Holly Scoggins

Mulch much?

[Try to say post title three times fast. Heh.]

Here on the GP blogski, we’ve discussed both the merits and shortcomings of many non-traditional forms of mulch; rather, stuff that covers the ground that is referred to as mulch. Shredded rubber, marble chips, lava stone, dyed lava stone (ick), etc.

But this is a new one on me:

Naturally, I immediately shoved my hand in the biggest tub of glass (part of the Scientific Method). It was not…super smooth. A couple of pieces stuck, and there was a bit of sparkly-dust residue. I tried to remember not to rub my eyes for the rest of the day. Not sure I’m buying the recommendation to “use in pathways.”

"Aaargh! My Eyes!"

Pretty colors…soooo shiny. And recycled!

What’s this? A warning label on the aqua mulch: “Parents, please watch your children’s hands around the glass mulch.”Whoops.

It’s Spring-o’clock Somewhere…

We’re supposed to get an inch or two of snow tomorrow. It was 75 degrees last week. Typical schizophrenic spring weather. But spring was already in full bloom a few weeks ago in Dallas, Texas. Our group of Virginia Tech floriculture faculty and grad students visited for the National Floriculture Forum, a meeting of researchers and educators. It was organized by Texas A&M and hosted by the Dallas Arboretum, home of uber-horticulturist Jimmy Turner.

The Arb was right in the middle of their “Dallas Blooms” festival – they plant half a million spring bulbs each year for the most amazing show this side of Keukenhof. I’ve never been a huge tulip fan, but somehow came back with a gazillion photos. You just couldn’t help it. It’s a beautiful display garden; don’t miss it if in the area.

Imagine 60+ acres of this. My retinas were burning. But in a good way.

A cute Fosteriana-type tulip, oddly named ‘Zombie’.
Note the use of pecan hulls as mulch. Results in the biggest, fattest squirrels you’ve ever seen.

I’ve seen some interesting art in public gardens, but this is a new fave.
Probably there’s a deeper meaning behind it, but basically it’s a man and woman snogging in the tulips.

Big squirting toads, with list of safety rules on what one shouldn’t do to/with the toad.

Jimmy said the place would be crawling with brides and babies by afternoon, and he was right. That’s what he gets for creating such a photogenic garden. Couldn’t swing a fat squirrel without hitting one or the other.

Mouse Tombstones

Doing this…

I must identify each and every Wave petunia!

leads to this…

and this…

Unfortunately, the second and third photo are from a college teaching and display garden. There are a lot of inexpensive yet more attractive ways to relate plant identification to your visitors.

We all do this, of course, to some extent in our home gardens. Walk around with weird plant in hand, dig hole, stick it in, say to self "I’ll come back and get that label to add to my (pick one) Excel garden database/bag of random tags/photographic memory."

Typically, most of mine end up on top of the washing machine from cleaning out pants pockets. Not exactly a good record-keeping system.

Tags as tombstones: during spring mulching, I’ll typically find a few half-buried, printed with, oh, Maybehardii maybenotus – Plant Delights Nursery $25. Said plant is nowhere to be seen. Dang.

Jeff Gillman a.k.a. Dr. Unbiased!

“Everyone’s taking stands, and unfortunately, some of those taking the strongest stands have the least information.”
– Dr. Jeff Gillman, on “How the government got in your backyard”, co-authored with Eric Heberlig

Fine Gardening did a fine job in a recent interview that was linked to their e-mail update. FG Editor Steve Aitken brings some humor as he quizzes Dr. Jeff. about his new book. Check it out here.

Steve opens with “Is the government really in my backyard? And if so, can I get them to pull some weeds?”

Hee!!! The interview awesomeness continues as herbicides, nudity, tofu dogs, and poo-pooing are all discussed. I just may renew my subscription, if Steve can promise more of the same. I gave up on Garden Design years ago – since I don’t have a gravel garden with infinity pool overlooking a canyon in California, nor am I interested in $5000 lawn chairs. Reading it just made me feel dowdy.

“I can practically guarantee that you’ll find something in this book that
you don’t like.” Way to sell a book, Dr. Jeff!

Despite waiting pensively by the mailbox for my Complimentary Copy which has yet to arrive, I can safely say there’s already a kerfuffle brewing over the book. As Jeff noted in his post last week, folks have already weighed in DISAGREEING with his position. Wait! He has no position! That’s the whole bloody point. It seems an alarming number of people aren’t sure what to do with the 1,350 grams of gray stuff between their ears.

****
Relative to last weeks “trivia” post: I’m apparently the tallest Garden Professor, at 72 + 5/8 inches.

Lasso those grasses!

While Jeff and Bert were swilling beers and eating burgers last weekend (dang, wish I was there to commiserate!) I was whacking back the last of the perennials and grasses in our home garden. Tarp after tarp were filled with winter’s debris for compost pile as we fought 25 mph gusts the entire time. Not ideal conditions. However, a neat trick I learned years ago came in handy with the grasses. I’m assuming many of you utilize this technique also – so forgive me if this is a “nothing new” post Here’s Paul and Dabney, our Hahn Horticulture Garden horticulturists, demonstrating said technique:

Just cut below the web strap or rope with your favorite implement of destruction, and toss the whole bundle on the tarp to get it to the pile. Note that they both have on safety glasses, and Dabney has on gloves. I can’t stress enough the importance of gloves (and long-sleeved shirts) when handling dried grasses. One of our student workers sliced his finger open to the tune of three stitches last week. He was cutting down Arundo donax, Paul asked him to put some gloves on, but since 22 year-old guys are indestructible, he blew off the advice. Just saw him working out in the garden today with gloves on, yay!

Weigh in with YOUR garden clean-up tips – ’tis the season (for most of us north of USDA Zone 7 in the northern hemisphere).

Garden Professor Trivia #2: Who’s the tallest GP?

[This could get interesting…Oldest! Weirdest! Heaviest drinker! Most traffic tickets! Most cats! Most obsessed with slugs! etc.]

Off-label Use of a Chicken*

[Extremely] Preliminary research results from the University of Maryland indicate
chickens may be of interest in the fight against Halyomorpha halys, the brown
marmorated stink bug.

There are good stink bugs and bad stink bugs. The brown marmorated stink bug is a bad one. A relatively new introduced pest, it is piercing, sucking, and generally ruining vegetable and fruit crops (as well as some ornamentals) across a good part of the U.S. There are apparently few natural predators for this imported species and they reproduce like mad, thus the potential for this to become a very serious economic issue. USDA funding has appeared, and scientists are working against the clock on every angle of the problem.

Dr. Stanton Gill, Extension Specialist in IPM for Nurseries and Greenhouses at the UM Central Maryland Research and Education Center, is among them. He is not only a great entomologist, but a total hoot, just like several other bug people I know. He’s doing plenty of conventional research as well as loads of critical Extension service spread out over several states. As an orchard and nursery owner, he also has a personal stake in the issue.

I had the pleasure of hearing about Dr. Gill’s latest work at a recent nursery association meeting. He related the severity of the problem as well as several stink bug-related research projects he’s involved with, but the one that really caught my attention was his work with chickens.

On a tip from a gardener/hen owner, Dr. Gill decided to explore further. In a nutshell: the stink bomb hidden in the thorax of Halyomopha species is a terrific defense mechanism against bird and reptile predators. But chickens seem to be immune (and unconcerned about their breath). Actually, not a big surprise – I’ve caught my hens eating some pretty amazing/disgusting things. His preliminary study consisted of a few borrowed hens in a couple of nice little fresh-air pens, free to scratch about. A request to some battle-weary local gardeners yielded tupperware containers full of brown marmorated stink bugs. Through some feeding trials, he found… a hen’s capacity for stink bugs knows no bounds.

The hens had access to their regular feed, but gobbled up all the stink bugs offered. I can’t recall the exact quantity, but it was A LOT.

Stink – it’s what’s for dinner.
Action photo courtesy of Dr. Stanton Gill, University of Maryland.

The hens would only go for the stink bugs if they were active. Dr. G. put some in the freezer (stink bugs, that is), rendering them immobile, and the girls turned their beaks up. Once thawed and moving (!!!), they became dinner.

Finally, he worked with a food scientist to answer what should now be a burning question – did the eggs taste funny? Blind taste tests found that participants preferred the eggs produced by the stink bug-eating hens versus controls. I believe further studies may be in the works, as well as some publications relating his findings.

* Ha, ha, I kid!!! This post is neither an endorsement nor recommendation of the research described within. There is no MSDS available. No REI. No PPE guidelines. No EPA approval. No acronyms at all, actually. You’re on your own.

Unspeakeable Acts of Pruning

(Hey, I think it’s Tree Week on the GP!)

Our land has a nice buffer of big, old oaks, hickories, and maples between us and the two-lane highway. Power and phone lines thread through the middle of them. Thus, I have nightmares about orange Asplundh trucks.

So with much concern, I noted that utility crews and
subcontractors have been out in full force in our rural area,
inexplicably leaving one tree and then “pruning” another.

OMG that's awful

I pulled over and snapped this latest atrocity last night. The power lines are to the right (not in photo). As this is only a mere mile or two from our property, I may sit at home on the porch next week with the shotgun in my lap.

The Hottest Thing in…Veg!

Vegetable transplants and herbs were a bright spot last year (and the one previous) for most retail growers and independent garden centers. Seed and transplant companies have taken note – saw lots of veg and herbs at the normally-ornamental trade shows. As always, some good ideas, some a bit far-fetched…

Pelleted lettuce seed (much easier to handle) mixes for the grower to create patio-size planters. Not bad! Snipping a few leaves will be fine, but if you eat salad more than once a month, you’re gonna need a bigger pot.

Basil and Swiss Chard plugs (seedlings), grown by Rakers Acres in Michigan, and shipped to greenhouse growers for “bumping up” to bigger pots to sell.

Saw lots of garden center marketing ideas such as this one from Burpee. Unfortunately, I have a very strong aversion to the word “fixins.”

Oh just stop it. An onion, in a pot. What the heck are you supposed to do with that?!

Valentine’s Day, yet again…

We make fun and call it “National Forced Affection Day” (NFAD) around
our house. But it’s big business.

The National Retail Federation did a survey of 8900+ consumers in their 2011 Valentine’s Day Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey They found that the
average person will shell out $116.21 on traditional Valentine’s Day merchandise this year, up 11 percent over last year’s $103.00. Men spend twice
as much as women. Total holiday spending is expected to reach $15.7 billion. The main categories of consumer spending include $3.5 billion on jewelry, $1.6 billion on clothing (didn’t say what kind, heh!), $1.5 billion on candy and $1.1 billion on greeting cards. $3.4 billion will be spent on dining out. With $1.7 billion worth of flowers sold, it is, by far, the most important (and stressful) holiday for the floral industry, including growers, wholesalers, and florists.

If you do choose to participate in NFAD, please spend your dollars in the floriculture sector, but take a look at some of the alternatives to red roses.
Plant-based alternatives, that is. You can choose to follow the herd and cough up $39.95 for a dozen scentless, soon-to-be lifeless red roses. Nothing is more depressing than a vase full of roses with bent neck – that signature wilt that indicates water is not making it all the way to the flower – usually due to a bacterial clog in the pipes.

Alternative: for $19.95, thrill him/ her with a lovely Phalaenopsis (moth orchid) to grace a desk or windowsill. Now, I’ve killed my share of orchids, but this symbol of your affection will last a LOT longer than roses with just a bit of care (indirect light and do not overwater!).

from www.orchidweb.com

Or perhaps a florist Cyclamen – comes in all the requisite VD colors of pink, white, and red. Really tough little plants – if you forget to water them for several weeks, they’ll often just go dormant. Let them rest for a while longer, pull off the dead leaves, and commence reviving them with frequent waterings and a little bit of fertilizer – they will bloom again.

Just some suggestions for those so inclined. Alas, I know what I’ll be getting…squat, with a big red bow.

More Master Gardener Fun!

Am just heading out the door for Fairfax, Virginia – part of the greater Northern Virginia metro area, with traffic that scares the pants off of us country mice. I’m doing the Master Gardener training for the Fairfax Master Gardener Association. Their attendance is so huge, they have to split into a morning session (150 people) and an evening session (100+). Two and a half hours of training on “herbaceous plants” twice in one day – that’s a lot of yakking even for yours truly. But what a terrific group. I led the herbaceous sessions in 2007 and was impressed at the diversity of age, ethnicity, levels of knowledge, you name it. A complete cross-section of the area, all with the common desire to learn. Merrifield Garden Center generously (and brilliantly) hosts the training in their large meeting room. Alas, after we all get worked up over the fab perennials, annuals, and tropicals, there’s not much to buy this time of year.
I’ve written about the tremendous contribution of volunteer hours that Master Gardeners make to our state. As the budget axe drops hither and thither, Extension programs always seem to be at risk. All of the Garden Professors have noted their own state’s struggles with such. Here’s the (slightly) brighter side, though – the Fairfax Master Gardener Association receives no funding from federal, state, or local government. Just some training materials from Extension Same with most of the other associations across the state. Not much to cut, really. In turn, it was calculated that MG volunteers across the state reported 334,000 hours of service for 2009. That’s a pretty good return on very little investment from the state. Heck, I don’t even have an Extension appointment. But I’m a believer in the MG system, and want to help in whatever way I can, even if it means leaving the peaceful mountains and driving to Northern Virginia. A bit of a bonus is there’s really good shopping up there. Heh.