Can You Dig It?

Not everyone gets excited about a pile of organic matter, but I do.  Let me explain by first telling you I am a lazy composter.  I don’t turn or aerate my pile, I simply dump more garden waste on top.  A well-tended compost pile will produce results in just a couple of months, but by my method of benign neglect, plant matter takes its own sweet time to decompose.  Each spring, the pile will have last fall’s debris sitting on top, still intact, but I dig in from the sides to uncover the dark, crumbly “black gold” hiding below.  Recently, I got curious as to how much finished compost was still hiding under the top veneer of detritus, so I decided to remove anything that still looked like a stem or leaf and reveal what remained.  What I found was a mountain of glorious stuff.  At almost three feet high and fifteen feet long, I discovered the mother lode of well-aged compost, just waiting to be used.  Like almost anything else homemade or homegrown, backyard compost is better than money can buy.  In economic terms, I was suddenly the Michael Bloomberg of the flower-growing set.

Not all gardeners have joined the church of the compost pile, but those who have believe in it with some fervor.  While I banish pet waste, meat scraps, or diseased plants from my pile, I do add eggshells and vegetable scraps from the kitchen.  My town doesn’t offer curbside pick-up of leaves (we don’t have curbs), but even if it did, my leaves would still stay home in my compost pile, or get chopped up for leaf mulch.  Composting on-site reduces the amount of fossil fuel it takes to haul raw organic wastes away and then haul finished bags of compost home to the garden.  It saves money and eliminates plastic packaging, too.  But the righteous feeling you get making your own compost pile pales in comparison to the compost itself.  I know what’s in my compost and what’s not.  There is no pesticide residue or heavy metals.  There is no plastic trash, or other junk either, unless that pair of secateurs I lost three years ago turns up.  There are also no invasive jumping worms, a rising concern not only locally but nationwide.  Using your own compost is a lot like knowing where your food comes from.  It feels nice.

I’m going to spread my compost wealth around the garden in a few different ways.  Primarily, I’m adding a few inches across my raised beds to benefit next year’s dahlias and vegetables.  I won’t use it to start seeds (since I can’t be entirely sure it is pathogen-free), but I will mix it with pine or hardwood bark to make a potting mix for older plants.  If I get ambitious next spring, I’d like to renovate a perennial border, and after the old plants come out, compost will go in.  Money doesn’t grow on trees, but free-for-the-making compost encourages the trees to grow better.

A Sage On Osage

“I gave up trying to find the answer to this one and was hoping you could pass it along to one of your crack specialists.”

So started an email with photo received this chilly November.  It is just such tantalizing inquiries which make me appreciate my job.

“If you can’t ID it, I’m gonna call it a maggot ball.  It has a fragrance to it.  It’s about the size of a softball.  Do you think it would spice up the stuffing on Thanksgiving?”

Luckily, I had grown up around maggot balls in rural New Jersey, but we called them monkey oranges.  The yellow-green fruits fell out of scrubby, thorn-laden trees in old hedgerows and along roads.  To my young mind, their most amazing attribute was the texture of their skins, which mimics most alarmingly the surface of a human brain.  This youthful exposure to the trees allowed my own grey cells to easily provide some answers.

Botanical thinkers know this plant as Osage orange, or Maclura pomifera.  Planted nationwide as living fences before the invention of barbed wire, this species is native to the Red River valley in southern Oklahoma and northern Texas.   In that locale, they commonly grow under a bevy of odd names, including hedgeapples, horse apples, or hedge balls.  Since there are separate male and female trees, only the females will develop the balls.  I’ll leave the rest to your fertile imagination.

The fruits of Osage orange look as unappetizing as they are inedible.  The pulp is white, tough and stringy.  The seeds, the most digestible part of the entire mass, are covered with slimy goop.  Cattle sometimes die when they swallow Osage oranges after too little mastication effort.  So why would a tree go to such great lengths to produce such an unappealing fruit?  Perhaps they were designed to attract some now extinct critter that roamed the Oklahoma plains eons ago.  As for the stuffing, stick to bread crumbs.

Monkey oranges make up for their culinary shortfalls in other ways.  New Jersey legend holds that a green fruit in your underwear drawer (or even elsewhere in the house) can repel cockroaches, while in the Midwest Osage oranges were said to retard the advance of crickets, spiders and other pests.  Today, some find these to be valid claims, while others cry pure bunk.  Turning to research for an answer, Iowa State University uncovered yet another odd fact:  chemical compounds in the fruit did indeed thwart German cockroaches, but entire fruits did not.  Would a rotting fruit in your drawers work better?  It’s yet another sticky question for science.

Even more astonishing are the properties of Osage wood.  One of the most naturally rot-resistant types of lumber available, it is superior for fence posts.  Burning it releases more BTUs than almost any other wood.  Students of archery prefer it for bows.  And it has been used to make fine guitars, harps, mandolins and writing pens.

Maggot balls?  Bosch!  We should be proud to call Osage orange a native American.

Bloom Where You Are Planted

I’m not sure that Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts, has won the designation “Coolest Small Town In America,” but it ranks high in my opinion.  A thriving downtown, beautiful location amongst rolling hills and public artworks make it a pleasant place to be.  But what puts it over the top is The Bridge of Flowers, a horticultural showstopper that draws thousands of visitors annually from around the world.

Back in 1908, building a bridge across the Deerfield River to carry railway freight and passengers, as well as a water line, seemed like a good idea.  The nearby Iron Bridge, constructed in 1890, wasn’t up to the job (yet, somewhat ironically, it is still in use for motor vehicle traffic today).  In a fit of optimism, The Shelburne Falls and Colrain Street Railway paid $20,000 to have a new bridge constructed.  They built well:  the sturdy structure was formed of concrete and featured five arches.  Soon, the Railway was transporting everything from mill products and farm produce to U.S. mail, and carrying 200,000 passengers each year.  But those heydays were short-lived.  As cars and trucks became more numerous, the fortunes of the Railway declined, and it ceased operations in 1927.  With the trolleys gone, the bridge could have been destroyed, but the necessary water line made that impractical, and it was a costly proposition, anyway.  What could be done with a bridge with diminished purpose?     

It might have been a stroke of genius, or perhaps Yankee ingenuity, but the bridge didn’t sit derelict for long.  While doing household chores, local resident Antoinette Burnham suddenly struck upon the idea of turning the bridge into a garden.  Aided by her husband Walter and a growing cadre of supporters, a fundraising concert was held and funds gathered.  Soil was ordered and the first plantings installed in 1929.  Eventually, the Bridge of Flowers Committee, under the aegis of The Shelburne Falls Women’s Club, germinated to further organize the efforts.  Today, two part-time paid gardeners, assisted by many volunteers, keep the bridge looking beautiful from April to October.  The initial budget of $1,000 has also grown, thanks to memorial gifts, bequests and donations given in secure boxes located at either end of the structure.  And when significant deterioration threatened the structure by the 1970’s, the good folks involved rallied once more, raising thousands to reconstruct and repair so both bridge and garden would survive.

While planting in two narrow beds on a bridge dozens of feet above the water might seem daunting, it turns out to be a pretty good place to grow.  The soil depth varies from 2 ½ to 9 feet, allowing trees to be planted in the deeper areas.  When I visited in August, dahlias in a broad array of colors were featured, supported by daylilies, phlox, crocosmia, hibiscus and coneflowers.  Annuals such as sunflowers and bachelors buttons shared space with woody viburnums, hydrangeas, redbuds and even a hemlock.  All were kept in tip-top form with nary a weed in site.  Happy 90^th Birthday, Bridge of Flowers!   

Sneezemaker and the Basswood Bees

Each September finds me, along with some other adventurous souls, ambling in honor of the Hudson River Valley Ramble.  This series of events, all held in proximity to our great waterway, aims to get people out and doing.  I enjoy leading my plant walk on Papscanee Island, where we visit the tree that grew in Brooklyn (Ailanthus altissima) as well as the plant that killed Abraham Lincoln’s mother (white snakeroot).  We pause at old favorites, like the three hostas growing under the touch-me-nots, and always find something new, too.

Our novelty this year turned out to be a lovely plant I once tried, and failed, to grow in my garden.  We discovered just one small patch of Helenium autumnale, sometimes called Helen’s Flower, growing inches from the mighty Hudson. The location wasn’t surprising; it requires a moist soil, making it a denizen of streambanks, ditches, pondsides and the like, in all lower-48 states.  My garden, it turns out, is just too dry.  The bright yellow flowers, composed of a prominent disk surrounded by fringed rays, make it a thing of beauty.  The plant hybridizers, seizing something good, turned Helenium into a garden center commodity by expanding its floral color range into all shades of red and orange.  Don’t focus on its other common name, however, since no one wants to grow sneezeweed.  This moniker derives from the old-time practice of using the dried blossoms and leaves as snuff.  Nowadays, it’s more likely that nursery customers might assume sneezeweed causes allergies, and drop it like a pot of poison ivy, so smart marketers focus on the connection to beautiful Helen of Troy.  Supposedly, Helen’s falling tears caused this plant to spring forth.  That would be quite a feat, since she lived in Greece and Helenium is strictly American, but let’s not question the gods too closely.

A tour highlight is finding the lone basswood tree, known also as American linden and botanically as Tilia Americana.  This takes some doing, as it stands some distance from the path amongst impenetrable thicket; one year we missed it altogether.  Growing naturally from New England to North Dakota and into the upper South, basswood thrives in rich, damp bottomland soils but also makes a living on drier slopes, too.  Pyramidal in youth and aging to oblong or rounded in shape, it can reach 60 feet tall or much higher.  The dark green, heart-shaped leaves hide small pale yellow flowers, which appear in June and lure scads of honeybees and other pollinators.  Crafty beekeepers take advantage of this situation by placing hives in linden groves and taking the honey produced off as soon as the linden flowers fade. It is described as pale-colored, medium sweet, and highly aromatic.  Basswoods are rarely found in home landscapes, although they sometimes appear in parks or on golf courses.  Passed up in favor of the littleleaf linden, darling of European horticulture which has spread here, perhaps someday we’ll prize our native version here as highly as I regard the lone wolf on Papscanee.

Serendipity

Plant a redbud tree, and with a little luck, it will reward you with the beauty of it’s form, foliage and flowers for many years.  You might even find some tiny redbud seedlings sprouting nearby.  Should they be pulled from the ground, mowed down or dosed with herbicide?  That would be the response of some folks, but to my mind, they are a gift from Mother Nature.  

While gardening is sometimes about planting and nurturing, editing is also involved, too.  This is referred to this as weeding, and the joys and challenge of grubbing out the undesirables is a major part of life as a gardener.  But there are good “weeds,” too, in the form of delightful or useful plants which suddenly spring up, unbidden, a form of horticultural treasure.  It just seems to happen a lot less frequently than, say a new stand of poison ivy. 

Twenty or more years ago, I wanted a redbud tree, more formally called Cercis Canadensis.  I acquired seeds from a roadside tree, several of which germinated, and one survived.  This tree has grown into a handsome specimen, producing dark pink pea-like blossoms early each spring, followed by papery seed pods.  Only recently have I noticed baby redbuds appearing, hither and yon, throughout the garden.  Some I might pot up, others I can move to where I want them, while those in a favorable place I will leave, just to see what happens.  It’s fun to play god of the garden when it isn’t just about ripping out thugs like Japanese knotweed and garlic mustard.

Volunteer tree seedlings make great gifts, too.  Many years ago, a wonderful woman named Virginia had an expansive garden, full of interesting trees, in East Greenbush.  Beautiful silverbell trees (Halesia sp.), native to the Appalachians, grew there, and started self-sowing.  Virginia kindly gave me a seedling, which I planted behind my garage.  Thinking it would develop into a smallish example, the silverbell has morphed into a large, multi-trunked pyramid, covered in white bell-shaped flowers in spring.  I’ve been waiting for mini silverbells to appear, but so far none have come forth, despite the tree making seedpods.  Perhaps the seeds are not viable without cross-pollination, or maybe I just don’t have the magic that Virginia did, but I will keep hoping for offspring, nonetheless.  Virginia shared her silverbells with other lucky gardeners, and she left us a wonderful guarantee that her spirit and generosity will be remembered.

In practical terms, there are steps to take if you would like to encourage volunteers.  First, plant the parents.  It won’t do much good to wish for redbud seedlings if you don’t have a mother plant in the garden.  Develop keen eyes, too.  Seedlings are tiny, and easily destroyed.  And be a little messy.  Highly polished gardens, like the sterile yards surrounding some tract houses, are unlikely to yield volunteers, which often pop up amongst last year’s leaves, along the edge of the woods, or under a shrub.  If we desire a little serendipity, we can cultivate it. 

Bittersweet Confusion

Some plants generate confusion.  Ask the man on the street to identify a pine or spruce, and you’ll find he’s confused the pine with the spruce.  When someone mentions a red maple, are they referring to a red-leaved Norway maple (Acer platanoides ‘Crimson King’), a red-leaved Japanese maple (Acer palmatum ‘Bloodgood’) or the true red maple (Acer rubrum)?  Often it is one of the first two, while choice three is best.  Only one thing is certain:  misidentification is a human issue.  No plant ever had an identity crisis.  Since they let it all hang out, it’s up to us to observe their attributes more closely before we attach a label to them.

Consider bittersweet, plants placed today in the genus Celastrus.  Early settlers to these parts thought a vine they came upon looked like Europe’s bittersweet, so they gave the new plant the same name.  Oops.  The olde worlde herbe turned out to be Solanum dulcamara or Eurasian nightshade, a completely unrelated species to our native American Celastrus scandens.  While the fruits of both look similar at one stage, the leaves, flowers and stems are night and day different. 

Jump ahead to the mid-1800’s.  While  American bittersweet was ornamental enough for gardens, chiefly valued for its fiery-orange fall fruit the shape of a pea, Oriental bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus) was thought to be better.  Some botanical wizard imported it from China or Japan into the northeast, and soon it was found to be better.  A better climber, since this new species not only scrambled up trees, but it could break, smother and strangle them (see photo, bittersweet taking on spruces).  A better propagator, too, since its fruit usually has five or more seeds, while the native’s berry often only contains one.  Since the release of the Oriental species, it has largely taken over the habitat of the American in New England and New York, and has possibly hybridized with it, too.

Straightforward enough.  We should banish the invader while aiding our hometown hero.  Unfortunately, for folks uninitiated in the nuances of bittersweet, the two types are tough to tell apart.  When someone asks which one they have on their land, it is a darn good question, one worth pondering before any further action is taken.

Start with flowers and fruit.  American bittersweet has these in clusters on the end of the shoot, while Oriental bittersweet has flowers and fruit all along the stem.  American bittersweet has an orange capsule that encloses the fruit, while Oriental’s are yellow.  American’s fruits are larger, but contain few seeds, as noted above.

That’s great, but there’s another rub:  both species feature separate male and female plants.  Male plants don’t make berries, so those clues are out.  So get out your magnifier, because male American flowers make yellow pollen while male Oriental flowers make white pollen.  There is also a vegetative indicator.  When American vines leaf out in spring, the leaves are rolled like a scroll, while Oriental’s are folded just once. 

Confused?  Check the internet for the Great Lakes Science Center Fact Sheet 2007-2: https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/fsbdev3_017307.pdf

Fit For The King

Poking along Ridge Road by bicycle, I stumbled upon a handsome example of a powerful plant.  Proudly in flower, and growing boldly out of a living maple tree trunk, it’s an herb of presidential politics and festive celebrations.  Used with skill it might cure, but cooked wrong it can easily kill.  ‘Twas once renowned enough to make the sensational swiveling singer from Memphis croon.  It’s a plant with a resume so slick it could turn a Harvard grad green.  I give you pokeweed.

Growing from Maine to Minnesota and southward, Phytolacca americana is an herbaceous perennial that pops up in pastures, cleared areas, fencerows and open spots in the woods.  Covered in simple green leaves, its purplish, branched stems can reach an impressive eight feet tall and bear elongated racemes of white flowers which become attractive purple berries.  This botanical exuberance is fueled by a deep and extensive root system.  While visually impressive, consider this:  the entire plant is poisonous, and swallowing enough may cause vomiting, spasms, convulsions, then death from respiratory failure. 

Despite this gruesome little fact, pokeweed has long been considered a culinary delight, especially below the Mason-Dixon.  The trick is to harvest only young leaves, before they exhibit any reddish pigment, and boil them thrice, discarding the water each time.  This regimen gives us the basic ingredient in poke sallet, which reportedly has a flavor between asparagus and spinach.  While it sounds simple, my advice is, “don’t try this at home.” 

A much safer option would be to bring your appetite to one of the four annual pokeweed festivals.  The doings in Harlan, Kentucky feature a poke sallet feast with side dishes of boiled eggs, green onions, cornbread and buttermilk.  A cooking contest gives $25 prizes for the best poke recipe, appetizer, and dessert.  Whether one has to be an expert in poke preparation to enter is unclear, but I imagine the judges pay up on their life insurance before the tasting.  And the one tune sure to be blaring from the loudspeakers is “Poke Salad Annie,” popularized in the ‘70’s by none other than Elvis Presley.

What might drive people to eat the horticultural equivalent of a hand grenade?  One historic reason would be plain hunger, especially problematic in spring, the “safe” period for poke.  Eventually, poke sallet became a supermarket staple, sold by the Allen Canning Company of Siloam Springs, Arkansas.  Medicinally, topical applications of pokeweed were used to treat itching, inflammation and acne, while careful ingestion might aid arthritis, mumps, or constipation.  Recently, investigations have probed the use of poke extracts in curing cancer and HIV-AIDS.

But wait!  There’s more.  As a child, a friend and I collected a large jar of poke berries and spending an afternoon squeezing a wonderful juice that permanently stained our shirts.  We didn’t know this same stuff was dye to Native Americans and ink for Civil War soldiers.  Supporters of Polk’s candidacy wore a sprig of poke, a potent plant for the least known consequential president.