9 Plants for Early Spring Color

Take everything you love about Roses and raise them to new heights by grafting them upon a strong, sturdy, and straight single-stem trunk, and these already iconic blooming shrubs become something otherworldly! But caring for these precious works of art takes a bit more forethought and a touch of extra maintenance (but just a little - we promise!). Especially if you are growing these unique grafted plants in colder regions. Nature Hills has you covered and takes all the guesswork out of the art of caring for Rose Trees! About Tree Roses Basic Rose Care For Happy Blooms Caring For Tree Roses Preparing Your Rose Tree For Winter “Un-wintering” Your Rose Trees Pruning Rose Trees Rose Tree Fertilization Containerized Tree Rose Care Elevate Your Rose Enjoyment Today! About Tree Roses Gorgeous landscape crown jewels, incredible garden specimens, and amazing gifts, Rose Trees are exemplary versions of the beloved flowering ornamental! Experts have created Tree-Form Roses by taking the already beloved Rose bush (when grafted this is called the scion) and grafting them atop a straight trunk, known in the industry as the Rose Standard. This takes the anything-but-ordinary beauty of these classic garden ornamentals and elevates them closer to the eyes, nearer the nose, and head and shoulders above other mere shrubberies! Tree Roses can be grafted Hybrid Teas, Grandifloras, Floribundas, or today many are reblooming Shrub Roses with built-in disease resistance.  But what goes into caring for these precious tree-form flowering plants really isn’t what you’d expect! Long gone are the days of fussy Roses that need coddling and weeping over! Today’s Roses have been selected and bred to be super easy to grow and care for! And this built-in carefree nature carries over to their Tree-Form versions as well! Basic Rose Care For Happy Blooms Roses need 8 basic rules of thumb to keep them happy and healthy - Full Sun - Favoring morning sun to dry their leaves of dew Air Circulation - Rose foliage needs ample air circulation to avoid many issues that typically can cause problems Regular Moisture - Moderate yet consistent water access all growing season Enriched Well-Drained Soil - Roses despise soggy stagnant conditions. Plant Roses in a location with high organic matter and good drainage Mulched Garden Beds - Adding 3-4 inches of arborist mulch holds moisture better, insulates the root system, and further enriches the soil Regular Fertility - Roses need ample fertility access to support their flowering and health Winter Crown Protection - Protecting their crown and roots from chill is vital in cold climates Spring Pruning - Pruning Roses is best performed in the early spring when you see new growth beginning to emerge This is the basic care that many types of both new and old-fashioned Roses need to keep them looking their best for the long run! Rose trees will need just a little bit more to protect their graft union and support the very best growth. Caring For Tree Roses How do you maintain a Rose Tree that is different than a regular Rose bush? There’s not too much else during the growing season! In addition to the 8 basic needs listed above, be sure to regularly water your Rose Tree deeply and use the finger-test method to know when to water. You will want to do this to ensure your Rose roots go deep to better help them tolerate heat and short bouts of drought. Plant your Tree Rose in a protected location away from strong winds, and in exposed locations, or in low areas where cold air can settle. For Rose Trees planted in lawns - Give them a 2-3 foot wide ring of mulch to protect the trunk from mower and weed-wacker damage. This buffer zone also helps keep lawn chemicals and fertilizers that are high in nitrogen away from your plant. Roses exposed to high nitrogen levels grow predominantly green foliage and may have reduced flowering. Preparing Your Rose Tree For Winter Today’s modern Roses are much easier to care for and with just a bit of planning, your Roses will slumber throughout the winter like a baby, emerging in spring with an explosion of refreshing growth! Winter protection will be needed especially if you are growing them where winter can get to zero degrees or colder. Container Tree Form Roses can be overwintered in an unheated garage after they go dormant. If grown in the ground, they can be heavily mulched and wrapped with straw and burlap for protection. Then in spring, take it back out of the garage, or unwrap it and water it well. Bring it back into a protected location in the event of a late spring freeze until it has fully acclimated to being outside again. Timing It’s a good idea to protect the crown of the Rose and its roots from the impending winter’s chills.  However, most people cover their Roses too early. In the rush to beat the cold (to keep themselves warm more so than their plants), they accidentally trap moisture, leaves are still green, and potential mold, fungi, and disease in their shrubs. Forcing them to struggle all winter long. This also wreaks havoc on your plants during the fickle autumn months that waver between freezing and thawing. Be careful with using Rose Cones for winter protection as the plants can rot underneath. Cut holes in the tops of the cones to allow moisture to escape but the sides of the cones will offer protection. Wait until your Rose plants have been exposed to several killing frosts and consistently cold temperatures to help them completely go dormant before covering, and only if winter protection is needed in your Hardiness Zone. Depending on your climate, the right time is around Thanksgiving to think about protecting your Rose bushes in colder areas, but Mother Nature dictates exactly when with her fickle nature. One warm and extended fall and you’ll find rotting or diseased Roses awaiting you in spring! Climate In USDA growing zones 6 and below, you need to protect your Tree Rose from winter’s chill. Do everything you can to protect your investment. In the more Southern States (USDA growing zones 7 and up) if winter protection is needed, then you’ll want to wait until much later in the season before wintering your Roses. You may only need to provide the crown with a layer of mulch and protection from cold, drying winds. In the warmest parts of the country, only attention to moisture access is needed.   Disease Prevention Aside from much-needed morning sun and air circulation, cleaning away old/shed foliage, and proper winterizing, Rose Trees need a bit of help to keep pests away as well.  Treating Roses for insects can be done with organic options or chemical control. Or if you are in an area that has a lot of pressure from insects you may want to consider using a Systemic Rose care option. Granular systemic Rose formulas are applied to the soil, raked/watered in, and the plant takes up the active ingredient to prevent bugs from chewing on those plants (making them taste bad from the inside out!). If disease and fungus are issues in your area, it is a good idea to choose Roses that have natural or built-in disease resistance. Wait to cover until they are completely dormant Choose a dry day to cover them Water only at the root zone Optional sprays are available for your Rose canes, including a fungicide spray, a disease-preventing dormant oil spray solution, or 1/3 cup baking soda to 1 gallon of water. Winter Moisture Needs Although Roses are drought tolerant, they really prefer to have good moisture to keep them stress-free. That means watering the soil as needed keeping the foliage dry. So check your soil moisture and water when needed right through the growing season into fall as the plants stop growing and go dormant. Read more about Winter Watering Here. Deer Prevention Deer will nibble on the ends of Roses where there are fewer thorns, but unfortunately, even the thorniest Roses can receive a bit of tip damage when the deer are especially hungry! Try spraying your plants with a repellent and reapply after heavy rain or snow throughout the winter. Do this from day one of planting in high deer-pressure areas to train your local deer population that "This plant tastes awful!". More Tips & Tricks for Deer Prevention Mulch and Rose Trees Freeze/thaw cycles and drying out are the two biggest issues facing Roses throughout the winter. Covering the crown loosely with mulch or leaves is the best way to prevent cold damage to your Rose, especially in colder climates. In warm and humid climates, less is more when it pertains to preventing mold and fungus from getting to your plant. We have found the best way to overwinter Hybrid tea, Floribunda, Grandiflora, Shrub Roses, and Climbers is to mound up the base of the plants with at least a foot of arborist wood chips, or clean mulch of any kind. This covers the bottom foot of so of the canes protecting the plants. Mulch not only looks nice but also greatly reduces the incidence of soil-borne diseases (water hitting the soil can splash the foliage and make it dirty looking while carrying with it those diseases!). The easiest method to protect your Tree Roses for winter is to allow the plants to go dormant first, and clean out the interior of any debris or old Rose leaves to prevent harboring excess moisture, fungus, and disease. In zones 7 or colder, cover the crowns with dry, clean, loose organic matter. Mulch over the roots, cage the top, and fill with loose clean, dry material. If container-grown, Rose Trees can be overwintered inside an unheated garage or shed or other structure out of the elements after the plant has gone dormant.   The loose clean and dry material can include: Soil Compost Mulch Shredded leaves Straw Peat moss Bark chips Most Tree-Form Roses have a Rose Standard on their own root and are grafted at the top of this 2-3 foot or 3-4 foot tall trunk. This graft is where your Rose Tree differs from the regular Rose bush that can sometimes be grafted just above the roots. In extreme cold climate locations, even the hardiest Rose needs extra protection for that elevated graft union. “Un-wintering” Your Rose Trees Once winter finally recedes - it is time to pull that mulch or leaf litter away from the bottoms of the Rose trunk and get them pruned! Wear some good heavy gloves to protect your hands. Expose the canes and inspect them, pulling the mulch and leaves away back to a 3-4 inch thick layer around the root zone only, spreading out to about 2-3 feet beyond the Rose Tree’s branches (the drip line). Pruning Rose Trees In the early spring, as you start to see new growth start, it’s time to prune your Rose. Pruning Roses allows for better, bushier growth each year and stimulates new growth. Know what kind of Rose you have before you prune! Hybrid Teas, Grandifloras, Floribundas, and many Shrub Roses can all be trained into Rose Trees and all make flowers on new growth/new wood. That means that these Roses you are uncovering really do need to be trimmed to remove any broken or dead branch tips, but more importantly make the Tree Rose heads more uniform and allow them to make new growth from fewer healthy buds closer to the grafted top portion. Any of the old-fashioned Shrub Rose types, or Climbing Roses that bloom on old wood/last year's growth should not be pruned in spring. Some of these older Native Roses that bloom on last year's growth will flower in June and when that stem flowers you cut it down to the ground and new stems arise from the ground. Those stems make next year’s flowers. Leave the Rose branches (canes) alone until early spring just before they start to grow. This way you’ll easily see the fat new buds emerging and this will give you an idea where to make your cuts.  For older Rose trees that have been in place for many years, you should take a bit of time with each plant, eliminating any dead or brown and dry canes right back to the head with nice sharp pruning shears. The key is removing older and/or diseased stems leaving clean and healthy stems each year. Winter damage may make pruning decisions for you. Remove anything suspicious and cleanly prune off the stem just above a fat healthy-looking bud. Any nice green stems that are not broken and look healthy should be reduced to about 6-8 inches away from the main grafted crown. For larger Rose scions, trim the head back to about a 12" sphere just as it begins to grow again in spring. Remember to wipe and sterilize your pruners between EACH cut!   Rose Tree Suckers & Rose Tree Stress When stressed, sometimes a Rose Tree’s roots can send up suckers. This will look like straight canes coming up from the roots that are not branching off the main trunk. This could indicate your Tree is stressed from drought or pests, from mulch or soil that is piled too high over the roots, or the Rose Tree is not planted deep enough. At any time of the year, you can prune away suckers and branching that forms at the base or on the trunk. First, correct what is causing your Tree Rose to be stressed, and cleanly prune off these suckers so they do not sap more energy or nutrients from your plant. Whenever any plant is showing signs of stress - Do not reach for the fertilizer! Treat the source of the stress and fertilize once it has recovered. Fertilizer forces new growth at a time when your plant is already weak and struggling to support its current growth, compounding any problems it’s already experiencing! Rose Tree Fertilization Spread compost around your Rose tree each spring as you top off its mulch layer. You can also apply a slow-release fertilizer for Roses in the spring once you see new growth in the spring. You can also apply liquid Rose fertilizer in the spring and again in the summer. Containerized Tree Rose Care Tree Roses potted up in planters and containers have a few extra needs for you to be aware of. Firstly, they completely rely on you to provide their sources of water and nutrients. Proper watering and regular fertility are needed to keep them growing well! For container Rose Trees that were brought into garages or sheds for the winter, water sparingly enough to keep the roots barely damp but do not let them dry out completely. Avoid wrapping the pot in plastic or plastic bags because mold, mildew, or other fungal issues may grow. Proper air circulation is still important year-round. Temperatures in the storage area should be consistently in the 30s°F to lower 40s°F. Another method in especially cold climates, is to dig a trench in the garden and lay the potted - dormant - Tree Rose in the trench. Then cover it with several inches of soil or clean leaf litter. In the spring, simply unearth the Rose and stand it up again, water well, and stake it if needed until the roots re-settle.   Ensure Your Rose Tree Container of Choice Has -  Ample drainage to prevent root rot Is large enough to give the roots plenty of room to grow Is large enough and amended with enough organic matter to hold moisture adequately Is heavy enough to prevent wind and storms from toppling your Rose tree Receives regular moisture that excess water can quickly be shed Large enough to not overheat in the full sun environment and cook the roots Large enough to insulate the roots against the chill and freezes in the winter Has a mulched layer on the top to insulate the surface roots and prevent evaporation Elevate Your Rose Enjoyment Today! Gorgeous elevated versions of your favorite Rose bushes are elegant, high-end focal points and works of living art! Caring for them correctly will allow you years of enjoyment from these incredible ornamental flowering shrubs! Check out the incredible array of Rose Trees for you to choose from today at Nature Hills Nursery! Happy Planting!

It’s nearly fall and very soon the Sumac bushes in your area will light up the landscape with their incredible fiery autumn wardrobe! Sumac Shrubs may be in high demand mainly for their fall color, but the Sumac has been highly underutilized as a landscape workhorse because of its association with ‘poison’ Sumacs. However, these super hardy native shrubs aren’t poisonous and have loads to offer throughout the year! Sumac Flowers Sumac Berries Some of the Sumac shrubs offered by Nature Hills include - Sumac Shrub and Tree Landscape Value Caring For Sumac Shrubs Stunning Sumac Shrubs! Sumac bushes, sometimes spelled Sumach, botanically known as Rhus, belong to a family of plants that contain about 200 species. The Smooth Sumac, also known as the Scarlet Sumac (R. glabra) and many other common names depending on your area, is native to the eastern and central US. The Sumacs offered by Nature Hills are not poisonous like the similarly named Poison Sumac (Toxicodendron vernix - previously known as Rhus vernix). Members of the Cashew family (Anacardiaceae), the Sumac encompasses both deciduous and evergreen plants. The evergreen Sumacs are generally in tropical locations, while the deciduous Sumacs are predominant in the United States. Several species are ornamental hybrids that have incredibly colorful foliage all growing season in addition to their unique flower and seed pods! The plants had considerable benefits in the day-to-day lives of Indigenous Americans as medicine and a source of black ink and dye. The bark and leaves were for tanning leather and even dried leaves and fruit were used as tobacco. They used the wood for a wide variety of uses, as well as making a Lemonade-like drink called Sumac-ade from the fruit. The dried, ground fruit of Sumac is used as a spice, popular in Middle Eastern cuisine. Lending a lemony flavor improves the taste of various salads and meat dishes. Sumac Flowers Beneficial insects seek out the sweet nectar from the terminal flower clusters that appear in spring as fluffy pyramidal to cone-shaped panicles. Usually white, cream, green, or yellow in color, the flowers are sought after by bees, beetles, and wasps as they gather pollen. The Fragrant Sumac is even a vital caterpillar host plant for 54 species of Lepidoptera larvae, including the Red-banded Hairstreak and Spring Azure Butterfly. Winged Sumacs are host to Luna Moths too! Sumac Berries Often these trees and shrubs are dioecious, meaning that they develop male and female flowers on separate plants, and only the female plants produce the fruit. Wildlife is attracted to the Sumacs fruit that forms into showy pointed clusters (called Sumac bobs) in the late summer and fall, usually turning a fiery red, auburn, burgundy/maroon, or orangey-russet. Humans even use the berry-like drupes to make the aforementioned tangy drink! These pointed clusters remain persistent throughout the winter for fall and winter interest and bird food! Sumac Form & Foliage Often forming an airy open shrub, colony, or tree form (with pruning), Sumac has an elegant multi-branched structure and can be trained into a very pleasing canopy with ease! Birds and wildlife appreciate the shelter the open branching and the ferny leaves provide. Sumac has fuzzy new growth and gave rise to the Staghorn Sumacs name, due to the velvet-covered antler-like branches that can be smooth or hairy! Even the bark is covered with fine hairs that give it a velvety texture. This textured bark and branching usually do a good job keeping deer at bay unless they’re quite desperate. Most Sumac have pinnately compound leaves that can consist of 11 to 13 leaflets arranged in long rows, sometimes further lobed or having loosely serrated edges. The Fragrant Sumac, Gro-Low Sumac, and Autumn Amber Sumac stand out as having tri-lobed leaves that are aromatic when brushed, passed or crushed! Sumac Roots The shallow root systems send up suckers and form polite colonies that are easy to control or encourage depending on how you wish to utilize your Sumac. Wildlife and Bird Value! Hunters and wildlife conservation areas plant drifts of Sumac shrubs to provide forage and shelter for many birds including the ring-necked pheasant, quail, wild turkey, and about 300 species of songbirds. Some of the Sumac shrubs offered by Nature Hills include - Autumn Amber Sumac Cutleaf Staghorn Sumac First Editions® Tiger Eyes® Cutleaf Staghorn Sumac Fragrant Sumac Gro-Low Sumac Prairie Flame Sumac Rocky Mountain Sumac Smooth Sumac Staghorn Sumac Sumac Shrub and Tree Landscape Value These ornamental Sumacs are beloved in the landscape because of their graceful form, tropical-looking leaves, fall color, and colorful fruit clusters! They almost look Palm-like while they sway in the breeze. Often living 30-50 years in optimal conditions!   Sumac is a hardy shrub with no significant disease or insect problems. They are also tolerant of urban conditions and pollution, as seen in their widespread use along highways and in busy commercial landscapes. Very cold-hardy throughout USDA growing zones 3 to 9, these shrubs handle a wide range of growing conditions! Growing in sunny, hot, dry conditions, and very poor soils, where other shrubs struggle. If you have thin, rocky soils or a steep slope on your property, cover the ground for you quickly! Sumac is an ideal choice when used along the edge of a woodland area or as a crown jewel in the Rock Garden! Use these gorgeous native shrubs as borders, airy hedges, or as foundation plants in your garden! Use in either the sun or understory areas of your landscape, larger forms look great ‘limbed up’ tree form specimen plantings or in en masse drifts! Sumac grows almost anywhere! Find success growing these adaptable shrubs in the hell strip along the sidewalk, screening your property off from the road, or along the roadsides in ditches. Readily naturalizing and spreading, many Sumac varieties create thickets by way of polite suckering. Add fragrant foliage to your outdoor garden rooms with the Fragrant Sumac, or enjoy broad-reaching low-growing groundcover Sumacs like Autumn Amber and Gro-Low Sumac! For a lacy and vibrant chartreuse foliage option, plus fall color, try the First Editions® Tiger Eyes® Cutleaf Staghorn Sumac! The Sumac is your go-to for low-maintenance native landscaping! Magnificent as Groundcover in Wide Open Areas Controls Erosion & Water Runoff on Slopes En Masse Naturalizing Thickets Tolerates Thin Poor Soil & Drought Once Established Trim Into Tree-Form Multi-Trunked Specimens Wildlife, Bird & Pollinator Friendly Shrubs Handles Pollution & Urban Environments With Ease Cold Hardy Hedges Caring For Sumac Shrubs Sumacs are hardy, tough plant that is easy to grow and have few pests to contend with. Sumacs preferred growing conditions are full sun, while other Sumac varieties handle partial shade. But all of them do best in well-drained soil and will even thrive in poor, rocky soil. Sumacs are tolerant of slightly acid soil conditions and soil textures ranging from coarse to fine, preferring anything well-drained. Easy-to-care-for, tough-as-nails, and drought-tolerant once established, Sumac are very low-maintenance! Prune Sumac in late winter or very early spring for shape and size if needed. If you'd like, you can rejuvenate these shrubs by cutting them back to the ground when dormant in the winter, however, this is not necessary to maintain a healthy stand of shrubs. You can also try renewal pruning by removing a third of the oldest growth every 3-5 years. Mow or trim back suckers if they are not desired each year. Stunning Sumac Shrubs! Wildlife and songbird-friendly, fiery fall color, showy flowers and fruit, plus gorgeous tropical foliage, the Sumac Shrub is hopefully going to be your new favorite native landscaping shrub! Order Sumac shrubs for your next landscaping project from NatureHills.com today! Nature Hills sells healthy, high-quality Sumac plants and we know you'll be very satisfied with these tough-as-nails shrubs! Happy Planting!

Perfumed Camellia Shrubs with blooms that are the embodiment of the Fibonacci sequence in action! Orderly precision, beauty plus fragrance, and winter flowers when Southern gardens need it the most, the Camellia symbolizes your love and devotion for another and is the state flower of Alabama! Learn how to best care for these incredible flowering ornamental shrubs to keep them blooming their best in your landscape with the help of Nature Hills! Camellia Bushes Available at Nature Hills Camellias in the Landscape Camellias in Containers Caring For Camellias Captivating Camellias! The Camellia family (Camellia japonica or Camellia sasanqua) consists of over 200 species and around 3000 hybrids of flowering shrubs and trees. They originally came to the continental United States from Asia but were first introduced to England, and then to the US. With their famously fragrant wintertime bloom, the Camellia is a heat and humidity-tolerant broad-leaved evergreen, commonly grown throughout warm climate USDA hardiness zones 7 through 10. Typically this is why Camellias are seen everywhere in the Southern United States! The double-petalled forms have anemone and rose-like blooms full of petals. Full of elegant flowers that are perfectly symmetrical and concentric as if each bloom has its petals arranged by a perfectionist! The single-petalled forms show off the Camellia's fringed golden centers! Each voluptuous flower is highlighted by a bright yellow shower of stamen that acts as bullseyes for bees and other curious beneficial pollinators seeking out a pollen and nectar treat. Glossy, dark green foliage fills out these shrubs and perfectly showcases the showy blossoms! These are an enjoyable evergreen presence in your yard throughout the year. Like its close relative that produces all the tea in the world over (Camellia sinensis), the leaves of Camellia sasanqua can also be made into tea in many parts of Japan!  Fragrant Late-Season Blooms for Months! Fine-Textured, Lustrous Green Leaves Remain Evergreen Compact Shrubs With Moderate to Fast Growth Rate Widely Adapted & Low Maintenance Lovely Blooms in Bouquets & Flowers to Float in a Bubble Bowl Easy to Grow in Acidic, Well-Drained Soils Grow in Sun, Part Shade, or Shade Displays Drought Tolerance Once Established Pollinators Favorite Leaves can be dried or fermented into Tea Hedges, Screening, Winter Interest & Specimens! Camellia Bushes Available at Nature Hills Nature Hills is very selective when choosing varieties of Camellias to showcase. They are selected for flowering power, bloom colors, and size, along with disease tolerance! Check out all these lovely options! Red Flowering Camellias Pink Flowering Camellias White Flowering Camellias Kramer’s Supreme October Magic® Ruby Tom Knudsen Yuletide Camellia Debutante Camellia Early Wonder® Hana Jiman Camellia Kanjiro Camellia Nuccio's Pearl Shishi Gashira Slim 'N Trim Camellia Spellbound Camellia Stephanie Golden Autumn Rocket Falling Star Camellia October Magic® White Shi-Shi™ Silver Waves Snow on the Mountain Large Leaf Tea The Shishi Gashira is a unique weeping form! The Slim 'N Trim and the Autumn Rocket are unique columnar forms that fit into tight spaces! Or try the brilliant Christmastime red blooms of Yuletide! The October Magic® series are dwarf forms that fit perfectly into the smallest properties! The large-scale Kanjiro Camellia will create impressive privacy and screening with ease! Camellias in the Landscape Camellias' long-lasting winter display is a breath of fresh air at a time of year when few other plants are blooming in mild winter climates. For the remainder of the year, you'll enjoy the glossy evergreen foliage as a garden backdrop, screening, and privacy hedge, or as a year-round property definition! These would look stunning as a screening hedge plant at your fence line, or to hide utilitarian corners of your landscape. Can you imagine how pretty these blooming shrubs would look as living walls of a Garden Room or outdoor dining room? These evergreen shrubs will look great all year long!  Plant them 5 to 10 feet apart on center, measuring from the center of one to the center of the next. They will grow together and create a lovely, solid screen. You’ll enjoy late-season blooms in mixed shade borders and mixed hedgerows! Use as a shelterbelt or windbreak that is wonderfully bird-friendly. The rustling leaves and lovely blooms are sure to dress up any part of your property and reduce noise pollution. These elegant shrubs are so versatile! Try anchoring your home's foundation border, or use the October Magic® series of Camellia as the foundation hedge itself! Or a tall and columnar Autumn Rocket to soften a hardscape’s corner. Mass several of them under tall trees or at the edge of the property to draw the eyes and butterflies!  Host a tea party with refreshing beverages made from the buds and the new spring growth of the Large Leaf Tea Camellia! The buds can be dried, fermented, or a fresh infusion to make a wide variety of tea types! It would be the crown jewel of your Meditation or Asian-inspired garden! Camellias in Containers For apartment or condo living, Camellia can be kept small as the perfect container plant. No one needs to know how easy it is to grow! Plant one or more in planters with ample drainage for years of enjoyment on the patio. What a nice, easy way to screen your seating area or add pinpoint privacy to a balcony. Try it as a beautiful Espalier-trained Camellia flat against a wall or fence. This ancient pruning technique is especially valuable in a smaller landscape where space is at a premium. Add a romantic touch to a courtyard with a Nuccio's Pearl Camellia, or frame the entrance to a garden path with a pair of Debutante Camellia! Use them singly as a natural sculpture by the pool! Go bold and clean off the lower trunk of branching and expose the multi-trunk clump to create a stately tree-form accent! This is called ‘limbing up’ and will make a delightful specimen on a front yard berm! Caring For Camellias Caring for Camellias is not difficult at all! Deer tend to avoid these plants unless desperate. But it is best to spray your new shrub with deer repellant from day one and continue spraying it according to the product directions to train deer in your area to avoid this shrub! Otherwise, they are remarkably pest and disease-resistant! Sun and Location Camellias are great in part shade locations that get protection from the hot afternoon sun, but you will enjoy a larger bloom display when planted in full sun with afternoon protection. This is a low-maintenance shrub that grows naturally and can be a solution to many sun-filtered locations where other plants would not succeed. Most Camellia sasanqua varieties are a bit more tolerant of sun exposure. Morning sun is important since it dries the leaves of dew and humidity to prevent any foliar issues. For best results, protect broad-leaf evergreens from excessively parched and sunny or windy/exposed sites. Moisture Camellias need moderate but regular moisture until they are established. Then, established shrubs can be low-moisture plants, but to keep them happiest and healthiest, provide supplemental moisture during extended periods. It’s important to provide your shrubs with a good long drink before winter and top off your layer of mulch for the winter. Soil They prefer acidic soils and soils that are gorged with humus. Amend the soil with a few handfuls of acidic pine needles to maintain their acidity. Choose a location that drains well. If poor drainage is suspected, elevate your planting by mounding up. Bring in additional soil to a height of 18 inches and plant directly in that mound. For container growing choose a potting mix recommended for Azaleas, Camellias, and Rhododendrons. Camellias are shallow-rooted. Spread a 3 to 4-inch layer of pine bark mulch to keep the roots cool and the surface moisture consistent. Apply the mulch all the way out to 3 feet from the outside of the plant's canopy (dripline). Pruning & Maintenance Typically, Camelias require little pruning, but if you do need to clean out dead leaves and give your plant a trim, do so immediately after flowering. Remove any interior dead limbs and twiggy growth. You want to keep an open interior so air circulation and sunlight can penetrate into the shrub's canopy. However, you can prune to shape, and renewal prune at any time during the year. Try turning your shrub into a multi-trunked tree form by ‘limbing up’! Remove the lower limbs and expose the trunks and create a small-scale focal point tree! Fertility Camellias prefer a slightly acidic soil with a pH of 5 to 6.5. Fertilize twice a year with Dr. Earth Acid Lovers Premium and Organic Fertilizer in the late winter and early summer. Camellias in Containers and Planters Because they are so adapted to container growing, the Camellia can be grown outside of their recommended zones and moved into protected areas away from extreme winter cold or hot dry summer days, when needed. Site yours in a bright, indirectly sunny window in a sunroom or greenhouse for the winter and reduce watering. Be sure to always slowly acclimate your container plant indoors for the winter, and back outside in the spring. Choose a pot with adequate drainage and moisture retention. Top the soil surface with a layer of mulch to keep the roots cool and hold moisture more consistently. Captivating Camellias! Gorgeous blooms, fragrance, and evergreen beauty, Southern gardeners praise the glamorous Camellia! These incredible flowering ornamental shrubs will become your landscape’s crown jewel! Easy to grow to the extreme, the Camellia is a must-have blooming wonder! Check out which Camellia will be best for your garden at Nature Hills today! Happy Planting!

“With silver bells and cockle shells, and pretty maids all in a row.” - Mother Goose The classic Cottage Garden - Jam packed full of textures, colors, and flowers that bloom in succession. There may not seem to be rhyme or reason, but there is a common theme - to pack as many shrubs, bulbs, herbs, vegetables, and perennial flowers into an area (comfortably) as possible! Whether you have a small urban courtyard, a corner of your backyard, a long skinny sideyard flower border, or are creating a Cottagecore garden to replace your lawn - Cottage gardens have a little (or a lot) for everyone! Cottage Borders and Cottage Gardens conjure romantic images of nursery rhymes, childhood storybooks and fairytales, breezy summer days, and orderly chaos. Often with a path winding down the center, an arbor heavily draped in Climbing Roses marking the entrance and flanked by a wide, densely packed mixture of groupings, blocks, and drifts of flowers. You can almost envision a clothesline of freshly laundered linens billowing in the breeze, an orchard in the background, an old-fashioned apiary or honeybee skep in the corner. Planted in a tidy patch of organized chaos before a thatched roof cottage, with a Wisteria vine climbing up one side, kept in control by fading white picket fences, as chickens and geese roaming among the leaves, and the hum of delighted insects buzzing from bloom to bloom! The traditional Cottage Garden is small in size but full of incredible variety! The Cozy Cottage Garden Traditional Cottage Garden Plants Caring For High-Density Cottage Garden Plantings Get Cozy with Cottagecore! The Cozy Cottage Garden The late 15th century began seeing Medieval families growing their own food, herbs, and medicinal plants outside their own small homes instead of depending on farming on the land of others. Packing as much as they could into a small area. As food and land became more readily available, flowers and trees were added too! Often naturalized garden flowers, or tamed wilderness areas where farm animals roamed and foraged, a place where the busy gardener dropped plants that didn’t belong in either the field or the vegetable garden, but were too pretty or useful to discard. The Cottage Garden was an informal, out-of-the-way area in the days of old. More traditional English Cottage Gardens, which were modeled after formal Italian gardens, were typically more formal and structured. But today, this unique type of landscape plot can be anything you want! Full of whimsy, curiosities, long-lasting/long-blooming flowers, fragrant varieties, interspersed among spring ephemerals, summer bloomers, and fall stunners - a proper Cottage garden is packed to the brim with something new every change of the season! Since Cottages are typically small, informal abodes, a Cottage garden looks best planted around a shed, mother-in-law addition, a she-shed, or a free-standing garage, but they aren’t necessarily! Depending on the HOA and the style of your home, simply transforming your formal foundation planting of tidy sheared hedging with a biodiversity garden is certainly one method of incorporating this style garden into your landscape! Otherwise, a sunny corner of the backyard by the vegetable garden, or a narrow side yard path lined with flowers can become your respite from the modern world! Densely Planted Wide Variety of Color, Form, Texture & Bloom Time Architectural Focal Points, Airy Filler, Flowing/Arching Elements & Mounded Forms Tall Plants, Mid-Sized & Low-Growing Punctuation of Vertical Groupings, Trellis/Obelisk & Sculpture Sheared & Free-Form Flowering Shrubs Evergreens & Topiary Traditional Cottage Garden Plants The fundamentals of a proper English Cottage Garden are partly cut flower garden, part randomization, and part utilitarian - but all beautiful! Tall & Architectural Mounded Rounded Mid-Sized Low-Growing Anemone Canterbury Bells Delphinium Foxglove Hyssop Larkspur Penstemon Tall Garden Phlox Veronica Butterfly Weed Catmint Coneflower Coreopsis Milkweed Poppy Mallow Salvia Sedum Yarrow Bell Flower Balloon Flower Black Eyed Susans Blanket Flowers Columbines Shasta Daisies Guem Oriental Poppy Penstemon Rudbeckia Ajuga Creeping Phlox Creeping Sedum Creeping Thyme Dianthus Lamb’s Ears Lamium Perennial Geranium Primrose Sea Thrift Mix in some dark foliage plants to add contrast, some airy cloud-like blooms for filler, flowing and mounding plants, and bright pops of dramatic contrasting color to catch the eye! Create gourd tunnels or install a pergola or gazebo, coax moss to grow everywhere, cover walls with Ivies, start collecting antique watering cans, and make homemade garden art! Grassy Textures Greenery Airy Fillers Specimens Blue Eyed Grass Daylilies Iris Liriope Lucerne Grass Ornamental Grasses Spiderwort Artemisia Coral Bells Euphorbia False Indigo Fernleaf Peony Herbs Hosta Ornamental Grasses Aster Astilbe Baby’s Breath Bleeding Hearts Gaura Goldenrod Russian Sage Sea Lavender Wandflower Bee Balm Cardinal Flowers Hardy Hibiscus Hollyhocks Peony Red Hot Poker Sea Holly Mix and match your favorite flowers in densely-packed clusters, among tufts of ornamental grasses, rambling Roses, and climbing flowering vines on tuteur trellis, and obelisks made from branches to add height, as beneficial insects and butterflies dance merrily among them all! Climbing Vines Annual Additions Shade Plants Clematis Climbing Hydrangea Climbing Roses Grapevines Honeysuckles Jasmine Morning Glories Passionflower Vines Trumpet Vine Wisteria Vines or Tree Annual Poppy Celosia Cleome Spider Flower Cosmos Flowering Tobacco Johnny Jump-Ups & Viola Lobelia Love Lies Bleeding Marigolds Queen Anne’s Lace Snapdragons SunflowersZinnias Astilbe Barrenwort Bleeding Hearts Brunnera Coral Bells Ferns Hosta Lady’s Mantle Lenten Rose Lungwort Mimic the native flora in your area for the most natural effect!   Mix in a few annuals and a specimen tree or topiary-trimmed evergreen shrubs or Boxwood here and there, toss in some herbs and veggies, and you have the perfect Cottage Garden! Bulb Plants Cottage Garden Shrubs Herbs Allium/Perennial Onion Asiatic Lilies Calla Lily Crocosmia Dahlia Fritillaria Gladiolus Iris/Bearded Iris Liatris Oriental Lily Ornamental Garlic Ranunculus Spring Flowering Bulbs Tiger Lilies Azalea & Rhododendrons Bluebeard Butterfly Bushes Flowering Quince Forsythia Hydrangea Shrubs Lilacs Roses Roses Roses! Rose of Sharon Spirea St. John’s Wort Sweetspire Weigela Catnips Dill Fennel Feverfew Flowering Chives Germander Lavender Mints Oregano Rosemary Sage Tansy Thyme Mix-Ins Fill in gaps with urns and tall pots brimming with focal point plants and annuals, rocks and ‘fallen’ logs for natural elements, and add raised garden beds or berms for a tiered and layered effect. A wattle fence or recycled/upcycled low fence as edging to help contain spilling flowers will help keep your paths clear and your plants better contained. Don’t forget to include hummingbird and bird feeders/bird baths, sculptures and garden art, an old lamp post, an antique water pump, sections of fencing or recycled garden gates to support heavy plants, and tucking a water feature into the mix! Cottage Garden Paths The main feature of a Cottage Garden is the path that runs through it. Either winding or straight, you can have a path of nearly anything that leads you along! Short mown lawn - try Buffalo Grass for a low-growing no-maintenance option Pavers or wood planks/wood discs with creeping groundcover between them Mulched paths Cobble, river rock, or pebbles Brick or slate pathways Low-growing Creeping Sedum, Creeping Thyme, Lobelia and Carpet Dianthus Caring For High-Density Cottage Garden Plantings First and foremost - find your growing zone and begin there when choosing plants for your Cottage garden. Sun Needs Depending on the mix of plants and if you have established trees and shrubs, you will need to start your plan to accommodate your plant's sun needs and the amount of sun available throughout the day. Plot the sun and map out where shade from future shrubs (and the future height of these shrubs), the house or outbuilding, hedges, trees, and mature perennials/grasses will fall. Plant partial shade/part sun plants in the areas where shade from larger plants falls for more than 4-5 hours. Full-shade plants can be situated beneath the larger shrubs and in areas where the sun can’t quite fully reach. Spacing and Competition Because of the high-density planting technique that Cottage Gardening employs, you’ll want to ensure your plants have enough room to grow comfortably without overcrowding or competing with each other. You create more problems than needed by reducing air circulation among your plants. Once planted, watch how they grow in order to be ready to divide clumps as needed, usually every 3-5 years, to maintain their comfort and vigor. Find your plant's mature width in the Plant Highlights section on each plant information page. Soil and Fertility It’s important to know each plant's fertility needs Fertilize in the spring, spread compost, and keep weed competition at bay. Enrich the soil with ample organic matter, and spread arborist mulch between young/new plants to keep back weeds until your plants mature and establish. Mound up plants that need better drainage, and augment your soil as needed. Watering Water at the roots to further avoid excess moisture on the leaves by using drip irrigation, underground soaker hoses, or water in the morning so the sun dries the foliage throughout the day. But water regularly according to each plant's needs and give more water-hungry plants supplemental moisture when needed. Plants that love drier conditions can be grouped together, or planted on berms to increase their access to drainage. The close proximity of your Cottage Garden plants will naturally reduce the evaporation of moisture in the soil, and a 3-4 inch layer of mulch helps significantly too! Plant rambling groundcovers that are shade tolerant, allow them to fill in the gaps, combat weeds, and act as living mulch while other plants are still working to establish. Get Cozy with Cottagecore! Don your apron, sun hat, and wellies! Add some finishing touches to your Cottage Garden by incorporating a few large rocks, birdhouses and bird feeders, upcycled pottery (of the planter kind and the kitchen kind), bird baths, a ‘broken’ rustic fence feature, and funky garden art! You will have an ever-changing view throughout the year, armloads of cut flowers for your vases and bouquets indoors, a variety that will have the neighbor's heads spinning, and a place where wildlife will feel at home. Adding a hammock or Adirondack chair, bistro table and chairs, plus some antiques and herbs are the perfect additions that add a special touch to your new storybook garden! You’ll have created a destination spot to relax your mind and renew your spirit in! Replace the lawn and begin collecting your favorite plants with the help of Nature Hills today! You’ll create a comfortable setting, stuffed with charm and color! A garden full of life, beneficial insects, and birds that the sterile monoculture of a lawn can never compete with! Happy Planting!

It’s fall clean-up time and you may be eyeing your landscape in search of what to trim back next. That’s when the waving plumes of your Ornamental Grass may be what your gaze settles on. But wait! Ornamental and tall native grasses are grown for their showy fall and winter interest, so put down those shears for now. Fall is generally not the best time to cut Ornamental Grasses down - Especially because they are just starting to really show their stuff! So when is the best time? And what extenuating circumstances may arise that will warrant cutting back these stately plumes in the fall? When Not To Prune Movement, Winter Interest & Wildlife Value Free Insulation and Protection! When To Go Ahead & Prune Potential Disease Issues Spreading/Self-Seeding To Decorate Indoors and Out Warm vs. Cool Season Grasses How To Prune Ornamental Grasses Winter-Ready Gorgeous Grasses! When Not To Prune When planted correctly in well-drained soil that won’t become soggy over the winter, and in a full sun location, Ornamental Grasses have everything they need to stand tall all growing season and survive the brunt of what Ma Nature can throw at them! Movement, Winter Interest & Wildlife Value Leave your Ornamental Grasses standing in your landscape to create movement and interest during the fall and winter months! The plumes add texture and something to look at throughout the show, while many varieties feed songbirds. The grassy clumps even offer shelter to wildlife and birds, and allow beneficial insects places to overwinter! So for these reasons, hold off cutting your grasses until spring just before they start to grow in the spring! Free Insulation and Protection! Keeping the tan foliage and plumes intact also protects the crowns from the winter chill and damage, reduces frost heave, and insulates their surrounding root systems like mulch. Cutting back your grasses in the fall can also allow water to get to the crowns and can cause them to rot. When To Go Ahead & Prune Most Grasses are cut back to expose the crowns to sunlight and to eliminate a place for unwanted animals and insects to overwinter. Luckily this is rarely the case, and you can give the crowns their annual clean out in the spring. It is best to remove all of the old grass blades and flowering stems down to just a couple of inches each spring so the fresh new foliage can grow without the old dried foliage holding it back. Potential Disease Issues A good rule of thumb is that if any of your annuals or perennials (including Ornamental Perennial Grasses) have had some diseased foliage this year, then it is recommended to cut and remove all infected debris from the site. Prevent most of your issues by planting your grasses where the soil is well-drained to keep them healthy. Dispose of them at your local yard waste site to prevent the disease from overwintering on last year’s foliage or spreading potentially to other plants. Spreading/Self-Seeding Another reason for some Ornamental Grasses to warrant being trimmed in autumn is if they are the type that may self-seed and make themselves a nuisance elsewhere. Nature Hills uses Plant Sentry to ensure you won’t receive a plant that may cause trouble in your area in the first place, but sometimes you buy a home with something prolific already there, so pruning off the seedheads before the seed matures to prevent spreading. To Decorate Indoors and Out Lastly, go ahead and prune your Ornamental Grass plumes for your fall and winter décor indoors and out! The showy seedheads are great additions to dried arrangements, swags, outdoor containers, and interior design! Warm vs. Cool Season Grasses Warm Season Grasses, planted in mild-winter climates can be trimmed back if you’d like in the autumn to keep them looking tidier and not have their leaves and large fluffy seed heads blowing around your landscape all winter. For Grass and Sedges that are evergreen in those warmer climates - it is a good idea to gently rake/comb through the grassy leaves pulling or trimming out any old and brown foliage. Every few years it may be necessary to trim these plants down removing at least 2/3 of the old tops to give them a fresh start. This too should be done in spring before they start to grow. Cool Season Grasses should only be pruned in the spring unless a disease issue is present or they were broken down from a summer storm or garden construction. How To Prune Ornamental Grasses Grass blades can have serrated edges and their tissues contain high amounts of silica which quickly dulls your garden tools and may even scratch you. So be ready when tackling this pruning task! Sharp garden shears or pruning shears Coarse toothed folding saw Or an electric hedge trimmer or weed wacker A Rake  Bagged Mulch Twine or bungee cords to hold the bunches together Yard waste bags Long-sleeved shirt, boots, and thick gloves Tie together the leaves and stems for easier cutting and disposal using strong twine or a bungee cord. Using your tools of choice, cut back the clump evenly to a height of about 4 to 6 inches. Dispose of the trimmed leaves and stems in your yard waste, and collect seedheads for your crafts! Take the rake and clean out the crown of your Grass clump to eliminate excess debris and built-up clutter that accumulated throughout the year. Top-dress the root system around your grass with 3-4 inches of arborist mulch chips to keep the roots insulated all winter and hold in moisture. If it is a dry winter or your autumn has been plagued with drought, water your Grass and other plants in well for the winter. Winter-Ready Gorgeous Grasses! Whenever possible, it’s best to hold off trimming Ornamental Grass until late winter or early spring before it starts to grow. They add too much beauty to the upcoming winter to make giving them a buzz cut worthwhile! But when it is necessary, feel safe knowing you know how to prune Grasses correctly and for the right reason. Nature Hills is here to help you keep all of your favorite landscaping ornamentals ready for winter and looking their best at all times of the year! Happy Planting!