Old-fashioned beauties in bloom!

If you’re walking or biking in South Jersey these days and are suddenly surrounded by a heavenly scent, you just may be passing by a mock-orange or wild rose in bloom.  Both tend to ramble in overgrown brambly areas and on old properties.  Mock Orange (Philadelphus var’s) has been cultivated for 400 years.  Its white blooms open along long arching sprays and will fill a yard or a room with the scent of sweet orange – intoxicating!

Another heavenly scented late spring bloomer, wild rose, reminds me more of grapes, iris and light perfume.  Also white, but smaller than mock orange, wild rose flowers grow in clusters on a cascading curtain of vine that handily rambles up and over anything in its path.  Some may consider this a nuisance, but it’s hard to be annoyed when you encounter its incredible scent!

A walk through the South Jersey woods in late spring is apt to take you along a corridor of Mountain Laurel in bloom.  Often mistaken for rhododendron, mountain laurel also has leathery leaves.  Its flower clusters, however, are a bit smaller than native rhododendron and white or light pink rather than lavender.  Although South Jersey’s woods are known for ticks and mosquitoes as well as beautiful scenery, it’s worth the gamble to experience this fairy land of white!

These Mountain Laurels are just beginning to bloom into what will become a veritable corridor of white.

Creating New Habitat for Wildlife

Over the years, we’ve encouraged people to pursue “wildlife gardening” to support migratory songbirds, bees, butterflies, beneficial insects and displaced animals.  We’ve

Winterberry, or Ilex verticilata, is a little known deciduous holly! An underused, but lovely multi-stemmed shrub, winterberry drops its leaves in the late fall to reveal branches full of sparkling red berries. It's a great ornamental as well as a great source of food for resident winter birds.

seen the impact on our nation’s wildlife as nesting generation X-ers have cleared wildlife habitat to build homes for their own families.  Locally, we’ve seen an increase in daytime sightings of normally nocturnal animals as they search for food and cover when their homes are cleared for new development.  We’ve never felt a concern for wildlife, however, like we did a few days ago when we had our own sighting of a displaced animal at the garden center.

One morning, a few of us saw an odd looking animal approaching from across the yard.  It was too big to be a cat, too small to be a dog, extremely pale and mangy.  What’s more, it moved clumsily as if it were ill.  When we realized that it was a possum (or opossum if you prefer), normally seen at night, we assumed that a daytime appearance by this haggard animal must indicate rabies.  Just before we reached our own rabid frenzy, however, we realized that the possum’s mangy appearance was actually caused by tiny balls of fur (that’s right, possum babies!) clinging to Momma Possum for dear life and a safe ride.  It seems that we had inadvertently cleared Momma’s nesting area while pruning and “cleaning up” a corner of the property in preparation for future display gardens.  Now Momma needed a new place to settle down.

At this point, it took no time at all to agree that the first display garden would be a wildlife garden (it was the least we could do for the possum family).  We chose a spot that’s bordered by existing cedars whose evergreen boughs will offer protective cover for wildlife.  We brought back some of the cleared brush to offer even more protective cover.  We planted (nursery-grown) plants that are native to the South Jersey coast such as, bayberry, serviceberry, river birch, blueberry, inkberry, winterberry, rugosa rose, and viburnum, because they are more well adapted to the local growing conditions and, once established, will require less fertilizer, water and pest management than less well adapted plants.  Native plants also tend to provide the perfect food for the local wildlife species that have evolved along with them.

Although not necessarily native, we chose other nourishing shrubs and flowers such as, autumn olive, red twig dogwood, butterfly bush, bee balm, coneflower, columbine and lobelia.  We’ll be careful not to use any chemical fertilizers, insecticides, or fungicides because chemicals become part of the flowers, berries and seeds of plants and subsequently, are absorbed by the wildlife that eats them.  We fertilized with Espoma’s Plant-tone, a 100% organic, granular fertilizer and mulched to help retain moisture and prevent weeds.

Even though we’ve provided many plant food sources, we’ve also placed several bird feeders in the garden and, even more important, a bird bath.  We often think to feed birds, but tend to underestimate their greater need for a clean source of fresh water!  Last, we will install a foot path to facilitate the care of the plants and feeders.  Seems that all we need to do now is let the plants get going (wild and wooly works better than well groomed in a wildlife garden) and stay out of the way to give Momma Possum and her babies an opportunity to move back in!

How to Garden and Love Your Deer!

If a deer book tells you that echinacea is deer resistant, don't believe it!

Gardeners look forward to that magic time in early spring when new leaves unfurl and the first flush of green appears suddenly, everywhere.  The problem is, deer look forward to it too and sometimes they feast on those new leaves before our gardens know what hit them!  I know, first hand, because I’m lucky (and unlucky) enough to live on an old blueberry farm that has its own resident herd of deer.

The deer are great, don’t get me wrong.  My kids never tire of seeing them nibble our fallen apples at the edge of the yard.  It’s a thrill to catch sight of the buck, a rare occurrence, or several does grazing with their fawns.  I’m glad they feel safe here and I understand that deer lived on this land before I arrived.  I’m happy to share my aged fruit and vegetable scraps with them, but I’m not willing to let them browse through my perennial garden for dessert and believe me, if I lower my guard for an instant, they do.

Over the course of 15 years of trial and error, victory and loss, I’ve come to a few conclusions about what works and what doesn’t in the battle of gardener versus deer, or at least, me versus my particular deer.  I’ve tried several remedies that don’t work, like using human hair and deodorant soap as deterrents.  Perhaps my deer enjoy human scents?  I’ve also heard of people tying white plastic bags throughout the garden to mimic a white-tailed deer warning.  Sounds like a good idea, but I guess my sophisticated deer are not so easily fooled.

Of course, fencing is an option.  The recommendation is to make your deer fence 8 feet high to prevent deer from soaring over it.  No doubt that would work, but for me, fencing was neither aesthetically nor financially pleasing, so finally I tried the spray deterrents.  Years ago, the deer repellant sprays needed to be reapplied after rain and irrigation and neither the deer nor I were impressed.  Fortunately, there are a number of sprays today that will persist through both.

My personal favorite is Deer Off.  It really works!  An organic spray made from egg, garlic and cayenne, Deer Off will persist for four to five weeks, even during the rainy season or regular irrigation.  Applying it may take a little while, especially if you have a large garden with many perennials and it does smell like wet dog until it dries, but hey, it really works!  Both the smell AND the taste repel deer.  There are some repellant sprays that only repel by taste and some granular repellants that only repel by smell, but from what I’ve found a spray that can do both, works best.

The trick, however, is not to be lulled into passivity.  Any time after that 28^th day, the deer will pounce and munch at my perennials’ expense.  I mark my calendar and try to reapply the Deer Off shortly after the three-week mark, so even if I procrastinate and miss by a week (or two) I’m still okay.

I’m also not apt to follow the deer books too closely.  Amazingly, they report that daylilies, Echinacea and black-eyed Susans are deer resistant perennials.  My deer love daylilies and black-eyed Susans and Echinacea is their all-time favorite!  They also feast on peegee and limelight hydrangeas, lythrum, hostas, burning bush, heliopsis and garden phlox.  On the other hand, they’ve never eaten my oak leaf hydrangea, baptisia, iris (bearded or Siberian), bleeding heart, baby’s breath, sedum, salvia, perennial geranium, Russian sage or hellebore.

To be safe, I give everything a spritz, but it’s clear that deer prefer certain plants.  If I let that Deer Off wear off, they’ll walk well into the garden, snubbing many plants along the way, to get to those peegees, limelights, daylilies, hostas and lythrum.

I can see that deer don’t dine on the native mountain laurel, inkberry, bayberry, viburnum, blueberry, chokeberry or clethra that grow in the woods that surround my property.  I try to use these shrubs in my landscape, but I still can’t resist a hydrangea or two.  This year I’ll be adding a few Forever and Ever hydrangeas, last year it was Endless Summers, but not to worry, I’m armed with a new gallon of Deer Off as well!