A Master Gardener's Journal

by Eleanor Tickner, Delaware County Master Gardener

Let me break it to you gently, readers. There’s been a great deal of hybridizing done on my favorite flower, the peony, beyond the late May and early June blooming family heirloom varieties that our grandmothers grew.

One notable improvement is the landscape worthy plants which have shorter and/or stronger stems that require no mechanical support. Another improvement is the hybrid varieties known for their earlier blooming times as well as their intense and delicious colors.

Coral Sunset is a great example of a colorful modern hybrid. The newest peony introductions are the intersectional hybrids, which are a cross between tree peonies and herbaceous peonies. But let me start at the beginning.

European settlers brought ornamental herbaceous peonies to North America in the late 1700s. While these were grown in many pioneer gardens, the popularity of peonies really exploded in Europe with the lactiflora hybrids during the 1830s. American nurseries began offering new varieties of their own by the 1850s, and by the turn of the century, the US had become the major peony producer in the world.

A.P. Saunders of Clinton, NY is considered by some to be the father of the modern hybrid peony. Four examples of his hybridizing efforts that are still available commercially today are Chalice, Legion of Honor, Cythera, and White Innocence. Don Hollingsworth of Maryville, Missouri has registered almost fifty varieties with the American Peony Society, including Garden Treasure, Lorelei and Command Performance.

The Klehm family of Wisconsin has registered numerous varieties, including Raspberry Sundae, Brother Chuck and Sweet 16. Among the many American hybridizers, Sam Wissing, William Krekler, A.M. Brand, Lyman Glasscock, Edward Auten, Orville Fay and David Reath are notable for their contributions. Learn more about these men and their hybridizing efforts in Allan Rogers’ book, Peonies.

Intersectional peonies (I-hybrids) were first hybridized by Toichi Itoh in Japan by crossing a tree peony with an herbaceous peony. After 20,000 crosses he succeeded in producing a yellow herbaceous peony--the holy grail of the early peony I-hybridizers. Intersectional peonies have strong stems, a full rounded shrub-like habit and do not require staking. The flowers tend toward semi-double and many are fragrant. They are more difficult to propagate than are herbaceous peonies, hence the relatively high price. Look for I-hybrids by Roger Anderson (Bartzella), Bill Seidl (Viking Full Moon), Don Hollingsworth (Garden Treasure), Chris Laning (Old Rose Dandy) and Don Smith (Singing in the Rain).

And how do you determine which varieties to plant in your garden? Visit local gardens, like Scott Arboretum and Winterthur. Join the Mid-Atlantic Peony Society. The APS Gold Medal winner’s list is also a good place to look as well as magazine articles. Fine Gardening and Organic Gardening magazines had peony articles recently.http://midatlanticpeony.org/

An easy way to determine which vendors to buy from and what varieties are commercially available today is to go to the American Peony Society (APS) website. Click “links”, then “commercial members”. Look at their online catalogues.

With encouragement, your interest can easily expand to include 1500 peony plants consisting of about 250 varieties. Come to A Peony Garden in Gradyville, PA and see for yourself the variety available in the flower often referred to as the Queen of the Garden.

Eleanor is the owner of A Peony Garden.

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 for a registration form.

by Joe Daniels, Delaware County Master Gardener

Compost
Keep the compost pile turned.

Add moisture as needed. Keep as moist as a wrung out sponge.

Continue adding garden waste from weed seedlings, kitchen trimmings, and garden clean-up.

Vegetable Gardens
Continue to sow heat tolerant vegetables of beans, chard, and cucumber.

Watch out for squash bugs on squash - they will appear on the underside of the leaves.

Complete setting out the initial plants of tomatoes and other warm season transplants, including eggplants, pepper, cantaloupe and watermelon.

Harvest any remaining cool-weather crops, including lettuce, radishes, carrots, scallions and asparagus.

Plant more vegetables in the garden - especially if the others have rotted or become diseased.

Fertilize vegetables transplants moved outside 6-8 weeks after they were sown.

Be aware of flea beetles eating small holes in flower and vegetables seedlings.

Don't forget to purchase seeds of cool weather veggies (broccoli, cabbage). The plants may not be available later in the season.

Pull up bolted lettuce, spent broccoli stems and other cool weather crops that are finished to make way for new warm weather plants.

Make certain all crops have sufficient water. Peppers especially need to be well watered.

Tomatoes like a steady supply rather than a wet-dry cycle, or else blossom end rot will occur.

Lawns
Leave nitrogen-rich clippings on the lawn.

Maintain your mower by sharpening the blade at least monthly, or before the grass starts looking torn when cut, and check the engine oil.

Spot treat for broadleaf weed problems such as dandelions or ground-ivy.

Mulch borders to keep down weeds.

Perennials and Annuals
Continue pinching chrysanthemums to make them full throughout June. Stop pinching around the 4th of July. Remember to pinch back mums by half until the middle of July if you want your mums to bloom in October. Otherwise, they will bloom earlier in September.

Deadhead peonies after they flower.

Remove spent blossoms of some perennials to prevent plants from self-seeding.

Don't forget to check your annuals for pests, as they usually arrive before the beneficial insects. The most common are aphids, who love those tender, juicy young plants. Handle aphids by pinching off the infested stems, washing them off with a forceful water spray from the hose, or spraying with insecticidal soap or fine horticultural oil (read the directions first).

Guide and control the growth of summer and fall blooming perennials that tend to become overly tall and lanky (beebalm, artemisias, asters, goldenrod, and others) by cutting back newly developing stems by about half after they grow to about 10 or 12 inches long. This will delay flowering somewhat, but it will result in shorter, fuller plants that may not need staking.

Pests
Take preventative steps whenever possible. In Delaware County, bring samples to the Smedley Park Cooperative Extension office for diagnosis on Tuesday or Thursday mornings from 9:00 until noon.

For more of Joe's June gardening tips, go to our web site.

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 for a registration form.

One of my favorite native shrubs is Ninebark ‘Summer Wine’ (Physocarpus opulifolius ‘Seward)’. It has all the characteristics I long for in a plant--drought tolerance once established, beautiful flowers and stunning foliage.

Ninebark Summer Wine is a hybrid of Physocarpus opulifolius 'Nana' and P. O. Diabolo. The baby was blessed with the best traits of its parents—a dense, compact habit and wine-colored leaves. According to my artist friend Marty, the leaves are the color of Merlot wine. To my untrained eye, they look like a purplish chocolate.

This delightful deciduous shrub celebrates late May and early June with clusters of small pinkish-white flowers, which contrast beautifully with the dark foliage. Summer Wine grows to just 4 to 6 feet tall and wide, so it’s a good choice for mixed borders and foundation plantings. As an added bonus, it fruits in the fall.

As if stunning foliage, beautiful flowers and fall fruit were not enough, Summer Wine provides even more fascination when the bark on older plants peels into interesting papery strips.

Like most natives, Ninebark is easy to grow. It’s hardy to zone 2 and is happy in average soil and full sun to part shade. Feel free to prune immediately after flowering to maintain the shape and height that looks best in your garden, but never prune after mid-August—that’s when flower buds form for next year. And save those foliage cuttings for flower arrangements!

If you fall in love with Summer Wine like I did, you’ll have to buy it. Although Ninebark can be propagated by cuttings, ‘Summer Wine’ propagation is prohibited by law--even for personal use.

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 for a registration form.

One more possible explanation for the decline in bees and other pollinators has been discovered by the University of Virginia. Their Department of Environmental Sciences study showed that air pollution from power plants and vehicles is destroying flower fragrance, which interferes with the ability of pollinating insects to find flowers. Bees need nectar for food. Think about it.

Read more about the University’s study at Flowers' Fragrance Diminished by Air Pollution.

Read the abstract at Atmospheric Environment Journal

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 for a registration form.

Seventy percent of U.S. homeowners have gardens. And they spend over $11 billion a year on pesticides. That’s a lot of pesticides!

If you knew that pesticides harm wildlife and pollute our air, soil, food and water, would you want to replace the use of chemicals in your garden with something safer? How about if you were aware that pesticide use on home lawns and gardens actually exceeds the use of pesticides that farmers use on agricultural crops. And that pesticides can be harmful to your family’s health. Would you be willing to try something safer, like biologically based tactics to control weeds, insect pests and plant diseases?

Penn State University advises that home gardeners adopt the practice of IPM—integrated pest management. IPM is economical, effective and safer for you and the environment. IPM consists of

• proper pest identification
• understanding pest life cycles in order to treat at the most appropriate time
• monitoring for pest presence, location and abundance
• establishing an action threshold (how much leaf chewing are you willing to tolerate?)
• considering and selecting multiple tactics for pest suppression
• choosing the least toxic method for control
• evaluating results

Here are ten safer ways to control pests:

1. Check your plants for pests on a regular basis so you can address the problem early.
2. Correctly identify the pest and then choose an appropriate solution.
3. Encourage beneficial predators (birds, bats, frogs and beneficial insects) to take up
residence in your garden by planting a diverse mix of flowers, tress and shrubs
(especially natives) and installing bird feeders, bird baths and bird houses.
4. Use beneficial nematodes and milky spore to get rid of Japanese beetles.
5. Prune, bag and dispose of diseased plant parts. Do not add them to your compost pile.
6. Treat only the affected plant or area that is diseased or infested.
7. Don’t over-fertilize plants. All that resultant tender new growth is attractive to pests.
8. Be sure to place plants in conditions they prefer. (sun, shade, moisture) Stressed plants are more susceptible to pests and disease.
9. Read labels and follow directions for the remedy you choose. Don’t spray when
beneficial insects are active.
10. Use the least toxic pesticide for the identified problem. Horticultural oil and insecticidal soaps are good choices.

Keep your kids and pets safe. Be an environmentally friendly gardener—practice IPM. And tell your neighbors, too!

For more information on IPM, go to Penn State IPM

For comprehensive information on pesticides, go to Cornell University’s online tutorial

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 for a registration form.

by Tracey Carson, Delaware County Master Gardener

Taking every step possible to save our planet is no longer a popular trend, or a hip movement to be a part of--it’s a necessity. Educating ourselves on what we can do and varying levels of involvement from every person on the planet is crucial to sustaining a healthy global environment.

Education is the key word behind the reversal of our environmental duress. When education is teamed with action, urgency and dedication, the power to change the fate of a dismal destiny lies directly within our reach. Through programs that focus on finding a balance between environmental conservation and agricultural output, the founders of Earth University in Guácimo, Limon, Costa Rica, are equipping the youth of the world with the knowledge and skills necessary to about-face the present course of our natural world.

Earth University is a private, international non-profit university. With a student body made up of young people from twenty-five different countries, their curriculum is “dedicated to education in the agricultural sciences and natural resources.” Students attend classes six days a week, forty-five weeks a year for four years, earning an Agricultural Science licenciatura degree (between a BS and a MS), then graduating as Agronomists.

Eco-consciousness by way of formal education is also spreading like wildfire right here in the United States...

Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA houses several buildings with green roofs. Originally begun as a class project, these roofs were created by students.

The daily use of bicycles at UCLA has ballooned by 50%. One of the Berkley campuses’
cafeterias has a certified, completely organic kitchen.

Berea College of Berea, Kentucky prides itself with a five-acre “Ecovillage”, which is
complete with rainwater collection structures, wind-powered generators and solar energy panels.

The 13-acre organic farm of Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA boasts a state of the art compost facility. This school is powered by 100% un-polluted energy.

The College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine renders bachelors and masters degrees in solely one major--Human Ecology. They also are the first college or university in the country to go carbon neutral by decreasing and offsetting their entire output of greenhouse gas discharge.

As a home gardener in the tri-state area, enrolling in a major academy or traveling to Costa Rica for hands-on Agronomy schooling are not your only options. Just contact your local County Extension Office to utilize the varying levels of expertise available from your county’s Master Gardeners.

Area Master Gardeners have been trained by time-honored, accredited learning institutions such as Penn State, Rutgers, and the University of Delaware through their respective Colleges of Agriculture. If there is a charge for any of their horticultural education-based programs, the fee is always minimal---whereas, arming yourself with the knowledge to do your part on the environmental battlefield is priceless!

Note from Marion: Our own Penn State University is a leader in sustainability and environmental stewardship. PSU ranks fifth in the world in total number of citations in the area of global warming and in the total number of citations per paper. The only university that ranks higher than Penn State is Stanford, demonstrating Penn State's considerable influence on the field of research related to global warming. In global warming research by scientists over the past decade, PSU’s Dr. Eric Post, associate professor of biology, ranks ninth.

To find out what Penn State University is doing for the environment, go to Center for Green Roof Technology and Center for Sustainability at Penn State.

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 for a registration form.