Blue or anise hyssop is one of the most ornamental of native mints. The common name anise reveals

the flavor and fragrance of its edible flowers and foliage. Butterflies and hummingbirds love this plant

with its long 3-4 inch spikes of small blue flowers from June into late summer. It is in the mint family

so deer and rabbits avoid it. Though it self-seeds, it is not an aggressive spreader. Once established, it

can handle drought and dry soil. It tends to remain upright and rarely needs staking. (Many cultivars

have been developed, and the cultivar ‘Blue Fortune’ was found to be just as attractive to pollinators

as the straight species.)

Good day all! As we transition from summer into the busy fall

planting season, I hope we’ve all had an opportunity to take a deep

breath or two. Fall has always been my favorite season. As the

summer temperatures begin to reside, the fall planting season ramps

up again. We plant in the fall with great expectations for the future.

The bulbs we plant this fall are for a great show in the spring and we

envision the tree we plant this fall as the one that shades the house

in the future.

The Nebraska Nursery and

Landscape Association held the

2019 Eastern Summer Field Day

on August 2. The “Kick the Dirt!”

event took place at the Kaspar

Tree Farms in Mead. There

were over 120 attendees and

exhibitor representatives who

took advantage of the learning

and networking opportunities

There’s no doubt about it, there are some difficult ornamental plants out

there. Usually we’re referring to plants that are hard to get established,

too tall, short-lived or difficult to control. Sometimes the difficulty is the

site itself, which may have poor soil or other problems. Thankfully, some

of the most difficult plants have characteristics that make them perfect in

just the right—or most difficult—spot.

National Wildflower Week is celebrated the first full week of May, which makes

sense for Texas where the event was first promoted by the Lady Bird Johnson

Wildflower Center in Austin. However, in Nebraska May is often laced with cold

and snow and few wildflowers are yet blooming, thus wildflower week is not

celebrated here until the first full week in June. This year we’re wondering if June

might even be a bit early, as the state has remained unusually cool. But with a

warming trend even our western prairies seem to be finally awakening from a long

winter slumber. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “The earth laughs in flowers” and

Nebraska’s prairies are starting to chuckle. It’s been a moist spring across much of

the state, and we’re hoping this chuckle will grow into a delightful belly laugh in

the coming weeks.

Recently, a small amount of container grown rhododendron nursery stock

potentially infected with Phytophthora ramorum, also known as Sudden Oak

Death or SOD, was shipped to Walmarts and a Builders Warehouse in Nebraska.

Inspectors with the Nebraska Department of Agriculture (NDA) along with staff

from USDA Plant Protection and Quarantine, continue to follow up with these

locations to minimize the threat of infected nursery stock being distributed in

the state.

The NNLA continues to reach out to the next generation and encourage

them to consider a career in the diverse horticulture field. The association

once again hosted a booth during the Career

Fair on April 3 at the Pinnacle Bank Arena in

Lincoln during the Annual FFA Convention.

Brian Munk and Jennifer Eurek were on

hand to visit with the students.

If you want to learn how to garden, plants are the best teachers and

the best way to start is to just go ahead and plant. Choose your space

carefully, you will want to plant it where you will visit often and where

you will enjoy working. Observation throughout the year is a good way to

really understand plants and what they need.

Trees are almost universally appreciated by people across the globe. Although we don’t always treat them

well, there just seems to be something about them that we find interesting and comforting. That’s at least

partly because of the incredible range of shapes, forms and colors they come in and also because of the many

benefits they provide.

A very smart person once said that a deeper understanding about trees is a deeper understanding about the

universe. Okay, that was me, but I stand by it. Anyhow, here are just a few fun and fascinating facts about trees

you can use to impress your friends and family members.

This elegant native wildflower is appreciated for its strong upright growth

habit and stately spires of white flower spikes in summer. Its tight,

vertical habit makes it best used in the back of a perennial border or as a

specimen. The stems are packed with dark green leaves, neatly arranged

in whorls all along the stems. The white flower spikes contrast nicely with

the handsome, deep green foliage.

Wild geranium is one of the best native woodland wildflowers for

beauty in the garden. It emerges in spring with an attractive dense

mound of dissected, textured leaves. In mid-spring sturdy stems rise

just above the foliage, each topped with bright pink, saucer-shaped

flowers. The delicate pink flowers are a favorite of pollinating insects,

especially bees. It grows easily in average, well-drained soil in shady

locations, but also does well in full sun. It prefers moist, organic soils, and will happily seed around to form

colorful patches. It combines well with other spring-blooming perennials such as celandine poppy, woodland

phlox and bleeding heart or planted as a groundcover.

Wild geranium is one of the best native woodland wildflowers for

beauty in the garden. It emerges in spring with an attractive dense

mound of dissected, textured leaves. In mid-spring sturdy stems rise

just above the foliage, each topped with bright pink, saucer-shaped

flowers. The delicate pink flowers are a favorite of pollinating insects,

especially bees. It grows easily in average, well-drained soil in shady

locations, but also does well in full sun. It prefers moist, organic soils, and will happily seed around to form

colorful patches. It combines well with other spring-blooming perennials such as celandine poppy, woodland

phlox and bleeding heart or planted as a groundcover.

Last May, the Skylark/Cryer Neighborhood

Association broke ground on a new pollinator

garden at the entrance of their neighborhood

pool in Omaha. With plants from Moore’s

Nursery, a plan from the Nebraska Statewide

Arboretum and funding from a Mayor’s

Neighborhood Grant, volunteers planted over

one thousand trees, shrubs, grasses, sedges

and other perennials to benefit wild bees and

butterflies. And that was only Phase I.