The Gardener's Dirt Feature
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The Gardener’s Dirt Johnston County Center APRIL 2014 Shawn Banks Feature Extension Agent Agriculture - Cool Tools? Consumer Horticulture By Joanne King Inside This Issue Here are some suggestions for working handy when digging where roots may smart in the garden. Many gardeners need to be removed or when Feature Article..........1 consider some of these to be “must transplanting plants and small shrubs. haves” based on their functionality and (Photo: agriculturesolutions.com) Feature Plant.............2 ease of use. Others are just plain cool! Upcoming Events.... 3 The photos are representative of the Mid length tools for raised beds: products which are carried by various Raised bed gardening has become very Be Creative/Native 4 manufacturers at garden supply stores popular and and online. because of this, Yard Villain ................5 tool makers Folding pruning saw: Pruning saws have started What’s in Season..... 5 are handy saws for smaller jobs cutting making mid- branches up sized tools. Garden Tasks ............7 to 4 inches in Hand tools are diameter. too short, and The folding long handled Contact Us mechanism rakes and secures the shovels are Johnston County Cooperative Extension blade in its awkward. 2736 NC Hwy 210 own sheath Mid-length tools Smithfield, NC 27577 for protection when not in use. You can enable you to reach across your bed (919) 989-5380 Phone (919) 934-2698 Fax carry it in your pocket and not hurt and are a more comfortable size. Here johnston.ces.ncsu.edu yourself. Of course, once it is extended are two from raisedbeds.com. One is a be careful. It is very sharp and is two-in-one hoe and cultivator, the designed for proper contact with the other is a trowel. (Photo: Distributed in furtherance of wood, making a clean pruning cut. raisedbeds.com) the acts of Congress of May 8 and June 30, 1914. North (Photo: eiskars.com) Carolina State University and Angle hand weeder: The angle hand North Carolina A&T State Hand pick: The pick axe is great when weeder University commit themselves you need to dig in hard features a to positive action to secure equal opportunity regardless or rocky soil. With serrated blade of race, color, creed, national sharp tines on one side on one side for origin, religion, sex, age, and an adze shaped pulling grass veteran status or disability. In addition, the two Universities blade on the other, the and weeds, a welcome all persons without pick axe is built for the hook on the regard to sexual orientation. tough stuff. It is also end for pulling North Carolina State University, North Carolina A&T State University, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and local governments cooperating. weeds in patio and driveway cracks and a forked family from Asia are rapidly growing in popularity end for prying up tap rooted weeds. And for the and in the number of selections available in local left handed gardeners, here is a tool that is nurseries. available in a left-hand version. Why grow epimediums? First, for the unique Seven-in-One Garden Multi-Tool: A trowel-like spring bloom! Ranging from the small, rose-pink garden tool that truly multitasks. It serves as a lowers of E. ‘Roseum’ up to the large, reddish- trowel or transplanter, has a serrated edge for purple blooms of Epimedium grandilorum ‘Red mulching or opening Queen’, the columbine or orchid-like elowers are plastic bags, a ethereally suspended from arching stalks. The sharpened straight spikes may be short with few elowers, or up to 3 edge for cutting sod feet long with a profusion of the “cups with spurs” and notches along the along its length. The stalks begin emerging from blade that serve as a the ground with E. ‘Pink Elf’ at Plant Delights twine cutter. The Nursery in early March. The lowering stalks handle end is strong hover and dance in the breeze for as long as a enough to use as a month, with most common varieties blooming small mallet. Is that through April. A few specimens, such as E. 'Sunny seven? (Photo: amazon.com) and Share' and ‘Spritzer’ may even bloom sporadically through the summer! Bloom color Plant Nanny: Not really a tool, but cool varies widely; white, yellow, pink, or purple with nonetheless, the Plant Nanny waters your plants varying shades, tints and combinations, such as when you can’t. People have devised other the raspberry-spurred, yellow cup of E.x omeiense methods that reuse liter soda bottles but this 'Akame'. One of the more spectacular is E. 'Amber product is easy to use and attractive in patio pots, Queen', topped in April and May with 2' long especially if you use a pretty colored wine bottle. spikes adorned with abundant bright yellow, Ceramic stakes are spider-like elowers tipped with orange-red. Wow! designed to release water into the soil via a reservoir The second reason to grow fairy wings is the held in an inverted wine or foliage! Leaves may be edged, speckled, mottled, plastic bottle. The inverted netted; chocolate, red, bright green, chartreuse; bottle attaches to the stake heart, ear, or arrow- shaped; mahonia-like or which is inserted in the delicate; new foliage in one color that matures to planter. The stakes, which another. If the elower color choices don’t tempt are 5 inches long, release you, the foliage will! Even E. x versicolor water directly into the soil. 'Sulphureum', a very common cultivar, has lovely, Two sizes are available, for either wine bottles or elegant two-toned yellow blooms and surprising, plastic soda bottles, to it the openings of either stunning foliage of reddish-brown netted with bottle. (Photo: plantbuddy.com) FEATURE PLANT Fairy Wings, Bishop’s Hat Epimedium spp. By Margy Pearl Do you have fairy wings? If your irst thought is about old Halloween costumes, you may be missing out on an aptly named and amazingly varied group of shade perennials! Beautiful and hardy, these woodland wonders of the Barberry green veins. In fact, the entire group of x versicolor has an outstanding variety of foliage and lower choices! Many cultivars are Where to Purchase Epimediums: evergreen,while others are completely deciduous. Plant Delights, Raleigh; Big Bloomers, Sanford; But, especially with this year’s bitterly cold winter, Hudson’s Hardware, Clayton the old foliage should be removed before the new Possibly: Campbell Road Nursery, Logan’s Trading elower spikes, then the foliage, emerges. After Company, Homewood Nursery, or Atlantic Avenue cutting back the old foliage and before the spikes Nursery, Raleigh and Garden Hut, Fuquay-Varina appear, the plant will beneeit from a light ( call to check, not on website). application of leaf mold or compost. Third reason to plant epimedium? It’s so easy to grow! It’s a rhizome that will eventually spread to UPCOMING EVENTS form a clump, either dense or loose, depending on the variety. One of its best uses is as a ground All Bugs Good and Bad Webinar - Friday, April 4, cover, or living mulch, under trees. While 2014 at 2pm. Dr. Thomas N. Mather, Professor & generally drought tolerant, most specimens will Director, Center for Vector-Borne Disease and fare better in part sun to light shade with a rich, TickEncounter Resource Center, University of organic, moisture -retentive soil. Ph should be Rhode Island will be our presenter, covering a about 6.2-6.5. Be careful of E. grandilorum wide range of things you need to know about cultivars; they do not do well in alkaline soils. Old, keeping yourself safe from ticks this summer. To reliable E. x versicolor 'Sulphureum' is one of the join the webinar visit https://learn.extension.org/ few specimens that enjoy deep shade and very dry events/1381. conditions, competing successfully with more aggressive tree roots. Also, especially hardy in Southern Ideal Home Show - April 11-13, 2014 very dry sites are Epimedium x rubrum, E. x at the State Fair Grounds in Raleigh, NC. Master warleyense, E. x perralchicum, E. x versicolor and Gardeners will be there to answer questions and Epimedium pinnatum ssp. colchicum. do presentations on gardening topics. Shawn will be doing a presentation about pruning on Friday, Are deer a problem for you? Me, too! Epimediums April 11. For more information about the show are highly deer resistant. That’s a great fourth including prices visit https:// reason to include these beauties in your shade www.southernshows.com/hsr/. garden! Plant Sale-A-Bration -Saturday, April 12, 2014 Other common names for epimedium are 9:00am - 2:00pm at Johnston Community College barrenwort, which refers to the plant's use in in Smitheield, NC. The Master Gardeners will have herbal medicine for fertility, and horny goat weed. a table set up to answer gardening questions and I’ll leave that explanation to your imagination; talk with people about soil testing. We will also which brings me have a section where we will be selling grafted to propagation tomatoes for $4.00 each. These tomatoes are and the last reason grafted onto a rootstock that is resistant to almost to grow all soil dwelling diseases. If you've had trouble epimedium! with tomatoes wilting in the garden in the past try Propagation by one or two of these grafted tomatoes to see if they division is fairly will produce better for you.For more information, easy and it works! contact Minda Daughtry, (919) 209-2184. After elowering, make sure you cut Clayton Farmer's Market - Saturday, April 26, off a large piece of 2014. Master Gardeners will have a table set up to rhizome, leave two answer gardening questions and talk to people thirds of the about soil testing and soil test results.