A Master Gardener's Journal

What’s a passionate gardener to do when nothing’s growing during the cold and blustery days of winter? Where do we put our creative energies? I don’t know about you, but I really miss being outside mucking around in the soil and fussing over my gorgeous horticultural delights. Of course there are always houseplants that need watering, grooming and loving attention, but it’s just not the same as digging in that rich, moist earthy-smelling soil.

During those long and seemingly endless winter days, I spend many happy hours dreaming of next year’s garden. I peruse the non-stop stream of catalogs that appear in my mailbox, draw up gardening scenarios on drafting paper, and rearrange my existing garden in my imagination at least two dozen times. I’m sure I’ll get it right and have a perfect garden this year!

When I need a break from dreaming and scheming, I go to the window and survey my land. I love to feast my eyes on the bare bones of trees—so many interesting shapes and sizes! And if I stand still for just a few minutes, a member of the resident wildlife is sure to appear. Squirrels, birds, foxes, deer--even raccoons roam my property.

On a bitterly cold and brilliantly sunny day last January, I heard a loud screeching that sounded like someone was being murdered. It turned out to be dueling male raccoons at the very tippy-top of my tulip tree. I was sure the branch would break and they would fall to their death. But no--one prevailed (i.e. outscreeched the other) and trotted off with the female, who was waiting on a nearby limb. That scene was good for a solid hour of entertainment.

When I’ve had enough of wildlife antics, I go online and cruise the web for gardening information. Winter downtime is a great opportunity to bone up. I could spend the rest of my life surfing and never run out of fascinating horticultural material. And I love stuffing all that knowledge into my brain.

Luckily, being a Master Gardener means I can attend our monthly meetings and yak it up with other obsessed gardeners. I also drop in on Second Saturday workshops at our Smedley Park Environmental Center. Who knows, I might bump into you this winter at one of our workshops. Be sure to introduce yourself!

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 Master Gardener

Look around at the outstanding plants this month in your garden… the groundcover: Gaultheria(wintergreen). Shrubs: Cotoneaster, Ilex (all varieties), Leucothoe, Lindera(spicebush), Mahonia, Pieris, and Taxus (yew). Take time to enjoy the ever changing landscape and what beauty is still apparent in the cold weather of winter.....and how peaceful nature can be in all the quiet beauty surrounding us daily.

Seasonal Tasks

If you have been using salt to melt ice on walks and drives near trees and shrubs, consider using sand or sawdust at those locations instead.

Damage on needled evergreens will show as copper and yellow tints to foliage by spring. Deciduous plants will develop bronze or reddish leaves in the spring from salt damage.

You can enjoy an early spring indoors by forcing branches of spring-flowering trees and shrubs. Forsythia, crabapple and dogwood are among those which can be forced by placing cut (18-24") branches in water in a warm location.

This is a good time to get spring gardening ideas from magazines and catalogs.

Order from your seed and plant catalogs--many will be delivered shortly after the holidays. Choose old favorites, but also consider some of the Gardener Select plants or All-American Selections.When you are selecting plants, try to choose disease and insect resistant varieties.They will make gardening easier, reduce costs and reduce environmental pollution.

Evaluate your garden work area and make any needed adjustments.

Consider adding more plants with winter interest: evergreens, plants with attractive branching patterns or bark, to your landscape in the spring.

Evaluate your landscape for energy efficiency. Plant evergreens toward the north to reduce winter winds, add deciduous plants to the west to provide shade in summer and allow solar-heating in the winter.

Check summer bulbs in storage regularly for rot or decay; discard those affected.

Continue to save coffee grounds and kitchen waste (fruit and vegetable peelings) for the compost pile.

When snows are very heavy, knock off accumulated snow from evergreens and other woody plants. Brush upwards to reduce damage. Prop up ice-covered branches until they thaw.

Arborvitae and other columnar evergreens can be protected from splitting in heavy snows by wrapping the plant with rope to pull branches together.

Branches from Christmas trees can be used to provide winter protection for low evergreens and evergreen perennials.

Reapply mulches that have blown away in winter winds.

If you have read my column to this point and have tried any of the above advice....maybe you should take a break.......come inside, warm up with a hot beverage and look over those spring catalogs some more......and dream.

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

Who would guess that the lovely Jewel of Opar on the left is a drought resistant plant? When you’re planning your garden for this spring, don’t forget to include some drought-tolerant plants or even a whole garden of them. Drought-tolerant gardens are becoming increasingly popular for all the right reasons.

First of all, they reduce our dependence on water during those dry spells of summer. Once established (give new plantings a year to settle in), they’ll need little or no extra water except in extreme circumstances. That means no more dragging around a heavy hose or paying an exorbitant water bill.

Second, drought-tolerant plants prefer compost (yes!) rather than commercial fertilizers. Plants love compost because it won’t burn tender roots and it feeds more slowly than fertilizer. You benefit because compost is free and only requires application once a year. We all benefit because less fertilizer ends up in our streams, ponds and rivers.

Third, many drought-tolerant plants are way down on the list of desirable edibles for our favorite ravenous pests (deer, aphids and slugs--to name a few). Plants that resist moisture loss often have hairy, leathery or dense foliage that is not exactly pleasant to ingest. Both animal and insect pests tend to prefer a diet of tender greens (i.e. water hogs and time-consuming needy plants).

And last but certainly not least, drought-tolerant plants can create a beautiful garden that looks good with very little care. There will still be plenty to do if you love playing in the garden, but if you’d like to have a little time to sit and enjoy your lovely landscape, a drought-tolerant garden will free you from the endless needs of fussy plants.

So do yourself a favor by including drought-tolerant plants in your landscape. And when your neighbors comment on your beautiful garden, you can spread the word about saving water! Here’s a list of some of my favorites to get you started…

Russian Sage (Perovskia)
Wild Indigo (Baptisia)
Lambs ears (Stachys)
Meadow-rue (Thalictrum)
Stonecrop (Sedum)
Sage (Salvia)
Elderberry (Sambucus ‘Black Lace’)
Smoke bush (Cotinus coggygria)
Ninebark (Physocarpus)

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 guest blogger Mary Concklin, Horticulture Extension Educator, PSU-Montgomery County

When to prune fruit trees and shrubs---it’s a question we often hear. The winter is a wonderful time to prune small plants and most--but not all--fruit trees. The following is a summary of pruning basics…

Fall bearing (everbearing) raspberries: These are by far the simplest fruits to prune. Prune all canes to ground level. Canes that produced fruit last season will not produce again this coming season. The canes that grow this spring will bear fruit in the late summer and fall. It is possible to have a summer and fall crop with the everbearers. However, the summer crop will be small and this will impact the fall crop.

Summer bearing raspberries: Remove all canes that produced fruit last season (the florocanes). These will not produce a crop the next year. You will then be left with the canes that were vegetative last summer (the primocanes). The primocanes will be florocanes this summer and produce a crop. Many varieties produce more canes than are needed, some strong and others weak. Remove all weak canes and then thin out the remaining canes to allow for light penetration. This will have a two-fold affect – it will allow the remaining canes to grow strong and healthy, and it will reduce disease incidence because the foliage and canes will be able to dry faster than crowded canes. Leave four to six canes per running foot of row.

Blueberries: Blueberry bushes should have two to three canes for each year of growth up to six years of age. So that would be two to three of the strongest canes that are new from last year – remove the rest of the new canes; two to three of the strongest canes that were new in 2006 – remove the rest of the canes that developed that year, and so on, with no canes older than six years. The reason is that the amount fruit and the berry size drops on older wood. Once your bush is older than six years, pruning would consist of removing the oldest canes, and selecting the two to three strongest new canes to keep. Blueberries bear fruit on last season’s growth, so do not prune off the tips.

Apple, Pear, Cherry & Plum Trees: Try to imagine what your tree will look like when all the leaves are out later this spring. Will sunlight be able to reach the center of the tree? Developing buds and fruit need sunlight. Before removing any branches, look at the point on the trunk where the branch comes out. This area is called the collar. When removing a branch, it is healthier for the tree’s recovery to leave the collar intact. Remove branches that are laying on top of other branches, remove branches or suckers that are growing upright (other than the main upright central leader), remove branches growing down toward the ground – fruit will tend to be small on these branches. Do not remove all the growth in towards the center of the tree or all your fruit will be pushed to the outer ends of the branches. You have a whole tree so use the whole tree to produce the fruit. The short stubby growth (spurs) in toward the center will bear fruit so should be left unless they are dead or weak. Black ugly looking growths are the Black Knot disease and are often times found on plums and cherries. These should be pruned out four inches below the knot and removed from the area to prevent spreading of the disease.

Peaches and Nectarines: Do not prune at this time. These trees should be pruned in the spring when the danger of severe frost is over.

An often asked question is, “Should I or can I cut the ends of the branches back?” The answer lies in what variety you are pruning, why you want to cut them back, and how they are growing. If the branch is healthy yet the tip has drooped well below the 90 degree point, you may want to prune back to a lateral or side branch that is growing above the 90 degree plane. Be sure not to leave a stub. Stubs do not heal quickly and are entrances for insects and disease. Some varieties naturally have a ‘leggy’ or ‘willowy’ growth habit. Keep this in mind as you shape the tree.

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

Gardening is just the best, isn’t it? We get to indulge our passion, surround ourselves with beauty, enjoy nature and help protect the environment all at the same time.

Because a garden is an important environmental resource, we home gardeners can make a real contribution to the health of the planet—especially if we practice green gardening techniques. Green gardening, eco-gardening, environmentally responsible gardening, environmental stewardship or sustainable gardening—it doesn’t matter what you call it--it’s all the same. It’s practicing a few simple gardening principles that protect the earth and increase the chances that our children and grandchildren will be able to garden too.

If you’re new to the concept of green gardening, allow me to explain. Green gardeners feed the soil with compost to keep it healthy rather than relying on pesticides, herbicides or synthetic fertilizers. They compost all the organic matter they can get their hands on, mulch like maniacs to eliminate weeds and use soaker hoses or drip irrigation to do the work of watering (if it’s ever needed). Then they sit back and enjoy the show.

As far as I’m concerned, there are no negatives involved in green gardening—only positives. Not only is green gardening easy, it saves time and money. Consider the following benefits:

Plants thrive all by themselves because they’re carefully chosen by hardiness zone and/or by species that are native to the area, and then planted in a spot that fulfills their specific needs for sun, shade and moisture.

Plants are rarely bothered by pests or disease because they’re healthy, so there’s no need to buy pesticides.

Shredded leaf mulch keeps the soil cool and moist, reduces the need for watering, acts as a weed barrier and feeds the soil as it breaks down. Any weeds that manage to grow through the mulch can be pulled by hand, eliminating the need to buy chemical weed-killers.

All kinds of creatures-- birds, bees, butterflies, beneficial insects, toads, frogs and garden snakes—are able to reside in the garden because no pesticides or weed-killers are used.

Because the soil is so healthy from all that rich compost and leaf mulch, the garden is easier to care for--giving you precious time to relax and enjoy the sights, scents and sounds of the nature sanctuary you created.

Less yard, lawn and kitchen waste is trucked to landfills because all organic waste is composted.

Water bills are lower because the need for supplemental watering is practically nil.

You’ll feel really good about contributing to the protection of the environment.

The best way to begin your green gardening adventure is to create healthy soil by feeding it compost made from organic matter and mulching with shredded leaves. When soil is healthy, the micro-organisms that live in it are healthy too. Those ultra-helpful organisms gobble up and digest mulch and compost, turning it into the vitamins and nutrients plants need to thrive. And guess what? A side product of all that digestion is the production of antibiotic substances that destroy soil pathogens. Micro-organisms do all the work--you get all the pleasure. It’s like having a staff of miniature Rumplestiltskins in your garden that turns waste into gold—black gold, that is.

Are you wondering where you’ll find enough material to compost? Don’t worry, your lawn, garden and kitchen produce it every day. So join the rest of the crowd and sign up for one of our composting workshops. When you learn to compost, you’re on your way to becoming a green gardener!

For tips on how to add organic matter to your soil, go to Adding Organic Matter

For tips on how to manage yard waste, go to Managing Yard Waste

For fascinating information about helpful soil bacteria, go to USDA Soil Bacteria

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