The Gardeners Anonymous Blog

Life and Death In The Garden of Alicia

In the late afternoon yesterday my neighbor Alicia was happily watering her deer-resistant garden. 

Unlike me, she allows deer to roam free on her property. She’s even given them names like “Rat With Hooves,” “Garden Destroyer,” and “Bambi-Pig,” 

Wait. Those are my names for deer. 

So there she was, sprinkling her lavender, happily surrounded by  her cloven-footed friends.

Cue the sounds of bucolic birdies chirping and flute music. Think “Bambi meets Godzilla.” 

According to Alicia, her deer friends suddenly scattered in a big cloud of dust. When the dust cleared, one of the largest bucks was being straddled by a mountain lion. 

The mountain lion had its jaws around the buck’s neck—and for the next eight minutes the buck fought for its life, dragging the lion around Alicia’s driveway kicking and struggling until it finally succumbed.

Abutilon with Mountain Lion and Fresh Kill. Photo by Alicia

Alicia’s first reaction was to try and save the buck by running at the lion and making loud noises. 

Wha? Alicia! 

She soon realized that with all those sharp teeth, she was outnumbered. So she turned tail (or not) and ran into her house. 

She called me while all this was going on.

I was jealous that I wasn’t watching this wildlife drama unfold live. She said it was like being in an episode of Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom.

Abutilon Framing Wild Kingdom. Photo by Alicia.

From her living room window she watched as the exhausted lion stood next to the downed deer and panted for about forty minutes, catching it’s breath and preparing for dinner. 

Next, the mountain lion dragged the deer—which weighed at least as much as she did, thirty feet to the base of a small hill. Then she began to eat, stripping fur from its belly and tossing it aside.

The mountain lion ate for about 20 minutes, and then left the deer carcass at the base of the hill. 

Alicia decided to finish her watering some other day.

Curse You, Powdery Mildew

Why, oh why, do my squash plants have powdery mildew?

And what, oh what, do I do about it? 

This is the first crop in my new, improved spiral garden. So needless to say I was very disappointed when I saw my pumpkin, zucchini, and cucumber vines develop powdery white spots. 

What is powdery mildew? The bane of my existence, that’s what it is. (Sorry for the outburst.) Powdery mildew is a fungal disease that starts as a few spores on the leaves, and quickly spreads.

Spores overwinter on bits of a diseased plant, and then begin asexual production. New spores are carried via wind to other parts of the plant or, gulp, to other plants close by. 

Powdery mildew spores never stop producing more spores. If the infected leaves aren’t destroyed, the situation will only become worse.

Why is it so important to get rid of powdery mildew?

Besides being ugly, the mildew eventually causes leaf drop, and stunted growth, as well as distortion and dropping of blooms, buds, fruit, and overall weakness of the plant. 

The weirdest thing I learned about powdery mildew is that it hates water. It thrives in dry conditions with temp between 60 and 80 degrees. It prefers dry, shady conditions with poor air circulation.

How to guard against powdery mildew?

You could just plant powdery mildew resistant plants or you could plant in full sun away from the shade and make sure there is plenty of air circulation in between plants. Make sure to inspect plants daily and remove leaves at the first sign of mildew.

What to do if you get the dreaded powdery mildew?

After swearing, remove infected leaves and stems and destroy. Make sure to destroy the diseased parts and do not compost them (you want to get rid of those prolific spores) 

Remedies?

I have heard that you can make a baking soda spray and use it weekly at the first signs of infection. Supposedly this protects plants against further damage. Of course plants that are badly infected should be pulled out and destroyed to keep powdery mildew from spreading.

I have also heard that, believe it or not, plain hose water can be an effective treatment in preventing and treating powdery mildew. Just spray the foliage of your plants daily with plain hose water. This method works best if your plants are sprayed in the morning so the foliage has a chance to dry out.

I will get back to you with my progress in the fight against this Evil Fungus.

Deadheading Hydrangeas

               My hydrangeas produced a ton of blooms this year with no pruning

My Hydrangea pruning experiment was a success!

It turns out that yours truly, the garden dork, had been pruning my hydrangeas wrong for years. 

What I’ve learned recently, is that you don’t have to trim “mop heads hydrangeas” or “lace caps hydrangeas” (the kind I have)—ever. The only time you need to prune them is when you need to remove dead foliage, or when your plant gets too large. 

Silly me, I was pruning them way back every year and oops, well, they never grew (as a matter of fact they shrunk) and they produced few blooms. 

Last year and after years of inproper pruning the hydrangea is much smaller.

So when I realized what I had done, you can understand why I was nervous about removing the old blooms. Something called deadheading (No deadheading does not mean following an ancient rock group around, dressing like Stevie Nicks, and dancing like a hippie). 

My Hydrangeas are much larger now that they aren't being pruned incorrectly.

It turns out that it is just fine to remove the old blooms. You can do it at any time of year. 

If you removed them in June or July you can actually cut long stems and use the blooms in flower arrangements. 

Any other time of year, you should remove them with very short stems so you won’t cut off any developing bloom buds for next year. 

Here is the Hydrangea after deadheading

Simply cut above the first set of large leaves, and your blooms will be safe.