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Tuesday, June 29, 2021

June 29, 2021 Have a safe and happy 4th

 The wild weather ride has been something.  I have been amazed at some of the flooding pictures that I have seen on social media of people’s yards and gardens. The damage is spotty, some places have little flooding, others got 5 inches of water in a day. And it's not just in Michigan, it's strange weather all over the country.

The good news is that this rain that ended our drought is coming after the drought. The soil is dry in most places and can hold a lot of water. Flooding should quickly recede, if we don’t get too much more rain. If your plants are flooded see the tips at the bottom of the blog for assessing and caring for them.

I went out Saturday during a lull in the rain and slugs were everywhere, big yellow slugs. They were all over the grass, and on trees and shrubs as high as my head.  Ugh. And Sunday mushrooms had popped up everywhere in the lawn, little brown ones and slightly bigger white ones- you couldn’t walk without stepping on them.  I have never saw that after a rain. Monday, we mowed over them.

We got just about 3 inches of rain Friday through Saturday night. We had no rain Sunday in the daytime and the large puddle at the end of the drive quickly shrank to nothing. That was the worst of our flooding. Monday evening we had a ¼ inch of rain. Had this been a normal year there probably would have been mushy, soft, flooded areas in the yard. But I was able to mow Monday morning and didn’t find any.

The plants look great. But our catalpa tree “rained” down a blizzard of white flowers- they are everywhere- and they quickly turn brown and slimy. The leaves of the hosta catch them, and they turn into a slime ball in the pocket of the leaves, which can’t be good for them.  So, I am going around trying to dump them out.

In the garden the Asiatic lilies are starting to bloom, which will add some color. So are the fancier daylilies. I have mums opening- can you believe that? – I thought they bloomed early last year but it’s even earlier this year. Roses, lavender, echinacea, Maltese cross, evening primrose, harebells, a few clustered bellflowers, native geraniums, beebalm, are some perennials in bloom in the garden.

I have a baby pumpkin on my pumpkin vines.  Some of the patio tomatoes are starting to ripen. My pot plant is looking nice and bushy.  I am slightly disappointed in my cuke plants, they are growing but not blooming yet. Wild raspberries are ripening.

Humid, hot, wet weather can cause a number of fungal diseases in the garden. Keep a close eye on plants susceptible to fungal infections such as tomatoes.

Have a nice 4th of July holiday everyone.

My mystery plant

This cute little plant popped up in a pot of orange geraniums (Pelargoniums) and it’s funny because I know by the developing seedpods that it is a true geranium. The Pelargonium had been overwintered in the house and was taken outside and planted in a pot that had a mixture of recycled potting soil added to it. The true geranium began growing shortly after I planted the Pelargonium. I’ve never seen this plant growing in the yard and I don’t know how it got here.



The mystery comes because I can’t identify exactly what species of true geranium this is. Cranesbill, Geranium carolinianum, has leaves a lot like this but its flowers are quite pale lilac, and this plant has rather vivid mauve pink flowers.  That color is more common to Geranium dissectum, or cut leaf geranium, but the leaves don’t seem as finely dissected.  Cranesbill is native, but cut leaf is not.


The flowers are very tiny, but pretty. The plant is growing as a low spreader, running over the sides of the pot. There are many other species of true geraniums, but none match close enough that I can see. Geraniums are identified partly from their seed pods which feature a long “bill” growing out of them, leading to the name Cranesbill, which is actually given to a number of the species.

The cute little plant will get to stay. If any of you have knowledge of wildflowers and an opinion on whether this is Cut leaf geranium or common cranesbill let me know.

A new plant I know the name of

Every year I try a new species of plant (new to me), just for the fun of it. This one I got from Select Seed and started inside before transplanting to the butterfly garden. It’s a plant called Anoda cristata alba or snowcups. Its native to the southwest US and Mexico, where it is considered a weed and normally has lilac-colored flowers. This is a white variant that has been selected for slightly larger flowers. It is related to Malvas.

The flowers are unusual for their pure white pollen. They remind me of small silky hibiscus flowers. They are said to be attractive to butterflies and bees, we’ll see. The flowers on mine have just begun to open. Snowcups is an annual that likes full sun and grows to about 3 feet tall. It forms a bush shape, with flowers clustered at the top. The leaves are broad triangles.

In Mexico and South America Anoda may be known as Alache and is made into a thick soup. There are herbal uses for the plant, mainly for various digestive problems and its being studied for blood sugar control.

This isn’t a common garden plant yet. Besides Select Seed, I saw it offered at Plant Lust. It does well in heat and humidity and mine is growing like gangbusters. They say it reseeds freely, but maybe I won’t mind, maybe I’ll even save the seeds.  I’ll review it more fully for its garden qualities after the season is over.

Snow cups

 

Tips for flooded areas

In Michigan and many other places in the US this past week or so, many gardens have been flooded. Here the soil was dry and is quickly absorbing excess water but in many places it has been a wet spring/summer and water isn’t receding quickly.

If your plants are submerged or even if they just have their feet in water after 12 hours, you need to act.  If some part of the plant remains above water chances are better than if they are totally submerged, but root damage will begin in soaked soil soon after flooding.

Try to drain the water away from your lawn, trees and ornamental plants if it’s possible. You may have to dig a trench to a roadside ditch or another place to let water flow off. If you have a place to safely pump it you can also use a sump pump, irrigation pump or even a fountain or pond pump to remove water. Pay attention to where the water will flow as you pump or trench it off. It’s not fair to send it to a neighbor’s property unless the neighbor agrees to allow it.

Even if there is no water visible on the surface of the ground, soil that is totally saturated will cause root damage to plants.  Roots need air spaces in soil, or they simply drown. If you dig a shallow hole in the soil and water pools there, your soil is saturated and needs draining. Sometimes a simple trench can allow water to drain away.

Of course, there are cases when there is nothing you can do to get rid of the water but wait and hope.  In some cases, the plants will make it through, in other cases be prepared to replace some of your landscape. If you have flood insurance, check with your policy holder to see if landscape damage is covered.

Perennials and annuals

There are of course some perennials that like wet conditions.  But most common garden perennials and annual bedding plants don’t like waterlogged soil or being submerged. If you cannot drain water away from them, you stand to lose many of them in just a few days. You may want to wade into the water and lift your favorites right out of the ground. Pot them somewhere drier and wait for better soil conditions to re-plant them.

Many plants are going to look yellow after a flood. Many nutrients, especially nitrogen, have probably been washed away. Fertilize them with a good balanced fertilizer following label directions.

If you suspect that flooding may occur again you may want to replace the dead perennials with plants better suited to wet conditions or install a drainage system. Plants that are called “rain garden” plants usually survive short periods of flooding or saturated soil.

Potted plants

If they are submerged, move the pots out of the water. But the biggest problem after heavy rains is pots that are not draining. You must act quickly to drain them. If they have drain holes you may need to elevate the bottom off the surface they sit on, so they drain faster. Stick some pebbles or small pieces off wood under the pot corners. If they don’t have drain holes you must give them some or remove the plants. Having rocks or something in the bottom of a pot without drainage does not work in this case.  (It isn’t a good idea anytime.)

An electric drill can make holes in most pots. You can put the holes down near the ground in the sides of the pot, you probably can’t turn them over to drill holes in the bottom.

Like other plants, potted plants that have been subject to heavy rain may need some fertilization. And things like hanging baskets will dry out if you don’t get any more rain for a couple of days.  Don’t forget about them because everything else is still wet.  They’ll need watering.

Vegetables and small fruit

If your garden was covered with silt (mud) or debris in a flood you will probably need to start over. If covered with mostly water you may be able to salvage things.

Perennial vegetables like rhubarb and asparagus may need to be replaced if they were submerged in water for more than 48 hours or if there is standing water or waterlogged soil for more than 3 days.  Do not eat any parts submerged in flood water.

Strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries and grapes that are flooded for more than 48 hours will probably die and need to be replaced.  As with perennials if you can get the fruit plants out of the ground and hold them somewhere until the water drains you may save them.

After a flood any food plants that were in contact with flood water should not be eaten as they may be contaminated with dangerous bacteria and possible other contaminants in flood water. Water that overflows from storm drains, or runs off roads and parking lots may have gas and other contaminants. If you are close to manure holding ponds, sewage treatment ponds, chemical treatment areas, factories and so on, flood water may also be contaminated.

DO NOT eat carrots, potatoes, radishes or other roots soon after they were flooded. DO NOT eat leafy greens, beans, cukes, melons, tomatoes and so on, that were covered by flood water.  If the consumable parts of the plant were above any flood water, you can eat them after washing them.

If your plants survive, you can eat tomatoes and peppers, beans and so on that develop on plants after flood waters are gone. Whether to eat things like potatoes or carrots, even after flood water has receded, is a judgement call. If they were not developed very much before the flood, the water was just rainwater and not overflow from sewers and drains or water running off streets and parking lots, they might be safe to eat when mature later in the season.

After removing flood water, stay out of the garden until the soil has dried out to avoid compacting the soil. Like other plants, vegetables and fruits may need fertilization after a flood, especially if they are expected to produce fruit-or other edible parts, in the future.

 Grass

Grass that is totally under water for greater than 48 hours will probably die.  Warm, sunny conditions, while beginning to dry the ground, will hasten grass death if water can’t be removed. Grass only partially submerged will last longer but totally saturated soil leads to rotting of the grass roots and if the condition lasts a week or so the lawn may die.

Bluegrass, the most common Midwestern lawn grass, has some tolerance to flooding while perennial and annual rye is less tolerant. Bentgrass, common on golf courses is pretty tolerant.  After you can get to the grass dig a small clump to check on it.  If you see firm white roots and bases of the leaf stems, (crowns) the grass may make it.  Black or brown mushy looking roots and crowns mean the grass is dead.

If silt and debris were deposited on the lawn during the flooding the chances of lawn grass surviving may be less.  A small layer, less than an inch, may not impact the lawn much unless it is heavily contaminated with harmful substances such as salt, oil and gas, but a deep layer of mud or debris will kill the grass. If it cannot be removed with raking or shallow shoveling you will probably want to re-seed the lawn.

If your grass seemed to make it through the flood it will benefit from fertilizing with nitrogen, especially if it is looking yellow or pale green.  Use a lawn fertilizer without any weed killers or insecticides for this. Follow the label directions or use about 3 pounds per 1000 square feet. Unless your soil has really dried out, don’t water the fertilizer into the soil as is normally done, it should dissolve in contact with wet soil.

As long as the soil is wet, limit traffic on the lawn so that the soil doesn’t get compacted or rutted. You may even have to let it get a little longer than usual before mowing. If you do, only take off a third of the grass blade on the first mowing.  If it needs to be shortened further wait a few days, then mow again.  Keep the grass blades about 3 inches.  Never use a weighted roller on the lawn when it’s wet to “flatten” it.  This will cause serious soil compaction and limit the growth of grass roots. 

Trees and shrubs

Most trees and shrubs will take a few days of flooding, as long as they are not totally submerged, without problems. Shrubs and small trees that are covered by water will probably die if the water doesn’t recede in 2-3 days.  Some species may be harmed after 24 hours of submergence. Species of trees that typically grow in wet or bottom land areas such as willows, river birch, black gum, red maple, black ash, cottonwood, swamp oak and so on will generally have few problems with flooding. 

Some species of trees will not do well if the ground remains saturated or the roots remain in standing water for more than a few days.  Redbuds, flowering dogwood (Cornus florida), sugar maple, white oak, hickory, pine, spruce, cedar, junipers, and most fruit trees are examples of trees which really suffer from wet feet. If you cannot drain off the water around them, you may expect a weakened or dead tree. 

Trees that have had their roots too wet for too long will often begin to wilt. The symptoms are similar to being too dry, because the rotted roots cannot transport water to the rest of the tree. Trees that survive may appear yellow or pale green. Give trees and shrubs a little time to recover before deciding they are dead. 

Fertilizing surviving trees may help them recover. Many nutrients are washed out of flooded areas and damaged roots have a difficult time efficiently collecting nutrients that are left. And this seems like its counterintuitive, but if the weather turns dry later in the season, water the trees and shrubs because their damaged root systems may make them more susceptible to death from drought conditions.

After a flood gardeners should assess their landscape to see how likely a future flood will be. Drain tiles, ditches to carry off water, pump systems, raised beds, or moving gardens to higher ground should be considered. Too much water is usually just as bad for plants as too little. Planning ahead is your best insurance.

 




 "When all else fails, take a vacation."

—Betty Williams

 

Kim Willis

All parts of this blog are copyrighted and may not be used without permission.

 

 

Find Michigan garden events/classes here:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/118847598146598/

(This is the Lapeer County Gardeners facebook page)

 

Newsletter/blog information

 

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 blog 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

 

 

Tuesday, June 22, 2021

June 22, 2021 summer solstice and a slap

 Hi fellow gardeners

Are these guys to blame for the wild weather?

 We got some good rain early Monday morning, about a ½ inch. But last night temps fell to 38 degrees! That’s got to be a record for summer solstice. Today we are getting a bit more rain and some wind with a high in the 60’s. What an odd second day of summer.

The prediction from our MSU agricultural weather person is that Michigan will now be entering a more normal summer rain and temperature pattern. I hope so. And I hope you gardeners out there who aren’t in Michigan also get more normal weather patterns. I think mother nature is slapping us to get our attention and make us understand that climate change is real.

Gardens love a good thunderstorm. Besides the rain, did you know that lightning also fertilizes the ground?  Lightning has enough power as it sizzles through the air to split nitrogen molecules. These molecules are two atoms of nitrogen bound together that stay in the atmosphere. When split they can fall to the ground with rain and become nitrates that plants can absorb through their roots.  So, you might say that after a good thunderstorm plants have both eaten and drank and feel refreshed.

Yesterday was the first day of summer. Summer solstice occurred Sunday evening at 11:36 EST.) Technically it’s the longest day of the year. It’s so sad that’s already passed, and we are going downhill, back to shorter days. But the days will only get shorter by seconds for a while, and there’s still plenty of summer to enjoy.

In the garden this week my clustered bellflower and yellow evening primrose are still going strong. The roses are blooming. I’m really impressed with the Maltese cross this year. Some hostas are blooming and that seems early to me. My hydrangeas are starting to bloom. I have cannas and calla lilies blooming.  Echinacea is beginning to bloom. The clematis seem to love this weather and are blooming like crazy. The ditch lilies are blazing orange along the road and wherever I have left them in the yard.

The mulberries are ripening and that means I will be able to do a lot of bird watching. Birds love mulberries. Humans can eat them too, or make wine from them, but I let the birds have them. Strawberries are also ripe.  I am picking lettuce now from the garden.

On a ride around the farm this week on my new scooter I have been discovering some things I missed.  A long time ago I bought two pawpaw trees. One thrived and is now about 20 feet high and it has bloomed the last few years. But I thought the other had died, I took the tree tube off the spot where I thought it had been several years ago.

You can’t get pawpaw fruit without 2 different pawpaw trees so I thought I’d never get fruit, since planting a seedling would take 10 years before it bloomed, and I decided not to bother.  The area the large pawpaw is in is rather wild now and we quit mowing in the area.  Poplars and birch are growing rampantly.

But I decided to take a look at the large pawpaw and lo and behold, I spotted another pawpaw off to its left. The large, long leaves are distinctive. This tree is in the approximate area where I thought the 2nd pawpaw had died, it must have come back from the roots. It’s about 8 feet tall too, so maybe in a year or two it will pollinate the larger tree. A weigelia is on one side of it and a small birch tree on the other, they may have hidden it until it grew above them.

I also found a small mulberry tree with fruit on it that I didn’t know was there and a mock orange has grown up and is blooming behind the old compost pile. A small catalpa tree is blooming down by the pond. None of these was planted by me, but we have the parent plants on the property.

I have also noticed a lot of volunteer hosta plants are coming into their own this year.  My hosta seed themselves freely and baby plants pop up here and there. I move them around so they don’t crowd each other out. This year some of the offspring are getting quite large. I think the hosta ‘Empress Wu’ must be the father of most of them because the leaves are very similar to my plant of that name and many of the plants are getting very large. It will be interesting to see what they all look like when fully mature.



Gardening, not groaning

If you are a gardener that’s having mobility issues or problems with arthritis in your hands, you are not alone.  As we age, we often find we need to cut back on our garden projects.  I know that I have removed three beds that used to be on the east side of our property along the road. I left the larger elements, the shrubs, here and there, but dug up any perennials I wanted and moved them closer to the house in the beds there. I then mowed the rest down and converted it back to lawn.

Replacing flower beds that require lots of maintenance with easy care shrubs or lawn is one way to make gardening easier. Buying better tools is another.  There are ergonomic tools, tools that are easier to handle and require less strength to use. There are many kinds on the market now. It’s always better to handle the tools to see how they fit your hands before buying.

If you have arthritis don’t do the same task for a long time. Don’t spend 4 hours pruning, spend an hour then move on to another task. This helps keep your hands or knees from becoming too painful the next day. I know we gardeners tend to get wrapped up in a task and want to finish it but overdoing it one day can lead to days of not being able to do it.

I bought the jaw saw this year, (a battery powered small chain saw), which makes pruning easier. You may want to trade in heavy gasoline powered tools for lighter battery powered ones. Battery powered tools have improved vastly in the last ten years. They are better for the environment and for you.

If you use a push mower now you may want to consider a riding mower or self-propelled one. Or you may want to hire someone to mow and use your energy to weed and tend your gardens.

Try to sit instead of standing and bending over to do tasks like weeding, planting and harvesting. There are all kinds of garden “seats” on the market, or you can use a rolling walker with a seat. If you can still get up off the ground don’t be ashamed to sit down on the ground and work from there.

Raised beds and containers make gardening much easier for those with mobility problems. There are so many products to make that easier now, from grow bags to prefabricated plastic containers. And you may need to cut back on how much you grow, especially in the vegetable garden. A few tomato plants instead of 30, for example.

Something I bought this year that I love is a scooter that runs well outside. It’s like the scooters in stores but much smaller and lighter. Its battery powered and pretty quiet, yet it goes a long way on one charge. The seat and steering column fold on this scooter and it would fit in the back of my small car. It weighs about 100 pounds though and I can’t manage that alone. But it is an option.

But in the yard the scooter has really helped me. I can ride right up to where I want to work, swivel the seat and get to pruning or pulling weeds.  I can carry the weed whip or saw around easily.  It has a basket I keep pruning shears and a hand trowel in so I can “fix” problems as I see them.

I can do some weeding from the seat, but I am unable to bend over for very long anymore, so I sometimes need to get down on the ground still. But I put my vegetables in grow bags this year and it makes it very easy to ride up to them and weed or harvest from them. I can carry a bucket of water or even a flowerpot on the platform between my legs, another plus.  I can use a hoe or shovel from the seat in many cases too.

One of the best things about the scooter is that I can ride all over the yard and our property to keep tabs on what’s going on. And I can take the dogs for walks again.  I can check on the pond, look for birds in the wild area of the property (we keep a mowed path) and enjoy just being out in nature – and my neighborhood - again. I have been taking evening rides to admire the neighbor’s gardens.

My husband has used an electric wheelchair for years outside.  He can mow with the small hand mower or pull a cart with one hand. He can also drive around our property in his chair. We have a handicamp ramp and both the scooter and chair are easy to ride into the house for storage and charging.  

If you dread the pain of walking around your yard or are just unable to do it, a mobility scooter or electric wheelchair can make it easier. They aren’t as expensive anymore, and you can order one online and have it delivered, Amazon and Walmart carry them.  If you want one for gardening though, make sure it works well outside on uneven ground. I had one I returned because it just didn’t work on grass or dirt roads. (The model I am using is called Metro M1 and I bought it from Walmart.)

Just because you are growing older or have mobility issues doesn’t mean you have to stop gardening. Just garden slower and smarter.


 Calcium deficiency in plants- no milk please

For some reason the newest thing gardeners seem to be fretting over is a calcium deficiency in their plants.  This is a very common worry for tomato growers who think adding calcium to the soil can stop blossom end rot. Some people are even telling other people to pour milk on their plants to solve a problem they probably don’t have.  

While milk is a good source of calcium for people, it’s not a good source for plants and pouring milk on the garden is a waste of time and money. And no matter how much calcium you add to the soil, it won’t help if the plants can’t take it up. And plants being unable to use calcium in the soil is often what causes a calcium deficiency rather than a lack of calcium.

If you are growing hydroponically or are using something other than soil for growing, this article does not apply. Some potting mixes have fertilizer that contains calcium, others do not, read the label. 

Calcium deficiency has varied symptoms, stunted pale growth, dark veins in leaves, leaves looking curled or distorted, dying shoot tips and leaf buds. Tomato fruit and sometimes melons and squash, can have dark rotted areas on the bottom or end farthest from the stem. But calcium deficiency can be hard to differentiate from other problems of plants. Most people are taking a wild guess when they say they have a calcium deficiency in a plant.

There are a few places in the country where the soil may be low in calcium.  The only sure way to know this is to have a soil test done. Your county Extension educator or a farm service agent may know if the area is generally calcium deficient. But in most places, there is enough calcium in the soil.  However, calcium can sometimes be “locked up” in soil and plants can’t use it. BUT adding more calcium does not make it available. Correcting the problem, rather than adding more calcium, is the way to proceed in most cases.

Calcium becomes unavailable to plants when soil pH is too low- meaning it’s acidic. It also happens when soil is too cold or there is insufficient water and when there is too much phosphorus and magnesium.  High humidity and excessive heat can also limit calcium uptake.  Some of these problems may correct themselves in time.

Adequate water on a regular basis, is probably the easiest thing you can do to ensure your plants can get enough calcium. It’s the fluctuating between too dry and too wet conditions that causes blossom end rot in tomatoes. Yes, the plant isn’t getting enough calcium, but it’s not because calcium isn’t in the soil and adding more won’t help. It’s just not getting water on a regular basis and water is necessary to move calcium through the plant. You can’t control the weather, but you can water when it’s dry.

You can help your plants get enough calcium by testing the soil pH and if it’s too acidic (pH of below 6 for most plants) you can adjust it by adding lime. A pH of 6.5-7 is ideal for most plants, some plants like more acidic conditions of 5.5 to 6.  Do not add lime unless you know the pH is low, if you make the soil too alkaline other problems will occur.

If there is a high level of phosphorus or magnesium in your soil from over fertilizing it may prevent calcium from being taken up by plants. You’ll know this if you have a soil test. Stop using any fertilizers with phosphorus and magnesium if that’s the case. In this case extra calcium could be helpful.

Salt will also keep plants from taking up calcium. Sometimes sodium builds up when the gardener uses salty well water or irrigation water on plants. Flushing with neutral (7) pH water can help correct this as well as switching to rainwater or other water sources in the future.

If you feel you must try to add more calcium, or you had a soil test and know your soil lacks calcium add lime, bonemeal, gypsum, rockdust or a fertilizer product formulated for plants for just this problem. Use small quantities and see how your plants react.

DO NOT ADD MILK to your soil, whether its whole milk, diluted milk, evaporated milk or powdered milk.  Milk does not have that much calcium in comparison to other products listed above and it will not help your plants. It will smell and attract flies and animals.

Another thing that won’t help, this year anyway, is crushed eggshells, they take too long to break down. And sticks of chalk, tums, and human vitamin supplements aren’t a good idea either. These things just don’t work even though they seem clever.  Epsom salts will not help either – it has no calcium, and it may make the problem worse because it does have magnesium.

Lack of enough calcium in soil is not common.  Correcting environmental conditions that limit calcium uptake will probably be more effective than adding more calcium the plants can’t use because of those conditions.

A great idea for using strawberries

Got strawberries, and tired of strawberry shortcake?  Slice your berries and add some sugar and let them sit overnight. I use about a ½ cup of sugar to 3 cups of sliced berries, you may like more or less.

Now buy some of those little frozen cream puffs you find in the frozen food section of the grocery. Let them thaw and then put some in a bowl and pour sliced strawberries over them. Eat at once. Divine!

 


Summer set lip to earth's bosom bare, and left the flushed print in a poppy there.

-Francis Thompson

 

 

Kim Willis

All parts of this blog are copyrighted and may not be used without permission.

 

 

Find Michigan garden events/classes here:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/118847598146598/

(This is the Lapeer County Gardeners facebook page)

 

Newsletter/blog information

 

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 blog 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

 

 

Thursday, June 17, 2021

June 16, 2021, the vine war

Bleeding heart
Such beautiful weather we are having, we even got a little rain two days ago. This is what June is supposed to be like.  Mild but sunny, cool nights and days just warm enough you can be outside for a while without dehydrating. I want to hit the pause button.

Blooming in the garden this week are the evening primrose and the clustered bellflower. I love the blue and yellow combination.  I have a number of roses in bloom, and daylilies are beginning to bloom. Clematis are in bloom. Weigela and the ninebark are in bloom. Poppies are still blooming. Maltese cross and valerian are making a nice red and white combination.

The veggie garden is doing great.  You know it’s been a hot spring when you will have green peppers to eat by the end of June.  I wish it was tomatoes, I have lots of little green ones, but I doubt they’ll be ripe by the end of June.

For those of you who have piles of dead cicadas piling up in your yard, be grateful. It seems that the little buggers make great fertilizer, having good amounts of nitrogen in those ugly bodies. Scientists say to spread them out in your garden and on the lawn to utilize the free fertilizer.

My war with vines

I have been battling vines. All kinds of vines, trumpet vine, wisteria, hopniss, Virginia creeper, bittersweet and wild grape. Hopniss (Indian bean) is a rarer native vine but at my house I am ready to eradicate it. It has once again invaded my clematis on the east side of the house and it is so hard to determine which vine is which, they have similar leaves.  The clematis is blooming, but you can hardly see it.

Hopniss has also crept around my little water feature and wrapped itself around plants there.  I have to sit and patiently unwind and snip it from things like my cannas and even the umbrella plant sitting in the water.

Hopniss vine

In my front beds trumpet vine, wild grape and Virginia creeper have been growing like crazy and trying to smother things. Trumpet vine even climbs the side of the house with its sticky little pads. The bittersweet climbs up the cedar trees into the canopy, making the shade denser. I often can’t pull it free and just have to snip it somewhere near the ground and let it die.

Out at the edge of the yard the wisteria is blooming. But the monster wisteria by the barn once again isn’t blooming. Since it’s been here (2010) I have seen exactly 1 flower on it. Yet it is trying to overtake the barn and the flowerbed in front of it and the garden 50 feet to the east of it. It dives underground and secretly moves to new locations to pop up.  It sneaks along the garden fence and up the mulberry tree.

Oh, and another vine that can become invasive- akebia- chocolate vine.  I have about 50 feet of it along my vegetable garden fence and it would spread over the garden if I didn’t keep the paths mowed. But since it has pretty flowers and sometimes fruit, I tolerate it better than other vines.

And then there’s the trumpet vine out by the road which went underground and came up 30 feet away inside a hydrangea. I was trying to clip it all out and ran into another interloper-stinging nettles.  I brushed the inside of my arm on the nettles and spent a whole evening in pain. I hate that stuff. If I could eradicate it from the world, I would.  I don’t want to hear one pious word about its wonderful medicinal qualities.

One of the trumpet vines

Stinging nettles causes a painful rash when its tiny needles filled with 5 different poisons hits your skin.  I can’t believe some people actually do this to themselves on purpose, supposedly to ease arthritis pain. You could do the same thing by slamming your thumb in the door and distracting yourself from thinking about your knee pain.  I have had painful arthritis for many, many years and it has never felt better after enduring the pain of an accidental brush with stinging nettles.

To get the tiny needles out you have to apply tape repeatedly to your skin and yank it off. Then you apply anything you can think of to stop the pain. A day later it has usually gone if you got the tiny needles out. Stinging nettles also has a very generous amount of pollen that causes bad allergy symptoms when it’s in bloom. Destroy the stuff.

Ok, got that off my chest. And I did actually plant some new vines this spring, so I don’t hate all vines. I planted a new clematis and some moonflower vines and ‘Heavenly Blue’ morning glories. All the morning glories I had left around here have reverted to the wild purple color. I may regret that morning glory planting since they will probably return in quantity next year.

 

That cute, raised flower bed around the tree? Don’t do it.

Coming home from town the other day I saw some people out in their yard busily building a ring of blocks around the base of a big tree. I didn’t know the people and these days you do not stop and offer any advice to strangers. But here’s the problem. If they fill that ring with soil so they can plant flowers under the tree, they will probably kill the tree.  It won’t die quickly; it may take a year or two. And some trees manage to survive, although they won’t be as healthy as before the ring was made.

The level at which a tree is growing in the ground is called the grade. You should never raise the grade around a tree more than about three inches.  That is, you should never put more than 3 inches of anything, including mulch, on the soil around a tree. 

Trees have established a network of fine roots right under the soil surface to soak up moisture and take in oxygen.  They may also have put down large roots for anchoring themselves right at the surface, depending on the tree species. When you suddenly add depth to the soil surface you disrupt the system of roots the tree has put in place, and you may kill it.

Soil and mulch touching the trunk of the tree can also start rot there. Disease enters where rotting opens wounds. Insects and critters can also hide in soil or mulch around the tree trunk and cause damage.

Many people find they can’t grow much under a tree because of surface roots. That’s what nature intended. The tree’s roots don’t want to compete with other plants for water and nutrients. Some trees are worse than others, with many surface roots, including large ones, and dense shade too. If you like the tree, you will just need to co-exist with it. Let it be bare under there.

If you are planting a new tree do some research on whether it forms surface roots. Sometimes surface roots develop on trees where the soil is compacted at a deeper level or where there is a high-water table. In these cases, the tree has worked out a system that’s good for it, if you like the tree you need to accept it.

Raised rings around trees, even small trees, so you can plant things there are not a good idea for tree health. But you can plant under a tree, just plant into the existing soil. You can add a couple inches of compost or mulch around your plants. One layer of border brick or wood edging is ok to define the area. But don’t build a ring or box higher than 3 inches.

Many plants will grow in shade and those plants have adapted to dealing with tree roots in many cases. (There is a list of shade plants below this article). Grass doesn’t always grow under dense tree shade, and you should quit trying to force it to grow there, but some form of groundcover probably will.


Just don't do this

When you do plant or mulch under a tree, try to keep soil or mulch from touching the trunk. When you water the plants under a tree, try not to water the tree trunk. Excessive moisture can cause rotting. If a landscaper or spouse leaves a big volcano mound of mulch around a tree, rake it away from the trunk and spread it out.

I know some people will point out raised beds around trees that have been there for years, and the tree has survived. Some trees will adjust, but you won’t know for a couple of years whether yours will be one that can adjust. Many people also don’t realize that tree decline can be traced to the raised bed around the tree trunk they installed several years ago.

Often smaller trees in city parking lots and along streets have flower beds around the trunk. These beds were probably added before the tree was planted, and the tree was planted in them, which is a difference.

So do your big old shade tree a favor and don’t add a flower bed around its ankles.

 

Plants for shade

Shade gardeners used to have to settle for a few selections of common plants, but those days are gone. The number of plants for shade on the market is truly amazing and anyone should be able to find good selections for the shade garden.

What’s considered shade varies of course. Some trees have denser canopies and allow little light to reach beneath them. If you want plants to grow under them, you may have to thin the canopy a bit. Dappled shade, the shade from the north side of a building, and partial shade where plants may get sun for a few hours, will support the widest range of plants.

Gardeners with shade should be aware that while there are many plants that bloom in shade most shade plants are chosen for their foliage color or texture rather than flowers. If you want lots of flowers there are some annual plants that will do well in shade that can be used among the perennials. Spring and fall flowering bulbs can be used under trees that drop their leaves, and the area gets more sunlight at some times of the year.

Plants with silver, white or gold foliage light up shady areas and add visual depth.  But don’t overdo the use of these plants. They lose some of their power if there is no contrast.  Plants with red and purple foliage may fade into the background in the shade. Just as when planning a bed in the sun, a variety of sizes, shapes, colors and textures provides visual interest.


Japanese spikenard or Aralia

 

Make sure to keep your shade garden watered, the canopies of large trees often prevent rain from reaching plants beneath them. Some species have adapted to this, but others, like astilbe, will not grow well in dry shade.

Perennial plants for shade include, Aralia, Arisaema, arums, aruncus (goatsbeard), astilbe, bleeding heart, bergenia, bloodroot, brunnera, some types of campanula, Canadian ginger, cimicifuga, columbine, corydalis, digitalis, Epimedium, ferns, Helleborus, heuchera, heucherella, hosta, Japanese aralia, Japanese forest grass, lily of the valley, ligularia, liriope, mayapples, tiarella, tricyrtis (toad lilies), trillium, trout lilies, violets and violas.

Good shade ground covers include ajuga, Mazus reptans, pachysandra, sweet woodruff, wintergreen, and vinca.

Astilbe

Some vines for shade include some akebias, Confederate jasmine, (Trachelospermum), dutchman’s pipe, (Aristolochia), parthenocissus, and porcelain vine, (Ampelopsis). And trumpet vine and Virginia creeper will grow in shade, although think twice before planting these aggressive spreaders.

Trees and shrubs for partial and light shade include azaleas, beautybush, many boxwoods, camellias, many dogwoods, filberts, firs, (Abies species), hazelnuts, hornbeam, horse chestnut, many hydrangeas, Japanese maples, kalmia, (mountain laurel), ligonberry, some magnolias, paw paw, redbuds, rhododendrons, yews, and some viburnums.

Annual plants and bulbs for shady areas include abutilon, begonias (tuberous and wax), caladium, calla, crocus, coleus, fuchsia, impatiens, muscari, narcissus, and snowdrops. Many other spring bulbs can bloom under deciduous trees such as daffodils and hyacinths because they finish blooming before the trees leaf out.

House plants and other tropical plants can be used in the shade during frost free months to lend an exotic touch. Norfolk pines, peace lilies, split leaf philodendrons, spider plants, and many others do great in shade.

Your shady areas can be gorgeous and contain a wide variety of plants if you take a little time to carefully chose plants. You may find your shade garden becomes your favorite place.

 

 

In our methodical American life, we still recognize some magic in summer. Most persons at least resign themselves to being decently happy in June. They accept June. They complement its weather. They complain of the earlier months as cold, and so spend them in the city; and they complain of the later months as hot, and so refrigerate themselves on some barren sea-coast. God offers us yearly a necklace of twelve pearls; most men choose the fairest, label it June, and cast the rest away.

-Thomas Wentworth Higginson

 

 

Kim Willis

All parts of this blog are copyrighted and may not be used without permission.

 

And So On….

 

Find Michigan garden events/classes here:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/118847598146598/

(This is the Lapeer County Gardeners facebook page)

 

Newsletter/blog information

 

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 blog 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

 

 

Tuesday, June 8, 2021

June 8, 2021 Peonies and Columbine

 Hi Gardener’s


I’m inside writing on a hot and steamy Tuesday. Plants may like the humidity, but I don’t. And I think the plants would like it more if it also included some good rain. I know rainfall has varied tremendously across the country- and even across Michigan.  Some are getting lots of rain, some of us aren’t.

I have seen so many pictures of dried-up hanging baskets and pots. In hot dry weather you may need to water hanging baskets and pots twice a day. Check your baskets and pots even if there has been some rain. Sometimes foliage in full baskets and pots sheds the lighter rains over the sides and the soil inside isn’t getting any water.

If your plants look dried up all may not be lost. Submerge the pot in a bucket of water. You may have to hold it down until it sinks and bubbles stop coming up. Let it sit an hour in the water if you can, then take it out. It can take a couple hours to overnight for the plants to recover. Then don’t let the pots or baskets get that dry again.

If you planted new perennials, trees and shrubs this year and it’s been dry you must water them if you want them to live.  Even plants labeled drought tolerant should be kept watered their first season.

Conversely if it’s been raining a lot in your area make sure pots and baskets are draining well.  They must have drainage holes. It can help drainage if you lift the pots up off the ground or deck surfaces a little. Use little wood blocks, pop bottle caps, tiny stones and so on to lift the corners of the pot up an inch or so.

In my garden lack of rain is keeping things shorter and the flowers look smaller on some plants. Color is starting to come back as the yellow evening primrose, blue clustered bellflower and orange poppies are beginning to bloom. The Siberian iris, columbine, various landscape roses, mock orange, clematis, Love in a Mist, cornflowers and Maltese cross are also blooming.

My ninebark is in bloom, but the flowers are really small this year. I have been mowing around patches of yellow and orange hawkweed. I remember once a researcher called me at Extension asking if I had seen both colors in bloom in my area or just one. She believed only one color would grow in an area. I wish I remembered who she was so I could show her both colors in my yard, although they occur in separate patches of color.

The vegetable garden is doing great.  There are tiny tomatoes on my plants.  The pumpkin vines are getting huge. Cukes are flowering. So far the grow bags are a success.

Bird activity has been different at my feeders this year too. I noticed the purple or house finches (hard to tell apart) are also eating the grape jelly in the oriole feeder.  I’m seeing fewer orioles and hummingbirds. Tons of baby red winged blackbirds, grackles, and starlings are devouring suet from the feeders. I am seeing meadow larks, which I haven’t seen in a few years around here. (They don’t come to the feeders.) I’ve also seen yellow warblers up by the house. I have not seen any bluebirds here.

Usually, I am seeing tons of tiny frogs and toads by now and I’m not. I have seen some adult toads and 1 frog up by the house. I generally have 3-4 frogs in my little water feature by the back door and I don’t have any this year. Ponds around here are drying up.

Chipmunks, however, seem to be having a population explosion. The little buggers are everywhere and eating at my bird feeders all day. I have one on my back porch and there’s one living under the platform the dog’s doggie door opens onto. I guess it’s too hot for cats and dogs to hunt them.

I hope you get rain if you need it and sun if you have too much.

Columbine- Aquilegia spps.

People often ask what flowering plants they can grow in shade. The columbine is a pretty, late spring, early summer bloomer that will thrive in light or partial shade. A bonus is that many species of columbine or aquilegia are native to North America. The plant is also native to many parts of northern Europe and Asia. Columbines grow at the edges of woodlands and in moist meadows.

There are dozens of species of columbine and many varieties, both natural and man cultivated. Aquilegia species hybridize easily. Two common North American native species found in gardens are Aquilegia canadensis, Red columbine and Aquilegia coerulea, Colorado Blue columbine.  Garden columbines are often hybrids of many species.


Columbine 'Bluebird'

The columbine has composite leaves that have 3 leaflets, each leaflet has 3 lobes. There are usually several stems about 2 feet tall to each plant, with cultivated varieties being taller and having more stems than native type plants.

Flowers appear on the ends of stems in late spring. Each flower has 5 sepals, 5 modified petals that have a long tube, each with a nectar gland at the end called spurs and a flatter blade shaped portion on the top. Depending on the species, spurs come in many sizes, positions and lengths. In the center of the flower are a large number of stamens, grouped in 5’s and 5 pistils.

Columbine flowers come in a variety of colors, usually the center petals are a different color from the sepals, but some are solid colors. Blue, red, orange, white, yellow, purple and pink columbine colors can be found.  A few species are fragrant, but most garden columbines are not. The flowers turn into long pods filled with tiny seeds.

Columbines got the common name from the Latin word for dove. It is said that when you turn a flower upside down it looks like 5 doves in a ring.  Columbine is pollinated by hummingbirds and a few butterfly and bee species. The flowers are edible if you don’t consume too many. Some people suck the nectar out of the long spurs, but this seems a waste of a flower to me.

Columbine blooms for about a month, after which the plant may go dormant in hot conditions. In milder moist areas foliage persists but may turn purplish toward fall. The foliage is food for several larval species of butterfly. Deer and rabbits tend to leave columbine alone, maybe because it is toxic.

Growing columbine

Columbine does well in a variety of soils but dislikes heavy clay soil. In moist but well drained loam soils it can handle full sun, but partial or light shade is a better position for it, especially in zones 6 and higher. In deep shade it may not bloom well. It is hardy to zone 3.

Gardeners will probably want to start with plants, but columbine does grow well from seeds if they are treated correctly. Seeds should be sown in fall where they are to grow or sown in pots and left outside for winter. Alternately seeds can be cold treated and started inside in early spring.

Columbine is a short-lived perennial, but it usually seeds itself in the garden. Watch for little plants coming up in spring and protect them. Thin plants so they aren’t too crowded.

Keep columbine watered in the spring through it’s flowering, if the weather is dry. After flowering plants don’t mind dry conditions. But if not watered and it’s dry and hot the foliage may go dormant and die down. A light fertilization in spring as plants emerge will give you more and larger flowers, but over fertilization leads to floppy stems.

Columbine doesn’t like being too crowded by other plants. Keep weeds away and don’t let other plants crowd it out.  

The biggest problem columbine seems to have is leaf miners, which leave squiggly white trails across the leaves. While this makes the leaves look bad it generally does not harm the plant and no treatment is necessary.

ALL parts of the plant are poisonous. Eating plant parts could cause death. The flowers are the least toxic parts, and you would have to eat quite a few to get sick, but why would you want to eat them knowing they are mildly poisonous?  Just small amounts of roots or foliage could kill. Native Americans had some herbal uses for the plant, but I advise against them.

Columbine or aquilegia is an excellent plant for blooms in shadier areas and for those who like native plants. Make sure to add some to your garden.

Why your peonies don’t bloom

One of the common garden questions this time of the year is why aren’t my peonies blooming?  Peonies can survive and bloom with little care on old farmsteads for fifty years or more, yet many gardeners have difficulty getting them to bloom.  So just why are these gardeners having problems with their peonies?

One of the most common reasons peonies don’t bloom is their age.  It takes 3-5 years from seed to the first flower.  But most peonies are sold as root divisions and while these root divisions technically come from an older, blooming plant it can also take a year or more after you plant a peony before you get blooms and a few more years before you get a full, mature plant full of blooms.

Did you move the plant? Peonies don’t like transplanting or dividing. Every time a peony is moved or divided it can take a year or more before it blooms again and several years before it becomes a large plant with numerous blooms. 

Which brings me to another reason your peonies might not bloom, planting them too deep.  Peonies have small red bumps or “eyes” on the top of root clumps, and these should only be about 2 inches below the soil surface. 

There is some debate among experts as to whether a peony you suspect was too deeply planted should be dug up and replanted.  Over time many plants have the ability to correct the depth of their roots, the plant pushes upward or downward as needed. This may take years and the peony may not bloom during that time.  But if you dig it up and re-plant it, the peony could also take years to bloom again. You might try carefully removing a few inches of soil from around the peony. 



Not getting enough sun is another reason peonies fail to bloom.  Yes, there are some peonies that continue to bloom in partial shade, but these are exceptions, and no particular cultivar is better in shade.  Peonies need full sun, at least 6 hours of sun midday, to bloom well.  Often if peonies bloom less as they age it’s because a tree has grown larger and is now shading them.

What did you do last year? Peonies need their foliage the whole season to make enough energy to set next year’s blooms. Don’t cut down peony foliage before the first frost even if it looks unattractive.  The only exception is if the foliage is infected with botrytis, see below.

Sometimes failure to bloom may be caused by a common peony disease, gray mold or botrytis blight (Botrytis paeoniae).  This disease is prevalent when spring is wet and cool, and some types of peonies are more susceptible than others.  If the disease comes on early and affects shoots and buds, you are unlikely to get blooms. New shoots may get covered in gray mold, rot and fall off, young buds blacken and shrivel up, older buds and flowers get a gray mold, rot and fall off.

Peonies are a plant that thrives without much fertilization. In fact, if they get too much nitrogen, they can stop blooming. This can be a problem if they are planted in a lawn that is heavily fertilized, as lawn fertilizer is high in nitrogen. 

One last thing to mention, ants and peonies.  Peonies do not need ants to bloom, and ants do not harm peonies. Peonies and ants can have a symbiotic relationship, the ants eat a sweet secretion from peonies and in turn defend the flowers from some pollen stealing or petal munching insects.  But peonies don’t really need ants and since ants don’t harm the peonies there is no reason to use pesticides to kill them.  To get ants off peonies you have cut for inside gently submerge the flowers in cold water for a few minutes.

 


There is no gardening without humility. Nature is constantly sending even its oldest scholars to the bottom of the class for some egregious blunder.

Alfred Austin: 

 

 

Kim Willis

All parts of this blog are copyrighted and may not be used without permission.

 

And So On….

 

Find Michigan garden events/classes here:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/118847598146598/

(This is the Lapeer County Gardeners facebook page)

 

Newsletter/blog information

 

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 blog 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