GGG

The Granville Gardeners Gazette Promoting education and recreation through gardening activities

Oxford, North Carolina June 2013, Vol. 2, No. 6

What’s Bugging Your Garden – Understanding Pest Management

Dr. Steve Frank, Assistant Professor, North Carolina State University, Department of Entomology Monday, June 24, 7:00 p.m., the Agriculture Extension Building, 208 Wall St., Oxford, NC

Invasion: Identify the enemy Attack War

Japanese beetles on a rose Wheel bug feeding on a Assassin bug eating a soldier beetle Japanese beetle

About the Program: Everyone loves to watch a National Geographic Special and see lions capture a zebra or crocodiles capture musk oxen just trying to cross a river. But you don’t need a safari to see animals struggle tooth and claw for survival. Did you know your own back yard has hundreds of predatory arthropods? Even better your backyard has parasitoids wasps. More like science fiction than National Geographic, these wasps lay eggs in live insects where larvae develop until bursting from the host as an adult. You can find all these critters and watch their interactions if you just know where to look. In this presentation we will learn about some of the predators and parasitoids that help control pests in your yard and garden. We will also learn some ways to conserve these predators with native plants and flowers.

About Steve Frank and What He Does: One day I came home from nursery school with my overall’s pocket stuffed with caterpillars. Since then I studied entomology at University of Maryland and started working at North Carolina State University in 2009. My research and extension programs focus on pest management in nurseries, greenhouses, and urban landscapes. The overall goal of my research is to improve pest management by understanding the biological and environmental factors that cause pest outbreaks. We use this information to improve cultivation practices in nurseries and landscapes to reduce plant stress and pest susceptibility. We also work on ways to improve biological control techniques. All of this work helps growers, landscapers, and homeowners create safer more sustainable landscapes.

May Covered Dish Social

The setting at the home of Laura and Sandy Gabel was idyllic, the weather perfect, the food delicious, the plants for the Chinese auction enticing, and everyone went home full and happy. What better way to spend Memorial Day? A lovely Serissa foetida was auctioned by Jim Nutt and after some bidding battling was won by Kay, adding much needed funds to the GG treasury. Kay explained that this year’s fundraiser would be “Plant and Garden-Related Items for Sale” in order to try to attract more customers, and she and others had brought an array of items as examples. Cynthia showed the beautiful garden mushroom and leaf made of concrete and the hypertufa trough she had made, the gorgeous glass votive candle holder mounted on a copper stake made by Judy, concrete totems by Cynthia and Bev, small dish/fairy gardens and homemade canned relish made by Kay, and a blue birdhouse made by Kay and friends. Cynthia announced that workshops will be held at her house for those interested in making leaves, troughs, mushrooms, etc. as well as workshops at other venues for making other things.. These are crafts everyone can do and it’s a lot of fun making them, so please sign up for participation when the dates are given.

GREAT NEWS! Carl Cantaluppi, our Granville/Person County Extension agent, is going to give the Extension Master Gardener Volunteer course starting in September! I know many of you have not taken the course because it has been available only in Vance/Warren until now, so here's your chance. Details will be provided later, but Carl says part of the course will be at the Extension building in Oxford and part in Roxboro, so there will be some travel involved to complete the course. It's worth it!

Important Notice

***Volunteers are needed for the Fall Plant and Garden Item Sale (Sept. 14). There are many spots open on several teams, and we will be having our organizational meetings soon! Let's make this the best GG Plant and Garden Item Sale ever! Contact Project Committee co-chairs Peter Gumaer at petergg@ncol.net or Lynda Darden at lflamm@ncsu.edu if you would like to add your energy to this great fund-raiser for our club (and NCSU scholarship).***

To-Do List for June • Roses: Spray weekly with fungicide to control black spot and powdery mildew. To keep them

blooming, cut for arrangements and keep others dead-headed. Give a boost of liquid fertilizer and keep well-watered.

• Make repeated plantings of vegetables based on available space and your likes. • Control weeds by mulching and hand weeding. • If planning to raise your own transplants for a fall garden, start seeds this month to have plants ready

for setting out in early Aug. Plants to try include Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage. • To stop the fall flop of mums, Joe Pye weed, sunflowers, asters, garden phlox and other tall growers

(refer to the notes you took in the GG program on maintenance for other perennials), cut back by half their current growth. Some are easy to root to share with friends and to pot for the Sept. sale.

• Stake summer blooming plants that will flop because of their height and the weight of their blooms, e.g. dahlias.

Questions and Answers Q: I would like to use more yellow and chartreuse in my garden but don’t want to overpower it. Is there a general guideline for a pleasing over-all effect? A: In the garden section of the April 13 Raleigh News and Observer, -- Linda Pinkham, a professional gardener in Smithfield, VA had this to say: Plants in gold and yellow have to placed wisely – not lined up in rows or symmetrical patterns but dispersed throughout the garden to make it “pop.” -- Les Parks, curator of herbaceous plants at Norfolk Botanical Gardens, said in the same article: … gold or chartreuse has a real way of bringing in light, particularly in shady situations. The colors also mix well with burgundy, purples and black. This year’s Virginia-based plant introduction program features yellow and gold plants, and their web site has gorgeous pictures of them at beautifulgardens.org on the home page. So if you’re thinking about weaving some bright gold among your green, look for these plants at the local garden centers. Q: My peony buds are covered with ants – are they harmful, and should I spray? Or are the ants helpful in some way? A: The Heartland Peony Society says: Do not try to get rid of the ants on your peonies. This is a natural and temporary activity. It’s believed that peonies produce small amounts of nectar and other attractants to encourage ants to help in opening the dense double flower buds of some varieties. The ants may be covering some varieties and totally ignoring others, and this is normal. Ants are not required in order for peony buds to open, however. Once the buds have opened, the ants will disappear, also normal. Definitely do not spray to get rid of the ants. Just enjoy the unique interaction of ants and peonies, an evolutionary event thousands of years in the making and posing no problem in the long run.

Best for Berries Tip Now that berries are here, the Frugal Girls website gives this tip for keeping them fresh longer: Use one part white vinegar to 10 parts water. Soak the strawberries (or other berries), leaves and all in the mixture for a few minutes. Drain in a colander until they are completely dry. Refrigerate the berries in an uncovered bowl. The vinegar/water mixture kills most mold spores on the berries and doesn’t affect the taste. Read more at http://nando.com/as

Did you know that there is an organization, the nonprofit Environmental Working Group, that publishes an annual Dirty Dozen list of the most pesticide-contaminated fruits and vegetables using data from nearly 30,000 food samples tested by the USDA and the FDA? These samples are washed or peeled before testing so the results reflect foods as they are actually eaten. 2013 Dirty Dozen List Clean 15 List Apples Asparagus Celery Avocados Cherry tomatoes Cabbage Cucumbers Cantalopes Grapes Sweet corn Hot peppers Eggplant Imported nectarines Grapefruit Peaches Kiwis Potatoes Mangoes Spinach Mushrooms Strawberries Onions Sweet bell peppers Papayas Pineapples Frozen sweet peas

Sweet potatoes It’s important to minimize exposure to pesticide residues, especially for babies and young children because their small bodies and rapid growth/development make them particularly vulnerable to damage from environmental contaminants. If you have space in your yard or garden, you can grow many of the vegetables and at least strawberries – also, many vegetables are easy to grow in containers in the sun. For the others, buy organic. For more information, including the methodology used to produce the lists from the USDA and FDA sources, look on the Internet for Environmental Working Group in their section 2013 Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce. Did You Know that the land occupied by monarch butterflies in Mexico shrank 59% from a year ago? Scientists who take the annual measure of Mexican forestland famously occupied by migrating monarch butterflies said Wednesday that the butterfly population is the smallest they have seen in two decades. The likely cause is unseasonably warm weather recently in the United States, as well as a dramatic loss of habitat in the U.S. Corn Belt, the scientists said. The yearly figures can fluctuate greatly because of variations in the weather. But Chip Taylor, director of the research group Monarch Watch at the University of Kansas, said the numbers have generally been trending downward. Taylor said the decline is due in great part to the widespread use of the herbicide glyphosate. In key U.S. states where the butterfly feeds and breeds — Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, parts of Ohio and the eastern Dakotas — farmers have planted more than 120 million acres of corn and soybeans genetically modified to resist the herbicide, he said. That allows them to use glyphosate to kill milkweed, the monarchs' essential food. The loss of pollinating creatures like butterflies and bees — whose populations are also collapsing because of habitat loss — can result in a loss of plant diversity (the fruits, nuts, seeds and foliage that everything else feeds on). "If we pull the monarchs out of the system, we're really pulling the rug out from under a whole lot of other species across the continent,” he said. "

The butterflies make their way from the U.S. and Canada, usually arriving in Mexico around the beginning of November, clustering by the thousands in the boughs of fir trees. Although the same trip occurs every year, no individual butterfly makes it twice, as the butterfly's life span is too short. How the migration route lives on in the butterflies' collective memory is an enduring scientific mystery. This information is from a March 13, 2013 L.A. Times article.

Mystery Plant – Win a Plant

There were only three correct answers for the May Mystery Plant, Eleagnus pungens, or thorny eleagnus, and the prize is the beautiful doublefile viburnum, a 2-year plant. The winners of the drawing were Joyce and Ben Cifers. The Mystery Plant column will be discontinued after the June issue due to lack of interest and participation. Everyone will know the June entry – it is a tree and it flowers in May. The tree is deciduous and is commonly found, and the honey the bees make from the flowers is delicious. June 15 is the date the ID has to be received by Marty (marty@clis.com), and you have to be present at the meeting to win the prize.

The dramatic winter presence of tens of millions of hibernating monarchs about two hours' drive northwest of Mexico City was little known outside the region until 1975, when the monarchs were "discovered" by a Canadian zoologist. The Mexican government created a biosphere to protect the insects in 1986.

Plant of the Month

Trumpet Vine Campsis radicans ‘Flava’

Native to the southeast, trumpet vine is a vigorous climber with clusters of trumpet-shaped orange to red flowers from late summer to autumn. Although it may take several years to flower, this is one of the easiest of all garden plants to grow. It needs strong support such as a sturdy wooden fence, trellis, or pergola. It will reach 20 to 30 feet in length and spread several feet wide. Give it well-drained soil in full sunshine and it will bloom nonstop all summer, its trumpet-shaped blooms just the right size for a hummingbird's beak. Hummers and butterflies visit this vine frequently, adding to the bright beauty of your garden.

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).

Agave (photo of pulque agave) Dahlia Cape Jessamine (photo) Spider lily Allium (photo ‘Pink Feathers’) Butterfly weed Gladiolus (photo ‘Flevo Junior’) Coneflower Magnolia Tradescantia Rain-lily (photo ‘Russell Manning’) Hydrangea Red-hot poker Coreopsis (photo ‘Autumn Blush’) Lantana

Butterfly bush Crinum-lily (photo) Eastern purple coneflower (photo of ‘Stewart’s Pink’) Daylily Prickly-pear Canna lily (photo) Phlox Gladiolus (photo of ‘Flevo Junior’) Crepe myrtle Verbena Manchurian rhododendron (photo) Salvia Red Peruvian lily (photo of ‘Freedom’) Yucca

Photos of Some of the Plants in Bloom This Month

Coreopsis ‘Autumn Blush’ Canna lily Cape jessamine

Clematis Manchurian Gladiolus Rain-lily

‘Princess Diana’ rhododendron ‘Flevo Junior’ ‘Russell Manning’

Eastern purple coneflower Crinum-lily Allium ‘Pink Feathers’

Red Peruvian lily ‘Freedom’ Pulque agave

Garden Goings-On

A – The JC Raulston Arboretum at NC State University, 4415 Beryl Road, Raleigh, 27606-1446 919-515-3132, 919-515-5361 www.ncsu.edu/jcraulstonarboretum Most events free for members, $5 non-members B -- Sarah P. Duke Gardens, 420 Anderson Drive, Durham 919-668-1707 www.hr.duke.edu/dukegardens/ Fee charged for most events; members fee applies if JCRA member. Some events free. C – North Carolina Botanical Garden, 100 Old Mason Farm Road, Chapel Hill 919-962-0522 ncbg.unc.edu/ Some free events for members; other events $5 up. Some free for non- members. As usual, highlights are listed. For a complete schedule of lectures, walks, children’s programs, classes, workshops, etc. refer to the venues listed above. June A: 11: Tues. 9 – 10:30 a.m. Plantsmen’s Tour “Summer Perennials” with Mark Weathington, Assistant Director 29: Sat. 9 – 11 a.m. Floral Design Workshop “Summer Garden” 1 – 3 p.m. Floral Design Workshop “Contemporary Centerpiece” B: 18: Tues. 6:30 – 8 p.m. “Container Gardening and Water Garden Containers” C: 6: Thurs. 2 – 3 p.m. “Growing Tomatoes!” workshop focusing on gardening “best practices” that will help grow the most perfect tomato crop 8: Sat. 1 – 2:30 p.m. “Shady Native Garden”: Classroom discussion, garden walk-about, plant list 25: Tues. 1 – 4 p.m. “Creating a Pollinator Garden” workshop