Tuesday, November 26, 2013

IGC Annual Greens Meeting- Friday, December 6th

We will have wreaths, ribbons, ornaments and wire to create the decorations for the Ascension Church, the First Church in Ipswich UCC, the Hall Haskell House, the Schools' Administrative Building, the Fire House, Police Station, Town Hall, the Train Station and a couple for special friends. We will also decorate the library interior.

Please remember to bring clippers and your creative genius. PLEASE bring additional materials from YOUR OWN GARDENS to fill planters and decorate wreaths.
    Bring what you have, such as:
                                                                                                                                              
Branches of greens- arborvitae, balsam, yew, boxwood, juniper, pine, rhododendron, and leucothoe. The rhodie leaves make a splash sprayed gold!

Berries- bayberry, winterberry, and rosehips (no wild rosehips--these are invasive)

Dried Material- Artemisia, grasses, seed heads, pods and pine cones.

Mark your calendars. This meeting is always the highpoint of our Garden Club year.
We look forward to seeing all of you and celebrating the beginning of the holiday season of 2013.

PLEASE, PLEASE RSVP by November 28th so that we can plan for greens work and luncheon.
        This reply is very necessary for planning.
    RSVP to Maureen (978) 790-1527 or  nicknicknana@yahoo.com nicknicknana@yahoo.com





Monday, November 25, 2013

Hort "Organic" Minute from November '13 Meeting

 Worm Castings as Insecticide

by Barbara Monahan

Worm castings as pesticide, specifically as an insecticide may be used for the eradication or at least the control of White Fly and Giant "Wooley" White Fly. Worm castings are also helpful in discouraging other insects that suck on leaves (e.g. aphids.) When you water-in the worm castings, the resulting liquid flowing throughout the plant repels the insect by its taste. Sometimes the insects stay away. If they return later, use an application of new worm castings as a preventive about every three months.

Protocol:
• Clean off all adversely affected leaves and any dead branches.
• Clear out all debris on soil.
• Spread worm castings two inches deep out to the drip line of the plant.
• Layer an organic mulch tht will decompose within a year over the worm castings.
• Water-in deeply.
• With a couple of days, water-in deeply again.
• The insects should leave.
• Again cleanup all debris.

Note: The worm castings have no discernable odor for us. they are dark brown with a fine texture. Gordon's Nursery carries an eight quart bag.

Sunday, November 24, 2013

The Year the Monarch Didn't Appear

Catherine Carney Feldman, a former presenter to the IGC on butterfly gardens asked to share this recent NY Times article with members of the IGC. If you haven't already read this comprehensive, as well as sobering,  look at native plants and their connection to insects (i.e. bees, Monarchs) on your own, here is another reminder of what our garden club and others must do to spread the importance of biological diversity in word and deed.  Thanks Catherine. 

 The Year the Monarch Didn’t Appear 

November 22, 2013 

By

ON the first of November, when Mexicans celebrate a holiday called the Day of the Dead, some also celebrate the millions of monarch butterflies that, without fail, fly to the mountainous fir forests of central Mexico on that day. They are believed to be souls of the dead, returned.
This year, for or the first time in memory, the monarch butterflies didn’t come, at least not on the Day of the Dead. They began to straggle in a week later than usual, in record-low numbers. Last year’s low of 60 million now seems great compared with the fewer than three million that have shown up so far this year. Some experts fear that the spectacular migration could be near collapse.
“It does not look good,” said Lincoln P. Brower, a monarch expert at Sweet Briar College.
It is only the latest bad news about the dramatic decline of insect populations.
Another insect in serious trouble is the wild bee, which has thousands of species. Nicotine-based pesticides called neonicotinoids are implicated in their decline, but even if they were no longer used, experts say, bees, monarchs and many other species of insect would still be in serious trouble.
That’s because of another major factor that has not been widely recognized: the precipitous loss of native vegetation across the United States.
“There’s no question that the loss of habitat is huge,” said Douglas Tallamy, a professor of entomology at the University of Delaware, who has long warned of the perils of disappearing insects. “We notice the monarch and bees because they are iconic insects,” he said. “But what do you think is happening to everything else?”
A big part of it is the way the United States farms. As the price of corn has soared in recent years, driven by federal subsidies for biofuels, farmers have expanded their fields. That has meant plowing every scrap of earth that can grow a corn plant, including millions of acres of land once reserved in a federal program for conservation purposes.
Another major cause is farming with Roundup, a herbicide that kills virtually all plants except crops that are genetically modified to survive it.
As a result, millions of acres of native plants, especially milkweed, an important source of nectar for many species, and vital for monarch butterfly larvae, have been wiped out. One study showed that Iowa has lost almost 60 percent of its milkweed, and another found 90 percent was gone. “The agricultural landscape has been sterilized,” said Dr. Brower.
The loss of bugs is no small matter. Insects help stitch together the web of life with essential services, breaking plants down into organic matter, for example, and dispersing seeds. They are a prime source of food for birds. Critically, some 80 percent of our food crops are pollinated by insects, primarily the 4,000 or so species of the flying dust mops called bees. “All of them are in trouble,” said Marla Spivak, a professor of apiculture at the University of Minnesota.
Farm fields are not the only problem. Around the world people have replaced diverse natural habitat with the biological deserts that are roads, parking lots and bluegrass lawns. Meanwhile, the plants people choose for their yards are appealing for showy colors or shapes, not for their ecological role. Studies show that native oak trees in the mid-Atlantic states host as many as 537 species of caterpillars, which are important food for birds and other insects. Willows come in second with 456 species. Ginkgo, on the other hand, which is not native, supports three species, and zelkova, an exotic plant used to replace elm trees that died from disease, supports none. So the shelves are nearly bare for bugs and birds.
Native trees are not only grocery stores, but insect pharmacies as well. Trees and other plants have beneficial chemicals essential to the health of bugs. Some monarchs, when afflicted with parasites, seek out more toxic types of milkweed because they kill the parasites. Bees use medicinal resins from aspen and willow trees that are antifungal, antimicrobial and antiviral, to line their nests and to fight infection and diseases. “Bees scrape off the resins from the leaves, which is kind of awesome, stick them on their back legs and take them home,” said Dr. Spivak.
Besides pesticides and lack of habitat, the other big problem bees face is disease. But these problems are not separate. “Say you have a bee with viruses,” and they are run-down, Dr. Spivak said. “And they are in a food desert and have to fly a long distance, and when you find food it has complicated neurotoxins and the immune system just goes ‘uh-uh.’ Or they become disoriented and can’t find their way home. It’s too many stressors all at once.”
There are numerous organizations and individuals dedicated to rebuilding native plant communities one sterile lawn and farm field at a time. Dr. Tallamy, a longtime evangelizer for native plants, and the author of one of the movement’s manuals, “Bringing Nature Home,” says it’s a cause everyone with a garden or yard can serve. And he says support for it needs to develop quickly to slow down the worsening crisis in biodiversity.
When the Florida Department of Transportation last year mowed down roadside wildflowers where monarch butterflies fed on their epic migratory journey, “there was a huge outcry,” said Eleanor Dietrich, a wildflower activist in Florida. So much so, transportation officials created a new policy that left critical insect habitat un-mowed.
That means reversing the hegemony of chemically green lawns. “If you’ve got just lawn grass, you’ve got nothing,” said Mace Vaughan of the Xerces Society, a leading organization in insect conservation. “But as soon as you create a front yard wildflower meadow you go from an occasional honeybee to a lawn that might be full of 20 or 30 species of bees and butterflies and monarchs.”
First and foremost, said Dr. Tallamy, a home for bugs is a matter of food security. “If the bees were to truly disappear, we would lose 80 percent of the plants,” he said. “That is not an option. That’s a huge problem for mankind.”

Sunday, November 10, 2013

The Cloth Crafter's Garden

                                Tuesday, 19 November

6:45 P.M.

at the

Ipswich Public Library




The Cloth Crafter's Garden explores the connection between textiles and plants. I will discuss cotton and silk, natural dyes from leaves, roots and bark as well as the botanical forms that inspire 'Indian' textile design.
The talk is supported by a slideshow which will be complemented by an exhibit of my own textiles from South and South-East Asia.

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Great Marsh Symposium

This year's Great Marsh Symposium is being held  Thursday, November 14th at Castle Hill. Many of the topics, sea level rise and others, are related to Don Cheney's talk last month on climate change. The event is free. You can see the list of speakers and sign up at:
            www.greatmarsh.org
 The Great Marsh website also has a lot of interesting material about  our marshes.

Best, Alicia

Friday, November 1, 2013

Hort Minute from October '13 Meeting

From Gail Anderson, IGC Horticulturist
Have a question or want to suggest a topic for Hort Minute? Please e-mail Gail at riverfront37@verizon.net.
Question: “How do you prune hydrangeas?”
Submitted by Carol Williams (Thank you!)

General Rules of Thumb
•    Many hydrangeas do not need pruning. Simply cut off dead tips or branches in the spring.
•    If you must prune heavily to control size, the plant is in the wrong place.
•    Do not prune any hydrangeas between September and January
•    Do not “shear” hydrangeas. That is, do not cut them uniformly tight like a hedge. Cut individual stems.
•    When pruning, use hand pruners or a small hand saw, not mechanical tools.
•    Do not remove more than 1/3 of the stems in one season.
•    Remove dead flowers any time you wish.

Two Questions
Ask only two questions:
WHEN to prune?
HOW to prune?

WHEN TO PRUNE is determined by the species (type) of hydrangea
Depending on the species, hydrangeas form flower buds in one of two ways:
On NEW growth of the current season
On OLD growth of the previous season
When to prune will be determined by the time of flower bud formation. You want to avoid cutting off buds of future flowers.

Too complicated? See the WHEN and HOW of the four most common hydrangeas below.

HOW TO PRUNE is determined by the shrub’s overall shape (habit)
    Canes: If your hydrangea has canes (stems) that grow straight from the ground without branches (like a porcupine), cut the tallest or floppiest canes to the ground. Do not cut canes halfway.
    Branched: If your hydrangea has stems with branches, prune back to a crotch.
_______________________________________________________________________

Smooth Leaf Hydrangea (Hydrangea arborescens)

WHEN? Prune late winter/early spring
(Blooms on new growth)

HOW? Cut tallest or floppiest canes to the ground
Note: Can be completely cut to the ground—optional, done every few years in winter or very early spring.
_____________________________________________________________________

Panicle Hydrangea (Hydrangea paniculata)

WHEN? Prune late winter/early spring
(Blooms on new growth)

HOW? Cut branched stems or twigs to a crotch
Cane forming varieties: Cut tallest or floppiest canes to the ground

______________________________________________________________________________

Oakleaf Hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia)

WHEN? Prune immediately after blooming (early-mid summer)
(Blooms on old growth)

HOW? Cut branched stems to a crotch or to the ground
 ________________________________________________________________________

Big Leaf Hydrangea (Hydrangea macrophylla)

WHEN?
Old fashioned: Prune immediately after blooming (mid-summer)
Blooms once a season on old growth

Reblooming (new): Prune immediately after first flush of bloom (mid-summer)
Blooms on old and new growth
Note: Deadheading spent flowers will encourage reblooming

HOW? Cut tallest canes to the ground