KENMORE – For visitors of Ken-Ton’s 11th annual Garden Tour, last weekend’s event was a chance to see a wide variety of flowers and plants in different shapes, sizes, and colors. However, for gardeners, it was also an opportunity to communicate and share tips with other green-thumbed community members.

During the event, which ran on July 20 and 21, gardeners opened up their yards to the public, shared their unique experiences, and gave advice to residents who may participate in this colorful tradition in the future.

According to Vicki Miller of Nassau Avenue, one who is just starting out should remember that gardening, like art, is subjective. She advised new participants not to be nervous when showcasing their masterpieces.

“I think people refrain from participating in the Garden Walk because they’re afraid of what people will think or say, and it’s not like that. It’s a great weekend, you meet wonderful people, and you share tips and you learn tips,” she said.

Many other participants of the Garden Tour also said an important part of gardening is networking and sharing things with others. This was especially true for those who were starting out, such as Denis Uminski of Columbia Boulevard. He said he took many gardening tips from his neighbor, Lynn O’Connor.

“I take my lead off of Lynn next door. She’s been doing this for years, and we watch her decorations increase and so on, she’s constantly searching for new things and so we’re starting to follow her example,” Uminski said.

O’Connor’s advice to gardeners was simple: “buy only what you love.” She commented that people often put a great deal of thought into their gardens, without knowing ahead of time what is actually going to grow.

“If it grows, that’s great. If it doesn’t, that’s okay, too,” she said.

For even experienced gardeners, the craft can be a challenge. Some factors, such as weather, are out of human control. Brian Blyth of Delaware Road in Tonawanda said this year’s weather was conducive to growing, but there were challenges.

“It’s actually been good for growing things, it’s just that sometimes the conditions get a little over the top, a little harsh. In general, it’s been good,” he said. “[It] seems to change and you get a long string of hot weather…then we ended up with that storm the other day.”

As an experienced gardener, Blyth advised people to realize gardening is about much more than just throwing water on a plant and hoping it will grow, adding that it is important to use fertilizer for the best results.

“A lot of people don’t realize that when they plant stuff, they have to feed it, fertilize it…we mulch all of our gardens, so then we don’t have to weed so often,” he said.

Blyth and his wife, Linda, showed off a large garden with approximately 1,500 individual plants. However, the biggest gardens do not start that way, and everyone must start somewhere, much like any other hobby.

“We started small, and just eventually our garden evolved,” he said.

Shelly Martin, a resident of Columbia Boulevard, expressed similar sentiments.

“Start small, have a vision, talk to people who are in the know, and just experiment,” she said.

Some time ago, I wrote a Lazivore Manifesto—a thinly-veiled self justification for the fact that while I like home grown produce, I really don’t like doing too much work to get it. After years of over reach and under achievement, I am finally achieving some success with my gardening efforts. So I thought I’d run through a few techniques that can help fellow lazivores to grow more while doing less.

Here are some of my favorites.

Mulch, Mulch, Mulch

Sami Grover/CC BY 2.0
I’ve already talked about mulching as a no-cost way to grow more from your garden, but it’s a gardening technique that simply can’t be emphasized enough—especially when it comes to reducing your workload too. It reduces evaporation, meaning less watering. It suppresses weeds, meaning less weeding. And it protects soil biodiversity, meaning healthier plants and less trouble shooting. As an added bonus, as the mulch breaks down it adds organic matter to the soil, further feeding the soil beasties and improving moisture retention for future crops too. From leaf mulch to shredded newspaper, there are plenty of different mulching options available. I’m a big fan of pine straw, at least here in North Carolina—it’s cheap, plentiful and doesn’t involve chopping down trees. It’s also great for us lazivores because it’s super light and easy to haul around. (And no, it doesn’t make your soil significantly more acidic.)

Grow What Grows Best

Sami Grover/CC BY 2.0
I’d love to grow bussels sprouts, but they don’t seem to like the acidity here in NC—and I’ve never had much luck with strawberries either. Garlic, on the other hand, seems to grow for me without trying. So I grow a lot of garlic. Yes, I do grow a few crops that require a little more care and attention—tomatoes, for example—but I am constantly weighing up relative effort versus reward. Not to mention how cheaply and easily I can get that crop at the local farmers’ market or grocery store. (Some things are best left to the professionals.)

Eat What Grows Anyway

Sami Grover/CC BY 2.0
Yesterday, I found these oyster mushrooms growing in my compost heap. They were the sprouting from the now composting remnants of a (so I thought) failed attempt at growing mushrooms in coffee grounds. This year, I’ve also eaten potatoes I never planted – courtesy of a previous owner I guess – and lettuce and parsley which has self seeded and gone wild. Learning to keep an eye out for the unexpected edibles is a great way to take the “grow what grows best” principle a step further toward “grow what grows without even trying”. It’s worth noting that it is sometimes worth giving volunteers a helping hand—I transplanted the lettuce I found self-seeding, for example, into a vacant section of my plot, and I was also sure to leave it to self seed in case I get the same gift next year too.

Ignore the Weeds of August

Some weeds will grow, no matter how much you mulch. So it’s worth establishing a selective strategy for how to deal with them. Above all else, at least for the lazivore, it’s worth remembering that a weed infestation in April is a much bigger problem than some overgrown weeds in August. Fully grown crops better equipped to compete with weeds than tiny seedlings, and it’s also simply too darned hot to be spending much time in the garden. Let them get a little unruly. Pull back the ones that get out of hand. And then sit back, drink a beer and worry about something else instead.

Go Perennial

© Umbria
It should be pretty obvious that perennial crops require less work than annuals. You don’t need to sow seeds each year. You don’t need to water them religiously because their root systems are already developed. And it’s easy to mulch them heavily at the start of the season and pretty much forget about weeding for the rest of the year. (Did I mention that mulching is a great strategy for lazivore gardening?) From malabar spinach to asparagus to blueberries, there are plenty of perennial crops you can incorporate into a traditional veggie garden—or you can go whole hog and plant a perennial permaculture food forest too.

My neighbor said she will give me a plant that had white flowers with four petals and a center that sticks up like a skinny green nose. Leaves are a pointy heart shape. It filled in a huge bare area for her, but she doesn’t know the name.

Sounds like houttuynia, a notoriously invasive plant. It’s often known as chameleon plant because a variety of it that is still sold sometimes as a “ground cover” is colorfully variegated. Your neighbor’s plant is the plain green species. Woe to the gardener who plants this. It will not stay where planted, even popping up on the other side of a driveway, and is resistant to herbicides.

I’m debating whether or not to leave a yellow jacket nest in a neglected area. Are they good pollinators?

It’s not that they are good pollinators, but that they are great predators of pest insects such as flies and mosquitoes. Yellow jackets and other wasps feed these to their offspring. So they keep pest insects out of your yard, but because they are not fuzzy, their occasional visit to flowers will not get much pollinating done. In late summer or fall, their diet switches to more sugary foods, so we wouldn’t recommend leaving a nest by a well-used picnic table.

Is it true that bird or deer netting catches snakes? Birds eat my berries and it seems like deer eat everything else!

Yes, snakes get caught in bird or deer netting, especially when it extends to ground level. They do not have the ability to back up, only go forward, and thus get more and more entangled. Extracting one is possible and a slow process requiring two people snipping off the mat of netting, but the snake may have hurt itself so much that it cannot survive. For the most part, the solution is to avoid netting or hang it a few inches above ground level. For a low-cost deer fencing alternative that would also solve this problem, see the July issue of the Home and Garden Information Center Newsletter at: http://extension.umd.edu/hgic/july-2013-hgic-newsletter.

University of Maryland Extension’s Home and Garden Information Center offers free gardening and pest information. Call 800-342-2507 or send a question to the website at extension.umd.edu/hgic.

Plant of the week

Elephant Ears

Colocasia

Elephant ears can be your garden’s backdrop or its bold center of attention. The plant adds texture and height with a tropical flair. It is in the genus Colocasia, which contains about 25 species of tropical plants grown in colder climates during the summer for their interesting foliage. Leaves range from emerald green and black to brown and chartreuse gold. Colored veins run through the leaves of some varieties. Plant elephant ears tubers 2 to 4 inches deep in well-drained soil after danger of frost has passed. Place in full to partial sun. They like moisture. Fertilize a few times during the growing season. After first frost, cut back foliage, carefully dig up tubers, gently remove the soil and air dry. Store in a container allowing air circulation in a frost-free, dry location. — Debbie Ricigliano