Photo by Kim Ashford
Leon: When Ed passed away last November I felt like Batman had gone and left Robin in charge. We met in 1961 and, over a period of fifty-one years, we gradually meshed our knowledge: my background was soil chemistry as an undergraduate and plant physiology in graduate school. Ed was a horticulture major throughout. He and I argued frequently but were complements to one another.
When Country Roads asked us to write a column we called ourselves the Lawnchair Gardeners—because we were still gardening—sort of. The Horticulture Department at LSU had given us a plot at the Burden Center, and we had freedom to do the kinds of “research” that we wanted to try. We called it the “Old Fellows Research Facility,” but we weren’t doing research at the level any horticultural journal would accept. Because we were of the elderly persuasion, our work schedule was something like thirty minutes of light work followed by one day of rest. We tested ideas that we had developed over the horticulture coffee table, working with blackberry and heirloom tomato varieties, for example. Some of the ideas worked and many failed, but our plot was always growing something of value and we had very few weed problems because we never let any weeds survive long enough to produce seeds.
But, we were also getting older. Ed and his wife had to move to a retirement home in Lake Charles because their son was living there. I decided to move into the St. James retirement home because my daughter lives in Baton Rouge. St. James has areas where I could do a bit of gardening if I wanted to—but I don’t. I still receive a few seed catalogs that I read like I read the Sears and Roebuck catalog back when I was a child: “Boy, if I had a horse, I would want that kind of saddle and maybe these chaps!” Now, I sit in my easy chair and look at the seed catalog plants I would like to grow.
Then our friends at Country Roads came to my rescue! They wanted Robin to continue writing even though Batman was gone. Anne Craven, the assistant editor, and her husband Michael had just bought a house that had once been owned by someone with horticultural interest. Anne and Michael are interested in growing plants but not very experienced. Furthermore, the large backyard had been neglected for a few years.
Would I help?
Would I! This was just what I needed. We, the three of us, could start a new gardening column with me offering suggestions and several options, then they would choose and do the work. At age eighty-seven, I am good at giving advice but not much help in working. The big problem now is where we should start. Fortunately winter is a good time for making plans and beginning some of the work.
The yard has one Satsuma tree that looks very good except that it needs just a little pruning. They have four orange trees that produced a lot of fruit during the fall and are close enough to the brick house so that they will have some protection from the cold—if it ever comes. So far, so good. They also have a large grapefruit tree that seems to have never been pruned. The three trunks are about three inches in diameter and the leaves show yellowing patterns that seem to indicate a nutrient deficiency—maybe it only needs fertilizer but I get the impression that it also has a trace nutrient problem—maybe magnesium. We have time to prune it heavily and add fertilizer before spring—if spring doesn’t come too early.
They have three or four muscadine vines that are in serious need of pruning. We need to prune them very heavily and wait to see what varieties we have. There is a large blackberry plant that we can’t identify until it begins to bear. We have a wonderful setup for vegetable gardening: eight raised beds held in place by old railroad ties that will last forever. Each bed has about six or eight inches of good compost but they are weedy and probably have a lot of weed seeds. We might want to plant vegetables in the spring and fight the weeds until middle July when we can take the vegetables out and cover the beds with clear plastic so the heat will kill most of the seeds.
Dear readers, please join us while we try to get these plants started correctly. There is far too much work to do before spring but home gardening is a hobby, not a profession—you do just what you want to, and when you want to. We can’t let the garden make demands of us. We will do things one at a time, and each month I will describe in detail what we have tried and how well it worked. Hopefully you’ll discover some gardening tips and approaches to use this year or next.
Notice that I keep saying “we” are going to do the work. I am going to watch and spend a lot of time in my easy chair, thinking of several options my co-workers might try.
Anne: My friend Leon is attempting to portray himself as a laid-back consultant to the gardening efforts at the Craven household. Now let me tell the truth! Leon is a taskmaster extraordinaire, and I knew after the first few minutes of his initial excursion into our backyard that we had enlisted the right man. As we strolled around the yard I took as many notes as I could, trying to keep up and make sense of the foreign language he was speaking. (He said something about fertilizer—is that different from plant food?). We have a lot of things growing back there, and Leon had comments on all of them: “cut it back, fertilize, mulch.” But of course it won’t always be that simple.
To put it mildly, my gardening style in the past has been lackadaisical. Leon mentioned, “we can’t let the garden make demands of us,” and that has been my backyard motto to a fault. I haven’t been a good listener to my garden, but so far we have enjoyed having Leon make suggestions on behalf of our garden and, most importantly, we love his company around the house.
Michael and I have told Leon, “Our yard is your yard” and, thanks to this column, it can be your yard in a way.
Leon: I always enjoy praise, especially when I don’t deserve it. Maybe I should make a short answer to Anne’s question. Fertilizer and plant food mean the same thing. Neither term is really good but they are all we have. Fertilizer is a mix of chemical nutrients that will usually make the soil more fertile. The problem is that soil fertility involves a lot more than chemicals. The soil must also have good internal drainage plus reasonable amounts of organic matter and clay to hold the nutrients until the plant roots need them. Plants need a lot of nutrients, but the primary ones are nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. That is the “N-P-K” that you see on the bag. They are supposed to represent the percentage of these elements in the mixture (I am carefully avoiding a sticky terminology problem, but it really doesn’t matter.) Plant roots take up these chemicals and use the energy of the sun to make food for themselves—and for us when we eat vegetables or feed the chickens. “Plant Food” means exactly the same thing but ignores the fact that plants make their own food—we can’t feed them.
Welcome aboard, dear readers, we will try to make your journey informative and interesting.
Leon’s Gardening Tips for March
March can be a busy and fun month but it is also a gambling month; “Luck be a lady this time!” Just when you get the garden started, we can have a cold night and frost. You will start over and enjoy a second planting season. So, just forget the gamble and hope for fine weather.
• The garden center will have tomatoes and ornamentals ready for transplanting. It is a good idea to water them in with a little starter fertilizer, the water soluble kind, just follow the instructions on the label. (Back in the old days we used “manure tea” – a little cow manure soaked for a day or two in water. Nobody has a milk cow now.)
• Azaleas should peak this month but the camellias will be about finished.
• It is time to plant gladiolus bulbs about once a week to get long term blooms.
• The climbing roses will make their first big bloom; prune them back after that bloom.
Gardening waits for no magazine! Follow the weekly adventures of Leon, Michael and Anne on their blog, Real Growth.
