Growing Wise : deer resistant planting

MIscanthus Decisions

Elisabeth — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 14:10:00 GMT

Today I started the annual barbering of my giant miscanthus or Chinese ribbon grass. Miscanthus has been a darling of horticultural fashion for about ten years now and with good reason. It is tall (eight to ten feet) and handsome, with feathery fall inflorescences that also provide winter interest. Most of the popular varieties are variegated, with either vertical or horizontal stripes on the long blades. Deer find miscanthus unpalatable because of the blades' sharp edges.

But this year I face a miscanthus conundrum. Should I dig it up and relocate it (or donate it to a fellow gardener) or should I leave it in place? It is taking up some valuable space that I could use for more of my beloved roses. It gets more enormous every year and now every summer I have to corral it with rope to keep it from flopping over the adjacent path. The miscanthus is also overdue for routine division to control its girth.

On the other hand, it is very healthy and requires almost no care (except for barbering). It will undoubtedly be hard to dig up. The inflorescences are beautiful, either outside or in dried arrangements.

Fortunately for me, the job of barbering takes a fair amount of time, giving me ample opportunity to consider the miscanthus' fate. I am sure that the spring sunshine will help clear my thinking.

Mints and bees

Elisabeth — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 14:19:00 GMT

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.

Pink Daffodils

Elisabeth — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 14:30:00 GMT

Every few years the color pink becomes fashionable in gardening. Most of us, however, don't really have the money to be slaves to fashion, so we stick with the colors we like. Many of us like pink, so we invest in pink roses, peonies, daylilies and mums. About now, some of us are even thinking about pink daffodils.

The problem with pink daffodils is that despite the appearance of the flowers portrayed in the catalogs, the vast majority--if not all--of them are not really pure pink. Most have a touch of yellow, making them closer to apricot than pink. This is fine, as long as you are not expecting something else.

The first "pink" daffodil, 'Mrs. Backhouse', came along in 1921. Bred by Englishman Robert O. Backhouse, it was named for his wife and fellow daffodil breeder, Sarah Elizabeth. The cup of each flower is apricot and the blossoms are graceful and lovely. Later in the twentieth century, 'Salome" was introduced. Like 'Mrs. Backhouse', it has white petals and an apricot/coral cup, but the trumpet is even longer. Another favorite pink is 'Chromacolor', again with white petals and a "pink" trumpet that is somewhat more intensely colored than that of 'Mrs. Backhouse' or 'Salome'.

The trick with any pink-cupped daffodil is to plant it in light shade, as too much sun washes out the pink color.

If you are a purist about pinks, chances are pink daffodils will disappoint you. But if you can accept these lovely flowers as they are and plant them in masses, they will make a gorgeous garden display.

Alliums for Spring

Elisabeth — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 12:39:00 GMT

Everyone I speak to lately has deer problems. People in suburbs that have never had deer suddenly find bucks in the front yard chomping on the daylilies and does in the back munching on the hostas. If you can't afford deer fencing (or are still saving up to buy it), the best thing to do is plant species that deer find distasteful. For the spring garden there is nothing like allium, which you should be buying and planting about now.

Alliums are onrnamental onion plants, and they can work in both formal planting schemes as well as cottage gardens. Kids and adults love the big 'Globemaster' variety, that stands almost three feet tall and has big, round purple flowerheads--sometimes as much as ten inches across. For contrast, mix your 'Globemasters' with an even taller white allium like 'Mount Everest'. If you have a container garden, try the shorter 'Blue Drumstick', which has the same round flowerheads on two-foot stems. The flowers are a lovely sky blue.

Alliums look great in the garden and in arrangements and the spent flowerheads even look good after the blooms are gone. For a lovely deer-proof planting, mix them with an array of daffodils. The deer may come and go, but you can still have a great spring garden.

Investing in the Future

Elisabeth — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 21:15:00 GMT

I always plant bulbs with my fingers crossed. After all, every time you plant a bulb, you are taking a leap of faith. Nobody other than a gardener would buy a lifeless looking brown or gray thing, bury it under four or six or eight inches of soil, mark the spot (or not), ignore it up to six months and then expect spectacular results. Not only are those unborn tulips or daffodils or crocuses on their own, but during a portion of that time the soil will probably be hard as a rock and covered with snow, sleet or ice. Even when the ground isn't frozen, the slumbering bulbs will be at risk of being eaten by a hungry bunch of predators including mice, squirrels, groundhogs, and, if the bulbs last long enough to sprout, rabbits and deer.

But watching new life arising from the earth is one of the great joys of spring, so I, like many people, try to improve my bulbs' chances of survival. We don't have deer in my neighborhood yet, but we do have all kinds of other bulb-loving beasts. To foil them, I usually dig trenches, rather than individual holes, and interplant the tulips with daffodils or alliums, which the plant predators find distasteful. I sprinkle chopped mint leaves or chives or cayenne pepper over the tops of the filled-in trenches because the same animals reputedly don't care for the strong scents of those herbs. If I am planting in a part of the garden that is heavily browsed by digging animals, I even cover the newly dug area with a temporary blanket of landscape cloth or wire mesh, weighting it down and leaving it in place for a few weeks until the animal-magnet smell of fresh earth subsides. In the spring I spray my sprouting treasures with a deterrent spray to make them less desirable.

Of course, depending on your circumstances, you may also have to plant your bulbs in specially made critter-proof boxes, include sharp gravel in the planting holes, or put all your bulbs in an area that is completely surrounded by both a deer fence and a barrier that extends a foot down into the ground. Just as the animals are impelled by a biological imperative to seek out food, plant lovers are impelled by the psychological need to make things grow. In the end, a gardener's just got to do what a gardener's got to do.