About Garden Chores

What is a chore? A routine task, duty, work, drudgery, drag, pain... these are some of the synonyms in the thesaurus for "chore." But these words hardly describe most of the things I do in the garden.

Is it a chore to be outside in the fresh air, with birds to serenade you?Is it a chore to smell damp earth and the dark, rich odor of old fallen leaves? Is it a chore to move one's body, to stretch and reach and bend, to feel muscles contract and relax, to begin wearing a coat but soon warm up so that only shirt sleeves are needed? Is it a chore to work until one is tired, but a good tired, feeling the satisfaction of a job accomplished?

Spring will hit fast, probably in the next few days, and there are many "chores" I need to do. Here in Helena, we had many days of rain and freezing temperatures in February. While the lowest temperature was 12 degrees F (-11 degrees C), the highest temp was 76 degrees F (24 degrees C); so there were brief interludes when I could get things done in the garden. More rain is forecast for most of this coming week, but yesterday produced one of those moments with clear skies and mild temperatures. I enjoyed an afternoon of pruning, which is my favorite chore of all time. Most trees and shrubs in my garden have benefited from pruning.

Not all trees and shrubs need pruning every year, but pruning is done for a number of reasons: to shape or to maintain size, and to remove dead, diseased or deformed branches. (See my previous posts:  Pruning is fun and other basics you need to know and Five Rules To Prune By.

Here are the plants we pruned in February:

1. Apple trees

2. Crape myrtles (Gentle pruning for shaping; no "crape murder" here!)

3. Euonymus

4. Japanese maples (This was close - Japanese maples should be pruned before the sap starts rising in early spring. We removed a few branches but did not do any over-all pruning. If the sap is rising, these beautiful trees could "bleed to death."

5. Nandina

6. Roses

7.Yaupon hollies

8. Many summer blooming shrubs, including Hydrangea macrophylla 'Endless Summer', Hydrangea paniculata 'Limelight', Gardenia and Spirea japonica 'Anthony Waterer.' Spring bloomers, such as azaleas, will be pruned soon after flowering is complete.

In addition to pruning, we planted some new native azaleas and several other shrubs. We also began general clean-up, a process that will stretch into March, clearing old seed heads, fallen leaves and twigs.

Coming up in March will be the spreading of fresh pine straw and pine bark mulch, which will make everything look neat and smell wonderful. Also, beginning in March: Fertilizing! Everything! With organic fertilizers, especially fish emulsion. Fertilizing involves a lot of mixing and carrying and borders on being a real "chore." I don't particularly enjoy doing it, but it is essential. We also prepare our vegetable garden in March, getting rid of weeds, spreading compost and working organic fertilizer into the soil. As soon as we have a dry day or two, I will plant potatoes, onions, and lettuce. Another thing to do in March is to spray horticultural oil on the apple trees and many shrubs to decrease obnoxious insects. The apple trees and some shrubs will also get a treatment of an organic fungicide. I also plan to plant a few more ferns and other goodies...

Are you tired yet? As I said, it is a good tired! People often look at the scope of our gardens and comment on what a lot of work it must take. Lou and I do all the upkeep ourselves, and if we did not love it, we would not live here; and truly, it does not seem like so much. The mass of work is seasonal, in spring and fall, and many jobs are only done once or twice a year. My favorite seasons? Spring and fall! 

Note: I took all the images in this post in previous years, but I will enjoy similar views this spring, thanks to pruning and other garden chores. Happy gardening!

Yaupon Holly: An Unsung Hero

I first purchased yaupon holly because I wanted something that would not die. I was frustrated with azaleas and other plants that had suffered in the summer heat and bright sun of the front garden. I wanted an unfinicky plant to provide evergreen structure to the garden, and, among all plants in my garden, it has succeeded beyond my expectations.

In 1993, a blizzard, a once in a lifetime experience here in the Deep South, dumped three feet of snow atop recently planted 'Compacta' yaupons, a dwarf variety in the front garden. Though many other plants were damaged, the yaupons were unfazed. Since then they have patiently endured blazing heat, draught, and torrential rainfalls. A native of the southeastern USA, this is one tough plant that suffers from commonality but nevertheless continues on as an unsung hero.

Top left: A summer view of yaupons amidst other shrubs growing in the front garden. Top right: In a fall view of another part of the front garden, dwarf yaupons grow in association with silvery artemesia 'powis castle' and nandina 'firepower'. A brilliant Japanese maple grows in the background. Lower left and right photos both show dwarf yaupons growing in the woodland garden, late winter. Note the looser, more natural form of these less pruned specimens.

Yaupon holly, Ilex vomitoria, acquired its botanical name from a Native American custom of using the plant to make a strong tea for use in certain purification ceremonies, which involved vomiting. Not a glamourous name, but I think they are beautiful. Yaupon holly may grow as an evergreen shrub or as a small upright or weeping tree. The females produce bright red berries that are an important food source for many birds. We have a weeping yaupon holly tree near the glass doors in our kitchen, and it is a joy to watch the birds in this tree in late winter. I once saw a flock of mockingbirds strip it of its berries in a single day.We have a good view from our kitchen table of this weeping yaupon holly and its popular berries.

The shrub forms look a lot like boxwoods, with small glossy leaves, dark green above with slightly paler undersides, and the dense, slow growing shrubs are easily pruned into hedges of various shapes. My oldest 'Compacta' matured to about five feet tall and wide. At first I planted my immature plants too close together and eventually had to remove about half of them because they were growing into each other. Yaupon is a common landscape plant, and I often see rows of these things in front of pharmacies and quickie marts, all grown together to form undulating worms. Not the look I was after! The good thing is that I only paid a few dollars each for small ones, so I didn't feel too guilty.

Yaupons grow best in partial shade to full sun in hardiness zones 7 to 10 and will grow in clay, loam, and sandy soils. They tolerate salt spray, wind, and heat and adapt to a wide variety of soil moisture conditions. They are rarely bothered by disease or pests and succeed when many other evergreen hollies struggle.

I like the looser look of a minimally pruned yaupon, and this is how they grow in the woodland areas of my garden. I only snip wild shoots once a year on these, and I would prefer to do the same for the ones in the front garden. But this is where marital compromise has asserted itself. Lou is the owner of a power hedge trimmer, and he loves to use that thing. I have given the ancient boxwoods that grow around the foundation of our house over to him, after clear instructions on how to prune them. He does an admirable job, though sometimes scalping them too severely for my taste.

But a man with a power tool is a man on a mission, and sometimes he casts his eyes upon my yaupons, and if they are growing out of bounds according to his taste, he is sorely tempted. More than once he has sheared them into harsh balls I despise. I prefer to use a good quality manual hedge trimmer, a much more precise tool that gives a softer look and damages the leaves less. Power trimmers, though faster, leave brown edges where they rip through the leaves.

I trim the dwarf yaupons after new growth begins in spring and again in fall as needed. It is important to trim yaupons, boxwoods, and similar shrubs so that the widest part of the plant is at the bottom, tapering slightly toward the top. This allows sunlight to get to the bottom branches. Too often shrubs are pruned only across the top, resulting in sparse or even naked bottoms, not a pretty sight!

I hope you are having a great week!   Deborah