the magazine for gardening enthusiasts in the Mid-Atlantic region
Maryland’s Fungi Frontier
A New Food Forest Time to Plant
Fall Lettuce
Creeping
Cucumber Weed
Native False Hellebore
Dealing with Southern Blight
Harvest Time
Produce Safety Tips
Spooky Blooms for Halloween
Garden Book Reviews and Reader Contest
Rewilding the Garden
Meet Ranger Vince Vaise
Gorgeous Gaura
Your Ad Here
Are you trying to reach thousands of gardeners in the greater DC region/Mid-Atlantic area? Washington Gardener Magazine goes out on the 15th of every month. Contact KathyJentz@gmail.com or call 301.588-6894 for ad rates (starting from $200) The ad deadline is the 10th of each month. Please submit your ad directly to: KathyJentz@gmail.com
Need a Garden Club Speaker?
Washington Gardener Magazine’s staff and writers are available to speak to groups and garden clubs in the DC region and ONLINE! Call 240.603.1461 or email KathyJentz@gmail.com for available dates, rates, and topics.
Barry Glick
Sunshine Farm and Gardens 696 Glicks Road Renick, WV 24966, USA Email: barry@sunfarm.com www.sunfarm.com RARE AND EXCEPTIONAL PLANTS FOR
www.greenspring.org
Green Spring Gardens
A “must visit” for everyone in the metropolitan Washington, DC, area. It’s a year-round goldmine of information and inspiration for the home gardener. It’s an outdoor classroom for children and their families to learn about plants and wildlife. It’s also a museum, a national historic site that offers glimpses into a long, rich history with colonial origins. Located at 4603 Green Spring Rd., Alexandria, VA. Information: 703-642-5173.
Living flowers can be part of Halloween decor and Day of the Dead celebrations. Pictured here is a display using three kinds of lilies: ‘Touchestone’, ‘Tiger Babies’, and ‘Sunderland’. Photo courtesy of ibulb.com.
Food forests, also known as forest gardens, are an age-old concept being brought back in the 21st century.
Rewilding Our Landscapes
A new movement is gaining traction for rewilding our home landscapes. Its intention is to let the land heal itself by letting it revert to its natural state. This is essentially the antithesis of gardening, which requires at least minimal human intervention to keep out noxious weeds and invasive plants.
According to EcoWatch.com. “Rewilding is the reversing of negative impacts on natural environments through the restoration and conservation of ecosystems, wilderness areas and their natural processes, and it is essential for the survival of most life on our planet.”
The first step in rewilding is to stop chemical treatments and excessive mowing. The next step is allowing some areas to grow into a natural meadow. Next is where things will get tricky in our region because tree seedlings will move in quickly and that “natural meadow” will be a small forest in three to five years.
How “wild” do you dare go? That may test the boundaries of what your neighbors and partner/spouse/other housemates can tolerate. It may also push your own ideas of what landscape stewardship should include. Should you mow annually to keep the tree seedlings down? Are you okay with wildlife of all kinds moving in?
If you have the space and back onto public lands, this may be easier to achieve than for those of us in urban areas or with small properties.
I’m trying a little rewilding experiment on my little corner and will report back in future about how it goes.
Sincerely,
Kathy Jentz, Editor/Publisher, Washington Gardener, KathyJentz@gmail.com
Credits
Kathy
Jentz
Editor/Publisher
Washington Gardener
826 Philadelphia Ave. Silver Spring, MD 20910
Phone: 301-588-6894
kathyjentz@gmail.com www.washingtongardener.com
Ruth E. Thaler-Carter Proofreader
Colin Davan
Ian Ferris
Miguel Zárate Interns
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All rights reserved. Published monthly. No material may be reproduced without prior written permission. This magazine is purchased by the buyer with the understanding that the information presented is from various sources from which there can be no warranty or responsibility by the publisher as to legality, completeness, or technical accuracy.
Jentz.
Your editor visiting Ball Horticulture in West Chicago, IL. Photo by Marcus Bridgewater.
Reader Contest
For our September 2025 Washington Gardener Reader Contest, we are giving away a 2026 calendar from Workman Publishing (value $17, workman.com). Workman 2026 calendars are the perfect gift for the green thumbs and nature enthusiasts in your life.
Escape somewhere beautiful all year long with vibrant full-color photographs paired with literary passages that bring the porch to you. Settle in with these tranquil porches, verandas, patios, and terraces. Each month brings a different locale and an evocative porch-themed quote. Great for travelers, home design and décor fans, nature-lovers, and anyone who needs a little quiet time.
To enter to win the Out on the Porch calendar, send an email by 5:00pm on Tuesday, September 30, to WashingtonGardenerMagazine@gmail.com with “Porch Calendar” in the Subject line and in the body of the email. Tell us what your favorite article was in the July-August 2025 Washington Gardener issue and why. Please include your full name and mailing address. Winners will be announced and notified on/about October 1. Replies might be published. o
Your Ad Here
Are you trying to reach thousands of gardeners in the greater DC region/MidAtlantic area? Washington Gardener Magazine goes out in the middle of every month. Contact KathyJentz@gmail.com or call 301.588.6894 for ad rates (starting from $200). The ad deadline is the 5th of each month. Please submit your ad directly to: KathyJentz@gmail.com.
Plant a Row for the Hungry (PAR) is an easy program to participate in and really does not take any extra resources than what you may have in your garden. In normal times, about 35 million people wonder where their next meal will come from. Most of these are children. That’s where PAR steps in.
PAR is such a simple program: It urges gardeners to Plant A Row (or a container) dedicated to feeding the hungry, and then take the harvest to someplace or someone that needs it. Once you have donated, send an email to KathyJentz@gmail.com with the total (in pounds and ounces) of what you gave. That is all there is to it. Easy. Effective. Adaptable and Helpful.
My favorite article in the June 2025 issue was “A Fruity and Refreshing Concoction: A Blackberry Fizz Cocktail.” Nothing says summer like a bowl of homegrown blackberries—those plump, inky gems I’ve battled birds, brambles, and patience to harvest for over a decade. They’re sweet, tart, and just messy enough to stain my fingers and my favorite gardening shirt. While blackberries are tasty straight off the cane, buried in a pie, or plopped atop a bowl of ice cream, you might not think to add them to a cocktail. But this summer, I will be making a nightly Blackberry Fizz. A fizzy little mix of muddled blackberries, fresh lime, simple syrup, just like your recipe on page 15 except, since I’m not a drinker, I’ll skip the generous pour of vodka. Alcohol or not, a Blackberry Fizz shows that gardening really does pay off...especially when it’s on ice. ~ Tracy M. Evans, Darnestown, MD
I liked Barry Glick’s article in the June 2025 issue about the Clintonia, as well as the blackberry cocktail recipe. Clintonia is a plant I have often heard about, but now I am inspired to purchase one or find a master gardener friend who is willing to share. And who isn’t always on the lookout for a new summer cocktail?
~ Sue Kuklewicz, Silver Spring, MD
Favorite article in the May 2025 Washington Gardener Magazine was “Little Beasts.” I read about this exhibit in the Washington Post, too, and am looking forward to seeing it. I like that the curators have mixed art with the science (from Smithsonian’s Natural History Museum) to display insects in their various forms.
~ Christine R. Coker, Alexandria, VA
My favorite article in the May 2025 issue was on the British Embassy. Our orchid society was allowed to tour the UK ambassador’s residence and its orchid greenhouse; unfortunately, I wasn’t able to go on the tour, so it was nice getting the perspective of the place from the magazine.
~ Linus Chen, Oakton, VA
So much gardening knowledge and a great guest on the “A Lifetime of Gardening with Barbara Damrosch” episode of the GardenDC Podcast!
~ Lynn Turner o
As Ranger Vince Vaise would drive down Route 295 into Washington, DC, a large sign always caught his eye.
“It said ‘Aquatic Garden’ and I was intrigued by that,” said Vaise. “Well, what’s an aquatic garden? What is that?”
Early Years and Influence
For the Linthicum, MD, native, posing similar questions to himself drove many of his passions and led him to the current role he holds today. From a young age, Vaise always chose to be active outdoors. He credits two influences that helped grow his passion for the outdoors and gardening.
“Dad would take me fishing to the Eastern Shore quite a bit and he was also an avid gardener, so I would help him in the garden,” said Vaise.
His father would identify all the wildlife around them and that taught Vaise about the different species in various local habitats. Vaise looks back on his time with his father and greatly appreciates the knowledge that he passed down.
“I also had a great-uncle, Uncle Leo, and he was a tree surgeon at Longwood Gardens,” said Vaise.
Vaise’s family would drive out once a summer to visit his uncle at Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, PA. They would see all the trees and plants in the collection there, which inspired him to continue learning and surrounding himself with wildlife and the outdoors.
Vaise was a passionate history student at Mount Saint Joseph’s High
Ranger Vince Vaise Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens
By Colin Davan
School. He credits his history teacher, Michael Morgan, who was also a seasonal ranger at Fort McHenry in Baltimore, MD, for encouraging that interest. However, his outdoor passions went dormant for a bit of time.
“He recruited me into the volunteer program there and so my first experience with park service was when I was dressed and portrayed a young recruit from the War of 1812,” said Vaise.
Joining the Park Service
This volunteering ultimately led Vaise to working at the park service in a similar seasonal role as Morgan. When Vaise met Jim Peters, it reawakened his passion for the outdoors. Peters was a well-known name in the Baltimore Bird Club and introduced Vaise to birding.
As his outdoor passions returned, and so did identification questions that surrounded him at a young age. Vaise began to engage in tree identification and asking questions about why each tree is different from the others, examining leaf shape and sizes.
“Everything has a reason and that’s just so fascinating,” said Vaise. “When I combined the interest in history and nature together, that was really neat,”
Vaise did not take the traditional path to his current position as Program Manager of Visitor Services at National Capitol Parks-East. Usually, rangers work park to park in the department of visitor services. However, he took on a series of different roles at Fort McHenry National Park, such as public information officer and supervisor of summer seasonal employees.
“In 2016, there was an opening in Washington, for National Capitol Parks-East for a substitute program manager,” said Vaise. “I came down
and I loved it within the first week, so I begged the superintendent at the time to keep me.” Although he still had to interview and compete with others for the role, he landed the job, which ultimately led him to his position today.
As Program Manager of Visitor Services at National Capitol Parks-East, he works with a team to provide a great visitor experience that offers education and a positive environment at the parks.
“I liked the larger scope that this park offers and it was very different,” said Vaise. “Here, you have AfricanAmerican history; you have recreation, which was very neat; and you have nature in Kenilworth [Aquatic Gardens] and Greenbelt [Park].”
The plethora of different historical and outdoors areas has kept Vaise engaged and happy.
His Impact
As a person who is always curious and asking questions, Vaise is always looking to learn more about his environment. From studying each aquatic plant that comes across his path at Kenilworth to looking into archives to understand the history of the different parks, Vaise’s passion is in becoming extremely knowledgeable and sharing that knowledge with park visitors.
“What I like doing and what I’ve continued to do is to shape the experience and improve the experience of the visitor,” said Vaise.
Although it may not be the title of his position, wildlife education and engagement is truly something he cares about, regardless of his role. The impact of his father, who found joy in wildlife education, is clearly reflected and shining through Vaise.
Vaise also credits his team for much of his success. Without his talented team that carry the same passion, the engagement and visitor experience would not be the same. “I’ve been here long enough to hire a lot of the people who currently work in these places, and we’ve [National Capitol Parks-East] got some good ones,” said Vaise of the team around him.
Vaise also discussed the organization of the parks—specifically the signage. It allows for people to take guided tours, but also take their own tours where they can find wildlife and historical education throughout the parks.
Moving forward, Vaise has plans to add new exhibits to the Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens visitor center. Through his continuous drive to research, he has come across new stories that visitors would find extremely engaging.
“I like bringing everyone together and working very collaboratively, because it’s all toward betterment of the visitor and shaping the experience,” said Vaise when discussing the planned improvements.
Outside of Work
When Vaise is not suited up in his green and beige ranger uniform, he is a husband and the father of a daughter and son, and enjoys spending time with them.
He is an avid runner and runs along the Anacostia River. Vaise reiterated that he enjoys studying and reading history, as well as plant identification. As an outdoors man, he enjoys taking walks in the woods to decompress and hiking around the DC area.
More about the Parks
To check out any of the parks that Vaise works in, be sure to check out the National capitol Parks-East website at https://www.nps.gov/nace/index. htm for events or location hours. o
Colin Davan is an intern this summer session with Washington Gardener. He is a rising senior at the American University in Washington, DC, studying journalism with a minor in history. He grew up just outside of Boston in two towns (Hopkinton and Framingham), both with backyards always filled with a wide variety of flowers, herbs, vegetables, and fruits
False Hellebore: A Well-Kept Secret!
By Barry Glick
I fondly remember my first encounter with a member of this little-known, littlepublicized family of plants like it was yesterday, yet it was over 50 years ago. I was out hunting for Ramps (Allium tricoccum), on the Williams River in Pocahontas County, West Virginia, the next county north of me here in Greenbrier County. It was autumn, so I was “blind digging” when my “ramp hoe” hit what I thought was a tree root, although it seemed a little softer. Turned out to be a huge bulb of a dormant plant that was unknown to me. What I had stumbled upon was a bulb of Veratrum viride, also known as Corn Lily, Indian Poke, False Green Hellebore, and False Helleborine, the latter names having nothing to do with the Hellebores that we grow
these days, such as the Lenten Roses, Christmas Roses, etc., all members of the Ranunculaceae family. Back then, Veratrum was in the lily family. It is now classified as a member of the Trillium family (Melanthiaceae).
Keep in mind that this was decades before Google was born, so I had to ask around and show some of the old-timers (I am now proudly a member of that group) what I had found. They all knew what it was right away and told me to throw it away; it was worthless, they said.
Well! I didn’t listen, but brought it home and planted it in a dry bed on the south side of my garden, where it still lives happily today—more than 50 years later. Quite a testament to the adaptability of this plant, because it normally
grows in moist to mucky soil. It now has 10 plants in the clump and makes quite a statement in the garden since it towers about 6 feet tall and the bunches of small green flowers, which become unique, upright seed pods, are quite attractive.
It would be several years later that I discovered that there was another member of the genus Veratrum: a smaller version of Veratrum viride Veratrum parviflorum! This is another garden-worthy plant that puts out a single stem of diminutive, yet attractive green flowers on a 3- to 4-foot tall stem.
However, the real standout plant in this family is Eastern Featherbells (Stenanthium gramineum). What an effortless, easy plant to grow. The common name is very appropriate because the feathery, bell-shaped, fragrant, pure-white flowers that adorn the 6- to 7-foot tall, late-blooming, rigid flower stems do have a feathery appearance. And there must be something real about climate change that the plants have known before we found out. When I first started growing Stenanthium decades ago, they flowered around the first week of September; now they have been starting to bud up in late July and many are in full flower by the first week of August. Their fragrance is more pronounced, starting in early to mid-afternoon, and the plant is a pollinator host to many woodland insects. They are shade plants, but they enjoy a bit of sun. In fact, the flower stems are slightly more rigid if they get a little afternoon sun.
The genus name of Stenanthium is derived from the Latin “Steno,” meaning narrow, and “Anthos,” meaning flower. The species name gramineum is from the old botanical name of the grass family, Gramineae, now Poaceae.
A little bonus: This plant is toxic to eat, so it is deer-proof! o
Barry Glick, a transplanted Philadelphian, has been residing in Greenbrier County, WV, since 1972. His mountaintop garden and nursery is a mecca for gardeners from virtually every country in the world. He writes and lectures extensively about native plants and Hellebores, his two main specialties, and welcomes visitors with advance notice. He can be reached at barry@sunfarm.com, www.sunfarm.com, or 304.497.2208.
Harvest Time Produce Safety Tips
Few things beat the taste of a tomato plucked straight from the garden, but even that sun-ripened treat can carry a hidden risk.
Gardeners harvesting the first of their summer bounties should practice safe produce handling, said Grace Stern, coordinator of the Virginia Cooperative Extension Master Gardener program. This includes washing hands and tools before harvest, properly cleaning produce, and keeping pets and other animals out of the garden.
“All produce should be washed,” she said. “Commercial farmers follow rules to keep animals, animal waste, and human pathogens out of their fields. Home gardeners don’t have to follow the same rules, but we should be taking similar measures to reduce our risk of getting sick.”
For example, rodents, backyard poultry, and even pets should be kept out of home garden areas. Salmonella outbreaks linked to backyard poultry occur regularly the most recent was still ongoing as of July. When chickens and other animals are allowed to roam in food-producing gardens, their pathogens are more likely to contaminate fruits and vegetables, potentially causing foodborne illness in humans.
Stern recommends that organic gardeners follow the same precautions.
“Organic produce still needs to be washed,” Stern said. “People sometimes think that if they’re not spraying anything on their crops, there’s no need to wash it, but all produce should be washed. When label instructions are followed, the risk of illness from pesticide exposure even with organic pesticides is low. What usually makes us
sick is the presence of a pathogen on our food. Washing is primarily important for removing pathogens that come from people or animals, and even organic produce can become contaminated by these.”
Reduce your risk of foodborne illness by cleaning tools and produce according to these guidelines.
• Before harvesting produce, wash your hands with warm water and soap for at least 20 seconds. Wash any tools, such as scissors or pruners, that will be used.
• Wash soft-skinned, delicate produce such as berries, grapes, and greens carefully under clean, running water with clean hands. Do not scrub.
• Wash thick-skinned produce, such as cucumbers, pumpkins, potatoes, winter squash, radishes, and other firm produce, with a clean produce brush under clean running water.
• After washing, carefully dry fruits and vegetables with a clean cloth or paper towel. Make sure your produce brush is clean after each use.
• Do not use soap, detergent, bleach, or vinegar for washing. Produce is porous and can absorb chemicals from these cleaning agents—and from anything unsanitary in your water. Do not submerge or soak produce.
• When selecting fruits and vegetables for preservation, such as canning, pickling, or freezing, take special care to choose produce free of cuts, bruises, or other damage. Bruises, cuts, or rot allow pathogens including Clostridium botulinum, Listeria, and mold to enter the fruit or vegetable. These bacteria can survive and multiply during canning if conditions are not properly controlled.
“Set aside the best pieces of produce for preservation,” Stern said. “If you have tomatoes with small brown spots or a dented cucumber, you can cut those spots off and eat that produce right away. For canning, you want the most perfect, blemish-free pieces you can find.”
For more information about preserving fresh produce, see “Tips for preserving summer produce safely from a Virginia Cooperative Extension expert” at https://news.vt.edu/articles/2025/07/cals-extension-summerhome-food-preservation.html. o
Spooky Blooms for Halloween and Beyond
Halloween is just around the corner and that means pumpkins, spooky decorations, and a touch of mystery in the house. But did you know that bulb flowers like tulips and lilies also add a surprising twist to Halloween? They bring color and life to your interiors and, with a little creativity, can create a spooky atmosphere.
Flowers are an unexpected addition to Halloween. They provide an elegant, natural contrast when placed amongst all the black accessories, cobwebs, and skeletons. Tulips and lilies have their own unique character and can be used in eerily beautiful bouquets, flower arrangements, or even as part of your Halloween costume.
Here are a few ideas for frighteningly good floral displays.
• Go for dark or bright-orange shades for a real Halloween atmosphere.
• Use a hollowed-out pumpkin as a vase or flowerpot.
• Combine flowers with typical Halloween decorations such as skeletons, candles, or beaded garlands.
• Create a photogenic spot or Instagram-worthy nook with flowers, fall leaves, and small lights—perfect for your social media posts.
• Add in garlic bulbs to ward off those vampires.
Find more information about flower bulbs at www.flowerbulbs.com. o
Produce with blemishes or damage should not be used for home canning. Photo by Heinz USA courtesy of Bugwood.org, CC BY-NC 3.0 US.
New Plant Spotlight
SOL LUNA PRIME™
Hybrid Impatiens
SOL LUNA PRIME™ hybrid impatiens brings both efficiency and flexibility to growers, retailers, and home gardeners. This series features big, color-saturated blooms that draw attention at retail. All six colors of SOL LUNA PRIME feature outstanding performance in either sun or shade, taking the guess work out of garden placement.
This series features a mounded, well-branched habit that keeps it from getting bare, so hanging baskets and containers look beautiful at retail and all season long. SOL LUNA PRIME performs well in gallons or hanging baskets, flowering brilliantly in six colors, including Light Salmon, Orchid, Peach, Pearl, Red, and White.
They do well in sun and shade— adapting well to varying weather conditions and recovering quickly if they wilt from not being watered.
This plant introduction is from Danzinger. For more information, visit https://www.danzigeronline.com/. o
Quick Links to Recent Washington Gardener Blog Posts
• Globe Amaranth Plant Profile
• The New American Gardener
• Prize-Winning Peppers
See more Washington Gardener blog posts at WashingtonGardener.blogspot.com o
September Garden To-Do List
• Keep an eye out for the first frost date. In Zone 6, it is expected between September 30 and October 30. In Zone 7, it is predicted for between October 15 and November 15.
• Divide and transplant perennials—in particular, peonies and iris.
• Pick apples at a local pick-your-own farm or visit a local farmer’s market.
• Pot up rosemary and chives for over-wintering indoors.
• Take cuttings from coleus and begonias to propagate and overwinter indoors.
• Look out for poison ivy vines, which will turn crimson in the fall and be easy to distinguish from other vines.
• Check your local garden center for end-of-summer bargains.
• Put netting over your pond to prevent the accumulation of leaves and debris.
• Start feeding birds to get them in the habit for this winter.
• Attend a local garden club meeting or plant exchange.
• Pick mature tomatoes and peppers to ripen on your window sills.
• Turn your compost pile weekly and don’t let it dry out. Work compost into your planting beds.
• Remove undeveloped or shriveled fruit from fruit trees and compost them.
• Plant evergreens for winter interest.
• Plant garlic bulbs.
• Collect plant seeds for next year’s planting and for trading at the annual Washington Gardener Magazine Seed Exchanges.
• Plant hardy mums and fall season annuals.
• Fertilize your lawn and re-seed if needed.
• Dig up your Gladiolus, Canna, Caladiums, and other tender bulbs; cut off foliage; let dry for a week; and store for the winter.
• Transplant trees and shrubs.
• Harvest your herbs often and keep them trimmed back to encourage leafy growth.
• Bring in houseplants if you took them outdoors for the summer.
• If your conifers start shedding their needles or your spring bulb foliage starts peeking out of the ground, don’t worry. This is normal for our autumn cycle.
• Leave hummingbird feeders out until October 15.
• Start bulb plantings of early-spring bloomers at the end of the month.
• Watch your pumpkins/squash. Harvest them when their rinds are dull and hard.
• Divide ornamental grasses.
• Cut herbs and flowers for drying indoors.
• Plant strawberries in a site with good drainage for harvesting next spring.
• Look out for slug eggs grouped under sticks and stones—they are the size of BBs and pale in color.
• Plant cover crops in vegetable gardens and annual beds (for example, rye, clover, hairy vetch, and winter peas).
• Begin conditioning the Poinsettias and Christmas cacti to get them ready for the upcoming holiday season.
• Bring Amaryllis indoors before a hard freeze. Repot every other year at this time. Store in a cool, dark place and do not water until flower buds or leaves emerge.
• Your summer annuals will be reviving now with cooler temps and some rain. Cut back any ragged growth and give them some fertilizer. They should put on a good show until the first hard frost. o
Photos courtesy o f Danzinger.
The Urban Garden: 101 Ways to Grow Food and Beauty in the City is all about small-space gardening solutions!
By Kathy Jentz
and Teresa Speight
Published by Cool Springs Press/Quarto Homes
Order it today at: https://amzn.to/3yiLPKU
GardenDC Podcast
The GardenDC podcast is all about gardening in the greater Washington, DC, and Mid-Atlantic area. The program is hosted by Kathy Jentz, editor of Washington Gardener Magazine, and features guest experts in local and national horticulture. The latest episodes include interviews with experts on Growing Onions, Soil Care, and Community Gardening.
You can listen online at https:// washingtongardener.blogspot.com/ or on Spotify, Apple, etc o
Classes, Events, and Plant Shows/Sales
• Saturday, September 6
DC State Fair
Online contest entry is now closed. Live contests include flower arranging. Held at Bryant Street NE, Washington, DC. Free to attend. See DCstatefair.org.
• Saturday, September 6, 10am Ikebana Demonstration
Ikebana International Chapter 1 presents an Ikebana demonstration by Professor Noritaka Noda, president of the Ikenobo Ikebana, New York City Chapter, at the U.S. National Arboretum. The event begins with a continental breakfast at 10am, followed by the demonstration at 11am. Tickets are available at http://www.iichapter1.com.
• Sunday, September 7, 10am–2pm Cactus and Succulent Society of Maryland (CSSM) Show and Sale
The CSSM 2025 Annual Show & Sale includes rare plants and expert growers Held at the Vollmer Center, Cylburn Arboretum, Baltimore, MD. Free admission and open to the public. See details at https://marylandcactus.org/.
• Saturday, September 13, 10am–1pm Friends of Brookside Gardens Fall Perennial Plant Sale
Choose from high-quality perennials, shrubs, and trees grown at Montgomery Parks’ Pope Farm and local nurseries. All proceeds benefit Brookside Gardens. FOBG members get early sale access and a discount. Open to the public. Rain or shine. Details at https://www. friendsofbrooksidegardens.org/.
•Wednesday, September 17, 9am–4pm Urban Tree Summit Conference
Learn from an outstanding lineup of industry-leading experts about their research and contributions to urban forestry, conservation, and environmental sciences. Held at the Silver Spring Civic Center, Silver Spring, MD. Details at https://urbantreesummit.org/.
• September 19–21
National Capital Orchid Society’s Annual Orchid Show & Sale
Whether you’re an experienced orchid collector, a curious beginner, or sim-
ply captivated by the beauty of exotic blooms, the National Capital Orchid Society’s Annual Orchid Show & Sale is the perfect place to immerse yourself in the wonder of orchids, with three days of vibrant displays, expert advice, rareplant sales, and educational fun for all ages. Held at Homestead Gardens, 743 West Central Avenue, Davidsonville, MD. Admission is free and open to the public. See details at https://ncos.us/.
Looking Ahead
• October 17–19
Lilyhemmer Daylily Conference
Lilyhemmer is the Mid-Atlantic region’s premier fall daylily event, hosted annually by Region 3 of the American Hemerocallis Society. Now celebrating its 30th year, Lilyhemmer brings together daylily enthusiasts from across the region and beyond for a weekend filled with learning, sharing, and community. Held this year in York, PA. Register in https://lilyhemmer.org/schedule-list/.
• Saturday, November 22, 1–2:30pm Seasonal Holiday Plants and Bulb Forcing Demo
Join Kathy Jentz, editor and publisher of Washington Gardener Magazine, for a festive and informative workshop about caring for classic seasonal plants. She will share expert tips on nurturing holiday favorites and introduce a few unique plant varieties that make thoughtful gifts and charming additions to your home décor. You’ll also learn the basics of bulb forcing. Register for the class and supply fee. $43 per person. Register online at http://www. fairfaxcounty.gov/parks/parktakes or call Green Spring Gardens at 703-6425173. Code TQL.DO6W.
Event Listing Updates
See updated event listings on the Washington Gardener discussion list. Join by emailing WashingtonGardenersubscribe@googlegroups.com
How to Submit Events
To submit an event for this listing, email washingtongardenermagazine@gmail. com with “Event” in the subject line. Our next deadline is September 10 for the October 2025 issue, for events taking place after October 5 o
Montgomery College Food Forest Begins
By Miguel Zárate
In the springs of 2024 and 2025, two new food forests were established on the Montgomery College Takoma Park/ Silver Spring campus by the studentrun Permaculture Club. They are at 7719 Chicago Avenue and 7676 Fenton Street in Silver Spring, MD.
A food forest is a landscape or garden designed to mimic a natural woodland to restore ecosystems lost by urban development. The food forests being grown at Montgomery College are still early in their development, since these systems can take three or four years to reach ideal production levels.
The club has a partnership with the Community Food Forest Collective (CFFC), a nonprofit organization that, according to their website, seeks to nurture “a new culture that returns nature to the heart of our society.”
“We grow so much that it’s hard to list it all,” said Miles Amoore, president of the CFFC. “We basically mix edible trees, shrubs, and vines that produce fruits, nuts, and berries, together with native perennial plants that are either
edible, medicinal, or help with the overall health of the food forest.”
Amoore states that while they grow common fruits like apples, pears, and plums, they also grow a lot of lesserknown fruits that were used by local indigenous communities, like serviceberry, persimmon, and chokeberry. They selected herbs like basil for the open areas, then added plants that help keep the soil healthy, like false indigo bush, which Amoore said fixes nitrogen.
They don’t use harmful fertilizers and don’t use pesticides or fungicides. Amoore said they plant a lot of native plants in the herbaceous layer that are medical or edible that also work to attract pollinators.
“We use tree guards to protect the young plants from the deer pressure.” said Amy Zimmerman, board member for the CFFC. “We haven’t had any issues with rats, but we’ll keep an eye out as our harvests grow to make sure they don’t start attracting rats.”
Amoore said the end goal of the food forest is to address the concern about food insecurity among students at
Montgomery College. To remedy this, anyone in the community can come and pick food.
Food forests also offer solutions to climate and ecological crises, including increases in biodiversity, plants that encourage the return of native pollinators, and reduced stormwater runoff.
Amoore also said that food forests offer a great way for community-building, since it takes many hands to build a place like this. From experienced gardeners to people who have never planted in their lives, everyone can help out. “We’re also trying to shift the dominant culture away from individualism, scarcity, and consumerism to a culture of community, abundance, and sharing,” said Amoore.
Additional food forest locations have smaller-scale gardens as well. These locations include: Carroll Avenue in Takoma Park, Takoma Park Elementary School, Loiederman Middle School, and outside of the Meals on Wheels headquarters. The group is also looking to establish a native plant nursery in downtown Silver Spring at the Shepherd’s Table Urban Farm.
To contact them or find out more, go to www.foodforestcollective.org/. o
Miguel Zárate is an intern this summer session with Washington Gardener. He is majoring in journalism with a minor in sustainability. His favorite thing to grow in his mother’s garden, where he helps out, is mint, because it is so plentiful.
The Garden: Maryland’s Fungi Frontier
By Ian Ferris
Peeking into a fruiting tent at The Garden in Beltsville, Maryland (online at TheGarden.Farm), you’re greeted with an alien world—mushrooms of voluminous size and radiant color, shooting off in boundless shapes and structures. Fungi have fascinated humans for centuries, and they may hold untapped potential in food, medicine, waste disposal, clothing, and more.
The Garden is on the frontier of mycology in the DMV. CEO Cory Moore and COO Elizabeth Robinson bought the warehouse where their growing is done in 2020. After some hemming and hawing about what to do with the space, they landed on mushrooms.
“We said, well, what can we grow here in the space that we have that’s nutritious, sustainable—high demand,
a good value?” Moore said. “Ultimately, mushrooms were a good fit.”
Moore and Robinson started as complete novices in mushroom growing. They used their own thirst for knowledge to develop an effective growing process with consistent yields.
“Self-taught,” said Robinson. “A lot of ‘YouTube University.’ We did take some classes with Cornell, but it was all selfdirected … so yeah, a lot of this was just really trial and error.”
The mushrooms go through three tents before being harvested, dried, and made ready to become a product.
The first is the sterilization tent. Here is where the substrate and grain spawn (effectively a mushroom seed) are prepared and kept sterile to prevent contamination. The grain spawn is the only outsourced product needed in their process. Once the grain spawn shows
signs of mycelium growth, meaning they are inoculated, they can move to the next phase. This is similar to a seed sprouting and growing its first roots.
Phase 2 is the incubation tent. Here the mycelium colonizes, growing outward and absorbing nutrients from the substrate. This tent is kept dark, simulating the growing conditions that are found in nature. Once the mycelium has permeated the entirety of the substrate or shows signs of fruiting, its time in the incubation tent is over.
The last tent is the most exciting—the fruiting tent. It is a mushroom wonderland. Inside the tent, you’re greeted by happy, fruiting mushrooms of all shapes and colors. Conditions like humidity, light, and fresh air are controlled in this tent to give the fungi their best chance at producing large yields. At The Garden, there are two of these tents that are sometimes filled with up to 20 varieties of fruiting mushrooms.
This process, honed by trial and error, has allowed The Garden to have great success. “We’ve got more demand than we can produce here,” says Robinson. “This was our way of getting started, testing the market, making sure that we knew how to grow and we could follow all the food safety protocols.”
To expand, Moore and Robinson plan to open a mushroom learning center.
“As we started doing this, everybody wanted to come and see what we do and how we grow, but it’s not really set up to have a lot of people in and out of here. For food safety reasons, we just don’t have a lot of people here usually,” Robinson said, referring to the warehouse they grow in now.
Their new mushroom learning center will give them the space to increase production and make their process accessible to the public. They will have multiple 40-foot shipping containers that will make it easier to modify the aforementioned conditions tailored to specific varieties of mushrooms.
“We can dial each of the shipping containers into the climate that that variety of mushroom wants, instead of trying to find the middle between all of them,” said Robinson.
These shipping containers are also to be designed to accommodate the public. Moore mentioned ideas they had
Oyster mushroom varieties at The Garden. about glass walls or monitors with live footage of the growing fungi.
This project is a response to the growing demand for product and inquiries about the knowledge they’ve garnered, the pair said.
“The mushroom learning center is our way of testing everything and then sharing that knowledge and duplicating it in other parts of the world,” said Robinson.
Mycology is a fast-growing business with a sustainable backbone. Mushrooms can be grown indoors and without sunlight, so they don’t take up the growing space of the usual crops.
They also have potential in waste disposal. In 2011, Yale undergrads discovered a mushroom in the Amazon Rainforest that can degrade polyurethane, a common plastic, according to Yale News. These mushrooms can thrive even in landfills, making them a potential route to dealing with waste problems.
Since then, oyster mushrooms, a common edible variety, have also been found to be able to consume plastic, according to a University of Boulder article. Austrian researcher Katharina Unger even created a prototype of an at-home oyster mushroom recycling system that could turn plastic into food. Besides waste disposal, mushrooms have many other uses. “There are companies using Reishi to create leather,” said Robinson. “People are building furniture with mycelium packaging.”
Fungi are already a natural recycling system. They take the nutrients from
dead organisms and return it back to the soil, where it can be used again. Perhaps it’s time to start taking notes from nature and use fungi to make the industrial world more sustainable.
The greatest prize of all from mushrooms may come from their potential health benefits. While research is still being done on the medicinal effects, many studies show promising signs.
“Mushrooms just have a ton of health benefits. There are a lot of medicinal mushrooms like Reishi. Lion’s Mane is super-beneficial for people’s health, and it’s a great source of vitamins and protein and nutrients,” said Robinson.
According to the Mayo Health Clinic, incorporating mushrooms into a daily diet can lower the risk of cancer by 45 percent. They can also support brain health, boost vitamin D levels, provide micronutrients and B vitamins, and increase calcium and potassium intake.
While Robinson and Moore said they can’t advertise the health benefits with full certainty unless they conduct their own research on their specific products, they encouraged everyone to do their own research or simply see the effects for themselves.
“Our customers do their own research, they talk to their doctors. We give them the basic information and then let them do the research as well,” said Robinson.
The growing and use of mushrooms could transform society in ways we are only beginning to imagine. At The Garden, rows of fruiting tents stand not just as a farm, but as a new beginning for a more sustainable, healthy, and fungifilled future. o
Ian Ferris is an intern this summer session with Washington Gardener. He is a rising senior at the University of Maryland studying journalism and sustainable agriculture. He worked on a garden farm near Annapolis, MD, called Maidstone Harvest for two summers, where he learned a lot about growing vegetables in a sustainable and efficient fashion.
The Azalea Society offers membership to anyone with an interest in azaleas, from home gardeners, collectors and students to plant professionals. The Azalea Society website (azaleas.org) is the source of information about azaleas.
REVOLUTION IS OUT NOW! By Kathy
Jentz
Published by Cool Springs Press Order it today at: https://amzn.to/3IlYHYL
“Groundcover Revolution is must-have book for anyone who is interested in having less lawn, fewer weeds, and reduced mulching. The properties charts will save the reader time and money, the pictures provide inspiration, while the detailed plant portraits give the focused information needed for creating beautiful, functional landscapes.”
―C.L. Fornari, GardenLady.com
Ask the Expert
By Miri Talabac
Southern Blight Issues
Q: I’ve had problems with Southern Blight recently. How do I keep it from coming back?
A: Southern Blight can infect hundreds of plant species, ranging from annuals (including vegetables and herbs) and perennials (including turf) to shrubs and young trees. Like many pathogens with a wide host plant range, it is ubiquitous in our region. At some point in the future, this fungal pathogen could colonize any soil, so you can’t guarantee it will never show up.
High temperatures and consistent soil moisture combined with dense plant canopies encourage Southern Blight outbreaks. Mulching has many benefits, including suppressing weed germination and slowing evaporation from the soil surface during dry weather, but the trade-off is that this moisture retention can contribute to Southern Blight outbreaks. There aren’t any easy answers: Planting densely can help out-compete weeds, allow you to fit more species in a limited space (especially for naturalistic plantings with natives), and negate the need for mulch, but those conditions also favor disease.
Recognizing early symptoms allows you to remove the affected plants or plant parts, but sometimes the onset of damage is rapid and hard to catch in time. It’s only a matter of days between when a plant is infected and when symptoms appear.
Individual stems can wilt, and white mycelium (fungal strands) grows on the stem, soil surface, or mulch close to the crown (base of the plant). A classic Southern Blight sign is the round sclerotia (dormant survival structures) that resemble mustard seeds that turn from white to tan-brown as they age, also found around the infected plant’s crown.
Each time the plant tries to regrow after stem dieback, the new tissue can become infected. Over time, this depletes food reserves in the roots and can kill the plant, just like it would
if you were repeatedly pruning down stems to remove a perennial weed.
Sclerotia can survive in plant debris or the soil surface layers for several years. Suppressing Southern Blight centers on reducing the number of sclerotia surviving in the upper few inches of soil.
One option is to remove the affected plant and take out some of the soil around the roots. Another is to try burying the layer of soil contaminated with sclerotia, but that might require turning over the soil too much to be practical. (You might need to bury sclerotia more than 6 inches deep. The goal is to keep them from reaching the surface as they grow, seeking a host, so they exhaust their resources before being able to reach and infect the stems.) Remove all symptomatic plant debris and do not compost it, since the sclerotia might survive the process.
When you replant, mixing compost into the planting hole may be helpful. The diverse populations of microorganisms in compost can help outcompete and suppress Southern Blight naturally. Although some fungicide ingredients may suppress new infections, they are not practical to use. With such a wide host plant range, you may not know which plants to prioritize for protection, and fungicide only works when applied preventatively, before symptoms appear. You’d also probably need to re-apply the fungicide several times over the course of the year (every year), and occasionally switch to a different active ingredient that doesn’t share the same mode of action, to maintain effective protection. (Otherwise, you’d be encouraging fungicide resistance, which should definitely be avoided.)
Fungicide residues can also harm other organisms, including pollina-
Southern Blight on a hosta. Photo courtesy of Ask Extension.
tors, beneficial insects, beneficial soil microbes, and earthworms. Its use would be an added expense well beyond just replacing any lost plants, and would not be guaranteed to work.
Bent Cucumbers
Q: Some of my cucumbers are bent or tapered (not fully plump) when ripe. What’s going on?
A: This is usually due to poor pollination of flowers, where not enough ovules (undeveloped seeds) are fertilized. This time of year, the primary culprits are low bee populations and high heat, which can kill pollen and render blooms sterile.
Each bloom on a squash family plant, cucumbers included, is typically only open for one day. Bees visiting these flowers are active early and can be done pollinating by midday, when the flowers start to wither. It takes eight to 12 bee visits to sufficiently pollinate a female flower for it to produce a fullsize fruit. When they fall short, the fruit won’t mature normally.
Pollinators can be harmed by pesticide applications that are made when the flowers are open. Sprays used to manage pests that have very shortlived residues, like horticultural oil and insecticidal soap, reduce this risk, but still should not contact open flowers.
Suspending shade cloth over the plant could reduce stress during hot weather, but other than making sure the plant is watered when needed, there isn’t much else you can do. You could try planting successive crops, growing other flowering plants nearby to support pollinators with alternate food sources, and hand-pollinating blooms if bees seem to be scarce. Growing parthenocarpic cucumber varieties is another possible solution, because they produce fruit without the need for pollination. o
Miri Talabac is a Certified Professional Horticulturist who joined the University of Maryland Extension Home and Garden Information Center in 2019 as a horticulture consultant. She is a graduate of UMCP with a focus in entomology. To ask a gardening or pest question, go to http:// extension.umd.edu/hgic and select “Ask Extension.” Digital photos can be attached.
Time to Plant Fall Lettuce
By Barbara Melera
You must be careful when you plant lettuce for fall harvest. If you plant it too soon, the hot weather will cause it to germinate in a matter of days (not the 2–3 weeks it sometimes takes in early spring) and in just a few weeks, it will become bitter and bolt.
If you plant it too late, it will take 2–3 weeks to germinate and then shortly thereafter the frost will kill it before it has had time to put on much growth.
In Zones 5–7, aim to start lettuce by the end of August/early September. In Zone 8, start lettuce in late October. Remember to succession plant by seeding in a new row every week to 10 days. Do not wait two weeks between plantings like you would in the spring— your second and third crops will not have time to mature.
Unlike planting in the spring when each day is growing longer, planting in mid-summer and fall must take into account that each day is growing shorter. This means that it takes longer for a plant to mature. The “Rule of Thumb” for mid-summer/fall planting is to add two weeks (14 days) to the time to maturity.
However, if you are planting in containers or raised beds, you should not add 14 days to the time to maturity. Most vegetables and flowers when planted in containers or raised beds mature more quickly, about 14 days more quickly.
Buttercrunch is possibly the most popular butterhead lettuce sold for the home garden. The leaves are crisp and sweet. The plants are vigorous and
highly reliable. Heads can grow 8–12 inches wide and 6–8 inches high.
Buttercrunch was developed by Cornell University during the mid-20th century, using traditional plant breeding techniques. Cornell was trying to develop lettuce cultivars that were heat-tolerant, and Buttercrunch proved to be one of the best. It was awarded the All-America Selections distinction in 1963 and became an official American heirloom in 2013. Although butterhead lettuces are among the least cold-tolerant, Buttercrunch is a good secondseason lettuce because it requires only 79 days to reach maturity in the fall.
Red Oakleaf is an old variety. It is one of the most cold hardy, too. This is a beautiful, deep-burgundy lettuce.
Red Oakleaf takes only 50 days to mature when planted in the spring and 64 days when planted in the fall.
My favorite lettuce, for fall or spring planting, is the romaine lettuce, Cimmaron. This exquisite plant produces rustto burgundy-red baby leaves with pink veins. I suggest you only eat this lettuce as baby romaine, because that is when it is the prettiest.
Cimmaron takes 65 days to fully mature when planted in the spring, so it will take 79 days to mature in the fall, but for baby Romaine, you can begin to harvest at 45 days. o
Barbara Melera is president of Harvesting History (www.harvesting-history.com), a company that sells horticultural and agricultural products, largely of the heirloom variety, along with garden tools and equipment.
Creeping Cucumber: What a Weed Wants
By Rick Borchelt
What makes a good plant go bad? Why does a mild-mannered yard or garden resident go rogue and become a weedy villain?
First, it might help to understand some of the traditional pathways to weediness.
To many gardeners, the words “weed” and “invasive” are synonymous and it’s true that many of the plants we consider weeds originated somewhere else in the world. Indeed, successful invasive weeds often have a couple of traits in common: They arrive on American shores without the pests or diseases that kept them in check in their native lands; they find a more clement climate than they were accustomed to; or we create the ideal conditions for them to flourish with our constantly disturbed soil in yards, in gardens, and on agricultural lands.
It helps to think of a garden as a perpetual Peter Pan of a landscape that never grows up. We never let it mature into a dense meadow, shrubland, or forest where native dominant plants replace the weedy interlopers and establish themselves for the long term. We deliberately keep our gardens in their infancy.
These forever-young gardens are ideally suited to plants we call pioneer species: the first plants to spring up after land has been cleared by fire, flood, storm, or hoe. They’re often annuals,
able to spring up quickly in bare soil and do their reproductive duty before other plants so much as catch their breath after winter’s cold. Invasive pioneer species often blanket entire landscapes once they arrive.
Not all pioneer species, however, are foreigners. There are native species well-suited to the pioneer life, and they can wreak havoc as effectively in the garden as invasives do. We call them aggressive (the polite term of art is “a plant with weedy tendencies”) rather than invasive, but the outcome is much the same in the home patch.
Pioneer plants, both native and invasive, create what botanists call ruderal landscapes (from the Latin rudus, meaning rubble)—and we gardeners call weedy fields. By constantly disturbing the soil (i.e., gardening), we invite ruderal species to flourish.
Other factors are also at work in yards and gardens that could tip the scale between wildflower and weed. Climate change is one of them. Plants that once were suppressed by summer heat or winter cold can be unleashed from their climatic constraints if regional or global temperatures warm up or cool down. Southern weeds increasingly find a foothold farther and farther north, and these days, the Mid-Atlantic region is particularly welcoming to weeds of the Deep South.
A case in point seems to be creeping
cucumber (Melothria pendula), also known as Guadalupe cucumber, drooping melonette, cucamelon, or—my personal favorite moniker—mouse melon. Until recently officially protected in Maryland as a threatened species, this little cucumber cousin has gone viral as an increasingly aggressive weed in the DMV.
Creeping cucumber looks to be a miniature watermelon, about the size of a dime, on thin vines the width of a toothpick. But what they lack in size they make up for in vigor; the annual vines can easily and quickly grow 10 feet long, stealthily infiltrating neighboring vegetation until they are seemingly everywhere. The tiny yellow flowers usually go unnoticed, and the small, striped green fruits blend into the background. Only when the fruits ripen and turn jetblack do they stand out.
Creeping cucumber is widespread in the American tropics, including the Caribbean and the Gulf states. While isolated plants turned up from time to time in Maryland, mostly on the Eastern Shore, botanists assumed its scarcity was a signal the plant needed protection. The deans of Maryland botany, Brown and Brown, in their 1984 Herbaceous Plants of Maryland, noted that Melothria showed “adventive” traits at the time—another polite word meaning a plant that is starting to show up in an area, but is not yet naturalized or self-sustaining. This relative scarcity led the Maryland Department of Natural Resources to list Melothria as threatened as recently as 2019, although it was summarily delisted in 2021. Why the change of horticultural heart?
The yellow flower of a creeping cucumber. Photo by Bob Peterson.
Creeping cucumber ascending a scaffold of spent daylily stems in my garden. Photo by Rick Borchelt.
Gaura
By Kathy Jentz
It turns out that botanists had found creeping cucumber growing with abandon in a weedy patch on the University of Maryland’s College Park campus. Inspired by this sighting, plant hunters in Maryland started looking for it elsewhere—and finding it all over the place. Melothria is currently known to be in at least 10 counties, mostly on the Eastern Shore and in the Piedmont. I can attest that it is now found all over College Park and increasingly in regional gardens it’s in absolutely no need of special protection here!
My own all-too-healthy population of mouse melons arrived a few years ago in wood chips from the College Park Department of Public Works. It’s since become a never-ending annoyance in my garden, spreading from the raised beds where it first gained a beachhead to disporting itself among the daylilies and peonies in the front yard. It runs amok on a neighbor’s fence across the street, too.
Luckily, creeping cucumber is easy to pull. It’s weak enough that you can just rip it out of your other plants without damaging those more-desired companions. Unluckily, that seldom ends the infestation, though, so resign yourself to ripping out the vines whenever you see them, preferably before the prolific fruit ripens—or eat the green fruit (they can be pickled as well!), but leave the fully ripe (blackened) melons for the mice—they cause severe gastrointestinal distress at that stage. o
Rick Borchelt is a botanist and science writer who gardens and writes about natural history at his home in College Park, MD. Reach him with questions about this column at rborchelt@gmail.com.
Gaura (Oenothera lindheimeri previously Gaura lindheimeri) is an herbaceous flowering plant with a floppy, weeping habit that looks good in a cottage garden or planted in containers. It has star-shaped blooms in shades of pale pink and white that flower from late summer into fall.
It is also known as Butterfly Gaura, Lindheimer’s Beeblossom, Indian Feather, and Wand Flower. The flowers attract bumblebees, long-tongue bees, and butterflies.
Although it is reportedly hardy to USDA Zones 5 to 9, it is an annual or tender perennial (also known as temperennial) in our region, depending on your zone and how harsh and wet the winter weather is each year and how heavy your clay soil is. As an extra measure to winter them over, you can add straw mulch around the base to insulate them.
Gaura grows best in full sun and well-draining soils. It is native to Louisiana and Texas.
Cut it back after it finishes flowering and divide the large clumps in mid-spring. You can take cuttings in the fall to propagate them indoors.
Gaura cultivars to try include ‘Siskiyou Pink’ and ‘Whirling Butterflies’. o
Kathy Jentz is the editor of Washington Gardener
The green-striped fruit of creeping cucumber look like miniature melons, prompting the common name mouse melon.
Photo by Jim Brighton.
First Ladies and Their Orchids: A Century of Namesake Cattleyas
Authors: A.A. Chadwick and Arthur E. Chadwick
Publisher: Chadwick & Son, Orchids, Inc.
List Price: $49,95
Order Links: https://amzn.to/45Hc01B and https://bookshop.org/ a/79479/9798218385866
Reviewer: Colin Davan
First Ladies and Their Orchids: A Century of Namesake Cattleyas, by A.A. Chadwick and Arthur E. Chadwick, is the perfect mix of both U.S. history and horticulture. It centers around orchid hybrids that are usually named after prominent women of the day. European royalties such as queens, princesses, empresses, and baronesses were usually honored with a namesake cattleya. However, American culture is different from European royalty; therefore, these American-bred orchids were named after the first ladies o U.S. presidents. The book starts with Edith Bolling Wilson and her namesake orchid and continues through Jill Biden and her orchid.
The Chadwick family are the most responsible for much of this breeding, naming, and preserving process. The book is dedicated to the author’s father, Arthur Chadwick Sr. who, since the age of 13, had been collecting and breeding cattleyas. His father built a greenhouse for his orchids and the two bonded over cattleyas horticulture. Arthur’s knowledge of orchids continued to grow exponentially and so did his orchids until he was well-known in the horticulture community. Arthur died before
the book’s completion, and his son Arthur E. Chadwick picked up the same passion and finished the book.
The book is organized into 19 chapters, with each one giving a profile of the orchid by diving into how it was acquired, bred, named, and presented, and any other history about it, such as awards or certifications. Each chapter also gives a profile of each of the first ladies, their accomplishments, and lives. The chapters are filled with pictures, descriptions, and graphics depicting the flowers’ lineage and composition.
I found the book to be easy to read and very enjoyable. As a student studying history, I found it to be extremely engaging. I enjoyed learning more about some of the first ladies whom I did not know much about. It was also extremely interesting to learn about the breeding process of orchid hybrids. I definitely learned a lot from this book and I believe our readers can, too! o
Colin Davan is an intern this summer session with Washington Gardener. He is a rising senior at the American University in Washington, DC, studying journalism with a minor in history. He grew up just outside of Boston in two towns (Hopkinton and Framingham), both with backyards always filled with a wide variety of flowers, herbs, vegetables, and fruits
Love Letter to a Garden
Author: Debbie Millman
Publisher: Timber Press
Order Link: https://amzn.to/3UPxEun and https://bookshop.org/ a/79479/9781643264981
List Price: $20.00
Reviewer: Miguel Zárate
Love Letter to a Garden by Debbie Millman is a sentimental memoir about her love for the garden. She talks about where her love began as a child, then how it remained with her through change and turbulence.
The book reads much like a picture book, which leads to a diverse and enjoyable reading experience. The style and structure of the book make for a relatively short read compared to some other books reviewed in Washington Gardener. The illustrations and photos help to convey a memory-like experience.
The end of the book comes with recipes written by Millman’s wife, Roxanne Gay, who is also an author.
Millman does admit to the use of some
generative AI in the creation of this book, but none of it was used in the actual writing or the creation of illustrations. She brought the memory she had of an event from her childhood to Midjourney, an AI program, to help her visualize for an illustration.
Aside from that, there isn’t much in the name of actual growing and gardening advice. With that in mind, the artistry and relatively small size of the book makes it an ideal gift book.
Love Letter to a Garden by Debbie Millman is a pleasant read and I definitely recommend it to those interested in modern garden memoirs. o
Miguel Zárate is an intern this summer session with Washington Gardener. He is majoring in journalism with a minor in sustainability. His favorite thing to grow in his mother’s garden, where he helps out, is mint, because it is so plentiful.
Grow a New Garden: Plan, Design and Transform Any Outdoor Space
Author: Becky Searle
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing UK List Price: $34.95
Order Links: https://amzn.to/4p0Xjhh and https://bookshop.org/ a/79479/9781915294401
Reviewer: Ian Ferris
Growing a new garden is like a puzzle. Combining the climate, landscape, soil, and aesthetics to create a sanctuary is like painting a picture with different mediums. Becky Searle uses her experience to create a coloring book for a personal garden experience.
Grow a New Garden reveals Searle’s advice, derived from beginning gardens in new locations. Her advice is both practical and fun. It takes the battle aspect out of gardening and makes it more into a game.
This concept of gardening being a war, a trial of fighting with nature to produce food, is exactly what Searle wants to dispel. Instead, she wants you to work with nature, treating it as a friend to be worked with rather than an enemy to fight.
She covers soil, design, pests, and more in this guide to starting a garden. All of these topics are necessary to begin your process—these essentials will set you up for success in a new environment.
Searle teaches you how to pick the right plants for your garden based on the aforementioned factors and the climate in which you are growing. She also encourages you to incorporate design themes with the plants and materials at your disposal to make your garden more artistic and akin to your personality.
Searle is a good writer, making difficult concepts simple and easy to understand while still keeping the reader engaged with her cheery tone and positive encouragement. This book is good for those, as the title states, looking to “grow a new garden.” Searle’s ability to simplify concepts makes it easy to know why you should do something in your garden and how you can execute it.
Inexperienced gardeners will learn the most from reading this, but even experienced gardeners can learn something from Searle’s experience. o
Ian Ferris is an intern this summer session with Washington Gardener. He is a rising senior at the University of Maryland studying journalism and sustainable agriculture. He
worked on a garden farm near Annapolis, MD, called Maidstone Harvest for two summers, where he learned a lot about growing vegetables in a sustainable and efficient fashion.
Grass Isn’t Greener: The Everyday Conservationist’s Guide to Bringing Nature to Your Yard
Author: Danae Wolfe
Publisher: Timber Press
List Price: $27.99
Order Links: https://amzn.to/45FN8ap and https://bookshop.org/ a/79479/9781643263298
Reviewer: Nancy Eyl
I like how Danae Wolfe opens Grass Isn’t Greener: The Everyday Conservationist’s Guide to Bringing Nature to Your Yard
When setting out to write this book, she states, she visited many wildlife gardens and landscapes that “seamlessly blend[ed] home with habitat.” One thing that struck her is that on nearly every visit, the ownergardener apologized, saying things like, “I’m sorry my garden isn’t mulched,” “I should have weeded before you came,” and “I hope it’s okay that not everything is native.”
I relate to that sentiment. As the passionate gardener of a 2,000-square-foot native garden, I feel the impulse to apologize whenever anyone comes to my garden, but I try to resist. As Wolfe asks, Why should we apologize for being a steward of the Earth? We have created ecological imbalance in our pursuit of an aesthetic. Our biodiversity is at risk due to what we humans have done. But what if we viewed our gardens differently—how would our gardens (and our world) change? She asks, “What if we celebrated our gardens as an oasis of shelter and sustenance for wildlife instead of lamenting over holes in leaves and nibbled blooms?”
The focus of Grass Isn’t Greener is about this celebration; it is about steps we can each take to create a more sustainable planet and garden.
Wolfe takes readers through the steps and thought processes to slowly replace lawns with more sustainable and wildlifefriendly plants. Each of the 20 chapters focuses on a different, important aspect of native gardening. She starts with “understanding your land,” including tips about how and where to test your soil. The next chapter discusses how to “let go of grass,” including tips about getting rid of lawn by “lasagna” (layer) gardening, solarizing the
soil, or mulching. Of course, there is a chapter about native plants.
She also warns about a few things that people might not realize are harmful insect control methods (not to mention ineffective), such as bug zappers and inhumane moth balls and glue traps. I appreciated the tips about how to make outdoor lighting friendlier than not, with a diagram showing the “unacceptable” (light facing the sky) to better (light facing the ground), but best is fully shielded plus a timer or motion sensor.
Wolfe provides information about waterwise strategies, from planting a rain garden to fixing faucets, improving irrigation, and grouping plants with similar water needs, but did you know that native plants act as “natural sponges” and if you plant them densely enough, they will act as living mulch (thus sparing you the need to mulch them)?
One chapter I found especially interesting is the one about garden décor. Christmas trees after the holiday can provide valuable shelter and nesting materials for birds and small animals. As for Halloween, she gives tips for not harming wildlife. For example, fake spider webs can be death traps to birds and small animals. More than a billion pounds of pumpkin waste fills landfills every year, so why not compost it—after roasting the seeds in olive oil and salt? She also suggests hollowing out pumpkins and hanging them with birdseed inside.
There is a chapter about vegetable gardening with tips on companion planting and preserving one’s yield. Of course, the next two chapters are about seed saving and composting.
BOOKreviews
A few of the last chapters are about unity and community. In these chapters, Wolfe provides safety tips such as how to be a good neighbor, keep your garden clean and avoid rodents, prevent ticks with tick tubes (learned something new), and be a backyard scientist.
Naturally, one can’t have a garden without resting and playing in it, so Wolfe ends the book with a chapter about gardens as playgrounds of creativity for children—and adult children. Ideas about hosting a backyard scavenger hunt and building a mud kitchen are inspiring.
The last chapter ends where the book began, with the why or how we got to where we are, and things we all can do to help. Wolfe recognizes that it’s a privilege to have access to a plot of land, with no laws or regulations prohibiting more sustainable gardening, and the time and resources to prioritize nature. Not everyone has these three things. If you do, she suggests you consider looking beyond your backyard to advocate, whether through teaching, planting a school garden, getting political, or trying to reform local policies.
I like how Wolfe cites expert research, such as “The Garden Professors,” a group of university professors dedicated to translating scientific information, or the references listed at the back of the book. She does it in a way that is unobtrusive and easy to read.
I also like the many tips and tidbits she gives in the colorful inserts throughout the book. For example, she discusses using a boot brush to remove invasive seeds (the long-term approach), explains why leaves change colors, instructs about what to do when you find a fawn in your yard, and gives the recipe for a butterfly puddling station. She also explains how to make a snag, build a brush pile, make a toad abode, hang a pinecone feeder, build a garden pond, etc. The book also has some lovely photos. Overall, given the overview of 20 topics, I think it is a good guide or starting point for anyone beginning the journey of building a more sustainable, humane, wildlife-friendly or native garden. This is not a technical book or one that dives into detail about any one topic that a more experienced native gardener might want or need. Like any good gardening book, though, it will teach even experienced gardeners new things. o
Nancy Eyl is a lawyer by day and avid gardener on the weekends. She lives in Takoma Park, MD, and works in Washington, DC.
Herbal Activities for Kids: 50 Nature Crafts, Recipes, and Garden Projects
Author: Molly Meehan Brown
Publisher: Storey Publishing
List Price: $18.99
Order Links: https://amzn.to/4mEYhhN and https://bookshop.org/ a/79479/9781635865844
Reviewer: Kathy Jentz
Herbal Activities for Kids: 50 Nature Crafts, Recipes, and Garden Projects is a new book for parents, grandparents, and teachers of all kinds to guide children through the world of herbalism through various crafts and activities.
The author, Molly Meehan Brown, is the founder of the Wild Ginger Community Herbal Center in Bryans Road, MD. She also draws on the expertise of several herbalists from all over the globe for inspiration and content.
The book is well-illustrated, with colorful photos and vibrant drawings throughout. This makes it an inviting read and allows kids to flip through and dive into any of the projects that they may find engaging. Adults can use it as a teaching took to introduce children to plant-based crafts—tie them into other topics, such as math, culture, etc.
The activities are arranged in sections around the senses introducing children to plants in various ways of interaction from touch to scent to taste. Many children may not be familiar with plants used in this book, so there are lots of visual interactions described as well.
One of my favorites is the Nature Mandala, which is an easy project to do with children of all ages. You can gather flowers, leaves,
and sticks, then arrange then in a sun pattern radiating out from a center. The mandala can be simple or complex. You can add to it over several days and let it change over time. The fact that it is ephemeral is part of the experience.
The section addressing the “Wildcrafting Code of Ethics” will be especially helpful to those new to foraging. The author includes a time for reflecting on our relationship to the land and previous land stewards, as well as addressing the need to avoid overharvesting and causing possible habitat loss.
The book is very much an introductory text to basic herbalism. The author sprinkles bits of herbal lore and teachings throughout it, but only lightly. I found myself wishing for more side notes about things like what to do with the unused plant parts from a craft (my suggestion is to compost them) and more about the possible herbal uses and precautions to take with many of the plants used in the activities. I do appreciate though that this is meant mainly as a basic book written at a child’s level.
The suggested age range for this book is 7 to 11 years old. Several of the activities require adult supervision or at least initial involvement in procuring the supplies. Some could be simplified a bit, such as the flower press, which describes sources for pieces of plywood that not all would have access to. I’d like to have seen more suggestions of alternative materials, such as recycling things to re-use in these projects. For example, you could repurpose an old, damaged hardback book for making that flower press.
Overall, though, the book does a fine job serving its mission of gathering dozens of activities that help children explore the world of herbal plants. It is a great gift idea for any child who shows enthusiasm for exploring the natural world around them. o
Kathy Jentz is editor/publisher of Washington Gardener magazine. A previous version of this review was published in the Fall 2024 issue of Pathways Magazine
Note: The books for these reviews were provided free from their publishers.
These book reviews include links to Amazon.com and BookShop.org for ordering them. Washington Gardener Magazine might receive a few cents from each order placed after you click on these links
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MARCH/APRIL 2007
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MAY/JUNE 2007
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JULY/AUGUST 2007
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SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007
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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2007
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JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2008
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MARCH/APRIL 2008
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MAY/JUNE 2008
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FALL 2009
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WINTER 2009
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SUMMER 2010
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FALL 2010
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SPRING 2011
• Cutting-Edge Gardens
• Final Frost Dates and When to Plant
• Bleeding Hearts
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JULY/AUGUST 2008
• Landscaping with Ornamental Grasses
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SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2008
• Autumn Edibles — What to Plant Now
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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2008
• Outdoor Lighting Essentials
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• Harry Lauder’s Walking Stick
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2009
• Compost Happens: Nature’s Free Fertilizer
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• Grow Winter Hazel for Winter Color
MARCH/APRIL 2009
SUMMER 2011
• Ornamental Edibles
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FALL 2011
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WINTER 2011/EARLY SPRING 2012
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SPRING 2012
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SUMMER 2012
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MAY/JUNE 2009
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• Salad Table Project
• Grow and Enjoy Eggplant
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WINTER/EARLY SPRING 2014
• Ferns for the Mid-Atlantic
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Jentz Prints
Antique Botanical Prints for the decorator, collector, connoisseur, and art lover.
Jentz Prints can be purchased most weekends (weather-dependent) at the world-famous Eastern Market.
Antique prints are affordable—most in the $10-$30 range—and they are the perfect gift idea for that plant lover in your life. And don’t forget to buy a few for yourself! For more information or to get a detailed show schedule, please contact Jentz Prints by email at UllrichJ@aol.com.
