A Look Through the Year of HighHopes

Giving back is one of the essential core values of the HighGrove brand. It's such a rewarding experience to take time out of our busy schedules to do something that improves our local community no matter how big or small. Thanks to our community service arm, HighHopes, we are able to support those that are making an impact in and around our city daily. 

HighHopes is a program established by HighGrove where employees make tax deductible donations through payroll deduction to support local community service initiatives. 

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The SAD Pursuit of Inner Happiness by Bob Hill

Dwarf peach ‘Theodore Klein’

Current politics notwithstanding, I again deal in late winter with a mild case of SAD – Seasonal Affective Disorder – that sluggish, depressed feeling that winter has already lasted 15 months, why should anyone have to get out of bed before noon and why is it I can’t even win a $10 million Powerball?

Best I can tell, SAD’s effect on avid gardeners is tenfold – and looking out the window at a brown, barren and forlorn landscape is no cure. So, on a recent day when the snow was gone, the ice had melted, and my wife was ready to trade me in for a used picnic table, I headed outside to face my monster.

The sky was gray on gray. Rain was forecast, with splatters of it already at hand and foot. A few steps out the side door waited my winter-whipped helleborus foetidus, a stringy, weird-looking creature with cheerful common names such as “stinking hellebore” and “dungwort.”

And let’s not forget – and I have absolutely no remembrance of the why and when of that plant being just out my door – all parts of that ragged beauty are considered poisonous.

I was beginning to feel better already.

I pushed on past matching rows of prickly-greenish boxwood and our antique garden pump, once painted bright red and now dimmed to a pleasant sangria – hold that thought.

My mission, of course, was to find a little cheerful color in our landscape; real or imagined. My arums – the green soldiers of winter – were a great help. They were still recovering from an assault of near zero temperatures; a few still splayed out on the ground but others rising to the bugle call.

As temperatures have repeatedly dropped to near zero this winter, I have worried for weeks about my mimosa ‘Summer Chocolate,’ that drooping, purple-leafed beauty supposedly hardy in zones 6 to 10. I have already lost two of them in previous cold winters here in zone 6A-ish, but why garden if you can’t fail?

About once a winter week I go out and test my Summer Chocolate’s 2018 availability with that Old Farmer’s Trick: Scratching its bark with my thumbnail looking for that tell-tale green of life.

So far so green.

My spiritual advisor on such SAD journeys is always witchhazel, in my case the gold fragrances of ‘Wisley Supreme’ and ‘Arnold Promise.’ Both are along our driveway; the classic “Welcome Home” plants. Both are absurdly diligent in their duty, with Wisley Supreme always a little ahead of the pack

A 10-foot-flare of color, they come across as something of a miracle; bright bursts of bold rising above a landscape of dead brown leaves, fallen limbs and defeated NFL favorites.

I always tell our customers you are not really gardening unless you have witchhazels. The problem being they have to buy them in spring, summer and fall as an act of faith for that late winter color.  In the winter time, all most nurseries are selling are Christmas trees and hope.

Somewhat buoyed by the witchhazel experience, I headed back to our fish pond where my goldfish are hiding deep in 38-degree water like comatose convicts. I know they are down there. It’s where I left them. I did so after reading all the information about how their metabolisms shut down. They just hang there near the bottom, mercifully unaware of the world above. Kinda sad when you think about it.

Past the pond,  I peek into our plastic-covered greenhouse, the warmer winter home of neatly clipped roses, dull-brown ferns and climbing hydrangeas in three-gallon pots, including a favorite, ‘Skyland Giant,’ a less sluggish petiolaris type. Indeed, I investigated and found its history and praises were sung perhaps a little too loudly in a write-up on the online nursery site Plant Lust.

 This sterling cultivar’s lustrous, toothed greenery is dappled with choice cream-colored lacy blooms. A luminous standout amid eastward shadows, ‘Skylands Giant’ was selected at the New Jersey Botanical Garden in Skylands for its exceptionally large showy lacecaps, which feature soft looking centers of tiny fertile flowers ringed by loosely arranged, larger white sterile florets.

 Talk about a little too much sangria amid eastward shadows.

My get-over-it tour then included a look at our tulips plantings, all of them tightly tucked in some large containers with chicken wire on top to keep the rodents at bay, especially amid eastern shadows. Nothing doing there yet.

Circling toward the back of the house, I had hopes my Harry Lauder’s Walking Stick (OK, Corylus avellane ‘Contorta’) had already climbed from its spring bed and had begun showing its dangling greenish-yellow catkins. It’s stationed right outside our kitchen window, a complete burst of twisted nonsense, “A thrilling specimen for winter landscapes” as the Monrovia propaganda puts it.

Nothing doing there yet, either.

From left: Lilac ‘Betsy Ross’ and Magnolia ‘Daybreak’

Joy was finally found in the front yard as I headed ’round the corner toward home. My ‘Daybreak’ magnolia was in full bud, almost edging toward bloom. I didn’t need the real rose-pink blooms. I could see them in my mind’s eye.

The Big Finish was provided by the glowing buds of our ‘Betsy Ross’ lilac, fat and ready, the parade of white blooms somehow all stuffed in there waiting for more sunshine, but knowing it‘s coming.

Indeed.

The SAD Pursuit of Inner Happiness originally appeared on Garden Rant on January 29, 2018.

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From Mt. Cuba – Best Natives you can Actually Buy by Susan Harris

Phlox ‘Jeana’

Typically, growers in the hort industry fund plant trials (like the ones at Penn State I visited last year) to find out from actual research which plants they should put into production and then market like crazy.

But homeowners need trials of plants that are already on the market so they’ll know which ones to buy at the local nursery or from their favorite catalog. That’s exactly what Mt. Cuba Trial Gardens are for, but because they target native plants, they’re testing not only horticultural performance – especially disease-resistance – but their ecological value, too – especially their appeal to pollinators.

Mt. Cuba can do this because their research doesn’t depend on industry funding, thanks for their nice fat endowment!

I recently received this report from Mt. Cuba announcing the results of their Phlox trials and was so impressed, I bugged Director of Research George Coombs to explain the process to me. He confirmed that almost all the 94 sun-loving phlox they tested over three years were bought at retail and are widely available to regular gardeners. Still, he’s seen his retail-focused trials also impact growers’ plant choices, which ultimately benefits home gardeners.

Coombs says the goal of Mt. Cuba’s trials is simple – to make home gardeners more successful. Modestly he adds that their best-results plants aren’t the “end-all-be-all but the plants DO perform well for most people.” Well, what more can you ask?

The top performer in their Phlox-for-Sun trials was the Phlox paniculata ‘Jeana,’ which is a new one to me and at 5 feet tall, I might not have even guessed it was a Phlox. It actually won in both categories – attracting the most butterflies AND performing the best horticulturally (disease-resistance, etc.) It flowers from mid-July through early September.

Mt. Cuba’s Delaware location makes it a great place to test for powdery mildew, a disease that afflicts plants in humid regions like the Mid-Atlantic where we hear “It’s not the heat; it’s the humidity” dozens of times each season.

Butterfly action in Mt. Cuba’s trial gardens was monitored by Pollinator Watch, a group of 25 dedicated volunteers of all ages who are enrolled in a certificate program at Mt. Cuba. Coombs told me is “very invested.” I wish I lived close enough to enroll myself.

Mt. Cuba’s previous native-plant trials have covered:  Monarda, Baptisia  Coreopsis, Heuchera,  Echinacea, and Aster.

Carexes at the Scott Arboretum

Next up: Helenium (Sneezeweed) and Carex, with 80 species to test for a variety of garden uses, most promisingly to replace lawns!

Helping gardeners find native plants that do well in gardens is badly needed, so kudos and thanks to Mt. Cuba for their hard work and dedication to not just promoting natives but helping gardeners succeed with them.  That’s my goal, too, in collecting videos on that very topic. Too many lists of all native plants in a region may help in ecological restoration projects but in matching homeowners with successful garden plants, not so much.

From Mt. Cuba – Best Natives you can Actually Buy originally appeared on Garden Rant on January 25, 2018.

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On The Water Today

On the water today is a 40 foot container’s worth of goods for the garden that Rob bought in France last September. Some of what he bought is either antique or vintage. Other things are new. He buys what he treasures and can’t bring himself to leave behind. I like that about him. Our shipping [...]

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Preparing Your Lawn and Garden for Spring

The post Preparing Your Lawn and Garden for Spring appeared first on Miss Smarty Plants.

Winter isn’t over but do you wonder what has become of your lawn and garden? After winter,  grass, trees and shrubs are hungry and weak. Your lawn and garden lay dormant and was entirely covered of snow and ice. They need to be brought back to life but how can you go about preparing your lawn or garden for spring?  

It is important that your lawn and garden needs to be prepared for spring. If you do not do so, they will be in poor health and you will need to deal with a lot of problems in the coming years.

In order to avoid those problems, here are ways on preparing your lawn and garden for spring.  

 

Prepare Your Equipment 

A few weeks before spring check your lawn care equipment. It should have undergone a maintenance check to make sure it is in top shape for spring.  For lawnmowers, make sure the blades are sharp and it is working properly.  Turn on any irrigation systems to look for broken heads or damage to repair early in the season.

Inspect the Mess 

As soon as winter is over, inspect your entire property for dead leaves, thrown branches and any form of debris. Clear your lawn and garden of them so you can clearly see the real condition of the structures in your garden, shrubs, trees and soil.  

Removed damaged tree limbs if you can, otherwise call an arborist to do the job. When all is clear, create a plan on how you are going to prepare your lawn and garden for spring. 

Use the Rake 

As soon as the snow is gone, raking the grass will wake it up and encourage new growth. Focus your raking on the deep, thick, dead and dried grass (thatch areas). While raking, watch out for growth of molds and fungus.  

You may also run into some snow mold which looks like a gray or pinkish web on the blades of the grass. Rake it out so it will dry up. Your grass may look brownish but it is definitely not dead.  

Remember that there are two types of grass. Warm season grass slowly turn green in spring while the cool season grass turn green early into spring.  

Trim the Shrubs and Trees 

To make your shrubs and healthy again during this new growing season, trim off any dead branches or limbs. You can trim shrubs yourself but you may want to consider hiring a professional arborist for any difficult large tree work.  When preparing your lawn and garden for spring, be careful not to cut the limbs of shrubs that produce fruits or flowers in spring.  

Replace Mulch 

Replacing or refreshing mulch is instantly a pick me up for your landscape. Generally, mulches of hardwood bark lasts longer (and they look so much better too!).  

 

Apply Fertilizer 

Apply a combination of pre-emergent herbicide for crabgrass prevention, and fertilizer early in spring. After about six weeks, apply a broadleaf weed killer together with the herbicide and fertilizer. There are some products that are already a combination of a pre-emergent herbicide and fertilizer. This saves on cost and application time. 

Applying fertilizer will bring back the life of your lawn after hibernating in winter. You can also do a top dressing to give your lawn more strength.  

A beautiful lawn is a perfect background to a lovely garden. Preparing your lawn and garden for spring is not a one-weekend task.  

If you do things properly and systematically, you should be able to walk barefoot in your lawn and garden and feel the softness of grass in your toes in no time. More importantly, prepping your lawn and garden for spring is essential for a beautiful and healthy lawn and garden.  

Do you make it a habit to prepare your lawn and garden for spring? Share with us some of your thoughts in the comments section. 

 

 This article contributed by author Ann Sanders. Our family is growing! Our new baby boy is taking up our sleep so I am using this month to feature guest posts from other garden writers. Stay tuned for more and please let me know how you like these articles. 

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Taropy by Allen Bush

Two weeks ago I stood in the checkout line at Louisville’s Whole Foods. Sleet, freezing rain and snow were predicted for the next day.

(I knew ahead of time that I would have to pay a price for spending ten warm and sun-drenched days in tropical Hawaii.) The forecast sounded terrible. I imagined even worse—like two feet of ice and eight feet of snow. But two inches of measurable snow and a string of days in the single digits arrived on schedule.)

The checkout girl asked me about the mysterious root vegetables I’d just plucked from the produce section. She knew her root crops. Turnips, parsnips and golden beets were easy for her, but she was stumped by the Costa Rican taro corms. She rolled her eyes and said, “Taro, that’s a first.” She’d never rung up a charge for taro roots—not an everyday commodity in the Ohio Valley.

I had visited Dean Wilhelm a few days before. Dean, a native Hawaiian, practically has taro in his blood. Native Hawaiians revere taro (Colocasia esculenta). Also known as kalo, taro is an essential part of Hawaiian culture.

Dean and Michelle Wilhelms’s non-profit, Hoʻokuaʻāina, serves at-risk kids. For the last ten years the Wilhelms have offered “taropy” as a way forward. A personal breakthrough stirred their desire to help others. Character and self-esteem for at-risk kids are developed with mentoring and taro on a marshy two-and-a-half-acre patch (lo‘i) on the Wilhelms’s seven-and-a-half-acre Kapalai farm in Maunawili, near Kailua, on the island of Oahu.

The name Hoʻokuaʻāina refers to the organization’s dedication to keep Hawaiian traditions and values alive by building community and passing on ancient knowledge to future generations.

Social critics as diverse as David Brooks, Michael Pollan, Wes Jackson and Wendell Berry have written about the important connection between family, community and food. In many American towns there are children who have never eaten with a fork or knife. It is cheaper and easier to eat fast food. 25% of Americans eat one fast food meal a day; 20% of all American meals are eaten in a car. The American industrialized, processed meal has become the cheapest and fastest race to the saturated-fat, fill-‘em-up finish line.  

Dean and Michelle Wilhelm created a community-gathering place with kalo as the centerpiece—rebuilding lives from the ground up. “I am a teacher, farmer and a cultural practioner,” Dean says. “We grow young people and community.”

Funds for Hoʻokuaʻāina were scarce in the beginning. “We fed the kids tuna fish sandwiches, Dean said.” Eventually the Wilhelms secured a $40,000 grant. “Then we started paying the kids a little.” If we didn’t pay something, the kids might leave the taro patch and go steal snacks at the neighboring 7-Eleven.”

Revenues from kalo are now a vital contribution to the annual operating budget that helps the non-profit become more sustainable and less dependent on grant support.

Hoʻokuaʻāina has continued to grow.

Kids from a juvenile group home show up for mentoring once a week. Kalo, a 12-13 month crop, is planted and harvested in rotation every month. There are over 70 Hawaiian varieties of kalo, but the Wilhelms have found that the ‘Moi Kea’ variety grows best on their farm. “It has a hardier leaf, and it is consistent and grows well,” Dean said.

“Taropy” may be mucky but it is remarkably therapeutic. Kids eventually have the opportunity to move up into co-farm management positions.

Thousands of community members also volunteer their time to help the organization maintain the 20 kalo patches. Volunteers can stop by every other week on production days to buy poi.

Hoʻokuaʻāina has become a community resource. The non-profit offers a variety of programs and also supplies an important traditional food staple back into the diet of many individuals.

Beyond kalo and mentoring, the laulau is the goal and the reward for Hawaiian food sovereignty.

The laulau, a glorious Hawaiian feast, involves a communal assembly line. Dean said it’s not uncommon to have 50 people cleaning and cutting taro leaves, filling them with cubes of boiled taro corms, plus grilled or fried fish, chicken, beef or pork, and then adding a little coconut before tying the bundle with leaves from a ti plant (Cordyline fruiticosa). Then the bundle is steamed for 2 ½ hours. “Friends, family and the community gather for the moving and meaningful connection,” Dean explained.

Dean prefers the smaller group setting at Hoʻokuaʻāina. His tenure, with as many as 150 students in public education, “…was like pulling teeth,” he said. “I hated handouts and rote teaching.”

A young boy showed up one day at the taro patch with a group of other kids. He was a “lippy” adolescent who mouthed off and was unwilling to take direction. Dean had previously worked as a teacher at a conventional public school. “Lippy” kids weren’t new to him.

Dean listened to the “lippy” boy; he honored him. Once he had earned his respect, he found an opening and urged the boy: “Now we work hard. You can handle it.”

The kids worked hard. “We worked our asses off, “ Dean said. “And then we all prepared a laulau.”

 

All photos courtesy of Hoʻokuaʻāina.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Taropy originally appeared on Garden Rant on January 24, 2018.

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Hygge and houseplants by Elizabeth Licata

Houseplant/bulb hyggeness in a kitchen corner

On a whim, I googled the two words, and, as expected, houseplants are included in the lifestyle instructions issued by the hygge movement. I wouldn’t be insulting readers by assuming they don’t know what this Danish word means because there is no good English translation, but I am sure you’ve at least seen it in print. Hygge—loosely—means coziness. Important elements include good lighting, comfy chairs, good food and drink, and—very important—conversation. It’s about creating a comfortable, stress-reducing atmosphere, and it’s not actually as easy as it may sound. But plants make the long list, especially sturdy varieties that won’t make you worry (stress: bad) about their survival in central heating. So, think aloe, sensevieria, the dracaena family, and other stalwarts.

Plants definitely make me feel cozy, but only if they’re healthy, and even more if they’re flowering. It’s cozy enough in my house now, where the Osmanthus fragrans has been blooming nonstop for months, and the hippeastrum and narcissus ‘erlicheer’ are finally opening. We string LED lights on a couple bigger plants; this definitely adds to a feeling of warmth. Add cut flowers in short containers and candles: very hygge.

I ignore most trends (have never tried to “spark joy”—otherwise known as unnecessary cleaning), but I do get hygge and its ilk. In colder climates, you need to create an ambiance that hugs you without being too messy.

As you may have heard, there’s a new Danish lifestyle buzzword: lykke, which aims for a more ambitious, but related, goal: happiness.

Hygge and houseplants originally appeared on Garden Rant on January 23, 2018.

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Snow Glow

Blue skies and fluffy clouds the likes of which are pictured above are a rarity in a Michigan January. It is a bleak time of year, featuring uniformly gray-sky days, a lengthy twilight, and long ink black nights for what seems much longer than a month. February will bring more of the same. If this [...]

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Possible Trump Bump for HGTV by Susan Harris

A Twitter-following friend alerted me to the hashtag “WatchHGTVinstead” started by a David Hoffman. The purpose is to deny Trump high ratings for his State of the Union performance in the most effective way possible – by tuning in to another channel, especially one in particular. As Hoffman writes:

On January 30, we want trump to KNOW we are boycotting the State of the Union speech. It’ll be more effective if all boycotters choose the same program. I’m suggesting everyone turn on HGTV during the speech. Can we get this trending? #BoycottStateOfTheUnion #WatchHGTVinstead

The Twitterverse has responded with some misunderstanding about how ratings work, easily corrected by Hoffman, but I’m more interested in how people like his choice of channels. Turns out, HGTV has more fans than I realize – house hunters, rehabbers, and shoppers and not a single gardener that I know of since gardening has been virtually abandoned by the channel.

These responders seem to happy to go along:

• Great! I had designated it “clean the bathroom” time but will gladly watch HGTV instead! #BoycottStateOfTheUnion
• My wife will love that!!! #WatchHGTVinstead
• I believe at 9 o’clock on January 30 will be a new episode of fixer-upper. Probably the best show on HGTV. So let’s all tune in and watch Chip and Joanna instead of Frick and Frack.

But not everyone:

• Okay but I’d rather watch The Food Channel.
• I understand but Tuesday night is either the property bros or fixer upper and I refuse to watch either.hannel then. Or, to help ratings, turn it on, turn it down, and read a book.
• Dude pick something else. Why should we suffer through ppl fixing lawns while dipfuck talks. At least let’s do a lifetime movie, or something on TLC. Shit, I’d even watch Say Yes to the Dress.
• When is it. Jan 30th? Damn. that’s the day I have set aside to rearrange my sock drawer.
• I will take up knitting that evening
• hgtv… ok, but muted
• Please, anything but HGTV

One tweeter thinks the channel has actual gardening content:

• Ok but watching how flowers grow I might need a lot of wine. (followed by “I did a dry run tonight. It worked well. I’m ready.” (with photo of full wine glass)

But this one knows better:

• Ok, I’ll try to watch HGTV. I used to love that channel before, but it’s just not the same anymore.

Hoffman’s response to the complainers? “And if you don’t like hgtv, take one for the team!”

The latest from Hoffman is that “Thousands on Twitter have now committed to boycotting the State of the Union address. Instead we are tuning in to HGTV to show our numbers. Several Nielson families have committed to participate so far. I’ll be retweeting until the STOU.”

I just wish he’d picked Comedy Central instead.

Possible Trump Bump for HGTV originally appeared on Garden Rant on January 19, 2018.

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Year of the Bird by Elizabeth Licata

This is from the Key West butterfly conservancy; I’m only able to get close to birds in captivity.

Hell, yeah. As a rule, I’m not really a fan of designated days, weeks, and months. According to incoming press releases, every month seems to be devoted to some kind of disease, which is kind of depressing (though if it brings in money, fine). And it’s pretty easy—frighteningly so—to get an elected official to dedicate a day to just about anything. There is a proclamation with my name on it hanging in our conference room.

However, when I got an email saying that 2018 would be the year of the bird, I was immediately on board. Apparently, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, National Geographic, National Audubon Society, BirdLife International, and more than 100 organizations have joined in this declaration; if you listed to the January 4 broadcast of NPR’s On Point, you already know all about this.

Who doesn’t love birds? The point of the designated year, however, is to get people to show their love. Some of the suggestions include keeping a daily list, going bird-watching with friends, and monitoring the birds that come to your feeder. A suggestion I hadn’t expected was coffee consumption—should be shade-grown, though.

A WNY Audubon conservancy; they maintain an excellent feeder array that brings a diverse variety of birds.

I’ve helped birds this year by hiring a regular wildlife columnist for the magazine. His name is Gerry Rising and, though his background is in mathematics education, he has also been a dedicated naturalist for many decades and used to write the nature column for our daily paper. Inexplicably, the column was discontinued, and I was happy to bring him on as nature writer for Buffalo Spree. Here’s his recent piece on bird migration.

I also maintain a couple bird feeders: a seed feeder and a suet feeder that only admits smaller birds. In addition, I sometimes put up a seed bell or some other treat. Our one resident squirrel can get to that, but this winter has been so miserable, there is compassion even for squirrels. The city birds are not too interesting: mainly finches and starlings, brightened sometimes by chickadees and cardinals. Still, I love to see them gathering at the feeder and I couldn’t care less about the mess. It can easily be hosed off or swept up in the spring. Gerry’s columns have convinced me of the importance of winter bird feeding. In summer, our pond’s waterfall is a bird magnet, so that helps too.

It was disturbing to learn that the scrub jay is now endangered; I remember this bird as ubiquitous during my short residence in Florida. I’ll be sure to look out for it next time I visit. In the meantime, I’ll enjoy my ordinary feeder birds and try to regularly visit WNY nature preserves and the Niagara River corridor (a designated important bird area), where more interesting birds abound. Yay, birds!

Year of the Bird originally appeared on Garden Rant on January 18, 2018.

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Red, White, And Blue Additions to Your Patriotic Garden

The post Red, White, And Blue Additions to Your Patriotic Garden appeared first on Miss Smarty Plants.

Henry James once said, “I think patriotism is like a charity – it begins at home”. So, why not jump-start your patriotism right outside your front door? Whether it’s President’s Day, Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, or just an overwhelming sensation of patriotism, there’s never a shortage of days where you can wave the stars and stripes over your  patriotic garden. However, you might not know where to start. If this sounds like you, check out these tips to add some art to your patriotic garden.

Add Red, White, and Blue Naturally

If you’re a fan of natural beauty, one way to add some patriotism to your garden is to plant flowers that represent the colors of the Star-Spangled Banner. You can either plant these in the form of a flag, grow them in a concentric circle, or simply alternate them in your garden to add some color. Some great red plants for your garden include red geraniums, red salvia, or red snapdragons. People also commonly plant white alyssum, white petunia or white heliotrope for the white color, and blue ageratum, blue lobelia, or blue ageratum for blue hue.

Paint an Old Shutter

Your shutters are an integral part of your outside persona and can be decorated to match your garden’s theme. You can either paint your own shutters or find an old shutter around the house or at a secondhand shop and paint a patriotic image on it. Use tape to isolate the parts of the shutter you want to paint at a time and use the red, whites, and blues to create a design of a flag or an inspirational patriotic message. You can also use a white paint marker to draw in stars after you’re done painting. If you used an old shutter, you can place it next to your porch or by your favorite flowers.

Photo from www.olympiclawn.net

Add the Flag to Your Planters

One way to add a little bit of patriotic art to your garden is to add it to your planters. Planters are generally the first thing that people decorate as they can be quite bland without any color. You can either use paint to decorate these planters or make planters out of household objects. If you have some old fencing posts, a wheelbarrow, or a basket, you can construct a planter out of it and add either red, white, and blue paint or cloth around it. Then, add some small American flags in the soil of your planter to finish it off. No one will ever ask you if your backyard is patriotic enough.

Your garden is an expression of you, so be sure that it accurately reflects how you feel. If you’re feeling patriotic or want to show some support for your country, let it all out in your very own patriotic garden.

 

This article contributed by author Cass White. Our family is growing! Our new baby boy is taking up our sleep so I am using this month to feature guest posts from other garden writers. Stay tuned for more and please let me know how you like these articles. 

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Climate Change Gardening by Thomas Christopher

One of the virtues of gardening is that it brings its practitioners into intimate contact with natural systems.  As I discovered as a young gardener many years ago, and a practitioner of the “better living through chemistry” school of my craft, you cannot long ignore and abuse the living aspects of your soil without causing its collapse.  I remember how, in a matter of a very few years, through a reliance of chemical quick fixes, I reduced the good loam of a rose garden I tended into an impoverished clay.

Likewise, I think that the most exciting gardening I have experienced was the response of my Californian colleagues to the cycle of droughts in the late 1980’s, when they re-invented their craft.  From landscapes of irrigation-dependent exotics and Anglophilic lawns, the best of the Californian gardeners moved to plantings that emphasized native plants grown in pattern that mimicked the local flora.  In this way, those gardeners turned a crisis into a new departure and a triumph.

Given this history, I have been deeply disappointed by American gardeners’ overall failure to address climate change.  For the most part we have gardened on through recent years, planting the same kind of landscapes as if the world was not changing around us.  What’s more, in lectures that I have given, I have found audiences often resistant to even discussing the matter.  Ignore the problem, has been the too-common attitude, and perhaps it will go away, or at least not precipitate a crisis until our grandchildren’s day.

This is why I was so impressed by a talk that Ken Druse gave last Saturday, for the Berkshire Botanical Garden’s Winter Lecture.  “The New Shade Garden: Creating a Lush Oasis in the Age of Climate Change” was the title of the talk, and Druse began by directly addressing the scientific issues. With a mix of fact, humor, and enticing photographs of what could be, he very soon had the audience on his side and receptive to his message.

I think what Druse is advocating as a response to our present challenge, the creation and beautification of shade, is just a beginning.  I believe that revolutionary, fundamental changes in our definition of garden beauty must come.  But I admire Ken for making a persuasive start, and I urge readers to take a look at his book, The New Shade Garden.

 

Climate Change Gardening originally appeared on Garden Rant on January 15, 2018.

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A No Plan Landscape

Several years ago I had a request from a new client to plant her pots. We obliged. I could not help over the course of a few seasons to take note of the landscape. Her front door had a very tall, substantial, and fairly elaborate porch roof. That porch roof and upstairs balcony was a [...]

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Best Gardening Event of Winter? MANTS! by Susan Harris

Yesterday I made my yearly pilgrimage to Baltimore to attend MANTS.  the largest nursery trade show in the East – by far. This year there were 900+ vendors in 1,200 booths, and over 10,000 pre-registered attendees. It was a blast for me – getting to see dozens of garden-world friends, and being surrounded by plants, no matter that they’re inside a convention center.

Lunch was the highlight for me – nine of us garden writers at the Cheesecake Factory overlooking Baltimore Harbor. More garden-writer socializing took place at the Media Breakfast put on for us by the show (great breakfast burritos), and the GWA get-together in a hotel tavern the night before. Not to be sappy, but I’m awfully grateful to be part of this community.

Now for my favorite booths! Chosen not because they showcase the coolest new plants or interesting products but because the people in them are friends or nearly so.

The fabulous Carolyn Mullet, garden designer and tour-guide behind Carex Tours.

Writer Ruth Rogers Clausen, volunteer booth assistant to Dorian Winslow, president of Womanswork.

Products for women, by women, and endorsed by Oprah!

Paul Kelly, owner of St. Lynn’s Press, with an unidentified editor.

Mike Betterly and Mark Highland with Organic Mechanics.

Sandy McDougle, owner of Sandy’s Plants in Richmond, VA (my home town).

Jim Peterson, publisher of the now-awesome Garden Design Magazine.

Lloyd Traven, one of my favorite hippie growers, co-owner (with Candy) of Peace Tree Farm .

For the Perennial Plant Association, president Janet Draper with Joe Luebke, effectively debunking the myth that working for the feds makes you dull. Janet’s day job is as horticulturist for Smithsonian Gardens, while Joe’s horticultural domain includes federal buildings all over town.

They’re showing off Venus flytrap props to promote the upcoming national event in Raleigh, where the plant is native.

The National Arboretum’s booth touted some of their recent introductions, and one coming soon – a hemlock resistant to the lethal hemlock wooly adelgid!

Finally, the lovely booth by Kurt Bluemel Nurseries, located just north of Baltimore. I’ve visited a couple of times and of course read Allen Bush’s wonderful stories about Kurt, the game-changing grower who brought ornamental grasses to America.

Best Gardening Event of Winter? MANTS! originally appeared on Garden Rant on January 12, 2018.

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The Little Greenhouse That Could by Allen Bush

The little greenhouse in 1980.

My first greenhouse was neither big nor fancy. Built in 1980, the 14’ X 32’ hoop house—small by commercial greenhouse standards—became my plant propagation house for the next 15 years. I spent a lot of time in the little greenhouse at Holbrook Farm and Nursery near Mills River, NC. It was a quiet hideaway from the workaday world—a sanctuary for solitude and fecundity.

The greenhouse survived blizzards, heavy winds and even a fire. We propagated thousands of perennials and woody plants by seeds, top cuttings and more labor-intensive root cuttings.

Good fortune saved the structure when I closed the nursery in 1995. The little greenhouse might have ended up on the scrap heap, but my friends Heather Spencer and Charles Murray dismantled the bows, purlins, heater, fans and mist unit and drove it home to Asheville. Heather and Charles are passionate gardeners.

Charles Murray and Heather Spencer drive away from Holbrook Farm with a load of plants in 1990.

I had recurring dreams back then that revealed the precariousness of my little greenhouse and the life of the nursery itself. I would awaken to find that there was no sign of the propagation house. Everything had vanished in the wind. Not just blown down, during the night, but blown to the yonder reaches of who knows where. There was not a shred of evidence that a nursery had ever existed. No hoop houses, no plant containers, no gravel—nothing but green fields.

Once the panic eased, I would realize the nursery I had built was once again the bucolic hayfield I had first fallen in love with in the fall of 1979.

There are few traces of the nursery, now, but memories of old friends remain. The swamp white oak, Quercus bicolor, the first tree I planted in 1979 is now a respectable 43-years old. The mighty oak was started from acorns gathered across the street from my Louisville childhood home.

Jeremias Ramirez on the site of the original little greenhouse on December 4, 2017.

Jeremias and Alicia Ramirez now own the 19-acre farm. Jeremias had worked at the nursery back in the day. He was a veteran of the propagation house.

The Holbrook Farm propagation house.

I was happy to find the native bottle gentian, Gentiana saponaria, while I was visiting the Ramirezes last month. It had been growing near the farm’s rock garden and pond for over 25 years. Jeremias gave me seeds to plant in Kentucky.

Gentiana saponaria in the Ramirez garden on October 21, 2010.

Jeremias and Alicia have planted dozens of trees all over the 19-acre farm. My worrisome dream came wrapped with a happy ending. The farm is loved more than ever.

Heather Spencer and Charles Murray garden in East Asheville. I’ve returned often for visits. Their garden keeps expanding. I can’t remember any garden walk-around that was as interesting as the three hours I spent there this past December. They passed in the blink of an eye, though it was a pokey, stop-and-go stroll. We told story after story. And, of course, there were plants, lots of beautiful plants.

Cloud forest maple, Acer skutchii, on December 4, 2017.

Heather has been focused on perennials for many years but is leaning now toward trees and shrubs. Oak leaf hydrangeas are planted extensively along one of their many woodland paths. Farther along, I didn’t recognize Davidia involucrata. The dove tree had shed its leaves a few weeks before and was loaded with seeds. I picked a handful. Acer skutchii, the rare Mexican cloud forest maple, was in glorious late, fall color. It’s just one of many rare maples scattered around their 16-acre property. Charles, among many other things, is a maple expert.

Heather Spencer and Charles Murray on December 4, 2017.

I kept seeing plants that I’d once sold at Holbrook Farm, where Heather and Charles had been good customers. Arabis procurrens, Kniphofia ‘Paramentier, Indigofera decora forma alba, Sedum ‘John Creech’ and Geranium macrorrhizum ‘Ingerwersen’s Variety’ have spread their wings. I loved seeing my babies again.

The Spencer-Murray Little Greenhouse That Could.

The little greenhouse exhaust fan is rusty but is still functioning. The mist line is triggered, every few minutes, by the original time clock. The fine mist cools off top cuttings of hydrangeas, Acuba, Illicium, Cephalotaxus and Taxus. The mist line also gets a workout from Charles’s grafts of Japanese maples.

Seeds of columbines and lobelias had recently been sown. Crocosmia corms are temporarily stored nearby in five-gallon plastic pots, waiting to be potted for a spring garden club sale. Tender agaves were protected for spring replanting.

We walked out of the little greenhouse. I stopped two or three times to turn back and take a look at my old friend.

 

 

 

 

 

The Little Greenhouse That Could originally appeared on Garden Rant on January 11, 2018.

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Niagara Falls is not frozen by Elizabeth Licata

Near Terrapin Point

And it wasn’t three years ago either, which was the last time this clickbait appeared on Facebook. But it is pretty damn cold, and frozen mist has formed a crust of ice over some parts of the still-flowing water—the thinner Bridal Falls, in particular, really looks frozen, though water is moving underneath.

 

Sorry for the pixilation–this is a zoom in on the Bridal Falls, which (the approach to) are always closed in winter.

Frozen or not, it is beautiful and I love visiting Niagara Falls State Park in winter. Trees near the brink are coated in white and the snow and ice formations on the river and rapids are ever-changing and always fascinating. When we went a few days ago, it was so cold that a squirrel had made its way into the visitor’s center, and water birds huddled together on the ice and snow formations on the river. It’s actually a much more interesting place in winter.

 

The end of Goat Island, looking south

Winter weather exaggeration has gripped the news media for weeks now. I love the new word, “bombogenesis,” a legit scientific term for a rapidly intensifying storm that is a gift to hyperventilating weathermen everywhere. The dangerous thing is that too often, especially around here, there is hysterical excitement about storms that underperform and little talk at all before big events (we had minimal warning prior to the Blizzard of ’77 or the October 2006 storm that damaged thousands of trees). Nobody really expects weather prediction to be of much use, especially more than a few hours out, but sometimes the hyperbolic warnings of disaster from the sky can cause unnecessary panics. The positive side? Weather talk is always kind of fun—as long as nobody gets hurt.

Niagara Falls is not frozen originally appeared on Garden Rant on January 8, 2018.

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Noxious Cold

Like a good bit of the rest of the US, we were invaded by a particularly noxious and extreme cold usually confined to the northern polar regions. Fierce winds usually keep that cold where it belongs, but on occasion, that cold travels our way. In early December it became apparent that we had bitterly cold [...]

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Criminal Charges for Bamboo “Blight” in Yard by Susan Harris

From articles in the New York Times and the New London Day I learned that the City of New London, CT has declared overgrowth of bamboo in the yard of resident Carlos Carrion a blight. After failing to pay fines and ignoring orders to cut back the plant, he’s become “one of the first to be criminally charged under the city’s expanded blight ordinance.”

The thicket of bamboo reaches 20 feet – above the utility lines – and pushes to the edge of the property.

Carrion’s defense? Calling the charges a “politically motivated witch hunt.” Another is an attempt at sympathy by claiming the bamboo was a “gift from a friend, a Vietnam War veteran, and he keeps it as a tribute to him.” He says he eats the bamboo and uses it to construct furniture. He also defends the bamboo as a rebellion against “perfect square lawns.” As if 20-foot stand of bamboo is somehow better.

Are there any more bogus defenses he could have used? I can’t think of one.

The local law that  he’s charged under limits the growth of plants, except for shrubs, bushes and other cultivated plants, to 10 inches. I wonder if it’s unique to Connecticut that violations of zoning and building ordinances can result in criminal charges, with punishment including fines of up to $250 a day. And is Connecticut the rare state that doesn’t declare running bamboo to be invasive? It simply places limits on where it can be planted and requires plant sellers to warn buyers that it is a fast-growing plant that needs to be contained.

Carrion claims that his bamboo is of the clumping variety, therefore not invasive. Though when he protests that he “keeps the plant from crossing from his property,” doesn’t that tell us it IS invasive? As do reports of neighbors having to cut back the stalks that crept over property lines.

Then there’s how the stuff looks – unsightly. In addition to the overgrowth of bamboo, Carrion has been cited for having an abandoned car and debris outside the home. The complaint says Carrion’s property “is in the condition of an individual who could be best described as a ‘hoarder.’”

Comments to the story in the local paper run the gamut – from surprise that bamboo is a problem to defending most bamboos as not a problem, to a horticulture professor’s statement that “Bamboo cannot be reasoned with…I think it should be banned in all but the most restrictive conditions.” Another wrote, “Heed this message. Don’t plant bamboo outside, keep it for indoors use only.”

A commenter who observes the plant business wrote that the “Bamboo sold as ‘non-invasive’ to encourage sales is only a little less invasive than other varieties. Think buying a mini pig that ‘only’ gets to be 80 lbs. or a ‘dwarf’ pine that ‘only’ gets 60′.”

And who can argue with the commenter who wrote, “Everybody loves to say live and let live, but let’s face it – nobody would want to live next to that.” Amen.

Hat tip to Lois Hinrichs of Columbus, OH for alerting me to this story.

Criminal Charges for Bamboo “Blight” in Yard originally appeared on Garden Rant on January 4, 2018.

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Too darn cold by Elizabeth Licata

A back room that’s just chilly enough

After reviewing the situation in my root cellar over the weekend, I decided I better just get all the hyacinths out of there, whether their buds are large enough or not. The temps have been in the single digits for days now, with no relief promised, and the root cellar isn’t providing its usual protection. I’ve found that freeze/thaw cycles can turn hyacinths to mush (tulips are tougher), so better to let them take their chances at room temp. Already, after a couple days, the slower buds are emerging, and I know they’re rooted enough.

These big pots hold 12 bulbs each, which is really the best way to do it.

I’ve found that most bulbs—especially hyacinths—will take a decent amount of abuse and still bloom, but this winter is testing their resolve, even in the house. It’s like they know how bitter it is outside and are staying cautious, just in case. This year, I won’t see flowers until mid-February, I’m guessing.

It’s a good winter to feed the birds, which I’m doing with seeds and suet. It’s also a relief that I gave up on most of my macrophylla hydrangeas. The summer of 18 won’t be too good for mopheads around here. Every now and then, ma nature likes to remind us what a WNY winter can do. This is one of those years.

Too darn cold originally appeared on Garden Rant on January 2, 2018.

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