Plants that Have Stood the Test of Time
Posted on Wednesday, July 1, 2026 · Leave a Comment
The Fourth of July celebrations are over – the fireworks, parades, hot dogs and strawberry shortcake. Leading up to the Fourth I paused to think about the gardens of Thomas Jefferson, one of the authors and signers of the Declaration of Independence. He lived and gardened at Monticello, his estate in Virginia. According to the Monticello website, Jefferson planted (or ordered and supervised) the planting of 160 different kinds of trees and shrubs as well as perennials, annuals and vegetables – and kept notes of everything. Monticello still grows almost everything he did.
Redbuds will bloom well even in part shade
Jefferson grew one of my favorite trees, the Eastern Redbud (Cercis canadensis). It is a wonderful early-summer blooming medium-sized tree and I’ve had one for at least 10 years. It is suitable for a part shade location or full sun. In the wild (New Jersey and south) it is found mainly as an understory tree. It blooms in early summer with small pink blossoms that seemingly pop right out of the bark. Cold hardy varieties are common now and it is rated to Zone 4.
Jefferson loved peaches. He grew over 30 kinds of peaches but we can grow just a handful that are sold here in New England. A few will survive a Zone 4 winter, but Zone 5 is better for peaches, with winters that never drop below minus 20.
All peaches do best in full sun, meaning six hours of sun or more per day in summer. They are self-fruitful – they self-pollinate and you need only one tree to get fruit. Apple, plums and most pears do need a second variety that blooms at the same time for pollination. Most fruit trees are said to”Not like wet feet.” So don’t plant them in an area where the soil is usually wet.
The ‘Reliance’ peach, developed at UNH has been around for decades and is one of the better cold hardy peaches. It is productive and tasty. Other good peaches are Red Haven and Madison. Contender is well thought of, but I have not found the fruit very tasty, and a lot my fruit has rotted on the tree. Other growers love it. Try to taste peach varieties before planting one.
Catalpas are fast growing trees suitable as shade trees
Jefferson was intrigued by sugar maples as an alternate source for sugar, but they did not do well down there. Virginia is a bit too hot. In my experience, if you have an old maple that is declining in health, try giving its some garden lime. Spread it not just under the drip line, but go out much farther because the roots do.
I gave lime to an old maple because I read about an experiment in 1999 at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Station in northern New Hampshire. Scientist found that acid rains had depleted calcium in soils there. They distributed calcium (using crop dusters) and it found increased health in stands of sugar maples and red spruce. I‘ve given my old sugar maple several applications of lime over the last 25 years and it is doing fine. And don’t park cars under your maples as root compaction is not well tolerated.
One of Jefferson’s favorite trees was Southern Catalpa (C. bignonioides). That is hardy to Zone 6, but I grow northern Catalpa (C.speciosa) and love it. I planted mine 8 years ago as an 8-foot tall tree that came in a 7 or 10-gallon pot. Now it is 30-some feet tall with a trunk diameter of 12-inches a foot off the ground. My catalpa blooms vigorously in late June or early July each year, producing cream colored flowers that are 2-inches long and flecked with purple inside, growing in panicles. The seed pods look like foot-long beans.
Catalpa blossoms
Catalpas can get 60 feet or more tall, and are a bit weak-wooded, so they are prone to wind damage or blow-overs. My solution? I use an extension ladder to get up to a spot 30-feet off the ground each fall and cut off all growth that occurred that year. I top it. That keeps it from getting too tall – it can and does grow up to 5-feet in a year. Of course, at some point I won’t be allowed up a ladder. So far, so good. I’ve done it for the last 3years.
Jefferson loved lilacs, as we all do. If your lilac has not produced many blossoms in recent years, it may also need a treatment of garden lime. Lilacs do best with soil that has a neutral pH – around 7.0, and lime will help get the pH closer to neutral. By now they have already set their buds for next year, but add lime or wood ashes now while you are thinking of it.
Calycanthus or sweetshrub is a shade-loving shrub.
A shrub liked by Jefferson is called the Carolina Sweet Shrub (Calycanthus spp.). I grow it, but found it a bit fussy. I moved mine twice to find, like Cinderella, the fit that was “just right”. I first tried it in full sun and the leaves scorched – despite plenty of moisture. After the second year I moved it into shade, but it didn’t get enough sun and did not bloom much. Finally, five years later, I moved it under a big pear tree, where it gets filtered sun all day and it blooms and grows vigorously. The blossoms are a deep wine red, up to 2-inches across and shaped like little peonies. Some specimens are very fragrant, though mine is not. It blooms in early summer,
Like Jefferson, I like keeping a list of what woody plants I grow. Since I bought my house in 1970, I have planted at least 118 different kinds of woody plants, and about 95% of them have survived. And I’m still going to plant a few more. I make it through winter and mud season each year, in part, because I want to see what plants survived, too.
It’s Time to Pay Attention to the Vegetable Garden
Posted on Friday, June 12, 2026 · Leave a Comment
Tomato cages keep plants from sprawling on the ground
By now, most of us have planted our vegetable gardens. My peas, onions, lettuce, spinach and potatoes went in early, and now our tomatoes and peppers have settled in and are starting to grow. Is it hammock time? No, now it’s better to do some maintenance so that we can go to the beach later on – with a good conscience.
Many gardeners are looking for a magic potion to put on their tomato plants to prevent that nasty fungal disease that blackens the leaves and shortens the lifespan and production of their tomato plants. Alas, there is none. But there are a few things you can do to minimize it.
Right now go look at your tomato plants: do they have any leaves that touch the soil? If so, take a sharp knife or scissors and cut them off. The spores of the disease are in the soil – unless you area starting somewhere that was, most recently, lawn or field. That first year you will probably have plants free of blackened leaves.
Mulch under your tomato plants now, before disease sets in. The spores get on leaves by splash-up when you water or get a heavy rain. Got a bagger on your lawn mower? Save the grass and spread it over the soil. Or you can buy straw (which is seed-free) or mulch hay (which is not, but is less expensive). Spreading 4-layers of newspaper on the ground before putting down mulch helps keep soil moist and helps weeds from germinating. I don’t recommend using chipped branches or bark mulch in the vegetable garden.
One last bit of advice on tomatoes: I have found that buying the biggest cages possible is best: 54 inches tall, with 4 legs not 3. They’re not cheap, but you should get 25 years or more out of each if store them in the barn for the winter.
It’s time to start more lettuce from seed
I have plenty of lettuce to eat right now, having planted it early. But I will start seeds now. Although I could sow seeds directly in the ground, I prefer to plant in seeds in cells and keep them on a sunny deck where I will see them, water them, and monitor them. When they have 2 true leaves, sturdy ones, I will plant them in the ground. That allows me to space them well. Small seeds are easy to over-plant directly in the ground, and then I’d have to find the time to thin them later.
That brings me to thinning, sigh. The most tedious job in the garden. If you planted carrots, beets and radishes early on, they are about ready to thin. Start now and thin to 1-inch apart. Then, by the fourth of July, thin again – but to 3-inches apart. Crowded carrots compete with their cousins for water and minerals just as they would with weeds. Eat those thinnings. Young carrots are a real treat.
I don’t mind weeding. Some of you do, and I agree it can be tedious. Young people wear earbuds and listen to music, but I like to listen to the birds and the burble of my brook going by. Did you know that by adding stones to a brook you can tune it? In 2003 I interviewed Robert Irwin, an installation artist who designed the gardens at J. Paul Getty Center in Los Angeles, and he told me he personally “tuned” a recirculating brook he had installed at the gardens. Water falling over stones makes a pleasant sound which depends on the drop and quantity of water falling.
But back to weeding. The best time to weed is after a rain or a good watering. I use a CobraHead weeder, a single-tined tool which easily slides through the soil, loosening it so that weeds pull easily, and weed roots are less likely to snap off. Right now is the time to weed because the bigger they get, the more difficult they are to pull.
The kneeler is comfy and makes it easier to stand
I used to do all my weeding standing up, bent from the waist. Now? Mostly I kneel. I use a “Garden Kneeler” I got from Gardener’s Supply Company. It has a padded kneeling platform a few inches off the ground and handrails on the sides that are a great help in getting up from the kneeling position. Turned over, it provides a seat, and it can be folded up for storage. Using mine, I just weeded a double row of onions 16 feet long, and felt no aches and pains from doing so.
To avoid re-weeding the same bed, over and over, there are two things you should do: 1) never let your weeds flower and produce seeds. 2) Mulch after weeding. Same as above, newspaper covered with straw. In the old days, newspapers used toxic chemicals in the ink. Now? As far as I know, all the inks are made with soy products. By the end of the summer my earthworms will have mostly eaten the papers.
The first step of mulching as I do it is to put down newspaper003
If you grow potatoes, it is important to watch for potato beetles. Go down the row, pawing through the leaves so you can watch for the orange egg masses under the leaves and scrape them off. Later, if you look for larvae or beetles every day or two and pick them off, you can control the problem in a home garden. Just drop the culprits in a jar of soapy water. There is also a biological control called Bt which is a naturally-occurring bacterium that you can spray; it sickens the larvae as they eat the leaves but will not harm anything else.
I’ve been picking and eating homegrown vegetables all my life, and I am convinced that it helps me stay young(ish) and healthy. And it gives me great joy.
Tips for Growing Wonderful Flowers
Posted on Monday, June 1, 2026 · Leave a Comment
Knock out roses are reliable bloomers
I’ve heard it said that June is the most common month for weddings. I’m not sure why, but my theory is that June, despite black flies and noxious ticks, is a great month to be outside for wedding receptions. Roses are in bloom, as are peonies, iris and so much more.
Roses have evolved considerably since I was a boy in the 1950’s. Breeders have created modern hybrids that are disease-free and bloom almost non-stop all summer. In the old days rosarians sprayed roses regularly with various poisons to minimize damage from fungal diseases and insect pests.
Many told fashioned roses bloom mostly in June and are deliciously fragrant. New hybrids will bloom more or less continuously all summer if in full sun, but most are not fragrant. And they are rarely attacked by insects as they have no scent that would attract them. Since I’m technically a geezer, I should grow the old fashioned roses – but I like these new hybrids.
There are several lines of trademarked roses. I love the ‘Knock-Out’ roses. They are winter hardy (in Zone 4) and offer blooms until October for me. Everything the Proven Winner people grow – annuals, perennials, roses – do very well. Their ‘Oso Easy’ line of roses is well regarded, but I haven’t personally grown any.
My wife loves heirloom roses and has had great luck buying some from Old Sheep Meadows Nursery in Alfred, Maine. And if they will grow in Alfred, Maine, they will grow where you are. According to his website, the owner, Raymond Graber, has been growing roses in Maine for over 60 years. He has a wealth of knowledge and he is happy to share it.
Three bits of knowledge I can share abut roses: 1. They love – and need – plenty of water. Water daily in hot or dry times. 2. They like dark, rich soil and some added garden lime and slow-release organic fertilizer at planting time. 3. Although six hours of sunshine or more is recommended, most will do fine with four. You don’t have any roses? Go buy a few. We only live once.
Peony ‘Festiva maxima’ that my grandmother grew
Most plants have a finite lifespan. Many perennials will die out in 10 years. Some trees last a hundred or more. But I often say, “Properly planted, peonies will live forever.” My maternal grandmother, Anna Lenat, died in 1953 when I was just seven years old. My mother dug up one of her peonies and brought it to our home in Connecticut. I dug it up again in 1984 and divided it, leaving half with my mom, and planting half at my home in Cornish, NH. The roots or tubers, presumably more than 100 years old by now, still produce plenty of blossoms.
I always recommend buying peonies in June when they’re in bloom –seeing is believing. Some are fragrant – even heavenly fragrant – while others are not. Some have stiff, strong stems, while others flop even on sunny days from the weight of their magnificent blossoms. “Single” peonies have just one row of petals so are less prone to flopping. But most common are the doubles: gorgeous, but with so many petals they flop when it rains.
Peony rings are wire cages sold to hold up flower stems even on rainy days. Most are too low to really do the job right. Plus, you have to remember early in May to install them. By now mature plants are too big to fit the cages over them. My solution is to poke three bamboo stakes firmly into the soil around each plant and then connect them at the appropriate height with green garden twine. If you were a Scout, you may remember learning to tie a clove hitch. That’s the knot you want.
If you bought a nice peony a few years ago and it no longer blooms, you may have planted it too deeply, or covered the “nibs” (growing points) with too much mulch. Feel around the plant to see where next year’s growth will emerge from little pointy nibs. More than an inch of cover will often inhibit blooming. Yes, you will have a healthy plant – but no blossoms.
My great Great-Granny told me that peonies need ants crawling around on the buds for them to open. Not true. Peonies attract aphids, and ants come to harvest the sweet “nectar” that is their poop.
Gas plant is a good addition to any garden
Other great June flowers in my garden include gas plant (Dictamus alba) which has an intense citrus odor that is strongest at dusk to attract night-flying moths.
Delphiniums are wonderful plants with stalks often over 5-feet tall and loaded with blue, purple or white blossoms. But you do need to stake them to keep them upright in the rain. Scratch in some slow release organic fertilizer each spring as they are heavy feeders. And if you cut them back to the ground after blooming, they probably will re-bloom in the fall.
Perennial bachelor buttons (Centaurea montana) are easy to grow and make good cut flowers. Blue to purple, they love sun and will make you feel like you have made it as a gardener.
All the flowering plants are wonderful. Think back to what your parents and grandparents grew. That’s a good place to start shopping. Or better yet, see if you can dig some plants from their gardens if they will let you.
Henry can be reached at PO Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 03746 or henry.homeyer@
comast.net. He is the author of 4 gardening books.
Delphinium are gorgeous but each stalk needs support
Bachelor buttons have unusual, spidery flowers.
Late May in the Garden
Posted on Monday, May 25, 2026 · Leave a Comment
Candleabra primroses delight me each year starting in late May
Asking me to name my favorite flower is, perhaps, like asking you to name your favorite child or dog. But late May brings one of my top picks: the candelabra primrose (Primula japonica). It sends up a flower stalk with a circle of florets, then it grows a few inches and sends out more blossoms, getting taller and blooming sequentially for nearly a month. They grow best in deep, rich, moist soil in partial shade and ideally under old apple trees.
Late May will also produce early peonies I love including two part- shade peonies, Paeonia obovata and P. tenuifolia. The latter is also known as the fernleaf peony for its finely cut foliage; the blossoms are a deep red. Neither are common in garden centers, but keep an out for them.
Spring is a good time to improve your soil. Most commercial farmers grow food by adding chemical fertilizer to the soil before planting. I am an organic gardener, meaning I do not use pesticides nor do I use any chemical fertilizer.
Peony Woodland (P. obovata) with red buds of the fernleaf peony 002
Chemical fertilizers are safe to use, but only provide three of the 17 elements needed by plants to grow and thrive. Granted, most of those elements are needed in very small quantities and may already be in the soil, but I want to provide my plants with the equivalent of a full 5-course meal, not a bowl of white rice.
Chemical fertilizers only contain nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), potassium (K), and lots of filler. A 5-10-5 fertilizer is 5% N, 10% P, 5% K; the rest -80%- is filler. Nitrogen in the form of nitrate and ammonia ions is used by plants to make proteins, fueling green growth. Phosphorous promotes growth of roots, blooming, seeds and fruits. Potassium is important for growing thick cell walls to survive cold and excess heat.
Plants also need other elements in order to thrive: calcium (for cell metabolism), magnesium (for chlorophyll needed for photosynthesis), sulfur (for making proteins and fats). Also needed are micronutrients like iron, chlorine, manganese, zinc, copper, boron, molybdenum and nickel.
Pro-Gro Organic Fertilizer is a slow release fertilizer.
All those elements above are found in organic fertilizers like Pro-Gro, Gro-Tone and others. And while most chemical fertilizer provide water-soluble elements for quick absorption, organic fertilizers are mostly slow-release, providing key elements over a period of months, or even years. Most contain things like cotton seed meal, kelp meal, ground peanut shells and ground oyster shells.
So what can you do to improve your soil? Add compost. Don’t buy just a bag or two of compost and think it will improve your whole vegetable garden with some left over for new perennials. Borrow a pick-up truck and get a “scoop” from a front-end loader at your garden center. Or get it delivered. Alternatively, you can buy aged manure from your local dairy farmer. Even aged manure will have some weed seeds, but it will add good organic material that will be used by your plants.
Why is compost so good? Well-made compost is full of microorganisms that will work with your plants. Many produce organic acids that help to dissolve minerals from fine stone particles in the soil and make those minerals available to your plants. Compost is, or should be, biologically active: full of living bacteria and fungi. And it will improve soil texture making root growth easier for your plants.
Our soils were created back during the last ice age when glaciers a mile thick ground up bedrock, making sand and even the finer bits of stone that are in clay and loam. Fully 50% of all soil is made of ground up rocks. The rest? Anywhere from 1% to 8% is organic matter, and the rest – nearly 50% of soil by volume – is air. Oxygen is absorbed by root hairs from the air in the soil.
Two other key ingredients do not come from the soil. Plants get carbon, a major part of all plants, from carbon dioxide that is in our air. Nitrogen is in our air, but most nitrogen used by plants comes from decayed plant or animal material – or is made in a chemical factory and sold as a fertilizer.
I highly recommend getting your soil tested every 3 to 5 years. Each state university offers a service for gardeners and farmers. It will tell you soil pH (a measure of acidity), soil type, levels of some soil minerals and the percentage of organic matter. It will offer suggestions on what to add to your soil, though different plants have different needs. You should strive to have 4% or more organic matter in your soil.
Testing drainage is simple. Dig a hole, fill it up, see how long it takes to drain.
You can perform a simple test to see how well your soil holds water or drains. Dig a hole 24 inches wide and 8 inches deep with sloping sides. Fill it with your hose and time how long it takes to drain. Sandy soil will drain almost immediately. Clay soil will hold water for several hours, even overnight. Good loam might take an hour or two, depending on how much rain you’ve had recently.
Adding compost will help heavy clay or sandy soils will help them considerably. Soil texture and the ability to hold some water but draining well is important to most plants. Compost does both.
Improving your soil takes years, even decades. Yes, I do use some slow-release organic fertilizer at planting time, but my real success has come from years of adding compost.
Keeping a Record of What’s Blooming in the Garden
Posted on Monday, May 25, 2026 · Leave a Comment
Double bloodroot spreads by root not seed. A few plants have spread in the past 15 years or so.
I decided this year to do a better job of keeping track of what plants are blooming when, and photographing them. I encourage you to do the same – we all forget what we have from time to time. And next winter we’ll be able to enjoy our gardens.
My favorites right now? Double bloodroot – they’re like miniature double white peonies. They have four strings of chromosomes instead of two, so they are sterile, and bloom for up to 2 weeks. Ordinary bloodroot only blooms until it is pollinated.
Then there is my new Merrill magnolia hybrid I planted last year. It replaces one that succumbed to a fungus after 21 years and always bloomed on my birthday in late April. This one opened its buds on May 2 with large double white blossoms. It’s fabulous!
We plant lots of bulbs each year. A recent addition to our crop of daffodils is one called ‘Thalia’, which I just love. It is one of the few that will thrive in soil that stays consistently moist. The stems are tall, the blossoms are nearly white with short cups. It seems many bulbs produce more than one blossom stem. It blooms in early May for me.
Thalia is one of the few daffodils that will thrive in damp or wet soil
My favorite gardening centers are open for the year, and I’m visiting them all to see what might seduce me. I am always looking for new perennials but I try to hold off buying any until I know I have space for them. But that can be tough to do.
I start my own tomato plants from seed indoors, and some flowers, but have bought some vegetable starts. I just don’t have the time and space to start everything under lights. If you are buying packs of cold hardy plants like Brussels sprouts, broccoli or kale, there is one key question to ask at this time of year: “Are these hardened off yet?” Seedlings raised in a greenhouse can get sun- and/or wind-burned in your garden if you plant them outdoors right away and they have not yet been hardened off.
To harden off young plants, it is best to start them off with just a few hours of morning sun, then some afternoon sun, and finally all day sun. When I harden off my tomatoes, I take a full week to do so. And it’s worth the wait, sunburned leaves will drop off and die. Your plants will recover, but they will lose a week or two of good growth.
May is the month for weeding. If you start off with a weed-free garden, you will have much less work later on, especially if you mulch well. Get the annual weeds before they develop big root systems. Get perennials like dandelions now, before their roots seeds go deeper and are harder to pull. Moist soil makes weeding easier, so go out after a spring rain.
CobraHead weeder
My favorite weeding tool is the CobraHead weeder. It is a single-tine tool that easily gets under a weed and allows you to loosen the soil and to pull up from under the weed while you tug from above. It is also great for teasing out long creeping roots.
For really deep rooted weeds like burdock, I use a garden fork to loosen the soil down a foot or more. I plunge it all the way in, then tip it back. I do that in 2 or more spots around the weed if it is huge. Then I pull s-l-o-w-l-y.
I use a similar technique for pulling invasive shrubs like multiflora rose, honeysuckles, barberry or buckthorn. Pulling them and getting all the roots is tough – the roots tend to break off. But if you are as determined as I am, a CobraHead is good for teasing out smaller broken sections of root.
Buckthorns are, arguably, the most difficult invasive to kill. Cutting them back will stimulate the roots to send out new shoots all around the tree. But you can kill buckthorn by double-girdling the trunk. Take a small pruning saw and cut through the bark all the way around the trunk. Don’t cut into the hardwood, just cut the bark. Then go 12 inches higher up, and do it again.
Dandelions and other deep-rooted weeds pull best when soil is moist.
Girdling a buckthorn is a slow death: you are interrupting the flow of sugars from the leaves to the roots, which slowly starve to death. I have done this in winter, and the tree leafed out and seemed normal that spring and the next spring. The third spring it never leafed out – it was dead, and did not sent up any new sprouts around the tree.
Your last chore for now is to fix those dreaded bare spots in the lawn. Buy some new seed, if yours is more than a year old. Use your garden rake to loosen the soil, then top dress with some good compost and work it in. Sprinkle seed by hand – no need for one of those fancy walk-behind seed spreaders. Just fling it gently until it is evenly spread. Don’t be stingy.
Grass seeds need some sunlight to germinate. To cover the seeds a little bit, take a lawn rake and turn it upside down; drag the tines over the area being treated. That will mix the seed in to the soil, but not bury it deeply. Finally you should pack down the seeds with a roller, or use a tamper. Or put down a wide board and walk on it. Make sure the soil doesn’t dry out after planting. I cover it with a very light layer of straw to help keep it from drying out.
Yes, spring is a busy time for us gardeners. But I love it: the colors, the smells – and even the hard work.
Late Spring Chores
Posted on Saturday, April 25, 2026 · Leave a Comment
Spring arrives in New England in fits in starts and starts: Hot and sunny one day, chilly and drizzly the next. Maybe even a few flurries to outrage the impatient gardener. But there is much that can be done in late April, even on a rainy day.
Oiled tools drying in the sun
I much prefer tools with wooden handles: if treated properly they will last your entire lifetime. Every year or two I clean up and oil the handles of my garden tools, which keeps the wood supple. I‘ve got tools with wood handles I’ve used regularly for over 40 years, and some from my grandfather that are more than 75 years old.
First I clean up the handles by rubbing with fine steel wool or, if very rough, with 100 grit sandpaper. Then I wipe them down with a scrap of a towel. Finally I use a brush to paint them with boiled linseed oil. I then let them dry in the sun or in the barn it’s a rainy day, and wipe them down the next day.
Shovels should be sharpened from time to time. Get a wide, medium-rough flat file and push it firmly across the shovel’s edge on the backside of the blade. Take long, slow strikes but do not saw back and forth with your file. Look carefully at the angle it came with, and try to mimic that angle with your file. A sharp shovel is much more efficient than a dull one. But it’s not a good idea to sharpen the blade until it’s knife-sharp. It will dull quickly if you do. Sharpening a dull shovel is not quick work,
Soil thermometers are useful tools for deciding when to plant
Impatient to get things growing in the vegetable garden? Peas, spinach, arugula and lettuce are very cold-hardy and can be planted early by seed– even if frost will still occur. Soil temperatures of 40 degrees are adequate for germination of them, but I think 50 degrees is better. For most seeds, I prefer to wait until the soil hits 50 degrees or more. I worry seeds will rot if the soil is too cold and wet. That goes for potatoes and onions, too. Cukes, squash, pepper and tomato seedlings I don’t plant until June.
Soil thermometers look like little probes with a dial on top, something like the one you poke in a turkey to see when it’s done. Garden centers sell them. If you get one, poke it down four inches to get your reading.
If your soil was covered with leaves or straw for the winter, rake that off your planting beds now so that the sun will hit your soil directly and warm it up. Mulch keeps the soil cool. If there are weeds coming up, pull them as soon as you can – no sense letting them get a head start on your plants.
This is also a good time to look for invasive plants on your property. For me, the cast of characters includes bush honeysuckle, barberry, buckthorn and multiflora rose. If you have a Norway maple, you probably have lots of new seedlings from it that are easy to pull.
You can get a list of invasives from your state on-line, but I found the Vermont Invasive Plants list is best – it includes just the 12 most common, along with pictures, so it’s easier to use.
Many invasives leaf out early and drop their leaves late in the fall. That gives them an advantage over many natives. Honeysuckle puts out greenery in mid-April for me. Burning bush holds its red leaves late in the fall, so it’s easier to find small ones then.
Honeysuckles have opposite branching; they leaf out early
Although not easy, digging out invasives is generally the best way to control them. Cutting them down usually does not kill them. Buckthorn is the worst: cut one to the ground, and a dozen will grow from the roots. If you can double-girdle all the stems down low, it will die after 2 winters. Basically, you’re starving the roots from the nutrition produced by the leaves.
Potting mix is readily available at all garden centers, big box stores, and even some mini-marts. But if you are going to fill up lots of flower pots, you can save money by making your own.
If you never emptied you pots and window boxes last fall, you can reuse it this year. First pull the dead plants, and dump the used potting soil into a pile. Then make up some new potting soil and mix it 50-50 with your old potting soil.
To make potting soil, mix add equal parts coir or peat moss, compost and perlite (which looks like crumbled Styrofoam but is actually super-heated volcanic minerals) to it in roughly equal quantities in a wheelbarrow until mostly full. Stir well. Add half a cup of a slow-release organic fertilizer like Pro-Gro or Plant-Tone and mix well. It is best to water the peat moss or coir before using as it can be very dry.
When I make potting soil, I don’t measure things exactly. I probably use more compost than perlite or coir. If you have a good source of mature compost, you can save money and add good microorganisms to the soil. The finished product should be fluffy and not quick to clump up when you grab a handful of it. But if you are only going to use a few pots, just buy a bag of potting soil.
So don’t get discouraged by a few cold days now. Summer is on the way, so get ready.
Early Spring in the Garden
Posted on Saturday, April 25, 2026 · Leave a Comment
Primula vulgaris in early April
This was supposed to be my very last gardening column, but (spoiler alert) it is not. I started writing a gardening column in 1998 and wrote weekly for 25 years. Then in late 2023 I dropped down to once a month. I liked the extra time and freedom it gave me to do other things.
Recently I have been tempted to say” Adios, my friends” once I turned 80 this month (same day as Will Shakespeare, different year). But I have decided that I will continue on – as long as I can and still have readers who tell me they learn from the column. And so long as local newspapers, like this one, keep on being willing and able to pay me. Thanks to all of you for your enthusiasm and support.
Leatherwood blossoms
Despite occasional snows, our gardens are awake in April. Flowering bulbs abound: snowdrop and winter aconite have been blooming since March; early daffodils, glory of the snow, scilla (also called Siberian squill) and crocus are plentiful. Trees are awakening, too: spring witch hazel is blooming and leatherwood (Dirca palustris) will bloom by the middle of the month.
Spring is good time to determine where you should plant bulbs, come fall. Get some plant tags and place them where nothing is coming up, places that would look good with some daffodils or snowdrops. Come fall, most of us cannot remember exactly where we have clusters of spring-blooming bulbs.
Bulb flowers can last decades. My family had hundreds of daffodils that bloomed along the paths through our woods in Connecticut. The high canopy of mature maples was quite dense, but the daffies got enough sunshine to re-charge their energy before the maple leaves were big. I have some clumps of daffodils I moved from there, some 40 years ago. FYI: Planting bulbs under evergreens is not good idea.
Don’t leave stubs, they have to heal back to branch collar
The timing of spring clean-up depends on the weather, and where you live. We don’t cut back many of our tall perennials and grasses in the fall as they offer food for seed-eating birds, and some harbor eggs or larvae of pollinators in their hollow stems. We’ll wait until the weather is consistently in the 50’s before we clean up and remove dead stems so insects can hatch. We’ll rake and remove debris from mid-to late-April.
April is a good month for pruning fruit trees. Although there are entire books about pruning, the rules are fairly simple:
- Never remove more than 20% or 25% of the live, leaf-bearing branches. This may mean spreading out your pruning over 2- or 3-years if a tree is badly overgrown. Pile up your branches as you work, so you can estimate more easily how much you have cut off.
- Don’t leave short stubs of branches, cut back to the swollen area called the branch collar. This is where it heals.
- Remove all dead branches. They don’t count in that 25% threshold.
- If two branches are rubbing, crossing or fighting for sunshine, remove one. Don’t be afraid to cut out large branches.
- Remove all “water sprouts” which are thin, pencil-like sprouts growing straight up. Do this every year. Remove any root sprouts, too.
- Remove branches pointed toward the middle of the tree.
April is a good month for planning what you want to grow this year, and what you want to eliminate. I know people who refuse to cut down trees or dig out shrubs. Not me. If a woody plant is not performing well or is difficult to keep looking nice, I remove it. It opens up a place for something new.
I want peaches like these
This year Cindy and I plan to plant two more peach trees. I planted a good-sized “Contender ” peach in 2021, and although it has produced some peaches, they have not been very tasty. So this year I will plant a ‘Reliant’ peach and a ‘Red Haven’. Both are peaches that are tasty and hardy here in our Zone 5 garden. And I hope to convince Cindy we should remove the ‘Contender’. She is much less ruthless than I am.
Pay attention to what pleases you in the perennial garden as spring moves along. Last year I planted a few Common Primroses (Primula vulgaris). They started blooming at the beginning of April this year, a striking bright yellow. I will plant half a dozen more since they bloom so early. They prefer part shade, rich soil and plenty of moisture. Another early primrose is the Drumstick Primrose (P. denticulata). It sends up a purple, blue or white cluster of florets vaguely in the shape of a chicken drumstick.
Drumstick primula is an early spring bloomer
If you have a good location for primroses, think about obtaining some Candelabra Primroses (P. japonica). These beauties bloom on 2-foot stalks with rings of small trumpets in magenta, pink or white. They grow and produce a new set of flowers each week for 4 to 6 weeks starting in mid-May for me. And best yet: they produce lots of seeds and spread quite rapidly. They do best in rich, moist soil beneath mature apple trees. Buy three plants and before you know it, you’ll have a dozen, then three dozen. Twenty five years ago I was given seven plants, now I have more than 500!
I firmly believe that gardening keeps me fit and young. I always have to survive the winter to see what blooms well in the spring and beyond!
You can reach
Henry with comments and questions at PO Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 03746 or by email at
henry.homeyer@comcast.net.
Starting Plants from Seed
Posted on Wednesday, March 25, 2026 · Leave a Comment
It seems to me that the prices of many things have gone up significantly in recent times. One way to combat that, as a gardener, is to start plants by seed instead of buying plants that someone else as started, watered and mothered for months.
Many gardeners enjoy starting lettuce or carrots by seed outdoors, but few of us start perennial or biennial flowers by seed. Why is that? Because we want results right away. This summer we want gorgeous new varieties of purple cone flower, black-eyed Susans or Shasta daisies. Alas, most perennials and biennials will develop into handsome plants this year if started by seed, but few will blossom before next year.
Peonies with foxglove
Biennials, by definition, do not bloom in their first year. They grow foliage this year, send up a flower stalk next year, and then, having produced seed, they die. Probably the best known of these are foxgloves, specifically Digitalis purpurea. It has a flower stalk that is 18 to 60 inches tall, adorned with blooms in pink and purple and shaped a bit like the finger of a glove. One named variety, “Foxy” will bloom late in its first year if started early enough. Foxglove blossoms bloom in sequence along their stem over several weeks.
Foxgloves do well in part shade and like lightly moist soil. They are easy to propagate: I just cut a stalk that has finished blooming, and shake the small seeds over bare, lightly cultivated soil and pat down without covering. There are also yellow foxgloves that are fully perennial (Digitalis lutea).
Hollyhocks are also terrific biennial flowers, though some books list them as half-hardy perennials. These beauties can grow to be up to six-feet tall and bloom for a long time. If you cut off the stem as soon as it finishes blooming, sometimes you can confuse the poor thing – it doesn’t know if it produced seed or not. So it may send up another flower stem next year.
Canadian sanguisorba in November
Perennials generally live for several to many years. The genus “Sanguisorba” includes several species of perennial flowers, all of which are delightful. The common name for these is burnet. “Sanguisorba canadensis” is our naïve species, a tall, late flowering wetland species, and is called Canadian burnet. I’ve had a big clump for 20 years at least, and love its fuzzy white pendulous blossoms. Pollinators love it in the fall.
My favorite of the burnets is Sanguisorba hakusanensis or Korean Burnet, one called “Lilac Squirrel”. Why that name? The blossoms are pink to lilac in color and hang down like the squirrel tails attached to bicycle handlebars in the 1950’s. Less tall than our native, it does need staking as it can get to be 2- to 4-feet tall. I have found it easy to propagate by seed, and blooms in its second year. I collect and grow all species of burnets, which can grow from miniatures to big bush clumps of gorgeous foliage 5-feet tall and 5-feet wide, but have not collected seed from them – yet.
Lilac squirrel Snguisorba blossoms are delightful to touch and see
Hosta are great foliage plant that do best in shady areas in rich soils. If you collect seed from your favorite hostas be forewarned that most hostas are hybrids and the seeds will not produce plants identical to their seed-producing parent plant. I only planted them by seed once, and I did it with seed from one called “Hosta sieboldii”.The parent plant is known for having variegated leaves, but mine produces all-green leaves. Still, I’ve had that clump for 40 years, and it gives me pleasure every time I walk past it.
Dividing hostas is an easy way to get more. 005
Generally it is best to give hosta seeds a cold period of 6 to 8 weeks in your refrigerator. This is true for many varieties of seed, so a good practice for all. Hosta seeds may need some sunshine on them to germinate, so cover them with a very thin layer of soil in their starting pots, or with vermiculite. Mature hostas are easy to divide to get more plants.
What about starting trees from seed? It’s not hard: blue jays and squirrels do it all the time – they bury them, and forget where they put them, just like us with the car keys. Although you can plant tree seeds, I recommend just looking for first-year seedlings planted by your wildlife. Of course, this works best with native trees like oaks and maples.
Acorns that float are not likely to germinate so throw them out and plant the ones that sink
Last year I dug up half a dozen sprouted acorns and moved them to an area that needed more trees to screen my property from the road. It was a dry summer and I was less than fully vigilant, so some of them died. But there will be others I can dig up this year. Remember: watering is key for any first year planting.
So here is my challenge: Go to your local garden center and buy seed packets for three perennials or biennials. Start them either indoors under lights, or later, outdoors. Buy things that you like and want several plants, or even a bed full of them. You can fill in a bed of first year perennials with some annuals that will bloom this year. Please email me how that works out for you if you do so.
Lastly, it might better to plant flower seeds in small pots rather than in the soil, as it can be difficult to identify them when weed seeds are growing around them. Or plant them in a perfect circle to help identify them. Good luck!
Reach
Henry by e-mail at
henry.homeyer@comcast.net or by snail mail at P.O. Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 03746. His column appears here monthly.
Identifying Trees in Winter
Posted on Wednesday, February 25, 2026 · Leave a Comment
If you like to hike or snowshoe in the winter, you might like to learn the names of the trees you see. Do so, and the trees will seem like your friends. No need to greet them as Sally and Bob, know them as sugar maple, ash or white pine. Let’s start with a few evergreen trees.
White pine (Pinus strobus) has clusters of 5 soft needles, each about 3 inches long. Branches grow in whorls off the trunk; each year the tree grows just one new set of branches, so you can see how fast they grow by observing the distance between whorls on the main trunk. From a distance you can see clumps of needles pointing up near the top of the tree.
The under side of hemlock needles have a white stripe
Canadian hemlock (Tsuga canadensis) has short, flat needles that feel soft to the touch and that have a white line on the underneath side of each. It is one of the few trees in the woods that can grow in deep shade – as well as full sun.
There are several kinds of spruce (Picea spp.), but all share this characteristic, which will separate them from hemlock trees: turn over a branch and observe the color of the leaves. If the needles on the top side and the bottom of the bough are the same color, it is a spruce. And spruce needles are pointy and sharp.
Recognizing bark is a great way to identify trees. Summer or winter, if you know the look of a tree’s bark, you can identify it. It takes practice, of course, and careful observation.
Some bark is very distinctive. Beech (Fagus grandifolia), for example, has a smooth gray bark that you can learn in moments. I love to run my hands over the bark, as if petting an elephant. Young beech, particularly, hold onto their leaves in winter, which is also a good clue. The leaves are oval with sharp points along their edges.
Most everyone can identify white or paper birch (Betula papyrifera) by its white, peeling bark that is easily removed from a tree by enthusiastic Scouts anxious to start campfires fires. Gray birch (B. populifolia) is similar to white birch, but it does not peel like its cousin, and has a dirtier look. Yellow birch (B. alleghaniensis) peels like white birch but is a golden or silvery gray color.
But did you know that young white birch are not white at all? They have a deep reddish black color and are spotted with small white dots or short white lines, lenticels that feel rough if you rub your hand over them. Eventually, after 7 or 8 years, white birch saplings will start to turn white.
Branching patterns help to identify trees at any time of the year. Most species of trees and shrubs have what is called alternate branching. That means that as your eye follows a branch, the twigs and leaves alternate from one side to the other. A limited number have opposite branching with twigs facing each other across a branch. Of course – just to confuse us – sometimes twigs or leaves have broken off on a tree like a maple that should have opposite branching.
There is a mnemonic for trees that have opposite branching: MAD Cap Horse. Translated, that means Maple, Ash, Dogwood, member of the Caprfoliacea family (honeysuckle, viburnum and elderberry, among others) and Horse chestnut. So if you see opposite branching, you can eliminate lots of possibilities.
White ash
Of the opposite branching trees, white ash is an easy tree to identify by bark: it has prominent ridges with deep furrows. It is dark brown or deep gray. The leaf buds are large and pointy, and new growth tends to be thicker than that of most other trees. Unfortunately this wonderful tree will probably disappear from our woodlands due to a foreign invader, the emerald ash borer.
Buds at the end of a branch are another distinctive characteristic of trees in winter. Red maple (Acer rubrum) and sugar maple (A. saccharum) can be distinguished by their buds, for example. Sugar maple terminal buds are sharp and pointy, red maple buds are blunt and reddish in color, especially as we approach spring. Sugar maple buds are grayish or purplish-brown. And the bark of an old sugar maple is distinctive.
This red oak has buds that have pointed tips and come in clusters at the tips of branches
Oaks have opposite branching and hold on to their leaves throughout part of the winter. There are two major groups of oaks: the red and white oak families. Both have lobed leaves; red oaks have pointy tips on their lobes, while white oaks have rounded lobes. A good tree book can give you clues to narrowing down which of the oaks you are seeing, though red oak (Quercus rubra) and white oak (Quercus alba) are the most common.
When not in the woods, you might want to be at a spring flower show. Here is the lineup: Connecticut Flower Show will be in Hartford, CT February 20 to 23. The Philadelphia Flower Show is February 28-March 8. The NH Orchid Society Flower Show will be March 6-8 in Nashua, NH. The Capital Region Flower Show, is in Troy, NY March 27-29. Lastly, the Chelsea Flower Show, in London, England will be May 19 to 23. Plan to attend at least one!
Henry is a lifelong organic gardener living in Cornish, NH. Write him at
henry.homeyer@comcast.net. His column appears once a month.
Looking Back on 2025, and Forward to 2026
Posted on Sunday, January 25, 2026 · Leave a Comment
Overall, my gardens did well last summer despite the lack of rain – largely because of all that sunshine. Most of us had a wet spring and early summer, then a very dry summer and fall. For people planting new trees, shrubs and perennials it meant lots of watering. Until plants have done some root growth, they really need to have soil that does not completely dry out. Vegetables, of course do best with lightly moist soil.
Each year I plant a few more trees and shrubs, even though my list includes over 100 different kinds that I have planted since I bought my house in 1970. Last spring I planted a spring-blooming witch hazel, one called ‘Arnold’s Promise’. I’ve had the native witch hazel for decades – they bloom late in the fall with lovely yellow blossoms. This new one is a Zone 5 tree, only hardy to minus 20 F. I’ve been in a Zone 4 area for decades, but have been trying Zone 5 trees for the last few years, and they have all survived our winters. Hopefully, “Arnold” will, too.
Last fall I planted a Dawn Redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides). This is not the California redwood, but a descendent of a trees only found in fossil records until the 1940’s. Then an alert forester found a grove of them in a remote part of China. He contacted the Arnold Arboretum at Harvard, and an expedition was mounted after WWII. Seeds were collected and sent all over the world, and this fast-growing deciduous conifer has succeeded well in many locations. It likes wet soil and prefers full sun, but will tolerate some shade. I have seen several in New Hampshire and Vermont. I can’t wait to see how it performs for us.
Sungold cherry tomatoes
Looking ahead, I will soon be studying the catalogs and websites of my favorite seed companies. It’s good to order seeds now, as some popular seeds will sell out – especially small packets of tomato seeds of things like ‘Sun Gold’, my favorite cherry tomato.
If you have been thinking about starting your own seedlings, now is a good time to build a simple A-frame stand that will support lights and the flats you will use to start your plants indoors. I’ve written how to make one, so just email me if you want directions on how to do it. Your local lumber store should be willing to cut all the pieces of wood to size for you. It’s quite easy to build – even for non-carpenters.
I don’t believe in writing New Year’s resolutions, but do like to reflect each year at this time about what improvements I want to make in how I garden, and what I shall plant. So here are a few of my ideas, and a few from friends willing to share theirs.
Young dawn redwood at New England Botanic Garden in Boylston, MA
Although we have large populations of native plants that support pollinators and birds, in 2026 I hope to locate and plant a wider diversity of plants. I am on the list to get the Massachusetts Master Gardener on-line newsletter called The Dirt. In the January issue it lists native plants that are important to support our pollinators that are “at risk” and declining in numbers.
Using that list I will see which I can add to our environment. Dr. Gegear, who researched and prepared the list, includes bloom time, whether it is important for pollen or nectar, and what pollinators it is important for. A good source for native plants is the Native Plant Trust garden shop in Framingham, MA and their production facility, Nasami Farm in Whately, MA. Both are open seasonally, opening in mid-April.
My friend, Hank, emails this: Over a cup of tea and the last of the holiday cookies I sift through the dog-eared pages of color and hope (the seed catalogs). I take the time to add to the lists, create my To Do’s, and purposely circle plant varieties that I am interested in trying. …I take the time to consider where I’ll be building a new shed and then wander into the barn to spend more time organizing, looking for the tools that need to be cleaned and sharpened.”
And Jenny from Vermont emailed saying that she will “try to keep the goutweed in check so the new Mayapple can dominate, and I’ll try to rein in the white cohosh that has gone wild. Last year I tried to add a toad lily and it failed — I may try again …” My thought? Yes, try toad lily again, it’s a great plant (but not a true lily) that blooms in the fall. I always give plants two more tries in different spots if I wasn’t successful with them on the first try.
Pawpaw fruit has a tropical flavor but a texture that is mushy.
Last year my friend Mark planted five little pawpaw trees that he got from another friend. Pawpaws send up lots of root sprouts, but they will not produce fruit if they are genetic clones (all from a single mother tree, as his probably are). I have some from another source, so he’ll trade me one of his for one of mine. Most small trees move easily. Pawpaws are a native tree common in Appalachia, but hardy here. Their fruit tastes tropical!
Sara told me that she is looking forward to warmer weather. She wants to re-wild areas on her property to include more native species that will support pollinators and wildlife.
And my friend Rika e-mailed saying, in part, “My intention every year is to become more relaxed – not casual – and intuitive in the garden.” I like it!
I wish you all a successful year in your gardens.
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