Opening the Mailbag
Is this a direct rip-off of Roch Kubatko’s brilliant mailbox columns for MASN Sports?
Absolutely. The only difference is Kubatko’s blogs and columns are absolutely hilarious, not to mention well-written, timely, insightful, worth reading, and highly recommended.
How much mail do you get each week after one of your blog posts? The rumor is it’s a big number.
I’ve never actually counted myself, but my PR/marketing firm tells me the average total is greater than zero. Come to think of it, they quit last week.
Does pressure-washing the deck, the back patio, or patio chairs count as “gardening”?
Any activity that takes place in the back of my house, other than eating, constitutes gardening. Pressure washing fits the bill. For those of you who have spent precious hours becoming a Master Gardener, with all the specialized knowledge it requires to get that designation, we thank you for your efforts, but I doubt you had to study how to get the mold off the deck rails.
Do you think leaving the foliage from daffodils that bloomed months ago is a good idea? Now that you’ve had your first spring harvest of blossoms, what do you think? Are you looking forward to them blooming next year?
Everyone seems to agree that you should wait for the stems to die back to the ground before removing them. In the meantime, they look like weeds to me and every instinct in my body wants to cut them back to ground level asap. I’m unwilling to call my daffodils a failed experiment since this was their first year. I got about a dozen flowers after planting 50 bulbs, give or take. Admittedly, I did like the bright colors so early in the season. I’ll wait to see what happens with them next year.
What is the biggest “pet peeve” you have about your garden that you can never correct?
To be clear about this, sharing my “pet peeves” about gardening is something I’ve been doing since week one of this newsletter. But you ask for the “biggest” pet peeve along with “something I can’t correct,” which makes you (no offense) somewhat annoying. How about this? Most mornings throughout the spring and summer, because the sun is hovering directly over the horizon, I can’t see my garden at all from the house. Squinting directly into the sun is something to avoid during solar eclipses and on garden morning patrol. I’ve considered walking around in the garden with my back to the sun so that I can see my plants. So far, I haven’t implemented this plan, but there’s always tomorrow.
Word is that you’ve trained the deer not to eat your hosta plants. How did you do it? Is it true that venison is your favorite entrée?
Yes, my deer education classes begin promptly at 5 a.m. and I only allow one deer family at a time. My lectures include a variety of subjects including 1) Why eating meat is good for you, 2) You should aways consider dinner at my neighbors’ house, and 3) If you eat “deer resistant” plants you should check your healthcare plan to see if you’re covered. Unfortunately, venison tastes too “gamey” for my palette. However, I hear that smoking it using oak, pecan, hickory, or cherry wood can do the trick.
You don’t seem to be a fan of bringing cut flowers into the house. Why do you keep buying flowers at Safeway when you work so hard to grow them in your own backyard?
I paid too much money and invested too much sweat equity not to see the flowers on the plant where they belong. Five dollars for a bunch of annuals from the supermarket seems like a good deal to me.
If you had to choose between dead nettle (lamium) and barrenwort (epimedium) to start in right field for the Baltimore Orioles tonight, which one would it be?
Tough call. Neither name fits on the back of a jersey easily, but they can both cover a lot of ground in the outfield. (Note to readers: This is hilarious if you know that both lamium and epimedium are ground cover plants used to quickly fill in spaces in flower beds.)
Your turtlehead won the plant of the year award last year. Do you think it can repeat this year? Any rumors on how the judge is leaning?
The way the garden is growing this season, this will be a close vote. Other than that, I can’t reveal any information that might be used to alter the Vegas odds for the contest.
You’ve often complained that you don’t know the rules for pruning hydrangea plants. This year two hydrangeas are blooming for the first time. Did you have anything to do with it?
I must humbly conclude that I had much to do with my hydrangeas blooming this season. I had the remarkable skill and wisdom to leave them alone.
So far this year you haven’t returned any perennial plants to Sun Nurseries for a refund. Is this because you’ve reached your maximum point of humiliation, or is it due to something else?
It’s not my fault that nothing died, except for two moonbeam coreopsis that I bought at Sun Nurseries on 7/1/2023 for a total of $20. They’ve been good to me at Sun Nurseries, and I guess that if I dug around for the root ball of each plant and tried to claim a refund based on the warranty they would honor it (I have a few weeks before it’s out of the one-year warranty period),( actually it’s now past 7/1 23 so no luck there). I just like the idea of going “clean” for an entire season, even if it might cost me 10 bucks.
How is it going with your bird feeder? You said you were going to start feeding the birds again?
I did start feeding the birds last month with the same feed mix that I used last year. The birds emptied the feeder in less than a week. What a great show. I guess at some point I should refill the feeder.
You still haven’t planted anything in the “empty bed” near the steps leading up to the driveway. The situation is pitiful. Do you at least have some ideas while there is still time to plant this season?
I have a million ideas but low conviction. It reminds me of my days running portfolios where “low conviction trades” were not allowed. The latest ideas include shade annuals, shade annual seeds, shade perennials, shade perennial ground covers. It’s not looking good for a decision anytime soon.
Martha Stewart is running commercials for Miracle-Gro where she looks into the camera and declares she is a “dirt nerd.” What’s your claim to fame?
I have built a brand around being ignorant about gardening – so pathetic, in fact, that it’s entertaining to a small number of readers who don’t believe I’m willing to embarrass myself by writing about it on a weekly basis. For the record, no sponsors have approached me to represent their gardening products in my newsletter or elsewhere. And yes, Martha, we all saw you on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue.
So much for reading the mail. Next week we will get back to our usual fun in the garden where I hope to entertain and educate you about perennial gardening. In the meantime, if you have the urge to share this newsletter with your friends, associates, and family, feel free to use the share button to easily send them a link, or you can send them a link at kensolow@substack.com. If you are interested in looking at more Painful Education of a Type A Gardener content, click on the small images of me at the top of the newsletter. That should send you directly to the newsletter archive.