Tiger Eye Cutleaf Staghorn Sumac

Friday, October 21, 2011

Already 8 PM here on the mountain. My late afternoon nap was interrupted by the ring of the phone and the bark of Karl the Wonder Dog and things have been pretty much a constant interruption since. It was one of those questionable weather days but perfect for outside work for me while Gail stayed inside and caught up on cooking for the weekend. I rose long before daybreak this morning and by noon had been to Montpelier, Barre, and into the woods for wood cutting. I had late lunch at 3 and was snoozing by 4. Retirement is good, interruptions, less so.


For days now I have been thinking about offering some thoughts about sumac. I love to see sumac in the fall and single, colorful sumac leaves, pendant from soft, brown stems, always remind me for some reason of a puffin on the Maine coast, sitting on a seaweed covered rock ledge with a minnow hanging from its beak.

Back here in Vermont, thoughts of sumac include deer munching on the seeds and birds eating away as they prepare for winter. The red of the leaves is a foliage season standout and some folks even pick the drupes--the little red seeds in clusters-- and cook them lightly (no boil) to make a beautiful red liquid for coloring jellies.

I have to laugh when visitors to Vermont catch a glimpse of a row of run-away sumacs along our property line by the Winooski River. The bright red after the first frosts is highly visible from Route 2, two hundred yards away but that doesn't stop the cameras from clicking a bit later. Very few gardeners would ever consider planting this sumac in their own gardens as it has a bad reputation for spreading underground and turning up everywhere. It will never be as nasty as Japanese knotweed but it has a manner of latching on to your land and your neighbor's that conjures up a word of caution.

The plant world is ever changing and each year more and more plants are offered up, some new plants, some old plants with new names. Three years ago while visiting the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay I noticed an impressive planting of sumac. The plants were 4 feet tall and not quite that wide when I visited and the bright yellows showed prominently from the raised planting. I was impressed as its color, texture, height and width made me visualize lots of planting opportunities. Trouble was, at that point I knew the plant no better than those who included it in the garden. (My opinion, no offense offered)

This sumac was Rhus typhina 'Bailtiger' also known as Tiger Eye Sumac, Tigers Eyes Sumac, Tiger Eye Cutleaf Sumac and Tiger Eye Cutleaf Staghorn Sumac. Plant names are confusing that way and you can often be wrong with a name for no good reason. In this case, the "eyes" don't have it as it's Tiger Eye.


As you can see from the picture up top, the plant is a standout and an attention getter. At the botanical garden it was planted alongside a mass of rudbeckias and the contrast was captivating. My mention of it here is not to discourage but to caution you that planting 'Bailtiger' will require work to keep it in control. In my opinion, this is not a plant to encourage neighborly friendships and to end this thought I'll just leave a portion of Robert Frost's poem Mending Wall (1915). You figure out the rest.

There where it is we do not need the wall;
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, "Good fences make good neighbors."

Writing from the mountain above Peacham Pond where it's 46° and quiet, save for a 4 mph breeze. If you listen you can hear the big critters of the forest crunching apples in the back meadow.

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
Ask, and we'll help you grow your green thumb!

Fall Cleanup Finds

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

A noisy, rainy night but things have calmed this morning. Now 42° with a 4 mph wind that is fairly constant. Already 6:15 but morning light will be slow in coming this morning. Even Karl the Wonder Dog wants no part of this morning after listening to the rain all night.

This is clean up time at the flower farm and Steve spent the day working with me. He finished the last of the fence taken out by Hurricane Irene and once again I said that if I have to replace the fence again, a For Sale sign will be standing by Route 2. Some people laugh at me but those who know me well know I don't waste a lot of words when I am serious. When the state river engineer finally showed up and said to call again when I had lost "significant" land I knew that "we are green in Vermont" is just not true. The government comment that Vermont is business friendly is just not true too because friends of business and real conservationists don't make comments like this. Take a look at aerial pictures of the new delta at the mouth of the Winooski River in Lake Champlain and you'll see why I think we need to do a better job curbing the flow of pollutants into the lake. Think this through and share some comments with me as maybe there's something I am missing besides fence, plants, soil, sleep and money. (Senator Leahy's 20 million dollar earmark to study the impact of Irene on the lake is an interesting use of money, but as you should now know, I am very disappointed with how we spend our tax money.)

Steve started planting a sedum garden for us and it should set in good between now and hard freeze. There are about 15 different sedums from the taller Autumn Joy, Matrona and Purple Emperor types down to Angelica, Voodoo and the lower types. We have a nice start on a collection of sempervivums too and I intend to expand that this spring. Come take a look next spring/early summer. If you're bored this winter, join the North American Rock Garden Society and learn what sempervivens and sedums are gaining popularity as rock gardens return to favor in New England.

As Steve and Gail worked along, I cleaned up old sunflowers and other annual plants. During the process I came upon this wriggling pupa of a tomato hornworm moth. Although we don't grow vegetables, visitors always ask for advice and there was a lot of discussion this year about the giant green tomato hornworms that most people just don't like. I don't know the cycle that insects go through as populations explode or are minimal but I know we had quite a crop on the few tomatoes we grew this year for the first time. At some time I'll have to study these some more to determine what other crops such as tomatoes they seek out.

As I looked over the pupa I wondered if Steven Spielberg and the Dreamworks Studios folks ever used one of these as a model. Check the head area. They also go by the names hawk moth and hummingbird moth as they mature and sport wings again.

As you complete cleanup at your place, keep an eye out for signs of insects. If you find an especially good website or book to help identify your finds, let us all know.

Writing from the mountain above Peacham Pond where Karl just suggested we go for a walk. I'm ready!

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

Everyone Needs Safe Food!

Sunday, October 16, 2011
Blog Action Day

44° here on the mountain with a 6 mph wind that offers up gusts with much greater speeds. At 5:15 AM it's darker than a pocket and I can hear rain on the standing seam roof. Karl the Wonder Dog is laying on the rug in front of the soap stone wood stove, still warm from last night's fire. He snores loud snores for his size and occasionally does dog mumbles during obvious dog dreams.

Today is Blog Action Day, a world wide event that brings together comments from around the world about a single subject. I try to participate but haven't made it every year. This year's topic is food and there probably could not be a more important consideration after the disasters that have occurred not just in Vermont but world wide this year.

Vermont is an agrarian state and it has been one since the early 1700s when new villages formed and farms sprang up in river valleys and on mountain tops. By the end of World War II tiny Vermont had over +10,000 dairy farms, cows were still hand milked and milk was shipped to processing plants in 40 quart milk cans. Unpasteurized milk was the norm and rural neighbors took their jugs every couple days to farms for a fresh supply and often added a couple dozen eggs or a couple pounds of homemade butter to the journey back home. Fast forward to 2011 and there are well under 1000 dairy farms in Vermont, many well automated, some organic, most not, some as small as a dozen cows, some exceeding 400 milkers. Things have changed!

Along with the dairies are CSAs, Community Supported Agriculture opportunities at their finest. These are growers and producers who offer vegetables, fruits, flowers, cheeses, meats, trout....anything you can grow, raise, produce or preserve offered up for an annual price over the summer season or more recently almost year round. In Vermont there is an extensive and growing number of CSAs but their popularity has now reached out to even the largest cities. Vermonter growers now travel weekly to places such as New York City and city folks have organized CSAs, farmers markets and traveling markets that stop at apartment complexes and senior housing facilities to extend the reach of good food for everyone.

Discussions about food have broadened of late and concern for safe food is real big. It should be. Although family dairy farms continue to diminish and large, bazillion cow farms replace them, we still have to be vigilant about the food we offer up for sale. Bigger doesn't always mean better. Up the river from my village of Marshfield is Cabot, Vermont, the home of Cabot Creamery. This is a milk cooperative that buys dairy farmers milk at a good price and turns out a variety of award winning cheeses that make cheese lovers smile. But Cabot Creamery is only one of many cheese producers in Vermont. In fact cheese is so big in Vermont that the Vermont Cheese Council has prepared a marketing scheme named The Vermont Cheese Trail to help residents and visitors learn about all the great cheeses we produce in Vermont.

But CSAs, great farmers and special cheeses is only part of Vermont and safe food is dear to Vermonters. Also in Cabot is a young writer named Ben Hewitt. Ben is one of those off the grid kind of guys, a family man who farms about 40 acres where dairy, beef, pork, lamb, vegetables and berries prevail. Ben's first book, The Town That Food Saved told about Hardwick, Vermont and how food and people became so important to each other in a struggling Vermont town that was stepping boldly into the future. I liked the book a lot and you will too but perhaps his latest book is spot on to my title Everyone Needs Safe Food!

Making Supper Safe: One Man's Quest To Learn The Truth About Food Safety
is Ben's second book. It informs and scares at the same time. It's not a Halloween scary book it's a "do things right or get sick or die" kind of book. It contains tales, research, and discussions that are so accurate that a few times I stopped reading and went to the kitchen and rewashed fruit and vegetables from the grocery store. It's a book to read and it offers some clear thinking about some things that need to change.

Here in Vermont we are a small state of 630,000 people. But we love our farms and farmers and we love buying locally produced food. The food needs to be safe and we are on track here. No matter where you live or how you eat, remember that everyone needs safe food and part of that experience is knowing where your food comes from and how to handle it. Those might be topics you have overlooked but try reading Making Supper Safe and I'll bet you sees things differently.



Writing from the mountain above Peacham Pond where a couple stars still twinkle outside my office window. Canada geese compare breakfast notes and talk loudly on the pond, waiting patiently for first light so they can become airborne and continue their journey south. I'm off to the kitchen to make an apple cake for breakfast...with local apples, butter, milk, eggs...most everything local but the cinnamon and nutmeg. Be safe, eat safe, everyone needs safe food!

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

Voles and Moles

Saturday, October 8, 2011

The various daylily and hosta listservs have had questions about controlling moles and voles in the garden. Here is a post I offered from my experience.

>As cold weather approaches, I always remember vole and mole control with a technique someone from the hosta list mentioned years ago. I take 2” diameter by 2 foot pieces of PVC pipe and shake a couple ounces of d-Con granular into the middle of the pipe. Then I lay these flat throughout the gardens and also among the potted plants at the nursery. By using granular instead of pieces of the bars, the critters can’t conveniently carry big pieces away and leave them someplace a dog, cat, kid, etc might pick them up. Tractor Supply sells Tomcat brand and it’s cheaper and can be purchased in buckets of 1 ounce packages which makes it easy. I use an assortment of leftover and recycled pipe but it’s not that expensive anyway. I wash the pipes clean each spring and let them dry and then bag them up for the next year.

I am a strong advocate of milky spore to eliminate a food source of Japanese beetle grubs. Urban areas are often difficult because neighbors are often possessed to use beetle traps and the pheromones are so strong in those they draw in beetles from miles away so your work becomes less effective.

I have already notice way too many voles this fall and know we have a problem building. I am also finding some very long tailed mice I have never seen before. I have seen “pieces of mouse” in the morning so I figure we have one or more owls close by now that find them tasty.


George Africa
The Vermont Gardener
Vermont Flower Farm

Fall Pig Roast

Just in from a walk with Karl the Wonder Dog. The morning is awakening with raspberry red sunlight pushing from the east to brighten the day. The noisiest part of the morning is the crunch, crunch, crunch of the maple leaves which are rapidly leaving naked branches everywhere. Peak foliage in this area was last Monday and Tuesday. The colors are still nice but just not the same, but that's no reason not to get in the car and head into Vermont to enjoy the beauty.

Fall is the quickest season for me. My list of things to do is ever so long but frosty cold mornings and short afternoons have a way of making things speed up. There are all kinds of special events in Vermont in the fall and it's not easy squeezing everything in. This weekend will be very busy with parties, music, crafts and great food everywhere. I am sure there will also be many, many fund raisers as local towns still try to rebuild from the waters of two, really three, devastating summer storms.

A couple years ago we received a notice from our insurance agent that if we joined the Vermont Farm Bureau, we would get a discount on our insurance. We have had Nationwide Insurance since 1989 but with a house, a business, car, truck, farm equipment, workers comp, etc., the premiums were noticeable and anything to bring them down sounded great. We joined.

Nationwide is a great company although admittedly we have little record of claims to back that up. In fact I actually felt guilty calling when my brand new truck met a flying deer one morning several years ago. But the fact that our agent talks to us all the time gives us confidence that we really are protected, most flood related issues expected. And during the floods beginning back in May, our agent was regular with excellent email postings of all manner of important info for all various farmers in Vermont, flower farmers included.

With Farm Bureau membership comes the opportunity for meetings and decision making but we were always too busy. But last week we received an announcement that even tired, end-of-season flower farmers couldn't pass up. A free pig roast. The Washington Country Farm Bureau to which we belong was planning a pig roast in Berlin, Vermont at Fresh Tracks Farm on Route 12. We had heard of Fresh Tracks through the Vermont Grape and Wine Council so the chance to visit a vineyard and a winery and have a pork roast too was too much to pass up. It also meant we could attend our first meeting and listen to other farmers. The pork was being provided by Gaylord Farm so that would give us a chance to learn about another farm. All the foods were Vermont grown and that made the event even more special!

As we drove home, we were really pleased me made the effort to go. Yes, the food was terrific and I ate too much pork and not enough baked beans, but what we learned about farming and how farmers were impacted by the floods was most forceful. Yes, we had personally lost fences and plants, fertilizer and some land in the floods but we didn't lose 30 acres like one farmer and end up with a bed of useless gravel, or buildings or equipment or an entire season's worth of food or feeds crops like others. There was another reminder to check corn carefully as corn that had been flooded might well be full of sand and gravel and impact on livestock and machinery. Corn might look ok but was possibly/probably full of mold and much of it was not fit to be eaten by any animal. The list of cautions continued but it all translated to examples of what makes farming an everyday challenge.

As you get out an about in the next week looking at Vermont foliage, keep an eye out for farmers. If you get a chance, thank them for doing a great job and being there no matter what bad times they experience. And support your local farmer because they're hard workers and they bring you food you can trust. It's the way to go.

Writing from the mountain above Peacham Pond where the sun is sparkling off the frosted grasses. The temperature will rise by noon and it will be a beautiful day. Enjoy Vermont, it is special for many reasons!

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
We are open this week dividing daylilies and pulling annual flowers. Stop and see us!

Cleome Continues

Saturday, October 1, 2011

It's already after 5 PM and daylight is dimming. The afternoon is windless, 41°, and the rain pours out of the sky, heavy at first, then lighter, then heavy again. Gail and I were just talking about the Groton Chicken Pie Supper. The first seating is probably lined up right now and I expect there is an abundance of colored umbrellas offering obvious contrast to the fall foliage that surrounds the town.

During the last few days of September and first week of October, Vermont towns often offer foliage dinners, Many of these are booked a year in advance and the Groton event is no doubt sold out. Vendors and local folk set up along Route 302 selling homemade goods and foods, the historical society is open for tours and local businesses like an excellent little forge and a mead producer are open for demonstrations and sales.

This is the time of year when we should expect a killing frost. Some years we have already had a frost but so far things have been mild. That is supposed to change soon. Two annual flowers that I enjoy right up until frost are nicotiana and cleome. For some reason we never planted any nicotiana this year but the cleomes have been special.

Many visitors to Vermont Flower Farm ask for help identifying cleomes and are surprised they are annuals. Some people try to convince us to dig a up a few and although they have a shallow root system, we always decline the request despite the pleading.


The seed industry has done an excellent job offering cleome in heights from a little less than a foot to 5-6 feet tall. They have become a popular show flower and smaller varieties have been bred for use in containers and window boxes.

This summer I saw a very nice planting of a smaller flowered cleome named Inncleosr. It's pictured just below here planted with a backdrop of very tall ironweed. The surrounding garden included several colors of perennial asters and rudbeckias too. The combination was striking and I could visualize a beautiful vase on the sideboard at home.

As our outside gardening season draws to a close, it's a good idea to make some permanent notes someplace of flowers, shrubs and trees you want to add next year. If you haven't yet, consider cleomes.

Writing from the mountain above Peacham Pond where the only noise is the rain on the roof.

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