Developments Since Last Year

last update January 2008

General Information about me and the nursery and what has happened since 2008 until winter 2009.

Had zero luck with hiring students: tried 2, each lasted 2 weeks (1 day per week, just!): about the time it took me to teach them to start to become useful. The last task for each of them was an introduction to shovel and wheelbarrow: maybe the thought of more of that physical labour was the last straw for them.

Good progress was made in bringing peonies in from the out-field, and there are now a lot of potted peonies sitting about in their pot farms eagerly getting ready to bloom (I hope!!). There are still some peonies to get down from the out-field but the important plants are here. A disappointment in the peony department was when a few mlokosewitschii's bloomed and proved themselves not to be mloko. That is, very non-yellow. This i would understand if they were garden-collected seed, but they were from rather more expensive supposedly wild-collected seed, and there is no reasonable explanation for this kind of a result! More positively, my apricot mloko hybrids set some decent amounts of seed in '08, and there was also seed for the first time on the mloko hybrid I have named "Ugly Duckling"; it will be interesting to see what develops from those seed lots.

There are a few additions to the plant list this year! Red forms of Corydalis solida in particular should be of interest; also Arisaema amurense is an obliging green-flowered relative of our Jack-in-the-Pulpit. It was however not the greatest summer in terms of weather and the nice days usually got dedicated to the bike rather than to the potting, at least until September at which time the necessary moving of peonies took over my brain.

After 23 years sharing my space with a dog or two, I am now dogless and expect to remain so. The very good natured little Gershwin developed a tumor on and behind one eye and although he remained fairly active and happy eventually he wasn't able to keep food down so with the end clearly written I decided it was best to avoid any more unpleasantness for him after 13 years of companionship and so had him put to sleep a week before Christmas. I've had better holiday seasons...

General Information about me and the nursery and what has happened since 2007 until winter 2008.

Last year I started getting my head back into plants again, although at the same time spending more time on the bicycle enjoying the open road etc. The main problem with being a cycling gardener is in trying to resolve the conflict that arises in good weather: plants or bike? bike or plants? (fish or cut bait?) So, some weeks more of one, others more of the other; sometimes not much of either... Anyways, it was the end of the summer before I started potting new plants again, concentrating heavily on Peonies. Which means that rumours of the demise of the nursery may have been premature.

Still not sure if I am ready to hire help again or not.

In spring I had discovered that many of the plants in one of the peony fields were not doing as well as expected and rather than progressing to flowering size seemed to have shrunk. I figured maybe it was the weeds and dryness getting to them (the field is quite exposed and unirrigated). For this and other reasons I decided to start transfering them into large pots to hold at the nursery where I could keep a better eye on them, and give some of the species some shade and better moisture as required. When I went up to the field to start digging them, I discovered an interesting thing: the plants that were doing best were the ones surrounded by weeds (enjoying the shade, I guess). But every one of the stunted plants I dug up had a bunch of ant coccoons under the root crown. So I think it was the extra aeration of the soil around the plants, by the ant tunnels, that caused them to be too dry. I think also that the ants may have been trimming the fine feeder roots where they impinged on the tunnels, which will not have helped. Although I had planned to move the peonies into pots with a rootball of dirt, it seemed reasonable in the circumstances to leave the dirt, ants and all, in the field and give the plants a fresh and happier start. Shifting the peonies into pots is going to take a few autumns but a pretty big dent has been made in the field, including most of the ones the had taken up residence with.

Having crossed the psychological potting barrier, I also managed to pot up some more Magnolia sieboldii, Trillium erectum, Helleborus hybrids and Arisaema triphyllum (native Jack-in-the-Pulpit). I expect to get at more of the numerous batches of non-Peony seedlings which have been in need of potting up for more than awhile, come spring. Easy enough to say in January!! At least, more potting of plants to sell is in the plan for next year, broadening the inventory. Also in the plan is to bicycle around the Cabot Trail next fall-- but not just around, also to and back; it will take a bit of getting ready for.

There are not very many additions to my stock of plants this year (due to a couple of years with little potting activity) but I'm happy to finally be just about ready to sell the Golden Peony, Paeonia mlokosewitschii. I hope to have a few come into flower and be saleable this year, and certainly expect to have numbers available next year at the latest, from several seed sources both wild and cultivated. This species was the one which most hated life in the field, even without ants, and in fact the most advanced plants were growing in my yard in 1 gallon pots, despite being 2 years younger than the field plants.

I was surprised last summer by peony seedlings which were being held here in 1 gallon pots coming into bloom while others from the same batch which were planted in the field were still a year or two from that stage (in other words, a lot of wasted effort for no gain!)

There will not be a paper catalogue this year.

Things learned recently (this is from last year but is worth keeping around, I think):
1. Hellebores (at least the orientalis hybrids) are quite happy in full sun here, and more vigorous than in shade. Just have to make sure their soil stays moist.
2. A delightful surprise of an early yellow peony, Paeonia tomentosa, first to bloom of all the P's I'm growing, and adaptable from open sun to woodland shade; I find it almost every bit as good (the foliage is different) as the better-known Golden Peony (P mlokosewitschii, of which I still haven't any big enough to sell) but earlier and with no overlap in bloom. Learned lots about other P's too.
3. An excellent bait for a mousetrap is, believe it or not, margarine (specifically I use the Imperial stuff but I imagine any other vegetable oil type should work too). Six days, six applications, six dead mice (one of the curses of the warm fall I guess); seventh application still waiting for a victim but I am out of mice for now apparently, thank heaven; it was ridiculous for awhile! (joys of country living)

Some strange things have been going on in the world of e-mail the past year or so thanks to the folks who get off on writing software viruses, including servers dumping some valid messages during spam overloads, spam filters filtering out non-spam etc; in short, e-mail transmission has become less than 100% reliable. I will always reply to e-mail!, usually the next day and rarely outside of a few days, so if you e-mail to me and don't see a reply within a week you should assume that something has gone wrong in webspace and please phone or write me by letter mail.

A few years ago I fell in with a cycle touring club from the Valley, the Centennial Cycling Club ("an eating club with a cycling disorder") which has an interesting and varied program of Saturday outings from the mundane to the ridiculous, and have chosen to allow this to continue to affect the nursery's business schedule. Please check the "Location and Contact" page for details.

Good growing,
Leo Smit