That Time of Year Gardening

Sounds bad, right, but only weeding a couple areas on a little dune. In Albany, we have a natural pine bush left over from the last ice age, and the Palisades by NYCity was the dam, so we got the sand! It is so beautiful, walking out in it you think you will see the ocean as soon as you climb the next dune, but no, only the NTS Thruway! Over the years, roads have cut up the area, then lots of building, including a hugemongous mall, at which I personally try never to shop! Some of us old hippies still have our “things!”

One of the main things they are doing is killing off the invasives and replanting the natives. One of the worst of the invasives is the black locust trees, and school kids come out in the spring and help girdle trees. I did this last year, it is fun and hard work! Replanting scrub oak and pitch pines.

Also in the school program, lupine seeds are planted, and cared for until time to bring to the dunes and planted. In the top picture, all the little flags showwhere the baby lupines were planted by these school kid, and these kids were in lower grades! Also New Jersey Tea and Horsemint are introduced as native species to the pine bush.

I volunteer, and right now I have been trying to get the weeds under and around the lupines, because the seeds need bare sand and heat to break the pods for the seeds to germinate. Originally, lightening would spark natural fires, that kept the invasives out and helped the natives release their seeds. Today, they do prescribed burns in areas.

Our gardens, whether perennial, annual, or vegetable may need a little supplemental feeding and dead-heading and more mulching, and of course if you are in an zone higher than 4, you are starting to come into the early harvest, lucky you, if you can keep up with it! Some perennial and annual gardens are reaching their peak and or, if they are early natives, are past. Dead-heading is important, especially with annuals to keep them blooming, and even perennials can use dead-heading to prolong flowering. Annuals especially need a side dressing (putting next to base of plants) of compost, or fertilizer if you use it. And as the perennials die back, they are putting all their energy to building their root systems for next year, so dead-heading and side dressing with compost is also important, but do not cut any green leaves. This is where planning is important to have something new coming into bloom in front of the dying/past plants. With the vegetables, they also need some side dressing to nourish their fruit. And then there are the critters who want the veggies as much as we do! Sprinkling hot pepper around plants helps with some of the four legged ones, slugs need a little beer bar off to the side to draw them into die. Look for caterpillars, and pick them off by hand.

pic by Spring garden by http://www.flickr.com/photos/walliscottage/

Guess now that summer growing season is officially here, and our gardens are starting to amaze us with their beauty, we notice weeds are such a pain in the lower back and knees! Some of us who have used mulch around perennial and annual garden areas may have gotten mulch with too many seeds in it, always such a bother. And trying to be more green, using herbicides is not our cup of tea. Layering newspapers can help some large areas, and can be covered to look better, but the final score is that we need to weed. When I was weeding at my day job, the boss did not want mulch, so after I weeded, I would rake the soil so it looked pretty. WRONG! What disturbing the soil like that does is to bring up more weed seeds to be able to germinate!

And then for those of us who are using native plant materials, we need to know the difference between what we want and what we don’t want! This is where it gets very tricky, and sometimes we can find pictures of what the wanted seedlings look like so we can keep them growing.

I was having a lovely lunch with a couple people I met today, and, don’t cha’ know got going on my passions: using natives in the landscape. Was telling one about how I envision suburbia: flowing areas of native plant material around little spots of lawn for those who cannot give it up. The natives need to flow from yard to yard to give the critters out there plenty of habitat to move and to keep their populations going. The natural evolution of the cycle of life.
Lately, as I sit and watch my favorite reruns on tv, I think about how the big box stores and national chains are ruining our small community way of life, literally killing the natural evolution of the cycle of life. It is generally the same as using natives in the landscape. Sure, all of us do not live in small, close knit communities, but even those in the big cities have their circles where they rarely venture from, and if the little mom and pop closes because of a national chain, those in the big cities have to venture out of their neighborhood and then add to the pollution and crazyness of too many in one place. And the decay begins.
I have been craving tacos lately cause of too much tv time, so last night went to a local place instead of the chain. Felt much better, too! So please think about our impacts on our neighborhoods, and remember the call: think globally, act locally!

This is a term most anyone who loves flowers knows well, and quite literally means to remove the dead head, or flower blossom. Ok, we all knew that, so why am I bringing this triteness up today? For one, some people do not know that term, or know it as some other term. But the main reason I am bringing up this issue is for all of you to understand WHY I consider it to be so important, to the point that at times I will deadhead plants outside of businesses I use!

Annuals are the most critical flowering plants to deadhead. An annual is a plant that the growing season is longer normally than the growing season where it is planted. Here in the NorthEast, our growing season in my Zone 4 is June 1 til Oct, bets are always on as to when the first frost will come along. So we buy baby plants and set them out, most people consider Memorial Weekend the time to plant. Of course the plants have early blossoms on them so we see how beautiful they really are supposed to be, and I have always felt that is is important to remove most of those blossoms. The whole purpose of the life cycle of a plant is to make more plants. Once the plant blooms, it is fertilized, then it goes into seed production to continue its genetics. So if we remove the blossom after it fades, it will make another….keeping it blooming longer and longer, making us happy!

Perennials also need this, but not necessarily for the same reason, some times it is best to wait til it is done blooming, starting to fade, then prune the plant back for better flower production next year. Also keeps the plant in a better shape.

pic by me

This is just a quick post, looking for help in identification of one plant, and confirmation of others.

I went with a friend to my favorite wooded walk, at Five Rivers, couple of weeks ago. It was fun, and I was overjoyed finding these beautiful gems.

The trout lilies were in patches all over, do hope lots of people are able to see and enjoy them as I did.

The strawberries were coming, making me think of the Strawberry Festival at the Iroquois Museum in Howe’s Cavern, NY over Memorial Day weekend. If you go, you will learn the reason this is such an important time of year for the Iroquois.

The Blood Root is so stark white with the yellow centers, they really stand out shouting for us to look at them! Did I mention I love spring?

all pictures by myself

Once again I laced up my combat boots and learned more about our war on invasives. Sounds pretty hardcore, but as all the presenters pointed out, it is a matter of life and death. As we are moving into our sterile suburban landscapes, promised to be pest free, we are losing the food for the baby birds and killing off the song birds we claim to love. Over winter feeding is good to a point, but the most colorful song birds migrate, and when they come here, they need a nice supply of those darn pests to feed their young, especially caterpillars.

Erosion is one thing we all can understand as being harmful, both with the washing away of our precious soil, but also the water we need to soak into that soil. So this factoid really alarmed me: a “crummy,” weed-infested lawn will have 50% of water run off down the drain; a pristine, will-cared for lawn, 70% of water will run off down the drain. Knowing what little I do about lawn, I can understand how this happens, with the thatch layer, and the incredible fibrorous mess of roots.

A photograph of our classic suburban neighborhood layout shows houses, streets, driveways, plots of lawn, sprinkles of trees and bushes; and the one thing missing is a corridor for pests to move along. As a natural space becomes an island, the variety of species it supports falls dramatically. All species: plants and animals and insects, need variety to sustain their numbers. This is another aspect we need to include more into our overall planning.

So now you understand more of my militancy, please bare with me and look closer at your landscapes, and most importantly, count those darn pests!

photos Creative Commons by davida3 and johnwardell

Here are my shots of what I have found around the neighborhood showing that, yea verily, Spring Has Come!
Most of the shots are at Washington Park in Albany, NY, remember, folks, Zone 4. Meaning we can and have had snow as late at May! Altho’ for the most part it has warmed up significantly.
Yesterday was sunny and warm, out of the wind, today is rainy and cool, with snow showers in higher elevations. This week end will reach upper 70’s, so go figure!

It is now that fun time when we all start looking at plants and what we need to fill our gardens, be they vegetable or ornamental. All the stores in my area are starting to fill up with annuals and vegetables and having sales on trees and shrubs, getting us all excited!

One thing that was drilled over and over in our heads at horticulture school was “root tip, shoot tip, cambrium.” On any plant, these are the three areas that can cause new growth. So, using this information, when we plant anything, one should always “tickle” (as one collegue called it) the roots to stimulate their growth in their new environment. If we are planting little plants from a six-pack, or large balled and burlaped bushes, always pull out or cut a little of the bottom of the roots to stimulate their growth.

Another area of discussion when planting larger items is the hole. Lots of nurserypeople have suggested making the hole up to twice as large as the root ball, and fill it with peat and organically prepared, or sprecial soil mixes. It has been found that this can keep the roots in this nice home area, so that the plant essentially becomes root-bound in the hole, and they do not spread out to the surrounding area as they should. As long as the root ball fits into the hole, and the roots have been stimulated, all that extra digging is just not necessary, unless you have a need for a couple weeks on the couch.

pic by me from local gardening center

April is Poetry Month, and i have been getting a new poem everyday in my email. After reading this, I had to use it, and you all will agree, it fits that feeling a beautiful spring day.

Poem-A-Day brought to you by Knopf

A spring poem for Easter day by Jean Garrigue (1914-1972), anthologized in the Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets edition The Four Seasons, edited by J. D. McClatchy.

Spring Song II

And now my spring beauties,
Things of the earth,
Beetles, shards and wings of moth
And snail houses left
From last summer’s wreck,
Now spring smoke
Of the burned dead leaves
And veils of the scent
Of some secret plant,

Come, my beauties, teach me,
Let me have your wild surprise,
Yes, and tell me on my knees
Of your new life.

pic taken in Washington Park, Albany, NY, Apr 9, 2009. I think it is a double star variety of Magnolia stellata