Rock Gardens
Posted on Wednesday, July 24, 2013 · Leave a Comment
Many plants that do well in rock gardens originally come from places with extreme growing conditions such as deserts or the rocky slopes of mountains. Most have tight foliage, low profiles and deep tap roots to keep from blowing away when the wind blows. But generally in those difficult locations, pollinators are few and far between. In order to attract them, these plants favor big flowers (in relation to the size of the plants), bright colors and strong scents. “Hey, it’s me! Come visit!” they seem to be saying with their floral displays. And those flowers also attract gardeners who are willing to tend them, pull weeds and build soils to their particular needs.
Rock garden overview
I recently visited Lisa Palmer and Dan Drew in Plainfield, NH where they have a splendid rock garden. In fact, Lisa is so avid a rock gardener that she was one of just 5 Americans who attended the Second International Rock Garden Society’s meetings in Czech Republic this May.
I asked Lisa what is critical for success with a rock garden. Without pausing to think, she said, “Perfect drainage.” Rich soil and lots of compost? Save it for the veggies. Good rock gardens are made with sandy soil and very little organic matter.
Seventeen years ago Lisa and Dan started a rock garden after they had an artesian well drilled which provided them with plenty of sand and ground rock. Dan enjoys hard physical labor, so he agreed to dig out the existing soil in the area where the rock garden was planned and spread the sandy, gravelly mess.
Dan dug out 18 inches of soil, replacing it with coarse sand and gravel. He also moved some good –sized river stones up to the garden, which gave it some “bones” to work with. Their subsoil was well drained and somewhat sandy, which was good for a rock garden. Lisa explained that you must work with what you have. If you have a heavy clay soil and live in a low place, you can’t easily create a rock garden.
Daphne x schlyteri
Many of the plants in the rock garden of Dan and Lisa are related to plants I know, but not species I can grow in my rich garden soil. They have a number of kinds of daphne including rose daphne (Dapne cneorum) and a lovely hybrid in bloom right now, Daphne x schlyteri. This is an evergreen daphne that grows to just 8 to 12 inches tall and roughly twice as wide – much smaller than the daphne I grow. The leaves are narrow and dark green; they grow out from each stem like spokes on a series of increasingly large wheels. The flowers are small, pink and highly fragrant.
Dwarf conifers are the backbone of many rock gardens as they are slow growing and are as beautiful in winter as they are in summer – and perhaps more so, as they contrast nicely against the snow. One that Lisa and Dan use effectively is hinoki cypress, also called hinoki falsecypress (Chamaecyparis obtusa ‘Nana’).Whenever you see “Nana” in a scientific name ti means that the plant stays small – just like my grandmother, who we called Nana.
Hinoki cypress
Hinoki cypress reminds me of a something from the sea, perhaps a type of coral or seaweed. Its dark green foliage forms twisting fan-shaped little branches in dense tiered layers. It is hardy to Zone 4 – if it has the proper growing conditions: moist, well drained soil. It can grow to a foot or two tall and up to three feet wide. I’ve tried growing it without success – I somehow can’t plant something and not give it compost.
Gentians are good rock garden plants. I grow a nice fall blooming gentian, one called Gentiana makinoi ‘Marsha’ which blooms in ordinary garden soil with sky-blue flowers in September. Blooming now in their rock garden is one called star gentian (Gentiana cruciata.) In the spring they have others called Gentiana acaulis and Gentiana vern – plants that Lisa consider the gems of the genus. Both have wonderful blue flowers.
Star gentian
Cactus does well in rock gardens, some surviving in Zone 4 (with winter temperatures dropping to minus 30 degrees F on occasion). Prickly pear cactus (Opuntia spp.) grows well for Lisa and Dan, spreading to form small colonies. Sedums and hens and chicks also do well.
Lewisia is another genus of rock garden plant they like. Originally observed in 1806 by Meriwether Lewis of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, it needs very fast drainage to avoid rotting the root (which is edible, though since the common name of Lewisia is “bitterroot”, it is not likely to grace my table). The rosette –shaped flowers come in a variety of cheerful colors.
Maintaining a rock garden is a labor of love. Common weeds can choke out or overcome some rock garden plants unless you keep after them. Dan told me that he mulches most areas with pea stone (3/8 inch smooth gravel). It gets very hot in summer, effectively burning off young weeds. Still, I’m not ready to commit to creating and maintaining a rock garden. Well maybe … after I retire.
Henry Homeyer is a gardening consultant, public speaker and the author of 4 gardening books. His web site is www.Gardening-Guy.com. He lives in Cornish Flat, NH.
Rainy Day Woes
Posted on Thursday, July 18, 2013 · Leave a Comment
It’s been rainy here in Cornish Flat. I can’t remember whether the recent bout of rain was 10 inches in 7 days or 7 inches in 10 days. But I do know that my old leather clogs appear to have grown a layer of mold that looked like the stuff that grows on phlox and lilacs, powdery mildew. Sigh. My tomatoes want some sunshine – and I do, too.
But all this rain is not all bad. Let me sing praises to the rain: First, we don’t have to water anything. Usually I have to water my vegetable transplants and seed beds. Not this year.
I like raised beds for everything but onions and celeriac (also called celery root, a wonderful substitute for celery in cooking). Those two plants need lots of water, so I usually do not plant them in raised beds because raised beds drain better and dry out quicker- which they don’t like. But when my stream overflowed, my onions suffered from the running water that ran through my garden while most other things were not affected. No matter, I just righted them and re-mulched around them.
Newly planted trees and shrubs are doing well with all this rain, too. They need an inch of water a week, and that has not been a problem this year. And I always have plants in pots waiting to go in the ground which normally have to be watered. I have a pink magnolia that I bought over a month ago that is still waiting to get planted – and I have only had to water it once.
That magnolia is a hybrid called ‘Jane’, one of eight varieties developed by the USDA in the 1950’s. I’m surprised it’s not more common in cold areas, as it is gorgeous, hardy to Zone 3 (minus 40) and has the added benefit of sporadic re-blooms in August. It is a small to medium sized tree. Others in the series include Betty, Judy and Ann and others often referred to as “the magnolia girls”. All bloom 2-4 weeks later than the early star magnolia, thus usually avoiding frost damage. I can’t wait!
On the other hand, all this rain has been heaven for slugs and snails. They like wet surfaces, and that’s about all we’ve had. What can we do about them? I always start by hand picking. My kale has suffered the most. Lower leaves have been very heavily grazed by small snails. I have gone around with a jar of soapy water, tapping the leaves to make the snails drop into the water. I also have pruned off some of the lower leaves – they were Swiss cheese-like and not contributing much to the plants.
Snails and slugs tend to avoid sharp surfaces, so sprinkling coarse sand on the soil surface should help discourage them, though it is hard to know the effect. I mean I can’t exactly interview them. (Mr. Slug, how do you feel about crawling over sand to get to the kale?”)
Slugs can be controlled with a product approved for organic gardeners. It’s called Sluggo and is iron phosphate (a naturally occurring mineral) covered with slug bait. I use it around the logs that I inoculated with spore plugs to produce Shitake mushrooms. I haven’t gotten any mushrooms yet this year – they bloom best in hot weather following a wet period. A small amount of Sluggo goes a long way and ends up being cheaper than the traditional method of putting out saucers of beer to attract and drown slugs. Which I find disgusting, anyway. I never have to deal with the slugs done in by Sluggo.
I haven’t yet done much mulching this year so there is lots of bare earth in my vegetable garden. Although that means that weeds get a “Get out of Jail Free” card, it also means that the soil dries out more quickly, which is a good thing. I use my CobraHead weeder to scratch the soil surface after rains to slice off any young weeds, but more importantly, to rough up the soil surface. A rough surface allows water to evaporate more quickly. And we need that.
The last good thing about all this rain is that big-rooted weeds pull more easily. The key is to pull them slooooowly. Gentle pressure. And if they don’t move, loosen the soil with a drain spade and try again.
Phlox that needs to be divided to avoid powdery mildew
So far this summer I haven’t gotten powdery mildew, that bothersome white fungus that so loves old fashioned phlox and lilacs. By August, I suppose it will be rampant. Hot wet weather makes plants more susceptible to it.
You can do something now, if you’ve had trouble with powdery mildew in past years: you can divide big clumps of phlox and other mold-prone plants. That way you will have better air circulation, allowing leaves to dry out before mold hyphae (rootlets) can penetrate the moist leaves. Even mildew-resistant cultivars will get moldy if the conditions are right.
So yes, I’m ready for sunny days. But rain does have plenty of good qualities. Let’s all try to appreciate it for the nectar it is for our plants.
Henry Homeyer can be reached at henry.homeyer@comcast.net. His Web site is www.Gardening-Guy.com.
Eight Flowers Great Flowers
Posted on Wednesday, July 10, 2013 · Leave a Comment
“I have a brown thumb” is a claim I hear on a regular basis, but one which I always dispute. There are no brown thumbs, only bad soil or plants living (and dying) where they should not be. Of course, any plant can die of thirst when first planted, and poor soils can keep them from thriving. But some plants are tougher than others, so this week I shall suggest eight plants that you can use in your garden with a very high probability that they will do well for you. Even very well. Even if you have a brown thumb. Just put them in good soil in the right amount of sun.
Daylilies (Hemerocallis spp.) are fool proof. I once left a clump of daylilies on the lawn in a relatively shady place. I had dug them up and fully intended to put them in the compost pile, but didn’t get around it right away. Before I knew it, they had rooted in – and were blooming!
Daylilies prefer full sun and good soil, but they’re not fussy. The old orange ones spread by root, as do the double orange ones. Most others just develop into bigger clumps every year. Daylilies produce flower stalks called scapes, and each scape will produce 3 to 9 buds; these buds bloom sequentially, each for just about a day – hence the name. Most daylilies come in shades of yellow, but dark reds and some pinky ones exist, too. A few re-bloom off and on all summer.
Evening primroses or sundrops (Oenothera missouriensis) are blooming for me right now, but they are not really primroses at all. The flowers are bright yellow cups on 18 to 30-inch stems that flower – and spread – cheerfully. They spread by root and by seed, and might be thought to be thugs, except they pull easily and are pleasant. They will bloom in full sun to part shade, and are not fussy about their soil.
Peonies (Paeonia spp.) These beauties are mostly done for the season, though a few late bloomers might still be blooming. They love full sun and rich soil, but will still bloom in part shade and even in dry, sandy soils. Their roots are big, fleshy tubers that go deep down into the soil, so I recommend digging a much bigger and deeper hole for a peony than for other plants. Enrich the soil with composted cow manure, rotted leaf mulch or other organic products, especially some organic fertilizer.
Bee Balm
Peonies grow from buds or “eyes” that develop each year beneath the soil surface. If you plant a peony too deeply and cover up the eyes with more than an inch of soil, the plant will not bloom after the first year. Other than that? Success is guaranteed. I have a peony that my grandmother Lenat planted – and she died around 1953. My mother grew it, now I have it. I shall leave it to one of my grandchildren. Peonies are forever.
Pink Mallow (Malva alcea). Some fancy gardeners turn their noses up at pink mallow, but I love it. It grows 3-5 feet tall and produces a bounty of pink blossoms that vaguely resemble single roses- but up to 3 inches in diameter. It has a deep tap root so it does not move easily, but seed-grown “volunteers” show up around my garden. Full sun to part shade. It is a short-lived perennial, but has plenty of “babies” so you will always have some.
Rudbekia ‘Prairie Sun’
Black-eyed Susans (Rudbekia spp.) There are dozens of species of this joyful summer flower. I grow a variety called ‘Prairie Sun’ in my hot, dry front walkway, and it blooms all summer – but, truth-be-told, often die in winter. No matter, I’ll buy it again and again. One of my favorites is a fall-season bloomer with delicate flowers, Rudbekia subtomentosa ‘Henry Eilers’.
Hostas (Hosta spp.). These are primarily shade plants grown for their lovely leaves. If there is too much sun on them, the leaves will scorch and turn yellow. A few kinds will bloom with tall flower spikes, but others have blossoms that are not of much interest. Hostas do best with rich soil, but will grow in almost any soil. I have hostas from under 2 inches tall to more than 30 inches tall, and a variety of greens, some with blue or yellow tinges.
Astillbe
Astillbes (Astillbe spp.). These are primarily sold as shade plants, but I grow them in both full sun and partial shade. The key is this: the more sun there is, the more moisture is needed. They bloom in great plumes of tiny florets in pink, white and dark red. They appreciate rich, organic soil, so improve the soil before planting.
Bee Balm (Monarda didyma). Bee Balm displays nice clumps of red or pinkish tubular flowers that are arranged in whorls atop 3-4 foot stems. In the mint family, they are fragrant and clumps spread by root – sometimes too vigorously. But extra plants are easily pulled. Grow them in morning sun in ordinary garden soil. All day sun in dry, sandy locations will not lead to happy plants.
You don’t have to be born a gardener. Just follow the directions on the plant tags – or my articles – and be sure to add compost to the soil before planting in a nice, big hole. You’ll soon have a green thumb.
Henry Homeyer can be reached at P.O. Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 03746 or henry.homeyer@comcast.net. His Web site is www.Gardening-guy.com.
Filed under Article · Tagged with astilbe, bee balm, day lilies, easy to grow flowers, eight great flowers anyone can grow, evening primrose, flowers for new england, gardening guy, Henry Homeyer, peonies, rudbeckia prairie sun
Early Summer Chores in the Vegetable Garden
Posted on Wednesday, July 3, 2013 · Leave a Comment
I don’t recall ever hearing a version of George Gershwin’s song, Summertime, that I didn’t like. But I’m not sure about the accuracy of that line “and the livin’ is easy.” Right now I have a lot to do in the garden.
Let’s start off in the vegetable patch. I’ve had a lot of rain in the last 3 weeks, so everything has been quite happy – especially the weeds. Of course since the soil is moist, weeds are pretty easy to pull. But still, I do not just pull weeds. Yank on the top of a weed, especially a big perennial weed like a dandelion or a burdock, and it breaks off. The roots stay behind to produce the leaves all over again. Sisyphus, the Greek who kept pushing the boulder up a hill in mythology, could have been a gardener – without a good weeding tool and proper technique.
In order to keep weeds and grasses from re-sprouting, you need to get the entire root out. After all, they evolved with herbivores that not only bit off their stems, but often gave a good yank. To survive, they must re-sprout from roots. So learn to know your weeds and their root systems. To remove a weed with tap root, you need to loosen the soil. In general, the bigger the plant, the longer the root.
From L to R, dock, drain spade, dandelions
Dock (Rumex spp.) is a big, tall weed that loves my garden. It has a root that can go down more than a foot. If the soil is loose, moist and fluffy I might be able give a long slow pull and remove all its roots. But in dry or compacted soil, I need to use a drain spade (mine is pointed and its blade is 16 inches long by 5 inches wide) or a garden fork to loosen the soil before pulling. I plunge it deep into the soil a couple of inches away from the weed, and pull back to loosen the soil. Of course, the blade may sever a side-root if I am not careful.
For ordinary weeds I use my CobraHead weeder, which is a like a steel finger, curved and sharp. I can get it under a clump of grass or weed and loosen the soil before I begin to tug from above. It’s very effective, especially to tease out long roots of invasive grasses.
Mulching onions
I recently weeded my onion patch. Onions hate weeds – in part because weeds steal their moisture. After weeding, I soaked a pile of newspapers and then spread them out alongside the onions and in the space between my double rows. I didn’t put newspaper between the individual onions in their rows, as they are too close together and it would have been too much trouble. I spread mulch hay over the newspaper to keep it in place. The newspaper smothers any seeds that might germinate and try to grow after my late-June weeding.
When I give lectures on gardening, I tell my listeners that they must thin their beets and carrots on the Fourth of July at 10am. Or around that time. Carrot seeds are tiny and most of us manage to plant too many, too close together. And we all hate killing baby carrots. But if we don’t thin them, the carrots will compete with their kin for water and soil nutrients – just as weeds do. Thin them now, today, to one-inch spacing. A few companies (Johnny’s Seeds is one) sell pelleted seeds that are sold covered with a layer of clay, making the seeds a size you can handle and plant individually. Look for them.
Beet seeds are not seeds at all, but seed capsules. So no matter how carefully you spaced the “seeds”, you must thin them now as usually 2 or 3 plants start from each seed capsule. There are a few varieties like ‘Moneta’ that have just one seed per capsule, so you can avoid thinning.
This is also a time to start second (or third) plantings of lettuce and other greens. I’m eating my first crop of lettuce and new plantings will help to keep the salad bowl full all summer. I’ll plant a few seeds every 2-3 weeks. You can plant a second crop of broccoli from seed now, too. That will mean that you get big juicy heads of broccoli in September and October.
Apples ready for thinning
This spring my apple trees produced more blossoms than usual. That means that there will be huge numbers of apples, come fall, but that each will be smaller – unless I take action. A tree can support just so much fruit. Thinning out – removing fruit – will promote bigger apples. I should have already thinned my apples by now, but it will be all right to do it now. See a clump of apples? Leave just one or two and remove the rest. I’ve read that it’s good to space apples 4 to 6 inches apart on a branch by thinning. Thinning will also help to minimize the alternate-year pattern for big fruit loads that are common with some varieties.
You can also put paper bags over some apples (and tie off the bags with twist ties) to have a few apples
Apples after thinning
that are perfect and unblemished. If you’ve had trouble with apple maggots in the past, buy a few fake red plastic apples at the garden store, and cover them with a sticky substance (one brand is called Tanglefoot and is suitable for use by organic gardeners). This will catch the moths that are attracted to the redness of the fake apples – moths are not too bright.
So use your weekend to get caught up on some gardening chores. And okay, take some time off to snooze in the hammock if you must.
Henry Homeyer is the author of 4 gardening books and a new fantasy-adventure for children about a boy and a cougar. His web sites are www.henryhomeyer.com and www.Gardening-Guy.com.
Shade Annuals
Posted on Wednesday, June 5, 2013 · Leave a Comment
Last fall a reader alerted me to the fungal disease that has devastated that wonderful shade annual, impatiens, throughout much of New England. The disease, called impatiens downy mildew, will be a problem again for most gardeners this year. Any garden that had the disease last year will have it again this year – even our coldest winters will not cleanse the soil of it. I wish I had known about it sooner, as prompt removal of affected plants may stop the spread of the disease. So if you did not have the disease last year, watch your plants carefully this year and bag and dispose of any diseased plants promptly.
Impatiens downy mildew symptoms are these: yellowing of leaves, then a limp appearance, as if it needs to be watered. Next comes a downy white fungal growth on the undersides of leaves. Then leaves and flowers drop, leaving just a stem with a few leaves on top – as if slugs had eaten the leaves. I have read that if you don’t plant impatiens in a site that has had the disease for a year or two, the soil may become free of disease. But I wouldn’t count on it.
There are two related plants that will thrive in shade or part shade and that are not susceptible to the mildew: New Guinea impatiens and SunPatiens, which is a trademarked hybrid. SunPatiens is advertised as good for part sun to sun – but not deep shade. But it is being marketed as a replacement of impatiens. I wonder if it will be able to bloom as vigorously as our old favorite in full shade. Both are generally sold in individual pots for around $5, quite an upgrade from a six-pack for $3.50 or so that I was accustomed to paying for impatiens in past years.
Torenia
Another plant that is being touted as a replacement for impatiens is Torenia. I spoke to two landscapers who have used Torenia in past years and say that it is nice enough, but it will not satisfy impatiens-lovers. I’ve heard that it does not have as many blossoms per plant, generally, and is often available in just a few colors – shades of blue and purple, and in white. However, I have found it for sale in multi-packs in a few places and did find one nursery with 4-packs that listed rose, magenta, lemon drops and white as colors available.
I have used bedding lobelia as a nice shade annual, though in my experience it wants a little sun or filtered sun. I love the intense blue that it often displays, though it is available in other colors, too. I started seeds indoors back on April 17, a mix called ‘Cascade of Color’ that promised blue, blue with a white eye, lilac, red, ruby and white.
Right now my lobelia seedlings are only 2 inches tall but I assume they will take right off when I separate them and get them in the ground. The only problem with a mix like that is that one cannot determine what color any given seedling will be – unless you wait for them to bloom in the pot. And, when I read the seed packet (from Botanical Interests) just now, I see that this variety is advertised for full sun. I have plenty, so I’ll try some in shade, too.
European Wild Ginger
So what else can we do to provide color in shade? Try some perennials. Granted, most only bloom for 1 to 3 weeks, but if you select plants with good foliage they can be a joy all summer. I love European wild ginger (Asarum europaeum) for its very glossy dark green leaves. It forms a nice expanding clump, even in dry shade with competition from tree roots. The blossoms are hidden beneath the foliage, but it doesn’t matter to me. This is a great shade plant. I plant them in clumps of three about 18 inches from center to center.
Then there is bigroot geranium (Geranium macrorhizum). Not to be confused with your mom’s red geraniums (which are technically not geraniums at all), this is a nice spreading plant that thrives in full shade and blooms with pink, magenta or white flowers in late May or early June. The leaves look good all summer, each plant a spreading mound 12 to 18 inches tall and 15 inches wide. I use it as a groundcover. I have read that it will do well in sun, too, and that it tolerates a wide range of soil and pH conditions. If it wanders too far? It pulls easily, and you can give the roots to someone who doesn’t have it.
I have never tried either the geranium or the ginger in a pot, but will this year and grow them on my north-facing, shady deck. I’ll give them a 50-50 mix of standard potting soil and compost, and I bet they look just fine.
It seems that every year there is a new bug or a new disease that threatens some plant in our garden. I guess we will have to keep on adapting and changing – just like the pests do. Good luck!
Henry Homeyer is the author of 4 gardening books and a children’s fantasy-adventure called Wobar and the Quest for the Magic Calumet. You may reach him at PO Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 03746 or henry.homeyer@comcast.net.\
Growing Some Lesser Known Vegetables
Posted on Wednesday, May 29, 2013 · Leave a Comment
This year as you plan your garden, why not choose some lesser known veggies to see how they do for you? You might just be surprised how easy it is to grow kohlrabi or rutabagas – and how tasty they are. I grow those, and several other kinds of vegetables that you might not have tried. Most are not terribly hard to grow. You could be the first on your block to grow artichokes!
Let’s start with sweet potatoes. Most New England gardeners don’t generally grow this vegetable, thinking that it’s a southern crop. It is, but you can grow it. The trick is to grow it under black plastic, which increases the heat. It needs good rich soil, liberally amended with compost or aged cow manure. Start plants from little plants called slips, available from catalogs such as Johnny’s Selected Seeds (www.johnnyseeds.com).
Adequate moisture is key for growing sweet potatoes. Even if you leave an opening in the plastic for the plant, rain water probably won’t soak the soil enough. Run a section of soaker hose under the plastic and give it some water any time the soil seems dry. Soaker hoses are available at garden centers and are basically special hoses that ooze water very slowly, soaking the soil.
Rutabagas, like Rodney Dangerfield, don’t get the respect they deserve. They are easy to grow, rarely bothered by pests or diseases, and can substitute for potatoes in the kitchen. They look a bit like turnips (which do have a strong flavor) but rutabagas are mild. I find they are great in stews- they don’t get mushy the way potatoes do when you re-heat the stew several times.
Plant rutabagas by seed in mid-June about 2 inches apart and thin to 6 inches apart for maximum production. Rutabagas can get big –a pound each or more, but do not get tough or less tasty even when they get big. They grow best in soil that is near neutral on the pH scale and is rich in compost.
Celeriac with carrots & Brussels sprouts
As far as I am concerned, growing celery is best left to the professionals. When I’ve tried growing it, the slugs loved it and the stalks were dry and stringy. But you can have that same celery flavor in your soups, stuffing and stews by growing celeriac, also known as celery root. I start celeriac by seed in the house in late March or early April, but some better garden centers will offer plants already started. Celeriac loves moisture, so add compost to the soil to hold water, and water during dry times. Plant about 6 inches apart.
Salsify and scorzonera are long, thin root crops with a somewhat nutty flavor. They need deep, loose soil as they can grow 8-12 inches long. But each is only an inch or less in diameter, so they don’t produce much food per plant (compared to carrots or rutabagas, for example). Plant directly in the garden, and wait. They are slow growing, so plant early and harvest late in the fall. Great in turkey stuffing.
Artichokes are beautiful plants that look good in a flower garden, too. In California they are perennials, producing year after year in deep black soil rich with moisture. I have started them from seed, but one must start them early in March for best results. But some garden centers sell them in small pots, so most years I buy them.
Allow a 2-foot by 2-foot space or more for each artichoke plant. You will get one artichoke (which is really a flower bud) at the top of the plant, then side shoots with smaller artichokes after that, up to 5 more. None will be as big as the grocery store version. Be sure to pick them before they turn dry and open up.
My favorite of the odd ducks of the vegetable world is kohlrabi, which looks a little like a space alien: a round fat “root crop” that sits in the soil surface and has stems popping out of it like arms –and then leaves, of course. The vegetable is almost perfectly round and is actually a thickened stem. It comes in purple and green varieties. Eaten fresh in salads it tastes something like a cucumber crossed with a radish. But they are good in stir fries or stews, too.
Plant kohlrabi seeds directly in the garden about 3 inches apart and thin to 6 inches. It is in the cabbage family (Brassica) and grows fast, ready for harvest in as little as 8 weeks. Last year I grew a variety called “Kossak’ that is an 80-day variety, but it gets to be huge (8” or more) and stores well – Johnny’s Selected Seeds, the developer of the seed – says it will store for 4 months! It needs plenty of moisture, and like most veggies, plenty of compost in the soil.
Of the salad/cooking greens, think of trying orach. Seeds are hard to find – Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds is the only place I’ve found that has them (www.rareseeds.com). This is a gorgeous purple-leafed plant that gets to be three feet tall, and is in the goosefoot family which includes many varieties of weeds – but also spinach, beets and quinoa. If you let a few plants flower and go to seed, you will always have some volunteer plants in the garden, year after year. It has no special growing needs; it’s almost a weed, after all.
Gardening is supposed to be fun. For me that means trying more than the usual veggies. So this year, get adventurous. Try kohlrabi, rutabagas or even an artichoke! You’ll be glad you did.
Henry Homeyer’s Web site is www.Gardening-Guy.com. You may reach him at henry.homeyer@comcast.net.
Selecting and Training Flowering Trees
Posted on Thursday, May 23, 2013 · Leave a Comment
This has been a great year for flowering trees and shrubs. My Merrill magnolia had many hundreds of white blossoms in late April.
The crabapples everywhere put on a spectacular display this year. My fothergilla (a shrub with great fall leaf color) is in bloom now with its tidy white bottle-brush flowers. My ‘Olga Mezitt’ rhododendron (one of the parents of the popular PJM rhodie) is looking great and my wild azaleas are getting ready to bloom. And now the lilacs are blooming for me and I am overwhelmed with the large purple, blue, white and pink panicles (clusters of flowers). Spring has definitely sprung.
Fothergilla
All these blooms this year will certainly encourage many gardeners to buy trees and shrubs and plant them. That’s a fine idea, but if you plant now, please remember that you must keep watering them all summer if we don’t get an inch or more of rain per week. When August comes around it will be easy to have your new tree dehydrate if you get lazy or forgetful.
New trees and shrubs need a year or more to grow roots sufficient for their needs if we get hot, dry weather. So if you are forgetful or will be doing lots of traveling, you might want to hold off on planting a new tree until fall, which is also a good time for planting. Fall is cooler and more likely to be rainy.
I like to buy flowering trees and shrubs when they’re in bloom. That allows me to see the color and check out the fragrance. But there is more than just the flowers to consider when selecting a good crabapple or magnolia. Let’s start with size and price. Bigger
Nicely pruned apple tree
is not necessarily better. If you are on life support and don’t expect to be around in 5 years, sure, buy the biggest tree you can afford. But be aware that a bigger tree is not only more expensive – it is also harder to plant and takes more water and care. A bigger tree may have a smaller proportion of its root system intact after being dug up and put in a pot than a small tree. I like to buy smaller specimens and then train them to be a nice shape. That’s harder to do on a larger tree.
I recently visited a nice new nursery run by Henderson’s Tree Service on Rte 14 in Hartford, Vermont. There I chatted with my friend Sylvia Provost who is co-owner of the business. I asked Sylvia what she would look for if purchasing a crabapple for herself. Without a moment’s hesitation she responded. “Structure,” she said.
What Sylvia was talking about is the shape of the tree and the placement of the branches. Fruit trees produce best on branches that leave the trunk at a right angle or are aiming just slightly upward. Branches that shoot straight up are not usually good fruit and blossom producers.
Changing the angle of a branch
And although Sylvia noted that you can train a tree to be the shape you want, it is easier to start with something that is closer to your ideal before you start training. So, for example, Sylvia said that if you have a swimming pool some distance from your patio, you should choose a tree that has an open format, one that you can see through – and see what is happening at the pool. Conversely, if you have nosy neighbors and want to screen their view of your patio, you might select a tree that has a full, dense arrangement of branches.
Generally, pruning a tree should begin in the second year of its life at your home. I often see apple and crabapple trees that have very low branches. I like to prune off those low branches to make it easy to mow around, and to have a nicer look. And if two branches are both striving to be the “leader” or the dominant, tallest stem, I remove one. And although most books say you should prune fruit trees in March or April, you can safely make a few judicious cuts now to train your tree.
You may train branches to grow at different angles by weighing them down – if you do so soon. This is an activity for spring, starting before the new layer of cambium growth has occurred. You can drive a stake into the ground and tie a branch to it for the next 2 months. A branch the diameter of a finger can weighed down by hanging a plastic pop bottle on it, then filling it with water until it bends to the correct angle.
Chris Wilson of the EC Brown Nursery in Thetford, Vermont suggested that when buying a tree, look at leaf color – leaves should be green, not tinged with yellow. He also suggested making sure the tree has branches on all sides, and that the bark has not been damaged.
So if you’ve delighted in the flowers on trees in your neighborhood this year, go get one or more. Study several specimens to find the best one. And just remember to water all summer long!
Henry Homeyer is a gardener and garden designer living in Cornish flat, NH. His Web site is www.Gardening-Guy.com.
Filed under Article · Tagged with EC Brown Nursery, flower crabapple tree, fothergilla, gardening guy, growing fruit trees, Henderson's Fine Gardening, Henry Homeyer, how to prune a tree, how to purchase fruit trees, hydrangeas, merrill magnolia, Olga Mezitt rhododendron, pruning trees, training tree branches
The Winter Landscape
Posted on Wednesday, December 19, 2012 · Leave a Comment
My friend and neighbor, Connie Kousman, is one of the few people I know who likes swamps. She is an avid kayaker who collects cranberries and other plants that do well in wet areas – swamps, ponds and lakes. I called her recently to see if she knew where I could pick some winterberry (Ilex verticillata) for use in vases and on my wreath. I grow winterberry, but this year I didn’t get any of those bright red berries I like so much for decoration. No, Connie allowed that this was a bad year for winterberries – and wild cranberries, too. Some years are like that.
Red Twigged Dogwood
This prompted me to walk around my property looking at my woody shrubs to see what might substitute for winterberries. I didn’t find any berries at all. But I did cut some red-twigged dogwood (Cornus sericea) to use in a vase, and some budded branches of a Merrill magnolia (Magnolia x loebneri). The magnolia buds are a bit like pussywillows on steroids: an inch long and very fuzzy. I have some in a vase on the table, and they look very good, and will for many weeks ahead. I cut some greenery to go with them, a few stems of juniper.
Recently it struck me that winter can be pretty bleak for people who don’t have nice looking winter shrubs and trees. And that judicious pruning can turn a cluster of small river birch, for example, from something akin to an unmade bed into lovely focal point. The trick? Cut off small lower branches that are just clutter, and that can never develop into handsome thick branches. When pruning, I ask myself, what will this little branch, currently the thickness of a finger, look like when it is the thickness of an arm – or a leg. If it is growing sideways toward a walkway, it must come off.
But back to woody plants that look good in winter. Bark is important. I like plants that have exfoliating bark, which means bark that is shaggy and peeling off – thus showing more than one color. My Seven sons Flower Tree (Heptacodium miconioides) is one of those. In addition to the nice bark it offers me a display of small white flowers each fall. White birch (Betula papyrifera) and river birch (Betula nigra) are others with interesting bark. In fact all the birches have handsome bark.
Magnolia Buds
I’ve been growing a paperbark maple (Acer griseum) for about 10 years. It has lovely shaggy reddish-brown bark that is very handsome. It is a very slow-growing tree, at least in this climate. It is listed as a Zone 5 plant (good to minus 20 F) but mine has survived colder temperatures. It looks great in winter.
One of my favorites – but one I do not grow – is sycamore (Platanus occidentalis), which I knew growing up in Connecticut but is rare in New Hampshire where I live. It reminds me of the English plane tree, so common in Europe. The bark peels off in big swaths, showing light gray-green in some areas, dark brown in others.
Of the bigger trees, I like American beech (Fagus sylvatica) for its smooth gray bark. Unfortunately, beeches are prone to a fungal disease that mars the bark and eventually kills the tree.
That same smooth bark is a prominent feature of a shrub known variously as shad bush, serviceberry and Saskatoon bush. All belong to the genus Amelanchier but bear different species names. Most are multi-stemmed bushes that get no more than 10 feet tall, though I have a wild one more than twice that height. You may have noticed that wild ones alongside the road – they are understory plants that are one of the first shrubs to bloom in the spring. Their blossoms are similar to apple blossoms. They do well in partial sun.
Curly crabapple
Apple trees, particularly crabapples, can look great in winter. Some crabs hold onto their fruit throughout much of the winter, some drop their fruit in fall and many provide fruit for the birds to eat (that disappears before winter is done). Ask at the nursery when you buy a crabapple if the birds like the fruit.
I have a “curly” crabapple, one that was trained at the nursery to have leader that curls around in a gentle swoop. Instead of growing tall, it has been trained to grow in a rough corkscrew. Mine has weeping branches, most of which aim towards the ground, and although I’ve lost track of its name, better nurseries should have it. I got mine at E.C. Brown’s Nursery in Thetford, Vermont.
Last but least are the broad-leafed evergreens: rhododendrons, azaleas and mountain laurels. Their leaves don’t drop off and can look handsome in winter against the snow. The leaves can dry out on sunny days and get very wrinkled, but that does not damage the plants. You can minimize this effect by spraying them with a waxy product known as Wilt-Pruf.
So if your landscape has little to offer you in winter, plan on adding some winter interest come planting time. And if your trees and shrubs are drab, think about adding some strings of little winter lights to brighten them up, at least at night.
Read about Henry’s new children’s book at www.henryhomeyer.com. Write him at P.O. Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 03746 or e-mail him at henry.homeyer@comcast.net. He is always pleased to hear from you.
Holiday Gifts for the Gardener
Posted on Wednesday, November 28, 2012 · Leave a Comment
When I was a boy we made lots of our own Christmas gifts. I remember making a wooden whale for my dad that held pencils – it had little holes just the diameter of pencils I drilled into it. I must have been 8 or 9 when I made it, and I have no idea how I was able to do it without his help. Maybe it was a Cub Scout project. Not elegant, but there was lots of love in it.
As gardeners, we can make presents, too – if we have extra produce that we have put up. Dried tomatoes, pickles, even a frozen bag of blueberries or elderberries would be much appreciated, I’m sure – though putting frozen berries under the tree might not work well. And then there are heirloom seeds. I grow certain tomatoes and peppers that are not commercially available. I save seeds each year, and share with friends. These are all good presents that cost nothing.
Although seed catalogs used to come in the mail in mid-winter, now most seeds are available on-line before Christmas. A few packages of seeds are nice low-budget gift. I get many of my seeds from Johnny’s Select Seeds in Maine (www.johnnyseeds.com), High Mowing Seeds of Vermont (www.highmowingseeds.com) or Hudson Valley Seed Library (www.seedlibrary.org), which is a non-profit with nice heirloom seeds.
From Johnny’s this year I got two kinds of tomato seeds that are fairly resistant to late blight. First there was the Defiant F-1which produced well early on, but then died off when other fungal diseases took over. Then there was Mountain Magic, a small salad-type tomato that was very disease resistant and productive for me. All of the High Mowing seeds are organic, which I like.
Also in the cheap (or shall we say the ‘frugal’) category is a gift certificate for an hour or two of weeding. That’s a gift anyone would really appreciate. And feel free to send me one! Weeding is a pleasant enough task, but is always more fun if done with a friend.
Holiday Gifts
Before going on to more conventional gardening presents, let me point out that most things I will mention are available locally at your garden center, feed-and-grain or hardware store. I firmly believe that it is better to buy locally than on line, as that keeps our family-owned businesses healthy. And they are the ones that support our teams, schools and charities.
Gardening gloves are always useful. The Atlas Glove company now makes a thin, tough nitrile gardening glove that is sold for under $10. Stretchy nylon coated with waterproof nitrile. Buy them locally, or from Gardener’s Supply Company (www.gardeners.com) in a variety of pretty colors.
Also from Gardener’s Supply is a nice expandable bamboo trellis. A friend gave me one, and I used it for growing my peas. Instead of letting it touch the soil, I tied it onto posts so the bottom was 6 inches off the ground, to minimize rot. Cost? $20-$25, depending on size.
Holiday Gifts
On the high end of the spectrum would be a new wheelbarrow. The best I have found is the Muller’s Smart Cart (www. mullerscarts.com). It is a 7 (or 12) cubic foot polyethylene bin that pops in (or out) of an aluminum frame. I have the 7-ft model and have used it hard to over 10 years, yet have never had a flat tire or any other problem with it. The fact that the barrow part is removable allows me to use it to wash the dog in it or carry manure in the back of my sedan. They cost $350, with free shipping. I chose the wide tires, not the bike tires, and find them great, even in soggy conditions. This is a very high quality wheelbarrow that is rated to carry up to 600 lbs.
Every year I recommend my favorite weeding tool, the CobraHead weeder (www.CobraHead.com). This tool is great for getting under weeds, teasing out roots, stirring compost or fertilizer into planting holes, planting bulbs and more. You should be able to find it locally. Cost? About $25.
A gardening magazine subscription would be nice, too. I get Fine Gardening magazine (www.finegardening.com). The magazine has a nice balance of growing information and design ideas. Excellent color photography. $29.95.
I’ve fallen in love with TubTrugs. These are brightly colored flexible buckets I use for carrying weeds, compost and even water. From 3 Gallons to 10 gallons, their flexible handles make them easy to carry. Found locally or from Gardeners Supply in a variety of sizes and colors, around $10.
Gardening books are good gifts, but look for quality info, not necessarily glossy pictures. My website, www.Gardening-guy.com, lists about 25 good ones. Just click on the “Gardener’s Basic Library” on the top bar.
So enjoy the holidays, but remember that Santa’s elves make lots of presents. Get creative and be an elf your self!
Henry Homeyer’s new book is for children ages 8 and up. It’s called Wobar and the Quest for the Magic Calumet, and is a fantasy-adventure about a boy with a mustache – and a cougar who is his best friend. Go to www.henryhomeyer.com to learn more.
Pruning Shrubs and Hardwoods
Posted on Wednesday, November 14, 2012 · Leave a Comment
Winter is upon us. Several nights the temperatures have gone to 20 or colder at my house, and snow is in the forecast. Is it time to hibernate? Not for me, or at least not yet. I still have pruning to do. Pruning of shrubs and hardwoods like maples and oaks is best done after leaf drop when one can really see form and structure without the clutter of leaves.
Early spring blooming shrubs like forsythia, lilac, rhododendron, common ninebark and azaleas have already formed buds for next spring, and pruning will remove some. They are best pruned right after blooming, but if you didn’t do it then, you can do it now – I have been. Most hydrangeas, summersweet clethra and other late-summer bloomers will form buds next spring for blooming later on. To me it is more important to have trees and shrubs that look good all winter than to get every last blossom.
When pruning, remember that trees and shrubs do best when sunshine can reach every leaf. So thinning out branches is generally good. You should remove dead branches, and anything that is rubbing another branch. I like to remove the lower branches of most shrubs, and to take out any sprouts starting up from the roots in the vicinity of main stems. Branches aiming in toward the center of a shrub will just clutter it up, so, as the Red Queen said, “Off with their heads!”
I grow five or more kinds of willows. Willows do best in moist soil and full sun, but are very adaptable and will grow almost anywhere. They grow fast and are interesting, primarily, for their foliage. Only the pussywillow has flowers that matter, those great fuzzy things that sing “Spring is on the way!”
I’ve recently been pruning two kinds of willows: the rosemary willow (Salix elaeagnos) and a Japanese variegated willow, a cultivar of Salix integra called ‘Hakuru Nashiki’. In each case the willows stay shrubby, but tend to get a bit too tall for me. I like to keep them at a height of 8 feet or so, and that requires a trim every year or two. Other forms of willows will develop into trees 30 feet tall or more, such as the weeping willow. Most willows have relatively weak wood, meaning that their branches break easily in wind or ice storms.
Hakurua Nashiki willows in June
I grow my Hakuru Nashiki willows across the stream from my vegetable garden. A small plant will get to be 10 feet tall in 3 to 5 years. They can have very dense foliage with lots of branches starting near the ground, but I like to see some bare stem, so I prune off all the branches up to a height of 5 feet or so. You could prune them into a lollipop shape by removing all but one stem, and shaping the top into a globe, though I haven’t done that. Not yet, anyway.
By pruning the willows now I am making them pleasing to my eye, but also opening them up so that they will not hold a large snow mass. Any densely-growing shrub will hold snow and is more likely to lose branches if we get a heavy, wet snow.
I remember arriving in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, on an April day in 1982 that just happened to be a national holiday, the celebration of the Cyrillic alphabet that featured a large parade downtown. Afterwards old women dressed in black came out with twig brooms and swept the streets and sidewalks of every cigarette butt and candy wrapper dropped by the crowds. I liked those brooms – they seemed right out of a fairy tale. This year I decided to use my willow prunings to make my own twig broom.
I had an old broom so cut off the head and re-used the handle, though I could have used a sapling instead. I collected small branches from the pile I had pruned from the willows, each about 30 inches long and about the thickness of a pencil. I arranged them around the handle, overlapping the handle by a foot.
Willow broom
Making a twig broom really is a 2-person project, so I asked Cindy Heath to help me attach the wires. I had bought a small coil of #18 copper wire at the hardware store and cut 2 four-foot sections for fastening the twigs onto the handle. I have large hands, so it wasn’t hard to hold the twigs firmly in place while Cindy wrapped wire around them. When the wire was tightly wrapped 4 or 5 times around the handle, she twisted the two ends together tightly. Then we did it again farther down the handle, near the end of the twigs.
I like the broom for sweeping the front walk- it gets the leaves as well as bits of sand and gravel; so far it seems sturdy and I like the way it looks. So do some pruning, and if you have enough small branches, try making yourself a broom.
Visit Henry’s website (www.henryhomeyer.com) to learn about his new children’s book, Wobar and the Quest for the Magic Calumet.
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