Hi Gardeners
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| Hibiscus 'The Path' |
I was at the hardware Saturday.
It had been raining all day, if you could call it that since it totaled
less than a 1/10 of an inch, and the day was gray and gloomy. A farmer and I were discussing how we wanted
it to really rain not spit. The clerk
said, a bit grumpily; “Why do you want more rain?” The farmer said; “because rain makes grain”
and I chimed in “and flowers.”
Most of Michigan seems to be on a pretty normal soil moisture/rain
scale but here in Michigan’s thumb we seem to be right on the northern or
eastern edge of the systems coming through and our soil is dry. I know a lot of you across the country are
getting more rain than normal and you probably want to send some my way, so
please do, if you can. Our grass is getting brown and there are places I can’t
water well that I’m starting to worry about.
And a good rain always beats watering with a hose.
But the good news is that we have eaten the first ripe tomato from
the garden. It was an Early Girl, my
garden always has that variety as did my grandfathers, and it was only slightly
bigger than a golf ball, but it sure tasted delicious. Garden tomatoes are 100 times tastier than
those from the supermarket. We also had
a few ripe strawberries.
Lots of flowers are blooming, evening primrose, clematis,
cornflowers, love in a mist and wisteria have joined the palette. The orange ditch lilies are also starting to
bloom. I am anxiously waiting for a row of campanula I grew from seed to bloom,
they’re almost blooming after two years, and I am waiting for a new Fritillaria
to bloom that has had huge buds for what seems like forever.
I found an old bottle gourd in my junk room and put a hole in it
and hung it on the front porch. A day
later a wren was building its home inside.
There are baby birds begging everywhere around here. By keeping suet out in the feeders through
summer I get to see lots of baby birds as the parents bring them to eat
it. But I am going through more than 5
pounds of suet a week.
My new front garden is progressing nicely. All the sod has been removed, many things
planted, although there is more planting to do. This week’s project will be
setting up a fountain/ bird bath there.
I’m going to use a solar pump in an old wash tub painted black and
filled with pea gravel, I have a vision of what I want that I hope I can
translate into something that works.
It’s a fun project, isn’t that what gardening is about?
Gardening
mistakes- it’s how we learn
Every gardener makes mistakes. It’s how we learn. Let me
tell you about one of mine. I have a pot
of the vining Jasmine stepanese. I bought it as a little tiny 2.5-inch pot,
with a stick-like plant. I planted it in a 10-inch hanging basket, I don’t know
why- maybe because it fit inside the tomato cage. You see I purchased some tomato plants in
large pots with cages last year. The
cage went around the pot, with the bottom wires folded and welded together and
the pot sat on top of that. I had taken
the tomato plant out and planted it in the garden. Instead of using the 2 gallon pot the tomato
was in I stuck a 10 inch basket inside the cage and planted the jasmine.
The first summer, summer 2017, I sat the jasmine on the
deck and as it grew I wound the vines around the tomato cage, and that worked pretty
well. It made the set up compact and
easy to move inside for winter. This
winter it sat under a grow light where it grew quite vigorously, stretching far
above the tomato cage and twining itself around nearby plants. That was the
first problem, I spent an hour untangling the vine when I wanted to move it
outside this spring.
Once I got it outside this year I set it on the edge of
the deck, against the house. Looking at
it I knew I had to get that root system out of that 10-inch basket and into
something much larger. But the vine was
firmly wrapped around the tomato cage in such a way that unless I clipped it
back to nothing I was not geting that cage out of there and that basket/pot was
inside the cage. And now there were cascading vines that I had unwrapped from
the plants inside to deal with too. I had to think about it and there was
plenty of other pressing garden tasks that needed doing.
This weekend, with a cloudy, cool forecast I decided it
was time to tackle the jasmine problem.
When I went to move the pot- which had sat there about a month, I found
my problem had multiplied. A nearby clematis had snaked a vine into the jasmine
wrapping around it and the cage and had buds ready to open. And a pesky native vine called ground nut had
also risen out of the nearby garden bed and merged with the jasmine. Its leaves are very similar to the jasmine
and that made determining which was which difficult.
So, I had to spend about 30 minutes unwrapping vines, so
I could move the jasmine. I wanted to
preserve the clematis, so I did that unwrapping carefully. I traced the ground nut vines to where they
came out of the flower bed and snipped them off, then carefully unwound them so
as not to break the jasmine.
Now there was the problem of changing the pot, which was
inside a tomato cage which was wrapped in the vine. Here’s what I did. I found a big pot, bigger than I really
wanted, but that I knew the tomato cage would fit inside. I wiggled the root ball of the jasmine out of
the hanging basket, lifting the basket carefully up the inside of the cage
until the wires were spaced far enough apart to slip the basket out. The root ball of the jasmine now sat on the
bottom of the cage. I picked up the
entire cage, with vines wrapped around it and planted it in the big pot, the
cage bottom is now under the potting medium.
The roots should be able to grow out and around the wires.
I added 3 bamboo poles to the pot and clipped the
cascading pieces of vine to them using what is known as claw clips, they are
used for hairdos and are quite cheap in the dollar stores and come in a variety
of sizes. They are a quick and easy way
to “tie up” a plant. Now the plant can
continue to grow and hopefully, after all the work, it will reward me with it’s
beautiful, fragrant, pale pink flowers.
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| Jasmine stephanese Picture from Select Seeds.com |
So what lessons did I learn from my mistakes? First, one must think ahead. It was a stupid move to put that small pot
inside a tomato cage then plant a vine that gets quite large and train it to
wrap around it. Not planning ahead and
taking the mature size of a plant into consideration is a common mistake
gardeners make. How many times have you
seen that cute little blue spruce grow until it touches the house and blocks
the window? Everyone has seen the oaks and maples
butchered with a crew cut because they were planted under power lines.
When plants are small we often plant too many of them in
a space, thinking only about how they look now.
Later we are faced with transplanting or removing some of them so the
remaining ones can remain healthy. This
isn’t always good for the plants involved, the remaining plants may have
distorted growth patterns or bare areas. Gardeners should look up the mature
size of perennial plants and trees and plan accordingly.
When one is considering houseplants, you have to also
think about their needs and how large they are going to get. Yes, pruning is possible but for some plants
it’s an impractical and disfiguring event.
Try to chose houseplants that you have room for and the proper lighting,
heat and humidity conditions for them to thrive in. In my case it means
planning how I am going to get a huge pot with 8 feet or so of jasmine growth
back inside the house this fall. (Jasmine isn’t hardy here.)
Another lesson learned from my mistake is that we must
always pay attention to what’s happening with our plants. I might not have been able to predict that
the clematis and ground nut would for some reason decide to climb into the
jasmine, but if I had been paying attention I would have noticed when they
first began to creep into the jasmines space and intervened. Often being observant saves us time – and
plants. Noticing a plant is wilting
means it needs checking on- and watering maybe or dumping excess water or
taking it out of full sun. Noticing a
pest may mean getting a jump on controlling it before it kills the plant.
Try to look at all of your plants each day. Sometimes we look and don’t really look, if
you know what I mean. The jasmine was
right next to the door I go in and out of several times a day, but I didn’t
notice the other vines climbing into it.
Most of us are busy people and we are always going to miss something,
but we need to practice being observant.
And listen when other people observe something and
comment on it. Sometimes when you are close to a problem you just don’t
recognize it, it takes a new eye to see the problem. Gardening friends should
mentor each other and provide that friendly “new eye.”
When you make a mistake, let’s say you kill a plant, (and
that happens to all gardeners too), analyze why it died. What should you do different? Now granted sometimes it just wasn’t your
fault that a plant died. But if you kill
several in a row something is wrong. If
you keep buying the same plant and killing it, you aren’t learning.
People aren’t born with a green thumb. If someone seems to have great luck with
plants, it probably isn’t luck at all.
It’s attention to details, the curiosity to learn about those details
plus experience that make a green thumb.
Taking a Master Gardener class or another type of garden class won’t give
you a green thumb, although it does help you learn those details and it gives
you the shared experiences of other gardeners.
Having a green thumb simply means learning from your mistakes.
Help
my peony doesn’t bloom
Peonies are hardy, long lived plants. You’ll see them growing through the weeds on
abandoned farms. But one of the common
problems with peonies is failure to bloom. If the plant is spindly, yellowed or
otherwise unhealthy looking it probably won’t bloom. You need to examine your
cultural practices and possibly have the plant diagnosed for disease. If the plant looks healthy but just doesn’t
bloom, there can be several causes.
Peonies need full sun to bloom well. If the peony once
bloomed but doesn’t bloom now it may not get enough sun. Sometimes we don’t realize that an area has
become partly shaded over time as trees grow or buildings are built. The solution would be to move the peony, or
trim trees to allow more sunlight. This will help the peony bloom the following
year.
If a peony has never bloomed and it looks healthy and is
in full sun it may just be immature.
Peonies need several years of growth before they bloom. If you planted a smaller, younger peony
plant, it may need a year or two to grow before it blooms.
Peonies don’t like transplanting. The year of transplanting and maybe the year
after they may not bloom. If you are a
gardener who constantly moves plants around you may not see your peony
bloom. When you do have to transplant a
peony do it in early fall or very early spring.
Be very careful with the root system, try not to break it. Plant the peony no deeper than it was growing
before and keep it watered until it adjusts to the new area.
By the way, peonies don’t need dividing even if they have
formed a large clump, unless you are planning on moving the plant. A very
large, old peony should be divided into several pieces if you must move it. Division is how peonies are commonly
propagated but after division peonies may not bloom for a year or two. Peonies should be divided in early fall.
If your peony never blooms it may be planted too
deeply. Peonies have areas called “buds”
on the top of the root system, these are modified crowns. They generally look
reddish. These buds should never be planted more than 2 inches below the soil
line. If the peony once bloomed and
doesn’t now check to see if soil or even mulch was mounded around the crown at
some point and remove some of it. You
may be able to do this with a plant that was planted too deeply also but you
may need to remove the peony and replant it.
Too much nitrogen can also cause failure to bloom. The
plant produces lots of healthy foliage but no flowers. This is sometimes seen when peonies are
planted in heavily fertilized lawns. Lawn fertilizer is high in nitrogen. A
light application of a fertilizer for blooming plants, something with lower
nitrogen, can be used in early spring when you see the first red shoot buds popping
up but don’t add fertilizer if the peony is getting fertilizer from a lawn
application.
A drought the previous summer may cause poor bloom or no
bloom in peonies the following year.
Peonies normally don’t require a lot of water in summer but if summer is
very dry deep soak the peonies a couple times during the drought.
Make sure to leave the foliage on peonies until
fall. The foliage may not look so great
but it’s making food for the plant so it can produce flower buds for next year. Removing foliage early may cause few or no
flowers.
If buds appeared on your peonies but they didn’t open the
cause could be a late hard frost, or disease. Botrytis blight is a fungal
disease that causes peony buds to shrivel, blacken and fail to open. It occurs in wet cool weather. By the time
you notice it there’s no cure. Remove the dead buds and destroy them. Insects like thrips, aphids and even early
Japanese beetles may sometimes damage buds.
By the way peonies DO NOT need ants to bloom. That’s a
myth. Ants are neither harmful or
helpful, they are just there to eat nectar produced by peony buds.
Help
my wisteria isn’t blooming
Wisteria are wonderful plants in the right locations -
when they bloom. Of all the garden plants it seems
wisteria is the most capricious in whether it will ever bloom for you. There
are wisteria vines that will never bloom.
They are called duds or mules. (Some
say seed grown plants are less likely to bloom than those grown from cuttings.)
They can be frustrating plants for gardeners, since you won’t know if you got a
dud, a non-bloomer, for many years. And
by that time the wisteria vine will be almost impossible to remove, trust me.
Wisteria also varies highly in
what type of scent it has. Some wisteria
are highly fragrant, with a sweet scent.
Others have little or no smell or a slight musky smell. This is another area where you lay Russian
roulette with wisteria.
There are two native species, American wisteria (Wisteria frutescens) and Kentucky wisteria (Wisteria macrostachya). There is also Chinese (Wisteria sinensis)
or Japanese (Wisteria floribunda) wisteria, but it seems all of
the species can be particular in whether or not they bloom. And many wisterias sold aren’t labeled with
the scientific name, so you may not even know what species you have. If you buy a named cultivar and not a generic
wisteria you will get a wisteria grown from a cutting, which is more likely to
bloom in the right conditions.
But when your wisteria does bloom it can be
beautiful. So, lets discuss why your wisteria
might not be blooming- but might be capable of blooming. First wisteria need full sun, especially in
northern areas. They are difficult plants to transplant so make sure you get
the location right when you plant. They
are also going to need a very sturdy support to climb on.
Wisteria needs lots of time to mature, seed grown plants
can take up to ten years before they bloom.
The small nursery plant can take 5-6 years to bloom. So be patient before deciding your plant is a
dud.
Wisteria buds are produced on “spurs”, little short stems
off the main vine. Spurs are encouraged
by training the vines horizontally instead of letting them grow straight
up. The right pruning also encourages
spur formation. In summer locate the
thin, vining stems and cut them back to 2 nodes or buds. Wisteria should also be pruned to control
height, taking out the top vertical growth promotes lateral growth and more of
the vining stems.
There are many complicated ways of pruning wisteria, such
as forming it into a tree or a bonsai plant and many methods of renewal pruning
but these are too complicated to get into in this article.
Too much nitrogen can limit flower formation. This is more likely when wisteria is grown in
lawn areas that are fertilized heavily. When plants are young a fertilizer for
blooming plants can be used in early spring, but experts recommend dropping the
fertilizer when plants are 5-6 years old, because wisteria can grow in nutrient
poor soil and seems to bloom better in less fertile soil.
Extremely cold winters and late frost can cause failure
to bloom. Wisteria is hardy to planting
zones 4 and 5, but blooming is often less frequent in these zones and may not
happen every year. In colder zones
choose native species of wisteria for a better chance of bloom.
Wisteria is a plant where benign neglect or even stress
seem to make it bloom better. When a
plant is at least ten years old, healthy looking and it still hasn’t bloomed
you may want to try the trick of “root pruning”. This is stabbing a sharp shovel
into the soil around the plant about 3 feet from the trunk. You are cutting some of the roots and
decreasing the nutrient level for the plant, producing stress. Stress induces bloom in some plants. This will hopefully cause blooming the
following year.
Growing
crocus from seed
Most gardeners pay little attention to crocus after their
early bloom has ended. When other
vegetation in the flower bed gets growing the crocus plants may be buried
beneath them. But down there on the
ground something interesting is happening.
The crocus pods are popping.
Not all crocus produce seed pods every year. Crocus blooms very early, when pollinating
insects are few. If the weather is cold
and wet when the plants bloom, there may be no pollinators around and hence no
seed pods. An observation of mine, and I can’t say if this is what’s happening
for sure, is that when crocus flowers get covered with snow for a day or so the
pods are more common later. It may be
that the pollen gets moved around by melting snow.
Crocus plants are unusual in that their seed pods emerge
from the ground. Some species keep their
pods underground, but most poke the pods slightly above ground. You’ll find these pods in May and early June
in most places. If you want to try growing
crocus from seed, you’ll need to look for the pods now. They may look like the sprouts of plants
emerging from the clumps of crocus foliage.
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| Crocus seed pods circled in red. |
So why grow crocus from seed? Crocus hybridizes easily, and you may get
some beautiful surprises from the crocus babies when insects help with
sex. It’s also an economical way to
increase your crocus bed. Crocus does
increase by producing new corms each year, but that’s an increase of one or
two, whereas seed has the potential to produce dozens of new plants. And some people just like to grow things from
seed but never thought of growing crocus from seed. It will take 3 years to get flowers from your
seed grown crocus however.
When the seed pods are ripe they will feel hard and will
split easily. The pods are full of round
pink or red seeds. Most experts believe
that crocus germinates better if the seed is planted as soon as it ripens. The seed needs a period of warmth, (summer)
and then a cold period (winter) before most species will germinate. If you want
to save seeds for a while before planting save them in a warm dark place for at
least 2 months, then move them to cold storage or plant them in a spot where
they will get cold weather.
The seeds should be planted by early September for the
best germination. You can sow them in the spot where you want them to grow or
sow them in pots. Use a light weight potting soil and just barely cover the
seeds or sow them in a shallow furrow in the garden. If you sow them in pots
the pots must be left outside for the cold period, perhaps in a cold frame, or
put in cold storage like a refrigerator.
Keep the soil moist until germination. The seeds should
germinate in February or March. Some
seeds will lay dormant for a year though, if the temperatures seeds were
subjected to weren’t quite right. The
tiny seedlings that come up are very vulnerable to hard freezes and some light
protection will increase survival rates. A tunnel of light row cover or putting
seeds in cold frames can help survival.
If you leave the crocus pods in the garden you will get
some seeds that germinate and survive if the area isn’t disturbed too much in
summer and fall. Sometimes ants will
move the seeds to other locations and you’ll find crocus popping up in unusual
spots.
Remember it will take 3 years to get the first flowers
and the crocus need a good place to grow during that time. The tiny seedlings are easily lost in a big
bed so that’s why having a special spot for crocus seedlings to mature in is
recommended. When they bloom, and you
see all those gorgeous flowers or you find a unique flower among the seedlings,
it will be worth the effort.
Spice
rubs for barbequing
When it comes to cooking outside on the grill spice rubs
are all the rage. You can use a good
spice rub in the oven too. You can buy
spice rubs of course but why not make your own?
This way you can use the spices you like and avoid those that you don’t
like or that you are allergic to. I’ll give you some spice rub examples below,
but experimentation is fun, so don’t be afraid to mix and match.
Spice rubs are best pressed into the meat or veggies you
are going to cook. You can rub them into meat with your hands. You can sprinkle
the rubs on a piece of wax paper and press meat into them or use the back of a
spoon. Spice rubs can be put on anytime before cooking, no need to let them
sit.
Crush whole seeds of spices like celery seed in a blender
or food processor before use. Make small batches of your spice rub recipes at
first, to make sure you like it. Store
the excess in clean dry jars with tight lids.
Recipe one-Combine ½ cup coarse sea salt with ¼ teaspoon
red pepper, ¼ teaspoon cinnamon, ¼ teaspoon garlic powder, ¼ teaspoon onion
powder and 2 teaspoons powdered Parmesan cheese. This is great on potato wedges
or hamburgers.
Recipe two-Combine ½ cup of brown sugar, ½ teaspoon dry
mustard powder, ¼ teaspoon red pepper, ¼ teaspoon cumin, ¼ teaspoon garlic
powder, ¼ teaspoon onion powder, and ½ teaspoon salt. Good on beef or pork and
oven potatoes.
Recipe three- Combine ½ cup of coarse sea salt, ¼
teaspoon red pepper, ¼ teaspoon crushed celery seed, ¼ teaspoon of crushed dill
seed and 1 tablespoon of grated lemon (or lime) zest. Excellent on baked or
broiled fish.
Recipe four- Combine ½ cup of coarse sea salt with ¼ teaspoon
ginger, ¼ teaspoon ground cloves, ¼ teaspoon ground anise seed, ¼ teaspoon red
pepper, and 1 teaspoon brown sugar. Use on vegetables or tofu.
Recipe five- Combine ½ cup coarse sea salt with ¼
teaspoon each of rosemary, thyme, sage, black pepper, garlic powder and a ½ teaspoon
of crushed celery seed. Wonderful on chicken or pork.
Note if you don’t use coarse salt you’ll want to use less
salt. And salt is always optional.
June
fulfills the promises of May, the buds turn into flowers, the air is mild and
smells of roses, and strawberries ripen.
Kim Willis
And So On….
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