Mulch Your Garden Beds After the Ground Freezes

What to Know About Houseplants and Your Cat

Gardeners Make Their New Year’s Resolutions

Mulch Your Garden Beds After the Ground Freezes

 Where I live in the northeast the ground is just about frozen. This is my cue to protect the plants in my garden that have shallow roots.  This includes any new plants that have not had a full season to get established.

Why now?  The purpose of winter mulching is to keep the ground around these plants consistently frozen. Without protection the cycle of freezing and thawing which occurs throughout the season in my Zone 5 garden can cause plants to heave out of the ground and expose their roots to the biting cold and wind.

In addition to newly planted plants, some shallow rooted plants are particularly prone to heaving, according to my friend the horticulturist Ruth Clausen.  Included in this group are members of the coral bell clan—heucheras, heucherellas and tiarellas.  Heucheras have become so popular in recent years, and indeed I have lost several to heaving.  I am determined not to let that happen this winter.

What Qualifies as Winter Mulch?   The best ‘mulch’ for your plants is snow, because it keeps the ground consistently frozen and it disappears in the spring, allowing plants to gradually come out of dormancy as temperatures begin to rise. In most parts of the country, however, there is no guarantee the ground will be covered in snow all winter.

Evergreen Boughs.  I use evergreen boughs to protect my garden beds.  We always gather greens from the farm where we get our Christmas tree.  We’ve noticed that people cut down their tree and leave behind  lower branches and other greens, so we sweep them up and bring them home (no charge).  Now that the holidays are over, we can cut the branches off our own tree and use those too.  I’ve also noticed greens along the side of roads (mostly white pine) that dropped during the infamous Halloween snowstorm in the northeast. Most of those are good for the taking too.

The advantage of evergreen boughs layered on your garden bed is that they are easy to gather up in the spring when temperatures begin to rise.  Also, they do not provide a haven for burrowing voles and mice the way leaves or shredded bark can. And they really do shield your plants from the sun, which is what causes thawing.  Evergreen boughs can be prickly to handle, so be sure to wear gloves.

What To Know About Houseplants and Your Cat

Last summer we took in a stray kitten who showed up at our back door. Neither my husband nor I had owned a cat since childhood so we were wading into new territory here. Coincident with this we completed our long planned greenhouse off the back of the house and stationed Scout’s litter box in there.  As the weather turned colder we brought many of our outdoor plants into the greenhouse to overwinter and Scout was suddenly, and happily, surrounded by plants. 

I noticed two types of behavior I didn’t like, and I decided I’d better seek advice. One, she was scratching and digging in the soil of several plants, and kicking the soil onto the floor. Second, she was chewing on some of the plants, and I wondered if this might be unhealthy.

I friend of mine suggested I get in touch with Dr. Lucy Dayton, a retired veterinarian in Helena, Montana, who is also an avid gardener and plantswoman. She immediately appreciated the dilemma I face and she pointed me to a small group of credible websites, steering me clear of the many ‘dubious’ ones on the internet.  Here’s what I learned. (the reputable websites are listed at the end of this article).

Poisonous Houseplants   Lilies top every list of plants that are poisonous to cats. Even a small amount ingested can cause life threatening kidney failure.  If you like Easter lilies keep them away from your cat. While most plants are harmless, there are many plants that are toxic to cats, in varying degrees, and some of them, I learned, are plants that I have in my greenhouse (!), including Amaryllis, Lantana and Begonia.  While Scout has exhibited no signs of illness (typically it includes vomiting or diarrhea) I will make sure to keep them out of her reach, and in fact we have moved Scout’s litter box out of the greenhouse. 

For a list of plants that are poisonous to cats, click here, or consult your veterinarian. There is also a 24-hour hotline for use in an emergency.  The ASPCA’s Animal Poison Control Center is at 888-426-4435. (Have your credit card handy as there may be a charge for this call).

Making Your Plants Less Attractive to Cats   According to the Cornell U. College of Veterinary Medicine website, you can try spraying the leaves with water, then sprinkling them with cayenne pepper.  Commercial pet repellents serve the same purpose. Try laying mothballs on the soil to see if the smell repels your cat.

Cornell U. recommends laying a little aluminum foil over the soil to prevent scratching in the dirt, decreasing the odds your cat will turn to the plant as a treat.  I tried putting down a piece of screen door screening over the soil and that seems to work. It keeps Scout out and lets the sun in. Small stones would also protect the top surface of soil from her scratching.

Cats Crave Vegetable Matter.  The experts say that it is usually indoor cats who eat houseplants because they crave vegetable matter. Our Scout does go outside, but in the winter there isn’t much vegetable matter for her to chew on. You can get around this by adding lettuce or parsley to her food bowl or switching to a food with higher fiber content. You can also plant oat grass, catnip and catmint in a pot for your cat to enjoy. These are safe for cats.

Recommended website for Information on Cats and Poisonous Plants–

http://www.aspca.org/Pet-care/poison-control/Plants.aspx?plant_toxicity=toxic-to-cats

http://www.healthypet.com/PetCare/PetCareArticle.aspx?art_key=655a2b98-fe3f-4162-b9e4-af262ec76c7c

http://www.vet.cornell.edu/fhc/brochures/DestructiveBehavior.html

Gardeners Make Their New Year’s Resolutions

On New Year’s Eve I committed to be a better person in 2012, but now it’s time to make my Gardening New Year’s Resolutions. That’s much more fun! 

Please send us your New Year’s Resolutions in the comments section below and we will reward our favorites with Womanswork Rose Leather Gauntlet gloves.  All comments must be received by Jan. 31^st.

Here are my 5 Gardening New Year’s Resolutions—

1. Harvest at least one lemon from the lemon tree growing in my greenhouse
2. Grow all of my container annuals for next summer from seed, including Black Eyed Susan vine
3. Memorize the major tree species in our region.(Check back with me in a year on this one)
4. Begin replacing the Pachysandra in our front yard with liriope, one of my favorite evergreen groundcovers.

1. Propagate lots of streptocarpella saxorum plants in  my greenhouse to give as gifts (the parent came from Ruth Clausen and it made a lovely gift!)

• Turn a tuna can into a holiday tray decoration
• What to do with your fall leaves?  The jury is in
• My top holiday gift recommendations for the gardener

A Tuna Can Becomes A Tray Decoration

If you know someone who is homebound over the holidays, this is an idea that will bring a smile to their face. I belong to a garden club and each year at our December meeting we put together little tray ornaments and deliver them to groups such as Meals on Wheels and local hospitals. We make over 300 of these tray ornaments. Here are the supplies you will need:

-1 block of Oasis® floral foam (can be purchased at a florist or garden center)

-1 empty tuna or cat food can

-8” square piece of foil (preferably floral foil that is colored on one side, but regular aluminum foil is acceptable)

-a handful of evergreens cut 4-6” long (from your own yard or purchased at a florist or garden center)

-assorted small decorations like ribbons, bows or mini-Christmas balls (optional)

-a pair of garden gloves if the greens are prickly to handle

And here’s how you make one:

Step 1. Cut the piece of Oasis® floral foam lengthwise so it is just half as thick. After cutting it, it will be exactly as deep as a tuna can.

Step 2. Push your tuna can down into the half-thick Oasis®.  Turn the can over and you have your base for the arrangement.  Each block can turn out 6 tray ornaments.

Step 3. Soak the can with Oasis® in water to keep your greens moist. (Oasis® will stay wet for a week or more)

Step 4. Push sprigs of greens into the Oasis® and make an arrangement. Add ribbons and other ornaments as desired.

Step 5. Set the can in a square of florist foil and crimp the sides. You are ready to deliver your fragrant tray ornament to someone who will really appreciate it!

What to do with your Leaves? The Jury is in

I have always heard that leaving a few leaves on the lawn is a good thing. But when I visited the New York Botanical Garden recently I saw pristine lawns with no leaves in sight. So which is it? Here is the answer.

I asked Kurt Morrell, who is the NY Botanical Garden’s head of landscape operations.  It turns out he is passionate on the topic of leaves because it has become a hot button issue for municipalities around the country.  Recent university studies have looked at the issue of ‘yard waste management’ because of the negative impact on the environment of large piles of leaves and grass clippings in municipal landfills. 

At the NY Botanical Garden Kurt uses a mulching mower for his lawns early in the fall, so that the leaves get chopped up finely and left right on the grass. They are invisible to the eye, especially from a distance.  Later in the fall when the leaf drop is heavier, instead of mulching them he picks them up and transports them to the compost heap.  NYBG produces 1500 yards of compost a year and leaves are an important component of the mix. The following spring that compost is used in a variety of ways in garden beds and tree wells.

Are chopped up leaves bad for your lawn? Many home owners (including myself) wonder whether there are long term negative effects of leaving leaf mulch on the lawn.  The recent university studies, conducted over several years, have enough data to show that there are no negatives, and in fact there are some positives. What they found is that overall soil quality improves, with no substantial buildup of leaf mat, regardless of what types of trees you have (pine needles excepted).  The increase in microbial activity breaks down the chopped up leaves and improves aeration, water infiltration and even weed management. The key is to chop up the leaves finely with a mulching mower.

Is Doing Nothing an Option? — I like the look of a clean lawn, so it wouldn’t occur to me to leave my lawn full of leaves. That’s a good thing, because turf grass specialists told me unshredded tree leaves can smother the grass and kill a lawn. Even a thin layer can rob your lawn of access to the sun and increase the chances of snow mold in the winter.

Leaf Shredder –  One of my horticulturist friends, Ruth Rogers Clausen, loves her leaf shredder.  She throws armfuls of leaves down the shoot and into a kangaroo bag, then layers them on her garden beds for the winter.  In the spring she takes a pitchfork and pokes it into the top 2-3 inches of her garden beds, gives it a twist, and fluffs up her soil.

Leaves for Compost  — Pound-for-pound, leaves have twice as many minerals as manure, according to the plant specialist at the New York Botanical Garden who answers a consumer call in line. Leaves provide much needed carbon, which complements the nitrogen found in grass clippings and other compost greens.  If you can shred the leaves first

My Top Holiday Gift Recommendations for the Gardener

1) Membership to a botanical garden—There are hundreds of botanical gardens and arboreta around the country and they need the public’s support. The benefits of membership usually include free admission for 2, discounts at the shop and free parking—for a whole year.  A membership makes a nice gift.

2) Gardening books—I have 4 book recommendations for gardeners, all very different from each other:

-“Food Rules” by Michael Pollan has just been re-released with illustrations by Maira Kalman, who is one of my favorite illustrators/artists/commentators on life.

- “Founding Gardeners” by Andrea Wulf is a great read for someone on your list who likes history and botany. It tells the story of the first four presidents (Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Madison) and their passion for plants.

-“Embroidered Ground: Revisiting the Garden  by Page Dickey, one of my favorite garden writers. I have every book she has published.

-“Pushing Up Daisies” is a novel by Rosemary Harris, a master gardener and mystery writer. It’s a fun read for mystery lovers who are gardeners. Available in paperback for $7.

3) Handmade Gift—My daughter Eve discovered a designer on Etsy.com who makes plantable seed paper with garden markers. Check out Alison Cecil’s “Seed Paper Herb Kits” for Basil and Dill. (Also available on the Anthropologie website.)  They’re handmade in the USA and start at $12.

4) Eco Watering Spouts—Transform your empty plastic bottles into watering cans with these patented twist on bottle adaptors in three designer colors. Priced at $5 each or 3/$15.

5) Dramm Water Wand—Not all gifts for the gardener have to be gift-y, so to speak. As an avid gardener I would like nothing more than to receive a fan nozzle spray gun or rain wand from Dramm under the Christmas tree. Dramm products are available at most garden centers.  I won’t use my watering wand until spring, but boy will I use it then!

6) Garden gloves—We humbly submit that we think Womanswork garden gloves make great gifts. Visit the Womanswork website to see all of the choices we offer for the female gardener in your life, along with gift boxes and gift cards. Prices for our gloves range from $8.50 to $38.

7)  Fabrics by Felicity Miller— I discovered Felicity Miller’s colorful fabrics this year and fell in love with her designs. If you like to sew, or the gardener in your life likes to sew, you can view this up-and-coming designer’s collection online at http://www.felicitymiller.com/. To order yardage of her fabric send Felicity an email at felicitykatemiller@gmail.com.  Her designs would be great for a gardener’s apron, a quilt or garden bag.

Subscription to a gardening magazine—My favorite garden magazine is Horticulture and I will be giving subscriptions to some of my gardening friends this year.

• Be Safe—The Society of American Hand Therapists recently announced that wearing gardening gloves was at the top of their list for preventing gardening injuries. Womanswork has a pair to suit every hand, task and season. In this month’s Martha Stewart Living, she features the Womanswork Goatskin Glove as one of her “Finds” for fall cleanup in the garden.
  

  Martha Stewart Living October Issue with Womanswork Gloves

• Don’t let Jack Frost catch you off guard—I bookmark a handy website that tells me when I can expect my first and last frost date, based on my zip code. Usually it happens sometime around late Sept. to early October in my Hudson Valley, NY garden. Once I hear the first frost is on its way I harvest the tender annuals and perennials that will go into shock or place them safely indoors. The Womanswork Herb and Vegetable Garden Wheels, priced at $8 each, tell you which plants are least or most tolerant of the cold.
•  Recycle your leaves – Fall leaves are plentiful in my yard. My friend the famous horticulturist, Ruth Rogers Clausen, recommends a leaf shredder for harnessing this source of rich nutrients to add to your compost heap or place right on top of your garden beds in the Fall. Womanswork “Digger” Gardening gloves that feature a longer cuff with Velcro closure that keep soil and debris out of gloves are ideal for this chore. “Digger Gloves” sell for $19.
• Preserve your crops – Preserving fruits and vegetables for winter has been a valued homemaking skill for centuries and now with the renewed interest in edible gardening this skill is having a renaissance. Many cookbooks and Web sites offer detailed instructions on how to make sure your preserved foods are safe and delicious. Whip up some pesto from your basil crop or consider alternative pestos using arugula or other herbs. Check out this link for a recipe for arugula pesto: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/michael-chiarello/arugula-pesto-recipe/index.html.   Mmmmmmm….. 

Recipe for Arugula Pesto

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  Womanswork Team after making dinner at The Lunch Box

  Remember the hungry– September is the month when our nationwide network of food banks asks Americans to support ending hunger in our country. Womanswork supports our local ‘soup kitchen’ by making dinner for those in need of a hot meal. You can also help by donating a portion of your harvest to your local food pantry. For a list of food pantries near you, click here: http://www.ampleharvest.org/find-pantry.php  (Food banks are regional and they supply local food pantries). 

• Plant Your Garlic– Garlic is one of the most used herbs in our kitchen.  We planted our first crop last fall and then harvested them in the late summer.  When you plant your garlic be sure to mark where you planted it because the  garlic won’t show any signs of growth in early spring. Womanswork has plant labels for just this purpose.  Priced at just $5 and $8, depending on the size, they are an essential and inexpensive gardening aid and make a thoughtful gift for your gardener friends. For more details on growing and harvesting garlic, consult “The Vegetable Garden Wheel”.
  

  Garlic in my Garden with Plant Labels

  

  Vegetable Garden Wheel

White Flower Farm, Litchfield County, CT

Earlier this week Ruth Rogers Clausen met my mother and me at White Flower Farm in Litchfield County, CT. I wanted to catch up with Ruth on the topic of her new book, coming out in June (Timber Press). The title is 50 Beautiful Deer Resistant Plants, and I thought our visit to White Flower Farm provided a good opportunity to ask her what some of her favorite deer resistant plants are.  Ruth and I both live in areas with lots of deer.  Click here to hear Ruth talk about some of her favorite deer resistant plants in a video we made that day.

Dorian "interviews" Ruth in the video about her favorite plants

Ruth checking out Hakonechloa, a plant that deer don’t like

One way to keep deer away from a plant that they do like is to protect the plant by planting the things they don’t like all around it.  In her book Ruth talks about combinations of plants that are culturally similar and can work as a tag team in that way. She also touches on design elements that can discourage deer from entering your garden. They will never jump into a small space where they will feel cornered, such as a small fenced in area. 

After our lovely and educational tour of  White Flower Farm the three of us went into town for a glass of wine and a nice lunch.  It’s always a treat for my mother and me to spend an afternoon with Ruth.

Forsythia has a graceful habit which should be respected

No other shrub personifies the brash exuberance of spring like forsythia. At this time of year it is blooming in almost every garden as hedges, clipped and unclipped, along roadways, and even on the edge of woods. Sometimes it looks wonderful, but at other times it is obviously a case of wrong plant, wrong place.

Forsythia shrubs have a beautiful, naturally elegant habit that is destroyed by formal clipping, but so often is sheared within an inch of its life as a trimmed hedge or rounded blob in front of a house.

Salvia 'May Night'

“Off with their heads” should be your mantra. The act of deadheading stimulates lower buds to develop and produce more flowers. Perennials such as Scabiosa ‘Butterfly Blue’, purple toadflax (Linaria purpurea) and coreopsis bloom more or less continuously throughout the season.  Threadleaf coreopsis (C. verticillata ‘Moonbeam’ and others) are trickier to deadhead because they have lots of skinny stems that take a little more time to snip.  I recommend a lightweight compact scissor from Womanswork, which is small enough to be precise.

What sounds like more fun to a child than growing garbage on a windowsill?  For a “Garbage Garden” start with carrots and pineapples, potatoes, and other vegetable waste bound for the garbage pail. It’s educational and cheap too. There’s no need for pots either. You just recycle cottage cheese or yogurt containers (poke drainage holes in the bottom).

To start your garden cut ¾” or so off the top of the round end of a carrot. Press the cut end into a container of damp potting soil, and put it on a sunny windowsill. Keep the soil moist, and a green forest will soon start to sprout. Cut leafy pineapple tops (wear gardening gloves to protect from prickles) with only ¼” of the pineapple left on. Clean away any flesh and let it dry overnight. Firm the top into a few inches of damp potting soil. Keep it moist and in several weeks— voila!  Roots.  

Garbage Gardening with a Potato

White potatoes grow quickly. Look for old ones with nubbins of developing shoots (called eyes). Cut a potato in half, each with 1 or 2 eyes, let it dry overnight, then plant it cut side down. Keep moist and you’ll have an indoor garden in no time. 

A good way to introduce older children to vegetables is with the Vegetable Garden Wheel. It helps them identify different popular vegetables and gives them the information they need to plan out a complete garden. The information is presented in a fun to use spinning format with lots of color.

Vegetable Garden Wheel

Potato after just 3 weeks

Perovskia atriplicifoia

Through bitter experience, I have found that it is better to wait a couple of weeks until at least 1″ of new young growth is showing.  You can always cut back later, but too early pruning may indeed toll the bell for butterfly bush (Buddleia, shown here), common sage (Salvia officinalis), Russian sage (Perovskia), bluebeard (Caryopteris), lavender, etc.  A friend of mine living in the Delaware Valley had a crescent-shaped bed with a row of tall butterfly bushes running down the spine.  One spring, they were pruned hard just as the sap was rising and the buds were beginning to break. The following week there was an extended cold snap and every last butterfly bush was killed! It was a disaster and very hard lesson for her.

When I decide to prune these shrubs, I always wear sturdy and comfortable garden gloves to protect my hands, and am sure to use sharp hand pruners and loppers (www.felcostore.com). To encourage vigorous new growth, prune hard towards the base where new shoots are emerging.  Cut above a bud on a slant so rain runs off the  top of the cut. The harder you cut, the more vigorous the plants will grow. Every few years take the whole plant down to about a foot from ground level to increase vigor and control size.

Salvia officinalis

Ruth's Greenhouse

Welcome to my 10′ x 9′ greenhouse.  It faces south with a sliding door from the living room. When spring comes I can walk through it onto the deck where I pot up lots of fun combinations in planters. Many of the plants I use have been overwintered and propagated in my greenhouse.  My nitrile garden gloves live there too where they are close to hand. At the moment several varieties of velvety-leaved aromatic Cuban oregano (Plectranthus), a current favorite of mine, are being propagated through cuttings. Coleus and Streptocarpella do well, the latter in full bloom along with mini-fuchsia (Fuchsia cana). I keep geraniums, especially scented ones, growing and blooming through the winter. Chives, parsley and mint are residents too, of course. I’ll be starting seeds any day now—sweet peas in cardboard egg cartons, sweet alyssum (8 weeks to bloom), and spinach.

Plants are Propagated with Cuttings

Propagating plants with cuttings is an easy task. Clip a 1 ½” to 3″ long piece of a young shoot from the mother plant, recut where leaves emerge, remove the lower leaves, and insert the cutting into damp rooting mix: perlite or vermiculite. Water gently. I enclose the whole thing in a plastic vegetable bag, blow it up, and secure tightly with a twistie. This balloon-like cocoon prevents the cuttings from drying out. Keep them away from direct sun or they will cook.

White Pine boughs make a good winter mulch for garden beds

Now that the holidays are over, in northern climates the ground is frozen. Now is the time to apply a winter mulch to keep the soil cold and insulate it from alternate freezing and thawing. The action of freezing and thawing, which occurs throughout the winter season, causes shallow-rooted and fall-planted perennials to be heaved out of the ground and roots to become desiccated. I find that members of the coral bells clan—heucheras, heucherellas, and tiarellas– are particularly prone to heaving.  

At this time of year there are plenty of evergreen boughs and discarded Christmas trees around, free for the taking (save those pennies for new plants). These are perfect to cut up and lay gently on frozen beds and borders. If there is still snow on the ground lay the boughs on top. I never got round to cleaning up all the fall leaves, but the evergreen boughs will prevent them from blowing all over the place. As the weather warms in spring gradually remove the boughs to allow new growth to occur.