Plans for 2023

 2022 was a particularly bad year  for me in the vegetable garden.  Conversely it was a great year for our local ground hog and rabbits.  The chicken wire fencing that I had sunk in around the perimeter had sufficiently rusted away to allow too many access points to control.  So may first garden job this year is to  rebuild the subsurface groundhog fence.  I've adopted a design I found on the Massachusetts Audubon site.  The key feature is that it extends the fencing horizontally outward from the fence.  This is supposed to make it more frustrating for critters to dig under the fence.  In preparing the area for the new fencing I needed to clear out the wild blackberries that are encroaching on the garden.  A future headache will be when blackberries start growing up through the horizontal welded wire.

Here's the garden last spring.  You can see the dense growth of
blackberries on the left that is encroaching from the outer fence. 
The inner fence need to be re-established at the base. 
I'm planning on transplanting a fig to the center.

Here's the plan for the buried welded wire fencing that should
keep the ground hog from burrowing under.  The loosely attached
chicken wire creates an unstable barrier that the ground hogs
find difficult to climb on.

While many folks do not like these somewhat weedy blackberries, with a little management they can produce some good quality fruit.  The secret is to prune back the long flowering branches to 4-8 buds in late winter/early spring.  This reduces the number of berries produced, but increases their size and sweetness.  In fact last year the blackberries were the best performing food plant in the garden.  In addition the tall blackberry canes around the garden help deter the deer from jumping over the double fence.  For a good resource for keeping deer out of a garden take a look at Deerproofing your Yard and Garden by Rhonda Hart.

Last year I started growing a 'Brown Turkey' fig outdoors in the ground.  It should do fine with the cold, it's cold hardy in USDA zones 5-9.  It does, however, get browsed by deer.  For this reason I will move one out to the center of the fenced in vegetable garden.  

Replacing Exotic Spireas

Over the past couple of years I have been accumulating native some native shrubs as replacements for exotic spireas and forsythia.  First was New Jersey tea (Ceanothus americanus).  This grows about 3' tall and wide in part to full sun and dryish, slightly acidic soils.  A major drawback is that deer and rabbits like to eat it. I will be using those in the pool enclosure where at least the deer are excluded.  Sizewise this is a good replacement for the spireas that I currently have.  

I have been growing meadowsweet, Spiraea alba for awhile.  This species is a vigorous grower with a rather rangy habit.  It is better suited as background plant, rather than a feature.  Last year I got a couple of shinyleaf meadowsweet, Spiraea corymbosa.  This Mid-Atlantic native has a habit more similar to that of its Asian relatives.  I will give this one a try in pool enclosure as well.

Another plant that I have been seeking for a long time is prairie willow (Salix humilis).  This Northeastern native willow is early spring blooming and only grows 4-6' tall.  It seems to be a good visual substitute for forsythia.  A couple have overwintered well in the ground.  If these continue to perform well I should be able to make more, since willows are particularly easy to propagate.    

this is the shinyleaf meadowsweet as it arrived last summer. 
If it has overwinter successfully, I will get it in the ground later this spring.

Woodland Management

Managing a landscape is as much about taking plants out as it is expanding and adding new plants.  In one area that is an early successional woodland (trees 15-20 years old) I have been aggressively killing off Tree of Heaven (Alianthus altissima).  As the larger ones are coming down the canopy is opening up and I'm seeing an increase in the undergrowth.  I need to manage this area by selective removing killing invasive species like multiflora rose (Rosa multiflora) and garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata).  Late winter/early spring is a good time to hit these with herbicide, while the native species are dormant.  For the larger roses I've been doing cut stem treatments (apply 20% glyphosate to freshly cut stumps with foam paint brush).  Garlic mustard and dense masses of rose with leaves get the standard foliar spray.  

I'm trying to eliminate the Tree of Heaven that has dominated
this young woodland.  Most of the trunks laying on the ground
are ones that I have successfully treated using the Hack and
Squirt method.  In the center is one of the musclewoods
that grow well in this mostly shady area.

These trees were treated two years ago with a commercial
mixture of 2,4-D and dicamba.  The one in front is being
helped along by some currently unknown critter.

My goal here is to maintain this as a high quality woodland.  A couple of years ago I started adding some young 2 gallon oaks and red maples, but these did not survive in this minimally cared for location.  There is some debate about how effective humans are at forest regeneration and that letting trees grow from the natural seed bank may be more effective.  So now I am just adding protective cages around desirable seedlings especially oaks, maples, black cherry and musclewood (Carpinus caroliniana).  The most prolific native tree in these woods are box elders (Acer negundo).  These don't need any protection.

I am, however, adding some bare root evergreens to our windbreak to the north and west of our house.  The white pine trees here are aging out and I would like to get some replacements established before these have to come out.  This year I am adding some red cedar (Juniperus virginiana) and Canaan firs (Abies balsamea var. phanerolepis).  Of the fir trees I've tried to grow here in the neutral pH soil in Pleasant Valley, the Canaan fir seems to be the happiest. 

This Canaan fir is still in the wire cage I
put around it to protect from deer rubbing.

Shade Management

Another bit of shade management I did was to take out a rapidly growing tulip tree that was too close to the house and swimming pool and would soon cast too much shade on some smaller trees and shrubs.  I figured I could cut it myself this year while it was under 40' tall, any bigger and I would want professional help.  Many of the other tulip trees here are 80+ feet tall.  I really hated removing a native tree like this but in this location it would soon dominate the landscape.

The tulip tree I removed was only about 10 years old
(see inset) but was already nearly 40' tall.  It was
casting a lot of shade on a nearby persimmon. 
The box elder may be next.

This nearby tulip tree is probably in the 70-80' range
and growing.  A good choice here, but much to big to
be close to the house.

Invasives Management

And of course I'm am continuing a broad fight against the invasive plants.  In addition to early spraying for garlic mustard and multiflora rose, I am starting to go after the Japanese honeysuckle growing on the ground.  I have just a little more time to treat these with glyphosate before the spring ephemerals come out in force.  Also with the warm winter we've had it is almost time to apply a pre-emergent  herbicide to control the Japanese stiltgrass that will start sprouting in early May.  These pre-emergent treatments have been very effective at reducing the amount of stiltgrass growing in the lawn.  They also seem to have reduced that amount of hairy cress (Cardamine hirsuta) in the lawn.

Plans for 2022

For 2022 I have a smaller list of plants that I will be adding to my landscape than in years past.  There are a number of reasons: I’m running out of space to tuck in new plants, I’m moving more seedlings of successful native species around, rather than purchasing new plants, and I am getting more selective about using regionally native species.  However, I am not beyond adding a few species for decoration.  New plants that I am adding are prairie willow (Salix humilis), creeping lespedeza (Lespedeza repens), a wild type smooth hydrangea (Hydrangea arborescens) and I’m trying winecups (Callirhoe involucrata) again in a less competitive environment.

I have been looking for native willows to replace the mounds of forsythia on my property.  Willows bloom early in the spring, like forsythia.  But unlike them, willows do provide a benefit to the native insects: early flowers for bees and as a host species for a number of insects.  Early on I put in some native pussy willows (Salix discolor).  These are doing well but mine tend to have a taller upright form (nearing 20’) rather than a more rounded shape that I was looking for.  Prairie willow has the form I’ve been after, 4-7’ tall with a loose vase-shaped habit.  It is also tolerant of drier conditions than most willows.  I’ve got some on order, so we will see later this spring if my search is finally over. 

Pussy willow blooms at about the same time as
forsythia (shown here in the background).  

Another species that I have been trying to expand in my landscape is smooth hydrangea.  Most of mine are the huge mophead type, most likely ‘Annabelle’.  These grow really well with lots of flowers, but since most of these flowers are sterile, they offer little benefit to wildlife.  Two years ago I planted planted some tiny pots of the ‘Haas Halo’ cultivar.  These were highly rated in a recent study done at the Mt. Cuba Center.  These have large lace cap flowers which consist of mostly small fertile flowers in the center surrounded by a ring of large sterile flowers.  The plants grew to over 2’ tall last season, so I’m hoping I might see some flowers this year.  To build on this diversity I ordered a wild-type smooth hydrangea to add to the mix.  Wild-type plants usually have smaller flowers than the cultivars, but I’m hoping to see a benefit in the production of some seeds that could help the birds.

These wild hydrangeas are growing along the Potomac River
in Maryland. This photo was taken in late April. 
It seems kind of early for buds to be forming, considering
that 'Annabelle' hydrangeas normally bloom in June.

An ongoing project that I have is to find replacements for vinca, particularly in dry shade.  I am expanding the scope to include a replacement for the yellow archangel (Lamiastrum galeobdolon) that is spreading in my pine woods.  Last year I got some round leafed tick trefoil (Desmodium rotundifolium) for which I had been searching for 10 years (we’ll see how that has overwintered). It trails along the ground sporting three round leaflets on each stem. While examining catalogues I came across another trailing plant for dry shade, creeping lespedeza (Lespedeza repens).  While not super attractive on its own, it may work nicely in a matrix planting. 

I didn't have a photo of the Lespedeza, so I'm sharing an image
from my botanical sketchbook.  Included are some notes on
how to tell Desmodium and Lespedeza species, both
members of the pea family, apart.

The wine cups are an exception to my focus on regional natives.  These are native more to the mid-west and southern plains, than to the east, but I became enamored with them ever since I saw them in a field in the Ft. Worth area.  I was able to grow them in the Boston area and had them for awhile here in Maryland.  The problem was that they were not able to compete with dense growth of asters, goldenrods, and Virginia creeper that surrounded them.  This time I will plant them where they have a little more of their own space to get established.

The magenta flowers of wine cups are hard to miss.  It has a
sprawling habit and can form a ground cover 
where competing vegetation is sparse.

As I mentioned above (and last year at this time) I will also be moving many native seedlings out of my vegetable garden, particularly Rudbeckia sp., Monarda fistulosa, Asclepias tuberosa, and Echinacea purpurea, and into the beds where I am fighting Japanese stiltgrass.  I started that process last year.  It’s too soon to see a difference, though some of the transplants appear to have overwintered.  Their real value will be if they are able to reseed themselves and become self-sustaining.