Growing Wise

Gardening in Hard Times

2009-01-06T15:02:00Z

In hard times people turn to their gardens for reasons other than simple recreation and the desire to create beautiful spaces. More and more gardeners are at least considering vegetable gardens for the coming season. If you are one of them, the following factors should affect your decision making about which fruits, vegetables and herbs to raise and how many:

Space: Do you have the space for a dedicated vegetable patch? Bear in mind that most vegetables and fruits need a fair amount of sunlight to thrive and produce maximum yields. "Sunny space" can also mean a collection of pots on a sunny deck, terrace, porch or driveway. If you don't have the space for a dedicated patch, is there room in your beds and borders to tuck in a few food plants. Tomatoes, for example, need more vertical than horizontal space, and are easy to insert into established planting schemes.
Soil: If you soil is extremely compacted, heavy, sandy or otherwise difficult, it may be easier to construct raised beds or grow your vegetables in pots.
Time: Do you have the time to tend your food plants? Some varieties, like peppers and beans, need relatively little care (beyond watering and checking for pests) once they are established. Fruit trees are more complicated and often need spraying, whether you use organic or synthetic pesticides. Strawberries and berry bushes often need to be netted so that birds do not eat the entire crop.
Varmints: Do you have deer, rabbits, groundhogs, racoons or other produce-eating varmints in your area? If so, you need to protect your plants from the very beginning. Companion planting--with mints, marigolds or other plants generally disdained by wild animals--helps a little, but barriers do a better job.To protect against burrowing annimals, sink barriers down a foot in the ground around your vegetable patch. Deer fencing needs to be eight to ten feet high to keep the agile creatures from leaping over it.
End results: Do you intend to eat your harvest as it comes in or preserve it by freezing, canning or drying? If you want to preserve fruits, vegetables or herbs for the winter, do you have freezer or storage space and the appropriate processing equipment and storage containers? Do you have the time to do the appropriate processing? Freezing can be as easy as arranging raspberries on a cookie sheet, placing it in the freezer and then pouring the frozen berries into a larger container. Canning, on the other hand, is generally more involved and time consuming.

Don't let the above discourage you from raising your own food. Like any other kind of gardening, growing food crops can be intensely satisfying. Start with full knowledge of the process and you will have a head start on assuring yourself of ample (and tasty) results.

Tree-Form Forsythia

2009-01-02T14:24:00Z

For years I have jousted with the large shrubs that I inherited from the woman who owned this property before me. They are lovely, and include abelia, rose of Sharon and spirea. The problem is that if left untouched, every single one is too large for its allotted space. Since I have a hard time--psychologically and physically--tearing out a perfectly good shrub, I have learned to control my overblown beauties. Both the abelias and the roses of sharon have responded nicely to being "standardized" or clipped into tree form. Standardized shrubs give you all the flowers of their untrained relatives, but much less bulk. You can even plant shade tolerant species underneath them.

I have never grown forsythia because though it is beautiful, I simply don't have the room for another large shrub. Now, I can finally have a well-mannered forsythia by buying 'Northern Sun' already clipped and trained into tree form. 'Northern Sun' is a hybrid, with relatives that include the Korean Forsythia ovata and the European Forsythia europaea. Bred in the US, 'Northern Star' was originally developed for cold hardiness, a trait not shared by all forsythia. In addition to its other charms, it features large yellow flowers that generally bloom in April (depending on where you live).

Traditionally some people have steered away from forsythia because it is a two-week wonder--blooming beautifully in the spring and then adding little to the garden afterwards. The tree form of 'Northern Sun' provides a vertical accent to the garden; something that is valuable in every season.

Spring Blues

2008-12-30T20:47:00Z

There are some plants that I look at every spring and think, "I should have bought more of that." Somehow I never have enough tulips, but that may say more about the neighborhood varmints than it does about my buying habits. Brunnera, sometimes known as "false forget-me-not" or Siberian bugloss, on the other hand, does not generally get eaten. I have the urge to increase its numbers simply because it is so beautiful.

If you have never seen the most common species, Brunnera macrophylla, imagine flowers that are the same true-blue color and configuration as common forget-me-nots and then add appealing heart-shaped leaves. The plants grow low to the ground and prefer a relatively shady, uniformly moist situation. If they are happy, they will increase, though not nearly as rampantly as common forget-me-nots.

Common brunnera have medium green leaves, but for something really special, seek out variegated varieties like 'Jack Frost' and 'Looking Glass' (above). 'Jack Frost' has leaves that are marbled with silver. 'Looking Glass' features nearly-white leaves with green veins. Both are wonderful for lighting up dark corners. After the flowers die back, the colorful leaves remain, making the plant even more valuable in the overall garden scheme.

Once, on a visit to a botanical garden, I saw a river of brunnera planted by a small stream bed. The flowers were in bloom and the combination of the blue flowers and the running water was magical. There is always room for some extra magic in the garden.

Tomatoes and Basil Love Strawberry Jars

2008-12-29T21:31:00Z

My old blue strawberry jar officially gave up the ghost last year. Now I am going to buy a new one and I know exactly what I will plant in it come spring. A healthy cherry tomato plant will go into the wide mouth at the top and six different kinds of basil will fill up the six pockets. Basil and tomatoes are great companion plants. Both like lots of sunshine and water, and the strongly-scented basil helps keep pests off the tomato. The two taste great together as well.

With tomatoes and basil planted in one strawberry jar, I will have the beginnings of a vegetable garden in a single pot on my back porch. If only I could grow mozarella in a pot, I would have everything necessary for a perfect summer feast.

Mints and bees

2008-12-26T14:19:00Z

For the last few years, there have been all kinds of reports about the decline of bees, especially honeybees. An epidemic of parasitic mites killed many bees, and then a bizarre phenomenon called "colony collapse disorder" caused entire bee colonies to simply disappear. Since bees are critical for pollination of all kinds of plants, including major food crops, every gardener should think about bee-friendly plantings.

Some of the most bee-friendly plantings around are members of the large mint (Labiatae or Lamiaceae) family. If you are into growing herbs, try basil, thyme, oregano and any of the culinary mints, all of which will attract scores of bees. Ornamental mint family members include popular favorites like ajuga, salvia, agastache, monarda and perovskia. In my garden, both the cats and the bees are drawn to various species of nepeta. (Somehow the cats avoid being stung, but I can't figure out why. Maybe both cats and bees are too busy to notice each other!)

I can't even begin to pick a favorite mint, but this past year I have been especially taken with the blue flowered Salvia nemorosa 'May Night' (sometimes sold under its original German name, 'Mainacht" (above). Russian sage or Perovskia atriplicifolia is also among my favorites. Like most mints, it grows like a weed, but its many tiny blue flowers and gray foliage are especially ethereal and lovely.

Of course, mints also attract butterflies and, perhaps equally important to many gardeners, do not attract varmints, including deer. Planting as many mint relatives as possible is a great way of garden multi-tasking; the plants attract the good creatures, repel the bad ones and beautify the landscape all at once.

Green Thoughts: A Writer in the Garden by Eleanor Perenyi

2008-12-23T14:17:00Z

One of the nice things about the post-Christmas period is the chance that it gives gardeners to think, plan and read. If you are looking for some gardening inspiration for the long days of January and February, pick up a copy of Green Thoughts: A Writer in the Garden, by Eleanor Perenyi. Originally published in 1981, it was reissued in paperback several years ago and is still available from online booksellers and public libraries.

Green Thoughts is not a typical gardening book, in that Perenyi, a former fashion editor, magazine contributor and biographer of Franz Liszt, was an amateur, rather than a professional gardener or garden writer. She only produced one gardening book, but it is a great one.

If I had to use one word to describe the seventy-two short essays in the book, it would be "spicey". If you have ever had a very intelligent, talkative and opinionated neighbor, you will recognize the tone. Eleanor Perenyi had pronounced likes and dislikes and was not shy about expressing them. Most modern daylilies left her cold, for example, while she sang the praises of many underappreciated older plant varieties. She also spoke freely about the challenges of maintaining a garden after hours and on weekends while working full time. The topics are arranged alphabetically--from "Annuals" to "Woman's Place"-- and, because each essay is distinct, it is very easy for the reader to dip in and out of the book.

So, pick up a copy of Green Thoughts, sneak off to a quiet place somewhere with a hot beverage of your choice and dig in to some great garden writing. Eleanor Perenyi is sure to add a new dimension to your own "green thoughts".

Elms

2008-12-22T17:44:00Z

A friend and I were talking about elms (Ulnus americana) recently--mostly the lack of elms. In my home town in the northeast, the streets were once lined with these tall trees, but Dutch Elm disease killed off all but a few. Now there is hope that elms will become important landscape trees again, as breeders have taken on the task of hybridizing for disease resistance.

Ulmus x Morton, often sold under the trademarked name 'Accolade', is one such tree, bred by Chicago's Morton Arboretum. While not completely disease resistant, it has greater resistance than its forebearer, Ulmus americana.

Why keep planting elms when no hybrid is completely resistant? Because they are great trees that should not be lost to commerce. The 'Accolade' elm and other resistant varieties have a better chance if they are not part of a monoculture. In fact, the best hope for all the traditional large landscape trees--oaks, sycamores, maples, sweet gum, etc.--is mixed planting. Any time large numbers of one kind of plant are concentrated in a single area, the potential for total destruction of those plants by a specific disease or insect is much greater.

So plant an elm and be part of the movement to bring back this celebrated tree.

Flowering Crabapples

2008-12-18T13:52:00Z

I have been doing a lot of research lately on Father John Fiala (1924-1990), an Ohio priest whose horticultural passions revolved around lilacs and flowering crabapple trees. The latter seem to be an object of fascination for many people, which is probably why there are so many flowering crab varieties on the market.

It is easy to see why. The blossoms, which can be pink, rose or, white, are beautiful in the spring and can be fragrant. The trees themselves make great landscaping subjects. Not many people use the fruits to make crabapple jelly any more, though the jelly is tasty. The fruits are attractive in the fall. Birds love them, as do small children, who find them perfect for hurling at each other.

Crabapples don't have many requirements other than sun and well drained soil. If you want crabs but are afflicted with heavy clay soil, amend the soil before planting the tree.

Breeders have worked hard to develop flowering crabapples that do not have susceptibility to apple scab and other diseases that require fungicide treatments. Among the more interesting of the modern cultivars is 'Camzam', sometimes sold as Camelot. With a mature height of only ten feet, the tree is suitable for smaller spaces. 'Camzam' has pink and white blossoms and burgundy fruit. The dark green leaves also have a dark reddish tinge.

There are many choices available for those seeking small ornamental trees. Flowering crabs provide three seasons of interest for a relatively small investment of cash and care.

Making scents

2008-12-15T16:11:00Z

Soon the long months of January and February will be upon us, and it will be time to hunker down and dream of next season's gardens. One garden dimension that often get short shrift is fragrance. The following is a handy list of five fragrant plants that no garden should be without:

Lilac: Spring would not be spring without lovely, sweet-smelling lilacs. You can choose from a host of cultivars that have purple, white, blue, near-yellow or bi-colored blooms. There are even relatively small varieties like dwarf Korean lilac (Syringa meyeri 'Palibin') that work in smaller spaces. Lilacs need sun and good air circulation, plus occasional pruning. If they are happy, they will live for generations.
Old-Fashioned Pinks (Dianthus): These low-growers generally smell like cloves. They are great for pots or the front of beds or borders and like sunny to partially sunny conditions
Mock Orange (Philadelphus): While Philadelphus does not really provide more than one season of interest, the white flowers are among the sweetest-scented blossoms around. Many people liken the scent to that of orange blossoms, hence the common name. A sun lover, mock orange is available in single, double-flowered and compact forms.
Roses: Not all roses have a pronounced scent. Read labels and merchandisers' copy to make sure that you invest in those that do.
Lavender: Given well-drained soil and a sunny exposure, lavender will produce lots of sweet scented purple, pink or even white blossoms. Gardeners in northern climates should be sure to select hardy varieties. Remember that the leaves and stems of the plants are almost as fragrant as the flowers and can also be used in fragrant potpourri, sachets and arrangements.

Holiday Clippings

2008-12-12T12:33:00Z

If you are trying to save a little money on holiday decorations, take stock of the plants already in your yard. Any kind of evergreen--yew, rhododendron, pine, hemlock, arborvitae, spruce--can be used in holiday flower arrange or to "deck the halls". Cut long branches and wire them together for roping to adorn stairways or mantles. Add smaller pieces to wreathes to fatten them up. Even "nontraditional" greens like variegated euonymous can be combined with holly, winterberry holly or hypericum berries for festive arrangements or hangings.

Since I didn't get the time to prune an overgrown yew last summer or fall, I combined two jobs--pruning and gathering holiday greens--and came away with an armload of yew boughs. Armed only with clippers, a package of florist's wire and four small candles, I made an Advent wreath. I am not particularly "crafty", but the end results look pretty good.

I will also use the various boughs and branches to decorate my porch and fill the empty pots by the front door.

Going "green" can mean making the best use of the greens that you have on hand. They are free for the taking and biodegradable after the holidays are over.

In Praise of Plants

2008-12-09T22:40:00Z

Five years ago plants were in danger of becoming passe in many gardens. In some places, lovely layouts of perennials, annuals, trees and shrubs were seen as mere backdrops for "garden rooms" full of furniture and gadgets. The craze for expensive outdoor accoutrements led wealthy and even middle class people to buy individual pieces of outdoor cooking equipment that were bigger than the bathroom in my first apartment.

Somewhere along the line, even before the current economic troubles, a lot of people who bought expensive "outdoor room" furnishings began to realize that many of them were more trouble than they were worth. They had to be cleaned, maintained, stored and repaired. The carefree outdoor experience was marred by the fact that nothing was free and everything required care. Now the bad economy has put the breaks on the kinds of expenditures necessary to furnish large and complex "outdoor rooms." Maybe plants will become fashionable once more.

Plants can be showy and gorgeous, but the gardening experience is always as much about process as it is about the end result. This is why so few gardeners actually spend time sitting in their gardens. It is often much more pleasurable to install new plants, weed, deadhead or just walk around inspecting the progress of old favorites and new recruits to the garden. A perfect rose--or begonia or cauliflower--can be just as satisfying as a big new chiminea, and a lot less expensive.

If there is any silver lining in the current economic cloud, it is that people may decide to abandon the acquisition ratrace and get back to basics--like gardening.

Winter Heuchera

2008-12-06T14:58:00Z

As I have tidied up the garden for winter I have noticed that the purple-leafed heuchera have maintained their good looks, even while coated with frost or the first few flakes of snow. Of course these plants are very popular right now, and deservedly so, for their contributions to the garden during the growing season. The delicate bells in the spring are lovely and the purple leaves really add a new dimension to the garden.

In the late fall and winter, though, when everything else is dormant, the heuchera soldiers on. The rosette form of the leaves holds up and the purple color does not really fade until the leaves finally give up the ghost in the spring. By then the new leaves are bursting forth, so the show is virtually uninterrupted.

One of the beauties of this season is that the absence of abundance in the garden makes you more conscious of the plants that remain. The purple heucheras--like the popular cultivars 'Mocha' and 'Obsidian' --are really a four-season investment.

Vegetables

2008-12-04T13:31:00Z

The hottest trend in gardening right now is vegetable gardening, or, more properly, food gardening, since that term encompasses vegetables, fruits and herbs. Not since the days of the World War II "Victory Gardens" have so many people concerned themselves about growing their own food. Whether the concerns focus on food prices, carbon footprints or just great taste, experienced gardeners, novice gardeners and everyone in between will shortly be turning their thoughts towards planning and planting.

The task can be a bit daunting, however. Most food crops require sunshine, which is at a premium in many gardens. Today's gardeners tend to have smaller spaces to work with and some may wonder how much food they can raise on such limited plots. The solution to these problems is in realistic thinking and planning.

First of all, think about what you want to grow. If you are new to food gardening, grow the foods you like best. For many people, the easiest place to start is with tomatoes because they are tasty and accessible. You can grow them in the ground or in pots. You can focus on heirloom or modern varieties and choose anything from tiny, "cherry" tomatoes to big, beefy behemoths. Tomatoes can be started indoors on a sunny windowsill and transferred to the outdoors.

Basil is by far the easiest herb to grow, and it works very well with tomatoes. Peppers are also simple.

Once you gain confidence, the sky is the limit (or, probably, your property's boundaries are the limit). Eventually you may find yourself growing Swiss chard, potatoes and even a row or two of sweet corn. Like any other gardening, food gardening is good for you mentally and (especially) physically. There is something very healthy about supervising food production from seed or starter plant to table.

Spare Bulbs

2008-12-01T16:18:00Z

If you are like me, you buy too many bulbs every year. Around Thanksgiving you heave most of the remaining bulbs into the ground with a sigh of relief. However, if you are like me, more often than not, you also have a few left over. Simply keeping them until next year is not an option, so put them to good use.

If the ground is still workable, plant them--even though it is already the first week of December. Chances are they will get enough chilling to provide you with blooms next spring. You can also pot them up. Depending on the number of bulbs you have, pick a large pot or pots, fill with good potting soil and plant your bulbs. If you have a mixture of daffodils or tulips and smaller bulbs, like crocuses, save space by planting them in layers. Dig down six to eight inches for the large bulbs, cover them with a couple of inches of soil, then plant the little bulbs on top and cover those. A cross section of your planting scheme would look a little like a fruitcake.

Put your pots in a garage or other cold, sheltered spot (a screened porch or a sheltered corner right by the house). The idea is for the pots to be chilled, but not frozen solid for at least a few weeks. When spring comes, you should see the green tips popping up through the soil. After your bulbs have bloomed, you can plant them in the garden. Tulips are a little "iffy" under the best of circumstances, but daffodils, hyacinths and crocuses should return faithfully the next year.

HIps are In

2008-11-28T19:07:00Z

Most people buy roses for the beautiful blooms--which is very sensible, since not all rosebushes are lovely when they are out of bloom. Real rose lovers also consider the hips, sometimes called "heps", which are the fruit of the rose. Depending on the species and variety of rose, the hips can by tiny or cherry tomato-size and can range in color from orange to brilliant scarlet.

One of the best roses for hips is a species, Rosa moyesii. It bears pink single blossoms once a year, but its hips are its crowing achievement. Some writers have described them as flask shaped and they are borne in great numbers on a mature shrub. The color is bright red. Even if you have never seen Rosa moyesii, you would know it the minute you laid eyes on it, just because of the hips.

Rugosa roses (R. rugosa) and their hybrids often have very large (over one inch in diameter) hips, which tend to be brilliant red. The hips are full of Vitamin C and make excellent jam or jelly. Popular rugosa hybrids include the famous, fragrant white 'Blanc Double de Coubert'; (above) and the light pink-flowered 'Frau Dagmar Hartopp', more correctly known as 'Frau Dagmar Hastrup'. Whatever her name, this German lady has lovely light pink flowers, followed by big red hips. Both 'Blanc Double de Coubert' and 'Frau Dagmar Hartopp' also smell divine. The only drawback to rugosas is that they tend to be exceptionally prickly.

One of my favorite roses, Rosa glauca or the red-leafed rose, has gorgeous foliage that is reddish when young and later takes on a blue cast. The single pink flowers appear once a year, followed by pretty orange oval-shaped hips.

A Chinese rose, Rosa mutabilis, sports butterfly-like flowers that change color from yellow to pink to red as they age. The hips that follow are like exquisite tiny red beads. They look wonderful in arrangements or on the plant and last well.

Any rose can get you through the summer, but a rose with great hips can get you through fall and beyond.