Nature Challenge Day 1: Tree Frog

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Near the end of a long day of gardening, as I was planting the last Caladium in a bed near our drive and preparing to clean up, my partner came out to check on my progress.   As we were visiting, he asked, “What on Earth is that?!”

He was looking at the front fender of our car, where a light grey blob had attached itself just beyond the headlight.  At first glance it looked like a huge bumpy wad of chewed gum.

I pulled off one muddy glove and retrieved my camera from its pocket in my gardening vest, then ever so quietly focused on the blob.

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It never moved as the camera powered up or as I crept into position to shoot.  But it didn’t take long for me to realize this was a living creature clinging to the side of the car.

Not just any creature, but one neither of us had seen before.

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It remained perfectly still as I moved around it for several more shots, drawing ever closer.  Finally, I could see its sides moving faintly with its shallow breathing.   But it never startled as we conversed, and I took photo after photo.  We could tell it was some sort of frog, but the strangest frog we’ve ever seen!

Only later, with the photos uploaded and edited, did we finally solve the mystery of its name.  We consulted The Virginia Herpetological Society’s website, where we learned there are two grey tree frogs native to Virginia.  This one appears to be “Cope’s Gray Treefrog,” or Hyla chrysoscelis.

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We’re not sure it is an exact match because the frog on our car is much lighter than the ones in their photos.  But the Cope’s Gray Treefrog is native to James City County, so we will go with this identification.

It was still clinging to the side of the car an hour or so later when the cat went outside for the evening.  We hope it has taken up residence in our garden and that we will see it again this summer.  We’ve sometimes seen green tree frogs, in previous years, clinging to the windows of our home.  They never cease to amaze us with their ability to cling for hours on end.

Always peaceful, we enjoy their presence and appreciate their appetite!

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Blogging friend, Y,  invited me to join the Seven Day Nature Challenge last Saturday.  Thank you for your invitation Y., at In the Zone, and for sharing your fascinating photos taken around our shared state of Virginia.  Y and I know many of the same places and share a love for the quirky and beautiful, the fun and poignant.  I appreciate her invitation and will follow her lead to capture the spirit, if not the exact parameters of the challenge.

Not only is one asked to post a nature photo for seven days running, but to also invite another blogger to join in each day.

For this first day of the challenge, I’ll invite you.  If you would like to take up the challenge, please accept in the comments and I’ll link back to you tomorrow.

Although I try to take photos in our garden each day, friends and followers may have noticed that it has been a very long time since I’ve been able to post daily.  Life has gotten quite busy over the past year, and I would always rather spend a free hour digging in the dirt, given the blessing of choice!

But in the spirit of the challenge I’ll set the intention to post a photo daily.  If you decide to accept this challenge, too, I’ll look forward to seeing what surprises May has brought to your corner of the world, even as I share the beauty of ours.

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Another photogenic visitor in our garden today, a Broad Headed Skink.

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Woodland Gnome 2016

Always Evolving

 

Why do you choose certain plants to add to your garden, and not others?  What drives your selections?

My answer shifts from garden to garden, year to year, and even season to season.  Perhaps your priorities for your garden shift, also.

 

Basil, “African Blue,” Catmint, and scented Pelargoniums  grow in a bed of plants chosen to be distasteful to deer.

 

We garden to fill a need.  Some of us need to produce some portion of our own food.  Some of us want to grow particular ingredients or specialty crops, like hops or basil.

Some of us want to harvest our own flowers for arrangements, or produce our own fruit or nuts for cooking.

 

Once upon a time I focused on growing flowers, and am still struggling to grow decent roses in this wild place.

And our garden is filled with flowers; some already growing here, some that we’ve introduced.

But our current inventory of flowers is driven more by the wildlife they will attract  than by their usefulness as cut flowers.

Lantana attracts many species of nectar loving wildlife to our garden.

 

Although I could still walk around and clip a decent bouquet most any day from February to November, we rarely harvest our flowers.  We prefer to leave them growing out of doors for the creatures who visit them whether for nectar or later for their seeds.

Purple Coneflower, a useful cut flower, will feed the goldfinches if left in place once the flowers fade.

 

Our gardening  focus is shifting here.  It began our first month on the property.  I moved in ready to cut out the “weedy” looking Rose of Sharon trees growing all over the garden.

I planned to replace them  with something more interesting… to me, that is.

And it was during that first scorching August here, sitting inside in the air conditioning and nursing along our chigger and tick bites, that we noticed the hummingbirds.

 

Rose of Sharon has grown to overshadow our original butterfly garden.

 

Hummingbirds hovered right outside our living room windows, because they were feeding from the very tall, lanky Rose of Sharon shrubs blooming there.

The shrubs didn’t look like much, but their individual flowers spread the welcome mat for our community of hummingbirds.

And watching those hummingbirds convinced us we could learn to love this Forest Garden.

This butterfly tree and Crepe Myrtle, volunteers growing along the ravine, normally attract dozens of butterflies each day during the weeks they bloom each summer.

 

Our decision to not only leave the Rose of Sharon shrubs, but to carefully prune, feed, and nurture all of them on the property marked a shift away from what we wanted to grow for our own purposes, and what we chose to grow as part of a wild-life friendly garden.

After a year or two of frustration and failure, hundreds of dollars wasted, and a catastrophe or two; we realized that we had to adapt and adjust our expectations to the realities of this place.

A dragonfly and Five Line Skink meet on a leaf of Lamb’s Ears.  Lamb’s Ears is one of the ornamental plants we grow which is never touched by deer.

 

What had worked in the past became irrelevant as we had to learn new ways to manage this bit of land.

And how to live in a garden filled with animals large and small.

The other major shift in my plant selection has been towards interesting foliage, and away from flowers.

Fig, “Silvre Lyre” and Sage

 

Although the garden is filled with flowers loved by hummingbirds, butterflies, bees of all sorts, wasps, moths, and who knows what else; the ornamentals we choose for our own pleasure run more towards plants with beautiful and unusual leaves.

 

Huge Cannas and Colocasia chosen as a screen between home and road have interesting leaves.  The Cannas also produce wildlife friendly red flowers.

 

If they produce flowers, those are secondary to the foliage.

There is such a wonderfully complex variety of foliage colors and patterns now available.

 

Begonias in a hanging basket are grown mostly for their beautiful leaves.

 

And leaves are far more durable than flowers.  While flowers may last for a few days before they fade, leaves retain their health and vitality for many  months.

Begonia foliage

 

We enjoy red and purple leaves; leaves with  stripes and spots; variegated leaves; leaves with beautifully colored veins; ruffled leaves; deeply lobed leaves; fragrant leaves; even white leaves.

 

“Harlequin” is one of the few variegated varieties of Butterfly bush.

 

While all of these beautiful leaves may not have any direct benefit for wildlife- other than cleansing the air, of course –  they do become food now and again.

These Caladiums are supposed to be poisonous, and therefore left alone by deer…. But something ate them….

 

It’s easier to find plants with distasteful or poisonous leaves, than with unappetizing flowers.

Our efforts to grow plants the deer won’t devour may also drive our move towards foliage plants and away from flowering ones.

Scented Pelargoniums offer pretty good protection to plants near them. This pepper has survived to ripeness.

 

Our interests, and our selections, continue to evolve.

Gloriosa Lily, new in the garden this year, is hanging down off of the deck, still out of reach of hungry deer.

 

We choose a few new plants each year to try; and we still seek out a few successful  varieties of annuals each spring and fall.

The garden never remains the same two seasons in a row.

 

Spikemoss is a plant we’ve just begun using as ground cover in pots and beds.

 

It is always evolving into some newer, better version of itself.

As I hope we are, as well.

 

Photos by Woodland Gnome, 2014

 

A “Dirty Hands” Garden Club

Colocasia, “Blue Hawaii”

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I would love to join  a “Dirty Hands” Garden Club;

One whose members know more about fertilizers

Than they do about wines…

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A gift of Glads, from a sister gardener…

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I’d want our meetings spent wandering through nurseries,

Learning from  expert gardeners,

Or building community gardens…

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Bumblebee on Lantana

 

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Not frittered away in chit chat over hors d’oeuvres .

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Bumblebee on Basil

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And all of us would be at least a little expert in something,

Glad to share what we’ve learned;

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Tiger Swallowtail on Echinacea

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And we all would love putting our hands in the dirt

To help something grow.

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Eastern Redbud Tree seedpods

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My club would collect species, not dues;

Re-build ecosystems rather than plant ivy and  box.

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Blue dragonfly on Lantana

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We “dirty hands” gardeners can band together

In spirit, if not in four walls.

We can share plants and insights,

Instigate, propagate, and appreciate;

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Rooted Begonia cutting resting on a bowl of Pitcherplants

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Perhaps we can even help rehabilitate 

Some sterile lawn somewhere

Into something which nurtures beauty

And feeds souls….

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A gift of Siberian Iris, from Barbara, growing in a new section of the garden.

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Others can judge flowers,

Decorate homes at Christmas

And organize tours.

These things are needed, too.

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Native Hibiscus

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(But I would rather be out in the garden;

Where cardinals preside over the morning meeting,

And  hummingbirds are our special guests for the day.

The daily agenda ranges from watering to transplanting;

From pruning to watching for turtles and dragonflies.)

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We  wear our muddy shoes and well worn gloves with pride,

Our spades and pruners always close at hand.

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We converse with Nature,

And re-build the web strand by strand,

Plant by plant.

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If this invitation speaks to you,

Perhaps we can work together,

From wherever we might find ourselves

Around the globe.

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We can each put our hands in the dirt

and create a garden,

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Nurture Beauty,

And restore health and vitality to our Earth, together.

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Does a “Dirty Hands” Garden Club

Appeal to you?

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Words and Photos by Woodland Gnome 2014

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Canna

Sleeping In

It was still cool and wet when we first came out into the garden this morning.

It  had been raining again overnight, and drops of rain still clung to every surface.

I came out with the camera to explore the new Hibiscus flowers which had opened.

And as we padded silently around the garden, my partner drew my attention to one tiny creature after another.

It looked as though they were still asleep, resting peacefully in the spots they had chosen last night.

First a lizard, and then a butterfly slumbered on while we took their photos.

 

 

The bees were not so peaceful.

 

They were already busily gathering nectar and pollen from the thousands of Hibiscus blossoms open to their approach.

 

 

In fact, we laughed to watch the bees fly into the very blossoms I was photographing while I framed and focused each shot.

 

It was as if they were little camera hogs- like young teens who push into as many photos as possible with waggling fingers and wide grins.

 

Some of the bumblies were already white powder covered scavengers, greedily gathering more and more of the largesse of the garden.

 

Our garden was alive this morning with creatures large and small.

The only one missing was the cat.  He had chosen to stake out his position in a sunny spot on the deck, aloof from the activity below.

 

All Photos by Woodland Gnome 2014