MINIMIZING MAINTENANCE, PART 2

           Most time spent in one’s garden involves maintaining. Oh, we design, and plant, and dig new beds; we rip out, redesign, replant. But mostly we take care of what we’ve got. It’s not glamorous, or exciting, but tending the things of the earth is what gardening is really all about.

           Whenever I get jangled, too busy, too multi-tasked, nothing soothes like a little quality time with my nose to the soil in a weedy patch. Most people I talk to in the course of my work consider weeds the biggest bugaboo in garden-land. Well, yes and no. Yes, if you’ve let them establish. No, if you keep them in bounds.

            I admit I enjoy weeding. I actually think it’s fun (go figure) to pull a plant out of the ground and look at its roots and branching patterns, flowers and seeds, its colors and smells. Over the years, I’ve gotten pretty good at identifying most common local weeds by all those criteria. This course of study has also resulted in smaller populations in the places I practice. Even if you leave some roots, vigilance in keeping top-growth removed will eventually starve even tenacious survivors like pennywort and cat briar.    

A sort-of low-maintenance garden,
but it still gets covered
with leaf litter and acorns

Of course, new challenges arise. For instance, weeds of cultivation replace the wild-area ones—vetch and wild briar edge out sand spurs and plantains. But if you’re a gardener in your soul, no time spent outside feels onerous.

Weed seeds come up whenever the ground is disturbed. If you don’t expend a lot of effort tilling the soil, your weed population naturally decreases, as their seeds stay too far away from light to germinate. Toss out that silly Mantis, and invest in Lee Reich’s Weedless Gardening and/or Lasagna Gardening by Patricia Lanza (see "Good Reads" in the sidebar). 

Intensive tillage causes other maintenance headaches. In addition to raising weed seeds, digging disrupts microbiota in the soil. For instance, Tim and I double-dug our first Oak Island garden, thrilled by the at-the-time novel experience of moving sand as opposed to the heavy, rock-laden, Adirondack-foothills dirt in my Glens Falls back yard. Double-digging is a labor-intensive European invention, intended to improve tilth—a.k.a. workability—of the soil. Unfortunately, what double-digging actually accomplishes is to shift upper-level aerobic organisms to anaerobic depths while exposing lower-level anaerobic microbes to fatal amounts of oxygen. Oh, dear.

You don’t even have to go to the extreme of double-digging to damage soil structure. Our tiny dirt friends go about their business in little colonies. Any time you thrust a shovel into the ground, you’re wreaking havoc, including any earthworms you bisect. (No, earthworms do not regenerate from severed bits. Cutting them in two kills them. Dead.) Of course, some of this ruction is necessary, for planting and so forth. But it can be, and often is, overdone by the misinformed. I get riled by well-meant instructions by so-called “experts” to “work organic matter into the top six to 12 inches of the soil.” Digging in compost is counterproductive: the activity decimates the very populations you’re trying to feed.

Another strategy for minimizing maintenance is to never go out to the garden without your pruners. It’s far easier to whack off that odd-angled or annoying little branch right now than to wait until its removal requires major surgery and a protracted recovery time. Cut out all dead wood and crossing branches as soon as you spot them. Limb up your shrubs to increase air circulation in their interiors before the suck-bugs and fungi arrive. Deadheading perennials can result in a longer season of bloom.

Don’t think I don’t know that a healthy percentage of you are scared of pruning your plants. Well, get over it. Remember two things—it’s hard to kill something by pruning it; and if pruning it kills it, you’ve done both of you a favor.

To recap: Three of the four pillars of minimizing maintenance are: 1) do keep up with weeding; 2) don’t disturb the soil more than is absolutely necessary; and 3) do prune as you go.

We now interrupt this post to take a small side trip.

The Irish Cathy Fitzgerald’s most recent EcoArtNotebook introduced me to 11-year-old Felix Elstner. At the launch of the U.N.’s International Year of Forests, “Felix… stole the limelight with his passionate speech and ambitious project to get the world to plant a Trillion Trees this year… with his pleas for us all to remember that he and his companions will be living in the future of a largely and dangerously un-forested world,” Cathy writes. His international poster campaign, “Stop Talking, Start Planting,” sends a powerful message to all us grown-ups who like to discuss issues ad nauseum in lieu of actually doing anything. Check out the Plant for the Planet website for a video of Felix’s speech.

Planting trees should be a no-brainer for gardeners. You needn’t plant a million of them, but one or two would be nice. I’m hoping to get my red buckeye (Aesculus pavia) and sweetheart tree (Euscaphis japonicus) into the new bed this coming weekend. Early spring’s a really good time to get woodies into the ground, to get a start on establishing before summer sets in. For the sake of Felix, and Felix’s kids, stop talking and just do it.



This young man from Mongolia
wants Mary Robinson,
former head of the
U.N. High Commission
for Human Rights,
to can the discussion about
reforestation already



What kind of tree should you plant?  Choose a genus suited to your soil, to your climate, and to the space you have in mind for it. That’s because the fourth pillar of minimizing maintenance is putting the right plant in the right place.

The concept “right plant, right place” seems so obvious, it’s amazing how often it gets overlooked. In my neck of the woods, within a mile of the Atlantic Ocean, the soil is sandy, neutral to alkaline in pH. Newcomers wanting all the acid-loving landscape staples Southern Living magazine promised them go ahead and plant azaleas, gardenias, camellias and Chinese hollies anyway, setting themselves up for disappointment. High pH soils stress azaleas, gardenias, camellias and Chinese hollies, increasing the likelihood of openings for pests and pathogens. It’s a rare azalea that doesn’t have lacebugs, a rare gardenia with no whiteflies, rare camellias and hollies without tea and/or wax scales.

Pests and diseases mean treatments. Treatments mean expense, worry, exposure to some nasty chemicals, and plants that look awful and then die. Avoid this disheartening cycle by getting a soil test and doing some homework before replacing your dead darlings.



Someone should have told
these homeowners that
Leyland cypress doesn't make
a good foundation plant
(click to make larger)



Listen, this is important: work with what you have instead of pretending really hard that it’s something—or somewhere—else. Deluding yourself will only lead to frustration and heartbreak. Gardening is supposed to be fun, right?



An important corollary to “right plant, right place” is to always look up. Don’t put that Leyland cypress on your foundation—it’s going to mildew your siding and lift your eaves when it grows up. Don’t plant a red maple that wants to be 60 feet tall under 25-foot-high power lines. Don’t plant that maple in a grove of pines either, unless you like the crammed-together, interspecific look.

What all this comes down to is knowing the characteristics of your patch and your own limitations and making appropriate choices based on what you know. You may not achieve the holy grail of the low-maintenance garden, but you can get pretty darned close.

I spent the afternoon pruning one side of my dwarf yaupon hedge, a chore I’ve put off for two years. Blistered index finger aside, I feel pretty good about that. But the damned Poa annua is burgeoning, a sure sign of spring. I gotta get on to them next.

Thanks for dropping by. You’re keeping me honest.

                                                                Kathy  

MINIMIZING MAINTENANCE

            Today we start a new series on everyone’s favorite topic, garden maintenance.

           

            When Tim and I went to Ireland 10 years ago, money from the EU was pouring into the country, and many of the fine old walled estate gardens were coming back from years of neglect. Connemara’s Kylemore Abbey; Woodstock Arboretum in Inistoge, County Kilkenny; Ballinlough in County Meath; Westmeath’s Belvedere House, in Mullingar; were all the in early stages of restoration. We came home so uplifted and enthusiastic. We hope go back someday to see how they’re getting on.



...in beautiful Co. Connemara.
The walled garden is a short walk
away at the left side of the postcard



            Every garden in the world is an artificial construct, the product of someone’s imagination and will. Nothing artificial runs well off on its own. Believe me, I’ve been trying for decades to have vacuumed. Anything ever constructed needs taking care of. It needs maintenance.

           

I wish I had a dollar for every potential client Tim and I have talked to over the years who, at some point or other in the interview, said, “…and I want it to be very low-maintenance.”



             A low-maintenance garden—what a concept. I’m reminded of the story Anne Lamott tells in her book, Bird by Bird, of the students in her writing classes who want to have written. They don’t want to take the time to learn the craft or put in the necessary hours and days and years confronting the blank page, but they would like to publish a runaway bestseller, rake in advances and royalty checks, preside over triumphant book signings, be reviewed by David Sedaris in the New York Times Sunday magazine, and land interviews with Oprah, the morning chat shows, and NPR.

            Just like the low-maintenance garden, it ain’t gonna happen.

            I’ve had a lot of time to ponder this subject during the course of the week: Tim and I spent 16 hours pulling several years’ accumulation of oak leaves and pine straw out of a favorite client’s azaleas, gardenias, loropetalum, hydrangeas and hollies. It’s not arduous work, just monotonous. I’m the detail man of our team, head stuck under the shrubs and hands acting as tiny rakes in those hard-to-reach places between trunks. Because this part of the exercise requires no sharp implements, my brain needn’t be fully focused on the task, so it can wander at will.

            Initial cogitations revolved around how much more difficult procrastination makes routine things. Don’t get me wrong—I’m a dyed-in-the-wool putter-offer. The final page of every term paper I wrote while at university rolled off the platen of my trusty Smith-Corona just 15 minutes before I turned it in, panting, disheveled, unshowered and still buzzing from all the No-Doz. Even now, as a professional writer, I’m only marginally better. Mostly I lie to myself about deadline dates, marking them on the calendar a few days earlier than the piece is really due. (It’s stupid, but it works.)

           



Newly planted boxwood walk
at Woodstock Arboretum,
Inistoge, Co. Kilkenny
(May 2000)



            When Tim and I troubleshoot overgrown landscapes, I understand completely how overwhelmed homeowners often feel. One lady told us, “We know it needs to be done. We come outside with wonderful intentions. But then we look around us at this mess, and have no idea where to start. So we go back inside, or remember some shopping we have to do, or anything else at all, really.” Or we’ll hear, “Well, we went out one Saturday morning last spring. We started at the back of the back yard and worked our asses off all day. By four o’clock, we could hardly haul ourselves into the house. When we dragged ourselves out of bed Sunday morning and looked outside, it was like we had barely made a dent. So I planted some annuals to hide the mess, and we haven’t been out again. We hired somebody, but they didn’t do a very good job.”   

            If the foregoing scenarios sound uncomfortably like déjà vu all over again, the place to start is with Tim’s “be an ant” mantra. (Unfamiliar with Tim’s “be an ant” mantra? Check out December 27^th’s “Tis the Season for Excuses.”) Pick one small spot—your herb garden, or the right side of the bed in front of the porch. Make it someplace you see all the time that particularly aggravates you. Spend a few hours there on a balmy afternoon weeding, pruning, raking, and generally cleaning up. After a couple of hours, you’re done for the day. Treat yourself to something nice. You deserve it.

            Next week, finish the first spot or start clearing out the next little area you’ve selected. Only work two or three hours before moving on to something—and somewhere—else.



One of the connecting walled gardens
at Ballinlough Castle
in Co. Meath



            The idea is to not to make a single do-or-die, one-day, superhuman effort, wearing yourself out to the point that the merest thought of tackling the yard makes your stomach seize up. Be an ant, one grain at a time.

            Once you get the place whipped into shape, the next task is to keep up with it so it never gets as bad as it was ever again.



            Whenever we finish a garden installation, Tim (”Little Merry Sunshine,” we sometimes call him) gives the clients The Speech. “See this garden?” he asks. “This is the nicest it is ever going to look UNLESS you come out here tomorrow and pull that first weed, and sweep the pine straw and leaves off the path/dry streambed/patio/whatever. If you don’t do those things tomorrow, in a month, the garden will start looking shabby. In a year, it’ll be a disaster. So go out tomorrow and every day after and pull that weed.”



            It must be said at this juncture that Tim gives a similar speech during the planning phase as well. He’s brutal with clients about the maintenance chore they’re considering taking on—especially the ones who want to have gardened. (He can spot them with uncanny accuracy, too.)



Newly planted borders at
Belvedere House
in Mullingar, Co. Westmeath



            As usual, he’s right. Every gardener knows that if you turn your back on a garden for 10 minutes, it’s already inching back to what it was before you came along with your big ideas and shovel and rake and plants from China and the Alps and the Atacama Desert. He talks us out of a lot of paychecks, but it’s the right thing to do. There’s nothing sadder than a garden you put some of yourself into sinking into wildness through neglect.

            I’m not being melodramatic here. Once there was a beautiful, intricate, pond-side garden we made for a lovely couple who didn’t mind paying us to maintain it as it should be cared for. When they moved away, the new owners let us—and the garden—go. I can’t bear even to drive past the house any more. Breaks my heart.

            Okay, maybe I’m being an itty-bitty bit melodramatic. It’s still sad.

Thanks for dropping by. See you next time, when I’ll make suggestions for making maintenance more manageable.

                                                         Kathy

P.S.—For Miss Patti of Trailwood Drive and Ellicott City, here are the pictures of hayracks I promised you. (You can click on them to make them larger.)



Winter planting



Summer planting



             

FEBRUARY WRAP-UP

            I’ll start this wrap-up by wrapping up the “Food for Thought” series with a brief botanical dissertation.

Plants have two kinds of roots, structural and feeder. The structural ones hold trees and other larger members of the plant kingdom upright. They radiate out from the main stem or trunk, those big viney things that make navigating a bicycle or baby-stroller over sidewalks of tree-lined streets a dicey proposition. Feeder roots are the fine, fibrous, hair-like bits that, with the help of bacteria and fungi, take in nutrients from the soil. (See “Food for Thought, Part 2.”) Feeder roots are found at the drip-line of the plant in the top six inches or so of the soil (a plant’s drip-line, where rain drips off the foliage, is located at the outer edge of its canopy), and where you want to put your carefully chosen soil amendments. Their fortuitous location makes your job easier, because you don’t have to fret about getting right up against the stem.



It must be spring!
First Crocus tommasinianus



Feeder-root positioning and its relation to the application of fertilizers seem intuitive to Tim and me, but we get reminded from time to time that not everyone finds it so blazingly obvious. We had a client once who, upon our recommendation, bought some azalea food for her yellowing hollies. She carefully studied the helpful illustration on the back of the box meant to aid in the efficacious distribution of the granules, then with great solicitude doled out a dime-sized amount of them at the trunk of each eight-foot-high plant. This is an extreme case, of course, but illustrative nonetheless. Much more common and just as silly is the great handful of product tossed on a plant’s stem, where it does no good whatsoever, and may actually cause harm.

Timing matters, too. In temperate climates, optimum nutrient uptake occurs when the plant is actively growing, between the time the buds start to open in the spring and when the leaves begin to change color in the fall. For semitropical and Mediterranean areas, nutrient uptake is most efficient during the wet season. Of course, if you choose slow-release formulations, the importance of seasonal timing diminishes. But it seems foolish to offer someone a meal if they’re not in an eating mood. And remember, Osmocote won’t osmose when soil temperatures dip below 70°F.

           



First daffodils ('Tete-a-Tete')
of the season



The main thing to remember about fertilizing is Hippocrates’ dictum, “First, do no harm.” Compulsively following a fertilization regimen based upon each plant’s individual needs may be the ideal to strive toward, but it’s not worth making yourself crazy over. For mild-winter areas, April is probably the best time to feed your landscape plants (although not your warm-season grass—you’ll need to wait for Memorial Day weekend for that). But May is okay too, and so is March, or June. With the understanding you now have of what plants need and how they absorb nutrients, it’s usually better to do nothing until you have the time to think a bit about what you propose putting onto the ground, and about the most productive (and easiest!) way to go about it when you do get around to it, so that all the time and effort you put into building your soil and feeding your plants really counts toward furthering your gardening goals.

*****



Globe at Night's magnitude chart



Let’s move from Earth to the stars. The sixth annual GLOBE at Night citizen-scientist project is underway, continuing through March 6. The Naval Observatory’s “The Sky This Week” writer explains: "The premise is very simple. All you need to do is go outside one evening between 8:00 and 10:00 local time and look for the bright constellation of Orion, the Hunter. Compare the number of stars you can see in and around the constellation with the sky charts located on the project’s website, then submit a report."

            Sounds like fun, so check it out. Orion’s an old friend of mine, so I’m gonna.

                                                                          *****



Prunus mume 'Peggy Clarke'
(ornamental apricot)



            One more cool link for you. The most recent post on the Irish Cathy Fitzgerald’s website, EcoArtNotebook, will introduce you to climate art. Personally, I think the parameters of what is deemed “art” these days are ’way out of line. A friend of a friend once used the phrase “No bad art” in my hearing. That’s patently ridiculous. The world is awash in bad art. I’m sorry, but throwing paint on a baby stroller doesn’t count, nor does slopping tar on Masonite. Nor does writing tiny numbers in and then gluing the little circles produced by paper punches on a board. Nor does dropping a crucifix in a jar of urine. But I loved the picture Cathy posted of a knitted hurricane hat, juxtaposed with a satellite picture of a hurricane.

           

            Ah, but is it Art?

*****



Here’s a correction that applies to information supplied in the popular “Stuffing Stockings” post from December. When I ran low on No-Crack hand cream two weeks ago, I couldn’t find it on Duluth Trading Company’s website. No luck at Vermont Country Store, either. Oh, no! What to do?

           



Iris reticulata



            In desperation—once you’ve tried the stuff, you never want to be without it—I typed “Dumont Company Hand Cream” into Google’s search bar… and found Ms Billie Bennington, a fellow true-believer, who is happy to put some No-Crack in the mail for you from her home in Flat Top, West-by-god-Virginia. Service is astoundingly fast: my online order arrived three days after it entered cyber-space. And, Miss Billie sent a note apologizing for charging too much for shipping and said she’d notified my credit card company.



            When’s the last time a business treated you that good?

*****



Not dead yet!



            Spent a lot of February chasing down and sweeping up tiny caterpillars fleeing the Solanum. The largest was about a centimeter in length, dull green in color with a black area (like the veiny thing you rip out of shrimp) running from its head to its waist… if a caterpillar can be said to have a waist. They had dozens of hair-like legs, reminiscent of pill bugs’. Don’t know what made them jump ship: could it have been the coffee drenches?



            When I moved six of the houseplants to the screened porch on the 19^th, I found a cluster of cream-colored egg cases on the Solanum’s saucer. I gave it a scrub with Clorox, and that was pretty much that for caterpillars.

            In addition to the Solanum, the Cordyline, Hemigraphis, Ledebouria, penta, verbena and dahlia left the house for the porch. We’ve not had any frosts or freezes for the past couple of weeks—so far, so good. The four cyclamen and the sad-looking-but-hanging-in poinsettia are still on the piano; and both papayas and the tapeworm fern moved to the kitchen. I’ve reached the point where I’m really tired of plants, caterpillars and fungus gnats in the house.

My new compost bin

            Out in the garden—where plants belong—things are humming. Tim built a second compost bin, which is up and running.  Seed packets arrived from Renee’s and Baker Creek. On the 20^th, I planted both my 3x7 foot raised beds, filling squares with beets, carrots, peas, onions, cabbage and broccoli. On the 23^rd, three cultivars of potatoes went in. Yesterday, I started 54 3-inch pots of tomatoes, strawberries, sunflowers, hollyhocks and four different annual vines, and have set the three flats around the kitchen to germinate: one of top of the fridge, the other two on the soffit above the cupboards.



My vegetable garden planting chart
(click on the image
to make it readable)



            My track record with seed-starting-by-the-rules is abysmal. This year, I decided it can’t really be as difficult as the “experts” indicate, and cut out all the fussy steps. Used regular potting soil fortified with kelp meal instead of seed-starting mix; sowed only one or two seeds per pot, eliminating pricking out. Didn’t soak, score, or cold-stratify anything. The cotyledons should arrive in seven to ten days. I’ll keep you posted.



Heavenly scented
Edgeworthia chysantha
blossoms



            Spring blooming has begun in earnest in southeastern NC. First crocuses, first daffs, first reticulated iris—check. My ‘Peggy Clarke’ apricot perfumes the back deck with her spicy-scented flowers. And the buds on the paperbush (Edgeworthia chysantha) have broken with their tradition of mildewing before dropping off and opened, their delightful gardenia aroma wafting around the back yard for the first time ever. Pictures are scattered throughout this post.

            The speaking engagements all went well. Power Point slides made keeping Tim on topic a little easier.

            Thanks for dropping by. Hope your February was as pleasant and fun-filled as mine.

                                                                              Kathy

FOOD FOR THOUGHT, PART 2

            Meanwhile, back at the miles of shelving full of plant foods, how do you know if a product is organic? Why, it’ll say so, right on the label. How do you know if using the product constitutes a sustainable practice? That’s a little trickier. As Tim likes to point out, there’s nothing more organic than petroleum: it’s just dead plants aged under great pressure for eons.

Never assume “organic” on the label automatically means “good for you.” In addition to crude oil, poison ivy is also 100% organic. So are cyanide, and strychnine, and curare. In The Truth about Organic Gardening, author Jeff Gillman cautions that rotenone, a botanically derived insecticide (from South American derris root), is extremely toxic to beneficial insects, fish and humans. He believes that it would not be available, ironically, if it were not “organic.”

Espoma's Organic Traditions line

Tim and I espouse Espoma products. They are almost entirely sustainably derived and environmentally neutral, and readily available in our area. For mail-order, I like Gardens Alive! products. They use ’way too many exclamation points, but sell good stuff.

To reiterate, Tim and I feed our soil just before spring kicks in by mixing two cups of kelp meal into every 50-pound bag of Black Kow. The 2727 square feet of planted area on my 55-by-120-foot lot uses about 25 bags of Kow and kelp, or roughly about one 50-pound wheelbarrow load of Kow and kelp per 100 square feet. Tim occasionally topdresses the 2459 square feet of lawn (that shrinks a little every year as the resident plant-fanatic needs more space for her newest treasures) with eight to ten bags of sun-dried, unadulterated Kow.

Sandy soil needs all the nutrient help it can get. At your house, adjust amounts according to your soil-test results.



Length in feet times width in feet
equals square feet



(Don’t know how to figure square footage? Slept through that geometry class in tenth grade, eh? Just measure your beds as if they were all rectangular, and then multiply length by width. For example, the lovely uterus-shaped area in my front yard measures 1044 square feet when rectangle-ated, 36 feet times 29 feet. Ergo, this bed needs roughly ten 50-pound loads of Kow mixture.)

Let’s talk a little bit about everyone’s favorite soil additive, nitrogen. The following gets a bit technical: just read it slowly, going back over the parts that don’t sink right in, and you’ll be fine. We Americans need to get beyond our science-phobia.

The microorganisms in your dirt really matter, precisely because the amount of nitrogen available for plant use depends upon the total biomass of bacteria and fungi in the soil. This is how it works: a good chunk of the energy photosynthesis creates gets expended in the production of chemicals, which ooze out through the roots. These exudates, as they’re called, are sugars that attract and nourish beneficial bacteria and fungi. The microbes consume the exudates, thus fixing (immobilizing) nitrogen and other nutrients in their bodies, becoming in essence tiny, living bags of fertilizer. Enter the fertilizer-spreaders, the protozoa and nematodes. These guys eat the bacteria and fungi to power their own metabolisms. Whatever they don’t use is excreted (or “mineralized”—isn’t that a nice way to describe poop?) in a form plants can use. Without microscopic organisms exuding, eating and excreting, your soil becomes sterile. Most plants really struggle in sterile soil.

In fact, they die.

The nitrogen in protozoa poop comes out as ammonium (NH₄—nitrogen bonded to hydrogen), but may be converted to nitrate (NO₃—nitrogen bonded to oxygen) in the presence of bacteria.

So what? you ask grumpily.

So this. Pay attention: behavior-changing enlightenment follows. Research has demonstrated that, in general, perennials, shrubs and trees prefer their nitrogen to be hydrogenated, as ammonium. The ammonium excreted by protozoa stays in that form in a soil where fungi outnumber bacteria. If bacteria hold the upper hand, as in sandy soils, they oxygenate the nitrogen, converting it to nitrate. Annuals, grasses and vegetables (which are just annuals we eat) like their nitrogen as nitrate.

Read that paragraph again. It’s telling you something really important about your plants’ dining preferences.

Here’s the kicker: the nitrogen in most commercial fertilizers comes in the form of nitrate, favoring bacteria at the expense of the fungi. So while nitrate fertilizers are great annual-and-grasses pleasers, they’re not the first choice of your perennials, shrubs and trees.

Now it’s time for a little question-and-answer period.

Question: How do I know if my soil is full of fungus or brimming with bacteria?

Answer: Depends on the pH. Acidic soils favor fungi; bacteria prefer neutral to alkaline.

Q: I live on the coast. What kind of soil pH am I likely to have?

A: Neutral to alkaline.

Q: So that means my lawn, annual beds and vegetable patch will do okay without amending?

A: Well, I wouldn’t say without any amending. You still need composted materials to add organic material to sandy or swamp-mucky soil. And you should attend to any glaring deficiencies noted on your soil test.

Q: But I have a lot of shrubs and trees around my house, and I’ve been thinking of putting in a cutting garden. Short of moving inland, what environmentally responsible steps can I take to encourage more fungi in my soil?

A: Offer them food they like. Use organic mulches like shredded hardwoods, shredded leaves, or newspaper. The browner, the better. (What’s “brown”? See the “Compost Happens” posts.) Apply supplemental nitrogen only as ammonium—no sense making it easier for those nitrate-loving bacteria. Always study the label on any fertilizer you spread, even the organic ones.

Q: So what you’re really saying is that I want to feed my microbes, not my plants?

A: Bingo.



Thunderstorms bring atmospheric
nitrogen down to earth



If your dirt’s in pretty good shape, with healthy populations of microbes, protozoans and arthropods, it already has sufficient nitrogen in it. Earth’s most plentiful element, nitrogen accounts for 78%-by-volume of our atmosphere. Another significant bit of terrestrial nitrogen comes from lightning and rain-water. (That’s why grass looks so much greener after a thunderstorm.) Certain bacteria, either living free in the soil or colonizing the roots of leguminous plants, convert nitrogen in the atmosphere to a plant-friendly form. The damn stuff is everywhere.

And, yes, Virginia, you can have too much nitrogen. Besides root burning, overdoses cause lanky growth and favor foliage development at the expense of flowers. Wisteria, for instance, will bloom sparsely or not at all if you dose it with nitrogen. You’ll get leaves and shoot growth galore, but no flowers. And frankly, there’s no point in putting up with wisteria if you don’t get those gorgeous, fragrant, spring blooms.



Bulb-Tone has 2.4%
Water Insoluble Nitrogen



If you still feel compelled to apply nitrogen, spread it just before a rain or an irrigation cycle. Nitrogen moves easily into the root zone as long as enough water is present. When buying formulations with high N numbers, check the label for the WIN (water-insoluble nitrogen) percentage. In order to increase nitrogen uptake and decrease loss through volatilization, WIN should be at least half of total nitrogen. In the unlikely event your soil test comes back declaring a lack of nitrogen, use cottonseed meal (6-2-1) to remedy the situation. (Lowenfels and Lewis advise avoiding formulations that have more than ten percent of any of the primary nutrients, eliminating most commercial inorganic formulations with the ironic exception of the yucky 10-10-10.)

There! Now you’ve made your well-thought-out, sustainable decision about what to buy, paid for it and had the nice man load it in the trunk. Now are we done? Not quite yet. The little matter of where you ought to place your plant food needs some discussion, requiring a tiny bit of botanical knowledge.

But that’s for next time. Thanks for dropping by.

                                                                             Kathy

P.S.—For my new Winding River readers, here are some pictures of Lespedeza thunbergii ‘Pink Cascade.’ Nice plant, huh?

FOOD FOR THOUGHT, PART 1

As spring barrels down upon us, today we start a multi-part tutorial on supplemental fertilization. This is a longer-than-usual post, but so worthwhile. Honest.

In an ideal world, plants get everything they need from the air, soil and water around them. In environments where perfectly adapted plants choose their own spots to grow, this is exactly what happens. Once we gardeners start imposing our personalities on a space, however, things change. Managing our landscapes includes removing “unsightly” leaf litter and other plant debris, disrupting the cycling of nutrients and organic matter to the soil. To make matters worse, many soils fall to the left or right of dirt’s bell-curve, in the somewhat-nutrient-deficient zone. No worries; we can just toss some fertilizer around, right?

Well, yes and no. And, from where I stand, mostly no. So first and foremost, get a soil test (kits available from your local Cooperative Extension agent). How you gonna know what to add if you don’t know what’s missing?

In my opinion, fertilizers head the list of most-abused gardening products. The two main problems: 

1)      most people never think about why they fertilize; and 

2)      the combined powers of habit and advertising.

It’s just not as simple as the fertilizer industry wants you to believe. Never assume all plants need identical nutrient casseroles (horticulturally speaking, a nutrient is an elemental substance necessary to the metabolism of a plant, or one that allows it to complete its life cycle). Some plants actively resent supplemental fertilization, and some pests are actually encouraged, or the plant’s natural resistance lessened (scientists aren’t sure which way it works), by the practice.

So why fertilize? Here are five reasons for bothering to amend our soils:

·         to ameliorate visible nutrient deficiencies;

·         to eliminate deficiencies that may not be visible but have been detected by soil tests;

·         to maximize plant growth, flower and/or fruit production; 

·         to improve overall plant health; and

·         to reduce potential disease and pest problems.



Who wouldn't buy Miracle-Gro
on this guy's say-so?



           Where do habit and advertising fit in? Let’s assume, for argument’s sake, that you subscribe to the soil amendment mindset picked up from your parents’ behavior and from TV commercials featuring genial James Whitmore. Most of us base our fertilizing behavior on these types of things. To overcome your early conditioning, ponder this list of pertinent questions as you stand, soil-test results in hand, before the miles of shelf-space dedicated to plant food at your neighborhood home-improvement store.

• What does that N-P-K number mean?
• What’s the difference between complete, balanced, and single-element formulas?
•  Should I choose a timed-release or an quick-release product? And what does it matter?
•  How about those tree spikes? And my old favorite, Miracle-Gro?
•   Do I want organic stuff or are inorganic formulations just as good?
•  Is there anything else I need to consider or should I just take my headache home for a nice nap?       
                

      To demystify the topic of topical fertilization, I’m going to run through a brief, ridiculously basic overview of plant chemistry. (Don’t stop reading: “brief and basic” represents the sum-total of my knowledge on the subject. I promise it will be practically painless.)

      For optimum health, growth, reproduction, and resistance to pests and diseases, plants require the presence of 16 essential elements.

1.      three structural elements: carbon (C), hydrogen (H) and oxygen (O), obtained by the plant from air and water;

2.       three primary elements: nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K)—to vastly oversimplify, nitrogen produces lush, green foliage; phosphorus encourages blooming; and potassium aids in building strong healthy roots;

3.       three secondary elements: magnesium (Mg), calcium (Ca) and sulfur (S); and

4.      seven trace elements: iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), copper (Cu), zinc (Zn), boron (B), molybdenum (Mo) and chlorine (Cl).

(There are also seven important-but-nonessential trace elements: sodium, cobalt, vanadium, nickel, selenium, aluminum and silicon, but they come under the rubric of too much information.)

Structural, primary and secondary elements are called macronutrients, because plants need relatively larger quantities of them. Trace elements, only needed in tiny amounts, are micronutrients.

Plants take in primary, secondary and trace elements from the soil. Just like in humans, a serious lack of any of these elements results in one or more deficiencies, adversely affecting health and appearance.



Your basic commercial
fertilizer 



            Commercial fertilizers emphasize the three primary elements, and express them as an N-P-K number, those three digits connected by hyphens emblazoned on most plant-food packages. This number, known as the “guaranteed analysis,” refers to the percentage by weight of each element per bag of mixture.

            For example, a 40-pound bag of 10-10-10 works out to ten percent (four pounds) of N (nitrogen), ten percent (four pounds) of P (phosphorus), ten percent (four pounds) of K (potassium), and 70 percent (28 pounds) of inert ingredients, in this particular case, 28 pounds of itty-bitty rocks. In the interest of thoroughness, 50 to 60% of the active ingredients (6 to 7.2 pounds out of 12) are volatile, meaning they turn gaseous and dissipate upon contact with soil and water. You also lose some of those Ns, Ps and Ks to run-off. And we’ve already covered how much of that 40-pound bag is rocks. Think before you buy.

Read labels closely to determine if what you’re buying is complete, i.e., containing the secondary macronutrients and trace minerals in addition to N, P and K. To up the confusion ante a little further, complete is different from balanced. Balanced means the fertilizer has some amount of each of the primary nutrients, although not necessarily any of the secondary or trace elements.


Osmocote's nine-month
balanced formula's
guaranteed analysis

Huh? you say.

Osmocote, with an N-P-K of 19-6-12, is a balanced blend, but it isn’t complete. Why not? Because it doesn’t contain any magnesium, calcium, sulfur, or the trace guys. Rose-Tone, with an N-P-K of 6-6-4, is both balanced and complete. Confused? See the guaranteed analysis panels at left. 

And then there are single-element formulations, such as blood meal (12-0-0), superphosphate (0-45-0) and greensand (0-0-.1). Some secondary and trace nutrients, such as garden lime and Ironite, are sold as single-element formulations too. These particular soil additives have N-P-Ks of 0-0-0 because there aren’t any primary elements in the bag. In our example, lime provides the secondary element calcium and Ironite (not surprisingly) gives you the trace element iron.



Rose-Tone's
complete formula
guaranteed analysis
(click on the picture
to make it larger)



Still with me?

Okay. You’ve decoded your soil test and written down what the state says will be most beneficial for your shrubbery/flower beds/vegetable garden/lawn. (By the way, don’t waste a lot of time looking for the exact N-P-Ks the state recommends, because many of them don’t exist commercially. Soil tests are primarily a tool for farmers, who custom-blend their chemicals.) The next big thing to think about is whether you should buy a quick-release or timed-release product. Regular ol’ 10-10-10, for instance, is quick-release, meaning that the Ns, Ps and Ks get set loose all at once in the presence of water and/or high temperatures. Timed-release blends such as Osmocote keep their Ns, Ps and Ks in little sacs made of inert material that require the nutrients to osmose out over time, once the soil temperature reaches 70˚F.

 What does it matter, fast or slow? When it comes to synthetic fertilizers, speedy delivery—damningly called nutrient dumping—increases the likelihood of your plants' foliage and/or root system suffering fertilizer-burn. Any time you mess with roots, you’re asking for trouble. Just like people, plants can process only so many nutrients at a time: unlike us, they can’t vomit or take Alka-Seltzer to relieve the effects of over-indulgence. Although more expensive by the pound (although not necessarily by available nutrients), timed-release blends are much better for the health of your plants.



Just say no to tree spikes



I don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings here, but please avoid tree fertilizing spikes. Aside from the fact that they go all slimy and nasty after a short time in the ground, research indicates that supplementally feeding established trees is probably not just unnecessary but deleterious. Renowned arborist, former chief scientist for the U.S. Forest Service, and iconic author of many books on tree biology and care, Alex Shigo tells us that trees shut down all their other life systems, like photosynthesis and defense mechanisms, in order to convert inorganic fertilizers into a form they can use. Beyond a small of shot Plant- or Holly-Tone at planting, Tim and I only use poop mixture around trees. (What's poop mixture? See February 8th's "Spring Prep" post.)

As for Miracle-Gro and other water-soluble products, well, they don’t hurt anything (if you don’t count compromising the water table). The problem lies in how water goes through your soil. In sand, water drains away rapidly, so plants can only snatch at nutrients as they flow by on their way to the ocean. If your petunias and hollies are looking the other way at the time, they’re out of luck. In swamp-muck and other heavy soils, nutrient retention is higher, but I’d discourage liquid fertilizing until you’ve improved the soil to where it drains more freely, to decrease the likelihood of your darlings drowning. Water-soluble plant foods are fine for containerized plants, however; pots leach out water and nutrients quickly, so a shot every other week or so would be appreciated by their occupants. Besides, the “soil” in most containers is actually soil-less (read: “nothing alive in it”) anyway. As always, read and follow label directions.

That’s all I have to say about inorganic—a.k.a. “chemical” or “synthetic”—plant foods. (Literalists point out that everything is, at base, chemical. They’re right, of course, but they should lighten up.) Next time I’ll reveal what I really think about fertilizing vis-à-vis increasing sustainability in our gardens, and, by extension, on our planet.

Thanks for dropping by. Stay tuned.

                                                                      Kathy