daisies.
Feed the birds!
Plant trees and shrubs if you haven’t already. Keep watered until ground is frozen.
Bring house plants inside before night temperatures are too cold.
Mulch beds with compost, leaves, mulch, mushroom manure or Seasoil. It will assist in rejuvenating your soil especially when tilled in next spring. It will also deter weed growth, reduce moisture loss etc
Keep an eye on the weather. It may be necessary to start thinking about overwindering dahlias, cannas, and other tender annuals.
Tools sharpened and cleaned.
Hose drained and put away… may still need for a bit when the weather is warm. Store inside so it doesn’t freeze up.
Consider winterizing ponds, birdbaths, or anything that holds water. Freezing and thawing can cause damage. Sunlight on colourful leaves – that’s fall to me. Here at Arts Nursery, we have some wonderful and varied choices of trees with great fall colour:
 | Japanese Maples
Japanese Maples are hard to miss in the fall, with their flaming red, orange or yellow fall colour. Red leaved cultivars turn red or scarlet in the fall, and green leaved cultivars turn fabulous yellow, orange and red. Some of our favourites are Acer palmatum Emperor 1, Osakazuki, Tamukeyama and Sangu-kaku. They generally grow 15-20ft high by 12-15ft wide. Japanese maples prefer part shade but will tolerate full sun if kept adequately moist. At Art's we have dozens of varieties and hundreds of these plants to choose from.
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 | Katsura Trees
Katsura trees, Cercidiphyllum japonicum, have small heart shaped leaves with outstanding fall colour from yellow to wine, early in the season. The spicy sugar scent just before leaf drop is a bonus. Katsuras have stiff arching branches, and grow 35 – 50ft tall and 25 – 35ft wide. Part shade or sun. Excellent shade or street tree. Come have a look at a great new variety called 'Red Fox'. |
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Persian Ironwood Trees
Parrotia or Ironwood trees have sensational fall colours, turning bronze, then crimson and orange, finishing brilliant yellow. They are coloured well into October. For the best fall colour plant parrotias in full sun, although they will grow in part shade too. They grow 20 – 40ft high and wide at maturity.
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 | Sourwood Trees
Sourwood Trees, Oxydendron arboreum, have lance shaped green leaves that turn a striking blood-red colour in the fall. They also offer sprays of creamy-white flowers in late summer to early fall. A great tree for smaller yards or as a specimen. |
 | Red Maples
Red Maples, or Acer rubrum, are trees for people with slightly larger properties. They grow 40 – 60ft high by 25 – 45ft wide. Their fall foliage begins early and is a brilliant scarlet, that persists well into October. Acer rubrum are tolerant of many different sites. We have several different cultivars, including Armstrong, Bowhall, Brandywine, Red Sunset and more. A classic Canadian favourite.
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 | Sweetgum Trees
Sweetgum Trees, also known by their botanical name Liquidambar styraciflua, are another great mid-sized tree for Fall interest. Their green, maple-like leaves turn striking shades of red in fall. An excellent well-behaved tree often recommended for boulevard or streetside plantings. Makes an excellent specimen or shade tree as well. |
 | Ginkgo Tree
Another classic favourite for fall colour is the Ginkgo tree. Featuring unique fan-shaped green leaves, their foliage turns striking colours of yellow-gold in the fall. This is a significantly sized tree ideal for larger yards and bigger spaces, but tends to grow slower.
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The above trees are only a small sampling of the varieties here at Art’s. So treat yourself to a visit, and enjoy the fall ambience.
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Read This Article Online
You don’t need to wait until spring and summer to fill those pots and containers. Beautiful displays of daffodil, tulip, hyacinth and crocus can be started now for a wonderful display of bright colour in late winter extending well into late spring. It is easy, fun and so rewarding when the flowers open providing blooms right where you want them often with a fragrance to boot.
Selecting the Bulbs
There are many spring flowering bulbs that work very well for container gardening. One should select shorter growing varieties as they tend to lend themselves to pot and containers better than very tall varieties. A few that do extremely well are Anemonae blanda, Chionodoxus, Crocus, daffodils (narcissus), Galanthus, Hyacinth, iris, Muscari, Scilla and botanical Tulips.
These can all be obtained at Arts Nursery from September to early December.
Pots and Containers
It is generally very easy to find a pot or container to plant a bulb garden in as they seem to be in every gardener’s garage and storage shed. It is important to have a hole in the bottom to provide drainage. Some broken pot shards or gravel will help provide good drainage as well.
How to Plant
Planting the bulbs is really very easy. Place a humus rich soil mixture or soilless potting mix in the pot and then plant the bulbs just as you would in the garden. Generally we like to plant the bulb three times deeper than the height of the bulb and close together but not so close as to have the bulbs touching each other.
You can even layer the same bulb in a large container.
To extend the bloom time the bulbs can be planted at different depths with the lower layer at 8 inches deep, a second layer at 6 inches deep and the final layer at 4 inches deep. The more shallow planted bulbs will bloom first followed by the deeper plantings. In this way you will have tulips blooming over an extended period up to two weeks longer than a tub with all the bulbs planted at the same depth.
You can have a really fun time planting different bulbs in layers with the largest bulbs at the lowest layer, medium sized bulbs in the middle and the smallest bulbs in the upper layer. This can result in some wonderful continuing blasts of color in the spring.
Some good combinations that may be planted together are: Narcissus (bottom) and Hyacinth (top), Muscari (bottom) and Anemonae blanda (top), Anemonae blanda (bottom) and Chionodoxa (top), and for an even more spectacular effect plant three layers such as Tulip (bottom) with Hyacinth (middle) and Crocus (top). The combinations are almost endless and the display will be wonderful. Be sure to cover the top layer of bulbs with soil to the top of the pot and water.
Waiting for Spring
For best results it is advised to place the pots and containers in a shallow trench and cover with some leaves or branches to prevent the pots from freezing. In this way the bulbs will develop a good root system during the cold winter months allowing them to put on a good display in the spring.
In early spring the pots and containers can be lifted from the soil and placed in protected, sunny locations around the home exterior. With warmth, stems will soon appear and you will be in for a real spring treat of colour and fragrance.
By Del L. Knowlton
Read This Article Online Gardening in the Greater Vancouver area of British Columbia is such a pleasure as there is a great deal of diversity of plant materials which grow well in our climate. Not only can we grow a broad spectrum of temperate plants but we can also experience the thrill of growing many varieties of heat-loving plants in our gardens and on our decks.
But what do we do at this time of year when days are shorter and temperatures dip toward freezing at night? It would be nice to be able to move all the heat-loving plants into a heated greenhouse so as to have them readily available for the following spring and summer. Lacking the heated greenhouse one might find that tossing them in the compost pile would be the alternative. Most of us plant lovers are too tender hearted and frugal to go this route.
Outlined below are some tips that you might use to provide some winter protection to the tender plants you have grown thus saving the plants themselves instead of absorbing the cost of replacing them again next year. Most heat-loving plants can be overwintered using one or more of the following methods.
1.Keep your plants in the active growth mode by supplying them with a warm and bright environment. This can be achieved by using a heated greenhouse or placing them in a sunny window location in your home during the cold winter months. A few plants that respond well to this treatment are:
Begonias
Bougainvillea
Citrus
Coleus
Elephant Ears Tropical Hibiscus
Jasmine
Oleanders
Passion Flower
Sage
Remember to turn the pots occasionally and water when the soil is dry
2. Provide a bright but cool area for plants that can handle light frost. This might be achieved by moving the plants into the basement or into an insulated garage. In either case light may have to be provided by a window or by artificial lighting. Plants will need to be turned occasionally and watered when the soil is dry. Plants that respond to this treatment are:
Agave
Clivia
Crinum
Flowering Maple (Abutilon)
New Zealand Flax (Phormium)
3. Provide a cool and dark location for many tropical and semi-tropical plants. This is the ideal condition for plants that go dormant during the winter months. This can be provided by placing the plants in a crawl space, garage or insulated outbuilding where they will not be subject to freezing. This is the preferred method of overwintering many bulbs, corms and tubers such as agapanthus, begonias, caladium, calla, canna, dahlia, ginger, and sweet potato vine. This is often achieved by packing the bulbs/corms and tubers in shavings or peat moss with minimal moisture. Many non-bulbus plants can also be stored in a cool and dark location such as:
Brugmansia
Banana (Musa)
Durantes
Lantanas
Many tropical and semi-tropical plants grow to sizes that make it difficult or impossible to over winter the whole plant. Where this might be a problem it is a typical practice to take cuttings and root the cuttings so that they are available for planting in late winter or early spring. They can then be introduced to your garden when frost danger is past, probably in late April or early May. Some tender plants that have achieved large size may be provided winter protection where they are growing by covering the base with their own leaves as in Gunnera. Larger palms and large but tender banana plants may have to be wrapped with bubble wrap or other protective materials to prevent being killed by cold winter weather.
No matter what methods you use to over winter your plants you should expect some losses but it is real joy to be successful. Good luck and happy gardening.
Del L Knowlton Read This Article Online | Back to Top |
Our current in-store sale has also been extended. Visit our website for more details. Fall Hours of Operation
Arts Nursery is open to serve you 7 days a week from 9:00am to 5:00pm during Fall and Winter. |
