Indholdsfortegnelse for September/October 2020 i Horticulture

Teakettle—teakettle—teakettle! A Carolina wren was our neighborhood alarm clock this summer, hollering this tune no later than 5:30 most mornings. (That’s their call—it really does sound like “teakettle!”) I’m up with my coffeepot—coffeepot—coffeepot by five, so this tiny but incredibly loud bird didn’t bother me. (Don’t ask my husband about it.) I enjoyed listening and looking for the wren, which led me to think about how to make our yard and garden more welcoming to songbirds. Yet sometimes we do good by wildlife without thinking. There’s a huge red maple at the corner of our front yard, and its lowest branches were blocking a stop sign once they leafed out. We trimmed these away in spring, making a pile near the garage to take to our town’s compost station. But…

As summer draws to a close, it’s time to remake container gardens with fall-flavored plants that provide texture, form and long-lasting color. Good news: There are plenty of options! I love combining purple or blue asters (Symphyotrichum) with ornamental kale, because the colors play off each other nicely over a long period. Lesser-known plants like fall-blooming salvias can add height and spice to container gardens. Cold-hardy vegetables and herbs can provide interest and texture. I like using Swiss chard, broccoli, Asian greens, parsley and onion for intriguing and colorful effects. Here are a few tips for planting and tending fall containers: • Plant early enough to give plants a chance to grow some before cooler temperatures and shorter days slow them down. Here in Chicago, I plant fall containers by…

An indication of the toughness of Olea europea is its longevity. Olive trees can live for more than 2,000 years. I’ve seen huge, venerable-looking ceramic pots, in which grew even more venerable-looking thick-trunked, gnarly olive trees that seemed to defy their circumstances. But survive they did, near the shores of Lake Lugano, in view of the Italian Alps, and they looked pretty good to me, too. (You may take that with a grain of salt, since as a septuagenarian a lot of old things look better to me than they used to.) I could not begin to guess the age of Lake Lugano’s potted trees. But I can tell you that there is one tree carbon-dated to 1,600 years old that still fruits in Croatia. Others in Malta, called the…

as fall arrives, many of us will hang bird feeders and fill them for resident wild birds and those returning for the coming winter or passing through on their way farther south. However, this season can also be a time to support the birds in another way: by planning and even planting seed-producing locally native plants in our garden spaces. Trees and shrubs are important parts of a bird-friendly garden, for the nuts and berries they may produce, the insects they attract that become prey and the cover and nesting sites they can provide. Flowering perennials and annuals are just as crucial, however. Herbaceous plants with ample seed can offer birds a natural food source from summer into fall and winter. Their seed is particularly attractive to birds with small,…

I Little bluestem SCHIZACHYRIUM SCOPARIUM Blue-green blades form dense mounds to three feet tall, turning red in the fall as white tufts of seed ripen. NATIVE RANGE: Wood edges, hillsides and prairies from Quebec south to southeast Mexico and west to Alberta through the Interior West. WILDLIFE VALUE: Larval host for a number of butterflies; seed and nesting material for birds. J Northern sea oats CHASMANTHIUM LATIFOLIUM Broad blades are bluish green through summer, turning gold in fall. Arching stems produce drooping, oat-like spikelets that turn ivory and then brown. NATIVE RANGE: Shady slopes and streambanks from Pennsylvania south to northern Florida, west to Illinois, central Texas and Arizona, into Mexico. WILDLIFE VALUE: Larval host for several butterflies; nesting material and seed for birds. K Sideoats grama…

Autumn is an excellent time to install new shrubs. It allows you to take a look back over the summer to see where you needed more heft. Plus, planting in the fall gives the shrubs a healthier start than plunking the plant into spring’s cold soil, setting it up to face blistering hot weather in the summer. Fall-planted shrubs experience less stress and put on strong root growth before the winter. At any time of the year, the effort you put into preparing the planting hole pays off in the long run. Be generous when digging a shrub’s new home, making it a couple of sizes larger than the shrub’s container. This might require moving nearby established perennials, which is perfectly fine, since you want a realistic visualization of how…

Annuals represent a wonderful, commitment-free way to experiment with color, height and texture, but more often than not, shopping for annuals results in a predictable mix of impatiens, wax begonia and petunia—the plants found at every garden center and hardware store each May. Yet there are planty of unusual and dramatic alternatives that could be included in a garden, with a bit of advance planning and sourcing. As you look back on this summer’s garden, think about goals for next year, and read on for some outside-the-big-box-store annuals that can meet them. YOU WANT TO BE SALVIA SAVVY  When most people hear “annual salvia,” they likely think of Salvia splendens, the most popular type, or of S. farinacea ‘Victoria Blue’. Those are both typical bedding plants, maxing out at heights…

IN MOST RELATIONSHIPS, there is the one who loves tools and will sometimes buy them with merely some nebulous, vague future need in mind. They do this knowing full well that their spouse might notice. And then ask questions. Hard questions. And that one of their answers might be, “I don’t know when I’ll use it.” And another, if things go badly, might be, “I might never use it.” In my marriage with Michele, the tool lover is me. And we have a Harbor Freight nearby. My guess is that Harbor Freight is a front for the mob. I don’t know. Maybe for money laundering. All I do know is that their tools are incredibly cheap. True, they look and feel like they’re made from recycled battleships using 1950s Soviet…

WHEN I MOVED to Sonoma County, Calif., from the East Coast in 1985, I was surprised by what a presence Luther Burbank still had around the county seat of Santa Rosa. Yes, he died in 1926, but there was the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts, the Luther Burbank Savings & Loan and other places named for the famous plantsman of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A main tourist attraction was the Luther Burbank Home & Gardens. His house, greenhouse and outbuildings still stood and some of the trees he’d hybridized were still growing there. There was the prickly pear cactus he’d cajoled into shedding its spines. There was the cedar of Lebanon he’d been given as a gift, now a towering tree in his front yard, under…

1 JAPANESE ANEMONE Anemone Fall in Love ‘Sweetly’ Japanese anemones are perennials that begin blooming in late summer and continue into the fall, with flowers ranging from white to magenta. ‘Sweetly’ is a relatively compact selection at two feet tall and wide, with semi-double flowers in a rosy pink. It spreads by underground stems, but not aggressively. Full sun to light shade. USDA Zones 4–8. 2 HEN-AND-CHICKS Sempervivum ‘Ruby Heart’ Sempervivum grows as a large, low rosette with small rosettes slowly popping up around it, giving rise to the name hen-and-chicks. Often these hardy succulents show enhanced foliage colors with cold weather. ‘Ruby Heart’, for example, has blue-green leaves that become red at their bases with maturity, and these colors deepen in fall. Full to part sun. Zones 3–8. 3…

These days people are looking for more from their gardens than ever before; gone are the days where “pretty” is enough on its own. Facing up to worldwide habitat loss, the huge decline of insects and songbirds and a changing climate, many folks are demanding more from their built landscapes. Happily, there is no need to give up anything when building gardens that support—and are supported by—wildlife. With just a little bit of guidance, we can build spaces that are beautiful, tasty, interactive and ecologically functional—while requiring much less maintenance than conventional gardens often do. There are a number of strategies for creating easier and ecologically robust landscapes, but there’s only one rule: Use native plants. There is no need for a 100-percent native landscape—your tomatoes are not going to…

Audubon Native Plants Database  https://www.audubon.org/native-plants At this webpage you’ll be prompted to enter your ZIP code and e-mail address, resulting in a list of plants native to your area, each with a description and its growing requirements, plus what kind of birds it may attract. (The plants are compiled using data from the North American Plant Atlas, a publication of the Biota of North America Program (bonap.org). There’s a search function and filters available to narrow the results. While browsing, you can check off a box next to any plant; when you’re done, there’s an option to have all of your choices e-mailed to you in one list. Native Plant Finder  https://www.nwf.org/NativePlantFinder This site is a developing project of the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) in consultation with University of Delaware…

ONE OF MY FAVORITE gardening tools, so to speak, is the camera on my phone. I love to take quick snapshots of various garden areas at different points in the seasons, since I learned years ago to trust neither my memory nor my will power when I’m plant shopping. That little voice inside that whispers “There’s room for it somewhere” is so very strong. It helps to glance back through the photos on my phone to remind myself that no, there is not room for that (eventually) 10- to 12-foot oakleaf hydrangea anywhere in my suburban garden. I also like to just randomly flip through my garden photos when the mood strikes, and in doing this recently I was caught by the comparison of various points in spring and various…

Save! As summer winds down, my seed saving ramps up. I love to collect seeds from the annual flowers in my vegetable garden—nasturtiums, calendula and poppies—as well as from herbs and vegetables. Easy vegetable seeds to collect include peas, beans, tomatoes and lettuce. Plant! While garlic is a common crop to plant in autumn, I also like to plant shallots. Planting shallot sets in fall yields a crop that is ready to harvest in early to midsummer. Shallots grow best in a sunny spot with well-draining, compost-enriched soil. Plant each bulb about two inches deep; the pointy tip of the bulb should be just sticking out of the soil. I like to space them on six-inch centers. Water them well and mulch them with shredded leaves for winter protection. Organize!…

I’M NOT REALLY a plant snob, but on occasion I do perversely enjoy it when a visiting gardener recognizes something I have that doesn’t belong in Rhode Island. “Oh, that! That’s just a golden bougainvillea. You have one of those, as well, don’t you?” The fact is, I have always liked growing unusual plants in my yard or on my deck, along with the old faithfuls that can be counted on to bloom, bear or just look pretty in USDA Zones 6b or 7a (or—wishful thinking on the south side of my brown house—Zone 8a). Some of my novel plants become more or less part of my permanent collection, like my Asian persimmons, Meyer lemons and weeping mulberries. Others fall in the category of passing “Greg fads,” like artichokes, agaves…

We can make our lives easier and insects’ lives better with a second look at our fall cleanup practices. From an ecological point of view, being lazy in fall is a fabulous idea. We’ve been taught for a long time that leaf cleanup and stem cutbacks are necessary to maintain healthy gardens, but any meadow or woodland understory shows that this is simply not true among native plants. These plants thrive untouched, and their “messy” landscapes support a number of life forms that would not survive winter after a typical fall cleanup. Downed leaves are valuable wintering homes for butterfly and moth species as well as native salamanders, while standing herbaceous stems house roughly a third of our native bee species during the winter months.…

SUGGESTED PLANTS Many of the listed species belong to genera that are widespread across North America, so if one does not match up with your region, it is worth looking for a related species that does, using tools such as those listed in “Make a Planting List” on the previous page. A Cup plant SILPHIUM PERFOLIATUM This three- to six-foot-tall plant produces golden daisy-type flowers that give way to abundant seed. The large leaves form cups that hold water and draw small birds to drink. NATIVE RANGE: Woods and prairies from southern Ontario south to North Carolina, west to the eastern Great Plains. WILDLIFE VALUE: Nectar for butterflies and hummingbirds; nesting material for native bees; seed for birds. B Showy goldenrod SOLIDAGO SPECIOSA Stems stand up straight and…

There are two ways to prune: heading cuts and thinning cuts. Heading cuts occur at an intermediate point along the length of a stem to encourage bushy new growth. They can be haphazard and they are easily accomplished with shears to create hedges or densely flowering shrubs or small trees. Thinning cuts are the strategic removal of the parent stem above a lateral branch or point of origin. This promotes an open canopy, one that “a bird can fly through,” as the old-time arborists advise. Prune your winter trees for form with thinning cuts, starting when they are young, but not until the third winter after planting to ensure the roots are well established and the tree has enough vigor to heal.…

It’s tempting to simply rake or blow leaves into beds without shredding them first, but that step is essential for certain kinds of leaves. Large, flat leaves, like those of maple trees, may stick together and form mats that prevent water from penetrating the soil, so they should be shredded. Small, fine leaves that curl up as they dry out might be okay to apply to beds as-is. However, as noted by Margaret Montplaisir, of Rutgers Master Gardeners of Mercer County (NJ), “Beech, birch, hornbeam, sweet chestnut, magnolia and holly all contain a high amount of lignin (the structural material in trees), and these should be shredded to speed their breakdown.” For other tips, see Montplaisir’s blog post http://mgofmc.org/fall-leaves-love-em-and-leave-em.…