Plants I Love That Deer Ignore: Mountain Laurel

Mountain Laurel, Kalmia latifolia

I love finding mountain laurel growing in large, lovely masses in the wild.  Its creamy pink flowers glow softly in the forest.  Wild mountain laurel, Kalmia latifolia, sometimes covers the undeveloped banks of creeks and rivers in Eastern Virginia.  It grows as an understory shrub in our oak and pine forests. 

These evergreen, wild looking shrubs, almost small trees, simply blend into the fabric of the woods through much of the year before bursting into bloom in late April and early May, suddenly elegant and beautiful.  Wild mountain laurel usually has white or pink flowers.  Some cultivars in the nursery trade have been selected for darker flowers of purple, red or maroon.  Ours are probably wild ones, since most of the flowers are white.

Early American botanists first recorded mountain laurel, then called “Spoonwood,” in 1624.  Carl Linnaeus named the shrub for Peter Kalm, a Swede, who explored eastern North America in search of new and useful plants in 1747-51.  Mountain laurel, one of the most ornamental native plants growing along the east coast of North America, was collected by Kalm to export to gardeners in Europe. 

Mountain laurel grows from Maine to Florida in Zones 5-9.  It even grows east along the Gulf Coast from western Florida to eastern Louisiana. But it isn’t generally found near the coast south of Virginia.  It prefers the coolness of the mountains, and its southern range moves ever further west, at elevation, following the Blue Ridge and Appalachian Mountains.

Mountain laurel, part of the Ericacea family of plants, is related more closely to blueberries than to bay laurel, which is native to Europe.  It prefers moist, acidic soil and requires at least partial shade.  Although the shrubs flower more abundantly in bright shade than deep, Kalmia don’t like growing in full sun where summers grow hot.  These plants are best mulched, and fertilized, with shredded leaves, pine straw or pine bark mulch.

Read More on Our Forest Garden

Mountain Laurel, April 2017

Sunday Dinner: “A Discipline With a Deadline”

~

“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.”

.

Douglas Tallamy

~

~

“We were the product and beneficiary

of a vibrant natural world,

rather than its master.”

.

  Douglas W. Tallamy

~

~

“Knowledge generates interest,

and interest generates compassion.”

.

  Douglas W. Tallamy

~

~

“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.”

.

  Douglas W. Tallamy

~

~

“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.”

.

  Douglas W. Tallamy

~

~

“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.”

.

  Douglas W. Tallamy

~

~

Photos by Woodland Gnome 2020

.

“Conservation biology . . .

[is] a discipline with a deadline.”

.

E. O. Wilson

~

~

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

 

 

Six On Saturday: Time for a Change

Geraniums bloom in the midst of scented Pelargoniums and other herbs, Euphorbia ‘Diamond Frost’ and ivy.

~

Color touches and excites us.  Of all the reasons for cultivating a garden, enjoying beautiful color throughout the year inspires me more than most.

Color ebbs and flows in waves through the seasons, with beautiful oranges, reds and golds reaching an autumn crescendo some time in October, most years, with colors steadily fading to browns and greys in November .

~

Camellia ‘Yuletide’ bloomed this week, a bit earlier than usual.

~

Cooler weather brings us renewed, intense color in late season flowers and bright autumn leaves.   Autumn’s flowers celebrate  gentler, wetter weather with a vibrancy they’ve not shown since spring.

~

Oakleaf hydrangea holds its colorful leaves deep into winter.  Behind it, the Camellias bloom and flower buds have formed on the Edgeworthia.

~

We noticed the first changing leaves in late August.  Maples and sycamores began to turn in late summer, followed in September by the first hits of red on the dogwoods.  Holly berries began to fade from green to orange in early October, and still aren’t fully red.

Our long, warm autumn has held off the usual brilliant autumn foliage of hardwood trees deep into the season, and many trees have dropped their leaves already, lost to wind and drought.  Those that have hung onto their branches long enough to shine, brilliant for a while before falling, are enjoyed all the more this year.

~

Purple beautyberries shine against the shrub’s changing leaves.  This isn’t the native, and I don’t recall this particular shrub’s provenance.  But I like its smaller leaves.   ‘African Blue’ and ‘Thai’ basil still bloom prolifically and will continue through the first heavy frost.

~

Goldenrod fills our upper garden beds.   A Virginia native, its golden yellow flowers feed the late pollinators and offer a last wash of soft color among stands of brown seedheads and withering perennials.  Our garden remains alive with every sort of little bee, a few Sulphur butterflies and a late Monarch or two.

We came home after dark this week to the rare and magical sight of a lone hummingbird feeding on the ginger lilies.  A hummingbird glows in the wash of headlights, reflecting a bright pin-point of light from its little eye and sparkling in its movement from flower to flower.  One might mistake it for a little fairy moving among the flowers after dusk.

We had thought the hummingbirds had already flown south, and sat for a long time at the top of the drive just watching its progress from flower to flower.

~

Butterfly ginger lily is a favorite late nectar source for hummingbirds.

~

And so we celebrate the colors of the season, even as the garden fades for another year.  This week I’ve dug Caladiums and replaced them with spring flowering bulbs, Violas, snaps and sprouting Arum lily tubers.

I’m taking up our collection of Alocasias and Colocasias, re-potting them and bringing them inside before our colder nights bite them, too.  We now have low temperatures in the 30s predicted for the next few nights, and they won’t like that.  It’s time to bring in the Begonias, as well, and I’m not looking forward to all the heavy lifting this day will require.

From an afternoon high near 80F on Thursday, we’re suddenly expecting winter-time temperatures at night.  Change is in the air this week.

But even as we turn back our clocks this weekend, so we dial back the garden, too.  Winter is a simpler, starker season, but still beautiful.  And as leaves fall and perennials die back, the Camellias shine.  Every sort of berry brightens to tempt the hungry birds, and we notice the color and texture of all of the different barks on our woodies.

A little planning and thoughtful planting now will insure color in the garden through until spring.  A gardener always has something to enjoy, and something interesting to do while enjoying the beauty surrounding us.

~

~

Photos by Woodland Gnome 2019

~

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

At Work or at Play? Hummingbird Moth

~

“This is the real secret of life –

– to be completely engaged

with what you are doing in the here and now.

And instead of calling it work,

realize it is play.”

.

Alan Watts

~

~

“The best way to not feel hopeless

is to get up and do something.

Don’t wait for good things to happen to you.

If you go out and make some good things happen,

you will fill the world with hope,

you will fill yourself with hope.”

.

Barack Obama

~

~

“Without ambition one starts nothing.

Without work one finishes nothing.

The prize will not be sent to you.

You have to win it.”

.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

~

~

“Your purpose in life

is to find your purpose

and give your whole heart and soul to it”

.

Buddha

~

~

Photos by Woodland Gnome 2019

~

~

“Pleasure in the job

puts perfection in the work.”
.

Aristotle

Photos are of a hummingbird moth, Hemaris thysbe, feeding on Lantana camara ‘Chapel Hill Yellow’ at the Williamsburg Botanical Garden September 2, 2019.

Sunday Dinner: Exercise of Imagination

~

“What I’ve always found interesting in gardens

is looking at what people choose to plant there.

What they put in. What they leave out.

One small choice and then another,

and soon there is a mood,

an atmosphere, a series of limitations,

a world.”

.

Helen Humphreys

~

~

“When tended the right way,

beauty multiplies.”

.

Shannon Wiersbitzky,

~

~

“Humility, and the most patient perseverance,

seem almost as necessary in gardening

as rain and sunshine,

and every failure must be used

as a stepping-stone

to something better.”

.

Elizabeth von Arnim

~

~

“It is only our limited time frame

that creates the whole “natives versus exotics” controversy.

Wind, animals, sea currents, and continental drift

have always dispersed species into new environments…

The planet has been awash in surging, swarming species movement

since life began.

The fact that it is not one great homogeneous tangled weed lot

is persuasive testimony to the fact

that intact ecosystems are very difficult to invade.”

.

Toby Hemenway

~

~

“I’d love to see a new form of social security …

everyone taught how to grow their own;

fruit and nut trees planted along every street,

parks planted out to edibles,

every high rise with a roof garden,

every school with at least one fruit tree

for every kid enrolled.”

.

Jackie French

~

~

“Dandelions, like all things in nature,

are beautiful

when you take the time

to pay attention to them.”

.

June Stoyer

~

~

“Gardening is like landscape painting to me.

The garden is the canvas.

Plants, containers and other garden features

are the colors. I paint on the garden of canvas

hoping to create a master piece with my colors.”

.

Ama H.Vanniarachchy

~

~

Photos by Woodland Gnome 2019

~

“Half the interest of the garden

is the constant exercise of the imagination.”

.

Mrs. C.W. Earle

~

~

“A visitor to a garden sees the successes, usually.

The gardener remembers mistakes and losses,

some for a long time,

and imagines the garden in a year,

and in an unimaginable future.”
.

W.S. Merwin

~

Six on Saturday: Wildlife Friendly Perennials

Black-eyed Susan, Rudbeckia hirta, grows in full to partial sun.  It spreads a bit more each year.  There are other species of Rudbeckia equally attractive to pollinators that also produce tasty seeds for the songbirds.  Deer rarely touch a leaf, unless there is a severe drought and they need moisture.

~

So many of us want to attract birds, bees, butterflies and other pollinators to our gardens.  We want beautiful flowers and glowing, healthy foliage; but we don’t want to attract deer to feast in our yards.

~

Monarda fistulosa loves full sun and spreads on many types of soil. Flower color varies from lavender to white.  Any species of Monarda, which is a perennial herb, feeds pollinators and is distasteful to deer.  Purple coneflower, Echinacea, is another native plant that blooms for much of the summer to attract butterflies, and delights goldfinches once it sets seed.  Once established, both are very drought tolerant.

~

As I chat with fellow gardeners, I hear the same concerns over and again.  We want to be good stewards and support wildlife.  But we want to plant things the deer will leave alone!  No one wants to use expensive sprays and granules to protect their plants, and neither do we want to come out to admire it all and find it munched!

~

Hellebores keep right on blooming through winter storms and freezing nights from January until May.  Every part of the plant is poisonous and grazers never touch them.  Pollinators find much needed pollen and nectar when little else is in bloom.

~

As undeveloped lands shrink, all of the animals that once lived there look for new places to live and raise their young.  And that means that they learn to live among us in our neighborhoods and in the few remaining ‘wild’ places behind and between the developed parcels.

We have the added challenge in our neighborhood of backing up against protected wetlands and a National Park.  The deer and other wild things move freely from park to neighborhood, looking for a safe place to live where their needs can be met.

~

Yellow flag Iris spreads in full to partial sun in moist soil.  It produces a lot of nectar, though it blooms for only a few weeks each spring.  All Iris support pollinators and are distasteful to grazers.  Plant a variety of different types of Iris to support pollinators over a longer period of time.

~

I sometimes feel conflicted planting to attract some wildlife, while trying to exclude other species.  But as we all eventually learn, deer don’t share; they consume.   Deer will eat a plant to the point of killing it, then go looking for more.

I’ve spent many years searching for those particular bird and pollinator friendly plants that deer and other grazers won’t eat.  These are some of my favorites in our Zone 7b garden.  This isn’t an exhaustive list, just a few good picks that come to mind.

In general,  deer avoid herbs because of their essential oils, and avoid plants with tough, leathery leaves that feel unpleasant in their mouths.  Plants with poisonous leaves are a sure bet; and there are plenty that may be poisonous to eat, but perfectly safe for us to handle.

~

A Silver Spotted Skipper enjoys Verbena bonariensis in our garden.  There are many species of  perennial Verbena, all of which attract pollinators and all of which are ignored by grazers. 

~

These plants are easy to grow and easy to find, relatively inexpensive to buy, and forgiving of novice gardeners.  I hope they offer a bit of hope to those gardening, as we do, where the deer roam free and generations of rabbits raise their young in the side yard.

~

Agastache, anise hyssop, is an herb related to mint.  Like other herbs, it has essential oils that make it distasteful to grazers.  Agastache often attracts even more pollinators than Lantana, which is saying a lot!  Its seeds feed birds once the flowers fade.

~

Woodland Gnome 2019

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

Wildlife Wednesday: A Feast For a Swallowtail

~

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

~

~

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.

~

~

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.

~

~

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.

~

~

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.

~

~

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

~

~

Woodland Gnome 2018

. . .

“Similar to a butterfly,

I’ve gone through a metamorphosis,

been released from my dark cocoon,

embraced my wings,

and soared!”

 .

Dana Arcuri

Garden Gold

Fennel flowers allow for easy access to their nectar.

~

The hotter it gets, the more gold in the garden glitters and shines.  As the mercury goes up, yellow and gold feel almost cooling.

~

An Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterfly feeds on Lantana ‘Chapel Hill Yellow,’ a fairly new perennial Lantana introduction. WBG

~

I don’t understand the alchemy of that, but I do understand the clear attraction of gold for all of our nectar seeking pollinators.

~

~

Gold flowers may just taste sweeter.  They certainly draw in the bees, wasps and butterflies who draw sustenance from their sugary depths.

~

Lantana ‘Chapel Hill Gold’ is also a perennial in Zone 7. WBG

~

All the while, these prolific flowers are also ripening seeds to delight goldfinches and other small birds who will feast on their ripe seeds well into the barren months of winter.

~

Flocks of goldfinches took wing from the wildflowers where they were feeding, as I walked through the Williamburg Botanical Garden yesterday afternoon.

~

Golden and yellow flowers often prove among the easiest for a gardener to grow.  Turn to dill, fennel and parsley for their distinctive round umbel inflorescence, all flat and easy to access;  Rudbeckias and Helianthus for their many petaled sunburst flowers.

~

The first black eyed Susans, our native Rudbecki hirta, have begun to open in our garden.

~

Coreopsis, Lantana, marigolds and Zinnias all bloom in shades of yellow, orange and gold.

~

~

The season ends on a wild and native note as Solidagos burst into bloom in September and October, towering over the black eyed Susans in our garden like great feathery plumes of living gold.

~

Solidago blooms alongside Rudbeckia in our garden, October 2017.

~

If the entire garden were nothing but green and gold, animated with swallowtail butterflies and goldfinches, what a beautiful display we would still enjoy.

~

~

Woodland Gnome 2018

~

~

“Any patch of sunlight in a wood

will show you something about the sun

which you could never get

from reading books on astronomy.

These pure and spontaneous pleasures

are ‘patches of Godlight’

in the woods of our experience.”

.

C.S. Lewis

Sunday Dinner: “Be Fruitful”

~

“Don’t sit at home and wait

for mango tree to bring mangoes to you wherever you are.

It won’t happen.

If you are truly hungry for change,

go out of your comfort zone

and change the world.”

.

Israelmore Ayivor

~

~

“True passion motivates the life forces

and brings forth all things good.

.

Gabriel Brunsdon

~

Double Narcissus ‘Gay Tabour’

~

“Try not to become a man of success.

Rather become a man of value.”

.

Albert Einstein

~

~

“There is no season of your life

that you cannot produce something.”

.

Bidemi Mark-Mordi

~

~

“To be fruitful

is to understand the process of growth”

.

Sunday Adelaja

~

~

Photos by Woodland Gnome 2018

*

“It had long since come to my attention

that people of accomplishment

rarely sat back and let things happen to them.

They went out and happened to things.”

.

Leonardo da Vinci

~

~

“Success is not how high you have climbed,

but how you make a positive difference to the world.”

.

Roy T. Bennett

~

 

Sunday Dinner: Nostalgia

~

“Memory believes before knowing remembers.

.

William Faulkner

~

~

“Remembrance of things past

is not necessarily the remembrance of things

as they were.”

.

Marcel Proust

~

~

“The ‘what should be’ never did exist,

but people keep trying to live up to it.

There is no ‘what should be,’

there is only what is.”

.

Lenny Bruce

~

~

“There comes a time in your life

when you have to choose to turn the page,

write another book

or simply close it.”

.

Shannon L. Alder

~

~

“We are homesick most

for the places we have never known.”

.

Carson McCullers

~

~

“It is strange how we

hold on to the pieces of the past

while we wait for our futures.”

.

Ally Condie

*

Photos by Woodland Gnome 2017 

For my friend, Janet, who I miss often, and learn from, always

~

~

 

“Nostalgia in reverse,

the longing for yet another strange land,

grew especially strong in spring.”

.

Vladimir Nabokov

~

~

“For children, childhood is timeless.  It is always the present.

Everything is in the present tense.

Of course, they have memories.

Of course, time shifts a little for them

and Christmas comes round in the end.

But they don’t feel it.

Today is what they feel,

and when they say ‘When I grow up,’

there is always an edge of disbelief—

how could they ever be other than what they are?”

  .

Ian McEwan

~