Fall gardening.

Tags

juniper

Gardening in autumn is a little depressing – it’s all about closing things down, after all. Disassembly, as it were, and looking forward to 4 or 5 months of cold and/or snow, around here. This year I’ve discovered a new reason to be depressed – looking at all the things I intended to do over the year, but didn’t have the time or energy for.

Depressing aside, it’s a busy time because it’s transitional. Sometimes there’s not much to do, but then suddenly it’s a mad rush. Logistically, I consider it a bit of a nightmare, because everything in containers (and I have a lot of those) needs to be stored eventually, but all at different times. And of course space is not unlimited, so organisation is important – not just for now, but for spring as well when different things break dormancy at different times. A (non-gardening) friend of mine observed it was like moving house twice a year.

One thing I finally did finish was getting rid of the junipers and pushing them through the woodchipper, so there’s a nice layer of very prickly mulch in the shrubbery now. The stumps have been pulled up, but I haven’t decided quite what to do about them yet. Otherwise, task-wise there’s nothing unusual going on; it’s all pretty typical stuff. The main highlight will be to saw a piece of outdoor plyboard (which I have yet to obtain) into a cover for the tub pond; last year’s arrangement of a few boards and a tarp was not satisfactory.

Of course, looking after all the tender plants indoors over winter presents its own set of challenges joys to look forward to.

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End of summer.

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juniper, monarch, strawberries

It’s been an odd year in the garden, but it seems that I say that about every year. This August was the wettest I can remember, especially considering the drought pocket I live in. Aside from that, the long, cold spring basically held everything back by a couple weeks, and that seemed to propagate (no pun intended) throughout the year season. I found it most apparent in the monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus), which were also late in showing up this year. However, once they did turn up, there were more of them this year than any before. Every year I bring some caterpillars inside to raise, and again, this year I’ve released more than ever.

Some projects are in progress, and others are waiting. I’m afraid that real life intruded into the garden more than I usually allow it to, this year. There are/were three juniper bushes (Juniperus sp.) at the front of the house, a result of past decades when foundation planting was the de rigueur style of gardening. I have never had it satisfactorily explained to me why it’s called “foundation” planting, considering that it consists of a flat lawn and a few green blobs planted too close to the house and each other. A narrow flowerbed or two might have been included by the adventurous.

I don’t have a high opinion of foundation planting, by the way. And even by its own standards, the landscapers who did this house’s were inept, uncaring, or both.

Anyway, the junipers have been a needle in my side for a few years now, having grown too big for their own boots (which I admit is partly my own fault), so two of them are now stumps and scattered branches, and I can’t wait to get started on the third. I’ll leave the space empty until next spring, then decide what to put in. It’s an ideal spot for roses and bearded irises, but I like the idea of a little mock orange (Philadelphus cv.) there, perhaps in a large container that I can drag under shelter for winter. On the other hand, it would also be a good place for a cold frame.

The other part of the garden that needs revamping is the strawberry bed. The plants are over four years old now and past their productivity peak, and the soil seems to be very tired. So I’ve propagated a new set of plants from runners (which were also late this year) and when I have a moment, I will remove everything from the bed, dig in as much compost as I can scrape up, and then plant and mulch the new plants. Hopefully this will all be done by the end of September. However, a warm fall is predicted for us, so I should have some leeway.

I never got around to building the cage for the strawberry bed, so instead I’ll lay some pavers around the bed to provide an even surface, then build the cage next year. I hope.

There’s a lot more I could ramble on about, but this is all I have the patience for right now. Onward and upward.

Grief and glory.

Tags

Michigan lily, raspberries

Actually, a prominent Canadian gardener named Ed Lawrence did write a gardening help book called Gardening Grief and Glory. It consists of answering specific questions he’d received over the years, so it’s highly specific, but if you have any of those problems, it’s also extremely helpful.

Where was I? Oh, right…more grief than glory, really. Can’t have one without the other, in gardening.

I’ll start with the grief. The two wild black raspberry bushes (Rubus occidentalis) finally got black raspberry orange rust (Arthuriomyces peckianus), a fungus that goes systemic and eventually kills the plant. It was really a matter of time; when one plants black or purple raspberries, especially the wild species, one does so in the certain knowledge that eventually this fungus will show up (in this part of the world, anyway). They’ve had a good innings; the two bushes have been around for eight years, so combined with the fact that they were free gifts from the local birds, I probably can’t complain.

Still, it’s disappointing. The berries were small but very plentiful and have a good flavour, and until now were trouble-free. I’ve made desserts, jam, and even wine vinegar from them in the past. Unfortunately, I can’t replant the same species in the same place, and at this point I don’t have anywhere else in the garden to establish a couple more plants. I could replace with red raspberries, which don’t get that particular disease…but are susceptible to diseases of their own.

Anyway, those are considerations for later. This year the harvest is as good as ever, so I’ll wait until the fruiting is done, then cut down, dig up, and burn my two old friends. I suppose it wouldn’t be a bad idea to leave the space fallow for the rest of the season, then fill in the gap next year.

The glory, while glorious, is fleeting: the Michigan lilies (Lilium michiganense) have finally bloomed. I’ve waited seven years for this; that’s right, seven actual years. I knew that when I got them, but then you spend six years wondering if it will ever really happen, or worrying that they might die first because you haven’t put them in the right spot or something. I have two clumps: one in the ground, and one in a pot as a sort of insurance. The one in the ground produced just one flower, while the entire potted clump flowered at once.

It’s a little odd that I have these; they’re the only type of true lily I have. I really don’t like lilies, especially the so-called Asiatic and Oriental hybrids and trumpet lilies, which are probably the most common ones in gardens. I think they look rather blowsy and overbearing, I really dislike the smell, and the plants look like weeds when not in bloom.

Michigan lilies are much more delicate and unscented; they also happen to be one of the few orange flowers I have. Despite the common and Latin names, they’re also native to this area. I haven’t decided if they were worth a seven year wait, but they are lovely. I also seem to remember that they were a little more expensive than the other forbs when I got them.

I haven’t noticed what, if any, insects are attracted to them, though, because the weather just turned so flaming hot and humid that I’ve not been inclined to navel-gaze as much in the garden. I know there’s no size perspective in the pictures below, but each flower is only about three inches across. Of course, if the petals spread out fully instead of reflexing, they’d be bigger.

Michigan lily 1.

Michigan lily 2.

And you know what links the glory to the grief? The clump of lilies growing in the ground is right next to the black raspberries. Funny old world, sometimes.

Tea, anyone?

Tags

tea

Yay! My tea plants (Camellia sinensis) got here today. I originally ordered one, but the guy said he could fit two more similar-sized plants in the same box for the same shipping cost. Twist my arm, I got two (plus another plant for a friend).

These are the ‘Sochi’ variety, which is apparently one of the hardiest tea varieties. They still wouldn’t survive outside here without some serious winter protection, but at least it gives me some leeway when it comes to bringing them inside in autumn.

Because I really need more large houseplants in winter.

Of course, I know it won’t let me stop buying tea to drink (I’m addicted to tea), but growing tea is something I’ve always wanted to try. I’ve tried growing plants from seed several times, but never been able to get past the seedling stage.  I’ve read they don’t do so well as houseplants, but you never know until you try. I imagine the reasons are light and humidity, but my tropicals come through winter just fine in a south-facing bay window and with some humidifying tricks.

Other than that I think the trickiest part for me is the soil. As a species of camellia, I imagine they’d need rich, friable, and acidic soil…right now I’ve got them potted in a mixture of topsoil, vermiculite and worm compost, with a dusting of sulphur. Peat moss is the standard soil acidifier, but I personally don’t think it gets harvested sustainably, so I try not to use it. I know the aluminum sulphate people use on hydrangeas damages rhododendrons and azaleas, so I’ll avoid that. Need to think about this.

Gardening crimes.

Tags

wisteria

My next-door neighbour’s gardening (dis)service pruned her wisterias with a strimmer, a.k.a. a weed whacker. The poor things looked like a dog’s dinner. Of course, even worse is that all the frayed broken ends are made more susceptible to disease and rot. This was the first time I saw him at it and I just stood there a moment, shocked, but I think now I know why they didn’t bloom so well last year.

Granted, pruning a wisteria properly is a time-consuming process and the man has other things to get on with, but you have to be pretty apathetic and/or ignorant to use a frigging strimmer on a wisteria.

The same guy prunes her weigela with a hedge trimmer. Weigelas aren’t topiary hedges, so it ends up looking awful. To be fair, it still flowers reasonably well, but ohmygawd. She’s had this (dis)service for a long time now and always complains about their…dis-service, but apparently the price is right. Well, this is definitely a case of getting what you pay for. She offered me the job once, but I don’t do lawns. But I did go in and spend an afternoon up a ladder cleaning up the wisterias.

A side benefit is that I got a few cuttings. It’s the wrong time of year to take hardwood cuttings from wisteria, but you never know, one might make it and one is all I want (by “a few” I mean over a dozen). I’d like to try turning one into a bonsai.

The long dark of the year begins.

Tags

pomegranate, roses, worms

Well, I suppose it really began back when Daylight Savings Time ended.

The little dwarf pomegranate (Punica granatam var. nana) I got in April is over a foot tall now. It was quite happy outside on a sunny patio all summer; I didn’t prune or shape it at all and it formed a nice compact little bush. When I brought it inside in October it shed a few leaves – no surprise there, and the top growth continued rather spindly, also no surprise. Then it started flowering. That was a surprise. It’s currently sitting in a south-west facing bay window, so I entertain a few hopes of little pomegranates in a few months.

Out in the garden, I’ve mounded the roses, but not yet burlapped them. This November has been fairly but inconsistently mild, but it looks as if the cold is here to stay now. All I’ve got left to do outside is wrap up a few things, bring some potted plants under cover (garage or basement) and empty the rainbarrels. Oh, and the patio fountain needs to be emptied and brought in too.

The worm bin I started in February has exceeded all expectations. The compost it produces is very rich and dense, almost fudgy. That makes it difficult to use as a potting medium, so I might look into trying different bedding materials to see if that makes a difference; currently I use shredded paper. I might try shredded dead leaves (free, like old paper) or coir (coconut fibre; requires a trip to the garden centre and not free). Some people aren’t happy about a bin of worms in the house all winter, but I think they’re worth their weight in gold. Especially if it means I don’t need to trek through a foot of ice and snow to get to the compost bin in winter.

I’m not good at titles.

Tags

dahlia, daylily, elder, juniper, maple, raspberries, sedum, tomatoes

Well, I’ve had a look at the potted plants that have been overwintering in the garage and although it’s to early to say for sure, most of them seem in pretty good shape. A lot of the very hardy plants have already started sprouting, such as the sedums and daylilies (Sedum spp. and Hemerocallis spp.) The baby junipers have also started greening up. An interesting thing about a lot of evergreen conifers is that when they’re very young (say 5 years old or less), they go brown in winter. Everything that’s already sprouted is now outside under plastic domes.

Had a look in the backyard today and boy, those rabbits have done a number (and that number is two). They’ve chewed on everything they could reach, including a potted Norway maple (Acer platanoides) sapling that I left outside hoping winter would kill it (it was a donation to last year’s plant sale even though Norway maples are on the do-not-want- list). They even clipped the wild raspberry canes (Rubus occidentalis). And I’m pretty sure they had a go at one of the elderberry bushes (Sambucus canadensis)

Unfortunately I left the ‘Arabian Night’ dahlia tubers in the garage too long and they rotted away. I won’t say I’m not disappointed, but I’m not devastated either. In fact, I’d already ordered a new kind (‘Karma Chocolate’) before I’d even inspected the old ones.

And most recently, I got seeds for ‘Lemon’ cucumbers and ‘Black Krim’ tomatoes at Canada Blooms on Wednesday. I’m a little nervous about the cucumbers; last time I tried, a couple years ago, there was a terrible cucumber beetle festival. They’d always been around in small numbers because of the pumpkins, but the pumpkins don’t seem to be as bothered by them. Actually, it’s not even the beetles themselves that are the real problem; it’s more the bacterial infection that the beetles pass on to the plants. Anyway, I stopped growing cucurbits entirely for two years. I think I’ll hedge my bets and try growing a couple in pots in the bay window.

Fall plant sale and indoor water gardening.

Tags

bladderwort, daylily, spider plant, water hyacinth

So the Mississauga Master Gardeners are having an autumn plant sale in less than three weeks and I’ve been lifting and potting things to put into it. We do buy a few things in, such as spring bulbs and fall chrysanthemums for an autumn sale, but the majority of it comes from our own gardens. Not everything divides successfully in fall and a lot of things are already starting to fade, so it’s a very different selection to what we get in spring.

…except for daylilies. There’s always daylilies (Hemerocallis sp.)

Most of my ornamentals are native wildflowers, so that ends up being the majority of my donations, although there’s always a flat of spider plants (Chlorophytum comosum ‘Vittatum’) too. Having a wildflower garden means there’s a steady supply of volunteer seedlings. I like to think of it as suburban ecological reclamation of a sort.

The sale is also a good way move out plants I don’t want. I genuinely like plants, so I have a hard time just killing plants that aren’t offending me in some way. However, there are a few remnants of previous owners and previous landscape jobs left (daylilies again) and it’s great to be able to get rid of them. I simply do not get the ‘foundation shrub’ bullshit. Just because it was fashionable to plant junipers and cedars and other large evergreens right up against the house doesn’t mean it was smart. And seriously, two spruce trees, one metre apart? Why don’t you go live in a one bedroom apartment with ten other people and see how you like it? (I know it happens, but the people involved seldom enjoy it.)

It’s hard to believe (accept) that summer’s practically over. It’s time to start the process of reacclimating the tender plants for indoor life: the autumn frost date around here is about October 12th. I have a new experiment this year: try and get tender aquatic plants to overwinter in an aquarium (no fish). It’s mostly water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) and my beloved mosquito larvae-eating floating bladderwort (Utricularia gibba). The tub gardens did better than I ever imagined they would, not so much for the plants as the fact that a simple ecosystem seemed to appear out of nowhere: the usual assortment of Daphnia, Cyclops, and aquatic snails (haven’t identified those yet), and even what looks to be some little freshwater shrimp. All of those, or their eggs, must have hitchhiked in with the plants, because I fill the tubs with rainwater. If I only had a heart toad.

…sorry about the rant.

Grief and glory.

Tags

iris, monarch, witch hazel

Add another one to the (almost) black flower collection: Iris ‘Hello Darkness’, a “Tall Bearded” variety. This makes six and a half. I had tentatively hoped to grow it in a pot, but a bit of research tells me that bearded irises are the only group of irises that cannot successfully be grown in containers for long. Guess I need to dig a hole.

I think every gardener has one or two plants that they desperately want to grow and just don’t seem to be able to keep no matter what they do, even when by all accounts they’re doing everything right. For me that’s turning out to be the native species of witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana). I’ve tried twice. Some gardener, I can’t remember who, said to try everything three times before giving up: once is bad luck and twice is coincidence, but three times is confirmation. Or something like that. I suppose it’s worth a try.

Here’s the monarch caterpillar on Day 7 (yesterday). Actually, this is the one that hatched a couple hours later than the one I’ve been showing so far. That one crawled up into the large vase I used to cover it in order to moult. Experience has sadly taught me that it’s not good to disturb a caterpillar during this stressful period, so I decided to leave it there and photograph this one instead, which obligingly began the process more accessibly.

This marks the first ecdysis (moulting) into the second instar.

Summer flowers and furniture.

Tags

anemone, arnica, columbine, dahlia, elder, harebell, hazel, lavender, lovage, milkweed, Ozark sundrop, pyrethrum, roses, rue, spiderwort, thyme, vervain, wood poppy

It’s odd to see the butterfly milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa) and the swamp milkweed (A. incarnata) in full bloom at the same time. Usually the former blooms first and is just setting seed when the latter is opening, but I suppose like so many other things this year the butterfly milkweed is blooming late. It’s something of a colour palette disaster in my opinion, though: the combination of bright orange and dusty pink doesn’t do it for me.

The other early summer blooms recently opened are the elder flowers (Sambucus canadensis), the Ozark sundrops (Oenothera missouriensis), and the swamp vervain (Verbena hastata). Meanwhile the Canada anemone (Anemone canadensis), harebells (Campanula rotundifolia), American arnica (Arnica chamissonis), dahlias, and Ohio spiderwort (Tradecantia ohiensis) are still going well. Among the herbs the lavender (Lavandula sp.), rue (Ruta graveolens) and the lovage (Levisticum officinale) are in full bloom. And the thyme (Thymus vulgaris and T. citriodorus). I like thyme. I have it in pots all over the garden, not just the herb bed.

The wood poppies (Stylophorum diphyllum), eastern red columbine (Aquilegia canadensis) and pyrethrum daisies (Pyrethrum cinerariifolium) are also still going, but I think those are about to fade.

Speaking of elder flowers…elderflower wine soon! A pity it wouldn’t be ready in time for the Master Gardener potluck coming up, but I guess it just means more for me.

The roses are finally in full bloom too. I just put up a page for the roses, but it’s still a work in progress and I’ll add the missing types when I get half-decent pictures of them. I might make sub-pages about roses and rose care if I’m ever bored enough in future.

Unfortunately, I think I have to admit even to myself that the hazel (Corylus americana) I planted in May is truly dead. They’re usually tough little things, so I held out hope that it would resprout, but it just kept dying back and no new growth. Sigh. Next year.

I now have garden furniture! It was a windfall, really: my next-door neighbour’s mother passed away a few months ago and they recently got around to clearing out her storage locker (she’d been in a retirement home for the past dozen years). They’ve been scrambling around trying to find homes for all the furniture, so they offered me a bunch of plastic garden chairs and tables. I felt bad taking it all, but they assured me I was doing them a favour and wouldn’t take any money.

It does feel kind of odd in a way, because I never had any garden furniture except a potting/worktable and a small bench that’d been in the garage for donkey’s years and I have no idea where it came from. There was never really any incentive to get garden furniture because I’m generally the only person in my garden and if I feel the need to sit down, the ground or the steps are good enough for me (the aforementioned bench usually being covered with pots). Sadly, the first thing I did with them was stick the chairs in a corner, and put plants on the tables.

…I wonder which is longer: this rambling post, or the list of tags…