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January 13, 2006

The Mysterious Case of the Christmas Cactus

The Mysterious Case of the Christmas Cactus
Alice Monet

Second only to Poinsettias in popularity at this time of year, colorful Christmas cactus plants appear in great variety and abundance in floral departments, offices, and homes, adding their festive hues and interesting leaf forms to our holiday decorations. For a while, they look spectacular, and their succulent leaves and sturdy stems lead many of us to believe they require very little water and no special care. At last! The perfect houseplant! But then the day comes when the gorgeous blossoms fade and drop. If you want to save your plant and help it to thrive again, you must solve the mysterious case of the Christmas cactus.

The first thing to recognize is that these plants are not true cacti. Discovered in the 19th century by Belgian horticulturist and cactus collector Frederic Schlumberger, the Christmas cactus (Schlumbergera) is an epiphyte, native to Brazil. It’s found in much the same environment as orchids and has similar needs, growing best in decayed leaves and forest debris that accumulate in the crotches of trees. It requires bright, indirect light, soil with excellent drainage, and fairly high humidity – around 50 to 60 percent.

One way to achieve this is with a humidity tray. Fill a large saucer or tray with gravel and add water until the level is just below the top surface of the rocks. Place the pot of Christmas cactus on top of the gravel. The evaporating water will provide the needed humidity. In our dry climate, you may need to refill the tray rather frequently. The plant itself should be watered thoroughly and then not again until the top inch of soil is dry. It requires less watering in the winter, and more during its growing season from spring to fall. Use a liquid houseplant fertilizer of type 0-10-10 to stimulate flowering in the fall, or during the growing season. Other balanced fertilizers will work but just make sure the nitrogen ratio (the first of the 3 numbers on the container) is 10 percent or below.

Flowering is stimulated by cool temperatures and dark nights. Here in Flagstaff, where chilly weather can happen at almost any time of year, we have enjoyed Thanksgiving cactus, Easter cactus, and even 4th of July cactus – all from the same plant!

Propagation is generally done by rooting cuttings. Short sections of stems may be cut or gently broken off and rooted in a moist soilless medium, such as vermiculite. The plant may send out wiry air roots from its leaf joints. If you break off leaves where these roots appear, the segments will come off with roots attached. Then place the leaves in the rooting medium and keep them evenly moist until they begin to grow.

If your cactus begins to sag despite excellent care, it may just be taking a rest. Keep it in a cool room and limit watering until new growth appears in the spring. This may be a good time to repot, but remember that the plants produce the most abundant flowers when they are pot-bound.

When you solve the mystery of Christmas cactus, you’ll be rewarded with a long-lived plant that graces your home with a colorful display of exotic blossoms, possibly several times a year. It’s elementary, my dear gardener!

By Alice Monet
The author is a Master Gardener volunteer for Coconino County Cooperative Extension. We are currently accepting applications for the 2006 Master Gardener Training Course that will start February 2. E-mail hbraun@ag.arizona.edu or call 774-1868 ext. 17 for more information or to request an application.

Posted by maxmaddy at 11:39 AM

Xeriscape Classes

Xeriscape Classes Being Offered
By Hattie Braun

With record-breaking dry conditions this winter, water conservation in the landscape should be at the fore-front of our plans for gardening this summer. Fortunately, there’s a solution for gardening under drought conditions; Xeriscape - a method of water conservation through creative landscaping. Xeriscape is actually a combination of seven common-sense gardening principles that save water while creating a lush and colorful landscape. As Xeriscape is a method and not a style of landscaping, any landscape can be a Xeriscape if attention is given to conserving water.

Northern Arizona residents have the opportunity to learn more about Xeriscape through a series of classes being offered at Coconino Community College this spring. The first class in the four part series introduces students to the concept of Xeriscape. In Xeriscape I - Concepts and Principles, students will gain a general understanding of all seven principles of Xeriscape and how to apply these principles to their own landscapes. The principles are: planning and design, soil analysis and improvement, mulching, limiting turf areas, efficient irrigation, selecting low-water plants, and proper maintenance. By applying Xeriscape principles to your landscape, you will not only save water, but you will also enjoy the beauty and diversity of native and other water-wise drought-tolerant plants.

After learning the principles of Xeriscape, students can move on to the second class in the series, Xeriscape II - Soils, Mulch, and Compost. Understanding your soil is one of the keys to a successful Xeriscape and a successful garden. Soil conditions can be improved by the addition of organic material. This second class will also acquaint students with mulches as using mulches and covering the soil will minimize water loss through evaporation. And finally, the basics of composting will be reviewed. Compost is one of the best soil amendments for improving your garden soil.

Xeriscape III - Water Management deals with water use and conservation. Learning to maximize water use efficiency in the landscape is essential to a flourishing Xeriscape. A well-planned and well-maintained irrigation system can significantly reduce water use. Participants in this third class will learn about proper irrigation scheduling and maintenance, landscape water audits, alternative water sources and methods to reduce water waste.

Using native and other drought-tolerant plants can significantly reduce water use in your landscape. Xeriscape IV - Plant Selection will introduce you to the many native and low-water use plants that are appropriate for our region and aide you in choosing plants for the many varied habitats found in and around Flagstaff. There are many attractive, colorful, and interesting plants available that will survive on less water; selecting these plants will help you create a beautiful, water-wise landscape.

The four part series will be repeated so if you aren't available for four weeks in a row, you can still attend all the sessions. Xeriscape I will be offered on both April 1 and April 29. Xeriscape II will be held April 8 and May 6. Xeriscape III is on either April 15 or May 13, and Xeriscape IV will be April 22 and May 20. You can sign up for any or all of the four part series. Individual classes cost $20 but if you sign up for the series, the fee is only $65. For more information or to register, call 928-526-7644. All classes will be held from 9:00 a.m. to noon at the Lonetree Campus of Coconino Community College.

Want more information on Xeriscape but don’t have time for a class? There are plenty of Xeriscape resources on the web. One of the best sites is by Xeriscape Colorado found at www.xeriscape.org. This site offers detailed descriptions of the principles of Xeriscape, an excellent reference and resource list, pictures of Xeriscape demonstration gardens, and is applicable to gardening in Northern Arizona. Our public library also has many good books on the subject. For more information on Xeriscape, call Coconino Cooperative Extension at 928-774-1868 ext. 17 or e-mail hbraun@ag.arizona.edu.

By Hattie Braun
The author is the Master Gardener Program Coordinator for Coconino Cooperative Extension. For more information about the Master Gardener program, call 928-774-1868 ext. 17.

Posted by maxmaddy at 11:37 AM

Winter Watering

Dry and warm winters are not only troubling to skiers, they are also tough on our garden and landscape plants. Christmas this year will not be wet nor cold, or even white. While we will get over the lack of a white Christmas, our garden plants may not fare as well. Our plants will benefit from the gift of winter watering.

Long, dry periods during winter can result in death or injury to plant root systems. Since it has been over two months since we have had any precipitation, now is the time to water. Because plants often show no visual signs of drought stress in winter, watering is easily overlooked. Affected plants may be slow to leaf out in spring, or may weaken and die in late spring or early summer. Weak plants are often more susceptible to insect and disease problem later.

While many landscape plants can be damaged by a lack of winter moisture, woody plants with shallow root systems are particularly susceptible. These include birches, many of the maples, mountain ash, spruce, and fir. Shrubs such as non-native junipers, Oregon grape-holly, and euonymus are also vulnerable, especially those growing close to the house or in warm locations. If the dry spell continues, even native plants will benefit from a winter soaking.

Water only when the air temperature is above 40 degrees F and when the ground is not frozen. Apply water early in the day so that it will have time to soak in before nighttime freezing. If water stands around the base of a tree it can freeze and damage the bark. Continue to water at least once a month until we get significant precipitation either as rain or snow.

As a winter-watering guideline for trees, apply 10 gallons of water for each inch of tree diameter. For example, a two-inch diameter tree needs 20 gallons per watering. Measure the tree’s diameter at chest height.

The most important area to water for trees is within the dripline (from the trunk to the outer edges of the trees branches). A common watering mistake is to water only at the base of the tree trunk. Tree roots do not grow straight down like carrots, but rather grow outward so make sure to water the most critical part of the root zone out to the dripline.

A good method for watering trees and shrubs after your irrigation system has been turned off is to hook a soaker hose up to your hose. Loop the soaker hose under the dripline of the tree leaving a foot or two between each coil. As it is hard to measure gallons of water from a soaker hose, leave the hose running until water soaks in to a depth of about 18 inches. You can check the depth of watering with a piece of rebar or a long screwdriver. It will be easy to push in the ground where the soil is moist.

Shrubs will also benefit from winter watering, particularly those that are newly planted. Apply about 5 gallons two times per month for a newly plant shrub. Small established shrubs should receive 5 gallons monthly. Large established shrubs require about 15 gallons monthly.

If you haven’t already mulched, now is a good time to do so, especially with our balmy afternoons. Apply 4 inches of mulch around trees and shrubs to retain soil moisture.

Lawns are also prone to winter damage during extended periods of drought. Even though the irrigation system has been turned off, you can still water using a hose and sprinkler. Newly planted lawns, both sod and seeded, and lawns with a southwestern exposure are particularly susceptible to damage.

Remember to water newly planted bulbs as well. For bulbs, prolonged dryness in winter will result in a poor showing of flowers the following spring. Winter watering is also advisable for late-planted perennials and perennials located in windy or southwest exposures.

The purpose of winter watering is to provide water to prevent the roots from desiccating in the cold, dry ground. It can be hard to remember to water when you don’t have a wilting plant as a visual cue. Since you can’t ski this Christmas, at least near Flagstaff, give your outdoor plants the gift of water. Come springtime you will be rewarded with strong, healthy plants.

By Hattie Braun
The author is the Master Gardener Program Coordinator for Coconino Cooperative Extension. For more information about the Master Gardener Program, call 774-1868 ext. 17 or e-mail hbraun@ag.arizona.edu.

Posted by maxmaddy at 11:34 AM

Fact or Fiction? Are Formosan Termites in Our Mulch

Rumor has it that termite-infested mulch is being shipped out of the hurricane-damaged areas of Louisiana. Apparently an e-mail has been circulating that warns of using these mulches as they may be infested with the Formosan termite. The e-mail states that badly infested trees downed by the storm are being chipped and sold as bags of “cheap” wood mulch. Is this fact or fiction?
There are some elements of truth to this story. Formosan subterranean termites are a serious problem in Louisiana. They are that state’s most destructive pest and cause about $500 million in damage, annually. This subterraena termite can infest trees as well as buildings. And it has beenthere has been one reported that in at least one instance of termites have beenbeing transported accidentally in mulch.
And it is also true that back in October 2005, Louisiana State University's Agricultural Center issued a press release about the potential spread of Formosan subterranean termites through the re-use of wood taken from homes damaged by recent hurricanes. The LSU AgCenter warned that termites could be spread around and out of the state by re-using infesting railroad ties, architectural wood, or other whole pieces of infested wood.

That much is true but much of the rest of the e-mail is exaggerated. Thankfully, only the rumor is spreading fast, not the termite.

A LSU AgCenter press release from two three weeks ago assures us that not everything that we read on the internet is true. According to Bob Odom, the Louisiana Commissioner of Agriculture and Forestry, “the email is not accurate and doesn’t even mention the quarantines this department put in place last fall to keep Formosan termites from spreading.”

Last October, Louisiana imposed quarantines in several hurricane-damaged parishes to prevent the shipment of infested wood to new areas. The quarantine specifically addresses Formosan termite-infested wood products such as mulch. According to the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry (LDAF), “all of the wood debris in the quarantine areas of the state of Louisiana is going to an approved landfill within the designated quarantine area.” Many inspections are in place to prevent the improper movement of infested wood. Therefore, if wood mulch is being shipped from hurricane-damaged areas, it is being done so illegally. To read more about the quarantine, go to the LSU Ag Center website at: www.lsuagcenter.com/.

That aside, it is unlikely that the termites could survive the mulching process which includes shredding, packaging, and transportation. Mulches are often sold in shrink-wrapped bags that would limit air and moisture. Exposure to high temperatures either in the mulch pile, bag, or in transport will kill the termites. Nonetheless, an Ohio State University Bulletin on subterranean termites states that “the developmental flexibility of termites enhances their ability to disperse and to establish new colonies.” The rumor and possibility of their spread should not be completely ignored.

For northern and high elevation gardeners, cold temperatures will potentially limit the life cycle of these termites by preventing their eggs from hatching. Formosan termites are not tolerant of cold temperatures.Formosan termites are not tolerant of cold temperatures.
While So while it’s extremely unlikely that Formosan termites could be transported in mulch to Northern Arizona, it isn’t completely impossible.
Gardeners, therefore, should inspect bagged mulches for termites. Several extension offices advise against using unlabeled wood products especially if the deal appears too good to be true. If you find termites, return the product. Or yYou can easily kill any insects in the mulch by resealing the bag and placing it in a larger black plastic garbage bag and exposing it to the hot sun for several days. High temperatures >140 degrees F for several hours generally kill all insect life. Mfe.easuring the temperature inside the bag is the only sure way of knowing if high temperatures have been reached.
Another way to ensure that you don’t introduce termites into your landscape is to purchase garden mulch from a reliable, local source. Both the City of Flagstaff and Coconino county County produce mulch from tree trimming and thinning and it’s free for the taking. The city yard at Dale and Bonita has a small pile. Call 774-0668 for availability. You can get information about the pile at the landfill by calling 527-1927. And there is a huge pile of wood chips at Fort Tuthill. Call 226-5638 for the location. Local mulches are a safe fromfree of the Formosan termites and are a great way to encourage recycling of a valuable resource that would otherwise end up in a the landfill.

By Hattie Braun
The author is the Master Gardener Program Coordinator for Coconino Cooperative Extension. For more information about the Master Gardener Program, call 774-1868 ext. 17 or e-mail hbraun@ag.arizona.edu.

Posted by maxmaddy at 11:31 AM

Sweet Onions

Sweet onions, as with Caesar’s Gaul, are divided into three parts, not by taste, but by parts of the country. Some are southern and are called short day varieties. They have the longest growing season, require the shortest days, and are planted early. Some are northern and are called long day varieties. They have the shortest growing season, need the longest days, and are planted later in the spring. The third group of onions is the intermediate day variety which includes most sweet onions except those suited for the Deep South.
Flagstaff is smack dab within the boundaries of the intermediate day variety, but laps over into the short day and long day varieties. As with most gardening questions in Flagstaff, onions leave the high country gardener in a quandary. We can try almost any variety of onion except the Deep South kind such as ‘Vidalia’, a Georgia peach. ‘Walla Walla’ from Washington State works in Flagstaff but may not be as big and lustrous as the ones in the market. At two-fifty a pop, smaller may be just fine. So what else is new?
The intermediate day sweet onions are all hybrids and descendants of the common onion, Allium cepa. Our sweet onions descended from seeds of the Bermuda hybrid onion brought to Texas from the Canary Islands in 1898. The hybrid sweet onions most suitable for the intermediate territory are ‘Candy’, ‘Texas Supersweet’, ‘Cimmaron’, ‘Italian Red Torpedo’, ‘Stockton Red’, and ‘Walla Walla Sweet’. Bermuda onions are seldom grown commercially because of their low yield, but ‘Crystal Wax White Bermuda’ may do well in Flagstaff.
Sweet onions aren’t sweeter than other onions. They don’t have more sugar content. They are less pungent because their sulfur levels are lower. For instance, the sulfur level of the soil in Vidalia, Georgia, is low. Thus, the fertilizer used in the preparation of the onion bed is important.
Sweet onions can be grown from seeds, sets, and plants. Seeds are the least expensive and most unreliable with slow, sporadic growth. Sets are small onion bulbs that have been grown, harvested, and stored over the winter and then marketed in the spring. Sweet onion sets are difficult to obtain. Try haranguing your local nursery.
Plants are onion transplants grown in the South in the winter, bundled in bunches of 50 to 100 plants, and shipped to garden centers in the North and West in the spring. They can be obtained from growers directly through the Internet by searching "sweet onions" or the name of the hybrid. They are the easiest, most reliable, and most expensive to grow. If ordering plants from the growers, the winter months are the best time to order them.
The soil for all types of onions, as with all soil suitable for vegetables, should be amended with organic matter such as compost or seasoned, vintage manure. Onions require a more fertile soil than most vegetables, and the soil should be prepared with an application of 10-10-10 or 10-20-10 balanced fertilizer. During the growing season a 21-0-0 fertilizer should be used. Ample water is important for all stages of growth.
The nice thing about onions is that they can be started as soon as the soil can be worked. Rather than hanging around while waiting for frost’s last icy blast, the high country gardener can plant about a month earlier than the average last frost. Onions are hardy down to 20 degrees which is good news for those who suffer the vagaries of spring temperatures in Flagstaff.
Raised beds are best for onions and just about everything else in Flagstaff. The rows should be about 10 inches apart with the plants 3 inches apart, 1 ½ inches deep. Every other one can be pulled for green onions leaving the remaining onions to mature.
Now is the time to order the plants. Plants can be ordered from Dixondale Farms, phone: 877-367-1015, website: www.dixondalefarms.com or Brown’s Omaha Plant Farms, phone: 903-884-2421, website www.bopf.com/.

By Dana Prom Smith
The author is a Master Gardener volunteer for Coconino County Cooperative Extension.

Posted by maxmaddy at 11:29 AM

Surreal Horticulture

During my internship at UCLA’s Neuro-psychiatric Institute one thing became clear to me. Most of the stuff that really counts is unseen and unheard. In psychodynamic terms the stuff that really counts is in the unconscious. In horticultural terms it’s in the mycorrhizosphere.
The mycorrhizosphere, the soil around a plant’s root, is where the mycorrhizae do their thing, good or bad. Mycorrhizae are literally “fungus roots.” NAU’s Prof. Nancy C. Johnson, a leading researcher in mycorrhizae, calls them “symbiotic associations” or cooperative life-sustaining systems in which both plants and fungal communities around the plant’s roots can benefit. They’re akin in psychodynamics to unconscious associations.
Mycorrhizal associations affect a plant’s ability to acquire mineral nutrients from the soil. When mutualistic, that is, cooperative, the plants gain nutrients with help from the fungi, and the fungi gain carbohydrates from the plants. A balanced relationship of mutual gains for the plants and fungi is something like a functional family in which everyone gets what they need to thrive. However, sometimes a family loses its equilibrium, becoming dysfunctional, when some members are given special attention, good or bad. Plants often need specific chemical nutrients, such as nitrogen or phosphorus, for plant growth or flowering and fruiting. When added to the soil, the balance in the relationship between the plants and their fungal partners can be inadvertently changed with some plants deprived of what they need to thrive.
New Year’s resolutions don’t often work because the unconscious mind subverts the conscious mind. The conscious mind wants to lose weight, but the unconscious mind craves cool, soothing ice cream after a buzz saw day. As a professor once said, “The mind’s like an iceberg, ten percent shows, but that unseen ninety percent calls the shots.” So it is that gardeners should pay mind to those symbiotic associations beneath the garden’s surface.
Paradoxically, it turns out that repeated use of chemical fertilizers can create colonies of parasitic mycorrhizae just as repeated broken resolutions can breed a sense of defeat. It’s called the Law of Unintended Consequences which means that chemical fertilizers are not, as advertised, always horticulturally friendly. Prof. Johnson and her students are discovering that the ratio between available phosphorus and nitrogen may affect the outcome of fertilization. Mycorrhizae seem to be more mutualistic when phosphorus is in shorter supply than nitrogen relative to the plant’s needs.
As common sense tells us, relationships are the key to life underground and in the unconscious. Salvador Dali graphically illustrated the unconscious associations in his early Surrealistic painting Persistence of Memory. Melting watches are set against the backdrop of a horizon in which sky and sea are fused in a timeless continuum. It may puzzle the conscious mind, but the unconscious understands a sense of time melting in the face of timelessness.
Great basketball players don’t deliberately think through their moves, calculating the physics of thrust, velocity, and parabolic curves. They seemingly shoot baskets on the spur of the moment, trusting their unconscious processes with their mutualistic associations of continuing practice.
Mycorrhizal fungi sleep in beds with the roots of a plant, intimately associated with and actually becoming a part of the roots as they help move nutrients from the soil into the plant. They also enrich the soil with organic matter by building networks of thread-like mycelia, interwoven vegetative masses of tubular filaments resembling pieces of modern art or spider webs gone wild. When mutualistic they nourish plants as well as soils.
While our soil on the Colorado Plateau may be short on organic matter, it is rich with many different types of mycorrhizal fungi. Good gardening helps these underground allies stimulate their mutualistic, not parasitic, associations. This means reducing the use of inorganic phosphorus fertilizers and using instead more organic amendments and compost with ample nitrogen and less phosphorus to help the development of mutualistic mycorrhizopheres.
As Plato observed long ago, appearance is not always reality. Horticultural reality is, also, not always in the appearance, but often in the mycorrhizosphere where fertility is natural, not artificial, organic rather than chemical.

By Dana Prom Smith
The author is a Master Gardener volunteer for Coconino County Cooperative Extension.

Posted by maxmaddy at 11:25 AM

The Scoop on Soil

This past winter was so dry, and I was so negligent about watering my garden, I didn’t expect much to survive. Maybe some of the well-established plants with deep root systems would find enough water far underground, but the newer plantings were probably doomed. Then spring arrived and sprouts began to appear. There was some die back, but not the way I’d expected. It wasn’t the established, deep-rooted plants that did the best. It was everything planted in good soil. This winter was a perfect demonstration of the value of really good soil.

In my garden, there are basically three kinds of soil: the native clay loam; some planting beds to which I’ve added lots of compost, manure, and mulch; and a few containers and raised beds filled with store-bought garden soil plus lots of nice amendments. Would anyone care to guess which kind of soil did the best job of protecting and nourishing its plants over the winter?

Our ponderosas and oaks, which are growing in native soil, don’t appear to have suffered much from the drought. Maybe the rain and snow in March came just in time to save them. But the small patch of lawn, which is a mix of blue grass and fescue, turned to dust. It was growing in native soil and that clay loam got so dry over the winter, there was no moisture available to the grass roots. Likewise, in the backyard, also just native soil, almost no small plants survived.

In the garden beds to which we have added compost, manure, and mulch every year, I’m seeing the expected pattern of loss. The established shrubs and native plants seem to be fine, but perennials I planted last season are mostly gone. The spring-blooming bulbs are up, and the early varieties have bloomed, but they all seem to be stunted. Both plants and flowers are smaller than normal.

But here’s the big surprise. The containers planted with perennials and a new raised bed are doing great! In fact, the plants growing in “new soil” are bigger, more vigorous, and blooming more abundantly than the plants in amended soil ever did, even in wet years.

While the lesson learned is obvious, the reason behind it might not be so clear. What does new soil have that my amended soil lacks? I think the answer is, “Everything!” Commercially mixed garden soil, of the kind available in garden centers everywhere, is generally well-balanced and contains essential nutrients, organic matter, and micronutrients. I always add generous proportions of homemade compost, leaf mold, and well-rotted manure, and often mix in goodies such as slow-release fertilizer, fish emulsion, and water-retaining crystals.

This soil mixture has a lovely, light texture. It retains moisture and air, both of which are essential to plant health. It provides habitat for earthworms and other beneficial fauna. And because it’s fresh, these goodies haven’t had a chance to leach away. To retain this nutrient and organic content in regular garden soil, I would have to add 4 to 6 inches of fresh amendments every season. The soil in my containers holds up longer than that in the garden beds simply because it’s contained. The containers prevent rapid leaching of nutrients and organics, and keep out tree roots that would otherwise quickly invade the good soil inside.

This dry winter has given me a greater appreciation than ever before of the value of excellent soil. Get the soil right and a beautiful garden will surely follow.

By Alice Monet
The author is a volunteer trained by the Master Gardener program of the University of Arizona Cooperative Extension.

Posted by maxmaddy at 11:22 AM

Reasons to Garden

January is the month when I can finally allow myself, on one of those gloomy, stay home by the woodstove and have a cup of coffee afternoons, to begin to peruse the seed catalogs that have been gathering in great numbers on the kitchen table. This usually evolves into planning my garden, one of my favorite tasks.

I tend to go through seed catalogues, make huge wish lists and then try to figure out how my garden might accommodate my grandiose ideas. This year, however, I opened the Seeds Blum Catalogue first.

Jan Blum offers Heritage seeds from her farm in Idaho. Her catalogue is hand written, and folksy in its deliverance. She begins this year's catalogue with a dissertation on her philosophy of garden planning. She suggests several introspective planning sessions, beginning with a session on examining your motivation for gardening. This requires a spiral notebook, a cup of herb tea, a rocker in front of the wood stove, a relaxed attitude and just a simple brain storming session to consider your reasons for gardening and what you want to get from your garden.

This was an intriguing approach to me. I have never really examined my motivations, what it is that makes gardening an imperative for me. Her theory is that knowing this will make a difference in the garden you plan. I followed her advice and indeed, I will plan a different garden this year because of it. It's an interesting experience. It seems that I garden because of:
The look of it, smell of it, the feel of it around me.
The process of it. Planning it, building the soil, preparing it, buying and starting the
seeds, following each day of growth, even, surprisingly, the satisfaction of
weeding, outsmarting the aphids and grasshoppers, the cold and the wind.
The smell of cilantro after a hail storm.
The delight of fresh vegetables, herbs and flowers.
The pleasure of sitting on the porch swing on a summer afternoon and having it
around me.
Old roses.
Giving produce and flowers away.
Blue, iridescent wild blue of Blue Flax, Bachelor Button, Iris, Delphinium.
Dilly Beans.
The opportunity for good physical labor outside in the sun and wind, a chance to
sweat.
The challenge of creating order out of wildness.
The adventure of trying new plants, new techniques, taking risks.
Penstemmon.
Great conversation with other gardeners.
The dream that I could become self sufficient.
Tulips poking through the snow.
Corralling my teen-age son and watching his amazement at earthworms in the
newly turned soil.
Thousands of varieties of tomatoes and I want to try them all!
Raspberries eaten right off the bush.
Hummingbirds.
Showing it off to people.
Teaching my children and grandchildren about it's virtues.
Learning something new every season.

Posted by maxmaddy at 11:18 AM

Gardening Without Pain

f I weren’t so darn stiff and sore, I’d just kick myself. When all that lovely snow fell on our yard this weekend, I just couldn’t wait to get out there and move it from the driveway to the garden. My husband and I went at it with great enthusiasm and no intelligence whatsoever. An hour and a ton of snow later, the job was done and we were both in pain. Later that morning, when I got to church, I spotted my friend Randy clearing off the parking lot with an amazing snow moving device. Like a miniature shovel from a front end loader, this tool was designed to move snow without injuring the mover. Randy cheerfully explained that this was the “Maine secret” for clearing snow. Now why didn’t I think to use a smart tool like that?

While there may not be many more occasions to move mountains of snow this winter, when the gardening season begins, there will lots of work to do that could be done more easily and with fewer injuries if we just use some smart tools. These tools, generally known as “ergonomic”, are thoughtfully designed to promote good posture, make use of the largest and strongest muscles for most jobs, and prevent repetitive stress injuries to various joints. While there are far too many to describe in detail here, they can be recognized by certain key features. These include:

Extended handles: A properly proportioned rake, shovel, or hoe has a handle long enough to allow the user to stand mostly upright while working. I found a leaf rake at the Arboretum a few years ago that has an adjustable length handle, and this has made raking so easy and painless, it has become my favorite gardening chore.

Straight-wrist grips: These small hand tools are equipped with grips that keep the wrist straight while digging or weeding. Some of them also come with a brace that clamps over the forearm, thus encouraging the user to rely on the stronger arm muscles, rather than those of wrist and fingers.

Ratcheted pruning shears: A ratcheting mechanism reduces the force required to do the job, saving wear and tear on hand and finger muscles. Many of these pruning tools come with extended handles and straight-wrist grips. They are a joy to use!

Big wheeled carts and barrows: Carts with extra-large wheels are much easier to roll, especially over uneven ground. Wheelbarrows and tool caddies with large wheels greatly reduce the effort required to move tools, bags of mulch, and other heavy gardening items around the yard.

Kneeling pads and benches: Far too often, I spend a lot of time bending over a garden bed or kneeling on the hard ground. Not smart! If you must get down to ground level, it’s much better to bend at the knees or sit on a low bench. This prevents back strain and makes it possible to work much longer in the garden, which is our goal, after all!

By Alice Monet
Master Gardener

Posted by maxmaddy at 11:15 AM

National Invasive Weed Awareness Week

It’s difficult to address the weed issue without throwing out the obvious pun, so I’m going get this out of the way…invasive weeds are a growing problem. For example, in the immediate area in and around Flagstaff, diffuse knapweed (Centauria diffusa) infests several hundred acres of land. This plant and other invasive weeds have impacted parks, public lands and other natural areas by reducing the number of native plant species and lowering the quality of habitat. Because these species do not have natural enemies here, they can easily choke out desirable, native plants. This ability to rapidly transform landscapes is the inherent nature of an invasive species. And because weeds do not recognize boundaries, combating them requires collaboration among local organizations, government agencies and volunteers.

This year, participants in the San Francisco Peaks Weed Management Area will be recognizing National Invasive Weed Awareness Week by promoting invasive weed awareness through education, collaborative planning and mitigation efforts. On a national level, weed management professionals gather in Washington D.C. to get their day in the sun with peers and policymakers. Regardless of the venue, it is important for experts to provide the scientific data and insight that legislators need to make good policy decisions and provide a framework of support to landowners and land managers.

One such program is provided by the University of Arizona. “Early detection and rapid response” has been the en-vogue mantra of weed killers everywhere the past few years. The University of Arizona Forest Health program has adopted this same moniker to support a program aiding Arizona residents in combating invasive weeds. The goal is to control or eradicate these weeds on non-federal municipal and private properties in Arizona that threaten federally forested areas. Treatment involves Integrated Pest Management, including herbicides by certified applicators in partnership with property owners and the University of Arizona. Property owners, regardless of property size or municipal affiliation are required to match federal dollars on a 50-50 basis. This program is not intended to combat garden variety weeds, such as dandelions or cheeseweed. For these plants, you’re on your own. For more details on this program contact Beverly Loomis at bloomis@ag.arizona.edu.

The wet year we experienced in the southwest during 2005 resulted in expanding populations of invasive weeds, with large-scale seed production. Vast amounts of seed lay waiting in the seed-bank for the opportunity to cast their grizzly pall over the landscape. We are talking about very patient seed. Scotch thistle seed has demonstrated germination after 18 years of laying low in the soil. According to University of Arizona Climate Extension Specialist, Mike Crimmins, “when wet periods occur, whatever species are best suited to quickly take advantage of the moisture can flourish and potentially out-compete all others. The very wet period of the 1980s provided the ideal conditions for some invasive grasses to spread rapidly.” Non-native grass dominated plant communities were integral in carrying wildfires in the lower- and mid-elevation deserts last summer. This year, with drought affecting nearly all of the southwest, fire is a genuine concern throughout the state. Invasive plant communities adjacent to highways are perfect vectors for spreading fire into our forests and Wildland Urban/Interface communities. And this concern is not just relegated to the highly flammable cheatgrass.

Large infestations of diffuse knapweed stand poised for a variety of options, one of which is burning. Typically, fire is not often associated with the knapweeds. But then again, this has not been a typical year. Dried tumbleweeds of diffuse knapweed usually ride the winds of winter, dispersing seed along the way. In the past, we have been saved somewhat by deep snows beating down and burying plants, thus preventing a total onslaught upon the landscape. No such luck this year. With their integrity intact, diffuse knapweed plant communities have a myriad of options at their disposal. This is why we need to dispose of them first.

This next week, while the power brokers in Washington are lobbied by weed management professionals, look around your drought stricken landscape and see if you can identify a weed or two. Recognizing non-native species and planting native species in gardens is one of the easiest ways to get involved in the fight against invasive weeds. By working to prevent the entry or establishment of non-native plants, community members can help to minimize the ecological and economic impacts of these invaders. If you are interested in learning more about invasive plants, how to identify and control them, or how to become a volunteer, please contact Wade Albrecht or visit the National Invasive Species Council (NISC) web site at www.invasivespecies.gov.

Wade Albrecht is the Natural Resource Educator for U of A Cooperative Extension Coconino County and is the Coordinator for San Francisco Peaks Weed Management Area. He can be reached at 774-1868 ext. 25.

Posted by maxmaddy at 11:11 AM

Kale

Growing kale in Flagstaff is a lead-pipe cinch. As a cole crop, it is a cool season vegetable which makes it a fit for Flagstaff and the Colorado Plateau. Kale is hardy and grows best in the spring and the fall. It’s even sweeter after the first freeze in fall. The best time to plant it is in the early spring when the soil can be worked for a summer crop and then in the late summer for a fall crop that can be picked even after the first snowfall.

The most common variety is Red Russian kale (Brassica napus), so named because of its color, not its political affiliation. As an heirloom vegetable, it precedes the rise of communism in Russia. As a matter of fact, it was first brought to North America by way of Canada about 1885 by Russian fur traders.

Close by the venerable Red Russian kale is a cultivar called White Russian kale (Brassica napus) whose name again has no political implications. During the Russian Civil War from 1918-21 the White Russian Army fought the Red Army of the Bolsheviks. They lost and Russia became communist. Also, a White Russian is also an alcoholic drink featuring vodka and Kahlua. Actually, White Russian kale is called white because it has white stems. It’s sweeter and hangs around longer than Red Russian kale, being hardy to 10 degrees F.

Nowadays, a more fashionable kale is Tuscan kale (Brassica oleraceae) which promises a taste of sunny Italy. Delicious tasting, it is also decorative. An Italian heirloom, it also goes by the names of Italian Lacinato Nero Toscana, Black Tuscan kale, Dinosaur kale, and Cavolo Nero. Acclaimed in gourmet magazines, it has received the horticultural imprimaturs of Martha Stewart and Ina Garten, the gastronomic doyenne of The Hamptons.

For those of Scots heritage there is the Blue Scotch Curled kale (Brassica oleracea acephala), a native of Great Britain. A favorite for soups and salads, it can also be used decoratively. Another fascinating kale is the Giant Walking Stick kale (Brassica oleracea longata), a favorite amongst the Portugese. It grows to 7 feet tall. The leaves at top may be eaten as in the other kales, but the stem can be used for a walking stick. While growing, it will need a stake to support it. In the early winter months, it may be pulled and cut off at the base. After the cane has been dried, it can be polished and used as a walking stick. Seeds may be obtained from the Nichols Garden Nursery at www.nicholsgardennursery.com or at 1-800-422-3985.

In addition to being used in soups, side dishes, and stir fry, kale can also be used as greens in salads if the leaves are picked young. As cole crops, they can be planted by seed four to five weeks before the last frost. To get the jump on the spring, they can be started by seed indoors. They are best sown about 1/4 inch deep and 15 inches apart, except the ‘Giant Walking Stick’ kale which requires more space.

The pest to which kale is most vulnerable is the ubiquitous aphid. Dill, coriander, and bronze fennel planted near the kale draw insects that prey on aphids. Also, insecticidal soap or detergents work well if all the aphids are wetted, especially those on the underside of the leaves. Repeated treatments are necessary, and be sure to wash the leaves before cooking them.

Very nutritious and sweet tasting, kale is also quite attractive, offering differently colored varieties which makes it useful not only in a vegetable garden, but also desirable in the flower garden.

By Dana Prom Smith
The author is a Master Gardener volunteer for Coconino County Cooperative Extension

Posted by maxmaddy at 11:07 AM

Preparing for Spring

It doesn’t matter much to me whether Punxsutawney Phil sees his shadow or not. Once we get to Ground Hog Day, my thoughts turn to spring and planting. This is no coincidence, of course. The date we now observe by watching for the emergence of a hibernating critter has been recognized since prehistoric times as the real beginning of spring. This date comes at the mid-point between the winter solstice (December 21) and the vernal equinox (March 21), and is known among astronomers (such as myself) as a “cross-quarter” day. This date was celebrated by the Celts as Imbolg, or “in the belly”, referring to the first stirrings of life in the womb of the Earth Mother. Later, the holiday was Christianized and renamed Candlemas, but the weather on this day was still regarded as a harbinger of spring. Thus the old poem:

If Candlemas be fair and clear,
There’ll be twa winters in the year.

It isn’t much of a stretch to realize that if Ground Hog Day be ``fair and clear’’, poor old Phil will very likely see his shadow and scurry back into his burrow. He may be willing to wait out another six weeks of winter, but it’s too late for me. Life is stirring deep in Mother Earth. Time to get ready!

Here in Flagstaff, it’s obviously still too cold for planting outdoors, but there’s still plenty to do. For several weeks now, seed and plant nursery catalogs have been arriving in the mail. This is a great time to check out new plant offerings or to give some thought to trying out varieties and species we haven’t grown before. While frigid nights and bitter winds have us scurrying for shelter, we can begin laying plans for our summer gardens and making lists of seeds and plants to order or watch for at the local garden centers.

On warmer days, we can busy ourselves outdoors sweeping away the remnants of winter and cleaning up the garden for the coming season. In the fall, I always end up leaving a few cold hardy perennials standing, especially if they have nice seed heads or interesting forms. By now, these stalks and leaves are thoroughly withered and used up. It’s time to clear them out and make room for the new growth, which even now may be sending up a few green sprouts. Last year about this time, I moved a large container I’d left on a patch of garden bed, only to discover a dozen or so bleached daffodil sprouts that had been attempting to grow under the pot. Oops! I covered them with a fluffy layer of pine needles because they looked so fragile. In a couple of weeks they had turned green and began to bloom.

This is also a good time to inventory your garden tools and supplies, and to replace, clean, or repair anything that needs attention. If you plan to grow some of your plants from seed, now is the time to order the seeds, stock up on seed starting mix, collect the containers you’ll be using, replace the bulbs in your growing lights, and figure out where to put the containers for the several weeks that the seedlings will need to grow. While Phil is snoozing away the next few weeks, Flagstaff gardeners have no time to lose!

By Alice Monet
The author is a Master Gardener volunteer for the Coconino County Cooperative Extension.

Posted by maxmaddy at 10:58 AM

Gardening Resolutions for 2006

Master Gardeners possess a wealth of gardening knowledge. I often ask for their advice and expertise on many gardening problems. Since it is the time of year for resolutions, I decided to poll Master Gardeners to find out what their goals are for a better garden. Their comments can help all of us improve our gardening practices in 2006.

Sandy plans to plant more Northern Arizona natives. Indigenous plants often use less water and need less care than plants not native to our area.

Loni resolves to spend more time on her own garden. She wants to work on a "Sanctuary Garden" at home while it is still fresh in her mind. She also plans to plant fewer tomatoes as she just finished the last of late ripening tomatoes that she hung in the garage last week.

Alice has several gardening resolutions that many of us should adopt as our own. This year she will get serious about improving her soil. She’ll install an effective irrigation system. She’ll reseed the lawn. Alice will start her vegetable seeds early enough. And she will eradicate the bind weed in her garden. (After she figures out how, hopefully she will teach the rest of us.) And finally, she’ll deadhead her flowers regularly.

Terry vows to use fewer insecticides, a resolution that the environment can benefit from. And if an insecticide is needed, he’ll use the least toxic one first.

Cynthia resolves to write down the name, both genus and species, of plants that she thinks might do well in her garden when she comes across them in gardening books or magazines. She will not presume to remember them when she’s ready to buy.

Terra had several gardening resolutions for 2006. Here are a few:

She vows to plant her bulbs within a couple of months of buying them instead of waiting for the next year to roll around after which they have all sprouted in her heated garage, warranting a call to the Master Gardener hotline for advice on whether they’ll survive. (They won’t.)

She vows to study her yard for the correct placement of plants based on their needs rather than just pretending that she has studied it and putting plants where she wants them to do best. She will repeat the gardening mantra "right plant, right place."

Terra promises to never again put a plant in the ground using bone meal as her dogs like bone meal better than the $40 a bag, nutritionally balanced, vitamin enhanced, dog food she buys them.

By Hattie Braun

Posted by maxmaddy at 10:55 AM

Further Adventures in Composting

When my wife, Gretchen, passes my composters, a sky-hook is attached to her nose. She makes comments beginning with phrases such as "Why did you?" and "What on earth are you?" or the word "Ugh!" However, she likes the results. The other day she stamped her foot, flaired her nostrils, flared her red hair, and cougared her green eyes when she demanded that I give her some compost for her flower barrel. The final accolade came when she said, "You know, D. P., this stuff of yours really smells sweet."

It wasn’t always so. At first my composters got out of hand and really stunk, but now that I’ve gotten the hang of things they don’t stink anymore. Early in my composting career I used too much nitrogen material. During those stinky times Gretchen called me "Fly Face" because of the flies hanging around the composters. She didn’t know she dated herself to 1960 when Chester Gould’s comic strip Dick Tracy was in vogue and General Eisenhower was President. "Fly Face" was a criminal with flies circling his face.

Last fall, things came to a head when I began composting on top of the ground. The bins were full, and I wasn’t about dispatch my tomato and zucchini vines and sunflower stocks to the cruel machinations of Environmental Services. I dug shallow trenches on the vacant vegetable beds, threw in garden clippings, coffee grounds, and tea leaves, and covered them with soil. Soon they were cooking, slowly.

Then Gretchen remembered that her beloved grandmother, Flo, a Kentuckian who plugged rattlesnakes and rats around her house with a shotgun, dropped kitchen scraps on a pile in her back yard. Grandma Flo had a great vegetable garden. Aha! Now, since it was good enough for her Grandma, it was good enough for me. However, I wouldn’t recommend Grandma Flo’s method unless one craves a rodent-feeding site.

So by messing around I found a slow-cooker way to compost besides pressure-cooker hot bins from the city. It was trenches on vacant vegetable beds. Even in winter microbuggies toil away in hot bins sending up clouds of steam and yielding mature compost about every three weeks. The trenches filled with yard clippings crock pot all winter long, yielding their goodies in the spring.

More sophisticated, high-tech, slow-cooker gardeners build three-sided bins, usually of concrete blocks or spare lumber. They toss organic material in the bins, turning it now and then, producing great compost in the spring, summer, and fall.

An indoor form of composting is called vermicomposting or worm casting which is not fly-casting. First, get a wormery, either home-made or store-bought. The home-made variety can be made from a small plastic container with the approximate dimensions of 14 inches wide by 21 inches deep by 9 inches high. Drill a couple of holes in each side and cover them with a screen. Duck tape holds the screen in place. Since the worms like it dark, keep the lid on.
Next, shred lots of newspapers, dampen them, and put them in the bin, making sure the dampened newspapers aren’t soppy and matted. Watch for puddles on the bottom. Now, that the wormery’s beds are made, it’s ready for guests.

The best guest worms are red wigglers (Eisenia foetida), not earthworms. They can be purchased on the Internet or by phone through the mail. One Internet site is www.happydranch.com. Two pounds or two thousand worms are best for the size container mentioned above.

The worms must be fed to get castings. In and out. They like minced left-over vegetables and fruits. No meat, dairy, fat, salt, or citrus. Small amounts of coffee grounds and soil are good for the worms’ gizzards.

Worms like air so the dampened newspapers should be fluffed now and then. Keep the wormery away from vibrating contrivances, such as drum sets and refrigerators. The temperature is best kept between 68-72 degrees, but 40-80 degrees are tolerable with slower casting. The wormeries can be kept in the garage or for true believers under a sink in the house.

After a few months, harvesting the castings is a cinch. Move all the material to one side of the wormery, add fresh newspaper to the other side, and feed on the new side. The worms will migrate to the new side and the castings can be harvested from the old side.
Composting with worms is a sure-fire hit with small children. Most children like the squiggling, wiggling things. They like growing things, too.

In addition to home entertainment, the worm castings are very rich and are useful for fertilizing the soil, especially in window sill gardens.

Now, that we are in a fearful drought, compost is the way to go. By adding organic matter, the soil retains moisture effectively as well getting fertilized.

By Dana Prom Smith
The author is a Master Gardener volunteer for the Coconino County Cooperative Extension.

Posted by maxmaddy at 10:44 AM

Creative Barracks

Tucked behind NAU’s outbuildings, fuel depot, machine shops, and warehouses, NAU’s Research Greenhouse Complex lies low down a short lane. Looking like a military disciplinary barracks, except for its plexiglass roofs, the complex is composed of eight 1000 square foot greenhouses running off a long hall.
On entering the complex, the facility’s bleak foyer is filled with great bins of sterile soil, pallets of containerized plants, and jumbles of black plastic containers, shovels, and hoses. Students, professors, volunteers, Master Gardener Trainees, and two soft-spoken, amiable horticulturists amble in and out of a small office, the foyer, the hall, and the greenhouses. The horticulturalists, Brad Blake and Phil Patterson are, respectively, the Director and Manager of the Complex.
Neat-freaks aside, creativity is messy as in any type of conception. This is no Martha Stewart, made-for-TV potting shed set on the edge of a manicured lawn in the Hamptons. Designed to support research by the biological, environmental, ecological, and forestry sciences, it does a lot more.
The heat and humidity of each greenhouse are controlled separately because the functions of the Research Greenhouse Complex are as varied as horticulture in the alpine and the Sonoran deserts and along streams, amongst woodlands, and in forests.
The Complex is designed to support the university’s varied research projects, such as Professor Nancy C. Johnson’s study in mycorrhizal ecology. Mycorrhizae are symbioses between plant roots and soil fungi. The research studies how environmental conditions, such as CO2, influence the benefits that plants gain from the mycorrhizae. The experiments at NAU’s Research Greenhouse Complex helped discover that the CO2 in the atmosphere influence the mycorrhizae and thus the soil’s fertility. In short, as Sigmund Freud pointed out, the most important stuff occurs beneath the surface with lots of fascinating interactions between the seen and the unseen.
Also, Brad Blake and Phil Patterson supervise volunteers and MG Trainees in producing Fremont cottonwoods (Populus fremontii) for Regents Professor Thomas Whitham’s restoration project at the Cibola National Wildlife Refuge on the lower Colorado River near Yuma. Designed to bring back the bird habitat, the program is funded in part by a grant from the Bureau of Reclamation.
Another program supplies ponderosa pine seedlings to reforest fire-ravaged Mount Lemmon near Tucson. In order to keep the forest authentic, ponderosa pine cones from Mount Lemmon are gathered, seeds harvested, and seedlings grown from the seeds so that the newly introduced ponderosa pines (Pinus ponderosa) replicate the ones they are replacing.
They also grow ponderosa pines (Pinus ponderosa), Gambel oaks (Quercus gambelii), pinyon pines (Pinus edulis), and native grasses, such as spike muhly grass (Muhlenbergia wrightii) and Arizona fescue (Festuca arizonica) for Trees for the Rim, the group reforesting the private lands devastated by the Rodeo-Chediski fire.
They often work with Native American Tribes, such as restoring the historic peach trees for the Hopi Reservation.
Another Native American project was with the Hualapai Tribe where it supplied willows (Salix gooddingii) for the banks of the Colorado River. The tamarisk tree (Tamarix ramosissima) introduced at the turn of the century by the U.S.D.A. to control soil erosion consumes about 300 gallons of water a day, too much in the water-scarce desert. It also invasively drives out native vegetation. The Hualapai wanted to restore the native willows and their wild-life habitat.
The Complex is devoted to successful horticulture on the Colorado Plateau, and as a part of that purpose has made available two roses from the NAU campus that thrive in Flagstaff, the Riles and the McCormick Roses. Cuttings can be purchased from the Complex by calling 523-9100.

By Dana Prom Smith
The author is a Master Gardener volunteer for Coconino County Cooperative Extension

Posted by maxmaddy at 10:39 AM

Container Gardening

I moved from Oregon to Arizona nine years ago. My previous home was half of a small duplex which required me to garden in pots on small patios. When I moved to a much larger home in Flagstaff, I started by gardening in small pots on my deck. Even though I didn’t know much about gardening in Flagstaff, it turns out that gardening in pots in was a great idea.

It didn’t take me long to realize that pots dry out much more quickly in Flagstaff than in Oregon. Those pots placed on my south-facing deck fared the worst. I learned to move most of them under the partial shade of the roof eaves. I created shade for others with my unused umbrellas from Oregon, and I put some in self-watering containers.

Gardening in pots, particularly in Flagstaff, can mean the difference between failure and success. Almost anything that will grow in the ground, except large trees, will do well in a pot. What are the advantages? First of all you can control the soil, which can be a big problem in Flagstaff. I live just below Mt. Elden so my soil is primarily rock, sand and pine needles and a challenge to work with. Using a pot allows me to create good soil and to make the soil fit the plant’s needs. Some plants like loose, well-drained soil while others prefer soil that holds more moisture. The nice thing about pots is you can plant things that have different watering or soil requirements right next to each other in different pots.

You have some control of the elements when you garden in containers. Pots placed on casters can easily be moved when weather conditions are less than ideal. When the monsoons come, along with the infamous hail, you can easily move small pots or pots on wheels. We have had several summers where this trick has saved my heirloom tomatoes.

Pots are easier to protect from critters and many insects. I use large square cages for my tomatoes and cover them with Remay early in the season. I have only had hornworms once in 8 years. Container gardening also eliminates most weeds. All this leads to less work once the pots are set up.

Gardening in pots can make some gardening chores much easier. We won’t have to give up gardening as we age. Grouping your pots together will make watering easier. Placing pots at waist level will mean less pain for your back. And gardening in containers does away with the need to dig in rocky soil.

Last but certainly not least, you will use less water if you select the correct pots, soil, and location. In our dry climate, unglazed clay pots dry out very quickly. Self-watering containers work well for plants that like a moist soil such as tomatoes, cucumbers and petunias.

I have only touched the surface here on advantages to using pots, and have not mentioned some of the drawbacks such as cost. I will be teaching a class on container gardening at Coconino Community College on May 20 from 9am-noon. The class will cover in more detail the advantages and disadvantages of container gardening, types of containers, soil mixtures, vegetables and perennials for small spaces, design ideas, ideas for watering and much more. We will finish the day with several planting projects that use herbs, vegetables, and perennials to give you ideas for your own container gardens.

For more information or to register, call 928-526-7644. Other gardening classes offered at CCC this spring include: Gardening Forever on June 3, Create a Backyard Habitat on June 4, 11, 18 and 25, and Plant Propagation on June 10.

By Loni Shapiro
The author is a Master Gardener volunteer for Coconino County Cooperative Extension.

Posted by maxmaddy at 10:37 AM

Composting

After a triple bypass and retirement Gretchen and I moved to Flagstaff, a new house and yard. When I shoveled the dirt, my heart sank. I felt the same way when my drill instructor shredded my weekend pass when I was 17. Rather than a hot date, I policed a barren parade ground for cigarette butts. On maneuvers, I suggested to Sgt. Staatz, an irascible, surly, sour, harsh, saturnine battle-tested SOB, that his infantry tactics were wrong based on my high school ROTC courses. Eventually, I become a Sgt/Maj, Special Troops, becoming in part that which I earlier despised, an experience both disquieting and humbling.
Sullen and surly, my yard was volcanic detritus dumped by the contractor on top of native clay. Patches of clay showed through the debris, like concrete patches in peeling linoleum floors. My yard had the cast of that barren parade ground. As Yogi Berra said, it was deja vu all over again.
Sharpies with toothpicks stuck in the corner of their mouths happened by selling dirt and rocks from a dump truck. I wasn’t inclined to buy either dirt or rocks. My soil was up to me.
I knew good soil. While studying for my doctorate at the University of Chicago, I served a country church amongst the corn, cattle, and swine of Illinois. Sadly, at the time I was too busy with Plato and Saint Augustine to treasure black loam and peat bogs.
The forest floor behind our house is covered with slowly decomposing pine needles. After raking off the top layer, I mined the old bottom duff. Knowing the trees needed duff as much as I wanted it, I raked the top back.
For texture, I began mixing my soil using volcanic ash for lightness, clay for heft, and old pine needles for body. Sadly, I had no silt. By divine providence I encountered Hattie Braun, Chief Master Gardener, and Ellen Ryan, Flagstaff’s Head Composting Honcho. Their message: composting is essentially returning to the soil that which it has given us, making it rich. I bought two composting bins from the city. Eureka! Now, I began making my soil rich.
Key to the science of composting is the 30-1 ratio by weight of carbon to nitrogen. Charts about the 30-1 ratio in organic materials are easily available. Nitrogen, commonly called green, inspires microbuggies to work on complex carbon compounds, called brown, making them available as simpler nutrients for the plants. Precisely measuring the ratio of carbon to nitrogen is difficult with a shovel. Horse manure, kitchen scraps (no meat), brewery barley mash, clippings from the garden (no dog poop), dumpster diving treasures, buckets of coffee grounds, and the like, make measuring approximate. Science becomes an art with a palette of three senses: feeling, smelling, seeing. No tasting and hearing.
Tiny microbuggies mining the carbon deep in the compost pile work up a sweat, steaming the pile. Without nitrogen the microscopic critters will quit as the pile goes cold. Too much carbon without enough nitrogen "slow walks" the composting as the microbuggies loaf. Too much nitrogen, which is volatile, paradoxically causes a loss of nitrogen, resulting in smelly ammonia and buzzing flies.
Microbuggies need moisture, but beware of the dreaded extremes: wet and soggy. Wet will drown the microcritters. Nitrogen materials tend toward moisture while carbon materials tend toward dryness. Also, water is heavy, seeping down the pile, making soggy bottoms and dry tops. Turning the pile is a cure for soggy bottoms. If the pile is wet, it’ll sour and draw flies. Sour stinks with the sweet rank of putrefaction, not the rich aroma of decomposition. A good rule-of-thumb for measuring moisture is the feel of a washcloth firmly wrung out, moist but not wet. Usually, the organic stuff thrown in the composer will supply enough moisture, but if it’s dry, add a little water. If it’s wet, add some dry stuff like vintage horse manure.
The microbuggies mining deep in the compost pile need oxygen so the pile has to be turned now and then to get them fresh air. A pitch fork is best for stirring up an aerated wing-ding composting microbug-o-rama.
Good compost smells like newly turned earth in the spring, looks like dark loam, and feels like crumbles. As with martial arts, composting draws on nature’s energy rather than assaulting it with chemicals.
Raised beds rich with dark lustrous soil, producing bounties of vegetables and flowers, are composting’s rewards along with a sense of presence at the creation.

By Dana Prom Smith
The author is a volunteer for the Coconino County Master Gardener Program.

Posted by maxmaddy at 10:34 AM

Beets, Roots of Noble Lineage

Beets have been out of fashion for several years, considered by many a plebian vegetable along with turnips, rutabagas, and parsnips, but now beets and their allies are becoming de rigueur. Carrots have always remained a standard, not quite fashionable, bourgeois vegetable, conventional and humdrum. However, as gastronomic fashion changes with greater emphasis on food that smacks of home cooking and meat loaf, root vegetables are now happily chic.

Beets, turnips, rutabagas, and parsnips are naturals for Flagstaff and the Colorado Plateau. They don’t wilt at the first sign of frost, like tomatoes. A hardy lot, they’re nutritious, attractive, and easy to grow.

The beet with which to begin is the Detroit Dark Red (Beta vulgaris), an heirloom developed in 1892 by a Mr. Reeves in Port Hope, Ontario, Canada. He began with the Early Blood Turnip (Beta vulgaris cv.). The same turnip was also grown at Monticello by the author of the Declaration of Independence and our nation’s third President, Thomas Jefferson, whose gardens were undoubtedly tended by his slaves. At any rate, the Detroit Dark Red has a noble lineage.

An all around vegetable, almost all of it can be eaten. The young leaves can be used in salads, and before they are too old can be used as a side dish or in soups and stir fry.

However, the real triumph of the Detroit Dark Red is the root, a delightful globe, best plucked early while it is still tender and tasty. To prevent the dark red from staining everything in sight, the globe is best boiled, baked, or roasted in its skin with the small base of leaves attached to the top and the small pig tail left on. After cooking, the skin can easily be slipped off without red stain running all over the place.

Beets are not all dark red globes. The Italian heirloom, Chioggia (Beta vulgaris), with its interior rings of bright pink and white offers a great contrast to the Detroit Dark Red. With its sweet and peppery taste, it’s also an eye catcher when sliced properly on any dinner table.

The Golden Beet is golden in color and doesn’t bleed as do the red beets. A fetching contrast to the red beets, it’s attractive, sweet, and nutritious.

The Bulls Blood Beet is, also, an heirloom. With an earthy yet sweet flavor, it’s darker and richer than the other beets with its leaves a deep maroon color. If the leaves are picked young, they are a striking contrast in salads. It’s a beet connoisseur’s beet.

The rules for growing beets are simple. Sow the seeds a few weeks before the expected last frost and keep sowing on through to fall. Plant an inch deep about 12 to 15 seeds per foot and thin to 2 to 3 inches. Plant in well-composted soil and keep the watering even. When harvesting, choose a dry day, cut off tops near the crown, don’t wash the root, and store in the crisper in a plastic bag with small holes. They’ll last a long time. They can be stored, boiled, pickled, roasted, baked, canned, and frozen.

As far as pests are concerned, the ubiquitous aphid is a possible threat. Dill, coriander, and bronze fennel draw the insects that feed on aphids. Lady bugs are excellent predators on aphids. Insecticidal soap and detergent work as long as the leaves’ undersides where the aphids hide out are hit. If these are used, the leaves should be washed before eating. Never use systemic poisoning. Suicide and homicide are horticultural no-no’s.

Beets bring a delight to the eye, a pleasure to the palate, health to the body, and clarity to the mind.

By Dana Prom Smith
The author is a Master Gardener volunteer for Coconino County Cooperative Extension

Posted by maxmaddy at 10:30 AM

Aspen: Our Favorite Problem Tree

What’s wrong with my aspen? After questions about bark beetle, that is the most common call that we get on the Master Gardener hotline. Sometimes we can help folks with their questions, but other times it’s as much of a challenge as growing aspen because a multitude of problems can affect this lovely tree. I learned how to answer many of the questions from my own aspen experience.

I planted three clumps of aspen in the spring of 2002. Like many a Flagstaff homeowner, I wanted aspen in my yard because of its attractive white bark, heart-shaped quaking leaves, and beautiful fall color. It’s hardy and fast growing. As a plant native to our region, it looks at home in the Flagstaff landscape. And since there are many beautiful clumps of aspens growing in town, why shouldn’t it thrive at my house?

Like many other folks, I learned the hard way that aspen can be a troublesome tree in the home landscape. It is affected by numerous insects such as aphid, oystershell scale, and clear wing moth. It gets even more diseases including canker, rust, and leaf spot. And there are a wide variety of cultural practices that will affect the health of the tree such as shallow watering and mower or weed-whacker damage.

In addition, aspen prefer a moist, well-drained, slightly acid soil similar to what you might find at higher elevations. This is not a soil often found in our yards. The suckering habit can be a nuisance especially with sprouts turn up in a lawn. Even if properly cared-for, an aspen may only live for 20 years in our urban landscape.

My aspens lasted less than a year. It didn’t help that I planted them during a record drought and then went on vacation without a plan for watering. I also didn’t dig a very wide hole when planting. I furthered their demise by placing them in a pretty shade spot. And I never got around to mulching. At least at my house, elk were not a problem.

I think aphids eventually did my aspens in. Though aphids don’t usually kill an aspen outright, they can be a contributing factor to the decline of an already stressed tree.

As 2006 is turning into an excellent year for aphids, check your aspens frequently for this pest. You can treat for aphids by hosing down your tree to knock the aphids onto the ground. If the problem continues, try spraying with an insecticidal soap. In the most severe cases, you may have to resort to an insecticide.

The best defense for an aphid problem and many other insects and diseases is to keep your aspens healthy. This means providing adequate water, controlling pests before they get out of control, raking leaves up in the fall, and avoiding damage to the bark as this is a point of entry for disease.

I don’t like to recommend aspen as a landscape tree because of all the problems. But I am still taken by their beauty so someday I’ll likely try again. Next time, I’ll do everything right from the start. I’ll loosen the soil several feet out from the planting hole, digging only as deep as the root ball. I won’t plant in May or June when conditions are so dry and windy. I’ll apply an organic mulch around the base of the tree. I’ll water regularly until my tree is established. Finally, I‘ll choose a site that has a north or eastern exposure and enough sun.

If growing aspen seems like too much trouble, there are many other trees that can be used instead. You will find a list of small deciduous trees that grow to about the same height as aspen at: www.coopext.colostate.edu/4DMG/Trees/aspens2.htm.

I’m beginning to think that aspen are harder to grow than roses. So for now, I think I’ll stick to enjoying aspen where they grow best – up on the peaks.

By Hattie Braun
The author is the Master Gardener Program Coordinator for Coconino County Cooperative Extension.

Posted by maxmaddy at 10:26 AM

A Sacramental Garden

Gardens and gardening appeal to many people for various reasons. Some like to work the soil and watch things grow. They like flowers, vegetables, herbs, trees, and bushes. They like to sniff the roses and herbs, eat ripe tomatoes off the vine, prune bushes and trees, feel well-worked soil drift through their fingers. They like physical work in pleasant surroundings.
Others not only like to work the soil, they also love of the beauty of a garden. They feel as though they are painters with a palette, limning textures and colors, designing beds and walks. For them gardening is an art in which the gardener gives voice to the mute mélange of soil, water, sun, and air. For garden artists design is the heart of gardening. They appreciate the shape of a bush, the dangling tendrils of a climber, and the colors of leaves, flowers, and stems. They even cherish the rocks, their shapes, patinas, and colors.
The reason is simple. Gardens and gardening are therapeutic. They’re good for the soul. They draw the mind away from the hurly-burly of everyday life. They allow people to regain their temper for having lost it. The physical sensations of taste, touch, smell, sight, and hearing beckon them to the simple pleasures of the senses. The deep purple of an eggplant, the fragrance of a rose, the songs of birds, the architecture of a tree, the shape and texture of rocks, all draw the mind away from internal internecine conflict to the immediacy of beauty. The beauty of a garden soothes the savage breast lurking in everyone. Without it, people are often Shakespeare’s "Poor Brutus, with himself at war" who "forgets the shows of love to other men."
One of the great pleasures in life is sharing rewarding experiences with those for whom we care. Gardens offer those communal experiences. Beautiful gardens cause passersby to stop and chat and bring friends together to share their delights. Gardens bring an ease of communion.
Still others experience gardens as sanctuaries, places set aside in which the mind can not only find peace and ease but also take flight on journeys of the spirit. The curved lines of walks and foliage free the mind "cribbed, cabined, and confined" by the boxes and straight lines of society. As people embrace the discrete sensations of beauty, they often touch the fringes of eternity. The physical pleasures of the garden release the heart and mind as the garden sacramentally becomes an "outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible grace."
For many gardeners, gardens and gardening can become "moveable feasts" of the imagination. They can simply close their eyes, breathe deeply, and recreate in their mind’s eyes the feel of soil, the color of flowers, the shape of a branch, the aroma of life. As their spirits take wing and fly to the "uttermost parts" of the imagination, they journey into the outer reaches of inner space.
William Blake in his "Auguries of Innocence" said it best:
To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.

By Dana Prom Smith
The author is a Master Gardener volunteer for Coconino County Cooperative Extension.

Posted by maxmaddy at 10:20 AM

Landscaping with Native Plants Brochure

Utah at Home: Landscaping with Native Plants is a 20-page, full-color, how-to booklet created to give gardeners easy-to-follow guidelines for using native plants in the home landscape.

This brochure is FREE to Coconino County Master Gardeners. Coconino Master Gardeners can stop by the extension office at 2304 N. 3rd St. to pick up their free copy or you may send an e-mail request to hbraun@ag.arizona.edu. The public may purchase the brochure for $2.75. Please make checks payable to the University of Arizona. Send your request with payment to:
Coconino Cooperative Extension
Master Gardener Program
2304 N. 3rd Street
Flagstaff, AZ 86004

The Utah at Home brochure was sponsored by Utah's Choice, Native Plants for Intermountain Landscapes. Though produced for Utah, much of the brochure is applicable to northern Arizona. For more information about going native with Utah's Choice plants, visit www.utahschoice.org.

Posted by hbraun at 9:32 AM

A Mountain Garden

Dignified, gracious, and warm, Charlotte Minor, a landscape architect for the Forest Service, has deftly designed a garden for herself and her husband, Phil Patterson. It begins with a comfortable flagstone patio surrounded by beds of iris and delphinium, then extends imperceptibly through a bed of chokeberries into a vegetable garden, and finally reaches into the seeming infinity of the forest. If style is defined by limitations, the limitation of water has set the style of Charlotte’s design. Phil and Charlotte’s water comes from rain water collected on their roof and from what he hauls for their cistern. The plants and flowers around the patio are watered with gray water. That which is precious shapes their garden’s beauty.

A short path leads past the delphinium and iris and through the chokeberries to a vegetable garden. A fence encloses the vegetable garden to keep the deer and elk from feasting on their vegetables. With a quiet Quaker dignity Charlotte said, “Sometimes, we have to remember that we’re the immigrants. It was originally their land.”

From a distance the vegetable garden with its eight raised beds of concrete resembles an old cemetery in New Orleans where the graves rest above the ground. Designed by Phil and reflecting his genius, four are for deeply rooted vegetables and four for the shallowly rooted. As the plant manager of NAU’s Greenhouse Complex and curator of The Arboretum at NAU, Phil knows whereof he plans. The raised beds are watered by an ingenious, transportable drip system which can be adjusted to various crops. He and Charlotte rotate the crops in the raised beds according to the nitrogen-fixing or nitrogen-consuming types of vegetables and as a way of combating pests.

Off to one side is a stable for their horses whom they ride through the forest and whose waste eventually goes into their composter. Their home is not at the end of the road, but near, almost on the edge of the wilderness. It is a house and garden for those who love the Mountain West and for those who’ve chosen to live within the limitations of that beauty and freedom. Charlotte comes to this love by birth, her father, Dr. Charles Minor, being the founder of NAU’s School of Forestry. Phil, a tall, lanky redhead, comes by choice. Hailing from Oak Lawn, Illinois, he heard the voice of his Highland Scot’s ancestors and headed for the High Country and NAU’s School of Forestry.

While in the midst of a forest, they’re also living in a desert. As a consequence, the precious quality of water defines the beauty of their landscaping which is so skilful that at first it is not apparent what they have done. Artists, their effort appears effortless. Immigrants, they have learned the language of the High Country and accommodated themselves to the forest, making a comfortable and useful garden for themselves while respecting the forest’s animals, choosing no more of their land than that which they need. Their garden is a model for Flagstaff and the Colorado Plateau.

by Dana Prom Smith
Master Gardener
The author is a volunteer trained by the University of Arizona Coconino County Cooperative Extension.

Posted by maxmaddy at 6:10 AM

Tomatoes (Part 2 - 2006)

Tomatoes (2 of 2)
By Dana Prom Smith

As with all high maintenance trophies, tomatoes expect luxury, especially the luxuries of food and bed. Tomatoes do not do well in beds of hard Coconino concrete (sandstone), with mattresses of volcanic rubble, or on ticking of red clay. They thrive in the best of soils which means soil amended with compost or imported. Even imported soil should be amended. The compost can be store-bought or home-made; however, home-made is best. Sometimes, store-bought compost has fillers, such as sawdust. Also, often the imported soil isn�t much good, either. Just because some guy has a dump truck full of dirt doesn�t mean the dirt is any good. Dirt has lineage, ancestry, and genealogy like anyone else, and its origins and history should be checked out.

If tomato plants are going to be bedded in the ground, it should be warmed for several days beforehand with a blanket of clear or black plastic. If in a container, the container and the soil in it should be heated for several days beforehand by enshrouding it in a black or clear plastic bag to destroy any lingering bugs and to welcome the tomato plant with a warm bed.

Tomatoes also like to be well and carefully fed. No mess hall fare or chow line, certainly no MRE�s or K-rations. A high nitrogen fertilizer will help start the plant off well, but as soon as the plant is off to a good start, the best fertilizer ratio is low on nitrogen (N), high on phosphorous (P), and medium to high on potassium (K). Too much nitrogen will produce a beautiful trophy which does nothing except hang around the garden looking beautiful sans tomatoes. Although harder to manage, natural fertilizers are better rather than synthetic as a means of keeping friendly mycorrhizae (fungus roots) in balance around the plant�s roots.

In Flagstaff and on the Colorado Plateau short-season varieties of tomatoes do best because the growing season is so short. This sadly means that a lot of old favorites from back home are chancy in the High Country, especially those coming from soft, sultry climes. Many tomato varieties, like the Vamp of Savannah, like it �nice and warm,� but in the High Country Vamps can be hazardous to a gardener�s emotional well-being. Tough trophies do best. Vamps �tease them and thrill �em,� but then �torture and kill �em.�

Early Girl Hybrid (FV) and Big Boy Hybrid are popular short-season varieties. Several Siberian tomatoes, such as Galina, Market Miracle, Glasnost, and Perestroika are short-season. Seeds for these Siberians can be obtained from Seeds Trust in Cornville, AZ, at www.seedstrust.com or (928) 649-3315. Siberia is an excellent training ground for the High Country. Nichols Garden Nursery at www.nicholsgardennursery.com or (800) 422-3985 offers two short season varieties, SunSugar Hybrid (62 days) and Sweet Baby Girl F1 Hybrid (65 days.)

Nurseries offer a limited number of varieties. Seeds offer more variety. Seeds can be started indoors in peat moss, vermiculite, or planting soil six to eight weeks before planting outside after the danger of frost is past. Any south-facing window sill will do. However, if picking tomato plants from a nursery, choose sturdy, dark green plants. Avoid leggy plants and be sure to check for insects, looking on the underside of the leaves. Nurseries as with hospitals often incubate maladies.

A big advantage to growing tomatoes in Flagstaff and on the Colorado Plateau is few diseases. The harsh weather (low humidity, wind, and frost) does bad things to pests as well as tomatoes. For the few fungi and sucking pests nicotine spray or insecticidal soap can be effective. The various worms can be picked off by hand. High maintenance trophies don�t like bugs crawling over them.

The prices of growing tomatoes are great, but when successful, the fruit of the vine is worth the work, worry, and anxiety. It is luscious to eat, piquant to taste, beautifully shaped, wonderfully colored, and chock full of human nutrients.

The author is a Master Gardener volunteer for Coconino County Cooperative Extension

Posted by maxmaddy at 5:41 AM

Tomatoes (Part 1- 2006)

Tomatoes (1 of 2)
by Dana Prom Smith
Master Gardener

Originating with the Incas, tomatoes have served a variety of purposes, one of which was as a poison. The same Incas who gave us tomatoes also used them to poison the soldiers of the Conquistador Francisco Pizarro in the 16th century. The tomatoes of that time were small, yellow, and far more acidic than our cultivars and heirlooms of today. The oxalic acid of the Incas� tomatoes ate holes in the soldiers� intestines, inducing slow, painful deaths. The Incas were neither the first nor the last to gain revenge by poisoning their enemy with gifts of food and drink. Happily, those poisonous qualities have bred out of our modern tomatoes, and they are now tasty, safe, and nutritious.

With such a chancy history it is small wonder that tomatoes are hard to grow in Flagstaff and on the Colorado Plateau. Also, Flagstaff�s cold weather and short growing season make growing tomatoes even chancier.

High maintenance plants, many think that the tomatoes� beauty and taste are worth the time, money, and anxiety they demand. Indeed, some gardeners think of their tomatoes as trophies to be trotted out and shown off to all their neighbors, frequently boasting about the time, money, and ordeals required to grow them. As with a lot of high maintenance trophies, tomatoes are fickle. Sometimes, they�re great and sometimes real pains in the ass, but when they�re great, they�re great.

The tomato is a fruit grown on a vine. The Supreme Court ruled it a vegetable, but only a lawyer or a judge would use the convoluted logic of lawyers to call a fruit a vegetable. As a fruit it is best plucked fresh off the vine by hand and eaten while still warm. Leaning forward and dripping on the ground is acceptable behavior.

No hardy mountaineers, tomato vines can�t even stand up by themselves and need a lot of propping up with cages, poles, or lattices to keep them from falling over.

The trick to growing tomatoes is the same trick used by many gardeners in Flagstaff, fooling Mother Nature by micro-managing the climate and refurbishing the soil. Flagstaff and the Colorado Plateau are not congenial to tomatoes who like it warm and humid, not cool and dry. Tomatoes have to be tricked into thinking they are in the Midwest or South during a long warm, muggy summer. Thus the choice for tomato lovers is either living in a warm, muggy climate and growing tomatoes easily or living in Flagstaff and growing tomatoes with difficulty. A real double-bind. As an old farmer once said, �Yep, the weather�s a little hard on us humans, but its sure great for the corn, hogs, and tomatoes.�

Tomatoes can be grown either in the ground or in containers. Both places work, but the choice among tomato aficionados, such as Dr. Jim Mast, is the container, preferably an ugly black plastic container. Black absorbs heat, fooling the tomato plant into thinking the soil is warm when it isn�t. For ground-growers, black, porous plastic sheets spread around the plants� base perform the same trick.

The chilly air is the next challenge. Frost kills tomatoes. The one advantage to Flagstaff is that really hot, rainy summers are not congenial for tomatoes, either. The easiest and almost most expensive trick is the Wall-o-Water, a device sold by nurseries. It is literally a translucent plastic wall of water which surrounds the tomato plant, tricking the plant into thinking the air is warm when it isn�t. The manufacturers claim the Wall-o-Water works in temperatures down to 16 degrees F.

Less expensive and less effective arrangements are rocks, of which there plenty in Flagstaff, gallon glass wine jugs, or gallon plastic milk jugs. The rocks absorb heat during the day and keep the plants warmer at night. The gallon wine jugs filled with water do the same trick as the rocks. The gallon plastic milk jugs with their bottoms cut off and caps discarded can be placed over the tomato plant in an attempt to keep the plant cozy day and night. Also, plastic tarps or old bed sheets can be draped on poles or cages over the plants.

Of course, all of this trickery can be accomplished in a greenhouse, surely the most expensive way to grow home-grown tomatoes, especially if the green house is heated with electricity or gas. If passive solar heating is used, then the only expense is the greenhouse itself. A really cheap and effective greenhouse is a lean-to affair set against the wall of a house, drawing radiant heat from the house, but such an arrangement may be too casual for Martha Stewart gardeners with a sense of propriety.

The author is a Master Gardener volunteer for Coconino County Cooperative Extension

Posted by maxmaddy at 5:29 AM

January 12, 2006

The McCormick Rose

A touch of class, a hint of civilization, a love story, and a tragedy, these are the themes entwined in the tale of the McCormick Rose, a cutting of which graces the bottom of the steps into Old Main on the North Campus of NAU. The first McCormick Rose was brought as a cutting by Margaret Hunt McCormick, the bride of Richard McCormick, Arizona's Second Territorial Governor, to Prescott in November 1865. A Boursault rose, an ancient French hybrid, this pink rose was the first cultivated rose in Arizona.

The McCormick Rose at Old Main is the granddaughter of the grande dame original McCormick Rose. It was a cutting from the McCormick Rose at the Sharlot Hall Museum in Prescott which was in turn a cutting from the original rose planted by Margaret McCormick by the front door of the Governor's Mansion in Prescott. The NAU Class of 1934 planted the third generation cutting at Old Main. As one of the three campus roses of the Alumni Rose Collection, it is also a part of the NAU Arboretum, which will be offering rooted great granddaughter cuttings or fourth generation McCormick Roses for sale through its proposed gift shop in the fall of 2005.

The McCormick Rose began its journey in Margaret McCormick's trousseau luggage as she and Richard made their way to Arizona. First, the cutting accompanied them by steamship from New York to Jamaica and thence to Aspinwall at the Isthmus of Panama. Next, the cutting went with them overland on muleback to the Pacific Coast where they and the cutting again boarded a steamship for Acapulco. Richard and Margaret spent a couple of days touring the deserted city (the French Army had chased the Mexicans out). Finally, the cutting went with them to Los Angeles.

After a few days rest in Los Angeles, they and the cutting took a stagecoach to Yuma where they boarded a steamer for a trip up the Colorado River to Ehrenburg. Then as Margaret described the last leg of the journey, it was "two ambulances, six government wagons, and two private baggage wagons" crossing the Mohave Desert to Prescott. Needless to say, the McCormick Rose has demonstrated itself a hearty cultivar and flourishes today after years of benign neglect in Prescott and at Old Main.

Prescott had barely become Prescott at the time. Before that it was a single, hastily built, ramshackle log cabin on the banks of Granite Creek, called Fort Misery by John Goodwin, the First Territorial Governor. The Governor's Mansion to which Richard McCormick brought his well-bred, well-educated, New Jersey bride was a long cabin with dirt floors and windows without glass. Happily, Margaret was the first First Lady and was given carte blanche on improvements, furnishings, and decorations. She had furniture made from pine logs.

The McCormick Rose was but a symbol of the civilization and class Margaret brought to Prescott. She transformed the rude log cabin into a frontier mansion where she made a home for Richard and herself, an office for him, and accommodations for guests. She threw levees, entertained quests, and bade visitors and strangers welcome. Margaret wrote of her "own dear home" to her friend Emma in New Jersey, "We danced in the house" and "served cold roast beef & veal, pies & cakes in variety, almonds, raisins, jellies, coffee, lemonade, & wine."

A considerable horsewoman, Margaret accompanied Richard on many of his trips throughout the Territory, becoming acquainted with many of the pioneers, impressing them with her grace. Well-loved, she touched the frontier settlement with her charm.

Prescott at the time was a jumping off place for what Richard McCormick called a "terra incognita", an unknown and unmapped land, a land fit for only "daring trappers and adventuresome gold seekers." The log cabin Governor's Mansion was a mansion only in comparison to the tents, shacks, lean-tos, and wagons making up the rest of the settlement.

In another letter to her friend Emma, she wrote that she "was never so happy in her life," and that Richard "acts much more the 'lover' now, than he did before we were married."

On her return from a trip with Richard to San Francisco, she gave birth to a stillborn child. Thought to have been recovering well, she suddenly lapsed into a violent sickness and died one day short of her 24th birthday. She was buried with her stillborn child in her arms in the forest near the mansion. Her grave was strewn with wildflowers.

The Prescott Arizona Miner in May 3, 1867 wrote that Margaret was "a greatly loved woman," whose death had "cast gloom over the community," adding that "no woman in the Territory was more happy."

So when is a rose a rose? Whenit has a story to tell.

By Dana Prom Smith
The author is currently enrolled in the University of Arizona Cooperative Extension’s Master Gardener program and is a Master Gardener volunteer for Coconino County.

Posted by maxmaddy at 6:41 AM

Master Gardener Program

Heraclitus, the 6th century B.C. Greek philosopher, said, "No man can step into the same river twice," by which he meant to say that everything changes. He hadn’t taken the Coconino County Extension Master Gardener course. As a geezer who is older than dirt, I learned that all of life isn’t water. Some of it’s dirt on which everyone can step twice.

As a lifetime gardener, beginning as head weed picker and slug and snail Lord High Executioner for my father, I failed to learn one thing. Dirt, at least for the gardener, remains the same. As a former military intelligence Sgt/Maj, criminal investigator, university English teacher, minister, and psychotherapist, I believed in change until I took the Master Gardener course. As a boy I tried to fly by jumping off the back porch and flapping my arms. I didn’t even get as far as Icarus and sprained my ankle falling on my impossible dream.

In short, as a trainee I learned that Flagstaff, Coconino County, and the Colorado Plateau aren’t horticulturally welcome to change, to tropicals and sub-tropicals, to back home favorites, and to water gulpers. The successful high country gardener works within a set of limits determined not by the gardener but by One who has no name.

Once that stubborn truth sets in, then the Master Gardener course explores the possibilities within the high country framework. Listening to Jan Busco talk about flowers and plants that work on the Colorado Plateau opened up a new horticultural world for me. Tom De Gomez talked about trees and insects. Some trees shatter under the weight of snow and some carry their white mantels with grace. Some insects are benign and some ain’t, and what to do about the ain’t’s.

Hattie Braun, the Master Gardener head honcho, brought in a variety of know-how teachers, Jim Mast on tomatoes and veggies, Terra Crampton on xeriscape gardening, Ellen Ryan on composting, Wade Albrecht on noxious weeds, herself on soils, and Mary Olsen on the biggie of figuring out what’s wrong with wilted and non-thriving plants.

With all of our failures, the sensible ones amongst us want to succeed. The Master Gardening course is designed for success. Nearly everyone has enough time for an afternoon once a week to learn how to fly with dirt. A side benefit is that gardeners are nice people so the course is a great chance to meet lots of nice people from all walks of life who like to garden successfully.
Another benefit is that trainees are expected to volunteer their knowledge, time, and work. As a volunteer I’ve met interesting people who’ve enriched my life as well as giving me an opportunity to enrich the beauty of a community which is set amidst grandeur, drama, and wonder.

By Dana Prom Smith
The author is a volunteer who has been trained through the Master Gardener Program.

Posted by maxmaddy at 6:38 AM

Low-Maintenance Gardening

This summer has been like a case study in low-maintenance gardening for me. I knew going in that I would have less spare time than usual for puttering, and I tried to set up the garden to survive without much attention for days at a time. But at the end of April, a colleague became ill and had to leave our office just as a major project was ramping up. Suddenly I had no spare time and the garden has had to fend for itself ever since. This has given me a chance to see which of my low-maintenance methods worked, and which were somewhat less than successful. It’s been a real eye-opener.

Lesson number one: select plants that are truly well-suited to our peculiar environment. Native plants are a great choice, but plants from other regions of the world with similar growing conditions will often do very well here. Several of the local plant nurseries offer nice selections of native plants. Each year around the third weekend in June, the Flagstaff Arboretum holds its plant sale, which is a wonderful opportunity to learn about gardening with plants from this region and to find a wide variety of plants to bring home to your garden.

Lesson number two: you know the old joke about the three most important factors in the value of real estate? They are “location, location, location.” Well, the three most important factors in low-maintenance gardening are soil, soil, soil. It’s as simple as this: plants thrive in good soil. Where I haven’t taken the time up front to improve the soil, no amount of pampering afterwards has made much of a difference. I’ve wasted enormous amounts of time and effort trying to get plants to grow in bad soil. In fact, I’ve spent more time trying to compensate for a poor start than I would have digging out those beds and improving the soil in the first place.

There are lots of ways to improve soil, but one that’s always worked well for me is to dig out the bed to a depth of two feet. This can be back-breaking work if you’re not used to it, which, of course, is why I avoid it! If you can hire someone to do this part of the work for you, it will be money well spent. Once the beds have been dug out, and the soil piled on a tarp or drop cloth nearby, mix in lots of rich organic composted mulch. I don’t think you can add too much. In fact, I’ve planted in straight mulch and the plants have done very well. But I prefer to mix the mulch with the soil removed from the beds, unless that soil is solid clay. A very successful local gardener recommends adding 50 lbs of mulch to every 4 x 4 ft section of garden bed.

Lesson number three: install some kind of automatic irrigation. This can be as simple as a sprinkler or soaker hose with the flow controlled by an inexpensive hose timer, or as elaborate as a professionally-installed irrigation system with separate timers to suit the watering needs of different plant beds or micro-climates around your property. It’s not that watering the garden by hand isn’t fun. It’s just about my favorite form of therapy! But watering an entire garden by hand for weeks on end, until monsoon season finally kicks in, is pretty much the opposite of low-maintenance.

Those are the three most important steps for creating a landscape that doesn’t require your constant attention. But there are lots more “tricks of the trade” that can boost your garden’s independence. My current favorite is self-watering containers. These come in a wide variety of sizes, shapes, and styles, but they all use the same basic approach. An upper container holds the soil and plants. This either extends down into the lower container, or there is a wick of some kind going from the soil into the reservoir below. The reservoir contains enough water to keep the soil moist for a few days to a week.

I use six large self-watering pots for growing vegetables on my front porch. The soil in the pots is about 18 inches deep, so the plants have plenty of room for growing big root systems. Even on the hottest, driest, windiest days of June, my little vegetable patch was happy. I refilled the reservoirs about every third day, but often they just needed topping off. I’ve been harvesting tomatoes since the 1st of July, so you can see why I’m so taken with self-watering pots.

Dense plantings are a lot less work than sparse ones. When the leaves of neighboring plants overlap, particularly when they completely hide the soil, the plants form their own microclimate, shading each other and preventing rapid drying. They also inhibit the growth of weeds and help keep the soil soft, so weeds are easily pulled out.

Finally, don’t forget to mulch. A thick layer of mulch has so many benefits for the garden, it really deserves its own column. It is absolutely essential for a low-maintenance garden, preventing rapid drying of the soil, blocking weeds, and keeping plants clean and healthy. A thick layer of shredded bark, pine straw, cocoa hulls, or even clean gravel will provide all these benefits, as well as dressing up your flowerbeds.

Even if you don’t particularly need your garden to be low-maintenance, these techniques are all good gardening practices that will improve the appearance and health of your garden, and give you more time to enjoy it. So give them a try and ENJOY!

By Alice Monet
The author is a Master Gardener volunteer for the Coconino County Cooperative Extension.

Posted by maxmaddy at 6:35 AM

Lilac

Plump buds are now emerging on my Persian Lilac (Syringa x persica), but I fear they will not bloom. My lilac, I’ve discovered, suffers from hyper-sensitivity to frost, perhaps because of its aristocracy, tracing its lineage back to 1614. As with a lot of delicate creatures, her blossoms shrivel easily. She may even be a bit neurotic as though her ego strength is so wan that she can’t feel a chill without catching a cold. Indeed, as with many beauties, she does not suffer a freeze well.

Now, I’ve tried to nourish my lilac. I’ve carefully nipped and tucked with my clippers but only after it has budded but seldom bloomed. I’ve fed it only the best nutrients, those designed especially for lilacs. I’ve watered it carefully, always attending to its thirsts. I hate to see beauty wilt. Alas, to no avail. In almost twenty-five years, my lilac has blossomed twice.
Having found in my Master Gardening classes that Flagstaff has microclimates, various small pockets of climate scattered here and there throughout the town, I have also found that my microclimate in Kachina Village is not kind to lilacs. Now, some places in Flagstaff seem congenial to lilacs. There’s a lovely chorus line of lilacs just across from Bow and Arrow Park, tended by a loving horticultural choreographer.

Frosts and freezes aren’t the only things my lilac finds offensive. She doesn’t like thrips either. But then who does?

Thrips are little, tan worm-like things that suck life’s juices out of lush buds potent with beauty. Ugh! The best thing, paraphrasing Oscar Hammerstein, is to "Wash those thrips right off your lilac, and send them on their way" because "You can’t put back a petal when it falls from the flower." No pesticides, please. Lilacs and other living things are too precious for poisons. A nice cool, refreshing shower will do but in time enough in the day to dry off. Sadly, human beings are the only animals that befoul their own nests, but in spite of what others do, we don’t want to befoul our own.

In times past I have even tried to cover my Persian lilac with plastic sheets to keep the buds from freezing, but, alas, as with many beauties my lilac doesn’t like being enshrouded with slick, impersonal plastic. She likes sheets or row covers especially designed to keep lilacs and other living things warm during the chill of a spring freeze.

As with many beautiful neurotics my lilac blames the environment for her failure to realize her potential beauty, claiming quite justly that the climate in Flagstaff is fickle. I wonder why she just doesn’t adjust, but then she has lots of company. My Kentucky Wonders green beans didn’t do too well in the last freeze. However, some say that spinach even improves with frost as do turnips, broccoli, cabbage, brussels sprouts and other less fragrant vegetables.
But my theme is not smelly vegetables but a beauty whose fragrance lingers in the warmth of a May evening. As with many apparently fragile neurotics, my lilac endures life’s vicissitudes, growing stronger year after year. Her foliage is a bright green, full and thick. She makes a wonderful hedge, but I do wish she would bloom more than twice in twenty-five years.
However, my lilac is of such grace that her smile is well worth the wait, a smile of pale purple and rich fragrance. The promise of her potential keeps me tending her year after year, waiting for the next epiphany of her beauty, a beauty of scent and sight. Some experiences are worth the wait. A lilac’s blossoms are one of them.

By Judith Vandewater and Dana Prom Smith
The authors are currently enrolled in the University of Arizona Cooperative Extension’s Master Gardener program and are Master Gardener volunteers for Coconino County.

Posted by maxmaddy at 6:29 AM

Catching the Eye with Joan Abbott

Merchandisers must catch the customer’s eye or they’re out of business. Some assault the customer with scantily clad models, mega sales pitches, deafening music, or flashing signs. Instead of assaulting them, Joan Abbott beckons them, catching the customer’s eye with beauty.

A landscape designer and owner of Foxglove Gardening, Joan considers herself an artist, not in oils, water colors, or stained glass, although accomplished in these media, but in gardens. The garden, no matter how small, is her canvas. Her garden canvases can be seen all over Flagstaff, on Butler, Beaver, San Francisco, Milton, and the old Police Station. Look for beauty beside the road.

Her living "still lifes" have depth, not just a trompe l’oeil giving a flat canvas an illusion of depth. They also change with the seasonal procession of color, tulips to poppies, day lilies to asters, coneflowers to asters, and mums to Japanese anemones. Dark browns become light green, shoots of color emerge from the greens, green mutates into red, grasses produce stalks of seed, and plants reveal their architecture as they drop their foliage.

Recalling Robert Browning’s line, "less is more," she believes in simplicity of design, and along with simplicity, open space. A crowded garden has a cluttered effect. An example of less is more is a colony of tall Shasta daisies (Chrysanthemum maximum) set next to a ground cover of blue carpet junipers (Junipirus horizontalis), using a contrast in height to create an open space, leaving a sense of drama and elegance.

One of the abiding qualities of any design, be it a water color or a garden, is contrast, not just of color but also of texture and form, such as a finely bladed grass next to a nubby succulent, each one emphasizing the uniqueness of the other. She says, "The tiny dark green leaves of a Vinca minor next to the blue-green blades of Iris are gentle partners."

One of her favorites is using perennials in pots and barrels. A tall spiky plant with a low one cascading over the rim draw the viewer’s eye in two directions with a third moderately sized plant bringing the eye back to center.

Of course, the contrast of color opposites always adds what might be called, "the pizzicato effect", such as yellows with purples, blues with oranges, and reds with greens plucking at the strings of the eye. Contrasts of different values in any given hue and differently shaped flowers and leaves are far more subtle and, in some ways, more beguiling. An avens (Geum coccineum) with its tall stems and small orange flowers sets a contrast to the bold and flashy orange of an Oriental poppy (Papaver orientale).

Joan hopes for the beautification of Flagstaff, its streets, sidewalks, and businesses. "Too often," she said, "we rely on the beauty of our natural surroundings, the mountains and the forests, but not the beauty of the city itself." Along with eye-catching landscapes around businesses, she also suggests planters on sidewalks, hanging baskets of various succulents, and even tossing hollyhock seeds along alleys and in sidewalk cracks.

If gardeners want to learn beautiful gardening, just as writers learn to write by reading good writing, there is no better way than looking at Joan’s roadside art galleries.
Joan at can be reached at Joanieabbott@aol.com.

By Dana Prom Smith and Debbie Grosshauser
The authors are Master Gardener volunteers for the Coconino County Cooperative Extension.

Posted by maxmaddy at 6:25 AM

Sucessful High Country Gardening with Jan Busco

Americans move, 20 percent a year. Our history is tied to wagons, trains, cars, airplanes, the Great Cumberland Road, the Santa Fe Trail, the Ohio and the Mississippi Rivers, Highway 66, and the Interstates. The words "pilgrim," "pioneer," and "frontier" are a part of the American myth.

When people move to a new place, nostalgically they like to plant a reminder of back home. And so it is with Flagstaff’s gardens, littered with "back home" plants that don’t do well on the Colorado Plateau. Often as not, they turn up their heels and kick the bucket only to suffer the final indignities of Environmental Services.

Some people give up and plaster their gardens with gravel, a couple of big rocks, a cow skull, wagon wheel, and a few ground-hugging junipers. Some even plant their decks with plastic palms and pink flamingos. No so Janice Busco. With a degree from California State University, Pomona, in ornamental horticulture and soil science and a master’s degree in progress from NAU in forestry, she believes in going native with a flair. As a former horticulturist at The Arboretum, she knows whereof she speaks.

Coming from a long line of Italian-descended gardeners in San Diego, she began life with a love of plants and has written several books on gardening. Native Plants for High-Elevation Western Gardens (Fulcrum Press 2004), written with Nancy Morin, has become a standard manual for gardening on the Colorado Plateau. She also has penned How to Get Started in Southwestern Gardening (Cool Springs Press 2005).

Jan begins with the premise that plants deserve respect. More than being ornaments, they are life-sustaining, offering food, protection, and shelter. Seeing a garden as a form of art, she favors a palette of plants that begins with natives, assuming it is better to cooperate with nature than fight it which is always a losing battle. As she says, "natives are fragrant, durable, and delightful," such as the western sneezeweed (Hymenoxys hoopesii), Eaton’s firecracker (Penstemon catonii), and the familiar silvery lupine (Lupinus argenteus).
Along with natives, she believes a palette of plants could include adapted plants those which are not native but do well on the Colorado Plateau, such as the ubiquitous Russian sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia), garden phlox (Phlox paniculata), and ‘Moonshine’ yarrow (Achillea fillipendulina ‘Moonshine’). Functional and decorative, the adapted provide food, flavor, beauty, and color with extended periods of bloom.

Along with using natives and adapted plants, Jan believes in successful gardening. Horticulturally, she’s a pragmatist. She asks, "Do the plants work?" "Does the peach tree produce fruit?" "Do the hummingbirds feed on the Sunset Crater penstemon (Penstemon clutei)?" "Do the plantings keep the threat of fire at bay?"

Of course, water is the ever-present issue. "Drought tolerant" varies with the location whether the garden is in meadowland, a ponderosa pine forest, a pinyon-juniper woodland, or semi-desert grassland. Even within a given yard there can be several micro-climates, some requiring more water than the others.

Jan and her knowledge and nursery, hold forth at the Mountain Meadow Farm. She can be contacted at JaniceBusco@gmail.com or at the Community Farmers’ Market.

By Dana Prom Smith
The author is a Master Gardener volunteer for Coconino County Cooperative Extension.

Posted by maxmaddy at 6:21 AM

Hotline - Got a Garden Question?

Spring is finally here. Aside from the flowering plums and budding lilacs, one sure sign of its arrival is the start of the Master Gardener Hotline. If you have a gardening question, the Master Gardener Hotline has answers for you!

The Coconino County Master Gardener Program, in conjunction with the University of Arizona Cooperative Extension, is sponsoring the Master Gardener Hotline. This is a free information service for area home gardeners. Master Gardener volunteers are available to address your garden and urban horticulture questions and concerns.

This year the hotline will operate from May 1 through September 30, 2005. You can leave a message anytime, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Our voice mail center will record your questions and information.

When calling the hotline, please state your name and phone number clearly, and provide a description of your question or problem. Then let us know when the best time to return your call is. A Master Gardener volunteer will research your problem and return your call.

The hotline phone number is (928) 774-1868 ext. 19. You can leave a message at any time and a Master Gardener volunteer will return your call within 72 hours.

The Master Gardener Program is a volunteer-training that provides Master Gardeners with an opportunity to improve their horticultural knowledge and skills. Master Gardeners then volunteer their services to their community by answering garden questions, conducting garden programs, and working on community beautification projects and other activities related to gardening. The 2005 Master Gardener class is busy completing their requirements to become certified Master Gardeners. Answering hotline calls helps them fulfill their requirements. For more information about the Coconino Master Gardener Program, you may leave a message on the hotline or email to hbraun@ag.arizona.edu.

Not all questions or problems have an easy answer or solution but volunteer Master Gardeners will make every attempt to help. In addition to their personal knowledge, the volunteers have a copy of the Arizona Master Gardener Manuel at their fingertips.

Here are some common questions that we have answered in the past.

What are those bag-shaped things at the tops of my pine trees?
Those bags are likely the tents created by the caterpillars of tiger moths. This is a defoliating insect that constructs a dense mat of silk on the top of ponderosa pine and other conifers. These insects attract a lot of attention because their tents are so conspicuous. Tiger moths have several natural enemies such as birds, predaceous bugs and hunting wasps. Because of these natural controls, this insect seldom causes any significant injury and serious outbreaks are rare. Control is needed only when there is considerable defoliation over several years.

I have a shady yard. Are there any vegetables that do well without full sun?
While there are few shade-loving vegetables, there are many that are shade-tolerant and capable of producing a decent crop with five hours or less of direct sun per day. Vegetables for shade are usually leafy and include leaf lettuce, Swiss chard, arugula, kale, mustard and spinach. If you have good morning sun, you can also try beets, radishes, broccoli, and brussel sprouts. There are also many herbs that handle partial shade such as bee balm, borage, mint, chives, coriander, parsley, lemon balm, and thyme.

I struggle to grow tomatoes and just when I think I'll be able to enjoy the fruits of my labor, my tomatoes develop brown spots on the bottom. What's going on?
The problem is likely due to tomato blossom end rot, a physiological disorder resulting from a calcium deficiency. Often there is enough calcium in the soil but insufficient calcium fails to reach the blossom end of the fruit causing the cells in that area to die. Uneven moisture often contributes to this problem. To minimize the development of this disorder, maintain even soil moisture throughout the growing season through consistent irrigation and mulching. Tomato varieties differ in their resistance to blossom end rot; elongated pear or plum tomatoes are most prone to this disorder. Unfortunately, when environmental conditions favor blossom end rot, all varieties can show symptoms.

This winter was really hard on my plum trees and several large branches were broken. When is the best time to prune them? Should I dress the wounds?
Broken or damaged limbs can be removed any time. Make a clean cut just outside of the branch collar (a slightly raised area where the branch attaches to the trunk or another branch.) If the broken limb damaged the trunk, clean up any loose and damaged bark and wood. Wound dressing is not necessary and not recommended as it can harbor disease organisms and may actually create conditions favorable for decay. Leaving the wound undressed allows the tree's natural defenses to seal off the damaged area. If pruning safety is an issue, consider hiring a certified arborist or tree care professional.

By Hattie Braun
The author is the coordinator for the University of Arizona Cooperative Extension’s Master Gardener Program and a Master Gardener.

Posted by maxmaddy at 6:18 AM

Fall and Wi