Miss Snippy - God love her - says what most of
us only wish we could. Know someone who
pruned their cherry tree down to nubbins?
Or sprayed their fruit tree with Orthene
when the bees were out? Or cut the top
out of a grand old fir?

Well, Miss Snippy does. And Miss Snippy's advice comes not with a sympathetic pat on the head, but a swift pat on the fanny. Whether discussing pruning or plant sales, windchimes or photinia, she's as happy to complain as she is to explain.




Miss Snippy’s Gardening Guide
By Wendy Tweten
As published in the Kingston Community News

Miss Snippy has lost patience with all these namby-pamby purveyors of horticultural advice. Whether on newspaper or radio, the typical gardening expert responds to all queries – no matter how inane – with an understanding smile and a metaphorical pat on the head. Pruned your cherry tree down to nubbins? That’s okay. Sprayed all your fruit trees with Orthene when the bees were out? Don’t fret.

Enough, I say. While the service-with-a-smile approach may be appropriate for most of those seeking counsel, Miss Snippy feels that what some people want is more of a metaphorical swift pat on the fanny.

First of all, let’s get a few terms straight: If you have needles on your roof, they are probably FIR needles, not PINE needles. Welcome to western Washington. “Hardy,” as used in gardening, is a specific term indicating a plant’s resistance to cold. It does not mean the plant is bullet-proof. Plant your hardy Japanese maple in a swamp and watch it expire. Add a hardy Red Jade crabapple to your front yard and, in the summer when apple scab and powdery mildew have reduced it to post-nuclear-war crispiness, the homeowners’ association will be at your doorstep waving torches and pitchforks.

Here’s another concept that certain homeowners find difficult: Plants grow. And some grow bigger than others. That cute little redwood may look cunning planted up against the porch – but there’s a reason they call them Giant Sequoias. Buy a Sunset Western Garden book and plan before you plant.

One of the most disturbing questions, too often heard, is this: “I have (pick one) crane fly, wasps, ant hills, aphids, snakes on my property; how do I kill them?” Kill, kill, kill…die, die, die! It’s the scorched earth approach to gardening. For heaven’s sake, the garden is not a New York penthouse; it cannot, will not, should not be perfected. A few leaves will be nibbled along the way; live with it.

Miss Snippy wishes to point out that crane fly larvae in the lawn is rarely a serious problem; treatment is recommended only if they are present in huge numbers (more than 40 per square foot). Stop chasing away the starlings and they’ll eat them (the starlings will eat the crane fly, that is; if it’s the other way round, you have my permission to initiate chemical warfare). Ant hills should be admired. Aphids – even those nasty black ones that take over the nasturtiums – usually can be ignored until you finally give up and compost the affected plants (which are usually annuals anyway). Spraying and dusting only throws off the balance, often making things harder in the long run.

Here’s another radical statement: bald-faced hornets and other paper-making wasps deserve a chance. Experience has taught me they aren’t nearly as feisty as their reputation suggests (I’ve spent a lot of time walking around and under their nests over the years with no dire result). In addition to being excellent predators of garden pests they are fascinating to watch (yes, yes…if you’re truly allergic, do what you must). Finally, snakes are your friends – stop being a baby.

While we’re at it, can we agree to leave lichen alone? That flat, ruffled stuff on branches and trunks isn’t a parasite; it’s an opportunist taking advantage of the view to do a little photosynthesizing. It may be an indicator of poor plant health (fewer leaves means more sunlight), but it’s not the cause. Yes, it can be gotten rid of chemically; no, Miss Snippy isn’t going to tell you how.

Slugs are another matter. You have Miss Snippy’s permission to kill slugs. Preferably with a big rock. You are, however, allowed to kill only the non-natives (which is hypocritical, I know, since earthworms and honey bees aren’t native either…but I don’t care). Our native banana slugs are woodland creatures that rarely venture into the garden. When one does turn up amongst the hostas, it always looks a bit sheepish – like a teetotaler caught having a night on the town. The proper way to deal with the reprobate is thus: pick it up (gardening gloves are recommended, but if none are handy a tissue will suffice – with the added benefit of leaving the offender properly chastened in a white, tar-and-feather fluff). Then toss the big guy back into the forest. A couple verses of Born Free and the job is done.

And there you have it, gentle reader. Whether you call it tough love or simple surliness, when it comes to gardening, sometimes the only way to encourage growth is with a bit of acid.



Miss Snippy Derides Again - Silver winner 2008 Garden Writer's Association
By Wendy Tweten
As published in the Kingston Community News and Northwest Garden News

Once again Miss Snippy feels compelled to put down the trowel, emerge from the herbaceous border, and throw down the gauntlet. Yet another caller to a radio garden show has set Miss Snippy to ranting and waving the secateurs. This time the caller related how she’d recently noticed a strange, scaly growth on the bark of several shrubs in her garden. So, without hesitation – and without reading anything as dull as a pesticide label – she promptly grabbed the first chemical that came to hand and sprayed the entire garden with Malathion.

Now let’s break this down: First of all, the strange growth was no doubt lichen, which, you might remember from Miss Snippy’s last missive, is nature’s benign and interesting little tree decoration. Lichen is a symbiotic relationship between a fungus and (usually) algae. They exist to photosynthesize, not to eat trees. In any case, lichen doesn’t deserve to die, so it’s good that Malathion doesn’t kill it. The insecticide is, however, great at snuffing out honey bees. Miss Snippy lives in hope that the Malathion will cause the lichen to mutate into a big, fanged, freak of nature that feeds upon homeowners who don’t read pesticide labels. Feed me, Seymour, indeed.

Think people; if the baby develops a rash, we don’t run for the cleaning cupboard and bathe him in Lysol (at least I hope not). Here’s the drill: 1) find out what you’re dealing with, 2) find out if it’s hurting anything, 3) if forced to take action, choose the least toxic control, and 4) follow label directions.

Anyway, we haven’t yet finished with “Miss Malathion.” When the lichen survived the poisoning, she proceeded to peel it from the branches (I suspect it also bothers her that her garden beds are full of nasty dirt). “There,” she can say when her beloved azalea – now devoid of lichen – goes to that great compost heap in the sky: “I told you that scaly stuff would kill my plants.” Of course, the poor azalea will have died from having its bark’s cambium layer skinned off along with the tightly-adhering lichen.

The moral is this: when it comes to the garden, a bit of benign neglect is required. Also, some people should stick to plastic plants.

In other matters, here’s something that even a few gardening experts have trouble with: pampas grass. While the plant itself can give plenty of trouble – its saw-edged blades being so sharp that, as a little girl, Miss Snippy’s fingers bled if she so much as looked at them – the problem I refer to here is one of pronunciation. “PAMPAS” rhymes with “stamp us.” The plant is from the South American PAMPAS. It’s not pompous grass. It has nothing to be pompous about. For heaven’s sake…you can’t even touch it.

On the other hand, some plant names, such as wisteria and clematis (even dahlia and tomato, if you’re feeling British), have a spelling that invites more than one pronunciation, either of which is acceptable. If anyone tries to correct you, you have Miss Snippy’s permission to call him or her a pompous something-that-rhymes-with-grass. The same is true for many botanical names that Miss Snippy sees listed with different pronunciations in different gardening resources (names such as agave, artemisia, ipomoea and gaura, to name only a few). Botany’s nomenclature is all made up anyway. Botanical Latin isn’t a real language; it’s a mishmash of Latin, Greek, place-names, surnames, etc. So don’t worry about mispronouncing botanical names, but do make an effort with common names such as “pampas” and words like “foliage,” (not “foil-age”…don’t get Miss Snippy started on “foil-age”).

Until next time, gentle readers. Miss Snippy continues to listen to the garden shows with morbid fascination, so you can be sure I’ll be back.




Miss Snippy’s Compliments of the Season
By Wendy Tweten
As published in the Kingston Community News

It occurs to Miss Snippy that Christmas and gardening have much in common. Either can be regarded as a delight or a chore, depending on the spirit into which one enters the thing. Holiday events are the blossoms of the season and, as with flowers, the greater the advance planning the better the results, though one knows that for all the effort the show will be bright, festive, and regrettably brief. Which is why, when it comes to holidays and gardens alike, it is as well to enjoy the process. The final product isn’t really the point. The joy is in the doing. But take heart gentle readers, unlike misspent youth, neither is irremediable. If you mishandle the gingerbread or the geraniums, there will be another chance.

Since we’ve already pulled out the hoe, let’s finish tending the plants. Without further ado, Miss Snippy invites you to eat the poinsettias. Now, now…Miss Snippy wouldn’t trade her readers’ health even for a double load of washed dairy manure. The point is that poinsettias aren’t poisonous. The reputed toxicity of these gaudy holiday clichés is one of the most deeply entrenched of modern myths. Poor persecuted poinsettias. In fact, research by Ohio State University has proven that no part of the poinsettia is poisonous. A 50-lb child would need to eat more than 500 poinsettia leaves to suffer any ill effects at all – no mean feat, considering getting most children to eat so much as a single leaf of spinach is an accomplishment.

But getting back to Christmas, how can a holiday with such good intentions be so crucified by controversy? When Miss Snippy was a girl, religion was strictly “don’t ask, don’t tell.” It was one of the three topics studiously avoided in all polite social situations (I wish I could tell you the other two, but we mustn’t be gauche). In those golden days of innocence, when Miss Snippy was happily unwrapping her first little tike watering can, “Merry Christmas” was a simple salutation. When did it become a statement of defiance? “Merry Christmas” is inclusive; it’s a gesture of friendship and acceptance. It forces nothing but a friendly greeting upon a fellow human being.

While we’re discussing the insipient secularism of Christmas, how many times can one hear Little Saint Nick by the Beach Boys on store PA systems before rushing to the nearest poinsettia display and attempting to eat several thousand leaves? How one longs for the peal of Silver Bells or a flock of Herald Angels.

One also longs for mincemeat. Not that insipid goo that comes in jars at the grocery. Miss Snippy is dreaming of old-fashioned, pre-cholesterol, homemade English mincemeat, made of real meat, brandy, chopped apple, currants, butter, and lots of lovely suet. A slice of authentic mince pie is a meal unto itself. And as long as we’re discussing time-honored Yuletide alimentation, there’s nothing wrong with fruitcake apart from mass production. The quality of fruitcake depends on who’s at the business end of the spoon. When properly made, fruitcake is a thing of beauty and good taste. We don’t, however, require that every tradition be observed: Miss Snippy’s holidays are no less jolly for the absence of plum pudding.

Although Miss Snippy is loath to complain about Christmas cards, as they seem to come fewer each year, we must take a firm stand. A Christmas card should be green and gold and crimson, with carolers and children sledding and one-horse open sleighs. Give me a sentimental missive of mistletoe and holly and cozy English inns with snow around their chins (thank you, Ogden Nash). Gilding and glitter is not required, but appreciated. No one wants to see Rudolph driving a Humvee or Santa in a Speedo sipping rum punch on a beach. It’s enough to put one off the eggnog.

Alas, gentle reader. Space grows short and we have not yet touched on family newsletters or houses so enthusiastically decorated they appear to have vomited Christmas. May the coming holidays bring moments of magic into your life. As for Miss Snippy, on Christmas morning she’s hoping to find that double load of washed dairy manure. But not under the tree, please.




Miss Snippy Picks Up the Pruners
By Wendy Tweten
As published in Northwest Garden News

Miss Snippy wonders what it is about rose pruning that brings out the Queen of Hearts in otherwise peaceable and tender-hearted gardeners. “Off with their heads!” they cry, brandishing their Felcos, and rose carnage ensues. We can only imagine it to be a sacrificial rite born of pent-up, pre-spring aggression triggered by too much dark and too little Vitamin D.

While there’s no doubt that rose-whacking is a popular late-February/early-March pastime here in the Pacific Northwest, Miss Snippy wishes to point out that lopping hybrid teas back to six inches each year is a deeply entrenched gardening faux pas. Of course, if you’re growing the flowers for exhibition, or if that leggy and long-ignored Queen Elizabeth is scheduled for rejuvenation, whack away. But repeated shock-and-awe pruning gradually strips the vigor from our hybrid teas, grandifloras and floribundas. The reason is simple: roses store energy in their canes. Annual pruning is beneficial, but the wholesome approach involves the complete removal of one or two of the oldest canes from mature plants, as well as any dead or spindly growth (less than the thickness of a pencil). Finish the job by trimming the remaining canes back by no more than two-thirds to an outward-facing bud, and your rosebush will be ready to fulfill its destiny providing fodder for the neighborhood deer.

Since Miss Snippy has already touched on the thorny issue of rose-growing, she must insist that if your rose is a habitual martyr to blackspot and mildew, you give a martyr its due and burn it at the stake. Certainly heaven awards no points to a gardener who provides asylum to an ugly or difficult plant. You have not given birth to it, neither have you pledged your troth. There are too many good plants that will handsomely reward your attentions to waste another square foot of precious garden space on a landscape leper.

Speaking of landscape lepers, Miss Snippy maintains that common photinia should be pruned with a chainsaw, to the ground, as often as it takes to kill it. Photinia x fraseri – that darling of the big box stores – looks ragged if sheared, is prone to a nasty (but regrettably not fatal) leaf spot, and unfurls its bronzy-red leaves just in time to start a screaming match with the purple tulips, pink-flowered plums, and yellow forsythia of spring. If you consider photinia attractive and useful, Miss Snippy respectfully submits that you are wrong.

On the other hand, Miss Snippy feels that someone must champion the beleaguered English laurel (Prunus laurocerasus) and Leyland cypress (x Cupressocyparis leylandii). Overused? Absolutely. Too large for the average urban lot? Clearly. However, these two behemoths have their uses. For the landowner with acreage, either one will form an impenetrable, healthy, drought-tolerant (once established), comparatively inexpensive, and attractive wall of foliage. Give them a 30-foot-wide plot of ground, take care not to block the neighbor’s view, and you’ll never even have to prune them.

Here’s some important pruning information that experts often neglect to share: what’s true for a mature plant may be all wrong for a young one. Though the following plants like the rough stuff once established, if a newly-planted clematis or butterfly bush (Buddleja davidii) or red-twig dogwood (Cornus sanguinea or stolonifera) is cut back hard, there’s a good chance it will struggle – if, indeed, you ever see it again. Here’s another example: When Miss Snippy was a budding gardener, she planted a Kwanzan flowering cherry (Prunus serrulata, 'Kwanzan'), assiduously following the common wisdom that a cherry should never be pruned. Decades later, Miss Snippy is the chagrined owner of a formidable, fluffy pink octopus. Eight massive branches now rise from the graft site, twisting and twining and causing Miss Snippy to whimper each time she walks past. An older and more experienced Miss Snippy can see plainly which of these branches should have been removed when they were mere whips. The moral: prune saplings to shape, no matter the species.

Miss Snippy’s gardening definitions
This month we explore the horticultural crew cuts known as coppicing and pollarding. Coppicing, or stooling, means cutting a tree or shrub 2-3 inches from the ground every one or more years. In home gardens, bright-stemmed, vigorous dogwoods and willows, such as Salix alba, are frequently coppiced to force colorful new growth. Less vigorous growers, such as Cornus sanguinea ‘Midwinter Fire’, benefit from semi-coppicing in which only one half to one third of the oldest stems are removed each year. Pollarding (sounding like pollen), or heading back, is the same as coppicing except upon a framework of branches often at the top of a trunk. Pollarding is not the same as the ill-advised act of tree topping. Coppicing and pollarding are best done just as plants are breaking dormancy. Not all trees make good pollards, and not all shrubs are candidates for coppicing, so research is required. Oh yes, and don’t start either practice until the plant is established.




Miss Snippy Weeds Through the Catalogs
By Wendy Tweten
As published in Northwest Garden News

At one time, Miss Snippy would have said the price of weeds is a choked, aesthetically-beleaguered backyard. But now she knows the actual cost is around $2.95 a packet. Miss Snippy has been reading the seed catalogs, and the seed catalogs are selling things that Miss Snippy would be delighted to give away: lamb’s-quarters, miner’s lettuce, purslane, sorrel, stinging nettle, and dandelion, to name a few. If the companies are in the market for seed stock, Miss Snippy’s ship has come in.

Evidently there are no weeds, only misunderstood herbs. Purslane is high in Omega-3 fatty acids, dandelion leaves are touted as a liver stimulant, and nettles are rich in iron and vitamin C. While most of this weedy fare can be eaten fresh, it’s recommended that nettles be cooked before serving unless your guests are anticipating an evening of combined epicurean dining and corporal mortification.

As it turns out, the seed companies have missed out on two of the tastiest troublemakers. Shepherd’s purse is reportedly a stir-fry delicacy in China. Common chickweed, as Miss Snippy can attest, is quite delicious raw. It is also considered to be a holistic cancer preventative. Chickweed also contains saponin – as does asparagus, oats, licorice, tomatoes and many other foods – which can be toxic in excessive amounts. Miss Snippy would be in a position to corner the market on chickweed seed, except that she has never actually seen the seed. Considering the territory this weed has conquered in our vegetable patch, we suspect spontaneous generation.

While we’re placing our orders, let’s send away to Stokes Tropicals for some handsome Equisetum hyemale. Perhaps you know it better as horsetail, that aggressive and undying brute whose presence makes gardeners sell their homes and move to condos. But it sounds lovely. The catalog describes it as “an exotic-looking plant that is easy to grow.” Miss Snippy considers this the understatement of the year. Equisetum dates back to the mid-Devonian, 350 million years ago, and boasts relatives that grew to be ninety-foot giants. Miss Snippy has a theory as to the extinction of the dinosaurs: the horsetail ate them.

As the above example illustrates, a little research is a good thing when mail-ordering seed or plants. It’s not unusual to find species from the local noxious weed list offered for sale, including fennel (Foeniculum vulgare), butterfly bush (Buddleja davidii), clary sage (Salvia sclarea), milk thistle (Silybum marianum), and absinth wormwood (Artemisia absinthium). Of course, Miss Snippy may have one or two of these randy rogues in her own garden, but she practices strict birth control by deadheading before the seed sets. Miss Snippy solemnly swears her dying words will be “rip out the buddleja!”

Gardening catalogs, Miss Snippy observes, avoid such precise terms as “invasive,” “rampant,” and “blackspot on a stick.” Thus, when plant-shopping, one must do some decoding to interpret the true nature of those endearing little bundles of roots and shoots:

•Continuous waves of bloom: the plant will be covered in dead petals all season
•Reblooms throughout summer: expect one flower every few weeks
•Huge blooms: the flowers will open facedown on the ground
•Drought tolerant: prone to rot
•Unique: ugly
•Connoisseur’s plant: unless you’re Dan Hinkley, you’re going to kill it
•Blue: they’re not fooling anyone, we can all see it’s purple
•Popular: every front yard in every new development has one
•Erect, sword-like leaves: you’ll put your eye out
•Fruit persists into winter: becoming dangling mushballs if the birds won’t eat them
•Makes a delicious jam: fruit the birds will adore
•Sprightly flavor: prepare to pucker up (sometimes misspelled “spritely” in which case it tastes like elf)

So, go forth and order. Surely every nursery package that arrives on the doorstep adds years to a gardener’s life. Just keep a close eye on any gentrified greens you invite home, or your proud potager will quickly become a rogues’ gallery.




Miss Snippy Patronizes the Plant Sales
By Wendy Tweten
As published in Northwest Garden News

Miss Snippy demands to know who brought bishop’s weed to the plant sale. One can, perhaps, forgive the starry-eyed garden club matron who has shared her Japanese anemone (though its fluffy, little girl charm masks a Xena-the-princess-warrior nature), but – good heavens! – bishop’s weed? Does one pot up Scotch broom from the vacant lot next door and ask a dollar for it? Shall we pass along Himalayan blackberry? If you have not met bishop’s weed (Aegopodium podagraria), count your blessings. “Rampant” and “scourge” pretty much sum it up. There’s a reason its common name ends in “weed.” Miss Snippy has no idea who this bishop was, but we suspect him of being a double agent for the dark side.

Miss Snippy has a point to make. One must be a savvy shopper when attending the myriad annual plant sales that sprout up like wildflowers this time of year. That said, by all means do attend. The events are high adventure: one feels like Delavay botanizing an untapped continent. The suburban plant hunter rises at dawn and, armed with nothing more than a Sunset Western Garden Book and a sturdy bag, stakes out a spot at the front of the line. Anticipation mounts: will rarities or weeds be the result of this expedition? No matter, in either case the price will be right.

When approaching the amateur plant sale, or receiving a green gift from a well-meaning but horticulturally clueless friend, it is of the essence to understand what you are about to receive and why the giver is getting rid of it. Was the plant so hale and hearty (read "aggressive") that the generous gardener had to remove chunks of it in self defense? Is it an appreciated but unneeded seedling of some choice ornamental? Was the plant displaced by re-landscaping? Is the specimen a poor performer? This last instance is a potential boon to the receiver, as many a worthy perennial is simply a victim of the wrong conditions (a personal case in point being the beloved maidenhair fern we were forced to give to a good home with moist shade). If the ailing plant turns out to be an irredeemably thriftless slacker, off to the compost with it and no regrets.

Of course, garden club sales are also often treasure troves of the florae non gratae of neighborhood nurseries. In this case the pot you buy may contain a) a dead stick, b) surplus stock, c) a healthy yet still-dormant perennial, d) a pot-bound beauty that yearns to be free, e) something so rare and wonderful that the plebian clientele simply didn’t recognize it for what it was. One can hope.

Miss Snippy offers this warning: A plant need not be registered as noxious to stage a backyard coup. Unfortunately, these “over-performers” are frequently found on the fundraiser tables since they are easy to propagate and there’s always plenty to go around. Mints, horseradish, Jerusalem artichoke, and Houttuynia cordata are prime examples, although they will behave nicely when placed in the solitary confinement of a pot. (However, in the case of Jerusalem artichoke, no one knows what to do with it, so why bother?) The list of opportunistic ornamentals includes running bamboos, gooseneck loosestrife (Lysimachia clethroides), lily-of-the-valley (Convallaria majalis), Pacific bleeding heart (Dicentra formosa), cape fuchsia (Phygelius hybrids), Japanese coltsfoot (Petasites japonicus), artemisias such as ‘Valerie Finnis’, Russian sage (Perovskia hybrids), Japanese anemone (Anemone x hybrida), and some euphorbia species including E. amygdaloides var. Robbiae and E. griffithii ‘Fireglow’ - and if you think these spreaders seem daunting, we haven’t even touched on self-seeders. While they all have an admittedly roguish charm, the fastidious gardener may not appreciate them popping up hither and yon with a cutlass in their teeth.

Before moving along, Miss Snippy must confess that she has seen these bumptious brigands used to good effect in the garden of a friend, Mrs. C., who finds herself no longer able to weed and tidy her borders as she once did. A couple of years ago Mrs. C. turned her garden over to a cabal of these serious competitors, along with some nice rambling cranesbill (Geranium species) and a few other strong performers. Now Mrs. C. spends her summers relaxing while the plants throttle each other in the backyard: surprisingly attractive actually. We’re not sure, but we believe the entire tangle must be mowed to the ground each spring to allow the riot to begin anew. If you’re contemplating such a drastic plan, keep two things in mind: First of all, there are some plants which, once invited in, will never leave. Second, even Mrs. C. despises bishop’s weed.

Miss Snippy’s gardening definitions: pollenizer vs. pollinator
Here we address two of the most commonly confused terms in home horticulture. A pollenizer is a plant that provides pollen to another plant. Think of it as the papa plant. A pollinator is an agent, such as an animal, wind or water that transports pollen. Therefore, bees will pollinate, not pollenize, your flowers. Now you try: Will another apple variety pollenize or pollinate your Gravenstein?




Miss Snippy Knows Beans
By Wendy Tweten
As published in Northwest Garden News

Before introducing our main topic, Miss Snippy wishes to pose the question: wind chimes, euphonious refrain of the choir celestial, or soundtrack of hell?

Miss Snippy’s new neighbors have just moved in and, although they are a hundred yards away and invisible through a small woodland, Miss Snippy is being treated to the tintinnabulation that so musically wells from their wind chimes. Each chime keeps time in a sort of runic rhyme, and Miss Snippy feels – as she toils in her garden – that she is forever drifting into a dream sequence or, perhaps, a fugue state. Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle go the chimes. Twitch, twitch, twitch goes Miss Snippy’s eye. Wind chimes are the auditory version of the security lights on the house next door that nightly transform your bedroom into Wrigley Field.

But let us turn our thoughts to happier things: namely, vegetable gardens. Did you know that vegetable gardening is the hot “new” trend? One consumer survey anticipated spending on vegetable and fruit plants this spring would exceed all other garden purchases except those lawn-related. And why not? Pop in a few cabbages, an apple tree, a tomato plant or two, and soon you’ll be gamboling about the garden, gathering armfuls of picture-perfect produce while the gentle forest creatures look on.

Miss Snippy suggests you wake up and hear the wind chimes. Vegetable gardening is a tedious, exacting, and time-consuming occupation. Furthermore, don’t expect the produce to look as squeaky-clean as that purchased from the supermarket. Take Miss Snippy’s advice: if you’re going into vegetable gardening half-heartedly, don’t go into it at all. Join a CSA and pre-purchase shares of a local farmer’s harvest, or make weekly pilgrimages to a farmers’ market. Pay whatever they ask; it will be much less trouble – and almost certainly cheaper – in the long run.

There. Now that we have the disclaimer out of the way, know that being the master of your own private potager does have its charms. If one gardens organically, and truly enjoys the process (bed preparation, planting, weeding, feeding, watering, fending off pests, harvesting, etc.), the reward is tasty, healthful food served up with a heaping helping of personal satisfaction. It also allows you, the gardener, to grow whichever varieties catch your fancy.

Year after year Miss Snippy sweats and swears in her own vegetable patch, eventually bearing her asparagus and carrots triumphantly kitchen-ward. Consequently, we are full of agricultural insight. First of all, we advise beginning with just one or two crops. For instance, many gardeners specialize in tomatoes (which Miss Snippy recommends growing in pots). Don’t bother with melons, okra, beefsteak tomatoes, eggplant, sweet potatoes, apricots, and similar crops unsuited to our Northwest climate unless you’re more interested in challenge than success.

For the very easiest of vegetable fare – mostly direct seed, water, and harvest – try lettuce (which can be cut to two inches and allowed to re-crop), spinach (like lettuce, primarily cool-season stuff), bush beans (green beans that need no staking), pumpkins and zucchini (though they appreciate a little fish fertilizer), garlic and shallots (plant bulbs in October, feed throughout spring, harvest in July), and Swiss chard (‘Bright Lights’ is fantastically ornamental with neon-bright stems). In addition, arugula, cilantro, and parsley are easy to grow in the maritime NW and will reseed themselves into infinity.

Vegetables require a minimum six hours of direct sun daily (lettuce and spinach being cautious exceptions). Many vegetables are handsome enough to include in your ornamental beds, and, conversely, flowers add panache to the kitchen garden. Here’s a secret weapon: floating row cover. Reemay and other brands of spun polyester fabric are excellent for protecting carrots from rust fly, corn seeds from birds, and broccoli and cabbage from the army of caterpillars that feast upon it. Used with or without support hoops, row cover also shades and warms seedlings.

The real dilemma may be finding time to do justice to your fresh and flavorful bounty once it arrives in the kitchen. That’s why Miss Snippy recommends every earnest tiller of the soil choose a partner with an equal affinity for the culinary arts. Imagine the bliss of dumping a basket of dirty potatoes and leeks into the sink and being greeted with a smile and the promise of porrusalda for dinner.

But vegetable gardening isn’t only about healthy eating; it’s also a healthy workout with moderate weightlifting, aerobic exercise, muscle toning, and stretching. It gets a body out in the elements to enjoy sunshine, birdsong, and the company of pets who view the strawberry plants as comfy cushions. Best of all, gardening is a superb stress reducer – unless, of course – your neighbor has wind chimes.

Miss Snippy’s Gardening Definitions: Soil amendment, compost, tilth, mulch, humus
A soil amendment is anything mixed into the soil to improve its fertility or tilth. The most common soil amendment is compost, decomposed organic matter valued for creating favorable conditions for beneficial soil organisms and earthworms. This improves the soil’s tilth, or structure. A soil with good tilth is open and fluffy with large pore spaces that accommodate both air and water, fostering strong root growth. Tilling is actually harmful to soil tilth. Mulch is any material, from compost to grass clippings and newspaper to gravel, laid atop garden beds to control weeds and conserve water. Humus is rich, dark, fully decomposed compost.




Miss Snippy Chains Herself to a Tree
By Wendy Tweten
As published in Northwest Garden News

Let’s just bulldoze the forest into one big pile and light a match, shall we? Who needs big, messy trees when we can commune perfectly well with nature while steering our riding mowers across our monotonous and overmedicated lawns? At least the lawn makes a nice change from condos and concrete. Though Miss Snippy shies away from bandwagons of all types – finding the ride uncomfortable and the destination uncertain – she feels the time has come to chain herself to a tree: metaphorically if not physically. Of late, Miss Snippy’s heart is breaking at the sight of woodland ripped down acre by acre around her once sylvan little village. I guess we just can’t have anything nice.

Why, oh why do so many landowners (not to mention developers) feel that the only good tree is a dead tree? Miss Snippy has seen mature firs and big-leaf maples chopped in half, leaving naked poles jutting skyward like some bizarre, pagan shrine. We have seen lovely woodlands razed, only to be allowed to re-grow into thickets of Scotch broom, evergreen blackberry, and a host of other invasive non-natives. The homes of other species are plowed under to make way for ours. What are we doing? More importantly, where does it end?

Miss Snippy was interested to learn, from the book Botany for Gardeners by Brian Capon, that plants – photosynthesizing plants – may well be responsible for creating Earth’s current atmosphere. Photosynthesis, a magical process to which nearly all life on Earth owes its existence, is in itself reason enough to revere plants. But, as if that wasn’t enough, the vegetation that once flourished in the primeval swamps gobbled up huge amounts of carbon dioxide, enough to change the composition of the air itself, and took it to the grave. Mankind is now busily releasing all this prehistoric CO² back into the atmosphere by burning these ancient fossil fuels, while simultaneously eradicating the huge forests that act to recapture the gas. We all really do owe a tree a hug.

Miss Snippy firmly asserts, and you fellow gardeners will agree, that the only excuse for removing woodland is to create garden. Of course, if it’s nice woodland, it’s best to simply add to the gift you’ve been given; think of it as redecorating your house rather than burning it down and starting over. The garden of Heronswood is a good example of native forest interplanted with many wonderful things. How satisfying to possess such an appropriate venue for arisaema, asarum, cardiocrinum, trillium, polygonatum, disporum, uvularia and the lovely pagoda dogwood, Cornus alternifolia.

There are many ways to work with nature: mature trees may be limbed up or thinned to augment a view without killing the tree. Some homeowners are willing to leave a handsome, view-blocking deciduous tree in situ as a reason to welcome winter. And big, sturdy trees make excellent scaffolds for climbing hydrangeas or Clematis montana.

When augmenting existing woodland, Miss Snippy finds it necessary to keep new plants well watered the first year or two, since native roots are greedy. We also suggest the addition of a good quantity of rustic garden seating from which one may watch the gambolings of the towhees, chipmunks, and banana slugs. Remember, even if your banana slugs are as big as wiener dogs, they are native and should be protected – though you are allowed to salt them with your tears as they skeletonize the Kirengenshoma.

If you are the proud owner of a wooded or shady site, let go your dreams of turfdom. Lawn wants at least half a day of direct sun. And even the slightly shade-tolerant fescues will be patchy at best beneath conifers, which are notoriously heavy drinkers. Let the moss have it, that’s Miss Snippy’s advice.

But what if you have no woodland? What if the developer left your lovely new tract house enveloped by nothing more than dry and rocky subsoil? For non-gardeners, Miss Snippy recommends a heavily-starched American flag and a derelict dune buggy. If, however, you aspire beyond your own personal moonscape, consider planting a mini-woodland. Start by replenishing the soil with at least four inches (more is better) of a good three-way topsoil (loam, sand, and compost). Consider including columbine and mahonia for the hummingbirds, serviceberries for the song birds, and some Queen-Anne’s-lace and asters on the edges for the butterflies. And, please, plant a tree.

Miss Snippy’s gardening definitions: Water sprouts, suckers, and spurs
First of all, if you have a waterspout in your garden, run for your life. A waterspout is a type of tornado that pulls ocean water upward. The term you may be searching for is water sprout: a rapidly-growing, vertical shoot that arises from the trunk or branches of a tree. If you’re feeling scientific, call them epicormic sprouts. Water sprouts are often triggered by tree topping and other severe pruning. Suckers have a growth habit similar to water sprouts, but arise from a tree’s roots, base, or from below a bud union (as on grafted trees and roses). Water sprouts and suckers are usually viewed with annoyance by gardeners. On the other hand, spurs are fruit-producing stubby branches employed by certain varieties of fruit trees and vines. Spur pruning encourages the formation of spurs.

MISS SNIPPY

Gardening in the acid range
Words by Wendy

Miss Snippy:
because some people should stick to plastic plants