HENRY THE EIGHTH OF HORTICULTURE
How to “Make” a New Tree
Visitors to my garden this time of year are often astonished to see me lopping the tops off some of my trees. No, I’m not the Henry the Eighth of horticulture, chopping the head off any tree that no longer meets my fancy. Okay, I AM actually lopping the head off any tree that doesn’t meet my fancy.
I part ways with Ol’ Henry, though, because, first, lopping the head off a tree doesn’t kill it and, second, I graft on a new head. (Something Henry could not do.) A few years after this seemingly brutal operation, the tree looks as chipper as ever. And it has a head that I like better — or else off it comes again.
I do this type of grafting, called topworking, mostly on my pear trees, but it could equally be applied to many other kinds of fruit or ornamental trees. Read more
DEER FOOD
Big Bulbs Uneaten
Chomping down on a rosette of freshly emerging tulip leaves is just the thing to drive away winter’s doldrums — for a deer. 
Crocuses probably taste almost as good to these creatures. There’s no need, though, for you or me to forsake the blossoms of spring bulbs; plenty of plants don’t appeal to deer palates. Read more
DAMN-PING OFF
Worse than Roman Warriors
I made my first gardening enemies decades ago, within a few weeks of starting my first garden. Not other gardeners but — and perhaps you also have crossed paths with them — with Pythium, Rhizoctonia, and Fusarium. I quickly learned that they were, or should be, hateful not only to me but to all gardeners.
Pythium, Rhizoctonia, and Fusarium are not ancient Roman warriors; they are fungi and, worse than Roman warriors, they lurk everywhere. When they, or one of them, gets the upper hand they cause damping off disease.
Let’s return to my first garden: At the time, decades ago, I was living in a relatively dark apartment, a converted motel room, and was eager to start my first seedlings. I sowed all sorts of seeds in peat pots, stood them in a little water, then crowded them together on all the shelf space that could be mustered.
Young sprouts never appeared in some of the pots. In others, seedlings emerged, then toppled over, their “ankles” reduced to a withered string of rotted cells unable to support the small plants physically or physiologically. Read more
