George's Current Ramblings and Readlings

Retirement: One More Step

December 13th, 2022

   I reached another “maturity” milestone this fall – my official Social Security retirement age.

Young George just getting started with his journalism career. That’s a typewriter in front of him.

   That means I’m now in the dual-old-fogey class of qualifying both for Medicare and full Social Security benefits.

   It also means there’s good reason why I’m tired these days after spreading just two yards of mulch and why my back hurts after a half-hour of pulling weeds.

   As my mom would say, I’m no spring chicken anymore.

   I started to cut back on my typical 60-hour work week a few years ago when I retired from doing drawings and home-garden consults and cut back on the 40 or so talks I was doing every year.

   That’s when my wife, Sue, and I also moved to the Pittsburgh area to be closer to our grandkids.

   Now that I’ve crossed the Social Security waypoint, it’s time to throttle back a bit more.

   After next year’s April 29-May 11 trip to Portugal, I’m going to drastically cut back on the number of gardening trips I’ve been leading for the last 15 or so years for Lowee’s Group Tours.

   We were doing as many as 17 trips a year before COVID, but there’s no way I can keep up that pace. Driving in from Pittsburgh even before a trip goes out has made trip-leading even more tiring.

   The five weekday tours we do every year to the Philadelphia Flower Show are doable, so I plan to keep scheduling those.

   And I may be up for doing a multi-day trip once or twice a year, especially if I can hop on board in or close to Pittsburgh.

   But sorry to say, I’m going to give up the international trips and most of the day tripping we’ve done to great local home gardens as well as to the many amazing public gardens within day-trip range of Harrisburg.

Goodbye Burning Bush and Privet

December 6th, 2022

   Five more invasive landscape plants are about to bite the dust in Pennsylvania.

Burning bushes are to be phased out of sale in Pennsylvania for being invasive.

   Come Jan. 10, the state Department of Agriculture is adding burning bush and four species of privets (the Japanese, European, Chinese, and border types) to the state’s Controlled Plant and Noxious Weeds list.

   Burning bush is a widely planted version of euonymus that turns bright red in fall, while privet is an old-fashioned evergreen hedge plant that looks a bit like boxwood.

   Both produce seeds that spread readily, where these wild and durable non-natives usually elbow out natives that are more valuable to our local wildlife and pollinators.

   The burning-bush and privet bans are being phased in, meaning that remaining stocks of the plants will be available for sale until a stop-sale cutoff date.

   Ag Department press secretary Shannon Powers says the department will announce the cutoff dates in January along with procedures for retailers and recommended native alternatives.

   She adds that “homeowners will not be asked to remove bushes,” but they are “encouraged” to do so.

   These latest plant bans are part of a state crackdown on invasive plants that began in late 2021 and early 2022 when Japanese barberries, flowering (callery) pears, ravenna grass, Japanese stiltgrass, garlic mustard, and common and glossy buckthorns were added to the noxious-weed list.

See the full list of plants on Pennsylvania’s noxious-weeds list

   Powers said that Japanese barberries will be banned from sale as of Oct. 8, 2023, and flowering pears will be banned as of Feb. 10, 2024. Glossy buckthorn’s grace period ends in February 2023. (The others aren’t widely available in garden centers or aren’t sold at all.)

Pet-Toxic Houseplants

November 29th, 2022

   Lots of new houseplants (gift and otherwise) show up in living rooms this time of year, which can spell bad news for curious pets. And I’m not talking poinsettias either.

Cyclamens are popular Christmas-season plants, but they’re toxic to cats and dogs.

   Many popular holiday plants are toxic to dogs and cats, including peace lily, amaryllis, mistletoe, cyclamen, and lilies, says Anastasia Zygarowicz, who writes the Leaf and Paw blog.

   She urges pet-owners to avoid those choices in favor of safer options – or at least be a “helicopter parent” to make sure toxic plants stay out of the mouths of pets.

   She lists Christmas cactus, moth orchids, frosty ferns, Norfolk Island pine, and even the poinsettia (often thought to be toxic) as some of the least-toxic holiday plants.

   Zygarowicz is a self-described “animal-lover and plant-hoarder” who started researching pets and plant toxicity after her cat got sick from eating a dracaena.

   She says that while some pets have no interest in eating plants, others will at least sample most anything.

   What she’s learned is that in either case, don’t trust any pet, and don’t put complete trust in training or repellents because pets often act on impulse.

   “Everything can be toxic if it’s consumed in excess,” Zygarowicz said in a Great Grow Along webinar on the topic. “In general, don’t let your pets eat any of your plants. They should be eating other things.”

Sedum Carpet Experiment, Year 2

November 15th, 2022

   Two springs ago, I took a shot at growing what’s known as “sedum carpet” – a tray of short, dense, perennial, creeping sedums of several varieties.

Sedum carpet comes in a shallow tray of mixed varieties.

   They’re cut into pieces and intended as a fast, weed-preventing way to cover the ground, especially in hot, sunny areas where you need something short, such as along walks and driveways and across the front of garden beds.

   After two full growing seasons, I thought I’d report on how my experiment is going with sedum carpet around my street-side mailbox.

   In a nutshell, the planting has done very well.

   The plants established quickly, made it through the first hot summer and first winter, then continued to perform well all through this season.

   And it’s been one of the few plants I’ve grown in my unprotected front yard that haven’t been eaten by deer.

   Here are more specifics in case you’re thinking about giving this option a try.

Midwest Gardens to Put on Your Radar

November 8th, 2022

   If you’re back in the traveling game again, you’ll find several good gardening destinations on a trip into America’s Midwest.

Nashville’s Cheekwood Garden had this fall-themed archway looking good.

   I’m just back from leading a Lowee’s tour that took us through Nashville, into St. Louis, and back through Louisville and Columbus. We ogled a diverse group of visit-worthy gardens at each place.

   My favorite was St. Louis’ world-class Missouri Botanical Garden, which I’ve rated as No. 3 in my e-book “50 American Public Gardens You Really Ought to See.” (Spoiler: Longwood is No. 1, and New York Botanical Garden is No. 2.)

   “Mobot,” as it’s nicknamed, is 79 acres packed with themes and styles of every imaginable kind, from a garden of tree stumps to home-garden-sized idea gardens to a unique glass-and-aluminum, dome conservatory called the Climatron.

   Kentucky’s Yew Dell Gardens is an underrated gem, Columbus’ Franklin Conservatory is better than ever with its new Children’s Garden, and Nashville’s most amazing plant display isn’t in a garden at all but several tropical wonderlands inside the Gaylord Opryland’s resort.

   If you like pictures rather than words, have a look at 50 shots from the trip that I just posted in my Photo Gallery section.

   Otherwise, here’s a quick rundown of the highlights of each stop…