Monday, December 17, 2012

Using Signs




Sunday, December 16, 2012


Already after 2 PM and I still haven't warmed up from being outside working  from 8 until 1. The weatherman suggested that we are entering four days of bad weather so I wanted to finish up some wood cutting before the snow started. I misread the forecast someplace as it is still 20° outside and the 3 mph wind and falling snow make it feel even colder. I had layers of clothes on but after that amount of time I got chilled.

Gail had a hot lunch ready for me so I retreated to my office to check mail and munch away. I work on pictures this time of year, getting some ready for our website, putting others in folders, deleting others. I came across this one from the Spring of 2003. Click on it to enlarge. This was a shade garden I built in the year 2000 inside an old barn foundation on our property. The top 2/3's of the garden was hostas and the bottom quarter was astilbes. The balance was ferns, hellebores, pulmonarias, and primroses.

You'll notice an abundance of white signs which look out of proportion to the spring garden where perennials had just started to emerge. I want to mention these signs as they are an inexpensive way to mark plants in a display garden in a manner that is easy for visitors to read during garden tours. My intent at the time was to put together a nice garden of mature hostas so people could identify plants they might like to purchase after viewing mature heights and coloration. Some visitors said the place looked  like a cemetery but the majority repected it as being a display and many asked about the signs. Some said they thought the signs would be excellent to add during major events and then remove them for the balance of the season. Moving +500 signs is a bit bigger task than one might think but I hear their idea.

The signs shown here are Parker-Davis Step Signs. These are miniatures of the political signs you probably just got tired of seeing from Labor Day through Election Day. They are made of white or colored corrrugated plastic cardboard and the stakes are the same wire used to reinforce brick veneer on buildings.The sign material comes in a variety of sizes and colors and here in Vermont it holds up for about 5 years, sometimes a bit longer. I use Avery clear laser labels, not the more expensive weatherproof labels as the straight laser labels do the trick. I print black lettering on the transparent labels so the white sign shows through and reading them is easy even from a distance. The stakes are available in a variety of heights. I use the 36" stakes for medium and larger hostas and for all the daylilies we have growing in the fields.

Smaller metal stakes and markers are available from Eon Industries and from Paw-Paw Everlast Label Company. I use these too and still use the laser labels with them. In all cases you just have to be sure the sign material, corrugated or metal, is free of dirt before applying the label.



I guess signs are an eye-of-the-beholder thing but gardeners do like to know the names of new things they don't have and do want to add to their gardens. You can make your own decision. If you have other signs you prefer, please drop a note here so we can see what else is on the market.

Writing from the mountain above Peacham Pond where the Redpolls and Chickadees are eating as if a big storm is on the way. Light snow continues.

George Africa
The Vermont Gardener
Vermont Flower Farm
Watch us on Facebook at Vermont Flower Farm and Gardens and also as George Africa
Check vtflowerfarm on Twitter
Always here to help you grow your green thumb!

Call Gail at 802-426-3505 for a holiday gift certificate. Nice!

Saturday, December 15, 2012

Thoughts On Garden Planning

Friday, December 14, 2012

15.9° here on the mountain, windless, quiet. I have been out twice with Karl the Wonder Dog and he has now gone back to sleep in front of the wood stove. Snoring already. What a dog!   The weatherman promises a sunny day which is great because as soon as I shake off this sore neck, I will continue to push hard on outside jobs before the weather turns sour later on Sunday. The sore neck is from too much skyward observation last night of the Geminid meteor shower. I was never into watching the skies much as a kid but now I can't seem to miss these events even though Gail and Alex show little interest in accompanying me outside. I guess things do change as you get older.  Right now the sun is coming up, the stars have turned off and there's an obvious mackeral sky for as far as I can see.
As winter approaches it's time for me to do our website over so I begin scanning through pictures and making notes of things to change, improve, delete. This not-too-good picture up top caught my eye. With holiday gift giving approaching, gardeners often receive gifts of books and garden books lead to design thoughts which eventually lead to plant orders as spring approaches. But as I look at this picture of a little display Gail put together at the flower farm one day, I am reminded that not all pictures make good garden sense. Let's use this picture as an example of what not to do.
When Gail and I are asked to help design a garden, we usually try to get the gardener to do almost all of the work because the end product is so much better for them.  What we do emphasize, however, is attention to the plant/tree/shrub height, mature width, and leaf size, color and texture of the plants they are considering. Yes, flower color and bloom time are important too but the plant before and after it flowers is what the gardener and garden visitors get to see most of the season so those attributes are important.

The little display Gail put together included the use of two smaller hostas, Diamond Tiara and Golden Tiara. She used a couple different ferns in the front left of her display and a row of Gold Heart Dicentra (bleeding heart with typical flower shape and color but yellow foliage all season) in the middle. The design was an eye catcher and sold a number of plants but as part of your garden, it wouldn't have been the greatest plan. Here's why.

Now days it seems that most people have a lot to keep themselves busy and as such they like gardens that require minimal care. That translates to plants that don't need pruning or dividing as time goes on. Gail's design looks fine but has some issues. Gold Heart bleeding heart has been popular since it hit the market but the color contrast is what sold it to people. Nice pink heart pendants dangling from gold foliage....BUT...as this plant matures to +30" tall in a few years, its location, surrounded by shorter plants that it would block out---well---- that just won't work. On top of that, dicentras like this go into dormancy by late July which means that for the balance of the season you have a garden with a hole in the middle of it. That's not to say that Gold Heart doesn't have a place in your garden, just  in the display we put together it wouldn't work well. The shorter, fringed woodland dicentras that bloom most of all summer and are available in white, pink or various shades of red would be better.

The two Tiara hostas are very nice and always a good investment because they are vigorous growers and they can be dug and divided to spread their wealth among your gardens or friends. BUT...planting a vigorous grower near slower growers such as the ferns means that the size of the maturing hostas will overpower the ferns in time and you'll lose the benefit of the ferns color and texture.To keep them in better control, plant them in sunken pots one size larger than they were growing in at the nursery. That will maintain their size and allow direct watering and fertilizing right to the plant. These ideas will let the slower growing ferns  progress as they prefer and the whole display will come together nicely in a year or two.

As you read through garden magazines and books this winter, give this little lesson a thought. Some of it might well apply to gardens you already have in place that seem to exhibit some of these same characteristics. And above all, think of the notion that we look at the plants-trees-shrubs all year, and that's what we should consider as we plan. Happy planning!


Writing from the mountain above Peacham Pond where the birds are begging for more sunflower seed while the crows are perfectly happy with scraps I just dumped on the compost pile. Gotta get going here--boy--already almost 8!

George Africa
The Vermont Gardener
Vermont Flower Farm
Find us on Facebook at Vermont Flower Farm & Gardens and also at George Africa
On Twitter at vtflowerfarm
Always ready to help you grow your green thumb!
Offering gift certificates year round. Just call Gail at 802-426-3505

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Cutting Trails

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

A quarter til 6 and darker than a pocket outside this morning. So far the only things that are bright today are the strings of Christmas lights that line the walkway. Someone forgot to turn them off last night but admittedly they did help me with two early morning dog walks with Karl the Wonder Dog. It will lighten up out in half an hour and then I can get going on my projects. 

For several weeks now I have been working in the woods cutting new trails, culling trees for firewood and trimming along woods roads that have grown out of control in recent years. 4-5 years ago some shear winds went through this area and in places there are living trees still growing well but growing at 25° angles. Those are all coming down no matter what species they are. 

Someone stopped by the other day and asked about how I map out possible trails before I start cutting. Do I use a GPS? Use any mapping software? I said  I don't use those tools until I am finished and they seemed disappointed. The analogy is the way I plant gardens such as the hosta display garden at the nursery. I have a sense of what I want to see as an end product and I just go for it. In the woods, I stop every once in a while and take a break and walk around to see what trees need to be taken out anyway and where I am heading. It always works for me.I know where I started and I know where I want to end when it's finished, I'm pretty much on schedule. Sometimes I'll find more or less wood when the trees are down and blocked up but that part doesn't matter. I sort the brush by hardwood and softwood and sometimes I leave it in piles for the critters of the woods. Other times I bring in the chipper and clean it up. There are theories to woodland management but in the case of our property, nothing has been done since Gail's father hired a questionable logger in 1992 to take out 25 acres of softwood. I am still cleaning up the messes that guy made. It takes time to work up wood and get the leftovers cut down to the point where it lays flat in the woods and will decompose quickly. Sometimes I'll work an area and then go back  a season later to finish the work.



Our land, like all land in the Groton State Forest area, is covered with glacial erratics of various sizes. These are boulder leftovers from glaciers that went through 15,000 years ago. Now the land here is highly acidic so all the rocks are well covered with various mosses and often with rock ferns too.  The boulders range in size and many are Volkswagon sized while others are like small buildings, 10, 12, 14 feet tall and equally as wide. This trail I am working on right now may be named "split rock trail"after the prominent rock that was split in two a long, long time ago. The trail winds along the bottom of a flat that rises above the back fields and holds a plantation of red pines that were so commonly planted back in the 40's and early 50's. Here's a picture from this past spring/early summer. The white, curvy  arrow in the next picture up is the proposed trail course on my current project.


If you have land of your own, making trails is a good way to look differently at your land, Cleaning up dead trees will bring in more sunlight, and wildflowers will probably sprout in a year or two and bring colorful surprises. Once the trails are finished it's a lot easier to get around so there are no excuses left. Your health and the forest's health can improve at the same time. Give it a try!

Writing from the mountain above Peacham Pond where I'll start the day finishing up last night's tractor fuel filter change. I'm still thinking about the rest of the morning but there's no shortage of projects to complete before real snow arrives.

George Africa
The Vermont Gardener
Vermont Flower Farm
On Facebook as Vermont Flower Farm and Gardens and also as George Africa
On Twitter as vtflowerfarm
And always here ot help you grow your green thumb!
Give Gail a call at 802-425-3505 if you need a gift certificate as a holiday gift!

Monday, December 10, 2012

Fir Balsam Trouble

Monday, December 10, 2012

38.4° here on the mountain tonight. It's been pouring rain heavily since before 4:30 this afternoon and there's little hope that it will let up until after midnight. The wind has stopped but it's likely to start up again as the next front approaches in a few hours. Today's rain started in early morning and never really stopped all day. I have been working in the woods for a few weeks now, cutting hiking trails and woods roads but today's weather slowed me down. I dressed appropriately for the rain and cold but I didn't feel all that safe working with the tractor in such wet ground conditions so I gave up early. One thing I did notice today was the insect influence on mature fir balsams. Here's something to think about.



Balsams are a popular tree, native to the northeast and better known for use as Christmas trees and for making garland and wreaths. It's also a fast growing tree that has been used as pulpwood for the paper industry. It has a fairly short lifespan of under 60-70 years and much of the surrounding Groton State Forest contains trees this age. This is why the current condition of the trees is even more significant.



The tree at the top of this page  is an example of what I am seeing not only in our woods but in all adjacent forests. The mature trees are dying or already dead and many are topless and/or barkless as this picture shows. Closer inspection shows the insect damage that lead to a tree's death by girdling. I am not familiar with what insects are involved but there aren't very many older trees that are not affected .



Annually I cut and split a tree or two for kindling as at this point the balsams are already fully dried on the stump and they make good kindling. This is the second year that I have noticed a couple different kinds of worm inside the logs but I don't know what these become and what stage they are currently in. I brought in three pieces that had been cut last year and left in the woods. I spilt them to see if they contained the same insects and worms and they do so I assume the life cycle is greater than a year. Hopefully there's a forester or an entomologist out there who can help me on this.


I am mentioning the decline in the fir balsam because it is also a common tree to find in parks, town forests, even as part of the landscape in housing developments or back yards.In recent years it has been attacked by the balsam woolly adelgid and I fear we might face the same tree death that is occurring with a favorite tree of mine, the hemlock. If you have any balsams on your property or properties you care for, do a through inspection and ask for professional guidance on maintaining healthy trees.If you have any pictures to share, please do.

Writing from the mountain above Peacham Pond where the rain is pounding on the standing seam roof. If today's rain had been snow, every snow groomer in the state would be working right now. Sadly for our snow industries (snowmobiling opens 12/15), almost no snow is in the next 5 day forecast.

George Africa
The Vermont Gardener
Vermont Flower Farm
On Facebook as Vermont Flower Farm and Gardens and also as George Africa
On Twitter as vtflowerfarm
Always here to help you grow your green thumb!
Gift certificates year 'round. Call Gail at 802-426-3505.

Thursday, December 06, 2012

Any Size, Anywhere Edible Gardening


Thursday, December 6, 2012



20.5° here on the mountain this morning. The wind is a constant 6 mph and my two morning walks with Karl the Wonder Dog were expectedly shorter this morning as he doesn’t care for fresh snow and cold winds. Karl seemed to spend too long by the platform bird feeder trying to figure out why it was surrounded by deer tracks and not birds, but as a dog, the absence of bird seed would not register with him anyway. I figure I should set up a game camera and catch an image of the deer which must stand on their hind feet to lick off all the seed.

As we returned to the house I put a couple more logs on the fire and settled down to finish a great new gardening book by William Moss. I like Moss a lot and I like anything Cool Spring Press releases too!  I only have “Best Management Practices” left to read and can say how much I have enjoyed the read. Any Size, Anywhere Edible Gardening offers solid information on how to garden successfully just about any place. It is a confidence builder for those who need help growing a green thumb. It offers a format for success and William’s “how-to” information is so clear it will leave a picture in your memory to make garden building easy.

There was a time when gardening was taken for granted as almost everyone had experience as a gardener and people could identify fruits and vegetables without having to think. Back then was not like today at the supermarket when the clerk puts a turnip on the scale and asks “Beet?” or a zucchini and asks “Cucumber?” Some of that innate knowledge and experience from the old days is absent and books like Edible Gardening are needed to help us make a comeback.

Owning a nursery gives me ample opportunity to see the need for good gardening information and the need to help would-be gardeners build their confidence to take the first step. The current price and quality of store bought fruits and vegetables are also encouraging us to rethink “growing our own”. Media releases about contaminated food tell us that our home grown food is not contaminated and that encourages us to try gardening.

Edible Garden represents itself as “The No Yard, No Time, No Problem Way To Grow Your Own Food.” and Moss is very successful in his presentation. Our latest sociological research reminds us how many people are returning to suburbia and we know that those moves mean that gardening must be adapted to the geography that smaller space provides. This book discusses containers, both purchased and homemade, and how to fill them with the best growing mix for the best results. It offers descriptions and pictures of food crops that will produce well in containers and discusses the part of gardening no one likes—dealing with undesirable insects and surprise plant diseases.

If you have never gardened before, or know someone who has not gardened but might like to, consider Edible Gardening as a holiday gift. Maybe consider putting a copy of the book in a suitable growing container with packages of seed (William recommends many) or even a bag of good potting mix. It’s the kind of holiday gift that you can continue to complement during subsequent holidays and you’re guaranteed to receive ongoing feedback on how the new hobby is progressing. I’ll bet you might even get a chance to sample the produce!



Writing from the mountain above Peacham Pond where the thermometer refuses to budge and the sun is having trouble breaking through the clouds. Might be a good day to go online and look at seed companies and think through what you might like to try in containers. Most companies now identify seeds that will produce plants that will succeed in containers. You could also check out Cool Springs Press, a printer I like because it bills itself as Growing Successful Gardens  

George Africa
The Vermont Gardener
On Facebook as Vermont Flower Farm and Gardens and also as George Africa
On Twitter as vtflowerfarm