The Putnam County Master Gardener Volunteers Present: Gardeners
of Putnam County. This is the eleventh in a series appearing in the
Sentinel every other week into October. Each article shares the
experience of a different Putnam County gardener, focusing on a
particular garden project or feature that brings the gardener joy.
When
Master Gardener Volunteer Millie Ruen retired from teaching in
Columbus, she left her home and garden there in 1997 and returned to her
hometown, Ottoville, to build a house with a much larger garden on 3
acres east of town. She applied knowledge and skills acquired from
studies in the arborist program and years of gardening to creating what
in 2019 is virtually an arboretum with a variety of tree species plus
many flower and vegetable beds, all surrounding her home and a one-third
acre pond. Much could be said about Millie’s trees, but in August and
September what commands attention is the brilliant reds and golds of her
late summer annuals.
Millie attributes her love of bright-colored
annuals to childhood memories of her mother’s zinnias. Although Millie
says she was “never involved with perennials,’ she does have several
large beds of Autumn Joy sedums and purple Obedient Plant for bees and
butterflies in the neighborhood. The annuals that make up most of
Millie’s flower beds are varieties she favors for their intense color:
Prestige Scarlet celosia, golden Indian Summer rudbeckia, Bonanza
marigolds, a blue salvia, tall sunflowers, dahlias (in a good year),
cannas and, of course, old-fashioned zinnias.
Passersby on County
Road 24 are treated at this time to a blaze of zinnias, marigolds and
Indian Summer rudbeckia stretching in rows along the road in front of
Millie’s house and bending to line the driveway. Beds behind the house
feature large swaths of Prestige Scarlet celosia. Further on, bordering
the far side of the pond above a low stone wall are long rows of
marigolds, celosia and rudbeckia backed by scarlet cannas. This spring
Millie also planted dahlias but they and some cannas drowned in the
heavy rains. In their place she planted black oil sunflowers, which draw
goldfinches and other birds. Some furry or feathered benefactor gifted
Millie with the seed for the sunflower, a branching giant that can reach
15 feet and flowers heavily. The plants are now blooming profusely and
feeding wildlife in large patches around the garden.
Until about 7
years ago, Millie’s “signature plant” was giant red cockscomb, a
variety of celosia.. Dried, the flowers held their color and made
striking floral arrangements. The only seed source was Burpee’s. Millie
says, “I noticed over several years that I could not get the big red
cockscombs from the seed I always bought, so I wrote to Burpee’s.” The
company found that its seed stock had been contaminated, so the giant
cockscomb was no more. However, Millie found a striking replacement in
Prestige Scarlet celosia from Twilley Seeds. In bloom it looks like a
little Christmas tree with red ornaments.
Millie starts most of
her hundreds of annuals under grow lights in her basement. She
broadcasts marigold seed in flats but gets better results with celosia
and rudbeckia by starting the seeds in individual cells. When she
transplants the seedlings outdoors, she waters the furrow beforehand to
give them a good start.
Over the years Millie has softened her
heavy clay soil by working in grass clippings and leaf mulch (at one
time receiving all of Ottoville’s autumn leaves). She keeps the beds
weed-free by weekly hoeing and tilling between the rows. Although she
has a gas-powered tiller, she has found that an old-fashioned
wood-framed push model—a family heirloom from the early 1900’s—works
well for weeding and is eco-friendly besides. Another ongoing chore is
deadheading the flowers to keep them producing..
Late this fall,
Millie will till down the annuals and dig tubers for storage. Then
she’ll plant oats in the beds, her choice for a cover crop because it
will die during the winter (no springing back to life as a weed the next
year).
Millie enjoys the beauty that results from her hard work
and finds great satisfaction in sharing her love of gardening and her
expertise. She sums up what her garden means to her with a quote from
Ralph Waldo Emerson: “If eyes were made for seeing, then beauty is its
own excuse for being.”
Master Gardeners are Ohio State
University Extension-trained volunteers working with county Extension
personnel to provide educational services to their communities. Master
Gardener classes will run this fall, Oct. 1-Nov.19, on consecutive
Tuesdays, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. To sign up, call the Putnam County Extension
Office, 419-523-6294, or email to Scheckelhoff.11@osu.edu. Deadline:
Friday, Sept. 20.