The term “nativar”, while not a scientific term, is being used to describe native plants that have been cultivated by horticulturalists. So, what exactly is a cultivated plant or cultivar? A cultivar is a plant that has been bred for specific characteristics such as improved growth habit, specific leaf colour, flower colour, or disease resistance to list a few examples. Many cultivars are sterile, meaning they do not produce seeds or if they do produce seed, the seed will likely not produce a plant identical to the parent plant.
The way to identify a cultivar of a native plant or “nativar”, is by looking at the plant name. If you check out the photos of plant tags, you will see one for the straight species native plant (not a cultivar) that gives both the common name, False Indigo and the scientific name, Baptisia australis. The other tag is for a Baptisia cultivar named ‘Cherries Jubilee’. ‘Cherries Jubilee’ is the cultivar name. The cultivar name is usually in single quotation marks.
There are a number of very important reasons to plant straight species native plants in our gardens including the support of pollinators. The question is, do native cultivars support pollinators in the same way?
Annie White, a researcher at the University of Vermont has found “that changing flower size, colour or shape changed the availability and/or quality of pollen and nectar offered by the flower which negatively impacted pollinators” and “the more manipulated the cultivars became, the less attractive they became to pollinators”. To read more about Annie’s research and results check out this link. https://pollinatorgardens.org/2013/02/08/my-research/
If you are looking for pollinator-friendly native plants that are not cultivars check out nurseries that specialize in native plants such as Peterborough’s Ecology Park. https://www.greenup.on.ca/ecology-park/
When at the garden centre, you will now know how to distinguish a straight species such as Echinacea purpurea (purple coneflower) from an Echinacea cultivar like Echinacea purpurea ‘Razzmatazz’.
Spring is finally here, a time for new beginnings. The days are getting longer, birds are singing their hearts out and the snow has melted for the most part, but it’s still too soon to do any kind of clean up in your yard. It may be tempting to get out the rake or leaf blower just because it’s sunny and leaf bags are on sale at your local box store, but we need to hold off just yet for the sake of helping other creatures and pollinator species who are still asleep.
Although we are all anxiously waking up from our own personal winter hibernation–whether it be mental or physical–many creatures around us are still sound asleep in the leaf litter or below the mulch and we should not disturb them just yet. When you clean up your yard too soon, all for the sake of aesthetics or curb appeal, you are essentially removing all of the beneficial insects in your vicinity, like those responsible for making your flowers bloom or for your fruit and vegetable plants to produce food.
Some beneficial pollinators overwinter in the hollow stalks of perennials and under rocks. Examples of insects local to us that are still in diapause state are butterflies (like Mourning Cloaks or Question Marks), lacewings, ladybugs, mason bees and parasitic wasps, which all spend the winter either as pupae or adults hidden away in your yard. Even Luna moths and black swallowtails spend the winter months in cocoons or pupa that look just like a crumpled brown leaf, so be on the lookout for those.
It is best to wait until the temperature is consistently 10 degrees Celsius before you start raking leaves, turning soil, or using a leaf blower. Personally, I like to play it safe with the 10 For 10 rule: 10 degrees for 10 days. This allows nature to take its course and it allows me to have enough time to observe my property and familiarize myself with the various kinds of flora and fauna that emerge post-winter.
If you do decide you feel so inclined to “tidy up” this early, do it with purpose and be mindful of the sleeping and living creatures that are still hidden away. Take your time, look for any signs of beneficial insect stages and either take note and leave it for a later date, or carefully cut and set it aside in a natural area so solitary bees and others insects can still use the refuse for food or shelter. Refrain from adding more mulch because it can trap certain kinds of beneficial bees, beetles and flies that burrow in the ground (almost 70% of Canada’s bee species nest underground). For more information on how to properly “clean up” your yard read Nesting and Overwintering Habitat for Pollinators and Other Beneficial Insects PDF by the Xerces Society.
But again, the best thing to do is wait and to try to remove as little from your property as possible.
So in the meantime, what can you be doing instead of gardening?
Get outside, go for walks, enjoy the little things; notice the bulbs emerging naturally and gracefully from the cool earth, poking their way through the leaf litter- now is the time to enjoy the scilla, crocus, pushkinia, galanthus and helleborus
Continue to sow vegetable and annual seeds indoors and plan your garden; what are your goals for this year, however big or small?
Early spring is the best time of year to be on the lookout for invasive pests and plant species and begin to develop an Integrated Pest Management plan; gypsy moths, garlic mustard, european buckthorn, and goutweed are commonly found throughout the Peterborough area
Focus on spring cleaning your tools, your patio furniture, tidying your deck, potting bench or shed; put more focus into the inanimate things
Celebrate the beginning of spring by honouring the maple tree, it’s delicious sap and syrup, and the work that goes into providing us all with natural liquid sugar; maybe consider ordering a maple for your own yard
Repot indoor plants if needed
Read up on and think about ways you can increase pollinator habitat on your property or within your community, no matter the scale
There is so much that you can do while resisting the urge to rake or blow. Relax, enjoy the much needed sunshine that the vernal equinox has brought us after the long winter and try to go at the same pace nature is. Patience will pay off in the long run once you remember that gardening isn’t just about plants.
Great resources for more information about pollinators that spend the winters in our gardens and why we should hold off until mid-April to start yard work:
I have often heard permaculture referred to as ‘common sense’ gardening and their usage of ‘zones’ as one of their design principles is no exception. However, I have to admit up front that when I designed my previous garden, I had not heard of permaculture and was also unfortunately also lacking in common sense that day! What did I do that would ultimately cause me so much grief over the next 15 years?
We had just over 1 acre and the house was located towards the back of the property, so I decided to place the shed, vegetable garden, herb garden, nursery and greenhouse at the very front of the property. The result was that was pretty well everything that I needed to garden daily was all located as far away from the house as possible.
Shed way at the bottom of the garden
Closer look at shed
At the time I thought I had a good reason for this, keeping the children and pets close to the house. But ultimately when I needed the pruners to prune the hedge at the back of the garden, or I needed some herbs for the supper I was in the middle of cooking, or I was harvesting or watering, I ultimately came to regret my poor planning choice. So, a few years later when it came to finding a location for the chickens, by then I had attended a couple of permaculture courses, and I placed them as close to the house as possible. A location that while waking me up in the morning, ultimately made me pat myself on the back every day in the winter just before putting on all my winter gear to take out their food and water.
Zoning is a permaculture design tool that allows you to design your landscape according to usage and attention required. It is not limited to home gardens, and can be used on almost anything from a large farm to a kitchen design. By designing your garden using zones, you take into account the usefulness or frequency of each element in your garden, and place those elements closer to your location, which is your house. So something that you use daily, such as a herb garden, would be placed closest to the house, along with pots of annuals which require frequent watering and dead-heading. Using the same principle, fruit trees or a meadow garden requiring less maintenance would be placed further away from the house.
Zones are numbered from 0 through to 5, where 0 is the location of the house, and will be different in everyone’s garden. They are typically shaped by topography, soil type, placement of the sun, and the homeowner’s requirements. So while they are often shown in diagrams and books as either exact circles or half circles, they are more flexible often merging into one another.
Most permaculture books describe the following zones:
0 – Home 1 – Areas closest to your house that requires the most attention, harvesting, weeding, dead-heading, herb and vegetable garden 2 – Less intensively managed areas 3 – Fruit and nut trees, twice weekly maintenance 4 – Wild foods and timber, weekly maintenance 5 – Natural area
But again, these zones can be changed according to your requirements.
To start designing using zones, you need to look at each element in your garden according to how often you use the element or how often you need to care for the element. Zones are created based on relationships, our relationship to our garden, and how different elements in our garden connect with each other. It is best to start with elements closest to your house and work outward.
As an example, I have perennial flower beds in the front of my house and also in the back. The beds in the front are full to partial shade, heavily composted with leaves and packed with large leaved plants. I get very few weeds in the front beds and also do very little deadheading. The beds in the back meanwhile are full sun, plants are not placed as close together, they typically need more dead heading, and while they are also heavily mulched with leaves, the leaves typically only last until mid June. My front beds are in zone 3 and the beds in my back garden are in zone 2. Zone 1 in my garden is for annuals and vegetables in pots and hanging baskets surrounding the house that have to be watered frequently.
Permaculture zones are a tool that can be used when designing your garden to make your life easier. In the book Gaia’s Garden, A Guide to Home-scale Permaculture by Toby Hemingway, the author includes a quote from Bill Mollison, the co-founder of Permaculture, offering guidance for where to plant a herb garden.
“When you get up in the morning and the dew is on the ground, put on your woolly bathrobe and your fuzzy slippers. Then walk outside to cut some chives and other herbs for your omelet. When you get back inside, if your slippers are wet, your herbs are too far away.”
The season has begun! Canada Post has delivered seeds for this intrepid gardener to coax into cutting garden participants by providing the right conditions for survival and growth. In order to germinate, seeds need water, oxygen and warmth. Some like foxglove have additional requirements such as light. Once sown, seeds soak up water to soften their outer coat (“imbibition”) and then begin to metabolize stored food reserves. A seedling soon appears. At my house, seeds are germinated in a warm room and then moved to the sunroom where it is cooler and brighter. My growing set up consists of a metal cart (two main levels) with adjustable grow lights hanging above the bottom shelf. When space runs out on the cart, the tables in the sunroom are enlisted. To brush up on seed starting essentials check out the articles in the resources list.
Tips that have come in handy for me are highlighted below:
Online seed starting calculators. I wish I had known about this before I calculated all my dates this year! Based on your last frost date, the calculator gives you the date to sow your seeds as well as an approximate date for transplanting seedlings outside.
Sowing tiny seeds: Gadgets don’t work for me. This year I discovered pelleted foxglove seed and loved it. Not only does the pellet make it large enough to handle easily, it is coloured so you can see it on the soil. For non-pelleted tiny seeds, I use a moistened toothpick to pick the seed up from a dish and drop into the plug tray.
Vermiculite: Once seeds are sown, covering the tops with vermiculite prevents the formation of a hard crust. Tiny seeds such as snapdragons and foxglove get barely covered with a fine dusting.
Cold Germinators: These are hard to start seeds like dara and bupleurum. Some annual varieties fall into this category. Put these seeds into the freezer to stratify for a few weeks. Try to not to forget where you put them.
Consistent Warm Temperature: Most plants will germinate around 70F. Bottom heat from a propagation mat can provide faster and more even germination.
Bottom Watering: Using plug trays or cell packs in trays allows you to water from the bottom. Water wicks up from below reducing incidence of fungal disease and preventing tiny seeds from washing away. Option 2 – use a turkey baster to water small seedlings. Time consuming but precise.
Supplemental Lighting: Seedlings need 14-16 hours of good light to develop strong, stalky stems. Even in the brightest room, the daylength is too short early in the season (February/March).
Succession Planting: This involves sowing in batches, successively, every few weeks. This spreads out the flowering window and provides blooms over the season.
The excitement is building! We have been dreaming while looking at seed catalogues. Some have placed their orders and may have even received some product. But, did you know that there are local events where you can purchase seeds from local growers and/or swap seeds with people who have their own seeds saved from plants that they grew? These events are often called “Seedy Saturday” or “Seedy Sunday”.
The first Seedy Saturday event was held at the VanDusen Botanical Garden in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1990. Sharon Rempel had been trying to track down flower and vegetable seeds for a heritage garden that she was trying to create at a museum in Keremeos, British Columbia. She could only find what she needed at a Seed Foundation in Washington State. Sharon wanted to bring together people who were interested in collecting and sharing seeds in British Columbia. Sharon’s idea, of collecting and sharing seeds, has since become very popular across Canada.
Why are local seeds something to care about? Seeds produced by locally grown crops/vegetables, flowers and trees, have been produced by plants that successfully grew under local growing conditions. When we limit the variation in the plants we grow, we lose biodiversity. Biodiversity is so important because it ensures that there is genetic diversity which means that the plants have the traits necessary for local growing conditions. Local seed production can result in new varieties of plants that are more resistant to disease and local pests and better able to adapt to local soils and environmental conditions. With enough variation in a group, there will always be individuals that can survive changing conditions…..so necessary in today’s world.
Local seeds are often heirloom, or heritage and openly pollinated which means that if you save seeds from these plants, they will grow true to the parent plant. The other big bonus is that vegetables, grown from these seeds, are often tastier and more nutritious. For more information, see this Mother Earth News article HERE.
So, back to your local Seedy Saturday or Seedy Sunday….these events are fun! There is great excitement and bustle as attendees talk about what seeds they have to swap and as they look at the seeds offered by various local vendors. Workshops and “Ask the Expert – Q & A” are often offered. Sometimes there is even something to get your really young gardeners off to a good start eg. growing sunflowers. This year I hope to track down musk melon seeds that will be sweet and ripen quickly in my area. My grandmother used to grow the best musk melons ever!
This year, Covid 19 remains something that we have to contend with….many Seedy Saturdays and Seedy Sundays have gone virtual! Check out Seeds of Diversity HERE for an event near you. The Peterborough Seedy Sunday is on March 14. Check out their Facebook page HERE for more details.
If you have not checked out a Seedy Saturday or Seedy Sunday before, have a look virtually this year. You might discover a delicious new-to-you variety of your favourite vegetable or learn something amazing at a workshop!
Additional Resources
Bringing Nature Home by Douglas W. Tallamy, 10th printing 2016, ISBN 13-978-0-88192-992-8 – information on biodiversity
I recently listened to a talk by Lorraine Johnson who is the former president of the North American Native Plant Society and is the author of numerous books on gardening and environmental issues. I was inspired by her talk and have started plans to turn part of my front lawn into a native garden.
I have struggled for years to grow grass near the bottom of our front yard. The soil is mostly clay with a lot of rock. We have no sidewalks and this part of the lawn sits at the curbside where it could be affected in the winter by salt and sand. It faces north/west and receives a very hot sun, especially in the afternoon.
I am not a regional native plant purist. I get excited about most plants and have a variety of perennials in my gardens. I am hoping to fill this garden bed with as many native plants as possible, but I do recognize that some of the plant varieties are not always considered native.
There are a number of lovely native plants for sun that have height, but I am cognizant of the fact that my neighbour requires a safe line of sight to the street when they come down their driveway. For this reason I would like to use mostly low growing groundcover with a few taller plants positioned in areas that will give a pleasing look to the garden bed, but also not impede on visibility.
I have begun to research native groundcovers and other low growing plants that would survive in the conditions I’ve described and here is what I have found so far. Some of these are new to me, but others are plants I already have in my backyard.
Have you considered replacing part of your lawn? I would love to hear about your ideas and your successes and failures.
Bearberry (Kinnikinnick) Arctostaphylos uva-ursi
This plant grows 6 to 8” tall and has a spread of approximately 3 feet and is similar to a low growing shrub. It has a white bloom with a tinge of pink in May. It’s drought tolerant once it’s established. Rounded berry-like fruits ripen in August to September. Birds love the fruit! I have a friend who has found that this plant will disappear over time and because it prefers a sandier soil, it may not be the perfect plant for my home. However, I may give it a try as I occasionally enjoy pushing the limits.
Creeping Juniper, Juniper horizontalis ‘Wiltonii’
This plant is known to be salt tolerant, likes sandy soil and full sun, grows to a height of 8” and spreads to approximately 7 ft. It is a non-flowering evergreen. It spreads by long trailing branches. Foliage is primarily scale-like (adult) with some awl/needle-like (juvenile) needles appearing usually in opposite pairs. Foliage is typically green to blue-green during the growing season, but often acquires purple tones in winter. It likes to grow over rocks; however, it is a slow grower and takes some time to get established.
Prairie Smoke, Geum triflorum
Prairie Smoke; Author’s garden
This is a tough plant, and grows to about 6 – 12 inches. It has a lovely reddish pink to purple bloom with interesting seed heads. It is drought tolerant. My one concern is the hot afternoon sun, as my research shows it may prefer a bit of shade later in the day. As the flower fades and the seeds begin to form, the styles elongate (to 2″ long) to form upright, feathery gray tails which collectively resemble a plume or feather duster. They are very unique. It spreads by rhizomes and can be naturalized to form an interesting groundcover.
Small Pussytoes, Antennaria howelli
It has spoon-shaped basal leaves, is known to be drought tolerant, and has flower heads that look like little shaving brushes. There are three to 15 flower heads in a flat to rounded cluster at the top of the stem. Stems are erect, green to reddish, covered in long, white, matted hairs and sometimes glandular hairs. Horizontal, above ground stems (stolons) emerge from basal leaf clumps, spreading in all directions, rooting at the nodes and forming colonies.
Pasque Flower, Anemone patens or sometimes Pulsatilla vulgaris
Pasque Flower; Author’s garden
Pasque flower grows up to 12 inches tall and forms a rounded clump, which increases yearly. It never gets out of hand, making it a desirable plant. It carries one flower with purple petals and yellow stamens, on top of each stem. The bloom is quite large, up to 2 inches in relation to the overall size of the plant. It is not fussy about soil conditions, but may go dormant during drought. It blooms in late spring into summer.
Nodding Wild Onion, Allium cernuum
My research shows this is a very pretty plant that grows to a height of 1 to 2 feet. It blooms in mid-summer. Its grass-like ribbony leaves are long and graceful; its flower cluster hangs down, covered with a fine onion-skin-like sheath before opening. The blooms in mid-summer are whitish rose coloured and bell-shaped. The seed heads are round. It does prefer good drainage. Looks best when planted in groups.
Butterfly Weed, Asclepias tuberosa
Butterfly Weed with Zinnias; Author’s garden
This is a butterfly magnet that has clusters of orange flowers borne at the top of 2-to-3-foot stems. It is probably a little larger than I would like, but thought I might give it a try in the front. This image is from my garden 3 years ago. I lost the plant the next year and believe it was because of overcrowding and not enough sun. The leaves are narrow and dark green. The plants get bushy if they have lots of room. The seed pods are large and very striking. They bloom in mid-summer and prefer a full sun exposure. Once established, they are drought tolerant. It emerges from the soil quite late in spring, so it is important to be careful not to disturb the roots.
Check out the following nurseries for native plants
Exploring gardens around the world makes the winter pass so much faster
By Emma Murphy, Master Gardener
I have the February blahs. Although I am absorbing each minute of our ever increasing daylight (when it’s not cloudy!), I’m craving lush greenery and blooms anywhere I can find them. I spent part of yesterday looking through some trip photos to Florida from 3 years ago where I visited just about every botanical garden and specialty garden I could find – it was heaven!
Clockwise from top left – Flame Vine (Pyrostegia venusta), a bromelaid (Hectia montana), orchids in greenhouse at Selby Gardens – all taken in Florida
So..the solution..virtual garden tours! So many wonderful botanical and famous gardens have adapted to not being able to have guests by launching virtual tours or live broadcasts from their locations since the pandemic. Here’s a few of my favourites.
Time to travel around the world from your living room. (additional links at the end).
Keukenhof, The Netherlands
Built in 1641, the Keukenhof Castle (west of Amsterdam in the Netherlands) and estate is more than 200 hectares. In 1949 a group of 20 leading flower bulb growers and exporters decided to use the estate to exhibit spring-flowering bulbs. 2021 will be the 72th edition of Keukenhof, with A World Of Colours as its theme. Check out their virtual tours and the initial invitation by Managing Director Bart Siemerink in March 2020.
The Keukenhof Gardens in full colour.
Claude Monet’s Garden, Giverny, France
Over 500,000 people visit painter Claude Monet’s famous gardens each year (so glad to be one of them in 2018!). There are two parts to the garden – the Clos Normand flower garden in front of the house and a Japanese inspired water garden on the other side of the road (where he completed his Water Lilies painting series). Enjoy a commentary alongside a video tour of the famous garden, including the wonderful lily pond. More info here.
Monet’s Water Garden
National Trust’s Hidcote Manor Gardens, England
The National Trust site allows you to take a 360-degree tour around the old garden, plant house and spectacular red borders of these Arts and Crafts-inspired gardens in the rolling Cotswold hills in Gloucestershire.
Hidcote Gardens
Scotland’s Garden Scheme
One of my favourites. Established in 1931, it helps garden owners across the country open their private gardens to the public to raise money for charity. The properties range from cottage gardens to stately homes; allotments to therapeutic and physic gardens; and formal gardens to wildlife sanctuaries. There are more than 100 tours to look at here.
A Scottish country garden.
Australia’s Blue Mountains, New South Wales
Further afield in Australia’s Blue Mountains just outside Sydney, artist Trisk Oktober’s steep, cool temperate gardens in Katoomba are transformed into a living artwork. I visited the nearby Mount Tomah Botanic Gardens in 2010 and it was magical. It’s also the only botanic garden within a United Nations World Heritage Area.
The view from Mount Tomah Botanic Gardens of the Blue Mountains
Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden, Hawaii
Located on Hawaii’s Big Island, the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden includes not only a garden but a nature preserve. If you need to zen out and feel like you are on a tropical island, this is the tour for you. And this one.
Plumeria flower
Longwood Gardens, Pennsylvania, USA
Closer to home across the border is Longwood Gardens, consisting of 1,077 acres of gardens, woodlands, and meadows. It is the living legacy of American entrepreneur and businessman Pierre du Pont, inspiring people through excellence in garden design, horticulture, education, and the arts. The Our Gardens, Your Home initiative is their way of keeping gardeners connected.
Longwood Gardens
There are so many more virtual garden tours going on around the world.
Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden, Richmond, Virginia, USA
This botanical garden was one of the first to go virtual when the pandemic started. They have great virtual tours and visits and a terrific Facebook page.
On my bucket list when we can travel again, this video gives you some of the highlights to see. The Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew has 37 acres of woodland, 14,000 trees and 50,000 different plant species.
Wisley Gardens, Surrey, England
The Royal Horticultural Society’s garden at Wisley in Surrey (south of London), is one of five gardens run by the Society, and top of my list of gardens to see. Check out their website, and also they have a great collection of videos on YouTube.
If you’ve found a great virtual garden tour please share it with all of us in the comments! Spring will be here soon!
The weather outside at this time of year is a bit frightful, so as a diversion, let’s vault ourselves temporarily into mid-summer and learn about that giant of summer flowers — the sunflower. In all their colourful glory, these plants are a happy sight to behold—but there’s more to their nature than just beauty. The multipurpose plants deliver healthy snacks for us, useful oils, and seeds for our feathered friends.
Sunflowers are members of the family Asteraceae, which all form a composite head (capitulum) made of masses of simple flowers (florets) that each produce a seed if successfully pollinated. Sunflowers typically have between 1,000 to 1,400 florets, and potential seeds, per head. The capitulum is surrounded by petals, making the whole structure seem like one single flower. The latin name for the common sunflower is Helianthus.
Butterflies, beneficial insects, hummingbirds and birds flock to sunflower heads for food, pollen and nectar. Insects enjoy the flower pollen and nectar while birds feast on the seeds. Plant tall varieties along a fence to block an unsightly view, or try them in the back of the flower border or along the side of the house or garage. You can also use sunflowers instead of corn in a Native American ‘Three Sister’s Garden’: Plant pole beans to grow up the clump of 3-week old sunflower stalks, and plant winter squash and pumpkins around the base of the clump 3 weeks after the beans. The beans will climb up the flowers and the low-growing squash will shade out weeds and prevent the soil from drying out.
The flowers not only look like the sun; they need a lot of it. They grow best with about six to eight hours a day but more is even better. They can grow as tall as 16 feet, although many varieties have been developed to thrive at different heights. Flowers planted too close together will compete and not blossom to their full potential.
Sunflowers display a behavior called heliotropism when they are young–the flower buds and blossoms will face east in the morning and follow the sun as the earth moves during the day. However, as the flowers get heavier during seed production, the stems will stiffen and the mature flower heads will generally remain facing east.
Although sunflowers can be started indoors in individual peat pots, it is easiest to sow seeds directly into the soil after all danger of spring frost is past. However, where the growing season is short, sunflowers can be safely planted up to 2 weeks before the last expected spring frost.
I have been fortunate this winter to have the ability and opportunity to carry on with regular, ‘socially distanced’ walks in my neighbourhood and to be able to enjoy the winter interest provided by nature.
On several walks I was quite excited to see small flocks of Pine Grosbeaks and Cedar Waxwings feeding on ornamental crabapple trees (Malus species) in two neighbouring gardens that I pass by. For me it was a special treat to see Pine Grosbeaks, as they are a somewhat irregular winter visitor to the Kawarthas. Their breeding range is in the boreal forest and, according to Drew Monkman, if there is food they stay put. If not they travel south where you may see them on feeders or fruit trees, such as crabapples.
Crabapples, typically planted for their flowers, produce colourful fruit that is not only attractive in winter but a potential source of food for birds. In choosing a variety to plant, Landscape Ontario recommends considering resistance to disease and insects, and fruit persistence, which is important for feeding the birds as the crabapples need to stay on the tree. Another noteworthy fact is that birds can be picky eaters and in their estimation apparently not all crabapples are created equal. For example they like ‘Prairiefire’ whereas they do not like ‘Adams’, ‘Donald Wyman’ or ‘Red Jewel’. Who knew! I don’t know what the varieties are of the two different trees I saw birds in but the tree in the first photograph shows the tree fairly well stripped of fruit. In the second photo there is still plenty of fruit that they have not come back to finish.
Crabapple trees in the author’s neighbourhood
There are other excellent choices of native trees and shrubs that can provide winter food sources for birds. The hackberry (Celtis occidentalis), a shade tree that works well in ‘difficult’ urban areas, hawthorns (Crataegus species), highbush cranberry (Viburnum trilobum), and red chokeberry (Aronia arbutifolia) are a few good choices.
For a more comprehensive list of crabapple varieties and other native species to feed the birds in winter please check out the following links.
For more general information on attracting birds to your garden please check out Master Gardener Judy Bernard’s excellent posts on our Peterborough Master Gardeners website.
I wrote the first part of this two-part blog on a beautiful fall day, with a temperature of around 20 degrees and blue skies. Today as I’m writing it is the type of winter day that I love, temperature hovering around zero, snow on the ground and I don’t need 4 or 5 layers of clothes on when I go out for a walk. The first part of my year in review blog that was published back in November described some of the many challenges and learning experiences I faced gardening in 2020, including growing Sicilian zucchinis, handling Creeping Charlie in my lawn, and becoming more selective when deadheading. In this second section I’ll continue on with the challenges, including staking perennials, trying to grow an English cucumber and battling with the wildlife over the grapes, blueberries and currants.
Now I have to admit before I start, that staking is not really my thing; it typically needs planning and thinking ahead. You can stake reactively as I tend to do, but by then it is often too late; the plants still look untidy, flop over adjacent plants and you can see the stakes, which for me personally is an issue. Last spring my iris, lupins and especially peonies grew so tall so quickly that they easily outgrew the old peony cages that surrounded them. My fall asters also fell over as they hadn’t been staked at all and were easily over six feet tall. So this spring I need to be more preventative and stake as early as I can. There are many different types of stakes that you can use such as grow-through supports as in peony cages or tomato cages. These work well if the plants are not too tall, although I do have some of the larger tomato cages in my garden. Grid-type supports also work well for plants that bloom heavily, and for irises I tend to use single stakes that I can just move around the garden as needed. You can also make your own supports using bamboo stakes or tree branches and twine or even chicken wire. Most gardening catalogues, such as Veseys or Lee Valley sell plant supports in many styles. For me however, I tend to find them quite expensive and tend to work with tomato cages or make my own. For more information please see the following article: https://www.bhg.com/gardening/flowers/perennials/staking-and-training-perennials/
English cucumbers, what can I say, I still tend to prefer these over other varieties that definitely grow much better here. English cucumbers tend to be longer, thinner, with an edible skin and in my opinion taste better. They do not however like cold temperatures, so if planting in the garden ensure that all danger of frost has long passed, and in fact, wait a further week or two after that. They also have shallow roots so need more frequent watering. I also find that for me they grow stronger and healthier if I provide some type of shade when it gets really hot. English cucumbers will also grow straighter and longer if the fruit can hang, so growing on a vertical support works really well. However, after saying all that, I still am unable to grow them as well as I would like and they are definitely very labour-intensive. So for this year, I am going to grow a different variety, although in saying that I have not tried growing cucumbers in containers, so that might be an option to try. Greta’s Organic Gardens have some interesting cucumber varieties for seed purchase, including Crystal Apple Cucumber that is shaped like an apple when mature, a Miniature White Cucumber which needs no peeling and is eaten when smaller than 3 inches. Lastly a Spacemaster Picking Cucumber that can be grown in either a container or a hanging basket. This company is one of many Organic seed companies based in Ontario. https://www.seeds-organic.com/pages/contact-us
And last but not least, one of my favourite subjects last year in the garden was the wildlife, namely the dreaded squirrels and rabbits. We have a few different structures that we have built to keep out the animals, including:
And:
Not to mention:
This last picture shows simple plant trays with a mesh bottom lying upside down over new seedlings. I use these both to deter the animals and also to help keep the seedlings shady. However, none of these prevented the squirrels from taking bites out of most of my tomatoes, eating all my grapes, of which we had a bountiful crop, and the birds from eating my blueberries and white currants. The previous year I had put nets over the blueberries and currants which had helped, however since then I have read a few articles stating that the types of netting I was using could damage both birds and other wildlife so I was reluctant to put it on again. I have since done more research but not found anything yet suitable for my needs. However it is only January and will likely get a lot colder, which gives me plenty of time to do more investigation and come up with something suitable.
The Peterborough & Area Master Gardeners 