Garden Review: The good, bad and ugly
By Mary Fran McClure
WSU Chelan/Douglas County Master Gardener
For the past few years, our local Master Gardener columnist team has chosen a common subject for each of us to tackle with our first columns of the new year. It’s been interesting how we each branch out and take on different aspects of gardening.
This year, we’ll focus on the good, bad and ugly we encounter as gardeners. Here’s my perspective:
The Good: What a joy to be able to garden! We have an advantage, as our gardening choices can change to fit our abilities.
Younger, more ambitious folks try out new and exciting plants, experiment with different types of gardening, and endeavor to accomplish beautiful landscapes.
Older gardeners are generally more accepting of less-than-perfect landscapes and learn from experience how to adapt. Merely walking around the garden is uplifting. Gardening provides us more exercise because it’s inviting and handy right outside our door.
Welcoming and providing for birds and pollinators is among the many rewards of gardening.
I choose what parts of my landscape are most important to me and those areas receive more care. There’s less importance of intense weeding, deadheading and general maintenance and more appreciation of enjoying the seasons of color, textures, fragrance and food production.
We gardeners have such a fabulous range of choices. Some folks go all-out in growing vegetables, fruit or herbs, while others choose fragrant roses or less-needy native plants. In addition, there’s the whole range of care we choose to give our gardens from perfectionists to casual.
Luckily, most of us can take comfort in what works for us, as well as accept limitations as we age.
The Bad: Obviously weeds are first that come to mind. Spotted spurge seemed to be last year’s nemesis. Who knows what will predominate this coming year.
Root weevils were another problem more pronounced last summer. During the winter, they’re in their larval stage and eat plant roots. Once soil warms, they pupate, and adults emerge to feed on leaves at night. Notched leaves are a good sign they’re out and about. While they’re foraging at night, you can put a tarp under those affected plants, shake off the weevils and drown them in soapy water. Doesn’t work for me, as I’m an early-to-bed-early-to-rise gal myself. Instead, I’ve previously purchased nematodes that eat root weevil larvae. Released at the proper soil temperature in spring, they to go after their underground prey. Perhaps this isn’t 100% effective, but it helps. That’s my plan for next summer.
The Ugly: Underground uglies are not visible, but they make their unwanted appearances just the same. Aspen and Tree of Heaven top my list of uglies.
Aspen trees are beautiful above ground, but out of control below. Tree of Heaven is designated a noxious weed in Washington state because it’s a host of the spotted lantern fly, a serious potential pest of fruit trees and ornamentals.
Both trees are famous for their stealth at spreading roots. They’re greedy bullies. My neighbor’s unwatered trees send roots right into my lawn, yard and especially my raised beds. I’m always on the lookout for curbing new shoots popping up.
Last fall, I was talking with a frustrated Sunnyslope gardener who had beautiful planters installed, envisioning a beautiful border. In no time, a neighbor’s aspen roots headed for these nicely watered areas. She said her neighbor wasn’t receptive to doing anything about them. Those beds became such a tangle of roots that the owner stopped irrigation and no longer grows plants there.
All in all, the good outweighs the bad and ugly by leaps and bounds. So keep on gardening, whatever your age!A WSU Chelan and Douglas County Master Gardener column appears weekly in The Wenatchee World. To learn more about your local Master Gardener program, visit bit.ly/MGchelandouglas or call (509) 667-6540.