George's Current Ramblings and Readlings

How Native Do You Have to Go to Make the Birds and Bees Happy?

July 27th, 2021

   The designers of Penn State Arboretum’s new Pollinator and Bird Garden leaned heavily on research to determine the features, layout, and plant selection of this three-acre garden, which opened last month just down Park Avenue from Beaver Stadium.

That’s non-native yarrow and betony growing in Penn State’s new Pollinator and Bird Garden.

   Spots of it are very colorful already.

   But what struck me during my opening-day visit was that almost all of the showiest plants were non-native perennials – yarrow, Russian sage, catmint, salvia, and one of my favorite summer perennials, betony ‘Hummelo’ with its long-lasting flower spikes of pinkish-purple.

   What gives? Aren’t we supposed to be planting native plants if we want to attract pollinators?

   Well, yes and no.

   Just about everybody agrees that on the whole, native plants are the best bet for attracting the most bees, pollinating insects, birds, and hummingbirds.

   It’s hard to go wrong pollinator-wise if you load up the yard on nothing but natives.

   But the message that not everybody is getting is that many non-native plants – especially perennials – are also useful to pollinators.

   Dr. Douglas Tallamy, author of the ground-breaking “Bringing Nature Home” book (Timber Press, $19.95, 2009) says that of the top 50 pollinator-attracting perennials, 34 of them are U.S. natives… which means that 16 are not.

   That’s important because of the not-always-mentioned fact that a lot of native perennials just aren’t that great-looking to people.

   Some have unimpressive blooms, some have floppy, “messy” growth habits, many look “beat-up” at times (usually from the feeding activities of the desired pollinators), and some seed around to the point of weediness.

   When people aren’t expecting that and/or aren’t OK with that, the result can be a bad experience and a return to the traditional lawn.

   “The truth is a lot of pollinator plants are not that exciting to people,” said Dr. Harland Patch, a Penn State entomologist who’s director of pollinator programming at Penn State Arboretum. “So what we’ve done is interplant good pollinator plants with the best of the non-natives… Purism is not the point of this.”

That “Wow” First View

July 20th, 2021

   Real-estate agents often harp about how important it is for a house to have “good curb appeal” because that’s the first thing potential buyers see… and what forms their critical first impression.

This is what you see first when entering Karl Mattson’s Gettysburg back yard.

   The same holds true for a landscape. What you see in that first view tells you you’re about to behold something special – or will need a machete to get to the back yard.

   I mention this because I just saw a textbook example of a yard with a superb first view – the two-acre property of Karl Mattson in Gettysburg.

   Mattson’s yard was on the 2021 Dillsburg Garden Tour and was the pre-tour “don’t-miss” favorite despite being a nearly 30-minute drive from the rest of the pack.

   That puts some pressure on a garden right off the bat because expectations are high. I’ve found that hyped gardens often disappoint, not necessarily because they’re not good but because you’re expecting “great” and then even “very good” seems somehow ordinary or expected.

   When I pulled into the shaded driveway of Mattson’s yard right next to a section of the Gettysburg Battlefield, the front yard featured several large, neat, swooping, and diverse beds.

   Obviously, a plant-appreciator lived there.

   But that’s not what was the first view in my mind. To me, the real “first view” was when I walked to the end of the driveway and took a look into the back yard.

   Instant “wow!”

   The view was like a cover shot from Better Homes and Gardens magazine – a pond with waterfall in the foreground, flanking large black urns surrounded by magenta verbena, a tapestry of lush, multi-textured plants, and the coup de grace, a thatched wooden gazebo nestled between a pair of tall shade trees.

Delaware Botanical Gardens: More There Than I Expected

July 13th, 2021

   Sometimes I’m disappointed when I see a highly hyped garden for the first time or see a formerly superb garden that’s going downhill.

DelBot’s Oudolf-designed meadow is hitting peak form this summer.

   Other times, though, I’m pleasantly surprised by gardens that aren’t hailed or even much known at all.

   The Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens falls into that latter category.

   So does the young 42-acre Stoneleigh Garden in Philadelphia’s Villanova area.

   Now I can add another entry to my “underrated” list – the new Delaware Botanic Gardens, located near the town of Dagsboro in southern Delaware, nearly a four-hour drive from Harrisburg.

   This 37-acre public garden was open only a year before Covid shut it down last year.

   It’s only now reopening under “normal” conditions four days a week after a second spring of timed admissions, mask rules, and difficulty recruiting the pre-Covid level of volunteers. (Hours are Thursday through Sunday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.)

   For being such a new garden with a jinxed infancy, DelBot is surprisingly well along. I saw it for the first time a few weeks ago and found more there already than I had read and thought.

   The garden’s main claim to fame is a 2-acre meadow designed by the famous Dutch designer Piet Oudolf. Oudolf is best known for designs that use a quilt-like matrix of grand swoops and clumps of assorted colorful perennials and grasses.

   New York’s High Line and Battery parks and Chicago’s Lurie Garden are three of his best known US works.

   Getting him to design a fledgling garden nowhere near a major metropolitan area was a bit of a coup. But the ambitious DelBot planners asked, and Oudolf came, looked, and ultimately said he’d be honored to design the meadow.

New Native Garden and Sculpture Park Opens in Perry County

July 6th, 2021

   Bill and Jane Allis just built a home garden in Perry County that they’ve decided to share with everybody.

Bill and Jane Allis talk to a tour group at their new Bower Garden in Perry County.

   It’s called The Bower, and it’s a new combination native-plant sanctuary and sculpture park that covers 36 acres in the Carroll Twp. countryside not far from Shermans Dale.

   Six of those acres is a wildflower meadow alongside a residential garden that’s planted with assorted shrubs, perennials, and small trees (mostly natives) around the Allis’s house and pool.

   The remaining 30 acres are woodlands with wetlands, pools, copses of trees, a stumpery, and a mile and a half of trails running through it all.

   Ten sculptures complement the plantings throughout, ranging from a three-foot, polished-brass heron to a 67-foot long, 17-ton steel “Ridge and Valley” work representing Pennsylvania’s different eco-regions.

This Ridge and Valley sculpture by Rebecca Rutstein is the first thing visitors see when they enter The Bower’s driveway.

   The Allises are welcoming a limited number of visitors at no charge via timed appointments and have plans to make the property more of a widely open public garden. (Note: All available time slots for this year already have been reserved.)

   Bill is an environmental engineer (retired from Gannett Fleming) who grew a love of plants at the tropical-plant business his dad ran in Wisconsin in the 1960s and 1970s.

   Jane grew up in Washington, D.C., but spent a lot of time in the woods and nature at a get-away place her family owned. She went on to become an early-childhood teacher.

   The two met at Dickinson College, got married at 21, and bought their 36 acres of Perry County land the following year.

   They raised two sons there, spent the latter 13 years of their careers living in Harrisburg, then moved back to Perry County to retire.

   Rather than sit in rocking chairs, the couple hired the renowned D.C. landscape architecture firm of Oehme, van Sweden to come up with a master plan to do something special with their large and diverse property.

   “We were so fortunate to be able to have this that we thought we should share our fortune,” says Jane.

Can a Robot Weed Your Garden?

June 29th, 2021

   You might be familiar with the Roomba, that little robotic vacuum cleaner that automatically patrols indoor floors for dirt and dust bunnies.

   You’re probably not as familiar with the Tertill, a similar idea for the outdoors that Roomba’s co-inventor Joe Jones developed along with robotics engineer Rory Mackean.

   Tertill, pronounced like the hard-shelled animal, looks like a fat, squat, smoke detector on wheels that patrols the garden for weeds.

Tertill’s underside is equipped with a short string-trimmer line to chop weeds.

   It has a small weed whacker attached to its underbelly that cuts off weeds as it meanders through beds.

   It’s a clever idea… and one that Jones envisions not only as welcome relief for weed-plagued home gardeners but a step toward using robots to help grow the world’s food.

   Tertill has been available for a couple of years now. It offers some intriguing possibilities but also some shortcomings, as I found when I tried a Tertill in my home gardens this spring.

   First, the pluses from my trial.

   Tertill runs on a built-in rechargeable battery fueled by a solar panel on its back, which means no plugging in and no buying a steady supply of replacement batteries.

   It’s also sturdy and weather-proof, capable of bouncing around on uneven ground, getting doused by rain, and dealing with erratic temperature changes without breaking down.

   Tertill’s wheels also do some surface tilling as the unit moves around, giving a second measure of weed discouragement.

   You have to give Tertill a few points, too, for coolness. Gadget-lovers, tech fans, and curious visitors will be impressed to watch this little gizmo rolling around whacking weeds automatically. My grandkids especially liked watching “the robot” in action and pushing its start button to play the cute “charge” tune.

   Most important, though, Tertill really can keep weeds under control – in the right setting.

   The problem is that there are a lot of settings that aren’t right. And if you’re trying to use Tertill in one of those, figure on a marginal job at best.