A Naturalistic Approach to Landscaping
Posted on Tuesday, March 10, 2020 · Leave a Comment
I recently attended a lecture and slide show by Dan Jaffe, horticulturalist at Norcross Wildlife Sanctuary in Wales, Massachusetts. Dan Jaffe is a talented and passionate gardener who single handedly maintains 75 acres of woodland, meadow and bog garden.
Monarda punctuata Photo by Dan Jaffe
Although building self-sustaining gardens on 75 acres sounds like a lot for one man to do, he does this by working with nature instead of trying to mold nature to fit his will. I’d like to share some of his ideas, as they make sense to me.
Dan Jaffe started by listing problems to avoid. First, he said, avoid over-spacing what you plant. If a plant tag suggests planting 24 inches apart, divide that by two or three (8 to 12 inches apart) to get a mature look in less time. Avoid bark mulch as much as possible – use spreading ground covers like running foam flower or woodland phlox that will fill in quickly but not over-run other plants.
Pruning plants to limit size and thin out excess growth is good, but pruning shrubs into “meatballs and rocket ships” is bad. Limit lawn in a landscape. Don’t think of all insects as pests: your native plants, in particular, are important food for the larvae of pollinators (which are, in turn, good food for baby birds). Don’t rake up the leaf litter in fall – it is home to many beneficial insects. Let short-lived perennials (like columbine) set and drop seeds so they can replenish themselves.
A key feature of a successful naturalistic garden is choosing the right plant for the right place. Start by getting a soil test done before you begin. And look at what is growing at your site before you choose plants – they can tell you much, if you pay attention to them.
If the soil is poor, choose plants that do well in low-nutrient soils. It is difficult to make a sun-loving plant that needs plenty of moisture thrive if you plant it in dry, sandy soil. After the first season you should not have to water or fertilize your plants if you have selected them well.
So, for example, if you want bee balm and have dry, sandy soil, choose spotted bee balm – Monarda punctata- instead of Monarda didyma, the most commonly sold variety. Yes, the latter is sold everywhere, but it needs rich, moist soil. It’s true that the common variety comes in several nice colors and the spotted bee balm does not, but if you want a low-maintenance garden, pick the right plant for the place.
Native pollinators love goldenrod
Learn that any given genus (a scientific grouping of biologically similar plants) has numerous species. Goldenrod (genus Solidago) has 53 species that grow in New England. Granted, some get very tall and spread by root quite aggressively. But there are other species that are clumping, not running in habit and all support pollinators very well. According to Dan Jaffe, goldenrods support 115 species of pollinators in our area.
Wreath goldenrod (Solidago caesia) is a delicate-looking species that I grow and love. It grows in shade or part shade and blossoms in the fall. I bought mine at The Garden in the Woods, a non-profit garden in Framingham, Massachusetts that sells many species of native plants.
Another plant that Dan Jaffe likes is one that I like, too, goldenstar (
Chrysogonum virginianum). It will grow in sun or shade and does well anywhere except soggy soils. Two great aspects of the plant are that it spreads politely and re-blooms often. The best blossoms are in spring. It spreads by rhizome, and can serve as a good groundcover with bright yellow star-shaped blossoms an inch or so across. The foliage is handsome, and low-growing. Dan stated that it is easy to make cuttings that will grow if a node is buried directly in the soil. Technically a Zone 5 plant, I have grown it in cold Zone 4 locations.
Shrubs are good in a natural garden, too. One that Dan Jaffe likes is fragrant sumac (Rhus aromatica). A related species, staghorn sumac (Rhus typina) is well known as a roadside plant 10 to 15 feet tall that spreads vigorously by root and can be a pest. But this one is shorter and better behaved. Although its blossoms are not showy, the fall foliage is excellent and the leaves are fragrant. It will grow in 3 to 6 feet tall and spreads, so it can be used as a groundcover.
Most Viburnums are nice shrubs that offer flowers and berries.
Another shrub for tough dry and shady locations is mapleleaf viburnum (Viburnum acerifolium). Apparently it has fabulous fall color, from reds to deep purple. It is only 4 to 5 feet tall at maturity. It has nice white flowers in the spring and shiny black fruit in the fall. It is very tolerant to cold, good to Zone 3.
Dan Jaffe did not tell us all to get rid of our lawns. He understands that lawns are nice for kids to play on, and are soothing to look at. But a big lawn is not the best way to support birds or pollinators. Native plants are.
Dan Jaffe and Mark Richardson wrote a wonderful book in 2018 called
Native Plants for New England (Globe Pequot Press) which I highly recommend. It includes nice photographs and good growing information on trees, shrubs and wildflowers you might want to consider for your landscape. His website is
www.dantjaffe.com.
Henry is the author of 4 gardening books. He is available to speak to your garden club or other group. His e-mail is
henry.homeyer@comcast.net.
Pushing the Envelope: Bring on Spring!
Posted on Tuesday, March 3, 2020 · Leave a Comment
Snowdrops are the first flowers to bloom for me
On February 24 this year I went to my vegetable garden with a snow shovel. It was a warm, sunny day, and I was ready for spring. Now people say that old timers like me are more patient than young whipper-snappers, but I’m not sure that’s true. We have less time left on the planet, so some of us want lettuce and spinach from the garden sooner.
Obviously I knew that I couldn’t just shovel snow and plant. But I have a nice cold frame, and I wanted to set it on the soil and allow it to melt ice and snow, and get the soil warming up on sunny days for late March planting. I shoveled off about a foot of snow, and put the cold frame in place. An hour later my thermometer inside read 70 degrees!
My cold frame is one I got from Gardeners Supply. It is 8 feet long, 2 feet wide and is made of cedar planks with a polycarbonate lid that is set on an angle. The lid is hinged and can be left up on a stick to vent some heat on a sunny day, or it can be completely opened in summer.
My grandfather always had cold frames to extend the seasons, and he built his own out of planks and old storm windows. I’ve done that, too, but this light-weight and sturdy cold frame was quick and easy to assemble and to store in my barn after use.
This simple cold frame from Gardener’s Supply can be assembled in an hour
The slanted top should face south or east for maximum solar gain. The cedar panel at the front of mine is 8 inches tall, the back is 15 inches tall. That allows morning sun to get in through the slanted top.
I’ve also used my cold frame as a hot box. A hot box is a growing space that is heated by fermenting horse manure. When using the frame as a hot box, I dig a pit 18 inches deep the size of my cold frame and line the hole with 2-inch thick pieces of Styrofoam insulation. That keeps the cold soil from cooling down the manure so much that it stops fermenting. It is important to get horse manure that is from a pile that is already hot and fermenting. Too much sawdust or straw will inhibit fermenting.
Once the pit is insulated, I fill it with a 12-inch layer of fermenting horse manure in the bottom and then 6-inches of topsoil. I find that seeds planted in the soil germinate quite quickly due to the heat. Most seeds will not germinate in cool soil and germinate quickly in warm soil.
If you use a cold frame, I recommend planting cold tolerant plants. A cold frame will not protect tomatoes, peppers, or other frost-sensitive, heat-loving plants in early spring. Spinach, lettuce, mache (also called miner’s lettuce), cabbage and kale are good choices.
When selecting lettuce seeds for planting, look for ones that are recommended for early season planting. Johnny’s Selected Seeds lists 7 named varieties of lettuce for early season use including Vulcan (a red leaf) and Sparx (a Romaine). Fedco Seed Coop recommends Black Seeded Simpson as the earliest and most popular of the loose-leaf varieties, and I agree that it is a very good one, and very cold tolerant. Read your seed catalog carefully when selecting early season varieties.
Another layer of protection at night is good for plants growing in cold frames in late March or early April. If the temperatures are said to be dropping into the low twenties, you should cover your plants with a layer of row cover or Reemay.
Row cover is a thin synthetic agricultural fabric that will hold in some heat at night. It is also used to keep insects off plants like cucumbers later in the season. Sunshine will pass through row cover, and it allows plants to breathe, so you don’t have to remove it every day if there is a week of cold weather. It does keep a little of the suns UV rays from reaching the plants, but the transmission rate is usually on the package. (The lower the number, the less UV rays reach the plants, but the more it holds heat).
If you are tired of winter but not ready to commit to a cold frame, there other activities for pushing the season forward. You can cut stems of early blooming plants like forsythia, February daphne ( Daphne mezereum) and pussy willows and bring them indoors. Place them in water and put the vase on a sunny window sill. In a week or two you will be rewarded with blossoms.
Other blooming trees suitable for forcing are magnolias and apples. Not every stem cut from an apple tree will bloom: look for branches that have short spurs on them. These are called fruit spurs, and each one can produce both leaves and blossoms. Young fruit spurs will only produce leaves, so look for older, gnarly spurs that are usually 3 to 6 inches long. Those straight water sprouts that shoot up vertically don’t normally have blossoms. The furry magnolia flower buds are obvious.
Snow drop buds are up on March 3
One last thing you can do, if you know where you have snowdrops or crocus planted, is to shovel snow off the bed. That will allow them to bloom in early March, as they will push up through frozen soil. And if you don’t have any snowdrops, pay attention to the places where the snow melts off first. Mark the location with a plant tag, or take a photo, and next fall plant snowdrops for early flowers. Glory of the snow, scilla, winter aconite and early crocus are all good early bloomers. And spring will be here before you know it!
Henry may be reached at PO Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 03746 or at
henry.homeyer@comcast.net. He is the author of 4 gardening books, and is available for speaking to your garden club.
Starting Seedlings
Posted on Thursday, February 27, 2020 · Leave a Comment
Winter is long, and for a gardening guy like me, winter can be oppressive. I keep sane, in part, by starting seeds indoors. I am just now getting ready to start a few plants that need a long head start before they go outside.
Starting plants now means I will have to baby them along for 3 months or so, providing light and water. It’s a chore I like, so it doesn’t feel so much like a chore. For tomatoes and most other veggies, I plant seeds indoors around April 10, and put them outside around June 10. Starting too early stresses most things.
A frame plant stand for starting seedlings
You can’t keep plants happy on a windowsill for 6 to 16 weeks. You will need special indoor lighting and a plant stand of some sort if you do many plants. Fluorescent lights are the standard for home growers. I have purchased four-foot fixtures that hold 2 tubes each. I hang them in an A-frame plant stand I built myself that will accommodate 10 flats of plants and 5 light fixtures.
I do not use special “Gro-Lights” with the same wave length light as the sun, as they are much more expensive than ordinary. I use a mixture of cool white and warm light tubes, or just cool whites, and that has always worked fine.
Many companies sell plant stands. Some light up just one flat of plants, others two, some several. A flat is a plastic tray that holds 8 or more little six-packs of plants. You need to decide if you want something that fits on a table or countertop, or if you want to get into it big time. Get directions to build your own plant stand on my website (
www.gardening-guy.com) and search for plant stand.
So what do I start in March? Onions, hot peppers, perhaps a few flowers such as lisianthus that need a long time to germinate and get to a good size for planting. I find that starting onions by seed offers me the opportunity to grow varieties that I will not find available as ”sets”. I also have found that by growing my own plants, I get better onions. Hot peppers also take a long time to get to get big, so I like to start them mid-March.
Grow Ease system uses hard, reusable plastic
This year I am making a big push NOT to buy anything plastic that is not reusable by me. That means no flimsy six-packs for seeds. I got some heavy duty, reuseable plastic flats from Gardeners Supply last year, and like those a lot. They are also self-watering, which takes off the pressure to track the moisture of every plant every day. They are called the ”GroEase” system, with either 24 large cells or 15 extra-large cells per flat.
The other way to avoid plastic is to plant in soil blocks. I have a little hand tool that will compact and squeeze out 2-inch cubes of a special planting mix I make. These cubes sit in a plastic flat, but I have plenty of those, and reuse them every year. The tool is sold my Johnny’s Selected Seeds and Fedco Seeds.
Soil blocks for starting seedlings are eco-friendly
Here’s my recipe for the soil blocks: In a wheelbarrow or large plastic storage bin mix 10 quarts dry peat moss, 3 quarts sand and ¼ cup agricultural limestone (powdered, not pelletized is preferred, but either is OK). Mix in ¼ cup of each of these: dried blood, rock phosphate, green sand and granite dust or Azomite (optional). Instead of all those, you could substitute 1 cup organic fertilizer. Then add and mix in: 10 quarts peat humus, 10 quarts fine compost (your own or purchased) and 10 quarts top soil (your own is preferred, but purchased is OK).
Place 4 quarts dry mix in a plastic basin or flat-bottomed container, and add about 1 quart water. Mix until gooey but firm, not watery. Push your soil block tool into the mix, compressing the soil against the bottom of the bin. Then hold the tool over a plastic flat and squeeze the handle, which will push out 4 tidy blocks with a divot for a seed in the middle of each. The 4 cubes just fit across a plastic flat, and 8 rows will fit per flat.
One big advantage the soil blocks have is that they contain all the nutrition a plant needs from seed to planting. Sterile soil mix sold for seedlings runs out of minerals in just a couple of weeks, and one must add fertilizer to the watering mix to keep plants healthy. Many greenhouses water with a dilute fertilizer mix every day. I find soil-block raised plants take off and grow as soon as they get in the ground, as their roots do not get tangled up the way they might in a 6-pack.
How much light do seedlings need per day? Set your lights on a timer and give them light for 14 hours. But keep the lights near your seedlings – 6 inches above the tops of your plants is good. I hang my lights by lightweight jack chain and raise the lights as my plants get tall.
Don’t let your seedlings wilt due to water insufficiency. Check them daily, and water when they are nearly dry. But you don’t want them soggy all the time, either.
So if you are lamenting our long winter, start some seedlings, and talk to them daily. That might help, too.
Henry is available to talk to your gardening club or library group. Just e-mail him at
henry.homeyer@comcast.net He is the author of 4 gardening books.
Gardening Without Work
Posted on Sunday, February 23, 2020 · Leave a Comment
Ruth Stout, born in Topeka, Kansas in 1884, lived to the ripe old age of 96. She was an early proponent of organic gardening and was also (as seen from her writing) a sweet, funny, intelligent and common-sense person. I recently read her book, Gardening without Work: for the aging, the busy, and the indolent from cover to cover in an afternoon. I had heard much about her, but had never actually read this book before, or her most famous one, How to Have a Green Thumb without an Aching Back.
Ruth Stout’s Book
Ruth Stout made a name for herself largely by writing about mulching. Hay was her main form of mulch because it was cheap and plentiful. She got hay that had been spoiled (as animal food) by rain and applied it in thick layers. But she also used leaves, food scraps and any organic matter to enrich her soil as it broke down. She touted the ability of mulch to smother weeds and hold in moisture.
In the 1950’s and ‘60’s, “modern” gardeners and farmers were using DDT to kill insects and chemical fertilizers to push growth. She avoided all chemicals and got great results. She was not trained as a scientist, but depended on common sense and good observation skills to succeed in her garden. Below are some of the things she said in her book.
“My simple way is to simply keep a thick mulch of any vegetable matter that rots on both my vegetable and flower garden all year round. As it decays and enriches the soil, I add more.”
“I never plow, spade, sow a cover crop, harrow, hoe, cultivate, weed, water, irrigate or spray. I use just one fertilizer (cotton seed or soy bean meal), and I don’t go through the tortuous business of building a compost pile.”
Mulching with hay
How often did she mulch? “Whenever you see a spot that needs it.” How deep is her mulch? Eight inches, on average. “Use all the leaves around. Utilize your garbage, tops of perennials, any tall vegetable matter that rots.”
Ruth Stout loved asparagus, and planted plenty. She said the mulch slows soil warming in the spring, so she raked the mulch off part of the patch to get early crop of asparagus, then left some mulch on for late asparagus. That’s good common sense.
She sowed corn and immediately applied a thin layer of mulch, allowing the corn to push up through it. The mulch deceived the crows, which love to eat newly germinated seeds. I once lost two 50-foot rows of corn to crows, who ate it up in one day as soon as it germinated! And peas? She raked off mulch a few weeks before planting to allow the early spring soil to warm up.
What else did Ruth Stout promote? Diagram your garden in winter. Take time to measure and plan before ordering your seeds. Order seeds early, before the best varieties run out. (I agree. I bought Sun Gold tomato seeds this week, as I have had trouble finding them in April, when I start tomatoes in the house). I like her observation that seed catalogs are to gardeners like “catnip to a cat.”
Witch grass, or Johnson grass, a grass that spreads quickly by root, was not a problem for her. She mulched, and added more mulch if it pushed through the mulch. She also used newspapers under the mulch hay for witch grass, which I have found very helpful.
All soils benefit from year-round mulch. She noted that during the dust bowl of the 1930’s, soil was blown away in huge quantities. That was due, in part, to the fact that soil was left bare after harvest, and blown away in dry times. She emphasized the need to always have your soil covered with mulch.
Ruth Stout developed lots of good tricks during her many years as a gardener. One I liked had to do with planting small seeds like lettuce or carrots. She said you can get fairly good spacing by taking a pinch of seed and then dropping it from waist high. As the seeds drop, they spread out. Not for a windy day, of course, but I will try it, come spring.
The first step of mulching as I do it is to put down newspaper
She wrote that one need not buy a chipper to break up leaves for use as mulch. Just rake them onto the driveway. Then after cars run over them a few times, rake them up and use them. Clever. Me? I use my lawnmower to chop up leaves, blowing them all in the direction, creating a windrow. Then I put them into my garden cart or onto a big blue plastic tarp to take them away.
Ruth Stout froze lots of garden vegetables for winter use, including whole ripe tomatoes. I freeze tomatoes since it is the easiest, fastest way to preserve them. But I have only used them in stews and soups. She went one step further: she let them thaw a bit, and ate them with a spoon. So I tried it after reading her book, and agree that although they don’t have the right consistency for sandwiches, they taste good!
I am a fervent proponent of mulching everywhere and believe it works. I suggest you read one of her books this winter, and give it a try.
Henry has been a UNH Master Gardener for more than 20 years. He is the author of 4 gardening books. Reach him at
henry.homeyer@comcast.net.
Can Gardening Save the World?
Posted on Sunday, February 16, 2020 · Leave a Comment
There is much talk these days about global warming. It’s easy to feel hopeless and to think there is nothing we can do. But if we all take a few small steps, it can add up to a big difference.
Organic fertilizers contain more healthy minerals than chemical fertilizers
So what can a gardener do to help the environment? Start by growing lots of plants and using no chemicals to do so. There is no doubt that green plants help the environment. The basic process of photosynthesis removes carbon dioxide (which contributes to global warming) from the air, combines it with water and produces sugars that are building blocks for the complex carbohydrates that create the stems, roots, flowers and fruits.
Growing trees is especially good for the environment. They hold onto carbon, a process called sequestering. Of course when plants die and decay or are burned, the carbon dioxide they made goes back to the atmosphere. My wood stove, for example, pumps carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere all winter long. But burning oil in my furnace does, too, and has other contaminants from the oil that go into the atmosphere. Everything is a trade off.
If you grow your own vegetables, or some of them, you can reduce pollution from trucks bringing groceries across the country. The average fruit or vegetable travels 1500 miles to get to you, some much farther. I won’t buy veggies from out of the country for that reason, and because I don’t know if they were grown with toxic chemicals. Truth in advertising: I do eat avocados and sometimes artichokes that come from California.
Chemical fertilizer is made using an energy-intensive manufacturing process to heat, compress and cool gases to turn nitrogen from the air into the nitrogen in fertilizer. The basic feedstock for this is natural gas. A 50-lb bag of 10-10-10 uses the energy equivalent of a gallon and a half of fuel oil. Given that there are tens of millions of gardeners, that petrochemical cost is significant. If each of us just says “No!” to chemical fertilizer this year, and every year, we can have an impact. There are plenty of organic fertilizers that are fine to use. These are made from agricultural by-products and naturally occurring ingredients from things like oyster shells and seaweed.
Conventional farmers also use pesticides including fungicides and herbicides. Some are surface sprays to kill bugs when they eat their lettuce or corn. These wash off with rain, or when you wash them.
There are also pesticides that are “systemic”: Chemicals that are sprayed on seeds or the ground and taken up by the roots of plants, and distributed to every cell in the plant, leaf and fruit alike. These systemic poisons are easier to use and are not washed off by rain, or in your sink. Every bite a bug takes, gives it some slow-acting poison. That is true for you, too. Unfortunately, systemic pesticides are readily available at your local hardware store or gardening center. Just look on the aisle labeled “Death Row” (or perhaps they call it “Pesticides”).
Chemical fungicides are also readily available, and these can be very toxic. I remember interviewing a potato farmer in Idaho that showed me what he did: 4 ounces of fungicide “protected” 30 acres of potatoes that he irrigated with an overhead pivot-style watering system. A human error could easily turn a dose into a calamity. That’s why I eat organic food whenever I can, and grow much of my own.
Black plastic used to grow seed potatoes goes to the landfill -not a good practice
What else can gardeners do, besides avoiding chemicals in the garden? Minimize the use of plastics. Yes, black plastic can keep down weeds. But most plastic breaks down in the intense summer sun. Even if you use it for 2 years, you are left with a mass of cracked and ripped plastic that ends up in the landfill for the next few hundred years.
Paper is an alternative to plastic. I read my local daily, and buy the Sunday NY Times on occasion. I spread newspapers in my vegetable garden, and sometimes in flower beds. I cover the paper with straw, hay, leaves or chipped branches according to the location.
Mulching with newspaper and straw works well
Formerly newspapers used inks with toxic heavy metals, but now they use soy-based inks that are non-toxic. Earthworms love newspaper, and in the course of 12 months they eat most of the paper I lay down. I often use mulch hay over the papers even though they contain some grass seeds because the newspapers keep most of the seeds out of the soil.
Mulching your garden is also a way to reduce water needs of your plants, as the mulch minimizes evaporation. Even if you have a good water supply, it makes sense to use the least water you can. Water is not an unlimited resource, something I often don’t think about as I have not only a good artesian well, but a small stream to available for water, too. Using well water draws down the aquifer that may take eons to replenish.
Anthropologist Margret Mead is credited for saying, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” I agree.
Henry is a UNH Master Gardener and the author of 4 gardening books. You may reach Henry at
henry.homeyer@comcast.net or P.O. Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 03746.
It’s Time to Order Seeds
Posted on Sunday, February 9, 2020 · Leave a Comment
Ground Hog’s Day has come and gone. The big, fat rodent has made his or her proclamation about the arrival of spring. And of course, I paid no attention. I think the birds are better about announcing spring, but so far the cardinals are not singing their spring songs, and the red-winged blackbirds have not shown up. So I know I have time to purchase seeds.
It’s time to sort through your seeds to see what you need
Most seeds are good for three years, and most packets have a lot more seeds than I can use in a year. I store them in loosely closed zipper bags in a cool closet – with the date I bought them clearly marked on the packages. I have a hard time throwing out seeds that are old and should be tossed. But I know they lose vigor with time, so about now I will go through them all and toss out the older ones, and figure out what I need to buy. I once found a packet of seeds of my mother’s that were 50 years old. I had to try germinating them, but none grew.
Not all seeds last three years: parsnips and onion seeds are good for just one year. Leeks, in the onion family, I have successfully used in year two or even three. Parsley is good for just one or two years, but is always hard to germinate. If using older seeds, I plant more seeds as some will germinate and others will not.
Corn seed is usually considered to have 2-year viability, as are peas. I, for one, will not grow corn again. I can go years without ever seeing a sign or footprint of a raccoon,n but if I grow corn, raccoons will show up to pick my corn before I do. I am not willing to invest in an electric fence to keep them out, and don’t believe that playing an all-night talk radio station will deter them, as some claim. Plant corn, the raccoons will come. Forget about it!
Of the paper catalogs I get each year, Johnny’s Selected Seeds, Burpee’s and Fedco are my favorites. Why? They each have such a range of seeds, and lots of good planting information. Farmers I have asked about their seed suppliers tend to mention Johnny’s first, which is a good recommendation. Others I like include Fruition Seeds, Hudson Valley Seed Company, Renee’s Garden Seeds, and High Mowing Seeds, which only sells organic seeds.
Fedco is a seed cooperative that many food coops join up with – providing catalogs and then putting together bulk orders to get discounted prices. They are located in Maine, and have a clear policy of encouraging gardeners to save and share seeds. Fedco does not generally sell patented or trademarked seeds. Fedco also does not sell any GMO seeds (no one does, they are only available to farmers) or seeds treated with fungicides. About 30% of the seeds they sell are organic.
Onions plants from Johnny’s Seeds ready to plant
You may wonder if organic seeds are any better than conventional seeds. They cost a little more, as producing seeds organically is more labor intensive. For example, many conventional farmers use herbicides to kill weeds, but organic farmers must hoe or cultivate the rows with a tractor to kill weeds. This means fewer chemicals added to the soil. So I like to order organic seeds when I can get them, but not everything is available as organic seeds. And of course, buying organic seeds supports organic farmers.
If you are just buying a packet of carrot seeds and some flowers, think about getting your seeds from your local garden center or feed and grain store. That way you don’t have to pay shipping costs. I order 20 packs of seeds or more each year, so the shipping cost is minimal per packet, and I have more varieties to choose from when ordering from a seed company. I like to share seeds with gardening friends, and sometimes we combine our orders. Some garden clubs have seed swaps, too.
New to gardening? You might like to know the things to start in the ground by seed, and those which need to be started indoors in early spring or purchased as plants at a garden center. By seed? All the root crops (carrots, beets, parsnips, etc.). Also peas, beans, corn, spinach, lettuce and other greens.
Seed catalogs are designed to entice gardeners
Potatoes are started from chunks of “seed potatoes” bought at the garden center, or saved from last year’s crop. Onions are planted as little bulbs, or as plants, or started early by seed indoors. All the vine crops (cukes, squash, pumpkins) can be purchased as six-packs, or started by seeds outdoors. Tomatoes, eggplants, Brussels sprouts, kale, broccoli and cauliflower are generally planted as seedlings.
So start checking out the seed catalogs, either on-line or in hand. I have to admit it is quicker to use the search engine at a website to find a specific type of seeds than it is to find it in a paper catalog. But there is something to be said for thumbing through a catalog sitting by the wood stove on a snowy day.
Henry can reached at PO Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 03746 or by e-mail at
henry.homeyer@comcast.net. Consider joining Henry on a Viking River Cruise from Paris to Normandy in June, 2021. Contact him for more info.
Upcoming Spring Flower Shows
Posted on Tuesday, January 28, 2020 · Leave a Comment
In Lewis Carroll’s poem, The Jabberwocky, the hero exalts, after killing the ferocious mythical beast, “O frabjulous day! Callooh! Callay!” That’s the way I feel when I think about the upcoming spring flowers shows. Thinking about the shows I am known to exclaim, “Oh Boy!” at random moments, such as while cooking dinner. I know I’ll get to one or more events, and suggest you do, too.
The first of the New England shows this year is in Hartford, Connecticut at the Connecticut Convention Center on February 20 to 23. The show is vast: nearly 3 acres of displays with 300 booths selling fresh flowers, plants, herbs, bulbs, seeds, gardening books, garden equipment and more. There are competitions for flower arranging and potted plants, as well.
The theme this year is “Connecticut Springs into Earth Day”. Many fine gardens are built for the show. In addition to that, there are over 80 hours of workshops, slide shows and lectures where you can learn useful information for your own garden.
The Philadelphia Show, a bit of travel for New Englanders, is one of the most impressive. As always it is at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, held this year from February 29 to March 8. The theme this year is Riviera Holiday.
With about 10 acres of floor space, the show is hard to view all in one day. I recommend going mid-week when there are smaller crowds, and getting there early. It’s an expensive show – adult tickets are $42 in advance, $48 at the door – so you may want to try to pack it all in during one day, or relax and do it in two. Doors open at 10am most days, and the show closes at 9pm most days.
The next show is Boston, March 11 to 15, another big one. I have gotten a number of reports from attendees last year that the show has gotten very commercial, but it has been a few years since I’ve gone to it. All the shows have a big commercial presence, but that’s the nature of the game, and I enjoy all the gardening stuff that is for sale, especially seeds and tools.
The Boston show has plenty of lectures and presentations throughout most of the day. I’d like to attend one on Ikebana, or Japanese flower arranging. There are also lectures on kokedama, or growing plants indoors in moss (and soil) balls, often suspended in air. I see another by Petra Page-Mann of Fruition Seeds on companion planting. She is a live wire, so I will attend if I can.
The Maine Flower Show in Portland, Maine, takes place March 26 to 29 at Thompson’s Point. Parking is off-site and shuttles are easy, they say. See their website. There will be 14 display gardens, 115 exhibits of plants, hardscape, arbor and garden supplies, and all things related to outdoor yard-scaping and living. This year’s theme is A Cascade of Color. Tickets for adults are just $20 and kids under 12 are free.
Next is New Hampshire’s modest show, the Seacoast Home Show in Durham, NH on March 28 and 29. It more of a home show than a garden show, but it’s an inexpensive weekend outing.
Likewise the Rhode Island Home Show on April 2 to 5 in Providence includes the Flower and Garden Show in it, covering 10,000 square feet of the 100,000 feet of the Home Show. But it will have 9 complete garden displays, competitions organized by the Federated Garden Clubs and gardening vendors. I haven’t been to the show since the management of the Providence Show changed a few years ago.
My partner, Cindy Heath, and I went to the Chelsea Flower Show in London a few years ago, and it was a chance of a life time. This year it will be held May 19 to 23. It’s expensive and crowded, but join the Royal Horticulture Society in advance as you can get in early and get less expensive tickets. Most of it is outdoors, so full-sized trees are brought in to make displays. It is truly an extravaganza! And be sure to visit Kew Garden while in London. Plan on a full day there, too.
Planning on visiting Uncle Ralph and Aunt Matilda this spring? Maybe you can visit one of the shows below. The only one I’ve attended was the San Francisco show, but that was 20 years ago.
The Great Big Home and Garden Show, Cleveland, OH January 31 to February 9
Northwest Flower and Garden Show, Seattle, WA February 26 to March 1
Southern Spring Home and Garden Show, Charlotte, NC February 28 to March 1
Canada Blooms, Toronto, Ontario, March 13 to 22
Chicago Flower and Garden Show, March 18 to 22
San Francisco-Northern California Flower and Garden Show, Sacramento, April 2 to 5
So have fun, go to a flower show. Smell fresh flowers, fresh soil. And before we know it, it will be spring!
You may reach Henry at P.O. Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 03746. Please include a SASE if you wish a reply. His e-mail address is
henry.homeyer@comcast.net.
Getting Rid of Invasives
Posted on Tuesday, January 21, 2020 · Leave a Comment
My mother used to say, “The road to hades is paved with good intentions.” That is particularly true for gardeners and plant collectors. Most of those nasty invasive plants we struggle to eliminate from our landscape were brought here from abroad by people who didn’t know better. They thought the plants would be a useful addition to their landscape. Plants such as barberry, Japanese knotweed and burning bush looked great to them. What they didn’t bring, of course, were the insects that eat them and keep their numbers under control in their native environments.
January is down time in the garden, generally. We can’t plant anything, and often the snow is deep. But if the January thaw has melted away the snow and ice where you are, this is a time when you could work on getting rid of some invasive trees and shrubs.
Actually, what I have I mind is helping to reduce the vigor and number of mature plants by cutting them down. That won’t kill them, but will keep them from producing seeds next year or even longer. Most invasives have roots that will send up new sprouts, come spring. And winter is not a time when you can dig up or pull out roots. But cutting them down and burning them is a chore you can do now.
The first task you have in this effort is to learn to identify the plants. For me, the most common invasive plants in the woods around my home are bush honeysuckle and barberry.
Invasive bush honeysuckle can get to be 10 to 15 feet tall and wide. It has fragrant white blossoms in June and oval-shaped leaves that are opposite each other on small twigs. In winter the bark is distinctive – slightly shaggy with distinctive ridges. If you cut a stem, there is a hollow spot in the center of the stem, though it might only be the diameter of a pencil lead. The shrub produces red or orange berries.
Japanese barberry is a tough plant that I have seen in deep woods, far from homes or roads. In full sun it produces massive quantities of red berries that birds eat and then drop the seeds all over. The bush has small green or purple leaves and is dense with thorns. I visited a barberry hedge recently, and it was still loaded with berries. The best solution? Cut it down now, and dig out the roots in the spring.
Burning bush ( Euonymus a) is on invasive species lists throughout New England, even though I rarely see seedlings in the woods, and have none on my property. It is best identified in the fall, when its scarlet leaves are noticeable. It is more of a problem in Rhode Island, Connecticut and Massachusetts. I once saw a bumper sticker that said, “30 Below Keeps Out the Riff-Raff. I assume it was talking about plants like burning bush which survives here, but doesn’t spread as fast as it does in warmer climes.
Buckthorns are small trees or large shrubs that are very difficult to eliminate. If you cut one down, the root system will send up many, many new shoots, come spring.
There are two different species of buckthorn common in New England: common buckthorn (Rhamnus cathartica) and glossy buckthorn (Rhamnus frangula), a smaller version with pretty shiny leaves. Both produce berries that turn a deep purple and are the size of blueberries, put with a pit in the middle like a cherry.
You can kill these two by double girdling the trunks with a hand saw, cutting through the bark and green cambium layer while avoiding the dense heartwood. By double girdling, I mean cutting two lines all the way around the stem a foot apart or so. If you do it now, the plants will leaf out and grow normally this year, and perhaps even next year, but then they will die – without sending up new shoots. I have done this.
By cutting through the cambium layer, no nutrients will be sent to the roots, and the roots eventually starve. Common buckthorn is often multi-stemmed with stems close together, so getting a saw in around each stem can be difficult.
Why bother with all this? First, although birds may eat the berries of invasive plants and distribute their seeds, they did not evolve with the plants and often do not benefit much from what they eat. The invasives also out-compete many of our own native plants. They leaf out earlier in the spring and drop leaves later in the fall than our natives. They often shade out or disrupt the growth of wild flowers, too.
Invasive trees and shrubs may be less attractive to the caterpillars that feed on our native trees and shrubs, and which are such an important food source for baby birds. Butterflies and moths lay their eggs on the leaves of native woody plants so that their caterpillar babies will eat well. Those caterpillars make up the vast majority of food for nestlings, even those species that develop into seed eaters. So avoid growing invasives.
Take advantage of the January thaw – or a thaw anytime this winter – and remove some invasive plants. Get a burn permit, some marshmallows and do your woods some good. And have fun!
Henry is the author of 4 gardening books. You can email him at henry.homeyer@comcast.net.
A Gardener’s Cookbook
Posted on Tuesday, January 14, 2020 · Leave a Comment
I can’t wait till spring. Don’t get me wrong: I love winter. But I look forward to trying a recipe I just found for pea, leek and sorrel soup while reading Deborah Madison’s fabulous cookbook, Vegetable Literacy (10-Speed Press, 2013, $40). And sorrel, a leafy perennial, is one of my first vegetables ready for eating in the spring.
I have grown sorrel for many years but have never found a good use for it. Yes, it has an interesting lemony taste, but it cooks down to almost nothing – even more so than spinach. And I have added it to salads, but it never made tickled my taste buds enough to remember to pick some regularly.
Ms. Madison’s recipe is simple: chop 5 ounces of leeks and cook with butter and a cup of water for 10 minutes. Add 1.5 cups of peas (fresh or frozen) and 3 cups of water. Simmer till peas are cooked, then turn off the heat and stir in the sorrel leaves but not stems. Then puree the soup in a blender until very smooth and add a little cream or yogurt on top. Simple and easy.
One of the great things about Vegetable Literacy is that Deborah Madison is a very knowledgeable gardener as well as a great cook. She not only includes tips about how to grow veggies (plant lettuce under the shade of big plants like tomatoes in the heat of summer), she generally lists names of good varieties and what makes each special. And she includes nutrition tips, as well (cooked carrots have more nutritional value than raw ones, for example).
Brussels sprouts are a favorite of mine, but avoided by many. Deborah Madison’s theory is that they are often overcooked and mushy. Her solution? Cut them into 3 or 4 pieces so that the center is cooked, but the outer leaves are not overdone, a common problem. She likes to pair them with bacon, smoked paprika, roasted peanuts walnuts or chestnuts. I never would have thought of those pairings, having just used butter or seasoned rice wine vinegar (something I use often of brassicas in place of butter).
I have never grown Belgian endive nor known how to use it, but she explains both. Europe, she notes, grows 70,000 acres of it annually, but we grow only 400 acres. It is quite a complicated procedure that can take a full year from seed to table. A related, but much easier plant is radicchio, which I plan to grow this year. She notes that you can get seeds from
www.gourmetseeds.com, a company I don’t know, but looks good on-line. It is also available from Johnny’s Selected Seeds in Maine where I buy many of my seeds, and Fedco, a seed cooperative I like.
I love cauliflower, but rarely grow it because it’s so fussy. It won’t produce a head if it is too hot or too cold, too wet or too dry. This book taught me that you can also eat the stem, which is delicious peeled and then sliced or diced and steamed. The leaves are also edible and tasty. That’s a bonus for a plant that, unlike its cousin broccoli, only produces one set of florets. She also notes that cauliflower is loaded with vitamins and nutrients that contain cancer-fighting compounds that are not diminished by steaming (but are by boiling).
In the chapter of squashes, Deborah Madison notes that winter squash “have been found effective in the remediation of chemically contaminated soils, the plants pulling up all sorts of unwanted contaminants, thus this is another vegetable where you are better off to choose organic over conventional.” Or grow your own where no sprays are used.
Tomatoes, for me, are the queens of the garden: juicy, flavorful, sweet and delicious. Deborah Madison also explains that in addition to vitamins, tomatoes are rich in lycopene. Lycopene is an antioxidant “that quite possibly protects against different cancers and lowers the risk of heart disease, of eye diseases such as cataracts and macular degeneration, and more.” She goes on to say, “The good news is that these benefits are not undone when a tomato is cooked.” Given how many I grow and eat annually, I should live to be 100!
We all know parsley, and most of us grow it. But Vegetable Literacy reminded me that a lesser known cousin of parsley is parsley root, a different species. It is an intense flavor, and great to add to soups. Not sold by most seed companies, I found it at Johnny’s Selected Seeds with the name Arat. They say it takes 14 to 30 days to germinate, and should be planted directly in soil outdoors.
This lovely book with fabulous photos is organized by plant families. Deborah Madison explains in the beginning that she believes plants in the same family go well together in recipes. Thus in the carrot family we also find parsley, fennel, cilantro and anise – and all cook well together. She has divided all her ingredients into 12 plant families according to their taxonomic grouping.
Deborah Madison has written about a dozen cookbooks, most with a vegetarian bent. This one is not strictly vegetarian, but most recipes are. She writes with ease and clarity that makes reading this cookbook a joy. I look forward to trying many of her recipes.
Tips for Making Winter Arrangements
Posted on Tuesday, January 7, 2020 · Leave a Comment
Finding things to place in vases, now, in winter, is not easy. It takes some imagination, but there really are some nice stems available.
Before the snow flew I went outside and picked stems of pachysandra, a green vine that is mostly used in shade, though also grows in part sun. It does well in a vase all winter, and usually sends out roots so that, come spring it can be planted outdoors. Although it has no blossoms now, it is green and lush and easy to care for. I use it as the base in flower arrangements. You could probably pick some during a January thaw.
For color in a vase in winter, one of my stalwarts is winterberry (Ilex verticillata). Winterberry grows in wet places in the wild, though it will also grow in normal garden soil if planted there. It is loaded with bright red berries now, though later outdoors the berries will fall off or be eaten by birds
Winterberry is dioecious, meaning that there are male and female plants. Both bloom, but only the females have berries. If you are buying these shrubs, which stand six to ten feet tall and wide, one male cultivar is needed for about every 5 females.
Unlike many hollies, winterberry does not have glassy dark green leaves that stay on all winter. American holly ( Ilex opaca), Japanese holly (I. crenata) and the Meserve hybrids like ‘Blue Boy’ and ‘China Girl’ do keep their leaves and produce nice berries. Unfortunately most are Zone 5 plants only good to minus 20, and I live in a colder zone, so I have no personal experience with them.
Also red, and also not a flower, are the stems of red-twigged dogwood (Cornus sericea). They also look great in a vase. And like the winterberries, they do best in moist soil. In order to get the brightest color possible, you should buy a named cultivar. And you need to cut back the stems every year or two, as it is the new growth that looks so bright in winter.
Staghorn sumac (Rhus typhina) is a native small tree that produces nice berries that look good all winter, and that do fine indoors in a vase. I picked some over 2 months ago, and they have shown no signs of fatigue. The berries are up high, but are easy to pick with a pole pruner – the stems, though thick, are soft and easy to cut.
Sumac berries are enjoyed by returning robins (and other birds) in the spring. Birds are a bit like teenagers – they love greasy food. So berries with a high fat content get eaten right away while berries like those on the sumac, which have little fat, are ignored until hungry times. Those early birds who can’t get a worm will wolf down sumac berries. It’s all part of having a diverse source of food for our wild friends.
Two invasive plants, Japanese barberry (Berberis thunbergii) and winged euonymus (Euonymus alatus) are also displaying bright berries at this time of year. And although I recommend pulling out both from your landscape, cutting branches now to put in a vase will reduce the number of berries available for birds. And it is the birds that distribute seeds into the woods, spreading those invasive plants.
If you are looking for green to add to a vase, white pine, balsam fir and blue spruce all do well. Canadian hemlock (the one that has short, soft needles) is said to be not as good as the others, tending to drop needles sooner than the others. But for my purposes, I find it just fine.
In summer we want pink, white and purple flowers in our vases, but in winter browns can be nice in a vase, too. Beech trees are still holding their leaves, or at least the young trees do. Many oaks still have leaves, too. If you put them in a vase, don’t bother with water. Add other dry flowers or grasses.
My peegee hydrangea is still displaying blossoms, and I might pick a few more to use indoors. Each year I pick the pink blossoms before frost, and they keep their color quite well. Now they are brownish, but still better than nothing. Again, no water in the vase.
Dry grasses are good to appreciate outdoors in winter, swaying gently in the wind. But indoors they are just as handsome. I like my fountain grass (Miscanthus sinensis) ‘Morning Light’. It is a tall grass, but can be cut to fit in with other items of any height.
A walk through a field can yield lots of dry flowers from goldenrod and Joe Pye weed to field spirea and willow stems. Making a winter arrangement is different than a summer arrangement, and you may have to adjust your attitude a little bit about what you expect. Enjoy whatever you can find!
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