Gardener’s Corner

The date is April 8 2010.  Really? Last week it looked and felt like June 29th.  The Corneliancherry Dogwoods are in bloom, so are the Forsythia and several varieties of bulbs.  This week its a little different cool and rainy.  We did need the rain, which is hard to say in April because we all know that April showers are supposed to bring May flowers.  Now we have too much rain.  It is really getting dismal out there.  So the question that should be on your mind is, what is going to happen to my blooming plants when we get our last frost of the season?  Notice I said when we get our last frost and not if?     We will get another frost maybe even more than one.  Our first frost free day is usually around May 15th.  So what will happen to all those lovely blooms that came out when it was warm and now wish they hadn’t?  Keep an eye on the weather.  If you hear on the radio or see on the t.v. weather that we are going to have a frost, cover everything you can.  I realize that the trees are too tall to cover so unfortunately we will probably see a lot of magnolias that will lose their blossoms.  We can however cover the small things like perennials and shrubs.  Now that it has cooled down a little, most people will realize that it is too early to plant annuals or vegetables, but even if it does become unseasonably warm again, don’t jump the gun.  Wait until we are sure the frost is done so you don’t have to go to a lot of work to cover everything.  Have a great spring.  I’ll be talking to you soon.                 

April showers bring May flowers.  We have had ample rain this spring and we can see the difference it has made in our plants and lawns.  I have a climbing Hydrangea at my house that is attached to my privacy fence in the back yard.  This is the first spring we have had blooms.  It is wonderfully endowed with large white blossoms.  Unfortunately all this rain can cause some issues.  One of those issues is and increase in Anthracnose on Maple leaves. 

Anthracnose is a fungal disease that infects the newly emerging foliage.  Because it is a fungal disease, it is more prevalent during periods of moderate to heavy rain.  The lesions that form on the leaves are large dark brown irregularly shaped areas of necrosis (death) that can be mistaken for tar spot.   This fungus can also attack twigs and cause cankers that results in dieback. 

Control of this pathogen is usually unwarrented.  The lesions are usually only an aesthetic issue.  One cultural practice that will reduce the amount of spores travelling around, is to pick up and dispose of any leaves that have fallen to the ground.

Tar spot is another fungal disease that effects Maples.  It too is merely an aesthetic issue and does not require fungicide applications unless you really don’t like the way it looks.

Winter can be blamed for a lot of plant problems.  This year we are noticing plant damage mainly with some grasses, some roses, and Clethra.  This past winter we had a lot of snow cover in the Midland area.  Snow cover is good for plants because it protects them from the harsh winds and sun of winter.  Unfortuntely this past winter, the snow cover lasted until about mid winter and then we had a warm spell that melted all the snow.  Shortly after that, we received some really cold weather that zapped the plants.  If the snow cover had lasted, the plants would have been fine, but being exposed to that cold snap with out the cover caused a lot of winter kill and die back. This can simply be pruned out.

Another type of damage that happened this past winter was rodent damage.  The snow started falling in Novemeber and lasted until June (just kidding) I think it was finally all gone by April.  With the exception of the above melting, there was a lot of snow for a long time.  The rabbits, voles, mice, and deer ran out of food.  The deer ate plants they don’t usually eat like Holly and upright junipers.  The rabbits chewed off the tips of branches a lot higher up on the plant than they usually can reach.  The voles and moles, made their homes under plants like low growing junipers, and stripped the bark off of the branches which caused the branches to be girdled and die. 

Is there a solution to these problems?  Well mouse bait, fences and repellents are the only things that help, unfortunately they need to be applied before the damage occurs. Next year if you had problems in any of these areas this year, you need to put these physical barriers and poisons in place prior to the start of winter.  It just goes to show you, it’s always something.

I am sure everyone reading this will already be aware of the term going green.  I am also sure that everyone realizes that we are in a bad economic situation in Michigan and in the country.  Today I would like to discuss vegetable gardening, because it is one way to go green and save some green at the same time.

Facts about vegetables:  Vegetables like sun.  They will do best if planted in the full sun.  If you are like me and have very little full sun in your garden, you can put them in partial shade, just be aware that they will take longer to mature and you may not get as much produce.  One way to combat this problem is to plant early and keep things covered in cold weather.  Another way to increas production is to build a raised garden so you are not competing with the surrounding trees and shrubs.  Raised gardens are also easier to work with especially if you make them no larger than 4′ wide so you can reach from one side to the other.  One more way to combat a partially shaded garden is to buy plants rather than seed.  These will mature quicker and produce sooner.  Another method for early ripening is to pick plants that have a shorter maturity date.  There are tomatoes for example that will mature in a shorter amount of time.

Preparing the space.  It is best to encorporate compost in the garden especially if your soil is clay or sand.  If you have the perfect silty loam soil you probably wouldn’t need compost but 99.9% of us do not have that kind of soil.  If you do not have your own compost bin (shame on you) you can purchase compost at your local nursery (Reder Landscaping) by the yard.  Rototill the compost into the area and then grade it smooth to make a nice bed for sowing or planting your vegetables.  One way to plant your veggies is to build hummocks for them.  By this I mean your rows will be a little higher than the space in between.  This is especially usefull if you have a wettish soil.  If you have a dry area I would not recommend it.

Planting: plant your seeds or seedlings according to label requirements.  Keep in mind that they will grow and they will do this quickly.  Some veggies take up a large amount of space.  Some veggies need a trellace or something to climb on.  Some veggies need a cage, like tomatoes.  Put the trellaces and cages around the plants as soon as you plant them so you can train the plant on the structure and not struggle to get it on or in there once it has grown 2 feet.  Some people think that you have to plant your veggies in straight rows.  This is not true.  In Europe they plant their veggies among their perennials and it adds another dimension to the perennial garden.  It is not advised to plant them with shrubs or trees as there is too much root competition and shade.

Care: Watering and fertilizing are the two main things you will have to do.  Unless you have a huge garden, you will probably not have to worry about too many bugs.  In Midland since we spray for mosquitoes, a lot of other pests are affected too.  None the less, keep your eye out for bugs and if you see some, get them identified before you spray any chemicals, they may be beneficial insects.  Make sure you read the label on any pesticide you use and make sure it is safe for the veggies you are spraying it on.

What to plant:  This depends on your space, but if you have a small area it is usefull to plant an entire salad.  Lettuce, cucumber, tomato, carrot, and maybe some salad burnet to give it a little extra punch.  Leaf lettuce is easier to grow than head lettuce.  Leaf lettuce can be harvested numerous times if you simply cut off what you need and let it re-grow. Remember the bunnies in your garden like these same vegetables so you may need to put a small fence around your garden.

Don’t be afraid to try new varieties, its fun to experiment. Some of the most fun things to try are actually what we call heritage vegetables.  They are old varieties that have been forgotten.  There are seed sources that specialize in this type of plant.   Enjoy going green.

Just a short note to remind all my faithful readers, it is now time in Michigan to apply preventative herbicide to your lawn to prevent crabgrass for the season.  For future reference, the homeowner can time this application with the blooming of the forsythia.  This is an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) tool that is useful for accurate timting  of application.  If you want to learn more about IPM you can read the article I wrote titled  Phenology.  Phenology is the science of comparing natural occurences like the forsythia in bloom, with the emergence of certain pests.  If you would like the whole phenology chart you can visit the Dow Gardens website listed in my links.  Using IPM practices, reduces the amounts of pesticides used and increases the effectiveness of those pesticides.  It also protects our beneficial insects that help to control the pests that cause damage.  If you do not want to apply these pesticides yourself Reder Landscaping has a complete lawn care program.  Call and ask for Brian.

Spring cleanup, what does that mean exactly?  Let’s examine that question.  Spring brings us not only warmer weather and good amounts of rain, but also leftover leaves, branches that have fallen out of the trees over winter,  trash that has blown into the yard etc.  So spring cleanup means getting rid of everything that will damage your garden or look bad aesthetically.

Let’s start the process off by talking about timing.  The earlier you can get out there and do some cleanup the better.  The grass is still dormant so a vigorous raking will not hurt the crown of the plant.  It is also easier to rake at this time of the year because the grass is not growing so its shorter and easier to rake.  The first thing I do is pick up all the big branches that have fallen and then give the grass a good raking.  Raking not only removes debris from the grass, but also removes the dead blades of grass that have died over winter.  Raking also loosens up the soil somewhat and increases air circulation.  The next thing I do is prune down all of the perennials that I may have left up over the winter.  I leave up some of my perennials up because they have winter interest, or the birds like to eat the seeds out of the seed heads. I also mulch my beds with leaves in the fall so after I have cut  all of the perennials down I rake the beds out.  Next I prune any shrubs or trees that need it.  Early spring is good for this because the shrubs and trees are still dormant. Because they are dormant there are no leaves to get in your way and you can see what you are doing.   I don’t prune my spring blooming shrubs like lilacs, spirea, or clethra at this time because it will remove the flower buds and I won’t get a good showing.  After the spring blooming shrubs are done blooming, I do the pruning on those.  This way they will set there buds for the next season and I will have a great show the next year as well.  The last thing I do is empty my pond (its a small one), clean out the muck and debris, and refill it.  Its still too early for my aquatic plants but I get everything ready and then place them in the pond when it warms up.

After all the clean up is done.  I look around for any weeds that may have already cropped up, pull them out, and then apply a pre-emergent weed control to keep new seeds  from germinating.  Pre-emergent herbicides will only kill seeds so you don’t have to worry about your existing plants, but you should always check the label to make sure you are applying it correctly.  Also, you can not use this type of herbicide in an area that you want to plant a vegetable garden unless you are going to use plants.  If you are going to direct seed your vegetables they will be killed by the herbicide.  Once the herbicide is applied you can not disturb the soil or it won’t work.  It acts as a chemical weed barrier.

The last thing I do in my list of spring clean up to do’s is to bring out all of the pots and decorative items that I keep in the garden that can not be out over winter.  I dress my picnic table with a nice table cloth and I am ready for spring, summer and fall barbeques.  Have a good spring.  Next week we will address vegetable gardens.

     Now is the time of the season to prepare for the devastation that the Japanese Beetles will cause next spring.  Look back at the article I wrote concerning grubs in the spring.  There is a “beautiful” picture of the grub damage that was prevelent last spring.  It may seem odd, but just like you have to plant bulbs in the fall to get spring flowers, you have to think about controlling the beetle/grub population now to prevent damage in the spring.  Let’s look at the life cylce of the Japanese beetle.  The adults usually emerge in June and July.  Their purpose in life at this point is to eat and mate.  Unfortunately for us they don’t have a specific plant they go after.  They are happy to eat around 300 different types of plants.  So controlling the adults is difficult.  The females are happy to mate with many different males as well.  After the female mates she will burrow into the soil 2-4 inches and lay 1-5 eggs.  After laying the eggs she will go back to munching and mating.  This cycle continues until she has buried between 40-60 eggs.  In 17-25 days the eggs will hatch into a C shaped white grub.  The grubs are enjoyed by crows and skunks and unfortunately they will tear up your lawn looking for them.  It is easiest to control the grubs at this young stage.  Applying a grub control with Merit in it will make the grass roots poisonous to the grubs and kill them. 

     If the adults are chewing up your garden you can also spray them with an insecticide.  You will have to spray on a regular basis because the adults keep emerging all through the summer months.  Phermone traps are not recommended because they bring hordes of beetles into your garden.  It is better to not trap at all, or give the trap to your neighbor so the beetles visit their garden instead.  To identify the beetle look for a beautiful metallic green bug eating your plants.  There is only one other beetle that looks like the Japanese beetle and that is the False Japanese Beetle.  The way you can tell the difference is to look at the hair tufts along the abdomen.  The Japanese Beetle has them making it look like they have 5 white dots on the side of their body.

Happy Scouting!

     In my travels through mid Michigan I talk with a lot of people.  I may be meeting with them to discuss a new landscape design or to look at a plant that is sick or dying.  No matter what I am meeting them for, we often  discuss their garden as a whole.  One of the categories of questions that seems to come up the most often is pruning.  How do I prune this plant?  When do I prune this plant?  In my first article I touched on pruning a little bit and so I thought I would go into more depth now.  

     To answer the question posed in the title of this article, its both.  Science is involved because we have to know the culture of the plant to know when to prune.  We also have to know the botany of the plant to know how it will respond to the pruning. Science also helps us to know what needs to be pruned out.  A tree or shrub may have a disease that needs to be removed and the pruner needs to know how far below the disease or injury he or she should  prune.  Art is involved, because we enjoy our landscapes aesthetically and we want our plants to be pleasing to the eye.  This may include pruning that most of us are not qualified to do for example, topiary or bonsai.

     Let’s get down to the facts of pruning.  The first rule of pruning is to remove any dead or dying branches.  How do I know its dieing?  Look for sunken areas, small leaves, areas that are soft to the touch, or a discoloration in the bark.  You may also see galls on certain shrubs or trees that need to be pruned off.  If you have any of these conditions, you will need to cut at least 1″ into healthy tissue to avoid the pest spreading to the rest of the plant.  You should also sterilize your pruners between cuts to avoid transmission of the organism to healthy tissue.  This is easily accomplished by inserting your pruners into a bath of alcohol.  It is important when you are pruning to always cut back to a node.  What’s a node?  A node is an area of the plant where a stem, bud or leaf comes out.  Pruning just above the node with out leaving any stubs on the branch will avoid further death to the branch.  After you are done removing the dead and dying branches its time to look for crossing branches.   If branches cross they will rub against each other and create a wound or could eventually grow together and create a weak area that will break in a storm.  Once we have removed the crossing branches its time to look at the overall shape and size of the plant.  For trees you may want to limb them up so you can mow under them or you may want to thin out the canopy some to let more light in.  Whatever your desires are for that tree, just remember to go slow, stand back and look often, and always prune back to a node as we discussed earlier.  The reason I say to go slow and look often, is because you can always take more off but its really hard to put it back on.  Next week we will discuss shrub pruning, timing, and how and why to perform renewal pruning on shrubs.

     We have all heard the nursery rhyme, April showers bring May flowers, what do Mayflowers bring?  Pilgrims of course.  This year we did not get much rain in April to bring out our May flowers (even though a lot of them were beautiful this year) and we are not getting much rain in May.  My lawn and perennials at my house are so dry they are almost crunchy.  I think its safe to say we are in a drought condition here in Mid Michigan.

     If you are one of the lucky ones to have put in a new landscape last fall or this spring watch out!  Your’e plants can dry up and die pretty easy with this weather.  On the other hand however, don’t go overboard with the automatic irrigation especially on clay soil.  You could end up drounding the poor things.  The best way to tell if your plants need water is to look at them everyday.  I used to have a 55 gal. fish tank.  The best piece of advise I ever got was to look at the fish everyday.  If you get to know your fish, you know when they are getting sick and you can add medicine to the tank.  It is the same idea with the plants in our gardens.  If you take a nightly stroll with your glass of wine, coffee, or beverage of your choice, and just look at your garden, you will get to know your plants and you will see when they are suffering.  If they look limp, yellow, or lacklustre it could be because they need water.  Unfortunately it could also mean they have too much water, the symptoms are the same.  That’s why you have to get to know them and their routine.  If you know you just watered last night for example, and they look limp, it could be because they are too wet.  Stick your finger in the soil and see if the soil feels moist or dry.  Moist don’t water, dry water.  It is really not that hard to figure out if you look at your plants everyday.

     In the nursery we have lots of bloomin goin on.  If you want to get into the spring spirit and you are not there already come on in and have a gander.  The Rhododendrons are in bloom and we have some specials on plants from last year.  We also have a nice batch of roses in numerous colors brightening up the nursery. 

     Keep gardening.