That Time of Year Gardening

I spent all of September in Florida watching Sis’s house and 2 cats, rough duty! (HA!) Had a bay to kayak and swim in, Gulf of Mexico not too far, met new friends, had and great relaxing time.

But I guess the reason I wanted to mention it is the WIDE variety of environments/ecologies we are so lucky to have in this great Nation of ours. Makes my blog mostly a Zone 4 (upper New York as one) areas. I have family in Florida, Zone 9; Arizona,Zones 6,7; and Seattle, Zone 6. So it is even hard for me to make suggestions to my family!

All of the sudden, here in upstate NY, summer is OVER! There were frost warnings further north, and it has been chilly and crisp last few days! If you have tender flowers still blooming, consider covering them at night to save them, we intuitively know that surely (ok, hint of doubt) summer will return with a vengeance! Not quite Indian summer, but late summer usually comes and lingers, then fall comes! A lot of people really love the total change in seasons, it is so beautiful when the leaves turn.

This time of year can be confusing to all of us, from where the sun comes in my window there is a distinct change as the days get shorter. Plants use light to tell them when it is time to shut down and get ready for winter.

Where I worked, we would be pulling all the annuals, no matter how well they were still doing, and get ready to plant bulbs. Or mums. I really love mums, the hardy ones I planted came back again and again, and it was a nice to watch and pinch them into shape during the summer, and then seeing them come into full bloom in late summer and fall. Needless to say, where I worked, sometimes annuals would be replaced by mums, which would then be replaced with bulbs.

Even tho’ it seems as tho’ it is time to start planting bulbs, do not get into too much hurry! Daffodils will start growing, and we do not want that, and tulips, altho’ they need some root starting time, need to watch for animals who love them as much as we do. It is recommended to plant DEEP, the cute little bulb planters are not deep enough to save the bulbs from the animals.

One thing that is good to do now is prune your evergreen bushes (but not the spring blooming ones like the rhodies) back into whatever shape you like. The Yews and Boxwoods are common hedge plants and should be prunned this time of year.

pic by http://www.flickr.com/photos/8525214@N06/

Today was an absolutely beautiful day, and yesterday also, later storms will come through, but pretty much done for the day by the time they came through. Our neighbors over in Western New York had some tornadoes yesterday. YIKES! We lucked out here.

One thing that I have noticed in my walks and cruises around town is how so many people like to have something planted at the base of trees. Sure, bright flowers look lovely, but sadly anything planted at the base of a tree competes with the water and nutrient absorption. Most all tree feeder roots are a lot closer to the surface than people realize, and are usually with in the branch line of the upper part of the tree. The best way to deal with tree bases is to mulch under the tree, but not too high up the trunk or it will eventually cut off oxygen and kill the tree. I love trees. I hug trees, and rub my hands along their bark as I walk along, and hate to go into an urban area where the “landscapers” mulch the trees with little piles around the bases of their highly pruned “lolly-pops.
I guess that I wish more people would respect trees. With this tree and yew (Taxus) combination, everyone suffers, the yews need full sun, and all are competing for the water and nutrients.

Date: Thursday, July 2, 2009
ALBANY — An Alabama-based plant wholesaler linked to a destructive tomato blight that turned up in northern big-box retail stores has pulled its plants from New York and five other states. ”
this from http://archives.timesunion.com/mweb/wmsql.wm.request?oneimage&imageid=8291541

This is a very disturbing headline printed last week on the Albany Times Union. It goes back to your buy local dichotomy you have heard me expound upon too much! We need to simplify our buying for more than just supporting our local farmers, but to keep diseases out of our area. Some will bemoan this as “the big box has cheaper prices!” But the ultimate cost is the spread of diseases, the cost of treatment, and ultimately replacement, or with these tomatoes, the extra time spent pulling and replanting. An as you know, I push for using natives, and trying to make our local ecology healthy. Did I say that before? Sometimes the bottom line is more than just money.

pic by craigemorsels

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.

[caption id="attachment_269" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Lupines in full bloom"][/caption]

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.

[caption id="attachment_238" align="alignright" width="240" caption="trout lily"][/caption]

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