Year: 2011

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Put Some Color into Your Foundation Plantings

Foundation plantings, also known as a line of green shrubs across the front of your house, are usually so boring people don’t even notice them as they dash by them on the way to the front door. Even the homeowner may not notice them until the shrubs grow tall enough to block the view outside. Then, in an annual ritual, the designated shrub-pruner in the family, precariously perching on an unstable ladder, chops them into submission.
In my family, I am the shrub-chopper. When we bought the house, it contained the requisite line of shrubs, all of which I removed except for the Japanese Holly, “Sky Pencil,” an evergreen, columnar shrub that, at my house, grows about eight feet tall and two feet wide, between the windows.  The holly is a fine choice for the space, but it doesn’t get quite enough sun to make the new growth rigid like it is supposed to, and so the new growth flops over until I give it a haircut and tie it to a stake.

Landscapers that work with home builders are notorious for putting in shrubs that grow quickly so a new house’s landscape looks nice until after the buyer moves in.  The unwitting homeownerhas to chop shrubs several times a year, and soon grows to detest yard work. In my first home, the developer’s landscaper put ligustrum, which quickly grows to 10 feet tall by eight feet wide, in a space about two feet wide between the garage doors.  My husband sheared it into a tiny rectangle several times a year so we could continue to get the cars into the garage.  Avoid overused and fast growing shrubs like ligustrum, pittosporum, Indian hawthorn, and junipers in your landscape; they are useful if you need to quickly screen an unattractive view.

There seems to be an unwritten rule that the front yard must be utilitarian like everyone else’s on the street, with anything imaginative reserved for the backyard.  I wanted my front yard to be as much of a garden as my back yard, and so  I decided on a color scheme I have repeated in other places in my garden: chartreuse and magenta, mixed in with some solid green. My design contains plants that the deer are supposed to resist eating; sometimes they listen to that instruction and sometimes they don’t.  I tried to buy plants that even at maturity will not cover my windows.  Sometimes it is hard to find shrubs that are the right size, color, and are deer-resistant, so I did buy some that, unpruned, would eventually grow too large.  However, they grow slowly; I prune them every couple of years and they behave.


View of front garden

 In the above photo, chartreuse “Golden Euonymus” glows beside burgundy loropetalum.  Behind the euonymus is a burgundy Japanese barberry that will grow to about 4 feet tall.  In the center of the photograph is a peony, with dark pink buds about to open.  After the peony’s show of flowers, the green leaves provide a nice contrast with the bright foliage of the other plants during the rest of the summer.  By the house, the Japanese maple, ‘Crimson Queen,’ has a nice weeping form and lacy leaves.  It will remain small enough not to obstruct the view from the window.  To the left of the Japanese Maple is and Oakleaf Hydrangea; its leaves turn crimson in the fall.

Unfortunately, the loropetalums I purchased, from a reputable local nursery, were labeled as a shrub that was supposed to grow 3-4 feet tall and wide.  They cost at least double the price of the huge version of the shrub.  The labels were inaccurate, and the shrubs require hard pruning every year or so to make them behave.  I discarded the receipt and the labels: in the future I will save both until I am sure I got the plant I paid for.




View of perennials in front garden

 In this photo, I continue the chartreuse and burgundy color scheme with the ground cover golden “Creeping Jenny,” and the taller Persicaria ‘Red Dragon’ in the foreground.  Penstemon ‘Husker’s Red,’ is beginning to flower in the center of the photo, and at the base of the stairs the grass Carex ‘Evergold’ shines.  Included in the design, but not yet flowering in this April photograph, are Bergenia ‘Winterglow,’ Anemone ‘Robutissima,’ Lobelia ‘Monet Moment,’ Monarda ‘Pink Supreme,’ Astilbe ‘Rheinland,’ and Aster ‘Alma Potschke.”

In this area of my garden, the soil is always moist, even during a drought.  I think there is a spring under my house that no one noticed during its construction, but the spring does not cause the house problems. However, it does limit my choice of plants to those that tolerate consistently moist conditions.  If I had a well-drained site, I would plant some of the Euphorbias, like Euphorbia ‘Chameleon,’ Sedums, like Sedum ‘Lynda Windsor’ and ‘Angelina,’ and Heucheras, like Heuchera ‘Lime Rickey,’ ‘Southern Comfort,’ and ‘Purple Petticoats.’ In my garden, these plants keep leaves most of the year.

I order most of my perennials from Bluestone Perennials, http://www.bluestoneperennials.com/.   I like Bluestone because they have the widest variety of plants I have seen, their plants are healthy, and most plants they sell in groups of three for the price most nurseries charge for one.  Granted, the plants are smaller than you might get elsewhere, but they bloom the first year for me and quickly catch up to those I buy in larger containers. Their customer service is excellent, and the catalog provides detailed cultural information about the plants.

Tracy Disabato-Aust’s book, “The Well-Tended Perennial Garden: Planting and Pruning Techniques” is a good reference.  It provides detailed cultural information about most plants and time-saving ways to take care of perennials, such as giving the entire plant a haircut with hedge trimmers or a weed-eater instead of laboriously clipping of each individual spent bloom.  It also gives garden design information.

“The Southern Living Garden Book” is a good reference for folks who live in the South, which includes Delaware and west to Oklahoma and part of Missouri.  The book includes cultural information, including size at maturity, of nearly any plant that grows in the South, and it includes lists of plants for different situations, such as lists of plants with colorful foliage, deer resistant plants, and plants with showy flowers.

If you need help with the design, most local garden center staff will help you choose appropriate plants; show them a photograph of the site, along with measurements and a description of soil and sun conditions.

This spring, discard your preconceived notions of the foundation planting. Pull out the shrubs that threaten to cover your windows every year, and plant some that will grow to maturity while remaining under your windows. Include perennials and grasses in the design, and turn your front yard into a garden, instead of just a path to the front door.

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The Angry Bluebird

This spring, we have been battling a bluebird, or rather, he has been fighting every reflective surface around our yard in an attempt to defeat the enemy he sees in the glass. His favorite opponent is my husband’s shiny new company truck. It has large side mirrors and a wide back glass that displays many other bluebirds to attack. He hops along the bed cover, flying into the window as he pecks at his reflection, splattering droppings the whole way. He also finds a nemesis in the large side-view mirrors, and even when we fold them towards the window, he slips between the mirror and the window and attacks the bird he sees.

He attacks any other vehicle in the yard, too, and pecks at the windows in the house that are in his line of sight from the birdhouse. He even flew on top of the house and attacked the skylights in the roof; we heard pecking on the glass and went into the room to find an angry bluebird furiously attacking the bird he saw.

Because the owners of the shiny new truck aren’t happy about its adornment with bluebird droppings, and my husband, Scott, wasn’t happy about washing the truck almost daily, he moved it out of the line of sight of the birdhouse. Bluebirds are territorial; and apparently, the territory only extends to areas the bird sees from the house. When we installed our houses, we put the houses out of sight of each other, never imagining that vehicles and windows in our house would become targets. After Scott moved his truck out of line of sight from the bluebird house, the bird stopped attacking his truck and moved to other targets.

One afternoon, while the male bluebird was busy attacking Scott’s truck, a female bird, presumably his mate, flew around him and perched on the vehicle as he pecked away. They were engaged in some animated conversation, involving loud squawks and jumping about. I do not speak bluebird, but this is what I think the female, surely a more levelheaded bird, was saying to her mate: “You fool, can’t you see it’s your reflection you’re attacking? Don’t you think that if it was a REAL bird it would have pecked back by now? I’m at home trying to take care of my nest and to raise babies, and here you are out fighting. How about staying home and guarding the nest from real invaders!”

Unfortunately, it seems that the bluebirds abandoned their nest without raising any young. Perhaps the male was too busy protecting his nest from imaginary invaders to be able to protect the nest from real invaders, or perhaps he was too tired from his attacks to help feed them. Maybe there was another problem. We have had the houses in that spot several years without any problems, and I hope the next birds to inhabit it will be able to differentiate real and imaginary invaders.

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Start a garden this spring

Several methods exist for starting a flower or vegetable garden depending on the time, money, and energy you have available. A few pots are plenty for the beginning gardener; it’s easy to overestimate your abilities and desires when the weather is lovely and cool in April and end up with scorched plants in July. Space probably exists among the shrubs around your home’s foundation for a few plants if you do not want to use pots; potted plants require more attention than those planted in the ground. Make sure your vegetable garden receives six to eight hours of direct sun daily.

For my first garden, I tilled a place in the backyard, added all the compost I could to the already rich, black, sandy loam of the yard, and harvested many vegetables. I have red clay and woods at my current home; my family and I cut trees and purchased soil to fill the raised bed we made out of the felled trees. Add as much compost as you can afford to the soil in your garden site.

Call your local county extension service for soil testing information. Soil test results tell you the specific nutrients, including lime, your soil needs; adding the amendments indicated by the results will help you have a successful garden.
I prefer to use the no-till method I borrowed from Ruth Stout who wrote the book “How to have a Green Thumb without an Aching Back.” Lay 6-8 sheets of newspaper or cardboard directly over the grass and overlap the edges. On top of the paper, place 3-4 inches (or more) of compost or manure; then add 4-6 inches of mulch.

Mulch can be any substance that biodegrades easily; don’t use synthetic mulch or wood chips. I try to obtain free mulch so I can use it lavishly; I prefer old hay and bags of leaves from the side of the road. You can immediately dig planting holes in the compost or you can leave the “pie” alone for three to six months and the earthworms will till the soil for you. Mulch your garden lavishly regardless of the method you use to begin it; I pull a few weeds here and there but do not have to devote much time to the task because of the mulch.

When you begin planting, meet the plants’ needs for sun, shade, and moisture. The Southern Living Garden Book is a good resource for plant information. Make sure what you are reading is specific to the South since a plant’s ability to tolerate heat is as important as its ability to tolerate cold. Folks who move here from up North kill lilacs and lettuce in July on a regular basis.

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You can afford organic food

When I talk about eating foods grown without the use of chemical pesticides or fertilizers, and eating meat from animals grown without hormones or antibiotics, and that lived a life free of unreasonable confinement, the first objection people raise is that eating this way is too expensive. Foods grown naturally are more expensive than food grown conventionally without as much care to the well-being of the animal, plant, or the resulting effects on the environment, but the expense is worth it. Many people believe they cannot afford to buy anything but the cheapest grocery-store fare, but I hope to persuade you that buying better quality food is affordable.

The first way to decrease your grocery bill is to have a garden, even if it is a pot of lettuce in a sunny spot during the winter and a tomato plant in the summer. Properly cared for, even small gardens can help decrease your grocery bill. Next, eat what is in season locally, and buy it from a local farmer. In June, eat locally grown tomatoes; in February, eat collard greens and root vegetables like carrots, beets, and potatoes. For more information on eating foods in season, read “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” by Barbara Kingsolver.

According to the Environmental Working Group, strawberries, blueberries, peaches, celery, apples, cherries, nectarines, potatoes, bell peppers, grapes, spinach, and kale contain the most pesticide residues, and, if you have to choose, you should buy the organic version of these vegetables. Eating foods out of season often means that the food was grown in another country with less stringent pesticide regulations, which may mean more pesticide residue is on the food than if it was grown in the US.

When I say “organic”, I do not mean USDA certified organic, because the regulations add prohibitive costs of production to many small farmers and, although they follow organic practices, they do not choose to pay for certification. I buy my meat, dairy, and eggs from Wil-Moore Farms, in Lugoff, and their farm is not certified organic. However, when I visit their home to pick up my food, I see the animals living on pasture, and because I can talk to the farmers directly, I trust that the animals are raised the way they say they are. You may reach Wil-Moore Farms at 803.438.3097.

My first priority, because I have two small children that drink a lot of milk, is to buy organic milk. Happy Cow Creamery, in Pelzer, produces milk from cows that live on pasture, and they do not use hormones. Wil-Moore farms and some smaller stores carry this milk. One reason I like it is because it is minimally processed, which preserves the good fats and vitamins in the milk destroyed by processing. Their cows also live on the pasture and eat grass, instead of hay, grain, and silage like most dairy cows, organic dairy or not. Organic milk does not contain growth hormones, and the cows are not given antibiotics routinely.

Reducing the amount of meat you eat is another way to cut costs. Eat your cchicken in a stir-fry instead of a huge chicken breast, and reserve steaks for special occasions. Try cheaper cuts of meat, like roasts, instead of more expensive cuts. Eat your ground beef in chili beans and spaghetti sauce instead of hamburgers. Buy whole chickens instead of boneless skinless breasts and use every scrap of meat on the bird, and then boil the carcass to make chicken stock. Eating the typical American diet of a huge hunk of meat and a small amount of vegetables is unhealty and expensive.

Before I switched to buying free-range meat, by watching sales, I was able to buy my meat so cheaply at the grocery store that I often wasted it. If we got tired of eating something, I would throw it out. Now that I buy the more expensive meat, I make sure I use every scrap of it. I turn leftovers into stir-fries and pasta dishes. From the carcass of my Thanksgiving turkey, I canned about 14 quarts of turkey stock, which I will use in recipes calling for chicken stock.

If you want to make buying organic foods a priority, you may have to adjust your spending on other things. Processed snack foods, frozen meals, soft drinks, fast foods, and deli foods are usually neither organic nor healthy. They are expensive, though, and overconsumption of these foods will make you unhealthy. Unfortunately, they are a mainstay of most American’s diets.