MARCH OF THE LETTUCES
A Pinch Every Now and Then
Deb is always impressed at the almost nonstop march of home grown lettuce that makes its way into our kitchen and then to salads and sandwiches each year. Not just a leaf here and there, or even the paltry amount in “side” salads served up in restaurants. No, I’m talking about day upon day lots of lettuce, often even whole heads — even here in zone 5.
The key to this abundance is sowing seeds every couple of weeks or so. Not right out in the garden, but in seed flats; mine are four inches wide by six inches long and a couple of inches deep. After filling a flat with potting soil, onto the soil I press down a four by six inch board to which I’ve glued four dowels, each four inches long and Read more
PRUNING HYDRANGEA
Get hip. Hydrangeas are all the rage these days. If you do have a plant or plants, you may have to prune them. But hydrangea isn’t just one kind of plants; a number of species are popular. Before you approach your hydrangea or hydrangeas, pruning shears in hand, you’ve got to know what species you are growing. They differ in their pruning needs.
Adapting the text from my book, The Pruning Book, I’m going to give you a (figurative) hand by explaining how to identify each commonly grown species, and then guiding your hand holding the shears.
You’re Probably Growing…
If you grow just one hydrangea, I’ll bet that it’s Bigleaf Hydrangea (Hydrangea macrophylla). This species is most recognizable for sporting electric blue or lively pink flower heads, blue when the soil pH is below 5.5 and pink when the pH is above 6.5. Read more
BENEFITS OF IMMATURITY
Old Skirts
Looking at trees that usually drop their leaves in winter, you might notice that some of them — especially beeches and oaks — wear skirts of foliage all winter long. I say “skirts” because if the trees were human, the leaves would all be at skirt-level. Rather than being lush and green, these skirts are dried and brown or gray, just like their counterparts on the ground.
These trees, still clinging to their leaves, aren’t out of synch with the environment. Nor does this habit reflect the effect of climate change or nighttime lighting. The oak and beech branches cling to their leaves because the branches are “juvenile,” and reluctance to drop leaves is one sign of juvenility in plants.
Juvenile oak trees
(Artificial lighting and a warming climate have been shown, though, to delay leaf drop in autumn and advance the time when leaves unfold in spring, just how much depending on the tree species and the duration and the color of the light.)
Changes with Maturity
Juvenility in plants is akin to prepuberty in humans: during this period plants grow but are incapable of sexual reproduction, that is, flowering, then setting seed. Read more
