Selecting New Perennial for Organic Gardens

 When adding a new perennial to your gardens, do your research. do you know all aspects of what the plant will provide & achieve? There's much publicizing from native plant activists. They're up there with militant vegans. They'll shame you into getting rid of your lawns, and threaten to draw & quarter your limbs if you grow non-native flowers saying they disrupt the ecosystem. Don't listen to other people. Take everything into consideration. Because you might know more info, understand that there are over 4000 native bees, and that the Europeans first brought them to the colonies. There's nothing wrong with growing non natives to attract these transplanted naturalized native bees. There are invasive plants that do take over reducing biodiversity, competing with native & non native organisms for limited resources, and altering habitats. This can result in huge economic impacts and fundamental disruptions. We all know too well about phragmites, English Ivy, Asiatic bittersweet, kudzu, etc.

On March 1, 2023, I ordered many seeds from a catalogue called Tradewinds.  The seeds were reasonable in price.  One of the seed varieties appealed to me in many ways. 

Balloon Flower - Platycodon grandiflorus, a perennial, is not a native blue flower, yet its hardy, disease-resistant nature and vibrant perennial blossoms, does well in most climates, from zones 3 through 9. It flowers best in full sun, but will also thrive in morning sun and afternoon shade (and may actually do better there in warmer areas). New plants need regular water while getting established, but then are pretty drought-tolerant. Yes I want drought loving low growing blue flowers. Birds, bees, and butterflies love them. They start flowering in mid to late summer, and will continue throughout the season with regular dead-heading. That’s pretty much all the maintenance they’ll need, though. P. grandiflorus may be propagated from seed, by stem cuttings, or from nursery starts in the spring.

The edible roots have long been pickled and preserved, and used in herbal remedies and dietary supplements, to provide anti-inflammatory, antitussive, and digestive benefits. For thousands of years this perennial herb has been used to treat hypotension, lipid reduction, atherosclerosis, inflammation, relieving cough and phlegm, promoting cholic acid secretion, and as an antioxidant. Companions that play well with P. grandiflorus include bee balm, black-eyed Susan, blazing star, daylily, and lily turf. Perfect for my butterfly and rain garden.

 English ivy (Hedera helix) is a curse, my battle to push back this marauding vine overtaking the north corner of the garden. 

Gardening is always showing the virtues of acceptance. The reality is the English Ivy must be managed or it will overtake the entire property over time. This has been ongoing for decades with periods of total denial that it's at the end of the property and won't spread, but the birds eat the berries and drop seeds through their poop and it shows up everywhere in little plants that left unknowingly will create an invasion everywhere including the neighbors yards.

 With acceptance comes patience, and I know I'll have to return to ripping out ivy over and over. It's the never ending story. 

Its manual removal will be an ongoing chore with many other demanding chores throughout the year. February is a good time to tackle a patch of it.  I'll hone in on my tenacious skills and rip it out here and there, knowing it's not enough back breaking work. I need help. Maybe fire?l I sometimes dream about setting it all on fire.  Humility, humor and companionship are strong positions from which to start any journey of growth and I'm grateful to know it so well from daily exercise in the natural world and in this particular childhood garden. The ivy is a curse that I plan to challenge the rest of my days left here in my garden.  Whatever I leave behind will be someone else's challenge.  I just hope that they don't use chemicals to tackle the job. 

I believe that organic gardeners are the true martyrs of the land. 

Dreaming of creating a new herb garden in 2023

 While drinking calendula tea, I decided this pretty flower must be a part of the new herb garden.  Planning for a new herb design on this rainy, freezing January night. 

Pot marigold or Calendula is a medicinal flower that can be used to treat things like headaches, toothaches, and more. As a culinary herb, the flower petals of this plant are edible and can be used fresh in salads or even dried to color cheese. It is often used as a substitute for saffron and can add vibrant color to everything from poultry dishes to soups and stews.

Making pot marigold tea is divine. See picture of dried flowers in a cloth tea bag that I made tonight.

Calendula flowers are so pretty in the formal herb garden. And it's so easy to germinate. Grow in full sun and keep moist. Dead head spent flowers and save them, and more flowers will continue to grow until a hard frost.

                                              calendula seeds 

Hoverflies, predatory Miridae, ladybugs, lacewings, minute pirate bugs, and a variety of other beneficial insects love this cheerful beautiful bloom.

Intercropping calendula with carrots reduced carrot pest damage, including that caused by nematodes. Plant with potatoes, tomatoes, strawberries, peas, asparagus, squash, melons, corn, basil, lettuce, peppers.

It can also be used as a fabric dye. Such a pretty shade of golden yellow.

The herb's antifungal and antimicrobial properties help prevent infection and heal injuries to body tissues. Calendula is also known to have anti-inflammatory and antioxidant components, which might help to fight cancer, protect against heart disease, and ease muscle fatigue.

Drinking calendula tea is reported to help heal gastric ulcers, congested lymph nodes and sore throat. It can potentially help break a fever by causing a sweat. Dosage is no more than 2 to 3 cups per day. (Not for pregnant women since it can stimulate menstruation).

For a flower, calendula actually contains some amazing nutrients and phytochemicals. Calendula flowers contain fatty acids and they’re also high in many antioxidants such as lutein, lycopene, beta-carotene, quercetin, rutin, and more! Many of these antioxidants are known for their roles in eye health, reducing inflammation, preventing heart disease, regulating blood sugar. Perhaps one of the most profound benefits of drinking calendula tea is its potential to help support healthy digestion. The medicinal properties of calendula make it soothing to the digestive tract. Considered to be a carminative herb, drinking calendula tea may be effective in helping ease and prevent heartburn and indigestion. It’s also very soothing to internal mucous membranes and can help support the healing of gastric and intestinal inflammation associated with conditions such as Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS).

And when our digestive processes are functioning properly, we are better able to absorb the nutrients and beneficial phytochemicals from the food we eat. What's not to like?

Reclaiming the Cold Frame from the Invasion of the Golden Raspberries December 2 2022

I filled a tall can with dead canes and pulled out invasive honeysuckle vines.

Most canes have no growth but this was protected in a warm area and grew leaves

A cut cane that is now ready for replanting.

This was a lot of digging.  I did save about 10 canes to repot in containers. 

                    Fabulous - the golden raspberry canes have been dug out. 

More to do on Sunday, December 4th 2022 after the rains leave us on Saturday, December 3. 
 

Trees on my Property on December 2 2022

 It's December 1.  2022.  I've been observing the tall and very old Norway Spruce conifer tree at the Northern tip of the property that forms a triangular shape. I believe this was a living Christmas tree planted in the early 1960's.  It could be 60 years old and 60 feet tall.  It's kind of shaggy looking.  And invasive English ivy is climbing back on it and I must cut the ivy down before it kills the tree.  

With fierce winds, the cones have been falling randomly to the ground.  And I've been collecting them.  A friend, Carrie, has shown interest in having some cones.  I've bagged them so I don't run them over with the mulching lawn mower.  

The cones are long and closed when they fall off the branches. They tend to develop rough and scaly bark because of woody projections that hold the needles to the tree. Typically grow into a “perfect” conifer shape.

• Norway Spruce are monoecious. Their female flowers are red and oval-shaped and typically grow on the upper crown of the tree. Male flowers form in clusters of stamens and are also red in color but turn to yellow once pollinated. Female flowers are wind-pollinated, turning green and enlarged. Once this happens, these female flowers then further develop into red-brown cones. The cones of a Norway spruce are relatively long and have diamond-shaped scales. The seeds of a Norway Spruce are released in spring.

                                           Some examples of cone trees. 

I plan on using some of the Norway spruce branches for decorations in my window boxes.  

to be continued. 

Quackgrass weed in the November vegetable garden

 I knew laying down old bales of straw (not hay) might attract mice, but that it was basically weed free to use as a top mulch. When prepping the soil in the back garden on November 27, 2022, for Spring vegetables for 2023, I observed a grassy weed dying back on the ground. QUACKGRASS. Wow it was hard to pull! Hmm deep rhizomes/roots. They can come from bales of straw. I had to dig them out. I made sure the long narrow spike head with seeds was removed - each one has about 25 seeds. This is a noxious weed very hard to get rid of. This year I tried to go around the property and remove as many seed heads as possible.

I'd like to do a weed count in the organic garden.

It was hard work but I spent 2 days moving containers with native shrubs from the east side to west side of back yard vegetable garden, remove the old weed cloth, and begin turning over the soil and top dressing with freshly mulched grass and leaves, then covering with new weed cloth for the winter.

My goal is to remove ALL weeds in the garden especially the quack grass and blackberry brambles.  I have all the rest of bare soil to do before the ground freezes. 

It's February 9 2022 - continue cutting down ONE wild, overgrown Privet Hedgerow plant over 20 ft tall

We see immaculateely pruned privet hedges all over Long Island. This is an invasive plant to the U.S. known as Ligustrum Ovalifolium.  I never planted this shrub.  It came up probably from birds dropping seeds around 1999.  It has turned into a monster.  I need to remove it.  I'm getting too old at almost 72 years old for the constant work on my property removing wild invasives. Now there is an invasion of English Ivy underneath the privet and growing up on it.  The area has become a thicket. And now there's Black Locust with killer thorns surrounding the privet. Multiflora rose and Mulberry have also invaded the wild hedgerow. I've been tackling the removal of long, thick, tree-like trunks from a shrub all Winter.  Removing the cut off pieces is slow.  I've filled so many 100's of giant cans with cut up pieces it's endless - I'm talking years of work to cart away in small batches. The Village Sanitation is helping me with larger pieces now as they see me struggling with the chain saw, and loping shears to put it out on the curb for pick up. 

The long 10 foot pole is just half the length of a stem turned into a trunk and this is very heavy.  The top of it is multi branched and bushy like.  

 

The privet develops shoots off the main trunk that grow quickly.  Or they come out of the ground off of roots to grow new plants.  

My plan is to finish topping off the 20 ft hedgerow shrub and place a thick steel chain around it and have a truck rip it out of the ground, and then cut it up into smaller pieces to lift into a garbage truck on lawn rubbish day.  I'll have a crater of a hole left to fill in. Then begins hand ripping out English Ivy and rakng the area clean to begin planting Native plants.  

Half of the Privet was cut down by Feb. 6th 2022, and you can see how massive this plant still is and how long the trunks are, but how bushy the top growth is. Winter is the time to cut it down while the birds are not nesting in the surrounding forsythias - another nightmare non-native plant that is spreading into thickets along the front property.  The Forsythia has to go, too. 

January 25 2022 this is how much was still on the privet after removing a trunk full of cut down branches/trunks. 

December 30 2021 the cutting down of the privet has been ongoing and endless work for me. 

In the above picture, on the last few days of 2021,  I'm using battery operated chain saw and long handled loping shears. 

 Privet can come back again strongly after being cut to ground level. Make sure you remove all traces that you cut back out of the garden or burn it all, don't compost it so as not to re-infect again.  Privet grows particularly well in riparian forests, which are found throughout the SE U.S. Although tolerant of varying soil and light conditions, including a tolerance for shade, privet survives best in mesic soil with abundant sunlight.

When privet is an invasive species, the cost of controlling and removing privet is economically detrimental, something that is problematic for conservation efforts.  

The Moral of this story is DO NOT PLANT a PRIVET HEDGE.  

 Do privet shrubs have deep roots? 

Root depth really depends upon soil type and moisture conditions. Under reasonable growing conditions you can expect to find privet roots in the top 6"-8" of soil, extending out about one and one-half times the diameter of the plant. The roots are not generally thought of as being invasive.  But I disagree.