THE DIRT ON DIRT



Gardens start with dirt

          Not to overstate the obvious, all gardens start with dirt. If you’re a recent transplant to North Carolina’s coast, you may have noticed that you’ve traded your familiar “real dirt” for sand or, worst-case scenario, antediluvian swamp muck over concrete-like hardpan (a layer of soil so compacted and/or so mineral-laden that it has become impervious, a horticultural term meaning “impossible to dig through.”) Not to worry: you just need some perspective adjustment, a little education, a lot of patience and a good attitude.

No matter what you may have read or been told, native coast soils are NOT acidic. In our experience, pHs generally range between 6.0 and 9.0 (fill dirt can be an exception, depending upon where it came from).

What’s pH and why does it matter? you ask.

The measure of a substance’s acidity or alkalinity is called pH—little “p,” big “H”—standing for “percent of Hydrogen.” The pH scale runs from zero to 14, but actually starts in the middle, at number seven, or neutral. Seven to zero is the acid end of the scale, seven to 14 alkaline, or basic. The progression between numbers is geometric: four is ten times more acid than five, nine is ten times more basic than eight. Vinegar tests out to about pH 3; chalk’s about a pH 12.

            It matters because soil pH values influence how plants absorb nutrients, which translates to how well a given plant will perform in a given place. By way of illustration, let’s talk iron absorption. An essential micronutrient, iron is most readily available to plants rooted in soils with pHs between 4.0 and 6.5. If pH is higher than 6.0, iron absorption is curtailed. You can pour all the Ironite® around you want—the plant can’t take it in. Most soils contain sufficient iron, but that’s a moot point if the pH is too high. Iron deficiency frequently manifests as chlorosis, characterized by yellow leaves with green veins. 

            Many other nutrients are absorbed better at lower pHs as well; optimum absorption of most nutrients occurs at pHs from 5.0 to 7.0. (See table.)

(Click on the table to enlarge it)

            Unamended native coastal soils fall in the neutral to somewhat basic range of the pH spectrum, 6.0 to 9.0, regardless of what we want to believe. Pine trees do not indicate acidic soil, so get that notion out of your head right now. The marvelously adaptable genus Pinus will grow where the dirt tests a vinegary pH 3.0 and with equal aplomb in calcified soils of pH 12. Moreover, forget what you’ve heard about the acidifying properties of pine needles. They do not contribute significantly to lowering pH. Repeat after me: I do not have acid soil. I do not have acid soil. I do not have acid soil.

Don’t believe me? Get a soil test. Get a soil test even if you do believe me. Call your local Cooperative Extension Office to find out how. They may also be able to translate for you when you get the results. (Maybe not, in North Carolina. Tim and I had to take a seminar before we were able to decipher all those symbols and figure out what they told us about our yard.) 

What do you need to know in order to optimize plant performance in the soil you do have? Just because it’s more common, let’s start with sand.



My yard: sand to China

           On the plus side, sand is a dream to dig in. Remember those happy childhood hours spent in the sandbox or playing on the beach? Well, chances are your present yard, except for the mat of roots just below the surface, has a similar consistency. The other really good thing about sand is that it drains beautifully. The day after 1999’s Hurricanes Dennis and Floyd finished dumping about 45 inches of rain on us in a little over a week, our yard—at about 26 feet above sea level—had no standing water. When Tim and I dug our back garden, we finished the job in one day: a 28-by-32-foot area, double dug, in six hours. Never found one stone, one worm, one ant, to the depth of two feet. Just sand, sand and more sand. Coming from the foothills of the Adirondacks, we thought we’d died and gone to heaven. While it is possible to induce root rots in such an environment, you have to work really hard at it. Much easier to do is water insufficiently, especially during the one to five years it takes for a new planting to establish.

Swamp muck is another, sadder story. Don’t let its rich-looking black color fool you. Stick your nose near it: that pungent smell means it’s anaerobic, what farmers call “sour.” Millions of years of periodic flooding have resulted in a densely compacted layer of organic matter. The first 12 to 24 inches or so may be tillable, given a sharp shovel and good muscle tone: below that, the compaction increases to form a stratum of hardpan, an impervious layer of super-compacted soil. The worst thing about hardpan (not counting trying to dig through it) is that water flows across it laterally instead of sinking straight down, dramatically affecting drainage. If your hardpan layer is less than 12 inches from the surface, your best bet will be to: a) blast; or b) raise your beds. The good news is you won’t need to water so much.

           

Despair not: both soil types make fine gardens with some amending. Both lack high (or even moderate) levels of microbial activity, but you can give the little critters a boost by adding generous amounts of composted organic materials. Why do I want to do that? you ask. Because good soil is, by definition, alive, full of organisms including the ones we can see, like worms, centipedes, ants and slugs, as well as the ones we can’t: bacteria, fungi, nematodes and protozoa.

Ewww, you say, but since I need them, where do I get them? I told you already, composted organic materials. You can produce your own, simultaneously reducing overcrowding in our landfills, by composting your food waste and yard debris. Keeping small herds of bovines, ovines or equines and flocks of chickens, turkeys or bats would be nice, too—less packaging—but many communities frown upon urban farming.

Not all commercial composts
are created equal:
read the label

Another option is buying commercially available compost mixtures. Most blends feature some kind of animal manure. It’s not as bad as you might think, smell–wise. (Except for Milorganite, which I don’t recommend because it’s industrial sludge and heavy on the heavy metals.)  Plus bags of already-aged stuff are easier to manage, ready to use, consume less space and cost far less than feeding a herd or flock of anything.



Besides attracting and feeding our bacteria buddies, adding composted organic matter to the soil raises your chances of gardening success in other ways. It makes sand more moisture-retentive by giving water something to soak into. It loosens up the close-packed particles of swamp muck, improving its ability to drain. Most herbaceous plants (the ones that die back to the ground every winter) appreciate eight to 12 inches of good soil to root in: woodies (plants like trees and shrubs) prefer 12 to 18 inches. Compost also provides micronutrients in forms plants can access without additional chemical reactions taking place. Used at planting and as an annual topdressing, compost encourages the arrival and multiplication of soil bacteria, fungi, protozoans, nematodes, micro- and macro-arthropods, and earthworms. Bottom line: compost is good.

Permit me to expand the scope of my little rant vis-à-vis encouraging microbiota in soil.

1.                  When you want to create new planting beds from lawn or natural areas and don’t feel up to digging them out by hand, consider this method: place a layer of newspaper six to ten sheets thick over the unwanted vegetation. Cover the newspaper with organic mulch three to four inches thick. Go do something else for three or four seasons. (Have I mentioned that gardening is not the best of hobbies for personalities requiring instant gratification?) Light deprivation discourages the growth you want discouraged while the newspaper and mulch biodegrade, enriching the soil.

2.                  Be careful about amending with topsoil. “Topsoil” is a vague catch-all sort of word meaning something like “the stuff scraped off the top of something.” One lady we know wanted to transform her flat back yard into an undulating landscape, so she bought ten double-truckloads of what the seller assured her was "topsoil” and had it sculpted into a lovely rolling berm. When everything she planted the first season only survived long enough to get really ugly before dying, she had the “topsoil” tested. Well, it may indeed have been scraped off the top of something, but mostly it was home to nematodes of the most unbeneficial kind. The lady subsequently spent four years, pots of money and untold hours outside sweating and swearing under her breath to remediate the damage. Less horrendous but still not good, another friend paid good money for a load of “topsoil” that arrived chock-full of asphalt chunks. When it comes to “topsoil,” caveat emptor. 

Peat moss:
detrimental to soil bacteria
and non-renewable

3.                  Avoid amending with peat (a.k.a. sphagnum) moss. Yes, it adds some acidity to the soil. Yes, it holds water. Like a sponge. Once you manage to get it wet. But why would you want to put a wet sponge into your swamp-muck? Also, its very high acid level is detrimental to bacteria. In fact, it kills them. Besides, if high-acid soils are so hot, why do Northerners spread lime all over everything twice a year? One other, global consideration: because peat bogs take skillions of years to form (perhaps I exaggerate a teensy bit), peat moss—like oil and coal—counts as one of your basic non-renewable resources. Yes, the Canadian economy will falter, but it’ll be all right if more Americans start buying their prescription medications north of the border.



A Southern Living garden spread

            To recapitulate, chances are excellent that sand and/or swamp muck is the land-hand you’ve been dealt if you've relocated to southeastern North Carolina. Chances are also excellent that, with a little knowledge, planning, a judicious amount of compost and time put into soil building, you can have the garden those Southern Living spreads promised.

*****

This post is an excerpt from my excellent but unpublished The Best Gardening Book Ever. Be sure to tell all your publisher friends what they’re missing.

Thanks for dropping by.

                                                                        Kathy

THIS AND THAT

            Where were you ten years ago tomorrow? Tim and I had just arrived at the site we meant to prepare for sod when we heard surreal reports on the radio about planes flying into the Trade Towers. My man of action restarted the truck’s engine, and hurried to the bank to withdraw some cash—a State Department veteran, Tim has a good grounding in worst-case scenarios. After topping off the gas tanks in both our vehicles, we settled in at home to watch those horrifying images on TV, and wait.

            Sunday, September 10, 2011, is the tenth anniversary of the day the world changed for complacent America. Never again would war be thought of as something that only happens in other places.

            We have kind and generous friends who let Tim and me use their apartment in Battery Park City in New York. The door is difficult to open because of the rattling the building endured as the Towers fell. The front window overlooks what was at first a debris-filled hole from which the memorial gradually rose. I remember staring out that window at those poignant twin spotlight beams.

We haven’t visited the city for a few years. I’m ready to go back now. My son, Sean, will graduate from art school there this coming May. Maybe they’ll have finished working on the downtown portion of West Street by then. It’ll be good to see a building and a park where that ugly, sad hole used to be. It’ll be good to remember, and good to remember it’s good to keep moving forward.

Take a minute to think of all the people who died that day ten years ago, and the families whose lives were instantly, irrevocably, eternally altered. Never forget them, and never stop moving forward.

*****



Shine on, shine on Harvest Moon...

             The Harvest Moon goes full at 5:27 am EDT on September 12^th. How do I know it’s the Harvest Moon? Traditionally, the name goes to the full moon falling closest to the autumnal equinox. At this time of year in the northern Hemisphere, the moon’s trajectory forms a shallow angle to the eastern horizon. The result is that, on the evenings around the moon going full, it appears to rise only a few minutes later than it came up the night before.

So what? you ask. Doesn’t it do that anyway?

Well, not exactly. It probably will not surprise you to learn that I track moon cycles as part of my weather fixation. Here are graphs plotting the curve of the difference in minutes between rise and set on consecutive days for September of 2010 and March of this year. I’m not entirely sure what they mean, but there are more dots closer together at the top of the curve during last year’s Harvest Moon (September 23) than during March 19th’s “Super” Moon. The farther north you go, the differences get smaller, until, when you get above the Arctic Circle, the Harvest Moon actually appears to rise earlier on successive evenings. At any rate, all this “extra” light is a boon to farmers laboring far into the night to get the last of the crops in before frost. Or that’s the story, anyway.



Moon cycle graph March 2011



Moon cycle graph September 2010



Some planting-by-the-moon folklore: I put in pole beans last weekend, because planting during a waxing moon is supposed to help crops that grow up; contrariwise, I’ll wait until Monday to set out my potatoes, because waning moons traditionally aid in the establishment of root crops. I don’t really think it makes any difference one way or the other, but I’ll try anything once.

*****



Comet Garradd

            In other celestial news, two cool events should be visible to casual viewers for most of September. The first is the continued presence of Comet Garradd, easily visible with binoculars. That’s not a typo: the comet is named for Australian amateur astronomer Gordon Garradd. A Google search turned up many listings for Comet “Garrard,” which is just wrong. Easier to say, but wrong. Do the right thing and pronounce Mr. Garradd’s name correctly.



Supernova 2011fe
in a galaxy far, far away

            The other skylight, for which you’ll need a telescope, is the supernova occurring in Galaxy M101, good ol’ SN2011fe. Astrophysicists are wetting their pants over this one because it’s a Type I supernova. That means it reliably produces “standard candles” of light by which interstellar and intergalactic distances are measured. The current estimate is that Galaxy M101 lies about 21 million light-years away from us—SN2011fe should help refine that calculation.

*****



Azalea caterpillar
calmly defoliating an azalea

            From the celestial to the terrestrial: keep an eye out for azalea caterpillars. Tim found a pair of them on a client’s Azalea indica on Thursday. You wouldn’t think it, looking at the picture here, but they blend very nicely into the foliage until there are so many of them that there’s no foliage left. If you find any, hand-pick them off the plant and squish them. The caterpillar’s spines are soft and not toxic in any way. (I remove them barehanded, but recommend gloves for the squeamish among you. I’m one of the squeamish about the smushing part, so that’s Tim’s job.) Keep in mind that, if you find one, more than likely there are others. I’ve never known a moth to lay a solitary egg. That’s inefficient.

*****



Centipede grass seedhead

            Finally, for those of you with centipede grass lawns, it would behoove you to allow the seedheads to ripen before mowing at this time of year. It’s nature’s way of increasing the density of your stand, and absolutely free.

Speaking of mowing, I am happy to report that Tim has made it through the worst of the hot weather without having to cut our grass once. If our water bills were not zooming through the stratosphere, he might even have thanked the fiscal idiots who run our town.

Thanks for dropping by, and please spare a minute for remembrance tomorrow.

                                                      Kathy

ASK THE EXPERT

            As a nation, we are as enamored with the opinions of experts as with the bad behavior of people celebrated mostly for behaving badly. Of the former group, economists are the most egregious example. The Labor Day op-eds pointed out that the actual number of unemployed and underemployed Americans comes closer to 17% of the population than the nine percent the statistic crunchers spewed out earlier this month. What do they care? No doubt they all have cushy jobs with super-duper benefits.



Here's the guy who started
all the nonsense

            Held in a 250-seat auditorium, the introductory economics class I took as a first-year student at UVa several hundred autumns ago cemented my disdain for “the dismal science,” a moniker that seems only half right: “dismal” hits the bulls-eye, but the “science” part is extremely iffy. In his initial lecture, rising-star professor and author of the $60 required textbook (that’s 60 1970s dollars, almost a full week’s wages for a seasonally employed teen—how economical is that?) Dr. Kenneth Elzinga made clear in a subtextual way that the foundation of economics is to assume away reality, posit the factors that best fit the outcome you want to “prove,” and go from there. Guns and butter, supply and demand, we learned as the semester wore on, are just so much smoke and mirrors. Because I’m good at on-demand regurgitation of factoids, I came out of the course with a B+, three credit hours toward a degree, and an abiding mistrust for anything any economist has to say on any subject.

            (In retrospect, the best part of ECON 101 was sitting next to Tony McReynolds, a bearded bearish guy from Boca Raton, Florida, who was scary-smart and had a wicked sense of humor embellished by a dreamy baritone speaking voice. If it hadn’t been for him, I probably would have skipped most lectures and cadged my roommate’s notes. I haven’t thought of Tony Mac in years. Wonder what he’s doing today? Whatever it is, I bet it’s not economics.)



Why economists are worthless:
all talk, no action

            Economists may be the worst at dispensing “expert" sound-bites, but they’re far from alone. The advent of 24-hour on-air yakking (thanks bunches, CNN) has given rise to a culture of expertise. Turn on any TV or radio and you can get horse’s-mouth opinions on dealing with your physical health (Dr. Oz), your mental health (Dr. Phil), your love-life and children (any afternoon talk show), your house and garden (HGTV, Martha Stewart), your pet (Animal Planet), your politics (FOX News), the weather (TWC), your cuisine (Emeril, Paula Deen, Rachael Ray, the Iron Chef, those nutcase Swedes on PBS, etc., etc., etc.), your religion (TCN), your drugs (The People’s Pharmacy), your money (CNBC), your sports fixation (ESPN), you name it. Experts also expound in print: just check out the how-to and self-help sections of any library or bookstore (Deepak Chopra, Dr. Whatshisname Dobson, Malcolm Gladwell).

            We’re adrift in a vast sea of information, completely free of ever having to think for ourselves. Doesn’t seem to make us any happier, though. Or more efficient, or proficient, or functional as human beings. “Where is the wisdom in information?” worried T.S. Eliot in Four Quartets decades ago.

            Yesterday afternoon, while pulling out failed bush beans with a view to an experimental fall planting of potatoes, it occurred to me that not much I’ve ever read about vegetable gardening has been all that helpful. Take potatoes, for example. This was my third season working in the genre (as we writer-types say): it was the best ever, harvest-wise, but that’s not saying much. I am embarrassed to report that we dug a whole 28 ounces of golf-ball-sized spuds; which, I hasten to add, is 11 ounces better than last year, and 23 ounces more than 2009’s dismal harvest. The Adirondack Blues, new to us this year, beat the odds in this distinctly non-Adirondack climate by producing the largest and the most.



The remarkable
Adirondack Blue potato

             (I would like to take this opportunity to point out that the Adirondack Blues also surprised by being the only non-regulation-colored vegetable I’ve ever seen Tim eat without coercion. Seriously. The man won’t touch orange, yellow, pink or green tomatoes. He regards sweet peppers of any hue but green as suspect. He doesn’t even like to be in the same room as a white eggplant—not that he’d allow one of those of any color to pass his lips.)



Some seed catalogs
I consult

            Back to the point. As is my wont, I conducted extensive research into raising potatoes before planting the first batch—Rodale’s Illustrated Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening, Mel Bartholomew’s Square Foot Gardening, Carrots Love Tomatoes by Louise Riotte (see Good Reads at right), seed catalogs and gardening websites galore. I also quizzed the guy at Farmers Supply in Wilmington where we bought our seed stock. (He told me I was a bit behind the curve for planting time.) I prepared the soil and the eyes, placed them at the prescribed depth and distance apart, and hilled the damn things repeatedly that first season. Turned out most of the advice must have been geared to places like Maine and Idaho, not the nutrient-poor sand and steamy nights of southeastern North Carolina. A week before time to dig, bacterial soft rot set in. Who knew potatoes could dissolve into sacks of noxious goo while still in the ground?

            This year, I decided the experts could go pound sand and followed the dictates of intuition and sad experience instead. I planted in mid-February rather than late March, didn’t bother hilling at all, didn’t wait anxiously for flowers that never came. The results, as mentioned above, showed improvement. I learned respectable harvests depend in part on the amount of acreage sown. I learned that you don’t have to space plants with mathematical precision: cramming works as well as not. I learned cool soil temperatures are critical to successful potato farming, which is why Idaho and Maine get such spectacular results when I don’t. Tim pointed out that the only type of spud widely grown in our neck of the woods is the sweet potato, which is botanically closer to morning-glories than Solanums. All these vital clues to growing potatoes in coastal southeastern North Carolina came from on-the-job training and personal observation, not from what somebody else told me or from something I read. These are the lessons I will remember, and apply.

Books such as these
have their limitations

            So, disregarding the experts’ warnings against non-certified-virus-free stock, I’m sowing a small fall crop of eyes from sustainably raised potatoes I bought at farmers markets and let sprout under the kitchen sink. Maybe they’ll have time to produce before killing frost sets in, maybe not. But either way, it’ll be a lesson I learned on my own about works for me, in the place I live.

            Not all expert advice is worthless. I’m forever grateful to the trophoblastic disease unit at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston for giving me the opportunity to be alive these past 30 years. I’m really glad I never bought that Yugo. Momma was right about the Sims boy. Tim is very seldom mistaken when he expresses an opinion about anything. But the best lessons—in gardening as in life—are those we stumble into on our own.

            My expert advice? Turn off the outside noise and go figure out something for yourself. I guarantee you’ll feel better for the exercise.

            Thanks for dropping by.

                                                                                        Kathy

INVADED, BY NATIVES



Sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua)
is native to my neighborhood...

            In recent years, gardening with native plants has come into fashion. Again. When Tim and I get asked to design one, we give each other secret little smiles and ask the potential client, “Native to where?”

You may recall that, a few posts ago (“Wind and Weather,” August 17^th), I vented my annoyance with the NWS and NOAA for using the word “normal” for their computed 30-year averages. (Check out my new gadget at right, Acronyms Explained.) When I read an exchange in American Nurseryman about regulating “invasive” species—those quotation marks again!—I had a similar reaction. “Native” is as nebulous a concept as “normal.”  



...while Rhododendron catawbiense,
native to western North Carolina,
does poorly on the coast; and...

            I’m not just being supercilious and snotty here. Most people, even when impelled by environmental earnestness, don’t have any concrete idea what “native” means. Newcomers here often consider hybrid azaleas, crape myrtles and gardenias Southern natives. Nope, they all originated in China and/or Japan. Tomatoes, some rhododendrons and hemlocks do come from North America—just not this part of it. In the 500 or so years since first darkening the doors of this continent, Europeans have introduced about 50,000 plant species. These introductions include about 90 percent of our present food crops as well as a hefty slice of the ornamentals pie. And that doesn’t include “exotic” animal species like horses and nutrias; insects like European honeybees, some earthworms, fire ants, and the emerald ash-borer; plant pathogens like Dutch elm disease, chestnut blight, and the fungus responsible for sudden oak death; or human diseases like West Nile virus and avian flu. Makes you think, doesn’t it?  



...and crape myrtles
(Lagerstroemia indica x fauriei)
came from the Orient.

            Over time, many introduced species have interbred with their indigenous counterparts, producing natural hybrids that muddy genetic-origin waters more than a whole university-full of hyper taxonomists. 

           

            People who really, really want a native garden should buy a large parcel of land and just encourage (and perhaps impose a little structure on) what’s already there. Indeed, I would argue that all “gardens” are by definition artificial, the result of human will worked on the land. 

            Philosophy aside, the flip-side of what makes a species native is what makes one non-native. Except for recent introductions whose provenance is (somewhat) known, it can be really hard to tell who’s whose horticultural daddy. Sylvan and Wallace Kaufman point out in the first three chapters of their excellent book, Invasive Plants (see Good Reads at right), that all “natives” were once successful invaders. 

Trans-Atlantic transport
circa 1670

To illustrate the difficulty inherent in defining “native,” I present a Homo sapiens example. Both Tim and I were born in United States to parents who were also born in the United States. No one from either family (the documented ones, anyway) is indigenous to the eastern U.S. My ancestors hailed from all over Western Europe, and it’s anybody’s guess how they ended up there. Two or three lines of my family had established themselves in North America by the latter half of the 17^th century. Yep, I’m certified DAR and UDC (check out that acronym gadget mentioned above). But am I more native than Tim? Both sets of his grandparents sailed from Ireland in the 1890s, some 220 years after my folks got here. Besides, with all due respect, even the “Native Americans” came from somewhere else—can you spell “land bridge”?



Welcome to the New World,
circa 1900

            The Kaufmans assert that “native” does not always mean “better,” nor can we assume that exotics always cause “harm” in “native” environments. This issue is about as far from cut-and-dried as you can get. Nonetheless, in our crisis-of-the-day national mentality, it’s just a hop, skip and a jump for some people to move from neutral non-native to frightening invasive.



Invasives poster child,  kudzu
(Pueraria lobata)

            Remember those 50,000 plant species introduced to North America since the 1500s I mentioned a while back? Well, about 5000 of those have escaped cultivation and moved in with the 17,000 “native” species. How did these foreigners get into the wild? Birds and rodents relocate lots of pre-fertilized seeds. Water and wind do their bits, carrying seeds and even entire plants over long distances. Large mammals join the party by transporting seeds and bits of roots on their fur or pants or shoes. Most new arrivals have proven to be good neighbors, behaving well and blending in nicely. On occasion, however, some thug will throw its weight around. The buzzword “invasive” applies to these rogues, the cause of all sorts wailing and gnashing of teeth among environmental purists and legislators.

The best definition of an invasive is “a plant that is too successful.” Its trademark trait is the speed with which it takes over an area. Examples of When Plants Go Bad in the South include kudzu, Asian wisterias, Japanese honeysuckle and Chinese ligustrum (a.k.a. privet). New York battles purple loosestrife and milfoil. In the Middle Atlantic states and the Northeast, burning bush, barberries, and Miscanthus cause problems. South Florida fears nandina, melaleuca, and many, many others. The Irish suffer from troublesome volunteer butterfly bushes growing in their gutters and chimney pots. And so on.



The Invasives Alert page from
June 2011's Fine Gardening

            “Invasives” appear globally, but are they necessarily a problem? Some scientists theorize that more than 90 percent of all species that ever lived on earth have gone extinct. (How did they determine that? I don’t know.) Must we assume that “change” equals “harm”? We cannot turn back the clock to the time of North America’s virginity. Isn’t it possible that what we perceive as “invasiveness”—or “man-made global warming”—is really part of an on-going process, and that maybe everything, even Homo sapiens, only gets to stay on the stage temporarily?

             There’s also the local character of invasiveness to factor in: for example, kudzu’s not a problem in Minnesota.

           

Anyway, the challenge facing both the horticulture industry and gardeners boils down to avoiding being part of the problem. Most states’ Cooperative Extensions post lists of local potential invasives on the internet, as do watchdogs like the Nature Conservancy, the Invasive Plant Atlas, the USDA Plants Database, the National Invasive Species Information Center, and Invasive Alert. Connecticut leads the way in outlawing flora non grata, legislating against anything that’s invasive anywhere. (In fact, I’m considering relocating there, as they must have already handled the important stuff like universal health care, unemployment, education, immigration problems, and the shrinking of the middle class. You think?) If you suffer from technophobia, as I do, call your Extension or State Department of Agriculture: they will sigh heavily and eventually mail you something. The Kaufmans’ book has a long list of sources of information as well.



Looking for alter-"natives"?

            Some people think the only way to combat invasiveness is to use only natives, and write hefty tomes on the subject (like Armitage’s Native Plants for North American Gardens and Native Alternatives to Invasive Plants—see Good Reads at right). Seems to me a lot like throwing out the baby with the bath-water, however. Your real-life options? Refuse to use plants like Japanese honeysuckle and barberries, boycotting the nurseries and garden centers that grow and sell them; or keep a tight rein on your beloved specimens, including provisions in your will that potential invaders be immolated with you on your pyre.



Check out these books by 
Allan Armitage
or C. Colston Burrell

             A parting thought: in the August-September 2007 issue of Horticulture, Carol Reese responds to a reader letter about her recommendation of a plant considered to be an invasive in some places by saying, “My main concern is loss of habitat, and humans are the worst of the invaders… [E]cologically sensitive landscapes… need not be all native, especially if the plants are those that can be grown without chemicals… The Earth is in a constant state of flux, which does not relieve us of responsibility, but requires us to make the best choices we can with what information we can gather.”

 

            So get informed before you plant. And whatever else happens, don’t you be slipping in a cutting of kudzu to cover your new pergola. Unless you live in North Dakota.

                                                                                    Kathy

P.S.—You may want to invade Plant Delights Nursery’s Fall Open House. It's being held the weekends of September 9-11 and 16-18. Weather’s nicer now, if you weren’t up to facing the summer do.

SOME HURRICANE DOGGEREL

            Tropical cyclone activity is not exactly unheard-of here on the North Carolina coast. I admit, it's been 12 years since Floyd dumped 40 inches of rain on us back in 1999, but residents understand what a hurricane is, and all the options for preparing for an incoming one. Our media types, however, must have lost their long-term memories or, perhaps, grew up in caves in Wyoming, because to a man they act like every potential big blow is Armageddon redux.

           "Sixty-five million people imperiled by Irene!" Matt Lauer intoned on The Today Show. (Or, at least, that's what my son Sam told me. Our television stays silent and blank most of the time. I follow important weather events from the National Weather Service website, where pictures trump the thousands of words spewed by broadcasters.) But really—what tommyrot. The implication is the Northeast Corridor is peopled exclusively by idiots. Matt really shouldn’t judge everyone by himself.

            Hyperbole is alive and well just up the road in Wilmington as well. Over the years, the children recruited to be location reporters have given us such gems as:

·         “The waves are actually breaking on the shore!!!!!” This from a young lady standing on Wrightsville Beach on a moderately overcast day with a light breeze ruffling her anorak hood.

·         “The water is right up to this wall!!!!” From a young man posted to Southport, who was apparently seeing the ocean for the first time in his life. The water comes right up to the seawall in Southport twice a day. We call it “high tide.”

·         “There’s actually sand on the streets here in Wrightsville Beach!!!!!” The young woman filing this exciting report after Floyd passed was displaying the media bias against the world south of New Hanover County. Down here in the boonies of Brunswick, more than a dozen houses had washed out to sea.

My own media bias being taxed to the limit by hundreds of reminders to lay in enough bottled water and canned goods for a month-long camping trip and/or to board up the windows and flee during the week before Irene blew by—do they really think we’re that stupid?—I composed a little ditty, which I append here for your amusement.

SOME HURRICANE DOGGEREL

Twas the week before Irene,

And from every TV

Came moaning and wailing

Of what we might see.

They rolled some old footage

Of Hazel and Fran,

Making all of us think
We should move to Iran.

Their eyes, how they glittered!

Though somber of voice,

“Stockpile batteries, water,

And canned goods of choice!

“Nail up that plywood!

Get all windows covered!

She’s coming! She’s coming!”

Beachside, cameras hovered.

They updated models

Computers kept spewing.

There’re awards in their futures

If viewers keep viewing.

Their eyes, wide and fevered,

Palms dripping with sweat,

Forecasters orgasmic,

As good as it gets.

*****

Twas the day after Irene,

We’d nothing to do

So we strolled to the ocean

To take in the view.

And what did our fully primed

Eyes hope to see?

Torn-off shingles! Hanging stair-steps!

Smashed flat-screen TVs!

Dune breaches! Erosion!

Roofs atilt in the break!

Fronts of homes missing

Showing stuff we could take.

The breeze’s light and playful,

The air crisp and clear;

As we got to the access

Our hearts filled with fear.

The water sun-sparkled

As waves hushed ashore,

We looked for destruction

Till our eyes got sore.

Irene had brushed by us,

We saw with relief.

But the tabloid reportage

Just beggared belief.

Yes, hurricanes are serious.

We know, tis the season.

Why’d the media treat us

Like we’ve all lost our reason?

Now I’m off to get the plants off the porch and perhaps rake up some of those leaves and twigs strewn about by The Great Storm.

Hope your hurricane was as non-eventful as ours was. Thanks for dropping by.

                                                                         Kathy