Easy Gardening Advice - Say What?

TPP fell for some click bait the other day, i.e., 25 tips to make Gardening Easier.  No question about it gardening can be real work, digging holes for planting trees.  So you know it was some of the same-old, same-old: use mulch, don't mow your lawn (grass) so often, etc.  But then probably to get to 25, the "easy gardening tip" was get rid of lawn and install Astroturf!  Now in what sense of the word is installing astroturf "gardening"?  Hey, come and see my lovely Astroturf, it's doing so well this year.  It must be the Astro-fert that was applied this spring. And you know you can color coordinate if you use Astro-turf.  And the image is even from "Good as Grass".  Bottom left is "called Boise Blue" for some goofy reason.  

Now least you think TPP is close-minded about innovation, a garden trial was done using rubber mulch made from old tires and dyed brown.  It actually looks like wood mulch, and it doesn't decompose producing a weed growing medium, and it lasts for years.  Rubber mulch would actually work well in a play ground area, or for a fairly high traffic path.  Astroturf was the deal-breaker, and the clicking stopped.  As good as grass, tell that to an Astro-cow. And where are the Astro-chickweeds and the Astro-dandelions?  It may be as good as grass, but as good as lawn, never.

Gift ideas for the gardener

If you have a gardener on you shopping list this holiday season, as a public service, TPP is making some gift suggestions for the gardener in your life. As a general rule you are not going to find garden gifts on the cool end to the spectrum at big box stores.  Because of his no endorsement, no plugs without payment policy of bringing you the best in free blogs, no links or vendors are provided but with a bit of web searching you can find everything.

Thai spirit house - Almost every home and business in Thailand has a spirit house, and they are decorated with flowers and burning incense sticks every day to keep the spirits happy. TPP thinks they are quite charming and need to become more of a thing.  In upstate NY many gardens had up ended bathtubs turned into Catholic shrines.  Sort of the same thing here but less plumbing.

Stone or concrete sculpture - You can find all sorts of garden sculpture made of stone or concrete, the trick is to find something nice, like an elephant down spout deflector. TPP is still waiting for his. Simple is oft times better than fancy.

Garden Bar - Every real gardener needs a garden bar, some place to stop, sip a cocktail, and enjoy your garden. They can be big, but honestly if your idea of sophisticated is a tiki bar, you're shopping in the wrong place.  Some garden bars for the small gardens can be mounted onto a fence, wall, or out building.  This is a really cool idea.  At the other end of the spectrum TPP has been collecting green, standard wine bottles with the idea of using them to construct a bar or wall in the garden. The best part of this idea is that you have to empty them first.

Citrus fruit juicers - These come TPP approved. Some of you may argue that this is a kitchen gadget not a garden tool, if so, please go back one item. 

Gardening Attire for the stylish gardener - Actually one of the more practical items of gardening attire is a simple shop apron. They tend to be darker in color than kitchen aprons so they don't show the soil so much.  Not much else is needed when you get right down to is.

Garden Sink - The more TPP thought about the last suggestion it became obvious that another great suggestion would be an outdoor sink for washing up. And before you run out and get a laundry utility sink, look around a bit for something a bit nicer. This if for your garden after all, not your guest bathroom. 

Gardening advice from Consumer Reports - Not very impressive

How did TPP miss this? The Phactors do subscribe to CR, but no recall of an article on gardening, but then again TPP seldom reads gardening advice columns or articles. At any rate organizations and publications like CR have value only when what they report is well-researched and accurately presented. So why did the good people over at The Garden Professors' Blog get so exercised? Because the advice to use clove oil was not well researched nor accurately presented. And TPP would further point out that among the various essential oils, oil of cloves is expensive and a known carcinogen. The lesson here is that not all of the alternative chemicals suggested to treat garden problems work and they are not themselves problem free. The CR response is quite unsatisfactory, but go to the link and check it out yourself. Clove oil used to be part of many histochemical recipes, but generally much cheaper oil of wintergreen, which can be synthesized, was used as a substitute even 45 years ago when TPP did that type of research. Our labs did smell pretty good at times.

Ten Commandments of Gardening

Ten Commandments of Gardening

1. Thou shalt have no other garden before you your own for yours is the one true garden.

2. Thou shalt not covet your neighbor’s (fill in the blank) for verily it’s the only decent thing they grow.

3. Thou shalt not ever disclose what you paid for a magnificent, rare specimen; price matters not in our eyes.

4. Thou shalt honor thy shrubs and allow no poodle pruning upon them.

5. Thou shalt not be concerned about non-grass components of your lawn as they add richness, texture, and diversity to the otherwise dull.

6. Thou shalt minimize lawn area as grass is an affront to our sensibilities and it provideth no food or flowers.

7. Thou shalt listen to the euonymus and always keep the weekend sacred for gardening.

8. Thou shalt consult the prophet Dirr whenever contemplating a new tree or shrub or you will suffer the presence of a mistake unto the fourth generation and beyond.

9. Thou shalt plant no solitary perennials as onesies are an abomination.

10. Thou shalt not admire your garden bereft of cocktail or wine as this is a proper offering to the gardener.

Should you have other, or better, commandments from on high, then verily part the waters and comment until content. These have yet to be chiseled into stone.

Have a ball planting new trees and shrubs

Every now and then, just for a change of pace, the Phactor tries to dispense with some practical gardening advice. Since this is an excellent season to plant new trees and shrubs, here is some important advice for novice gardeners out there. Whenever you buy nursery stock that has been potted, placed into one of those big plastic pots, you must take the time and effort to tease out the root ball, even if it means breaking some of the roots in the process. The longer the plant has been in the pot the worse the problem. My tool of choice is an old, dull three pronged soil scratcher; it works fairly well pulling the roots out of that compressed cylinder so that you may spread the roots out as you plant it. If you don't do this, there is a good chance that in 2 to 3 years, you will wonder why your plant is not growing very well, or why it died, or why it looks so weak and puny, and when you pull on the base of the tree or shrub, up comes the cylindrical root ball the same shape and size as when you put it in the ground. You might as well have planted it pot and all. The Phactor learned this the hard way many years ago after exhuming several failures. So get out there, take advantage of the end of the season sales at nurseries, and tease out those roots before you plant. Balled and burlaped trees generally do not suffer from this problem. Oh, one more bit of advice, find someone to dig the holes while you tease the roots and lecture them on this advice.

Do weeds grow faster?

Having just spent the 4th of July weekend trying to get caught up on my garden, a common gardening question that the Phactor has been asked many times comes to mind. Do weeds just seem to grow faster than other garden plants?

No, in general weeds really do grow faster than other garden plants. Here’s why.
Weeds are plants that are adapted to disturbed habitats. In nature disturbed habitats occur wherever something messes things up, and they can be small places like the disturbance of an uprooted fallen tree or big like after fire or storm damage. Such disturbed habitats are generally short-lived patches in unpredictable locations, so weeds are speed demons of growth and reproduction because they must reach reproductive maturity in a hurry and make lots of seeds so that some of their offspring have chance of dispersing to a newly disturbed place.

OK, here’s the bad news. Gardening and agriculture are disturbances. Human activities have provided weeds with opportunities for success on a massive scale. Doesn’t that just rub your rhubarb? The more you do the more disturbances you create. And since as a biological safety precaution against unforeseen weeding, weed seeds do not all germinate at once, and this weed seed bank in your soil is ready to replace all those weeds you worked so hard to remove.

Rather than be discouraged, the Phactor recommends you come to terms with weeds on a philosophical level. Such an attitude adjustment is greatly aided by sitting back and enjoying your garden with the help of a tall, cold mojito.

Yard smart, gardener dumb?

The Phactor’s estate is without doubt an urban oasis for wildlife. Over 70 species of birds have visited in the past 10 years as well as the usual, and not so usual, assortment of small, and not so small, animals. So it was a no-brainer for when this property received Yard Smart certification. But the bucolic serenity of a balanced ecosystem remains elusive.

For several years ecology worked quite well. Red fox were common, and as a consequence, rabbits were not, a most satisfying, and extremely biological, relationship. But something has happened to these handsome canids; they have not been making their daily rounds. As a result the gardener-in-chief has had the Phactor busy conducting an interesting, and increasingly expensive, experiment in the gastronomic preferences of Sylvilagus floridanus, the eastern cottontail. The experiment is conducted thusly. The most precious, unusual, rare, or gorgeous plant in your yard gets eaten to the ground, or lower. This species gets designated the plant of 1st preference. To protect any remaining morsels that may be left, you erect protective fencing around that plant, and then record the next plant that gets eaten into oblivion. This species gets designated the plant of 2nd preference. And so on, and on, and on.

Now perhaps many people would be quite satisfied to have labored so long and so hard producing a botanical smorgasbord for little bun-buns, but the fun is seeping away. This is partly the fault of the plant purveyors who neglected to tell you that the newest, neatest addition to horticulture happens to be a rodent delicacy. Aren't they supposed to run field trials? And here are some results.

Mukdenia rossii 'Crimson Fans' does indeed grow well in the shade and it looks quite striking, but it is even preferred over Campanula takesimana ‘Korean bellflower’ previously ranked number 2. Number one, Callirhoe involucrata ‘prairie poppy mallow’, is no longer participating in the experiment (RIP).

Here foxy, foxy, foxy. Nice rabbits. If the Phactor were not so committed to ecology he might be fixing them one of Aunt Pearl's bitter pills.

Now, what preys on fox squirrels?

Ecological lawn care

The Phactor is an excellent source for advice on lawn care.

Lesson 1: Nothing is duller or more uninteresting than a monoculture of grass! This is a basic principle from which all else follows logically. Grassy lawns are such simple ecosystems they require a constant input to maintain, while if sufficiently ignored they will reach a more complex state of stability. A visitor to my spacious estate once asked how lawn weeds were managed in the shadier areas? Simple, they are left alone, of course, some are only weeds when in a lawn (scilla, spring beauty, bluebells, trillium)(see photo). My lawn ecosystem forms a green expanse, so what does it matter if the

chloroplasts are housed within a grass or creeping Charlie?

Lesson 2: Minimize lawn area. You can’t eat grass, so transform as much lawn as possible into gardens. Big beds of perennials will relieve lawn boredom and in the long run take much less work. You’ll be able to trade in that big honking Peterbilt riding lawn mower (you need the exercise of walking anyways) for a funky garden bench with a matching table upon which to place your margarita.

Lesson 3: Never, ever fertilize your lawn! Nutrients just make the grass grow and then you have to mow it. It’s a nasty cycle.

Lesson 4: Never, ever water your lawn! Didn’t you get the idea of Lesson 3? Don’t be a slow learner; the idea is to avoid mowing. Besides grass is supposed to turn brown and go dormant in hot, dry summers. Your neighbors probably don’t know this and they would appreciate the information. Lead by example; suburbia will raise a statue (or is that a statute?) in your honor.

Lesson 5: The plant diversity of your lawn and gardens is directly correlated with your IQ. This goes without saying, and it explains why lawn monoculturalists are so difficult to teach.

Lesson 6: Start writing a book. If anyone complains about your minimalist lawn care, simply counter by saying, with a slightly affected tone, “My book writing doesn’t leave time for things like lawn care.” This immediately puts the complainer on the defensive; what have they ever written? This has been working for the Phactor for about 10 years now and counting (hope my editor doesn’t see this).

Lesson 7: Plant lots of trees. Grass doesn’t grow well under trees so you can plant ferns and shady wildflowers and never, ever mow again. But don’t throw that old lawnmower away; they are pretty useful for chopping up leaves each fall which you apply as mulch.

Coming soon to this blog. How to get sponsorship for your gardening blog.