November 2011

Planters Punchlines
Men’s Garden Club of Wethersfield
November/December 2011
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HOLIDAY PARTY TIME! (In lieu of Nov/Dec Meetings)

The annual club Holiday Party will be held on
Monday December 5,
5:30 – 9:00 p.m.
@ the Solomon Welles House, in Wethersfield.

Catered Food, Drink, Fellowship, and
Entertainment by the Wethersfield High School Choraleers.

Spouses/guests are cordially invited.
$15.00 per person ($30.00. per couple).

RSVP to President Tony Sanders at 860.529.3257
by Sunday November 20.

WESTON ROSE GARDEN “WINTER OVER”
Saturday November 26 @ 8:00 a.m.

Roses will be pruned back and the garden will be raked, weeded and covered with compost in preparation for the upcoming cold weather. All hands are welcome. BYO tools.

Compostable Matter

By Jim Meehan

Good evening everyone. And welcome to the first meeting of the B.B.B.F.F.B.F. – the Burning Bush Best Friend Forever Benevolent Fellowship.

I apologize for the cold, dark accommodations but being as we are an advocacy group for an officially declared invasive plant and therefore of necessity an underground organization we will be holding all of our gatherings in this abandoned root cellar at an undisclosed location on the once active Wilkus Farm property.

It is especially fitting that we meet now as this is the time of year when Euonymus alatus compactus is in its glory – displaying its spectacular red fall foliage for all to see, putting to shame those other pretenders at autumnal flamboyance such as Hosta, Bloody Geranium, Ferns, Switchgrass, Blue Star and Peony.

I ask you – is this ostentatious exhibition the behavior of an invasive? (One of Connecticut’s Top ten in fact)

And I answer, as any intelligent adult would respond (while lying on my back and pounding my hands and feet on the ground) – “No! No! No! No! No! No!”

So what is an invasive anyway? To me it is something that (a) silently sneaks into an area, (b) blends in with its surroundings, then (c) slowly and insidiously takes over.

Does BB meet those criteria? Here is what the DCNR Invasive Exotic Plant Tutorial on state.pa.us says about it.

(a) “Winged euonymus was [intentionally] introduced into the USA from northeastern Asia about 1860 for use as an ornamental shrub. [It did not arrive furtively on the underside of a wooden shipping pallet nor did hide in the hold of a tramp steamer and crawl onto shore.]

(b) This shrub is one of the great beauties of the autumn season. [Admittedly though the rest of the time the BB lives in relative anonymity.] It is best left unpruned although it can be cut back if you have space issues. The shrub is not at all fussy about soil requirements (except for excessive wet areas) and it has no significant pest problems. It also transplants very easily. It is truly a maintenance free shrub. [It can be seen in at least two or three yards on every street in Wethersfield.]

(c) While it behaves well in suburban areas, burning-bush planted near woodlands, mature second-growth forests, and pastures can be a problem. It has escaped from cultivation in the Northeast and Midwest, notably in Connecticut, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Illinois. The earliest evidence of naturalized populations of winged euonymus in eastern Pennsylvania dates from the 1960s. Today it is found with increasing frequency in moist forests throughout eastern counties.”

But whose fault is this alleged infestation? Do the little BB seeds tiptoe in the dark away from their suburban homes and into the surrounding woods? I don’t think so!

Seeds do fall rather prodigiously near the base of the plant, leading to more little BB’s clustered around the mother bush. Other BB seeds are spread by birds, which are attracted to them by their nutritious, fleshy, red covering. Seeds dispersed this way germinate easily and spread rapidly.

But whose fault is this? Can the BB help it if birds of all feathers are fatally attracted? (“Don’t blame me for being beautiful.”) It’s just a simple evolutionary device for preserving the species. It’s the birds that go overboard.

B.B.B.F.F.B.F. says “B.B.N.B.B. (Ban Birds Not Burning Bushes)”.

Top Ten Reasons That Gardening Is Better Than Sex
http://www.gardenersnet.com

#10 - Nobody will ever tell you that you will go blind if you garden by yourself.

#9 - When dealing with a gardening pro, you never have to wonder if they're really an undercover cop.

#8 - You don't have to go to a sleazy shop in a seedy neighborhood to buy gardening stuff.

#7 - You can have a gardening related calendar on your wall at the office.

#6 - There are no gardening-transmitted diseases.

#5 - No one objects if you watch the gardening channel on television.

#4 - Nobody expects you to garden with the same person your whole life.

#3 - Nobody expects you to give up gardening if your partner loses interest.

#2 - You don't have to be a newlywed to plan a vacation primarily to enjoy your favorite activity.

#1 - Your partner will never say, "Not again? We just gardened last week! "

Winter doldrums?
Experts offer ideas for green thumbs to keep busy while waiting for spring
By Mary Beth Breckenridge aarp.org

Winter brings a long layoff for gardeners -- too long for some. There are only so many gardening catalogs to page through, only so many planting schemes to dream up. After a while, you just want to get your hands dirty. We have some suggestions.

These gardening activities can be pursued even when the temperature doesn't break freezing. They may not fill the void till spring, but they're enough to keep you busy on a few chilly weekends.

Seed a lawn: You read that right. Believe it or not, winter is a good time to spread grass seed -- the second-best time after fall, argues Denny McKeown, a Cincinnati-area nurseryman and author whose books include "The Gardening Book for Ohio" and "Month-By-Month Gardening in Ohio."

Melting snow assures good seed-to-soil contact, McKeown explained, and the freeze-thaw cycle heaves the soil and works the seeds down into it. The seeds will germinate when the soil warms, but that soil will still be moist enough to supply the water needed as the seeds sprout and grow, he said. Some advise spreading the seed right on top of the snow, but McKeown doesn't recommend that. "You don't know where the grass seed's going," he said. Instead, he suggests spreading seed when the snow is melted. Remove any fallen leaves or debris, and just spread the seed right onto the existing lawn or bare soil.

Andrew Pratt, grounds manager at Cleveland Botanical Garden, cautions you may lose some seeds to birds or rot. But McKeown sees that as a bonus. Most people plant too much seed, he said, so that's just a way for nature to do the thinning.

Plant a terrarium: Terrariums -- gardens in glass containers -- are back in style, said Betty Howell, co-owner of House of Plants Florist in Akron's Merriman Valley. So if you can't plant a garden outdoors, why not create a miniature one indoors?

Terrariums are no longer limited to aquariums with lids, Tovah Martin notes in her book The New Terrarium. Vases, bowls, glass domes called cloches and even canning jars make good containers.

Terrariums don't have to be closed, either, Martin says. A container with an open mouth will still help contain humidity to a degree.

If you use an open container, Howell recommends choosing one with an opening that's 5 or 6 inches wide -- big enough to fit a hand inside.

Choose plants that like shade, tolerate high humidity and won't grow too large, Martin advises.
You don't have to limit yourself to houseplants. Nursery-propagated wildflowers are a good choice, Martin says. So are woodland plants such as moss or ferns that you collect outdoors, provided they're not endangered and you have permission to take them.

You can either plant them directly in the terrarium or in pots. A single small pot elevated on a base of seashells or glass beads is an elegant look.

If you plant directly in the container, Martin recommends putting a layer of small pebbles or gravel mixed with activated charcoal below the soil. If you like, you can top-dress the soil with more pebbles.

Upkeep is minimal. Water very lightly, remove yellowed or damaged leaves, get rid of mold as soon as you see it, and rotate the terrarium occasionally so all parts are exposed to light. You don't need to fertilize, Martin says.

Start garden seeds: Tired of growing the same old stuff? Starting seeds indoors is a way to supply yourself with vegetables and flowers you might not find at the garden center. Many garden centers sell seed-starting kits that can get you started. Pratt likes to start seeds in his basement in a container placed on a heated mat, with a shop light fitted with a cool white fluorescent bulb positioned about 4 feet away from the soil. He uses a timer to keep the light on about 12 hours a day.

But it's also possible to start even more simply. The seed packet will give you specifics on when and how to plant, but in general, sow the seeds in small containers filled with soilless potting mix that you've already moistened with water. Cover the containers with clear plastic -- or opaque if the seed packet specifies the seeds should germinate in darkness -- and set them in a sunny window where it's warm enough for the seeds you're growing.

Uncover the containers every day to check for growth, and spritz the plants if necessary to water them without disturbing the seeds. Don't let the soil dry out. As soon as you see the first signs of growth, crack the plastic covering for a day to let in air. The next day, remove the plastic for good. For the first couple of days, keep the soil moist, then continue to water as needed. Start feeding the plants a weak solution of a soluble fertilizer once they get their first set of true leaves. Those leaves will look different from the tiny oval or rounded seed leaves the plant will produce initially. If necessary, thin out some of the seedlings so the rest have room to grow.

Bring the outdoors in: Even when the garden is asleep, there's beauty to be found. Pratt likes to bring some of that show indoors to brighten his home in winter.

Walk around the yard and take clippings of anything you find attractive, and arrange those branches in a vase as you would cut flowers, Pratt suggested. Winterberry, pine, lacecap hydrangea and Japanese maple are good choices, but choose anything that catches your eye, he said.

You can also force some branches into blooming early inside your home. Any spring-flowering tree or shrub is a candidate, although woody plants with smaller flowers usually open their buds more fully than plants with larger flowers. Suggestions include forsythia, crab apple, flowering cherry, flowering pear, redbud and red maple.

Just take cuttings and then recut the stems underwater when you bring them inside to keep air bubbles from forming inside and blocking the uptake of water. Then put the cuttings in a vase and wait -- and hope. The buds may or may not open, but you lose nothing by trying.

Do some weeding: OK, weeding isn't most gardeners' favorite chore. But weeding now can save you work in the warmer months, noted Denise Ellsworth, a horticultural educator with the Ohio State University Extension's Summit County office.

Weeds can pop up in your yard and garden even in winter, she said. When a thaw exposes them, get out and pull them. Many of them can flower and set seed even in the cold, she said, so removing them as quickly as you can will thwart their spread.

Chasing Away the Winter Doldrums
By Honey Sharp, Master Gardener www.wmassmastergardeners.org.

With all their delicate lights, flickering candles, majestic trees, and decorations of all shapes and sizes, Christmas and Chanukkah are geared to bring new life to the darkest days of the year. A tree is hauled into the house and suddenly the garden has moved indoors.

As December rolls away though, winter hangs on with a firm grip in good old New England. To continue to enjoy light and color, it’s wise to think and plan ahead. Sure, one can simply go out and buy flowers, and they bring immediate satisfaction. A more gradual enjoyment emerges when, as in planting bulbs in the fall and discovering their magical appearance six months later, one experiments with bulbs indoors.

Nothing chases away the winter doldrums like a colorful, creative, and freshly scented indoor garden. Exotic white and purple speckled orchids, gnarled bromeliads showing off hot pinks, delicately scented jasmine and elegant agapanthus are all splendid additions to the bay window looking out on a snow covered yard. Such an approach might possibly back-fire; the longing will grow more intense for that much awaited trip to Costa Rica or South Africa.

For a more local look that might help keep you put - and prove far less costly - consider getting a new lease on life by forcing bulbs. Although “forcing” may sound drastic, it’s as commonplace and as satisfying as feeding the birds. And, unknown to most, the majority of bulbs (excluding narcissus paperwhites) can later be exported to the garden.

Successfully enjoying a bulb in the winter requires tricking it into believing it has experienced a winter cycle and is ready to think spring. One might say, its clock is not all that reliable since it is content to make an appearance earlier on. The crucial ingredient here is the perception and experience of winter. Years ago, I would throw some bulbs into a soil mix and expect display - pronto. Much to my chagrin, few if any appeared.

Darkness and an ideal temperature range of 38 to 50 degrees are what make it all possible. Ideal environments might include that extra refrigerator in the basement, although the basement itself could work if it is cool and dark. If left out in the garage, a leaf bag stuffed with leaves for insulation and also protection from critters can work too. The bulbs should never be allowed to freeze though. Keep them safely above 38 degrees.

Still, according to Master Gardeners, a cold frame adjacent to the house will do just fine. Make sure to elevate the pots so they won’t freeze to the ground. Also ensure that those potted bulbs are protected from rodents targeting them for a winter feast.

Should you simply place them in a bag in the refrigerator for a few months? This can work if you’re not in a hurry to enjoy them. Otherwise, pot them first and, depending on the bulb, they should come out between six and ten weeks.

When potting, use sterile potting soil and clean pots. Place a small crock (stone) at the bottom for proper drainage. Fill them half-way or so with moistened soil. The amount of soil depends on the size of the bulb. A general rule of thumb is to place the bulb in soil 2 to 3 times the size of the bulb. In a pot they don’t require the depth of a garden planting. In your multiple plantings, put them one bulb’s width apart. And make sure to let the tip protrude a little bit over the soil.

After completing this process, place the pot in its cooler home for their winter season. Called “sleeping”, it really isn’t. The bulbs are actively growing their root system and beginning to send shoots upwards. Hey, we also grow while we sleep.

What bulbs to choose? That’s the fun part. Be creative and look for inspiration from some of the fancy catalogues that are coming out now.

No matter which bulbs and color combinations you pick, choose healthy and firm bulbs - just like you would good potatoes. Typical bulbs for forcing include hyacinths, daffodils, and tulips. Since they are larger, they require a longer period of cold storage than smaller bulbs such as crocus, muscari or grape hyacinths, snowdrops, and galanthus. These require only six to eight weeks. Still, you can apparently do both although you may need to compromise a bit - i.e. some will fade before others appear and you may need to clean up the pot a bit.

When the flower spikes or the green shoots are an inch or two high, bring them into your home environment. Also, don’t place them in bright sunlight. You would be giving them a shock they won’t forgive you for! Water them and add a little fertilizer if they are looking pale or weak.

When it comes to combining various sized bulbs in the same pot, I’ll be honest: I am still a bit perplexed. If you’re new at this, go for the easier ones first like narcissus or paperwhites. They have such strong rooting action that they will perform well even in pebbles or water. Fancy catalogues may show wonderful red, white, and blue combinations (well, maybe that was last year) with muscari, narcissus and tulips, but, as usual, the reality is slightly different... So, if you’re just embarking on an indoor bulb garden, stick with similar sized bulbs for each individual pot.

A fun thing to try, especially if you have young children, is to grow a hyacinth in a special water container designed to hold a bulb. Viewing the roots is a delight for all. Amaryllis is another you can enjoy as a single bulb. The Christmas flowering varieties from South Africa bloom in four to six weeks. The Royal Dutch Hybrids take twice as long.

More exotic bulbs - perhaps those you didn’t get a chance to put in the ground last fall - such as alliums, fritillaria and camassia can also be forced. Remember, the larger the bulb, the longer it should be tricked into believing it’s experiencing a winter season.

Finally, all kinds of containers can make the simple clay or plastic pot more attractive. Baskets of all sizes and shapes, various clay or wooden containers or trays that will liven up the pots will add extra pizzazz to the whole picture.

As a last word, if you want to preserve your bulbs to plant when the ground thaws in April or May or June, simply let the leaves keep growing while you board that plane for San Jose or Capetown and then plant it when the ground has thawed. Alternatively, you can dead-head it, water it lightly untill July, and then put it in the basement till October for another round next year.

Winter Worms Inside & Out
Sally Voris: Frederick County Master Gardener http://emmitsburg.net

Why start a worm bin?

Worms recycle kitchen scraps into high quality fertilizer. A worm bin, well maintained, takes up little room, smells less than a cat litter box, reduces and recycles your household waste and involves you and your whole family in the restorative cycle of nature.

I have three full-sized bathtubs full of worms at White Rose Farm. When I need fertilizer for my gardens, I pour water through the tubs and collect what comes out the drain. Hugh Lovel, a biodynamic farm consultant, recommended this liquid, known as worm exudate, as a premier natural fertilizer. It is free, rich in nutrients, well balanced and complex.

Another friend has had a sherbet-sized tub of worms on her kitchen counter all winter. She has fed the worms with kitchen scraps and watched enthralled as tiny baby worms-each smaller than a grain of rice--begin to wiggle.

In her book, Worms Eat My Garbage, Mary Appelhof provides a straightforward guide to setting up worm bins. She recommends that one build or buy a worm bin based on how much food one wants to recycle every week. Track how much kitchen waste your family generates in a week and then plan on one square foot of worm-bin surface for each pound of garbage.

She recommends red wiggler worms because they eat a lot of garbage, reproduce quickly and do not mind being disturbed every week. They are readily available by mail order and often those who already have worms are happy to share their wealth with others. A friend shared a quart-sized freezer bag full with me last February. I gave her some in August and now we both have plenty.

Red wigglers are surface feeders and will gradually work their way up through your kitchen scraps. Their habits are markedly different than worms active in the soil in this area. Those worms burrow deeply, come to the surface at night and do not like being disturbed. They may be great for fishing, but not for worm bins.

Red wigglers need a container with ventilation, a moist bedding material, food, and moderate temperature. Most people pick a place that is close to their kitchen but somewhat out of the way-a porch, a garage, a basement or a balcony for apartment dwellers. It helps to have a place where minor odors won't be overwhelming and where harvesting the final compost will not create undue mess.

For bedding material, one can use old newspapers torn into strips or shredded paper. Appelhof recommends adding meat waste and bones judiciously or not at all to reduce foul odors and to prevent attracting flies, mice, ants or rats. Do not add pet feces, she states firmly, and if you add rubber bands or other nonbiodegradable materials, plan to see them even as everything else in the bin breaks down.

Most people collect their kitchen waste in a bucket or bag-it is important to have it ventilated--and then add the scraps once or twice a week. Do not add items high in acid such as citrus all at once.

After several months, the worms will have transformed the kitchen waste into compost. The worms will begin to get smaller as they run out of food. It is time to empty the worm bin and begin again. Use the compost in the garden, as a side dressing for houseplants, and give the gift of worms to a friend.

At White Rose Farm, worms are one of the primary recyclers. I feed them eggshells and coffee grounds in particular. I started the tubs last winter in a very mild February to see if they could live through the winter in the tubs. A friend had said with a tub that size, the very core of the tub was not likely to freeze, and the worms might make it through the winter. They had no problem last year. By late fall, my Guineas frequented the tubs and (I guess) enjoyed worms, worms, worms.

This winter, February was so bitterly cold that I despaired that the worm bins had frozen solid and that all the worms had died. This week, I saw my Guinea hen atop the tubs and guessed that she had one again found her delicacy.

I was finally able to dig beneath the surface of the bin this week. I found hundreds of lively wriggling worms. My community of tiny soil workers had lived through the winter and was back at work, as I too as off the sofa and back into the fields.

Horti-Culture Corner

"All the cabbages in our garden are robust and green to the core;
All the peppers are dead and black, not red anymore.
The onions are thriving, the tomatoes all gone,
The lettuce is rising, the pecans all stored;
It’s wet now in Red Bluff, Winter’s knocking at the door."

Mike Garofalo, Cuttings

In the old days, it was not called the Holiday Season;
the Christians called it 'Christmas' and went to church;
the Jews called it 'Hanukkah' and went to synagogue;
the atheists went to parties and drank.
People passing each other on the street would say
'Merry Christmas!'
or 'Happy Hanukkah!'
or (to the atheists) 'Look out for the wall!'

~Dave Barry, "Christmas Shopping: A Survivor's Guide"