A Quick Look Back at 2018

I'm sitting in my office, staring out the window at fat white flakes drifting down and musing about the Year That Was.

In many ways, not a good year. Without even touching on all the awful world news, things have been a bit difficult at Pine Ridge as well. I know this does not compare with the various situations in the wider world, but I live in my own small corner, it is my refuge, and it's what I talk about here.

We started the summer with a major wind storm at the end of April, and ended it with tornados in September.  While nearby, the tornadoes didn't actually affect Pine Ridge, but  the storm in April was bad. It took down many many trees, mostly larger ones, and even more particularly many of the large old White Pines. I used to have trails in the woods, now I have acres where I simply cannot walk. Fallen trunks lie criss-crossed, many of them not fully down on the ground, thrown down at all angles and in every direction. Trying to walk at the back of the property is a matter of climbing, ducking and twisting your way through. Nearer the house we lost several large Pines, a number of Cedars, and a huge Spruce. One of the smaller Pines which has long been the corner of the Hillside garden is now an ugly exposed root ball:

It doesn't look all that bad in the image, but that is deceptive. That root ball is all of 7' high, and the tree (you can see the start of the trunk at the extreme right) must be close to 100' long. It used to be 100' tall, now it's 100' long. It would take my tree-cutter-man several hours to cut it up with his biggest chainsaw and I have no idea how I could get rid of the roots. So I left it and I'll hopefully have a bright idea this spring.

On the up-side, the spring ephemerals were amazing. Late, due to the cold spring, but amazing. My double Bloodroot, Sanguinaria canadensis, plants finally bloomed well. The flowers lasted so much longer than the singles, too.

The White Trilliums outdid themselves! All along the driveway, on the slope of the Rockery, and in the Sampler Garden, masses of sparkling white blooms bloomed for a good two weeks. This patch was part of the Rockery.

Most of May was very cool and the spring flowers lasted longer than usual. Daffodils and Tulips were a good three weeks. Not that that helped with my Garden Tour, though, because everything was finished a week before the Tour, and the Roses and Lavender that I usually count on in June were late and bloomed a week after the Tour. Bad planning on somebody's fault!

After that, things got nasty. We didn't have a drop of rain from the beginning of May until the end of June. It was impossible to garden; just watering a few things in the ground as well as the numerous pots took all my available time and energy. Just as I was deciding to definitely set up some kind of pumping system to move water from the marsh (which never got seriously low), it rained. Then of course it rained some more, and rained some more, and rained some more...

The ones I think of the September Flowers, the Goldenrods, Asters, late Roses, Autumn Clematis, all the tribe of summer-is-almost-over flowers, did very well. They started a bit early, and bloomed on and on. The damp suited them surprisingly well. Bees, wasps and butterflies were very happy.

There was about a week later on that it didn't rain... I ran around like a mad fiend and hastily planted all kinds of stuff, without making notes or taking photographs or even thinking much about where I put things. It might be interesting here in the spring!

Snow arrived mid-November and hasn't left. That is, what arrived promptly melted and then it snowed again, and melted again and snowed again... We've had Winter Wonderland so many times this fall I've gotten bored with it! It's quite beautiful outside right now, the first day of 2019, but I just can't go out there and photograph another small tree, lovely or not, covered with new snow!

I'll let Rosie-goof have the last word:

First Snow

We woke up this morning to a white, or at least white-ish world. There wasn't quite enough snow to really give that 'winter wonderland' feeling, but there was enough to make the woods and garden look new and interesting.

Rosie and I went for a short ramble through the woods. Everything was dripping and wet. She loved it, racing back and forth up and down the trail. Me, I put my hood up and looked for things to photograph. The snow made it all look exciting again, such as these fronds of Common Polypody Fern. They stay green all winter, but of course we won't see them once the snow covers them. They really stand out against the browns and oranges of the fallen Maple and Hornbeam leaves.

The trail took us into the 'cedar hell', along the upper end of the Beaver Pond. The trees looked a bit grim...

Two rather surprising red Maple leaves cheered things up again, though; how often do two red leaves fall together like that?

After the rather chilly Cedar bush, we came out to near the road where some old logs were dumped years ago which have developed beautiful patches of lichens and mosses. One of the lichens is the one I've always call Red Soldiers. There's not a lot of it on this log, but I love the contrast with the Reindeer and other mosses.

On the way home I admired the leaves on a Glossy Buckthorn. It never loses its leaves until after all the other leaves are down. The Oaks don't either.

The Crabapples in the garden back at the house are spectacular right now. They are very small crabbies which the birds love. Usually they strip the trees pretty quickly but this year they have so far only eaten one tree's worth.  Some Robins a week or so ago swooped in, ate all the apples on one of the trees and then left. I was reminded of the old joke about the Jewish Mother who gave her son two shirts for his birthday. He was very pleased and went upstairs and came back down wearing the blue shirt. His Mother took one look at him and said, "And what's wrong with the red one?"

Something wrong with the crabapples on the other three trees?

After all that, there was only one thing to do: go in and put on dry socks and make some hot chocolate.

Essential Questions

Sunday, and a glorious Summer day: blue sky, dry air, soft breeze, birds singing...  I made myself a mug of coffee, said 'C'mon' to Faithful Dog and wandered out. Everything in the garden looked fresh after the rain we had on Friday. It's been an awful hot dry summer and it hasn't been much of a pleasure to inspect things lately so it was a very welcome change.

The first part of the garden I went into was the Sampler Garden where I inspected the ferns and my little (and new) bog garden. The little bog was looking pretty good: the Blue Vervain was strong and healthy, the Foamflowers seemed to have taken hold nicely and were even spreading a bit, the Barren Strawberries were much bigger than they had been in the pot, and the Western Holly Fern, Polystichum lonchitis, had several new fronds! That one is not easy to grow in our humid climate and the spores I carefully nurtured all winter ended up as just one plant.

Why is it that no matter how many seeds or spores I sow, I so often end up with only one or maybe two, plants? I have a hunch that if I could answer this essential question my gardening would improve enormously.

I left the Sampler Garden through the back exit, climbing over the big pile of wood chips that are still waiting to be spread on the paths. I've done this so often lately that the pile now has an actual path across it. Works fine, easy enough walking, just a bit uphill and then downhill... hmmm, no. I really will move those chips soon.

Turning back up the driveway towards the Rock Garden I paused to inspect the Gaillardia. It's supposed to be a perennial but with me it mostly seeds itself around and makes new plants every year. The native form is yellow but mine seem to be red and yellow so of course I like the pure yellow ones best. They're a wonderfully cheerful flower and great in a vase, easy to grow and bloom for weeks, but why oh why must they always grow in the driveway? What is it about gravel that attracts them so much?

 Another one that refuses to live in a flower bed and grows and blooms magnificently in the driveway is Mexican Hat flower, Ratibida columnifera. I like the way the 'cones' stick up boldly above the drooping petals. They all point the same way, like sunflowers.

I've seeded both in several other spots, but the ones that persist are in the driveway. Maybe I should plant them where I want them, and then drive on them.

After this, I decided to go on a mushroom hunt. I'm going to a workshop called Fabulous Fall Fungi in late September and it's made me more aware of the mushrooms and other fungi here at Pine Ridge. The serious drought in 2012 had an awful effect on the mushies - for several years I hardly saw any, but luckily this year there seem to be more of them again. Granted, most of them so far have been near the Marsh or the Beaver Pond, areas that stay damp longer in dry spells, but still, seeing more fungi is definitely a good sign.

We found tiny red 'Toadstools', shiny yellow buttons that reminded me of rain-wet plastic slickers, fat soft brown ones the squirrels collect and store by hanging them up in the branches of trees and quite a few more. That rain on Friday really brought them out, I think.

Dog and I followed my trail along the Marsh; that is, I followed the trail and she waded in the mud and then raced to catch up with me, until we came to the area at the back of the property where the wind storm in May knocked down so many trees. At that point we were forced to climb over and under half-down pines and between and over and sideways through a tangle of flattened birch, and through a Prickly Ash thicket and up over rocks... all in an effort to get to the back where I wanted to see if there were any fungi under the huge old Maples. I didn't find too many, but did note that a Groundhog had set up operations right at the fence line. Rosie was most interested and I had to restrain her from initiating an immediate large scale excavation project. Then the prospect of pushing our way back through the tangle was too daunting and I searched for a way around it. Following the path of least resistance, I soon found myself in a patch of huge cedars and alders.

Oops, where were we?

It's interesting how the most essential of life's questions sneak up on you like that.

Drought

Drought. A word to strike fear in any gardener's heart, and especially in the heart of one who has acres of woods and loves ferns.

We haven't had any real rain since early in May. The woods are crisp-dry, which, combined with all the trees down after the wind storm a few weeks ago, brings to mind another word, even scarier than the word 'drought' and that word is 'fire'. Pine Ridge is a rocky ridge, with very little soil, and other than the beaver pond and the marsh, it is very quick to dry out.

The drought in 2012 did a lot of damage, particularly in the soil, and I was just starting to see some signs of recovery. Before 2012 there were Grape Ferns and Mushrooms and Indian Pipe plants... after 2012, there were none of these. The Botrychiums, the Mushrooms and the Indian Pipes all depend on in-soil mycorrhizal fungi, and I believe the drought decimated these. I was hoping they would recover and that new Grape Ferns and such would develop. The fern spores at least would still be around and would grow again. That's why this spring I was happy to see a few new Rattlesnake Ferns, small but coming, and a few of those small red mushrooms.

Sadly, the ferns have withered, and I haven't seen any more mushrooms. Rosie and I just went to a long walk in the woods (actually more a climb over/duck under, push-through-branches kind of a scramble) and we didn't find any. To add insult to injury, the ticks, which are supposed to be busy with other things in July, were out in force. I picked several off my pant legs, and one off my hand where it was scouting for a good drilling site.

 I guess I'm feeling worse about the current dryness because I was hopeful that things were getting back to normal. Isn't that what we gardeners do? We're always convinced: 'next year will be better': next year the wind won't smash down all the Bearded Iris, next year the Roses will bloom for the garden tour, next year the resident Bear won't eat all the strawberries, plants and all, next year it will rain... but sometimes the spirit flags and a feeling of defeat sets in.


On the up-side, I have about 6 Monarch Butterflies wafting around the garden, there seem to be heaps of birds, including a comical family of 4 young Eastern Phoebes which swoop through the Studio and back out making twittering noises the whole time, and there's a small flower bud on one of my hardy cacti.

And it might rain. Maybe.

Canada Day - 37 Degrees in the Shade

It being ridiculously hot, unbelievably humid, and the day of my Canada Day party (later, later), Rosie and I went for a slow wander to find things to appreciate on this festive day.

We admired the Siberian Iris. These very dark purple ones are always a lot later than the other ones, and the colour is amazing. I once parked a small clump of them beside the driveway and they have become a decent sized patch. They like the same conditions as the Wild Lupines which also like this damp spot.

I really must move some of them into the Hillside garden where they'll give a much-needed jolt to all the yellows there.





My little orchid has re-appeared this year, still in it's mat of Thyme.

It's probably, at least I think it probably is, Listera loeseli. The flowers are green (the yellow ones are old and past their prime) and tiny.  Loesel's Twayblade isn't uncommon, but I've never seen it except where it came up in my Rockery a few years ago.

 Bad picture, but it's 37 C and the whole plant is all of 6" high.






 Further along, Rosie found a strange rock...

She didn't dare get too close, and watched me until I caught up. When you spot something weird and possibly dangerous, you need The Boss nearby! A nice, rather large Blandings Turtle. She refused to stick her head out, and because I was expecting someone to drive in, I moved her off the gravel into the edge of the woods. We get a lot of turtles coming inland from the marsh to lay eggs. So far this year we've seen about a dozen Painted Turtles, one Snapping, and one Blandings. 

The Wild Geraniums, Geranium maculatum, are in bloom. Some are whishy-washy mauve or pink, others are deeper mauve or a lovely bright white. They are very much a woodland edge plant, always seeding themselves along the line where the woods give way to the fields. In my garden, that means along the fence row. I've moved them back into the Sampler Garden several times, but those never seem to thrive and every year new ones, which do thrive, appear at the edge.

 There are still some Milkweeds near the end of the driveway. There used to be a lot of them, and they used to attract Monarch butterflies, but over time the area has become too shaded and most of the Milkweeds have disappeared. When the house was being built we had two large storage trailers parked there and it was amazing to see the Monarch chrysalises attached to the trailer sides. They were turquoise green and all attached at about 3' above the ground.The few Milkweeds that are left are beautifully budded today, and I love those  strong muscular shadows. I've only seen one Monarch this year, but there may be more later.

Milkweeds smell wonderful when in bloom, a smell that always means Summer to me. Soft sweet milkweed scent, buzzing bees, a whiff of freshly cut hay, the drone of small planes  in the distance as they practice their landings and take-offs on the Ottawa River nearby, all these mean Summer to me.

And heat, of course. Which we certainly have today.

Back home, Rosie and I check on our Swallowtail caterpillars. I have seen Yellow Swallowtails here, usually during Lilac time, but no Black Eastern Swallowtails. When a friend announced he would have some Black Swallowtail caterpillars for people to adopt, I asked for one. He probably meant children... but, hey, I'm a child in here somewhere. Of course, one would only give me one butterfly, and establishing a population takes at least two, and the right two, so I was delighted when he gave me a whole bunch of them. The only part I hadn't properly thought through was what to feed them, but I'm thinking now that if they all pupate quickly, I'll have just enough Dill and Parsley to see them through. I have lots of Rue, which the Yellow Swallowtails seem to like, but very little Dill. With luck my remaining Parsley plants will recover enough to feed the ones that will hatch from the eggs the current ones will lay after they turn into butterflies, and maybe I can get some more Dill plants. Otherwise they'll have to eat Rue....

 The Eastern Black caterpillar, on the left, is much greener than the Yellow one, which makes entirely too much sense but seems to be true. One other thing I found out, neither one will eat greenery that has been picked. I tried to feed them just a leaf of parsley but uh, unh, they would only eat it when I pulled up the whole plant and put it in the box with them. Now two of the caterpillars (Eastern Blacks) have pupated and another one seems about to do so as well. They go through, according to The Butterflies of Canada, four or five 'instars' or stages, from an egg to a butterfly. Here's the pupa stage:

 Odd looking thing. I admire the guy wires! While I was watching it, I saw it give a big wriggle, almost as though the creature inside was re-arranging itself. The guy wires held!

Being Canada Day, I then picked a few red and few white Roses and arranged them in a small bowl.

Happy (Warm) Canada Day!

Tiny Slippers...

Suitable only for the tiniest, lightest and most dainty of fairies... hidden under the dark skirts of Spruce and Cedar in the cool forests of the Canadian Shield, Ram's Head Ladyslipper is a lucky find for a hiker in the woods.

Not common anywhere in its range, Cypripedium arietinum is the smallest of the Ontario Ladyslipper orchids. It occurs in cold woods around bogs and marshes,  usually in well-shaded and damp spots. It's tiny slippers are only 3/4" long, hardly longer than the mosquitoes which are often seen sitting on the fringed edge of the 'shoe'. Plants are mostly less than 12" high.

Growing C. arietinum can be difficult. In some situations it does very well and may even become a sizable clump, but in most gardens it is a reluctant and short-lived visitor.

Rather larger, Yellow Ladyslipper comes in two sub-species. C. parviflorum ssp. 'Makasin' which is  slightly larger,  and C. p. pubescens which is a good deal larger.

This is C. p. 'Makasin', with its tiny slippers held up in the sun in front of some ferns. Each slipper, or 'lip', is barely 1" long. The other petals, three sepals and two petals fused into one structure which looks much like the sepals and curves under the lip, are very red, and wonderfully curled.







C. parviflorum ssp. pubescens is the other sub-species. It is larger in all respects, with the slippers 2" or more in length and plants up to 18" tall.

You may find this one in several different habitats. It is frequent on alvars, in dry sunny banks above lakes or rivers, and in the shade along marsh or bog edges.

Growing the two Yellow Ladyslippers is not too difficult. Neither one is overly demanding, although like all orchids, they do not tolerate crowding or trampling.

Pink Ladyslipper, C. acaule, is the fussy member of the family. It seems to require very specific conditions, particularly the presence of certain soil fauna, in order to thrive. Even then, colonies or groups may persist for some years, then suddenly vanish. They may also suddenly re-appear! When several large Pines blew over in 1997 at Pine Ridge, two years later there were many Pink Ladyslippers in the new clearing. They grew and bloomed there for 18 years, then they disappeared again.

Certainly, this Slipper doesn't like too much shade, and it needs good drainage as well. It it practically impossible to grow in the garden, so enjoy this one in the woods!

The largest of our Ladyslippers is of course the Showy Ladyslipper, C. reginae.

It forms large clumps of its 2' high stems, carrying one or two of its 3" slippers at the top of each one. It likes water at its feet, and it especially likes fresh, moving,  water at its feet. It is found in swamps, bogs and fens. Occasionally it grows in dryer conditions, which is lucky as it means we can grow this one in our gardens. A slightly shady spot with good humus-y soil and adequate moisture in the early summer is all it takes.

 

Now is the time to see C. reginae. It is just coming into bloom now, and will soon be at its peak. A great place to see them is at Purdon Fen, which has quite an interesting history. The site, which is West of Almonte in the Lanark Highlands and is administered by the Mississippi Valley Conservation authority, hosts literally thousands of Showies and comes complete with visitor information and boardwalks. 

Go now!

A Happy Day Of Weeding

Today I had that most wonderful of luxuries: a whole day to spend in the garden! I had some new Basil, Dill and Parsley plants to plant, so I decided to work in the Herb Garden. We had a bit of rain yesterday and the day before, so weeding conditions were ideal. The mosquitoes thought so too, but I covered up and foiled their evil designs, at least mostly. Once it warmed up they went away anyway.

First order of business was pulling out masses and masses of self-seeded Heart-leaved Asters. Who knew they could spread so quickly! I'd left one clump last summer and apparently it had a Brilliant Career. The clump was right beside my path so you'd think I'd have heard the chortling but I didn't. Anyway, there were two wheelbarrow loads of Aster seedlings and there are still some under the yellow shrub rose. Speaking of Roses, they didn't come through the winter at all well. Of my 23 David Austin roses, maybe only 3 or 4 are showing signs of life. I have never covered them, but this winter  the snow was rather erratic, snow, then a thaw, then ice, then snow, then ice...  fingers crossed some of them recover. I was wondering earlier if I even wanted roses, but my disappointment when I saw how badly they were killed back tells me I do.

And I was sort of counting on the roses to get me through a Studio and Garden Tour next weekend. June 2-3 is not a peak period in my garden but usually the roses and the lavender are in bloom and most people then don't really notice how much else isn't, but not this year.

After all those Aster seedlings I had to have a little break to admire the Iris lacustris in the Rockery.

Such purple!

Back to weeding. Creeping Thyme has taken over far too much of the middle of the Herb Garden. It is very difficult to get out, especially with all the rocks that make up the paths. I used the garden fork, much elbow grease and some bad words and got a lot of it out. Not all, but I can attack the rest next time.

After that I needed to cool off so went and checked out the Creeping Phlox. Phloxes? They do seed around a bit but new plants aren't hard to pull out. Had to remove quite a big patch last year, though. A rather blue-ish mauve one had set up housekeeping right around a large clump of White Trilliums. It was fine until the Trilliums turned their usual magenta pink and then it was totally awful. This year the mauve phlox  is well away from the Trilliums.

Near the remaining mauve-ish Phlox some Prairie Crocus have seeded themselves and I was surprised to see their deep reddish colour.

They don't clash with the Phlox, by the way. And I love those soft furry stems.

Back to work, cool drink in hand. The bugs are gone, but now it's hot. Dug over the small bed where I like to put the Basil and planted it. Then, for some reason, I put the Parsley between a large Lemon Balm and a substantial grey-leaved Yarrow. The dark green curly Parsley looks wonderful there! Where to put the Dill seedlings was harder. Several changes of mind later I put them beside the Evening Primroses (large patch as they attract cool moths) and in front of the poor red Clematis which is forever getting stepped on because it is too close to the telephone junction box. One day, should the Clematis ever seem robust enough to survive the experience, I'll move it.

After that spurt of energy I had to go check out the white Violets growing in the wet spot in the rockery. Still not sure if this is Viola Blanda or V. Macloskeyi. The former is supposed to have reddish stems and these don't. But they do have the twisted upper petals and the deep sinuses on the leaves. Whichever they are, they love their spot. It is a hole or dip in the rock and usually stays pretty wet all summer.

Nearby is a clump or cluster of Mitella diphylla, Two-leaved Mitella. The flowers are tiny, very delicate small fringed bells. The plant goes completely dormant early on.

Bluets were very pretty too, perky and sunny-faced if not exactly blue:

I guess the shadows on the flowers are blue.

The last thing to do in the Herb Garden was to find a nice pot and pot up the new baby Rosemary plant. Last year's plant didn't make it through the winter for the simple reason that I completely forgot to bring it in... and it was getting to be a nice size, too. Some plants need alarms to remind the gardener to bring it in in time.

After all that, time to go in for a glass of wine and supper! A happy day!

The Sad, Sad, End of Mr. Mops

It was time. Sad, but true. Mr. Mops had to go.

I bought him 17 years ago as a wee stripling. Over the years, he had gone from a cute little mop of yellowy-green to a fine stout fellow... then to a half-dead, hanging over my path, pathetic old geezer.

Mr. Mops was a Juniper. Actually, he was a Chaemacyparis, but he looked and acted like a juniper. I'm not sure if he was actually labelled C. psisiferis 'Mr. Mops', or just C. p. 'Mops' but in my mind he quickly became Mr. Mops. I planted him in front of the ugly hydro meter beside my side door. The label suggested he wouldn't grow very fast, or very big, but he proved it wrong. In 16 years he went from a tight clump about 4" across to a bush 8' high and at least 10' across.

Unfortunately, I had planted him only about 5' from my path, the path I take a dozen times a day back and forth to my pottery Studio. So I did some trimming (not one of my skill areas) and decided to leave him one-more-year... well, one more became two more... you know the drill. This Spring Mr. Mops looked like this:

You'll have to overlook the dreadful picture, by the way. Rosie refused to either be in the shot, or to get out of it, the wheelbarrow sat there like a well, wheelbarrow, and I never even saw that ugly orange thing in the upper left corner. Sigh. I was too focused on not chickening out to get a good image. But you can see how lop-sided Mr. Mops had become, and how all the new growth was set to take over my path again. It wasn't too bad on nice days, but rainy ones were another matter. And Mr. Mops was in sad shape inside:

This past winter had left a large area browned off and all the green bits were along the path. Since junipers don't re-grow when pruned, there was nothing for it. Mr. Mops had to go.

Here is the result. Sad, but true.

For now, I plan to stage a collection of geraniums (Pelargoniums, really) there to hide the stump. In a year or two it will come out easily or if I decide to plant something else there and feel really motivated it won't be hard to dig out.

Looks pretty dreary, doesn't it? But just so you don't think that maybe this is an 'all dead garden' like the little girl in 'The Secret Garden' worried, here is a picture of some crocii blooming today. This is 'Ruby Giant', which might be 'ruby' but certainly isn't 'giant' but never mind, it's a glorious colour, the squirrels don't seem to eat it, and it blooms very early.

Good-bye Mr. Mops, it was good to know you!

Change

The only constant in any garden is change... changes happen constantly, some planned, some not. And the larger the garden the more changes there will be. So it's not surprising that a 'garden' of 30 acres should have lots of changes.

Last week's windstorm took down, besides numerous branches and old trees in the woods, a huge and healthy White Spruce beside the Studio. I wasn't aware of it until Rosie and I went into the woods part way down the driveway, followed my trail homeward and then couldn't come out! The end of my path near the house was completely blocked, spruce branches up over my head  and much too dense to push through. We had to go around, through the rock garden. When I went back to see the tree I was immensely grateful that it hadn't fallen on the Studio. The stump is only about 20' from the corner of my studio. If it had fallen a few degrees closer to true East it would have been a disaster. As it was, the tree fell across most of the septic bed, the tip landing in the woods on the other side.

This spruce was probably about 80 feet tall. The base was close to 3 feet in diameter.

Given that this was well beyond the capabilities of my trusty pruning saw, I called for help. Here is a shot of Paul, a local tree service operator I've called on before for help with tree problems, cutting the trunk into moveable sections:

That black blob that looks like a huge mitten is his jacket! (You can see the spruce's stump behind it.) He and his helper worked in the rain and got quite hot. They cut up the tree and moved the chunks into the woods where they can quietly rot and become compost... more change.

Spring!

It was the first day of Spring today and it really felt like it. The sun was warm and bright, the air was buoyant, snow was melting, birds were singing... Rosie and I wandered around for a while, but the snow is still too deep in the woods for an actual walk, so we retreated to the Studio for a very spring-like activity.




I grow ferns from spores. Here is a  picture of part of my setup. The dusty white areas are the tops of the fluorescent light fixtures, which are suspended about a foot above the shelves. It's a very simple setup: two shelves with two lights suspended above each one. It's in my pottery Studio, hence the dust. The small plastic boxes contain the spores sown on potting mix.


The label you see is inside the box, pressed in beside the mix so I can see the name when I take the lid off. I used to write the names on the lids... you can guess what eventually happened.

Most of these spores were sown last fall, a few just a couple of weeks ago. The ones from last fall were ready for some transplanting work, so, once I located that darn trowel of mine and some pots and potting mix, I got to work.

Here is what it looks like inside one of the small boxes. The green moss-like stuff in the middle is the germinated spores, which at this stage are small, 1/4" or less, prothalli. They are flat, roughly heart-shaped, and have many reddish hairs (rhizoids) which anchor them to the mix.

Two structures develop under each prothallus, one or several  antheridiums which will produce sperms, and an archegonium which will produce an egg.  The sperms 'swim' to the egg in the thin layer of water under the prothallus. Once fertilized, the egg will begin to grow and divide and soon the baby fern, the sporophyte, appears.

This box is Walking Fern, Asplenium rhizophyllum. You can see many small sporophytes, especially in the upper right-hand corner.

Once the little fernlets get big enough, I will transplant them into small 3" pots.

I didn't do the Walking ferns today, but I did quite a few others.

These are three different ferns, a Dryopteris dilatata, an Asplenium trichomanes, and an Adiantum aleuticum. Cute, eh?




 Here's a whole tray of cuties. I don't usually have a tray of all different species, usually the whole tray will be one kind, but today I had a number of different ones outgrowing their boxes. In every batch of spores, some plants seem to start more quickly, and grow more robustly, than the others in the batch. Later I'll have more of each kind and, being the compulsive sort, I'll no doubt sort them into groups.

I have some plastic mini-greenhouses and they are very good for growing on the little fernlets. Right after they've been transplanted I keep the vents closed so the humidity will stay high and the little ones can recover from the trauma of being potted up.

After a month or so, when they seem to be growing well, I start gradually leaving the lid off so they can get used to normal air. This is another mixed box, but this time it is because some of the 2016-17 crop were just too small to be planted out last fall and I have had to coddle them through the winter.

It was so warm and Spring-ish today that now I'm optimistic they'll make it!

Les Fleurs d'Hiver

They say April is the cruelest month, but for me, February is. The weather is dreary, the fun of fresh show has worn off (very worn off), the sun don't shine... the month just seems long and dull.

So I do oddball things just to make the month go by faster. Like making weird arrangements to decorate the house.

Now, those who know me will point out that I have no flower arranging ability to speak of, and I'll be the first to agree. Years ago I was at a lecture by an ace arranger, and he ended his talk by describing what he called 'the Dutch Bunch'. 'The Dutch ladies', he said, 'just go out into their gardens and look around. Oh, they say, here's a lovely blue flower, and they cut it and jam it into their left hands. Then they find a yellow thing and cut it and jam it in their left hands. A red rose, a blue Delphinium, a white Daisy, all get jammed into the left hand. When their hand is full, they go in, stick the whole thing in a large jar, and voila, the Dutch Bunch.' Best part of the lecture, for me.

So I grabbed my trusty secateurs (yes, I was able to find them, unlike the trowel which I really need as I'm planning to transplant a bunch of baby ferns, anybody seen it lately?) and ventured forth. It was kind of gloomy out, a bit of drizzle happening, the snow deep all around, but not cold. Just a wander down the driveway and I found all kinds of nice dried weeds.

A Spirea bush donated a stiff stalk, much branched, the Motherwort plants that have taken over a patch near the road were a lovely deep brown, there were Queen's Anne's Lace 'nests' a-plenty, Milkweed pods, of course, Ggrasses, Goldenrods, Asters, even a rather goofy Japanese Anemone stalk.

I gathered them up and jammed them into my left hand.

Stuck the whole bunch in a tall vase (a wider one would have been better), and placed it artistically on my hall table. I did cheat a little and added some bulrushes from last summer, but that was the extent of it.

BTW, if you want to have bulrushes for arrangements in the Fall or Winter, try to get the small ones. There are two species and the most obvious difference is that one has much smaller 'wands' than the other. It grows all along our roads, just keep an eye out and you'll see them. Pick them while they are still green and let them dry upright in a cool spot. They won't burst and spew fluff all over the room, and they'll look good in arrangements all winter.

You can of course, also go out and buy a flower or two. Here's another of my 'arrangements' using some purchased Chrysanthemums and a piece of Balsam Fir branch blown down by the wind.

I apologize to those who really do know how to arrange flowers, particularly those who do Ikebana. I admire it, but it isn't in my skill set.

Another fun way to use wild stuff to decorate your burrow in February is to bring back one small twig or branch or stem every time you go for a walk, and stick them individually in a collection of small vases.

I just happen to have a fine new narrow shelf rail in my dining room, and of course, being a potter, I have plenty of small vases to choose from.

And no arranging required!

Well, That's Seedy.

Seedy Saturdays and Seedy Sundays are popping up all over these days. If you don't know about them, they are events where various seed-savers, seed-sellers, seed-swappers and otherwise seed-ish people get together to swap, sell and so on the seeds they've collected. I'm going to one in Almonte Ontario on February 10. Since I don't have very many seeds (a few species, but not many), I'm bringing my Wildflower note cards and some Herb garden markers.

Well, to be honest, I'm going because it's fun! Last year I was delighted to get seeds of white Cleome and New Jersey Tea and I'm hoping for more great finds this year. Just being in a large room filled with keen gardeners is exciting too. So it's fun!


Seedy Saturday, Feb. 10, Almonte Civitan Hall, 500 Almonte Road, 9am to 3pm. There will be guest speakers, info tables by many gardening groups, seeds galore and, yes, photo note cards. If you come, please stop by my table and say 'Hi'!