native perennials Archives

Growing Beyond the Salad

February 28, 2023 No Comments

In all the years I’ve been gardening (and the many years I spent researching before I had the soil to plant in), I’ve noticed a sort of “pipeline” with gardeners. The start with the idea of a home-grown salad, often planting only food crops and rarely giving much thought to companion planting, pollinators, or soil ph. But, if one follows this theoretical pipeline, it doesn’t stop there.

Usually the next stop on the dizzying, slippery slope of falling in love with growing plants, is flowers. Maybe you get a pack of zinnia while you’re out selecting lettuce, maybe you read about the many, MANY benefits of planting for pollinators while growing food. Maybe from there you stumble into the vast wealth of discoveries in the world of native plants. Maybe, like me, you continue to tumble further and further into herbal teas, pressed flowers, floristry, natural plant dyeing, and macro photography.

Here are the ways I’m taking it further this year, growing not just food but materials to make art, clothing, and a better environments for the local birds and insects.

Canning, Freezing, and Storing:

With grocery store prices skyrocketing, and supply-chain crises becoming the norm, the old joke about spending $100 to grow a few dollars in produce is losing its potency. Sure, if you’re installing a brand-new garden, or perhaps watering a sun-parched patch of salad garden in the Arizona heat, your cost of production might still be vastly higher than the output. But in my New England garden, I’ve figure out how to pull baskets of produce throughout the growing season that total up to a net savings when I grow through three seasons and can, dry, freeze, and store the bumper crops.

Dried & Pressed Flowers:

One of the most enchanting new passions gardening introduced me to is the artistry of floral arranging and preserving. I got started by pressing some spring violets and pansies in a small flower press from Amazon two seasons ago. Arranging them into a delicate glass frame brought me so much joy that I promised to increase my attention to drying flowers every year in order to build up material to work with throughout the bitter days of New England winter. My head is already spinning with the possibilities of framed art, resin work, and dried arrangements to keep and share.

Beneficial Insects & Wildlife:

I wrote a detailed blog post years ago about this long-established interest of mine to have the buzzing-est, flapping-est, chirpy-est garden in my city. The very first bed I installed in the formerly languishing lot on the property I rent was a native perennial garden. A few non-natives have found their way into that bed but largely it’s remained a love letter to local bees, birds, and butterflies- especially my beloved Monarch and Swallowtails. I made sure to plant enough that there are blooms from last frost to first frost and an abundance of seed heads and hollow twigs for winter survival. I don’t rake until May to keep my bumblebees abundant, and they return this kindness by helping me pull in baskets of beautiful tomatoes come July.

Tea, Spices, Incense, & Herbs:

What’s a witch without her stores of fragrant and powerful herbs? I’ve been hand grinding my own herb and resin incenses since I was a teenager, and to this day I do not use commercial incense in my home. Nothing compares to the smell of smoldering rosemary. (Be sure with all incense to ventilate your home!) I enjoy the whole-body hug that is a cup of mint and tulsi tea all winter long, and there is just something about crumbling your own thyme or cayenne pepper flakes into a pot of winter soup.

Natural Dyeing:

Here, sweet reader, is my newest special interest when it comes to plant selection! Over winter, my restless heart found comfort in a once-fanatical hobby from my 20s: knitting. Knitting again led to finding my hand spinning stash and I’ve also fallen back in love with spinning my own yarn for knitting and weaving. *Deep inhale* and that led me to realizing “I can grow dye plants and dye the yarn I spin”! Two trips to the library later I am ready to let the garden color my life in a whole different and quite literal way.

Photography, Video, & Income:

Finally, and perhaps this is obvious, the last way my garden will give me more than just a salad, is through my work with cameras. I make videos on Youtube, visually document on Instagram, and take portraits and nature shots with the flower-heavy backdrop of my dreams. My garden doesn’t just feed my body, it feeds my creativity. Every morning from the first sunny mornings of late winter until it’s too cold to be enjoyable, I take my coffee in the garden. Often the camera comes with me and I’ve got folders full of beautiful b-roll and striking photos of rabbits, bees, and birds to show for it. An unexpected and usually unplanned income bonus comes by way of selling my extra plant starts off every spring, usually funding the supplies I need for my late June succession planting.

What are some ways you can get more out of your garden this year? Leave me a comment, or drop by my YouTube video companion to this post and we can chat there!

Gardening

How To Save The Planet With Plants

February 10, 2020 No Comments

Last year, the Amazonian fires sent the world into a collective panic. The Amazon rain forest is known as our planet’s” lungs” and this panic was not misplaced. I bring it up not to diminish the importance of rain forest preservation, but as the foundation to ask an important question I first read in Bringing Nature Home by Doug Tallamy:

Why don’t we worry about the catastrophic loss of plants, animals, and insects here at home? Is it because the change has been so incremental, and yet constant, that we simply don’t perceive the scale?

According to the alarming statistics in the first few chapters of Bringing Nature Home by Doug Tallamy, we have taken and repurposed 95-97% of the land in the continental United States. 41% of that land is reserved for agriculture, and 53-55% makes up our suburban and urban residential land.

15% of the Amazonian Basin has been lost to logging. We’ve lost 70% of the forest here on the Eastern seaboard.

And what have we done with that land? Stripped it and replanted it with foreign ornamentals, which will not feed our native animal and insect populations. One doesn’t need a biology degree to surmise that less food means less biodiversity.

Tallamy uses an excellent example to explain the importance of biodiversity, or having a wide range of animal and plant species in an ecosystem, and the importance of keystone species. He explains ecosystems, such as your own backyard, as a Jenga game tower. You can remove some blocks without much consequence, but eventually, one of the blocks you remove will bring the whole tower down.

In nature, certain species of plant, animal, and or insect play such a key role in the food chain, their extinction or removal from an ecosystem will destroy it. Tallamy explains that we’ve already lost around 50% of our native bird population, and much of that is due to a lack of juicy, nutritious caterpillars!

This is where the doom and gloom begins to subside, my green-thumbed friends. While not all of us have a patch of Earth to lord over, those of us who do can be a positive change simply by choosing the plants we plant a little more mindfully.

Enter native perennials! Weeds to many people who succumbed to the propaganda of overly-manicured lawns flecked with imported species of ornamentals. While some species can be a bit…tenacious, many native wildflowers are every bit as impressive if not moreso than their useless non-native counterparts!

Aside from providing more food sources to welcome a variety of animal and insect species, planting native means working with plants that are accustomed to thrive in your zone, your soil ph and consistency. This means less work for you in the long run, healthier plants, and as I keep banging on about- more biodiversity!

I know I’m going to have a hard time convincing some of you that your lawn is one of the worst offenders in the disruption of biodiversity, so I’m not going to try…right now. Not yet. But just know, it’s coming.

No, I won’t demand that you kill your lawn today, but perhaps, consider raising the blade a little. It’s better for the grass and you’ll have less carnage happening under your mower. Maybe you don’t rip up your whole lawn, but maybe…rip up a little.

If you don’t have any earth to till, I highly encourage launching native seeds into those neglected roadside meadows and lots some of us may have around town in the fall. It’s called guerilla planting and if it’s wrong, I don’t want to be right.

Charles Bukowski once wrote, “you save the world one man at a time”. I’d argue that changing people is too hard on the heart, plant a garden instead.

Most native perennials require cold stratification to germinate, if you’d like to learn how to do that, check out this post!

Gardening

Winter Sowing: How To Winter Sow Seeds & Why You Should!

February 8, 2020 2 Comments

Winter sowing seems to be picking up steam among hobby gardeners all over social media, but what is it, and WHY do it?

I decided to give winter sowing in milk jugs a try this year, and learned a lot about plants in the process! If getting a head start on Spring planting in the gloomy months of winter sounds appealing to you, read on!

First of all, why winter sow at all? Couldn’t you just start your seeds outside in the spring, or even inside under a light? Well, you can, but with some plants- including most native perennials- you won’t have much success. This method also comes with some convenient perks we’ll discuss shortly.

Have you ever bought a package of rosemary, milkweed, or lavender seeds, only to have few if any sprouts turn up? There’s a reason for that, and no, it’s not you or a lack of a green thumb!

Many plants, such as wildflowers native to the temperate regions of North America (areas where winter is cold enough to kill vegetation), will not germinate without an extended period of moisture and low, freezing temperatures.

This required low temperature and high moisture period is called stratification, and it’s one of many evolutionary functions plants use to survive. This process starts a chemical reaction that releases the plant embryo from dormancy.

You can simply put your lavender and rosemary seeds in a baggy of damp potting mix in the fridge for a couple months before planting, by the way.

Stratification ensures that the seeds dropped by mature plants do not immediately germinate in the warm autumn sun, only to be decimated by the first frosts of winter.

Because seeds only contain about 2% water, they are not damaged by this water expanding as it freezes over winter, however the foliage of a plant contains 95% water. This is why gardeners fear unexpected frost! With that much water to expand, leafy plant matter is torn to shreds!

Another example of this evolutionary insurance policy that you may encounter in the native plant world is called scarification, or marring of the protective seed coat by outside intervention.

In nature this might take the form of a thick seed coat being worn down by the digestive enzymes in an animal’s stomach, and dispersed back to the earth in their waste, or simply dissolved by just the right amount of rain.

Gardeners often achieve this effect by gentle filing or scraping the seed before sowing it.

Additionally, many plants will only germinate when exposed to the right amount and hours of light and darkness that match the plants target growing season.

When we winter sow, the seeds are being exposed to the correct seasonal temperatures and light to have the best chance of germination.

In simpler terms, plants are really smart and they have their reasons! Work with them, not against them, and you might find yourself with less work this spring!

Now you may still be wondering, why not just plant the seeds directly in the ground? In my opinion, this is where winter sowing in plastic jugs really shines. Seeds sown directly in the garden are subject to being washed around in the rains, dug up or eaten by wildlife, or trampled by careless humans.

With this method of winter sowing, you’re getting far more control of your garden design, with less time spent trying to tell seedlings apart as they sprout among other flora in the garden.

Some of my milk jugs working their magic outside. Photo by Me.

Once germinated, the tender foliage of these plants are at risk of annihilation should a surprise late frost rear its ugly head. The jugs act as mini greenhouses to protect the plants, while still allowing them the temperature, water, and light they require.

An added perk to this method is total avoidance of the hassle of “hardening off” indoor-started seedlings. This process can be tedious and it only takes one instance of falling asleep early watching Netflix on a chilly night to kill off your whole seed tray!

Having these precious baby plants in a perfectly mobile container, whose top can be opened for light and warm spring air, closed against the chill of night, or in emergencies, moved indoors safe from weather extremes makes all the sense in the world to this control freak!

Fellow sufferers of SAD Seasonal Affective Disorder) will love this mid-winter project, you can begin laying the tracks for your garden right after the holidays in most regions!

You’ll better guarantee your early crop and get to brag about your beautiful seedlings before your comrades even start theirs! Be honest, you know you’ll enjoy that just a little! There’s no judgement here.

OK, if you’re as sold on winter sowing as I am, let’s start making our little mini-greenhouses! Check out the video for a step-by-step!

Here’s What You’ll Need:

Milk jug / plastic bottles
Take out tins
rubbermaid /clear totes
Well-draining potting mix
X-acto knife or other sharp/safe tool to cut plastic
Hole-punching tool (heat up a screwdriver or sharp poking tool)

Directions:

Cut the jug as shown in the photo, just below any handles the container may have. Leave an inch or two under the handle uncut to form a “hinge”. Get rid of the cap, you won’t need it.
NOTE: Leaving the cap on saved jugs will make the jug smell nasty, so chuck the cap before you store them.
Punch or melt holes in the bottom of the jug, enough so the soil can freely and quickly drain. You don’t want water sitting in these any more than you would in a potted plant! You may also want to add a few more ventilation holes around the top of the container.
Fill the bottom of your new mini-greenhouse jug with well-draining potting mix or compost and moisten it with water if you haven’t already. You can make sure you have adequate drainage here, the water should move through the soil and holes freely.
Plant seeds according the depth noted on the back of the packet being mindful that some seeds require light to germinate. Each plant embryo only contains so much energy to get it to the surface where it will use photosynthesis to get more. If you plant too deep, it may run out before it makes it out of the potting mix.
Close the greenhouse, label it**, and seal about 80% of the cut part closed with duct tape. You don’t want it airtight, just securely closed.
Place the containers in a place that isn’t blasted with the harshest hours of sun as this can be detrimental later in the season.

**Paint markers seem to be the best for labeling as sharpies will fade, I recommend keeping a chart as well of which container has what.

What I’m Winter Sowing in Zone 6b:

Lemon Beebalm/Purple Horsemint Monarda citriodora (Non-Native to NE, A) Corner Sun Summer 2-4ft (purple)
Native Wildflower Mix (N, P)
Verbena Bonariensis (South America) Draining Soil, Corner Sun, Can spread too much Summer-Frost 2-5ft (purple)
Zinnia, Mixed (A)
Mexican Sunflower (Mexico, S. A.)Tithonia rotundifolia (P) Draining Soil, Sun Summer 4-6ft (red)
Milkweeds: Purple, Whorled, Common, Poke, Swamp (Asclepias purpurascens, verticillata, syriaca, exaltata, and incanata) + Butterfly *monarch host
Golden Alexander Zizia aureataptera (N, P) *black swallowtail host shade garden spring 1-3ft (y)
Rudbeckia Mix (N, P)
Northern Sea Oats Chasmanthium latifolium (Non Native to NE, P, grass) shade garden, moist soil late summer-winter interest 3-4”
Maximilians Sunflower Helianthus maximilianii ( P) wherever late summer-frost 2-4ft
Wild Senna Senna hebecarpa (N, rare, P) *butterfly host shade garden summer 5ft
Joe Pye Weed Eutrochium purpureum (N, rare, P) summer to fall 5ft
Obedient Plant Physostegia viginiana (introduced, P) summer, 1-5ft (purple-pink)
Showy Goldenrod Solidago speciosa (N, rare, P) late summer-fall 2-6ft (yellow)
Sneezeweed Helenium autumnale (Naturalized in New England, P) *late blooming late summer-fall 2-6ft (yellow) named by Linnaeus for Helen of Troy, said to have sprung from where her tears fell
Blue Mistflower / Wild Ageratum Conoclinium coelestinum (Non-Native to NE, P) late summer 2-3ft (blue)
Blazing Star / Gayfeather Liatris spicata (Naturalized, P)