Takoma Gardener

Sustainable Gardening Newsletter January 08

Here's the real thing, but below you'll find MOST of what's in it (missing the highly off-topic right sidebar, hinted at in these photos.)

WHAT'S NEW

• The Seattle Times reports on what's HOT in 2008 and it's all green - organic practices, low-maintenance plants, rain barrels - everything that's here on the site!  And OUT are big lawns and hiring contractors to do everything for you, though to that last item I say "Oh, really?". 

• Then the San Diego Union-Tribune weighs in with their hot trends for the new year and guess what leads the list - sustainable gardening!  (I'm not making this up.)   

• Now the bad news - the Herald Tribune says that gardening (as in digging in actual dirt) is down as a national trend, though upgrading the garden as a living area is a hot trend. You know, those fancy outdoor kitchens.   

• The NWF released some Tip Sheets for Wildlife (in pdf) - about bird feeders, nesting boxes, attracting butterflies and more   good stuff.  And here's more expert advice about feeding birds in the winter from HGTV's ornithologist.   

• Slate.com poses the the question: What's the best tree for soaking up carbon?     

• Can tree protection laws go too far?  You bet. 

• What's next? Climate-certified greenhouses in Sweden, so now flowers can be grown   sustainably even in the frozen North.   
  

ON THE BLOGS  

• Sure, we all love outdoor fires but gasp, squint, cough - that stuff's toxic, you know?  Smoke, that is. The American Right to Burn Stuff explores the issue and commenters weigh in.   

• 21 Essential Skills of Gardeners is loaded with good ideas and links to more.    Thanks to Stuart, who's enjoying spring in Western Australia.   

• The question was asked: Do cultivars of native plants "count" as native?  And readers had opinions.   

• Firefly in Maine considers the question: What IS a native plant?   

• Paradise Lost? Thanks to global warming, there are more ticks and tick-borne diseases in our gardens.   

NEW PLANT PROFILES  More evergreens for "winter interest"

• Canadian hemlocks 

• Pieris japonica and floribunda are evergreen shrubs for shade.

MORE NEW STUFF ON SUSTAINABLE-GARDENING.COM  

• Next up in the Tools and Stuff section are my favorite Tools for Pruning and Making Divisions, with lots of photos and favorite types and brands.   

• After this post solicited "real-life experiences with rain barrels" it was all compiled here on the site. This article about it being illegal to collect rainwater and from the comments it looks like it's not just in Bolivia. 
  

• New combos are up and I'd LOVE to include photos of your favorites (with attribution, links, my first-born cat, whatever it takes).   

• Check out this cool family project for attracting butterflies, found on The Mulch and added to my   Butterfly resources.  

• I've discovered Constance Casey, garden writer for Slate, and have added links to her most on-point for readers here.  This meaty guide to beginning gardening has been added to the Getting Started section.  How to Water has been added to the Water/No Water section.  And I love this one: How to not be intimidated by roses.   

"ON THE HOMEFRONT" are the stories here about transformation of my backyard from lawn to something else, yet to be determined.  Just scroll down to see them. 

 

Click here to subscribe to the monthly Sustainable Gardening News.

 

Rain Barrel Round-Up

Thanks to everyone who contributed their real-life stories to this Round-up about Rain Barrels.  Most of those comments can be found on this post at GardenRant.

Why all the interest in rain barrels?

• They reduce the load on our municipal water supplies.
• They save (a little) on our water bills, though not enough to justify using them on the basis of cost alone.  In one test a rain barrel saved about 1,300 gallons over the summer, and one user told me he'd saved $35 over the course of the summer.
• If your roof is slate or metal, the collected water will be naturally soft, chlorine-free rainwater and excellent for plants of all types.  Water falling from asphalt roofs is too polluted to use on foodstuffs or TO DRINK.  (There's more below on the question of polluted water falling from our roofs.)
• They reduce or eliminate runoff of stormwater into our watershed, which means less downstream pollution and sedimentation.  Even here in the East where we've been having prolonged droughts, global weirding has also brought more severe downpours, so the runoff problem is just getting worse.

Sustainable Gardening News

The December issue is out and available right here.  "What's New?" is a compilation of news and blog posts about such meaty topics as native plants, drought-resistance, composting, and organic gardening.  This month there's a link to Kathy Purdy's review of a new organic gardening book and Graham Rice's review of New Gardening - a British take on all those subject that I can't wait to read myself.  So please, if you know of good links or have written about these subjects yourself, drop me a line and I'll include them - both in the newsletter and permanently on the site. 

HELLO, SUBSCRIBERS, WHEREVER YOU ARE
All 86 of you and counting, and thanks for the encouragement you've sent via email.  Apparently some people subscribed because they're not regular readers of GardenRant (it happens) but still want to be kept in the loop on the meaty issues.  If you're like them, or if you just have a perverse interest in the new feature "My So-Called Second Career", subscribe here.

HELLO, SUBSCRIBERS, WHEREVER YOU ARE
All 86 of you and counting, and thanks for the encouragement you've sent via email.  Apparently some people subscribed because they're not regular readers of GardenRant (it happens) but still want to be kept in the loop on the meaty issues.  If you're like them, or if you just have a perverse interest in the new feature "My So-Called Second Career", subscribe here.

November issue of Sustainable Gardening News is Up

Now it's right here in the Archives and I'd love some help with:

• Additions, corrections to my article about Composting. I've noticed on local listservs that people can't stop asking questions about compost, no matter how often they're answered.  So we're trying to get it right and park it on some websites for reference.
• In the On The Blogs section I've included some newsy or on-topic posts from the Rant and my own blog but please - if you have one, send it along so it can be added it to the discussion.  And you'd better believe I added Michele's wonderful post about rules for beginners - with its 38 excellent comments - to my Getting Started page. 

And I welcome any other suggestions you might have.  I've decided to publish the newsletter at the leisurely pace of once a month, with no particular date of publication.  Staying loose, ya know.

[Yes, I've also posted this on GardenRant.  Guilty as charged.]

Farewell, Takoma Gardener

No, I'm not going anywhere.  Just the name.  Time to take this blog and DO something with it, namely, use it to supplement Sustainable-Gardening.com.  The "beyond" is my excuse to go off-topic occasionally, coz I just like to. 

No need for readers to change their link to this blog; I'll keep the Takoma Gardener domain name.  Newcomers can use www.beyondsustainablegardening.com.

Sustainable Plants Revealed

My recent column on Sustainable Gardening promised a part 2 in which I'd list all the sustainable plants I could conjure up for this part of the world, and here it is.  The impetus for compiling such a list came from reading the National Wildlife Federation's recommendations for sustainable gardening practices, which includes the directive to use native plants only.  Well.  Readers won't be surprised to know I'm critical of generic gardening advice directed to all 300 million of us (or even worse - all of N. America).  And how anyone can expect the almost exclusively woodland plants native to the East Coast to be drought-tolerant, even in full sun, is beyond me.  Is it ideology trumping reality?  I can't iImagine trying to landscape my whole property using just the plants on this list of natives.

My sources for the list started with every website I could find but included many respected hort experts and native plant advocates in the D.C. area and I thank them all.  Now gardenbloggers and readers, what can you add?

"GARDENING COACH" COLUMN FOR NOVEMBER 2006

Okay, a quick review in case you didn't memorize Part 1.  Sustainable gardening practices are those that don't damage the earth or waste resources.  Definitions vary all across the board but that one has broad support.  And for eco-conscious local gardeners I've looked far and wide for plants that are:
    - Drought-tolerant.  Since most drought-tolerant plants are Mediterranean and need good drainage if they're to survive our winter and esp for winter and wet springs.  So berms are helpful, plus well-draining soil a must.  Also, no low spots or poorly draining clay soils.  And if your site is a consistently soggy one, drought-tolerant plants won't work.  (Google plants for wet soils.)
    -Resistant to disease and severe insect damage.  Minor insect damage?  Get over it.

GOTTA BE NATIVE?
Another criteria for the "sustainable" label used by some sources is that plants be native, a word I interpret to mean locally native.  (Why?  Because no other definition makes any sense.  Plants don't behave according to political boundaries like "native to the U.S.," and the U.S. includes waaay too many different ecosystems to provide horticultural guidance in the first place.)   Here in the Mid-Atlantic area the native ecosystem is that of deciduous forest and almost all the native plants are woodland, shade-loving ones, not the desert or rock garden plants that tolerate sun and drought.  So I've included as many locally native garden plants as I could find but there just aren't many to choose from.  (The Plains of the Midwest do provide a considerably larger selection, however.)   

A FEW DISCLAIMERS
    - Even the most drought-tolerant plants for our area require careful watering during their first year, sometimes longer.  So don't assume a plant is drought-tolerant until at least its second full season.  This is especially true of any plant installed in the spring (which is why fall planting is best!)
    - I found contradictory information about some plants, with the literature saying one thing and local gardeners another, so I've noted them as "possibly" sustainable.
    - Some plants listed here are on watch lists for possible invasive behavior because of reports from other parts of the country (nandina, liriope, ornamental grasses, butterfly bush, and daylilies) but no locally listed invasive plants have been included. 
    - I've used primarily common names for reasons of space and public recognition.       

LOCALLY NATIVE SUSTAINABLE PLANTS
Grasses: Big and Little Bluestems.
Perennials: Threadleaf coreopsis, Liatris, Rudbeckias (including black-eyed susan), goldenrod, common evening primrose, Butterfly milkweed, wild columbine, New England aster, wild bleeding heart and possibly Amsonia, Bee balm and Joe Pye Weed.
Shrubs/small trees: Flame azalea, American beautyberry, Serviceberry, several sumacs, Witch Hazel and Pasture rose.

SUSTAINABLE PLANTS THAT AREN'T LOCALLY NATIVE
Grasses: Carex, Dwarf mondo grass, Liriope, and most larger ornamental grasses
Perennials: Agastaches, Asters, Baptisia, Chinese Fringe Flower, Daylilies, Dianthus, Epimedium, Hellebores, Heucheras, Hostas, Mazus, Purple coneflower, Rudbeckias, Sedums, Penstemon digitalis, Russian sage, Salvia (hybrid sages), Sempervivums, Sweet Autumn clematis, and Yucca
Shrubs/small trees: Abelias, Aucuba, Azaleas, Beautybush, Butterfly bush, Caryopteris, Cotoneasters, Crapemyrtles (especially those with Indian names), Deutzia, Forsythias, Fothergilla, Hydrangea paniculatas, Oakleaf Hydrangea, Asian and hybrid dogwoods, Junipers, Lespedeza, Mahonias, Nandina, Photinia, Rugosa roses, Sarcococca, Spiraeas, Viburnums, Witch Hazel, Weigelia, Winter jasmine, Yaupon holly, and Yucca.

PARTING SHOTS
    - These popular plants in our area really don't like drought: Japanese maples, snowbells, rhododendrums, big-leaf hydrangea, boxwoods, and our native dogwoods (Cornus florida). These dogwoods flunk our sustainability test because they're vulnerable to the disease anthracnose.
    - Some drought-tolerant plants (like artemesia) have been excluded here because they hate our humidity, so ask enough questions of the nursery staff.
    -Got some plants that always look sickly or that require constant vigilance during even moderate droughts?  Consider getting rid of it.  You'll be glad you did.

Thanks to my contributors: Larry Hurley of Behnkes; Peggy Bowers, horticulturist at the American Horticultural Society; Jim Adams, horticulturist at the British Embassy; Pat Howell of Deephaven Landscapers; Mike Welsh, Takoma Park's City Gardener; Donna Shipp, horticulturist at American Plant Food; Joel Lerner via the Washington Post; Derek Thomas, local landscaper; Carole Bergman and others in the Maryland Native Plant Society; the NC State Cooperative Extension Service website and other many others.

Living Life in Clover

The old-fashioned idiom to be "in clover" means living a carefree life of ease, comfort and prosperity."  Okay, count me in.  And everyone knows that clover of the four-leaf variety is good luck.

But we're gardeners here, so what about planting the stuff in our lawns?  Here's what Less Lawn has to say about it:

"Clover is often planted by gardeners as a soil conditioner. It grows quickly and easily, chokes out weeds and is easily 'turned in' to the beds when planting time draws near. The deep root system reduces soil compaction. Clover is also a nitrogen-fixing plant, which   enriches the soil with natural fertilizer.  Clover also works well, however, as a replacement for turf - consider the benefits: 
Low Maintenance  - Clover needs little to no watering or mowing.
No Fertilizers - Chemical fertilizers are not needed to grow clover.
Color - Clover stays green even in the driest part of summer.
Inexpensive  - It costs about $4 to cover 4000 sq. ft. of turf area.
Comfortable  - Easy to walk through or play on, although not as durable as grass."

Did you catch the bit about clover being a "nitrogen-fixing" plant?  Now I'm no botanist, as Readers here have surely noticed, so I looked it up for you and it goes like this.  Bacteria that live in nodules on the roots of clover convert nitrogen in the atmosphere into a form that's usable by plants.  There, that's as technical as you'll ever get from me.  Cool stuff, though.

And if you care about biodiversity (and who doesn't?), clover also supports more wildlife by providing nectar for those pollinating bees we all love and even attracts small, non-stinging but aphid-eating wasps.

So what's not to love?  I'll concede that the romance of running barefoot across fields of flowering clover is sometimes ruined by the screams and curses of the newly bee-stung.  But isn't that why God created gardening clogs and TEVA sandels?

Wildlife Habitat Communities

My recent post about this National Wildlife Foundation program elicited some questions - does my community have this? - so here's a link to the communities that have either completed the process and been certified, or have registered, meaning they're working toward certification.  Three more communities have registered since the list was updated: Burlington, VT;  Clarksville/Buffalo Junction, VA, a rural community on the NC border; and Lawrence Township in the Indianapolis area.

Notice how these communities concentrate in Virginia and the Seattle area?  Further confirmation that Seattle's an environmentally progressive community.  Virginia has the good luck to have the Foundation headquartered in Reston, and nearby Arlington County recently became the largest habitat community in the U.S.

So if your community isn't on these lists, maybe you can help make that happen.

And Readers, thanks for generously offering your photos for the cause.  They'll be accompanied by links to your sites and blogs.

Bloggers: Help with Wildlife Gardening

A really cool program I've recently jumped on board is the National Wildlife Foundation's BACKYARD WILDLIFE HABITAT PROGRAM. You might have seen one of their signs designating a certified backyard - one that attracts wildlife with food, water, cover, and places to raise their young.  But I hasten to add it's the birds and bees we want to attract, not raccoons, deer, or rats.  Not a big turn-on, those critters, so birds and bees it is.  But this program that's been quietly changing front and backyards across America since 1973 has gotten bigger and better.

SUSTAINABLE GARDENING - a term ya gotta love - has recently been added to the requirements for certification, and here they mean things like using mulch, reducing the use of chemicals, and growing more drought-tolerant plants.  And I say Hooray for the NWF coz just reading through the application for certification educates homeowners about healthier ways to treat their property.

HABITAT COMMUNITIES, a much newer program, applies the same criteria to whole towns or counties, combining healthier individual backyards with similar improvements to public, nonprofit and businesss-owned sites to achieve a multiplier effect and create wildlife corridors. Imagine wildlife-friendly plantings in schoolyards, churchyards, parks, or along city streets. Points are also awarded for events like stream clean-ups and invasive plant round-ups.  Plus, don't forget, the use of sustainable gardening practices - the gardening practices we're all trying to get people to adopt these days, despite the public's persistent addiction to perfect lawns and everblooming everything. 

Now that you know what I'm talking about, why am I writing about it and how can you help? It all started on our local gardening listserv when someone mentioned the Community Habitat program and the fact that of the 15 certified communities in the U.S. so far, 3 are in Virginia and none are in Maryland - yep, a big zip. And if you're not from these parts let me explain something about the mindset around here: Maryland is blue and Virginia is red, so we Marylanders expect to beat the pants off Virginians when it comes to anything remotely progressive.  And eating Virginia's dust in this really cool environmental program?  It hurts.

So meetings have been held and the citizenry of Crunchy Takoma (nuclear-free and don't you dare laugh) are determined to be the first town in Maryland to accomplish community certification, thereby salvaging our city pride, at least.  And I have two volunteer assignments, both of which will earn us points toward certification: writing articles and updates about the program in a local newspaper - easy enough to do with my new gig as a gardening columnist - and "having a website" about the program.

Now Readers, if your assignment were to create a "website," would it be a traditional, static, official-looking but boring site, or would it be something dynamic, interactive, fun and hip - to wit, a blog?  I'm preaching to the choir and of course you'd all choose the blog.  And Blogger is free and easy, so I'm there!

And here's where you come in. The photos you see here are the sum total of my wildlife-related photos for possible use on the new blog, WildWildTakoma.  So readers, and especially gardening bloggers, we need photos of:
    - birds, bees, frogs or turtles in your garden
    - plants in your garden that are loved by any of these critters, or
    - ponds, birdhouses, or other features that attract them.
What the hell, I'll even take stories of plants and features that attract wildlife.  Just point me in the right direction on your blog and I'll take it from there, giving you photo credits, of course. I'll eventually be forwarding the fruits of our labors to the NWF, so someday your photos may show up on WildWildToledo or WildWildEugene - who knows? 

[Photos: My birdhouses by Julie Wyatt of the Takoma Voice Newspaper, and a pollenating bee eggholder in my garden. God, can that really be what it's called? Help me out here.]

"Landscaping for Wildlife" by Jim Gallion

For this review of Jim's talk last night to the Takoma Horticulture Club, I Google-imaged his name to see if I could find him, cursing under my breath that I hadn't brought my camera and done it myself.  This is one of the resulting photos and it's so not Jim I had to laugh.  It's some other Jim Gallion who hasn't created, with his wife Teresa, the most beautiful replica of nature I've ever seen on their property near Frederick, if his PowerPoint show can be believed.

Yes, I'm happy to report that someone is achieving the ideal of combining the love of nature with a love of beauty.  And right up front he told us he wouldn't be encouraging us to get rid of all our nonnative plants, meaning almost every plant in our gardens - he even grows them himself.  So we could relax and be seduced by his gorgeous photographs of the birds, bugs, rabbits, frogs and plants in his garden.

In his gentle way, Jim's on a mission to spread the word.  He and Teresa work through their design/consult firm, Gardening Adventures, to help homeowners move toward harmony with nature and enhance the beauty of their surroundings.  And on top of what they get paid to do, they contribute 300 or so hours a year in community service, which is 275 more than what's required to maintain their Master Gardener status.  And judging by Jim's talk, he's a great teacher for the cause because his love of nature is infectious.

More good news - their excellent articles on such topics as wildlife in the garden, native plants, and turf reduction can be found on line.  Here they're listed with other Master Gardener articles, so scroll down alphabetically to Theresa and Jim Gallion.

Among Gallion's words last night:
- "If you don't have some nonnatives, you're missing out on a lot of really cool plants," so he's not a "native plant elitist."
- You can create a habitat even if you only have a balcony to work with.
- His winterberry has tons of berries and has become the guarded territory of a mockingbird couple.
- Hang your suet-holder upside down to discourage the "junk birds."
- Turtles love colonies of May apples.
- To attract the Zebra Swallowtail, grow Paw Paw, but only if you have room for them to spread.
- To attract Ruby-Throated Hummingbird (in photo), grow the native columbine. It's a good groundcover in partial shade, reseeding freely.
- Neither toadhouses nor butterfly houses work.  Bat houses work once they're discovered by the bats, which may take a while.
- Leaving dead wood to decay in place is great for the critters, and looks good, too.  A standing dead tree will attract even more woodpeckers if you drill some one-inch starter holes along it.
- Gardening with successions of petunias and zinnias isn't gardening; it's yard decorating.
- Butterfly bushes are like "McDonald's drive-throughs."
- Recommends National Wildlife Federation's Attracting Birds, Butterflies, and Other Backyard Wildlife and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Native Plants for Wildlife Habitat and Conservation of Land, Chesapeake Bay Watershed Edison.
- Recommends The Wild Ones at www.for-wild.org.

Can you tell I was won over? Yeah, I want frogs and some more woodpeckers, just for starters.  I'll try to remember that Jim also suggested going slow and not expecting overnight results.

Last but never least, thanks to Kathy Jentz for bringing Jim to the club.

This just in - a photo of the our Jim Gallion.  Ah, that's better.