SUNSHINE!!

Yeeeaaayyy the sun's out!  It's not 40 degrees yet, but it's not windy and the sun's warm, so great day to get out there.  You notice that I didn't say get out in the garden?  This is not a good time to step into your gardens because you don't know where everything is yet, and you compress the soil too much.  So just get your small folding rake and gently clean out the beds of debris.
This is also a great time to prune your roses and shrubs that don't bloom in spring. My next note will be about tools.

New Hellebores

Hellebores, or Lenten Rose or Christmas Rose.  There are two species that grow here really well, and their common names reflect when they bloom.  Well, here in Rochester, they start to bloom in late winter as soon as the snow melts.  Their foliage is evergreen until spring when they begin to bloom, then I usually trim off the brown leaves.  This photo is of a new cultivar I just found.  What a gorgeous flower!!

SPRING BIRDS

Just a thought.......as I was looking through my bird guide.......this should be a very good year to see the warblers as they come through.  They are usually up in the tree tops, and it's hard to see them, but this year the trees are going to leaf out later.  Warblers are some of the prettiest birds we see around here.

Well it was still a bit too cold to do any serious planting, but I was able to put a few pansies in the pot and I used some yellow-twigged dogwood branches to add a little more color.  It at least says spring better than evergreen branches.

Calling out Spring!!

If you are in the upstate New York area, and you're anything like me, you have some serious cabin fever raging.  Here's my cure, and BTW I find that I do this every year, just at slightly different times because of weather.  I'm going to go to my favorite local greenhouse and buy me some pansies.  They take the frost without too much trouble. Rochester is going to have about another week or 10 days of frosty nights. I'm not saying they won't lose their flowers that are fully out from the greenhouse, but they won't die, and they will continue to flower from the buds that are formed, and will grow new ones.  In many cases they will survive and come back next year, especially if you plant them in a partly shaded, well-drained moist area (morning sun).  This picture is a client's porch pot that I decorated for winter.  I'm going tomorrow to redo it for spring.  I'll post the after pic.  I put pansies all over her gardens where she can see them from her favorite window.  It's what we Irish like to call 'a lift of the heart'!

Buying Your Christmas Tree

OK, here we go, it's that time of year, and I just have to put my two cents in on this.  We used to sell Christmas trees, and it was quite the education.  So here are my Christmas tree tips:
1) If you are going to cut your own tree, be sure it is above 34 degrees.  (the air temp, not the tree)  This will insure that the sap is up in the tree and it will hold its needles much longer. Cutting your own on a really cold day won't get you a longer lasting tree than the ones in the stores that were cut in October or November!  How long ago the trees were cut is not nearly as important as what temperature it was on the day it was done, so don't vex over it Dad!
2) NEVER tie your tree to the roof of your car to transport it home unless it is completely wrapped in plastic or a tarp of some kind.  I know, I know, it's so romantic.......the air blowing over the tree going home will suck ALL of the life out of the tree and it will drop  needles like crazy.  So stuff it in the car or trunk if you can.
3) Always fresh cut the trunk of the tree before putting it in the stand with water in it.  A cut trunk will seal over in about two hours, so if you can't get it in the stand before then, stick it in a bucket of water, and let it wait like that until you are ready.  The fresh cut can just be a half inch off, so you're not sacrificing height. Then do not let the trunk get dry in the house.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!  HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!  HAPPY TREES!!

Fall Clean Up

Just getting back into this blog thing.  Now that it's Fall, well late Fall really, there are some really important tips for perennial gardeners.  When I teach classes in Spring, I'm always saying "well actually these are things that should be done in the Fall", so here it is:
1) Always cut down your perennials and remove all debris, including leaves and stems.  If you had roses with black spot, or phlox with powdery mildew, or any sort of disease or insect problem, the diseases in particular will carry-over in the soil, and start up again next season.
2) Remove all tree leaves from the garden.........I know.......you feel like it insulates the perennials from the cold.  Truth is, they don't need the leaves for protection.  The snow cover insulates, and keeps the soil at 32 degrees.  Even if there's no snow, they are better off without the leaves, because they can create disease and insect problems for the plants.  If you have Maple trees with the black spotting on their leaves, you for sure want to remove them completely from the garden and the yard because this disease carries over.
3) Be sure that your garden is well watered and moist before it finally freezes.  This usually doesn't happen in Rochester until late December, but I've seen winters that have had dry spells and the soil was cracked in the garden.  This is one of the biggest causes of plant failures in winter.....freezing when they are DRY!

STEP 2

Step 2-  Since I'm still talking about weeds, thought I'd connect it to the 5-step program.  If you have clay soil and you're living in the Rochester NY area,  your gardens are very dry right now.  So first, and foremost......let's all wish for rain this weekend.  I know, I know, you're saying hey, it's the weekend, and we want nice weather.  OK fine, but you are going to have to water your gardens.  I have a couple of properties where I'm actually putting off weeding because of the dry soil. 
So let's say your soil is just right (not dry,not wet) then it's time to weed, and we want to cut the weeds at the soil level, or just below the soil with a sharp digging tool, the perennial spade is perfect, and don't try to get the whole root out.  This is not true for things that have stolen-type roots that travel horizontally underground.  These weeds must be dug out: things like clovers, horsetail, lily-of-the-valley, houttuynia.
4/21/12  -OK got my wish.  It's been raining all day.  Woo Hoo!!  So now we can weed in 24-48 hours when the soil isn't soggy wet.  Another tool that's really good for this job, is the diamond hoe.  It's long-handled, and very sharp.  You can cut the weeds while standing up and very little back strain.  Then pick up the weeds very carefully, shake very little, disturb the soil as little as possible, and put the weeds in a bucket or on a tarp that can be dumped. 

weeds galore!

I'm still weeding, getting ready to put down pre-emergent.  That's the stuff that prevents weed seeds (or any seeds really) from germinating.  The trick is that you cannot disturb the soil surface after applying it.  So get everything weeded first. 
The other thing I need to say is.........water........OMG it is so dry in my garden.  So I'm hoping that we get rain this week.  It's a tinderbox out there.
How are your perennials looking?  There are still things not up yet, so be careful stepping in those beds.

5-Step program

I've been teaching my 5-Step Program to maintenance free gardening for over 20 years now. Now that I'm doing a great deal of maintenance contracts and property management, I realize what good information this is, and how well it works when you really do it as I say. So I'm going to go into some detail on these steps, as now is the time of year to start doing them.
STEP 1 - Cleaning the garden. Today I just want to say that it is way too early to step into your garden. I know, I know, the weather is calling you out there. But here's the deal.....you can do some serious damage to the roots and crowns of your perennials by walking around in your garden too early. The soil is probably very wet and squishy, and you will compress the area around the plants, or sometimes even walk on the plants that aren't visible yet. So you can start by gently raking out leaves and debris while standing on the perimeter. Cut down old plant stems that you can reach.
I'm going to go do this in my own garden today. More tomorrow.

Spring Apology

It's almost Spring, and I'm thinking two things as I'm writing this. One, some of you will not notice that there is an entire year since my last posting. Two, that I'm such a techno-challenged person, I couldn't even find my blog after I started it. Then last Spring some people said to me, "when are you going to write more in your blog?" So I guess if you all can find it, that's really all that matters, so here goes.
I was last writing about the nursery catalog industry, and how you should beware of some mailorder plant businesses. Now, the genetic experimentation on plants is getting to be a stunningly frightening practice. So, to say that plants are not always hardy or hardened off before they sell them, is a minor detail compared to the plants that are being hybridized by cell propagation. My only hope is that the old reliable varieties of perennials don't disappear like endangered species. Maybe I will post a list of some of my favorite varieties of plants, and you all can hunt them down, and we can create a source list and keep these plants in our gardens. You game?

Here's a perfect example of what I'm talking about with the catalogs. I'm looking at a catalog that lists Arisaema (Jack-in-the-Pulpit). They offer six species (types)and list zones 5-9 in the general description, but they don't tell you which ones are which. Of the six Jacks offered, FOUR do not grow in our Zone 5-6 here in Rochester. Some of these plants are $25 each, so it would be a very expensive mistake to plant them and expect them to winter over.
STEP TWO in the winter-blahs-recovery-program-for-plant-freaks is to admit that you have an addiction to plants, tear out the pages of the catalog with the plants pictured that you want, and put them in a file marked "wish list", and write me a note about them, and why you must have them. I'll talk you through it.
My next posting will be about the Coneflower (Echinacea) craze. Anybody out there got some experiences with the new Coneflowers, let me know. Do your orange Coneflowers come back orange??

This is the time of year when a lot of gardeners feel as though they should be joining a "twelve step program" and (with all due respect to people with real addictions) it feels serious to us. Because of the nature of my business, I'm always looking at gardens and pictures of gardens, with the one exception of December when I'm decorating my customer's homes in and out for the holidays, so I have a bit of relief from the winter blahs.
My thoughts are that maybe instead of teaching classes, I could be blogging, and perhaps there are some gardeners out there who would be interested who can't come to classes and such, but would like to learn some good garden stuff. It's a great way to distract us from the Feb. blahs, and we start the Spring armed with knowledge.
STEP ONE- Before it's too late, I'd like to warn you about plant catalogs. I have not found one that ships a really viable plant. Years ago White Flower Farm was the best perennial source in the country, but they have caved to the pressures of the market, are no longer producing much themselves. Also, the pictures are usually doctored or, as they say now, photo shopped. If you live in the Northeast, I can tell you if a plant will grow here and when it flowers, and what the real color is. If I don't know the plant, it's probably not a perennial.
My plan is to publish a list of sources for perennials with their current offerings, and I will give recommendations for where to shop for the best quality and price.
What is your dream plant for 2010? What catalogs are luring you with their seductive pictures and claims?