Re: fall clean up
- Subject: Re: fall clean up
- From: M* T*
- Date: Sat, 27 Oct 2001 04:18:02 -0400
Right, Claire...I'd momentarily forgotten about the acorns:-)
Wildlife love them- squirrels and deer - but they are a right pain
for the gardener. Uneaten ones tend to sprout in beds and those that
don't, plus the little caps with twiggy bit, never seem to decompose
and are a nasty surprise for the knees when weeding.
That said, they are majestic trees and I wouldn't want to lose
mine...but you do have to resign yourself to leaf clean up about year
around.
In my experience, any large trees generate surprising amounts of
debris all year; leaves and twiggy bits that fall, not to mention
pretty large branches that come down periodically, as well as seeds
that create seedlings that have to be pulled. I guess if you only
have one or two large trees, it's not so much an issue. On a heavily
wooded property, it is a major time consumer in the clean up dept.
While I know some very damp climates have rot and fungal issues with
dead perennial foliage, my theory has always been that it helps
protect the plant crown over winter. In nature, nobody is going
around chopping down dead stems; they simply disintegrate over winter
to become mulch around the plants, feeding the soil. Plants seem to
have survived this regime over time pretty well. Should imagine that
where winters are very severe - like yours - it would be important to
leave it standing.
Also, by spring most of it can be removed with a swipe of the hand,
whereas in fall it's still often pretty solidly connected and
requires cutting off.
I'm all for organic practices in the garden, but I agree that they
require more time and energy than buying in whatever. I didn't mind
expending the energy 30 years ago, but find that now I need to
conserve energy and allocate it if I am to accomplish anything. I
still don't "buy in", but tend to just let nature do the work of
rotting things down so I can gather the residue and use it. This
requires space, which I luckily have, and time, as in a few years for
a brush pile or woodchip pile or a season for a compost heap...but if
you have both of those commodities, you can save your energy for
other things:-)
I've never had much grass, so have not been able to try the UK method
of stacking and rotting turves, tho' it has always intrigued me.
From what I've read, it produces lovely loamy topsoil.
Marge Talt, zone 7 Maryland
mtalt@clark.net
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> From: ECPep@aol.com
> Marge,
>
> Glad to hear your comments on the oaks. Everyone wants mature
oaks, we have
> black oaks native to this part of the world. Yes, they drift down
over the
> entire winter making spring a grand chase for the tons of them. We
are
> picking them up most of summer as well. This year they produced a
bumper
> crop of acorns and brought slipping and sliding in the driveway on
acorns.
>
> Here where we will have soil frozen a least one foot and usually
several more
> it has proved and advantage to leave some perennials standing.
They break
> down over the winter and protect the newly emerging plant in the
spring.
> This cover also retards the growth of the plants, not native to our
climate,
> that start early.
>
> Either way, doing it once is enough.
>
> I never made one of those elite compost heaps, It always seemed a
great deal
> of labor. There is a farm garden that can visited nearby where the
owners
> practice all sorts of good procedures that you can watch. They do a
"sod
> sandwich" affair that is mostly European. You strip sod from
whereever and
> cut it into strips. You make a square pile of the strips with the
sods (alled
> turf strips elsewhere, with the curious plural of turves) about
four feet
> high. You wet down this pile and cover with a tarp. In time it
becomes
> compost. The idea, I think, is that you can make all you need
organically
> (no peat) from any field area or old lawn you are not using. Then
you resow
> the stripped area with rye grass and do it again. This appears to
me to be
> an enormous amount of labor for a home gardener.
>
> I think Bill needs to accept weed (VBG), liking dusting the house,
never go
> away. Also Bill, I recently read an article on weed seeds and
their ability
> to produce descendents. Some weeks make several types of seed,
those that
> germinate immediately and those that can remain for many years
until
> conditions are right. All have some mechanism that sustain them
and cause
> you to hate them.
>
> Claire Pepldowski
> NYS z4
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