Careful Plant Care
By Brian Kerr

Many of our customers want to do some of their own gardening, but do not want to risk being bitten by a tick or getting poison ivy. Given how warm the early season has been, we expect a particularly bad season for both of these Fire Island pests. We encourage novice gardeners to try container planting. Many different varieties of flowers and vegetables can be grown in containers. Successful container gardening requires just a little bit of information and care.

Water Liberally

The single most important thing to do to assure success with your container plants is to provide adequate water. Before watering always feel the soil to see if it is moist or dry. Obviously if it is dry, you need to water. If the soil feels moist, do not water the plants. Most novice gardeners do not test the soil before watering, a basic gardening mistake. Containers with suitable drainage holes will keep the soil from getting waterlogged.

The selection of plants for your containers is also important. Because the beach environment presents unique challenges to all of our plant life, be sure your selections will survive. Some factors to consider are the wind and light. The wind is especially hard on container plants because it dries out plant material and may even burn it. Containers with a southern exposure will have to tolerate the most wind over the course of the summer season. Early in the season we see beautiful hanging baskets everywhere. But in no time at all they have been destroyed by too much sun and too much wind. Place your containers and hanging baskets where they will be protected.

One summer annual with a lot of show, suitable for container planting, is the hibiscus. It grows in bush and tree form. If you decide on a tree, you can add a variety of annuals around the base to give the pot a lush look. We have also seen the annual oleander as the centerpiece of many containers. Because the plant has some height to it, it seems like a good selection. However, the flower is limited and it does not make much of a show.

Rather than using flowering plants, another good idea for beach containers is to work with grasses and sedums. Both tolerate full sun, wind and dry conditions, and, as a bonus, deer will not eat ornamental grasses.

No discussion about summer plants would be complete without the classic container flower, the geranium. Geraniums are almost as popular as impatiens as the annual of choice for the summer gardener.

We had a customer recently who bought about forty geraniums. When asked if she knew how to clean them, she replied, “I did not know that they need to be cleaned.” In order to thrive, a geranium needs to be cleaned just as a tree needs to be pruned. Have you ever seen geraniums that look spindly, with very few leaves? It is likely that those plants were not being cleaned regularly. In order to clean a geranium, take off the blooms at the base of the flower stems. They break off easily. Geranium should be cleaned once a week. If you are leaving the beach on a Sunday, clean the plant before you leave. Take off all the flowers. When you return on Friday, the plant will reward you with an abundant and healthy bloom, and if you continue, it should do the same every week throughout the summer.

Selecting a container with adequate drainage, choosing plants that will thrive in this environment and providing proper water and fertilizer will ensure that your containers will look great through the season.

Maintaining the trees and shrubs that live throughout the year on your property is a longer-term investment, one that supports the value of your Fire Island beach house.

Bayberry, Corkscrew Willow and Russian Olive are the species most prevalent here on the beach. A bayberry shrub can grow for many years without pruning, but Russian Olives eventually grow horizontally and become woody. Corkscrew willows are very good for most Fire Island communities because they can tolerate the wet roots caused by the very high water table. However, unless pruning is done in the winter season, the foliage will decrease and eventually the tree will die.

In all cases, pruning ensures new growth and a long life for trees, as cleaning does for your geraniums.

Brian Kerr, owner of Brian Kerr Landscaping, Inc. resides year round on Fire Island. Send your landscaping questions to him at BrianKerr@BrianKerrLandscaping.com.