George's Current Ramblings and Readlings

Editing the Landscape

September 20th, 2022

   One of the best ways to continually improve a landscape is to take stock of how things are going each year and then make changes and additions based on what you like – and don’t like.

I’m constantly on the lookout for ways to “edit” the landscape.

   September is an excellent time to do this “inspecting of the troops.”

   It’s good timing because we’ve had most of another whole season to see how things are going, plus it’s a good window for both planting and transplanting most plants.

   In central Pennsylvania, early fall is a time when temperatures cool, rain usually becomes more plentiful, and the soil stays warm enough long enough for good root establishment.

   I’ve long used this time to walk around the landscape with a critical eye and a clipboard to make notes on what changes I’d like to make.

   Even if I don’t do the deed this fall, I have notes ready to go for next season’s plantings and transplantings.

   Some things to look for while on inspection:

   1.) Plants that are struggling or dead. I’ve saved many a plant by recognizing early on that it’s in a bad spot or otherwise failing to thrive. Digging, improving the soil, and/or moving a struggler altogether is better than just letting a doomed plant slide downhill until death.

Read more about this in my post on “Failure to Thrive.”

   2.) Plants that are spreading too far or getting overgrown. This is a good time of year to assess this.

   One of the ways I’ve expanded my flock at no cost over the years is dividing and moving perennials. I’ve also filled many a new bed by transplanting young shrubs and evergreens that I otherwise would have had to start pruning to maintain size in their tighter original locations.

   I should mention here that most plants (especially young ones) transplant better than most gardeners think. Read my post on “Transplantaphobia” for more on how to maximize your success when moving plants.

Chip No Drop

September 13th, 2022

   I’ve used fresh wood chips for a variety of mulching jobs around my yard in the past, so I was eager to try a young web-based service that matches tree companies that have wood chips to get rid of with gardeners willing to take them.

Waiting for my load of wood chips to show up.

   The way it works is that you sign up for free on the ChipDrop website, then the service adds your name and address to a list that area arborists can access when they need to dump trees and branches they’ve chipped.

   I signed up June 22. However, after more than two months of waiting for a load, I gave up. I had to use my fall-back plan of paying $30 a yard for a delivery of shredded hardwood from the landscape supply company.

   I was hoping ChipDrop worked out because it’s a win-win idea that gets gardeners free (or very cheap) mulch while saving arborists the travel time and cost of disposing of chips.

   To its credit, ChipDrop does warn up front that there’s no guarantee you’ll actually get a delivery.

   The service says you can increase your delivery odds by being willing to pay the $20 fee that arborists otherwise are charged to access the drop-off list. I signed up to cover the $20.

   Despite that, my little marker bucket sat in the driveway for weeks with no chips in sight.

   Every few weeks, ChipDrop did email me a “sorry” notice and asked if I wanted to renew the request, which I did a couple of times.

   Maybe I just timed it badly or maybe not many arborists are using the service in my area. Maybe I’ll have better luck next time.

   At any rate, it didn’t work out for me. Have any of you had any experience with ChipDrop or other ways of getting free wood chips?

What a Dead Plant Can Teach Us

August 30th, 2022

   A plant dies, and the pessimist says, “There goes another one! Me and my black thumb should just quit.”

What lessons might these two browning arborvitae trying to teach?

   A plant dies, and the optimist says, “If I can figure out what killed it, my next try is sure to thrive!”

   I must be an optimist (at least when it comes to gardening) because I’ve always accepted dead plants 1.) as an inevitable part of gardening, and 2.) a learning experience.

   Dead plants can teach us a lot. But since dead plants don’t talk, it’s up to us to investigate what caused the demise.

   If we can figure that out, it’ll not only make our second try more successful but make us better gardeners in general.

   Sometimes it’s bad luck or a one-time fluke, such as a storm-ripped tree branch that flattens a new evergreen or a girdling death from an out-of-the-blue buck rub.

   We didn’t do anything wrong, and a simple retry might be all that’s needed.

   But most of the time, a demise is due to something about the site or the care (or lack thereof) or the particular plant you’ve picked for a particular site.

   In the best scenario, the cause of death is obvious – for example, a new shrub that’s turned brown after a month of drought and no watering by you.

   The lesson is also obvious – if you pay more attention the next time (or are lucky enough to get better cooperation from rain), even the same plant in the same spot should do fine on try No. 2.

   Since so many things can kill a plant, though, more often the cause of death takes closer examination.

The Many Ways I Could’ve Failed on My Driveway Bank

August 23rd, 2022

   Did you ever feel like the deck was stacked against you on a yard project?

My driveway bed as it looks late spring 2022.

   All the time, eh?

   For me, I got that feeling when I started tackling the 60-foot-long, steep bank that lines my driveway.

   This area was a mess when we bought the place.

   Earlier owners obviously gave up because what we inherited was a forgotten tangle of weeds, flopped-over ornamental grasses, dead shrubs in various stages of decay, and layers of fallen leaves that had been piling up and rotting for years.

   Yet the area was big and prominent – readily visible from the street and the first view when entering our home land.

   I’ve been working on it for four years now, and although it’s not completely “solved,” the driveway bank is at least now more of a “landscape” than a “wasteland.”

   I thought it might be helpful to others of you facing challenges – at least this particular kind – if I went over some of what I did to overcome the problems, which include awful soil, big tree roots, runoff issues, weeds, varying degrees of shade, and above all else, deer.

   Any one of those could’ve caused big-time failure.

   Here’s how I sidestepped failure (so far)…

Fixing a “Messy” August Garden

August 16th, 2022

   Gardens can still look reasonably good this time of year if you’ve stayed on top of maintenance, policed for pests, and kept things watered.

August gardens sometimes can look a bit, well, “unkempt.”

   However, strings of 90-degree days and other life matters have a way of eating into garden care, leading to August yards that, well, aren’t always at the top of their game.

   No need to give up and pull the shades until frost, though. The situation might look worse than it really is.

   A few hours of focused course corrections can bring many botanical messes back into quick order.

   Seven issues and how to fix them:

Floppy plants

   Staking known floppers like sedum and asters from the outset is the best strategy, but if you didn’t do that, corral them now by inserting three bamboo stakes around plants and tying them with green jute into a “straitjacket.”

   Flopping perennials that already have bloomed can be cut back or cut down nearly to the ground, especially ones that have browned or been attacked by bugs or disease. (Catmint, daylilies, iris, peonies, salvia, yarrow, and beebalm are good examples.)

“Dead-heading”

   This gardening term means pinching, snipping, or pruning off old flower heads after they’ve finished blooming.

   This not only neatens the garden quickly but may encourage the plant to rebloom. It also keeps plants from wasting energy growing seeds that you don’t want.

   Dead-heading makes the most noticeable difference on big-petaled species and/or species that hold their flowers high on the plant, such as roses, hardy hibiscus, peonies, coneflowers, and tall garden phlox.