Category: Outdoors

Autumn treasures in my garden

Summer has faded and gone. Autumn’s bright foliage does compensate, somewhat, for the dearth of flowers, but a few of my trees and shrubs (and several perennials) bloom in October, and I treasure them. Let’s take a look.

Starting in early September but varying greatly from year to year, my Seven-Son Flower Tree blooms. This year in early October its white flowers were in bloom, despite four hard frosts. Some years even one frost will ruin the blossoms, but not this year. The flowers are white, small (half-inch in diameter), and borne in clusters of flowers mostly near the top of the tree.

After the blossoms finish, the tree will often display small, purplish-red fruits (half-inch drupes) crowned by very showy rose-pink sepals that elongate after bloom and can last into late fall. But frost usually interrupts that display in colder parts of our region.

The Seven-Sons Flower tree is typically a small one. Most sources refer to it as 15 to 20 feet tall and eight to 10 feet wide. But it is fast-growing and can produce branches five to eight feet long in a single season once it is well-established. It has interesting bark: gray and dusty brown, variegated and exfoliating. In winter the bark stands out well against the snow.

Although this small tree was introduced to the United States from China in 1907, it was not readily available until it was reintroduced in 1980. I’ve had mine for more than 15 years and have not noticed any seedlings or root sprouts. I am always on the lookout for invasive tendencies for newly introduced species, but this one has given me no reason to worry.

A lesser-known shrub that blooms for me in October is disanthus. This shrub likes rich moist slightly acidic soil in part shade to full shade. It is a polite shrub — it does not spread out and take over the area, and rarely needs pruning. During the summer it has nice dark green leaves similar to those on a redbud tree. But in fall the leaves turn an intense reddish purple and hold on well into the fall. I think the leaf color is better than that on burning bush, which is invasive and is no longer sold.

The blossoms on disanthus are tiny, and I didn’t even notice them for a couple of years after planting mine as they are right on the branches and obscured by leaves. But it is fun to have something special to look for now, in autumn, and to show to friends. Mine haven’t appeared yet but should soon.

Then there is the witch hazel tree. I remember the first time I encountered one. I was hiking in late October and came upon a native tree covered in yellow blossoms. Although the blossoms were small, it had petals that were curly and bright — and I was not expecting anything to be blooming.

So of course I had to have one. The foliage turns yellow in September and holds on, obscuring the blossoms a bit. But eventually the leaves drop, exposing the flowers. There are also early spring-blooming varieties as well. Arnold’s Promise is a nice one with red and yellow flowers.

Although I have never seen pollinators on the flowers, they are fragrant and brightly colored, so I assume they are trying to attract something. The only source for information I have found on this comes from Bernd Heinrich in a 1987 Scientific American article. He witnessed the night-flying owlet moth feeding on the nectar and pollinating the flowers in November when most other insects are no longer around.

Of the garden flowers blooming now, you must have seen big, bold New England asters and perhaps some of the more shy wild woodland asters. Some of my phlox are still blooming, as are some black-eyed Susans. Of those, a rudbeckia called ‘Henry Eiler’ is the most dramatic. Over five feet tall, it will bloom all month in a huge clump. I just wish I didn’t have to tie it up to keep it from flopping.

I have an absolutely stunning goldenrod, a cultivar called “Fireworks.” It is one I purchased several years ago and it is now a nice tight clump four feet across and three feet tall. The blossoms arch over gently and point in different directions, creating a stunning display, a little like the finale of a good fireworks display. Unlike wild goldenrod, it does not seem to spread quickly by root or seed.

Also in bloom for me now is Knautia macedonia with deep wine-red flowers reminiscent of scabiosa or pincushion flower. It has been blooming for months and is a delight. The stems are thin and tend to bend over a bit when blooming, but the blossoms never seem to fall to the ground. It is not a good cut flower but earns its place in the garden because of its long bloom time.

Most species of monkshood bloom in June, but I also have one species, Aconitum carmichaelii, which blooms now with intense blue flowers on five-foot stems that do not flop. All monkshood species have poisonous sap, and some were said to be used to poison wolves in Russia.

I have always tried to expand the growing season here in my cold Zone 4 garden. I should have a few blossoms into November, and then there will be a hiatus until early March when my first snowdrops bloom. But I can buy flowers for my table in winter, and I do have plenty of houseplants.

Featured Photo: Fall blooming monkshood is a poisonous beauty Photo by Henry Homeyer.

Lessons from a visit to Shin Boku

A few weeks ago I traveled to Shin Boku Nursery in Wentworth to attend an all-day workshop on Japanese pruning techniques. Many of the techniques are useful to any gardener.

The workshop was organized and taught by Doug Roth, the publisher of Sukiya Living magazine (rothteien.com), a journal about Japanese gardening that my wife and I subscribe to. It provides practical and aesthetic advice that I find useful anywhere. Mr. Roth lived for years in Japan and apprenticed under a Japanese master, ultimately receiving accreditation as a journeyman gardener.

Shin Boku (shin-bokunursery.com) is a specialty nursery that offers trees and shrubs trained for use in Japanese-inspired gardens. The owner, Palmer Koelb, has been growing specialty trees pruned in the Japanese style there since 1986, and some of the larger trees (in five-foot-diameter pots) he has been training for even longer. There is a lovely Japanese garden there as well as specimen trees for sale.

The workshop began with a lesson on ladder safety. Japanese pruning ladders made by Hasegawa were present for us to see and use. These ladders are tripod ladders made especially for pruning. They are made of welded aluminum and are very light.

Their two front legs flare, shaped much like a side of the Eiffel Tower, and a third leg is hinged so that it can be swung out and placed inside or behind a hedge or tree. Not only that, the third leg can be extended or shortened to work on hillsides. The feet are clawed, so they dig into the soil, but they come with rubber “sneakers” to use on pavement or stone. The steps are wide and comfortable on the feet, and some have an upper platform for working.

After a day of using the Hasegawa ladders, I was convinced that they offer safety and convenience way beyond what my old-fashioned step ladders and extension ladders offer, particularly on rough terrain and hillsides. When I got home I made arrangements to buy my own from Alan Bissonnette in Chichester. He represents New England Ladders (neladders.com), which has representatives and warehouses around the country.

The ladder I selected is a 10-footer, one with a platform at the eight-foot level, and a grab bar on the top. I have been using it on hilly terrain, and love that not only can I adjust the length of the third (back) leg, but it has a chain connecting the front legs and the back legs to assure that the ladder cannot splay more than recommended. I was tempted to get an eight-foot ladder, but have been pleased with the extra height. I like being able to look down on the top of a medium-size crab apple tree to see what needs to be removed. My new ladder weighs just 30 pounds.

In Japanese gardens the trees are often trained to irregular shapes. That can be accomplished by regular pruning and understanding how to direct growth. The tip of a branch produces auxins, or plant hormones that control growth and fruiting. By cutting back a branch to a junction of branches, one can direct growth. Cut off the tip and one of a pair of side branches, and the growth will essentially follow the direction of the remaining branch. In this way, a tree can be made to twist and turn over time.

Some evergreens produce so many branches and leaves that the interior of the shrub or tree gets little or no light. The interior of those specimens can then lose their leaves (commonly called needles), leaving a dark interior that is unattractive if an outer branch is damaged or removed. You can prevent that with judicious pruning.

I recently worked on a bird’s nest spruce. It was a large shrub that was getting too tall and wide, and the homeowner wanted me to make it smaller. This, I explained, is a multi-year project: if I just cut off the top branches, the brown interior would be exposed and unsightly.

Here’s what I did: First, I cut back this year’s growth to stop the shrub from getting bigger. Then I removed some small branches to allow punches of light to get inside the tree. That will stimulate dormant buds to grow new leaves. I did this primarily where two branches were growing parallel — I removed one, left the other. I did this not only on the top of the shrub but on the sides as well.

In the workshop each of us received a copy of Sukiya Living Textbook: Advanced Tree Pruning. It is nicely illustrated with photographs showing several different styles of pruning techniques, mainly for evergreen shrubs and small trees.

If you are interested in turning a tranquil corner of your property into a small Japanese garden, I suggest you subscribe to Sukiya Living magazine. It comes out bi-monthly and, according to its website, covers “various aspects of Japanese architecture, horticulture, art, and philosophy. Topics range from centuries-old design principles to modern, how-to construction and maintenance techniques.”

I hope one day to travel with Doug Roth on one of his tours of gardens in Kyoto, Japan. Meanwhile, I can dream.

Featured Photo: Pine shaped in the Japanese tradition at Shin-Boku nursery. Courtesy photo.

How to prepare them to move indoors

Most of us bring our houseplants outside for the summer. Now is the time to bring them in, or get them ready to make the move. It’s also the time to put herbs that you’ve had in the ground all summer into pots and get them ready for winter use in the kitchen.

Generally, plants outdoors don’t suffer much from aphids: The pests are kept in check by good insects that munch on them. But move plants indoors and they often get covered with those tiny aphids and their honeydew, which makes a sticky mess of your leaves.

The solution is an easy one. Before bringing a potted plant indoors, wash the leaves. I do this by placing the potted plant on its side and washing it with a stream of water from the hose. I wash not only the tops of the leaves but the underside, too. Roll the pot twice to wash all the leaves well.

In addition to the leaves, I wash off the surface of the potting soil to get any eggs or aphids hiding there. I then add half an inch of fresh potting soil to replace any I washed off. Then I stand the pot up and let it dry in the sun. For smaller plants, you can wash them in the kitchen sink.

Although spring is generally recommended for re-potting houseplants, it may be needed now if a houseplant has been in the same pot for a long time. If roots are poking out of the holes in the bottom of the pot, or if the plant leaves are smaller than previously, it’s time to re-pot. You can remove a plant from its pot to see if roots are matted and tangled at the bottom of the root ball, and pressed up against the side of the pot.

Getting a plant out of a pot is not always easy. If the pot is small enough, hold it upside down, give a tug on the plant and it will slide out into your waiting hand. For bigger pots I use a long bread knife or cake spatula and slide it between the root ball and the pot, poking and pushing all the way around the outer edge to loosen the soil. Then I turn it upside down again and try to remove it.

For big pots, get someone to help you. Hold the plant, and ask your helper to tug and rotate the pot, pulling until the plant comes out. Plastic and fiberglass pots are generally more willing to give up their grip on plants than old-fashioned baked clay pots.

Once the plant is out of the pot, try to loosen up the roots. If they are a tightly tangled mess, you can use a serrated steak knife to cut off an inch or so of roots at the bottom of the pot. Roots on the sides can be “tickled” loose with your fingers, a kitchen fork, or a hand tool such as the CobraHead weeder. Let soil fall off the roots, as it is depleted and will be replaced.

Potting mix is generally based on peat moss, which is light and fluffy but not very nutritious for your plants. I like to mix it with high-quality compost — my own, or purchased. I find Moo-Doo brand composted cow manure to be excellent and readily available. It is made in Vermont.

I like to have an inch or two of my freshly made potting mix in the bottom of the pot, and half an inch to an inch of it all around the perimeter. To make space around the outside requires removing old soil or using a slightly bigger pot

When adding soil mix around the outside of the pot, use your fingers to push the new mix down, but you may need a wooden spoon or paint stirrer to get it all the way to the bottom of the pot. Water after the job is done to be sure no air pockets are left in the pot.

Some perennial herbs can be moved inside for the winter. These include chives, rosemary, thyme and parsley. Parsley has many deep roots, so an eight-inch-deep pot is best. Chives are easy to pot up, and do well on a bright window sill. I will cut mine back in a week, as she looks a bit like Rapunzel now. Basil, no matter how hard we try, is not a good candidate to come inside. It attracts aphids and needs more light than a windowsill will normally provide. I’m going to try moving some dill inside this year, but have not previously tried it.

After you have potted up some herbs, leave them outside for a week or more. Why? It’s best to change just one variable at a time. There is always less light inside, so let the plants get used to being in a pot before moving them indoors. Be sure not to over-water your herbs: most are Mediterranean in origin and do best in relatively dry soil. That said, please know that a completely dry rosemary is a dead rosemary.

On another note, a few days after a hard frost you should dig up your dahlias, calla lilies, gladiolas and cannas. Store them in a cool, dark place. A brown paper bag with some slightly damp wood shavings used in gerbil cages or sphagnum moss will keep them from drying out too much.

Plant bulbs now for spring blossoms

Now is the time to buy your bulbs for spring blossoms. Most years I have bulb flowers pushing their way up through mushy snow and fallen leaves in early March, delighting me with their improbably delicate flowers.

First the small bulbs bloom: snowdrops, glory of the snow, scilla, winter aconite and crocus. Next come daffodils, tulips and alliums. Finally come summer snowflake and camassia. You have plenty of time to plant bulbs as you can do so until the ground freezes. But I recommend that you get them now before they are sold out. Gardening has taken a big uptick in interest this year, and I predict bulbs will go the way of seeds and hoses — all sold out early.

Here are the basics: you plant bulbs in the fall and they bloom in the spring according to an internal clock. All need plenty of sun, though the little ones that bloom early can be grown under deciduous trees, as they will get enough sun to “re-charge” the bulbs by photosynthesis before the leaves are on. Don’t plant bulbs of daffodils or tulips in the lawn because you won’t be able to mow it until July (if you do, the bulbs will not get enough energy and they won’t bloom).

Planting depth matters. The small bulbs only need two or three inches of soil cover over the top of the bulb; bigger bulbs like tulips and daffodils generally need 6 inches of cover. Follow the directions that come with the bulbs.

Tulip bulbs are loved as food by rodents like squirrels and chipmunks. Deer will eat the foliage and flower buds — often the night before you planned on picking some. Daffodils are vaguely poisonous, so not eaten by anything. Alliums, in the onion family, are not eaten by anything, either. Crocus are not generally bothered by anything, but this past spring we had a plague of chipmunks that ate the blossoms just before they bloomed. I’ve never had trouble with any of the other small bulbs.

I like to plant bulbs in big batches. Fifty daffodils will knock your socks off when they bloom, but five will hardly be noticed. I know that some stores sell tools that can be used to cut out and lift a circle of soil all in one motion. The idea is to dig lots of holes (three inches across) and plant one bulb in each hole. I find that method tedious. The same goes for using an auger on a drill to dig holes for bulbs.

What I like is to dig a bulb bed for 25 or more bulbs. Dig down six inches, remove the soil in an oval or circle 24 to 36 inches across. I put the soil in a wheelbarrow or on a tarp so as to keep the area tidy. Once the hole is excavated, I add some bulb booster or slow-release organic fertilizer in the hole with my CobraHead weeder. I generally add some compost, too, and scratch it into the soil at the bottom of the hole, along with the fertilizer.

After all that, I just place the bulbs in the soil, pointy end up. Space them according to the directions, or a little closer than the directions indicate. Daffodils and tulips I space about three inches apart, small bulbs less. Then I take the soil I removed and return it to the hole, being careful not to disturb the bulbs. I remove any stones that are the size of the bulbs or larger, and mix in some compost with the soil if it is a heavy clay or very sandy.

What about those rodents that want to eat your tulips or small bulbs? People try many things to deter them. Some sprinkle hot pepper powder on the soil surface, or crushed oyster shells, which are sharp and unpleasant. A variety of animal repellents are sold, and some may do the job. I like to hide the hole with a layer of fall leaves so it won’t be so obvious to rodents.

Back at the end of Bill Clinton’s time in office I got to interview the White House gardener in the fall. They had just planted, for the newly elected President Bush, thousands of tulips, a variety named Hilary Clinton. I asked how they would keep the squirrels away — I saw them everywhere. Dale Haney, the head gardener, told me they keep the squirrels fat and happy — they give them all the dried corn they can eat. That reduces the desire for tulips. And, he said, they put a layer of chicken wire two inches below the soil surface after planting. Squirrels are deterred by the wire. I tried that method, and it is not easy to do — I needed to cut the chicken wire to fit my plantings, and it was like handling razor wire.

There are a few fall-blooming bulbs, too. Saffron crocus and colchicum need to be planted before this, but you might like to try them another year. Colchicum, generally planted in August, is also called “fall crocus” (even though it is not a crocus at all). But the blossoms look like giant crocus, and each bulb produces several blossoms. I love them.

Colchicum are leafless now, but they put out leaves in the spring that disappear by mid-summer. Bulbs cost $5 to $8 each and are generally sold in packages of three. Good garden centers may have a few for sale potted up and already in bloom now.

I’ve been planting bulbs every year for decades and find it one of my favorite gardening activities. Now, in fall, when the garden is declining, I plant something and dream of spring.

Featured Photo: Photo by Henry Homeyer.

Get started early to avoid the cold

This year I resolve to get my garden put to bed early so I am not wearing gloves and long johns as I cut back the daylilies on cold, wet fall days.

First on my list is the need to sow some grass seed. I have places where my lawn was killed when a torrential downpour dumped sand from my road onto the lawn. Fall is a better time to sow seed because the ground is warmer and it will germinate quickly. In the spring, seed can rot during cold, wet weather. I will spread some topsoil or compost to improve the soil, then mix it in with a short-tined rake. After spreading seed, I will cover it with a layer of straw. That will help to keep the soil and seeds from drying out, though I will water occasionally if it gets dry.

Chrysanthemums are for sale now at farm stands, and I purchased a few pots of them to brighten up the front yard. I treat them as annuals, even though some of them are perennial. But the growers cut back the plants as they grow, causing them to branch out and produce hundreds of blossoms on bigger plants. If I let them over-winter, the plants would have some flowers, but never so many as what the professionals produce. It’s worth it to me to buy a few each fall.

Mums in pots tend to dry out quickly, so I have been soaking mine in my birdbath. That way the pots suck up water, getting it down deep. I could actually plant my mums in the ground, but I like them in pots on the front steps or in my wooden wheelbarrow. They need water every few days.

This is also the time of year when I move shrubs. I recently moved a diervilla, one called Kodiak. It was given to me years ago, and it was crowded in between a crab apple tree and a red-veined enkianthus. I decided it needed more space to grow, and I wanted to expose a stone wall behind it. So I dug it up.

This shrub is about three feet tall and wide and had been in the ground more than five years. I used a shovel called a drain spade: a spade with a long, narrow blade. I pushed it into the ground at a 45-degree angle in four places around the bush. Each time I pushed the shovel handle down to lift the shrub slightly. Then, when I’d gone all around it, I got the spade under the middle of the plant, pushed down hard, and popped it right out. I tugged on the plant and pulled it loose, roots and all. Some were cut by my shovel, others not. I moved it to its new home, covered the roots and watered well. A week later it looks fine.

The vegetable garden is winding down, and as each crop is harvested, I weed the row and apply mulch as needed to keep wind-blown seeds from finding a home. My favorite mulch consists of chopped fall leaves: I run over leaves on the lawn with my lawnmower to chop them, and rake them onto a tarp, which I drag down to the vegetable garden. It’s too early for leaves, so I’m using straw for now.

When cleaning up the vegetable garden it’s important to keep diseased plants separate from healthy ones (which go on the compost pile). I generally have a location for noxious weeds and diseased plants and do not use that material after it breaks down, or not for many years.

I tend to get a little lackadaisical about the perennial flower gardens late in the season. Weeds and grasses have a way of showing up there, and by pulling them now, the work will be less in the spring. Cindy and I have done a pretty good job of mulching the flower gardens this year using a ground hemlock bark mulch, though some weeds push on through. This is a good time to get rid of those rascals.

I cut back some flowers in the fall but like to leave some tall perennials — birds enjoy their seeds, and some beneficial insects need places to lay their eggs, or to use as shelter. On the other hand, there is a lot to do in the spring, and cleaning up the flower beds now reduces the work later on. Cutting back perennials with a pair of pruning shears is tedious. I prefer to use a serrated harvest sickle that allows me to slice through a handful of stalks in one quick motion.

This is also a good time to divide perennials to make more plants. Peonies, for example, are best divided and moved in late September to mid-October. Dig up daylilies, phlox or asters now the way you would a shrub, and then use a small saw or root knife to divide it into two or more plants. Most plants like being divided, assuming you give them some compost and a little fertilizer

Featured Photo: Photo by Henry Homeyer.