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On the left is the trial garden and weather station. Behind the truck and motor home is the red barn just chock full of garden tools and supplies, as well as this year's unfurled Christmas tree. Just in front of the truck is a 30-foot-long Echinacea bed. You can see the stems and seed heads weren’t removed and still get visited by birds seeking missed morsels.
The Hampton Gardener’s winter hibernation retreat. Buried under 20 inches of snow are the perennial beds surrounding the house. And doesn’t the lawn look great? No weeds. ANDREW MESSINGER
An artistic view of one of neighbor Nancy’s rampant sunflowers planted by chipmunks in May. It was happenstance that this is the same spot where I was going to plant a bed of sunflowers. They did the work for me and ended up giving pollinators a place to hang out then later in the summer the seed heads became a feeding station for a flock of goldfinches. ANDREW MESSINGER
This week, it’s time to wrap up 2020 and hopefully open some of the doors to 2021. A bit of review, a bit of a preview, last things to do.
For the next several months, I’ll be writing from my new office up in the mountains. We always spend most of the winter up here since my wife is a ski patroller. She loves winter. I am not a fan. It does, however, give me a chance to catch up on my garden reading, spend weeks with the seed and plant catalogs, and hibernate.
The new office looks out on the trial garden, Echinacea garden, half of the woodland garden, Japanese maples and Magnolias. But before you feel any envy at all, you need to know that there is 20 inches of snow on the ground, and before the snow it was pretty cold so the ground is frozen under the snow. And while you still may be able to get some garden work done, I am certainly done for now. Save for my houseplants.
The new office is wonderful, though. I can write and gaze out two larger windows watching the birds feed over at neighbor Nancy’s, watch the gray and red squirrels scurry about, and catch a glimpse of the occasional hawk who dines on the rodents and birds below. I don’t have a serious deer problem up here, as the deer go into hiding during hunting season, but now that there’s snow on the ground, it’s only a matter of time before they come down from the mountain and hills seeking garden food. So, just like you, I have to spray and fence.
Spring up here comes late. I’ve often come up to check the house in April with every intention of putting a shovel in the ground. And it will go in about an inch before it hits the frozen level. Summer comes for a day or two in August and we get our first frost and hard freeze in September while you are still gardening and at the beach.
A reader sent an email and a picture a couple of weeks ago showing a holiday gift she’d received. It was a decorative pot planted with an Amaryllis with two long stems just about to flower, a Christmas cactus and a cyclamen. The question was how to take care of the various plants. My suggestion to her (and you, if you have a similar gift) was to enjoy the plants as is through the holidays then start to pick the planting apart. Why?
The three plants in the large pot each require very different growing requirements. The Amaryllis needs its own pot that’s just slightly larger than the bulb. This plant only flowers when the bulb is tight in the pot, and it needs a 6-to-8-week dormant period with no foliage in order to reflower next year. The cyclamen will go dormant late in the spring as it gets warmer, and since it likes it on the cool side it has different needs than the warmth-loving Amaryllis. The Christmas cacti likes it on the dry and warm side, and if it’s constantly moved around it may not flower next year. This plant would be best in its own pot, in a sunny window and just left there. If it stays in the same spot and just given a quarter turn every week it will flower every single year at the exact same time.
Several years ago a reader noted that her Christmas cactus had ceased flowering over a period of years. After a little detective work we discovered that while it was in the exact same window and exposure, the trees outside had matured, filled in and shaded the plant just a bit more every year. In the winter it got full sunlight. But during the rest of the year it was getting more shade and the cacti was responding to the change in light.
One of my all-time favorite mail-order nurseries has closed. Song Sparrow Nursery (aka Klehm’s) is no longer. The nursery was expensive but shipped some of the best perennials, trees and shrubs I’ve ever gotten. It’s a familiar story. The family-owned and -run business ran out of younger family members to carry on the tradition and had to close shop. The peony breeding program was sold to another grower and the nursery land in Wisconsin is being planted with corn and soybeans.
Speaking with some gardeners last week, the topic of squirrels and bird feeders came up. It’s always been a vexing issue for those who just want to feed the birds, and there have been a number of good solutions. The most recent is the introduction of squirrel-proof feeders, but they can be very expensive.
One of the gardeners said she uses small mirrors attached to her traditional feeders, and that kept the squirrels away. Maybe worth a try if you can find small non-glass mirrors and find a way of attaching them to the feeder.
Will there be a problem with male cardinals with this squirrel deterrent? You may have noticed that when a male cardinal sees himself in your car’s side-view mirror, it just goes bonkers and will peck at that mirror on and off for days on end. Will it do the same at your mirrored bird feeder?
When it does snow, the snow is one of the best insulators for your garden and lawn. Be careful not to shovel the snow from lawn areas as some turfgrasses need snow cover. When you remove snow, you’ll notice a stark difference in the lawn color come spring.
You might also be surprised on what’s going on under the snow. Mice and voles remain active. While they hide, the voles will still try to dig up bulbs and chew on tree and shrub bark hidden by the snow. Fruit trees are a particular favorite of the voles, and one way to deter them is to move the snow a foot away from the trunks at the ground. This takes away their cover and they will shy away from snow-cleared areas.
I’m so impressed with Johnny’s Selected Seeds catalog. For veggie growers, this is really a must-have. More on this in January, but in the mean time if you don’t have a paper copy of their catalog call or email to get one — if you can.
A number of new gardening books coming in the spring, and I’m looking forward to one on garden insects. It’s been way too long since Cynthia Westcott’s “Gardener’s Bug Book,” and I’m interested in seeing if this new one will be a stop-gap or a replacement. More on this in April. Rumor is that Santa has a copy of Allan Armitage’s latest perennial book, so there may be a review of that in a few weeks as well.
See foot tracks in the snow and want to know who’s around in terms of wildlife? There’s a tracking key for winter tracks in the snow (and ground) that you can find here: on.ny.gov/2J5Akmi. A great project for the kids and you may learn a few things as well that can help you track your garden critters.
I hope you have a very Merry Christmas and a happy, healthy and safe New Year. Things will get better and of course you absolutely must, must keep growing.
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