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OBSERVATIONS ON THE JOYS AND PAINS OF SUMMER GARDENING
Each gardening year is unique.
I will remember this spring and summer as the year I didn't even have to remove the spider webs from my lawn sprinklers. Daily rains - or at least rains every three or four days - have kept my lawn and flower beds adequately moist. It appears we may be entering a dryer period in the weeks ahead, so watering may once again become a routine part of gardening chores.
I'll also remember 1998 as the year of the chainsaw. I lost large trees or limb sections in three different storms. As a result, I now have sufficient firewood to last for a decade or more. Of course, much of it still needs to be split and dried.
If you're given a lemon, make lemonade. That's how I decided to view the giant red oak that crashed in my front yard. Its decay had begun years ago, much to the delight of a very large family of squirrels. As I approached the large hollow trunk section with my chainsaw, I began to see possibilities beyond firewood.
The base of the trunk split down the middle, leaving two 10-foot hollowed out slabs that resembled two dugout canoes. Too big to move by hand, they will become horizontal planters next year right on the spot where they landed in the storm. Other 2-foot cross sections of the intact hollow trunk have already become planters for Gaillardia (blanket flower) I had started from seed last winter.
One bright side to the spring storms is that many of the trees that toppled in our region were quite likely "hazard trees" prior to the storm. They had begun to decay and were destined to fall in a storm sometime. The bright side is that the remaining trees in our rural and urban forest are probably quite healthy and strong and should be able to withstand strong winds in future storms better than the trees that went down.
Like so many gardeners I talk with, I have cursed the blight that slowly destroys tomato plants. This year, in an attempt to outsmart blight, I put my six tomato plants in large pots and am growing them near the front door of my house. Every day, as I carry letters to the mailbox or pick up the mail, I fill the containers with water from the hose. Growing tomatoes in pots requires a lot of water but if water and nutrients are added regularly, tomatoes can perform very well in pots. To this point, I haven't had problems with blight.
One of the delightful aspects of growing perennial flowers is watching them spread from year to year through root action or reseeding. Several years ago I started a half dozen Rudbeckia fulgida (black-eyed Susan) from seed. The plants have multiplied from the seeds I've scattered in the fall, and I now have scores of blooming plants that provide wonderful eye appeal.
I was enthused early in the season about the bountiful crop of tiny apples that had emerged on my young Haral Red apple tree. Then a wind storm tore off a major limb holding about 30 apples and I was forced to reluctantly carry away the apple-laden branch. Now the increasing weight of the remaining apples is causing other limb sections to sag precariously. I've tied several of the branches up with support ties and have my fingers crossed that the windstorms are over. My early excitement about a large apple crop has been replaced by concern for the tree's capability to nurture the apples to maturity.
A discussion of this gardening season wouldn't be complete without mentioning the bumper crop of mosquitoes that appeared in early July. In my shady backyard, I can stand about 30 seconds of watering hanging pots before a hoard of pesky skeeters sends me fleeing to the sunny front yard.
The other day, I made the mistake of wearing shorts while watering and my legs looked like that old television commercial where the man sticks his arms into a glass chamber of mosquitoes to demonstrate a leading bug repellent. (My legs resembled the arm that wasn't sprayed.)
I don't mind summer heat. But combine heat with a cloud of mosquitoes and some of the joy of gardening disappears. Wear lots of clothes and a head net and the heat becomes suffocating. Spray the body with bug repellent and soon the chemical is in the eyes and a shower is mandatory the second you step indoors.
I hope there are no mosquitoes in your yard and that your joys are outnumbering your pains as you tend your garden this summer.
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PUTTING DOWN ROOTS:
A Delightful Blend of
Gardening Wisdom, Wit
and Whimsy
$10 + $2 for shipping
by Cliff Johnson |
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