Articles

This has been a good growing season. Regular rains and not too many super-hot days means plants are thriving. Especially the weeds.

The best weed-pulling weather is a day or two after a rain when the soil is still moist and loosened, but not soppy wet. Last Saturday my kids and I made quick work of cleaning up a portion of the flower beds that was driving me crazy. Goldenrod, red-root pigweed, and oxalis just popped right out of the ground.

There are a few ways to get rid of weeds. The most straightforward is pulling, but that is not always practical.

String trimming taller weeds especially along bed edges and road hillsides where pulling is not easy is the best solution here. Weed-eating before they go to seed and propagate themselves further is the goal. At the farm we start at one end and work our way around the greenhouses. Then begin again.

Smothering weeds with cardboard or plastic is effective in the vegetable garden or where you want to plant new beds. Plastic weighted down with rocks between the rows helps to heat the soil in the spring for new transplants, yet prevents weeds from germinating underneath. It also stops evaporation from the soil, helping to retain moisture. If you leave plastic in place over the winter, you are a step ahead in controlling the weeds the next season.

Herbicides are another choice. Pre-emergent herbicides are applied before the weed seeds germinate. This is best used twice a year in the late winter/early spring and again in late summer before annual weeds like groundsorrel, pigweed and spurge appear. Often this is used in a mixture in “Weed n Feed” lawn supplies. Do not use this type in the vegetable garden or your peas, beans, corn seeds etc won’t come up.

Post-emergent herbicides are either “burn down” meaning they kill the top growth mostly, or systemic meaning they are also transported to the roots. Systemic herbicides are best applied in the fall when perennial weeds are storing reserved sugars in their roots for the following year. The chemical is taken down to the roots and kills the weeds.

There are also herbicides that select for broadleaf weeds, and do not affect grasses. Many of these herbicides like 2-4,d are highly volatile when the temperatures are above 80. When using this type of herbicide in the summer, you have to be really careful what you are near. Dicamba was in the news earlier this summer as drift from farm fields was damaging neighboring crops and trees.

Concentrated acetic acid, corn gluten meal and propane weed flaming are used in organic farms to control weeds with varying degrees of success. Corn gluten meal works as a pre-emergent when applied heavily for several years. Acetic acid (vinegar) works best on small young weeds as a “burn down” and will kill within a few days any plant tissues it touches. However, as it doesn’t reach the roots and perennial weeds can resprout. Flaming appeals to the pyromaniac in me, but works like vinegar only killing top growth. This also is dangerous as dry grass can easily spread a fire, and you must also be mindful of wooden structures and other flammable items nearby.

The truth is, if you are going to garden, you are going to get weeds. Hand pulling is the safest, most selective method. Mulching well with wood or plastic sheeting works well to prevent weeds. Selectively spot treating with herbicides and/or organic alternatives will help hold weeds at bay.

I always thought pulling weeds was good therapy. Better go see my therapist.

Last week my parents rented a lovely cabin in Portageville, NY for the whole family to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. The five cousins ages 7-11 had a great time creek-stomping in the waterfalls, reading and playing all manner of games. The adults also read, and enjoyed the waterfalls, though slightly less vigorously. The television was not turned on once.

In the small town/ countryside location I saw lots of familiar wild flowers along the side of the road like Queen Ann’s Lace and blue chickory. The fields looked a bit different. The corn was much shorter and at least two weeks from tassel. Instead of beans, tobacco or alfafa, potatoes were the strong second crop. With an average frost-free date almost a month behind Lancaster County, this makes sense.

We spent one day at Niagra Falls. The kids enjoyed getting soaked on the iconic Maid of the Mist. My family then crossed over the border to Canada and went on to visit friends living in Ontario.

Petunias were everywhere- and such lush baskets! The slightly less humid, cooler weather really helped many annuals put on a fantastic display. (Pictured above: Amazing petunias and lantana containers in Ontario)

I mentioned seeing lots of vineyards in Ontario and my friends educated me about “ice wine”. Several wine grape growers specialize in this dessert wine made from grapes not harvested until after they have frosted/frozen on the vine. The grapes must be harvested precisely at the right moment when the freeze occurs often within a few hours, before the grapes begin to rot on the vine. In Ontario this usually happens around Christmas. Ontario produces about 75% of Canada’s “ice wine”.

They also told us Canada grows different varieties of wheat than in the States which affects the crunchiness of their commercial bake goods. Canadian Oreos are MUCH crunchier. Who knew? My kids were also amazed to see milk in a bag instead of a carton or jug. Those crazy Canucks.

The cabin was a few miles from Letchworth State Park. “The Grand Canyon of the East”, this park has the reputation of being one of the nation’s best state parks, but was largely under construction when we visited. Boasting three large waterfalls, a newly constructed nature center, and museum dedicated the history of the Seneca Native Americans and the Letchworth family there is something for everyone.

It was a very relaxing vacation. The nicest thing about being away is I feel no compunction to pull other people’s weeds. Weeds will be our topic next week.

The summer of 2012 was a bad one for impatiens lovers.

These shade-loving, colorful plants were the #1 flower for shade, and one of the top five most commonly grown annuals in the United States. Then disaster struck.

Downy Mildew was first discovered that winter in Florida. Impatiens there are planted in the fall as a “winter annual” and they started dying in large swaths. The spores blew up the East Coast on the wind or hitched a ride from propagators in the South.

Downy Mildew is technically a water mold that causes a fluffy white network of mycelium under the leaf surface. Leaves first yellow, then curl slightly, the mold becomes visible and the leaves fall off leaving bare impatiens skeletons. Spores are thought to persist in the soil for 3-5 years.

By August of 2012, there were documented cases from Maine to Florida and as far west as Chicago. Landscapers in New Jersey were especially howling as many commercial properties needed to be replanted. Many homeowners also lost lovely planting under their trees.

The next year growers panicked. Many drastically reduced the number of plants they were growing for the 2013 season or discontinued them completely. This was quite a blow to the #1 shade annual. But gardeners and greenhouse growers are resilient and faced with the choice of nothing, or try something new, many tried something new.

This was a great opportunity for plants like torenia (wishbone flower), coleus, begonias and New Guinea impatiens which are all resistant to the fungus, to shine. Breeders quickly kept new plants coming down the pipeline and choices of beautiful blue or purple browallia (pictured above), new interesting foliage plants, colorful caladiums and upright fuchsias quickly took center stage. A seed strain of New Guineas lowered the price point so there were even New Guineas being sold in market packs like the regular bedding impatiens.

Here it is 5 years later. Many growers have cautiously brought impatiens back. Last summer there were very few reported cases. But landscapers for the most part are still staying away. If you had trouble in 2012, trying them in pots has been successful. But the king of the shade has been dethroned. Many homeowners have discovered there are very good alternatives and growing a diversity of plants lessens your general risk of disease.

**This article was written in July.  By late August reports of the disease started coming in again.  Looks like we are not out of the woods yet.  

If you only visit your favorite greenhouse in April or early May there are several annuals that you probably did not even notice. These are heat-loving plants that bloom profusely when the mercury climbs.  They thrive when many cool season flowers like pansies and lobelia are petering out and can be depended on to give bright color until frost.

The first is probably the best known. Lantana is a tropical sub-shrub. When we lived in Florida, it was a hedge outside my office, but here it is an annual. Breeders have refined the habit and broadened the color range. There are mounding and spreading forms in shades of yellow, pink, red, purple and orange. The flower clusters often have more than one color per cluster. They are also nectar-heavy making them a favorite for butterflies and hummingbirds. Another distinctive feature is the fragrant foliage. When rubbed between my fingers, it reminds me of citrus. Because of the oils in the foliage, it also repels mosquitoes and other bothersome pests.

It is drought tolerant and thrives in full sun with little supplemental irrigation once established. Good for pots, baskets or the front to middle of flower beds.

Summer snapdragons, or angelonia is a great upright annual with flowers in spikes. It comes in white, pink, blueish and purple. This plant was first introduced about 20 years ago and made a great home cut flower. Since then breeders shrunk it down to be more of a bedding plant at the expense of taller sturdier stems. In the last few years more vigorous varieties with larger flowers have come on the market making it suitable for cutting once again. Flowers have good vase life and make excellent mid-tall components in containers or beds.

Pentas or butterfly flower (pictured above) is another tropical with nectar-laden tubular cluster of flowers sure to attract hummingbirds and butterflies to your garden. These plants reach 18-30” depending on the variety and are great additions to a sunny perennial border to add some color between seasons. Bold red, bright pink, lavender or white flowers mix well with most color schemes.

For the shade, begonias can’t be beat. A new series ofBegonia boliviensishas really impressed me the last two summers. ‘Bossa Nova’ begonias have large bell-shaped flowers in shades of red, yellow, orange and blush-white. This plant has an upright then arching habit, making it a nice component in baskets or containers. I have some white ones in a container on my front porch mixed with white torenia and purple foliage Persian shield and alternanthera. The contrast is nice for my shady porch. This series is related to the orange ‘Bonfire’ begonia that we have been growing for several years. They can be brought indoors over the winter and kept for next season.

All of these plants do best planted well after the last frost is past. We have noticed they really don’t seem to grow until temperatures are in the 70s and 80s so it is best to wait on planting them.

If your baskets need a little sprucing up, or your perennial border is between seasons, try some of these heat-lovers for a pop of color that will bloom through the worst the summer has to throw at them.

Ornamental grasses have a fine texture and unique form that blends gracefully with the plethora of daisies and other summer flowers. In the fall, their lovely seed heads play so well with sedums, asters and solidagos. Most often though, the switchgrasses (Panicum), Pennisetums, and Miscanthus are best suited for full sun. When planted in shade they tend to be floppy, not bloom as well and lose their variegation or reddish foliage.

For those that garden in the shade, do not despair! There are several choices of ornamental grasses to mix with your ferns, hostas and other woodland plantings.

If you are looking to go native, search no further than members of the sedge family. The ones that look most like lawn grass are Carex appalachica (Appalachian sedge) and Pennsylvania sedge. They both have a fine texture and medium green foliage, but Carex pennsylvanica spreads by rhizomes and will make a nice patch over time. If you are looking to add blue foliage to your landscape, C. laxiculmus ‘Bunny Blue’ and C. platyphylla (broadlead sedge) are natives with dusty blue blades.

Many sedges are native to Japan. The most handsome of this group are cultivars of Carex oshimensis. Often evergreen, with boldly variegated leaves in yellow (‘Eversheen’) or white (‘Everest’) edges these plants make an excellent focal point. They are a great addition as a “filler” component in a mixed shady container but are best planted into the ground in the fall.

If you have an especially damp area, the yellow foliage of sweet flag (Acorus gramineus ‘Oborozuki’) brightens up the shade. It does not tolerate dry soils, so save this one for the wet spots. It even thrives submerged in a pond.

We can’t talk about grasses for shade without mentioning the queen of woodland grasses, Japanese forest grass. Hackonechloa macra, grows two to three feet tall; the most popular forms have yellow or variegated foliage. They prefer moist soils, but will tolerate dry sites once established. They have a graceful arching habit and look especially lovely mixed with hostas, underplanting trees, or lining a walkway. They do slowly spread by rhizomes but not aggressively. This one is documented tolerate growing near black walnuts.

There are a few plants that look like grasses, but are actually members of the lily family. Liriope comes in a clumping form (Liriope muscari) that is best used to line a walkway or outline a design, and a spreading form (Liriope spicata) that makes a nice groundcover. Both have purple flower spikes in the fall, followed by black berries. I would not advise eating the berries, but they are not toxic to pets or people. The popular black Mondo grass (Ophiopogon planiscapus ‘Nigriscens’) is also in the lily family. It spreads slowly and is topped with blush bell-shaped flowers in the summer. Darkest foliage is in part sun. This mixes well with yellow foliage plants such as coral bells or Tradescantia ‘Sweet Kate’.

For those of you with shady landscapes, embrace your conditions and try a grass that will thrive for you.