GETTING TO THE ROOT OF GARDENING
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Etymological Wanderings
Sure, I’ve been dropping seeds into mini-furrows in some seed flats, and prunings are starting to litter the ground outdoors. But there’s a lot of nongardening activity going on here. What better time to ponder etymology? (Etymology, not entomology, the latter of which is the study of insects; aphids, mealybugs and whiteflies, all of which will be crawling around soon enough.) What exactly do we mean when we talk about a "garden" or "gardening?"
The word "gardening" is pretty much synonymous with "horticulture," which comes from the Latin hortus meaning a garden,…
FIGS: WAIT, DON’T GROW!
Stay Asleep Please
If you garden in a cold winter climate, as do I, I hope you’re growing figs. Despite being tropical plants, figs are relatively easy for us to grow, as attested to by other gardeners, from Moscow to Montreal, Minneapolis and beyond.
If you garden in a cold winter climate, I also hope that your fig plant is NOT growing now (unless you’re in the Southern Hemisphere). The way we cold-climate fig growers help our plants face winter cold is by protecting them from it. A usual method is to grow a plant in a pot that gets moved to a sheltered location to wait out winter.…
OMINOUS HOUSEPLANTS
Poinsettia Absolved
Sunny temperature reaching the 50s a few days ago enticed me outdoors for pruning. Today, with temperatures in the 20s, I'm back indoors (except for a very pleasant cross-country ski tour earlier) looking over what plants I have, or might have, growing indoors. Their ominous or not so ominous sides.
Mention poisonous houseplants and most people immediately think of poinsettias. Actually, poinsettia's bad reputation is unfounded. The plant's not really poisonous. Only a masochist would be able to ingest enough of this foul tasting plant to cause the occasional cases of vomitting…
AN ICEY BEGINNING, WITH KIWIS
Pruning Weather
Yesterday was a fine day for pruning, windless with a sunny sky and a temperature of 19 degrees Fahrenheit. The ice storm had turned this part of the world into a crystal palace, with branches clothed in thick, clear sleeves of ice. From an auspicious vantage point, a pear tree glowed like a subdued holiday tree as hints of sunlight’s reds and blues refracted from the natural prisms on the branches.
What a pleasant setting for pruning! The usual recommendation is to hold off pruning until after the coldest part of winter, which typically occurs in late January and early…
A HOUSEPLANT, AN “ALMOND,” AND PAPER
Easiest Houseplant of All?!
What with the frigid temperatures and snow-blanketed ground outside, at least here in New York’s mid-Hudson Valley, I turn my attention indoors to a houseplant. To anyone claiming a non-green thumb, this is a houseplant even you can grow.
Most common problems in growing houseplants (garden plants also) come from improper watering. Too many houseplants suffer short lives, either withering in soil allowed to go bone dry between waterings, or gasping for air in constantly waterlogged soil. Also bad off yet are those plants forced to alternately suffer from both extremes.
The…
SOWING PEARS AND LETTUCES
For the Long Haul
Among the must-have tools for any good gardener are hope, optimism, and patience. I thought of all three last week as I was planting some seeds.
The first of these seeds especially emphasizes patience. They were a few pear seeds I saved from pears I had eaten. After being soaked for a couple of days in water, the cores were soft enough for the seeds to be squeezed out, after which they were rinsed, and then planted in potting soil.
I put the planted seeds near a bright window in my basement where the cool (about 40°) temperatures would, in a couple of months, fool the seeds…
LESS SALT IS BETTER
What Does "Salt" Really Mean?
A few years back, one of my neighbors planted a hemlock hedge along the road in front of their house as a screen from the road. Sad to say, the future does not bode well for this planting. The hemlocks very likely will be damaged by road salt. And the prognosis is similar for those stately sugar maples that line so many streets. Chemically, road salt — at least the more traditional “road salt” — is the same as the stuff in your salt shaker, sodium chloride. Either sodium or chloride ions can be toxic to plants. Chlorine is a nutrient needed by plants, but…
THE BEST HERB FOR A NORTHERN WINTER
Calamity Avoidance
A horticultural calamity averted. Again. Deb was snipping some leaves from our potted rosemary “tree” for salad dressing and said she noticed that the plant looked a little wilty. I was skeptical. Rosemary leaves are so narrow and stiff that they hardly broadcast their thirst. Still, quite a few rosemary plants have succumbed to winter drought here.
I checked the plant and, in fact, the leaves did look a bit wilty. The probe of my sort-of-accurate electronic moisture tester (which I nonetheless highly recommend) confirmed Deb’s diagnosis. The soil was very dry but, luckily,…
A PEAR, 170 YEARS LATER
A Luscious Fruit in Winter
All fruits did well this past season but it was especially a banner year for pears. Why do I mention this now? Because we’re still eating them and they are delicious. “Them” is actually just one variety — Passe Crassane, not a variety you’d find on a supermarket shelf, but which is available as a tree.
Timely harvest, storage, and ripening of pears melds art and science; since this was my first crop from Passe Crassane, I was wary as I sliced off a taste. It was like slicing through butter, a good omen. The flesh was “white, fine. melting, [sugary], perfumed,…
