Mid-winter gardening

Author: Lorraine Flanigan
Published on: Mar 7, 1999

A mid-winter Gardening Escape from last weekend's grey, overcast, bone-chilling Sunday afternoon -- that's what I was looking for. The day was warm enough to promise hope of an early spring (and the start of the gardening season), yet it still had the dampness and dullness of a mid-winter day. Mercifully, Toronto's Civic Garden Centre provided me and about twenty other obsessive gardeners with the escape we were looking for by mounting an afternoon course entitled, City Gardening: Plans and Plants for 1999.

We knew at once that we were in a precarious state of mind when landscape designer Judith Adam held up the special gardening edition of Martha Stewart Living http://www.marthastewart.com. It's a dangerous time of the year, she warned. We've had enough of winter, we've thumbed the seed catalogues until their pages are curled, our eyes are saturated with the full colour plant photos on the covers of seed packets. Our thoughts have turned to gardening and we'll stop at every magazine rack to satisfy our horticultural urges.

Having acknowledged our seasonal weakness for the glitz and glamour of gardening, Judith quickly brought us back down to earth with a seminar that focused on first principles, reminding us that the key to successful gardening is in the soil, the water, and the nutrients so essential to those centrefold plants featured in the gardening magazines we love to buy.

If you can relate to any of this, put down your copy of M S L and come with me on a cyber-tour of Judith's first principles of good gardening:

Water: Throwing water up into the air is a popular way of getting plants wet. At one time or another, we've all used an oscillating sprinkler that sprays water through the air, across the lawn, and into the garden. But Judith warns that by hurling water through the air, you'll loose up to 40% of the moisture through evaporation, leaving less to reach the ground where plants need it. Equally as inefficient are in-ground irrigation systems designed primarily to water turf grass. When used in the flower bed, the 45 angle of the sprays hits plant foliage, the water drips down the leaves to puddle on the ground. You're left with very dry spots and very wet spots in the garden.

Instead of either of these methods, Judith recommends watering at ground level. If all you have is a traditional hose, lay it on the ground in your flower bed where 100 percent of the water will reach your plants. Move it around from time to time until the entire bed has been watered.

A soaker hose is the very best thing to use to water your garden, says Judith. Like a normal hose, only with small holes all over, it works like a sieve, slowly seeping water into the garden at ground level. Snake it through the flower border where it can live permanently, hidden by plant foliage. When you need to water the bed, hook it up to the faucet and leave it on for five to six hours.

Soil: A well-watered garden is only one part of the equation. In order to absorb the water, soil must be porous. Clay is about the least absorbent of all soil types, and to make it porous, Judith recommends adding sharp sand and pea gravel and lots of organic material. When many gardeners hear the words, "organic material", they think of peat moss (http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/urba... -- that finely milled, dry, natural resource readily available at local garden centres. But Judith warns that because peat moss breaks down very quickly, it needs constant replenishment. This could get expensive in a large garden.

So, for two reasons, Judith's favourite organic material are leaves. One -- they're readily available and, two -- worms love to eat them, pulling them down into the ground, adding to the porosity of the soil, and depositing castings (worm manure) at the roots of the plants.

She also urges gardeners to find a pine tree and rake the needles into your garden bed. Their great value lies in their ability to aerate the soil. This is because they can't for the life of them lie flat on the ground. Instead, their naturally curvaceous shapes are surrounded by little pockets of air which increases soil porosity. Although some people worry about the acidity of pine needles, Judith advises that the acid takes so long to break down and leech into the soil that it rarely raises the pH level of the soil..

Fertility: When we left the trees to stand upright on this earth, mankind was surrounded by a naturally occurring, lush, tropical forest. Nature was taking care of herself, without the need for fertilizer. "There was no Canadian Tire Store selling bags of fertilizer in the middle of the forest!" argues Judith. For plants, fertilizer is "extra food". Too much of this extra food stresses a plant and shortens its life.

"We need to rethink how we use fertilizer," she says. Rather than overwhelming plants, we should use fertilizers to trigger natural plant hormones. Plants use hormones when they are getting ready to grow, and since plants start their growth cycle in the spring, that's when we should be using fertilizers.

"You ought to have a prescription for fertilizers with high numbers like 20-20-20!", she warns. Instead, she recommends using fertilizers with low N-P-K numbers (http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/nort... -- all three numbers should be below ten. One of Judith's favourites is a combination of fish and kelp because kelp contains plant hormones, and when used regularly, intensifies the colour and scent of flowers like roses. And, for marginally hardy plants, kelp strengthens them so that they can better withstand our harsh winters.

Planting: "Cover the soil!" These are Judith's parting words of advice as she moves from slide to slide, showing us densely packed flower beds that act as colourful shields against the hot, drying effects of the sun. Plants growing shoulder to shoulder hold soil temperatures down and keep moisture in the ground where plants need it.

Where to go for more advice: In her recently published book, The New City Gardener Judith talks about these and other techniques and skills for urban gardeners. It's filled with the advice borne of a true obsessive gardener, delivered with wit, whimsy and the author's down to earth style. The New City Gardener http://www.publicityworks.com/spring99/N... Firefly Books, 1999 with photos by Tim Saunders.