October 2011

Planters Punchlines
Men’s Garden Club of Wethersfield
October 2011

Next Meeting - Monday October 24th @ 7:00 p.m.

Our speaker for October 24th will be Nick Pettit, Floriculture Greenhouse Manager at UConn. His topic will be the new floriculture facility and its history in the Plant Science and Landscape Architecture Departments.

Floriculture, or flower farming, is a discipline of horticulture concerned with the cultivation of flowering and ornamental plants for gardens and for floristry, comprising the floral industry.

Mark Your Calendar: Holiday Party
on Monday December 5th

Compostable Matter
By Jim Meehan

I am writing this in early October. My admittedly not totally accurate outdoor dial thermometer reads sixty-plus degrees. The sun is shining brightly through a virtually cloudless, Carolina Blue sky. For a variety of reasons my yard is half bathed in sunshine, half cooled by shade. In that shadiness I, one who would rather be quite hot than even a little bit cool, am comfortable in my short-sleeved tee layered under my L.L. Bean Chamois shirt. Flannel would work also. I am stalking the edges of the cool zone hoping to find a sunny spot within which to do something horticultural.

The trouble is that during this, the best time of year for gardening, there is the least to do. It was not always so.

The weather is similar to that of mid to late March, the other time of year when I am looking to warm my shoulders in the sunlight. Then I am looking under things in hopes of finding tiny green signs of what is to come when the sun becomes stronger and the days become longer.

By October all my dreams of green have gone through their seasonal fruition and, whether they know it or not, are preparing, each in their own way, for their end of year hibernation. My job now is to facilitate the process – not to rush it and have it start too soon nor to ignore it until it is too late, but (as the dictionary says) to make the process easier.

Many years ago, when I first got caught up in this whole gardening cult stuff, I would work in frenzies. On a day such as this if I spotted one resident of a flower bed in a dried-up and colorless condition then I would wreak havoc on the whole lot of them – ripping out the annuals and cutting the perennials to the ground (no matter how green the stem or vibrant the leaves).

This amped-up activity would continue until either I ran out of vegetation to victimize or the sun no longer warmed my shoulders. If it was the latter, then I stopped work and tabled the item for the next perfect fall day. When all of the beds were decimated I would go back into the house and impatiently wait for the leaves to come tumbling down so that I could go outside and work again.

Then I somehow became aware of the fact that birds, which we were attracting to our premises with feeders-full of bagged sunflower and thistle seeds, actually would eat these very same foods if they were presented to them in their natural form. Who would of thought?

So I started leaving my sunflowers etc. up for the taking until they were totally taken.

Then I came across this whole notion of autumn-interest gardens – the idea that the varicolored leaves of no longer blooming plants could provide enough aesthetic enjoyment to justify not only their retention throughout their foliage season. Who knew that in New England, of all places, ground level leaf peeping could be so enjoyable?

So I started laving my late blooming leaf perennials up for the viewing until they were totally spent.

Then I heard that even the non-edible, non-lush-leaved plants should not be cut down in autumn because they will get fooled by an Indian summer into thinking it was spring and therefore would start growing and blooming just in time to be frozen to death. Who knew perennials were dumb enough to get suckered in by a few days of warm weather?

So I started leaving all the remaining perennials up and looking ugly.

Nothing to do now except to wait for the tree foliage to fall – and then look forward to next spring when I can finally cut down all those dead plants that have grown so useless and unattractive over the winter months.

I’ve effectively eliminated one of the four seasons. Unfortunately it isn’t winter.

Horti-Culture Corner

For to garden successfully is achievement of the finest. Call it tonic, sport, science, art, if you will. But do not fail to call it adventure.
Alice T.A. Quackenbush

What Are the Best Perennial Flowers
for the Northeastern US?
By Christina Inge, eHow.com

Perennials should be the foundation of any home's garden. Available to most gardeners in a much wider variety than annuals, perennials can make or break a garden plan, adding plants of solid stature and unique colors. But choosing the right perennials for the cold climate of the

Northeast can be a challenge for many gardeners. Focusing on time-tested cold-hardy vareties can remove the guesswork from picking the right perennial flowers for the northeastern U.S.
Primroses: Believe it or not, primroses are actually a great foundation for a garden. Their early bloom time makes them a must for the Northeast, getting some color into the garden when winter is still hanging on. They are low-growing, so you'll want to plant them up front where you can see them, along walkways, on the edges of flowerbeds, and along rock walls and fences.

Available in stunningly bright colors, such as rich purples and electric yellows, they will not disappoint

Crocuses: Crocuses' early bloom makes them a mainstay in the Northeast. Grown from bulbs, they need to be planted in the fall, with ample fertilizer, to bloom well in the spring. Their color range is limited to white, yellow and purple, but that makes them no less welcome in March and April.

Lupines: Tall and bushy, lupines make a perfect alternative to flowering shrubs in smaller gardens, and are a great bedding plant in larger gardens. They come in a wide range of colors, from yellow to pink, in addition to purple, the most common color found in the wild. They do well in poor-quality soil, making them an even more attractive option for Northeast gardeners.

Echinaceas: A relative of daisies, echinacea is a medicinal plant that also produces stunning, bold pink flowers, in late summer-early fall, and can grow to be over 3 feet tall. Echinaceas do best in dry soil, and are in fact, quite able to withstand very dry weather, so they are ideal to grow in areas where outdoor water use is strictly regulated.

Asters: Also from the daisy family, asters bloom a bit later than echinaceas in the fall---often hanging on even after light frost. They are found in shades of purple, with a bright electric purple being the most commonly available in garden centers. Pale lavender asters grow in the wild throughout the Northeast.

Sedum: A succulent that grows well into the end of the growing season, sedum extends the season for many Northeast gardeners. It can withstand light frost, especially in a sheltered location, and produces small flowers, generally red or yellow. Its foliage is also attractive.

How to Plant Spring-Flowering Bulbs
Follow these simple tips in fall for beautiful results in spring.
(www.bhg.com)

Plant hardy bulbs anytime in fall before the soil freezes, but it's best to plant them early enough so the root systems can grow before extremely cold weather arrives. In some climates, you can plant until Thanksgiving, even Christmas. Late-planted bulbs will develop roots in spring and may bloom later than normal; they'll get back on schedule the following year. Water the bulbs after planting to stimulate the roots to grow.

Positioning bulbs at their proper depth helps ensure their longevity. Generally bulbs should be planted so the bottom rests at a depth that's two-and-a-half times the bulb's diameter. In well-drained or sandy soil, plant an inch or two deeper to increase longevity and discourage rodents.

Because bulbs look best planted in groups, you are better off using a garden spade instead of a bulb planter, which encourages you to plant bulbs singly. A spade makes it easier to set bulbs side by side in large groups. Plant groups of bulbs in holes no smaller than a dinner plate, or dig wide, curving trenches and position the bulbs in the bottom.
Layer different types of bulbs from bottom to top in the same hole to create companion plantings or a succession of bloom in a given location. For example, dig a 6-inch-deep hole and place several Dutch hyacinths in the bottom, lightly cover them with soil, then plant a handful of grape hyacinths at a 5-inch depth. The two types of hyacinths bloom at the same time in spring.

The grape hyacinths create a softening skirt beneath the more massive Dutch hyacinths. As another benefit, the leaves of the grape hyacinth bulbs appear in autumn and remain all winter, providing a marker for the dormant Dutch hyacinth bulbs, so you won't inadvertently plant on top of the hyacinths or dig them up.

Interplanting provides maximum flowers in the smallest space and eliminates bare spots where bulbs go dormant. To create a succession of bloom and foliage, plant perennials around the bulb holes. As the bulb foliage dwindles, the perennials will grow up, camouflaging the bulbs' yellowing leaves. This interplanting technique works in both formal and informal gardens.

The Crocus Bank
by Kathy Purdy (www.coldclimatgardening.com)

“There ya’ go, lady. All’s ya gotta do is sprinkle some grass seed and you’re all set.” I smiled and thanked the hard-hatted foreman of the highway crew, and then turned to survey the damage.

Early that autumn morning the foreman had knocked on my door, informing me that they wanted to regrade our dirt driveway so that it tipped slightly to the south and funneled water into the ditch at the side of the road instead of directly into the road. During the freeze/thaw cycle of mud season, the runoff collected in a puddle in the middle of the road and froze, creating a traffic hazard. I had no desire to see an automobile spin out of control in front of my house, so I readily agreed. Unbeknownst to me, however, they decided to do me a “favor” and regrade the southern bank of the driveway, moderating the slope so it would be easier to mow. I could see that the slope was now much shallower, but I could also see that no grass would grow there without a serious investment of work and money. The topsoil had been completely scraped away, and a few roots from the venerable maple tree growing in that corner of the property poked through. Horticulturally, it was a disaster.

The first thing I did was–nothing. We had just funneled all our financial resources into replacing our completely inadequate septic tank, and there was no money for the kind of soil renovation needed to make seeding grass worthwhile. And with a four-month-old baby plus six other children aged eleven and under to get ready for my sister’s wedding, I didn’t exactly have a lot of spare time in which to tackle the project. I was curious to see what would grow there on its own, and I was hoping the fallen leaves from the maple would make a start on the road back to fertility. I also thought that maybe, just maybe, I didn’t want to grow grass there. It wouldn’t hurt to think it over during the winter.

Can you see me writing to the question-and-answer column of a gardening magazine: “Dear Horticultural Expert, please tell me what plants will grow in clay subsoil. Yours truly, Incredibly Naive.” At least I knew enough to know that I didn’t know much. I read garden books and magazines voraciously while breastfeeding and throughout each winter, hoping to find the magic solution. In the meantime, the weeds grew and the leaves fell in their season, and the mown weeds and the fallen leaves were left in place to enrich the soil.

Finally, an article from the May 1990 issue of Fine Gardening about growing small bulbs in a buffalo grass lawn inspired me. Crocus, it seems, originally grew on the arid steppes of Asia. They expect drought in the summer and they don’t need fertile soil to survive. Well, why not, I thought. I’d certainly felt the need for more spring color, and the White Flower Farm catalog had the most seductive photos. Their prices were rather less seductive, however, and I decided to imitate their blue and white crocus collection by purchasing the bulbs from a more reasonably priced merchant. In 1994 I bought 70 Princess Beatrix, 35 Violet Queen, 48 Snowbunting (fragrant), 30 Queen of the Blues, 30 Snowstorm and 45 Striped Beauty for a total of 258 bulbs.

It sounded like a lot of bulbs to me, and I was sure they would cover the bank, so I dutifully planted them 2 to 3 inches apart, as recommended by yet another bulb catalog.

Much to my chagrin, when I was all done only a third of the slope was planted. I had never even attempted calculating the square footage of the area I wanted to cover. Having learned my lesson, I tried to come up with an approximate square footage for the irregularly shaped area, and in 1996 I planted 200 mixed crocus, 50 Bluebird, 100 Prinses Beatrix,100 Miss Vain (fragrant), 100 Violet Queen for a total of 550 more bulbs. This time I also planted 50 bulbs of Tulipa bakeri ‘Lilac Wonder,’ which I thought would also do well and would extend the season. I have to admit, I did kind of fall for the White Flower Farm catalog copy, which described this tulip as looking like “a sweetly pink Crocus that arrived too late to the party.”

But, once again, I didn’t buy it from them. I am so cheap (frugal? thrifty?). It was that same character trait which prompted me to buy the mixed color crocuses. Per bulb, they were much less expensive than the named varieties, and I figured I could dig the yellow ones out and replant them elsewhere, and still come out ahead. In the end, I decided to keep them there. The blues and the whites tend to disappear against the background of dormant vegetation, but the little zings of golden yellow grab your attention and focus it on the whole planting.

Planting these little bulbs was definitely a labor of love. I could only plant after a good soaking rain, otherwise the subsoil was impossible to penetrate. I used a sturdy dibble and bore down on it with my weight while rotating it to drill a hole. Ironically, I was delighted to come across small rocks; they actually made the job easier. I would take one of those forked dandelion weeders and pry the rock out, and use the cavity as my planting hole. Once I dropped a corm in, I stuck my thumb in the hole and made a “C” with my thumb and forefinger. Where my index finger landed, that’s where I planted the next one. Six hundred bulbs, one at a time. It did get tedious. What kept me going was not wanting to waste the money I’d spent (frugality rears its ugly head once again), and the memories of cabin fevers past. And, of course, with the second batch, I had the vision of how nice the first 250 flowers looked to urge me on. I also harbored the secret hope that someday a total stranger would pull over on the side of the road and tell me how much they appreciated them.

If you are familiar with crocus varieties you will know that I planted both the earlier blooming species crocus and the larger but later Dutch crocus. At peak bloom most of both kinds are blooming (this might not be so further south with a longer spring) and the effect is glorious. On a warm day you can catch a tantalizing whiff of the fragrant varieties and the bees are ecstatically buzzing from blossom to blossom. In late afternoon they are backlit by the sun and especially enchanting.

The crocuses have been a good start, but at this point I don’t feel that the problem of the slope has been solved. It has filled in, on its own, with grass and weeds to point that it resembles the rest of what passes for a lawn in these rural parts. I am at a crossroads: I have to decide if I just want my big display of crocus and then maintain it as part of the lawn, or if I want it planted with something more decorative all the time. Right now I have a foot in both camps, and the results look as ambivalent as I feel. The ‘Lilac Wonders’ are pretty, but they bloom so much later than the crocus that the grass has grown up six inches around them, and you can’t see them when they’re blooming. And then you have to wait for the foliage to die down before you mow. If
I’m going to keep them there, I should get rid of all the grass and plant the slope intensively with ornamentals, otherwise it’s going to look unkempt for at least as long as it looks terrific.

On the other hand, I read an article by Brian Bixley (“The Search For a Mowable Ground Cover,” Horticulture May ’99, pp. 64-66) on his approach to taming a difficult-to-mow area. He planted a combination of colchicums with Geranium himalayense and G. endressii. The groundcovering geraniums provided bloom and foliage generous enough to hide the dying colchicum leaves. In late summer he mowed down the geranium foliage so that the display of colchicum blossoms was unobstructed. The geranium foliage grew back as the colchicum flowers died off. I tried sticking some rooted pieces of Geranium sanguineum in a few places on the slope as an experiment. They hung around for one growing season, maybe two, and then disappeared from sight. I am not sure if the lawnmower got them, or drought, or if they just got choked out by the surrounding vegetation. (Bixley killed off all his grass with Roundup before planting his geranium seedlings, but I didn’t have the courage to do that. Also, he has free-draining soil versus my clay subsoil, so I’m not sure what would be the best geranium for my situation.) I had plenty of surplus colchicums on hand, and I interplanted them with autumn flowering Crocus speciosus in one spot.

Much to my surprise, the crocuses bloom after the colchicums, but they both looked mighty cheerful in the fall. I love the idea of the whole slope spangled with the lavender-pink colchicum blooms in the fall, but colchicum leaves take even longer to die down in spring than the tulip leaves, so I’m back to the problem of an unmown bank for all of spring and a good part of summer unless I can figure out how to get the geraniums to grow. I’m back to the modus operandi that I started with in the beginning: until I’m certain what I want to do, I’ll do nothing.

Except, of course, to enjoy the crocuses this spring.

Cold Hardy Perennial Flowers
By Kelly Andersson, eHow.com

Hardy perennials, which, by definition, return year after year, will survive harsh winters---some even without mulch or other protections. The downside, according to Clemson University Extension Service, is that many winter-tough perennials won't thrive in long, hot summers.

Choosing hardy perennials well suited to your conditions will increase chances of long-lived blooming plants in your yard.

Groundcovers: Many groundcover perennials will survive hard winters and spread each year.
Alpine rock cress grows 6 to 12 inches high with early-spring, pinkish-white blooms; it does best in full sun. Excellent for rock gardens, rock cress complements a planting of spring bulbs.

Creeping phlox is low growing and blooms in mats of flowers early in the spring. A rapidly spreading perennial, creeping phlox is available in a range of colors. Tiarella, also known as foam flower, prefers shady spots and puts up spikes of pink blooms in late spring.

Shrubs/Foliage Plants: One of the best known hardy perennials, basket-of-gold is a shrubby yellow perennial sometimes called gold dust. It grows up to 12 inches and blooms from mid-spring through early summer. It needs full sun and dry, well drained soil; according to the North Dakota State Extension Service, many hardy perennials are subject to root rot in poorly drained soil. Another sun-loving perennial, blue dogbane, blooms in early summer, with light blue flowers on 3-foot plants.

For shady areas, the large-leafed ligularia, also known as golden groundsel, blooms with daisy-like flowers in leafy clumps. Another hardy perennial, sea holly blooms with blue and grey-green flowers beginning in mid-summer. Sea holly can grow up to 4 feet, with large, attractive leaves; it prefers full sun. Gayfeather, also known as liatris, attracts butterflies and bees; it has grassy foliage and flowers in late summer with feathery spikes of pink, purple or white blooms.

Shade-Tolerant Hardy Perennials: In shady gardens, astilbe blooms in early summer and will grow from 1 to 4 feet tall. A small and pretty hardy perennial that will grow just about anywhere is yarrow---it grows wild in many areas of the country and will bloom and re-bloom in the harshest conditions. Another classic perennial, the bleeding heart is far more hardy than its delicate blooms would suggest. It does well in shaded areas and survives for years if well established. Penstemon, popular in many northern gardens, is available in many colors and varieties---check for shade tolerance for the varieties you choose.

Tall Bloomers: Veronica, sometimes called speedwell, blooms in early summer and is available in several varieties. Another blue perennial with notable hardiness is May Night salvia; it grows up to 3 feet and blooms all summer. If you love foxgloves but they won't survive in your area, try monkshood---it puts up tall spires late in the summer with deep blue flowers that attract butterflies and bees.

Horti-Culture Corner (Bonus)

It should be said, though without any intention of adding to the world’s already adequate store of guilt, that the average gardener is surprisingly lazy and, not to split hairs about it, pig-headed.
Henry Mitchell

One Bad Gardening Joke….

Two friars are having trouble paying off the belfry, so they open a florist shop.
Everyone wants to buy flowers from the men of God so business is quickly booming.
The florist across town sees a huge drop in sales and asks the two friars to close their shop, but they refuse.
A month later the florist begs the friars to close because he’s having trouble feeding his family.
Again, they refuse, so the florist hires Hugh McTaggert.
Hugh is the roughest, toughest thug in town and is hired to “persuade” the friars to close.
Hugh asks the friars to close their florist shop.
When they refuse, he threatens to beat the crap out of them and wreck their shop every day they remain open, so they close.
This proves once again that Hugh and only Hugh can prevent florist friars. ~

…deserves another

I left packet a of seeds in my pocket and my coat turned into a Chia jacket.