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I seem to have fallen in love with hostas. I have a large one growing in a space by itself that's about 36 inches by 36 inches. I would like to know how to divide the hosta and plant the sections so I can get rid of some of the weeds.
Joyce Nash, Bronx
You're in luck: Dividing hostas is one of the simplest gardening chores on the planet, and though it can be done in the spring and summer, early fall is the ideal time.
Dig up the entire plant and then use a garden fork or spade to split the root clump into halves or quarters. Larger plants obviously allow for more divisions. Just be sure each root section has leaves above it.
The task can be made easier by hosing off the roots, which will make the clump softer and also allow you to better see what you're doing. Replant each new section, and you're done. Though your newly divided hostas will look a bit mangy, they'll each come back as full plants in the spring.
As the growing season winds down, there are some last-minute chores that need to be done to ensure a healthy -- and easier -- spring garden:
Plant bulbs. You won't have the instant gratification of seeing your garden perk up immediately, but after a long, mostly colorless winter, you'll be happy you made the effort. Snowdrops and winter aconites will be the first to reward you, in early March, and they'll be closely followed by crocuses and chionodoxas, and then daffodils, hyacinths and tulips. The beginning of November is ideal bulb-planting time here in zone 7a, but you can continue to do so until the ground freezes. See the Spring Bulbs 101 entry for details.
Mulch garden beds, but not until later in the month when plants are dormant, to prevent damage from freezing cycles. Use no more than 3 inches of mulch -- over-mulching holds in too much moisture and will lead to rot.
Vegetables After harvesting the last of your garden's offerings, clear out the beds and till the soil.
Roses Clear fallen leaves out of the area and protect rose bushes by mounding soil up around the bases of canes. If you experienced black spot or other leaf diseases this year, it's especially important to remove any plague-carrying debris from the bed. Secure canes with twine to protect them from wind damage. Click here for expert advice on winterizing roses.
Gear Remove caked-on soil from tools and then rinse clean with a shot of the hose. Dip each in a bleach and water solution, or dry first and then spray with a disinfectant spray such as Lysol. When dry, treat with WD-40 or rub with an oiled rag to prevent rust. Store in a dry place, such as a garage, crawl space or garden shed.
Trees. Wrap the trunks of recently planted young trees with wire mesh or plastic wrap to protect them from hungry rodents over the winter.
Leave spent perennials in the garden to provide interest during the winter months. Remember, one man's dead plants are another's dried flowers. Seed heads and dry stems keep the garden from looking barren during the off months and feed birds that were too lazy to take the journey south, helping them make it through the harsh season.
Cut the grass until it goes to sleep. Then give it a nice dose of fertilizer (around Thanksgiving) and set the alarm for spring.
Stack the firewood, batten down the hatches and rest. You'll be digging and hauling and planting again before you know it.
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| Stephen Scanniello (Gotta love the dirty knees!) (Photo by Len Gelstein) |
The following advice comes directly from the master, Stephen Scanniello, an internationally renowned rosarian, curator of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden's Cranford Rose Garden and author of "A Year of Roses," which I reviewed earlier this year. Mr. Scanniello was kind enough to share his expertise here on the Garden Detective Blog with these pointers:
It's still a good time to plant. In fact, it's the best time to plant roses. This includes moving an older bush to a new spot. To do so, prune back enough so that you can handle the shrub, prepare the new area with lots of compost and well-drained soil, and water thoroughly.
If you ordered from Canada, and the bare-root roses haven't arrived yet, dig the holes and mulch the holes to keep them from freezing. You may not get the roses until December.
If you ordered roses from root nurseries, these may be small. If so, plant in a pot and keep in a sheltered area till spring (this applies to roses that arrive in "sleeves," like those from Vintage Gardens of California.
Underplant roses with spring-flowering bulbs. Favorites, in bloom cycle from early to late, include:
Plant small flowered pansies (violas) (View image) under old shrub roses or others that won't get mounded later in the winter, I prefer the Sorbet series.
Top dress all beds with rotted manure, not touching the roses, but a nice layer.
Tie all loose canes of climbers and ramblers.
Only prune back hybrid teas if you feel the look is ugly. Best to leave everything the way it is.
(All plant photos courtesy of Cornell Cooperative Extension)
To view photos from Mr. Scanniello's private gardens, visit the Virtual Gardening Club.
It's pumpkin-picking time, and as reported in Garden Detective: The Column, reader Valerie Grant of Roosevelt has picked herself a doozy! Back in the Spring, Ms. Grant planted a few "curry pumpkin" seeds, just as she’d done in the past. But this year, her gourds have grown beyond her expectations. The largest measured 31 inches in length and 54 inches across, and weighed in at 70 pounds.
“I got a beach towel, laid it on the lawn and rolled the pumpkin onto it,” Grant explained when asked how she managed to harvest the giant. “My friend came over and helped me take it inside the house.”
Grant plans to make pumpkin soup on Sunday for the congregation at Memorial Presbyterian Church in Roosevelt.
Pumpkins are technically fruits, as are tomatoes, but for our purposes, we'll call them vegetables because that's how most people view them. They're also among the most unappreciated grown foods in our area. Most Long Islanders purchase pumpkins along with other gourds and chrysanthemums to add a touch of autumn to their decor. Not many actually eat them.
I grew up in an Italian household, where pretty much everything was edible so long as it was fried up with some peppers. Pumpkin actually is very good that way, and I always save some of the innards of my jack-o-lantern for just such a side dish. The rest I slice (or scoop) and store in the freezer. When the urge for pumpkin pie strikes, I bake it at 375 degrees for a half hour and then puree it in a blender with brown sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger and a pinch of cloves. I pour in a can of evaporated milk and a couple of eggs, mix thoroughly and pour into a prepared pie crust. I toss it in a 375-degree preheated oven for about 45 minutes, until the center is firm.
Here's a recipe for Peppery Pumpkin Risotto.
More pumpkin recipes from Newsday.
Share your recipes here.
HEAVIEST PUMPKIN
Larry Checkon holds the Guinness World Record for growing the heaviest pumpkin. It weighed 1,469 pounds when he entered it in the Pennsylvania Giant Pumpkin Growers Association Weigh-off, on October 1, 2005. Later, Scott Cully carved the world's largest Jack-o-lantern from it.
If you grew pumpkins this year, tell us about them. If not, you can still pick your own at one of Long Island's u-pick farms.
More Pumpkin World Records
Stephen Clarke holds the Guinness World Record for being the fastest to carve a face into a pumpkin, completing the creative task in just 24.03 seconds. Read more about Clarke here.
Planning a pumpkin party for the kids? Check out the ideas at Family Fun.
Creepy Stuff
Since we're on a pumpkin/Halloween roll, check out these actual, unedited photos of the Planting Fields Arboretum ghost. My daughter Justine visited with some friends last year and took some photos while she was there. We all swear we saw a ghost-like shadow in the background of one of them, but she accidentally deleted the shot a few days later. Some might say that was no accident.
I just put in some spring bulbs behind the new perennials. This way, when the flowers have faded, the foliage will be hidden behind the next season's entries.
The landscaper will be bringing a purple plum tree for the bare corner of the front yard, and I'll surround it with smaller Hosta and orange daylilies.
Having spent the weekend shopping and hauling and planting, I'd be mortified if anyone dropped in on me today. The house looks like a tornado hit it.
Here's what went in:
 Dutch Iris Eye of the Tiger
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 Ranunculus, mixed
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 Snow Crocus
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 Double Daffodil Rip Van Winkle
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 Cornell Cooperative Extension photo Allium “Purple Sensation
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 Cornell Cooperative Extension photo Orange “Crown Imperial” Fritillaria (very hard to find, by the way; nearly everyone is sold out. Even photos were scarce -- had to use this yellow one.) Click here for a warning about Fritillaria bulbs
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 Antoinette Chameleon tulips, whose flowers start out cream-colored, then pink edges appear before they evolve into a solid salmon-orange. | |
| Orange Candleflower
| Branching orange tulips
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| The suspect |
The first time I purchased “Crown Imperial” Fritillaria bulbs, it was by mail order. When the package arrived, I brought it in the house and set it on the kitchen counter. Some 10 minutes later, when the dog, Shelby, entered the room, I noticed a very strong, foul skunk-like odor. Naturally, I put the dog out.
When I thought she had purged herself of whatever was causing that malodorous stench to emit from Lord-knows-where, I let her back in. Moments later, the smell returned, and out she went.
And so it continued for the better part of an hour -- in and out -- with accusations flying among family members about who had fed what to the dog.
Then John happened upon the box and determined it was the bulbs, not poor Shelby.
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| The culprit |
Word to the wise: when you bring your Fritillaria bulbs home, if you’re not going to plant them right away, store them in the garage or outdoors in a protected area.
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| Gaillardia Fanfare (Photo courtesy of Bluestone Perennials) |
Using garden hoses and an old can of blue spray paint we found in the garage to mark the beds, we set to work. After a few U.N.-level negotiations, John and I agreed on the shape of things. We also agreed neither of us had the time nor the inclination to do the back-breaking labor required to dig up the grass and tree roots, so we called in a landscaping crew to shape the canvas.
Now I've seen many of you out in your gardens, spade in hand, digging new beds and even shoveling gravel from 2-ton wheelbarrows. And I applaud and admire you. But I just can't do it. I plan and plant and even dig up and transplant small-to-medium shrubs. But I do rely on John for the really heavy lifting. And when he can't do it, I call in the big guns. I'm not proud.
Once the beds were made, so to speak, I went shopping.
I was very pleased to have found some dwarf shrubs at Hick’s Nurseries in Westbury for the street side of the fence. Three of them are Rhododendrons (“Purple Gem”) that only get 2 feet tall and wide. The other three are Crimson Pygmy Barberries, which also will grow 2 feet tall, with a 3-foot spread. They'll provide some much-needed winter interest.
I added some double-decker purple coneflowers (Echinacea purpurea) and black-eyed susans (Rudbeckia hirta) around them, and stuck a few Helenium Mardi Gras and Gaillardia Fanfare in the bed for good measure. The latter two, which I ordered from Bluestone Perennials, a family-owned-and-operated nursery in Madison, OH, are among my ten favorite perennials.
I also moved a misplaced euonymus from the side of the house to the far end of the new bed. (Yes, I dug it up myself.) On the other end, I planted a beautiful black fountain grass (Pennisetum A. “Moudry”)
Inside the fence, I moved the Guacamole hostas from the backyard to around the one remaining pine tree, and surrounded them with some cool Hemerocallis Red Magic daylilies. Red Magic's flowers will look beautiful alongside Guacamole's 5-foot-tall lavender-topped spikes.
Moving along the fence toward the side of the house, I put in some purple liatris (Spicata Kobold) and interspersed them with ONE orange Asiatic lily (I had more but they didn't survive the move) and more Helenium Mardi Gras, which are so cool because they look tie-dyed, and they're a nice alternative to the more common Black-eyed Susans.
Spring bulbs will go in next.
My intention -- naive as it is -- is to set up the gardens, and then have them take care of themselves. Aside from the occasional deadheading and weeding sessions, and spring and fall cleanups, I’m all for low-maintenance. Maybe I’ll feel differently when the kids are grown and I’m retired, but for now, I’m all about the shortcut.
Do you have any work-saving tips or favorite low-maintenance plants? Do tell.
What do you get when you cross a tulip bulb and a light bulb?
A power plant.
Lots of folks refer to any underground structure that isn’t a fibrous or conical root system as a “bulb.” But in actuality, bulbs are very specific things, and shouldn’t be confused with rhizomes, corms or tubers. (We’ll talk about them another time.)
Amaryllis, daffodils, hyacinths, lilies, tulips, snowdrops, and ornamental onions all are true bulbs.
When shopping for bulbs, avoid any that appear moldy, are mushy or seem otherwise rotted. Loose skins aren’t a problem.
Spring-flowering bulbs need to spend a certain amount of time under chilly ground (below 60 degrees) in order to bloom. On Long Island, in Zone 7, the ideal planting time is around the beginning of November, but you can continue to plant bulbs until the ground freezes.
Bulbs serve as plants’ food storage system, providing nourishment throughout the dormant seasons(s) to ensure future showings. They come in varied sizes and have varied depth requirements, usually 2 inches to 6 or 8 inches deep. If you’ve purchased your bulbs, check the packaging for planting instructions; If you’ve inherited them or if for some other reason they didn’t come with directions, you really can’t go wrong planting any bulb at about 4 inches. Some will cry heresy, but it works. I’ve done it.
If you’re planning an entire bulb bed, dig up 4 inches of soil across the board, place your bulbs where you want them, and cover the whole thing up. If you’re adding bulbs to an existing bed, you should dig each hole individually to an appropriate depth and plant them one by one. Drop the bulb in the hole, pointy side up, and cover with soil. An ordinary trowel can be used for this task, but several different types of bulb planters are available to simplify the process.
Fiskars makes a bulb transplanter that’s marked with depth graduations and has a spring-loaded handle to release packed soil.
The Hound Dog Bulb Hound goes a bit easier on your back, as it has a long handle to reduce stooping.
For a higher-tech approach, there are bulb augers, like this one from Protech Tool Supply, that attach to power drills. Might be a good idea if you’re planting hundreds of bulbs at once.
I’m partial to a dibble, like the one made by Rumford Gardener (View image). You just poke it in the ground to the depth line marked on the spike, twist it around a bit to widen the hole and you’re done.
To discourage squirrels, rabbits, moles and other bulb-hoarding critters from making a winter meal of your spring garden, add a handful of crushed oyster shells to the hole when planting bulbs. The pests find the texture of the shells irritating and will keep away, plus you get the added bonus of nutrients leeching from the shells and nourishing your bulbs.
There are three basic planting techniques for bulbs:
Layering means planting one bulb directly on top of another. For instance, a tulip or daffodil bulb can be planted at 6 inches, partially covered with soil, and an earlier flowering bulb like a crocus, can be added right on top of it. The crocus will surface and bloom first, and the tulip or daffodil will follow, providing a longer season of color from the exact same spot.
Naturalizing is by far the most fun planting method, but it’s not for everyone. It involves putting your bulbs in a bag (or in a closed fist,) tossing them in the air and planting them where they land. It’s more pleasurable if you close your eyes and spin around first, but of course this isn’t mandatory.
The third method, to which I’m partial, involves planting bulbs in order of their appearances – early arrivals in the rear, late bloomers up front. This way, spent blooms and foliage are hidden behind the newer entries. As long as leaves are green, they’re busy producing food for next year’s flowers. For this reason, it’s important to leave them in place until they’ve completely yellowed and withered.
I know someone who painstakingly rolls down each tulip stem and secures it with a twist tie to avoid an unsightly mess in his garden. Why bother, when you can leave it be and hide it behind a later-arriving perennial?
Regardless of the method, remember to water after planting, and then regularly when buds appear in the spring.
Do you have any favorite bulbs or bulb-planting shortcuts? Let me know.
So we moved into this new house a year-and-a-half ago. Just six blocks away. Same neighborhood, same friends, same schools for the kids. Bigger house.
We lived in the old house - a small 3-bedroom ranch - for 12 years. When we first moved in, there wasn't much of a garden to speak of, save for a strip of tall marigolds alongside the deck and some yews out front.
As a working mom, I didn't have a whole lot of time to beautify the grounds. But little-by-little, I added a perennial border here, and a shrub bed there. Eventually, it took shape. And more than a few times, passersby would ask what type of lily was in the corner bed, or where I'd found a particular unusual cultivar.
Sure, I took a few cuttings before I moved. I'm not stupid. I even dug up a rhizome or two. The new house had a garden, alright, and the previous owner was quite proud of it. But, honestly, it consisted mostly of half-dead rose bushes and a mish-mash of ill-placed holly, euonymus, yucca and lots and lots of overgrown ivy. On everything.
Oh, and the trees. Three of them, in particular. More than thirty feet tall apiece. Sappy, messy, wild-looking white pines. Smack in front of the entry door. Initially, I thought them charming. They offered lots of privacy. You could barely see the house from the street. And the shade! They sure kept the house cool that first summer, compensating somewhat for the central air conditioning we gave up when we moved.
Looking out my bedroom window made me feel as though I were in the Adirondacks. I really liked it.
Until the needles started falling. Not only was the walkway "carpeted," but so was the living room. Hard as we tried not to, we couldn't help but drag them in. Their presence more than rivaled the dog hair. But at least I could send Shelby, our half boxer, half something else (Ridgeback? Pitt Bull? Depends on whom you ask) off for a haircut. Those needles kept falling with a vengeance. And our garden benches were covered in sap. You couldn't sit on them. The trees had to go. And they did, leaving behind a barren wasteland of a front yard.
Well, the first summer came and went, as did the fall planting season and the following spring and summer. I was busy unpacking and working and going to my 9-year-old daughter Julia's soccer games, and bringing her to piano lessons. My other daughter, Justine, 14, is an aspiring actor. I couldn't very well miss her school plays, could I? And somebody had to shuffle her to acting lessons and the mall.
Last spring we replaced the dilapidated post-and-rail fence with a PVC picket with an arbor and gate. But the garden remained untended. O.K., it remained non-existent.
At least things are starting to shape up.
Over the weekend, I got a phone call from a friend who was busy prepping her house for a major renovation. She was digging up perennials and moving bushes to clear the way for a poured concrete foundation where her euonymus and lilies and irises had lived undisturbed for many years.
"Come and take what you want," she beckoned. Naturally, I dropped everything and bolted over - empty pots and shovel in tow.
The timing couldn't have been more perfect -- I'm in the midst of a complete garden overhaul (more on that later,) and that day I was planning to plant my spring bulbs.
So I clear out the hatch in my minivan and drive the half mile to Vicki's, where I find her digging with her husband, Rob. I help myself to some common orange daylilies and some Siberian irises. Orange and purple is my favorite color combination.
Now I know what you're thinking: daylilies and irises have different bloom times. True, but I could pair the daylilies with purple liatris, and the irises with apricot-toned tulips, and I'm good to go.
What I wasn't expecting was the generous offer of some nice-sized variegated euonymus ground cover. Though I wasn't sure where I would put it, I knew it would be put to good use. But when Rob unearthed the behemoth, I noticed some hard, corky lumps hanging onto the roots. Hmmm, these looked a lot like the black knot I saw recently on a friend's plum tree. But euonymus doesn't get black knot, and these knots weren't black, anyway. They were tan and beige. I knew it wasn't good, but I loved the euonymus, and it looked otherwise healthy, so I took it.
On the way home, I stopped at the home of a friend and neighbor, Roxanne Zimmer, who very conveniently also happens to be a master gardener. "Crown gall," she diagnosed, even before taking a look at the plague.
She was right, of course. Once home, a few minutes of detective work confirmed that the bacteria Agrobacterium tumefaciens, which causes crown gall, must be at work in Vicki and Rob's soil. What to do?
I wasn't going to throw away a perfectly good plant. Like I said, it was otherwise healthy. No yellowing leaves, no signs of weakness. So I clipped off all the corks, being careful to spray my shears with Lysol after each cut to avoid spreading the disease. Crown gall affects mostly fruit trees, roses, euonymus shrubs, and certain perennials (among them, asters and chrysanthemums.) I won't be planting anything else in the bed where I've decided to lay the groundcover, so even if I've inadvertently left a bacterium behind, it won't infect anything else.
Crown gall can live in soil for several years after the infected plant is removed. I've heard it suggested that grass be planted for at least three years to ensure the soil is free of the bacteria before using the bed for anything that's susceptible. A lot of folks recommend dipping the roots in a bactericide such as Galltrol before transplanting. Galltrol and other such products have an antibiotic effect on the plant, theorectically preventing the formation of galls.
Others suggest using a tar-based wound paint to seal the cut. I'm of the mind that doing so might actually seal in the disease. Instead, I'm letting the wounded roots air out for a couple of days in a nice, shady spot, and giving it a few shots of the hose to keep it moist.
I'm not too worried about it.
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| Don't chuck those unripe tomatoes -- bring them in before they freeze and fry 'em up. |
It's beginning to feel a lot like autumn. I slept with my socks on last night, a sure sign it's time to bring in the last of the tomatoes and harvest the basil. But so many of the tomatoes are still green.
Not to worry. I have a great, yet very simple recipe for fried green tomatoes. A southern delicacy introduced to most of us Yankees in the 1991 film of the same name, that was created, I'd imagine, to use up the last of the season's bounty.
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| Look at the size of that baby! My basil "tree" measured in at 4 feet tall. |
What you'll need:
4 large green tomatoes
Salt and pepper
1 cup milk
1 cup all-purpose flour
3 eggs, beaten
2 cups breadcrumbs mixed with garlic power, salt and pepper to taste
Vegetable or olive oil for frying (south of the Mason-Dixon line, folks prefer using bacon grease, which is yummy, to be sure. Use whatever you like -- or whatever you think your arteries will tolerate.)
1. Heat the oil in a frying pan.
2. Slice the tomatoes into ½ inch rounds. Sprinkle both sides of each slice with salt and pepper.
3. Dip each slice in milk and dredge in flour, then dip in beaten eggs and coat with breadcrumb mixture.
4. Fry about 4 minutes each side, until golden brown.
If you try this recipe, let me know what you think.
