What's In This Issue

- wherein the author speaks his mind and sells his farm.

Questions:

Jack takes issue with Doug's advice on wooly adelgids (c'mon Jack, there's hope there) :-)

Several questions on tulips - keeping them alive, freezing them etc.

Gardener wants to pee on the grass to kill it. :-)

Novice gardener might have put landscape fabric upside down.

Gardener crabby about "crab"?? grass.

And more....

From the Garden:

Bleeding Hearts for shade and summer-long bloom.

Doug's Notes

Spring has been quite variable but is now firmly established. The hellebore are just about finished blooming, the primula are well established, the jack-in-the-pulpits are going strong while the bluebells are fading away. The unpruned roses (hey – it was a busy fall last year and spring this year hasn’t been any better) :-) are starting to bud up too. It is all alive out there and losses have been smaller than expected except for the voles that seemed to have survived quite nicely last winter.

One of the interesting things in the garden world is how my desired plant is your weed. I like to keep a few variegated Arundo donax around (it’s a giant reed) but if you live a few hundred miles south of here, it can become a noxious weed (and has been identified as such by some state authorities). Too tender by far to survive more than a few winters in a row here but a spreader curse elsewhere. Reminds me that with all the different climates we have interacting with different soils and micro-organisms that there is also more things to be learned about gardening than about other aspects of our lives

In my own case, I’ve just sold the farm where I’ve spent the last 28 years gardening and running a nursery business. I’m moving into the nearby city and intend to garden in containers for a year while I search out a new garden site. I have to tell you how excited I am about this development. I’ve been moving specimen plants all spring in anticipation of selling and still have more to go this summer (the list doesn’t seem to get any shorter as spring progresses and forgotten gems pop up here and there). :-) Friends have been “storing” plants for me in their gardens to help out and container gardens have become serious business here at the farm in anticipation of moving. I think it will take two pickup truck loads just to take the potted plants. This is a great gardening opportunity for me and I’m really excited about it. I’m kinda sad to see the farm go but like all changes in the gardening world – there’s a time to weed and an time to replant the best. This is it.

So stay tuned as I learn a whole bunch more (and share it with you) about small scale gardening.

Perennials All Season Explained Here

I've built a page to tell you about my new book called "Perennials All Season".

The book tells you how to design a perennial garden so it will be in bloom all summer long.

It also describes the best backbone plants to put in that garden.

You can see the description of the book here.

We've got questions!

I'm glad to answer questions for readers. If you have a question, it helps if you ask them in this way:

1) Hit return on your email browser to get the right email address.

2) Please **delete** all the newsletter text so I don't get it all back and have to hunt through it for your text.

3) Give me your location. The answer to a question often is determined by where the garden is located.

4) Have patience. I'll answer as many as I can in the newsletter but there's way more of you than there is of me and I simply can't get to them all. I'll do my best.

A: Actually not much grows under pines because it is so dark and dry. The pine needles won’t turn your soil acidic if used as a mulch on top of the soil.

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Hi, I have a question about tulips. I just moved from California from Pennsylvania, and I have some tulips, and while this might seem like a silly question, do they have to freeze over the winter to bloom again in the spring? I've only been out here a short while, but I haven't seen any planted, so I wasn't sure.

Thanks alot, Angie

A: Tulips definitely need a 10-12 week cold period before they’ll bloom again. This is why warm-area gardeners can’t keep them alive for more than one season. That and the fact that most people overwater their gardens (as far as tulips are concerned anyway) will also account for much of the short lived tulips we hear about.

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I read your article on Bog Gardening, I liked it alot! I have been asking questions to people but no one has been able to answer. I live in zone 5. Can I put the bag on top of the existing dirt and mound up to it or do I have to dig a hole? (I'm curious about the frost) You stated that you did one, Your first I believe and you did it with rail road ties and peat moss. Above ground???????????? Does the bag from the peatmoss deteriorate and go to pieces after a few years? Any help would be greatly appreciated!!! Thanks! Louise

A: For readers – note this article is at www.simplegiftsfarm.com/marticle.html You can put the bag on top of existing soil but it depends on where you live (you don’t say) :-( how much freezing you’re going to get and whether this will kill the plants (you also don’t say what you’ll grow there) In cold climates, tender bog plants will obviously not make it. Yes, my bog was above ground but it was also inside a greenhouse area so it was well-protected from the worst of winter’s ravages. That particular bog was 8 feet wide and about 68 feet long. Plastic bags will not deteriorate if kept out of the sun. Any plastic that is exposed to sunlight will deteriorate in a year or less.

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What is the quickest way to combat Crab Grass that has come under my fence from the neighbour who does little in his yard.?? Thks, Evelyn

A: Crab grass is an annual grass that self-sows every year. Corn gluten is the fastest and easiest way to control it. It should have been applied (as should all pre-emergent controls for crab grass – in other words nothing will control crab grass at this time of year – not chemicals or organics) when the forsythia are in bloom. Anybody who sells you pre-emergent crab grass controls at this time of year is just taking your money. Corn gluten is now sold by garden centres under a variety of names but is most often found in the fertilizer section because it is also an effective fertilizer containing some 10% nitrogen. Talk about natural weed and feed!! :-)

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Hi Doug, I am a novice gardener. I enjoy getting into the dirt and attempting to garden. A few years ago I dugged up a neglected garden plot that was suppose to be for flowers. With my husbands help we laid down landscape fabric and then added soil. I brought the landscape fabric up the sides of the flower bed and we outlined the bed with bricks. All went well for the first two years but now I have grass sprouting up in the flower beds. Is there anyway to get rid of the grass and keep it out. Can you reccommend a book or site that has plant descriptions and care instructions. Thanks for your help. Shona

A: OK – interesting question and problem. If I understand you correctly, you put the landscape fabric down and then covered it with soil. Most folks make the soil bed, then plant, then lay the fabric down on top of everything and cover the fabric with mulch. This stops weeds quite nicely in shrub beds. Putting the fabric down on the bottom of the bed and covering it with soil will stop tree roots from coming through (for a year or two anyway) :-) but it won’t stop grass from colonizing from the top.

Fabric on top of beds also is a royal pain in the anatomy for flowers because there’s too much digging and cultivating to do. You can try it but I can guarantee after a few years, you’ll get rid of the landscape fabric.

Getting rid of grass is as simple as pulling it out. Or, mulching on top of the soil to stop the grass seed from germinating. The bad news of course is there is no way to prevent grass from invading any garden, particularly a bare-soil one. Even paving a garden won’t do it although I have it on the best of authority that a personal nuclear device will stop it down for a decade or two.

Can I recommend a book? Well, of course I can!! :-)) Try my latest book on perennial gardening - see the link below

A website on perennials. One of the best databases on perennials is found at www.perennials.com There’s a good search engine there, pictures as well as care instructions.

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Doug, you gave bad advice about recommending hemlocks of any kind, at least here in CT and throughout the northeast. There's a pest here, the wooly adelgid, that is slowly eradicating the hemlocks, just like dutch elm disease did to the elms. They're all going to die, we were told when it came our turn to see the thing up close and personal. We had about 20 beautiful hemlocks in our yard in Milford (30 feet high, I would guess) and all we could do was watch sadly month after month as the adelgid slowly killed them. We moved away before they got to chainsaw condition, but I'm sure they're gone by now.

Maybe your species is somehow resistant, but none of the ones here are, and hemlocks are the last thing anyone here would recommend planting.

Good to see you back...

Jack

A: Ah, thanks for reading Jack but you should have been a bit more positive. The wooly adelgid is easily controlled with insecticidal soap and/or dormant oil sprays. With landscape plantings like I was writing about this is easily done. Any problem comes with getting good coverage on taller trees and this can be a logistical problem I admit. So my shrubs are fine but your trees have likely taken a beating.

A note to readers – I do appreciate it when readers take me to task on things I write. The only way I learn stuff (or pass it along properly to you) is if you give me your experiences and ask great questions like Jack’s.

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hi doug, i am writing from australia, but i think that this is a universal problem. what is the best non-toxic way to get rid of that pesky grass that grows up between bricks and paving. am renting a house so do not have the freedom to pull up all the paving and do it properly! i did read somewhere that urine that had been left to sit for 3 days then watered down and poured liberally on the offending plants was the way to go. puts a whole new slant on 'pissed off'! cheers marc

A: Well, urine will only feed the plants and they’ll be quite happy little chaps with this treatment – not annoyed at all. Salt works well if you don’t want anything to grow there at all – keep adding it until the plants die. Slowly pouring boiling water on the plants works well –you cook them to death. Grubbing them out with special knife-blade tools works well if you have the patience. That’s about it actually – some folks use noxious sprays but I’m not big on walking on the stuff or having rug rats crawling around on it (not to mention Fido and friends lying on it) and I don’t usually recommend such material.

What else have our gentle readers used for this purpose?

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A couple years ago I planted several tulip bulbs in the fall and the next spring they were beautiful. The next year there was nothing. They were planted in well drained soil, I am afraid that the moles got them. I live in East Central Indiana so the weather had nothing to do with my loss. Some time ago I read to put something in the hole before planting the bulb to keep moles from eating the bulb, but I can't remember what was to be added to the hole can you help? Thanks, Karen

A: There’s lot of reasons bulbs die. Critters might have got them. You might have watered them too much. The winter might have been a little late/early/too severe/too warm or any number of things. The bulbs might have been the hard-to-get-along-with kind that insist on dying no matter what we do. I don’t know of anything you put in the hole along with a bulb to keep moles from eating it. Most things that a critter will eat will decompose or melt in the soil moisture.

To begin with, it is not likely moles eating the bulbs. Moles tend to eat grubs and worms – they’re carnivorous. Voles on the other hand or chipmunks, slugs/grubs might very well go after the bulbs.

My best guess when people tell me their bulbs don’t make it the second year is that they were overwatered during the summer. This is one reason many of the bulb producers pull their bulbs out of the ground after the growth cycle and leave them dry and dormant until shipping or replanting. Many folks do not grow their bulbs properly - insisting on removing the leaves right after blooming to plant annuals – a surefire recipe for killing bulbs.

Bottom line – the weather might have had a great deal to do with the bulb death but not necessarily. Don’t blame the moles.

News Releases and Interesting Sites

http://www.crickpress.com/garden/index.html .

From My Garden to Yours

Now, these were not your average bleeding hearts but a new variety and while I immediately borrowed a pot for “trial” purposes, I think it is worth looking at the entire family of plants for adding to our shady gardens.

To begin with, bleeding heart, heart’s ease, Dutchman’s breeches, staggerweed and turkey corn are all common names we’ve given to the Dicentra plant family. Dicentra comes from our old Greek friends, dis meaning ‘twice’ and kentron or ‘spur’. If you look at any Dicentra flower, you’ll find they have two spurs sticking upwards. Bleeding heart is an obvious reference to the shape of the old-fashioned Dicentra spectabilis while staggerweed may refer to the plants production of noxious alkaloids. The old herbals say this plant produces alkaloids and if eaten in large enough quantities is harmful. It was used as a narcotic in the treatment of syphilis, scrofula, skin infections as well as unspecified “female disorders”. As with most plants, Dicentra is not recommended for backyard medicine of any kind.

Dicentra spectabilis or the old-fashioned bleeding heart is one of my favourite spring bloomers. Perhaps I like them because my grandfather had a huge clump in his garden (it seems every grandparent had a massive clump of this easily grown plant) but mine are well up and starting to grow as I write this column. In fact, one of the newest varieties of bleeding heart, the variety ‘‘Goldheart’ a yellow-golden leaf form is throwing new shoots. I’ve had this variety for several years now and if kept shaded, it grows wonderfully and holds its gold leaves for most of the summer. It is an excellent contrast plant beside a darker leaved Heuchera or yew where it sits in my own garden. ‘Alba’ is a good white flowered form too and while it hasn’t been quite as vigorous as the pink in my garden, I do enjoy it for a touch of spring brightness in darker areas.

Plantspeople are “discussing” the genetic heritage of some of the shorter Dicentra forms but gardeners should ignore these debates and simply grow the plants. You see, these short bleeding hearts bloom almost all summer in the shady garden and that’s reason enough to grow them. Who cares about the genes if a plant flowers like these do. I’m listing these plants as they are likely to be found in catalogs but just between us, don’t worry about the species name, look for the individual name to find excellent plants.

Dicentra eximia is a northeast North American native with a heavily fringed leaf and smallish flowers. It will naturalize well in shady areas, spreading around and flowering with trilliums and other spring beauties. ‘Alba’ is a white form while ‘Stuart Boothman’ is a soft pink form with leathery looking, grey-green foliage. Dicentra formosa, a western variety, is more tolerant of sunshine and more drought tolerant as well. The varieties of this plant are much showier and heavier blooming than the D. exemia varieties so you’ll see a lot more of these in local garden centres. ‘Adrian Bloom’ has ruby read flowers and strong growth. ‘Alba’ again a white flowering form gives a good flower show but is not as vigorous as the most common variety ‘Luxuriant’. This standard variety has cherry red flowers and is, as all are the others, twelve inches tall. It spreads to approximately eighteen inches wide but blooms for a very long time in my garden.’ ‘Snowflakes’ is a white form that is also a good bloomer. ‘King of Hearts’ is the new one that caught my attention this spring with its extravagant blooming and finely cut leaves. It has already been planted in my new garden where I intend to give it a good growing this summer.

And that’s the trick with these plants, give them a “good growing”. If you give them shade to semi-shade and a constantly moist but not sopping soil, they will outbloom most other plants in the garden. They love a shovel of compost applied in the spring and will reward this compost and regular watering with a constant supply of colour. Plant them approximately eighteen inches apart (twenty-four for the larger D. spectabilis) and add several shovels of compost to the planting hole. This plant thrives on organic matter so a good mulch is equally helpful and will promote huge growth and flowering. Extra plants for friends come from spring divisions although the larger varieties will self-sow and cuttings are possible if tricky to do. As long as you remember that this is a plant of the woodland or woodland edge and treat it accordingly, you’ll do fine. Too much sun will cause the plant to disappear (melt) over the summer and go dormant. It will reappear the following spring but it will not be a happy plant.

I’ll let you know how my new ‘King of Hearts’ grows this summer; it has already joined the rest of the family in my gardening heart.

The Last Word

BULLA - EST - VITA - HUMANA

Translation: Lifes a bubble.

A book of sundial mottoes.