Changes

A garden is not made by a gardener alone, or in a day, or even in a generation. It is a sort of hereditary thing that goes on and on, needing cooperation between one and Nature. Nature teaches the person and makes the gardener as well as the garden.

 This is a garden of constant change, both according to the whims of Nature, and of my nature. It is definitely informal, wildflowers and annuals springing where they may, many being allowed to reseed freely; only removed or thinned when they become so thick as to rudely crowd their neighbors out or get crushed underfoot.
 

The “lawn”, as we laughingly refer to it, is a Persian carpet of wildlings: spring beauties, wild phlox, clover, dandelions, bluets, starry chickweed, oxalis, star of Bethlehem and buttercups in the spring. It reverts to a mix of grasses and other green stuff in early summer, when it finally gets mowed. Clover has recently sprung up and is taking over large areas; I can remember many years ago when clover was actually sold as a lawn seed, before lawns became perfectly manicured swards of green with fescue or Bermuda as the preferred grass. I don’t mind. It’s always fun to find a four-leaf clover once in a while and bees and butterflies love it. I steadfastedly refuse to let anyone put weed killers on our lawn, only reseeding with bluegrass in bare spots where digging squirrels, grandkids and droughts have caused bare spots.  

 Shade moves across this almost-acre, leaving us with very few sunny spots and mostly dappled, shifting light under which my beloved wildflowers thrive and multiply, some in beds which circle the stone cottage which shelters us. Some, such as ginger and violets, line the paths, wandering down into the woods where colonies are established under the trees.

 Others simply grow where they want to, and sometimes not in the same places every year. It is always a surprise when a whole group of black-eyed Susans, veronicastrum, columbines or Queen Anne’s lace takes a notion to move 50 feet away to the other side of the house from one year to the next.

 A brick patio, rock garden and pond now occupy the space where the original one-room house once stood. An herb garden replaced a thicket of mock orange some twenty years ago. Most of those herbs are gone now, but the beds and paths remain, with perennials filling out beds where once grew thyme, sage and lavender. The remaining herbs have been moved to a small fenced garden where vegetables once grew. I gave up on the dream of fresh vegetables from our own garden when I got tired of feeding deer, groundhogs and raccoons. The herbs are not to their taste and they leave those largely alone.

 These days we buy most of our veggies at the farmer’s markets and let those growers deal with critter problems. But even that may change this year as we experiment with straw bale gardening in a corner of the herb garden.  It got off to a slow start due to the wintry weather but it’s almost ready to plant with radishes and cole crops now.

 Our street-side garden will see new developments this spring. For nearly a year, water company contractors have been laying a new line along our street, and in the process they have made a hash out of part of the very old iris bed in front of our house. In spite of their promises to “make it look better than it did before” I’m not holding my breath. They claim to be done now, but no one has shown up to fix anything. My patience wore thin so finally I took matters into my own hands; using some big rocks from the property line rock pile, plus rocks and gravel the contractors left lying about, to edge the length of the iris bed and make a rock garden.

 Amazingly, patches of crocuses and daffodils have survived, blooming as if they had never been disturbed in spite of being buried in a foot of gravel and then scraped over with a backhoe scoop.

 

One patch of creeping phlox was somehow missed by that backhoe. This week I added a dozen more to drape over the rocks in front of the remaining irises and daylilies. Low-growing sedums, dianthus, and a few other spreading rock-garden plants will make a living tapestry with them as they grow.

 New color variations of creeping phlox are available now in addition to the old pinks and blues, including a pink and white one called “Candy Stripe”. Creeping phlox is perennial, easy to grow, long lived, spreads rapidly, and needs little care except for a bit of light trimming once it has finished blooming, or not. I always forget and it still looks fine. It’s an attractive, hardy ground cover year-round, resembling a needle evergreen. Barely 4” tall, it effectively smothers out encroaching weeds and is fairly drought-resistant. Blooming (normally) in late March and early April, it invites swarms of early pollinators, bees and butterflies galore to sip of its nectar-rich flowers.

 Creeping phlox loves full sun and good drainage which makes it excellent for growing over retaining walls and down steep slopes as groundcover where it’s difficult to mow. This is the perfect time of year to plant it, in pockets of good compost-rich soil about a foot apart. Be careful not to bury the stem when planting and keep it well-watered until established. Long spreading stems of old plants may get thick and woody and stop blooming well. These can be cut back to encourage new growth that will produce flowers again.

 As we experience more and more effects of climate change, and the weather is seldom “as usual” any more, we need more like these plants that are “bulletproof”, whether they are natives or not. I look forward to many more changes coming to the Chaotic garden.

"One of the worst mistakes you can make as a gardener is to think you're in charge."
 ----Janet Gillespie
                                                                     

"If there's one thing I can say about my garden, it can always surprise me."
----David Hobson, The Mad Gardener
                                                                   

 

 
Sandy Parrill, "Speaking of Gardens" column, The Joplin Globe, March 23, 2014 

 

Time for the Spring Serenade!

A male cardinal in the lilacs keeps announcing how “pretty, pretty, pretty” he is, while close by, his busy mate is paying little attention to his posturing. Just a single pair or two claiming territory here is all that remains of a huge flock of cardinals that crowded our feeders through the snowstorms. The long cold fingers of winter are gradually being pried loose by a gentle but persistent sun, and the soft, moist air smells like new life.

Soon spring peepers will be calling in the pond, looking for mates and laying long, gelatinous strings of eggs that will hatch into tadpoles and polliwogs.

The pond has to be cleaned this week before they arrive so their eggs don’t get destroyed in the process. Tadpoles are good citizens in a pond, eating algae which helps keep the pond clean, while providing food for winter-starved goldfish and koi until they get too big. When they have matured, baby toads scatter through the garden, tiny eating machines that munch bugs and slugs as they grow. We need all the toads we can get as they are the first line of defense in plant protection here at Chaos.

 

Our pond is about 8’x 15’ and some three feet deep in one end, which is deep enough for koi should we choose to keep them. There were beautiful butterfly koi and fancy goldfish a few years ago, until a marauding raccoon cleaned them out. We haven’t replaced them since, just stocking the pond with feeder goldfish from the pet store in recent years. They grow fast and live a long time, if the raccoons don’t come back for lunch; but if they do, at least we won’t have provided them with an expensive gourmet feast.

I’m not sure yet if there are any fish alive in the pond this year. It might have frozen solid to the bottom with the intense cold, possibly too much for even the cold hardy goldfish. I do hope the leopard frogs that overwinter in the muddy bottom have survived.

The pump was turned off last fall as there is a leak somewhere that kept draining the pond at the rate of 6” or so a week. We couldn’t find it in the pond liner, so the waterfall will have to be dismantled to see if that is where the problem is. Possibly roots from our Crimson Queen Japanese maple growing are through the liner somewhere. 

While the waterfall is torn apart might be a good time to put in a better filter, if we ever decide to try koi again as they need more oxygen in the water than do goldfish. A long-handled leaf grabber made for picking up leaves behind shrubs and flower beds also makes short work of leaves and pond debris, except for what settles to the bottom, but we don’t worry too much about that. A little mud on the pond bottom doesn’t hurt anything, while providing habitat for water insects and little organisms that fish and tadpoles feed on. About every 5 years we drain it and clean it out when it builds up too much.

It’s going to turn green for about four weeks, that’s the nature of a pond. In winter, warm water settles to the bottom, where fish hibernate during cold weather. In the spring, the pond “flips” which means that the warmer water rises to the top and colder water settles to the bottom. As sunlight enters the water, it causes algae to “bloom”, or grow, which can turn water pea soup green. Fish don’t care, but most pond-owners hate it as it isn’t aesthetically pleasing.  The usual reaction is to drain it and refill with fresh water; but that is exactly the wrong thing to do as it starts the algae blooming process all over again with fresh nutrients for algae to feed on.

If your goal is instantly clean water, there are chemicals to kill floating algae and settle particles, especially if you have koi as they eat plants, root in the bottom like the finny pigs they are, and can generally make a mess of a pond. We prefer to do without most of the chemicals, letting plants help achieve that natural equilibrium as they grow, but until they do and begin to shade the water, it is going to be green. Patience is the word here. Besides, I like to save my money for important things, like more hostas, and chocolate.

Keeping 40-50-% of the water surface covered with plants prevents sunlight from reaching into the water, thus starving out floating algae. Annual floating plants like water hyacinths and water lettuce provide shade, and are also natural filters, their roots catching and holding debris which would otherwise make the water murky. Oxygenating grasses float under the surface, also blocking sunlight. Water lilies and lotus shade the water with their big leaves. A coating of a beneficial algae that grows underwater on the sides of the pond also helps keep water clear of the floating kind. A small bale of barley straw helps keep the water clear of filamentous algae; long stringy stuff that covers everything.

 When fresh water is added to top off the cleaned pond, we use a dechlorinator which neutralizes the chlorine, chloramines, and heavy metals present in city water that will kill fish if not treated.  A preventive dose of fish medicine as well helps promote fish health.

We cleaned out our little woods pond also, where the wild things come to drink. It was full of leaves, the raccoons have eaten the fish, but there were water hyacinths  and a water cypress with a new shoot still alive, buried under two feet of leaves! Amazing!

 
Look who I found in the woods pond! This little leopard frog was cold and sleepy and not moving much but alive and well!

I can’t wait to open my windows and listen to the spring peepers in the clean pond as they sing me to sleep at night. Then I will know spring is truly here.



"The music of all creatures has to do with their loves, even toads and frogs."--Henry David Thoreau

 

Lovin' the Natives, Anyway!

After last week’s rant on planting natives, I should make it perfectly clear that I’m all for it, in case anybody takes me to task. I just want to make sure that when I plant them in our own garden, I know what I’m in for.  Just as non-native or Old World plants can become invasive here, so can local natives if they are planted heedlessly. In their natural range, natives are subject to disease, insects, animal predators and grow with other plants that help keep their populations in check. But when a single native variety is planted in a garden and released from the limiting factors that keep it under control, it too can become invasive when provided with fertile soil, plenty of water and room to roam.

That’s a hard lesson I’ve learned as our garden and I get older. One bed must be extensively re-done this spring because it is so infested with native goldenrod, spiderwort, black-eyed susans, blue star grass, and penstemon that other, smaller desirable natives are having a hard time of it. Shooting stars, native sedums, crested irises, and trilliums are being sorely tested. These native invaders have severely crowded non-natives; iris tectorum, lilies, peonies, clematis, creeping thymes, and columbines that I really want there. And they spread seed so wantonly that even with regular deadheading, they shortly get totally out of control. Their deep roots cling tenaciously to this rocky soil, making them really hard to remove, especially after a winter’s growth. They refuse to be pulled, giving up their top leaves like a lizard losing its tail; having to be dug out, disrupting desirables along the way. Inevitably they insinuate themselves into crowns of other plants, replacing them quickly if they aren’t dealt with. I must admit responsibility for some of them, but I blame birds and wind for the rest.

Not to say that they shouldn’t be planted in a garden. Those aggressive natives are beautiful with echinaceas, monardas, daisies, grasses, phlox and others that can compete well in thoughtfully planned beds.

I love them anyway as a mother loves her incorrigible child, but this year they are all going to be banished to a meadow area where they can merrily reseed and I don’t have to deal with them. It’s way too much work. My goal is to make Chaos less labor intensive as we grow older.  I just want to walk down the paths, tell the flowers how beautiful they are, piddle with them a bit, plant some new things once in a while, watch the birds and butterflies; you know, the fun stuff. I have been mostly successful with some areas, and still tinkering with the rest.

I wish some natives were a little more aggressive, especially out in the woods where I keep dividing and transplanting them so they will carpet the ground under the trees with our hostas, hellebores, heucheras, and other shade perennials. Many wild woods plants are spring bloomers; ephemerals that come up early, put on a show, and then disappear until next year. Trout lilies, Mayapples, Dutchman’s breeches, gingers, Virginia bluebells, hepaticas, ferns, false Solomon’s seal, Jacob’s ladder, violets in every color, bloodroot, false rue anemone, and Jack-in-the pulpit grow out here with woodland phlox, a little annual yellow corydalis, that cursed Virginia waterleaf—I don’t divide or transplant that one however—, and too many others to name, all keeping company with thousands of daffodils, crocuses, grape hyacinths, scillas, pushkinias and azaleas that turn the woods into a blaze of color. This garden is a place to visit to see spring in all its glory.

Virginia Bluebells 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pink Dutchman's breeches

 By the end of May, though, most of them are gone and only a green carpet of gingers, Solomon’s seal and ferns remains with the hostas and their perennial companions. Other mostly well-behaved natives and non-natives such as creeping veronicas, golden moneywort, tiarellas, leadwort and succulents take their places for the summer.

I add more spring-blooming natives as I find them. Last year it was trailing arbutus (epigaea repens), loved from the Michigan woods of my childhood. An endangered native of the east coast, it is a low-growing member of the heath family, pink-flowered and sweetly scented. Acidic, humusy soil in an oak forest is its natural environment so it was placed at the foot of a white oak where it lived through last season, though this is probably a bit far west for its range. My hopes are high for it, so three more were ordered this spring, along with pink shooting stars (dodecathion) to join existing clumps of white ones.

Early-blooming native serviceberries have been planted under tall hickories along the south edge of the woods. The fruit is tasty in pies and jam, but I doubt we will get any of the fruits to eat as robins love them better. They are all sprouts from a serviceberry that I once planted closer to the house, not taking into account its suckering ways. Now, those suckers must be dug out each spring to keep them from crowding out a hydrangea that is its bed-mate, and making a serviceberry grove out of the whole area. If I was a harsher mistress of the garden I would pull it out, but I love its delicate white flowers and watching robins plunder the berries in summer.

Planting anything just because the tag says “native” without researching it can cause serious trouble in a small garden. Like with any plant, native or otherwise, find out its habits beforehand to use the right natives for a situation. Plant for wildlife but remember, gardens are for people, too. It’s not fun if the plants make you work too hard.

Many native plants can be found at local nurseries. Missouri Wildflower Nursery will be at area sites this spring including our own Wildcat Glades with plants to sell. Their catalog and schedule is at http://www.mowildflowers.net/


Published in the Joplin Globe, "Speaking of Gardens" by Sandy Parrill   March 9, 2014

 

 

A Native What?

 

Native is the buzzword in gardening these days. We are urged to plant native, even to the extent of digging up our “ornamentals” and replacing them with native plants that “our” insects and birds love.

But the definition of native is often pretty vague. While I do agree with growing locally native species, it is hard to know just what they are. A true native plant is one that grows in the same habitat in which it originated. It can be native to a continent, a state, or a region. So what is that?  Just because a plant was here when settlers first came, does not mean it “originated” here. Seeds are blown on the wind, carried on tides, in rain, or dropped by migrating birds, which is partly why many of our “natives” are also native to half the rest of the world.

“Native” can be one of the most confusing terms out there for the casual gardener.  Is a plant ok to grow because it’s native to the North American continent? Not necessarily, natives to the East Coast could go nutso in a zone 7 or warmer garden and try to completely take over where cold winters don’t keep them in check (ask me about Virginia waterleaf). Or wither and die because the climate is too hot, dry, cold, wrong altitude, etc. It takes a lot of research to determine which plants are actually native and which have been here so long that like humans, they have evolved, adapted and become naturalized. Though some non-natives truly aren’t suitable to native insects and birds many do provide nectar, habitat and food for them. You see as many wasps, flies, bumble bees and honeybees buzzing around a stand of non-native sedums, for example, as around a patch of goldenrod.

Oh, wait, honeybees aren’t native to North America.  

Food that our birds can eat? Fruits, seeds, nuts that they are used to? Sure. But remember that many of the birds that live here in summer are not “native”, either. This is their summer breeding ground, and they are only here for a few short months until they return to their Central and South American habitats, where the food they eat is unfamiliar to us.

While many native plants are beautiful, many are not suited for small, suburban gardens. They tend to spread with exuberance, look weedy, and as they should go to seed to keep them going year after year as well as providing forage for birds, also look messy and untidy. To gardeners who like to keep things neat, this might be unacceptable.  If you don’t have a big garden where they can grow in sweeps and swaths, you can still plant natives, but limit planting them to those which don’t spread aggressively. Many native shrubs sucker and make thickets of themselves, and while we all admire sassafrass, shrub dogwoods, native viburnums, sumac and others, most of us don’t want to spend all of our gardening time cutting out the suckers to keep them in check or pulling out  all those seedlings, or give up all of our garden room to them. We need to plant natives with caution, just as we should with imported plants. Some of them should just be enjoyed in their natural setting. 

Bidens, or beggar tickseed, is a native annual that is definitely not for the small garden.

It is true in many cases that many non-natives can crowd out and replace our native species (though anything that can crowd out and replace ragweed is a good plant, in my estimation) and those plants should be responsibly eliminated from your garden. But even some natives will do the same if the environmental conditions are right.

White trillium, a beautiful woodland native to grow. Naturalizes nicely, not invasive.

 

We grow lots of natives here at Chaos. Some have been mistakes that we are trying (with little success) to eradicate from our garden where they crowd out other less aggressive natives that we really want. Violets are one of the best examples I can think of, though they were here before we were. Beautiful and loved in verse and art, they spread with such exuberance that they quickly become a nuisance weed. In this garden they have even over-run lily of the valley. That aforementioned Virginia waterleaf makes thick mats of tubers that choke out other desirables. I understand it is endangered in some East coast areas. I would be glad to send them all of mine. Mayapples? Solomon’s seal? Native ginger? Cattails, or heaven help us, horsetail fern? I do have horsetail in my garden, but it is in a barrel water garden in a pot where it can’t escape, because it could take over the known world with a good running start. Native to half the world, including the US, it is not a desirable garden plant.

Many natives have hybridized with imported plants over the last few hundred years to the point where it is impossible to separate the taxonomy, and have become an integrated part of the biodiversity of our continent, as impossible to eradicate as the earthworm, which is not native here, either.
  
In many cases, non-native plants are so heavily into our culture and economics that we could not do without them. Peaches (native to Asia), apples (Kazakhstan), European grapes, oranges (China), cotton (Central America), beets (Mediterranean), tomatoes  and potatoes (South America), soybeans, wheat (Asia, Middle East) and a host of other fruits and vegetables come to us from all over the world to be grown in our  farms and home gardens. Many of the food plants from Central and South American came to North America via early native traders and were already here when early European settlers arrived, so we think of them as native. And, those honeybees! Not a plant, imported from Europe, but who wants to do without them? They are an important part of our economy.  If not for honeybees, what would pollinate all those imported food plants?
So where do we draw the line? Purists would have us grow nothing but natives, but who wants to give up their vegetable gardens? And what about all our native wildflowers that the Europeans “discovered” here, took home and hybridized into myriads of cultivars to sell back to us—are they still considered “native” because they originated here? And I guarantee that I am not giving up my daffodils, crocuses, tulips and hyacinths. I think we can find a balance of native and non-native plants, and our gardens are richer for it, just as our country is rich with a mixture of peoples from other cultures. Diversity is my buzz-word. There is room for a lot of that, taken responsibly and in moderation.

  

Natives and exotics co-exist happly here

The point is, we have to use as much common sense planting natives as we do with planting our beloved imports. Many non-natives are not aggressive, such as hostas, and co-exist beautifully in our gardens with no real threat to our environment. I grow mine with native trilliums, mayapples, ginger, dog-tooth violets, ferns, columbines, bloodroot, and a host of other woods wildlings. I do find that growing some natives is a lot more work than my other perennials, just keeping them in check. 

Be sure if you plant natives, you have room for them to spread, because they will, exuberantly.

But for all the exotics I grow, there is also such a huge population of natives that no animal, insect or pollinator goes hungry here and our garden teems with wildlife. It seems to be in pretty good balance as I seldom have a problem with anything except deer and mammals which, because of human population growth, have lost many of their predators. much of their environment and are forced to live in our back yards, but that is another issue.

Get a good book on North American wildflowers, one that is written for your area, make lists, research anything you are thinking about planting, and if anywhere in the plant descriptions are the words “colonizes well”, “spreads easily”,” reseeds well”, or “good for naturalizing” consider whether it is right for your garden, native or not. Look up invasive plant lists to determine if a “native” is invasive in your area. And yes, read Doug Tallamy’s book, “Bringing Nature Home”. It is an eye-opener.

A good source for information is the Chicago Botanic Garden’s research program: http://www.chicagobotanic.org/research/plant_evaluation/.

Others are the Missouri Botanical Garden:  http://www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/plantfinder/plantfindersearch.aspx

And Cornell University has a great site about growing natives: http://www.cornellplantations.org/sites/default/files/Native.plants.Seed_.workshop.pdf

Garden Legacy

Finally! With just a few warm days, crocus blooms are popping open in a rush to greet the returning sun. Green spears of wild woodlings pepper thawed ground, a few tiny violet leaves are just beginning to unfold and hellebore buds are blushing deep pink under leaves that have gotten scraggily from the unaccustomed harsh winter. There is a feeling of delicious anticipation in the woods gardens as I venture out to soak up some sun and explore what’s coming up, hoping there have not been too many losses.

It’s too early to begin much of any spring clean-up. I’m sure ol’ Winter still has a few more icy chest-beatings to show off before it admits defeat. It’s hard to keep my hands off, but I know I have to satisfy myself with picking up fallen branches and clearing paths again, piling raked-up leaves on beds where winter winds have scoured them bare; to keep hostas from coming up too soon as the sun warms the earth.  A pond-cleaning can be done, and the rock garden needs attention. Sedums and sempervivums can withstand a lot of cold so it‘s safe to uncover them. 

Fat buds are swelling already on the lilacs. I am always surprised to see them so early, but they are hardy and strong, undaunted by even this past winter. I do worry about the fates of some plants I consider to be “delicate”, as the cold was so deep and so long, but this garden is a survivor.   

It is not a young garden. Begun in the middle of the last century, it was the love-labor of a woman who surrounded her one-room frame house with flowers, dreams of English gardens shining in her eyes. I know this because I have read the same books in the library that she must have, recognizing combinations of plants that she recreated from those pages in her own garden. There are still epimediums, euphorbias, tiger lilies, lily of the valley, hardy geraniums, sweeps of grape hyacinths, scores of pale blue, grape-soda scented irises and a glory of daffodils and daylilies, all going strong after more than 60 years. She planted a red dogwood, white lilacs, redbuds, a magnolia soulangeana, and a tulip poplar that now towers to nearly a hundred feet. A knotty, gnarled old smoke tree that must have been young a half-century ago now always looks as if it’s on its last year; but miraculously it springs into leaf and bloom each spring, to our continual amazement.

 

 

Euphorbia with hardy geraniums 

Hundreds of surprise lilies have been transplanted everywhere from a small group that were growing in a fence corner, hidden under a wild tangle of autumn clematis. A wisteria once clamored to the top of a long-dead oak; we thought it was gone along with its host, but it shot up from the roots and scrambled up and over our stone wall. It took almost 15 years to bloom again.

Surprises continue to appear; two years ago after digging up a corner by the wall to plant a holly tree, hollyhocks sprung up, apparently from seed that had lain fallow in the ground until they were brought to the surface and germinated. A neighbor who has lived here all her life told me hollyhocks always used to grow there and she could see them from her house blooming above the top of the wall.

 

 

Tiger lilies

 

A vegetable garden and an orchard grew where the woods are today. The last of the old apple trees fell in a storm three years after we moved here, but its legacy lived on; for years morel mushrooms grew from the decaying roots.

The lady was a lover of rocks like me. She built the rock house we now live in, studding the walls with seashells and interesting stones. While digging up a neglected corner last year, I uncovered dozens of mineral eggs, calcite crystals, fossils (and a whole jar-full of marbles) tossed around the roots of another deceased oak. The stone wall bordering the south side of the yard is embedded with more shells, bits of jewelry, doll dishes and sundry other curious items. A broken birdbath encrusted with shells was found buried in a flower bed, and is now pieced together around the base of a pot.

I would have enjoyed knowing her. I often wonder what she thinks of her garden now. I miss her, this lady I never had a chance to meet but feel I know so well. We live with her in small ways, every day, for her personality is stamped upon this house and garden as surely as is our own. I’m sure her soul still lives on here. I sometimes imagine I see her, wandering the gardens she loved in her housedress and old gray cardigan. I feel her looking over my shoulder as I plant even more daffodils in the fall and laughing at me as I swear at the long canes of the antique rose that she planted, when the vicious thorns get tangled in my clothes and hair as I try in vain to keep it trimmed back from taking over the entire front yard. I’d rip it out but it has sent its canes high into a redbud tree and is a glorious sight in the spring with clusters of deep pink flowers cascading down over the blue irises that are there by her hand. I think she always knew it would be that way.

She would have been a good friend.

"Gardening is a way of showing that you believe in tomorrow."--Author unknown


 Sandy Parrill "Speaking of Gardens" The Joplin Globe, February 23, 2014

Compost--it's Not Complicated!

Composting isn’t complicated. There are shelves of books, articles galore in every garden magazine out there, and a million or so Web sites to tell you how. But taking the subject down to its basic core, it’s just a matter of piling up organic stuff and letting it rot. Mother Nature does it all the time, breaking down natural debris, feeding the soil as it decays.

By composting in your own yard, you are taking advantage of the free stuff Nature gives you to build your soil so your plants can grow to their full potential, plus keeping a lot of stuff out of the landfills.
 
A compost pile isn’t the most attractive thing to have in a garden so choose a level area that is out of the way but accessible to a wheelbarrow and a spading fork, with a little space to work it. Behind a garage or garden shed would be a good location. Ideally, it should be located away from trees as tree roots tend to grow up into that nice, nutrient-rich compost. You won’t want to have to dig them out when it’s time to put your finished compost on the garden, but if you have no choice, a double layer of landscape fabric or even old carpet laid nap side down on the ground underneath will help slow down invading roots.

Spring is a good time to start, when you are cleaning up flower beds, raking leaves left from fall, and mowing lawns.

You need at least two piles, or bins. Start by filling one with a thick layer of leaves, a layer of green stuff, and a couple shovels of topsoil or composted manure as an activator to get the decomposition process kick-started (or buy a bag of compost starter from your local garden center); then layers of grass, organic waste from your kitchen, more leaves, etc. When the bin is full, start flipping it over into the second bin with a spading fork, beginning with a layer of leaves; adding more organic waste and garden debris and covering that up from the first bin, and so on. Repeat until that one is full, then reverse the process. After you flip the contents of the two bins thoroughly three or four times, you should have some pretty good compost.

Bins can be built of a variety of materials. We have three, two 4' x 4' wire ones, and a double one made with four 4' x 8’ hog panels, but we have an acre of trees that shed leaves and a lot of garden debris. The average gardener might not need one that big. You don’t really even need a bin, a pile will do; but a bin keeps things contained and neater. Two three-sided (open on the front) bins can be constructed with fence posts and 2”x 4” fence wire, 3’ high; pallets on edge in the same configuration, snow fencing, picket fence; or if you are handy with tools, you can get as fancy as you like with boards and chicken wire. Two 3’x 3’ bins side by side is a good size to start with.

One of the easiest and most efficient ways is to stack two layers of straw bales on edge in three-sided bin form, with the front open for easy access. When the bales start to rot after a season, simply break them up, put them in the compost, and build a new set of bins with fresh bales. An interesting side to the straw bale bins is that you can plant in the top bales, as in straw bale gardening; grow some cucumbers, tomatoes or pumpkins in there. The ideal spot for this type of compost bin would be in the middle of your vegetable garden.

So what can you put in your compost? Most anything organic. For successful composting you need four things: carbon, nitrogen, moisture, and air. Brown stuff like fallen leaves, corn stalks, newspaper, shredded paper, paper towels and napkins is carbon. Green stuff like lawn clippings, garden debris, any kind of vegetable waste from the kitchen is nitrogen; also hair, human or animal, eggshells, chicken or rabbit manure, coffee grounds. About one part nitrogen to two parts carbon is a good ratio. Wood ashes are also good, providing potash, but don’t overdo it. Too much of that is not a good thing. Rain is usually enough moisture; if not, soak it down once in a while but don’t keep it wet. Air is mixed in when you turn it.

We keep a covered pail in the kitchen for vegetable scraps and anything compostable, emptying it into the pile once a day in the summer, every two or three days in the winter. Leftover coffee, juices, tea, water drained from cooking all go in there making a soupy mix. Top it off with plenty of water, which makes it easier to dump and also adds moisture to the compost. Always cover kitchen scraps with a shovelful or two from the other bin, plus dry grass, leaves, or garden debris.

What not to put in there: anything plastic or metal. It’s irritating to have to pick junk out of your finished compost. No meat scraps and bones; they encourage animal scavengers. No used kitty litter, grass or weeds that have been treated with weed killers, or used diapers—they won’t break down. No seedy weeds; weed seeds will live through the composting process and be spread around when the compost is used. No diseased garden debris, same reason. Tree branches take too long to break down.

A working compost pile should feel warm, almost hot inside, even in winter. It may even steam. You are going to see pill bugs, earthworms and other insects in there, as well as spiders and beetles looking for a good meal. Don’t freak out, that’s a good thing. They are the workers, breaking down raw materials and turning them into useable compost.

Depending on how often the compost is turned, it could be ready in 6 or 8 weeks; longer over the winter. It’s finished when it looks mostly like soil.  Sift it using a plant flat or plastic crate over a wheelbarrow, tossing uncomposted stuff back into the bottom of the bin. Save a couple of shovels full to restart the next batch.

 

Here’s more info from the U. of Illinois Extension, including problem solving: http://web.extension.illinois.edu/homecompost/building.cfm and plenty on building bins and composting from the U. of Missouri Extension: http://extension.missouri.edu/p/g6957nd

Do your garden a favor and give composting a try.


"Unless you are in a race or something, there are only two “rules” for successful composting: Stop throwing all that stuff away, and pile it up somewhere.”
                                       ~Felder Rushing

 "Speaking of Gardens " column, published in The Joplin Globe, February 16, 2014

Will Spring Ever Come, Poppy Seed and a Garden Show

The crocus that hasn't been. January 27, 2013

 Spring usually starts coming in slow fireworks in the Ozarks by this time of year with the first early snow crocus in the last week of January, but it seems like this winter has gone on forever, with nary a sign of blooming anything. Or maybe it just feels that way after being spoiled by the mild winters of the past few years. I find myself wandering aimlessly in the garden, looking for any signs that the “song of the turtledove might soon be heard in the land”, but the ground is still frozen, and according to the weather forecast, it looks like it might be that way for a while. We need any moisture we can get, so I’m not complaining about the snow.

A few early dandelions are blooming, and weeds though they are, at this time of the year, they are drops of sunshine that make me smile on gloomy days.

Who says I’m a weed? I’m so pretty!

To quote Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn; “It's spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you've got it, you want - oh, you don't quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!”

That’s it. Spring fever. I’ve got garden catalogs scattered over the house, with lists of seeds and plants that I simply cannot do without. Garden web sites are bookmarked with “shopping carts” full of would-be orders parked and waiting for me to make up my mind. I always over-order, so there is a basket of seeds left over from last year that wants sorting to see what I really “need”.

A small jar of poppy seeds saved from last summer to sow after a February snow, will be scattered this week where I want them to grow. The seeds are tiny and should be mixed with a little sand so they don’t all land in one spot when they are broadcast. These are Papaver somniferum, annual poppies with big fluffy, silky flowers, single and double in a myriad of luscious colors; but tangerine and mauve are all that are left here so last fall I ordered a few new varieties to introduce. My son-in-law brought me seeds for black ones from California and also shared some other colors from his own garden.

Tangerine red poppy

The original ones that my seed came from are undoubtedly the old-fashioned “breadseed” or opium poppies, which have been growing in America’s cottage gardens for many generations; “passed along” from one gardener to another, indispensably useful in both medicine and cooking to the early settlers. The new cultivars are a peony-flowered cross but the true type can still be found in many garden catalogs.

They grow best for me in gravely soil, and are happily at home along the gravel walk that circles the south side of the deck, in the accidental flower bed that grows there, in company with the Queen Anne's lace, black-eyed Susans and larkspur that have also planted themselves there. Growing them from seed is the best option as they have a tap root and resent being transplanted, although it can be done carefully with very young seedlings. They bloom in late May, and in June, the stems are cut when the pods mature, but before they pop open and disburse their seed. Then they are hung upside-down on the lattice that encloses the side of the deck, so the seeds get “planted” right there where I want them to grow. They won’t germinate until the next spring, but I believe in going by Mother Nature's schedule, and She plants them in mid-summer.  Some seed is saved for late winter planting or to share. The empty pods are later kept for dried arrangements and fall wreaths.

 

Note: As poppy seeds need light to germinate, they should just be scattered on the ground and not covered with soil.

Shirley, California and other interesting poppies are annuals that grow easily in most sunny gardens. They are on my garden lists too, but I missed the spring window this year to order and get them in time for planting here, so it will have to be for fall.  

 

Oriental poppies are perennials that can be purchased as plants. Put them where they won’t be disturbed as they don’t care for transplanting either and are likely to turn their toes up and die if they are moved.  A big clump of them has grown by the front gate as long as this garden has existed, so they are very long-lived indeed. They haven’t reseeded much; in 50 years time there are only three more plants even though I always try to make sure the seeds don't just get flung to the winds. Maybe the birds are getting them.

 Bright red corn poppies, the "remembrance" poppy, Papaver rhoeas L, or Flanders poppies as they were called because they were growing in the battlefields during World War I, were immortalized in the poem “In Flanders’ Fields” by John McCrae, and have become the symbol of Memorial Day veterans. They are also annuals. I have never been able to get them started with much success here, but I recently read that seeds should be planted in the fall, and in early spring the ground should be disturbed; then they will germinate and grow. If I can find some seeds I’ll try with them this month anyway, or I’ve got them on my list for fall—planning ahead already! Got it in my garden journal!

 Speaking of planning ahead, the annual Lawn and Garden Show next weekend (February 14-16) in Springfield (MO.) at the fairgrounds is on our calendar, weather permitting. It’s one of our favorite things to do in February, a breath of spring in late winter and full of inspiration for the garden.

 

 

Display at the Lawn and Garden show, 2013

 Educational seminars presented by the Master Gardeners of Greene County will be going on all weekend, packed full of information and how-to’s; and there are wonderful vendor displays, herbs, unusual succulents, the latest tools, whimsical garden ornaments to buy, and much more information and products to make your outdoor living space the best ever.

 

The Greater Ozarks Hosta Society, of which we are members, will have a booth full of fresh spring hostas, and the sight of hostas in full glorious growth is a miracle in midwinter. Next to them will be the Springfield Botanic Garden, Friends of the Garden and Master Gardener's booth, where we get to visit with old friends and make some new ones.

 

We always look for the Missouri Conservation Dept.  booth where they will be giving away free seedling trees.  

 

Ticket cost is minimal and worth every cent. Can you tell I’m excited? It’s what I’m getting for Valentine’s Day!

 

 

In Flanders Fields

 

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

 

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

 

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

                ----Major John McCrae

Always remember.

 

 

Gardening in Straw Bales? What a great idea!

Nothing quite beats the taste of fresh, homegrown vegetables that I can just step out the door to pick, and go straight to the pot while the warmth of the sun is still in them. I quit years ago trying to grow veggies here because all I was doing was feeding the local wildlife, but I may try once more, keeping the deer at bay with repellents and hoping the descendants of the groundhogs that we trapped out a couple of years ago don’t move back in or the raccoons claim it for their own.

I am intrigued by straw bale gardens, and since my only true sunny spot is within the root zone of a huge black walnut, I think I can grow my veggies above the ground where they won’t be poisoned by the juglone in the walnut roots that is anathema to most vegetables, and at the same time maybe control the critter invasion. We already grow tomatoes and peppers in pots, but I would like to have radishes and lettuce in spring, and especially kale, spinach and chard for smoothies and salads. Maybe even a few early peas, green beans and potatoes, but those are my choices; apparently you can grow most any vegetable and some flowers this way.

I have a space at the end of my small fenced herb garden, about 10’ x 15’, where now there is only a patch of multiplier, or winter onions. I have those in another spot also so I won’t miss that patch, and I think I can get 4 or 5 straw bales in there. I’ll get my bales in February from a local garden center, so they can sit there until planting time and “condition”, or compost slightly, which takes approximately 2-4 weeks, depending on rainfall. If you are lucky, you might get some old bales in the spring from a farmer or garden center that have been sitting outside all winter, and are already partly “pre-conditioned” for you.

The idea is to plant the seeds or plants directly in the tops of the bales. Some sources like to open up holes in the tops of the bales and put some potting soil in there, others prefer to plant directly into the composted straw, where they grow like, well, weeds! The straw holds moisture, and as the insides of the bales decay, they provide a rich growing medium for your plants.

A spot that gets at least 6 hours of sun a day is needed to grow veggies. Since you aren’t digging in the ground, straw bales can be placed anywhere, one or many, even on a patio or driveway. Arrange them in rows with cut sides up, the strings or baling wire on their sides; on landscape fabric if making a garden on a lawn area to keep grass and weeds from growing up into them.

Two weeks before you are ready to plant, wet and fertilize the bales for 10 days to start composting the inner straw. For the first 6 days, put 3 cups of organic fertilizer on each bale every other day, watering the bales thoroughly. Every other day, water the bales. For the next three days, put 1 ½ cups of organic fertilizer on each bale and water. On the tenth day, put down 3 cups mixed with phosphorous and potassium (bone meal 50-50 with wood ashes is great) and water in. If you stick your finger in a bale, it should feel hot and moist. Keep moist until ready to plant.

When planting seedlings, use a trowel to separate the straw into holes and add some potting soil to cover any exposed roots. If planting seeds, cover the bale with an inch or so of soil and sow directly into this seedbed. The roots will grow down into the bale.

While you are at it, stick some herbs or annual flowers into the sides of the bale to make it pretty. I think I'll try some strawberries in the sides of mine.

A soaker hose can be laid across the tops of the bales for easy watering. A trellis can be rigged with t-posts and wire to support tomatoes, pole beans, or peas. We may use short posts and a wire to support a row cover to keep cabbage moths from laying eggs on the kale and to prevent rabbits and robins from eating the young plants. I’m going to repurpose some old sheer window curtains but you can buy floating row covers at a garden center. Nylon window screening works well too. They’ll need to be held down with boards, bricks or something to keep them from blowing off.

An internet search on “straw bale gardening” will net lots of information, or there is an excellent book, Straw Bale Gardening, by Joel Karsten. It can probably be found at a local bookstore. If not, they can order it for you or you could find it on Amazon.

Experiment with us. We’ll learn it together!

 

Joplin Globe column, Speaking of Gardens: February 2, 2014