‘Tis the Season to Be Planting

I love fall. The trees touched with the Masters paintbrush. The nip in the morning air. The clear skies. The fact that your lawn remains green, but only needs to be mowed every couple of weeks. And, best of all, the bargains at the garden centres. My Dutch blood warms right up to those 50% off of all remaining nursery stock signs. In the fall my van is stripped of its back seats, lined with a big sheet of plastic; ready at all times to haul trees, should I pass by an unexpected sale. I’ve endured stares at stop signs, you know, from the un-gardeners, those who just don’t get why jungle lady would drive with foliage obstructing every inch of window space. And then there are eager fellow gardeners who see, and want, and wave me over to see where the sale is.

It’s not just the bargains that excite me; it’s that last chance to plant before winter. Fall is, in fact, the best time to plant. Plants are becoming dormant this time of year and require less attention. They are not asking to be fertilized, nor are they screaming for water on a daily basis like late spring and summer. They are just happy to be put in a permanent spot where they can nestle in for the winter. Evenings are cooler, rains are usually more frequent and the new plants needs are met primarily by nature.

The best benefit of planting any plant material in the fall is that they spend all of their energy on developing great roots in their new location. They will continue to develop their roots until the ground freezes. When spring arrives, they will have settled in nicely and will spend more of their energy on great foliage and flowers. When we plant in the spring, the plant is dividing its loyalties between developing great roots and showing off its new foliage and flowers.

It is important not to get totally caught up in ‘the bargain’. Although there are many to be had, it is important to check out the stock thoroughly. Deciduous trees should be well branched, and have a straight, solid trunk with no nicks or splits in it. If there is still foliage remaining on the branches, check for any insect or disease issues. Deciduous shrubs should be well branched on all sides. If the top appears a little leggy, feel free to purchase it, but give it a good trim prior to planting. Evergreen trees and shrubs should be well needled all around the plant with no bare patches. Most evergreens cannot be cut back significantly. Trimming off the previous summers growth is fine, but when they are cut back to old growth, they will not re-grow well from the trimmed branch. So purchasing a good-looking specimen is especially important for evergreens.

If you’ve taken advantage of the fall bargains, much of your spring planting will be finished, and next spring you’ll be seen with a golf club in your hand instead of a shovel.

Farewell Flowers

Alas! Tis that time of year again. The time when we bid farewell to the nodding blossoms that have graced our gardens throughout the spring and summer. It’s time to rip out the annuals, chop back the perennials, and wrap up any of our more tender plants.

I liked to consider this a family bonding time. My kids always had two P.D. days, luckily for me, at the end of October. We would spend one day preparing my gardens for winter, and the other day doing something else fun together. Like gardening isn’t fun enough! While I tried, hard, to pass off this gardening ritual as an environmental education day, my kids were quite clear that it was just plain slave labour.

Well, eventually, my slave labour was lost due to driver’s licenses that gave them the freedom to just leave, and eventually they all packed up for college or got married. So, all alone, needing to do the work of four people rather than just one, it was time to work smarter, not harder.

It was time to get out the lawn mower! What a wonderful machine. Not only does it mow our lawns into lovely carpets of green, but it can also mow down a perennial bed in a matter of minutes. No more bending, stooping and chopping for me, no sir! I adjusted my blades to the highest setting possible, sat on my John Deere, and mowed over every garden in sight.

This is, by far, the best and quickest method to put your garden to rest too. Perennials can be cut back to within an inch of the soil, just enough to protect their crown. Mow over all of the plant material, blowing the debris into the grass beside the flowerbed. It may take a couple of passes with your mower. Once all the material is on the grass, mow over it again, three or four times until it is chopped finely, about the size of a loonie. Then, mow over the chopped materials and blow them back into your gardens. The plant waste will break down over the winter and provide nutrition and humus for your soil.

The same is true for all of those leaves blowing about your yard. Leaves are food for your gardens. Instead of raking, mow them into windrows and then mow over them two or three times until they are finely chopped. Again, blow the resulting materials onto your flowerbeds. It’s nature’s way, really, and it will limit the amount of compost and manure you will have to add to your soil next spring.

The only leaves you should not blow back into your garden are those of the oak or walnut tree and foliage from roses. Using these leaves may result in soil or disease problems next year.

So, instead of spending a day or two chopping, stooping and raking, spend a couple of hours with your friend, John Deere. In no time you’ll be sitting on your porch sipping a hot chocolate while you watch your neighbours slugging in their gardens.

For 18 years I gardened on a country property with beautiful, sandy, dark soil. This soil was amazing. Unless there was still a foot of snow on the ground, I was plucking away at my gardens before I flipped the calendar over to read ‘April’. Many of my clay soiled garden friends were blessed indeed if they could get into their gardens before they flipped their calendars to read ‘May’.

Sandy soil is light and easy to dig in. It warms up quickly in the spring and since it has course particles that do not compact well, it also dries up in a hurry. Now, this is great when you wish to start gardening in early spring, but it poses a challenge when you’re trying to keep enough moisture in your soil during the hot, dry summer months. Also, since water passes through sandy soils quickly, nutrients tend to leach out in a similar fashion. What is a blessing in April and May becomes a curse in July and August.

Here is where a good dose of peat moss comes in. Sandy soils are grateful for an annual addition of peat moss. Peat has amazing water holding capacities and when mixed into sandy soil, boosts the soils ability to hold water and nutrients. Annual additions of peat, as well as compost and manure, will ensure that your soil will be in tiptop condition to grow the biggest and best foliage, flowers and fruit in the whole neighbourhood.

The curious thing about peat is that it is equally beneficial for clay soils. Clay soils are heavy and difficult to dig in. Clay is chalk full of nutrients, is slow to warm up in the spring and since it has tiny smooth particles that compact, it also stays wet for a long periods of time. In this case, what is a curse when you wish to start gardening in early spring, is a blessing in the hot, dry months of midsummer.

Peat moss provides larger particles that mix with tiny clay particles making the soil more porous. Water may than pass through more quickly and efficiently. What is a binding element in sand, has an aerating effect on clay.

If I could choose between a sandy or clay soil, it would be sandy hands down. It is easier to change a sandy soils structure then it is clay. More additions of organic fertilizer and manures are needed in the sandy soil, but it is always easier to work in.

When we moved from our country home, I actually took the soil with me. Yup, that’s right. We dug a pond comparable to the size of the Atlantic and had it all trucked to our new building site. Sure, we needed some of it to fill inside the existing old barn walls that would be my new garden, but, truly, I was just thrilled to know that, here too, I would be plucking through my gardens as soon as the frost disappears.

A Bunny Lives in My Garden

When I got up this morning, and took my tea to wander around my garden, which is a morning ritual for me, I saw a bunny. Now, this is no ordinary bunny. Usually I shriek in horror, as I’m totally afraid of bunnies anywhere near my precious botanicals. But, this morning, I looked upon this furry creature with new eyes. You see, this bunny was eating the weeds that are creeping into my firepit. I almost shouted, “Go, bunny, Go!”. However, I fear the neighbours already think I’m crazy, and I didn’t want to confirm their suspicions. Heaven knows, I give them enough other reasons to doubt my sanity already.

I’d like to think this is not the same bunny, or even a kin to any bunny, that spends it’s winter in my garden chowing down on my euonymous each winter. Those bunnies, are bad bunnies. They don’t seem to care that my euonymous barely survive their ravaging, and as a result, I dare not plant anymore of these easy care shrubs.

Bunnies traditionally end up looking down the barrel of a gun at my home. Ah, yes, I said a gun. We peaceful loving Canadians do have our limits, you know. My son, Robin, learned early on to pick those rascals off from huge distances. And he was good at it! He’s moved out, bunnies have moved in, and he’s welcome to come home whenever those fuzzy suckers come hopping about. But for today, Mr. Friendly Bunny can stay.

But woe to him, should he choose to venture away from the weeds, and into the flora and fauna. Robin can still pick ‘em off quicker than you can say ‘Jack Rabbit’. And he’ll still rush home should any creature threaten his Mom in any way, as any good son should.

Best Baskets

Everyone loves a great garden. People of all ages, income, race - everyone- loves a beautiful garden. But even though virtually everyone appreciates a garden, there are many who’s love ends right there. It’s hard for me to understand. I pour over every page of the seed catalogues that arrive in January’s mail. I start dreaming early March about getting my hands into the earth, about what new hybrid will be hot this season and I plot, plan and sketch the newest garden that will grace my yard.

The first words I hear out of the majority of my landscape client’s mouths are, “I’d like a beautiful garden, oh, and no maintenance, please.” Ok, I get that. We live in a world where time is limited and precious.

What I never could understand is visiting my sister-in-law (I won’t mention names, because that could be embarrassing, right Alice?) and seeing flower baskets hanging all around her porch. I know, you’re thinking, ‘what’s odd about that?’ There inside the baskets were all colours of no maintenance geraniums. The fake kind! Plastic, silk, whatever they were, there wasn’t a live shoot to be seen. Be still me heart, how could it be that someone so close to me, would opt for that kind of hanging basket?

But it did get me thinking. How can people have really great looking hanging baskets, the mother of all high maintenance gardens, and not have to maintain them on a daily basis?

The easiest answer is to add a drip line onto your irrigation system and have a line go into each of your baskets.

For the majority without irrigation systems, here are a few tips for your hanging baskets. First, buy good quality baskets. A good basket will be one that is made with sphagnum moss, or has a coconut liner. This sort of basket helps to hold water in the container as well as the soil. They are thick and insulate the soil from the heat of the sun. Other good choices are baskets made from foam, which are light and also have insulation value and baskets that have a built in water reservoir that works on a capillary action.

Second, buy big baskets. Baskets that are at least 18 inches in diameter, but preferably 24 inches, will hold water much longer than a standard 10-inch basket.

Third, add peat moss and water holding polymers into your soil. These additions will lengthen the time between waterings. Adding slow release organic pellet fertilizer will eliminate the need to fertilize until at least the end of July.

For baskets that need even less water, forego the traditional basket flowers and opt for more drought tolerant ones. Great drought tolerant plant picks are: portulaca, love lies bleeding, coreopsis, dusty miller, trailing vinca, dichondra, all herbs, and any succulent ie. hens and chicks or echiveria.

I’m happy to report that my sister-in-law no longer torments me with fake baskets. Sometime after my initial horror, she became a passable gardener. Her fakes have been replaced by wonderful, colourful living plants. And you can grow them too!

The Grocery Garden

I grew up knowing where my food came from. It came from the animals inside the barn and the massive grocery garden that existed in our backyard. When I visited my grandparents and aunts, their food also came right from the backyard. When dinnertime neared, all we had to do was pick or pluck something that grew in the tidy rows out back, or in winter head down to the pantry to grab something from the shelf or inside the freezer.

My mom made sure we got in our swim time every afternoon at the local pool, but only if my brother and I got our garden time in every morning. The garden was my least favourite place to be as child, it seemed all I did was weed or gather. My least favourite plant was the black currant. They had to be handpicked one by blessed one. No self-respecting family of Dutch heritage would think of having a grocery garden without these little gems. They were preciously turned into jams and frozen for future use for an ethnic dessert stew made with barley and raisins. While I enjoyed both of these dishes, I discovered a much more important use for these berries when I too, planted my own currant bushes. Black currant liqueur. Sipping on my own homemade liqueur was a much richer reward for me than was a jar of jam or a sweet, ethnic stew.

When I began my own household, there was never a thought of ‘should we plant a garden?’ it was more of a ‘where will we plant the garden’. Being Dutch, I would have to admit that it was partly to save money, but, truly, it was also the joy of admiring a freshly emerging row of vegetable seedlings and the satisfaction of gazing at a pantry full of colourful jars of pickles, relishes and fruits. Funny how what seemed liked an endless chore, as a child, became so much more rewarding as an adult.

I believe there is going to be, and needs to be, a resurgence of grocery gardeners. These harder economic times are causing people to rethink how their funds are best spent. We are double washing all of our store bought produce to rid it of any residual chemicals. We are beginning to understand that food that is transported for thousands of miles is leaving a negative footprint on our earth. Locavore and one hundred mile diets are words and phrases that are common in our lexicon.

I would like to encourage everyone with a back yard to begin their own grocery garden. Instead of relying on food that has been transported hundreds or thousands of miles, rely on food that can be collected just footsteps from your kitchen door. Instead of wondering what chemicals are lurking in the folds of your salads, pick organic greens right from your backyard. And when you pay $2.75 for one meal of fresh cut beans at the store, consider how you could have had dozens of meals for just a 99-cent package of seeds.