January 2011

Planters Punchlines
Men's Garden Club of Wethersfield
January 2011

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Next Meeting - Monday January 24th
@ The Pitkin Community Center @ 7:00 p.m.

Club member Tom Gibson will give a presentation on the First Company Governor's Horse Guards - of which he is also a member. Spouses/guests are invited.

The troop is part of the Organized Militia of the State. Operating from its facility in Avon, the traditions of Connecticut's cavalry are demonstrably alive and kicking. Currently, the membership is some 62 active troopers and staff veterans. Twenty-two horses are ridden and cared for in addition to the requisite McClellan saddles and other equipment needed to support a troop of cavalry.

The Troop participates in civic projects, search and rescue, youth drug prevention programs, parades and other ceremonial events.

Upcoming Meetings

March 28: After almost being wiped out by pesticides, Bald Eagles have returned to the Wethersfield area along the banks of the Connecticut River. Ken Etheridge, an eagle observer for the Great Meadows Conservation Trust, will tell us how they are doing and how & where we can see them. Spouses and guests are cordially invited.

Compostable Matter
By Jim Meehan

The hardest thing about being a gardener is that people who are not gardeners actually believe that gardening is really, really hard - and that you (a practitioner of this arcane art, born with a green thumb in your mouth) know all of the tricks to make it easy.

I am standing in a Stop & Shop checkout line wearing my always fashionable, denim-blue Mens Garden Club of Wethersfield sweatshirt when a total stranger notices the club logo and says something like, "Recently I was surprised to see a leafless shrub in full bloom with pink flowers that had a strong fragrance. What could it be?"

She stares expectantly at me.

And I stare blankly back at her.

Then I quickly gather up my merchandise and move as quickly as I can to the next available line, where the new person in front of me asks "I have a houseplant that was ailing until I put it outside for the summer, and it came back to life. What should I do now that I've brought it back inside?"

I drop my items on the floor and run frantically out the door.

Actually the more time that I spend in the garden the more straightforward it seems - and the more amazed I am that any of the stuff that I do actually works.

I planted my first garden (a vegetable patch), next to my first house (a small suburban colonial), under the direction of my first (and only) wife (Marsha), with consulting support from my father-in-law (an inveterate gardener). The land that was selected for me had never been tilled.

So this became my first piece of gardening knowledge - good soil is the foundation of a healthy garden. In general, this upper layer of earth is made up of sand, silt, and clay - all mixed with varying amounts of organic matter, water and air. In our yard it was comprised entirely of impermeable clay - with rocks imbedded in it.

My mission (at least as I understood it) was to convert this obdurate substance, which was barely able to support the most meager patch of fescue, into a growing medium capable of sustaining the Garden of Eden. And I immediately threw myself into that job with all of the enthusiasm, and forethought, of a virgin buck during rutting season.

Fortunately Marsha, as she usually does, knew better. After watching my first round of fervid but futile flailing at the extra-firm terra firma she suggested that I just slow down and add a few really exotic ingredients - such as peat moss, topsoil and compost - to the mix.

For all I understood about what I was doing she might as well have suggested that I combine "Eye of newt, and toe of frog, Wool of bat, and tongue of dog, Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting, Lizard's leg, and howlet's wing."

And I would have willingly done it. Actually I still would - if she asked me to.

But she didn't. And these far-out components turned out to be readily available at our local nursery - another wondrous discovery for me.

After several hours of closely supervised deep digging, clod breaking, rock picking, and amendment adding I was given the go-ahead to plant. I did. And it grew. It was that uncomplicated - well maybe a little watering now and then - but that pretty much was it.

Since then, I have repeated this ritual several times a year, in various locations on and off of my property, for the past thirty-three years. And most times it has turned out well - and not, I suspect, just because I performed all of the prescribed steps in exactly the prescribed order.

Good thing - because that is just about all I know about gardening.

Sure I've picked up a few other specks of wisdom over the years - such as: make sure there is enough space within a bush for the birds to fly through; don't water too much; and you can cut down most perennials to within an inch of their lives, and they still will bounce back better than ever. But in general, what I learned on that first day is pretty much it.

The problem is that non-gardeners simply refuse to believe that it really is that uncomplicated.

I am back at Stop & Shop, once again wearing my MGCofW sweatshirt, working extra hard to avoid eye contact with anyone else in the store.

An unfamiliar voice comes over the loud speaker.

"Our three-year-old yellow tree peony is exactly the same size as it was when planted. While it doesn't look sick, it just has failed to thrive. Each year it has had only one flower; it's never gotten taller than 12-15". The tree peony is on the southeast corner of the house so it receives almost full sun. It's on the end of a row of regular bush peonies, which are flourishing. Does the tree peony require some special treatment (other than that given its companions)?

"C'mon buddy. You know all the insider tricks. I won't tell anyone. What's the real secret?"

Without hesitating I reply -

"Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and caldron bubble.
Scale of dragon; tooth of wolf;
Witches' mummy; maw and gulf
Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark;
Root of hemlock digg'd in the dark;
Cool it with a baboon's blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.

It's always worked for me." I say as I calmly place my items onto the conveyor belt and smile knowingly.

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Please keep reading for more examples of the hard part of gardening.

Coneflower - The Hardest Working Plant in Grow Business
By Boyd Blackwood (ezinearticles.com)

A painless garden should give you the maximum amount of garden pleasure for the minimum amount of effort. For most gardeners, the highest enjoyment of a flowering plant is the bloom time - the show.

Here's a logical way to maximize your enjoyment time without extra work: Seek out the longest-blooming and most effective plants you can find and let them do the work. (That's Painless Garden Tenet #5: Pick the best plant for the job, then nurture its nature and it will do most of the work for you.)

I've spent a lot of research time - in the library, on the web and in the garden - weighing the benefits of a myriad of flowering favorites. Here is one that truly qualifies as "hardest-worker" in most gardens - Purple Coneflower.

This classic Echinacea has been a garden stalwart for hundreds of years. A native wildflower with a range from Iowa in the Midwest, down to Louisiana and Georgia, the coneflower has adapted to climates as diverse as semi-desert to fertile grasslands.

Which means, it will grow almost anywhere you plant it, if it can get enough sun.

It doesn't require much water, isn't too bothered by pests and is one of the best draws around for butterflies and bees. It doesn't attract deer.

It reseeds and naturalizes nicely but isn't a bully.

Some gardeners deadhead coneflowers for extra flowers but - since the plant normally blooms for 4-5 months anyway - others figure why bother? Besides, the birds flock to the mature seed heads in fall.

If you do cut the flowers, they last for about a week in the vase.

Verdict: Robust; non-fussy; water-sparing; up to six months of bloom; a magnet for birds, bees and butterflies; long-lasting cut flower. What more could you ask of a flowering plant?

Oh... looks? And fragrance? Read on:

Truth told, I don't love purple coneflowers. They're reliable for sure but a little rough-looking. (Their Latin name is a reference to hedgehogs and it's an apt description of their spiny petals.) And the petals sag in a way I don't like. (An old Ozark mountain name for these plants is "droops.")

So, this year I'm trying out Echinacea Fragrant Angel, a newer, more refined white coneflower that is said to be a long-bloomer with raised petals and even has a fragrance.

Just the facts:
Purple Coneflower
Echinacea purpurea (Asteraceae)
Light: Full sun to partial shade; fertile, well-drained soil
Height: 2-3 feet
Blooms: June-October
Use: Borders, meadows, flower gardens
Propagation: Take root cuttings in the fall
Extras: Popular with bees, birds and butterflies. Medicinal qualities. Excellent cut flower with a vase life of 5 to 7 days.

Horti-culture Corner

It is deep January. The sky is hard.
The stalks are firmly rooted in ice.
- Wallace Stevens, excerpted from "No Possum, No Sop, No Taters"

Hard to Kill: Houseplants for the Inept
By MICHAEL TORTORELLO (NY Times)

For years now, my foyer has been a halfway house for indoor plants - that is, halfway between a cozy berth in someone else's home and a pauper's grave in my backyard.

A month after moving into my new home, I phoned three experts to ask what new houseplants I should draw close to my bosom and adopt as my own. They suggested plants for shady windows and plants for dry winters. They shared their best tips and their favorite catalogs. They prophesied plants that cannot be killed. Their greatest hits are below - with a star next to the indestructible plants.

Uli Lorimer... is the curator of native plants at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

WAX PLANT (HOYA CARNOSA VARIEGATA) Can't decide which window should host this sweet-flowered, thick-leafed vine? Mr. Lorimer's specimen has sprawled some 15 feet along a bamboo pole, from one window to another. The wax plant takes its style cues from "Desperately Seeking Susan": the new vines are hot pink; the flowers, patently fake. The secret to raising it to adulthood, Mr. Lorimer believes, is "to back off the water" in the winter, imitating the plant's natural dry period.

RABBIT'S FOOT FERN (DAVALLIA FEJEENSIS) A hanging basket made of wooden slats provides a comfy home for this fuzzy native of the Pacific Islands. Mr. Lorimer has encouraged his four-year-old plant to "creep around the bottom of the basket and make a kind of fern ball." In the summer, the fern swings from the branch of a peach tree in his courtyard.

BIRD'S NEST FERN (ASPLENIUM NIDUS) Mr. Lorimer could probably bring more sunlight into the house - say, if he removed the roof. Somewhat easier, from a gardening perspective, is to select a shade-loving plant like the bird's-nest fern, whose form resembles "a badminton shuttlecock" turned "upside-down." The new growth from the central rosette is chartreuse, Mr. Lorimer said; the older fronds, which may be a foot wide, are dark and shiny.

CROTON (CODIAEUM VARIEGATUM) Finally, a plant that matches everything: the whorls of brightly colored leaves can be "yellow, red, green and orange," Mr. Lorimer said. When the shrub grows large and woody, it can practically steal your date at a party. At the Brooklyn Botanic Garden's conservatory, he said, "You can see it from 50 yards away, looking through the glass."

CAST-IRON PLANT (ASPIDISTRA ELATIOR) Like vending machines and cosplay, Mr. Lorimer said, the aspidistra is big in Japan. Maybe it's the ground-level flowers that bear an unlikely eight petals - the botanical equivalent of a two-headed goat at the state fair. Or perhaps it's the plant's indifference to light and water. Ultimately, Mr. Lorimer said, you can treat this plant like a piece of furniture. That is to say, remember to dust its foot-long leaves every once in a while.

TRY THIS AT HOME Mr. Lorimer is surely too busy to run a spa for houseplants. But he does recommend pampering them with a good soak in the shower. Winter is "a hard time for plants in apartments," he said. "It's much dryer than people realize, especially if you have radiator heat."

FROM THE GREENHOUSE TO YOUR HOUSE For ferns, he occasionally shops online at Logee's Tropical Plants (logees.com), which can be visited in Danielson, Conn., in the northeast corner of the state. He also drops by the Black Jungle Terrarium Supply site (blackjungleterrariumsupply.com) to look at plants that are suited "to low light levels." And for the poison dart frogs - "on sale!" Mr. Lorimer noted.

Mike Rimland.... director of business development for Costa Farms, an international wholesale nursery

MOTH ORCHID (PHALAENOPSIS) The colors and cultivars of these popular orchids may outnumber iPhone apps. The cultivar called Baldan's Kaleidoscope is yellow with red stripes ("I'm horrible at naming colors," Mr. Rimland said); amabilis resembles a clean white kimono. Though some consumers think of these gift-plants as disposable, with enough sunlight they will flower again and may ultimately span two or three feet. "You could keep it forever - 10, 20, 30 years," Mr. Rimland said.

PEACE LILY (SPATHIPHYLLUM) Growing a peace lily for its "dark shiny leaves" might be like listening to Rufus Wainwright for the bass line. What sells this plant, be it desktop-size or six feet tall, is the cup-shaped white flower with the studded stamen. From a commercial standpoint, Mr. Rimland said, "If it didn't have those flowers, it probably wouldn't exist."

PONYTAIL PALM (BEAUCARNEA RECURVATA) Name aside, this native of arid Central America isn't a true palm, Mr. Rimland said. And the burst of long, thin leaves on top looks less like Charo than Rod Stewart (in his "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy" years). In any event, this plant is no diva, subsisting on weak light and occasional watering. "There's not a lot you need to do to it," Mr. Rimland said.

MALAYSIAN DRACAENA (PLEOMELE REFLEXA) With its thin, upright trunk and tangle of shiny green foliage on top, this Pleomele resembles a pompom noisemaker from New Year's Eve. In the winter warmth of Florida, Mr. Rimland said, plant growers "look for the reds and the purples." But the "consumer in Boston or Minnesota, stuck inside, really likes to see green."

SAGO PALM (CYCAS REVOLUTA) "You could drive a truck over it, and you couldn't kill it," Mr. Rimland said. Do we hear a challenge?

TRY THIS AT HOME Many gardeners will install a light-loving plant in an east- or west-facing window. But they may not place it close enough to the glass, Mr. Rimland said. One way to gauge the intensity of the sun is to conduct a kind of Groundhog Day test. If you put out a hand and see a shadow, "you have good light," he said.

Mark Hoover.... gossips about the quirky lives of his 878 houseplants on his blog, Plants Are the Strangest People. (plantsarethestrangestpeople.blogspot.com) PANDAN (PANDANUS

AMARYLLIFOLIUS) Screw pines like this pandan used to be popular in '70s houseplant books. "I don't know whether they became uncool," Mr. Hoover said. Pandans may grow as tall as their owners, and the oldest leaves will drop aerial roots. Popular in Southeast Asian cuisine, the toasted leaves give off a "popcorn-cake-caramel corn kind of smell."

LONG-LEAF FIG (FICUS MACLELLANDII) Most ficus trees have a "panicky" temperament, Mr. Hoover said. They drop leaves on a rumor. His long-leaf fig, by contrast, adapts to relocation as easily as an army brat. Mr. Hoover's shrub - three feet tall, with narrow, 10-inch leaves - may fruit with figs someday. Don't eat them, he said.

ANTHURIUM (ANTHURIUM ANDRAEANUM) "Some people don't like anthuriums," Mr. Hoover said, "because the spadix, if it's a pink flower, looks sort of pornographic." (Ostensibly, other people like the plant, with its fleshy spike, for just that reason.) Mr. Hoover appreciates these tropical American imports, "because I can get them to flower without having to work very hard at it."

JUNGLE DRUM (ASPLUNDIA JUNGLE DRUM ) A plant that started three years ago in a four-inch pot now boasts a leaf as big as a newspaper folio. Indeed, a relentless growth habit is one appeal of this Central American palm. If the vibrant green leaves dry out between waterings (a common complaint), Mr. Hoover recommends up-sizing to a bigger pot - say, a two-bedroom apartment.

STRAWBERRY BEGONIA (SAXIFRAGA STOLONIFERA) The botanical name sounds like a Mary Poppins tongue-twister, and the "round, grayish, scalloped" leaves are nothing special, Mr. Hoover said. He came to appreciate the survival instinct of this tiny plant when he noticed it sending out runners at the nursery - on the cold floor, beneath a table, with no obvious water or light.

TRY THIS AT HOME Mr. Hoover likes to improve the drainage for plants like cactuses and succulents - "stuff that's prone to rot if it gets too wet," he said - by mixing one-eighth-inch-diameter clay pellets with the soil. He blends about one part clay pellets (sometimes called aquatic soil or soil conditioner) with 10 parts potting soil - or, say, a handful in a six-inch pot.

FROM THE GREENHOUSE TO YOUR HOUSE Mr. Hoover accumulates most of his plants these days in swaps with his blog readers. But he window shops at Glasshouse Works (glasshouseworks.com), an Ohio-based grower.

Hard Weather - The Effects of Cold
(www.bbc.co.uk/gardening)

Nothing typifies the winter as much as snow and a hard frost, creating a sparkling white coating on all your garden plants. Although beautiful to look at, snow and frost can be a major problem for gardeners, damaging plant growth and killing tender plants.

Cold weather, particularly frost, causes the water in plant cells to freeze, damaging the cell wall. Frost-damaged plants are easy to spot, their growth becomes limp, blackened and distorted. Evergreen plants often turn brown and the leaves of tender plants take on a translucent appearance. Frost problems are often made worse where plants face the morning sun, as this causes them to defrost quickly, rupturing their cell walls.

Prevention is far better than cure, so try to minimise the damaging effects of cold on your plants:
* Avoid golden or variegated plant varieties that are often more tender.
* Choose plants that are reliably hardy in the area where you live.
* Avoid high-nitrogen fertilisers as they encourage plants to make lots of sappy leafy growth that is particularly susceptible to damage, especially early and late in the year.
* Make sure tender specimens are planted in a sheltered spot, under large trees and shrubs or against walls, give them some heat and protection during the winter.
* Ensure that plants with tender flower buds or shoots are not planted in east-facing sites.
* Leave the old growth of tender plants unpruned over the winter months. This will help to protect the central crown of the plant and take the brunt of any frost damage. If plants are cut back hard in autumn new growth could be damaged by frost.
* Cold air and frost always descend to the lowest point in a garden so avoid planting tender plants in obvious frost pockets.

Hardest Weed to Kill How to Get Rid of Bindweed
by Sam Montana (factoidz.com)

This is one weed that can kill your flowers and vegetables. Bindweed (Convolvulus arvensis) also known as wild morning glory grows as a vine and will climb up your plants and strangle them.

Bindweed starts in a small clump by itself and in a short time it will start growing in vines along the ground and up anything it encounters. You will notice these with their small white or white with pink flowers. I have seen it climb and grow so vigorously to where it has broken plant stalks, taken down plants and caused fences to lean.

The roots of bindweed can be as long as 40 feet. They can get water from your neighbors yard.

The seeds of this weed can live in the soil for many years. Sometimes roto-tilling can spread bindweeds bits of roots and seeds. When you pull bindweed you will seldom get all the roots unless the plant is very new. This causes the weed to grow in many more directions from the left over root. You can get bindweed growing into your yard from your neighbors yard.

When bindweed starts in early spring, you can see it as it grows along the ground in vines. You will have to dig it out roots and all right there. Any time after this you will never get all of the roots and it will continue to grow back. You can kill this weed naturally over time by continually cutting the vines and making sure the flowers are always cut or hoed as soon as you see them. By this continual cutting of the vines and weed as much as you can, it will eventually lose its ability to gather nutrients and die. Though it might be just a matter of time before more roots and seeds find there way into your yard.

There are some homemade sprays using alcohol, vinegar, garlic and peppers that could work to kill this. But this plant is one tough weed to get rid of and sometimes you just can't get rid of it using natural methods. Short of calling the Air Force and asking for an air strike you might want to think about using an all purpose plant killer such as Roundup. This product doesn't damage the soil but kills the plant right down through the root. The best time to spray the weed is in the fall before the first freeze when the weed is storing up nutrients for the winter and the Roundup will then go into the root system.

If you didn't spray the previous fall the second best time to spray bindweed is in early spring as the weed starts and before you plant your garden and anywhere else you see it coming up. It has been my experience that this is one of the first weeds to start growing in the early spring. During the growing season if you see more bindweed in your garden, you can use this roundup carefully.

If the bindweed is close to your plants, use rubber gloves and a small sponge or paint brush, spray the Roundup on the sponge and carefully wipe it on the bindweed without touching your flowers and vegetables. You will notice the bindweed turning brown in about a week. Roundup kills the bindweed by allowing the weed to absorb the poison into its root system through its growing vine as it does any nutrient. So make sure you get it on the leaves of the vine, but not to the point of running off.

If you see this bindweed climbing up your tomato plant for example, don't try and pull or rip it since you could also break your tomato or other plant stalks. Try and find the bindweed at the base of your plant and break the bindweed vine right there. Then you could try and unwind it from your plant or leave it and the remaining vine will die that way hopefully before strangling your plant.

Bindweed in evergreens and evergreen bushes can be especially hard to deal with. The best way is to trace the vine back down to the bindweed plant itself and cut the vine right there. There might be several different bindweed plants as their vines can grow all over the place. When you find the actual plant use the Roundup again using the above method of wiping or painting it on the weed itself.

Besides Roundup, other herbicides include Trimec, Tordon-K and products containing 2-4-D. Remember that some of these products will also kill everything else, so be careful when applying the weed killer. Use a brush or a sponge to wipe the poison on. If you are going to spray it on, do it when it is calm. You can also use cardboard to protect nearby plants.

One other note, when you dig, pull or cut the bindweed and its vines, do not throw them into your compost pile. Put them in your trash bin as these things can start growing even if you drop one on your lawn.

Good luck and may the force be with you because this is one tough weed.