Maureen Gilmer – Page 9

Fertilize Organically for more Floriferous Roses

Rose Garden - Maureen Gilmer — Climbing roses need nitrogen to stimulate formation of strong new canes to train over arches and arbors.

When I was a young horticulture student in Northern California, in between classes my aged mentor employed me to care for his hybrid tea cutting roses. His garden featured at least thirty of them back in 1979 when spraying, pruning, and fertilizing was a continuous series of tasks all season long.

Rose Nutrition

Among the many lessons were important basics on rose nutrition. It was truly amazing how much standard rose food each of the plants needed to keep producing new buds without pause from May to October. In California the rose season is long, which demanded I feed on a regular schedule. Back then I used 16-16-16 synthetic granules and watched the plants go nuts…for a little while. Then they’d start petering out as the synthetic fertilizer leached further beyond the root zone every time I watered.

Since then we’ve learned that the yo-yo diets of synthetic fertilizers are not beneficial to whole plant health. Growing roses organically can reduce the frequency of fertilizer applications because these nutrients release slower but remain in the root zone far longer. In addition, they contribute to overall soil fertility by stimulating microbes that boost rose plant immunity.

Tea Roses - Maureen Gilmer — Tea Roses: Mark your calendar to remind you to apply fertilizer at regular intervals to avoid fluctuations in nutrient availability.

Organic Rose Fertilizers

Even before the new emphasis on organic gardening, rose growers discovered the benefits of alfalfa meal fertilizer. It’s cultivated into the soil around the rose plant at a rate of about a half cup per rose. Alfalfa meal is low in nitrogen, just 3%, but it’s released quicker than other organic sources. It is particularly useful in spring to stimulate the development of new canes, which are a rose grower’s goal. Plus, nitrogen helps to stimulate vigorous new growth, strong stems and plentiful foliage to support the flower buds to come.

But roses need phosphorus and potassium too, because these nutrients are essential for new flower production. That’s why rose & flower fertilizers contains bloom stimulating phosphorus and potassium. These nutrients are derived from a variety of organic sources that can be slow to become fully active, but once they are, there is no better way to feed. Your roses will take up organic fertilizer at their own rate rather than the sudden dose of synthetic rocket fuel. Mark the calendar for regular feedings throughout the growing season so your plants will perform without a lull.

Cutting Garden - Maureen Gilmer — Regular pruning, watering and fertilizer applications are key to a picture perfect cutting garden.

Benefits of Organic Rose Fertilizers

Roses are so versatile they are grown in ground and in pots where feeding is even more important due to the limited root zone. Grown chemical free, roses may become less vulnerable to pests and diseases due to natural resistance supported by relationships with certain soil fungi that work through the roots. Organically grown roses won’t have to suffer the yoyo effect of high nutrient loads after fertilizer application, followed by plunging lows a week or two later. They’ll respond much like a child who eats a bowl of sugary breakfast cereal, then when blood sugar plunges in a couple of hours she falls asleep at school

Key to success with organic fertilizers is to make sure they’re worked into the soil and watered deeply and consistently to help plants take up these nutrients. Even moisture levels stimulates better microbe activity too, which in turn makes the soil more fertile over all. For more naturally floriferous roses, feed your soil with organic fertilizer and avoid chemicals. Your plants will reward you with fewer diseases, more vigorous growth and a consistent rate of new bud formation. And that means new flower buds will form every day to remain more floriferous all season long.

Gather Free Hollyhock Seed

Hollyhock - Maureen Gilmer — Just below these hollyhock flowers the round seed capsules already forming while above the flowers buds have yet to open.

Hollyhocks have long been America’s favorite flower for country gardens because the Hollyhock seed can be gathered and sown for free. Althea rosea is a biennial, growing from seed the first year with modest blooms, then the plants come back from the roots the second year for a far more magnificent showing. Therefore sow hollyhock every year. The first flowers will be going to seed by the time the last ones open at the top the stalk. Down low you’ll find capsules of small disk-like seeds. As each capsule matures the outer covering becomes fragile and papery when the seed is ready to be gathered to store. They’ll be ready for spring sowing in Black Gold Seedling Mix for an even bigger display next year.

Bedding Flower Trickery: Tips For Making More Blooms

Your annual bedding plants have a short life cycle. Seed formation is the mechanism that tells them to stop making more blooms. To keep the marigolds, petunias, zinnias and other summer flowers reblooming, inspect them daily. Immediately nip off every flower past its prime. Cut others in bud or bloom to bring indoors. Do this religiously and your annuals will think it’s still June all summer long. Tricking them to flower longer by preventing seed means they’ll need more flower food during the hot months. Generously work in fertilizer every few weeks and keep them well watered for big color lasting well into fall.

Corn Pollination

Corn Ear - Maureen Gilmer — Ears form down lower on the stalk where they’re ready to receive a “rain” of pollen.

We call it corn, but pointy headed plant geeks know this species as Zea mays, or maize. Of all our garden vegetables, this giant grass can be the most challenging to new gardeners. This is because corn grows differently.

Corn as we know it is not a naturally created plant. It was altered millennia ago by human intervention which began in Mexico. They started with a wild grass known as teosinte, which bears little resemblance to modern corn. The plant we know today is such an altered species it can no longer naturalize or reproduce itself in the wild. That’s why it can go so wrong in the garden.

The corn plant produces tassels at the top where pollen is formed, then when the time is right it rains down upon the developing ears held lower on the plant. But weather doesn’t always cooperate with trickle-down pollination. That’s why planting corn is done differently than other bee-pollinated plants.

First time corn growers become disappointed with their ears because kernels are missing. This is a sign of incomplete pollination. The cause is plants too widely spaced or when grown in just one or two rows. Farmers must have 100% kernel development to sell their corn. They ensure pollination by growing corn in blocks, which ensures sufficient pollen density to guarantee a perfect ear.

In the home garden, strive for a block as long as it is wide so there’s even access to pollen for every plant. Space seeds and rows exactly as it says on the package, which is optimum for pollination. This demonstrates why it’s hard to grow corn in smaller gardens. There simply isn’t enough room to create a block large enough. That’s why those who grow corn do so directly in the ground rather than in raised beds or well defined potagers.

Corn Field - Maureen Gilmer — This farmer planted a large block, then a second one which is just starting for 2 consecutive harvests.

Corn, like most grass, is a heavy feeder that demands more fertile ground to thrive. You may have used compost and other organic matter to fortify the soil this spring, but that may not be enough for corn. Like turf grass, its favorite nutrient is nitrogen, which stimulates leaf and stem growth. For the home garden, boosting nitrogen levels in your corn growing soil can make a big difference in the vigor of your plants and the size of ears they produce. While farmers use commercial synthetic fertilizers, organic gardeners can achieve similar results with Black Gold products.

The best way to spot-fortify soil for corn is to work some fertilizer formulated for vegetables thoroughly into the ground as deeply as you can. This is our most potent organic source of nitrogen that’s OMRI Listed so you know it’s safe. At a whopping 18% nitrogen, a little bit goes a long way. This organic nitrogen is available to the corn plants over the entire growing season compared to synthetics that are here today and gone tomorrow.

Indian Corn - Maureen Gilmer — Complete pollination yields great color and full ears suitable for decorating.

Give your soil a lift before planting seed no matter what kind of corn you grow. Indian corn will produce more brightly colored ears for decorating. Heirloom varieties will thrive on the modest nutrient loads for a variety of unique flavors. Best of all, you’ll proudly serve picture perfect organic sweet corn to your family and friends when harvest rolls around.

Swanky Succulent Container Gardens

Succulents - Maureen Gilmer - Feature Image — Succulents: Elegant pedestal urns feature rounded mounds of succulent plants topped with a crown of spiky leaves.

Nestled into opulent coastal southern California is a nursery where I go to find out what’s hot in the world of container gardening. Decades ago Rogers Gardens was founded on flower-filled hanging color baskets so fabulous they draw tour buses daily. I worked there in the early 80s and today I return to see how they display every hot trend in container gardening. Most of what I see can be recreated using Black Gold specialty potting soils to make your home garden just as exciting this year.

Mesclun - Maureen Gilmer — Mesclun: Integrating colorful lettuce into pots and gardens makes more opportunity to snip for dinner.

GREENS

Edible greens are proving to be one of the most interesting plants for both ornamental and food gardens. At Rogers they are displayed in glorious color from purple kale to pastel mesclun mixes of curious gourmet lettuce and greens. Potting them into decorative containers is easy when you use Black Gold Natural & Organic Potting Soil. Blend these with edible flowers and culinary herbs for beauty you can snip and pinch into salads, soups and as decorative garish.

Flax - Maureen Gilmer — Flax: Latest looks include dark burgundy Aeonium and bright red striped Phormium combine in terra cotta.

SUCCULENTS

Growing succulents in containers demands fast draining Black Gold Cactus Mix. Such porosity allows you to cram dozens of colorful rosettes into the same pot without concern for rot setting in. The latest look is combining vivid autumn colored foliage plants such as New Zealand flax hybrids with gobs of succulents for perfect compatibility.

Mediterranean - Maureen Gilmer — Mediterranean: Woody rosemary topiary sits atop high-contrast succulents.

MEDITERRANEANS

Demand for drought resistant plants and popularity of Spanish inspired architecture puts Mediterranean species front and center. The creation of topiaries from rosemary and fruitless olive provides excellent form and fragrance with other less European selections. Fruitless olive and its dwarf cousin ‘Little Ollie’ are hot right now to accent Mediterranean inspired architecture. Blend them with succulents or low profile herbs in traditional terra cotta pots for focal points on patio and terrace. Use Waterhold Cocoa Blend Potting Soil to retain moisture and reduce the need to water often, making these creations even more water conservative than Mother Nature planned.

Herb Box - Maureen Gilmer — Herb Box: Old boxes repurposed at Rogers for a small space herb garden or a super gift idea.

HERBS

Every foodie needs an herb garden filled with the best culinary species. At Rogers this year they’ve used old wood crates to create rustic herb gardens perfect for an apartment balcony, a condo courtyard or even a small roof garden. It’s truly amazing how useful they are when ganged together like this, offering lots to pinch and pluck. Since so many herbs come from arid climates that lack summer rainfall, try Hy Porosity Natural and Organic Potting Soil which helps them stay high and dry during rainy summers.

During my years at Rogers I learned that one potting soil doesn’t fit all plants. That’s why Black Gold offers so many options. Use the right ones so you can be just as successful with your succulents, Mediterraneans, edibles and herbs no matter where you live.

Colorful Flowers for Shade Gardens

Columbine grow well in full sun to partial shade. (Image by Jessie Keith)

The bright treasures of the shade garden often come from our nation’s most beautiful forests. Beneath the canopies are perennials that evolved to grow and bloom on the forest floor, which botanists call the understory. Here the litter of leaves, thin soils and root competition caused by so many trees may be similar to your own yard’s shaded spaces. What you plant there likely came from the forest floor, and these treasures really flourish when you offer similar soil conditions.

Heuchera - Maureen Gilmer — Hot-colored foliage of *Heuchera* ‘Amber Waves’ brings sunset oranges to the shade garden all season long.

The leaf litter accumulation is known as a duff layer, which is the natural mulch for shade plants. Recreate this protective layer using Black Gold Garden Compost Blend and Garden Soil. It’s equally useful for amending poor soil and clays with organic matter that improves drainage.

Of all the understory perennials, four top choices offer color, romance and elegance to shaded beds and borders…

Heuchera

Today’s Heucheras and are by far the most exciting group of new cultivars. Breeders have crossed western native Heuchera species with the traditional coral bells. The result are new varieties that not only bloom extravagantly, but their foliage color is nothing short of outstanding. Here you’ll find mounds of vivid foliage in reds to purple, black, gold and many shades of green for color long after flowers fade.

Bleeding Heart

From Asian forests come the old-fashioned bleeding heart (Dicentra spectabilis), often the first flower of spring. This frilly perennial is the most romantic shade bloomer with wands of dangling heart-shaped pink flowers. These nod and sway in the slightest breeze adding gentle animation to shaded nooks in the garden. This species was also bred to our western native Dicentra to expand flower colors into dark red and white.

Columbine

No flower can compete with the elegance of columbine (Aquilegia spp.), which is found in northern forest around the globe. Those we grow in gardens are hybrids of European species crossed with our many natives to produce a wide range of flower size and color. They also attract bees and hummingbirds.

Bigleaf Hydrangea

Perhaps the hottest shade garden plant is bigleaf hydrangea (Hydrangea macrophylla), the big leaf or mop head type. It brings early summer color to shade gardens with a bonus of blue or pink flowers to cut and dry. This is a great problem solver for beds and borders lacking much sun. Beware that mature hydrangea flowers are so fabulous they are routinely stolen from front yard plantings.

Hydrangea - Maureen Gilmer — Huge flower heads of big leaf hydrangeas offer cut flowers in pink or blue depending on the variety and soil conditions.

When you set out to bring color to your shaded garden, there is less light to make the foliage and flowers stand out. To increase visibility, plant groups of the same variety in small drifts or masses. Before planting, recreate the forest floor conditions by mixing lots of compost into your soil, or amend it on a plant by plant basis in each, individual hole. Once all are in the ground, spread a thick layer of mulch around each plant to create your own duff. Above all, remember that trees are greedy and applying water in the heat must be enough to please them and these colorful denizens of the understory too.

Give Roots Incentive to Grow Downward

Planting fruit trees, grape vines or blueberry shrubs? To make sure yours are really productive, give them an incentive. Sprinkle a measuring cup of organic fertilizer into the bottom of your planting hole, then cover it with a few inches of soil before you set the root ball on top. Then deep water often to send moisture down there to activate this fertilizer so its ready for roots when they arrive. Such incentives drive roots downward into the soil where they are far better able to find moisture under hot dry conditions later this summer.

Big Planting Pots, Big Rewards

If you’re gardening on patio, porch, deck, roof or terrace, you need the right pots. Choose big planting pots large enough to support long lived woody plants that offer big rewards of beauty and food. Insist on a mouth wide enough to accommodate a 5-gallon nursery pot to ensure the rootball fits without crushing.

This will support fruiting or flowering trees, shrubs and vines that can instantly change the nature of outdoor space. Obtain enough Black Gold® Waterhold Potting Soil to fill the pot to 3 to 5 inches below the rim with the new plant in place. This “freeboard” is a time saver that lets you apply a lot of water all at once so you can do something else while it slowly percolates into the root zone.

Start Vegetable Seeds Indoors Early

Inner-city kids from Head Start programs perform at much higher levels of literacy and language than kids of the same socioeconomic groups who did not attend the program. Likewise, starting vegetable seeds indoors while it’s still cold helps gardeners get a head start in the spring and summer garden. Many vegetables perform much better when they are nurtured indoors before outdoor planting.

Timing Planting

Start different vegetables at varying times before outdoor planting. For example, the rule of thumb for tomatoes and peppers is to sow them six to eight weeks before the estimated planting date, which is usually a couple of weeks after the last frost of spring. To accomplish this, start them in late February or early March. At planting time, tomato and pepper starts should be six inches tall or more.

Seedling Web — Seedling: You can protect tiny seedlings much easier indoors, then transplant into the garden after the last frost.

Where summers are short, starting early means harvesting early. (Planting early-to-produce vegetables also ensures an earlier harvest.) Warm outdoor soil and strong root systems will make them vigorous growers after transplanting.

Home Seed Starting Advantages

The advantages of starting seedlings at home are that they cost less, seed catalogs offer more choice than nurseries, and, if you are an organic gardener, you can be confident that your plants have been grown organically. (OMRI Listed Black Gold Seedling Mix is approved for organic gardening.) Seed catalogs carry wonderful specialty vegetables and heirlooms that are often tastier and a lot more fun to cook with.

The Seed Starting Environment

Growing seeds indoors requires a sunny windowsill, sun porch, greenhouse, or cold frame. Choose a south-facing window that provides at least 6-hours of sunlight. If that’s not available, consider investing in full-spectrum grow lights to start seeds.

Head Start: It’s easy to start a garden in new or recycled containers.

Before you begin sowing seed, it’s important to gather all the materials you’ll need ahead of time. A quality growing mix is essential. Black Gold’s Seedling Mix is light and airy for reliable germination and root growth.

Other Materials Required:

Black Gold’s Seedling Mix
Seed
Plastic pots or cell packs with water-holding flats and clear plastic cover
Mister and small watering can
Four-inch pots to upgrade seedlings
Black Gold Natural & Organic Potting Soil
Waer-soluble fertilizer

Read these additional Black Gold articles about seed starting.

Growing Roses in Containers

Balboa Island Roses — Balboa Island: Rose planting is maximized by three tiers of planting in a space less than five feet deep.

If you love big roses but are short on space, here’s a great way to layer them in for more blooms per square foot. Using the vertical plane, this urban home features three tiers of planting: in ground, a raised bed and large window boxes. Hidden behind are two large pots that support the coral flowered climbing roses. All of this fits into a space just five feet deep from sidewalk to house wall.

Because roses are heavy feeders, fill your raised planters and containers with Black Gold All Purpose Potting Soil. It contains controlled-release fertilizer, so it will give newly planted ever-blooming Flower Carpet or small shrub roses the food they need for a vigorous start. After a couple of months, it also helps to feed again with rose and flower fertilizer.

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