Right now I have bulbs blooming at the same time as azaleas, dogwoods, and  dicentra. Ornamental grasses are seriously leafed out, clematis which is usually holding back this time of year is growing great guns, and there are weeds everywhere.

This is on of the fastest, freakiest springs in recent memory and the first day of spring was only a couple of weeks ago. Climatologists predict  that though we will still have some cold winters, we are much more likely to see more winters and springs like the one we just had (are having). With these kinds of winter/springs we will have some benefits and negatives:

• Warmer winters may allow gardeners to grow some plants that before could only grow in milder climes. The wine grape industry, which relies on varieties that are only marginally cold-hardy in upstate New York, may benefit from warmer winters. Already, Leyland Cypress which was at one time considered not hardy enough for our area now proliferates the landscape.
• On the other hand, aggressive weeds and invasive plants will also move north. Studies show those species are better equipped than crops to take advantage of the increasing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere that are driving warming.
• Pests and diseases that were held in check by the cold may become more of a problem. Lifecycles of beneficial insects may get out of synch with the pests they help control. Wooly Algedid and Bronze birch borer which had been held in check by the cold will abound with warmer winters.
• Natural ecosystems will shift north, with oak-pine forests replacing maple-beech-birch forests in some places, for example.
• Less reliable winter snow cover may hurt over-wintering of some perennial crops and flowers. This year was particularly hard on daffodils which bloomed very irregularly this spring.
• Hotter summers may cause heat stress even in warm-season crops such as tomatoes.

BTW: This is our 100th blog post!

Anyone interested in sustainability and landscaping has read about “no mow” lawns and wondered if this is the creation of some flim-flam man or a real option. One must wonder, for if indeed there were such a thing as a “no mow” lawn surely everyone would want one? Minimizing mowable areas is a qualification for LEED EB certification so it seemed like something to look into.

To explore the veracity of the “no mow” claim, I googled it on line and discovered the “no mow” web site in which 1 lb of seed is sold for $ 25.00 and covers 1000 square feet. Given that one can purchase a 25lb bag of seed for $ 25.00, this seemed a little steep, and with the price, a possible explanation for the lack of “no mow” fever is the unusually high cost. The high cost plus the fact that no one seems to have these lawns adds to the snake oil salesman image of this product as one goes through the website, but reading on, the site states that the “no mow” lawn grows from 4”-6” in height. The height  might be another major inhibitor given that most folks think that 4” much less 6” is pretty shaggy.

Nevertheless, tireless explorer of sustainable landscape innovation that I am, I ordered a bag. A week later the box arrives. With a mix of trepidation and excitement I open it and look at the bag. It is filled with teeny little seeds and what appears to be sand. Great, I have now paid for a pound of grass seed  and gotten a half a pound of sand with the half a pound of  seed! I read the label and the ingredients are bent grass, weed seed and inert matter.  Incidentally, all grass seed comes with weeds and they are required by law to report the percentage of “weeds”, which are seeds that are not grass, so at least this is normal and by the book.  The odd thing is that the miracle “no mow” lawn is bent grass.

If you’re a golfer, you come across bent grass all the time on the putting green. It’s one of the few grasses that can stand to be cut super short, and because it is a very fine grass will grow super dense.  Now I am interested as I have never heard of using bent grass as a regular lawn grass. I Google “bent grass” and find that in fact, it was the first grass seed introduced in the United States by European colonists to reproduce the lawns from their homeland…..that would be before we had our fancy mowers. Reading on at the seedland.com site, there are several varieties of bent grass with different uses and it is a very expensive grass some varieties of which are applied a half pound of seed per 1000 square feet.

So it’s a different kind of scam, the kind I’m familiar with, where you take something people did before we had a chemical culture and repackage it as an eco-innovation! The bad news, is these “no mow” guys  are not 100% “on top” as this is a return to the 1500’s in terms of the approach to lawns. The sand with the seed is really very annoying, but I’m sure if I called there would be a semi-believable explanation like “it keeps the seed from clumping together” . God bless ‘em for being creative because after all there is no requirement in business that one reveal where the “innovation” came from. The good news is the stuff probably works! I’m going to play with the stuff, check in with me in a couple of months as bent grass is very slow to establish.

There are a number of ornamental vines that have turned parasitic in our area, meaning they take territory and kill everything they get their tendrils on. Many were cultivated as ornamental vines without thought or knowledge that they might turn on the rest of the plants in our individual gardens of eden. This time of year is the ideal time to identify and attack these plants some of which have been declared invasive and some of which should be.   All the plants we will look at today are on the National Park Service least wanted plant list and though not all of them have been declared invasive, the Park Service and Plant Conservation  Alliance agree they are very undesirable plants in our local ecosystem because left untended they will over power the local trees and plants.

The first is Japanese Honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica): http://www.nps.gov/plants/alien/fact/loja1.htm. This is a common plant along fence lines and in woodland areas where it has taken root unobserved.  Because it blooms and appears relatively mild mannered, it is allowed to wend its way through shrubs and even trees without interruption eventually stealing away sunlight and starving the host plants to death. Next is English Ivy: http://www.nps.gov/plants/alien/fact/hehe1.htm  This plant was the basis of “the ivy league” and propagated as an ornamental plant for a couple of centuries. Not only has the ivy league restricted if not removed this plant due to its destruction of the mortar between the bricks on buildings, but this plant if allowed up a trees will tap nutrients from the tree bark and sap while working its way up to cover the tree canopy taking away the trees sunlight and strangling it. Another innocent garden plant is Chinese Wisteria: http://www.nps.gov/plants/alien/fact/wisi1.htm. I have been battling wisteria on my property for 14 years now, cutting it back, going after the roots, and even spraying it with herbicide in desperation and still I find it strangling my shrubs. A neighbor of mine allowed it to intermingle with an old hydrangea tree and for years they seemed to bloom in symbiosis  until finally the tree was dead at the hands of the wisteria. Last but not least is Oriental Bittersweet: http://www.nps.gov/plants/alien/fact/ceor1.htm. This plant is seen less in the garden and more on the side of the road covering over huge swaths of trees and shrubs that serve as the basis for local bio diversity and smothering them to death at an extraordinary rate.

Spring is a great time to identify and crush these vines before they crush your garden and our ecosystem. No you wont wipe them of  the face of our state, but you will be protecting your trees and shrubs from vines that have no regard for them. Much like my neighbors tree, these plants will appear as enhancements to your landscape until it is too late and they become your landscape. Cut and remove vines wherever apparent. Uproot them and/or spray them with round up or a similar product. I’m not a big fan of chemical interventions, but invasives need to be treated like cancer. Just as you would gladly poison your own body with chemotherapy to save it, a little chemical intervention in a limited area will go a long way towards preserving the balance of your local ecosystem and garden.

For a longer list of local undesirable/invasive plants and ways to go after them go to PCA plant sheet  http://www.nps.gov/plants/alien/factpic.htm, each picture is a link to more individual information about the individual plant and how to handle it.

Walking about this weekend I had the opportunity to observe many groups of naturalized daffodils that have been planted through the years. Having been involved in most of the plantings, I have a pretty good idea how long they have been in the ground and how many were planted. Examining the sites, there were some that were blooming profusely still while others had disappeared, and still others were showing straggly foliage only.

Bulbs like daffodils have a limited time in which they bloom and then store energy for the coming year. How well they do in the locations in which they are planted is determined by the amount of light they get, the condition of the soil they are planted in, and when they are cut to the ground. This was so proven by this week ends observations.  Daffodils that had been planted in shadier areas ten or fifteen years ago have pretty well died out today. Even with ideal care and soil they just did not get enough light to store energy for the following years blooms. Daffodils in high light but compacted soils also struggled but in all likelihood they were probably cut down earlier than they should have been by an untrained hand wielding a string trimmer. The best groups of daffodils are in high light and beds dedicated to flowers or in front of memoriam. Because these areas are clearly planted, the string trimmers stayed away long enough, and the light was high enough so that they are still blooming ten years later.

There are many reasons why daffodils may not bloom. The following is a list from the American Daffodil Society  http://www.daffodilusa.org:

1. Bulbs have not been ‘fed’ in a couple of years (a broadcast of 5-10-10 granules at planting, when leaves emerge, and again at bloom is a reasonable feeding schedule.)

2. Feeding has been with a high-nitrogen fertilizer. (This encourages production of leaves, but seems to quell the plant’s need for flowers.)

3. Bulbs are planted in a shady area. (Daffodils need an half-day of sun at least to produce flowers. If planted in partial sun, longer.)

4. Bulbs are in competition for food with other plants. (Planting under evergreen trees or with other fast-growing plants limits the food they can get. Result: weak plants and no flowers.)

5. Bulbs are planted in an area with poor drainage. (Daffodils love water but must have good drainage. They do not do well where the water puddles.  There, they are weakened by “basal rot” fungus or other evils and die out.  Plants infected with basal rot have green color loss on the leaves, malformed leaves, stems, and flowers – or all. Basal rot is incurable – dig and discard the bulbs.)

6. Plant leaves were cut too soon or tied off the previous year. (Daffodils replenish their bulb for about six weeks after they bloom. The bulbs should be watered for about this long after blooming. The leaves should not be cut off or blocked from sun until they start to lose their green and turn yellow. This signifies the completion of the bulb rebuilding process.)

7. Bulbs may be stressed from transplanting. (Some varieties seem to skip a year of blooming if dug and replanted in a different environment. Some varieties bought from a grower in one climate may have a difficult period of adjustment to a vastly different climate. They may bloom the first year off the previous year’s bulb, but then be unable to adequately build a flower for the following year.)

8. Some naturalized varieties growing well in one region do not grow well in regions with different climate. (The wild jonquils proliferating and blooming in the Southeastern USA do not flower if moved to the north.)

9. The bulbs may be virused. (Many plant viruses attack daffodils. Over time, an infected plant loses its vigor, puts up smaller, weakened leaves and stems, stops blooming, and finally dies. The most common viruses are “yellow stripe” and “mosaic”. Yellow stripe shows as fine streaks of yellow the length of the leaves. It appears as the leaves emerge. The plant is weakened by the second year. Mosaic only appears as white blotches on the yellow flowers where the petals lose their color. Plant vigor seems unaffected. Both these diseases are contagious to other daffodils and incurable. Dig and throw away the bulbs.)

10. Growing conditions the previous Spring may have been inhospitable – the reformation of the bulb was affected. (An early heat wave may have shut down bulb rebuilding before it was complete. The bulbs may have be grown in a smallish pot without adequate feeding or protection from heat and cold.)

11. Bulbs may be diseased or stressed from shipping the Summer before.  (retail bulbs typically remain in closed crates for a lengthy period of time during shipping. These humid conditions are near-perfect for the proliferation of fungus diseases such as “basal rot” (fusarium). Some bulbs are infected at the time you receive them. Never buy or plant a “soft” bulb. Cut any observed rotting spots on a solid bulb back to clean tissue and soak the bulb in a systemic fungicide such as Clearys 3336 before planting. Look at the ADS bulb sources for reputable retailers.)

12. Bulbs may have been growing in the same spot for many years and need dividing. (Daffodil bulbs normally divide every year or two.  This can result in clumps of bulbs that are competing for food and space.  Commonly bulbs in compacted clumps cease blooming.  Dig the bulbs when the foliage has yellowed. Separate them into individual bulbs and replant them about 6″ apart and about 6″ deep.   You may replant immediately after lifting, or you may dry the bulbs in the shade, store them in mesh bags, and replant the bulbs in the Fall.  If you replant immediately – do not water them until the Fall.)

13. Bulbs may be out to get you!  (The case when you give them away in frustration and they bloom wildly for the new recipients.

The early spring bloomers are just coming out, forsythia, weigela, cherry trees, withchazel, redbuds andromedas, and soon azaleas, crabapples, pears, and a score more. The best time to prune early bloomers to get the most out of them is immediately after they finish blooming. Spring blooming trees and shrubs shoot all their energy into leafing out once they have bloomed. They also tend to bloom from the new wood so that if you want to keep these trees and shrubs to scale AND get vigorous blooms next year, you really need to get after them as soon as they are blooming out. Forsythia and Weigela for example are both spring blooming shrubs with vigorous growth after they bloom. Because they bloom from new wood, if you want to keep them to scale, you will want to cut the old/existing wood down to the ground, but no more than a third of the branches at a time. This will encourage the plant to grow new wood inside the shrub form and guarantee blooms throughout the bush. If you have a desired overall height you want the shrub at in the end of the year, cut these shrubs down at least a foot from their current height as they tend to grow a foot a year and sometimes more depending on the maturity. Early spring looming trees also bloom from new wood for the most part but require very different treatment as they grow more slowly and can be damaged by improper pruning. As a rule, remove water sprouts, aka “suckers” , from the base of the tree and inside the crown. These are new shoots coming out of the roots, well established branches, and sometimes the trunk. Generally these water sprouts will be shaded so heavily that they won’t generate sufficient energy to maintain themselves and in the end will take more energy than they give (thus the term “suckers). If keeping the crown at a specific height, remember to cut branches back to the nearest “Y” junction and as a rule, never more than 10% of the existing height and width.

With spring coming up early in the Southern NY/NJ vicinity there is a lot going on under the ground that we don’t see. Even though on top, we are seeing early spring bloomers and the beginning of leaves budding out of deciduous trees and shrubs, under the ground there is rampant root growth happening.

Root development occurs when the ground thaws and this year the ground never really froze in our region so roots are getting an early start. Roots spread seeking nutrients and moisture and will continue to reach out as long as temperatures are cool and accommodating.  So why not help them along? Now is the ideal time to feed plants as they will be going through rampant growth cycles in the next few weeks.

Select fertilizers that will release slowly. Organic fertilizers tend to be the slowest releasing  and allow plants to have food over a longer period. Fertilizers are plant group specific, evergreens  for example like acid fertilizer. There are plant specific fertilizers for roses, perennials, and deciduous shrubs. My favorites are the “tone” fertilizers; holly-tone for evergreens, rose tone for roses, plant tone for deciduous shrubs and flower tone for perennials and annuals.

Use these fertilizers judiciously; many people make the mistake of thinking if a little fertilizer does well, a lot will do better. This is a mistake, over fertilization can burn roots and damage plants as well as being at risk of leaching into surrounding ground waters.  Soil test your beds periodically to make sure soil acidity is correct and plants are getting what they need, and remember always follow the label on you fertilizer bag.

Though normally I am not a huge fan of planting spring bulbs, tubers and bare root material, an early mild spring such as is currently being experienced here in the Northeast creates the opportunity to get a lot more out of these more cost effective forms of adding color and texture to the garden.

The size and slowness of some bulbs, tubers, and bare root material are somewhat prohibitive. We have planted these materials for clients and had them take up to two months to come up, which can be  anxiety provoking at the very least. However a six week to two month wait seems a lot more reasonable when one is planting in early March as opposed to early to mid April. Having just purchased a couple of bags of caladiums and spotted elephant ear plants, I am actually quite excited by the idea that I can lay in these annual bulbs/tubers so early and get better value than buying them pre-grown.

The wait time on this kind of material is root development. Though they sometimes come with a few dormant roots, bare root, bulb and tuber material must first establish a network of roots to draw moisture and minerals from the soil so that when they put out leaves they have enough water for the leaves to use for photosynthesis. The good news about forsythia and daffodils blooming in early March is we are pretty much guaranteed a couple of cool months which are ideal for root development and we can expect to see some vigorous growth and production out of material that normally would not give us much until early to mid summer.

Caladium

This means big savings, caladium bulbs cost an average of .50 to .60 per bulb and in a grown pot one usually pays $ 4.00 To $6.00 for an average of three bulbs. That’s at least a 50% savings. There is a huge array of material available. The big box stores have them now. Speaking from a quality perspective if you are going this route I’d shop Costco before I went to Home Depot as Costco has built its reputation on discounted quality merchandise while Home Depot tens to be more low cost, less quality oriented in its offerings. On line you can shop Van Bourgondiens at http://www.dutchbulbs.com/ or the pricier but more unique selections of White Flower Farms. http://www.whiteflowerfarm.com

Great Time To Transplant

A few weeks ago, the hellebores were blooming vigorously. About two weeks ago, witch hazel came into bloom. Daffodils are starting to show color, but the ultimate herald of spring arrived this week, new outdoor plant material at the big box stores. I have been crying “spring, spring” for weeks now and it appeared no one was listening. Much in the same way that we know it’s Christmas (now before thanksgiving even gets here) because the big stores say so, with the arrival of freshly dug shrubs, we know it is now time for spring-even though its barely March.

All commercial cynicism aside, shrubs and trees can only be dug and burlapped for resale when the soil temperature is right. Normally we don’t see the arrival of these materials until mid to late March and sometimes later depending on whether we are having a particularly needy winter that just won’t let go like some of my children when I first took them to school. This means that if you have any transplanting you have been meaning to do, now might be a great time to hit it! Make sure when transplanting material that you dig out a sizeable root ball, at least 2/3 of the width of the plant. Professionals do this by digging a trench around the plant and once they reach an adequate depth (about 2/3 the width of your trench) they start to dig out under the ball. If you encounter large roots in the process form the plant you are transplanting or other plants and you have to cut them, try to cut them as cleanly as possible. When transplanting at this time of year, the tree shrub or perennial will enter a period of root growth right after you transplant it. Encourage root development and feeding to help with the shock of transplanting by using Bio Pack from Plant Health Care or a similar product high in nutrients and microbial activity which help roots absorb nutrients.

Admitting to infrequently designing on paper, instead, after conceptualizing an overall picture, French relies on instinct and the experience of more than twenty years of working in his chosen medium to dictate the details of each piece.  And because his masonry creations rarely employ cut stone, a good portion of the hours dedicated to every project is spent on hand picking the stone material.  If a piece of stone doesn’t fit, he doesn’t use it.  French has had the good fortune of long term creative partnerships with many of his clients.  His working process is unorthodox and takes more time than a typical masonry installation, but the end results are certainly worth the wait.

For pure inspiration Stone by Design by Lew French, a photographic narration of a number of his stunning stone interiors and landscape installations will not disappoint.

Last week we looked at weeds and mild winters, now let’s look at fruits flowers and fungi. There are some advantages to a mild winter, flower buds on fruits trees are less hardy than their vegetative buds, so a mild winter will allow more flowering and later more fruit. Though we generally want to get as much fruit as possible, too much fruit can mean not only broken branches, but smaller less succulent fruit, so be sure to thin those fruits and not over burden the fruit tree. The same applies to our flowering landscape shrubs. Forsythia will bloom from the ground to the tips when winters are mild with no thinning necessary

On the down side, over 80 percent of our plant diseases are caused by fungi. A mild winter allows those fungal spores and structures to live on more, decaying moist plant parts. The overwintering fungal structures will be in the leaf litter waiting to strike again next spring during cool, wet weather. Raking and removal of as much of that leaf litter as possible will reduce the spores available and there for a huge impact on disease pressure this coming spring. For this reason,  recommend early clean up of perennials and fallen leaves in beds this year, removing spent plant parts and weeds, to remove the overwintering fungal structures and lessen the disease pressure.”

A mild winter will not affect populations of insects routinely surviving much colder winter temperatures. It will have an impact on insects that typically move into northern areas from the south, or neighboring states that do not overwinter locally. A mild winter will allow more of them to survive in their normal habit before migrating . For those insects that normally overwinter in northern climes, it would take a very cold winter over an extended period to lower those pest populations. Insects can overwinter as eggs, larvae, pupae or adults using a variety of tactics to survive.

Though the implication is that spring populations such as flies and mosquitoes could be higher, a late freeze in let’s say March might actually reduce these populations in our area. Alternately, many birds feed on these insects and may also limit the mosquito population which is why creating and sustaining landscapes that promote bio-diversity and create homes for beneficial insects is so important. No matter what kind of a winter we end up with, gardeners know that diseases and insects will develop right along with our landscape plants, so be on the lookout early and often for potential problems.