As the late English cartoonist Norman Thelwell points out, “Neglect of the garden now will mean hard work next season – so keep at it.”
As usual, Environment Canada’s David Phillips has predictions along with thoughts for what the weather will inflict upon us this month as we strain to complete the necessary chores. He is calling for wetter conditions than normal in Eastern Canada. But he guarantees we won’t have a winter like last year, when it was four degrees warmer than usual. That was an El Niño winter. It was the warmest, mildest and driest winter on record in 63 years.
If you failed to mulch for last winter, you have probably already paid the penalty. If Phillips is right, a nice, thick mulch over the perennial, herb and bulb plantings is the way to stay au courant. As that Canadian icon of years gone by, Charlie Farquharson once enquired, “getting mulch?”
Diversion No. 1
“The grass micro smile asks you to circle the green lawn” – sign seen in China by Amy Cosstick who informed The Daily Telegraph
The argument continues with regard to cutting back perennials. A general rule has been promulgated to the effect everything except ornamental grasses, these latter being left for their “effect in winter.” Sorry, but no banana: not only should normally evergreen perennials be left until spring to trim, but grasses trap snow around their base, providing extra winter protection to their crowns. Then again the hardier of the Euphorbia tribe should also be left until spring or, say some experts, they will become defunct Euphorbia. Let the lazy stop rubbing their hands with glee: most popular garden perennials should still be reduced down to an inch or two in height and the debris composted.
Given the work involved, the practice of “double digging” is likely doomed. In the creation of a base for fine gardens, it was impossible to excel. All soil was removed to two spade depths and carefully set aside in separate piles. The lowest layer that revealed was forked over with an ample amount of compost as were the next two layers working back towards the end of the garden, when the two piles previously set aside added back. It only remains to note that few there were among older gardeners not suffering from “bad backs.”
Another practice that appears to have fallen by the wayside is a method for the improvement of heavy clay soils. These, the bane of every gardener, were again spread with compost then spaded over and left rough, unforked and unraked for frosts to penetrate. By spring this resulted in a fine tilth with no further effort required.
Diversion No. 2
A colony of cyanobacteria from Britain’s sea cliffs survived in space for 533 days – the record for a fully functional photosynthetic organism, noted the journal Nature.
Some of summer’s plants brought indoors to overwinter could be showing some signs of unwanted guests. White fly and aphid seem attracted to fuchsia, hibiscus and bougainvillea plants like iron filings to a magnet. “. . . And take care of the hibiscus plant. I kept it 10 years. It needs a bug blast every three weeks. The stronger the better. Actually the ones with health warnings on the can do the best job,” wrote Sondra Gotlieb, way back in 1985. Even then, many would have disagreed with that advice. Nowadays, such cavalier use is definitely verboten. There are safer alternatives: insecticidal soap used every few weeks controls such suckers. Fungus gnats – a.k.a. ‘fruit flies’ – whose larvae feast on houseplants in their soil, are controlled by Safer ‘Sticky Stiks.’
Unfortunately, these neat little devices are ineffective against spider mite. These vile, minute pests flourished this summer under dry, high heat conditions. It is not unlikely they are now commencing to attack indoor plants, causing yellow mottling and a dusty appearance to foliage. Confirm by checking for fine webs on leaf axils. Thanks to modern environmental concerns the kind of pest blasters once favoured by Mrs. Gotlieb are a thing of the past. Weekly spritzing with insecticidal soap should help, as will daily sprays of water and raising the humidity – like small boys, spider mite hates being washed.
Diversion No. 3
“We shouldn’t name hurricanes. It only encourages them.” Conan O’Brien
Finally it is time to take care of the roses. According to J. M. Barry. “God gave us memory so we might have roses in December.” Hybrid Teas (HTs), floribunda and grandiflora bushes require some protection in our climate to assure their survival over winter. This is even more important in areas were reduced snowfall leaves the canes exposed to cold winds all winter long. As is true of all pruning, the aim is to have young, new wood, which is the most floriferous. Prune out the very oldest canes, leaving three to five. Cut these back to a foot (30cm) high to prevent the wind whipping them around. Surround each plant with a rose collar, available at garden centres. Fill these with composted animal manure. Rose aficionados, or rosarians, prefer sheep manure or, the ultimate but rarely available, horse manure.
Canadian developed shrub roses such as the Explorer series are best similarly treated for their first two or three years until they become firmly established. The same applies to other shrub roses such as the Japanese beach rose, Rosa japonica.
Climbing roses present an interesting problem. Winters in most of southern Ontario are rarely harsh enough to completely kill unprotected canes. Some judicious pruning may be necessary to remove the very oldest wood and realign the rest. The meticulous gardeners then bend down the canes, pin them in place with stakes and cover with a foot or so of soil. Most decline such activities and allow Mother Nature to take her course. Ah well, “A rose is a rose is a rose, and a caterpillar is a tractor,” as Ogden Nash wrote.
Final note: collect every pruning, dead leaf and spent rose flower and dispose of in the municipal garbage. Do not compost. The composter/compost heap does not reach a high enough temperature to kill the spores of that notorious of all rose diseases, the aptly named black spot.
Last mowing of the year is time to cut it short. Down to a mere half-inch, in fact. Long grass bends over – lodging is the technical term – excluding air from the soil beneath and smothers the new shoots as they try to emerge the following spring. “I wouldn’t be the best guy they could have out mowing the lawn . . .” wrote Conrad Black on prison job assignment in Florida as a guest of a vengeful Uncle Sam. But the lawns of his Bridle Path, Toronto mansion still appear immaculate . . .
Diversion No. 4
“Building a backyard rink starts as a fun idea and then becomes an obsessive engineering project, which causes you to take joy in the first opportunity to get out at three in the morning when it’s minus 20ºC to flood it because that’s when you can make the best ice,” Peter Van Loan, a former Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, who builds a 40 x 90-foot rink at his home north of Toronto each winter. Warning: it doesn’t do much for the grass beneath.
If all this seems a bit much, British actor Michael Caine discovered the perfect solution while penning a memoir: My days were and still are – until I started writing this book – spent it the garden, a place that fascinates me, and the long winter evenings so dreaded by country-dwellers are spent either planning my garden or swanning around Europe on my satellite, finding out what the rest of the world is doing.”
All in all, Michael Caine’s suggestions seem eminently sensible for any gardener, much more so than a certain capering clown:
There was a young fellow called Pete
Liked to dance in the snow and the sleet;
One chilly November
He froze every member
And retired to a monkish retreat
