Hi
Gardeners
 |
| The shy but beautiful snowdrop flower. |
This weather really makes me want to get outside and
work. We have had sun and temperatures
in the upper 50’s, low 60’s. Today we
had some light rain but it’s still warm.
I putz around outside, doing a little pruning and cleanup but knowing it’s
too soon to do much else. And Gizzy and
I are going for walks around the pond again.
It’s not unfrozen all the way, but the ducks have a narrow edge to swim
in. If you have kids please tell them to
stay off any ice covered ponds or lakes. Watch your pets too. The ice is not
stable this year because of the numerous thawing cycles. There’s been a number of kid and pet rescues
from icy water around here.
Maple syrup is being collected around here. It’s an odd season. I suspect after this weekends predicted colder
weather the syrup makers will get another chance to collect sap.
My snowdrops are blooming a full week ahead of last
year. I wanted to write about these little beauties this week and found I didn’t
have a good picture. My snowdrop patch
is out in the front, close to the road, under the dripline of some cedars. Snowdrops dangle their flowers downward so
pictures from overhead just don’t do them justice. So there I am laying on the cold ground
yesterday with my camera in full view of the neighbors driving by. I left my red gloves on because I think they
were a better backdrop than pale fleshy fingers. I had to hold the flower with one hand and
shoot with the other but I think I got some good shots of their pretty inner
side. Gizzy was a bit baffled at me
being on the ground though.
I participated in the Great Back Yard Bird count
Sunday, observing birds and recording them on the site. However my feeders were virtually without
birds. Last year during the bird count
we had cold snowy weather and the feeders were swarming with birds. I had a whole yard covered with juncos and
tree sparrows. There was odd weather all
across the country. It will be
interesting to see how that affected the bird count. I saw that in Michigan people had recorded red
winged blackbirds, killdeer, robins, and other birds we normally don’t see this
soon.
Presidents
and Plants
On the day after Presidents day what’s a better topic
than what Presidents were farmers, gardeners or otherwise involved with plants. Our country was basically founded on the idea
of agrarian democracy. In this utopian
idea every man has a small farm and is self-sufficient, master of his own
destiny, and tied to his country by the land.
Therefore this person will always support the government, as long it
minimally interferes with the way he wants to live his life.
Jefferson’s
Agrarian philosophy
Our first five presidents were farmers, fairly large
landowners, since land was wealth in those times. Thomas Jefferson, our third
president, was also very involved in the drafting of the constitution and
founding of this country. His ideas shaped our early democracy. Jefferson
thought that farmers were the most noble of men, and the best suited to running
a country. His idea that all men are
equal was basically tied to the idea that as long as men had access to land,
and they worked hard on it, they were able to achieve equality in a democratic
country.
Jefferson’s purchase of the Louisiana Territory, which
doubled the size of the country, brought millions of acres of fertile land to
an expanding population, which Jefferson believed was vital to keeping the US
growing and independent of Europe. He
bought the territory with farming in mind, so to speak. Men who had land were content, and devoted to
the welfare of the country where their land lay.
Thomas Jefferson had a brilliant mind and an interest
in everything from botany and zoology to architecture, languages, cooking, writing,
art, you name it, he tried to master the task.
He was a farmer, builder, architect (designing the Virginia State
Capitol and the University of Virginia) inventor, writer and of course a
president. To this day the list of his
accomplishments is amazing.
Jefferson grew up on a large tobacco plantation in Albemarle
County, Virginia. When his father died
he inherited the plantation and thousands of acres of land surrounding it. He decided to build the farm of his dreams on
a small mountain on this property.
Jefferson designed Monticello, his plantation, himself and decided that
the home and out buildings would be built from the surrounding property. Bricks were made from the clay on the
property, stones dug from the mountain, and timber harvested for beams and
furniture. He even had the nails manufactured on site.
 |
| Monticello |
Jefferson was interested in plants of all types, from
garden vegetables to flowers and trees and Monticello had intensively planted
vegetable gardens as well as extensive landscaping. He grew his own grain and tried to grow his
own wine grapes. (That wasn’t an
astounding success). He not only designed the gardens but often worked in them.
He sought out and bought plants from all
around the world. People brought him exotic and unusual plants as gifts. He had a greenhouse on the side of his home
where he grew exotic tropical plants. He
was also interested in farming techniques and mechanical inventions that aided
farming and tried out many new ideas on his farm.
Jefferson kept detailed records of his plantings, both
crops and landscaping/flowers throughout his life. In a book called the Garden Book he described
varieties grown, experiments, crop yields, the weather, and various other
aspects of gardening and farming.
(Amazon carries copies of this book, but they are quite expensive.) From this book the gardens of Monticello,
including the food gardens, have been restored with varieties and a lay out as
close to the original as possible. You can browse a bit of the book at https://www.masshist.org/thomasjeffersonpapers/garden/
And of course you can visit Monticello, which is now a
park/museum.
Alexander von Humboldt, another brilliant mind and
father of modern ecological ideas, visited Jefferson after returning from a
long exploration of South America. The
two spent some intense weeks together discussing plants and nature and theories
of agrarian equality. Jefferson had just
purchased the Louisiana Territory and pumped Humboldt for information on its
southern neighbor, Mexico, which Humboldt was happy to provide. Humboldt mentioned in his journals that
Jefferson’s office in the White House had pots of geraniums and other plants on
the windowsills and the office was filled with dried and preserved specimens of
plants and animals, ancient artifacts, inventions, books and maps.
Humboldt also mentioned watching Jefferson play with
his kids on the floor. Were some of
those children from a slave? Humboldt detested and frequently spoke against
slavery. Here was something about
Jefferson he could not understand, the man spoke of equality of men on one hand
and yet he held 160 slaves at one point.
Jefferson seems to be of two minds on this subject. He was known to say that Negroes were not
quite as “advanced” as white men. Yet he
talked about freeing all his slaves and bringing in German immigrants to work
his land because he admired their farming practices.
Side note: From
genetic testing we know that Jefferson probably took a slave woman, Sally
Hemings, as his mistress after the death of his wife. She was biracial and said to be very
beautiful. It was said that the children
from this union were treated as his other children were. When they reached adulthood Beverly, Harriet,
Madison, and Eston, were freed. These were the only slaves that Jefferson was
known to have freed while he was living, 5 were freed in his will. The story of Sally Hemings is fascinating but
too long to go into here.
Interesting
note: this week it was announced that Sally’s room in the Monticello mansion,
which is now a museum, was going to be restored. In the 40’s it had been turned into a
restroom. Now the original flooring and walls are being restored and it will be
furnished according to historical record. The room was close to Jefferson’s
bedroom.
Jefferson had such wide ranging and ambitious
interests, and such a huge amount of land that without slaves it would have
probably been impossible for him to have kept up with everything. I believe he
was probably torn between his desires to do the things he wanted to do and
freeing his slaves, which he probably knew was the right thing to do. He took the selfish route in the end. He
treated his slaves fairly well, even training them in various skilled occupations,
and probably believed his benevolent “keeping” of them was to their best
interest. (I am strongly against slavery but I often wish I had some strong
arms and legs to carry out my garden plans.)
Both Jefferson and Humboldt were of the opinion that commodity
or trade crops such as tobacco, cotton, sugar cane and so on were the causes of
poverty, inequality, slavery and environmental destruction. The residents of a country were forced to
spend their time and labor on crops that would not feed them, that generally
enriched only an elite few and needed slave labor to be profitable. These monocrops deleted the soil and clearing
new land for them destroyed the forests, caused erosion and the loss of plant
and animal species. Jefferson was,
however, of the opinion that Americans should grow food crops that could be
exported to Europe, because farming there was not keeping up with food needs.
 |
| Vegetable gardens at Monticello restored per Jefferson's notes. Wikimedia commons |
Besides the first 5 presidents there were other presidents
who were farmers and ranchers. Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison,
Monroe, Polk, Roosevelt, Truman, Johnson, Carter, Clinton, and George W. Bush
are listed as having an occupation before their presidency as a farmer/rancher.
Harry S. Truman was raised on a farm, left to go to business school, opened a
store but then returned home to Missouri to work the farm until he became a
senator. (Here’s where there was obvious voter fraud, history books say Truman
won because the ballot boxes were “stuffed”.)
Carter is well known as the “peanut farmer”, but Bill
Clinton was raised on a farm and worked farm labor jobs on his relative’s farms
before becoming a lawyer. George W. Bush
had oil money but listed his occupation as cattle rancher.
Gardens
on the White House Grounds
Our second president, John Adams actually began the
process of gardening on the White House site. Thomas Jefferson added many fruit
trees and unusual trees and shrubs. He was mainly concerned with stabilizing
and building up the marshy land the White House sat on. To help with this he built a wall around the immediate White
House grounds. It was removed a few
decades later.
Many other presidents or their wives added on to the
gardens, Grant had the two round ponds on the ground built. During WW1 Woodrow
Wilson added sheep to graze the White House lawns.
President Kennedy was responsible for having the Rose
Garden at the White House designed and installed. (There had been an earlier
rose garden that had largely disappeared.) He had been on a trip to Europe and had
visited several botanical gardens and wanted the sort of beautiful, formal
gardens he saw there on the White House grounds for entertaining guests.
Lady Bird Johnson started a committee to beautify not
just the White House grounds but many other areas around D.C. In four years she
and her committee planted 2 million daffodil bulbs along the Potomac River and
in several other places in the Capital. As a farewell gift to the White House
she had the Children’s Garden built on the South Lawn.
There are a few houseplants in the White House. In the Oval office there has been a Swedish
Ivy on the mantle since President Kennedy was given it by the Irish
ambassador. It appears in many photos
taken of the presidents over the years. The plant has been propagated numerous
times (or replaced) to keep it looking nice.
Just before the Inauguration this winter it was noted that the ivy now
appears to be grape ivy. There was a report that President Obama ordered a
number of plants in self-watering pots to grace the White House.
The White House had a greenhouse attached to it before
it was demolished in 1902 to build the West Wing. Many early presidents had vegetable gardens
or added to the flower gardens on the grounds, but since the Roosevelt victory
garden vegetable gardens were not planted.
Did you know Bill Clinton had a small vegetable garden on the White
House roof? When he first proposed a
vegetable garden on the lawn he was told it was not appropriate and he settled
for the roof garden.
Times did change and Michelle Obama had her organic vegetable
garden planted in 2009. Over 55 types of food plants are grown in the garden
and used for cooking in the White House kitchen. Excess produce is donated to
food banks. The garden was an important part of the Obama presidency, besides
the promotion of growing your own food, President Obama sometimes gave seeds
from the garden to visiting dignitaries and many important visitors asked to
see it.
Last year some changes were made to make the vegetable garden
more permanent and harder to remove.
Stone paths, metal benches, and other hardscape touches were
installed. An agreement was made with
the National Park Service to oversee maintenance of the garden, which includes
fruit trees and herbs, and funding to keep it going was established.
Currently there are 13 regular garden/grounds
employees. The chief horticulturist is
part of the executive staff; the others are National Park Service employees. Hopefully
the vegetable garden will be allowed to remain. Of course, our current
President may just decide to rip it out and install a golf course.
Snowdrops,
a shy and secretive beauty
 |
| Snowdrops |
Every northern garden needs some snowdrops. These tiny flowers shyly hide their beauty
but they are the very first flowers to bloom in the spring, bringing hope for
the season ahead. Here in my zone 5, borderline
6 garden, they bloom at the end of February if the snow isn’t deep. That’s generally a couple weeks before the
crocus and winter aconite blooms. Snowdrops can be planted anywhere there is at
least a small period of cold weather, from zones 2-8. They need a cold rest period to keep them
healthy and blooming.
Snowdrops, Galanthus
nivalis are native to Eastern Europe and northern Asia but have naturalized
in many areas of the world. Another
similar species Galanthus elwesii
(giant snowdrop) is native to Yugoslavia, Romania and Western
Turkey. It has slightly larger flowers
than regular Snowdrops and blooms a bit later. Galanthus woronwii is another native species very similar to G. nivalis
and has been used medicinally. All species are on the Cites list and can no
longer be collected from the wild.
When snowdrops were introduced to English gardeners in
the 1500’s they quickly developed several cultivars from odd sports and sub
species that occurred in wild plants.
There was 'Flore Pleno', a
double flowered variety, some light yellow cultivars developed from a wild sub-species
G. nivalis var. sandersii and some
cultivars that had more of the green coloration developed from another sub
species G.nivalis var. Viridapicus.
‘Sam
Arnott’ is an older cultivar one can sometimes still find in specialty
catalogs which has larger flowers with more heart shaped markings. 'Ray
Cobb' and 'Savill Gold' are yellow flowered cultivars that can
sometimes be found. However many
Snowdrop varieties have been lost to time and most gardeners will only find the
species G.nivalis offered.
The
cold journey to bloom
Snowdrop plants are tiny but tough. Each long narrow leaf has a tough layer of
cells at its tip to help them push through partially frozen ground. The two leaves
appear first, then a tube shaped stalk appears in the center and a white bud facing
upward emerges from the side of it. The
tube shaped stalk protects the bud as it pushes through the cold ground.
Over the course of a day or two, depending on weather
the bud curves out away from the stalk and dangles downward. The stalk elongates beyond the flower and
appears like a curved hook at the top.
The bud opens downward, into a 6 petal flower, 3 of which are observed
from above.
You have to tip an open snowdrop flower up to see the
delicate beauty inside this shy maiden.
There is a swollen green base, 3 longer white petals on the outside and
3 shorter, broader petals on the inside.
Each inner petal has a notch in the center, making them appear heart
shaped. The petals are delicately marked
with a flush of emerald green.
Inside the flower are 6 yellow cone like stamens (male
parts), surrounding the rod like pistil (female part) in the center. The pistil extends beyond the cone stamens. The green streaked area of the flower exudes sweet
nectar that will hopefully attract early flying bees, which act as pollinators.
 |
| Snowdrop in the sun |
If the flowers get pollinated a round seed cone develops
with tiny brown seeds inside. Each seed
has an elaiosome, a sticky curved appendage that is attractive to ants. The
ants carry the seeds underground to eat the elaiosomes and effectively plant
the seeds.
If the plant doesn’t develop seeds it can also spread
by multiplying its bulbous roots.
Snowdrops will slowly spread by bulb offshoots and seeds to form
colonies when they are in good conditions.
A few weeks after flowering the leaves of the plant
will disappear and the plant goes into dormancy until the following year.
Growing
Snowdrops
Gardeners will want to start with bulbs. They are offered for sale in the fall. Since these small bulbs dry out rapidly plant
them as soon as you receive them. Plant
them in a partly shaded area or under deciduous trees in a rich loamy
soil. They can be naturalized in lawns
if you are willing to let the foliage yellow and die back naturally before
mowing.
Plant the bulbs about an inch apart in clusters, about
2 inches deep. It will take about 150 snowdrop
bulbs to make a good show in a square yard of space. I recommend planting snowdrops where you are
likely to see and enjoy them in early spring, along a path, near a doorway or
steps. They are good subjects for early bloom in rock gardens. Plant them between hosta crowns for an early
spring show before the hosta leaves enlarge.
Snowdrops need even moisture, and a well-drained area. A
light sprinkling of a granular, slow release all-purpose garden fertilizer around
then in early spring helps them multiply.
Deer and other animals do not eat the plants or bulbs.
Make sure you mark your snowdrop planting. I find I forget about them and dig up the
bulbs when planting other things. It’s
easy to miss the bulbs and rebury them in odd positions or too deeply, or leave
them exposed. If you do want to move or
divide the bulbs do so right after the leaves die back and immediately re-plant
them in their new location. Keep 2-3
bulbs together in each division.
 |
| Snowdrop side view |
Medicinal
uses
All parts of the snowdrop plant are poisonous. When eaten they can cause severe vomiting and
diarrhea. They are also an abortifacient
(cause abortion). That said there were a
few older herbal remedies using them.
Crushed plant parts were rubbed on the forehead for headaches and some
experienced herbalists used concoctions of the plant to help with neurological
problems.
Observations of herbalists using the plants to treat
polio resulted in scientific studies of the plant and several chemicals have
been extracted from snowdrops and used in modern medicines. Galantamine, a substance extracted from the
plants is used in Alzheimer medications and for myasthenia, myopathy, sensory
and motor dysfunction. The US army has a patent on a galantamine product that
is used to treat organophosphate poisoning.
Snowdrop lectin is being experimented with as an
insecticide. The product proved effective against most types of insects. It may soon be used in genetically modified
crops. However some studies show animals
fed snowdrop lectin genetically modified food products had intestinal damage.
Question
of the week- Are coffee grounds or coffee good for plants? I am working in an office where there are
lots of coffee grounds left over each week.
I’ve heard they are good fertilizer.
Should I save them for the garden?
Should we dump cold coffee in the office plants?
Mary,
from Pennsylvania
Coffee grounds can be used in the garden to improve
soil structure (because they are organic material) but they don’t add much in
the way of fertilizer when directly applied to the soil. While they have some nitrogen content that
amount is countered by the use of nitrogen by microbes in the soil to break
down the grounds. There are minimal amounts of other nutrients in coffee
grounds.
Small amounts of coffee grounds can successfully be
worked into the soil around plants and won’t harm anything. Coffee grounds are better added to the compost
pile, where they do help provide nitrogen content. You can add paper coffee filters to the
compost pile too.
Coffee grounds will not make your soil acidic. After brewing they have a pretty neutral pH composition.
And there is no scientific evidence that coffee grounds repel slugs and snails.
Pouring cold coffee into potted plants probably isn’t a
good idea. Potted plants don’t have a
good way to rid the soil of excess nutrients.
There is some magnesium and potassium as well as nitrogen in coffee. An infrequent use of cold coffee diluted to a
light brown color wouldn’t hurt most plants and might give them a boost. But frequently using coffee on potted plants
would probably result in nutrient burned roots.
And don’t use any coffee with cream or sugar on plants.
Spring
fried radish and green onion special
Radishes and green onions are some of the earliest
garden vegetables produced. I don’t have
any yet, but I know some of you do. And
when I do have some of them here’s a dish I like to make with them. This will satisfy the urge for fried potatoes
and it has far less calories and carbs than fried potatoes.
Wash and thinly slice several radishes. Mild flavored, smaller radishes are
best. You’ll want about a cup of sliced
radishes for 2 small servings.
Wash and thinly slice 6-8 green onions, including most
of the leaf portion. If you don’t have
green onions thinly slice or dice a small sweet onion.
Fry 2 strips of bacon until crispy. Remove and crumble, set aside. Save the pan with the bacon grease.
If you don’t have enough bacon grease to cover the pan
bottom, add a little cooking oil. I like
peanut oil. Olive oil may smoke.
Heat the oil until it’s quite hot and then add the
radishes and onions slowly in a single layer.
Fry until crisp and lightly browned, stirring occasionally.
Drain on paper towels, sprinkle with crumbled bacon and
serve hot.
Radishes don’t get as crisp as fried potatoes, but the
taste will be remarkably similar.
Seek
out beauty in the smallest things
Kim Willis
“He who has a garden and
a library wants for nothing” ― Cicero
© Kim Willis - no parts of this newsletter may be used
without permission.
And
So On….
Do you have plants or seeds you would like to swap or share? Post them here by emailing me. You can also
ask me to post garden related events. Kimwillis151@gmail.com
Find
Michigan garden events/classes here:
An
interesting Plant Id page you can join on Facebook
Here’s a
seed/plant sharing group you can join on Facebook
Newsletter/blog
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 or you can
comment directly on the blog. Please state that you want to have the item
published in my weekly note if you email me. 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. Contact me at KimWillis151@gmail.com
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 people and horticulture. It’s a
hobby, basically. I hope you enjoy it. If you are on my mailing list and at any
time you don’t wish to receive these emails just let me know. If you know
anyone who would like to receive a notification by email when a new blog is
published have them send their email address to me. KimWillis151@gmail.com
The
information in this newsletter is copyrighted.
Feel free to share the blog link but if you wish to reprint anything you
find on this blog site please ask for permission. This includes photos with my name on them.
No comments:
Post a Comment