Before and After Freezing Temperatures

We've been having some really late cold snaps this year. Here are some quick tips for protecting plants in your garden from late-season frosts:

Before
Add a layer of mulch (newsprint, sheets, whatever - but NOT plastic) around the base of tender tropicals.

Place heavy cardboard boxes over tender bedding plants, blooming azaleas, and lilies. Remove them as soon as the temperature rises above 32 degrees.

Water your plants well before a frost, and then again before the day warms up. The before watering drives the air from the soil, and protects tender roots. Watering after will reduce evaporation and prevent Freezer Burn.

If Damage Occurs:

Remove the frozen, mushy parts from tropical bulbs and herbaceous perennials such as crinums, spider lilies, amaryllis, etc.

Never prune woody plants until they are dead-dormant in winter, or you are beginning to see new growth in the spring. Pruning them too early will encourage new growth, which is guaranteed to freeze.

Never add nitrogen-rich fertilizers when there's still a possibility of a freeze. This, too, will encourage new growth.

Spray shrubs (azaleas, camellias, pittosporum, ligustrum, osmanthus, viburnum, boxwood, etc.) with a fungicide soon after a dry freeze. This will prevent infection from entering the small fissures caused by the freeze and thaw on stems and branches.

Because our temperatures are inconsistent, there is never a fool-proof way to determine exactly when "winter" is over. Most years, I plant early and take my chances. If the new bedding plants freeze, I yank them and start over - never think you can bring back something that's had a bad start. You will still be fighting it when the heat of summer arrives in May. Our plants need all the head start on the heat and humidity they can get....

Plant Food - It's Not What You Think!

At a recent Valentine's Eve Gala ballet performance, I was put in charge of the chocolate fountain. The "Powers That Be" (my eldest daughter) put me there because I am, as far as I can tell, the only human in the world that doesn't like chocolate. Now, I don't DISlike chocolate. I just didn't get that brain disease the CRAVES chocolate, so it's very easy for me "just say no." On the other hand, if they ever invented the Chicken Fried Steak Fountain, I'd be done for.

Plants have different "tastes" as well, though we would call them "nutritional needs" and I've even heard the concept described as "tolerance." It's the combination of the two things, and we don't have a single word for it in English. Some plants have very high and very specific nutritional needs, and will not tolerate a variance. Others are very laid-back and easy going, and don't require much more that sun and rain, and are even tolerant when those two conditions are not ideal. The latter is called "the ideal plant for our coastal gardens", and the former is called "orchid."

You need to know about your plants' nutritional needs and their tolerance, and then you need to know the pH of the soil you intend to grow them in. DaDUH! OK, so maybe it's not a lightbulb moment. You are saving yourself YEARS of heartbreak if you spend just a little bit of time learning about the plants you already grow, or want to grow in the future, and if you already know and understand the conditions in your yard.

So, you ask: does this mean, I can't grow azaleas in New Orleans (which boasts the most alkaline soil I've ever tested)? But I see LOTS of azaleas in New Orleans! Truth be told, you can grow ANYTHING - ANYWHERE as long as you are willing to put in the time and effort that it will take to make that plant happy in that place. Personally, I have too much to do to be outside swaddling the palms on freezing nights, or misting the impatiens during the hot days of summer. I want plants for my garden that are tough and dependable. Every now and then, I fall prey to some horticultural prima dona from Lowes' or Home Depot, and then I have to face the reality of the potting and pampering that it's going to demand of me.

Other factors in your garden that will have a bearing on your success with any particular plant are 1) the amount of sunlight that your garden receives, 2) the amount of water that is available, and 3) how willing you are to pamper your plants with proper pruning, mulching, and fertilizing. Once you have established these criteria, it's time to decide where and how to build that new bed you've been wanting.

If you want roses, and nothing but roses will do, then here's what you need:

A place in full sun—where the plants will be in full, bright sunlight for a minimum of eight hours a day. Ten's better.

Access to nearby water, so that watering daily when the temperature is over 85 degrees is not a hassle. Under sprinklers is better.

Financial resources to be spraying those roses with something every week. It will be either dormant oil spray, fungicide, liquid rose food, fungicide, systemic insecticide, or fungicide. EVERY WEEK. No vacations.

Roses are happy in a neutral soil, and won't tolerated strongly alkaline or strongly acid conditions. They like compost fertilizers.

The proper amount of sunlight is the single most important criteria. If your plant is not getting enough sunlight, it won't matter how much fertilizer you give it. Fertilizer is not plant food, no matter what the marketing people for Scott's call it. Sunlight, and sunlight alone is what your plants use to produce the sugars that allow them to grow and reproduce (flower). Amendments such as fertilizers provide nutrients that they need to be be efficient at this, but they can live without fertilizer. They can't live without light.

So now you know why antique roses are making a comeback. Modern hybrids (Tea's, for example) are finicky and prone to....fungus. There are two roses I recommend for any garden - and I have grown them both for about five years - Knockout Roses and Flower Carpet Roses. I have grown the Knockout in the bright, hot pink, the first of the introductions, and I fell in love with everything about it except the color. I have also grown the light pink "apple blossom" variety, and it has most of the charm and charisma of it's parent. It is just a "little less" across the board in my Louisiana garden (less mildew-resistant, less hardy, less tolerant of drought, etc.) The bright pink Knockout is appearing in commercial landscapes wherever I look, and for good reason. The Flower Carpets I have grown include the white and the apple blossom. Both were outstanding, low-growing plants for the front of bed. I don't remember ever spraying for black spot on any of them, and they were very dependable, blooming late into the fall, and starting up in early spring. Both have the usual rose requirements of LOTS of water (more than the novice gardener can imagine) and LOTS of fertilizer. Cut them back on the 15th of April in northern areas of coastal states (equivalent of Montgomery, AL and north) for them to come into full bloom by Mother's Day. On the Gulf Coast, I have to actually strip the plants during the first week of February and cut them back. This "forced dormancy" allows me to pick up all the leaves and branches and dispose of them (NOT in the compost pile) to prevent carry over of fungal diseases. They have resprouted and have new bloom on them within a month, depending on the temperature.

If you want to grow hydrangeas, the scenario is similar. You must know the conditions the plants like (neutral soil, LOTS of water, afternoon shade) and then you need to determine if the conditions in your yard are the right ones. If not, is it an easy fix—something that you are willing to do, or is it something that's arduous? Gardening, like everything else, is a trade-off. Pick your passion, and you will love every minute of it. Choose unwisely, and it will be a daunting task.

Next time - How to build a garden bed in the coastal south.

pH- Part 2

This is the part where most people decide they really don't want to be Master Gardeners after all. What's all this stuff about particulates in soil and electric charges? "Nobody really needs to know this stuff," you say, "and it's boring."

Well, yes - YOU do, and no, it's not. One more short set about positive and negative charges in soil, and the pH.

The pH is a measurement of soil's acidity or alkalinity, and this one state will have the biggest impact on the plant's ability to take up nutrients from the soil - (quick review: nutrients are elemental minerals and compounds that help plants turn SUNLIGHT into sugars, which they use for growth and reproduction). On a scale of 1-10, acid is a 1, and alkaline is a 10. In reality, I've never seen a soil test register lower than a 4 - and that was in one spot in a yard in Alabama that WOULD NOT GROW ANYTHING - especially grass. Normal pH is about 7 - and if you don't know a particular plant's requirements, 7 is always a good guess.

In truth, there are plants that thrive in acidic soil (I'm talking about 6, here, not 2 or 3) and plants that won't tolerate it at all. Well known acid-lovers are camellias and azaleas, and pine trees, of course, which help maintain the acidity of the soil they grow in. This is why the clay-rich soils north of the coastal zones are prime real estate for these plants. Most vegetables do well at 7 to 7.5, and if you are growing tomatoes in acid soil, you are letting yourself in for the heart break of blossom end rot - a condition caused by the plant's inability to uptake calcium (and manage magnesium, contrarily) due to the fact that the soil is so acid. (Amend your soil with calcium and gypsum - about three years ago.) More about that later.....

WHEN you send in your soil test (please note that I didn't say "if"...) you will be asked to list the "crop to be grown." This lends itself to many interpretations, especially for the home gardener. In the front yard, you grow grass, in the back yard, you grow roses...what do you put on the form? If you are a specialty gardener, and you grow something with very specific requirements, then you need to take separate soil samples, and submit them independently. You will mark them "Front Lawn" or "Backyard Rose Garden" and you will pay for each one to be tested.

When the test comes back, they will give you the same categories of information, but in the "comments" section, the Ag Agent will tell you how you need to amend your soil - specifically for the horticultural requirements of your "crop." The recommendations for your lawn will be quite different than those for your rose garden, even if the soil samples test out to be identical (which they won't- even if your yard is very small). The test will tell you specifics about your soil: they will type your soil (i.e., sandy loam), tell you the pH and rate the amount of essential nutrients phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, and calcium, make recommendations for amendments, and give you specific comments about the fertilizer needs. Unfortunately, all of this will be unintelligible to the average human being. Don't be shy! Pick up the phone all call your county (parish) Ag Agent and ask for clarification. All this is for naught, if you can't understand the results.

This seems like SO MUCH WORK....OK - go back to the beginning of the last blog. Read again the part about "If you are serious about gardening, then you need to get serious about soil." The soil test is the most important thing you will do as a gardener. Without this knowledge, you're just tossing the seeds out there and hoping for the best. At least, when you know the condition of your soil, you can take steps to insure that the things you want to grow will thrive in your coastal garden. But in the meantime, while you are waiting for your test results to come back from the AgCenter, there are some steps to take.

Compost (isn't God cleaver?) just happens to be about a 7 on the pH scale. You can alter this by adding lime - or maybe lemon peels, I guess. But on average, composted anything seems to wind up at about 7 on the acidity scale. This makes it the perfect amendment for both acid and alkaline soils. Gee, isn't life good? Where else can you encounter the "perfect" anything?

I will get into starting a compost pile soon, but in the mean time, you can buy composted cow manure (green grass run through the insides of a cow - YUM) and you can begin adding organics to your soil right away! "Soil Conditioner" is ground pine bark, and tends to be acidic, so hold off on that until you know the pH of your soil. If you have an alkaline soil that you want to neutralize, soil conditioner is a grand thing to add. If you tend toward the acidic, but want to grow camellias and azaleas, then it's grand for your garden, too.

Next time, we'll talk about fertilizers, and understanding application rates. Now, wasn't that FUN? What are you doing inside - get out there, and get dirty!

pH - What It Means in Your Garden

If you are serious about gardening, then you have to get serious about soil. Soil is the carrier of "nutrients" needed to help plants process their only source of "food" - sunlight. Water carries these elemental nutrients from the soil into the roots, and from the roots up through the vascular system of the plants to the leaves, where they are used to process photo energy - that's light - into sugars the plant can use to grow, bloom, and reproduce. OK, that's the very simplistic view of a complex process, but basically, that's about all there is to it.

All soil is made up of 1) a parent material -rocks that are broken down by 2) climate-through freezing and cracking, for example. Three other things determine the type of soil also: the nature of the 3) organisms which live in and break down the material; the 4) and slope and drainage of the site, and the 5) length of time (geologically speaking) that these things have been working on the soil. The rock-free sandy loam of most of the Mississippi drainage (from Beaumont, Texas to Mobile Bay) has been laid down over eons from glacial deposits dumped in Wisconsin and Minnesota during the last ice age. (It's an exaggeration, but you get the point.) The sandy loam in Gulf Shores is a very different soil from the hard clay-base in Montgomery and points north. The "nutrients" in these soils vary widely, as well, and give rise to a host of problems if you insist on treating them the same.

You can think about it this way: Soil's four physical components, minerals, air, water, and organic matter determine the quality of the plants you can grow in your yard. The minerals (is it sandy or more clay?) determine how loose or compacted the soil will be, leaving room (or not) for air, water, and organic material. Sand is coarse, with a large particle, so sandy soil is looser and has room to contain more of all three, but it doesn't hold water well, and coarse organics sift right out or float away. Clay is a smaller particle, so clay soil is usually compacted, but it has a terrific elemental nutrient content. It holds water too well, and drains poorly. The best soil is a mixture of sand and clay, with lots of organics (think compost) thrown in. Ideally, soil should be about 48% mineral (sand and clay mix), 25% water, 25% air, and 2% organics.

The small particle size of clay gives it a larger surface area to react chemically and physically with other particles (and roots) in the soil. Like little magnets, clay (which has a negative charge) can attract and hold positively charged elements. Negatively charged ions are not held, and therefore leach right through the soil. Some important nutrients with a positive charge include calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), potassium (K), ammonium (NH4), aluminum (Al) and hydrogen (H).

The problem is that highly acid soils attract and hold highly charged particles such as aluminum and hydrogen, which makes them highly toxic to plants. The only way to tell if your soil is acidic is to take some soil samples and send them off to your local AgCenter for testing. Auburn University has a good publication about how to do this entitled "Home Soil Testing: Taking a Sample" - at their Web site (www.acesag.auburn.edu) and then search for Circular ANR6a. You must send it to YOUR state's AgCenter, and there is a link to the coastal state's at the beginning of this page.

In my next blog, I'll discuss what the Soil Test Report will really tell you about your garden.

This Week Marks the Last Frost Date For Most of the Gulf Coast

So everybody, get out there and plant something!

By February, many coastal gardeners are yearning to get out in their gardens - and that means, of course, that it's time for the Spring rains. We have had weekly cold fronts roll through our Louisiana garden, leaving behind oak leaves, pine branches, and mucky, muddy soil. As much as I want to get out there and dig, I know better.

There's nothing worse for the tilth of your soil than to begin working it while it's holding a lot of water. Even pulling weeds, many of which are deeply rooted, will upset the balance of organics, sand, and clay that is a characteristic of good garden soil. While different soils drain at different speeds, you can fairly calculate that, after a good, day-long rain, sandy soil will drain in a day; sandy loam in two; good, loamy garden soil in three; and clay-based top soil may take, three, four, or even five days to dry out. Be patient, and your plants will thank you later. Meanwhile, take some time to evaluate your drainage - this is a grand, good way to discover the kind of soil that you have. If your bed is workable in one day following a hard, long rain, then you probably have too much sand, and this is a good time to add organics to your soil. If it drains too slowly, you have a clay soil and, well, this is a good time to add organics to you soil. If you have good texture and tilth, and your soil drains in a couple of days, then you have already learned this lesson, and you have added organics to your soil.

Any kind of materials that come from plants will make a good addition to garden soil. Green grass is one exception, because the process that breaks down the grass causes heat and moisture, which can cause problems in the beds. It's always a good idea to run your green grass through the insides of a horse, or a cow, but even then, I recommend composting for several weeks to let it "cool down." Don't have a horse handy? The next best thing is the grass and leaves from your compost pile, but if you didn't start your compost pile last year, you can add composted manure and something called "soil conditioner" that comes in a big bag at your local Big Box. Manure we all understand. "Soil Conditioner" is finely chopped pine tree parts that are too small to be sold as "Pine Bark." The little stuff is great to dig into a new bed, or use for a light mulch around shallow-rooted shrubs like azaleas and camellias that don't like having their roots smothered, but enjoy an acid-based mulch.

It's time to work some acidifying fertilizers into the soil around your azales and camellias - then mulch them with a light spread of pine straw. Don't put it down too heavily - these plants are very sensitive to the amount of air in the soil, and are easily smothered by planting too deeply, or mulching too heavily.

If you have never had your soil tested by the Cooperative Extension Service in your state, now is the time to take some soil samples and send them in. Use the links on this page to go to your state's service and find out where to send them. The cost is usually around $15, and they will send you a report back in the mail that is impossible to decipher. That's OK - they'll put their phone number on the report, and the best thing you can do is call them up and talk about your garden. They will be happy to help you learn what you need to do in YOUR YARD to make your garden better.

Enjoy the great, good weather we will have this month - and use the time while your garden dries out to sharpen your lawnmower blades, cut back all your groundcovers (especially liriope - because next month will be too late), and start your warm-weather seedlings indoors.

What Master Gardeners Know

Master Gardeners have a status among gardeners, but particularly, I've noticed, among gardeners that don't understand what a Master Gardener is. First, I want to make it absolutely clear what a Master Gardener is NOT:

A Master Gardener is not someone who knows everything there is to know about gardening in every place, county or state.

A Master Gardener is not someone who has completed a course of study that is so demanding and difficult that ordinary people can't possibly finish the course.

A Master Gardener is not someone who has a perfect yard/garden/potager; who never struggles with weeds, or ever kills plants.

A Master Gardener is not someone whose knowledge is so superior that they would never take the time to help you with your yard and your gardening questions.

In fact, the mission of the corps of Master Gardeners, is the opposite of the above. Master Gardeners love gardening, and are usually long-time gardeners who have developed a certain level of skill and expertise in one area of gardening. When I took my first course, at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens, one member of my class was the president of the Alabama Rose Society. He knew just about everything there is to know about growing roses in Birmingham, Alabama, and he was a tremendous asset to our class. But he didn't have a lawn, and he didn't know anything at all about lawn care.

Master Gardeners have completed a course of study that is devised by the professors of agriculture at your state's agricultural university (In Alabama, it's Auburn University; in Louisiana, it's LSU, and so on). The quality of the course is as varied as it's director and teachers, and can have sections that are difficult. However, it's devised to that everyone can find some level of success in the study - and go on to become a Master Gardener.

Master Gardeners rarely have perfect anything. They love to try new and difficult plants - most of which they kill. But most of all, you need to realize right up front that no garden is ever perfect. The ones in the magazines? Well, just remember this - the photographer who took that picture had his back to SOMETHING. He chose his shot carefully. Think about it!

Finally, Master Gardeners enroll in the Master Gardening Program at their local Coooperative Extension Service so that they can help people! They are trained specifically for this job, and they relish every opportunity to talk gardening.

If this blog does nothing but encourage each and every one of you to explore the Master Gardner Program at your local, county Cooperative Extension Service, then all this blogging is not in vain. On this blog, I have added the Web sites of each coastal state's Cooperative Extension Service. They each have a search engine that will provide the name and contact number for the agent in your area. That's the first step in learning about the Master Gardening program nearest you.

If you can't take the Master Gardening Program, then I want to offer you the next best thing. The Gulf Coast Gardener Web site will be going on line this week. It's an act in progress, and I hope to have lots of great information, links, and blogs for you to visit.

Thanks for reading the Gulf Coast Gardener Blog - I hope to hear from you soon!

Gardening: A Study in Faith

I've spaded and harrowed and planted the seeds,
Now things in my garden are growing like weeds.
There's only one problem I've noticed so far -
Weeds are what ninety percent of them are!


This is the time of year when I give up any semblance of civility and devote myself to my spring ritual: Plant Torture. Every year, the same thing happens. The plant catalogues arrive around the first of January, and I sit down and dream about what my garden could look like. Then, around the end of January, all the discount stores have their houseplants on sale - lovingly grown and painstakingly nurtured by some far away grower in a hothouse. I browse the aisles, carefully picking and choosing; the right plant for that dark corner, or that sunny window near the back door. I match colors and styles to the containers that I will put them in. I look for healthy plants.


And that's what's so tragic, as the next few weeks pass and...the...tiny...things...slowly...and...irrevocably...croak.


I have decided, after looking at my family history, that my problem is hereditary: my Mom had a plastic thumb. She systematically and without mercy killed every house plant she ever had. She even tried silk plants once, but after a while, they, too, began to look peaked and washed out, and she gave them to a neighbor to spare herself the agony of witnessing their demise.


I wonder, every now and then, as I fertilize and water my plants, potted with such loving care, whether they can scream, and we are just too weak - or self-absorbed - to hear their tiny voices. Do they cry when I forget to water them? Are those blooming Peace Lilies rejoicing silently? Is there such a thing as Sod Song?


Shakespeare wrote in Julius Caesar that there are more things in this world than we can dream of, and I think he was right. We often get so busy defending all the things we think we know that we forget to be humble about all the things we don't know. It seems to me that there must be a whole lot more of the latter than the former.


And that's why I pot plants in January, and plant a garden in March - every year. Part of me thinks that it's an exercise in futility, but another part realizes that plants know a great deal more about our world - about living, and yes, about dying - than I will ever know.


Last December, when the seed catalogues arrived, I filled out the order form with every plant I had ever wished to try - and then put it away, like I always do, until I could come to my senses. For Christmas, Banker Bill found my "Wish List" and ordered the whole kit and caboodle. A grand, great gift for a gardener. This week, you will find me, indoors at my kitchen sink, planting seeds, and singing with the snapdragons.