A Year in the Garden
Posted on Thursday, March 13, 2025 · Leave a Comment
As we begin 2024, I think it is good not only to look back on the year we have just concluded, but also to plan ahead. We can’t know if we’ll be facing hot and dry or wet and soggy this summer – or perfect conditions. But we can make plans and hope for the best.
Diseased tomato leaves are often a problem in wet summers
For many of us, 2023 was a disappointment. The summer was rainy much of the time. Vegetables like tomatoes and potatoes – vegetables that require lots of energy to build fruit or tubers – did not do well. Fungal diseases like late blight are most virulent with moist conditions, which we had in spades. And in my part of the world, there was a late frost that spoiled the blossoms on uor fruit trees – so no apples or pears. Sigh.
On the other hand, it was a great summer for newly planted trees and shrubs. I planted yet another pawpaw tree this summer, along with a fringe tree , an American hazelnut and a gooseberry. Although I watered them all well at planting time, the soil stayed moist all summer from the rain, and all have done well.
Pawpaw (Asimina triloba) is a native fruit tree that is common in the woods of Pennsylvania and Ohio. The fruit is almost tropical in flavor, sometimes compared to a mix of mango and , banana flavors. The trees are rated hardy to zone 5 (minus 20 degrees F), but I have had one survive much colder temperatures – and another that died in a cold winter.
Pawpaw fruit has a tropical flavor but a texture that is mushy.
I have one pawpaw tree that is now 20 feet tall and 10 years old or more, but I am yet to get any fruit from it – despite the fact that it has blossomed. Apparently they are self-sterile, so in the past three years I have been planting new trees from different sources. Pawpaws send up root suckers, but these are genetic clones and not suitable for pollinating the mother tree. They are most often pollinated by insects that feed on dead meat, so one friend I know hangs road kill in her trees to attract pollinators!
A few thoughts about planting trees: First, preferentially choose trees and shrubs that are native to New England – or the United States. These are best for our birds and pollinators. And no, that doesn’t mean you should deprive yourself of the beauty of a Merrill or Jane magnolia. I just want to suggest a 90-10 or 80-20 ratio of natives to imported or hybridized varieties.
Secondly, if you plant trees in spring or summer, you must water during dry times. Fall is usually wet enough. A newly planted tree needs 5 gallons of water once a week distributed in a wide circle around it. A 2-inch layer of mulch will help minimize drying on hot August days and keep the mowers and string trimmers at bay. Mulch will also minimize weeds that compete for nutrients and water.
Some gardeners focus on growing vegetables, others on flowers. I want both. I started as a vegetable gardener, largely because there is little better in life than biting into a home grown tomato warm from the sun. I grow both heirloom tomatoes like Brandywine, Cherokee Purple and Ox Heart. But I also plant and hybrids like Sungold, my favorite cherry tomato, and Defiant, which is resistant to some diseases.
If you grow open pollinated (heirloom) tomatoes, you can save a few seeds each year and dry them on a paper towel. Store them in a cool dark location and they will serve you well if you want to start your own seedlings, starting indoors in early April. But don’t save hybrid seeds as most will not breed true.
One of my readers wrote me this fall reminding me of something I wrote long ago: “I will make it through another winter because I want to see what else did.” It’s true. I can’t let age catch up with me because I want to see the annual show: snowdrops blooming in March; my Merrill magnolia which blooms each year with a thousand double white blossoms on my birthday in April; and the Japanese primroses – 500 to a 1,000 of them beginning in May and lasting until mid-June.
Gomphrena, an annual, is great in arrangements.
My advice about planting flowers is simple: grow what you love. Grow what your Grammie and mother grew. Grow what stops you in your tracks when you see if for the first time each season. Plant more of your favorites each year, or divide them and spread them out to new corners of the property. But keep it simple: Don’t plant so much that weeding becomes a dreaded chore.
I love arranging flowers and keep a vase of my own cut flowers on the table from March until after Halloween. You can do this if you plant lots of bulbs for early spring, your favorite perennials, and very importantly, this: plant annual flowers. Annual flowers keep on blooming all summer if you keep them from going to seed.
It’s easy to buy six-packs of annuals in spring and plant them in your perennial beds as well as in your vegetable garden. Most like full sun or part sun/part shade. And don’t fertilize annuals in the garden – too much nitrogen promotes leafy growth but delays flowering. Potted annuals do need some fertilizer as the fertilizer in potting mix is water soluble and gets used up or washes away.
Remember, as you ponder your plans for a
garden while looking at a snowy landscape, that
gardening should be fun. As they say, “Take time to smell the roses.” Place chairs or benches in the
garden so you can stop for tea or the cold beverage of your choice while chatting with a friend or loved one. My
garden is my respite. It’s where I go when the world is too much with me. So do some planning now. Read
gardening books. And dream. I certainly do, and know it pays off . Henry’s column will appear at the beginning of each month this winter. You can reach him at
henry.homeyer@comcast.net or PO Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 03746.
Plan to Plant Plenty of Annual Flowers
Posted on Tuesday, March 7, 2023 · Leave a Comment
Reclining in an easy chair on a recent cold and snowy day, I imagined myself a bumblebee. I meandered from flower to flower, taking in the colors and scents and textures of annual flowers, starting with A (alyssum) and ending with Z (zinnias).
I wasn’t a good or careful bumblebee who only visited flowers of one kind: I was a bumblebee tourist, seeing everything my mind could imagine – and all were in bloom at once. Then, returning to reality, I got out of my catalogs and started searching for new flowers to try.
Gomphrena is great fresh or as a dried flower
Annual flowers are wonderful. Perennials are great, too, but most make a relatively short appearance, rarely more than three weeks . Annuals are born to flower: many start early and keep on blooming all summer if you keep cutting them. They need to make plenty of seeds or their genetic lineage can literally die out and disappear at the end of the season.
I like starting annuals by seed in 6-packs indoors, even when it’s warm enough that I could plant them directly in the ground. Flowers can easily get lost or misidentified as weeds when planted directly in the soil, especially things I haven’t tried before, or if I just want a few.
I love zinnias. They come in such a profusion of colors, and range in size from diminutive to giant. I love the lime-green ones such as Envy and Benary’s Giant Lime because they look so great mixed in with other flowers – in a vase, or in a flowerbed. Zinnias come as singles, such as the Profusion series, which are short (12”), and doubles such as Sunbow (24-30”) and Oklahoma (30-40”). I save seed from non-hybrid ones and plant them directly in the soil in large numbers. And the more you cut these flowers, the more they branch and re-bloom.
Lisianthus comes in several colors and lasts well
Most annual flowers are easy to grow from seed, but not all. One of my favorites, Lisianthus, takes 17 days to germinate if kept at 72 degrees, longer if cooler. And even after it starts to grow, its seedlings do not grow fast for several weeks. It’s not a flower for impatient gardeners.
Cosmos varieties have been bred and hybridized in recent years. Looking at the John Scheepers Garden Seeds website I see 23 different kinds of cosmos, including one I must try: “Double Click Cranberries Cosmos”. Deep wine colored, double-petaled like an old fashioned rose.
A flower good as a cut flower or as a dry flower and spectacular in the garden goes by the unlikely name gomphrena. I plan to plant at least a dozen of these this year, maybe more.
Purple Hyacinth Bean has both lovely flowers and interesting foliage
Vines are good, too. I love purple hyacinth bean with purplish leaves and pink-purple flowers. They are slow to start, so I’ll start some indoors in March.
Nasturtiums are vines that don’t climb. They sprawl. Plant these large seeds in full sun after the danger of frost has past, perhaps in a bed of daffodils. The daffies need sunshine to recharge their bulbs until the foliage dies away, and the nasturtiums will fill in and hide the dying foliage. Nasturtiums like lean soil, so don’t add fertilizer.
I grow some of my favorite annuals not for their flowers, but for their leaves. These beauties are always in bloom – which is to say, their leaves are a treat to look at. I love their bright colors and shiny surfaces. Here are some good ones:
Perilla: This is a terrific purple-leafed plant that self-sows exuberantly. Pinch off the flowers (which are not at all showy) if you don’t want it to spread next year. Eighteen inches tall. The ‘Magellanica’ cultivar is taller, and has foliage in shades of hot pink, deep plum and vibrant green.
I grow Persian shield for its foliage
Persian Shield (Strobilanthes dyerianus): This plant just shimmers with silver overtones on dark purple and pink leaves. It loves hot weather, and gets big: one plant can spread over a 3-foot circle and stand 3-4 feet tall.
Licorice Plant (Helichrysum petiolare): I buy some of this every summer because I love the silvery leaves, because it mixes so well with bright colored flowers in planters, and because it takes abuse. It rarely complains if I let it dry out in a pot. It flows over the edge of pots and weaves it way through other plants. It’s also an exceptional in flower arrangements. There are also chartreuse and variegated lemon-lime varieties.
So even though annuals are disposable plants – they die when frost comes – I have to have them. I grow them in the vegetable garden, and in pots to fill in drab corners of the flower garden after perennials have finished blooming. If you want, all those mentioned above are available as plants in six-packs at your local nursery, come spring. Most are great cut flowers – and the bumblebees love them.
Reach Henry Homeyer by e-mail at
henry.homeyer@comcast.net or by mail at PO Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 03746. He is a UNH master
Gardener and the author of 4
gardening books.
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