Thoughts and Meditations on Gardening - 2



I searched around for an appropriate accompaniment to this Greek Proverb, and came across Princeton University's 2000 Valedictory Address by Andrew Houck. As the Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science says in his introduction, "His speech, considered by many to be the best in years, was filled with humor and wonderful metaphors."  Here's one of those metaphors, but read the whole thing.

Whatever we do, whether we make a great scientific breakthrough, delight people with our music, or raise a loving family, I would encourage all of us not to spend our entire lives lounging in our ancestors' shade, but to venture out in the sun ourselves, ensuring a well-shaded future for the comfort of those to come.

Having completed his PhD at Harvard University in 2005, Dr. Houck is now an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering at Princeton.

All America Selection Winners for 2013

All-America Selections tests and introduces new flowers and vegetables each year that have done well in trials across North America. This year there were two flower winners, one bedding plant winner (two cultivars) and three vegetable winners.

Descriptions and images below are taken directly from All-America Selection materials. For more detailed information including how to grow them, go to their site, or click on the links below for any of the selections.

Canna 'South Pacific Scarlet' F1, 2013 AAS Flower Award Winner Allow 'South Pacific' to add a touch of the tropics to your garden with showy, 4-inch flowers that bloom all summer long in a delicious shade of scarlet. Large leafed statuesque plants reach 4 to 5 feet tall providing a back-of-the-border focal point.

This variety is grown from seed, not tuber. Compact in habit and well suited for both landscape and container use. Canna 'South Pacific Scarlet' prefers warm and humid conditions over 77F. This variety is more vigorous, more uniform, and has more basal branching than Canna Tropical Red.

Echinacea 'Cheyenne Spirit', 2013 AAS Flower Award Winner This stunning first-year flowering echinacea captures the spirit of the North American plains by producing a delightful mix of flower colors from rich purple, pink, red and orange tones to lighter yellows, creams and white. This wide range of flower colors on well branched, durable plants are sure to please the color preferences of any gardener. As an added bonus, ‘Cheyenne Spirit’ does not require a lot of water and offers a wide range of uses from the perennial border, in a mass landscape planting, in a butterfly garden or as a cut flower.

The AAS judges and their trial garden visitors raved about the attractiveness of the flowers and the range of colors while appreciating its sturdiness and low water needs. Even during wind and rain, this compact plant does not topple over like many echinacea. The variety of intense, bright colors adds sparkle to the garden from mid-summer through fall. As an added bonus, this maintenance-free echinacea doesn’t even need deadheading to provide summer long beauty.

Geranium 'Pinto Premium White to Rose' F1, 2013 AAS Bedding Plant Award Winner This addition to the 'Pinto Premium' series is a must-have! Not only is the flower coloration unique and ombre-like, but the numerous 5-inch blooms are long-lasting in the garden. Petals start out white then deepen to rose-pink as flowers mature, giving an attractive bicolor effect. Dense, well-branched plants sport deep green leaves with darker zones that contrast beautifully with the light-colored flowers. 'Pinto Premium White to Rose' is a great choice for carefree, colorful summer garden beds or patio containers.

Melon 'Melemon' F1, 2013 AAS Vegetable Award Winner The earliness, high yield on healthy, strong plants and superior taste all contributed to this melon becoming an AAS Winner. Judges related the taste of this melon to honeydew, but with a surprising and delicious tanginess. A uniform fruit shape makes it perfect for market growers as well as home gardeners. Each personal-sized fruit has refreshing crisp flesh and a unique sweet-tart taste.

Tomato 'Jasper' F1, 2013 AAS Vegetable Award Winner Excellent taste, a long harvest window and outstanding performance in the trials contribute to this cherry tomato’s success. Judges liked the texture and sweetness of the tomato as well as the uniformity of the fruits that grow on vigorous, healthy plants. Jasper is a high yielding variety with fruits that stay on the vine and then hold well after ripening both on the vine and post-harvest. Vigorous vines require little or no fertilization. An added bonus is fusarium resistance and the ability to overcome weather-related stresses.

Watermelon 'Harvest Moon' F1, 2013 AAS Vegetable Award Winner

The first ever hybrid, triploid seedless watermelon to win a coveted AAS Award! Similar to the popular heirloom variety, ‘Moon and Stars,’

'Harvest Moon' is an improvement in that it features healthy, shorter vines that produce medium-sized fruits and sweet, crisp pinkish-red flesh. 'Harvest Moon' retains the familiar dark green rind with yellow dots, like that of ‘Moon and Stars’ but is seedless, earlier to ripen, higher yielding and better tasting. As one judge said, “What’s not to like?"

Zinnia 'Profusion Double Deep Salmon' 2013 AAS Bedding Plant Award Winner
'Profusion Double Deep Salmon' features intensely vibrant, deep pink-orange flowers with double petals. Like other Profusion Zinnias, Deep Salmon flowers continuously from spring through frost and is easy to grow. It is self-cleaning, disease resistant and grows well in a range of climates, including areas with high night temperatures. The flowers can grow 2.5 to 3 inches in diameter and plants grow 14 inches tall and 24 inches wide.
     

Zinnia 'Profusion Double Hot Cherry' 2013 AAS Bedding Plant Award Winner
This award winner features rich rose, double petalled blooms which cover flower continuously from spring through frost. The bright color does not fade, even under high temperatures. Like all Profusion, 'Double Hot Cherry' is easy to grow as it is self-cleaning, disease resistant and grows well in a wide range of climates, including areas with high night temperatures. The flowers can grow 2.5 to 3 inches in diameter and plants grow 8 to 14 inches tall and 24 inches wide.

The AAS Winners for 2012 can be viewed here.

The Art of Japanese Landscaping and Bonsai

Gardeners around the world appreciate and cultivate natural beauty in many forms, whether in formal French or Italian styles, the casual riot of colors in English cottage gardens, rainbows of Dutch bulbs, informal wildflower meadows, or neat rows of edible fruits and vegetables.

However, interest in Bonsai and Japanese gardening is gaining popularity worldwide, in part because it seeks to capture and celebrate the splendor and variety of the universe in a microcosm, recognizing that everything- plants, people, even inanimate objects like stones and mountains- contain a dynamic, spiritual essence. And each element is symbolic of the whole and a worthy subject of respect and contemplation.

Japanese techniques do not imitate nature so much as they idealize it. By severely limiting its scope, one carefully pruned Bonsai tree can appear ancient and venerable, symbolizing all life in one tiny tray.




On a balcony or in the smallest courtyard, a well-chosen rock becomes a mountain, surrounded by skillfully placed gravel that seems to flow like water.
 

The serene stillness may be broken by the sound of running water, reminiscent of a waterfall, reminding us that nothing remains the same, that time is passing, and we live in a world which is impermanent, imperfect and incomplete. Understated elegance, simplicity, austerity, reduced scale, asymmetry and use of empty space combine to close out the hectic material world, focus attention on solitude, and the importance of living in this moment.

Join Master Gardeners Sylvia Kremp and Barbara Petrucci to experience a multi-sensory demonstration of these techniques and learn how to incorporate them into your home, creating a personal space for tranquility and transcendence.

Registration fee is $10 per person. Please call the Penn State Extension Office at 717-263-9226 to register.
Saturday, February 16, 2013 9:00 a.m.-11:00

Snow Date: February 23

Plants With Winter Interest-Part 11 - Corkscrew Willow

Corkscrew Willow in Eckhart Blue Ridge Summit Landscape

Inspired by Jerry's Coral Embers Willow, and Carol's Contorted Hazel posts, here's another plant with Winter Interest that has connections to both - Corkscrew Willow, or Salix matsudana.



Corkscrew Willow is a small to medium-sized, upright spreading tree of about 30 feet in height with a 15-foot-spread, the main ornamental feature of this plant is the contorted and twisted branches and twigs. Branches arise from the trunk at an acute angle and grow up almost parallel to the trunk before they curve back to the horizontal. The winter branch pattern is most interesting and probably accounts for the popularity of the tree.

Corkscrew Willow in Eckhart Blue Ridge Summit Landscape

It is native to China and hardy to zone 5, and the warmer parts of zone 4.

The cultivar
'Tortuosa' was introduced into North America in 1923 when Arnold Arboretum received a cutting from China, it was named the next year and entered commerce during the 1930s.

Corkscrew willow grows best in full or partial sun, and tolerates multiple soil conditions including clay, sand, loam, acidic and alkaline.  And, like all willows is more tolerant than most plants to "wet feet" conditions.  More information here.

Corkscrew Willow in Eckhart Blue Ridge Summit Landscape

Pollarding is a method of pruning that keeps trees and shrubs smaller than they would naturally grow (a practice generally not recommended for most trees), but in this case, it can enhance the contorted effect in winter landscapes.



The best time to prune, or pollard, is late winter.

Corkscrew Willow Branch used as Decoration

The added bonus is that the trimmings can be used in dried arrangements, or as support structures for climbing vines in container gardening.

This one, decorating the entranceway to my home, became available after male deer (bucks) used it to rub off the velvet from their antlers, and to mark their territory, girding the whole branch.

Like all willows, corkscrew willow is very easy to propagate.  Take your cuttings, or prunings, and place in water, and they'll root easily. The reason is that willow cuttings secrete a hormone called auxin, that stimulates growth and encourages roots to form. Auxin is also water soluble, so it will dissove in the water and create a solution that can be used to help root other plants and shrubs.  You can even make your own "Willow Water" by cutting up twigs of willow and letting them steep in water.  The resultant "tea" can then be used to root other plants.

Here's a Fine Gardening article describing the process.

Learn more about Plants with Winter Interest:

Winter Interest in MG Iris Master's Landscape and Other Penn National Gardens
Nandina - Heavenly Bamboo
Landscaping for Four Seasons of Interest
Plants With Winter Interest - Part 1 - Partridge Berry
Plants With Winter Interest - Part 2 - Snowdrops
Plants With Winter Interest - Part 3 - Stinking Hellebore
Plants With Winter Interest - Part 4 - Native Jewel Orchid
Plants With Winter Interest - Part 5 - Lavender
Plants With Winter Interest - Part 6 - Witchhazel
Plants With Winter Interest - Part 7 - Paperbark Maple
Plants With Winter Interest - Part 8 - Eastern Teaberry or Wintergreen
Plants With Winter Interest - Part 9 - Harry Lauder Walking Stick
Plants With Winter Interest - Part 10 - Coral Embers Willow
Ascot Rainbow Spurge - a Year Round Delight

Thoughts and Meditations on Gardening - 1



Book Cover Picture from Amazon
Bäume. Betrachtungen und Gedichte , (Trees: Reflections and Poems)



Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life. 

~ Herman Hesse

Originally from Wandering.   More here.

Happy Groundhog Day!

Via MG Jane Krumpe and our MG Facebook Page, a shared picture from National Home Gardening Club's Facebook Page.

Early Spring Predicted.

Video.

Fun Facts posted last year.

A Catalytic Catatonic Catastrophe

Stop the Madness!

2012 Harvest 4-Health in Pictures

Fall, 2011

Green Tomato - How Cool is That?

Maybe not so Cool

MG Bill Dorman and Fall Scallions

Fresh Fall Radishes

Spring 2012

MG Janet Sharp Shows How to Pot Up the Tomato Seedlings the Class Started a few Weeks Earlier

They get the Hang of it

And Get to Take Them Home

Weeding is Lots of Fun!



Maybe not for Everyone



Peppers are in!



Squash, Cukes and Zukes



And the Tomatoes

Radishes Coming Up

Now Grow!

June, 2012

We Have Strawberries!

Look for Them Under the Leaves

Things HAVE Grown

Let's Plant Some Seeds for Fall

Carefully Place your Seeds

I Can Do It!

We All Can!

What the Heck is a 'Stolon'?

It's the Runner from the Mother Plant that Will Give Us Strawberries Next Year

Gotta Keep Weeding

We Dug up Some Fingerling Potatoes

September, 2012


Sampling Day - Taste What Was Grown
(Supplemented from MG Gardens)

MG Ruth Coe (And Professional Reading Teacher)
Fills in on a Rainy Day



Meanwhile, inspired by The Green Apple Day Day of Service, teachers, volunteers, and parents at Ben Chambers Elementary School, took on the challenge of cleaning up an abandoned garden for a 2013 planting:

Before

After

Mrs. Thomas’s 3^rd grade, pictured here with Barbara Aldrich from PSU Extension 4-H, Katie Kough and WWC from Wilson College, and some classroom moms, plan to use and maintain the garden for various projects and inspiration going forward…along with any of the classes at Ben Chambers. The strawberry patch was retained and the other 3 beds will be replanted with ????????? (They have ideas!)

Many thanks go to Barbara Aldrich, long time Penn State Extension 4-H Educator here in Franklin County, who went on to greener pastures at the U.S.D.A's Farm Service Agency in October, 2012.

Congratulations to the whole team:  Bill Dorman, Janet Sharp, Ruth Coe, Ray Eckhart, Charlie White, and Mike Kusko, with some side help from Sylvia Kremp and Colleen Johnson.