George's Current Ramblings and Readlings

Australia and the 2020 Garden Trips

September 24th, 2019

   Our 2020 lineup of garden trips is in the works, and Lowee’s Group Tours and I will be unveiling the details at our fifth annual Garden Travel Day, set for Sat., Oct. 26, at 10 a.m. in the West Hanover Twp. Recreation Center, 628 Walnut Ave., Harrisburg.

Melbourne’s Fitzroy Gardens

   The “big trip” of 2020 will be a 19-day trip to see the gardens, scenery, and unique attractions in the Land Down Under – Australia and New Zealand. It’s scheduled for the end of October into the first week and a half of November, which is Australia’s springtime.

   We’re also planning three multi-day coach trips in 2020 – an eight-day trip to the gardens of Niagara and Toronto along with the Rochester Lilac Festival next spring; a nine-day garden-focused trip to Nashville, St. Louis, and Louisville next summer, and a four-day Christmas-time trip to North Carolina’s Biltmore Estate, plus Stowe Botanical Gardens, ChristmasTown USA, and a tour of the National Gingerbread House Competition.

   Once again in 2020, we’ll be running day trips each weekday to the Philadelphia Flower Show and expanding the choices to day trips on the opening Saturday and Sunday, with options to take part in a Garden Tea event.

   Five additional day trips round out the 2020 lineup, including tours of a pair of Lancaster County home gardens, Delaware’s Mt. Cuba Center and the new Delaware Botanic Gardens, gardens of New York’s Hudson River, and Philadelphia’s Morris Arboretum and Shofuso Japanese House and Garden.

   We’ll have flyers with the full itineraries available for the Oct. 26 Garden Travel Day, and I’ll be doing a PowerPoint presentation showing you what all we’ll be seeing.

   Travel Day is free, and you’re invited! Free refreshments will be served.

   You’ll have a shot at winning raffle prizes, including trip discounts and two of my gardening books. Register ahead of time, and you get an extra raffle ticket.

   To register, call Lowee’s Group Tours at 717-657-9658, email ckelly@lowees.com, or register online at Lowee’s website.

   The West Hanover Rec Center is located just off Linglestown Road near Central Dauphin High School.

   Below are destinations and tentative dates for the 2020 trips. Pricing and more details will be available at the Oct. 28 Garden Travel Day and, as they’re ready, on the George’s Talks and Trips section of my website and on the Garden Series section of Lowee’s website.

How Do We Know If a Spray Is “Safe?”

September 17th, 2019

   I came across a home gardening book recently (“Garden Enemies” by Cynthia Westcott) that was popular and well respected in the 1950s for helping gardeners figure out what to do about damage to their plants.

“Safe” or not?

   Over and over again, it suggested DDT as a routine solution to the assorted caterpillars and other bugs crawling in gardens.

   We now cringe at how widely DDT once was used since the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency banned it in 1972 over health and environmental concerns… after millions of people applied millions of pounds of it.

   For one thing, it makes me wonder what we’re spraying today that will be found to be unacceptably toxic tomorrow.

   For another, it makes it hard to answer the question I get a lot, which is, “Is this spray safe to use?”

   I’ve come to the conclusion that “safe” is a relative term. Different people have drastically different ideas on what’s “safe” and what’s not, and the line between “safe” and “unsafe” that even regulators draw is a moving target as new research comes in.

   Witness the current dilemma over the herbicide Roundup.

   Some people use it without whims and point to studies showing that it’s “safe,” while others point to recent lawsuits as evidence that Roundup is a cancer-causer that ought to be banned.

One Person’s Weed…

September 10th, 2019

   You’ve probably heard the saying that one person’s weed is another’s wildflower (a gardening variation on the better known “One person’s trash is another’s treasure.”)

Morning glory “babies” are coming up in the lawn beneath the mama… and they’ll do that for years on end.

   The point is that we all have different opinions on what plants we like and what we should plant in our yards.

   That’s usually an amiable disagreement, except for those who get really, really upset when people plant something they consider to be invasive.

   I know I’m going to hear from somebody in that camp whenever I mention plants such as barberry or butterfly bush (even if they’re sterile varieties) and sometimes even when I suggest planting anything other than a native plant.

   I usually don’t hear from the far other side, though. But apparently there are some who have no qualms about planting anything, invasive/aggressive or not. If they like it, that’s all that counts.

   I heard from a Philadelphia-area gardener with that viewpoint who took issue with an article I wrote last month for PennLive.com in which I warned people about “pass-along plants” they might come to regret.

   Pass-alongs are plants that friends and neighbors give away.

   Sometimes you can get really nice plants that way, but as I pointed out in the PennLive post, more often than not you get divisions or seedlings of plants that were spreading too aggressively in the giver’s yard.

   People often don’t have the heart to dig up and throw out perfectly healthy plants, so they look to give away the unwanted offspring.

   Anyway, the Philly gardener called me an “alarmist” and said that “you know well that many of the wonderful plants that you have put out as on ‘alert’ are not problematic and can be lovely in a garden.”

   He said he has many of the plants that I mentioned in his gardens, including ajuga, butterfly bush, rose-of-sharon, borage, lily-of-the-valley, creeping jenny, beebalm, and spiderwort.

   “Temper your commentary,” he lectured. “Instead of broad swathes of alarm and wanting people to like you, inform and educate factually.”

   Now, I’m OK with people deciding to plant whatever they want in their own yard (so long as it’s legal and doesn’t cause trouble for others), but I don’t think it’s “alarmist” to warn people about aggressiveness.

Gardens, Scenery and Food of Arizona

September 3rd, 2019

Sun sets on the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix. (Credit: Desert Botanical Garden)

   Just because a climate is hot and dry doesn’t mean its plants are boring.

   The amazing botanical world has managed to come up with a surprisingly diverse array of beautiful and sometimes curious plants that have adapted to arid environments.

   We’re going to have a closeup look at it all this December during a nine-day, garden-focused trip to Tucson, Phoenix, and Sedona, Arizona, custom-planned by Lowee’s Group Tours and me.

   We’re also going to spend a day at the Grand Canyon, see some of Arizona’s iconic scenery, sample some of the foodie-approved dishes of the Southwest, and do some touristy things, too, like visit Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taleisin West desert laboratory, Tucson’s unique Mini Time Museum of Miniatures, and a cowboy ranch (for a horse-drawn wagon ride and cowboy cookout).

   The trip runs Dec. 3-11, 2019, and costs $3,650 per person double, which includes round-trip airfare, hotels, on-tour transportation, admissions, guides, baggage-handling, and 17 meals.

   You’re invited! The full details and booking are available through the Lowee’s Group Tours website or by calling Lowee’s at 717-657-9658.

   We timed this trip so you can enjoy the warmth and gardens while things are likely turning cold and snowy in Harrisburg. You’ll still have two weeks to get ready for Christmas when you get back.

Bugged by Bugs? Plant More Plants

August 27th, 2019

   I wrote a garden column for the Patriot-News a few years ago on a talk that University of Maryland entomologist Dr. Michael Raupp did at a plant conference.

Bugs are part of a healthy ecosystem… and they’re not all bad.

   He made the interesting argument that bugs are a healthy part of any ecosystem (including home gardens) and that the key to keeping them from defiling your plants is not to spray but to plant more plants.

   Raupp’s advice is just as timely today as it was then. So if you’re fed up with bug damage by this point in the growing season, here’s what I wrote…

   Frustrated by the many bugs eating your measly few plants?

   Your best bet isn’t to reach for the sprayer.

   It’s to plant more plants.

   That bit of seemingly backward logic comes not from a plant-seller but from one of America’s top bug guys, University of Maryland entomologist Dr. Michael Raupp.

   Raupp, who moonlights as bug consultant for the TV show “Bones,” has spent much of his career trying to figure out why bugs behave the way they do in home landscapes.

   His main conclusion: plant-damaging bugs are winning because we’ve largely wiped out the other bugs that would’ve controlled them.

   We’ve done that in two main ways.