The "scariest" Halloween costume for gardeners ...

THIS IS GREAT! I've been using boiling water from the teakettle to kill weeds in the cracks between pavers for years. This system could be used to quickly kill the weeds that grow in sidewalk cracks, between the pavement and the curb along our streets, around signs and planters, etc. I would NOT RECOMMEND using it in flowers beds, however. The heat would also tend to destroy the subsoil ecosystem of microbes, fungi, worms, etc. that process organic soil material into forms that plants can use.

This coming Sunday, October 15th!

Nice intro to a beautiful Irish garden!

There's a vaguely familiar liquid falling from the sky right now. Strange!

NO FROST DAMAGE HERE (yet). Impatiens are usually among the first to go here, and they still look as fine as they did 10 days ago. More pertinent to the linked article, none of the impatiens plants here have shown any sign of the very destructive IMPATIENS DOWNY MILDEW. https://ag.umass.edu/greenhouse-floriculture/fact-sheets/impatiens-downy-mildew Back in February of 2016, I posted what I'd discovered about this disease that was brand new to me at the time. This article, from the UMass Extension Service, was passed along to me in an email from Gary Fish, the State Horticulturalist with the Maine Ag Department. The article confirms my previous guess that the disease (the Plasmopara obduscens fungus) is NOT transmitted by seed. That doesn't make locally seed-grown plants impervious, however. What it DOES mean that I'm not bringing the disease into the area via live plant material (IOW, seedling plugs germinated elsewhere). It also confirms my suspicion that, by typically waiting to plant impatiens until the weather has turned relatively hot and dry, I may have been avoiding spring outbreaks of the short-lived "dispersal spores" that may come in on the breeze from hundreds of yards away. ["Development and expression of impatiens downy mildew is highly influenced by the weather. Wet foliage, cool temperatures (especially at night), and moist air are ideal conditions for disease development. The disease was noticed late in the season in several locations when night temperatures began to drop into the 50s in early September. Downy mildew is a water mold. As the name implies, it likes and requires moisture to sporulate and cause new infections. Plants in heavily shaded locations where the leaves stay wet for extended periods of time will generally have a higher incidence and severity of disease because moisture promotes infection and disease expression. Disease tends to be worse in: Locations where leaves stay wet for extended periods of time. Very dense beds. Beds receiving overhead sprinkler irrigation, because the foliage does not dry quickly."] The NEW (to me) INFORMATION in the article is that the disease fungus produces two types of spores - the aformentioned "dispersal spores" that don't overwinter or tolerate heat combined with low humidities, and "oospores" that do. These oospores are the ones that are produced inside the plant. These will infect the soil from the plant's own debris and may then survive in that spot for as long as 5-10 years (actual persistence is as yet undetermined) . So, once an infected plant has been discovered in a bed, it may not be possible for impatiens to survive there for a number of years. However, these "survival spores" are apparently dormant (non reporductive in the soil) and can't spread to another bed unless they're "exported" there on infected plant material. --- What this means for me is no more composting of dead impatiens, even those that don't appear to be infected, just to be on the safe side. It also means immediately removing any plants at the first sign of infection (e.g., the downy coating on the dispersal spores on the undersides of leaves). Another new bit of critical information is that wild impatiens species - Jewelweed, for example, can host the fungus without necessarily being affected by it. --- What this means for me is that I need to be much more aggressive about pulling out the Jewelweed patches that spring up near the gardens and upwind from them. One other note is that fungicides will NOT kill or even slow down this fungus. They CAN help prevent healthy plants from becoming infected in a controlled environment like a greenhouse. However, once the impatiens are planted outdoors, even preventative applications of fungicides are of little use. Finally, New Guinea Impatiens are far more resistant to this fungus. However, like wild impatiens species, it may be possible for them to carry the disease without showing symptoms and, thus, infect the soil in a bed. If you know that a particular bed may have become infected by previous impatiens plantings, it may be wiser instead to use other shade-tolerant species (begonia, coleus, etc.) that won't further enable the spread of the fungus.

LOBELIA ... 'Starship' and 'Queen Victoria' 'Starship' is a relatively new hybrid "perennial" Lobelia (Cardinal Flower) that's sort of related to to 'Queen Victoria". While 'Starship' is listed as a "Zone-6 perennial", it hasn't survived a winter for me yet (even the Zone-7 winters I've had here recently). "Queen Vic" has survived a winter here at Pine Street Gardens on a couple-three occasions, but it's certainly not long-lived. In any case, the unique colors of 'Starship' and "Queen Vic" make them both worth growing as annuals. "Queen Vic" can get to about 30" tall, has waxy, deep red/burgundy foliage and stems, and very bright red flowers. 'Starship' tops out at about 18" and has more bronzey-green foliage, dark stems, and these amazing fuchsia-pink flowers. I'll be trying to grow them again from seed this winter to sell as specialty annuals next spring.

Carol and I were able to finish the "2nd-pass" weeding of the Rte. 220 median this morning. It was a small, but difficult section at the end, trying to remove the tangled mess of easily-broken spurge roots from around the sedums. Hopefully, we'll be able to finish the edging and mulching on Thursday morning (weather permitting). As of today, Carol, Chris Williams and I have put about 80 hours of labor into the Rte. 220 median since the 17th of June - about $2,000 worth of free, volunteer labor at standard professional gardener rates. Between now and Thursday, I'm hoping to remove the whiskey barrel planters and touch up the mulch at that end, and then touch up the mulch on the Jefferson median where it's been disturbed by sign placements. We still need to finish the last of the wood chip mulch around the Children's Garden at Cider Hill Farm, and find a protected place to overwinter the $1,000 worth of (now) potted perennials that we rescued from the Town Office in May. At this point, it doesn't appear that we'll be able to get them in the ground to establish the Plant Bank this year as we'd hoped. With the two medians cleaned up, the perennials rescued from the Town Office, both Waldoboro Welcome Signs spiffed up and planted, and the renovation of the Children's Garden, the WALDOBORO COMMUNITY GARDEN CLUB ha accomplished quite a bit this year toward the goal of making our town a little nicer place to live, work and visit for ALL OF US - all with just a handful of volunteers who have collectively contributed well over 200 hours of work at various points this season! AND, there will be even MORE to do in 2018 ... ... rescue the perennials from the flower beds at the Pine Street Landing before construction begins ... establish and plant all the rescued perennials in the Plant Bank ... plant up the new planter that is planned to surround the base of the new Town Office sign ... work on designing and installing new flower beds at the Riverside Rest Area (across from Hannaford) ... and many other "restoration" type projects around town However, in order to get these things done, WE NEED MORE VOLUNTEERS!! PLEASE try to attend our October Garden Club meeting on the Tuesday the 17th and GET INVOLVED in this effort!

DRY AGAIN ... or still dry? On September 4th, and then again on September 7th-8th, we had soaking rains totaling about 1.6". In the three weeks since, we've received just over 1/10th inch, and there's not much coming our way anytime soon, according to the 10-day forecast. For the period June through September, we've had about 7.5" of precipitation versus an average of about 13.25", for a deficit of -5.8" April and May certainly seemed wet enough, since it rained at least a little almost every day (and I can personally attest to how soggy the soil was to dig in). However, the total precipitation for the two months was actually down a little over 1" from our average. The (water equivalent) precipitation for January through March was also substantially below average, a deficit of -5.0". So, our precipitation deficit for 2017 (so far) is -11.80", nearly a foot, or about 35% below average for the period January through September. Now these are just the numbers for here in Waldoboro, and probably for quite a bit of the Midcoast, by extension. It's been much wetter inland and in northern Maine. However, for us, dryness appears to have become a bit of a trend. Our recent annual precipitation deficits from the 1981-2010 averages: 2016 = -10" (-21%) 2015 = -15" (-32%) 2014 = -2.5" (-5%) 2013 = -8.0" (-17%) 2012 = -5.0" (-10%)

Regular deadheading of both perennials and annuals, as well as sowing successive "crops" of plant like sunflowers, can keep your garden colorful AND bee-friendly well into the fall.