Bit off more than I can chew---

------hope not, but that is how I often feel these days!

After a loooong winter the grounds around here were wet, cold, and not workable until mid May by which time the weeds were far into the race to reach maximum height before the end of the month.

It is really not that I have been lazy (haven't even had time to enjoy most of my favourite blogs the past couple of weeks) - things just seem to all of a sudden to have gotten out of hand.

Think of myself as a pro-active person - at least during "normal" times - the gardening chores these days, however, have my mind and body jumping from one to the other, depending on which one appears to be most critical. It's like damage control - do I let the weeds take over totally while I get the veggie garden in order? - or do I spend my time on the jobs with the biggest impact letting my seedlings suffer as they need larger containers? - do I get my perennial beds ready for transplant of my seedlings (most of which will not bloom till next year) ignoring planning and planting the multiple containers that should be focal points on our new deck by the time we'll have about 100 guests here late July?

Happily I finished planting and sowing the veggie garden today. My tiny basil plants along with tarragon, parsley, rosemary, and the "perennials" sage, oregano, thyme, and chives in the raised bed.

The potatoes were sown 2 weeks ago and are showing some healthy leaves.

The willows in the field are doing great. Looks like almost 100% of this year's plantings are growing well and not - so far - any signs of deer stopping by for munchies.

I'll have to make some kind of "project plan": Lene's 2009 garden, step by step to stay focused (pro-active if possible) and save my sanity.

Propagating willow

After harvesting my willow beds during the dormant period, I used almost all of this years rods for propagation.These are samples of cuttings from a few varieties, ready to be planted.

I made a total of 7600 cuttings that were stored in closed plastic bags (to prevent them from drying out) in our dark garden shed until it was time for me to plant in the field.

Willow bark contains a natural growth hormone making it very easy to propagate willow from hardwood cuttings which produces plants of each variety with exactly the same genes as the mother plant. It is particularly beneficial when growing willow for weaving to know what the plant's characteristics are and willow weavers around the World all have their favourites.

I have chosen to mulch the willow field for two reasons. First, the plants can't compete with weeds during the first couple of growing seasons and our soil being heavy clay, it is not possible for me to weed mechanically around their new, shallow roots. The second reason being the new plants' need for moisture until roots have developed and the plants are well established. Since I started my first willow beds, I have used different kinds of mulch. First I used a geo-textile, only to find out that it wasn't dark/thick enough to prevent weeds from growing underneath it. The weeds were growing very well, competing with the willows and by mid-summer I had to cover the textile with grass cuttings. This is a Black Maul cutting with new shoots - the competing weeds underneath the mulching geo-textile.

So last year I made a larger investment in a woven poly-cover (the kind nurseries use for ground cover in display areas) as this was recommended to me by another willow grower. Just like the geo-textile water and air were able to pass through the cover to benefit the plants. It seemed to be the perfect solution until later in the season when the faster growing varieties started to get strangled by the weave. The plants were not harmed, but after harvesting this spring I started to make cuts around each plant (about 1500) as most had a thread or even a "piece of cloth" embedded in the growth. Cutting holes in the poly-cover will allow weeds to grow around the willows. I hope however, that the plants are big enough this year to quickly produce shade to out compete the weeds.

This year I used left over material from last year and then bought a heavy plastic from a greenhouse/nursery supplier. It is common to use black plastic for this purpose, but I was afraid that with the high temperatures during summer, the new roots of the plants would get fried. The plastic is black on one side and white on the other so we put it down, white side up which will reflect the sunlight on the plants.
INFORMATION ADDED LATER: Do not put the plastic down with the white side up. It will reflect the sun and make it too hot for the plants. Place it with the black side up!


The cuttings are planted before, or just as they break dormancy and these were planted on April 19, 2009. In this photo from May 1st new shoots are visible on almost 100 % of the cuttings. That's exciting - it doesn't mean that they have rooted already, but they are alive and have enough energy stored to start growing and rooting.
I'll have to admit that my main reason for all this willow stuff is a plan to be able to run a willow based business with the raw material coming from my own field.
And that is a LONG-TERM commitment............
I started in the spring of 2007 and it will be at least another couple of years before I will have enough material to work with. As time goes by, those of you who are interested will be able to get more information on the web-site that I will be setting up in a few months.

Challenge: Six plants I can't live without!

My favorite garden writer/blogger Country Gardener - has extended the challenge to write about the Six plants you can't live without.

You would think that would be rather easy - but it is too difficult to really narrow it down, so I have picked the following (after I stopped thinking too much about it because that kept me awake last night!):

My very favorite flowering plants provide hope and promise at the first signs of spring. All the spring flowers are beautiful, yet the Snowdrop (Galanthus) is my favorite.

The European Beech (Fagus sylvatica) is the national tree of my native Denmark and a late spring day in the forest is just like the picture - maybe with an added carpet of wild anemones. The light shining through the canopy is like a magic lamp as the leaves are stretched out in almost vertical blankets. During the summer the leaves turn a darker green and in autumn the golden brown is like nothing else. Did you know that the leaves are edible?
I believe that the Nordman fir (Abies nordmanniana) is the cadillac of Christmas trees. I love its shape - open with almost horizontal branches that on older, larger trees will curve gracefully. They have a couple of very large specimens at the Niagara Parks Botanical Gardens.

Another favourite bloomer is the Siberian Iris (Iris siberica). I have quite a few of the above blue variety and even though each flower is short lived, it blooms for awhile during late spring as the buds open along the stems. After flowering the grass-like foliage stays fresh and green all summer.
I never liked most rose bushes - I think the plant itself is ugly - but those flowers!! There are many beautiful (and also some climbers whose "frame" is good looking too), but I will choose the floribunda rose Iceberg (Rosa 'Iceberg') which was bred in Germany in 1958 and marketed under the name "Schneewittchen" which means Snow White. The buds have a light pink tint and the flower is almost completely white. It blooms all summer and the foliage is a healthy dark green. When I am ready to put in a rose garden, this one will be the first on my list.
Not much as soothing with the ability to make me feel good as my meadow (hey field) with different grasses, clover, trifoil, ox-eye daisies and more. That's not really "A plant" so the ornamental grasses will make up number six.

I can't pick just one, but here is a lovely summer pic of the early plumes of my Pampas grass (I think - but I don't know for sure) on a sunny summer day last year.

Thank you Yvonne, for challenging us - this was fun.

Garter snake release

Days are getting warmer and we are having some nights without frost. Time to release "Isicle" the snake in the bucket (the bucket covered with cloth, secured with heavy elastic string - I am not a snake person, really) in the garage.
Lately "he" has been spending more and more time outside his black hiding saucer and he seems more alert, so we decided to let him out yesterday.Looks like he is really eager to explore the world again.
We released him on top of the berm - approximately where we found him in the snow in January.
Ready to go - gone! I am sure though, that I'll meet him again.

Tough Love!

I can watch seedlings grow! I just love to see the new leaves unfold - to "study" how different the cotyledons and then the first leaves look. Heuchera and Helenium are so tiny. In the greenhouse we now have seedlings of:
Aruncus dioius - Goatsbeard
Euphorbia
Aster puniclus - Purple stemmed Aster
Sanguisorba officinalis - Great burnet
Salvia nemerosa
Agastache foeniculum - Giant blue hyssop
Verbena bonariensis
Helenium flexuosum
Heuchera villosa
Monarda fistulosa
Betula pendula

Two years ago we laid out my first perennial bed. I bought plants at fall nursery sales - just to see most of them die over the first winter.

Last year that bed was used as a parking spot for some shrubs for most of the spring and summer and now I really want to get the perennial bed started. The size of the bed is approximately 4-5 x 35 meters, so I need an awful lot of plants and decided to grow my own from seeds. And then, when I am at it, I might as well plan for yet another bed.

Perennials are not always as easy to grow from seeds as annuals are. I knew that I would be very busy and wanted to make my odds for success good, so I carefully picked plants that are fairly easy to germinate and grow and two weeks ago I transplanted my first seedlings from the "seed sprouting set-up" under lamps in the office to individual pots in my small and drafty hobby greenhouse.

When we (unexpectedly for me) had a couple of very cold days last week, I was afraid that the small space heater (placed in the greenhouse to keep night temperatures above freezing) wouldn't be able to keep up. What do you then do with 750 seedlings?? You put them in the back of the pick-up truck - in two layers - and park it in the frost-free garage for two days. Temps around 8-10 Celsius and very little light!
I am not sure, but I think that because of the low temperature the plants didn't seem to have any setback because of this "treatment" and are now happily growing in the greenhouse again. Getting ready for transplant are Phlomis tuberosa, Lobelia siphilitica, Papaver anomalum 'Album', Digitalis stewartii, D. parviflora, D. ferruginea and Thalictrum pubescens, Echinecea purpurea 'Alba', E. purpurea 'Primadonna'.
So far, so good - cannot wait to have the beds planted!

Repairing the willow tree!

Last year I started to experiment with growing "homemade" willow trees in pots. This "Harlequin" or "Belgian" tree I made from rods of Salix koriyanagi 'Rubykins', the one year growth of which is a pale greyish-green colour. This is how it looked just after I had made it.
32 rods are woven in a harlequin pattern and the fresh willow rods will root and start to grow. As they grow all shoots appearing on the "trunk" are removed to keep the woven pattern clean.

By June most of the rods were growing and the crown of 'Rubykins' was a beautiful fresh green with coppery tips on the shoots.

Some of the rods had not rooted, but the "big picture" was still pretty during the summer.

I was prepared to replace the dead rods this spring and yesterday the tree was fixed. At a closer count it turned out that almost half of the rods had not rooted and had to be replaced. The dead rods had dried out, shrunk, and changed to black or a light straw colour. The growing ones had increased in diameter and also changed colour. Now they are multicoloured olive green and different shades of rosy-brown.
I replaced one rod at a time by carefully pulling the dead one out and weaving the new one down towards the pot. In the image to the left the new rod is almost at the bottom where it has to be pushed about 25 cm into the "soil". (As a gardener can imagine, there is not much soil left when 20+ willows are growing in one single pot). The other image shows the tree after the full operation has taken place.

Now I really hope that the new rods will be able to compete with the already established ones. Only time can tell!

January 2012:

The repaired tree looked OK most of the summer with someof the new rods growing. During the following winter though, most of the new rods died as they couldn't compete with the established rods. So, even though the planter was fairly big, if you want to make sure that your tree will stray strong and healthy you must transplant it to your garden by the end of the first growing season.

Harvest

Willow rods are harvested during the plant's dormancy, between November and April during which time the bark sits tight on the rods.
When you coppice (cut off close to the ground) the willow plants they will throw long, straight rods without any branching, ideal for weaving and other willow works. Here is my first row of Salix 'Americana' with one year old rods after it's second year in the field.

I just harvested those yesterday and they delivered between 5 and 21 rods per plant, each rod being 120-180 cm in length.

When the willows are planted close together the shoots are competing for the sun and thus forced upwards. The first year after planting in the spring the number of shoots are limited and often they are quite branched too - that differs a lot depending of the variety. Over the next few years the rods will increase in both number and length and there will typically be less branching as well.

You can see the base of some of my 'Americana' here. Next year I should be able to harvest more and longer rods.

This year I cut my willows by hand with shears as I only have a small field. Now it looks like this. I'll be looking out for new shoots soon!!
More to come about my harvest soon!