Hello, daylight-saving time!
I was out planting lettuce seedlings and digging a nice pile of ‘Satina’ potatoes on Sunday, when there was a ceasing of birdsong, and the woods fell into silence and hush. Looking up I saw five — five! — redtail hawks circling above my henhouse. Parents showing juveniles where to find lunch? Despite the balmy day, their overhead menace had had a chilling effect on every cowering animal in the neighborhood.
It appears we are on course for an early spring, with bated breaths region-wide; the time change makes it seem even more so. I really cannot remember a previous St. Patrick’s Day with so many early flowers. The miniature trumpet daffodils, species croci such as C. sieberi and tommasinianus, Iris x histrioides ‘Katherine Hodgkin,’ and early pulmonarias have emerged, while vinca, snowdrops, and hellebores have been gathering pace for weeks already. The fine deepening color of pieris ‘Brouwer’s Beauty,’ with bronze-tinted foliage and reddening flower panicles, provides a complementary contrast to these early flowers.
However, Katherine Tracey of North Dartmouth’s Avant Gardens, in her Garden Foreplay post of March 10, recalled that in “a blog post from late February 2012 the early spring bloomers were out in full force. 2012 was not an El Nino year, and I seem to remember a surprise of chilly weather in late March and April.”
I recall it similarly: The spring of 2012 started in this mild and early way, but added a seemingly vengeful cold snap after spring gardening chores had irreversibly commenced.
Although it might seem that way sometimes for hapless plants and gardeners, the weather is not “vengeful,” of course, nor any other human trait of behavior. It is mostly a quirk of television weather presenters to project human emotions and reactions onto nature.
Garden work
While we await the weather outcome, there are plenty of items on the to-do list that do not entail much risk. Spray schedules, keeping in mind pollinator emergence, may be picked up now, whether for pre-emergent control of pests on fruit trees, horticultural oils and soaps, or deer and rabbit repellent.
Berry crops are heavy users of nitrogen, and a spring application at bud swell is recommended. Dried blood and fishmeal are high-nitrogen nonchemical fertilizers. Brambles require potassium, which may be supplied by a light dusting of wood ash. Dried blood makes a side dressing that also repels rabbits. It is especially recommended for acid-loving blueberry bushes.
Grape vines not already pruned are going into “last call” mode (they bleed heavily once they emerge from dormancy). Some plants, such as Rosa rugosa (beach rose), ‘rose of Sharon’ hibiscus, p.g. hydrangeas, and raspberries, may be cut back or pruned with little danger from cold snaps, while all roses may be shaped up now.
Others, subshrubs such as hydrangea, buddleia, and caryopteris, should wait for truly settled weather before removing the protection of their old wood. Prune spring-flowering shrubs after bloom, not before, except for forcing bouquets.
Seedlings started indoors, even of cold-hardy plants, need a period of hardening-off before going outside permanently. A cold frame is useful for this, but trays and pots can be shifted outside, and back in, by hand too.
Cut back houseplants and support with a dilute liquid seaweed or fish feed.
Spring salad foraging
Prepping vegetable gardens undoubtedly means encountering mats of chickweed (Stellaria media) and spitting cress (Cardamine hirsuta), if soil is fertile. Did you know that these common weeds of Island gardens are edible? They are good additions to salads. Both are cool-season plants, germinating in fall and overwintering. They will have been found to cover otherwise bare soil in gardens when cleanup time arrives. Smaller plants’ single taproots are easily severed with scissors, and the tenderest parts swished through the salad spinner for a nutritious addition to a green salad. According to Wikipedia, modern herbalists prescribe chickweed for iron-deficiency anemia due to its high iron content.
New plant cross: x Mukgenia
Terra Nova Nurseries created this new bigeneric hybrid genus, made by crossing spring bloomers bergenia and mukdenia in the Saxifragaceae. The first variety to be released is x Mukgenia ‘Nova Flame.’ While totally deciduous with great fall color, spring flowers are midway between bergenia and mukdenia, sprouting in small, dark rose-pink clusters.
It is especially durable since it takes cold and wet weather well. It performs best in zones 3 to 9 in shade to partial shade, achieving an average size of 6 inches in height by 12 inches in width, and 13-inch flower height. This new introduction is the only Mukgenia currently available. The company will introduce more Mukgenia varieties over time.
Post-wild practices
Unbeknownst to mainstream gardeners, changes regarding the venerable practices of gardening, such as mulching, are being agitated for. The recently published “Planting in a Post-Wild World” (Timber Press), by Claudia West and Thomas Rainer, is sure to exert influence over the world of plants, gardens, design, and our increasingly urban human habitat. In West and Rainer’s opinion, our time-honored garden design and maintenance practices are due for re-evaluation and maybe even reversal.
“In fact, the very activities that define gardening— weeding, watering, fertilizing, and mulching — all imply a dependency of plants on the gardener for survival.” As West and Rainer point out, much of what we do in gardens — considered to be mandatory and unavoidable — leads also to mandatory and unavoidable expense, ecological damage, and long-term unsustainability.
Meat Ball, Saturday, April 2
Come out to a great dinner of local meats and other locally sourced foods from local producers at the Agricultural Hall, 6 pm, April 2. The Ball, a slam-bang dance with the Chandler Blues Band, will follow dinner. Tickets are $15 for adults, $5 for children 5 to 12. For more information, go to the society’s website, marthasvineyardagriculturalsociety.org.