It finally rained a bit this morning. Not much, just enough to dust things off a bit, but better than nothing. I was up early and the morning light on the wet flowers was wonderful, so cool, so refreshing.
And my spade, which I seem to have left out last night, provided proof that we had had at least some rain!
More, please!
When I came in the door from the garden the phone was ringing. The land line, you know, the one you don't carry around. I picked it up and it was an acquaintance who does sometimes phone.
"I called earlier", she said, "but I guess you were out."
"Well, I was in the garden, pulling euonymous."
There was this total silence. Now, this is not a person I know very well. We have several friends in common, so she probably knows me better than I know her. It took me a minute to realize that she probably isn't a gardener, so what I'd said might have sounded a bit strange.
I decided not to explain to her that I had gone outside with the firm intention of doing some easy, relaxing weeding. I was only going to pull the Forget-me-nots out of a small part of my rockery, and maybe reduce the nearby Ajuga patch a little. That's was all I was going to do today; after all, it was about 28C out there and the mosquitoes were hungry.
Ajugas are easiest to pull when they're blooming. For one thing, that's when you can find them. For another, that's when they are still attached to all the little baby Ajugas at the ends of their many runners. If you wait a bit the runners seems to disengage or something, forcing the little ones to take up independent living, which they do with great tenacity. At that point, instead of pulling one Ajuga plant you have to pull a dozen, and believe me, they hide and they hold on.
I pulled happily, filling my bucket many times and dumping it on the Hop Vine which always comes up through that particular compost pile. I've been trying to discourage it for years but it's still going. One year it got away from me and I didn't know it. I wasn't seeing it and started to think maybe it was gone and then I looked up into the Maple nearby. My illusions fell in little shattered bits all around me.
The Forget-mes were no problem. They come out easily. If you pull them before they form seeds they don't even stick to your gloves but once the little burr-y seeds form they stick to everything. Do not pull Forget-mes in a flannel shirt.
Then I decided, in an uncharacteristic moment, that the little row of Cedars (Arborvitae really) which had grown up in the rock crevice had to go. They were only about a foot high five minutes ago but here they were, towering over my head at a good 7-8 feet. Ever cut down 3" diameter Cedars with secateurs? And then cut them up so you could put the branches on the compost pile and the trunks in the use-for-something-sometime pile? It was quicker than going to get the saw.
The cedars had a lot of last year's leaves caught at their bases. I was going to leave them there but then I tripped over something. Seems an old Euonymous vine I planted there years ago was still going. It was just doing it under the leaves. I pulled. Ten feet of yellow stem, with roots along it, came up. I rummaged around in the leaves, found more yellow stems.... I pulled, clipped, wound into a bundle, pulled, clipped, wound into a bundle... that darn Euonymous had turned into over twenty feet of many many stems, all rooted (shallowly, thank goodness) in the large crevice the Cedars had been in. It had also, very sneakily, sent skinny, hardly noticeable little green stems with small green leaves into the adjacent fern and Trilliums patch. Pulling those wasn't so easy as I didn't want to damage the good guys. So I had to pull gently, clip, carefully disentangle, grope for the end of the stem, repeat. And repeat, and repeat.
In the 28C heat and no chance of rain again today. They said 'risk of thunderstorms' on the news, but I think it should be 'slight hope of thunderstorms' but anyway they didn't happen and everything is terribly dry.
This Euonymous, by the way, was sold to me by an actual rock gardener. I don't remember what species it was, but it was supposed to stay small. When it first bloomed I was intrigued, it was such a strange flower. I had never seen one before.
Then, still being completely naive on the subject of Euonymi, I bought and planted an E. fortunei. It looked great in all those English gardening books. Yep, and it looked great in my rockery. All over my rockery. All over all the other plants in the rockery, and the rocks, and my paths and for all I know, some number of small animals. It took hours of work to dig it out and for a year or two it keep sticking tentative little yellow leaves up above the soil.
No more Euonymi for me, thanks.
Now, a Message to My Readers.
I know that I am writing this blog entirely for my own amusement. I know that and I'm good with that, but I wouldn't mind having a few more readers! It does begin to feel a bit like the sound of one hand clapping if nobody is reading. In July, feedburner is going to stop handling the email notices about new blog posts that you have been getting. I have to either change the format of this blog, or find another program to do the same thing, or ??? There are options, I don't understand all of them yet... it may be possible to do it completely seamlessly, or it may not. In any case, please, stay in the boat! I'll let everyone know soon.
Meanwhile, one thing I do know: I would like more readers.
I know there are lots of you keen gardeners out there, and you all know others, so here's a bribe! Kind of a double bribe!
Anybody who shows that they would like this blog to continue, by subscribing, or leaving a comment or sending me an email or phoning on the old land line or otherwise communicating with me, will get their name put into a (virtual) hat. To keep it fair I will only put any name in a maximum of 3 times, that way someone who leaves lots of comments will still only get 3 chances. On Sept. 1, 2021, I will draw one name and that lucky person will win the Tilley Hat of his or her choice. Any Tilley hat, any colour, style, size, up to a value of CAD $120.00. That's a pretty good bribe, eh!
And, just for fun, I will select one name for a second prize: a Japanese Hand Weeder from Lee Valley Tools in Ottawa. This is a short hoe-like tool with one sharp edge and is the best weeding tool I have ever used. My criteria for selecting the winner of this prize will be... completely arbitrary. I'm going to pick what I think was the best or most amusing or most unusual communication I received all summer to win this prize!
My contact info is in the box at the top to the left of the blog text. If you decide to play, do be sure I have your name and a way to get in touch with you should you be the winner!
Good Luck!
But I still have some snow! Want some? There's a nice big pile of it where Mr. SnowBlowerMan throws the snow from three different directions so it becomes a dense icy pile and never melts until about the time farmers are taking off their first hay crop. If you want some, just come on over. Bring Scotch.
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Snowdrops are out - actually, I tell a lie, they've been out for a week already. This is Galanthus morrowii, a larger-leaved species, but just as charming as the more common G. elwesii.
Dirca palustris, aka Wicopy, aaka Leatherwood, aaaka quite the earliest shrub to flower at my place. In fact, just about the first flower, period. The blooms are small, only about an inch long, but the black furry buds are cute. Kind of like my cats' black furry butts, but a lot smaller!
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I was delighted to find four separate clusters of purple Crocuses in a small bit of open woodland behind my Rockery. I planted 100 crocus bulbs in 2019, and had one flower. I figured the squirrels had gotten them, but it appears they missed a few!
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A miniature daffodil called Tete-a-tete. First, earliest, smallest, cutest, most invasive
daff in the garden. I rarely see a seedpod yet Tete-a-tete seeds itself
around. Adorable in a small wineglass. Wine is even better, but if you're
out, these tiny perky blossoms will make you feel better. If you have
wine, pour yourself a glass and go sit in the sun beside these little
charmers and enjoy both. When your glass is empty, pick some daffs and
put them in the glass.
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A False Morel, a tiny one, but it will get bigger, and there will be more of them. Seems too early for mushrooms, but these show up in a certain spot every Spring. Totally inedible, but they do signal that the True Morel might be up as well. I searched where there were some last year, but didn't see any. True Morels are scarce, False Morels not so much.
There's a moral there, somewhere.
Happy Spring!
I was taken to task, politely but quite firmly, by someone who asked why her Hoya plant wasn't blooming.
Her post, on Facebook, included a very nice picture of a healthy looking Hoya carnosa.
Now I've had Hoyas, several species and several variations of the main houseplant, H. carnosa, for over 50 years. In fact one of the plants I have now is a distant offspring (are things grown from cuttings 'offspring'?) of a plant that covered the better part of a 20' by 20' brick wall inside the building where I worked. It's only light, other than the artificial office lighting, was a skylight overhead and about 10' away. One evening, after working late, I snuck over to the plant with my scissors and nipped off a small tendril with, I think, 2 or 3 leaves.
After a fairly long time, much coddling, regular
talking-to and a certain amount of dark magic, it rooted and put out new
growth. It eventually became quite large and after a few years, maybe
not 7 like the old wives' tales, but at least 5, it bloomed profusely
and did so every year.
So I felt confident that I could help her with her question. I suggested that perhaps it wasn't getting enough sun - it was very dark green, with few of the usual tiny silver splotches that Hoya leaves get - or that perhaps it wasn't old enough, or that perhaps, she had made the mistake which I've seen other people make of cutting off the finished flowering stems. I then went on to say that once it did bloom, she'd love the sweet scent from the flowers.
Well.
Somebody immediately leapt in and told me in no uncertain terms that they had a Hoya that lived in a window, which was firmly curtained, overhung by a giant Spruce tree right outside, and faced due North, which bloomed all the time.
OK.
Somebody else promptly refuted my idea that Hoyas needed to reach a certain age before they bloomed. Apparently she regularly roots small pieces and they always bloom the same year.
Great. I'm happy for her.
Then a veritable storm broke out about the scent. 'Oh, I can't be in the same room as a blooming Hoya'. 'I always cut the flower stubs off because the scent is over-powering'. And more, many more, of the same.
All of which goes to show that whenever you think you know something about a plant, the plant will quickly make a fool out of you. If you know for a fact that a certain plant needs lots of sun, someone will be growing it under their deck where the light never goes above deep gloom. If you state confidently that such-and-such needs steady moisture, someone will be growing it on a rock with no soil and full sun. Or underwater. Or in zone 1A. Or in an old boot beside the kitchen door where the cook empties the dishwater over it three times a day.
And no, I can't show you a picture of my plants. They aren't blooming.It's Hallowe'en..... spooks are abroad and the woods are filled with scary things....
One of them starts with what looks like an egg pushing up through the ground:
Barely 2" across, it seems to have a slightly crinkled surface. It's white, more or less, and dry-looking. It doesn't change for several weeks. Eventually, one day, it begins to grow:
The top splits and an odd little white process appears. The surface has darkened and split. More days go by. It's getting cold at night, but underground much is happening. Our Egg is preparing itself for a sudden burst of growth:
The Egg splits completely open and a spongy white stalk with a slimy brownish-greenish knob on top elongates:
Unlike practically every other plant (or fungus) in the woods, it grows in an ominous curve. Quickly, almost overnight, it reaches it's full growth:
Growing horizontally across the ground, surrounded by fallen leaves and twigs, our weird Fungus #2 turns out to be a Stinkhorn.
Stinkhorns are so-called because, well, because they stink. Get your sniffer close to the 'knob' and you'll wish you hadn't! The smell, very unpleasant to us humans, attracts flies. The flies pick up spores from the slimy top and carry them to new locations, thus spreading the fungus around. The spores are produced in huge numbers and form the slimy surface of the 'knob'. The 'Egg' was an early stage in the fruiting body's development and, when cut open, shows the eventual structure in embryonic form. It is fairly common, growing on rotting logs or wood chips.
And yes, the man who named it agreed with what I'm sure you are thinking! He named the genus Phallus, and since his name was Ravenel, it's now Phallus Ravenelii, that is, Ravenel's Phallus.
His response to this bit of taxonomic teasing has not been recorded.
Have a Happy, Safe, and Spooky Hallowe'en!
Mind you, not a lot of it!
Just a dusting so far, but it's coming!
I guess Hallowe'en is the right time to scare us with that news! Have a good weekend; stay safe!
