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

February Gardening

Dear Gardening Friends,

I went for a long walk yesterday, Sunday the 6th, and saw all kinds of things blooming - forsythia, Japanese magnolia, daphne, camellia, tea olive, quince, lenten rose, and lots of wildflowers, including one of my favorites, a flower called lamium, that little purple flower that shoots up with a tuft of beautiful blue/purple flowers in a whorl around the stem, and dandelions, lots of dandelions!

Tree buds are swelling more and more, as they like to do this time of year, just waiting.....anticipating....I like buds. And birds. This can actually be a hard time for birds that gather seed and berries or eat insects, since seeds and berries may have been picked over, and not may insects are out yet. So it's a good time to "feed the birds, tuppence a bag."

And just when you think spring has come on warm weekends like we just had, February can surprise you. Do you remember the great snow of 1973? It was the most significant snow event in Columbia's recorded history. I remember it well and have written about it here - "The Great Snow of '73."

Before I get into all the good stuff to do in the garden in February, let me offer these words....Enjoy your yard! Bird activity is picking up, bulbs are breaking through and blooming, buds are swelling, wildflowers are blooming and it's generally a wonderful time of the year. Gardens are works in progress - never finished and never done and subject to decay and chaos - you know, kind of like people (well me anyway)...So...embrace the work-in-progress and enjoy your special place in the sun no matter what all needs to be done!

That said...

February is sort of THE month for pruning - except of course for trees and shrubs that will be blooming this spring or which bloom off last years growth. It is the best time to do heavy pruning and cutting back of overgrown foundation shrubs like holly or cleyara or pittosporum or euonymous. and if you have not yet cut back your lantana and butterfly bushes and hibiscus now is the time to do that too. It's a great time to prune Camellia sasanqua.

Roses should be pruned back over the next few weeks as well. Those of you with knock out roses - this is a good time to take the down to a couple of feet. The things grow like mad so they will over your head by summer. OK, a digression...I have come to peace with knock out roses. As long as I don't think of them as roses (given the absence of aroma and lame individual flowers), and do think of them as easy to grow, hard to kill profusely blooming shrubs, they're OK. I fact, I kind of dig them now. And speaking of roses, it is time to plant roses. Maybe this year will be your year to plant a rose garden!

Now is the best time to prune fruit trees like cherry, peach, pear - the "stone" fruits.

February is a good time to mow or otherwise cut back mondo grass and liriope. If you have not clipped back old worn leaves and stems of your lilies - including ginger lilies - do so this month.

With all this pruning it is tempting to think, OK, may as well fertilize too. But it is still early to stimulate plant growth too much. I remember my grandmother telling me many times of one disastrous year In the late 50's or early 60's a year that there was a deep freeze the first week of April (I think she said it went down to 4 degrees F) after the "sap was running" in all of her azaleas. She lost about half of them. That may have been a bit of a freak occurrence, but it serves as a good reminder. Weather patterns are pretty crazy over these months and we need to be careful not to stimulate a lot of new growth only to see it killed by a spring freeze.

February is a good time to dig and divide perennials like black eyed susan and cone flower, ground covers, ferns, and so forth.

February is still a good time to transplant shrubs and still give plants a chance to adapt to their new spots before the heat of late spring and summer come along. One problem I see often is that shrubs that are intended for shade or partial shade being suddenly exposed to full sun because of the loss of canopy trees. Once healthy acubas, camellias, azaleas, hydrangeas and the like are now struggling. So now is a good time to move them to a happier spot out of the blazing sun.

Oh, did I say February is a great time to plant new shrubs and trees? It is. So, let's get the plans made and the plants bought and planted before the hot weather comes!

For those of you who love birds and butterflies in your garden, perhaps this would be a good year for your garden to become a Certfified Wildlife Habitat. Look over the Garden for Wildlife page of the National Wildlife Federation website. I would be thrilled to help you attain this certification.

As with December and January, February is a a great time to remove unwanted vines and trees - english ivy competes with your shrubs for water and food and is easier to remove now 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 ow, and the tubers can be removed just as well in February as in July. Honeysuckle is not evergreen but 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.

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

Thanks,

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.

Anticipation

Downed Poplar, Snapping Turtle, Chuck Berry

Today I worked again at Nandina Hills. The Hills have had a tough couple of weeks. About ten days ago a storm uprooted a huge double trunked Tulip Poplar which fell toward the house from 80+ feet away, and quite a ways lower in elevation. The crown of the Poplar tore holes in half the length of the roof (of a house three stories in height the base of which was already quite higher than the base of the tree) and sent limbs through the roof into various upstairs rooms. This was a seriously big tree, possibly close to 150 feet in height. There was a hole about 15 feet across and 6 or so feet deep from the root ball.

The next week another smaller Poplar went down in the other direction across the fence into the neighbor's yard.

The yard also has the tallest Sweet Gum tree I have ever seen outside of Congaree Swamp. Hope it stays put.

I got to play with a very big Snapping Turtle today. His (or her) carapace was maybe 16 inches long and he was chillin' in a little temporary pond formed after the rain. Apparently he has taken up residence on the property. It's quite possible he was/is as old as I am so wanted to afford him all due respect, but I couldn't resist getting him to snap a few sticks of various sizes in two, nor could I resist picking him up a little by his shell and watching his huge legs flail.

I was kind of hoping to see a Water Moccasin today...OK, well, maybe not...but I was worried a little about them given all the frontage on the headwaters of Forest Lake near to what we used to call the "second spillway" growing up in the hood. A lot of water was pouring through the spillway today.

My knee held up pretty well, especially given the extremely hilly and rocky and generally uneven terrain. I tweaked it a few times but not badly.

No deep thoughts today - was just glad to get through the day OK...

Setter, Church, All Time is Present to God

I was waiting at the light at Trenholm and Forest Drive yesterday behind an SUV, and sticking his head out of the back window was an Irish Setter who looked a lot like Clancey. I haven't seen many Irish Setters lately and kind of wonder if the breed has gone out of favor. It was nice to see an Irish Setter again. Here's a picture of Clancey...



I should be in church right now I suppose. I don't say the following for sympathy and it feels kind of pathetic/loserville-ish to admit it, but going to church these days is just hard. I usually spend the time dealing with a flood of emotions rather than focusing on worship/word/fellowship, and find myself looking to get out as quickly as possible so I don't have to talk to anybody. I hope that, before too long, maybe after the dust is settled, it will be different.

I worked hard in the sun yesterday and though I was somewhat winded my knee held up pretty well. There are still things I can't do and I have to build endurance but I am optimistic.

I worked in a yard in which the homeowner grew up, and which has become overgrown, and I uncovered a whole bunch of items that seemed to tell a story of years past - young children at play and gardening projects mostly. It doesn't take long before vines and trees cover up our histories. It is wistful to think of stories told by these items, and the memories embodied perhaps in them, but noticing this history adds meaning to my work. It's not long before the memories of our lives fade entirely. That would seem very depressing to me except that I do think our memories are held intact in the mind of God to whom and for whom all time is present tense. So, oddly, imagining Him seeing and knowing and understanding these life stories and "seeing" them "now" is comforting.

Well, maybe I'll make church tonight somewhere...

Storms, Four O'Clocks, and Overalls

The storm Thursday night in Columbia was the fiercest I have seen in years. Two large oak trees snapped in the property behind my sister's house and took wires down with them. The wind had that loud whooshing sound it has when you worry about worse things...

I love sitting out in the carport or on a porch watching and listening to storms. This was a favorite past time of me and my dad when a good summer storm would whip up - and the more thunder and lightning the better. In later years in Greensboro I enjoyed standing on our little front porch with my daughters during a good storm - and sometimes when threat of lightning was passed running around in the rain!

I never realized how much I loved and missed the sound of wind rushing through tall Loblolly, Shortleaf, and Longleaf Pine trees. It's different. I like it.

Just before the storm hit the Trenholm Plaza area yesterday I spent an hour with a new friend and customer who lived nearby, walking around her garden and talking about what she would like to do in this place or that. In her back garden she had mostly white and blue flowers. I suggested she consider an old favorite of mine, a beautiful flower and plant I enjoyed as a child - Four O'Clocks, and white ones in particular. Four O'Clocks have beautiful foliage, a lovely flower that opens late in the day and through the night, and what I think is a wonderful and unique aroma.

And then there are the seeds, the little black hand grenade-looking seeds that are so easy to collect and sort and replant. I used to collect them in Dixie Cups as a kid, each cup labeled by the color of the flower from which the seed came.

Four O'Clocks grow in sun or part shade. They grow seemingly as an annual but propagate from their seeds and come back each year from an underground tuber.

I told the nice lady that I'd send her a picture of Four O'Clocks, but the only pics I could find had me in them! Here is one from 1977...



I think overalls need to make a fashion comeback. Maybe if I lose 30 pounds they will look even cooler on me...Yes maybe my true calling is to be an overalls model...:-)