George's Current Ramblings and Readlings

The Three Waves of Veggie Gardening

April 19th, 2022

   One of the keys in Nicole Burke’s “Kitchen Garden Revival” strategy is grouping different vegetables into their plant families.

This patch is a “Wave-1” planting.

   Nicole says that when she first started gardening, like so many other beginners, she was overwhelmed at the thought of how to grow the many different plants.

   Her “ah-ha” moment came when she realized that botanists long ago grouped plants into families by their similar traits and growing habits.

   Broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, kale, and kohlrabi all fall into the brassica family, for example, while cucumbers, squash, zucchini, pumpkins, and gourds are sisters in the cucurbit family.

   “Instead of having to understand each and every plant on the seed shelf or every plant at the garden center,” Nicole said in a Great Grow Along webinar on her strategy, “you really only need to master a handful of plant families. Once you do, each time you want to grow something new, you simply find out which plant family it belongs in, and boom, you know almost immediately what season that plant likes to grow in and how well it’s likely to grow.”

   Nicole’s “Kitchen Garden Revival” book and her Kitchen Garden Academy online courses go into a lot more detail if this approach sounds interesting to you.

   I agree that anything we can do to simplify vegetable gardening will help beginners and encourage them to stick with it.

   The strategy that I gravitated to long ago was grouping plants by when they’re best planted.

   That boils down to just two basic groups – 1.) ones that grow best in cool weather and that can survive frost, and 2.) ones that grow best in warm weather and that will croak if hit by frost.

Where the Sidewalks Are Carpeted with Flowers

April 12th, 2022

   Once a year in May, the plant-loving residents of the Portuguese island of Madeira go wild with flowers and stage an event called the Madeira Flower Festival, which features flower-filled parade floats and sidewalks that are carpeted with cut blooms.

One famous scene from Madeira.

   It’s a great place for any flower-lover to be on a warm spring day.

   Lowee’s Group Tours and I thought local gardeners would relish a chance to see this festival first-hand, so we’re planning a trip next year (2023) to Portugal that includes a full day at the 2023 Madeira Flower Festival.

   The 13-day trip, operated by Collette Vacations, will run April 29 through May 11, 2023, and take us to the warm breezes and lush landscapes of Lisbon, the Azorean “green island” of St. Michael, and three days on the island of Madeira.

   We start the trip with a flight from Washington’s Dulles airport into Lisbon and spend the first three days discovering Portugal’s capital. Highlights there include sampling Portuguese food and wine, touring historic sites such as the Jeronimos Monastery and Tower of Belem, and traveling to Sintra and the gorgeous Estoril coast on the Riviera, a longtime favorite get-away of Portuguese kings.

   Then we fly to the Azores and the island of St. Michael for four days, where we’ll see one of the finest gardens in Europe – the Terra Nostra Botanical Park. While on St. Michael (the largest of the nine volcanic islands that make up the Azores), we’ll do a walking tour of Ponta Delgada, feast on a lunch cooked by volcanic heat in the Furnas Valley, tour a tea plantation and a pineapple plantation, see a pair of crater lakes in which one is blue and one is green, and have an option to go on a whale-watching adventure.

Should We Be Cutting Back on Peat Moss?

April 5th, 2022

   Peat moss has long been our go-to, store-bought, plant-growing medium, useful for everything from starting seeds to growing potted plants to “lightening” our lousy clay soil.

Most potting mixes are heavily composed of peat moss.

   But its widespread use is under fire lately as some argue that gardeners should move away from peat moss altogether for environmental and climate-change reasons.

   The main issue is that peat moss serves as a super-sponge when it comes to soaking up carbon that otherwise would end up in Earth’s warming atmosphere.

   Although peat bogs cover just 3 percent of the Earth’s surface, they store more carbon than all other vegetation types in the world combined – including trees – according to International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

   Harvesting peatland bogs reduces that layer and sends peat out in forms that are burned as fuel or that quickly decompose in gardens, releasing the stored carbon into the air.

   Fossil fuels also are burned in harvesting and transporting all of the peat, plus harvesting reduces a natural land use that harbors rich biodiversity, mitigates drought, and heads off wildfires.

   The whole issue is especially heated in Great Britain, which is phasing in a ban on most forms of garden-use peat after some 90 percent of its once expansive network of peat bogs has been harvested or degraded.

   Some in Britain, including the Royal Horticultural Society and its best known gardener, TV celebrity Monty Don, are doubling down on a quick end to peat use in gardening.

   Don, for example, calls peat-harvesting “eco-vandalism” and flat-out says, “Gardeners should not be using peat… There is no need. There are plenty of alternatives to peat.”

   Here as there (and despite the alternatives), it’s not easy convincing gardeners to give up such a staple product – especially considering that not even the horticulture industry and many of its leading experts and growers are convinced this is something we need to do.

Gardening for the Greater Good

March 29th, 2022

   Some of my favorite times on this planet are when it’s just me and my plants in the yard on a warm, sunny day.

Does it get any better than this?

   Words such as “peaceful,” “fulfilling,” “refreshing,” “rewarding,” and “joy” come to mind to describe these days, which also offer the physical benefit of exercise in the fresh air.

   But as self-satisfying as gardening can be, it’s also an activity that leads to multiple benefits when done in multitudes.

   “Gardening for the greater good” is the term that the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (the group that runs the Philadelphia Flower Show) has been using lately to describe its big-picture efforts to foster programs that benefit our ecosystems and communities.

   PHS’s consulting horticulturist and avid gardener Nicole Juday Rhoads recently came up with four principles that resonated with me on how gardening helps both us and others.

   I thought I’d share her list…

   1.) Celebrate gardening. “A garden is an expression of your own personality, your growing conditions, and your interests. Let your creativity run wild, and you will be sure to inspire others along the way.

   “After all, there is no ‘right way’ a garden should look. Plant what you love – foliage, flowers, or food. Almost any space can be gardened – from a rooftop, to a windowsill, to a container. Think outside of the (window) box, indoors or out. 

   “Pursue knowledge and information. Gardening is an endlessly fascinating activity.”

   2.) Choose your plants with intention. “Plants are the ingredients of healthy, beautiful gardens that support environmental best practices and local businesses.  

   “Use the power of the purse to buy local and support independent nurseries and growers. Ask your garden center to carry plants and seeds that have been organically raised. Choose plants that support wildlife, especially pollinators. Select plants that are not dependent on chemicals to look their best. And remove invasive plants in your garden.”

   3.) See your garden as part of the ecosystem. “Your garden and what you do in it are part of a larger natural system. Garden in recognition of the environment all around you. 

Award-Winning Plants of 2022

March 22nd, 2022

   Which plants will work best in your yard?

Coralbells ‘Caramel’

   One strategy is considering plants that have won awards from various plant-trial and plant-selection programs.

   Each year, organizations of growers, horticulturists, researchers, and other plant experts bestow awards on top plant performers – some new, some old but just under-used.

   Here’s a look at plants that have won honors for 2022:

Pennsylvania Gold Medal

   A panel of experts assembled by the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (best known for running the Philadelphia Flower Show) each year picks a half-dozen trees, shrubs, and perennials worthy of greater use in Pennsylvania landscapes.

   For 2022, two perennials, two shrubs, and two trees made the Gold Medal grade.

Coralbells ‘Caramel’

   ‘Caramel’ is a buttery-gold-leafed version of our native alum root (Heuchera villosa) that grows about 14 inches tall and 30 inches wide, ideally in a site that’s out of afternoon sun. It’s a perennial grown mainly for its foliage, although it does produce some wiry white flowers in early summer.

Clustered mountain mint

Clustered mountain mint (Pycnanthemum muticum)

   Gardeners trying to attract pollinators might want to start with this mint-family perennial that was the top pollinator-attracting plant in Penn State University trials. Clustered mountain mint grows about three feet tall, produces pinkish-white flowers most of the summer, and has a minty fragrance. Best in full sun.

Abelia ‘Little Richard’

   ‘Little Richard’ is a tried-and-true, deer-resistant, compact, rounded shrub that produces tubular white flowers for months, starting in late spring. Leaves are semi-evergreen. Plants grow three to four feet tall and wide in sun or part shade.

American holly ‘Maryland Dwarf’

Holly ‘Maryland Dwarf’

   This evergreen is a native holly with spiny, glossy leaves, but it doesn’t grow anything like the tall-tree form that’s most familiar. ‘Maryland Dwarf’ is actually a low, spreading, berry-producing female holly that grows only about three feet tall but with a spread of 10 feet or more. It does best in moist soil and full sun to part shade.

Maple Autumn Blaze

   This fast-growing shade tree is a cross between two native maples (silver and red maples), and like most maples, is most regarded for its brilliant red-orange fall foliage. Autumn Blaze is a reliable and largely trouble-free variety that can grow about 60 feet tall and 40 feet wide. Best in full sun.

Kousa dogwood Scarlet Fire
Credit: Rutgers University

Kousa dogwood Scarlet Fire

   Decades in the works at Rutgers University, this new variety of Kousa (Chinese) dogwood tree is distinctive for its rich pink late-spring flowers. It also has red fall fruits, deep-red fall foliage, decorative flaking bark, and excellent disease resistance. Grows about 25 feet tall and 20 feet wide in sun or part shade.

(Disclosure: The author is a member of the Gold Medal panel.)

Green Ribbon Native Plants

   This program, run by the staff and Horticulture Committee at Jenkins Arboretum and Gardens in Devon, Pa., focuses on singling out some of our region’s best native plants for home landscapes.