By CELESTE BAUMGARTNER
Ohio Correspondent

CINCINNATI, Ohio — These days landscapers are inspired by many new colors and textures available to them, and they are emphasizing those features in their plans, said Fred Brown, nursery manager at White Oak Garden Center, Inc.

“You’re seeing a lot more excitement put into landscapes,” Brown said.

The varied colors and the texture of perennials are being featured more.

Flowers have improved with better performers like the new petunias that homeowners don’t have to pinch back. There are luxuries to the newer plants; they take more heat or more drought tolerant.
“The annuals have gotten easier and shrubberies - there are yellow ones, blue ones, there is so much more to choose from in colors and shapes,” Brown said.

One big rage in recent years has been Knockout Roses but Brown is even more impressed with new varieties of hydrangeas.

“Gardeners have struggled with macrophylla hydrangea for eons - the ones that you always gave at Mother’s Day with the big pink or white flowers,” Brown said. “I call those the ‘moody macrophyllas’ because if you lost the buds over winter or the plant died back to the ground you got no flowers off that plant the next year ...
maybe one out of every 8 years you’d get a decent bloom.

A new line of hydrangeas such as one called Endless Summer will bloom on new and old shoots; if the buds are lost over the winter the plant will still produce flowers.

With the current popularity of native plants, Brown has more clients asking for them in their landscaping. Often true natives often don’t bloom well.

“You sacrifice a lot to get very little,” Brown said. “I like the things that are developed from native plants.”

Still, some natives have a lot of ornamental value to them such as fothergilla, bottle brush buckeye, witch hazels; there are a many that have what Brown called “colorful oomph.” People are also landscaping more for wildlife and want to use natives for that purpose. Chokeberries have unbelievable fall color and get beautiful red berries, Brown said.

Another change Brown sees is that plants are becoming more cold tolerant.

“Crepe myrtles - you’re going to see them moving up into the Ohio area whereas maybe 15 years ago nobody would sell them,” Brown said. “There are southern magnolias that are more cold tolerant now that people can safely use up here.”

Some plants, such as azaleas, that don’t survive a winter fail not because of temperatures but because of the clay soils in the area which do not drain well. Plants may die because of dryness if people don’t water over the winter or of excessive wetness.

“I have a silly analogy; I like to say you want to mix your soil like you’re making cole slaw,” Brown said. “That means you’ve got 80 percent of one thing which is the cabbage or the clay, the dirt that is in your yard and mix an additive (organic matter) into it maybe 20 to 30 percent and chop it up like cole slaw. The finer you chop it up the less water will collect in that hole and start rotting roots.”
White Oak Nursery, owned by Jeff Webeler, has been in business for 30 years and at the same location for 25. Brown has been with the business for 25 years. His biggest satisfaction on the job is helping people, he said.

For more on White Oak Garden Center, visit www.whiteoakgardencenter.com