nitty gritty dirt man

No Sunflowers, Ever!

/ Kevin / 14 Comments

In my last post, I made brief mention of my Mommie Dearest moment — a not-so-proud incident that clearly illustrated the ugly and, yes, comedic side of gardening.  I had asked people to remind me to tell the story, and they have.  So here it is.

Once upon a time, a long time ago, in a backyard not so far away, there lived a young gardener, me.  Joe and I had recently purchased his parents’ home, and the yard presented us with a blank canvas.  I had always enjoyed gardening as a kid, but that was usually relegated to the family’s vegetable plot.  Now, I had a whole yard and a big vision and no money.  The layout in the back was pretty basic.  There was a large built-in pool with red and green patio blocks surrounding it.  To the east, there was an area of pebbles and stones, and this led to a small lawn.  The rocks were held in place by a low wall of cinder blocks, all placed on their sides.

I decided to start small one year, and I planted marigolds in each of the cinder block openings.  They did quite well, thriving on neglect and heat.  The following year, though, I saw on Martha Stewart’s early television show that she grew gigantic sunflowers and would harvest her own home-grown sunflower seeds.  Then, in true Martha-style, she would even hang some of the flower heads in the trees to feed birds and squirrels.  The whole idea sounded like an eco-friendly winner.

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No Plant Left Behind

/ Kevin / 9 Comments

Rudy -- the movie.

I have always been a sucker for the underdog.  In the movies, I love the story where the weakling, the geek, the wallflower, the fill-in-the-blank, comes of age, achieves self-realization, and conquers against all odds.  It’s like in the film Rudy, in which Daniel Ruettiger is told that he is too small to play football for the University of Notre Dame.  Everyone has to root for the guy.  That’s probably part of the reason I chose my profession, school social work.  You really can’t ever give up.  You just have to keep finding new ways to help, so that everyone can have their moment when they can be hoisted onto the team’s shoulders.

The same philosophy has followed me into the garden.  As soon as seeds begin to sprout in the greenhouse or ground, the experts say it’s time to weed out any plants that are not keeping up.  Huh???  Doesn’t everyone need a chance or two or three?  Maybe some plants are slow growers.  Maybe they need some extra time to reach their full potential.  Maybe they could flourish with some differentiated propagation.

Believe me, I am no Mother Teresa of the yard.  I have had my moments when I have lost it with a plant.  Remind me to tell you about the sunflowers and the squirrels — definitely a Mommie Dearest moment.  It’s just that there are times, many times, when I attribute human emotions to plants.  Who wants to have a legacy of never bloomed?

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A Bird In The Head Is Worth. . .

/ Kevin / 25 Comments

A lot has been written here and on other blogs about the peace and tranquility of gardening.   But let me tell you, there’s some stress growing out there.  Am I watering too much or not enough?  Too much sun?  Just how dappled should dappled shade be?  Who will water while I’m away? 

And if that weren’t enough worries to cloud my sunny day, now it’s this.  There is a bird’s nest in one of the white pines that line the back of my property.  Very early in my gardening life, I realized that I was creating my own ecosystem.  As soon as everything bloomed, it seemed my yard became a resort for butterflies and bees and even a praying mantis.

But now there is a bird’s nest.  Blue Jays to be exact.  What’s surprising is that the nest is only about 7 feet off the ground, so Joe and I can get a pretty clear look at the goings on.  And if we can, so too can the local varmints.  Now, I’m on guard for any intruders.  I am like a mother hen, although I haven’t quite perfected the whole regurgitation of food thing.  But when Mom and Dad are away gathering food for the youngins, I feel obligated to bird sit.

I happen to like birds.  I especially like hearing them when I spend some time in the yard in the early morning hours.  But if truth be told, I’m also a little bit edgy around them.  I wouldn’t call it a fear of birds — it’s more like a fear of getting hit in the head with one.  I can hear you saying, “Kevin, how common can that be?”  In my world, it’s pretty common.  My head has been a bird target — not a bird poop target, but an actual bird target — three times!

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Three Cheers For The Red, White, and Blue

/ Kevin / 10 Comments

Memorial Day.  I really struggled with writing something to post in honor of the day and in honor of gardening.  Every newscaster is quick to point out that today marks the unofficial start of summer, which in my world means that all of May has gone by and I have yet to get everything in the ground.  As I worked outside this holiday weekend, digging, planting, weeding, pruning, and barbecueing, my first instinct was to take a couple of photos around the yard and post them — you know, a red, white, and blue motif. 

Red, white, and aaaahhhhhh blue.

Then I had a second thought.  It seemed disrespectful toward the true spirit of the holiday.  So I went online to look for something that I could comment about, something about veterans and gardening.  There was plenty of information on Victory Gardens from World War 2, as well as healing and therapeutic gardens for returning soldiers and older veterans.  One website, though, captivated me.

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Honey, The Plants Are Home

/ Kevin / 6 Comments

They’re baaaaaack.  I don’t know if this happens where you work, but at my job, co-workers are carrying out their potted plants to return them to the yard after a winter in office exile.  For me,  it means loading up crates, cleaning the office, and hoping that the plants will reacclimate themselves to outside living.  Right now, they all look pale and sparse and leggy — sort of like me after a long winter’s night.

This is the geranium I grew from seed several years ago. It is now sitting in the backyard, getting ready for summer blooms.

The question, though, remains.  Why do northern gardeners go to such great lengths to save their plants?  For some, it might be the value of the plant, or the challenge of being able to cheat cold temperatures of their delicate herbaceous victims.  For me, it’s more about the story behind the plants that I save each year.  So here is a piece of my story, as told by my plants.

First, there’s the philodendron which I have had since I was a pre-adolescent!  This plant actually came from a cutting  from a plant that my mother had in the kitchen of my childhood home.  I think I had decided at some point that I wanted a plant in my bedroom.  I thought it was pretty cool that I could take a piece of this plant, place it in a cup of water, and then watch the roots grow.  Since then, the plant has traveled with me from my parents’ house to the current home I share with Joe to my office and to the backyard.  We’ve been through so much together, it seems kind of cruel to leave it outside at the end of the growing season.  Continue reading →

Carnivorous Plant Devours Long Island

/ Kevin / 8 Comments

The other day, my friend Rachel presented me with a gift: a carnivorous plant.   In my mind, carnivorous plants could only be found in two places: a primordial soupy rain forest swamp or a sci-fi film (think Little Shop of Horrors or The Day of the Triffids).  In all honesty, it’s kind of cool to have a carnivorous plant in the yard.  It’s also a little intimidating.  Does this mean I have to barbecue steaks for me, Joe, and the plant?

Eric Kunz is the man behind Wowflowers, Long Island’s largest supplier of carnivorous and unique water plants, as well as the only licensed grower of these endangered and protected species in all of New York State.  He is passionate about his plants.

According to Mr. Kunz, the plant I own is “Jersey Girl,” a type of Sarracenia purpurea, or purple pitcher plant.  The plants are native to North America, and can be found living in bogs throughout New England and along the Canadian border.  He also assures me that caring for these other worldly perennials is easy.

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Peony, When You’re Not Strong

/ Kevin / 10 Comments

When I woke up this morning, I saw that one of my peony plants had bloomed overnight. 

Then, I saw the rain.

It’s safe to say that I have a love – hate relationship with rain, very unlike my love relationship with peonies. 

I actually look at most rainy days with a sigh of relief, especially today’s since it’s been dry for a whole week.  It means that I have a day off from watering.  (In the same way that I’m one of the last hold outs in the lawn mowing department, I also drag a hose and sprinkler all over the yard.  That’s a whole other post.)  So I bring all the flower pots out from any sheltered areas and let them soak up the moisture, because a good rain is much more quenching than my Gunga Din efforts. Continue reading →

Mowing In The Deep

/ Kevin / 14 Comments

It's not easy being green.

I did some laundry today.  What has that got to do with gardening?  Well, aside from the fact that I like to do laundry almost as much as I like to garden, I was washing my grass-stained work clothes from this past weekend.  On Saturday, I gave my lawn the first cut of the season.  I still like to mow my own lawn, but every weekend, when I look around my neighborhood, I can’t help but think, “Am I the only one?”

When the landscapers arrive, my street looks like a neighborhood under siege.  Trucks and trailers are everywhere.  Engines rev, blowers whir, and hordes of men mow over every blade of grass.  But not in my yard.

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My Momma Always Said

/ Kevin / 4 Comments

I am a creature of habit, and Sunday morning is my time to go food shopping.  I am the second person in the supermarket.  Because I live in a bustling and over-crowded suburbanopolis, this 7:00 am ritual creates the illusion for me that I actually live in a small town.  I get to visit with Sue the cashier, and Diana behind the deli counter.  I also get to say good morning to the first shopper in the store.

But on this particular Sunday, the parking lot filled up early.  All men.  As they stumbled from their cars and walked slowly and stiffly to the doors, it looked like a scene from Morning of the Living Dead (if there was such a movie).  This is Mother’s Day.

If your family is anything like mine, Mother’s Day is the unofficial start of planting season — at least that’s how it is here on Long Island.  Every nursery and garden shop is packed with flats and bushes and shrubs and hanging baskets.  And that idea led me to think about gardening and mothers. Continue reading →

I’ll Show You My Plants, If You’ll . . . (Part II)

/ Kevin / 4 Comments

These are Cherry Splash Hybrid Impatiens (left).  I started the seeds in February.  Everything I’ve read indicates that impatiens seeds need light to germinate, so do not cover them with soil.  Each time I’ve done that, the results have not been great.  Two years ago, I began to cover the seeds lightly, and this appears to work much better for me.  I think it helps to keep the seeds moist.  In any event, it is always very exciting when plants bloom while in the greenhouse.

 

On the right is a group shot.  On the left, the plants with the red blooms are Easy Wave Red Petunias.  Moving upward are Gerbera Daisy Crush Mix, and Blanket Flower Arizona Red Shades.

 

Here we have a variety of geraniums: Orbit White and Horizon Red Ice.  The grassy looking plants just below the geraniums are Gazania Daybreak Petticoat Mix.  These were also planted in late February.  Actually, I find growing geraniums by seed relatively easy and rewarding.  The seeds are large enough to handle (as opposed to the impatiens seeds), and I usually get a nice return.  When I begin the seeds, I plant about five of the seeds in a single pot.  It’s also important to water from the bottom to keep the soil from compacting and allowing the roots ample space to grow.  At this stage, the seedlings have been given their own space in which to grow.

 

These are various zinnia, cosmos, and sunflower seeds.  These are the easy seeds, which can be planted where you’d like them to grow.  I planted some of these outside already.  I’m not sure, though,  if the weather has still been too cool for successful germination, so I planted extra seeds in these flats — kind of an insurance policy.  After they develop their first set of true leaves, I’ll move them into the garden.  The seeds are: Zinnias Elegans Queen Red Lime, Zinnia’s Pastel Cutting Mix, Italian White Sunflower, and Cosmos Double Click Cranberries.

 

This is Coleus Carefree Mixture.  Coleus is one of those plants that bring me back to childhood.  I like the variety of colors.  I like the texture of the leaves.  I like being able to pinch them to encourage branching.  And I really like the ease of propagation: clip, water, root, plant.

 

I  purchased Caladium bulbs while on vacation in Florida.  They’re a souvenir — a very colorful souvenir that will eventually be planted in very large pots that receive dappled sun. 

 

Well, that’s the tour of the greenhouse and what’s growing inside.  Here’s hoping to a season of sun, just enough rain, lots of blooms, and very few pests.