Editor’s note: Ron Kujawski, who retired his long-running Gardener’s Checklist column in November, has found us a successor in Jodi Cahillane, so you know she comes well recommended.
Jodi calls herself the “Lazy Berkshire Gardener”, and here’s why: “… because I don’t want to work too hard in my gardens. I want to enjoy them. I find it easier to observe my landscape and let the compost happen, the water pool up or daisies to self-sow. I look for ways to do the minimum task for the biggest impact. For example, mulching is better than spraying and much better than weeding all season. I look for beautiful low-maintenance plants that thrive in or at least tolerate my garden conditions. Plus, I’m willing to live with the consequences if I miss something.”
Welcome, Jodi! We look forward to gardening with you.
Hello! I hope you gain something from my highly personal take on Berkshire gardening through the year.
Yikes – it’s January and believe it or not, there are gardening things to do. While gardening activities aren’t necessarily urgent, we can do things in January to prevent problems later.
This week the snow is gone and while I like ice-free walks to the newspaper and mailbox, I’m a bit concerned about the exposed soil surfaces in my garden. We like snow cover in the Berkshires. Snow insulates and helps keep good topsoil in place. If there’s no snow, I need to add some insulating mulch.
First, make sure any fall-planted perennials haven’t heaved up from their planting location. Just like frost heaves on the road, the loose garden soil will buckle upwards when frozen and take the new perennial plantings with it. That’s bad because soil heaves expose the plant crown and could dry it out (that is, kill it from exposure.) Take a walk around your new plantings and gently push any new perennials back into their planting position then mulch to help keep the soil cold and those perennials in place.
Careful out there and try not to follow the exact path to and from your gardens. Repeated trampling will form a track of compacted soil that turns into a muddy path in spring. No one likes getting ground down regularly. Grass and other groundcover plants won’t grow well on a compacted mud track.
Check young trees and shrubs– evergreens and anything with thin bark or just a few tender stems– that might appeal to rabbits, voles and deer. Around the base of woody shrubs and fruit trees, you might see young stems snapped off down low (rabbits) or scrapes along the trunk where the thin gray outer layer is torn away exposing a tan section of wood. Voles.
Voles are small, short-tailed rodents that move along shallow tunnels below the snow or soil and emerge close to the surface. They chew
tender perennial roots and the young xylem layer (growing layer) of trees and shrubs. Over time, they will return to the same tasty plant and chew all around the stems, girdling it and cutting off the flow of nutrients from the soil to the leaves. If I find evidence of voles, I’ll tamp down any tunnels I find and spray the plants with repellents (following the product directions); otherwise, the critters will be back.
Another good control method is ¼” mesh hardware cloth set up as a barrier around the plants. Use wire cutters to cut a piece large enough to form a cylinder that fits around the plant leaving about 1-2 inches between the plant and the mesh. Overlap the ends and use zip-ties to quickly hold the cylinder in shape around the plant. Push the cylinder firmly about 2 inches into the soil surface. You can cut off the zip ties in spring and reuse the mesh from winter to winter. Hardware cloth is available at garden centers and hardware stores. You can install these barriers at any time.
When I took a walk about, I noticed my Hollywood Juniper (Juniperus chinensis torulosa) looked a bit skimpy. I thought it may have lost some inner needles, so I went to look. Ugh. This “deer-resistant” juniper was irresistible to a few local deer. Must have happened the day that our rainstorm became a sudden blizzard. I had skipped this juniper on my last tour with the repellents. Lesson learned, I used a repellent spray on it when the temperature was above 35oF and no rain in the forecast. Those deer won’t be as interested now—hopefully. I’ll put it on my routine spray list for next month.
