Indholdsfortegnelse for September/October 2021 i Horticulture

THE PLANT KINGDOM today is dominated by flowering plants—and the pollinator world, by bees. There are some 20,000 species of bees globally, 4,000 in the United States. In the tiny state of Vermont, there are more than 300 species of wild bees—miners and masons, carpenters and bumblebees, sweat bees and cuckoos. Some form complex social groups, but many are solitary, living in hollowed out sticks and holes in the ground. And, yes, there’s also Apis mellifera, the domestic honeybee, which has played a central role in feeding the world, providing not just honey but pollination to gardens and crops. Now this dual bee story is faltering: the deep-time story of wild bees, and the 9,000-year-old story of domestic bees that probably began in pottery jars in what is now Turkey.…

One of the first trees I grew (and pruned—incorrectly, I’m sad to say, by removing a limb while its fruits were ripening) was a Sorbus, or mountain ash. It grew in a garden in Minneapolis. At that time I was a landscape student, and while my designer’s eye was drawn to the unique charms of this genus, my gardener’s skills didn’t quite match up with its required care. The USDA Zone 4 location, however, gave me a fighting chance to succeed if I learned a little bit more about these trees. Mountain ash, whitebeam, service tree, rowanthese are all common names for trees and shrubs within Sorbus, an overlooked genus of the Rosaceae family. All species share a preference for cool, dry summers and a proclivity to produce pendant clusters…

NESTLED ALONG the northeast corner of Prospect Park in New York City, Brooklyn Botanic Garden traces its history to 1897, when the state government set aside 39 city acres for a botanical garden. The space opened to the public in 1911. Many of the areas a contemporary visitor sees date back to those early years, including the Native Flora Garden; the Children’s Garden, where city kids can grow vegetables; the Japanese Hill-and-Pond Garden, one of the first of its type in the United States; and the Rock Garden. Today the garden also provides much education and outreach, through school partnerships, programs like the Greenest Block in Brooklyn contest and newer areas like the Elizabeth Scholtz Woodland Garden, which showcases plants that flourish in dry shade, and the Discovery Garden, where…

BY THE TIME summer shifts to autumn, the warm-season crops have started to wind down. The homegrown harvest is far from over, however, as this is when the salad greens, root vegetables and cabbage cousins begin to mature for months of autumn meals. Cabbage family vegetables include cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kohlrabi and kale. They grow best when planted in a site with full sun and compost-enriched soil. You can direct seed these vegetables in mid- to late summer (depending on your region and the crop’s number of days to maturity), but I prefer to give them a head start by sowing the seed indoors. I harden off and transplant the seedlings into the garden three to four weeks later. There are four cabbage cousins I consider essential for my autumn…

“ELIMINATE LAWNS” has long been the cry of environmentally minded gardeners. With good reason: when maintained in the traditional style, lawns function as biological deserts, providing no benefit to pollinators or other wildlife while serving as a disproportionate source of water and air pollution. Yet the general public has staunchly resisted this campaign, not eliminating but rather steadily expanding the area of greensward so that it now covers more than an estimated 40 million acres of the United States. The lawn, it seems, is here to stay. What if, though, you could have your green open space with less work, with little or no pollution and create a biodiverse habitat as well? Such a transformation was not Krissy Boys’s initial aim, she told me in a podcast interview, when she…

AS THE DIRECTOR of Horticulture for the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden (CZBG), Steve Foltz leads the planting of animal exhibits and beds that enhance visitors’ experience. He also oversees CZBG plant trials and projects that benefit the surrounding community. SCOTT BEUERLEIN: You once told me of some adolescent mischief that involved a city park, cops and the transplanting of some trees. SCOTT BEUERLEIN is the Manager of Botanical Garden Outreach at the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden. His Garden Views Horticulture column presents perspectives from fellow gardening professionals across the United States. STEVE FOLTZ: When I was a kid, I saw a great-looking ash tree with the best bright-red fall color growing near a telephone pole in Devou Park (Covington, Ky.). It was only about two-foot-tall, so I thought…

It is safe to say that any parent who loves plants hopes to instill in their children a similar passion. Perhaps that’s because weeding is tedious, and outsourcing the work to a child is much less expensive than a maintenance crew! Ulterior motives aside, gardening can benefit young minds in endless ways, at almost any age. Littlest sprouts When a child is old enough to walk, or even crawl, they are old enough to start playing in the garden. Your front or back yard offers the perfect place to develop both gross and fine motor skills for your toddler. The child with boundless energy will be happy to run through the sprinkler or jump in leaves; these activities provide them physical benefits and you the chance to work through your…

Harvest! There are many crops to be harvested in September, but I pay particular attention to tomatoes. Fully ripe tomatoes are a garden treat but they can split or crack after rain or watering. They also don’t keep long once harvested. I therefore harvest large-fruited tomatoes when they’re three-quarters ripe, bringing them indoors to finish coloring up. This reduces splitting, prevents pests from being tempted by the fully ripe fruits and increases their shelf life. Prepare! By late September, the risk of frost is looming in my garden. I want to make sure my covers are ready to go by mid-month. The biggest task is to ensure my row covers and polyethylene sheets are clean, because dirty covers block light. If row covers need washing, I hang them on my…

MT. CUBA CENTER is a Delaware botanic garden devoted to native plants. Since the late 1980s, it has introduced roughly 20 cultivars to the nursery trade. Recently, five of these were designated as the Mt. Cuba Collection, an all-star team from the site’s continual studies. “With the collection, we’re taking a snapshot of the better older introductions that you can still get commercially, plus some newer standouts,” explains Sam Hoadley, Trial Garden Manager. Trials run for three years, assessing performance plus value to beneficial insects, with detailed reports made freely available at https://mtcubacenter.org/research/trial-garden/. As interest in native plants continues to rise, the Mt. Cuba Collection plants receive a well-earned moment in the sun. ‘PURPLE FLAME’ BLUE FLAG IRIS VERSICOLOR ‘PURPLE FLAME’ Years ago Mt. Cuba gardeners noticed an unusual plant…

EVERY ELEMENT of every living creature on earth—animal or vegetable—was forged in the stars, literally within the furnaces of the stars. We and our plant friends have that in common. We shared the nursery when we were just a collection of newborn atomic elements. All elements carry an electrical charge: positive, negative or neutral. It is in the nature of the elements to want chemical stability; that is, to get off the merry-go-round of constant combining and splitting up with other elements and find an arrangement that remains constant. The elements do this by sharing electrons with other elements. To become stable, oxygen, for instance, needs to find two electrons from somewhere. Hydrogen is always handy, and each hydrogen atom has one electron available. In a blink and a click,…

With pollinators and the other insects that help sustain our ecosystems in decline, now is the time to welcome what biologist E.O. Wilson called “the little things that run the world” into our gardens. Many gardeners plant flowers to attract bees and butterflies, but insects can’t live on flowers alone. They require shelter, water and, in some cases, very specific food sources to raise their young. Consider creating a habitat for pollinators as well as the amazing array of less beloved, but still important, insects out there. Here’s how: 1 | Offer an insect buffet Cultivating native plants and letting bugs nibble them is perhaps the most effective thing you can do to support a healthy population of insects and other wildlife. Unfortunately, most garden plants are non-native and inedible…