Category: The Gardening Guy

Your fruit trees are ready for a haircut

When I was a boy I loved to climb trees. I had no fear of heights, and loved the unique perspective I got looking down from the top of a tall pine or maple tree. Now that I’m all grown up, I no longer climb trees — unless I have the excuse of pruning, which I also love. On a recent warm, sunny day I got out my pruning tools and ladders to give my fruit trees “haircuts.”

A word about timing: Conventional wisdom has it that you must prune apples and other fruit trees in March. Hogwash. You can prune them any time. I generally stop pruning when flower buds start to open, but prune again in August and in late fall after leaf drop.

Good tools are important for doing a good job. You need sharp bypass pruners (not the anvil pruners that crush the stems), a pair of good loppers and a small hand saw — folding saws with sharp teeth are good. I have bigger saws for large branches and even a small electric chain saw, but rarely use them.

Start by walking around the tree a few times and really looking at the structure of the tree. I want my trees to have enough open space that sunlight can get to every leaf. Sunshine feeds the tree and dries out leaves, helping to minimize fungal diseases. A robin should be able to fly right through a mature apple tree without getting hurt.

My first cuts are usually the biggest branches that need to be removed. It’s easier to remove one 3-inch-thick branch than snip away 50 small branches on it. If you prune every year, you may not have a big branch to remove, but it’s surprising how quickly water sprouts turn into big branches going straight up through the middle of the tree. You can often reduce the height of a tree by shortening big branches.

Water sprouts grow every year on most fruit trees. The first year they are pencil-thin and 12 to 36 inches long. Cut them off as they will just clutter up your tree. Trees grow them in response to a need for more food for the roots, and they are most common in shady parts of the tree where leaves are not getting enough sunshine. Some varieties are more prone to growing water sprouts than others, and a hard pruning may stimulate them to grow in large numbers.

Dead wood should always be removed. In winter there are no leaves on the tree, and it can be tougher to determine what is dead. Look for dry, flaking bark. But the sure test is to take your thumbnail and scratch off a layer of bark. If you see green, it is alive. If not? It’s dead.

Look for rubbing branches, or branches so close that they will grow together. Choose one, and cut it off. Some trees, maples, for example, often send up branches that originate at the same point and are growing in the same direction. Remove one before they grow together and fuse (which results in a weak spot subject to breakage). Maples and birches, by the way, should not be pruned now when the sap is flowing fast. Do them in the fall, or even mid-summer.

Branches often grow away from the center of the tree, as they should, but compete with another branch directly above or below it. Decide which is the better branch, and remove the other. I also look for branches that are headed into the interior of the tree and remove them.

When pruning, don’t leave stubs. Cut back each branch to its point of origin: the trunk, or a bigger branch. This will promote healing.

Fruit spurs on apples and pears produce flowers and leaves, and are indicators where you will have fruit later this year. They are easy to identify: they are short gnarly branches (3 to 6 inches) that have fruit buds. Fruit buds are bigger and fatter than leaf buds. They do not generally appear on young fruit trees. Learn to recognize them: when deciding which of two branches to remove, keep the one with more fruit spurs.

Fruit most often develops on what are called scaffold branches — sturdy branches that leave the trunk on an angle that is almost parallel to the ground, or aiming up slightly. Branches that go more straight up, older water sprouts for example, produce little or no fruit.

You can change the angle of growth of a branch that is only an inch or less thick. Once winter is over, attach string or rope to a branch and tie it to a peg in the ground or to a weight to bend it down. A half-gallon milk jug works well. Just add water until you have the correct angle on the branch. Forty-five to 60 degrees off vertical is fine. You can remove the weights in June.

When pruning, don’t overdo it. Trees need their leaves to feed the roots and fruit. In any given year don’t take more than 25 percent of the leaves (woody stems don’t count when calculating how much you have taken off).

One last fact: A well-pruned tree will produce fruit that is bigger, sweeter and tastier than a tree that has been neglected. I don’t want lots of little fruit, and I try to remove some each year in June to encourage fruits to grow to full size. Leaves that get plenty of sunshine will produce more sugars for the fruit, so it will taste better. So get to work!

Featured photo: Fruit spurs are short with a fat bud or two. Courtesy photo.

It’s time to get ready!

I love starting seedlings indoors when it’s still cold and raw outside. It makes me dream of summer and the first red tomato. For me, it is still too early to plant most things, and I certainly don’t want to have to baby my seedlings along for 12 weeks or more. But if you haven’t ever set up grow lights and don’t have all the equipment for indoor growing, now is the time to get everything you need before the stores sell out.

First, some basics: You need lights over your seedlings in order to get good plants. Yes, I know some people grow things on a bright windowsill for a few weeks, but getting sturdy tomato plants or zesty zinnias requires supplemental lighting.

Second, you can’t use garden soil to grow your seedlings. Ordinary garden soil is too heavy and gets compacted with watering, and it may harbor fungal diseases. You need to purchase potting soil.

Last, you need a place that is at least 60 degrees but no more than 70 degrees. Cooler temps at night are good. Electric heat mats placed under your seedlings will help get quick, even germination but are not required.

There are several types of lights for growing seedlings. For years I used fluorescent lights: 4-footers with fat T-12 tubes. These work but now have been replaced with more energy-efficient, slimmer, T-8 tubes. There are also LED grow lights of various sorts that use even less energy, though those can be very expensive.

Sold as shop lights, T-8 two-tube fixtures should cost around $20 each, plus the fluorescent tubes, which cost around $8 each. But do not, I repeat, DO NOT spend the money to buy full-spectrum tubes, which cost upward of $35 each. You are not raising plants for sale, and for the short time they will spend in your basement, regular cool white tubes are fine. Or mix cool and warm white to get a broader light spectrum.

If you have a warm basement, I’d suggest that the easiest approach for starting a few things would be to use a card table and 4-foot fluorescent fixtures hanging from the ceiling. Put plastic over the table to protect it from water spills.

You can also go to my website, gardening-guy.com, and search for “Building a Plant Stand.” That will give step-by-step directions for building an inexpensive A-frame plant stand that will hold six flats, and have room below it for four to six more flats on the floor.

Your hardware store can sell you something called “jack-chain” that will allow you to adjust the height of your lights as your plants grow. Ideally, your lights will hang about 6 inches above the top of your plants. Two 4-foot fixtures, each with two tubes, hanging a few inches apart will illuminate four flats (or trays) of seedlings. When you buy your flats, be sure to get those that do not have holes in the bottom, as some do. The flimsy “six-packs” that fit into the flats come in various sizes, but I always look for the biggest, deepest cells. So, yes, you can get tiny cells that will allow you to plant 48 or even 72 plants in a flat, but there is not much room for roots.

The flimsy six-packs tend to self-destruct easily, particularly if you try to wash them out for re-use. But there are heavy-duty planting trays and cells that will last many years. Gardener’s Supply sells them, along with clear domes to go over them. They cost more but will last forever, and some have self-watering features.

What about the soil mix for growing? Buy good-quality “seed starting mix” labeled as such. I mix it with high-quality compost in a 50-50 ratio. Sometimes I make my own starting mix using peat moss, perlite, vermiculite, compost and a slow-release organic bagged fertilizer. I start about 10 flats of plants each year, so there are cost savings for making my own mix.

Seeds are very susceptible to drying out, which can be lethal. One way to keep that from happening is to check on them often. Once a day is fine. Or, if you have a busy schedule, buy clear plastic covers that fit over each flat. These, like the flats, are reusable. They will steam up and rain the moisture back onto your plants, just like a tropical jungle. Remove them when most cells have plants that have germinated.

How deep should you plant your seeds? About three times the length of the seed. Tiny seeds need just a thin sprinkling of soil mix over them. Bigger things like pumpkin seeds can be covered with half an inch of soil mix. Press down lightly with your fingers after covering the seeds so the soil mix is in good contact with the seed.

Lastly, water them. I like a soda bottle for watering, as it can deliver a nice slow trickle. Water the soil mix before planting, because if it is too dry, it is resistant to absorbing water.

The bottom line is that starting seeds is fun. And it lets you choose plants you might not find at the garden center. So get your materials and set up your lights. I start tomatoes and other frost-sensitive plants six to eight weeks before I would put them in the garden.

Make a wish list of trees you want

I was recently thumbing through my first book, Notes from the Garden, looking for inspiration for yet another winter article. In it I read that I had planted my Merrill magnolia in 2001. I had forgotten that I planted it just 20 years ago this spring — it feels like it has always been there!

Looking out the window at that handsome tree that blooms each April with a thousand large, lightly fragrant double white blossoms made me think: How many of us plant a tree with a vision of what it will be like in 20 years? I had mainly hoped it would survive to bloom modestly, but it has been a magnificent tree for a decade or more.

I invite you to draw up a wish list this winter. Think of big, majestic trees that you wish to have and figure out where you could plant them. Dream of flowering trees. Think of native trees that will feed the baby birds with the thousands of barely noticeable caterpillars that feed on their leaves. Imagine a recliner in the shade of a tree you have planted. Picture grandchildren playing in its shade.

I think it’s important to realize that trees get to be of a good size fairly quickly. Most grow two to three feet per year, some even more than that. So what if you are 60 or 70 or 80 years old? Even if you never live to see it bloom or drop nuts on the lawn, you are improving the environment, now and in years to come.

Years ago I visited author, illustrator, eccentric and well-known recluse Tasha Tudor at her home in southern Vermont. She was in her late 80s at the time but still was planting trees. She asked me if I could help her find two specific crabapple varieties that she had planted 30 years before but was unable to find anywhere.

One variety I found at EC Brown’s nursery in Thetford, Vermont. The other I could not find, so I asked her where she had purchased it. She told me that she bought it at Weston Nurseries, and I called them. The woman who answered the phone remembered her, and the fact that she traveled with a rooster under her arm. Amazingly, she also remembered the fellow who waited on her that day; he still worked there, and he was brought to the phone. He explained that the variety was no longer in production. End of story.

Actually, it was not. I saw Wayne Mezitt, the owner of Weston Nurseries, at a trade show, and told him the story of his people remembering Tasha. He said he would make her some of the trees she wanted by grafting branches onto root stock. And he did. Three years later, Wayne and I met and presented Tasha with the trees she wanted. By then she was past 90 but still planting trees. Did she ever get to see them blossom? Unlikely, but I love the idea of someone her age planting trees. I hope to do the same.

If you plant trees over a long period of time it is hard to keep track of when you planted them,and the variety planted. Keeping track takes real discipline. In my experience, tags are fine for a few years, but eventually they get lost or the writing fades until it is unreadable.

If you are linked closely to your phone or tablet, that might be one way to keep track of what you plant — until the phone dies or gets replaced. I don’t have a cell phone, so I cannot advise how to keep records on it. But I do take lots of photos and they are in my computer by date, so I should be able to find most anything I plant — so long as I label well — and the computer doesn’t eat things, which mine does from time to time.

I like writing things down, using a real pen, sometimes even using my trusty fountain pen. Years ago I bought a 10-year Gardener’s Journal from Lee Valley Tool Co. They still sell them, and at about the same price: $32.90. It is hard-covered and durable. The only thing it lacks is a search function. It has a page for every day of the year, and 10 sections per page — a few lines for every day. In principle I would write the weather, what I planted or pruned or dug out every day. But life gets in the way of even the best of intentions.

I like old-fashioned “3×5” cards for making lists: to-do lists, grocery lists. They fit nicely in a pocket and good ones are quite sturdy. My Winter Resolution (like a New Year’s resolution, but made after Groundhog Day) is this: I will fill in a note card every time I plant something. I have an old-fashioned wooden box designed for 3×5 cards, and I will use it to keep track of my plantings this year.

So what will go on the cards? First I have to decide if I will use common names or scientific names for alphabetizing the plants. I will use the scientific names, as that is how I think of most of my plants. But I will also include common names. Date planted, source of the plant, where planted, perhaps soil amendments added or any other details that might be useful. If plants die, I will keep the card, but place a black dot on the upper right corner of the card.

Last fall I wrote up a list of woody plants I have planted here in Cornish Flat since I bought my house in 1970. I listed nearly 80 species or varieties. I think I’ll fill in a card for each tree on the next raw, gray, wet day.

Featured Photo: Wayne Mezitt presents Tasha Tudor a White Weeper crab apple. Photo courtesy of Henry Homeyer.

Basic books to get you started

I know that many people, especially gardeners under the age of 40, use the internet to find the answers to their questions. That is fine, but the internet is full of “fake news” and spurious assertions. I do use the web, but if I want to learn about something in depth, I reach for a book. People who write books generally write about things they know. Garden books are written by gardeners.

Some years ago I taught a class in sustainable gardening at Granite State College, part of the University of New Hampshire system. I asked my students to buy The Garden Primer by Barbara Damrosch. This paperback is a compact 800 pages of readable, educational information about nearly every aspect of gardening. It came in out on 2008, but is still in print. Everyone could benefit by owning it.

For a book on vegetable gardening there is none better than Vermont’s own Ed Smith’s The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible. With more than a million copies sold, this book goes into detail on every veggie you could grow — when and how to plant, how long seeds last, when to harvest, and much more.

Are you interested in flower gardening? My first choice of books would be Tracy DiSabato-Aust’s book, The Well-Tended Perennial Garden: Planting & Pruning Techniques. She is obviously a well-experienced gardener and designer, and one who has learned to get her flowers to re-bloom, or bloom at a shorter height, and who knows how much sun and water each needs. Staking? Dividing plants? It’s all there and more.

For the serious flower gardener or landscape professional I would recommend a 1,100-page book by Allan M. Armitage: Herbaceous Perennial Plants: A Treatise on their Identification, Culture, and Garden Attributes. This book came out in 1989 and it is now its fourth edition, which came out in 2020. My goal for the winter is to read it, or the relevant parts, cover to cover. Why? Because I can learn from a man who is not only a Ph.D. professor but a hands-on gardener of many decades.

There are plants in the book that I absolutely lust for. Unusual plants that will fill niches in my diverse garden beds. It also tells me why some plants I have tried have died out. It informs me about named varieties to look for that have special attributes.

Dr. Armitage is opinionated and often funny. I like that. It has some photos, but certainly not one for every flower mentioned. This is not a coffee table book, but a book for plant collectors, landscapers — and fanatics. At just under $80, I think it’s a bargain.

Trees? The most prolific and best informed expert, in my opinion, is Michael Dirr. I use his Manual of Woody Landscape Plants: Their Identification, Ornamental Characteristics, Culture, Propagation and Uses every week of the year. It has informed me about any tree or shrub I want to know about. Now in its sixth edition, it sells new for $81.80, but it is available used for much less (usually earlier editions).

Professor Dirr also has written many other books, several of them with terrific color photos (in contrast to his Manual, described above, which has only drawings). I spent one winter going through his Dirr’s Encyclopedia of Trees and Shrubs with its descriptions of 3,700 species and cultivars and 3,500 photos.

Pruning is key to keeping your woody plants looking good. My favorite pruning book is by Lee Reich, The Pruning Book. With both diagrams and photographs, this book covers many species and their specific needs. His book Grow Fruit Naturally is another excellent book you might want.

Soil is the key to good gardening but a topic that is usually boring and scientifically described. Want an easy explanation of how it works? Try a book by Dianne Miessler, Grow Your Soil: Harness the Power of the Soil Food Web to Create Your Best Garden Ever. It explains very well how soils work, what soil test results mean, and how to correct deficiencies. You don’t need to be a scientist to read this one ($16.95 in paper).

Stone is a key element in many gardens, part of the “bones” of a garden. Dan Snow, a Vermont dry stonewaller and stone artist, has written a number of fine books on using stone. Listening to Stone and In the Company of Stone both offer practical and philosophical advice and share many fine photos of his projects.

Gordon Hayward, a Vermont landscape designer and prolific author, also has an excellent book on how to use stone, Stone in the Garden: Inspiring Designs and Practical Projects. Want to build a stone path or a retaining wall? Hayward simplifies the process. As with Dan Snow’s books, great photographs full of ideas.

Sydney Eddison is another prolific garden writer with many fine titles. Her The Gardener’s Palette: Creating Color in the Garden taught me a lot about the use of colors in the garden. Her advice is always practical and nicely explained.

So invest in some books this winter, curl up in a comfy place and see what you can learn that will help you, come spring.

Featured Photo: Two fine books on perennial flowers. Courtesy photo.

Mid-winter care for sad indoor plants

Are you suffering from the mid-winter blahs? More importantly, are your houseplants? We can’t be in our gardens outside now — except for a few stalwarts who are pruning, I suppose — but we can take good care of our houseplants.

Although I have not the passion for houseplants that I do for plants outdoors, my friends seem to think it is all right to dump tired or depressed houseplants on me — I mean, they gift me houseplants that need a little extra care. This winter I ended up with around 50 houseplants, including a banana tree, cacti of various sorts, a gardenia and much, much more. That’s fine. I will re-gift some in the spring or summer, and move the rest outdoors.

One of the best things you can do for your houseplants is to be judicious in watering. More is not better! Roots will rot, especially if the soil mix has gotten compacted over the years (as organic matter has been depleted).

That said, as February transitions to March, the sun is stronger than it was in January, and the plants are waking up for spring. Their roots are growing and seeking moisture. Instead of watering once a week, twice a week is better for some. Leaves are growing and need more water.

Rosemary plants, which do well in dry climates like California or the Mediterranean coast, do not survive if their roots become totally dry. Outdoors there, their roots go down deep to a soil layer that is slightly moist all year. But in a pot? It’s easy to let them dry out.

If you see the leaves start to wilt, water immediately! Sadly, if you miss a watering and the plant is in a sunny window, your plant may die. And then, no matter how much you water your dead rosemary, it will not come back to life. I know, I’ve tried. Just harvest the leaves and use them in the kitchen.

I keep a woodstove chugging along day and night, all winter. I keep a kettle on it to add a little moisture to the air, but that is not nearly enough to keep most houseplants happy. The best thing you can do if you have a warm, dry house is to buy a humidifier. This will make you more comfortable, too.

I have a small humidifier in the bedroom that will deliver a gallon of water to the air in 12 hours, but that is a drop in the bucket for an entire house. So I also have a cabinet-style humidifier that will deliver 5 gallons of water to the house in 12 hours. It wicks up water and then blows air over the wick to evaporate it. Since I have an open-plan home, this helps throughout the downstairs. Still, it is a struggle to keep the house at 40 percent relative humidity, my goal. It would be easier to do if I kept it running 24/7, but I don’t like the sound of the fan all day, and mainly run it at night. I fill the humidifier with a watering can from the garden that I fill in the bathtub.

Last fall Cindy asked if I knew a greenhouse that would keep a client’s gardenia for the winter. She said she’d been told they were fussy, needed high humidity and were aphid-prone. I asked one greenhouse, and was told $5,000 would be about right for caring for one for four or five months. Huh. So I decided to do it — for free, and for the challenge of it.

The gardenia was loaded with flower buds when it came to the house in October. So far, we have had two flowers blossom, but most dried up and fell off. Still, getting any blossoms is a victory, I think. So how did I do it? I’d like to say it is aphid-free because I washed the leaves and growing medium carefully before bringing it in the house. That’s what I would recommend. But life was busy, and it’s a 4-foot-tall tree in a 50-pound pot, so I just lugged it in — frost was predicted.

I carried it upstairs to our cool, sunny laundry room. I filled a 12-inch plant saucer with small stones, and kept the saucer full of water. The gardenia sat on the stones and breathed in the evaporated moisture. I also sprayed the gardenia with a special plant misting device made by Florasol. This sprays a very fine spray with an easy squeeze and is the best of the sprayers I’ve tried.

Still, it was not happy. Buds dried and dropped. I moved it into a bathroom where the shower is used twice a day, morning and evening. Everyone was asked to spray anytime they were in the bathroom. But there was not enough sunshine, and still no blossoms opening up.

Finally I hauled it back down the spiral staircase (losing buds along the way) and set it next to my desk and computer, the warmest place in the house. I set up that big humidifier nearby and keep the hand sprayer handy. It is in a bright, west-facing window and is in flower now. And no signs of aphids!

In March I will start to help some dormant plants to wake up. I’ve had a fig tree and a crape myrtle in pots in our dark basement at 40 degrees all winter. They’ve dropped all leaves, and I only water them every six weeks or so, and lightly. But I will bring them up into the house and give them a taste of liquid fertilizer — just a light dilution. I like Neptune’s Harvest fish and seaweed formula. That worked fine last winter.

So keep an eye on your houseplants, and if they get dusty you can take one in the shower with you and give it a good spray.

Featured Photo: Gardenias are fussy and hard to get to bloom indoors. Photo by Henry Homeyer.

Winter veggies by the bowlful

There is something about a bowl of warm soup on a cold winter day that warms the heart and soul as well as filling the tummy. And if the ingredients are from your own garden, the soup tastes even better! Here is a soup I made largely with ingredients from my garden.

This is a vegan recipe, but you can include some of your favorite sausage in it, or cook sausage on the side and add it to your bowl at mealtime if other members of your household don’t want meat.

The quantities listed below are enough for a large pot of soup able to feed six or eight, but they are only intended to give you an idea of proportions. You can cut the recipe in half. Or double it if you have half a dozen ravenous teenagers. Each time I make it I vary the ingredients and spices.

Henry’s Homegrown Winter Soup

4 cups cooked dry beans such as Jacob’s cattle beans or black beans

2 cups leeks

½ cup chopped shallots

2 tablespoons smashed and chopped garlic

2 cups chopped kale

5 medium carrots (about 12 ounces by weight)

30 ounces tomatoes, either frozen whole or one large can

1 medium butternut squash (about a pound)

¼ teaspoon chipotle pepper powder

1 tablespoon fennel

1 teaspoon each oregano and marjoram

2 tablespoons tomato paste

1 to 2 cups sweet peppers

2 tablespoons finely chopped jalapeno pepper

Salt and pepper to taste

A day ahead of “soup day” I measured out a cup and a half of our home-grown dry beans and soaked them overnight. Then I drained and rinsed them, and cooked them in water for an hour and a half. They produced four cups of beans when cooked. They should not be hard or crunchy, but not mushy when the soup is done, either. Beans stored longer take longer to cook.

Other dry beans can be used, but pinto beans tend to get mushy when cooked a long time. And if you forget to soak dry beans, you can use canned beans — three standard 14-ounce cans would be needed — after draining and rinsing.

I cooked my soup in a six-quart heavy enameled cast iron French cooking pot. I started by sautéing the leeks, shallots and garlic in a little olive oil on low heat. You can use onions instead of leeks, but leeks freeze well and I grow a lot of leeks. My supply of onions from my garden is low by now, so I used leeks. When the garlic started to brown I added a quart of water and the beans, and cooked at medium heat.

While that was happening I chopped two cups of kale that I had picked that day from my garden. Yes, even in early February my kale was still OK, despite freezing and thawing many times. I also have bags of kale in my freezer. I remove the mid-rib before chopping. I added it to the soup, along with five medium carrots cut in rounds, not too thinly.

Carrots and onions come in lots of varieties, including those labeled “for storage.” Storage carrots last for months in a spare fridge or cold cellar (so long as you keep them protected from mice). The classic storage carrot is a variety called Bolero. Plant on the Fourth of July weekend for fall harvest. Patterson is the yellow storage onion I grow.

Next I added a little hot pepper — not enough to notice, but enough to add complexity to the broth. I had frozen chopped jalapenos peppers I grew in 2018, and added some along with a smoky dry pepper I buy called chipotle. Fennel seeds complement carrots well in a stew, so I added a tablespoon of them, and some marjoram and oregano we had grown and dried.

Tomatoes are central to most soups and stews I make, so I freeze large quantities of them whole and store in zipper bags for winter use. I used nine two-inch tomatoes that weighed 30 ounces — roughly one big can from the store if you don’t have your own. To thaw them I submerged the tomatoes in a bowl of hot water for five minutes or so, and I chopped them coarsely.

Why are tomatoes a key ingredient? They contain the fifth flavor our tongues recognize, one called umami. Americans seem not to know much about it. We recognize sweet, sour, salty and bitter, but not umami, which is Japanese for “essence of deliciousness.” So I used not only those frozen tomatoes but a cup of dried Sungold tomatoes and two cubes of tomato paste I froze in an ice cube tray.

I have a few winter squash I’ve been storing in a cool room, but they don’t last forever, so I peeled and cut one in small chunks for the soup. After peeling and coring, it weighed about 12 ounces.

Lastly I added two cups of sweet peppers. I bought a half bushel last fall and froze it all in zipper bags. No blanching required, and they add a lot of sweetness to the recipe.

Use whatever veggies you have in your freezer and larder. Keep tasting, and add spices, salt or sweet things (like more carrots or dried tomatoes) until you have it just right. Bon appetit!

Featured Photo: Ingredients from the freezer. Photo by Henry Homeyer.

Holly, hemlock and more seasonal favorites

I recently asked a few readers, garden friends and tree experts a question: “What is your favorite tree in winter?” It’s not easy to pick just one, any more than most of us would be willing to name a favorite child. I invite you to think about the question, and perhaps, come spring, you will want to plant one if you haven’t already.

Pamela Kirkpatrick of Swansea, Massachusetts, sent me this: “I love the winter landscape, and, next to my family, trees are my greatest love. American holly, which comes into its own in winter, both for its gleanings and the way it reflects light. Beech of any kind, for showing off its muscular trunk when not in leaf. White pine, troublesome as it is with its brittle limbs, because it is home to an owl who returns there every winter and serenades us with his call.”

Lynn Schadd of Cornish emailed me saying, “Amur maackia is for me the best four season-interest tree in the garden. And right now its magnificent bark is stealing the show peeling, curling, showing off plates of designer colors all of which may be easily seen since the tree has no oak-like aspirations of bigness.”

Lisa Lovelette of Waterbury Center, Vermont, wrote, “My favorite winter tree is the pine tree when dressed in white. I am a hobbyist photographer and nothing is more beautiful than a stately pine dressed in white when placed in front of a beautiful Vermont sunset, sunrise, or majestic sky … and a rising bright and bold full moon in the background makes the dressed pine a standout.”

Anne Raver of Providence, Rhode Island, is a former New York Times garden writer. Here’s what she said: “My favorite tree is the scarlet oak, or the white oak, or the red oak, any kind of oak. They support hundreds of species of insects, whose caterpillars feed on the leaves, and who provide crucial food for birds. Also, the red and scarlet oaks turn beautiful colors.”

Donnamarie Kelly of Salem wrote, “By far my favorite winter tree is the hemlock. When snow-laden, the boughs remind me of ballerina hands dipping delicately downward. Hemlocks are full, projecting a sense of being in the ‘woods’ even when in a simple grove of two or three trees.“

Julie Moir Messervy is a world-renowned garden designer and author of many great garden books. She emailed, “Our land in Vermont was an old sheep farm, as were so many. My favorite tree (in winter and also all year long) is a stately white oak (Quercus alba) that may well date from the 1800s. For me, it’s a “cosmic tree” that shades and shields our deck and screen porch from the harsh western sun, while opening its boughs to the cool summer winds. It is home to squirrels, porcupine and at least 13 types of birds in winter….”

Christine MacManus of Narragansett, Rhode Island, emailed, “A favorite winter tree of mine is a neighbor’s Stewartia with its wonderful bark of mottled patterns and colors. I’ve kept my eye on this tree for 40 years and sometimes pull mulch away from the trunk flare. And of course the summer flowers are a bonus too.”

My favorite tree authority, Mike Dirr, author of Manual of Woody Landscape Plants, could not limit himself to just one or two. He emailed, saying, “I love Nyssa sylvatica (black tupelo), Fagus grandifolia (American beech), Quercus alba (white oak), Liriodendron tulipifera (Tulip tree) and Quercus bicolor (swamp white oak) for starters.”

I know Professor Dirr is particularly fond of “majestic trees” — trees that tower over the landscape and last for 100 years or more, and all of those he mentioned can do so.

J.D. Lavallee of Henniker loves blues spruces: “In the winter, I just loved how the snow is caught in their branches forming beautiful white pillows. And light snows simply add a beautiful dusting of their needles.”

Tom Bacon of Hanover emailed, “I love the majesty of the hemlocks in general, but the way they hold the snow is beautiful in the winter and just stunning compared to other evergreens.”

As for me? My favorite is the hybrid Merrill magnolia I planted long ago as a specimen tree in the back of the house. I love its smooth gray bark and the fuzzy buds like pussywillows on steroids. Those buds remind me that spring is coming, no matter how cold the weather now. Of the native trees, I love the hop hornbeam (Ostrya virginiana) in winter. The bare branches are fine and delicate, with tiny buds. The lateral branching patterns are so ornate and beautiful that I hung one on the ceiling above my computer.

One last perspective came from my friend Alicia Jenks of Weathersfield, Vermont. She noted that American beech trees produce a lovely rustling sound on breezy winter days. The young trees hold their leaves until May and provide a quiet symphony in winter. And pines make such a soothing song on breezy days, too. So go outside to look — and listen — to the trees. Pay attention, and your trees may surprise and delight you.

Featured Photo: Flower buds on my Merrill magnolia are like pussywillows all winter. Photo by Henry Homeyer.

What to get, when to plant and how to make them last

I hate to be the one to give you bad news, but some seed companies are already running out of seeds. Don’t panic: There are, in fact, plenty of seeds out there. And if one company doesn’t have your favorite tomato or zinnia variety, chances are that some other company will.

Before panicking, you might want to go to your local feed-and-grain store, garden center or food coop for seeds, too. Most of those have racks of seeds, some with just one brand, others with several.

Most seeds are good for three years. Of the seeds I use, onions and parsnips are good for just one year. Peppers, parsley, corn and leeks are good for two years. Most of the cabbage family (kale, broccoli, etc.) and squash family (cukes and zukes) are good for four years. Basil and some flowers are good for five years.

You can prolong the viability and vigor of your seeds by storing them properly: They do best in a dark, dry place cooler than 40 degrees. Freezing is fine, too, but put them in an airtight container. In fact, that’s always a good idea.

Despite what I wrote above, I have germinated seeds much older than the suggested limits when I have not been able to find the varieties I wanted. There are downsides to using old seeds. They generally germinate at much lower rates. You can test this by wrapping 10 older seeds in a paper towel and keeping it moist on a sponge. If fewer than half germinate in a week or two, buy new seeds. You can do that now, before you place your seed order.

Older seeds also have less vigor. That is the main reason I avoid them, even if they will germinate at 60 percent. Not all seeds are created equal, and I want those that are ready to explode with pent up energy, ready to grow.

It’s important to know which seeds need to be started indoors and which can do well planted directly in the ground. All your root crops are best started outdoors in the ground, though beets can be started indoors. Beans and peas are direct seeded outside, too. Corn can be started in the ground or indoors in flats. Crows love freshly germinated corn seeds with a little green leaf, so planting four-inch plants started indoors is good if you have just a small plot.

Although you can start the vine crops directly in the soil, I have troubles with striped cucumber beetles killing the young plants when they first germinate by stripping them of their first leaves. So I start squash-family vines in small pots indoors a month or so before outdoor planting day, and the plants are big enough to survive some leaf damage by those insect pests.

Tomatoes, eggplants, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kale and lettuce I start indoors in April or buy in six-packs. Peppers and some flowers need to be started indoors very early: March 1 is good where I am.

What are my favorite companies? This year I ordered most of my seeds from Fedco Seeds, a co-op based in Maine. I like that it’s a cooperative and does everything in a low-key, sustainable way: Their catalog has no color pictures designed to make me drool. They offer small seed packs for as little as $2. And instead of saying that every tomato variety is “The Best Tasting” they tell the flaws as well as the positive attributes of each variety.

I always get some things from Johnny’s Selected Seeds, an employee-owned company in Maine that is favored by commercial growers. They provide excellent growing information. This year they provide excellent comparison photos in each section, like all their tomatoes, side by side, for example.

Last year I tried John Scheepers’ Kitchen Garden Seeds and liked them a lot. If you are interested in unusual vegetables like shiso, Karikachi edamame, tatsoi and mizuna, they have plenty to choose from. They even have peanuts for northern gardeners! Like Fedco, no color photos in the catalog.

Like Italian food? Seeds from Italy carries the Franchi brand Italian seeds and more. They also have kitchen items, garden tools and more. All high quality.

Hudson Valley Seeds started as a seed library in New York state and became an excellent seed company with seeds others do not carry, like their Siberian watermelon.

Fruition Seeds in upstate New York is another favorite of mine. They grow much of their seed on their 24-acre farm, specializing in heirloom seeds for short seasons like those we have in New England. They have some nice varieties not found elsewhere. The owners are young and full of energy, and grow only organic seeds.

Renee’s Garden Seeds has great seeds but no print catalog. Still, I order from them most years. I love their mixes of different color veggies in one pack — three colors of beans, or two colors of carrots.

And lastly, don’t forget Burpee Seeds, one of the oldest and biggest seed companies for the home gardener. They sell lots of varieties that they have developed, especially disease-resistant hybrids.

So get busy, and buy your seeds now before all get sold!

Featured Photo: Seed catalogs. Photo by Henry Homeyer.

Why growing — and eating — organic is important

I’ve been growing vegetables organically all my life. I use no chemical fertilizers or pesticides. I don’t often think about the reasons I do so, any more than I think about breathing — it’s just something I do.

I recently picked up a book written by Maria Rodale called The Organic Manifesto: How Organic Farming Can Heal Our Planet, Feed the World, and Keep Us Safe (Rodale Press, 2010) and it reminded me why I do so. I’d like to share some of the important points with you here.

In the introduction Eric Schlosser (author of the fabulous book Fast Food Nation) presented some stark facts: American farmers use 1.2 billion pounds of pesticides each year — four pounds for every man, woman and child. Some of these pesticides — the organophosphates — were first developed in Germany in WWII as chemical weapons. The federal government does not require reporting of usage, and testing is done by manufacturers, not the EPA or USDA. Most food has some pesticide residue — except for organic foods, which shouldn’t have any.

One of Maria Rodale’s reasons for eating only organic food might surprise you: It has to do with climate change. Soils treated with chemicals, including fertilizers, do not have robust populations of microorganisms. Organic soils do. Key among these living beings are the mycorrhizal fungi that coat the roots of plants in organically tended soils. These fungi sequester huge amounts of carbon, taking greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere and holding it in the soil. But they are virtually non-existent in soils treated with chemicals. Grow organically? Eat organically? You are helping the environment.

Secondly, irrigation water for commercial agriculture, particularly in the West, uses large quantities of water, depleting aquifers and polluting ground water. When I traveled through the Midwest in the early 2000’s I was amazed that supermarkets designated entire aisles to jugs of water — no one wanted to drink from their own wells. And there is a dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico that is bigger than New Jersey caused by agricultural runoff of chemicals from conventional fields.

Children are particularly vulnerable to chemicals used in commercial farming. Rates of childhood cancers, asthma, diabetes, autism and other debilitating conditions continue to increase. Ms. Rodale attributes (with copious footnotes to scientific studies) many of these changes to the chemicals children consume. As she says, “Cheap food equals high health care costs.”

The “organic” label on food also means that no genetically modified organisms were used in producing your food. Back in 2010 when Rodale wrote the book, 91 percent of all soybeans and 95 percent of all corn produced in America was genetically modified to be tolerant of a weed killer called glyphosate, sold under the trade name Roundup.

There has been much controversy about Roundup, and whether it is harmful to humans. Ms. Rodale points out that Roundup cannot be washed off food: It has a surfactant that allows the chemical to penetrate the cell wall. And since corn and soy are used to manufacture many foods, from ice cream to baby food and ketchup, it is everywhere. The federal government does not consider Roundup a problem, though many scientists do.

Ms. Rodale never once, in this book, criticized conventional chemical farmers. Organic or conventional, she recognized their hard work and a desire to work their land and support their families. She recognizes that transitioning to organic farming takes time, money and education.

So what can you do? You may not be able to afford to buy nothing but organic food. But you probably can buy your meats from local farmers that do not use the feedlots of the Midwest that feed their cows and pigs antibiotics. And you can get eggs, as I do, from a local teenager who treats his hens well. (Thank you, Ian’s Eggs.)

For vegetables, you can probably grow some of what you require for vegetables in summer, or buy from a local farm stand. Many farmers are happy to tell you about how they grow their vegetables. The supplier of the local farm stand near me uses an approach called IPA or Integrated Pest Management. This method encourages farmers to use natural controls and to use pesticides only when a crop is threatened. They cultivate crops to root out weeds instead of spraying herbicides like Roundup.

But the bottom line is this: The more you grow organically, the better your soil will be. If you use only organic methods, you can avoid many chemicals in your food that might be present in grocery store foods.

I recognize that I cannot change the world with what I do. But I have learned to grow plenty of vegetables and to keep them for eating out-of-season. So think about a bigger vegetable garden this summer, and I will tell you about how to put food up for next winter when the time comes.

Featured Photo: Image courtesy of Henry Homeyer.

Help your plants make it through winter

If you are like me, you buy new perennials, trees and shrubs every year. Most plants sold locally are hardy, but not all. It’s good to know the “zone hardiness” of plants before you buy them, and how the zone maps work. In a nutshell, the colder the climatic zone, the lower the number.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has created maps showing the climatic zones of all states and regions. They are based on many years of temperature records, and rate each zone according to the coldest average temperatures in each zone. Summer temperatures are not considered in creating the hardiness zones.

Each zone covers a 10-degree range of temperatures. The coldest zone in New England is Zone 3, which includes places where temperatures each winter range between minus 40 and minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit. Some maps include an “a” and “b” designation to further describe the zones. An “a” is 5 degrees colder than a “b.” So Zone 4a is minus 25 to minus 30, and 4b is minus 20 to minus 25.

Trees and perennial plants that survive in Zone 4, which includes much of Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire, should be hardy to minus 30 degrees, though we often only see minus 20 degrees. Zone 5 is minus 20 to minus 10, Zone 6 covers areas where temperatures range between minus 10 and zero, and Zone 7, which includes much of Rhode Island, temperatures only drop down to zero or 10 degrees above.

All that said, you can grow perennials, trees and shrubs that are not rated to be hardy in your zone. The key is to get them well-established before winter arrives and to provide them with growing conditions that are optimal: sun, soil and moisture levels that correspond to their needs. You probably cannot grow perennials and woodies that are rated for two zones warmer than yours, but one zone is generally possible.

Some trees and shrubs will survive in a colder zone but might not bloom every year. Or ever, for that matter. Here in Zone 4, old-fashioned wisteria vines that do well in Connecticut or Rhode Island will survive but their flower buds (which are set the summer before) are spoiled by our cold, so they do not bloom.

Harvey Buchite of Rice Creek Gardens in Blaine, Minnesota, wanted a wisteria that would bloom in his Zone 4 gardens. He was given a seedling on his wedding day 34 years ago, one started from a seed of a fairly tough hybrid. His turned out to be a wonder vine, and he named it the Blue Moon Wisteria and sold it for many years. It blooms reliably after winter temperatures of 30 below. The reason for its success? Blue Moon, unlike most other wisteria, blooms on shoots grown in the current season — on new wood.

I called Harvey Buchite in 2006 and he reported that even after hard winters it will bloom, and often three times each summer. I’ve had one since 2004 and get a very nice set of blooms each year around the Fourth of July. It usually re-blooms a little in the fall. Others have been developed since then that will bloom in Zone 4, including “Amethyst Falls,” which I grow and like even better.

Survival rates in a cold winter can be improved by mulching the roots of your delicate or borderline-hardy plants. I bought a Japanese andromeda this year, even though it is only hardy to Zone 5. In the fall I spread a thick layer of leaves around the base to keep the roots warm as winter approached. I could have used bark chips instead, which is also a good mulch.

Trees and shrubs extend their roots in the fall up until the ground freezes, and I wanted my little shrub to grow as big a root system as possible. And later, when temperatures drop to minus 20 and below, I wanted to keep the roots protected.

That andromeda was loaded with flower buds when I bought it. I may wrap it with burlap or landscape fabric to protect those blossoms from harsh winter winds, though I haven’t yet. In the long run it will have to survive on its own — I have too many plants to fuss over them all every year. The first year is always the most important — once established, plants are tougher.

Sometimes freezing and thawing of the ground will push a plant up and part way out of the soil. This allows roots to be exposed to the air, freezing and dehydrating. That is almost always lethal. But this usually only happens the first winter after planting. Check new plants after a thaw, and if a plant has popped up, push it back down and mulch it well.

Wrapping shrubs or small trees with burlap or a synthetic, breathable cloth will help to protect flower buds from desiccation and dieback. I find roses in my climate often are badly burned by winter winds, but I rarely do anything to protect them. I just cut back the roses to green wood in April or May, and they bloom nicely. I cut back a nice double red “Knockout” rose to the ground this past spring, and it rewarded me with dozens of blossoms all summer, starting in June.

I do lose some plants to winter conditions most years, but don’t feel bad about that. As I see it, I learn something each time one dies, and losing one plant means I can try a new one! Or, if a particularly loved plant does not survive in one location, I may buy another and plant in a different spot.

Henry’s book, Organic Gardening (not just) in the Northeast: A Hands-On, Month-by-Month Guide has been re-printed and will be shipped to people who ordered it soon.

Featured Photo: Blue Moon wisteria blooms on new wood, so is not bothered by cold winters. Photo by Henry Homeyer.