Mowing Matters

Living in a landscape of lawns as we do, it would seem knowing how to use a power mower would be second nature.  But as I watched someone blow clippings all over a sidewalk and hit a crabapple tree with a push mower from my office window, I discovered yet another teachable moment.

Let’s start with height.  Mowing grass that is 4 inches high down to 3 inches is just right.  This observes the “1/3 rule,” which states that removing just that much from the grass plant is best for it’s health.  It also leaves the grass tall enough to shade out weeds and maintain a generous root system, yet short enough that it looks good.  Using a mowing height shorter than 2.5 inches is asking for a weed invasion, since grasses are weakened and more light reaches the soil surface.  On some riding mowers, you just turn a dial or move a lever to set the height.  My walk-behind is more complex, but fiddling with the lever on each wheel and using a ruler makes it possible.

Clippings can cause controversy.  As a teenager I liked hitching the Parker Sweeper to my dad’s mower, since this meant that I didn’t have to spend hours raking and carting the mess to the compost pile.  But things have changed since the 70’s, even mowing.  About 30 years ago, researchers from Texas A & M University studied lawn clippings and came to a number of conclusions.  Unless they are clumpy, clippings don’t hurt the lawn, but in fact add back a tremendous amount of nutrients, and they don’t contribute to thatch.  Leaving clippings on the lawn makes less work, and also keeps them out of the landfills.  This was all big news at the time.  In fact, one of my first tasks as a new Cooperative Extension agent in 1989 was to educate folks about “grasscycling,” as we called it then.  Some folks warmed to the idea, while others kept on collecting.

The big breakthrough came when manufacturers perfected the mulching mower.  Using modified or multiple blades and new deck designs, these modern marvels chop up the clippings much finer than the mowers of yesteryear.  My dad’s old Simplicity made piles of debris, whereas my new John Deere produces very little.  I haven’t picked up clippings in years, and my lawn is all the better for it.  My neighbor still collects, bags, and hauls it all to the town dump, but only because his wife makes him do it.

Of course, challenges remain.  Mowing wet or tall grass can be problematic, and fast driving, dull blades or a clogged deck add to the misery.  But blowing grass clippings onto sidewalks and roadways or into waterways or storm drains is my biggest pet peeve.  Clippings are rich in nutrients, and end up polluting lakes and rivers.  In fact, a recent University of Minnesota study found that up to 36% of water pollution from households came from two sources:  grass clippings and pet waste.  So watch where waste goes.       

Veggie History:  Strawberries

Source: Cornell U.

It's shortcake season! Volunteer fire companies, church auxiliaries, and garden clubs now are busy posting signs daily along roadsides announcing "Strawberry & Short Cake Festivals," and the red berries  displayed in pint and quarter baskets   fill the stalls at local farmer markets. 

But did you know that these familiar strawberries (Fragaria x ananassa)  are actually an European  cultivar of two crossed wild varieties from the New World?

Native Americans  introduced European settlers to the eastern  variety, Fragaria virginiana. Although the settlers sometimes included it in their gardens, they generally picked the berries in the surrounding woods; and  Europeans returning to the  Old World took plants back to their  gardens.  In the early 18th century, F. virginiana  probably accidentally hybridized with another New World species, Fragaria chiloensis that grew along the West Coast and in South America to produce  our familiar F. x ananassa.   This hybrid quickly displaced Fragaria fresca (the "alpine strawberry" common throughout the Northern Hemisphere), in European gardens, it and soon traveled back across the Atlantic.  By the end of 18th century the new strawberry was being sold to gardeners like Jefferson by "plant men" in America. The rest is history, of course; but for a lot more information about strawberries, see Strawberryplants.org. 

And remember:

"I eat a lot of fruit because if I fill up on strawberries or an apple, then I'll have one small 

piece of cheesecake rather than two big pieces." - Tom Fridan

Adopted from a June, 2019 post from the Rensselaer County Vegetable Blog

by Irv Stephens, Master Gardener

One Day In May

Gardeners are busy people.  Pruning, planting, mulching, mowing and countless other jobs have us working like a baby bird’s parents.  How about just walking around and admiring the fruits of our labors?  On the last weekend of May, I took a stroll on my own 1.3 acres to simply enjoy.

The front yard “rock garden” (a poor example of the genre, since it contains no alpine plants) is home to a lovely patch of dwarf crested iris.  Only a few inches tall, the lovely pale blue blossoms with gold-crested falls make a tiny patch of sky fallen to earth.  Nearby, the sometimes thuggish Ajuga reptans is also in bloom, with attractive electric purple-blue spikes.  The ajuga is kept in check by even more vigorous sedums, and as a sedum fan, I think they can’t do much wrong.  Residing on the corner of the house is a large Doublefile Viburnum with tiers of snowy-white flowers.  This particular plant is plagued with a mild case of branch canker dieback, but looks good today, so I won’t fret.

The gravel driveway hosts compaction-tolerant weeds as well as a few pioneer perennials.  Escaping rich soil for poor, blue fescue clumps happily self-sow in a small patch I back over with my truck every day.  They just don’t care.  Gardening websites prescribe rich, compost-amended soil and plenty of moisture for tall bleeding heart (Dicentra spectabilis), but at my place they volunteer to line the driveway, abandoning better digs in the backyard.  

The perennial garden out back reaches peak color in mid-summer, but a few plants are looking showy now.  Big-root geranium, in both palest pink and darker pink hues, is a bomb-proof perennial groundcover with a short flowering period but good foliage continuously.  New Hampshire Purple geranium is another stalwart, growing to about 12 inches high and 18 inches wide, and produces deep pink flowers sporadically all season.  John Elsley (the perennial geranium, not the gentleman) is even shorter, at 6 inches tall, with similar flowers.  Both these cultivars are called “bloody cranesbills” for their deep-red autumn foliage and pointy seedpods.  Mourning widow geranium has attractive deep maroon-purple flowers, but unfortunately she is rather promiscuous, sowing herself a little too freely for my taste, but I let her stay.  I’ve had all these plants over twenty years running, making hardy geraniums one of my better garden investments.

A brief but welcome display is offered by a small patch of Camassia, bulbous plants from the western U.S.  Their floral spikes of vivid blue, star-like blossoms are an annual treat and take me out west to Utah without leaving Schodack.  Pagoda dogwoods, a native understory tree, are dotted with clusters of tiny, creamy-while flowers on their wedding-cake layers of branches.  And in the smell-it-before-you-see-it department, quirky umbrella magnolia is covered with bowl-shaped blooms of up to 10 inches across atop its two-foot long leaves. 

Each day in the garden is beautiful and different; slow down to see it.