A WORD ON WILDLIFE

            As we prepare for our annual stuff-yourself-until-you-spew holiday, let’s take a minute to be grateful for the other creatures that are part and parcel of the improbable miracle of life on this insignificant rock that spins around a mediocre star in the indifferent infinitude of space.

            How about that for putting things in perspective? Whether we admit it or not, humans are not the ultimate rulers of the universe. (Personally, I’m extremely grateful for that.) Clever and adaptable, we nonetheless exhibit a hard-wired self-destructive streak that I fear will render us the merest blip on the radar of the cosmos. Meanwhile, the crocodiles and the cockroaches soldier on, too busy surviving even to laugh at the pretensions of Homo sapiens.

           Sorry—did I say all that out loud?

 

Clear-cut Fitzgerald backyard, 1998

What I mean to address is ameliorating the loss of wildlife habitat that is one of the most serious negative by-products of unbridled development, right up there with water-table depletion and degradation. In Brunswick County, NC, back in the day of real-estate hubris and liar loans, housing tracts and golf-course communities sprang up like toadstools. The “developers” clear-cut woods, filled swamps and concreted over ever-increasing percentages of maritime, estuarine and wetlands environments. I truly understand the primal urge of humans to live near water—after all, I’m part of the problem, having moved here myself from somewhere higher and drier. But there is such a thing as taking responsibility for what our arrival destroys.

Take the idea of garden-as-habitat. It is not a new one. Perennial marketers have pushed whole groups of plants as butterfly and hummingbird attractors for years. Lots of us maintain birdfeeders and hang houses for our feathered friends. Four-footed natives show up too: just putting out birdseed is enough to make squirrels and raccoons appear.

 Alas, along with the cute critters we encourage come the ones we don’t. Bambi and Thumper help themselves to our roses, vegetables and anything else that takes their fancy. Snakes slither in on rodent, amphibian and insect patrol. Foxes, feral cats and dogs, possums, the occasional bobcat and other omnivores cruise their habitual territories even though our houses and yards now occupy the land. Tim and I have seen trees rubbed barkless by itchy, parasite-plagued bears. There’s even a black panther rumored to prowl the neighborhood of Midway Road.

As ex-urbanites realize they are not alone on their out-of-town properties, it helps to remember two things: 1) the wild creatures were here first, thus rating some accommodation; and 2) most are nocturnal, so frightening-for-all face-to-face confrontations are rare.

            So, you ask, what can I do to further peaceful coexistence? Replace a bit of the habitat your decision to relocate eradicated, I reply. Okay, you say. How?

Dense plantings provide shelter



Well, creating wildlife-friendly environments boils down to the presence of two things: shelter and sustenance. Shelter includes nesting or denning sites and materials, and protective cover. For example, Tim and I have the great good fortune to live adjacent to a heavily wooded vacant double lot. (I shall be heartbroken when the owners or their heirs finally build.) Our own densely planted back yard enhances both privacy for us and habitat for critters. At the far back of our property we planted an ill-considered and difficult-to-control eleagnus hedge flanked by flourishing Leyland cypress. Moving toward the house, another, formally clipped hedge of dwarf yaupon hollies broken by an arbor overgrown with Confederate jasmine encloses the flower garden. When we first moved in, we hung birdhouses in our oaks and on the decorative post-and-rail fence. In the ensuing 12 years, vegetation subsumed them all. So chez Fitzgerald, shelter needs are met.

Resident mockingbird
defending his turf



I have to smile when I see “houses” for toads, bats, butterflies, carpenter bees and ladybugs for sale. Our toads live under the outdoor shower, or beneath the floorboards of our screened porch, along with gorgeous Miss Scarlett, the scarlet snake. The carpenter bees fashion their own nests in the back of an untreated wooden bench on the deck. The bats, ladybugs and butterflies take care of themselves. The desire to control where creatures domicile reminds me of the bluebird experts’ canon: boxes of certain dimensions with apertures exactly one-and-one-eighth-inch round set five feet off the ground and facing southwest are critical for bluebird survival. Oh, yeah?  How did they manage all those millennia before the bluebird experts evolved?


          Sustenance means food and water, including treats you provide and replenish. I spend a part of every Saturday stocking caches of birdseed, suet, peanuts, hulled corn and catfood—that last for Petey and Pauline Possum, Rocky and Rhoda Raccoon and their families. But we also maintain plants with edible fruits, nuts and seeds. We have a weeping yaupon holly that the resident mockingbirds defend against all comers, including entire flocks of cedar waxwings come January and the north-bound robins every February and March. After perfuming the whole neighborhood for all of November, the aforementioned eleagnus’ berries ripen in early spring, just in time to sustain migratory birds and to the delight of our regiment of squirrels. (I’m out there too, foraging away: the fruits are delicious as long as they are very red and soft when you pop them in your mouth. Otherwise, prepare to pucker.)  

Red buckeye,
Aesculus pavia,
in spring

The rodents love the nuts from our buckeye (Aesculus pavia). In April, there’s a three-way race—rodents, avians and me—for the serviceberries (Amelanchier x grandiflora) when they ripen, and again in May and June for the strawberries I planted as groundcover. I bow out of the contest for the fruits from the two crabapples (Japanese Malus x sargentii and Southern native Malus angustifolia). They’re just too darn tart for those of us with taste buds.

And then there’s the annual skirmish for whatever appears in the vegetable garden.

Fitzs' flowers in June 2003

              Our flower garden has something blooming as much of the time as possible for the nectar dependents: bees, butterflies and hummingbirds. An annual sowing of sacrificial host plants for the larvae, a.k.a. caterpillars, of many butterflies and moths—like fennel, parsley and dill for yellow swallowtails, passionflower (Passiflora incarnata) for Gulf fritillaries, butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa and A. incarnata) for monarchs, and tomatoes for Carolina sphinx moths—ensures the presence of the beautiful adults. 

Leave seedheads standing
for winter sustenance
(shown: Liatris spicata)



Even when nothing is in flower, I let the seedheads of gayfeather (Liatris spicata), coneflowers (Echinacea purpurea), black-eyed susans (perennial Rudbeckia fulgida var. sullivantii and annual R. hirta) and crape myrtles stand for the finches, juncos and nuthatches. (A dumb joke: Whaddya get when you cross a nuthatch with a blue-footed booby? A boobyhatch, natch.) Sure, it looks like I’m just lazy about fall cleanup, but there’s a reason for that. If the litter in your garden isn’t slimy (like frost-blasted canna lilies and impatiens) or diseased (black-spotted rose leaves, for example), leaving it in place for the winter provides food and shelter for small birds and little animals as well as a soil-enriching mulch.



A source of water is appreciated at all seasons. Tim ran a quarter-inch dripline with a two-gallon-an-hour emitter on the end of it into our birdbath, so it fills every time the drip zone comes on. Another often-overlooked yet crucial aspect of sustenance is to refrain from pesticide use, particularly broad-spectrum formulations that kill everything they contact.

Auto-fill birdbath



The print materials and website of the Backyard Wildlife Habitat Program of the National Wildlife Federation offer lots of helpful suggestions as well as a protocol to have your property certified as an official Backyard Wildlife Habitat (see links list at right).

 

Keep in mind that every ecosystem is more than the mere sum of its parts. Precisely because Homo sapiens occupies the top of the food-chain ladder means we have the greatest need of all the other rungs. Let us embrace our dependence and be thankful for them.

Thanks for dropping by. Y’all have yourselves a pleasant and peaceful Thanksgiving.

                                                                                                                                              Kathy

     P.S. -- For the blog-lore-challenged (such as myself): Tim tells me if you click on the pictures, they get bigger, the better to see the details. To get back to the text, click on the "back" arrow. On my Google toolbar, it's at the top left of the page. I tried it. It worked.

THINKING OUTSIDE THE BULB BOX



      The Wilmington paper ran an article in today's features section about bulbs. It was an okay piece, I guess, although I disagreed with many of its points, starting with the author’s mail-ordering her stock from Brecks of Indiana instead of somewhere in the southeast. (See my November 16^th posting for the importance of provenance when it comes to bulbs.) Also took issue with several of the expert’s recommendations. But then, I’m a querulous sort and absolutely not a fan of 10-10-10 fertilizer, a topic for another day. 

Species tulip
Tulipa turkestanica

      My biggest gripe, though, was with same old tired genera suggested. Don’t get me wrong—I’m a huge fan of daffodils, all 13 of their divisions. For your information, the fragrant jonquils, tazettas and cyclamineus types perform best in mild-winter areas. I also love the miniatures: there’s just something about a perfect dainty daff that’s only four or five inches high. The split corona hybrids are, if you’ll pardon the pun, growing on me. Be that as it may, what really gets me bulbously excited are the lesser-known varieties.

      Remember those ten crates I mentioned last time? They contained about 3000 individual bulbs. And yes, most—about 2200—were daffs. But the other 800 are the ones that really tickle my fancy.





Species tulip
Tulipa clusiana var. chysantha

       Everybody knows hybrid tulips, those crayon-colored icons of high spring. In mild-winter areas, however, the lack of long bouts of below-freezing temperatures provides insufficient chilling for them to perform well except as annuals. What everybody doesn’t know is that there are several straight species, smaller-flowered than the blowsy hybrids, that do better hereabouts. Last fall, I planted 50 each of white-and-yellow T. turkestanica, red-and-yellow T. clusiana var. chysantha, red-and-black T. linifolia and crimson T. humilis ‘Lilliput’ in my own yard. The ‘Lilliput’ were a no-show, but the others bloomed in succession for almost two months. This year, I ordered a gross of yellow-blooming Tulipa sylvestris and T. clusiana var. chysantha from Brent and Becky for clients, to test deer-resistance. Fingers crossed.

      Among spring’s earliest harbingers are the crocuses. I’ve not had much luck with the traditional Crocus chysanthus and C. vernus, even though the neighborhood squirrels enjoyed watching me fume when I realized they’d dug up the little bulbs and eaten them. If any flirty-tailed bastards patrol your yard, you may want to seek out cultivars of C. tommasinianus, because they seem less palatable to our rodent friends. 



An unusual grape hyacinth
Muscari comosum 'Plumosum'

      Everybody also knows the familiar grape hyacinth, Muscari armeniacum. Yeah, they’re cute and all, but you should check out their ’way cooler cousins. M. aucheri, with high heat tolerance, comes in bicolor (‘Blue Magic,’ dark blue bottoms with sky-blue tops) and tricolor (‘Mount Hood,’ like 'Blue Magic’ only snow-capped) forms. I first saw this one at the Daniel Stowe Botanical Garden in Belmont, NC—definitely love at first sight. Then there’s M. macrocarpum ‘Golden Fragrance,’ with banana-yellow lower florets giving way to red-violet upper ones. In 2006, it exploded into my consciousness off American Nurseryman’s October 15 cover. My all-time favorite, though, is M. comosum ‘Plumosum,’ which doesn’t look grape hyacinth-y at all. Its 1612 introduction to European gardens earns it heirloom status; but when the bottle-brush-like flowers burst out all pinky-purple, you won’t care.
 

Star flower
Ipheion uniflorum 'Jessie'



      Another underused little charmer is Chionodoxa (kye-oh-no-DOCKS-ah) forbesii. Its common name, glory-of-the-snow, gives a clue to its early bloom time. Low-to-the-ground inch-wide starry flowers come in blue, pink and white. I’ve found it takes a season or two to settle in, but when it gets going, watch out.

      If you like blue flowers, try Ipheion uniflorum. The many cultivars of this naturalized mid-spring darling of Colonial Williamsburg range from china blue ‘Wisley Blue’ through blue-violet ‘Rolf Fiedler’ to the gorgeous Prussian blue ‘Jessie.’ Star flower also blooms in white (‘White Star’) and pink (‘Charlotte Bishop,’ a Fitzgerald favorite).



Summer snowflake
Leucojum aestivum,
with daffodils



      What else? How about the native red-white-and-green California firecracker, Dichelostemma (die-kel-oh-STEM-mah) ida-maia, and its rosy pink cousin, D. congestum? Or the elegant white bells of the heirloom Leucojum aestivum, with a dot of green on each petal? This one’s common name is summer snowflake, a total misnomer as it flowers in April and doesn’t even remotely resemble a snowflake. Go figure. You might want to try the dark pink spring-blooming species gladiola, Gladiolus communis subsp. byzantinus. Smaller, earlier and hardier than the better-known summertime spikes, these cuties never need staking or lifting, and were first introduced to the Western garden world in 1700. Making its European debut in the same year, ephemeral Grecian windflower, Anemone blanda, puts out its petite blue, white or pink little daisies in early spring.

 

Peruvian squill
Scilla peruviana



      Among my most cherished bulbs are the ones sporting other-worldly (Tim says “weird”) flowers. I love the huge, spidery, pinky-purple blooms of Schubert’s flowering onion, Allium schubertii, even though I have to plant new ones every year. Alas, the ornamental alliums need more winter chill than southeastern North Carolina offers. More reliable is the drop-dead-gorgeous violet-blue Peruvian squill, Scilla peruviana, although it is neither a squill nor from Peru. Still, when it blooms you won’t care about the derivation of its botanical name. Quietly holding down one end of the color spectrum, the muted tones of Bulgarian lily, Nectaroscordum sicculum subsp. bulgaricum (now that’s a botanical name!) invites a closer look. Stopping traffic at the other end is Scadoxis multiflorus, or the aptly named blood lily.





Blood lily
Scadoxis multifloris



      See? There’s an awful lot more to be pulled out of the bulb box than just daffodils, tulips and crocuses. 

                           *   *   *

      Are you a blogosphere neophyte (like me)? Wanna become a follower but don’t know how? Post a comment below, and include your email address. I’ll pass it on to my resident geek. Have a specific question? A topic suggestion? A complaint? Constructive criticism? Post a comment below. I’ll  know how to handle those enquiries myself.

                           
           Thanks for dropping by. Y’all come again, okay?

                                                                                                                                                       Kathy                                                                                                                                                        

GETTING A BIGGER BANG FOR YOUR BULB-BUYING BUCK

      Our UPS driver hates us. We’re always ordering awkward, bulky, weighty things that are unavailable locally. The all-time worst hernia-inducing delivery was the time we got 500 feet of heavy-gauge aluminum paver-edging. That particular guy may have changed jobs soon after. I suspect one of the women drivers assigned our route begged for a transfer: we haven’t seen her for a while.

      Nonetheless, a professional gardener does what she has to do. So every year, once in the spring and once in the fall, our current UPS employee heaves a sigh and straps on his back-brace. Why? Because the bulbs have arrived. Crates and crates and crates of bulbs.

      Ten of them waited for us on the front porch when we got home last Wednesday.

      Every garden needs bulbs. Ranking right up there with lespedeza at the top of the easy-care plant pantheon, bulbs offer more bang for the buck than any other ornamental I can think of. Nothing else gives so much for so long with so little effort on your part. Put them in the ground, feed them after they flower and don’t think about them again until those first leaf tips poke through the soil, letting you know that this year’s blooms are on the way.


Daffodils and summer snowflake
(Narcissus 'Sweetness' and
Leucojum aestivum)

       Bulbs are magic, like my sons. What I mean is, I came to parenthood late, on purpose, and while living in comfortable circumstances, allowing me the luxury to be fully conscious of all the small quotidian miracles that comprise gestation and birth. I mention this now because, to me, planting bulbs feels akin to that wonder-full experience. The leaps of faith and imagination required for putting such inert-seeming things as bulbs into the ground with the full expectation of vegetative life-forms emerging to bloom are nothing short of Zen revelation.

      Airy-fairy stuff aside, the former schoolteacher in me insists on definitions. Bulbs, an omnibus reference to that group of perennial plants with some underground structure for the storage of water and nutrients, include: true bulbs, like daffodils, which are actually modified buds; corms, like crocus and Anemone blanda, are annual bulbous stems that produce new corms from buds on the old ones; and tubers, like dahlias, caladiums and bearded iris, are really swollen stems, branches or roots. Together, they’re known as geophytes.

      To better your chances of bulbine success, here are some tips-gleaned-from-past-screw-ups for making your experience a positive one.

1.      Buy as locally grown as you can. John Scheepers, van Bourgondien and the rest of the Michigan-based growers send out beautiful catalogs, but their climate is a little different from mine(!). A favorite source for Southeastern-bred stock is Brent and Becky’s Bulbs, out of Gloucester, VA. Another good Southern source is Marlboro Bulb Company, from Greenwood, SC. (Links provided at right.) Keep in mind that big box stores order their plant materials regionally, even though growing conditions within a region can vary significantly. You may think I’m splitting hairs, but provenance really makes a difference.



Star flower
(Ipheion uniflorum 'Jessie')

 2.      Don’t stint on quantity. When you buy daffodils or crocus, think in terms of hundreds rather than tens. Nothing’s more pathetic-looking than five lonely specimens in a (relatively) vast landscape. A grouping of five or ten lilies always makes more of a statement than one or two. The only time I countenance buying one of anything is when it’s an experiment and pricey—say ten dollars or more per   bulb, like oxblood lily.

3.      Don’t stint on quality, either. Buy the biggest, firmest bulbs you can find. If you mail-order, choose the largest size offered and always deal with companies that have been recommended by someone you trust. Like me. Remember—you get what you pay for. Don’t expect high performance from a “bargain” bulb.

4.      Take planting-depth instructions with a grain of salt. In places where the ground never freezes, there is no frost line to get below. When Tim and I relocated to Oak Island, one of the first things I did was plant about 150 daffodils to the recommended depth (for Schenectady) of eight inches. Well, along about the end of May, the foliage finally clawed its way to the surface, where it promptly burned up. I have since learned that we only have to dig holes twice the height of the bulb: if your daff bulb is two-and-a-half inches high, put it in a five-inch-deep hole. With many crocus and other small bulbs, you can get away with an inch-and-a-half or so. In my soft, sandy soil, I can poke them down with my fingertip. Don’t make more work for yourself, especially when it’s counterproductive. (Hybrid lilies are the exception to the rule. They need to go down eight to ten inches to encourage sturdy stems.)



Spider lily
(Lycoris radiata)



5.      As for amending the soil when planting bulbs, what Tim and I do is to mix about three pounds of bulb food with a 50-pound bag of composted manure (Black Kow is what’s most readily available to us). We throw in enough to cover the bottom of each hole, then broadcast the remaining mixture over the newly planted bed. If you choose to use bulb food alone, it’s better not to put it in the bottom of the hole; the fertilizer may burn the bulb’s new roots. Distribute appropriate amounts on top of the soil, according to package directions. What does Kathy use? I like Bulb Booster and Bulb-Tone. I counsel against bonemeal, as dogs, raccoons, possums and other omnivores will smell it and dig up your bulbs to get at it. A client of ours awoke one morning to find raccoons had dug up and tossed each of the hundred daffs she’d planted the day before (poisonous in all their parts, daffodils aren’t on anybody’s favorite foods list) in order to snack on bonemeal. Aggravating, to say the least.

6.      If you have swamp-mucky, clay or caliche soil (and even if you don’t), try this no-dig planting method for daffodils espoused by Brent Heath, whose family has been in the bulb business for generations. Rake back whatever mulch covers the area you’d like to plant; toss and/or arrange the bulbs on the surface; cover to an appropriate depth (depending on the height of the bulbs) with the Kow mixture referenced above, soil conditioner, and/or organic mulch; broadcast bulb food on top; go attend to other things until spring. Tim and I tried this method for the first time in a woodland setting—’way easier than digging 450 five-inch-deep holes in a root mat! It worked like a charm. We utilized the no-dig method again for a mass planting in a very wet area—350 daff bulbs “planted” in 45 minutes. The spring display was spectacular.

7.      Daffodils make great bouquets. But pull the flowers, don’t cut them. Slide your fingers all the way down the stem and pull the daff up from the bottom, revealing the white base below the hollow part of the stem. Hollow stems are unable to take up water. Pulled flowers last longer in the vase because their drinking apparatus is less impaired.

8.      Feed your bulbs right after they’ve finished blooming by topdressing with our Kow-and-bulb-food mixture. Why then? Because you know for sure where they are at that time. It’s a popular myth around these sandy parts that bulbs—especially daffodils—stop flowering because their roots have pulled the bulb too deep into the soil; ergo, they must be dug up and raised. Balderdash. Bulbs stop flowering because they are hungry. So feed them, already. Is that too much to ask?

9.      All bulbs manufacture food for the next year’s bloom through their foliage, so please let the leaves to die back naturally before removing them, no matter how unsightly. Although dying foliage looks better when tied into knots or bunched into rubber bands, these are not helpful practices. They make it harder for the plant’s vascular system to do its nutrient manufacturing and distribution work. To minimize the unattractiveness of the late stages, interplant your bulbs with perennials like irises, ornamental grasses, lantana and daylilies, or plop annuals on top of them. That way, the ugly foliage acts as mulch for the later-emerging plants instead of being an eyesore.



Tulipa turkestanica

        I hope I have piqued enough interest to make you run out to add some bulbs to your garden. (If the ground's not frozen, it's not too late.) As  plants go, bulbs lead the pack for ease of care and (usually) good manners. They come in an astounding number of sizes, bloom colors, bloom shapes and bloom times, which shall be the topic of my next post. They are relatively inexpensive. And best of all, planting them enriches your spiritual life.

      Thanks for dropping by. Sign up to be a follower if you like what you’ve read. I can keep this up indefinitely if I think there’s an audience.

                                                                          Kathy

CRAPE MURDER

            It’s that time of year again, when people start noticing what their neighbors and the common-area keepers are doing to crape myrtles. As Tim and I work at fall maintenance for our beloved regulars around St. James, the question of the hour is, “Is it time to prune my crapes?”

            The short answer is “No.” That’s because you don’t ever have lay a finger on these easy-to-love standards of southern landscapes, Lagerstroemia indica x fauriei. In its January 1997 issue, Southern Living magazine published an article by Linda C. Askey entitled “Crepe Murder” about the unnecessary butchery that takes place every fall.

         Before you gleefully point to a rare spelling error, let me explain. I’ve combed every reference book I own for the correct spelling and form of crape myrtle. The eminent Michael Dirr and nurseryman David Byers (author of Crapemyrtle: A Grower’s Thoughts), agree it's “crapemyrtle,” one word; The Hillier Manual claims crape-myrtle, hyphenated, is correct; Gordon Halfacre votes for crape myrtle, two words. As illustrated above, Southern Living bucks the tide and insists on crepe myrtle, with crape creepily spelt. To me, a “crepe” can be a French pancake, a crinkly paper sold in rolls, or a type of shoe sole. I’m sticking with two words and the “a”. You can do what you want.



The heartbreak of stubbing

 

         Back to the subject at hand. Everyone’s seen stubbed crapes; you know, the ones that look like a maniac with a chain-saw having a temper fit did the work. Stubbing means cutting a branch far beyond the point of your basic shape-up pruning, with the end result of a sad collection of thick, ugly stubs (hence the name). Stubbing is a technique used by folks who don’t know any better:  it just seems a fast and easy way to polish off a pruning chore. Keep it up season after season, however, and you’ll end up eliminating your crape. A stubbed tree puts out lots of new wood in its bid for survival during the season immediately following the initial maiming. These are called adventitious branches, and they are weak by nature. The weight of their flowers can break them right off the tree. Because crapes flower on new wood, the resultant bumper crop of blooms the following summer encourages the ignorant buffoon—who obviously does not follow this blog—to repeat his performance in the fall. He then creates a stub (ugly) surrounded by a bunch of little stubs (uglier) that resemble nothing so much as the beseeching fingers of a deformed hand. As the heinous stubbing behavior continues, the tree loses more and more strength until it just dies. This scenario is what Ms. Askey dubbed “crape murder.”

         Often people defend stubbing as a way to keep a tree from getting too tall. Guess what? Crape myrtles cultivars range in height from 24 inches to 24 feet. Do a little research, and then go get one that will naturally stay within your parameters. If you already have a "too-tall" model in place, do it a favor and either move it somewhere it can attain its preordained stature, or kill it outright instead of torturing it by stubbing year after year. 

         Have I made it clear that stubbing is not a good technique for shaping up crapes?

         All right, then, you say, just how should a crape myrtle be pruned?

         Let’s address why first. The answer to why is: 1) you want to encourage prolific flowering; 2) you want to create a nice-looking tree; or 3) you don’t have a clue and would prefer not to be involved. Now we’ll talk how.

Take off seedballs, as at left,
or leave 'em on, as at right

·         To encourage flowering: I’ll let you in on a little secret here. Major branch removal does nothing-nada-zip-zero-zilch-nil-naught for bloom. Crapes flower because they are happy with their lives—enough sunlight, enough water, enough available nutrients. Now, if it’s the bloom period you’d like prolonged, well, there is something you can do to manipulate that. You can cut off the seedball clusters as they form. How can I be sure I’m removing seedballs and not flower buds? you cry. Easy! I reply. The hard green balls that appear after a flower has faded are the seeds: the buds are smaller, readily squished and usually show a bit of the flower color. Removing seedballs causes the plant to form lateral buds: thus, for every seedball you snip, two new shoots grow out that each produce another, albeit smaller, flower, right up until frost brings the whole process to a screeching halt.

·         If it’s a nice-looking tree you’re after, what we call shape-up pruning is the ticket. This is where you remove all those tiny twigs (the littlest ones break off nicely when you run your gloved hand along the branch toward the trunk), the last of the seedballs, any branches growing into the interior of the tree (because they won’t get enough light to flower anyway), and any dead, crossing, damaged, head-bonking-when-you-mow or otherwise unsightly or inconvenient branches. You can also determine how many trunks your mature crape will ultimately have by removing excess stems at the ground. Tim and I like single-trunked specimens best, but they’re hard come by. If we can’t get a single, we look for a three-stemmer. If we can’t find a three-stemmer, we take the best-looking one we have access to and make it a three-stemmer. For more compact cultivars, or if you prefer the shrubby look, just remove the seedballs and any dead stuff and leave the trunks alone. A good rule of thumb is to never cut off anything larger than the diameter of your little finger, unless you want it gone for good.

·         If you’d rather sit on the verandah sipping your mint julep than prune your crape myrtles, well, the good news is that you are perfectly within your rights to do so. Listen: this is really important. The plant itself just doesn’t care, one way or the other. Even with every seedball still on it, your crape will bloom year after year. The old seedballs are on old wood, see?

·         One major bonus of not bothering to remove the seedballs: in winter, crapes laden with seeds may attract flocks of hungry migratory finches and juncos. I’ve only witnessed the birds snacking on ripened crape seedballs out in the mountains, in the yard of the cabin where Tim and I used to hide out for Christmas before the economy went south. Tim says I’ve just not paid sufficient attention at home. He’s probably right. As usual.

         Now I suppose you want to know just when this pruning activity is to take place. Well, the seedballs need to go as they form during the bloom season, obviously, but again, only if you want to invest the effort. Shape-up pruning is done once the plant has gone dormant (lost its leaves). There’s what I consider a hilarious pronouncement on this subject in Henry Rehder, Jr.’s Growing a Beautiful Garden: A Landscape Guide for the Coastal Carolinas. On page 117, he suggests the week of November 27 is optimum. Believe me, the very last thing on my mind at Thanksgiving with only four weeks to go before Christmas is pruning the damn crape myrtles.  January is good; so is February. Some years December is okay too. If the end of March rolls around before you get to it, however, you should probably just forget it for that year.

         Besides, they’ll bloom next summer anyway.

         Thanks for dropping by. If you've enjoyed this post, please log a comment, or sign up to be a follower. I sure would appreciate knowing I'm not wasting my time.

                                                                 Kathy

PUSHING POTS

     For Fitzgeralds Gardening, November is when container change-outs for winter swing into high gear. Tim and I refill between 60 and 70 pots and windowboxes for about ten clients, and another seven to ten at our own house. Since practice makes perfect, we’ve gotten quite good at it over the years. Want to know some of our secrets?

     Well, you could check out Carolina Gardener’s November/December issue, where the lead article (that I wrote) covers the subject as thoroughly as possible in 800 words. Because my first attempt at adding links went so well, I’ve added one for Carolina Gardener. Hard copies may be found at independent booksellers in North and South Carolina, Virginia and Georgia, and at garden centers in those areas.

     OR, you could keep reading here, where I recapitulate and enlarge upon the subject.

First Things First

      As is usual in the gardening world, a few details need to be sorted before we get to plant choices.

  

     When deciding where to place winter containers, consider things like sun, wind, and water. Potted plants’ roots lack the protection being in the ground provides, so they suffer more from temperature extremes, desiccating winds, and dry soil. Brick and stone walls (especially light-colored ones) that face west or south retain more of the heat of the day than dark-colored vinyl, wood and hardy-plank. Know what direction the prevailing wind comes from, how it crosses your property, and what obstacles—trees, hedges, other structures—affect it. Make sure the pots have water, although not as much as during the summer. Are they likely to benefit from rainfall? It’s best to test the dirt with your finger for moisture: just like indoor houseplants, many outdoor cold-weather containers drown. (Trust me on this: I’m an expert at killing houseplants.)

     Next, choose your container well. In general, anything that drains readily and can stand up to your weather works fine. Be aware that plastic and unglazed terra cotta pots may crack and flake. Glazed ceramic, fiberglass, and cocomat-lined wrought iron hayracks and baskets fare better.

     Here in the mild-wintered Southeast, if you want to use clay pots outside during the winter, keep the following considerations in mind.

• Glazed ceramics hold up better than unglazed terra-cotta. Why? Pots crack because of freeze-thaw cycles: glazes keep moisture from permeating the clay, making it less susceptible to expansions and contractions.
• Not all pottery is created equal. Italian, Portuguese, Vietnamese and Malaysian clays form strong molecular bonds that fire smooth. On the other hand, Mexican clay has proportionately more sand, resulting in finished pieces with that lovely grainy texture. This is not a problem in Mexico or the dry American Southwest, but for the rest of us, winter can cause Mexican pots to crumble.

     One last thing: the primary secret to drop-dead-gorgeous pots at any season is to cram the plants in. While exact numbers depend on individual plants’ shoot and root vigor, plan for:

·         15 3- to 4-inch pots, or 5 six-packs per 14" diameter pot;

·         18 3- to 4-inch pots, or 6 six-packs per 16" diameter pot;

·         18 3- to 4-inch pots, or 6 six-packs per 30" long by 6" wide hayrack;

·         21 3- to 4-inch pots, or 7 six-packs per 36" long and 6" wide hayrack;

·         24 3- to 4-inch pots, or 8 six-packs per 42" long and 6" wide hayrack.
 

Mixed violas and
'Snow Princess' alyssum spill
out of a 36" hayrack


 A one-gallon pot equals 4 3- to 4-inch pots, or 1½ six-packs, by the way.

Annuals are very forgiving of crowding, since their only reason for being is to set seed for next year. Perennials require more root-room, especially if you plan to put them in the ground after their stint in a container.  

Freeze-hardy Flowers

      Now we can talk plants. Pansies and their relatives (Viola x wittrockiana) serve as anchors for many cold-weather containers in mild-winter areas. The small-flowered violas like the Penny, Sorbet and Endurio series and the cheerful Johnny-jump-ups (V. tricolor) bloom more profusely than their larger and blowsier cousins, the pansies. As an added bonus, violas never require deadheading. Unfortunately, all members of the viola family are deer candy.

     Other cold-hardy (to about 20°F) reliables include:

'Endurio Violet' &  'Penny Orange' violas
and 'Easter Basket' alyssum
looked so good all season
the neighbor asked if they were fake

•  Alyssum (Lobularia maritima)—alas, the floriferous new hybrid ‘Snow Princess’ crashed here after several nights at or near 20°F. It survived a shearing to rebloom when the temperatures moderate;
• Snapdragons (Antirrhinum majus)—although blooming stops after the first hard frost, they bracket the season with carnival colors and provide height and a green backdrop for violas;
• Perennial pinks (Dianthus barbatus) flaunt their red, pink, white and bicolor blooms through all but the coldest months. 

As it happens, not that many flowering plants fill the bill for winter containers, but don’t give up yet—we’ve just scratched the surface of possibilities.

Don’t Forget Foliage

     Incorporating evergreen plants with interesting or colorful foliage makes up for gaps in flowering. You might want to try:

·        Ornamental cabbages, kales and chards (Brassica spp. cvv.)—winter foliage stalwarts;

·        Low-growing bugleweed (Ajuga reptans cvv.) forms dense mats in variegated, chocolate, or purple-ish shades, like ‘Caitlin’s Giant’ and ‘Burgundy Glow’;

·        Trailing green-and-silver dead-nettle (Lamium maculatum cvv.) produces pink, white or purple flowers in late winter;

·        Curly-leaved parsley (Petroselinum crispum) adds bright green—and edible!—accents;

·        Dainty variegated lemon or silver thyme (Thymus x citriodorus) and mother-of–thyme (T. vulgaris) provide fine-textured underplantings for upright plants;

·        Dense plantings of dark green or variegated English ivies (Hedera helix) replace those crunchy Boston ferns hanging on your porch;

·        Small ornamental grasses—golden sweet flag (Acorus gramineus ‘Ogon’), thin-bladed sedges (Carex buchananii, C. comans ‘Frosted Curls,’ C. flagellifera ‘Toffee Twist’), breeze grass (Lomandra longifolia), and rushes (Juncus effusus ‘Wild Rumpus’ or ‘Will Fleming’— provide strong verticals; 

·         Hens-and-chicks (Sempervivum tectorum) cultivars come in a range of tints, all cold-hardy to Zone 3, which includes northern Minnesota and all of Maine.

Except for the brassicas, none of these selections ranks high on Bambi’s forage list.

Super Shrubs

      One- and three-gallon upright shrubs make strong design anchors, either alone or with other plants. Broadleaf choices include camellia (C. japonica, C. sasanqua), dwarf nandinas (N. domestica ‘Firepower’ or ‘Moonbay’), boxwood (Buxus sempervirens or B. microphylla var. koreana) and little-leaved hollies (Ilex crenata ‘Soft Touch,’ Ilex vomitoria ‘Bordeaux’ or ‘Schillings Dwarf’). Conifers like dwarf Alberta or Colorado blue spruce (Picea glauca var. albertiana, P. pungens f. glauca), juniper (Juniperus spp.), arborvitae (Thuja occidentalis) or false cypress (Chamaecyparis spp.) work well as container focal points. Combining several different small conifers in one container makes an attractive and deer-resistant dish garden.

Harbingers of Spring

     Layering small bulbs into winter containers gives a late-winter color burst that also heralds spring. Tuck in 20 to 30 early small daffodils (Narcissus obvallaris, ‘Quail,’ ‘Tête-à-Tête,’ ‘Canaliculatus’); crocuses (C. tommasinianus are least attractive to squirrels); snowdrops (Galanthus elwesii, G. nivalis); and/or crested iris (Iris cristata). Where winters are colder than the coast’s, add squill (Scilla sibirica) and grape hyacinth (Muscari spp.) to the list.          



The plantless holiday planter



It Doesn’t Have to Be a Plant 

  
       But who ever said you have to use plants? Decorate your containers for the holidays with big red bows, clusters of ornaments and garland, but don’t let your imagination stop there. Pine cones, either spray-painted or au naturel, look great all winter erupting out of a pot. Fill windowboxes with Christmas-tree balls of every color and size to carry through to spring (look for ornaments labeled for outdoor use: the colors on the indoor ones chip off after a couple of months). Dried ornamental grass plumes, corkscrew willow twigs, or sprays of berries—real or artificial—bound into sheaves with bright ribbons add height and drama.

           

Sometimes a Pot Is Just a Pot

     To me, one of the most striking aspect of winter is its unclutteredness. In the same way we find beauty in leafless tree limbs, pretty pots standing empty gracefully echo winter’s simplicity.

A winter container vignette



     Thanks for dropping in. Keep warm.

                                                                            Kathy 



 P.S.--If you're reading this from New Zealand, would you log a comment to tell me where you're from? I seriously considered emigrating years ago, but was already over 40, and 'way too poor, worse luck. But I loved your country, particularly Ahipara and Te Anau, Dunedin and that mountain on the west coast of the North Island whose name escapes me at the moment.