March, what a wonderful month. I no longer have to worry about how I’m going to feed my family. March is always a good month; warmer temperatures and beautiful days bring our customers back by the thousands. Where were you when I needed you, when I was lonely, when I was counting my pennies?
Never mind that another cold winter has passed us by and, as in all nurseries, we too are up to our neck in work. Among other things, Karen is ordering all the plant materials that she needs for the spring, filling up the nursery and running out of space to put things.
Sally is busy consulting with customers who come into the store needing help with plant placements. Kathy is helping customers select trees to shade their homes and plants to give privacy.
Our landscape architect of choice, Carol Feldman is driving all around the metroplex designing beautiful landscapes, wishing that just once she can get caught up.
Jose, Jose, Jose and Jose are busy loading and unloading trucks making sure that everyone gets their orders. Let me see, one two three four, oh yea, Jose is busy doing some of the prettiest rockwork in Dallas with his brother Jose, I mean Javier.
Rodolfo and Blas are busy maintaining lawns up and down Hillcrest Rd. with their crews that just so happened to be named? Yes, Jose, Jose and no! Not Jose, but, yep, Joe.
Antonio stays busy doing odds and ends specializing in wood and ironwork and normally works with? Wrong! Carlos.
Me? Well, I don’t do much. My only task is to make sure that Jose knows which Jose he is going to work with and which jobs get done on what day and, most important of all I have to make sure that each Jose gets HIS check.
In my spare time I get to write the newsletter. The last few issue have been interesting because I have had articles sent to me by customers and friends that have found articles that they thought should be considered in the newsletter.
Don Trotter has a bunch of good articles and should be read by all. Even though he is in California most of the products and practices he recommends can be used in most organic gardens.
A customer who read my editorial dated January 2002 sent me this article.
Will Using Pesticides Help?
The very first step in dealing with a sick plant is to find out why the plant is sick. Many plant problems are the result of how they are tended or because of growing conditions. Spraying pesticides will not help some sick plants and may actually cause additional problems.
Pesticides are for specific pests on specific plants. Some plants are sensitive to some pesticides. If you apply a proper pesticide for a pest but the plant is sensitive to the chemical, you can severely damage the plant. Sometimes this causes more damage than would have been caused by the pest itself.
Insecticides have no effect on fungi - and fungicides don't kill insects. Know what the problem is and use the correct solution for the problem.
Beneficial "good" insects that eat or kill pests such as aphids, caterpillars or slugs (and therefore naturally keep these pests under control) are often more sensitive to pesticides than the pests themselves.
Different pests have different life cycles and different tolerances to insecticides. You have to apply a pesticide when the pest is in a vulnerable life stage and while it is still present at the spray site.
Pesticide treatments could be a waste of time and money and could be hazardous to the ecological balance in your yard if the proper amount and timing of the spray is not followed for a given pest. FOLLOW THE LABEL CAREFULLY!
Some pesticides, especially fungicides, are only preventive. Plants won't heal the damage from mildew or other damage already present, but if the spray is timed properly it may prevent new infestations.
Identifying Pests
There are many resources to help you know what is making your plant sick. If you need to identify a pest, first obtain a specimen of the pest/problem.
Then refer to gardening books or pest identification and control publications.
You can also take the sample to a Master Gardener clinic, a local nursery or a commercial pest control business.
Alternatives to Spraying
Knowing the plant and meeting its cultural needs helps prevent many plant problems. A healthy plant can survive attacks by insects and diseases - frequently with no spraying or intervention on the part of the homeowner.
Consider that a certain amount of damage from insects or disease is normal and that there are natural forces working against the pest. The plant can usually sustain a fair amount of damage before its health is adversely affected. A small amount of damage may be more of an aesthetic issue than one of the health of the plant. If damage is slight, the affected leaves could be hand picked or just left alone. Being able to tolerate a few holes in leaves or other small amounts of damage could be looked upon as your contribution to the natural balance in your yard.
Look for less toxic ways of controlling infestations, including:
- hand-picking or pruning out infested leaves or branches
- trapping pests
- spraying insects off with the water from a hose
- changing watering or fertilizing practices to discourage pests, and
- select pest-resistant varieties of plants when adding to your garden.
Your Responsibilities When Using Pesticides
You are liable for any damage your spray causes to neighbouring property. This can be caused by wind drift or when pesticides are carried off your property by water runoff. You are also negligent if you do not use the pesticide labelled for a specific pest on a specific plant at the specified rate of application listed on the label.
Any use not specified on the label is a violation of federal and provincial laws.
Make sure that the pesticide label specifies the plant you are spraying (such as rhododendron) and site (leaves, soil, garbage can). Do not let the spray come into contact with food crops (fruits, vegetables, herbs, berries, etc.) unless it is labeled for those crops and the instructions are followed regarding when the crops can be safely harvested.
Do not let the spray drift onto neighboring properties unless you have consulted with the owners in advance. Toys, barbecues, picnic tables, etc. should be moved indoors or covered. Make sure children and pets are safely inside and follow label instructions carefully concerning when they can safely be allowed back into the sprayed area.
Don't spray on windy days or allow insecticides to drift onto blooming plants or weeds where bees might encounter it. Bees can carry the toxins back to the hive and kill off the entire hive.
Slug bait can be attractive to dogs and can make pets sick if eaten directly or accidentally (as when preening themselves after having rolled in the bait in the garden). Slug bait is also toxic to birds and other wildlife. Birds feeding on treated areas may be killed. When purchasing slug and snail bait select those containing iron (or ferric) phosphate. This is a naturally occurring mineral and is much less toxic to pets and wildlife than baits containing metaldehyde. It is best to put the slug bait under a board or in a trap. A simple trap can be made by cutting windows in the side of an empty margarine or cottage cheese carton. Put the bait (beer works well) in the bottom of the carton and snap on the lid. Place the trap where slugs have been a problem. The bait will stay dry and effective for a long time but will be safely away from children and pets.
Don't over-apply pesticides. Many of the pesticides are easily carried by runoff water into groundwater, streams, ponds, lakes, wetlands, and coastal areas where birds, fish and other wildlife can be killed.
Don't dispose of unused chemicals in sewers or dump them down the drain. Sewage treatment does not filter out pesticides and the chemicals eventually make it into the ocean. Take unused, old or unwanted chemicals to a hazardous household waste pickup point for disposal. The Consumer Product Stewardship Program operates several collection depots across BC. There is no charge when dropping off leftover products at these depots. For the depot nearest you call: 1-800-505-0139
Before You Spray:
Do you know what insect/disease you are spraying for?
Are both the plant or situation and the pest/disease you are spraying for listed on the label of the pesticide you have chosen?
Is the level of damage great enough to warrant treatment or pesticide application or will the problem take care of itself naturally?
Is the pest present and in a stage that will be killed by the pesticide at the time you are planning to spray?
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, CONTACT: Pollution Prevention and Remediation Branch, Ministry of Water, Land & Air Protection,
Box 9342 Stn Prov Govt, Victoria, BC V8W 9M1
Prepared by Dr. Grant A. Bracher, P.Ag.
Acknowledgements
This fact sheet is largely reproduced verbatim from: Haldeman, Ann. 1990. Before You Spray Read This. Community Horticulture Fact Sheet #95 Pesticide Cautions, Washington State University, Cooperative Extension – King County. Cooperating Agencies: Washington State University, U.S. Department of Agriculture and King County.
We greatly thank Washington State University Cooperative Extension – King County for their permission to use this material.
Prepared by Grant Bracher, Pest Management Officer of the Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks, November 2000. For more information call 751-3167
Things to Do in March
Lets start with Roses—I should have included rose care in last months newsletter, but for some reason I forgot. There is still time to trim roses. If you had any new growth more than likely they were damaged during our recent freeze on the 26th of February so do not worry about those leaves. DO NOT TRIM CLIMBING ROSES NOW. Wait until the climbers have bloomed, before trimming, otherwise you will remove the bud that produces the bloom.
When trimming roses remove the dead wood back to good healthy stems. You will see the color difference between the old gray wood and the new green or red bark.
Improve air circulation by removing branches that are rubbing each other or that are crowding the center of the plant. By improving the air circulation you will minimize fungal problems on your plants. This also includes suckers that are coming up from the ground away from the main stalk.
Since we are talking about improving air circulation… Do you remember a few years ago when you came to us for advise on how far apart a rose should be planted and we suggested 4-5 foot centers? Well, I guess that some of you did not pay attention and now that they have grown to the point where they are touching each other, that will also decrease air circulation. Now is still the time to transplant roses. Prepare the area where you are going to move them to, by using good compost. We recommend cotton burr compost that includes 2% sulfur. Use one bag over 8 sq/ft. and turn it into the soil. A slightly raised area would be better than a low area where water may accumulate. Apply corn meal at a rate of 10 to 20 lbs per 1000 square feet. You do the math for your specific area, but remember that you really cannot over do it, and since corn meal breaks down into a simple sugar there will be some nitrogen release.
To avoid thrips apply beneficial nematodes now. They will be able to find the larvae before they migrate up into the rose.
If you had black spot or powdery mildew in the fall, gather as many of the leaves that are still on the ground, and even remove any remaining leaves from the plant. Composting these leave properly should destroy any fungal spores. As the new leaves emerge start a scheduled spraying routine using Aunt Rohde’s Compost Tea and Potassium Bicarbonate.
We sell roses from the Antique Rose Emporium. These roses are what other roses get grafted from. The mother of all roses. Disease and insect resistant.
Do not forget that roses are heavy feeders and love food on a monthly basis. Yes, there is a Green Sense Rose Food available in 5 and 40 lb bags
Lawn Care: Do not let any one tell you that this is the time to aerate. I do not like aerating lawns while we have chances of heavy rains. However now is a great time to apply Green Sense Microbial Treatment. Unlike some of the other brands, Green Sense Microbial Treatment contains 7 species of live organisms that will start working in your soils immediately. The microbes will run through the moist spring soils helping percolation, as well as loosening the soil, so that the root system of plants will be able to grow quicker. When possible apply a carbon source for the microbes. Microboost comes to mind as well as any organic fertilizer.
Mow the lawn an inch lower then last years last mowing. DO NOT SCALP! Scalping exposes soil to sunlight and permits weed seeds to germinate.
If you do not have the time or desire to treat your own yard, check out Rohde’s Chemical Free Fertilizing Program.
Fertilize the lawn with Green Sense Fertilizer and apply a rock powder, the easiest to apply is Humate. Humate has 19 different minerals and at least 50% humic acid. One bag goes over 4000 to 5000 sq/ft.
Pruning: If it is about to flower do not prune. That would be plants like Lilacs, Quince, Forsythia, Azaleas, Hawthorns, and as we mentioned earlier, climbing roses. All these plants can be pruned after they have flowered.
One of the questions that I get a lot at this time of year is about fertilizing plants that are about to bloom. When they are under an organic fertilizer program they can be fertilized year around, because there is not enough nitrogen to burn the buds or blooms in an organic fertilizer, which happens to be slow release. Be careful, I did say in an organic fertilizer. If you apply a chemical fertilizer that may contain a high percentage of nitrogen like 20% there could be major damage to the buds and flowers.
You can use Green Sense Vegetable & Flower Food to help plants produce beautiful flowers and berries.
Vegetables
repeat from March 2000
I am surprised at how many people are asking about vegetable gardens and the best way to prepare them.
Now is a good time to start your seeds indoors and have them ready to transplant as soon as the soil warms up. Check the seed package for proper planting times. For transplants the time to plant is:
When soil temperatures have reached 45-50 degrees plant: Spinach, lettuce.
When soil temperatures have reached 55-60 degrees plant: Chard, collards, and turnips.
When soil temperatures have reached 65 degrees plant: Beans.
March is a good time to plant fruit trees and berries too.
Starting Seeds: time to start vegetables from seed like tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, and peppers. Herbs can be started now. Basil, chives, catnip, mints or any other of your favorite herbs can be started in the house now. Perennials will give you years of color and beauty and can be started from the seeds you collected last year. Start seeds using a rich organic soil and mix soft rock phosphate into the soil. Soft Rock Phosphate Colloidal Clay will help seeds root better and then encourage stronger stems and better flower and fruit production. You can sift this material if you wish even though many customers say they do not. Start your seeds in egg cartons, plant pots, or the old flats from the flowers you purchased last year. Find a sunny window or a protected patio that is bright, warm and protected from cold winds, be prepared to move the seeds indoors if temperatures are going to drop. This will give you a fun project to do with the kids and give you a head start on this year’s crop. Transplant these into the soil when roots are well developed and soil temperature is warm.
Landscaping: As always most homeowners wait until March to work on their landscapes. Most will not transplant, but just rip out old plants and put in new plant material. As most of you know I like transplanting what ever I can, and then if needed fill in with new plants. Just remember that the sooner the plant goes into the soil, the more established it will be, and the better it will be able to withstand the summer heat. Transplant or divide any perennials that may have become too large or overcrowded for your landscape needs. Join a garden club and trade plants with other members. Find out what schools are doing landscapes and donate the plants to them. Only as a last resort compost your excess plants. Make sure you get a big enough root ball, and that the hole you are moving the plant to is already dug and ready for the new plant. Finish your transplanting before the plant starts to put out new growth. Your survival rate will be higher the sooner you get this done.
Since we had the unseasonably warm February, followed by a very cold spell, some plants may have been damaged by the cold weather. Look for split trunks on your plants. When the plants got cold they bend over too fast and split their trunks. HAHA!
No, really what happened is that during the warm spell some plants may have started to pull up moisture and the moisture in their stems expanded with the freeze cracking the exterior layers.
We recommended that you consult with a Landscape Architect. Carol Feldman is our architect of choice
Flowers: Consider using perennials or flowers that will reseed themselves in the next season. Even though we make money when we sell you a flat of annual flowers, we would much prefer to sell you a plant that will give you years of enjoyment. Know the height and space required for each perennial that you buy. Find out the different bloom periods and plant your bed so that you can enjoy the different seasons with these long-lived plants.
Seed Catalogs and the Coming of Spring
by Don Trotter
Hello fellow Earthlings, and welcome to the time of year to comb through all of those wonderful, marvelous seed catalogs and planting guides in order to plan for a splendidly colorful and tasty spring and summer 2002. But the coming season is also changed by some of the events of 2001.
The seeds and bulbs, plants and trees that we will be ordering from mail order nurseries and seed producers will be subjected to the same scrutiny as is all of the other mail traveling back and forth across the country. This means that some things could possibly get a pretty severe dose of radiation in order to keep the mail safe from boneheads that would choose to alter the way this country handles its’ mail. Yet these machines are tooled solely for ‘stamped’ mail, and are mostly being sent to areas of concern like Washington, D.C..
Today I spent the better part of an hour, pressing the pound key on my telephone, listening to a litany of menu choices on the United States Postal Services’ customer service line. When I reached a very helpful individual at the customer service center in the lovely State of Kansas who was pining for his upcoming vacation to the Caribbean, presumably to escape the biting cold of the Great Plains this time of year, this person put me in contact with a Mr. Mike Cannone, media liaison, and spokesperson for the Postal Service.
Mr. Cannone went on to share that the Postal Service is, in fact, working with the purveyors of plants and seeds through the mail system in order to figure out what safeguards need to be in place to ensure that we don’t receive dead, or worse, contaminated (by radiation, or stupidity in the form of someone attempting to make a larger statement about this country) plants, bulbs, or seeds. These reassurances were comforting to someone that orders seeds through the mail each year in order to get some of the more fun flower hybrids that can only be found in catalogs for some reason. “Most of the seeds that pass in the system are in the bulk mail flow and at present the only irradiated mail is in the letter flow,” Cannone added. “And since most live plants flow in the priority part of the system, they are also currently not at risk of irradiation.”
Well, that made me feel a little better about this season and the current state of the security of our plants and seed, but what about the future? Are the obvious changes that we’ve experienced as a people over the last several months about to be further altered? Such a fundamental thing, as receiving living things by mail is not specific to mail order companies. How about the transfer of seeds and pollen through the mail by organizations like Zoos, Botanical Gardens, and species Conservation efforts. Apparently no threat exists at this time, and since I’m a big fan of the present, I’m not going to “go there” as the Springerese speakers would say. However, I do have one contentious harangue.
If the human(s), if we can call them that, that perpetrated or may be scheming to perpetrate further acts of lunacy via the U.S. Mail think they have made any changes, well, they have. Today, organic gardeners all over the country are presently up in arms wondering if the seeds they so value, and anticipate, with visions of giant sunflowers and delicious snow peas will be viable when they arrive. According to Mr. Cannone, they will be “this year.” Curiosity dictates, however, that all we need is another act of abject inhumanity to possibly make it so we, the gardeners of this country will have a heck of a time getting our “new additions” via the mail system as it exists. It is my hope that such acts do not occur, but we have little control over the angst of certain individuals. Maybe we should make walks in a garden, like our walks, mandatory for all people as a method to keep us all calm and appreciative of the gifts that nature provides without asking for our undivided xenophobia or intolerance.
Next time we’ll be discussing some very good techniques for pruning your fruit trees so that you can enjoy a “bumper” crop of fresh, nutritious ambrosia when the weather gets warm again. See you in the Garden!
Got Questions? Email the Doc. Don Trotter’s columns appear in newspapers and magazines nationwide. He is a freelance writer and avid naturalist that lives in the coastal paradise of Encinitas, California.