Leonard Moorehead, the Urban Gardener: Everyone is a Gardener
Saturday, May 09, 2015
Like me
Perhaps you’re like me. Hammocks and to- do lists compete mightily under the grape arbor. The hammock is used more often by guests; gardeners are more apt to kneel on burlap bags for comfort, pull back mulches, and plant. Gardens are busy places; peacefulness and serenity are intrinsic by products of our efforts. Meanwhile intent is an element of peace amid troves of red, yellow, white, and pink tulips. Mid and late season daffodils multiply each year, nod and prevail around me. My knees creak and I lean on the trowel to lift myself up from the beet beds. Mileage accumulates season after season, spring bulbs confirm all is worthwhile.
Muscari
Perhaps you have Muscari, the grape hyacinth. Originally, like most of my spring flowering corms, bulbs and tubers, they were planted on the margins, the places on the edge. Yes, all aspects of the needs for best lives are present, sunshine, well-drained soil and plenty of humus under the mulch. Scatter bulbs with a single gestural arm sweep for random appearances. Plant a little deeper than the package recommends. I firmly believe a generous smidgeon of bone meal buried with bulbs makes for healthy blooming plants. Mine multiply. A lovely blue haze of Muscari lives happily under dwarf apricots and dwarf pears. One or two are outliers, probably noticed by a gardener whose tricky back allows periods of kneeling and bending before the memo arrives: no more. Despite vigilance, I often find an overlooked bulb or two; hastily push into the soil and cover. Such are the beginnings of migrations throughout the garden. Grape hyacinths, scilla, and snowdrops expand into new territory more pleasing to the eye than Sunday afternoon.
Myrtle’s blue
Myrtle’s blue flowers remind this groundcover is a bit sly, it quietly reaches outward in acid soils from under shrubbery; their demure dark green leaves a pleasure above trailing vines. All vines are eager to move outward, often upward, most wind around supports and in a pinch that includes fruit trees. Although I live in an old densely built city, I’m often betrayed by small town origins. Migrants head to urban centers soon to forget generation after generation of our small town origins. Gardeners renew the association of folks and horticulture in creative vertical gardens, containers, community plots or maybe you carry volunteer sprigs of peppermint and spearmint to tuck into the narrow ground along our riverside bike paths. Guerrilla gardeners spread saved seeds in vacant lots or odd places heavy machinery or the demands of commerce overlook. One wintery afternoon poring over seed catalogs I ordered kiwi vines. What was I thinking? Exotic New Zealand, the fascinating nocturnal bird, ever expanding choices in produce markets or the lovely arbor covered in kiwi vines at friends?
Kiwi is less exotic as much as more like an old adversary: bittersweet vine; without the cheerful gold and crimson fall berries. Gender confusion reigns, kiwi has male and female plants for cross pollination; Arctic varieties self- pollinate; all produce rampant tangled growth of in-determinate gender. If you must, carefully consider gender identification, kiwi are deceptively much alike, choose those whose leaves are gender markers or do not arouse suspicions of same sex thickets, vibrant and lusty but unfruitful. Order more female than male and enjoy their far flung exploration of anything taller nearby. Be prepared to prune.
Carefully unwind
I started to carefully unwind kiwi from its neighbor peach tree. Soon, I stopped re-directing growth towards a larger, less sociable arbor and pruned. Vining plants are travelers. Concord grapes thrive in my city. First planted in early May of 2011 they have gone up the ten foot arbor posts, across the top, down the six foot fence against the sidewalk, over a curly willow, and ventured into the bamboo thicket planted the same year for privacy. Not much competes with bamboo, intrepid grapes are formidable however, their tendrils clasp and hold. The best cure for rampant expansion is the ever handy sharp pruning shears. Cut back, weave into wreaths on the spot. Pruned grapevines sprout twice as thickly and produce larger crops in desperate attempts to survive. Steel your nerves, fellow gardeners and prune back. Weave the cuttings into wreaths or clip into 6-8 inch slips, dust with Rootone, and bury deeply in the back corner nursery bed. Friends without grape arbors welcome new plants.
Colorful spring bulbs are front stage. I nip off faded blooms. A few weeks from now, vibrant green foliage will begin to yellow and brown. Do not cut off. Accept this retreat from glory as a period the corms and bulbs require to store food for next year and form the next generation. Tulips planted deeply, 6-8 inches, under permanently mulched grounds in humus rich soil freely re-produce blooming descendants. A dozen here, a dozen there, all have become several dozen of each. Conventional wisdom has it that tulips are an expensive cast away annual with little hope for the future. I sniff marketing in this advice and I understand not all enfold enormous amounts of leaves and other organic materials into the garden. A bulb show up if cultivating? I rebury with small interruption, often discovering gladiolus much slower to emerge than daffodils or tulips. Experience prevails here, although I plant glads each fall and often again in the spring, the majority prospers, generate, and bloom again.
Broadly broken down into annual and perennial types, deeply planted, bone meal fed, mulched glads come back year after year to bloom along- side those planted this season. Perhaps this fecund success frees your choices for exotic colors and lesser known types. I’m less discerning of perennial differences; all thrive in a compost enriched soil.
Not all common
Not all common plants prefer soils high in humus and kept covered in thick mulches. I plant for fragrance and lavender is the pinnacle of the pyramid. Lavender thrives in sunshine and the sorriest looking soil known to horticulture. Not for lavender depths of humus and liberal applications of fish. Lavender planting after planting waned to perish in misery. Negligent examples, along the edges of parking lots and loose dogs thrived. I removed the improved soil, replaced with sandy gravel found deep under the garden’s topsoil and keep fish emulsion away. The lavenders are thick and thriving, their proverbial fragrance floats across the sidewalk and is renewed every time I walk by and brush against out reached sprigs. Be hopeful urban gardeners; for successful gardening one does not require many feet of dark loam and heaps of compost. Cultivate plants adapted to their native soils and succeed.
May’s triumphant approach
May’s triumphant approach to summer is the vanguard. I’m busy getting in those cool season garden plants before heat and humidity urge beach days and shade under the arbor. I soak large hard kernel seeds overnight, nasturtiums, sweet peas, peas, and Four O’clocks. Lay down a paper towel in a shallow bowl, soak, spread the seeds evenly apart, cover with another layer of paper towel and wet with tepid water. Don’t neglect the bowls, keep the paper towels moist during the day or two it takes to prepare their seedbed and plant the seeds, a half inch down and covered, side dress with bone meal and dried blood. Germination is much faster when hard shelled seeds are soaked overnight. Sometimes, as with the nasturtium and Four O’Clocks, sometimes called Marvel of Peru after their Andes homeland, welcome a quick do with a rhinestone burnish at the root end of the seed, obvious when in hand. The tough shell protects from enemies, it also can be a trap and require much effort by the seedling to penetrate. Moisture from soil and rain is nature’s assistance, gardeners take a moment and jump start this process for quicker and higher germination rates.
Peach blossoms
Peach blossoms are drifting downward into the planting beds and scatter pink petals on mulches and emergent daylilies. Hummingbirds are showing up looking for bright colored flowers. Empty pots are hungry for soil and trays of annuals are kept moist in semi-shade before planting. I mix potting soil in a wheelbarrow: a quarter peat moss, a quarter perlite, and a half measure of compost and topsoil, harrow with a hoe and fill empty pots stored year to year under shelter. My practice is to empty the pots each fall right into the central garden and winter over upside down. Pots kept in this fashion endure for many years, usually casualties of clumsy gardeners and not frozen, expansive soil and water.
Cultivated strawberries
Once I cultivated strawberries in large strawberry pots on a deck. This is a lovely and cheerful method that has great yields. Now I have a strawberry bed, full of blooming plants and mounds of spoiled hay strewn helter-skelter between the strawberries. They love hay and straw around, over and besides the mother strawberry plant. Now I re-purpose the strawberry pots and fill with Semper Florens, grandmother’s wax begonia. In a few weeks the large cobalt blue pots are glorious contrasts in color and the picture of floral health. Container gardening is a wide field, not restricted to those with small spaces but adaptable to purpose.
Bright green
The turf is bright green and ready for the first mowing. The compost laid over the turf in April has completely disappeared beneath fresh green growth. A quick check of the gas tank and gas can reminds me, the hammock may appeal but a gardener’s pursuits are never done. Fresh gas and the small amount of turf will be groomed and ready for admiration, defining the planting beds and offering fresh perspectives. Breath deep, fresh mown grass is nearly as good for you as dinner. In May, everyone is a gardener.
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