Idea File: Garden calculations for the math challenged

How much compost is in this bag?

Today's Idea File is really an "I-Have-No-Idea File" – for when someone asks you how much mulch or manure or compost or topsoil you need to cover an area, and you answer, "I have no idea!"

This is especially tricky in Canada, where we straddle metric and imperial measurements. If you measure your garden in feet, at the garden centre you'll discover that they often sell manure (or mulch or compost or topsoil) in litres or kilos. Even with all metric, this linear-to-volume conversion can make your eyes rattle.

I'll focus on the feet-to-litres calculations here, because it's so oddball. Later, you'll find link that takes you to garden math formulas for many other purposes and measurements.

So: if your planting area is a single rectangle, it's simple to measure its length and width, then multiply the two to get the total area. If it's 10 feet long by 6 feet wide, that's an area of 60 square feet. The same calculation (length x width = area) works in metric, too.

If you have more than one garden bed, calculate the area of each bed, then add the areas together to get your total area.

To add a 3" layer of manure on top of your beds:

• Multiply the total area by 3 (if you're adding 2" or 4", use that number instead). 
• In my example, 60 square feet times 3 inches is 180.  
• Now that isn't cubic feet, but remember that number for your next calculation. (area x depth in inches = remember that number!)

Ordering manure (or compost or topsoil) by the cubic yard, like the big bag pictured above, can be a little less expensive and can also give you a wider range of media to choose from. My bag contained duck compost, which isn't commonly available. So to order by the cubic yard:

• To translate that remembered number into cubic yards, divide by 324. 
• In my example, 180 divided by 324 rounds up to roughly 0.6 cubic yards, or a little more than half one of those big orange cubic yard bags. If that's too much for your garden, consider splitting a bag with your neighbour. 

On the other hand, you can go to the garden centre and buy your manure (or mulch or compost or topsoil) in individual bags – and that's where we run into that cubic feet/yards to litres/kilograms conundrum.

Commercially bagged soil amendments often come in 30L/15kg sizes. To calculate the number of bags in my example:

• Go back to the 0.6 cubic yards (remembered number divided by 324)
• Then use this volume converter from MetricConversion.org to turn it into litres. 
• In my example, that gives you about 459 litres. 
• If the bags come in 30-litre sizes, divide total litres by 30 (or the number of litres per bag)
• In my example, I'd need to get about 15 bags.

If you want an even better roundup of math tools like this, for all sorts of garden calculations, check out Garden Math from Washington State University. I referred to it when I wrote my post, but any errors are mine.

And, for bonus points, Alex:

When you're covering large areas with plants such as groundcovers, you need to know how many plants to buy. If you get excited by pi – not the kind that comes with ice cream – you might try this accurate plant spacing calculator from Landscape Architecture Resource.

On the other hand, if you prefer to generally guesstimate, here are handy plant spacing tables from Brian Wilson at Gardenality.

Goodnight, good luck and happy gardening!

May Blooms Day in Toronto

Heucherella 'Sweet Tea' with Hosta 'Pineapple Upside-Down Cake' and
the glorious Tulipa 'Prinses Irene'.

May has raced by so quickly, I forgot it was the 15th – the day when, every month, Carol of May Dreams Gardens invites garden bloggers to share what's growing on. I might just make it under the wire.

After a torturous, drawn out, chilly spring (including last weekend's frost warnings), it was surprising what my camera could find.

The orange and lime green combo on the left leaves me "frilled, just frilled." The colours of the tulip flowers and heucherella foliage pick up each other strikingly. Pretend I did that on purpose. And the light green hosta is the ideal buffer. Oh, yes, yes. On purpose. Of course. (The well-trodden blank spot will be home to a stepping stone.)

Let's not mention shhh! squirrels and tulips in the same breath. One of my lovely, orange 'Prinses Irene' tulips – planted with great hopes last year – has been beheaded. The beast had the gall to deposit the corpse on my front porch. On a cushion. Like a gift. Grrr. Off with its…. Oh.

Happy Blooms Day!

Okay, I do love these 'Prinses Irene' tulips so much, I want to marry them.

Another favourite, the lily-flowered Tulipa 'White Triumphator'. She's a fairly tough old gal, even in dry shade. Next year, perhaps she'll have the company of another lily-flowered gem, in my new crush, orange: T. 'Ballerina.'

Tucked here and there beside the new steps is Tulipa clusiana 'Lady Jane'. I planted them together with white miniature Narcissus 'Toto' but sadly the latter was a "toto" disaster. Only a scant handful of narcissus bulbs bloomed.

A new addition last year, Epimedium x perralchicum 'Fröhnleiten'. I think it will work out once they're established, but this spring I had to excavate the young epimediums from some overly enthusiastic sweet woodruff (Galium odoratum).

Very happy with Brunnera 'Jack Frost', which I've heard is one of the tougher cultivars. This was also an addition last year, placed in a fairly challenging dry shade spot (with soaker hose, though seldom used). I'll be adding more.

An old reliable for me, variegated Solomon's seal (Polygonatum odoratum variegatum), which wanders hither and yon through the dry shade beds. I just yank it out where it's not wanted.

Speaking of not wanted, here's an example of a great flower that decided to plant itself in the wrong spot. It's the vernal sweetpea (Lathyrus vernus). I'm going to let it do its thing this spring, then transplant it where I want it to be.

In the Microgarden in back, this large clump of an old-fashioned lungwort (Pulmonaria 'Mrs. Moon') has been blooming its head off for a couple of weeks. I just installed one of the newer cultivars, which I pray will be just as lusty.

This is another happy wanderer, the diminuative Ranunculus 'Brazen Hussy', which I got from Barry Parker a couple of years ago. It seeds itself around nicely. I'll wait till it clumps up a bit before I move it to other spots in the garden.

Back in the front, my two-year-old Fothergilla gardenii 'Mt. Airy' has put on a good display of bottle brushes. They're just beginning to open. I'd had my doubts about its hardiness in my garden. Glad I took the chance and gave it a try.

Idea File: Eleven things to do May 11th

Paul Zammit at a past TBG Plant Sale

Rip me up into eleven pieces! If ever there were an excuse for human cloning, it would be so that I could attend these eleven events at once on Saturday, May 11, 2013. Here's this week's full-of-ideas Idea File – check the links for further details on each:

1. Helen speaks on Shade Plants at Plant Paradise Country Gardens in Caledon, 10 am to 11 am

When the chance to visit Plant Paradise to talk as a Master Gardener happened, I jumped. Plant Paradise has been on my wish list. I'll focus on the shade plants you can find in the nursery on Saturday and/or see in the display gardens. So, get the goods and go home with the goodies. Hope to see you there!

2. Toronto Botanical Garden Plant Sale, 10 am to 5 pm (same hours on Sunday, too)

Oh, the temptations! All plants selected by TBG hort director Paul Zammit. I previewed on Thursday – veggies, container plants, natives, perennials for sun or shade, vines, and a few shrubs, trees and evergreens.

Be sure to get there early, so you can a) get a parking spot – the unrenovated section of the parking lot is blanketed with film company trucks – and b) take your time to admire the tulip display in the entry garden.

Orrrrr… book yourself a date with Mum and a tea sommelier (yes, they do exist) at:

3. The TBG's Tea and Truffle Pairings, 1:30 to 3:30 pm.

Native Mertensia in on the NANPS plant list

 4. North American Native Plant Society Plant Sale in Markham, 10 am to 3 pm

Native trees, shrubs and wildflowers aplenty, including harder-to-find selections. Go native and get advice from aficionados. Be early for best selection.

5. & 6. Leaside Garden Society Plant Sale and, in the same location, Greater Toronto Water Garden Society Aquatic Plant Sale, 9 am to noon

7. Scarborough Garden and Hort Society Plant Sale, 10 am to 1 pm

8. Agincourt Garden Club Spring Sale, 9 am to noon

Garden society plant sales usually feature reasonably priced selections from Ontario growers (such as Martin Galloway of Chalk Lake Greenhouses) as well as great prices on plants from members' gardens.

The Scarborough sale is outdoors at historic Cornell Campbell Farm, which we wrote about in 2009.

9. Community Environment Day in Riverdale Park, 10 am to 2 pm

Bring in your old computers or batteries, replace banged-up recycling bins, snag some free compost and get your pet chipped – no, not in the wood chipper, Marge! Microchipped at a great price (with a discount if your pet is already licensed.) I believe Finley, our resident chat, will be there.

Tommy Thompson Park offers one of my favourite views of the Toronto skyline

 10. Official Opening of the Tommy Thompson Park Birder's Hide, 9 am to 10:30 am

See what's been happening on the Leslie Street Spit (aka Tommy Thompson Park) – new entry gates and a cool environmental centre overlooking the ponds will make our city wilderness a little more official, hopefully not officious. Having watched the building over many months, I'm sorry to miss the opening. Now, if we could just get some "facilities" on the outside trail, too, I'd be a happy walker.

11. Launch of the Toronto Flower Market, 10 am to 3 pm

Billed as the first outdoor flower and plant market with Ontario-grown cut and potted flowers, it begins this Saturday and continues monthly on the second Saturdays till September 14. Make your own 100-mile bouquets for Mother's Day. Get one for me, too!

Bulbs: three ways to hide the evidence (aka dying foliage)

Beautiful 'Prinses Irene' tulips have me wanting more, more, more!

Every spring finds me wishing I could turn back the clock to fall – to plant more bulbs. But, in a small garden, how do you deal with the necessary (and unsightly) evil of ripening foliage afterwards? The leaves busily making food for next year's flowers always have a bad hair day.

Unless you have a "nursery bed" to uproot this year's tulips to, so they can do their thing in private without spoiling your garden show, what do you do? Here are a few tricks for hiding the evidence:

Plant large-leaf bulbs behind spreaders like Hosta, whose leaves will emerge just in time to conceal the dying foliage. Lift up the hosta leaves at bulb planting time in fall, and place bulbs just inside or at the edge of the dripline. If the garden areas are seen mostly from one direction, a single hosta will do; if it's an island bed, plant bulbs in the centre of a cluster.

Or plant bulbs in small groupings in amongst taller groundcovers such as this big-root geranium (Geranium macrorrhizum). As the tulip leaves mature, you can tidy them away them under the growing perennial.

Or choose from some of the botanical or species tulips, ones with narrower grassy leaves that won't look so messy as they turn yellow. This is Tulipa clusiana 'Peppermint Stick', planted right by my front steps.

Idea File: Three must-do things, May 3-5, 2013

Always great finds at the ORG&HPS Sale!

My heart is broken – I'll be away for these great spring things this weekend. I'm counting on you to go on my behalf, hence today's Idea File:

Spring Awakening at the Gardiner Museum
May 3 to 5
Gorgeous floral designs by ten top creative spirits, all through the Gardiner museum of ceramic art. Bring a friend, because this Toronto Botanical Garden coupon lets you enjoy 2 for 1 admission to the show (workshops and demos are a little extra).

The Ontario Rock Garden and Hardy Plant Society Super Plant Sale, May 5
It's one of the hottest plant sales of the season. Lots of rare and unusual perennials, shrubs and trees – not just for rock gardens. If you're a plantaholic, this is the sale for you. At the Toronto Botanical Garden. Come early to beat the inevitable crowds, but plants will be added as the day goes on.

High Park Cherry Blossoms (finally)
May 3 till they drop
One of the city's most glorious signs of spring, the 2013 Sakura (cherry blooming) has been impatiently awaited. Over the past weeks, the High Park online forum has read like the equivalent of "are we there yet?" Today, the word is out in full caps with a screamer: TREES ARE IN FULL BLOOM! Go.