joene's garden » Techniques

On The Bookshelf: The Green Garden: A New England Guide

joenesgarden — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 18:24:22 +0000

Are you a New England gardener seeking a good gardening book in which to lose yourself during cold winter months? Look no further than Ellen Sousa's book The Green Garden: A New England Guide to Planning, Planting & Maintaining the Eco-Friendly Habitat Garden.

Sousa is a fellow garden coach and a natural gardening instructor. She holds a certificate in Native Plant Horticulture & Design from the New England Wild Flower Society and has written about habitat gardening for National Wildlife Federation and other magazines. Sousa writes for a few blogs, including Native Plants & Wildlife Gardens, and the Massachusetts farm she shares with her husband is a Certified Wildlife Habitat and Monarch Waystation.

She walks the walk and talks the talk.

Now she has compiled an extensive and comprehensive guide for other New England landowners interested in making their property more user-friendly for non-human naturally-residing creatures and, ultimately, more enjoyable for human residents as well.

Sousa explains the what, why, and wherefore of habitat gardening in rural, suburban and urban areas in addition to forests, fields, fresh and saltwater shorelines, and wetlands.

She explains how to replace lawns – or most of a lawn - with diverse plantings needing less human input.

She describes how to begin transforming a patch or a property to a wildlife habitat - perhaps as simply as insuring a fresh water source for birds or planting nectar sources for butterflies and moths- and how continue the multi-year process.

Sousa separates plants as:

· New England natives - growing in New England prior to European settlement. Think violets, goldenrod, hemlock and oak;

· naturalized non-natives - plants that native creatures have adapted to and count on. Think Queen Anne's lace;

· introduced non-natives - cosmos, peonies and nasturtiums - brought to New England as ornamentals or edibles. These provide some nectar, pollen or seed benefits to native wildlife;

· and to be avoided and controlled invasive non-natives like Asiatic bittersweet vines that overpower and destroy trees and the purple loosestrife overtaking many New England wetlands.

Then, so readers are not left guessing, she offers more than 40 pages of specific tree, shrub and plant recommendations keyed for their habitat value (attractive to birds, butterflies and moths, amphibians or mammals) and growth characteristics (light and water requirements, deer resistance, ease of growth, etc.).

Sousa further provides lists and links to more information, source nurseries, public habitat gardens, and wildlife gardening organizations, just in case readers crave even more guidance and learning.

The Green Garden: A New England Guide to Planning, Planting & Maintaining the Eco-friendly Habitat Garden is a wonderful primer for those just learning about natural habitat gardening, but it's also a valuable educational resource for seasoned gardeners seeking to hone their habitat gardening knowledge.

It is one of the books I'll reach for time and again as I care for my property and continue to urge others to garden thoughtfully.

Want to read another great book about habitats and native plant gardening? Check out my review of Bringing Nature Home by Doug Tallamy.

Disclaimer: Ellen Sousa provided this book, free of charge, for me to review. I know Ellen only through her blog and through our mutual membership in a Facebook group. If I did not like her book you would not be reading about it here.

Categories: Gardening, On the Bookshelf, Techniques.
Tags: Bringing Nature Home, habitat gardening, native plants, Native Plants & Wildlife Gardens, Planting & Maintaining the Eco-Friendly Habitat Garden, The Green Garden: A New England Guide to Planning.

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Autumn’s Leafy Bounty

joenesgarden — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 19:58:26 +0000

Feeling engulfed by an ever growing pile of fallen leaves? Leaf season can be overwhelming. Within hours after they are finally raked, blown, swept, sucked-up or otherwise removed from lawns, driveways, walkways, decks, patios and gardens, they return, begging for more raking, blowing, and sweeping. Children love playing in mounds of leaves. Most adults curse the perennial piles, but we shouldn't.

Autumn leaves are future soil. Just think of what happens naturally in woodlands. Trees drop leaves onto the ground where they become shredded by wind and under hooves or paws of woodland creatures. Leaves become weighted by rains and flattened by snows. As they decay, leaves break into smaller pieces. At ground level they begin to turn into leaf mold – Mother Nature's protective mulch for her forest floor. Worms, insects, and an incredible number of soil microorganisms work their magic on leaves in contact with the forest floor. Before autumn rolls around again on the calendar many of previous years' fallen leaves are transformed into nutrient rich soil … all without human intervention.

It's when humans get involved that complications arise. We plant gardens and lawns amongst trees, lawns and gardens we prefer not to have buried in mounds of leaves, then we curse trees for doing what comes naturally each autumn. It doesn't make a lot of sense when a few planned steps will turn autumn's fallen leaves into valuable soil amendments.

Mow leaves that fall on the lawn. Mowers, particularly those with mulching blades, chop leaves into small pieces that slowly decompose and provide nutrients to grass-growing soils. One of the best, low-cost, low-labor supplements you can give your lawn is it's own clippings. When left to decompose between grass blades, these clippings help feed the soil. Chopped leaves do the same.

If your lawn is covered with too many leaves and you have a lawn mower with a bag attachment, use the mower to chop up extra leaf piles. The collected, bagged mix can be used immediately as mulch on planting beds or around mature trees, or can be piled into a temporary fenced circle. You can follow the steps in this Fine Gardening article to turn your fenced-in shredded leaf piles into leaf mold – another term for leaf compost. Not this ambitious? Then save shredded leaves in clean, unused trash barrels or fenced-in piles to use as garden mulch next spring or to cover vegetable scraps added to compost piles over the winter. No compost pile? See how to start a compost pile. Now is the perfect time to get one going.

If you must rake or blow leaves into adjacent woodlands try replicating nature. Make sure leaves are evenly spread out over a large area. Piles of un-shredded leaves will eventually decompose, but it takes a year or two. If you must pile leaves, pile choose a different spot each year. If your property has an area of disturbed or uncovered soil – exposed soil is damaged soil - cover the area with leaves and let nature rebuild the soil while you get on with your life.

In Connecticut, leaves are a mandatory recyclable item – they do not belong in the trash. CT's Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (CT DEEP) has about 100 registered leaf composting facilities to handle leaves that fall in areas that do not accommodate on-site composting.

If none of these solutions work for you find out if your town collects and actively composts leaves. Many towns now do so, then allow locals to use the composted result in gardens the following spring.

The bottom line: don't let this free and rich source of garden and woodland nutrients go to waste. Nature provides the gift of leaves for us each autumn … we should use this gift wisely.

Categories: Gardening, General, Seasons, Techniques.
Tags: gardening in Connecticut, leaf composting, leaf shredding.

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What deer don’t eat, so far …

joenesgarden — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 14:51:13 +0000

It's time for me to look at my deer-munched plantings with a glass-half-full attitude. Deer, in large numbers, are here to stay unless my little section of south-central Connecticut is suddenly cohabitated by a throng of hungry mountain lions … but that would bring another set of issues. Enough sniveling over all the greenery I've planted that deer now see as dinner (That's a deer, granddaughter deer. and Do deer tweet?). Time to focus on what deer haven't eaten … yet.

In my gardens, fuzzy, silver and fragrant seem to be off the list of deer faves. Stachys byzantina, a.k.a. Lamb's Ear, in the common flowering form and the non-flowering variety 'Helene von Stein' are both ignored. Many gardeners decry common Stachys' wild looking flower stalks – they tend to fall this way and that after heavy rains. I don't. Bees love the flowers, I welcome the subtle purple flower color and I simply cut back unruly stalks after giving them a chance to pop back up after a rain. Remove all stalks when flowers fade to enjoy the fuzzy silver foliage long into autumn.

Plants with similar downy coverings – common mullein (Verbascum thapsus), downy Salvias (sages), Santolina, lavender (Lavandula angustifolia 'Hidcote' grows best for me), rose campion (Lychnis coronaria) and artemesias – also avoid deer browsing.

Deer have not touched common foxglove (Digitalis purpurea) foliage, shown here in autumn and in bloom.

Deer leave all my green- and red-foliage ground-cover sedum alone.

Deer have yet to nibble away ornamental grasses, Colorado blue spruce (Picea pungens 'Glauca'), any variety of thyme, and Siberian or bearded iris (though I've heard of deer eating iris in other gardens).

To date, deer don't seem interested in allium, most narcissi (except my early blooming Tete-a tete miniatures when I forget to cover newly emerging foliage), globe thistle (Echinops ritro), native ferns, boxwood (Buxus sempervirens, 'Green Ice', and 'Green Mountain'), and Pieris japonica. They have not yet nibbled my newly planted Montgomery Spruce (Picea pungens glauca globosa), but time will tell.

Deer leave my rhododendron and laurel shrubs alone during late spring, summer and early autumn, but I fence rhododendron from late autumn through winter to keep deer from 'pruning' them into green-topped umbrellas. This year I'm also going to fence in the small laurel shrubs so deer cannot re-shape them.

Check out Elegant Silvers by Jo Ann Gardner & Karen Bussolini as a go to resource for silver foliage plants. I cannot attest that all their listed deer-resistant plants will be so in your garden, but their list is a good place to start.

Please share any truly deer-avoided plants you've discovered. The list is likely to be ever-changing, but it's one I'll be working on for the rest of my gardening-in-Connecticut days.

Garden thoughtfully …

Categories: Creatures, Gardening, General, Techniques.
Tags: Deer-resistant plants, Elegant Silvers by Jo Ann Gardner & Karen Bussolini, fragrant silvers, fuzzy silvers.

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Preventing deer damage

joenesgarden — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 18:00:10 +0000

White-tailed deer are beautiful creatures but there are simply too many trying to survive in Connecticut woodlands. My south-central Connecticut town is listed in Connecticut hunting zone 12 which includes shoreline towns from Milford to Stonington and Connecticut River towns of Lyme and East Haddam. Zone 12, along with zone 11 towns in southwestern Connecticut, has extended white-tail deer hunting seasons because of high deer density – as many as 60 to 70 deer per square mile in studied areas of these zones. Considering that deer eat 5 to 10 pounds of plant material per day, deer density exceeding 20 per square mile is enough to significantly alter forest undergrowth.

I've observed a rapid rise in deer numbers in my small section of Zone 12. Prior to 2009 winter deer herds contained about 3 to 5 deer on average. During winters of 2009 and 2010 – years of heavy acorn crops - herd size averaged 8 to 10 and 15 to 17, respectively. Photos from this January 2010 post show local deer activity.

When you do the math - 5 to 10 pounds of plant material per day times the groups of 15 to 17 deer frequenting nearby woods – it becomes clear why deer seek more food from gardens right now. There's nearly no acorn crop this autumn so the 75 to 170 pounds of plant material deer need each day to survive must come from somewhere.

No wonder they've been eating plantings they never used to touch in my yard … a topic I've whined about frequently this year (That's a deer, granddaughter dear and Do Deer tweet?)

I'm on a constant search for information from others regarding deer resistant plantings and deer repelling activities. Over the years I've added the books Deer Proofing Your Yard & Garden by Rhonda Massingham Hart and Gardening in Deer Country by Vincent Drzewucki, Jr. to my library. Both give basic deer habits, deer repellent and deer fencing information for beginning gardeners but I've found deer eat many of the plantings each book lists as deer resistant.

I've read many articles from reputable publications about deer resistant landscaping like:

Deer? Oh, Deer … Try Herbs written by a gardener in Texas who suggests both basil and parsley as plants deer will avoid – not so in my experience – or planting barberry (Berberis vulgaris), a shrub that is highly invasive in Connecticut.
Damn You, My Deer which suggests trying many commonly used tactics like motion activated sprinklers, deer repellent sprays, keeping a dog, or installing fencing … nothing new … and also suggests invasive barberry as a resistant shrub.
A Practical Program for Combatting Deer which reviews generally useful deer-deterring seasonal tactics but also suggests spreading sewage sludge-derived Milorganite, a product I do not recommend and will not use because of it's source.

I'd love to report any of the books or articles I've found as a definitive source, but the reality is that deer have individual tastes and display region- or even herd-specific differences. Even conferring with educated and experienced staff at your local garden center can reveal differences in useful repellent tactics. For example, I've used diluted salmon or fish emulsion spray to keep deer from munching echinacea buds, but a local garden center owner found fish emulsion spray an ineffective deer repellent.

I've tried many tactics that work for other gardeners:

surrounding deer faves with deer repelling plants, but deer simply trample the plants they don't like to get to the plants they do.
covering plants with netting, but hungry deer will push through netting to access leaves.
hanging stinky soap, stinky sprays, bags of human or dog hair, and shiny objects or wind chimes. Some worked temporarily. None, even alternating between these tactics, work permanently.

The only true deterrent I've tried is fencing. I've resorted to circling welded wire cages around newly planted trees until branches rest higher than deer can reach. Even newly planted deer resistant shrubs like Blue Point Juniper (Juniperus chinensis 'Blue Point') get caged for the first few years. Any deer-candy plants I want to grow live inside the 5-foot ornamental fence surrounding our back yard. Deer have yet to try jumping this fence because I have it's outer and inner edges heavily planted. Supposedly deer hesitate to jump into closed in spaces if they don't perceive ample landing room. So far … knock on wood … this has been the case.

And, before the ground freezes each autumn, I surround mature rhododendron shrubs with wire fencing and protect azaleas with wire cages.

Two repellent tactics I've not yet tried is placing welded or chicken wire on the ground in front of planted beds and surrounding planting beds, or even the yard, with a trap rock filled swaths. Supposedly deer don't like to walk on surfaces that might catch their hooves or on highly uneven surfaces. I'd love to hear from anyone who has tried either of these means, or any other deer repelling tactics that may work.

Categories: Creatures, Gardening, Techniques.
Tags: deer density, deer repelling tactics, gardening in Connecticut.

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Weekend project

joenesgarden — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 18:17:19 +0000

I suspect the personal gardens of some garden designers are always well-balanced, well-planted, well-weeded, and picture perfect. I'm not in this group. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy with some of the planting designs I've implemented around my house.

I really like the way this border and the small strip of grass and hosta looked this spring and summer,

with early color from white variegated iris, later deep, deep purple bearded iris, and still later Iris ensata (unknown variety) that played off early Hemerocallis 'Happy Returns' at the far end.

These were followed by blooms of Asiatic lilies, more daylilies, lavender, hosta, a few small shrub roses, Echinacea and assorted bedding perennials and annuals. Now, foliage of coleus and blooms of burgundy mums compliment the few roses still in bloom and blue ageratum flowers.

I'm always thrilled when the triangle bed fills with narcissi each spring and the later foliage and blossom shades, such the photo in May, that run into summer. Unfortunately, now that Irene blew down the hydrangea paniculata (center) and the butterfly bush (buddleia, right), this bed will need some reworking.

But there's one planting bed in my yard that I've never been pleased with. It's the one least seen by visitors walking up the path to the front door but, since it sits outside my bedroom window, it's the first planted area I see each morning.

Parts of it are nice. I love the bearded iris (I think these are 'Jennifer Rebecca' on the left and 'Mother Earth' on the right) that bloom outside the window and greet me May mornings.

I'm okay with the rhododendron at the edge of the porch, which compliments, and sometimes helps support blossoms of clematis 'Nelly Moser'.

I like the position of the peony (possibly 'Festiva Maxima') at the center of the bed and how it's white flowers stand out against the blue/grey siding of the house and the lamb's ear border. The lamb's ear is interspersed with perennial geranium for a border that runs along the entire front of the house. It can stay, too.

I like the late-blooming anemone … a bright spot in August and September … even though it has grown rather large and has nearly hidden a small azalea closer to the front of the bed.

But on the whole the bed does not work. It's off balanced; too much of it is bare at the end of the summer. Too many plants look mis-matched … the rue shrubs just behind the peony, the Acanthus mollis at the rear between the windows that only blossomed once, a small pieris that barely made it though last winter.

Yech! This bed has bugged me for years … yes, years. This weekend I did something about it.

I dug up the struggling pieris, the iris, foxglove, blackberry lily (Belamcanda chinensis) and some lamb's ear for later transplanting back into the bed. I dug out, separated, and transplanted the Acanthus mollis, rue, and sedum, some violets, and the sweet woodruff to a new location.

Then I weeded and purged the bed of as many violets as possible. Violets grow like wildfire in my planting beds, purging is the only way to stem their invasion.

After removing the rocks that also seem to grow in all my planting beds, I spread two garbage can loads of the homemade compost I screened last week. Then I got to planting.

Between the windows next to the house went foxglove and blackberry lily transplants. The anemone, which looks bedraggled from the stress of getting dug up, thinned, and transplanted, went in just in front of the foxglove/lily planting. In front of the anemone I replanted the bearded iris. The scraggly pieris went in front of the rhododendron to the left where I hope it will do better. It's accompanied by a small planting of bearded iris just in front of the rhododendron. Two boxwood (Buxus 'Green Ice') now stand to either side and a bit behind the peony. A new, larger and healthier, pieris (purchased at a plant sale as variety unknown) went in between the peony and the lilac shrub, and I replanted lamb's ear to fill in as a ground cover, then mulched any bare soil with shredded leaves saved from last autumn.

The bed doesn't look like much now in September but next spring, the pieris will bloom first. Lilac and the violets remaining under the rhododendron and lilac shrubs will follow. Then comes the azalea (dark pink) followed closely by the clematis (pale pink) and rhododendron (dark pink). In May, the foxglove (dark pink) should bloom tall against the house, highlighted by the iris (pink/peach at center and white/lavender at left) and peony (white) blooms at mid-level and perennial geranium (dark pink) among the border. Anemone foliage will mask the base of the foxglove and serve as a nice backdrop for the iris and peony blossoms. Blooming lamb's ear (purple) will take the focus away from declining iris, foxglove and peony. The lily will bloom (orange) during late-July and August. Anemone blossoms (pink with dark yellow centers) will take over in August and continue into September.

I'll likely transplant more foxglove to rear- and mid-bed areas and I visualize globe allium, tall and white among the iris and short and white or maroon among the lamb's ear. I have a serious deer browsing problem in the beds along the front yard so I hesitate to add to the deer-resistant plantings already in place. As it stands now, winter-placed chicken wire fencing is the only way the azalea and rhododendron survive. Pieris and boxwood, which will grow to block the view of the foundation and cellar windows, don't seem to be on the 'I like it' deer menu, and I know from experience that foxglove, bearded iris, lamb's ear and, for the most part, anemone are also off this list.

I also have to be careful not to plant small shrubs where snow lands from the roof. After last winter, and so much snow, I'm more cognizant of this … I'm still reshaping the previously planted and mature rhododendron. The new shrubs are far enough out and, once grown, will block sight of any emptiness after the rearward perennials die off.

Beyond adding foxglove and allium I'll wait and watch to see how things play out. It will take some time, but as the shrubs grow and the perennials fill in, I think my eyesore bed will become a faint memory.

Next line for reworking? The triangle bed, mentioned above, and whether to try another hydrangea paniculata there. Any ideas?

Categories: Gardening, Perennials & Annuals, Techniques.
Tags: foundation bed re-do, gardening in Connecticut.

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