George's Current Ramblings and Readlings

The Case for Weeds

August 29th, 2023

   Had enough of yanking weeds this season?

Is this always necessary?

   No matter how good or bad a growing season turns out, weeds always seem to thrive.

   But that’s one of the traits that makes weeds such survivors – they’re pretty good at rolling with whatever punches nature (and gardeners) throw at them.

   Rather than curse weeds in our never-ending attempt to eradicate them, maybe a better idea is to tolerate them – and maybe even (horror!) welcome some of them into the landscape.

   That’s the view of Harvard urban biologist Dr. Peter Del Tredici, whose message has been roundly drowned out lately in a time when weeds – and most any non-native plant, for that matter – are considered to be an evil green blight.

   Del Tredici, on the other hand, argues that most of these maligned plants offer more redeeming traits than not.

   He’s not even a fan of the word “weed.” He prefers the more non-judgmental term “spontaneous vegetation.”

   I first heard Del Tredici at a conference in 2012, two years after he wrote a book called “Wild Urban Plants of the Northeast,” which laid out a controversial counterpoint to what was then a brewing native-plant movement.

   He made some very sensible points about weeds (sorry, “spontaneous vegetation”) that caused me to rethink my view.

   Now before all of you weed-haters and native-plant supporters stop reading, note that Del Tredici doesn’t advocate purposely planting invasives.

   What he does advocate is that we ought to stop separating plants by “good” or “bad” and instead look at each based on its pros and cons in a particular setting.

   It boils down to this. We can either: 1.) label certain plants as undesirables and spend a lot of time and effort trying to eradicate them, or 2.) accept that some “spontaneous vegetation” might actually be best in some spots (or at least not worth killing).

   In other words, does it sometimes make more sense to go with the hand we’re dealt?

Black Thumb? I Don’t Think So

August 15th, 2023

   Two reasons explain why non-gardeners are non-gardeners (or ex-gardeners).

   One is lack of time, the reason behind most every non-something.

Do some gardeners have naturally green thumbs (or brown gloves, as the case may be)?

   The other is lack of confidence. Soil rookies either tried and failed, or they didn’t bother in the first place because they were pretty sure they’d fail if they did try. (Homer Simpson: “Trying is the first step toward failure.”)

   Their conclusion: “I have a black thumb.”

   Take heart, black-thumbers. This is one “malady” that’s curable.

   In fact, I don’t even buy the notion that people either have a black thumb, or the sunnier reverse, a green thumb.

   We’re not born with some innate talent to sidestep downy mildew on impatiens or grow two-pound tomatoes. We learn gardening by reading, by watching, and especially by doing.

   A case in point is my own family.

   My sister claims to have the world’s worst black thumb – someone who can kill a houseplant just by looking at it.

   My brother barely knows the difference between a coneflower and a conehead.

   Me? I’ve been fascinated by anything with chlorophyll ever since discovering the miracle of how a lifeless little seed can turn into a six-foot tomato plant that delivers delicious two-pound fruits.

   I can spend hours comparing the foliage of different cultivars at Longwood Gardens and am as thrilled by new perennials at the garden center as kids getting Christmas gifts.

   No wonder then that I have a bit more going on in the garden than my sister or brother. It’s not a case where two of us got short-changed on the gardening gene.

Lanternfly Obsession

August 1st, 2023

   Since the prolific spotted lanternfly first showed up in America nearly 10 years ago, it’s been causing near panic as it spreads from one area to the next.

A spotted lanternfly adult with wings fully open.

   Some people go crazy when these inch-long flying bugs and their spotted nymphs show up en masse, fearing they’re going to kill the whole landscape and make outdoor life as we know it unbearable.

   They’ve been fighting back by stomping, swatting, engaging in social-media “squishathons,” and in worst cases, hauling out homemade weapons such as kerosene, vinegar-and-soap concoctions, propane torches, and at least in one case reported by Penn State Extension, spraying trees with hairspray and igniting it.

   This is where I begin to worry… not about the lanternflies but what destruction people are going to do to plants, the landscape, and themselves.

   I’m not minimizing what an annoying nuisance these bugs are.

   They mass, they disgust people, they suck the sap out of trees and plants, and they can “rain” honeydew (their liquid waste) down on plants and picnicking people. The honeydew can lead to black mold on plant leaves, fences, outdoor furniture, and such.

   On the bright side, though, lanternflies don’t bite, don’t sting, don’t spread human diseases, and don’t even bring any stinky carcasses inside in winter like that previous hysteria-inducing insect, the stinkbug.

   Penn State Extension even points out that other than grapevines, the weedy tree-of-Heaven, and possibly a few species of tree saplings, lanternflies don’t kill plants.

   “While lanternfly feeding can stress plants and cause localized branch damage, it is not known to directly kill other plants,” Penn State Extension says. “It is currently considered to be primarily a nuisance pest in residential landscapes.”

The Little Beautyberry That Could

July 18th, 2023

   You’ve probably heard of the kids book “The Little Engine That Could” in which a never-give-up little locomotive pulls a long train over a tall mountain by believing, “I think I can, I think I can.”

This is my ‘Purple Giant’ beautyberry — the “Little Beautyberry That Could.”

   It was one of our kids’ favorite bedtime books.

   It seems I have a plant with the same kind of gumption of that little engine.

   Call it my “little beautyberry that could.”

   I planted a three-gallon ‘Purple Giant’ beautyberry shrub (Callicarpa ‘Kolmapurgi’) late last spring on a former weed-covered south-facing bank in the part shade of an inherited mulberry tree.

   Beautyberries are usually pretty tough shrubs that I’ve seen do well in marginal soil and in the vicinity of big, aggressive tree roots. Besides, I like the plant’s main draw, which is BB-sized, metallic-purple berries that line the arching branches in fall.

   This particular cultivar is supposed to have the biggest and most fruits of any beautyberry – and in an unusual dark wine-purple color, too. (It may or may not be a cultivar of our native beautyberry… different growers say two different things.)

   ‘Purple Giant’ didn’t do well right out of the pot, though.

   Despite a fair helping of rotted leaves to break up the clay and reasonably regular water throughout summer, the plant went into fall looking less robust than spring.

   It didn’t produce any fruits either, which wasn’t particularly alarming for a first-year transplant.

   But come spring, ‘Purple Giant’ was a no-show. At first, I wasn’t too worried because beautyberries can die back to (or nearly to) the ground in a particularly cold winter. We had a couple of sub-zero nights right before Christmas that could’ve done that.

The Four Life Stages of a Landscape

July 3rd, 2023

   Like most gardeners who have moved, I’ve had to deal with starting all over in a new landscape after spending years parenting an old one.

Much of my revamped landscape is now in the Stage 2 “fledgling” phase.

   My case was probably a bit more extreme than most. My wife and I spent 32 years at our previous home – a third-of-an-acre yard in suburban Cumberland County – before moving to the Pittsburgh suburbs four years ago to be closer to the grandkids.

   The new half-acre yard was more jungle than landscape. It was largely ignored for 10 years before we moved there.

   I spent the first year yanking weeds, pulling 40-foot vines out of trees, and fixing drainage problems before even getting to the planting part.

See before and after photos of George’s landscape makeover

   Now that I have most of the areas that I plan to tackle planted, it occurred to me that I’ve crossed a sort of boundary.

   It’s almost as if the yard has gone from death to birth to some sort of toddler phase. In that sense, landscapes are like people. They go through life stages.

   Each one presents its own challenges, its own rewards, and its own level and lineup of work demands. Here’s how I see it shaking out.

Stage 1

   Stage 1 is birth – that time of digging grass or turning a bare or neglected space into something new.

   Although there’s nothing much to show at this point, I like it a lot because it’s a time of creativity.

   Budget withstanding, you can go in whatever direction you like. Gardens are especially beautiful at the vision stage before the real world of bad soil, not enough rain, and deer attacks show up.

   There’s a lot of work and a lot of expense involved at the birth stage, but the hope and potential more than make up for it.

   After all, more than most ventures, gardening is about the future.