David Deardorff

Today, the last of November, beginning of December, snow is flying in many parts of the USA. Many die-hard gardeners in colder areas turn to houseplants to satisfy that perennial itch to commune with the green world. These days it seems you find lots of houseplants for sale wherever you go. Many grocery stores, even big box stores, now boast a tantalizing display of gorgeous exotic orchids in full bloom along with other houseplants. The flamboyant color and opulent form of orchid flowers are seductive. Like sultry temptresses they lure us into their embrace and many of us succumb to their charms.

Lady Slipper

For many people, orchids have the reputation (undeserved!) that they are demanding and difficult to grow. Poppycock! Orchids are tough customers that hang on under the most trying of circumstances so long as minimal needs are met. The only finicky aspect of orchid culture is the potting medium because they cannot grow in soil.

Many orchids make excellent flowering houseplants. Take a word from the wise and be careful though, because once you start growing orchids you may never stop! At one time in our lives Kathryn and I owned an orchid nursery and tissue culture lab in Hawaii with several thousand orchids. We were also judges with the American Orchid Society and we literally lived and breathed orchids for years.

Moth Orchid

In general, the two kinds of orchids that are the easiest to grow in the average home are Phalaenopsis (moth orchids) and Paphiopedilum, (lady slippers). Both of these types of orchids prefer bright indirect light, not full sun, and are pretty well adapted to the light levels and night time temperatures in your living room. Moth orchid and lady slipper flowers last an incredibly long time too, six months or more. They’re quite different in appearance: moth orchids are elegant and refined, and lady slippers are bizarre and fascinating.
Moth orchids in their native habitats in tropical Asia live perched on tree branches (they’re epiphytes) like many other tropical orchids. Their roots need a potting medium that drains rapidly but is able to retain some moisture, conditions satisfied by a simple fir bark medium. Never pot them in soil, it will kill them!
Lady slippers also come from tropical Asia but they live on the forest floor, not up in the trees. Because they are terrestrial, their roots need a potting medium that retains moisture well. Pot them in a mix that contains a lot of coarse peat moss or bark fines and they’ll do well. Again, never pot them in soil, it will kill them!
Some types of orchids, such as cattleyas, dendrobiums, cymbidiums, and oncidiums, have water storage structures like pseudobulbs. But neither moth orchids nor slipper orchids have any water storage capability. Since they can’t store water they need regular watering and shouldn’t dry out for too long. Water about once a week by holding the pot under the kitchen faucet, then let it drain. Increase the watering to twice a week if the weather is warm and dry. Fertilize with a weak water soluble orchid fertilizer made at one quarter strength every time you water. Never put the pot in a saucer where it stands in water, because the roots will all die if they are constantly wet.
If you meet these few basic needs for your orchids they will live for years, flowering regularly for you. Next time you are tempted to pick up a moth orchid or a lady slipper from the supermarket, do it. You won’t regret it.

At this time of year David and I put the garden to bed. He writes about keeping it healthy for next season, and concentrates on sanitizing – cleaning out unhealthy plant tissue where disease may lurk until spring. For me the garden season is over. In our cold climate, I find myself more and more reluctant to go outdoors, much less garden. It’s time to concentrate on indoor activities.
The other day David and I watched the local news that carried a story about the dangers of falling leaves in the coming storm. Trees had just begun to turn colors, and had not yet had an opportunity to drop their autumn leaves. The newscaster warned that these leaves posed a terrible threat. OMG – the wind could bring them down all at once! They could cause flooding!! We could almost hear the sound track to Hitchcock’s Psycho in the background, as the menacing leaves crawled toward us. What fierce creatures deciduous trees are. “Be afraid. Be very afraid.”
Although this is part of the fear mongering so common on television today, it is also a clear illustration of a significant loss we modern, urban dwellers have suffered. The loss of connection to and intimacy with the natural world.
Right now, as David and I launch into writing our second book for Timber Press (Troubleshooting the Vegetable Garden), I am reading lots and lots of books about vegetables, about organic gardening practices, and about plants in general. I find myself  exploring many different topics, including ecology and natural history. The more I understand the natural processes going on outside, the more fun I have in the garden.  I glean some books for information, and some for inspiration.
In these explorations I uncovered a book that articulates a major theme of my life and of David’s and my work. In The Lost Language of Plants (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2002) Stephen Harrod Buhner describes an encounter with a puppy, an encounter that many of us have experienced. “… [a] moment [when] something passes between you and the puppy. It is as if something leaves your body and enters the puppy, as if something leaves the puppy and enters you.” At this moment you want to pet the puppy, and he wants you to pet him. Bruhner continues: “This is an experience that nearly all people know, yet we have no word for it in our language.”
He goes on: “Once, people experienced this exchange with everything on earth. The experience was understood, expected, a natural part of human life – this deep interaction with the non-human world . . .”
I am interested in understanding how we lost this ability, this perception, this desire, even.  And I want to know how to regain it. While I agree with Edward O. Wilson that we humans experience “Biophilia” — the love of life itself — I still see lots of evidence of this fundamental disconnect with other life forms.  Much of the work David and I do is an attempt to understand the loss and to regain the ability.
Early in our marriage David and I walked through the Foster Botanical Gardens on the Island of Oahu. We came upon a gigantic Kapok (Ceiba pentandra) whose great buttress roots stabilized its enormous trunk and made caverns in which to hide. I slipped into one and felt embraced and safe. I invited David in and made a comment about this magnificent tree. David agreed, but told me that his favorite tree was the mighty oak. I was surprised, because I knew how much he loved tropical flora. He stepped out of the tree’s embrace and stood in the middle of the grass. He held his arms out to the side, like a kid pretending to be an airplane. He swayed and dipped, as if wind buffeted the mighty oak he mimicked. “Imagine,” he said, “holding your arms out like this for an eternity. Oak trees are essentially immortal, you know. They stand forever with their arms outstretched. Imagine the strength that takes.”

I was stupefied. So much information wrapped up in those simple words. Trees are immortal. They are powerful. Could we not benefit from this power if we only understood it better? Can we not learn important lessons from an immortal being if only we know how to listen?  I hope so.

David Deardorff

It’s late November and garden ghosts from last summer’s bounty may still linger in standing dead stalks of flowers long gone. Unfortunately, some of this left-over plant material may be infected with fungal or bacterial diseases. Roses may keep their foliage until well into winter, even if it’s infected with black spot or powdery mildew. Pear leaves infested with blister mites will come back to haunt you if you don’t rake them up. And all those tomato vines that succumbed to late blight last summer will cause you problems next year unless you get rid of them.
Getting infected plant material out of your garden is called sanitizing and it’s one of the basic tools for managing plant disease or infestations by insects or mites. Sanitizing disrupts the life cycle of these organisms. The bacteria and fungi inside dead infected plant material are still alive and waiting for the opportunity to reproduce. Insects, mites, and eggs are also not dead but merely dormant, waiting for winter to be over. The bacteria, fungi, insects, and mites will all begin to reproduce and create a new generation to infect your garden again next spring as soon as the weather permits. When you seek and destroy these critters while they are dormant you have drastically decreased the numbers that will survive to give you headaches next year. If you can gather all the infected and/or infested material up and get it out of your garden you have reduced the inoculum load significantly. The result is less disease and fewer pests. Sanitizing won’t eradicate these problems but it will give you a fighting chance to manage your garden more effectively.

Remove tomato leaves infected with late blight

One important technique of sanitizing is simply plucking infected leaves or pruning infected stems off your plants. Pull or prune them away and put them in a bag, then dispose of them in the trash. NOT THE COMPOST.
For leaves, look for ones with abnormal spots or blotches on them. The discolored areas may be virtually any color from yellow, brown, black, orange, red, or purple to gray or white. Leaves with discolored spots or blotches are almost certainly infected with fungal or bacterial diseases. Also look for leaves that are rolled into a tube or that have strange growths on them because they usually harbor insects or mites. Leaves that have fallen to the ground should be raked up and hauled away if they were diseased or infested.

Black spot is a fungus disease of roses.

Black spot of roses, for example, is a fungus that lives inside dead rose leaves and in the soil under rose bushes. The fungus will produce spores that will re-infect your rose bushes next spring. If you rake up all the dead rose leaves and pluck off all the infected ones from your roses you will eliminate a huge source of spores and reduce the incidence of infection next year. It also helps to mulch your roses to avoid splash-up of spores from the soil to the bottom leaves of your roses.
For stems, look for those that are spotted and discolored. Like leaves, these should be pruned away and discarded. Check for sunken, discolored patches (cankers) on stems and prune them away. Stems that have holes in them are infested with borers, insects that live inside the stem. Prune these away before the insects inside have a chance to mature, mate, and lay eggs.
Do not compost any infected or infested material. Some disease organisms, such as late blight of tomatoes and potatoes, can live in the soil so plant material infected with late blight should never be composted. If your compost becomes infected you will spread disease throughout your garden as you use your compost. (Yikes!)
Gather up all the infected plant material and dispose of it in the trash. If you live in an area where you are allowed to burn it, burning is also a very effective way to kill these organisms. In any event, get them out of your garden and out of your life. You’ll be glad you did.