George's Current Ramblings and Readlings

Garden Wishes for Santa

December 18th, 2012

   If Santa Claus could work his magic in the garden like he does in the toy shop, what would he deliver to gardeners for Christmas?

What would gardeners like from Santa?

    Or maybe the other way around, what would we want from him?

   Decent weather probably would be at the top of the list. Who else gripes more about the weather (too wet, too dry, too hot, too cold, too humid, etc.) than gardeners?

   I personally would like to see an average year that really acts like an average year. Instead of our 40 inches of precipitation all coming in two thunderstorms over a total of 10 hours, I’d like to see an inch of rain every week during the growing season.

   Rain every Monday would be great, but never on Saturday or Sunday, unless there’s a Monday holiday, in which case rain all day Tuesday would be fine.

   A longer growing season also would be nice. About three weeks of winter would be enough, which would give us enough time to order seeds, read a gardening magazine and sketch out a new garden plan.

   I’ll bet good, old Santa could do something about the assorted bugs, animals, diseases and other foes that we do battle with each year.

   I’d like to see a fence that keeps deer from going over, groundhogs from going under and voles from going through — all while looking great and being cheap, of course.

   Instead of new pests like hemlock woolly adelgids and emerald ash borers, which always seem to be even worse than the bugs we already have, wouldn’t it be great to have a new James Bond kind of a bug?

   This good-guy bug would wipe out our worst pests and also feed on weeds instead of roses and tomatoes. I’m thinking here of, say, a saw-toothed wasp that would polish off every Japanese beetle in creation… or maybe a “debagger beetle” that feeds on those bagworms that devour our arborvitae.

To Heirloom or Not?

December 4th, 2012

   One of the many wranglings in the garden world is the issue of hybrids vs. heirlooms.   Should I preserve the old-fashioned, time-tested, save-the-seed favorites of yesteryear or plant the higher-yielding, disease-resistant, new-fangled hybrid varieties that the big seed houses introduce each year?   I say, “Yes.”

Heirlooms or hybrids… can you tell the difference?

    Both views have their merits, and there’s no reason why you have to be a “purist” either way.

   The heirloom question came up last week in an email I got from a gardener planning to get involved in that new community garden taking shape at Hershey Medical Center.

   If you didn’t hear, several Hershey corporate entities are banding together to invest $150,000 building a nearly 1-acre, raised-bed vegetable garden on the Med Center campus that will be used for teaching and renting plots to area residents. It’s to be ready next May 1. (Read about it here.)

   The emailer is thinking about going all heirloom and was looking for planning advice as well as some good sources for heirloom seeds and plants.

   Planning-wise, there’s not a big difference between heirloom and hybrid. The same timing and spacing applies, and I think all veggies do best in raised beds. Keep the plants watered, the animals away and the bugs and disease under control, and you should have good success either way.

Middletown Tree Uproar

November 27th, 2012

   Did you hear about the latest spat from Middletown?

A former Middletown tree. (By Chris Knight, www.pennlive.com)

   A dozen trees got chainsawed along South Union Street last week, and the president of the local weekly newspaper got arrested for chaining herself to a tree in an effort to save it.   Tempers flared on both sides (not too surprising given today’s general interpersonal trend), but the dispute highlighted just how earnestly some people take trees. (Read more about it here.) 

  The trees came down after the Dauphin County borough’s Shade Tree Commission deemed them a safety hazard. That followed a lawsuit in which Middletown was named as a co-defendant in a case where someone tripped on a sidewalk elevated by tree roots.

   Lawsuits seem to be the driving force behind so many of our actions, decisions and policies these days, don’t they?

   But some businesses also didn’t like the fact that the trees (mostly flowering pears, I believe) had grown big enough to obscure signs and buildings.

   Borough officials say they plan to replace the trees with more suitable species – ones that ideally won’t push up sidewalks any time soon and ones that aren’t as dense and obscuring.

   That’s not a bad idea… assuming it happens.

Christmas Treeing on a Budget

November 20th, 2012

If you’re a gardener like me, you probably lean toward a real evergreen for Christmas – whether you cut one yourself at a local tree farm or buy one already cut.

I’ll take a real Christmas tree any day over a fake one.

Those “permanent” trees (i.e. “artificial,” “fake” or “Chinese imports”) just aren’t the same, kind of like dye-infused blue orchids, spray-painted poinsettias and synthetic lawn.   I’ve got a series of Patriot-News and Pennlive.com articles and videos coming up on topics such as tree varieties and making sure you get a fresh tree, but I thought I’d share some money-saving tips here as tree-shopping season kicks off.Ten ideas for tree-buying on a budget:

1.) Do you really need an 8-footer? Down-size a foot or two and elevate the stand with scrap wood. Wrap with a holiday cover or plain white sheet and no one will know.

2.) Consider varieties. Those Fraser firs sure are sleek, but they fetch top dollar because they’re finicky to grow. Douglas firs are excellent, too, and a few bucks cheaper. Also take a look at concolor and Canaan firs.

3.) How about a potted mini-evergreen? Some stores are selling 3- to 5-foot potted dwarf Alberta spruce, columnar juniper, columnar boxwood and/or arborvitae that can serve double-use as a small Christmas tree now and a landscape plant later.

4.) Can you use an evergreen in the landscape? Also available are live, balled-and-burlapped evergreens that you can use for Christmas, then plant outside after Christmas.

Prepare your hole now, save the soil in a no-freeze location, and put a board over the hole so no one falls in. Figure on displaying the live tree no more than 7 to 10 days inside, and keep the rootball moist but never soggy. After Christmas, move the tree outside to a protected, unheated area for a 2- to 3-day transition period, then plant and water. Cover the soil with 3 inches of mulch.

A Threat to Garden Tours?

November 13th, 2012

   An insurance claim and threatened lawsuit at a home garden tour in Connecticut this summer has ended a two-decade-old event and may have a chilling effect on future garden tours elsewhere.

Will a Connecticut lawsuit threat have a chiling effect on home garden tours?

    An Avon, Ct., woman named Chrissie D’Esopo had been opening her garden for tours for 20 years to raise money for various charities. She’s raised $175,000 over that time, primarily for a local women’s shelter.

   After a woman hurt her ankle on a brick walkway during this summer’s tour, D’Esopo says she’s going to be forced to stop doing tours.

   Here’s why, according to an Oct. 8 article in the Hartford Courant newspaper:

   “More than 40,000 visitors trekked through (D’Esopo’s) gardens and home without incident, until this summer. An Avon woman fell during a July garden tour, hurt her ankle and filed an insurance claim against D’Esopo and the two non-profits benefiting from that day’s tour. She fell on a brick walkway that’s flush with the grass.

   “Despite the insurance companies’ willingness to cover all the medical expenses for the woman, her husband, who wasn’t on the tour, has threatened to sue for his own ‘pain and suffering’” linked to his wife’s hurt ankle, D’Esopo said.

   “’I risk losing my house by having garden tours,’ said D’Esopo, who makes her living as a painter of interiors and faux finishes, but takes four months off in late spring and summer to devote 12 hours a day to planting, watering and tending her gardens.”