Carolyn

Pruning and Maintenance of Rose Bushes

July 4, 2024

General Care:

Mulch to conserve moisture and reduce weeds.
Water 1 inch per week from spring until after harvest.
Roses are heavy feeders.
Spring: Fertilize with a slow release, balanced fertilizer.
Throughout season: Feed every 4 weeks.
Late summer, early fall: Stop fertilizing 6 – 8 weeks before frost date in preparation for winter.
NOTE: Very sharp thorns. Wear gloves when handling.

Pests & Diseases:

Susceptible to rose borers, powdery mildew, and fungus.

Late Winter/Early Spring Pruning Steps (start of new growth):

Remove all remaining leaves.
Prune dead wood back to the base.
Prune out crossing branches. Ideally create an open vase-like shape to increase air circulation.
Remove thin and weak growth (anything thinner than a pencil).
Shape the remaining canes into desired shape by cutting ¼” – ½” above an outward facing bud, at an angle sloping away from the bud.
Dispose of any leaves and waste to prevent spread of disease.

Fall Pruning (after killing frost):

Prune only as needed for winter preparation.
Trim longer stems to keep from snapping in winter storms.
Trim crossed branches to prevent rubbing.
Remove dead/diseased branches and foliage.

Goldenrod (Solidago canadensis)

November 16, 2023

Excerpt from OMAFRA Publication 505 ‘Ontario Weeds’

It is essential that Goldenrod, Solidago spp., [verge d’or, solidage], not be confused with Common ragweed. Several species of Goldenrod occur throughout Ontario in meadows, pastures, woodland, river flats and roadsides, and have very conspicuous bright yellow inflorescences during the ragweed hayfever season of late summer and autumn. Goldenrods do produce pollen but only in small quantities, and their pollen is heavy and sticky. It is not carried on the wind and the plants are pollinated by insects. Because Goldenrod pollen is not carried on the wind, it must not be blamed as the source of irritation for ragweed hay fever sufferers.

Common ragweed is the most important cause of hay fever during August and September. Although inconspicuous and not recognized by most people, the tiny male flower beads hanging on their slender stalks produce huge quantities of very light pollen. As the pollen falls from these hanging flowers, it is caught by the wind and may be carried for distances greater than 200 km (125 miles). Hay fever sufferers, therefore, may be affected by pollen from ragweed plants far away.

Easy to grow and easy to pull out
Available in nurseries as Solidago
Beautiful; good for cut flowers
Sun; tolerant of dry or wet conditions, Zone 3
Attracts butterflies and bees
35-70 cm (1-2 feet) tall and 45 cm (1 ½ ft) wide
DOES NOT PRODUCE WIND BLOWN POLLEN OR CAUSE HAYFEVER
Blooms late summer and fall
Winter interest and seeds for birds

Natural Landscaping Solutions

September 25, 2022

Plants have roots.They have roots that intertwine, roots that mat together, roots that penetrate deeply and anchor around rocks, roots that prevent soil from washing away. Nature has done a pretty good job holding things together since the last ice age 10,000 years ago. Attached to these roots are a variety of remarkable plants, shrubs and trees that have evolved over 10, 000 years with each other and with mammals, insects and avian species to create some pretty extraordinary ecosystems.

More and more landscapers are turning to native plants and methods that mimic natural processes to restore degraded sites along shorelines and in upland areas. If you live on waterfront, you’ll want access to the water to reach a dock or a beach. The ideal is to minimize the amount of native vegetation that you remove to create a path. For level sites a soft path is kindest on the land. For steeper sites, steps or a snaking path may be necessary. A path will act as a water course during heavy rains so top your path with wood mulch to help slow and absorb water. If your slope is very steep and you’re using rock, make it local granite which is available nearby and aesthetically fits in with the surrounding land. Don’t ignore the value of plants when you are putting in hardscapes like steps, patios and retaining walls and wherever practical choose plants over hardscape to solve problems and create esthetic spaces. Place plants close to hard scape features to hold the soil in place and plant them densely.

Bearberry would be a good choice for planting around steps and paths since they are widely available, hardy, low growing, sun loving and thrive in poor sandy soil.

Photo credit Sten Porse CC-BY 3.0plants

Shorelines cloaked in vegetation fare better than properties cleared of shrubs and trees and planted in grass. Steep banks do well planted in Willow shrubs, Speckled Alder, Beaked Hazelnut (Corylus cornuta) and Red Osier Dogwood, named for its red stems. It is the tenacious plant roots of these shrubs that hold the soil in place. These plants have adapted to extreme conditions and will survive periods of flooding and then long periods of little rain. They are deciduous and can be pruned aggressively to maintain views. There are many other plants that can tolerate a range of conditions that make them ideally suited to shorelines and the vagaries of the weather. For other plant choices please peruse the article on Solutions to Erosion .

Hard surfaces like steps and retaining walls do nothing to slow the flow of water from the top of a slope or prevent the force of a river or wave action from slowly undermining these structures. Engineers have found that rip rap is not always effective in stabilizing the shore but merely armours it for a period of time. Rip rap does a poor job of absorbing the energy of water and merely deflects waves to the edges undermining neighbouring properties. Placing plants in rip rap to accumulate organic debris from roots can help.

Restorationists are now opting to use vegetation and softer organic materials. In serious cases a steep slope may need to be cut back to reduce the angle and then clothed in coco mat to hold the disturbed soil in place until plant roots spread enough to take over this function. Coconut fiber rolls and mats placed along a shoreline can absorb and redirect water and can be planted so that plant roots can eventually take over.

Picture of Rip Rap — Rip Rap has fallen out of favour

Ideally we want to take care of water before it reaches the shore. And to do that we need to assess the state of the landscape from the shoreline back to your property line. We would need to consider how many buildings and parking areas with impervious surfaces, grass vis a vis a many layered woodland are in place. A landscape of different layers allow light to penetrate to all plants – low perennials, understory, upper canopy.

Erosion has a lot to do with upland management. The ideal is to have the ground water from rainfall and runoff be absorbed, filtered and cleaned before it runs down the slope to the water body. Bio swales, raingardens, and undulations in the landscape can all be used to hold water and give it time to absorb into the ground.
Forests filter and regulate the flow of water. Leaves capture and slow the fall of rain to the forest floor. The ground acts like an enormous sponge, absorbing up to 46 centimetres (15 in) of precipitation before gradually releasing it to streams and recharging ground water. On average an untouched forest floor can absorb 2/3rds more rain than a cover of suburban turf.

Well vegetated upland areas can still offer a view. Deciduous shrubs and trees can be thinned, and branches removed with little effect on the vegetation. It’s called ‘vista pruning’ and looks more attractive than a clear-cut swath down to your lake. Use brush and other available organic matter to build soil to reclaim poor soil areas. It may take a few years for twigs and branches to break down in our temperate zone with our short summers and cool evenings, but you’ll eventually be rewarded with rich, moist soil ideal for planting natives. If you can’t wait, you can make a hole in the brush, add soil and plant. Brush piles also act as habitat for wildlife so you may want to have a succession of soil building projects on the go.

Build swales or ditches and then plant them so that plant roots can take up excess water. A bio swale allows surface water to soak into the earth slowly, rather than flooding or shooting down to the lake. Use rocks, logs and any other natural debris to slow down the flow of water and arrest erosion. Place logs perpendicular to a compacted and steep path to direct water to the sides. Use wood chip mulch on the sloped pathways as it is absorbent and is a soil builder. As tempting as it may be, please avoid planting fast growing invasive ground covers like periwinkle (Vinca) and Goutweed (Aegopodium podagraria).

Plants, with their varied root systems blanket and protect the soil from drying out and from blowing or eroding away. They also aerate the soil and provide nutrients to the soil from decaying foliage. Organic material has the additional benefit of providing texture and nutrients to your soil as it breaks down.

An effective and affordable solution for any terrain but particularly steep slopes is the use of wattles which are simply bundles of organic material, possibly coco rolls. Live stakes and/or steel rods are used to hold the material in place. The live stakes are cuttings taken from shrubs such as willow and dogwood, that quickly set down roots. The use of live stakes can only be used in early spring and the stakes can be bought or cut from existing vegetation before leaf out. Buttonbush, elderberry, viburnum, willow and dogwood are all sold as live stakes. Buy dormant and plant in April/May.

How to obtain plants:
The nursery trade has a very small inventory of native plants, so you’ll have to be creative.
Celebrate what you have, prune, move and enhance.
Transplant or divide from plants on your property.
Collect seed from friends.
Purchase sustainably grown plants
For a list of local landscapers, arborists and nurseries please visit our Buy Local page

Carolyn Langdon, Master Gardeners, 2023

Edible Flowers

June 4, 2022

Flowers are not just pretty faces. Adding them to food can give your cuisine flair. But don’t just chow down on any flower. There are probably poisonous plants in your own garden or home. So that this topic doesn’t get confusing, no poisonous plants will be named in this article. Incidentally there are far too many to mention. An interesting fact is that what may be poisonous to people may not be to a cow, dog or deer and vice versa. Often only part of a plant is poisonous; perhaps the seeds or sap or root. Some plants are dangerous just to contact. So don’t eat anything unless you are absolutely certain of its identity and that it is edible. This is a good rule to follow if you are foraging in the wild too. Should someone ingest an unknown plant, determine the amount eaten and pick a sample of the plant. Telephone Poison Control. The telephone number is on the first page of the Bell Telephone Book (1 800 268-9017).

Edible flowers are fun and add zest when used even if just as a garnish. Pick only from a source that you know is clean of pesticides or herbicides. Roadsides are suspect. Often you must pick the floret out of the flower head (e.g. lilacs, calendula). First you should taste your flower to determine if it’s savoury or sweet or perhaps tasteless! Here follows a list of very well-known flowers that are edible, listed by season, from spring to fall.

Common Blue Violets – Very hardy and can take over your lawn but they are pretty. Crystallize them in sugar and then stick them onto sugar cubes for serving an elegant tea. (Paint with egg white and cover in sugar & let dry) or use them fresh to garnish a dessert like rice pudding or baked custard when serving.

Pansies (Johnny Jump-ups) – Those little faces look great in green salad or chopped up to give the salad colour. They are sweet enough to garnish desserts as well.

Lilacs – Pull the florets from the head and taste them. Many modern hybrids might not have much flavour. Wild lilacs are very sweet. (Remember, from childhood, sucking on honeysuckle or purple clover?) Lilac florets could decorate a dish of vanilla ice cream to make it special.

Chive flowers – A nice touch for floating on tomato soup or in a salad. Be daring; do it. They taste exactly like chives.

Daylilies – These flowers are coarser than others mentioned. There are so many varieties you must taste them as some are sweet and some savoury like green bean flavour. Remove the stigma and flower base. Unopened buds can be used too. Cook them in stir fry.

Squash blossoms (zucchini, pumpkin, or squash (species)) Male flowers bloom first. You might as well cook them until the female blossoms come along. Lightly battered and fried is one way to serve them.

Nasturtiums – spicy leaves and pretty flowers for salads. The seeds can be pickled & used as capers.

Try baking too! Click here for our Lavender Cookie Recipe.

Shoreline Restoration

April 8, 2022

The ribbon of land between the lake and cottage has undergone monumental changes since lake development began. Many cottage owners removed the natural vegetation at the shoreline in an attempt to urbanize the area. We now understand that this has disturbed the natural environment for wildlife as well as reducing the water quality of the lakes with serious repercussions for human health.

Shoreline protection and an understanding of how it affects waterways is critical for a variety of wildlife species including spawning fish, turtles and nesting waterfowl as well as terrestrial song birds and small mammals. A dense strip of native vegetation is an important buffer filtering snow and water runoff and preventing soil erosion and providing a continuous wildlife corridor.

Experts agree that preserving and restoring cottage shorelines with native vegetation is the best solution for water quality and long-term shoreline stability. This would be the way nature kept shorelines stable and our lakes and streams clean long before the impacts of human development. Native plants are those that occur naturally in a region in which they evolved. They are the ecological basis upon which life depends, including mammals, birds and people. Without them and the insects that co-evolved with them, local birds cannot survive. Native wildlife of all kinds is reduced when the land along the shoreline is paved, turfed, ornamented and exposed. Clear-cutting vegetation, creating steep slopes or mowing to the water’s edge come with consequences.

Sourcing native plants is a lot easier than it used to be. A list of native plant nurseries and resources is provided at the end of the document. The use of fertilizers encourages weeds to the detriment of native plants. Pesticides are detrimental to all living things including humans, aquatic and terrestrial life.

We have created a document that attempts to bring together in one place a description of many common native species that will grow in the Highlands (Zone4), including those that are likely to be available from area nurseries. This revised document also includes the native insects and wildlife that are attracted to native flora as well as some edible and medicinal information about the plants.

This document can be used to help property owners identify the native plants that are already growing on their land so they can ‘preserve’ them and secondly to help property owners choose which natives to purchase and plant in order to ‘restore’ their property.

Download PDF Version Here

Erosion Solutions From Heavy Rain

October 25, 2021

Question: Can you slow water runoff at the top of a slope?

Master Gardener Carolyn Langdon advises you to build a small rain garden at the top of your slope. Add a small berm at the top of and/or mid-way down your slope. Put in a berm of logs, branches, soil and/or rocks to slow down the water running off and to allow time for the rain to absorb and for plant roots to establish. The idea is to place any material that will act to obstruct or slow down the path of water. Organic material has the additional benefit of providing texture and nutrients to your soil as it breaks down.

Clearing a shoreline or hillside of herbaceous plants, shrubs and trees can lead to erosion if not re-planted. Longer, steeper slopes, especially those without adequate vegetative cover are more susceptible to very high rates of erosion during heavy rains than shorter, less steep slopes.

Please remember that a rain garden is not the same as a water garden. There are 5 components to a rain garden:

1. Depression
2. Amended filter bed (see wood log trench below)
3. Berm on the low side
4. Rockery to slow water entering the garden if necessary
5. Plants tolerant of water and long periods of dryness (i.e. 2-3 days of standing water)

A rain garden is a low tech solution for a location that periodically gets inundated with water. For example some downspouts can’t handle the quantity of rain and the spill over can cause existing vegetation to die and erosion of soil. Hard surfaces channel water during torrential rain and spring snow melt events that cause erosion particularly on steep slopes. A rain garden and berming might be an affordable solution. A 5X10 foot rain garden 6 inches deep is equivalent to 11 rain barrels.

Dig your rain garden (12-18” deep) and fill with a combination of logs, branches, and wood chips at different stages of decomposition. Add native soil and locally composted organic matter. Plant. Remember good humic soil will store a lot of water. Other practises for extreme sites is to mulch deeply, contour the soil, plant native species adapted to the location and plant densely.

Select the Right Plants

In this situation plants that can withstand short periods of flooding and long periods of dryness are required. Xerioscaping plants i.e. those that tolerate drought won’t do well in a condition that includes extreme wet and extreme dry. Likewise plants that require constant moisture wil not do well.

Do favour native over non-native plants and do not plant fast growing invasive plants however tempting that might be to stabilize your slope.

The following native Ontario plants can tolerate moist and dry soil:

Aster (Aster spp.)
Bergamot, Wild (Monarda fistulosa)
Black-Eyed Susans (Rudbeckia hirta)
Blazing stars, Rough (Liatris aspera)
Evening Primrose (Oenothera biennis)
Bittersweet (Celastrus scandens)
Goldenrod (Solidago spp.)
Verbena (Verbena spp.)
Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)
Sweet gale or bog myrtle (Myrica gale L) Myricaceae (Wax-myrtle or bayberry Family)
Non invasive ornamental grasses, native sedges (they look like grasses and can tolerate some shade), and rushes. Hierochloe odorata or Sweetgrass
Marginal Woodfern (Dryopteris marginalis) can tolerates mid-summer drought if planted in the shade.
Butterfly Weed (Asclepias tuberosa) a Zone 3 Ontario Native that is heat and drought tolerant,
Liatris aspera or Blazing Star, another Ontario native,
Schizachyrium scoparium or Little Bluestem (Ontario native)
Highbush Cranberry (V. trilobum or V. opulus var. americanum). This native shrub likes to grow in open, wooded, somewhat poorly drained locations. In the ideal location, cranberry can become very wide, often three metres or more, and reach about the same height.
Low bush Cranberry or Squashberry (V. edule)
Nannyberry (Viburnum lentago) will grow almost anywhere including shade, but they take on their best form in full sunlight. In full sun their fall leaf colours will be a vibrant purple-red.
Common or Eastern Ninebark up to 3 m, spring flower cluster, berries

Credit Valley Conservation planted native plants in their rain garden. They chose the following plants because they were widely available at local nurseries: Red Osier Dogwood, New England Aster, Tall Meadow Rue, Black Eyed Susans, Canada Anemone. Shade-tolerant native plants included: Common elderberry, Sensitive Fern and Heart leaved Aster.

A dense base of day lilies and irises will give you a fibrous root system. While they aren’t native they are often planted in a naturalized landscape.

To buy plants please try your local garden centre and check other sources listed in our list of suppliers and services here.

Article Sources

Credit Valley

Toronto Zoo

For additional plant selection please see Appendix C, List of Plants tolerating both wet and dry conditions. University of Guelph