2007
We
had a funny year here...it seems like only yesterday it was late May
and I was wondering if spring would ever REALLY come. I was
wearing my rubber fishing overalls well into June. Then, we
had a
few days here and there that could be called "summerlike,"
and
before I knew it, fall was in the air, earlier in August than I can
remember.
Everything seemed to happen on a different schedule this year...I
noticed that my yellow Lady Banks rose that is usually blooming at
Mother's Day with the lilacs bloomed instead at the beginning
of
June and missed the lilacs altogether. My Fortune's Double
Yellow
rose, which blooms first of all my roses, usually late April, bloomed
around Mother's Day. All through the season, things like that
were happening.
Things like grapes, which always leaf out late, leafed out extra late,
and some things didn't even have a chance to bloom, they were so
late. Some of those late season crops like pumpkins didn't
produce much. It was just an unusual year.
I also noticed the Doug firs have an extra huge crop of cones
this year. Then, toward the middle of August, I had my first
"fall is in the air" feeling, and suddenly there was a bumper crop of
spiders over a month before usual.
Spiders
I don't know if you have a big fall spider population where
you
are, but here there are masses of "European Cross" spiders that are
determined to build between and on every upright thing
around. It
isn't unusual to see someone emerge from their front door waving their
arms madly in front of them all the way to the car, breaking up those
"in your face" webs that sprout up over night on the porch, between the
bushes, between the car's antenna and every nearby branch,
etc.
Wherever there COULD be a web, there likely IS at least
one. In Sept., Oct., I am constantly running into them
between
bushes and under trees. That icky feeling of having a web
plastered across my face is offset by the interesting phenomenon of
having its perfect pattern stuck to my glasses. One day, I
even
counted the webs on a row of thirteen arborvitae and stopped at
67! That exemplifies one of the important chores I spend my
time
performing daily, heh heh.
Anyway, we are now firmly into our version of winter weather
and
I have been making the rounds doing fall cleanup and getting ready to
mulch where needed. For this area, it has been feeling colder
to
me lately, but that's probably my advanced age catching up with
me. My hands and arms are really sore from pruning and
raking,
but it is very satisfying to stand back and breathe a big sigh of
relief when a garden is all cleaned up and looking good for the
winter. I try to keep in mind that there are only 15 minutes
in
May and 15 minutes in November when most of these gardens are "under
control." The rest of the time, it's just slightly restrained
chaos in some places and frantic-barely-keeping-up in others...
Grasses
Revisited
Speaking of cutting back, I know it's been months since you mentioned
your pampas grass with the center gone(Disney monk's tonsure syndrome,
as it's called in the scientific world) but that is something that
occurs with regularity around here, usually with the smaller
grasses. I know everyone has their way of dealing with
grasses,
but I have found that if you cut the grasses back too early (fall) in
our area, you are more likely to get the tonsure syndrome.
Pampas
usually doesn't get it too bad, because it's such a razor-leaved bear
to deal with that most people just let it go and only mess with the
flowers, cutting them off when they sag like dirty mops to the ground.
But -- miscanthus, especially young ones, fescues, carex,
etc.
really suffer from the center dieout. I try to leave them up
until first of March or late Feb., and time the cutting back with
spring rose pruning. My theory is that when you whack grasses
too
early, the rain can sit right in the middle, on the crown, and rot it
out. I love the way they way they wave around in the fall and
winter winds. Yes, they are messy, but I just regularly pick
up
after them and then cut them back in the spring (earlier only
if
they are just too ugly to stand and/or well sheltered from the
rain). I do know a lot of people who whack them in late fall,
but
it seems you almost miss the best part when you do.
In your area, rain is probably not the culprit, but one way
to
deal with that center dieout is to take it as an opportunity to divide
the grass. Of course, with pampas grass, you'll want
to
hire a monster truck to pull it out, or buy one of those
handy
Acme Pampas Grass Eliminator Bombs, but if you can divide it, even into
just 2 or 3 large sections, they will regrow into tonsure-free
units. I don't know about the idea of planting another in the
bare center...haven't tried that yet. Anything involving
pampas
grass maintenance wears me out just thinking about it.
Whenever
someone tells me they want to put in pampas grass, I tell them just to
make sure they put it where they want it, because they'll never get it
out once it decides to get going.
It used to be more unusual to see people using a lot of grasses in
their gardens around here, but grasses have really made a place for
themselves here. I think people thought grasses were
"boring,"
and more for prairie or dry gardens, but there are so many great
grasses and "grass-like perennials," gardeners were won over.
I used to be indifferent to grasses myself, but when I worked at the
nursery I became a big fan of what they can do to extend the season,
add interest, add movement, and just generally fill out and put new
dimensions into the garden. I had no idea there were so many
great grasses either, but I was scouting around at a trade show a few
years ago and came across a company that sold plugs and finished
plants, mostly grasses, at very good prices.
I took a catalog and when I went to order for the nursery, I
tried a few of all the types I had never heard of. There are
some
great usual and unusual grasses out there. I really had to
research to figure out what they could and couldn't do, so I could
encourage people to try them. Often people are charmed by
their
"flowers," and the way they blow around when everything else is flopped
and konked out.
A few of my favorites -- Hystrix patula, also called "Indian
rice
grass" or "bottlebrush grass"; all the musically named striped
Miscanthuses -- Dixieland, Andante, Allegro, etc. and Cosmopolitan,
Morning Light, etc.; the Schizachyriums or "little bluestems," bluish
colored bunchgrasses with great red fall color; Eragrostis -
"love grass," has that beautiful effect of a cloud when flowering,
green, red, purple; Hakonechloa, the "Hakone grasses" from Japan,
beautiful in the damp shade among your ferns and hostas or on their own
in big drifts; the Panicums -- switch grasses-- my favorites are 'Heavy
Metal' with steel blue leaves and flowers, and 'Prairie Skies' in
powder blue; Chasmanthium latifolium - "northern sea oats,"
with
wide leaves and dangling flat seedheads that look great through the
fall/winter; and Carex, and Japanese blood grass, and pheasant
grass...but there are so many more!! Here, we are
able to
grow many different grasses, and there are choices for sun,
shade, moist, dry, windy, you name it circumstances.
There are also the "grass-like perennials" like Liriope, or
"turf
lily"; Ophiopogon, or 'mondo grass'; Libertia, Sisyrinchiums, the
"blue-eyed" or "yellow-eyed grasses"; reeds, Cyperus -- all kinds of
grassy looking plants that can add different looks and flower
colors. If your area is about zone 4, you can have all kinds
of
looks with grasses. If you want, I can send you my list for
your
area The company I bought from gave me a good list of choices
for
all the zones.
When I'm trying to decide what to do with grasses, I like to
use
perennials that go with the "theme" of the grasses, so if the grasses
are "prairie" types, I put daisies and echinacea/coneflowers,
gaillardia/blanket flowers, rudbeckia/brown-eyed susans, penstemons,
liatris, etc. with them. Even in our area, prairie scenes can
look really good. Shade lovers like hakonechloe, luzula,
Carex
'Bowles' Golden,' 'Ice Dance,' and many other Carexes; ornamental
horsetails, Vanilla grass, Deschampsia or 'hair
grass' and many others can be mixed with grass-like
perennials and dwarf bamboos. Add a few
ferns,
hostas, hellebores, toad lilies, waxbells, etc., and you can put
together some amazing designs. All that limits you is your
imagination, as they say...and your zone. I have a lot of
information on grasses and what goes well with them/which ones work,
etc. Let me know if there is anything I can provide in the
way of
lists, etc.
On other news, I really went all out planting seeds this
year. I
didn't do any plant sales, so in 2008, I will have a lot to
sell.
Most of the stuff I plant is on the oddball side, but there seem to be
enough people who like something different that I am able to pass on a
lot of plants. I have also been doing a lot of cuttings,
divisions, etc. I've gotten so if I see a plant I like in
someone's yard, I ask them if I can take a cutting or look for a sucker
or take seeds. I have yet to meet someone who told me to get
lost, and my driveway is full of pots of cuttings, seedlings,
etc. If you ever find yourself up here, I will load you down
with
whatever you want to try.
Speaking of grasses, one of the people I work for has a bumper crop of
Carexes -- 3 or 4 different brown/tan ones, the orange, and a few
greens/variegateds. They seed like crazy (something to watch
out
for with Carex) in the driveway, and I just yank them out and put them
in pots and away they go. So, grasses can be quite easy from
seed
or division -- sometimes TOO easy. |
