Dan’s Papers May 13, 2011 LIFESTYLE danshamptons.com Page 50
The View from the Garden
By Jeanelle Myers It is raining today, which will be good for the white wisteria Standards that we planted in large pots in the pool border. The pots sit in a hedge of Aloha roses bordered by Crystal Fairy roses and Alyssum. The sinuous structure of the wisteria will be a good contrast to the verticality of the Alohas. And the bright green wisteria foliage will refresh the green, red and pink of the roses. The
Alyssum reseeds reliably and sparkles at the feet of the planting. This bed is ready for the summer! This week we also removed about 3,000 dandelions from three properties! There are some weed-plants that I don’t really mind especially on my own property, but there is something about dandelions that I find pugnacious and I don’t like THAT yellow either! Of course they must not be tolerated in the client’s lawn and as I don’t use weed killers, we pull them. The bucket full of their uprooted selves was very satisfying. We also began to deadhead daffodils. This will be ongoing for some time as we have thousands and they have not all even bloomed yet. I used to remove the stem with the dead flower but I heard another gardener say that the stem continues to feed the bulb just like the leaves do and that made a lot of sense, so now I just snap off their heads. And as I like to put back onto the soil anything that I can, I find a discrete place in the garden to put these heads. They disappear very quickly. A lot of the beds have a mulch on them – sometimes the leaves that have fallen from trees above and sometimes other assorted plant debris. I like to put as much chopped plant material as a bed can take visually onto the beds so it can be a weed barrier, worm food and food for the plants. So my beds do not look clean, and when I do need to weed
them, I sometimes leave the small weeds on top of the mulch to break down there. These beds are very densely planted so that the plant material lying on them is minimal to the eye but significant in its job. This, plus worm castings and compost, is the fertilizer that I use. The tomato seedlings had grown too large for their cell packs so we transplanted them into pots and then they really took off! It seems like they have doubled their height in just a few days. Soon we will begin to move them outside in the day to become used to the outdoors, and then into the garden. They are already smelling like tomato plants with only three sets of leaves…a true smell of summer.
Summer Concert Series at
The East Hampton Studio, Wainscott
OPENING SHOW
Date: May 14th 2011 Doors open: 7-11:00PM Location: 77 Industrial Road, Wainscott, NY 11937 631.965.0050
FEATURING Blue Coupe
(The original band members of Blue Oyster Cult and Alice Cooper)
Charlie Nice Band Special Guest
www.hamptonjams.com
(Blues / Rock)
Surprise Local Performer