Late Fall Gardening

Dear Gardening Friends,

September and October have come and gone, as has Thanksgiving, and here we are three weeks before the Winter's Solstice (after which the days get longer and we begin to anticipate Spring), and then of course Christmas. I think of this time period in Columbia as being late fall regardless of the official definitions of the seasons. And late fall is a wonderful time for gardening.

Before I go on, please do remember to water. Despite recent rains I have rarely seen the ground so dry around here, and it is easy to forget to water when it is so much cooler outside.

 

This fall has been beautiful as far as fall flowers go - ageratum, plumbago, Russian and Mexican sage, Mexican petunia, autumn clematis, leopard plant, sunflowers, day lilies, zinnias, vinca lasting all the way until mid November, knock out roses and so forth. And now we have camellia sasanqua and early/fall blooming camellia japonica! I wonder what has been blooming in your yard this fall that may not be on my list?

The other day I enjoyed listening to the high pitched scree of a hawk pair flying all around the Forest Hills area. I don't know if hawks are more abundant in winter here, or just more noticeable. Lot's of reptiles are already in hibernation or partial hibernation. I'm always digging up skinks and ground snakes this time of year.

Some days after work is done I take a a few pictures of flowers and such - and you can check them out on my Flickr site in a set called Scenes from Work.

I suspect with all the stuff to do for Christmas, and given the cold purported to be descending upon us soon, that a lot of us take a break from thinking about our gardens. But there are actually some useful things to do in the garden in the late fall.

Late fall is a super time to transplant. Now that the nighttime temps are approaching freezing plants are falling to sleep and going into dormancy (kind of like animal hibernation) - which means first that there is less transpiration going on (none in deciduous trees and shrubs obviously) and that much less demand being put on the roots by the leaves to get water (for photosynthesis), and second, that the plant is not going to sprout new shoots and buds if it is cut back somewhat. This means that when we transplant at this time of year it is much less traumatic for the plant. But plant roots do grow slowly over the winter and so that when the weather does heat up in the Spring and the plant comes out of dormancy it has had a chance for its roots to set and is in better shape to survive its first summer.

Late fall is also a very good time to plant shrubs and trees, many fruit trees, some hardy perennials, and a good time to dig, divide and transplant some bulbs.

Late fall is a good time to get rid of vines and tree saplings that have been taking over the garden. Even with deciduous vines it is actually quite easy to see them this time of year, and much easier to see some evergreen vines.

Now is a perfect time to take out English ivy. English ivy is an ongoing maintenance challenge and it also competes with shrubs for water and nutrients. It is also one of the most damaging invasive plants in southern forests. Pulling ivy is good to do any time - but is less stressful on the plants around it when the pulling is done in cooler weather.

I have noticed more and more how leaves and straw accumulate in the crowns of azaleas. Azaleas do not like this and this time of year affords and good time to clean out the dead wood and accumulated debris around the azalea plant. The same is true of hydrangeas.

Late fall is a good time to apply mulch to boxwood, azaleas, camellias and many other shrubs, especially after cleaning out old plant litter and dead wood. Since it also a good time to apply a light feeding to many shrubs (to help root growth over the winter), some folks like to use a mulch like Dixie Mix, or to sprinkle a slow release granular fertilizer in with say shredded hardwood bark (my favorite mulch for around here).

Late fall can be the right time to prune or cut back unsightly overgrown foundation plants, especially those whose flowering buds are not already set. One could argue that February is better, but if you just don't want to look at an overgrown or unsightly bush or row of bushes all winter it won't do any harm to prune them now since the plant is dormant. Boxwood too can be selectively pruned now to allow in more light and air which will stimulate bud growth in early Spring.

Late fall is a good time to start to get the ground ready for a spring planting of vegetables. Bacteria and worms don't stop working in our mild winters when the soil rarely freezes, and late fall is an active time for worms and bacteria to work on decomposing leaves and enriching soil. Turning the soil in a planting bed, especially if it has some leaves or leaf litter can be a good way to prep the soil for an early spring planting.

And did I mention collards?

Late fall is a good time to get that compost pile going! We tend to take a large amount of plant material out to the street, much of which would be super for a compost bin.There is nothing quite as rewarding as homegrown compost!

So many of you have plants and shrubs that are easy to propagate via rooting and grafting (especially the former), and these could easily fill out your yards over time with new plantings from your own stock. All that is needed is a good rooting bed and/or rooting pots. This was my grandmother's way and it is a good one. I think for example of many of the old camellias and azaleas that many of us love and which are getting harder to find these days. And what a wonderful way to share our special plants with friends!

A word about my suppliers...As you know I primarily use Cooper's Nursery for trees and shrubs and many perennials. I go WAY back with Coopers and very much enjoy working with them. If Cooper's cannot get a certain plant in a needed time frame I have no problem getting plants elsewhere, but Cooper's is my go to supplier.  For a lot of my work in the Forest Acres area I use Forest Lake Gardens at the back of the old Forest Lake Shopping Center for pine straw and annuals and bagged soil amendment products. I am attached to the locale as I grew up working right across the street where my grandmother's Norge Village and my dad's Gillespie Cleaners used to be. In fact, the building that is the office of Forest Lake Gardens used to be the drive through building for my very first bank - the old First Citizens. And for jobs in the Heathwood or Shandon/Hollywood-Rose Hill areas I may also use Southern Vistas in a similar manner. Of course there are other really excellent locally owned and operated garden centers and nurseries such as Hay Hill, Woodley's and Mill Creek to name a few, and I wish them every success. I've just sort of settled into the folks I "trade" with, to use the phrase my grandmother used to use.

In addition, more and more I am trying to buy basic supplies from local businesses rather than Lowe's or Wal-Mart or Home Depot. I have nothing against these places - I just want to try to support local businesses. I buy a lot of things from Cedar Terrace Hardware across from the VA Hospital and more recently the Ace Hardware on Beltline as well.

My biggest joy in this work is seeing so many folks enjoying their yards and gardens more, and anxiety eased by taking care of often overwhelming tasks. We live in a special place with beautiful pine-hardwood forests and a rich history of gardening, reaching well back into the 18th century. I find it fascinating the continuity between then and now, a continuity that often runs right through the gardens of our parents and grandparents. In fact this continuity extends back to the time of our indigenous forbears! We know this from the earliest European explorers of our area (like Hernando DeSoto, and the later naturalist explorers like Mark Catesby and John Lawson and William Bartram) who chronicled native plants and the way which they were used by indigenous peoples. It's cool to think of the history of human enjoyment of that very plant sitting there in our yard, as well as the place of that plant in the ecosystem going way back eons of time. Kind of cool really.

I hope you enjoy and have a blessed late fall season! Joel

July Gardening

Greetings Gardening Friends,

Well, we got through the worst of the heat wave but just barely for some plants and critters. Now we're back to the familiar mid-nineties and high humidity that we here in Columbia have all come to know and love.

I wrote to you last week about watering during this heat wave and have pasted in that note below. I want to add something here about irrigation systems and shrubs. I have noticed a tendency folks have pretty much everywhere to irrigate too often and not deep enough. Irrigating too often may cause the ground to be damp more often than it should be, inviting fungal diseases. Irrigating too shallowly does not allow water to get to the deeper roots, and also trains the plant roots to stay on the surface to grab water before it evaporates. What I have just written is true of lawn irrigation, but is even more true regarding the irrigation of shrubs and perennials and trees. Generally I would say irrigate less often and for a longer time period (more deeply). Try to avoid irrigating in the late afternoon since this will keep the ground moist all evening promoting fungus growth. For those who have a timed drip irrigation system in their beds, I would also suggest irrigating more deeply and less often. Mulch  really helps water retention of course.

Speaking of mulch, this is one time of year when it is especially needed. 

This time of year is one of strong growth in plants. It is a venus-fly-trap eat venus-fly-trap world out there, and plants are trying to make as much food as they can, which also means  that they are devoting some of that energy to making even more leaves for making even more food. More leaves means more transpiration which increases demand for soil water, so on and so forth. After summer flowering, plants start to divert a lot more energy to formation of fruits and seeds. Some times it is best to pick off fruits - such as camellia - so as to divert more energy into the growth and development of buds - next seasons flowers and leaves. For common non native cultivated plants that continually bloom (like knock out roses) there is a greater demand for nitrogen, which means there is a need for fertilizer. But fertilizer (a kind of salt) requires a lot more water, so unless you are going to be very very diligent about watering this is not a great time to fertilize. 

Why is this? Remember that thing called osmosis you learned about in high school? Water is always wanting to spread solute happiness around as evenly as possible by having equal concentrations of dissolved solutes (such as dissolved salts or ions) everywhere. So if two bodies of water are separated by a semipermeable membrane  (across which water can flow but not the stuff dissolved in it), the water will move from the side that has a lower concentration of dissolved solutes to the side with a higher concentration, thus equalizing the concentrations. So, if the water around the root hairs of a plant has a high concentration of dissolved solutes like fertilizer, it can actually cause water to flow FROM the root out to the soil to equalize these concentrations. This is not cool for the plant, especially in the summer when so much water leaving the leaves and demand for water is up. (For those interested osmosis is a variation of the law of entropy - but that is for another day.)

The moral of the story is that unless you want to water a lot - and you may well want to if want to produce a bumper crop of knock out rose blossoms in mid summer - you may just wait to fertilize. 

 This is of course not a great time to transplant either. But it is OK to plant from container to soil IF you are diligent in watering.

There are exceptions to this planting rule. Right now is a very good time to dig and divide and replant Iris for example. If your lily leaves are turning brown this means that   they are not producing food for the bulbs, so if you need to dig and divide lilies you can do that now too.

Since you are almost certainly already watering annuals regularly you can fertilize them, and...I like this...you can still sow seeds for some of my most favorite annuals for fall color - such as zinnias (I love zinnias).

It is hot out there, and thankfully after this Sunday we also have water! So guess what is growing like crazy - WEEDS!. I know, it is terrible to do plant profiling, but some plants are genetically designed to grow and propagate like crazy in disturbed soils (i.e., gardens). That's their biological niche and they aim to be first out of the chute, or dirt. Many species of weeds propagate by seed only - such as "mimosa weed" and crabgrass. It is very helpful not to let them go to seed. Some weeds need to be yanked out root and all. Either way, the weeds are likely growing faster than you can keep up!

Speaking of crazy growth, this is the time for vines and saplings to take off. By now wisteria, virginia creeper, trumpet vine, cross vine, akebia, bramble, ivy, vinca, honeysuckle, smilax, kudzu, and a dozen other vines are starting to swamp, strangle and block the sun from your plants. Saplings of cherry laurel, sweet gum, hackberry, and oak are popping up and getting established everywhere. July is actually a VERY GOOD time for cleaning out jungly growth from shrubs, flower beds and trees. I would love to dejunglfy your place this summer. So let me know...It is actually possible to eradicate almost all these vines. And remember, they are competing with your shrubs not only for light (as they swallow them up), but also for water and nutrients

As to pruning, it is still hydrangea pruning time - the regular big leafed hydrangea and our wonderful native oak leaf hydrangea. There is really no super great way to prune hydrangeas, but the time to do so is soon after they bloom since they set buds for the next season on this season's new growth. When hydrangeas get big and haggard looking it is good to cut about a third of the stems down to the ground. This seems to have a stimulating effect on the overall growth. It is best to do this with the tallest or most bent or oddly shaped shoots. It's not a great idea to clip back everything a foot or whatever...new growth will send out shoots from the cut area and produce lots of flower buds, and then the next season the whole plant will be top heavy. I guess it is much of an art than a science pruning these guys. As to oak leafs, it is best not to prune them at all - BUT, as I have seen first hand recently, oak leaf hydrangeas can get very large, and the shoots so heavy with blooms that they just fall over, crack, and often die. That's the time for a pruning...

Lots of shrubs can be pruned or cut back now as long as new growth for bud production isn't needed. Camellias for example...Many camellias have too many branches and need to be thinned out. Some need to have bottom limbs removed since camellia limbs on the ground promotes camellia blight. Some camellias look better "legged up." All this can be done now. Many shrubs not known for blossoms can be pruned and cut back about as well now as any other time. 

Did I say it was a good time to mulch?

Well, this should do...below is the text from the brief note I sent out last week about watering...

Stay cool and have a great 4th of July.

Joel

Dear Gardening Friends,

Well, the forecast for the next few weeks is pretty crazy in terms of heat and absence of rain. Just wanted to put out a note about watering, and a word on behalf of my feathered friends.

A lot of plants will be highly stressed over the next few months. Deep hand watering of anything planted or transplanted in the last year would be a good idea, or for that matter any non native plant in dry sunny corners of your yard. If you are going to be away and would like for me to stop by and do some watering, I can do that. 

Also, this will be a very very tough period for birds. They will be parched, and for any birds raising a second brood of little ones, or mating and laying eggs late, it is a very tough time for the little guys. Water is good - very good. Even if you don't have a bird bath you can let the hose run around a plant that needs watering and the birds will find it and be splashing around in no time. 

I know some of you worry about me working in the heat, and I appreciate that. I will be working as usual - though I will be taking more precautions - a better hat, a cooler with ice, and as I tend to do in the summer, I will be following the shade. I also hope to start working earlier. I typically find the heavy humid dead air of the morning to be worse than the heat later in the day, but this heat will be worse than usual. 

This is of course not a great time to plant - especially in a sunny location (though as long as one waters regularly it is normally OK to plant in the summer), but it is a good time to clear out beds, get rid of vines and ivy and unwanted trees and so forth. And it is still barely OK to prune azaleas and still have blooms for next year if you do that in the next week or so. 

I got a couple of cool gardening books for Father's Day one of which is entitled Gardens and Historic Plants of the Antebellum South. I have also been reading William Bartram's Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida(short title). I hope to be sharing insights and reflections inspired by these works over the course of the summer. I am pretty focused on learning more and more and am beginning a process of being able to do better design work as well.

Well, hang in there and be safe!

Happy Passover/Easter

Greetings Gardening Friends,

Just when you thought summer had already arrived - bang - a beautiful cold front arrives. I hope you get to enjoy the cool Spring weather this Easter weekend.

GM Hopkins had a wonderful take on Spring (see below). I like the fact that after his initial exultation he turns neither to majestic wilderness scenes nor to stunning gardens for his evidence of Spring's beauty and bounty, but to weeds, to birds' eggs and song, to pear tree blossoms and to the blue descending sky.

All this beauty is an echo stretching out through time from the deep past - an echo of that initial beauty of Eden's garden.

And then there is the darker side - this beauty is fragile, and always in danger of being soured by human actions. Human beings - uniquely able to speak of beauty and uniquely able to ruin it. I think there is an Easter message in there somewhere...

Which brings me back to gardening - after the poem...

Spring

GM Hopkins

NOTHING is so beautiful as spring—

When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;

Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush

Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring

The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;

The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush

The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush

With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.

What is all this juice and all this joy?

A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning

In Eden garden.—Have, get, before it cloy,

Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,

Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,

Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.

I am blessed to be able to work in such beautiful places day to day. This work is good for me both physically and emotionally/spiritually and I am thankful to each and every person who has employed me and trusted me with a special place. I like plants as you know, especially trees, as well as the other critters that inhabit our garden spaces, spaces that are often filled not just with plants and animals but also memories, memories of loved ones who built and planted, or perhaps even children who played and climbed (or searched for Easter eggs) in the very same spaces. Sometimes the memories are of ourselves as children.

Our gardens are much more than plots and pieces of earth to manage well. The deeper joy of my work is to be able to help you find pleasure and joy and peace in your garden spaces. It is easy to feel anxiety and lose the joy of being outside when things are overgrown and overwhelming. The smile of pleasure and peace in a garden restored is my biggest reward. In our hectic, frazzled, frenetic, electronic world it is nice to have a space where we can just, you know, be...rest...notice...I hope I help bring that about.

There is so much that can be done in April - a great month for bringing order out of chaos. But I won't interrupt the mood of this e-mail with lists of things to do. For now I just want to wish you a blessed happy Easter/Passover. I hope you have a joyful weekend.

Peace,

Joel

Sweet Bay

What a beautiful South Carolina January day it is today! I hope that you are able to get out and enjoy some of it! As for me, I am home bound for a few days while my work van has some transmission work done. Fun...But, I am taking advantage of the down time by doing some planning/design work and a lot of that admin stuff that goes with having a small business.

Recently I had opportunity to recommend to someone a Sweet Bay tree. I was looking it up online in order to e-mail pictures when it dawned on me that there are actually four separate plants that use the common name "Sweet Bay."

I first learned of "Sweet Bay" in Dr. Wade Batson's renowned Spring Flora class at USC back in '79. We had visited a "Carolina Bay" site in the coastal plain. These Carolina Bay areas are rich in botanical diversity, and there I first came upon the "Bay" or "Loblolly Bay" or "Sweet Bay" tree. This has been the "Sweet Bay" tree in my head all these years.

Thus I have had some confusion since, as I said, there are in fact four different species of plants found in our area that may go by the name "Sweet Bay." And the most common one is not even the Sweet Bay of Carolina Bay fame.

The four kinds of "Sweet Bay" are:

1. Sweetbay (Magnolia virginiana) (Magnolia family) - Swamp Bay, Laurel Magnolia - native (Check out the Duke and Wikipedia articles).

Many cultivars of this the most commonly planted Sweet Bay have been developed for gardens. It is a wonderful plant.

2. Loblolly Bay (Gordonia lasianthus) (Tea family) - Holly Bay, Black Laurel, Summer Camellia - native ( see the Duke see and Wikipedia articles.

This is the the Sweet Bay I first learned about in botany class. It is a beautiful and wonderfully fragrant native tree and one I wholeheartedly recommend for local gardeners.

(Photo from Flickr site of hdescopeland - photo and text posted 2 August 2009 revised 2 October 2010).

3. Swamp Bay (Persea palustris) (Laurel Family) - Swamp Redbay, Sweet Bay - native (note the Duke and USDA write ups).

This is a small tree native to the coastal plain and which I also learned of years ago, but had lumped together with the Loblolly Bay.

4. Bay Laurel (Laurus nobilis) - Bay Laurel, True Laurel, Sweet Laurel, Sweet Bay - this bay tree is native to the Mediterranean. See see Wikipedia and Blog articles).

This is the famous culinary "bay leaf" tree and the least common of the "Sweet Bays" in our area. We are at the northern end of its range but it is planted here and has escaped and become naturalized.

Hope you enjoyed this trip down Sweet Bay Lane.

Joel

January Gardening

And the seasons they go 'round and 'round - and 2012 is here! Happy New Year!

January doesn't seem like such a great time to attend to gardening needs, it being so cold and all. But there really are a lot of things that can be done in January that will make a difference in the upcoming gardening season as well as make your garden more attractive in the mean time.

As for me, I just love being outside in South Carolina in the winter - gardening or walking or hiking, it doesn't really matter. The air is so clear this time of year, and the sky is so blue, and the pine trees so, well, green! Any chance I get to look up at a clear Carolina blue sky through pine trees is a treat for me. And did I mention no mosquitos and low humidity (and no wasps)! Some things just stand out better in winter, like tree bark, white Sycamore bark being the best example. And I don't know why but I like seeing those dangling Sycamore and Sweet Gum balls hanging on, or last spring's Tulip Poplar flower brackets pointing skyward high in the tree. Birds are easier to see in winter, especially hawks! Sometimes it's the crows yacking at them that alerts me to look up, but other times it's the Hawks themselves screeching. I've been seeing a group of three Red Tails all around the Forest Lake and Trenholm Road area - not sure if it's always the same three though.

Days getting longer always puts a little skip in my step. It's encouraging at many levels, and knowing that longer day length or shorter night length triggers various hormonal chages in plants makes it more fun to watch the season unfold.

But what I think I like the most about winter outside are the buds, as in tree buds and plant buds. Inside are the tiny leaves and/or flowers, either well-formed in miniature, or at least already differentiated as cells ready to take on full form. What energy the tree didn’t put into its seeds or store in its roots last summer and fall it has packed into these buds. Indeed, as last summer wound down, and the buds started to form which would lie dormant over the winter, the tree “knew” to transfer important energy sources from the leaves to the buds. These buds are rich in energy which is why deer and other animals like to eat them. The softer tissues of the buds are protected from the cold by tough bud scales. These scales leave scars when they fall off, scars which tell stories about how the twig has grown over the last few years.

OK, enough of that. Here are some good things to do in your garden in January...

Apply mulch - Mulch regulates soil temperature and moisture and does a great job suppressing weed growth in the spring.

Remove unwanted vines and trees - English Ivy competes with your shrubs for water and food and is easier to remove in the winter making way for proper bed maintenance in the spring. Although Wisteria is not an evergreen, it does not hide itself very well. It is actually easier to track down and get rid of Wisteria's underground runners (and root hubs) in the winter when access in and out of beds is easier. Green Smilax shoots are easier to see in the winter, and the tubers can be removed just as well in January as in July. Honeysuckle is not evergreen and the bark also gives it away. It can be yanked quite easily right out of the ground. Wild grape vines have very distinctive bark as well. These vines and others are so aggressive that they swarm your other plants in early spring faster than you can shake a stick. May as well get rid of them now. Winter is also a good time to remove some of the more common pesky large shrubs and trees such as Cherry Laurel, Ligustrum, Hackberry, and so forth. Even oak saplings are easy to see and remove, as they often keep some of their leaves in the winter.

Transplant - January is a good time to transplant shrubs.

Plant - January is a great time to plant a tree! Trees are good.

Clean up - One good thing about winter is that it is easier to see and remove those piles of bricks and concrete or rocks in the back of a flower bed, or old rotted landscaping timbers, or old planting pots hiding here and there. May as well get rid of that stuff while you're noticing it. It is a good time to remove dead wood from Azaleas or rake old leaves or old flower petals out from under Camellias.

Prune, Clip, and Trim - Obviously January is not the time to prune plants grown for their flowers (best to wait until after they bloom), but it can be a good time to neaten up ungainly hedges or prune tree limbs that are hanging over your shrubs. Boxwood can be selectively thinned in January and made more ready to fill out come spring. Some shrubs like Camellia Sasanqua that bloom in the fall can be pruned safely in January. Winter can also be a good time for neatening up non flowering hedges. Why be anoyed all winter by ungainly shrubs? January is a good time to trim back monkey grass, get rid of the dying stalks and leaves of last year's daylilies, cut back Ginger Lilies falling all over each other (and other plants), remove old Lantana stems, and so forth. OK, there are opposite views about when to cut back Lantana. Personally I do not think the very slight risk of water seeping into a cut stem and causing rot or fungal problems outweighs the unslightliness of gangly Lantana stems. I am actually not convinced that cutting back Lantana in the winter increases the chance of disease or cold damage, especially if one gives the crown area a good blanket of mulch. Some of the same arguments apply to Ginger Lilies and other plants. If Ginger Lilies are lying over other plants or lawn I would cut them now, and if not I'd wait until late February.

Prepare Soil - January is a good time to start to get the ground ready for a spring planting of vegetables. Bacteria and worms don’t stop working in our mild winters when the soil rarely freezes, and late fall (I think of December before Christmas as late fall) is an active time for worms and bacteria to work on decomposing leaves and enriching soil. Turning the soil in a planting bed, especially if it has some leaves or leaf litter covering it, can be a good way to prep the soil for an early spring planting.

Water - Remember to water in winter. Not only do plants still need water to live, but keeping the soil watered helps ameliorate the impact of a cold snap, just as putting water on peach buds during a hard freeze can help save the buds!

Plan - January is a great time to start thinking about and planning for the spring. Since we begin to get a lot of new growing activity by late February, Spring can sort of sneak up on us here in Columbia and by the time we’re ready for it we may have missed a window of opportunity. Best to get out the garden books and catalogs and start planning now, rather than then.

Of course I am available for these and other garden tasks. PLEASE feel free to forward this link along to anyone that you think could use my services - Columbia, Greensboro, and other select towns in the Carolinas.

Thanks,

Joel

December Gardening

It is hard to believe that December is upon us, but it is, and it is starting to get colder, and getting dark ever earlier, and holiday season signs are everywhere.

I suspect with all the stuff to do for Christmas, and Christmas parties to attend, and given the cold starting to descend upon us, that a lot of us take a break from thinking about our gardens. But there are actually some useful things to do in the garden in December.

December is a super time to transplant. Now that we have had or will soon have a couple of decent freezes plants are falling to sleep - going into dormancy (kind of like animal hibernation) - which means first that there is less transpiration going on (none in deciduous trees and shrubs obviously) and thus much less demand being put on the roots by the leaves to get water (for photosynthesis), and second, that the plant is not going to sprout new shoots and buds if it is cut back somewhat. This means that when we transplant at this time of year it is much less traumatic for the plant. But plant roots do grow slowly over the winter and so that when the weather does heat up in the Spring and the plant comes out of dormancy it has had a chance for its roots to set and is in better shape to survive its first summer.

December is also a very good time to plant shrubs and trees, many fruit trees, some hardy perennials, and some bulbs.

December is a good time to get rid of vines and tree saplings that have been taking over the garden. Even with deciduous vines it is actually quite easy to see them this time of year, and much easier to see some evergreen vines. Now is a perfect time to take out English Ivy. English Ivy is an ongoing maintenance challenge and it also competes with shrubs for water and nutrients. Pulling Ivy out is less stressful on the plants around it when the pulling is done in cooler weather. One thing I have noticed is that when Spring does finally come many vines like Wisteria take off so fast, that before we wrap our heads around the fact that it is Spring the vines have already wormed their way through our shrubs and bushes. And we look, and sigh...

December is a good time to apply mulch to boxwood, azaleas and many other shrubs, especially after cleaning out old plant litter and dead wood. Since it also a good time to apply a light feeding to many shrubs (to help root growth over the winter) some folks like to use a mulch like Dixie Mix, or to sprinkle a slow release granular fertilizer in with say shredded hardwood bark (my favorite mulch for around here).

December can be the right time to prune of cut back unsightly overgrown foundation plants, especially those whose flowering buds are not already set. One could argue that February is better, but if you just don't want to look at an overgrown or unsightly bush or row of bushes all winter it won't do any harm to prune it now since the plant is dormant. Boxwood too can be selectively pruned now to allow in more light and air which will stimulate bud growth in early Spring.

December is a good time to start to get the ground ready for a Spring planting of vegetables. Bacteria and worms don't stop working in our mild winters when the soil rarely freezes, and late fall (I think of December before Christmas as late fall) is an active time for worms and bacteria to work on decomposing leaves and enriching soil. Turning the soil in a planting bed, especially if it has some leaves or leaf litter can be a good way to prep the soil for an early Spring planting.

Remember to water in winter. Not only do plants still need water to live, but keeping the soil watered helps ameliorate the impact of a cold snap, protecting plant tissue much as putting water on peach buds during a hard freeze can help save the buds!

Best of all, December is a great time to start thinking about and planning for the Spring. Since we begin to get a lot of new growing activity by late February, Spring can sort of sneak up on us here in Columbia and by the time we're ready we may have missed a window of opportunity. Best to get out the garden books and catalogs and start planning now, rather than then.

I hope you enjoyed reading this. As always I am available to help however I can.

Maybe you have some other ideas to share about gardening in December - especially here in the midlands of SC.

Happy December...

Joel

Sasanqua

Folks have been saying that this is not going to be a great fall for leaf color, but it is sure a great fall for Camellia Sasanqua color. I don't remember the Sasanquas ever being so prolific. I fondly think of my former Organic professor Dr. Teague when I pass by his old place at the corner of Adger and Trenholm and see the long row of beautiful Sasanquas there along Trenholm. And yes, all Sansanquas are Camellias but not all Camellias are Sasanquas.

Professor Sargent

Red Professor Sargent Camellias were in full bloom yesterday, January 5, in Columbia, in the Forest Lake area were I was working. This is not a noteworthy photograph. I took it mostly for getting the gist. The particular flower is not as deep red as the variety tends to be, is a tad cold-burnt, and has a glare off the petals from the direct sun.

Professor Sargent is a wonderful old heirloom Camellia variety - kind of peony-like, and perfect as a cut flower.

January Gardening

I know that January doesn't seem like such a great time to attend to gardening needs, but there really are a lot of things that can be done in January that will both make a difference in the upcoming gardening season and make your garden more attractive right away.

Lest we gardeners feel like we're doing all the work, well...a whole-lot-of work is already being done by plants and bacteria and fungi. Spring gardening can be a lot more productive when we help natural processes along in the Winter and make things ready for a burst of life in the Spring. Better not to have the excitement of Spring ruined by fast growing Wisteria and other vines.

Here are some good things to do in January...

Apply mulch - Mulch regulates soil temperature and moisture and does a great job suppressing weeds. It is often best to apply mulch right on top of leaves and straw since they then provide superb nutrients for your beds.

Get rid of unwanted vines and trees - English Ivy competes with your shrubs for water and food and is easy to remove in the Winter making way for proper bed maintenance in the Spring. Although Wisteria is not an evergreen, it does not hide itself very well. It is is actually easier to track down and get rid of Wisteria's underground runners (and root hubs) in the Winter when access in and out of beds is easier. Green Smilax shoots are easier to see in the winter, and the tubers can removed just as well in January as in July. The bark of Honeysuckle vine is also easier to see in Winter. It can usually be yanked right out of the ground. These three vines are so aggressive that they swarm your other plants in early Spring faster than you can shake a stick. May as well get rid of them now.

Winter is also a good time to remove some of the more common pesky large shrubs and trees such as Cherry Laurel, Ligustrum, Hackberry, Oak, and so forth. Oak saplings normally keep their leaves in the Winter and they just stick right out against the brown background.

Transplant - January is a good time to transplant shrubs and small trees.

Plant - January is a great time to plant a tree!

Clean up - One good thing about winter is that it is easier to see those piles of bricks and concrete or rocks in the back of a bed, old rotted landscaping timbers, or vines wrapped all over a fence or tree trunk. May as well get rid of that stuff while you're noticing it!

Prune and Clip - Obviously January is not the time to prune most flowering plants (best to wait until after they bloom), but it can be a great time to prune tree limbs that are hanging over your shrubs. Plants need fresh air and light.

Winter can also be a good time for neatening up non flowering hedges.

Trim - January is a good time to trim back monkey grass, get rid of the dying stalks and leaves of last year's daylilies, cut back Ginger lilies fallen all over each other, remove old Lantana stems and so forth.

I of course am available for these and other garden tasks. PLEASE feel free to forward this link along to anyone that you think could use my services - Columbia, Greensboro, and other select towns in the Carolinas.

Thanks,

Joel

Nandina Hills

I have been working off and on over the last few years on a beautiful home and property in the Columbia area near to where I grew up. This piece of land slopes down to a lake and has several smaller hillsides contained in it as part of the general irregular slope of the land. These hillsides are covered with large rocks, granite I think, many a couple of yards across. Working on the site has been a lot like playing on a mountain stream bed, hopping from boulder to boulder.

 

I asked the owner (who bought the house 50 years ago) about the rocks, thinking they must have been brought in as part of a design. No, he said, they were "native." Apparently there is a quarter-mile band of such rocks that runs across this area of the sand hills. I never knew about it even though I grew up not far away.

This property provides a perfect example of the work that I enjoy doing. Obviously much thought and love had once been put into the design and care of the plants and trees. Time and perfectly understandable neglect had taken its toll however. More recently a daughter has been working as much as possible on keeping up the garden and even adding some nice features to the place, but she is a busy person and things around here just grow so fast! Over the years many trees and shrubs have died. Much of this has been due to the loss of a large number of pines to pine borers, and a few giant tulip poplars to lightning and wind.

Vines of all sorts have swarmed the area choking out desired plants. Large saplings/small trees, many less than desirable, have sprung up all around. Many of them have themselves been covered in vines! Although for the most part this is not a typical traditional southern garden, there are many azaleas and camellias in one of the flatter and damper ares. I have done some pruning of dead and overly-gangly azaleas and camellias and am gradually bringing the area back to shape and health.

I have spent even more time trying to conquer the mass of native and non native vines and trees swarming the place like fire ants! Everywhere there is the familiar stuff that grows like mad here, the vines especially - English ivy, honeysuckle, vinca, potato vine, muscadine, moonseed vine, cucumber vine, five leaved akebia, fox grape, crossvine, trumpet vine, and smilax. There is also a lot of native switch cane (which I kind of like but which the homeowner does not), and which I have been digging out gradually. There had been a very large thick grove of honeysuckle bush which has now been tamed, and of course all those saplings - princess tree, mimosa, elderberry, cherry laurel, hackberry, maple, red bud and pine - everywhere. Since there is a large beautiful sweet gum tree on the site - one of the largest I have ever seen - there are thus also sweet gum babies abounding.

I have come across many dogwood stumps. Since the dogwood demise red bud has become the default under story tree, and the owner has wanted the red buds preserved. There are also lots of elderberry of which the owner is fond so have I left those too.

And then there is the nandina...Folks have different and often passionate thoughts about nandina. It is not native and can be invasive, choking out other plants, and the berries, so they say, are not as nutritious for birds as some other native berries. I can take or leave nandinas. But the nandinas have taken to these rocky hills like a fish to water and when they are in full fall regalia they are beautiful. After I cleared much of the unwanted stuff from the hillsides and cleared off ivy and honeysuckle from many of the rocks, and generally just made the place look less unruly, the nandinas have really stood out. And as the sun falls lower into the sky, these nandinas and their berries glisten in the glow. I have to say they are downright beautiful. You could call the place nandina hills or nandina acres!

 

 I once found several little clumps of wild ginger in damp areas between rocks here and there, and have taken care not to harm them. I also found and was able to save saplings of many interesting local trees like sassafras and black gum (the latter being my favorite tree).

Gradually this amazing property is starting to reflect its former glory, and that is very satisfying,

Obsessively Green Gardening

Something in the air on this gorgeous September morning has me thinking gardening. I love fall gardening. So much neat stuff to do...

Which has me thinking again about the concept of "obsessively green gardening." I see "green" in the titles of lots of lawn care and landscaping businesses, but what does it look like to take a no-BS approach to green and really obsess over green gardening...

I am thinking more of existing properties than new construction.

Here are some characteristics as I think of it. Maybe you could add to my list.

- Low to No Emissions, as in equipment, which means manual mowers, raking, edging, etc. I am not sure electric powered or battery powered equipment would qualify since the production of the electricity is far from green...I am not sold on no-til gardening but the thought of working this red clay soil without a tiller is daunting.

- Native Plants as much as possible. Native plants are more able better to bear up to the vagaries of our weather, and thus require less water and less overall maintenance...

- NO herbicides or pesticides or chemical fertilizer. None. Zero. Hmm. Would Roundup qualify since it is broken down so quickly in the soil? Tempting, but I think not.

- Water Conservation - major focus, both from a usage and a waste standpoint. Rain barrels a must, rain gardens where possible. Cisterns are very expensive. Native plants would help reduce water use. No chemicals would make for less polluted run off.

- Lawns - developing a new outlook! They need to be smaller, and where possible use more native grasses, and tolerate more weeds. What is with our obsession with lawns?

- Biodiversity - promoting more of it, as in more species of plants, insects, and animals. Choosing plants that invite more bees and birds and butterflies - especially plants that provide food in the winter in terms or berries and nuts. Reducing chemical use will allow for increased microbiological diversity in soil which will mean healthier soil and healthier insects and thus healthier birds

- Recycling - yes, this means compost bins or compost heaps - why waste all the leaves and clippings and biodegradable waste products? New compost technology reduces odors. And using recyclables, as in using recycled or recyclable gardening products as much as possible - plant containers, landscaping boards, lawn furniture, mulching materials, etc.

- Food - growing more of it! Whether in a dedicated garden or mixed in here and there organic fruits and vegetables can help with grocery bills and spice up many a recipe, or given to the local food bank!

- Vehicles - what about the vehicles used to get to a site?

So what would you add to the list?

Would you want to hire an excessively green gardener to work in your garden?

Obsessively Green Gardening

I was driving out of my neighborhood this morning and passed a crew working on a yard, doing the typical maintenance stuff with power mowers, power blowers, power edgers, etc. Their van was parked on the street, its name written boldly across the side. I would not have paid the van any attention except that that I saw the word “Green” in the name. I think the van itself was green. Granted, the crew was cutting green grass, and their van was colored green, but I see anything else about the operation that was “green.”

Which got me thinking again…What would uber-green (as in hyper green – better yet, let’s call it "obsessively green"), what would obsessively green gardening look like, especially in the urban/suburban/exurban setting?

Suburban gardening and yard maintenance is noteworthy for its pollution and toxicity. Almost all power equipment pollutes the air much more even than do cars. Then there is the noise – oh my has suburbia become a NOISY place to live. Power blowers are the worst, but power mowers and weed whackers certainly add to the noise pollution.

Water pours off roofs, driveways, and lawns carrying with it all sorts of nasty stuff – grease, oil, tire and asphalt residue from the driveway and roof; animal waste, pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers from the lawn. The runoff goes right into our streams and rivers and lakes. This polluted runoff not only contributes to increased costs for water treatment downstream, but dramatically impacts the ecology of streams and rivers, effecting amphibians and fish and other aquatic animals, and the animals that feed upon them. The horrible state of Jordan Lake is a prime example of one end result of all this.

Are we really comfortable with the trace elements of these toxic chemicals in our water supply? There is no treatment that gets rid of it all.

We grow grasses and plants and trees that are not native to our area and not adapted to the particulars of our climate and soil, so we coddle them with excessive amounts of water, or douse them with fungicides when the clay soil is too moist. We use expensive treated water to keep these water-sucking non-native plants alive, water that could and should be preserved for other needs. We could reduce demand for treated water by catching roof runoff in rain barrels, or even (for those who can do so), catch roof and general runoff with cisterns. Large properties can have beautiful rain gardens where much of this water is allowed time to seep more slowly into the ground water supply, and at the same time provide habitat, food, and shelter for birds and small reptiles and mammals.

Most of us love it when birds and other wildlife show up in our yards and gardens. I think everyone loves bluebirds, watching them perched on a tree limb gazing downward, diving to the ground to snatch up a bug, and returning to their perch. And what child does not love robins! I watched a robin a few weeks ago put about ten worms in his mouth before returning to a nest. Robins also eat insects, the kind that live in a biologically healthy lawn.

Bluebirds need to eat insects in order to survive. We love bluebirds, yet we succumb to pesticide ads that promise to “kill everything” in our yards, a promise which I suspect is pretty truthful as advertising goes. In the “perfect lawn” as advertised on TV there are no bugs, few worms, and no weeds - just grass, the whole lawn looking and being little different than AstroTurf. It is a single crop farm, the crop being grass, with everything else dead.

The herbicides that kill the broadleaf “weeds” that interrupt the perfection of our lawns also seep into the soil to be ingested by worms which robins then feeds to their chicks. The leaf eating insects that manage to survive the initial dousing ingest huge amounts of this poison as they feed upon the grasses and other remaining plants (if there are any), which said bluebird takes into its body with each bug he eats.

On Memorial Day weekend I saw a lady out mowing her lawn with a manual rotary mower. The mowed lawn looked quite fine. No air pollution there! There have long existed manual edgers. There are even manual blowers – OK, not really, but I was thinking of rakes and brooms. I've yet to find an emissions free tiller other than a shovel and hoe, but we need tillers in this crazy red subsoil we work with in Greensboro. Is there a powerful enough electric tiller out there?

Though they are not pollution free (the electricity comes from a power plant somewhere) there are very good electric versions of most of these same tools.

So these are some of the things I think of when I think of obsessively green gardening. Maybe you have some ideas as well.