GGG

Granville Gardeners Gazette Promoting Education and Recreation through Gardening Activities

Oxford, North Carolina November 2019, Volume IX, No. 11

NEW PLANT PICKS By Jason Holmes, Curator of the Doris Duke Center Gardens, Duke Gardens, Durham

Monday, October 25, 7 p.m., Granville Co. Expo Center, 4185 U.S. Hwy 15 S, Oxford

About the Program Jason will dive into new plant introductions, and he also will reacquaint us with some familiar (and maybe not so familiar) underutilized annuals, perennials, and shrubs. He will show how to use them in our gardens and how to grow them successfully to give the extra boost that will put our gardens several notches above the average.

About the Speaker. The Duke Gardens spring/summer education catalog describes Jason as “a walking encyclopedia and plant enthusiast.....” He is the curator of the Doris Duke Center Gardens. He and his team take care of the Page-Rollins White Garden, Spring Woodland Garden and the Charlotte Brody Discovery Garden. Jason has always had a passion for plants and has been gardening at Duke for sixteen years. During this time, he has traveled to many different gardens around the country, and a good part of his broad scope of plant knowledge comes from these experiences. He enjoys traveling to National Parks with his family. He enjoys teaching others about history through civil war reenacting. Photos: Left Chinese fringe-flower Jazz Hands Series Variegated, shrub, Proven Winners Middle: Red hot poker ‘Hot and Cold,’ perennial, Walters Garden Right: Begonia ‘Silver Treasure,’ annual, Terra Nova

President’s Notes

Greetings fellow gardeners.

This year has passed by so quickly and it is hard to believe that the Annual Installation and Awards Banquet is so close -- December 3 will be here before we know it.

We have planned a great program preceded by scrumptious appetizers and a buffet dinner of veggie lasagna, roasted pork loin, broccoli with cheese creamed potatoes, tossed salad, and fresh fruit. Tea, coffee, water and lemonade, and desserts too! Sounds yummy, right? Included with this newsletter is the registration form to get your name in the pot and pay the $17.50 per person cost. Don’t delay because an early head count helps the planning process.

I look forward to seeing you on December 3.

Until then, I bid you adieu!

Cindy Keith, President

***Please see the registration form on the next page.***

Granville Gardeners

2019 Installation and Awards Banquet

December 3, 2019

DATE: Tuesday, December 3, 2019

TIME: 6 o’clock PM

PLACE: The Granville County Expo Center

BUFFET DINNER: $17.50 per person

REGISTER AND PAY before November 15, 2019 In addition to the Annual Installation of Officers and the presentation of awards, there will be a special time of fellowship featuring delicious appetizers. Following the dinner, entertainment will feature a vocal music presentation by one of our own, and a time of good, clean laughter presented by a well-known comedian. Door prizes will be presented at the banquet, so if you are willing to create and/or donate a prize, please let Linda Niles, Hospitality Chair, know no later than November 15. She can be reached at 919-691-3280 or at lindasophie@centurylink.net.

________________________________________________________ Name: ___________________________________________________________ Number in Party: _________ attending Amount Paid: $____________ cash ____ check ______ Payable to: The Granville Gardeners, and give/or send to Danny Devito (treasurer) at 4151 Maria Street, Oxford, NC 27565 Linda Niles, Hospitality Chair

My Cottage Garden Gardening with Gerry Alston Number 4 in the Garden Series

I’ve been asked to tell you about my garden and why I love it. I grew up in a small rural farming community in Warren County, NC, and grew cotton, corn, and tobacco. My daddy had a sawmill and a little country store. I always walked through my grandmama’s flower garden to catch the school bus, and often I picked something and put it in my hair. What was I thinking? My mama also had a flower garden, so gardening and flowers are in my blood.

In 8th grade, my 4-H project was a flower garden. Daddy plowed an area and put up a chicken wire fence to keep the dogs and chickens out. I always loved him for that.

I’m not a master gardener, but I do read a lot of gardening magazines and learn from my gardening friends. My garden has lots of bulbs and shrubs blooming in succession in the spring, but I think my garden looks the best in August and September. I always have large containers among my perennials. I planted hostas, begonias, caladiums, creeping Jenny, ornamental oregano, sweet potato vine, petunias, and impatiens together in the pots. It makes a full and impressive show. It’s the thriller, filler, spiller look that I like.

I probably spend several hours a day on average in the garden, which is mostly in shade. The garden has the same principal as the pots: thriller, spiller, filler effects from trees, shrubs, and shorter ground covers. It works for me. In the fall and winter, I put a lot of shredded leaves on the beds. I also add wheat straw and cover it with pine straw to make it more attractive. In the spring I fertilize with 10-10-10 in February, March, and April. I use Preen every three months all year long. If you mark your calendar like I do, you will never forget! These simple steps are really going to make your garden grow and help control the weeds. I think Preen must know the difference between weeds and flowers, because the flowers keep coming back!

It’s hard to say what my favorite plants are. I love them all and each season has something special. Stone paths run through my garden, and I like using garden art such as bird baths, benches, table and chairs, and small statues. My garden is a real labor of love and I am still growing as a gardener.

Photos from Gerry’s Garden

Q & A

Q: Is it just my imagination, or are there fewer bugs now? I don’t use insecticides because I want to encourage pollinators, other insects, and spiders. I’ve always found plenty of praying mantises, grasshoppers, lightening bugs, swallowtail butterfly larvae on the fennel, of course Japanese beetles, and lots of other insects until the past couple of years when I haven’t seen as many. I’ve been growing tomatoes at least 50 years, and this is the first summer there weren’t any tomato hornworms. A: It isn’t your imagination. The front page of the November 2018 N. Y. Times Magazine featured the article “The Insect Apocalypse is Here,” by Brooke Jarvis.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/27/magazine/insect-apocalypse.html Jarvis starts her article describing a Danish teacher taking his young son bike riding through the countryside and becoming aware that something was missing, e.g., he wasn’t eating any bugs. When he was a child riding his bike there were bugs constantly flying in his face, and on car trips with his parents the car’s windshield would be covered with bugs. Essentially, because there are so many insects around, people take them for granted and don’t notice if there are more or less at any given time. When people began to realize that the “something missing” was that they weren’t seeing as many bugs, the entomologists called it the “windshield phenomenon.” Jarvis notes that although a million species of insects have been identified, entomologists estimate that’s only 20 percent of the actual diversity of insects worldwide – that there are millions and millions more that are entirely unknown to science. Bugs provide indispensable services -- Jarvis tells us that “dung beetles save ranchers an estimated $380 million per year,” and continues “Bugs are vital to the decomposition that keeps nutrients cycling, soil healthy, plants growing and ecosystems running. This role is mostly invisible, until suddenly it's not.” We know a lot about the functions of a great many bugs, but think of all that we know nothing about whose disappearance could have profound effects on many ecosystems that affect our lives either directly or indirectly. In addition to the 90 percent fall in the monarch butterfly population in the last 20 years (a loss of 900 million individual butterflies), the rusty-patched bumblebee used to be found in 28 states and dropped by 87 percent over the same period. Some other well-studied bugs include “various kinds of bees, moths, butterflies and beetles,” whose populations have shown a downward slide. “In Britain, as many as 30 to 60 percent of species were found to have diminishing ranges. . . .” In 2017 a German entomological society reported a decrease of 75 percent of flying insects in just over 27 years. Climate change, degradation of global habitat, herbicides, pesticides, loss of meadows, forests, and even weedy patches affect not only insects as we humans as we expand our ranges and. The number of insect-eating birds has declined – 8 in 10 partridges from French farmlands, a 50 percent drop in nightingales, 80 percent drop in turtledoves. Half of all farmland birds in Europe disappeared in just 30 years. An ornithologist in Denmark noticed that rollers, little owls, Eurasian hobbies, and bee-eaters (all eat large insects such as beetles and dragonflies) had disappeared. One reader’s online response to the Jarvis article was: “When I was a child in upstate New York, I would mow our hayfield and it would stir up hundreds of insects. Bluebirds and swallows followed my tractor. Today that field has no insects at all.”

Jarvis continues: “By eating and being eaten, insects turn plants into protein and power the growth of all the uncountable species - including freshwater fish and a majority of birds - that rely on them for food, not to mention all the creatures that eat those creatures. We worry about saving the grizzly bear, says the insect ecologist Scott Hoffman Black, but where is the grizzly without the bee that pollinates the berries it eats or the flies that sustain baby salmon? Where, for that matter, are we?” The article is long, and I agree with one comment “It should be required reading by everyone.” Please click on the link and read the whole article – it is extremely interesting, timely, and gives references to other articles. By Marty Finkel, from cited source.

Photo: Bing Images

Photo: New York Times Photo: New York Times Photo: Bing Images

Q: What are some of the best beneficial insects for my plants? A: THE ELEVEN MOST WANTED BENEFICIAL INSECTS FOR YOUR GARDEN, as reported in an old issue of the now-defunct Avant Gardener: According to the American Rose Journal, these beneficial insects will help control unwanted insects to your garden:

• PREYING MANTIS eats just about any insect pest that happens its way as well as beneficial insects like moths and butterflies, but it has a voracious appetite and is considered the most desirable of beneficial insects for the home garden

• LACEWING feeds on aphids, mealy bugs, scale insects, leaf hoppers and insect eggs • SOLDIER BEETLE feeds on aphids and other soft-bodied insect pests • DRAGONFLY preys on mosquitoes, flies and midges • BEES are essential for pollinating flowers to ensure high yields of many vegetables even

though they are not predators of other insects • SYRPHID FLY eats aphids, mealybugs and other harmful insects while pollinating plants • GROUND BEETLE eats many soil-dwelling pests like slugs, snails, cutworms and root

maggots • PARASITIC WASP parasitizes the eggs of cutworms, cabbage loopers, codling moths,

tomato hornworms, aphids, whiteflies, scale insects and other insect pests • SPIDERS trap a wide range of flying insect pests in their webs • LADYBEETLE eats aphids, scale insects, thrips, mealybugs and spider mites • TACHINID FLY resembles a large, hairy house fly and lays its eggs on caterpillars, grubs

and other soft-bodied insects. When the eggs hatch the larvae eat their victims. The easiest way to attract beneficial insects is to grow flowering plants, especially annuals like cosmos, zinnias, nasturtiums and marigolds since their nectar is a food source.

Syrphid fly Tachinid fly Lacewing Photo from Grow

Photo from BugGuide.net Photo from Whatsthatbug.com Guide Biological Pest Control

Did You Know? Did you know that the U.S. and Canada have lost nearly three billion birds since 1970? This is a population decline of 29 percent, according to a report by Kenneth V. Rosenberg and others published October 4, 2019 in the journal Science. You can find the report at this link:

https://www.birds.cornell.edu/home/bring-birds-back Emily Chung of CBC News posted the article “North America has lost 3 billion birds since 1970” on Sept. 19, 2019 quoting reports from Science and other sources. It’s very alarming that many backyard birds like sparrows, juncos, and starlings are included in the decline. You can find Chung’s article here:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/bird-population-decline-1.5288454 Canada’s “State of Canada’s Birds” report that came out earlier this year “. . . showed that some groups of birds, including grassland birds and shorebirds such as plover and sandpiper have declining populations.” Chung writes: “ ‘That is what is such a strong indicator that something is wrong in these habitats and environments,’ Rosenberg said. ‘This loss of abundance is so pervasive that it's the old canary in a coal mine — it's almost certainly an indicator of a degradation of overall environmental quality that's ultimately going to affect people.’ “ Rosenberg’s report “noted that birds provide important benefits to ecosystems, such as pest control, pollination and seed dispersal, and warned that common birds may be disproportionately important parts of the food web and local ecosystems.”

Chung further quoted: “Rosenberg said even backyard birds that aren't choosy about their habitats can be affected by degradation such as intensifying agriculture, urban sprawl, and fragmentation of forests. They also face other human-caused threats, such as increased pesticide use, domestic cats, and collisions with windows.

‘It's what we call death by a thousand cuts,’ Rosenberg said.

The report found native sparrows, warblers and blackbirds have seen some of the biggest population declines, in the hundreds of millions of individuals.”

Chung includes observations of Paul Smith, a research scientist with Environment and Climate Change Canada, and co-author of the Rosenberg report: “Birds that migrate long distances, such as those shorebirds that Smith studies and many of those that breed in Canada's Arctic or boreal forest but spend winters in Central and South America, have been particularly hard hit. Migrating species declined by 2.5 billion individuals, faring much worse than those that stay put year round, that increased slightly, by 26 million. ‘Canada, and in particular Arctic Canada, is the breeding range for a lot of North America's shorebirds. So really Canada has a huge responsibility for the conservation of these birds.’ “

“Birds are particularly good indicators of ecosystem health as they are easier to monitor than another other group of animals, the researchers note. They're active during the day, and are conspicuous, making it possible for people to both see and hear them, Rosenberg said, unlike many insects, lizards or mammals,” Chung adds, and further:

“ ‘A UN report earlier this year found not just birds are in decline: one million species of plants and animals are at risk of extinction, half of them due to "insufficient habitat for long-term survival.’ Kai Chan, a professor at the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability at the University of British Columbia who co-authored the report, said the new study had more precise population estimates for birds.

And while it doesn't directly say anything about the decline in other species, what is bad for birds is often bad for other animals, and some of the bird declines may be reflecting the decline in prey species such as insects.”

You can find suggestions for individual and policy actions that can help on the website 3billionbirds.org

By Marty Finkel from sources cited

Photos of some of the birds whose populations are declining. Photos are from the Macaulay Library/Cornell Lab of Ornithology: Baltimore Oriole is by Gary Mueller, Meadow Lark is by Matthew Pendleton, Sanderling (shore bird) is by Andy Eckerman, and the dark-eyed Junco is by Jay McGowan

Plant of the Month

Aromatic Aster (Aster oblongifolius)

Aromatic Aster, (Aster oblongifolius) is a very showy low growing bushy native wildflower with hundreds of daisy type blue-lavender flowers with yellow centers. Like most Asters, Aromatic Aster is very attractive to butterflies and makes excellent cut flowers. Aromatic Aster has mounds of gray-green foliage and flower buds creating an interesting display through the summer followed by masses of flowers which are 1.25 inches in diameter. Native Aromatic Aster grows easily and quickly in dry to average conditions and tolerates clay and sandy soils but will benefit from added compost. It derives its common name from its foliage, which is aromatic when handled. Aromatic Aster seeds germinate without pretreatment.

Also in Bloom This Month

Note that bloom times vary, depending on climatic and meteorological conditions, and many plants bloom several months in a row (and sometimes rebloom).

• Autumn sage • Autumn snowflake • Camellia • Cape honeysuckle • Chrysanthemum • Climbing aster • Compact Strawberry Tree • Coneflower • Double-flowered leopard plant • Dwarf Walter’s viburnum • Everblooming confederate rose • Floribunda rose • Garden dahlias • Grapeholly • Japanese fatsia

• Leadwort • Lime-calyx Mexican sage • Mexican marigold • Mexican witchhazel • Mountain hydrangea • Orange cosmos • Osmanthus • Parrot beak gladiolus • Salvia • Spotted aloe • Sempervivum • Tartarian aster • Textile banana • Willow-leaved Jessamine • Willow-leaf sweet box

Photos of Some of the Plants in Bloom This Month

Everblooming Confederate rose Autumn sage ‘Dark Dancer’ Chrysthanemum

Double-flowered Grapeholly ‘Buckland’ Parrot beak gladiolus Japanese fatsia leopard plant ‘Halloweenie’

Dwarf Walter’s viburnum Willow-leaf sweet box Lime-calyx Mexican sage