Articles

This March the weather has certainly seen its ups and downs. Up to 70s and down to 20s. Rain, snow and 50 mph winds. If I worked in an office, I wouldn’t care so much, or probably even really notice, but I don’t. The changes in the weather, often very abrupt, have caused me to pause in my gardening endeavors, and carry plants that were out, back in again at night lest they be nipped by Jack Frost. Let’s hope April cuts us a break.

For those of you wanting to get a jump on the vegetable garden, peas, onions, and seed potatoes, can and should be in now or very soon. Lettuces, spinach and kale, and the cole crops like broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage can also go in now. Keep one eye on the weather and several buckets or row covers handy to protect young plants. Cauliflower and lettuces are sensitive to frost damage, especially when young.

In this area we always get a better fall harvest from Brussels sprouts, broccoli and cabbage than we do in the spring, but that doesn’t usually stop me from planting them anyway. They tend to bolt- or send up flower stalks in June as soon as it gets hot, so shorter season varieties that produce heads quickly are the best choice.

Asparagus and strawberries are perennial crops and can go in now as well.

For asparagus, let the plants establish the first year, the second year you can begin to harvest the emerging spears. Its ferny, exotic foliage looks especially handsome along the border of the garden.

Strawberries come in two forms- June-bearing and ever-bearing. If you are looking to make jam, the June-bearing kinds are what you want. You will get a large harvest all at once from late May to mid-June depending on the weather. The first year, snip the blossoms to allow the plants to concentrate on growing and establishing a good row. The second year, get your Mason jars ready.

Ever-bearing strawberries are just what they sound like. Expect a few handfuls throughout the summer. The flavor on these is also getting better. Snip the blossoms until June the first year, and then let them make some fruit. Several ornamental varieties are on the market with pink or red flowers that make nice additions to hanging baskets or patio containers.

There are some crops that are best planted from seeds rather than young transplants. I’m thinking specifically of beets, corn and beans. These can all go in the ground in mid-late April. Short rows of corn planted several weeks apart will give you a succession of harvest throughout the summer.

Our advice about tomatoes is to check the weather around April 20th. If the 10-day weather forecast is above 40 at night, go for it. If not, wait another week or so.

Don’t even think about peppers, cucumbers, melons or squash until after frost in mid-May. They need warm soil, and warm nights and will thank you for waiting.

Currently we are fighting a rabbit that perches on a retaining wall and nibbles off the strawberries. Before I plant my broccoli and lettuces I need to invest in some chicken wire fencing or all my efforts will be for naught. The dogs sleep in the house at night and are not earning their keep. Maybe I need to borrow a cat from my sister-in-law.

Perennial gardening can be overwhelming. With thousands of choices of sun and shade perennials, making a decision is difficult for the novice and expert gardener alike. The Perennial Plant Association, a group of landscapers, growers, and other perennial afficianados aims to help by naming one special plant each year to feature. The association started selecting Perennial Plants of the Year in 1990. These 26 plants are tried-and-true, fantastic perennials for a variety of conditions. If you need a place to start, this list is a gold-mine.

The first Perennial of the Year was Phlox stolonifera. This spreading spring blooming phlox for the shade is still one of our most popular perennials. Penstemon ‘Husker Red’, Rudbeckia fulgida ‘Goldsturm’ (black-eyed Susans), ‘Walkers Low’ catmint, and Russian sage were all early picks and continue to be mainstays of the perennial garden.

I get especially excited when they pick one of my favorites. In 2014, Panicum virgatum ‘Northwind’ won. An especially upright selection of our native switchgrass, this is a fantastic warm-season ornamental grass. 2011’s winner, Amsonia hubrichtii, Arkansas bluestar is a stand-out in the spring garden . It’s graceful, ferny foliage turns a flaming yellow in the fall. The large specimen at the base of our fence by greenhouse #1 always gets lots of oohs and aahs.

This year’s winner is an old-fashioned favorite. The Anemone hybrid ‘Honorine Jobert’ was discovered as a white-flowering sport in a patch of pink fall-blooming anemones in the Jobert’s French garden in the 1850s. This pure-white stately wind-flower is the queen of the fall garden. In our area, anemones grow well in sun to part shade. They do best with a little protection in the afternoon. They are not for the faint of heart, reaching up to four feet tall, and spreading gently by underground stems. Anemone generally tolerate deer and rabbits. The best time to divide or move anemones is in the spring.

If you want to learn about more winners, the Perennial Plant Association website has a full listing of winners and we have paper copies in the store.

Photo credit- North Creek Nursery.

I love the fall. Seeing the leaves change from summer’s green to beautiful reds, yellows, oranges and even purples prepares me for winter like nothing else.

Those colorful pigments are always there- just masked by the green chlorophyll. The powerhouse energy-making parts of the cell are no longer needed as the trees and shrubs prepare for winter dormancy. The plant breaks them down letting the other beautiful colors show through for a short time.

Unfortunately last week’s rain took us from leaf-peeping season to leaf-raking season.

Many opinions abound about what to do with the leaves that are now blanketing our yards. This week I’ll offer some of mine.

1.The first and best option is to mow them. Shredding them up and leaving them on the yard to breakdown and fertilize your grass over the winter is the best and easiest thing to do. Set your mower no lower than 3” and you can “lawnpost”! The microbes on the leaves will also get down to the soil level and help break down the thatch. Go over your yard once a week until the leaves are all fallen.

2. But if you prefer the look of a bare yard, raking them into a compost pile with other vegetable and yard waste is also a good option.

3. If you are not up to composting, many local waste management companies will take several bags of yard waste per week. Check with your service provider for specifics. The company we use sends their trash as well as yard waste to the Waste to Energy (WTE) incinerator in Conoy Township to be turned back into electricity.

4. If you are lucky enough to live in Manor Township, you can drop off your leaves at their compost facility Saturdays through early December for free. There they prepare the compost and will sell it back to you at a reasonable price next year. **Anyone can buy compost there, but you must be a Manor Township resident to drop off leaves.

5. A lot of local farmers are happy to have leaves to compost with their animal waste. Check with your neighbors and see if they are interested.

6. A trick I recently heard about, but haven’t had a chance to try yet, suggests composting leaves in a large black (30-33 gallon) trash bag. Fill half full with dry leaves, add some fruit and vegetable peelings, coffee or tea grounds, and a few shovels full of soil to supply microbes to get things started. Tie the bags shut, put inside a second bag and wait till spring. If you are lucky, you should have compost when you need it for the garden. I think I’ll try this, with a few bags this year. I’ll report back in the spring.

7. Burning is an option depending on where you live. We live on 50 acres in Colerain Twp. As long as it is still, you supervise the fire, and have a hose at-the-ready you can still burn.

There is no more evocative smell of fall (except maybe hot apple cider) than burning leaves. But there are much better things to do with them.

Pictured above- Sugar Shak- Cephalanthus occidentalis.  Cultivar of our native button bush.

“Good fences make good neighbors” is popularly attributed to Robert Frost from his poem “Mending Wall”. It must have a ring of truth, because we get a lot of questions about privacy fences.

Whether you are trying to shield your property from road noise and the glare of headlights, or block a sight line, a privacy fence will help create boundaries on your property.

Physical fences are certainly the fastest solution. Building a vinyl, split rail, stone or metal fence will give an instant barrier. Often communities require permitting or have rules on height and distance from the property line.

A softer option is a planted hedge. Though it is certainly not as instant.

If you have a sunny property, the relatively fast growing arborvitae, Leland Cypress or privet will give a substantial hedge in a few years. If you don’t want a simple line of evergreens, a varied shrub wall with several specimens can offer interest through different seasons and will make a planting look more like a garden and less like a wall. A housing development on 472 planted a barrier with viburnums, yellow twig dogwood, arborvitaes and juniper several years ago and it has filled in very nicely. It provides food and shelter for wildlife, but does require some maintenace.

Planting a few larger shade trees will help shade and block views to second story windows. Keep in mind the final height of anything you plant. A shrub in a 2-gallon pot that you buy at three feet tall can potentially reach 40. Planting too close together, will require more maintenance in trimming or thinning.

Stepping down from the evergreens with deciduous shrubs make an excellent backdrop for perennial plantings. For those that like gardening, this will give you an excuse to create some new beds.

If you already have a chain link fence or other not-so-attractive structure to cover, vines are a great choice. Especially if you pick a perennial vine like clematis, honeysuckle, wisteria, climbing roses or hydrangea vines. These vines an become woody over time and can cover a substantial area.

Reseeding annual vines like morning glories or purple hyacinth vines are fast growing and will spread quite a distance in one season. These are good choices for a back yard that you use primarily in the summer as they lose their leaves and die to the ground in the winter.

If you do chose to plant a barrier have fun, and be patient, it can provide years of enjoyment.

Mile-A-Minute weed is a scourge upon the landscape.It is entangled in my ornamental vines and overrunning the woods edge of my lawn.I don’t like it, and have been fighting it for a while. With diligence, we have convinced it to stop growing over the greenhouses. But I’m not willing to put down my guard just yet.

Many of our invasive weeds hitched a ride either as young seedlings or as dormant seeds remaining in shipping containers from other countries. Mile-a-Minute, also called Chinese Tear-thumb is no different. It came in on nursery containers of Rhododendrons from Asia in the late 1800s and has been spreading from Connecticut south to Virginia ever since. It is firmly ensconced in the Pennsylvania roadsides, disturbed areas and woods edges.

Mile-a Minute, scientific namePersicaria perfoliata,is an annual weed. Seeds first germinate in April, and seedlings appear shortly thereafter. It is a twining vine, and can spread over ground or climb up trees as far as 20 feet. Stems can grow six inches in one day. Hence the name. It is very prickly, with tiny sharp spines, almost barbs, along the stems and on the leaf veins. Thereby gaining the second common name of tear-thumb. It quickly covers native plants and shrubs smothering them and preventing photosynthesis.

Flowers are insignificant, but it forms clusters of round blue- purple metallic berries each containing one seed. The fruits are tasty to birds that generously spread the seeds as they fly, helping the plant in its plan of total world domination.

The leaves are edible, and have a slight lemon-citrus taste. Sometimes out of spite, I eat some as I walk past.

To combat the weed all that had been in our arsenal was herbicides and hand pulling. As it is spread so prolifically by seed- one plant can produce up to 2,000 seeds, alternative control methods were needed. Twenty years ago federal scientists started looking for a predator to eat the vines and leaves. Enter the Mile-a-Minute weevil,Rhinocominus latipes.Imported from Asia to combat the weed, it has been very successful in controlling the spread of Mile-A-Minute. In the last several years, highway departments in Maryland in conjunction with agriculture departments in New Jersey have been releasing the weevils as has the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. The bugs eat the leaves and also bore into the stems ultimately killing the plant and preventing seed production. Go weevils!

However, the plan is not to eradicate the weeds, just to keep the population in balance with the insects. I guess that is the yin and yang of wildlife management. If you have them in your yard, the fruits are now getting ripe. Remove them if you can to prevent the further spread of this pesky weed.