Mt. Lebanon garden tour set for June 25
Advice from a Master Successful gardeners are said to possess green thumbs. However, one can enjoy a bed of roses, bounty of vegetables or beautiful flowers by following some advice from Master Gardener Claire Schuchman of Mt. Lebanon. The most critical key to success is water. Ninety percent of landscape failure is due to poor watering practices. Schuchman is up at 6 a.m. watering her plants; some directly to the root zone. She waters deeply, giving plants a good soaking. “Remember that it will take an hour for the water to get through the mulch and then it hasn’t gotten down to the root zone,” she says. Schuchman has a schedule for watering different zones of her garden at different times during the week. For example, when soaking, she may turn the end of the hose on low, walk away and set the kitchen time for two hours then check the status of the process. Mulching is essential. It protects top soil and 90 percent of nutrients are in the top soil. “So if we lose our top soil, we lose our nutrients,” she said. Additionally, 80 percent of all roots are in the top 18 inches of soil. “We think that plants go down. They go out.” she said. Mulch also protects from highs and lows of temperatures, it helps moderate the soil and dryness as well as how fast it dries out. Mulch also helps decay carbon material and is food for the worms and microorganisms and as they move through. Worms leave behind macro and micro passages that allow air, water and nutrients to be made available to the root systems of plants. Schuchman does not recommend using dyed mulch. She prefers double-shredded hardwood that can be found at TAR in Upper St. Clair and Bob Cavanaugh’s in Bridgeville and other supply places. Mulching needs to be done every year. Two inches is optimal and never mulch up tree trunks. Planting trees is another secret because “shade is a garden’s friend, says Schuchman. One can work and relax in the shade and plants are happy in the shade most of the time. “But you can’t grow everything in the shade. You are limited, But guess what? You are limited in the sun, too,” she added. Gardeners everywhere, not just in Mt. Lebanon, contend with critters, especially deer. Deer Stopper is recommended by Schuchman to keep them from ravaging the garden. She suggests gardeners purchase the hose-end, ready-to-use container and dial it up and spray everything. “We want the deer to walk on by. We want them to go to McDonalds instead of your house. We want them to believe that there is nothing of any interest at all in your garden.” As evidenced by the lush hosta plants in her front yard, the 30-day product is effective. Schuchman applies Deer Stopper at the beginning of every warm month. “It doesn’t work if you don’t do it,” she said. She cautioned the deer will test the theory though. “You will spray the first time. And they will come in and eat things. Because they will see if this is really real. Spray second time. They will come. Not as bad. Spray third time and they will say, ‘maybe we should go across the street’. Schuchman said purchasing the product is an investment. It’s not inexpensive. “It’s a lot less expensive than to keep on putting new shrubs in. It’s worth it,” she said. {related_content_uuid}49a6c6fe-3a85-4a25-a13b-8a51ef616561{/related_content_uuid}
Claire Schuchman of Mt. Lebanon didn’t experience a mid-life crisis when she gravitated to a gardening career at age 50. No, her roots ran deep.
As a child, she recollected playing in her “nana’s beautiful garden” in Dormont. She enjoyed watering the plants because her grandmother had one of the first hose reels attached to the house.
“I remember saying, ‘I’ll do it, I’ll do it so I could get to reel in the hose when we were all done watering. I loved being in her backyard with the beautiful flowers and scents and the smells and the birds. Everything about being in that garden was wonderful.”
Schuchman’s mother gardened, too. Helen Campbell was a home economics major at Penn State University and later worked as a dietitian at the Tick-Tock shop housed in the former Kaufmann’s department store in Pittsburgh.
“She had a beautiful vegetable garden,” Schuchman said. “My nana gardened for beauty and my mom gardened for vegetables.
Schuchman recalled one day when she came home from college and her mother and dad were fawning over a black plastic bag in the back of their old Chevy.
“I couldn’t figure out what this ‘black gold’ her friend from work would bring her,” Schuchman said. “Well it was well-composted horse manure for her vegetable garden and she was just thrilled.”
All those youthful experiences laid the groundwork as Schuchman transitioned to a career in horticulture and landscaping. A 1973 Mt. Lebanon High School graduate, Schuchman earned a degree in speech communications from the University of Pittsburgh. She married her husband, Jim, and the couple had two children: Rachel, 37, a social worker for UPMC, and Cam, 31, a chef at Oak Hill Post in Brookline.
“I was not a horticulturist. Becoming a landscape designer was as big a surprise to me as it was to anybody else,” she said. “But one thing led to another. All those experiences of my growing-up years led me to have a wealth of knowledge that I didn’t realize I could call upon one day.”
While living in Virginia Beach where her husband was stationed during a stint with the Navy, Schuchman realized she could do better than the landscapers who sold packages to residents in her housing plan and the first time it would rain, the grass seed would be washed into the street.
“I thought this is no good. We did our own yard and it was then that I started to think about what a landscape would look like. All my life, I have lived under a leafy canopy.”
In 1989, the couple moved back to Mt. Lebanon. While her husband pursued a career in law, Schuchman played outside with the children.
“They had their toys and I had mine,” she said. “My toys were my shovel, my rake and whatever I picked up to put in the ground.”
Schuchman also started drawing sketches of where she wanted to place things in the garden. “That was the very beginning,” she said.
Soon, she had a job as a gardener and was taking care of other people’s plots. In 2004, she became a Master Gardener after completing an extensive one-year program at Phipps. When she turned 50, in 2006, she opened her own business, Exceptional Gardens.
“I say to other woman that if you have a dream, just go for it,” she said. “When I became a Master Gardener, everything changed for me and had it not been for this garden, I would have not become a landscape designer. I learned my craft here in this garden.”
Schuchman’s garden at 308 Shadowlawn Dr. will be one of seven highlighted on the Mt. Lebanon Public Library Garden Tour being held from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. June 25. Schuchman’s garden has been featured three times on the tour that has raised over $590,000 for the library since 1991.
Since the tour coincided with her 50-year reunion from high school, Schuchman tackled two projects at once. She recently hosted a cocktail party for her Markham Elementary School class.
“My mom always said that if you are going to clean your house, you might as well entertain twice,” she said. “When I found out the reunion and tour were together, I thought it would be a good year to do it and start to get into the details and take care of the garden.”
Plenty of plants, shrubs and trees thrive in Schuchman’s shade garden, even though she owns three Shetland sheepdogs: Jasper, Sterling and Ensign. Among the ferns, dogwoods, rhododendron, hemlocks, Japanese maples, hellebores, heuchera, allium, May apple, clematis and hydrangea are a variety of annuals.
“There’s more perennials but it just so happens it’s an annuals year,” Schuchman said. “I am going to have displays of annuals.
“Annuals have fallen out of favor and I feel sorry for them,” she continued. “They are what gives us our end of season color. At the end of the season, they are just gorgeous. They are big and beautiful. In September and October, it’s our annuals that are holding the color and the interest in the gardens. That is why putting annuals in during the spring is so advantageous to a garden that you want to have be at least three seasons of interest.”
The waterfall and pond in the Schuchman backyard are the centerpiece of the property and draws the attention of visitors. The pond was put in by the original owners of the home back in 1936 and was purposed to retain the waters from a natural spring. The Schuchmans added the waterfall when they moved into the property 25 years ago.
“The backyard is a woodland habitat. There’s everything back here that a bird would need to survive – water, nesting, food,” Schuchman said. “It really is an oasis.”
Tickets for the Mt. Lebanon Public Library Garden Tour are $20 in advance and $25 the day of the tour. Tickets are available at the circulation desk at the library or online at www.mtlebanonlibrary.org/gardentour.
Successful gardeners are said to possess green thumbs. However, one can enjoy a bed of roses, bounty of vegetables or beautiful flowers by following some advice from Master Gardener Claire Schuchman of Mt. Lebanon.
The most critical key to success is water. Ninety percent of landscape failure is due to poor watering practices.
Schuchman is up at 6 a.m. watering her plants; some directly to the root zone. She waters deeply, giving plants a good soaking. “Remember that it will take an hour for the water to get through the mulch and then it hasn’t gotten down to the root zone,” she says.
Schuchman has a schedule for watering different zones of her garden at different times during the week. For example, when soaking, she may turn the end of the hose on low, walk away and set the kitchen time for two hours then check the status of the process.
Mulching is essential. It protects top soil and 90 percent of nutrients are in the top soil. “So if we lose our top soil, we lose our nutrients,” she said. Additionally, 80 percent of all roots are in the top 18 inches of soil. “We think that plants go down. They go out.” she said.
Mulch also protects from highs and lows of temperatures, it helps moderate the soil and dryness as well as how fast it dries out. Mulch also helps decay carbon material and is food for the worms and microorganisms and as they move through. Worms leave behind macro and micro passages that allow air, water and nutrients to be made available to the root systems of plants.
Schuchman does not recommend using dyed mulch. She prefers double-shredded hardwood that can be found at TAR in Upper St. Clair and Bob Cavanaugh’s in Bridgeville and other supply places.
Mulching needs to be done every year. Two inches is optimal and never mulch up tree trunks.
Planting trees is another secret because “shade is a garden’s friend, says Schuchman. One can work and relax in the shade and plants are happy in the shade most of the time. “But you can’t grow everything in the shade. You are limited, But guess what? You are limited in the sun, too,” she added.
Gardeners everywhere, not just in Mt. Lebanon, contend with critters, especially deer. Deer Stopper is recommended by Schuchman to keep them from ravaging the garden. She suggests gardeners purchase the hose-end, ready-to-use container and dial it up and spray everything.
“We want the deer to walk on by. We want them to go to McDonalds instead of your house. We want them to believe that there is nothing of any interest at all in your garden.”
As evidenced by the lush hosta plants in her front yard, the 30-day product is effective. Schuchman applies Deer Stopper at the beginning of every warm month. “It doesn’t work if you don’t do it,” she said.
She cautioned the deer will test the theory though. “You will spray the first time. And they will come in and eat things. Because they will see if this is really real. Spray second time. They will come. Not as bad. Spray third time and they will say, ‘maybe we should go across the street’.
Schuchman said purchasing the product is an investment. It’s not inexpensive. “It’s a lot less expensive than to keep on putting new shrubs in. It’s worth it,” she said.