Grass and Blueberries and Kin

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The plants I grow best are generally the ones that I like the most. I’m not good at growing grass (lawngrass, that is; more on the other “grass” when it becomes legal). That’s why most of my farmden is given over to wild plants, cultivated plants, and meadow. Still, grass definitely has it’s place, in my view, as long as that place is not too expansive. It’s nice underfoot, provides a soothing expanse of background greenery, and is easy to care for.
I’ll admit that some of my previous attempts to grow grass have been failures. The seedlings dried out or never sprouted, birds ate the seed, the soil wasn’t receptive . . . all sorts of glitches exist on the road between bare ground and a nice bit of lawn.
Recent removal of a two-foot diameter rotted stump of boxelder and renovation of a deck with steps that led down to that vacated spot necessitated a patch of lawn. Thickly and quickly, so the new steps could

be used.

The soil was moderately fertile and well drained but had been compacted by my constant footsteps during stair construction. I loosened the ground by, every few inches over the thankfully small area (8 by 8 feet, approximately), sliding the tines of a garden fork straight down into the dirt and wiggling the handle. Then I raked the surface smooth, sprinkled on some grass seed, and raked again.
That was the easy part. The next job was to keep the ground moist and to keep birds, especially my chickens, at bay. For moisture retention, I covered the prepared, planted ground with a thin layer of hay. For even more moisture retention and to keep birds at bay, I covered the hay with a single layer of cheesecloth, weighted down at edges and corners. The grass will grow up through the cheesecloth which, being cotton, can be left in place to rot away. For even more bird protection, I enclosed the area with a temporary, chicken-wire fence.
Daily watering has already brought on patches of bright green, thin sprouts. Once seedlings are growing in earnest, I’ll taper off on watering to every few days.
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The delicate, young grass sprouts evoke such fond memories, not of large lawns but of a toy I had as a child. It was a miniature farm, a couple of square feet, with a little barn, silo, coral, and house. The farmette came with soil, which, as directed, I spread on the field, and grass seed, which I planted and watered. I was awed and delighted by the small sprouts greening the brown field.
I don’t remember ever mowing (with a scissors?) that field, but once my new grass gets firm footing, I will be mowing it — not one of my favorite activities, although I do like the result.
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In contrast to my horticultural skill with lawn, I am very good at growing blueberries. And this is an especially good year for me and other blueberry growers. Our 16 plants have yielded, as of July 22nd, about 80 quarts. Bushes are still going strong and others have yet to begin ripening their berries.
One can only guess at the reasons for such a good year. Lack of any late spring frosts could be a factor, except that my blueberries have never been damaged by late frosts. Abundant rain in June — to say the

least, with 12 inches rather than the usual 4 inches — could be a factor, but every year my blueberries’ thirst is quenched automatically with drip irrigation. (Note to myself: Consider irrigating more in the future.) Heat in July? Who knows?

Blueberry plants do have an odd growth habit this year, with branches arching down low to the ground. A heavier than usual crop could be the cause. Or, perhaps, overly succulent new shoots because of abundant rain and limited sunlight in June, and excessive heat in July. Except that many of those recumbent branches are of older wood, from previous seasons. So many questions; so few definitive answers.
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A recent bike ride in the Shawangunk Mountains, where blueberries and their relatives are abundant, revealed a relatively sparse crop there. With all the berries at home, it was no great loss for me. I did slam on my brakes for some ripe huckleberries, though.
Many people use the words “blueberry” and “huckleberry” interchangeably. In fact, they are different, but closely related, fruits. Put simply, blueberries are species of Vaccinium, and huckleberries are species of Gaylussacia. Put even more simply, if, when you eat the berry, you feel the small seeds crackling between your teeth, you’ve got a huckleberry in your mouth.
I didn’t screech to a stop just to eat huckleberries. I also wanted seeds to plant and increase my current huckleberry “plantation” of two plants. The berries not only taste good, very similar to blueberries, but also are very pretty, especially in autumn with their fiery, red leaves.

Back home, I mashed the berries in a glass of water, then let the mix sit for a day. The small seeds settled to the bottom of the glass. Stirring, then pouring off whatever floated most easily, cleaned the seed.
What’s needed next is patience. Reports indicate that huckleberry seeds germinate poorly and that germination is slow. And that’s after giving them a warm, moist stratification for about a month, to soften the tough seed coat, followed by a couple of months of cool, moist stratification, to let the plants know that “winter” is over. This is what you might expect for a seed from a berry ripening in cold climates in midsummer; if the seed germinated immediately, the small seedling — and huckleberry seedlings grow very slowly — would succumb to winter cold.
My plan is to sprinkle the tiny seeds on some potting soil in a pot, water, cover, with a pane of glass, and leave the covered pot outdoors in partial shade. When and if seedlings appear, I’ll uncover the pot. I like huckleberries. Perhaps I’ll get them to grow.

Bamboo Death(?) and Zucchini Life

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Flowering is desirable in some garden plants (fruit trees, broccoli, and, of course, flowers) and undesirable in others (lettuce, cabbage, and arugula). I’m not sure how I feel about the flowers recently appearing on my bamboo (Phyllostachys aureosulcata). Yes, bamboo! Bamboo typically flowers only after decades of growth, sometimes after more than a hundred years of growth. My bamboo is about 25 years  old.
The downside to bamboo flowering is that it weakens, sometimes even kills, the plant. And “the plant” could be a whole grove since bamboo spreads by rhizomes (underground runners). All shoots are connected underground and are, essentially, one and the same plant. Bamboos sometimes flower gregariously, that is,

most or all of them all over the world flower in unison, so death or weakening could be more widespread than my little grove.

Which brings me to what is good about flowering of bamboo: It’s very interesting (but very unspectacular). I’m not too worried about my whole grove dying because I remember starting with a few pieces of bamboo which, perhaps, were not a single clone. Also, lopping off flowering shoots would keep them from draining the rhizomes of energy.
The best thing about the flowering is the possibility of collecting seeds. How exciting. Bamboo from seed. I won’t get my hopes too high because bamboos typically yield very little, in some cases, no seeds. On the other hand, sown in flats, the seeds allegedly sprout within only 3 weeks.
o, does anybody else anywhere have flowers on their Phyllostachys aureosulcata? This species is commonly known as yellow groove bamboo, notable for the vertical, yellow groove on the canes and the bent “knee” often on the lower part of a cane. It’s one of the best bamboos for sturdy canes where winter temperatures plummet below minus 15°F.
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Searing heat and plenty of rain have made for Amazonian weather here, much to the liking of weeds (even with the “weed less” techniques I use, as described in my book Weedless Gardening). Rains in June were almost 200% higher than the average.
Mostly, what’s involved in weeding here is periodic hand pulling, starting at one end of the garden, then working my way across the garden ripping out main roots and tops of weed plants. I’m spurred on knowing that, for instance, one lamb’s quarter plant can produce over 70,000 seeds, and having noticed the speed with which sharp quackgrass runners spread underground.
I admit to having too much garden, so some neglected areas always get ahead of me. Like that patch of quackgrass growing and spreading happily between a couple of dwarf apple trees. Digging out the quackgrass would be too tedious. Tilling the soil would kill the plants, but many of the chopped up runners would take root and grow into new plants. Tilling would also expose buried weed seeds to light and more air — just what they need to sprout.
My tack is to mow the plants to the ground and cover the area, and a bit beyond, to account for underground spread of runners, with 4 layers of newspaper, overlapped. An alternative cover is grey resin paper, a building product, available on rolls that make the paper easy to roll out and, therefore, useful for larger areas. The paper smothers weeds in place, leaving the roots and tops to rot and enrich the soil.
Sure, the paper looks ugly and can blow away. That’s why I wet it as soon as it goes down, then cover it with mulch, wood chips, in this case, because I happen to have a pile of wood chips available.
This method of killing weeds is effective, easy, quick, and I can immediately plant something — a second crop of zucchini transplants is my plan — in the mulch. As long as everything is kept moist, roots of the transplants can grow into the mulch and then into and down through the wetted paper into the moist earth below.
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My first crop of zucchini, from transplants seeded in early May, is growing like gangbusters. And it’s no

wonder, given the weather and their being planted right in the compost piles. Nutrients, warmth, and water: What else would a warm-weather plant need?

The compost piles are covered with EPDM rubber roofing material to seal in moisture and heat, and to keep out weed seeds. I cut two square flaps, each about 3 inches square, into the EPDM in which to “plug in” the transplants. The compost, in addition to offering a smorgasbord of nutrients, also clings tenaciously to water, so the zucchini plants need essentially no care.
In contrast, some care will be needed for the zucchini transplants that will go into the mulch between the apple trees. They’re at ground level, just right for rabbits, and the soil there is nowhere near as rich or moisture-retentive as pure compost. Then again, one can have too many zucchinis.

Beetles and Wheat

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Just as cicadas are returning to their underground homes, Japanese beetles are emerging from these same quarters. (Do they nod to each other as they pass?) In contrast to the 17 year hiatus of the cicadas, Japanese beetles come up to cause trouble every year. Some years are worse than others, and the threat is hard to predict ahead of time.
Last year I was braced for an onslaught because of a moist summer the year before. Moist soil is ideal for the beetles’ egg-laying. Eggs laid later in summer hatch into grubs that feed on roots, especially grass

roots, and emerge the following season. (Beetle grubs are allegedly good eating as are, allegedly, cicada adults.) The beetle onslaught began on schedule last year, then fizzled out. I don’t know what to expect this year, except that I’ve already seen quite a few beetles.

I also don’t know what to do about them. Milky spore disease is a bacterium that specifically targets the grubs in the soil. That seems ideal, except “there’s many a slip ‘twixt the cup and the lip.” Milky spore disease is more effective in theory and in the laboratory than out in real life. Beneficial nematodes are another potential fix for “beetlemania,” but nematodes are unfortunately also subject to that “slip.” Even if either beneficial organism was 100% effective, it would do nothing for the grubs in neighbors’ yards; those grubs morph into beetles that, once they spread their wings on neighbors’ lawns, could just fly over here.
I’ve tried Japanese beetle traps and they were effective in the early years of light infestations here. After awhile, though, the traps attracted more beetles than they trapped even though placed about 300 feet apart at either end of my property.
I’ve never tried, but like the idea of, strapping long, spiked soles to the bottom of my shoes and walking around spearing the grubs. It may be effective, but, again, does nothing about neighbors’ grubs unless you pace their yards also.
Hand to hand combat is most effect and satisfying. The beetles are sluggish in early morning and easily flicked off leaves into a jar of soapy water, the soap preventing their escape. The problem, for me, is too, too many plants for hand to hand combat. The organic spray ‘Surround’, nothing more than kaolin clay, is a deterrent, but again, I have too many plants to douse repeatedly with anything, organic or otherwise.
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Good gardeners keep a close eye on their plants. Good gardeners also — I believe — purposely don’t always look too closely. I have a friend whose fruit trees look almost perfect, the result of lots of pesticide sprays. He could get by with a lot less spraying if a few holes in leaves or occasional wormy apples upset him less, which might happen if he looked less closely.
Plants tolerate a certain amount of insect and disease damage. More than that, plants compensate, ratcheting up photosynthesis in what’s left of their leaves following damage — up to a point.
Anyway, the last sentence is the rationale for my do-nothing approach to Japanese beetles. I’m also reassured knowing that, although the beetles have cosmopolitan tastes, they don’t attack everything. Two years ago, for some reason, they skeletonized many leaves on one hardy kiwi plant (Actinidia kolomikta) but left a neighboring one (also A. kolomikta) practically untouched.
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Except for a few sparrows pecking at seeds, my wheat crop has been pest-free, even from Japanese

beetles. The wheat harvest came in last week. Lest you think that “came in” implies sacks of grain, the area planted was a mere 5 foot length of one of the 3 foot wide vegetable beds.

This wheat was winter wheat, planted last September. The green sprouts grew through autumn, went dormant in winter, then started growing again in spring, beginning to develop seed heads once the plants were a couple of feet tall.
Over the past few weeks the stalks rose to 5 feet high and the seed heads plumped up. Last week, rich soil, drip irrigation, and birds finally got the best of the upright stalks. Enough of them began to flop down and turn tawny that methought harvest was in order so we went at the stalks with pruning shears and threw them in a bucket. The stalks are now tied into small bundles that hang from a kitchen rafter to finish drying.
I’m planning to plant cabbage and broccoli transplants in the 15 square feet vacated by the wheat. I

could have planted right in the wheat stubble but decided, instead, to pull out clumps of wheat plants with minimal disturbance of the soil, spread on inch of compost, and plant. Grasses have extensive root systems (380 miles estimated beneath a single rye plant, another plant in the grass family), and all those wheat roots pushing and prodding the soil hither and thither left the ground in the wheat bed wonderfully soft and crumbly.

Once the wheat harvest is dry, I’ll thresh, winnow, and grind it, then report on the yield, in loaves of bread per square foot of growing area.
Berries of July

Fruits Galore & Georgia O’Keefe

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Let’s see, what’s on my plate for today? No, not what I’m planning to do, but what’s on my plate, literally. I have gumis, figs, Nanking cherries, highbush and lowbush blueberries, black raspberries, red raspberries, black currants, red currants, tart cherries, and mulberries. And what a tasty lot they are, and for

so little effort. All that’s needed, for everything except the gumis and Nanking cherries, is pruning and mulching. The gumis and Nanking cherries, both with their branches bowing to the ground under the load of red fruits, need no care at all!

Gumis (Elaeagnus multiflora) are particularly abundant this year, for the first time ever. Either the bushes have grown large enough to pump out a large crop, or birds have been distracted by all the cicadas into leaving the gumis alone. Letting the fruits, which are flecked gold and the size of small cherries, hang on the bush until dead ripe gives time for the sprightly, sweet flavor to develop and the astringency to fade. It’s also a nice ornamental shrub, with leaves silvery on one side that are a good foil for the colorful fruits. Backtracking to a few weeks ago to another asset of this plant, sweet perfume from the flowers was drifting all over the yard.
The early fig crop, known as the breba crop, is also relatively abundant. One of my figs, mislabeled Green Ischia, bears fruit on new, growing shoots as

well as on last year’s stems. The breba crop, ripening earlier, develops on last year’s stems, a few of which I saved on the large tree in the greenhouse. The rest of the plant, like my other figs, which bear only on new, growing shoots, gets lopped back each autumn to 3 or 4 feet high. This crop, and for some figs this is the only crop, is called the main crop.

So right now Green Ischia has a breba crop ripening on the 2 or 3 stems I left from last year, and a main crop developing which will begin ripening around the end of August, along with the main crop on the other varieties of figs. These crops can be harvested from plants in pots or, as is the case for my Green Ischia, plants growing in the ground in a minimally heated greenhouse. The advantage of in-ground in the greenhouse is larger plants and, hence, more figs. Some people spend their money on in-ground pools; I spent my money on a greenhouse for in-ground figs.
The other fruits on my plate, with the exception of Nanking cherries, are familiar to most people. Many visitors have been sampling the Nanking cherries, and all except one were wowed by the fine flavor. The fruits are somewhat small and soft, but, in addition to good flavor, earn their keep for their fecundity, their not needing any care, and for white blossoms that drench the stems in spring.
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Soft pink, tubular swirls of calla lily (Zantedeschia spp.) flowers are like having a three dimensional Georgia O’Keefe painting right on my terrace. No, four dimensional, the added dimension being time, because the plants change day by day.
Calla lilies are also easy to grow. Put the bulbs in a pot, and water; enjoy

flowers in summer; bring the pot indoors before the weather plummets below freezing in autumn; store in cool basement through winter; bring out again in late spring.

My main problem with growing calla lilies is that I’d like more of them than the one pot now sitting on my terrace. New plants are thankfully easy to come by, besides being gifted them, in this case from my friend Sara. Beneath the ground, the plants spread by rhizomes, which are specialized, underground stems such as those found beneath ginger, banana, lowbush blueberry, and bamboo plants. Rhizomes have a segmented appearance, just like stems, with each each node sprouting feeder roots as well as an aboveground shoot. Come autumn or late winter, I’ll cut up the rhizomes and multiply my holdings.
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So what’s hard to grow around here? Apples. If you wanted to know the most difficult fruit crop east of the Rocky Mountains, that’s it. Apples.
The season started out perfectly, with good fruit set. A few well-timed sprays kept the snout-nosed beetle, plum curculio, at bay, as well as codling moth (the “worm” in an apple) and the fungus responsible for apple scab, whose effect is just what it sound like. But problems don’t end there.
As curculio exits stage left, apple maggot moves in stage right (but can be controlled by trapping) and codling moth stays around. Orange blemishes from cedar-apple rust pock susceptible varieties and scab, despite the sprays, also becomes evident, the result of our incessant wet weather. Fruits are cracking from changes in soil moisture. And still in the offing are summer diseases — black rot, white rot, and bitter rot — that can ruin any fruit that survives other scourges.
I can hear my mulberries, Nanking cherries, black raspberries, and other no-care fruits chuckling at me for all the care I lavish on my apples, to little avail.
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Dateline July 4: Cicadas are gone. Yeah!

Gardening Workshop

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Blueberries & Cicadas, Mmmmm

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“It takes a patient man to net an acre of blueberries.” The New England accent added weight to the declaration, as did the gentleman’s 80-something year old frame standing ramrod-straight and adorned with checkered jacket, a cap, and chinstrap beard. That was 30 years ago, and I was standing in the New Hampshire garden of Elwyn Meader, looking across the field at his acre of blueberries. Elwyn was a plant

breeder extraordinaire, then retired, who had developed new varieties of such plants as persimmons, chestnuts, lilacs, cucumbers, soybeans, watermelons, and everbearing strawberries. The honey-sweet Fallgold raspberry, my favorite, was Elwyn’s handiwork, incorporating genes from Korean raspberries he found while working there for the U. S. Army. 

Now, many years later, I think of Elwyn’s words as Deb and I rush to net our small plot, two-hundredths of an acre, of blueberries. (Not so small, though, to obviate a very respectable harvest of about 190 quarts of delectable, organic, sustainable, artisanal berries from 16 plants!) I append Elwyn’s words with “Covering two-hundredths of an acre of blueberries is a test of a marriage.” Nets can sag; tempers can thin; ladders can become unwieldy.
We survived. My latest incarnation of blueberry protection against birds starts with an enclosure of locust posts about 8 feet apart, with rebar running through holes a few inches from their tops. The sides, as my friend Bill calls it, my “Blueberry Temple,” are enclosed permanently in heavy duty, plastic bird netting (www.bennersgardens.com). Eighteen-inch-high chicken wire at the bottom keeps rabbits from chewing through the plastic. 
Now for the seasonal net, the one that tests our marriage and covers the planting while berries are

ripening, from late June until September. This net is of woven nylon, so is sturdy and drapes well (available from such sources as www.raintreenursery.com, www.jacissel.net, www.nylonnet.com). We spread the rolled up net on the ground near the entrance to the planting, then, each of us climbing a ladder at either side, lifts the roll up across the top, with either end of the roll resting on opposite sides of the rebar. Letting the free end drape a little over the entrance side, we each use a binder clip to fix the beginning of the roll near the entrance side. From then on, it’s a matter of unrolling the netting over the top, clipping and moving ladders as we go and — this is the part

that can get testy — making sure to keep the net even on both sides and sufficiently taught.

This year, the net was up in less than a half-hour, the blueberries were safe from birds, and the marriage was still intact.
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Pruning tomatoes is such a pleasant garden “chore.” As I look over each plant for suckers — any shoot that originates at the upper part of juncture between a leaf and main stem — I get to monitor the swelling fruits, do a health check on the leaves and stems, and admire the plants’ neat growth habit. The latter comes from my weekly pruning off of the suckers followed by tying of the main stems to adjacent bamboo poles.
I can appreciate disorder in the garden but I also appreciate order. Disorder lends a pleasant, loosey-goosey atmosphere to the landscape. I find order more calming and an easier environment in which to satisfy the needs of each plant. For the tomatoes, pruning and staking them — which surely puts them in order — also gives greater yields (per square foot of garden space), and fruits that are cleaner and a bit earlier.
All this orderliness crumbles as August fades into September. By then, errant suckers get the best of me and the ever-elongating main stems reach the tops of their bamboo supports. Then where can they go? Sideways? Down? To an adjacent pole? No matter. By then, the end of tomato season is in sight and the plants pretty much do what they will as long as they keep pumping out juicy, red orbs.
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The novelty of cicadas has worn thin. Their electronic cacophony whines in various pitches throughout the day without a moment’s respite. If you saw me walking past any one of my many infested trees or shrubs, you might see my arms flailing about to keep airborne ones at bay.
Thankfully, cicadas aren’t feeding on any plants. But their egg laying, beneath slits they make in bark, can cause damage. Young stems dying back do little damage to established trees and shrubs (gratuitous summer pruning of shoots?), but can kill young plants.
Here, the cicadas favor the lilac bush and pear trees and, to a lesser extent, the apple trees. I’ve gotten pretty good at snatching them by their wings. My chickens are very fond of the fresh, less so the frozen, catch of the day. This hand to hand combat feels good but makes but a small dent in the population.
The other afternoon I could no longer stand the sight of so many cicadas clustered on the trunks of my 8-year-old pear trees. I needed a bulk method, so ran indoors to grab a dust broom. The dust broom was quite effective, sending cicadas flying everywhere. And then back onto the trunks.
My last resort was to get out my sprayer and coat the trees and any resident cicadas with ‘Surround’, a commercially available,

organically approved pesticide made from kaolin clay. The coating makes for unpleasant footing and egg-laying for a variety of insects, and it clogs their spiracles.

The ‘Surround’, which I applied only to the apples and pears, had but little effect on the cicadas. Cicadas on plants became statuesque; a few fewer flew back on, for awhile. Of course, the incessant cacophony emanating from the woods continued. Only a couple of weeks or so to go, and then a 17 year hiatus.

A Rose is a Rose is a Rose . . . Not!

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Perhaps it was youthful rebelliousness, but for years, for decades, I lambasted my father’s roses. The roses reared up their colorful heads on the other side of the low, clipped privet hedge that bordered our terrace. If youthful rebelliousness was at the root of my rose aversion, that rebelliousness has lasted well beyond my youth, right up to the present day even though those roses are no more.
The plants were hybrid tea roses, in various colors. You’ve got to admit that the shrubs themselves, typically with a few gawky stems topped with disproportionately large blossoms, are not much to look at. The pointiness of the blossoms, a sought-after quality among hybrid tea breeders, is, for me, particularly unattractive. Couple that with the blaring colors and you get the picture, for me, that is.
Hybrid tea roses are not particularly tough plants, succumbing to insects, diseases, and winter cold. Which is why my father grew them practically as annuals, often having to replace dead bushes with new ones. What a waste.
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Times change, and over the last few years I’ve become a fan of roses. No, not hybrid tea roses! Other types of roses, of which there are many.
Here’s my criteria for a worthy rose (not necessarily in the order of importance): Insect and disease

Father Hugo’s rose

resistance; a full-bodied, corpulent shrub; cup-shaped or single flowers; pastel colors; fragrance; and repeat-blooming. Hybrid tea roses generally lack all these qualities, except for repeat-blooming.

Some species and old-fashioned roses tend to have the qualities I seek. Father Hugo’s rose, Rosa hugonis, is one such rose with single, small, soft yellow blossoms and ferny foliage. It’s supposed to be a tough rose, but mine hasn’t yet lived up to that billing. Too much weed competition, perhaps.
Rugose rose (R. rugosa) is another outstanding rose, this one living up to its reputation for being tough. So much so that it’s considered invasive in some places. Still, I like it for its nonstop blooms of single, usually pink-red flowers, its strong fragrance, and its nice hips — fruits that is, very tasty.
If I had to choose just one rose to plant, that rose would

Rose de Rescht

be my old-fashioned Rose de Rescht. Its petals are soft cerise in color, and are crumpled like crêpe paper with just a bit of organization on the ends of flower stalks. The fragrance is heavenly, to my nose the best of any rose.

Some modern roses — but not hybrid teas! — have also

Apricot Knock Out rose

won me over to my father’s camp.

One such group of moderns are the Knock Out® roses. Very unclassical in appearance, with short, wide stature and mostly single-petalled flowers, these roses are tough and carefree, and bloom all season long. The colors would be gaudy except for their being pleasantly  subdued by the small size of the flowers and their lush and abundant backdrop of glossy, green leaves.
David Austin L. D. Braithwaite
The other modern roses that have won me over are the David Austin roses, all bred with the goal of combining the look and fragrance

David Austin Strawberry Hill

of the old-fashions with the repeat blooming and pest resistance of the moderns. Right now, Strawberry Hill and L. D. Braithwaite are growing very well in my garden, partly the result of a very mild winter.

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My father eventually came around to my way of thinking and gave me free rein to rip out his hybrid tea roses and replace them with a mix of other perennial and annual flowers. The view from the terrace was transformed into a spring through autumn panoply of colors and forms from the likes of tree peonies, ligularias, lungwort, bleeding heart, and other perennials. The one constant following the transformation was the line of begonias or marigolds that marched along the edge of the bed, just as they did when the bed was home to roses.
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Mulberries have ripened, so a taste test was in order: Illinois Everbearing vs. Oscar vs. Kokuso vs. Gerardi Dwarf vs. random seedling. Oscar was best with Kokuso and the seedling a close second, followed by Illinois Everbearing and then Gerardi Dwarf. These ratings aren’t writ in stone, for me, because confounding everything were big flavor changes that depended on slight changes in ripening — I think.
Note that black mulberry — the species Morus nigra — was not in the running. That’s because the fruits won’t be ripe for awhile and because, I know from experience, it’s far and away the best of them all.

Mulberries, And The Winner Is . . .

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I’ve been a fruit nut for a long time, and throughout that time have had a particular attraction to uncommon fruits (about which I wrote a book). Evidence of the latter began with  the planting of a mulberry tree in my front yard when I lived in Wisconsin. The plant and fruit seemed intriguing; little did I know, back then, that mulberry trees were growing all over the place. Right now, I could probably bump into a dozen wild trees within a quarter mile of here, or within a quarter mile of my old domicile in Wisconsin. Mulberry is the second most common “weed” tree in New York City.
Commonness is one reason that mulberry doesn’t “get no respect.” Also, fruits from run-of-the-mill trees are too cloying for most tastes. Still, the fruits are abundant, local, organic, and sustainably “grown,”

and some trees have better than run-of-the-mill flavor. The latter are available as named varieties.

Which is why I could be seen today bending flexible poles aver two small trees. Mulberry fruits are a favorite of birds; I needed to protect the fruits. The two trees — the varieties Oscar and Kokusu — allegedly bear delicious fruits. Taste of the fruit from these small trees will confirm whether or not they are worth keeping and growing into larger trees. If worth keeping, the trees, once large, will bear enough for the birds and humans.
My bird protection was easily erected. The ends of the flexible poles, in short sections held together by an inner elastic cord (from www.gardeners.com), like tent poles, went into foot-long pieces of PVC pipe that I pounded into the ground. Clothespins hold bird-netting in place on the poles and metal staples pinned the netting to the ground.
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‘Illinois Everbearing’ fruit
Three species of mulberry are commonly eaten: white mulberry, Morus alba; red mulberry, M. rubra; and black mulberry, M. nigra. (Fruit color has nothing to do with species names; many white mulberry trees bear black fruits.) In the eastern part of the U.S., we find our native red mulberry as well as white mulberry, introduced from Asia in the early 19th century, as well as hybrids of the two. Black mulberry thrives best in Mediterranean-type climates.
Right next to my two little trees I have an older mulberry, the variety Illinois Everbearing, a natural hybrid of the white and red mulberry species that does indeed bear over many weeks. My Oscar tree is probably a variety of white mulberry. Kokuso is sometimes listed as its own species, M. latifolia. At any rate, all three varieties are supposed to be hardy and delicious.
‘Illinois Everbearing’tree
I can vouch for Illinois Everbearing because I’ve grown it for a number of years. Although hardy, branches often die back because they don’t realize, towards the end of summer, that it’s time to slow down growth and toughen up for winter. I make it slow down as summer wanes by letting grass and weeds grow high at its feet, sucking up excess moisture and nutrients.
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The best-tasting of the mulberries, I’d even stick my neck out so far as to say perhaps the best-tasting of all fruits(!), is the black mulberry species. The berries aren’t particularly big but they pack enough flavor that they could be the size of an orange. Their flavor has a nice balance of sweetness and tartness along with some  . . . je ne sais quoi. Mulberryness?
Problem is that black mulberry is not hardy here. I’ve grown it in a pot, but a potted plant has only a limited amount of stems on which to hang fruits so yields are very low. I planted one right in the ground in the greenhouse a few years ago, planning to espalier it as directed in my book, The Pruning Book: “To train a

M. nigra in greenhouse, prior to its demise

mulberry to a tidy form, develop a main set of limbs, then prune branches growing off these limbs to six leaves in July to make short, fruiting spurs.” Not so! I garnered that pruning information from a British book, and it’s evidently is another gardening Britishism that doesn’t work on this side of the pond, probably due to differences in daylength and/or summer temperatures. My tree has done nothing but grow and grow, with little fruit on the abundant, lanky stems.

This week I ripped the black mulberry out of the greenhouse and planted, in its stead, a fig to accompany the three other in-ground figs there. 
A few weeks ago, before the black mulberry awoke from its winter slumber, I cut off a branch and grafted it onto a similarly sized branch of the Illinois

Morus nigra fruits

Everbearing tree. Black mulberry isn’t supposed to be cold-hardy outdoors here, but who knows? It’s a very long shot. As I said, I can’t believe everything I read, even if I wrote it. This time I hope that all of us are wrong.

A Moon Landing?

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Anyone visiting my garden a few days ago might have thought they happened upon a moon landing or extraplanetary explorer. A two-legged creature was wandering around in bright blue pants and a bright blue, hooded jacket (actually, rain gear) with goggles and a respirator and 4 gallon tank strapped to its back. Periodically, an engine whine was accompanied by a cloud of mist (a jetpack)?
The creature was me and I was doing what was necessary to put myself on the road to a harvest of delicious apples (especially the variety Hudson’s Golden Gem) and plums (especially the variety Imperial Épineuse). I was dolled up for what looked like a moon landing because I was spraying pesticides on my

trees. In this part of the world, sad to say, that’s generally what’s necessary to get a decent — sometimes any — crop of apples or plums.

Some years I grow these fruits organically; some years I grow them, as some commercial growers say, ecologically or biologically. My organic approach is to spray a special formulation of kaolin clay, called ‘Surround’, and sulfur, a naturally occurring mineral. ‘Surround’ keeps insects at bay; sulfur does the same for some diseases. To be effective, ‘Surround’ must be maintained as a dust-like, white coating on the trees. This laid-back Mediterranean look to the trees necessitates a not very laid-back 3 sprays, before bloom, to build up a base layer, and followup sprays every week or following as little as 1/4 inch of rainfall. Even then, in my experience, control is marginal.
My ecological/biological approach is to spray the horrible sounding material, Imidan, with, again, sulfur. Imidan is a chemical pesticide, but one that has a relatively low toxicity both to humans and to beneficial insects. A perfect year would require only 2 to 3 sprays, the first right after petals drop and the others before mid-June. Re-spraying is usually not needed until after an inch of rainfall. Between rainfall washing off spray, sunlight degrading it, and dilution due to fruit growth,

‘Surround’ on apples

fruits are essentially squeaky clean by harvest time. (After the end of June, approaches other than sprays thwart remaining major pests.)

Back to my moon suit . . . The suit is necessary no matter what I spray. Getting doused with, or breathing, even something as benign as kaolin clay is not good.
And the jetpack? That’s my backpack sprayer. Spraying anything is no fun. Fortunately, except for the apples and the plums, spraying is almost never needed here on the farmden. Also fortunately, my sprayer makes easy work of the job. It’s a Stihl, gasoline-powered backpack sprayer that always starts right up, gives good coverage, and lets me, in less than a half an hour, mix the spray, apply it to about 2 dozen trees, and thoroughly clean it.
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Spraying pesticides, organic or otherwise, is not the only approach to keeping plants healthy. Any insect or disease problem can gain a toehold only when there’s a plant susceptible to the problem, an organism that can cause the problem, and a suitable environment in which the problem can develop. So, I beef up my plants’ defenses by paying special attention to the soil, making sure drainage is perfect, and by applying

Good soil, organic matter added from the top down

mulches of compost, wood chips, hay, and other organic materials. The mulches feed the plants as well as worms, fungi, and other “good guys” in the soil. Above ground, pruning lets branches bathe in sunlight and air, both of which make for better fruit and conditions less conducive to insect and disease problems. If my plants are thirsty, they get water.

What I do not do to make my plants healthy is apply compost tea, biochar, or any other potions, or, along the same lines, click my heels together three times and repeat, “There’ll be no pest problems.”
For apples and plums in this part of the world, all three requirements for pest problems — pest presence, susceptible host plant, and environment suitable for the problem to develop — are generally fulfilled. Hence, the necessity of sprays. Still, using a minimum of carefully selected sprays and needing to “ship” my fruit no more than 200 feet from the trees to my mouth (or kitchen) makes for a minimum affront to the environment.
People too often equate “fruit growing” with growing apples. That should not be the case because there are plenty of other fruits, and plenty of them can be grown with hardly a thought to pest control. Pears, for instance. I have about 20 pear trees; none require spraying. The same could be said for blueberries, raspberries, persimmons, cornelian cherries, blackberries, pawpaws, hardy kiwifruits, gooseberries, currants . . . I could go on. In some cases, such as grapes, choosing a disease-resistant variety is the way to avoid having to spray.
As I emphasize in my recent book, Grow Fruit Naturally, choosing plants adapted to your site is a very important part of growing fruit naturally, as is providing optimum growing conditions. 
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A Visitation, Clematis, and a Workshop

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Last minute notice: Come visit my farmden, in real life. As part of the Garden Conservancy Open Days program, I’ll be hosting visitors between 10am and 4pm. For more information about this visit or other sites, contact the Garden Conservancy (www.gardenconservancy.org).

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Letting a few clematis plants grow is the closest I’ve come to playing the lottery. It looks like I’ve won, judging from the first flower that opened last week.
Let me explain. I have a half dozen or so clematis plants of named varieties that I got from nurseries. A few years ago, I started noticing small plants — seedlings of the named varieties, especially from near a Nelly Moser plant — sprouting near the mother plants. I meant to save a couple, I even transplanted some, but these first seedlings succumbed to neglect. More recently, I’ve paid closer attention to the seedlings, especially those that sprouted fortuitously near the fence around the vegetable garden.
The gamble was that some seedlings would be garden-worthy. (Not that big a gamble; if not garden-worthy, I could just dig them out and walk them to the compost pile.) Named varieties of clematis, such as

Seedling of Nelly Moser

my plant named Nelly Moser, are propagated by cloning. That is, every Nelly Moser plant is genetically identical to every other Nelly Moser plant. Clones of any plant are propagated by root, leaf, or stem cuttings, by grafting, or by some other method of asexual propagation.

My seedlings arose from seeds that dropped from a pollinated flower, that is, the seedlings are the result of the sexual union of pollen and egg cells. Whatever jumbling around of genes happened during that union will be reflected in the plants’ growth and flowers.
My first seedling flower spread open clear, blue petals — beautiful. It’s a keeper. If I deem it truly and uniquely spectacular, I could give it a name and multiply it asexually to spread the joy. Then it would become a named variety or, to use the more professionably acceptable term, “cultivar,” from the words “cultivated variety.” The word “cultivar” grates on my ears; I refuse to use it.
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That unspeakable “c” word came about because the word “variety”was too general; it could mean two different things, plantwise. One meaning is a garden variety, as in Nelly Moser clematis. The other kind of “variety” is a botanical variety.
In the classification of plants, a botanical variety is a subclassification sometimes occurring within a

Nelly Moser clematis

species. That occurs if there are populations within the same species that are sufficiently similar to distinguish themselves from other populations within a species, and the differences are inheritable. (Both populations are, of course, sufficiently similar to be included within the same species.)

Botanists have not chosen to bastardize the English language with so ugly a word as “botanivar” tomean a “botanical variety.” Likewise, there’s no reason for horticulturalists to bastardize our language with the word “cultivar.” I’ll stick with “cultivated variety” or, if the sense is obvious, just “variety.”
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The flowering habit of my clematis seedlings is also of interest. That is, when does it flower? Some clematis flower only on new growth, which means they flower later in the season. Some clematis flower only on old growth, which means they flower early in the season. And still other clematis flower on both new and old growth, which means they flower early and late, over a long season.
As I detail in my book, The Pruning Book, pruning technique varies depending on a clematis plant’s flowering habit. Early bloomers are best pruned right after they finish blooming. Late bloomers are pruned before growth begins for the season. And you do a little of both for plants that bloom early and late. (My book groups cultivars — whoops, I mean varieties — of clematis according to their flowering habits and pruning needs.)
My seedlings have mostly appeared near the “feet” of Nelly Moser, which flowers early in the season, so

Nelly Moser and its baby

presumably will be similarly inclined. That is the case with the seedling that recently unfolded its blossoms. But it could flower again this season.

For now, I’m enjoying the flowers of the first bloomer and looking forward to what unfolds on the stems of other seedlings.
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“How to Grow a Lot of Vegetables with Little Space, Time, and Effort” is the topic for an upcoming workshop I’ll be holding here at my farmden in New Paltz on June 23rd, from 9 to 11:30 am. (The growing season is still young: It’s not too late to get more out of your garden; it’s not even too late to start a garden!) The cost is $50 and space is limited so registration is necessary. For questions or registration, contact me at garden[at]lee reich.com.