The speaker for the July meetinghad a wonderful time and

learned a lot from the members ofthe Gardeners of Wake County.Thank you for identifying the littleheart shaped leaf as “stinging net-tle” or “dead nettle”.The swelling and redblisters on my armsare still there butthe Benadryl andCalamine Lotion

are providing some relief. I pulledthe weeds using disposable plasticgloves and a long sleeved shirt, putall the trash in a plastic bag, sealedit and put it in the garbage, not theyard waste container.

For those wanting to know thetitles of the reference books I used, they were The SouthernGardener’s Book of Lists by LoisTrigg Chaplin, Month by MonthGardening in the Carolinas by BobPolomski, The Southern LivingGardening Book (currently out ofprint) and The North CarolinaAgricultural Chemical Manual published by the North Carolina Co-operative Extension Service.

The best advice for most home-owners who want a basic reference

Bryce Lane of The Department ofHorticulture at NCSU is sched-

uled to be our speaker at the Au-gust Meeting. His talk is entitled“Beautiful Bushes, Super Shrubsfor the Landscape.” We can lookforward to some beautiful picturesof those plants as well. So manyhomeowners think of shrubsas the plants we put in asthe foundation plantsaround the house and for-get they create focalpoints in other parts ofour landscape.

Bushes and shrubs comein all heights and widths so they

can add another dimension ofperennial borders. They can beused as screening plants betweenhouses or provide privacy for anoutdoor seating area or patio dining.They can camouflage the dog’shouse or provide a border for a veg-etable garden.

If your landscape could use anew focal point come ready totake some notes for something

that would make your yardthe envy of the neighbors.Fall is for planting so it’s agood time to see what plants

you might want to track downat local nurseries.

AUGUST MEETING

WEEKEND GARDENER GETS ANSWERS

Inside This IssueFine Gardening . . . . . . . . . Page 2

JCRA Plant Give Away . . . . Page 2

August in the Garden. . . . . Page 3

Plant Breeding . . . . . . . . . Page 3

New Members . . . . . . . . . Page 4

Volume 29 Edition 8 Gardeners of Wake County, Inc. – Raleigh, NC AUGUST 2013

CLUB MEETINGSMeetings are at 7:30pm at the

JC Raulston Arboretum

August 20 Bryce Lane, NCSU“Beautiful Bushes:Super Shrubs forthe Landscape”

Sept. 17 Victor Alhberg ofAhlberg WaterGardens

October 16 October Meeting

(Continued on page 2) (Continued on page 4)

GARDEN MINERALS

Humans try to maintain theirhealth by controlling their intake

of calories, vitamins and minerals.Gardeners need to make sure theplants in their gardens are fortifiedwith the correct nutrients as well.There is a new book from TimberPress titled Teaming With Nutrientswritten by Jeff Lowenfels. The authoris the garden columnist for theAnchorage (Alaska) Daily News.While the growing seasons inAnchorage and Raleigh are quite different, plants require similar nutrients regardless of the locationin which they are grown.

The major minerals required forplant growth are phosphorus, nitro-gen, potassium, calcium, magne-sium and sulfur. (The first three list-ed are the familiar PNK of most fertilizers.) Two other basic ele-ments required by plants are hydro-gen and oxygen. Stunted growth inplants is usually a result of a phos-phorus deficiency; if the deficiency

is to find one that is specific to thepart of the country in which you live.The one I used 50 years ago when Istarted gardening in Connecticut isnot at all useful; most of the infor-mation is out of date and the cli-mate and soils in North Carolinaand New England are very different.

The one thing I think all of uslearned at the August meeting is

that there is a lot of very good gardening information availablefrom members of our Club. Ourmembership spans a wide agerange and we have a lot of garden-ing experience to share. You arealways welcome to bring “gardeningproblems” to meetings to find solutions to your plant care problems.

Many of you belong to TheFriends of the JC Raulston

Arboretum and are aware of theirgift plants for members.Knowing about the plantgive away may encouragesome of the rest of you tojoin the “Friends” programor become a garden volunteer.JC always had a plant to give tosome lucky attendee at Arboretumlectures but he also instituted aspecial program to make new andunusual plants available to volun-teers. Some of our members aresurvivors of JC’s first “give away”for volunteers and Friends mem-bers.

Volunteers set out labeledplants in rows in an undevelopedsection of the gardens. The morn-ing of the “give away” we wereallowed to walk through the field tosee what was available. Then wewere lined up around the collection

and when the whistle blew wecould run out and grab the plant orplants we wanted. There were no

serious injuries to people butsome of the plants mayhave suffered.In more recent years the

“give away” abandoned itsathletic roots and evolved into a

“catalog of plants” for a gift selec-tion. You received the list on-line orpicked up a printed copy andranked the plants in your order ofpreference. What you ended upgetting depended on how quicklyyou returned your list and howmany others wanted those sameplants. Your plants were put in abox by staff and volunteers andyou were notified that you couldpick it up at a designated time andplace on the JCRA property.

Changes are being made to theprogram again this year but theend result is the same.Volunteers and Friendsof the Arboretum mem-bers may select specialplants in Septemberas a token of apprecia-tion for their support.This might be an encour-agement to some of youto become JCRA mem-bers and volunteers. It willadd to your resume of gardeningskills and your plant collection. Asone gardener said, “He who dieswith the most plants wins.”

FINE GARDENING

The only gardening magazinethat always gets saved for

future use around my house is FineGardening. It is now available in an“online format” that includesvideos and slide shows that arenot included in the print version.You can check out FineGardening.com for additional information.

The October 2013 issueincludes a segment on Plant This,Not That in the Southeast. Forthose who don’t want Japanesebarberry in their garden you cansubstitute Loropetalum chinense,“Purple Pixie Chinese fringeflower”. It has similar color andsize but does not have the thornsof the barberry.

Keeping the spent blooms onButterfly bushes (Buddleia davidii)cut off can get to be a full time job.An alternative might be Lespedezathurnbergii ‘Gibraltar’, Gibraltarbush clover. It is deer resistant butit could be too large a plant forsmall gardens.

The third pick was to replaceStella d’Oro daylily with ‘FreckleFace’ black berry lily. The brownfoliage and spent bloom stalks on

daylilies in my garden in Julyare depressing. The black-

berry lily bloomis followed by aseed pod that isquite decorative.

My problemwith both plants is that the can getout of hand if you don’t remove theseedpods before they self-sow,and daylily root clumps expand toomuch so they become thugs in thegarden.

Interestingly, their recommenda-tion for the Southern Plains was toreplace Stella d’Oro with Kniphofia‘Mango Popsicle’. These red hotpokers grow well in gardens in ourarea too. But again, the replace-ment plant has gotten “overlyaggressive” in my garden.

Page 2 AUGUST 2013 The Clod-Hopper

The Clod-Hopper

Published monthly by The Gardenersof Wake County, Mark Boone,President; Anne Clapp, Editor.

Formatted and printed by Piedmont Litho, Inc.

For membership information or to change your address contact Carole Johnson, membershipchairman at the address publishedin the membership directory.

Club Website:www.gardenersofwakecounty.org

JCRA PLANT GIVE AWAY

Weekend Gardener Gets Answer (continued from page 1)

The Clod-Hopper AUGUST 2013 Page 3

For most of us, gardening duringthe heat of the day is unpleas-

ant in August and with short-er days there is less sun-light to get our gardeningchores completed in theearly morning or lateevening. This year, withour above average rain-fall, there are enough large mos-quitoes to carry us off down to theswamps if we don’t cover our-selves liberally with repellent. Wehave had some confirmed casesof West Nile Virus in our area soplease use a mosquito repellantwhen needed. Empty anycontainers that col-lect water in the yardthat may become amosquito breedingground.Many of us let our roses take a

rest in the heat of July so byAugust it is time to get them readyfor a fall blooming season. Pruneout dead wood and shape theplants so there is adequate airmovement through the plants andstems don’t grow toward the cen-ter of the plant. Also remove anysprouts that may have developedfrom the rootstock. The plants canbe fertilized and make sure toremove diseased leaves fromthe plants. If you spray forinsect and disease controlmake the application early inthe morning during the coolof the day. The materialcan dry during the day, andthat is usually safer thanspraying in the evening.It’s not too late to plant seeds

for a fall planting of annuals suchas marigolds and zinnias. I starteda few hyacinth bean seeds in mid-July to disguise the mulch pile fora September meeting. They are

growing well and there are a fewsigns of blossoms starting.Geraniums purchased in thespring may be looking a bitragged. They can be trimmed andfertilized to encourage new growthand bloom or you can take cut-tings and root a few plants for anearly fall display. Remember tokeep annuals deadheaded toencourage more blooming.Snapdragons will continue bloom-ing through the fall if they arepinched back to remove spentflowers and seed pods. It encour-ages new growth for fall blooms.The leaves of many of our spring

and summer flowering bulbs(lycoris or ‘magic lilies’, allium andspider lilies) have started to turnbrown. They may be dug and divid-ed; the cold-hardy ones can bereplanted immediately. The more“tropical” ones get stored forplanting next spring.August is a good

time to plant gar-lic cloves for usenext spring. Thereis still time to sowseeds for beans,beets, broccoli, lettuceand cauliflower. You might try growing leaf let-

tuce and spinach in a “windowbox” on the patio. It’s attractivewhen you combine the leaf formsand colors. It’s easy to protectfrom the cold weather and con-venient to harvest at the lastminute. The deerand rabbits didn’tfind it last year soI am trying itagain this fall. The phlox have bloomed prolifi-

cally this summer. The colors andbeen vivid and there don’t seem tohave been quite as many prob-

lems with mildew. They have pro-duced lots of seed so they need tobe deadheaded. In most cases theseed will not produce a plant withthe same color blooms.If you want larger flowers on

your chrysanthemums (the foot-ball mum type, not the sprays), itis time to start disbudding them.Pinch off the side blooms on thestem and leave the bud that is atthe tip of the stem. It also helps tostake the stem. We have had a lotof wind and rain this summer sostaking has saved a lot of ourornamentals. The clumps of gladi-olas and blackberry lilies in ourgarden are beingheld upright withmetal hoops onstakes.Weeds are

growing likeweeds. The fre-quent rains havekept the soil moistenough that they are easier to pullthan they are some years. Onceyou get rid of weeds by pulling orchemical treatment, apply a layerof mulch to vegetable gardens orornamental beds. Chemical treat-ments may also include applying a pre-emergent weed controlproduct. There are some newproducts on the market that con-tain both pre-emergent and postemergent chemicals.Last, but not least, check crepe

myrtles for signs of cercospora leafspot disease. The leaves will havebrown spots that eventually turnyellow to red and fall from thetree. Keep the leaves raked andremoved to help control the dis-ease for next year. The books sayplant disease resistant varietiesbecause chemical control is difficult.

AUGUST IN THE GARDEN

begins as the plant matures thenblooming and root growth aredecreased.

Nitrogen is required for plants todevelop the enzymes and other pro-teins they need to produce thechlorophyll required forphotosynthesis. That lackof chlorophyll reduces theamount of green pig-ment in plant leaves. Ifthe older leaves of aplant turn brown as the plant growslarger there may be a nitrogen defi-ciency. Nitrogen also affects the pHof the soil.

Stunted growth is usually a resultof potassium deficiency. Dead spotson leaves and excessive wilting arealso a signs of low potassium levels.Calcium helps form cell walls inplants and is usually the elementthat helps transport other elements

through the plant. Malformed plantsare usually a sign of calcium defi-ciencies.

Magnesium is essential forchlorophyll production as well. A signof deficiency is usually a loss ofgreen color in the sections of theleaf between the veins of the leaf.Dolomite or dolomitic limestone is a

good source of magnesium forplants. Sulfur is a componentnecessary for plant metabolism.

A deficiency will cause yellowing inthe young leaves of plants. Theusual source of sulfur for plants

is gypsum.A deficiency of calcium and

boron usually produces small tipgrowth in plants. Check new leavesfor signs of deficiencies of copper,sulfur, iron and manganese. Themiddle leaves of the plant are indi-cators of low zinc levels. Olderleaves on plants are usually betterindicators of problems with levelsof nitrogen, phosphorus, potassi-

um, magnesium and molybdenum.To be sure these nutrients are

available for plants have a soil testmade. There are some “do-it-your-self” test kits available to the con-sumer but is usually easier to collectsoil samples and have testing per-formed by our NCDA Soil Test Lab.They will also recommend a fertilizerformula that will supply the nutrientsfor the plants you want to grow.Think of it this way: applying a fertil-izer based on a soil analysis makesyou a gourmet cook while selectingan “all-purpose nutrient” makes youa short order cook.

Page 4 AUGUST 2013 The Clod-Hopper

GARDENERS OFWAKE COUNTY

5346 Lake Wendell RoadZebulon, NC 27597

Change Service Requested

Prudence Swartwood, Cary

Elizabeth Calwell, Cary

Lynne Peters, Cary

GARDEN MINERALS(continued from page 1)