Landscaping with Natives

 Virginia Master Gardeners have some archived webinars on using native plants in your landscape that are worth a look!

https://mgnv.org/reading-room/master-gardener-virtual-classroom/?amp

Pretty Menace

A couple of years ago, when I was waylaid by a health problem, I noticed this pretty plant popping up in my flower garden (the saga of my flower garden is a tale for another day). When I finally got around to IDing it (thank you Virginia Native Plant Society FB page), it had flowered and seeded.  It is purple fumitory, a non-native plant with invasive tendencies. I call it a type of "shot weed," you know, the kind of plant that shoots its seeds about when you pull it when the seeds are ripe (bittercress, another invasive does this, as do impatiens, I believe). This year, I have been staging an eradication campaign to root it up before flowering and have had great success, though need to have 'constant vigilance' (a la Harry Potter and The Dark Arts).  I make regular sweeps through the garden, pulling it up (alas, I did not get the main root when I pulled up the plant in the photo) and also squishing the tiny seedlings from last years "crop."  From this experience I have learned to ID strange new plants as soon as I note them, and remove whatever is an invasive bad actor.

What Happens in Our Backyard?

Want to know what happens in your very own back yard? Woods? Parks? I found a lovely podcast, Backyard Ecology.  I leaned about things I never thought to ask, for example: most lightning bugs (fireflies) don't eat as adults, some flash synchronously, some not. In one species, the males hatch first, climb a tree and latch onto the first female nymph they find so they can mate with her first.  This is a fun podcast, delivered in a conversational, non-jargony way, that opened my eyes even more to the world around me!

Find it at:

https://www.backyardecology.net/posts/podcast/

Book Review: Ken Thompson, Darwin's Most Wonderful Plants

 

This a delightful short book, describing Charles Darwin's fascination with plants and the many plant experiments he carried out at Down House...and some of these experiments were quite extensive!  The book starts with his experiments on twining, vining, and climbing plants and the way plants accomplish these behaviors (yes, behaviors! There is more to plants than meets the eye!). I sort of knew the difference, but still learned so much, about the strategies of honeysuckles, legumes, and Virginia creeper.  But the book also addresses pollination strategies, orchids, and the relationship between plants, nectar, and flowers.  The author fills us in with more recent research that often validates Darwin's explanations. I think this book will make me a more keen observer of what goes on in my garden!

PS If you are interested in repeating some of these experiments, esp. with kids, try this book:

https://www.amazon.com/Darwins-Backyard-Small-Experiments-Theory-ebook/dp/B01M4JOSRX

Ginger and Turmeric Update

 

Maybe I did start my ginger and turmeric a bit too early (mid-January)? The photo shows the size of the plants on March 5!  They have outgrown their dome cover. I am keeping them on a heat mat to provide local heat in my sometimes chilly sun room..fingers crossed! Target date to plant out is June 1. By the way, the ginger has the thinner leaves, the turmeric leaves are more rounded.

YIKES

I am sure you have all heard that seeds (and other garden supplies) are harder to find this year, as many people discovered the joy of gardening with their 2020 pandemic gardens.  Welcome to year 2 of pandemic gardening!  I have read that there are some strategies to use to get seeds: 

1. Check back with seed suppliers often, especially with smaller seed houses (not big ones like Burpee).  Smaller seed houses often have the seeds, but have limited ability to package them (limited packs to put them in and machinery to package them).

2. Be more flexible in terms of varieties.  The seed company doesn't have your preferred  summer squash? Read the descriptions and try another. You might find a new favorite!

3. Look at your older seed packs! Some seeds are viable for 4 or 5 years, like squash, eggplant, tomatoes, beans. Others are viable for two years- ex. basil and greens from the mustard family.  Others are not viable beyond one year- ex. lettuce and carrots.

4. Seed swap!  Join a local gardening social media page and swap away!  Seeds are inexpensive to mail.

5. See if your community has a seed library, either through Virginia Master Gardeners or your public library.

6. Look to non-traditional places to buy seeds, like grocery stores. 

I have recently hit a little bit of a wall in purchasing seed starting mix and peat pots.  Either the mix is not available, or the price has tripled.  If you have or can buy the components of a seed starting mix, you can DIY:

Seed Starting Mix Recipe:

- 4 parts compost 

- 1 part perlite 

- 2 parts peat moss*

Some recipes call for vermiculite, but I avoid this mined material. Perlite is not so great RE: the environment either, being a volcanic glass that is superheated.  You could try washed sand instead. *You can substitute ground coir for peat moss). (PS If you do find seed starter mix, try to avoid kinds with chemical fertilizers in them, like Miracle Grow. These harsh fertilizer salts are not good for tiny seedlings).

As for peat pots: I really like these, but in a pinch I can make a pot out of a few sheets of newspaper.  I curl it into a tube, staple the top together, and fold in the paper on the bottom to make a cup. You can buy specific molds for these, but I think you can DIY that, too.

Good luck all!

Seed Starting from the Williamsburg Botanical Garden (WBG)

 A very informative webinar from the WBG on seed starting is now on Your Tube: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_okQa3dUGC0

Crape Myrder

Ah, a sunny, spring weekend!  Going to putter around the yard and break out those pruners, loppers, and the chain saw?  But wait! Please, resist the urge to top your crape myrtles!  (This is a reminder, see a more extensive post on crape myrtles from a few years back).  Thanks to the VA Cooperative Extension Service for this infographic!

Native and Invasive Species Awareness Week: NISAW

 

 I missed marking this year's Native and Invasive Species Awareness Week, oops!  But, still, there is some good info out there on what to avoid and what to plant, and resources, like this, from Blue Ridge PRISM:

 NISAW

New Construction

 

I have been thinking about new construction a lot lately. This is probably because we live in an area where many new subdivisions are being built. A thought that occurred to me is how hard is it to garden in these new subdivisions? I think there are several strikes against gardening in these settings.

Soil compaction
Just today I was walking through a new subdivision, parts of which are still under construction. One of the things I noticed was how heavily compacted is the soil. When a new subdivision is being built, site preparation begins. This is often involve stripping off a lot of the topsoil, piling it up in a big heap, and selling it off. More on this later. I have no idea how many times the average piece of property is run over by a backhoe, dump truck, or other heavy piece of equipment, but it's a lot, and this all leads to soil compaction. Why is this bad? When soils are compacted they are extra-heavy, air pockets are squeezed out of them, and it is often difficult for roots to grow in them.  Biological activity, like decomposition, greatly slows down. This is why you see many trees in subdivisions not make it after a few years, there's really nowhere for the roots to go easily.

Construction debris
What I have observed, though this may not be universally true, is that when one house is being built, the lot next door is used to park the dumpster and/or to dump construction debris. Not just bits of wire and conduit, but also piles of gravel, chunks of wood, broken plasterboard, dumped paint. Many of these things, when they got to a certain size, are impossible to extract from the soil and linger, later interfering with planting.

Soil type
I wrote earlier that topsoil is often stripped off the top of the entire subdivision and moved elsewhere. Once I looked up the soil type in my general area and was pleased to find that I was in an area of Pamunkey loam, one of the most beautiful soils in America. However, I live in ta subdivision, and the Pamunkey loam was probably stripped off a long time ago. The top few layers of the soil are the most important. This is where leaves and other organic debris are breaking down producing wonderful soil texture and many nutrients. Often under that are less nutrient-dense soil, perhaps clay, sand, or gravelly dirt.  This does not make gardening impossible, but does necessitate raised bed gardening.

HOA'S
If you buy into a subdivision with a homeowners association, and many are these days, you often find severe restrictions on your ability to garden. One of the frustrating things is that you are required to have a lawn, which requires lots of polluting upkeep. If your sunniest place is in the front yard and you want to put a vegetable garden there, chances are you will not be able to do so. Indeed, some homeowners associations are so restrictive that they even dictate the type and number of trees and shrubs you can plant in your yard, not to mention height of the grass, size of any flower beds, the need to have foundation plantings etc. Some people like this, they feel makes the subdivision have a uniform appearance and keeps up property values. But I find it aesthetically unpleasant, restrictive, boring, and frustrating.

Lawn chemicals
Because you are often required to have a lawn in many subdivisions, you are essentially committed to polluting the environment. Grass is not a plant that grows equally well everywhere: in fact, it is fairly fragile, subject to lots of pests and diseases. To keep a lawn looking healthy (whether it is really healthy or not is a different question), you have to use a mixture of fertilizers, pesticides, selective herbicides, fungicides, and nematode-preventing chemicals. All of these make it pretty tough to have a garden.  Who would want to eat produce that was contaminated with this stuff? If you ever watch a lawn company worker spray their chemicals you know that they are not very discriminating nor selective and spray in wide arcs. Indeed, if your neighbor sprays and you don't, you will often get chemical drift into your yard and plantings.

So, obviously subdivisions with homeowners associations are not for me. They may be for you, but then maybe you're not the folks reading this blog?

 An interesting essay on the history of the American lawn: 

 History of the...