Takoma Gardener

Making it illegal to collect rainwater

This is fascinating.  I recently heard Charlie Rose interview Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.  Here's a snippet from the Village Voice about the book:

In The Shock Doctrine, journalist Klein trains her sharp investigator's eye upon the flaws of neoliberal economics. This meticulously researched alternative history, ranging from economist Milton Friedman's "University of Chicago Boys" to George W. Bush, brings Klein's argument into the present. Using stirring reportage, she shows the ways that disasters— unnatural ones like the war in Iraq, and natural ones like the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina—allow governments and multinationals to take advantage of citizen shock and implement corporate-friendly policies: Where once was a Sri Lankan fishing village now stands a luxury resort. The Shock Doctrine aims its 10-foot-long middle finger at the Bush administration and the generations of neocons who've chosen profits over people in war and disaster; the effect is to provide intellectual armor for the now-mainstream anticorporatist crowd.

But what's relevant to our discussion of rain barrels is her mention of what happened in Bolivia.  They privatized their water resources, with U.S. company Bechtel winning the contract, and subsequently outlawed collection of rainwater because it threatened Bechtel's profits.  Here's more on the story.  And here's a little video about it.

Tools for Digging - what are your favorites?

Here's a new page on my Sustainable Gardening site - about tools for digging.  It includes all my favorites but I'd much rather it include some of yours, too.  Any suggestions?

Digging is our most basic gardening task, and here are my favorite tools for getting the job done, and some others you might try.

LONG TOOLS USED WHILE STANDING   

Basic Shovels and Spades

Technically, the bodies and edges of shovels are rounded while those of spades are flat.  So both are good for digging but the rounded shovels are best for carrying the soil but when the digging job is a big one.  Whatever.  I use them interchangeably, according to which has a short handle and which a long one, the long one affording good leverage for those deep digging tasks.

The HGTV guru Paul James recommends that gardeners have both both.   

In the photo you see the spade I recently used to remove my entire lawn.  A shovel wouldn't have worked nearly as well for that task.

Perennial-planting shovels

By definition, these are narrower and what I use for tight spots, to make sure I don't damage nearby roots - or at least try not to.  Photo right.

Bulb-Planting Shovels

These are even narrower, and work well  where the soil is easily dug (not so great for cutting roots or getting past rocks).

Hoes

Hoes are perfect for removing large quantities of tiny weeds or deep tap-rooted weeds.  Elliot Coleman, popular guru of edible gardening, recommends using a hoe regularly to prevent weeds.  Photo left.

Scuffle hoes are great for large areas because of their push/pull action.   The weeds can just left on the ground to compost in place. But there are SO many types, try your neighbors hoes out to see which ones feel best for you.

Garden Forks   

Got rocks or clay? Then the old-fashioned garden fork will help you navigate through and around them.  They're also good for aerating the soil, breaking up clay, and digging up bulbs.  Photo right.   

The best have 4 tines, not 3, which should be quite rigid (steel is a good material), also a fiberglass shaft and a strong D-handle.

   

Pickax       

This tool, above all, makes me feel like the Wonder Woman of Digging.  I always use it in a sitting position, though, for maximum impact on the clay I'm breaking up and minimal impact on my back.  Photo left shows a well worn pickax.        

           

SHORT TOOLS USED WHILE KNEELING

Trowels   

This is the digging tool I use the most - for planting, weeding, moving small amounts of dirt, and more - so I'm pretty picky about which one I use. This one is my favorite because it's strong enough not to bend under pressure, it's big enough to hold some soil, has a pointy end that's great for cutting, and even measures how deeply you've dug!  No wonder it's such a bummer when I misplace it and have to use one of my many others.  Photo right.   

Steak knives for dividing and slicing

Every year or I stock up on steak knifes at the local dollar store because it's my favorite best tool for slicing through small perennials like liriope. It's also the tool of choice for cutting through the roots of pot-bound plants.

 

   

 

   

Cobrahead for weeding

   

I once won a Cobrahead and I was hoping to later write that I love-love-love it, but I don't.  I do know gardeners who can't get enough of it, so do give it a try.  Photo left.   

Hori hori knife or Japanese gardening knife, the knife that never needs sharpening.  It works well, and here are some photos of them.

    

Mattocks

I call this tool the "Slayer of Invasives" and indeed it is, at least the ones I tackle while kneeling.  Photo right.   

FOR MAJOR OVERHAULS
Rototilling is a controversial practice, with many experts warning that it destroys soil structure.  In creating new gardens it's still practiced by many, who find it the best way to get amendments (additives) mixed several inches into the soil, so will disturb the soil structure once, but not again.

MORE GREAT INFORMATION ON LINE       

• Great article about shovels by HGTV's Paul James
• Tool care tips by Felco.
• Caring for tool handles, and how to sharpen a shovel, from  Lowes.
• Good advice on cleaning and sharpening from Fine Gardening Magazine.   

AND IN PRINT   

• The Tool Book by Logan is the latest favorite.
• Garden Tools and Equipment by the editors of Fine Gardening.
• Year-Round Guide to Garden Maintenance by Gordon and Mary Hayward.
• Garden Tools by a bunch of authors.
• Tools, Techniques and Tips for a Successful Garden by Dobbs and Knowles. 

Design/Install Lessons from the Combined Border

Time to recap the Amazing Combined Border with my next-door neighbor.  It started with the removal of a large Bradford pear on the property line and, in its place, the planting of 5 Arborvitaes 'Green Giant'.  Then, in a nutshell, everything was removed and rearranged. 

The top photo was taken after the 5 trees were planted but before I'd filled in my neighbor's side of the border.  The next photo is how it looked in its first year from her deck and finally, a close-up of her border. 

Here are some lessons learned.

1. The correct order of operation is to draw and create the border, THEN insert the plants, starting with the LARGEST and working down to the groundcover.  I can tell you from my coaching gigs that nobody does it in this order, and it's no wonder they don't like the results.  Typically gardens are half-filled with plants in the wrong places and the new design is far better when they're moved out of the way first. In this case almost all the plants were moved to the holding garden to await the preparation of their new sites.

2. The farther away plants are, the larger they need to be.  Or if the plants aren't large, the larger mass they need to be planted in.  Keep the small stuff closer to the house where you'll see it.  And if there's only one of something it had better be a BIG something.

3. Before drawing any lines, decide on your traffic routes, where paths need to go.  Functionality comes first.

4. Use large curves for the lines of the border, nothing busy.  Stand back and view the lines as they'll typically be seen - especially if it's from above.  Now's the time to make that all-important line one that you like.

5. Once the new bed has been created, smooth the grade before planting anything.  Then after planting, correct the damage (extra dirt here, not enough dirt there) and step gently everywhere to settle the soil before mulching and watering.

6. When creating a border where weeds have flourished for decades, weed first, then cover with 3 inches or more of mulch.  Keep on top of the weeding the first year and subsequent years will be considerably less work.

7. Use anything you can get your hands on to fill up the new border.  Less desirable plants can be moved or given away later as plants fill out.  Especially don't throw away perfectly good plants just because they're not your favorites - until you have replacements for them.  (I've cringed many a time when shown empty or near-empty yards, whose owners proudly report having gotten rid of the few plants there were.  Half the time it's the very plants I was about to recommend.)

8. In the case of my neighbor's backyard, I was frequently warned not to block her two sledding runs into the woods.  Otherwise a few dozen kids would be really unhappy with me. There's also a good chance they'd just plow into whatever I planted in the way.  So functionality asserts its dominance once again.

How to Move a #@!*%* Large Shrub

Why the cursing in the title?  Because to move this full-grown spirea took many back-breaking hours, that's why.   So DON'T do what I did unless you really, really have to.

In this case, the rhododendron in back of this spirea died, a victim of our recent drought, and the best solution clearly was to move the spirea back into the corner to fill the empty spot. (The dead rhodo ready to be recycled is captured in the photo below.)  All this work to move a plant less than 2 feet?  Yeah, that's gardening - when you're persnickety about combining your plants so they'll look their best.

STAGING THE MOVE
And yes, staging is what's required.

• For 3 days before the big dig I soaked the soil around both the dead rhodo and the spirea.
• The rhodo is easily removed - mainly because I didn't have to keep it alive. Death is liberating that way.
• Next, to save the groundcover around the to-be-moved shrub. It's vinca minor and I know it's terribly invasive in some locations but for some reason in my neighborhood it's actually hard to keep alive. So I carefully lifted the clumps that would be destroyed in the shub removal and placed them in my trusty cement-mixing pans for safekeeping in shady spots til they're ready to be replanted.
• I began the spirea dig by creating a trench outside the root zone of the spirea through which I can slice under the root ball to free it. But boy, what a surprise the sheer mass of the shrub's root zone was - probably 5 feet across in every direction. So this baby wasn't going to be loosened easily.
• More soaking, waiting for the water to drain from the mostly clay soil and trying to dig again.  You realize what all this soaking means, right?  That it's much easier to dig up the plant but you're digging in MUD.  Getting your clogs stuck in it.  Getting filthy, in a wet way.  Try it - you may like it!
• Panic set in as I began to wonder if I even CAN dig up a root mass this huge, no matter what clever tool I employ. I consulted (male) neighbors about the correct tool to use, none of whom were moved to volunteer to help me.
• Finally, seemingly against all odds, the root ball was severed sufficiently from the clay beneath it that it can be rocked loose and lifted. Aha!
• I dug the new planting hole, a mere 18 inches or so away from the original site, and slid the humongous shrub into it. With no help from neighbors, male or otherwise, I might add.
• I replaced the periwinkle around the spirea in its new position.
• I watered deeply once, then again in 2 days. Deeply in this case meant hand-watering with no nozzle, waiting while several gallons of water filled the whole root area.

THE "AFTER" PHOTO
Yes, I took a photo but honest-to-God, it looks just like the "Before" photo because the camera doesn't really highlight the crucial 18 inches by which the plant has been moved back into the corner. Nevermind. At least I know that after several hours of back-breaking labor, the damn spirea is in a better place than it was before. The real "after" will come next spring when this beauty's in full bloom, I suppose.

WHEN TO DO IT
Late spring and summer are the riskiest times of the year to move anything because summer's the big killer - not winter - and plants moved during or just before summer heat will have a hard time surviving til autumn. So fall is the best time to make the move, sometime after Labor Day but early enough for the transplant victim to have a month to settle in before the ground freezes. In my Zone 7 garden that means that September and October are the prime times to plant or move shrubs.

 

Global Warming in the Garden

This overview of current thinking on the subject was published in my local paper and prompted a nice thumb's up from Mike Tidwell, a well known enviro leader locally and even nationally - whew!- so I'm passing it on for readers here.

There’s been lots of news lately about the effects of climate change on our gardens and oddly, it’s usually presented as good news to gardeners. They’re shown rejoicing over the warm-climate plants they can now grow, like crape myrtles in Upstate New York. BUT:

It's Global Weirding 

• Some plants are failing because the winter cooling period isn’t long enough. And others, like lilac, Eastern white pine, American arborvitae, Colorado blue spruce, and many junipers, suffer when summer evenings don’t cool down enough. Local garden writers are no longer recommending many of their old favorites for local gardens - like PJM rhododendrons and yews. 

• Rain events are more extreme, taking the form of longer droughts and more deluges. Not good for landscapes, for agriculture or for plants in our few remaining natural areas. 

• Longer warm periods mean more generations of some pests per year. Others, like the wooly adelgid that’s killing Canadian hemlocks throughout the East, are increasing their number because winters aren’t cold enough to keep them in check. 

• Weedy and noxious plants, like poison ivy, honeysuckle and kudzu, thrive in the presence of extra carbon dioxide, and poison ivy becomes more toxic than ever. Ragweed produces more pollen. Kudzu moves north. Some weeds, like Canadian thistle, are now resistant to herbicides.   

• Native plant populations are threatened by these changes in temperature, rainfall, pests and competitors, even the iconic ones chosen as state flowers and trees. In fact, the National Wildlife Federation predicts that 28 states will see their official plants become extinct by the end of the century. Picture Ohio without its buckeye or Kansas without its sunflower. Climate change has become a major threat to plant conservation, along with development and invasive species.  

• The East experienced a Miami-style January this year, followed by a frigid February. These alternating balmy+frigid periods take their toll on blossoms and whole plants. Fruit growers were particularly hard hit. 

• Hotter summers cause heat stress even to warm-season crops, like tomatoes, according to Cornell University. 

It's 6:30 in the morning and I'm already sweating like a pig - a sod removal update

You know what mud wrestlers look like, right?  Well, we've got heat and drought here and the dirt is dry, so imagine, if you will, dust wrestlers.  Now you know what I look like every morning after an hour or so of sod removal in my back yard, the site of the excavation project.  Legs covered in dirt - because it's hot as hell and I'm wearing ragged cut-offs.  Then there's the huge amounts of sweat in which I'm drenched, and the damp frizzies that comprise my hairdo, and now you know why there's no photo to document the gardener at work.  Though it would be fun to have one, maybe to show people in the media what gardeners really look like when they're gardening.  Then they'd stop asking us to dress like we would for real gardening when we're photographed, which is just never gonna happen anyway.  We're happy to shower up, dress casually, wield our pruners and show off the garden, though, any time.

But back to the project, the removal of about 500 square feet of sod that I wrote about elsewhere.  I'm out there at 6 or 6:15 every morning, when there's barely enough light, and it's too hot to work already but the project must move forward so I can get a bunch of plants in the ground.  But gardeners know to pace themselves, and by 7:30 or so I've moved on to the essential job of keeping my plants from perishing in this drought.  I see dead and dying plants everywhere I look and it's pretty scary.

THE METHOD OF DESODIFICATION
With a flat-blade spade I slice under the sod or step on it to cut through the roots, covering an area of maybe 2x5 feet before stopping the cutting phase.  Then, on my knees, I take my favorite pointy trowel and lift-and-pull the chunk of soil, then slap it smartly across the dirt side with the edge of the trowel to break off the chunks of dirt, then shake it and throw it in the bucket for a trip to the compost pile.  And man, there's nothing like sod to make some damn good compost out of the huge pile of dead leaves down in the woods.

CHANGE OF PLANS
If you read the story I linked to about this project you know I thought I could just cover the lawn with newspaper and mulch, wait two months and start planting in the newly improved soil.  Thank gawd, some smart commenters gave me the reality check that it takes a LOT longer than 2 months for all that sod to decompose, and other commenters suggested I NOT replace the whole 1,000-sq lawn all at once.   So I'm removing half the lawn - the half with really crappy, spotty grass - and doing it the old-fashioned way, working up a good sweat in the bargain.  And for all my complaining about the heat, I love doing it because it's for the project and I'm just happy to have one.

Low maintenance gardening?  Not for this addict.

Mulch on my Mind

With snow on the ground, I've got the time to let my fingers do the walking (on the keyboard), and learn a thing or two.  And my friend Pam, a gardening newbie and recent convert to the cult of compost, has got me thinking about all things compost, mulch, and leaf mold.  If you're unfamiliar with the cult of compost, its appeal can be powerful and sudden, so consider yourself warned.  When I was in its thrall I remember thinking about it while lying in bed.  My then-husband didn't find this at all endearing, by the way.

Anyway, confusion abounds on this subject, despite my years of earnestly explaining the distinctions between these terms.  Mulch can be anything (even recycled rubber tires) that covers the earth but compost - ah, that's what's left after organic mulches break down.  I understand the difference and have always thought of compost as soil-like, therefore not a good cover for soil (not a good mulch) because it's a growing medium and weeds can sprout in it just fine, thank you.  It'll also erode away in the rain, right?  And it looks like dirt, and some of us don't like that look.

Now Pam here has researched this subject far beyond my own cursory searches and tells me it's the decomposition itself that makes mulch so valuable.  It's the process that's so damn good for our soil, so it's best to use organic mulches that break down within a year or less, to maximize the benefits of decomposition.  Her research finally led her to the one person who really nailed it for her - Jeff the Yardener over at GardenerYardener.  Here's more mulching wisdom from Jeff's blog:

Lesson learned - making good soil is really not difficult. Lay out three to four inches of a fine textured organic material and even the heaviest clay will be transformed in a few years into black loam. By fine textured we mean chopped leaves, shredded bark, or a one inch mix of Canadian sphagnum peat and compost. Bark chunks do not do the job.

My own mulch research, such as it was, led to a source that was new to me.  Over at Garden Voices you can search "mulch" and read what the likes of us gardenbloggers have said on the subject, yours truly included.  Man, I hope nobody assumes we know what we're talking about because, as I've proven over my 18 months of blogging, we often don't.  Clicking on "mulch" in the weird little word illustration in the right sidebar leads to similar results.  (I see that everywhere and really don't get it.  Is it a substitute for categories?)

Before I stop writing ("The Daily Show" rerun airs in 10 minutes), a bit of gardening humor.  I swear to god that Wikipedia's entry for mulch shows the photo on the right with this caption: "Shredded wood used as mulch. This type of mulch is often dyed to improve its appearance in the landscape."  Now if you're thinking of writing to tell me my disdain for mulches in phony colors is snobbery, you can just go mulch yourself.

Front Yard Makeover - and Not a Dime was Spent

I've promised Before-and-After shots of my neighbor's front yard, so I'm delivering.  Now if you look at the After shots below with your gardener eyes, you'll be able to imagine the many azaleas and a fragrant viburnum in their glory next spring, followed by months of hydrangea blossoms.  People with regular eyes should check back here next spring for the full-color results.

Now because this is a lot and a half, there's lots of extra garden space.  Originally the huge oak was surrounded by crappy-looking grass.  Later the grass had been banished and plants stuck here and there.  Overall, a hodgepodge.

The features of this no-cost make-over were:

• Removing the great expanse of blue tarp covering a mulch pile. 
• Moving large plants from the front of the garden to the back and corners.  Available for this were 5 full-grown azaleas and an unidentified viburnum.
• Putting full-grown hydrangeas in front of the large oak in the middle of the garden to hide the ugly cement moat-type thingie around its base.  They were moved there from unseen spots in the back yard.
• Dividing the hell out of the huge existing liriope clumps and using them to line the sidewalk and driveway.
• Using the existing octagonal pavers to create a little woodland walk around the tree and on either side of the driveway.  And sinking them to grade (they'd previously been sitting on top.)

To Design is Divine
Ha-ha-ha, like I really did a '"design" for this.  But it DOES hang together in a way that we love (that's me and the neighbor, who still technically owns her property, although you wouldn't know it from my behavior), and here's why I think that is: 

• First, everything was removed.  That created the blank slate that I can't design without - and how professionals or talented amateurs do it is beyond me. This is where holding gardens come in really handy.   
• The entire property was scoured for plants that weren't being used to their best advantage or even seen at all.  (My property, too.)  And plants were mercilessly divided. 

There you have my formula for a no-cost make-over.  Just add mulch.

Photos:  Click to enlarge.

18 Man-hours = How Many Woman-hours?

18 is the number that my friend Adrienne was told it would take to do fall clean-up of her lovely but tiny townhouse garden.  And at $50 an hour, that's 900 bucks right there, before you add the cost of the mulch.

So she took a pass and sent me a desperate email:  Could she hire me to do it with her?  There was a hesitancy because she knows I don't hire myself out as a manual laborer.  Got that, everyone?  But she's one of my bestest friends, so the rules don't apply.

Cut to the townhouse this past Sunday, a glorious sun-shiney day.  When I arrived Adrienne's car had been topped-off with 10 bags of mulch, the limit of its capacity.  Before spreading it there was - I'll admit it - a whole lot of weeding to do, yesiree.  And maybe 30 minutes of pruning.  But 3 and a half hours later it was all done and doing the math, that's 7 work-hours, in this case 7 women-in-their-50s-hours.
 
So the question is:  Is it us?  Is it them?  Or is this landscape contractor ripping people off big-time?

On Moving a Plant and Improving Developer's "Soil"

Takoma Gardener's been gardening her ass off lately and thinking a lot about telling you about it but too damn busy to sit down and write.  But today it's raining - sometimes a blessing for the gardening addict - and I have a chance to catch up a bit.

Now moving a plant doesn't seem complicated but jeez, I've seen some pretty bad technique used by beginners and nonbeginners alike, so I offer a tip or two.  A 10-year-old rhodo planted in solid clay just can't be pulled up; it has to be released from underneath and that takes shovels and picks and trowels and an hour or two of back-breaking labor.  And in this case when digging was getting me nowhere I resorted to the hosing-down technique seen in this photo - fill hole with water, wait while it soaks in, dig some more.  It took THREE hosings to finally release this plant and after it was finally ready to be lifted it was too fricking heavy.  Help from a passing (unsuspecting) neighbor taught me it was too heavy for us ladies and a husband had to be called in on the job - and I hate it when that happens, ya know.

Now a word about the "soil" this shrub had the misfortune to be planted in.  Because this area was terraced and earth-moving equipment used, there's no topsoil anywhere in sight.  It's all clay, baby.  Now I've read that after topsoil removal by developers it takes a generation for the earth to heal itself but hey, this damage was done in 1925 and the soil's as bad as ever.  Why?  Probably because it hasn't been fed with gardeners' favorite cure-all - organic matter.  Instead, compost had been spread across the surface once or twice over the last 10 years and I swear to God it only made things worse.  Not only has it not been incorporated into the hardplan clay beneath it; it also raised the grade by an inch or two with each application, leaving the rhodo planted too shallow.  And most plants hate that, ya know, including this one, and it's just another reason the rhodo was so hard to extricate.

All of which speaks volumes about the difference between compost and mulch.  Compost is a growing medium, like soil.  Weeds love the stuff!  Mulch, like good old leaf mold, is organic matter that hasn't broken down yet but gradually will, improving the soil as it does.  Earthworms love it and will reproduce enthusiastically in its presence.*   It'll prevent weeds because it stands between weed seeds and the soil they need to germinate.  This all seems pretty basic but a nearby town sells their compost as "mulch," so it's no wonder people are confused.

*I have Amy Stewart's wonderful book The Earth Moved to thank for this useful information.  Now when I spread mulch every spring I know I'm not just preventing weeds, retaining moisture and improving the soil; I'm feeding the worms and increasing their numbers.