Photo: Kirsty Hall/Flickr

Five Commandments of Composting

1. Have enough mass: compost bins come in all shapes and sizes, but to produce enough heat to break down the kitchen scraps and yard waste that magically turn into compost, the dimensions of your bins need to be at least three by three by three feet. Any smaller, and there aren’t enough plant sugars for bacteria feed on, and the more feeding that goes on, the more heat that’s generated. Lowenfels also recommends using a bottomless bin that sits right on the ground, rather than the tumbler types, for example, because they will attract indigenous micro-organisms to the compost pile.

1. Get the mix right: A balanced compost pile has a carbon to nitrogen ratio of 30:1. For all you soil scientists, an Internet search will reveal a lab full of online compost calculators that will tell you exactly how to achieve this ratio (for example, see www.agric.gov.ab.ca/app19/calc/manure/manure.jsp). If you’re really into this, you can get caught up in the formulae till the cows come home, but for we ordinary folk, try not to worry too much about it too much. As long as you add more “greens”, such as kitchen scraps, than “browns”, for example, dried leaves and grass clippings, “compost happens”, says Lowenfels. I can certainly attest to that. For years, I’ve been making compost in my backyard without the use of a slide rule, just by tossing in whatever’s in the kitchen compost can and debris from the garden.

1. Keep it moist: Without water, there is no life. It’s the activity of those trillions of microbes that breaks down the organic matter in your bin into compost. Dead microbes do not a compost pile make, so make sure your bin doesn’t dry out.

1. Let there be air: Just as all organisms need water, so they need air to breathe. An airy compost pile decomposes quickly. A pile without air becomes anaerobic, a dead zone that is stagnant – and stinky! So, turn your pile frequently. (Lowenfels recommends the following aerating regimen: turn the pile on days 2, 5, 7 and 11, repeating until the compost is ready.)

1. Heat it up: To kill most weed seeds, the internal temperature of a well-maintained compost pile should hover around 58°C. Surprisingly enough, that’s easy to achieve by following the four previous commandments – and it has nothing to do with whether your bin is in sun or not. A compost bin sitting in the shade will heat up just as much as one in the sun – as long as the bin is large enough, you’ve added the right mix of organic materials, and there’s enough moisture and air.

While researching Mulch To Be Desired for the Spring 2012 issue of GardenMaking magazine, I visited the mulch-making site of Gro-Bark in Caledon, just north of Toronto. Sales rep Kerri Stevenson and technical sales rep Chelsea Stroud showed me around, pointing out how the mulch is dyed, the differences between the various mulches and generally filling me in on the making of mulch. I had an up-close look at my favourite mulch, too – composted pine bark. The crisp fall day was full of the earthy pine scent. It was bliss! Thanks Kerry and Chelsea!

On the way back from Gro-Bark, I passed this mountain of mulch mounded up over the roots of this spruce hedge. Hmm, not my favourite colour and those evergreen roots will soon be smothered to death!

1. Visit a Greenhouse

For an instant injection of spring, there’s nothing like taking a walk through a greenhouse. One of the loveliest is right here in the heart of the city at Allan Gardens Conservatory. You know – it’s that glasshouse you glance at as you whiz along Jarvis Street on the way to somewhere else. This winter, make it your destination. You’ll be amazing at the variety of tropical plants and desert-dwellers.

2. The second-best way to get ready for springtime is to take a gardening course. The Toronto Botanical Garden’s Spring Program Guide offers so many courses, from pruning workshops to armchair travel, you’ll fill your calendar in no time!

3. Take Stock

Winter is the perfect time to organize photos of your garden and take stock of which plants performed well and which ones were under performers. During the growing season, it’s easy to be so awed by a colourful clump of perennials that you turn a blind eye to a sulky plant or a difficult corner of the garden. Looking at your garden through photographs gives you a truer picture of what needs to be done, so sort through those photos and starting making your spring to-do list!

4. Take a Walk

At some point, you’ll have to brave the wintry outdoors. The Toronto Field Naturalists make it easy for you to experience nature up-close. Throughout the winter, the volunteer organization hosts walks led by various members who share their expertise by identifying birds and trees along the trails. Upcoming walks include High Park, Humber Bay East and Mt. Pleasant Cemetery.

5. Watch a movie

On a snowy evening, curl up in front of the flickering television and watch a gardening movie. From films with a gardening theme – my favourites include Saving Grace and A New Leaf – and armchair tours of some of the best gardens around the world (Audrey Hepburn’s classic series, Gardens of the World, comes to mind) to more serious fare such as the pesticides ban documentary A Chemical Reaction, there’s enough to declare one night a week gardening night in Canada.

6. Listen In

With access to so much online content, it’s easy to listen in to gardening shows from anywhere in the world. Some of the best are from the United Kingdom, where lucky gardeners watch daffodils bloom in February. BBC hosts several call-in shows (Gardener’s Question Time is often a hoot), which are available through podcasts at www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer and you can even watch hunky Matthew Wilson, a.k.a. Landscape Man, on Channel 4.

7. Learn a Lesson

At one time, watching amateur how-to videos was at best comical and often misleading. But a quick Google search turns up some surprisingly instructive videos created by landscape experts. Some of the best include Patti Moreno’s Gardening Girl TV, PBS’s Garden Smart and Gardening Australia.

8. Read a Book or Magazine

During the gardening season, magazines and new books pile up on a table in my office, patiently waiting for winter when, I swear, they know I’ll finally have time to open and read them. At the top of the pile are the November issue of the Royal Horticulture Society’s The Garden and the spring issue of GardenMaking magazine. The View from Great Dixter and Growing tasty tropical plants heads the stack of books, as well as a pre-publication copy of Serving Up…No-Guff Vegetable Gardening by Donna Balzer and Steven Biggs.

9. Tend a Houseplant

Although I admit to being the worst indoor gardener ever, I know there are those among you who have a real knack for growing houseplants – and I envy your talents. Walk through the indoor plant department of any nursery this winter and take home whatever catches your eye – from traditional favourites like African violets to exotic tropicals such as clivias, you’re sure to find a charmer.

10. See Canada Blooms

An annual harbinger of spring, the Canada Blooms Flower and Garden Festival gives me hope that winter is coming to an end. Teamed with the National Home Show, this year Canada Blooms runs for 10 glorious days, from March 16 to 25 at the Direct Energy Building on the grounds of the CNE. It can’t come too soon.

Jeff Lowenfels

Jeff Lowenfels travelled all the way from Alaska to Canada Blooms to dish the dirt on soil to Toronto gardeners — and I’m glad he did. His lecture on Wednesday afternoon was all about mycorrhizal fungi, protazoa, nematodes and bacteria. Yes, I’ve heard about these micro-organisms but never in such an entertaining way. Somehow, he pulled together what I’d learned as a bunch of disparate information and made sense of it all. Did you know:
1.) 96 percent of plants form symbiotic relationships with mycorrhizal fungi
2.) There are 2 kinds of nitrogen: NO3 (nitrates) and NO4 (ammonia)
3.) NO3 is bacteria-dominant and is beneficial to annuals, bulbs and crops
4.) NO4 is fungi based, which aids perennials, shrubs and trees
5.) Slugs are good guys (especially if you’re not fond of hostas…), which live underground as well as on hosta leaves. In the soil, they help break down fungi and bacteria, and that’s a good thing.
6.) Birds are taxi cabs for protazoa (that’s another good thing)
7.) Rototilling is bad for soil health (but you knew that, right?)
8.) Soil depleted of microbes can be rejuvenated by adding compost, using compost tea, mulching and adding mycorrhizal fungi
9.) Mulch with green organics to attract bacteria (to benefit annuals, bulbs and crops)
10.) Mulch with brown organics to attract fungi (to help perennials, shrubs and trees)

Hooked on soil? Buy Jeff’s book, Teaming with Microbes. It’s the best thing you can do for your plants!

Felco bits and pieces

As the cool winds of autumn usher out another gardening season, I can’t help reflecting on what I accomplished in the garden over this past summer. Although I planted lots of new perennials, potted up summer bulbs and separated clumps of flowers with clashing colours, what I’m most proud of is taking apart and cleaning my secateurs.To many of you, disassembling secateurs or pruners may seem like a simple thing, but to those of us who are intimidated by a screwdriver, it’s a very brave thing to do. In part, that’s because a good pair of secateurs costs the earth – a pair of secateurs lying in bits and pieces is worthless. So, after carefully disassembling and cleaning my favourite pruners, I was very relieved when all of those funny looking parts snapped back into place.

The experience also made me feel a lot more confident about cleaning and caring for the other tools in my shed. So, for you brave souls willing to master new skills, here’s a checklist of tool care tasks, starting with secateurs.

Cutting tools
Without diagrams and a lot more space than this column allows, I can’t give you step-by-step instructions on how to disassemble, clean and sharpen your secateurs. But I will recommend that you find a good book or surf the Internet for instructions – there’s lots of good information already available.

Generally, all cutting tools, including secateurs or pruners, have a habit of getting all gummed up with sticky residues. To clean shears, loppers, pruning saws and pruners, use a rag dipped in paint thinner to remove the sap and pitch from their blades. Then, sharpen them with a file or wet stone before protecting them from rusting with a spray or wipe of WD-40 oil.

Hand tools
Dirt builds up on hand tools such as trowels and cultivators. Wash them with soapy water and scrub them with a stiff-bristled brush or steel wool to dislodge crusty chunks of dirt. Inspect the handles of your tools and re-glue any that have become loose. To prevent unpainted wooden handles from drying and splitting, give them a swipe with a rag moistened with linseed oil, removing the excess oil with a clean cloth. Tools with painted handles can be touched up if necessary, or brushed with brightly coloured paint that’ll be easy to spot in the garden.

Hoses and sprinklers
To guard against splitting and cracking, drain all hoses. Then, store them coiled on a flat surface – hoses hung up on nails might crack where they bend over the nails. Drain and turn off outside taps to prevent pipes from freezing and bursting.

Large tools
Clean large tools such as shovels, rakes, hoes and edgers with soapy water, removing soil with a wire brush or steel wool. Sharpen the blades of digging tools – they’ll perform much better with sharp edges. Wipe or spray metal parts with WD-40 to prevent rusting. Rub linseed oil into wooden handles to prevent drying and splitting, finishing with a swipe of a dry cloth to the remove excess oil.

Storage
After cleaning your tools, store them in a dry place away from rain and snow. Hang tools with handles such as spades, rakes and hoes on the walls of your garage or garden shed where they’re out of the way, yet easily accessible when you’re ready to use them in the spring. Place hand tools in a basket or bucket where they won’t go astray. Then, hang up your hat, take off your gloves and hope for an early spring!

For more about mulch, see Mulch, Mulch, Mulch

Orange Emperor

Colourful bulbs are calling out to us from the shelves of garden centres and from the pages of mail order catalogues. Their siren sounds seem to say, “Buy me, plant me, water me and you’ll be rewarded with my spring beauty.”To succumb to these irresistible cries is to play into the hands of the squirrels. Stop before it’s too late.

No, I’m not advocating a ban on bulbs, but rather a more cautious planting plan. Sure, race out and buy your bulbs now (before your naïve neighbours deplete supplies in their haste to feed the squirrels), but wait awhile before planting them. Look at the weather – it’ll tell you when the time is right – and listen for the silence – the hush of squirrels nesting for the winter instead of rustling around in your flowerbeds.

Weather is your first line of defense against squirrels. The cooler it gets, the more likely the squirrels will be settling down instead of frantically foraging for winter food supplies. And from the bulbs’ point of view, cooler weather is better too. That’s because cold weather is the signal that triggers root growth. When temperatures reliably hover between 10 and 5°C, bulbs start sprouting roots and preparing for winter hibernation, including going through a series of stages to prevent them from freezing. In the Toronto area, we typically reach these temperatures in early November. So stop and look at the thermometer before planting tulips, crocuses and other squirrel-tempting, spring-flowering bulbs.

Cooler days are only one signal that it’s time to plant. The other weather indicator is rainfall. Nothing foils squirrels more. That’s because squirrels are attracted to disturbed earth (squirrel brains conclude that buried treasures lie where the ground has been dug); and a good rainfall settles the soil, hiding planting holes. So, watch the skies and plan to plant just before a rainstorm – or turn on the sprinkler for a few hours after planting until the ground settles. The moisture will be good for the bulbs, too.

The later in the season you wait to plant, the more likely you’ll hear the sound of silence – that blissful point at which the squirrels know winter is imminent and the time to forage has ended. Last year I planted tulips in late November. First I dug the holes, then dropped in the bulbs and finally filled the holes with soil and compost. A few days later I noticed I had missed filling in some of the holes, and was amazed that the bulbs rested safely at the bottom, un-scavenged by the squirrels! If planted earlier, the bulbs would surely have been squirrel food.

Just how long you dare wait to plant bulbs depends a bit on the bulb: most need six weeks before the ground freezes to develop roots and prepare for freezing weather. Tulips, though, can be planted into frozen ground and still come up looking their best come spring. (Tip: Pre-dig the holes and fill them with newspaper until you’re ready to plant.)

So, go out and buy your bulbs, but stop, look and listen for the right time to plant.

Lambs Ears

How did your plants spend their summer vacation? Walk out into the garden and take a look around. Have the Siberian irises crowded out the phlox? Are the stems of your yarrow lazily flopping over its neighbours? Has the centre of the your silvery artemisia browned-out? Did you notice how much smaller the peony flowers were this year than last?

Dividing perennials that have outgrown their space, become lanky and limp from overcrowded stems, ceased to produce large, showy blossoms or that have become woody enough to die-out in the centre is like treating them to a spa – it rejuvenates and keeps them healthy.

Generally, perennials that bloom in the spring and early summer can safely be divided in the fall. These include hardy geraniums, columbines, coral bells, pulmonarias, hostas, centaureas, Siberian irises, oriental poppies and dianthus. But with care, many mid-summer bloomers such as phlox, yarrow and daylilies can also be divided during the cool days of fall. Autumn is also the only time to divide or move herbaceous peonies. These and other fleshy rooted perennials such as oriental poppies have been busy over the summer storing energy in their thick roots. Moving them in the spring, after winter and early spring growth has depleted that energy, means these plants have less of a chance of recovering from being divided. No matter the plant, divide it early enough in the fall to allow it to form a good root system before the ground freezes – generally, at least six weeks before winter sets in.

To divide perennials, wait for a cool, overcast day. Roots exposed to sun, heat or wind can become dried out in a very short time. If you must work on a sunny or windy day, keep the roots shaded and sheltered from the wind – it’s also a good idea to keep a bucket of water handy.

When you’re ready, lift the plant from the ground with a garden fork, digging the tines into the soil under the clump. Gently exert enough upward pressure to leverage the roots from the soil. Work your way around the plant, inserting the fork and prying up the roots until the clump is free.

How you divide up the plant depends on the size of the clump and the firmness of the rootball. Roots of nepeta, geraniums or coral bells are fairly loose and easily teased apart with your hands while those of mature hostas, for example, require the double-fork method. This involves inserting a garden fork into the centre of the clump, then placing a second fork back-to-back to the first one. I find this method a bit awkward for one person to perform because it requires that both forks be pushed in opposite directions at the same time – I don’t know about your dexterity and strength, but I find myself all elbows and thumbs. I prefer dealing with these stubborn roots with a dull knife – or let’s be brutally practical – a hatchet. Just wield it as you would a kitchen clever, and before you know it, your plant is nicely chopped.

Once divided, discard the older, browned-out part of the clump. Plants age from the middle toward the outer edges, so the older parts will be in the middle and the younger ones will be clustered around the perimeter. Replant the young divisions into the garden right away to keep them from drying out, or pot them up to give to neighbours and friends.

Papa, Mama and Baby BrunneraBrunnera ready to divide

Roots on lambs ears

Finish your spring spruce-up by edging flowerbeds. The easiest way is to dig a shallow trench between lawn and border using an edger (a half-moon shaped tool available at hardware stores). It may take time, but the payoff is a garden with a professional edge!