5/22/2012
A Reflection on Earth Day!
Earth Day 2012 was exactly one month ago today. So what did you do to celebrate Earth Day?
Did you make any commitments to reuse, reduce or recycle?
My “traditional” celebration the last number of years involves visiting the “after school” program at our local community center and making homemade ice cream for the kids. Together, we enjoy the ice cream and talk about what we can do to reuse, reduce and recycle. It always amazes me as to how much the kids are aware of what we can and should be doing for the earth.
Now that the spring planting season has been in full swing for several weeks, let me tell you about another of my earth friendly “traditions”.
Whether you plant just a few cell packs of flowers and vegetables, or a large number of plants from pots, flats and other containers, you can protect the environment with this environmentally friendly solution.
You can save all those containers from your spring thru fall planting projects and keep them out of the landfill. While they cannot be put in your regular recycling container, you can participate in the Missouri Botanical Garden’s Plastic Pot Recycling program.
Since its inception, the program has kept over 1 million pounds of gardening containers out of landfills and uses some of the recycled plastic to make lumber for raised gardening beds and retaining walls.
The linked page above will tell you where you can recycle them here at the Garden (pictured) and also lists a number of garden centers in the Saint Louis area that are collecting them as well.
Need some other environmentally friendly ideas to reuse, reduce and recycle in your yard and garden? At the William T. Kemper Center for Home Gardening we can help!
On the Gardening Help portion of this website, follow the link on the left to Sustainable Gardening for a discussion of 6 practices that can help you do your part. From this same page follow the links on the right to our Kemper Center Factsheets on composting yard waste, water conservation options for home gardeners and ways to go green in your lawn and landscape.
As always, at the Center for Home Gardening, when it comes to any gardening related question, you can also talk to us in person! By phone, call the Horticulture Answer Service (Monday – Friday from 9 a.m. - 12 p.m. @ 314-577-5143) or visit the “doctors” at the Plant Doctor Desk (Monday-Saturday from 10 a.m. – 3 p.m.).
Enjoy the rest of spring and do your part to reflect on and celebrate Earth Day!
5/15/2012
Like Your Fruits and Vegetables?-Thank a Bee!
If you like your fruits and vegetables, you should definitely thank a bee. The domesticated honeybee is one of the most familiar beneficial insects and plays a key role in the pollination of many of our home and commercially grown fruits and vegetables. It is also an important pollinator of many agricultural crops and a large number of ornamental flowers, herbs, trees, shrubs, wildflowers and meadow plants.
In addition to helping pollinate the things we love to eat, the honeybee’s production of honey and beeswax provides the ingredients for many food and other commercial products that we all use and love.
When I was growing up on a farm, we had a number of bee hives that were strategically located near the vegetable garden and fruit trees, but their activity was also seen in the clover and alfalfa fields as well.
At the William T. Kemper Center for Home Gardening, you’ll find these three beehives located in close proximity to the Marilyn and Sam Fox Fruit Garden.
From apple trees to small fruits such as strawberries, blueberries and more, this demonstration garden must be like honeybee heaven! A walk thru this garden will bear testament to a job well done by the honeybee.
Other bees besides the honeybee are also efficient and dependable pollinators and should be a welcome addition to your garden and landscape. Why not encourage them by providing some of the plants they love and protect them by judicious use of pesticides on your vegetable and ornamental plantings?
Most bees are not aggressive by nature and will not sting unless they are protecting their hive from an intruder or are provoked in some manner. So if bees are a part of your landscape, don’t worry, be happy!
Want to see honeybees up close and personal? Inside the Center for Home Gardening you’ll find a working beehive with glass sides. Watch their industrious activity, and look for the “queen”.
In addition to bees and other insects, there are many other beneficials in the landscape. As mentioned in last week’s “blog”, even other plants can be beneficial to each other. The linked Kemper Fact Sheet will tell you more.
One of the most beneficial things about life in the Saint Louis area has to be what the honeybee has already discovered. The Missouri Botanical Garden is a great place to visit!
Why not buzz on over, have a great visit, and thank a bee!
5/8/2012
Plant Combinations and the Three Sisters!
One of the fondest memories of my garden center days is of the three sisters. Every spring, about this time of year, they would travel from their different communities and meet at the garden center.
The purpose of their visit was multifold. From enjoying a nice spring day, some laughs and sisterhood, to picking out plants, their visit was always anticipated and joyful for them and us.
They would have the greatest time selecting plants, putting them side by side, asking a few questions and always looking for the best combination of those that would do well together.
The ultimate culmination of their shopping experience would end up in plantings by them at their father’s house.
The three sisters had the right idea about plants in combination. Select some of the things that you think look good together, ask some questions about compatible growth habits, light and water requirements and get some ideas from others that have been successful with it before.
At the William T. Kemper Center for Home Gardening, you have the great opportunity to not only ask your questions, but view a host of compatible combination plantings in containers and the landscape.
Our twenty three outdoor demonstration gardens are filled with ideas that will satisfy the many areas of your residential landscape. Inside the Center for Home Gardening, you’ll also find indoor gardening displays and the Plant Doctors to answer your questions.
The combination plantings created by the sisters that visited my garden center were not the first compatible plantings of “three sisters”.
The early Native Americans had a companion planting called the “three sisters” that consisted of corn, beans and squash. Each of the “sisters” contributed something to the planting and together provided towards the diet of the planter. Here are just a few of their other contributions to the combination planting:
- Corn, the oldest sister, provides support for the climbing beans.
- Beans, the second of the sisters, are legumes and pull nitrogen from the air and bring it into the soil for the benefit of all three sisters.
- Squash, the third sister, using its large leaves, provide shade to the soil for all three sisters which helps prevent weeds and keep the soil cool and moist.
Want to visit the “three sisters” and get to know them a little better? Well this is your lucky year! This summer, the three sisters planting is being recreated in the Bank of America Family Vegetable Garden at the Center for Home Gardening.
So why not plan a visit to see the three sisters? Watch them grow and see how well they get along together and contribute to the combination planting. I plan to keep; track of them as well, picture and report on them in a future “blog” and provide more information on having the three sisters in your garden. In the meantime:
Enjoy the rest of spring and your combination plantings!
5/1/2012
A Package of Excellent Fringe Benefits!
A package of excellent fringe benefits often puts “the frosting on the cake” when it comes to a great job. How nice it would be if you could just pick from a menu to select the fringe benefits you would like in your “job package”.
When it comes to your landscape, you can select the type of plant you want and enjoy some excellent “fringe benefits” from those selections.
After the mild winter we just experienced and continuing with the expanding spring, the fringe benefits from the landscape have been hard to miss. From the frost free bloom of the magnolias, the prolific and extended bloom period of the azaleas and the ornamental flowering trees, we have been offered a generous benefit package that will be difficult to duplicate.
One of the ornamental flowering trees that offers an excellent benefit package is the fringe tree (Chionanthus virginicus). Here a list of its “benefit package”:
- Grows in hardiness zones 3-9
- Missouri native
- Creamy white, fragrant and showy flowers
- Showy fruit
- Attracts birds
- Good fall color
- Small height and spread
- Tolerates full sun to part shade
- Medium water and low maintenance requirements
- Tolerates clay soil and air pollution
After witnessing the spring show from a number of fringe trees here at the Missouri Botanical Garden, including the one pictured, I’m wondering why I don’t have one in my own landscape.
At the William T. Kemper Center for Home Gardening, we can help you choose a plant and its benefit package to suit your landscape. On this website, beginning with the Plant Finder Advanced Search feature, choose the type of plant you’re looking for and select some of the “fringe benefits” from the drop down menus and check boxes.
Just like with a job, if you’re asking for too many benefits at one time, you may not find a plant that offers as big a package as you would like. Just continue your search with a few less benefits or a combination of different ones to fill that “job”.
Perhaps you already know what type of plant you’re looking for and just want to use some of our suggestions. The plant selection section of our Visual Guides can serve as an excellent tool for finding plants with excellent fringe benefits.
When it comes to fringe benefits, here’s another great one from the Center for Home Gardening. You can talk to us in person! By phone, call the Horticulture Answer Service (M-F from 9-Noon @ 314-577-5143) or visit the “doctors” at the Plant Doctor Desk (Monday-Saturday from 10-3.)
Enjoy the rest of spring, and some excellent fringe benefits from the Garden and your plants!