Episode 61: Clare Foster, Amelanchier canadensis, Mulch around Trees
Leslie: Welcome to Into the Garden with Leslie on Newsradio WINA. This show is sponsored by Colorblends Bulbs. I'm Leslie Harris, and yes, it is still spring. Our plant of the week is a native tree that is bringing me joy right now. I'll be chatting with Clare Foster, who is the garden editor of House & Garden Magazine in the UK. She's also a great garden writer and she's produced some books - lovely books - that I think you need to know about. The playlist is about what to do in your garden this week.
Hey, here's a strange announcement for you. Ready? I've been working on this podcast and radio show for a bit over a year now, and my goal has been to make enough money so that I can hire somebody to help me with it so that I have more time to garden. And now I think I'm at that stage, or I'm going to pretend like I'm at that stage. If you know of somebody, or if you are somebody, dear listener, who's good at marketing, audio editing, maybe video editing or willing to learn these things, the video might come because I think it would be fun to get this show onto YouTube with some stills and some video showing what we're talking about. Anyway, if you know somebody like that, or if you are somebody like that, I would love to talk to you. It would probably be 10 hours a week or so. Shoot me an email lHarris@lhgardens.com and I am willing to teach. I was a teacher for over 30 years.
The plant of the week is a native tree. Its botanical name isn't too tough, except to spell. It's the Amelanchier. That's Amelanchier. People call it all kinds of things, mostly the serviceberry , but listen to this list of common names and this will give you a hint as to why sometimes botanical names are really important. It is the shadbush, the shadwood , shadblow, sarvisberry, sarvis, serviceberry, wild pear, juneberry, saskatoon, sugarplum, wild-plum, and here's my favorite, the chuckley pea. Yes, the chuckley pea. All of the shad names refer to the timing of the bloom with the shad running to spawn, apparently, so that's kind of cool.
There are a few different species of this tree/ shrub/ thing, but I'm going to highlight the Amelanchier canadensis, which is what I have growing just a few feet from my kitchen door. So it's a tree, but it's multi-trunked in most cases, so no one would blame you if you were to think of it as a very lanky shrub. It doesn't have much to say to me in winter, but now in spring, it has these golf ball size puffs of white flowers that the bees are loving. And from there, it's going to form fruit - edible for us and my chipmunks, who will be putting on a high wire act right in front of us so that they can get at them. They sort of look like blueberries - the fruits, not the chipmunks, and of course, those berries attract a lot of birds too.
At the end of summer, the foliage starts to turn a sort of deep fluorescent coral color. And in times of drought, mine starts turning a few leaves that color by the end of June, sometimes, which is a poignant but realistic symbol of … well, to be honest, I have no idea what that would be a symbol of. And it's kind of an incongruous look. Maybe it's just attention getting behavior on the part of the amelanchier. I really don't know.
It grows in Zones 4 through 8 and its native range is basically the Eastern quarter of our country and all the way up to the tippy tippy top of Canada. It grows in full sun to part shade, no special needs, and it can tolerate heavy clay. Deer of course will bother it, but not very much. They far prefer other garden delights. This is a perfect small garden tree. It has the look of a crepe myrtle, because it's multi branches and very sculptural. It will get to about 25 feet tall and 15 feet wide, but it's very easy to prune and it has the advantage of being native and attracting birds.
As I said, my amelanchier is growing right next to my house. It's one of the very first trees that I planted here when I moved here. I think I planted it at about three or four feet tall, and now it's probably about 15 feet tall, eight years later, and maybe eight feet wide. It's just delightful. It makes me very happy three seasons of the year. The Amelanchier canadensis. Now you might know a little bit more about that plant.
This is Into the Garden with Leslie on Newsradio WINA, kindly delivered by Dos Amigos landscaping and Colorblends® bulbs. Coming up, we'll be talking with Clare Foster, who is a gardener and garden writer from the UK.
Welcome back to Into the Garden with Leslie on Newsradio WINA, brought to you by Dos Amigos landscaping and Holistic Pest Solutions. We are here with Clare Foster, who is the editor of House & Garden Magazine in the UK. She's the author of very many books, and the one that got my attention that I really wanted to chat with her about is Winter Gardens. And so she was on my radar over the winter because we are all looking at our gardens and wishing they were more beautiful and they can be, and this amazing book has captured how they can be. But as Clare and I are chatting, , it's just on the edge of spring, and it seems a little funny, and as you all might be listening to this, we might be full on into spring and yet habitually and normally winters come around again. And so I would still love to talk for a few minutes about your new book, and also to go into some other more seasonal and topical book. So tell us about your inspiration for Winter Gardens.
Clare: I'm actually doing a talk on winter gardens tomorrow, and we are literally in our first few days of spring. Bright sunshine. And I'm going to say, rather than looking back towards winter, you look forward, because it's all about forward planning. I think writing this book really taught me to look at winter in a different way in the garden. I'm not a winter person. I tend to go into a bit of a decline kind of around autumn really, or fall view and I'm looking forward to spring already. I'm such a spring person. But winter is an interesting time in the garden. And if you really look, there are things to see, there are things to bring into your garden that really make it beautiful. And if you plan properly and you get the structure, the right structure in your garden, then you can really appreciate the garden and it doesn't really go into a kind of big decline when winter starts.
Leslie: Even if we might go into a little decline.
Clare: Exactly. exactly. So I worked with the photographer, Andrew Montgomery to make this book, and it was kind of a lockdown project. We were both not short of work, but just had a little less work last winter in lockdown. He and I have worked a lot together. I've commissioned him a lot to do features for House & Garden. I had commissioned him to do a couple of winter gardens for me at House & Garden, and he absolutely loved shooting those. He has a very pared back style. His photography is very pared back and quite monochrome. He really appreciates the monochrome, and so he came back absolutely raving from these shoots, just saying, I had such a wonderful time and really loved doing the photography. We had a couple of existing gardens that we could start the book off with, and we had some cold weather last year, which you can't absolutely guarantee anymore cause awful global warming is taking over. Not a good subject, but anyway, we did have some snow and some frosts last year and we took advantage of those and shot some more gardens. So there are 12 in total in the book.
Leslie: Was it difficult deciding which ones to do? So in looking at the list, I've traveled somewhat, I would not say extensively in the UK, but I always go to look at gardens when I can. And the only two that just popped out and one of them is not in the UK. It's Piet Oudolf's garden called Hummelo, and then the other one was Great Dixter, but the remaining 10 did not pop out to me as being very, very famous. How did you choose them?
Clare: We chose them mainly … we wanted to have as many contrasting gardens as possible. So we had topiary gardens and we had gardens with lots of seed heads and grasses like Hummelo, Piet Oudolf's garden. We had gardens that had early spring flowers and scented shrubs and so on. So I wanted to get that contrast really, and that mix of gardens. So yes, there are some quite well known gardens, but there are also some unknown, completely unknown private gardens. So unknown that actually one of the owners didn't want to be revealed at all, so he had to be called unknown in the book, but I think it makes it even more intriguing. Was really an interesting one.
Leslie: And then with your goal of this book, besides making yourself feel better maybe about winter gardening and just how it's beautiful, making yourself get out there and see how beautiful it is, talking ourselves into it. Actually, I do like to garden in winter. I live in central Virginia and I'm very lucky to be able to make myself comfortable at about 40 degrees Fahrenheit and up if there's no real wind or rain, but anyway, how much of it was about just visual beauty and appreciation of what's growing there versus habitat and nature?
Clare: It was visually led, I must admit. It really was. So it's kind of an art book, but with some hopefully quite useful information as well. When I interviewed the garden owners and the garden designers, I talked to them about their perspective on winter and their feelings about winter. But I also got the designers to talk about how they design gardens for winter or not just for winter, but all four seasons. So that was interesting. And then I tried to tap into their information, so I got lists of the best plants for seed heads from Piet Oudolf and things like that. So hopefully it's a little bit horticulturally useful as well.
Leslie: It is beautiful. I was flipping through it. Clare was nice enough to send me a digital copy and I really enjoyed looking at it. And I would say that yes, the monochromatic, it was highly dramatic with the sepia and the black and white, and the shapes are just beautiful.
Clare: It's all about the shapes and actually shooting it in black and white or not all black and white, but mostly kind of monochrome really, I think draws attention to those shapes and the textures, which is what is so interesting about it.
Leslie: How do you think it might shape your winter garden doing that book?
Clare: Well, it made me really think about my own garden and I did go out there and look at the structure that I had and reassess that, and just to make sure I've got enough, which I don't think I have, which means probably redesigning little parts of it, but also the seed heads. It really made me look at the seed heads and think about planning ahead as to what perennials I put in there and what value they have as seed heads in the winter. So yeah, I think this year I will be wanting to plant new areas. I will be thinking more about those things.
Leslie: When I started gardening basically, none of my information came from the internet. It was all books, and many of them said that you should clear away things in the fall in the event of objectionable pathogens or what have you. I like a neat look, and so I still do that in a very, very select few spots, but for the most part, it's out there. It's just ready for winter to fall on it. What do you do in your garden, and has that changed over the years?
Clare: Yes, it definitely has. I used to cut everything back and now more and more, I don't. I leave the grasses and seed heads for as long as I can. And in fact, I've only really just last weekend finished cutting everything back. Well, not even last weekend. Just literally a couple of days ago and my front garden is right outside the window where my desk is. And so I was working there the other day and there were just a couple of beds that I hadn't cut back. And there were some rudbeckias still standing and a load of gold finches were feasting on them. So, you can leave things for so long and it's so beneficial for wildlife. Actually, when I then cut everything down, they were back again on just on the ground, on the soil pecking around, a whole flock of them so I can leave them up
Leslie: That's fantastic. I've read some people who are so into leaving things that they actually don't ever take it away. They just leave what's there in situ and let the new grow up around it. And I'm not quite sure I could handle that. What about you?
Clare: No, I think that that's a step too far. I think that's a bit too kind of a hairshirt, I think, cause I think in some cases it kinda hinders the new growth coming up, and it's better I think before everything starts really coming through to chop it all back.
Leslie: Also, I love to compost and I want to put those things in my compost pile. I'm a little selfish that way. Tell us a little bit about how you started gardening. I know that you were a city girl at first and I've heard about your first allotment, which you literally found terrifying, the prospect of gardening in an allotment. Tell me about how you got started in gardening and how it could have been terrifying. Come on.
Clare: Well, I was in my 20s and none of my friends were doing it. I grew up with a garden. My parents always gardened, but I never really kind of engaged with it as a child or a teenager. And then in my 20s, mid-20s, I got a job with Gardens Illustrated magazine, which I'm sure somebody will have heard of. I knew nothing really, literally nothing about gardening or magazines actually cause I started my career in book publishing and just landed in the deep end and started doing it. And then I had a tiny ... Well, it wasn't even a garden really. It was a tiny courtyard and I started growing things in pots and quite enjoyed that. And the editor of the magazine, Rosie Atkins, who was a real mentor to me actually, she's just such a wonderful person, and she gently encouraged me to look into getting an allotment. I was quite terrified because they are huge spaces but I shared it. At the time the rules were still such in England on these allotments that you had to take a full plot, which is huge. It's like nine meters long. Just how many feet is that I don't know, but it's very long. Big, big space so I persuaded my cousin to come in with me and we shared this lot and I started growing things and absolutely loved it and just engaged with it straight away and have been gardening ever since my late 20s.
Leslie: I started in my 20s too. Never been bored since. It's a wonderful thing, isn't it?
Clare: It is. Totally.
Leslie: This is Into the Garden with Leslie on Newsradio WINA, brought to you by Holistic Pest Solutions, and we're chatting with Clare Foster who has written so many books about gardening, and she's also the editor of House & Garden Magazine in the UK. We've talked about her book, Winter Gardens, which although it's not winter, there is always another winter coming, so I suggest that everybody have a look at that. But let's talk for a moment about something that might be more timely for when this podcast comes out, and that is The Flower Garden: How to Grow Flowers from Seed. You wrote that several years ago.
Clare: Yes. I think that came out in 2019. I loved doing that book. It was the result of several years of planning and growing, and it was a collaboration with a photographer called Sabina Rüber who is now a good friend of mine. We both loved growing things from seed, and so we both decided to just trial as many things as we could with the thought that we one day do a book and that's what we did. And so the book, it's not an encyclopedia of everything that you can grow from seed, but it's our choice selection of some of the things that you can grow from seed and our varieties, so that the beautiful things that you can grow from seed - annuals and perennials actually, but mainly the things that are the easiest to grow from seed.
Leslie: That's nice, just to make it snackable and achievable. Well, I guess I heard that a friend of yours had been experimenting with seeds and that you were able to get some of her unusual seeds. I think I've heard that on another podcast. Also, you have a greenhouse, right? So did that make it so that you could do most anything that you wanted?
Clare: Yeah, absolutely. And I'm lucky because the networks I have through House & Garden, I get sent seeds the whole time and I've got so much information at my fingertips, I'm very, very lucky, and so I know what all the latest varieties are. Actually, I am lucky because near to me, the lovely ladies who run Chiltern Seeds, which is a great seed company here in the UK, I collaborate with them quite a lot and they send me seeds and they also work with Sabina, who photographs their catalog. So they are sending her the latest things and she's photographing them and we are trying them. So it was a great position to be in really.
Leslie: What are some tips that you can give my listeners about starting flowers from seed? Because I think that in these times, there's a bit of inflation happening and yet there's a huge interest in gardening in both of our countries, I think millions of new gardeners, and they're probably thinking, wow, okay. So if I go and buy that many annuals to line that path, I'm spending such and such, whereas Clare might be able to help me get started with some seeds instead. What are some top tips for growing flowers from seeds from you?
Clare: Well, I grow a lot of mine for my containers, so I am saving money and I usually grow too many and then have to give some away or do a plant sale for charity or something. But it is amazing what you can grow from a packet of seeds and it's not that difficult. I think a lot of people are put off sometimes if something goes wrong, and things do go wrong. Sometimes seeds don't germinate or they are dud seeds, or it's just not the right conditions. I have failures the whole time still, but it's a process of trial and error as well. And I really try and say this in the book that to demystify the art of sowing flowers from seed and just to say have a go and keep trying, year after year. And if you're new to it, try easy things like cosmos, for example. That's a really lovely half hardy annual to try, which just germinates within a few days, really. Really easy. Sweet peas of course are very easy. Marigolds, calendula are very, very easy so just start off like that, and actually you will become hooked cause it's something so satisfying about growing things from seed. I mean, ever since I sowed my first Californian poppies on my allotment and they all germinated and my heart went ah!! There's something magic about it, and really it's such a satisfying thing to do and it just makes you feel good.
Leslie: It does make you feel good instead of spending a lot of dollars and a lot of plastic in our case, I don't know. Maybe you all have a more eco-sensitive way of buying plants, but there's a lot of black plastic that comes back to your house if you go shopping for your container. Even just for a few containers, it's hundreds of dollars and lots of plastic, so seeds would be a wonderful way to go. What do you plant in? I watched a video on YouTube of you planting and you were talking about compost. Was it just straight on compost, or was it a mix or was it bought compost or compost from your pile?
Clare: Again, it's trial and error. I use a mix of lots of different things, so sometimes it's bought compost. If they are very expensive seeds and they're quite difficult to germinate, then I would use a good seed compost, which is quite fine. Otherwise, for bigger seeds, I might use a multipurpose compost, another bought one, but I often mix that with some of my own compost, which just gives it more water retention cause I try and use peat-free compost, which we're all quite big gone over here now, which is a good thing. But peat-free compost can be quite dry, so if you mix it with a bit of your own compost, it just makes it a little bit meatier, a bit more moisture-retentive.
Leslie: And you have better luck that way. And do you always apply heat or do you perhaps read the packet, read the instructions, heat or no heat?
Clare: Exactly. Always read the packet, see how much heat it needs. I don't have a propagator or anything like that. I have a very, very, very basic way of germinating seeds that need heat, which is to bring them inside - which drives my family mad - and put them in my kind of boiler room underneath the window so it gets some light if it needs light, because some seeds don't need light. And then literally as soon as they've germinated, I'm lucky enough to have a greenhouse so I take them out to the greenhouse because if you leave them in a very warm place for too long, then they just get weak and leggy and sometimes they get damping off, which is that thing where a fungus attacks the stem and then they just keel over and die.
Leslie: Oh, it's so demoralizing. That's happened to be more times than I like to think about. Unfortunately, I am not one of those people who is magically motivated about seeds. I'm just like, I suppose I should do some seeds, but I'm trying to change my ways because I hear people like you talk about how each time you do it, it's such a wonderful feeling. I'm like, I want that feeling.
Clare: I don't know what it is. There must be something or a certain particular kind of flower or something that will turn you and then you'll be hooked. There are various stages to it, and I think the germination is really exciting when you see something coming through, the sprout coming through for the first time, that shoot coming through and then it's watching them grow and it's nurturing them. But it's when they flower and you think, oh wow! I've done that. I've done that. That's all me, so it's very, very satisfying.
Leslie: Well, I'm going to keep going. This is Into the Garden with Leslie on Newsradio WINA, brought to you by Holistic Pest Solutions and we're chatting with Clare Foster, who is the garden editor of House & Garden magazine in the UK. I think I said editor before, but that would be too much and you have enough on your plate anyway. How do you balance all of your writing and your editing and your gardening, because you have an extensive garden and a greenhouse, which we're going to talk about. How do you balance all that?
Clare: I don't know, really. I just do it. I think it's because I love what I do. Every single part of it I love. I'm so lucky. I just do. I'm a Capricorn; I'm a hard worker. I love work. I live for it really, but I do need the gardening in between and if I'm not gardening, if I'm too busy to garden, then I don't feel good. It is so good for your mental health gardening and I feel slightly unbalanced if I'm not gardening and as soon as I'm out there doing stuff again, I feel good.
Leslie: And isn't it nice that you can come in just a little bit dirty, sit down at your computer, do a few things and then go back out again?
Clare: Yeah, yeah, no, exactly. And actually I write like that as well. A lot of people just need to sit there and write and write and write to get an article done, but actually, it is better for me if I write a bit and then I come back to it and I'm very good at doing it in that kind of piecemeal way, but it actually benefits the writing, I think, cause I read what I've written and I edit what I've written. That's the kind of way I work and it works for me.
Leslie: How much editing do you have to do, compared to writing?
Clare: I commission as well as writing some of the articles myself for House & Garden. I commission other articles, but I commission people who I know pretty good and so I don't have to do much editing. I send that back on to the very good sub editors at House & Garden, so it's mainly commissioning and writing myself.
Leslie: Let's talk about that greenhouse some more. How long have you been at this property, and did you build your greenhouse or did you inherit it?
Clare: I put this greenhouse up. We've only been here four and a half years, so I had to have a greenhouse. The reason was that in the previous house, I inherited this amazing greenhouse and that's helped me forever. That coincided with writing this book, and it was just so, so helpful. I mean, you can throw things from seed without a greenhouse, but it's so amazing to have a greenhouse. So as soon as I got to this house - in fact, it was my 50th birthday present from my entire family, I think - to have this greenhouse.
Leslie: That is a fantastic present, though. Right?
Clare: It was great. Yeah, and it's my haven.
Leslie: So you can get away from those family members who gave you that present.
Clare: Yeah.
Leslie: When you need to. I'm sure, not very often. What's your garden like? Do you grow veg in addition to ornamental? What's it like at your place?
Clare: It's a cottage garden. It's an old fashioned cottage garden. It's an old, old house in a village and it's not huge. It's a third of an acre, which is probably just as well, even though I would like a bigger garden one day, I don't have time to devote that much time to it, and I don't have any help. I prefer to do it on my own. I have a front garden, which is quite gravelly and I let things self-seed there and so it's a little bit mad. It's quite colorful, with some structure of course, as well. And then in the back garden, there's an area of lawn and then one side is my chicken run,, and then on the other side is my vegetable patch, which is quite small actually, I have to say. It's not nothing compared to my old allotment, but we're a family of three at the moment because one of my sons has gone off to university so we don't actually need that many vegetables. Oh, and then there's a big kind of curvy border at the back of the garden, where I can indulge my passion for big, tall perennials and grasses
Leslie: Grasses. Oh yeah. They're wonderful to incorporate. Do you do a lot of flowering shrubs too, or do you depend on the smaller plants?
Clare: Not many flowering shrubs. I've got a couple of hydrangeas and then I've got some big hebes, big loose hebes, Hebe salicifolia, I think it is and they flower, but actually I clip them. So, it's mainly the perennials and the annuals that I kind of slot in that I use for flowers.
Leslie: Can you name some of your favorite annuals?
Clare: Oh yes. I've got so many that I'm sowing at the moment actually madly, but one, that's a very simple one that I use all the time for cutting is Ammi majus, which is just like …
Leslie: Queen Anne's Lace
Clare: Yeah. So I use that the whole time and there's a Phlox, an annual Phlox called Phlox drummondii. 'Crème Brûlée' is one of them that I like, and there's a variety that Chiltern Seeds do actually have called 'Birds of a Feather'.
Leslie: Oh, that sounds exciting.
Clare: And they're quite good for pots because they have quite a floppy habit, but they tend to flop over the edge of the pots and they're great for cutting. Great as a kind of filler for arrangements. And then I always grow some calendula, different types of calendula, which are all very easy to grow from seed. And then there's a lovely Larkspur that I'm trying again called 'Misty lavender'. Oh, and poppies. We must not forget about poppies, but poppies I tend to sow in ditches or I'll scatter the seeds, rather than doing it inside cause they don't like to be moved. But there's a really amazing, relatively new poppy called 'Amazing Grey', which I think ...
Leslie: I ordered that one. That was one of my packets that's coming.
Clare: Yeah. It's lovely. I've grown that for the last couple of years and it's just got the most amazing kind of mauve gray flowers. Absolutely beautiful.
Leslie: What's your opinion on actually sowing and being organized and I'm going to place this here versus oh, these appeared and I will edit them as needed. Are you excited to see volunteers in the garden?
Clare: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I love that. I'm not a neat gardener really, particularly much to my husband's horror because he likes mowing the lawn and doing the edges and I'd prefer it to be a little bit more natural than that. So I love seeing what things come up and especially in the gravel things self-seed so well there
Leslie: Isn't that strange that gravel seems to promote seeding better than soil? What is that about?
Clare: I know, I know. It must be … I don't know what it is. I think it's the things like poppies that don't need many nutrients and so they just love that environment. I love the way that things design themselves because they just wander around the garden themselves. So yeah. I love it.
Leslie: I do too. I do too. What are your favorite tools that you use when you garden? Just what's generally in your bag or on your hip or however you carry?
Clare: The one thing that I use the whole time is a little hand fork by Sneeboer, which is a Dutch tool maker, and it's just the best hand fork because the tines are kind of ridged and I can't use anything else and it's just got a really comfortable handle. I've had two of them. One gave up the ghost after 15 years or something.
Leslie: Wow! That's a good run.
Clare: And then the other thing that I use the whole time is a pair of hand shears. They are sheep shears, essentially. They're imported from Greece and they use them with one hand and I use them for clipping not huge topiaries but small box balls and things like that. And I've got some in the front garden so I use it for that. And then just clipping back perennials. It's great for that as well.
Leslie: You would use those instead of secateurs?
Clare: Yes, I use secateurs as well, so I have those in my pockets and then if something's particularly tough, then I'll just use those. But the hand shears are just really easy to use and they're self sharpening.
Leslie: Oh, that sounds good. That's an intriguing tool. I have not heard of that one. So can you describe your best day in the garden? Maybe you have a little bit of editing or writing to do, but what do you do from dawn to dusk on your favorite day in the garden?
Clare: Okay. Favorite day in the garden.
Leslie: What time of year is it and what's the weather like?
Clare: Oh, this time of year is just absolutely my favorite, as the days are getting longer. In fact, our clocks change this weekend and then I'll have those evenings. So, the perfect day in the garden I think would be just a little bit of pottering first, so I'd be watering in my greenhouse and maybe doing what I did today, which is just putting a few seedlings out. Nothing too kind of intense. Just a little bit. Quite nice my garden, because it's divided up into manageable chunks. So in the front garden, there's some brick edge beds and there's six of them, so I can just maybe think, oh, I'll go and do two of those and I'll just kneel down and weed and try not to do it too quickly. I think I learned this in lockdown. I really slowed myself down and rather than just rushing it and trying to do everything too quickly, I just weed quite slowly and methodically. I just think well, I'll just do those two for now and then I'll do another one or two another day and just neatening things up really and pottering.
Leslie: Yeah. And sometimes if it's a really perfect day, say my birthday or something, sometimes lunch might be served to me in the garden. Does that ever happen to you? Are you lucky enough?
Clare: Ah, yes. Oh definitely. My husband's a great cook, so he does that quite a lot.
Leslie: Oh, that's good. And then of course I end up with a nice cold beer at the end of the day. It's lovely. We had our clocks changed and my husband was out of town and I'm like, well, I don't need to make dinner for anybody. So I was out there till about 7:15 and I brought a beer with me.
Clare: Very nice. No, I go out to the front because that's where the sun sets and we've got a bench out there that my dad made, which is quite nice and I sit there. Actually where we live, there's a picket fence and then there's a lane and people walk their dogs past. There's a few shrubs, so I'm a little bit hidden, but if someone sees me from the road, then we'll have little chats and that's quite nice.
Leslie: That is quite nice. That is quite nice. Well, can you think of anything else that I didn't ask you that I should have?
Clare: Don't think so. I just enjoyed chatting.
Leslie: I know. I think this was just a good garden chat and actually I'd love to have you back on, because I think we have sort of run out of time, but all these other books you've written, including on compost, which is one of my favorite topics, but I am somewhat aware that it's not everybody's favorite topic. I love it.
Clare: No, it's actually not.
Leslie: Specialized, but Clare, thank you so much for coming to chat with me.
Clare: It's been an absolute pleasure.
Leslie: This is Ito the garden with Leslie on news radio, w I N a and coming up, we'll be talking about what to do in your garden this week. Welcome back to Into the Garden with Leslie on Newsradio WINA, sponsored by Dos Amigos Landscaping, Colorblends® Bulbs, and Holistic Pest Solutions. Another great guest. How lucky are we? I think it's because we gardeners are the nicest people. Isn't that true? I think we are the nicest people, gardeners are, and I've put three of Clare's books onto my Amazon storefront and links will be with the blog that goes with this episode on LHgardens.com. And speaking of blogs, Clare’s is called BudtoSeeds, and I will link that also. She writes well, which sort of makes really good sense because she's a writer. Okay. Let us say she writes very, very well, and also it's an elegant website.It's just beautiful to see.
So let's see what is going on in the world. I went to speak at a garden club this past week and it was so fun. I tried really hard to demystify the pruning of, and of course first the identification of the four most popular types of hydrangeas, and it went really, really well. So I narrowed down to the macrophylla, the big leaf or what do they call that? Mophead, bigleaf. Yeah, that's what they call it - macrophylla, paniculata, which has the panicle flowers like Little Lime, Limelight, Oakleaf, so easy to identify that's like cheating. And the last one, one of my favorites, the arborescens like Annabelles. We just talked about what are the differences? What do they want? How do we prune? Do we even need to prune? All kinds of things like that. The ladies were lovely and it was very welcoming and they had lots of good questions.
There was only one negative about the activity and it had nothing to do with the ladies or the talk. But when I was driving into their community - it was a large housing development - I was struck by the mulch circle around all the street trees. Lots of hard working landscapers are just not aware that where the trunk of a tree goes down and flares out to expand so it's not going straight down anymore, that should always be exposed and never covered up by mulch. Mulch around trees is great, but it's just that it needs to not touch the base of the tree. The bark can start to rot. The tree can't breathe very well and the life of the tree is shortened. So the mulch around every tree in this community that I was driving through was noteworthy. I've never seen it piled so high. It must have been like 12 or 14 inches high on a lot of these trunks. That's the sort of thing that always makes me squirm, partly because I feel bad for the trees and partly because I know I can't do anything about it except for squirm.
I mean, I'm not going to track down the HOA people at this lovely and very tidy community and point this out to them. Who does that? I'm not doing that, but I thought I might mention it here in the unlikely, the very highly unlikely scenario that one of my dear listeners is unaware that mulch on the bottom of trees is a bad situation for the tree. If you or your landscaper are accidentally piling mulch onto the bottom of trees so that the flare at the bottom of the tree is not exposed, it's not good and we love our trees. So just in case you didn't know about that, now you know about that. I still don't recommend busting into the office of whatever landscaper or HOA team is in charge of whatever development you're driving through. That seems a little extreme and aggressive, to me at least.
So moving on, I had a friend reach out to ask about a new planting. She was thinking, should I do it now, or should I do it in May, now being mid April? It was some flowering shrubs and some cherry laurels, and she was just curious about when to tackle the caper because of the temperatures. It's a great question and the answer really is any time now. Fall is an excellent time to plant because the nights are cool and the soil is still warm. So our soil now in spring might be a little cooler than the air, but it seems to me if you're digging a hole and the soil is a little cool down there, and then you've put it on the surface where it's like 60 degrees, I feel like it's going to warm right up because you've dug it up. That's a very simple thought. The difference in temperature between the top of the soil and a few inches down is surely measurable, but I don't really think it's impactful on a plant starting maybe even in March.
We're very lucky here in Virginia because it's so mild. I would say that you could plant shrubs where I live anytime from late February to November without them stressing out too much. April to October would probably be even better because the ends of what I just said - the February and the November - can be quite cold and the plants would be a little stressed. So maybe in between that would be good. And of course, if you're planting in our very, very hot months or your very, very hot months, you can still do that. You just have to be ready to get the hose out and keep it out. That was a really good question, Ashley. Plants are tougher than we think.
Another friend asked me about no-mow May. It sounds so cute, sort of like the horticultural answer to all those mustaches and scraggly beards that get grown in November. Jeff and I used to teach at a boy's school and those guys, so cute. Those adolescents that were told they didn't have to shave in the month of November. While it’s a look only a mother can love, anyway, no-mow May is a phenomenon that's getting lots of attention. There was an article in the New York Times that my friend Kim brought to my attention. That was a couple of weeks ago aAnd there's this organization called Bee City USA that is promoting it, although it seems to have started with a British organization called Plant Life.
The idea is that you just don't mow your lawn in May, and you should get lots of flowers in your lawn and therefore more bees. I mean, what could be better? It sounds wonderful. But I think if you lived in a neighborhood where lots of folks have nicely clipped lawns, or even one step further, if you live in a neighborhood where there are actual rules and you are told, oh, you will have a nicely clipped lawn or else! Or else what? I don't know. I have no idea about the ramifications of irritating HOA gods, but it doesn't sound like something that one wants to do. So that's going to make it tough not to mow your lawn.
But another thing that occurs to me is that within the course of four weeks of not mowing a lawn where grass is already growing, well, is that enough time for a bucolic meadow to spring forth? Now, what I don't know about lawns would fill hefty, capacious books. Still, I do know about flowers and I'm wondering how they would suddenly move into an established lawn. It seems to me that the most obvious result of not mowing your lawn for four weeks would be very, very, very long grass. And here's hoping that you're not putting any chemicals on your lawn, in which case there would be some nice, lovely dandelions and violets and some other flowering weeds or flowers that would attract pollinators. And by the way, I am so not one to judge about the chemicals on the lawn thing, because if you are a regular listener, you will know that we just stopped doing that here in my garden last fall. It was a Christmas present from my husband to make it stop, and it was my favorite present.
Well, because I know so very little about lawns and what four weeks of not mowing your lawn will do, I'm going to give it a try. Not - not - not on my whole lawn. Remember I'm married to, and I very much wish to remain married to somebody who holds a good looking lawn very dear. But he has agreed to a tiny patch out back by the fish pond, and he's kind of curious to see what's going to happen also. So we're talking about something that's six by three. My bet is that we get long grass, but I can't wait to see if I'm wrong and I will keep you posted.
So what did I do in the garden this week? I sowed seeds. I actually sowed seeds. Wait, that's a miracle. I sowed seeds. I'm going to try to remember what Clare Foster said to me in our interview, and that was maybe when a seed I started actually flowers, I will get that thrill for the process that other people seemed to have. You know, I remember being told back in the day that there was a runner's high. That one always eluded me also. Anyway, I sowed some great stuff. That Emerald Towers basil, that thing is so cool. If you haven't seen that plant, it's a two to three foot column of basil. It looks like a sky pencil ilex that all of a sudden got pollinating superpowers.
I first saw it at the Denver botanical gardens a couple of years ago, and they had made a row of these columns and were buzzing like crazy with bees. I was with my friend Alexandra and we both unceremoniously broke into a run to find out what were these plants? I also sowed some Benary Giant Purple zinnias and some shorter white zinnias and a crazy giant orange amaranth that gets six to eight feet tall. Yeah, I'm going to plant those right out in front to cheer for the UVA football team next fall.
Two annual vines that I'm hoping to get. Remember, I'm the one who's not really good at the seed sowing thing, so this is all a leap of faith. Anyway, they're the corkscrew vine. The botanical name for that one is the Vigna caracalla. A caracalla in Spanish is a snail, and this makes sense because these are purple and white flowers that smell like hyacinths, but they look like snail shells. Really the perfect combination. I mean, so obvious.
And the Black-eyed Susan vine I'm trying also. That's Thunbergia. I have the white one named Susie and it flowers a bit in the shade, although it can take full sun. What else, what else? You know, I'm still cleaning up beds from winter, which is pretty weak sauce. I think everybody else is done. So that's part of the reason for my plea earlier in the show.
I need help with this podcast. It is taking up a lot of my time. I need to spend more time in my garden. I don't even understand how I did this last year, and run a crew of six ladies and 50 gardens a year ago and got ready for Historic Garden Week in my garden at the same time. Oh my gosh, I don't even know what I was doing. My garden has never and believe me, it will never look as good as it did last April. But in 10 days, I have a small group coming through so I really need to scurry about and get caught up in and at least pick up some sticks in the far corners.
It's my Greenwich Garden Club. It's called Green Fingers and I'm still a member and they're coming to Charlottesville to see the beautiful gardens that are on Historic garden Week this year. And then they will see mine, which is no longer really in that category, although it's very nice. It is a beautiful piece of land, and I intend to distract them with wine and cheese.
I moved a bunch of indoor plants outdoors this week, even though I can see that the temperatures are going to go down to about 40 a couple of nights next week, but they will be snuggled up against the house. Of course, not in full sun. They need to get used to both temperatures and the sun, and I will urge them to be tough. And by the way, before they experience those 40 degree nights, they will have gone through high 40s and 50s regularly so I'm quite confident this will work out.
I planted up some summer annuals in containers this week. I'm playing the odds that there won't be another frost here, but I know I'm taking a chance. It's a chance I'm willing to take and fly around with beach towels and sheets. If I get caught out. Oh, you know, I did a silly little thing this week, but I thought I would mention it. I finished pulling the leaves out of some shrubs. It's such a mindless job and certainly not necessary horticulturally, but I find that at this time of year, when everything else is so fresh and green, if I see last year's leaves, they sort of bug me. I mean, not on the garden beds because they're all over the garden beds because I use them as mulch. I'm good with that in most places. But if the brown leaves are stuck in the middle of some glossy, new holly leaves say for instance, which is the shrub that I needed to attend to sadly - lots of scratches on my arms - it just doesn't look quite right to me. So I pulled them out. So in the coming week for me, it will just be tidy, tidy, tidy.
What to listen to? Hey, I found a new gardening podcast that I liked and I'd love to share it. It seems to be a subset of the BBC Gardeners' World Magazine podcast, and it's called - just like Tom Christopher's American podcast - Growing Greener, but it is of course, British and everything sounds better with a British accent. It's hosted by a woman named Arit Anderson, and she does a good job and she has interesting guests. I was listening to this episode about trees for gardens, and I'm going to put a link to the show notes. It was season four, episode seven, and she was interviewing Tony Kirkham, who's a tree expert. I hope you have time to listen to the entire episode, but here is a takeaway that I thought I would share in case you don't.
Have you ever heard of, or been involved with any community tree planting activity? Tony was saying that they are great. They are feel-good activities that inspire and educate as to the power of trees, but he just wanted to point out - not to be a wet blanket - but if there's no follow up to the planting of a great many trees at once, then really there aren't that many trees that are going to result from the activity, are there? Transplanted trees need attention and water to get established in their first year of life or maybe even two. So if you're ever involved with a wonderful community activity that involves tree planting, maybe there are enough volunteers to form a committee of folks that would follow up with water and maybe those little fences to protect them until those trees are truly established, instead of just getting planted.
We all know how important trees are, and Tony Kirkham also pointed out the simple fact that even better than planting trees, even better than establishing those new trees would be the efforts of keeping a mature tree alive and well, because that biomass is huge and it's contributing far more right now than cute little baby trees. So all three activities are exemplary environmental activities, but it's interesting to think that the care of one old tree is probably even more important than the establishment of several new trees, and the establishment of trees is even more important than the planting of baby trees and then just walking away. Very simple, kind of interesting and sensible. I just thought I would share those thoughts.
Hey, thank you for all the new listeners and for reviewing my podcast, and if you are still new and haven't reviewed it or rated it, I would love you to go to wherever you listen to podcasts and do that. Here's a review from Kitsie from Kansas city. She says Leslie is very knowledgeable about all things annual perennial and shrub gardening. Kitsie knows me. Not great on the bench, not great on the house plants, but love to learn about them. She continues even though I garden in Kansas City, her information is almost always pertinent. She is always fresh and enthusiastic. She does a good interview and I've started following other gardeners that she likes on Instagram. Kitsie, thank you. I really appreciate your taking the time to give me that review.
I love doing this podcast, and as I said, I'm looking for help doing it. I am getting paid a little bit, and I want to share that money with somebody who can give me some more free time. By the way, one of my wonderful sponsors is Colorblends® bulbs, which is a third generation company offering top sized flower bulbs directly to ambitious residential gardeners and landscape professionals at wholesale prices. I love their bulbs. They are popping in my yard right now, and I will be putting together my list for what I'm going to buy for next fall.
This was fun. If you have any questions or comments or corrections, please reach out to me at Instagram. I am @LeslieHarrisLH, and my website is LHgardens.com, where you can also access this podcast and a blog that accompanies it. Add your comments and consider buying me a cup of coffee on my website to help support the podcast. I name this show Into the Garden with Leslie, because I'm really into my garden, especially my spring garden and I want to get you into yours. I'll see you next week.