George's Current Ramblings and Readlings

Perfect Plants or Else

December 27th, 2011

   Gardeners are a demanding sort these days.

Close to the perfect plant (it's a fothergilla).

   Ask people what kind of plant they’re looking for, and most say they want plants that look great in all four seasons and that don’t get bug or disease problems.

   We want plants that are colorful, that are different from what’s growing in every McDonald’s parking lot and that don’t take a lot of trimming, watering or other fussing.

   We want plants that are cold-hardy in winter, heat-tough in summer and not likely to get eaten by deer, rabbits, groundhogs or voles in any season.

   Something native and butterfly-attracting would be nice, too.

   Above all else, we want plants that simply aren’t going to die in the lousy clay or shale soil most of us have.

   And, oh yeah, we don’t want to pay a lot of money either.

   That’s a pretty tall order. The surprising news is that these kinds of plants DO exist… except maybe for that last part.

   I’m constantly impressed with the high performance of so many of the new plants hitting the market every year. Not everything new is better, but a lot of it is. (I’ll be writing about what’s new for 2012 in my four January garden columns in The Patriot-News and naming some of my favorite hard-working, low-care plants in next week’s post here.)

   The bottom line is that we’ve got way more and way better choices today than even 10 years ago.

   The dilemma is that you won’t find most of this stuff in the box stores, where so many “yardeners” buy their plants.

Garden Memories of 2011

December 20th, 2011

   As another year heads into the sunset, I’ve been thinking back to some of the spectacular gardening sights I’ve seen in 2011.

Even the rocks bloom in South Africa.

   The highlight for me was a 17-day trip in January to South Africa through Harrisburg Area Community College.

   What a crazy plant place that is. (South Africa, not HACC, although the landscaping is very nice there, too.)

   Just about everything is different on the other side of the world… rock-garden plants that look like rocks, cactus-like growths that aren’t cactus at all, and trees that look like they’ve been planted upside down.

   It was a fascinating adventure. No wonder York College professor Marilyn Daly — who’s been there several times — calls it the “Land of Oz.”

   I took lots of photos. And I’ve included them at the top of a new Photo Gallery I just posted called “George’s Favorite Photos of 2011.” Click here to see it.

   Even more photos from South Africa are at this earlier Photo Gallery, in case you haven’t already seen it.

   The other cool trip I took in 2011 was to Ireland through Harrigan Holidays. This trip took us up into Northern Ireland (Belfast Botanic Garden, Mt. Stewart, Giant’s Causeway, etc.) and then into the moon-like Burren region along the west coast.

Man, those Irish know how to garden. This is at Glenveigh Castle.

   Those Irish sure know how to garden… and most of them seem to love plants. Part of it is the exceptionally plant-friendly climate, but the people just seem to have a much greater appreciation for gardening in general than a typical American.

   I saw lots of great gardens and lush scenery there, and several photos are in the “George’s Favorite Photos” gallery, plus many more here.

   The Favorite Photos gallery also includes some great home gardens I saw on the 2011 Garden Walk Buffalo tour (we’re leading another bus trip there in July 2012, see http://georgeweigel.net/georges-talks-and-trips), and some other interesting garden shots closer to home.

   Oh, yeah. Some of the “spectacular” garden sights of 2011 were the results of those tornados, hurricane remnants and the pre-Halloween snowstorm we had. I kept those photos to a minimum.

   Happy photo-ogling, and may you all have a great Christmas and a wonderful holiday season.

Slides, Anyone?

December 13th, 2011

   One of the things I do to cobble together a career is give gardening talks to clubs, organizations and garden shows.

   Not that long ago, the preferred way to do that was to show lots of pretty photos on a screen via slides — those little 2-by-2-inch cardboard squares lined up in a circular tray sitting on top of the projector.

George's now-obsolete collection of 2,700 slides, 20 slide trays and two slide projectors.

   They’d jam up every now and then, and the bulbs sometimes would burn out, but for the most part, it worked.

   Then along came PowerPoint.

   All of a sudden, other speakers began plugging their laptops into sleeker, brighter projectors and doing programs that moved, sang and allowed for all kinds of cutesy, creative stuff.

   It also opened the door to a new generation of snafus, freezeups and shutdowns, which if you’ve operated any computer for long, know is both certain and unlimited.

   I told myself I’d convert to PowerPoint only after I’d seen 10 straight programs done by other people come off without a major glitch.

   That never happened, but I ended up switching anyway as slide technology went the way of the typewriter, 8-track player and VCR.

   Now I’ve got 20 laptop/PowerPoint programs, ranging from “Design Ideas Worth Stealing” to “How to Grow Dinner” to “Survivor Plants You’ll Have a Hard Time Killing.”

   I’ve also now got about 2,700 photos on slides, 20 slide trays and two slide projectors that I really have no use for.

   That’s where you come in.

   Does anyone out there know of anyone who would be interested in these things?

A Basket for the Next Generation

December 6th, 2011

   The lucky winner of my gift basket filled with $180 worth of gardening goodies is… pause for theatrical effect… Kim Hess of Monroe Twp., Cumberland County.

Kim Hess, George's gift-basket winner.

   Kim and her husband, Mike, are young gardeners who just moved in September to a quarter-acre lot in the suburban development of Monroe Acres.

   They’re looking forward to building their own raised-bed veggie garden in the back next spring.

   For the last two years, the Hesses did their growing in a rented plot at the Dauphin County Community Gardens along Elmerton Avenue, not far from the State Farm Show Complex. They had been living in a condo in Harrisburg.

   It’s heartening to see young couples like this interested in gardening – especially vegetables.

   For a few decades, home vegetable gardening was becoming a lost art. I’d see hardly any veggie patches in my travels, and the prevailing opinion was, “Why would anyone want to go to all of that trouble when you can just go to Giant and buy whatever food you want?”

   But in the last few years, edible gardening has been making a comeback. The twentysomethings or Gen-Y’ers or whatever you call them have been leading the way.

   Many of them are thinking just the opposite: “Why wouldn’t we grow our own food that’s fresher, cheaper and more nutritious than stuff shipped from who knows where?”

The Perfect Christmas Tree

November 29th, 2011

   At least 25 million cut evergreens will end up in American living rooms over the next 4 weeks.

   Some of them will look nicer, hold ornaments better and keep their needles longer than others.

Fraser fir

   Which type makes the best choice? That’s open to some interpretation, but here’s a comparison of 8 species you might encounter — in the order I like them…

   * Fraser fir (Abies fraseri). Fast becoming the favorite. It’s a sleek evergreen with branches that turn upward to reveal silvery undersides to blue-green needles.

   Needles are soft and fairly short at 1 inch or less. Branches are very strong. Aroma also good. Only downside is it’s the most expensive type.

    Needle retention rating: Excellent.

   * Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii). Not a true fir but has fir-like soft, bluish-green needles that are 1 to 1½ inches in length.

   Branches are strong, and tree has dense, bushy habit. Very nice citrus fragrance. Currently Pennsylvania’s top-selling Christmas-tree variety.

   Needle retention rating: Excellent.

   * Concolor fir (Abies concolor).Also known as “white fir,” this has soft, blue-green foliage with narrow, rounded needles 1 to 1½ inches long.