Last week, I wrote about being on the brink of the change of the season; this week, I question why my flip flop collection still occupies prime real estate in my closet.
It’s getting real, people.
Honorine Jobert, in all her glory!
Plant of the Week
If you have listened or read for a while, you know I struggle from a serious but treatable native plant guilt complex. How do I treat it? By heralding native plants in this section of the Blog & Pod at least as often as I succumb to the temptations of the Asian beauties. But, gosh, it’s been a while. So this week, I atone for my sins by double dipping on the POW.
The Japanese anemone, starring right now in a garden near you. Japan is in the name, but it actually hails from China, and I really hope that doesn’t mean it’s not twice as non-native.
But what a beauty—tall or short; pink, dark pink, light pink (oh c’mon, just pink), or white; with its charming little buttercup-like flowers… The gold standard cultivar (literally award winning—Royal Hort Society and Perennial Plant of the Year) is ‘Honorine Jobert,’ which was discovered in Verdun, France in 1858. It seems that by just being that beautiful you end up with an elegant name. I assume this because my requisite 10 minutes of dedication to a google search yielded no additional theories.
The Anemone virginiana, or Tall Thimbleweed, is a similar plant. It blooms in spring instead of now and has no cool girl cultivar name, but is really very pretty.
And I’m not just being hypothetical about this one—I am actively shopping. And not just because I already have lots of Japanese anemones. It’s because I really want it!
Apropos of nothing except that I said I would put it in the show notes, if you are interested in becoming a Master Gardener with the Piedmont Master Gardener group, go here to learn more about their introductory meetings on October 26th and November 3rd.
Guest
Christy Wilhelmi is a wonderful resource for small space vegetable gardening who hails from California, has her own podcast, Gardenerd Tip of the Week (oh, hey, I was a guest on that last month— see?), and an adorable and informative website too. Last time I had her on, we talked about a variety of garden topics, and this week we stayed true to form in terms of not sticking with one topic… we touched on composting, fruit trees in small spaces, no-dig gardening, and even mini meadows.
Christy reminded me of a YouTube on Ruth Stout I watched years ago. Stout was born in 1988 and for years used typical plowing, commercial ferts, and poisonous sprays to raise her vegetables because that is the way she was taught. But one year, the guy with the plow simply didn’t show up and she started treating everything like asparagus, as in, ‘can’t you do your thing without me having to work so hard?’ You have to watch the video; it’s mesmerizing.
The Play List
~ If you live in a colder climate, take away anything that is bumming you out, and leave behind anything that is not, including leaves and seed heads.
~ You may be planting bulbs, or you may be able to wait until close to Christmas!
~ Remember, no big pruning now—your projects can wait until things are dormant.
~ Mow your leaves into your lawn, or ask your lawn gentlemen or ladies to do that for you.
~ Remember that you should be able to control the volume and intensity of leaf clean up at your home! Talk to whomever is doing that, even if it’s yourself, and see if you can’t dial it back or down a little bit.
~ If you have a water feature, you may have to net it at this time of year because of the falling leaves. This year, I’m going to let mine go a little bit and hope I don’t gum up the pump too much. Birds need to drink in fall too!
Listen
In this podcast, I talk about Step 3 in my compost routine. Step 1 was to collect garbage in the kitchen, neatly and cleanly without odors or pets (fruit flies); Step 2 was get your sealable container out the door and someplace sensible before Step 1 doesn’t go as planned. Step 3 is to take those accumulated sealable containers and dump them into a tumbler with some copies of the Wall Street Journal (but any carbon source will do—paper bags, leaves, the Washington Post). The point of Step 3 is to make it so that what was recognizable as food to critters will evolve not to be so.
All of this is great info (oh for sure!), but you will be truly informed if you listen to Margaret Roach’s podcast A Way to Garden, where she has a low key conversation with the U.S. Composting Council’s Cary Oshins. And yes, there is a U.S. Composting Council. Oshins has the professional chops to be able to inform us about all the science, rules, temperatures, and ingredients, but instead he gives a totally freeing and relaxed talk about how you can do this a bunch of different ways and still achieve the two main goals: to keep nitrogen out of landfills (hence less in terms of methane > greenhouse gases > climate change) and to feed the soil on your land to grow more wonderful plants, be they food, native ornamentals, or Asian guilty pleasures.