The elegant native shadbush (amelanchier and its species) is in flower but a short time, but it is fleetingly graceful: peerless! Early in the morning, and the cardinal, or “red bird”, according to Margaret Renkl, jumps downstairs, unconcerned about the cat’s gaze safely behind the window glass.
Unlike Renkl, whose descriptions of the natural world have penetrating impact and precision, my words fail me when I am confronted with the fragile beauty of my native island and the ineluctable forces that assault it.
Spring can be a thoughtful season: its ephemerality and haste, its poignancy, sweet but unbearable. I remember a lifetime of springs, delicate and white flowers of shadbush, the fluttering leaves of beech trees that develop. The beeches won’t bloom this spring, and Waylon and Yossi, in the springtime of their lives, are on hiatus forever.
In the garden
This spring the conditions seem variable, as every so often, with many cold days and nights. Over the next week, night temperatures will drop into the lower 40s: take care of hardy plants.
Every gardener is eager to get a jump on growing, but this year may be one with “Be Cautious” printed all over it. The temperature should not be below freezing for the cold shock to occur, just to make a significant drop.
Hardening of seedlings, in terms of temperature and light strength, is the gradual exposure of seedlings and tender plants to external conditions, and then return to the shelter of the cold frame or the indoor environment for a other night sector. When the leaves are young and soft, they become sunburned or dry easily.
Earth and biodiversity
Island soils are mostly acidic, largely based on mineral sand, with a small quotient of biological matter. For gardens to produce food, quality trees and shrubs, or even acceptable bouquets, soil improvement is essential. This is the “why” of compost and compost. This is why you keep all the biomass produced in the place where you live, to allow it to break down and return to the ground.
An unavoidable omission in previous Garden Notes (“Forsythia is a spring tonic”, April 25) was the image of the moss nurse’s journal, with the caption “Life in death in life: breaks, moss-covered logs become nurse logs. the wild fire potential of fear.
Below is the link to a piece by the famous landscape artist Edwina von Gal on the creation of structures, “habitat peaks”, in our gardens, to provide shelter and protection for the rest of nature with which we share our lives: bit.ly/PEP_HabitatPiles.
And here on the Island, BiodiversityWorks has the same goals.
Continuously irrigated soil can actually lose nutrients and tilth through leaching. The soil that has been worked and improved over several seasons, or even only one, retains more moisture, weeds more easily, and condenses the dew at night, compared to the soil poor in humus that waits to support growth with perhaps only continuous watering.
Compost materials and organic soil foods (fertilizers) feed and increase soil microbiota: the millions of fungal, bacterial and viral life forms in a spoonful of soil. These are actually what help plants grow. He is attentive to the pagan microbiota of the soil that “does the magic”. These are disturbed in essentially dead, tilled, chemically treated soil. For more on this, check out Kristin Ohlson’s book “The Land Will Save Us.”
Cool weather conditions encourage the growth of weeds such as spitting cress, henbit, chickweed, speedwell (veronica) and draba; but they generally pull easily. These uninvited plants that grow, the “weed”, will give you information about your soil.
What’s wrong with moss?
I love the bumper sticker pictured! Cool conditions with lots of rain can promote moss in lawns. In my travels around some of the Island’s most beautiful gardens, I’ve seen a lot of them this year. This, however, along with white clover, to the dedicated lawn cultist is anathema!
As an ecological gardener, I don’t see the problem with moss in lawns, or with white clover. The advantages of white clover are that it makes its own fertilizer, being able to capture nitrogen from the air, it stays green with less water or other inputs than turf, and it supports pollinating insects. The advantages of Moss are that it does not need mowing, and it is soft and spongy to walk on.
Dandelion, nemesis of lawn cultists, tells you that there is soil compaction. Rather than a “weed ‘n’ feed” product, consider a top dressing with a quarter to half inch of quality compost or screened mulch; or take a soil test.
And while writing about flowering plants in the lawn, this is the appropriate time to mention leaving the lawn unmow. Mow only one section; cut a path – let it grow and propagate firefly larvae and other insects …
“No Mow May”, as it is now known, has become a real movement, one that aims to leave a large part of the great American lawn without mowing for a greater part of the warm months than just May.
Ornamental pruning
Many ornamentals are leaves, and some require more attention than others. The beautiful hydrangea vine, Hydrangea anomala var. petiolaris, is usually grown on a wall or trellis, and can become quite heavy over time, enough for its hold-fasts to loosen and fall from the wall or tree on which it is grown.
Pruning to promote a flat-to-the-surface habit is usually desirable with creeping hydrangea. However, the flowers form on the growth of the previous season; develop a regular pruning program that promotes flowering and preserves the desired habit.
Shrubby hypericums, such as “Hidcote”, can be cut hard, while spireas and potentillas are cut by a third. Rose of Sharon, Hibiscus syriacus, to enhance growth; blooms on new wood. Plum Montauk daisies now, and again after Memorial Day.
Lift and divide daffodils. Tick check every night.
