May Flowers

Lavender Azaleas:


Azaleas come in many colors:


Iris:

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Pink Diamonds Hydrangea:


Wedding Sipria:








A few caladiumns in the shade:

May Week 4

Organic Gardening Calendar
22 Weeks to frost free date in zone 6

By: Sammie Jo Mitchell

The Spring flowering season is over and the summer heat lovers are just beginning to bloom. Cleaning up the residue from Spring and preparing for Summer is this week’s task.

Things you will need:
Snail and Slug Bait
Compost pile

As the spring flowers fade, you must get out in the garden…I recommend the hour or two just before sunset. At this time of day you are less likely to spread disease through dew or plants otherwise being wet, it is generally less hot, and I find that the low sun angles enhance the colors in the garden.

First of all there are the faded buttercups and Lycoris that need to be cleared out. When they are brown or flopped over as you see here;



They are ready to be pulled from the garden. Generally if they are no longer serving the bulb a gentle tug on a hand full will pull them right out.

Buttercups, Lycoris, Tulips all leave behind decaying plant material that attracts snails. These snails function to eat that dying material, which is perfectly OK until they decide they want to eat your Hostas too. If you have more than a ten square foot plot I would not recommend hand picking of the snails. Although mechanical means (hand picking) is the most ecologically safe method of pest removal, it can get to be tedious, unless you have a few 4-5 year olds that will make it a game to collect and crush snails. They make a cool pop sound when you step on them.

Since I have acres of dead and decaying material and no kindergarten class to collect snails for me, I must turn to pesticides to control the snails. After last year’s historic kill off from a late freeze, the snail population has exploded.

There are basically two ways to go about getting rid of the snails. One is organic, the other chemical.

The chemical product you will see on the store shelves at all your big box stores is a product by Ortho called Bug-Getta. Read the label. Down in the lower left hand corner of the bag….”product can be fatal to dogs”. And in the more prominent warnings: "Pets and children should not be present when treating. Active Ingredient: 2% Metaldehyde."

[This from Wikipedia: Metaldehyde is classed as a ‘moderately hazardous’ pesticide by the World Health Organization and is toxic to all animals that ingest it. Metaldehyde is highly toxic by inhalation, moderately toxic by ingestion and slightly toxic by dermal absorption. There is widespread concern that there have been an unacceptable number of poisoning incidents[citation needed], especially involving domestic pets, wild animals and birds. Metaldehyde is also known to be carcinogenic in large quantities or through prolonged exposure.]

For the organic product, again I refer you to Gardens Alive!. (No photo, their stuff comes in brown paper bags printed with vegetable ink) I am not a paid promoter of theirs and there are (I assume) other organic products out there that work just as well. I use the GA! product line in the blog because it is what I have used with success in my yard. That said, the GA! Product Escar-Go Supreme is available by mail order.

Yes there are shipping charges, but generally there is no sales tax, so at least in my State, it’s a wash. Here is the GA! explanation of their product: "Gardens Alive Escargo Contains two potent natural controls. The first is iron phosphate, the original ingredient in the original Escar-Go! Slug and Snail Control. It causes slugs and snails to stop feeding and die within 3 to 6 days. The second is metabolite made by fermenting bacteria (Saccharopolyspora spinosa) that causes insects to stop feeding once they ingest or come into contact with it. This tackles cutworms, earwigs, pill bugs, sow bugs, ants and crickets."

Notice there are no warnings of pet death from it’s use.

How do they compare cost wise? I got these prices off the internet….

Bug-Getta - 2 lbs – coverage: 200 SF cost: $8.49

Escargo Supreme – 13 ounces – Coverage – 1,100 SF cost: $9.95

I know it hurts, but let’s do some math.

Bug-Getta covers 6.25 square feet per ounce
Escargo covers 84.6 square feet per ounce

With those coverage rates you would have to purchase 5 ½ bags of the chemical pest control at $8.49 for a total cost of; $46.70 to get the same coverage as the $9.95 bag of organic control. Not to mention it is delivered to your door saving you about $4 per gallon of gas to go to the store to get it, where you will purchase other things on impulse - costing you even more. (No I don’t have that problem…not at all – a friend of mine does…)

Oh yes! We were cleaning out the dead butter cups. Pull up all the decaying leaves and deposit them in your compost pile. Where you removed the dead leaves and around other plants snails love to eat; like Hostas; sprinkle the snail killer about.

If you use the chemical stuff, expect to see a few dead birds, ‘cause they will eat it. Maybe your puppy too.

May Week 3

Organic Gardening Calendar
23 Weeks to frost free date in zone 6

By: Kathi
Every year about this time I get lots of questions from friends asking if it is OK to transplant or dig up something.

Things you will need:
Bulb clumps you want to thin
Shovel
Bone Meal
Bulb fertilizer
Compost
Flour

Just yesterday a friend was telling me about her flower bed she is refurbishing. In the process of digging it up (something I try to avoid) she found that her tulip bulbs had reproduced and she now had hundreds of them, but did not know how to store them until planting time in the fall.

Tulips, buttercups, Lycoris, Iris, every bulb or tuber I can think of prefers to be in the dirt. When you dig up that clump of buttercups that are no longer blooming because they are so crowded, you replant them immediately. It is the same with all bulbs. Select their new home and move them. Certainly professional growers have specialized refrigerated storage for their bulbs, but I don’t have that sort of equipment. We all very often think that if it comers from the grower this way, that is the proper way to treat a plant at home. Not so much.

When you dig up your bulbs the first critical calculation you must make is depth of bulb and angle of your shovel. Many a bulb have been sliced in two by not anticipating how deep the bulbs are. Here I must say, however, if you slice open a bulb like a buttercup or Lycoris, if there is a root section and the growing tip is still there-if you cut off the side of the bulb…go ahead and plant the bulb. It will grow. Throw away any parts that do not have a tip and at least a bit of root area. They won’t grow.

Bulb planting is one of those things that should not be done lazily. After all my advocating for lazy gardening, here I’m telling you, the more effort you put into replanting the bulbs, the better off you will be bloom wise and in the long run effort wise.

Take the clump of bulbs and separate them. If I get a particularly nice “mother bulb” and fully grown new bulb that are still attached to each other, I will keep those together. These large bulbs will give some fullness to the blooming pattern for the first year or two until the replanted bulbs begin to look full again.

Don’t make the mistake I’ve made of digging a trench, however wide and planting the bulbs in an organized pattern. Invariably the bulbs get planted too close together, so you are re-digging in just a few years, and besides they look dumb planted that way.

For each bulb dig a hole that is 4-5 times the width of the bulb and 4-5 times the height of the bulb. Take out the soil and mix it with bone meal, some compost, sand if you have heavy clay soil, and a good organic bulb fertilizer. Also include a dose of mole med if you have moles and voles eating your bulbs. Use your shovel to chop these ingredients together to get a nice uniform mix, and get rid of clumps of dirt. You want the dirt going in over the bulb to fill in around the bulb completely and not leave air pockets.

Then remember your spacing. With bulbs, spaced randomly is what I prefer, but if you are going for a formal look, still separate those bulbs at a minimum 15 times their width. This gives them room to grow and reproduce. Once the bulb(s) are covered, I top off each hole with flour. Flour??? Yep. That way I can see where they are, most critters don’t care for bleached white flour and it is pretty cheap. Then I water them thoroughly but very slowly. A fine mist or a soaker hose is the next best thing to rain. If done slowly enough, the residue of the flour remains so you can see where not to dig when you go to set out the annuals you use to over plant your bulbs,

May Week 2

Organic Gardening Calendar
24 Weeks to frost free date in zone 6

By: Kathi

Spacing was the hardest thing for me to learn. First of all don’t space your plants based upon the spacing dimensions listed on the plant tag.

Things you will need: A little bit of math
Tape measure

You must remember that plant tags are written up by growers and growers want to sell product. Second, until a local nursery has proven time and again (this takes years) that they are knowledgeable about the plants they sell, don’t go by what they say either. My biggest spacing mistakes were from listening to the horticulturist at my local nursery. In his case, I’m not sure if he just took the initial growers word for eventual plant size or if he intentionally misled me. Either way, spacing mistakes are costly and end up causing you more work. Something we lazy gardeners (or efficient gardeners) tend to want to avoid.

In this day and age, there is no reason you cannot look up and species and variety of plant you are considering purchasing. When you look them up, of course the sun/shade aspect; water requirements, etc. are all there and certainly pay attention. However, the big thing to look at is ultimate size, and length of time it takes to reach that size. If it is 50 years to maturity…unless you plan on living where you are for more than 50 years, you can decide to plant closer than I am about to suggest.

For lazy gardeners trees and shrubbery need to go in place first as discussed last week. It is essential once these are planted that you keep in mind – particularly with shrubs- their eventual height and girth. The temptation is great to stick your new perennials within 3 feet of that new shrub, because it all looks so empty…been there done that. The next thing you know, you lovely perennial is covered up by the shrub and will die unless you crawl under there and dig it up. Not fun at all.

For instance, a Burning Bush (Euonymus alata "Compactus") says that the bush will get 6-10 feet tall. But how wide? The site does not say. So what to do? First of all look at the photo of the plant. Is it tall and thin – vase shaped- or is it a mounded shape? Certainly from the photo you can tell it is a mounded shape. In order to appear “mounded” or “dome” shaped a plant must be wider than it is tall. The text said 6-10 feet tall. This means the bush will probably have a diameter of at least the 10 feet and most likely; at least by my experience, given the space, shrubs, not just the Euonymus, will get almost twice as wide as they are tall. With a 10 foot tall shrub – yes use the larger number – figure 10 feet plus 60% or 6 feet, to get the diameter of a “No Planting Zone”. Sixteen feet!!!! Yep. Diameter…not radius…still doesn’t plant anything within that area, unless it is an annual or other short lived plant. Now we have a Burning Bush, and a no plant zone anywhere in an 8 foot radius. So you can plant your expensive new perennial or smaller shrub at 8 feet out? No…you must do the same math for every plant. If the perennial you are planting is say, a peony that gets about 4-5 feet in diameter you must add the distance to the 8 foot radius. OK, so we are at 8’ + 2 ½’ = 10 ½ feet out. Is that where you want to plant the peony? Nope…more space…I have found that especially when dealing with trees, shrubs, and perennials, that open space between the plants gives the garden a manicured rather than wild look. Add ½ the width of the perennial again. 10 ½’ + (call it) 2’ = 12-13 feet out from the base of the center shrub. This gives them both room to grow and space for you to tend them.

Learning to have space between plants is hard. You are thinking, this is crazy…at these distances maybe you can only plant 3-4 plants…yes, exactly...but your eye and your heart want to buy 20 to go in that slot. Save your money. Select the finest varieties of what it is you want to plant then give them room to grow without being cramped and malformed due to over crowding. With most plants you will reach your ultimate size in just a few years…time that passes quickly in a garden.

Fill in those empty voids with annuals and each year you will need fewer and fewer of them. Less cost, less work, healthier plants due to better air circulation and less competition, and a neater cleaner looking garden will be your reward.

May Week 1

Organic Gardening Calendar
25 Weeks to frost free date in zone 6

By: Kathi

Garden Structure

Things you will need:
Trees
Shovel
Tape measure



What to plant first? Look at your yard or garden. What in it is the “back bone” of the area? What about it attracts your eye? Of course if this is a new bed then you must decide, how you plan to structure the bed or yard to give your work the greatest impact visually.

If you are starting with a bare lot…or one of those precious “contractor” landscapes…you have a perfectly new pallet to begin your garden. Unless you just KNOW what species your contractor planted…I’d be leery. Better to rid yourself of a night mare earlier than later. Generally in the plant world, cheaper is what contractors buy, and cheaper plants are not going to have any “special” features as the hybrid varieties will exhibit.

Ask the questions? Is this for sun or shade? If you have established shade trees, and you cut them down, you are an idiot. Shade is the hardest thing to come by of all the garden pleasures and shade beds are by far the easiest to tend and maintain. Even if the tree(s) that give you the shade are crummy trees…they are better than the baking hot sun.

So the answer to the question is first, decide how much shade you want in 10 years. Select these trees carefully. Unfortunately the first big decision is the very one that will either make your garden sing, or make oh so ho hum.

After many massive mistakes, I think you should have at least 1 real good fast growing deciduous shade tree. Where I live, I love the October Glory Maples. You get the tiny red blooms in spring before anything else blooms, great growth rate and dense shade, and a most magnifiscent red leaf in autumn. I have a large yard, so I set out 4 different varieties of Maples that are known for their fall color, but I set them so that when they are full grown their outside tips might barely touch each other. The point of the spacing is to allow you to get the hade from the tree, but it allows sunlight to reach in and hit all those shady spots at low sun angle hours.

Most plants, except those that love the hottest part of the day heat, will appreciate being in shade during high sun angles and getting several hours of sunshine in the morning and before sunset.

Don’t plant your anchor trees in a little box square, or a straight row. Try to make it look random. These will be the biggest things in your yard and you don’t want your brain thinking about geometric patterns while you are enjoying your garden. Nature plants things in free flow…only you should space them…

The next plants to consider are the under story trees. Trees that do not reach beyond 20-25 feet,. Most of these trees; dogwoods; redbuds; crabapples; all like to be where they get a good bit of sun. Their tags will tell you shade. They lie. If you want blooms...plant then in the sun. Now consider where you planted your tallest anchor tree(s). Plant these trees where the shadow of the taller tree will pass over it for a short period, basically in the northern hemisphere…plant it to the north of your anchor tree. Again pay close attention to the spacing. When the tree is fully grown, how will it interact with the anchor? If you are lazy, like me always use the “will barely touch” rule. Add the widths of the trees at fully grown…remember to select fast growing trees…and then add 10% more distance between them.

That’s enough structural planting this week. Give them a chance to get growing before you move to the shade loving shrubs like Rhododenrons.