Dislodged

As I trim the ragged hellebores and search for the barrenwort (Epimedium), I find something I didn't expect. Something uninvited. A memory.

I try and make sense of the image: My father has my mother pinned to the floor; his hands around her throat. My mother gasps for air and struggles to break his grip. I run to my father and try and pull him off her, yelling, “No, Dad!”

Ah, there are the two barrenworts I planted last fall. They made it through the winter. I gave them plenty of cover, a thick blanket of straw, but worried they wouldn’t survive.

The image returns: My dad falls back on his haunches and buries his face in his hands. He sobs. My mother gulps a breath, scrambles to her feet and runs.

My conscious mind takes over and tries to make sense of this senseless image. Where does it come from? Why is it visiting me today? I call my mother and share these images with her, and she recounts the incident. All her details match mine. Then she says, “Thank you for saving my life.”

In the card catalogue of my mind, I must have filed that memory away for 56 years. Did the flow I feel in the garden today dislodge that memory?

When I wrote advertising copy for a living, I entered a state of creative flow. But it wasn’t automatic. It happened only after I crammed my subconscious with client research, sat in on focus groups, interviewed customers and stormed my little brains out. When I finally sat down to write, I could inhabit the world the client wanted to create for the customer. I would become untethered from time and lose myself.

I first experienced flow in art classes in college in the printmaking studio. The smell of India ink, the feel of wet paper, the image emerging as paper and plate rolled off the press. I wanted to live in that state of flow forever. Later, I knew how lucky I was to have a creative profession that conferred that state of flow.

Now I’m in the flow in the garden, where mind and body are one. I see, touch, and often taste many things. It’s the opposite of the way I lived as a child: on autopilot. I had little awareness of my surroundings or myself. I tried to rescue my mother and my younger siblings from my father’s drunken rages. The futility of it all overwhelmed me. I was no match for the disease that claimed him.

Maybe being a caregiver again has awakened this memory? I know I’m no match for dementia either.

The subconscious works in astonishing ways: it records, dislodges, re-orders, and bears witness. It flows through me. And like the air after a good thunderstorm – it also calms my trauma.

I sink my hands into the soil, draw in the smell of earth and turn my face to the sun. Blue sky greets me, and nothing can disturb me.

 Learn how gardening heals trauma:
https://tinyurl.com/5n967wjc

https://tinyurl.com/2wp5ph7f

These Days

You know those days: you wake up knowing you’ve slept well. Your husband turns to you and says your omelet is the best he’s ever tasted and your nose is perfectly proportioned for your face—and to top it off you find a 20-dollar bill on the sidewalk on the way to the ATM.

 I could use a day like that.

 And another.

I decided to take my bad attitude for a stroll around the garden and that’s when it happened: I found the hellebores in bloom – in early February. You can’t have a bad day when you see such hardy plants defying the wind and subzero temperatures and pumping blossoms right at your bad attitude.

My dry, cracked lips cracked a smile.

That propelled me to check the witch hazel, and it too was in bloom. Early. A pop of reddish-purple against the new-fallen snow stopped me in my tracks — winter heath. I rounded the corner of the garage to find snowdrops forcing their way through the frozen ground. Think of the effort that takes.

I could use some of that gumption these days. I slathered on more ChapStick and resolved to get out of the house more.

Today the hellebores are buried under eight inches of heavy snow.

They can take a joke.

Once the sun hits them, and they thaw out, they’ll feed the winter-weary soul.

Onward.

Left Behind

Not riches, not fame (well, maybe infamy from his homemade moonshine and bootlegging days), not acres of farmland, no gilded possessions . . .

 No, what my ancestors left behind was a garden.

This winter I have been visiting my grandmother’s garden, on the great plains of Minnesota, in my mind. I nap in her ancient asparagus patch, pick apples from one of her many trees, gorge on raspberries, climb her mulberry tree. Hers was a garden that had to feed eight people–her days decreed by what was ripe and needed to be harvested and canned. Her rhythms were those of soil, sun and rain. Her focus: peas and beans and all manner of growing things, children included.

Her garden fed me. She usually ended a visit by handing me a jar of dill or watermelon pickles, or a bottle of her homemade dandelion or rhubarb wine. On forty-degree-below-zero days (yes, you read that right: -40 degrees), I’ve known the thrill of biting into her crunchy dill pickles. A miracle in a jar.

She and my grandfather created the next generation of gardeners. All six of her children are gardeners and many of her grandchildren, too. Generous with her knowledge, she shared what she knew with anyone.

What she left behind tells you everything about my grandmother. 

When she and my grandfather died and the house and land were sold, the new owner leveled most of that garden. After I got over the shock of its destruction, I wondered: does it matter if we create a garden that is destined to be destroyed?

I like to think a raspberry shoot or two found a way to survive, but …

I know this: she left behind generations of gardeners and I’m still trying to perfect her watermelon pickles.

 Learn the many benefits of gardening.

https://www.mayoclinichealthsystem.org/hometown-health/speaking-of-health/dig-into-the-benefits-of-gardening

https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/gardening-may-bring-a-harvest-of-health-benefits

The Summer That Wasn't

No one is happy this summer except the slugs.

We just broke two records in our Connecticut garden: hottest and wettest July. When I say hot, I mean it – four heat waves. I read in the Connecticut Post that “July’s temperatures have been about four degrees above average and thunderstorms have dropped nearly a month’s worth of rain in a few hours.”

When I say wettest, I mean nearly 14 inches of rain in July. But context is everything: the average July rainfall is 4.17 inches. By July 21, 11.39 inches of rain had fallen at Bradley Airport. That broke the previous record for wettest July, set back in 1938. But July still had 10 more days left and that brought – you guessed it – more rain.

That’s more rain than my mother receives in one random year out in Willa Cather country on the Great Plains of Nebraska. They have been in an extreme drought for years. You want to grow anything out there you need water, and the Ogallala Aquifer (below their acreage) is being sucked dry. At their second property in Genoa, Nebraska, she said mature trees are dying.

 Even marigolds have not been spared. These stalwart companion plants are supposed to deter slugs and instead they’ve been eaten and slimed to death by slugs. One neighbor asked, “What on earth eats marigolds?”

That led to a conversation about how to combat the slugs. She admitted that she gave up beer traps because the slugs were getting more beer than she was. I told her slugs hate diatomaceous earth (DE) – because these soft-bodied mollusks hate to slither across sharp things. Even better, DE won’t harm the good bugs. Beneficial nematodes work well too, but my favorite product is Escar-Go®. The small pellet is a blend of iron phosphate (an active ingredient, originating in the soil) and a snail bait additive. It lures slugs in, they eat it and die within six days. Granted, six days can feel like an eternity when you see plants disappearing before your eyes. Don’t worry, Escar-Go won’t hurt wildlife, pets, birds or earthworms.

Astrantia (masterwort) gives off a scent that repels slugs. Time to add more Astrantia.

As I walked through garden this morning, I saw a grey catbird tossing something in the air and then on to the sidewalk. Then he/she ate it. Was it a caterpillar? Can catbirds acquire a taste for slugs? I hope they are flexible eaters.

On the plus side (which I am becoming with all the ice cream I’m eating) the corn has been some of the best we’ve ever eaten. It loves the high heat.

And with the high humidity my curls are holding their own.

My favorite slug bait:
https://www.gardensalive.com/product/escar-go-slug-snail-control

Typos & Working the Soil

Writer’s nightmare: a typo. After countless proofreading it still happens. I find it hard to proof my own writing. Somehow, I manage to see what I want to see (in writing and in life) and miss my errors.

Twenty years ago, when I took the UConn Master Gardener class, I reviewed the section on “How to Grow Rhubarb” and it said: “Plant early in the spring as soon as the soul can be worked.” Hmm, that’s a good one, but maybe it isn’t a typo? Maybe this was a master gardener class and a spiritual lesson as well?

My friend Adrian, who missed her calling as a proofreader, can spot a typo anywhere. Years ago, we went to an art opening and as she read the prominently displayed artist’s statement, she motioned me over and whispered: “Read sentence one in paragraph three.” It read, “I have displayed my work at many pubic galleries.” What a difference one little dropped consonant can make, eh? “Should we mention something to the artist?” I asked her. “No, don’t say a word.”

I’ve never been to a pubic gallery, but, I want to remain open to new experiences in and out of the garden.

Today the garden is shrouded in haze from the Quebec wildfires. But as soon as the air clears, I’ll follow the advice to “work the soul.”

Most days I do just that.

Companion Plantings

Some people are pathologically opposed to gardening alone. For them, it’s a group activity. Others are solitary planters and weeders. But we are never alone in the garden.

We are always being watched: A robin waits for a worm as I turn the soil. He probably figures, why should I do all the work when I can get this little old lady to do the heavy lifting and unearth a worm? A gregarious catbird comes within a few feet of where I’m weeding but decides he or she would prefer a dip in the nearby birdbath.

For 12 years I gardened with our beloved cat Van Gogh – a stray who survived on his unparalleled hunting ability. He was a paradox: a lethal hunter by day and a love bucket by night when we brought him in. He mainly supervised my garden chores. He would find me in the garden and plop at my feet and oversee whatever I was doing – with one eye open. When I would ascend a ladder to hack back the hydrangea that was smothering the house, he would come up the ladder too. We were inseparable.

I miss him, but I’m aware that without him the backyard is teeming with birds. I notice a pair of catbirds and their offspring. That’s something I would never have seen when Van Gogh prowled his domain. The word is out in the bird world that Van Gogh is no more. Two Carolina wren families have stuffed their swaying nurseries full of sticks – those little birds with such large songs sing above our patio daily. Take a listen.

https://shriekoftheweek.substack.com/p/shriek-of-the-week-wren-a5d

And it’s not just the birds that are back.

There are more chipmunks in the stone wall and more rabbits in the garden. Our neighbor to the north was overrun with chipmunks one year and asked if I could send “Killer” (aka Van Gogh) over. He kept the chipmunks in check. Right now, there’s a chipmunk orgy going on in the stone walls and in the neighborhood.

It’s a mixed bag, but it’s a brave new world in our backyard – one that birds rule. I’m blessed to have plenty of companions.

Read “Why Birds and their songs are good for our mental health.”

https://tinyurl.com/4t88644n

Think Like a Pollinator

We have a lot to learn about what pollinators like and need. We’ve been guessing, and like that Norwegian uncle who turned out to hate lutefisk, we shouldn’t assume that pollinators like what we like.

You may think that a new petunia will draw in bees or hummingbirds, but there’s a good chance that nectar – essential for pollinators – is no longer in this new petunia. While the petunia may be a commercial success because it was bred to draw you in, it does not draw in pollinators. Some of the newer pansies have no nectar either.

Pollinators such as bees (and let’s not forget ants, birds, bats, butterflies, moths, flies, beetles, wasps and small mammals) need a smorgasbord of colors and scents and petal shapes that open from early spring through fall.

In short, they need the right match. Imagine your garden as a match.com for pollinators.

Native plants attract pollinators and serve as hosts for the larvae of pollinators. Think milkweed for monarchs. Natives also need less water, but they take time to grow. Be patient, fellow gardener.

 Native plant materials specialist Stephanie Frischie at the Xerces Society says, “Bees are not generalists, they are much more narrow-minded.”

Pollinators need nectar from spring to fall. Consider spring bulbs like crocus and perennials like hellebores to late fall-blooming vegetables, asters, and monkshood. I mix annuals with perennials: lantanas, zinnias, cosmos, bee balm, catmint, salvias, butterfly weed, and milkweeds are just a few in my garden. Most pollinators prefer sun, but some will venture into shady areas and visit my lamium. And let’s not forget native wildflowers, flowering trees and shrubs.

Shun pesticides, herbicides and insecticides. They can kill pollinators.

Make the stop worthwhile for pollinators. I plant clumps rather than having one plant here and one plant there. This shortens a pollinator’s trek from plant to plant. And in between planting clumps, I leave space where pollinators can live and create more pollinators. They need water – I have multiple birdbaths – and some leaf litter or garden waste for nesting materials. Many bees burrow underground and need bare ground or areas that are free of mulch.  Don’t over-mulch every square inch of your garden. (Revisit an older essay “Mulch Madness”).

If you create an abundant stop, pollinators will stay. Heck, they may forage forever.

As you head to your local nursery or garden center, shun those big puffy flowers, and choose natives. Stop and think: do I have the plants with the nectar a pollinator needs from spring to late fall?

If we gardeners demand this, growers will catch on.

As a dear email correspondent wrote, “The pollinators need all the help we can give them.”

 More about pollinators and the plants they love:

https://xerces.org/sites/default/files/2018-05/17-051_03_XercesSoc_PollinatorPlants_Northeast-Region_web-3page.pdf

 https://www.pollinator.org/programs

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230222-the-beautiful-flowers-that-bees-cant-use

Déjà Vu

Now is the time to dream big. And pulmonarias, primulas and toad lilies invade my winter dreams. As I finish my catalog order, my husband has a request, “Don’t forget to plant that purple flower that our neighbor’s cat is crazy about.” Details were never his strength, but understatement is. A recent diagnosis explains his memory challenges. I add ‘Six Hills Giant’ nepeta (a.k.a. catnip) to my order.

I have memory challenges of my own; I feel like I had this dream before. I could have sworn I ordered the same plants years ago and planted them among the hellebores. I fill in the garden order form with this pesky feeling that I’ve done this all before.

Then I remember. I did do all this before. All these plants did well in the shade garden for a few seasons, but then one spring they disappeared. What happened to them? Too wet? Should I be concerned about my memory? Or should I just go with this new feeling: I can’t wait to see the beautiful fuzzy gray leaves of the pulmonaria ‘Twinkle Toes’ when it arrives at my door. I get to fall in love all over again.

Is the beauty of a plant any less if we no longer remember its name? Last summer my husband asked, “What’s that big lime-green plant growing on the patio?” My answer: “I have no idea.” Thank God for apps that identify plants – I use them more than ever. I take a photo and drag it into Pl@nt.Net and violà – it’s Japanese spikenard – ‘Aralia Sun King.’

These plant apps help me identify diseases, too.

As I pass the witch hazel in bloom with my husband in hand, he wonders what is this bush in bloom. To live with someone who is losing his memory is a “Perpetual Spring.”

And gardens are a place for many things: to dream, to grieve, to remember, to take in the aroma of the earth; to feel the sun on your face when memories and words no longer arrive with Spring.

 In Perpetual Spring by Amy Gerstler

Gardens are also good places
to sulk. You pass beds of
spiky voodoo lilies   
and trip over the roots   
of a sweet gum tree,   
in search of medieval   
plants whose leaves,   
when they drop off   
turn into birds
if they fall on land,
and colored carp if they   
plop into water. 

Suddenly the archetypal   
human desire for peace   
with every other species   
wells up in you. The lion   
and the lamb cuddling up.
The snake and the snail, kissing.
Even the prick of the thistle,   
queen of the weeds, revives   
your secret belief
in perpetual spring,
your faith that for every hurt   
there is a leaf to cure it.

 Amy Gerstler, “In Perpetual Spring” from Bitter Angel (New York: North Point Press, 1990). Copyright © 1990 by Amy Gerstler.

Reformed Raker

All I see are leaves: they hug the hellebores, they swirl at the back door, they’re mounded around the new patch of Agastache. This winter’s “snow drought” in the Northeast has brought revelations. The leaf litter reminds me of my former bad habit and my new status. I proudly proclaim that I am a reformed raker.

There is so much life in January under the leaf cover: insects, amphibians, mammals – you name it.

I’ll admit that raking and leaf blowing was a hard habit to break. Here in New England,  autumn is accompanied by the incessant noise of leaf blowers. Doesn’t anyone own a rake anymore? Trucks and their crews daily cart off loads of leaves to landfills. I have no excuse except that the peer pressure is intense. A nearby neighbor blew leaves for eight hours last November. There wasn’t a leaf in sight in her yard and nowhere for a single critter to take cover.

The maples create such a heavy carpet of leaves on top of the perennial beds that I did a light rake. But then I left the leaves and invited in earthworms, spiders, salamanders, frogs – any critter that wanted to slumber undercover. I feel smug feeding the soil and sparing our clogged landfills.

I can see the larger mammals in the back yard – the fox crossing through the leaves – but there’s a lot of life I don’t see. Chipmunks hibernate in the stone walls in dens lined with leaves, milkweed, and dried seed heads. Amphibians burrow under leaf litter to maintain their moisture levels. Frogs dig under the leaves in the muddy areas, while turtles need the ground cover, too. I take comfort knowing they all slumber beneath me.

And below the soil’s surface, small insects live under a blanket of leaves in cocoons. Come spring they’ll emerge as adults.

What’s more, I’m always working to find more space in our backyard to compost leaves, but space is tight in this New England mill town. And I have found that these Connecticut Nutmeggers frown on composting your leaves on their property.

It took time, but I finally get it. This is what mother nature intended. And I intend to work with her and not against her.

Anyone want to buy a used Ryobi leaf blower?

Two Master Gardeners Walk Into a Bar . . .

One says to the other, “What’s the weirdest garden question you’ve ever been asked?”

The second master gardener (that would be me) says, “I got a call from a woman who said her Thanksgiving centerpiece – a wooden goose – had bugs crawling out of it. She had bought the hand-carved goose at a local craft fair last fall. It promptly found a prominent place on the dining room table. But at Thanksgiving, several guests were “grossed out” when they noticed bugs crawling out of it. She loved the goose but loved her guests more. What could she do to save the goose, but rid it of bugs?”

Master Gardener #1: “You’ve got me beat. That’s a doozy. What did you do?”

Me: “After I scratched my head and rubbed my newly sprouted chin whiskers, I thought the wooden goose might harbor wood borers? Wood-boring beetles, maybe? Or wood mites? I asked her to drop off the goose so I could examine the bugs under the microscope, but she declined, fearing the bugs might infest her new car.”

I asked her a few questions:

Question 1: Do you have any firewood stored inside or outside your home?

“No,” she said.

I figured the bugs came with the goose (no extra charge) rather than any firewood stored on her property.

Question 2: Will the goose fit in your oven?”

“What?” she asked.

Question 2 again: “Will the goose fit in your oven?”

I could hear quick footsteps, her oven door open and the oven racks being removed.

“Yes,” she said.

“Okay,” I said, “wrap your goose in aluminum foil and bake at 425 degrees for two hours.”

 Once her goose was cooked so were the bugs.

Garden Small Talk: Even Kings Do It

I reconnected with a long-ago friend who confessed that she talks to herself while gardening. She doesn’t do this anywhere else – only in the garden. I’ve seen photos of her garden, and her plants must find her as insightful and interesting as I do. She has a lot to say, and both she and her plants are thriving.

 England’s new King Charles III, way back when he was Prince Charles, shared his gardening habits in an interview: “I just come and talk to the plants, really. Very important to talk to them; they respond.”

If it’s good enough for King Charles III, why not give it a go, or have a go, as the Brits say. You both might benefit. It’s free and it hurts no one. And you can’t say that about many things these days.

Once considered loony, science backs his royal habit. Don’t believe me? Would the Royal Horticultural Society lie? In a small study, they found that the vibration of the human voice turns on two genetic growth boosters, while the carbon dioxide from the human voice speeds photosynthesis.

The theory that plants benefit from the human voice began in 1848 when Gustav Fechner published Nanna (Soul-Life of Plants). But cull cyberspace and you’ll find a researcher and skeptic at Penn State. This scientist doubts that the human voice could produce enough carbon dioxide to stimulate growth.

You would have to talk a lot, which I’m fully capable of doing. He also found that while it’s true that vibrations of the human voice are like wind, and plants in windy climates produce a substance that does make them shorter and sturdier, you would have to be a long-winded talker. Literally. We’re talking all day and full of hot air. (I’ve asked my husband to withhold comment on my abilities in this last sentence.)

We are different in the garden. Calmer. Nature allows us to be our better selves. I sing in the garden. I also sing in the shower, but I really belt out those old Lutheran hymns in the garden. My Lutheran friends have advised me that you don’t belt out hymns, you belt out barroom songs. Okay, but I do fill my lungs, tip my head back and sing loudly. My theory: there is nothing to distract me. No electronic devices, no husband in need of finding a lost item; my mind is free to remember and sing:

            I come to the garden alone,
While the dew is still on the roses;
And the voice I hear, falling on my ear… 

The only distractions in the garden are the ones I create. I do interrupt myself. I once heard my husband describe how easy it is to distract me: “Just dangle a piece of string in front of her.”

Bottom line: I don’t know if plants benefit from my speaking to them. I know I do. I know they are listening.

Learn about a small research study from the Royal Horticultural Society. 

https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/garden-how-to/info/should-you-talk-to-your-plants.htm 

https://www.psu.edu/news/research/story/probing-question-does-talking-plants-help-them-grow/

How to Talk to a Plant: What Every Sedum Longs to Hear

“Darling, Sedum Autumn Joy,” you are a bit leggier this year than last, but no less lovely.”

Never chastise your sedums if they don’t have the shape you desire. Take full responsibility for not pinching them back earlier in the spring. After all, this is a cooperative arrangement. You pinch; they grow thicker and bushier.

On to a conversation with your Agastache. It’s such a flexible plant that you can pronounce its name any way you want. Here’s one variation. And another. That tall, withered plant before you is your Agastache “Tutti Frutti,” about to bite the dust despite its drought-tolerant abilities. Address it thus:

 “Thank you for your short (one season) and somewhat beautiful life. Farewell, I must move on to Agastache “blue fortune.” It will withstand our New England winters better. No hard feelings, love.” Onward to my roses.

 “Dear geriatric rose ‘New Dawn,’ what is it you crave?” A breakfast of Espoma Rose-Tone 4-3-2? Coming right up.”

 See, there’s nothing to it. Don’t be shy. If Joe Pye weed swaying in the autumn breeze inspires you to sing, go for it. You sing off-key? Who cares? The singing will do you both good.

 How do you talk to a plant? Lovingly. Tenderly. The same way you talk to family members, friends and strangers at the airport. We’re all in this together – every living thing.

Cooperation: left and right

The right to bare arms: I support it in the garden and that’s how I get poison ivy right above where my garden glove ends – just above the elbow. I need a full body glove or a hazmat suit.

I was weeding with my friend Nancy the other day: she’s a right-handed weeder, and I am a left-handed weeder. We work well together. She looked up from her weeding and said, “You must wear out a lot of left-handed gloves.”

“I do,” I said. “Do you go through a lot of right-handed gloves?”

“I do,” she said. “Hey,” she said. “I have all these left-handed gloves that are not worn out and now I know what to do with them.”

 Hand them over,” I said.

 Talk about cooperation.

How about we start a glove bank? Donate your unused left or right-handed glove, and we will pair you up with an opposite-handed weeder.

The alternative? Become an ambidextrous weeder.

I just bought a new pair of garden gloves and the tag touted “touchscreen compatible fingertips.” Hmm, I don’t need that because I don’t bring my phone to my garden. I have few rules in life, but no electronic devices in the garden is one.

Nancy on the other hand (in this case the right hand) always brings her phone to her garden. Last week she accidentally lost her phone in the weed pile. That took some digging – with both hands – fully gloved.

Twiners, Clingers and Grabbers

 For gardeners, this is the season of dreaming and scheming.

Make room in your reverie and your reality for the vertical. Verticality will change your garden in dramatic ways, not just outside, but inside your home too. Bringing beauty to bare walls, softening hard edges and inviting hummingbirds to hover higher – where you can view them at eye level. 

There’s no easier way to introduce verticality to your landscape than with vines. You’ll find a variety both in perennials and annuals, and enough range in bloom time to have an aerial display all summer. 

For me it all began innocently, attempting to hide two unsightly meter boxes and their wires.  Hydrangea petiolaris worked slowly, but effectively. A bonus: In three years a robin found the meter box smothered in thick foliage an ideal site for a nest, despite the meter reader’s monthly hacking.

Then I got vertically challenged. O.K. I am short, but I’m also short on space, so I started eyeing the sides of the house, the empty garage wall, a rambling stonewall and even trees.

Before you start eying a site where your vine will thrive, be it sun or shade, you need to determine if it can climb on its own or if it needs what I call assisted climber care - a trellis, fence, a few twigs, string stretched between something - all will do nicely for the vertical assist.

Vines reach their aerial splendor by three basic habits: they’re either a twiner, winding around some support; a clinger, climbing by tendrils; or a grabber, climbing by attaching themselves.

Twiners

Give them the right support and twiners will wrap themselves around anything. Honeysuckle, (Lonicaria) one of the most beloved twiners, grows in full sun and part shade. Lonicera Mandarin offers bright orange blooms, but no fragrance. Dropmore Scarlet’s (Lonicera x brownii) works on a trellis or cascading over a stonewall.  It’s relatively pest and disease-free. Japanese Honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica) is on the invasive list, so stay away from it.  Other perennial twiners include: Wisteria sp., Actindia sp. and Silver Lace Vine (Polygonum auberti.) 

The Clingers

Clematis sp. and Passion Flower (Passiflora caerulea), two beloved clingers, produce delicate branch-like tendrils on either side of a main leafstalk. Failing to provide nearby support will leave these clingers flat out on the ground, an indelicate pose for any vine, but especially a clinger. 

The Grabbers and Holders

This group of vines climb by means of two types of attachment: adhesive disks or root like hairs.  Boston Ivy  (Parthenocissus tricuspidata) and Virginia Creeper use disk-like suction cups. Hydrangea (Hydrangea anomola) and Trumpet Vine (Campsis sp.) produce tiny root hairs that grab any surface. Grabbers are ideal for a house or on stonewall. But these vines form strong attachments and, if you decide to remove or relocate them, they may leave marks. Or, as my teenage nephew calls them -- vine hickeys.

Annual Favorites

Nearly every gardener has a favorite annual vine. In my neighborhood survey, the winner is Morning Glory (Ipomea ‘Heavenly Blue’), with Scarlet Runner Bean (Phaseolus coccineus) a close second. The following vines also wracked up votes: Queen of Hearts Sweet Peas (Lathyrus odoratus), Cathedral Bells (Cobaea scandens) and Nasturtium (Tropaolum majus).  An Honorable Horizontal Mention goes to a Black-Eyed Susan (Thunbergia alata) because it scrambles with abandon atop a stonewall.

The Sky’s the Limit

Don’t forget to check how quickly and how high your vine grows. I blithely scattered some Hyacinth Bean seeds (Dolichos labablad) below a second story bedroom window one May, gave them a trellis, and forgot them.  Before the end of the summer, my husband complained that our bedroom was like A Little Shop of Horrors. The vine had made its way through a dime-size hole in a screen in one season. Ivies, on the other hand, are champion dawdlers.

Creative Combinations

Pair vines for innovative results. White Flower Farm features a fetching pair of perennials:  Rose ‘New Dawn’ and Clematis ‘Etoile Violette.’  The pale pink double-flowered rose is a beautiful support for the deep purple of the Clematis on my largest trellis. On the patio, my goal to extend blooms for evening al fresco dining united Hyacinth Bean and a white Moonflower Vine (Ipomea alba). These two carefree, annual climbers are compatible aesthetically: The dark purple pods of Hyacinth beans contrast with the stunning white moonflowers blossoms that open at dusk. Once the Moonflowers unfurl to a glowing four-inch orb, bats swoop in – like the Airborne Express of pollinators.

Setting the Record Straight

We sang in school: “Tell me why the Ivy twines?” For the record, it doesn’t. It grabs. Grab, twine or cling, vines change the look of any garden in dramatic ways, with few requirements other than a little support.

Losing the Bad Boy of Trees - Part 1

Nothing is more painful than losing an old tree in spring, loaded with blossoms. In a split-second, robins become refugees and shade-loving plants are cooked.

No, there is something equally painful. Making a bad investment in the bad boy of trees: an ornamental pear—the Bradford pear. Twenty-five years ago, I made the mistake of letting not one, but three of these bad boys into my life. I was dumb and desperate. When we bought our home there wasn’t a single tree on the south side, and we felt exposed. A local landscaper who had planted hundreds of Bradford pears all over town offered me three large ones. He promised they grew “fast.” I was impatient. In no time they topped 60 feet and gave us the privacy and cover we craved.

The wind rarely let up this spring and some days it came close to hurricane force. That’s when we heard the bang. The wind felled the last of the Bradford pear trees. Spring cleanup of that tree has been slow.

Every perennial I planted under those trees loves shade and they are now cooking in the full sun: the bleeding hearts are drooping, the Persicaria “Red Dragon” (knotweed) is having hot flashes, the Kirengeshoma palmata (wax bells) fainted and the monkshood is fried.

I’m in the middle of a plant relocation party. Consider this your invitation to come and save a plant from heatstroke and give this formerly shady lady a hand.

But who knew you could miss a bad boy tree so much? It’s like a fast, charming lover you know is no good and one day you must leave, but you just can’t seem to break it off. And you remember only the good times. How they shaded the house and reduced our air conditioning, sucked up carbon dioxide from the nearby street, reduced noise and air pollution, acted as water filters absorbing dirty surface water, lessened flooding by capturing water that would run off into the nearby Farmington River, and the list goes on… You remember fondly how they were the first to bloom every spring.

Even a not-so-good tree is better than no tree.

Then I remembered their bad habits. Bad habit number one: Bradford pears are known for their weak branching and a structure that’s prone to split. All three Bradford pears were overachievers in that department. We had them pruned, cabled, pruned again. And again. They were so late in dropping their leaves that Thanksgiving turned into a raking party.

But then I reminisce—in spring they were a halo of white blossoms, beckoning bees, and Baltimore orioles.

Losing the Bad Boy of Trees - Part 2

Then, one by one, those three bad boys split. This last one went out with a bang, followed by a thud. It took down the power and cable lines and crushed two newly planted trees. Its full weight lay on top of a Japanese Stewartia for days. Who invests and plants an elegant Japanese Stewartia under a big old bad boy Bradford pear? Don’t answer that.

But on those glorious spring days when all three were in bloom, walkers would stop and ask, “What kind of tree is this?” When I told them a Bradford pear, they asked when do the pears arrive? I’d explain that they don’t bear fruit due to the lack of cross pollination. You need two different varieties of pear to bear fruit. We had no fruit because we had nothing but Bradford pears. You can get fruit with a mixture of other ornamental pear varieties, but you need two different varieties, and they need to bloom at the same time. Oh, and they must be planted close enough so bees can pollinate them. Got that? Because I’m not sure my long explanation could get any longer.

Their second bad habit. Birds spread their small fruit everywhere, mostly where you don’t want them. They’re so aggressive that they choke out native shrubs and trees. You’ve seen them all over roadways and in highway ditches. Avert your eyes, cover your ears. Do not be lured in by their siren song. These bad habits have landed Bradford pears on the most wanted list — the invasive plant list— in many states. In North Carolina, I’m told that if you bring in a photo of your fallen Bradford pear tree, they’ll give you a native tree to replace it.

I was bemoaning my fate to my mother who lives out on the Nebraska prairie in Willa Cather country. Her problem is far more serious and not of her own making. Grass fires. The drought has made everything “like tinder,” she says. High winds are fueling those fires. One nearby farm was destroyed. My mother has reason to worry – the fires are burning close to home.

Right after the tree fell, I saw a robin with a beak full of nesting material looking like her future had been blown off course. I know the feeling.

Every day I walk by the gaping hole and ponder the possibilities.

 Replacement tree contenders – all natives:

http://www.ladybug.uconn.edu/FactSheets/trees-and-shrubs--suggested-native-species-for-pollinators.php

Learn why Bradford Pears became popular:

https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2018/04/25/bradford-callery-cleveland-tree-invasive-blooming/535378002/

Your Iris Moment: The Garden in Uncertain Times

Gardens in war offer sustenance and solidarity. Defiance and subversion. While gardens and fields in Ukraine become bombsites and graveyards and farmers cannot plant or live, we garden through pandemic and war to replenish body and soul.

 A famous story of Virginia and Leonard Woolf’s gardens in England shows Leonard's defiance. As WWII drew near, Virginia called for him to come inside to listen to "the lunatic" Hitler on the radio. Leonard shouted back:

“I shan’t come. I am planting iris, and they will be flowering long after he is dead.”

Gardeners today refer to this as an “Iris moment.”

Food supplies felt the pressure of WWI and WWII. “War gardens,” as they were called in WWI, and “victory gardens” in WWII were supposed to take the strain off the dwindling food supply and boost morale. It was a way for the collective community to work together for the common good for “community and country.” Everyone had more than skin in the game – they had zucchini, eggplant, tomatoes, corn, peas, green beans, raspberries, blueberries and anything they could grow.

Backyards, churchyards, parks and playgrounds in the United States – and around the world – were full of fruits, vegetables and herbs. Their bounty supplemented rationing stamps or cards. These gardens became a source of pride and a way for anyone to contribute to the war effort. And gardeners got creative. One couple in England turned a bombsite into a garden.

Gardeners swapped seeds and news about their loved ones’ whereabouts and well-being.

Posters promoting the Victory Garden were everywhere. In the U.S., a public service advertising campaign created by the National War Garden Commission encouraged everyone to do their part. Posters, magazine ads and newsreels touted the success of these local “victory gardens” with humor and pride. One poster showed a young boy with a hoe chasing fruits and vegetables over a hill. The headline: War Gardens Over the Hill – The Seeds of Victory Insure the Fruits of Peace.

This public service campaign also offered educational booklets and seeds. In today’s cluttered cyber market, with a clickbait rate of 10-15% considered successful, this public service campaign was record-breaking. Half of all households in America had a victory garden. And by the time the war ended in 1945, Americans had grown about eight million tons of food. That’s a lot of food.

 My mother, born in 1936 in a small farming community in Minnesota, remembers collecting milkweed pods for the war effort – the silk was used in parachutes. And when she went to the movies, a newsreel promoted victory gardens.

 And the war effort did something else.

It brought together diverse groups: government agencies, businesses, schools, churches. Corporate America played their part, too. Those victory gardens were underwritten by American companies that offered seeds with the purchase of their products. Sure, corporations got tax breaks and earned profits from their efforts, but their contribution added to the collective solidarity of a nation. My mother remembers the feeling that “everyone wanted to do their part and we were all in this together.”

 For some, gardening is a subversive act: a way to thwart your dependence on large corporate farming. The idea being that every tomato you grow makes you less dependent on “big Agra,” as a fellow gardener told me. A close neighbor raises chickens in the center of town. Are they subversive chickens?

Ukraine, breadbasket of Europe, supplies wheat, corn and sunflowers. As fields lie fallow, who will pick up the slack?

My ancestors, who fled present-day Ukraine, cultivated the winter wheat that fed Russia. But when Russia revoked their promises, they were forced to leave because of “The Seeds of a Broken Promise.” My ancestors had their “Iris moment.” What will be our collective “iris moment”?

The sunflower is the national flower of Ukraine, and Ukrainian soldiers are being offered sunflower seeds so that when they die, sunflowers will sprout where they fall. Ukrainians know how to create solidarity and defiance in the darkness.

 I intend to plant a lot of sunflowers. Let’s call it my “sunflower moment.”

 Learn more about WWII Victory Gardens at the National Museum of American History https://gardens.si.edu/gardens/victory-garden/

Tried and True Perennials: Old Farm Nursery

Plan a spring trip to Old Farm Nursery, just up the road from the Lime Rock racetrack in Lakeville, Conn. Landscape architect Judy Murphy has created elegance and beauty with her creative pairings amid 25 acres. Many of my perennials come from this nursery. My husband loves to visit this nursery, too, even though he doesn’t garden. He takes photos for reference for his paintings. He marvels at her use of color. He gets so captivated by the setting and plantings that he gets lost. We usually reunite as I am loading the car with perennial plants and shrubs that have been truly tested by this talented landscape architect.

Wander through her display gardens. https://www.oldfarmnursery.com/nursery-and-gardens. There is wonder and whimsy to be found in her white, woodland, herb and kitchen gardens.

I put her on the spot and asked her for a few of her tried and true perennials. Here are a few of her favorites and why. She warned me that there were many more, that this was only a start.

Rozanne Geranium, which has a long bloom time, is easy to grow and works well in most soils and sun exposure. 

Nepeta species, like Dropmore, Walker’s Low and Six Hills Giant, are sun-loving, deer-resistant, long-blooming and hardy. 

Iris ensata species are reliable, deer-resistant, hardy and bloom in July, which is a plus for iris lovers. They are also good in the sun, part shade, and even wet spots.

Peonies are not long-blooming, but deer-resistant, sun-loving, tough as nails, with voluptuous flowers that are hard not to adore. 

Helenium autumnale is a deep persimmon-colored flower for late summer – long-blooming and hardy, though the orange is not to everyone’s taste.  

Hellebores are fantastic shade-loving flowers, deer-resistant, blooming from March with flower bracts that persist and give the impression of blooming into the summer. 

 Astrantia is another deer-resistant perennial that can take shade or sun, blooming from late spring into the fall. Species range from white to deep burgundy. 

Astilbe species are also deer-resistant, have wonderful ferny foliage and lovely plumelike blooms. They are good in sun or part shade and particularly effective in drifts of white to pink, lavender, coral to deep red. 

Yarrows are deer-resistant, sun-loving, hardy, easy to grow and come in white, yellow and shades of pink, coral to burgundy. 

Learn more about Old Farm Nursery in a recent profile in Garden Design

https://www.gardendesign.com/connecticut/lakeville-farm-nursery.html

Plant Porn

For gardeners, ’tis the season for temptation. Willpower wanes as my mailboxes, electronic and otherwise, fill up with the newest varieties of plants – all promising to be spring sensations. I fall for this every winter. Marketers know how to exploit my dormant desires for the smell of new life, for color, for something new that promises to outperform the old.

I’m a sucker for the copywriter’s claims. I forget to consider whether these plants want more than I am willing to give: Are they deer-resistant? Hardy in my zone? Not too thirsty for water? Need deadheading? Require heavy fertilizing? Staking? These are all things I am not willing to do anymore, but I don’t remember that until the plant arrives. Slick, glossy catalogues confuse.

I could learn from my mistakes, but if history is any guide, I won’t.

I fell head over heels for the Bloomerang® lilac when that debuted as the must-have lilac. Its claim to fame – it bloomed all summer and into fall. The copy said, “this prolific rebloomer needs a little deadheading.” I was hyperventilating, horticulturally speaking, when I first saw it in a catalog, but it turned out to be like a high-maintenance date – all that deadheading. It needed lots of fertilizer, too. It took a summer rest before reblooming – a long rest. And while the copy claim, “the smell of lilacs all season,” sounded like heaven, I was discombobulated by their smell in October. Lilacs are the smell of spring, and it felt strange to smell them in autumn. My olfactory glands never made the adjustment.

One of the things I love about lilacs is that they’re no work. That Bloomerang was more work than I was willing to put in. This wasn’t the fault of the lilac, but my own failure to set realistic expectations. I had to admit this: When I bought it, I was all set to fall in love. No facts would deter me.

Some variegated plants require more upkeep than I can manage, too. They keep reverting to their non-variegated origins. To get them to fulfill their promise, I pinch them back. There’s a limit to the amount of pinching I have time for these days, and every time I pinched them back my husband noticed I made a pinching and pursing expression with my lips. It was a full-body experience that was leaving me with some unattractive lines.

If I could be satisfied just to look, and not be so impulsive, I wouldn’t have this problem.

I swore off Bloomerangs, and I returned to the old-fashioned lilacs that asked nothing of me. And every year I return to some of the best-performing and low-maintenance plants. Like long happy unions, they perform well no matter what comes along. They ask so little, year after year: the sedums and the nepetas. If you have a problem area, plant them and they’ll thrive.

I’ve been seduced by so many new varieties. One year I fell hard for Agastache Tutti Frutti and planted it in waves. In my smitten state I overlooked that not all Agastache are as hardy in my zone as I thought. This wave died. I returned to the more tolerant Agastache ‘Blue Fortune.” Other new loves of my life might as well have been planted with a flashing neon sign that read, “salad bar open.” The deer have cleaned me out more times than I want to admit. But just like my multiple mistakes in marriage, I’ve gotten better, horticulturally speaking. After learning the hard way, I am doing more research, and I ask the pros.

And so once more I renew my New Year’s vow: corral my desires during this fallow season.

But who doesn’t want to fall in love one more time?

The Seeds of a Broken Promise

The seeds my Mennonite ancestors brought from Russia changed America.

Maybe my ancestor’s seeds will join the corn seeds from the Cherokee nation, or seeds rescued from the Syrian civil war? They’re all stored at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway. There’s room for 4.5 million seeds. Maybe they have room for my ancestor’s seeds?

Long before my ancestors knew the word biodiversity, they grew crops that were diverse. Their seeds offer more productive crop varieties—and they’re essential to farmers who must grow more on a warming planet.

My ancestors were asked to grow more under difficult conditions. First in Russia, and then in the United States.

When they left Russia for the Great Plains, they carried an insurance policy. In trunks, sewn into the hems of their clothing, and stuffed in their pockets—seeds.

The wheat seeds my Russian ancestors brought with them changed the Midwest. They perfected and cultivated a variety of spring and winter wheat in Russia that grew well on the Great Plains. It grew so well that it turned Kansas into the world’s leading wheat producer.

 But it started with a broken promise.

 Around 1762, my ancestors living in Germany accepted an invitation from Catherine the Great of Russia. They were asked to teach farming practices and turn poor land into crops to feed her growing masses. In exchange she promised these persecuted and pacifist German Mennonites religious freedom and exemption from military service. The Falk family made the long trek from Germany down to the Dnieper River, not far from the Black Sea in Russia. Disappointment followed. After draining the swamps and perfecting a new variety of wheat that brought record harvests, all promises were revoked.

Not ones to waste time over broken promises, they sent scouts to America to find a new home. And in the 1870s, America sent fliers to Russia to lure these famed farmers to new Midwestern territories. It was a two-way, transcontinental public relations campaign funded by the largest landholders, the railroads. My ancestors-built trunks for their belongs and they left Russia. But only after loading up with seeds of all kinds: mulberry, Russian olive, vegetables and herbs, watermelon, dill, summer savory, sorrel and wheat.

They arrived in planting season ready to plant. After the locals gawked at these “Rooshians,” they gawked at the waves of wheat that covered Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas and Minnesota, where my ancestors ultimately settled. These “Rooshians” had turned the Great Plains into the breadbasket. The granary of the world.

Wherever the Russian Mennonites went, they worked and worshiped hard. They were highly literate, peaceful and frugal, and they were known to break into song freely. One local reporter observed, “One of the pleasing features of the Russian presence in our town, is their singing. All have good voices. And none have any hesitancy in displaying their vocal accomplishments.”

And they stayed through droughts, depression, and swarms of grasshoppers.

I was swapping family stories with my uncle, and he told me he rescued a small seed packet from my grandparent’s belongings after they died. He believes this packet came from his Russian grandparents. Written on the outside are three German words: von Kleine Weiss – “from small white.” Are these seeds from a small white melon? Small  

My recent family research has introduced me to ancestors I’ve wondered about. Farther north, my Norwegian ancestors were busy too. I have yet to discover what they were doing. Raping and pillaging has been suggested. I’m still working on that branch of the family.

Lately I’ve been conferring with these Russian and Norwegian ancestors I never knew. If my uncle sends those small white seeds to the seed vault, my two-family trees will unite. I wonder what those “little white ones” will become? Juicy little white melons? Maybe the next generation will know, but I can’t stop thinking about them and salvaging seeds of my own.

Hard pressed by the pandemic, pestilence, rising temperatures and sea levels, stronger storms, wars, and world’s largest number of people on the move, what we leave behind and what we save matters.

There are so many seeds to save, and no time to waste.

Learn more about the Svalbard Seed Vault buried deep in Norway’s permafrost.