So far that would be April 29th, 2012. No one knows for sure. But we did plant some annuals for a client yesterday, and I now am offering peppers and tomatoes in the greenhouse… Just be prepared to cover should we get that warning. There are a number of plants that have been “burned” by frosts this year. Not that the frosts are late (May 10th is the recommended last frost date), but the 80 degree days were early. It is the first time since 1946 that March was warmer than April! All of the frost damaged plants we have seen are still alive and will recover. Most plants have little tiny buds ready to go in case their leaves are eaten, ripped away, frosted, scalded, etc. It will take them a few weeks to develop and then the plant will ‘reflush’. Patience in gardening is a virtue. But we would love it if you would rush right out and buy some lovelies from us!

By popular demand, despite the cool weather and potential for frost until May 10th, we have begun to bring in some annuals. No tomatoes or peppers or impatiens yet (I will wait til May 3rd), but some hanging baskets, petunias, marigolds, geraniums and other pretties. I recommend that you harden them off by exposing them slowly to unfiltered light, wind, and cooler temps (than the greenhouse they were grown in), and then be prepared to cover them should you plant them before “the last frost date”. With risk there is reward, but let’s not be reckless! Check our price: $12.99/flat–I think you’ll find us very competitive. We also received more perennials today (I believe we have well over 100 varieties) in quarts and larger sizes. We do have cole crops: Broccoli, Cabbage, and Brussel Sprouts, Yellow onion sets, and Katahdin (White) and Yukon Gold Seed Potatoes. I cannot seem to source Sweet Potatoes and the Purple and Fingerling Potatoes seem too expensive to carry (sorry!). See you soon?

is not hardiness, nor availability, nor lack of seasonal interest, nor deer resistance (though there is some issues there..), nor ease of planting, nor size/pruning requirements—these concerns are all manageable. They are hardy to zone 5, Ohio nurseries grow many varieties, they are beautiful year round and fabulous in bloom, deer seem to only take interest in the buds and can be repelled, there are dwarf varieties, and azaleas can even be sheared (All azaleas are rhododendrons, but not vice-verse (the difference is that azaleas have adventitious buds along their stems–rhodies only bud at their nodes)). (Sorry for the multiple parentheses (I feel the need to explain my explanations (sometimes))!)

The problem with rhodies is Oberlin soil and the logarithmic scale. We have some rich but very heavy clay soil that happens to be close to neutral on the pH scale (0-14–acid to base–7 is neutral). If you move up or down 1 number on the scale, the next number is 10 times more acid (6) or base (8). If you move 2 numbers on this logarithmic scale you become 100 times more acid (5) or base (9). Rhododendrons are ericaceous plants (I wrote a blog about them a few years back-scroll down or search “ericaceous”, the damn link wouldn’t work) that like acidic soil with a pH of 5. Parts of Oberlin have a soil pH as high as 7.8! My own yard and the GC are close to 7.0. Doing the math, one realizes you must lower the pH quite a lot to get it in the range that is comfortable for rhodies. Not impossible, but few know this and fewer bother to do it. It is an ongoing process of adding sulfur annually and using iron rich fertilizers that also contain ericaceous mycorhyzae. The yellowing of rhodie leaves is a symptom of iron deficiency that is precisely related to its unavailability in higher pH soils.

Rhodies love cool, moist, yet well drained soil, rich in organic matter (think mountains of Pennsylvania). Oberlin’s rich heavy clay soil is also flat in terrain and prone to puddling. There is very little pore space (think space for oxygen) in heavy clay, particularly when those small spaces fill with water and do not drain quickly). Many rhodies literally drown for lack of oxygen and then die of pythium or phytophthora root rot! Again, doing the math, one realizes you must provide a well-drained site that is rich in organic matter to provide a root environment that is comfortable for rhodies. Not impossible, but again few know this and fewer bother to do it. Providing high shade or siting on the east or north side of your dwelling will keep the soil cooler and moister naturally. Do not plant them too deep! Adding organic matter (leave the leaves!) or mulching annually, and making sure your gutters are clear so they don’t create puddles where they overflow will help keep your soil oxygen rich.

So are they worth it? You have to decide for yourself. They certainly are not native to Oberlin (though they are native to some parts of Ohio…). As a GC owner who doesn’t guarantee his plants once they have been sold (and fall victim to the whims of Mother Nature and/or abject neglect), I choose not to carry them (I hate setting people up for failure–we are committed to your success and would rather lose a sale today, than lose a customer tomorrow (my wife hates it that I talk people out of buying stuff all the time!)). I will, however, be happy to provide them, with all the caveats above, to those brave enough to site them well and commit to constant soil improvement!

Not to mention that even when all the above is taken care of they are somewhat susceptible to scale, black vine weevil, and azalea lacebug… (for which we carry summer and neem oil, and/or some systemic insecticides).

That’s the problem with Rhododendrons!

By the way, we do carry elemental sulfur, Actino-Iron, Milorganite (4% iron), peat humus and peat moss, Sweet Peet, Jack’s Acid (liquid soluble fert comparable to Miracid (we don’t carry Scott’s products because of their availability in big box stores)), worm castings, beneficial mycorhyzae, and mulch in many flavors! All so that you might yet save those poor rhodies currently languishing in your yard for lack of proper care…. (Mention this post for 10% off any of these products as proof to me that anyone reads these very early morning ramblings–this week only!)

Don’t make me feel guilty for planting a ginkgo tree!

I want to take a look at the “native plants are best” issue from a couple broad perspectives.  Please hear me out and try to follow my arguments and then weigh in as you see fit.

“Globalization” existed when all the continents were together (Pangaea).  Speciation began in earnest when the continents drifted apart.  Adaptation is a great thing.  Globalization (as we know it) began as soon as people started walking around and intentionally or unwittingly carrying seeds with them.  Some thrived and some died.  Some fit in and some took over.  We have naturalized plants among natives, and non-native invasive species extirpating long term residents.  This is a process from time immemorial.

(I’m going to stick to plants, but the same could be said for Homo sapiens.  In fact most would say we are the reason for globalization.  I would argue that there is no stopping the process; no real turning back; the ethics and moral questions become quickly impossible forward and backward; our hindsight may be only slightly clearer than our foresight, and our inertia is perhaps unchangeable except through cultural or geological cataclysm.  Others would add biological, through global warming, but it isn’t my intent to stir that pot.)

But again, adaptation continues on a daily basis, and it is pure folly to say that these or those plants constitute a “native landscape” and no other plants should be encouraged on this or that piece of ground.  This piece of ground was in fact under a mile of ice 20,000 years ago, under water 10,000 years ago, and pretty swampy 200 years ago.  So what is native?  Probably a rather romantic notion of plants that some of us like, and certainly not others that we find offensive because of their personal history.

We certainly don’t like buckthorn, multiflora rose, autumn olive, bittersweet, kudzu, green barberry, japanese knotweed, or purple loosestrife—all horticultural or conservation treasures at their time of introduction—all now considered non-native invasive species or even noxious weeds!

Poison ivy is a native plant.  It works well as a ground cover, small shrub or as an excellent climbing vine that does not damage the trees it climbs upon.  It has great spring and fall color and and glossy dark green leaves all summer.  It does well in nearly all soil types here in northern Ohio, and it provides food (white berries) for the birds.  It grows well in full sun and full shade and is also salt tolerant; curb lawns could be lush with it.  Unfortunately it is deciduous and has little winter interest… and oh yeah, most people  have skin sensitivity to its oils…. All native plants are not good horticultural choices.

But really the prejudice towards “native plants” becomes impractical when you realize they need particular conditions to flourish. And if people could know less about something than “native plants” it would be native soils. Could there be any spot of ground less hospitable to any plant (let alone “natives”) than the curb lawn?! Yet that is exactly where some would have us plant serviceberry, dogwood, and redbud (all medium sized trees, fine for under wires), but they are pH and salt sensitive, moisture and pollution sensitive, etc. They actually like to grow in a sloping woods as an understory plant with moist yet well drained humic rich slightly acid soil… Sound like a curb lawn?

There are plants that thrive in the crappy conditions of cities and curb lawns. Some plants don’t mind salt, pollution, highly compacted soils, drought and or floods. But that palette is not going to have a lot of Ohio natives on it…. So if we want to have trees and shrubs in environments that are somewhat inhospitable, then please accept the fact that the plant choices aren’t going to be natives and native plants aren’t best in many altered environments — which is basically everywhere we build!

People have been breeding and domesticating dogs and cats, sheep and cows, and PLANTS, for thousands of years. Farmers and landscape horticulturists have had great fun with the process and enriched our lives in many ways. Should all of that art and science be undone or ignored simply because people have had a hand in the manipulation of species? Might that be our “native” purpose? Or are we but a cancer on the earth? I actually think Acer rubrum ‘Autumn Flame’ is a lovely tree, and ‘Chicago Apache’ daylily is an amazing cultivar! The dwarf shrub: ‘Mr. Bowling Ball’ arborvitae is a terrific foundation plant (not that foundation plantings are in any way a “native” environment). It seems we as a species have discovered how to adapt our environments to us–can we just stop?

To really understand what is native to any plot of ground one’s mind set has to have a geologic time frame! For what may be native today will be different in 10, 100, and 1000 years. And who is to say that the “non-native” invasive species aren’t Gaia’s way of healing itself? None of us have the life span, let alone the patience to see an old growth forest regenerate on land that has been cleared, farmed and or mowed for 100 years to really become what is actually “native”.

So please excuse us if we plant a ginkgo tree here and there, where they may thrive, make oxygen and shade, and give delight to the passerby in their automobile… and you will find me enjoying our native bluebells in their native environment along the Vermilion River at the Augusta Anne Olsen Preserve in Wakeman any day I can get away from the GC in April.

Easter flowers have arrived! The quart perennials will arrive today! 10-5 today and Friday, 9-4 Saturday, Closed for Easter.

Received several bare-root apples and cherries–get them now, they will have to be potted up in a week. $30 bare-root $45 potted… Asparagus, raspberries, rhubarb, blackberries–all very limited because few pre-ordered. Cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower starts, and seed potatoes (Katahdin and Yukon Gold–we can’t afford fingerlings (they want $2.25/lb wholesale!!) that’s bullshit! you can buy 5 lbs of fingerlings at the grocery store for $5–they’ll grow!). Pansies are still delighting the eye and desirous of being planted (look at the beauties planted downtown yesterday by volunteers with Oberlin Main Street/Chamber–donated by Green Circle Growers–mighty nice of them!) Again check out our hours–I know they’re screwy–but have you noticed the weather lately? Today 10-1. Next two Sundays closed. Monday we’ll be there most of the day–come help unload the Willoway truck at 10 and get first dibs on the wonders you carry. Tuesday we might be in and out doing jobs–call first. Wednesday is OPENING DAY officially 10-5 weekdays, 9-4 Saturdays, 12-3 Sundays (often 11-4 but I don’t like to say that because then you get ideas) but not Easter Sunday! See you soon? PS: Did I mention we have some really nice new BLUE pottery for all you cobalt freaks out there…. Thank you for your continued support!

Though we’ve been open about half the time these past 2 weeks because of the early spring, we open officially Wednesday, April 4th. 10-5 Monday–Friday, 9-4 Saturday and 12-3 Sunday. We are already doing spring cleanups, organic fertilization, pruning, tree planting. Please call soon if you want a job scheduled in April. Hope to see you soon.

Beautiful green Devil…please stop killing our ash trees! We have three different treatments available to treat this invasive girdling insect: Granular, Liquid Drench, or Implanted Capsules. Unfortunately the only organic approach I know of is to hope that eventually a parasitic wasp, fungi, or bacteria will catch up to their, so far unchecked, population growth. If you wish to attempt to save a specimen tree in your landscape, it is probably advisable to treat your tree immediately with one of the above mentioned systemic insecticides to make your tree unpalatable to this pest. The chemical needs to enter the cambium layer and move throughout the tree in the early spring sap flow to be present where and when these boring insects feed. Check out the ODA site for more info: http://www.agri.ohio.gov//eab/ We have these easy to apply chemicals available, or can perform the treatment for you. But remember, timing is essential.

Special sale this Saturday 3/3 open 10-1: 30% off all gazing balls and trellises. Stop by for bird feed or seed starting supplies. Last chance to order bare-root fruit and vegetables: asparagus, rhubarb, horseradish, brambles, strawberries, fruit trees. Bare-root plants require quick planting but are significantly less expensive than potted plants. Let me know what you need. Planning to open the store Wednesday April 4th for the season! Thanks for your support.

If you already subscribe to e-mail notices of the Green Side Up blog postings you are fine and needn’t do anything. I recently added (yesterday) all my e-mail contacts (that may be you) to the subscriber base to request your interest in my garden center blog. If this is new to you, check it out and subscribe if you like (click on the link provided or subscribe in the website itself). Please be assured I’m the only one who’ll send you anything, and it will only be garden related. Usually only once a week and I try to be informative on horticultural matters and the occasional product/sale related to the GC. I hope I have not offended, and I believe this is the last request you will receive (there might be one more…) I won’t be offended if you don’t subscribe!