Archive for the Janet Macunovich tag

Janet’s Journal: Springboard into the garden season

April 2, 2019 • Leave a Comment

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…

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.

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.

…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.

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.

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

August 31, 2018 • 4 Comments

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.

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.

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.

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

July 3, 2018 • 3 Comments

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.

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.

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.

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

June 5, 2018 • Leave a Comment

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

May 17, 2018 • 1 Comment

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?

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!

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?

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

April 29, 2018 • Leave a Comment

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.

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.

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.

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

April 3, 2018 • 5 Comments

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

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.

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.

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.

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: Gardening and Growing Older Gracefully

July 5, 2017 • 9 Comments

High-maintenance perennial beds can be changed over to, or allowed to become, groundcover and shrub areas. These at the Laudenslager residence contribute foliage color, texture and other benefits, yet require far less care than typical flower gardens.

Virginia Smith poses sweet woodruff (Galium odoratum) as an example of an acceptable weed that succeeds on many levels. It fills in bare spaces, cohabiting agreeably here with blue-blooming Ajuga repens, and also offers features the older gardener learns to appreciate. “It’s so pretty in shape, foliage color and texture; it’s not just a bloom thing.”

When I was just five years old, Mrs. Kissinger’s age was as definite to me as my own. She was old. Grandparent old. Hair in a bun, crinkly-eye old. I can still hear the quaver in that voice that coached me to recognize weeds, and see the wrinkles on the fingers that pinched an apron into a sling for picking peas. The gold seal on the certificate of age I fashioned for her was that she could call my Dad “Johnny” and “son.”

She always seemed to be smiling when she was in the garden. Recently that memory has become a stand-out, a marked contrast to some of what I’ve been seeing in myself and my friends as we acquire age.

I see fretting (“This is just too much work anymore”) and hear worry (“That bed’s gotten totally out of control”). I’ve commiserated with others over keeping up with the over-ambitious creations of our own youth. Worst, in contemplative moments I’ve recognized in my own negative thoughts the same whines and crying I’ve heard from and disdained in others.

Nigella (Nigella damescena) is one of the plants that Virginia Smith and Wil Strickland call an acceptable weed. It has redeeming physical features and will seed itself into bare spaces before weedier species can do that.

This is not a new phenomenon, this reconciliation of garden and gardener over time. Gardeners have made this life passage before. Some, like Mrs. Kissinger, smiled as they went and their gardens reflected that contentment and calm. She found a way to accept the realities, anticipate the challenges, make the changes, and grow old gracefully.

It’s been my good fortune as a professional gardener to work with many people and to see many approaches to this phase of gardening. I’ve bailed out gardeners who made commitments beyond their physical means or who fell temporarily behind because of an illness or injury. I’ve worked regularly with individuals who need help on certain tasks but not others. I’ve even drawn and executed designs aimed specifically at reducing work for older or less able hands. Most important to me, I’ve had the privilege of working once again for the smiling older gardener and the wise gardener approaching age. I can understand the need and their advice. Here is what they say.

Judith Mueller’s life philosophy helps her to garden as gracefully now as she did 30 years ago. She views gardening as a continual choice, made each year. How she gardens each year changes with her own situation that year.

Judith Mueller: Making Choices, Keeping Fit

Judith Mueller doesn’t have a grand plan to garden forever, even though she thinks she will. She takes one season at a time.

Even before she became an empty nester and grandparent, certain of her friends would come over, look at her extensive gardens and say, “You’re crazy! How do you keep this up?”

Her response has always been, “It’s what I choose to do with my time.”

“I know that a garden doesn’t all have to be done today. It’s an ongoing process and it’s not over until I say it’s over.

“So I looked at what shape the gardens were in and decided what I could do myself, what I needed to get help for, and what I can let go of and let someone else do. This year that meant I looked around and got help edging and mulching. Someday I might have to cut back, maybe on the size of my beds. Or maybe I’ll have to ask for more help. But I don’t think about that now because for this year I can handle it.

Just one of the reasons Mueller feels gardening is important is that, “It keeps us mentally alert and healthier.” Her career in a medical profession makes her especially aware of how much good her hobby does her. “I don’t get aches and pains like I know some people do. And people ask me things like ‘How did you lift that?’ So I know I must be strong and healthy for my age.”

Mueller advises that gardeners who want to keep going, keep fit all year. “Don’t rely on gardening alone to keep you in shape through the off season. I’d rather not have to work out, but gardening, especially spring work, can be really overwhelming as you get older, if you’re not in some kind of shape.”

Recuperating from a heart attack forced Wil Strickland to take a step back and assess not only his garden but his place in it. “I flit from job to job more now,” he says. “I don’t try to weed a whole bed at once, just to fill one bucket with weeds. People who come to your garden will forgive your weeds.”

Wil Strickland: Forced to Look

Wil Strickland, whose garden and face are well known in Ann Arbor, laughed when I asked for his input. “It’s ironic you should ask me about how I cope with gardening now that I’ve had a heart attack. Because right now I have never felt better and may be healthier than I’ve ever been in my life. But you’re right, I have had to look at things differently, and I have made some changes.”

He makes four recommendations.

One: Choose your weeds. Pick willing spreaders that you can easily identify and don’t mind having in your garden, and let those go ahead and take over. Something like forget-me-nots will merrily fill in bare spaces, choking out what would be less welcome weeds.

Two: Mulch. You can’t ever do enough of it. As you approach the golden years, beef up your garden, too, so there is less space between plants, less room for weeds to get started.

Three: Start eliminating high-maintenance plants any time. Those plants that need the most work—dividing or pruning or fending off pests—are the ones you should let go. Switch to lower-care plants, such as shrubs and groundcover combinations. You don’t want to be in that situation Strickland cites, “with a garden full of plants you love but can’t possibly maintain anymore. There are so many plants you can try that you might surprise yourself and find out roses or irises aren’t the only things that can make you happy.”

Four: Garden in big pots. “It’s the ultimate answer,” says Strickland. “You can do floral arrangements, or grow vegetables or anything you want. Perhaps you’ll need to have someone help you set them out, but they can be set anywhere without worrying about whether the mower can get around them, they don’t need edging and they’re a wonderful height!”

“I don’t kneel any more, I bend, says Virginia Smith. I keep an open mind about what I can do even though I can’t do it the same way I once did.”

Virginia Smith: Happy to Work

Mueller and Strickland are both starting down a path that Virginia Smith found years ago. “Attitude is the most important thing you need to keep gardening gracefully, which is what I like to think I’m doing. It’s one of those things you have to accept. I think of so many things I did so easily a few years ago that I wouldn’t even attempt now. But rather than railing about what I can’t do, I say look at all I can do.”

Smith gets help a couple of times a year, with big seasonal jobs like mulching and pruning. But most things she keeps doing herself, making little changes all the time in how she does the work. “I can’t get on my knees anymore, so I bend over to plant. After a period of time my back gets tired so then I go do some pruning, which uses a different set of muscles and a different mindset.”

Make paths wider and easier to walk, like this one at the Sapelak residence. Youthful greediness leads to narrow paths, as we covet every square foot for yet another plant. Wide paths are wiser, and more generous. They are low care and make navigation easier for both wheelbarrow and wheelchair.

Changes in the garden itself have also allowed Smith to keep gardening. “I use a lot more annuals than I used to, and I’ve designated some spots that are just for annuals, spots that are not too big but just the right size. They’re always ready for me to plant. As soon as the weather lets me plant annuals, I can fill those spots. It’s very gratifying, right away. I also do more annuals in containers, pots I can fill with lighter weight styrofoam and potting soil so they’re light enough for me to move around to just where I need them.”

An altered perspective on what must be done on any one day is helpful, says Smith. “I don’t set deadlines anymore—I just do what I feel like doing. Then I rest a while and if I feel like doing more, I do.”

On the other hand, with its passage, time has become more valuable. “I’m less reluctant to move something if I don’t like it where it is. I’ve either gotten more brave or more foolish!”

Having to decide what one can and can’t accomplish and determine what you most want to do with your time has also changed Smith’s outlook on some plants, even weeds. “I’m more patient with plants I used to pull out because they were too aggressive, things like sweet woodruff that take over. I used to pull them to keep them under control. Now I just keep them from choking plants I really like, and enjoy them wherever they’re pretty enough to just put up with.

“I enjoy gardening more every year,” says Smith, and she smiles.

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

Janet’s Journal: Fertilizing Tips

May 16, 2017 • 1 Comment

Simple suggestions for wiser fertilizer use

Exotic species such as rhododendron and azalea that wouldn’t normally be found growing in Michigan’s alkaline soils need special fertilization every week or two from early May until late July. Use a water-soluble fertilizer that includes micronutrients. Products range from seaweed solutions to acid-loving plant powders that dissolve in water. Spray the solution onto the plant’s foliage, so some nutrients can be absorbed directly into the leaves.

The basic idea of fertilization is to supplement the soil rather than the plant. Just because the label says “Lawn Fertilizer” or “Rose Food,” it doesn’t mean that fertilizer must be used exclusively on that plant, or that plant must have its namesake fertilizer. Specialty fertilizers in general were formulated to meet greenhouse growers’ needs, providing enough nutrients in the right proportions for the named plants when those are growing in soilless peat-bark mixes. A Michigan State University Extension soil test is a better guide for choosing fertilizer for field-grown plants. It pinpoints nutrients present and lacking in a soil. You may correctly use lawn fertilizer on roses and vegetable formulas on trees if those products most closely match the nutrient ratios prescribed by the MSU soil test result.
An excess of any nutrient can be wasteful, or even harmful, to plants or the wider environment. Avoid “bloom builder” fertilizers with an extremely high middle number (10-30-20 and 5-30-5 formulations are two examples) unless you know your soil is deficient in what that middle number measures, phosphorus.
Learn to recognize needy plants by diminishing leaf size, paleness or washed-out bloom color. Use water soluble products as mid-season supplements for these plants – kelp and fish emulsion sprays or water soluble powders.
Accept the fact that some plants are so far removed from their forebears that they need more nutrients than nature can supply. Varieties of rose, delphinium, clematis, dahlia, tomato and corn bred for enormous flowers or fruits won’t live up to their catalog descriptions without fertilizer supplements.
Likewise, plants that you plant in soil that is very different than their native habitat will probably need special attention. Rhododendrons, azaleas, pieris, mountain laurel and heather cannot obtain essential nutrients from alkaline soil and so require “acid-loving plant” fertilizers that supply micronutrients in water soluble form.
Use MSU Extension’s soil testing lab to learn what nutrients your soil really needs. (Contact your county’s MSU Extension office for a soil testing kit and instructions.) You may be surprised. Some soils have everything a plant needs except nitrogen, so the fertilizer recommendation from MSU’s soil lab may call for a simple nitrogen source such as 20-0-0 lawn fertilizer.
Don’t use it if you don’t want to. Keep your soil’s organic matter content high by continual sheet composting – layering nutrient-rich plant matter such as fallen leaves and kitchen parings over the soil. Organic matter decomposes into nitrogen and other nutrients. One percent of organic matter in the soil yields nitrogen at a rate comparable to fertilizing with one pound of actual nitrogen per thousand square feet. It takes 3 pounds of 33-0-0 or 100 pounds of 1-0-0 fertilizer to do the same for that 1,000 square feet.
Microorganisms and other soil-dwelling creatures must digest slow-release organic fertilizers such as cottonseed meal and feather meal before the nutrients in these products become soluble and available to plant roots. So apply such fertilizers a month or two before you expect the plants in that area to begin rapid growth.
“Organic” and “inorganic” (manufactured) fertilizers often look very similar and other distinctions between them are also fuzzy. A plant can’t use either type of fertilizer until it has been dissolved in water. Most “organics” must be broken down by fungi and soil-dwelling creatures before they dissolve, while many “inorganic” fertilizers dissolve immediately. Yet fish emulsion, kelp and compost tea are organic and water soluble.

Flower color may be deeper in some species when the plant is given supplemental fertilizer. But fertilizer isn’t necessary if the flowers and colors in your garden measure up on the yardstick that counts most—your own appreciative eye.

The queen of vines, large-flowered clematis, has a reputation for loving alkaline soils. Although this myth has been dispelled by experts, many gardeners continue to spread agricultural lime or gypsum at the feet of their clematis. In Michigan’s naturally-alkaline soils, this repeated liming can be counterproductive, blocking other nutrients from reaching the plant.

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

Janet’s Journal: A Veggie Smart Perspective

May 2, 2017 • Leave a Comment

Harvest time at Ernie Bergeron’s—beautiful as well as tasty and fragrant.

One man’s successful transition of backyard lawn to vegetable garden

Rainwater can be collected for irrigation. Bergeron’s downspouts fill rain barrels. The barrels are elevated on blocks so they can be tapped to supply the garden.

Being laid off from your job can certainly change your perspective. In the early 1970’s, trucker Ernie Bergeron received a lay-off notice. Perhaps it was because the future wasn’t looking too bright that a new, dim view of lawn overtook him one day. He recalls standing in his backyard and wondering, “What am I growing all this grass for? I can’t eat grass!”

So he started digging, and planted a vegetable garden. 30 years later, retired but still digging, he improves his techniques every year. The vegetable “bed” now fills every inch of his 750 square foot backyard. It lives up to Bergeron’s description—“my country garden in the city,” partly because it’s completely walled off from the neighbors by lush, bird-planted grape vines and black raspberry bushes that grow along the enclosing fences.

It’s as self-contained as any farm, too. It includes some perennial crops as well as the more standard annual vegetables. There’s a compost area, rainwater collectors and a gravity-fed irrigation system, storage for equipment, plus many practically ingenious and whimsically inspired inventions. A salvaged 55-gallon drum is the main element in an elevated, rotating compost bin, which he turns daily to reap a steady supply of crumbly dark compost. His latest project was once a truck cap. It sits on a cinder block frame now, its black sides absorbing heat and windows oriented to admit light. Bergeron’s fitted it with shelves and is nearly ready to put it to use as a greenhouse.

Vegetable gardening isn’t so popular as flower gardening, but you wonder why, when you stand in Bergeron’s domain and sample the produce. One bite of a fresh-picked cuke or whiff of a warm, ripe pepper and I’m ready to redesign some flower beds to make room for potatoes, corn and beans. It’s like trading one sense for two or three—less visually exciting, perhaps, but heavenly in scent and taste, and much more likely to draw me in to touch and fondle.

And as for the possibilities – the sky’s the limit in this oldest of gardening pursuits. In the 6,000 years that beans have been cultivated, gardeners were not sitting still but selecting and passing on their favorite varieties. Although commercial farmers in North America now restrict themselves to just six potato cultivars, hundreds of types still exist, legacy of ancient New World gardens that provided a range of potato-y flavors from nutty to tart.

It would be a shame, on many levels, to let that legacy pass. European explorers of the 18th century found far better gardens in the Americas than they had known back home. Native Americans grew more species and varieties than most Europeans had ever seen, and in many cases used more advanced techniques. It’s likely that Bergeron, keen on treading lightly on the Earth by growing organically, would have enjoyed comparing notes with those gardeners. They would both know from experience that thorough soil preparation and the plant’s own health are the best defense against any pest.

Bergeron worked hard on his soil preparation at first, but now he works smarter and less hard. “What I found when I first started digging was that this lot was used once for a dumping site. A manufacturing plant that was near here seems to have just dumped truckloads of scraps. It was disgusting. I knew I had to do something to make the soil better.

“Now I cover the whole yard with 10 to 12 inches of leaves in the fall. I wait until it dries in spring then sometime in May I turn the leaves and till them in. Maybe I’ll till them twice if they weren’t all the way dry the first time. Then I level it all and make my raised beds.

“I use string to outline my paths and then dig down, taking soil from the paths, throwing it on the rows and leveling it off. I usually make the rows no more than four feet wide so I can work in them without stepping in them. I can work two feet into the row from either side without stepping on it. It’s important to stay off the rows because the plants grow so much better in loose soil.

“I don’t start seed in the house, usually. The plants are too spindly when I grow from seed in the house. I buy my plants already started, although this year I’ll try out my new greenhouse. Some things I sow directly, of course—beets and carrots, for instance. I make my little rows and start the seed right there.

“I cut some rhubarb and horseradish in May. How do I manage to work around perennials like horseradish and rhubarb when I till in the leaves? I just till right over the horseradish – small pieces come up all over; enough for me to use if I watch for them. The rhubarb grows along the edge with the raspberries and the grape vines on the fence, where I don’t till.

“I don’t do much to the fruit. I prune the raspberries when I have time. I cut the dead canes out and throw a shovel of compost over their roots once in a while. I actually don’t dare go right in with them because I’d be sure to cry and because of what I’d look like—a guy trying to wrestle a wildcat!

“I grow way more than I can eat—here, have some of this cabbage, and some cucumbers. And I eat things other people might not think to try—here, taste this,” he says, pointing to the weed purslane that covers a bare area. “Really high in vitamin C, and tasty!”

“Learn how to make compost instead of using those chemical fertilizers – it’s free. Who fertilizes the forest? No one!,” says Bergeron.

Ernie Bergeron’s suggestions for the vegetable gardener:

Don’t plant too early. “I usually wait until the latter part of May to plant. I’d rather be late than early.”
“Learn how to make compost instead of using those chemical fertilizers—it’s free. Who fertilizes the forest? No one! I shovel compost onto the beds, and also make compost tea. And not only do my plants grow, but they grow well, even though I’ve been growing the same things in the same places all these years. No rotating—there’s really not room to rotate in a yard this small, anyway. It’s the compost and all the leaves I add that does it. If I have to buy fertilizer, I use fish emulsion and use it sparingly, maybe one or two times a season if the plants look a little pale.”
“Get away from chemicals. You don’t need them if the soil is in good shape. And encourage birds—a bird feeder I made from a metal trash can lid brings lots of birds in here. My friends the sparrows eat lots of bad bugs!”
“Keep weeds down by mulching with grass clippings or with leaves. You can store the leaves in bags from the previous fall. Just put the leaves in trash bags then cover the bags with a tarp so moisture doesn’t get in.”

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

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Pair perennials properly to create superb companion plantings

Simple suggestions for wiser fertilizer use

One man’s successful transition of backyard lawn to vegetable garden

Ernie Bergeron’s suggestions for the vegetable gardener: