Last week I concentrated on tender bulbs. This week let’s concentrate on the spring-flowering bulbs. These can be planted now. Ideally, they should go in about six to eight weeks before the ground freezes but after the weather has cooled. That’s usually mid-October to mid-November in our area.

When you think of bulbs, think onions — a flat base where the roots grow; scales, the layers of the onion, with the developing flower bud and leaf inside. Some, tulips, daffodils and hyacinths, for example, have a papery covering, called a tunic.

Others, such as lilies, have no tunic and require moisture to keep the scales from drying out. In general, bulbs should be planted in well-drained soil at a depth equal to three times the height of the bulb. Plant with the pointy end up and, if desired, supplement the soil with a bulb fertilizer or bulb meal.

Corms are actually swellings of the stem bases. If you cut one open you would not see the scales or layers present in bulbs. Crocus and colchicum are examples of corms. They have a basal plate like the bulbs where the roots grow and a growing point. As above, plant with the root end down with one exception.

Some corms have an indention on the topside; these can be planted on their side to discourage rotting when water accumulates in the indented area. Generally corms are planted about 3 inches deep but check individual varieties for specific information.

My saffron crocuses are blooming now. Each flower produces three stigmas, the red, sticky part of the flower that collects pollen. Though you can grow your own saffron, don’t expect a bumper crop. It takes 210,000 stigmas or so, about 70,000 flowers, to make a pound of saffron. Yes, I did harvest my saffron and have enough for one batch of rice.

Nodding ladies tresses

I’ve had several requests for sources for Piranhas cernua. While many nurseries are either closed for the season or out of stock, check these sources next spring; they normally carry this plant:

•Online: Plant Delights http://www.plantdelights.com; North Creek Nurseries http://www.northcreeknurseries.com; Sunshine Farms and Gardens http://www.sunfarm.com

I got my plants locally. Most nurseries have closed for the season but these sold nodding ladies tresses this season.

•Local Nurseries: Point Phillip Perennials (www.ppperennials.com); American Native Nursery (www.americannativenursery.com); Northeast Natives and Perennials (http://www.nenativesandperennials.com)

Storm damage

This week’s storm had extremely high winds that left a mess of broken branches, uprooted trees and downed power lines. Please use care when clearing thing up. Here are a few reminders about storm cleanup:

•Always check for fallen wires or wires tangled in trees before even considering clearing storm damage. Contact the utility company if you see damage or suspect a problem.

•Check overhead for dangling branches or dangerous cracked limbs. These should be removed to prevent further damage and injuries.

•If the damage in your yard involves heavy limbs or heights, contact an arborist. Do not attempt to remove any branches that would involve you climbing a ladder.

•Check anyone you hire to prune or trim your plants. Make sure they are insured and properly trained and certified. Look for a certification by an accredited organization, International Society of Arboriculture (ISA) and membership in professional organizations: ISA, the Tree Care Industry Association (TCIA), or the American Society of Consulting Arborists (ASCA). Check references and get more than one quote.

•Always contact your municipal government to see if permits are required for any work you intend to have done.

•Photograph all damage before any repairs or cleanup. Contact your insurance agent for information on coverage.

•Check for roof damage and gutter problems. Even if you don’t have a leak or drainage problem now, repair them before the next storm comes.

Bracknell Horticultural Association is hosting a talk on fruit growing

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Expert tips for fruit growers

By

Lucy Thorne

November 02, 2012

Gardeners who struggled to get a good crop this summer can pick up some tips at a talk on growing fruit on Wednesday, November 7.

Bracknell Horticultural Association (BHA) is welcoming back guest speaker Paul Templeton at its meeting at the Coopers Hill Centre in Bagshot Road, Bracknell at 7.30pm.

Following his popular talk last year Paul will be discussing Fruit and Fruit Growing, which is especially pertinent following the woeful year the UK has experienced with many fruit crops.

His talk will equip growers of all levels with the right advice for successful fruit gardening, from orchards to small gardens.

As a horticulturist and lecturer Paul has 40 years’ experience in professional horticulture, and has a wide knowledge base to draw upon.

Free entry to BHA members or £3 for guests.

Go to www.digforbracknell.org.uk for membership information and venue map.

by Stephen Gent, Owner
McDade’s Nursery

Stephen has 14+ years of experience in horticulture as Publisher and Marketing Director for Nursery Management and Production, Greenhouse Management and Production and Garden Center magazine.

An avid gardener with a lifelong passion for plants, he enjoys sharing his knowledge and experience with customers.

In November at Cedar Creek Lake we start to experience colder temperatures and usually our first frost of the season. While many plants above ground are moving into a dormant state for winter, there are still many important gardening tasks to be completed in and around the landscape.

If you lost plants this summer due to the excessive heat and are looking to replace them, fall is the best times of year to replant. All horticultural professions are in agreement on this point – Fall is for Planting. Trees and shrubs planted this time of year get their root systems established for better spring growth and blooming. Plus, it greatly improves their chances of surviving our hot Texas summers.

Preparing your plant and vegetable beds in the fall is also recommended. Using compost, manure and dried molasses to improve the quality of your soil will give your plants a big head start in the spring. At Cedar Creek Lake there are several different soil types. If you have heavy clay, use expanded shale or lava sand to break up the soil and improve drainage. For sandy soils, amending with compost will improve the soil structure and help hold moisture.

If you have tropical plants like hibiscus, bougainvillea, palms or citrus fruits that are not winter hardy, remember to bring them inside before the night temperatures get too cold. The average first frost day is November 15th. When inside find a sunny location and continue to water but less often.

Pruning is recommended at this time of year. Pruning trees and shrubs serves two purposes – to remove dead branches that are an entry point for unwanted diseases and insects and to shape and beautify the look. Use sharp pruners and a pruning sealer to protect the cut. Perennials should be cut back to the ground after the first frost.

If your lawn is a warmer season grass like St Augustine or Bermuda it will start to go dormant this time of year. Cut back on watering to prevent fungus and disease from developing.

Happy Gardening

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Video: Tasty fall drinks

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (KTHV) — Today’s THV’s lifestyle expert Chris Olsen stops by this Halloween to tell us some great gardening tips and tastey beverages for this fall!

Winter Conifers

Even though it is Autumn, it’s time to purchase your winter conifers for your landscape and containers. You will want to get those varieties that will not only do great for the winter but can tolerate the sizzling heat of our summers. One such tough guy is the Alberta spruce. This cone-shape beauty prefers lots of morning sunshine but light shade in the afternoon. Wonerful in pots especially if you plant around it’s base with white pansies and white ornamental cabbage for a winter look.

But you can’t forget about the evergreen bird Nest Spruce, the Grey Procumbens Juniper, the Grey Owl Juniper (love this shrub), and the Hinoki Cypress.

Shop early for these babies before they are gone…. 

Tasty Halloween Drinks

Tonight is the night. Treat yourself, your family and friends to a delightful and refreshing Halloween beverage. I have two easy recipes for you.

Chris’s Autumn Cider

Ingredients:

1 gallon of Apple Cider
1/2 gallon of Apple Juice
2 cups sugar
5 Cinnamon Sticks

Bring the Apple Cider, Apple Juice, cinnamon sticks and sugar to a boil. Let cool and then remove the cinnamon sticks. Add sliceD apples if so desired. Then serve warm or cold. For an adult version just add 2 cups of pure grain alcohol. Yum!!!

Apple and Orange Autumn Splash

1 gallon of Apple Cider
6 cups of Orange Juice
Cloves
3 Apples
2 Oranges

Mix the two juices together. Now slice the apples and oranges into disc shape slices. Press into each piece of sliced fruit about 8 cloves. Now take the cloved slices and simply add to the mixture. Your done. Add sugar to taste if needed.

Have a spooky Halloween…

The seed for Helen Popper’s book “California Native Gardening: A Month-by-Month Guide” (UC Press, 2012) was planted more than a decade ago at monthly meetings of the Gardening with Natives group.

We shared information and discussed such projects as posting a book list and other resources on a website, organizing a native-garden tour and creating a maintenance calendar for native plants. The website has evolved into a valuable resource – the Going Native Garden Tour celebrated its 10th year in April and Popper’s book debuted this year.

Popper, associate professor of economics at Santa Clara University, said she tackled the project when she realized many experienced native gardeners were getting on in years. While she could still interview some of her mentors, she set aside time to write the book. The result is a beautifully written homage to native plants and a useful guide to what to do in the garden each month, in tune with the particular rhythm of seasons in California.

This book is the ideal counterpoint to all those garden books written for the drizzly British climate or the temperate Eastern U.S. It’s valuable not only for gardeners who favor California native plants, but also for gardeners originally from other areas who want to learn how to garden in California’s dry climate. In fact, it would make an eye-opening gift for plant nerds in other parts of the country or the world who are curious about what makes California gardening special.

The gardening year in California begins in October, as seasonal rains begin to rouse native plants from dormancy. It ends with the restful planning month of September – California’s version of the snowed-in Chicago gardener perusing seed catalogs.

Each month’s chapter contains a one-page summary describing which tasks need attention that month. The bulk of the chapter expands on those themes, in straightforward language touched with poetic appreciation for California’s native plants. The chapter closes with a rundown of what’s in bloom or showy that month. Lovely photos illustrate healthy plants and gardens.

I especially like Popper’s attitude toward wildlife, such as gophers, moles and deer, in the garden. To keep out gophers and deer, she relies on effective barrier methods, including wire baskets, wire-bottomed planting beds and cages for young plants. Popper describes how to distinguish a gopher mound from a molehill and suggests leaving moles alone: “They are generally beneficial in the garden.”

A short chapter at the end of the book discusses five native gardening styles: Formal, Cottage, Japanese, Herb and Child’s.

Unlike other monthly guides, this one does not seem repetitive when similar tasks recur. Instead, common tasks such as pruning, weeding and watering change with the seasons and as different plants take center stage.

Popper pays special attention to propagation. Do-it-yourself gardeners will enjoy reading the details of how and when to take cuttings, with a detailed list at the back summarizing which month to take cuttings from dozens of plants.

Tanya Kucak gardens organically. Email her at
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By Carol Stocker
Globe Correspondent
If you feel like working outside in the glorious fall weather, this just happens to be the best time to plant most trees, shrubs and perennials that are winter hardy, and almost all spring blooming bulbs, as well. They need to start growing roots before winter to put on a good show next spring. Early November is not too late to plant.

Fall, not spring, is the best season for planting because plants do not have to deal with debilitating heat and drought. In fact natural rainfall is so plentiful that you often don’t need to water. And it doesn’t hurt that it’s the most pleasant time of the year for outdoor projects and that nursery stock is often on sale now. We are programmed to respond to the fall chill with increased productivity, just like those plant roots.

If you are a beginning gardener, start by planting some ornamental bulbs. These will become the easiest and earliest flowers in your 2013 garden. That’s because bulbs are like little suitcases that have their flowers already packed inside (in embryonic form), so they are guaranteed to produce it least one flower next spring.

Whether or not bulbs flower in successive years depends upon the type of bulb you choose and and where you plant it. An ideal location is next to a south-facing house foundation at the top of a slope. The house protects the plants from winds, the foundation radiates heat for an early spring start and the slope promotes good drainage longevity. Or plant where you will be able to see the flowers from indoor windows, as they will bloom when it is still cold out.

Daffodils, hyacinths, crocus and alliums or (ornamental onions) are all easy, beautiful bulbs that can return for many springs. Bulbs like sun, but if your garden is shady, try leucojum, erythronium, camassia, galanthus and wood hyacinths instead. Many Oriental lilies are also shade tolerant, but I would think twice about planting them if the new red lily leaf beetle, which devours them, has arrived in your area.

If they weren’t so lovely, I would warn you away from tulips, too. They often only bloom their first spring, spouting “blind” leaves in subsequent springs. I think of them as expensive annuals and plant them only three or four inches deep, and then pull up and discard the entire plant after they finish blooming. I also spray them with animal repellent when they are growing in the spring because deer love them and will otherwise nip off their buds so you’ll be left with rows of headless tulips. Most people find that tulips are not worth such extra trouble and expense, but I love them as much as the deer, so I put up with it.

Plant bulbs with the pointy ends up. You can dig an individual hole for each bulbs. But unless you are dotting them around an already packed perennial bed, it is much easier and looks better if you plant bulbs in a cluster in of five or more in one big hole per grouping. The planting hole should be three times as deep as the width of the bulbs. You can space the bulbs twice their width apart. So smaller bulbs can be planted more shallowly and closely together than larger bulbs.

I love buying plants and bulbs but I hate digging holes, so here are some of my personal tricks for fitting more plants into fewer holes:

Layer several kinds of bulbs of different sizes one hole. For instance, plant giant ornamental onion bulbs that are four inches wide in a hole I’ve dug a foot deep. Then I cover them up by filling the hole half way to the top, which in this case means back filling with six inches of soil. Next, arrange a layer of two inch wide daffodil bulbs on this new level spaced four inches apart. Then cover those with three inches of soil and position a layer of inch-wide crocuses above them two inches apart before totally filling in the hole with soil. I use a ruler to measure, but don’t be afraid to eyeball it, since bulbs are forgiving. When you finish planting this or anything else, water immediately to help the soil settle and to initiate root growth.

I also sometimes combine perennials and bulbs in the same planting hole. The tricky thing about planting perennials or trees or shrubs is to dig to the right depth, which is the depth plant was growing in the nursery container you bought it in. For instance, if you buy a perennial that is in a gallon pot that is nine inches deep, with the soil surface one inch below the rim of the pot, you need to dig a planting hole eight inches deep. This sounds simple, but it is important. If you make the hole too deep and bury the plant’s crown, the spot where the roots attach to the stem, with too much soil, you can kill the plant. Strange as it sounds, roots that planted and buried too deep can suffocate. This is true of trees and shrubs, as well as perennials. The simplest technique to measure the depth of the hole you are digging is to set the pot in the hole. Ten you can see whether you need to back fill or dig deeper before you even take your perennial out of the pot.

When you get the hole to the right depth, begin widening it. Most plants have roots that grow outward rather than downward, so ideally you should widen the hole until it is three times as wide as it is deep. I position the bulbs in a ring around the bottom of the hole, before I put the perennial plant in the center. This way the bulbs can sprout up around the perennial. If the plant is too low in the hole you can pull it up or out and fill in the hole part way without worrying about covering up or moving the bulbs, which are less fussy about planting depth. Mix the soil you dug out of the hole with organic amendments such aged cow manure, the gardener’s favorite “black gold,” to enrich the soil and improve it’s “tilth,” or texture. Don’t worry about adding fertilizer, which sometimes does more harm than good by disrupting soil organisms. There’s an old gardener’s saying: “Feed the soil, not the plant.” If you focus on improving the soil content and texture instead of just applying fertilizer to the plant, beneficial organisms such as earthworms can flourish and your plants will grow better in the long run.

Planting now will give you a down payment on spring that will make the long winter ahead feel that much shorter.

Meg Liptrot gives her fruit trees a shoulder to grow on and reaps a generous crop.

Fruit trees are the most productive plants you can grow per square metre, when compared with veges. It may take a bit of practice to get right, but once you’ve mastered it, espaliering fruit along a fence is an effective fruit-growing technique.

There is a long history of fruit-growing using vertical structures. In Europe, picturesque walled gardens, often in stone or brick or a combination of both, feature fruit trees trained against walls. The term “espalier” comes from France, but originates from the Italian word “spalliera”, which means “something to rest the shoulder (spalla) against”. Ultimately, the word refers to the training of a fruit tree along a fence or against a wall.

In parts of the Southern Hemisphere, where winters are cold, growing fruit against solid walls facing the sun ensures ideal growing conditions. Solid walls which have thermal mass retain heat during the day when direct sun hits their surface. When the sun sets, the heat continues to emanate from the wall, heating cold-sensitive plants and encouraging the ripening of fruit.

Deciduous fruit trees, such as pears, suit a tiered, horizontal method of espaliering. This technique involves securing selected branches when they are pliable and young and every year pruning and training the next tier of branches, and pruning back vegetative growth in favour of fruiting spurs.

When branches grow vertically, they will put out more non-fruiting “vegetative” growth, because of the hormones found in the tips of growing shoots. Flower buds and fruit are encouraged when branches are in a more or less horizontal or vase position.

Structure and design

The best wall on which to espalier in the Southern Hemisphere is north-facing, with the wall running from east to west. This ensures the tree grows evenly and branches do not constantly grow in one direction to reach the sun.

At our property we have only a few possible spots for espaliering fruit. One sturdy timber fence down the side of our house runs north to south and faces west, which isn’t ideal but still works. I have secured two horizontal Number 8 wires to run the length of the fence, one at just over a metre high, the other 1.5m high. Here, I have espaliered a pear tree, with the third tier growing along the top of the 2m fence. We’ve used our southeast facing Brustics panels to support fan-trained figs by hooking loose wire loops into the panels to hold the branches in shape.

To screen an unsightly metal shed in a client’s garden, I designed a sturdy frame on which to espalier a plum. The frame consisted of black-lacquered, rust-proofed reinforcing iron bars, threaded through three support posts. Alternatively, masonry walls allow the option of drilling eye bolts and attaching lengths of stainless cable along which to tie branches.

How to

Select three healthy looking shoots from your main trunk and remove the rest, they will all grow to a similar length. Once the branches have reached almost the desired length and they are still flexible, start training them into a “v” – one branch to the left, one to the right – and leave the other to grow upwards.

These branches can be tied with soft fabric ties at a 45-degree angle. They will continue growing.

At the end of the growing season, usually in autumn, the stems can be tied down to their final horizontal position. You should by now have two branches trained along the wall and they should be relatively even in length.

The branch that is still growing upwards should be pruned at around 60cm long. The cut should be angled at 45 degrees about 1cm from a bud and pointing in the direction that you want your uppermost branch to go. Below this should be at least two more healthy buds and one for good measure. Next growing season you will have three more strongly growing shoots to create the next tier in your espalier, and so on. Espaliered pears suit three or four tiers for best fruit production.

Summer prune any unwanted vegetative growth by two thirds to encourage fruiting spurs, or wind the shoots into your horizontal structure, gently securing them in place.

Plant choice

Most deciduous fruit trees suit espaliering. Dwarfing apples, for example, are available to buy as a pole-like “cordon”. Even though double- or triple-grafted fruit trees are great choices for small gardens in terms of pollination, it’s better to have two separate trees espaliered for your pollination requirements, or to select a self-fertile variety.

In a rush of enthusiasm years ago, I chose a triple-grafted pear. This made the job more difficult as I have a few different varieties as branches growing at different speeds on the same tree. You also must label very clearly where your varieties are to avoid pruning a feeble branch only to realise it was one of your grafted branches. I have managed to avoid this so far.

Also, find out whether the variety of fruit you are interested in is “tip” or “spur bearing”. “Tip bearing” means the fruit form at the end of branches and shoots. “Spur bearing” means fruit are produced along the length of a branch. It is quite hard to prune an espalier attractively when you have “tip bearing” branches and the whole thing gets overgrown, or you get no fruit at all in an attempt at tidiness. “Spur bearing” is the way to go. Make sure you get advice from the fruit expert at your garden centre.

Supercharge the vege garden

Have you caught the edible gardening bug and are keen to take your edible garden to the next level? A recently launched website, podgardening.co.nz, is worth a look. Pod is a partnership between Paul Thompson, NZ Gardener columnist and a former presenter on Maggie’s Garden Show, and Viv Stone, a producer and web designer.

The website, and its Facebook page, www.facebook.com/PodGardening, offer free advice and “help for anyone growing or wanting to grow their own fruit, vegetables, herbs and flowers using natural and sustainable methods”.

Paul is a passionate organic gardener and natural presenter, and his enthusiasm shines through in the Pod TV section, where clips can be viewed on subjects ranging from liquid manures to beneficial insects, and how to grow seasonal crops. He lives with his young family in Piha and his love of the natural life is clear in the photos and clips.

Points of difference which caught my eye were the photo essays and interviews with interesting people, such as sculptor Andrew Drummond, and their gardens.

The viewer gets a sneak peek behind the garden fence for some tantalising inspiration, with new profiles popping up monthly.

Pod’s recipe section features dishes by guest chefs and seasonal inspiration for the kitchen.

Pod’s Top 5 Seed Bundles with funky designs are arranged around five themes: Fast, Easy, Saver, Eco and Daring, to make seed selection for your vege garden that little bit simpler.

* We have five prizes to win, each consisting of 10 packets of seeds from Pod’s Top 5 selections for November. To enter the draw email winwithheraldonsunday.co.nz and enter the keyword “Pod” along with your details. Entries close at 11.59pm on Wednesday, October 31.

By Meg Liptrot

Low hanging branches from this beautiful jatropha tree could easily knock the classes off someone mowing underneath or, worst yet, damage an eye.

Sometimes a little commonsense goes a long LONG way.

Today a lawn fanatic I know was out mowing when a branch hit him square in the face.  Knocked off his glasses and, because of the angle, he ran over them before he could stop.

Hindsight is always 20-20, of course.  This guy could have prevented if he had just:

1. worn a protective head strap with his glasses, so they wouldn’t fall off (which can happen as easily from sweat as from an overhanging limb)

2. Keep areas adjacent to mowing paths cleared of low-hanging branches.

Truth is, arching branches are prettier if they have a higher arch anyway.

All this applies to if you’re just working in the garden.

Broken off branch with pointed tips can be lethal to unprotected eyes.

Always wear either sunglasses or clear glasses.

Any other tips for protecting your eyes while gardening?

.
*  *  *
Brenda’s “LAZY GARDENER’S GUIDE ON CD” is based on her 45+-year Lazy Gardener column in the Houston Chronicle.
THINK CHRISTMAS GIFTS!
Brenda’s book-on-CD is perfect for those new to gardening, those who loves to garden or those who have to at least maintain a front yard so the neighbors won’t hate you!
Month-by-month, when-to-do-what-in Greater Houston Area Gardens  — plant? prune? fertilize? With 12 garden designs for butterflies, hummingbirds, sun, shade, herbs, antique roses, tropicals . . . you name it.  Mail checks ($20) payable to Brenda Beust Smith to Lazy Gardener’s Guide on CD, 14011 Greenranch Dr., Houston, TX 77039.  (email: lazygardener@sbcglobal.net)
*****
CLUBS! (and other nonprofit gardening/environmental organizations): feel free to post your upcoming events through the “Comments” section on any of the Lazy Gardener blog posts (http://blogs.chron.com/lazygardener). Scroll to bottom of screen to find the “Comments.”

Click photo to enlarge

Walnut Creek’s Ruth Bancroft is a national authority on drought-resistant gardening. Twice a month, she and her staff share their knowledge with readers.

Every plant family has something called a “type genus,” the genus from which the family takes its name. For the Stonecrop Family, Crassulaceae, the genus is Crassula. A majority of the species in Crassula are from southern Africa, including all the ones commonly seen in this country. But a few extend as far north as the Arabian Peninsula, and one is even recorded from Iran.

These plants are mostly on the miniature side, and they range from single-headed ones to kinds that make offshoots, form a small clump or spread widely as ground covers. A few kinds have colorful red, pink or yellow flowers, but in most kinds the blossoms are white. The small flowers have five petals but are sometimes create large clusters so the effect is quite showy. One of the best-known species in California is the Jade Tree (Crassula ovata), but it is larger than most plants in the genus.

Quite a few Crassula species have decorative tiny hairs on leaf surfaces or margins; many of them take on red tinges in bright light. Another attractive feature of some species is the way the leaves stack up in neat tiers. One that excels in this quality is Crassula capitella. Widespread in South Africa, it has many forms, some of them distinctive enough to be classified as subspecies. In all cases, the

flowers are small and white.

At the Ruth Bancroft Garden we have a delightful form of Crassula capitella with stacking red-tinged triangular leaves. It spreads to form a clump, making a fine small-scale ground cover. Its flowering season is in the fall, mostly October and November. When not in flower, the stems are only a few inches tall, but when a head comes into bloom, it rises several inches higher, with many clusters of little white flowers arrayed along the stalk When the flowering has finished, the elongated stalks can be pinched back to keep the plant compact, and new heads will sprout.

Like most succulents, C. capitella requires excellent drainage, performing well in rockeries or pockets in rock walls; in a sunny locations, it colors up nicely. It is easy to grow, and cuttings strike root readily.

We’ve heard it all year long, and in every presidential debate: small businesses deserve special handling from the government because small businesses create all the jobs. Even in a debate ostensibly devoted to foreign policy, Romney and Obama were at it again, tussling over who loved small business more.

Funny thing about small businesses. Not only are they responsible for creating lots and lots of jobs, but they’re also responsible for the loss of lots and lots of jobs.

That insight comes courtesy of Inc. Magazine’s Bo Burlingham, in the intriguing article “Who Really Creates the Jobs?” Burlingham’s investigation should be required reading for every pundit who wants to wax eloquent about the government role in spurring small business job creation, because it makes a convincing case that both Republicans and Democrats are going about things all wrong — at least at the federal level.

“If you were to group together the vast majority of small companies,” writes Burlingham, “their net job generation would add up to zero.”

Which means broad-brush initiatives (like tax cuts) that don’t discriminate between companies with growth potential and companies that are going nowhere are a waste of resources. Burlingham surveys the last 20 years of research into small business job creation and identifies a subset of businesses — dubbed “gazelles” by MIT researcher David Birch — that account for the bulk of net job creation. Most gazelles are small — but not all of them. The characteristic that they share the most is youth. 

So what can government do to help promising young start-ups reach liftoff? The most common government tactic, popular on both the left and right, is to lower the cost of capital, whether through loan guarantees or other direct subsidies. But Burlingham argues that such broad-brush tactics distort the marketplace by rewarding both good and bad ideas and end up saddling start-ups with debt that they’ll find hard to pay off. Furthermore, state and federal assistance tend to operate too far from ground level — another round of tax cuts, for example, has little relevance to the real day-to-day obstacles that inhibit growth.

Such obstacles include a lack of qualified personnel for supervisory level jobs — something that most job training programs don’t address — and problems negotiating local government bureaucracies or integrating with local universities. Burlingham cites at length from a case study of Littleton, Colo., a city that worked hard to put in place an “‘economic gardening’” approach to economic development.

Among other things, [Littleton] provides local companies with information on marketing, competitive intelligence, and industry trends. It offers training and seminars in advanced management techniques. It has developed a telecommunication curriculum and an e-commerce course with the local community college and helped local businesses connect with trade associations, academic institutions, and other companies in the same industry. The list goes on. Have such efforts paid off? In 20 years, the number of jobs in the city doubled, while sales tax revenue tripled, without a dime being spent on recruiting outside employers, according to Chris Gibbons, now with the National Center for Economic Gardening, who led the effort.

Youth benefits from a nurturing hand. Seedlings need to be watered, and gardens need to be weeded. It’s not about creating a level playing field; it’s about tipping the savannah so the gazelles are running downhill.

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