June Photo Winner!

"We have no contest winner for the month of June.  If you are interested in winning a $25 discount on your next visit, send your July photo in today!"

Remember, if you submit by the end of the month you can win $25 off your next Birch Meadow visit! Just email your photo to shannon@birchmeadowgc.com. 

Details about the contest, is in our January newsletter.

Permaculture, More Than Just a Way to Design Gardens

Permaculture offers guidance on how to change the way we think about the world and our connection to the planet in exciting and dynamic ways.  It is well worth understanding because it can be applied to all sorts of situations.  

The first thing you need to know is that permaculture is all about relationships.  I’d like to start by sharing two vignettes of relationships.  The first is about bronze fennel.  Bronze fennel fosters one relationship after another over the growing season.  Not long after it emerges from the ground aphids show up and start to eat it.  Just when the plants are starting to look truly sickly, ladybugs show up and eat the aphids.  When they run out of aphids, the ladybugs start spreading through the rest of the yard looking for other bugs to eat.  As we move into late spring, the plants begin making a lacey yellow umbel that will be constantly visited by numerous different kinds of pollinators over the rest of the summer.  One of the pollinators, Eastern Black Swallowtails, lay their eggs on the fennel. Soon their caterpillars hatch out and start eating.  Birds come and eat many, but not all of the caterpillars. In fall, the birds also feast on the seeds.  In the meantime, I get to use the leaves and seeds for cooking and tea.  Most miraculous of all, the bronze fennel keeps coming back every year in spite of all the different creatures who use it for food.

The second vignette is about my neighbors.  When we first moved to our new home, we did not know any of our neighbors.  Slowly over time our relationships grew.  We have helped each other with dog sitting and watering, had numerous conversations over the back fence or on the roads that connect us. We have brought and received meals when someone was ill.  We have shared vegetables from our gardens and baked goods over the holidays.  We have gathered for fun and for baby showers.  We have shared in cleanup and firewood when trees came down in our yards and shared plants from our gardens.

While I could tell you the names of all my neighbors and what they do for a living, or describe bronze fennel to you so that you could easily find it in my yard, you would be missing an entire world of information.  That world is the world of relationships described above. Permaculture seeks to understand, harness and build relationships that are mutually supportive and beneficial based on the strengths and weaknesses of all participants in the relationship.  

We currently seem to have two main ways of looking at the world.  We see it as the source of all resources which are commodities to be taken and used as we please.  We also see parts of it as sort of museum pieces that must be preserved and observed, but not touched.  I would argue that there is a third way that we can see the world that makes use of both the take what you need and keep your hands off points of view.  That third way is seeing that we are participants in a complex ecosystem who benefit and thrive when the overall ecosystem is healthy.  The third way requires us to be in relationship with all of the living beings and even the non living things (like rocks and water) in such a way that we participate in the vitality and strength of the planet at the same time that we take what we need to survive.  It is a big responsibility and will take time for us to learn how to do it.  We will need our human relationships just as much as we need to understand the relationships between the rest of the living beings and non-living things on our planet.  Above all, we will need to better understand our relationship as human beings to the rest of the living world and how we can be responsible and important participants in the overall life of the world.

In upcoming articles, I will dive into the basic principles of permaculture,  giving examples and encouraging you to come up with your own examples.  In the meantime, I encourage you to think about relationships that you participate in or enjoy observing in nature.  If you can’t think of any, try watching a bird or plant, or spending time with another person and see if you can discover some relationships that have been right under your nose all the time!

• MaryBeth

Keystone Plants: The Key to a More Bio-diverse Garden

The word “keystone” comes from the architectural term for the wedge shaped stone at the apex of an arch that holds the entire arch together—without the keystone to allow the structure to bear weight, the structure would collapse. Keystone plants are native plants that provide a significant level of resources for their ecosystem and the species that support local food webs. While the addition of any native species will benefit your local ecosystem, including keystone species ensures support for hundreds of local species of bees, butterflies, and other native pollinators.

How do you decide which plants are best for your space? To start, you can choose some options that bloom each season to ensure the pollinators and birds around you have food sources all year round. If you plant these things in groups of three or more, your garden will not only fill out and feel lush faster, but you can also ensure that your local critters will have an easier time finding their food.

You can find a list of keystone plants for our region, the Eastern Temperate Forest region, at this link! The list includes everything from trees to flowering perennials, and even includes a column for how many pollinator species it supports—for example, Quercus (oaks) support  436 species of caterpillars! If you want any help choosing species or figuring out where they will best thrive in your garden, shoot us an email. If you want a quick suggestion, I love seeing Rudbeckia sp. (Black eyed Susans), Solidago sp. (goldenrods), and Symphyotrichum novae-angliae (New England aster) planted as a group for gorgeous bright yellow and bright purple showing of flowers in the fall that are always covered in bees and butterflies. Their seeds also make great snacks for foraging birds in the winter!

• Kel

The supply drive was a huge success, and I sincerely thank those of you that donated supplies!  It is with a heavy heart however that I inform you all that another farmworker has tragically died of heatstroke while at work on July 8. Juan Jose Ceballos (32) was raised in Alfajayucan, Hidalgo, Mexico, and earlier this year seized the opportunity to work in the United States under a work visa, employed by a company here in North Carolina. While the company initially assured Juan’s family (his wife, 11-year-old son, and 6-year-old daughter) that they would cover medical and funeral expenses, as well as facilitating the return of his body to Mexico, attempts to follow up with the company have been unsuccessful, and his family is now in an incredibly stressful situation where they are simultaneously emotionally devastated and financially unprepared. There is a GoFundMe for his family’s funeral fund here: https://gofund.me/45f1b678

If you are on Instagram, you can follow DRSG (@durhamrevstudy) where we will be posting updates and actions related to farmworker support in the coming months. We will also be accepting supplies all summer to pass along to El Futuro Es Nuestro, so you can either email me (Kel) at kellm@birchmeadowgc.com, or message the DRSG Instagram.

• Kel

Karla’s Trip to Gret Dixter!

On my recent trip to the UK I was able to visit Great Dixter in Sussex, created by Christopher Lloyd and currently managed by Fergus Garret. Stunning topiary, yew hedges, and borders dense with many species coexisting happily together! I got to see my most coveted plant in person: Lamium orvala! Fell in love with Angelica, I don't think we can grow that down here we will have to content ourselves with  fennel... Stunning hay couches surrounded by dried flowers and the classic Dixter plant support. Beautiful willow cloches that I want to put over my pots to keep the squirrels out. Sadly they could not fit in my suitcase. Right, time to start growing some willow for projects! I am currently reading The Well Tempered Garden by Christopher Lloyd, and trying to manifest the British rainfall during my trip over here!s. A new addition in the past couple of years is the house plant studios. The Main Pavilion hosts various growers who are experts in their fields, some of these displays are also judged. I was particularly charmed by the alliums, which I am struggling to grow in my garden (I think it is becoming too hot in NC for them).

Yes, I put one of those maidenhairs in my suitcase!

- Karla

Here are some photos that inspired me…

Inspired by Karla’s trip to Great Dixter, this month’s book is The Well-Tempered Garden by Christopher Lloyd

As the creator of the garden at Great Dixter. Christopher Lloyd was a renowned British horticulturist who won the Victoria Medal of Honour, the highest award of the Royal Horticultural Society.

In a review by biologist Kenneth Cox: 

“Christopher Lloyd was a life-long gentleman gardener, who wrote a column for The Observer. He was a flamboyant agent provocateur. Not only was he incredibly knowledgeable, he enjoyed winding people up and he knew exactly what he was doing. His garden at Great Dixter was a monument to his gardening skills and sometimes outrageous ideas. Any time someone said, ‘You should colour-coordinate,’ he would do the opposite: ‘I’m going to put orange with purple.’ The title of his book is slightly ironic, I think – The Well-Tempered Garden – because he was rather more interested in making bold and daring statements… 

…Lloyd’s style was gardening as theatre. For example, one day he decided to rip out the rose garden at Great Dixter which had been there for 60 years – ‘Roses are so last year, darling’ – which upset all the rose people. He could have done it quietly, but no, he loved the grand statement. He had a greenhouse full of plots of outrageous tropical plants, which he would put in his borders. But that was in later life. The Well-Tempered Garden, written in the 1970s, is a practical, very well-written book about his philosophy of gardening. It has remained in print ever since and is constantly being quoted. It’s a book any non-gardener could pick up and read and not be bored.”

You can find The Well-Tempered Garden at your local library or anywhere books are sold!

August To-Do’s

• Click here for Planting Calendar for Annual Vegetables, Fruits, and Herbs by city. This link provides dates both based on estimated last frost and the lunar calendar.

• Do NOT fertilize shrubs in August, September, October, or November. 

• Make last-minute bulb orders to see if they are still available.

• Spider lily (lycoris), colchicum (autumn crocus) and sternbergia  bulbs should be planted in August.    

• Sow seeds of the following perennials: hollyhock, delphinium, and stokesia, to produce healthy plants for next spring.    

• Continue repotting houseplants.    

• Plant the following fall vegetables this month: beets, peas, Chinese  cabbage, cucumber, kale, kohlrabi, lettuce, mustard, radish, rutabaga,  spinach, squash, and turnip. 

•  Pull greenbriar, kudzu, trumpet vine, poison ivy, and wisteria. 

• Your favorite shrubs can still be propagated by taking cuttings.   

• If you are planning to do some fall landscape planting, be sure you  have a planting plan prepared. 

• Check in about small trees vulnerable to deer rubbing.

Plant focus - Halberd-leaved rose mallow

Halberd-leaved rose mallow (Hibiscus laevis) is a  sun-loving native perennial that prefers fertile soils and wet conditions. Its native habitat includes marshes, swamps, and low areas along rivers and ponds—making it a perfect addition to a potential rain garden! Their six inch wide, pearly pale pink flowers add a tropical touch to your yard while inviting plenty of  hummingbirds, butterflies, and bees to enjoy the rose mallow’s abundant pollen and nectar. The blooming period can last from June to early fall, and their seeds are beloved by many kinds of waterfowl. You can find halberd-leaved rose mallow at local native plant nursery, Rachel’s native plants.

• Kel

“I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept.”

– Angela Y. Davis

Happy Gardening!