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A busy winter of political horticulture͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏ ͏
Hi Plant People,Happy Spring! Happy, yes, Worm Moon. Some people call the March moon ‘Sugar Moon’ for the maple sap, but in CT at least, we tap in February now. “Worm Moon” is often attributed to the Dakota nation and can be a helpful term for ecological gardeners. Most worms in the northeast cause ecological damage: brought here in potting soils or ships’ ballast, they change the soil chemistry to the point of altering whole ecosystems. But “Worm Moon” uses the term in the more colloquial sense: the “worm” in an apple is a fly, tomato “worms” are sphinx moths. The worms in this moon are apparently beetle grubs, emerging from winter slumber. Of course every culture from every region has a different term for the March full moon. Perhaps a better term this month is the Mohawk’s “Moon of Much Lateness,” as this newsletter is 2 months late! I’ve been busy. It’s been bonkers. I talked to Thomas Christopher for his podcast Growing Greener about what I’ve been up to since leaving Brooklyn Bridge Park, the wild process of giving a TED talk, and my unofficial job as a gossip columnist. I chatted with Noel Kingsbury and Annie Guilfoyle about how a gardener becomes a public servant, the role of beauty in ecological design, and how to grow more gardeners. AND I talked to Margaret Roach for A Way to Garden about the shockingly positive state of the ecological horticulture movement. Seriously, one third of the US population has bought a native plant. We are doing well, people. But the most overwhelming thing was getting the Pollinator Advocate Award from Pollinator Partnership! It was a total honor. What a winter!
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Can you resist cutting back your garden in early spring? Are you that strong? You ARE. You CAN DO IT! Think of the adorable sleeping bees. Let them sleep! Weed instead. In the northeast, just about everything green right now is not from this region. This is the perfect time to go after Mugwort, Vinca, Ajuga, Glechoma, and of course, Lesser Celandine. When it IS time to cut back the garden, the most universal rule of thumb these days is when *soil* temps reach 50°. Xerces Society recommends no cutting until you’d plant tomatoes. Don’t own a soil thermometer? Evil empire, Syngenta has created an admittedly useful soil temperature tracking site out of the kindness of its black heart. But more and more, we should question why we cut back at all. Sometimes we have to, like when our warm season grasses are fire adapted and will not only rot if left up, but could literally ignite! And sometimes we just love the way a cutback garden looks and that is fine too. But often, there are large areas of our land that we can leave up all year, or maybe cut back every few. These low-intensity garden practices, even in the backs of beds, will provide the best habitat. I like to cut back and mulch the front edge of the garden, and leave the back wild, a practice we should all henceforth refer to as “the garden mullet.”
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Gardeners rejoice! Mt Cuba has issued their official report for Amsonia from their plant trials! Some results were surprising: apparently Amsonia ‘Blue Ice’ is actually a Turkish species Amsonia orientalis. I did not see that one coming and will be looking into Amsonia tabernaemontana ‘Short Stack’ to fill that niche. Much ado has been made of how few pollinators visit Amsonia, but a lack of bees should not concern us. These light colored, tubular flowers are perfect for moths, who visit outside of Mt Cuba’s observation window. All that and more in this interview with Mt Cuba’s Sam Hoadley. 2,000 of you readers are brand new to this newsletter. And I’m going to guess that some of you are brand new to ecological horticulture - Woo hoo! Go you! Often I give info for experienced gardeners, but if you need a place to start, or know someone who does, this free booklet from the North American Native Plant Society walks you through the entire process of making a pollinator garden from start to finish. Ready for something slightly more advanced? The National Wildlife Federation broke out Doug Tallamy’s keystone species lists by Level I ecoregion. It’s a great place to start nearly every design project. Did you miss last month’s Best Practices for Pollinators Summit? It was epic. And they posted every single one on YouTube for free. They run one of the best webinar channels online. Enjoy!
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I have been really struggling these past months with my role as an American gardener while the horrors of this world unfold. I am a gardener who works for the benefit of the public and the good of the earth. The knowledge that my work, my money, is also funding the starvation of children, the ethnic cleansing of a population, and indeed an actual genocide livestreamed on my telephone has been overwhelming to the point of paralysis at times. Gardeners cultivate life. We care for the earth, and flowers, and butterflies. I am grateful to have a forum to take a stand, to state clearly and for the record that I am a gardener who believes in and works towards justice and dignity for all people. The atrocities being committed by Israel and the USA against Palestinians must stop. Please join me in signing this important statement calling for an immediate, permanent ceasefire and end to the Occupation. Please share far and wide.
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Rarely, a garden piece comes along that feels truly important. Margaret Roach’s piece in the NYT about gardener Alla Olkhovska is just that. Alla was cultivating a unique Clematis collection in her Ukranian garden when Russia invaded. As the caretaker for her Granny and unable to escape, she pivoted to online seed sales. Floret’s Erin Benzakein found her online, befriended her, and they ended up making an absolutely incredible documentary about gardening in a literal war zone. It is breathtaking, it’s soulful, and it shows how gardens can sustain people even in the most dire of situations. Also, Alla is one of the most talented designers around. This floral arrangement is the most stunning thing I’ve seen in ages. You can buy her Clematis seeds here and view her lovely photography here. This documentary also introduced me to Erin Benzakein’s other work. Floret has an absolutely massive social media following, a TV show, and makes these beautiful and charming mini docs. Best of all, they provide tons of free and helpful information for flower farmers while supporting other growers and breeders. This short film, “Let Me Introduce You” documents their shift from seed distribution to a flower breeding practice that somehow feels like it could change the world. Who knew I was obsessed with Zinnas (?!?!), but here we are. Honestly, she might be the new Martha. Have you noticed that this newsletter is essentially the Margaret Roach Appreciation Society? How could it not be? She is amazing!! And it’s wonderful to see her recognized as such. Please join me in congratulating Margaret as the 2024 recipient if the Scott Medal!! You can watch her hilarious acceptance speech here (at 19:00). The Philadelphia Flower Show wrapped last month and the edgy aesthetics of urban ecology are having a moment. Kelly Norris picked up 1000 awards for his “A Beautiful Disturbance” garden. The cinder block edging is a revelation. Best in Show went to Apiary Studio’s “Right of Way,” which celebrated roadside plants and featured legitimately adorable paper mache plastic bags. A new study found that 60% of US home owners bought a native plant in 2022!!!! What’s more, these awesome gardeners spend 80% more on plants than do their conventional counterparts. So take a bow, plant nerds, you’ve done well. But there’s still so much more work ahead: NetPS, a national tool for plant searches in nurseries, reports that the 8th most searched for plant in the US is variegated Goutweed! Sheesh. Well, well, well. It seems that someone may have recognized their faux pas on invasive plants and gone into damage control. Martha Stewart just happened to catch a presentation by (the amazing) Uli Lorimer and just happened to blog about how many native plants she grows on her land. Honestly, go her. Hopefully she keeps it up. We all know that ticks love the forest edge, but a new study of deer ticks in CT drilled in to where exactly they tend to quest. Researchers found that deer ticks preferred the forest side of the forest/lawn ecotone, where undergrowth was scattered. After that, the most popular place was further into to forest, where deer hang out the most. Deer ticks did not seem to like lawns or other grasses, even when long, so don’t worry about replacing lawns with meadow. Want to get rid of those ticks? Cultivate biodiverse soils. Most ticks lay eggs on the soil, and their larvae (the phase before the nymphs who plague us) are so tiny, that they can be eaten by soil invertebrates. A new study found that spiders, beetles, and large mites all eat tick larvae. Abra Lee is a national treasure. In this interview with the BBG, she brings the history of Black flower vendors in New York to life and introduces us to some of the incredible people who brought flowers to the city. Flower vendors were politically active, fabulous artists, and played a central role in weaving communities together (read: gossip columnists). In eras of oppression, flowers became important. Abra writes that “flowers were not just a means of economic empowerment … it also had to do with their quality of life. Flowers represent beauty. And I don’t think that this beauty is separate from their lived experience.” All of us should remember that it was well-meaning gardeners like us who wiped out the American Chestnut. In the early 1900s, we started importing exotic chestnuts, introducing blight along with them. Many garden centers remain bad actors, constituting the primary pathway of invasive plant introduction and continuing to sell even banned plants. A new study out of UMass Amherst should be shouted from the rooftops: as the climate warms and the range of invasive plants change, commercial nurseries often sell the harmful plants in those new regions. Researchers contest that these sales are more harmful than the plants’ natural migrations. Ecological gardeners can do more to protect the land around us. We should all get more involved in invasive species regulation and enforcement. We already think thistles are cool but a Spanish thistle has been discovered to have extreme cooling abilities! During heatwaves, the yellow flower of Carlina corymbosa was up to 18° cooler than the air an inch away, but how they do it remains a mystery. Leaves cool themselves by reflecting light with hairs and opening stomata to release water and “sweat.” But petals have few stomata. The mystery remains. It’s been a long time since I’ve read a banger of a Facebook post, but Nancy Lawson totally rocked it with her treatise on “undergrown” land. Language matters, she argues, and the very idea that a naturalistic landscape is “overgrown” is patently incorrect. She interrogates many of the words we use to talk about gardens, from "pest” to “weed” to “aggressive.” Of the term “manicured” she writes, “Terms most often used to describe crew-cut, pesticide-drenched lawns have a historically classist connotation that our society associates positively with the clean fingernails of someone who doesn’t making a living by sinking her hands into the soil.” BAM! Yes, ma'am. Home Owners Associations are notorious for quashing the good intentions of ecological gardeners. But there are ways to use native plants to fit within even the strictest parameters. Northcreek Nurseries just published a list of short and “tidy” native plants to help you garden under surveillance. I’d add quite a few non-cultivar native species like Trilliums, Aquilegias, Driopteris, Uvularias, Polemoniums, and Polygonatums. A new study found that nighttime air pollution can break down the molecules that primrose flowers send out to attract moths. Floral scents can be reduced to the point that flowers just don’t get pollinated. This is likely a problem for many more species as “pollution has reduced scent-detection distances by more than 75% since the preindustrial age” in cities. Laura Fenton wrote a sweet piece for Gardenista on “Gardens that Help the Planet. Folks like Thomas Rainer, Kelly Norris, and yours truly weighed in with advice like get to know your growers, avoid systemic insecticides, grow plants from seed, and cultivate green mulch. Somehow, you made it to the end! Your reward this month is that you have to memorize the name Arthrobotrys. These fungi normally break down leaves to eat. But when resources are scarce, Arthrobotrys lures in nematodes with the smell of food and sex. The fungi make a motion detecting snare out of mycelium, strangling the nematodes when they swim through! Hyphae then grow into the tiny worms, digesting them from the inside out. Aren’t you glad you made it to the end? More from National Geographic on how the fungi detect the nematodes.
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