Are You a Gardener?

Gardening is a mindset that doesn’t require soil or seeds to develop. Anyone who enjoys the exquisite taste of an heirloom tomato fresh from the garden has the innate ability to be a gardener. If you like to smell roses, or lilacs, or honeysuckle, you have the makings of a gardener. If you like vegetables of any kind, gardening may be in your blood. Even if you don’t like vegetables at all you are ripe for becoming a gardener. Essentially, gardening is for everyone.

Gardening is one of the few things in life where you have complete control over why you do it, when you do it, where you do it, and how you do it. And after you’ve done it you have something to show for your labors. Successful or not, you have accomplished something unique.

A giant pumpkin in the Galileo garden

At this point, many people counter with their lack of a green thumb or even the possession of a black one. My counterpoint is that I have killed more plants than many gardeners will ever grow. I gardened for decades before becoming a master gardener. At that point I learned of the many things I had done wrong for so long. But that hasn’t stopped the devastation.

With increased confidence I planted, and killed, many more plants. I continue to make mistakes in gardening. It’s part of the process.
Sure, I would prefer to always be successful and never cause a plant pain or death, but gardening is not just about success. It is about partaking in an activity that has been proven to enhance the enjoyment of life and even prolong it. Gardening is good for you.

Too many people think that to be a gardener they must have a plot of land dedicated to a time-consuming activity. Nothing can be further from the truth. A single pot on your patio with a live plant in it makes you a gardener. If that single plant is a tomato or pepper, you are a vegetable gardener. If it is a marigold or daisy, you are a flower gardener. If it is basil or thyme, you are an herb gardener. If you have a plum tree in your yard and harvest the fruit, you have a mini orchard and are a fruit gardener.

Plums on my plum tree

Once you’ve acknowledged that you’re probably a gardener at heart, by thought or through demonstration of what you grow, you can begin to expand your gardening knowledge and think about adding more plants to your repertoire. If you already have that plot and are growing a vegetable, herb, or flower garden, think about what you can do to grow and experience more.

Winter is a great time to think about your gardening plans for the year. Consider adding another pot on your patio, or taking out some lawn and adding a vegetable bed, or venturing into the addition of fruit trees. Spend indoor time during the cold months researching and learning. Talk to the people you know who you consider to be gardeners and ask them for advice on how to begin.

When done with the foundation of a little knowledge, gardening takes less time than most of your everyday activities but can be far more rewarding. Extra time and effort can lead to ample enjoyment and satisfaction. And at the end of the day you can call yourself a gardener.

For the last two years I have been gardening on a full-time basis for a phenomenal school garden project. As a result, my blog postings have suffered. I plan to rectify that by sharing of our adventures in gardens that are planted by and for children. I call myself a gardener and am sharing that mindset with a new generation. I look forward to the days when these students call themselves gardeners.

Deter Deer with Camouflage Gardening

A deer-proof garden is essentially non-existent, but a highly deer-resistant garden is attainable with a little effort and planning. One key is to practice “camouflage gardening“.

Camouflage gardening is the practice of using plants that animals don’t like to deter them from eating plants that they do like. Camouflage gardening is mostly focused on deterring deer, but can work for rabbits, squirrels, and even dogs and cats with appropriate plantings. I must point out and stress that this deters animals like deer from eating desirable plants, it doesn’t prevent them from eating anything.

Deer exploring my new vegetable garden area

Think of it as constructing a castle or defensive military position. The plant you want to protect is in the center of the defensive zone. It’s surrounded by a barrier of deer-resistant plants. For superior defense you layer zones with additional rings of protection. You’re not building walls to protect plants but using plants to protect plants.

There are certain plants that deer, and similarly many other animals, don’t like. Deer tend to avoid plants that are strongly aromatic or bitter tasting, that have a milky or sticky sap, or that have prickly leaves or are tough and hairy. When they encounter these plants they tend to ignore them and move on.

Deer are browsers that amble from plant to plant looking for something they like. If a plant isn’t on their list of favorites, they’ll keep looking for one that is. This assumes that they have an adequate food selection available. When conditions are bad, as in drought years or when habitat is reduced, they’ll eat almost anything to stay alive. In spring pregnant does will eat almost anything.

Deer will look everywhere for food

To get the best protection and to help minimize problems during bad years, the outside protective zone, which is the first that deer encounter, would have a plant that is highly resistant to deer. This layer should have plants that are aromatic with an odor that makes them walk away. You create a scent barrier that prevents them from smelling desirable plants. Lavender, mint, salvia, beebalm, rosemary, and cedar are some plants that have a smell deer avoid and are also rarely eaten.

Salvia and yarrow deter deer

The second layer of protection would include bad-tasting or toxic plants. The idea is that if they wander past or through the first protective zone they’ll come across plants that they don’t want to eat. Holly, juniper, feathergrass, zinnia, and barberry are rarely eaten. Plants like elderberry, poppies, bleeding heart, lobelia, and larkspur can be toxic. When deer encounter these plants they should go in the opposite direction.

A third layer of protection is to offer a suicide zone. This is a grouping of fast-growing plants outside the protected area that are less deer resistant. Honeysuckle, trumpet creeper, morning glory, and clematis are plants that deer will nibble without decimating the plant. Flowers that reseed prolifically fit in here too. Planted strategically, these plants can lead deer away from more desirable beds.
With a simple two-stage protection planting plan, deer will come across your landscape, realize they don’t like the smells and tastes, and keep on walking. If they’re curious or extra hungry, they’ll try nibbling on what they find but if they don’t like it they’ll realize this whole yard isn’t worth their time and effort and will move on to your neighbor’s yard. They never make it to the roses or tulips or young fruit tree that they would devour.

Adding a suicide zone gives them someplace else to go as they walk away from your garden. They may eat a few clematis or morning glory flowers as they avoid the aromas and tastes of the other zones. Asters, petunias, and small sunflowers give them something else to nibble, and will grow back soon.

Deer damage to my sunflowers

As you plan a camouflage garden you don’t need to think in terms of clearly defined rings of plants. The first and second protective zones can be intermingled, with aromatic plants planted among bitter and toxic ones. The concept is that one plant deters the deer and when they move to a second plant it deters them too. Ideally every plant they encounter within a defined space is a deterrent and they never move through it.

When you have a mix of plants with many deer deterrent properties it creates a synergy where the entire garden becomes highly effective at deterring deer. A wide spectrum of aromatic plants can confuse deer to the point that they seek a more simple, clearly identifiable source of food… like the big expanse of tulips down the street.

To be most effective camouflage gardening needs to be as year-round as possible. If the plant you’re hoping to protect blooms or buds before the others, deer can find it. Your deterrent plants need to be in position and producing their deterring effect.

For example, for early spring your garden border is planted with dwarf juniper, rosemary, sage, or artemisia — plants that are still fragrant even when they’re dormant. A fragrant groundcover like thyme covers the area. A large planting of daffodils, plants deer typically don’t eat, brings early color and helps create another deer deterrent barrier. Irises come next, another plant deer typically don’t eat. At the center of your display for height and color are your tulips, a plant that deer love to devour. Depending on variety, you may have irises and tulips flowering together which adds extra confusion to the deer. It’s not a perfect solution. In a good year your tulips are spared; in a very bad year everything is eaten.

I’m planting my new landscape with entire beds of deterrent plants. One bed has lavender on one side and various spirea on the other. Miscanthus grass provides height and interest. Purple coneflower and yarrow add color. Apache plume fills the center for added texture color and interest. It’s highly satisfying to see deer tracks in and around the bed and not a single plant is disturbed.

Another bed has creeping phlox, artemisia, dwarf pines, salvia, yucca, columbines, irises, and daffodils; again, there are tracks but no damage. Next year’s new beds will have similar plantings.

My new deer deterrent beds cause deer to walk away

We have a resident deer population. They even bed down among the gambel oak trees in our backyard. I’m hoping that they’ll get used to encountering so many plants they don’t like that by the time I plant young trees and a few other less-resistant perennials they’ll have learned to go some place else for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Already I’ve noticed more tracks walking around my deer-resistant beds than walking through them.

Get to know your neighbors

For your camouflage garden, research deer deterrent plants. You won’t need to sacrifice color, smell, texture, or height. Select plants that you like to grow normally. Then design your beds and landscape with those plants as the first barrier. Continue with plantings of other deer-resistant plants that you want in your landscape. Personalize the space. You don’t need to grow plants you don’t like.

Camouflage gardening isn’t foolproof. The only sure way to protect plants is with a physical barrier. For prized plants and young trees a fence or metal wall is the only sure deer proofing. Used together, camouflage and wire fences can allow plants that deer like to eat to become large enough and established to the point they don’t need a fence.

Camouflage gardening works best in a large landscape or garden with enough space to allow planting the necessary barrier plants, but even in small gardens the same principles can be beneficial. Make plants that deer and other animals avoid your first line of defense. Hide your other plants with smells and tastes that deter deer. With a little planning and a lot of luck you may be able to enjoy plants that you’ve had problems with before.

When to Plant Bulbs in Fall

Though they bloom in spring, flower bulbs that are planted in fall are known as “fall bulbs”. Popular spring-flowering plants like daffodils, tulips, crocus, and hyacinth are fall bulbs. Allium, scilla, anemones, and Asiatic lilies are planted in fall too. With a seasonal range of three months, when to plant fall bulbs is a question many gardeners struggle with.

Daffodils are a welcome sign of spring

Timely fall planting allows roots to develop before the ground freezes and prepares the plant for quick spring growth and flowering. If you plant too early the bulbs may use critical energy reserves and can begin to send up new shoots, exposing the young growth to winter kill. Prolonged exposure to warm, moist soil may promote fungal problems and rot. Plant too late and root growth may not be enough for the plant to flower properly.

To flower in spring, fall bulbs require exposure to cold temperatures. This chilling period triggers them to break dormancy when temperatures warm in spring. It’s all about planting early and warm enough for the bulbs to begin developing, but late enough for them to stop developing shortly after to start soaking in the cold.

Tulips need to be planted in fall

There is no single right time for all gardeners. The proper time for planting fall bulbs may be September in Wyoming or North Dakota, October in Colorado or Kansas, November in Oregon or Nevada, and December in Virginia or North Carolina. Gardeners need to find out what’s right for their individual gardens; one-size-fits-all advice from gardening books or magazines may lead to incorrect guidance.

Cooler soil temperatures are a primary indicator for proper planting time.  Ideally, soil temperature needs to be below 60F; a temperature of 55F degrees is perfect. The problem for the average gardener is that few gardens come with soil thermometers. As a guideline, soil temperatures usually cool to this target after a few weeks of nighttime temperatures regularly between 40 and 50.

There are also natural indicators that some gardeners use:

Plant just after fall foliage peaks
Plant when you no longer hear crickets at night
Plant when you see flocks of birds heading south
Plant when you regularly need a jacket to work in your garden
Plant the week after you smell your neighbor’s fireplace for the first time
Plant when you have to turn your car heater on in the morning
Plant when your dog moves from the shade to the sun
Plant when your grapes are ripe
Plant on Columbus Day, Halloween, Veteran’s Day, or Thanksgiving (depending on your zone)
Plant garlic on the first day of school
Plant after you blow out your lawn sprinklers

These suggestions are very unscientific and rely on local conditions that may not match your climate. But if you find a natural indicator that works for you, use it.

Some gardening experts recommend planting bulbs six weeks before a hard, ground-freezing frost. That’s a little too hard to predict for many regions. If unseasonal warm weather lingers, bulbs may end up waiting in the ground for the cold to arrive for two months or more. That’s much too early.

Planting within a few days of your average first frost date is a good guideline. That’s what I typically use. The average first frost date means that historically half of first frosts occur before that date and half occur after. For me, that’s the first week of October. By that time cool nights have cooled the soil but there are still enough warm days ahead to keep the soil warm enough for root development.

Irises aren’t true bulbs and do best when planted in late summer or early fall

Check with local gardening experts for recommendations on planting fall bulbs. Diane Brunjes, Certified Colorado Gardener and the gardener for the Horticultural Art Society of Colorado Springs, recommends October planting versus September for our area too. In our climate, “It’s too warm early in the season,” she says. She’s right.

A little too late is usually better than a little too early. There is a four to six-week target window for planting bulbs, but as long as you can still work in the soil it’s probably not too late. Crocus, scilla, and snow drops do better planted earlier. Daffodils, hyacinth, and tulips can handle late planting. In fact, tulips can be planted in frozen ground and will probably still do fine.

If you miss the ideal planting time and still have bulbs you purchased, plant them anyway. Most bulbs will dry out and be worthless if left to sit in their bag over the winter. They stand a chance of growing while in the ground. Plant them and hope for the best; you may be surprised by the results.

If you’re still wondering when to plant your bulbs take a look around your garden. When you walk outside at night are you cold without a jacket? Have your pepper and tomato plants withered from frost? Are your raspberries fruiting? Are mum flowers drying on the plant? These are all signs that the season is changing and winter is coming. Don’t delay too long. It may be the perfect time to put those bulbs in the ground.