Swimpy's Landscaping Thread

Here's the Sunset planting for birds list (well, I left a few out that I'm positive don't grow in your zone or think wouldn't look right...)

There are several I'm sort of doubtful grow in your zone, but I'm not sure.

The list is a little repetitive as some species have plants that work as trees or shrubs, depending on the varieties...



http://www.sunset.com/sunset/garden/article/1,20633,845218,00.html

list for birds



Nectar - Annuals and Perennials

Agastache
Alcea Rosea hollyhock
Aquilegia colombine
Asclepias tuberosa butterfly weed
Clarkia
Cleome spider flower
Delphinium
Dicentra
Digitalis
Heuchera
Knifofia
Lobelia
Lupinus
Mimulus monkey flower
Monarda
Pelargonium geranium
Penstemon
Salvia
Veronica speedwell
zinnia


Nectar Plants - Vines

Campsis
Ipomoea quamoclit
Lonicera honeysuckle


Nectar Plants, Shrubs

Abelia (I like 'Edward Gaucher', if abelia grows there)
Acacia
Arctostaphylos? manzanita
Buddleia
Caesalpinia
Cercis occidentalis western redbed
Cestrum?
Chaenomeles flowering quince
Cotoneaster
Kolkwitzia amabilis
Lavandula
Ribes
Sambucus elderberry
Weigela


Seed & Berry Plants, trees

Cornus
Carpinus
Crataegus hawthorn
Eleagnus augustifolia russian olive (considered ia problem many places/osso)
Malus flowering crabapple
Prunus
Rhus sumac


Seed and Berry, evergreen shrubs

Berberis
Cotoneaster
Ilex
Ligustrum (one of them listed as a 'watch out against' in the ohio link)
Mahonia
Photinia
Rhamnus
Rhus
Viburnum


Seed and Berry - deciduous shrubs

Amelanchier juneberry
Berberis
Calicarpa
Cercis canadensis redbud
Cornus
Cotoneaster
Eleagnus
Euonymus
Ligustrum
Malus toringo sargentii
Lonicera honeysuckle
Rhamnus, Rhus, Ribes, Sambucus
Rosa
Shepherdia buffaloberry
Symphoricarpos snowberry
Vaccinium parvifolium red huckleberry


Seed and Berry, Annual Perennial

(lots)

I now forget which of the source links this came from...
Will come back and link it if I find it -

quoting -
Be sure to plant both the summer-fruiting plants, those that produce food in autumn, and plants that retain their fruit throughout the winter. Summer bearing shrubs include blackberries, serviceberry, mulberry, and blueberries. The fall-fruiting plants are desperately needed by migratory birds as well as for your backyard birds. Examples of the fall-fruiting plants include dogwoods, mountain ash, and winterberries. Finally, include some bushes that retain their fruit throughout the winter (or until it is hungrily eaten!) These plants include hollies, firethorn, snowberries, and sumacs.

Attract orioles and hummingbirds plus butterflies with shrubs that produce nectar. People normally think of flowers for nectar but azaleas, butterfly bushes, crabapples, and flowering quince are among the bushes and trees that also produce nectar for these creatures.

And don't forget the trees that produce the acorns, pinecones, and nuts. Plant oaks, pines, hickories, walnuts and many others to add color, beauty and birds to your backyard."

Wow! That's a lot of great info, Osso. Thanks. The plan calls for viburnums, too. Not just azaleas. I'll see what he's planning for the birds, since I asked him to add that feature. I expect to hear from him this week.

This is a list I scrabbled from this link on Iowa natives (NE) - click on the latin names in the link to see a photo (for most) as well as height, etc...
Not necessarily bird/butterfly plants, but many are
http://www.iowalivingroadway.com/plantListsResults.asp

Asclepias tuberosa butterfly milkweed
Campanula rotundifolia 4 - 20"
Corylus americana
Corylus cornuta
Crataegus pruinosa
Ceanothus americanus (not sure re birds)
Cornus canadensis
Dasiphora fruticosa ssp floribunda bush cinquefoil
Dodecathon amethystinum amethyst shooting star - I never heard of it, but...
Erigeron strigosis, daisy fleabane - maybe over low walls? Does it spread too much?
Filipendula rubra Queen of the prairie - too big?
Fragraria virginiana, wild strawberry
Heuchera richardsonii green flrs.
Impatiens capensis, spotted touchmenot pretty
Ilex verticillata - looks like a possibility
Monarda fistulosa, wild bergamot - pretty; does it reseed?
Penstemon grandiflora pretty, 2 - 4 feet
Penstemon palida, also pretty, 8-24"
Ribes americanum american black current
Sambucus canadensis elderberry
Teucrium canadense - I'd be interested in just how rangy it is, as I liked Teucrium chamaedrys (germander) in California as a nice dark ground cover - much tinier leaves, very controllable for me.
Tradescantia brachteada prairie spiderwort (does it run?)
Verbena stricta - very pretty

Lot of viburnums here -

(did littleK mention the Korean Spice viburnum or did I just imagine that?)

http://hgic.clemson.edu/factsheets/HGIC1075.htm

On the flowering pear for the front... in California we had trouble with some of the flowering pears and fireblight - in might not be a problem in your area.

I'm agreeing with all this... (except it's Cornus kousa...)
Oh, and I'm hydrangea crazed too.

oh yeah, oops.

Well, that was silly of me, it was a close spelling. (I just misspelled 'it's'...)

I wonder if Cornus capitata grows there. The flowers are gorgeous...
- not the best photo.
The dark around the edge of the petals is burgundy...

That was a photo of one in my own yard. I looked C. capitata up on google and they don't all have that burgundy edge.
http://www.colvoscreeknursery.com/images/Cornus-capitata1.jpg

That's pretty big. I'm not sure I have room. I do love dogwoods, though. They like it somewhat shady, no?

I miss my kousa

Cornus capitata, acc. to Sunset, gets 20 to 30 feet high and wide.
C. kousa goes to 20, so that does sound better..

Ooh, boy, they mention a kousa that has light green leaves when new, and pink to red in the fall - the variety is "Autumn Rose".

Hmmm, Sunset has three pages of crabapples listed, with nice choice of sizes. I'll see if I can find that link.

Couldn't find a Sunset list (except on my desk) but I could type out some likely contenders, Swimpy, if you are interested in crabapples. One with high disease resistance that goes to about 20 ft. at maturity is Malus Strawberry Parfait, seen HERE. There's another one called M. 'Sugar Tyme" that has white flowers, gets to 18 feet by 15 feet wide. (also with high disease resistance).

Well, there are probably websites devoted just to crabapples...


Actually, all those on that Frank Schmidt link look interesting, even the tiny M. sargentii 'Tina'.... I'd check its disease resistance though, as Sunset lists sargentii as merely having "good disease resistance" (choices I see are fair, moderate, good, and high).

Crab apples might be preferable to flowering pear. I don't want a bunch of fruit messing up the yard though.

Unless the pear is a bradford pear - no fruit. But, you say you want food for the wildlife..... need some fruit.

Well, Pyrus kawakamii doesn't have fruit either - I had one. Somewhat more attractive form than the Bradfords. Was always worrying about fireblight...

If you don't want fruit, hmmm. Maybe a Crataegus (hawthorn). They have berries, but I didn't find them any big deal.
And have a smaller dogwood or crabapple or two or three, like maybe that five footer, for the birdies.

I had a row of washington hawthorn trees back in northern CA; I liked them a lot (they take wind...)
And.. it seems they may grown in eastern Iowa. They are easily pruned to good form, have cutie leaves.

I guess I'll stop, you need to figure out what you want, Swimp, partly by doing some looking yourself. Some of us have been tossing bird stuff at you...

and your designer is doing a midwestern japanese garden, mixed with prairie garden, based on the acer palmatum and existing azaleas, which I understand, my two mentors being japanese. Will look at those lists anew tomorrow to see what most works with japanese. I'll admit Pyrus kawakamii does, just worried about blight. I haven't looked up what non fruiting Prunus trees would make it in Iowa.... but they work with japanese.

I understand that some of the flowering fruit trees have insignificant fruits, not big ass fruits. That's all I meant. And as far as the birds go, I think the back yard will have enough berries and such.


Yea, You've given me a lot to digest. I also need to look at what he comes up with.

Do you think he's doing a theme wioth the azaleas? To me it just seems like too much.

Yes, I do. My design guy in school was/is from Japan, and my boss for many years is a japanese american born in a camp in Wyoming in the early forties. His best friends after they got out of there were the children of a bracero family. We did hundreds of gardens, well, maybe more, with his sensibility pre-eminent. So, I don't want to get in the way of your designer if he is knowledgeable in all this stuff.

Jens Jensen, the key midwestern landscape architect/Frank Lloyd Wright, riffed from the japanese aesthetic, on the prairie.

Me, I'm also englishy and italiany and california-y, in all its variations - and interested in Mexico, Spain and France, not to mention Persia and India..
so I try to listen and hear. Not always good at that, as I tend to rush in.

My own yard did have two japanese maples (they did sucker), and eventually only one liquidambar, and an evergreen pear, and four Agonis flexuosa, and much else. It was both cottage gardenesque and japanesey. But my yard was a laboratory of exploration - but at best, it worked for me.

My present yard is a sand pit, so I can't be too Ms. Instructional.