Encourage willows, ranunculus, veggies

1 Willing willows: Propagate your willow. Willow trees and bushes are among the easiest plants to propagate. Weeping willow (Salix babylonica) and corkscrew willow (Salix matsudana variety Tortuosa) have distinctive foliage, with the former famously pendant and the latter consistently twisted or contorted, with stems twisted as well. You can root foot-long stems of these species in water or in the earth. In truth, willow stems and branches are so eager to root that they will do so at any time of the year. Back in May, I received a 4-foot pussy willow stem (Salix discolor) in a flower arrangement. I stuck it in the ground to serve as a stake for a dwarf pepper plant. Within a couple of months, it had produced a solid clump of roots and now it is primed to grow into a tree. At the recent close of the Jewish holiday Sukkot, which includes three willow shoots that are waved ceremoniously along with three other plant species, I took those shoots and, after removing their bottom leaves, placed them in a vase. Two weeks later, roots had begun to form. The particular willow species involved here is dwarf blue Arctic willow (Salix purpurea variety Nana), which grows 5 feet tall and wide in shady locations.

2 Ranunculus basics: Plant turban ranunculus (Ranunculus asiaticus). Plants grow out of underground bulbous structures known as corms and stand up well as cut flowers. A corm resembles a bulb except that, instead of being composed of layers of scales, it consists of solid tissue. Ranunculus flowers appear in red, orange, yellow, pink, cream and white and have the form of tightly wrapped turbans or multilayered roses, complemented by exquisitely ferny foliage. The clawlike ranunculus corms require a pre-planting treatment that begins with soaking them for three-four hours in a shallow bowl of water, preferably distilled, which will hydrate and plump the claws. Afterward, place them in a shallow tray covered with an inch or 2of potting soil, and put them in a cool place such as a garage for 10-14 days. Make sure the soil does not dry out but does not stay too moist, since the corms are susceptible to rot. After around two weeks, you should see shoots begin to emerge, at which time the corms may be planted 2inches deep in rich, humusy soil. Like daffodils and cyclamen, ranunculus will come back again each year as long as the soil in which they reside goes bone dry until next fall. If you like the familiar Ranunculus asiaticus, you will love “Ranunculus” (GIbbs and Smith, 2023), by Naomi Slade and Georgiana Lane. This is a wonderfully illustrated volume that includes a diversity of Ranunculus species — which number more than 1,800— many of which are garden-worthy.

3 More veggies, please: Keep planting vegetables, whether from seeds, transplants or bulbs. These include garlic, cabbage, peas, fava beans, beets, celery, artichokes, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, spinach, kale, onions, cilantro, chives, carrots, cauliflower, lettuce, turnip, arugula and shallots. I must confess that I have planted garlic and potatoes — garlic from store-bought cloves and potatoes from store-bought tubers that I cut into pieces, each having at least two eyes — in all seasons and eventually get a crop. After all, in their habitat bulbs stay in the ground in one form or another throughout the year, so why wouldn't they do that in our gardens too?

4 Another villain: After writing about our “worst weeds,” I received an email from Susan Savolainen, who wanted to include puncture vine (Tribulus terrestris) in this category. “With its goathead stickers puncturing bike tires, dogs' paws and tennis shoe soles,” she wrote, “it is literally a pain. It quickly takes over any bare soil.” This weed can be controlled on otherwise bare soil with vinegar in a spray bottle. While young plants can be killed with a 10% vinegar solution, mature plants may require 80%. Be aware, however, that vinegar lowers soil pH so that, unless you plan to grow blueberries where it is sprayed, you may want to find another solution — e.g., donning gloves, spraying herbicide on a sponge and then rubbing it on the puncture vine. Puncture vine is attractive, with its ferny foliage and yellow flowers, rivaled in beauty by only one other weed: scarlet pimpernel (Anagallis arvensis), whose flowers are actually salmon, not scarlet, and whose attractive, oppositely-paired miniature leaves creep along the ground; it's one weed that you can hardly bear to pull.

5 Practice division: If you haven't done so by now, you can still divide clumps of your daylilies, agapanthus, Shasta daisies, black-eyed Susans, arctotis, gaillardia, bearded iris and ornamental grasses. It's a good idea to mulch the ground around divisions after they are planted so water will be retained in the soil, and transplant shock to the traumatized roots will be minimized.