Mail-order Gardening Part 1

People think of gardening as a hands-on activity, but I truly believe that nine-tenths of it happens in your mind. Hence the popularity of mail-order garden catalogs. I don’t know a gardener who doesn’t feel an elevated pulse rate when turning those gorgeous glossy pages full of blue poppies, 5-in-1 apple trees, tomatoes the size of basketballs, and everblooming, chocolate-scented, rainbow-colored roses.

Seriously, a good mail order catalog is a treasure-trove of information about special groups of plants, growing techniques, and specialty gardens. I’m a believer in buying locally when it comes to plants and produce. But it’s so much fun to supplement those purchases with rare and unusual seeds, tools, houseplants or other products, when you can’t find them in the neighborhood. Seeds, in particular, are a low-risk way to try something new.

Things to consider when sizing up a seed catalog or Web site:

Research! Read those less than spellbinding pages that tell you about the company, their history, location, shipping policies, and philosophy of life. Support a company you can trust and believe in. Organically-grown herbs and seeds are a common option now.

Look up what other customers have to say on sites such as The Garden Watchdog, a feature of Dave’s Garden web community . Look for companies that specialize in one thing, like vegetables or prairie natives, rather than brokering a dizzying array of different things.

Buy seeds and plants that are tested and grown in our zone or a bit colder, so look at the company address, too. Nurseries in Ohio, Illinois, Maine, Missouri and Wisconsin are more likely to have plants adapted to our shorter growing season, humid summers and generally abundant rain.

Coming next::

Part 2: Reading plant descriptions. What they don’t say is as important as what they do say.

Part 3: Tips on garden planning with support from the resources in the Eleanor Squire Library here at the Garden.

Posted by Ann McCulloh

Interest Enhances Learning - Light the Fire

I am writing a series of posts about the eight principles of education integrated into the design and activities of Hershey Children’s Garden and how you can use these principles with your kids.

Principle Three: lighting the fire. A parent once gave me a great definition for "education." "Education," he said "is not about conveying facts, but about lighting a fire." People, in general, absorb knowledge and gain skills in the things that interest them. This may seem like common sense, but I have found that common sense is not so common. In the Hershey Children’s Garden, we attempt to engage children’s interests in two main ways. First, we provide intriguing spaces in which a child feels comfortable.

Bright colors are groovy, but more important is scale and detail. Adults walk into the Garden and are swept away in gorgeous vistas of tree houses, wildflowers and all the beauty that surrounds them. Meanwhile, their four-year-old is following the ant crawling across the ground or is captivated by the fish and frogs in the pond. The scale of a space must be small and intimate.

The second way we engage children’s interest is through teachable moments. For the young especially, the whole world is filled with wonder and can serve as a starting point for learning science, social studies and math. 

So, what can you do? Well, I would say start by noticing what interests your childen and build on that knowledge. They love bugs? Cool! So do I. Let’s see where they live! They live in plants. What do insects do for the plants? What do the plants do for the insects? Suddenly, we move from creepy crawlies to pollination or some other ecological subject. Make sense? Good. Now, go ignite your kids’ interest in nature! 

Posted by Josh Steffen

I can’t believe I didn’t start composting a long time ago. Each year, I now generate about 2 cubic yards of compost from my yard clippings, leaves, kitchen scraps and fireplace wood ashes. I generate a rich mix of organic matter that is far better than any bagged compost I have ever seen in the stores. There are a couple secrets to success that I have learned through trial and error. 

1. The pile size is important. If it is much smaller than 3 feet cubed, it does not have enough mass to properly cook. 
2. It is important to have a good diversity of ingredients in the proper ratios. It should be mostly made up of brown (carbon-rich) materials such as leaves and dried up plant material. About 5 to 10% of the ingredients should be the nitrogen-rich green materials such as fresh grass clippings, manures and kitchen scraps. 
3. Keep the pile moist and aerated, and you’ll have compost in no time. The part I tend to neglect is the water. I usually let Mother Nature provide the moisture. So, my pile probably doesn’t decompose as fast as it would if I kept it evenly moist. 

I get a lot of questions about what can be put in a compost pile. You can usually add anything that is derived from plants. Larger items such as branches, natural fibers or newspaper should be chipped or shredded into smaller pieces to speed up the decomposition. Avoid meat, dairy products, animal fats, waste from carnivorous animals, pesticide and herbicide treated materials, poison ivy, diseased plant material and invasive plant seeds. A well constructed pile can heat up to 150 degrees and neutralize some of the disease and seed problems. But I try not to take chances with any of these items. The Minnesota Extension Service has a site with just about everything you’ll ever want to know about backyard composting. 

Posted by Bob Rensel

I love going into the Glasshouse in the winter, especially on sunny days, and seeing dozens of tropical butterflies flitting about. We’ve brought in some new species from Ecuador, and they are exquisitely beautiful! Speaking of butterflies, I receive a few calls every winter from families who have found moth cocoons or butterfly chrysalises or praying mantis egg cases on branches in their yards. Sometimes, they are attached to Christmas trees. When the cocoon, chrysalis or egg case is carried indoors to our warm houses during the winter, can you guess what happens? That’s right, the moth, butterfly or hundreds of praying mantises emerge at the wrong time of year! What can you do? You can bring it to the Garden and we’ll release it into the Glasshouse, where it’ll live out the rest of its life.  You could also attempt to feed the butterfly in captivity with a solution of 50/50 honey to water, which will help keep your butterfly alive for a few days. The challenge is that our houses are typically very dry in the winter and therefore not butterfly friendly, so don’t expect it to live for very long, unfortunately. If you bring in a moth cocoon and it hatches, it’s likely a silk moth. They don’t feed as adults and only live about week to breed and lay eggs before dying. For mantises, they would need live flies or other small insects to feed upon to survive in your house in the winter. My suggestion -  bring them to Garden if they hatch.  More importantly, thoroughly check the Christmas trees or branches you bring into your house in the winter so that nature can emerge when it is meant to emerge - in the spring.

Pictured above: Heliconius melpomene plesseni 

Limited Choice - Hmmm…What To Do

I am writing a series of posts about eight principles of education integrated into the design and activities of Hershey Children’s Garden and how you can use these principles with your little green thumbs.

Principle number two: let those kids run wild. Let them do absolutely whatever they want to do. The sky is the limit! Or should it be? Most of us do not fare well creatively without some parameters and some sense of definition. "Don’t give all the possibilities, just give me the best ones," I can hear myself saying. Anyone who has walked onto a university campus without a declared major knows the paralyzing feeling of not knowing where to start.

The Children’s Garden is designed to give visitors limited free choice. There is a fence surrounding the entire Garden with only one way in and one way out. There is also one wide path that circumnavigates the entire space. In between, however, there are many small paths connecting different parts of the big loop. Children can take whatever avenue they want. They are free to explore within the given parameters.

The same idea can be applied to gardening activities, too. Most kids have no idea what a gardener does, so give them some options:

"Want to plant a many-colored vegetable garden?"

"Want to plant some seeds?"

"Today, you can choose to do the weeding or the composting."

"Where do plants get their energy?" (There is a reason why kids and adults both like multiple choices!)

Until next time, what gardening options have you given your kids today? You do not have to wait until spring to start!!

You could give your kids the options of:

1. Windowsill gardens

2. Painting flower pots for the spring

3. Having them research and plan a flower or vegetable bed, including buying the seed

4. Getting down on the worm farm

5. Reading a good gardening book (Shameless plug: The Eleanor Squire Library at Cleveland Botanical Garden has excellent storybook options!)

Plain Dealer Night Picture Editor Jon Fobes has another wonderful Orchid Mania slideshow, featuring several stunning images from this year’s orchid show.

Mimicry in nature is a fascinating phenomenon. It’s well known that certain butterflies deter predators by resembling other bitter-tasting or poisonous butterflies. It’s slightly less common knowledge that many orchid flowers lure pollinating insects by “tricking” them with the appearance of offering nectar, homes for their eggs, or even a mate of the opposite sex.

One of the most visually arresting examples of orchid mimicry is offered by the Central American Reed Orchid, Epidendrum radicans (pictured bottom left). These bright red and yellow flowers look so much like the Tropical Milkweed, Asclepias curassavica (pictured top left), it’s hard to believe that the two plants are completely unrelated. They are often found growing in the same environments.                     

Butterflies and hummingbirds are both drawn to brightly colored flowers, with a special preference for the colors red and orange. Hovering birds and delicate butterflies need flowers that provide easy access without obstacles to their wings. They also require abundant nectar to fuel their constant motion. The tropical milkweed satisfies on all counts, while the orchid has the bright colors and accessible flowers, but is stingier with its nectar. The orchids get pollinated without expending all their energy on nectar production.  There are thousands of different orchid species with unique and fascinating pollination strategies. Many of these are yet to be discovered and described.  
 

I know it’s only 20 degrees outside, but I am already thinking about container arrangements for this upcoming growing season. The containers that are currently stuffed with branches of red twig dogwood, curly willow and various evergreens, will come alive this spring with colorful arrangements. I like to buy a few extra bulbs so that I can pot them up and heel them in for the winter. Then, when the tulips and daffodils come up in the beds, I can consolidate some of the potted bulbs in containers to compliment what is in the beds. We also had a number of leftover amaryllis bulbs one year that we let go dormant and then pot up in the spring for stunning summer container displays. Last year, I had very good success with red, orange and yellow dahlias in containers. I mixed them in with red and green joyweed and some yuccas. And, the true low-maintenance container can consist of the succulent houseplants you have around the house. Combine them in a large container with some well drained sandy soil and you can pretty much forget about them.

I recently attended a presentation at Youngstown State University in which they described their extensive container planting program. They use a lot of tropicals that need to be overwintered somehow. I was concerned about the need for expensive greenhouse space for this. The speaker stressed that they have been successful with some low-maintenance, cool, dark storage of these plants that basically just need an occasional drink to make sure they don’t dry out. So, I will be experimenting with various plants next winter to see which ones can survive this kind of dormancy.

Anyway, the other exciting part of the YSU presentation was the list of their favorite container plants. They use Plectranthus extensively and have it cascading out of and skirting many of their planters. They recommend a dwarf sweet potato vine if you don’t want to be cutting it back all season. I don’t mind its aggressiveness, because I like to keep rooting more from the cuttings to fill in areas where perennials might die back in the beds. Some of their other container plants that I want to try this year are Eupatorium capillifolium elegant feather (6’ tall!), Aristolochia grandiflora (Tropical Dutchman’s Pipe with 8” flowers!), non-climbing morning glories and banana-leafed cannas. I am always willing to try something different, so let me know if you have any favorite container plant recommendations.
 

Winter is here to stay in Cleveland, especially in Feb. when we are so starved for warmer temperatures and sunnier days. This is the time when you should really be paying attention to your house plants. The dry air of our winter homes is the perfect environment for plant pests to get out of control. In particular, spider mites can be a real problem on Ficus trees and other indoor tropical plants. The symptoms include: mottled leaves and spider-like webbing if the infestation is really bad. Prevent spider mites by simply misting the foliage on a regular basis if your outbreak is low. For greater control, use soapy water. I like to use dish soap (1 tbs soap/quart of water) in a spray bottle or you can use insecticidal soap or neem oil that you can obtain from garden centers. Use of a systemic insecticide is totally unnecessary, especially if you have animals in the house that might chew on a leaf now and then.

Movement - Let Them Do the Doing

Last post, I hinted at good things to come. I mentioned that Hershey Children’s Garden was designed and built around eight educational principles that work. Those eight principles are: 

• Movement
• Limited choice
• Interest enhances learning
• Avoid extrinsic rewards
• Social education is effective
• Meaningful context assists
• Adult interaction
• Evaluation

Let’s start with Movement. Many of these principles make common sense when you think about them. Kids learn through movement. The Children’s Garden offers many avenues kids can move through and explore. For example, there is nothing like walking through the woods to understand a forest’s many layers. Nothing conveys concepts like "over" and "under" more than actually acting out the words.

Kids learn by being able to manipulate their environment for themselves. By turning over rocks and watering flowers, kids learn things we adults can never teach them.

I am learning to incorporate dance and motion into how I interact with kids. Try making up a planting-a-seed dance with your children sometime.

Kids learn through play. So let them experiment, dig in, and mess up. Let them do the doing.

Posted by Josh Steffen