WordPress has been giving me issues lately so I moved the site to a new address, https://rudiev.medium.com
The new site won’t have as many bells and whistles but honestly I just don’t have the time for all the ideas I initially had for the site. Additionally I may post about non-gardening topics, just sort of whatever’s on my mind or something interesting I saw.
Though we’re still about 2 months away from starting seeds for the vegetable garden (at least for those of us in Virginia and areas north), I wanted to share some resources now to help you plan for the coming spring. My wife and I have had quite a bit of trouble recently with mail and packages arriving way late or sent to the wrong address so I would recommmend ordering your seeds earlier than you might normally.
Buying local is something I’m big on, so my main go-to source for vegetable and herb seeds is Southern Exposure Seeds, based in Mineral, Virginia. They have a pretty extensive selection of varieties and a lot of them are grown right here in Virginia so they tend to do well here. They also carry cover crop seeds, mushroom kits, seed saving supplies, and growing guides.
Between climate change and habitat loss, it’s as important as ever to preserve as much of a diveristy of plant species as possible, particulary when it comes to food crops. That’s why I also buy seeds from Seed Savers Exchange, a non-profit whose mission is to preserve and pass on heirloom vegetable, herb, and flower seeds that been passed down for generations. Heirloom varieties include old favorites like Brandywine and Arkansas Traveler tomatoes, Black Beauty eggplant, and California Wonder bell pepper.
If you want to go even more rare and unusual, Baker Creek has you covered! 40 pound beet roots, 3 foot long kale, orange eggplant from Japan. In addition to your more “normal” heirlooms. They’ve got a little of everything.
Pro tip: If you’re going to grow vegetables in pots, I’d recommend lining up your containers in rows, and investing in some sort of drip irrigation (you can find lots of ideas for that on Pinterest) and then hook up your drip line to a timer, so you can be sure your potted veggies get watered even if you’re not home. Trust me, I found out the hard way that even with very large pots, it’s best to have your garden watered before noon. Tomatoes in particular do not respond well to going from bone dry to very wet and back to bone dry. “Evenly moist” is the key.
This year has been hard on so many different fronts, but I’m grateful to God that business has been brisk at Colesville Nursery from spring right on through the fall, despite COVID and the restrictions that the pandemic necessitated. I guess it makes sense though, with people generally staying home more often, they have more opportunity to evaluate their yards and home landscapes, look through gardening catalogs and magazines (and Pinterest!) for ideas and inspiration. This led to October being our 2nd best in sales in the history of the company!
I’ve been among those who’ve stayed largely stayed home (other than work and groceries) and had ample time to ponder better possibilities for plantings around the house. I’ve already shared a bit about the native plant/pollinator garden on the back side of the house, and this week I’ve been tackling the front, ripping out a bunch of Loriope from a brick planter built into the front of the house, next to the front porch.
This was no easy chore; loriope produce new offsets from rhizomes, eventually forming a “mat” of inter-connected clumps. So it does make a great ground cover for partial sun to full shade, just not so easy to remove once established. At any rate, I decided to replace them with a plant that caught my attention at my last visit to J.C. Raulston Arboretum near Raleigh, North Carolina two years ago.
This is Mahonia confusa ‘Narihira’, an evergreen shrub that thrives even in full shade situations. It will bloom in fall with neat yellow spikes of small bell-shaped blooms that attract bees, followed by blue berries in winter that may persist into early spring if the birds don’t eat them all. It grows slowly enough that pruning is seldom required. I thought these would look good alternating with a bright green or variegated hosta or heuchera.
Immediately to the left of the brick planter is another small area where there had previously been hostas and small perennials. Those came out and in there stead I planted some Summer Crush hydrangeas, which boast an intense reddish pink that doesn’t change color even in acidic soils. It’s also a dwarf variety that can fit in a smaller space.
I still have more shrubs to replace in the front and in the side yard, so stay tuned!
Other than getting some tulips and daffodils planted in big pots on the back porch for the spring, I honestly haven’t been doing much in the garden lately other than enjoying the transition from summer to fall, with the red coloration on my ‘Shenandoah’ switch grass intensifying, the berries on my three beautyberry bushes maturing to a deep purple, and electric fall color overtaking the three Sweetspire shrubs I planted a few weeks ago. So instead I’ll share some of my favorite photos I took at the farm over the past month. We’ve had quite a few foggy mornings lately, which between that and spider webs between the bigger shrubs has made for quite an excellent Halloween atmosphere.
While the arrival of fall often brings a tinge of sadness that the flowering season in the garden is mostly over, it doesn’t have to be that way. Stunning fall color isn’t just limited to maple trees. There are a decent selection of small to medium sized shrubs that will lend some late color to a garden that otherwise appears to be winding down. Below are some of my personal favorites, many of which are native to the southeast and Mid-Atlantic.
Itea virginica – Sweetspire
Spires of white flowers in spring provide nectar for bees and butterflies; soft green foliage gives way to brilliant shades of yellow, orange, and red with the onset of cooler weather in the fall; Itea prefers moist soil but is drought tolerant once established. Full and partial sun. 3-5′ by 3-5′
Low Scape Mound Aronia
Low Scape Mound aronia will grow wider than tall, making it a great plant for the front of a border or in front of more upright plants! The birds love the berries! Tolerates a wide range of soils, full sun for best fall color.
Serviceberry – Amelanchier spp.
If you do have room for a small to medium tree or large shrub (depending on the species), Serviceberry will reward you with tasty berries in late summer (think blueberries but with a more complex sweet/tart profile) and sugar-maple shades of yellow and orange in fall, on a tree about 10-20′ tall.
For more plants with fall/winter interest, visit my Pinterest board!
Not much going on with the garden the last week or so, except dismantling the anti-squirrel fencing/netting I put up over the potted vegetables back in the spring. It did it’s job, I didn’t lose a single veggie to squirrels. Unfortunately, I did lose tomatoes to the wild swings in weather we’ve had, from extreme heat and drought from July to mid August and then flooding rains and cooler weather from late August into early September; tomatoes cracked or just rotted on the vine. So today I ripped out everything that wasn’t producing anymore, though the eggplants are still going strong!
After struggling through immense heat and relentless dry weather earlier, the native plant garden has bounced back and is looking great, though I still need to add a few more perennials and shrubs and get some mulch down.
I’m most pleased with the Beautyberry (Callicarpa americana) shrubs I planted last fall; those berries are really shining! So far I haven’t seen birds plucking at the berries but I wouldn’t mind if they munched on a few, that’s part of the reason I plant, to give wildlife shelter, sources of nesting material, and food to get through the cold months.
I wish I could say I’ve been getting ready for fall crops and sneaking in a few more perennials and shrubs into the native plant garden, but just as soon as our hot, dry spell relented, our weather pattern abruptly switched to non-stop rains, beginning with Tropical Storm Isaias a few weeks back. My rain gauge is showing 19.55″ so far for the month of August, with nearly 10″ in the last several day! This has kept me busy with something far less appealing than planting: digging numerous drainage trenches away from our side door, where the ground is slightly higher than the house, and water tends to flow towards the door.
We’ve had the concrete slab in front of the door raised up already, but when we had our giant silver maple cut down and the stump ground up, they spread topsoil over a large area, including right in front of the slab, which raised the ground back up above the concrete, bringing back our ponding issue.
I’ve been contemplating several different ideas for what to do about this issue but I keep returning to the fact that the ground around the slab needs to be brought back down to just below the level of the slab, which is going to require renting a Bobcat to push a few inches of all that soil around back. A french drain at the corner of the slab, leading into the back yard is also under serious consideration as well.
If you have other ideas that may be cheaper or less work, or just more effective, (or all of the above) by all means leave a comment!
As many of you know, I’m not a fan of lawns. When I had my landscaping business going, I was discouraged at how many people were asking me for help green up their lawn, cut grass, aerate and fertilize, etc. rather than planting drifts of perennials, shrubs, and small trees that act as sources of shelter and food for wildlife and pollinators. Especially when you consider the immense cost of trying to keep turf healthy and thriving, versus beds of perennials and shrubs that only need occasional trimming or fertilizing but largely take care of themselves.
If you’re thinking of making the switch from lawn to garden beds, it’s actually not that difficult to do; it will take some time, but the costs are minimal. Here’s a great video on what’s involved:
My only addendum to this video is that I personally would rather use compost to layer on top of the cardboard and newspaper rather than just plain mulch; mulch won’t add much in the way of nutrients, which compost will. Just make sure your compost is free of weeds/weed seeds!
Not everyone has the ideal “moist but well drained” soil that so many plant books, websites, and tags say you need to grow a particular plant in your yard. A lot of us, particularly in the eastern and southeastern United States, have to deal with clay, which tends to hold water for long periods of time. What is a person to do with that low, poorly draining spot in the yard where so many other plants would croak from the excess water?
There ARE plants for that! Two of my favorites not just tolerate wet soil but thrive in it. Those are Cephalanthus occidentalis (Buttonbush) and Clethra alnifolia (Summersweet).
Buttonbush is a rounded 3-6′ shrub, glossy leaves, sending up those unusual globe coronavirus looking flowers from June to August, which become a red Korean dogwood-like fruit in early fall.
Buttonbush thrives in wet soil and even standing water in partial shade to full sun; hardy in zones 5-11.
Clethra alnifolia is a rounded, suckering shrub of 4 to 8′ x 4 to 6′ but variable depending on soil moisture (plants are larger with more water); like Buttonbush, can thrive in standing water. Flowering begins in late June or early July and continues through August; flower color depends on cultivar; ‘Ruby Spice’ is a beautiful one with rosy pink blooms (the second photo at the beginning of this post). Most other cultivars bloom white and vary in size and habit. There is a slight fragrance to the flowers. Fall leaf color is bright gold and quite showy; slower to shed leaves upon colder weather than most other deciduous shrubs.
This past week was National Pollinator Week, an effort to bring attention to the plight of our pollinators (bees, butterflies, moths, wasps, etc.) who are responsible for one out of every three bites of food we eat. Honey bees alone pollinate 80% of all cultivated food crops. Between climate change and habitat loss, there is immense pressure on these important worker insects. The western Monarch butterfly for example is teetering on the verge of extinction as their numbers have fallen sharply for several years.
But we can all play a part in reversing this trend. Planting just a few perennials and shrubs native to your area helps immensely, providing a source of food (nectar, berries, etc) and shelter. The National Wildlife Federation is an excellent source of information on planting a pollinator garden, and the Xerces Society has a page with a comprehensive list of plants native to each region of the country, when they bloom, how big they get, etc. and I’d encourage you to check them out.
Last week I showed you the conifer garden I’ve been working on. This week I want to shift gears to our pollinator garden. I was fortunate to have sort of a “blank slate” in a part of the yard directly behind the house, just to the left of our back deck, extending all the way over to our side fence, an area of roughly 25 to 30 feet by 8-10 feet. Very little weeds, pretty much clear and ready for planting.
What I’ve planted there so far:
My end goal is something like this, the brilliant work of famed landscape designer Piet Oudolf, though obviously on a smaller scale:
I love how his work closely mimics natural prairies and meadows, landscapes that have been disappearing from much of the country for decades. In a world that seems fixated on neat, tidy, curated garden and landscape design, it’s refreshing to see someone leading the way in showing how wonderful things can still look by getting back to a more naturalistic arrangement.
You can see some more of his work here, in a trailer for a new documentary detailing his amazing landscape designs.
The Garden Dude 