Proper Planting, Part 2

The Gardening Trivia Quiz

Hey, we have a winner of the garden trivia quiz! Our own Laura Fergus from the greenhouse staff gets a batch of homemade mini-chocolate chip muffins. Laura, I’ll bring them in tomorrow. I hope you plan on sharing! See below for last week’s answer. In the meantime this week’s question: What petunia-like flowering annual is related to the potato?

E-mail me your answer at leslieross@sbcglobal.net and I’ll send you back a coupon to use in the store. Good luck!

Spring is Here: Part Two

Last week I wrote about amending your soils. Today I will discuss planting.
After you have prepared the bed, the next step is preparing your plants. If the annuals or perennials you have purchased have not been "hardened off," or acclimated to the outdoor climate, place them outside in a shady spot during the day, then bring them into the garage at night. After a few days, they should be used to being outside and you can plant them. Give them a good soak while still in their flats or containers. If the soil in the containers is dry or the plants are root bound, water applied after planting may not penetrate the root ball and the plants will die. Water them again after you have planted them so that the surrounding soil is wet and the roots can penetrate into that soil. We recommend using Plant Start or Quick Start, two products that are root stimulators. These products are in a concentrated form and are mixed with water. Use this solution the first few times you water to stimulate root growth. You can use these products on all plants you are transplanting, including trees, shrubs, perennials and annuals.

We get a lot of questions about how deep to dig the holes for planting. Most plants should be planted at the same level as they are planted in their containers. Holes for trees and shrubs should be dug as deep as is the root ball or container and one to two times as wide. You should mix one-half native soil with one-half soil amendment (compost) to back fill the hole. The same can be done with perennials. There are a few exceptions. Clematis vines like to have their roots cool and you can plant these vines a good six inches deeper than they are in their containers. Roses, especially roses that are grafted onto a root stock can be planted two to three inches deeper. Tomatoes are another plant that we recommend be planted deep so that only the top two leaf branches are above the soil. Tomatoes are some plants that require lots of water and nutrients. By planting them deep in the soil, roots will grow from the stem nodes allowing the plant to take up more water and therefore more nutrients. It also results in a much stronger plant.

Another tip for successful planting is to plant late in the day so that the plant has time to recover from transplant shock during the cool evening hours.

Garden Patrol: The Woodland Garden

One of the goals of this blog is to introduce you to local gardeners and gardens and recently I visited a woodland garden with quite a history. I met Randy and Nancy Schietzelt on Election Day where we were serving as election judges. (In a side note, congratulations to Nunda 11 for having a 22 percent turnout that day. Keep up the good work.) When I mentioned my work at Countryside, they invited me to see their fabulous woodland garden that has been in the making since 1948. I also learned a little Crystal Lake history that day.
My main purpose that day was to see the abundant Virginia bluebells that have been naturalized on their property and that were in peak bloom. The white pine forest that is visible from the road marks the beginning of their property. A previous owner planted these trees by hand and carefully watered them, bringing water by the bucket full from the house. As I came up the drive the ground just shimmered in blue. Also on display was trillium, jack in the pulpit, celadon poppies and wild ginger. In order to allow these woodland plants to flourish, Randy and Nancy have worked hard to eradicate the buckthorn and mustard garlic that grow wild but are non-native invasive species. A small stream also meanders through part of the property.
As we walked around Nancy gave me a brief history of the property. Randy and Nancy have lived in the house since 1998, when they bought the property from Ardeth Wingate, wife of the late Bill Wingate. Although the house was never listed by a real estate agent, an ad had been placed in an Audubon Society magazine, to which the Schietzelts belong. Prior to the Wingate’s owning it, the front part of the property had been a chicken farm. Down the road, near where Prairie Ridge High School is today, there had been a cheese plant. The water on the Schietzelt’s property was so clean and pure that the cheese plant piped the water to the plant for use in making the cheese.

Anyone who frequents Stern’s Woods off of Hillside or the Nature Center off of Hwy. 176, will be familiar with Wingate Prairie. The 33-acre site is part of Veteran’s Acres and the 27-year long restoration effort was lead largely by Bill Wingate, a teacher who had grown up in the area. (Anyone interested in helping to preserve Wingate Prairie can call the Nature Center at 815.455.1763 to get information about their scheduled prairie work days.) Bill and Ardeth must have been pleased to sell their home to such good stewards as the Schietzelts, who have kept up similar preservation efforts at Bill’s house.

Invasive Species

Many of the plants that we use in our gardening are not native to our country. Roses came from China. Many orchid species are from South America. Some of the ornamental plants we use today are hybridized species of native plants. There are some plants that have been imported, however, that threaten the economic livelihoods of ranchers and farmers. These plants have no natural enemies and crowd out beneficial plants. It is a huge problem in the western US, where economically important forage grasses must compete for scarce resources, water being one, with the non-natiave species. Buckthorn and garlic mustard are just two of the non-native species that have invaded northern Illinois. If you have these plants on your property, please do your part to eradicate them. For a more complete list of invasive plants, visit www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov

Nursery Notes

KC and the nursery staff report numerous calls about several tree problems. If you have Mugo or other pines you may have spotted the European Pine Sawfly larvae munching on the new growth, or candles. The larvae rear back when disturbed and they have quite the appetite. You may also have noticed little bumps on the underside of maple leaves. These are known as galls and are the reaction of the tree to the feeding of mites. Both of these problems can be solved by using Bayer Tree and Shrub Systemic insecticide (www.bayeradvanced.com). The product is a concentrate that is diluted and poured at the base of the tree or shrub and is taken up into the branches and leaves by the tree’s vascular system. The product remains active for a year. It is a good remedy for other boring insects, such as the emerald ash borer.

The Answer to Last Week’s Garden Trivia: Congress declared tomato to be vegetable in 1893. Can you think of any other vegetables that are really fruits? Also, here’s a hint for this week’s question. The answer to this week’s question is in a previous posting. Good Luck!

Spring is Here

The Gardening Trivia Quiz

Last week’s question had to do with telling the difference between a fruit and a vegetable (the answer is below). This week’s question is part 2: What is the only fruit to be declared a vegetable by an act of Congress and in what year did that occur? E-mail me your answer at leslieross@sbcglobal.net and I’ll send you back a coupon to use in the store. Good luck!

Spring is Here!
I grew up in California, but I have spent the majority of my adult years in Michigan, Colorado and now Illinois and I have come to appreciate having four seasons. In California we joked that we had two seasons: green and brown. It was green during the winter rainy season and by the end of May the surrounding countryside turned brown as the grasses went dormant. The only green would be from the magnificent oaks that dot the foothills or the star thistle. (Why is it that weeds stay green no matter what the weather?) In Colorado, due to the extreme dryness during the summer, gardening was truly a labor of love. Ten percent humidity is not uncommon. I could not grow impatiens to save my life, because I couldn’t keep them watered enough. Having been at the bottom of an ancient sea, the soil also is very alkaline and clayey. Living in the West, you must learn to love the various shades of brown that nature provides.

Here in Illinois we have our gardening issues, but basically life is good and now that spring has sprung we can get out in the garden and begin planting our annual beds and adding to our perennial gardens. As you might imagine, we get a lot of questions at Countryside about how to plant, so I thought I would address a few gardening basics today and over the next couple of postings.

Getting Ready -Part 1 -- Soil, the Garden Foundation
The most important foundation of a successful garden is the soil. Just about any soil problem can be corrected with the addition of organic matter. Heavy, clay soils, like we have here in Illinois, can be loosened up and sandy soils will become more water retentive. It is much easier to add organic matter before you start planting. If you are planting a new bed, please take the time to amend the soil with some type of organic matter. It will pay back big dividends in added productivity later on. The addition of organic matter will also increase soil acidity, which is a good thing since most plants don't do well in high pH soils. The high pH inhibits take up of certain nutrients.

What to Use: Organic matter is any carbon based material that has decomposed or been "composted". You can make your own compost from yard and garden waste, but there are many products available commercially. We don’t recommend using peat moss because it provides very little nutritive value and peat is a non-renewable resource. It is also so good at retaining moisture that it can actually reduce drainage in clay soils. Use a good compost instead. Mushroom compost is a good alternative because it is essentially well rotted manureand high in nutrients, but used excessively over time it can cause salt build up in the soil. Leaf compost is available commercially in bulk or from your own compost pile and is a good substitute. Think about getting a leaf shredder and shredding leaves next fall instead of burning them. You can add them to the compost pile, use them as mulch or dig them directly into the bed to compost over the winter. (When we got our shredder I thought I could shred them down to a wheel barrow load, but as I discovered an acre's worth of leaves is still a lot of leaves!) Newly available on the market is a product called Cotton Burr Compost. Sold locally in bags, it provides lots of nutrients as well as lightens up our heavier soils. If your beds are already established, compost can be applied as a top dressing. Eventually, worm action will work the compost down into the soil.

Next Week: Proper Planting Techniques

Container Gardening

Container gardening is gaining popularity as people downsize to smaller gardens or have less time to garden on a large scale. Gardening in containers gives you flexibility in choosing color combinations and making changes as the season progresses. More and more plants have been developed to meet this demand. We are fortunate at Countryside to have the talented Michael Fedoran who designs a lot of the container gardens we sell and assists customers in selecting unique or unusual plant combinationss for containers.

Michael uses perennials as well as annuals in his containers and at home he will cluster containers in a monochromatic scheme. Each container will have several of the same plant and he will cluster them in groups of three to five. Foliage holds more of an interest for him than do the flowers and you will notice this in the containers he does for the store. Lamium as a trailing plant or upright heucheras for the center of the container are some of his "trademarks." Although I already know some of his favorite plants (Diamond Frost euphorbia) I asked him to recommend some "foolproof" annuals for people wishing to do their own containers and these are his recommendations:

Million Bells (Calibrachoa)
Often mistaken for miniature petunias, these plants are actually in the potato family. Regardless, they are steady performers in the garden, either in the ground, but more often in containers or hanging baskets. They come in a range of colors from blues and purples, to pinks, oranges, reds and yellows. They prefer full sun, but will tolerate some shade although they will not bloom as profusely. They prefer evenly moist soils and do not like being waterlogged. If they get a little leggy, don’t hesitate to get out your scissors and give them a trim.

Coleus
There must be a bazillion different coleus. One website I visited listed over 1400 different varieties! In Victorian times they were used as bedding plants, but now they are used as the focal plant in containers due to their bright, variegated foliage. While most coleus do well in shade, hybridizers have developed sun tolerant coleuses. They are very easy to grow and are resistant to most pests and diseases. With all the varieties available, I am sure you will find one (or two or more) to accent your containers this year.

The Answer to Last Week’s Garden Trivia: Fruits contain seeds and are the result of the plant’s flowering while vegetables are the edible parts of the plant, such as the root (carrot), leaf (lettuce), or stem (celery).