Garden Maintenance–Late Summer and Fall

Spent a couple of hours in the garden this past week doing the tidy-up. 


Late Summer is a good time of year for some simple maintenance and gives the garden a fresh look.  By removing all the brown, what is left is the green foliage, and blooms that were buried in the debris.


Here some coneflowers and Joe Pye Weed got some help standing tall. They were weighed down by the heavy heads and new bud that are forming. By propping them up, sun light and water can get to the plants, and freshen up the foliage.  Also removed some weeds that were hiding.

 


As I have said before, we lost several large trees last year, and this Caryopteris is liking the extra light.  New shoots and some great blue blossoms are a treat. The Liriope and it’s pale lavender spears are just beginning to bloom.
 



Yesterday, I trimmed back behind the rock border Sweet Woodruff.  The pathway was getting smaller and
needed to be groomed. 


Late summer is a great time to divide perennials.  Here I moved some daisies that were in another bed that is getting turned into lawn.  They do not look fresh at this time, but by keeping them moist for the next couple of weeks, the roots will take hold and will turn into a nice stand of daisies next spring.

Daylilies are another plant that divides and transplants well.  This area is where a Blue Spruce once stood, and is gradually getting filled in with my new plan for a border.  We also put some daylily root sections in these two red containers.  I hope they take hold and survive winter.  They may need some added winter protection which I’ll discuss later.



This is the Solar Eclipse Redbud we planted last spring.  A rainbow of orange, peach, lime, and gold are present in the new leaves as they mature.
The green border of the mature leaf here is certainly living up to my expectations.





Maintenance of the late summer garden includes providing water.  Yesterday, this hydrangea was drooping and blossoms were hanging low.  After a good drink, today this side of the garden is perky and vibrant.


This pile of debris is from the front garden where I cut back Spider Wort, Tradescantia, and dead fronds of daylilies. 


The pathway is visible once again after Lamium was trimmed back.  Just another bit of tidying once in a while.

 
This rose is the Sunny Yellow Knockout® rose.  I choose to leave the rose hips on the shrub.  It is a bit of color in the winter, and besides, pruning it is just one less thing I need to do on the fall maintenance list. 


The spent blooms of Hosta have been trimmed off.  I’ll wait till the rest have faded to remove them.  The Astilbe in this bed will get to keep their seed heads through winter.  As I told a fellow gardener recently, I’m a lazy gardener, and if I can keep from one more chore I will and call it ‘winter interest’.


These tarps of debris will get added to the compost pile.  With visions of future ‘black gold’ ready for the garden in spring.
This large amount of debris is really misleading as to the time and effort it took me to gather it.  Over several days I spent less than two hours in the garden removing the brown and renewing the garden for a few more weeks of beauty.

Watering took a day of moving sprinklers every hour to cover the whole yard.  Even though we have had some more rain this year than during the drought of 2012, our area in Ohio is still about 4 inches below average rainfall for the year. Trees, shrubs, perennials, and lawn all needed this supplemental watering at this time.  And if the rains remain scarce, I will continue to water through the fall and into early winter until the ground freezes.

Thanks for stopping by today.  And enjoy your time among the plants.

How to Create Compost

Compost - A Beneficial Soil Additive

I have talked about the beneficial effects of compost many times, but I have recently been asked about the ‘ingredients’ that can be beneficial to the mix and to the soil.






These are microscopic images of nematodes, fungi, protozoa, and amoeba. In healthy soil, there are millions of these guys looking for something to eat.

Micro-organisms love to eat.  So organic materials are high on the ingredient list.  What is considered organic?  The simple answer is ‘anything that was once alive’.  This life could have existed as plants or animals. So let’s look at specific green and brown ingredients the gardener can easily use to make compost a beneficial product. 

Green Ingredients for the compost pile are high in Nitrogen, amino acids, and proteins, which are foods for the micro-organisms. 



Grass clippings and vegetable peels are easily available for the home compost pile. Any salad fixing -  like the outer leaves of lettuce or onions, the tops of carrots, or the stems of peppers - can be added to the compost. Trimmings from green beans, or the core of a head of cabbage are eligible for the green category for the compost pile. Don’t throw away that banana peel, or the core of an apple, or potato peelings either.  Put them into the compost bin.
 


Other green elements for compost are manures.  This can come from horses, cows, bunnies, goats, chickens, and bats. When bunny or chicken manure is used, don’t forget to add in the bedding materials, like straw or wood shavings. Those materials are a good source of ‘brown’ ingredients for the pile.  ( I should note here that neither cat nor dog manure nor human waste should ever be added to the compost pile because of the risk of parasites that may not break down in the compost.)





Coffee grounds and banana peels are almost daily ingredients to the compost bin at my house. Tea bags get in the mix too.  Let’s face it, coffee grounds are free, smell great, and they help retain moisture in the compost.  Seaweed or algae from the water feature in the yard can also be added.  Doing some dead-heading in the garden?  That plant material can go in too.  Cleaning up houseplants of yellowing or dropped leaves is another source for green ingredients for the compost pile.





Egg shells are controversial as an ingredient for compost.  The salmonella risk of uncooked eggs is in question.  I don’t use my compost on food crops, so I have been known to throw in the eggs.  However, if even handling the compost might cause a risk concern,  the shells can be microwaved for three minutes (cooked) before adding them to the compost pile.

One other ingredient that I don’t think about adding to the pile is hair. Cutting the kids hair, or brushing a shedding dog are good sources for hair. 



The ‘brown’ ingredients added to the compost pile provide carbon.  Microbes really get into eating these.

 



The list of these ‘brown’ carbon sources are many:  dead leaves, straw, dried grass, paper towels and the tube they come on, old potting soil, dead plants, the coffee filters and tea bags, wood ashes from the fire pit, saw dust from untreated wood, and even dried, stale beans or grains from the pantry.

 


Dryer fabric softener sheets and dryer lint are good ‘brown’ ingredients.
 


Paper towels, toilet paper rolls, and tissues need not be thrown away to become landfill, but can be part of the beneficial elements of compost.

Several brown items that should not be added are animal fats from bones or meat. Neither should weed seeds nor diseased plants be added to the compost pile as the high temperatures needed to kill the seed or pathogens are not maintained in the home compost. Spreading weeds are a challenge anyway, we do not need to help them along. 

I use both of these for compost in my garden. (The wire one is a recycled dog kennel – win win) The air flow is good in both.  But the enclosed one in black has a handy lid to keep critters out.  This is the one I put food scraps into.  Dogs, raccoons and opossum find the compost materials yummy.  I have had the enclosed bin be too dry since rain doesn’t get in so I’ve bee know to add a bottle of beer to the container.  The hops and yeasts in the beverage just add to the natural elements in the mixture. Twigs and grass clipping, or other yard debris go into the wire bin.

 

Some are reluctant to have a compost pile because of the odor of decaying   materials. If the technology is too complicated, some will not attempt to compost anything. Both the odor and the technical aspects should not deter us from trying. The simplest ‘rule’  I’ve followed it to layer the green and brown layers in an approximate 50-50 ratio.  If the mix is higher in the brown, that will work too.



Turning the compost in an open pile is not difficult.  By allowing air and moisture to get in and through the material, decomposition will naturally occur. The layers are not too critical once the pile gets turned. Left unturned, the materials will still decompose, just a little slower. I’ve had results in an unturned pile in a year.  If the pile get smelly, (sour), add more ‘brown’ ingredients like straw, leaves, or shredded paper.

A  healthy finished compost should be moist, not soggy, and have a rich, earthy smell.



This product called compost will have immeasurable benefits in the garden. The feeding of the soil is the key.  Feed the microbes, and they will digest the organic material, and create enzymes that will allow the nutrients to feed the plants. Feed the soil, not the plants is the mantra of organic gardening.  Compost is a great way to return beneficial nutrients to the soil.

I hope composting becomes a vital part of your gardening. Thanks for stopping by today.