The Garden Variety: Cleveland Botanical Garden's Blog

Simple Pleasures

JSteffen — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 13:30:18 +0000

Simply Chiming

Do you want to know what I am stoked about? Probably not, but since I am suppose to blog, I am going to share any way. I am excited about wind chimes! No not the annoying kind that everyone insists upon hanging from the front porch but the unusual. I was walking through the theme gardens on site with parents when I came across a very large single bell type chime. Instantly, I had a hunkering for new sounds in the garden.
Wind chimes, well made, provide a great dimension many do not consider in their gardening. . .sound. Interesting chimes add something to the air that when mixed with great visual and smelly interest makes a complete garden sensual experience.

One does not just hang a wind chime wherever, especially in a children’s garden. Sitting the fabulous chimes (shameless plug) I purchased from our very own gift shop (check out the upcoming tent sale by the way) took some careful thought. First, I want visitors to hear the sound before they see the chime. It adds mystery. Second, the chime must be in a part of the garden where wind passes through easily (not easy in an overgrown jungle). Lastly, and this is important for my garden, the chime had to be out of reach of most hands. Though I love for kids to engage things in the garden, the idea of mass groups of kids stumbling over each other to smack a gong or pull a clacker did not seem overly safe.

So. . .come on down for some sound fun.

Summer

AMcCulloh — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 12:00:15 +0000

The sight and scent of black elderberry in the Herb Garden give me a momentary touch of vertigo. The flower clusters covering the towering shrub in creamy-white domes, buzzing with bees of all kinds, just epitomize summer for me. It seems odd but wonderful to stand next to them in the heart of University Circle, with Severance Hall, the Peter B. Lewis Building and the Museum of Art radiating culture and sophistication a few yards away.

The sweet vanilla/almond fragrance expands in the hot sun, and transports me back in years, to the muddy streambeds of Knox County, Ohio. My friends and I waded barefoot and kneedeep in every creek and ditch we could find, ducking under the rank, weedy shrubs to dodge a sun so hot it was like a slap on the neck. Chasing tadpoles, swatting mosquitos, picking wild raspberries near the train tracks, and always getting home late for dinner.

Memories like that are thick with the sweet scent of elderflowers. Although the purple berries cook up into nice jams, pies and a unique wine, I don’t recall ever picking the plant except to twirl the flowers around until they wilted. It’s probably just as well, since elderberry leaves, stems and uncooked fruits are poisonous, causing nausea and abdominal pain. The flowers and other plant parts have a history of dye and medicinal uses as well.

The USDA PLANTS database lists black elderberry as a European introduction, but it was, and is, a familiar sight in the heart of the Ohio countryside and the heart of Cleveland too.

Waves

BRensel — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 13:26:04 +0000

If you’ve spent some time on a beach, you know that waves are soothing. We’ve always been told not to plant in ones or twos. And I am sure that somewhere along the line you have seen hodge-podge plantings in beds that simply look too busy or uncoordinated. So in addition to buying the right plants for the right locations, we have to spend a little time thinking about color combinations. When I narrow down my annual selections each year, I use Google to search for colored images that I coordinate first on paper. Then I try to make sure my local supplier has the right variety and in large enough quantities to make a big enough splash. I am partial to waves. There is a reason that “amber waves of grain” make such an impact. There is something soothing about seeing a mass of plant color tumbling down a hillside or snaking its way through a bed. This year I worked with reds, yellows and whites. The yellow portulaca contrasts nicely with the red coleus. The white zinnias work their way up to the taller cleome. On the other side of this round bed, a river of red zinnias and yellow petunias work their way down from the center. The blue phlox is the focal point on the top right now. But soon the red and yellow dahlias will take over in the center around the caster bean foliage. It doesn’t always work out exactly as it’s drawn up on paper. But with proper planning, you can create quite the eye-catching display.

Rid Your Garden of Japanese Beetles

CDruckenbrod — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 12:00:36 +0000

Mid- summer is the time of year that adult Japanese Beetle populations can really explode. We are in the midst of controlling them now, especially in the Rose Garden. Instead of spraying harsh chemicals, we find that mechanical control works well when Japanese Beetle populations are relatively low. Simply put, we hand collect the beetles and put them in a bucket of soapy water. You can also place them in a jar then put them in the freezer. When collecting beetles, make sure you enclose them with your hand because their first defense is to fall to the ground and then quickly fly away (no doubt to attack another rose bush). Never use beetle traps as they have strong attractants (called pheremones) that are guaranteed to attract every Japanese Beetle in the neighborhood! Another organic method of control is to apply nematodes to your lawn in early August, after the females lay eggs. Nematodes (Heterorhabditis species) have been shown to be effective at controlling the grub, or larval stage of the beetle. Remember, squishing always works, it’s just messier!

New Activities Coming Soon!

JSteffen — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 12:00:49 +0000

New to the Activity Cart

If you are a regular visitor to Hershey Children’s Garden you are familiar with the wooden activity cart by the children’s garden gate. The activity cart regularly features what is blooming on a particular day. The activity cart also serves as the starting point for a number of self-guided activities like our stroller strolls, prairie activity book and garden mystery trails.

Coming soon to the activity cart are a number of new self-guided activities aimed at literacy, learning botany, colors and basic mathematical concepts. I am very excited to add them to the many options parents have when visiting. I believe kids not only learn best from areas of interest but in a great environment.

Recent neurological research suggests that a child’s brain is largely developed by the age of three and the biggest contributing factor to brain hard wiring correctly is you, the parent. To this end, these additional activities are meant to give parents and children time together learning about rhyming and opposite words or how many different leaf shapes they can find in the garden.

Come on down and check it out.

Wet Feet

BRensel — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 12:32:05 +0000

I finally got a new pair of work boots. My old ones leaked. Like most of my plants, I don’t like having wet feet.

That’s the challenge with much of our Northeast Ohio soil. The heavy clay is slow to drain. When I notice a plant failing in my garden, I check to see how it was planted. I will occasionally have a juniper turn brown or a cotoneaster bite the dust. More often than not, its roots are sitting in too much moisture. It sometimes even makes a suction noise when I pull it out of the ground.

So unless you want to fill your garden with plants that like wet conditions (willows, hydrangeas, sedges…) the solution is to plant your specimen correctly in the first place. You can send some of your soil away to be tested. But to know if you have heavy clay, just dig a hole and then pour a bucket of water into the hole. If it is slow to drain, then you know that most of your plants are not going to be happy sitting in that hole after a rain. It is like putting plants in a clay pot that has no drainage hole. So make sure you dig a hole much larger and deeper than the root ball of your new plant. Then pour in some sandy soil that will drain away excess water. Then your plant can go in the hole along with the rest of the fill dirt. Plants like Rhododendrons that are especially adverse to wet soils can even be planted high with rich but well draining soils piled up around the rootball to avoid wet feet.

Clay can be so damp, cool and slow to drain that many gardeners in this region switch to raised bed and container gardening so that they can optimize the growing medium for their plants.

So if you have clay soil and the instructions for your new plant say it likes “well-drained soil,” be sure to take the necessary steps to avoid wet feet.

When a Rose is not a Rose

CDruckenbrod — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 12:03:07 +0000

So, then, it must be Rose Campion, Lychnis coronaria- at least in my opinion! I fell in love with this plant when I first started in the hortiuclture field. The silver foliage and stems contrasting with the intense fuschia of the flowers makes for a very pleasing and surprising combination of colors. I previously thought that Rose Campion only grew in full sun, then I saw it growing quite happily in fairly heavy shade at my parent’s house. Regardless of where you plant it, it will freely re-seed. I divide it on a regular basis and spread the new seedlings throughout the garden. Keep dead-heading it to extend its flowering time throughout the summer. It’s also a descent butterfly attractor and is frequently visited in my garden by a number of small skippers. This is a lovely heirloom plant that will provide you with years of enjoyment.

Rose Campion growing alongside Delphinium

Stomp, Chomp and Romp!

JSteffen — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 11:00:43 +0000

The Ongoing Woes and Joys of Garden Manager

I do not know the emotional ups and downs of parenting or other occupations, but I find my heart alternatively in my throat and in my shoes. Lately I have dealt with the following:

Stomping

Today I saw a little foot come down on a lovely basil plant right before my eyes. My heart dropped to my toes and quickly rescued the plant. I am amazed how each year Hershey Children’s Garden shines despite stomping big and little feet. Kids love hunting for frogs around the pond for example. They hear intermittent croaking sounds and search for any devise to capture them, including toy buckets and bare hands! Unfortunately, these little frog hunters seem to know instinctively where I recently transplanted for there they walk!

Chomping

Ever had squirrels eat things other than fruits, seeds and bulbs? Oh I have! Apparently, there is not enough food to eat for this squirrel up scale resort (or club med?) and they feel the need to chomp down my lovely sunflowers. We just concocted a homemade brew of stinkiness to see if we can encourage foraging elsewhere. Not all chopped leaf or stem is from small rodents. Garden staff regularly offer lettuce, nasturtium or borage leaf or flower to eager (and not so eager) mouths. Much chomping of the right sort stirs me so!

Romping

I must say what still gets me excited is the look on eager young faces as they burst through the garden gates, eye-wide at everything there is to do and see. Bobbing heads through cat tails or prairie grass is worth all other heart failures. Agree?

Have your garden and eat it , too

AMcCulloh — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 17:33:14 +0000

I’m a staunch believer in beauty for beauty’s sake. Some things nourish us on a purely aesthetic level, in wonderful, intangible ways.

But idealism can lead you into quirky dilemmas. Is it morally defensible to put resources into rose gardens, lawns, and intensively maintained hedges? The answer that wells up within me is “yes!” it must be! At the same time I feel equally compelled by the idea of providing sustenance for myself, my community and the rest of the world’s creatures.

One of the Garden’s talented and dedicated gardeners, Larry Giblock, occasionally gives a program called, simply “Eat Your Landscape,” which proposes that many edible plants are beautiful, and vice versa. When I heard of this, I found the most delightful answer to my moral quandary.

Combining flowers with more utilitarian plants isn’t new. English cottage gardens evolved from that practical approach, mixing fragrant pinks and roses with herbs, fruit trees and berry bushes. The French potager laid out with gorgeous formal symmettry is another example of edible landscaping.

Since several books and even websites have appeared on this topic (and much more could still be written), I end this by promising a list of edible ornamentals in a later post. And a suggestion: add some daylily buds or petals to your salad today. Good with a citrus dressing like this one:

whisk together:

2/3 c. olive, sunflower or other vegetable oil
2 tbsp. orange juice
3 tbsp. lemon juice

1 tbsp. honey
1 garlic clove, minced (optional)
1 1/2 tsp. grated orange peel
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. freshly ground pepper

Dear Garden Diary

BRensel — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 13:31:34 +0000

Maybe it is because I don’t have such a good memory, but I need to schedule monthly garden tasks in my journal. Otherwise I would not be able to keep up with the individual maintenance requirements of the plants in my garden. For instance, I planted ‘Husker Red’ Penstamen last fall. It came up fine this spring but by the end of June got too leggy for my taste and began to do the fosbury flop. So into my garden journal goes an entry to pinch it back every May.

I have all kinds of entries in my journal. They remind me to fertilize the azaleas in May and then again in October, to apply lime oil sulfur to the roses in March, to prune the maples in January and to divide the toad lilies in April. If I only had a few plants, I wouldn’t need the journal. But I now have over 200 different species of plants in my garden. And as I gather care information from either experience or from other references, it is captured in my journal.

Having worked as an accountant for over 20 years, I put my garden maintenance calendar in a spreadsheet. Any kind of database will work as will the old fashion paper journal. The important thing is that I know which plants I have and how to keep them happy.

Name	MAR	APR	MAY	JUN	AUG	SEP	OCT
Threadleaf Tickseed					Shear to 8" to promote more flowering
Siberian Iris	Low Nitrogen fert					Divide as needed
Decidious Azalea		10-10-10 fert + Hollytone					10-10-10 fert
Sweet Autumn Clematis	Cut back all growth to a pair of strong buds 6-8in above soil level, before growth begins in early spring
Red Twig Dogwood	Cut to 2 or 3 buds in early spring and feed
Bearded Iris	5-10-10 fert		deadhead	5-10-10 again	Divide as needed
Lilyturf	Mow & Divide if necessary