George's Current Ramblings and Readlings

Cracking the Deer Plant-Monitoring Network

July 12th, 2022

   I’ve long suspected that deer have some sort of sophisticated, yard-monitoring network that lets them take maximum advantage of the plants that gardeners set out.

How did deer pick out hostas from behind a juniper planting, above a three-foot brick wall, and hidden between bleeding hearts and hellebores?

   Now I’m sure.

   There’s just too much efficiency going on to assume that simple-minded deer happen to wander by and find certain target plants for dinner almost as soon as they’re in the ground.

   I think the truth might involve satellites and a scent-driven radar system.

   Four episodes in one night nailed it down for me.

   One was the six-pack of ‘Denver Daisy’ rudbeckias that I planted in two different spots of my front yard – one of them within five feet of my front bay window (not a spot where you’d think a deer would want to go).

   Rudbeckia isn’t a species deer particularly like. Yet three of my new ‘Denver Daisies’ didn’t even make it until the next morning. A neighborhood deer – probably a low-ranking one in the local squadron due to the risky window-side location – devoured the ready-to-open flower buds and stems in the cover of darkness.

These ‘Denver Daisy’ rudbeckias didn’t even make it unscathed through 12 hours in the garden.

   The fact that the deer didn’t eat all six tells me that he/she wasn’t very fond of the plants. My hunch is that he/she was assigned to send me a “we’re-in-charge-here” message, but he/she couldn’t quite stomach the full assignment.

   You could argue this was happenstance, that deer were passing by and were astute enough to pick out these newbies from the hundreds of other plants in my front yard (all ones low on the deer-preference scale and ones that haven’t already been eaten in the past three years).

   But I’ve seen and heard so many reports of instant devouring that I think a more logical explanation is that higher-ranking deer back at headquarters are monitoring our planting activities, most likely using satellites.

Are You Suffering from These Gardening Diseases?

June 28th, 2022

   Gardeners are prone to all sorts of medical and psychological afflictions not faced by the “normal” population.

This poor soul is suffering a bout of chlorophyllosis.

   Maybe it’s the price we pay to conquer the many threats and curveballs involved in getting things to grow.

   I thought I’d go over nine of these maladies that aren’t even well known in the medical community.

Chlorophyllosis

   This is a gardener’s disease that usually strikes in May and involves an uncontrollable urge to dig out turfgrass and replace it with landscape plants. It tends to be chronic.

   Symptoms include sudden bursts of adrenalin on weekends plus confusion and temporary loss of judgment at nurseries and garden centers. If uncontrolled, it can lead to bank overdrafts, and in severe cases, roof-top gardens.

   Treatment: Chlorophyll cream and lavender aromatherapy. Otherwise, move to a new home with a large bare lot, and get a second job.

Furraphobia

   This is an obsessive-compulsive disorder that involves an irrational fear of furry, four-legged, herbivores (especially deer, groundhogs, rabbits, and voles). Also common is a compulsion to examine plants for chewing damage every five minutes.

   Other symptoms include anxiety, irritability, insomnia, and night sweats (sometimes day sweats, too, after chasing furry intruders out the yard).

   Treatment: Anger-management therapy and possibly blood-pressure medication.

An attack of Cram Disease in progress.

Cram Disease

   One of the most common gardening disorders, Cram Disease is recognized by an inability to understand and follow written planting instructions.

   Symptoms include sore wrists from trowel overuse and garden beds packed so tightly with plants that even raindrops can’t get through.

   Treatment: No cure is known, and relapses are common.

Cliptomania

   Characterized by an uncontrollable urge to clip seed pods and tip cuttings from others’ plants, this psychological disorder gets worse with age and seems to strike females more than males.

   Symptoms include green fingers and a swollen purse.

   Treatment: Casts on both hands and avoidance of all cutting implements.

Nice… but Take Me Back Inside

June 20th, 2022

   I liked the new streamlined layout of the 2022 Philadelphia Flower Show, which ended Sunday after being held outside for only the second time in its 194-year history.

The flower-lined beds leading into the 2022 Philadelphia Flower Show.

   I also thought the display gardens were a cut above the 2021 ones, and I liked the spread-out conditions of FDR park’s 15-acre venue over the cattle-herd packing inside the Pennsylvania Convention Center, the show’s usual venue in non-COVID times.

See George’s Photo Gallery of scenes from 2022 Philadelphia Flower Show.

   That said, I’m ready for the show to go back to its “natural habitat” inside in early March.

   The one big thing an outdoor Philadelphia Flower Show in June can’t beat is the wow-inducing awe of going into a flower-scented, blooming-on-all-cylinders, 10-acre plant heaven when it’s still cold and dark outside.

   To me, that – and the amazing expertise of what the designers create on bare concrete in late winter – is what makes the Philadelphia Flower Show so special.

   No wonder the show is the biggest, longest-running, and, I’d argue, the best indoor flower show in the world.

   The show’s producer, the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, hasn’t said yet what it plans to do next year. An announcement reportedly is in the works this week. (Update: PHS announced that the 2023 show will be going back inside the Pennsylvania Convention Center March 4-12, 2023.)  

Four of Our Best Home Gardens

June 14th, 2022

   A fair number of south-central Pennsylvania homes have little to no landscaping.

A fountain and arbor in Jill and John Hudocks’ back yard.

   A majority have passable to middling plantings – enough to “fit in” or at least avoid being neighborhood embarrassments.

   Then there are the glorious few where the ambitious owners were bit by the plant bug and ended up building truly outstanding home gardens.

   Two busloads of garden appreciators got to see four of our region’s best home gardens last week in a local “Home-Grown Gardens” tour that Lowee’s Group Tours of Harrisburg and I put together. It was our fourth installment of these home-garden tours over the years.

   I thought I’d share these superb planting efforts with those of you who didn’t get to experience the wow-ness of seeing them first-hand.

   Read on for a brief rundown of the four gardens… or better yet, go to my Photo Gallery web page to see 10 pictures from each place.

The Mini-Meadow Project

June 7th, 2022

   I’ve always had doubts about meadows.

George grubbing deep-rooted weeds out of the future mini-meadow with a mattock.

   Proponents of this buckshot-planted, multi-species idea tout meadows as an exceptionally low-care way to cover a lot of ground colorfully while being friendly to pollinators and the ecosystem.

   The cynical side of me pushes the too-good-to-be-true button and wonders whether weeds will be the ultimate winner.

   After all, I’ve heard a fair number of meadow-failure stories over the years, including poor seed germination, a shrinkage down to just one or two dominant species after a few years, and “misbehaved seeding,” which can include meadow seeds blowing into unwanted areas as well as weed seeds blowing into the meadow.

   Not everyone is happy with the somewhat-wild look either – not the least of which is neatnik neighbors who see the effort as reason to call the code-enforcement officer.

   For all of those reasons, a meadow is one of the few kinds of gardens I’ve never planted.

   Until now.

   I’ve been battling a rather large bank in back of my house for nearly four years now. More accurately, it was a hillside jungle when we moved in.

   A previous owner sometime in the distant past made an attempt to tame it with landscape timbers, stone walls, and plantings of wintercreeper euonymus, tawny daylilies, miscanthus grass, evergreens, and apparently some roses and spireas.

   But for at least 10 years before we moved in, the bank went untouched. Neighbors told us the most recent owners rarely went outside while they lived there and were cited at least twice by the borough for not even cutting the grass.