Garden Djinn

A Day in the Garden, Hope and Despair

I've been laid up with an ankle sprain*, so I haven't been paying the closest attention to the details of my garden.

Today I got out to look at the water plantings, and there it was - evidence aplenty that the raccoon whelp had been fishing again.  Tore up the Helvola something terrible.  It's gone from about twenty leaves to TWO. 

That alone is a set back to my happy (hobbling, painfilled) day. The true sadness?  All this time I've been nuturing this plant... it's the one I bought as a teeny tiny seedling at summer's end two winters ago... I've been waiting for it to bloom to verify my identification as a Helvola.

Among the wreckage was a single bud.

Arrrghghghhh!

Bugs.

What summer is all about, no?  Bugs. 

I've seen the first japanese beetle of the season, but I was pleased to see a crab spider had snagged it before I found it.  Already dead!  Woohoo! Go, garden, go!

But still, there is always some bug or another.  The mosquitoes, the deerflies, the pretty little white cabbage butterflies...

Arrivals

Today is still unseasonably warm, but this is the time when we do get a bit of a thaw.  Every year, we take this opportunity of warmer weather to tromp through sloshy snow and determine the year's pruning cuts.  That needs to be considered soon. 

Until then, the daily routine continues to be me and the dogs, in and out of the side yard all the day long.  This morning a ray of early sun hit the crab-apple to highlight a pair of house finches feeding on the now ready to eat dried fruit. Winter's freezing and dehydrating this tart offering concentrates the sugars and makes it more appealing. By true spring, this tree will be largely stripped of it's generous harvest.

As I was watching these two, another visitor announced itself.  The bluebird is calling, right on schedule.  I have no idea what these birds eat when they arrive so early to claim their territories - the bluebird is largely an insectivore and insects are in short supply this early in the year.  We still have at least two traditional snowfalls to endure before the weather turns truly to spring. 

All of this rounds out a week where the chickadees have been singing (prematurely) their territory call of "spring's here" and the cardinal has been heard with his "birdy-birdy-birdy."

And so the year turns, and I look ahead to a another season in the garden.

Ten Pound Dog Might Make a Tasty Eagle Treat...

Not something I usually worry about here in the wilds of SouthEast Suburbia. We get occasional sightings of young bald eagles in the outlying areas, but I never look to the sky for them in my yard.

So it was rather a shock when I put the dogs out and immediately upon coming inside had a brief large shadow darken the library window. Something big on a low fly-by. And quiet. Geese and cranes let you know they are up there, with almost constant chatter. The big guys fly silent.

Back out I went, to scan the sky. A solitary turkey buzzard was making lazy wings overhead, circling around the little kid's park across the street, over the condos, and back over our sub.

I watched, thinking 'carrion eater' as he winged back, flew down the street again, just looking all around.

I brought the dogs inside.

I'm not betting he's not some young fool out to make his mark. Juveniles, you know. They'll destroy stuff just for the sake of destroying it. A look at the condition of the playground equipment across the street is ample proof of that.

I'm going to miss the birds here.

Song sparrows.  Chipping sparrows.  Chickadees.  Bluebirds. Goldfinches. Northern Orioles. Hummingbirds.  Sandhill cranes.  Redwinged blackbirds.  Nuthatches.  Woodpeckers.  Sapsuckers.  Hawks: Sharpshinned, Cooper's, Redtailed, Redshouldered. 

It has been quite an adventure, living in a semi-rural area.  Muskrats groggily stumbling through the yard in spring.  Voles on the sunporch.  The skunk eating the windfallen fall apples.  Displaced deer on their way to being road kill somewhere, the year they developed the swampy land south of here. Two fuzzy racoons in the sycamore tree, eating last year's seeds.   

Toads and frogs and garter snakes. 

Some of the birds will be everywhere I might move to.  Crows.  Grackles.  Bluejays.  Cardinals.  Robins.  Mourning doves.  The ubiquitous outsiders: English sparrows, House finchs, and the Starlings. 

The rest of nature's broad brush?  I don't know.  It will depend on where we end up.  But I will miss this.  This little corner lot, in an area where the wild is still around, in farmer's fields and the few overgrown woodlots that were once fields.  Soon to be developed.  All of it going away to grass and pavement and condos. 

I'm moving back to pigeon territory.  Ugh.  That alone is enough to make me melancholy.

The Nemesis Tree

The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity... and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself.

-William Blake, poet, engraver, and painter (1757-1827)

This tree stands in the back corner of my yard. I fear and loathe it.  It's a huge poplar/cottonwood, probably around 70-80' tall, at least. The top third is all dead and there is a snagged deadfall up at around 45'  that is about as big around as my leg (unfortunately, you can't really see it from this angle.)

The birds love it.  It's the highest thing around, and various and sundry feathered ones use it to check out the neighborhood, post their territory calls, or in the case of the blackbird families - just generally hang out.  The wood peckers are regular visitors, knocking their hollow 'tocks' that announce they are in for a meal.  The robins nested in the poison ivy one year.

Mark has the ivy problem under control, but the tree itself?  It's starting to drop things.

We've had a couple of those upper limbs crack free in high winds and come down. There is that snag waiting for a good wind to fall.   I wouldn't care if it were out amongst a wood lot, or somewhere isolated where those dead limbs wouldn't be a problem.  It's a good habitat tree.  We've probably got birds and bats nesting in it.  But my neighbors behind?  They have little kids.  And little kids should be able to play in their yard without fear of the sky falling. 

The tree needs to come down, and I've got enough respect for what can go wrong with this job that I don't want to touch it.    There is a reason the lumberjacks call a snag like ours a 'widowmaker.'  Plus, if the tree falls wrong, we could take out one neighbor's garage, the other neighbor's boat and shed, a play structure, and the electrical/cable nodes for this row of houses... sigh.   

The Mouse has left the House

In the aftermath of last weekend's party for my mom's retirement, some areas are more tidy than others. I hadn't realized that some of the food trash ended up in the waste can on the sunporch. I was out dredging through my tool bucket looking for a narrow hand shovel to transplant some salvia for the front porch (bought at bargain prices at the nursery's open house on Sunday.)

I paused for a moment because something else was making noise on the porch... as sort of shuffling, plastic noise. I looked to the door way to find the cats were still in the house, then went looking. Sure enough, in the trash, still abundantly loaded with food, was a very scared looking vole. Unlike mice, which can jump like gangbusters, this guy could only jump a bit up toward the lip of the can. Who knows how long he's been in there.

And I think he came into the house because he'd been injured. In the pictures you can see where something's done a number on his fur.

I scared him half to death taking pictures, then let him loose out by the compost pile. This may mean that he will be a recurring visitor. We will see.

Poor little guy.

Garden Grump

I love the song of the bluebird, that of the song sparrow, and the sudden surprise of the woodpecker's call. But the wren's song drives me crazy. I call him 'Old Maniacal' because of his endless twitter.

I welcome most birds on my site, and the wren is among the ones I like to see. I just wish he'd chosen to sing anywhere else - not right outside my office window.

Grumble.

February in Zone Five

Now begin the dog days of winter. Days where the snow still lies thick on the land, but the season has shifted, and the sun is speaking of spring's promise ahead.

Dog spends long periods out on his patch of carpet, soaking up the warmth of the sun and watching the day pass. He is a Chihuahua, and every book and source talks about how much they hate cold weather. Cold, I think, is relative. If it's above freezing* and late winter, he would like to be outside a bit, thank you very much.

His behavior reminds me that it is time to think about pruning, while winter still holds the sap down and the bugs are yet to emerge. The apples are still undergoing a course of strong correction after long years of neglect. I have waterspouts on the red delicious that are as wide as my arm. And one must be careful to check for residue of the poison ivy that once entangled its trunk in cording thick as rope. Up, way up in those branches, bits and pieces of it remain to scald the unwary.

The forcast calls for rain this weekend. If we get a break, I'll be out there with the loppers and the pruning saw, starting my year in the garden.

Misinformation

I get so annoyed when I see things like this.

Greenhouse is a fast game where you have to make sure the bugs don't kill the flowers. You operate a Fumigator up and down the ladder spraying the bugs as they emerge. On the top screen Inchworms try to eat the flowers and on the lower screen spiders attack the flowers.

Greenhouse Game

Spiders attack the flowers? How backwards is that? So kids that play this game get reinforced on the thought that spiders are ugly evil creatures to be feared and destroyed?

And nothing could be farther from the truth. Spiders are a gardener's friend. If your garden has no spiders, it is a mighty sterile place indeed.

Spiders attack the flowers. A better game would allow you to deploy an army of spiders, ladybugs, and praying manitses to rally to the aid of the beleaguered flowers!

Fascinating Blurs

Still trying to get a good shot of this little beauty.

Visiting a flower.
{Ed: The flower is an ipomopsis. I purchased the seed from Burpee. It is an annual that will reseed in zone 5.}

At the feeder.

Flying over to investigate the human making the funny whirring noise.

Details, Take II

Sometimes you need to put your nose down and just look at stuff. I love the fairy-book illustration quality of this lichen, it's little red caps looking quite dapper. I was looking for spiders this day, for a post I have yet to write. (Haven't got that quintessential spider photo yet, but I'll keep working at it.)

The miniature landscape can be every bit as sweeping and breathtaking as the larger view. It just takes a bit of focus to aprehend the majesty of it, that's all.

A Walk in Another Garden

Today Mark and I ran some errands, and as we did I noted that the perennial grower near us was having an open house, concurrent to a larger pond tour. I don't have time or energy to do the pond tour today, so it goes on the list of 'things to do next year.'

But we stopped on the way back home, talked with the growers, and spent an enjoyable hour or so wandering through the hoop houses and talking plants and gardening.

Mark, when I met him, hated getting his hands dirty and equated gardening with dirt only. I never actively set out to convert him, but it's hard to get a gardener to not talk about the garden. Over time, he became interested in the plants, their habits, and their flowers.

When we moved to the giant corner lot, he became even more interested. More garden. Less grass. Happy Mark. We have plans and are slowly converting a large swath of land into a meandering shrub and perennial bed. He even worked a year at the local nursery, giving us fantastic bargains on the year-end sale shrubs.

The grower is only about a mile from our house, but they had critters I've never seen in my garden. Hummingbird moths are fascinating things... they hover and sip just like a hummingbird, but they let you observe them much more closely. And I, alas, without my camera.

We also saw many of the lovely red velvety dragonflies I enjoy so much. Their garden is immediately adjacent to a wetland and the dragon and damselflies were in abundance.

And he let me buy a treat. I am somewhat partial to ferns and woodland plants, and am collecting plants to put under the pergola - which, when the vines are mature, should act as a shade tree. You can see two of the japanese painted ferns in my photo up there on the right. Today I picked up an Athyrium X 'Ghost' to plant behind the two painted ferns, thereby creating the garden design mantra of 'threes.' I'll have to be careful to give it plenty of room, the catalog says it gets 24-36 inches.

It will make me very happy. I love that color of soft celedon. It is one of my favorites, both in the garden and out.

Fish in the Sky

Every garden needs a water feature. It took me years of yearning before I finally got mine. It's just a half whiskey barrel with a pond liner that sits on the patio. Elon the fish lives there in the summers; his very own summer cottage, complete with a non-stop fresh food buffet.

Fish are devilish photo subjects. The digital lets me take photo after photo of tailfins slipping out of frame before I manage a potential shot. And the camera is never quite sure where to focus - deep, at the rocks I've placed at the bottom? Or high, where the leaves of the Japanese maple reflect so artistically? No matter, it is a Zen exercise to sit, to wait, and to slowly press the shutter release and to catch that fleeting image.

I still need to figure out how to rig my pump so I can get a water noise. The first pump I used in the 'pond' was from a tabletop fixture, it had a faux bamboo riser and the water exited above the pond's surface to land with a pleasing burble. Unfortunately it wasn't long before the amount of water in the pond exhausted that little pump. At some point I will get creative and fix something up, but for now, my water is silent.

Water, however, is always in motion. From the subtle and barely discernable motion caused by the submersible pump - a concave distortion of the water's surface in the direction of the water's flow - to the rising of the fish and the landing of myriad insects, the pond always draws the eye.

And my little pond proves that it's not the size that counts.

Garden Thugs

Thugs in the garden come in many varieties.

One that is especially bothering me these days is the dog or cat that insists on traveling through the Siberian Irises. Ordinarily, the foliage of the iris stands until mid winter. This year, I am tying them up in odd looking haystacks to keep them from smothering the plants at their feet. Grrr.

Another common thug is this little monster:

Japanese beetles love to munch just about anything. They have a particular fondness in my garden for my shasta daisies and my ostrich ferns. I don't have chickens, and I don't like to use poisons, so I use a by-hand method to get rid of some of them. I recycle a margarine or cottage cheese container, filling it about 2/3 with water. Add about two tablespoons of vegetable oil. Approach the pants with the sun facing you and position the container under the place where the bug is. Touch the bug - their flight mechanism starts with a straight drop - if you position the bucket just right - in they go. The oil clogs their pores and drowns them very quickly. This is not for the squeamish but is very effective.

The third type of thug is a plant thug.

Kathy mentions one of these in my comments. She's having problems with a self-introduced thug, Campanula rapunculoides, and asks me how to tell them apart from Adenophora (Ladybells, shown above). The best I can come up with is a few minor differences. The campanula seems to have a hairy stalk. It's leaves are not as lanceolate as the Adenophora. In other words, boy are these plants similar. (Kathy, if you send a photo of your thug I will post it here to compare)

And sometimes we are our own worst enemies. I have introduced many plants that I have later attempted to eradicate. Euphorbias, perennial sweatpea, species toadflax, Queen's Anne Lace, Tansy, Violets... all are plants that are entirely too successful under cultivation. For the toadflax and the euphorbia I have turned over the entire bed and let it lie fallow for a year, pulling up any and all sprouts as I saw them (daily at best, or at least weekly). The tansy I have yet to begin removing, as it has encroached upon plants that I want to try and save... and July might not be the best time to pull them out of the ground.

The violets and queen anne's lace I pull when they get out of hand, and I try to catch the lace before it goes to seed - these are easy enough to deadhead when the flower is spent.

And I will forever be pulling the sweatpeas out... the birds have carried the seed everywhere and they crop up in the oddest and most unexpected places.

Dragons on the Water

I was out a good part of the day today, doing the kind of onerous garden work that nobody wants to see.

I moved a good bit of salvaged fencewood to the far side of the garage, in an attempt to clear out the back of the garage for the composting bins I eventually hope to construct there. I pulled the clippings from the christmas tree and the junipers off the loose pile where I've been tossing everything and put them in a bin to be shredded. I pulled out all the larger pieces of wood and started a pile for my firebowl. In a year I may have the place cleared and the money for the bins. We'll see.

This little fellow came over to see what I was doing.

Mark came out with Hoggle for a walk and I took a break. I've got a half whiskey barrel with a liner in it sitting on the 'patio.' (The patio is the end of the driveway that I have appropriated for my potted plants and sitting areas.) Every garden needs some water.

Another Dragonfly had decided that our little pond was first rate, and was laying her eggs carefully along the tall stalk of a papyrus. This is pretty cool stuff. Nature, right here in my constructed facsimile of nature.

I had a similar visitor last year, a fact I know solely by the evidence of shed skin the larvae left behind as it moved from water to air.

Dragonflies and Damselflies are garden allies, eating mosquitoes and other pest insects. These predators love mosquitoes at all stages of their development, helping to keep the West Nile virus at bay in my yard.

Hoggle of Hogglebog

This is the fellow I affectionately call 'monster.' We adopted him from a shelter 3 hours away based on a photo on Petfinder.

He is an oversized chihuahua, topping out at just below 8 pounds (breed standard is 6.) He is either a giant chihuahua or, as a friend said upon meeting him, a miniature boxer. He came with the clipped tail. I don't know if somebody thought it was cute, or if he had some problem with it. We do know that he had spent six months in various kennels before we adopted him, and was suffering from pneumonia when the rescue shelter brought him out of the pound.

He came with the name 'Elvis' and officially, that remains his name on all his papers. Mark thinks that Elvis fits him. I just roll my eyes at that. This dog? Com'on... look at that face. Is that an Elvis? No. And he didn't answer to it. But he answered to 'dog' just fine. So when I decided he looked like a goblin and named him Hoggle, he was right there with me.

Hoggle at rest.

The miniature boxer.