Category: The Gardening Guy

Clean your tools and seize the weeds

Spring arrives in New England in fits and starts: hot and sunny one day, chilly and drizzly the next. Maybe even a few flurries to outrage the impatient gardener. But there is much that can be done now, even on a rainy day.

I much prefer tools with wooden handles: If treated properly they will last your entire lifetime. Every year or two I clean up and oil the handles of my garden tools, which keeps the wood supple. I‘ve got tools with wood handles I’ve used regularly for over 40 years, and some from my grandfather that are more than 75 years old.

First I clean up the handles by rubbing with fine steel wool or, if very rough, with 100 grit sandpaper. Then I wipe them down with a scrap of a towel. Finally I use a brush to paint them with boiled linseed oil. I then let them dry in the sun or in the barn it’s a rainy day, and wipe them down the next day.

Shovels should be sharpened from time to time. Get a wide, medium-rough flat file and push it firmly across the shovel’s edge on the backside of the blade. Take long, slow strikes but do not saw back and forth with your file. Look carefully at the angle it came with, and try to mimic that angle with your file. A sharp shovel is much more efficient than a dull one. But it’s not a good idea to sharpen the blade until it’s knife-sharp. It will dull quickly if you do. Sharpening a dull shovel is not quick work,

Impatient to get things growing in the vegetable garden? Peas, spinach, arugula and lettuce are very cold-hardy and can be planted early by seed, even if frost will still occur. Soil temperatures of 40 degrees are adequate for germination of them, but I think 50 degrees is better. For most seeds, I prefer to wait until the soil hits 50 degrees or more. I worry seeds will rot if the soil is too cold and wet. That goes for potatoes and onions, too. Cukes, squash, pepper and tomato seedlings I don’t plant until June.

Soil thermometers look like little probes with a dial on top, something like the one you poke in a turkey to see when it’s done. Garden centers sell them. If you get one, poke it down 4 inches to get your reading.

If your soil was covered with leaves or straw for the winter, rake that off your planting beds now so that the sun will hit your soil directly and warm it up. Mulch keeps the soil cool. If there are weeds coming up, pull them as soon as you can — no sense letting them get a head start on your plants.

This is also a good time to look for invasive plants on your property. For me, the cast of characters includes bush honeysuckle, barberry, buckthorn and multiflora rose. If you have a Norway maple, you probably have lots of new seedlings from it that are easy to pull.

You can get a list of invasives from your state online, but I found the Vermont Invasive Plants list is best. It includes just the 12 most common, along with pictures, so it’s easier to use.

Many invasives leaf out early and drop their leaves late in the fall. That gives them an advantage over many natives. Honeysuckle puts out greenery in mid-April for me. Burning bush holds its red leaves late in the fall, so it’s easier to find small ones then.

Although not easy, digging out invasives is generally the best way to control them. Cutting them down usually does not kill them. Buckthorn is the worst: Cut one to the ground, and a dozen will grow from the roots. If you can double-girdle all the stems down low, it will die after two winters. Basically, you’re starving the roots from the nutrition produced by the leaves.

Potting mix is readily available at all garden centers, big box stores, and even some mini-marts. But if you are going to fill up lots of flower pots, you can save money by making your own.

If you never emptied your pots and window boxes last fall, you can reuse it this year. First pull the dead plants and dump the used potting soil into a pile. Then make up some new potting soil and mix it 50-50 with your old potting soil.

To make potting soil, mix add equal parts coir or peat moss, compost and perlite (which looks like crumbled Styrofoam but is actually super-heated volcanic minerals) to it in roughly equal quantities in a wheelbarrow until mostly full. Stir well. Add half a cup of a slow-release organic fertilizer like Pro-Gro or Plant-Tone and mix well. It is best to water the peat moss or coir before using as it can be very dry.

When I make potting soil, I don’t measure things exactly. I probably use more compost than perlite or coir. If you have a good source of mature compost, you can save money and add good microorganisms to the soil. The finished product should be fluffy and not quick to clump up when you grab a handful of it. But if you are only going to use a few pots, just buy a bag of potting soil.

So don’t get discouraged by a few cold days now. Summer is on the way, so get ready.

You may reach Henry at henryhomeyer@comcast.net.

Featured photo: Honeysuckles have opposite branching. They leaf out early. Photo by Henry Homeyer.

Take notes now for a nice garden later

This was supposed to be my very last gardening column, but (spoiler alert) it is not. I started writing a gardening column in 1998 and wrote weekly for 25 years. Then in late 2023 I dropped down to once a month. I liked the extra time and freedom it gave me to do other things.

Recently I have been tempted to say, ”Adios, my friends” once I turned 80 this month (same day as Will Shakespeare, different year). But I have decided that I will continue on — as long as I can and still have readers who tell me they learn from the column. And so long as local newspapers, like this one, keep on being willing and able to pay me. Thanks to all of you for your enthusiasm and support.

Despite occasional snows, our gardens are awake in April. Flowering bulbs abound: Snowdrop and winter aconite have been blooming since March; early daffodils, glory of the snow, scilla (also called Siberian squill) and crocus are plentiful. Trees are awakening, too: Spring witchhazel is blooming and leatherwood (Dirca palustris) will bloom by the middle of the month.

Spring is a good time to determine where you should plant bulbs, come fall. Get some plant tags and place them where nothing is coming up, places that would look good with some daffodils or snowdrops. Come fall, most of us cannot remember exactly where we have clusters of spring-blooming bulbs.

Bulb flowers can last decades. My family had hundreds of daffodils that bloomed along the paths through our woods in Connecticut. The high canopy of mature maples was quite dense, but the daffies got enough sunshine to re-charge their energy before the maple leaves were big. I have some clumps of daffodils I moved from there, some 40 years ago. FYI: Planting bulbs under evergreens is not a good idea.

The timing of spring clean-up depends on the weather and where you live. We don’t cut back many of our tall perennials and grasses in the fall as they offer food for seed-eating birds, and some harbor eggs or larvae of pollinators in their hollow stems. We’ll wait until the weather is consistently in the 50s before we clean up and remove dead stems so insects can hatch. We’ll rake and remove debris from mid to late April.

April is a good month for pruning fruit trees. Although there are entire books about pruning, the rules are fairly simple:

1. Never remove more than 20% or 25% of the live, leaf-bearing branches. This may mean spreading out your pruning over two or three years if a tree is badly overgrown. Pile up your branches as you work, so you can estimate more easily how much you have cut off.

2. Don’t leave short stubs of branches. Cut back to the swollen area called the branch collar. This is where it heals.

3. Remove all dead branches. They don’t count in that 25% threshold.

4. If two branches are rubbing, crossing or fighting for sunshine, remove one. Don’t be afraid to cut out large branches.

5. Remove all “water sprouts,” which are thin, pencil-like sprouts growing straight up. Do this every year. Remove any root sprouts, too.

6. Remove branches pointed toward the middle of the tree.

April is a good month for planning what you want to grow this year, and what you want to eliminate. I know people who refuse to cut down trees or dig out shrubs. Not me. If a woody plant is not performing well or is difficult to keep looking nice, I remove it. It opens up a place for something new.

This year Cindy and I plan to plant two more peach trees. I planted a good-sized ‘Contender’ peach in 2021, and although it has produced some peaches they have not been very tasty. So this year I will plant a ‘Reliant’ peach and a ‘Red Haven.’ Both are peaches that are tasty and hardy here in our Zone 5 garden. And I hope to convince Cindy we should remove the ‘Contender.’ She is much less ruthless than I am.

Pay attention to what pleases you in the perennial garden as spring moves along. Last year I planted a few common primroses (Primula vulgaris). They started blooming at the beginning of April this year, a striking bright yellow. I will plant half a dozen more since they bloom so early. They prefer part shade, rich soil and plenty of moisture. Another early primrose is the Drumstick Primrose (P. denticulata). It sends up a purple, blue or white cluster of florets vaguely in the shape of a chicken drumstick.

If you have a good location for primroses, think about obtaining some Candelabra Primroses (P. japonica). These beauties bloom on 2-foot stalks with rings of small trumpets in magenta, pink or white. They grow and produce a new set of flowers each week for four to six weeks starting in mid-May for me. And best yet: They produce lots of seeds and spread quite rapidly. They do best in rich, moist soil beneath mature apple trees. Buy three plants and before you know it you’ll have a dozen, then three dozen. Twenty-five years ago I was given seven plants; now I have more than 500!

I firmly believe that gardening keeps me fit and young. I always have to survive the winter to see what blooms well in the spring and beyond!

You can reach Henry with comments and questions at PO Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 03746 or by email at henry.homeyer@comcast.net.

Featured photo: Drumstick primula is an early spring bloomer. Photo by Henry Homeyer.

You can start plants — even trees — from seed

It seems to me that the prices of many things have gone up significantly in recent times. One way to combat that, as a gardener, is to start plants by seed instead of buying plants that someone else has started, watered and mothered for months.

Many gardeners enjoy starting lettuce or carrots by seed outdoors, but few of us start perennial or biennial flowers by seed. Why is that? Because we want results right away. This summer we want gorgeous new varieties of purple coneflower, black-eyed susans or shasta daisies. Alas, most perennials and biennials will develop into handsome plants this year if started by seed, but few will blossom before next year.

Biennials, by definition, do not bloom in their first year. They grow foliage this year, send up a flower stalk next year, and then, having produced seed, they die. Probably the best-known of these are foxgloves, specifically Digitalis purpurea. It has a flower stalk that is 18 to 60 inches tall, adorned with blooms in pink and purple and shaped a bit like the finger of a glove. One named variety, “Foxy,” will bloom late in its first year if started early enough. Foxglove blossoms bloom in sequence along their stem over several weeks.

Foxgloves do well in part shade and like lightly moist soil. They are easy to propagate: I just cut a stalk that has finished blooming, and shake the small seeds over bare, lightly cultivated soil and pat down without covering. There are also yellow foxgloves that are fully perennial (Digitalis lutea).

Hollyhocks are also terrific biennial flowers, though some books list them as half-hardy perennials. These beauties can grow to be up to 6 feet tall and bloom for a long time. If you cut off the stem as soon as it finishes blooming, sometimes you can confuse the poor thing — it doesn’t know if it produced seed or not. So it may send up another flower stem next year.

Perennials generally live for several to many years. The genus “Sanguisorba” includes several species of perennial flowers, all of which are delightful. The common name for these is burnet. “Sanguisorba canadensis” is our naïve species, a tall, late-flowering wetland species, and is called Canadian burnet. I’ve had a big clump for 20 years at least, and love its fuzzy white pendulous blossoms. Pollinators love it in the fall.

My favorite of the burnets is Sanguisorba hakusanensis or Korean Burnet, one called “Lilac Squirrel.” Why that name? The blossoms are pink to lilac in color and hang down like the squirrel tails attached to bicycle handlebars in the 1950s. Less tall than our native, it does need staking as it can get to be 2 to 4 feet tall. I have found it easy to propagate by seed, and it blooms in its second year. I collect and grow all species of burnets, which can grow from miniatures to big bush clumps of gorgeous foliage 5 feet tall and 5 feet wide, but have not collected seed from them — yet.

Hostas are great foliage plants that do best in shady areas in rich soils. If you collect seed from your favorite hostas be forewarned that most hostas are hybrids and the seeds will not produce plants identical to their seed-producing parent plant. I only planted them by seed once, and I did it with seed from one called “Hosta sieboldii.” The parent plant is known for having variegated leaves, but mine produces all-green leaves. Still, I’ve had that clump for 40 years, and it gives me pleasure every time I walk past it.

Generally it is best to give hosta seeds a cold period of six to eight weeks in your refrigerator. This is true for many varieties of seed, so a good practice for all. Hosta seeds may need some sunshine on them to germinate, so cover them with a very thin layer of soil in their starting pots, or with vermiculite. Mature hostas are easy to divide to get more plants.

What about starting trees from seed? It’s not hard: Blue jays and squirrels do it all the time — they bury them, and forget where they put them, just like us with the car keys. Although you can plant tree seeds, I recommend just looking for first-year seedlings planted by your wildlife. Of course, this works best with native trees like oaks and maples.

Last year I dug up half a dozen sprouted acorns and moved them to an area that needed more trees to screen my property from the road. It was a dry summer and I was less than fully vigilant, so some of them died. But there will be others I can dig up this year. Remember: Watering is key for any first-year planting.

So here is my challenge: Go to your local garden center and buy seed packets for three perennials or biennials. Start them either indoors under lights, or later, outdoors. Buy things that you like and want several plants or even a bed full of. You can fill in a bed of first-year perennials with some annuals that will bloom this year. Please email me how that works out for you if you do so.

Lastly, it might be better to plant flower seeds in small pots rather than in the soil, as it can be difficult to identify them when weed seeds are growing around them. Or plant them in a perfect circle to help identify them. Good luck!

Reach Henry by e-mail at henry.homeyer@comcast.net or by snail mail at P.O. Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 03746. His column appears here monthly.

Featured photo: White Ash bark. Photo by Henry Homeyer.

Identifying trees in winter

If you like to hike or snowshoe in the winter, you might like to learn the names of the trees you see. Do so and the trees will seem like your friends. No need to greet them as Sally and Bob; know them as sugar maple, ash or white pine. Let’s start with a few evergreen trees.

White pine (Pinus strobus) has clusters of five soft needles, each about 3 inches long. Branches grow in whorls off the trunk; each year the tree grows just one new set of branches, so you can see how fast they grow by observing the distance between whorls on the main trunk. From a distance you can see clumps of needles pointing up near the top of the tree.

Canadian hemlock (Tsuga canadensis) has short, flat needles that feel soft to the touch and that have a white line on the underneath side of each. It is one of the few trees in the woods that can grow in deep shade as well as full sun.

There are several kinds of spruce (Picea spp.), but all share this characteristic, which will separate them from hemlock trees: Turn over a branch and observe the color of the leaves. If the needles on the top side and the bottom of the bough are the same color, it is a spruce. And spruce needles are pointy and sharp.

Recognizing bark is a great way to identify trees. Summer or winter, if you know the look of a tree’s bark, you can identify it. It takes practice, of course, and careful observation.

Some bark is very distinctive. Beech (Fagus grandifolia), for example, has a smooth gray bark that you can learn in moments. I love to run my hands over the bark, as if petting an elephant. Young beech, particularly, hold onto their leaves in winter, which is also a good clue. The leaves are oval with sharp points along their edges.

Most everyone can identify white or paper birch (Betula papyrifera) by its white, peeling bark that is easily removed from a tree by enthusiastic Scouts anxious to start campfires. Gray birch (B. populifolia) is similar to white birch but it does not peel like its cousin and has a dirtier look. Yellow birch (B. alleghaniensis) peels like white birch but is a golden or silvery gray color.

But did you know that young white birch are not white at all? They have a deep reddish black color and are spotted with small white dots or short white lines, lenticels that feel rough if you rub your hand over them. Eventually, after seven or eight years, white birch saplings will start to turn white.

Branching patterns help to identify trees at any time of the year. Most species of trees and shrubs have what is called alternate branching. That means that as your eye follows a branch, the twigs and leaves alternate from one side to the other. A limited number have opposite branching with twigs facing each other across a branch. Of course, just to confuse us, sometimes twigs or leaves have broken off on a tree like a maple that should have opposite branching.

There is a mnemonic for trees that have opposite branching: MAD Cap Horse. Translated, that means Maple, Ash, Dogwood, member of the Caprifoliacea family (honeysuckle, viburnum and elderberry, among others) and Horse chestnut. So if you see opposite branching, you can eliminate lots of possibilities.

Of the opposite branching trees, white ash is an easy tree to identify by bark: It has prominent ridges with deep furrows. It is dark brown or deep gray. The leaf buds are large and pointy, and new growth tends to be thicker than that of most other trees. Unfortunately this wonderful tree will probably disappear from our woodlands due to a foreign invader, the emerald ash borer.

Buds at the end of a branch are another distinctive characteristic of trees in winter. Red maple (Acer rubrum) and sugar maple (A. saccharum) can be distinguished by their buds, for example. Sugar maple terminal buds are sharp and pointy, red maple buds are blunt and reddish in color, especially as we approach spring. Sugar maple buds are grayish or purplish-brown. And the bark of an old sugar maple is distinctive.

Oaks have opposite branching and hold on to their leaves throughout part of the winter. There are two major groups of oaks: the red and white oak families. Both have lobed leaves; red oaks have pointy tips on their lobes, while white oaks have rounded lobes. A good tree book can give you clues to narrowing down which of the oaks you are seeing, though red oak (Quercus rubra) and white oak (Quercus alba) are the most common.

When not in the woods, you might want to be at a spring flower show. The Connecticut Flower Show will be in Hartford, Connecticut, Feb. 20–23. The Philadelphia Flower Show is Feb. 28–March 8. The New Hampshire Orchid Society Flower Show will be March 6–8 in Nashua. The Capital Region Flower Show, is in Troy, N.Y., March 27–29. Lastly, the Chelsea Flower Show, in London, England, will be May 19–23. Plan to attend at least one!

Henry is a lifelong organic gardener living in Cornish, N.H. Write him at henry.homeyer@comcast.net. His column appears once a month.

Featured photo: White Ash bark. Photo by Henry Homeyer.