Wildly Sweet

~

The sweetest smelling part of our garden remains the wildest.  We inherited a “hedge” of Ligustrum japonicum, overgrown for decades, growing between our home and our neighbors’.   At least 30′ tall, and supporting a healthy colony of wild honeysuckle, its perfume permeates the garden.

A whiff of blooming honeysuckle, a memory from childhood summers, announces summer in my heart.

~

~

This elusive scent remains full of comfort and promise.  The flatter, heavier scent of the Ligustrum grows stronger as the weather heats up.  It penetrates body and soul as we step out into the garden on hot afternoons.

Trillions of tiny white flowers, blooming on this living wall, generate all of this perfume.  And, as you would imagine, they are positively dancing as bees and other tiny insects fly from flower to flower.   Gorging on this feast of nectar, the bees pay us little attention.

~

~

But they have my attention as I work around them.  Of course, this area shades my plant nursery  This is where I store plants,waiting to be potted or planted, and gardening supplies.

This is the wildest part of our garden.  We do nothing here, save to leave it alone.  It had grown into this magnificence long before we arrived, and we leave it to its own outrageous beauty.

Flowers today will slowly grow into plump purple berries by late autumn.

~

~

This wall of Ligustrum feeds our cardinals, and multitudes of other hungry birds, all winter long.  Birds  feast on  insects in the depths of these shrubs throughout the year.  Our overgrown hedge offers shelter for wildlife and provides a windbreak for the garden.

Its deep shade creates a microclimate for ferns and remains cool and welcoming on the hottest summer days. Ivy, Vinca,  and Virginia Creeper carpet the soil beneath it.

Wildly untended, it is not the beauty spot of our garden.  But it doesn’t need to be.  Its presence frames the life within.

~

~

Woodland Gnome  2015

Frozen

For three days now the world has been frozen.

Rock hard ground, sheathed in ice and snow;

The larder is locked.

Any worms or insects the birds might hope to find,

Securely encased in frozen mud.

Any fallen seeds,  buried under ice.

 

Berries top the bird buffet;

Berries, and any human offerings

Left  behind in kindness, to sustain

The great, gathering flocks

In search of food.

Food to fuel survival

Until the world grows soft again,

And offers up its bounty.

The world is frozen,

A glinting, glimmering, hard and shiny

Version of itself.

White sunlight bouncing from ground to leaf

To icicle adorned landscape;

Glinting in eye piercing patches of brightest light

From water and snow.

This frozen light,

Clear and hard;

Offers no warmth.

The world is frozen, brittle, sharp and painful.

Wind sucking warmth from finger and face,

Snow numbing toes and hands.

Icicles threatening like crystal knives,

Gathering girth as frozen night follows frigid day.

Birds crunch frozen berries from ice glazed shrubs,

Filling their gullets with ice,

Flying to keep from freezing, staying close in

Living clouds of winged family flocks.

Ruffling feathers against the wind,

Standing on ice, wading in briny waves.

A small miracle, to remain warm

And alive,

In this world of ice.

Words and Photos by Woodland Gnome 2014

What is There To Eat?

Bringing Birds To The Garden

Families Gathering

Ligustrum in the Winter Garden

Snow Washed

Ligustrum in the Winter Garden

Ligustrum japonicum in January

One of our most beautiful shrubs at the moment, Ligustrum japonicum, is still covered with clusters of deep purple berries.  Its glossy, deep green leaves look as hardy and healthy as they did all summer long.  There is nothing about this shrub which even hints at the freezing days and nights we survived last week.

Mature Ligustrum shrubs, actually small evergreen trees, make a thick windbreak hedge along one side of our property.  Unremarkable through most of the year, they fade into the background; forming a living privacy fence.  Extremely hardy and self-sufficient, they require no particular care.  They tolerate drought, sun or partial shade, and can grow in a variety of soil types.  The deer leave these shrubs alone.

These beautiful berries attract many hungry song birds throughout the winter. Although many have already dropped or been eaten, there are plenty to feed our birds over the next several weeks of winter.

They just quietly grow larger each year, covering themselves with fragrant white flowers each spring.  We never prune or trim the Ligustrum on the property boundary, although we have pruned one closer to the house fairly heavily, to keep it in bounds.  It thanks us with abundant new growth and a heavy crop of berries.

Evergreen Japanese Ligustrum has naturalized nicely in coastal Virginia.  Although a “nursery shrub”, also known as “Japanese Privet,” it seeds itself far and wide.  Considered an invasive species in some areas,  it is one of those work horse shrubs of the suburban landscape. There are gardeners who despise this shrub, mostly because of its heavy berry crop.  You will find little volunteer shrubs in early summer, and must either pull them or work them into the landscape plan where there is room for them to grow.

This photo, taken during the deep freeze last week, shows the evergreen leaves as glossy and green as they were all summer.

And yet, Ligustrum plays a valuable role in our garden.  Not only does it provide privacy, it also filters and cleans the air and muffles sound.  It is thickly grown enough to provide plenty of nesting habitat for a variety of birds, and produces abundant berries to feed wildlife in winter.  Our shrubs are large and strong enough to also support honeysuckle vines and native grape vines growing through them, which provide additional food and cover for wild life in the garden.

Our Ligustrum shrubs are quite old, and quite high. Actually small trees, they are 20 feet tall, or more, along the edge of the property.

I didn’t properly appreciate the Ligustrum when we first moved to this property.  In fact, early on I thought about cutting them and replacing them with something “more interesting.”  Since I make it a practice to just live with a new garden for a while, and observe through the change of seasons, my opinion of the Ligustrum slowly changed over time.  Their heavy spring bloom didn’t make us sneeze, as I had feared.  Their blooms are fragrant, and last a long time, well into early summer.  The flowers produce abundant pollen.  They are an important source of nectar for bees and other insects.

In deep winter, Ligustrum hold their color and glossiness even better than Camellia shrubs.  The light they reflect from their large, glossy leaves brightens the landscape when the sun comes out.  They maintain the same visual mass they have in summer, since the leaves remain all winter long.  We have lost leaves in heavy wind storms, but have never lost so much as a branch from any of the many Ligustrum shrubs on the property.

We are on the northern edges of their hardiness zone, as they grow most easily in zones 7-10.  Ranging from Maryland south to Florida, and then along the Gulf coast to Texas; these shrubs are found in the Southeastern region of the United States.

So although Ligustrum japonicum is considered an invasive species, and all parts are poisonous for people, I’ve grown to appreciate it in our garden.  Heavily pruned, it can be as boring and rangy looking as any of a number of other nursery trade evergreen shrubs overused in suburban plantings.  Planted where it can grow freely,and fulfill its potential as a small tree however, it is quite lovely.

Our Ligustrum near the house is  limbed up, and we enjoy its elegant cluster of curving trunks.  Most of our shrubs have branches nearly down to the ground, forming a living green wall screening our drive from our neighbor’s.

Along with holly, Camellia, pine, and Mountain Laurel, it keeps our winter garden green and vibrant.

All Photos by Woodland Gnome 2014

The Ligustrum comes alive with scores of birds feasting on its berries when snow makes much other wild food inaccessible.