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Imagine one of these munching its way through your garden. I saw this one, and then I saw two others soon after!
Both terrifying (I was initially sure it must be poisonous and stepped back as if it might eat my face) and amazingly beautiful all at once.
Turns out it won’t eat your face or your entire garden, just the frangipani relatives if you have them.
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A sad mess of dessicated branches soon to meet the compost bin is all that remains of my beloved ‘Chinese Ornamental’ hot pepper plant. I had grown fond of this little hot pepper plant and was sad to let it go.
I started the plant from seed two years and lovingly nurtured it through the dry, dark days of winter to bring it outdoors in the spring. The plant began as an experiment in how productive this variety could be in cramped quarters, but it’s resiliency and determination won my heart. My little plant turned out quite a harvest in its first year, despite life in a 5″ pot. Following its first winter indoors, the plant produced new growth, bloomed, and eventually turned out a fine second crop of teeny little hot peppers. Those hot peppers have since been harvested, dried, and divided up into little envelopes as gifts for gardening friends. The cycle is complete.
However, I didn’t intend to write a eulogy about my dead ‘Chinese Ornamental’ hot pepper. My real intention for this post is to talk about letting go of plants.
At the end of any gardening season, I dutifully bring all of my houseplants indoors for the winter, adding in a couple of tender herbs or hot peppers that I’d like to try my hand at keeping inside. Over the last decade I’ve gleaned a lot about strategies for keeping certain plants alive in a dry, sunless apartment and which varieties can tough it out better than others through these seasonal experiments. It’s also good fun and makes the long winter without a functioning outdoor growing space tolerable.
I’m going on a month-long trip very shortly and can’t expect the friends who will be taking care of my plants to put the same effort into dutifully watering and tending to the sixty odd plants that currently live here. Keeping track of the widely varying moisture needs of each plant will be torture for them, let alone the fear of killing any of my most beloved and needy babies. I can’t expect that a certain percentage of my plants will make it through this period alive. Short, week-long trips have always resulted in some inevitable loss. I’m afraid to imagine what kind of deaths an entire month away will bring.
One of my early strategies for dealing with this period away was to repeat the mantra, “No new houseplants!” throughout the growing season, the idea being that I would not bring any new plants into the fold and potentially reduce the number my friends would be left to care for during the month we’ll be away.
How successful do you think that strategy was?
At last count the total number of new houseplants brought home between the months of May and October 2009 total just under 20. In my defense, there seemed to be a lot of temptations out there this year and a particularly high number of friends getting rid of this and that. I wasn’t about to turn away gems like this and this. And this plus, you know, 16 others.
Before bringing the outdoor plants in, I always do a big shift around and cleanup of my indoor growing spaces to make room for the plants that are migrating back inside. Not surprisingly, this year’s clean up took nine hours from start to finish. Nine hours! I will admit that I put a bit more effort into carefully nurturing each plant this year as a strategy for counteracting the difficulty they will soon face. And it was quite therapeutic.
When it came time to decide which plants were going to make it back into the warm cocoon indoors, I had to be brutal and make up for the 20 new plants that had stealthily crept into my life. And so the little ‘Chinese Ornamental’ plant that could had to go as well as many other hot pepper plants and herbs. In a feat that goes completely against my nature to keep on trying with even the most hopeless plants, I managed to toss out a few succulents that had been clinging to life for far too long. It was easier than I imagined and I’ve already forgot which plants they were. Yet for some reason I can’t forget the spider plant I cruelly discarded ten year ago.
A pachypodium that I’ve been itching to see the back of for the last five years is on my currently hit list, if only I can absolve the feelings of ruthless abandonment in time for my impending departure. After all, one less plant for my friends to care for could result in one more, much-loved plant surviving my time away. You think?
Which plants did you let go of this year?
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This isn’t all of it, just some of the stranger items.
Interestingly enough, the year I decide to give up on the garden is the year Operation Garden Terrorism seems to have come to a halt. Or maybe I just didn’t notice the damage because the garden looked so haggard!
Past Interesting Items Found:
Our off-time on a recent trip to New York City was spent wandering around soaking everything in and taking pictures. I didn’t go out of my way to visit specific gardens or community gardens this time, but naturally found some along the way.
One of the community gardens I came upon was the LaGuardia Corner Gardens located in Greenwich Village between Bleecker and Houston Streets. I have come across this particular garden on past trips and have even taken some photos of it. I had a rough idea of where it was located and was pleasantly surprised when we stumbled upon it on our last day.
I’m not sure what it is about this garden that had me hoping to find it again. Maybe it’s the location, which is particularly interesting as the garden sits smack dab in front of a supermarket with a fence around it.
There are several community gardens in New York City that are a good twenty years in the making. Through the years the landscape and socio-economic standing of the communities that surround them have changed, often times from poor to rich and from rubble to fancy metal and glass contemporary structures. As a result, these gardens and their gardeners always have an interesting story to tell.
The history of LaGuardia Corner Gardens is your typical community garden story beginning with local residents digging a garden on barren, unused land, then fighting to keep the garden alive amidst a changing neighborhood.
While I was taking photos, a woman came up to me and mentioned that a rooster had been spotted poking around in the garden the day before. She didn’t know where he came from or if he was still there. This exchange and information sharing is one of the things I enjoy most about photographing gardens. If you hang around long enough looking like you belong, someone is always bound to come by, eager to reveal the garden’s secrets.
Sure enough, as we made our way around the perimeter we eventually spotted him darting about, stopping now and again to take a bite out of a plant. I wonder if he is still there and how much of the garden remains!
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This piece was originally published in The Globe & Mail over the weekend as a part of my series on kitchen gardening.
Regarding using burlap and burlap sacks: Just to be clear, do keep them away from the crowns of your plants since they can get awfully heavy when wet. In fact, they are best used over the winter to prevent the erosion of large, open patches of soil from which annuals have been removed. Even better still, place the dead plant matter (browns) and some kitchen scraps (greens) underneath the burlap and you’ll have fresh compost on the spot come spring.
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I love a fresh, crisp fall day. Many of us would agree that it would be the best season of the year if not for the fact that it is a stepping-stone to the inevitable: winter.
Who knows what this fall will bring given the wacky weather hijinx we’ve experienced this year. But let’s pretend for a moment that everything will go as planned and there won’t be snow sprinkled on the peppers tomorrow morning (please gods). We can’t control the weather or stave off the inevitable, but as gardeners there are a few methods we can employ to hold back the effects of seasonal change and keep the party going just a wee while longer.
You’re already one step ahead if your garden is a raised bed. They warm up slightly early in the spring and tend to stay warmer as the fall cools down. A thick layer of mulch such as straw, buckwheat hulls, or shredded newspaper keeps the soil and surface roots warm through nippy nights and breezy fall days. An actual blanket made of burlap gets the job done too, but can get awfully heavy when wet so be sure to cut big holes to keep it off the crowns of plants. An even better blanket still is black plastic. The dark colour attracts the sun’s rays and the plastic holds moisture through fluke fall droughts.
In lieu of cumbersome blankets, which can be difficult to maneuver in small spaces, or used alongside them, are an assortment of store-bought and homespun contraptions that can be fitted over individual plants or entire beds to trap warm air and create the effect of a miniature greenhouse. Hoop houses are toasty-warm tunnels made of metal or plastic hoops draped with a clear plastic tarp that let’s light in and keeps warm air from escaping. You can buy them ready made from garden suppliers such as Lee Valley or make your own inexpensively using bendable metal shaped into arcs or dollar-store hula-hoops cut in half. Push the arcs into the soil intermittently to support the length of the tunnel and cover with a big sheet of plastic. Secure the plastic in place by stapling to the sides of raised beds or with clips purchased at the hardware store.
Greenhouses made to cover individual plants are called cloches. Fancy glass cloches are nice to look at but expensive at about $30-40 a pop! Never mind, you can make as many as you like in a variety of sizes for free from plastic water bottles rescued from the recycling bin. Simply cut off the bottom and set the cloche over tender greens or frost-sensitive plants you’d like to keep in the garden just a little bit longer. Keeping the cap in place locks warmth inside, or you can remove it to water your plants and let heat escape on particularly sunny days.
Cold frames are the way to go if you’d like to get a shot at keeping particularly cold hardy greens such as mâche, kale, spinach, and arugula producing food straight through into the winter (and beyond). It’s really nothing more than a low-tech box with a hinged glass or plastic lid. The trick is to dig the box at least a few inches into well-draining soil and give it a south-facing position. Open the lid when it gets too hot, and insulate both the sides and top with newspapers, straw, and old burlap sacks when night temperatures drop below freezing. They’re not exactly practical when growing up on a roof or in pots but compact versions set on top of a planter box will ensure at least a few extra homegrown salads this fall.
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