|
|
Follow the seasonal links
above for timely tips to help you in your York
Region Ontario, Canadian zone 4, garden.
To-do's,
how-to's, when-to's,
design tips, photos, and
more!
My "Dirty
Knees" newsletter is emailed monthly.
If you'd like to receive this newsletter in your
in-box, email a request.
Cheers!
Evelyn
The most recent
"Dirty Knees"
newsletter
-
DIRTY KNEES,
A Newsletter for
York
Region Gardeners
May 14th , 2011
Evelyn Wolf, Perennial Garden
Consultant
Garden Possibilities Services |
|
In this crazy busy month of the
gardening season, I’ll have to make
this a relatively short newsletter.
If it wasn’t for all the rain, I may
not have gotten around to a May
newsletter at all!
As anyone who has ever attended my
“Think Like a Plant” gardening
lesson knows, this is the time of
year I simply call “zoom zoom”!
Maximum green growth in the
race for precious sunlight and
maximum photosynthesis potential is
the only thing on your plants’ mind
in these opening days of their
growing season. They are growing so
fast that from morning to evening of
the same day there’s a visible
difference in the perennial garden.
Was it really only a few weeks ago
that the view out the window was
solid mud brown? Hard to believe!
The dandelions have certainly been
doing a lot of zoom zooming in this
wet cool spring we’re having too!
I don’t think I’ve ever seen so
many! Spread some corn gluten in
the lawn before all those
dandelion flowers turn into
thousands of dandelion seeds!
For up to 6 weeks, corn gluten will
kill any seeds as they try to
germinate.
There’s so many “to-do’s” for this
time of year that it’s hard to know
where to start, but here are a few
to keep your gardening hours
productively filled –
“To-Do’s” for May ~
~
Sedum spectabile. (Sedum
‘Autumn Joy’). Prune off the
top 2” of each stem. This will
stimulate branching for fuller
flowering and less flopping open
later in the season. (for a picture
of the beautiful results of the tip
pruning regimen,
click here.,
or scroll down.)
~
Monarda didyma (Bee Balm).
If you have a large stand of tall
Bee Balm, cut the front ½ of the
stems down by approx. 1/3. This
will stimulate branching to give the
plant stand a more rounded look, and
since the pruned stems will bloom
later than the unpruned ones, you’ll
prolong the bloom time of the patch.
~
Euphorbias of all types are
in bloom now. I love their chrome
yellow flower cushion to partner
with tulips at this time of year.
If they are left to drop seed
though you’ll have a few too many
seedling volunteers to weed out
later in the season. Euphorbia
myrsinities (Donkey’s tail
spurge), and Euphorbia
polychroma (Cushion Spurge)
in particular are prolific reseeders
and many people avoid these plants
for this reason, but they are very
valuable plants for an all season
design because of their other merits
of good foliage colour and plant
form. To solve the reseeding
problem, cut all the stems back, at
least by half, after the best of the
flowering is done later this month
and before seed has a chance to
ripen. Discard the trimmings in a
yard waste bag rather than your
compost bin. New growth will
quickly fill in for a lovely foliage
contributor to your perennial garden
design for the rest of the season.
~
Forget-me-nots
are a delightful partner to so many
other things coming up
in the garden at this time of year,
but too much of a good thing is just
a season away if you let too much
seed drop. Forgets are biennials,
which means each plant blooms only
once. They’ll appear again next
year from seed that drops and grows
the green phase only later in
summer, to be the blooming plants
for next spring. This means that
after the best of this year’s bloom
phase is over, the entire plant
can be just pulled out of the
ground, roots ‘n all, given a gentle
shake to drop a few seeds, and then
the garden space can be given over
to your summer perennials. No need
to suffer through the tail end of
their blooming time when they
stretch out and get mildewy – just
yank them out once the best of the
bloom is finished, or you’ll have
too much seed dropping.
~
The “secret” to a low-maintenance
garden?
Any plant can become a “weed” if
allowed to go to seed in your
garden. Making sure to deadhead or
cut back plants down to basal
foliage immediately after their
blooms start to fade to prevent seed
from ripening, is one of the biggest
“secrets” to low maintenance
gardening. You’ll often get the
bonus of a second blooming on many
plants, but the main benefit to
keeping your spring and early summer
blooming plants trimmed and clean of
faded blooms is to prevent excessive
seed drop that leads to extra
weeding and flopping plants later in
the season. Along the same lines,
it’s important to recognize that
just one lonely weed that’s allowed
to flower and drop seed guarantees
that you’ll have many dozens more of
the same weed later in the season.
~
Oriental Lilies and their arch
enemy!
The hugely destructive Lily
Beetle is busy mating and laying
eggs right now. Inspect your
emerging plants daily and kill any
you find. Also inspect the back of
the leaves for a bright orange line
of eggs and wipe them away with a
gloved hand. Here’s a link to a
detailed
Lily Beetle battle plan on my
web site.
This long cool and wet spring is
exactly what perennial plants love.
I sense in my capital “G” gardener’s
bones that it’s a great gardening
season ahead! Happy 2011 gardening
season, and remember to keep it fun
- If a plant dies, don’t despair –
now there’s room for that great new
plant you had your eye on!
Evelyn Wolf
Perennial Garden
Consultant |
DIRTY KNEES,
A Newsletter for
York
Region Ontario Gardeners
March 18th , 2011
Evelyn Wolf, Perennial Garden Consultant
This is the time of the garden season when
weather forecast watching becomes a bit of an
obsession in itself for avid gardeners. Will
winter come for a day or two again and frost
bite emerging plants? Will spring rush to
summer’s warmth too quickly for a good Tulip
show? Here in Southern Ontario it’s very
frustrating to make plans for a spring garden
since “spring” is so different from one year to
the next.
At this point “They” are calling for a long
cool spring. While this sounds discouraging
for cottagers, campers, and the winter
hibernators among us (like me!), this is good
news for gardens. Long and cool is what all
spring blooming plants need for a good long
show. (I planted tons of tulips last year and
can’t wait to see how many the squirrels left
for me!)
In my own garden I love to include some plants
that bloom in very early spring.
Seeing flower buds opening amid the last of the
melting snow is more heartening for a winter
weary gardener than any good weather forecast
could be. The last of the lingering snow
cover in my garden just melted off yesterday
to reveal Hellebore flower buds just days
away from opening, and the first few flowers
opening on my  Witchhazel
‘Diane’ in a rich deep red. I like to think of
these super
early signs of flowers to come, as Mother Nature
declaring her superior weather forecasting
skills – if She says it’s OK to start the
growing season, then it must be spring!
(Hellebore is the very earliest perennial to
bloom – well worth their high price tag! The
snow melted earlier this week to expose buds,
and I’m just a few days away from seeing
blooms!)
Late March To-Do list –
~
try not to let spring fever get the better of
you! In the middle of March while watching
early spring flowers come along, it’s hard to
remember that we’re still a full 8 weeks away
from our climate zone’s last frost date, and
that it’s very likely we’ll still get lots of
below zero nights. (click
here for a look at plants enduring a
late May snowfall! Very normal situation in our
zone.) Don’t uncover any broadleaved
evergreens protected from winter damage with
burlap or pine boughs yet – Rhododendrons for
example. Their flower buds are very
sensitive to damage from late spring frosts in
the intense sunshine of spring that is fooling
them into blooming too early.
~
Start weeding! The very definition of a “weed”
is a plant that knows how to outwit more
well-behaved plants by germinating seed
extremely early, or are evergreen and ready to
zoom into flower and drop seed before being
bullied out by main season plants. We haven’t
even had a chance to dust off gardening tools
for the new season yet before chickweed, for
example, is blooming and dropping seed! As
soon as you can, get out there and dig up all
the evergreen weeds you probably didn’t even
notice were there last fall. Easy to find at
this time of year – they’re often the only thing
in a garden that’s green! Get them before
they drop seed which may only be a couple of
weeks from now.
~
make a plan for your lawn’s Corn Gluten
application to prevent this year’s crop of weeds
in your lawn. Overwintered weed seeds will
be germinating over the next few weeks and corn
gluten will kill them before they have a chance
to open and develop roots. Overseeding with new
grass seed in spring is also a good standard
practice, but corn gluten will kill those seeds
as they germinate too! Corn gluten is effective
at killing newly germinating seed of any kind,
for up to 6 weeks. These two good natural lawn
care tasks should be well timed each spring for
best results. Either apply corn gluten now
and wait 6 weeks before overseeding with grass
seed, or spread the grass seed now and wait for
at least 4 weeks to allow the grass seed to
germinate and grow some roots before spreading
corn gluten. Once the new grass plants have
put down some roots, corn gluten won’t harm them
at all – in fact corn gluten is a natural source
of nitrogen and will feed the developing grass
plants. Corn gluten used correctly is very
effective - an all natural weed ‘n feed!
Getting the timing right though is important.
(To learn more about corn gluten and other
effective natural lawn care methods, register
for my
April 4th class – EARTH
FRIENDLY LAWN CARE. Follow the link for
information.)
Happy Spring!
Evelyn Wolf
|
|
DIRTY KNEES,
A Newsletter for
York
Region Gardeners
Evelyn Wolf, Perennial Garden Consultant.
the
latest
edition of my monthly newsletter is filed here
before being sorted into the seasonal links
above. |
|
Gardening Quote
for May 2011
This is the time of year when my inbox and message machine are
chock full of requests for tips on achieving the
elusive “low maintenance” garden.
This month’s gardener’s quote has the secret revealed!
A callused palm and dirty fingernails
[and dirty knees!]
precede a green thumb. Mike Garofalo
That’s right – there’s no magic bullet! A “low”
maintenance garden comes with a bit of
down-in-the-dirt elbow grease, guided by lots of
common sense and advance planning.
Links to a few upcoming events and opportunities
for May 2011.
EAST GWILLIMBURY GARDEN TOUR! A tour of local
fine gardens in support of literacy in East
Gwillimbury.
Saturday, June 18th 10:00 – 4:00.
An organized tour of local private gardens to
impress & delight! Tickets $10.00, available
at Holland Landing Public Library or for more
info, contact Linda at lindaetanaka@gmail.com ,
or Marie at
k.coulter@sympatico.ca 905 478 2407.
(NOTE:
Perhaps the very best way to pick up tons of
great gardening design and horticultural tips is
by touring local gardens where there’s an
opportunity to chat with the gardener, see what
grows well in local conditions, and learn about
plants you may not have tried before. DON”T
MISS this opportunity! Hopefully it will be the
first of many more local garden tours. Evelyn)
Volunteer at YR Community Gardens
York Region Food Network
www.yrfn.ca
for details
Volunteers for Pioneer Garden
at Sharon Temple, Spring thru Fall
www.sharontemple.ca
for details
Huronia Rose Society sale
at the Orillia & Barrie Farmers' Markets.
Saturdays May 7, 14, 21 & 28 from 8.00 am to
Noon
www.huroniarose.usethis.com
Gardener's
Quote
for March '11
It's
spring fever.
That is what the name of it is. And
when you've got it, you want … oh, you
don't quite know
what it is you
want … but it
just fairly makes
your heart ache, you want it so!
Mark Twain
|
Email:
