Fall Isn't Only About Foliage

As summer flowers fade, and October themes of harvest, fall and Halloween predominate, gardens are getting more subdued, and more orange. If your gardening energy isn’t flagging, you could fight this with a huge infusion of late annuals, and almost recreate the riot of color of early July. But for those of us who are over age 25 and eschew the use of stimulants more powerful than coffee, it may be more practical to accept the general trend of softer and browner tones, livening them up with perhaps a few points of late-blooming or long-lasting perennials or shrubs (especially roses, such as the ‘The Fairy’ I showed two posts ago).

Gladioli

Gladioli (the magenta spikes seen at left above) are not very long-flowering plants. Their flower spikes look good generally for just a week or so, which period can be stretched slightly if you deadhead the lower flowers (which bloom and fade first) while the topmost flowers are still opening. They are available in any color, but the yellow-to-red spectrum predominates.

Although they are individually short-flowered, you can plant them at any time from the start of May to the end of June or even into July, and they will then flower reliably, if not exactly predictably, about 2½ to 3 months later (by late July, or as late as right now). Their spiky foliage also looks pretty good and healthy for a long season.

My late-planted (6/29/07) Gladioli are almost peaking today. They did not appear affected by the near-freezing morning temperature we experienced the week before last. Late plantings are of course at some risk of freezing off before they get a chance to bloom. On the other hand, in the absence of hard frosts, cooler daytime weather and shortened days should extend any bloom period.

As seen here, I have a clump of Gladioli in my lawn. Gladioli do not mind the low-fertility conditions apt to be found in an unfertilized lawn. You do need a tough step-on bulb-planting tool to get this effect in turf. I think this feature will work better visually if I put a bigger clump next year. In the lawn they stand up vertically; it can be hard to get Gladioli planted in flower beds to do so. You can stake them, or use any awkwardness as an excuse for cut flowers on the table.

Gladiolus corms are not difficult to overwinter, their skin keeping them in good shape under a range of reasonable conditions (unlike Dahlias, whose tubers can shrivel and die if too dry, or get moldy and die if too moist – of course, Dahlias are larger plants, with a much longer bloom season). Late-planted corms are less likely to build up enough strength in their new corms before frosts shut the plants’ photosynthesis down, but like most bulbs Gladioli are fairly cheap as garden plants go.

After frosts have killed off the foliage (or indeed, right now, for earlier-planted ones which flowered more than 6 weeks ago), dig up the corms (or even pull them up slowly by the stem, if they’re in fluffy cultivated earth). To keep them through the winter you should rinse them off, dry them out for 2 weeks on a tray in your basement or garage, then tidy them up by cutting off straggly roots and pulling off last year’s corms. You can store the corms in a mesh bag or panty hose, hanging them up in a dark cool spot such as in your basement. Only the larger corms are likely to flower next year, but you can also save the numerous smaller corms, to plant out next year in some place like a vegetable bed, to bulk up for flowering the following year.

I’ve met a gardener in this area who regularly left her Gladioli to overwinter in the ground. They came back some years and not others, presumably depending on how hard and deep the ground froze in a given year. If you are going to take this gamble, I’d at least recommend putting about 4 inches of loose mulch over them to increase their chances. (We’re in zone 5b in most of the Northern Berkshires, while most Gladioli are reported reliably hardy to zone 8, with thick loose mulch and a position up against your house making them hardy to zone 6, according to my American Horticultural Society A-Z Encyclopedia.)

Hardy Mums

The most common – if not ubiquitous – flowers at this time of the year include the “Hardy Mums,” a form of Chrysanthemum. One can certainly overdo them, but they are healthy and reliable, and available in almost any color except for blue.

Why are Mums always left in pots? Mostly because they’re cheap enough to treat as annuals. Some are not in fact reliably winter hardy here, although they earn their name by holding up well to early frosts. I planted two in the ground a year ago, giving no special coddling or mulching. One survived into this year, and is just now starting to bloom again. I like its orangey contrast with pinky-mauve Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ as seen here.

Mums like ideal positions, namely full or mostly sun, and moist but well-drained soil. Whether you intend to overwinter them or not, Mums will do at least as well for now in the ground as in a pot, without the need for the regular watering or fertilizing of a pot plant. They are also more likely to survive the winter if they are planted now, rather than after another month in their pots. The only downside to putting them in the ground is if you would consider a death there a demoralizing failure. But if it’s a plant you would otherwise nonchalantly kill off by leaving in a pot outside, why hold on to such a cautious attitude?

Last Chance To Plant, Until...

Southview asked me in the previous post:
"I bought a couple of lilac bushes (just stems with a couple of leaves) and they just arrived. Should I stick them in the ground now or pot them till spring then plant them?"

Here's my quick advice:

Stick the lilacs (or any plant you have) in the ground now. Preferably in a spot somewhat sheltered from the wind, but that isn't essential with most lilacs, as they are very hardy (mostly to zone 3 or zone 4; we are in zone 5; there are more tender lilac species, but I don't think anyone around here would be selling them).

The notion of a fall planting season isn't only a marketing gimmick, although in a colder climate like ours, the spring season is a slightly safer one for marginally hardy plants. The heat of summer does provide a real gap between these seasons, even in the Berkshires. But it's late enough in the year for this area that heat stress is no longer a factor.

Certainly by now we're in the fall season here (and the first official day of fall is September 23 this year), and the earlier in the fall you put your plants in, the better established they will be when the ground freezes hard (roots grow even after leaves fall, but not once the soil nears freezing).

Last year I don't believe the ground really froze until about January 10, so even November plantings of Zone 5 plants should have done fine, but you can't count on such a mild early winter. Basically, we have a couple more weeks of likely good planting season, although I might consider an October shrub purchase if the price is radically cheap (like 60% off a fair initial price).

Lilacs are not houseplants. Keeping them in the house in pots is actually more risky than planting them out, perhaps even if you have a cold greenhouse. And keeping plants in pots outside would be the one way cold could kill them. Effectively, being in pots tends to reduce hardiness by 2 zones. I believe that nurseries holding potted trees will bury even the hardiest of them in foot-deep piles of mulch.

I do recommend that, after some cold weather, when the top half-inch or so of ground is frozen, and rodents have found other places to spend the winter, you spread 2 inches of mulch around the new shrubs, keeping the mulch a couple inches from the trunk. The mulch layer is primarily meant to reduce sudden freeze-thaw cycles, but will also somewhat reduce the depth of hard freezing.

Most winter deaths for plants claimed to work in your zone, especially of new plantings, aren't due to absolute cold, but rather to dehydration, as frozen roots can't supply water to a dessicating plant. This is a bigger problem with evergreens, especially broad-leaved evergreens like Rhododendrons (I recommend Wilt Pruf or other antitranspirant spray for new plantings). You should note if there's a fall drought (which isn't as obvious as a summer drought) and if so keep the plants well-watered.

But ironically, good drainage actually helps prevent the frozen-dehydrated problem. Soggy ground freezes solid, while soil with proper drainage has air pores, freezes less deeply, and allows meltwater periodically to percolate in.

Naturally, I have not done extensive experimentation on all of this (i.e., with randomly selected plants and placebos), but am reporting the collected wisdom of botanists, arborists and other authors whose expertise I trust. I have seen Wilt Pruf-treated rhododendrons looking much happier than nontreated neighbor plants, and have noted the tendency of well-drained and amended beds to not freeze as hard as other spots.

[One last tip. Don't fertilize any plants other than annuals now, or after about mid-August for most zone 5 areas. Fertilizing will encourage soft new growth -- which will be killed off in cold weather -- and should be held off until next spring, generally when Forsythia blooms.]

Cuttings For My Garden

Personally I find nothing more thrilling in gardening than the successful propagation of plants. While growing from seed is pretty good, especially for perennials, taking cuttings of plants is positively magical. It is, after all, cloning.

This year I have taken cuttings from two shrubs. The first is a friend’s red-flowering Weigela, which blooms at least twice each summer, fairly unusual in Weigelas. I don’t know if it’s a known or named cultivar, or a lucky find in a seed-raised plant. (Weigelas aren’t known for great foliage or branch or fruit interest when they’re not in flower, so rebloom is an important feature.) The cuttings were taken in late June. I cut off several branch tips, keeping them in a Ziploc bag with a damp paper towel for a few hours before getting to my garden.

Most of the Weigela cuttings had two leaf nodes. For each, I made a fresh cut just below the lower leaf node, removed the lower leaves, and trimmed back the upper node to two half leaflets (i.e., I cut each leaflet in half). I used a single-edge razor blade, but a knife will do if it is sharp.

I inserted the cuttings in some seed starter mix, in 3-inch Jiffy peat pots, and kept them damp and under a clear plastic cover, with perhaps an hour of morning sunlight each day. Basically a cutting is a race to grow roots before wilting or a fungus takes over, but you can’t try to rush the growth with heavy sun or fertilizer, or you will uniformly fail.

As soon as a cutting starts visibly growing, it is also growing roots, and it can be put where its humidity-sealing cover is removed gradually, perhaps an hour a day for a few days, until it is always uncovered. Once uncovered, you will have to water or mist it daily. And then you put it into successively sunnier locations until it is acclimated to where you want to plant it, and you’ll only have to water when the soil is dry.

As of now I have three strong Weigela plants, which have rooted and more than doubled in size, four more plants whose future is in question, as they haven’t grown and are looking rather tired, and about four which succumbed to rot. (You must throw out any rotting ones lest the fungus or whatnot spread to the others.)

The beauty of cuttings is that with access to a healthy bush it’s trivially easy and cheap to take a dozen of them. And with most plants, most of the time, and a modicum of care, that’s usually enough to guarantee a few successes. If you can get Rootone®, TakeRoot® or a similar hormonal rooting product, that often increases your success rate to a clear majority, but with some plants like willows (various Salix species) you can put a stick into the ground just about anywhere, even upside down, and be almost guaranteed of success. (They are harder to keep alive when rooted in a pot.)

Weigelas aren’t quite as vigorous as willow cuttings, but they are known to be easy, so I didn’t bother tracking down Rootone, which I was surprised to learn is not carried by all garden supply stores and nurseries. Of my three successes, I put two into my garden in late August. The third is in a fairly large (perhaps 5-gallon) plastic pot which I aim to bring inside for the winter and place in a window. Hopefully at least one plant will survive cold, snowfall, and/or neglect (the oversized pot will last longer between waterings), making it to spring, and clear sailing for a shrub.

This year I purchased the rose known as ‘The Fairy’ – a smallish but very healthy, adaptable and long-flowering rose with many small pink double flowers. It is known to root fairly easily, with spreading canes which often layer spontaneously where they touch the ground. The Fairy dates from 1932, and so is not under patent.

On the 13^th I decided to experiment with this plant, to see if I would have any success under, if not the worst of conditions, then certainly a half-assed attempt to maximize success -- late in the season, with no rooting powder, and using no cover, relying instead on shade, cooler weather, and the harder wood of later-season cuttings being more resistant to wilting.

I trimmed off a disproportionately long cane (partially seen in the top center of the first photo) and made about ten cuttings.

I had used a gloved finger to pop the thorns off to the side, making the material easier to handle, but while the Weigela had been softwood in late June, this roses’ hardwood cuttings were, indeed, quite hard to slice through with a razor blade. I was almost surprised I didn’t get myself sliced in the process. Note the sticky pad, which is a 3-inch square; a fully prepared cutting is to the left of the pad.

Most of the cuttings have three nodes; some have two. I removed the lower two nodes’ leaves, and half or more of the leaflets in the top node, and inserted most of the cuttings, untreated, into the ground. This was in a very well-drained area, a raised bed, which I had double-dug and amended with compost a month previous when I was planting a (rooted) Weigela. It is important that the cuttings area be such well-drained and yet moisture-retaining material, free of competing roots, loosened, but also firmed down. Ideally, experts such as Christopher Lloyd recommend a mix of 1 part loamy soil, 2 parts peat moss, and 3 parts coarse sand or grit (1/16 to 3/16 of an inch).

Four of the cuttings I inserted along the rim (shaded side) of the large pot with the rooted Weigela in the middle. This pot is still outside, getting morning sun on the Weigela, but it will go inside for the winter.

Certainly these late, unbabied rose cuttings are at greater risk than the already-rooted Weigelas. But even fully rooted cuttings are not as winter-hardy as larger, established plants. Altogether I will be happy if I get at least one Weigela and two roses to survive into next year’s growing season; after all, they cost me nothing (I did use about $6 worth of supplies I already had, as noted). I may put something cage-like on top of the outside plants so heavy snow won’t crush them.

How late in the season can you do all this? Softwood cuttings are best taken by early July, so as to be strongly rooted by end of season. Hardwood cuttings are supposed to be doable even into November. But in that case, you can’t expect any growth or rooting until spring. (The cuttings will probably survive, dormant, since having no leaves that late they won’t be losing much moisture.) The limiting factor then may be frozen ground. You could, if planning cuttings, prepare the ground ahead of time and keep it unfrozen with a thick layer of mulch.

Any questions?

July Goes Out Like a Lamb

A rather interesting daylily (Hemerocallis) fronts some ladies' mantle (Alchemilla mollis) on my rocky slope.

Lupine fronts unfurling Rudbeckia 'Goldsturm.' This photo was taken today. It's not often a perennial Lupine reblooms (the first bloom peaked around 6/30/07). I did dead-head it quickly after its first flower spike was finished, but it's probably only because it's a young (first-year) plant that the rebloom occurred. (I got it at the North Adams Garden Club sale this spring.)

Best Chicken Ever Goes Down

Sadly, I must report that yesterday as I was driving down Summer Street in Adams, I saw that the Jolly Butcher shop has signs in the window saying "We Are Now Permanently Closed." So another tasty establishment has gone down the tubes. Their pressure-fried chicken was beyond compare (OK, it was a bit like KFC, if KFC used better chicken and had consistent quality control). They also had good raw meat. (See "It’s all about the Ribeye.") Apparently, they just didn't have enough customers.

The problem with depressed retail in Adams and North Adams is of course a lot broader than one shop or even retail in general. And for Summer Street, the relative absence of through-traffic and of out-of-towners adds to the difficulties. Since our main street (actually named Park Street, aka route 8), while busier, also has empty store-fronts, I'd think the longer run solution for this town is for most of the Summer Street shops to move to Park. Of course, if I owned real estate on Summer Street I'd probably feel differently. Hopefully, the new Topia will entice some new customers and businesses to Park regardless.

I haven't had any connection to the retail business since I was in college. And I can't think of any retail concept crying out for a presence here. Except possibly for a bike shop with espresso and ice cream, since the Ashuwillticook ends right at the center of Adams. (However, there is a good bike/outdoors shop a couple miles away.)

Apart from a casino, does anyone have a retail wish, or an idea for something they think could do well in Adams or North Adams?

Rainy Day Project

So as soon as I get a couple days off from all responsibilities (i.e., my children), it starts to rain. A lot of projects have been building up, because it’s been a pain in the butt to find most of my more esoteric tools and hardware parts. So after 12 months in my Adams House (oddly, that’s the name also of the dorm complex I lived in for 3 years, 20 years ago – must have been fate that sent me here), I finally got around to organizing my tools.

Naturally, this meant a peg board, as I had in my last (Natick) house. At Greenberg’s an 8’ x 11’ piece of 1/8^th inch peg board was $11. Add in about $12 for peg board hooks and such (most of which I already owned), some lumber (mostly scraps I had), and a half-dozen hours of labor, and here’s the result so far. (I took perhaps 90 minutes to cut and set up the board and lumber, the rest of the time to go through cardboard boxes, tubs and tool boxes, peg things to the board, shelve larger items, and perhaps most important, hook up some old yard-sale speakers to an equally ancient amp, so the iPod and CD Boombox can be properly cranked with Woodstock-era rock and roll music.)

Now I can instantly find my plumber’s snake (for the slow shower drain) and my small screwdrivers (to fix a lamp cord-switch), and all my other projects will go much more quickly. (Just 10 minutes for the shower drain which has been plaguing me and my understanding wife for months.)

Do any of you have any exciting rainy day projects, done or as yet undone, to share?

How’s Your Garden?

At the Independence Day parade in Williamstown, I ran into a father of a girl who will be in my daughter’s kindergarten class. He noted that it’s been a great year for his garden. It hadn’t occurred to me until just then, in part because I’ve only had my garden here for 11 months, but yes, it has. Almost everything is growing strongly and flowering well. And apart from a little powdery mildew on some of my goldenrod, I have had no problem with fungal or other diseases. Of course, the weeds are also vigorous, there have been insects here and there eating things, and the rodents haven’t let up on their depredations. But you can’t have everything.

Naturally, if this phenomenon (i.e., a great year) is real, and not a figment of our imaginations, it must be due to some aspect of the weather. While we’ve felt a bit sticky from humidity, it seems to me that unlike last year, we haven’t had much very hot weather. (I understand that right around 86 degrees F is the point where most plants stop growing and start suffering.) We also have had plenty of rain, fairly regularly, but not so much overcast weather that things are suffering from a lack of sun.

Here’s a flower bed of mine a week ago (6/26/07). You may note Delphinium and Cosmos in bloom, and a few flowers left on Centranthus ruber ‘Coccineus’ and Lupinus (front center and back right). Not very floriferous, I’ll concede, but: It’s the first year for all of these perennials; the Potentilla fruticosa ‘Pink Beauty’ shrub (reddish twigs behind and to right of Cosmos) can’t be expected to be doing any more in its first season (it was supposed to be a “trade gallon” but arrived as a bare-root -- at least Wayside Gardens did give me a half-back credit when I complained); and the area has a bunch of plants scheduled to start blooming by August (four big Dahlia plants around the middle right, Chrysanthemums at left, Liatris spicata ‘Kobold’ just to left of Cosmos, Solidago / goldenrod and Hemerocallis / daylily at back).

Does anyone else in the area have any other theory about the conditions this year, or have anything to report on growth or health of their plants?

Best Man's Toast

I was Best Man in a wedding this past weekend. The groom is a pretty easy-going guy, and he is an excellent friend of long standing, so the only hard part of that for me was the giving of the Best Man’s toast. I have innately at least the average level of fear of public speaking, and I haven’t spoken to a significant audience since I was 13 years old.* I wanted a proper speech, not just a one-sentence toast, although the groom graciously allowed that the latter would be fine if I didn’t think I was up to writing and giving something longer.

The Best Man’s speech is a tricky genre in which to write. It has to be in part a roast of the groom and perhaps the bride, the beauty of the ceremony and the bride must be noted, and it also must contain a certain amount of schmaltz. Positive things must be said about love and marriage, but not children or “family,” which might lead to nosy questions. Everything must be in balance lest someone be offended or shocked. “Is he saying the bride’s an alcoholic and the groom a poon-hound?” is something I’ve found myself asking on more than one such occasion.**

Anyway, I got a lot of praise afterwards. Of course I can’t be sure it was not the kind of praise you give the retarded girl for her indecent dancing with her grandfather. (No, this example does not concern a guest at this wedding.)

My one regret is that I didn’t play down or hide from the groom my performance anxiety. Giving the groom fewer, not more things to worry about, is ultimately the job description of the best man.

So here goes, as I had it printed out before me.

*******

Excuse me everyone, if I could have your attention for a moment, I’d like to say a few words.

I’m David Pittelli, and I have the honor of being Brad’s best man.

Looking around today at all these guests, I am thankful that the duties of best man no longer include fending off the bride’s relatives with swordplay.

Civilization has advanced from Anglo-Saxon times, and of course Kim would make a pretty formidable swordswoman herself if it came to that.

So now that I’ve delivered a groom and a ring to the ceremony, it is my final duty and honor to make a little speech suitable for mixed company.

First I would like to thank our hosts, Kim and her parents Ruth and Bill, and Brad and his parents Priscilla and C.C. What a lovely place they’ve chosen for a June wedding.

It's my job to compliment the beautiful bride and also to say something profound about Brad. The first part is easy. Kim, you look stunning, and Brad is a very lucky man.

Like most of us here I know one half of the wedding couple much more than the other.

In fact, I have known Brad for almost 30 years.

I’d like to help you all get to know Brad as I have.

But, on advice of council…

I’m going to have to invoke my rights under the Fifth Amendment on all of that.

Brad is getting married late enough in life that, no doubt, many have seen him as a life-long bachelor...

Not that there’s anything wrong with that!

Destiny is a fickle mistress, if I’m allowed to use that word tonight.

In Brad’s case, finding a bride was merely a matter of a company hiring both him and Miss Right… after he had driven a few biotech firms into the ground.

I have been married for a few years. And while getting married was the best thing I ever did, my wife and I do have our occasional disagreements.

To deal with them, Brad, sometimes you’ll need a firm hand.

And sometimes you’ll need a delicate touch.

While washing my wife’s delicates the other day, it occurred to me that Brad really is a very good friend. He helped me through many a romantic crisis in my single days. And if you’ve got a difficult construction project, Brad is always willing to lend a hand.

And he’s more fit than he looks.

Which is a good thing, because it’s murder getting an ambulance through Salem traffic.

I’d also like to say that Brad is the most level-headed man I know and, along with his generosity, another thing that stands out is his appreciation of quality. And today, Brad, you’ve found a lady of true quality in Kim. It’s been an honor and a privilege to be your best man today.

So finally, it is my considered pleasure to say let us drink to the everlasting love and happiness of Brad and Kim!

*******

* A debate before a prep school of 300. One reason I recently taught that class “Rejuvenating Your Shrubbery” was because I wanted to build up some practice speaking to a little group. Well, I got one student! My legions of fans let me down. It’s a good thing I’m not a cult leader, or you’d all be getting the Kool-Aid… Actually, the class size of one meant I could instead hold it in the student’s garden; and I think that worked out quite well for her and was good practice of another sort for me.

** It is fairly easy to write one-liners which might be funny if you heard them second-hand or in a movie featuring an awful toast, but which would really upset people in a real wedding. (e.g., “…No, we won’t be making midnight trips to Tijuana anymore, but John, one thing won’t change… you’ll still be paying for sex!”) It seems to me that the tension created in the audience, when they think you’ve just said, or are about to say, something wildly inappropriate, either explicitly or as double entendre, but then just barely don’t, is the basis for a lot of the humor in this genre. And of course, fitting the details of personality, family and history is a good idea, if for no other reason than so people don’t think you just lifted your material from the internet.

Here are two outtakes – jokes which didn’t quite work for me (the first perhaps too hard to follow aurally; the latter might have worked if I were gay):

I looked up the meaning of Brad’s name and discovered that Bradford is a place name meaning “broad ford” – as in a river crossing – and that Brad just means ‘broad.’ I looked up the meaning of Kimberly and found it means ‘ruler’ or ‘royal fortress.’ Go figure. “Broad” and “ruler.” Now what could that mean?

I know that whoever said that marriage and family can be work was not kidding. But to me, building a family is like planning and making a garden. The result and even the process are usually pleasant, even if you do get a little dirt under your fingernails. Now, ornamental gardening is my primary hobby. Perhaps to Brad marriage should be seen as an extended fishing trip. But then, ending up with a stinky fish would come to mind – so never mind all of that.

Plugs of Poop and Hosta

I have a large row of well-established Hostas, and had known since moving here last year that I would be dividing many of them this May. Except for a few times when I wanted to totally remove a perennial from an unsuitable place, I don’t think I have ever divided one in the classic fashion, by lifting it out of the ground, cutting it up, and putting the pieces back in amended ground. Instead, I have used a smaller shovel to cut individual portions off from the established perennial, like cutting pieces off a pie. This method also allows me (pretty much requires me, actually) to move the center of the perennial a few inches in whichever direction is less crowded.

I am always up for labor-saving techniques and experimentation, and I have considered using a bulb planter to do this work. But I hadn’t gotten around to it, or perhaps dared to do it, until I saw a “reader tip” in Garden Gate Magazine this spring, which said the technique worked for Hosta, albeit with the claim that it was most suitable for fall, not for spring divisions. The primary advantage of this technique is that the cylinders of plant fit neatly into holes cut in the ground with the same tool, meaning less time getting pieces to fit, moving loose soil around, and cleaning up. (On the other had, if the plants’ destination is hard, root-filled ground, you should probably do some digging there anyway to prepare the bed before drilling your planting hole.)

For plants in softer ground, the hand-held type of bulb planter works well. But for some of the plants the earth or roots were too hard, and I used a heavier, sharper, foot-pushed bulb tool designed for use in turf.

This plug-planting was fairly easy to do in early May, when the Hostas were just coming up. You carefully orient two or three buds into the bulb planter, then push or twist down as far as you can, until you get through the crown and root layer, and lift up a plug of Hosta roots, soil and sprout.

I moved the Hostas on 5/6/07, and this photo of one was taken on 6/9/07:

Naturally, the Hosta isn’t huge, but it is healthily established, the moving process was easy, and its removal subtracted hardly a whit from the parent plant. (My hand-held planter is 2.5 inches in diameter at the bottom cutting edge, and the foot-pushed planter is 2.25 inches.)

A related idea came to me a couple days ago. I had bought some Delphinium and Lupinus at the North Adams Garden Club plant sale on May 19. Rushing to put them in to suitable-looking empty spots in my raised bed, I did not notice until later that in some of those locations, the sandy soil lacking in humus drained and dried out very quickly. I didn’t want to be wedded to daily watering, and I didn’t want to traumatize the plants – or overtax myself! – by lifting them and working extensively on their beds, but I wanted to do something more extensive than just a top-dressing or mulch. So last week I brought around a container of composted cow manure, and used my bulb tool to remove plugs of low-organic soil, and replace them with plugs of manure. Since the plants had been in the ground less than a month, I was pretty confident I could skirt their roots by keeping a half inch beyond their original pot diameter, and that a few removed roots wouldn’t matter much. I put 3 or 4 plugs of poop around each plant, then watered. Here is a photo of a Delphinium with two holes of bad soil removed, and one already filled with manure:

Naturally, some top-dressing and mulch would also be a good followup. I don’t think I have to fear burning or otherwise harming the plants if they come in contact with pure manure (it is composted, and claims just 0.5/0.5/0.5 NPK percentages). One concern is whether worms or water flow will sufficiently mix the manure or its soluble nutrients with the adjacent soil.

There’s another experiment I will try some day, when I get a proper subject: a somewhat exhausted “donut-shaped” perennial that I have no particular need to propagate, and which has sufficient elbow room all around. Instead of dividing, I will just drill out the middle hole of weak old plant with one or more stabs with a bulb planter, and then fill the hole with composted manure. Treating the plant thus in situ should be easy and without risk of shocking the plant.

Orange Mockery

Having moved into a Victorian with some overgrown areas less than a year ago, I am still pleasantly surprised as formerly unknown or unnoticed plants have come into bloom. One side of my property is lined with a “hedge” – not a typical in-town sheared hedge of one or a few carefully chosen types of plant, but a hedge of the sort, composed of a mix of species, many of them sown by birds, that one would find along a small farm field. On Wednesday (6/6/07), fresh blooms led me to discover that much of this hedge consists of mock orange, or Philadelphus – overgrown, however, by more aggressive brambles and bush honeysuckle, and topped by dogwood trees (Cornus alternifolia).

Most Philadelphus grow up to about 10 feet tall and wide, but there are 4-foot cultivars. It does not generally get much respect for its appearance out of flower – it is rather like a smaller-caned lilac – and like the slightly earlier blooming lilac, its flowers are most prized for their scent. But I think they look pretty snappy. I wouldn’t have guessed that they are a good cut flower, but I had this spray in my house for two-and-a-half days before taking this photograph, and it has even opened additional buds since I picked it:

Philadelphus has a very pleasant scent, unfortunately not as strong with my bushes as with most of its many named cultivars. Naturally, a bigger vase with perhaps four such sprays would be more attractive and odiferous.

The fact that several of these bushes have survived and even flowered where they have is testimony to their adaptability and essential toughness. Mine did have black aphids on some young branch tips which were in more congested and shaded areas. Pruning out the affected tips and competing growth should open up the bush enough to reduce its suitability to the aphids.

Philadelphus are fairly vigorous cane-growers, reportedly easy to grow from cuttings throughout the summer. They can take hard pruning, and like Forsythia should have about a third of their older canes cut to the ground each year. This not having been done in over a decade, I have a lot of dead and/or crowded wood to remove, as you can see: