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Asian (L) and American (R) Persimmons

We had a big turn-out on a brutally cold day for Lincoln Smith’s talk and slide show about Forest Gardening – thanks for coming, everyone!  And if you couldn’t make it, hopefully  these fast notes and links to more will turn you on enough to pursue this fascinating topic.

So what IS Forest Gardening?

Not what I thought – not woodland gardening, which refers to ornamental plants, not productive (edible) ones.   A subset of permaculture, it’s sometimes called “food forestry” or “agroforestry”.  And contrary to expectations, it’s not just about shade gardening, but assumes patches of sunlight, so a mix of sun and shade.  Unlike most edible plants, the ones in forest gardens last at least two seasons and usually many more.  Plants are in layers – at varying heights, like fruit trees underplanted with herbs.  But importantly, the plant mix is diverse, nothing like the monocultures of conventional agriculture.  And if you mix the plants correctly, as a group they feed themselves and share space efficiently – both underground and aboveground.  That’s a lot to ask but it’s how it happens in nature, so it can be done.

Plants that need lots of nitrogen, like apples, can get what they need from “Nitrogen-fixing” plants growing near them.  Prime Nitrogen-fixers (plants that turn nitrogen in the air into nitrogen in the soil that plants can use) are clover, sweet fern, groundnut, false indigo, New Jersey tea, American wisteria, and vetch…. Larger plants that produce their own Nitrogen include black locust, alder and bayberry.

Lincoln showed data from a California researcher showing that as much flour can be made from acorns as from the same space devoted to wheat.  Here’s the link (it’s a Word document) or you can Google: “Bainbridge Use of Acorns for Food in California.”  Wow.  Makes you totally rethink our assumptions about food production and understand a bit how people sustained themselves centuries ago in forested regions like ours. Sure enough, check out this website about cooking with acorns,  and this nursery in Michigan is growing oaks for food production.

An Easy Starter Forest Garden

Lincoln says to start small.  Just plant a fruit tree or two with clover beneath it and voila – a forest garden.

Best Fruits for our Region?

Lincoln recommends pawpaw, currants, hardy kiwis, pomegranates, figs, and blueberries.

To Learn More

Visit Lincoln’s website about the courses he gives in planning a forest garden, in nearby Bowie.  (I’ll be visiting his 10-acre site this spring to see the progress of his own forest garden and to chat with some of his students.  So stay tuned.)

The Apios Institute website is a great resource about forest gardening.

Posted by Susan Harris.

Nontraditional front-yard gardens are increasingly in the news, and one in particular has been all OVER the news and blogosphere.  In the (now notorious) town of Oak Park, Michigan,  Julie Bass faced jail time for growing vegetables instead of turfgrass or something else deemed “suitable” in her front yard.  Two weeks after the enforcement action became hot news, the charges against her were dropped.  But it isn’t just veg gardeners who have to fight crazy, outdated local ordinances.  Water-conserving xeriscaping is still outlawed in parts of – wait for it – Southern California!

In sympathy with those revolutionary gardeners going against the grain (the grain being all turfgrass, all the time), I offer photos of a front yard just 3 blocks from downtown Silver Spring that makes me smile every time I see it, and no doubt raises the spirits of neighbors, too.  Thank you, anonymous gardeners, for brightening our lives!

Posted by Susan Harris.

Perennials, Shrubs, Trees

• Keep on top of weeding, especially the ones that have developed seeds,  while carefully avoiding scattering the evil progeny.   There’s lots more about weeding here.
• Water (especially anything planted this season) but water deeply, rather than frequently.  Frequent, shallow watering will just encourage roots to stay at the surface, where they are vulnerable to heat and drought.   Click here for more info on watering your garden. Walk through your garden daily, if possible, to notice what plants might be needing a drink (and to spot and remove the worst of the weeds – the jungle-making vines).
• Chrysanthemums should be cut back by about half to encourage fall blooming (rather than later this month), and to create taller stems that don’t flop.
• Deadhead reblooming perennials and annuals to encourage rebloom, except for those with attractive or bird-supporting seedheads, which you may want to leave in the garden until winter.
• Many shrubs will rebloom if deadheaded, too – like many roses, spireas, and crapemyrtle.
• Remove dead, damaged or disease branches of shrubs and trees anytime.  Same goes for suckers and water sprouts.
• July 4^th is the traditional “last call” for pruning many shrubs that bloom next year on buds that are set this year (e.g., azaleas, rhododendrons, lilacs, early-blooming spireas).  So if you want blooms next spring, do NOT prune these shrubs after the 4^th.
• Except for roses, don’t feed your shrubs or trees now – wait until winter or early spring.  But do give roses their final feeding of the summer this month.
• While fall is everyone’s favorite time to plant, it’s okay to plant in the summer if you keep the soil moist, especially in areas with some relief from afternoon sun and heat.

Annuals

• Just keep on watering and feeding – all summer.
• Many annuals look better and have more blooms if their dead flowers are regularly removed.

Lawns

• When it’s hot and dry – in July -  cool season lawns usually become dormant.   That’s normal and don’t worry – established lawns will quickly green up when it gets cooler and wetter.  Newly seeded or newly sodded areas will still need watering.
• Remember to mow cool season grasses at the 3 to 3 ½ inch height or as high as your mower will cut. This helps to retain moisture and cool the roots of these grasses. (Warm season grass like Zoysia is cut at the 2 inch height and will be green throughout the summer.)
• Leave grass clippings on your lawn to provide Nitrogen to the soil.
• According to the University of Maryland, now is the time to fertilize Bermuda grass and zoysia grass – apply according to the instructions on the bag. Do not fertilize cool-season grasses (i.e. fescues and bluegrass) until fall.

Water Features

• Now is a good time to add water lilies to your pond. With warm water and long days, the lilies are starting to bloom.
• Also, be careful with water hyacinths and water lettuce.  These floating plants are added to filter the water and keep it clear, but they reproduce rapidly and will totally cover the surface of the pond by the end of summer.  Even very large ponds. Make sure to pull out the extras as summer goes by; they are good added to the compost pile.  These plants are serious invasive weed problems in the South.  They won’t overwinter here, but you must remove them in the fall so that they don’t decay in the pond after they die.

Pests in Ornamental Plants

• Be alert for slug and snail damage. They’ll hide during the heat of the day, then come out of hiding in the cool mornings and evening hours or after a rain. Seek and destroy all slugs and their eggs! Use Sluggo for best control.
• Many different kinds of caterpillars are feeding on shade trees. No controls are necessary unless severe defoliation is observed.
• Be on the look-out for Japanese Beetles, which make your plants look chewed-up.  Plants most affected by the beetles are roses, perennial hibiscus, and fruit trees.  What to use for control?  Permethrin, imidacloprid,  or Neem oil.
• Never apply any pesticide to a dry or stressed plant, even if the pesticide is an oil or insecticidal soap.  Also, never spray in the heat of the day – wait till after dinner.
• Grab your hose and really go after your Dwarf Alberta Spruce – vigorously spray the plant to knock off the spider mites.  How to tell if your spruce has spider mites?  Simply place a piece of white paper under a clump of foliage and rustle the branch ,allowing debris fall on the paper.  Then look very closely for signs of moving critters.

Edibles

• Keep on top of weeding – lots more about weeding here – and watering - click here for more about watering your garden.
• Keep feeding your summer vegetables, too.
• Keep feeding fruit trees and shrubs (except for figs, which shouldn’t be fed while fruiting).  Hollytone is recommended for blueberries, Rosetone for non-acid-loving plants like cherry trees.
• Soil pH -changes could be applied between now and fall.  That means lime on fig and cherry,  sulfur on blueberries (they do well with strong acidity).
• A late crops of beans, beets, carrots, Swiss chard, and cucumbers can be direct sown through the end of July.

Pests in Edibles

• Squash vine borers are hatching out and boring into squash and pumpkin vines. Monitor plants for signs of wilting and entrance holes on lower stems. The easiest and surest method of control is to cut a slit in the stem above the hole with a razor, remove the 1 inch long brown headed white larva. Mound up soil around the wound.
• Blossom-end rot of tomato, pepper, squash and watermelon may be observed now. Remove fruits that have blossom-end rot or are badly malformed. This nutritional disorder is caused by a lack of calcium in developing fruits and is brought on by dry conditions. Water your plants deeply and regularly and keep them mulched. Tomato plants may need 1-2 gallons of water each at least twice a week during droughty periods.

Wildlife

• Remember to change the water in the bird baths regularly, and keep them filled.  Standing water is a breeding ground for mosquito larvae.

Compiled by Susan Harris.

by Susan Harris

Here’s my rave of the new book about one of the world’s best public gardens – which happens to be near Philadelphia, so just a day-trip away.   Hope you’ll join Behnkes, Cheval’s Garden Tours and Washington Gardener Magazine on a day-trip to this enchanting garden – September 21, leaving from Behnkes in Beltsville. More information here, and I’ll be posting lots of my own photos of the garden soon.

“Neither a museum nor a great plodding institution, Chanticleer is a gardener’s garden,” says Adrian Higgins about what he and garden photographer Rob Cardillo and this blogger and horticulturists all over the world call their favorite garden. And surely gardeners will be inspired by Higgins’s new guidebook, Chanticleer, a Pleasure Garden, to make their gardens better in at least some small way.

Now don’t let “guidebook” scare you off. Higgins is no hack—he’s the garden editor of the Washington Post, and he knows how to tell a story not just list plants. Sharing his own reasons for loving this garden, he notes that it’s not designed by committee but by a group of “very gifted” gardeners, each one allowed to take chances and get as weird and innovative as they want. No wonder those seven jobs are so coveted.

Higgins also appreciates that unlike so many public gardens, Chanticleer has no agenda to teach or preach to visitors about climate change or sustainable agriculture or any other important issue; its only mission is to induce pleasure, to satisfy all our senses. Thus, horticulture rises to the level of art form, but in a personal way that doesn’t take itself too seriously, thanks to touches of wit and whimsy.

And not guidebook-like at all are the 80 fabulous photographs by world-class garden shooter Cardillo, who has the good fortune to live just 20 minutes from Chanticleer. He’s been able to visit countless times over the years, whenever he damn well pleases, and the result is a visual feast.

Chanticleer Garden, on 40 acres along Philadelphia’s Main Line, was the vision of Adolf Rosengarten Jr., heir to the Merck chemical fortune, who created the huge endowment that’s enabled creativity here with no financial restrictions. No ripping things out because the garden can’t afford to maintain them. No having to use plants that are cheap. Lord no, none of that.

The garden’s been open about 18 years and is finally ready for its close-up—this book. But it won’t stand still in time because again, there’s no committee fighting change. On the contrary, the gardeners are instructed to “be brilliant, be inventive, and do something fresh next year.”

Like the piece of land art they call the “Serpentine,” seen in this photo of ripe sorghum in late summer. It’s the work of one gardener who’s also a farmer and craftsman, and he plants a different agricultural commodity each year. (If you’re thinking “land art?” it just goes to show that it’s something we don’t see enough of in the United States.)

Or like the funky furniture, bridges and sculptural pieces the gardeners create during the winter when the garden is closed. Other winter pursuits by the staff include study and travel to gardens around the world. Nice life!

Read the book before you visit, after you visit, or, sadly for you, instead of visiting. It’ll still inspire you to take some chances in your garden. Which seems easy to say, but I’ve been there three times and did it change my garden? Not nearly enough. But like Chanticleer, my garden’s not finished and it never will be. Now I’m off to find some funky furniture and a few weird plants to try.

Photos by Rob Cardillo.