May 26, 2020, wetting my plants

Hi gardeners

Alliums

I was outside at 9 am trying to get all my hoses working so I could water everything I planted the last few days. It was already miserably hot. We go from one extreme to the other here, poor plants. I moved most of my houseplants outside over the weekend too, and some of them needed water already.

So much to do this time of year.  I still have cucumbers on the deck waiting to be planted. Hopefully I will get to them tonight after it cools down.  It’s sunny, humid and 92 degrees as I write this. I have health problems that make working in this heat really hard. I managed to get most things planted but there are weeds everywhere, grass to be mowed and trimmed, bird feeders to be filled and so much more to get done. May is always like this. I can’t wait to get to the sitting on the deck part of summer.

Things are really popping now. The lilacs are starting to bloom. They smell so good. The magnolia, redbud, flowering quince and apple trees are in bloom.  Sweet woodruff, alliums, mayapple and camassia are blooming. Violets and star of Bethlehem are popping up in the grass. The heat has done away with the tulips and daffodils.  But the heat has greatly improved the growth of the hosta.

The alliums are pretty in bloom but by the time they start to bloom the foliage always looks really bad, yellow and limp. It needs to be pulled out, but time is scarce. That and the way they spread everywhere makes me not too inclined to plant any new varieties, even though deer don’t eat them.

I had a disappointment with a plant shipment this week and I am going to mention names. I ordered from Springhill Nurseries, and one of the things I ordered was a large flowered white clematis I wanted to train on the ramp railings. They substituted a 3 in 1 butterfly bush, without notifying me. (It was 3 tiny plants in one 2-inch pot, that’s how they get 3 colors in one “planting”).  That’s not exactly comparable to a clematis vine.  Another type of clematis I could see substituting, but not that. 

And I ordered early, when things were in stock, yet by the time they got to shipping for my area evidently stock was gone.  That’s happened to me before with this and other companies, and I think companies should review that process. People who order early should have what they order reserved until it can be shipped to them instead of filling later orders first because their shipping dates are earlier. Ok rant done.

Myths about watering plants outside

Gardeners often wonder what time of day is best to water their gardens. The short answer is when you have time to water them. Most plants don’t care when they are watered as long as you get them water before they wilt. Morning, midday, or evening can all be used to water plants.

If you worry about watering plants midday when the sun is shining, because you were told it burns the leaves of plants, try this experiment. Choose an established plant in full sun. Water it, making sure you get water on the leaves. Come back in 24 hours and see if it looks burned. It won’t.  Plain water won’t burn leaves in the sun, just as it won’t burn your skin when you get splashed standing in the sun.

Think about it. How many times have you seen the sun come out right after a summer storm? How many times have you seen dew on plants as the sun rises? Water droplets do not burn leaves. When its very hot and dry a midday watering may cool plants beneficially. Some plants in pots and small raised beds may actually need midday watering in hot weather if you don’t want to kill them.

Now if you were spraying soaps, oils, alcohols, fertilizers or pesticides with the water you might have a problem.  Some of these might burn plants when applied in the sun. Read label directions. Or don’t apply anything but plain water in the sun if the foliage will get wet.

It is wise to water early enough in the evening that plants dry off before it gets dark. This prevents the foliage from remaining wet all night, which can promote fungal disease. Watering after dark, unless it’s drip irrigation, is probably not the best idea either.

Drip irrigation, or watering at the base of plants is good, but for most plants overhead watering is also good. That’s how nature waters plants after all. The leaves of many plants are designed to funnel water down to the plant’s base. Watering at the plant base does conserve water better if that is a concern. For plants like tomatoes and some other plants prone to fungal problems keeping water off the foliage may help prevent those diseases, although it’s no guarantee.

If you have a pot or container that’s very full of foliage, be aware that the foliage may shed water over the side of the pot/container, rather than wetting the soil. This can happen in a natural rain or overhead watering. These containers must be watered at the base of plants- making sure water gets into the soil.

So – how often should you water?  Different species of plants have different water needs. Look up your species and make decisions on that. Weather plays a crucial role here too. If you get an inch of rain a week most established plants in the ground probably won’t need watering.  But check them often in dry weather.

Containers need more watering than plants in the ground. That could be more than once a day in some cases. If a plant is wilting and the soil feels dry, water it as soon as possible. Be aware that in very hot weather some plants may wilt even if the soil is moist. They just can’t take up enough water. They generally recover overnight.

Remember plants will also wilt if they are too wet and the roots rot.  Containers must have good drainage, no exceptions. Gardens should not be situated in flood prone or wet, poorly drained areas unless plants are chosen that prefer those conditions.

Immediately after transplanting plants need to be watered more frequently, even trees and shrubs or drought tolerant perennials.  In hot, dry, windy weather check newly planted plants daily and water if they look droopy and the soil feels dry.

You might need more water in the long range if you water in the morning, because some of that water is going to evaporate. But morning watering, evening/late afternoon and midday watering are all fine for plants.  It’s a personal opinion, and most gardeners seem to choose a “side” and then vigorously defend it. Water when you prefer to do so.

Plants for Butterfly Gardens

Butterfly on tithonia

Plants that attract butterflies are very popular right now. Gardeners generally love butterflies (except for the few who actually damage our garden plants) and want to attract more butterflies to the garden. There are some interesting and beautiful moths that are also fun to watch. When you want to attract butterflies, you need to provide both plants they sip nectar from, and plants they lay their eggs on, called host plants.

You don’t have to plant only native plants to attract butterflies and moths.  While there are a few specialist butterflies who only prefer one “host” plant (the plant they lay eggs on) many butterflies accept several host plants and most visit a number of plants for nectar. Some of our butterflies are themselves introduced species so they are flexible in food and egg laying resources. When glancing through any butterfly and moth identification guide, you’ll often notice that many of the plants that they prefer to get nectar from or lay eggs on are non-native weeds or garden flowers.

Many butterflies prefer flowers that have flat surfaces, or that have short nectar tubes although a few butterflies and moths are drawn to flowers with long tubes. Butterflies and moths seem drawn to colorful, bright flowers like yellow, orange, red and pink. Some also like purple or blue flowers. Night flying moths prefer white flowers. Butterflies seem to prefer flowers in the sun, although they sometimes visit shade flowers. 

When you want to attract butterflies and moths to your garden you should provide colorful nectar flowers in large patches of the same color, rather than as individual dots of color here and there. Host plants for caterpillars should also be in patches.  One large buddleia can provide a good patch of color but for maximum attraction you’d want to plant a lot of marigolds.

Scent in flowers is not as important to butterflies as it is for bees. Some butterflies and moths don’t eat at all as adults, some only sip at mineral enriched mud, some prefer rotten fruit or sap, and some are even carnivorous. And even in this advanced scientific world we don’t know what nectar plants and host plants that some of the rarer species of butterflies and moths prefer.

A patch of mud, especially with a little manure mixed in, and some soft fruit like a mushy banana, a slice of melon, soft strawberries on a plate somewhere can increase the number of species attracted to your garden.  But beware soft fruit can attract bees and hornets as well as flies.

Butterfly feeders also exist in which you place sugar water like a hummingbird feeder, but they are not that effective in attracting butterflies and will attract a lot of bees, hornets and ants too. It’s probably best to stay natural and use plants to attract butterflies.

If you wish to attract butterflies and moths, you’ll have to decide if you are willing to tolerate some plants that are considered weeds and that may not be very attractive to the human eye. You can choose only pretty garden flowers but that will limit what species are attracted. One idea is to let one area of your property grow the weedy plants, maybe one that can be hidden a bit, and keep the prettier plants in the garden.

There are some plants that will attract the maximum number of harmless butterflies and moths in a list below. Some may be both nectar sources for adult butterflies and moths and host plants for caterpillars.  A good identification guide will often tell you if a rare species of butterfly or moth has been seen in your county and what host and nectar plants it prefers. You may be able to add these plants to your garden also. 

Plants such as cabbage, that might attract butterflies or moths, but those butterflies or moths would be unwelcome, aren’t mentioned. No garden can probably add all these plants but try to add as many of the listed plants to your garden as possible. Remember patches of the same plant are better than singles. The plants on the list below are mainly northeastern and midwestern plants, but many are good for other places as well. They are not all native plants.

Swallowtail on a lily

Butterfly nectar and host plants

Anise hyssop

Asters, native species and cultivars

Baby’s breath

Baptisia

Bee balm- monarda, all kinds- bergamot

Bearberry

Beech

Beggars Ticks- bidens- any kind

Black eyed Susans, rudbeckia species

Blackberries

Blueberries

Black cherry, choke cherries

Black locust

Bog rosemary (Andromeda glacophylla)

Boneset

Buddleia- butterfly bush

Burdock

Buttonbush- Cephalanthus occidentalis

Calibrachoa (Million bells)

Campion

Catnip

Ceanothus sanquineus (wild lilac)

Cheese mallow

Clovers of all kinds- gardeners may want some of the ornamental crimson/reds

Columbine, all kinds

Crown vetch

Currants

Daisies of any kind, wild and domestic

Dame’s rocket

Dandelions

Dill

Dogbane

Fireweed

Fleabane

Grasses- native and non-native, bluestem, bentgrass, Bermuda, beardgrass, lovegrass, panic grass and others – caution- many butterflies, skippers and moths that favor grasses are pretty but are considered pest species.

Goldenrod

Gooseberry

Hawkweed, orange and yellow

Hollyhocks

Honey locust

Honeysuckle, native and non-native

Hops

Iris versicolor

Ironweed

Joe Pye Weed

Knapweed

Knotweed- small species of Persicaria or Polygonum not Japanese Knotweed, which does attract butterflies but is banned in many areas.

Labrador Tea

Lambsquarters

Lantana

Leadplant

Lobelia

Lupines

Pearly everlasting

Phlox, both native species and domesticated cultivars

Pigweed

Butterfly on calibrachoa

Plantain

Mapleleaf viburnum

May apple

Milkweed- Butterfly weed- Asclepias species

Mints of any type

Mustard/rape, Brassica kaber

Nettles (Urtica species)

New Jersey tea

Oaks – native species

Oregano

Passionflower

Paw Paw

Prickly Pear cactus

Privet

Purple loosestrife (yes, many butterflies like it)

Purslane

Queen Anne’s Lace

Redbud

Rockcress

Sassafras

Self-heal

Senna (cassia)

Sheep sorrel (Rumex)

Shrubby cinguefoil (Potentilla) all kinds

Spicebush

Staghorn sumac, other sumacs

St. John’s wort

Strawberries, all kinds

Sunflowers, all kinds

Teasel

Tickseed

Tithonia

Toadflax

Thistles, bull, Russian, all kinds

Vervain

Vetches, all kinds

Violets, all kinds

Wild plum, Prunus americana

Willows

White pine

Wisteria, native or Chinese

Yarrow- all types

Zinnias

This is not a complete list of all the plants that butterflies utilize.  Many tropical plants put outside in summer also attract them and many other annuals and perennial flowers get at least some attention from them.  A colorful garden with a variety of species and letting the garden edges go a little wild will do wonders to attract butterflies and moths.

Let’s Give Dame’s Rocket Permanent Legal Status

It’s late spring and the beautiful spicy sweet scent of dame’s rocket is wafting through the evening air. It’s pretty purple, pink and white flowers are covered with bees and butterflies. But I know on some webpage somewhere people are being called to action against the lovely dame’s rocket.  “It’s a noxious invasive plant” they holler, “we must pull it all up- join us for a workday pulling this invasive plant!”

 

Butterfly on Dames rocket

How ridiculous this is. Dame’s rocket, Hesperis matronalis, has been on this continent almost as long as European people and as long as dandelions, stinging nettles, apples, earthworms and honeybees.  It was a cottage garden flower that also served as an early source of spring greens and it was as carefully planted here by early European settlers as roses, apples and cabbages. This is one immigrant that fully deserves permanent legal status.

Stinging nettles, Urtica dioica, are ugly, and cause a painful rash to someone who accidently brushes against them or tries to pull them. Their pollen is extremely allergenic. They get 6 feet tall and spread rampantly. They are considered to have medicinal properties and that’s why they were carried over here by European settlers, just like dame’s rocket. But unlike dame’s rocket no one seems to be on a mission to find and destroy stinging nettles, except me. I destroy them every chance I get.

Dame’s rocket looks rather like phlox, both the native woodland phlox and the phlox of cultivated gardens. It is in the mustard family however and has 4 flower petals instead of five like phlox. Its leaves are arranged alternately on the stem rather than opposite each other as in phlox.

Dame’s rocket is considered to be either a short-lived perennial or biannual plant. It spreads by seed, which is produced in long narrow pea pod like structures. Dame’s rocket is found in most of the Eastern half of the country, southeast Canada and a few places further west.

Yes, dame’s rocket escaped early gardens and popped up in unexpected places. You’ll see the tall clusters of beautiful fragrant flowers in shades of lavender, pink and white blooming along roadsides and ditch banks in late spring. Many a gardener has stopped and collected some for their own garden. They bring beauty to otherwise dull and disturbed areas.

If you want to keep dame’s rocket in your garden, you’ll need to let plants go to seed, then watch for and protect the young plants that pop up in late summer. These are the plants that will flower next spring. The plants that flowered this year will die. In my garden dames rocket moves around a bit, depending on where the seeds fall. I do not find it invasive at all, it has never taken over the garden.

Dame’s rocket is loved by bees and butterflies. The larvae of many native butterflies and moths have adapted to eating it and it is considered a good host plant for several species. In Europe it is still a garden plant, and double flowered varieties and other strains exist. So why is there such an animosity against it by some in the “native only” crowd?

Dame’s rocket isn’t poisonous, nor does it cause an awful stinging rash if you touch it. It doesn’t spread disease or damage agricultural crops. Its only crime is to occupy space that some misguided people feel should be occupied by other plants, native plants. And here’s the funny thing about that. The places you see dame’s rocket growing are not natural, undisturbed environments. They are generally found in places already changed drastically by man and aren’t crowding out native plants.

In many disturbed areas native plants would struggle to grow and if dame’s rocket wasn’t there some other more unpleasant invader might be. Apple trees also pop up, sometimes along nature trails, busy freeways and parking lot and retention pond edges. They occupy space that could be occupied by native trees. But have you ever seen a campaign to eradicate these alien invasive plants?

I love dames rocket and do what I can to keep it blooming here on my property. I don’t judge plants by their country of origin, just by their beauty and usefulness.  I think the perfume industry should look into turning the fragrance of dame’s rocket into a new scent, “eau de alien” maybe. And for those who like spring greens try growing dames rocket in the vegetable garden.

When someone urges you to take action against dame’s rocket, simply because it’s occupying space they feel belongs to some other plant, tell them to stop interfering with nature. Nature knows how to heal damaged environments and provide for creatures in the web of life. Tell them to go pull dandelions and stinging nettle and cut down wild apple trees instead. 

Skillet fried asparagus

Asparagus is available in local farmers markets in May up to late June.  It’s also easy to grow this vegetable in home gardens.  But asparagus is a little tricky to cook.  If you enjoy this spring treat here’s a recipe to try.

Some asparagus needs to be peeled before cooking.  If the stems are larger in diameter than a pencil they are probably a bit tough and need to be peeled. To peel, simply slice off a thin layer of outer skin with a paring knife up to the start of the tip area.

Ingredients

       

2 pounds of asparagus stalks

8 tablespoons butter

3 tablespoons soy sauce

1 tablespoon lemon juice

salt and pepper to taste

Peel asparagus and slice very thinly, diagonal slices work best; slices should not be more than a 1/4 inch thick.  Par-boil slices by putting them in a colander and dipping them into boiling water for 1 minute. Drain well and pat dry with paper towels.

Heat butter in a frying pan with soy sauce and lemon juice. When the butter is bubbling add the asparagus slices. Stir and toss until they are crisp and the butter lightly browned. Will serve 4-6.

Some people look for a beautiful place. Others make a place beautiful.

- Hazrat Inayat Khan

 Kim Willis

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