July 2, 2014 Kim’s Weekly Garden Newsletter

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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

Monarda or Bee Balm

Sorry this newsletter is a bit later than usual. An internet outage this week has made me see just how reliant I am on the internet.  I really missed it to check weather reports and look up reference material.  I couldn't read all the daily science reports I get either – now I have a huge backlog.  Since this is a holiday week when fewer people will be thinking about reading gardening newsletters this one will be a bit shorter than usual. 

This hot and humid weather is a real trial.  We have had some of the highest dew points recorded in Michigan this week.  Storms may linger on today but it’s supposed to be nice for the holiday weekend.   I only had 2/10 inch of rain through last night so more rain might be nice.

Monarda (beebalm), helenianthus and hollyhocks are now blooming and the color in the perennial beds is starting to pick up.  The hostas seem to be doing well everywhere this year, mine are huge and beginning to flower.  I have sunflowers beginning to bloom too, all volunteers from last year but the colors are pretty.  Catalpa trees are starting to bloom.

The mulberries are very ripe now and the cedar waxwings are sharing them with a few robins, crows, rose breasted grosbecks, and starlings.  The cedar waxwings remain the dominant birds though with dozens in the tree all the time.  They have this call noise that sounds like a squeaky wheel and after a while it can get quite annoying.

I have found some striped cucumber beetles on my pumpkin vines.  They are a long, narrow yellow and black striped beetle.  They feed on any vining crops like cucumber, squash, pumpkins, melons and also corn and beans.  They also transmit mosaic virus, probably more damaging to the plant than the leaf feeding. Best organic control is to pick and squish them.  Rotenone and other garden insecticides can also be used.  Look on the undersides of leaves for orange egg clusters.  The tiny white larvae that hatch will eat the roots of plants that the adults feed on.

While I have not seen many butterflies this year I noticed a few Harvester Butterflies, a kind of unique species in North America.  This butterfly is small, with orangish wings mottled with dark spots, the edges of the wings are coppery brown.  It’s unique because the caterpillars feed on aphids instead of vegetation.  The female butterfly lays one egg at a time in a cluster of wooly aphids, often on alder trees.  The egg hatches into a green caterpillar with white hairs that burrows into aphid clusters to feed on them.

The Harvester butterfly doesn’t get nectar from flowers but eats honeydew secreted from aphids instead.  It’s seen around damp deciduous woods, particularly where there are alder trees.  I have never seen the chrysalis but it is said to have dark markings on it that resemble a face.

July Almanac

This month’s full moon is called the buck moon or hay moon, depending on whether you are a farmer or hunter I guess.  It’s called buck moon because the buck’s antlers begin to show this month.  July 12^th is the full moon.  It’s the first of 3 “super full moons” this year.  A super moon is when the moon is at one of its closest approaches to the earth and it will look larger than normal.  The next 2 super moons are in August and September.

This month’s flower is the sunflower- very appropriate and the birthstone is the ruby. 

It’s National Blueberry, Eggplant, Lettuce, Mango, Melon, Nectarine and Garlic month as well as National Hotdog and Vanilla Ice Cream month.  Why isn’t it National Cherry month?  And for those secret bare gardeners out there the second week of July is nude recreation week.  Have fun.

 How to make hollyhock dolls

Hollyhock dolls

Older Michigan gardens often have lots of hollyhocks; the stately plants are excellent at reseeding themselves around the garden.  Even newer gardens may have an abundance of hollyhocks if they were ever planted on the site.  Hollyhocks are hardy to Michigan’s zone 4 gardens and they are easy to grow.  

If you are an adult of a certain age, one who was sent outside to play as a child, you may remember making dolls out of hollyhock flowers.  If hollyhocks are abundant in your Michigan garden why not introduce a child to the joys of gardening and playing outdoors by teaching them how to make hollyhock dolls, or as the young boys say hollyhock “people”.  And if you never made hollyhock dolls here are the simple directions.

First choose some hollyhock flowers of various colors in various stages of opening. You’ll need some buds for heads, some half opened flowers for torso’s and fully opened flowers for skirts.  The flowers don’t wilt too quickly but don’t pick them too far in advance of assembly.

You can have the children find straight thin sticks for connecting the flowers or you can furnish them with some toothpicks.  Start by choosing heads for the dolls.  Round hollyhock buds, with just a bit of color showing work well.  If the child has a marker or pen they can draw a face on the head. 

Next find the half opened buds that will form the middle of the doll and one or more pretty fully opened flowers for the skirt.  Make sure to leave the green sepal leaves on the back of each flower. They keep the flower together and are tough enough to hold the fasteners securely.  Single flowered, not double flowered hollyhocks, make the best doll parts.

Stick a head on a toothpick or stick and then through a torso flower.  If the toothpick or stick is long enough you can stick it through the skirt flowers next, or you can use another toothpick to connect head and torso to skirts.  One or more layers of open flowers for the skirts in layers of different colors makes a pretty effect.

The open skirt flowers will generally hold the dolls upright, especially if a few layers of flowers are used.  After children get the hang of it, they can let their imaginations roam, combining colors, layering flowers, making arms and legs out of sticks and hats for the heads from single petals or other flowers.  Next they can imagine scenarios like weddings and fancy parties to enjoy playing with the dolls.

Older adults often enjoy making hollyhock dolls too. It might make a clever shower or party activity, making hollyhock dolls, and then having someone pick the most attractive or unusual one as the winner.

Unfortunately there’s no good way to preserve the dolls.  But hollyhocks flower abundantly and all through the summer so more makings are always there.  You may want to supervise children as they collect flowers, so that plants aren’t completely denuded of their glory.  But if you allow a group of hollyhocks to grow in a special place, just for doll making, children will always have a source of flowers.  They’ll learn to ration the picking if you explain how plants form flowers and how long it takes.

In the age of TV’s in cars, the internet and oodles of cheap plastic toys an activity that gets children outside and into a garden and using their imagination is priceless.

Michigan Cherries

Michigan is usually the number one producer of tart cherries and 2nd or 3rd in the production of sweet cherries in the nation.  In southeast Michigan cherries are generally easy to find at farm markets beginning in late June.  Sweet cherries are a week or two later.  A trip to the northwest part of the state in mid-July should allow you to buy all the cherries you’ll need.   Many grocery stores feature Michigan cherries when they are in season also.

Pie Cherries

Cherries are good tasting and full of healthy antioxidants.  They are said to relieve arthritic pain.  When they are in season you’ll want to eat as many fresh cherries as you can.  Cherry cobbler, cherry pie, cherry ice cream and even cherry sauce over your favorite meat are some uses for cherries other than eating them fresh.

Tart cherries are generally red but sweet cherries can be any color from yellow to almost black.  Make sure cherries are ripe when you pick or buy them because they won’t ripen after picking.  Don’t wash cherries until just before you are ready to eat them or use them in a recipe and store them in the refrigerator.

Here’s a recipe to combine Michigan cherries with another Michigan favorite- grilling.  Use this cherry marinade to add flavor and healthy antioxidants to your meat.

Michigan Cherry marinade

1 pint size jar of Michigan cherry preserves (12 oz.)- Homemade is great.

1 cup of red wine- cherry wine preferred

1/2 cup of Italian salad dressing

1/4 teaspoon red pepper

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon salt- optional

Blend ingredients well with mixer or by hand.  Marinade meat for 2-24 hours in refrigerator.  This is enough for about 3 pounds of meat.

Wildflowers blooming now

American Elderberry ( Sambucus canadensis)

Sometimes called just Elders, the Elderberry flourishes in semi-sunny moist areas at the edges of woods and roadside ditches.  It blooms in late June- early July with large flat clusters of creamy white flowers.  The flowers have a pleasant, lemony scent.   

Wild elderberry bush

Elderberry grows as a large and wide shrub up to 10 feet tall or more in good soil.  It has compound leaves with seven narrow leaflets.   The stems of the Elderberry are filled with white, soft pith that is easily hollowed out for making whistles or blow guns.  The flowers turn into purple-black  berries that are rarely seen as they are gobbled up by birds as fast as they ripen.

Elderberries were once used for wine, and ornamental garden plants have been developed from them, with one variety having pink flowers and dark purple leaves.

Orange Daylily- Hemerocallis fulva

This beautiful flower is not native to North America.  They are thought to be escaped hybrids of European or Asian daylilies that flourished here and at one point most rural Michigan roads were lined by what was fondly called Ditch lilies.  This is somewhat remarkable because the Orange daylily is sterile and produces no fertile seeds.  It spreads only by the root system, called a rhizome.  But any gardener that has introduced these into a home garden can tell you that they spread rapidly and persistently this way.

The Orange Daylily has golden orange flowers marked with a splash of deeper orange and then a yellow center in the trumpet shaped flower.   Many flower petals have a white or yellow line down each center.  Each flower is only open for one day, hence the name daylily, but the plants are usually loaded with buds and produce a long lasting show through late June and July. The flowers are perched on long, leafless stalks high over the clump of foliage and face upwards.  The leaves are like broad blades of grass and emerge early in the spring.

Common daylily or ditch lily

Daylilies will grow just about anywhere but they flourish in rich, moist soil in full sunlight.  In these conditions they often get 4 feet tall and put on quite a show.   However their ornamental value is lessened because after blooming the foliage begins to yellow and look bad, eventually dying down to the ground during the fall and winter.

Daylily flowers are edible and can be stuffed with cream cheese or other ingredients or added to salads.   The Orange Daylily has a cousin - the Lemon Lily or Yellow Daylily, (Hemerocallis flava), that is seldom seen in the wild anymore but may be found in older gardens.  It is light yellow, with narrower flower petals and a lemon scent.

Have a safe and Happy 4th.  Don't blow off any fingers, you need them for gardening.

Kim Willis

 “He who has a garden and a library wants for nothing” ― Cicero

More Information

Controlling mosquitoes for your outdoor event

By Kim Willis

The rain this spring and summer has created a bumper crop of mosquitoes.   If you are planning an outdoor graduation open house, wedding, or other event, keeping those pesky mosquitoes away from your guests is an important part of your planning.  Mosquitoes are not only annoying but they can carry diseases such as the West Nile Virus.

Weeks ahead of the event

If the event is at your home you have a bit more control over the mosquito situation.  Start weeks in advance by emptying anything outside that can hold water after every rain.  That includes pet dishes, flower pot saucers, bird baths, children’s pools and toys and things like old tires and other junk.   Clean clogged gutters so water doesn’t stand in them.  Fill holes in trees with sand, and fill depressions in the lawn that hold water with topsoil.

Mosquitoes need water to lay their eggs in, and the eggs can hatch in a few hours into the larval stage.  The larvae look like tiny swimming worms with a propeller at the bottom and they move up and down in the water.   In the right conditions it can take just a few days for the larvae to develop into biting adults.  And the water left in a rusting can a few days can let dozens of mosquitoes develop into a new crop of reproducing adults.

If water is standing around your home in things you can’t or don’t want to empty you need to add fish to eat the mosquito larvae or treat the water with a larvacide.  A couple of small goldfish or minnows will keep the mosquitoes out of decorative ponds.   Ponds that have filtration systems or fountains that circulate water are less likely to contain mosquito larvae but larvae sometimes find quiet spots around plants or in a liner crease that allow them to grow.  Swimming pools that are chlorinated properly won’t have mosquito larvae.

You can treat the water to kill mosquito larvae in areas like drainage ditches, ponds without fish and even flooded fields.  Briquettes, ( often called dunks or doughnuts), or granules containing Bacillus thuringensis, a naturally occurring  bacterial disease that kills mosquito larvae, can be found at most garden shops, farm stores and even big name retail stores.  These “Bt”  products are simply placed in the water you want to protect.  They are completely safe for fish and other wildlife, to pets or livestock drinking the water and even for swimming, they affect only mosquitoes.  Read and follow the label directions for how much to use and how often to treat.

Right before the event

Even if you are diligent in emptying and treating water around your place you will still have some mosquitoes around.  Make sure the area around your planned party area is mowed and heavy brush and undergrowth are trimmed.    A few hours before the planned event, the area can be sprayed or fogged with an insecticide to kill adult mosquitoes.   These insecticides kill a lot of beneficial insects too, so they shouldn’t be used frequently, just for special occasions.   You can do this spraying yourself if you have the equipment or hire someone to do it.  If you hire someone, make the appointment well in advance of the planned event. 

There are various insecticides approved for this, malathion is a common one available to homeowners.  Read and follow the label directions carefully.   Make sure that all surfaces that will be handled or that food is served from, are covered during application and washed before using.  At best these insecticides will give you 3-12 hours of protection.

If you are not having the event at home or you don’t want to spray insecticides, you may be tempted by a number of candles, torches, smudge pots and other devices that claim to keep mosquitoes away. These devices are only marginally effective.  Make sure that if you are on someone else’s property that these types of things are allowed. Regular candles used as part of your décor will probably be just as effective, as it is the smoke, not the scent that has any repellant effect.  The so- called mosquito plants are also ineffective.

Ultrasonic devices are worthless as are regular bug zapper lights. There are various expensive mosquito traps being sold that claim to attract and kill mosquitoes using carbon dioxide and various pheromones. The problem with these is that they actually attract more mosquitoes to your area and they are not effective on all species of mosquitoes.  If you use one of these devices, place it well away from where your guests will be, so the mosquitoes will be attracted away from the party.

If you have electricity available, a good pesticide free way to keep mosquitoes away is to provide a steady breeze with strategically placed fans.  Mosquitoes avoid a strong breeze.  Large fans can often be rented.  Fans also allow people to be more comfortable in a sunny area, where there are fewer mosquitoes.  Fans should project the breeze toward the guests to be effective.

Even with other mosquito controls being used, planners of outdoor events should have on hand some mosquito repellant that can be applied to the body. If the event is in the evening or on a damp, cloudy day mosquito repellant will be especially appreciated.  If the event is a dressy one, wipes not sprays are a better choice so people can better control the application and avoid getting it on expensive clothing.  Repellants containing DEET are safe and effective, with decades of research and use behind them.  If children are part of the event, make sure you have some repellant on hand that is formulated for them too.

With a little planning, mosquitoes won’t ruin your outdoor party. 

Events, classes and other offerings

Please let me know if there is any event or class that you would like to share with other gardeners.  These events are primarily in Michigan but if you are a reader from outside of Michigan and want to post an event I’ll be glad to do it.

Master Gardeners if you belong to an association that approves your hours please check with that association before assuming a class or work day will count as credit.

Do you have plants or seeds you would like to swap or share?  Post them here by emailing me at kimwillis151@gmail.com

Genesee County Master Gardeners 2014 Bus Trip - Open to the Public!! Thursday, July 17, 2014-  Please Park in the U of M parking lot on the corner of Robert T. and Saginaw in Flint.  Entrance to parking lot is on Robert T. (we will be leaving no later 8 am exactly, no refunds)


The tour will be to Brenda’s Butterfly habitat and Barson’s greenhouse (in Westland) and Matthaei Botanical gardens and Nichols Arboretum (In Ann Arbor)



Cost $60.00
(includes Lunch, snacks, water and fees)

Make Check Payable to: MGAGCM
Send to: P.O. Box 34, Flushing, MI. 48433

Please register no later than Monday, June 30, 2014
Contact person: Sabrina VanDyke at 810-407-0808

Schedule

9:00 a.m. 
Arrive at Barson’s Greenhouse approximately 
Presentation at Barson’s Greenhouse
Explore Brenda’s Butterfly Habitat

12:00 p.m.
Leave Barson Greenhouse

12:30 p.m. 
Arrive at Matthaei Botanical gardens and Nichols Arboretum

Picnic Lunch/ Dinner 

5:30 p.m.
Depart for home

Send the below information with the check - Thanks!!
NAME (s) 
PHONE # (cell phone if possible)

Contact person: Sabrina VanDyke at 810-407-0808

Michigan Ag Expo 2014- July 22, 2014 - July 24, 2014 Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI

Ag Expo is Michigan’s largest outdoor agricultural show. With more than 250 vendors, demonstrations, educational sessions, and ride and drive equipment available, there is something for everyone. Admission to the show is free!

Visit the Ag Expo 2014 website for more information. http://agexpo.msu.edu/

Build a Hypertufa Leaf Birdbath, Saturday, July 5, 10:00 am Seven Ponds Nature Center, 3854 Crawford Road, Dryden, MI  (810) 796-3200

A hypertufa birdbath nestled into a garden space will attract a myriad of bird species. In this class we will learn the process using a real leaf as a mold. Please bring a blanket to cradle your project on the way home and a bag lunch. Please call to preregister for this adult (12 and up) class. Fee $15.00 (members $12.00).

The Lapeer area Horticulture Society is looking for new members.  There are no education or experience requirements to join; only a love of gardening is needed.  The Horticulture Society meets the third Monday of each month for socializing, networking and a brief educational presentation.  Next meeting is at Swoish’s Greenhouse, North Branch, May 19^th 6:30 pm.  Everyone is invited to join.  Dues are only $15 a year.  For more information on joining or meeting locations contact Bev Kobylas at bkobylas@yahoo.com

The 3rd Annual Michigan Honey Festival- Saturday, July 12, 2014 10am - 5pm at  The Harvey Kern Pavilion in Frankenmuth, Michigan.

Attend educational seminars and learn all you need to start beekeeping! Purchase all your beekeeping supplies from a variety of vendors.  Lots of Michigan honey for sale. Learn how to brew honey beer and mead and attend the many cooking with honey demonstrations.   There is a children’s craft area and a demonstration garden done by Master Gardeners.  Watch a bee beard demonstration.  There will be lots of interesting products to sample and buy made from honey or bee’s wax. 

This year’s festival is all indoors, so no weather worries.  Admission is $5 for adults, children 12 and under free.  More information ? http://www.michiganhoneyfestival.com/contact.html

Garden Day August 2, 2014, 8 am – 4:15 pm,  Michigan State University Department of Horticulture, East Lansing Mi.

MSU’s annual garden day is on Saturday this year.  The keynote speaker is Amy Stewart, author of Wicked Plants, Flower Confidential, and The Drunken Botanist and other books.  Ms Stewart is also the concluding speaker and you can also stay for a reception after the event where she will discuss the Drunken Botanist. You can choose from a number of excellent workshops/classes, 1 morning and 1 afternoon session. Classes include Herbal housekeeping, Best Herbaceous perennials, Creative Containers, Dividing Perennials, Herbs at Home, Pruning Basics, Gardening in the Shade, Unusual Trees and Shrubs, Creative Edge, and Going Native.

Cost of the event is $85 until July 22nd , $95 after.  Lunch and free parking included. Additional $39 for evening reception.  Go to hrt.msu.edu/garden-day-2014  for class descriptions and to register.

Newsletter information

If you would like to pass along a notice about an educational event or a volunteer opportunity please send me an email before Tuesday of each week and I will print it. Also if you have a comment or opinion you’d like to share, send it to me. Please state that you want to have the item published in my weekly notes. You must give your full name and what you say must be polite and not attack any individual. I am very open to ideas and opinions that don’t match mine but I do reserve the right to publish what I want.

Once again the opinions in this newsletter are mine and I do not represent any organization or business. I do not make any income from this newsletter. I write this because I love to share with other gardeners some of the things I come across in my research each week. It keeps me engaged with local people and horticulture. It’s a hobby, basically. I hope you enjoy it. If at any time you don’t wish to receive these emails just let me know. If you know anyone who would like to receive these emails have them send their email address to me.  KimWillis151@gmail.com