You’ll find an interview with USDA’s Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan in today’s Washington Post, and the print version includes a photo of the good secretary looking like, well, a high-ranking office worker. But the real gardener turned up for the big press opening of the USDA’s People’s Garden – dressed like she was ready to plant, which she proceeded to do.
The meat of the WaPo interview covers enforcement of organic rules and what kind of backlog she inherited after 8 years of, as she says as diplomatically as possible, it not being a “high priority’. You could say that.
But to really meet Kathleen Merrigan - what makes her so qualified and why her appointment gave such hope to advocates of sustainable food production – - click here for the rundown on her by Who Runs Gov.
People are asking about this new product, especially if they’re garden writers finding free bottles at their doorstep. So hey, the makers of FreezePruf are sponsors of this very blog (and website and newsletter) so I took it upon myself to interview the botanist who developed FreezePruf, and the full report is over here on the blog I get paid to write.
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Well, the topic for Blog Action Day this year is one I’ve written about in many articles and here are just a couple (with more assembled on GardenRant):
And here are some great articles about climate change and gardening by others:
For gardeners, climate change means changes we need to make, like:
- Switching to more drought-tolerant plants. Especially that thirsty lawn.
- Adding organic matter to make our soil better able to hold water.
- Choosing plants that can tolerate variability in temperature and precipitation.
- Letting our lawns go dormant when there’s insufficient rain. (Brown is the new green.)
- Catching rainwater for use in the garden.
- Planting shade trees on the sunny side of the house.
Basically the way we should be gardening anyway.
For a small delivery fee, my town will dump up to 10 cubic yards of partially composted leaves in your driveway. Now getting it OFF the driveway and into the garden – that’s my fitness regime for the next month.
I was introduced to Suzanne Wainwright-Evans, an ornamental entomologist, on Joe Lamp’l’s terrific podcast. She helps nurseries and garden centers with their bug problems, so she has to know what works and what doesn’t. 
Her approach to destructive insects:
- Grow pollen-producing plants to attract beneficial insects, the ones that feed on the destructive ones.
- And conserve the beneficials by avoiding pesticides, especially the synthetic ones like Pyrethrin.
What about buying ladybugs or praying mantis?
First, she calls ladybugs "ladybird beetles". Okay. But the take-away message is that the ones we buy often carry disease and parasites, so avoid them. And most will immediately fly away, anyway. So save your money.
And those praying mantis end up eating all sorts of critters we want, like butterflies, beneficial insects, and even hummingbirds!! They’re also not native anywhere in the U.S., and bottom line, are not effective.
What does work?
Nematodes. She says these microscopic worms are very effective at controlling soil-borne pests.
Suzanne, any advice about Japanese beetles?
- First, don’t use traps – they end up just attracting them to your garden.
- Plant resistant varieties of plants
- Use Neem Oil. She sprays it "every few days"
- Apply insecticidal soaps – repeatedly.
Uh, that repeated spraying sure doesn’t sound like sustainable gardening to me. I’m sticking with choosing the right plants.
Read much more of Suzanne’s wisdom at her website: Bug Lady Consulting.
FABULOUS article by Adrian Higgins about the need for sustainable gardening, and the great work going on to spur the movement. He starts by getting our attention:
There’s someone on my block pouring greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, contributing to summer smog and allowing polluted runoff to reach the Chesapeake Bay. It’s me. Oh, and you. And everyone else.
The ecological pendulum has swung somewhat since the postwar decades, when homeowners blithely burned autumn leaves and applied nasty pesticides and too many synthetic fertilizers to their garden plants. But we still have a long way to go before our gardens are ecologically sustainable. This may sound strange, given that the whole point of gardening is to venerate nature, secure in the knowledge that our plants trap carbon, provide shade and pump oxygen into the air.
But in existing properties, too many gardens are part of the problem, with plants needing chemical support because they are il-chosen or in poor soils, or both. Lawns, apart from required repeated fertilizer applications, rely on gas-powered mowers and blowers.
Even gardeners who are dutifully trying to be green by minimizing the lawn, turning to hand tools and planting low-maintenance vegetation see storm water gushing down the driveway into the street, losing water that otherwise could be used in the garden while reducing river pollution.
AMEN. He goes on to describe the nearly-complete guidelines for Sustainable Sites, a joint project of the U.S. Botanic Gardens, Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center and the American Society of Landscape Architects. Like LEED standards for buildings, these guidelines will become the standard for environmentally responsible treatment of landscapes nationwide. Very exciting stuff. Here’s Higgins’ summary of the practices endorsed and given credit for:
Using recycled rain and household water for irrigation, improving soil health with compost, choosing plants suited to the site and its climate, avoiding chemicals that contribute to smog and using vegetation to reduce the heat island effect of cities.
The photo above and many more of landscapes using these practices are available on their website, which looks like it’ll become a terrific new resource for us all. Higgins relates the experiences at two test gardens in California. Side by side gardens were grown either conventionally or using native plants only, and the costs and amounts of water used yearly were recorded. Great information to have, and I look forward to some residential examples here in the East. (Heck, I’ll volunteer my own lawnless garden as a "case study".)
Higgins goes on to make the important point that it may take the right landscape firm to make this all happen – by teaching the homeowners how to maintain their new sutainable gardens, which is "not the business strategy of a lot of garden design firms". Looks like they need to team up with some garden coaches!
Photo: Cayuga Medical Center in Itaca, New York
