George's Current Ramblings and Readlings

Why Would You Want to Cut a Plant Almost to the Ground?

March 19th, 2019

   Gardeners have to overcome erratic weather, sidestep a laundry list of potential bug and disease threats, and beat back attacks by deer, voles, and groundhogs to grow a decent plant.

This red-twig dogwood has been “coppiced.”

   So why would any sane gardener ever consider cutting a healthy tree or shrub to the ground?

   I can think of a few good reasons for what horticulture calls “coppicing.”

   The main reason is to rejuvenate a big, old bush. Getting rid of all of the old wood clears space and coerces a plant to get busy growing fresh shoots – or else.

   Another is that coppicing turns what wants to be a jungle-sized plant into one whose size fits the space you have.

   And a third reason is that for some plants, their one- or two-year-old wood is a brilliant red or gold, fading to gray or brown with age. By constantly whacking the older wood, you produce a steady stream of young wood, resulting in a better-looking plant.

The new shoots of red-twig dogwoods are the most colorful, fading to grown and gray once they’re 3 or 4 years old.

   You can’t coppice everything, though. Trees that are generally grown as single-trunk plants, for example, don’t respond well to a near total cutback. Coppice an oak, maple, or most any evergreen, and you’ll find yourself looking at a lifeless stump.

   Some species push up some weak, leggy, half-hearted new shoots after coppicing – enough to keep the plant alive but a far cry from the first-generation effort.

   But some woody species – especially ones that grow as multi-stemmed flowering shrubs – will roar back better than ever.

   Probably the best known coppice-worthy shrubs are the red-twig and gold-twig dogwoods. Several species of these 5- to 6-foot bushy shrubs respond nicely to being cut back to 3- or 4-inch stubs at the end of each winter.

   These dogwoods produce their brightest red or gold stems on new wood. Let them unpruned, and little by little, new shoots dwindle, and the aging stems turn grayish-brown.

   For size control, a good plant to coppice every year or two is the purple smoke bush, which will quickly become a purple smoke tree if you don’t cut it.

   A near decapitation in March will create a 6-foot shrub with vibrant purple-burgundy leaves instead of a 20-footer with duller purple-brown summer leaves and a floppy, gangly habit. The tradeoff is that with coppicing, you won’t get any/many of the plant’s rounded, “puffy-smoke-ball” flowers.

Philadelphia Flower Show 2020: Goodbye Woodstock, Hello Riviera

March 12th, 2019

   The 2019 Philadelphia Flower Show’s hippie-throwback, “Flower Power” show is history, and the page now turns to next year’s show that will feature plants and gardens of Mediterranean climates.

Riviera Holiday is the title of the 2020 Philadelphia Flower Show. It’ll highlight plants and gardens of Mediterranean climates.

   “Riviera Holiday” is the proposed title of the 2020 Philadelphia show, and it’ll take place next Feb. 29-March 8 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.

   Although the main entrance will feature the feel of the French Riviera, the show’s chief, Sam Lemheney, says the overall theme will cover all Mediterranean climates. That includes such diverse settings as Mexico, South Africa’s fynbos, the western coasts of Australia and Chile, and the southern California coast.

   That should give the landscapers plenty to play with.

   Lowee’s Group Tours and I plan to run five tours to see it, so stay tuned for details and bookings come fall.

   As for the 2019 show, it was impressive as all Philly shows are. But I have to say this was my least favorite show of the 25 or so I’ve seen over the years.

   I thought this one lacked the really “wow” main entrance that the show is renowned for.

   Planters had large flower sculptures, and 18,000 cut flowers and grasses hung from the ceiling (an idea done at least twice before), but it paled in comparison to past first views, such as the Eiffel Tower replica, last year’s rainforest waterfall, and my all-time favorite, 2015’s red-carpeted Hollywood movie theater and marquee.

   The show also was heavily oriented to cut flowers and floral design, a result of the FTD World Cup competition that was staged at the show.

   This international Olympics of flower-designing hasn’t been held in the U.S. since 1985. It’s an industry big deal that showcases the work of the world’s best floral designers, but it also meant that a large chunk of the main entrance was devoted to 23 arrangement displays – five works by each of the 23 contestants.

   If you enjoy arrangements – especially huge, over-the-top and outside-the-box ones – you hit the jackpot this year.

   Me? I’d rather see gardens of in-ground plants and the creative landscapes of forced-into-bloom flowers that normally dominate the show.

So, I’m Not Alone, Eh?

March 5th, 2019

   That post I wrote two weeks ago commiserating my new deer problem drew more feedback than anything I’ve ever written here.

I’m having second thoughts that a fence might solve my new deer problem.

   Apparently, deer-eaten plants is an even worse issue than I thought… and it’s one that seems to bring out a lot of passion, compassion, and empathy.

   Lots of fellow gardeners wrote not only to offer tips and experience-driven advice, but to say how sorry they were that I’ve run into this curse. It’s almost as if I’ve contracted a horrible disease and am being consoled by others who’ve already been down that path.

   I appreciate the support but now have a sinking feeling that maybe this is going to be even harder than I thought.

   Readers told me about deer knocking down fences, shrugging off previously effective repellents, and even being so bold as to eat flowers out of deck pots and hanging baskets.

   Reader Kathi said she got so tired of spraying repellents that she gave up her two-acre woodland gardens and moved.

   “I had to (constantly) make sure new growth was covered,” she wrote. “If I missed one week, my new growth was gone. I told myself there was always next year.”

   The crowning insult was when deer “got up the nerve to go on the deck and defoliate my plants. That was the last straw for me,” Karen said, adding, “Good luck. You are going to need it.”

   Gardener Bill said the only thing that completely solved the deer problem for him was a 10-foot-tall metal fence, supported by six-inch posts with a pair of 10-foot gates for access.

   “It’s been dubbed the ‘stockade garden’ because it does resemble a prison stockade used in the Civil War to hold prisoners in both the North and the South,” Bill says.

   That ought to work (assuming no one leaves the gates open), but I don’t think it’s going to pass muster with my borough’s fencing codes. Those restrictions (six foot maximum out back, three feet maximum out front) aren’t making my fight any easier… although my six-footer should be enough to also hold any Confederate POWs if I add a coil of concertina wire on top.

2019 Pennsylvania Garden Show of York Blooms This Weekend

February 28th, 2019

   “Flowers on Parade” is the theme of the 2019 Pennsylvania Garden Show of York, which runs Friday through Sunday (March 1-3, 2019) in the York Expo Center’s Memorial Hall, 334 Carlisle Road, York.

Here’s Cross Creek Farm’s display from the 2018 York show.

   The 2019 show features eight display gardens built by local landscapers, a marketplace with nearly 100 home and garden exhibitors/vendors, a flower show sponsored by local garden clubs, and a lineup of seminars in two different venues.

See my video from the 2018 Pa. Garden Show of York

   Show tickets are $10 at the door for adults and $9 for members of the military and those over age 62. Children age 12 and under are free. Admission passes for all three days are $15.

   Information on other discounts and advance-sale locations are listed on the show’s ticketing web page.

   Show hours are Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

   Parking is free.

   This year’s show also features a three-category photography contest, live insect demos by Ryan the Bug Man, and tea parties hosted by Red Brick Bakery Friday and Saturday (registration and extra fee for those).

   PAGSY, as it’s called for short, is divided into two main parts.

   Turn left from the main entrance to enter a Hall of Gardens that features the display gardens, seminars, and an information/education booth manned by Penn State Extension.

   Turn right to go into the Garden Market of vendors, exhibitors, and a judged garden-club flower show staged by Federated Garden Club District IV.

Edison and Ford Were into Plants?

February 26th, 2019

   Thomas Edison, America’s greatest inventor, and Henry Ford, the father of the moving assembly line and his namesake car company, had more in common than fame, innovation, and a whole lot of money.

Thomas Edison’s guesthouse in Fort Myers, Fla.

   They both also were very interested in plants.

   Edison was especially keen on bamboo and thought it would make the perfect filament for his new electric light bulb. He also surrounded his New Jersey home with a fine collection of native and unusual trees.

   Ford was fascinated by the common soybean, which was an up-and-coming crop in the early 1900s. He used soybeans to make car-horn buttons and ornamentation on gearshift knobs and even wore a suit made out of soybean fiber.

   He once tried Spanish moss as stuffing in some of his Model T seats, only to find that if you didn’t adequately treat the chiggers (“red bugs”) that often infested this tree-hanging bromeliad, drivers could get some unwanted surprises in their downward-facing end.

   Ford’s wife, Clara, also was a big-time rose fancier who planted 10,000 roses in a five-acre rose garden on their Michigan estate.

   But it was in Florida where Edison and Ford paired up on a plant-related project that ultimately fizzled.

   Both Ford and Edison thought America needed a source of rubber latex that could be grown in America. They were concerned the country was too dependent on a newly important resource that was largely foreign-supplied.

   In 1927, they founded the Edison Botanic Research Corp. along with tire magnate Harvey Firestone to experiment with 17,000 plants that might be good for latex harvesting.

   The research took place at a winter property called Seminole Lodge that Edison built in Fort Myers, Fla., in the late 1880s while looking for a place to escape New Jersey winters.

The winner of the latex experiments… goldenrod.

   Turns out the ideal source wasn’t rubber trees (Ficus) or any kind of tree or shrub, for that matter. The company’s latex plant of choice was a native perennial flower, the goldenrod.

   The finding didn’t really matter since synthetic rubber came along and ended the possibility that we all might be driving around on goldenrod tires.

   The remaining vestiges of this fascinating story can be seen on the grounds of the 20-acre Edison and Ford Winter Estates, one of America’s most visited historic-home sites and well worth seeing if you’re ever midway down Florida’s West Coast. I saw it for the first time last month.