The Flower Shows, 2022
Posted on Thursday, February 3, 2022 · Leave a Comment
Usually at this time of year I am planning my travel to the various flower shows around New England: Boston, Connecticut or Vermont. Perhaps Maine. Not this year. Most of the show have been put off due to Covid, including the Boston Show, which cancelled recently. The Connecticut Flower Show website says it will be the only major flower show in New England.
A garden at a past Hartford, CT Show
The Connecticut Flower Show will take place February 24 to 27 at the Connecticut Convention Center in Hartford, CTR. Tickets costs $20 for adults on the day of the event, or $16 if purchased in advance (which will avoid the wait in line). Children ages 5 to 12 are $5, and children under 5 are free. The Convention Center has been upgraded to minimize risk of Covid transmission and state and local regulations will be followed.
The show is always known for having lots of educational workshops. This year is no exception: there are some 80 presentations including organic lawn care, container gardening, floral arranging and pollinator gardens, among others.
One talk that caught my eye is by a friend of mine, Len Giddix. It’s Rain Gutter Gardening: Sprouts, Herbs and Greens without Draining Your Wallet. I called Len who explained that he uses four-inch pots in a 10-foot section of gutter partially filled with potting mix. It’s tidy, and can produce a lot of greens. And no, the gutter is not up high, it’s along the edge of a walkway. Sounds slick! He’ll repeat his demo every day.
The show will have all the usual vendors selling seeds, plants, cut flowers, air plants, tick protection products, beekeeping supplies, garden tools and more. Organizations like the Rose Society will be there, and other non-profits.
Calla lilies at the Chelsea Flower Show in London
Next there is the Chelsea Flower Show in London from May 24 to 28. This show has always been held outdoors and is known for the lavish gardens built by world-famous designers, often using mature trees and shrubs. There are, of course, tents, one of which would easily accommodate Barnum and Bailey at its heyday. My wife and I attended in 2017.
The magnificence of the show is startling: hundreds of fresh blossoms in perfect form in many of the booths. New introductions of named varieties are on display. Actress Judi Dench got a lovely apricot-colored rose named after her by David Austin the year I attended, and as press, I got to see her accept the honor. The chief executive of Burpee Seeds, George Ball, was in the Burpee booth, greeting us and answering questions. There was even a cute little robot cutting the lawn in one booth. The show covers many acres.
If you decide to go, I recommend joining the Royal Horticultural Society for 50 pounds ($67.50 at current exchange rate). The membership gets you into the show for 2 days before it opens to all, a 10% discount on all tickets, and other benefits including their quarterly magazine. I went on the first membership day and it was quite crowded, so I can’t imagine what it is like when the show is open to the public. I recommend attending at least 2 days to see it all, which is what we did.
Daily tickets for adults cost about $55, with Saturday at about $116. But if you can afford it, go! It’s a once in a lifetime experience. And women: bring your most colorful garden hat and a flowered dress as the British women love to dress up for the show – and you don’t want to appear like the poor “country cousin.”
Philadelphia Flower was also outdoors in 2021
Then there is the Philadelphia Flower Show which will be held outdoors from June 11 to 19 at South Philadelphia’s Franklin Delano Roosevelt Park. The show, which was first organized by the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society in 1829, will include 15 acres of this large park with majestic trees and views of the waterfront. By holding the show outdoors in early summer, exhibitors will be able to include larger landscape material than an indoor event, much as the Chelsea Flower Show does.
I have attended the Philly show in the past, and always was thoroughly “wowed”. One aspect of the show that I love is the competitions that allows ordinary gardeners to strut their stuff, competing for ribbons for best house plants, flower arrangements, specialty plants and more. Then of course there are the displays made by professional landscapers, stone workers and designers. And more garden geegaws than you can imagine are for sale.
Bring an umbrella or rain coat, just in case of shower. There are tents, but much is outdoors. The large venue outdoor should keep attendees well socially distanced.
For non-members of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (PHS) admission is $45 for adults, $30 for young adults (18 to 29), and $20 for kids 5 to 17. Members of the PHS can get 10% discounts. Go to the website to read more about gala events and early morning tours:
https://phsonline.org/the-flower-show
Covid has limited what we can do and see, but there are still a few places to go if you hanker for a good garden show. And maybe next year they will all be back to normal.
The Bane of Many Gardeners: Japanese Knotweed
Posted on Tuesday, January 25, 2022 · Leave a Comment
I’m a lucky guy: for one thing, I have no Japanese knotweed. Many is the gardener who has e-mailed me asking, “What can I do to get rid of Japanese knotweed?” My usual answer? Sell the house.
Japanese knotweed is an attractive plant, but nearly impossible to get rid of
Japanese knotweed, commonly called bamboo because of its hollow, segmented stems, goes by a number of scientific names, most commonly Polygonum cuspidatum. The leaves are heart-shaped and alternate on the stems, which can reach up to 10 or even 15 feet tall. It was introduced from Japan as a landscape plant in the late 1880’s, and was sometimes planted for erosion control, but quickly proved invasive.
Japanese knotweed spreads easily: its rhizomes (roots) can go 90 feet or more – even popping up through asphalt or pushing through house foundations. I talked to someone who tried to dig out a patch that had been growing for decades by using with a backhoe; he quit after digging down eight feet because he saw roots going even deeper!
Japanese knotweed blooms in early fall with white blossoms that attract bees and other pollinators. The small seeds are carried by wind, water or animals, though research shows that seeds are not usually how it propagates. It spreads by root – even a small bit of root can create a new patch of knotweed, so it is a problem along streams and rivers because flooding can send its invasive roots to new sites miles away. Sometimes highway departments move soil with roots, and it spreads.
Invasive plants (like knotweed) are defined as those coming from a different continent with few or no natural predators here. The bugs that eat purple loosestrife or Japanese knotweed did not come with them when they first made it to our shores. Invasives spread rapidly and can outcompete our native plants for sun, moisture and soil nutrients.
Most invasives can grow in sun or shade in wet or dry soil. They do not need that dark, organic matter-rich soils that we offer our peonies. Invasives, generally, can grow in your gravel driveway if given half a chance.
Most invasives are hard to control for several reasons. Most have extensive root systems that spread far and wide, and are often brittle. Trying to dig out the roots generally results in new plants from scraps of root that broke off, and that is certainly the case for knotweed.
I recently called Pete Butler, an arborist living in Stockbridge, Vermont to talk about Japanese knotweed. Last summer I had visited one of his projects, a public park along the Ottauquechee River in Woodstock, VT, to look at his efforts controlling knotweed.
Pete said that the best time to attack a patch of knotweed is in the fall, when the plants are less vigorous and new shoots are less likely to grow after the roots are disturbed. Dig out root masses to get as much root as possible. The roots show bright orange if scraped with your shovel. They are woody and large in a well-established patch. “You’re not going to dig it all out successfully. But taking away a lot of the root mass is like a good punch in the nose,” according to Pete.
He emphasized that you should never get rid of your excavated knotweed roots by taking them away. Destroy them on site by burning them. He takes dead trees, branches from pruning and other wood products to start a hot bonfire that will destroy the knotweed. If you truck it away, it will start growing elsewhere, spreading the problem.
After digging, he said, add some competition. He uses winter rye, planting in the fall. It scavenges nitrogen and starts rebuilding soil that the knotweed has depleted. He also adds fertilizer to improve the soil. In spring the winter rye starts growing early, as does the knotweed. The grass stabilizes the soil and helps re-introduce microbial life, he said.
Hemlocks have out-competed knotweed in this site
Getting a soil test will help you determine how badly your soil has been degraded by the knotweed so you can improve it. In the spring he likes to add more grass seeds, particularly sheep fescue and hard fescue. These grasses compete with the little sprouts of knotweed from root scraps that evaded your digging. He does not mow the grasses, which are relatively short.
Pete Butler explained that he uses an IPM or Integrated Pest Management approach to controlling knotweed, including micro-doses of herbicides, just “ounces per acre”. He is a licensed to apply pesticides, to help in the process, but cautions that homeowners should not attempt using herbicides. Even herbicides like Round-Up, widely touted as safe, can have negative impacts on beneficial plants and soil fungi.
Get control of a knotweed infestation will take at least three years, Pete said, and each year he uses less herbicide. The “shelf life” of the roots is about 9 years he said, after which they will no longer be viable. Until that time, a site needs to be carefully monitored and appropriate steps taken each year.
When I visited his knotweed control site last summer Pete showed me how competition can help control knotweed. He planted a clump of hemlocks about six-feet tall, shoulder-to-shoulder after removing knotweed roots. They effectively outcompeted the knotweed, even if not completely eliminating the few new shoots that appear each year. He applies micro-doses of herbicide to finish it off.
Knotweed does best in full sun and moist soil, so creating shade near a site will slow it down some. And human activity can discourage it, too. High foot traffic will slow it down.
So maybe you don’t have to sell your house just because you have knotweed. But be prepared to battle it for years. And for those of us committed to organics, we may have to live with a little knotweed.
Henry lives And
gardens in Cornish Flat, NH. E-mail him at
henry.homeyer@comast.net. He is the author of 4
gardening books.
Learning from a Good Book
Posted on Tuesday, January 18, 2022 · Leave a Comment
Here in New England winter is long, especially for gardeners. We want to be outside in the garden but most days we can’t really do much. I compensate by learning about gardening from books. I recently finished a good one, Hummelo: A Journey Through a Plantsman’s Life by Piet Oudolf and Noel Kingsbury.
Oudolf Hummelo
At over 400 pages it might seem daunting, but I’d estimate that nearly half of those pages are color photos of the gardens Piet Oudlof designed, with plenty from his home in Hummelo, Holland. It is written by Noel Kingsbury, a well-known British garden writer, and by Oudlof himself.
Piet (which is pronounced Pete) Oudolf was the primary designer of the High Line Gardens in New York City, a garden planted on a section of an abandoned elevated railway line in mid-town Manhattan. This 1.45-mile planting is consistently rated in the top ten most visited places in New York City.
The book follows Oudolf’s life as a garden designer and plantsman. In addition to the High Line, he designed garden in Chicago, Detroit, and many in Europe. The book follows his professional life and illustrates the changes nicely. Many plants in the photos are not labeled, but more advanced gardeners will recognize them, and many are mentioned in the text. And although some common names are used, most are identified by the scientific names with the genus, species and cultivar, which I find helpful when studying the plants and finding out if the plants are hardy in my zone.
High Line NY, NY
So what makes Piet Oudolf one of the most famous garden designers ever? First, he is a highly accomplished plantsman. When he specifies plants for a garden, he knows what they need to do well. He started out with his wife, Anja, growing most of the plants he used in his designs, often growing and selecting plants for years before using them.
He knows each plant including its root system and its capability to fill in spaces by seeding in or spreading by rhizomes. He grew and used plants that were largely disease resistant. His gardens rarely need to be re-planted because the plants seldom fail. I should note that now he does not grow his own plants, he just specifies them and has others grow them for him, often from stock he perfected.
Voortuin September
Piet Oudolf uses many tall grasses in his designs. He loves the way they provide structure and form to a design, and that they last well into winter. He is less interested in color than many designers. He loves the look of seed heads and stems after the (relatively short) bloom period is over. He is quoted in the book as saying, “A plant is only worth growing if it also looks good when it is dead.” Since he bred plants for toughness, I assume he means dormant, not dead.
Oudolf is a rule breaker. He tried things that others had not. He is quoted as saying in the book, “I discover beauty in things that on first sight are not beautiful. It is a journey in life to find out what real beauty is – and to notice that it is everywhere.|”
Piet and Anja at Hummelo
Early on in his career, Piet Oudolf used large blocks of a single species of a plant. But as he refined his designs, he started intermingling a few large, tall plants inside a block. He planted them repeatedly, as repetition adds a sense of unity and coherence to a garden. Unlike many designers, he actually lays out his gardens himself instead of drawing a plan and handing it off to gardeners. Oudolf is first and foremost a gardener. He loves plants, and knows them like his ever-present dogs.
What did I learn from this book? Given a large space to design, like Oudolf, I would use largely native plants. They are tough and if properly sited, will last well. I like his philosophy that plant diversity is good, but that too much diversity can overwhelm our ability to appreciate the whole.
I am, by temperament, a plant collector – I want to try lots of plants. But seeing the photos of Oudlof gardens, I recognize that buying – or growing – several plants instead of just three (my usual purchase), I can create a more powerful display.
Reading this book I made notes of plants I want to try. Among these is Eryngium giganteum, a sea holly that gets to be 3 to 4 feet tall with spiny egg-shaped blossoms and white bracts. Miss Willmott’s Ghost is readily available on line, though I have never seen it for sale in a nursery.
Another plant that looks great is Agastache nepetoides, yellow giant hyssop. It is deer resistant and big: it grows to six feet tall with flower spikes up to 16-inches long. In fall and winter the dry seed heads are fabulous, particularly in counterpoint to dry grasses.
I feel blessed that I was able to meet Piet Oudolf and interview him at his home in Hummelo, Holland in 2007. He was very generous with his time and his knowledge.
This wonderful book was produced by Monacelli Press (all photos are theirs), and is available in paperback for $40. To me, or any serious gardener or designer, it is a treasure. You might like to thumb through it before you decide if it is for you, especially if you are a beginning gardener. If you have big spaces to fill, you will get many ideas.
Henry is the author of 4 gardening books. Send questions to him at
henry.homeyer@comcast.net or by mail at PO Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 03746. Please include a SASE if you wish a response by USP mail.
Plan to Grow Winter Vegetables
Posted on Sunday, January 2, 2022 · Leave a Comment
I am probably not the only person who is determined to lose a little weight after all those delicious but fattening meals and desserts served up over the holidays. One way to feel satisfied and lose weight is to eat more salads and enjoy more vegetables. That’s my plan, anyway, and I recently took stock of what is lingering on in my storage fridge. I still have some nice veggies from summer that still taste good and are satisfying my hunger.
Try growing Kohlrabi this summer.They’re tasty and keep well
Digging around the vegetable drawer I noticed several kohlrabi I grew last summer, but had not been touched in months. I was prepared not to like them because they had been stored so long. I peeled one, chopped it into half-inch cubes, and added to my nightly salad. It was delicious! It’s even tasty as low calorie snack food just by itself.
Kohlrabi is in the cabbage family, but not well known or much grown, It looks like a space alien in the garden: it is an above-ground root vegetable of sorts. Round or oblong, it can be green or purple, with leaves poking out of the beet-like “tuber” on bare stems. It is crunchy, and tastes a bit like broccoli, which is in the same family. It can be used to make coleslaw when grated with carrots.
Buy a packet of kohlrabi seeds and plant them in early June or late May. They are fast-growing plants and only need a bit of space to grow well. If you want kohlrabi all winter for adding to stir fries, plant a green one called ‘Kossak’ which gets large – up to 8- or 10-inches in diameter – and stores for up to 4 months in a cool, high humidity place like the vegetable drawer our your fridge. I get seeds from Johnny’s Selected Seeds in Maine, but it is also available from High Mowing, Gurney’s and Park Seeds, among others.
I also found half a purple cabbage that had been lurking in my vegetable drawer since September. I expected it to be stale, but it was fine. Cabbage is easy enough to grow, but I often don’t bother because I don’t use it much – it is cheap and readily available. I grated some and added it to a green salad, adding color and bulk.
Onions are sold as plants which grow better than onion sets, or little bulbs
I had a great onion crop last summer. I buy onion plants from Johnny’s Seeds most years instead of babying seed-started plants indoors. When I start from seed, I start them under lights around March 1. When I start my own, even with intense light close to the seedlings, they are always a bit flimsy. Some of the plants I get from Johnny’s are nearly as thick around as a pencil, and take off and start growing immediately. The kind I grow are yellow onions, one called ‘Patterson’. They keep for months in a cool location, but will sprout and soften if left in the warm kitchen in a bowl.
The plants come in bundles of 50 to 60, according to their catalog, but last year I got closer to 100 plants per bundle. Onions don’t like competition, so weed early and often. Space your onions about 3 inches apart in the row, with rows at least 8 inches apart. They like fluffy, rich soil so be sure to add lots of compost and stir it in well. You can also start onions from “sets”, which are like little bulbs – but less vigorous than plants.
What else am I eating from the garden now? Garlic. It is easy to grow, but if you didn’t plant any last October, you’re probably out of luck. It sets its roots in the fall, goes dormant, and pops up early in the spring. It is rarely available to purchase in the spring. I was out in California one spring and bought some soft-necked garlic in the spring, and it did fairly well here. You could try planting some of last year’s garlic, come spring, if you have any left over but it’s not recommended.
Potatoes are also a mainstay of my winter menu. I know, they are not usually recommended for dieters. But that is partly because of how they are served. They are a healthy starch, but many of us tend to load up potatoes with sour cream or butter. Add them to a stew or stir fry, and they are still tasty but much less calorific.
I went 20 years once without buying a potato. I grew plenty, and saved out some for planting each spring. By only eating my own, I went a few months without any while waiting for my new crop to be ready. But it was a matter of principle to only eat my own. Commercial potatoes, if not raised organically or following IPM guidelines, can carry heavy pesticide loads.
The trick to getting lots of potatoes is to grow them in full sun. You can get potatoes where there is only 6 hours of sun per day, but the more sun, the more potatoes. And don’t let the potato beetles defoliate your plants. Check leaves, including the underneath side, for orange egg masses or larvae often when they are starting to grow. They can multiply exponentially if you let early beetles multiply.
Gardens aren’t just for food. They can be for fun too.
Having a vegetable garden is, of course, a certain amount of work. But it provides me not only with good, healthy, organic veggies, it saves me lots of money and keeps me active in the garden. As we get older, the more exercise we get, the better. So start reading the catalogs or websites of seed companies, and plan what you will plant, come spring. Me? I can’t wait!
Henry lives and
gardens in Cornish Flat, NH. He is the author of 4
gardening books. You can reach him by email at
henry.homeyer@comcast.net.
World of Wonders
Posted on Thursday, December 30, 2021 · Leave a Comment
World of Wonders is a delight to read
One recent morning I decided it was time to finish reading a small book of essays I had started long before, and savored, but had (inexplicably) put off finishing. “World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks and Other Astonishments” is a delight, from start to finish. Its author has a name that could wrap around my own more than once, and is almost unpronounceable at a first try: Aimee Nezhukumatathil.
I think of the author as Aimee, and I know she would not mind. She is young, full of life, with a “joie de vivre” that lights up every room she enters, I should think. But what encouraged me to share her book with you was the last essay, ‘Firefly (Redux): Photinus pyralis’.
In her essay about fireflies she recounts her experience teaching a poetry class at an elementary school in a suburban town where fireflies are common. When she mentioned fireflies, most of her students thought she was making them up. Of twenty-two students in her class, seventeen had never seen a firefly. Instead of spending early summer evenings outdoors catching fireflies and putting them in jars to bring indoors, they were texting friends or playing videos games.
That same morning I read a review in the New York Times of a biography of E.O. Wilson, a hero of mine and a biologist who is now 92 – but still active and observant. He began his scientific life studying small creatures ignored by most of us: ants. At age of 13 he found a species of red fire ant from Argentina that had never been reported in the United States. He went on to study at Harvard and write more than 30 books and 500 scientific articles.
So what do these two wonderful people have to do with you or me? They have great curiosity about the natural world. And we do, too. We are gardeners and as such spend time pondering why any given plant bloomed magnificently last year, but meagerly this year. We offer our palette of plants more water, or less. We add fertilizer, or we don’t. Would an early June “haircut” delay blossoming, and encourage a less lanky plant? Good gardeners pay attention to the details of life.
I believe that we all have a responsibility to share our passion with our children and our grandchildren. Or the boy across the street who stops, while walking his dog, and asks us questions about our garden. Most scientists and citizen scientists had someone in their early life who encouraged them to ask questions and showed them something special that amazed them.
When I was in the third or fourth grade my family took a week’s vacation together in Maine. We stayed at Goose Cove Lodge on Deer Isle, a delightful rustic place run by a retired biology professor, Dr. Ralph Waldron. Dr. Waldron offered guided walks along tidal pools and in meadows of wild flowers off the beaten track. My parents, my sister Ruth Anne, and I always went on these walks. Dr. Waldron not only let me see new things, he encouraged me to take samples and bring them back to the lodge to study.
And so I began my career as a citizen scientist. He taught me how to preserve flowers and leaves by pressing them in a simple press to make herbarium mounts. He taught me not only the common names of plants, he taught me their Latin names. He encouraged me to see similarities and differences in plants. He let me preserve small sea creature in glass jars with formaldehyde as a preservative so that I could take them home, along with my flowers. I began to appreciate the vast diversity of the natural world, and its beauty.
We returned to Goose Cove Lodge every summer for a few years, and I deepened my interest for the natural world each time we went. In college I majored in biology, in part because of Dr. Waldron’s influence.
Sometimes it seems that the news about the natural world is always depressing: global warming, I read this morning, is causing rising temperatures in ponds, causing more poisonous blue green algae to flourish. Elsewhere today I read that a living species somewhere becomes extinct every day. And so on. What can you and I do about it?
We can garden. And we can introduce the life outdoors to a young person. An Eight-year old, perhaps. If we take joy in what we do, and share pour excitement with a young person, they too may become an E.O Wilson, or an Aimee Nezhukumatathil.
We don’t need to be scientists to encourage young people to love and respect our natural world. My gardening grandfather, John Lenat (1888 to 1967) probably never finished high school. He came to the United States as a young man from Germany. He loved to garden, invited me to spend time with him each summer, and I absorbed a lot from his way of doing things. He let me putter in the garden and do things to help, but only as much as I wanted. He never asked me to weed, and let me take worms from his compost pile to catch fish.
As a New Year’s resolution this year, I hope you will think about connecting a young person with the outdoors. With our gardens, or the bugs and toads that live there. Maybe together we can all make a difference. Just maybe, if we each make an effort to live sustainably, we can save the world.
Henry is a UNH Master
Gardener and the author of 4
gardening books. He lives in Cornish Flat, NH. Reach him by e-mail at
henry.homeyer@comcast.net.
Winter Mulching and Composting
Posted on Monday, December 20, 2021 · Leave a Comment
Although we had a little snow on the ground for much of November and December, snow has been scarce as we move towards the New Year. If this continues, does this have any consequences for our gardens? Yes, it can.
If we have bare ground and a very cold winter, roots will see colder temperatures than they might prefer. Like that pink fluffy fiberglass in the walls of our homes, snow is a great insulator. Snow holds tiny pockets of air, holding in warmth from the soil and preventing icy north winds from stealing warmth from the soil.
Lacking snow, what can one do? Fall leaves are great. If you have a leaf pile somewhere, think about moving some to spread around your most tender plants, especially things planted this year. Perennials and woody plants are most vulnerable to the cold their first winter.
This tree peony is well protected from the cold with leaves and burlap
I have a tree peony that I planted this year, quite a pricey plant. Unlike the common perennial peony, the stems of the plant are woody and do not die back to the ground each winter. And the blossoms are much more dramatic: up to a foot across.
I have done two things for it: I mulched around the base with chopped leaves, and I wrapped some burlap around it to protect the stem itself and the flower buds that are already in place for next summer. This will help to keep January’s cold winds from affecting it. We have done the same for tender heirloom roses, with good success. Shrub jackets made of synthetic, breathable material are also available instead of making your own from burlap.
I worry about voles chewing through the burlap, nesting inside, and then eating the tender bark of my young tree peony. I had some ‘Bobex’ brand deer repellent and decided to spray the burlap. It is made with rotten eggs and other nasty stuff and might deter voles.
This tree peony had 10-inch wide blossoms
My wife, Cindy, and I recently used burlap to prevent hungry deer from eating the leaves and branches of a pair of large yews. First I drove four one-inch diameter hardwood stakes into the ground around each six-foot tall shrub. I stood on a step ladder and used a 3-pound short-handled sledge hammer to drive the stakes in about a foot. Then we draped the burlap over the top of the stakes and stapled the burlap to hold it in place on windy days. We used a heavy duty carpenter’s stapler as a desk stapler would not work. We have done this before, and the deer cannot get to one of their favorite winter meals. The wrapping we did was open to the top as deer can’t reach that high, but smaller plants should be completely wrapped.
A simple A-frame protected this boxwood from the snowplow on our road last winter
Another hazard for plants is heavy snow and ice that fall off rooves, or is pushed up by snow plows. Last winter I made three A-frame plywood protectors for small shrubs to protect them. Each used four stakes and two pieces of plywood. At the top of each stake I drilled a hole and slid through both a piece of wire that connected the two stakes. This is a cheapskate’s way of avoiding the cost of hinges. And it works just fine! If the ground is not frozen, push the stakes into the soil, but if it is frozen, it should stand up fine anyway.
Later, after the holidays, recycle your evergreen tree in the garden. After I take off decorations, I use my pruners to cut off all the branches. This helps me find every last little ornament, and then I have a nice stack of evergreen branches to use around or over tender plants. The branches are good windbreaks for small shrubs, and hold snow through winter thaws as they sit over tender perennials. If you use a fake tree, watch for discarded trees waiting curbside, and snag one (or more) for use in the garden.
A simple A-frame protected this boxwood from the snowplow on our road last winter
Composting in winter is a chore that some gardeners don’t bother doing. But you should, as it is a waste to put your moldy broccoli in the landfill. For many gardeners the compost pile is a considerable distance from the house, requiring warm coats, gloves – and perhaps snowshoes. But there is an easy solution.
Invest in an extra garbage can, a large one that will hold 30 gallons or more. Place it inconspicuously but conveniently near the house. Ideally, you have a kitchen door behind the house, and can bring food scraps to it without bundling up for the cold.
Your winter compost will freeze, and will not break down during the cold months. So chop any big things to smaller pieces to allow it to pack down well. Then, come spring, you will have to shovel the material into a wheelbarrow and bring it down to your regular compost pile after it has thawed.
Of course, commercial compost bins are available to buy instead of the Mr. Thrifty 30-gallon plastic can. But since compost does not break down outside in winter, a plastic bin may not hold all the material you produce. If you fill the first one garbage can, an extra can is a smaller investment than a bin made just for compost. And those rotating bins? I’ve rarely met anyone who keeps turning them every week anyhow.
So get creative and protect your plants however you can. And if you have a great idea, write me so I can share it with others. My best to you all for the holidays!
Looking for a present to give? Henry is selling his book “Organic
Gardening (not just) in the Northeast: A Hands-On, Month-by-Month Guide”.
This is a collection of his best
articles. Send a check for $19 to Henry Homeyer at PO Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 03746 or for faster service, use PayPal at
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Winter Plantings: Paperwhites and Amaryllis
Posted on Tuesday, December 14, 2021 · Leave a Comment
As winter drags along, I long for warm sun and green plants surrounding me outdoors. It’s much too early to start spring seeds (even indoors), but I can plant some flower bulbs. I love paperwhites and amaryllis, and both are readily available for planting now – and they will bloom indoors while it snows outside.
Paperwhites are a type of daffodil specifically for forcing indoors now. Most grocery stores sell them, as do garden centers and feed-and-grain stores. They usually cost about a buck a bulb, and will produce flowers in four to six weeks. They are not hardy in New England, so don’t bother saving the bulbs to plant outdoors. Just enjoy them, and accept that they are a one-shot deal.
5 paperwhite bulbs fit into this soupbowl with gravel
I should warn you that paperwhites have strong scents, and not everyone is enthralled with their smell. But I like the scent, which I can smell once I walk into a room with freshly blooming paperwhites. If you don’t like strong-smelling musky scents, there is one variety that is barely fragrant: ‘Grand Soleil d’Or’. Instead of the traditional white blossoms, these bulbs produce gold or yellow blossoms.
If you are in a hurry for blossoms, and can select your bulbs from a bin, select those that already have started to grow. They are just aching to grow. Select a nice bowl or pot that will hold water, and get some small stones – three quarters of an inch to an inch is a good size. Garden centers sell white marble chips for this, but you can pick up stones from your driveway or garden, too. Just rinse off any stones before using them.
Arrange the 3 to 5 bulbs on a layer of stones, then fill in around the bulbs with more stones. The stems and flowers will get up to 18 inches tall, so they may tip over if not firmly seated and surrounded with stones.
Next, add water until it just kisses the bottom of the bulbs. You do not want the bulbs to sit in water. Those dry roots will quickly wake up and extend into the pool of water around the stones. Top up the water as needed, but try not to let it go dry.
Some people wait until the bulbs have grown an inch or two, drain off the water, and replace it with a 7 to 1 dilution of gin or vodka. This will, I am told, produce shorter, sturdier stems that will not flop. Or use rubbing alcohol and dilute a bit more, 11 to 1.
An amaryllis bulb does not need much soil and needs to be planted like this
A more expensive – but more dramatic – flower for forcing is amaryllis. This is a tropical flower originally from South Africa – and many are still imported from there each year. Properly cared for, your investment in an amaryllis bulb will produce a plant that will last for up to 75 years, blooming every year!
Amaryllis bulbs are big: they are anywhere from 2 to 4 inches across. They are often sold with a kit that includes an appropriate-sized plastic pot, the bulb, and enough potting soil to plant it in.
Smaller amaryllis bulbs are younger and less expensive, but you get what you pay for: a $5 amaryllis at a Big Box Store will probably produce one stem with three or four large blossoms. A $12 bulb will be bigger and should produce two stems with eight or more blossoms. In time, your small bulb will get bigger if you care for it properly.
Planting an amaryllis is easy. You should plant it in a good potting soil, not soil from the garden which may stay too wet and get compacted. It is important that the bulb NOT be buried in soil. It may rot if you do that. The shoulders of the bulb should stick up above the soil line, up to one third of the bulb. The potting soil should be lightly moist, not dry or soggy when you plant it.
Place your amaryllis is a sunny window and wait. Sometimes when you buy an amaryllis it will have already started to grow in the box. I like that, as it means that my amaryllis will start growing for me right away.
Other times an amaryllis will sulk for weeks, doing nothing. There is nothing I know of to encourage it to grow, though maybe whispering encouragement to it will help. Only do that, however, when you are the only person in the room!
Amaryllis stems tend to lean toward the light, so rotating the pot every few days will help to keep it growing straight up (and give you something to do). You may need to insert one or more thin bamboo sticks and tie with yarn to help keep the heavy blossoms – up to 4 inches across – from pulling the stem over.
After the first stem has bloomed you may get a second stem. You can cut off the first stem after it is finished blooming. Sometimes the first and second stems grow at the same time, which leads to a little pushing and shoving in the pot, much like teenagers. Once a stem is finished blooming, you can cut it off.
After blooming, keep it in the pot, and put it outside in a sunny location all summer, but bring it inside by October 1. Remove from the pot and let it dry out. Cut off the leaves and place it in a paper bag and keep in a cool, dark place for 5 or 6 weeks. Then pot it up, and it will bloom again.
So if you miss gardening, get an amaryllis or some paperwhites. And spring will be along in no time!
Looking for a present to give? Henry is selling his book “Organic Gardening (not just) in the Northeast: A Hands-On, Month-by-Month Guide”. This is a collection of his best articles. Send a check for $19 to Henry Homeyer at PO Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 03746 or order use PayPal at
www.Gardening-Guy.com.
Creating a Winter Wreath
Posted on Thursday, December 9, 2021 · Leave a Comment
Winter is upon us and it may seem there is little for a gardener to do. No weeding, nothing to plant, no flowers to pick. But last year’s garden may still have some remnants that, with a little imagination, can create something pleasing to the eye. I went out to my garden in early winter to see what dry flowers still were standing after my garden clean up, and saw plenty to work with. I picked plenty and set them aside for making winter wreaths and arrangements.
Wreath form made with grape vines
I like wreaths, and in the past I have made them to decorate an outdoor space such as a blank wall or door. Instead of using a wire wreath form, as many people do with evergreen wreaths, I used grapevines to make the basic form for my wreath. You can, too.
Go to a wooded area and look for vines climbing a tree. Grape vines are common in hardwood forests, but often strangle trees, so removing some grapevine is actually a good thing to do. Cut a 15-foot length of grapevine that is about as thick around as your ring finger. It is important to use living, not dead, vines; they are a greenish white inside and flexible. Dead vines are brittle, brown, and not suitable.
Begin by forming a vine circle 14 to 16 inches in diameter by overlapping (or twisting) one half of the vine over the other half – the same way you would start to tie your shoelaces. Then grasp one of the loose ends and weave it around the vine circle in loops, over and under, pulling it tight as you go. Then take the other end of the vine and weave it around the circle.
The great thing about this grapevine wreath is that you can just slide stems of dry flowers in between the vines and natural tension will hold them in place. In fact, I had to use a screwdriver to lift the vines at times in order to slide the stems in place. But I also use thin florists wire to tie together more delicate things like grasses and add them to the wreath.
Winter wreath with a dusting of snow
Here are some of the plants I used in my winter wreath. Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ is a deep brown and stands up well in the winter garden. Fountain grass (Miscanthus sinensis) ‘Morning Light’ provides a light grown, fluffy material, as the seed heads are still present. Mine got knocked over by ice earlier in the winter, and then after the ice melted, it stood back up again!
What else? Various hydrangeas have flower panicles that are dry and delicate but still attached at this time of year. I used some flowers from one called ‘Quick Fire’. I like it for wreaths because the panicles are not huge, the way many of the PeeGee hydrangeas are, or Annabelle. If your panicles are too big, you can prune parts off to make them more suitable for a wreath.
I wanted some greenery in the wreath and could have pruned off some twigs from either white pine on hemlock, but had some Christmas fern right near the house and used that instead. I’m not sure how long it will hold up in a wreath, but looks good now. Hemlocks tend to drop needles fairly quickly, but anything used as a Christmas tree would be fine – Balsam fir or blue spruce, or example. Or snip some stems off your Christmas tree when you take it down.
Close-up of winter wreath
For color I went to my brook and gathered some winterberry (Ilex verticillata) growing alongside it. This shrub has bright red berries in winter, and although it prefers a moist location, but it will grow in ordinary garden soil, too. In summer it is pretty ordinary looking, but is fabulous when covered with red berries in winter. You need both male and female plants to get berries. One male is fine for five females.
The last addition to my winter wreath were some stems of teasel, a biennial weed hated by mid-western corn farmers. It gets in their machinery and gums up the works – and it grows 6 feet tall. The flowers and seed heads are two-inch cylinders that are very prickly. The stems have thorns, but these can be rubbed off while wearing gloves, making them easier to work with.
Because teasel is a biennial, it is easy to control: I pull most of the first-year plants when they are small. I leave just a few to grow and produce flowers. Six plants or so are nice. They stand up all winter and contrast well with the snow.
If you are not interested in making a wreath, or don’t have the time, pick some stems of anything interesting still standing in the garden, and put them in a dry vase. I leave some flowers with seed heads for the goldfinches and juncos to munch. Things like black-eyed Susans and purple coneflower are nice for them. I always leave some snakeroot, too (Actea racemosa., formerly Cimicifuga racemosa), as it is a tall plant that stands above the snow.
Dry plants cut for use in wreath
Lastly, if you are looking for dried flowers to decorate with, don’t forget the weeds. Walk through an un-mowed field and you will see plenty of dry flowers standing proud in the snow. Or take a walk along a country road and look for shrubby things with interesting branches or seed pods. With a little imagination, they can be used to create beauty.
Henry is the author of 4 gardening books and a long-time UNH Master Gardener. He lives in Cornish Flat, NH. Reach him by e-mail at
henry.homeyer@comcaset.net.
In Praise of Kale, the Misunderstood Vegetable Hero
Posted on Tuesday, December 7, 2021 · Leave a Comment
Like Rodney Dangerfield, kale doesn’t get enough respect. I’ve been told that it only became a commonly grown vegetable in the 1970’s when salad bars ordered it to use as the bed upon which other edibles like tomatoes, carrots and cukes slept on in nearly ordered arrangements. No one actually ate kale. But that has changed, at least with the Birkenstock crowd. Like me, for one.
Kale became the carpet for other veggies because it is a deep, rich green, and seemingly never wilts. It is the toupee of veggies, always looking neat and presentable. I often pick a few leaves and place the stems in a jar of water on the kitchen counter to remind me to include it in soups, stews, scrambled eggs and more. And to admire.
December kale with Rowan, our new dog
On a recent raw December morn I took our new dog out for a walk. Rowan is a year-old Irish setter/golden retriever mix we adopted just before Thanksgiving. As he zoomed around the property I stopped to see how our kale is doing. Still healthy, despite occasional temps down to 15 degrees, and now covered with wet snow. I picked a few leaves and brought them up to include in a soup or salad.
Kale is crunchy. In a salad I cut it finely, blending it in with lettuce, although my wife, Cindy, recently made a kale salad. She also used walnuts, crispy rice and dried cranberries – and it was delicious. She massaged the fine-cut leaves with olive oil for a couple of minutes first to help make it less crunchy.
It is one of the more nutritious greens. Compared to iceberg lettuce, it has two and a half times more fiber. It has more thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, pantothenic acid, Vitamin B6 and folate than iceberg lettuce. It is a great source of Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin K, calcium, and potassium. It has twice the calories of iceberg lettuce, but neither is a high-calorie food. You can eat all the kale you want and not gain an ounce of fat.
Kale in the garden in February
One of my favorite ways to eat kale is in a green smoothie for breakfast. I use about 2 cups of kale removed from the center rib, a banana, half an avocado (if I have one), half a cup of orange juice and a cup and a half of water. Oh, and I squeeze half a lime into the mix, and grate in some fresh ginger if I have it. I chop the kale very, very finely because my older blender doesn’t liquefy it, even though the dial says “Liquefy”. I don’t want to have to chew my smoothie.
Sometimes I add frozen blueberries or raspberries to the mix, or if I want a cold smoothie, I substitute ice cubes for some of the water. In summer when I have lots of greens I try to add 4 or more leaves of other greens – lettuce, Swiss chard, or whatever looks good. Spinach is good, and very nutritious. It freezes well after a brief blanching.
Growing kale is easy. I rarely find the leaves eaten by insects, though some readers have written me about flea beetles (or something) eating holes in the leaves. You can stymie most bugs by covering the plants with a layer of “row cover”. Row cover is a spun agricultural fabric that looks like those dryer sheets available to reduce static and add fragrance to laundry. But this stuff comes in long 60-inch wide pieces. Wires are sold to form hoops over small plants, but you can drape it right on bigger plants. It is great for keeping potato beetles away from you spuds, too.
Kale is a big plant. I grow it 18 inches apart in a wide, raised bed. It grows best in full sun, but if sun is at a premium in your garden, it will do fine in part shade. Hot afternoon sun and dry soil is not ideal for kale. I recommend adding plenty of compost in the planting hole, and some slow-release organic fertilizer.
Sometimes I start kale from seed indoors six weeks before planting it outside, but if too busy, I just buy some started plants from my favorite farm stand. If you start your own kale indoors, you may get tall, lanky plants – due to not enough light inside. No problem. Bury some of the stem. Just pinch off some lower leaves, and plant the kale deep in the soil so it is not flopping over when it goes in the ground.
A few ingredients for my soup – dry beans, kale, scallion, garlic
I make a great winter stew using kale and other garden vegetables that I have either stored or frozen. It can be either vegetarian or not. It is loosely based on a Portuguese stew I ate years ago on Cape Cod. I don’t think you need a step-by-step recipe, nor do I know the exact proportions, but I share with you my carnivore version and you can make your own according to your preferences – and what you have available.
I start by slicing a pound of Linguica Portuguese sausage into smallish cubes and browning in olive oil with onions and/or leeks (which I always have in the freezer). If you don’t find Linguica, substitute any spicy sausage like Andouille Cajun sausage.
Then I add water and tomatoes. I freeze tomatoes whole in September, so I use those, chopped up, but you could use a 28 oz can of diced tomatoes. Into the stew goes a couple of cups of chopped kale. Then I add herbs – parsley, fennel seed, oregano and marjoram. And carrots, for sweetness.
Lastly I add something to give the stew rib-sticking goodness: either potatoes, winter squash or cooked dry beans. I let the stew simmer until hunger overwhelms me, but I always make plenty as it is good warmed up for days.
So remember to plant plenty of kale next spring. It won’t disappoint you.
Henry’s book, “Organic
Gardening (not just) in the Northeast: A Hands-On, Month-by-Month Guide” is available from him, signed, for $19. Send a check to PO Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 03746. Or, if you want to use PayPal, go to his website,
www.Gardening-Guy.com.
Brightening the Dark Days of Winter
Posted on Tuesday, November 30, 2021 · Leave a Comment
This is the darkest time of the year: not only are the days short, clouds obscure the sun much of the time. Many of us find the gloom oppressive, especially when there is neither enough snow to ski, nor ice to skate on. And for gardeners, there is little we can (or wish to) do outside. So what do I do?
First, I go to my local grocery store or florist and buy cut flowers or potted plants. For $10 or $15 I can brighten my outlook considerably. The most economical to buy are potted plants. They will, with a minimum of care and forethought, bloom for weeks – or even for months. Here are a few of my favorites:
Christmas cactus. It should be called a Thanksgiving cactus, really, because they usually bloom well before Christmas. Buy one in full bloom, or that has a mix of blossoms and buds. They need moderate light indoors, but not hot afternoon sun. Temperatures of 60 to 70 degrees are best for success. They should not be allowed to dry out completely, but neither do they want to be kept soggy. They like humidity, so place them in a saucer of small stones and add water. Never let the pot sit in water.
Cyclamen. Another low-light plant. This one suited for even less light than Christmas cactus. If you give it any direct sunshine, an hour or two of morning sun is plenty, but indirect light is better.
Cyclamen really are not fussy, and bloom for weeks
Water your cyclamen only when dry, which depends on the temperature and relative humidity. I find picking up the pot tells me a lot: if dry, it weighs very little, when moist, it is heavier. If you go too long, the flowers will flop as if to say, “Look at me, I’m dying of thirst!” But they recover quickly. Place your plant in a saucer of water and let it suck up water. But don’t let it sit in water for long.
My mother loved African violets, and did well with them. I remember doing an experiment with my new Chemistry Set for Young Scientists when I was in the fourth grade. I made a solution of tannic acid, and put a drop on a leaf. Overnight, it burned a perfect hole! Great experiment until my mother asked me if I had done something to her plant.
I have not had great luck with African violets here in New Hampshire (they may have heard about my experiment, way back when). I largely heat with a wood stove, and keep the house warm, but quite cool at night. I finally read an article that said one should never let the temperature in the room they are in drop below 70 degrees. So I no longer try, though I have recently read that temps down to 60 degrees are okay.
If you want to grow them, keep them consistently warm in a bright room but not in direct sunshine. They like high humidity (hence do not like woodstoves) but do not tolerate soggy roots. Water from the bottom, but water once a month from above (to flush out any fertilizer salts). Never let water get on the leaves. Pinch off spent blossoms or yellowed leaves.
My absolute favorite house plant is an orchid called Phalaenopsis or moth orchid. Buy them in bloom, and they will bloom for many weeks. Direct sunlight can scorch the leaves, but they need a bright room. These are tropical orchids so like warm temperatures. But cool nights are good – down to 55 degrees.
Moth orchids in their native environment grow in trees. So the soil mix they come in is generally a special orchid mix made of bark chips, and perhaps a little perlite or vermiculite. This mix allows water to run right through it. Be sure that if it comes with an inner pot and an outer pot, to pour out water after watering from the outer pot, which normally has no drainage. Or just lift the inner pot and run water through in your sink. Otherwise you will kill your orchid. Water once a week, or if exposed roots turn silvery white.
According to the experts, tree orchids such as these do best with good air circulation. Me? I find that in a room with people coming and going there is enough air movement to keep them healthy. I do grow them over a saucer of pebbles and water to increase humidity, and grow them in the bathroom where steam from the shower helps.
But if you have no patience with house plants, or believe you cannot grow them, buy flowers for a vase. Most cut flowers will last a week in a vase, many will last longer. Most stems cost between $1.50 and $3.00. Buy an odd number of stems – 3, 5, 7 or 11, depending on your budget.
The vase for displaying cut flowers should be about half as tall as the stems are long (or a little less). But that rule is not firm. If the arrangement looks good to your eye, it is fine. Use a clean glass or pottery vase for best results, but if you want to use Grandma’s silver vase, go ahead. Elegance is good.
Cut flowers generally come with a little packet of white powder. Use it. It helps to keep the water from getting full of bacteria or fungus that will clog the stem, keeping it from taking up water. Pull off any leaves that would otherwise go in the water. You can also use a teaspoon of Clorox in a quart of water. Never put cut flowers near a radiator or wood stove.
So buy something in bloom. It will help to dissipate the gloom of short, dark days. Oh, and about that African violet: I confessed, and did not get punished. But I never experimented with her houseplants again.
Henry’s book “
Organic Gardening (not just) in the Northeast” is available from him for $19. Mail a check to Henry Homeyer at PO Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 03746, or order from his website,
www.Gardening-Guy.com.
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