Author: fobafam

More Insects and Some Projects

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An Imperial Moth caterpillar that fell out of the oak. It isn’t dead, but the yellowjacket is eating its head, either because it was parasitized or injured, or from pure predation, if the caterpillar dropped to pupate. I’ve seen yellowjackets carry away entire green caterpillars, when only slightly larger than themselves. Another yellowjacket arrived, and they both took bites and flew away with them. 

 

 

A katydid (a type of cricket) on my aloe plant, taking bites. The camera caught the detail of its wings and legs nicely. Note its backwards-facing claws, that hook onto its perch.  

 

My back-border bed, with a little improvement. The steppingstone path looks good, makes working in the bed easier, and stone keeps roots protected, moister, and the temperatures they’re subjected to more even through the year. 

Next year’s vegetable bed, that I’m beginning this year. Assembling the box was easy; and it cost about $60 from Amazon. It measures 6 foot x 3 foot, by 1 foot high. A box this size would take dozens of bags of compost to fill, so I bought it this late summer, allowing me to keep topping it off with organic material (the bale of straw to start, then leaves and mower clippings, and homemade compost), that will decompose through the fall, winter, and early spring. The trellises are to support beans and peas. I had a so so year trying to grow veg in 2022, while learning a few more necessary facts about getting my edibles past the animals and the oak tree roots. Next year, I propose to have potatoes, corn, beans, and peas in this bed, and tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, and carrots in pots.

And to protect them with deer fencing. I’m still thinking about my apple trees and what I can use to keep deer from stripping the leaves, besides bird netting, which either has to sit on the leaves and weigh them, or be suspended in some way, and risk catching butterflies. 

Around the Garden (Late Summer)

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Green cicada

Here’s a beautiful cicada. I can’t quite tell what species, from the available information online. (Not to brag, but my photo is better than any of the others I’ve found, so I can’t easily judge if the Green-winged cicada, or the Swamp cicada, etc., has the same characteristics as this newly hatched celadon-winged creature.) He or she popped out on my bean pole, which accounts for the purple in the upper left corner–it’s paint. 

Photo of late summer flowers

 

A terrific black-eyed susan, that seeded itself in my yard from the neighbor’s, so I don’t know what variety. I collect these out of the grass, and plant them in the beds, and they produce dozens of two-inch flowers, instead of the fewer larger flowers of Goldsturm Rudbeckia, probably the commonest one you can find at garden centers.

 

Photo of red and orange flowers

Some of my best container displays at this time of year. The black-leaved colocasia has come into its own in the pitcher plant tub, after I wintered it over indoors. The other standouts are orange zinnias and red lantana.

Photo of walk up to patio

The path going up to the patio. I have lots of insulators, so I decided to just start sticking them outdoors for decoration.

Photo of portulaca in hanging basket

This orange portulaca has done well, cheerful and thriving, in a pair of hanging baskets I have near my apple trees. I bought the baskets on clearance, not wanting the plants, just the container (something for deer to bump their heads on). The baskets had petunias to begin with, that I didn’t expect to keep going, so I picked up the portulaca–and I’m impressed.

Photo of perennial eupatorium

Here’s a plant I love in my garden, and don’t see much of in catalogs. It looks like ageratum, but it’s a perennial eupatorium. It gives your garden blue hues in the late summer, and comes back every year. It’s a colonizing plant, but well-behaved. I’ve dug up sections of the original group many times, and added them to other beds. It does not appear to spread by seed, but by roots. Very popular with pollinators. 

Photo of perennials collected from garden

Finally, free additions to the beds I’m expanding. I have tons of foxgloves to harvest, and always lots of coneflower. Some white coneflowers have turned up in my front border, so I may get some variety from the seedlings. I’ve found three good columbines, and a few daylilies where they weren’t needed. The hollyhocks, I started from this year’s seed about six weeks ago, and now I have five good-sized plants and one straggler, that can carry on maturing.

More Container Ideas

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Photo of summer flowers in pots

 

The patio planter on the right was eaten twice by deer, but it’s back to beauty again. It has curcuma coming up as well (the strap-leaved plant at the center). I’ve never tried curcuma before, so I thought mine were duds, but it turns out they’re just late starters.

The deer seem to have learned the trick that after heavy rains, plants that tasted bad are good again. If the storms time themselves so that I can’t spray repellent, arriving nighttimes instead of days, I find a lot of browsing among my vulnerable things. The gladiolus flowers were almost all eaten, and deer seem eager to consume Autumn Joy sedum to the ground, despite both being named in catalogues as deer resistant.

Still, I’ve expanded the garden, so I don’t have a good measure of whether the deer are worse, since I have dozens of new things for them to eat. But also, it was a hard year for wildlife, with the oaks not producing acorns, and the maple trees losing their flowers to the late freeze. I was pleased, not to have to dig 10,000 sprouting maples from my flower beds, but it was a loss to the squirrels and deer. (Thanks to birds of prey, I don’t have much trouble with rabbits or groundhogs.)

 

 

Photo of carex in hanging baskets

 

Hanging baskets probably will need refreshing in midsummer. These two I have marking the opening of a path, had a good run with verbena, but the verbena was looking crispy… When I tipped it out, the roots were completely dry, regular waterings hadn’t been enough. I replanted the verbena along the path in semi-shade, and they’re reviving nicely. I found these carex, decided to try them as hanging basket plants, and the effect is good, with the thin, floaty leaves.

 

 

 

Here’s another case where a single plant in a container can be all that’s needed. These are late blooming alliums (flanking a black-eyed susan and some white pentas). And the deer will truly leave onion-family plants alone.

 

 

 

Putting a combo of plants with red/purple leaves in a pot makes another nice effect. Above are tradescantia, sweet potato vine, and purple velvet vine.

 

 

Last for this week, one of my backyard beds, with black-eyed susan and coneflower, always great together and loved by pollinators, some white agastache, easy to get from seeds, some crimson dahlias, and bright red-orange marigolds. The marigolds, and tithonia that haven’t started blooming yet, but are mixed in here, were direct-sown from seeds collected last year. One of the irises, that I said last week I was going to move, is visible at the left corner. This intensely sunny spot should make them happiest. 

 

Shady Places and Nice Surprises

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Above, two shots of a pair of monarch caterpillars, eating one of my butterfly weeds.

I have a type that came on the wind, that I think is swamp milkweed. I’ve written about how it grows into a hedge along the garage in summer, and dies back in winter, and how popular it is with pollinators. The milkweed has been losing ground, though, for the past two years. I don’t know if a stand of goldenrod that’s taking over is killing it off, or if the hornbeam tree, rooting outwards, is the cause. Most of the milkweeds are stunted and yellowing. I’ve never seen a monarch among them.

Meanwhile, I always plant butterfly weed, and grow new ones from seed I collect. I came across these caterpillars one morning, and the next day, a single one was left. After that, they were both gone. But I don’t think they’ve been harmed. They are pretty toxic when grown to this size. I think they were both at the point of making their chrysalis, and dropped off into the shadier foliage to attach themselves. 

 

Front and center is a bargain I found, on a front door display at our local Menard’s. These pots and their contents were priced at five dollars each. (I should have got more.) I thought the decorative pot was enough of a bargain for that price, and I chose one with fairly healthy plants—while they were all on sale for being tired and dried up.

Petunias and geraniums are rated for full sun. But if I’d brought home a tired group of plants and put them out in the sun, they would die. My pot has revived into a great display because I have it in shade. That’s a good tip when you get the cheapest, last ditch plants, and want to save them for the fun of trying. If you place them in shade, regardless of what they are, they may perk up fine in a few weeks. 

 

The edge of my driveway border. I’ve been expanding it out this year with shrubs. This area is under a maple and looks like heavy shade, but the corner gets sun in the mornings, and parts of the border get sun all day. Another factor is the right angle of the driveway and street that frame this area. The pavements reflect light, so nothing is severely shaded. I put in a pair of spirea, and as you can see, top right and bottom center, they’re adding lots of new growth. That’s what I want them to do, reach towards each other, and fill in the space. I’m going to add two Encore azaleas, and a bird’s nest blue spruce. My goal is to plant over my steep little bank, so I don’t have to mow there. I’m also planning to move those iris, that have never bloomed, and are so thickety they block other perennials.

Thanks to shade, and the microclimate effect of the stick fence, seen in the background, I have pansies still blooming in late July. And they’re in the same bed as a dahlia that wintered over from last year. 

Finally, my other surprise. After our late freeze this year, my pawpaw sapling never leafed out. Once it got to be July, I gave up on it, figuring it was dead. But a rabbit came along and bit off the stem (at least the 45 degree cut implies a rabbit). Afterwards, new growth shot up, all you can see above in just a couple of weeks. The multi-stems mean the pawpaw will be more a shrub than a tree, and in the lower right corner, you can see an extra sprout well away from the base of the original tree, beginning a grove. 

My guess is that the stem had some tissue still sending signals to the roots that it was alive, and only when the rabbit severed that, did the tree decide it needed to grow back from the base. But if you have a seemingly winter-killed shrub or tree, you might try cutting off the dead top. 

 

Mini Post: Just a Couple of sights

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My cactus, that I’ve had for fifteen years or so. It has suffered a few indignities: being pinched in a too-small pot, being chewed by squirrels, having its needles bitten off by chipmunks. This year the cactus is making only one flower (last year, two), but—a complete surprise—it has started a tiny arm. I thought all along it was a barrel-type cactus, but it may be more akin to a saguaro.

 

A venus flytrap I bought at Walmart, just to add another item to my pitcher plant tub. But it stuck up a flower head, and this is what the flower looks like.

Midsummer Pots

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This beauty is a leek. Mine, that I planted last year and left to bloom this year, are in flower now, in July. The biggest is at least three, maybe approaching four, inches across. They have a pristine white quality in the sunlight, as the photo shows. I can’t give much advice for leek flower cultivation, since I don’t know that it’s especially done… I found out through neglect several years ago how great they are, and never tried it again until last year. But plant enough to enjoy for both recipes and pollinators (these flowers attract bees hugely), and in a spot where the leeks can winter over, with protection from cold, but not too damp.

 

 

 

It’s the time of the season to trim down overgrown pot flowers, and space things out for better air circulation. I had a few getting too little water, and a few getting too much. All the trimmings from things that root easily, like impatiens and coleus, become filler plants for shade gaps, where bulb foliage has died back.

 

 

 

Pots added to a flower bed work well, for the color and interest they provide in themselves, also because they lift the level of what’s growing in them to that of the surrounding plants. If a gappy area develops in a bed, you can thicken up its appearance with a few containers.

 

 

 

Here, again, I added pots where the daffodil foliage has finally died back. It won’t make sense to plant perennials in those spots, because the daffodils will smother out their new growth next spring. (This is the bed where I have the venerable daffodils that don’t bloom, and can’t be dug up because they’ve got themselves more than a foot deep, and I’d have to ruin the bed to exhume them. So I work around…)

 

 

 

This was a lucky outcome. For more than a year this oak branch was hanging on by an inch or so of wood, and I had to move around cautiously underneath. Every gusty thunderstorm, I hoped it would go ahead and fall. I’d judged it would land right on the path and not crush my plants.

So it came down, at last, just where it looked like it would. All I had to do was clear off the broken pieces.

 

 

 

When I took this picture, I had maybe nine corn stalks on the way. Now I have five. I thought I had them well baffled in, but I looked out the window and a squirrel was uprooting them and eating the root bulb. I’ve got even more baffling around the remainder, and if I can save them from the wildlife, I may have enough plants to pollinate one another, and get an ear of sweet corn or two.

 

 

Foliage Combos

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Under one of the oak trees I have this colorful arrangement, with New Guinea impatiens, wax begonia, strobilanthes, hypoestes, hosta, heuchera, and astilbe. I’ve been having difficulties with a mother deer, who recently defoliated some heuchera and hosta, pulled off my new apple trees’ new leaves, and also took things I didn’t spray, like coneflower buds, rudbeckia, and sumac.

This story offers a good point about life cycles in nature. While she’s nursing, while her baby is too young to forage, the mother deer eats things she doesn’t like, because she needs the energy. She will do less damage when the baby is (by now it should be) able to forage for itself. The netting above is pretty effective…she can’t see it at night, and it moves, so if she noses into it, it noses back, and discourages her.

Another life cycle issue has been spider mites, eating my foxgloves pretty badly. The ladybugs got a late start because of unusual cold weather in March. Through April we had a pattern of that weather, freezing midweek, warming up, etc., until the midweek dips turned mild, and gave way to a summery pattern. Now the foxgloves leaves in their second flush are not being bothered, thanks to the ladybug larvae.

When we seek to garden harmlessly, we benefit by understanding how damage from pests waxes and wanes, that it isn’t all one thing. Deer are worse when raising young, insects worse when their populations peak (think of late summer cicadas) and many will go away with or without predators.

 

 

 

A mix of foliage plants and houseplants. I’ve seen houseplants used as summer garden plants, but I wasn’t planning to try it this year. I got started because I bought the cordyline at the upper right, thinking it was a canna. It has broad red/green leaves, while the only cordylines I knew of looked like ornamental grasses.

Since I couldn’t use this in my bog tub, I decided to use it in the bed…and then (plant shopping excuse) I needed some complimentary exotics, so I added a Boston fern, rex begonias, a philodendron, and a money plant (pilea).

 

 

 

An earlier view, with daffodil foliage still out, and some of the painted stick frame I’m growing Cobaea on.

 

 

 

This is what I had in mind. I only found cannas in pots at our local Tractor Supply store. If you can get them this way, you can put the pot directly in your tub or pond. If all you can get are tubers, you’ll have to get them well started before putting them in water. 

 

 

 

Last year, I mentioned the trouble with lonely alliums. This year, by serendipity, not plan, I discovered that this Globemaster type of allium blooms in sync with Dutch Iris. So that’s one answer.

 

 

 

I found this great speckled aqua, midcentury modern-style pot at Walmart. I’m using it here in a collection of containers I put together to let a pair of ferns get some growth on. Being near the bird feeders, they were bothered a lot by passing deer. The pots surrounding them give them protection. (And the “thriller” of this grouping is another of the cordylines.)

 

 

 

Expanding beds, reducing lawn

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Often, I find something unfamiliar sprouting in my garden. I know a lot of weeds/undesirables from experience, but when I can’t tell a plant, images online can be discouragingly useless. Wildflowers are shown in closeups of the flower itself, with none of what’s needed—a clear look at the leaf type, the size of the plant relative to others, changes from immaturity to maturity. A good database of newly sprouted weeds doesn’t seem to exist.

So I’ll help where I can, with photos and labeling, as above.

Virginia Creeper and wild grapevine are both natives, hosts for insect larvae, and beneficial at forest margins. In a flowerbed, they’re problematic. Both also root tight, hard to pull if you don’t catch them in time. As to pokeweed, the first leaves look a lot like a tomato or pepper, so you may be hoping for a volunteer. You can tell poke because it’s a little waxy and has a purple-red stem. Pokeweed, at the edge of a property large enough for a wild spot, is fodder for deer, and draws them off your good stuff. But you’ll want to rogue it out quickly from the flower and vegetable patches. 

 

 

Now, some information about my stick borders.

Above, is an edge at stage one, where branches and sticks I gather from my yard are defining the bed, and providing shelter. This dahlia survived from last summer, even despite this year’s late cold snap. Decomposing wood generates some heat in its own right, and keeps soil from freezing, which keeps biological activity going, which makes food for soil organisms, which release nutrients for plants, etc. 

 

 

At stage two, I start filling in with clippings from the lawn, and leaf mold, which can sink and settle for a year.

 

 

Stage three, I add soil. The effect is of a raised bed, while also this new planting space, encroaching outwards, replaces its foot or two of lawn, and makes an organic (in the artistic sense) undulation to the overall design of garden beds. The paths, when the whole thing is reduced to only beds and paths, will curve and snake, adding that sense of discovery as you walk through the garden.

 

 

Fourth stage, larger perennials well-rooted. When you first plant, everything needs watering frequently, because the hump drains more freely than flat ground, and the roots aren’t established. In time, these plants should be especially trenched in and able to withstand dry spells.

Invasives

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The blue circle surrounds one of the worst invasive plants in North America, Celastrus orbiculatus, commonly called Asian or Oriental Bittersweet. It can destroy the crucial habitat zone at the edge of woodlands, where native shrubs and wildflowers typically gain a toehold outside the shade of the deep woods, and where many species of animals live dependent on this mini-environment. Bittersweet grows rapidly, girdling trees as it climbs, often killing them. Its roots outcompete everything nearby, and its shade prevents seeds of other plants from sprouting.

The berries are eaten and spread by animals, and by humans attracted to their crafting potential. Since crafters are nice people, we can fairly assume they only perpetuate this vine from a lack of knowledge. Wherever you see Invasive Bittersweet, remove it.

I have another patch under my hornbeam, that I’m wearing down with constant clipping, but it still tries to sprout. As will often be the case, this one’s roots are too deep and extensive to dig up. The technique for that is monitoring, and starving the vine by removing all green parts. 

The lime circle shows my garden’s worst weed, Wintercreeper Euonymus (Euonymus fortunei). This too makes berries attractive to birds, threads itself all over the place, and sprouts like crazy in the flower beds.

The yellow circle shows a Callery pear. Even with the parent cut down, I will have to get rid of these for a long time. And for proof of how active birds are in delivering seeds, in this same little spot under the oak (no more than a foot in diameter), you can see American Holly, poison ivy, wild grapevine, and Virginia Creeper.

 

If you’re digging volunteer plants from your beds or lawn, and they come up in company with grasses and weeds, here’s a tip. Fill a shallow container with water, and soak the roots until you can tease out just the ones you want. This also helps with badly potbound plants from the nursery.

Unfortunately, that nice-looking erigeron (center left) got dug up by a critter after I planted it, and I didn’t see in time to keep the roots from drying out. Raccoons this time of year are the culprits for many gardeners. They are looking for beetle grubs, to snack on them before they turn into less tasty adults.

A design tip… (A neighborhood cat snuck herself into this photo.) When you’d like a rock feature, but can’t lift and place anything large and heavy, buy some concrete flagstone pavers, at Lowe’s (where I bought these), or any garden center that carries them. Then stack them in an irregular pillar, and top with garden art or a birdbath. 

You might not believe it, but these are hostas. This tiny variety is called Munchkin Fire. The dark heuchera is one I grew from seed, and the chartreuse and burgundy heucherella is named Solar Eclipse.

Finally, here’s a simple and great combo for small hanging baskets like this pair. The golden flower is a Supertunia called “Honey”, that starts chartreuse, as you can see upper right, and matures yellow-gold. The other plant is a tomato-red, black-leaved wax begonia—and if you’ve been a big spender this season, these are very inexpensive.