[houseplant scale, bean beetles, orchid]
This year, I’m determined minimize the number of scale insects that hitchhike into my home as I bring potted citrus, gardenia, and orchid plants indoors. So beginning 3 weeks ago, every Monday I started dousing the plants with a relatively nontoxic spray, soap. (Nontoxic to just about everything except those scale insects, that is.)
Soap is a contact killer for insects, causing death by collapsing cell membranes, resulting in contents leaking out of cells and dehydration. Sounds gruesome, eh? It’s that or letting the scale insects weaken plants and drip their sticky honeydew, which they exude, on leaves, furniture, and carpet through winter. Fungi then move in to gobble up the honeydew, casting a dark shadow wherever it has dripped. Sounds worse, eh?
Scales are tough little critters protected for much of their life beneath a protective shell while they sit in place sucking the sap out of a plant. They’re most susceptible to the effects of soap before they find a place to settle down, put up their shell, and eat. That’s why I’ve sprayed every week. I want to get newly hatched ones while they are in transit looking for a new home.
Traditionally, gardeners have used various kinds of hand soaps for killing insects. Commercially available “insecticidal soaps” have a slightly different and more effective formulation. I couldn’t find my commercial insecticidal soap, so I just mixed up some liquid castille soap (similar to Dr. Bronner’s) at two and a half tablespoons per gallon and sprayed that instead. I finally found my container of commercial ‘Safer Insecticidal Soap’ this week and will use it for these last couple of sprays.
After the next spray, I’ll thoroughly drench the leaves and stems of the plants with water and then move the plants indoors. Scale insects are hard to eradicate, so I’ll keep an eye on the plants in the coming months and spritz them with more soap if needed.
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Mexican bean beetles are one immigrant that should have been deemed illegal and not been allowed to cross our borders. Of course, beetles are hard to stop. And they’ve been around a long time — they were in the Southwest back in 1850 — so could be considered naturalized.
This year I may have neglected this problem, which shows up every year in my garden, for too long. Or, perhaps the beetles have been more voracious than most years. Either way, leaves of my bean plants are lacy from beetle banquets.
All because of the beetles, I had to give up growing pole beans years ago. Pole beans’ long season provided too continuous a food supply for the beetles. So these days I grow bush beans, making 3 or 4 plantings at intervals through the growing season, pulling out and composting older plantings as soon as they get too many beetles on them. This year’s especially bad infestations of bean beetles also might be the result of my sowing new plantings too close to older plantings.
Beetles notwithstanding, I have not yet had my fill of beans. It’s too late for another sowing, of course, but a couple of weeks ago thought it might still be worth trying to kill the pest. Back again to that ‘Safer Insecticidal Soap.’ The soap is most effective against soft-bodied insects so should shrivel up the voracious, soft-bodied yellow larvae. Perhaps it would also kill the adult beetles.
Too late. This late in the season, there’s not enough light and some days not enough warmth to get the bean plants to sprout new leaves and beans. Into the compost pile they go — along with the beetles.
One nice thing about growing a diversity of fruits and vegetables in a home garden is that, despite bugs, drought, or other agricultural calamities, there’s always plenty of something to harvest. Even with the worst case scenario of a beetle-induced end to this year’s bush beans, my scarlet runner beans, a different species of bean and planted mostly as ornamentals, are still bearing plenty of ugly but tasty green beans.
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Some people are intimidated by orchids; I was once. Then, about 20 years ago, a local orchid enthusiast gave me some orchid plants, what must have been easy to grow orchids with the not so easy to
speak name of Odontoglossum pulchellum. Every winter, slender flower stalks emerge from among the fat pseudobulbs of these dainty plants, which I have multiplied over the years. Along those stems unfold elegant, small, whit
e flowers, fragrant and seemingly sculpted from porcelain. The flowers stay around to brighten up winter days for almost 2 months!
My orchids is just one of the over 25,000 species of orchids, from which there’s something for anyyone according to your floral likes and green thumb.
[garlic, amaryllis, blueberry]
I may have committed sacrilege with the “stinking rose” last week: I planted it. The stinking rose is another name for garlic, and the recommended time for planting is around the time of autumn’s first frost, which hasn’t yet happened and isn’t in the immediate offing. In fact, to my way of thinking, I got my garlic in a little too late this year, only because I couldn’t decide where to plant it.
Once a garlic clove is planted, it starts to grow roots and usually pushes a few leaves up out of the soil. Come winter, those leaves might die back; then again, with snow cover, they might not. Other gardeners fear that dieback of leaves in winter will hurt the plants but I’ve never noticed any such bad effect. A little mulch over the plants in early winter should allay any such fears.
The more leaf growth you get from garlic before long summer days initiate bulbing, the bigger the resulting bulbs. And the more root growth that garlic makes, the more nutrients can be taken up to fuel more leaf growth. That’s why I plant garlic as early as possible, often in August. I want my plants to get started making roots as soon as possible.
Come spring, roots are in place and ready to nourish new leaves. The earlier I plant the year before, the more roots the cloves have in spring and the bigger the bulbs I harvest in summer.
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Speaking of hardy bulbs possibly brings me to amaryllis, that gaudy, humongous flower more correctly called by its true botanical name, Hippeastrum, and so popular around Christmas-time. About now is when we are directed to let our potted amaryllises (I might as well use the common name) dry out and experience some cool temperatures for a few weeks. Kept thi way for a few weeks, the bulbs can be awakened in a couple of months with warmth and water to bloom again for Christmas.
Amaryllis Myth Number One is that the leaves dry out once watering ceases. The leaves never dry down, despite the assertion of so many “authorities.” I’ve let my amaryllises go without water for weeks; the leaves become flacid but remain as green as ever.
I learned what seems to be Amaryllis Myth Number Two when another gardener recently showed me his lush-growing amaryllises growing as perennials amongst other greenery blanketing a slope. Amaryllis is not supposed to be hardy outdoors where winter temperatures drop lower than zero or 10 degrees F. These were (and true Amaryllises, as opposed to Hippeastrum, definitely are). Ground cover, whether snow, mulch, or other vegetation, as well as microclimate can have great influence on how cold temperatures plummet to just a few inches below the ground.
I’m not a big fan large-flowered amaryllis so am more than willing to risk planting mine outdoors. I have a bed along the sunny, south wall of my house which has become a dumping ground for miscellaneous plants. Perhaps I’ll plant it there. Perhaps I’ll plant it in my blueberry bed in which also allegedly non-hardy gladiolus bulbs have been coming back year after year for over two decades. Either way, I won’t be seeing those gaudy, large amaryllis blooms at Christmas-time; if they survive, they’ll bloom in spring.
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I had pretty much given up on fresh blueberries for the season — after all, it’s past the middle of September. And especially this year, since everything began early, with the first blueberries ripening about the middle of June. Yet Deb came strutting into the kitchen this morning, especially proud of the overflowing bowl of blueberries and raspberries she was carrying.
The blueberries were of the variety Elliot, and they were delicious. The secret to nonstop blueberries all summer long is to plant a few varieties ripening at different intervals throughout the season.
I’ve sometimes asserted that anyone with some sunny ground who does not plant blueberries is a fool; I’d like now to extend that assertion also to raspberries. Like blueberries, the raspberries you can grow taste better than any you can buy because they can be picked truly ripe and can be of varieties selected for flavor rather than for commercial attributes. My favorite varieties are Caroline, Fallgold, and Cuthbert. Another plus for backyard raspberries and blueberries is that they needn’t be doused with the pesticide sprays to which most commercial raspberries and blueberries are exposed.
One more reason to grow raspberries and blueberries: They’re easy. Mine get mulched in autumn and pruned in spring. To fend off birds, I also cover my blueberry planting with a net, which I’ll remove within a couple of weeks, by which time I expect the blueberries really will be finished for the season.
[grapes, hornets, bibi mazoon]
Hot and dry — what great summer weather we’ve had for grapes. Every morning for the past few weeks I’ve gone out and picked bunches for fresh eating, and I’ll continue to do so for weeks to come. The bunches aren’t those of just any old varieties; they are varieties chosen from among the 5,000 or so existing grape varieties.
Well, not really. I couldn’t choose from among all 5,000 varieties because many varieties would not grow here. The grapes that grow best here are those derived from fox grapes (Vitis labrusca) and other species native to this part of the world. Concord is the archetype fox grape, with a slip skin, a jelly-like flesh, and that distinctive, foxy flavor. Muscadine grapes (V. rotundifolia) are native to the Southeast, so aren’t hardy here. European wine grapes (Vitis vinifera) also can’t stand up to our winter cold, and if that doesn’t do them in, grape diseases (such as black rot) and insects (such as phylloxera, as bad as it sounds) found in the Northeast do.
Still, breeding and selection have resulted in plenty of grape varieties adapted here and everywhere, and, over the years, I’ve planted some of the best candidates, ripping out any that didn’t make the grade and planting new ones. Many of my favorites come from the amateur breeding work of Minnesota dairy farmer Elmer Swenson: Edelweiss (very foxy, and pictured at right); Swenson’s Red (crunchy, sweet); Swenson’s White; and Brianna. My garden is in a cold spot, so my Vanessa vine froze back this year, but this variety, which also happens to be seedless, is so delectable and beautiful, that I have the new sprouts in training again for, hopefully, return engagements. Campbell’s Early is similar to Concord, but much earlier, with robust leaves, stems, berry clusters, and flavor. And finally, Alden is a favorite for its sweet flavor and meaty texture. Just about all these varieties have some amount of European wine grape in their predominantly fox grape heritage.
This year was the last chance I gave Duchess and Winchell grapes. Both are reasonably good but Duchess died back this winter, and its new sprouts are not going to be back in training, Winchell berries are too small with seeds too large. Their space along my grape trellis could be better used by some better grapes.
I’m looking forward to next year, when some newer varieties should come into bearing. I have high hopes for Mars, Somerset Seedless, New York Muscat, and Reliance, and am hoping for a similar hot, dry, grape-friendly summer.
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Where there are grapes, there are bees, and bald-faced hornets have been having a grand old time with the grapes this summer. Every time I reach into the foliage to pick a bunch I’m also expecting to get stung. So I was relieved to discover yet another use for one of my pruning tools, the ARS Rose Pruner with Branch Grip.
I am generally a big fan of ARS pruners, both for their design and for the quality of their materials and workmanship. Their Rose Pruner with Branch Grip has a 2-foot-long handle that’s useful for reaching into a bed for a flowering stem — even if its not a rose — to snip it off and then hold on
to it.
That tool is, I’ve discovered, just what I need to pick and hold bunches of grapes without fear of getting stung. An added benefit is that I can more easily pick off bunches buried deep within the foliage as well as some of those on my arbor for which I would otherwise need a ladder.
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The hot, dry weather this summer has also been kind to plants other than grapes. One recipient of this heavenly beneficence has been Bibi Mazoon, a modern rose with old fashioned charm.
Bibi Mazoon has sat on the north side of the rustic arbor entry to my vegetable garden for over a decade and, in all honesty, hasn’t done much. Some years she hasn’t bloomed at all. Other years she coughed up perhaps 2 or 3 blooms.
I’ve kept Bibi Mazoon around because every bloom that does appear is so glorious. Each bud expands into a ball of petals that slowly unravels into a loose, open blossom in a soft shade of pink. The aroma is pure rose, leaving nothing olfactory to be desired. (I also keep Bibi because I subsequently planted a polyantha rose right against her, so even if Bibi does nothing, the polyantha fills the space with its abundant small leaves and pink blossoms.)
This week, 3 tall shoots of Bibi Mazoon reared their flowering heads above the polyantha rose. I might use my ARS Rose Pruner with Branch Grip to pluck off one of those blossoms for a vase indoors.
