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Eco-gardening is at its best in The Monday Garden
April 27, 2003, issue 57

This runaway peach tree, eking out a living at the edge of a church parking lot, is a member of a grand old family: Rosacaeae, or “Rose” in English. The rose family provides an astonishing number of our most familiar and useful plants.

Eco-gardening is at its best in The Monday Garden
June 22, 2003, issue 65

This bird-friendly, easy-care serviceberry, gracing a friend's front yard, will brighten any rainy June day.

Serviceberry is one of North America's amazing small-sized native trees. It's four-season gorgeous, great for wildlife, and hardy as can be. The Latin species name is Amellanchier. There are several varieties

Eco-gardening is at its best in The Monday Garden
November 16, 2003, Issue 87

Crabapples are near prefect yard trees. Breath-taking spring flowers; pretty summer leaves; lovely fruit; interesting winter trunks and bark; yet small enough so there's space for other favorites. That's a lot for which to be thankful but there's more.

In addition to their decorative value (that's designer-ese for "pretty"), crabapples are high in pectin for jelly and high in acid for vinegar. The spring flowers are adored (adorned?) by pollen-loving insects, including honeybees, and by hummingbirds. In the fall, I see squirrels furiously burying the fruit and the tree limbs crowded with starlings, monk parrots (South American JFK-escapees), mocking birds, robins, and finches. Other furry folk including deer, raccoons, rabbits, possum, skunk, fox and coyotes also favor crabapples. All spread the seeds.

Crabapples are cold hardy into southern Canadian and stand up to heat down to northern Florida. Like most members of the rose family, crabapples, and their "eating apple" descendants like full sun, moist but well-drained, acidy soil. But note the damage to the leaves of the above crabapple, a hybrid that's living on its own at the edge of Stamford, CT's Scalzi Park. Like garden roses, when presented with less than prefect conditions (and sometimes even then), crabapples are subject to a range of insect and fungal pests.

But please, hold the 'Cides (pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, etc). Your local nurseryman or landscaper will recommend that you combat the pests by spraying this or spreading that, and pour on some fertilizer too. And he'll make money selling you the stuff; but, then, you did ask how to get rid of the pests, not whether they're harmless.



While 'sides (yams, squash, spinach, potatoes, etc) may be great on the Thanksgiving table, 'cides are, well, "'cides". Just like suicides, regicides, and patricides, they kill stuff.

The Monday Garden, November 28, 2004, Issue 140
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Thanksgiving and crabapples are a good match. Last year's Thanksgiving issue noted that "sides" such as yams and crabapple jelly are good to eat, but " 'cides" (e.g. pesticides) are not.

Picture: this ancient crabapple gracing the lawn of Stamford's First Presbyterian Church is not sprayed. June 2004

Last year's issue also talked about growing crabapples without 'cides. It's easy; Mother Nature does it all the time, as documented by the pictures in this year's article. Growing crabapples without 'cides is actually easier than making apple pie if you get one of the new disease-resistant hybrids. Plant in full sun in well drained soil; mulch well and water when dry.

None of the crabapples in our local parks get sprayed but they do just fine, thank you. Ditto those that grow wild along the roads and in the woods, including the adorable little one in Stamford, CT's Hoyt Street Alley. The wild ones are mostly descendants of our native varieties which were here long before 'cides were invented.