Winterberry – Ilex verticillata

Winterberry 11-7-11

It was Martha Stewart who first introduced me to winterberry, a native deciduous holly. Since it was Martha who pointed it out in an arrangement I thought it must be exotic, and not something I could grow.  I was wrong.

I did buy and plant five winterberry plants this spring, four female ‘Winter Red,’ and one male ‘Southern Gentleman’, but this photo is of a clump of winterberry growing by the side of the road. Those roadside shrubs are in a damp spot which gives me hope that my new plants will survive even though the weather has been wet and strange  all this season.

It is a joy when a plant like this is a native that supports the native wildlife and is beautiful in  the garden.

Good Berry – Bad Berry

Cotoneaster

When I walked through the garden the other day I realized how many red berries I have in the fall. Three years ago I noticed for the first time that my holly, ‘Blue Princess,’ and my cotoneasters had finally started producing berries. That berry production has gotten more prolific and beautiful each year.

Hollies are dioecious plants, which means they need separate male and female plants to cross pollinate and produce fruits. While there are many holly cultivars I chose Ilex x meservae ‘Blue Prince’ and ‘Blue Princess’ because they are among the hardiest of the hollies and ‘Blue Princess’ is considered one of the heaviest berry producers.

Both of these hollies are hardy in Zone 5 which is winter temperatures down to minus 20 degrees. They like moist but well drained acid soil and sun, although they will tolerate some shade. Full sun will give the best berry production. ‘Blue Princess’ and ‘Blue Prince’ will both attain a mature size of about 12 feet or more with a spread of up to ten feet. Fortunately they grow slowly only about six inches a year. In six years my ‘Blue Princess’ grew to about four feet tall and three feet wide. The ‘Blue Prince’ is smaller.

I love being able to prune off a few berry-laden branches for Christmas decorations, but I planted the hollies because I wanted more shrubs in the Lawn Bed. I am not ready to give up perennials, but as I get older I am looking for ways to cut down on the labor of maintaining perennials, dividing and cutting back, and weeding. Shrubs are so various with countless foliage forms, textures and colors, and even colorful blooms and berries that I think they add great richness to the garden.

About the same time  the hollies I planted two cotoneasters as groundcovers to provide a foil for the conifers I had in the Lawn Bed. They don’t grow very tall, only one or two feet for most varieties and the leaves are small and dark green. They are hardy and very attractive in every season.  I couldn’t wait for these to cover the ground individually and planted them much too close together. They have now merged and I’d be hard put to say which is which. One of them produces large quince-like blossoms in the spring. I just learned that the name ‘cotoneaster’ comes from two Latin words meaning similar to quince.

All cotoneasters (cuh-TOE-knee-asters) produce small red berries in the fall which will attract birds, if they are very hungry. They will not attract deer which makes me very happy.

Highbush cranberry

A third red berry that attracts birds in my garden the American highbush cranberry, the native Virburnum trilobum. This shrub is about 12 feet high in my garden and gives me no trouble at all. In the spring it produces flat airy blossoms that contain both fertile and infertile flowers. It is because of the flowers that I planted the highbush cranberry next to the Cottage Ornee. It also has very attractive palmate leaves.

The berries turn red in September and they are really beautiful. The birds love them, but I recently learned that they are not only edible for humans, but that they will make a very nice jelly.The berries are easy to pick because they grow in thick clusters and there are no thorns.

The berries can be harvested as soon as they are red, even though they will be crunchy at first. Freezing them before preparing them for processing will soften them up. I have been told that they taste very much like the cranberries, Vaccinium macrocarpon, that are so indispensable on the Thanksgiving table.

The birds are certainly thankful. Most of my berries, without any help from me, are gone by Thanksgiving.

Autumn olive

While I welcome holly, cotoneaster, and viburnam berries in my garden I have other red berries that are a source of dismay and frustration. The first is autumn olive, Elaeagnus umbellata, which we bought from the Conservation District many years ago. I planted three or four at the edge of the lawn, happy that they were fast growing and produced berries for the birds. They actually produce berries for me too, but I have never used them even though many people cook them up into a jam.

It did not take us long to see that the wind, or the birds, were seeding autumn olive in the field east of our planting. Over the years our planting died out except for one remaining bush. We are trying to eradicate the autumn olives in the east field.

The other dismaying berries are hips of the pasture rose which was here before we bought our house. We are constantly removing these briary, prickery roses and it is a never ending battle. They are very pretty and I have used sprays of their small red hips in holiday decorations, but mostly I arm myself with a heavy shirt and dungarees and leather gloves and try and cut them back at the root. Again and again.

Shrubs that produce beautiful berries give our gardens a long interesting season, and may attract our beloved birds, but if we are wise, we will be careful when we make our choices. We don’t want to invite trouble when we plant for color and for the birds. ###

Between the Rows   October 29, 2011

Cranberries in the Garden

As I was baking cranberry bread yesterday, I remembered an interview I did  with Wil Kiendzior and his wife Louisa Sapienza about their cranberry beds. Cranberries are another perennial crop that can be added to your edible garden.

Wil Kiendzior started gardening when two things converged in his life.  His two daughters were born and he started teaching high school courses on ecology and the environment, using Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring as a text. His first gardens grew out of his concern about the dangers of chemical pesticides and herbicides, and concern for his daughters’ health and safety.

His daughters grew up and the gardens continue to grow.  Since his retirement last year from the Mohawk Trail Regional High School, where he taught environmental science courses for 33 years, he has spent a lot of time expanding his Buckland gardens.

Kiendzior and his wife Louisa Sapienza, whom he married in 2002, are trying to become as self sufficient in food as possible. In addition to the vegetable gardens which include such perennials as horseradish, rhubarb, comfrey and other herbs, Kiendzior and Sapienza have planted fruit trees, raspberries, blueberries. They have a sunroom which acts as a greenhouse where they can grow greens through the winter, and start seedling in the spring. They also keep bees and harvest honey.

Sapienza said they are always working on soil building, liming the soil, digging in compost, manure, greensand and rock phosphate.

About six years ago, Sapienza, who loves cranberries, saw them listed in a catalog and suggested they grow some. Kiendzior was skeptical, but thinking about the benefits of another food crop and her enthusiasm he finally agreed.

It was a surprise to me to learn that it does not take a wet bog to grow cranberries.  In fact, they do not like saturated conditions, requiring just about as much water as any vegetable garden. What they do demand is full sunlight, and peaty, acid soil with lots of organic matter.

Kiendzior understood that perennial crops like cranberries need good soil preparation. He said he dug in lots and lots of peat moss, sand and fertilizers.

The official recommendation for 8 plants is a bed that is four feet wide and 8 feet long, allowing sufficient room for the cranberries to send out runners. The bed is prepared by digging out six inches of the soil and replacing it with a mixture of equal amounts of peat moss and sand. As you make this mixture of sand and peat moss you have to keep watering the peat moss which absorbs water very slowly. Patience is a necessity.

To the peat and sand add two cups each of bonemeal, blood meal, Epsom salts and rock phosphate and mix in well.  These will provide the essential nutritional requirements potassium and phosphorous.

Kiendzior’s first bed was a large block, about ten feet square.  It has filled out so it is totally covered with productive plants, but he quickly decided that additional plants would be planted in rows that would be easier to care for.

The root ball of the young plant should be placed slightly deeper that the soil surface. Like any newly planted seedling, the cranberry bed should be well watered after planting and throughout the summer. Peat moss needs to be kept moist to the touch.

Cranberries like nitrogen and should be fertilized with fish emulsion during the growing season.  Keep the beds weeded.

Each plant will begin to send out runners so the plants form a mat.  After two years the bed should be sanded, that is sprinkled with a half inch of clean sand in early spring before new growth begins. This encourages the production of upright berry bearing branches.  Sanding should be done every three years to rejuvenate the plants and control disease and pests.

After three years the runners can be trimmed back and the older uprights pruned back to keep the plants productive.

Once the plants are four years old they will start to bear. Cranberries should be harvested by hand before there is the threat of a killing frost, usually in late September when the fruit is a deep red.

Cranberries are a hardy evergreen but they must be protected from the cold. They should be covered with a mulch of pine needles or leaves.  You can even cover them with a rowcover or sheet of opaque white plastic and then layer on the mulch.  Don’t remove the mulch until the spring when there is no danger of frost.

I was interested to see that the Cranberry Experiment Station in East Wareham suggests putting mousebait under the mulch to prevent rodents from making a cozy nest and destroying the plants over the winter.

For people like Kiendzior and Sapienza who want to feed themselves through a long winter, cranberries are an ideal crop.  First they are extremely nutritious. They are full of vitamin C and other antioxidants.

Second they can be bagged up and thrown in the freezer with no processing.  They will also keep for a very long time right in the refrigerator.

And finally, this native berry is  delicious. Sapienza cooks them up with a little water, brings them to a boil and cooks them for a couple of minutes until they pop.  Off the stove she adds a little maple syrup to sweeten them and chopped up orange, or pineapple. “I have them as a breakfast fruit, or a snack, or with dinner. I love them anytime,” she said.

Cranberries do not need cross pollination but Ben Lear is an early variety with large burgundy berries, Stevens is a mid-season berry with large red berries and Howes is a late season variety with small red berries.

Sources: Cranberry Creations, www.cranberrycreations.com;  Fedco Seeds  www.fedcoseeds.com; Gurney’s Nursery, PO Box 4178, Greendale, IN 47025-4178, www.gurneys.com; Miller Nurseries, 5060 West Lake Rd, Canandaigua, NY, 14424-8904 www.millernurseries.com.

Cranberry Bread

Between the Rows  May 24, 2008

Wordless Wednesday – Fall’s Colors

Sumac

Northern Sea Oats

Parsley - still

Fennel

Rue

For more Wordless beauties this Wednesday click here.

Elise Schlaikjer

Elise Schlaikjer

Elise Schlaikjer has named all the houses she has lived in Phoenix House, but when she moved to Greenfield, just two years ago, the name was especially apt. It took a fall and a head injury, but Schlaikjer decided that after 23 years in Michigan it was time to move nearer her daughter Laura, in Greenfield. At the age of 73 she was ready to start a new life, like the Phoenix rising from the ashes, reborn and full of new energy.

The energy may have been renewed but it was an old passion for gardening that she carried with her from Michigan. The energy and the passion are evident in the gardens Schlaikjer has created during her first two years in Greenfield. She has chopped down great pines that threw too dense a shade, grubbed out a big area for a vegetable garden, berry patches and flower gardens, built a deck, and a stunning labyrinth with a tiny temple at its heart.

She has planted those favorites of mine, roses and lilacs. One border contains Wild Spice rugosa, Topaz Jewel rugosa,  Souvenir de Malmaison and those David Austin hybrids, Gertrude Jekyll, and Graham Thomas, as well as the climbers, Golden Showers and Pearly Gates.

Throughout the perennial gardens she has planted lilacs from Greenfield Garden Club sales, as well as the beautiful double white Beauty of Moscow to the single dark purple Yankee Doodle, and President Poincaire, a double magenta lilac, all with delicious fragrance.

Elise's fenced vegetable garden, mid-September

In Michigan she had big edible gardens that helped feed a retreat center as well as herself, and founded a farmer’s market that continues on without her, offering music, workshops, a newsletter, and fresh local produce to shoppers, as well as the support that all small farms need.

Here in Greenfield she has planted and fenced a 30 by 30 foot vegetable garden as she learns how much to plant for her own household and the new friends she is making.

The vegetable garden had to be her first project because “I feel strongly about being self sufficient, being able to feed myself.” Building that garden took compost that she bought from Martin’s, and Bear Path Farms, and help to build the raised bed frames. Still, “My back attests to the fact that I did most of the work myself,” she said.

She has also planted blueberries, a type of currant that does not host pine rust which can threaten pine trees, raspberries and elderberries. She even has a small chicken coop built behind her garage to house four laying hens.

Vegetables, berries and hens are all a part of her self-sufficiency plan, but Schlaikjer knows that our spirits require more. On the eastern side of her garage there is an ornamental garden filled with perennials, and stumps of old trees. She has covered these large flat stumps with the stones she removed from the soil as she prepared this planting bed, making them platforms for bird baths. I have never seen anyone turn rubble stones into a beautiful element in the garden the way she has.

Other perennial beds flank a gateway to the labyrinth. It is clear that Schlaikjer has a real affection for stones, because the most stunning part of her landscape is a stone labyrinth with a tiny temple in the center.  The labyrinth was laid out with the help of her dowsing pendulum which also located the center of the labyrinth.  When workers dug in preparation for the building of what was originally to be a gazebo they found a huge boulder of white quartz, a stone that is considered to be able to transmit energy.

With the discovery of the quartz boulder, Schlaikjer decided that the gazebo would become a temple that would receive energy from the earth and from the heavens. The main furnishing of the temple is an extraordinary  throne-like chair, carved out of a maple tree trunk by a Michigan friend of Schlaikjer’s, depicting many wild creatures like a turtle, bear, squirrel and others.

Many of the stones that make up the labyrinth have been given by friends and visitors to the garden,. She wanted to make the creation of the labyrinth a community affair, instead of a solitary effort. “Also because, like a spider web, every stone becomes an energy connector between each contributor and the labyrinth…….. letting love and healing energy flow among us all.  I do ask each person, when they lay their rock, to lay it with an intention or prayer.  It is my place of prayer and meditation and I try to walk it every day,” she said.

Being a part of a community means that one gives and receives. When I asked Schlaikjer what advice she would give to a new gardener she didn’t only talk about starting small, making compost, and no till techniques. She added that “ a sense of adventure is important and not getting discouraged by things not working out as planned.  I look at the adventure as a learning, a gift that teaches if we are open, and also a source of fun.   And, yes, there are some things that feel very painful, like an invasion of grasshoppers, but that too, can give us a greater appreciation of what farmers have to deal with.”

I think Elise Schlaikjer is a gift we can all learn from. ###

Between the Rows   November 6, 2010

Cindy’s Mosaics

Shelburne Mosaic

Saturday was a big day in Shelburne Falls, home of the Bridge of Flowers. There had been events at the Buckland Shelburne Community Hall for Cider Day but there was also a dedication of the 12 vitreous glass mosaics created by Cynthia Fisher of Big Bang Mosaics in cooperation with students from the elementary and high schools, as well as members of the community. Ten of the 3 x 3 foot mosaics depict iconographic aspects of the ten towns in our area. Two slightly larger mosaics honor the Native Americans who lived here, and the Deerfield River which tumbles over Salmon Falls in the middle of the town.

Cindy and Jayden of BSE school

Three towns supplied the full amount of requested funding and so as the students worked on the main mosaic they  also made a smaller one that will remain in the school. The Buckland Shelburne School was presented with their mosaic at the dedication. The sturdy frames that hold the mosaics were designed and fabricated by the students at Franklin Technical High School.

Ideas for each mosaic were generated by the third graders in each town. With students’ help Cindy drew the template and then older students during art classses cut (nipped) the glass tiles and glued them in place.  Heath is famous for its lowbush blueberries, the acres of sunflowers being grown for fuel to run farm machinery, historic farms, and, of course, the Heath Fair. We have a drawerful of Heath Fair t-shirts, a different design each year.

You can see all the mosaics, and learn more about the project by clicking here.

That’s my Three for Thursday.  Check out Cindy MCOK at My Corner of Katy and see what other trios abound.

Winterberry?

Driving around town I spotted  a group of shrubs with brilliant red berries growing by the road. In the warm autumnal sun the berries were really beautiful. The shrubs are about five feet tall. Could these be Ilex verticillata, winterberry?

Another view. What do you think?

Robert Dane Loves the Blues

Robert Dane's Blueberry Bud Vases

Bob Dane loves the blueberries Heath is famous for. He also loves the blueberry fields where they are grown which is why he has donated these sweet blueberry bud vases to the Franklin Land Trust to use as a gift for all those who donate $250 or more to the FLT and ear mark that gift “The Benson Place” to support the Agricultural Preservation Restriction (APR)  and trail easement that has been awarded to the Benson Place Blueberry Farm in Heath. These covenants will ensure farming and passive recreation on that land for years to come.

Robert Dane's Tutti Frutti Goblets

Heath is famous for blueberries, and Bob is famous for his blown glass. His tutti frutti goblets, beautiful and whimsical, are one of his trademarks.  He sells his work, and that of the country’s most noted glass artists at the Dane Gallery on Nantucket. Hillary Clinton has shopped at the Gallery when visiting Nantucket!  His wife Jayne, is co-owner and Director of the Gallery.

But Bob is not  only an amazing  and skilled artist, and supporter of land preservation (he is on the Board of the FLT) he is a gardener! His tiny vegetable garden is right outside the back door adjacent to the stone terrace.  He needs to keep it small because of his work schedule.  It contains winter squash, kale and beets that he doesn’t have to worry about until late in the season.  On the other hand, his second planting of arugula is coming along nicely and he continues to enjoy stuffed zucchini blossoms – as well as the zucchini squash. Bob is a great cook, too.

Tiny thyme

All of us in Heath have a good time in the summer, but we can feel we are on a tight schedule. Time is always an issue.  However, Bob says he has “‘lots of thyme.” Between the stone pavers on the terrace he has wooly thyme, creeping thyme, tiny thyme and regular common thyme. I’ve been feeling the need for more time, but Bob has shown me how to have more thyme.  Thanks, Bob.

A Berry Blue Summer

Blueberries on the bush

Netting the blueberries was the big garden task of the weekend.  Between the heat, the thunderstorms, adventures with visiting grandson Tynan, picking raspberries and preparing to host the  Heath Gourmet Club on Saturday night, this job kept getting postponed. Finally, on Sunday, with the sun shining and a deliciously cool breeze blowing, we set to. The berries are just starting to  ripen here at the End of the Road, but the birds are starting to circle.

We planted our blueberry bushes at least 27 years ago. For many years we just threw nets over them to keep the birds away, but we finally got smart and built a PVC pipe cage. The cage covers the five bushes that are planted in a straight line. If we had thought of the necessity and practicality of a netted cage we would have planted the bushes in a block.

Black plastic netting goes over the pipe supports and is tied in place with twistees.  In the photo above you can see that two large bushes live outside the cage, providing a few early berries for us, and many berries for the birds. I may not supply the birds with sunflower and thistle seeds, but I do provide a good supply of blueberries.

The netted berries supply us with a long season of freshly picked berries that do not have to be picked daily the way raspberries do. They are the most considerate of berries, hanging on the bush for days without rotting or spoiling. In fact they are considerate of the gardener’s labor as well.  Once these bushes were planted in our naturally acid soil, they have not needed any other care.  I occasionally cut out small dead branches; that is the only pruning required.

I pick my blueberries at my leisure and enjoy the these healthiest of fruits in the summer, and through the winter, pulling bags of them out of the freezer. At my leisure.

Late Boys, Early Raspberries and Runaways

Drew and Anthony in the raspberries

All week we had been waiting for our daughter Kate and her family to arrive. We knew they had been at her husband’s family reunion at a state park in NY, celebrating his parents 80th and 90th birthday – and their 60th wedding anniversary. I expected them to arrive mid-week, but there was no word. We called Kate’s cell phone. We sent emails. We sent Facebook messages. No word. No word. No word. Had they been carjacked? We did internet research and found phone numbers for two of Greg’s sisters.  We called. We left messages. Finally, we heard. They stayed in the park (no Internet in the park!) camping after the official Sunday party, visiting and enjoying the park and the family.  And learning that Greg’s very proper parents had more than a whirlwind courtship. They met on a group date, went out together twice more before they had to part to their respective, distant homes. They corresponded and arranged a wedding that took place six weeks later.  Those mad romantic fools!

Drew and Anthony

Kate, Greg, Anthony and Drew finally arrived on the Fourth of July. A whirl to measure them on the door – and learn that Drew grew 7 inches in the last year and is now just a mite taller than his brother! Then off to a Mohawk Trails Concert with classical music, Broadway music – and Small Change joined by famous jazz French hornist (and Heathan) John Clark playing their special music. I don’t know how to classify it, but the boys, and we, had a great time!

Once home we sent the boys off to pick raspberries. Usually when they are here they pick blueberries, but the raspberries are early this year. You can see I really need to thin the raspberries better. Thinning and pruning sufficiently are two of my weaknesses. I find it so hard to cut back when the plants have been successful and grown vigorously. We had those raspberries on ice cream in the Cottage Ornee after supper. The evening was cooling down and the Cottage caught the breeze. The ice cream was still really good after a hot Fourth.

As we walked from the raspberry patch to the house the boys noticed a runaway rose.  This rose has not runaway into the field from it’s nearest neighbor, but from . . .  ?  It looks like one of the Farm Girls who grow some distance away. Did a bird spread the seed?

I used to think this was an apothecary rose, but now I am doubtful. Whatever it is, it is thriving in a very wet spot and spreading by root into the adjoining field.

The roses Terri Pettingill gave me from her mother’s house in Maine have never really thrived here, but this  one is sending roots out into the field as well.  Controlling roses is trickier than I ever thought it would be, and sometimes it requires a ruthlessness I have not been able to muster.