Bugs, yuck

If you ever hear I've been taken away by little men in white coats, you'll know that it was scale insects that did it.

I have a dozen or so orchid plants. They're a mixed bag but mostly Cattleya types. I got them about 5 years ago at an Orchid Show when they were small and affordable. Since then I've waged war against these miserable scale creatures. I'm not sure what kind they are - there appear to be many different sorts - but likely one of the soft-scale species.

We go through the same pattern every year, it seems. In the Spring I put the plants outside and they seem nice and clean and healthy. They stay that way all summer, getting bigger, putting out new roots, setting buds. All well in Orchid World, I think. Then it starts to get cold outside so I bring them into the plant shed. Two weeks later the darn plants are covered with scale.

Then I wipe them off, laboriously and not-very-patiently. I have tried some insecticides but not only did they not seem to have any effect (probably because the scale beasties are protected by their waxy domes) but also now we can't buy insecticides in my area and I have none left. So the only option is to use rubbing alcohol and a tiny piece of paper towel on the end of a thin stick to wipe off every scale I can see. And that, of course, is the problem. They hide under the papery covers of the pseudo-bulbs, and probably also on the tops of the roots near where they emerge from the bulbs, and as soon as they get into the warmth after a cool period they all lay eggs. Many eggs, it would appear. And of course they all hatch. The hatchlings are called crawlers and that is what they do. They crawl to a nice juicy spot on a leaf and dig in to feed and build themselves a waxy dome house. Luckily, I don't think they can crawl far enough to spread to other plants. I make sure plants don't touch and hopefully the crawlers can't make it down their home pot, across the wooden slat bench and up into another pot. They are less than 1 mm long, so that trip would like us walking about 1000 miles.... with no food or water.

This winter I'm going to be really vigilant and have one more try at winning this war. It'll be worth it as the orchids are all starting to bloom and last year several of them were quite stunning. Five or six plants are already showing bloom spikes, several with fat buds. One plant, which I think also bloomed last year, has a number of spikes, each with one bud. They look like they are going to be large flowers. Good incentive to get me into the shed to water.... and try to get rid of those rotten bugs.

Stump Life

Quick, before the snow comes, take a look at this stump:

I'm not sure how old it is, maybe somewhere in the 20-year range, but it is almost completely covered in various mosses, lichens, fungi and liverworts. A great many different things are growing on it:

I particularly like the miniature moss-ball. Some mosses, like the blue one at the top, grow by spreading sideways, others by growing from a fixed centre. Yet others, like the one on the bottom, seem to head off for parts unknown like tiny explorers.

Looking even closer, I am amazed at some of the  wonderful patterns that appear:

Too bad I don't have my microscope with me!

Leaves

Every year about this time I go nuts on leaves. Coloured leaves, that is. Here is a collage of some:

And here is a shot of one of the perks of Autumn - something that re-blooms late, giving an unexpected bonus of colour: 

This is Campanula rotundifolia, Harebell. The background, although it is hard to tell from the picture, is an outcropping of pink granite. Harebells seed themselves all over, usually in better places than the gardener might have thought of. This particular plant has come through several nights of frost and is still going strong.

OK, there's a metaphor there and I get it.

The autumn colours have been spectacular this year.... there have been all kinds of surprise re-blooms (coneflowers in October???)..... I'm mulling over a whole range of changes for next year. Hard to do anything now, for one thing I can't see where anything is because of the fallen  leaves and the fact that some plants are completely dormant; for another, I don't want to spear too many daffodil bulbs. But, come Spring, there'll be a hot time in the ol' town....

United Colours of Autumn

The foliage colours this year are just amazing! These are the trees at the entrance to my Sampler garden. The Maples just glow against the background of still-green birches and oaks.

At the base of the Rock Garden one Maple is particularly red:

I always like the fall colours best when there is still a lot of green to set off the yellows and reds. I did quite a bit of driving around today, doing chores, and everywhere the trees were magnificent. This is still a farming area, so the country is a patchwork of corn and soybean fields, pastures and woods. Many of the trees are still green, making the yellow, orange and red ones really stand out.

 It occurred to me, looking across a rust-red soybean field to a line of yellow and orange maples, that this is the true Canadian Mosaic!

Rain!

Finally, rain!

Drought

As you may have noticed, I have not been posting lately.

We have been, and still are, in the grip of the worst drought ever recorded in my area.

I am simply too sad about the effects on my woods and garden to go out and look at them, let alone talk about them. Of course, I know my concerns are not as serious as those of people whose income crops are lost, but that doesn't make it any less painful for me. As someone said, 'you love your rose according to how many hours you have wasted on it', and I have wasted years on this rose.


This has been my third or fourth major gardening effort.

As soon as it rains again, I will begin the fifth one.

Hooker's Orchid

No, not a corsage ornament for a lady with a questionable job choice!


But an actual orchid,  Platanthera Hookeri, or Hooker's Orchid. It is a not-uncommon find in the woods in our area, although there are rarely very many plants. Most 'colonies' consist of one to a few plants, but luckily they tend to be long-lived.  Like many of our native orchids, it does not deal well with competition, so you will normally find it in bare and shady spots under such trees as Eastern White Cedar or White Spruce. On occasion you may find it under deciduous trees as well. 

This shows the plant in my woods in a very typical situation - under some pines, in a bare spot, well-drained, but shady and cool, and accompanied by such typical companions as Violets, Wild Lily-of-the-Valley, Solomon's Seal and Wild Sarsaparilla.  The two large leaves immediately tell us it is one of the 'pad' orchids, which are in the Platanthera gang, and the green flowers tell us it is P. Hookeri. By the way, when a botanical name is a person's name, you may give it a capital letter or not, as you please. I like the capital, it reminds me that the plant was named after a real person.

There are two other 'pad' orchids in our area: P. macrophylla and P. orbiculata. Neither of these have green flowers. Both have larger leaves, and the leaves of P. orbiculata are, as the name implies, quite round.

 Here you can see the long spur, typical for the Platantheras, and the 'hooked' shape of the lip. I don't think John Lindley, another prominent early botanist who named the plant, intended the pun!

These are not orchids to grow in your garden. If you happen to find one, photograph it, admire it, salute Sir Hooker, and move on. Who was he?

Sir William Jackson Hooker was a botanist, botanical illustrator, lecturer and organizer who was active in England during the mid 19th. century. He put much effort into amassing an enormous herbarium, one that became very well-known in his time. He is credited with having helped to revive Kew Gardens, and it is noted that his son, who succeeded him at Kew, was as popular and successful as he was.

My reference makes no mention of the state of  his morals.