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Janet’s Journal: Gardeners and builders, save those trees

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Builders are not tree specialists and may not even know the full effect of construction on a landscape. Unless you explain and enforce concepts such as the fragility and extent of a root zone,work will expand into that zone.
Builders are not tree specialists and may not even know the full effect of construction on a landscape. Unless you explain and enforce concepts such as the fragility and extent of a root zone, work will expand into that zone.

Here are tips to help you preserve your landscape during a remodeling or construction project

People are digging in these days.Not digging into the soil to make a garden, but digging in on their property to improve it by adding on or remodeling their homes. Ironically, this often increases the property value in one way while reducing it in another, unexpected way.

I’m talking about established trees and landscapes, overlooked assets that are often lost during and after construction. Sometimes, the loss is unavoidable. Even if you wanted to preserve a particular tree or group of shrubs during the construction process, it might not be possible. More often, the loss is the result of oversight, ignorance or miscommunication.

The loss can be huge, in tangible and intangible forms. First, there’s resale value to consider. Surveys by realtor groups (involving photos of homes with and without trees and shrubs) asked how much prospective buyers would pay for the various properties. The surveys indicated that landscaping can add 20 percent to the value of a home. Greenery in general, but large trees especially, garnered positive responses.

Then there are living expenses and quality of life. Energy conservation studies have proven that shade trees can significantly reduce heating and cooling costs. Environmental research concludes that established plants can cut noise levels and improve air quality, with attendant reduction in medical costs and stress-related illness for residents. And although numbers may never be able to convey the value of peace of mind, a majority of people agree that it comes in increasing amounts with beautiful surroundings filled with butterflies and birdsong.

Finally, communities lose when landscapes are degraded by construction. Many cities and regional authorities are dedicating public funds to the quest for cleaner water and lower water treatment costs. Such campaigns focus on educating the public about how actively growing, diverse plantings promote water quality by intercepting, holding and biologically filtering rain that would otherwise pick up pollutants as it runs along pavement and hard-packed soil.

It’s in your best interest to hold onto both the direct and indirect returns your landscape provides. Building professionals are not skilled in tree and landscape preservation. If you’re planning to build onto your home or remodel, or you aim to build new and want to keep all or part of the landscape, you must learn how to be an effective advocate for your trees and other greenery.

There are five points in the construction process when you should think and act to preserve your landscape. When you first consider construction, at your first serious meeting with a building contractor, just before construction begins, during the work and after the building project is complete, there are things you should know and do.

When the general public is polled,we learn that an established landscape can increase a home’s value by 20 percent…
When the general public is polled, we learn that an established landscape can increase a home’s value by 20 percent…

…to a gardener, the landscape may count for more than the house!
…to a gardener, the landscape may count for more than the house!

When you first consider construction

Your role as a landscape advocate begins when you first consider adding on, remodeling or building new. Begin by identifying “must save” plants. Then hire an arborist and/or a horticulturist, or train yourself to evaluate the health and replacement cost of those trees as well as the adaptability and moveability of shrubs and smaller plants. Get a written estimate of the replacement value of plants and detailed plans for protection and after care. It’s an invaluable item, both for your consideration as you weigh construction options and costs, and as a means to increase builders’ awareness and respect for the landscape.

You or your arborist/horticulturist consultant should also prepare a map of your property that shows the location and extent of the root zones of plants to be saved. You’ll use this to direct construction traffic and deploy protection for these invisible, surprisingly fragile and irreplaceable elements of your landscape.

Pamper “keeper” plants right from the start. Don’t wait until the plant has been damaged—for some damage is almost inevitable during construction. Fertilize your plants and begin or maintain a good watering program to build their stamina.

If you can’t protect most or all of the root zone, it’s not realistic to have that plant on your “keeper”list.This is especially true of species that are intolerant of root disturbance,such as this 70- year-old beech.The root zone extends to and beyond the tree’s drip line.Less than one-third of that area was protected. The tree died within the year.
If you can’t protect most or all of the root zone, it’s not realistic to have that plant on your “keeper” list. This is especially true of species that are intolerant of root disturbance, such as this 70-year-old beech.The root zone extends to and beyond the tree’s drip line. Less than one-third of that area was protected. The tree died within the year.

Discuss all grade changes before the fact. Excess soil piled in the root zone and against the trunk are almost certain death to a tree.The tree also suffers crushed and broken roots from the equipment which spread that soil.
Discuss all grade changes before the fact. Excess soil piled in the root zone and against the trunk are almost certain death to a tree. The tree also suffers crushed and broken roots from the equipment which spread that soil.

Deciding which trees to protect and placing barriers and cushions are good first steps toward preserving the landscape.Don’t slip up on the followthrough. If you hide your head in the sand during construction your precautions can fail.This oak’s protected root zone was breached and the soil there compacted. When the grade beyond was raised, water couldn’t drain. The tree died in two years.
Deciding which trees to protect and placing barriers and cushions are good first steps toward preserving the landscape. Don’t slip up on the follow-through. If you hide your head in the sand during construction your precautions can fail. This oak’s protected root zone was breached and the soil there compacted. When the grade beyond was raised, water couldn’t drain. The tree died in two years.

At the first planning meeting with your builder or work crew

Identify and stake out the exact placement of new buildings or structures. Determine where the grade will change and how much, whether it will be built up or cut away. Discuss all trenching and excavating ahead of time, in detail. You and your landscape experts need this information to plan specific protective measures and negotiate changes in building plans.

List all work functions that will take place on your property and where each will occur, including material storage, fuel storage, parking areas and places where paint and concrete will be mixed or dumped. Compare this to your keeper plant list and root zone map.

Plan a mutually agreeable vehicle and equipment route into the work area. Aim for a straight route, since every turn of equipment means more churning of soil and increased risk of scrapes and bumps to nearby plants. Allow for a track at least eight feet wide, as anything less represents an unreasonable expectation.

All trenching and excavation should be planned for minimal impact on “keeper” plants.Help your builder understand the effects and explore options. A trench for utility lines detoured around this oak, unfortunately, cutting through at least half of the roots along the outer edge of the circular root zone.
All trenching and excavation should be planned for minimal impact on “keeper”
plants. Help your builder understand the effects and explore options. A trench for utility lines detoured around this oak, unfortunately, cutting through at least half of the roots along the outer edge of the circular root zone.

A less intrusive option is to trench straight toward the tree and then bore under the main roots and trunk.Builders may not think this is necessary or possible since as non-gardeners they imagine the roots to be very deep.Here the main roots are visible at normal depth, within the top 18 inches of soil.
A less intrusive option is to trench straight toward the tree and then bore under the main roots and trunk. Builders may not think this is necessary or possible since as non-gardeners they imagine the roots to be very deep. Here the main roots are visible at normal depth, within the top 18 inches of soil.

When you make a root zone map of the property,you can deny access to the root zone of individual “keeper”plants. Sometimes it’s better to fence off entire areas, as here where root zones are protected behind this construction fence.
When you make a root zone map of the property, you can deny access to the root zone of individual “keeper”plants. Sometimes it’s better to fence off entire areas, as here where root zones are protected behind this construction fence.

Now you may have to modify your “keeper plant” list. Be realistic. You may have to change some plants’ status from “keeper” to “remove,” “move to save,” “keep but cut back,” “tie back,” etc. Then, for every plant that remains on the list, plan ways to protect not only the visible parts but the soil and roots. An eight-inch depth of mulch has been proven to be more effective in protecting the soil from compaction and roots from crushing than any other construction site device, including heavy plywood “paving.” Discuss this with the builder along with tarp coverage beneath material storage areas and where falling debris is expected, and where you will accept the greater cost but lesser damage to plants that comes from drilling beneath root zones rather than trenching through them.

Finally, before any work begins, discuss and list who will be responsible for plant removals and obtaining necessary permits (many communities require tree removal permits). Establish who will execute plant moves, when they will be done and how all parties will know that the involved areas are “all clear.” List, too, who will be in charge of putting up and maintaining protective fencing and padding, creating the cushioned vehicle and equipment route, and explaining all of these features and their importance to workers. Expect to be an active player throughout construction.

When construction is about to begin

Now it’s time to move, elevate or cap sprinklers, prune or tie back at-risk trees and shrubs, prepare the vehicle route and place fences and protective devices.

On the access route, peg down landscape fabric first. Its presence will confirm the original grade when it comes time for clean-up. Have eight inches of mulch dumped on the route, beginning at the entrance with successive truckloads rolling over already-mulched ground.

Place fences and barriers. Keep two things in mind as you do this. One, if there is space, workers will use it. Two, people need room to work. It’s true that work expands to fit the available space, so barriers are necessary, but they must not hamper the work.

Post signs, even if you feel they are redundant or obvious. “Fuel storage,” “dump excess concrete here,” “stay out, loose soil” are some messages you want to communicate clearly.

Expect to pay extra to protect plants and soil. The construction industry is not aware of its full impact on plants, does not go back to see the consequences years later, and has not been asked to consider the cost of effective protection in its estimates. So be prepared to buy or pay extra for tarps to cover paint mixing areas, “bulldog” type porous tarps to protect shrubs from falling debris or paint, and increased labor to carry in rather than truck certain materials across the soil.

During construction

Your most important act during construction is to stay involved. Many gardeners have described how they felt the need to detach themselves, to avoid looking at what was happening in their yard, and afterward go through a process of reclaiming the space. This is understandable but precisely the wrong thing to do.

Get out there, every day, to see what’s happening, to communicate with the workers and to tend to your plants, which cannot detach themselves. Be ready to prune off broken branches as soon as the damage happens, move fences to enlarge or reconfigure protected areas, add mulch or tarps, etc.

Stand up for your plants. You are the expert when it comes to their needs and condition. Do whatever you must to maintain the protection you intended and to continue watering and other essentials during construction.

At this point you should recognize that there is a language barrier between gardeners and builders, and compensate for it. Even simple terms like “soil” have different meanings to both, leading to variable interpretations of acceptable quality and density. A concept such as “root zone” may be incomprehensible to a carpentry crew, or exist in an altered state in their minds so that any conversation that involves the term must be confirmed with diagrams and clarifying questions, just as “load bearing wall” may be Greek to you until it’s drawn out. Although there are individuals fluent in both “gardenerese” and “contractorese,” you should assume until proven wrong that everything you say can and will be misinterpreted.

I’ve been admonished, in preparing this material, to prepare myself for righteous anger from those in construction fields, who may think that in speaking of all a homeowner must do to protect their landscape I am belittling the skills construction workers have and their sense of responsibility. I hope that I’m making it clear that I do respect skilled and responsible construction workers but at the same time I know that my expertise and that of any gardener deserves as much respect. We are expert in our differing disciplines and when we share the same ground, we must communicate carefully. That begins with respect, extends through explanations of technical terms on both sides, and is never hurt by a few shared cold lemonades on a hot day.

After construction ends

Inspect your plants and the soil for damage. Photograph the plants. These images may be invaluable as benchmarks to assess their recovery.

Make your landscape a garden once more. Remove the excess mulch, landscape fabric, protective fencing and tarps. Aerate the soil. Check that sprinklers are working, and make necessary repairs and adjustments. Untie tied-back plants, bring back temporarily relocated plants, and add new plants.

Watch for signs of stress. These signs may not show up right away—in fact, symptoms of stress may not show up for months or a year in larger plants. The bigger the plant, the longer you may have to keep it under watch.

Give stressed plants kid-glove treatment. Watering is the most important thing you can do, but special fertilizing, pruning and patrolling for particular pests that prey on weakened plants of that type may be in order too. Follow the plan that you made for the plant or had made way back in phase one. It all comes together now, when you see your plants resume the growth rates and beauty they possessed before you were possessed by the construction bug.

You can tell when your trees and shrubs recover from construction stress.Monitor and compare the current growth rate to pre-construction or the species’ average growth rate (listed in books such as Manual of Woody Landscape Plants by Michael Dirr).This sugar maple branch grew just three inches in a year, evident in the differing color of new and old wood.The species’average rate is 8 to 12 inches.It’s still recovering and still needs special attention.
You can tell when your trees and shrubs recover from construction stress. Monitor and compare the current growth rate to pre-construction or the species’ average growth rate (listed in books such as Manual of Woody Landscape Plants by Michael Dirr). This sugar maple branch grew just three inches in a year, evident in the differing color of new and old wood. The species’average rate is 8 to 12 inches. It’s still recovering and still needs special attention.

Another way to gauge stress and recovery is leaf size and color. If leaves are smaller than normal or discolored, the plant is stressed.This oak leaf is chlorotic—the plant equivalent of anemia. Chlorosis is as often an indication of root damage as it is mineral deficiency. So pamper this oak with aeration, steady watering and special fertilizer until the leaves tell you it is recovered.
Another way to gauge stress and recovery is leaf size and color. If leaves are smaller than normal or discolored, the plant is stressed.This oak leaf is chlorotic—the plant equivalent of anemia. Chlorosis is as often an indication of root damage as it is mineral deficiency. So pamper this oak with aeration, steady watering and special fertilizer until the leaves tell you it is recovered.

Watching for signs of stress after construction

Symptoms may be immediate or delayed:

  • Wilting or shedding of foliage during or right after construction.
  • Development of early fall color or leaves dropping early that season or the season following construction.
  • Reduced leaf size and shoot growth the next season or later.
  • Twig or branch loss the next season or later. More needles may drop than are produced on an evergreen. The plant may appear thinner,more transparent.
  • General growth, appearance and pest resistance may be poor, and secondary problems may appear.

Helping the plant recover

  • From April through November, water deep and slow throughout the plant’s entire root zone whenever the soil a few inches deep is dry and warm.
  • Check root growth (dig test hole at drip line) and resumption of pre-construction twig growth rate to determine when the plant has fully recovered.
  • For every inch of trunk diameter, expect a one-year lag before regular growth resumes.

Article by Janet Macunovich and photos by Steven Nikkila, www.gardenatoz.com.

Janet’s Journal: The plant whisperer – What do you say, what do you hear?

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What can it hurt to talk to your plants? Maybe it does nothing for the plants, but it makes you a better, more observant, attentive and cheerful gardener

In the 1960s a corn plant (Dracaena) stuck its leaf into a polygraph and started the world talking about plant-speak. Lie detector expert Cleve Backster lectured and gave interviews about the experience although the scientific world dropped the topic after having a good laugh.
In the 1960s a corn plant (Dracaena) stuck its leaf into a polygraph and started the world talking about plant-speak. Lie detector expert Cleve Backster lectured and gave interviews about the experience although the scientific world dropped the topic after having a good laugh.

Luther Burbank, by all measures a genius for more than 800 plant introductions, including the classic Shasta daisy, readily admitted to talking to his plants. He wrote that plants are telepathically capable of understanding speech.
Luther Burbank, by all measures a genius for more than 800 plant introductions, including the classic Shasta daisy, readily admitted to talking to his plants.

You’ve heard of whisperers. Most well-known are horse whisperers, people gifted in working with frightened, neglected, aggressive, hard-to-handle horses with behavioral problems. These healers came out of the woodwork when Robert Redford added his famous smile to the considerable mystique of horse whispering, yet one group is notably quiet. Plant whisperers remain in the shed, so to speak.

Why is there virtually no coverage in the press and no scientific attention to plant whisperers? When so many do it, when there are high-profile champions of the cause such as Prince Charles (‘Of course I speak to plants’), when slightly wacky lie detector expert Cleve Backster hooked his houseplants to a polygraph, and Alfred Hitchcock story collections featured men going mad once they could hear the voices of grass being cut and vegetables plucked? The conspiracy of silence stretches back even to 1848 when Dr. Gustav Theodor Fechner’s theory of emotive greenery, published in Soul-Life of Plants, sent only a short-lived riffle through the scientific community.

My goal is not an appeal for proof that plants hear us and respond. My point in amplifying the subject of plant whispering is to look at what it does for us, the whisperers. It’s irrelevant whether you believe the plants respond or not. What matters is that you see how good this practice is for those who do the talking.

The author whispers assurances to the weeping pine as it’s wheeled to its new home. It’s just part of the job, keeping the plants informed of the whole situation.
The author whispers assurances to the weeping pine as it’s wheeled to its new home. It’s just part of the job, keeping the plants informed of the whole situation.

Nine years later, never forsaken by the gardeners who voiced aloud their promises to help it through recovery, it’s still going strong. If it could speak, would it chide us or thank us for putting it into a place of prominence?
Nine years later, never forsaken by the gardeners who voiced aloud their promises to help it through recovery, it’s still going strong. If it could speak, would it chide us or thank us for putting it into a place of prominence?

Better learning when we hear as well as see

People who study human learning claim that we remember significantly more of what we see and hear than we do of things we heard but didn’t see, or saw without accompanying sound. In that case, we are bound to learn more if we speak to a plant, reinforcing thought with sound.

In addition, researchers have proven that we retain a great deal more information when we move as we learn, matching muscle use to spoken word. Since few can speak to a plant without also stroking a leaf, straightening a stem or gesturing in some way, we are also scribing into our muscles what would otherwise be only a mental and aural memory.

So it makes sense that the gardener who stops to chat is more likely to remember which of his or her charges need water the most, which limbs need staking, or where the bugs hang out. It’s a good bet that person will remember the promises and observations made aloud and then act on that knowledge in ways that improve the garden.

I pay attention when I’m talking

Talking is also a means of focusing attention, and that’s a basic tenet of the whisperers’ craft. Buck Brannaman, famous horse whisperer and consultant on the movie of that name, tells his students to get the horse’s attention first, that if you don’t have that, it doesn’t matter what you do next.

In the case of plants, the benefit doesn’t come from capturing the plant’s attention. It comes when the plant wins your undivided attention.

In talking to a plant, I’m compelled to look for specifics to include in my dialogue. It’s not like the wordless, soothing crooning or repeated generalities like “It’ll be all right” that I might use with a nervous cat in a car. I’m talking to myself as much as to the plant so I’m more likely to be analytical in my plant whisperings. I look for something worthwhile to say, perhaps, “You’re looking greener today” or “How’re those tips, have we finally ousted those pesky mealybugs?” Even if I’m taking a hard line with a plant the conversation is going to focus on particulars, such as, “I warned you that we’d have to cut that branch if you don’t start adding a bit more leaf on the other side!” Because I decide to talk, I look more closely and attend to the details.

An old saying sums it up, “The best fertilizer is the farmer’s footprint.” Attention makes the world greener while lack of attention leads to garden failures. We all know that plants rarely fold up and die overnight, that there are usually early-stage symptoms that an observant person can use to make a diagnosis. It’s also pretty commonly accepted that ministrations in the initial phases of a plant’s decline tend to be more successful than last-ditch efforts applied to the near-dead. Yet ask anyone who works at a garden center about the story given by people who return dead plants, and you’ll hear that it is most often, “I don’t know. It was fine and then it just died.” Such terse individuals are probably not plant whisperers. They didn’t talk and by keeping their mouths closed they failed to open their eyes.

Who can say whether this weeping hemlock survived its ordeal because we chatted it up? From the minute the author tied back its branches for surgery and started to dig, she began talking.
Who can say whether this weeping hemlock survived its ordeal because we chatted it up? From the minute the author tied back its branches for surgery and started to dig, she began talking.

Here it is being trundled to a new spot out of the way of construction workers building a new wing on the house.
Here it is being trundled to a new spot out of the way of construction workers building a new wing on the house.

While alone in its new spot, the author and other gardeners kept the plant company, whispering regularly to it. Certainly the water they brought it and the intercessions they made to keep construction workers from piling things on its roots made a difference.
While alone in its new spot, the author and other gardeners kept the plant company, whispering regularly to it. Certainly the water they brought it and the intercessions they made to keep construction workers from piling things on its roots made a difference.

Most recently, five years settled and joined by other plants, it has become happy enough to have earned the warning, “I know we said that if you’d hang on and make this move we’d never bother you again but if you keep up growing like that we’re going to have to start pruning you!”
Most recently, five years settled and joined by other plants, the hemlock has become happy enough to have earned the warning, “I know we said that if you’d hang on and make this move we’d never bother you again but if you keep growing like that we’re going to have to start pruning you!”

Synergy from involving others in the conversation

We capture the notice of others when we talk to plants. Not just the bemused neighbor or passerby but important others, people who have something to contribute but might not think to share information except that you piped up first.

As an example, take Pat the gardener and Pat’s handy, loving, but horticulturally-clueless spouse. Pat, leaning close over a small shrub and commiserating: “Oh, that’s not good. Here I thought you were all taken care of but that big old brute lilac is blocking the sprinkler from reaching here, isn’t it? I’ll just have to water you by hand until I can figure a way to move that sprinkler. Maybe you’d like a trickle irrigation line, wouldn’t that be good?”

Pat’s spouse, sitting unnoticed on the far side of the lilac on the patio, thinks: “Ah ha. That would be a perfect thing for a birthday present. I’ll have to ask Pat’s buddy Kim what the heck trickle irrigation is.”

It’s not just something that happens in the family. People of different disciplines do meet and take steps forward for the greater good when the thoughts of one are out there where both can examine them. Claus Mattheck was a mechanical engineer when something, perhaps one of those belt-wearing, saw-wielding plant whisperers known as arborists, made him take a look at trees as structures. Now Mattheck’s book “The Body Language of Trees,” is revolutionizing arboriculture by explaining specific signs that tell of impending breakage and fall.

Talk softly and carry a big smile 

Maybe the biggest benefit to the whisperer comes from the quiet, calm nature of whispering. This low level of sound probably applies more naturally and consistently to a plantsperson’s work than to any other whisperers’ job. Animal whisperers embrace non-violent ways, but don’t you suspect that even the best of them has raised his or her voice to a subject, if only to be heard above the crashing of hooves against a stall or baying at an imagined threat? That kind of racket just doesn’t happen with plants. Even when we’re upset with a plant so that we feel it needs rebuke, we don’t stand back, stamp our foot and holler. We practice reason or at least learn to accept events with grace, two strategies that become routine and thus are there as a natural fall-back attitude in stressful non-garden situations.

Are you laughing at yourself or a plant whisperer you know? That’s another benefit of this practice. Who hasn’t pulled up in spring an item they planted in fall, mistaking it for a weed? We recognize the error at sight of the potting mix on the root ball, or when we see that there are three of the supposed weed, regularly spaced in a triangle as weeds never are. Perhaps it’s good for the plant to hear “Oh you poor thing, I’m sorry!” but the grin at your own expense is worth far more.

Article by Janet Macunovich and photos by Steven Nikkila, www.gardenatoz.com.

Janet’s Journal: Springboard into the garden season

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Gardening has never been easier. Power equipment, ergonomically efficient hand tools, landscapes featuring groundcovers and mulch rather than labor-intensive hoed flower beds, inexpensive materials for no-bend raised beds, and lightweight prepackaged potting mixes all ease the strain of the garden season on muscles, bone, timetable and checkbook. It’s great.

But there is a consequence of all this efficiency and mechanization that causes me concern. Those long-reach tools, no-fuss plantings and time-saving schemes put distance and time between the gardener and his garden. Yet spring is a time to embrace the garden!

Early April is the time to get the jump on garden work. Smart moves now put me ahead of trouble for the whole season…
Early April is the time to get the jump on garden work. Smart moves now put me ahead of trouble for the whole season…

…If I wait until May, it’s too late!
…If I wait until May, it’s too late!

Lift perennials whose crowns have been pierced by running root weeds, remove the weed roots and replace the desirable plant. Sometimes the weed is quack grass or Canada thistle, but in this case it’s Carolina lupine (Thermopsis caroliniana), a desirable but rambunctious species, that’s spread underground to undercut this cardinal flower (Lobelia cardinalis).
Lift perennials whose crowns have been pierced by running root weeds, remove the weed roots and replace the desirable plant. Sometimes the weed is quack grass or Canada thistle, but in this case it’s Carolina lupine (Thermopsis caroliniana), a desirable but rambunctious species, that’s spread underground to undercut this cardinal flower (Lobelia cardinalis).

Don’t we get enough separation from our gardens from November to April? Shouldn’t we be kissing the ground, hugging our shrubs and stroking the silky new bulb foliage once the snow melts? That’s what I do.

Not only does it make me feel better to reconnect, but it keeps me ahead of trouble and on the easy side of the street for the whole year.

Here’s my spring start-up routine.

When the bulb foliage is up several inches and perennials’ basal rosettes have begun to show new green, I know the soil in that area has drained and warmed enough to accept my ministrations. In my own beds and most others I’m involved with, I expect to be out there on April 1, although I do work in a few beds that are too low, poorly drained or so shaded and sloped away from the sun that plant growth is retarded and I wait until later in April.

It helps at this time of year to summon one of my alter egos to coax, prod, push or fire me up and send me out the door, because an April morning can seem cold and unappealing. Even though I’ve learned that every hour I spend in early April saves me triple time later in the year, and I know that it will be less than an hour before I’ve warmed up enough to peel off my first layer of insulation, the first step out of the house can take work.

Here I cut back woody Artemisia absinthium to budded stubs…and it presents a bushy new face three weeks later.
Here I cut back woody wormwood (Artemisia absinthium) to budded stubs…and it presents a bushy new face three weeks later.

My first and most important job is to visit the plants and see how they’re doing. So I crouch, pruners in hand to clip away last year’s stems from perennials and damaged bits from shrubs, and give each member of my garden the once-over.

I’m not doing anything other than clipping yet, but I’m noting things like the presence of weeds in or near the crown, animal damage, weak or rotted portions, overcrowded clumps or over-eager colonies, and puzzling unknowns. After 30-some years watching my plants wake up, I pretty much know my team. Each species has its own character and unique weaknesses. Some always jump up ready to rock, some winter restlessly and need untangling from the sheets, and a few need to be hustled quickly to the vanity for a makeover before polite company arrives. Occasionally one needs doctoring or inoculation because I see early signs of that plant’s unique recurring problems.

There are always a few new guys every year who give me pause. Getting to know each one is like learning the ways of a new friend, one day and one encounter at a time. In spring, I scribble my observations on a mental clipboard.

I cut to just above a bud on woody perennials such as culinary sage, lavender, Russian sage and shrubs that I cut back hard, including butterfly bush (Buddleia davidii) and bluebeard (Caryopteris x clandonensis).
I cut to just above a bud on woody perennials such as culinary sage, lavender, Russian sage and shrubs that I cut back hard, including butterfly bush (Buddleia davidii) and bluebeard (Caryopteris x clandonensis).

I clip herbaceous perennials back to the ground, leaving only the brand new leaves or flower buds.
I clip herbaceous perennials back to the ground, leaving only the brand new leaves or flower buds.

As I cut, I toss plant debris over my shoulder onto the lawn or a tarp. Every 10 or 15 minutes I stand up, pocket the pruners and stretch out with a rake to clean up my clippings. It’s unwise in early spring to spend too long in any one position or motion.

If the bed needs fertilizer, I broadcast a slow-release, organic product. I do this now so that the granules of fertilizer will be mixed into the top few inches of soil as I do my next steps—weeding and dividing.

I weed the bed beginning where most weeds begin—on the edge. Most of the plants we call weeds get into a bed as creeping roots or from seed dropped from the plants just outside. If I keep the edge free of weeds, the middle of the bed can almost fend for itself. After one good weeding in April I generally have very little weeding to do in May and often none in June, July and August.

I cut along the edge with a spade, separating runners from their source and loosening the soil. Then I lift out seedlings and creeping infiltrators, chasing every bit of running root. If there is a root barrier such as edging surrounding the bed, I loosen and lift seedling weeds all along the perimeter and check to be sure that defensive barrier is working. Sometimes I find that running root plants are coming in over the top of the edging or ducking beneath. If that’s the case I plan a change in tactics—a wider no man’s land to thwart above-ground creepers or a deeper edging against the subterranean invaders.

When I have secured the borders, I look to any weeds in the center. Weeds there consist mostly of desirable plants that have run amok. Running root perennials like bee balm, obedient plant, herbaceous artemisias and Japanese anemones have that tendency to spread beyond their appointed places. I sort out such messes by chasing the aggressive plants’ roots outward from their crowns. Sometimes it’s necessary to lift neighboring perennials all around these aggressive species, remove the foreign roots from their crowns and then replace them. Do this now and the oppressed plants will have time to reestablish roots before they stretch upward for the year. No sign of the disruption will remain.

I edge with a spade, inserting it…
I edge with a spade, inserting it…

…and leaning back on the handle of the spade, which forces the blade up and loosens that soil along the bed edge. Removing weeds from the edge is simple in that loose soil.
…and leaning back on the handle of the spade, which forces the blade up and loosens that soil along the bed edge. Removing weeds from the edge is simple in that loose soil.

Left: I prefer mulch that is dark and fine in texture, such as cocoa hulls on the left edge of this bed. Right: But I will use anything that is free of weeds and can cover the ground, from shredded bark…to the fall leaves shown.
Left: I prefer mulch that is dark and fine in texture, such as cocoa hulls on the left edge of this bed.
Right: But I will use anything that is free of weeds and can cover the ground, from shredded bark…to the fall leaves shown.

Now or at my next visit in April I divide declining perennials and tend to those who seemed to need help with pests. Dividing is a matter of lifting all of an existing plant, removing the oldest parts—usually the center—and replanting only about one-quarter of the whole. I put back only pieces that are vigorous, outer-edge divisions, as those probably carry the least spores and eggs of pest diseases and insects that may have contributed to the original plant’s decline.

Every plant I lift for dividing represents a loss of organic matter for the bed. So for every bushel of peony, daylily, daisy or anything else I remove, I spread a bushel full of compost on that space and work it into the soil. If I don’t, the area will settle after replanting. Plants in such depressions may suffer from poor air circulation or puddling water.

I replace every bit of organic matter in a perennial bed when I divide. I lifted a wheelbarrow full of daylilies (in the background) in a fall dividing session and so added a wheelbarrow of compost to that area before replanting divisions.
I replace every bit of organic matter in a perennial bed when I divide. I lifted a wheelbarrow full of daylilies (in the background) in a fall dividing session and so added a wheelbarrow of compost to that area before replanting divisions.

My final chore in spring is to top up the mulch in the bed. Where the existing blanket of mulch is less than two inches thick, I add new, being careful to leave a clear collar around the crowns of plants so moisture isn’t trapped against stems.

I’ve been told that the thorough weeding I prescribe for early April is impractical, that it’s far too laborious to cut, loosen and clean the entire edge. Yet that’s the way it’s done in botanical gardens, because that’s what works best. It’s not such a chore as it sounds. This 500 square foot bed has 100 linear feet of edge. It took me just about an hour to cut and weed the outer 18 inches, all the way around.
I’ve been told that the thorough weeding I prescribe for early April is impractical, that it’s far too laborious to cut, loosen and clean the entire edge. Yet that’s the way it’s done in botanical gardens, because that’s what works best. It’s not such a chore as it sounds. This 500 square foot bed has 100 linear feet of edge. It took me just about an hour to cut and weed the outer 18 inches, all the way around.

Pre-emergent weed killers are unnecessary if you mulch. Pre-emergent products are often counter-productive in a perennial bed, getting mixed too deep into the soil in the normal course of weeding and dividing so that they do not prevent weeds at the surface, but build up to begin affecting the deeper roots of desirable plants.

There! Now I can sit back and enjoy the season because there will be very little hard work to do until fall!

Article by Janet Macunovich and photos by Steven Nikkila, www.gardenatoz.com.

Janet’s Journal: Lawn Long Gone

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Nothing looks so good alongside a flower bed or feels so comfortable underfoot as lawn. It deserves better than we give it. After years of drought and neglect, your lawn might need your care more than a quick pass with a magic wand dispensing liquid fertilizer and weedkiller.
Nothing looks so good alongside a flower bed or feels so comfortable underfoot as lawn. It deserves better than we give it. After years of drought and neglect, your lawn might need your care more than a quick pass with a magic wand dispensing liquid fertilizer and weedkiller.

How to restore weed-infested lawn areas to healthy turf grass

My mailbox is full! One out of four letters reads: “My lawn is being taken over by (description or sample of weed). I’ve tried weedkiller but it didn’t work. What should I do?”

News flash: In many cases, the weeds are not taking over your lawn. They are your lawn. Perhaps you should think twice about trying to kill them.

The grass has been dying out for years, thinned by drought, heat and wildly oscillating winter temperatures over snowless, uninsulated turf. It’s tempting to think that a few passes with the right magic wand will fix it, but it won’t happen that way.

Portrait of a dying lawn

Five years ago, your sod may have had a dozen bundled grass blades in each square inch, the individual growing points snuggled tight against one another. Those leafy sprays were content to be packed in with their fellows since they were all equals—and polite, as plants go. They were also healthy, each one tapped into enough water and nutrients to meet its needs.

Then as soil moisture dwindled, these plants began to strain. Whenever temperatures soared you could almost hear them wheeze, as their pores closed in defense against dehydration. Although those pores release water vapor and have to be stopped like leaks when heat and drought combine, they also serve as intake ports for atmospheric gases. Without those gases that are essential ingredients in photosynthesis, the whole sunlight-into-sugar process stops. The plant must switch to emergency power—burning the starch stored in its roots. This literally reduces the size of the roots. As they shrink, so does their reach. They cover a smaller, shallower area so the plant has even less moisture to live on.

One by one, the grass blades sicken and die from starvation, dehydration or diseases they were once vigorous enough to stave off. In the new open spaces, sun penetrates and dark soil absorbs the radiation, heating and stressing the roots further.

The advent of rude, greedy weeds

Meanwhile, the sun has now reached and spurred the germination of heat-loving seeds such as crabgrass that can wait decades for such an opportunity.

These newcomers to the grassy carpet are not polite. Crabgrass is all elbows and explosive growth. Spurge, purslane, ground ivy and others don’t even have the manners to stand up straight. They sprawl and worm their way between grass blades. All of them are better able to function in hot, dry times and compete heavily with the sickly turf for available water. Thieves like dandelion and Queen Anne’s lace put all their seedling energy into deep tap roots that drain the lower reaches of the soil.

News flash—those weeds aren’t taking over your lawn, they are your lawn!
News flash—those weeds aren’t taking over your lawn, they are your lawn!

At first it’s just a few discolored spots in the lawn where weeds have incurred. If you return the lawn to good health you can keep it at this state of nearly all lawn or even reverse the tide.
At first it’s just a few discolored spots in the lawn where weeds have incurred. If you return the lawn to good health you can keep it at this state of nearly all lawn or even reverse the tide.

In their first year of lawn incursion, maroon-tinged, clover-like oxalis plants (common yellow sorrel) can be overlooked as nothing more than slightly discolored areas of turf. Yet these weeds have dropped seeds and runners into every available space. Given continued poor growing conditions for grass and inadequate lawn care by the gardener, they will run amuck in subsequent years.
In their first year of lawn incursion, maroon-tinged, clover-like oxalis plants (common yellow sorrel) can be overlooked as nothing more than slightly discolored areas of turf. Yet these weeds have dropped seeds and runners into every available space. Given continued poor growing conditions for grass and inadequate lawn care by the gardener, they will run amuck in subsequent years.

Creeping along beneath our notice

In its first year, all this trouble may escape our notice. It’s a few discolored areas of maroon-tinged, clover-like oxalis, chartreuse nutsedge or gray-green henbit. Those pioneers make lots of seed, however. They also crowd and shade out more lawn. By seed and runner they move quickly into every new opening.

Winter kill leaves even more gaps in the sod, just in time for cool season weeds such as chickweed and creeping speedwell to sprout and settle in. Since they germinate between November and March, the gardener spreading grass seed in April is too late, and her well-intentioned fertilizer assists the wrong plants.

After years of escalating losses, we finally notice the trouble. Restoring that battered greensward now is more a matter of starting over than kicking out a few weeds.

Crabgrass is all elbows and explosive growth, and produces seeds that can fill an empty space next year or lay in wait for twenty! Ground ivy doesn’t even have the manners to stand up straight. It sprawls and worms its way between grass blades. Dandelions have a deep tap root that pulls the water down away from the shallower grass roots.
Ground ivy doesn’t even have the manners to stand up straight. It sprawls and worms its way between grass blades.

Fix the areas where poor drainage has been undermining your lawn’s health.
Fix the areas where poor drainage has been undermining your lawn’s health.

Starting over

It’s best to sow seed between the third week of August and the middle of September when conditions are prime. Fall rains and milder temperatures support seed germination and establishment.

You’ll need broadleaf weedkiller since handweeding thousands of square feet that’s mostly weeds is usually not practical. Don’t use preemergent, though, if you intend to sow grass seed.

If there is almost no grass left in that field mowed short you’ve been calling “lawn,” kill the whole shebang with a non-selective herbicide such as glyphosate. Whichever route you take, time it so the herbicide finishes its work before the prime time window for sowing closes.

Oh, but you said that weedkiller didn’t work. With no offense intended, I think that was not the fault of the herbicide. You may have applied it when it couldn’t work, such as in the hottest part of summer when the target weeds were metabolizing too slowly to be affected. Or perhaps you spread a weedkiller over dry greens. Rather than sticking where they could do the most harm, the pellets slid to the soil and dissolved with little effect. Maybe you did kill some weeds, but without follow-up help your lawn couldn’t recolonize the weeded spots. By the time you looked again, the bad guys had reasserted themselves.

Don’t spread seed on dead weeds. Rake or till to let the seed fall on loosened soil, as shown here.
Don’t spread seed on dead weeds. Rake or till to let the seed fall on loosened soil, as shown here.

Seeding like you mean it

After killing the weeds you’ll need grass seed. Buy a premium blend—bluegrass for sun, fescue for partly shaded areas. “Premium” is an important term. It means the seeds are from recently developed strains of grass bred for disease resistance. In a lawn as ravaged as yours, disease organisms have found a toehold and could devastate susceptible seedlings.

You can sod rather than seed. But sod is more expensive than seed, while both are quick to take in September.

Don’t spread seed on top of dead weeds. Seed must rest on moist soil to sprout and survive. Till lightly, make numerous passes with a core aerator, work the soil with an iron garden rake—whatever it takes to loosen and expose the earth. Smooth it and water it so it’s settled, moist and level like a tray of potting mix ready for seeding.

While you’re at it, address other problems that have undermined the health of your turf. Level or drain puddled and soggy areas. Use a garden fork to pierce and break up the compacted layer that’s been there, 6 to 9 inches down.

If a hard pan exists all over your property, you could rent an irrigation pipe-pulling tractor and drive it back and forth with its pipe slitter lowered but no pipe being played out. This will knife into or through that dense, airless, water- and root-stopping layer so soil dwelling creatures can finally move in and soften it.

Rake lightly after seeding to tumble the seeds with soil crumbs at the surface. No straw cover is necessary—sod farms don’t mulch! Don’t water right away. Wait for Nature to do her thing. Fall rains will coax the grass up and keep it growing. Water only if Nature fails you and the soil begins to dry after the seed has sprouted.

Take it from there

Fertilize when the new grass is 1-1/2 inches tall. Mow when it reaches 3 to 4 inches, just barely clipping its tips with a freshly-sharpened blade—dull blades can uproot the seedlings. Most important, get down on your knees to watch for weeds, then kill or pluck them as they appear.

While you’re down there, apologize to your lawn and promise to water often, lightly—so the water isn’t wasted below summer-shortened lawn roots—at midday when it’s hot so the mist cools the air and pores can stay open.

These directions may sound like heresy but have been proven effective by tests at Michigan State and other universities. “Water deep and infrequently” sounded good but had not been empirically tested before 1995 and turned out to be inappropriate for lawn species.

Tell it you’ll mow it high so it has enough body to shade out weeds and cool its own roots. Mean it when you say you’ll fertilize at the start and end of each year with a slow-release, soil-building organic fertilizer.

Finally, promise that you’ll pay closer attention from now on, so problems won’t get so out of hand.

Or take it in another direction

Reviving a lawn isn’t your cup of tea? I can sympathize. Lawn care bores and frustrates me—millions of clones demanding my help to grow evenly across sites where soil conditions, sun and moisture vary foot by foot. Yet I respect its place in the landscape and all the work that’s gone into breeding grasses and developing lawn care products that work even in our clumsy hands and laughable sites. Try as long and hard as you like, you won’t find another plant so visually perfect as edging for flower beds, that we can grow with so little care yet walk on regularly, enjoy in all four seasons and depend on for decades of service. Like me, you’d better learn to care for it correctly.

Article by Janet Macunovich and photos by Steven Nikkila, www.gardenatoz.com.

Janet’s Journal: When Tolerance is Not a Virtue

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Rather than placing plants where they only “tolerate” a space, plant them where they are actually happy

For the best garden, avoid the word “tolerate” as you select plants. Use what will thrive on a site, not just survive. Barberry, German statice, lavender, dianthus and iris can all thrive in the dry soil.
For the best garden, avoid the word “tolerate” as you select plants. Use what will thrive on a site, not just survive. Barberry, German statice, lavender, dianthus and iris can all thrive in the dry soil.

Why do we deliberately plant species that only “tolerate” our gardens? Perhaps it’s because “shade tolerance,” “heat tolerant,” “tolerant of a wide range of conditions” and similar phrases are basic to horticulture. It’s so common in books that we skip right over this important word as we read.

Maybe we just don’t recognize body language in plants as well as we do in people. A plant’s message may reach us on a subconscious level and trigger vague disquiet, but for most it doesn’t process beyond that point.

Are you in tune, or are you living in a garden full of sullen, sniveling, grumbling malcontents? Here’s a primer, a listing of some of the signals I’ve learned to read as “I’d rather not be here but if you insist I’ll stay and make us both miserable.”

Rodger’s flower (Rodgersia sambucifolia) is far less tolerant of drought than lamium, and unable to stand the full sun, crying out with scorched leaves.
Rodger’s flower (Rodgersia sambucifolia) is far less tolerant of drought than lamium, and unable to stand the full sun, crying out with scorched leaves.

There may be fine line divisions in your garden between tolerable an intolerable sites. Sweet Solomon’s seal (Polygonatum odoratum ‘Variegatum’) is a stalwart performer here where the lilac shades it all afternoon, yet would fall prey to pests and disease in the full sun and heat just a few feet to the left.
There may be fine line divisions in your garden between tolerable an intolerable sites. Sweet Solomon’s seal (Polygonatum odoratum ‘Variegatum’) is a stalwart performer here where the lilac shades it all afternoon, yet would fall prey to pests and disease in the full sun and heat just a few feet to the left.

Astilbe is a tough plant all around, so long as it doesn’t have to go dry. Given constantly moist soil, it can put on a show even while putting up with singed leaves in full sun.
Astilbe is a tough plant all around, so long as it doesn’t have to go dry. Given constantly moist soil, it can put on a show even while putting up with singed leaves in full sun.

Clematis suffers from its reputation as “tolerant of shade.” Here, it’s tolerating shade as it always has, by escaping over the fence to bloom in the sun, in the yard outside the gardener’s view!
Clematis suffers from its reputation as “tolerant of shade.” Here, it’s tolerating shade as it always has, by escaping over the fence to bloom in the sun, in the yard outside the gardener’s view!

Subsisting in Shade

A key to recognizing tolerance is knowing what a plant could look like. Until you see a member of a species being all it can be, you may not register your flora’s resentment of the conditions you force it to endure. You may never hear the mumbled curses shared between pallid plants who view you as the stingy human who’s consigned them to, in this first case, chronic light deficiency.

Perhaps the plant that opens your eyes is one of your own that escaped by seed or runner into a brighter place, to stun you with its transformation. Although I’ve also seen this happen where the gardener does not even recognize the original and its progeny as the same species. Maybe your enlightenment comes when you see a division of your plant in better circumstances, strutting its stuff in someone else’s sun garden. The differences, minor or major, and the chance for comparison might escape you except the resident gardener is there, thanking you for the gift of (name of plant here) and bragging on its performance.

What a shade-tolerant plant does is become thin, developing more stem and fewer leaves. The stalks may be weak so the plant dips and sags. Its yearning for sun may make it lean or even crawl toward the light on prostrate stems. The foliage lacks substance and is paler than it should be. In the case of variegated foliage that longs for the sun, golds may become dull green, maroons a muddy pink, and gray loses its silvering fuzz to reveal ordinary green.

Flowers, too, are paler. Worse, they’re fewer in number despite all you spend on “bloom builder” fertilizers.

Some shade tolerant species whose discontent becomes obvious in midsummer:

Daylilies – come on, count the flowers per stem and then try to tell yourself it’s happy compared to sun-grown siblings!

Purple coneflower – snip a flower from your shade-grown echinacea and put it in a vase with one cut from the sun garden.

Balloon flower – this sturdy creature shouldn’t require staking but it will fall when it’s starving for light.

Sullen in the Sun

Their foliage wilts on hot days and has a hang-dog droop even when it’s only pleasantly warm—these plants are begging you for a place with at least midday shade. A leaf’s edges may be scorched, while the blade is pale and chlorotic, its color-producing chemicals destroyed by light as surely as sun fades a drapery. Singed, washed out foliage may be concentrated at the top of the plant or on its sunniest side, that outer rank of leaves taking the brunt of the abuse. Flowers may be abundant but short-lived. The whole plant may opt for a shorter season, in the case of woodland and forest-edge species able to escape into dormancy.

Hostas are troopers, making only the smallest unhappy noises in the sun. Not so, flowering dogwoods and rodgersias, who moan and wail for cool shadow. Lucky bleeding heart and mayapple can fold their foliage early and depart the scene by midsummer.

Whining in the Wind

Holding shredded, tattered flower petals or snapped flower stalks out for you to see, your “wind tolerant” plants can’t believe you fail to notice their plight. Some are less stoic, simply refusing to flower or, if woody, holding back growth on their exposed faces until the windward side is all stunted, twiggy limbs. Other shrubs and trees thrust dead branches in your face, hoping you’ll understand that constant rocking in the wind is costing them roots.

A more subtle sign is foliage that’s been rattled and rubbed against itself until it’s bruised, creased, abraded and wide open to every leaf spot fungus that ever took a liking to that kind of plant.

Serviceberry is wind tolerant, but don’t ask it to endure too much if you expect to enjoy its fragrance or cut a pristine flowering stem for a vase. Poplars stand up to any gale but try not to look at their spotted leaves and cankered twigs, and don’t hold it against them when those twigs grow into easily broken limbs. Great Plains gardeners know lilacs as dependable windbreaks, but don’t send a photo of your symmetrical shrub to your gardening cousin in Kansas, if you want him to remain deaf to his deformed lilac’s moans. And certainly don’t cut a bunch of big, rich-colored blooms from your shrub and drive them out to him, unless you want him to learn to cry over his plant’s paltry showing.

Hostile in the Heat

Plants that don’t love heat, only tolerate it, cry out in singed spots, especially on wide, horizontally oriented leaves. They wilt on the worst days and even on the best days curl their foliage under like so many clenched fists. With every stab from their ever-present mites, they hurl silent curses at the gardener. If all else fails, the herbaceous ones will develop crown rot, tender young buds drying and dying as they emerge, and the plant will bow out.

Many people ask their plants to tolerate heat without knowing it. Away at the office, you may not notice the midday sun or superheated 3 p.m. air that oppresses your Hydrangea, pounds your Pulmonaria, and cooks your Caladium.

Dreadful in Dry Places

Brief bloom, slow growth, increased susceptibility to fungus and sucking insects, tip dieback—these are all the price we ask a plant to pay when it must tolerate drought.

Just because it puts up with the shade, don’t ask it to take the drought, too, or Astilbe will simply retract its developing flower buds in crisped disappointment. Spirea is a dogged player, even where it’s dry—just don’t expect it to put on any but the briefest floral show. Misunderstood Monarda, grown dry for fear of wetting its mildew-prone leaves, will powder up even sooner than otherwise. Given constant moisture the same plant may show not a spot of gray.

Pests can tell a plant that’s being tolerant, even if we can’t see any difference. Above, this butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa) growing in compacted soil at roadside may look fine at first glance...but it regularly falls prey to aphids (below) that never touch its sister plants growing 10 feet away in deeper, better drained soil.
Pests can tell a plant that’s being tolerant, even if we can’t see any difference. Above, this butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa) growing in compacted soil at roadside may look fine at first glance…but it regularly falls prey to aphids (below) that never touch its sister plants growing 10 feet away in deeper, better drained soil.

butterfly-weed-attacked-by-aphids-0718

Muttering in the Mud

Listen early in the year for the voices of plants who want out of the wet soil. They give themselves pep talks and start into growth, then gasp as stems are bitten by crown rot and fall. Surviving stems bear pale and discolored leaves, deprived of nutrients available only in warmer or better-aerated soils. Leaf spot and mildew plague them, especially at high summer.

Burning bushes and yews must be the most tolerant plants of all time, for all the places they’re asked to grow. But watch them to be the first to tell you when it’s too wet, with pale foliage that yellows or develops fall color early. Redtwig dogwood, a native to wet places where soil water is constantly refreshed, is often relegated to stagnant mud where its beautiful foliage assumes a tortured, pocked look.

Don’t scoff at intolerance of confinement. Look closely at the bee balm (Monarda ‘Violet Queen’) in the center of this picture. See the brown, thin, stunted, bloomed-out stems to the right? That’s her mother plant, the only difference between the two being that the daughter is a division, set into fresh soil renewed with compost.
Don’t scoff at intolerance of confinement. Look closely at the bee balm (Monarda ‘Violet Queen’) in the center of this picture. See the brown, thin, stunted, bloomed-out stems to the right? That’s her mother plant, the only difference between the two being that the daughter is a division, set into fresh soil renewed with compost.

Crabby in Confinement

Some aspects of a plant’s environment are quite natural, others almost entirely manmade. Confinement, for instance: forcing a plant that wants to spread to stay put, or restricting a woody plant that wants to stretch its roots to a small pot.

We must confine plants to be able to grow trees in openings in the sidewalk or perennial gardens in patio containers. That’s all copasetic so long as we understand the unavoidable consequence of limited space: premature aging. Wood ages and dies sooner, herbaceous stems become more crowded more quickly, leaf size diminishes on older limbs and crowns, and diseases multiply as blooms decrease.

So star magnolia and callery pear will perform acceptably where their root space is limited, but to keep them flowering well, prune regularly to stimulate fresh young growth. Mint makes a great container plant, lush and fragrant even on a hot patio, but where one in the garden might need dividing every two or three years, divide the potted one each and every spring.

If I were a plant, I would probably tolerate much in exchange for compliments and the satisfaction of persisting against all odds. Yet I doubt that I could handle confinement with anything approaching grace, for there as here I would always want a little more space!

Article by Janet Macunovich and photos by Steven Nikkila, www.gardenatoz.com.

Janet’s Journal: Double Your Perennials, Double Your Fun

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Pair perennials properly to create superb companion plantings

Crocus, a spring-blooming lark, has an additional qualification for doubling up: It has a shallow root and so can be paired with tap-rooted myrtle euphorbia (Euphorbia myrsinites).
Crocus, a spring-blooming lark, has an additional qualification for doubling up: It has a shallow root and so can be paired with tap-rooted myrtle euphorbia (Euphorbia myrsinites).

Quamash (Camassia leichtlinii) is a lark, a spring-blooming bulb of wet places. When it fades into dormancy, it can be covered by a late rising, moisture-loving owl: boneset (Eupatorium perfoliatum; foliage in the foreground). Boneset is a relative of another, better known owl, Joe Pye weed.
Quamash (Camassia leichtlinii) is a lark, a spring-blooming bulb of wet places. When it fades into dormancy, it can be covered by a late rising, moisture-loving owl: boneset (Eupatorium perfoliatum; foliage in the foreground). Boneset is a relative of another, better known owl, Joe Pye weed.

Doubling up on perennials. It’s the designer’s color-hungry attempt to copy and even improve on nature. Nature, which blankets the ground below trees with spring ephemerals and populates a prairie with low-growing vernal species among taller, later-blooming types. In both instances two perennial groups co-exist harmoniously. The spring species live fast and finish their business as the summer crowd takes over. The summer species graciously shed their leaves or topple to the ground at year’s end, letting in light to fuel the next cycle.

The designer who doubles up perennials will plant two species where one might be expected to fit, pairing them in one of several ways:

A) Larks with owls: One species that starts and finishes early in the season with another that comes on later. Larks often have a summer dormancy, or don’t suffer when the gardener cuts them back hard early, to make room for the owl.

B) Layered species: One wide, ground floor occupant below a narrow high-riser.

C) Equitable competitors: A shallow root scrambler with a deep or tap root, each drawing on different levels for water and nutrients, and the scrambler able to move out of the way as the other grows.

The concept is simple. Yet it is an attempt to copy natural elegance so it requires observation, patient trial and a certain ingenuity in execution. I coined the phrase “doubling up” for my garden design classes. So here are some successful doubles and the most important practical lessons I’ve learned along the way.

Perennial alyssum is not only a tap root plant but a ground floor specialist. Thus it doubles-up well with a shallow-rooted high riser such as Joe Pye weed (Eupatorium purpureum).
Perennial alyssum, left, is not only a tap root plant but a ground floor specialist. Thus it doubles-up well with a shallow-rooted high riser such as Joe Pye weed (Eupatorium purpureum, right).

Be a matchmaker.

In the accompanying chart are species for doubling up, each with its qualifications listed – lark, owl, ground floor, high riser, tap root or shallow-rooted scrambler. Any species that rates a check in the “lark” column (A1) is a suitable candidate for pairing with an “owl” (A2). High risers (B1) can double up with any ground floor specialist (B2). Tap roots (C1) are right to be teamed up with shallow root scramblers (C2).

Always plan for “Right Plant, Right Place.”

In making these pairings, I leave it to you to familiarize yourself with a species’ cultural requirements—amount of sun, moisture needs and soil preference. I trust you’ve already learned the lesson that it only pays to plant where you know the species will thrive, so you’ll pair off plants only if you know they both suit the site, or you’ll modify the site. For instance, oriental poppy, a lark, can share space beautifully with the owl, hardy hibiscus, but only if you can meet the former’s need for deep, well-drained soil, plus keep that soil moist enough to satisfy hibiscus, a native of damp pond edges.

Aim for more than one qualifier.

Plants get along in crowded quarters even better if they have compatible adaptive characteristics from two or even three of the categories. For example, balloon flower as a high riser does well with ground floor rock cress. You will learn to recognize the match is more sure when you see that it also pairs a tap-rooted owl (balloon flower) with a shallow-rooted free ranging species that does its growing in late winter (evergreens have that advantage!) and early spring.

I might also pair balloon flower with hybrid pinks for the high rise/ground floor match, but I’d be less confident of success. Neither is shallow-rooted so they will compete with each other more than is good. Also, because the pinks can’t scramble—i.e. move readily by surface-rooting stems into better space when conditions such as shade from a growing partner becomes greater in one spot than another—it will be a bit slow to react to openings in the balloon flower’s “canopy,” suffer more thin spots, and be less vigorous overall.

Lark and owl: The lark, Virginia bluebells (Mertensia virginica), is a great match for the owl, Japanese painted fern (Athyrium niponicum var. pictum), because both are at home in the shade.
Lark and owl: The lark, Virginia bluebells (Mertensia virginica, left), is a great match for the owl, Japanese painted fern (Athyrium niponicum var. pictum, right), because both are at home in the shade.

Plumbago (Ceratostigma plumbaginoides) is another late-rising owl, excellent for covering the departure of larks such as tulips and daffodils.
Plumbago (Ceratostigma plumbaginoides) is another late-rising owl, excellent for covering the departure of larks such as tulips and daffodils.

Wait to see who wins.

Yet you should keep an open mind as you pair the plants and avoid making snap judgments once you’re growing the doubled-up combination. Some pairings will test your determination, requiring the patient trial I mentioned earlier. I call this period “see who wins” even though what I always hope for is a long-term balance of power.

When one plant is slower growing than the other, but persistent enough to endure, it’s all a matter of time. Tap-rooted, high riser gas plant increases so slowly that it may be years before it’s a visually wonderful match with shallow-rooted, ground floor sedum ‘Vera Jameson,’ but that day is almost sure to come.

However, when the paired plants are both vigorous growers, it’s best during the wait and see period to adopt the laissez-faire of a really good kindergarten teacher. Watch and tolerate rambunctious individuals so they have leeway to grow, and step in only when one’s assertiveness becomes a threat to another’s growth. Stepping in between plants may involve judicious cutting back during the season, yearly thinning, or staking the lark to allow the owl to emerge with straight stems.

Consider once more the oriental poppy/hardy hibiscus double up. Through a wait-and-see strategy, I learned that a slow-growing pink cultivar of oriental poppy may coexist peacefully with hibiscus, but the rampant red-orange standard doesn’t play nice and will abuse a well-mannered partner if I turn my back. One year, I planted both types of poppy, each with a hibiscus companion. The pink poppy and its hibiscus are still happy campers seven years later, without any interference from me. The red-orange beast, however, acts like a red tide and would reduce its hibiscus partner to a tired swimmer trying to keep her nose up to that crimson surface, except that I act as referee.

So I wade into my red-orange poppy every June as the flower petals fall to remove that foliage before its time. I grasp each cluster of poppy leaves and stalks, then give a sharp tug to break it off below soil level. I learned that this does not kill the poppy, just slows its spread. It does free the emerging hibiscus shoots from the poppy’s shade. I can almost hear the hibiscus gulp in air as I pull the poppy out of the way.

Tap root and shallow. The category “tap root” doesn’t always mean a single, straight root but a root that is deep. Hybrid lily, left, has a deeper root than perennial ageratum (Eupatorium coelestinum a.k.a. Conoclinium coelestinum, right), so the two can co-exist harmoniously.
Tap root and shallow. The category “tap root” doesn’t always mean a single, straight root but a root that is deep. Hybrid lily, left, has a deeper root than perennial ageratum (Eupatorium coelestinum a.k.a. Conoclinium coelestinum, right), so the two can co-exist harmoniously.

Accommodate the staggered start.

Some pairings involve plants that are best planted in a certain season—bulbs in fall, the first sowing of a self-seeding annual in spring. Yet you may want to plant their double up counterpart earlier or later. Or you may decide to try doubling up beginning with an established plant in your garden. The challenge is to insert the second plant and insure its good start but cause minimal disturbance to the first.

It can be a puzzle to do this with bulbs, especially the big ones. The plants they double so well with are often in full, glorious bloom at bulb-planting time. Perhaps tiny bulbs can be shoehorned in with a narrow trowel, but the gardener can’t bear to insert a spade and ruin that show. The best answer I’ve found is to wait until November to add the bulbs. Then the new additions still have time to get established before their debut, yet I’m less hesitant to plant in the other plant’s midst.

The reverse of that situation, planting an owl companion in spring among already established larks, is also difficult. Digging to place a one-gallon container of Japanese anemone among bulbs is likely to destroy or at least set the bulbs way back. When working among spring bloomers, it’s more do-able to trowel in several three-inch pots, small divisions of a late riser perennial, or the smallest available cell packs of an annual, or simply sow seeds between the established plants.

Sometimes you do have space at ground level for digging, but the air space is full of stems of established plants. You have to be a terrific lightfoot to avoid bending or snapping stalks as you work in that already tight place. I find elastic tarp straps helpful for cinching in existing plants, temporarily reducing their girth while I plant between them.

Have fun but don’t go broke!

Which brings me to one final, practical aspect of doubling up—the cost. It’s more costly than conventional planting because you plant two for one and there is always the chance that a pairing will fail. That consideration, along with the knowledge that small plugs make better double ups, keeps me always on the look-out for small starts at garden centers and plants that can be divided to plant as double ups. You can also do some begging of perennial divisions from fellow gardeners. Since you’ll request only very small divisions, perhaps your friends will be more likely to say yes. Then you can cut your costs even as you double your perennial show!

Article by Janet Macunovich and photos by Steven Nikkila, www.gardenatoz.com.

Janet’s Journal: The Value of a Garden

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This “rain garden” full of wetland plants was installed to catch run-off water and let it be filtered by soil and roots rather than sluiced directly into the storm drains with its full load of road-collected pollutants.
This “rain garden” full of wetland plants was installed to catch run-off water and let it be filtered by soil and roots rather than sluiced directly into the storm drains with its full load of road-collected pollutants.

Standing in my garden where she’d come to see a plant and size it up for inclusion in her own collection, my client spread her arms to encompass the whole yard and said, “Let’s have it all. What would it cost to do all this at my place?”

Given the size and basic composition of a garden—mostly perennials, perennials and annuals, shrubs and perennials, etc.—I can answer with a dollar figure. Yet I hate to, as it puts such a definitive edge on a garden. With a price tag neatly tied to one corner, a garden seems comparable to any other item that can be bought and sold.

Call me a gardening addict, all mixed up by too long an association with landscape architect Thomas Church’s proclamation, “The only limits to a garden are at the edges of your imagination.” For I think putting a dollar figure on a garden is too simplistic, that the other strings attached are more important and make it a far more complex consideration.

For my client, under the impression that a checkbook could transplant my garden to her property, I would say, “It’s not just the money, it could change your life, and your family, fundamentally, in many ways we should talk about.”

What is it worth toward family harmony that there is an outdoor room where people made memories together?
What is it worth toward family harmony that there is an outdoor room where people made memories together?

Diversity is a great mental stimulator, and attraction to life in general. The more species diversity there is in a landscape, the more interesting will be the life forms that gather there. A garden has far more diversity than basic lawn and shrubs, so it can support butterflies and their predators as well, like the praying mantis shown here.
Diversity is a great mental stimulator, and attraction to life in general. The more species diversity there is in a landscape, the more interesting will be the life forms that gather there. A garden has far more diversity than basic lawn and shrubs, so it can support butterflies and their predators as well, like the praying mantis shown here.

How much value can be assigned to the health of the gardener, who is drawn to go outside and putter. It’s been estimated that gardening and jogging burn an equivalent amount of calories, but gardening uses more muscle groups and imparts less forceful impact on the knees!
How much value can be assigned to the health of the gardener, who is drawn to go outside and putter. It’s been estimated that gardening and jogging burn an equivalent amount of calories, but gardening uses more muscle groups and imparts less forceful impact on the knees!

Shouldn’t the garden get credit when a child steps into an exciting, influential career in life sciences?
Shouldn’t the garden get credit when a child steps into an exciting, influential career in life sciences?

Hidden value to the person and the family

What is it worth, after all, that families stay together through shared memories because they have an outdoor room to enjoy and recall as stage and backdrop for important events?

Health is priceless, but poor health’s costs are harshly defined in drugstore and doctor bills. Should we begrudge the money spent on a garden whose upkeep brings us physical well being? It gives us better muscle tone through bending and stretching, strengthens our respiratory and circulatory systems by providing regular opportunities to rake and wheelbarrow, and when we’re ill, helps us recover more quickly. (Studies in hospitals have linked shorter stays and lower use of pain-killers to the view from a patient’s room—those in rooms with a view to greenery left sooner, having taken less medication, than those with windows looking out onto other buildings or hardscapes.) Should we simply use our gardening money for a health club membership instead? Or invest it wisely since eventual health care costs will be exponentially greater?

What about the value of stress relief, mental health and imagination? Just looking at greenery has been proven to slow the heart rate and increase the alpha brain waves associated with relaxation, creative thinking and problem solving. Being in direct physical contact with plants is even more powerful, as any mental health care practitioner will tell you who uses horticulture as therapy for patients.

Let’s add something for that one child who lives in or visits that garden and takes an important mental leap after a gardener explains something like the fact that a seedling plant may not be just like its parent. When that first peek into the field is the child’s stepping stone to a career as a top level genetic researcher, why not credit his or her lifetime salary and awards to our garden’s output?

Connectivity and resources for the community

Influence is worth something, and gardens are notably influential in a neighborhood. Eventually most gardeners see it, how their use of flowers or attention to lawn and shrubs catches on in nearby properties. Even in the most dilapidated neighborhood, it’s the home with the neat yard that garners respect and gradually raises the standards for everyone. The existence of a garden is both incentive and deterrent—studies in urban Los Angeles indicate that graffiti and other building defacement happens less where there are diverse, tended plantings.

Communication is more lively and there’s more camaraderie in neighborhoods where people are seen in the yard and lean on the fence to exchange news. The gardener who is outdoors regularly is likely to be an essential link in passing the word during emergencies small and large, from lost dogs to missing children. That person is more likely to notice and sound an alarm when things look wrong. Little things like a nod and a greeting, more important ones like acknowledging big changes in one’s life from the birth of children to loss of loved ones—these are the vital links that bind us, activities more likely to involve gardeners than people shuttered with their home entertainment systems.

To save time and money you can change front yard gardens (above) back into sod (below) but what will you lose in mental stimulation, wildlife habitat and eye-relief by reducing the species diversity?
To save time and money you can change front yard gardens (above) back into sod (below) but what will you lose in mental stimulation, wildlife habitat and eye-relief by reducing the species diversity?

gardens-without-plant-diversity-lack-stimulation-0518

Cleaner environment

Gardeners tend to reach out and spread the green. Every year, garden clubs, Master Gardeners, volunteer foresters and informal teams in southeast Michigan are responsible for hundreds of new trees and acres of colorful displays, planted free or at a very low cost. These plantings open minds at libraries, heighten the image at civic centers, increase enjoyment and learning at zoos, parks and museums, and help ease the pain at hospitals and convalescent centers.

Where diverse plantings are, there are more birds. Proven by federal studies to be highly effective weed-seed eaters and bug catchers, they’re also heart-lifting singers of song who just can’t survive on grass alone.

Cleaner air is one of the benefits we all reap from gardens. The gas-scrubbing powers of green growing things has been proven many times over, but the garden’s effect on air quality goes beyond that. Every square foot of garden is one foot that might be tended without the use of power mowers and string trimmers, machines that are dirtier than cars in terms of emissions—and noisy to boot.

Gardens purify water, too. At a conservative estimate, every 100 square feet of garden in Michigan can absorb and filter 720 gallons of water per year that would have run rapidly off of hardpan sod or paved surfaces. As run-off, that water would have sluiced away into storm drains loaded with pollutants such as oil drips from vehicles and animal feces. As we’ve learned through increasingly common notices of beach closings, what goes into storm drains often flows directly into streams and lakes, and sometimes finds its way back into the drinking water supply. Absorbed into the loose, receptive soil in a garden, that water will not run but fall gently through a cleansing filter of soil particles and roots to have all or most of its pollutants stripped away before it returns to groundwater, wells, streams or lakes.

Every day in one way or another, a garden increases in value.

Article by Janet Macunovich and photos by Steven Nikkila, www.gardenatoz.com.

Janet’s Journal: An Introduction to Green Roofs

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Left, Liatris, butterfly weed and 148 other drought- and heat-tolerant species cover 20,000 square feet atop Chicago City Hall. Green roofs fight smog by cooling the buildings under them and the city as a whole.
Left, Liatris, butterfly weed and 148 other drought- and heat-tolerant species cover 20,000 square feet atop Chicago City Hall. Green roofs fight smog by cooling the buildings under them and the city as a whole.

Here’s what I’ve learned about green roofs for you and me.

Going green does cut heat, thus reducing smog and its attendant miseries. Tests in Toronto, Chicago, Seattle and other cities prove this cooling effect. Chicago City Hall went green in 2001 while the county building, a mirror image twin next door, still cooks under asphalt. Air temperature, humidity and the intensity of solar radiation are monitored on both roofs, but I was there and did not have to look at a thermometer to know I was 50 to 55 degrees cooler on City Hall. In Evanston, Illinois, the difference between the leaf-topped Optima Building roof and its neighbors’ has been almost 100 degrees on occasion. In Toronto, a billion square feet of roof absorbs and radiates enough heat to keep the city 7 to 18 degrees hotter than the surrounding countryside. Readings from test buildings there have fueled computer models that show there could be 3 degrees of cooling if just 6 percent of the roofs went green.

The conventional asphalt roof on Cook County Building is now in stark contrast to Chicago City Hall, its mirror image twin next door. Temperature, humidity and stormwater runoff figures collected from building pairs like this provide the proof that green roofs can make a big improvement in air quality.
The conventional asphalt roof on Cook County Building is now in stark contrast to Chicago City Hall, its mirror image twin next door. Temperature, humidity and stormwater runoff figures collected from building pairs like this provide the proof that green roofs can make a big improvement in air quality.

Green roofs have direct payoffs, too. The building beneath stays cooler so air conditioning costs drop. The thick top is good insulation, so heating bills may be less. It insulates against sound, too—airport neighbors, take note.

A planted roof lasts longer since the planted layer buffers wind, sun and fast temperature swings. Flat and minimally-pitched roofs, the best candidates for green systems, may last twice as long as conventional caps. In Germany, where green roofs have been in place over thirty years, 14 percent of new buildings in this style are going green. Building owners no longer plan to reroof every 15 years, but expect upper crusts to remain sound for 30 years.

All these numbers are good, but don’t come cheap. A green roof costs $9 to $18 per square foot—excluding soil mix and plants. All told, topping a building this way is a 30 to 60 percent bigger investment than conventional roofing. Just look at the construction details to see why.

More conventional rooftop gardens, like this one designed by the author, are also valuable in reducing air temperatures, purifying the air and improving the view and attitude of the neighbors. In every green roof, 50 percent or more of the water that falls on planted surfaces is taken up by the plants, reducing the strain on overloaded, contamination-troubled storm drains.
More conventional rooftop gardens, like this one designed by the author, are also valuable in reducing air temperatures, purifying the air and improving the view and attitude of the neighbors. In every green roof, 50 percent or more of the water that falls on planted surfaces is taken up by the plants, reducing the strain on overloaded, contamination-troubled storm drains.

In the north Milwaukee suburb of Shorewood, a retail store named The Garden Room is roofed with an intensive planting system, meaning it has deeper planting areas than those with extensive systems. Its 18-inch depth of soil mix can support trees, shrubs and perennials.
In the north Milwaukee suburb of Shorewood, a retail store named The Garden Room is roofed with an intensive planting system, meaning it has deeper planting areas than those with extensive systems. Its 18-inch depth of soil mix can support trees, shrubs and perennials.

A green roof consists of up to ten layers. First, a protective mat goes down on the roof itself—not to protect the roof but to prevent punctures to the second layer, a waterproof membrane. Over the waterproof membrane is another protective mat, then a root barrier, perhaps some insulation, a drainage layer of gravel or waffle-like panels, and a filter pad to keep fine particles of soil out of the drainage layer. Then there’s the planting medium—usually soilless and 3 to 18 inches deep. Last come plants and a woven mulch blanket to keep the planting medium from blowing away until the plants cover it completely.

There are two kinds of green roof. Extensive systems consist solely of shallow rooted plants like sedum. Ford Motor Company’s huge building in the Rouge Complex has an extensive system. An intensive system has deeper planting spaces able to support many kinds of plants, even small trees.

I’d like to walk on and dabble in my own roof plantings, so the roof must be engineered to hold more weight. I once computed the weight of a roof garden I designed, which meant estimating saturated weights of soil mixes, root balls, perennials, trees, mulch, planter boxes and statuary. An engineer from the architectural firm added my garden’s weight to snow load and other factors, and designed for a “dead load” of 250 pounds per square foot. That’s twice what some roofs are designed to hold and it’s all reflected in construction costs.

The Garden Room’s roof is a sales area, where decorative pots, plants, art and furniture can be displayed among more permanent plantings chosen for drought and heat tolerance. Community groups are also encouraged to make use of sitting areas on the roof for meetings.
The Garden Room’s roof is a sales area, where decorative pots, plants, art and furniture can be displayed among more permanent plantings chosen for drought and heat tolerance. Community groups are also encouraged to make use of sitting areas on the roof for meetings.

Yet I still think this idea is worth pursuing. I’ll be proud to do more toward water purity, by living beneath plants that will use half or more of the water that falls on the roof. Every drop they use is that much less water cascading through downspouts and into storm sewers. Less water running that route means fewer pollutants swept into rivers and lakes.

Maintenance details are still elusive. Roof owners and industry promoters I’ve interviewed admit that care is required – weeding out undesirable plants, for instance. Since weed trees sprout even in our gutters, it’s no surprise to hear they’ll grow on a green roof. What no one seems yet willing to describe are the tactical details. Does killing a weed up there mean spraying it with a herbicide—not my bag!—because pulling it would disturb the soil mix? If I pull weeds do I have to keep carting replacement soil mix up to the roof?

There’s plant replacement, too. Even the most drought-tolerant plants above the most clever water-reserving drainage system may fail and need replacing. I’m still seeking figures, which may just mean waiting a year or so. Chicago’s very helpful, education-oriented project began with 150 species and the project managers intend to publish performance evaluations on all of them.

That leaves only the roof repair angle. What if the membrane springs a leak? It’s vulnerable at the same places my old roof is—where chimney and roof meet, for instance. Will calling someone to make repairs be like trying to find someone to fix our solar panel? A solar panel fixer’s as rare as a blue poppy, even though solar technology was supported by government incentives in the 1970s. America’s green roof industry is light years behind Germany’s where 43 percent of cities offer incentives to build them.

Article by Janet Macunovich and photos by Steven Nikkila, www.gardenatoz.com.

Janet’s Journal: Troubled times for the white pine, Michigan’s state tree

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It is important to differentiate between white pine decline, and normal fall color, shown here.
It is important to differentiate between white pine decline, and normal fall color, shown here.

A healthy white pine is full and dark green.
A healthy white pine is full and dark green.

Many people in Michigan have noticed the yellowing and thin appearance of white pines that have stood sentinel and provided shade for decades. Some who didn’t recognize those earlier symptoms will see the first sign of this region-wide white pine problem as a dead tree.

What horticultural professionals have noticed in the Midwest, including southern lower Michigan and some areas further north on the mitten, is best described as white pine decline.

Decline is reduced vigor, below-normal functioning and slower growth in a tree when those symptoms can’t be attributed to a specific disease or insect. Trees in decline may fall prey to insect or disease problems because they are weak, but those are additional complications rather than causes of decline.

A tree may decline for many years. If its situation doesn’t improve, it may exhaust its lifetime starch reserves and begin to exhibit dieback—which looks just like it sounds and often ends in death.

I first noticed white pine decline in the mid 1990s. Many white pines yellowed suddenly, alarmingly and at least one 40-year-old tree on a property I garden died. Based on the positions of the most afflicted trees relative to northwest winds and open ground, and a severe winter that had just passed, I attributed the problems to cold-related root damage. Others came to the same conclusion and experience since then seems to support this.

When placed side by side, braches from stressed and unstressed pines exhibit noticeable differences.
When placed side by side, braches from stressed and unstressed pines exhibit noticeable differences.

Advanced dieback has occurred on this white pine tree.
Advanced dieback has occurred on this white pine tree.

Do you remember February, 1996? The white pines do! On the night of February 2-3, temperatures from the Great Plains to New England dropped to lows never seen before or not seen for 40 years. That week, the outbreak of Arctic air set nearly 400 record daily minimums and at least 15 all-time lows in the eastern U.S. Wind chills of -50 and -100 degrees were common.

In southeast Michigan, the mercury plummeted 15 to 20 degrees in just a few hours on a night when there was not even a trace of snow to insulate the soil. Branches and trunks of some plants died, and the frost knifing suddenly and deeply into the unprotected soil killed roots even on hardy, established plants.

This healthy branch shows the normal retention of needles for three years.
This healthy branch shows the normal retention of needles for three years.

By spring, gardeners would be mourning the loss or severe damage of thousands of decades-old Japanese maples, and finding privet hedges, rose of Sharon shrubs and even stalwarts such as old junipers dead or killed to the ground. Plants hurt but not killed would begin the slow process of regenerating roots and limbs only to be socked with drought years, one after another.

Shallow-rooted plants like white pine may have been worst hit. Left with fewer roots than they should have, they were not likely to take up enough water and nutrients to fuel regrowth. They were in trouble even if drought had not begun to compound the loss.

Six years later, my tally sheet of all the white pines I see regularly in my travels and those I tend reads this way: Some of the first-affected died and many are still struggling. Some which did not initially show symptoms developed them during subsequent drought years. Only a few recovered. Very few escaped all damage.

This white pine, next to the spruce on the right, is yellow and thin—signs of decline.
This white pine, next to the spruce on the right, is yellow and thin—signs of decline.

In its bulletin, “Decline of White Pine in Indiana,” Purdue University Cooperative Extension reported, “white pine decline… has been a problem for many landscapes in Indiana. …Declining trees usually look a pale green, or even yellowish, compared to healthy trees. Needles are often shorter than normal; sometimes the tips of needles turn brown. Needles from a previous season often drop prematurely, giving the tree a tufted appearance.

“With loss of needles, the tree has a reduced ability to produce the energy it needs to survive…

“With severe or compounding stress factors, the tree may gradually decline and eventually die. Decline may be gradual or rapid, depending on the number and severity of stress factors.”

University of Missouri Extension made similar reports like this one from August, 1999: “We have received many white pine samples into the Extension Plant Diagnostic Clinic this year… from mature white pines, about 20 to 30 years old that are in a state of decline. …Other Midwestern clinics have also seen (this) and have been unable to explain most cases of decline…”

“We therefore believe… that the problems we are seeing with white pine may be related to environmental factors and site conditions… such as heat, stress, drought, flooding and sudden extremes in temperature and moisture.”

Note that experts don’t lay full blame on the cold but on a combination of causes. Ironically, reliable cold and snowier winters may have worked in some trees’ favor.

Missouri, Indiana, Ohio and the southeasternmost part of Michigan, which have all seen many white pine problems since the 1996 freeze and subsequent droughts, are south of white pine’s native range. Since a species’ native range is delineated at least in part by climate, we know that something about the weather in our area is probably not optimal for white pine. A record-breaking warm-up that came after the 1996 cold snap may be one of the climatological events these trees can’t handle. Two weeks after the freeze, all across the area affected by decline, temperatures jumped into the 70s, 80s and 90s. For the most part, white pines growing where there was the usual reliable snow-cover or where the warmest air didn’t reach, fared better.

What happened to the white pines was outside current experience, on a scale so broad that few had the perspective to be able to recognize it. Now that we look back and know how long a tree has been declining which we just noticed this year, we can wish we knew more earlier, but it won’t get us anywhere.

So if you have a troubled white pine, have it inspected by an arborist. Rule out disease and insect problems. Give it the help it needs to fight any secondary problems. Do what you can to alleviate underlying stresses.

Establish a regular watering routine and fertilize the tree in early spring to see if it responds. Aerate the soil if it’s compacted. Be pleased if the tree reacts positively, but be realistic about its chances and your needs. Many of these trees are years past their point of no return. Even those which respond positively to treatment may take many years to recover.

Article by Janet Macunovich and photos by Steven Nikkila, www.gardenatoz.com.

Janet’s Journal: Celebrate and respect the diversity of native plants

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The new gardening ethic can help insure that future generations will still know the unique look of dunes along Lake Superior, covered in native goldenrod and tansy.
The new gardening ethic can help insure that future generations will still know the unique look of dunes along Lake Superior, covered in native goldenrod and tansy.

Do you ever travel for the pleasure of experiencing the exotic? To absorb a city’s regional feel, discover landscapes with unfamiliar hues and textures, or hike through natural areas where native plants in their native settings show you their unbound souls?

Then you probably appreciate diversity, too. You drive quickly away from your destination’s airport with its too-same hotels and restaurants. You’re thrilled to see cactus in a gravel mulch when you’re in the desert, disappointed to see bluegrass sod patched into prairie.

Chances are that you, like me, appreciate the plants you meet on your travels so much that you seek them out and add them to your garden.

“Invasive” becomes a watchword

It’s time to think about this. Not to stop collecting, necessarily, but to be more discriminating in what we plant. We’re in danger of homogenizing the natural world, with the same speed and dulling effect as fast food corporations expanding their territories.

I’m referring to invasive plants. Those plants the USDA considers for official weed status because they exhibit the ability outside of their native range to spread in ways that “threaten the survival or reproduction of native plants or animals or reduce biological diversity.” And I’m focusing on the ones deliberately introduced, not those inadvertently carried as cloth- or shoe-clinging seeds, discharged whole from a ship’s ballast tanks, or unwittingly planted as vegetative bits in root balls shipped between states.

A native wet prairie like this one on Walpole Island consists of dozens of species growing in harmony, each blooming in its season. Some people like the massed bloom of loosestrife better than this natural show, but the butterflies, hummingbirds and songbirds that reap crop after crop of nectar and seeds from this stand would disagree.
A native wet prairie like this one on Walpole Island consists of dozens of species growing in harmony, each blooming in its season. Some people like the massed bloom of loosestrife better than this natural show, but the butterflies, hummingbirds and songbirds that reap crop after crop of nectar and seeds from this stand would disagree.

You already know a few of the worst

If you’re a lover of Michigan forests, you probably know Norway maple (Acer platanoides) is one of these deliberate introductions now seen as a big mistake. The species seeds prolifically into our woods, crowding out native saplings so that autumn hillsides once red maple scarlet in fall are muting to European yellow. They throw such long-season shade that they close the early spring window of sun our native wildflowers evolved to exploit, gradually killing the beauty at their feet. Even their roots are sinister, suspected of allelopathy, a plant kingdom domination ploy in which they exude chemicals that kill or stunt the growth of other species.

Those who find peace in walking our Great Lakes shores might picture baby’s breath (Gypsophila paniculata) in this role. Pretty in a garden, it’s a killer on the dunes, bullying and displacing bright orange hoary puccoon, dreamy off-white death camas and other natives.

Even those who don’t hike in but merely admire from a car window our extensive, water-purifying wetlands, know purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria) as this kind of cultivated criminal. Watch for just a few years as one tiny fluorescent pink patch expands to cover acres. Like the other alien invasives, loosestrife changes not only the plant community but the entire food chain that rests on its shoulders.

Once we might have thought it an inconsequential loss when this bright gold colony of the native horned bladderwort (Utricularia cornuta, blooming yellow in mass) is overrun by an invasive alien such as creeping buttercup (Ranunculus repens). Now we know that a specific insect might be totally dependent on the bladderwort, and a songbird on those insects, and so on up the food chain.
Once we might have thought it an inconsequential loss when this bright gold colony of the native horned bladderwort (Utricularia cornuta, blooming yellow in mass) is overrun by an invasive alien such as creeping buttercup (Ranunculus repens). Now we know that a specific insect might be totally dependent on the bladderwort, and a songbird on those insects, and so on up the food chain.

Continue excluding known criminals, or ask credentials of all?

Under the United States Department of Agriculture plant importation regulations, inspectors reject excluded species, using a “black list” of plants known to have become invasive to the point of widespread economic and environmental impact. Under “white list” policy, new species are excluded until proven innocent, and the burden of proof rests on the importer. A grower who wants to import a species for agriculture or horticulture must conduct and file for approval a risk assessment, which evaluates the plant’s potential to spread and the impact of such a spread on native species.

Can such a policy really stem the tide of homogenization? It’s debatable. Battles still have to be fought against invasives already here. Even if white listing had been in place and effectively enforced since the earliest days of U.S. independence, it still would have come too late to shut the door against groundcover myrtle (Vinca minor, currently endangering American forest ecosystems), privet shrub (Ligustrum sinense, crowding out prairie and woodland plants alike in many states), or the glossy buckthorn tree (Rhamnus cathartica, a serious threat to both dry and wet plant communities). And import restrictions might not have stopped the importation of kudzu (Pueraria lobata, the vine that’s engulfing the southeastern U.S.) because at that time its economic promise seemed greater than any foreseeable risk. And even today we probably couldn’t predict the latent ability of a meek creature like Grecian foxglove (Digitalis lanata) to explode into certain special niches as it has done into the prairie in one Kansas county.

Norway maples can have respectable gold color in fall. But when this invasive tree displaces red and sugar maples in the woods and in the fall show, we are the losers.
Norway maples can have respectable gold color in fall. But when this invasive tree displaces red and sugar maples in the woods and in the fall show, we are the losers.

Few plants shine so brightly in fall as our native red maple.
Few plants shine so brightly in fall as our native red maple.

Might we control this at our garden level?

It’s a hot topic. A species that would run rampant if given free reign could be an acceptable team player in a controlled setting, like a private backyard garden. I’m among those who bridle at the thought of being told what I can and cannot plant, even though I greatly value and work to preserve our native species and systems. For financial reasons, many professional growers also balk at the idea of white listing. They know that what’s new, sells and what’s held up in testing becomes old quickly. Some also profit from the fact that what’s invasive, propagates quickly for sale. Who can predict whether people will voluntarily lean toward responsible stewardship of native diversity, as expected by some policy makers, or whether individualism, capitalism and the rising cost of controlling invasives will lead to a white list.

Happily, a few environmentally conscious commercial growers and botanical institutions have already begun doing pre-introduction assessment of new species. Some have evaluated and then decided not to introduce new species, or to issue them only with warnings. Certainly more of this will happen as awareness of the problem grows within the gardening community and buyers begin to question and reject the next gooseneck loosestrife (Lysimachia clethroides), spreading buttercup (Ranunculus repens) or Mexican bamboo (Polygonum cuspidatum) that comes along.

Baby’s breath (Gypsophila paniculata) is a beauty in the garden, a bully on the dunes.
Baby’s breath (Gypsophila paniculata) is a beauty in the garden, a bully on the dunes.

What you can do now

You and I may not be importing, introducing or selling new species, but the cumulative effect we have on their spread is mighty. The policy makers know this, and some feel that better enforcement and publicity may make white lists unnecessary.

So I hope that your awareness prompts you to think twice about buying plants from growers who act unethically. I refer to people best summed up by this exchange between myself and a world-renowned grower I will allow to remain anonymous for the time being:

Reporter: “I was alarmed at how quickly that plant spread, right out of the garden and even through mowed lawn.”

Grower, smiling rakishly, even proudly but certainly without any hint of remorse: “Yes, it is quite the thug, isn’t it?”

I hope for several things. That you will try to say “no” to species that prove themselves invasive in your garden, either by rigorously confining them or disposing of them in a final way. That you will question the urge to and consequences of deliberately planting surpluses from your own garden in nearby untended fields and woods. At the very least, I pray that you will think twice when someone offers you a plant that they “have too much of.”

Gardening is all about hope

Maybe our children will be able to enjoy the same kind of vacations that have delighted us, and walk with mouths agape in alpine meadows or tidal flats or cypress swamps full of plants they’ve never seen. Maybe they will also be able to proudly and accurately say to visiting gardeners “That carpet of trillium? Yes, it’s a Michigan native and we make sure it always will be.”

Article by Janet Macunovich and photos by Steven Nikkila, www.gardenatoz.com.

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