Now you see it, soon you won’t

Our yellowwood at its peak bloom

After a scorching (90 degrees) day yesterday, I set out this morning to see what damage an early dollop of heat had done to our (primarily) native plant garden in Medfield, Massachusetts. I thought I would focus on our Cladrastis kentuckyea (yellowwood), but there was so much going on, I was outside for the better part of an hour.

This afternoon, there is a carpet
of pink under the tree.

Yellowwoods bloom only once every two years. This year was the most prolific in the tree's ten-year history and, for the past week, it has been a captivating sight in our garden. But the sudden heat forced the tree to make conservation choices.  As I suspected it would, the tree went into overdrive to protect itself, which meant cutting off energy and water to its pantacles of flowers. Two days ago, there were no dropped petals. At noon, there is a carpet of pale pink. If those thunderstorms come to pass this afternoon, the yellowwood’s 2025 bloom will end a little over a week from when it began. That’s my definition of ‘short’.

From brilliant white to brown
in a day.

The maple leaf viburnum (Viburnum acerifolium) went from bright, white flowers to yellow-brown faded ones in a single day.  The shrub has been in bloom for two weeks and so maybe its flowering was about to end anyway; but the totality of the change caught me off guard.

But the same heat that ended flowers also begat them.  The American fringetree (Chionanthus virginicus) in our back garden had what I considered a so-so bloom this year 

Our fringetree's color popped.

– you had to be standing a foot from the bloom to see it. This afternoon, those flowers are front and center – twice as large and bright as two days ago. Will they be gone by the weekend? Maybe, but they’re giving me a great send-off if they are.

The Sisyrinchium (blue-eyed grass)
was apparently biding its time.

Just as surprising, though, was the emergence of flowers where there were none in what had up until now been a cool, damp spring.  We have multiple clusters of Sisyrinchium, better known as blue-eyed grass, around the garden. I usually expect to see it sometime in late June. Well, five different clusters showed themselves today; and they definitely weren’t there on Wednesday. The bloom period isn’t that long – perhaps two weeks – and it’s a one-bloom-and-done kind of plant, in that it won’t please the eye again until next June.

Our ninebark's flowers popped
with the heat.

Finally, the heat got our multiple specimens of Physocarpius opulifolius (ninebark) to open their flowers. They’ve been at that ‘will-they-or-won’t-they’ stage for ten days or more. Well, today they did. The sign at the base of one of the shrubs was acquired this past weekend at the Grow Native Massachusetts plant sale in Lexington.  I had the pleasure to help put it together, and to work the event both days. Principal Undergardeners are assumed to be have skills most closely related to digging holes and moving rocks.  Therefore, I did my duty in the event’s parking lot. There are no small roles; only small players. Happy to have been one of them!

Plants Behaving Badly

 I keep reading articles and social media posts that tell us, “Native plant gardens may be time-consuming to create but, once they’re established, their maintenance is a fraction of the effort of conventional landscapes.”

Removing moss from the
patio off our screened porch.

To which I say, “Ha!” I could also say certain vulgar words that express the sense that people who write such things have obviously never maintained a native plant garden. I know this because I am in the midst of ‘spring maintenance’ of our ‘Homegrown National Park’ in Medfield, MA. The core of the garden is just over half an acre and is starting its eleventh year.

What goes where in our garden, designed by my wife, Betty, intelligently takes into account things like hours per day of sunlight, access to water, and proximity to specimens with similar requirements. She also created the garden to be pleasing to look at; and it is indeed a stunning sight.

But, a garden has to be maintained in order to continue to be interesting to look at. And, plants have a distressing habit of continuing to grow after being put in the ground. And, sometimes they don’t obey the description on their tags (“maxes out at three feet” or “stays within its footprint”. Even native plants can be bullies.

Planting plan of the Magnolia bed. 
Double-click for full-screen resolution.

I relate these realities because my spring maintenance project is now in its third week and I have what appears to be another three weeks of work ahead of me. The unseen asterisk to the preceding statement is that, in 2024, much maintenance was deferred for reasons too complex to explain. This year, there’s no reason to not do the job thoroughly.

There are ten distinct beds (or planting sites) on our property. For the past three days I’ve been working on the ‘Magnolia bed’. It encompasses roughly 1500 square feet of garden and it gets its name from its anchor tree, Magnolia ‘Elizabeth’. The functional parts of the bed are the foundation plantings along the east face of our house: Kalmia (mountain laurel) ‘Sara’, Leucothoe, Fothergilla (witch alder) ‘Blue Shadow’, and a massive Lonircera (honeysuckle) that rises twenty feet, hides the bulk of our garage, and is home to at least a dozen bird nests.

The Magnolia bed before its
clean-up began. Note how the 
foundation plantings have merged.

When we planted those first shrubs, we carefully read the ‘maximum spread’ descriptions for each one. The specimens of mountain laurel (two shrubs) and witch alder (three) have matured exactly as advertised and merged into an attractive clump. The lone Leucothoe – its ‘street name’ (honest to gosh) is dog’s hobble – refused to play by the rules. It has quintupled in size and is in the process of muscling aside its well-behaved companions. Thirty minutes of selective trimming brought it under control, though I am certain each year will bring fresh incursions.

The completed project.

But those miscreants were child’s play compared to the Dicentra eximia (bleeding heart) and Viola odorata (common violet). In designing the bed, Betty envisioned a meandering river of Geranium maculatum passing the length of the Magnolia bed; flowering blue and pink. In 2015, we planted twenty, one-gallon pots to establish the ‘river’ course and waited for them to grow into a stream. They did but, somehow, violets and dicentra spotted an opening and got entrenched. And, ‘entrenched’ is an understatement. The violets (they’re Asian, you know) were thoroughly entangled in the roots of the (American) geraniums. Meanwhile., the Dicentra simply decided to seed itself everywhere and to grow to ridiculous size. Elapsed time to fill six, 40-gallon trash barrels with evicted plants? Twelve hours over three days.

The Leucothoe was overwhelming
its neighboring shrubs

The northern end of the Magnolia bed brought its own set of challenges. It borders our driveway for about thirty feet and, along that path, has multiple layers of flowering perennials. Violets has, of course, become a nuisance than needed to be removed, but the more serious problems were Caltha palustris and Pycnanthemum. 

On the driveway side of the Magnolia
bed, the problem was mint

Pycnanthemum is the Linnean form of mountain mints. At least we planted it. Mountain mint has a lovely scent. But we did so in an oblong bed ten feet long and three feet wide. The key to the how and why of that spreading habit is the second word in its common name: ‘mint’. Pycnanthemum is a member of the mint family and mints sign pledges written in chlorophyl they will devote their existence to spreading far and wide for the sole purpose of annoying gardeners. For five springs I have re-established their boundary, pulling out runners ten feet from the nearest plant. And, for five springs (and apparently having a DVD of ‘The Great Escape’ at their disposal for inspiration) the mountain mint has tunneled into adjacent beds.
Caltha is better known as marsh marigold. I can state unequivocally we have never planted it on our property, yet there were several hundred seedlings thriving in a space about ten feet on a side. Getting them out required an hour of hands-and-knees search-and-pull work. Why not leave them be? Because, left to their own devices, they will grow to a height of six feet and they’re frankly ugly.

In the meantime, two of the ornamental specimens – an upright honeysuckle (Lonerica sempervirens) and beautyberry (Callicarpa americana) – decided independently that world domination begins in suburban gardens. What five years ago were two attractive flowering shrubs decided to invade one another’s turf. Both – using runners – had spread fifteen feet beyond where they were originally planted. It took three hours over two days to dig out all of the wandering runners.

This Lonerica sempervirens
(climbing honeysuckle) hides
the bulk of our garage.

Ridding the Magnolia bed of marsh marigolds, and reining in mountain mints occupied an entire afternoon.

Late yesterday afternoon, drenched in sweat, I emptied the final barrel of plant detritus into a mulch pile far from our house. Now that I have written this, I can go back outside and start on the sixth of our ten beds. Oh, joy.

 

 

Spring Renewal - the 2025 Edition

The 'before' picture

For anyone who thinks maintaining a Homegrown National Park (or any other native plant environment) is a piece of cake once the ‘hard work’ is done, here is a reality check.

By design, there is no late-autumn clean-up at our property in Medfield, Massachusetts. We let our garden sleep for the winter. The leaves that fall from trees end up under shrubs where they provide winter shelter for insects and vulnerable wildlife. The moss pathways that link parts of the garden collect branches and anything else that blows into the property.

Shown here is one small corner of our half-acre garden. We call it the ‘birch bed’ because it is anchored by Betula nigra, a dwarf black birch. At one end of the bed is a clump of three Clethra alnifolia – better known as pepperbush – ‘Hummingbird’. Under the birch is planted Packera aurea, an aggressive ground cover. Beyond the shade zone of the birch is a clump of Chelone glabra, better known as white Turtlehead, and a favored nectaring site for certain butterflies.

The Clethra, also 'before'

In April and May, we slowly bring the garden back to life. Today was cool and breezy following two days of rain. As Principal Undergardener, my job is to, well, get whatever needs to be done, done. Rather than be overwhelmed, I take one section of the garden at a time; figure out what I can do in two or three hours, gather the tools, and go to work.

What a difference a 
few hours can make...

The birch bed seemed like a good place to work this morning. The two ‘before’ photos tell the story of what needed to be done. The moss path than runs between the birch bed and the foundation planting along the east wall of our home had filled in with weeds and Packera. Tiarella and Heuchera that bordered the path had disappeared from view. The Clethra was packed with several inches of leaves. And the Packera was everywhere… despite a late-fall removal of several hundred plugs for a planting project elsewhere in town.

There is no automation for this kind of garden maintenance. You get on your hands and knees and start pulling and lifting. A rake is useless under Clethra: the shrub grows via runners that need to be encouraged. A rake is also useless in the moss pathways. Moss doesn’t have roots. Rake moss and it comes up in pieces or sheets. This is skilled work only in that you use common sense to know what you should and shouldn’t do.

The Clethra, free of leaves
and Packera aurea

And, one of the things you shouldn’t do is hurry.  Speed results in pulling up a ‘good plant’ or severing a Clethra’s runner. Gardening breeds patience.

It took just under three hours to accomplish what you see in the ‘after’ photos. There are three bags of leaves, weeds, and excess Packera in the deep woods behind our home. Over the course of several years, that plant debris will compost into rick soil. What a great natural cycle.

And what good exercise…

Fifth Grade Math on a Stormy Sunday in February

February is a fickle month in New England.  It can rain, it can snow, it can sleet. Sometimes it can do all three within a few hours. Today happens to be one of those days.

The TV stations had it all laid out

Last evening at 10 p.m. it was beginning to snow. The forecast for southwest suburban Boston was for four to five inches of snow overnight, changing over to sleet and freezing rain around 4 a.m., and then to all rain at 7 a.m. with a likely accumulation of about an inch of water total.

Though having been born and raised in Florida, I have learned a few things about winter. One of them is that rain does not melt snow, especially when the rain falling is about 35 degrees. Instead, the snow becomes waterlogged. You are essentially shoveling water, which is not an especially healthy thing to do. And, if you don't shovel it, the waterlogged snow turns to concrete overnight.

If I waited until the system moved
out, the snow would be waterlogged

As I watched that forecast, I wondered how much water I would have to shovel if I stayed inside, snug and warm, and waited until the rain passed? That’s the kind of math problem I used to enjoy solving back in fifth grade: area (or volume) multiplied by weight.

The area: I have a two-car garage roughly 20 feet wide, and the depth of the parking/turning area is also about 20 feet. OK, 400 square feet. The driveway is ten feet wide and 60 feet long. That’s another 600 square feet. Plus, there’s a sidewalk that’s four feet wide and 50 feet long. Two hundred square feet. Add them up and you get 1200 square feet as the area to be shoveled.

At this point, you’re wondering to yourself, why isn’t this guy using a snow blower? 

Good only for light,
powdery snow

That’s a good question with a complicated answer. I do, in fact, have a snow blower; and it works. But, for very sound environmental reasons, I have a crushed stone driveway rather than asphalt. So as not to scoop up and throw stones from the driveway into the garden, I mounted the maw of the snowblower mounted on skis. It works wonderfully well on light, powdery snow. It does not work at all on wet, heavy snow (and neither do most snow blowers going over asphalt).

Back to the math problem. There are two numbers that have stuck in my head for almost seven decades. The first the mnemonic, “a pint’s a pound the world around”. The other is that a cubic foot of water weighs 62.4 pounds.

The sidewalk

I could solve the math with the pint/pound thing, but it’s easier with the cubic foot method. If I have 1200 square feet of driveway and it was covered to a depth of one foot, I would have 1200 gallons of water which would weigh 74,880 pounds. But I have one inch, which is one-twelfth of that or 6,240 pounds of water… just over three tons. Three tons. That is a monumental amount of water to pick up and move one shovelful at a time.

It even has a hood! 

I do not want to shovel three tons of water. So, I awakened at 5:30 a.m. and dressed for sleet. Twelve years ago, Betty took me to Niagara Falls; a place she had been to numerous times as a child. We went in mid-summer and, as a special treat, we took the Maid of the Mist boat right up to the American Falls. Because there is lots of spray involved in going to the business end of a waterfall, your passage on the boat includes a thin plastic rain slicker. Most people leave them behind; I thought it was a fun memento and brought it home.  Well, this morning I found it and decided it was the ideal complement to my ratty jeans and duct-taped snow boots.

Down to the stone driveway

I started at 5:45 a.m.; got the sidewalk and lower part of the driveway done, then came in and had breakfast, The snow was dense, but not nearly as heavy as it would be later in the morning. I worked for two hours on the first shift, then another two shoveling the parking pad. Both sessions involved either sleet or rain.

I would guess I moved just over a ton of water. That’s pretty good exercise for a 75-year-old body. Do I want to do it again anytime soon?  

Hell, no.

Spring Training - Community Garden Style

In baseball, teams take a winter break. Then, in early February, busses ferry supplies to Florida or Arizona. Pitchers and catchers come back. Then, the team reunites and the old guard gets to look over the crop of rookies. In late March, the regular season begins.

Amazingly, much the same happens in community vegetable gardens, or at least at the Medfield Community Garden I have overseen for the (gulp) past 15 years in Boston’s southwest suburbs.

Back at the end of October, the garden shut down for the winter. On November 1, I sent an email to all ‘gardeners in good standing’ asking if they wanted to return for the 2025 season. Once I had those results in hand, I put my feet up for a few months. Except I didn’t. That November email also asked gardeners what went right and what went wrong over the course of the season. I mostly focused on the ‘where we screwed up’ responses and figured out ways to address them, just like any good team manager.

Public enemy Number One

This past season, what was on everyone’s mind were “critters” digging under or chewing through fences, and the stronger fences everyone was putting up to keep the critters out. The complaint, though, was the hard work of taking down those fences in the fall, only to have to re-install them five months later. To save the three days of work at the beginning and end of the season, could the fences stay up?

Putting up and taking down fences every
season was the chief complaint

That’s what I did over the winter break: devised a rationale that would get the approval of the Baseball Commission – er, the Medfield Conservation Commission. Last evening, the Commission voted to try a ‘fences-stay-up’ experiment for the winter of 2025-2026. I don’t expect anyone to offer to carry me into the garden on their shoulders. More like I’ll get a bucket of Gatorade dumped over me,

I try to make everyone happy. It isn't easy.

On January 1, I emailed returning gardeners asking if they really plan to come back and, if so, do they want to stay in the same size plot and same location. A surprising number of respondents wanted a change. Seven gardeners with half plots were ready to move up to full ones (from 300 to 600 square feet). One gardener elected to downsize. Them I sent around the plot plan to those returning gardeners showing the plots that would be available to new gardeners. Half a dozen gardeners ask to be switched to greener pastures (or richer soil, maybe). After three weeks, everyone was happy with their location.

On February 1, I asked returning gardeners to pony up for their plots. At the same time, I reminded everyone that the best seeds aren’t found on the shelves of big box stores. The gardening equivalent of those team busses began collecting and disgorging seed orders as gardeners began going through the Johnny’s of Maine and Pine Tree Seed catalogs and web sites.

The wheelbarrows need to work
to make food cupboard 
pickups possible

At the same time, the management roster was pulled into shape. Yes, community gardens have committees. The most important one deals with food cupboard collections. We now have two dedicated 600 square foot plots where volunteers grow food specifically to deliver to food pantries in Medfield and nearby Medway. In advance of every distribution date, wheelbarrows need to be set up at the front of the garden and ‘sweeps’ made to collect the produce contributed by gardeners from their own plots. In weeks where both pantries are having distributions, there will be twice-a-day sweeps four days a week. It takes a lot of coordination.

Two people are required to mow the perimeter of the garden using lawn mowers either donated or salvaged from the town’s transfer station. Another person is needed to keep the lawn mowers running and yet another volunteer has the inglorious task of keeping a fleet of 12 wheelbarrows upright. Did I miss anyone? Probably.

I collected lots of names

On March 1, I will throw open the garden to new registrants. I have 18 spots on the roster (OK, gardens) to fill. Fortunately, I collected 22 names at Discover Medfield Day. How many of those people will want to sign up? I have no earthly idea. That’s why I do a full-court press (sorry, that’s basketball) to get as many interested gardeners as possible. Ideally, I’ll even have a wait list.

Staking the garden for the new season

In the last week of March, two events take place that tell everyone the new season has started. There’s a talk on vegetable gardening at the town library on Saturday morning which usually draws a standing-room-only crowd (new gardeners are “strongly encouraged” to go). The nice part is old hands also show up and introduce themselves to the rookies. The offers to help are genuine. Friendships are born.

And, the next day, a team of a dozen volunteers marks out the garden and puts down 240 stakes to show the corners of each full plot. It is usually a comedy of errors, but it gets done. Eventually.

As soon as that’s finished, I throw the garden for everyone to start doing their thing. Except, just like those painful-to-watch early season baseball games where the snow has to be shoveled out of the stands, it’s really too cold to start planting in New England. But, it’s all part of the tradition, and who am I to question it?