Category: Garden Articles

How to Get Rid of Aphids

How to Get Rid of Aphids

Most aphids are born pregnant. I say this both as a fun bit of trivia and to make a point: even more than other insect pests, they’re biologically fine-tuned for fast reproduction without any of the “fun stuff” to slow down the process. As in the below picture, the mother aphid doesn’t even interrupt feeding to pop out a genetic clone of herself, which in turn begins feeding on the plant and developing her own clones.

Image by Shipher (士緯) Wu (吳) CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Aphids aren’t fast-moving themselves, but with this biology, they’re extremely quick to reproduce when there’s plenty of food. The food that fuels them best, as you may have noted in your own garden, is the fresh lush growing tips of plants. They’ll seemingly appear from nowhere to absolutely smother the fresh shoots of a rose or the vigorous young leaves of broccoli.

The usual question (and the title of this article) “How to Get Rid of Aphids” is both absurdly easy to answer and also difficult to fully explain. They’re easy to remove or kill. You can spray them off the growing tips with a sharp jet of water. You can smush them with your fingers if you’re not too squeamish. You can spray them with any of the usually usually recommended garden sprays: insecticidal soap, oil, or wettable sulfur. They’re all effective to kill aphids. A dusting of diatomaceous earth will do it too. For a quick survey of some of the methods to get rid of them, here’s my video on the topic:

There’s no lack of ways to dramatically reduce their population, but the core problems remain: they’re already in your garden, there’s no way to exclude them, and they reproduce fast enough that you’re likely to find them back on neighboring plants not long after dealing with them.

I do sometimes hear from distressed gardeners who say something along the lines of “I got this plant from the garden center and it must have introduced aphids to my garden.” That’s a tempting line of reasoning, but unless you’re gardening in a fully enclosed tissue culture lab, it’s almost certain that the aphids were already present and reproducing in your garden. When the timing is right, they can literally be blown in on international air currents and “rain” into your garden. They’re as inevitable as mosquitoes on the banks of the Fraser River (which is a topic I wish I knew less about!).

Here’s the good news: in the same way they their annual cycle of arrival and fast reproduction is unavoidable, their predators aren’t far behind. To predators like ladybugs, wasps and hoverflies, aphids are easy prey – slow moving, plentiful, and filled with sweet plant sap! While it can be frustrating to wait for beneficial insect populations to “catch up” there are some things you can do to help the process along. Your part in it is to provide a good amount of plant diversity in the garden and to lay off the pesticides. I talk about the more natural approach in this video:

My “hidden agenda” in adding diverse plant species to the garden is just this: as a gardener, it’s something I already enjoy doing. The fact that carrot relatives are particularly attractive to hoverflies just gives me a good excuse to add some very pretty eryngium (sea holly) with its steely blue flower clusters to the garden.

Does this approach really work? I suppose it depends on the way you measure it. It won’t actually prevent outbreaks of aphids entirely, but there’s plenty of horticultural science to back up the approach of introducing and supporting beneficial insect populations to dampen or balance out these population booms. In any case, in my view it’s a far better alternative than trying to wipe out pests with repeated applications of pesticides – which tend to become less effective over time as the populations develop pesticide resistance. And by the way, if you’d like some more plant suggestions for a balanced garden, here’s a video for you:

Seedlings Stretched? What To Do About It

Seedlings Stretched? What To Do About It

Depending on your climate, it may be downright necessary to “cheat” out ahead of spring planting season by starting seeds indoors ahead of time. For some seeds like squash, recommendations may range from 2-4 weeks ahead of the season – that’s not a long time, but they’re fast growers! Other varieties like hot peppers or snapdragons are often started from 10-12 weeks in advance of the last frost date. That’s a long time to take care of seedlings indoors, and one common problem is when these seedlings may grow leggy and weak-stemmed during their time inside.

Photot by rudy kleysteuber CC BY 2.0

They’re stretching for the light. Sometimes you’ll even see them take a pronounced “lean” in the direction of a window or other light source. The thing about starting seeds indoors is that they need everything they would in nature, but now you have to control it all:

  • Light
  • Temperature
  • Air movement
  • Humidity
  • Watering
  • Nutrients

The simplest answer for leggy seedling is usually that they lack for light. The more complicated answer is that high temperatures, humidity, and lack of air movement can also contribute to weak, stretchy plants. Before I add more specifics, let me add this hopeful notion: even if you didn’t get it exactly right from the start, you can often coax those plant starts into better health by giving them what they need after the fact. In this video, I show you a tray of tomato seedlings I deliberately deprive of light – and show how I help them to recover from my mistreatment:

While all the environmental conditions are important, it really is the supplemental light that makes the biggest difference between strong, beefy seedling and weaklings. In the above video you would have seen me using a purple LED for artificial light, but I’ve certainly found since then that there are good affordable full spectrum (white) LED panels that will do the job beautifully. Depending on the number of trays you’re starting, the entry level light I can recommend include the SpiderFarmer SF1000 and the Mars TS600. Even an LED fluorescent replacement will do in a pinch for a couple of trays.

As is usually the case when I release a video with high viewership, I find out in the comment where I wasn’t specific enough. What’s the recommended temperature during germination, early development and the hardening off stage? How about humidity, air movement and fertilizer? Here’s a reference chart and video I produced to answer some of these questions:

I hope the above offers enough information to get your seedlings a good start. Following these earliest stages, and once you “graduate” the seedlings from indoors to outdoor growing there are a few additional steps I cover in this video: fertilizing, transplanting, thinning and pinching.

While I’d say it’s totally worth it to get a jump on slow-growing perennials or long-season veggies, it’s also a lot more work than sowing seeds directly into the garden. Direct-sowing is the right call for fast growing cool-season veggies like peas or radishes. It also makes sense for plants that don’t accept transplanting well, like beans or carrots.

For those you do decide are worth the extra time and effort to start early, make sure to set yourself up for success in advance. Supplemental lighting, a fan or two for air movement, and some well-timed adjustments to temperature and humidity can make all the difference to quality of your plants by the time they’re ready for your garden.

What Kind of Lavender Should You Grow?

What Kind of Lavender Should You Grow?

Not everyone wants a Lavender field. Okay, most people could probably be convinced to accept a country estate in Provence if it were part of an inheritance. So I’ll rephrase that: not everyone has the space or desire to grow their own field of lavender. But fit a few plants into their own landscape or containers? Yes, I think just about anyone could manage that. Which variety you should choose depends both on your climate and what qualities you want in the plants: fragrance, size, foliage, hardiness. Let’s look at the choices:

Lavender field in Hitchin England Photo by DeFacto CC BY-SA 4.0

Lavandula angustifolia (English Lavender) – I put this at the top of the list for fragrance. It’s a widely adaptable shrub, hardy down to roughly zone 5. This is widely grown for commercial perfume and stem production. The flower is tidy and well-formed, available colors ranging from white through pink, lavender and purple. There are many popular cultivars, and more introduced each year, but some classic choices are ‘Hidcote’, Munstead’ and ‘Edelweiss’ (white).

Closer view of Lavandula angustifolia

Lavandula x Intermedia (Lavandin) – rated a close second for fragrance. It could probably be said that English Lavender has a finer fragrance, but Lavandin is a bit stronger. Also hardy to zone 5, but maybe a touch more tender than English Lavender. Slightly taller in habit on average, and many varieties are known for distinctively silver foliage. ‘Grosso’, ‘Provence’ and ‘Phenomenal’ are well known and well grown. White through lavender in color. These are sterile hybrids, so they’re all propagated by cuttings.

Lavandula × intermedia More: Original public domain image from Smithsonian

Lavandula stoechas (Spanish Lavender or French Lavender, depending on who you ask. Thus I led with the botanical names) This one is well adapted to warmer climates, even growing as weed in Australia. The fragrance isn’t nearly so nice or intense as the previous two listed, but the flowers are faster and larger and come in a wide range of colors including intense pink and nearly red. Great for seasonal containers. Hardy to zone 6.

Lavandula stoechas by Jean-Pol Grandmont CC BY-SA 3.0

Lavandula dentata (Fringed Lavender) is often sold as an annual container herb in my area because it’s fairly tender. The finely divided foliage makes this ornamental even when it’s not in flower. It’s fragrant, but not nearly so nice to my nose as L. angustifolia or L. x intermedia, and the flowers aren’t quite so nice as any of the above either – so the herb garden or annual planters seems about right to me.

L. dentata by Forest and Kim Starr CC BY 2.0

I cover the info on these first four varieties of lavender (with some additional visuals) in this video:

There are a few other lavenders species and hybrids that might be worth trying out if you’re experimenting. One of the parents of the Lavendin varieties is Lavandula latifolia, with an intense camphor fragrance and broad leaves. I’ve also enjoyed L. x chaytorae with extremely silver foliage – very pretty! L. multifida grew easily from seed, and was even more fern-leafed than the fringed lavender listed above.

Perhaps my favorite overall is L. x intermedia ‘Phenomenal’, which combines excellent fragrance, hardiness and vigor in one plant. I do find the Lavendin varieties overwinter even better than the English varieties on my farm, going beautifully dormant and resisting some of the rot I generally see over the cold season.

Since I’ve helped you with your selections, I may as well send you off with a little bit of growing advice with this video:

And if you’ve ever though to try your hand at propagation, lavender is quite an accommodating partner:

Assess Winter Plant Damage

Assess Winter Plant Damage

Perennials, shrubs and trees are meant to be the enduring framework of your landscape through the seasons, so chances are that you chose them with your climate in mind. One particular criteria gardeners often use for their selection is the hardiness zone rating. It’s not a perfect system – and there are several other reasons why your plant could take winter damage – but the cold hardiness zones (and their familiar maps) offer at least some guidance about which plants should survive your winter.

Here’s the problem: not all winters fit predictably within allotted zones. If you’ve ever had a much colder winter than average, especially one with strong winds and not much snow cover, you may come out the other side wondering which of your “permanent” plantings survived. In this quick article, I’ll try to offer some guidance on how to assess the cold damage to your plants – after the ice and snow melts, that is!

Patience…

Some plants are enthusiastic to push flowers (witch hazel, for instance) or leaf buds as soon as temperatures will allow. Others are notoriously slow and cautious – I use the example of hardy hibiscus (Hibiscus syriacus) which keeps its winter color and form with no signs of life until weeks later than everything else. Unless you have some pressing timeline (renovations, pending landscaping project, moving) I’d suggest you hold off the stress for a few weeks and give the plants an opportunity to show up for work.

Color

This won’t be as obvious for every plant, but generally the first signs of activity come from changes in the color of buds or stems. Shades of purple, pink, red, orange, yellow and (obviously) green are all hopeful signs that all is well with the plant.

Red dogwood or yellow willow stems are more obvious, but many plants display a color change as they prepare to break dormancy

On the other hand, if the buds and stems seem to be deepening into dull shades of dark brown, grey or (especially) black it can be a warning that there’s been tissue damage in that part of the plant. I wouldn’t use this as a final evaluation of a plant – and I give more details in this video:

Buds

Beyond color, I’m also looking for changes in the size and shape of the buds. Over the winter, the dormant buds are smaller, and usually held relatively tightly to the stem. Here’s an example from a sugar maple tree:

Photo by Plant Image Library CC BY-SA 2.0

When preparing to break into spring growth, in addition to any color changes these buds will begin to enlarge in preparation for developing shoots or flowers:

Photo by Plant Image Library CC BY-SA 2.0

For perennials, you can often look for the same changes, but you’ll have to gently tease away the soil and mulch from around their crown to see if the shoots are elongating or taking on a spring color.

I mention these changes to the color of stems and the size and shape of buds because they’re visual and can set your mind at ease without causing any damage to the plant. However, if you’re eager to get an answer and your plant isn’t showing any outwards signs, it may be time for a more hands-on approach:

Scrape or Snap

This next test is something landscapers are not hesitant to perform if there’s any doubt. A little scratch with a pruning blade (or even thumbnail) will reveal the color and condition of the inner bark. Green – in all it’s variations, including pale greenish yellow and nearly white – is what you’re looking for.

Black, pale brown or grey are bad signs. Another variation of this test is where you’d snap off one of the smaller stems on a tree or shrub’s extremities, and examine the color of the inner bark at the point of the break. This “snap test” also can reveal whether the wood of the stem is still somewhat moist and flexible (alive) or dry and brittle (dead). There’s a demonstration in the video I linked earlier in the article. On perennials the above-ground parts will most often have died back over winter, so any poking and prodding will be focused on the crown of the plant – where firmness is a good sign and mushy or moldy definitely are not!

What to do about it?

If you’ve given it a reasonable amount of time and then confirmed that a plant has died over the winter, there’s little you can do except remove the plant and make new gardening plans. In many cases, however, the cold may have damaged only the extremities, leaving the plant to regrow from its healthy roots and crown. I get messages from concerned gardeners every year asking what else they can do to help bring their plants back from the damage. It might be more a matter of what not to do. Don’t throw an unusual amount of fertilizer at the plant, hoping to spur on aggressive new growth. Excess fertilizer can compound the stress of the injury. There’s little evidence that a B1 vitamin product will help. I wouldn’t hit the plant with a preemptive application of pesticide/fungicide either.

It’s really just a matter of pruning to remove the dead, damaged and diseased parts of the plant, and offering good garden conditions just as you aim to do for all your garden plants. I specialize in roses, but the following video where I discuss how and when to prune back winter damage would apply across a wide range of woody plants:

Finally, it’s worth repeating that not all winter damage is due to the cold itself. If you’re looking to adjust your planning for coming years, it may not be a matter of just cheating down on the hardiness zone map (although that’s not a bad idea when growing in a more exposed location or in a container). I linked this video at the top of the article, but if you’ve come this far I may as well offer it again:

Winter Garden Plants

Winter Garden Plants

For the front garden, we decided on a fairly tight theme: plants chosen for their fall and winter features. You might think that this plan would feel restrictive or limiting, but I actually found it to inspire my creativity. I started by ordering a few varieties of willow, with their colorful winter stems. That led on to other plants with interesting stems and bark, and then on to plants with colorful berries, blooms or foliage through the cold season. In this post, I’ll list some of the best small trees, shrubs, and perennials for winter color.

Here’s a video tour of the garden as it stands going into winter of 2017:

Stems and Bark

Both dogwoods and willows display brightly colored stems after their foliage drops in the fall, and that color often intensifies over the following months. We selected 5 varieties of willow and 3 dogwoods for the front garden. They all put on their best color on first-year growth, so I recommend a low annual spring pruning.

  • Salix x. ‘Flame’
  • Cornus ‘Midwinter Fire’
  • Salix rubens ‘Hutchinson’s Yellow’
  • Cornus ‘Winter Flame’
  • Salix alba ‘Chermesina’
  • Cornus sericea
  • Salix matsudana tortuosa – red corkscrew willow
  • Salix alba ‘Britzensis’

To round out the bark colors and textures, I also added:

Paperbark Maple – photo by Derek Ramsey

  • Acer griseum – paperbark maple, for its ornamental peeling trunk
  • Rubus thibetanus – ghost bramble, for its striking white canes
  • Lagerstroemia indica – for its patchwork of stem colors

Flowers for the Winter Garden

At first consideration, I would have been pressed to think of many plants that carry flowers through the cold of winter. We started with the late winter blooming Witch Hazel ‘Jelena’, but then expanded my definition to include shrubs and perennials that flower late into the fall or push the boundaries of early spring. Pictured is Mahonia intermedia, and our other selections are listed below:

  • Mahonia intermedia
  • Helleborus hybrids
  • Hypericum – St. John’s Wort
  • Schizostylis coccinea
  • Hamamelis ‘Jelena’
  • Ribes sanguineum – flowering current, for very early spring
  • Viburnum ‘Dawn’
  • Sarcococca confusa – Himalayan Sweet Box
  • Bergenia cordifolia

Berries

I’m going to have to include roses in this category, because their main winter feature is their fruit. I chose these three for the winter garden:

  • Rosa davidii – which also has deep red colored stems
  • ‘Ballerina’ – a hybrid musk with a veritable cloud of small hips
  • ‘Magic’ – a not-so-miniature mini rose with great fruit

Some of the most exciting color for the fall and winter garden comes from brightly shaded berries like these:

  • Callicarpa americana
  • Ilex aquipernyi ‘San Jose’
  • Hypericum – for the fruit as well as flowers
  • Callicarpa bodinieri

Foliage and Form

I still have some space in the winter garden, and my plan is to spend it on some of those evergreens and structural elements that tie a garden together when most of the other foliage has dropped. So far, I’ve planted:

  • Cephalotaxus fortuneii
  • Buxus ‘Winter Gem’
  • Abies koreana
  • Thuja occidentalis ‘Teddy’

The holly (Ilex) and himalayan sweet box (Sarcococca) listed above are also evergreen, and could be listed in this category as well. In addition to these conifers and broadleaf evergreens, I’m pondering the addition of ornamental grasses, which can hold their structure well in the winter. Even a deciduous shrub like Euonymus alata (burning bush) can add an architectural quality due to the cool way it accumulates snow atop its winged branches.

I’ll run out of space before I run out of plants

My one conclusion from designing this garden is this: once you start looking, there are plenty of plants with interesting winter features. There’s definitely some call for winter-blooming bulbs, ultra-early perennials, and the list of conifers with striking foliage is massive. I’ve made good progress in deciduous plants with colorful stems, but even within the willow family, there are another 3 or 4 I’d like to wedge into the beds somewhere. I’ll be making videos as the garden matures and fills in. If you’re interested, you can subscribe to my Youtube channel to get the updates. If you have any suggestions, I’d be happy to hear those as well.

 

 

 

 

 

What Gardeners Could Learn From the Local Food Movement

What Gardeners Could Learn From the Local Food Movement

I’ve spent a lot of time at the local Farmers Market here in Mission BC – and I’ve made the rounds at other local community markets as well. My time as a vendor has given me a lot of respect for what the local food movement is about. The more I look at it, the more I recognize this movement as inspiration for my own industry. As a gardener first and foremost, I would argue that our shared hobby is threatened by consumer-driven mass marketing. If we want to “push back” we should take lessons from how the local food movement is changing the world, one reusable organic cotton produce bag at a time.

Photo: Sarah Stierch (CC BY 4.0)

What is the local food movement?

I would never describe the local food movement as negative, but it is a reaction against something. Somehow, a whole bunch of people came together to draw similar conclusions about the global food industry. What started as a list of problems eventually began to inspire solutions. But first, some of the problems:

  • Apples shipped in from around the world, while local orchards go out of business
  • The widespread use of GMOs, pesticides and chemical fertilizers in farming
  • Shelves full of overpackaged and highly processed foods
  • Varieties of produce chosen for the sake of uniform ripening and for long-distance transport (but not necessarily flavor or nutrition)
  • Local, small-scale food production disappearing, along with the jobs and skills they entail

So what’s wrong with the free market?

Here’s my take on it: individually most people are quite smart, but together we can be a little stupid. When a large food company makes a decision, they’re doing it based on consumer behavior as a group. They’re following the herd, and the herd is following them. When they end up selling us something cheap, easy, salty, sweet, overpackaged, and shipped in from 3000 kilometers away – it’s not like any individual consumer would have requested it that way, but we move funny when we’re in big groups.

How this applies to the gardening hobby

While the local food movement is pushing back against some bad outcomes, what’s happening in gardening is every bit as concerning. International mass-merchants have gobbled up somewhere above 50% of plant sales in Canada already, with no signs of slowing down. If you want the best for the gardening hobby, would you aim to buy plants from a knowledgeable horticulturist, or a part-time seasonal clerk at a mass merchant? Would you prefer properly labeled plants, with botanical names and complete growing information, or the infamous “Green Plant” tag? Would you want a garden center that at least makes an attempt to stay relevant all year, or a “seasonal department” that stocks plants for 10 weeks in the spring, then switches to patio furniture?

How’s that for detail?

Is it even a plant, or just disposable decor?

I happen to be writing this post during the run up to Christmas, so examples abound of plants packaged as seasonal decor. Take the Norfolk Island Pine (Araucaria heterophylla) as an example. This tropical tree shows up in the hardware and big box stores this time of year, usually all dressed up in holiday tinsel:

I’m not judging you if you bought one: it’s actually a very interesting plant. The pretense that any of these trees will actually be kept alive is what I question. The Norfolk Island Pine is a tropical tree, so it’s not going to survive a winter outdoors in our climate (not that you would know any better from the informational tag included). The timing of the sale puts these trees into homes at a particularly difficult time of year. Good natural light will be hard to come by, humidity will likely be low, and “Christmas trees” often go neglected for watering during the busy season. A few attentive purchasers will turn these holiday trees into attractive large houseplants. The rest will end up deteriorating under poor conditions until disposed of after the holiday, tinsel and all.

Poinsettias aren’t exactly evil (but they did kill Frosty the Snowman)

I took this poinsettia picture at the hardware store yesterday. Yes, that’s glitter. As if this long-standing abomination to sensible horticulture couldn’t get tackier. For all the heat and special growing conditions that go into forcing this tropical shrub to bloom, most will be in the garbage bin by mid-January.

Christmas isn’t the only season with throw-away plants. Wrap a miniature rose in red foil, and decorate with plastic heart-shaped “bling” for Valentine’s. We have lilies for Easter, sorrel for St. Patrick’s day, and fall mums for, well, fall. If you can bling it, it can be holiday themed as throw-away decor.

Where does it lead?

The problem with these products isn’t just their wastefulness. Dumbing down horticulture to this extent puts new gardeners onto the wrong path. Selling a plant that ends up in the garbage is just confirmation that the hobby is “too hard”, or maybe just a bad way to spend money. When a new gardener buys a plant with scant or misleading growing information, she’s less likely to succeed. That’s a problem for us all. Greenhouse forced and highly growth-regulated plants (with sprays or by other growing means) often have performance problems in the garden. Do you think the novice gardener will understand that when his snapdragons remain stunted in the garden?

Where doesn’t it lead?

It used to be that there was a clear path forward from the bedding annuals. They were like a “gateway drug” into gardening. Once you were hooked on the color, you could go back to your local garden center and be transitioned into other, longer-lived plants: bulbs, perennials, shrubs & trees. The novice becomes proficient, the proficient gardener becomes an expert, and so on. This is how we can assure the future of the hobby, by helping each other to get better. It’s also how we trade around and manage to keep rare, interesting, and even historic plants in hobbyist gardens.

The above pictured rose, ‘Chapeau de Napoleon’ with it’s very fancy crested sepals is kept alive in gardens by trading between gardeners. The future of cool plants like this one depends on new gardeners getting past the throw-away plant phase in their hobby.

What else isn’t working

Where do I start? As you can tell from the above topics, I’m not a fan of over-packaging and heavy-handed branding. The really big horticulture companies have turned to the dubious tactics of hiding real cultivar names beneath trade names, fancy logos and highly branded product lines. It affects me personally when it comes to my horticultural first love, roses. You can see my rant on rose naming here.

In a somewhat related tactic, at least one horticulture company I know of is making good business of buying a “portfolio of genetics”. They’re locking down some of the best new cultivars to their corporate branding efforts. Is this is the long-term interest of the gardening hobby? They will flog these cultivars until nearly the expiry of their patent period, and then move onto something newer before they have to share those genetics with the world. Sound a bit like the pharmaceutical industry?

What the local food movement has changed

Okay, okay. The food industry is still plagued by overpackaging, overshipping, the use of GMOs, questionable chemicals, and rubber carrots (well, maybe it only seems that way compared to the local stuff). The problems aren’t all fixed, but at least they’re identified, and that’s a good start. The most powerful accomplishment so far: a dedicated and viable alternate market for local produce. The Farmers Market has become a place where it still makes sense to talk about flavor, quality and good production practices. The real value that has come from the local food movement is that they have made conversations about farming practices relevant to the consumer.

Oh great, another lecture about hybrid seeds…

We don’t all have to agree about every topic, to know that the conversation itself is a good thing. If we can agree that in general, buying local is better than buying from who-knows-where, that’s progress. We may not 100% agree on tillage, spraying, or organic practices, but the fact that customer are making direct contact with producers, and asking these questions is good. It makes growers more accountable and more thoughtful about their methods.

Who am I to judge?

You’re the person making the decision, that’s who. Every time you spend a dollar on a plant, you tell the horticulture industry what you’re willing to pay for. If the local food movement is any indication, the horticulture companies will listen and adjust.

Do you want to make a difference? Here’s my prescription:

  1. Join up. See other plant people at the local Farmers Market, community garden, garden club, or related Facebook group. If you’re in my area, I can recommend three right away: Mission Plant Buy & Sell, for buys/sell/trade & giving away plants, as well as garden discussion, Gardening in the Fraser Valley, which is just what it sound like and has many knowledgeable participants, and Canada Rose Cuttings & Exchange, where we’re working on preserving rare garden roses.
  2. Give buying preference to local specialty growers. We may not have all the assortment of a garden center, but you can find some really special plants this way… and go a long way to supporting local agriculture.
  3. Share your opinions. You may be the expert gardener that novices are taking their lead from, and if so, please lead them thoughtfully and towards success.
  4. I’m not saying to avoid the mass merchants altogether. I would just encourage you to visit your year-round independent garden center as your preferred option to the degree you can, and perhaps even when there’s a difference in price.

Thanks so much for taking the time to read my opinion. I know I went a bit long, but what can I say… I’m an enthusiast. Not a writer (clearly), but a grower, and a grateful participant in the hobby of gardening. If you agree, or even if you don’t, I’d be pleased if you were to share your thoughts. It’s a conversation worth having, I think.

Plant These to Support Beneficial Insects

Plant These to Support Beneficial Insects

You’re not freaked out by “bugs” in the garden – because you know a balanced population of insects is the secret to a healthy garden.

There are all sorts of plants you can include in your garden to support the health of bees, butterflies, and other garden helpers. In general, any increase in plant diversity is helpful – but I’ve prepared a list of plants that can “fill the gaps” in feeding and supporting the beneficials. To round-out your insect-friendly garden plan, choose some from each of these 6 groups:

1) The early-season heroes, like Candytuft

Late winter and early spring can be tough times for your garden helpers. Gardeners who provide early-season blooming flowers give the good guys a head-start against the inevitable population explosion of garden pests. Candytuft (Iberis umbellata, the annual type, is pictured above) is a member of the mustard family, which also include such early-season flowers as wallflowers (Erysimum), Rock cress (Aubrieta), and Basket-of-gold (Alyssum). Supplement your early season bloomers with some of these:

  • Siberian bugloss (Brunnera)
  • Lungwort (Pulmonaria)
  • Species roses (Rosa hugonis or Rosa spinosissima, for example)
  • Creeping phlox
  • Lenten rose (Helleborus)
  • Pigsqueak (Bergenia) and yes, I just like to say “Pigsqueak”

2) Wide-open flowers for bees, like Echinacea

Hard-working and adaptable as they are, there are some flowers that bees can’t feed on because they have too many petals or a difficult bloom form. To support these pollinators, look for wide-open and easy to access flowers, like the ones on this list:

  • Shasta daisies (Leucanthemum)
  • Single-flowering roses like ‘Darlow’s Enigma’ or ‘Ballerina’
  • Borage
  • Joe-pye weed (Eupatorium)
  • Lenten rose (Helleborus)
  • Pincushion flower (Scabiosa)

3. High-nectar plants for butterflies, like milkweed

Butterflies can feed on many of the flowers that bees are attracted to, so if you’re already planning on some bee-supporting flowers, you’re well on your way to helping butterflies too. In addition to the ones listed above, butterflies look for nectar in plants with tubular flowers, like garden sage (Salvia). Here are some other plants that butterflies frequent:

  • Butterfly bush (Buddliea)
  • Goldenrod (Solidago)
  • Gayfeather (Liatris)
  • Root-beer plant (Agastache)
  • False-indigo (Baptisia)
  • Verbena

4) Tiny flowers for tiny insects, like Queen Anne’s Lace

Don’t forget about the little guys – the little Aphidius wasp and hoverflies that do so much to control aphids are particularly attracted the tiny flowers of members of the carrot family – but other plant from different families are equally useful. Some of the easiest and most attractive garden plants are in this group:

  • Yarrow (Achillea)
  • Fennel (Foeniculum)
  • Lobelia
  • Poached-egg plant (Limnanthes)
  • Statice (Limonium)
  • Sweet cicely (Myrrhis)

5) The designated victims, like nasturtium

The idea behind a “trap crop” is to give early pest outbreaks a place to happen in your garden – on your terms – on a plant that you’ve grown for that purpose. My roses are never the first place I notice aphids. They appear on my nasturtiums and lupins first. This gives their natural enemies a chance to build up their population and bring things into balance before the outbreak reaches my favored plants. In this way, the trap crops also become banker plants for beneficial insects. Other plants often planted as trap crops are:

  • Beans (for spider mites, aphids and thrips)
  • Eggplant (for whitefly)
  • Lupins (for aphids)
  • Shasta daisy (for thrips)
  • Dill (for aphids)

6) Winter insect habitat, like hedging cedar

Believe it or not, even the common hedging cedar can play an important role in balancing insect populations. Researchers found that conifers like spruce and cedar maintain high levels of predatory mites through the winter. Even dormant plants can be a safe haven for overwintering beneficials, so don’t be so quick to tidy up and cut down your perennials. Here are some other overwintering havens you can provide:

  • Evergreen viburnum or other broadleaf evergreens
  • Tall wild grass or ornamental grasses (unpruned)
  • A wood pile or stump or other fallen branches
  • Roses with hips left on
  • Fallen leaves (left in place in the garden)

Make small improvements, and then fill the gaps…

It’s tempting, but maybe unrealistic, to make a planting plan that covers all these functions for the entire year – and gets it right the first time. My suggestion is to start with some multi-function plants – like Joe-pye weed or yarrow – and then observe to see what’s still missing. Is there a time your garden lacks flowers? Where and when are the pest outbreaks happening? With these observations, you can add plants to fill the gaps for upcoming years.