by Susan Harris on August 28, 2008
I have no one to blame but myself, thinking this fast-spreading ground cover wouldn’t be a problem for ME, in MY garden. See the hubris here? Problems are for lesser gardeners. And if I don’t like ‘em I’ll just pull ‘em out, like I do every other plant I try and don’t like.
So I added Bishop’s weed to a border (location, location, location) because I loved how its light-green-and-white foliage brightens up even the darkest spot.
Well. Here’s what the Missouri Botanic Garden has to say about it.
Avoid use of this plant in any mixed planting with other perennials such as in a rock garden or border. Best in a pure, contained planting (surrounded by natural or installed barriers) where it can be allowed to grow and spread solely as a ground cover. Can be quite effective when grown in the shade of trees or large shrubs.
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Having done exactly what they so wisely say not to do, I can tell you why. Because unlike, say, a stray black-eyed Susan seedling that’s easily dug out, the roots and runners on Bishop’s weed secretly inhabit your garden from below. This photo only hints at the problem - I’ve found even longer roots that could only be removed in pieces, and still some bits remain, to emerge and annoy me another day. See, they have the ability to entwine their sneaky selves through the roots of every single plant in the border. I’ve gone through the border carefully removing every single fleck of the stuff, then done it again, and I’ll be doing it until the end of my years gardening here.
Bishop’s weed (Aegopodium podagraria ‘Variegatum’) photo courtesy Missouri Botanical Garden.
by Susan Harris on August 27, 2008
Doncha love garden guests, especially when they’re gardening addicts AND gardenwriters? Robin Wedewer is Examiner.com’s national garden writer and has her own blog, too - BumblebeeBlog. Think we had much to talk about?
by Susan Harris on August 23, 2008
Can you tell something about a politician by the way he treats the little people? Sometimes. And in the case of Joe Biden, I think so. He arrived in the Senate just a year after I began working as a "court" reporter for their committees, sitting just below the dais at hearings or alongside the senators at their business sessions, traveling with them to field hearings.
Still, senators talking to me directly was a rare occurrence, and in their defense, their schedules are crazy and these meetings aren’t exactly social events. (Traveling offers much more contact, of course, like the time I was introduced to a Wisconsin senator in his living room, him standing there in his bathrobe, then barnstormed across the state in a tiny plane with him and 2 staffers.) Occasionally someone would ask me about a book I was reading, and Dale Bumpers always did that, and he clearly enjoyed book talk. Others would comment on what I was reading with undisguised surprise that it was more challenging reading than a Danielle Steele paperback.
And the mean old racist warrior Jesse Helms surprised the hell out of me with his courtly jumping up to pull out my chair, every single time. I’d rather have equal rights anytime, but it’s cool seeing a politician pay a little attention when there’s no political gain in doing so, right?
My Worst Behavior Toward the Help Award goes not to any senator but to the young staffers handling the details of committee hearings - the self-important but well-dressed keepers of the realm that I had to interact with the most. Ugh. And through my 30+ years working for Senate and House committees, as a group the most courteous people and winning my Best Behavior Award are members of the military - all branches, all levels, from the Joint Chiefs on down.
But what about Joe Biden, Obama’s pick for Veep? His committee assignments and mine always seemed in sync, so I’ve seen a whole lot of him in action, and he was my top choice among the many Democratic contenders this year - because of his impressive performance as a lawmaker. That’s what my head tells me; my gut remembers him as the least imperious, friendliest politician I’ve ever had the pleasure to chat with. And those bagels he was giving out to the media throngs outside his house all week? They reminded me of the time he and I were chatting, waiting for his subcommittee hearing to start, when he pulled his lunch out of a brown bag and offered me half. I’ve always been a sucker for people who feed me.
by Susan Harris on August 21, 2008
(Blog version. It’s here in its entirety, with off-topic sidebar.)
In the News
- From Dow, an herbicide lethal enough to survive a cow’s guts and produce toxic manure. Wow.
- Kudos to the Missouri Botanical Garden for their plastic pot recycling program [pdf], now winning awards. Started in 1997, the program has kept 300 tons of hort waste out of landfills.
- In more plant news, rubber is being produced from dandelions, which may turn out to be THE low-cost alternative to trees.
- While there’s still no definitive explanation for the Colony Collapse Disorder of honeybees, bumblebees aren’t doing much better, reports Adrian Higgins.
- And the Boston Globe reports the no-surprise news that lead in the soil is putting a crimp on backyard veg gardening. City Farmer has more to say about that, and other contaminants.
- Troubled by deer in your garden? Hey, it could be bears - the kind that attacks gardeners.
- Also on GardenRant, an owner’s report about chimneas sparked a meaty discussion of firepits and outdoor fires of all kinds. Tempers rose!
New on Sustainable-Gardening
Exciting news: more contributors! Like who?
- Poison Ivy Update is all the latest advice, including comments from GardenRant readers.
My So-called Second Career
Sustainable-Gardening.com has its first sponsors! They’re in the sidebar on every page and on the About Sponsors and Partners page. Thanks and welcome!
New articles on OrganicGardener.com:
by Susan Harris on August 15, 2008
SO, here’s what it takes to grow the plants listed as blooming this month. Unless pruning, feeding or supplemental watering are mentioned, I’m not doing it.
Shrubs:
- Big-leaf hydrangea - moderate water in periods of moderate to severe drought.
- Hydrangea paniculata ‘Tardiva’ - water only in prolonged drought.
- Roses ‘Knockout’ and ‘Carefree Wonder’ - water regularly, prune once. In their first year they received no fertilizer at all and bloomed well. This year I’m experimenting with two feedings to see if it makes a difference.
- White Meidiland rose - prune once a year.
- Spirea ‘Anthony Waterer’ - prune once a year.
Perennials:
- Garden phlox - cut down in the fall.
- Sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ - cut down in late winter.
- Russian sage - cut down in late winter.
- Globe thistle - cut down in fall.
- Sweet autumn clematis - cut down in fall.
- Pulmonaria - water in periods of moderate drought.
- Salvia - cut down in fall.
- Purple coneflower - cut down in late winter.
- Rudbeckia - cut down in late winter.
Annuals:
- ‘Wave’ petunia - water frequently, remove after hard frost.
- Hyacinth bean vine - water frequently, remove after hard frost.
Now see why I call this a sustainable garden? Not counting the blasted annuals, of course.
by Susan Harris on August 14, 2008
A/k/a Garden Blogger Bloom Day, a tradition started by that notorious instigator, Carol at May Dreams Garden. .jpg)
Hell Strip
The curbside, or hell strip, is looking good, with garden phlox and sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ peaking.
Front
In the front yard there’s Russian sage, globe thistle, sweet autumn clematis, and a pink ‘Knockout’ rose in bloom. And in what used to be lawn the ‘Wave’ petunias and hyacinth bean vine are mighty colorful (photo on GardenRant).
Back
In the back yard some rebloom on the Meidiland white rose shows in the photo right but what I really want to show off is the awesome foliage of this pulmonaria in front of it. The leaves looked nice enough in the woods where I used to have them but stayed small. Now that they’re getting morning sun, though, they’re making quite a show, even long past their blooms. And P.S., my experiment in moving them into afternoon sun ended in failure - in the form of burnt-up leaves.
More blooms in the back garden are thanks to the shrubs ‘Carefree Wonder’ rose, big-leaf hydrangeas (fading but still packing a punch), Hydrangea ‘Tardiva‘ at its peak (top photo), spirea ‘Anthony Waterer’ in its rebloom; and the perennials Salvia ‘May Knight’, purple coneflower, black-eyed susans, coreopsis, and red clover (which blooms purple). I know it’s a mighty short list compared to Carol and most gardenbloggers, if their mid-month reports are any guide. I try to make it up in the winter, when I start bragging big-time on the evergreens in my garden.
Clover photo credit.
by Susan Harris on August 10, 2008
Being interviewed by other gardening bloggers is so much fun, I just keep saying yes. Recently it’s been to Robin Wedewer, of Bumblebeeblog and now the National Gardening Examiner, and to Stuart Robinson, everyone’s favorite Australian gardener and author of Gardening Tips ‘n’ Ideas and the gardenblog directory on steroids, Blotanical.
by Susan Harris on August 6, 2008
Over on Organic Gardener.com I’ve posted about two increasingly popular species of Hydrangeas - the paniculata and the quercifolia (oakleaf). Here’s the link.
Top photo: Quercifolia ‘Snowflake’. Bottom: Paniculata’Tardiva’.
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by Susan Harris on August 4, 2008
I went visiting this week, to the garden of Robin at Bumblebee Blog and Examiner.com (about an hour east of me near the Chesapeake Bay) and discovered not one but two blog-post-worthy gardens. On GardenRant I wrote about her stylish kitchen garden, and here I’m hoping to inspire my coaching clients with photos of her four-season foundation garden.
The best thing about this garden - to my eyes - is all the evergreens, plants that are basi
cally forgotten most of the year and certainly when people are excited about gardening, driving to the garden center, and buying what looks good - whatever’s in bloom! You know what that means? Those evergreens don’t get bought, unless the gardener’s been at it a while O
R gotten advice from a professional.
So, what’s here? Framing the front door are two ‘Green Giant’ arborvitaes and some ‘Gulftide’ osmanthus, a nonberrying ‘Harbor Dwarf’ nandina, and , with ‘Encore’ azalea - all evergreen - and some impatiens in front of them.
And in the close-up below, the simple planting along the front of the house farther from the front door, thus not wanting to call attention to itself, are good-old Ilex crenata ‘Compacta’ and ‘Dragon Lady’. Like boxwoods and ‘Otto Luyken’ cherry laurels, also good choices for this northern exposure, they look good every day of the year. Summer brings out the easy-care hostas and ferns in front of them.
Now how hard is that?
by Susan Harris on August 2, 2008
For some fun browsing, just follow this link to directories of organic farms all over the world and the internships they’re offering to frankly stronger folks than I. Also, more tolerant of hardship, but they’re an adventurous bunch of aspiring farmers and if I were just out of college I might just join them. 
Then I simply HAD to write Find a Gardening Blog Near You.
And Organic Gardener hired their second feature writer, known in the blog world as Commonweeder but in real life as Massachusetts gardenwriter Pat Leuchtman. So far, Pat’s taught me about Growing Raspberries and Growing Organic Herbs.
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