George's Current Ramblings and Readlings

Digging a New Bed

March 19th, 2013

   It seems like it’s taking forever for winter weather go away this year, but sometime soon, the coast should be clear to get out there and start digging some new garden beds.

To dig or not to dig, that is the question.

    Or not. 

   What I mean is that not everybody agrees that the best way to dig a new bed is by digging a new bed. Huh?

   A lot of people like to take the short cut of killing off lawn with Roundup, planting right into the dead turf and then mulching the whole thing. Nearly instant result!

   Others are going the trendy no-till, no-spray route by laying cardboard, newspaper and/or mulch over the lawn to smother it, then planting into the decaying mix later. Once again, no digging… although this route requires more patience.

   Both of those can work fine, but this week I thought I’d share what I do.

   I prefer the old-school, dig-the-grass-by-hand method, followed by tilling in organic matter to create slightly raised beds.

   It’s definitely more work than the other options, but I try to avoid chemical use whenever possible and have had excellent results. I think it’s the best way to deal with the crappy “builder’s soil” that most people have in housing developments.

   Here’s the step-by-step:

The Shiek of Shaledom

March 12th, 2013

Here’s what I started with…

   State legislatures might be dysfunctional a lot of the time, but they are effective about getting one thing done – naming official state everythings, from state emblems to state birds to official state rocks.

   Pennsylvania, for example, has named the hemlock our official state tree and the mountain laurel our official state flower.

   Both are ironic picks since the hemlock is now getting wiped out by the woolly adelgid (good candidate for official state bug), and the mountain laurel is widely killed in home landscapes (official state dead shrub?)

   Maybe making the list jinxes the picked things?

   Anyway, these lists got me to thinking that I haven’t got around to naming any official anything in my yard. I don’t even have a name for my garden like a lot of fancy-schmancy horticulturists do.

   My official yard rock is easy: shale. I’ve got more flakes of the stuff in my soil than soil. If shale was as valuable as oil, I’d be the Sheik of Shaledom.

   My official yard bird is the cardinal… the one that keeps pecking at my windows.

   I don’t know if he/she thinks the reflection is another bird or what, but after a million or so fruitless window pecks over the past 2 years, you’d think he/she would’ve started to have doubts by now.

Look, She’s Moving!

March 5th, 2013

   The 38-foot-tall, video-playing Big Ben clock might be getting the most attention, and Jack the Ripper’s neighborhood might have the longest lines, but I’ll take the white lady…

Is she real or concrete?

   … The white lady as in the angelic, pure-white mime who’s portraying a moving statue in the E.P. Henry display garden at the 2013 Philadelphia International Flower Show. 

   That’s been my favorite part of this year’s British-themed show – even better than the flower-filled cricket-club garden.

   I’m not the only one either. When the mime starts her act, people swarm six and eight layers deep to watch her do her thing. (See the video I shot of her on YouTube.)

   At first, people can’t figure it out.

   When she’s holding a pose, she looks a whole lot like the white concrete statues to her right and left.

   But keep watching and she begins to slowly move and change her pose.

   I overheard some people wondering, “Is that one of those animatronic robots? No, I think she’s real!”

   She definitely is, but her movements are so graceful that it’s easy to doubt. She’s pure white from head to toe and even keeps her eyes closed so you can’t pick up on any eyeball clues.

   The setting is also beautiful. She stands in the middle of a brick pavilion that overlooks a rectangular pond equipped with spouting fountains and changing lights.

   Impressive.

   I’ve seen 20-something Philly Flower Shows now, and they always impress me.

   Some years are better than others, and every show has a few duds mixed among the gems. But I’ve never been disappointed or been to a “bad” Philly show.

   This one I like a little better than most.

Pavilions, Fairies and Rock Fountains

February 25th, 2013

   I can’t make any connection, but those three things seem to be shaping up as the hot trends in gardening this season if this past weekend’s Pa. Garden Expo is any indication.

GoldGlo Landscape’s Expo pavilion.

   About half of the 13 Expo display gardens were showing off patios and outdoor kitchens under pavilions, like the kind you see in park picnic areas.

   “Pavilions are really hot right now,” said Steven Stoltzfus of GoldGlo Landscapes of Millersburg, which was sporting a big, dark-wooded one in its first-time Expo feature garden. “They keep people protected from the environment.”

   Protected as in you can still do your outdoor cookout or party even if it rains.

   Most of the rest of the Expo gardens had more open pergolas as patio covers. Some had both pergolas and pavilions.

   The message is that people apparently are interested in creating dedicated outdoor spaces that give them their own private little park.

   I also saw a lot of columnar rock fountains with holes bored down the center and water bubbling out the tops.

Get a Jump on the Season

February 12th, 2013

   Back in the day, it used to start snowing in December, and then we’d have a pretty consistent snow cover the whole way until March, when everything finally melted.

My Mantis tiller with the edging attachment.

   These days, it seems a majority of winter – or at least big chunks of it – are uncovered.   Not only can we see grass and plants even in January and February, the ground is often not even frozen.

   I’m not complaining. Especially since we dodged a bullet in that Nor’easter that blasted New England last week.

   Given how crazy things get for gardeners in spring, I hope you’ve been taking advantage of civilized winter weather to get a jump on jobs that used to wait until March or April.

   I’ve already got most of my beds edged, for example. I usually only neaten them once a year, and that’s one job that can be done anytime the beds can be seen and aren’t frozen.

   I use one of two tools – my Mantis tiller outfitted with an edging blade and wheel, or a long-handled ice chopper. Either way, the soft ground comes up nicely during a winter thaw. The cut-off chunks are now in my compost bin.

   A second job I’ve done is clear the beds of winter-annual weeds and any perennial stragglers I missed from last season.

   Winter annuals are things like hairy bittercress, chickweed and purple deadnettle that actually germinate in fall or winter, then really take off just as soon as a little heat arrives in spring. These pull very easy and also go in my compost bin.