Gardening by Mistake

Early results are very positive in my trials. I’m using aerated vermicompost tea in my attempt to keep my roses black spot free, or at least mostly black spot free.

On June 7th, I took pictures of about 40 of my roses, most of them the worst cases of black spot. Then the next day, I started spraying them with the tea. So far they’ve been sprayed with AVCT 3 times. Some roses don’t look much different, two might actually look a little worse, but then there are the rest which look like different rose bushes. Some of my roses are black spot magnets, and they are looking beautiful. The changes in just 3 weeks are quite remarkable. At the end of the season I’ll post final conclusions and some before and after pictures. I’m looking forward to seeing how the roses look at that point.

I’ve done a lot of reading lately about compost and vermicompost teas being used effectively to fight black spot in roses. Before this season started I’d already started saying goodbye to my roses because I’d made the decision I was no longer going to spray those nasty fungicides. Every time I did it, I felt horribly guilty. And I worried about my own health. So, if I wasn’t going to spray, then black spot was going to run rampant and gradually, over the next 2 or 3 years, my roses would weaken and die off.

Just recently I thought to research if AVCT could fight black spot. I was elated to see that it can. That’s all it took to send me running for my bucket and air pump and bubblers.

I made my first batch of AVCT last week and applied it as a small soil drench. I wasn’t happy with the bubble action from my airstones, so this weekend I went out and got a pump with a huge capacity (thinking I may have more than one batch going at a time, at some point in the future), and a bunch of airstones, different kind this time.

I started up a new batch of tea Sunday night. Woah! What a difference some good airflow makes! Seeing the difference, I think that the tea I applied as a drench Saturday evening wasn’t as effective or potent as I’d hoped. It did not smell bad, so it’s not likely I did them any damage, but I certainly didn’t have that tea loaded with as much microbial life as was possible. So I don’t think it’s going to have any effect on the study I embarked upon Monday.

I wandered through the 4 rose beds and picked out some roses I want to watch over the course of the summer. I took pictures of them as they are now, black spot and all. I wanted a record of their size and their disease state. I’m hoping that by the end of the growing season there will be a clear improvement in the health and size of the roses.

I want to note one thing: I’m already waaaay behind on the disease treatment, even for a chemical regimen. The disease is already well established on many plants. So any improvement at all will be doubly impressive. It’s one thing to prevent black spot from getting established, but it’s another thing entirely to fight it off once it is established and it has grown into the tissues of the rose bushes.

I’ll post some follow-ups as the season progresses.

I’m hoping to be able to demonstrate that AVCT is an effective way to treat roses for black spot (Diplocarpon rosae). I suspect it is most effective in preventing it. Treating it once established is not easy, regardless of what is used– even chemicals.

My roses are going to be a real test of AVCT. I am going to track how some of my roses are doing over the course of this growing season. I have not sprayed anything yet this season and my roses are showing it. Some, poor things, are already defoliated. That was the depressing part. Actually, the really depressing part is how many roses I’ve picked out to monitor. Some I’m monitoring not for black spot but just to see how their mass increases overall.

I’ve got a big batch of fungal AVCT brewing right now. I can’t say for sure it’s as awesome as I think it is without examining it under a high power microscope, and I don’t have one. But other indicators promise that this is a great batch. I’m eager to get it applied and get the AVCT test underway!

I added this own-root plant of Alexandre Girault last July. Right now it’s just a baby plant. City of York was once this size, too, and now it covers half the arbor.  Alexandre Girault is a once bloomer so its current bloom was my first chance to see it in person rather than in pictures. Unfortunately, I didn’t think to take pictures until after it had passed its prime (duh!), but this will help me to remember it until next year’s display.

I wanted something that would grow monstrously large like City of York on the opposite corner of the arbor. I also wanted something that wasn’t white like CoY. This is definitely both: it’s pink and it’s going to be every bit the arbor-eating rose bush that CoY is. These beautiful pink blooms are set off nicely by the silvery-gray weathered wood of the arbor and they will be very visible even to the street, which is quite a distance away. Now I just have to be patient for a few years until AG achieves some size.

I planted City of York in 2002. It was a small own-root rose. This is how it looked next to the back of the arbor three years later in 2005:

City of York, a once-blooming rambler, is in full, glorious bloom right now. Here’s how it looks today, five years later. You can see why I was so worried that our unusually harsh winter might have caused significant die back and a lesser show. Fortunately, that didn’t happen. The white blooms are City of York.

From the front of the arbor:

The back of the arbor. The bush covers 2 sides of the arbor at this point. Who knows how it will look in another few years.

The arbor is 8 feet tall and the rose canes rise another 2 feet above that.

And, finally…

The rose is highly fragrant and you can smell it for long distances away. Mmmmm!

I took a quick few minutes out in the garden this morning before yet more rain began to fall (we’re to get another 1-2 inches, possibly up to 4, by Friday morning– we’re so soggy and wet from the last 3 inches of rain over the weekend that I haven’t been able to mow. It’s going to be a jungle by the time I can mow mid-week next week.) I probably should have spent those few minutes planting some of my winter sown babies, but I hadn’t taken pictures for a week or so and the overcast  lighting  today was different from the usual brightly sunny pictures. Ironically, I ended up being really unhappy with the lighting in many of my pictures so I probably really should have spent that time planting. By the time I finished with the pictures, it was sprinkling and too late.

Anyway, here’s just a bit of what’s out there.

This is my volunteer hardy geranium next to a miniature rose. Hardy geraniums (some know them as cranesbills) and roses go very nicely together. This particular geranium was a surprise volunteer.

This callirhoe doesn’t have any blooms yet, but I still think it’s an impressive plant. I added it to the garden in the fall of 2008, so last year was its first full year in the garden. I can’t believe how much larger it is now than even last summer. I’m very much looking forward to its blooms. This is a wonderful native and I don’t know why it isn’t more widely grown. Later this summer when it blooms, it will send out long shoots for the blooms which will wind through and interweave with the other plants in such a pretty way.

The salvia ‘Rose Queen’ is beginning to bloom nicely. This was an easy plant to grow from seed. It blooms in several heavy flushes over the summer. I suspect if I cut it back it would bloom even more but I tend to just let it set seed since it continues to bloom.

City of York, the rose devouring my arbor, will be in full bloom by this weekend. Believe it or not, only about 1/2 the blooms are open in this picture. Every year I look forward to this big show. It’s a glorious week. I’m greedy and wish it bloomed more than once a year.

This is  partial view of the arbor from below. All of that is City of York. It’s so thick now that on bright sunny days it’s deep shade in the arbor.  I tried to get a picture to show the base of this plant but it didn’t turn out. The main canes of this rose are as thick as my wrists. Makes me think of that famous rose bush in Arizona. Except that mine is 8 years old instead of 100.

This native plant known as both indigo bush and false indigo bush, amorpha fruticosa, is in bloom.

And, finally, my penstemon ‘Husker Red’ is preparing to bloom. I ended up with these plants because I got them on clearance for about $1.50 apiece 2 years ago. They were very healthy plants despite being on clearance and at that price, I didn’t think I could lose. It turns out I love this plant and I’m growing some from seeds from these plants. There’s no guarantee my seedlings will come true and have this same dark coloration, however, since Husker Red is vegetatively propagated.

…sometimes must be changed.

While I won’t claim my plans were laid down to the last detail, they are definitely having to be changed. Much of what I envisioned doing this year is already and clearly going to have to wait until next year.

In the fall I cut some divisions of a wild dogwood shrub that had volunteered itself alongside my arbor. It was a different wild dogwood than the other growing in another part of my yard. I didn’t want to simply remove it because it’s a plant that supports and incredibly variety of animal and insect life. (Something like 80 birds use this dogwood shrub’s berries for food, particularly the fall migrating birds. Others eat the insects which are attracted to this shrub). So, I moved some divisions of it to the area where my thicket is supposed to grow, and then I waited for spring to see if they’d taken. They had.

And then my husband mowed them down.

He missed one. That lone division is bravely growing on its own. My husband now knows where it is. Truthfully, when I think about it, I don’t think there’s a year yet where he hasn’t mowed something I planted.  So, now he’s gotten that out of the way for this year!

Dogwood shrubs (as opposed to the pretty ornamental trees) are scrubby things. Mine are not something people generally would seek out. They are perfect for my purposes of providing a thicket and using many native plants that are food for many animals and insects. So, while they are not ornamental, they are important to me. These shrubs sucker and will form colonies, as the one growing next to my arbor was. I cut some of those suckers off and that is what I planted last fall. They were about 4 feet tall, but single twigs. Even though they were tall, I guess they didn’t register when he mowed. The ironic thing about it is that I had mowed all of the yard but one little piece– and part of that piece was where those divisions were. I assumed he’d see the branches and remember that I’d planted some there. Nope!

So, I’m debating whether to move some new suckered plants over there, or to simply pot some up and let them achieve some size and density before planting them there. The over-doer in me says I should do both. At the moment I feel like doing neither. Eventually I’ll get around to doing something.

Anyway, my prairie area didn’t compost as well as I thought it would, so I don’t want to plant in it yet. All that material I added is at least succeeding in my goal of suppressing the grassy weeds and, most importantly, the poison ivy that was thriving there. (Poison ivy berries are loved by birds. Knowing that, I’d consider leaving it except that that plant is growing all over the neighborhood. I don’t need to fight more of it).  So, no planting of prairie plants unless I am able to throw a layer of soil on top of that. And since I’ve loaned my garden wagon, I’d have to transport a whole lot of soil one or two 3-gallon buckets at a time. I just can’t face that yet. So, at best, my prairie will start being planted in the fall. My front border? Half of the echinacea I was growing for that died in the great flood of last week (my fault, which makes it hurt more) and the native shrubs that will be the backbone of it are being grown from seed. They are adorable– but they are about 2 inches tall. They won’t be ready to be planted out there this year, either. And the thicket? In addition to the dogwood shrubs, my plan was to add some native rose bushes and a couple other native bushes. The native bushes have sprouted and are growing, but I have the same issue with them as with the shrubs for the front border: they simply aren’t big enough to plant yet. And of the rose seeds I winter sowed, a grand total of ONE sprouted. I’ve grown thousands of roses from seed (literally– no exaggeration), but those were all from hips I harvested and handled myself. These native seeds were purchased from a reputable company. I remember thinking how many I saw that were obviously bad seeds when I was planting. I didn’t plant any that were obviously bad, but apparently there were a lot of bad seeds that looked okay. So, I now have one rosa setigera growing out of the 3 kinds of native rose seeds I sowed. That’s pitiful. My thicket is going to have to wait for next year.

Where does this leave me for this year? I’m not really sure. I guess I’ll have a random assortment of plants I can add to the garden in general. Many of those were plants for the prairie. And since my garden already is quite random, oh well. What’s a little more, right? When I run out of things to add to it, I guess I can focus on weeding for the summer. I did pretty well last year, but it’s going to take multiple years of concentrated effort to reduce the weed problem. And sometime in the next two weeks, I’ll probably start more seeds with the intention of being able to plant them this fall. They won’t have this summer’s growth for next year, but they’ll be ahead of any babies I plant next spring.

So here it is, the beginning of only May and already my plans are upended.

Yesterday I took a walk around the garden. I thought I’d look for a nest in my City of York. One year it hosted a cardinal family. A different year some doves made the unfortunate decision to build what passes for a nest on the top of the arbor. (The first storm through took care of that). So, I stood there looking over City of York carefully. Then POOF! A bird explodes from a different rose bush and shoots past me. I thought it was a female cardinal. I looked and found a tidy nest snugly settled into New Dawn. Today I took a careful look and confirmed that it is indeed a cardinal nest. If she hadn’t blasted past me yesterday, I’d never have known she was there. And even today, even though I knew where to look, I still wouldn’t have seen her if it wasn’t for her bright orange bill.

I hate New Dawn and have been thinking of removing it. This is the best use of that bush in the 8 years it’s been there. I believe cardinals will raise 3 – 4 broods in a year, so I’m curious to see if they’ll use this nest more than once. I’m going to try to stay clear enough of it that I don’t spook mama cardinal again. (Although I do want to get a picture or two, so I imagine that might upset her).

The excruciating wait is over and the verdict is in: the canes of City of York running across the top of my arbor made it through winter! That is one tough plant!

We had our 3rd coldest winter in history. We had freezing rain, tons of snow, and -15 degrees several nights and days where the high was low single digits. It was a COLD and nasty winter. I knew the bush would survive, but I was very, very worried about the canes on top of the arbor. They are about 8 feet up in the air and completely unprotected from the elements. Up there, they don’t have the benefit of the warm ground beneath them or much snow on top of them and nothing to stop the drying winds. I really thought I’d lost the “roof” of my arbor. But today I checked on it and there is no mistaking the growth on it now! As it leafs out, it will be easier to tell where I’ll be removing winter-killed canes. I expect there to be more than other years, but it looks like I didn’t lose them all.

Another thing that is exciting: I’m about to see my first blooms on the aurinia saxatilis (basket of gold) that I grew from seed last winter. The buds will be open soon. After a year of waiting, I’ll finally have blooms!

Overnight and this morning we got a layer of ice and during the day that was topped off with some snow. The weather this winter has been unbelievable.  The gray dreariness of the day has gotten to me. I almost laughed a while ago when I checked on my rudbeckias to see if they were finally blooming. They are… but they are Charlie Brown blooms. Kind of pitiful, really, and pretty fitting for the day overall.

I’ve got a new worry: my City of York climbing rose. It has “climbed” enough that it covers about 60% of my arbor. It covers more every year. At least until now. I’m not worried about the rose dying but I am worried about it dying back to the ground, or even part way. If it does that, my arbor will be uncovered and, worst of all, my traffic-stopping display of roses in May, like this one, will not happen:

That rose has always laughed at winter before now, but this winter has been a whole different beast and, frankly, I’ll be surprised if City of York doesn’t die back severely. I’ll be worrying about this until the roses leaf out. Judging by our weather so far, that’s going to be late this year, so I’ll remain in suspense longer.