New Year, New Sprout

I would have never guessed that Brussels sprouts were favorite pickings for poets.  Linda Lawrence cried, “The mini cabbage will make us gag, that’s only fit for a black bin bag!”  Stuart McLean, writing in brogue as Robert Burns, penned “Some say ye taste like camel droppings, While others think you great” while Robert DeGraff praised his springtime seedlings then mourned their June death by woodchuck in his “Elegy For Brussels Sprouts.”  Sure, some plants inspire poetry – witness Joyce Kilmer’s oak – but a member of the cabbage family?  Perhaps it’s because Brussels sprouts are not so much green but black or white – you either love them or hate them.

But for me there had been a third option.  I loathe to admit it, but up until this fall, I had never eaten a Brussels sprout, so I didn’t know if this crucifer and I were at odds or perfect together.  As a kid, my mother had trouble enough getting me to accept green beans and carrots on my plate, so the poor woman knew better than to push her luck. 

Then I met our Master Gardener Tom, who years ago decided to grow and sample one new vegetable per year.  In this way, he went from being anti-beet to pro-beet.  While getting woozy just thinking of ingesting a beet (they taste like dirt) I suddenly remembered the Brussels sprouts I witnessed, at age 8, in my 4-H leader’s garden.  I was transfixed by the ungainly, towering plants, with weird spatulate leaves and funny knobs up and down the stems.  Maybe this vegetable from “Lost in Space” was not only cool looking, but edible.

Last February, on the advice of another Master Gardener, I went searching for the variety ‘Gustus.’  Just like the closely related cabbage and broccoli, Brussels sprouts are easy to start indoors in April from seed.  After that week of hard frost, I planted them out in late May, begrudging them the ample space (two and a half feet each way) I knew they required.  After supplying some mulch and a handful of fertilizer, I figured I could coast along for the 99 days the sprouts needed for maturity, and I would become a man by eating one.  It was a summer of much rain and little sunshine, not a particularly good vegetable growing season, so I wasn’t banking on a banner harvest. 

God must have wanted me to face this challenge because the plants still grew.  Conventional wisdom says to top the plants in early September to make the sprouts swell.  I did it, and swell they did.  I stalled to Election Day, then asked my wife to cook them up.  Remembering their reputation for inducing flatulence, I was glad my calendar foretold only Zoom meetings the following day.  The sprouts were picked, sliced, and sautéed in olive oil.

Absolutely delicious!  While adding bacon to the mix definitely helped, from now on I will wax poetic o’er the noble sprout.     

Grow Your Own For Christmas

Can we agree that Americans can’t agree on much these days?  Differences of opinion surround even the Christmas tree supply.  Drought, fires, economic recession and labor shortages support the scarcity theory, but locally at least, firs, pines and spruces are easily found on tree farms and sales lots.  But having been wait-listed for a new refrigerator for ten months now, and seeing shelves bereft of toilet paper and cat food, I’m tempted to grow my own Christmas trees from now on. 

No worry that it will take at least seven years: as a gardener, I know what is required.  To start, site matters.  Most tree species prefer that elusive well-drained, loamy soil that many plants crave, and while Christmas trees can be grown on areas too marginal for field crops, the results may be slower or less optimal.  Wet soils are out – very few conifers tolerate “damp feet” – but overly dry sites can be limiting, too.  Slopes too steep for mowing are not good, and areas of thin soil, ledge, or multitudinous rocks are less than ideal.  Especially windy spots can desiccate needles, which is not good, since even Charlie Brown doesn’t want a brown tree.  Full sun is mandatory – just like tomatoes or dahlias, maximum light is needed to produce bushiness.

But it takes more to make density, and overall shape is crucial.  Most trees are sheared once a year or every-other year, and this takes skill and plain hard work.  A good leader must be maintained, otherwise there is no place to put the star.  And as in mate selection, some people prefer a tall, thin tree while others like shorter and perhaps chunkier.  Just like other forms of garden produce, I’ll tolerate more imperfections in my home-grown Christmas tree than one that costs real money.

Then there are the pests.  White pine or Scotch pine tops will be destroyed by white pine weevil, but pine has few other problems.  Too bad most people (myself included) aren’t big fans of these species for holiday duty.  Douglasfir makes a nice tree and grows quickly, but is susceptible to rhabdocline and other needlecast diseases which turn them a horrendous brown, and again, no one wants a brown tree.  Spraying fungicide, praying for less rain and trying to find resistant types are options, but like many local growers, I’ll avoid Doug-fir.  Fraser fir and balsam fir are better options.

White and blue Colorado spruces have some serious insect and disease pests, but they are otherwise easy to grow and have tough constitutions.  Blue Colorado spruces make for some of the swankiest looking Christmas trees around, and often command a premium price.  Personally, my favorite is concolor fir, a long-needled tree of bluish color with a level of beauty similar to blue Colorado but many fewer problems.  It grows at a slow to medium pace and forms a shapely, dense pyramid.  If I can plant, prune, water, and protect my concolor seedlings, given today’s rate of inflation, they’re better than money in the bank.

All Turned Around

Like discovering the cookie has chocolate chips instead of raisins, two small adventures this summer proved to be better than expected, and they both involved labyrinths.  In August, Master Gardener connections brought me to Elise’s Massachusetts backyard, where the large seven circuit labyrinth she created with found stones and a charming wooden summerhouse in the center made my day.  September’s labyrinth, open to all passersby, I found by chance in a field in Wanakena, a tiny Adirondack Community on the northern edge of the Five Ponds Wilderness.  Both seemed appropriate metaphors for current times, when the twists and turns of our collective public health seem to led us closer to, then farther away from, some resolution of Pandemic situation.

Labyrinths are ancient, mysterious, often found outdoors, and not in the least electronic or digital, all reasons for my enthusiasm.  No one is certain when people drew the first one.  A rock carving of a labyrinth at Luzzanas, on the island of Sardinia, is thought to date from about 2,500 BC.  Others in southern India, northern Italy, and Egypt are all over 2,000 years old.  Cretan coins embossed with a labyrinth design might have carried the symbol around the world.  The Pima tribes in Arizona have woven baskets depicting a labyrinth pattern for centuries.  That so many diverse cultures created labyrinths over thousands of years only adds to the mystery.   

If you’re having trouble distinguishing a labyrinth from a maze, let me try to explain.  Picture a spiral, but instead of the path circling inward toward the center, a labyrinth’s one path loops back and forth, yet still ends near the middle of what is overall a circular creation.  While any size is possible, many of the ancient labyrinths had seven rings or circuits and are said to be “classical.”  A later design, from Medieval times, has the single path traveling around four quadrants arranged in a cruciform pattern, and is sometimes called a “Christian” labyrinth.  The oldest one of these is in the floor of Chartes Cathedral in France.

So what do labyrinths mean?  Some believe they symbolize the process of being born – literally snaking along the birth canal at the start - and life’s subsequent journey.  In Sweden, young people once performed virgin dances in labyrinths, where a boy had to run in, pick up a girl, and run out flawlessly in order to claim her.  Christians have walked labyrinths on their knees as penance, used them to symbolize a journey to the Holy land, or seen them as a metaphor for getting to know God – sometimes one might feel close, other times far away.  Others find that walking slowly through the encircling rings quiets the mind and leads to new perspectives. 

Many of the most beautiful labyrinths are made by cutting paths in a lawn, or arranging rocks in a patch of gravel, making a garden of simple, yet deep, spirituality.  There might even be one in your neighborhood:  check out the comprehensive on-line list created by The Labyrinth Society, which lists 224 in New York alone. 

Dahlia Daze

Dahlias represent none of the political correctness found in current gardening circles – quite the opposite.  They take a lot of time and care to grow, being nowhere near low-maintenance.  Many types provide nothing useful to pollinators, and they aren’t native to North America.  They don’t thrive just anywhere, take a long time to start flowering, and look like a train wreck after the first hard frost.  But I still like them.  Here’s how I grow them, and why.

After a few nights of freezing temperatures, last Saturday represented one of the bigger moments in the dahlia-growing year.  Blackened, drooping, and soggy, the shoots were chopped down to stubs and the debris hauled off to the compost pile.  Then careful probing and coaxing with a digging fork revealed the tubers, in all their lumpy, bumpy glory.  Shaking off the excess soil, I carefully moved them to the relative warmth of the basement, let them rest for a day, then bagged them with handfuls of cedar shavings for their winter rest, all the time taking care not to lose the labels.  When I start to reverse this process in May, I hope the tubers won’t be mushy, or shriveled, or chewed upon.  With any luck and some skill, dahlias can keep-on keeping-on for years, perhaps decades, but time in storage is the riskiest part of their lifecycle.

Spring finds me searching longingly for the eyes of the dahlias.  The dormant tubers can be divided, but each must have an “eye” (or bud) to produce a shoot, and these can be elusive, as the dormant tubers look as likely to grow as an old shoe.  I tend to leave several tubers together in a clump, rather than separate them into singles, to increase the chances at least a couple of buds will appear.  Planted a few inches deep, a few feet apart, I give each clump a stake, a tomato cage, a handful of fertilizer and a label.  The buds develop into green shoots nonchalantly at first, in no hurry, but magical nonetheless.  June and July come and go, and on into August, with just leaves and shoots, but finally, flower buds appear.  Late August, September and October are the dahlia paydays, with dazzling flowers produced in abundance, if deer, hurricanes, or other inconvenient spoilers can be kept at bay. 

I meet old friends when my dahlias bloom.  Most of my varieties produce the huge “dinner-plate” type of blooms, 7 or more inches across, so they are big friends, too.  ‘Einstein’ is a smart dark purple, while ‘Zorro’ is a deep red with sharply pointed petals.  ‘Harvest Moonlight’ produces pale yellow orbs, ‘El Sol” blends yellow and orange into a range of fiery shades and ‘Bodacious’ is a bawdy red with yellow on the edges and bottom of each petal, looking like tongues of fire.  Dahlias are the sugary sweets of the garden, intoxicating and addicting.  Eye candy indeed.  No other flower is quite as spectacular, so fulfilling their demands is worth the effort.

Burning Bush, You're Fired!

The fire in my neighbor’s front yard is out:  the burning bushes have dropped their leaves.  An individual burning bush (Euonymus alatus) in its fiery red fall color is impressive, and a long hedgerow is spectacular, which explains the popularity of this species.  But Holy Moses, it’s a spreader!  Seedlings from my neighbor’s shrubs are now sprouting in my backyard, and soon they’ll appear in my woods.  At least twenty-one states have pronounced it an exotic invasive, and several have banned it from commerce.  In New York, it’s “regulated” status does little to stop its sale or spread.  So, let me be a “garden influencer” and ask you to plant beautiful native shrubs instead, so we can extinguish the vagrant burning bush for good.

A top alternative choice is a native called ninebark.  I grow the variety ‘Diablo,’ with foliage of deep purple in spring and summer, turning wine red in autumn.  Large clusters of small white flowers appear in late spring, and the brown exfoliating bark is an added year-round bonus.  Some seasons I give Diablo just a little trim, other years a bit more, this being a shrub you can shape into a variety of forms without a fuss.  It likes full sun and adequate drainage but can adapt to what Mother Nature (and a casual gardener) throw at it.  The nursery industry has finally figured out ninebark is a good thing and now offers other red-leaved types, such as ‘Summer Wine,’ yellow foliage variants like ‘Amber Jubilee,’ and compact forms including ‘Little Joker.’  In comparing them to burning bush, these new ninebarks are just as easy to grow, provide showier foliage all season long and don’t invade the neighborhood with unwanted offspring.

If you can accept bright yellow fall color rather than red, summersweet clethra (Clethra alnifolia) may rock your gardening world.  Native from Maine to Florida, this mound-shaped shrub will very slowly spread, but not in an aggressive way.  One of mine grows under a sugar maple, a testament to its toughness, since little else wants to be there.  High summer is clethra’s season, when hundreds of spikes of tiny white flowers appear, producing a powerfully sweet fragrance.  A noted pollinator plant, honeybees and butterflies will thank you for planting a clethra.  If you want something zippier than white flowers, ‘Pink Spires’ features pink flower buds, while ‘Ruby Spice’ has flowers which remain rose-colored.     

Fancy a Fothergilla?  Those who know them certainly do.  With white bottlebrush flowers in spring and fall color ranging from yellow to orange to red all on one plant, it is a shrub without a bad season.  The flowers of vernal witchhazel (Hamamelis vernalis) are admittedly small, but they bloom in February, the fall color is a good golden yellow, and the plant is bull terrier tough.  And a native who’s fall color rivals the burning bush is red chokeberry (Aronia arbutifolia).  Tough and adaptable, it may be a bit wild for a more refined gardens.  Perhaps plant breeders can turn it into a future superstar.

As The Worm Turns

Jumping for joy is not how I would describe anyone who meets jumping worms.  Quite the opposite.  Many are grossed out, not a few are thinking of giving up gardening and one gentleman phone caller denounced not only the invasive species website but several government agencies which are probably not involved.  These worms are prolific, bold, and popping up in new places every day.  If you haven’t experienced them yet, you certainly haven’t been hiding under a rock, or anywhere else near the soil.

As gardeners, we are taught that earthworms are good guys.  As they break down organic matter by ingesting it, nutrients plants can use are released.  Earthworm tunneling reduces soil compaction, yet their castings help soil stick together and resist erosion.  Other than the “ew” factor, what’s not to love? 

But jumping worms, including the most well-known species named Amynthas, are not good citizens of the soil.  These Asian imports grow quickly, reproduce rapidly and create large populations of themselves.  They accelerate the breakdown of leaf litter faster than it can accumulate on the forest floor, leaving bare soil.  In turn, soil temperature and moisture buffering decreases, seeds for new plants don’t germinate and beneficial soil organisms suffer.  I only have to look at the woods behind my house to see this, where there are very few young native trees coming up to replace the old fellows and virtually no shrubs or understory plants.  But the bad news doesn’t stop there, according to the folks at Great Lakes Worm Watch, part of the University of Minnesota.  They write, “There is also fascinating evidence emerging that the changes caused by exotic earthworms may lead to a cascade of other changes in the forest that affect small mammal, bird and amphibian populations, increase the impacts of herbivores like white-tailed deer, and facilitate invasions of other exotic species such as European slugs and exotic plants like buckthorn and garlic mustard.”  In gardens and on lawns, jumping worms leave castings resembling coffee grounds and sometimes cause plant decline and soil subsidence.  Occasionally hundreds of jumpers end up on sidewalks or in basements. 

Jumping worms not only leap, but wiggle manically when disturbed, flipping like a fish out of water, and can cruise across a lawn like a snake with an agenda.  If you’re familiar with standard earthworm behavior, the show put on by a jumping worm is sure to shock and surprise.  For identification purposes, also look carefully.  A mature specimen of a jumping-type species will measure one and one-half to eight inches long, and will have a smooth, milky pink or white to gray band (clitellum) near the head.  Other worms have a raised or saddle-shaped, segmented clitellum and a more ho-hum demeanor.  In our area, they spend the winter as tiny cocoons, first appear as adults in spring, and grow until soils cool in fall.  Last year’s spring drought suppressed them, while this year’s excessive rainfall favored them.  Control options, beyond picking and destroying, are not well-developed.  Frustrating and alarming, indeed. 

Savoring Sumac

Hydrangeas are in, yews are out.  Interest in vegetable gardening swings with the tides of economics and pandemics.  In the hippest neighborhoods, spider plants in macrame hangers have even made a comeback.  Public opinion on native plants is on the way up, too.  In my collegiate plant identification classes, our professor would say “it’s just a native,” somewhat disparagingly, when we looked at an eastern red cedar or tuliptree.  Today, those on the front of one of the trendiest gardening curves are going native and banning non-indigenous plants entirely, or are trying to plant gardens which are composed largely of native plants.

Some natives, such as bottlebrush buckeye and the sugar maple, are attractive and easy to invite into your personal landscape.  Others, like poison ivy, would only be employed in the garden of a sadist.  I’m interested in the plants which people deem in-betweeners, such as sumac.  In England years ago, I was approached by a nicely dressed gentleman, who guessed I was an American.  “Our favorite plant comes from your country,” he said.  I guessed it must be the giant redwood, a certain hybrid tea rose, or perhaps a rare orchid.  “No,” he replied, “it is sumac.  It has the most magnificent fall color and beautiful fruit!”  Our new love of natives hasn’t discovered sumac yet, so I’m here to promote its case. 

Locally, sumac species such as staghorn (Rhus typhina) and smooth (Rhus glabra) grow wild in hedgerows, right-of-ways, and abandoned fields.  This “wildness” may be part of the discord, since sumac defies pruning into meatballs or hockey pucks and will always look shaggy and primordial.  Sumac supporters point to cultivars with dissected, lacey foliage that is prettier than the common types, such as Rhus typhina ‘Dissecta’ or ‘Laciniata,’ both with finely cut leaves.  I’ve had ‘Laciniata’ in my garden for decades, and found it not wildly rampant from seed or sprouts.  While it has moved fifteen feet from its planting spot, seeking more sun, the very few unwanted runners have been easy to remove.    

“But it is poisonous!” the sumac-phobes will proclaim.  Nonsense.  These sumacs are fine to touch.  In fact, poison sumac (Toxicodendron vernix) grows primarily in bogs, has white (not red) berries, is closely related to poison ivy, and is not common locally.  Once again, the name is the problem, not the plant.  Perhaps sumac needs a new image and a re-boot, a process which succeeds with some politicians and certain consumer brands.      

Sumac is useful, too.  Legendary Master Gardener Winnie Lustenader, an edible wild plant aficionado, offered up a truly delicious lemonade made from sumac berries.  Sumac fruits also make excellent fuel for a beekeeper’s smoker, the device used to calm honeybees while the prodding around in their hive.

In closing, I must quote the famous plantsman Michael Dirr, who opined in his Manual Of Woody Landscape Plants, “Europeans have long appreciated Rhus glabra and Rhus typhina.  Perhaps, someday, Americans will become more introspective and appreciative of our rich woody plant heritage.” 

A Brush With Greatness

Sometimes the worst garden disasters create happy endings.  This was the case for our Norway spruce.  A towering giant, it was hit by lightning in July 2015, giving it a fatal trunk crack from top to bottom.  While I was glad the tree took the jolt rather than the house, its removal left an ugly blank patch which quickly started to fill with weeds.  Faster than an American Pickers guest star at a tag sale, I started acquiring and installing new plants, including two winterberry hollies, a spicebush, a moosewood maple, and best of all, a bottlebrush buckeye.

If you look in your woods for bottlebrush buckeye (Aesculus pavia) and don’t find it, please forgive me.  I admit that calling it native is a bit of stretch, since the most extensive natural populations are found in central Alabama, with nary a sprig in New York.  But get to know this outstanding woody ornamental, and you’ll be hooked, too.  The Morton Arboretum calls it a handsome shrub with memorable flowers, while British botanist William Jackson Bean wrote “no better plant could be recommended as a lawn shrub” and Wayside Gardens proclaims it “one of the best flowering shrubs for the summer.”  While I freely admit that Wayside doesn’t go in for understatement regarding anything they sell, for an Englishman to give high praise to an American plant, it has to be good.

So, let me tell you why bottlebrush buckeye is a plant of special merit.  First, it has great foliage and form.  Its medium green leaves are palmately compound, giving it a unique texture, and it develops into a dense mound ten to twelve feet high and at least as wide.  Unless you want to block the view out your first-floor windows, don’t plant one near your house.  Instead, locate it on the margin between lawn and woodland, where it excels.  Bottlebrush might also be grown as a small tree, but the plant’s spreading nature would then require management, which seems a shame.  Better to plant it someplace where you can let it branch to the ground and spread a bit.  As garden writer Margaret Roach keystroked, “Give it plenty of room–and I mean plenty–and it will make a beloved companion for decades to come.” 

Plantsman Michael Dirr wrote “there are few summer flowering plants which can rival this species.”  The delicate white flowers are borne in cylindrical panicles up to 18 inches tall, dozens of which will appear on a mature plant in late July.  Although the name “bottlebrush” sounds a bit prosaic, it aptly describes the form of this floral display.  The buckeye fruits, which are light brown nuts inside pear-shaped capsules, aren’t prolifically produced here in the north.  Bottlebrush buckeye rarely needs pruning, unless planted too close to the house.  Southern Living’s Steve Bender sums up by stating:  “People often expect the prettiest plants to be a pain to grow, but that certainly isn't the case here. Bottlebrush buckeye needs moist, well-drained soil and partial to full shade. That's it.”

Let It Be

“Just sit back and watch it grow!” was a favorite line proclaimed by radio talk-show personality Ralph Snodsmith after he dispensed gardening advice to a caller.  The onetime horticultural guru of New York’s WOR-AM, Ralph knew that most plants want to grow if we gardeners just give them the right conditions and care.  But sometimes, a plant will take its own sweet time deciding if it is going to live or make a one-way journey to the compost pile instead.  This has been my experience with a species called Acanthus spinosus, a.k.a. bear’s breech.

Hailing from the Mediterranean, Acanthus spinosus has much to recommend it as a garden plant.  Growing in a large clump, the attractive, dark green, glossy foliage is deeply cut, thistle-like, and only modestly barbed.  It is resistant to insect pests and rabbits.  Spikes of snapdragon-like flowers in shades of pale and dusky pink are distinctive and rise to three feet or more above the leaves.  The ancient Greek architect Callimachus was a fan of this plant, decorating the top of his Corinthian columns with Acanthus leaves, and it still a common design element in contemporary art and design.  Often commonly called “bear’s breeches,” the plant has nothing to do with the slacks Smoky wears or we wish Yogi would put on, but derives from the bear claw-like flower bracts.  Other common names are oyster plant, sea holly and bear’s foot.  Such a historic plant with a dignified demeanor certainly should have a loftier moniker.       

Having seen Acanthus species thriving in warm southern climes, I was surprised to see it living large in Ithaca, New York, as well.  At the time, I had assumed that we were too far north to grow it successfully, but if they could grow it in Ithaca, well by golly, it should grow in Castleton-on-Hudson, too.  So I procured a plant, set it into my nice loamy soil in a backyard spot, and sat back to watch it grow, letting Ralph be my guide.

That was twenty years ago.  For at least fifteen ensuing summers, the Acanthus would produce just a modest leaf or two, never more.  It didn’t look sick, but refused to thrive.  I kept the weeds and neighboring perennials at bay, and watered it occasionally, but the status quo was maintained.  For perhaps a decade I hardly gave it a thought, but I let it be.

In 2016, the Acanthus woke up, becoming fuller and downright lush. I’m not sure what sparked the change:  the mediocre Batman movie, Brexit, presidential politics?  Perhaps that difficult year inspired it to adopt a “now or never” attitude in terms of its own survival.  In 2017, it produced its first flower spike, and this year it sports a half-dozen more, finally making something to see.  I can finally say “I grow Acanthus spinosus” and not be ashamed of my results.

I’m glad I let this late-bloomer do its thing, get it’s grove on and finally rise up singing.  The Acanthus has taught me patience.     

A Green Grand Canyon

Being a plant guy, I can’t help but turn any outdoor vacation into a busman’s holiday.  On a recent trip to the Pine Creek Rail Trail for a 120 mile bike ride, I knew I would enjoy cycling amongst the mountains, seeing the landscape and maybe spotting some wildlife.  I also ended up, no surprise, looking at a lot of plants.  While much of the flora is the same as we see here in the Hudson Valley, it was fun to spot the differences among the wild plants in “the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania.” 

I was rather skeptical about this loftiest of landscape titles, but Pine Creek does indeed flow through a narrow valley up to 1,450 feet deep; standing on top we were above the vultures and fog.  While a good part of the area is now protected, it is a site of former widespread devastation.  In 1798, the first of the giant trees, centuries old, were felled and sent downstream to hungry sawmills.  Soon tremendous rafts of timber choked the creek.  When the trees near waterways were gone, railroads moved in and climbed up the adjacent valleys.  By the dawn of the twentieth century, the canyon was stripped bare, only thorny brambles and mountain laurel remaining.  Then, in 1903 wildfire swept through, opening the ground up to landslides.  The timber companies made their final profits selling the exhausted land to the state. 

Looking at Pine Creek today, it’s hard to imagine the transformation from hell-on-earth green-cloaked paradise.  Bears, deer and rattlesnakes crossed the trail in front of us, and eagles soared overhead.  River birches, with their flakey bark of gray, cinnamon, and tan, lined the banks of the creek.  They don’t mind life clinging to a streambank or the occasional flood.  Stock-straight sycamores in uncountable numbers grew along the trailbed, their trunks like Greek columns holding up a leafy canopy.  Tulip trees, their show of yellow and orange flowers past but easily identified by their distinctive four-lobed leaves, were another species common in the canyon but rarer in our neck of the woods.  Exotic invasives also call the canyon home, including not a few Norway maples and many acres of Japanese bamboo.  Since I was on holiday, I tried to keep my blood pressure down, but closing one’s eyes isn’t good while riding a bike.

I was especially happy to see rosebay (Rhododendron maximum) growing in its wild state.  The species name “maximum” is a great descriptor.  Rosebay easily grows to ten feet high, sometimes 20 or more, and when its stems collapse, they root and form colonies up to 25 feet across.  The huge, droopy evergreen leaves have been likened to donkey’s ears.  Large clusters of pink buds open to snowy white flowers.  It likes part sun, part shade, damp soil that’s not too wet, and may choose to live on rocks or in swamps.  Creating the right environment for it would be impossible in my garden, so I gave it my regards in Pennsylvania.     

An Onion Grows In Kinderhook

It might have been a dream, but I think I remember an old Jeopardy! episode with the category “Alimentary Alliums.”  In it, Alex asks, “This rare member of the onion family is found on sea cliffs along coastal Cornwall and Dorset” and a contestant volunteers “What is Babington’s Leek?”  Given the scores of edible members in the Allium tribe, an entire Jeopardy game could be dedicated to uncovering the fascinating details of onions, shallots, leeks and garlic.  And let’s not forget chives, Allium schoenoprasum, a plant which taught me that some alliums also have beautiful flowers.

And that is what I’m thinking about today, onions grown not for their culinary usefulness but for their value as “eye candy,” which I call “ornamental alliums.”  Last weekend, I biked through lovely Mills Park in Kinderhook, where a large floral display including perennial blue flax, white narcissus and magenta alliums got me to pull over for a closer look.  Unfortunately, my firsthand knowledge of ornamental alliums is slight, so I won’t be participating in onion-themed Jeopardy! anytime soon.  I therefore won’t hazard a guess as to exactly which allium grows in Kinderhook, but I must say they were impressive.

Many ornamental alliums are described as a large ball of small star-shaped flowers in shades of lavender, magenta, purple or violet.  These round “umbels” are borne on long, thin green stems, with just a few often non-descript leaves at the base.  Allium hollandicum, sometimes called the Persian onion, is a typical of these, growing to between one-and-a-half and three feet tall.  The variety ‘Purple Sensation’ has darker flowers and has earned an Award of Garden Merit from the Royal Horticultural Society in the United Kingdom.  Allium ‘Globemaster’ is a hybrid cross between A. christophii and A. macleanii and is sterile, so it doesn’t spread promiscuously, and grows stems between three and four feet tall with a lavender sphere on top.  Allium giganteum, which unsurprisingly is called the giant allium, boasts softball-sized purple flower clusters on towering stems of five feet.  Despite its grand size, sources say it doesn’t need staking.  While these large-type alliums are individually impressive, one solo plant looks silly, so garden designers say it is best to plant them in groups of at least five to seven. 

More variations abound.  For blue globes of flowers, try Allium caeruleum, which grows to two feet.  Small, egg-shaped purple flower heads on very thin stems characterize drumstick allium (Allium sphaerocephalon).   Turkistan onion (Allium karataviense) has fat, attractive leaves, floral globes of pale pink, and grows only a foot tall.  Lady’s Leek (Allium cernuum) boasts delicate, open flower sprays of white, pink or lilac and, like most ornamental alliums, needs well-drained soil and not wet feet.    Tumbleweed onion, Allium schubertii, grows about two feet high and has a loose sphere of lavender flowers of varying lengths, giving it the bizarre appearance of a firework or space alien.  It also makes a good dried flower.  There are dozens more, providing an ornamental onion for every taste.    

They've Got You Covered

I believe it was Ben Franklin’s gardener who said only three things are certain – taxes, death and weeds -  and we’ll all be pushing up the latter after death.  Abetting weeds is not a comforting thought, so after I’m gone, I hope to be fostering groundcover.  These low-growing plants, often spreading by stolons or rhizomes, can successfully hold the soil in place, conserve soil moisture, increase organic matter and battle weeds – all things I’ve spent a gardening lifetime striving toward.

Let me dispense with some obvious choices first.  Myrtle (Vinca minor) is tough but can get invasive; same for lily-of-the-valley (Convallaria majalis) and carpet bugle (Ajuga), which often ends up in the lawn.  Don’t plant goutweed (Aegopodium podagraria) unless you want only goutweed, everywhere.  Pachysandra spreads politely but effectively, making a virtually foolproof evergreen carpet.  At least in my garden, it gets high praise.

For partial shade, barrenworts (Epimedium species) can’t be beat.  Their patches of heart-shaped leaves spread slowly, with tiny white, yellow or red flowers in early spring.  Wild blue phlox (Phlox divaricata) is a native woodland wonder, with pale blue flowers over a creeping mat of foliage.  The flowers of lungwort (Pulmonaria species) are deeper blue, and the green foliage is splattered with silvery spots.  Thought to cure pulmonary diseases in ancient days, its common name is no marketing asset to today’s garden center industry.  Sweet woodruff (Galium oderatum) has a more cheerful moniker and features tiny white flowers and whorled foliage all on a plant less than six inches tall.  It is said to the basis for Maitrank, the German wine traditionally imbibed on May 1.  Favorites for foliage of similar stature are the trans-oceanic cousins, European wild ginger (Asarum europaeum), with shiny green, kidney-shaped leaves, and Canadian wild ginger (A. canadensis), with a matte finish.  The tiny purplish flowers are so low only the slugs (their pollinators) and extremely curious gardeners can even locate them.  I’ll finish with the wee-est of all, Kenilworth ivy (Cymbalaria muralis), a lilac-flowered crack-filler which used to cover our old brick steps before the mason made them safe again.  It now resides on the greenhouse floor, where rules of horticultural sanitation say it must not remain, although pulling it out is as heartless as throwing an old dog off the sofa.

Need something taller?  Carex morrowii ‘Ice Dances’ looks like a spider plant, with its grass-like leaves edged in white, and makes a mass 18 inches tall.  From the same genus, Carex ‘Blue Zinger’ spreads faster but is a plain, dark green.  At two feet tall, Variegated Solomon’s seal (Polygonatum odoratum ‘Variegatum’) is lovely, with arching stems, pendant flowers and green-and-white leaves all on a tough plant.

In sun, low growing sedums, such as Sedum kamtschaticum, S. acre and S. reflexum survive in the worst soil and provide textural diversity with few maintenance needs.  Similarly rugged is big-root geranium (Geranium macrorrhizum), with pink spring flowers, evergreen foliage and a spicy fragrance.  Of course, don’t forget lamb’s-ear, thyme, catmint, moss phlox – I’ll be an old man before I can list them all.

Boxwood Back From The Blight

Boxwood, those plush green globes and mini-hedges popular with the highest gardening elites down to the lowliest discount garden centers, fell from grace about a decade ago with the advent of a deadly disease called boxwood blight.  In the early days, photos of giant piles of dead boxwoods culled from nurseries and lush gardens browned by the blight circulated as warning stories.  But what has changed since then?

First, a little review.  Boxwood blight showed up in several east coast locations simultaneously during the summer of 2011.   Like Stonehenge and superconductivity, no one knows its exact origin, but boxwood starting dying of the strange fungus in the United Kingdom way back in the 1990’s.  The first symptoms that occur are light to dark brown, circular leaf spots with dark borders. Infected stems have dark brown to black, elongated cankers. Rapid defoliation occurs, especially in the lower canopy of the shrub.

Disease transmission primarily happens through movement of infected plant material, contaminated landscape and garden tools, and rain/irrigation splashes.  Fungal spores are spread by wind, rain or sprinklers.  Because spores are sticky, they can potentially be spread by contaminated clothing and animals, including birds.  Spores on infected leaves that have dropped can survive five years. Warm and humid conditions cause the fungus to spread quickly.  Gardeners are urged to clean their tools, never water boxwood from above and replace dead boxwoods with something else.  The fungicide recipes and regimes required to keep boxwood green resemble a cross between Baked Alaska and Gateau St. Honoré and are unsustainable.

In terms of dollars and cents, boxwood is a fairly large business, with sales of $126 million annually on 11 million plants, so it’s worthwhile for the nursery industry and government to become involved.  Adversity also inspires genius, and it has gotten some plant pathologists looking for possible solutions in tiny places.  One group of researchers found a bacterium they’ve named SSG for its size and shape (small, sage green) in the leaves of a very blight susceptible boxwood cultivar called ‘Justin Brouwers.’  In laboratory experiments, SSG interrupted the lifecycle of the blight pathogen at several stages and killed blight spores.  When sprayed on diseased leaf litter under boxwood plants, SSG reduced the blight by 90%.  Their conclusion is that SSG “offers great promise for sustainable blight management in nursery production and in the landscape.”  Other biocontrol agents being studied include another bacterium called Pseudomonas and a fungus named Trichoderma.     

But what if you want to buy the most blight-resistant boxwood you can find today?  Scientists at the US Department of Agriculture compiled data from several previous studies to find that answer.  According to their list, Buxus microphylla ‘Little Missy,’ ‘Winter Gem,’ ‘Compacta’ and ‘Green Beauty’ are among the most blight resistant types out of 131 examined.  Before buying, acquaint yourself with what boxwood blight looks like. When shopping read the labels carefully, and examine the plants with even more scrutiny.  After planting, continue to keep watch.  Hopefully, all will remain green.  

Trouble Beneath The Snow

April, and the trees are a-budding, the bulbs are a-blooming, and the lawns are a-greening – except for a few lawns, which have big brown spots.  This I know, partly because I’ve received some photos from distressed homeowners, under the title “Why Did My Lawn Die?” and partly because my own lawn has brown spots, too.  It might not surprise anyone to learn that the problem has roots in 2020, but it is odd to learn that a common phenomenon – snow – is involved.  Let me tell you about the snow molds.

A lot of fascinating fungi live hidden in lawns, waiting for  just the right conditions to show themselves, and this is certainly true of the snow molds.  We’ll focus on the two most common types, called pink and gray.  Unlike most plant diseases, which require warm or at least moderate weather, the snow molds like it chilly.  Their idea of a good place to live is in the top layers of unfrozen soil with a nice, insulating cover of snow.  The longer the snow stays in place, the more damage these diseases can cause to the grass.  So, typically, the farther north you live, the more likely are to have snow mold appear on your lawn.   

Pink snow mold, the flashier of the two, gets its common name from its mycelium (body) color and the fact that the spots of dead grass it makes often turn pink on the edges.  Sometimes these spots are dramatic, with bleached, matted grass blades surrounded by a bright Crayola-like band, other times the patches are more diffuse.  The weather we love to hate in the Northeast - repeated frosts, cold fogs, slow and drizzling rains, with temperatures from just above freezing to almost 60 F – are joy to pink snow mold.  When the sun comes out and things dry, pink packs it in.  Kentucky bluegrass and fine-leaved fescues show more resistance than other grasses.  Those of you who like a good scientific name will appreciate knowing this pathogen is technically called Microdochium nivale.   

Gray snow mold makes bigger patches of trouble, sometimes measuring from one to three feet across.  The grass will often be flattened, matted and a pale straw or grayish color.  But there is a little shred of good news here.  While its damage may be more dramatic than pink, gray often doesn’t kill the grass, and a lawn may have a better chance of recovery.  Interestingly, it takes a longer period of snow cover for gray snow mold to develop and spread than for pink, but gray snow mold is more common on home lawns.  Also, if a lasting snow doesn’t appear until well into January, the chances of a banner year for the snow molds decreases, but you won’t catch me feeling sorry for them.

What you do influences these creatures.  Avoid fertilizing your lawn late in the season, but keep mowing until growth stops.  Avoid making giant snow piles.  In spring, patches can be raked, re-seeded and lightly fertilized.    

Plants Cleverly Endure The Big Chill

As a warm-blooded creature, all I can conclude is that January is about basic survival.  Howling wind, falling snow and plunging mercury has my old house’s furnace working double-time.  I’m huddled under an afghan, counting on my laptop to keep me warm.  Perhaps it would be easier to go dormant like the plants outside, which are just as alive as me yet somehow better equipped to beat the chill.  So how can species such as oaks and maples, composed largely of water, survive double digit negative numbers while water itself freezes at a rather balmy 32 F?

For such woody plants, building up cold tolerance is a process.  Stage one hardiness is triggered by the shortening daylight and cooler temperatures of autumn, which stop growth, encourage the shedding of leaves, and trigger other chemical reactions which are not completely understood.  Just this decrease in light and temperature helps, allowing a stem to remain alive down to about 0 F, but no more.         

Next comes something called “deep supercooling.”  This ability to suppress the freezing of sap within plant cells is also somewhat of a mystery, but it allows many species to survive down to -40 F.  Part of the secret here are recently discovered “anti-freeze” proteins, which inhibit the growth and recrystallization of ice within the living part of the cells.  Certain animals can produce anti-freeze proteins, too, which led some scientists to insert an arctic flounder anti-freeze gene into sweet corn back in the ‘90’s, hoping to make a hardier crop.  While such tinkering with Mother Nature gives some people the chills, growing corn in Alaska would be super-cool.

The toughest of the tough – plants like paper birch, willow and red-twig dogwood – have another trick up their trunks to survive even colder conditions:  dehydration.  As temperatures plunge, water moves from inside the living cells into the dead cell walls, causing two good things to happen.  First, water freezing in the cell walls causes no harm to the plant, since the cells walls are dead.  Second, the sugars and other compounds inside the cell become concentrated, lowering the freezing point.  This parallels the practice of putting anti-freeze solution in car radiators, so your Dodge Aspen is more similar to a quaking aspen than you might otherwise think.   

Evergreen rhododendrons have a few tricks of their own, too.  They look pitiful when their leaves droop and curl on a frigid day, but it’s just a defense mechanism.  Rhodos loose water through stomates, tiny openings on the undersides of their leaves, and the drooping shelters stomates from the wind.  The trouble really starts when the soil freezes, cutting off the water supply from the roots, and causing browning of the foliage, a.k.a. winter injury, to occur.  But amazingly, some cultivars have even this figured out.  Rhododendron carolinianum ‘P.J.M.,’ one of the hardiest available, can lose up to 70% of its leaf moisture and be just fine, while the more tender Rhododendron catawbiense ‘Grandiflorum’ is injured when only 50% dehydrated.

Still shivering?  Pass the arctic flounder, please.

Getting A Head Start

Gardening guru Jerry Baker said plants were like people, and I believe seeds are, too.  Some seeds grow easily under many conditions, like your friend who thrives no matter what life gives her.  Similar to your black sheep cousin arriving on your doorstep, some seeds germinate unexpectedly by the back steps, in the driveway gravel, or in the compost pile.  Others are as fussy as your little sister, needing precise coddling to get moving.

This last group of seeds generally requires starting indoors well before planting out in the wide world.  The tiny print on the seed packet gently suggesting “start indoors eight to ten weeks before planting out” is a warning to plan ahead.  Other crops, such as tomatoes, germinate easily but take a good three months or more to fruit, so giving them a head start indoors assures production in the current calendar year. 

After assessing which seeds need what conditions, assemble your gear.  I like to use a soil-less mix, containing peat, perlite and vermiculite, specially formulated for seeds.  It’s lightweight, drains well, and contains no killer pathogens.  You can make your own mix, and even pasteurize it in your kitchen oven, but the stink and mess can substantially reduce household harmony.  I also use professional grade plastic cells, those familiar “six packs” seen in nurseries, but a wide array of food containers, cleaned and given drainage holes, may work just as well.  Containers can also be fashioned as soil blocks, made from peat or coir, or created from newspaper. 

Seedlings need light, a tricky proposition if you rely on a windowsill location here in sun-deprived upstate New York.  While the daylight is incrementally getting longer, cloudy days and low light intensity tend to leave seedlings spindly and weak.  Luckily, we’ve got artificial options.  Swanky “growing systems” with stands, trays, and lights are attractive, durable and easy to use.  Still, they’re too costly for thrifty me, who relies on classic “shop lights,” the four foot fixtures with two fluorescent bulbs.  Newer T-8 bulbs are longer lasting and more economical than the older T-12 type, while LED bulbs are more efficient still, and seedlings of most plant species will thrive under all of them.  Special “grow lights,” which produce more red and far-red light, are not needed for seedlings, but are a must if you’re trying to grow flowering plants under lights, such as African violets or orchids.

A swift kick in the bottom gets me motivated on Monday morning; a seed’s equivalent is bottom heat.  Put your seed tray on a heat mat, plug it in, and watch germination time drop as the seeds pop.  Put the tray on a warm surface – the top of the refrigerator or furnace – to get the same effect.  While many seeds will grow at normal room air temperatures, extra root-zone warmth helps.  The biggest danger is over-exuberance.  If your ‘Lemon Gem’ marigold packet advises six weeks start time, plant them on April 1, not February 1.  Seedlings get cabin fever just like the rest of us.        

Launching Potential

A new year and a packet of seeds:  both are full of promise.  This is what I think as I navigate around the four huge boxes of unsold seeds a large retailer gifted our Master Gardener group, which now sit in my office.  Seeds of vegetables from A to Z and flowers of every color give a gardener the starry eyes of a Christmas morning kid with ribbons to untie and boxes to unwrap.  And just about anyone can share in the magic of seeds.  Author Sue Stuart-Smith writes, “Gardening is more accessible than other creative endeavors, such as painting and music, because you are halfway there before you start; the seed has all its potential within it – the gardener simply helps unlock it.”

Some of these donated seeds are easy to grow, while others demand more coaxing.  Seed packet verbiage gives clues how to begin.  Something like “sow after all danger of frost has passed” means being patient until a dry, warm day in May, then heading outdoors with a shovel.  Instructions will hopefully also reveal how deep to plant the seed and how far apart from its neighbor it should go.  If planting in a row, some gardeners use two stakes and string to make a straight trench.  Directions for planting squash and their kin call for planting on a “hill,” which is just a slightly raised mound where you can install some seeds in a circular formation.  Mel Bartholomew, who introduced the world to his “square foot gardening” method, encouraged growing vegetables in a grid pattern, and his books are well worth reading, especially if you grow in raised beds.  Seed spacing is more important than your overall pattern, since seeds sown too closely will become overcrowded seedlings if the germination rate is high.  While you can always thin them, by plucking out the extras and leaving a chosen few, doing your best to space properly reduces wastage and that guilty feeling of uprooting innocent creatures.

By walking outside and sticking a seed in the soil, you are participating in the “direct sowing” method.  A wide variety of plants, from pumpkins and carrots to marigolds and zinnias, can be started this way.  Most will desire full sun but will tolerate some shady times of the day.  Most will prefer soil which drains well but still retains some moisture – something between beach sand and pottery clay.  Checking the pH, adding compost and giving the soil some fertilizer are all things, as a professional horticulturist, I am supposed to direct you to do, with good reason, as generally the plants grow better.  But sometimes professional advice can turn into obstacles, and I would much rather see people plant a garden and experience their results than get overwhelmed and stuck by too many rules at square one.  You can always contact us at Extension if things go wonky.

If you work with a school or community group and need vegetable and flower seeds, email me at dhc3@cornell.edu and maybe we can help.