The Sunday Gardener Returns

MARCH CALENDAR

No matter how mild the days, it is still too early to remove winter coverings.

Check equipment, scrub pots.

If you haven't sown seeds indoors, now is the time.

By mid-month you should be able to plant pansies.

Visit local nurseries and select trees and shrubs. Chelsea Garden Center

Prune all but spring flowering shrubs and trees.

Leave roses and hydrangeas alone for the moment.

It’s been a long, dull winter.  No ice and snow to worry about, although March has only begun and we have been visited with March blizzards in the past.  Nonetheless, there are a few jobs that the restless and desperate can tend to.

Now is the time to turn your attention to houseplants.   March is the month when they will need more watering than they have all winter.  The days are lengthening and the plants are readying for a growth spurt.  Cut back any plants that have grown too straggly and they will send out new growth quickly this time of year.  Fear not; I have cut a huge ficus back to a hat rack and it responded beautifully.

For want of a sunny south window my houseplant inventory has dwindled to one elderly, tired oxalis.  It is an indomitable plant, surviving despite low light and too much water.  If you forget it completely, it will appear to be a total die-back but its corms will lie patiently dormant underground waiting for you to treat it well.  At the moment, the supermarkets are filled with oxalis in anticipation of St. Patrick’s Day.  Snatch them up before they disappear, because with proper care they will reward you with sprightly white flowers for years.

 There are a few tasks you can take care of in March, weather permitting.  Saint Patrick’s Day and Good Friday are the traditional days for sowing sweet peas.  Check back in our 2011 March archive “Getting Through March” for instructions. 

If your garden beds are new, test your soil and add whatever amendments are called for in the soil report.  In addition to the recommended nutrients, it’s a good idea to add compost and well-rotted manure.  Layer it on top of the beds and turn it in with a fork  or spade to a depth of about one foot.  Let it settle for a few weeks before planting.

All your seed orders should be in by now.  I have stayed with my usual sources, and you will find them listed in the Archive for February 2011, “Looking Ahead.”  

Rooftop corner with Lantana and Geranium

In the absence of the longed-for greenhouse and cold frames I still only direct-sow out of doors.  I’ve ordered nasturtiums and sunflowers, the largest assortment possible; Cleome ‘Color Fountain mix’ in pink, rose, lilac, purple and white; Cosmos ‘Sensation mix,’ the old-fashioned cosmos with white, pink and carmine flowers on 36 to 48 inch stems; ‘Heavenly Blue,’ the traditional Morning Glory; Hyacinth bean, a vigorous climber with beautiful dark green leaves and purple flowers; and Zinnia elegans ‘Benary Giant’ in the full blazing range of yellow, pink, scarlet, salmon and white, with two inch blooms on three foot stems.  This year I’m adding California poppies in the traditional orange to be planted alongside lavender; Nigella, butterfly- attracting with lovely flowers and a graceful habit; and Verbena bonariensis, tall and sturdy with rose-purple flowers.

Sunflowers and Verbena

The annuals in the Catskills do not do as well as I would like as they are grown in raised beds in a fenced-in cutting garden.  I suspect they would be sturdier and more robust out in the open.  There will be a chance to test this as it looks like I will be experimenting with a second garden.  I’ve taken a lease on a small apartment in a four-family house in the village of Rhinebeck, primarily to clear out a warehouse holding the goods of many moves.  There is a roomy shared backyard yard with one very large shade tree and not much else.  My co-tenants seem keen to garden and if we can figure out how to work around the two resident dogs we will be off and running.

Banana Canna and Companions

A Report From the Field

The following communiqué from the field arrived November 1.  There are no photographs accompanying this for the obvious reason: there was nothing left to photograph but devastation. 

OCTOBER SNOWSTORM! LOCAL DEER GO BERSERK!

Earlier today, a Catskills homeowner reported that deer had taste-tested a stand of heuchera in his native woodland garden.  Curious, we sent out an investigator who reported back that they had not only nibbled the heuchera, but the native anemone & cimicifuga, all never before touched at this savvy master gardener's woodland niche.  Clearly an unprecedented attack.

Further widespread devastation was later found down the road, where dozens of peonies had lost their leaves prematurely.  Upon closer inspection, each and every peony leaf on the three-acre garden plot had been eaten after standing untouched for nearly half a century. In addition, old growth lilac, azalea, clethra, viburnum, sweet autumn clematis, rosa rugosa, virginia sweetspire, hydrangeas (oak leaf, climbing, paniculata and mycrophylla) -- all previously untouched -- CHOMPED!  Every plant in the perennial beds -- phlox, sneezeweed, daisies, heliopsis, baptisia, buddleia -- CHOMPED!  Not a single leaf spared.

The only plants untouched were the fern stands and the rhododendrons, leading our experts to the conclusion that the deer population was in widespread panic. While rhododendron is commonly nibbled in late winter when there is little else and the deer are naturally desperate, their clear avoidance of this shrub and widespread unprecedented attack on everything else leads us to conclude that unnaturally high anxiety levels led them to eat everything available in the first line of attack.  Experts assume that the anxiety attack was triggered by the sudden snowstorm occurring in the wake of Hurricane Irene.  “The poor dears just don't know what the heck to expect next.”

No mammals were taken into custody and any and all resentments have been discharged by reasons of insanity.

Needless to say, local garden helpers spent the following days deer- spraying the b'jesis out of both properties. Every one is now officially out of Liquid Fence ™ and waiting for the stores to re-stock.

Closing Out October

Remember the anonymous gardener who cried “Hooray! The first frost.  The dahlias are dead at last.”

The end of October brought much more than the first frost this year; we were walloped with snow that tallied power failures, road and rail closings, and county-wide states of emergencies.  I was in Rhinebeck for the weekend, tucked up safe and warm in a village house within walking distance of everything, including storm damage.

Hedge under snow load

I was also able to visit Phantom Gardener, a local nursery, to see what was available at the end of the season.  If you have the strength for it, now is the time to pick up plants too large to be held over easily.  At Phantom Gardener there were marvelous hydrangeas and quite large Sugar maples, all at half- price.  I contented myself with a dozen paperwhites for forcing and a bag of potting soil.  More on the technique for this next week. 

End of season at the Phantom Gardener

NOVEMBER CALENDAR

Mulch clematis vines with rotted manure.

Check rose climbers for insecure ties

Rake gardens clear of all debris.

Prepare beds for next spring by tilling the soil lightly.

The last gasp You may still find a few interesting offerings for sale this time of year.

To boost your inventory of house plants look for oxalis.  O. rengnelii sprouts from underground corms.  White flowers grow in clouds several times during the year, accompanied by green, clover-shaped leaves.  When they become leggy, cut them down to soil level, and they will start all over again.