dailygarden

Top predators

2011-08-07T08:28:00.001-04:00

G H stays out

Dale built three new raised beds this year and put in some blueberry plants. He also fenced two areas entirely encased in chickenwire.

Wohoo, I have green beans this year that the Groud hog didn't munch. It is good to have green beans.

I have squash. Some is growing inside and outside of the chicken wire. I also dropped some squash seeds just inside the back fence that haven't been munched; so I think that the pup dogs that my sister sent, who mark territory and bark and otherwise make it known that they are the new kids on the block are home. Ground hogs don't claim my garden as territory anymore.

Dale goes out every day and waters. I had been trying to just water things in pots and not water much in the open garden. This didn't work for two resons. One, the Groundhogs visited anyway and two, vegetables grow better when they have water.

Dale in the garden may discourage groundhog visits too. We know that ecosystems need their top preditors and our little bit of garden has gardener approved top preditors now, and we have squash and beans. I did not plant corn this year, but I will next year.

Like milkweed

2011-04-07T11:04:00.001-04:00

Like Milkweed

Milkweed makes seeds that go all over the place

It releases them on gossamer

The wind carries them far from the mother plant

The mother plant is okay with

not knowing where the children have gone, that they don’t return for thanksgiving

Are there messages carried by Monarchs

about this or that seed that sprouted

made fragrant flowers that made necter

that the Monarch sipped

before it headed over to the spot where the mother plant grew

last season

there is a new plant in that location come spring

runners were sent out, roots established last year grow again

I looked into a monarch’s eye once

What I saw there held no recognition for me

that being was not interested in me

only flying

flying to the south

to spend the winter

on a tree with other butterflies

staying warm until the next year

and fly north to lay eggs on milkweed

I am inferring all of this flying thinking

projecting it

For what I saw in those eyes suprised me

for there was no understanding there

not like looking into another human’s eyes

and know that here is a being I can talk to

communicate with

The butterfly

or the seed

of the milkweed, what is the communication

The milkweed’s perfume that wafts my way in summer is not for me

Though I fancy myself steward of my domain

I let the milkweed grow or not

see the butterflies come or not

as I will

if I let milweed grow, butterflies will come

if not, they will go elsewhere

or die

Life is not hard for them

in any existential way that I can discern

and yet we call milkweed plants weeds

tear them out so the grass can grow

or the wheat in a field can grow

I understand the wheat, the need to feed our kind

but not the grass part

If we live in a city

and don’t mow

city government employees will mow

charge us for their trouble

and the emplyees don’t care long as they get paychecks

and the boss at city hall doesn’t care,

it is in the statute

And so we are imprisoned by our words

or the words of those who came before us

not so the butterfly

who doesn’t follow our news

has it’s own troubles

and concerns

who flies 2000 miles in a season

on papery wings

that seem to flutter

I’m guessing that butterfly glides more on drafts
on winds, existing flyway highways

chooses right updraft and off it goes

using the wind to find its destination

So long earth

like the butterfly, our kind will learn to live

on the updrafts

Learn to find posibilities of movement

evolve to use the power of

earthly forces

We do not yet know what these forces are

nor perhaps where they will take us

But we are learning to jump when the time is right

off we go, then.

One step closer to understanding

what is there in the eye of a butterfly.

Small biome area

2011-01-19T12:27:00.001-05:00

I like to think of my garden, the 1/5 acre around my suburban home as a biome. I wonder, after reading about Glycosal, the spread of same, to what degree it is possible to separate from my neighbors. I do not have the lab space or the time to find the answer to that question. My dogs walk on sidewalks that have visible calcium chloride and in summer balls of some sort of lawn enhancement product. I have no control over what my neighbors do with their patches of the earth.

On my little patch of earth, there is some amount of control and that I will take and grow what I can. So far this has meant talking out invasive plants (the buckthorn was making it's own biome, nothing grew in the buckthorn understory).

I have begun replacing Buckthorn with Catalpa trees. Also up the hill, there are Hazelnut and pear and apple and greengage plum. The blueberries have not had enough water in their first year, but the raspberries (red and black) like it fine in the clay soil, that 50 years ago was fill. Raspberries grow no matter what, but grow bigger berries when there is lots of water.

There are grapes growing up the pergola going on their second year. The Pergola used to be a clubhouse, now fenced in attempt to keep out ground hogs. Last summer I went back to the pergola/old clubhouse and witnessed the GH climb 6 feet of fence, even with a full belly of my squash plants.

The only way I bother growing broccoli and lettuce is in pots near the house, where the GH is not interested in going. I have yet to find a good way to grow cucurbits of any sort. I purchase these at the farmer's market. I will keep trying to grow cukes and squash in pots, will order special seeds of cucumbers and squash hybrids for pots in 2011.

I had been using only open pollinated varieties. I guess I have to let the idea of only open pollenated varieties go. Bye Bye idea.

I can feel another seed catalog search coming on, gotta go.

Quote about Human space

2010-12-22T11:54:00.001-05:00

we can reclaim biodiversity and habitats within human landscapes - from the credo of the blog of Thomas Rainer

Alliums in spring

2010-05-05T09:51:00.000-04:00

Alliums have had their way out back for years. In spring, they are all over the place and tasty. I add the green things to dishes and they perk up taste like onions never did. Potatoes and broccoli, carrots and greens get a little old- the green of alliums straight from the garden, perks it all up.

Soon the chives will bloom and I can add flowers, purple at that, to the mix.

I have "walking onions" and garlic chives and garlic and a small onion that reproduces like garlic. I have some leeks that oblige and come back every year. If you leave bulbs in, they will come.

Some gardeners will say that I have let them all go wild and they are not good anymore. Those folks will not get an invitation to dinner, though I suppose they are right. If you let chives flower and the seeds plant themselves, they will grow slimmer than the parent. Better to eat the flowers.

The difference I see between garlic and onion is that the leaf of garlic is flat and the leaf of onion and chives is round. All the green shoots are welcome in spring, and are ready long before the Walla walla sweets.

Blueberries

2010-04-15T10:47:00.001-04:00

I love blueberries. The ones I got at the farmers market, froze for the winter, are big and hold texture. Ah Michigan, ya gotta love those big lakes that modify the climate. The people I bought berries from farm berries on Lake Michigan and vegetables on the east side of Detroit.

I bought some blueberry plants from them. Blueberry plants have perished in my garden in times past. I suppose I have alkaline soil, have not had it tested. I am sure my soil was fill, put here after the house was built.

I will see to it that the blueberry plants get plenty of water and compost. The farmer that sold them told me that is what is needed.

Meantime, I thaw the ones I bought and froze last year, have them most every day. They got me through the winter.

Dreaming at a New Year

2010-01-01T10:38:00.001-05:00

I begin this because my cousin asked, in a Christmas card, what are my thoughts and dreams. It was a nice question, a polite question, and got me thinking.

I have blogs, and they don't get looked after much, but one that gets written in fairly often is called Daily Garden. I have been interested in how to grow an environment around my house that would not offend the sences. Sqaure and straight lines in landscaping and building are sharp and damage the spirit by making it go too fast and skipping the here, the now.

I insisted that a milkweed plant that sprouted in our driveway be spared. That year it grew tall and we had more the next year. Now I remove the seed pods out of deference to my neighbor who grew up on a farm in Minnesota and spent his youth battling milkweed around his father's fields.

I do not know how they did it, but Monarch butterflies have found my milkweeds, they visit every year and leave little white eggs on the underside of leaves. The eggs hatch and out a small catterpillar who chomps its way to the top of the plant, grows, then hangs upside down and a cacoon froms around it. Later, a beautiful butterfly emerges and tests its wings.

That butterfly rides the winds and sun tides and flies away. In late summer they all gather and fly to Florida or to Mexico to spend the winter. I take most of the seed pods and stuff vests with the gossamer. It is very warm. Our Navy used it for flotation devises before plastic.

Monarchs and living by the Bell Creek have lead me in the direction of regenerating the landscape. I recall the years when we young and there were fields nearby where Daddy would take us walking. My sister had a butterfly collection. Butterflies were so common then that it was a hobby to catch them and stick a pin in them and mount them on a board.

I like to garden and took classes in Ecological Gardening from South Oakland County Water Authority. Socwa gets grants from the Federal Government. They run a county composting service. They help citizens build rain gardens. Bell Creek runs into the Rouge River and the Rouge River runs into the Detroit River. The Detroit River is not a river at all, but a straight between two lakes: Lake St. Clair and Lake Erie. (There are rumors that there is also an underground river beneath the Detroit River.) I live in Wayne County, most of Wayne County and Oakland County share the mostly urban watershed of the Rouge River. This watershed is very large and has built pipes and drainage structures to replace the wetlands and marshy areas that filtered the water let it slowly build up the undreground aquifers. The land and water made environments for many species that have had to find other places to live, as they no longer find living environments here.

In my lifetime, much of the watershed became suburb, plotted and divided built with hard surfaces: roofs and roads. I dream of everyone making a rain garden on their little piece of land, so the water can stay and be absourbed into underground aquifers, rather than causing floods in our creek. Our mild mannered Bell Creek becomes a raging torrent during rain events. Water that ought to be drippping into aquifers hits hard surfaces (Impervious surfaces) and is piped into a current carrying catastrophe for any life forms that would try to make their home in the creek. I have not even seen any water rats in the creek of late.

I dream of every family in every home becoming stewards of their land and making a rain garden and a wild garden. Rain gardens and dry river beds to help with drainage and wild gardens filled with native plants that wild life can relate to and make their homes in.

Since I have been making more space for grow zones and native plants, I have been host to toads and to some garder snakes. One mail carrier saw a garder snake and threw up her mail (and wouldn't deliver my mail). What have things come to when our people don't know a harmless garder snake and assume it is a rare Missisauga Rattler (the only poisonous snake in our area). I have been bitten by a garder snake, but that was long ago, I was trying to pet it. It was a small bite and soon healed. Mostly garder snakes get out of the way when they see you coming, this one must have been sunning and the mail carrier was a quiet walker, not like those noisy cars. We don't have many pedestrians, even in our very walkable neighborhood.

I dream in our neighborhood, there might more places to walk to. I dream of places to walk to and I dream of being able to ride my bike to the library without having to go around the fenced munciple golf course.

I dream of regenerating the places we live, so that our environments are no longer filled with grass, that we no longer put weed killer down, or petroleum based fertilizer.

I realize these are small things to dream of. Great world events go on while I dream. I dream that we all find ways to compost, one compost pile at a time we will sequester carbon and save the world from terrible consequences. Making rain gardens will save our creek from high, fast water. These are things I dream of. Happy New Year.

Landscaping

2009-12-10T10:43:00.001-05:00

I would love a walk in the woods, alternately if people would have interesting gardens, I would enjoy walking around more in my town. As I walk and look at all the interesting things people have done in the grass everywhere paradigm I like to think of all that we could do if we shed grass for more interesting botany.

I hang with folk who would bring us back to pre-settlement ecosystem, wonder sometimes how that would be done in our huge grass-and-concrete-scapes. I find it entertaining to imagine vines growing up the over pass and over the rails, ponds in the street after a rain, primroses, along the sidewalk, making it a primrose path. In my own garden primroses long ago were taken over by forces of nature.

Forces of nature, letting them do the work for you, finding forces of nature that work in your yard, this is what I like. Many young folks have commented they like the garden when I have not had time to weed and sculpt. I am interested in planting native plants and leave asters and winter stalks for the finches. I don’t know if we would have finches in the neighborhood but for the feeders my neighbor keeps, but those finches like to come to my house for desert.

The most dramatic native has been milkweed, and the monarchs that come to feed. Other butterflies enjoy other plants. I mostly have common milkweed, and I take the pods off in fall so they won’t plant themselves in my neighbor’s yard. My neighbor spent his boyhood on a farm in Minnesota and was in charge of removing the milkweed from his family’s fields. He hates it.

My role model lives about three miles away. They have perennials on their front yard. They have a path of grass in between beds one mower width wide. The male in that family does the mowing and likes it. They have had this garden for 20 years and it is beautiful and interesting for passer’s by. I met these folks when they were out tending their garden and got tips from them. Their’s is not a maintenance free yard, but there is less mowing and more growing (sorry, couldn’t help my self).

Doing in Buckthorn Without Glyphosate

2009-11-10T12:10:00.001-05:00

Doing in Buckthorn Without Glyphosate

When buckthorn is young, one or two years old, it can be pulled up with the rest of the weeds.

I had some older Buckthorn that grew within the vegetative strip by the creek. I wouldn’t pull out anything that will grow there because the roots hold the bank in place. (I garden and pay property taxes on the banks of Bell Creek where big storm surges come when it rains- the water rises 10 feet or more when there is a heavy rain. Instead of soaking into the ground upstream, rain hits hard surfaces. Storm sewers deliver large amounts of water to the creek. Here, downstream, storm surges scour the banks causing erosion. Eggs of wild life and fish wash downstream. No fish live here. We do get to hear the sound of peepers and american toads in spring.)

Those who would take out invasive plants, people who want to restore our ecosystems, and there are many wonderful folks who do this, many of them use glyphosate, commonly used is Monsanto’s Roundup.

I cut off 15 year old buckthorn plants at about 3 feet high. I tried painting the stumps with chlorine bleach instead of Glyphospate. My immune system is very sensitive and breathing glyphosate brings out a number of unfortunate symptoms.

The next spring, leaves came out on the stumps. I stripped the leaves in spring and in the fall every year. It has been four years and the stumps no longer put out leaves, are taken for dead. (Though buckthorn has adaptations that have fooled me before)

Buckthorn is the last to leaf fall in fall and the first to leaf out in the spring. (Very clever adaptation, that) I am assuming from observation that buckthorn is dependent on the sunlight it receives during those times when the leaves are off of higher canopy trees. No leaves, no chlorophyll, no buckthorn. I’m pretty sure that is how it goes.

Next, I will see about the honey suckle.

On Freezing Food

2009-10-20T12:17:00.002-04:00

I have been getting seeded grapes at the farmer’s market. Maybe I ought to be making wine or jelly or canning the stuff. I am making juice with little water and freezing. When removed from the freezer, I will add water.

I mentioned this to my farmer, (yes, we have farmers in Detroit) who does make and can juice. One reason to can is to save on freezer space, thus electricity, and to put by lots of juice. I don’t do that, just make enough for us.

For years, canning made more sense to me, as there were five of us. Now that we are down to two, it seems good to keep our freezer packed full. (If there is a power outage, steps will have to be taken.)

We as a culture are finally transitioning to home based power sources, solar or wind or some other mode that will not depend on a large grid. The city power grid has seemed immutable. It is not. I’m thinking freezer technology is here to stay. There are many things to do in the fall, canning is not one I prefer.

Another of my farmers tells me about his customer who freezes corn without blanching it and uses it by Thanksgiving. I am trying this. Here is my reasoning: Freezing does not kill enzymes, it slows them. When I put unblanched vegetables in the freezer, I am making an environment that will slow the ripening of the corn. If it is consumed before it gets too ripe (the corn kernels have not turned to carbohydrate) it will add to our well being when we eat it. This theory is contrary to all of the USDA manuals I have read, I am looking forward to uncooked corn at Thanksgiving.

The USDA has made some bad calls, no longer has the credibility with me it once had. To my knowledge, it has not changed food storage protocols since the thirties. Haven’t we gotten any smarter since then?

What Happened to the Three Sisters

2009-10-13T14:42:00.000-04:00

About the three sisters garden: ground hog figured out how to open the fencing. I did get a few beans before the havoc, but not corn or squash.

The good news is that a farmer’s market opened downtown and I can get local veg there. I ought to pursue the making of wine and put up a hoop house. Fall is breathing down our necks.

Good stuff (count our blessings: I like to count b during lawn chemical season, as going outside and breathing 2 four d -a form of dioxin- often is too much for my immune system.

-There are many folks growing native plants. This will spread healthy systems around. If you build it they will come, insects, butterflies, maybe even native worms.

-I saw a talk by some folks who removed the vinca from their hillside. They took that vinca (perriwinkle) up in rolls, like carpet. There were trilliums in the ground underneath patiently waiting and the next spring, the trilliums bloomed. They showed a slide of a whole hillside of trillium the likes of which I have not seen except in state parks under climax forests. Too many deer now visit (trillium being a member of the Lilly family, deer like them) that is another story.

-Joe Pye weed is happy with only half day sun, next to the garage. Next year, I will include it in the trimming I do of the asters and mums- I/3 of the stems June 1, July 1, August 1. Trimming this way makes the plantings fuller and not as tall.

- Raised beds and fencing for vegetables, as we have critters.

-I planted grapes and Pears and Apples this year. Green Gage plums came in, though I’m guessing they will have fewer pests with dormant oil spray. I also planted blueberries this year. Clarence, the blueberry farmer at the market, says blueberries need compost more than soil acidity.

-Used the push mower a lot. Only maintenance was the spraying of WD-40 on moving paarts. The blades did not need rebalancing this year.

Is it Fall Already?

2009-10-07T11:14:00.001-04:00

Missouri folklore:
On the 25th of July, sow turnips wet or dry.

Middle of July, time to start a fall garden. I knew this, but fancied myself too busy. I’m seed collecting, looking for fall native plants and perennials this year. No hoop house this year either, freezer technology is here to stay.

Aster time

2009-09-25T09:43:00.000-04:00

Purple

I have purple New England Asters blooming all over the backyard, aster time is a nice finish for the season. The little white asters look fab too. White asters bloom among the lilies that finished blooming in July. Asters Asters, I cut them back with the mums- May first, June first, and July first. The asters are not as tall, more filled out.

Got Buckthorn?

2009-09-25T09:21:00.001-04:00

Buckthorn tree control:

Control the female trees first; they are the ones that seed.

Cut off to about three feet, keep leaves stripped off of the stump. (I have shaved stumps twice a year in spring and fall ) Stumps will die in two to four years. Mine died in three years.

Restoration Gardening

2009-09-14T11:16:00.000-04:00

I have l lived and gardened on a small lot not far from Detroit. Our lot backs to the Bell Creek, tributary of the muddy Rouge River (as my father, who swam in the river, called it) My children and I only know the Rouge as a place to keep out of. A lot of my life has been learning how to make our place whole and right again; our river valley a place where children go to pick violets for their parents.

Our family stopped mowing by the river, thinking our bit of flood plain would revert to a healthy landscape right away. A few years later, I had to learn about buckthorn, honey suckle, and removal of same. Garlic mustard came along sometime later. The aforementioned are invasive plants that will take over in disturbed areas. Wayne Oakland and Macomb County residents participated in disturbing our watersheds with development in the 20th century. Forests and wetlands were replaced, rudely, by our houses-my lot is over 40 years old, I am still learning about the fill dirt used on it and how to grow things. Here in the 21 century, we are developing soft technology to make our neighborhoods healthy.

Residents are realizing that we in the watershed are all connected, that amounts of water (huge) swell the creek after rains. Water is coming from impervious surfaces upstream through antiquated drainage systems. Thanks to the Rouge Wet Weather Demonstration Project, and SOCWA (South Oakland County Water Authority), and others, many have learned about rain gardens and water tables and many water issues. I also became interested in native plants, found Wild Ones, toured our award winning CSO facility here in Redford, removed invasive plants from our landscape, am working toward keeping my own rain water onsight, in order to help with recharging the water table.

We need to spread the vision of everybody keeping water their water onsight, regenerating their property. In that vision, huge expensive water projects are no longer needed everyone works together to realize our potential as shapers of our watershed, stewards of our land, replenishers of our ground water. All land keepers maintain a rain garden, only incidentally a lawn mower, move toward looking after their own ecological landscape.

The direction of urban regeneration is necisarily messy, I don’t know anyone who knows everything about the subject, there are leaders, but no experts. Many came before, made progress in that direction. I think of our local flood plain/road, Hines Drive, for one example. Also of the countless fish ponds and gardens in the Dearborn neighborhood I lived in growing up. Building suburbs, involved paving over streams, moving fill dirt. Building living spaces today ought to involve making rain gardens.

Rain gardens duplicate many of the fine services wetlands do.

I am trying to remain positive here. It just wont do to have an army of people with cute flower hats going around with guns making people stop using fertilizer and make rain gardens.
Legislation mandating rain gardens in new subdivisions might work. Trouble with legislating about best practices is that when best practices change, the laws often are neglected, or people argue about what best practices are. Look how stuck we are in unhealthy lawn care protocols, have been for half a century.

Picking Green

2009-08-31T12:03:00.002-04:00

As vine ripened tomatoes obtain cache, we may over look the up side of picking green. Picking green has taken hold as a solution to shipping, and in shipping we have reached and over reached limits of picking green.

In backyard and local farming and gardening, picking green is useful to rescue produce from scavengers. If you pick tomatoes green, you can beat the varmints to them and they will ripen on windowsills, and taste as flavorful as ones allowed to ripen on the vine. Vine ripened tomatoes will often have bites out of them.

I am finding the same principle to be true for fruit, though am new to this branch of farming lore.

There are also advantages of pie and cobbler making (besides excellent taste) and cutting out bad parts and consuming good parts of fruit. Those who came before us knew and were skilled in using the ‘bad’ fruit to provide provender. There is an upside to having dessert, gaining thereby antioxidants and vitamins, saving up for the winter.

Fall begins

2009-08-23T11:37:00.000-04:00

Fall garden mode: does anybody really know what time it is...

The sun is peaking onto my south facing window sills again after it was high in the sky all summer. It is time to begin to think of winter gardening, set up grow tunnels outside, bring house plants in from summer vacations, what not.

As a gardener, I used to be sad this time of year, thinking of the long winter ahead. There is so much gardening to be done, since I opened up to cold weather gardening, fall is almost as busy as spring. Fall crops need a start, most are started but I found beet seeds waiting, lest the winter and colder months be barren. Peas are already flowing out of containers and garbage cans in the back.

My competent neighbor has made squirrel proof fences, he will get some of the corn he planted. Well done. I will have to pick my corn under ripe. I can try the old bag around every ear. I will get some corn that way, but squirrels are quite competent at eating through bags.

I bought some corn at the farmer’s market and froze it, but look thoughtfully over at those fences that fit in his raised beds and over the corn.

Invasive plants 2

2009-08-20T09:56:00.001-04:00

I have a friend who says why bother garlic mustard is clever, are we? Invasive species are here, and how can we fight an invading army?

I ran into a steward of a natural area, he was digging a new bed and will get to the buckthorn, female trees first. There are many things on his to do list, buckthorn removal was apparently not at the top.

When the paradyme is framed on the linear level, moral equiv of war and all that, I tend to relax and back off. Invasive species are not the end of the world. I hiked with a man this spring who took garlic mustard home and made Lasagna.

I love to recall literature (I am including comix as literary): Mr. Natural sat down and meditated in the middle a countryfied space. A city, complete with freeways and interchanges grew up around the old duffer and still he meditated. Then the city declined and open space returned and then he stood up and went on.

Floppy Fence

2009-08-11T13:00:00.001-04:00

Biggest Garden Technology of the Season (for me): Fencing

Hurrah, tomatoes are beginning to come in, this has been a cold year, but I take my harvest bowl out to the garden in August.

My three sisters garden, safely behind floppy fencing is proving to be GH proof, at least in the middle. If beans or squash grow through the fence, they have been chomped. I have noted one winter squash developing. Green beans do well when the leaves are uneaten. I almost feel young again, floppy fence technology is that gee wiz to me. For years I have been unable to grow beans, lettuce and squash, which the GH likes. What the GH doesn’t like is mostly peppers, tomatoes, and fine old raspberries, onions and leeks, I have grown these in the way back.

I have been unable to grow squash or cole crops for years, I give homage to the floppy fence. (Floppy fence is wire fence with no support at the top that Ground Hogs have little interest in finding themselves swinging at the top of.)

Nonnative Species V. Invasive Species

2009-07-18T15:44:00.002-04:00

There are many garden species, common day lilies for instance, that: oblige the grower, spread but can be removed, and do not cause problems for adjacent wild areas.

Then there are the really invasive plants that will find disturbed areas and take over to become a destructive monoculture. Buckthorn and garlic mustard are not very good for the local wildlife species to eat, but will spread, especially to disturbed areas. I garden a small area of land near an urban center, formerly grass. Buckthorn and garlic mustard consider my disturbed area a playground. Garlic mustard is very clever, it finds it’s way to every open space here.

A funny thing happens when you pull out garlic mustard on a recently invaded creek bank. Other species that have been growing there, have been crowded out by the garlic mustard are still growing in between. Garlic mustard is a pest, it is a self serving, spreading invasive with the ability to create a monoculture of itself.

Local chefs have developed recipes for garlic mustard. Planting it is not good, but in areas where it is taking over, garlic mustard lasagna is reputed to be served in spring.

Here in Michigan there is interest in looking after our remaining wild areas, and in reclaiming degraded areas. Garlic mustard pulling is a common spring pastime.

Another notable invasive species here is buckthorn. Introduced as an ornamental, buckthorn is a small tree or large shrub, it will take over an area and when it does, nothing will grow in the understory. It out competes everything. We stopped mowing the lawn near our creek and buckthorn created a buckthorn monoculture in 10 years. There was nothing growing there but buckthorn. (I have since removed it, and must remain ever vigilant, removing young plants) Some stewards will resort to chemical control, making a special wand and cutting the trunk about a yard above the ground, smearing the stump with glycosol and walking away. I personally do not use chemical solutions. I use the method of mechanical sawing and remove growth from the stump at least twice a year, the buckthorn stump will not survive consistent leaf removal.

I have seen large piles of sawn buckthorn bodies in parks, and I have seen more reserved approaches to buckthorn removal. Buckthorn has a male and female plant, the destructive berries that will plant themselves and spread all over appear only on the female plants. Female plant removal is a priority.

Phragmities is also a problem around lakes and in ditches along freeways were there is runoff. There is a native phragmites, but it is small.

Humming Bird at the Choral Bells

2009-07-15T08:56:00.002-04:00

Humming bird at the Choral Bells

We used to see humming birds when we lived in the city, three miles from Rouge Park. My neighbors put in red salvia every year and that is where they dined. Today I saw a hummer at my pink choral Bells.

This year I have made an attempt at planting cardinal flowers. These reaquire some stratification (Cold). I did put the seeds in the refrig. but maybe need to put the planting medium in too.

My neighbor to the east has a pot full of red salvia. As he pointed out: hummers need a whole lot more than a pot full of flowers.

I am seeing hummers and monarchs as rangers, going far and wide to find sustenence, perhaps reporting back to headquarters on what they find. How else could they survive, I’m wondering, excpt by working together.

At Wilderness State Park last year, I saw one cardinal flower in bloom. A tribe of humming birds would have to have sharp eyes to find it, among the trees, by the river.

I have a hankering to range far my self, go to Ann Arbor farmer’s market, maybe or even up to Mason, Michigan to Wildtype Nursery, and purchase cardinal flower and other wild lobilia plants. Not that I have had that much luck with them but a gardener has to keep trying.

Letter to Urban Homeowner

2009-07-05T10:53:00.001-04:00

I was thinking of you and Laura and about your new digs. I googled rain gardens, noticing that Wikipedia now has a most comprehensive entry on same. The only quibble I have is the percentage of compost (80%) recommended for backfill. I have seen all but the most heavy soil (we have such clay here in the metro area) not require excavation only digging or finding a low area on the property and directing the water there. The most elegant way I know of is to dig a depression and put an inch or so of compost on it, adding compost from time to time, planting deep rooted plants (natives are often preferred); but I have seen rain gardens that would not drain and become ponds. I have also seen properties with two feet of water in the drive, and the drive became dry when a rain garden was made on the adjoining land. That project was in Huntington Woods and the city provided a back hoe to remove the soil to two feet below grade and replace it with compost and sand.

Each installation is different. I am sure that you will require a few rotations of the seasons to get a handle on what is desirable for your situation. Managing water in your new area to your satisfaction will take a few years, I'm pretty sure. Living near an urban river is both exhilarating and sad, sad in that you become cognizant of the damage occurring when developments upstream tear off top soil and vegetative cover, build impervious surfaces. New developments often cause problems for those living with the extra runoff downstream. Sigh. Hopefully in the coming years we as a society will be able to mitigate some of this damage. To mandate Rain Gardens or other bioremediation seems a reasonable solution. There already exists heroic and wonderful technology toward this end. It seems to me an up and coming area of adapting, but I have been wrong before on what will catch on in the popular imagination.

If your urban soil has become contaminated with heavy metals (chances are it has lead in it if your neighborhood was developed before 1972, as that is when lead was outlawed in gasoline) there are plants (Sunflowers are great heavy metal uptakers) you can plant. Opinions vary on whether your plants out then to be land filled as toxic waste, or burned and the toxins removed, or composted. I cross my fingers and compost, but I live in a 60's ranch.

Heavy metals and urban gardens

2009-07-04T16:51:00.000-04:00

One of the trusty garden blogs I follow noted that Mother Jones Magazine had an article about lead content in the White House Garden soil. Lead is a problem for urban gardens, and in places that were cities before the 1970’s when leaded gas was still legal.

As an urban gardener I have been cognizant of lead issues and other heavy metal contamination issues. These should not ne ignored. Googling bioremediation, one will sooner or later find charts and information about what plants will take up what heavy metals.

Sun flowers, are workhorses in the bioremediation line. I compost a lot, and have not yet developed protocols for my own garden in respect to what to do with plants that will take up heavy metals. Some folk have burned plants and looked for heavy metals, the science is not well developed or widespread. I am counting on universities who have the lab space do this research and develop protocals.

For urban gardeners, and probably for all of us, developing testing for our soils and bioremediating is an important consideration. It is important to grow food meatime, as universities and others get to work on this important consideration.

One more note: most of us have toxics and heavy metals in our systems. It is virtually impossible to live on the planet in the 21st century and not have.

Trimming the Talls, Ladybugs

2009-06-25T09:01:00.000-04:00

I have a lot of tall plants, marsh mallow and purple asters come to mind, but there are many more. Instead of buying a cultivar, I am cutting them off 1/3 at a time with the mums. This treatment makes them grow bushier, as the side shoots come out.

I have an infestation of some kind of bug on the green gage plum tree, I will probably look up just what the blighter is. Removing infested leaves was thankless, it is a huge infestation and I was daunted. I relaxed when I saw a few lady bugs, thinking they will call in the troops.

Not Cabbage Whites

2009-06-22T10:50:00.001-04:00

“If you grow it, they will come” has become my favorite saying (Yeah, riffing off of If you Build it, They Will Come). Monarchs were attracted to a milkweed plant that planted itself in the crack of my driveway several years ago.

I let a supply of milkweed grow every year, just for the monarchs that stop by. One neighbor is not pleased about this, he grew up on a farm and had to keep milkweed under control in the farm hedgerows when young. I have taken his warning and limit the number of common milkweed allowed to inhabit my back yard, but leave enough for the visiting monarchs. (I am also interested in the milkweed gosamer from the seed pods and am looking into it for use as insulation in clothing. I stuffed a vest with it last winter and it is very warm. Said gossamer was also used in WWII for filling life preservers, as we were at war with our kapok suppliers in the South Pacific. Elementry students were put to collecting milkweed pods and it was processed at a plant in Muskegon, Mich.) Monarchs will eat only milkweed and they leave eggs that will hatch into pupae, eat the leaves, and pupate into beautiful butterflies that will stay until they fly away.

I would note here: there are websights by folk who keep track of monarch migration. Monarchs find a warm place to winter. I seem to be in the Eastern zone, I’m fairly sure the monarchs that visit here winter in Florida.

Last year, my friend raised some button bush (Caphalanthus occidentalis). The seed was aquired from Lake Orion, (not from around the lake, but from in it) slightly North of here, and he gave me some little plants that remain for now in my wild plant nursery. Even in my nursery close to the house, in pots on cement, butterflies (or moths) have found the button bush, laid eggs. Two kinds of little caterpillars have been observed by me recently, chomping the leaves.

Button bush is native to our area, has deep roots, and is recommended for native plantings and rain gardens. I will keep some of it up hill in the sun, as it likes sun. Button Bush will not bloom so much in the shade, say plant sights, but I will try putting some of the young ones by the creek, hoping the roots will go deep and find the water. I will open up the canopy a bit for it, maybe put in some more red ozier dogwood there too.

Sure enough, I have seen two types of caterpillars chomping on the leaves of the young button bush. There are holes in all of the young leaves. Could the catterpillars be little sphinx moths?

Here is what the Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center has to say about button bush:

Planting in June

2009-06-18T10:17:00.001-04:00

Middle of June, time to plan fall garden starts. More lettuce and cole crops are nice, I usually start them in flats. Most summers get so hot that starting things in the open garden, even if watering once a day, means conditions that are too dry.

I started more lettuce and some cosmos and carrots in the ground. Carrots like the cool weather, but may do alright this year. We have had a good cool spring here, nice, and a rarity these days.

My organic farmer neighbor has harvested early peas and will put in corn in that spot. I like this, as the nitrogen is fixed for the corn by the peas. This man is full of wisdom, says he doesn’t plant corn until the ground is good and warm and Michigan ground gets warm slower than his former Indiana ground.

I am thinking of planting a hybrid corn variety this year. I have enjoyed the open pollinated varieties we have tried, but don’t get much corn from them. Maybe I will be able to buy corn at the farmer’s market.

Reasons to have lawn

2009-06-16T08:45:00.000-04:00

Lawn that is mowed at least three times a year. Conditions will be:

1.Invasives will not spread in a mowed environment. They will not be able to take root. They will be sawed off by the lawn mower.

I recently went walking in a piece of land that has been forest for 40 years or more. Because it was in the middle of industrial and residential areas, there were remarkably few invasive plants growing there. I was with a group and we pulled garlic mustard but there where not many invasive species. The area is cut off from gaining diversity through having a corridor, but it is also cut off from invasive species. In other urban forests I have been in, there were a lot of invasive plants. Every body keeps their lawn mowed around this area. There are roads and parking lots, not much untended or marginal land.

2. Meadow-like conditions are maintained instead of succession marching on and becoming climax forest (in our area climax forest is Beech-Maple).

3. Turf grass is a nice surface for baseball and Soccer, golf and frisbee golf. (BTW Frisbee golf requires much less mowing than golf with cute white balls and clubs)

Softer ground

2009-06-02T07:07:00.001-04:00

Softer ground

We have put leaves and vegetative matter on our back garden over the years. While pulling up golden rod and grass and alliums out by the fence today, where we have loaded leaves there in the past. The ground is soft and the weeds come up easily, I found the softness of the ground notable.

I thought of hard ground, ground so hard a shovel will not penetrate. I thought of all the digging I have done over the years in hard ground. The exercise has probably done some good for me. As for the soil, bringing it alive was not done by digging. Over years we have top dressed with leaves in the fall. I have compost rings at easy distance in the yard in case I go out and pull a few weeds, there will be somewhere handy to deposit handfuls of green plants. When we move the rings, the soil underneath is soft and the compost is rich.

I planted two trees (Paw Paws) today in places where last year I had compost rings. The ground was soft, it also had a feel of wonder. Digging the holes for the trees was pleasurable. Micro-organisms and worms have taken up residence there and transformed the rock hard soil. The soil is soft, fertile.

I would like to put in a word for the magic of the soil. Soft and friable, yes it is. Brown and full of broken down humus; that too. Better than the sum of all of these things, many factors have come together to support the vibrancy of the soil. A soil scientist does not know all the principles and critters involved, so I will call it magic. Our garden is not only a place I go to plant vegetables, a place to keep storm water from the cavernous sewer; allowing and freeing water to seep and flow into the ground water system, or repirotranspire into the atmoshere. Our garden is a supportive and meditative place, a place I want to be a part of.

Posted May 31 2009.

Invasive Plants Along the Creek

2009-05-13T16:54:00.001-04:00

The afternoon was mild today. I spent quite a lot of time pulling up garlic mustard and cutting buckthorn etc.

I have been waging a champaign against buckthorn for several years. I prefer not to enrich the chemical industry on my account and do not use glycosol. I have been cutting off limbs, consistently removing leaves. I have focused on planting other things. Most of the buckthorn has not survived. This is notable.

Four out of five Catelpa trees have survived. My friend Gary gave me the seeds. One red ozier dogwood that I could see is still growing along the creek and I wonder if it needs more sun. Buckthorn and tree of heaven and a decorative crab that must have planted itself there, live close to the creek. I don’t cut close to the creek. The huge old cottonwood has survived. There are a lot of violets and asters that plant themselves. Like the nile, we get sediment that is making the banks higher.

Many tasks, come spring

2009-05-03T09:25:00.000-04:00

Frost pockets predicted. I have a lot of plants outside I will have to bring in or cover. I live in the city and the heat island effect will probably preclude frost, but I, or more accurately my plants, have been burned before.

Both pea plantings are up, thinking of putting up metal supports. Rope supports sway in the wind, though when the weather settles, this will not matter as much.

I pulled garlic mustard. There was not as much garlic mustard on the hill as last year.

I have the job of moving soil, as my neighbor has made a low path. Maybe that soil will go into raised beds. I have some compost too.

I pulled garlic mustard from down the hill, there is less this year than last. the flowers have not bloomed yet, but buds have formed. I put the bodies on a leaf pile, not a recommended practice, as there may be enough energy in the bodies to make seed. In my small garden, I can always pull up offending plants. Waste Management wants green stuff in separate bins so they can compost; I have decided to look after things myself.

Better to make Lasagna with leaves from plants that haven’t begun seed pods, the flavor is better.

Posted 3 May 2009

Peas again

2009-04-19T12:05:00.000-04:00

Planted peas again. Succession planting, as my expert garden friend who also has a CSO, noted.

For years, I thought I had to plant, then it was done and nothing could be done about it. This attitude contributed to unnecessary planting anxiety. I believe there ought to be a syndrome of record for gardening psychologists with this name (I say this tongue in cheek, reader, but thought you knew this.)

Cock-adoodle-do

2009-04-13T10:04:00.001-04:00

Cocka-doodle-do

The rooster that used to live next door is gone, died defending his flock. I miss the crowing to greet the morning. He crowed other times of the day too. Neighbors and visitors heard the crowing and wondered about their sanity. It is legal, or not illegal, to own chickens in our little suburban township. The foxes ate very well for a while there, but now the chickens stay inside their house unless our neighbor is out with them. He doesn’t even go in to answer the telephone, foxes watch patiently and they are fast.

Looks to me like farming chemical companies will have to come up with a new strategy for getting folks to garden with their products. Even at the Whitehouse the first gardener is not using artificial farming fertilizers and weed killers. It is scary for agribiz, they have had the government in their pocket for so long. Right now their strategy is press releases of shock and appall. I don’t worry about them though, they will probably get their big guns out, retool them, and release them on unsuspecting consumers everywhere. Meanwhile gardeners will keep gardening.

I like to use open pollenated seeds, in case I keep any of them. I kept some of the seeds from Kellog’s Breakfast yellow tomato seeds. I suspect my spouse found them and threw them away. I like to save tomato seeds on a paper napkin, then sprout them by putting them on dirt and sprinkling a little dirt on top. I love yellow tomatoes, they seem sweet, or perhaps they are less acidy than red varieties.

It is good to save lettuce seeds. Lettuce seed doesn’t keep well. Lettuce looks pretty when it flowers and doesn’t take long to make seed. I am still looking for the variety that bloomed in blue flowers one year, looked like chickory, and it made my knees melt. I don’t mind the yellow flowers, that my current varieties bloom into. The saved seed sprouts well. I planted my lettuce pot thickly this year, thinning and repotting is a chore.

Parsnips

2009-04-10T09:18:00.000-04:00

Parsnips

I try the ones from the store every so often. Parsnips and carrots in the fall sauted with a few onions can be life changing.

The best parsnips I have had come from Earthscape farm, but it doesn’t matter who grew them, it is when they are grown. Parsnips are best started in October in the north, like garlic. Then in spring, they will be your earliest crop. The flavor of a winter-grown parsnip is not to be missed; complex flavors that call to mind fine wine.

That is all, start them in October, along with the garlic and cover crops.

The White House Lawn- What to do With Four Acres in the Potomac Watershed

2009-04-02T11:09:00.003-04:00

The White House Lawn- What to do With Four Acres In the Potomac Watershed

The blog Garden Rant gave an assignment to garden bloggers- what would you do with the other four acres, besides the vegetable garden, of the White House Lawn. Delicious.

First I would want to keep all the water onsight, not let it go directly to the river through the storm system. Two reasons for doing this come to mind (and this is just the tippy top of my gardeners mind) 1.To keep untreated run off out of the sewer system (I am guessing runoff in DC goes straight to the river, as it does here) and 2. to let the water seep slowly into the ground and recharge the water table.

Not all the water kept onsight would seep into the water table. Some of it would respirotranspire back into the air through all of the deep rooted native plants on what used to be lawn. There would be paths, in case the POTUS wants to take a walk with visiting heads of state, or the children want to play tag.

Best to mimic some of the services of wetlands. We have been missing these services, our weather patterns would be the better if we replanted our current gardens with native vegetation. Butterflies and other insects would find cozy dwellings, food, and move back in. We’d love watching the butterflies, and then we’d have more to do with our fancy camera phones. We could follow the progress and put our findings on Facebook, rename it butterflybook maybe, but I digress.

I am struggling with my own lawn, what to grow on it that will be acceptable to my neighbors, who love grass, and to me, who loves butterflies. I hope the White House gardeners are able to make a plan, using paths and native plantings and keep a journal, or blog to note what works for them. Plants are sight specific, and some will work one place and not another. I’m thinking the White House lawn has plenty of backfill. Gardeners will need to find what works, maybe start things in pots and then transplant them. The world will be watching and will expect tidiness.

I think the White House gardeners ought to consider some sort of milkweed, milkweeds are fragrant, and it would be wonderful to have Monarch butterflies in our nation’s capitol. I think it would improve the legislative process. Probably the gardeners would want to use swamp milkweed, common milkweed gets tall and is not tidy at all. Also they would want New England Asters, as song birds like the seeds. They could have a herd of deer to keep the asters about a foot high, or the gardeners could keep them trimmed.

I think they’d also need spicebush by the White House. The leaves of spicebush are a nice addition to cooking, but will not translate into a market crop, so it has to be grown near the kitchen. Also spicebush is host to the Spicebush Caterpillar which will grow into the Spicebush Swallowtail Butterfy.

I’d leave the rose garden. There are ways to grow roses without harsh chemicals and they could replace the teas with more hardy and fragrant varieties that are more content in that spot, if they needed to. I’d also leave a grassy place for the President to greet heads of state.

To recap: Keep runoff onsight, recharge the watertable, grow things butterflies will like. The phrase “If you build it, they will come” for rebuilding habitat as well as for baseball.

Parsley and Dill

2009-03-31T09:33:00.000-04:00

Parsely and Dill

Parsely takes a long time to start, goes to seed the next year. It is a classic biennial.

I started it early last year, since it takes so long to sprout. It is easy for me to get fresh Tabuleh at the bakery on the corner, they make it fresh and use lots of parsley, not so much bulgher. I had best get to starting parsley this year. I could start it outside now, as April Fools Day is upon us.

Parsley is so high in vitamins A and D that I ought to use it in more soups and salads. I am confused about the flavor, the fresh herb is so mild. I wish they used it in Dal and Indian food, I don’t often think it appropriate to mix parsely with mustard and turmeric. I hereby declare that dill and parsley are a good addition to Dal, especially in spring.

I often make a dip out of chives and parsley and dill with yogurt or sour cream and a little salt. In summer, cucumbers must be added, sometimes peppers, and it is not then a dip, but a salad, alternately, use up the last of your chili powder with your cucumbers. I do not often use strong language like must; if you try this dip, or salad you will understand.

Dill plants itself around the garden. Dill is so nice, I don’t know why anyone would want coriander instead. Coriander might be grown in addition, I must see to it this year.

Posted 31 March 2009

Living Wall Con't

2009-03-25T10:02:00.001-04:00

Green Wall

Time to plant a green wall. I ordered Living Wall Outdoor Planting Grids (2) from Gardener’s Supply Co. I was stymied at first, I first saw the product on the Living Wall web sight. Then the catalog came with the grids inside a frame at more then double the cost I was planning on. Plus I didn’t know what to do with aoo that framing. Then I went to the web sight to order and the product was gone. These green wall grids have become a Gardener’s Supply Exclusive. I wasn’t going to pay over $100 for them. So when the product showed up in the catalog without the framing, I put out the cash, ordered two.

I’m planning on mounting the grids on the garage and growing lettuce that no ground hog will be able to reach. The grids can also move into the shade in summer, though the lettuce will go to seed come June when it is warm and I will have to replant greens, mache and New Zealand Spinach last through the summer months.

I did not order the planting medium from Gardeners Supply. For one thing, I read (don’t know where) that the plastic crystals that absorb water, contain Bisphenol A, or some other chemical that I don’t wish to put in my body. I would love to chase this data down, the internet is not quite transparent enough yet.

Moving along; what soil mix I will use. Three choices in additives to make the soil mix lighter and retain water are: Sphagnum moss, vermiculite, and peat moss. All three have pros and cons. I eliminated peat moss first because mining the bogs that have been there for centuries is not what I want to support.

I will try to purchase soil additives from a local nursery, at least see what they have. Compost has been my main soil for pots in the past, but compost is heavy. I will have to experiment and see what works. Water retention will become a big issue, I am sure, as the growing modules are small and we have little rain in the summer. Drip irrigation is done with plastic tubes (more weird science). I will want to grow lettuce in the shade.

On the web I have seen wires and shelving used on big buildings to make green walls. I have been playing around with cukerbits, squash and cukes, but have not found a deep enough container. I am still experimenting with this, the problem could be that the soil dries out in summer, I need to work on the drip system.

Window Sill Gardens

2009-03-21T13:25:00.000-04:00

Lettuce Seeds

Some of my lettuce seeds sprouted, so I had to move them to the porch where they can get more light.

I ought to grow more mesclun. I know that the packaged organic stuff we get from California is grown with water from reservoirs that are silting up, transported with fossil fuels, and old. I have been lazy about growing my own, but I ought to.

I do grow stuff on the window sill all winter long, mostly geraniums and impatiens. I stuck a citrus seed of some sort in one of those pots (as I was cooking) last year. The citrus sprout is about a foot tall now and has it’s own pot. I am thinking about putting plants in pots with each other. Cactus gardens are mixed, why not other mixes?

Potatoes that sprouted in the cupboards over winter now occupy pots, along with philodendron and are green. Those potatoes might be delicious, instead of winding up in the compost.

It took a long time, but I am getting the idea of putting more than one plant my pots. Olive seeds and palms seeds and lettuce seeds that I collected in my travels are in pots all over my space. I do not know where it all will go, but I know it is silly not to put in lettuce seeds with the lot. It would be better to have lettuce on the sill with the geraniums in winter than geraniums alone.

Pots on the window sill as ecosystems. It is a stretch to think this way, the thought may fly.

Cleaning Beds

2009-03-16T13:04:00.000-04:00

The sun was out and the warm days of garden cleaning up are upon us. The gardens in So Cal were dry, I liked the turtles in the pond. Every where I went I wondered where the water was coming from, having recently read Cadillac Desert.

Removing old leaves and branches, finding green things underneath, takes my mind off water projects in the west and disappearing rain forest and brings me back to my own little space. I have the gift of time this year, to do the job right. Star of Bethlehem (Ornithogalum umbellatum) doesn’t mind the leaf mulch, grows right through them. Googled, it looks like the S of B bulb is a native of the Middle East, edible, dried for long journeys, some people hate it because it becomes a pest in the garden, multiplying like crazy. It is not too intrusive for me, I can pull it where I don’t want it.

The very hardy, small, late fall, spready, mum I got at the perennial exchange is light green under the leaves.

I also grow a number of fever few (Or rather don’t pull them. I like to crumble the dry flowers where I want the seeds to grow the next year. They tend towards being biennial, though sometimes take one year to bloom) (Tanacetum umparthenium, also called Chrysanthemum parthenium and Martricaria parthenium. I don’t know why this plant has three names, but I suspect the ornamental Chrysanthemum industry has made the taxa favorable to themselves). My Mother’s old neighbor used to encourage the gathering of feverfew seeds to cull the single blooms and encourage the double flowers. The fashion of single blooms has returned. The blooms are white, good accents. People use the plant medicinally. (You can buy the dried plant in capsules that a lab has tested and found the amount of active ingredients. Testing seems prudent in this case, as it is a blood thinner).

I have a perennial geranium that survives here in Zone 5 (some say we live in zone 6 now). It is coming along as well, along with many little green things that I have yet to identify. I would make poetry about the green things coming up. Spring is a magical time. It is good to be filling my compost rings and bending and getting dirty again after the winter.

Winter Aconite- English Ivy

2009-03-13T17:10:00.000-04:00

(Eranthis hyemalis) blooms in February and March. It is native to Southern Europe, but yellow blooms are very cheerful, so it has naturalized on the south side of the house and gives us all a treat with yellow flowers here in the North at the end of winter.

The seeds spread around of their own accord, I like to collect them before the leaves disappear in early summer and give them to people who have admired it.

The plant has chemical alcaloids in it, is used in Chinese medicine. It ought not to be ingested and so ought not to be grown around kids and dogs who dig. (Wikipedia says so) I do not understand why the blooms in Wikipedia's photo look like my Winter Aconite, but the picture of the seeds do not look like my seeds.

My first Winter Aconite plants came from my Mother’s garden. Now, after about 15 years, I have a yard wide circle. After the aconite is done, bulbs, Wild Ginger and Jack in the Pulpit and Wormwood grow in the same spot.

If I had allowed it, the English Ivy that trails up the brick would have taken over in that place.

Speaking of Ivy, I recently read about pulling the roots of Ivy and letting it dry before removing it from buildings so as not to hurt the brick work.

Here, Between City and Suburbs

2009-02-19T16:33:00.000-05:00

Winter seems to hold sway here in Michigan again after after a brief thaw. The fire burning out of control in Austrailia has settled.

I am reading Cadillac Desert about, among other things, how the western US used up ground water that took thousands of years to collect, in 70 years. Intermixed was a tale noir about how our political system.

Apparently there is a film, though PBS has retired the content from it’s archives. I will see if netflix can get it.

Meantime my search continues for a Hazelnut tree to plant.

In my seach for Cadillac Desert footage, I found a PBS clip http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/video/blog/2008/10/storm_runoff_pollutes_our_wate.html. The clip quoted 50% of runoff (the kind that runs off our impervious surfaces) goes into rivers through sewers. The clip was about new construction, how some folks are making healthier landscapes. Landscapes that will absorb run off.

A much higher percentage of our runoff goes into our Rouge River. Our watershed is urban, for the most part. Oh yes, there are wonderful exceptions, parks and wooded places that I will tell you about sometime. We have a lot of grass here. I mow a lot of grass with my push mower.

You can date the rings of suburbs around Detroit by the architecture. Our ranch was built in the 1960’s. We have questions, what is the best way to rerofit the building?

The most interesting question to me is “How do you retrofit the landscape? Twenty years ago, we stopped mowing a portion, thinking it would “go back to nature”. Then invasive plants grew where the grass had been in the back, by the river. It was time to learn about invasive plants. It turns out that we made an ideal enviroment for them, by disturbing the native landscape and making a farm. In the 60’s the topsoil was scraped off and all the trees removed after the house was built, grass was sodded. By the time we stopped mowing the hill, nature didn’t know if it was coming or going. We have a lot of buckthorn and garlic mustard that we remove every year down there now.

Many of our neighbors labor long hours and spend lots of money looking after the grass. Grass is still king here. I did get a common milkweed in the driveway crack in 2000. Monarchs like that and they stop here. I let milkweed grow in many places in the back now. I do not know how they find my place, as the ring of suburbs where grass is king extends out for ten miles and the city for another ten miles the other way, but they do. In August, they will lay eggs and a brood of young monarchs will flit around the milkweed every year.

Gloomy/ Sunny

2009-02-12T11:46:00.000-05:00

There is an upside to gloom and doom, though mistakes will be made. What works will be studied. I like solutions that solve at least three problems at a time. If I grow broccoli in the backyard, I only pay the transportation costs on the seeds, not the grown product, heavy with water, from California. Moreover, if I bought open pollenated seed and saved it next spring (broccoli is biennial), I would have a lot of seed. If I grow broccoli in an old garbage can on my cement, I catch the rainwater that would have run off into the storm sewer and put it into my plants who will respirotranspire it into the air. I don’t have to fire up my car to go to the store, and I don’t need a recipe book, just cook what is in the garden.

I think above I have named three things, though once I get on a roll, it is hard to stop. Gardens are fine places for finding what works. Next year mistakes will disappear sucesses can be eaten and the gardener can start all over.

Now is the time to plan out new protocols and November is the time to assess them, to figure out what works.

Rain Garden Seminar

2009-02-09T10:01:00.000-05:00

Rain Garden Seminar

Rain Gardens could solve many problems. Bell Creek flows by our house and into the Rouge River day after day, year after year. If it were cleaner, we could swim in it and if flood waters didn’t go so high, banks wouldn’t be scoured and more types of fish and wildlife would live there. Some folks living near here get water in their basements.

If we all made a rain garden on our property, catching the water from our roof for instance, that roof water would not go to the storm sewer and thus directly to the river. The flow would drip slowly into the ground and recharge the water table if it isn’t taken up by plant roots and repirotranspired back into the air.

Rain gardens are great, like making channels in the sand at the beach when we were young. Water flowing to the lowest point, and it always does that, gravity and water are very dependable.

Rain gardens can be designed and put in by anyone. We all need at least one on every property, if we did this, it would improve the river. If people did this on every river and if we planted native plants in our rain gardens, critters would make their home there and raise families.

The good news is that making rain gardens is not an expensive or time consuming project and you can invite your neighbors to help and then make a rain garden at their house too. Or you can hire a contractor, it doesn't cost much. This is also the bad news, every one has to help to make a rain gardens at every house, the more the better. It seems easier for cities to build expensive drainage projects and tax people for the money, automate it. In a way it is easier to convince fewer people to use 20th century technology, done, meeting over, problem solved.

In the west, residents tore through aquifers that had taken centuries to charge, in about 40 years. They built a lot of dams out west, with federal tax money, we all paid for their water projects.

Here in Michigan, we have the Great Lakes, our aquifers are getting lower all the time, our water projects were pipe and pond drainage so we could build suburbs, took the water downstream. Setting aside flood plains, not building on low spots near the river, that was considered up and coming and it was controversial. In retrospect, it was pure genius, as suburbs unimagined by city planners in the 60's, sprung up. Houses in outer suburbs have sump pumps now. They need rain gardens. Everybody needs rain gardens.

Rain gardens would keep suburban basements dryer, would keep the hydrology of Bell Creek more even and would recharge our aquifers. Rain Gardens seem like a pretty good deal to me.

Rain Garden seminar put on by SOCWA http://www.socwa.org/nature/PDF/RainGardenProgram2-9-09.pdf. If you miss this seminar, look it up. Rain gardens, for our future.

Trimming

2009-02-07T11:12:00.000-05:00

The inside garden on the sill was getting to the top of the window. I trimmed to half of the window, put most of the trimmings in water to root, they will make nice starts for various gardens in spring. (In former years it was fun to watch as foliage got tall beyond the top of the window. Heat and light deprived folks in the north are easily entertained in late winter.)

Now is the time, as the sun creeps toward the zenith, hibernating beings are feeling the earth move, coming back to life. February is a time to make a pilgrimage to a local green house. Blooms are prevalent now in warm places, in the tropics.

Snow began to melt today, at temperatures above freezing, ice breaks up pretty fast.

Time to order peppers, as they will like a start this month, they take a long time to get to garden size.

Indoor Gardening 3

2009-02-06T10:28:00.000-05:00

Indoor Gardening three

Stacked pots is the word I use to refer the the artful towers on my windowsills. You have to have a saucer below indoor pots to catch the water. The watering is theoretically done from the very top pot.

I prefer large containers for saucers, the width of the window sill or a little larger, depending on traffic flow by the window. (My sills are 5” wide. Four inches wide on the the replacement window.) I have collected long trays and containers for saucers, but am not above using plastic organic greens containers (recycle number 1).

My containers are a collection of discards and art fair spectaculars. I find plastic containers that can be cut down in my neighbors recycling bins, as the container industry gets creative, recycling containers are gold mines. I have found long narrow plastic things that work, at garden centers.

Pots for the stacking can be plastic (although if I am growing food, I am mindful of bisphenol A, and there are probably other nasty things leaking from the plastics) or ceramic, they must be the right size in order to drain into the containers below. Plastics are nice for shaping and putting holes in. (note to self: cultivate relationship with local ceramics makers, design stackable pots) Smaller pots fit on top of the ones below. Roots from the small pots often grow into the ones below. Trimming your bonsai roots etc. in spring is literally a snap, when the pots take their summer vacation outside, they are moved and usually decoupled.

I often have stacked pots in the pot-place in the back yard. Particularly in large pots, I put seeds around the sides of pots, so as to leave a place in the middle. A mistake I have made is to smother seeds planted at the middle by putting a potted plant on the top of them.

Filling vacant places in the garden, places that have no current blooms or interest, can be done by moving pots. I move things around, especially for areas in transition, see what works where.

I have already mentioned the plastic v. ceramic issue. I love old garbage cans, and they are mostly plastic now, for growing potatoes and sweet potatoes. It is a nice sight when things cascade out of the top. Pots on downtown streets often use manzanita, or sweet potato, just for looks. I also like to use tall garbage cans in the far ends of the garden where the ground hogs think they own the place and eat young cucerbits, greens, beans , pretty much everything but tomatoes and nightshades. Ceramic and cement containers are heavy. I have a few garden carts and some saucers with wheels, but love plastic pots for their weight.

Pots of any type add another dimension to growing and living with plants. Stacking them is great, adding space to small spaces. Those who have no windowsills may put hangers or shelves by their windows.

Indoor Gardening 2

2009-02-05T10:07:00.000-05:00

Before starting into the spring catalogs, I want to mention indoor gardens. All of my windowsills, clever of the builders to make them of marble, have little gardens on them. Newer houses have no window sills, will need window high tables. I have sage in the kitchen, handy for Thanksgiving. Geraniums, scented but names forgotten, so many years have they been with me, dominate, some bloom salmon all winter. Misshapen Norfolk Island Pine struggle, get decorated at holiday time. Aloe, Christmas cactus and coleus, Kalenkahoe and various other sedum of zone 9 tenderness as well as carasula (starts easily and makes a good base along with baby’s tears) all come in from their summer vacation. Many of these were rooted last fall in jars full of water, stems cut from outside pots when the winds begin to blow cold. A few of my windows have curtains, but most of them have a curtain of green plants.

Impatiens bloom all winter inside and are easy root. They are not native and I don’t buy a lot of them as bedding plant annuals, but keep a few around, as they are reliable bloomers in winter, along with geraniums.

I also like to raise cacti and desert plants like saguaro from seed. They don’t really like the amount of sun they get here and don’t grow as fast in my northern location as they would in the desert. I left them on the unheated porch one year and wiped out ten years of saguaro. I want to raise them until they are large enough to take to the Southwest, where friend’s zeriscapes will find room for them. I love saguaros and that is the reason for the room I leave for them, just love.

On the unheated porch broccoli and chives from the summer garden grow, greens and other plants too will survive a zone 7 (Maybe 6) climate.

Potatoes that have sprouted in the cupboard have been tucked into pots. Soon it will be warm enough to put them on the porch in larger pots. Little blue ones are the most cold hardy, followed closely by red skins. Fingering potatoes snatched from garbage can gardens outside in the fall await the middle of February when the world seems to awaken. I have soil waiting in the garage, will bring it in for them. Soon it will be time to plant peppers under lights.

I put wheat and rye seeds in some pots my cat can reach. My cat is old and appalled at the cold when she sniffs at the door. She likes catnip. In warmer times she will find sprigs of tasty greens in the garden. In winter, when snow covers the ground, she appreciates wheat grass.

Chickadees in the Asters

2009-02-03T09:23:00.000-05:00

Chickadees visit the asters out back, looking for seed. Perhaps I will put out some thistle seed, as the snow is not melted, and I don’t know how much aster seed is left. I assume these chickadees were here all winter, although I have not seen them until about a week ago.

I have not put out a feeder, as it will attract sparrows. I met a woman who goes to sparrow nests on her property and takes the eggs. Sorry, unless I’m hungry I have no interest.

There were sparrows that used to nest in my porch over hang. Papa would call and put out his chest in February. The babies, supervised by mom or pop, took their first flights from the roof. They were very entertaining in February when everything was brown.

Such is life when the ecosystem changes. I set out to change the ecosystem. It is a possibility that the ecosystem on my little piece of property has been changed by my efforts, the chickadees have become more dominant.

I still have a next door neighbor who uses lawn chemicals. He does use capsulated fertilizer now, the run off does not reach the creek as easily.

There are sparrows that nest in the ivy growing on the front of the house. If I go outside, I can hear them and see the family antics. Some day, the ivy will be torn down and the Sparrow family will have to find another home.

Cats and Catnip

2009-01-28T10:40:00.000-05:00

It is a snowy day, and I have taken a snow day. I used to love snow days when I was in school. I take them as often as I can.

My cat meowed at me, hoping I can do something about the cold. I have done all I can for her, I started some rye and wheat sprouts for her yesterday, but I cannot change the weather, not by myself. She wants to go out and chew what she likes to improve digestion. I don’t feel like going out shopping. This sort of dilemma tends toward innovation and cleaning out cupboard energy. I found her some catnip, put it in a large paper bag. She is now happily sleeping inside the bag, after consuming catnip.

I must dry some catnip next year. I am almost out of it, and I’d better order some seeds, as it has grown in inconvenient places and all been pulled up.

I put the wheat and rye in a sprouter and it will grow up in the next day or so. I also put some in pots that something else is growing in that my cat can reach for both of our convenience. It looks like a long winter.

Invasive Worms

2009-01-27T14:50:00.000-05:00

Nonative earth worms are probably what I have outside. There are different color worms out there: red ones, like the ones vermicomposters sell, brown ones and there are some huge ones that I haven’t identified that I have tentatively labeled native. I have seen foot longers in the compost pile as well as near my neighbor’s arborvitae. Perhaps they like the soil that arborvitae make. Arborvitae are most certainly are not native and have roots that go everywhere, worms might like that. I speculate on everything about those big worms, they are a beige color, not notable, but must be old to get so large.

My top soil was brought in, replaced when the house was built in 1963. I have a patch work of soil types. Clay is the type that was here in these bottom lands by the river when it was a farm, before it was a subdivision.

We have many reasons why it would be hard to figure out just what was here before this place was farm. There are maps of presettlement times but they are not nearly as detailed as google earth.

When the builders came in to make subdivisions, they tore down all the trees, started from scratch. That is what they did in the 60’s and mostly what they do now.

There are some old trees down by the creek, my neighbor who know about such things says my cottonwood is over 100 years old. That cottonwood is the next in line to fall over. All the large trees upstream between the cottonwood and the dam have fallen. When the creek rises, as it does in heavy rains because of all of the housing starts and impervious surfaces, etc. upstream we get a lot of water and heavy currents. Old trees hold each other up, their roots intertwine, they help each other with wind currents. The dam at the golf course may have something to do with the tree casualties we have experienced streamside in recent years, but I finger the development upstream.

It is said that after about 20 years after a subdivision is built, an ecosystem begins to sort itself out. I have taken walks around 60 year old neighborhoods and enjoy the trees and the spirit of the place.

Lawns everywhere are mostly still considered beautiful if they don’t have what are called weeds. It is rare to find a lawn where the keeper doesn’t use weed killer and fertilizer even in those 60 year old neighborhoods. Heavy petrol inputs are weed killer and fertilizer. I prefer a few other species besides grass in my lawns.

Large oaks and a beech grow over on a street near me. I’m guessing when the homesteads were built that the thoughtful home owners told the builders to leave the trees. I am grateful for the large oaks and the beech, and thank those early conservationists.

(I don’t get the hang of beech nuts. I have been told that they are quite tasty when chewed. As in beech nut gum, I’m guessing)

First on my worry list is not nonative worms, here on my city lot. Still, I wonder about invasive worms.

Roots

2009-01-21T15:24:00.000-05:00

It is a good time to peruse the refrigerator and storage places for shriveled root vegetables. Old beets and carrots and rutabagas, can find new life when put in dirt now. If the old roots have any life in them, they will give you early greens.

Potatoes too are sprouting. There are blue and red potato varieties that are very cold hardy. I am still experimenting with them. The very sprouted red potatoes I put on my unheated porch in a plastic bag survived temps in the 20’s.

Good to check geraniums and rooted plants on windowsills, I found some seriously rotting stems. Once rooting water gets sour (has a bad bacteria colony) stems will not root, they will rot.

The days get longer.

Green Roof dreaming on a winter's day

2009-01-17T14:51:00.000-05:00

A green roof on my garage would be a prototype, if it is cheap enough. If a person drives around east of my house, they will see many failing garage roofs. My guess is we will see more endangered properties in the near future.

One method of taking out failed houses I have seen, I will name schlumping. I don’t know the exact methodology, but the top half of the house ended up on the ground and looked like a tent until the demolition crew took out the house and filled in the hole that was the basement. It is not pleasant to see this process, the schlumped house has tended to remain for a long time.

Once a house loses the roof integrity, the envelope or outer casing goes, structural integrity is not far behind. If we can figure out a roof that can be affordable, many domiciles and garages can be retained.

I spent some time at the web sight of http://www.greenpaks.com/. It looks like they are putting green paks over the top of existing roofs. Green paks have a mix of growing material that will work to grow succulents (there are a few succulents that have shown invasive qualities and must not be used) and the installer or roof tending personal would plant the vegetation. I am thinking of do it yourselfers here, like in the 1970’s economic downturn.

The installer and maintainer would have to know or learn protocols for roof safety and would have to maintain standards for installation and care of a green roof. How hard can it be?

Garage Re-do; Roof and Door

2009-01-15T09:56:00.000-05:00

My garage has a iffy roof, a bad door and I want a greenhouse. The door faces the South side. We don’t use the garage for cars. To me it is good reuse to put a light, transparent material on the door and a green roof (for drainage issues).

The Roof

I keep watching the adds. Someday a bright marketer will come out with a mass produced green roof. Whether the product will be in time, before my garage leaks is another question. They had better hurry up.

Intensive green roofs are expensive and seem to involve an architect. If my ship came in, so to speak, I would spend money on an architect designed roof for the garage. I could reenforce the structure and put steps up to the top, grow small shrubbery there.

It would be okay just to put up sedum, unroll all three layers on top of the roof and be done, put up an Extensive green roof. Neighbors would think it less weird. If only Home Depot would market one. The Home Depot off of 47th street in Chicago has a green roof, but they don’t sell the materials. Strange times we live in. There are specifications posted at The NRCA Green Roof Systems Manual—2007 Edition

I keep watching the adds. Someday a bright marketer will come out with a mass produced green roof that will be cheap. Whether the product will be in time, before my garage leaks is another question.

The Door

Maybe the economic downturn will be a boon to allowing jury rigged construction in the neighborhood. In the 70’s people didn’t worry what the neighbors would think about additions, they just built. City living requires some uniformity, I guess. I want to put fiberglass or plastic sheeting on the big auto door of my garage to let the light in. I could take off the door siding and put plastic on the frame of the door. What the neighbors would think of that, I don’t know. But my guess is they wouldn’t like it, would think it looked too much like junk cars on the property.

I already store figs and zone 6 plants in the garage in winter. If there was light inside, I could grow greens and brassicas and carrots there in winter. Not much would be growing now, but come February, when the earth turns and tropics come alive, the sun would coax things from the pots. The space is out of the wind, would be warmer than it is outside, like a giant cold frame.

Forever Wild

2009-01-13T15:53:00.000-05:00

The US Senate has dusted off the Wilderness Act. They have moved toward making more places forever wild, declaring more roadless areas. We need the House of Representatives to pass the legislation now.

I want to hum a few bars. What does it mean to be forever wild?

I hope to read the legislation (though one congressman said they don’t in congress; read all of the bills they pass) soon. It is reported that there are 160 pieces of legislation in this bill. May the US congress pass the act.

We who live in the cities count on wild places. How will we regenerate our lawns and gardens and allow them to become special places if we don’t have numbers of species, healthy wild ecosystems to draw from? We need the complexity of wilderness environment, even if we never go and be in wildness ourselves.

http://wilderness.org/content/congress-gets-early-start-banner-year-wilderness
http://wilderness.org/content/congress-gets-early-start-banner-year-wilderness

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/01/12-1

Rain garden Ranting

2009-01-10T13:31:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, found me ranting about rain gardens again in response to the issue of far flung suburbs. Urban sprawl has been a problem for 50 years. I don’t have a solution unless heavy government mandates mess with the tax code or other means that pretty much guarantee unintended consequences. Urban sprawl police could don uniforms with pretty flower hats, use guns to make people move into urban cores.

While the best and brightest grapple with the above issue, it would make sense for anyone to make rain gardens on any low lying terrain in leu of grass. If the soil is very compacted, soil replacement with compost is current best practice. I do not own a back hoe, have not dug tow feet down and replaced the soil. (I have used a post hole digger and relied on municipal digging resouces) Deep rooted native plants in low places cause water to respirotranspire back into the air. A good layer of mulch will keep soil moist and make a hospitable place for favorable soil fauna. Good thing to remember about much: keep it a few inches away from shrubbery, flowers and trees to avoid what my landscaper friend calls cooties.

I haven’t dug down and replaced soil on my own property. I don’t have floods on my well designed (for the 1960’s) lot. I do like to dig trenches, swales and dry rivers to divert water away from impervious surfaces to lower areas where it can take its time. If every one kept their water onsight, it would trickle into the ground and recharge aquifers, hydrate our landscape. Roots and soil layers trap dirt, filter.

My understanding is that we are all in this world together, we need to learn to deal with harmful petrochemicals, heavy metals in our storm water, not let these goblins get into our riverbeds if our grandchildren are to find places to swim. Soil and wetlands filter harmful chemicals. The exact process of trapping heavy metals and harmful chemicals is mysterious to me. I think of it as alchemy. High School chemistry students could probably give me a clue.

A minority of well meaning gardeners cannot do the amazing task of transforming our drainage systems. Pipe and pond drainage, sending the water downstream to be someone else’s problem is what most of our building codes, planning boards, and local ordinances enforce. Living down stream has shown me how ineffective our practices are.

When people get me started, I get on a roll. Gardeners can be dangerous people.

Native Plant Love

2009-01-09T08:52:00.000-05:00

Focusing on rain gardens, leads a person to native plants. Deep roots keep the soil loose, respirotranspire water, live through times of less rain. Local insects find food in the garden.

Planting rain gardens, native plants make sense. For instance, the rain garden we planted in Redford Twp, Michigan this summer, right next to our award winning CSO (Combined Sewer Overflow). Native plants all, it was made as a demonstration garden. The city came in with backhoes, dug out compacted soil, replaced it with compost and peat.

I use only compost as a soil improver and replacer in my garden, as that is what I have handy. I don’t have a backhoe either, so dig little holes with a post hole digger, back fill with compost. I do have a lot of compacted soil.

The natives around our place are:

purple asters, started from seeds from a nursery in Northern Lower Michigan. They seed themselves generously. I knew they’d do well, as white asters plant themselves. If you live in an area that deer come to, they will keep these rather large plants trimmed. I have to trim them myself if I want them shorter than 3 ft high.

common milk weed, started itself in the driveway years ago. It spreads. Monarchs love it, I have begun using the seed pod gossamer as stuffing for winter garments, turns out the stuff is very warm. I had a party in 2004. A woman who attended told me a story about collecting milk weed seed pods during in WWII, when she was a child. Kapok, for life jackets came from the South Pacific; from countries that we were at war with, Indonesia, etc. Our country was cut off from our supply of Kapok. Creative solution was for the government to ask every citizen, children most especially, to collect milkweed pods and send them to Petoskey Michigan, where there was a plant for processing pods into life jackets for the Navy.

echinacia and guillardia, birds love the seeds in winter.

native lobilia, blooms in fall.

catelpa- four trees down the hill, show good promise of competing with buckthorn, if I keep the buckthorn trimmed back.

Red oisier dogwood -down the hill it floods, but it is not wet enough in the summer, or sunny enough, for this pretty shrub, I’m thinking, as it is not doing well.

elderberry- I made flavored vinegar with the berries, have to get them before the birds do.

redbud

marsh mallow- self seeds. I like to keep it trimmed. I have not seen deer who come here to browse, only running past down the hill, so I have to do my own trimming.

Box- makes a nice foundation plant.

Button Bush, my friend got the seeds from Lake Orion, started them. The less than a foot high seedlings are still in my nursery, as I investigate suitable homes.

Rain garden love

2009-01-07T14:38:00.000-05:00

My decade long love affair with rain gardens came about because of the little piece of flood plain and river we own. I was invited to a Friends of the Rouge event for Riparian land owners. My husband had stopped mowing on the hill, and I couldn’t blame him, it was steep.

At the event, I learned about invasive species, went home, and sure enough there was buckthorn growing like crazy on the hill. There were no understory plants. Gone was the idea that we could stop mowing and the place would return to nature (what ever that is).

I went to an event, put on by SOCWA (South Oakland County Water Authority). I wasn’t a municipality and the event was designed for municipal employees, I went anyway. There was a presentation by Prince Edward County, Virginia, drain commissioner.

He presented the concept of rain gardens. He had slides of rain gardens in use adjacent to Dept of Navy parking lots and subdivision residential lots. Rain Gardens mimic some of the services of wetlands, notably to keep rain water onsight, let it trickle into the ground and recharge watertables. Also notable, rain gardens filter dirt and petrochemicals from the water.

Living next to the river, I regularly see the huge floods caused by runoff from impervious surfaces. The water volume increases as subdivisions are built upstream. Rain gardens made a lot of sense to me, and I began to see the sense in changing building codes to require rain gardens in new subdivisions.

I have since: seen rain gardens solve flooding problems in property around residences in older areas, learned some information about native plants, found people who didn’t think I was crazy for growing milkweed, become a rain gardener and rain garden tuner, and generally fallen under the spell of growing rain gardens.

Be Careful What You Feed, It will grow

2009-01-02T10:36:00.000-05:00

Gardening is not an instant payback. Soil building happens over time. Most gardeners will say it is all in the soil. Soil is uno number one important.

I stopped tilling or digging much in my soil. It was just getting good, nice to put a shovel in the soft soil- free from compaction as I would not allow anyone to step on it and had put compost in. I put compost on the top now and move the compost rings to new places. Making compost on top makes a good environment for worms and healthy soil bacteria and these entities make the soil soft.

Top output is not what I like to think about. I like to watch who is winning. This year at the start of the season I fed young cabbage looper larvae to my goldfish. I now wonder if the bloom of cabbage moths and larvae I saw over the year was because there was not enough looper in the yard when birds came hunting, so they chose somewhere else to hunt. I will hunt cabbage larvae, but I would much rather delegate that task to birds who would get nutrition from it.

Be careful what you feed, it will grow, I’m thinking as I survey the stewarding done on my small plot of land here in the city. I collect seeds for the next year. I try new varieties, mostly native, to see where they will grow. I plant tomatoes and I put in cucumbers and peppers. I grow broccoli and kale in pots and garbage cans up high, far from marauding ground hogs.

What to do with Your Flood Plain When You Stop Mowing

2008-12-29T15:51:00.000-05:00

Thanks to our friend G who passed out Catalpa seeds at our annual squash potluck, I started some catalpa seeds (in 2005 or 4). There are now 4 ten foot high trees in the flood plain, flourishing, holding their own against the buckthorn. We even saw some catalpa blooms this year and they are pretty, multiple white flowers, fragrant.

I keep stripping the leaves off of the buckthorn twice a year, pulling small starts where I can. Saplings too large to pull are cut off yearly and mulched if I get to it. I am sure a good covering of maple leaves would wipe out the whole crop.

All of this takes place under the shade of a willow, one that lost a main branch in 2006 (amazing how many pounds of wood came down). We have more sun on the hill now. The hill on the west is steep. Out past the back fence there are lot of leave piles and a large branch pile. I believe these to be regenerative, much of the soil was planted there when the house was built in 1964. As long as we don’t put old refrigerators and cars out there, we are within bounds I think.

Snakes and Toads

Some day, I would like to get some domestic ducks to eat the tasty slugs in the yard, although we have begun seeing more snakes and toads. The mail carrier saw a snake in the front of the house on her way to the mail box last summer, dropped her sack, screamed, and refused to deliver the mail. There is a nice covering of leaves in the bed out front. Apparently a garter snake has taken up residence there, though I have not seem it.

One toad was sunning itself on a black plastic flat this summer. I rudely (and unknowingly) took the flat with toad to church. The flat sat in the social hall for a week until the kids took it upstairs, thinking the brown spot was dirt. There was surprise when the dirt moved and then jumped out. The teacher prevailed upon M to take the toad outside, it was put in the bushes where I assume it took up residence. The church in question is located downtown; lots of cars go there. Puddles have petrochemicals in them and the drainage isn’t built for and is not ideal for toad breeding in spring. These are not ideal conditions for an American toad to prosper in or breed. I hope to know what happened to the toad, but the odds are not with me.

Hazel Nut Trees

2008-12-19T13:31:00.000-05:00

I want a Hazel nut tree for the backyard. Hazelnuts trees are the right size for my landscape, small. I have been making areas of cover for the wrens who like to eat the aster seeds. These wrens are not as visible as the usual suspects that like a feeder, but I think I have seen them.

I have felt bad about taking out the seven sisters (wild) rose that they were nesting in. I put up a nesting box and they raised their children in that for about ten years.

This year urban regenerists must get serious about wildlife corridors at the edge of their lots. If neighbors connect their wildlife corridors, it will make long spaces, walks and houses for wild life. If you build it, they will come.

Good to know are principles of Ecosystems like the bigger the area, the more species. In making over our landscapes to be many species friendly, we can make bigger places in urban areas by working together. Planting our edge places with native plants (Ones the work in the area they are planted) will invite birds and others.

Hazelnut is native, produces nuts, is small enough so I can look over it to my neighbor’s house and the cottonwood down the hill. I intend to put it next to the dwarf apple by the fence. Sounds like a good plan, spring is a good enough time to plant. Too late now for fall planting.

Indoor Gardening Dec 8, 19

2008-12-19T13:30:00.000-05:00

Gardening, December, Winter, 2009

December 8, 2008- Houseplants have gone into a mode that requires less water- dormant. They do this in lower light conditions. It is also very dry in the house with the heat on. When it got below freezing (24 degrees F) last week, I brought many plants in from the porch. We may or may not have insulated enough to keep it from falling below freezing.

December 19, 2008I have many house plants from other climes that, particularly the South and Southwest that can take occasional freezing, but do not like cold conditions for so long. In February, when much is still dormant around here, there is much thawing and blooming going on in the south.

It is said we have slipped into zone 6 where we used to have a zone 5 climate. I am cautious about this. I have given up growing apricots here. Late frosts can kill their buds. I tried growing them in the shade of the house, where they would not bloom so soon, but have had no luck. Perhaps one day I will try a potted apricot, maybe when I have an unheated glass house.

Poster of regeneration of Lake Plain area

2008-12-09T13:23:00.000-05:00

Poster

In making the poster for the stewardship network conference in January, I want to show regeneration projects we have done in the Lake Plain area, including the Rouge River Watershed. We have little left of the ecosystem that was here in settlement times, the area is mostly urban; paved over and tied up with fences, if you will. We have the bones, the geology has changed little.

Regenerating an ecosystem is heady work. Few protocals show the way. Strip miners have done projects to put back a layer of topsoil, but they put in golf courses and lanscape that needs heavy inputs. Our urban ecosystems have been torn up and paved over without regard to living systems that might have occupied the land. There is much nonnative grass, maintained with petrochemicals, and many paved roads, many roofs of buildings. Roofs and roads are impervious surfaces, little like the spongy forest floor that used to carpet our land. Much of the water that falls from the rains goes into the river, straight to the river picking up dirt and petrochemicals along the way. The natural hydrology cycle is disturbed here.

I keep thinking there is an authority who would know how we ought to proceed in these matters, could outline the path to regeneration. I have some idea of what I want to highlight in the poster, projects moving toward a healthier ecosystem on the lakeplain. Much of our area is urban. There are certainly people who know a lot and have experiences that would be useful and relevant to the process of rebuilding a watershed. But the work of regenerating a city ecosystem is not work that has been done much.

There are areas of the country that have progressed farther than we have in making progress toward a healthiy ecosystem. We have come far in learning what needs to be done. I wanted to put photos with captions as examples of our sucesses on the poster. I think the Rouge watershed has taken steps, baby steps, has a long way too go.

There are grow zones, over 24 acres in Wayne County alone. The County of Wayne and Oakland have many employees and many in local city government are aware of the importance of the areas that are left unmowed. Especially in Oakland county, the parks department has hired experts in the field of landscape architecture who are advocates for sustainable landscaping.

Progress has been made in part because the clean water act has mandated we clean the water in rivers all over the country. In the Rouge watershed, munipalities are struggling with ways to meet mandated standards. Some want huge, expensive waterworks and pipes that connect to huge water works. One of the problems the old core area has is combined sewers. During large rain events, the combined sanitary and storm sewers overflow. Currently much sewage water is sent to huge storage areas during large rain events, treated and sent to the river. The large storage areas are called CSO’s (combined sewer over flows). This is an expensive solution and not very elegant but it does treat sewage in the river.

I would put together a poster on river hydrology. The information SOCCWA has collected over the years on making rain gardens, the importance of healthy hydrology, is impressive. I am a SOCCWA volunteer, though would not do the project representing SOCCWA.

Rouge river restoration, many hands, many organizations

Photos of at the top: Rain gardens, green roofs, ponds, swales, wetland imitating technology.

Center: Elmwood cemetary, has original topology of lower Rouge. Streams allowed to run free, not buried. Photo.

Old technology/ new technology: Photos

Flood plains, Hines park, flooded.
CSO
tunnel
Paved banks of Rouge

Rain gardens
Green roof, green walls
Green roads and driveways
pond/ swale: Photo of reconstituted pond in Ford Field, Dearborn
Wetland restoration- Crosswinds marsh, photo, bird list (Built on former dump property funded by Wayne County to replace wetlands in airport expansion) , Oxbow reopening, Dearborn

Watershed Poster Part 1

2008-12-08T08:16:00.000-05:00

Poster

In making the poster for the stewardship network conference in January, I want to show regeneration projects we have done in the Lake Plain area, including the Rouge River Watershed. We have little left of the ecosystem that was here in settlement times, the area is mostly urban; paved over and tied up with fences, if you will. We have the bones, the geology has changed little.

Regenerating an ecosystem is heady work. Few protocals show the way. Strip miners do it, but they put in golf courses and lanscape that needs heavy inputs. We have done much the same to our urban ecosystem. There is much nonnative grass, maintained with petrochemicals, and many paved roads, many roofs of buildings. Roofs and roads are impervious surfaces, little like the spongy forest floor that used to carpet our land. Much of the water that falls from the rains goes into the river, straight to the river picking up dirt and petrochemicals along the way. The natural hydrology cycle is disturbed here.

I keep thinking there is an authority who would know how we ought to proceed in these matters, could outline the path. I have some idea of what I want to highlight in the poster, projects moving toward a healthy ecosystem. There are certainly people who know a lot and have experiences that would be useful and relevant to the process of rebuilding a watershed. But the work of regenerating a city ecosystem is not work that has been done much. There are areas of the country that have progressed farther than we have in making progress toward a healthiy ecosystem. We have come far in learning what needs to be done. I wanted to put photos with captions as examples of our sucesses on the poster. I think the Rouge watershed has taken steps, baby steps, has a long way too go.

There are grow zones, over 24 acres in Wayne County alone. The County of Wayne and Oakland have many employees and many in local city government are aware of the importance of the areas that are left unmowed. Especially in Oakland county, the parks department has hired experts in the field of landscape architecture who are advocates for sustainable landscaping.

Progress has been made in part because the clean water act has mandated we clean the water in rivers all over the country. In the Rouge watershed, munipalities are struggling with ways to meet mandated standards. Some want huge, expensive waterworks and pipes that connect to huge water works. One of the problems the old core area has is combined sewers. During large rain events, the combined sanitary and storm sewers overflow. Currently much sewage water is sent to huge storage areas during large rain events, treated and sent to the river. The large storage areas are called CSO’s (combined sewer over flows). This is an expensive solution and not very elegant but it does treat sewage in the river.

Balance of potting soil

2008-12-04T10:29:00.000-05:00

Potting soil

I have given up buying potting soil when I garden in containers. I have also given up mixing my own, preferring to use compost. Pure unmixed compost is what I use. I have heavy clay soil, it is no good for mixing in. Sometimes I buy sand, or take it from former children’s sand boxes.

I figure the variety of microorganisms in the soil will make a nice environment for the plants. By the house is the paved part where I grow in pots. This is the only place broccoli and lettuce don’t attract the ground hog. Carrots and parsley get tucked in here, also flax seeds itself. I also have luck with potatoes, sweet potatoes, tender herbs, many seeds I like to toss in the pots like Love in a mist, Nasturtums, vining annuals like morning glories and patio tomatoes. Staking and letting the vines spill over the sides of the pots keeps me entertained.

I think the compost gets heavy and I know it dries out, has to be watered everyday in July and August. Potting soil has sphagnum moss or peat or perlite to lighten it up and absorb water. Sphagnum and peat are acid, will kill nasties. Compost usually has a balance of bacteria and will support a heathy colony, prevent overgrowth of cooties (I stole the term cooties from a landscaper who was talking about not putting mulch within an inch of a tree trunk in order to avoid unbalance of microorganisms and kill the tree. This situation seems analogous to Candida albicans in the gut).

I like the idea of balance of microorganisms. Alternately, an acid environment can be maintained. Potting soil with perlite is best added to the compost after it is used, in the compost pile, it will acquire a healthy balance of microorganisms. Being sterile, perlite potting soil has no defense against any cootie that decides to take up residence in your pot. Sometimes it will work, sometimes it won’t.

Maybe Jerry Baker has a vinegar solution for nonacid soils. Or water perlite soil with compost teas. Aforementioned are untested ideas

February 26 Seed planting time

2007-02-26T14:04:00.000-05:00

February 26

Two days ago I started Broccoli (Early Green), Kale (Red Russian) and Lettuce (Cimmaron and Red Vouge). I started the seeds in wet paper towel in front of the heat register. The broccoli and Kale are sprouted, the Lettuce seed is just splitting.

So I had to scrounge in the garage and get the flats. The compost I had dug and put in cat food bags last fall need to unfreeze in the warm house. I insist that the seeds will not damp off in compost, even though I don't sterilize the soil, because of the balance of bacteria in the compost.

I have had damping off problems in the past. Herein I will keep the records of what soil I used, and how it was treated, in order to study what seeds need what types of soil. I have shied away from sterilizing soil in the microwave or other such technology. I'd like to think that complexity in soil bacteria will prevent a crash in soils like complexity of species buffers ecosystems and preponderance of good bacteria buffers health in the intestines.

I will buy sterile soil if I have to use it. Buying soil opens up many issues about where the soil has been.

Another possible solution that has worked in the past for me (no documentation of this) is using slightly acid water; which will counter certain alkaline loving microorganisms or tea, which has antioxidants. I assume here that the damping off organism or organisms are mold as opposed to bacteria. I think I read this somewhere, but have not kept up on the latest. I assume there is ongoing research about every aspect of horticulture.

The broccoli will go the porch tomorrow in a flat. It will be slightly leggy by the time it is ready to put out under the spun polyester. Maybe I'll get lights this year, maybe not.

I have yet to locate any pepper seeds saved from last year. Maybe I will have to order them this year. I hope I can at least locate Tri-Fetti, as Pinetree seeds has discontinued it.

18 Feb Life and Death after freezing

2007-02-19T10:50:00.000-05:00

19 February Death and life after freezing

Interesting when it got so cold what froze on the porch. I don't have a min/max thermometer out there but I did see a reading of 29 degrees. The Amerigus Lily seems to have survived as well as the Carasula. Many scented geraniums have lost some leaves and I will get out there and prune them off. Rosemary is fine as is the Bay Laurel. Christmas Cactus, that lost a lot of leaves being outside in the fall when it got very cold has held up. New Flax plants are happy. The kalenkahoe has not totally died, but the other aloe types are gone.

It is February, time to trim. I have to get out and trim the Espaliered Apple and Green Gage Plum now that the weather has let up some. I got out the feeder and the birds have been coming regularly to it. Big responsibility, had to pick up seed Friday, as I don't dare run out now that we have snow cover and cold.

Order seeds and plants from Wildtype or Ann Arbor native plants nursery. I also need some vegetable seeds. I will order them from Pinetree or Johnny's.

Greening of Detroit is sponsoring a tree and shrub sale, Order deadline- March 13. I'm looking at their prices and thinking of ordering directly from nurseries for my own personal house garden. I'm also thinking of doing a church garden with the kids. That would involve a lot more politics and smoozing and making plans. I am psyching myself up for this aspect of the work. Meantime, I can do my own garden, my own little eden that I don't have to get others on board with, just to stick a shovel in the dirt. I also have a garden by the church parking lot that I have some by honestly, as the Building and grounds committee asked. I put in a few unauthorized geraniums by the entrance to the sanctuary, as there was nothing there, last year. Nobody complained.

Grow Zone- the workshop

2007-02-15T08:59:00.000-05:00

Practical Grow Zones- the Workshop

There were park stewards, people responsible for maintenance of large areas of parkland and acres of grass who need to accomplish the impossible with few tools and even less budget, spin straw in to gold, as it were.

Protocols for planting large areas of Grow Zones in a short time, making grow zones palatable to section of the population who have wildly different interests, who like things a certain way and have political clout were presented.

I do not use Round Up on my property. I have chemical sensitivity issues and have been an organic gardener for many years.

People in charge of large public areas tend to have to show results on a reduced time line. They are likely to use round up, till, and use round up again before they plant to reduce the number of seeds from invasives that tend to take over in disturbed areas.

Disturbed areas don't have the complexity and Biodiversity to buffer the invasion of foreign and invasive species. Yes I am talking about buckthorn and garlic mustard, also crabgrass and dandelions, those weeds we all know from our childhoods. Getting rid of the pests takes time and lots of tilling to expose the seeds, smothering and tilling or weed killer and one tilling.

All of the pesticide application and tilling takes money. Grants have been obtained.

Wayne county parks has 26 acres in Grow Zones. Up from 24 acres in 2006.

The workshop had information on how to plant buffers around detention ponds and clean them up. A lot of detention ponds have that been built and are getting clogged and smelly. Good information.

There are local nurseries that provide plant material and seed for native plantings.

15 February Grow zones

2007-02-15T08:57:00.000-05:00

Grow Zone:

Stop mowing an area. See what happens.

What happens will be different for each area. When we stopped mowing our back forty, a hill before a flood plain, then a river, things grew there. I had hoped for Jewel weed, as that is what was growing there when we first bought the property, in 1986. I understand that Jewel Weed, while native, is invasive. There are areas that have tough specks and need a tough plant. My riparian strip floods, has extreme hydrology issues, as it is downstream from many impervious surfaces.

When we moved in, that summer we chopped down the Jewel weed and played in the flood plain. When we stopped mowing, we went down to one or two mowings a year. The self propelling mechanism went out on the mower. We liked to mow once in the fall so the kids could sled. In later they sledded on Toni's hill. Brambles, black and red raspberries started to grow on the hill. Dale cuts out the trees and unwanted branches at least once a summer. We get a lot of buchthorn and tree of heaven, these would take over the raspberries in a few years if we let them.

We declare this the year of the shrub. I am ordering native shrubs for the hill, hope to plant where the leaves have been laid down thickly. It will mean watering from time to time, especially on the higher bermed areas. I have put blueberries there and they have died. Last year I put a Redbud in. Redbuds don't need acid soil, but do need water the first year, when newly transplanted.

Old Man Willow, our ancient willow tree takes a lot of water from the area. I love that old Willow but think from time to time about saying goodbye to it. It is hard to think about cutting down a tree that is so large and has been alive for so long.

Thoughts on Garden Planning

2007-01-31T12:00:00.000-05:00

General notes on a new season

The catalogs are coming. I feel at least a twinge of avarice, as the lovely pics come in. I took my ecological gardening class and read Noah's Garden and know how the showy lovelies won't feed the locals. Though I love to look at the pictures of new and unusual varieties, I will order from native plant nurseries.

To satisfy the old inner gardener, I may get an alpine geranium, almost pinched a branch to root last year when we delivered flyers for Tony Trupiano for congress and I saw it on a porch. It was November 6 and still the thing was growing outside. Last year the plan was to get a flat of lobilia to tuck in here and there in the pots. It makes an accent and it cascades and it is blue and every time this gardener walks by, it starts music inside her. Maybe I will get to that this year.

Seeds were not purchased last year until July, then I bought corn and other short season vegetables, started them in flats. I grew year old seeds and saved seeds, saving Heirloom Tomatoes on napkins worked well, just put the napkins in the pot and cover. The broccoli started in July is still out there, but the recent cold probably did it in. Parsley came along and lasted long into December and it will come back in spring. We'd better eat it quick, as it will go to seed.

It fell to 31.8 on the porch last night. Last fall I moved all of the tender things, Impatiens and Coleus and Sansevieria into the house. Regulating temperature was too much trouble. Geraniums and Norfolk Island Pine and Bay Laurel and Rosemary can all take a little cold. Unknown about Amerigus Lily and Elephant Begonia.

The long season corn that was supposed to ripen inside wasn't planted soon enough, will try it again. Likewise the peas. The peas were blooming in November, but there just wasn't enough of light or warmth or whatever they needed to grow big enough to eat. Perhaps it was a dearth of pollinators. It was too much faith, starting things later than they would grow. They ought to have been in a hoop house. Even the peas in a garbage can covered by spun poly didn't make peas.

A zone map in a catalog noted when they will send their mostly tender plants (April 30-May 12). We here in Detroit are indeed now zone 6. (!) Insects are keyed to the light, though and probably aren't going to read the map.

Backyard/Schoolyard Habitat

2007-01-30T15:02:00.001-05:00

Life without nature can have serious repercussions for children. An article from ej, a magazine for environmental journalism at MSU says so. A syndrome was informally named called nature deficit syndrome. For more, go to ejmagazine.com fall 2006 issue. Sarah Kozicki wrote the article.

I am thinking of a grow zone at church, maybe to stop mowing there, see what happens and keep a diary with the kids. I planted some Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) with them out on the grounds as well as in a plastic container. They loved playing with the gossamer.

We stopped mowing in the back forty, down the hill 15 years ago maybe? We got a lot of Buckthorn there, I noticed several years later. I need to reconstruct the time line. When was it that the FOTR sent a mailing to each and every riparian land owner in the Rouge and had an event for us. I met Barbara there. She had pictures of Buckthorn . I checked. Sure enough, Buckthorn ( Common Buckthorn- Rhamnus cathartica and Glossy Buckthorn- Rhamnus frangula) had begun a little colony under the Willow, under the Maple. Under the Buckthorn, nothing grew.

When I really looked at things in the Buckthorn Thicket, it was spooky, not like the thickets of my childhood. Usually there is undergrowth. In a thicket of shrubbery, often children will make paths, but here nothing grew and no one went there. It was empty underneath and spreading on all sides. We cut it down. I began putting leaves there in the fall, to create a layer of mulch to keep the side shoots from growing. It turns out that Buckthorn is very clever, it gets the birds to spread seeds by eating the black fruit (though it causes digestive upsets) and it also spreads by rhizome. Fortunately, it is very easy to pull when it is young. I get it in many of my beds, even out front, far the major seed sources.

"Invaders don't simply consume or compete with native species - they change the rules of existence for all species by altering ecosystem processes such as primary productivity, decomposition, hydrology, geomorphology, nutrient cycling or natural disturbance regimes."
-P.M. Vitousek et al. American Scientist, Sept.- Oct 1996

Notes on the Backyard/Schoolyard workshop at UofM Dearborn Environmental Interpretive Center: Bill Craig, who has a grow zone at his house and is active at Buchanan Oasis Garden at Buchanan Elementary School , Livonia, Michigan had some wonderful photos of areas he stewards. One photo was of a Spicebush Caterpillar. Add Spicebush (Lindera benzoin to my list of must grow for my planned hedgerow. There is a Swallowtail that is dark and comes from the caterpillar. The berries are good for culinary use. It is a must grow shrub for me.

Many presenters recommended the book Last Child in the Woods -Saving Children from Nature Deficit Disorder.

There were other presenters. Sharon Oliver-Merchant from Adler Elementary School in Southfield, Dan Ballnik of Dearborn, Susan Erhardt from Greening of Detroit showed slides of the Tree Keepers Kids garden at Neinas Elementary School, Detroit ; Dorothy McLeer from the Environmental Interpretive Center at U-M Dearborn; Rick Plecha, Plymouth-Canton Schools had a list possible fund and grant sights. There were some fine gardens, and many ways of going native and promoting diversity in the environment, were presented.

There was a hand out on making service projects with children. If I have to quantify and document, I will, but I see it as a nuisance. I suppose the paperwork is one way of communicating and working with groups.

Backyard/Schoolyard Habitat

2007-01-30T15:02:00.000-05:00

Life without nature can have serious repercussions for children. An article from ej, a magazine for environmental journalism at MSU says so. A syndrome was informally named called nature deficit syndrome. For more, go to ejmagazine.com fall 2006 issue. Sarah Kozicki wrote the article.

I am thinking of a grow zone at church, maybe to stop mowing there, see what happens and keep a diary with the kids. I planted some Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) with them out on the grounds as well as in a plastic container. They loved playing with the gossamer.

We stopped mowing in the back forty, down the hill 15 years ago maybe? We got a lot of Buckthorn there, I noticed several years later. I need to reconstruct the time line. When was it that the FOTR sent a mailing to each and every riparian land owner in the Rouge and had an event for us. I met Barbara there. She had pictures of Buckthorn . I checked. Sure enough, Buckthorn ( Common Buckthorn- Rhamnus cathartica and Glossy Buckthorn- Rhamnus frangula) had begun a little colony under the Willow, under the Maple. Under the Buckthorn, nothing grew.

When I really looked at things in the Buckthorn Thicket, it was spooky, not like the thickets of my childhood. Usually there is undergrowth. In a thicket of shrubbery, often children will make paths, but here nothing grew and no one went there. It was empty underneath and spreading on all sides. We cut it down. I began putting leaves there in the fall, to create a layer of mulch to keep the side shoots from growing. It turns out that Buckthorn is very clever, it gets the birds to spread seeds by eating the black fruit (though it causes digestive upsets) and it also spreads by rhizome. Fortunately, it is very easy to pull when it is young. I get it in many of my beds, even out front, far the major seed sources.

"Invaders don't simply consume or compete with native species - they change the rules of existence for all species by altering ecosystem processes such as primary productivity, decomposition, hydrology, geomorphology, nutrient cycling or natural disturbance regimes."
-P.M. Vitousek et al. American Scientist, Sept.- Oct 1996

Notes on the Backyard/Schoolyard workshop at UofM Dearborn Environmental Interpretive Center: Bill Craig, who has a grow zone at his house and is active at Buchanan Oasis Garden at Buchanan Elementary School , Livonia, Michigan had some wonderful photos of areas he stewards. One photo was of a Spicebush Caterpillar. Add Spicebush (Lindera benzoin to my list of must grow for my planned hedgerow. There is a Swallowtail that is dark and comes from the caterpillar. The berries are good for culinary use. It is a must grow shrub for me.

There were other presenters. Sharon Oliver-Merchant from Adler Elementary School in Southfield, Dan Ballnik of Dearborn, Susan Erhardt from Greening of Detroit showed slides of the Tree Keepers Kids garden at Neinas Elementary School, Detroit ; Dorothy McLeer from the Environmental Interpretive Center at U-M Dearborn; Rick Plecha, Plymouth-Canton Schools had a list possible fund and grant sights. There were some fine gardens, and many ways of going native and promoting diversity in the environment, were presented.

There was a hand out on making service projects with children. If I have to quantify and document, I will, but I see it as a nuisance. I suppose the paperwork is one way of communicating and working with groups.

16 January 06 Ecological Gardening class

2007-01-18T10:04:00.000-05:00

16 January 06 Ecological Gardening Class

Sun on the ice coated trees made a beautiful fairyland everywhere. We finally got some snow.

My advanced ecological gardening class ended today by not ending. We hope to do many things to assist people in gardening and learning how to work together to create healthy habitat, fix the hole in the environment we have caused by trying to monocrop grass everywhere.

A landscape architect analyzed some of our designs for our home gardens. If there is heavy flow of water, from a road or impervious surface, there needs to be rocks and things so the whole thing doesn't wash away.

Finding the right plants is crucial. For heavy flow or for an area of unbalanced and degraded places, you would choose easy to grow and undemanding plants. These would be mildly invasive in other environments, even if they are native. In a complex environment, a more intact ecosystemn, more delicate species can be grown.

Then there is moisture and sun and sandy or clay soil to consider. (right plant in the right place, the thing will grow)

Three kinds of land forms in our area, from glacial times are Ice Contact (many parks are located on this band) LakePlains, and Moraines. (Ridge Road is the top of a glaicial moraine.

Books:
Plants in the Chicago Region by Swink and Wilhelm (much information on plant associates)

Michigan Flora by Edward Voss (three books)

Native Trees and Shrubs Gary L Hightshoe (nice pics and diagrams, not always acturate)

Prarie Moon Nursery catalog

Nature Concervancy's invasives web-sight

Eastern Wild Flowers Peterson, or Neucomb (These were suggested for field use. You can also just take a little camera or sketch book and look it up later. Learning the words to look up species, like alternate and whirled was suggested.)

Landscaping with Native Plants Lynn M. Spencer.

Restoring Nature (Gopster, Paul H.) suggested by a student. This has some urban issues to consider when making a public garden.

Plants: Dropseed -Small grass, nice edging tolerates dry.

Panicum, (switchgrass is Panicum virgatum but there are 450 species in the genus, some invasive and nonnative) perhaps one of the smaller ones, holds up to salt, clay spreads.

Wrens and Shrubbery

2007-01-02T14:25:00.000-05:00

Wrens

It occurred to me recently that I no longer have to mourn the wild rose that I had transplanted against the fence. I had chopped it out before thinking about the Wrens who liked to raise their family in it's cover.

Our neighbor has since taken out the privacy fence back there. In summer mint likes to grow back there with abandon now. The man hates this.

In leu of sadness, I need some shrubbery there so Jenny Wren can feel good about raising her children there. Perhaps if I put more cover there, the Wren family would think about raising their young in the Wren House again. They do get mad at me and think I am a bad neighbor when I come near.

I'm thinking a hedgerow of viburnum (I am favoring American Cranberry) and Huckleberry at the moment, though a cherry would be nice and a high bush cranberry and I killed a holly recently and want to find a native one. Perhaps a hedgerow of five would entice a Wren family. They probably liked the many little red hips, maybe a seven sisters rose is in the future too. Or maybe that will be on the fence on Tony's side. I think there is a wild rose down the hill in the shade that would like a chance to grow up in the sun.

My list for the shrubbery is: High bush cranberry Viburnum trilobum
Nannyberry V. trilobum
Huckleberry
Holly Ilex opaca
Choke Cherry Prunus virginiana

In looking up shrubbery, I have found that Jewel Weed is an Impatiens, Impatiens capensis, same Genus as the common garden plant. I keep Impatiens on the window sill, as they survive well inside if they are kept watered. Perhaps Jewel Weed will too.

I haven't bothered much with the feeder back there this year. We haven't had snow cover, I left a lot of seed pods standing. If we do get snow, I must remember to set the thing up.

1 April 2006 Leaves and early cleanup

2006-04-01T13:06:00.000-05:00

The front garden bulbs are all about 6" high. On Thursday and Monday it was sunny and mild, so the leaves got moved to down the hill under Old Man Willow to smother the garlic mustard. I take the pruners along when I rake and pull to get the stalks I left in the fall for wildlife habitat. I went after and pulled crab grass in the beds when I couldn't help myself. Early spring is a good time to get weeds, as the ground is damp. It is well to pull Ground Ivy before it gets going too.
Time to start the tomatoes and transplant the greens (Broccoli, kale and Tsat Tsoi Rokcoco and and put them out in the covered house. It may be late on the transplanting, but the broccoli etc. will be so thankful for a transplant that they will forgive me, I'm thinking.
No Peppers or parsley sprouts yet. They take a long time, patience. Meantime, I wonder if the seeds are bad. This happens every year.
It is nice to look out and see growth. Daffodils up six inches, Tulips the same and purple crocus blooming. I brought in some Star of Bethlehem and some of the Forsythia I forced is on the kitchen table. It is quite yellow.

16 November 2005 Hydrogy in Bell Creek

2005-11-16T12:57:00.000-05:00

16 November 2005
Allen, the organic farmer next door had two huge Cottonwood trees down by the creek. They started growing about a half century ago, by their ring count. One had roots in the creek. Whether the winds are stronger or the amount of water we are getting is increasing, causing more erosion, or both, the tree with roots in the creek came down one stormy night.
It crushed Allen's fence. Our deeds don't allow fences past the power lines to allow Edison trucks egress. Edison is GTE now and many homeowners have put in all sorts of structures in 40 years. Who knows if Edison's records on properties have been digitized. So much for egress. Allen had the fallen tree sawed up and the other Cottonwood taken down. He has some huge stumps down the hill, by the creek. After two years, he lined them up along the property line, perpendicular from the creek, he said it will slow the water.
Last night we got a large storm and the water overflowed the banks. Sure enough, there is a little pond between the stumps and the brush pile. There is a raging current in the stream bed, but on the bank the water eddies and stays still in some places. Hurrah for trees and vegetation on the river banks.
Also the stream bed has more turns, islands and oxbows because fallen logs, some of them huge, are required to be left in the water when they fall there. Not every old tree is blown over on the banks. Some fall in the creek. One of our Cottonwoods fell across the stream and we are required to leave it. It slows the water when the huge flows come. The runoff from impervious surfaces upstream only increases, as more building takes place in outlying areas. I anticipate the day when river keepers have political clout enough to get a law passed that property owners must keep runoff on-sight, at least for new construction. Then there will be rain gardens and green roofing and retention ponds with fish to eat mosquito larva.
Then our hydrology problem of huge amounts of water all heading for the creek when it rains will be less. Fewer basements will flood. Fish and wild life will be able to breed in the river once again. My father used to swim in the Rouge RIver when he was young.

15 November 2005 Brassicas, Genetically Modified Rapeseed

2005-11-16T12:34:00.000-05:00

I saw in a movie (The Future of Food) about a Farmer on the great plains of Canada. Farmer Percy Schmeiser had been cultivating his own seed, bred for his farm conditions for 50 years. He noticed his crop could survive the roundup he used around his poles to keep the weeds down. When he complained to Monsanto, they sued, recently won in the supreme court of Canada. Mr. Schmeiser lost all of the seed he'd been cultivating year by year to GM variety. Scary that the court ruled in Monsanto's favor because of patent law. It is unconscionable that it is legal patent life.
Rapeseed (Brassica napsus) is a relative of Broccoli and Kale. The yellow flowers resemble the kale that I let go to seed two years ago, planted last spring and we are still eating the Kale this fall.
There are so many Brassicas around. Turnips, Broccoli, many oriental greens, Brussel Sprouts, Mustard. Even Maca from high up in the Andes Mountains is a Brassica.

13 November 2005 Mums, Leaves

2005-11-16T12:32:00.000-05:00

The wind has been blowing leaves around furiously. Thursday we had no power. The wind must have blown it out, knocked down a tree somewhere. I have been doing a lot of raking and moving the leaves to two piles out back and to the rings I have put by the pack fence.
The humidity is lowered, the furnace is on. The heat is set to go down to 60 at night, I know the plants like that.
I read about Mums in Horticulture magazine. There are lots of native looking, single petaled cultivars, though they seem to originate in China. The web sights they provide do not sell seeds, only plants. I did find a little piece on how to raise them from seed for market. There are many many nurseries on the web and it is fun to look them over now, before the catalogs come.
I have studied Feverfew. The cultivar I have is double petaled, but occasionally it seeds produce a single. Mrs. Rumrole, who lived next door to my mother and gave her dried flower heads of this cultivar, recommended pulling out single petaled throwbacks to get rid of them. I believe the single is Chrysanthemum parthnium. I have read that bees can reach the single better and get more pollen, mums are in the compositae family and each petal is a flower. When the flower turns brown, I save some of them. Mrs. Rumrole told Mother to crush the seed head over the place she wanted more little white feverfew. They often take two years to bloom from seed.
From this I extrapolate that non-hybrid mums could be seeded like this. I will try this on the purple mums I got at the perennial exchange. They are a single flower and may reproduce true. I will try this in a pot, keep it labeled, so I don't get a bunch of crosses in my mum cultivation.
I have stayed away from growing Columbine because I want the wild red and yellow variety (Aquilegia canadensis). I don't see it around S.E. Michigan much, people tend to grow fancier kinds in their gardens, but mother had it in her garden. She got seeds from my sister's property and grew them for years. I grew it too, but it has faded from my landscape, so much for that strain of seed, I shall have to get more.

11 October 2005

2005-11-07T20:07:00.000-05:00

It is fall, all of the tender lovlies are in, well mostly. There are still some marginal pelargoniums and a few coleus I haven't decided if I have room for in the house.
I still have to figure out the bones of the new rain garden in front. I was leaning toward a swale filled with rocks, lined with plastic. On seeing the unfilled swale, I have changed my mind. I like the idea of lowering the grade gradually from the house. I seems more elegant. More work at the start, but less to look after in the long run. I could be like Dorthy who lives across the street. She has plastic under rocks for a mulch. She cleans her rocks periodically so they won't grow things. I will have to move some plantings.
Good to do it soon, as a little girl tripped in the below swale nest to the walkway yesterday. The transplanted Holly is doing well. The gradual grade will still end in the dirt slightly below the cement. The whole area is garden, spongy and absorbent, but over flow will find the very low dish at the corner away from the house.
I didn't start any more perennials this summer. I will put some seeds in the rain garden, even though most take more than one year to flower. Once echinacia for instance, gets going it takes a lot to stop it.
Speaking of stopping, I have pulled mint out of the circle garden in orderto make room for more raspberries. Behind the garage raspberries were smothered by too much mulch and not enough communication by residents.

4 October 2005 Gardenia, Peppers, Cold

2005-11-07T20:05:00.000-05:00

I have had a Gardenia for 8 years or so. It has not bloomed. I asked the lady from Beruit who has a bakery on the corner, she brings in Gardenia flowers regularly. She said she fertilizes with an acid fertilizer, for tomatoes. I didn't get around to trying that, so I did a repot. There were three plants, so I cut off a lot of root and top and gave each plant it's own smaller pot, the better to fit them on sunny window sills. I put one in the south and one in the east. One is too big and is stuck on my north facing porch. I already look for the one in the kitchen window when I enter the room. There it is, basking in the morning sunshine, looking well shaped and glowing green, ready to be there for me when the snows fly.
We are getting a cold front Thursday. It has been beautiful, getting up to the low 80's. Time to pot up the last peppers I want to bring in. Habeneros and little hot ones thrive anywhere. They are pretty at Christmas.

1 October 2005 Lemon Balm, Cold frame

2005-11-07T20:02:00.000-05:00

Planted Early Green Broccoli, Chives in stacked pots for inside, Bloomsdale or Long Standing Spinach, Four Seasons Lettuce in stacked pots for inside and in a square foot next to the Broccoli. There is a lot of Kale left here and there, I want to try to make a row cover house for winter.

23 September 2005 Seeds, Permaculture

2005-11-07T20:00:00.000-05:00

Collecting seeds, favorite garden activity that it is, became richer today as I take in the vision of all the little bowls full on the sideboard. I put them in envelopes and store them in the refrigerator, except those that need stratification, they go in the freezer.
The Sweet Pea seeds by passed that process. I dropped them in beds by the fence, with a prayer. Hoping they will sprout themselves. The little nursery by the porch has Holly seeds and Elderberry. I set it by pulling everything in it last week. I do mark where I put the seeds, will need to take extra care when weeding there. In Spring, I set up little nurseries in plastic trays 1 1/2 " deep. Now there are two grapefruit and a lily there. The lily will need to go outside, though none of the baby Lilies I left out last year survived. They ought too, Wild Turk's Head Lilies grow in Michigan.

22 September 2005 Monarch visit

2005-11-07T19:59:00.000-05:00

A monarch visited the Butterfly Bush in the afternoon today. It is 78 degrees out.

21 September 2005 More season change, get used to it

2005-11-07T19:56:00.000-05:00

21 September 2005
Looking out now the sunshine is bright and it is warm, though the calendar tells of cold days ahead. The milkweed is cut down, the pods collected. The only butterfly I've seen visiting lately is the white cabbage moth, it was a good year for those. The others have started on their way to their winter habitat. Bees visit the wild purple asters and the marigolds and Sunflowers and cosmos, they look almost like they make them move they are so thick.
Bees love the mint flowers. I have a lot of mint in the circle garden, though I will probably pull most of it to let the raspberries spread there. The soil there is loose, it is fed with lots of compost, and the mint rhizomes come up easily.
Out front I moved the lemon lily "Prairie Sunrise". It is in a sunnier spot and it is no longer competing with the rhododendron. I put in the lavender I started from seed this spring. It will bloom next year. I pulled out lots of Yucca to make room in the sun. I hope the lily and lavender like being so close together.
I have a 25 year old White Oak in my front yard and as it grows, I have less sun. I must find a good tree trimmer to employ. My mother gave me the gift of a trim 17 years ago, when we moved in, but that man no longer trims trees. He told me city trees need trimming, as they grow alone, do not have a community of trees to keep them growing toward the sun properly. Thus they need human stewardship.
I think of September 21 as the equinox. The internet says for 2005, 22nd to 23rd is the actual date when the sun slips over the equator, leaving us for the south. The sun peaks in my windows as it gets lower in the sky.
Time to get out fall leaf colored linens and think about beeswax for candles. I trimmed the pelargoniums that graced the front porch in a large pot. The name geranium is properly reserved for hardy geranium or cranes-bill. I have a purple perennial geranium and a wild geranium that keeps seeding itself in the shade. I got another cranes-bill over at the perennial exchange Saturday. (Also some large leafed lambs ears, maine thyme, and a spurge. The kind of spurge with a green flower. I know it is invasive and nonnative and will keep it in a pot, but I love it. Perhaps because I remember it from my grandfather's garden. I took some purple geranium to the event and it was well received.)
The large pot of pelargoniums had an exuberant display. It was two years old, so I pulled out the old scented pelargoniums, trimmed most of the leaves off and put them in a long narrow pot suitable for growing on the window sill. The large stems hopefully will make interesting bonsai. Scented pelargoniums don't always like to start roots. Best to keep the roots and discard the leaves. I was loth to compost so much scented material, but could not think of any use for it. I have to pare down in winter, and I have only window sills left. The porch is already over flowing. The frost date for our area is not until Oct 14th. I still have four peppers that ought to come inside, as they grow with vigor. One is "fooled you" and two are hot varieties I acquired this summer. A small one and an ancho. I don't know what the other is. I like to grow enthusiastic peppers in the window sill in winter, they are not prolific in winter, but they get a good start come spring in the cold frame.
I bought a tomatillo plant this July. I put it on the east driveway, very warm and sunny, in a large garbage can. There are lots of fruits on that plant. It sure did grow exuberantly and produce tomatillos. It likes warmth and grows like crazy, is still flowering even with in cold nights of September. I will grow it earlier next year, get a huge crop if I can find a good salsa recipe for them. They don't mind being a little on the dry side, I ought to see how it grows in the house during winter. My guess is it will be like tomatoes and peppers, not do much in the low light of winter.
The "2 large garbage cans on the east, driveway side of our house" experiment was a success. Sweet Potatoes and "spud" potatoes, Tomatoes and Tomatillos all thrived in the warm and often dry conditions. They get heat from the micro-climate of brick and cement. Because they have the radiant heat, they get to stay unharvested for a little while, though the shorter hours of rays will slow their growth.

18 September 2005 Collecting Seeds, Fall garden

2005-11-07T19:54:00.000-05:00

Saving seeds, cutting down milkweed so as to collect the seed pods before they colonize the backyard, bringing in plants for the winter. Summer vacation is over.
On labor day, my neighbor, the farmer said "The growing season is over". He is right of course. His beds are tidy, only a few beans left growing. I'm still picking tomatoes, ripening them on the window sill. I'm not ready to pick the green ones just yet, but soon. Tomato season was too short this year.
It was a dry year. Hard to keep things going without watering. I pick a few beans now and then. Mostly they go to the dry bean pile. Nasturtiums seem to like the fall. The chives are back. Soon I will pick and freeze and dry the parsley. Strawberries have sent out runners that are wandering all over looking for places to start themselves. Marigolds and sunflowers along with the purple asters and one lone rose are making all the color. The monarchs have gone. White cabbage moths still like to sip at the flowers, as do many wasps and bees

5 September 2005

2005-11-07T19:52:00.000-05:00

Indoor Gardening Begins (sigh)
I have started bringing in house plants from their summer vacation. Impatiens, the succulents, geraniums, cyperus alternafolia, coleus; there are so many plants and there is still the same amount of space I had last year. I may rig up more shelves and make a grow light area in the living room. Still there are limits to the space I can allow plants. I live with people who are not as interested in fauna as I am.
I confess. I took a coleus cutting from a fabulous commercial garden. My admiration goes out to the gardener. I only took the top, trimmed it to keep it from going to seed, but I did root the cutting.

4 August 2005 The Milkweed Patch

2005-09-21T17:59:00.000-04:00

The Milkweed Patch
Seed-pods are green and the milkweed plants are taller than I am as the summer gets on. The locusts and crickets make a racket, telling of harvest and summers end. A few Monarchs visit once in a while, fewer than in July, still laying eggs I assume. They fly around here and there, liking places that are far away from the ground and sunny. These magnificent creatures do not live on the ground like we do, preferring the air, riding currents and drafts. Their habitat in the forests of Mexico, where they go in winter is also in danger. I do not know how they find milkweed, here in the city. My neighbors don't have milkweed. Never the less, Monarchs somehow find the little patch behind my house.
I didn't raise any pupae in my house this year. There was a moment last year when I looked into the eye of the monarch with the deformed wing. There was a time when I thought it would have to stay all Winter, that somehow we could find a way to keep it alive in our house in January. I did not see anything familiar in that eye, am processing that moment still.
I put that Monarch's aquarium out in the sun one beautiful day, came back later and the Monarch with the deformed wing was gone. It took its chances in the updrafts of the little envelope of air that looks as thin as an egg shell to shuttle astronauts, who can also see deforestation and environmental devastation from space.
We live here on the ground. The birds and creatures of the air have a very different view of the world. Some live right through cold Winters. Many species head south, finding no less environmental devastation there. In Spring, they come north, manage to find patches of milkweed and have children. Those children live only one year.
Their mothers lay eggs on the one kind of plant that will support them and move on. When the eggs hatch, the little caterpillars chomp and chomp, growing from a tiny fraction of an inch to over three inches long. They consume milk weed alone, then move off and make a chrysalis, hanging upside down for about two weeks. When it is time, the creatures emerge as butterflies with amazing eyes, and do what they have been programed to do, find others of their kind and fly south. Milkweed has an alkaloid in it and that makes it and the Monarch that eats it poisonous.
What has evolved perfectly over the years now has a danger; loss of habitat. Sometimes I think of this when tending my milkweed patch. I don't tend it, really. We kept the milkweed that seeded itself in the crack of our driveway a few years ago. The seed flew here from somewhere on its gossamer. That fall, it seeded itself in the garden, decided to stay. In spring when I'm weeding beds, some little milkweed plants are not pulled. They grow by themselves, don't need water or compost. Pollinators of all types sip nectar from the fragrant flowers. Almost it looks like the milkweed is moving, there are so many. Then butterflies come out of the sky to lay eggs. I like to fancy they are visiting me, but then I remember looking into the eye of one with a deformed wing, and I know they are visiting the milkweed.

27 July 2005, Ground hog, Rain and raspberries, Seeds, Vegetables

2005-09-21T17:52:00.000-04:00

This time of year in the garden is filled with surprises. There are the best laid plans that didn't work out. Pet projects get scrapped or sometimes work very well. Back burner items often come through, somehow making the garden headlines. Things are maturing, time moving on.
It is time to begin collecting seeds. This has become a pleasure in recent years. There is a lot we don't take into account about raising growing things. I read yesterday about UV light and the spectrums, red and blue. Red light causes the plant to grow small and sturdy, extreme red light causes it to grow very tall. Our sense of wonder at sunsets and love of color, we can talk about these things in terms of wave lengths, if we want.
Every seed has different DNA and if we could grow every one, we'd have the power of God to decide the future of the universe grow them all and choose. But my garden has only so much space, and I have limited time on earth. I did get some mixed red and yellow Snap dragons. Some of the yellow Pansies mixed with the small violet ones to make a lovely purple with a yellow center, but they don't make seeds.
The tomatoes, Pruden's Purple and Kellogg's Breakfast, four Super Sonic and some Italian Paste that volunteered from the compost are taking off. The Tomatillos and Sweet Potatoes like the warm weather and are cascading over the sides of the three feet high, plastic garbage cans they are planted in. I will grow more if these garbage can gardens on the east side of my house, where the drive way is next year. The driveway, after all was designed for the wide cars designed in the 60's. Our little cars scoot right by the large pots. The concrete and brick collect the sun's heat in the morning. Mediterranean climate plants thrive there. Plus it is a handy place to put weeds that I have pulled. I don't need to go all the way to the compost pile out back, as the solicinae and sweet potato plants don't mind growing in the nitrogen rich, moist green flotsam.
I have had visits by many Monarchs and several Browns. One lovely small lavender butterfly with spots captivated me while it visited. I have quite a few white Cabbage Moths. I am not raising monarchs in the house this year, as I'm afraid I'll be away when they hatch. There is plenty of Milkweed for them in the rain garden, and they are pleased to visit. Butterflies seem to spend most of their time in the air on wind currents and drafts.
I put beans and squashes in the middle of the Milkweed to put the GH off them. He ate most of the Sun Flowers back by the fence, even if I did plant them late in the season, hoping he wouldn't remember how good they are. He likes young succulent things. He ate my neighbor's beans. A took off his fence cages too soon, I guess.
Looking at the devastation over at A's house, I recall why I grow vegetables in the rather unconventional way I do, in circles and mixed beds. The ground hog loves long straight rows of succulent greens, he figures they are put out just for him. My old dog used to do in baby ground hogs, but even so, the families would do their foraging in my garden. My old dog corners the GH now. Then she will use her alarm bark, expecting her pack to come and help. I do not encourage this. I don't have a gun and am not interested in ground hog stew. I could try traps, but there seem to be too many of the varmints. I haven't seen the coyote in a couple of years. Either they are overwhelmed by all the varmints, or they have been hunted or otherwise moved on. The groundhog problem was less for a few years when the coyotes were vigilant. Now it is back.
I also use my round cages to good effect. I grew peas, beans, cukes, and zucchini this year, unmolested in my round cages. Recently, some winter squash that was looking sad in a pot near the house found a hospitable environment in a chicken wire ring, full of leaves from last fall. Squash roots need room to roam, just like the leaves do. I have opposing thumbs, and the GH doesn't so I sometimes win. It helps to send the dog out early for her perimeter patrol, as the GH is active at dawn and dusk.
It was a good raspberry season this year. We got thunder storms that kept the berries producing for a long time. I might even have to put in drip irrigation, we get so many more when they are kept moist. Usually they are all dried up by now, but there are plants with berries out there, even now.
I don't think the Lilies like so much rain. The Asiatic ones, seem to be wilting before they bloom. Geraniums, which evolved in Australia, are getting snails in their pots. They will rebel if things stay wet. Driving across the state, every place seems quite lush this year. The vistas are green and there is a haze in the air from all of the respiro-transpiration of the trees. Bills for air-conditioning are down this year. We did have two hot days in a row- 93 degrees. The rain has cooled everything off today. The grass is long and too damp to cut. Many people don't like the humidity, but I do.
Beans and cukes are coming along in perfusion, so we have them for dinner every night, as they have to be picked every day. The best snack in the world is cucumber fresh from the garden. I'm about to get out dilly bean recipes.
Dill is ripening. I pick the heads when the seeds start to turn brown. Then I put the heads, uncovered in a quart container and let them dry. Later in the fall, I'll take out the non seed parts and put the dill seed in a jar. I put some basil to dry on my cupboard door handle hangers. The mint I dried earlier in the season molded and I had to throw it out. I guess I didn't let it dry enough. Mint is flowering now. The pollinators love it so, I'll wait until fall to dry more, after it is finished flowering.

22 July 2005 Deadheading

2005-09-21T17:26:00.000-04:00

My pruners usually come with me in my forays around the garden this time of year. The late lilies are in full tilt. Cone flowers and Guillardia are putting on a show. Geraniums, Nasturtiums, and the spring planted Zinnias, are coming along. Then there are the beans and cukes that have to be kept picked. One has to be constantly on guard, lest the Zucchinis get out of hand.
If any of these are allowed to go to seed, they will be done for the season. Sure, you can let the beans mature. Then you'd have dry beans. If you had a monster Zucchini, you could make Zucchini bread. The winter squash that seems to be taking over the garden can be deadheaded so only five or six big ones develop. You can let it go, but come fall, you'll have some immature squash and pumpkins.
It's a mini Handmaidens Tale out there. I choose lots of blooms, fewer seeds and small, tender beans. Yesterday, after the rains, there were even some late Raspberries. The out of hand weeds that were allowed to get large and whose roots will disturb if they are pulled can be cut off. They won't make so many seeds then. The gardener becomes divine, gets to chose what comes to fruit. Don't forget to deadhead or trim those Snapdragons. They will keep up a show through the fall.

8 July 2005 Garden walks, Brambles, Fall gardens

2005-09-21T17:23:00.000-04:00

Ecological Gardeners had a visit to JV's garden. It is an oasis in the city, the eastern side of Oak Park, surrounded by mature Pines with a large maple in the back yard. Paths of limestone wander around front and back. There are a few Japanese Maples here and there. JV has been gardening for years, says this began as a low maintenance landscape, but she has become interested in ecological gardening and is replacing Pacasandra and Myrtle with native ground covers. Plumbago competes with the Myrtle in the front yard and seems to be winning.
I noticed the elegant pruning right away. It creates a dappled shade that is not oppressive, lets the air move in and around. Proper pruning creates a shady oasis. There is a little patch of grass in the back. JV says this takes ten minutes to mow with a push mower. She moved to this spot twenty years ago and made this magic place over twenty years. At the back door on the north side is a patio of limestone with large pots of coleus, which she holds over inside in winter, and a few sumptuous annuals. In her sunniest spot, along her neighbors fence, are three hanging pots of geraniums. Today, during lily season, the front yard is blessed with many colors of lilies. There is a Holly growing next to the house on the east, looking untrimmed and some Korean Dogwood, interesting in it's growth habit, lots of lower limbs left.
The pond in back was there when she moved in and has goldfish, although her favorite one was stolen by a crow for his dinner. She watched the crow fly off with the fish in it's mouth. There were areas mulched with leaves in the "back 40" with wild columbine and butterfly weed.
Gardeners mentioned that the feel of the place was like being "Up North". Amazing because the lot was maybe 50' wide with close neighbors on either side. The neighborhood has mature trees, planted along with the houses in the 50's or early 60's. But JV's garden is timeless, an oasis.
There didn't seem to be anything in the garden that was done for just one reason. Mulch, for instance, cuts weeds, enriches and makes the soil more absorbent , feeds earth worms and microorganisms. Paths make a place for walking so the beds aren't compacted, separates and defines areas, provides places for chairs, furniture and pots, provides the basis of the design. The garden itself is an ecosystem.

It was another day to pick raspberries. We got thunderstorms in the afternoon. I started flats for the fall garden, a flat of Early Green Broccoli and Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce, one of Charlotte and Broadstem Green Swiss Chard and Lutz Salad Leaf Beet, and a whole flat of Provider Snap Bush Bean. I transplanted the last of the Zebrina Mallow plants out to the front. I have two containers of Salvia left to put in when I get the front walk done. It feels good to finally have everything in the ground. I took photos of the high summer garden for my garden archives too. I really like the scented geraniums in a large pot on the porch. Come winter, I don't know what will become of all the over flowing exuberance. I'd love to root the geraniums and make potted plants for the world, or maybe just the rummage.

28 June watering,deaheading, weeding, picking strawberries, raspberries, cherries, peas

2005-09-21T17:03:00.000-04:00

Things have gotten away from me in the garden. They tend to around this time of year. I have started some bean and lettuce and broccoli seed for the fall garden.
We got a soaking rain yesterday. The dog days are early, the cats are rags on the ground in the shade. We are still eating lettuce, but it is rapidly going to seed, must start more.
It seems like there is not an inch anywhere to start anything. But there are weeds. Also I will soon pull spent lettuce. The trick will be to start new far enough from the roots of the old so the new won't get pulled with the old. Or cut the old off at the roots so as not to disturb tender plants. I have to grow lettuce in stacked pots, GH would eat lettuce in a minute if they could. Fortunately GH doesn't come up by the house.
My neighbor, the farmer has neat rows of beans and corn and squash, beets and tomaotes. The GH frames came off earlier, but I notice they have been laid back on. His backyard farm is a sight to behold, very beautiful and productive. On the other side of us, the smell of granulated lawn chemicals wafts over. I try to stay away from them. Coincidence that I usually have health issue this time of year? I think not.
I'm looking at bags for the possibility they might become hanging gardens. Then they could compliment the stacked pots. You can't let these things dry out, watering is a constant job when the mercury rises above 90 degrees. You can see things respirotranspire in the heat. Trees and woods look positively hazy on Ozone action days.

12June, Seeds, pot stacks, Perennials

2005-09-21T17:01:00.000-04:00

I fell rich with the bounty of seeds. Like wise composting. I didn't spend much in garden centers this year. I ordered some perennial seeds from Pinetree Garden Seeds. I transplanted the last of the perennials raised from seed this year, except Lavender, that is waiting for fall. Perennials went in down at the church too. I am busy using seeds saved from last year. Kale is going great guns, tomatoes are mostly saved seed, Snap dragon, Calendula, Pansy, Cosmos, Marigold, as well.
The strawberry pyrimids and the stacked pots are a lovely addition to the patio garden. I took apart a pot that lives on the window ledge in an east window in the winter. It has Scented getaniums, Impatiens and Kalenchoe, along with Baby's Tears. I like to tuck in little pots in the bare spots between plants in these potted extravaganzas.
In summer the sky is the limit for pot stacks. They do fall over. If they are too tippy, I like to dig them lower into the base pot. Keeping scented geraniums from year to year is fun because the stems get large and make shapes. They like to cascade and wind around, taking on personalities of their own. Like wise, Impatiens root easily, so get placed here and there in pots.
My small suburban lot is coming alive with rain gardens. Most of our rain water is now retained on sight.

11June2005 Rain, Desert Style planters

2005-06-11T21:03:00.000-04:00

I got out some seeds. Soaked Parsley and Bush beans and Sweet Pea and Squash. It all started this morning when I finished the cereal. This particular cereal comes in a plastic bag of substance. I hate throwing these things away. Since I got up early and mowed the lawn, I found the chair in the shade mighty comfortable long about noon. This is dangerous for me, as I usually let my mind wander under these circumstances. It has been so hot, like July dog days.
I left that empty bag on the breakfast table and it must have been sitting heavy on my mind. So I got out some twine and rigged it up, put soil in it making a hanging planter to grow some bush beans. The stacked pots full of Kale and Tomatoes are working so well, and the ground is so dry with the heat, and no rain, and no snow pac this spring, that I figure I may as well hedge my bets and have some desert style planters I can water easily in case everything else dries up.
Then it rained.
I have some flats full of sunflower seeds that number two son sprouted to make sunflower seed milk, but he let them get too big, so he gave them to me to put in flats for sunflower sprouts. Sunflower sprouts are very goodfor the vision. Unfortunately these sprouts are too big for that too, so I called Cindy from church who has been trying to interest me in the big empty spot in her yard they had to have dug for repairs. I haven't been much help to her, but she thinks maybe she'd take the sunflowers. I think that is a good choice this time of year. In the fall, she can put in perennials, or something, but this time of year, sunflowers will be obliging and fool proof and the neighbors won't complain about them. They might even admire them.
Maybe I will put some in at the church too.

4June2005

2005-06-04T16:04:00.000-04:00

4June2005
Now that it is June, it is time to choose. There is fecundity in the garden, no doubt, but things are getting bigger. If I don't choose, ones that I don't want so many of, invasives and weeds will win. I also pulled out the hose for the first time since winter. I was on the wall, in it's hanger, I hauled it to the back and put it on the tiniest trickle and set it to water the newly placed tomatoes, one at a time.
It will spread out and get to the raspberries around the edge of the back garden. They are flowering now, extra moisture would not go amiss. I do have to move the hose every 15 minutes or so, but the drip stuff I put in one year is in the garage somewhere, waiting for me to get it out. I might, but it seems a low priority, especially since I am around anyway to do the moving. It seems like a good thing to go in and out of the garden, noting what needs to be done. later in the summer, I might not be so enthusiastic.
We are getting Lettuce and Kale out of the pots and stacked pots. The greens are too close together to let them go until maturity. I get to take young leaves off and not feel the least guilt. I will keep in thinning mode as long as I can, until they all go to seed, perhaps. I have been making salad: adding what ever is around, emptying the cupboards, adding lemon, herbs, cheese, beets, nuts oranges, and considering myself queen.
The Basil seeds I started in paper towels and plastic sprouted. I put them in a pot yesterday. Basil seeds have sticky substance that makes their seed coat gluey when they sprout. I managed to put them all in the dirt.
I found a few Spinach plants, I'd tucked their seeds in a mixed pot and they did sprout. I don't know why I didn't think of putting greens in pots to keep them from the GH, before this. It was a gardening mag that showed some pretty pics of lettuce in pots that got me thinking in that direction.

2June2005

2005-06-04T16:02:00.000-04:00

2 June 2005
The weather has turned mild, as it seems to every year come June. Weddings and graduations abound and the weather is not yet too hot, though many have begun using AC.
All of the left over plants in flats and small containers cry out for permanent locations. Their roots need to go far, find water for the dry summer. I still have perennials in pots, waiting for homes. Daisies were wilting in their little, dry pots when I watered. I found myself mowing early, before it got too hot. Time for indoor activities in the heat of the day. Late bulbs bloom. Chaos and anarchy have taken over the garden as plants get big and vie for light and air.
I learned to sharpen the push mower this year. It was a good thing, as my husband has a broken finger, and would be having a fit if he couldn't mow and it didn't look just so. It was very satisfying, actually I didn't so much learn to sharpen as to realign the blades. Rotary blades need to cut like sissors, one against the other. If they don't touch each other, as in my mower's case, they don't cut everything and the job looks shabby. When I learned how to readjust the rotor part, my job looks like it did when the mower was new.
Mowing calls to mind the edges, the transition points in the yard. When someone else took care of these,I didn't take them seriously, and only thought about edges when I felt the mower took too much. I am more careful to keep a space for the mower wheels, don't plant to the edge of the grass. I let the raspberries spread way past their bed into the grass and mow around them. I'm freer to decide where I want the edge to be. It is a time when I think about things. I like doing the mowing.
I do run into neighbors, have to have conversations with them. Power mower users don' t have to stop to talk. Their machines are too loud and likely to spew rocks and nobody goes near them. I do like my neighbors and like to keep tabs on doings around here, it is not all bad. I have the excuse that I want to get done before it gets too hot too, now that the solstice is almost here.

17 May Spring Annuals

2005-05-25T10:11:00.000-04:00

19 May 2005
Oh yes, the sky is all cloudy and it looks like rain. I put the Calendula of low growth habit in my front rain garden in the front row. They were getting crowded in their little plastic box. Next will come Zinnias from the Zinnia flat and Marigolds, tall growing, maybe. Big Marigolds reach 3 ft high. I'd say that is too tall for the front bed. Maybe I'll put the Marigolds by the Oak tree or by the house. I have a lot of Marigolds, but no small ones. Might start some small ones.
Common garden annuals are very satisfying to grow. They don't need much attention, call to mind the bounty of our earth. I sprouted them on the porch in flats, kept them in my spun polyester house when it was too cold for Tomatoes outside and moved them out to make room for the tomatoes. Now I have lots of annuals. I saved the seed from last year, so they didn't even cost anything. Marigolds, Calendula (two kinds), Zinnia and Cosmos are a good deal in gardening. Love in a Mist would work too. I did start Allysum in the open garden. Either the seed was too old or it was too cold, it has not come up. On the other hand, there are a lot of first leaves sprouting in my pots and flats that I look at and my refrain comes, "what is that". "What is that?" and "What did I put there?' are FAQ's. These will lessen in frequency as the season gets old.

Marigolds, musings, seeds

2005-05-25T09:58:00.000-04:00

24 May 2005 Marigolds, Calendula, Zinnia
We have had a couple of good days of rain. I transplanted Zinnias and Calendulas into the front rain garden. I massed them, making unusual shapes with them rather than rows. I like the unusual shape idea. The Calendulas with the small growth habit are roughly in front, Zinnias in a meandering stripe down the middle and taller Calendulas towards the back of the bed. The yellow Dahlia is showing itself. The succulents in this garden are finding their own, filling in nicely. Lilies may need dividing. I will do it in the fall if they don't bloom well this summer.
The tall habit Marigolds are interspersed in the back beds. I didn't take out the leaves, thinking of a permanent mulch in the front bed, south of the front walk. I have had experience with transplants being eaten in a leafy bed, and will a have to monitor. Not many garden bugs like to munch Marigolds. In our world, if there are carbohydrates to be found, there is often some creature to eat them, especially if they have leaf cover to live in. Not much stays unaltered in the garden. I will move the mulch, rather than let the marigolds get chomped.
Everything is looking green and well. Echinacia and Rudbecias are spreading, except in the circle garden. The GH is fond of Echinacea and eats it in August. Why the critter waits until bloom time is a mystery to me. Plant's hormones change when they flower. I notice a blooming plant will not as easily root.
Watching seeds unfold is fascinating. Many seeds root before they send up first leaves. They are not attached to the dirt they live in at first. The micro-climate in their vicinity must be damp and cordial to them, although many seeds have probably evolved though sprouting habits to survive tough conditions.

19 May 2005 The Gift of Surprise

2005-05-25T09:50:00.000-04:00

19 May 2005 The Surprise
I was sinking into that overwhelming feeling. Mother taught me you ought to feel overwhelmed this time of year because, have it all done RIGHT NOW. The thing is, it can't all be done now. Making art in the garden builds on itself. What sprouts and grows is not always predictable. I don't like to garden in a mechanical way. I wouldn't garden if there weren't surprises. I like the interaction, the tension between how I envision it will look and how it does look. I like the unpredictability of it. Anyway as I was sinking into thinking about all that needed to be done, how little time I had and how much I had to do, something visual struck. My mind made a connection on how things could go together. I could stack some pots in a certain way, and they looked good and would facilitate watering later in the season easier. The blues had no room.
The top pot acts like a mulch, blocking evaporation of water. The bottom pot is full of soil, so water that flows from the top pot isn't wasted on the sidewalk, but goes into the bottom pot for the plats there. Plants stick out the sides of the bottom pots and have the benefit of the wet soil there. That way, they need less ground area to grow more plants, as in a strawberry pyramid. My small stack creation on the back porch has five levels of succulents. When I water the top, water percolates into the layers. The bottom doesn't get much water. ones at the top get much more, making the thing top heavy. I figure four levels is about the limit. More layers would require son type of a center tube take water to the bottom layer.
If last year was the year of the standard in my garden, this year is the year of the stacked pot. I have two strawberry pyramids, a stack of succulent pots on the porch, three Kale stacks, several geranium stacks, three lettuce stacks, and a few other miscellaneous pot stacks. I am calling these things pot stacks, as I have no other name for them.
It was a phase shift that took me into right brained thinking and I was lost in gardening for a long and productive time. I emptied some pots, geraniums needed transplanting and pruning and the beans I'd soaked were in need of planting. One long window sill pot was in a container full of water and beginning support smelly anaerobic bacteria. All these little things were in need of attention.
The Rev's retirement dinner table decorations were starting to weigh on me. I thought of some ways to do center pieces. In stacked pots, the bottom with Carasula, that I have a lot of and can root by July and the top with cute little annuals that I can start soon and have ready for the event. If the annuals are not flowering by July 10, I can purchase some that are and put them in the inner pots without disturbing the Carasula. The Carasula was taking over all the pots on the window sill this winter. I may as well use it, as I have so much of it. I need to find pots and inner pots. They don't all have to be the same and it would be good if they were recycled, as the crowd at church would be appreciative of that. I may have to start robbing recycle bins, as it is getting over late for me to assemble so many containers out of my own houshold. I think I will need at least 12 table deco places, one for each table. I need to start the outer pots soon to give them time to look "naturalized", like they had always been that way.
Maybe I just had too much caffeine today, but I'm feeling quite productive. I was glad to get the beans planted before the rain came. It was a long soaking rain, the kind that is good for spring gardens.

15 May After the Refreshing Rain

2005-05-25T09:42:00.000-04:00

16 May 2005
Finally, a good rain fell. The little plant starts got a new set of leaves. Time to put things in the ground.
The annuals in flats are too numerous to put in larger pots before they go in the ground. I don't have enough pots, even though my family members tell me the pots take up too much of the garage. I will have to let them grow large enough to put it in the ground, but not leave them too long in the flats to become crowded. The mulch needs to be pulled away from their little stems when I plant them, as bugs find transplants succulent.
I want to take things down to the church, Sage and Hyssop, to put in while the ground is wet. The Salvia can wait. I'm afraid groundskeepers will think it is a weed and pull it up. I shall have to make markers.

13 May 2005 Rain, What's being planted, Spring garden etceteras

2005-05-25T09:35:00.000-04:00

13 May 2005 Rain, water, seeds
Rain fell short of promises. It was a light penetrating spring rain, but it wasn't long enough to penetrate. I have a lot of little seeds planted and am hoping they didn't try to sprout during that rain, as it was scant. Forecasters predict thunderstorms this weekend.
I scattered the sunflowers Amanda and Charlie passed out at their wedding. I put in a row of Nasturtiums in the sidewalk bed. I thought the number of seeds from the packet I bought from NK (formerly Northrup King) was miserly and won't go for them again if I can help it. I got quite expansive for a while there and put quite a few seeds in. There are two more lettuce towers. There are vines, Nasturtium, and Thunbergia. I put in the remainder of the Red Orach, in pots and lettuce towers, thinking it might take to vining habit. Basil doesn't seem to think it is warm enough to bother sprouting, except for the purple decorative basil that seeds itself all over. Morning Glory waits until warmer days before it sprouts. Some of the Lavender I have sprouting in plastic bags on the heat register sprouted and I put it in a pot. Maybe it ought to stay on the warm porch for a week or so, just to give the little seeds a bit of a push. No sign from the zucchini or cuke yet. Maybe they would be happier inside too. Vegetable seeds seeds seem sprout when and where ever they are planted, and only tell you what they need by becoming exhausted or expiring. Perhaps they have lost their sense of place. Tomato seeds left in the garden from last year will wait to sprout until it is warm and mild.
Garden design is being done on the fly, or it seems that way to me, as I didn't get out the graph paper and plot my beds in January. I do have some grand plans in my head and some small ideas of what can go on. I want to put the Silicone (tomatoes and peppers) out behind the garage where the Raspberries have abandoned ship. The GH will eat and greens I put here. I might put a small patch of corn here too. I have to cover each ear with a paper bag lest the squirrels think I planted it for them. I like to start corn in a flat and transplant it. There is room for winter squash to meander around here. I only wish I could find a way to keep it from the ground hogs.
I'm putting Beans in the bed up by the cement. I had brick edging here, but took it out and had thought about making it a pond. When the cement became car parking space, I moved some pots, etc. onto this plot. There is room in the middle for beans. I put off beans so the GH won't think I do it for him, as he likes new beans. He hasn't gotten the peas behind the hoop fence. I will have to put a hoop fence around the beans too. The beans could go in any time, I think. Alan, my neighbor and organic gardener extraordinare, plants by the phases of the moon, like his father did. He is very organized and methodical in a way I only dream of being. I plant more variety of things though.
I don't get as much written as I have to report this time of year, as I get antsy and have to get beck out there and see how things are doing. Like right now, how is the transplanted parsley surviving. I figured the rain would keep it happy. It has been two days since that disappointing rain. We shall need a rain dance.

11 April 2005 Marigolds, Salvia, Guillardia

2005-04-11T20:48:00.000-04:00

11 April 2005
I am not feeling so driven as last year. Alan next door had the most wonderful tomatoes he started in late May. Spring is short, but it doesn't matter.
I planted some flats today. Crackerjack Mixed colored Marigolds, mixed colors. These are the large tall type that go on far into the fall, blooming like crazy. They get up to three feet tall. Blue Bedder Salvia, an annual, and Goblin Gaillardia. Gaillardia is will make a nice mass planting at the church. It takes heat and dry soil and ought to go well on the east side of the sanctuary. Salvia will thrive in a dry place too, but isn't a perennial. I intend to buy a flat of Lobilia again for the edges.
It is liberating to plant a hole flat of flowers and not worry where they'll go. I can do mass plantings around here as well as at the church. It is quite thrifty to grow your own, but the Gaillardia will take two years to flower. Meantime, I'd better label it, lest it be mistaken for a weed.
It already seems like a dry spring. It is almost warm and settled, although we get some wimpy wind sometimes. Not satisfying April showers at all, although the Daffodils are out. Daffodils are quite satisfying. The crocuses have come and gone. They didn't last long, it was too warm for them. Forsithia is in bloom. I picked a bouquet. I'd like it if springs were chilly the way they used to be. It is almost not worth planting spring bulbs, if we are going to go directly from winter to summer.
I'm cranky today. I didn't garden enough.
There are Baby Blue Eyes with second leaves now. The yellow perennials are getting second leaves grudgingly. The home saved Hosta seeds are doing the best of all. There are maybe 20 little Hostas obliging me. The kale seeds I saved from last year are doing nicely too. I started them outside and don't have to worry about their getting enough light. I don't know where I'll put them all, because the ground hog will find them tasty, but they'll freeze well for winter.

22 March 2005, Hosta, Pepper, Tomato, Baby Blue Eues, Shasta Daisy, Rudbeckia, Heliopsis, Monarda, Mrs. Kendal Clark Geranium

2005-03-22T14:12:00.000-05:00

22 March 2005
There it is, sunshine. We all felt better for some of it. Our furnace was out last night. The sun was so bright today and reached into so many new crannies that the house was almost colder inside than out.
I got the soil I'd put in the garage last fall out and filled some flats with soil. then I put in some seeds in neat, well marked rows. Some of the plants on the porch that looked dead from too much cold, were alive inside and I trimmed them up and tried to find space for everything. In a few weeks a lot of plants can go out, as the landscape outside greens up. Right now there are plants all over the porch waiting more patiently than I am for warmer weather.
I planted;
-Pinetree New American Hosta Mix (Hybrid) in the white plastic tub. There had been Lobilia in this tub, I transplanted that to a wetter spot that gets more light.
-Into the 1st flat went the seeds I'd saved from the white, fall flowering Hosta, then Tri-Fetti pepper, Sauce Tomato, Small Cherry Tomato, Pinetree Fooled You Pepper, Italian roasting, Ancho 101.
-2ond flat Nemophila or Baby Blue Eyes, I could have sewn it directly into the soil, but it looked too brown to me outside. Also Shasta Daisy -Chrysanthemum x superba, Baby Sun Coreopsis, Indian Summer Rudbeckia, Chocolate Orange Rudbeckia, Heliopsis, Monarda Panorama mix, and Mrs. Kendal Clark Geranium that is a pale blue.

2 March 2005 Lobilia, concrete pots, pruning, cold

2005-03-02T16:30:00.000-05:00

2 March 2005
It is cold. Outside, snowflakes lazily head toward white earth. The garage door is frozen shut so that I can't reach the soil there to start plants. Frustrated, I mow the tops of every plant I can and find places in pots for them to root. It is good to get into the swing of pruning. These plants will grow, it being March, but they will be more compact now with their haircuts.
With the pelargoniums, I enjoy unusual shapes as they lean toward the light, or tumble over the side of the pot. Many of the geraniums will find their way to pots when frost free days come in May. Big plans to make reenforced concrete pots are hatching. I'll need wire mesh and concrete mixing gloves and a concrete trowel and concrete. Maybe I'll try to make a slurry of paper and use that instead of gravel, making the pots lighter. Maybe I'll get really expansive and use moss or old leaves, or maybe just unadulterated concrete like they used to make boats of in the 70's. Those old concrete boats sunk when they got leaky. Holes in pots are good for drainage and I hope it will work out.
Lobilia are so blue. In my eastern window in a pot with the Blue Geranium I started last spring that hasn't bloomed yet, some Lobilia grew this winter. The Blue Geranium flowers are over late, as I started them for P2's graduation party last June. The Lobilia, unlooked for and uninvited, rewarded my winter weary self with a deep and compelling violet. What a peasant and timely surprise.