A Master Gardener's Journal

by guest blogger Mary Concklin, Montgomery County Extension Educator.

We have had many droughts off and on over the past decade. The resultant lack of water places plants under stress as well as weakens them. Plants need water to remain turgid and to deliver nutrients. In addition, plants give off moisture on hot days. If water is not replaced, foliage will begin to droop. As drought continues day after day, the damage gets worse.

This year’s drought, occasionally interrupted by a burst of 2 to 5 inches of rain all at once, has certainly wreaked havoc with our plants. With the rare rains we received, water available to plants improved. But in many of our heavy clay soil areas, large amounts of rainfall either runs off with no benefit to the plants or drains very slowly, creating additional stress on our plants by reducing available oxygen to the roots.

One question that comes up just about every year is about needles dropping off pine trees. Pine trees will shed their older needles in the fall as a natural process. They retain the newer needles on the outer portions of the branches. Take a walk in the woods and look on the ground at the terrific mulch made by those shed needles. As they break down, pine needles add organic material to the woodland floor, making it rich with nutrients, worms and other ‘good guy’ soil organisms. So don’t panic when your pine trees begin to lose older needles this fall. The picture shows normal needle drop.

On the other hand, if you notice that newer needles are turning brown and shedding, there is cause for concern. This is an indication the tree is under stress. Drought damage is one of the first things to come to mind if the damage is showing up on the top of the tree and outer edges of branches on both new and old needles,. This type of damage is an indication the roots have been compromised and will not be able to supply water and nutrients to the entire tree. Trees under drought stress are also weaker and less able to fight off insects and diseases. A dying or weakened tree may also be suffering from multiple problems that have been compounded by the drought.

Depending on the extent of the damage, some trees will recover if rain arrives before a large amount of the root system is compromised. If you have questions about what is normal and what isn’t, please call the local Cooperative Extension office in your county. The Montgomery County Cooperative Extension phone number is 610-489-4315.

Do you have a gardening question? In Delaware County, call our Master Gardeners hortline at 610-690-2671 on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9 AM-12 NOON.

UPCOMING MASTER GARDENERS EVENTS

Registration required for all events (except plant sale). Please call 610-690-2655 for more information or visit our website

by Linda Barry, Delaware County Master Gardener Coordinator

The Delaware County Master Gardeners (MGs) have nominated Joe Daniels for the Volunteer Spirit of Extension Award. This award recognizes individuals who have made an ongoing commitment to Penn State Cooperative Extension and their community through their dedication to build and sustain a strong, effective Extension program.

Joe joined Delaware County MGs in 1996 and has volunteered over 1700 hours. He has been a member of the MG Board since 1996 and has served as Vice President and President each for two years.

A partial list of Joe's volunteer work includes the Hortline, the MGs home gardeners’ hort line, Home Gardeners’ School; 4-H Fair; Ridley Creek State Park’s May Day observance and Arbor Day programs. Joe is our most popular and requested speaker at libraries. He has given presentations to garden clubs, churches, and adult evening schools. He has interviewed candidates for MG classes and has mentored new recruits.

Joe developed the MG Speakers’ Bureau, which currently has 33 volunteers available to present to community groups on gardening topics. He started the 2nd Saturday at Smedley program, during which a MG or guest speaker presents a program on seasonal gardening topics/projects.

Joe taught elementary school in Chester, PA for 34 years. He also earned a BS in horticulture from Temple University. He is comfortable discussing any area of horticultural interest to a home gardener. His knowledge of educational techniques increases his ability to present information to members of the community with varying levels of knowledge about gardening.

Joe writes for his community newsletter, serves on the landscaping committee for his community, gives workshops on container gardening, and has recently taught classes at the Elwyn School. Joe has taught other groups with learning disabilities about various gardening projects

Joe has served as a 4-H Board member, has presented to the Delaware County Extension Board, and has judged the Philadelphia Horticultural Society’s Garden Contest. He has worked behind the scenes at the Philadelphia Flower Show for over two decades. He has served on the advisory board of the Lansdowne Tree Board, as well as volunteered with this group to clean up public areas.

Joe has demonstrated his creativity in several ways. Last year he worked with County educator, greenhouse specialist Warren Goll to prepare and present a 4-part program to inmates of the State Correctional Institution in Chester. Joe, Warren, and two county MGs who are science educators each taught a segment of the series.

Joe is a regular contributor to the monthly MG newsletter. He currently contributes to a blog that MGs have been invited to write on the Philadelphia Inquirer’s web site.

Joe is an outstanding example of how Master Gardeners benefit our community. Because of his many contributions, the MGs of Delaware County believe that Joe is worthy of the Volunteer Spirit of Extension Award.

Do you have a gardening question? In Delaware County, call our Master Gardeners hortline at 610-690-2671 on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9 AM-12 NOON.

UPCOMING MASTER GARDENERS EVENTS

Registration required for all events (except plant sale). Please call 610-690-2655 for more information or visit our website

Is it Fall yet? We sure can’t tell by the weather. But the answer is yes--if we go by mum sightings. It’s definitely mum time. They’re everywhere!

Speaking of mums, do you know how to take care of them? Garden mums (Chrysanthemum x morifolium) do best in full sun. They love rich, well drained soil (soggy soil in the winter will do them in). Mums thrive in a soil pH of 6 to 6.5. They like to be mulched with shredded leaves to protect their shallow roots. And they appreciate a little side dressing of compost or well-rotted manure.

I don’t get all that fussy about mum care, but my mums have been around for years and still bloom their little heads off every fall. I just toss a bit of composted manure and shredded leaf mulch around them in the spring. To keep them from getting tall and floppy, I start snipping them back in spring as soon as they’re six inches tall. I stop snipping after July 15, so they’ll bloom no later than early October.

I love spoon mums, but there are many other types to choose from—anemone, button, single daisy, spider, and pompom are the most common. And talk about a color range--mums are available in every color except blue.

If you’d like your mums to come up year after year, buy hardy mums that have rhizomes (look for nodes at or slightly below the soil surface).

For detailed information on mum care, go to PSU"s mum care page.

Do you have a gardening question? In Delaware County, call our Master Gardeners hortline at 610-690-2671 on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9 AM-12 NOON.

UPCOMING MASTER GARDENERS EVENTS

Registration required for all events (except plant sale). Please call 610-690-2655 for more information or visit our website

Great workshop speakers, a hands-on create-a-hypertufa workshop, composting instructions and free compost bins, a yummy lunch, a delectable bake sale, an amazing plant sale and a frugal gardener sale—even a tree climbing demonstration by Care of Trees personnel—it was all at our annual Master Gardeners Fall Fest on September 29. If you weren’t there, you missed a good time! Oh well, there's always next year.

Here’s a pictorial walk through the day…

by Tracey L. Carson, Delaware County Master Gardener

The Delaware County Master Gardeners invite you to join us in making our world a more horticulturally sound place. We are here to help the home gardener, whose success is just as vital as farmers, corporations, and government in these environmentally stressed times.

Gardening has become the number one hobby in our area, and Master Gardeners are multi-talented volunteers who love to share their gardening skills and knowledge with the community. The Master Gardener volunteers are trained by the Penn State College of Agriculture Cooperative Extension educators in a series of classes. Their mission is to educate, inspire, and encourage the home gardener through a variety of classes, workshops, projects and activities.

One of the many venues that we use to offer educational support to the home gardener is the work we do in our public Teaching Gardens. These gardens are designed, installed, and maintained by Master Gardeners throughout the year. They are intended for use as community educational sites for various gardening practices and ideas. Our volunteers prune, plant, weed, and do workshops. Currently, there are four Teaching Garden sites in Smedley Park, near the Springfield Mall, in Springfield, PA. There is one site in Pew Park in Rose Valley, and one site in Ridley Creek State Park. The specific educational goals are as follows:

• Bird and Butterfly Garden…demonstrates how a diversified planting can benefit the gardener as well as the wildlife that shares it. It is specifically designed to attract birds, bees, and butterflies.

• Shade Garden…strategically placed to show the public what is possible in shady steep locations.

• Hillside Garden…contains native shrubs, trees, and perennials, many of which will produce berries that are attractive to birds.

• Terrace Garden…purposely filled with a vast array of plantings to display the principles of good garden design.

• Pew Park Garden…a small piece of triangular land in Rose Valley, PA. Highly visible to traffic passing to and from Media. Master Gardeners use this park as a training opportunity for pruning trees, roses, and shrubs. We teach and practice low maintenance gardening, as well as garden design. Here, we also teach maintenance of bulbs and perennials.

• Ridley Creek State Park Gardens…located around the historic Ridley Creek State Park Mansion. These specimens are very visible to the visiting public, and offer opportunities for creativity in indigenous, formal, and deer-proof gardening.

The Delaware County Master Gardeners is a non-profit organization, offering a multitude of programs and workshops designed specifically to instruct and aid average citizens in overcoming their horticultural obstacles. To find out more information about up-coming informative programs, contact the Master Gardeners at the Penn State Cooperative Extension in Smedley Park. Call 610-690-2655 or visit http://delaware.extension.psu.edu/MG.

Do you have a gardening question? In Delaware County, call our Master Gardeners hortline at 610-690-2671 on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9 AM-12 NOON.

UPCOMING MASTER GARDENERS EVENTS

Registration required for all events. Please call 610-690-2655 for more information or visit our website

by Joe Daniels, Delaware County Maser Gardener

Tidying up the garden continues as fall leaves hit the ground and late season flowers fade. As the weather becomes increasingly cold, it's time to protect the most delicate plants. Remain on the alert for frosts, although with luck you may find yourself enjoying a warm and sunny Indian summer.

Begin to dig and store tender bulbs (such as tuberous begonias, dahlias, caladiums, and gladioli) when their foliage turns yellow and withers.

Pull annuals after frost and toss them in the compost pile, or leave them if they have interesting seed heads.

Cut back dead stems and leaves or let them remain until spring for winter interest. Remove and destroy any diseased foliage.

Rake leaves for the compost pile or till them into new beds. Chop leaves with the lawn mower for good winter mulch (but don't mulch yet).

Plant spring bulbs. Record where you planted them on your site map so you won't dig into them when you plant annuals in the spring.

Water perennial beds (as well as new shrub and bulb plantings) thoroughly before they go dormant to help them survive through the winter.

Move your houseplants indoors (hopefully you already have) and check for any critters. You can leave out Christmas cactus, some orchids and camellias, because they enjoy the cooler weather, but get them inside before a frost.

It's a good time to plant and transplant evergreens — the sooner the better. It may be better to wait for deciduous plants to drop their leaves first before planting.

Remove vegetable plants as they finish cropping and begin digging and adding organic matter to the soil.

Remove submersible pumps from ponds; clean and store them for the winter.

Don't forget to set out bird feeders to help keep birds well-fed through the winter. Keep the feeder clean and stocked throughout the winter.

Check for seasonal price discounts on gardening tools and equipment. Keep some and save some for holiday gifts.

Continue fall planting, especially of pansies.

Divide plants that have open centers. Spring flowering plants are divided in the fall, as well as summer flowering plants. Do not divide fall flowering plants until next spring. Examples of plants to divide now: bugle weed, bleeding hearts, daylilies, hostas, peonies, phlox, and yarrow.
If dividing peonies, include at least three buds in each division and set plants one inch or less below the soil. Expect it to take three years before each division will rebloom.

Be on the look out for boxelder bugs and multi-colored Asian lady beetles, as they may begin to invade homes as the weather cools.

Keep an eye on wasps and hornets, as they will continue to be a problem while they abandon their nests for the year.

Do you have a gardening question? In Delaware County, call our Master Gardeners hortline at 610-690-2671 on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9 AM-12 NOON.

UPCOMING MASTER GARDENERS EVENTS

Registration required for all events. Please call 610-690-2655 for more information or visit our website

Hydrangeas! I love them. These wonderful plants dazzle me with beautiful blooms and lush foliage. Some of the newer cultivars have interesting bark, gorgeous fall leaf color and stunning reddish or purplish leaves in the growing season. The variety of cultivars available now is definitely dizzying. I want them all! But despite all the new cultivars, my favorite (at the moment) is the lacecap, with Pee Gee running a close second.

Hydrangeas are easy to grow, but pruning is another matter. You must know which type of hydrangea you have, or you won’t know when to prune it. If you lop at the wrong time, you’ll never see blooms, and that would be a tragedy.

Climbing hydrangeas (anomala), Hills of Snow hydrangea (arborescens) and Pee Gee hydrangea (paniculata) bloom on the current season’s growth. They can be pruned in late winter or early spring, since their flower buds develop on new growth.

Bigleaf hydrangeas (Hydrangea macrophylla and serrata cultivars—which includes the mopheads and lacecaps) bloom on last year’s new growth--also known as old wood. Prune dead wood in early spring, but NEVER prune last year’s new growth or your prize plant will be bloomless. If you’d like to shape your bigleaf hydrangea with a little pruning, the only time that’s safe to do so is in summer, immediately after it has finished blooming.

By the way, there’s a difference between old wood and dead wood. Check for dead wood by gently scraping your pruning tool on the surface of the woody stem. If you see green underneath, the stem’s alive and should not be pruned.

And there’s one more general pruning rule to heed. Do not prune any hydrangea in late summer or early fall. Pruning at this time may encourage late growth that may not harden off for the winter.

Just to confuse us completely, one of the newer cultivars, Endless Summer, blooms on both old and new wood. When to prune that one is anybody’s guess. If all this pruning information is making you crazy, try the new macrophylla cultivar called Cityline that never needs pruning. Or just don’t prune at all.

New hydrangea cultivars are coming to market every year. And those plant breeders are not even close to finished. New trends in cultivars include re-bloomers, plants that bloom on new wood, and small patio hydrangeas.

Are you a hydrangea lover too? Want more info? I’d recommend Michael Dirr’s book, Hydrangeas for American Gardens. Or go to Hydrangea Care.

Do you have a gardening question? In Delaware County, call our Master Gardeners hortline at 610-690-2671 on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9 AM-12 NOON.

UPCOMING MASTER GARDENERS EVENTS

Registration required for all events. Please call 610-690-2655 for more information or visit our website

Note from Marion: It's finally feeling like fall. Cooler weather reminds us to get those houseplants inside! The following is an excellent and informative article on caring for houseplants from Penn State’s Ag Sciences newsletter.

HOUSEPLANTS BROUGHT IN FOR WINTER NEED SPECIAL ATTENTION

The frigid face of winter is just around the corner, which means only one thing for your houseplants: The beach party is over. Unlike humans, houseplants can't survive the colder autumn nights in flip-flops and mini-skirts. Instead,” they need to be prepped and brought inside to escape injury,” says Jay Holcomb, professor of floriculture in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences.

"We put the plants outdoors in the summertime because there is better light. They get some wind and some rain; it is a much better environment to grow in. What we have to worry about is the first frost. Some tropical plants may even receive chilling injuries at around 40 degrees. Now that fall is here, think about moving your plants inside."

Holcomb says it will be necessary to prepare the plants for the move indoors. "The change from a high-light environment outdoors, to a low-light environment indoors will cause some of the older leaves to turn yellow and fall off," he explains. "In the fall, a little bit of trimming will help the plant adjust to low-level light environments, and by thinning out the center, your plant will be better off."

Holcomb recommends that you remove any dead foliage that has fallen inside the pot. "There could be more than dirt lurking under that dead foliage," he says. "You don't want to bring any unwanted pests into your home. It only takes one or two insects to start an infestation of your home," says Holcomb. "This is why houseplants brought in for the winter need to be checked for insects and other pests beforehand."

Some of the most common pests to look for include spider mites, mealybugs, aphids, white flies and scale. If your plant has yellow-speckled leaves and is covered with tent-like webs, it may mean your plant has spider mites. Though miniscule in size, these bugs can be very destructive. "Mites are similar in appearance to grains of cayenne pepper," says Holcomb. "Hold a piece of white paper under the plant and shake the leaves, and you will see the mites drop onto the paper."

If there are white, cotton-like masses where the leaves and branches attach to the stalks, then you have mealybugs. These tiny bugs nestle and lay eggs in these spots, stunting and killing plants by depleting their fluids.

Aphids are similar to mealybugs in size and also live in thick colonies along the soft parts of stems. The sweet liquid they excrete from their bodies, called honeydew, often attracts other unwanted guests into the home, such as ants. "Aphids are quite destructive," says Holcomb. "They cause distorted and curled leaves, malformed flowers and hardened buds."

If you shake the plant and notice small, white flies coming from the leaves, then your problem is white flies. The ability to take flight is what separates these insects from aphids and mealybugs. "You'll never find just one white fly on a plant," says Holcomb. "They come in quantities and can spread to all the plants in your house."

Scale appears as blister-like areas on stems and the undersides of leaves. These areas can be circular, oyster-shell-shaped or rectangular and are colored white, brown, gray or black. Scale also produces honeydew, which may drip from the leaves. Scale seriously stunts growth, says Holcomb; If not treated, it can kill the plant and spread to others. If your plant shows signs of infestation by any of these pests, don't fear. You may not have to throw that plant away just yet. "If the infestation is small enough, then you may be able to wipe the pests off with a Q-Tip dipped in alcohol," says Holcomb. "Rinsing the plant under a gentle stream of water for a few minutes can wash away insects and eggs. Keep checking the plant for a recurring infestation during the next couple of weeks."

Another important step you can take is to dig around the roots and look for pests in the soil where insects such as sow bugs, millipedes and slugs reside. If there aren't many then they can be removed by hand. If there are too many, then you might want to try repotting the plant.

However, if your plant is not infested with pests, you can put off repotting the plant until the spring. "Don't repot in the fall unless it's necessary," says Holcomb. "In the spring, we are putting the plants into a good light environment, where they will get good root growth."

You also might want to start cutting down on plant fertilization during the fall. "Generally you fertilize in the summer so that it will not be necessary to do that when the plants are moved into the house in the fall," says Holcomb.

And if you think that having a plant outdoors is going to be too much of a hassle, then think again. "The advantages to having your plants outdoors are great," says Holcomb. "Sunlight, rain and warm weather produce a flush of healthy growth, and the pests are usually easy to get rid of. Overall, it's worth it."

Do you have a gardening question? In Delaware County, call our Master Gardeners hortline at 610-690-2671 on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9 AM-12 NOON.

UPCOMING MASTER GARDENERS EVENTS

Registration required for all events. Please call 610-690-2655 for more information or visit our website