One of the things I have learned over the years is that a garden needs time to develop and reach its full glory. The late children’s book author and illustrator – and gardener extraordinaire – Tasha Tudor once told me, “You need patience. It takes twelve years to make a garden. Everything that’s worthwhile takes time.” That seems a bit too long, but it does take time – years, in fact.
Recently I’ve been working on a shade garden that needed a pick-me-up. It has always been great in the spring with daffodils, snowdrops and scilla. There are lots of wild flowers and perennials, too, starting with hellebores that blossom beginning in late March and that have glossy dark green leaves all summer. Then come the primroses, anemones, Brunneras and finally hostas. All are green and pleasant now, but not dramatic. There wasn’t enough contrast for my taste. I have lots of groundcover – spotted dead nettle, or Lamium maculatum – that provided green and white foliage – but it’s somewhat boring right now.
So I created a new 3-foot wide curved bed about 30 feet long that replaces some of that ground cover and adds life to the wider garden area behind it.
I started by preparing the soil. It’s a shade garden, which means that there are a lot of tree roots in the space I wanted to plant. I defined the new bed by stretching out a garden hose defining a gentle curve. Using a pointed spade, I cut a sharp line into the soil 8 inches deep all along the hose, and then parallel to that 3 feet back from it.
Next I used a 4-tined weeding fork to pull the ground cover from the soil. This is a nice Italian tool made in a factory that has been making them the same way for generations. I got mine from Howland Tools in Shelburne Falls. MA (http://www.howlandtools.com). The curved12-inch long tines comb through the soil, finding and lifting roots. It’s like a 4-tined rake with extremely long tines. Some also call it a potato fork.
Tree roots were plentiful in my new bed so much of the soil’s fertility had been taken up long ago. The trees also suck water out of the soil, so removing roots helps in the short term (though I know they will return). I added organic slow-release fertilizer (one called Pro-Gro) and lots of compost – a couple of inches of it everywhere. I mixed it into the soil with that weeding fork, and then watered it repeatedly. Extra dry soil takes a long time to absorb water.
Since I like to plant according to the cycles of the moon, planets and stars, I consulted my Stella Natura calendar (www.stellanautra.com) and waited for a day auspicious for planting flowers. As it turned out, that was also a rainy day – the first in a long time here.
So what did I plant? In the middle I planted a perennial known as spikenard or Aralia cordata, one called ‘Sun King’. It gets to be a big plant, maybe 3 feet tall and wide, and has brilliant yellow-green leaves and does well in shade or part shade. Nearest the spikenard I wanted contrasting foliage, so I planted a black-leafed bugleweed (Ajuga reptens ‘Black Scallop’) and a glossy, dark green-leafed European wild ginger (Asarum europaeum).
Other plants I dug up and moved there were barrenwort (Epimedium spp.), two sizes of goatsbeard (Aruncus spp.) and a medium-sized green and white hosta. All were plants I had elsewhere. I matched the planting so that each side of the gardenwas a mirror image of the other – or as much as one can do with plants.
I spaced the plants based on how big they will be in 3 years. That means 2 or 3 feet apart for full-sized perennials. Of course that means the garden looked a little sparse when first planted, so I got a few annuals to fill in. I also planted some forget-me-not (Myosotis sylvatica) to transplant into empty spaces. That’s an annual or biennial with early spring blue flowers that grows everywhere in my gardens, hundreds of them. Thousands, perhaps. It’s a great filler.
The day after planting my flowers I went up to E.C. Brown Nursery in Thetford, Vermont to see about some shrubs to add to the mix. I got two pagoda dogwoods (Cornus alternifolia) to plant behind the newly planted border. Pagoda dogwood grows well for me –it’s a native shrub that often pops up in shady places.
Why did I need to buy two more? They had some with variegated-leafed specimens with green and white leaves. Leaves with some white look good in dark, shady places. These understory trees are small, and will take 4 or 5 years to get to a size where they’re dramatic. But that just goes back to what Tasha Tudor told me: Everything that’s worthwhile takes time. And maybe she’s right, maybe I’ll still be tweaking plantings in thisgarden for the next 12 years.
Henry is the author of 4 gardening books. Read his twice-weekly blog posts and see lots of photos by going to https://dailyuv.com/gardeningg
Garden clubs often enliven the summer by asking members to open their gardens to members and friends for an afternoon. For some, this is a terrifying day – they fear people will criticize their design, notice the weeds, make fun of the garden whimsy. For others, open gardens are fun. People walk through, talking plants and sharing ideas about how to create special garden spaces with plants that are right for the terrain. Clearly the second group of gardeners have more fun.
There is a group of gardeners in Lyme, NH that encourages garden visits: they call their events, “Pardon My Garden”. They acknowledge that few of us ever have a “perfect” garden, no matter how hard we work or how many weeders we employ. My garden isn’t perfect? So what. Gimme some ideas. I love the concept.
But let’s say you wish to open your garden to a group, or just to have a garden party for a dozen close friends. How do you get people to move around and find the special places and plants you have, especially if you have a large space? I think that hardscape is the answer: paths, archways, arbors, pottery, sculpture, stonework and water all will attract the eye and draw a visitor forward. Let’s look at these.
The most ambitious is to create paths. Public gardens use them to keep the foot traffic from killing the grass, and to direct people through the gardens. Often the walkways are covered with gravel and edged with steel or aluminum strips buried vertically in the soil. These pieces of edging often come in 20 foot sections and are serious work to install. I’ve done it, but it’s not easy.
In home gardens, paths between beds and from one part of the garden to another generally are grass. Sometimes people put down ground bark or wood chips to define paths, though I prefer grass. And flat stones work well, too, for short paths.
The only trouble with stone paths is that it’s tough to mow around stones if they are raised up at all. So if you install flat stones, be sure to dig out enough soil so that your stones will be even with the ground and you can mow the spaces between and around the stones. Sure, you can use a string trimmer to do the job, but that is slower – and hard work.
Wooden archways and arbors invite visitors to pass through them – to see what’s on the other side. I have made them out of bentwood and out of cedar posts. I have grown clematis, scarlet runner beans and wisteria on them. All are lovely. One word of advice if you are custom-making an arbor: design it so that your lawnmower goes through easily. Or make one that will allow an adult and a Labrador retriever to go through together – even if you don’t have a dog. Four to five feet is good.
I recently weeded out a dry shady garden that has a nice piece of exposed ledge. I realized that I rarely noticed the ledge. I want visitors to pause and look at the unusual palette of plants I use in front of the ledge, too (now that the weeds are gone). What did I do? I moved a tall blue ceramic planter that I had on my shady deck down to the ledge. I have a vine with green and white leaves spilling out of the vase. It really brings the eye to that space.
If you have gardens on different levels, stone steps are great. Line them with plants that have interesting foliage that looks good all summer. People just want to walk up steps to see what is at the top (like the bear going over the mountain in that kids’ song). I put in steps a few years ago and they are a constant source of pleasure for me.
Fountains, pools, ponds, streams are good visual attractions, too. I am blessed with a natural stream, and find I am drawn to it daily. I keep the edges mowed so that weeds don’t obstruct the view.
Places to sit call out to visitors. I made a bench with a piece of white marble some years ago. Even though it is not a particularly comfortable place to sit (it’s hard, stone is cold, and it has no back) – it draws me across the lawn. It is enhanced by an umbrella plant (Darmera peltata) I planted in 2009 to honor my late sister. It is a dramatic plant: it has leaves 16 to 20 inches in diameter standing up nearly 4 feet tall.
My Adirondack chairs also beckon to me, and to visitors. I got wooden ones and painted them magenta. Even from a long distance, they stand out in contrast to the greens everywhere else. I gravitate towards them.
And ultimately, for gardeners, plants are the ultimate call. Have a magnolia in bloom? We all will walk to it. Roses? We want to sniff them – even if they are largely scentless, as most new roses are today. And even if your garden will never be on a gardentour, creating a draw will please you and your family.
By now my gardens are well established and most plants are doing well. But there are tasks, both in the vegetable garden and in the flower beds, that need my attention.
Weeding is key in both areas, and recent rains make doing so easier as the soil has softened up. If you have very dry soil where you are, you might want to water well before weeding.
Why worry about weeds? I know gardeners who don’t do much weeding in their vegetable gardens. One even told me that if he weeded too much the deer would find his vegetables! But weeds anywhere in the garden are going to spread seeds soon – whether in the walkways or up close to your tomatoes. And seeds will come back to make more work now – and in the years to come. Many weed seeds act like time release capsules, some germinating now, some later, some 5 years down the road.
Weeds compete with your plants for moisture, soil nutrients – and even sunshine as they get bigger. I use a CobraHead hand weeder (www.CobraHead.com). It’s shaped a bit like a curved finger with a sharp pointy spade-shaped tip about an inch across. It easily gets under weeds so that I can pull from above (with one hand) and from below (with the CobraHead) at the same time, or tease long roots out of the soil without breaking them.
Thinning your carrots, beets and other root crops is an urgent job if you haven’t done so yet. Like weeds, vegetables growing too close to one another will compete for sun, water and nutrients. Carrots and beets should be at least an inch apart by now. And in a month, you need to thin them to 2 inches apart. Pulling the sharp tip of a CobraHead alongside a row of carrots will loosen the soil, sever a few side-growing roots, encouraging those that go deep. And scratch in some organic fertilizer now, too. It will help you get bigger carrots.
By the way, you can transplant carrots as you thin them out. Poke a hole deep enough so that the carrot will not bend, drop it in, press down the soil, water. It’s not a 100% reliable technique, but I hate to kill plants and have found it works most of the time. Do it in the evening, so they will have all night to recover before the hot sun hits them.
My onion patch was recently weeded, but I know that weeds will be along soon. So I mulched my onions with grass clippings. I find they work better than straw or hay in tight quarters like the onions. And green clippings may add a little nitrogen to the soil as they break down.
In many gardens the lower leaves of tomatoes are starting to yellow and develop dark blotches, sure signs of early blight. Although this blight is not immediately fatal, it reduces crop yield. By the end of August stems are often bare of leaves. You can minimize it by pruning off the affected leaves and all lower branches that touch the soil or are near it. Work on your plants when they are fully dry as the disease spreads more easily when leaves are wet.
I use scissors to remove the leaves, dipping them frequently in a glass of rubbing alcohol to sterilize them between plants. I wash my hands in a bucket of soapy water between plants. To see an in-depth article about this procedure along with many pictures, go to https://dailyuv.com/news/
I always plant my potatoes in June, even though many gardeners start planting them in April. I do this as I ‘ve found that I have fewer potato beetles by planting late. Maybe they’re all at my neighbors’ gardens. But do take some time to check yours to see if any beetles are eating the leaves. Look for larvae, and for orange egg masses on the underside of leaves.
When you plant your potatoes the roots will grow down below the seed potatoes and the new potatoes will form above them. Now is a good time to add soil over the developing potatoes. This is known as hilling them. I plant mine using a post hole digger, so it’s easy to fill in above my seed potatoes, just pushing the soil from mounds next to each plant. You can also use a hoe and scrape soil from the walkways. Don’t worry if some leaves get buried. They won’t complain.
In my flower gardens I am mainly weeding and cutting back flowers stems that have already blossomed. Weeding gives me space to plant new flowers – even though I have an extensive palette of plants, I constantly go to garden centers to see new things, or plants I once had that have disappeared. (Yes, I kill a lot of plants, we all do).
Cutting off spent flowers is good. Important. It takes a lot of energy to produce seeds. By pruning back the spent flowers, your plants have more energy to develop good roots and strong stems.
So get outside and enjoy summer and pull some weeds. You garden will look better and you’ll feel better, too.
Henry is a UNH Master Gardener and the author of 4gardening books. His website is www.Gardening-Guy.com. Read his twice-weekly blog athttps://dailyuv.com/
As a gardener I find that inertia is my enemy. I plant things, and then just let them remain (whether I like them or not) – even if they take up a lot of space. I removed two such plants this summer. First, I cut down a pie cherry that produced blah-tasting fruit and not much of it. Next, I had a huge patch of lovage, a celery relative that over the past 20 years had spread to take up an 8-foot piece of prime real estate just outside my kitchen window.
I cut down the cherry, which was 15 feet tall and had a base diameter of about 3 inches, by lopping off the branches and cutting the trunk 2 feet above the ground. I knew that it would be easier to remove the stump if I left a section of trunk that would give me leverage as I rocked it back and forth, loosening the roots.
My young helper, Adam, did the digging and root removal – I’ve found that paying a helper for some of the heavy lifting makes sense at my age. I get to enjoy the garden more this year, now that tasks I don’t want to do still get done. I recommend it.
Removing the cherry tree means that an existing row of peonies will get full sun for much of the day – instead of filtered sun. That will give me more blossoms next year, and probably bigger ones. I’ve planted a new peony and two peach-leaved bellflowers flowers (Campanula persicifolia) where the tree was, and have room for more things. Most of my gardens have moist to soggy soil, but the tree was on a terrace with well-drained soil. So it’s a good place for the bellflowers, as they don’t like soggy soil.
The peony I planted is a relatively rare one, the fern-leafed peony (Paeonia tenuifolia). I got this from Cider Hill Gardens in Windsor, Vermont. It really does have fern-like leaves, which is rare in peonies. But the reason I love it is that it blooms in May, before most others, and it is bright red. A vivid red that will stop traffic – foot traffic, anyway, in my garden. It is a relatively delicate and I lost one after a hard winter. Maybe it’s best in Zone 5 or warmer. It is not a hybrid, and it has been crossed with other peonies to get early-blooming hybrids.
Outside the kitchen window, in prime viewing space, I have planted 3 delphiniums, another red peony (‘Nippon Beauty’) and an Angel’s Trumpet (Datura spp.). All three do best in full sun, though the Angel’s Trumpet can do fine in part sun.
Of the plants I installed outside the kitchen window, I‘ve had the worst luck with delphinium. I buy them, and they have not performed well for me – meaning that after the first year they haven’t come back. I’ve crowded them in the past, and they’ve gotten less than full sun.
But this time I will do it right: full sun, rich soil with added compost and plenty of slow-release organic fertilizer. These plants will bloom later this summer, and once they are finished blooming, I will cut them right to the ground and scratch in a cup of organic fertilizer around each plant. They may then bloom again in the fall, or maybe not. They should return and bloom next year. I’ll report back to you on that.
The peony will do fine, and will outlive me. I have a peony my grandmother grew, and she died in 1953. My mom dug it up, moved it to her house, and I got it from her in the 1980’s. Peonies move best, by the way, when they are starting to go dormant in the fall. The roots go deep, so be careful.
The trick for peonies is to plant them in rich soil and at just the right depth. If the “eyes” or buds are planted more than an inch below the soil surface, they will not bloom after the first year. So if yours aren’t blooming, clear away some soil until the eyes are at the right depth.
Angel’s trumpet, often referred to by its botanical name, Datura, is my replacement for the Oriental and Asiatic lilies. I can no longer grow the lilies because of that dastardly lily-leaf beetle. The red beetles cannot be controlled by hand-picking, and I refuse to use systemic poisons that kill the beetles. But Datura produces plenty of big white upward-looking blossoms. Once it starts to bloom, it continues blooming until frost, which is much longer than the true lilies bloom.
One word of warning: the seeds of Datura are poisonous – psychotropic, I have read. But they have spiny outer coverings, so I don’t worry about toddlers picking and eating them. And it the squirrels do? Darwin would approve.
So have a look around your property. Is there a tree that is producing shade that you don’t want? Get someone with a chain saw. It’s not a crime to kill a plant, especially if you are planting others to replace it.
Henry’s blog is at https://dailyuv.com/gardeningg