Looking Back On The 2016 Garden And Landscape

This will be my last column for 2016—and what better way to end the year than to take a look back at the garden and landscape of the past 12 months, review what’s gone on, try to come up with some rhyme and reason, and, hopefully, do what we can to make sure the good parts repeat and the bad ones remain memories.First, though, some personal comments.

If my records and recollection are correct, I have written this column about 2,000 times. Starting around 1976, and at least 50 times a year since then, I’ve tried to write about gardening and horticulture in the hope that I can help you, challenge you and keep you growing. I know from your letters and emails that I’ve had a small amount of success—and to the many of you who took the time to write in the past year I thank you. It’s so nice to always know you’re there.

And if you write and I don’t respond, write again. When you write to me in the middle of the gardening season, occasionally a letter will get lost, accidentally erased or never reach me. But at least 199 of you know that I always write back, and often more than once.

It was mostly about the weather. You can’t change it. We try to predict it, and it has such a profound effect on our gardens. Out on the East End, 2016 was again one of the warmest years in history—but for many areas it was also one of the driest. Not a good combination, and as wells ran dry and some had to deal with water restrictions, good old Mother Nature has her way of evening things out, and now we seem to have turned toward the wet end of the spectrum.

But both the heat and the drought put plenty of stress on our plants; those that were irrigated will survive, but next summer we will see the true toll of the drought, as larger and older trees don’t re-leaf after the winter, and some will foliate only to expire as the stresses of another summer add up to be just too much. Stress-related injury often seems to show up a year after the event.

The drought has had other consequences that were both immediate and not. The lack of rain during the breeding and caterpillar stages of the gypsy moth inhibited the spread of a fungus that, in wet years, provides a natural control for this oak deforesting insect. The heat only added a second element, since warmer temperature increase the reproductive rates of most insects.

Not all areas saw the ravages of the caterpillars, but the inevitable and insidious part is that their numbers increased—and so they’ve laid their eggs over even larger areas. The result will be that if the spring of 2017 is dry, and the killing fungus does not reappear, many an oak will be doomed or at least damaged.

There is also the epidemic of the southern pine beetle. This tiny insect now threatens the pitch pines that cover thousands of acres of the Pine Barrens and beyond. Thought to be of little significance and no real threat, we now find state and federal experts in something of a panic trying to control this insect.

For now, the approach is to try to isolate the outbreaks, but if you look along the north side of Sunrise Highway between Hampton Bays and the Shinnecock Canal, you’ll see that the isolation is not quite working. And when the public was first told about this beetle, we were told that it couldn’t spread beyond Long Island for various reasons. But it has, and now it’s been found in the lower Hudson Valley up into Ulster County.

But it’s not all doom and gloom on the insect news front. The dry summer may give us a reprieve on the Japanese beetle front—a short reprieve. In this case, the larvae of the beetles that develop in the soil late in the summer need a good deal of soil moisture. With our soils being on the rather dry side, the number of beetle eggs and larvae that developed should have been down, so there will be fewer adults to maraud our roses and berry plants come next June. Maybe.

The other good news is that the populations of monarch butterflies seems to have seen some restoration. It will take years of rebuilding, but maybe all those Asclepias plants that we’ve been planting are paying off, though there would seem to be other forces at work as well. The parent population that’s now down in Mexico in their wintering grounds will have to be monitored, but with some mild weather down there and a favorable spring for the trip back north, there may be continuing good news.

Interestingly, though, as the monarchs declined, I’ve noticed an incredible increase in the number of hummingbirds. In every garden I visit they can be seen flitting about from mid-spring through early fall. If I sit on my front porch, I don’t have to wait more than two or three minutes before seeing one or two of them visiting a wide range of flowers.

But what most of us don’t realize is that these hummingbirds are not just nectar sippers. Indeed, they are insectivores, and a good portion of their daily diet consists of garden insects that they catch on the wing. So they are not merely beautiful and amazing but beneficial as well.

It was also a remarkable year for rodents and other animals. Chipmunks seem to have developed a voracious palate for a wide range of vegetables, from peas to small melons and Asiatic lily flower buds. Moles are still busy tunneling in some lawns, and the voles have just gone rampant eating roots, bark and tubers. The rabbits seem to be intent on establishing their kingdom on earth by reproducing like—well, rabbits. Keep in mind, though, that as these populations go up, soon to follow will be lots of red foxes, and then the thinning will take place. Oh, and the coyotes that just love rabbits? Well, they’re in Queens and on their way … I say, five years away.

And what’s with all the nocturnal digging going on in local lawns at night? The moles are probably the clue, but they’re not what’s ripping up the lawn—they just tunnel it. If you’ve been finding areas of lawn torn to pieces and ripped up like someone viciously took a rake to it, blame it on one of three critters: Skunks, possums and, to a lesser degree, raccoons will rip up turf to get to grubs and worms. It was the most common email complaint this fall.

The knee-jerk reaction is to want to kill the skunk or possum. They’re only the clue, though. The real problem is what’s in the top few inches of your soil that these nocturnal feeders are after. It’s also a byproduct of our ever-increasing organic lawns. When fewer chemicals are used, the fauna below the grass thrives—and that’s what the possums and skunks are after.

And I don’t even want to remember the paltry apple crop. Now, that was depressing. But the days are already getting longer, and by the end of the week, the nights will be getting shorter—a sure sign that spring is not far off.

But first some rest, then the catalogs, then some more rest, and, yes, then spring.

Have a very happy new year. It will be better. And keep growing!