Layered bulb-planting ensures a lively springtime display.
Daffodil bulbs from half a dozen different mail order companies landed on my back porch, followed by a couple of 50-bulb tulip collections. The garden center had some new Asiatic and Oriental lilies I couldn’t pass up. And somewhere in my travels, I’d purchased a hundred or so muscari, scilla, chionodoxa, and allium bulbs. It was easy to envision the beauty of my spring garden as I thumbed through catalogs and perused the garden center bins, but getting all those bulbs into the ground takes some serious work.
My grandmother frequently chided me for “biting off more than you can chew,” especially in the garden. I can just see her now, chuckling and shaking her head at my current project.
As a regular glutton for punishment, I’ve learned some timesaving shortcuts and efficiencies in the garden, though. One of them is the trench method for planting bulbs. I find it easier to dig one big hole that’s wide enough to accommodate a group of bulbs instead of digging individual holes. A 50-bulb tulip collection, for example, needs a 10-square-foot hole, 6 to 8 inches deep. (For more on this technique, read the post Go BIG With Bulbs)
The best and most efficient part of trench planting is that it allows for bulb layering. After I set all the tulips or daffodils in the bottom of the trench, I cover them with a couple inches of soil and then plant some smaller bulbs in the same hole. Viola! Dig once and plant twice.
Layering is great for combining bulbs with similar bloom times to get a beautiful and easy display. Some of my favorite combos include:
Digging one hole and planting two or more bulbs that bloom in different seasons is another way to use time and space efficiently. I think of this method as “fireworks planting”: just as one bloom is finishing, another is coming up to take its place. Consider a few of these combinations:
The trick to successful bulb layering is to plant each type at the correct depth. Put the largest bulbs at the bottom and add enough soil for the next smaller bulb, and so forth. When I plant bulbs of the same size together, such as daffodils and lilies, I put them at the same depth, but may use different spacing. Daffodils, for example, are planted 6 inches apart, while Oriental lilies are spaced 10-12 inches apart.
I may be a glutton for punishment, according to Gramma, but my spring garden is a feast for the eyes!
-Ann Whitman,
Horticulturist
Gardener's Supply
It’s tempting to think of these pests as alien invaders, but they’re actually natives.
Uncovered fruit bowls attract the swarm. |
Fruit flies win the “Most Annoying Pest” contest hands down. They live in the kitchen, crawling around and breeding on food, and then fly into hard-to-swat, in-your-face swarms when disturbed. If that behavior isn’t a category winner, I don’t want to see the competition!
Fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster) invasions usually coincide with the ripening of summer fruit. Nothing draws a crowd of fruit flies like a bowl of peaches or tomatoes! So where exactly did they come from? Although it’s tempting to think of these pests as alien invaders that hitchhiked from a distant land, it turns out they’re natives. They usually live outdoors, though, and only come inside when they detect a potential breeding ground.
Fruit fly adults only live for a few days, so their need to breed is intense. Females lay up to 500 eggs on any fermenting food source, and that includes everything from ripe bananas to garbage disposal slime. Yuck! The presence of fruit flies is often the first tip that you’ve got a forgotten potato in the cupboard or that your toddler spilled apple juice under the table.
Female fruit flies can lay as many as 500 eggs in fermenting fruit and garbage. |
Despite the annoyance factor, fruit flies perform an important public service. Their larvae consume decaying matter that might otherwise turn into a source of fungal or bacterial infection or attract even more obnoxious pests, like mice or rats. Females lay their eggs just under the surface of decaying fruit and other foods. After hatching, the grubs spend three or four days eating before they mature into breeding adults, and the cycle begins again. Their whole life cycle occurs in about eight days.
Getting fruit flies out of the kitchen takes a bit of persistence, but luckily it isn’t hard and doesn’t require any pesticides. The first step is to eliminate or contain their food sources. Refrigerate or cover ripening fruit, especially bananas, peaches, and tomatoes. Cover your kitchen compost. Search the cupboard for potatoes and onions that have exceeded their expiration date. Mop up spills under the fridge and rinse out discarded bottles and cans, especially beer and juice containers. Clean out the garbage disposal and follow your nose or fly swarms to other infestation sites.
Step two is to set up a fruit fly trap. These consist of an attractant, such as cider vinegar, inside a bottle or container from which the flies can’t escape. A cone of paper set above a bit of vinegar in a glass or bottle works for some. I prefer the more aesthetically pleasing fruit fly trap from Gardener’s Supply. To prevent future infestations, I keep a trap on my kitchen counter all year around.
-Ann Whitman
Horticulturist, Gardener's Supply
It’s easy to see how this idea of overwintering tender plants indoors can quickly get out of hand.
It’s easy to see how this idea of overwintering tender plants indoors can quickly get out of hand. The first year it was one bamboo and two cannas. Now those original plants have multiplied and I’ve also become attached to a few other tender beauties.
Last week we had a couple nights in the mid-20s and it was definitely time to make the big transition into the basement. The list of those headed indoors had expanded to include six bamboos, one cordyline, 20 cannas, eight dahlias, 12 pots of tender succulents and a friend’s mandevilla. If we wanted to still be able to use the rowing machine (you never know when the physical fitness urge might hit!), it was clear that we needed to use our space more efficiently.
The photo at right shows the solution. My ever-willing and ingenious partner built this sturdy table out of scrap wood. I specified 28” high so the potted plants would have enough headroom to clear the ceiling. Below, there’s plenty of room for the cannas and dahlias, which are in black plastic bags on the concrete floor.
The plastic shelf in front of the window came from an old greenhouse. It’s suspended by six heavy-duty wires attached to screw eyes in the rafters. The pots and troughs of echeverias, agaves and sedums are on watertight trays to make watering easier.
From now until spring, I’ll need to water the succulents and potted plants about once a month. The idea is to keep the soil barely moist, and because the temperature in the basement stays down around 50 degrees, they don’t require much water.
The cannas and dahlias will get checked twice during the winter to ensure the tubers are not drying out too much. A misting of water is all they might need. More importantly, I’ll be watching to make sure they’re not too moist, because rotting is usually more of a problem than drying out. The plastic bags encircle the stems loosely, so by opening the bags more or gathering them more tightly, it’s pretty easy to control moisture loss.
I still have to make room for a phormium, a dwarf chamaecyparis and a libertia, which I am keeping on the front porch for a couple more weeks. That’s it though. No more. Really.
For more on this topic, read the post Easy Overwintering.
-Kathy LaLiberte
Director of Gardening, Gardener's Supply
Steam juicer makes grape harvest fast, simple and delicious.
Some of this year's harvest, ready for juicing |
Long ago, I used to grow vegetables, but I don't anymore. The problem: guilt. I felt bad for not using and preserving the overwhelming bounty of August. I just couldn't keep up.
So, there are no edibles in our small, urban yard—except for a concord grape vine. I planted the vine to cover an arbor I'd built. I had little interest in the fruit. In a valiant effort, I tried making grape jelly one year, thinking it would make great holiday gifts. It was a big mess. Plus, I cooked the juice too long, and it caramelized, giving the jelly an unpleasant flavor. I still have three dozen jars of the stuff in the basement, right beside a case of cactus-paddle salsa, another one of my failed adventures in preserving.
The vine, though, has always been a success, covering the arbor beautifully. I'd been throwing the fruit in the compost pile, until my friend Alison found out. She scolded me and made me promise to save the fruit.
I handed the next year's harvest over to Alison, and she made a gallon or so of beautiful, purple juice. Making the juice is easy. You just cook the grape clusters—stems and all—with a little water. Then, strain the whole mess to get the juice. The easiest technique, though, is to use a contraption called a steam juicer. It's an ingeniously simple device that extracts plenty of juice from a mess of grapes. You can order one online.
You can, of course, preserve the juice in jars, but we keep it simple: We add sugar to taste, then freeze the juice in ice cube trays. The frozen cubes get transferred to freezer bags. Throughout the year, the cubes can be used added to spritzers, smoothies and, of course, cocktails.
We got so much delicious juice this year that we were inspired to create this cocktail:
The Grape |
The Grape
Makes two cocktails
5 oz. Bourbon
1 oz. fresh lime juice (NO bottled lime juice or anything that comes from a plastic lime)
1 oz. Cointreau
2 oz. grape juice
Mix all the ingredients in a shaker filled with ice. Shake and pour into chilled cocktail glasses.
-David Grist
Online Content Coordinator, Gardener's Supply
If you're thinking about adding or replacing any trees and shrubs in your yard, Fall is a great time to do it.
If you're thinking about adding or replacing any trees and shrubs in your yard, Fall is a great time to do it. Most local garden centers are offering deep discounts on plants they’d rather sell than over-winter.
Here are a couple things to keep in mind when you're shopping.
Most deciduous trees and shrubs have stopped growing for the season and are shutting down for their winter rest. They’ll be just as happy to sleep at your house as at the nursery, but the sooner you get them nestled into the ground, the better. As at other times of the year, it’s important to water deeply after planting. You'll want to keep the root zone moist until the ground freezes. It’s also a good idea to mulch the planting area with a thick layer of shredded bark or straw to help insulate the roots and retain moisture. Be sure to keep the mulch back at least 2 or 3 inches away from the base of plant.
If you were shopping at our nursery here in Vermont, you could pick up this beautiful Cotinus for just $20.
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Evergreen shrubs and trees also enter a period of slumber, but since they keep their “leaves”, they continue transpiring all winter long. This means they'll need to absorb water through their roots to replace whatever moisture is lost from the foliage. For this reason, fall-planted evergreens need a little extra attention. Keep the soil moist until the ground freezes and make sure to apply 4 to 6 inches of mulch around the root zone. If the ground doesn’t freeze, you’ll need to continue watering the root zone to keep the soil moist. In cold areas, it’s wise to wrap evergreen trees and shrubs with burlap for the first winter. This will dramatically reduce moisture loss through the foliage and minimize the stress of transplanting.
Originally priced at $139, this Austrian pine is now just $70. |
Once you’ve selected your bargains, examine the plants closely to make sure there aren’t wounds in the bark or damaged branches. Gently massage each pot and ease out the root ball to check the health of the roots. They should fill the pot evenly and should not encircle the root ball. Light-colored roots typically indicate good health, though this isn’t a hard and fast rule as some roots are just naturally dark in color.
So make a visit to your local garden center this weekend. That plant you couldn't justify purchasing last spring may still be there—at half the price!
To refresh your memory about how to properly plant a tree or shrub, check out this video called Planting Ornamentals.
-Kathy LaLiberte
Director of Gardening, Gardener's Supply
If roots are growing out of the base of the pot, use scissors to cut away the pot rather than trying to pull out the plant. |
Gently remove the plant from the pot to examine the roots. The roots of this Clethra are healthy and vigorous. |
I tried it for the first time last fall, and it's easy as can be.
Garlic bulbs contain four to 12 cloves around a central stalk. When planted in the fall, each clove will form a new bulb that's ready to harvest next summer. |
This old dog learned a new trick! And it was so embarrassingly easy I don’t know why I didn’t try it decades ago. After more than 30 years of gardening, I finally planted garlic for the first time last fall.
The obstacle to growing garlic, as it turns out, was my perception of the gardening calendar. Like most northern-tier gardeners, I think of the vegetable-gardening season as running from roughly April to October. When the hard frosts of autumn knock down the last of the squash and pumpkin vines, I close the book on another season.
The time to plant this pungent bulb is just when the rest of the vegetable garden is hitting the compost pile; growing garlic required me to think outside the seasonal box. Aha! My epiphany came when I finally connected sowing garlic with planting daffodils and tulips and ornamental alliums.
The garden center where I bought my fall bulbs offered a dozen or so kinds of garlic. The selection seemed daunting! I felt like a novice gardener who goes looking for yellow daffodils, and suddenly discovers that they come in a baffling array of shapes, sizes, colors, and bloom times. How to choose?
In early summer, hardneck garlic varieties produce loopy-looking flower stalks. These should be cut off before they uncurl. The tender stalks can be used in stir-fries or sautéed with vegetables. |
Garlic falls into two broad categories: soft-neck and hard-neck. “neck” refers to the presence or absence of a flower stalk. Soft-neck varieties do not produce a stalk; hard-neck varieties do. Most of the grocery-store garlic is of the soft-neck persuasion because these varieties have a long storage life and grow especially well in California.
More hard-neck varieties thrive in cold climates, however, and they offer a range of sharp, rich flavors. In midsummer, hard-neck garlic plants send up curved flower scapes that resemble highway interchanges. The stalks are an added bonus because they’re delicious when chopped and added to sautéed or stir-fried vegetables and meat.
Hard-neck garlic is divided into numerous varieties, each of which has many named selections. The varieties include Rocambole, Continental, Purple Stripe, Asiatic, Porcelain, and others with differing color, clove size and count, days to harvest. I chose two selections of Porcelain called Georgian Fire and Georgian Crystal, plus Russian Red Rocambole for my first foray into garlic growing.
To make the planting-a-vegetable-in-autumn transition easier for my brain to accept, I tucked my first garlic cloves into a fertile flowerbed between widely spaced clumps of daylilies and coneflowers last fall. This spring, the wide grassy garlic foliage blended well with its leafy perennial neighbors.
The garlic was ready to harvest by midsummer, just as the flowering perennials began to jostle it for space. As my spading fork turned up the papery bulbs full of fat, juicy cloves, I was hooked. From my modest half-pound investment in seed garlic, I harvested about 3 pounds of bulbs. That’s enough garlic for frying, baking and turning into soups and sauce well into winter.
Garlic has earned its own space in the vegetable garden this fall. I splurged on a full pound of seed garlic bulbs this time, and I’m already dreaming of roasted garlic and olive oil on sourdough bread. Mmmm.
For more information how to grow garlic and where to buy seed garlic, click the links below:
-Ann Whitman
Horticulturist, Gardener's Supply
Save treasured tropicals for next season's garden. They'll be bigger and better!
Panache canna |
I used to save quite a few plants through the winter. I had dreams of plants that would be more grand and beautiful with each passing year. Well, overwintering isn't always as easy as it looks. In some cases, there are pests to contend with. My Meyer lemon tree was constantly plagued by scale insects. Bulbs and tubers can be tricky, especially if they are finicky about moisture levels.
These days, I save fewer plants, choosing the ones that can wait out the winter with little help from me. Here are my winners:
The Abyssinian banana (Ensete ventricosum 'Maurelii') is happy to spend the winter in our musty basement. |
Cannas: I have a couple of special ones that I save every year. I'm especially fond of a variety called Panache, which has peachy, orchid-like flowers. Overwintering is super-simple. Once the foliage has been blackened by a few frosts, I cut the stems to about six inches and dig the clumps, dumping the whole thing—soil and all—into a large nursery pot. I move the pot into my cool basement, where the clump sits in the dark for the winter. I water the pot a few times during the winter, keeping it barely moist. In March, I repot divisions from the original the clump.
Bananas: These are easy, too. They get the same treatment as the cannas. The exception is that I leave the stems (or trunks) pretty long, just cutting away the frost-killed leaves.
Potted Hydrangea macrophylla and H. serrata in the basement. |
Hydrangeas: In general, the mophead and lacecap varieties are not hardy up here in zone 5. The plants may survive, but the buds get killed off. So, long before the days of Endless Summer, the reliable blue hydrangea for the north, I collected a half-dozen Hydrangea macrophylla and H. serrata. Varieties include Blue Billow, Sister Theresa, Pink Beauty and Nikko Blue. I grow them in large, self-watering pots and move them to the dark basement for the winter. The pots are heavy, but the beautiful blooms make it worth the effort.
A few years ago, I added a crape myrtle to the collection. It has grown well, and the bark started exfoliating this year. The fall color is marvelous. Still, it's never bloomed.
The lotus in bloom |
Lotus: Even if it only blooms once a summer, this flower is a stunner. The foliage is striking, too. The tuber and roots are planted in a plastic tub that sits in a glazed ceramic pot. Once the water starts freezing in the fall, I lift the tub and move it to the basement. There it remains until spring. As long as the soil is covered with a couple inches of water, the plant is fine.
Last winter, I overwintered a couple new tender varieties: pitcher plant (Sarracenia) and Mystic Blue Spires salvia (Salvia 'Mystic Blue Spires'). Both came through fine. This year, I'm going to attempt overwintering some kalanchoe that have spent the summer in my rock garden.
-David Grist
Online Content Coordinator, Gardener's Supply
Compost is queen in organic gardening, but it’s not the only soil-improvement tool in the kit.
Leafy greens contain lots of potassium, a major nutrient found in greensand. |
Compost is queen in organic gardening, but it’s not the only soil- improvement tool in the kit. Healthy soil includes plenty of minerals and micronutrients, as well as organic matter. That’s where Greensand comes in.
Greensand is a rich source of marine potash, silica, iron oxide, magnesia, lime, phosphoric acid, and 22 other trace minerals because it’s mined from the deposits of ancient shallow seabeds. Technically known as glauconite, this blue-green mineral is found throughout the world. It was an important soil conditioner and source of potassium fertilizer for more than 100 years prior to the advent of commercially prepared, variable-nutrient formulas. Organic farmers and gardeners have never given up on greensand, however.
Potash, the potassium or K in the N-P-K fertilizer ratio, is crucial for overall plant health. It increases disease- and pest-resistance, improves winter hardiness, and helps plants use water more efficiently. Plants use a lot of potassium, and it’s second only to nitrogen as a major nutrient found in plant tissues. Potassium deficiency symptoms include yellow to brown leaf margins and stunted growth.
Potassium moves readily in the soil and plants use quite a bit of it, so it needs replenishing regularly. Greensand releases its potassium gradually as soil organisms do their magic, ensuring a continuous supply of this essential nutrient. It’s an especially valuable additive in nutrient-poor sandy soil and in high-rainfall climates. Greensand also helps lighten heavy clay soils.
For more in-depth information about the role of potassium in plants, read Potassium and Its Role in Crop Growth.
For an entertaining description of how one Texas gardener used Greensand to improve his yellow lawn, visit his blog.
-Ann Whitman
Horticulturist, Gardener's Supply
In the north, growing bananas isn't about the fruit, we do it for the huge leaves.
My Abyssinian banana (Ensete maurelii) gets bigger every year. |
When it comes to getting that tropical look in a northern garden, there's nothing like banana trees. They grow fast and tall. And because it's fairly easy to bring them through the winter, you can get bigger and bigger plants each year. Just don't expect any fruit—they need 18 months of warm weather for that. For me, the huge leaves are enough.
When I first started with bananas, I grew them in containers. But now, I put most of them right in the ground and dig them up in the fall, right after hard frost. Although I don't have data to back this up, it seems like the garden-planted trees grow faster and taller. Plus, it's pretty impressive when visitors see the bananas growing right up out of the ground with a hefty trunk that's 6 to 8 inches across.Yeah, I grew that.
One year, I tried overwintering a banana in the ground here in Vermont. A crazy idea, but I wanted to give it a shot. There's a plant called a Japanese fiber banana (Musa basjoo) that's especially hardy, and folks in warmer parts of New England carry them over by cutting them back and protecting the stumps with insulating mulch. Of course, mine was entirely dead come spring. What was I thinking?
Three years ago, this was one of those banana plants offered in 6-inch pots. Now, planted right in the ground, it's pushing 8 feet. |
Bananas are fairly easy to get from mail-order purveyors, such as Plant Delights Nursery, but you can find them at garden centers, too. In the spring, larger specimens are available. What's more, you can find banana plants all year around in greenhouses, often sold in 6-inch pots. Even these small plants will get big if grown outdoors. In a couple years, you can have a decent-sized tree that reaches several feet. It's important to note that you won't get giant plants if you don't fertilize. During the growing season, feed them regularly (every week) with a water-soluble fertilizer, such as Plant Health Care. For more information on fertilizing, read Don't Forget to Feed Your Plants
At this time of year, you might even find banana plants on sale as the greenhouses are cleared out for poinsettias. Here are some ornamental bananas to consider:
- Japanese fiber banana (Musa basjoo): Gracefully arching green leaves that can grow to 6 feet. Eventually grows into a tree-like form.
- Sikkim banana (Musa sikkimensis): Looks like a typical banana, but the undersides of the leaves are tinted red.
- Red Abyssinian banana (Ensete maurelii): My favorite, but it's not a tree-form. The huge, reddish leaves come from a short, stocky section of trunk.
Overwintering is easy, as long as you have a place to store the plants while they're dormant. Ideally, they are stored in a place that remains about 35 to 45 degrees F. through the winter. No freezing allowed. The dormant plants will not need light, just occassional watering—about once a month. If you have enough space, you can overwinter a banana like a houseplant. Just remember that it will need plenty of sun and watch out for insect infestations. I'll write more on overwintering in a future post.
-David Grist
Online Content Coordinator, Gardener's Supply
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