Some years one of my last gardening activities for the season is ‘dusting. ‘Dusting can always wait till spring, but then the weather rushes me along with so many other activities. Now I’m not talking about ‘dusting in the usual sense, which is getting rid of it. The kind of ‘dusting I’m talking about is adding dust — as sawdust.

Sawdust is a terrific material for enriching the soil with humus, which sawdust eventually becomes. Leaves, straw, hay, and other once-living things can also do this and do it well, but sawdust has the advantage that it is weed-free and the small particles mix intimately with the soil. Another advantage of sawdust is that its beneficial effects in the ground last a relatively long time.

Sawdust mulched blueberries

Sawdust is also cheap, often free for the hauling, from sawmills, lumberyards, or from your or a friend’s workshop. If you cannot beg use of a friend’s pickup truck to haul the stuff, sawdust is easy and light enough to shovel into garbage pails or bags, then throw into the trunk or backseat of your car. All kinds of sawdust are suitable except, of course, sawdust from plywood or any wood chemically treated to resist decay. And although there are mixed opinions (few facts) on the use of black walnut sawdust on plants, I have used it as a mulch with no ill effect.

On Top, or Under?

Once you get a load of sawdust, there are two things you can do with it: spread it on top of the soil, or dig it in. I’m generally not in favor of digging soils for any reason (for many reasons spelled out in my book Weedless Gardening because it exposes buried weed seeds to light and air so they germinate and become weeds, it breaks up capillary channels that move air and water around in the soil, and it burns up humus. (My book is currently out of print but an extensively revised and updated version will be available April 2027.) Better to lay out the garden with permanent walkways and planted areas, then blanket planted areas with sawdust as mulch. There, the sawdust will modulate soil temperatures in winter and summer, seal in moisture, soften the impact of raindrops so water percolates into the ground, and gradually be transformed into humus.

There is an exception to this “no dig” rule, and that’s for a very, very sticky clay soil, one that’s rock-hard when dry and sticky goop when wet. Such a soil needs ‘dusting, with as much as a 6 inch layer of sawdust mixed into the top foot or so. Peat moss would also do the job, but would cost a fortune at this rate of application and the environmental impact of harvesting peat moss is questionable. Note, though, that this is a one time digging. You lay out planted areas, dig once, then never dig or walk on planted areas again.

Nitrogen Starvation?

I’m sure many of you knowledgeable gardeners are now muttering about sawdust temporarily robbing plants of nitrogen. You’re right, nitrogen starvation of plants can result because microorganisms that transform sawdust to humus need nitrogen to do so, and these microorganisms are better than plants at getting that nitrogen from the soil.

N deficiency symptom, older tomato leaf

The solution to this problem is not to shun sawdust, but simply to add some extra nitrogen when you do use it. A rough guide would be to sprinkle 4 pounds of any fertilize having about 10 percent nitrogen over every 100 square feet of ground which is going to have a 6 inch depth of sawdust dug into it. Throw on a pound and a half of limestone also, to offset the temporary acidity from the sawdust.

Sawdust that has aged and darkened should need no additional amendments when dug into the ground. That aging darkens the material and, over time, has “burned off” some excess carbon.

No need for any concern about nitrogen when you use sawdust as a mulch. Laid on top of the soil, sawdust is slowly transformed to humus at the thin interface where the soil and sawdust meet.

The best testimonial to the benefits of ‘dusting are my blueberries, under which I have renewed a 3 inch blanket of sawdust every year for decades. Besides other benefits, the sawdust mulch has buried disease spores, so my plants get little mummy berry disease. It also keeps the soil moist. Rhododendrons, azaleas, mountain laurels, and heaths, like their blueberry kin, are also especially fond of sawdust mulch.

Sawdust mulched blueberries

Autumn’s crocus is worth planting if for nothing more than to startle your neighbors. When they ask how come your crocuses are blooming this time of year, just smile and say it’s an early spring.

A bed of autumn crocus does more than just startle, of course; it also paints the fall landscape in soft, bold swatches of lavender, pink, or white blossoms. And, if you so desired, that paint job, depending on species planted, could have begun as far back as August. Not such a bad idea at that, because many flower gardens temporarily sulk in August, waiting to revive in the moist coolness of autumn.

My late summer crocus blooms come from a bulb called colchicum, which is not really a crocus species at all. The plant is called autumn crocus because its blossoms do look like those of crocuses, crocuses on steroids. And that’s the size crocus blossom it might take to catch our eyes after a summer of flowers. The bulbs are pricey, but don’t let that you scare you away; a dozen or so flowers unfold from each corm over the course of a few weeks. Also, with good growing conditions, the corms multiply rapidly.

Depending on the variety and species of autumn crocus that you plant, you could have crocus-y blossoms right through late fall. One of the best autumn crocuses is Colchicum speciosum, a robust plant bearing large, shapely blooms of a soft, rosy pink color. When fully open, each flower is almost a half-foot across. How’s that for a “crocus,” and one that blooms in fall at that?!

Hide Them in Spring

Despite their look-alike flowers, colchicums do not sport the delicate, strappy leaves of true crocuses — and that’s allegedly a problem when the leaves start to brown a few weeks after appearing in spring. As far as myself, I can’t fail to notice and appreciate the flowers in fall, and likewise never notice the browning leaves in spring from the long swathe of bulbs growing in the leafy mulch beneath my row of pear trees.

I’ve read the suggestion to hide the large, aging leaves by planting the bulbs beneath some evergreen groundcover, or distant enough so that although the flowers can be appreciated in autumn, the browning leaves don’t catch you eye before melting into the soil in late spring. I may try one suggestion, letting the plants naturalize in a low grass meadow, which is how they grow in Europe, where they are native.

Colchicine in Kazbegi, Georgia

That would, of course, obviate mowing during the blossoming season in autumn or the few weeks in spring when leaves develop.

(Note that all “autumn crocuses” are not fake crocuses; some real crocuses, that is Crocus species, also blossom in fall. These crocuses, unrelated to the Colchicum species, sport delicate flowers in white or shades of purple, and the bright orange stigmas of their flowering cousins. Again, there are few species, and they differ in bloom time, colors, and size, the most commonly offered being Crocus sativus.)

So Easy

Colchicum crocuses are cold hardy and enjoy the same growing conditions enjoyed by most spring flowering bulbs, that is, moderately rich, well-drained soils in sun or dappled shade. I have found, at least in my rich, well-drained soil, the corms multiply quickly, at which point they can be dug and replanted elsewhere. The recommendation is to do this in spring right after the foliage dies down. I’ve also had good success digging and replanting right after the flowers fade.

Colchicum crocuses do have a very dark side — all parts of the plant are extremely poisonous. No need to worry about deer or rabbits nibbling these flowers. It comes as no surprise that colchicum has virtually no pest problems.

Despite that dark side, the plant has its practical use. It’s been used medicinally for the treatment of gout. With extreme care, though, because the window between a therapeutic dose and a fatal dose is extremely narrow!

“The Gout,” drawing by James Gillray

Also, plant breeders have used colchicine to create polploidy, that is, to create plants with more than two sets of chromosomes per cell. Such plants are often “more of” for many characteristics. Larger fruit, for instance, in the case of Jonathan apple.

Another problem with autumn crocuses is that they differ from spring flowering bulbs in their need to be planted earlier, preferably in late summer. It’s a marketing rather than a gardening problem. Nurseries hype and sell spring flowering bulbs in autumn, and summer flowering bulbs in spring. It would be hard to drum up fanfare for midsummer sales of the few autumn flowering bulbs needing planting then. If you have trouble finding these bulbs locally, buy from mail-order firms and order in midsummer.

Depending on when you actually get bulbs in hand, you might find autumn crocuses blooming in their packaging. If you want to “plant” autumn crocus for even more startling effect than the outdoor show, albeit on a small scale, just set a bulb that has not yet flowered on a dish or just a countertop and wait for it to bloom there.

Colchicum blooming without soil

Blooming out of the soil will not hurt the bulb, but do plant it outside as soon as the blossoms fade.

Fall is usually the best time of year to plant most trees. The ground is soft and moist — perfect for digging. Nurseries have fresh trees. And roots have time to establish themselves before stems begin growing next spring.

Kinds of Nursery Trees

  Nurseries offer trees three ways. “Bare root” trees are dug from fields as soon as their leaves drop, then the roots are packed in wet sawdust or other moist material. Transplant shock is minimized if the tree isn’t too big (I consider four or five feet tall to be ideal), spends minimum time out of the ground, and — of course — is planted correctly. Bare root trees are the least expensive kinds of nursery trees, and, because they are easily shipped, are available in greatest variety.

A nursery may dig a tree while keeping the roots happily entombed in a ball of soil, swaddling that root ball in burlap to give this type of nursery tree the name “balled and burlaped” or, simply, “B&B.” B&B trees are more expensive than bare root trees, less easily transported, and, under ideal conditions, suffer less shock when transplanted.

The third kind of nursery tree is the one that has spent its life growing in a pot. “Potted” trees suffer the least root disturbance, and can be planted any time of year. Ideally, small, new, usually white roots should appear at the edge of the root ball when you slide the plant out of its pot. Because they are more easily shipped than B & B trees, potted trees are available in greater variety.

Planting

Once you have selected a tree and a site, prepare the ground. With a lawn edger or shovel, cut into the grass along the circumference of a circle twice as wide as the spread of the roots. Then use the shovel to strip off the top inch or two of sod from within the circle.

In the center of the circle, dig a hole slightly wider than the spread of the roots. Dig only deep enough so that after planting the tree will be almost as deep in the ground as it was in the nursery. You can tell how deep a bare root tree stood in the nursery by the soil line on the trunk. Loosen up the soil at the bottom and the sides of the hole, and, for a bare root tree, use some of the soil that you excavated to build up a shallow, cone-shaped mound on which to bed the roots.

Setting plant height in hole

Take a last look at the roots before you lower your tree into its hole. On a bare root tree, cut back any diseased or broken roots to healthy tissue. Also cut back any especially long roots rather than tucking them into the hole. Tucking those long roots back in the hole could have them circling within the hole getting thick and thicker to the point where the root eventually strangles the tree.

Slide a potted tree out of its pot, unravel any large roots circling the root ball, then tease smaller roots from the outside of the root ball with a pointed stick.

Lower your tree into the planting hole, tucking soil underneath the roots or scraping it away, as needed, until the tree is at the correct depth.

A B&B tree has most of its roots swaddled and intact within the burlap. Keep that root ball intact. No problem if the burlap and the string tying the packaged root ball are biodegradable. Just lower the plant into the planting hole, cut the string around the trunk and leave everything in place. Roots will grow to explore soil beyond the confines of the burlap rope, and the rope and burlap will eventually decompose.

If the burlap and/or string are not biodegradable, cut the string so the burlap can open up beneath the plant to lie flat on the ground. Pull on the burlap to slide the plant into position in the hole without disturbing the root ball. Cut and remove any rope or wire, and cut the burlap into enough pieces to ease most of it out of the ground.

Shovel soil back in amongst the roots, crumbling it, prodding it with a stick, and pressing it with your heel so that no gaping voids remain. Then cover the bare ground with a three inch depth of wood chip or straw mulch, almost to the trunk. Finally, give your tree a thorough but gentle soaking, applying at least one gallon of water for every square foot spread of the roots. Larger trees will require more water.

Coddle, then Stop

Now don’t ignore your tree. Water regularly, as long as leaves persist or the soil is not frozen. And during its first season of growth, lavish your tree with a thorough soaking once a week, except following heavy rains. Aim for one gallon per week for each estimated spread of the roots. Rain can make a contribution; figure on almost a gallon of water per square foot for each inch of rain that falls.

Here on my farmden, trees are on their own as far as water after their first year in the ground. Annual care then is pruning and mulching. In drier regions of the West, trees are more dependent on your providing water. 

Among the many trees I’ve planted here on the farmden are chestnuts, filberts, hickories, and other nut trees If planting nuts interests you, consider attending the meeting of the New York Nut Growers Association’s fall program on Saturday, October 17, 2026, at the Willow Water Farm in Amsterdam, NY. Besides tours, there will be talks on such topics as top-working hickory trees, off-site successes and failures of permaculture plantings, and incorporating forest trees in nut growing operations. Registration is $20.00 for members and $25.00 for non-members, including breakfast and lunch.  Register at http://www.nynga.org.

Chestnut, Marigoule in October

Fall is usually the best time of year to plant most trees. The ground is soft and moist — perfect for digging. Nurseries have fresh trees. And roots have time to establish themselves before stems begin growing next spring.

Kinds of Nursery Trees

  Nurseries offer trees three ways. “Bare root” trees are dug from fields as soon as their leaves drop, then the roots are packed in wet sawdust or other moist material. Transplant shock is minimized if the tree isn’t too big (I consider four or five feet tall to be ideal), spends minimum time out of the ground, and — of course — is planted correctly. Bare root trees are the least expensive kinds of nursery trees, and, because they are easily shipped, are available in greatest variety.

A nursery may dig a tree while keeping the roots happily entombed in a ball of soil, swaddling that root ball in burlap to give this type of nursery tree the name “balled and burlaped” or, simply, “B&B.” B&B trees are more expensive than bare root trees, less easily transported, and, under ideal conditions, suffer less shock when transplanted.

The third kind of nursery tree is the one that has spent its life growing in a pot. “Potted” trees suffer the least root disturbance, and can be planted any time of year. Ideally, small, new, usually white roots should appear at the edge of the root ball when you slide the plant out of its pot. Because they are more easily shipped than B & B trees, potted trees are available in greater variety.

Planting

Once you have selected a tree and a site, prepare the ground. With a lawn edger or shovel, cut into the grass along the circumference of a circle twice as wide as the spread of the roots. Then use the shovel to strip off the top inch or two of sod from within the circle.

In the center of the circle, dig a hole slightly wider than the spread of the roots. Dig only deep enough so that after planting the tree will be almost as deep in the ground as it was in the nursery. You can tell how deep a bare root tree stood in the nursery by the soil line on the trunk. Loosen up the soil at the bottom and the sides of the hole, and, for a bare root tree, use some of the soil that you excavated to build up a shallow, cone-shaped mound on which to bed the roots.

Setting plant height in hole

Take a last look at the roots before you lower your tree into its hole. On a bare root tree, cut back any diseased or broken roots to healthy tissue. Also cut back any especially long roots rather than tucking them into the hole. Tucking those long roots back in the hole could have them circling within the hole getting thick and thicker to the point where the root eventually strangles the tree.

Slide a potted tree out of its pot, unravel any large roots circling the root ball, then tease smaller roots from the outside of the root ball with a pointed stick.

Lower your tree into the planting hole, tucking soil underneath the roots or scraping it away, as needed, until the tree is at the correct depth.

A B&B tree has most of its roots swaddled and intact within the burlap. Keep that root ball intact. No problem if the burlap and the string tying the packaged root ball are biodegradable. Just lower the plant into the planting hole, cut the string around the trunk and leave everything in place. Roots will grow to explore soil beyond the confines of the burlap rope, and the rope and burlap will eventually decompose.

If the burlap and/or string are not biodegradable, cut the string so the burlap can open up beneath the plant to lie flat on the ground. Pull on the burlap to slide the plant into position in the hole without disturbing the root ball. Cut and remove any rope or wire, and cut the burlap into enough pieces to ease most of it out of the ground.

Shovel soil back in amongst the roots, crumbling it, prodding it with a stick, and pressing it with your heel so that no gaping voids remain. Then cover the bare ground with a three inch depth of wood chip or straw mulch, almost to the trunk. Finally, give your tree a thorough but gentle soaking, applying at least one gallon of water for every square foot spread of the roots. Larger trees will require more water.

Coddle, then Stop

Now don’t ignore your tree. Water regularly, as long as leaves persist or the soil is not frozen. And during its first season of growth, lavish your tree with a thorough soaking once a week, except following heavy rains. Aim for one gallon per week for each estimated spread of the roots. Rain can make a contribution; figure on almost a gallon of water per square foot for each inch of rain that falls.

Here on my farmden, trees are on their own as far as water after their first year in the ground. Annual care then is pruning and mulching. In drier regions of the West, trees are more dependent on your providing water. 

Among the many trees I’ve planted here on the farmden are chestnuts, filberts, hickories, and other nut trees If planting nuts interests you, consider attending the meeting of the New York Nut Growers Association’s fall program on Saturday, October 17, 2026, at the Willow Water Farm in Amsterdam, NY. Besides tours, there will be talks on such topics as top-working hickory trees, off-site successes and failures of permaculture plantings, and incorporating forest trees in nut growing operations. Registration is $20.00 for members and $25.00 for non-members, including breakfast and lunch.  Register at http://www.nynga.org.

Chestnut, Marigoule in October

Bite into a tree-ripened pear. Yecchh! It’s brown and mushy on the inside.

Pear is one of the few fruits that tastes best picked underripe, then ripened indoors — and there is as much art to picking and ripening a pear as to growing it. Perhaps more, because pears are relatively easy to grow as compared with other tree fruits.

Although the fruit has to be picked before it is ripe, you can’t pick just any unripe pear and then expect it to ripen into a juicy, sweet, buttery fruit, with the subtle flavor individual to the particular variety. The spicy flavor of Seckel or the hint of vanilla of Concorde pears, for example.

Passe Crasanne pear, ripe and ready for eating

To ripen well, a pear must have attained a certain degree of maturity before harvest. Otherwise, it merely shrivels without ever developing any sweetness or flavor. Of course, if you wait too long, you get that brown mush.

One way to tell when to pick a pear is by looking at it. The skin becomes paler, but only slightly so. Even better would be to look at the raised bumps, called lenticels, on the skin: they change from white to brown as harvest approaches.

A more direct way to tell when to harvest is to lift a fruit upward, with a slight twist. If the fruit is ready to be picked, it will pop off the branch. This operation has to be done gently, though, or else the fruit will be coaxed off the branch before it really wants to.

Harvesting Seckel pear

I’ve grown pears for many years and many varieties but have to admit to not thoroughly having yet mastered the art of picking the fruit of some of the varieties I have most recently planted. Seeing a few fruits that have jumped ship and are lying on the ground, barring some dramatic winds, is a good indicator for me. Then, quick gathering of the rest is needed.

Storage and Ripening

Harvested fruit can go into storage, or else can be ripened for eating. The refrigerator is a good place to store pears, as long as you maintain high humidity. I put my pears into white delicatessen bags, although plastic bags are also suitable if you punch a few holes in them so that gases given off by the living — yes living — fruits do not build up inside.

The closer to freezing the storage temperature, the better. In fact, some pear varieties, such as Anjou, Bosc, Comice, Eldorado, and Packham’s Triumph, will not ripen unless they’ve been first exposed to several weeks of cold temperatures.

Pay as much attention to ripening a pear as to picking it. Pears need more warmth for ripening than for storage, ideally a cool room with temperatures between 60 and 70 degrees. Drafts should be avoided, to keep the ripening fruit from drying out, but don’t put the fruit in a bag or it will ripen too quickly because of a buildup of the ripening gases (ethylene).

The moment for eating now approaches. Check the ripening fruit almost daily by gently pressing your finger against the flesh near the stem.

Passe Crasanne pear, ripe and ready for eating

I have found that when the flesh near the stem gives just a wee bit when pressed with a finger, the time has come. Get out the silver knife, light some candles, and experience the Queen of Fruits at her best. The window of perfection for a ripe pear is fleeting. Ralph Waldo Emerson knew pears when he wrote “There are only ten minutes in the life of a pear when it is perfect to eat.” Another writer whose name escapes me wrote something to the effect that if pears are not fully ripened, the flavor is grassy, if overripe, well, you’ve got browning mush.
If you get inundated with too many ripe fruits at once, dry them, marinate them in wine, or half, then bake, them topped with a slice of cheddar cheese.

No Brainer

If the above harvesting and ripening instructions seems too complicated or not worth the hassle, there are other options. The pear variety Seckel, for instance. It can be harvested fully ripe so you can just taste one to see if the others on the tree are ripe. 

Also, Asian pears, all of which reach their peak flavor only when allowed to fully ripen on the tree. You’ll know that day has arrived by the slight change in skin color, the ease with which the fruit stem separates from the branch, and the flavor.

Chojuro Asian pear

Another exception is the hybrid Kieffer pear which is a 100 plus year old hybrid of European and Asian pears. This variety is reliably decked with flowers and the loaded with fruit year after year. You commonly see old Kieffer trees loaded down with large, yellow fruits; unfortunately, they are hardly eating no matter what you do to them. Some people can them.

(Pears decorative, hardy fruit trees that I included in my book Landscaping with Fruit.)

One year my lawn felt particularly soft and springy. It felt pleasant at first, then that feeling gave way to panic once I looked down and saw tunnels pushing up just beneath the surface. A mole invasion!

Before contemplating turning a herd of these velvety, furred creatures into a mole fur garment, I consider why they were there and just what they were doing.

First of all, the “they” probably was an “it.” Moles are very territorial animals, so even if a lawn or garden is riddled with tunnels, it may be the work of just a single interloper.

And, while all those tunnels I saw were, in fact, feeding tunnels, moles might be considered garden and lawn allies, rather than pests. Only rarely will they enjoy a bit of vegetarian fare, perhaps a softened seed or a bit of root. Moles eat mostly insects, and among their favorite foods are earthworms and fat, juicy grubs. (Import moles to your garden to rid it of invasive, jumping worms?)

Earthworms generally are beneficial to the soil, but those grubs: the reason they are so fat is because they are dining on the roots of your plants, mostly lawn grass. After a year of feeding, grubs pupate to become the Japanese beetles that will dine on your roses, grapevines, and zinnias, as well as over 200 other plants.

No Food, No Moles

I’m not suggesting welcoming moles to your backyard as grub killers. Even though moles don’t eat roots, the tunnels do admittedly disrupt roots enough to kill seedling plants. Those tunnels also are sometimes used by mice and voles — who do eat plant roots. The tunnels also ruin the smooth look of the lawn.

Mole paw, good for digging

The most obvious way to dissuade a mole from living in your backyard is to get rid of its food, specifically the grubs. Milky spore disease or predatory nematodes are commercially available preparations that attack grubs, yet are nontoxic to just about everything else.

A quicker way to kill grubs is to strap to the bottom of your shoes special spiky soles that aerate the soil and spear the grubs as you walk around your lawn. Incidentally, watering the lawn all summer long to keep it green and lush also keeps the grubs happier — and makes for more mowing.

 Draw the Line

Another way to thwart moles is with some sort of barrier. The barrier could be small mesh fencing buried 18 to 24 inches deep in the soil, or — even better — bent into an L-shape to extend outward 6 inches at that 18 to 24 inch depth. Moles are not climbers, so the fence need not be more than a few inches high.

Some gardeners report success using certain plants as barriers. One plant used for this purpose is even called mole plant (Euphorbia lathyrus). Like other euphorbias, this one emits a caustic white juice when injured, and perhaps really does keep moles at bay.

Mole plant

I’ve grown this plant occasionally, and I no longer have moles here. (Possible correlation, not cause and effect.) I like the plant for its architectural structure, often a single upright stem with four thin, strappy leaves radiating outward at each node from the top of the plant to the bottom. Be aware that the plant is invasive in certain areas. Even here in New York’s Hudson Valley, plants were showing up in increasing numbers year after year. I got scared and removed all of them, and haven’t seen any since — until, after perhaps a decade now, a few small ones have showed up here and there.  

Castor bean is another plant that moles purportedly find offensive. The plant grows rapidly lush, so its effect on moles could be secondary, as it dries out the soil to reduce the number of insects — the mole’s food — present. Maybe it’s the plant itself, though, because some gardeners report that moles will not cross a strip of ground that has been watered with a mixture of castor oil and soap, and that a mole will avoid a tunnel into which has been dropped a castor bean seed.

More Innovative Controls

A contraption that might keep moles away are those little lawn windmills whose turning vanes make a wooden man chop wood. Moles have very soft skulls, soft enough so that they are stunned, or even killed, just from the shock wave when the surface of the ground is hit with the flat of a shovel blade. Perhaps a mole would naturally avoid ground that was thumped. Pinwheels might also work, and electronic versions of that mechanical wood chopper are now available.

Those were the gentler controls; there are quicker-acting and more surefire ones. For instance, you could flood the nest in spring. First you must locate one of the permanent tunnels, which are different from the feeding tunnels in being straight, deeper, and repaired within a day or so if disrupted. Once you find the tunnel, flood it with water for about 15 minutes. The adult will escape, but not the young.

Various traps are available that kill moles. Because the shallow, feeding tunnels are often used only once, there is more chance of a mole happening upon the trap if it is placed in a permanent tunnel.

And then there is the mole skin garment. Quick side note: Moles have been such a pest in Great Britain that Queen Alexandra, wife of Edward VII, ordered a mole-fur garment, starting a fashion trend that created a lucrative industry while helping get rid of moles. Single coats require hundreds of moles.

One final, quirky cure that I have come across for mole problems is baiting a tunnel with JuicyFruit gum. Unwrap the gum in such away that it does not touch your fingers, then drop it in a tunnel. Moles presumably like the taste, but after they eat it, their innards are gummed up. I’m not sure I would wish such a fate upon a grub killer.

Mole, Johann Andreas Wagner 1855

September does not seem a likely time for seeking out things called “mayapples,” but this when they are ripe. Obviously, mayapple is no ordinary apple. In fact, it’s not an apple at all. But you can eat it, I guess.

Mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum) is a native plant that blankets forest floors throughout eastern North America. Each spring, as soon as winter chill is out of the air, the perennial rootstocks send up new stalks. Each stalk grows about 18 inches high, then is capped by just one or two leaves. The leaves are like large shields, deeply lobed and held parallel to the ground.

The perennial rootstock spreads underground, so plants grow in ever expanding colonies. These colonies add another layer to the forest, one of green shields hovering above the earthen floor. Contrasting growth habits and leaf shapes make mayapple a nice companion to ferns in a woodland garden. Contain the wandering roots — in a bottomless pot, for example — if your woodland garden is small.

If you happen upon a colony of mayapples during a spring stroll through the woods, peek under the leaves. Right where the stem divides to make two leaves, you might just find a mayapple flower, a single waxy, white bloom about 2 inches across. Single leaved plants do not have flowers.

And Fruit, Now

Fruits are supposed to follow flowers, but in my experience, you will not find nearly as many mayapple fruits as you found mayapple flowers. Most plants have flopped down and begun to dissolve away soon after midsummer, so part of the reason might be that animals have gobbled up fruits lying on the ground.

Before you take a bite out of a mayapple, let me tell you something more about the fruit. Another name for mayapple is American mandrake, “mandrake” because this plant, like the true mandrake, has a root whose shape can be likened to a human figure. The shape of the true mandrake root supposedly imbued it with all sorts of medicinal and magical properties.

Mayapple does, in fact, have some medicinal properties. The roots, for example, contain podophyllin a compound that has been used as a cathartic, emetic, or purgative. It also has been used for topical treatment against warts. Other compounds in mayapple inhibit cell division, and a modified extract of the plant is used to make etoposide, an anti-cancer drug.

This plant is strong medicine, too easily taken in toxic doses by those not thoroughly familiar with its use. All parts of the plant are toxic — except the ripe fruit, mentioned earlier on. It contains some very toxic compounds. Native Americans used the plant medicinally, and for committing suicide.

Beware!!!

Ripe mayapple fruits look more like lemons than apples. They are yellow, and about the size and shape of eggs. The flavor also is more like that of a tropical fruit. It reputedly tastes something like passionfruit, citrus, quince, and/or strawberry. But bland. No one raves about the flavor, but some people like them well enough to eat raw, or at least to use for flavoring -ades or cooking into a sauce or marmalade.

Mayapple fruit in July

I have never tasted a mayapple, and do not intend to do so. My first opportunity to taste the fruits came when a friend in Pennsylvania mailed me a box full of ripe ones. I thanked him, but later admitted that the fruits — steeped in all that magic and medicine, and cradled in tissue paper in the box — seemed too ominous to eat.

Perhaps you are bolder than I am. If you do eat the fruit, make sure it is ripe, because unripe fruits are toxic. And don’t chew the seeds; they also are toxic. And don’t eat too many, which would be one for me.

“Root pruning” sounds like such a brutal way to treat a plant. Yet it’s a periodic necessity once any potted plant has grown as large as you want it to. Potted plants — like other plants — grow, and while a fifty foot tall weeping fig (Ficus benjamina) is a glorious sight on a Carribean island, my living room ceiling won’t allow such growth. Root pruning slows stem growth as well as makes room for new soil and new roots.

Root pruning — and stem and leaf pruning — of my own weeping fig “tree” has kept it, after 15 years of growth, only a few inches high! This bonsai gets its roots, stems, and leaves pruned twice a year, one of those times this week.

Weeping figs, Puerto Rico and windowsill

How often to root prune any potted plant depends on how fast the particular plant grows, or tries to, and any quirks it has about being root pruned. Angel’s trumpet (Brugsmansia spp.), for example, gets one severe root and stem pruning each and every year, in fall. Root and stem pruning are needed to stimulate new growth, which bears those eerily beautiful, pale apricot colored trumpets. 

In contrast, after nineteen years, I have yet to root prune my pony tail palm (Beaucarnea incarnata).

Ponytail palm

Who Needs Their Roots Pruned?

Plants have subtle ways of indicating that their roots need new soil in which to roam. Keep an eye out for plants that dry out too rapidly, or send roots attempting escape from their post out through their drainage holes.

Root prune any plant that’s beginning to look too tall or too crowded in its pot — or give it a larger pot. Exceptions exist, of course, such as clivia, which thrives cramped for years in the same pot until eventually bursting it.

The most foolproof way of telling whether a potted plant needs root pruning is to slide the root ball out of the pot and examine it. Thick roots pressed right to the the edge of a root ball, or circling its outside, indicate that the time to operate has come.

To root prune, take a sharp knife or a reciprocating saw fitted with a metal blade, grit your teeth, and slice a half to two inch layer of soil from all around and underneath the root ball. The larger the root ball, the more soil and roots can be removed. Then go over the whole root ball again, this time with a pronged hand cultivator or a stick, loosening soil and roots on the outside. Also prune back any lanky or damaged roots.

With roots pruned, a plant is ready to return to its pot. Put a stone or screen over any drainage holes, then shovel in enough soil so that the base of the plant’s stem sits a half to one inch below the rim. Or less; my bonsai fig is in such a shallow, small pot that I can only sacrifice a fraction of an inch below the rim for the soil level. Gradually fill the space between the root ball and the pot with potting soil, tamping it in place with your finger tips or a blunt stick.

Repotting my kumquat “tree”

Because root pruning temporarily cuts down on a plant’s water supply, this pruning should be accompanied by shoot pruning—to remove transpiring leaves—if performed on plants in full leaf. A dormant, leafless plant that has been root-pruned may automatically adjust the number of leaves it grows, when awakening in spring, to the amount of root loss suffered, so it does not necessarily also need its branches pruned.

Useful on Established Trees or Shrubs

You don’t have to confine your root pruning to potted plants. In the middle of the 19th century, root pruning was used as a way to dwarf fruit trees planted in open ground. In his book, The Miniature Fruit Garden (1866), Thomas Rivers described how he root-pruned his trees by either digging them up and replanting them, or by digging trenches around them, then backfilling with new soil.Great judgment, of course, was needed as to how much root pruning a tree could tolerate without excessively enfeebling or killing it.

Besides dwarfing a tree, root pruning also has been used to hasten fruiting; this traditional practice that recently has been shown to be of dubious, or no, value. Wisteria vines are notably tardy to flower, and one traditional recommendation for coaxing them along in this direction is to root-prune them. Personally, I’ll put my money on summer pruning wisteria rather than root pruning to bring it to flower. (And, of course, time—every plant must attain a certain age before it can flower.)

Root pruning young orchard

A bona-fide use for root pruning is to lessen the transplant shock of woody plants. An individual root responds to being pruned by growing new lateral roots near the cut. Root pruning a tree or shrub a year or more ahead of time reduces transplant shock by inducing the plant to grow masses of roots near enough to the plant to be taken up with the root ball.

Practice root pruning with moderation and don’t forget an important function of roots: to anchor a plant to the ground. Depending on its size and how much you prune, a plant might need a supporting stake until new roots grow.

Watering is also very important during the couple of weeks or more that a plant is recovering from root pruning. Right after pruning, give the plant a thorough soaking. When new growth begins, make sure all the soil stays moist, the old soil because even with its reduced size it must still support the plant, and the new soil, to encourage new root growth there. (Succulents are an exception: let their soil thoroughly dry between waterings, even after root pruning.)

Finally, prune the stems so that the reduced root system has less leaves to support, and if your goal has been to keep the plant from growing larger.

Rest assured plants can tolerate all this pruning. Just look at my bonsai tree and other bonsais whose heights can still be measured in inches after a hundred or hundreds of years.

For more about all types of pruning, see my book, THE PRUNING BOOK, available from the usual sources or directly from me at www.leereich.com/books.

Bonsai juniper

Complaints. Complaints. I’ve been hearing so many complaints about squash plants, how they looked healthy, then all of a sudden flagged and took a turn on the road towards death. I can help you deal with the problem — but mostly for next year. The best time for action was earlier this season.

Young zucchini, early in season

An insect called the “squash vine borer,” lodged in the stem, is responsible for your squash’s wilting. The saga of how that insect got there began in early summer, when a pretty insect with an orange and black body crept out of the soil, stretched its coppery-green and clear wings, then looked around for a mate. She evidently found one, and soon after sought out your squash plants. Instead of squash, she also might have settled for a gourd, cucumber, or melon plant, in that decreasing order of preference.

Adult squash borer

Upon finding a suitable plant, she proceeded to lay her fertilized eggs on the stems or leaf stalks near the base of the plant, eggs which within a week hatched into larvae. The larvae bored into the stems, and ate so much that there eventually was not enough stem tissue to conduct water to the leaves. Voila! The leaves went limp, and that’s what grabbed your attention. Take a look at the base of the stem now, and you will see a hole out of which has poured some sawdust-like frass.

Fighting Ms. Melititia

We can fight this pest in a few ways. Because the moth only lays eggs early in the season, late plantings never pick up larvae. Thoroughly composting infested stems also helps if it gets the larvae before they leave the stem to return to the soil, which they do after about 6 weeks of feeding.

Another approach is to turn the moth away before she ever lays an egg on a squash plant. A floating row cover — or any other lightweight mesh material — allows water, light, and air to pass, but not Melittia cucurbitae (that’s the moth’s real name). The covering is only needed early in the season, during egg-laying, and, anyway, needs to be removed later so that bees can pollinate the blossoms. Covering merely the base of the plant with straw, nylon mesh, even aluminum foil, can prevent egg laying.

A physical barrier is 100 percent effective, but you could, instead, try repellents. Some gardeners claim that Ms. Melittia will avoid plants that reek of camphor, black pepper, or turpentine.

Another line of defense is to kill the larvae. You can kill them before they even get into the stem if you repeatedly dowse the base of the plant with Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) aizawai, a readily available “organic” insecticide. Once the larvae are within a stem, get at them with any of the above pesticides — or parasitic nematodes — by injecting the material into the stem near where you see the telltale hole oozing frass (their sawdust-like poop).

If you are the kind of gardener who prefers hand-to-hand combat with pests, rather than pesticidal or biological warfare, then make a lengthwise slit in the stem just big enough to find the larvae, and stab it.

My second to favorite method for dealing with Ms. Melittia is to keep the plant happily growing in spite of her presence. I merely place bricks at intervals over portions of my squash’s trailing stems, inducing new roots to grow at those points. Larvae only lodge in the portion of stem right near where the seedling originally emerged, so new roots growing further along the stem can support the plant even if this oldest portion dies.

Problem Solved . . . Easily

My favorite method for averting damage from Ms. Melittia is to choose with care what squash to grow. The ideal squash would, of course, taste good, yield well, and be resistant to the borer. Those squashes exist! 

The word “squash” — or “pumpkin” — brings in a number of Cucurbita species. C. Pepo  includes zucchini, acorn, crookneck, and spaghetti squashes, as well as a number of “pumpkins.” They’re all very susceptible to squash vine borer.

Slightly less susceptible are C. maxima, which includes blue Hubbard, butternut (turban shaped), banana, Kabocha squashes, as well as — again a number of “pumpkins,” typically the larger ones.

The species C. moschata are very resistant to borers because of their thicker, solid stems. They are the ones I grow: butternut (pear shaped) as a winter squash and so-called Korean squash as a summer squash.

Squash, Butternut

Squash, Korean fruit forming

If they have one flaw it’s their rampant vines; these vines are now flowing up over and through my fence out of the garden and into the outside area. Plants bear fruits in keeping with the vines’ vigor. The butternuts bear and store well enough to keep appearing on our plates through winter, on into March.

Squash, Korean escaping fence

If you like very sweet squashes, the variety Honeynut, a hybrid of butternut and buttercup, is very borer resistant.

For years I grew zucchini squash. And every year it would get attacked by borers. The vines didn’t stretch out enough to allow new roots to form along their length. No matter, though. By the time my summer squash plants slumped, I was always relieved. After all, how much zucchini can anyone eat?

I’m still harvesting plenty of Korean squash — and giving plenty away.

But Adam did bite the apple, and I did plant apple trees and we each have dealt with the consequences. I could have resorted to the season-long drench of pesticides recommended to kill every pest. Instead, I decided to research potential pest problems, then see how little, if any, pesticide I could use and still harvest an acceptable crop of high quality apples.

Home grown Esopus Spitzenberg apple

I should say at the outset that I no longer grow apples. For three reasons. First, my site, with cold, dank air in a valley, is a poor one for growing apples. Second, especially in a poor site, some spraying is needed; I grew tired of that. And third, I found a local orchard where I can buy excellent Macoun, Ashmead’s Kernel, and Esopus Spitzenberg apples, along with other favorites of mine.

With that said, I would definitely grow apples if I had a higher site with sloping ground, full sunlight, and acres and acres of forest not so close. Or if I lived out West or nearer one of the coasts.

Insect Culprits

The three major insect pests of apples are apple maggot, plum curculio, and codling moth. Here on the farmden, apple maggots are the worst of the lot, dimpling fruits and riddling them with brown trails of burrowing larvae. Given free rein, apple maggots damage almost every fruit beyond offering even one good bite.

Dimpled fruit from apple maggot

Thankfully, the apple maggot has its Achilles heel. When the fly stage of this insect emerges in the latter half of June, the females search around for the biggest, reddest apples in which to lay eggs. I used to hoodwink Ms. Maggot with ersatz apples, which were red, plastic spheres  that I coated with a very sticky material called Tangletrap — one trap per dwarf tree, two or three for larger trees, hung at head height in clear view.

After a few years of dealing with the messy business of cleaning Tangletrap off each sphere for use the next season, I came up with a better idea. Why not buy and use some real apples, very firm and very red Red Delicious apples. They do look and smell like apples even if their flavor leaves much to be desired. And they do keep for a very long time. I coated these apples with Tangletrap and pushed a wire through each for hanging in the branches. By winter, they shriveled to nothing and, with wire removed, can be composted.

Maggot trap, with real apple

Unfortunately, no good alternative to spraying exists for plum curculio. This insect can cause fruit drop early in the season.

Plum curculio, cute but a real pest in eastern US

Instead of the usual chemical pesticide sprays used against this pest for the six weeks that it is active, this pest can also be controlled with a spray derived from kaolin clay. It’s a special formulation of kaolin — marketed under the name Surround — that coats everything to disguise the fruit and clog insects’ eyes, ears and reproductive organs. All in all, the coating makes Ms. Curculio think twice about landing, feeding, or laying eggs.

Sprays of Surround also keep Ms. Codling Moth at bay. This pest is active for much of the season, but even unchecked, results in only 25 percent fruits with the signature big, fat worm. This is the half a worm (actually a caterpillar) you see after taking a big bite out of apple.

Codling moth in apple

The problem with Surround is that the tree needs a heavy coating (3 sprays, even before bloom), and then the spray needs replenishing to keep it dusty every couple of weeks or after just a quarter of an inch of rain.

Sprayed trees will have a white cast to them — a very Mediterranean look, commented one visitor to my garden.

All Creatures Great and Small

Turning to diseases, the three most common ones are fire blight, cedar-apple rust, and scab. A combination of strategies keeps disease damage within reasonable bounds. I’ve always kept a careful eye out for fire blight, so that I could prune out any infections as soon as they show. Fire blight, which causes leaves or whole branches to blacken as if they have been singed by fire, thankfully never reared its frightful head in my backyard. The ends of infected branches curl over like a shepherd’s crook.

Cedar-apple rust shows up wherever wild cedars (especially eastern red cedar, Juniperus virginiana) abound, defacing leaves, and sometimes fruits, with rusty lesions. The cedars are alternate hosts for the disease, without which the disease cannot complete its life cycle. This disease is difficult to control with sprays organically, so I chose to accept a certain amount of damage rather than suit up for an additional spray session. And forget about removing nearby cedar trees because the fungal spores from cedars can travel as far as two miles!

Cedar apple rust on apple leaf

Apple scab results in corky brown lesions on fruits and leaves. Defense against scab always began in fall, when I would smother fallen apple leaves — the source of next year’s infections — beneath a thick mulch of wood chips. Leaves that fell on nearby lawn were defused by mowing thoroughly. Chopped, the leaves decompose quickly and are rendered harmless.

Apple scab on leaf

Although apple insects have cosmopolitan tastes, disease organisms are finicky. So another way to control diseases is with resistant varieties. One variety that I grow, Liberty, is resistant to all the major apple diseases. Other varieties have varying degrees of resistance to one or more diseases.

Liberty apple, home grown

Even without paying particular attention to planting only disease resistant varieties, I was able to harvest reasonably good yields of reasonably clean fruit using my combination of cleanup, limited spraying, and traps.

Cosmetically, my fruits put on a poor show compared with the perfect apples you see in markets. But my fruits were pesticide-free, and the Macoun, Jonagold, Spitzenberg, and other select apple varieties that I grew were simply scrumptious picked at their peaks of perfection. I hope Adam’s apple was as good.

Home grown Macoun apples