joene's garden » Horticulture Groups

Don’t Miss the CHS Plant Sale & Auction

joenesgarden — Thu, 10 May 2012 13:27:18 +0000

The timing could not be better … a pre-Mother's Day plant sale and auction that supports scholarships for horticulture students all courtesy of The Connecticut Horticultural Society (CHS) this Friday, May 11, 2012 at the Tolland County Agricultural Center, 24 Hyde Ave., Vernon.

Admission: FREE

Doors open for previews: 5:30 pm

Plant sale starts at 7:00 pm.

Pick out shrubs, bulbs, wildflowers, perennials … all donated by CHS members. Prices range from 50 cents to $5.

Auction begins at 7:15 pm.

CHS raises scholarship funds mainly through its spring and fall plant auctions. Since 1959 this fund has awarded about $150,000. Students in horticulture programs at the University of Connecticut and Naugatuck Valley Community College apply for these scholarships.

It's a win-win all around. Mom receives plants grown in other Connecticut gardens and the proceeds of your purchase go to furthering horticultural knowledge and education.

If not for a prior family commitment you'd have to elbow me out of the way for the best deals! If you cannot make it to the sale, consider a monetary donation to the CHS Scholarship Fund. Visit www.cthort.org or call 860-529-8713.

Garden thoughtfully … and enjoy the sale and auction.

Photo courtesy of Colleen Fitzpatrick, Director of Communications, Connecticut Horticultural Society

Categories: CT Grown, Horticulture Groups.
Tags: Connecticut Horticultural Society, gardening in Connecticut, plant sale and auction.

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joene's garden

Native Plants for Connecticut Gardens

joenesgarden — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 12:37:16 +0000

Native Plants for Connecticut Gardens

Connecticut gardeners have another opportunity this week to learn more about landscaping with native plants, shrubs and trees. The UConn Garden Conference on March 16, 2012 is one (click on the highlighted link to learn more). Another is at the monthly meeting, Thursday, March 15, 2012 of the Connecticut Horticultural Society when landscape designer Larry Weaner will discuss how to use Connecticut's native plants to create beautiful, low maintenance landscapes that fit well into the local environment.

His talk, «At Home with Natives,» promises to be another lesson in planting the right plant in the right place for entrance areas, screening and sloped areas, woodland gardens and residential meadows.

Read more about Larry Weaner and how to get to Emmanuel Synagogue in West Hartford by 7:00 pm on March 15, and be sure to bring a $10 donation if you have not yet become a member of Connecticut Horticultural Society.

To bone up on the topic of native plants visit Native Plants & Wildlife Gardens. This blog is a great resource for any gardener or naturalist interested in learning more about native plants and how they work in the environment. It covers current issues and basic information that will help you have a good grasp of the issue before hearing Larry Weaner speak.

To read more about two good resources on native plants in general click on, Make a Difference. Plant Natives, which highlights Doug Tallamy's book Bringing Nature Home, and On The Bookshelf: The Green Garden: A New England Guide, which reviews Ellen Sousa's book on planting natives in New England.

Categories: Conferences/Shows, Gardening, Gardening Education, Horticulture Groups, Techniques.
Tags: Connecticut Horticultural Society, gardening in Connecticut, gardening with natives, Native Plants & Wildlife Gardens, The Green Garden: A New England Guide to Planning, UConn Garden Conference.

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A Sustainable Lawn … You Can Grow That

joenesgarden — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 18:56:46 +0000

A Sustainable Lawn … You Can Grow That

Just as sure as blades of green grass are beginning to show in the lawn outside my office window, thoughts of lawns will start creeping into Connecticut home owners' heads. This spring I want Connecticut lawn owners … no, I want lawn owners across the U.S. to repeat this phrase: You can grow that sustainable lawn.

We are told by a certain fertilizer and chemical company that lawns need 4-steps. But they don't, as Tom Christopher noted during his Sustainable Lawns presentation at the February 2012 meeting of the Connecticut Horticultural Society. Because so many land owners buy into the onslaught of 4-step advertising, lawns are typically spread with chemical fertilizers and covered with pesticides. And, as Christopher noted, lawn is the largest irrigated crop in the U.S. Most of the seven billion – yes that's billion with a 'b' - gallons of irrigation water used each day goes to lawns and a good portion of these water-soluble chemicals end up in waterways where they adversely effect water quality and aquatic creatures.

Lawn owners can change these facts, one lawn at a time.

Stopping the use of unnecessary water-soluble chemical and pesticide treatments is one way. Converting some of your lawn into other types of plantings is another. But for homeowners wanting to keep some or all of their lawn while minimizing the environmental, time, and financial cost of lawn care, choosing the right lawn seed for the climate and soils is the way to go.

In Connecticut, Christopher said, this means planting fine fescues (blends of hard fescue, creeping red fescue and other fescue cultivars) which

are insect-resistant,
grow well in sun and tolerate shade,
have deep root systems that are less vulnerable to drought than shallow-rooted grasses,
once established, will tolerate foot traffic,
are slow growing, which means less mowing,
grow in nutrient poor soils, and only need supplemental fertilization in very poor soils,
are allelopathic – they emit compounds that depress the growth of competing plants – think weeds.

Fine fescue turf is not adapted to heavy traffic, such as a soccer or baseball field, but Christopher says it is fine for home landscapes.

Here's a close up look at a fescue blend I started growing in pots on a window sill just a couple of weeks ago.

I wanted a close-up look at how this Eco-Lawn fescue blend grows, looks and feels. So far so good. The blades are soft to the touch but thick enough to withstand foot traffic and the color is a wonderful grassy green … not that dark green color of an over-nitrogenized lawn. The next step is to try it in our lawn, which is in dire need of attention.

Autumn is the optimal time to seed a lawn. To redo an existing lawn in the spring, Christopher suggests letting the grass grow to seven inches or so then mowing it down as low as possible to scalp existing grass. Use a slit-seeder – a machine that slices rows into existing soil where it deposits grass seed - or overseed the area with fescues. To give new seed a better start, top-dress the area with good quality compost before slit-seeding or overseeding. Of course, you'll have to water regularly until the seed is established. However, limit watering once summer comes to encourage deep root growth.

Christopher, who is a sustainable lawn consultant at Smart Lawn, also suggests adding clover to your grass seed blend. As one of the legume crops, clover fixes nitrogen into the soil where grass roots use it as needed. Thus, clover is a low-maintenance, natural way to provide nitrogen to the lawn. Clover takes mowing and foot-traffic well and is salt-tolerant, making it a good addition to roadside areas and has the extra benefit of attracting a host of pollinators to its flowers.

The bottom line is a lawn is nothing more or less than a large green garden … a large green garden you can grow best with the right seed for the right place. A large green garden you can grow with minimal maintenance and for maximal enjoyment.

sustainable lawn.

You Can Grow That! is a blog meme idea germinated by C.L. Fornari of Whole Life Gardening. On the fourth of each month, C.L. asks gardeners to remind the world You Can Grow That! because gardening is good for people.

Consider yourself reminded.

Link to more You Can Grow That! posts through the You Can Grow That! Facebook Page. Other sources of low-maintenance grasses: Prairie Nursery, Seed Superstore, Outside Pride, or ask your local independently-owned nursery for low-maintenance grass blends.

Also, read more about the extent of lawns in the U.S. from Earth Observatory/NASA, and more about water for landscape irrigation.

Garden thoughtfully,

Joene

Categories: Gardening, Horticulture Groups, Techniques, You Can Grow That!.
Tags: gardening in Connecticut, sustainable lawns, The Connecticut Horticulture Society, Tom Christopher, You Can Grow That!.