April 16, 2013 - Kim’s Weekly
Garden Newsletter
These weekly garden notes are
written by Kim Willis, unless another author is noted, and the opinions
expressed in these notes are her opinions and do not represent any other
individual, group or organizations opinions.
Hi Gardeners Note: Pictures will be posted at a later date with this newsletter.
I absolutely loved yesterday’s weather. It could have been a bit sunnier but being
outside in shirt sleeves was so great. We managed to get most of our lattice wall up
to hide the compost pile and my stash of flower pots and other gardening
junk. I also got some pruning and clean
up done. I spent the whole day outside
from about 9 am to 6 pm when my exasperated spouse asked me to come inside and
call my mom, who had called three times, not understanding why I wasn’t around.
(No I don’t carry a cell phone in the garden.)
Today the sun is coming back out after more rain and I need
to get this newsletter done so I can get back out there. Unfortunately we have snow, yes snow, in the
forecast for Friday. But that cold spell
is supposed to be short. The grass is
green and the birds and frogs are singing so let’s hope the winter will be over
after Friday.
I was so unhappy with the weather Saturday that I went to
Campbell’s greenhouse just to walk around where there were flowers. My soul needed flowers. There were only a few people there, very nice
browsing experience. I did bring home
some plants although I convinced myself not to bring home a lot more. I am always amazed with the number of new plants
and new varieties of old plants that appear each year.
I purchased a plant called Leptinella squalida, “Platts
Black”. The common name is Brass Buttons.
I have never heard of it. It has
tiny, ferny leaves that are very dark black shading to bright green on the
ends, an interesting mix. It is supposed
to be a ground cover, (which probably means it is invasive) hardy to zone 6. It is supposed to have blue-green or gold
flowers in summer and likes moisture and part shade. I just need to find the right spot for it
because it stays about 2 inches high and will get lost among the bigger
things. (I am that person who buys a
plant because its different and I want to experience growing it, not because I
have a need or place for it.)
I also purchased a Streptocarpus ( Ladyslippers) “Blue Ice”. It’s also called Cape Primrose. It is full of beautiful lavender, not true
blue flowers. Streptocarpus are generally
houseplants, which I think most people would not realize with the display at
the greenhouse. They do bloom all spring and summer if
fertilized regularly. You could probably
put it outside after all danger of frost, although they certainly wouldn’t last
out there now. I just loved the flowers.
I also purchased a diascia, a lovely peach shade. They are cold hardy to some degree, blooming
early in spring and late in fall. I have
over wintered them inside for a couple years.
This one is inside for now. I
gazed longingly at the new petunias in that deep purple-red that looks black,
with bright pink or yellow stripes in the center. I have grown them before and the colors are stunning,
but the dark color just gets lost in the border. They are good in pots with the right
companions.
Evolvulus is one of the old plants with many improved
varieties being offered this spring. I
picked up one from Proven Winners called “Blue My Mind”. They are also called dwarf morning glories,
but to me they look nothing like morning glories. They are a mounding trailing plant, with flat
5 petal flowers in pretty shades; this one is a true blue. The plant actually reminds me of a giant
chickweed plant. They will bloom all summer in full sun. They are being suggested as a replacement for
bedding impatiens, which of course may not be available this spring because of
the fungal disease. But as they prefer
full sun and are a bit expensive for use as mass bedding plants, I don’t think
they are a good replacement for most people.
Be thinking about what you will use to replace bedding
impatiens if they are what you commonly use as a bedding plant in your
landscape. Many nurseries will not be
carrying the regular impatiens this spring because of the downy mildew
experienced last year in our area. New
Guinea impatiens are immune to downy mildew but prefer more sun and are more
expensive than regular impatiens. Bedding,
fibrous rooted begonias and coleus are two pretty good substitutions.
Is your lawn helping
or hurting the environment?
As the grass begins to green up all home owners have some
decisions to make about their lawn care practices. A new study by the University of Cincinnati
researcher Amy Townsend-Small looked at lawn care practices to see where the
climate/environment benefits or is harmed by urban lawns. Townsend-Small found that lawns that are
not irrigated, minimally fertilized, not treated chemically for insects and
mowed sensibly have a slight benefit to the environment, acting as a small
carbon sink.
However the more you do to maintain a lawn, chemical
treatments, artificial irrigation, intensive mowing and so forth the less
beneficial a lawn is, in fact becoming a disadvantage to the environment when
only a few intensive practices are followed.
Just irrigating a lawn can be the
difference between lawns being beneficial or harmful to the environment in some
areas. The more energy used for a lawn care
practice, fossil fuel, chemical production, transportation of things like fuel
and fertilizer and so on the worse the technique is for the environment.
Best lawn care practices for the environment would be no chemical
fertilizers or pesticides, no irrigation and mowing with an old fashioned reel
mower. Keeping your lawn at 3 inches or
higher in height, returning clippings to the soil with mulching and choosing
the right grass species for the environment also help. Gardeners need to think about how much lawn
they can replace with other types of plants.
Lawns do have their place.
A lawn serves as a firebreak in areas where wildfires could be a
problem. Mowed lawns also help keep down
insects like ticks and mosquitoes around homes.
Letting a few “weeds” like dandelions and violets grow in the lawn helps
the beneficial insects and makes the lawn a better environmental helper too.
The new environmental study "Carbon Sequestration and
Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Urban Ecosystems," was presented at the
Association of American Geographers annual meeting held April 9-13 in Los
Angeles.
Bees dying from heavy
metal pollution
Bees are under all kinds of threats. Most gardeners know that both domestic
honeybees and native pollinators are struggling to maintain healthy
numbers. Many factors contribute to bee
decline and now another factor has been identified. Researchers observed bees
at a nature reserve in Western Pennsylvania in 2012 and then tested what they
foraged on, comparing what they found on bee health.
Researchers found that many native plants contained heavy
metals in their pollen and nectar, which came from environmental pollution,
including engine exhaust. The most toxic
metals were aluminum and nickel. The
researchers found that bees sensed or tasted nickel in flowers and avoided
those contaminated with nickel but that they seemed to lack a way to tell if a
plants nectar or pollen was contaminated with aluminum and consumed those plant
products in normal quantities. Aluminum
builds up in their bodies over time and affects health and vigor.
The researchers worry about the increasing use of plants to “clean
up” areas that have heavy metal contamination in soil because if the plants
that are used flower, their pollen and nectar will be heavily contaminated,
which will be passed to the bees. The
adult bees that forage are affected but so are the bee larvae which are fed
contaminated honey or pollen.
Herbal remedies
A wealth of herbal (plant based) remedy studies turned up in
scientific literature in the last month.
One interesting study tracked the ability of animals to self–medicate. It has been known that primates seek out medicinal
plants to treat themselves when they feel ill but now self- medication has been
discovered in many species of animals including bees, ants, moths and fruit
flies. They not only treat themselves
but take medicinal plant products back to hives and nests for other colony
members. The study was published April
11, in the Journal Science.
I talked about some benefits of chocolate last week , a new
study found that cocoa polyphenols help prevent damage to nerves and may aid in
the prevention of disease such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease and may
even be used for treatment eventually. (Sbarro
Health Research Organization ,SHRO, Center for Biotechnology, Temple University,
Philadelphia PA USA and the University of L'Aquila, Italy.)
Beet juice is
also in the news. In the last few years
beet juice has been used by athletes training for events because it allows them
to train for longer periods of time.
Beet juice lowers blood pressure and widens blood vessels, allowing for
a greater flow of blood to muscles. In a
recent study published in the Journal of Applied Physiology researchers found
that beet juice consumption allowed people to do simple exercise such as
walking much easier and for a longer time, even those with heart and lung
problems.
A small preliminary study by Amrita Ahluwalia, Ph.D., at The
Barts and The London Medical School in London was posted in the AHA Journal
Hypertension. It found that a cup of
beet juice a day lowered the blood pressure of people with high blood pressure
significantly. The medicinal effect
comes from nitrates found in beet juice.
Beets are very easy to grow in the garden with both the tops and the
roots being edible. Gardening itself
lowers blood pressure so all hypertensive people should be growing- and consuming
beets!
The next herbal remedy that’s making news is one I am trying
myself. It’s green coffee bean extract. Dr.
Oz started the interest in the public after he did a small study on green
coffee bean extract for weight loss. His
study found that people who took the product did lose weight, without changing
their diet.
Several studies have been done since then in larger, more
carefully controlled trials and the news is still good. A study presented early this month at the 245th
National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society found that
green coffee bean extract not only helped people lose weight but that it
dropped blood glucose levels.
Chlorogenic acid is the substance in green coffee bean extract that
seems to be the medicinal part. It is
mostly lost when coffee is roasted, so while drinking coffee in large
quantities does seem to have some effect on blood glucose control, you might
have other effects such as the jitters and stomach problems if you tried to
drink enough coffee to lower your blood sugar.
Researchers are getting excited about this. Green
coffee bean extract is cheaper than most chemical blood glucose medications and
safer and more effective than any other chemical weight loss remedy on the
market. So far no significant side
effects have been discovered. You get
about the same amount of caffeine as in a ½ cup of coffee in each dose. As I said I read up on this and decided to
try it. I have been taking green coffee
extract for a month or so and I am losing weight without changing my diet
much. I am hoping it improved my blood
glucose levels, I’ll see at my next doctor’s appointment. And I have had no side effects. Green coffee bean extract is being sold
everywhere but beware. Look for brands
that promise at least 45% chlorogenic acid if you want to try it. Because everyone is jumping on the bandwagon
so to speak, look for companies that have a good track history with vitamins
and supplements.
Here’s another plant remedy in the news. There is an old southeast European custom of
spreading bean leaves around a bed
in a bedbug infested room and then burning them in the morning. It’s said to kill the bedbugs. Because researchers
are desperately searching for bedbug controls doctoral student Megan Szyndler,
entomologist Catherine Loudon and chemist Robert Corn of UC Irvine and
entomologists Kenneth Haynes and Michael Potter of the University of Kentucky
decided to collaborate on a study involving bedbugs and bean leaves.
They spread fresh kidney bean leaves in a bedbug infested
area and lo and behold, found the leaves covered in bedbugs in the
morning. Further research showed that
the bedbugs get caught on tiny hairs on the leaves which only stab them more fiercely
if they struggle. These microscopic
hairs are called trichomes.
Research is now focused on trying to produce a synthetic
strip or substance to do the same thing but so far, nature is proving to be
better at bedbug trapping than anything researchers devise.
Ok, one more natural remedy.
This one is a trap for mosquitoes, which will be out in force after all
this rain. It was sent to me by a
reader, Cassey Meislik and originated
with a woman named Janice Yorton. I haven’t tried it but if you do, send me a
line or two to tell me if it worked.
Items needed:
1 cup
water
1/4 cup
brown sugar
¼
teaspoon yeast
Plastic
Cut the plastic bottle in half.
Mix brown sugar with hot water.
Let cool.
Add yeast – no need to stir.
The yeast makes carbon dioxide that attracts the mosquitoes. They get in the bottle, but can’t get out.
Place the top of the bottle upside down into the bottom and
tape.
Wrap bottle in something black (it also attracts mosquitoes.
Change bottle every two weeks.
I have been thinking about how long the bees have had to go
this spring without getting new food from flowers. While bee keepers may feed their honeybees
the poor native pollinators have to wait for Mother Nature to get to work for
them. We lost our fruit crops last year
because of erratic weather, let’s hope that we won’t lose fruit this year
because all the pollinators have died of starvation. Consider leaving a patch
of dandelions for the bees instead of eradicating them. They are a good source of pollen and nectar
for hungry, weak bees. I have seen a bumblebee
barely able to crawl from his little burrow making his way to a dandelion blossom
in early spring. Help the poor bees out
this year. Leave the dandelions at least
while its cold.
Get out in the sun while it lasts!
Kim
Garden as though you will
live forever. William Kent
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