The Holidays are Here at Carroll Gardens!

Carroll Gardens has hand-picked some of the most unique and

affordable items for the holidays. Warm your home with our

fresh, green holiday decor, and warm your loved ones hearts

with thoughtful gifts.

Holiday Ornaments at Carroll Gardens

For almost 20 years we have featured hand-blown, hand-painted, figural glass Christmas tree ornaments in our store. Most of these have come from Germany, but some have been from the nearby countries of Czechoslovakia and Poland. These are like the ornaments that you remember from your grandmother’s tree. They were extremely popular in the decades before World War II.

It’s always interesting to me to go over to the local Antique Mall and see ornaments that people bought at Carroll Gardens only a few years ago for $5 and $6 being sold there for $20. These ornaments are becoming harder and harder to find. Cheap knock-offs are affecting the German glass-blowers in the same way that they are affecting the whole American industrial base. Although several of the German glass-blowers have given-up and closed up shop, we have been able to buy directly from some of the remaining glass-blowers, thus cutting out the middleman and keeping our prices low.

This year we have what I believe to be the best selection of European figural glass ornaments we have ever had. They are great for your collection or as gifts.
 

Featured Items

Rockin Rollers Snowman


Celtic Cross Ornament
 

Question & Answer

Question
Hi Alan! We are planning to plant several trees around the perimeter of our property to screen out the view of our neighbors. Probably 8-10' or higher. I am looking for something super low maintenance, preferably evergreen and not messy! i.e.: no fruit, no falling leaves in fall. Do you have any suggestions? I love the idea of that magnolia you recommended last summer, but can't remember if it's evergreen or drop its leaves, or even how thick they would be as a screening tree? Also should this be a project for us come spring?? Thanks a million!

Answer
I presume the area is full sun. The magnolia I recommended this summer was the evergreen Magnolia Grandiflora Bracken’s Brown Beauty. But it does drop large leathery leaves, and they are somewhat messy. Beautiful, but not tidy. These magnolias make excellent dense screens, but they grow very large. Maybe you could work one in. I don’t recommend them for mass planting as screening. Consider also Viburnum pragense, Thuja Green Giant, Juniper Emerald Sentinel, Norway Spruces, Blue Maid Holly or Serbian Spruces.

I suggest a mixed planting, including some small-leaved deciduous flowering shrubs in less critical screening areas. Remember every plant, whether evergreen or deciduous, eventually looses its oldest leaves. Evergreens just hold them 2 or 3 years before dropping; so there are always some leaves in evidence. Some selections are better planted now; some are better in the spring. Can you e-mail some pictures or bring them into the store on a Saturday or Sunday? Or I can also come out for an on-site visit.

Question
My lawn is full shade over 90% of it (big oaks). Much of my front yard is covered with moss. For years the previous owner applied lime to the soil to "sweeten" it. It has never had professional lawn service and I know it is full of grubs. What can I do to get rid of the moss and get some real grass growing? Even if it isn't the greatest lawn, at least it wouldn't look like astro turf. Thanks.

Answer
I doubt the problem is soil acidity. Unless you have 2 hours of sun, you probably can’t grow decent grass. There are places where moss will grow well, and unless you prune or remove trees, grass won’t establish for more than a season. I suspect you have such a situation where trying to establish a lawn is a losing battle. In these places, there are plants and ground covers that will perform admirably and I encourage you to consider increased plantings of these.

Can you bring in pictures and a plot plan of your land, with the notion that we could convert some of the mossy areas into a peaceful woodland garden? If need be, I could make a site visit.

In short, I suspect the solution is going to be a combination of tree pruning/removal along with redesign to increase the amount of landscaped areas.

Grubs are very destructive to the lawn and many landscape plantings; apply Dylox now. Be sure to water it in.

Dickens' Village Series (Dept 56)

Bracken's Brown Beauty

Dept 56 - New for 2003

Serbian Spruce

Patriotic Ornaments

Question
Can I still cut back Hydrangea plants (I think this is their name, as I child we called them "snowballs")? They are about 5 ft. tall by 5 ft. wide with big full blooms. Now they look like long green sticks with big dead green leaves hanging down. Last year I cut them back in early spring which proved to be too late; we had a huge bush with no blooms this summer. Thanks a million.

Answer
It’s extremely difficult to cut back blue or pink hydrangeas and have them bloom the following year. You stand your best chance of success if you do the cut-back just as the blooms start to fade in mid to late summer---the earlier the better.

Question
Sometime in the last several years, listening to your Saturday morning radio show, I seem to recall hearing you mention that dry milk powder can be used to speed up the decay of a tree stump; if this is the case could you please provide some guidance for an oak tree whose stump measures 32" across.

Thanks very much for any help and Thank You for your great radio show and helping citizens with their gardening problems.

Answer
Powered milk will hasten the decomposition of a stump. Just drill as many holes as possible, and as deeply as possible, and pour in the powered milk. Cover the stump with mulch to keep it moist. Decay will be significantly faster, but will still take a few years.

Question
I have planted three ornamental cherries in the same spot and they keep dying. All of a sudden the leaves turn yellow and then they hang on brown and dead and the tree will not re-sprout next year. I know my soil is heavy clay and the spot is certainly moist enough. I always dig a huge hole and amend the soil with lots of peat moss. I always plant my tree with the top of the ball showing. And when I purchase a potted tree, I pull the roots apart with my fingers. Can you possibly tell me why I can’t have a flowering cherry blossom?

Answer
Your planting technique is just about perfect, although I suggest Leaf-gro instead of peat moss and a hole that is broad but no deeper than the root ball. The problem is the site you have chosen. Cherry trees will not tolerate moist, heavy soil; their roots must breathe. Although you have amended the soil, think of the hole you have made as bathtub filled with a soggy, slowly draining mixture of peat moss and clay. Making the hole bigger only increases the size of the bathtub, but the roots are still drowning. You should choose a different spot for your cherry tree and consider putting a different tree, such as a Magnolia Virginiana (Sweet bay Magnolia), in your wet spot.

Question
I had a crab apple that had tiny apples on it and the birds ate them all winter. But every year by mid-summer all the leaves fell off my tree and I was just tired of the leafy mess on my lawn in summer and a leafless tree. So I cut it down. Now I miss my birds and I want to put another tree to attract them. What do you suggest, and is it too late to plant now?

Answer
Crab apples vary greatly in their resistance to the various fungi that attack the leaves and cause premature defoliation. The newer varieties have been bred for disease resistance and do not defoliate prematurely. I suggest the new crab apple “Prairiefire”. It is laden with small persistent red fruits that the birds relish and which will not litter the lawn. The blossom is a beautiful dark pink---almost red and the leaves are a reddish-green, not as brilliant as a red maple, but still very attractive. Crab apples do best with late fall planting, and in your area (eastern Pennsylvania) you still have several weeks of good planting time ahead of you. Incidentally, when I plant a tree in the fall, I often try to surround it with a circle of spring flowering bulbs. Being as I already have a broad hole dug, it just seems to make sense to plant bulbs surrounding the root of the tree. I like white daffodils or blue hyacinths around the pink flowering Prairiefire.
 

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