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

I got an email from my daughter about this web site Idea Bite who talk about why we need to use a more natural herbicide:
* Peace on Earth. The majority of the herbicide you apply doesn’t actually reach the target weed, and all of it eventually impacts the environment.
* Less violence toward your plants and the earthworms that sweeten your soil – and our options are still effective.
* Keeping kids and pets outta harm’s way. There are about 110,000 human poisonings from herbicides, insecticides, and pesticides in the United States each year.

Pests in the garden or landscape are any unwanted things doing either outright damage or subtle invasive damage, to our gardens, lawns, landscapes or nature areas. These include everything from the hidden slugs eating the new leaves of our lettuce plants to the beautiful purple loosestrife fouling our ponds. Lots of bugs are thought to be harmful, but actually there are good bugs and bad bugs, as there are good plants and bad plants.

One product Deadeye, is for unwanted plants, aka weeds, which are overrunning our gardens. I read all the web site, including the MDSS, the Material Safety Data Sheets. It is vinegar based, altho’ not quite, I have known people who use vinegar, and it is a little helpful. But this sounds like a real solution.

Now, IPM: Integrated Pest Management, what a mouthful! Here is where you need to get up close and very personal with your gardens, looking under leaves for bugs, slugs, etc. Using this program, there is a threshold at which you have to do something. When bad bugs are too many, there are sources to order predators to help bring things back under control. In the book, “Bringing Nature Home,” by Douglas W. Tallamy, gives the example of seeing a tobacco worm in his garden, but he did not pick it off or kill it since it had little white wasp larva attached. The wasp larva, hatches, eats (kills) the worm, and no major harm done. If he had picked the worm and killed it, there may have been more worm larva to hatch, but he also would have also killed the wasp larva, and so no natural protection. Also known as a YIKES moment. Using IPM, he saw nature in action, and let it continue its course. So how many of us have the stomach to do this? Ok, it can be gross to some, I love to see what is happening in nature, always looking under leaves for surprises!

Weeds can quickly get out of control in our yards and gardens, and one way to control them will be some more natural control methods. Lately I have been hearing a lot about leaving areas undisturbed, for example, say you have an area and you want to grow wild flowers. The best approach is NOT to til and disturb the soil, which will cause more dormant weed seeds to sprout, but to plant the wildflower seeds, then before they are too high, mow the growing weeds at about four inches. Of course, this is a long process, but overall, the effect is amazing over time.

Pic from Creative Common weed ‘n clay by Leonard John Matthew

I was going to take some pictures of the sprouting tulips around town, we have a strong Dutch heritage, and celebrate with millions and millions of tulips all over, especially in our big Washington Park, here in Albany, NY. Also, noticed the maples are starting to bloom, so all you allergics beware! It is coming. But of course it is cold and rainy here, low forties, and maybe snow showers, yeck!