Garden progress

The bad weather of early April disappeared, and so did I, into the garden with all its spring jobs.

Winter damage that's apparent so far includes forsythia blooming only where it was covered with snow, and one young maple tree that bit the dust.

Here's what we (my husband, my helpers and I) have accomplished so far:

-Cut down ornamental grasses and old perennial stalks and cleaned up where necessary. This is huge, as there are several big beds, as large as a suburban yard.

-Cut back hellebores (we have a mass planting of these in our shade garden, thanks to my hot-shot propagator husband), and clematis.

-Pruning of trees and shrubs - a big job still in progress, but I'm lucky to have found an expert who used to work for Royal Botanical Gardens. He has trained all our young hardwood trees to perfection.

-Cleaned up under our big weeping willow and burned the resulting pile of brush.

-Mowed down two-acre wildflower meadow.

-Cleaned up twigs and branches on the lawn areas. Started mowing.

-Planted a few perennials, and got peas and spinach planted too.

-John has begun the usual removal of dead plants from his rock garden, to be followed by planting of new stuff he's grown from seed over the past couple of years.

April is the cruelest month

I was an English major (a long time ago now), and so in April I like to take time to re-read one of the most famous English poems of the 20th century, The Waste Land. I have always loved the opening lines:

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

When T.S. Eliot wrote these words, he had an English spring in mind, not the frigid weather that often descends on us poor northern folk when we're supposed to be enjoying Easter flowers and warm sunshine.

This has been the cruelest April in a long time, with bitterly cold winter weather forcing us all to dig out our winter coats again, or to just linger by the fire. Worst of all, it has lasted for a week, and is going to linger on for a few more days yet. The garden will have to wait.

Gypsy moth coming - get ready to do battle

Over the winter, as I walked the golf course across the road I saw lots and lots of gypsy moth egg masses - so many that I began to scrape them off the trees. Beautiful old burr oaks had dozens of egg masses, most of them so high I couldn't reach them. So I wasn't too surprised to see this headline in the local paper today: Gypsy moth invasion predicted.

I had noticed the gypsy moth caterpillar population building up over the past several years. We've managed to keep them from doing too much damage to our trees by getting rid of the egg masses and killing the caterpillars (mostly squishing them - rubber gloves help!).

The map shows the area of gypsy moth infestation in eastern North America. The gypsy moth caterpillars build over a number of years to the point where they can defoliate entire forests. I remember this happening in the late '80s and the early '90s. The infestation usually isn't fatal, but the trees then have to use up a lot of energy to grow a second set of leaves, and if they're stressed by heat and drought as well, they can die. (So, if you can, do water your trees during drought to keep them healthy.)

After a massive infestation, predator populations rise, and the gypsy moth population collapses. Then we can breathe a sigh of relief for a few years - usually about a decade.

Here's what you can do to control gypsy moth on your property:

• Right now, look at all of your trees, scrape and destroy egg masses to reduce the number of caterpillars during the season. Don't just scrape onto the ground, instead burn them or soak them in kerosene or soapy water. The picture at the right shows you what they look like.

• Watch for small caterpillars in late spring. A garden hose has enough water pressure to knock them off the leaves and tree trunks and kill them, especially when they are very small.

• Wrap a piece of burlap cloth that's folded in half lengthwise around tree trunks. Caterpillars feed at night and they crawl into the burlap fold to escape the heat during the day. Collect and destroy caterpillars each afternoon. An insecticidal soap spray also kills them. You can squish them if you're not too squeamish, or hand pick and drown them in a bucket of soapy water.

• Trap male moths by hanging pheromone (sex hormone) traps on the trees. These traps act as decoys and prevent male moths from mating with female moths.

• In severe infestations, apply the biological insecticide Bacillus thurigiensis kurtsaki (Btk). This kills the caterpillars, but is only effective when they're quite small. The best time to apply Btk is when the bridal wreath spirea shrub is in bloom.

For more information: The U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service has an informative and well illustrated website about gypsy moth and a list of trees that are most affected.

A cure for crappy soil

Got miserable soil? The big reason that the soil in most yards is so poor is our neatnik habit of carting away every last bit of fallen leaves and plant debris. The result: soil that's starved of humus, and really hard to garden. In the woods, where nobody rakes up, all stuff that falls from trees is recycled into humus, creating rich, crumbly woodsy-smelling soil that plants love.

(The other big reason for crappy soil is developers removing all the top soil, compacting the subsoil during and after building, and then believing an inch or two of top soil will make up for all that abuse before the sod is laid. It doesn't, but that's another story.)

Anyway, this spring, instead of removing all the free organic matter Mother Nature drops off each fall, just chop up the dead plant material and leave most of it on the flower beds. If you've got stray leaves, rake them under your trees and shrubs as mulch.

Not only will this help your soil, but you'll get a good balance of insects too. Erik Grissell goes into this in his wonderful book, Insects and Gardens(Timber Press, 2001). According to Grissell, the folks who vacuum up every bit of garden debris do the garden's insect residents, their soil and their plants a disservice.


Dried-up stems and leaves, plant debris and mulch are all great over-wintering spots for insects – which is why you're usually told to clean the garden up.

Instead, Grissell recommends keeping as much foliage intact over winter as you can to provide cover for a diverse population of insects.

Then you cut back the dead foliage right about now (or whenever early spring comes where you live). Just chop it up and tuck between the plants so it can compost in place.

Here, at our place, we do the chopping with a rented gas-powered hedge trimmer, cutting perennials and grasses back in layers, so that the bits and pieces are about 2 or 3 inches long. (Sometimes, the remains of ornamental grasses are so thick that we do remove some of this material.)

Leaving most of the chopped stuff on the beds means you don't have to drag everything off to the compost pile, and then lug the finished compost back to your beds. If you have enough plants (especially perennials), they grow so quickly that you won't even see the stems and other plant debris you've chopped up. Now, isn't that a practical idea for big country gardens?

For Grissel, the point of creating this mulchy environment is to help stabilize the insect populations for a better balance between prey and predators. For me, the bonus is that it's an easy way to build soil humus.

The only downside for us is that instead of spreading the work of cutting plants down over fall and spring (or doing it all in fall), you concentrate the workload into the spring. This job is exactly what's ahead for us in this month: tackling half a dozen large beds, each the size of an average suburban backyard.

Lilac stamps - rare kudos for Canada Post

Complaining about Canada Post is almost as ubiquitous as grumbling about the weather up here in the Great White North.

Ask anyone, especially Canucks trying to compete with US sellers on Ebay, and you’ll hear no end of complaints about exorbitant rates and poor service. (That's what we get for turning a government service into a monopolistic corporation that is expected to make a profit. And don't get anybody started on the postal unions and their many crippling strikes over the years.)

But today, I have to say something nice about Canada Post: the new lilac stamps they have issued this spring are the prettiest stamps I've ever seen.

These stamps have spring-fresh colours and curved lines to them, and are sold in a little folder of 10 with round lilac seals to put on the back of your letters. In fact, the stamps are so sweet I'm tempted (almost) to get out the good note paper and actually write a snail mail letter or two.

According to Canada Post, the lilacs on the stamps are Syringa vulgaris "Princess Alexandra", an early lilac with single white florets that originated in 1874 in Windsor, Ontario, and is the oldest Canadian hybrid lilac still found at the Central Experimental Farm in Ottawa.

The mauve-purple lilac is Syringa x prestoniae "Isabella" named for Isabella Preston (1881-1965), a prolific plant breeder at the Central Experimental Farm in Ottawa. She hybridized the late-blooming lilac hybrids that are named after her.

The lilac stamps are the work of Montreal graphic designer Isabelle Toussaint, who is to be congratulated for using photography with soft out-of-focus backgrounds to give the humble domestic postage stamp a real lush feeling of spring. Lovely work!

Read more about this stamp issue or buy the stamps at the Canada Post site.

Related information: An article on growing lilacs at my website.

Gardening and commitment

In my official life as a garden writer, I write a column aimed at beginner gardeners for Canadian Gardening magazine.

The editor, Aldona Satterthwaite, is a keen gardener and the magazine reflects that and does an excellent job of informing and entertaining gardeners (but, of course, I'm biased).

CG has an appropriate balance between gardening and what we magazine types call "lifestyle". Gardening = growing stuff, creating a garden. Lifestyle = buying the right teak bench.

This month (the May issue just out) in her editor's column, Aldona takes on the trend mongers and outdoor "decorators" who fall for one hot thing after the next, and who like to declare that gardening is over.

In her words:

"Of course, gardening isn't for everyone - it never was and never will be. But dead? Not any time soon. Sure, the human lemmings who flit from fad to fad may try it and move on, perhaps after finding out that buying an expensive, finicky exotic plant isn't quite the same as purchasing a designer sofa. Actually, it's a lot more like adopting a pet or having a baby, because we're talking three scary C-words here, folks - commitment, care and consistency. And whether you do it on a large-sized lot or a small balcony, that's pretty much the secret to being a successful gardener.

I have another bugbear. There's something afoot to try to make gardening synonymous with outdoor decorating. Outdoor decorating and outdoor leisure are two perfectly delightful and legitimate pursuits, but they ain't gardening. The best gardens are made with heart and soul and love, and owe little to fancy doodads (but a lot to the three Cs)."

Here! Here! I used to coordinate and write a lot of gardening articles for a women's magazine that shall remain nameless. We eventually fell out because of the very issue of exterior decorating: the editor I worked with actually said that they didn't want stories that necessitated getting your hands dirty.

I hated writing about exterior decorating, and that's mostly what they ended up wanting. The parting was mutual. After that, Canadian Gardening took me on, and I'm pleased that I actually get to write about growing things. By the way, I have piece on bearded irises and how to plant a tree in this May's issue.

To illustrate this post, I chose a picture of my four-square garden, which to me represents the epitome of commitment, as it is my most labor-intensive garden area. There are times when I'd like to rip out all the flowers and bulbs, and just plant a single crabapple tree with groundcovers in each of the four squares, but even doing that would be a huge task.

Then June comes, and my heart melts at this amazing thing of beauty that we have managed to create - and once again the three Cs see me through. That's gardening.

The crocuses that got away

Do all gardeners have pangs of regret when a new garden feature means the loss of some favorite plants? I do.

One of my husband John's interests over the past few years has been stone carving, and last fall a couple of pieces were placed in the garden (after the landscapers and the machinery needed for the job finally were able to make it - five months late).

One piece put into place (see pic below) is a huge and heavy granite basin that still needs to be hooked up to a water arrangement, the workings of which remain a mystery to me, even though the plan has been explained to me - and more than once. (For the sake of harmony in marriage, especially of two gardeners, one has to leave certain details to one's spouse's conception of them. The rock is supposed to be an Oriental style fountain, but I fret that water reservoir won't be big enough.)


Anyway, I'm a bit sad to discover that the stone has covered up spring bulbs, including some of my favorite early crocuses. The perennials we moved out of the way in the fall, but, of course, one couldn't easily remember which bulbs were where.

However, we gardeners can't just be bleeding hearts when it comes to plants. There are more crocuses where those came from and, after all, plants aren't family pets.

I was reminded of this by Ursula Buchan, a columnist in one of my favorite British gardening magazines, The Garden, who recently wrote about the need for gardeners to cultivate a touch of ruthlessness:

"When I was young and green, I asked a respected and, it must be said, charming horticulturalist what characteristics helped make a good gardener. His reply was: 'Well, being a mean, ruthless b*****d helps!' I was so taken aback that I have never forgotten it, but in the years since, I have increasingly thought that he had a point."

I agree with her that to get to the goal of a well-designed garden, we gardeners "must be ruthless about what we throw out, and steadfast in that resolve."

But it isn't easy to let plants go without regret, especially ones we didn't mean to, like the poor bulbs under the rock.

Insect heros - you'll never guess

Over at their Gardening and Yardening blog, Nancy Szerlag, the gardener, and Jeff Ball, the yardener, make the point that the much maligned creepy crawlies of the garden, the ants, spiders, and ground beetles, are our best allies against pests:

...we are talking about six to a dozen species of each. There are big ants, small ants, brown ants, and black ants. There are jumping spiders, stalking spiders, and web spinning spiders. Among the ground beetles you might find Assassin Bugs, Big Eyed Bugs, Rove Beetles, Soldier Beetles, and even Minute Pirate Bugs, all fearsome names for a bunch of good guys.

These beneficial insects represent a veritable army of protection for landscape plants, yet they get no respect. They get no credit. They get no attention, except in books talking about killing these critters. They really need to hire a PR firm to get their story out.

I agree wholeheartedly, and Jeff and Nancy do a great PR job for them. For the full article, see beneficial insects.

Red-winged blackbirds are back

We heard our first red-winged blackbird call yesterday, and my heart melted. I just love red-winged blackbirds: aside from flowers, of course, they are my favorite sign of spring.

Something about them has wormed its way into my soul. Their call, which admittedly is not the most beautiful of bird songs, has a lot of resonance for me. I think it's because they were a part of my childhood. Their habitat is agricultural areas with wetlands, and they were plentiful on the farm near London, Ontario, where I grew up. The farm had a creek running through it and ponds nearby.

Our property also has a creek and we have a couple of ponds too, and there are many ponds at the neighboring golf course, so red-wing black birds are abundant here.

It struck me that in all the years of living in cities I hadn't heard or seen them much. When I heard them again when we moved here nine years ago, I felt that I had come home.

Go to Whatbird.com to hear a really nice recording of the red-winged blackbird's call.

The green fuse has been lit

Yippee, the first day of daylight saving time* and the start of our gardening season. Yes, we started "gardening" today - by moving plants - even though there’s still snow on the ground.

Temperatures are now above freezing and all the white stuff is beginning to melt. (But there was still enough snow on the ground to take the dogs on their morning and afternoon walks with snowshoes on - it would have been very hard going without them.)

What prompted us to action was the weather forecast for Tuesday: we're expecting a high of 14ºC (57º for you Fahrenheit folks), with Wednesday bit cooler, but still in the double digits. Thanks to the greenhouse effect, 14ºC means it will easily get well above 20º (68ºF) in our hoop house (plastic-covered greenhouse).

After looking the forecast, we knew today was the day to move the dormant plants out of the greenhouse where they’ve been all winter. We don’t heat the greenhouse, and the plants freeze, but they’re protected from the worst of the cold and, especially, ice storms or rain in mid-January, which can be fatal.

Aside from a few hardy things I have in containers and my neighbor’s containerized boxwoods, the plants that winter in the hoop house are mostly my husband’s rock garden plants. Each year, he starts a number of species from seed and grows them on in pots until they’re big enough to go into his rock garden to replace plants that died over winter, are underperforming or that he doesn't like anymore (usually because they’ve grown too big and unwieldy).

As it begins to warm up in March, we try to keep the dormant plants from getting too much of a head start. We don’t want them to start to grow and flower too soon: they’re supposed to do that in the garden.

So after a couple of hours of hauling and moving this afternoon, the dormant plants are in the barn where they will be cooler, but still protected from seriously bad weather. During the daytime we can open the barn doors to give them light and air.

We also took the large rosemary plants that we grow in containers back to the hoop house. They were in there until Christmas, but because they’re Zone 7 plants and the hoop house gets too cold on bitter nights, they had to spend the rest of the winter under lights in the basement.

As we like to say at this time of year: “The green fuse has been lit.” Soon we’ll be racing to keep up with all that needs to be done.

By the way, the "green fuse" metaphor is from a poem by Dylan Thomas entitled The force that through the green fuse drives the flower.

*Extended daylight saving time: one of the few decisions by the US Congress supported by the majority of Canadians, or at least those who are gardeners.

PS: I don't believe for a moment that daylight saving time actually saves energy (the reason it has been started earlier), but extra evening light is wonderful for those of us who aren't morning people.