June Ramble

Before getting into my June ramble, a note to my loyal readers: Many of you send me your questions and comments, and I try to answer every email within a few days. I either answer your question or give you links (or both), or give you a contact who can be helpful.

But it’s come to my attention that from time to time you don’t get my responses, and my answers either stream elsewhere out into the electronic ether or end up in your spam folder. So, if you don’t hear back from me in three or four days, please, please, let me know.

You are probably aware of the issues with one of our native trees of the Northeast, the ash. You can find them on Long Island, where they were planted as street trees, and some occur in the wild, but they were plagued for years with what was simply referred to as “ash decline”—until the emerald ash borer headed in from the west.

The borer eventually will do in all our ashes, except for those that are chemically treated. In the lower Hudson Valley and up through the Catskills, the ash was a dominant woodland tree, and for generations Catskill woodsmen would turn these ashes into some of the best baseball bats the world ever knew. Now, however, when you drive through the Catskills, all you see are huge swatches of dead ashes.

I was at an invasive species seminar last year, and I asked the speakers what was being done with all the ash trees that are being felled, and why no industry was springing up to process this wood in some productive manner. I was surprised to hear that some of the lumber was being loaded into shipping containers and transported to the docks of New Jersey, where it was loaded onto container ships bound for Asia. But why? No one seemed to know, or care.

Last week, the newest catalog arrived from Design Within Reach, a not-inexpensive furniture and furnishing company, with stores from Toronto to Mexico City and New York to California. We browse the catalog, but it’s a bit pricey for our tastes. But we’ve been looking for a special piece for our living room, and one design caught my fancy. My wife agreed that it was pretty much what we had been looking for.

There was a long paragraph about the designer, Gabriel Tan, and at the end of the paragraph, three words: “Made in Malaysia.” But under that, in the tiniest of print, almost unreadable without glasses or a magnifier, it said: “ Materials … Solid American Ash …”

A clue to where all those containers of ash bound for Asia are ending up?

Pot—and not the clay kind—has been in the news quite a bit. It’s been several decades since I last inhaled, but I’ve been watching the evolution of the cannabis industry with great interest. As a spin-off of the commercial pot growing industry that is taking shape in several states, there also is some interesting research taking place in the various aspects of cannabis nutrition, and the growing, breeding, artificial lighting and insect management of this crop. The information is trickling, or wafting, down to other parts of the horticulture industry.

I’ve been particularly interested in the innovations that are evolving around organic insect control. The Perennial Plant Association will have a talk at its annual summer convention on commercial pot growing as an alternate income source, and the Garden Writers Association will have a talk at its annual meeting this summer in Buffalo on “Cannabis for the Garden Writer: It’s the New Tomato.” (The Press has not yet offered to send me to cover this.)

I love roses, but it’s one of those plants that I have a love/hate relationship with. The types and varieties can be daunting to understand. The diseases and insects can be a challenge, to say the least. But there are some roses that are just so captivating and beautiful that it’s not enough to enjoy them in someone else’s garden, and sooner or later we all give in.

Our relationship with roses was further sullied about 10 years ago, when there was a collapse of the commercial rose business, and we saw many of our favorite brands and growers go under. Some of this was due to the economic downturn and poor business practices, but there also was some whispering that the rose industry did itself in by selling plant material that was knowingly infected with disease and genetic issues, which took a toll on retail sales.

One of the larger issues that I had was with the organization that evaluated, trialed and rated roses and was the de facto public relations arm of the rose industry. There were conflicts galore, and after a run of more than 60 years, the organization, All-American Rose Selection, or AARS, all but disappeared in 2012.

But now there is a new organization, called American Rose Trials for Sustainability, or ARTS, which will trial and rate landscape and garden roses. ARTS has about 18 trial gardens, but none in the New York or New England area. The two closest are at Swarthmore College and Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania.

ARTS has given awards to eight new roses for 2018, and you can find out more about them here: https://tinyurl.com/y8rwtsob.

We’ve had plenty of rain so far this gardening season, and things are growing quite lush. But the rain also means that the fertilizers we added for our annuals, perennials and vegetables are being used up by the plants, and it may be time for you to make another application.

At this point in the season, it’s nearly impossible to make broadcast applications, so we are left to banding or liquid applications. Organic fertilizers can be applied in bands or strips along or around the drip line of garden plants, but they should not be left on the surface of the soil. Organics need to be mixed with the top inch or two of the soil so the soil microbes and moisture can make the nutrients available to the plant roots.

You also can apply liquid fertilizers, but these should not be applied to the foliage, but rather to the same area of the soil, the drip line, that you would apply the granular materials. You’ll probably want to make another application in another three to four weeks, depending on how much rain we get during the rest of June and into July.

Some thoughts about Miracle-Gro: This is the high-potency, water-soluble fertilizer that you buy as a semi-solid, mix it with water or put it into an applicator, and spray it on plants or apply it to the ground with a watering can. This is a pure chemical fertilizer, and the type we know can be much more polluting than any of the organics. It quickly leaches into the groundwater and gives the plants a fast shot in the arm with little to no lasting effects that we know the organics have.

Unlike most organics, Miracle-Gro (as well as other chemical fertilizers) can burn your plants with its salts, and it does not build the soil microbes like organics will. There are liquid organics that are safer for you, your soil and our environment. Yes, there are times when it may—I say “may”—be appropriate to use Miracle-Gro. I bought an 8-ounce box several years ago. Five ounces are still in the same box on a shelf in the barn.

Remember to keep an eye on your plants. Monitor them regularly for signs of insects and rodent damage. As it gets warmer, insect populations … bloom. Control them at first sight, and you may avoid a longer-term problem.

Keep growing!