May Flowers

Every year Spring brings masses of flowers that can be the laziest part of gardening. Azaleas, Hydrangeas, Iris, and scores of other woody shrubs and perennials come back and are generally bigger displays than the year prior.
Plan your planting. Plant those things that are the backbone of your yard or garden. That is to say the things that take the longest to grow, or will grow to be the largest plants the garden.
Every year I add more blooming shrubs and perennials so that each successive year is more spectacular, with little effort.

Lavender Azaleas:


Azaleas come in many colors:


Iris:

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Pink Diamonds Hydrangea:


Wedding Sipria:








A few caladiumns in the shade:

Laying out your Garden Plot

In the January Week 2 Calendar I mentioned laying out your garden rows with lots of space in between. It’s getting time to start really thinking about your garden layout. Most every garden I’ve ever seen is a rectangular tilled up plot that the gardener furrows out narrow rows with narrow walking paths in between the rows.

You could not possibly make gardening any harder.

Imagine the cellular telephone commercial with “the bars”. This is what you want to do to layout your garden. Create bars; only make them all the same length.

Gardening is 75% planning. You must think through what vegetables you want to grow. If you are a new gardener, you will want to plant everything you see. Go ahead. Get it out of your system.

Once you know what you want to grow, you must know what family groups each plant belongs to. Why? Because, you must rotate your crops to prevent soil bourn diseases from running rampant in your garden. But that is another topic for later. Right now we must make our plots.

In the traditional garden described above, the gardener has not choice but to walk between his rows in his tilled plot to tend his/her crops. You should NEVER walk on your garden plot. It voids all the effort you pout into it to fluff it up into a nice loose soil. Walking on it compacts it into a texture similar to a brick.

If you separate your rows, you never walk on your garden plot ever again.

Layout your rows wider than a single crop row. Lean over and pretend to tend a plant that is as far away as you are comfortable reaching. From the tip of your toes to your hand is how far? Double that distance, add a few inches on for “edging” and that is the width you want your rows to be. This width may be dictated more by the width of your tiller if you are like me, and have a tractor with an attached 4-5 foot wide tiller. If you own a portable type, then walk it down one side, and back up the other, being careful to not walk in the row.

Now is a good time to say tilling is not the best thing you can do for your garden. But if you never walk on the tilled soil, and you grow your local grass (try to avoid a monoculture) in between the rows, so that the loose soil is not washed away, and mulch, you can till without doing too much harm.

Lay out your rows. Make them all the same width, and make all the grass strips in between the same width. To determine the grass strip width, take your mower and mow along the edge of the tilled row. Turn the mower around and mow the next “lane” of grass, only don’t do a full width of your mower. The idea is to get it all cut in two swipes, cleanly with no edges to need trimming. You don’t want it so close that it is tight - you need room to get wheel barrows and such up and down the aisles.

Now that you have the general idea of how to lay the rows out, you must determine how much tilled area you need. With these wide rows, you can plant tomatoes staggered from side to side or 4-5 rows of field peas. Spacing plants is another big topic for later. I think it was the thing that took me the longest to deal with properly.

Because of the aforementioned crop rotation that needs to be done, you should make at least 1 more row than you need, 2 is better, if you have the room. Plot out your rows with your mower and your tiller as measuring devices, then immediately cover your tilled soil with some kind of mulch.

Do this right the first time. Once you get your plots turned into premium gardening soil, you really are not going to want to move the rows. Think it through, draw it, stake it, whatever it takes. I just laid mine out with the riding mower….

Pre-Emergents

Pre-emergents are a wonderful thing. For us lazy gardeners, they are essential.

As far as I am aware, there are two types of commercially available pre-emergents. One is chemical, “Preen” and it’s competitors. The other is organic. Big box stores are starting to carry organic pre-emergent. Brand names are inconsequential.

Pre-emergents, as the name implies stop plants from sprouting. The Result is very few weeds to pull. This is done with chemical pre-emergents by inhibiting the germination of the seeds. Organic pre-emergents actually allow the seed to sprout, but kill it before it develops true leaves.

If you think about these two processes, one is clearly better. When the chemical pre-emegent retards sprouting, the seed is still there, still viable, and when the chemical wears off; guess what? It sprouts. Chemical pre-emergents therefore must be reapplied on a rigid schedule to keep the chemical retarding substances at a functioning level.

Organic pre-emergents, on the other hand, let those seeds sprout. So when the organic pre-emergent wears off, you have a few seeds that did not sprout and any new seeds brought into the area. Obviously even organic pre-emergent has to be reapplied. But it is much more forgiving of doing it a week later than you should.

With chemical pre-emergent you are always going to need to make those regular applications. With organic pre-emergent as the seasons roll by you can cut back on the use and still get good service out of it just because you are only dealing with new seeds, not seeds from 5 years ago.

What’s in them? The chemical stuff, I don’t know. I do know it burns my nose. Organic pre- emergent is pure corn gluten, a by product of commercial corn milling that contains the protein fraction of the corn. Its use poses no health risk to people or animals. In fact, because it is 60% protein, corn gluten meal is used as feed for cattle, poultry, fish, and dogs. In addition to the 60% protein, corn gluten meal is 10% nitrogen, by weight, which is an excellent fertilizer and soil builder. Applying corn gluten at the recommended rate of twenty pounds per 1,000 square feet, twice a year, gives your garden a total of four pounds of nitrogen annually - more than enough to meet its needs. This saves you money in two ways. 1) You don’t need to add extra nitrogen, and 2) you apply it less often. The example and the directions say to apply twice a year, but here where we have fairly warm Winters, I apply it a third time in late October to eliminate winter weeds.

Pre-emergents do not affect growing plants. It may be applied around shrubs or food crops. It is primarily marketed, however, as a crabgrass “killer” for the American monoculture lawn.

Technically speaking, gluten is found only in wheat because it is difficult to wash a cohesive protein mass even from rye, the closest relative to wheat, let alone from barley or oats or corn. Unfortunately, the term “gluten” has been misused by the corn industry and has become common in recent years. So if you are a Celiac (Gluten intolerant) like me, do not concern yourself about whether it will harm you. It will not.

The best part is…now that it is being sold at the big box stores, it is cheaper than the chemical pre-emergent when you compare coverage rates. Add on to that less usage and free fertilizer, using organic corn gluten is by far less expensive, not harmful to the environment, and IMHO works much better.

The rule of thumb for spreading pre-emergents is, in Spring; do it when the Forsythias bloom. Do it again in June. And again, if you have warm winters apply a thrid dose in October.

Semi – Hardy Annuals and Re-Seeding Annuals

For those of you in zone 6 and south, and possible some parts of zone 5b; there are annuals sold at the stores that are semi- hardy. What does that mean?

It means that they may very well survive your winter; the farther south the more likely they will. Why is this important?

To a Lazy Gardener like myself, the idea of planting annuals that come back like a perennial sounds too good to be true. But here in zone 6a – and in a cold spot in 6a – all forms of Dianthus will survive all but the harshest winters. They respond just like perennials in that when they come back, they are the large gallon size plant rather than the six to a pack size plant set out last spring. Keep in mind that they still perform like an annual by blooming all season long. You can always encourage more blooms by dead heading, or snipping off the faded blooms. It keeps the plants forever trying to make new blooms to try to make seeds.

Last Year's Dianthus sold as an annual. Be careful when you mulch in the winter not to cover the crowns.

Dusty Miller (Senecio cineraria) is another good plant that will survive the winter. If you have a green house or can cover your Dusty Miller it will be a large lovely plant the first day you can set it out. In insulated pots in sunny areas, the top growth will die back but the crown will survive. As soon as the weather warms it will send up new leaves.

Dahlias and Gladiolus, when planted 6 inches deep in the ground, not in pots, will return every spring bigger and better than ever. Throw some bone meal on them and they will respond with giant prize winner blooms.

These Dahlias were grown in pots, but I have a greenhouse to keep them in during the winter. Sunlight is not necessary, only a frost free location. Six inches down is frost free here where we live. - Just a side story - this photo was taken about 30 minutes before a tornado came through the area. The dahlias were destroyed, so were many many homes.

Combine semi hardy annuals with a good selection of perennials and reseeding annuals, and you have a garden that will just about take care of itself. The judicious use of pre-emergents allows you to get rid of weeds but stopping it at the proper time to let your plants throw off their seed to propagate is essential.

Violas sprout in warm weather, around September. So where you have violas, if you stop the pre emergent for the late summer early fall period, your violas will reward you with masses of new plants that will be large and very healthy by spring.

patch of re-seeded violas

Hold off on pre- emergents in your regular annual beds around last years zinnias, salvia, impatiens, marigolds, and the like, and they will sprout a nice new crop that by mid summer will be in full bloom. Be sure to put down your pre- emergent around theseplants in the summer and fall to take care of weeds, but drop the February/March dose. After they have sprouted, re apply the pre emergent to keep out the summer weeds.

By using plants that will take care of themselves and last longer than one season you can cut your gardening chores significantly. The hardest part, the part that makes me ache the most is the stooped over planting of annuals. So anything that keeps me out of that position as much as possible makes my Lazy streak very happy.