Tour of Permaculture Park

• Tuesday, October 3, 2023, 5:30 PM - 7:00 PM

Permaculture Park sits south of the Sciencenter, along Cascadilla Creek and boasts a remarkable number of edible plants. Re-designed as a food forest a few years ago, the added plants now offer fruit many months of the year. Discover the bounty in your backyard with a tour of the park and chance to sample the ripe fruit.

Presenter Bio: Marvin Pritts was born in rural southwestern Pennsylvania. He obtained a B.S. in Biology from Bucknell University in 1978, a M.S. in Biology (Plant Ecology) from the University of South Carolina in 1980, and a Ph.D. in horticulture at Michigan State University working with wild species of blueberries. Marvin came to Cornell in 1984 as the berry crop specialist with an appointment in extension, research, and teaching. He works primarily with production and pest management systems in strawberries and raspberries, and has consulted with berry farmers throughout the world.

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Four Season Pollinator Garden

by Ann Manzano and Tracy McLellan

Japanese Anenome with native bee

The demonstration gardens along Willow Avenue and around the corner to Lincoln Street at the CCETC building are designed to be interesting all year and to support pollinators. There are flowers open from April through October and a lovely dogwood with bright yellow and red stems though the winter.

Early in the spring, purple crocus host non-native honeybees. As spring progresses, daffodils, then bright red tulips light up the area. Giant ornamental onions, Allium christophii, emerge like purple fireworks in early June. In August, coneflowers (Echinacea purpurea) and black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia hirta) flower prolifically and attract a wide variety of pollinators. Japanese anemones (Eriocapitella hupehensis) produce a great show of pink flowers at the corner, spilling onto the sidewalk, in September. By October, Sedum “Autumn Joy” has red flowers and Colchicums (Colchicum speciosum) add a purple spot of interest. 

The backbone of the garden is the large ginkgo tree planted in honor of Carol Eichler when she left employment at CCE. A river birch, Betula nigra ‘Little King’, which will not reach a great height, balances one end of the garden. At the corner at the other end of the garden is a Viburnum trilobum, American cranberrybush, that was planted many years ago. More native shrubs, including ninebark (Physocarpus opulifolius ‘Summer Wine’ and ‘Dart’s Gold’), oak-leaf hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia), winterberry (Ilex verticillata) and spicebush (Lindera benzoin) have been planted recently.

The site has many challenges for gardening. It faces southwest and so has hot afternoon sun. There is no easy access to water and the constraints of being bordered by the sidewalk and the walls of the building mean that some plants need to be controlled. Jumping worms in the soil also dry out the top soil layer and make the soil granular.

Cornus Sanguines 'Artic Sun'

Viburnum trilobum

The garden has changed greatly since it was first installed more than 30 years ago. At first, large ornamental grasses (Miscanthus spp.), drought tolerant and trendy at the time, were installed along with several large perennials that grew up to the second story windows. When New York State declared that those grasses were invasive, we removed them with help from work parties of Cornell students. Color and texture were important elements in garden design that we tried to incorporate, before emphasizing plants for pollinators, a current garden design trend. Some plants have thrived and proliferated, others have succumbed, and there are a few we would dearly love to be rid of, but they persist. Gardens grow and change over time, and this garden is a good demonstration of the evolution of trends in garden design and the change over time in a garden.

Rudbeckia hirte

Gladiolus -- Not just for Funerals

--Carol Bayles

Gladiolus (plural gladioli, gladiolas, glads or gladioluses, take your pick) comes from the Latin for sword, (think gladiator) for their sword shaped leaves, and is in the family Iridaceae. Most glads are hybrids of many species and fall in these categories: Grandiflora, the biggest and hardest to grow; Nanus, smaller, some hardy; and Primulinus, a hooded type. While common at funerals and in cut flower arrangements, I don’t see glads in many gardens.

My Hardy Glad late summer-fall

Atom Hardy - mid-late summer bloomer

Several glads, including some of the Nanus types, don’t shout “Gladiolus” and are hardy to zones 4-5. I bought some at the MGV April 2022 bulb sale which were called ‘Impressive Hardy Miniatures’ which doesn’t tell me much. But they were listed as late summer-early fall blooming. They look a bit like ‘Vulcano’ from American Meadows. They didn’t do much the first year, and this year just a few came up and even fewer bloomed. I should have mulched them better, as I live in a cold, zone 4 spot. This year they didn’t start blooming until September and there are many buds still not open. They are a deep coral-pink and very welcome this time of year. I will mulch them better and hope for more (and earlier?) blooms next year.

Abyssinian Glads in my garden, late summer blooms, not hardy

Prins Claus, early summer bloom, hardy

Many of the hardy glads are shorter, like 1.5-2 feet and the flowers are smaller and less dense on the stalk. I think this is more attractive (and less glad-like). Another glad that is not glad-like and is overlooked is the Abyssinian glad, G. acidanthera, also known as Peacock Orchid (clearly not an orchid) or Peacock Lily. These are not hardy, but they are easy to store over the winter and multiply exponentially in the garden. I have grown Abyssinian glads for years and they seem to like being ignored during storage. Last year I moistened them a few times over the winter and many rotted.

There are hardy glads for every bloom time, a nice addition to your garden.

When my husband bought me this tool, I was skeptical; it's plastic. But I picked it up and it was light (10 oz), and short (15 in), and it didn't swing open when I picked it up with one hand. And it cuts like a dream, so much better than either of the 2 loppers we own. The blade is metal and it is an anvil type (as opposed to a bypass); the anvil itself is plastic. But I always found that both my bypass loppers commonly shred the bark at the end of the cut and get jammed. That never happens with this tool. The specs say it cuts to 1.25 inch diameter; this may depend on what you are cutting. In truth, I think my other loppers can do a bit larger diameter wood, although I may be too cautious. It also does well with twigs, which is difficult with a big lopper. And it is so easy to carry around! This is the best tool. --Carol Bayles

Natalia Rathbun, MGV Coordinator,

Herbalist, Food Security Advocate

by Carol Bayles

Natalia Rathbun is the new Master Gardener Volunteer Coordinator at CCE-Tompkins County. This is a 20 hour/week position and she starts off training a new crop of MGVs. The training is combined with that of the other Southern Tier Counties: Broome, Tioga, Schuyler, and Chemung. This will give her exposure to MGV programs in other counties, too, and help her define her position.

Natalia did not inherit or acquire any gardening traits from her parents; instead she had a farming epiphany in high school, of all times. She grew up in Danby and attended Ithaca High School (she was one year ahead of my daughter and were both in orchestra together). A friend of hers encouraged a summer job at the fairly new Youth Farm Project (YFP) in Danby, suggesting that getting paid be outside all day was a pretty good deal. Natalia went for it and found her purpose in life. She didn’t mind the manual labor and working in small crews of 5-7 teens made it more fun. But the Youth Farm Project was about more than farm labor (motto: Growing justice from the ground up). They also taught their employees about the food system and social justice, racial inequalities, food insecurity, and how our food system is a reflection of society at large. This wider scope made a lasting impression on Natalia.

Calendula harvest

The Youth Farm Project was started in 2010 by a small group of dedicated folks, including a teacher, Dan Flerlage, prodded by the interest of several of his students at LACS, also Ann Piombino, Katie Church and Trina Baxter. The land on Nelson Road came with a barn, tractor, hoop houses and the blessings of the owner. They have enough acreage to allow rotation planting and fallow (cover crop) areas. To get a feel for the YFP watch the video on https://www.youthfarmproject.org/ which includes Natalia.

Natalia returned for 2 more summers at the YFP, working as crew leader. She attended Cornell, majoring in International Agriculture and with internships in India and Costa Rica she gained an appreciation of  how agriculture works in other societies. In the years since, she worked at various CSAs in our area, including Nook and Cranny on Harford Rd, and her brother-in-law’s CSA, Shagbark Gardens, in Danby. This involved selling at the Ithaca Farmer’s Market, where she came to know many area farmers. She has a feeling that the Market now attracts more tourists, rather than locals looking to shop for produce. Tourists don’t carry fresh food home. She also went back to the Youth Farm, working full time as assistant farm manager. And she learned to drive a tractor, a definite perk. 

Along the way she and her husband, Mark Whitmore, spent a “gap” year in Santa Fe, Mark worked as a snow board instructor (which Natalia tried rather unsuccessfully), and Natalia pursued study of medicinal herbs. She worked on an herb farm and for an online clinic. Medicinal herbs and herbs in general are a major focus of hers now. She grows herbs at Shagbark Gardens and plans to wholesale them and also make tea blends and other products. She advocates using many ‘weeds’, like nettle, burdock and mullein, that have naturalized in our region.

In her free time she reads up on the use of medicinal herbs and studies anatomy and physiology to better understand preventative medicine. She also reads fiction, likes to cook and listen to music (at the same time). She likes to hike and cross-country ski. She has visited Paraguay, where she was born and lived for her first months, and Spain. She loved the food in Paraguay and the popular caffeinated beverage, Maté, made from Ilex paraguariensis (related to holly).

Her first focus as MGV coordinator is to get to know the current volunteers and their existing projects and programs. She is hoping to encourage in person attendance at the monthly meetings, though she understands that the Zoom option is helpful to many. In the long run she is excited to strengthen the program’s community service, including readiness for the climate changes that are coming.

Rethinking fall clean-up

--Carol Eicher

Summer is transitioning into autumn and already the leaves are starting to drop. Time to rake up every leaf and cut down every herbaceous plant in your perennial border right? WRONG! With thanks to Becca Rodomsky-Bish, of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and Margaret T. McGrath, a Cornell plant pathologist, we now realize it is beneficial to think differently about the “traditional” ideas for cleaning up our garden beds, and all those dropped leaves. Leave the leaves. Leave the spent flower heads. Leave the flower stems.

Our excessive tidiness of the past has come at a cost to our environment. That garden litter provides habitat for insects, food sources for birds, and shelter for small mammals.

First things first. Let’s consider perennial flower beds. Remove and bag diseased material from plants such as peonies or roses. Remove weeds as well to prevent them from reseeding in the spring. Then, allow the rest of your planting to remain in the garden. Enjoy the foliage as it turns to autumn reds and yellows to eventually to the beautiful browns that can add winter interest. Through the winter, watch the birds visit the spent flowers such as echinacea. What you may not observe are the insects, many of them pollinators who seek winter homes in the hollow stems of such plants as goldenrods.

Come spring, don’t get too anxious to work the garden either or you will have defeated your purpose. The latest research recommendation is not to clean-up last year’s plant debris until five consecutive 50-degree days. I often cut the debris into smaller pieces 3-4 inches in size and leave them in the garden to break down as additional mulch.

In an ideal world we would leave the leaves where they fall, as in a forest. But for our yards, this is not realistic, as it could smother the lawn. Small leaves from trees such as honey locust can often be left where they fall and as they dry, they settle into the grass and act as additional nutrients. But for larger leaves such as maple trees, some management is generally required. Raking is the preferred method of removal since leaf blowers and mulching mowers can destroy the very insect life you are trying to nurture.

Leaves can be lightly raked into garden beds where next spring, they will serve to add nutrients back into the soil and act as weed suppressant. I know from experience that seeds and bulbs will be able to emerge through that leaf cover in the spring. Do you still have too many leaves? Don’t bag ‘em, compost them.

As for vegetable beds, your approach should be different. Remove the spent garden debris which is important for disease management since often pathogens can survive the winter in that debris. It’s best not to leave bare soil but rather plant a cover crop such as winter rye that can be incorporated back into the soil, again replenishing important nutrients.

So remember, gardening isn’t just about plants. It’s also about giving back to the soil and supporting a healthy insect and bird life. By re-thinking our fall clean-up and allowing our yards and gardens to look a little messy, we’re promoting a healthier  environment.

The Growline is working both at CCE and remotely

and is ready to answer your gardening questions!

Email us at growline1@gmail.com

If you live in Tompkins County, New York, trained Master Gardener Volunteers can answer your questions on flowers, fruits, herbs, houseplants, lawns, plant health & nutrition, plant identification, pruning, soils, trees & shrubs, vegetables, wildlife and more!

The best way to reach Growline volunteers is by email: growline1@gmail.com. Please describe the problem in full detail, include multiple photos of your problem to help us with diagnosis (an overall shot of the area where the problem plant is planted, a medium-range shot, and a close-up or two), and your phone number and email so we can call you to clarify your question or forward information as needed.

You can also call CCETC at (607) 272-2292 x161 and ask for the Growline. If the call goes to voicemail, make sure to say your name, spell your email address, and leave a telephone number so that a Growline volunteer will be able to contact you to clarify your question or to get more information if necessary.

Growline volunteers may not be able to solve your problem immediately, but you can be sure they will search for an authoritative answer and get back to you soon.

Learn more at the CCETC Growline Info Page.