May and June Events for Plant Lovers

The next meeting of Middle Tennessee Plant Swap is May 22 at 9AM at Henry Horton State Park. Come picnic and share plants and hear the featured speaker.
http://www.midtnplantswap.com/


Davidson County Master Gardeners are holding a Plant Sale at the Flatrock Festival – Saturday, May 29, at Coleman Park, at the intersection of Thompson Lane and Nolensville Road. Sorry, no further information.

National Trails Day is June 5. Locally, Radnor Lake, Beaman Park, Bells Bend, Warner Parks and others will host trail days for trial maintenance or clean up. Great way to meet wildflower enthusiasts.
http://www.americanhiking.org/NTD.aspx

Radnor Lake is rebuilding trails and roads after the flood, and education programs will be temporarily suspended. If you'd like to volunteer to help repair and rebuild, they are holding Volunteer Days on every Saturday in June from 8am to noon. Meet at the Visitor Center off of Granny White Pike. Lunch is being provided to volunteers each Saturday in June.
http://www.radnorlake.org/programming.html


Lots of educational opportunities at our state parks. One example... a Nature Hike on the Grundy Forest Day Loop to discuss unusual and 'dangerous ' plants at Grundy Forest.
9:00 a.m.June 26 at the South Cumberland Visitor's Center.
http://www.friendsofscsra.org/activities.htm#june


Botanical Tour of the Couchville Cedar Glade June 26 in Davidson and Wilson County
http://www.tn.gov/environment/parks/events/pdf/may_june_events.pdf

Many great events at the UT extension gardens in Jackson TN including their "Bloom Days" on June 26 & 27
http://utgardens.tennessee.edu/news_events.html


Water Resources
The interesting dilemma this past period in Nashville is that although our landscape plants didn't need supplemental watering for several weeks, residents of Davidson County and some other municipalities are taking a new look at water conservation. Although our area has a surplus of rain and ground water, we are needing to conserve our use of purified city water.
When we return to typical weather patterns and feel the need again to water our ornamental and food crops, we can use these lessons to think about recycling and reducing our use of water.

Rain barrels are one way to catch and hold rain water, thus using less water from your local water distribution system. You can have a few rain barrels and use them to hand water your potted plants or a small garden or you can have a larger water cachement system and possibly run distribution/soaker hoses to other garden areas.
Metro Water Services (Nashville) and Cumberland River Compact both sell rain barrels. There are many online sources and local groups teaching you to build your own
http://www.cumberlandrivercompact.org/
http://www.nashville.gov/flood/water.asp
http://www.nashville.gov/water/education/rainbarrel.asp

Rain gardens are another tool, involving a little more investment. Rain gardens can fit a lot of situations but basically are a way of thinking about plants as a tool to modify storm runoff, problem solve soggy areas, and help cleanse runoff going into our drinking water sources.

Flood Related

Volunteer with the Nashville Hiking Meetup in cleaning up various area greenways and water systems affected by the flood, including Radnor Lake and Richland Creek. You must register and join the Hiking Meetup. This is a group of fantastic fun hikers who also contribute a lot of volunteer hours in the community, helping out parks, greenways, Habitat, and Second Harvest.

http://www.nashvillehiking.com/calendar/

FOOD GARDEN SAFETY:
For information on vegetable/fruit gardens that were flooded or splashed by river water during the flood, please see Safety of Produce from Flooded Gardens from University of Wisconsin Extension at this link.
http://www.uwex.edu/ces/ag/issues/documents/SafetyofProducefromFloodedGardens08.pdf

Spring Things - "to do" in the garden

Vegetables
We are probably well past any hard freezes so feel free to plant warm season vegetables by seed or as plants. If your garden plot is new or the soil seems hard to work and you're not going to till it, add handfuls of composted manure with each plant. Mulching will help keep the roots cool and delay the weeds. I like to use wheat straw. You can also underplant taller plants (tomatoes, peppers, etc) with a 'green mulch' of lettuce, radishes, herbs, marigolds, borage etc.
Most of the summer vegetables need a lot of sun...6 or more continuous hours of full sun exposure.


Pruning
Prune any shrubs that have finished flowering. For example, forsythia can be pruned. Or not. If you want to control the size of the forsythia, prune by removing a quarter of the main stems, randomly selected from the interior, or cutting the larger, older stems; cut them all the way to the bottom. If you're wanting to take the power hedge shears to them...it may be the wrong plant for that location.

Young dogwood trees can be pruned for deadwood or structure.
Remember the rule of pruning: think twice, cut once; think once, curse twice.

Weeding and pre-emergents
For all the trouble weeds give us, they should be simpler to control. But we have to identify the weeds and their life cycles to control them effectively, and to not waste money or over-medicate the environment.

Weeds can be annual or perennials.
Annual weeds can be winter or summer annuals. The big crop you're seeing now are probably winter annuals like chickweed, henbit, purple deadnettle which germinated in late fall and are coming to maturity. Summer annuals (spurges, bedstraw,knotweed, Japanese stiltgrass etc.) are just little seeds germinating now and you likely cant see them, yet. You can help to prevent annual weeds by distributing a pre-emergent herbicide in fall and spring. Always read the labels and don't over-apply.
Perennial weeds include: ground ivy, dandelion, sedges, plantains, clover. Controlling perennials weeds takes a little more effort, including hand weeding and selective use of post-emergent herbicides.

Here are some links about weeds that might be helpful:
http://www.utextension.utk.edu/publications/pbfiles/PB956part1.pdf?what=pb956part1
http://www.ppws.vt.edu/weedindex.htm

Go, See....... More Spring Plant-Lovers' Events

The annual Plant and Herb Sale, sponsored by the Herb Society of Nashville April 17 9AM Sports Arena at the fairgrounds in Nashville. http://www.herbsocietynashville.org/events_open_to_the_public.htm

Trails and Trilliums, "A Celebration and Sale of Native Plants" April 17& 18, Sewanee TN ttp://trails.sasweb.org/

12South Neighborhood Tour April 17, 2010 http://www.12south.org/

Growild, Inc. Spring Open House Friday April 30 and Saturday May 1, 2010 From 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM on both days. Music, wonderful food, hayrides, bird, butterfly and wildlife walks and talks and beautiful gardens. http://www.growildinc.com/

The Elsie Quarterman Glade Festival, a celebration and study of cedar glades habitat, which is an ecosystem unique to Middle Tennessee April 30- May 1, 2010 www.state.tn.us/environment/parks/Cedars/features/festival2010.html

Spring Wildflower Hike at Beaman Park in north Davidson County April 23,2010 9-11AM
www.nashville.gov/parks/nature OR http://www.beamanpark.org/

NUMEROUS wildflower hikes in various Tennessee State Parks. Seek out information at your favorite park or try this site: http://www.blueshoenashville.com/wildflowers.html

April 9

Here's a nice view of a Red Buckeye, Aesculus pavia. This is a small deciduous tree for sun or partial shade.





One of the spring ephemerals, a Trillium. 'Ephemerals' are the spring perennial wildflowers living in the understory of the forest (or, in a shady spot in your garden, that gets some winter sun). They take advantage of the late winter sunlight, emerge and bloom before the leaf cover is fully out on the deciduous trees, and by the heat of summer have shed their foliage. The root stays cool and alive underground and waits for the following spring to emerge again.

Go to http://www.blueshoenashville.com/wildflowers.html#hikes for a a list of many wildflower events.

April 8, 2010

Unusually warm temperatures, pleasant breezes, lovely weather...



Virginia Bluebells, Mertensia virginia, with Columbine, Aquilegia canadensis




















Celandine Poppy, Stylophorum diphyllum (or possibly,stylophorum lasiocarpum?)

.....Spring....

Most of us are sighing with relief at the sunny warm days brought to us lately. We complain at even a day of rain now, having become so tired of the cold gray winter that's just fading.


Here are some beauties...

Daffodils

Star magnolia, Magnolia stellata, at the Green Hills Library

Saucer Magnolia, Magnolia soulangiana, in the Flat Rock neighborhood of Nashville

A red buckeye, Aesculus pavia, not quite blooming (look for pictures here soon)

Nice to see...

...a few fantastic blooms this week. Even with such a long and cold winter, these reliable splashes of color showed up with last weeks sun and warmth.

The shrub is witch hazel, Hamamelis x intermedia 'Arnold Promise'.

The white flower is Helleborus. Once the flowers show up I go ahead and clip back most of last years leaves. They may look a little like lollipops at first, but I want to see the blooms.