What to Do With "Wet"

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Mackerel sky, 57°, slight wind as Gail and Karl the Wonder Dog head out the back door for a second walk of the morning and the weatherman on the TV says thunderstorms by mid afternoon. There is a heaviness in the air this morning that confirms that something is on its way. The barometer is at 29.47 but is falling and I know by 3 PM it will be wet outside. We need rain badly and anything will be welcome but when we hope for rain we know that storms this time of summer can also bring wind and lightning. We'll see.

I was working in the lower daylily garden late yesterday afternoon trying to clean up the rows of still blooming daylilies and I noticed a couple walk down the hill and right into the hosta display garden. They looked like they were on a mission and I was too as I wanted to finish the day with the field completely deadheaded. It's cooler in this bottom spot and daylilies including Prairie Wildfire, Yellow Monster, Ruby Spider, Ann Warner, Atlanta Debutante, Tetrinas Daughter, Ruby Throat, Red Volunteer and Rooten Tooten Red continue to bloom. Some have only days left, others about a week and a half but they need to be kept clean as spent blooms only encourages tarnished bugs. I dumped another bucket of blossoms in the truck and headed over to the couple to see if I could help.

The two neophyte gardeners live in Florida but have a New England summer home that they arrive at in June each year. They had a drainage ditch installed between their property and the neighbors and it includes a berm of sorts. They were thinking that hostas would be nice to plant along the berm to provide a variety of contrasting greens, whites and yellows, heights and leaf textures. They saw a number of hostas they really liked and they inquired how we do business.

Gail and I often plan gardens for people but we don't always send folks home with the plants they came to purchase. Our goal is plants that will survive under the conditions but that's the tricky part--asking people to describe the conditions they want to plant in. In this case, the ditch runs water and even during a year like this one, the bottom of the ditch, although sometimes offering the appearance of being dry, is actually very wet. Although hostas thrive when planted under gutterless eaves of a house, they will not live if planted in standing or running water. The couple had recently purchased a single daylily at another garden center and planted it on the berm. In two weeks time the water began to cause overall yellowing, a sign that things were not good and perhaps daylilies were not the way to go.

I worked up a plan of topping the berm with several varieties of ligularia and rodgersia that I thought would provide some contrasting leaves and colors in the 3-5 foot height range with a row of mixed astilbes in front of them and then a row of Siberian irises further down the berm. My goal was to pick plants that by themselves would block the adjacent property including a nearby storage shed and at the same time live happily in a poor setting. The scapes of the bigger plants up top of the berm would bring July-August color after the Siberian iris welcomed the couple back from Florida in June and the astilbes brightened July and early August.

I thought through the planting and then laid out a row of pots in the middle walkway of the long shadehouse so the couple could get the idea. Then I ran the plan by Gail and she concurred that under the conditions of wetness, this would do the trick. Gail jumped in the cart and went to dig the irises as I got the other plants picked and loaded. By 5:30 the car was heading home and we were too.

Understanding your soil and sunlight situation is very important. Sometimes we want plants to grow in an area because we can visualize how nice it will look when mature. In contrast, if conditions are either wrong or cannot be modified to be successful, there's no use starting something that will probably be disappointing. In the end I think this couple understood this and went away with something that will work for them. When the Ligularia przewalskii throw up 5 foot scapes of light yellow flowers to contrast with the Rodgersia Elegans creamy scapes and Othello's vibrant yellow-orange flowers, I think the berm, as wet as it is, will provide a solution of a problem. The plants will be a success and will give the couple a better idea of how much sunlight they actually have and how plants react to the damp-to-wet soil. By next year we'll have better information about the soil and will know what else we might be able to add for color.

As you plan new gardens for yourselves or friends, take a good look at sunlight and soil. Understanding what plants need and what you have or can modify go a long way to better plantings.

Writing from the mountain above Peacham Pond where the honey bees are flying and the ravens are reviewing this morning's additions to the compost pile. ......and I have to get to work!

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!

Late Summer Fireworks

Friday, September 2, 2011

55° here on the mountain this morning, 2-3 mph shifting breezes and dark clouds moving over quickly. Even at 5:30 it's still too dark to make a judgment on what today will bring. Karl the Wonder Dog barked loudly at exactly 4 AM when I jumped out of bed and he moved quickly into the warm, vacated space. Boy does he bug me when he does that! I scurried around the house as any arthritic 63 year old gardener does, turning on outside light after outside light--we have three--trying to detect the source of the unrest. By the time I circled back to the kitchen and grabbed the coffee pot, I heard the sounds of dog snores in the bedroom. Did I say "Boy does Karl bug me?"

Now an hour and a half later Karl and I made a trip outside and on the return walk to the house heard a very loud crash in the woods. When you live in rural Vermont you learn the "deer crash", the "bear crash" and the "moose crash" sounds like a pro and this was a moose, the loudest, more continuous of the sounds.

Late August is the time when a really coarse perennial flower blooms for us. Ligularia. Many gardeners do not like it because it can be a magnet for slugs and bugs but planted in the distance a bit there is nothing better than the scapes of bright yellow and orange on flowers of various sizes, shapes and colors.

These pictures are of Othello and Desdemona with Othello blooming first. We also have two taller types with multiple scapes and small yellow flowers, and hundreds of hybrids of our entire collection. I have tried the one with the common name Leopard Plant because of its yellow spotted leaf. It lasted 3 years but didn't make it but that was not bad for a zone 5 plant struggling in the wrong environment.

Ligularias love damp feet and they will respond with a "2 o'clock droop" if sufficient water is not available to maintain their massive plant structure. Their leaves and stems are large and the leaves transpire quickly so soil must hold moisture.

You would think by now that I would have information on what happens when you cut them for use in arrangements. I can't really remember that we have ever even taken them from the garden as cuts but I bet they'd be special in late summer arrangements. If you give this a try, shake them well as bees in August are looking for a source of food and ligularias are the place they visit a lot.

I think I'll pick a bouquet today and take it to the nursery for the table. We have gallon pots of several varieties for sale and I'd like to see more of them move down the road from our garden to yours. Give it a thought and try to stop by in the next few days. Labor Day is our last official day to be open although we are open many days by chance or appointment through foliage time.


Writing from the mountain above Peacham Pond where daybreak finds Gail heading out the door with Karl for another walk. In an hour I'll be at the nursery reinstalling the water pump I had to remove Monday morning as flood waters rose 25 feet in the river and lapped nastily at our little pump house. The joys of being a farmer! Be well, come visit!

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

Garden of Dreams

Monday, February 7, 2011

24° here on the mountain this morning. The sky is cloudy and there is a typical post-Super Bowl lull as if another calendar page has turned. A flock of red polls cover the feeders and the ground so thickly that even the greedy jays sit in the maples waiting their turn.

As Gail drops off a fresh coffee, she mentions that I better put the plow back on the truck. 4"-8" coming late today. We were spoiled by last winter and the early part of this winter when storms stopped along Route 4, 60 miles to our south. In recent weeks it has been one storm after another and cold enough that the snow hasn't come off the roofs. Rake and shovel as I may, I cannot seem to catch up.

The gardens are well covered in snow now and we are left with a garden of dreams save for leftover skeletons from hollyhocks or actaeas or ligularias. I still like this time as it forces me to remember what plants needed attention and what gardens need new additions.

I have been surprised by the number of catalogs that have arrived this year. We work hard to eliminate all but very few catalogs but the economy obviously suggests struggles for new customers. Some of the largest, most successful growers in America are in serious financial condition now, a direct result of the housing situation, and some have already folded. During a discussion with one of the growers we use, I asked about a shrub plant I was interested in. The grower said they had reduced the number of new plantings because of royalty fees on some of the new varieties and because of lack of projected demand two years out. Essentially the grower was saying that if you plant it and it doesn't sell, you still have to take care of it and if it gets too big before it sells, it becomes almost worthless.This is a lesson a home gardener has no reason to understand but it does impact on what is available.

To help us better understand what flower growers are planting, I signed Gail up for a membership with the Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers. This is an association for field and greenhouse growers. I wanted to join for some time and I kept belaboring the annual membership. I finally wrote the check and in the first journal issue we have recouped the price in the new information we have learned. To make your garden of dreams current you have to get out and about and see what others are growing.

As you scan the catalogs that probably are arriving in your mailbox, pay close attention to growing conditions on the newer varieties. There are many new flowers to tempt you but some may not make it in your gardens no matter how much you wish they would. Also think twice before you buy those "big collections of perennials" with the cheap price tags or the two pound cans of wild flower mixes for $5. You will definitely receive something for your money but what will actually grow in subsequent years may be another question. Spending just a little more from a local grower will provide a source for planting instructions and a person to actually talk to. Buy local when you can!


Writing from the mountain above Peacham Pond where a few snow flakes are falling and the red squirrels are reminding me that the sunflower seeds need replenishing!

George Africa
The Vermont Gardener
Vermont Flower Farm
Social Networking Works!©
On Facebook as Vermont Flower Farm and Gardens and also as George Africa
On Twitter as vtflowerfarm