Natural Perspectives: Garden #3: What I Learned

June 5th - back out to Bellevue Demonstration Garden for my third garden assignment of the season.........

Lesson #1: Pachysandra's a very thick ground cover once it gets established. Great for preventing weeds from setting in. Forms a dense mass of green leaves about 6"-8" high that looks quite orderly. Somewhat of a pain to dig up and pull out if you need to get a patch that's outside it's boundaries set back in place, but not too bad a chore. (This was one of my first assignments for the day).

Lesson #2: On the other hand, pulling up Vinca that's run amok is a totally miserable pain in the you-know-what. So, be warned, if you've got Vinca (Periwinkle) as a ground cover, keep it trimmed back to where you want it to be and don't dawdle on keeping it trimmed when it ventures beyond it's boundaries (guess the Pachysandra chore was the warm up for this one that followed - took me nearly 2 hours to dig up/pull out a patch of Vinca about 9ft x 4ft).

Lesson #3: The water-filled cozies shown in the photo below really help to keep young starts warm while they get established during cool weather. How spiffy! Be sure to place some sort of metal support inside the ring before you fill it with water. They do stand up pretty well, but it wouldn't take much for a deer, or a dog, or an inattentive gardener to knock one over, or for it to sag if it sprung a leak.... then your tomatoes (or whatever other plant start you decide to wrap it around) would be smooshed. I saw some in a gardener's supply catalog for about $10 a pair. Not sure if that's a good price or not. You might want to shop around.

Lesson #4: There are fruit trees that grow in a columnar form. Not with branches spread out all over the place, but tall and straight. Here's an example of a columnar apple tree...... how cool is that? Sorry the picture's not that great..... it's the one in the terra cotta pot in the very front. The tree is growing straight up right in the center of the picture.

It's a Malus sylvestris var. domestica.... aka Golden Sentinel. Produces a sweet, juicy yellow fruit that ripens in September and October. Grows well in a whiskey barrel and will reach 7'-9' tall. So, if you don't have much room, want a fruit tree on your deck or patio, here's the answer. I wonder what other types of fruit grow in columnar varieties.... anyone know of any?

Lesson #5: Forget-me-not seeds stick to everything. If you decide to cut these plants back/pull them out after they've gone to seed - you've now been warned! I helped another MG clean up a huge annual border filled with nothing but F-M-N's - we had seeds everywhere! They're such prolific seeders you don't really need to cut these plants back.... just pull the whole darn thing up and throw on the compost. Sure enough you'll soon see new plants sprouting up all over. One other tip (from my own gardening experiences at home)..... deer don't eat Forget-me-nots.... and apart from the brief scraggly period they go through after they've gone to seed, they make great evergreen borders along a path.

Lesson #6: Pay attention to the little details and wonderous moments will happen regularly in your garden. Remember one of my very first posts re: flowers and how they reproduce? Well here's mother nature in action.... look at the center of this fertilized flower....... see the green nub? That's the ovary already swelling into the fruit.

Now notice how some of the other fruits have already finished growing. The petals and other reproductive parts have withered and fallen off, leaving the fully grown fruit at the end of the long stem.
Eventually, the fruit fully matures, the pod dries out and inside are the new seeds ready to bust out and start the cycle all over again. Ta dah!