Prepping the Garden for a Long Winter's Nap

All the leaves have fallen and the last of my autumn sedum have bloomed and now wither in the harsh November winds.  It was a good run in the garden this season: a marathon of blossoming perennials competed with Iron Man will for my attention amid the stout sedges, prolific shrubs and sensual sway of a wide variety of perennial grasses.  They all garnered a place in the sun but now must surrender to the  increasing shadows of late fall, a well-deserved resting season. 

I always think on this time of year with a mental sigh--part wistful longing for those long summer days gone by and part anticipation of the snowy blanket to cover the landscape and force my activities cheerfully indoors--and I know that I must put my garden to bed.

I look toward the veggies first.  Thankfully, radishes, carrots, parsnips, garlic, leeks, horseradish and turnips have not yet arrived at the end of their productive lives.  They can be harvested into early winter with a little care: simply cover them well with oak leaves to keep the ground from thawing and be sure to mark them with sticks so they can be located in case of heavy snowfall.  All other vegetable plants must be tossed on the compost heap (unless they are diseased, in which case they can be burned).

I have some hearty herbs as well.  I've put the parsley in the garage for the winter because it can get quite finicky about temperatures going below freezing.  But my potted thyme, sage, oregano and chives benefitted last year from a warm spot up against the house and a cozy layer of leaves.  I think this strategy will work again, barring an unseasonably cold winter.

Since I've already removed my potted annuals and placed the bulbs and tubers of many "warm weather" plants (like my dahlias and cannas) on newspaper to dry out, I now have a garage full of plants that take up all the room I will need to store my cars come that first heavy snowfall.  Bulbs and tubers I gently dust and place in paper bags (never plastic, as this will trap moisture and rot them) and my beloved dozens of geraniums will get some tough love: a tender tearing away from their pots.  I will disengage the plants from the soil (I like to use my hands and a fork so as not to damage too many roots), bundle them together and hang the plants upside down in my basement (an ideal spot for overwintering geraniums).  Come spring, I will cut the remnants of these plants back and replant them in their familiar pots with new, freshly fertilized soil.  This practice, as barbarian as it seems, is actually an ideal way to hang onto my plants for many, many years.  I am usually able to retain about 80% of each plant.  And they grow back to twice their original size by summer's end.

Finally I look to my sentimental favorites:  my perennial flowers.  Most of these will get cut back to about 3" once the ground freezes and I will protect them with a generous layer of oak leaves and straw.  I pay special attention to my peonies, which must die back to nothing but dead, brown leaves before I cut the foliage.  Yet peonies are picky and to look their best, I must remember they like things a certain way every year.  I am diligent about cutting all the foliage to the ground because hanging onto the remnants exposes the foliage--and entire plant bed to gray mold.  The last thing I do for the peonies is wish them a nice cold slumber and hope that the winter is sufficiently chilly for my longed-for profusion of peony blooms come spring.  Peonies need a sufficient number of days where the thermometer reads below 40 degrees in order to bloom to their full potential.

There is a very notable exception to my perennial beds' drastic autumn haircuts: my hydrangea bushes.  Not all the bushes, just the hydrangeas that bloom pink, blue or purple.  These mop head and lace cap varieties (called macrophylla) bloom on "old wood" (translation: foliage that formed before the current growing season) and have new flower heads already formed.  Ask a friend or neighbor about hydrangeas and you are sure to hear someone gripe about their hydrangea bush not blooming but looking otherwise great.  It's because they cut off all the old wood.  The white-flowered hydrangeas bloom on "new wood" (foliage formed this year) so they are fine to cut back in fall (these white-bloomed varieties are the pee gee (paniculata) and Annabelle (arborescens) types.  Of course there is even an exception to the exception: the oak leaf hydrangea, which has white blooms but grows on old wood.

Last but not least, I tend to the tools of any gardeners trade: my garden utensils.  I carefully clean all items before I put them away for the season and then I quickly wipe the metal implements with a light coat of vegetable oil to keep them from rusting.  Now I can settle in for a cozy winter season knowing that come spring my garden will burst forth in a bounty of healthy, gorgeous new growth.

Our 19 New Pets

I've often wondered about the human propensity to make all living creatures, well, human.  That, is, to attribute human characteristics to any animate object around us, giving them personalities and lifestyles like one reads in children's books or cartoon strips. And these tales--from the likes of Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit to Jim Davis' Garfield--tend to mirror our own, very human, lives. 

We all do it.  And it has nothing to do with intellect-or lack of it. It's emotional--and all too human. I won't even illustrate my point with my two Shih Zhu pooches...we've pretty much convinced them that they are human (there I go, persuading you that they even understand the concept).  I call them my babies.  Enough said.

Then there's the rabbit.  My daughter is convinced that the rabbit "loves" me best because she follows me everywhere I go: upstairs, downstairs, onto the sofa or under my bedcovers. My daughter disregards the obvious reason--I am the only one in the house who feeds the critter--preferring to believe that the rabbit has cultivated a deep, emotional, human attachment to me.  And when I'm snuggling beside her, running my fingers through her soft, furry pelt, don't I buy right into the idea?  Of course!  That little bunny really does love me best!

If we could contain our little predilection for humanizing our pets to the privacy of our own home, we'd never have to endure the amused teasing of friends and family, but we must love the punishment because we've taken our cockeyed notions to the great outdoors.  Our newly built pond is now the hub of all humanizing efforts--namely the frogs who mysteriously appeared in a "build it and they will come" sort of way last spring.

The first to show up was a big green guy with a brown face and my hubby dubbed him "Sir Edmund."  Not too crazy, right?  Naming a frog? I mean, just like the man who was first to climb Everest, this fellow was a trailblazer.  Perhaps more frogs would follow.  They did. Big ones, little ones, green ones, brown ones, solid ones, striped and dotted ones.  We sit at the pond on a lazy Saturday afternoon counting the many frogs frolicking among the plants and stones and we sigh with nostalgia because it reminds us of a favorite childhood activity: counting the hidden pictures in our Highlights magazines.

One day my husband arrived home from work to find me out by the pond scooping up algae.  I told him Mr. Grouchy was acting up again, stirring up the whole frog clan with his loud croaking.  My husband nodded sagely, knowing exactly which frog I was referring to and it was then that I realized
we'd probably gone off the deep end of our proverbial pond. 

But we, like every other animal lover in the world, are undeterred.  We'll probably always speak in "baby talk" to a puppy and  feel special every time a duck eats a cracker straight from our outstretched hand.  We'll always be convinced that the animal world is interested in joining our human existence.  In fact, as I write this, I see the fattest Robin going to town in our backyard birdbath.  Will you look at the way he shimmies and shakes?  He's really trying to get his undercarriage clean!  Come to think of it, we really need to get a book on birds...figure out how we can get them to nest in our eaves....

Critter Conundrum

It's always around this time of year when thoughts turn to wildlife.  Perhaps it's because flowers are in full bloom and everyone is gazing at nature's glory unleashed in living color across back yards around the world.  We ohhh and ahhh  at foliage and blooms, then pause when we see a section of buds ripped away from a beloved plant.  Our brows furrow, our teeth clench...critters have come calling on our doorstep and we don't welcome their visit!

So, what to do to discourage them without harm to their well-being and our collective conscience? I've done a little digging around and have come up with the most recommended methods of non-toxic pest control available. They are as follows:

Deer and Rabbits:

Liquid Fence.  I couldn't discover what is actually in this product but it smells absolutely vile.  Can't blame our furry friends for keeping their distance.  It claims to be eco-friendly and my clients swear by its effectiveness.  Available everywhere.

I Must Garden Deer Repellent.  All-natural and available at garden centers, hardware stores and natural food stores.  Also check out: www.imustgarden.com.

Critter Ridder.  This irritant repels by odor and taste and lasts up to 30 days.  Be warned: DO NOT spray this product if there is even a slight breeze.  I learned this lesson the hard way (my eyes are still stinging at the memory of my run-in with this spray coupled with a spring breeze).  Available everywhere.

Homemade remedies have some effectiveness as well.  The president of our local arboretum suggests a quarter cup of veggie oil, a tablespoon of dish soap and one egg mixed in a spray bottle and doused over plants periodically.  I have had good luck with this method.  Milk has also worked for me.  In winter, I fill a standard spray bottle with half water, half milk (doesn't matter what percent) and spritz plants--particularly my oakleaf hydrangea because deer nibble the buds in the off-season and then I have no blooms come summer.  I switch to full-strength in the warm months, filling a bottle full of whatever milk I have in the fridge and spraying it liberally around the yard.

Insects and bugs:

Some of my clients swear by a product called Sluggo, which targets slugs, snails, earwigs, cutworms, sowbugs and pillbugs.  Made from iron phosphate, which is a compound which combines phosphorous and oxygen with iron.  It is coupled with spinosad, a naturally occurring bacterium in soil.  The product is considered safe by and large but the jury is still out on this one.  The iron phosphate is poisonous to slug bellies and has been known to make pets sick.  For this reason I cannot fully recommend it.  Do your homework.  If your studies show effectiveness without toxicity, give it a try.  I am not yet prepared to endorse it.  I need to investigate further.

Some all-natural alternatives, which boast botanical oils as their staples, include: Green Light Rose Defense (especially good for powdery mildew, blackspot, rust, spider mites and aphids), All Seasons Horticultural & Dormant Spray and Bioneem.  I also recommend mosquito dunks with Bacillus thuringiensis as the active ingredient.

Moles:

Liquid Fence Mole Repellent coats mole food sources--earthworms and tender roots--with an unappealing (but not poisonous) substance that forces them to look elsewhere for food sources and keeps them away from your garden.  This has been known to discourage chipmunks as well.

Gophers/groundhogs:

These creatures have become the bane of my existence.  They are hearty and headstrong and have been known to gnaw through all manner of plants and barriers--even wood fencing!  My solution is to make my yard as uncomfortable as possible for them.  Place sharp shell fragments around plants because gophers' toes are tender!  Spray stinky solutions on leaves but be warned that's not always a deterrent when a groundhog is determined to defoliate.  I witnessed one going to town on my basil plants last summer!  The final line of defense is steel fencing--chicken wire is okay.  Perhaps best of all is a motion-activated sprinkler, which spritzes them with a harsh shot of water.  None of us--man nor beast--likes that!

In defense of lawns...sort of

I've often thought about the drastic nature of our society and every time I hear an example of yet another good idea gone rogue I sigh with impatience.  Why are we all so quick to label things good, bad, right, wrong?

Take, for instance, the case of the humble lawn.  There was a time when an endless expanse of grassy carpet equaled Nirvana.  Every house in my development had the requisite square of green gracing the front yard and a fake redwood picnic table out back.  I recall as a child sitting in a neighbor's lawn trying to detect one single weed (okay, it was the pre-cell phone era and I guess I had a lot of time on my hands back then).  Lush green grass on the outside of every home and wall-to-wall carpeting on the inside equaled the Middle-Class American Dream Neighborhood.

Fast forward to today.  Vegetables: good. Grass: bad.  Vegetables have flowers so they can be decorative; they nourish us, both body and soul.  Lawns give nothing back.  They take a tremendous amount of time and energy to maintain.  And EVERYONE knows that to attain a weed-free lawn, you need a truckload of chemicals.  All of this is true.  Except for one small detail: Grass is a plant, not an entity devised by some evil genius to destroy core American values.  Where is all this anti-fescue sentiment leading?  Will there come a day when those intrepid souls who plant grass in their front yards will suffer the taunts and jeers of their neighbors?  Will people spit on their lawn as they pass?

Grass can serve a purpose.  It is often vital along hillsides and other areas where soil erosion would be problematic without grassy roots anchoring it down.  It provides a relatively clean carpet over dirt and is home and food to many living things.  Granted, we often feel many of the critters that benefit from grass are pesky to us, yet they are all part of nature's cycle of life.  Like grass itself, they have a place here.

In our world of extreme views, I suggest something radical: moderation.  Why don't we understand that grass has its place in the world too?  I am by no means touting the idea of better living through chemicals.  Indeed, clover in the front lawn is key to the well-being of the grass since this plant from the bean family (I kid you not!) fixates nitrogen in the soil.  Grass, as we know, can't survive without plenty of nitrogen.  So let a little clover mingle with the grass for their mutual benefit.

Other ways to keep a nice-looking, chemical-free lawn include using white vinegar to douse unwanted weeds.  I spritzed some on a patch of moss in the middle of my front lawn, tossed a few grass seeds on the spot a week later and now I have only healthy grass growing there.  Also important: keep grass about three inches long.  Not only will it look fuller but it will help choke out weeds.  When planting in the spring, make sure seeds go down after the last frost (usually around Mother's Day in the northeast where I live) and try to time the planting with a rainy stretch to cut down on the need for the garden hose.

I love flower gardens.  I love vegetable gardens too.  I believe in the power of all nature's plants.  And although I "think green" (a very good web site to check out is ironically called, Growfoodnotlawns.com), I also recall the pleasure derived lounging as a small girl in a thick thatch of grass, staring up at the clouds and dreaming.  Perhaps providing a soft cushion to starry-eyed children is grass' greatest attribute and reason enough to let it live.

Year of the Cicada

I chose to start this blog at a momentous time for Mother Nature: the year of the cicada.  It seems fitting to begin my foray into writing about nature during one of its special events: the coming of those winged Rip Van Winkles, who have been asleep nearly as long as their human counterpart-seventeen years. Only three years shy of Rip's famous 20-year nap!  And like the famous Mr. Van Winkle of folklore, the bloody-eyed locusts have awakened in New York's Catskill Mountains near my home, alerting residents of their presence with an apocalyptic drone impressive enough to inspire doomsday tales around the campfire.

But, as most of us have learned, these are not the locusts of Biblical proportion, who blighted the land and ruined those ancient lives.  These modern creatures are, well, harmless.  Okay, they are an eyesore, with their bulbous crimson eyes and eerily transparent wings. And I am not relishing plucking those creepy shells they emerge from off the flowers and trees in my garden, but I'm not seeing any damage to my foliage since their presence became so audibly apparent this past week.  I have heard tales of nibbling on the wood and leaves of trees so I questioned an expert about this at my local nursery. He recommended a dusting of clay to any plant you may find vulnerable to the critters.  It coats the plants and makes it harder to dig into.

I say cut these little buggers a break; they're really only visiting, making their way up through layers of rock and soil to enjoy their time in the sun.  The males are doing what all males of all species do: just trying to find a friendly female to  have a little fun with during their oh-so-brief time above ground.  They play their mating song via two vibrating plates on their abdomens.  Sure it's loud and shrill, but it's also their swan song, a fleeting reminder to us all that life is short and, at times, intensely sweet.  It may hit us with a nails-on-chalkboard intensity that resonates with discord in our heads but, hey, the noisy males die by the beginning of July and you won't have to hear the sound again for seventeen years!  Sit back and enjoy nature's music.