STUFFING STOCKINGS



Cheapies but goodies



Stumped for stocking stuffers for your favorite gardener? I’ve got some suggestions that won’t go amiss for dedicated dirt-monkeys

 Most of us who play in the dirt have one favorite pair of tools: our hands. Two obvious gift choices here—gloves and hand cream. Good gardening gloves need to breathe, be flexible and allow fine finger movements. They do not need to last forever or break the bank. Available at any home-improvement store, six pairs of three-to-five dollar gloves trump one expensive pair of a name-brand every time.



Keeping your hands soft



            When it comes to hand cream, the one I like best is No-Crack Lavender Hand Cream in the 16-ounce jar. What’s so special about it? It’s thick and penetrating without leaving your hands feel like they’ve been submerged in a vat of Crisco. It’s pleasantly but not strongly scented. Best of all, it’s actually made in the U.S., by the Dumont Company of La Crosse, Wisconsin, and is available from the Duluth Trading Company’s website, www.duluthtradingcompany.com/women. Or, if you can't find it there, try http://www.nocrackcream.com/, a site run by a lady in West By-God Virginia who got tired of having to search all over the place for sources of this excellent stuff.

            If you’re as old as I am, you were raised that it’s tacky to resort to giving cash, or its modern incarnation, the gift card. It took years, but I managed to overcome my up-bringing: a gift card from any of the following companies would put a smile on my face come Christmas morning.

 


A cornucopia of catalogs

Duluth Trading Company, mentioned above, carries some sturdy, practical clothing—it’s the only place left in the world that stocks women’s overalls. Gardens Alive! (www.gardensalive.com) supplies a wide array of mail-order organic fertilizers, pest control and vermiculture supplies, while Gardeners Supply (www.gardenerssupply.com) is a good general source of gardenalia. Lee Valley Tools and The Kinsman Company (www.leevalley.com and www.kinsman.com) carry quality tools as well as garden accessories and ornaments.

 


Felco # 2 and # 4
with scabbard,
slightly used

Speaking of tools, a top-notch pair of pruners is always welcome. Tim and I both use Felcos: he prefers the heavier-duty #4, while I stick with my lighter #2s. Corona makes good-quality pruners as well. (A quick aside: When in the market for pruners, make sure you look for scissors-bladed models rather than the anvil type. Why? Scissors make clean cuts; anvils smash.) Both companies produce excellent hand-saws as well, for those jobs too big for pruners to handle. You can find both of both—Felco pruners and saws, and Corona pruners and saws—at both big box home improvement and finer garden centers. Yes, they’re both relatively expensive. Yes, they’re both worth it.



Kathy models a volleyball kneepad,
also available in white

 Another gardening pearl-above-price is comfortable, durable kneepads. Forget anything that fastens with buckles or Velcro: in addition to being hard to put on, they’re going to get painful fast. What does Kathy recommend? Nike’s Bubble volleyball kneepads, that’s what. They’re like soccer shin-guards for the knees—easy to pull on, easy to tolerate for those long days rolling out sod, easy to toss in the washer and dryer. And they last, for about a year of heavy use, indefinitely with lighter wear. We used to find them at our local mall, in Champs Sporting Goods, until the store closed. Now we go online to www.nike.com. If your Champs is still open, you’ll save the shipping.





Balm for plant-induced itches

 Another specialty product, indispensible for those of us allergic to poison ivy and its evil cousins, is the Tecnu family of topical creams. Tecnu was developed during the 1960s expressly for the lucky fellows assigned to witness atom-bomb blasts, to “wash off” all that nasty radiation fall-out. It didn’t work so great at that application, but it does take urushiol, the oil that makes us susceptible ones so miserable, off the skin. Tecnu is not a cure-all, but I can testify that it helps, especially if applied before and/or immediately after contact. The Tecnu Extreme wash helps ease the itching, and can be safely repeated as often as necessary. I keep a supply in our truck at all times. If you or a loved one suffers from poison ivy sensitivity, Tecnu products are gifts that keep on giving. Find it at CVS, or order online from www.gemplers.com.

On a less itchy topic, one thing all gardeners love is plants. Give yours the opportunity to choose something exotic with a gift card from a local nursery or one of the national catalogs. A list of some of my favorites has a distinct southeastern bias, but you get the idea.

When I lived in upstate New York, you couldn’t beat White Flower Farms for cool ornamental perennials and shrubs not readily available locally (www.whiteflowerfarms.com).  These days, I rely on Plant Delights Nursery and Wayside Gardens for unusual and experimental specimens (www.plantdelights.com and www.waysidegardens.com, respectively). When it comes to vegetables, I’ve had good luck with starts from Cook’s Garden (www.cooksgarden.com). For bulbs, my number one choice is Brent and Becky’s (www.brentandbeckysbulbs.com: see my November 16^th post for more details). Seed catalogs featuring heirloom varieties are legion: Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, Select Seeds, Territorial Seeds, Seed Savers Exchange, Johnny’s Seeds, Renee’s Seeds, The Park Seed Company, and the venerable Burpee’s. All have eponymous websites and catalogs to make you drool. Many offer plant starts as well: I have had good luck with Select Seeds, who offers a selection of annual vines and flowers seedlings.

 

A gift that really counts



Does the gardener in your life already have every tool and tschotke he wants? Well, then, how about giving part of or even an entire starter garden to someone who could really use it? Heifer International (www.heifer.org) turns your donation into potentially life-changing livestock or tree seedlings or, my personal favorite, a gardener’s basket, including “… everything a family will need to start a sustainable farm—tree seedlings, rabbits to generate organic manure, chickens to eat pests and a hive of bees to pollinate crops and increase yields,” to quote the catalog, along with on-site technical support to families in war-torn and developing nations, as well as poverty pockets—which are growing larger daily as the global economy continues to stagger—right here at home. Besides, as I understand it, that’s the kind of giving Christmas and all the other winter-solstice holidays are really about.

A hint for blog neophytes from my resident computer nerd: just click on any of the websites in the post and you'll be transported right to the site. No dithering required. To return here, click on the "back" arrow. He swears it works.

            So merry Christmas to you and yours from me and mine. Tim says if anyone’s racking his brain for gift ideas for him, a Mercedes (any model) or a Rockwell Commander would be nice. Ha. What he really loves is chocolate, the real thing, Belgian or Swiss, crafted with high cocoa content and actual sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup (which, by the way, does not taste like sugar, no matter how many analyses agribusiness waves under our noses).

 

            Me? I’d like a pallet of fifty 25-pound bags of Black Kow, delivered.

           Thanks for dropping by. And promise me you’ll never use the oxymoronic phrase “free gift” again for the rest of your life.

                                                                            Kathy

GIFTING A GARDENER

 

An unexpected pleasure

            We gardeners are a lucky lot when it comes to gifts. We get unexpected little ones all the time. On Saturday, for instance, when Tim and I left the house on the annual Christmas tree quest, what to our wond’ring eyes should appear? Two perfectly formed cerise Zéphrine Drouhin blooms on the plant I’m training to swag over the front porch. And after two consecutive nights of frost, no less. Does that not have “gardeners’ gift” written all over it?

            Again yesterday, while doing my usual Sunday chores—feeding and watering the birds; turning the compost heap; taking the trash and recyclables bins out to the street; going horticultural walkabout to keep a lid on potential problems—I wandered out to the blasted vegetable beds for a look-see. Well, good golly, Miss Molly! Another little gift: 29 grape-sized green tomatoes that the frost had missed still clinging to their vines. Brought them in, gave ’em a wash, and put them on the kitchen windowsill.

            It may be that we’re just an easy-to-please bunch. But if you’re in the unenviable position of trying to top nature in the Christmas-morning-surprise department, I have a few suggestions you might whisper into Santa’s ear.

            Gardeners love reference books. I’ve listed some of my all-time favorites.

·         Manual of Woody Landscape Plants: Their Identification, Ornamental Characteristics, Culture, Propagation and Uses by Michael A. Dirr, 2009 edition. Sounds like a real snoozer, doesn’t it? Au contraire, it’s an absolutely-must-have reference for any serious gardener. I trust this book implicitly when it comes to woodies. The information is meticulous and often humorously presented. You won’t find many encyclopedias that make you chuckle, but this one will. Line drawings by Mrs. Bonnie Dirr illustrate the text. (The accompanying photo is of my well-worn 1998 edition. The new one has a snazzier cover.) Stipes Publishing, L.L.C., P.O. Box 526, Champaign, IL  61824. www.stipes.com.

·         The Well-Tended Perennial Garden by Tracy DiSabato-Aust, 1998. The go-to guide for information on pruning perennials for manipulating bloom-times and for maintenance of plant size and habit. Lovely pictures from the most successful Ohio gardens she's designed. This one’s DiSabato-Aust’s first book, and, in my opinion, her best. Timber Press. www.timberpress.com.

·         The Truth About Garden Remedies: What Works, What Doesn’t and Why and The Truth About Organic Gardening: Benefits, Drawbacks, and the Bottom Line, by Jeff Gillman, 2008. Mr. Gillman appeals to me because he doesn’t seem to have any particular axe in need of grinding. His stated aim is for people to understand why they do things in the garden, and the science behind how the thing works... or not. Both Timber Press. www.timberpress.com.

·         Weeds of Southern Turfgrasses by Tim R. Murphy, Daniel L. Colvin, Ray Dickens, John W. Everest, David Hall and L. B. (Bert) McCarty, 2002. Proof that it takes a village to identify a weed, this is hands-down my favorite pictorial reference. You'd think this one would be hard to find, as—oddly enough—it never hit the New York Times best-seller list. But it's not. University of Florida, Cooperative Extension Service, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, Gainesville, FL.

                                                        

·          Garden Insects of North America by Whitney Cranshaw, 2004. Don’t know ladybug larvae from elbows? Add this book to your reference shelf right now. This is the best bug book for gardeners I’ve ever stumbled upon; it has lots and lots of good pictures and useful information for the non-entomologists among us. Princeton University Press.

·         What’s Wrong with My Plant? (And How Can I Fix It?) by David Deardorff and Kathryn Wadsworth, 2009. Deardorff and Wadsworth are poster children for IPM (Integrated Pest Management), providing user-friendly flow charts based on plant appearance to diagnose pathologies. Then they offer organic solutions. Who could ask for anything more? Timber Press. www.timberpress.com.

This next is not precisely a reference book, but it is the most accessible introduction to the science and Zen of dirt I’ve yet to come across, which makes it indispensible reading.



More from the Fitzgerald bookshelf



·         Teaming with Microbes: A Gardener’s Guide to the Soil Food Web by Jeff Lowenfels and Wayne Lewis, 2006. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. The first part illuminates the ecosystem of living soil in such a powerful way that I kept saying “Wow!” out loud and waking Tim up to read him whole sections. The second part, about actually applying all those “Wow!” moments, got a little too intense (read: ’way too time- and space-consuming), but the true-believer methods can be adapted to forms that work for us less-evangelical types. Timber Press. www.timberpress.com.

For pure enjoyment, try one of these classics about the charm and wisdom lurking in gardens.

·         An Island Garden by Celia Thaxter, 2001. First published in 1894, Miss Thaxter’s narrative of growing her garden on Appledore Island off the coast of Maine evokes a gentler time and a smaller, nicer world. This handsome boxed edition features the same Childe Hassam illustrations as the original and a new introduction by Tasha Tudor. Houghton Mifflin. www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com.

·         Being There by Jerzy Kosinski, 1970. Not your conventional gardening book, nonetheless Kosinski has a lot to say about the important lessons learned from a life spent digging in the dirt. Originally published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, my more recent paperback is from Grove Press.   

Prefer your reading matter in smaller doses? How about a subscription to one (or more!) of the following magazines?

·         The Avant Gardener: The Unique Horticultural News Service. This monthly newsletter is a digest of about a million horticultural publications, and so worthwhile. Mr. Powell has been around a long time: he types his newsletter on a typewriter and runs it off on a stencil machine (anyone besides me remember those?). And he doesn't have a website. You gotta admire him for all that. Thomas Powell, editor and publisher. P.O. Box 489, New York, NY  10028.

·         Carolina Gardener.  Published seven times a year (bimonthly and a special spring issue). Aimed at gardeners in the Carolinas (duh) and Georgia, it features articles by well-respected regional writers, including yours truly. www.carolinagardener.com.





Kathy's favorite gardening magazines

 ·         Garden Gate. Coming to you every other month from the wilds of Iowa, Garden Gate’s focus is national with a slight Midwestern bias. Written entirely by its staff, there are lots of easy-to-read plant profiles, how-to construction projects and design suggestions. August Home Publishing Company. www.GardenGateMagazine.com.

·         Heirloom Gardener. Published quarterly by the fine folks at Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. Kind of kitschy and down-home, it specializes in articles about non-hybrid, heirloom plants, many of which I’d bet a nickel you’ve never heard of. I certainly learn something new every issue, particularly from their Frankenfoods alerts. www.TheHeirloom Gardener.com.

·         Organic Gardener. Six issues per year. The granddaddy publication of sustainable gardening, it still delivers. www.OrganicGardening.com.   

Wow. Kind of makes you wonder how I find the time to actually go outside with all this reading material hanging around, begging for attention. It’s a physical thing, really: my butt gets sore if I sit too long. As a matter of fact, my nether regions are sending up some twingey messages right now, so I shall call a halt to these proceedings for the time being. I'll be back in a few days with other gardener-gift suggestions.

Most of these titles are available through Amazon. For subscriptions to The Avant Gardener, Garden Gate and The Heirloom Gardener, contact them directly.

Thanks for dropping by. And stay tuned.

                                                                   Kathy

BITS AND PIECES

            Because the Christmas holiday is bearing down upon us like one of those bullet trains we Americans don’t have any of for no very good reason (don’t let me get started on the automakers and the oil-and-gas conglomerate), I’m a bit more distracted than usual. Fitzgeralds Gardening is also in high gear, with almost two-thirds of our containers changed out and half of those 3000 bulbs in the ground. The level of organization required to orchestrate who gets what when requires a major chunk of my left brain’s resources, leaving barely enough oomph for calling out questions to “Jeopardy!” answers.

            Consequently, I shall wander where my less-encumbered right brain leads.

We had almost one-and-a-half inches of rain Monday night. That means the drip irrigation is off for the rest of the week. (The grass zones have been off since Oak Island’s Rube-doggle of a sewer system creaked uneasily into service in September). It (the drip) has only been running ten minutes three times a week anyway since the nights have cooled off, reducing transpiration stress. Did you know it’s the unrelentingly high nighttime temperatures that make late-summer Southern gardens look like crap? I for one refuse to go outside when the thermometer reads 80°F—or higher—at eight o’clock in the morning.

For those of you lucky enough to have one, get into the habit of regularly fine-tuning your irrigation clock’s program. It’s really not that daunting: I offer my Luddite self as Exhibit A.  Fresh water is a terrible thing to waste. If your warm-season lawn has established, turn the grass zones off until spring. (The easiest way to do this is to reduce all the Zone Run Times to zero. Consider your grass established if it has weathered one entire growing season.) Dormant grass needs much less in the way of inputs than actively growing grass: in fact, dormant grass needs no inputs at all. Why? Because it’s asleep. Please don’t you or your lawn service mow, overseed with rye, spray, fertilize or treat for mole crickets from now until April: hold off on the mole cricket thing until July, when the treatment does some good. (A special note on overseeding: it’s mostly for people who love to mow. In general it’s a detrimental practice. People who want green lawns all year should move to Borneo.) A March treatment with a pre-emergent weed-killer is fine, I guess, if you don’t mind colluding in the degradation of the environment.

Warm-season grasses go dormant for a reason. Leave them alone. “I am the grass,” said Carl Sandburg. “Let me work.”

(In case you’re wondering, I weed our lawn by hand. I find the activity relaxing and gratifying and peaceful. Nobody bothers me when I’m weeding for fear of getting roped in.)

Frost is in the air this morning, and on the truck. Didn’t see any on the ground, but I may have been squinting. Guess I’d best hustle to move the rest of the plants I’d like to winter over onto the screened porch before temperatures drop that final degree.

It’s important to know the historical first and last frost dates for your area, because they are what determine the official length of your particular growing season. For most of us, that means “when it’s safe to put the bedding plants out” and “when to bring the houseplants back in.” Wilmington, NC’s earliest recorded freeze was on October 16, 1876. (The National Weather Service no longer publishes records from before the 1930s. Why do you suppose that is? Do they disdain the instrumentation of the time?) Wilmington's latest recorded freeze was April 21, 1983. As an example of how contiguous areas can differ, coastal Brunswick County's respective dates are later (October 30) and earlier (April 9).

The Old Farmers’ Almanac (or its website: www.almanac.com) is a good place to look for local information. Matter of fact, I just gleaned some interesting frost factoids from them.

1.      A light freeze occurs between 29 and 32°F. Tender plants are killed, but most others—like my lettuces—shrug it off.

2.      Between 25 and 28°F is considered a moderate freeze. You can count on fruit and flower blossoms and tender and semi-hardy plants to get blasted. It’s also curtains for the true annuals.

3.      Colder than 24°F rates as a severe freeze, with across-the-board severe damage to vegetation.

I spent the 20 years immediately after university graduation in ’way upstate New York, in a town aptly nicknamed “The Refrigerator.” Consequently, I’m enduringly grateful to be in southeastern North Carolina now. Only about 500 yards from my front door, the Gulf-Stream-warmed Atlantic moderates temperatures year-round. Of course, temperatures are experienced relatively. In wintertime New York, a 40° day felt positively shirt-sleeves-only balmy. When the thermometer drops that low these days, I’m swaddled in layers upon layers. Blood thins out more quickly than it thickens, I’m here to tell you.

We humans are never satisfied, are we? Seems everyone was just whining about how hot it’s been, like, forever. At least keeping a garden minimizes the disconnect from the natural world The Experts tell us more and more Americans suffer.

           

            Sorry, no pictures this post. I figure you know what your irrigation clock looks like: besides, a snap of mine has only about a 25% chance of being helpful. I’m also confident you’ve likely seen a thermometer before. I’ll do better next time.   
     

            And now for a little rant. I am thoroughly bummed.

            It started with my husband, Tim, who has no trouble shopping without a list. (Stay with me—it’s not the non sequitur it seems.) Me, I have to have a list; otherwise it’s just aimless wandering around a store. When I turn on the computer, I have a specific site and task in mind. Tim, on the other hand, loves ambling about in cyberspace, embracing serendipity. Monday night, serendipity led him to www.digindirt.com, a garden blog registry.

            “You gotta check this out!” he bubbled. So I promised I would.

            Tuesday morning I did, duly registering “Gardening from the Ground Up.” What the heck, I thought, let’s take a look at what else is on offer. Scrolling through the first few pages of blog descriptions, I noticed the number of pages listed at the bottom of each page kept growing. After scanning down page 15, I clicked on “last” instead of “next.” “Last” turned out to be page 96. At an average 12 entries per page, that’s 1152 gardening blogs, not including mine or those of the 85 other people likely to register today. And that’s just one registry site. There are dozens.

            So much for my great original idea.

            Based on the approximately 200 descriptions I read, I have to say this: at least I can spell, and never post anything without proofreading it multiple times. One lady wanted us to read about her “arden.” Someone else desired to spread his knowledge of growing “galric.” Another needed to pass on instructions for installing a “manafold.” Many have problems with the space bar. More have trouble with comma placement. SOME WRITE ALL IN CAPS, like they’re yelling at you. The blogosphere may be the great leveler, but, as far as I can tell from this cursory survey, the level is pretty low, at least literarily.

            Yes, I’m a writing snob. It’s worse than that, actually: I’m a writing curmudgeon. Chalk it up to my unfortunate beliefs that a) anything worth doing is worth doing well, and b) one ought to be careful what one foists on the public at large.

            Thanks for dropping by and for letting me get that off my chest. Your comments appreciated. Stay warm! 

                                                                                  Kathy  

NOVEMBER WRAP-UP

            I imagine that most blogs, like a large percentage of small business start-ups, fail early on. While not qualifying for any world readership records, Gardening from the Ground Up has racked up a respectable number of pageviews since its launch, and induced two people other than Tim to become followers. Thanks to everyone who checked out the site, and my deepest appreciation to recidivists.

            Thought I’d use this final post of November 2010 to recap the month’s posts, add in stuff I forgot, clear up ambiguities, update on-going projects, and such like.

NO-DIG BULB PLANTING

            I’ve gotten a few questions about the no-dig bulb planting method outlined on the 16^th. Tim and I had occasion to plant 400 of the 2200 daffodils Brent and Becky sent us after the post ran. Since pictures are worth thousands of words, I whipped out the trusty digital and documented the process. (Remember, you can click on the pictures to make them bigger, then hit the “back” arrow to return to the text.)

Photo # 1

       

   Photo #1: Pull back the mulch, and run a hard-rake over the cleared area to ruffle the surface. Toss the bulbs into the cleared space. Notice that there are several different cultivars here, a good way to extend bloom season. If you like the naturalized look, move ahead to Photo #3. (You don’t have to worry about the bulbs lying on their sides. One of nature’s many wonders is that they’ll pull themselves upright by the roots. This is particularly soothing knowledge if you’re planting corms: it’s hard to tell if those wrinkly little buttons are right-side-up or not.) If you have anal tendencies, as I do, check out Photo #2.

           




Photo # 2

        

 Photo #2: Arrange the bulbs so they’re not so messy and random-looking, and are, in fact, upright. For the best flowering display, keep them close together. I usually try for no more than three to four inches. In this picture you can see the raked-back pine straw, helping you gauge the size of this bed, which holds about 175 bulbs.



            Photo #3: Mix three-and-a half to four pounds of bulb food (NOT bonemeal) to a 50-pound bag of Black Kow (or whatever) and distribute over the bulbs, following up with soil conditioner (a finely ground pine-bark product). On average, it takes two 50-pound bags of Kow and four or five bags of conditioner to cover about 200 bulbs. (That’ll set you back $18 to $20, but what’s your time worth?) Replace the mulch and, Bob’s your uncle, you’re done without ever touching a trowel.

CONTAINER FERTILIZER RECIPE  

      

Make your own no-burn container fertilizer by combining six 16-ounce cupfuls of Espoma Holly-Tone or Plant-Tone with one 16-ounce cupful of kelp meal. Apply generous amounts at planting and again in January or February. (What’s “generous”?  I generally use one batch per each 32-quart bag of potting soil. How much you use to topdress in late winter depends on the size of the container.) Remember—the nutrients in the Osmocote beads can’t be released unless the soil temperature is 70°F or higher. Save the time-release stuff for summer.

I’ll add a link to Espoma’s website on the right. If you live in my area, their mostly natural products are available at Farmers Supply near the bottom of Oleander Drive in Wilmington. 



VEGETABLE SURPRISE

Late harvest

            The day before Thanksgiving, I moseyed out to my disappointing vegetable garden with the aim of yanking everything out of it, when what to my wondering eyes did appear but the first red tomato to come out of the miserable patch since early July. There were also a pair of bell peppers and a trio of ‘Cosmic Purple’ carrots from the crop I’d sown back in August.



            Gardening is like that. Just when you think you know everything, you learn you’re not even in the ball park. The tired, tattered vines held another 20 or so green tomatoes, so I left them alone. If frost continues holding off, we may actually get one or two more vine-ripened fruit. How about that?

Late lettuces

            The most recent lettuce transplants are hanging in as well in their EarthBoxes on the deck. Lettuce stands up to light frost, so I should be harvesting for a while yet—through most of the winter if I remember to cover it on the nippier nights.

            Anybody know a good way to ripen green tomatoes? My kitchen’s windowsill space is severely limited. I tried the cardboard-box-in-a-cool-dark-place last winter: didn’t work that well. I still had little green tomatoes in March. Maybe under the clothesbasket under the bed wasn’t dark or cool enough.

HOUSEPLANT UPDATE

            Well, nothing’s died yet. The papayas immediately dropped all their mature leaves, but the new ones keep coming. We’re sweeping up a dustpan-full of variegated Solanum foliage every day too, but as is usual with many- and small-leaved specimens, the loss isn’t too noticeable. Yet.

            The cats chewed the Ledebouria and the Hemigraphis, so I swathed them in bird-netting. The Cordyline, a veteran of the kitchen, soldiers stoically on, as does the dracaena. The mango is sulking, but what else would you expect from a mango? The mystery plant seems unfazed, if thirsty… so far.

            The original nine have been joined by the dahlia off the front porch, and a gift from my friend, Christine (the source of the papayas)—the majorly cool-looking tapeworm fern. Its formal, patented name is ribbon plant, but how boring is that for a plant whose flattened stems actually resemble green tapeworms? The cats have expressed interest in chewing on the tapeworm, too, but I’m trying tough love, rustling the dreaded plastic bag whenever necessary.

            My friend Ted gave me a bottle of SuperThrive. I’ve seen its comic-book-like adverts in American Nurseryman for years, but was skeptical. It claims to be—and I quote—“#1 ACTIVATOR, #1 REVIVER, #1 TRANSPLANTER, #1 EXTRA GROWER, #1 PERFECTER.” Ted says it’s worth a try, so I shall. Hey, plants in my house need all the help they can get.

            Thanks for dropping by. Can you believe it’s almost December already?

                                                                       

                                                                                        Kathy

COVERING GROUND

            Thanksgiving was quiet, as usual. Unlike much of the rest of the country, the weather in southeastern North Carolina stayed mild and calm. Rain threatened but never materialized. I spent the afternoon working outside, excavating the flagstone path that periodically goes missing underneath my groundcover lab.  

The re-excavated flagstone path

A little background: I can’t count the number of times Tim and I have fielded requests for a plant that reduces or—better!—replaces mulching. It must be evergreen, fill in quickly with little or no effort on the part of the gardener, and not be too rambunctious or messy-looking; flowers and/or fragrance would be nice too. It must take full sun and/or dry shade, boggy and/or arid conditions and be impervious to deer, rabbits, insects and diseases. A single specimen that covers about a hundred square feet in six weeks without supplemental water or food would be ideal.

            Well, wouldn’t it ever just! If hybridization of such a paradigm was within our grasp, Tim and I would retire in the style to which we’d just love to become accustomed. Out here in the real world, though, we have to make do with what we’ve got.

            Say the word “groundcover” and most of us immediately envision a mass of low-growing evergreen perennials. We imagine it filling voids where grass won’t grow, covering slopes to prevent erosion, and repressing—or at least hiding—weeds. We think in terms of foliage; flowers are a bonus, but not necessary. In our minds, groundcovers embody the quintessence of low maintenance, something to plant and forget, unlike almost everything else in the usual suburban landscape. No wonder we fantasize about perfect ground-covering species.

            Me being me, fantasy turned to action. An inveterate experimenter, I plopped low-growing prospects in on the south side of our house, a place reputed to resemble one of the lower circles of plant hell. It gets too much shade, too much water, too much competition in the way of weeds (and other groundcovers) and ’way, ’way too much traffic. It’s where we warehouse plants slated for jobs we haven’t gotten around to yet, serves as nursery to trial plants and orphans I’ve collected over the years, and is the main route between front and back yards. It's like the New York City of song: if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. 

                    

            Here’s the list of survivors, roughly in order of their appearance.



Wintergreen euonymous
Euonymous fortunei

 1.      Wintercreeper euonymus (Euonymus fortunei) This one went in first, back in 1998. An evergreen, woody-stemmed vine (occasionally tripping me up as I shuffle through it) with dark green  leaves, the straight species has stood the test of time. It spread slowly but inexorably, and without any maintenance at all creeps by rooting stems under, over, up, through and into obstacles. My  specimen is leggy, but a little more sun and a little less water would probably render it denser. Trendy variegated cultivars, ‘Emerald Gaiety’ and ‘Aureomarginata,’ didn’t make the cut.

2.      Mint (Mentha x piperita) Evergreen, highly tolerant of traffic and deliciously scented as you yank out its runners by the mile, mint likes sunny, shady, wet and/or dry places. It produces little spikes of pinky-blue flowers in summer. Mine is plain ol’ peppermint, but spearmint and any other flavor of the square-stemmed genus Mentha behave the same way. My honest assessment? Use this stoloniferous thug only as a last resort. If you leave the front door open too long, it'll establish itself in your living room. Perhaps its best application is as soil-holder on slopes, but don’t say I didn’t warn you if it makes a move on your lawn. What if you crave a little patch for juleps? Plant it in a container, leaving a quarter of the pot above ground, to corral it.



Golden creeping jenny
Lysimachia nummularia  'Aurea'

3.      Golden creeping jenny (Lysimachia nummularia ‘Aurea’ or ‘Goldilocks’) The greeny-gold half-inch-diameter roundish leaves of this little charmer really light up shady spaces: I acquired mine in its groundcover incarnation by accident. Usually found trailing from hanging baskets, ‘Aurea’ escaped its pot one year as it overwintered on the ever-useful south side of our house. Come spring, when I yanked the pot up to replant it, some creeping jenny stems had rooted in the ground, and it took off from there. It took three or four years to settle in before spreading enthusiastically. I think if you planted it (on purpose) in dappled shade with less daunting competition and provided a modicum of care, it would take off sooner.

English ivy
Hedera helix



      4.     English ivy (Hedera helix) Almost everyone has spent time digging this thug out from somewhere it’s no longer wanted, so plant it with that fact in mind. Ivy not only covers ground, it covers trees, whole houses and dogs that sleep too long out in the yard. About the only thing other than constant vigilance and a sharp shovel that slows ivy down is exposure to full sun. The myth that it’s a strangler of trees and a destroyer of masonry is not true. However, its dense growth does hold moisture against wooden supports, providing footholds for rot and disease. Consider ivy the final fall-back position of the terminally unimaginative, desperate, or unbalanced.

Strawberries
Fragaria spp.

5.      Strawberry (Fragaria spp.) No, really, I mean it. Any plant that allows me to graze as I garden rates high in my book. I have patches of evergreen ever-bearers in both sunny and shady locations, and they’re all doing fine. In fact, the ones I put at one of the “clematis poles” (a story for another day) have crept quite a ways along under the dwarf yaupon hedge in two directions and are poised to out-compete the centipedegrass in their immediate vicinity. Some non-berrying ornamental cultivars have been bred, notably 'Pink Panda' by Blooms of Bressingham. But what’s the point of fruitless strawberries?

  

Bugleweed
Ajuga reptans 'Caitlin's Giant'



      6.      Bugleweed (Ajuga reptans cvv.) I once lumped the ajugas somewhere beneath butterfly bush in the ranks of second-rate plants. Then one year, desperate for anything except the same old tired pansies to add color to winter containers, I impulsively bought a flat of ‘Caitlin’s Giant.’ They didn’t work so well in pots—too flat—so eight orphans languished on our south side. During one of my periodic garden extreme makeovers, I plunked the leftovers in a west-facing bed and hoped they’d die. Well, not only did they not die, they rooted in and flourished. To my utter amazement, the two-to-three-inch-wide chocolatey-green leaves stayed glossy and healthy-looking all summer—even producing spikes of blue flowers that first September. The plucky evergreen foliage sailed through winter and blooms appeared again, on schedule, in late March into May. The second season it spread with a vengeance. Give these guys regular water and some shade (morning or afternoon, they aren’t picky), and they’ll cover ground for you. There are at least 16 cultivars of A. reptans and two additional species. As for me, I’m sticking with Caitlin. I have seen the Ajuga light and am now a true believer.

These six genera are proven performers at our house, despite south-side conditions, sandy soil, salt spray and near-total neglect. There’s another whole article in the list of my groundcover failures, and yet another in ground-covering shrubs. But as I’m trying to keep posts under 1500 words, perhaps we'll go there later, if readers express any interest.

            This is probably a good place to remind everyone that gardening is not the best hobby for instant-gratification addicts. Any groundcover, even if it likes where you put it, is going to take time to establish, and it’s going to have to establish before it can spread. Obviously, using the largest number of the biggest plants you can afford will help hurry things along. Still, patience—and the right plant for the site—conquers all.

            Thanks for dropping by. Next time: the month-end round-up.

                                                                                                 

                                                                                                                                                      Kathy