November, 2008
In This Issue:
Royal Agricultural Winter Fair
Harrowsmith's Truly Canadian Almanac - 2009
Mark's Choice Product of the Month
Prepare Your Lawn for Winter
Marty's Soup-A-Licious
Toronto Botanical Garden - Lecture Series
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Leaves and Canadian football.
It is November and I am wondering where on earth the autumn has gone. I did not take nearly as many walks in the woods, or down the garden path as I thought that I would. And the weather, for the most part, was gorgeous.
More recently however, we are getting snow in our garden, which is located one hour north of Toronto. Everyone is complaining that it is getting too cold too fast.
Hey! It’s Canada. My friend Bob, who hales from England, tells me that it has snowed ‘at home’ already and his ‘home’ is one hour north of London. Now that stinks.
So, we take comfort from the fact that we are a northern climate and things can change at any time. As my maritime friends say, “if you don’t like the weather, wait a minute or two. The new weather may be more to your liking.”
November across the country is a time to put the garden to bed. Even our west coast gardening friends need to be thinking in terms of protecting the precious plants in their garden. So, here is my list of ‘must do’s’ in the garden this month.
 Lawn. This IS the most important application of fertilizer of the year. My friend Gerald Boot of Boots Landscaping and Grounds Maintenance in Richmond Hill, Ontario tells me that he applies a good quality fertilizer in mid-November in spite of the fact that many of his clients ask for it to be applied earlier.
‘Good quality’ fertilizer, in my book, is C.I.L. Golfgreen for fall. The best quality fertilizer in the business. Use the Grey Cup game as your guide. Fertilizer your lawn and then settle into the game. Bingo – your timing is right on!
By the way, you are applying fertilizer now to build up the natural sugars at the root zone of the grass plants so that they over-winter in good shape. The results are most evident come spring. Less snow mold, faster green up and a healthier looking lawn overall.
Leaves. Some people see a pile of waste, when they look at a leaf pile. In time YOU will see the beginnings of a gorgeous garden. Good for your garden, good for you. Here is how it works: you rake the leaves onto your garden – leave them on top of the soil all winter long and forget about them. Come spring pull some the leaves back from emerging perennials to allow them to push through the soil. All other leaves stay in place. The leaves on your lawn can either be raked onto the garden (as described above) or take your power lawn mower, set it at it’s highest setting and run over the lot a couple of times.
You are reducing the volume of leaves so that they take up less space in your composter.
The hard way to deal with your leaves? Use a leaf blower that will make the dry leaves fly way up in the air and fall where you just blew them from. Do this until you drive your neighbors crazy with the noise (you, meanwhile, are having fun because YOU are wearing ear protection!) When all of the leaves have settled on the ground stuff them into large paper bags or clear plastic ones if your municipality allows this, and haul them out to the curb for pick up. There now, you just put the organic matter that would have fed your garden soil next spring out for someone to haul away and compost into something useful. For someone other than you to use in their garden. This is o.k. because you can go to the garden centre in the spring and pay cash for the same thing, all composted down, in a bag. It is called ‘composted manure’ and as far as your garden is concerned it is the same thing as composted leaves, pretty much.
Of course, I am having fun at the expense of the people who dispose of their leaves like this every autumn. Please treat your leaves with respect and use them to your advantage. Your garden will thank you.
One last thing about leaves. I am getting a lot of enquiries about Maple Leaf Blotch.
This is most common on Norway type maples in central and Maritime Canada. There is nothing that you do to clean it up. However an application of organic Green Earth Dormant Spray in April would help. The good news: it does no measurable harm to the tree (is cosmetic) and you can put the leaves of these trees in your compost. NOT putting them in your compost will not change the spore population in your neighborhood one bit.
Plant trees shrubs, evergreens and perennials. You will feel odd putting perennials in the ground this time of year because there really doesn’t appear to be much to them. All root, no top. Don’t let their appearance fool you. A peony, daylily or hosta (you name it…) planted in the autumn will out-perform a spring-planted equivalent any time. Same goes for all of the hardy ‘woody’ plant material.
One other thing worth noting: retailers have great bargains available now as they blow their end of season inventory out at terrific prices. Even prairie gardeners, if you act quickly, can do this. Just do it before the ground freezes deeply for the season.
Roses. If you have winter hardy shrub roses: Rugosa, Explorer roses etc. you don’t need to do anything. That is why we call them ‘winter hardy’. However, if you have hybrid teas, grandifloras, floribundas or any of the ‘tender’ roses that need winterizing, well guess what. The time has finally come. Mound your roses up to 40 cm high with triple mix. You can buy this by the bag at retailers or the cubic yard from a local supplier. Use a rose collar to maximize the height of the mounding soil.
If your roses stand more than a meter high, cut them back to about at meter or so just so that they don’t break off as they whip in the wind. Come spring – prune back according the instructions that I will give you in this newsletter….. you see, that is why you subscribed, isn’t it? To get timely advice that you can use. I hope so or I am out of a job.
$50,000 Home Hardware giveaway has been awarded!
And the winners are from Shediac, New Brunswick. I am going to be in their back yard this Friday, November 7 on CTV Canada AM. We are going to have a hoot. And you will be impressed at how much $50,000 can actually buy you! My friends at Home Hardware and CTV have really outdone themselves with this one. Our 2008 contest generated the second largest response of any contest ever run on CTV! (I think that the biggest one was a free lunch with Jeff Hutcheson).
David Suzuki Tickets still available!
If you live in the Toronto area be sure to see David Suzuki live on Thursday, November 20 th. He is speaking on the role of plants in our environment at noon at the Toronto Botanical Garden and again in the evening downtown. My friends at Landscape Ontario, our industry trade association, tell me that there are still some tickets available.
Go to www.landscapeontario.com to purchase tickets and for more info.
New Book!
Finally, Brenda (my assistant) and I have been very busy this fall putting the finishing touches on my new hard cover book ‘The Canadian Garden Primer. An Organic Approach’.
I am really excited about this book – full of great pictures including sequence shots that describe ‘how to’…. Start a new lawn, plant a shrub, start a compost etc. Much more than that this 208 page, hard cover book is packed with the kind of information that I believe you are going to find useful for years to come. There are a few stories and personal anecdotes that I think you will enjoy too. It is printed in Canada too! Launch is early spring 2009.
Stay tuned to this newsletter and the www.markcullen.com website for more info.
Meantime I look forward to talking to you through my weekly blog at www.yahoo.ca.
Keep your knees dirty!
Mark
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