jhofley, Author at Michigan Gardener

PLEASE NOTE: In the autumn of 1995, we hatched the idea for a free, local gardening publication. The following spring, we published the first issue of Michigan Gardener magazine. Advertisers, readers, and distribution sites embraced our vision. Thus began an exciting journey of helping our local gardening community grow and prosper.
After 27 years, nearly 200 issues published, and millions of copies printed, we have decided it is time to end the publication of our Print Magazine and E-Newsletter.

Janet’s Journal: Proper Watering

June 1, 2014 • Leave a Comment

Water is the crux of gardening. For a beautiful garden, spend some time sorting out your plants’ individual water needs and how water flows in your soil.

Understand your soil and plants roots to help your plants thrive

By Janet Macunovich / Photos by Steven Nikkila

The hazy, hot eye of summer is upon the garden. Reach for the hose, but use your head for proper watering.

Herbaceous plants—annuals, perennials, vegetables, etc., that have no wood to hold them up—are simply columns of fluids. Roughly 95 percent water, they stand because liquid pressure holds their cell walls taught. Remove much and they fold. Wilted plants might recover with watering, but damage is done during the wilt: from localized scarring of tissues and greater susceptibility to diseases that can enter through weakened tissue to the more general stunting that occurs because the plant was not able to photosynthesize while dehydrated.

Photosynthesizing is the harnessing of solar energy to make food. Plants use sunlight to split water and carbon dioxide molecules in their leaf cells, then recombine those ions with pinches of mineral matter to make sugars, starches, cell thickeners, new cells and everything else they need. Sunlight is the fuel, but water is the main ingredient, lubricant, coolant and transportation device in these leafy factories. Water’s atoms become part of the product, but water also keeps all parts supple and cool enough to work and is the conveyer belt which brings ingredients together and moves finished products from leaf to stem and root. In brighter light and warmer air, the plant factory works faster and more water is needed to keep it running.

No wonder plants ask for water every time we turn around in summer. The best thing we can do in July is to water wisely, not by rote but using a variety of methods geared to specific plants, soil and weather.

One inch of water per week is the average rule, but all plants are not average. Be aware of your plants’ specific water requirements. — One inch of water per week is the average rule, but all plants are not average. Be aware of your plants’
specific water requirements.

Take the standard rule, to give plants one inch of water per week. Some of us set out rain gauges to measure rainfall, then turn on sprinklers as needed to top up to that one inch mark. Others read cumulative precipitation in newspaper weather charts and drag out hoses when rain doesn’t add up. Both are smart practices, better than setting an automatic system to run every day or two, rain or shine. Yet you can water even smarter.

One inch per week is an average, but all plants aren’t average. Some need more because their leaves lose more water to evaporation, or when they’re ripening fruits, or if they were cut back and must fluff out all new foliage. Big, thin leaves may lose so much water through evaporation on a hot, sunny day that the roots can’t keep up even if a hose drips there constantly. As an example, look at a ligularia wilted into a green puddle. Many ligularia plants suffer from root rot in summer too, overwatered by a gardener who reaches for the hose every time the plant wilts. The soil becomes super saturated and airless, so they die of starvation and rot.

Big, thin leaves in the wind and sun may lose so much water so quickly that the roots can’t keep up. Just look at a ligularia spread out on the ground like a green puddle.

Some plants need less water than others on a hot or blustery day. Gray, furry or needle-like leaves are designed for minimal water loss. Hairs that make a leaf gray or furry form a layer around the leaf that prevents immediate evaporation or blow-drying of water vapor emerging from pores. The vapor is trapped and sheltered inside the fuzz where it can linger and do its job as a coolant. To grow a gray leaf plant like lamb’s ear (Stachys lanata) next to a wilter like ligularia, water very carefully, feeling for moisture in the soil at the base of each plant before turning the hose on just one plant or the other.

A gray leaf plant such as lamb’s ear (Stachys lanata) does well where it’s hotter and drier. It has a layer of hair on each leaf where water vapor coming out through the pores is trapped and protected. — A gray leaf plant such as lamb’s ear (*Stachys lanata*) does well where it’s hotter and drier. It has a layer of hair on each leaf where water vapor coming out through the pores is trapped and protected.

The amount of water available to roots isn’t based solely on amount of water poured onto the soil—that inch we measure in a rain gauge or in a wide-mouth container set on the ground under a sprinkler. Whether an inch will mean there’s enough, too little or too much water for the roots varies with type of soil, drainage, air temperature and wind.

Sandy soil has large pores—spaces too big to hold water up against the pull of gravity. Water runs through sand more quickly than through the tiny pores in clay or loam. An inch of water applied all at once to sand may be gone in a day, though in clay it would have lingered at root tips for a week or more. So sand often needs more than an inch of water per week, meted out by the quarter- or half-inch every few days. Sand’s ability to hold water can be improved by topping it with evaporation-suppressing mulch and mixing into it a generous layer of organic matter or pre-moistened water-absorbent polymers (sold as “Water Sorb,” “Soil Moist,” etc.). These materials can absorb and only gradually lose up to 100 times their own weight in water. Yet even fortified this way, a sandy soil will dry more quickly than clay.

Drainage is the movement of water and air through soil pores. Some soils drain quickly, others slowly. Often the drainage depends on the type of soil well below the surface, so even a sand may drain slowly enough that moss grows on its surface. The only sure way to know how long water lingers in a soil, and how soon life-giving air is also back in the soil after a drenching rain, is to dig a hole 3 to 4 inches deep and touch the soil. What feels cool is damp, but aerated. What feels warm or hot is dry. Soil that actually wets the fingertip is still draining.

Doing touch tests can be revelatory.

Even within a city lot with homogenous soil, some spots will dry more quickly than others. South-facing slopes and elevated areas may be dry while soil a few feet away is still moist, since ground tipped to the sun is often warmer and elevated sites catch more breeze and lose more water to evaporation. Dry spots in lawn or garden often show in early spring as dead patches or where one group of plants is slow to emerge.

Bee balm (Monarda didyma) likes a constantly moist soil. If grown on the dry side or where it is very wet and very dry, its chances of developing powdery mildew are greater. — Bee balm (*Monarda didyma*) likes a constantly moist soil. If grown on the dry side or where it is very wet and very dry, its chances of developing powdery mildew are greater.

Lungwort (Pulmonaria species) grown with drought-tolerant bigleaf forget-me-not (Brunnera macrophylla) in the dry shade is more likely to develop mildew than if grown and watered equally with hostas that thrive in constantly moist, well-drained soil. — Lungwort (*Pulmonaria species*) grown with drought-tolerant bigleaf forget-me-not (*Brunnera macrophylla*) in the dry shade is more likely to develop mildew than if grown and watered equally with hostas that thrive in constantly moist, well-drained soil.

We’re also taught to water gardens less often but more deeply so soil is thoroughly wetted, and probably have been told that watering lightly is bad practice since it “brings roots to the surface.” It’s wrong to think of roots “coming to” anything, but even some of the most scholarly horticultural texts use this phrase that misleads gardeners. As Dr. Joe Vargas of Michigan State University once said in a lecture on watering turfgrass, “I’ve looked at a lot of roots very closely, even dissected them, and one thing I’ve never found is a brain. They don’t know where water is. They can’t sniff it out, either.”

Roots grow if the soil around them is moist enough to supply water and nutrients needed to fuel cell division. They don’t grow if soil around them is too dry. Roots in a dry pocket or dry layer will not move toward moisture.

One thing we learn once we know that roots can’t seek out moisture is that root balls of new plants need special attention. A peat-based root ball of a container-grown plant may dry out far more quickly than the garden loam or clay around it. Roots within the peat will simply stop growing. Until a new transplant’s roots have grown beyond the peat and into the garden soil, its root ball has to be checked separately for dryness even if the soil around it is wet.

Another corollary of “roots can’t go to water” is that although it may be best when sprinkling many flowers, trees and shrubs to water deeply so that the whole depth of the root mass is wetted, plants with shallower roots need frequent, light watering. Lawn roots shorten in summer heat so a daily application of 1/8 inch of water is better than a weekly watering that means days-long drought in the surface layers. Annual impatiens evolved in rich leaf litter in damp jungles, and have shallow roots too. Water them often, but don’t waste water by applying enough to wet the deeper soil layers every time.

Another thing we hear often is that we should water early in the day, not in the evening, so leaves can dry off before night and be less susceptible to disease. This makes sense, reducing the amount of time that fungus-prone leaves are covered in fungus-promoting films of water, but then how does Mother Nature get away with evening and nighttime watering? Thunderstorms and rain showers come when they will, yet the normal state of being for plants in the wild is one of good health—maybe a bit of fungus here and there, but life-threatening epidemics as seen in rose gardens are rare.

If water is applied deeply and occasionally to supplement rain—perhaps weekly or bi-weekly—time of day is not so critical as in an every-day automatic system. Occasional watering means occasional openings for fungus infection. Daily late-day watering increases the chances of fungus infection by a factor of seven or more.

For some plants, an increased chance of fungus infection may be offset by water’s cooling effect. As temperatures rise into the 90s, many plants stop photosynthesizing because their root systems can’t supply enough water to keep that process running at the high speed engendered by high heat. Pores in the leaf close, shutting off the upward flow of water like a drain plug in reverse. Without water flow, photosynthesis can’t take place, and the plant can’t produce fresh sugars to fuel its life processes. It lives off its reserve starches until the air cools. Dr. Vargas’ ground-breaking studies of turf irrigation clearly show that watering during the hottest part of the day is best for lawns because it cools the air around the grass, allowing it to continue to photosynthesize.

Other plants are more susceptible to fungus when exposed to drought or alternating wet and dry. If bee balm (Monarda didyma) that thrives in constantly moist soil is kept dry, its chances of developing powdery mildew are greater. Likewise, lungwort (Pulmonaria species) grown with drought-tolerant bigleaf forget-me-not (Brunnera macrophylla) in the dry shade is more likely to develop mildew than if grown in a constantly moist, well-drained hosta bed.

How about all the hype for weeper hoses and trickle irrigation, to conserve water and keep the leaves from ever getting wet? Does it sound like the only good way to deliver water? With weeper hoses, we often see increased spider mite damage. Regular rinsing keeps mites in check. Roadside plants struggling with pore blockage and light reduction under a layer of grime become more susceptible to pests unless rinsed regularly.

If all this seems too much to keep straight, maybe you haven’t been watered well! Why not go sit in the shade, have a cool drink and think about it? You may see that only one or two of the situations I’ve described here apply to your garden. While the heat’s on and your plants need it the most, fine tune that watering system!

Janet Macunovich is a professional gardener and author of the books “Designing Your Gardens and Landscape” and “Caring for Perennials.” Read more from Janet on her website www.gardenatoz.com.

Designer edibles allow gardeners to grow for taste and good looks

May 20, 2014 • Leave a Comment

The nearly translucent Glass Gem Corn looks more like a work of art than a vegetable. (Photo: Greg Schoen/Native Seeds) — The nearly translucent Glass Gem Corn looks more like a work of art than a vegetable.
(Photo: Greg Schoen/Native Seeds)

The Salt at NPR:

To the home gardener who says “been there, done that” to the heirloom green bean, the French breakfast radish or the Brandywine tomato, take heart.

Nurseries and seed companies are competing to bring you the most colorful and flavorful designer edibles they can come up with. They travel the world looking for the next in-vogue plant for the home horticulturist. Every few years they introduce these new chic varieties in their catalogs and websites.

Alice Doyle, a founder of Log House Plants, a wholesale nursery for classic and unusual plants, says some of her customers are like wine connoisseurs who are always seeking the next best thing.

Read the rest of the story…

Battling weeds in your garden

May 15, 2014 • 5 Comments

The best gardeners develop an eye that takes in the whole plant and garden—not just the flowers. One “star” of this article is evident here to the trained eye. — The best gardeners develop an eye that takes in the whole plant and garden—not just the flowers.
One “star” of this article is evident here to the trained eye.

By Janet Macunovich / Photos by Steven Nikkila

Why are weeds so hard to talk about?

We spend much of our in-garden time preventing and removing weeds. Perhaps you haven’t counted those hours, but I have, since I garden professionally and must account for my time. Bottom line? We spend 30 to 35 percent of our gardening hours in pursuit and defiance of weeds.

Every weed is a desirable plant for someone, somewhere. Scotch thistle (Onopordum acanthium) is an invited biennial guest in my garden, an impressive eight foot tall, sculptural gray form that provides seeds the finches love. But oh, what a thug it can be, seeding its dangerously sharp self all around! — Every weed is a desirable plant for someone, somewhere. Scotch thistle (*Onopordum acanthium*) is an invited biennial guest in my garden, an impressive eight foot tall, sculptural gray form that provides seeds the finches love. But oh, what a thug it can be, seeding its dangerously sharp self all around!

The books, magazines, TV shows and newspaper articles into which we pour our disposable incomes don’t seem to recognize this. Twenty magazines pulled at random from my current stash yielded 220 article titles. If topics were chosen commensurate with the attention we give a subject in our gardens, about 70 of those articles should have been weed-oriented. Yet only three titles even included the word “weed.”

Should the weed-disabled gardener hit the books? I tried it, searching in general gardening encyclopedias. An “Illustrated Guide to Gardening” was typical in its coverage, allotting just ten of its 649 pages to “Weeds and Their Control.”

Weed books do exist for those who hunt. My collection, built slowly over twenty years, consists mostly of textbooks and publications from various agricultural universities’ Extension services. Although there is plenty of useful information in “Problem Perennial Weeds of Michigan” (Michigan State University Extension bulletin E-791) and in “Weeds” (a textbook published by Cornell University Press), it’s dry, dry, dry.

Worse, the suggested control methods in textbooks and Extension bulletins are mostly geared toward agricultural and commercial users. “Repeated mowing,” “clean cultivation” or “fallowing for one season” might be practical for a farmer, but are tough to translate to the home garden. Likewise, a professional landscaper may benefit from the advice “timely spot treatment with the proper herbicide,” but most of us don’t care to know which of the many herbicides available only to professionals would work even if we could buy them because it’s not often practical to apply herbicides in established beds.

The attitude adjustment can take time but it’s the ultimate liberation to be able to talk about weeds without shame. It’s a perspective that allows me to smile and say, ‘Every weed in this article and in these pictures is my weed. I grew it!’ My weedy companions in this picture are all annuals: (left to right) lamb’s quarters, lady’s thumb, crabgrass (in my hand), buckwheat (vine), perilla (at my foot), purslane (in my hand) and Impatiens glandulifera. Please note the perilla and impatiens are invited, but self-sowing monsters—weeds, by their disposition. — The attitude adjustment can take time but it’s the ultimate liberation to be able to talk about weeds without shame. It’s a perspective that allows me to smile and say, ‘Every weed in this article and in these pictures is my weed. I grew it!’ My weedy companions in this picture are all annuals: (left to right) lamb’s quarters, lady’s thumb, crabgrass (in my hand), buckwheat (vine), perilla (at my foot), purslane (in my hand) and *Impatiens glandulifera*. Please note the perilla and impatiens are invited, but self-sowing monsters—weeds, by their disposition.

When you see that a plant has running roots that turn up into new plants, like the quack grass (Agropyron repens) has done here in the blade that crosses the trowel, roll up your sleeves! You’re taking on a perennial weed. — When you see that a plant has running roots that turn up into new plants, like the quack grass (*Agropyron repens*) has done here in the blade that crosses the trowel, roll up your sleeves! You’re taking on a perennial weed.

Bindweed (Convulvulus arvensis) tops my most-hated list. Even this short, young piece can put up a three-year battle. It’s also known as wild morning glory, for its trumpet-like flowers, white aging to pink (here closed on a cloudy day). — Bindweed (*Convulvulus arvensis*) tops my most-hated list. Even this short, young piece can put up a
three-year battle. It’s also known as wild morning glory, for its trumpet-like flowers, white aging to pink (here closed on a cloudy day).

So let’s get down and dirty. First, that means we start looking at and talking about weeds without shame. They’re an integral part of gardening, so let’s accept that and acknowledge they’ll always be with us. Stop disguising them under mulch, apologizing for them, or diverting visitors from beds where they dwell. Quit refusing to admit you’re growing any. Or many. This attitude adjustment can take time but it’s the ultimate liberation. It’s the perspective that allows me to smile as I write, “Every weed in this article and in these pictures is my weed. I grew it!”

The more we bring weeding out from under the carpet, the more we can draw on each other’s experience and help. Just think how far ahead we’d be if we shared even a tenth of the tips on weed-beating that we share on rose-growing. Talking more means we’ll also begin to look more closely at our weeds and know them better.

Don’t confuse perennial bindweed with the recently-ubiquitous, annual wild buckwheat (Polygonum convulvulus, also called hedge bindweed). Notice buckwheat’s flowers are tiny, not trumpets, and its leaves are more sharply pointed than perennial bindweed. Annual wild buckwheat is far less trouble to beat than perennial bindweed – just keep buckwheat from going to seed. — Don’t confuse perennial bindweed with annual wild buckwheat (*Polygonum convulvulus*, also called hedge bindweed). Notice buckwheat’s flowers are tiny, not trumpets, and its leaves are more sharply pointed than perennial bindweed. Annual wild buckwheat is far less trouble to beat than perennial bindweed—just keep buckwheat from going to seed.

What a wealth of information becomes available when you have a weed’s name. Look it up in the dictionary, check for it in a weed textbook, ask about it at the Extension, type its name into an Internet search engine. In knowledge is power—in this case, power to predict, undermine and eliminate.

To identify your foes, start with MSU Extension weed bulletins—several include color photos. No luck there? Flip through weed textbooks at a library. Still nameless? Press a sample of the weed, preferably with root and flower or seed pod intact, sandwich it between sections of newspaper and stack heavy weights on it for a week. Tape the flattened sample onto cardboard and take it to garden centers, garden club meetings and plant swaps. Someone will give you the name.

Even before you know your pest’s proper name you can start working on the next most important fact—is it a perennial, annual or biennial? Many perennials reveal their long-lived nature through their roots. Loosen the soil all around the weed and remove it carefully, roots intact. Look for underground runners that pop up into new plants, or bulges and knobs on a horizontal root that foretell new shoots. The presence of storage organs such as bulbs and tubers are also telltales that the plant’s either perennial or biennial. There’s no other reason for a plant to store away a lot of starch except that it’s planning to come back next year.

Ground ivy (Glechoma hederacea) is a tough perennial weed, rooting wherever it touches soil and ducking so nimbly in and out of lawn and groundcover that the whole area usually has to be killed and started over. — Ground ivy (*Glechoma hederacea*) is a tough perennial weed, rooting wherever it touches soil and ducking so nimbly in and out of lawn and groundcover that the whole area usually has to be killed and started over.

Which brings me to another “must-do” when it comes to weeds. That’s to stop looking for miracle techniques and products. Weeds caught early on, under two inches tall, can be dispatched fairly easily with a hoe or a smothering mulch. Give them a year and you’re in for a battle that requires a discriminating eye and lots of hand work.

I’m not saying I like this fact. Established perennial weeds make me cringe. That’s what’s wrong with the lead picture in this story. See that Canada thistle (Cirsium arvense) among the hostas on the left? Okay, go after it. Loosen the soil, remove every bit of root you can find. Then acknowledge the root’s depth, brittleness and tenacity by returning every week or ten days for two whole seasons, April through November, to nip off every bit of thistle that tries to make a comeback. At the end of the second year, you may have starved it out—forced it to exhaust all the reserve starch in its roots.

Tuber roots are what make yellow nutsedge (Cyperus esculentus) such a scourge. Those in the know understand that if you don’t get the nut out, you don’t get the sedge out. — Tuber roots are what make yellow nutsedge (*Cyperus esculentus*) such a scourge. Those in the know understand that if you don’t get the nut out, you don’t get the sedge out.

Perennials and biennials can stash an amazing amount of starch in their roots, given even a bit of green leaf to work from. Take a carrot (Daucus carota) in its weed form: Queen Anne’s lace. It’s as cute and small as a carrot-top in its first year – just a bunch of low, feathery leaves. Yet look what the root produced by those leaves delivers in year two—four feet of stately stem, leaf, flowers and thousands of seeds. No wonder when we leave a bit of weed root in the ground, it manages to keep sprouting for years.

Bindweed (Convulvulus arvensis) is worse. Given time to establish, its roots may dive 15 feet deep. If dug well and then nipped in the bud every six days—more frequently when the growing is good—it takes 2 to 3 years to wear it out.

Don’t confuse hedge bindweed (Polygonum convulvulus, also called wild buckwheat) with perennial bindweed. An annual, wild buckwheat is far less trouble to beat—just keep it from going to seed. That means where blown-in seed or seed-infested mulch spawns an invasion, weed thoroughly several times before mid-June.

Scouring rush or field horsetail (Equisetum arvense) drives people crazy yet it’s a wimp compared to bindweed and Canada thistle. Dig it well, focusing on those enlarged tuber roots, keep new shoots nipped weekly for one season and it’s gone.

New weeds show up all the time. Some pretend to be something planted on purpose, as this one did. When it reached eye level I decided I didn’t plant anything new that would be so big, and yanked it. We took this photo for posterity. I’ll use it to figure out what it was!

Tuber roots are what make yellow nutsedge (Cyperus esculentus) such a scourge. Pull on this weak-looking, creased-blade grassy creature and it comes readily, with what looks like all roots intact. Those in the know, however, understand that if you don’t get the nut out, you don’t get the sedge out.

Yellow wood sorrel (Oxalis florida) is another perennial that fools us by pulling easily and seeming to have little root. That’s because its running roots break loose and stay behind when we pull—a good reason to study the plant, learn that it has runners and loosen the soil well throughout the area before pulling.

Obviously, we can’t cover all weeds and weeding techniques in this article, but this is a good start!

Web Extra: Made in the shade

May 5, 2014 • Leave a Comment

To read the full article by Sandie Parrott on Michael Maitner’s garden, pick up a copy of the May, 2014 issue of Michigan Gardener in stores or find it in our digital edition.

Captions and photos by Sandie Parrott

Kay and Michael Maitner stand in the woodland garden next to a metal sculpture titled “Kinetic Mandala" by Steven Spiegel. — Kay and Michael Maitner stand in the woodland garden next to a metal sculpture titled “Kinetic Mandala” by Steven Spiegel.

Maitner built this bridge many years ago to add an Asian look, not to actually get anywhere. It bridges a dry stream bed.

The color "green" actually comprises many different color variations. By using lots of them, as well as different leaf textures, shapes, and sizes, Michael Maitner has painted a lush, compelling landscape. — The color “green” actually comprises many different color variations. By using lots of them, as well as different leaf textures, shapes, and sizes, Michael Maitner has painted a lush, compelling landscape.

Jamie Durie brings his high-energy gardening style to Michigan

May 1, 2014 • Leave a Comment

Wojo’s Greenhouse in Ortonville, Michigan is celebrating spring with a special guest appearance by Jamie Durie on Sunday, May 4, 2:00 p.m. at Wojo’s Greenhouse (2570 Oakwood Road Ortonville, MI 48462).

At Jamie’s high-energy presentation, he shares his international award-winning design philosophy with everyone from budding gardeners to new homeowners to the seasoned gardener. Using hand-picked and proven plants, he will show you how to create a garden oasis out of any space.

Durie was a regular on the Oprah Winfrey show for 3 years and credits Ms. Winfrey with his introduction to America. He has designed international resorts and took home the prestigious Gold Medal Award at the 2008 Chelsea Flower Show. The author of 9 books, he will be available for complimentary autographs of his latest book, “Edible Garden Design,” where he inspires new ideas to help make your garden look as good as it tastes.

The event includes a presentation and book signing. Admission: $20, which includes a $10 Wojo’s gift card. Space is limited. Please call 248-627-6498 to register or click here.

Nationally-acclaimed gardener P. Allen Smith to speak in Metro Detroit

April 26, 2014 • Leave a Comment

English Gardens is hosting presentations by P. Allen Smith, who will be demonstrating tips on planting annuals, perennials and shrubs as follows:

Friday, May 2, 7:00 to 9:00pm at English Gardens in Clinton Township.
Saturday, May 3, 10:00 a.m. to 12 noon at English Gardens in Royal Oak.

Long respected for his intelligent integration of architecture and garden, P. Allen Smith lectures all over the country and is often featured in a wide variety of national publications. Smith has been designing since he returned from his studies in England nearly 30 years ago. His home, Moss Mountain Farm, serves as the inspiration for his culinary pursuits, design work, art, books and nationally-syndicated television shows. Smith’s garden design book P. Allen Smith’s Garden Home is first in his series of six gardening books

The event is free, but space is limited. Register online at www.englishgardens.com to reserve your seat

Janet’s Journal: Observe and appreciate your plants’ flip side

April 25, 2014 • 1 Comment

Learning the flip side of bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) means employing a tactic that also tends to save the plant in the long run. Dividing bloodroot reveals its secret and yields divisions to carry on even if the mother clump falls to fungus. — Learning the flip side of bloodroot (*Sanguinaria canadensis*) means employing a tactic that also tends to save the plant in the long run. Dividing bloodroot reveals its secret and yields divisions to carry on even if the mother clump falls to fungus.

Do you give your garden’s flip side any attention?

For those raised entirely in the age of the MP3 and CD, a brief historical side trip is in order. Recordings of popular songs were once sold individually on 45 rpm “singles.” Buyers usually sought a “45” for the song on the “A” side, receiving the lesser ditty on the “B” side or the “flip side,” only by default—Elton John’s “Crocodile Rock” was the “A” accompanied by a flip side “Elderberry Wine.”

The flip side of pearly everlasting culminates in a show of lovely orange butterflies marked black, blue and white. Its caterpillars give a preview of the color that will come, if only the gardener is tolerant of their presence and some tattered foliage.

Most of the time the flip side got little play. However, the song on the flip side of a 45 was ocassionally a delightful find.

Plants and gardens are that way. Although we buy or grow for an “A” side—that certain shape flower, a particular fragrance, or a rich fall color—we ought to give flip sides a play or two. They’re good for a laugh and sometimes for longer term enjoyment, but even if appalling they are enlightening.

Pearly everlasting (Anaphalis margaritacea) is a sturdy native perennial of sunny, sandy places that opens white nubbin flowers in dense clusters in August. The flowers dry in place—thus the moniker “everlasting.” The plant’s downy gray foliage gets little special attention, except when invaded by tiny “worms” in May. These knit together and despoil the leaves at the tips of stems, alarming and disgusting most gardeners—unless they’re given a bit longer play.

If you hold off on the insecticides, the “worms” can be quite entertaining. Small, dark and creepy at first, as they grow they become recognizable as the larvae of the American painted lady butterfly. Experience teaches that they will finish feeding sometime in June and depart to pupate, at which point a well-established pearly everlasting will grow over its tattered tips and bloom without concern at its normal time.

Given their long evolutionary gig together, it shouldn’t be surprising that insects are often present on a plant’s flip side.

View pine sawfly as a disgusting flip side to mugo pine and Austrian pine, enjoy their lively dance routine.

Pine sawfly on a mugo pine is a “B” side that can disgust a gardener. Given just occasional play, though, sawflies have a certain charm.

First, there’s the way they emerge from the eggs on the needle, a perfect row of bumps on the needle’s underside. Sometime in May the caterpillar-like sawflies pop out in close-coordinated sequence. The needle becomes a stage for a chorus line of tiny acrobats which first hang down, then flex and flip themselves topside to begin a few weeks of feasting.

If not blown away by a forceful stream of water or insecticidal soap during their debut performance, they grow to show the tolerant observer yet another dance number.

By mid-June a sawfly gang is clustered below the new growth, each member as long as and colored much like the needle on which it feeds. Even the preoccupied gardener notices the act at this point and pauses to look more closely. The colony’s response to this close inspection is a uniform twitch and freeze.

There is no way to save or replace the needles by this time. Once the needle-imitating sawfly larvae depart, plummeting to the ground to pupate in the soil by next spring, that stretch of stem will be bare. I usually squash the group and clip the affected stem back to a side branch, but not until I’ve given the group my eye and a bit of direction, moving my hand close and then away to choreograph the twitching motion. I wonder that someone hasn’t videotaped and exploited this performance—it’s just begging to be set to music.

People and plants have a long history, too, so that human interaction with a plant becomes part of its flip side. Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) is understandably well known for its charming “A” side, brilliant white flowers at first protectively folded into and then proudly displayed among mitt-like gray green leaves. Its flip side somehow escapes notice. Next time you divide a clump of bloodroot—you should do this every few years as a defensive tactic because clumps are known to succumb suddenly and totally to root- and crown-destroying fungi—break a bit of root and you’ll see the flip side in the orange sap that oozes out.

Celandine poppy (Stylophorum diphyllum) is a showy addition to a shady garden, with a sappy flip side. — Celandine poppy (*Stylophorum diphyllum*) is a showy addition to a shady garden, with a sappy flip side.

The sap of celandine or wood poppy (Stylophorum diphyllum) is a flip side too. It’s valued for its “A” side in a shady garden, bright yellow flowers in spring and early summer. Its “B” side is there to be discovered all season—a plucked stem can yield enough bright yellow-orange sap to write out a word or two. Harmless, temporary dye. It’s said that the great garden designer Gertrude Jekyll would write notes to herself in celandine sap.

The “A” side of prairie coneflower (Ratibida pinnata) is apparent in July – a wind-generated bobbing and weaving of its yellow-petalled flowers that might be titled “Dance of the Golden Shuttlecocks.” The flip side should bear the name “Lean on Me,” since that’s the act that follows when the plant is placed as nature intended, among tall grasses. Without the accompaniment of grasses or other sturdy neighbors, the flip side can be a bother, however, requiring tall, carefully placed stakes.

I’ve seen the flip side in a different version though, one so arresting that it literally changes the “A” side. Knowing that the 4- to 5-foot stems will splay in July but wanting to avoid staking, a gardener can play that flip side early and to advantage. In May, pull the stems down and away from each other and use bent wire to staple them to the ground in a sunburst pattern. The stem ends and the side branches will all turn upward then, growing to produce a spoked circle of half-height, self-supporting shuttlecocks.

Providing other plants a strong shoulder to lean on, ornamental grasses play a “B” side that should be a hit in any garden.

Few plants have such a supportive nature as ornamental grasses. They provide neighboring plants with a windbreak in summer, and perform the same service for birds in winter.

Ornamental grasses have quite a motherly tone to their flip side. Besides acting as support for tall prairie flowers, they serve as windbreaks for other plants and animals too—pay attention and you’ll notice butterflies and birds taking shelter on the lee side of a dense grass on blustery fall or winter days.

It can’t be denied that butterfly bush’s showy flowers and accompanying butterflies belong on the top ten list. But its “B” side as a natural staking system ought to get more play.

Butterfly bush’s (Buddleia davidii) flip side is supportive too. Delphiniums or cosmos grown within its spread can take advantage of this to thread their way up and then stand securely between the stiff branches.

Romantic blue monkshoods (Aconitum species) are certainly sinister on their flip side. It pays to know that eating even a little part of the leaf, flower or root can be deadly. It seems to have been part of some Roman armies’ scorched earth tactics to poison water supplies with monkshood, preventing enemy use of those resources.

Common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) has a playful flip side. The foliage is well known as Monarch butterfly caterpillar fodder and the hemispherical clusters of pale purple flowers add color and fragrance to a wild garden. But watch a butterfly sipping nectar from an individual flower in that purple globe. Notice that the close-set ring of upward-facing petals parts easily and the butterfly’s foot slips in. The ring then closes tightly, forcing the butterfly to yank-step, as we might labor to reclaim our foot from deep, sticky muck.

All of the milkweed plants play this game. I can’t help but think there were other ways to insure that a pollinator’s foot came into contact with pollen, but this group of plants have a character that prefers to work by practical joke.

The “B” side of every plant is there to be observed, or it can be discovered while exploring plant encyclopedias for word of your garden favorites, or you might just piece it together over time from conversations like this between gardening friends. Dig a little deeper into your garden’s flip side this year for the fun of it, for a mind-expanding game, or to learn more rewarding ways to grow and use your plants.

Janet’s Journal: How to improve your clay soil

April 20, 2014 • 1 Comment

Rejoice in clay, the choice of many fine plants. Roses and crabapples, plus rarer beauties like Rodgersia (above) thrive in a loose clay-based soil. — Rejoice in clay, the choice of many fine plants. Roses and crabapples, plus rarer beauties like *Rodgersia* (above) thrive in a loose clay-based soil.

By Janet Macunovich / Photos by Steven Nikkila

Ah, spring! The season of new life, warm earthy scents, and fresh starts on gardens!

Unfortunately, it’s also a season of miracle products—powders and potions claiming to “break up heavy soil,” “dissolve clay,” “ionize damaged soil,” etc.

Twenty-five years of gardening in soils throughout southeastern Michigan, around homes new and old, has taught me that only one ingredient can be added to hard soil to make any real difference in its garden potential. Air is that magic ingredient.

“Wait!” you may say. “I bought this stuff, mixed it in and it worked wonders…”

You’re right, for the wrong reasons. You feel that stuff made the difference, but I know that mixing was what worked wonders. The digging allowed air to flow through the soil.

Air brings water with it. Water doesn’t fall into soil, it’s pulled in by capillary action, a draw that exists only if there’s air moving freely in pore spaces in the soil.

Abundant, moist air fuels an explosion of life between the soil particles. Microorganisms and soil animals increase geometrically in aerated soil. These creatures’ chewings, manhandlings, regurgitations, excrements, and other life processes transform solid soil minerals into forms which can be imbibed by species restricted to liquid diets—plants.

Clay in soil is not terrible. When the tiny bits of mineral called clay are numerous, that soil offers far more nutrients and holds moisture far better than one that’s mainly sand. Compaction is what’s terrible – the state soil takes after pressure has been applied, usually by earthmoving and grading equipment. Even a farm’s best sandy loam can be packed down so hard that the average gardener will cry “clay!” and begin seeking wonder products.

Left: Don’t worry about planting among still-whole chunks of clay. Plant alongside them or break them in half and fit them, plus decaying mulch around the new root balls as backfill. Right: Use a garden fork to loosen the bed. — **Left:** Don’t worry about planting among still-whole chunks of clay. Plant alongside them or break them in half and fit them, plus decaying mulch around the new root balls as backfill. **Right:** Use a garden fork to loosen the bed.

In a compacted soil, air spaces have been squeezed closed. Crumbs of combined clay, sand and humus have been pulverized – crumbs that once gave the soil an airy, root-friendly structure. Separated by crumb-busting, the component particles settle into dense layers. They will not re-form into crumbs until treated with that mix of worm spit, fungal strands and bacterial residues called microbial glue.

Pressed down and airless, compacted soil can’t attract or support many worms, fungi or bacteria. Thirty years after being graded with heavy equipment, such a soil will still be dense and lifeless unless physically broken and aerated.

Worms should be considered a gift. They move into the cool, moist mulch and dine on the leafier organic matter. Between meals they burrow into the moist clay, dragging organic matter with them and depositing worm manure (casts) along the way.

So can anything be done with the miserable leavings called soil on your property? Certainly. However, there is no immediate fix unless you can afford wholesale excavation and replacement.

Here’s a much less expensive option that trades time for money.

This spring, start some soil-loosening by wetting the soil. Since pore size in hard-packed soil is small to non-existent, it takes a long time for water to infiltrate. So cover the soil with porous mulch to encourage water to “sit” and “stay.” Wood chip mulch is fine, but pine bark is best for reasons explained later. Layer the mulch with grass clippings if you can—more on that later, too.

Keep the area well watered throughout summer.

Boots...one of the best tools for the garden. A gardener in boots can accomplish far more when working with hard-packed soil than a gardener in tennis shoes. — Boots…one of the best tools for the garden. A gardener in boots can accomplish far more when working
with hard-packed soil than a gardener in tennis shoes.

In late summer or early fall rake off the mulch. Use a garden fork to loosen the bed. Insert the tines as far as you can, lean back on the handle and pop a chunk loose. No need to lift the chunk out of the bed, just pop it far enough that it doesn’t settle back level with the undisturbed soil.

Move over one fork’s width, insert the fork and pop again. Continue doing this row by row through the garden until the whole surface is lumpy.

Add one of those miracle products now if you’d like. Scatter or sprinkle it over the area and water it in well. Me? I’d rather use that money to add compost.

Re-cover the area with mulch. Add more grass clippings or leaves that are small or shredded. Water. Wait some more.

What’s going on while you wait is, well, life. Worms move into the cool, moist mulch and dine on the leafier parts. Between meals they burrow into the moist clay, dragging organic matter with them and depositing worm manure (casts) along the way. Other soil animals follow these trails, which is why worm burrows often contain a soil’s greatest diversity of species. After the first waiting period you were able to loosen previously-impenetrable soil to a depth of 8 or 9 inches because the worms led the way. Now the worms will go even deeper.

Many plants enjoy loose, clay-based soil, including roses.

During the waiting periods, some of the organic matter that is dragged into or falling down worm burrows is decaying bark. That’s good, especially if it’s pine bark with its high lignin content. Lignin, partially rotted, lasts a particularly long time in the soil and each bit becomes a nucleus for soil crumb formation.

After a year, in spring, the bed is ready for planting. Don’t worry about planting among still-whole chunks of clay. Don’t remove them, either. Just plant alongside them or break them in half and fit them, plus decaying, mulch around the new root balls as backfill. Roots will follow the crevices between clods, making fibrous nets over every moist, rich clay surface—nets which hasten clay’s crumb-ling.

Maintain a layer of leaf compost on this bed. In 4 to 5 years your visitors will exclaim “aren’t you lucky to have such good soil?!”

Here are three ways to take some of the labor out of this process.

One, drill rather than dig. Use a soil auger or rent a power posthole digger. Punch holes in the clay every 12 to 18 inches rather than loosen with a fork. Let drilled soil fall back in and around each hole. No need to backfill the holes with “good” soil because the drill adds the only necessary magic—air.

Two, if you have a heavy-duty lawn tractor or can hire a farm-grade tractor and operator, knife the soil rather than fork or drill it. A soil knife attachment slices the soil vertically, cutting about 18 inches deep. The soil doesn’t turn over, as with a plow, it just parts. Knife the soil in rows 18 inches apart. Go over the area twice, first in rows parallel to any slope, then up and down the slope.

Sorry—don’t try drilling or knifing if you have buried utility wires, pipes, or sprinkler lines in the area.

Your third out is to moisten the soil with watering and mulch, fork it lightly, then build a raised bed of imported soil on top of it. Don’t, however, skip the forking. Many raised beds over clay fail because there is no transition area between the two soil layers. Water pools there, unable to penetrate the clay as quickly as it ran through the top layer. Roots rot.

Finally, if your soil really is clay, be happy with that. Clay soil is the choice of many fine plants. Common species like roses, lilacs, iris and crabapples plus rarer beauties like Rodgersia and Ligularia thrive in the loose, clay-based soil.

Conifers provide low-maintenance, year-round beauty

April 8, 2014 • 1 Comment

Great Lakes area gardeners might glance past this book due to the southern reference in the title (Landscaping with Conifers and Ginkgo for the Southeast). However, many of the plants described in it are applicable to the north as well. Consider this guide if you are interested in conifers, which are among the most beautiful and versatile of all landscape plants. They are low-maintenance and offer a variety of color, form, and texture year-round.

The authors have an authoritative command of their topic. Tom Cox, past president of the American Conifer Society, is the founder and owner of Cox Arboretum and Gardens in Georgia. John Ruter, Allan M. Armitage Endowed Professor of Horticulture at The University of Georgia, is a teacher, ornamental plant breeder, and author.

The result of years of research and horticulture experience, this compilation will help both novices and professionals build their conifer knowledge. Cox and Ruter present a wide variety of conifers and tips on growing, pruning, and preventing disease and pest problems. The Great Lakes reader can skim over specific southern growing advice. There is plenty else here to learn: the authors will teach you about conifers, no matter where you call home.

Web Extra: Hop on board the garden railroad

March 28, 2014 • 4 Comments

To read the full article by Sandie Parrott on Sean Rosenkrans’ garden railroad, pick up a copy of the April, 2014 issue of Michigan Gardener in stores or find it in our digital edition.

Captions and photos by Sandie Parrott

Rosenkrans controls all the trains from his transformer platform. Moisture or anything else on the rails means he has to regularly clean them and adjust speeds to keep the trains moving.

A “steam” locomotive pulls flat cars with logs through a forested lumber camp (evergreens and seedlings), with the village in the background. The scene includes a sawmill with a handmade sawdust burner, campsite with tent, campers and hungry bears, and a covered bridge.

The hippodrome is the main circus building along with fortune teller and ticket booths, a merry-go-round, and gnome village. Animals, performers, and visitors complete the scene.

The bathroom garden began when a neighbor was throwing away an old sink. Rosenkrans hung it on an old door with a mirror and added a pump for washing hands. The tub came from another neighbor’s remodeling project. Now it has a pump and helps to water plants. The commode was found by the side of the road. Hostas are planted in the bowl and pansies in the tank.

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