Sunday Dinner: “A Discipline With a Deadline”

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“Butterflies used to reproduce

on the native plants that grew in our yards

before the plants were bulldozed and replaced with lawn.

To have butterflies in our future,

we need to replace those lost host plants,

no if’s, and’s or but’s.

If we do not, butterfly populations

will continue to decline

with every new house that is built.”

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Douglas Tallamy

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“We were the product and beneficiary

of a vibrant natural world,

rather than its master.”

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  Douglas W. Tallamy

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“Knowledge generates interest,

and interest generates compassion.”

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  Douglas W. Tallamy

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“We can no longer afford

to consider air and water common property,

free to be abused by anyone

without regard to the consequences.

Instead, we should begin now

to treat them as scarce resources,

which we are no more free to contaminate

than we are free to throw garbage

into our neighbor’s yard.”

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  Douglas W. Tallamy

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“Our privately owned land

and the ecosystems upon it are essential

to everyone’s well-being, not just our own.

Abusing land anywhere has negative ramifications

for people everywhere.”

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  Douglas W. Tallamy

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“My point is this:

each of the acres we have developed for specific human goals

is an opportunity to add to Homegrown National Park.

We already are actively managing

nearly all of our privately owned lands

and much of the public spaces in the United States.

We simply need to include ecological function

in our management plans

to keep the sixth mass extinction at bay.”

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  Douglas W. Tallamy

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2020

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“Conservation biology . . .

[is] a discipline with a deadline.”

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E. O. Wilson

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To Learn More (These books should top the reading list of every serious naturalist and gardener…. Woodland Gnome)

Bringing Nature Home: How Native Plants Sustain Wildlife in Our Gardens by Douglas W. Tallamy

Nature’s Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation that Starts in Your Yard by Douglas W. Tallamy

 

 

Another Chance at ‘Spring’

A male Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterfly enjoys nectar from garlic chives.

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Just in case you didn’t get to everything you had planned this spring, before the heat and humidity set in, we are stepping into a beautiful gardening window that I like to call, ‘second spring.’  This is perhaps the very best time of year for planting in our region.

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As days grow shorter we feel tremendous relief.  Daytime temperatures don’t go quite so high, and nights grow deliciously cooler again.  Our plants are showing signs of relief:  new growth and improved color.  Even trees around town indicate that autumn is near, as a few leaves here and there begin to fade out to yellow, orange and red.

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Now is a good time to plant because we’ll have many weeks of cooler, moist weather for new roots to establish before the first freeze arrives in November or December.  Yes, there will likely be a few hot days ahead.  But they will give way to cool evenings.  Our gardens, and our bodies, will have a break.

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This is a great time to take cuttings from perennials like Tradescantia. Break (or cut) the stem at a node, and set it an inch or two deep in moist soil to root.

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If you still want to take cuttings and grow a few plants on to either add clones to your garden, or start plants for spring 2020, now is the time.  Plants still want to grow and you’ll have time to get a good root system going before frost.  It is humid enough here that softwood cuttings simply stuck into a pot of moist earth will likely root with no special attention.

I’ve been doing a little pruning on woodies this week, and have just stuck some of those trimmed down stems into pots.  If I’m lucky, I’ll have a new plant.  If it doesn’t take, what have I lost?

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New woody growth, like on this rose of Sharon, will strike roots in moist soil. Remove all flowers and flower buds to send the cutting’s energy to root production.  Leave the leaves, as they are still powering the new plant.

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I’m going to dig a few hardy Colocasia later this afternoon to share with a friend.  They can be transplanted most any time from when growth begins until frost.  Even dug in November, they can live on in a pot through the winter in a basement.  Since these Colocasias spread each year, I’m always so appreciative of friends who will accept a few plants, so I can thin the elephant ears!

But this is a really good time to plant any perennials out into the garden.  If there is any question as to hardiness, a few handfuls of mulch over the roots should help those new roots survive the first winter.

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Colocasia, ‘Pink China’ have grow up around these Lycoris bulbs. The flowers continue to bloom despite the crowding.

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Garden centers want to clear out old stock to make way for their fall offerings.  I shopped two this morning, picking up tremendous deals at both.  Lowe’s had some plants marked down to $1.00 or $0.50, just to save them the trouble of throwing them away.  Now, you have to be reasonable, of course.  But a still living perennial, even a raggedy one, has its roots.  Remember, you are really buying the roots, which will shoot up new leaves and live for many years to come.

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Sedums I picked up on clearance today at a local big box store will establish before winter sets in and start growing again in earliest spring.

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I was searching for holly ferns today, to plant in some areas where erosion is still a problem.  Those ferns will strike deep roots and grow into emerald beauties by next summer.  The most I paid for any of them was $3.00.  I also scored a blue Hosta, a Jasmine vine, three blooming Salvias and a beautiful tray of Sedums that I’m donating to a special project.

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This is the time to start seeds for fall veggie crops.  Little plugs have begun to show up in some of our shops.  Planting collards, kale, or other veggies now gives them time to grow good roots.  We have time in Williamsburg to get another crop of any leafy green that will grow in 90 days, or less.

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Black Swallowtail cats enjoy the parsley.  Find end of season parsley on sale now. A biennial, it will return next spring.

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The only thing I won’t plant now is bulbs.  They’ll be turning up in shops soon, but it is too early to plant most bulbs in coastal Virginia.  It is better to wait until at least late October, so they don’t start growing too soon.  Our ground is much to warm still to plant spring blooming bulbs.  In fact, some of our grape hyacinths, planted in previous years, have begun to grow new leaves.

That said, go ahead and buy bulbs as you find them, then store them in a cool, dark place with good air circulation until time to plant.

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Hardy Begonia and fern will overwinter just fine and return next spring.  These have grown in pots since May, but I’ll plant them into the garden one day soon.

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We’ve learned that fall is the perfect time to plant new woodies.  In fact, they tend to grow faster planted in fall than spring, because their roots will grow into the surrounding soil all winter long, giving them a much better foundation for next summer’s weather.  While some nurseries are running sales and trying to clear out remaining trees and shrubs, some of the big box stores are stocking up.  They have figured out that there is a market this time of year for trees and are willing to take the risk that there may be stock left in December.

September and October feel like the best part of the summer to me.  There’s a sense of relief that July is past and August nearly over.  The air feels good again, fresh and encouraging.  Cooler days mean that I’m feeling more ambitious to pick up my shovel again.  I’ve kept a potted Hydrangea alive all summer, and will finally commit to a spot and plant it one day soon.

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The garden is filled with bees, birds and butterflies, with new butterflies emerging all the time from their chrysalides.  New flowers open each day, and flowers we’ve waited for all summer, like pineapple sage, will open their first blossoms any day now.

Spring is filled with optimism and hope.   So is September, our ‘second spring.’

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Woodland Gnome 2019

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“That’s what is was to be young —

to be enthusiastic rather than envious

about the good work

other people could do.”
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Kurt Vonnegut

Six on Saturday: Purple Garden Magic

Mexican petunia, Ruellia simplex, has finally covered itself with purple flowers. Hardy only to Zone 8, it needs special care or a mild winter to survive here year to year.

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Purple has a long and regal cultural history, extending back into ‘pre-history’ when early artists sketched animals on cave walls with sticks of manganese and hematite.  Discovered in modern times at French Neolithic sites, these ancient drawings demonstrate an early human fascination with the color purple. These same minerals, combined with fat, created early purplish paints.

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Purple Buddleia davidii, butterfly bush, brings many different species of butterflies to the garden.

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The ancient Egyptians used manganese in glaze for purple pottery.  Elsewhere around the Mediterranean world, purple fabric dyes were stewed from certain mollusks.

Difficult to obtain, purple fabrics originally were reserved for royalty, rulers, and the exceptionally wealthy.  Purple is still used ceremonially by royal families and Christian bishops.

Later purple dyes were made using lichens, certain berries, stems, roots and various sea creatures.  Synthetic shades of purple dyes were first manufactured in the 1850s, when ‘mauve’ made its debut.  Creating just the right shade can be both difficult and expensive.

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Native purple mist flower, Conoclinium coelestinum,  returns and spreads each year.

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Considered a ‘secondary color,’ shades of purple range between blue and red.  Artists mix various reds, blues and white to create the tint they need.   As a secondary color, purple has come to symbolize synthesis, and the successful blending of unlike things.  It is creative, flamboyant, magical, chic and ambiguous.  Lore tells us that purple was Queen Victoria’s favorite color.

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Rose of Sharon varieties offer many purple or blue flowers on long flowering shrubs.

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Violet and indigo form part of the visible spectrum of light, but not purple.  Purple glass is made with minerals, like hematite, melted in the mix to create its rich hues.

Purple flowers, leaves, stems, fruits and roots indicate the presence of certain pigments, known as anthocyanins, that block harmful wavelengths of light.   Purple leaves can photosynthesize energy from the sun.  The rich pigment attract pollinators to flowers and may offer purple parts of the plant some protection from cold weather.  These deep colors are often considered to enhance flavor and increase the nutritional value of foods.

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Tradescantia offers both purple foliage and flowers.  A tender perennial, it can be overwintered in the house or garage.  Here it shares its space with an Amythest cluster.

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I love purple flowers and foliage for their rich and interesting contrast with all shades of green.  Ranging from nearly pink to nearly black, botanical purples offer a wide variety of beautiful colors for the garden.  Add  a touch of yellow or gold, and one can create endless beautiful and unusual color schemes for pots, baskets and borders.

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Verbena bonariensis blooms in a lovely, clear shade of purple from late spring until frost.

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Woodland Gnome 2019

And one more:

A new Classic Caladiums introduction this season, C. ‘Va Va Violet,’ offers the most purplish violet Caladium color to date.

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Many thanks to the wonderful ‘Six on Saturday’ meme sponsored by The Propagator.

 

 

Butterfly Beauties

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“Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.”
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Anne Frank

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“Dwell on the beauty of life.

Watch the stars,

and see yourself running with them.”
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Marcus Aurelius

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“To be creative means to be in love with life.

You can be creative only if you love life

enough that you want to enhance its beauty,

you want to bring a little more music to it,

a little more poetry to it,

a little more dance to it.”
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Osho

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2019

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“Though we travel the world over

to find the beautiful,

we must carry it with us,

or we find it not.” 

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Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Wildlife Wednesday: Life Everywhere

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There is always excitement in the air as families gather, greetings as each group arrives,  hugs all around, and plenty of stories to share.   Early summer carries that same vibe for me as all of the various creatures who share our garden make their seasonal debut.

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This same turtle who visited on our patio earlier this week turned up again in the upper garden this morning.  She was laying her eggs near a rose of Sharon tree in a shaded and protected place.  I happened upon her while out watering, and greeted her warmly.

I always feel a bit honored when turtles choose to lay their eggs in our garden and hope to be out and about when the baby turtles emerge from the earth several weeks on.

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August 2014

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A Monarch fluttered past while I was watering this morning, too.  And I noticed our first hummingbirds on Monday.  The lizards have been active for several weeks already, sunning by the kitchen door and skittering under vines or through the grass with our approach.

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A group of three Tiger Swallowtails enjoyed these Ligustrum flowers last Sunday.

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Our garden is filled with birds and alive with squirrels.  The birdsong begins before dawn most days, and I often catch a cardinal perched outside our kitchen window, keeping watch over what is happening inside.  The birds love to nest in shrubs near the house, and we watch over their comings and goings as they watch over ours.

Our garden has filled with life: dragonflies, butterflies, bats at dusk and owls calling from the ravine.

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Lizards love to hide under the vines and around the pots, where they find plenty to drink.

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It’s not all good.  Squirrels and deer bring ticks.  Mayflies haunt our every mid-day move, mosquitoes angle for a bit of skin, and  the chiggers have also returned.  Deer are finding ways into the garden and munching despite our best efforts with deterrents.

I love the sweet surprise of a turquoise dragonfly hovering nearby, or a hummingbird buzzing in close in search of nectar.  We hear more creatures than we see, and know others are lurking in the shadows of the ravine.

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Ours is a wild garden, made to supply the wild things’ needs for food and water, shelter and places to nest.  There are no poisons or traps, no noxious chemicals washing into the water or soil.  There is sanctuary and peace; most of the time…. 

(I’ll leave it to your imagination what happens when we happen to notice a deer grazing on a shrub….  But families are noisy and annoying, too, sometimes.)

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August 2016

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Every creature has its place in the web of life.  And especially us, who have the wisdom to protect and the power to destroy this fragile place that is our own home.

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Woodland Gnome 2019

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Butterflies on Asclepias syriaca along the Colonial Parkway (and below)

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“There are in nature neither rewards nor punishments —

there are consequences.”
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Robert G. Ingersoll

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Wildlife Wednesday: A Feast For a Swallowtail

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You may count gluttony among those seven deadly sins, but our little Swallowtail didn’t get the memo.

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She was covered in so much wonderful sticky pollen by the time we spotted her, that we aren’t quite sure whether she is an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail or an Eastern Black Swallowtail.  Since no white spots are visible on her body, we suspect that she is the black form of the female Tiger Swallowtail.

From my perspective a bit under her, while she enjoyed this rose of Sharon flower, it looked as though she was lying on the flower’s pistol, straddling it with legs akimbo.  You can see the pollen on her body, legs and even wings.

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These rose of Sharon flowers, Hibiscus syriacus, must be enticingly delicious.  We watch the hummingbirds stop by these shrub several times a day.  Other, smaller butterflies and bees flew in and out and around while our Swallowtail feasted.

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These beautiful trees are easy to grow in full to partial sun and reasonably moist, but well-drained soil.  They self-seed readily and grow with little attention from a gardener.  We let them grow in several places around the garden because they are so beloved by our pollinators.

You will find many different rose of Sharon cultivars on the market.  We’ve found many different ones growing around our garden, with new seedlings showing up every summer.  Rose of Sharon trees begin to bloom when they are just a few years old.

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We may lose a tree or two a year, as they aren’t very long lived and grow on fairly shallow roots.  The largest one in our garden tops out at less than 20′ tall.  This is a good landscaping tree that won’t endanger foundation or roof if planted close to the house.  Growing it near a window provides hours of summer entertainment as the pollinators come and go.

Although it’s not native to Virginia, Hibiscus syriacus has naturalized here, and fills an important niche in our summer garden.

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It is both beautiful and generous, and we enjoy watching the many winged and wonderful creatures that it attracts throughout the year.

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Woodland Gnome 2018

. . .

“Similar to a butterfly,

I’ve gone through a metamorphosis,

been released from my dark cocoon,

embraced my wings,

and soared!”

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Dana Arcuri

July 2018: What Is This Freedom We Celebrate?

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“ In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.
     

The first is freedom of speech and expression—everywhere in the world.

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” The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way—everywhere in the world.

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“ The third is freedom from want—which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants—everywhere in the world.

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“ The fourth is freedom from fear—which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor—anywhere in the world.

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  ” That is no vision of a distant millennium.    It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation.
     

That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb. “

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Franklin D. Roosevelt,

excerpted from the State of the Union Address to the Congress,

January 6, 1941

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Much like this butterfly with a damaged wing, each of tries our best to keep moving through each day, gathering what we need, caring for those we love and enjoying the time at hand.  With faith and determination we persist, finding sustenance and meaning where we can.

Let’s pause this week to consider again the wisdom given to us in past years by our country’s greatest leaders.  Their words echo across the years, as fresh and true as the day they were uttered.  Those who understand and remember our nation’s history are best equipped to resist all attempts to corrupt our nation’s purpose. 

It is by keeping our American ideals in heart and mind that we find the energy to persevere, and to prevail in preserving human freedoms and individual dignity for generations to come.

Persist, Resist, Prevail!

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Woodland Gnome 2018

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Structure

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“Life on earth is a whole,

yet it expresses itself in unique time-bound bodies,

microscopic or visible,

plant or animal, extinct or living.

So there can be no one place to be.

There can be no one way to be,

no one way to practice, no one way to learn,

no one way to love, no one way to grow or to heal,

no one way to live, no one way to feel,

no one thing to know or be known.

The particulars count.”

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Jon Kabat-Zinn

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“Nothing is less real than realism.

Details are confusing.

It is only by selection, by elimination,

by emphasis,

that we get at the real meaning of things.”

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Georgia O’Keeffe

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“The basic structure of the universe

is balanced on a razor’s edge

for life to exist”

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Sunday Adelaja

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2017

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For the Daily Post’s

Weekly Photo Challenge:  Structure

Sunday Dinner: Turning In Circles

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“Everything turns in circles and spirals

with the cosmic heart until infinity.

Everything has a vibration that spirals inward or outward —

and everything turns together in the same direction

at the same time.

This vibration keeps going: it becomes born and expands

or closes and destructs —

only to repeat the cycle again in opposite current.

Like a lotus, it opens or closes, dies and is born again.

Such is also the story of the sun and moon,

of me and you.

Nothing truly dies.

All energy simply transforms.”

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Suzy Kassem

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“The life of man is a self-evolving circle,

which, from a ring imperceptibly small,

rushes on all sides outwards

to new and larger circles, and that without end.

The extent to which this generation of circles,

wheel without wheel, will go,

depends on the force or truth of the individual soul.”

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Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2017

With wishes for happiness at Eostre

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“If patterns exist in our seemingly patternless lives —

and they do —

then the law of harmony insists

that the most harmonious of all patterns, circles within circles,

will most often assert itself.”

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Dean Koontz

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Blossom XVI

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“Plants are also integral to reweaving

the connection between land and people.

A place becomes a home when it sustains you,

when it feeds you in body as well as spirit.

To recreate a home, the plants must also return.”

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Robin Wall Kimmerer

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Bougainvillea

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“I have a very simple arrangement with my plants:

I give them love and they give me flowers.”

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Joseph Rain

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“Groom yourself and your life like a shrub.

Trim off the edges and you’ll be stronger

in the broken places.

Embrace the new growth

and blossom at the tips.”

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D’Andre Lampkin

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2016

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“Sometimes I wish I could photosynthesize

so that just by being, just by shimmering

at the meadow’s edge or floating lazily

on a pond, I could be doing the work of the world

while standing silent in the sun.”

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Robin Wall Kimmerer

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Blossom I

Blossom II

Blossom III

Blossom IV

Blossom V

Blossom VI

Blossom VII

Blossom VIII

Blossom IX

Blossom X

Blossom XI

Blossom XII

Blossom XIII

Blossom XIV

Blossom XV

BlossomXVII

Blossom VXIII