As the climate changes so do garden practices. In years gone by, fall lawn fertilizing was recommended mid-September to mid-October. These days, try for late October, even through November. Once again most garden centres don’t appear to have caught up with the times so a search will be necessary.
Feeding the lawn is but one chore when it comes to having a lawn like that Dr. Chisholm Ogg, of Long Wittenham, Oxfordshire, England. Cutting the grass is important too. And when it comes to lawnmowers, it’s the reel thing. The retired consultant kidney specialist from Guy’s Hospital, London, inherited a Hayter Ambassador mower from his mother, who bought it in the early 1960s. He has used it for the past 14 years to create a lawn what was recently judged as the ‘Best in Britain.’
Winters are milder, too. In Detroit, camellias can now be grown outdoors year-round. So why do your perennials succumb from the winter woes? The answer is often a reliable, winter-long snow cover. Where such is the norm it supplies a natural mulch. In areas in which snow cover comes and goes, frost heaves the soil, exposing vulnerable perennial crowns, the junction of roots and tops, to the elements, often with fatal results.
Diversion No. 2
A Michigan community that’s fed up with geese fouling up a beach is hoping fake coyotes encourage the birds to land elsewhere. The beach was shut down this month and goose poop is blamed, according to
The Livingston County Daily Press & Argus
Rose lover’s lives may be thorny. The rewards are many but their charges do require a certain amount of extra consideration. Winter, even with a warming climate, can still present challenges for rosarians in northern climes. First, in October cease to dead head and allow roses to set seed pods or ‘hips.’ This will prime them that winter is on the way and time to shut down all systems. Next check the bud graft, the swelling just above where the roots meet the stem. If you can see it, the rose is planted to high in the ground. Many a northern rose has succumbed to such exposure of its private parts. Three inches below ground is where it should be and now is the perfect time to rectify the problem. Dig up and replant lower.
Diversion No. 3
Captivated by a strange coiling behaviour in the grasping tendrils of the cucumber plant, researchers at Harvard University have characterized a new type of spring that is soft when pulled gently and stiff when pulled strongly, reports
EurekAlert! Instead of unwinding into a flat ribbon under stress, as an untwisted coil normally would, the cucumber tendrils actually coil further. Understanding this counterintuitive behaviour required a combination of head scratching, physical modelling, mathematical modelling and cell biology – not to mention a large quantity of silicone.
When is the right time to prune? It may seem a black art even a pseudoscience but is really little more than making kind cuts. Although professionals of necessity may undertake this throughout the year, the home gardener might consider otherwise. Unless – and there always is an ‘unless’ – a tree, shrub or vine is dying, dead, damaged or diseased parts. Anytime these are observed they may be pruned away, as must be suckers arising from the base. Other remedial pruning is usually undertaken in late winter or early spring for trees and summer flowering shrubs, and following flowering for those spring bloomers.
Diversion No. 4
A new Danish fungal species, called “Hebelomagriseprumatum,” has now officially been included in the list of species. The fungus, whose name can be translated into “the gray-dewy tear leaf,” was discovered on Zealand in Denmark during a mushroom- hunting tour headed by postdoc Jacob Heilman-Clausen from the University of Copenhagen [Source:
EurekAlert!]
October is National Walking Month, which means you might want to walk off those portions of pumpkin pie by taking a stroll through parks to admire the fall colours. Nowhere else in the world, other than northeastern North America, is there such an incredible display. There is still some argument amongst scientist as to why leaves of so many of our deciduous trees change before shedding. But the sight is still amongst some of nature’s greatest wonders free and unavailable on cyberspace.
