Hummingbird Way

The driveway garden and other mid-summer delights

2011-07-21T22:25:00.000-04:00

This year I rearranged the driveway garden to look a little more presentable. Instead of clusters of pots in the middle of the driveway, they're all lined up demurely along the retaining wall that separates us from our neighbors. The tomatoes are producing well - no doubt loving this stifling hot weather. We've harvested a perfectly shaped, gorgeous bell pepper that ripened to a brilliant orange; more peppers are on the way. And this year I've planted string beans in a pot - they're just starting to get flower buds.

In the backyard garden, even in the stupefying heat of the last few days, some of the vegetables that prefer cool weather are hanging in. The dinosaur kale looks pretty good, though the curly kale is not so happy. And this year I'm trying to coax brussels sprouts through their long growing season, all the way to fall maturity. (My fallback is to have planted another round of seeds for these indoors, to be planted out by the end of summer.)

A nice surprise: we cleared out the area where our new shed was to go, which also meant moving our compost piles. Look what seeded in from those piles: a miniature cucumber plant and some squash! Maybe next year I'll plant melons here!

Early summer perennials

2011-06-22T21:48:00.000-04:00

I love how the perennial garden is constantly changing. There are seasonal changes, of course, but also changes from year to year, as plants manage to redistribute themselves within a particular bed - more of this, less of that.

My early summer garden this year has acquired an abundance of Asian lilies, mixed in with the natives and cultivars. Although native plants are my passion, I like the way the lilies look mixed in with the red of the bee balm, the orange butterfly weed, and the white swamp milkweed cultivar, 'Ice Princess.'

I've decided not to begrudge the lilies their place in the yard as long as they don't become too prolific. The lilies won't last much longer anyway, and then I'll cut their thick stems back. And I'll have my eye on them next year!

The wildflower garden at mid-spring

2011-05-17T21:35:00.000-04:00

It's been a nice long cool spring. A bit rainy, but enough sun. Best of all, the mosquitoes aren't out yet! The wildflowers are thriving.

These were among the plants blooming in my backyard a couple of weeks back:


Granny's bonnet- a hybrid columbine

Virginia bluebells mixed in with ferns

Two varieties of trillium

The spring vegetable garden

2011-05-01T22:19:00.000-04:00

This year I plan to pay a little more attention to the backyard vegetable garden. This is where my cool season crops grow, as well as those that can use a little protection from summer sun. That translates mostly to greens, although actually the sun-loving perennial herbs do perfectly well here: oregano, thyme, marjoram, sage, rosemary.

We've put up a small fence for a part of the garden, just to ensure there will be at least one rabbit-free zone. Here I'm growing some kale, snow peas, bok choy, and broccoli raab. And volunteer potato plants are coming up! These must be from the remnants of former not so successful attempts to grow potatoes.

We've also discovered that the lettuce we've been growing indoors and that has been harvested several times can be revitalized by being planted out. Those raggedy looking plants have perked up and are ready to be harvested again.

Another surprise is the multiplier onions. These I started from seeds from historic Bartram's Garden several years ago. These perennial onions do indeed multiply. They don't really seem to form bulbs, but look more like giant green onions. I think perhaps I should have been harvesting these right along, as they are quite strong flavored, though if you use the smaller ones, or the part closest to the tip on the larger ones, they are pretty good for both salads and cooking.

A small innovation this year is a new style of trellis - something a little different from the basic tepee. I based it on a design I saw in a book, and hope to have a crop of beautiful sweet peas vining up. I'm hoping the rabbits have so many other succulent treats around the yard that they won't notice until the peas vines are thick and tough enough to be unappealing.

Many happy returns of spring

2011-04-09T22:40:00.000-04:00

They're here: spring beauties, hepatica, bloodroot, blooming in my yard. Cinnamon ferns are preparing to unfurl, while the bluebells are in their early phase, the flowers not yet bells, but small round balls.

I was thrilled to see that my two twinleaf plants, Jeffersonia diphylla, that I thought I'd killed for sure, have returned. In fact one of them has already bloomed, leaving behind the tight little seedhead, apparently the type that springs open and flings out the seed. I'm watching carefully to see if I can catch the second plant during its brief period of bloom.

Twinleaf with seedhead

Also exciting, two days ago I saw my first butterfly of the season. I've seen (and heard) a few bees, including, today, a bumblebee. Alas, no mason bees have their way to the bee tubes I set out last spring. Maybe they have no need, and have found other places to nest in the yard. Or maybe our cool spring is slowing things down for them.

Signs of spring: bunnies in the garden

2011-03-27T16:49:00.000-04:00

Bunnies are not especially welcome in the garden, especially the vegetable garden. But they can be pretty cute. One warmish day recently I watched as a bunny seemed to be nibbling at the roots of a large thyme plant at the edge of my garden. I was only a couple of feet away, but he/she ignored my presence. After awhile I noticed that the bunny was not just nibbling but digging. As I watched, that rabbit excavated a sizable hole under the plant.

Beginning the nest

Digging in

Cleaning up


The finished product

I thought I remembered reading that cottontails don’t burrow, and wondered if it might be a nest for babies. I checked on the internet, and that seems to be the explanation. There was another rabbit hanging about, and there was some chasing, frolicking, and at one point the second rabbit made a sudden and amazing leap right over the first one. All part of courtship, apparently. But since that time, she has not returned to the nest, and there are no babies. So maybe she decided she didn’t like our location after all. And after I had actually planted out some of the lettuce we’d been growing indoors, just for her!

Daylight Design at the DC Home and Garden Show

2011-03-18T06:08:00.000-04:00

This past month has been spent in a flurry of activity, preparing to exhibit my husband's Sunstation growlight systems at the Washington DC Home and Garden show this past weekend. We needed to get lots of plants started from seed, so that we could show off the versatility of the system with an interesting mix of plants at different stages of growth. Our show photos didn't turn out well, but here's what one of the Sunstations looked like before we dismantled it and packed it up for our exhibit.

Greens do very well with this semi-hydroponic system; we had lots of beautiful lettuces - a gorgeous heirloom called "Garden Ferns" from Renee's Seeds is one of our new favorites. Some other things we're trying for the first time: Round Baby Carrots, and a compact pepper called Baby Belle. (We've successfully grown full sized peppers indoors, but we're really interested in anything that's compact.)

Our most interesting challenge is tomatoes. No problem getting them off to a good start, and they are one of the most popular vegetables to grow under lights for eventual planting outdoors. The question is, can you grow a tomato to maturity indoors that will taste as good, or almost as good, as one grown outside? Right now we are trialing Zebra Hybrid, Early Wonder, Totem Hybrid, Better Bush, and Cherry Sweetie. We were trying to pick those that would grow into compact/patio size plants, but this last appears to be a full size plant, so we've been pruning it. It actually looks terrific, and has some small tomatoes on it, as do several of the other plants that were planted earliest.

So all this was very impressive for the garden show; we had a lot of interest, took some orders, and had great fun talking to people. It was all very energizing. I love indoor seed starting and growing. But now the outdoors is stirring. Birds are returning to the feeder, I've planted peas inside my new chicken wire fence, and yesterday on my way home from work I saw a single daffodil blooming. I'm hearing the siren call of spring!

Mental gardening

2011-02-07T21:17:00.022-05:00

Most gardening in our climate at this time of year is indoors. At our house, indoor gardening is of two types. One is starting seeds and experimenting with growing vegetables under lights. (More about that in another post.) The other is what I call mental gardening, a combination of reading, planning, and looking out the window, trying to see past the patches of crusty crystallized snow.

A pre-spring day

I was doing a little mental gardening this weekend, thinking about what might go into an unexpectedly vacant spot in my front perennial bed. The occupant until recently was a multi-stemmed Arborvitae that once again had been splayed to the ground by the weight of a wet snowfall. The same thing happened last year, and I was tired of fooling with that tree! Plus the 10 foot tree was totally out of place at the edge of my mostly native plant bed. We had already scheduled a tree service to prune dead wood off our two large shade trees, and they kindly agreed to cut the Arborvitae at no additional charge.

I'll have a stump to dig up, and space for something new. A small native shrub would be nice - something that won't get too tall or spread aggressively. Out came the books: Native Plants of the Northeast by Donald J. Leopold; the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's guide to native plants of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden's Great Natives for Tough Places. So what will it be? Bush honeysuckle? New Jersey tea? Sheep laurel? - an evergreen, that would be nice. In the end it will depend on what's available when I start hitting up the native plant sales this spring.

And then, surprise! Mental gardening gave way to real outdoor time. The sun came out yesterday, it warmed up a bit, and suddenly spring really did seem not so far off. I got out for a good half hour, picked up some downed branches, did a little pruning, yanked out some ivy, and tried to avoid the mud. The garden season begins!

When green isn't good

2011-01-18T06:38:00.001-05:00

Green is a color that really stands out in the winter garden, since there's not much of it, and it can be a beautiful sight. Snow on conifers? Lovely.

Red osier dogwood with bamboo. Photo by Rachel Shaw

But in my yard there's a fair amount of winter green that is not good. Some of the most invasive plants I battle are evergreen, in particular English ivy and bamboo. It took two years to kill the thick vines of ivy that had bullied their way almost to the canopy of our two largest shade trees. Ripping out the normal sized vines as they sneak across the ground is ongoing. I've wrestled up to the surface the bamboo rhizomes that embed their gnarly fingers underground, sending up little flags of green shoots at unexpected locations.

The visibility of this unwelcome green in winter is an opportunity, I've realized. In the summer these plants can hide in the lushness of all the other green growing things. Not so in winter. Time to put on the boots and gloves, get the pruners, and attack while I can see the enemy clearly!

Winter rest

2011-01-08T18:58:00.000-05:00

Although I love gardening, I do appreciate the respite that winter brings. No more nagging sense of all the things left undone in the garden. The garden gets a rest, and so do I.

Coneflowers in Winter. Photo by Rachel Shaw

Winter is traditionally the time to look at seed catalogs and garden books, to reflect and to plan, and to wait for spring. It's a time for resolutions, and I do have a few. I recently read Weedless Gardening by Lee Reich. I plan to follow many of his directives, including gardening "from the top down" by building up the soil and tilling as little as possible. I want to put down plenty of mulch early in areas where I won't be planting. And I plan to use the torch weeder on the driveway early in the spring, before those first weeds have gotten a start.

Nevertheless, I don't expect to have a weedless garden. My most important resolution? To take time to enjoy the garden I have, and not worry too much about its imperfections. And actually, for my life as a whole, ditto.

All the leaves are down...

2010-12-03T23:09:00.000-05:00

Photo by Rachel Shaw

I admit fall is not my favorite season, mainly because of what follows all too soon. But it has its charms on lovely mild days when the light is just right and the leaves have a golden glow.

Raking leaves used to be one of the things I enjoyed about fall, and still do, though I’m doing a lot less of it. More and more people are making the case for not raking, or raking minimally, or composting raked leaves rather than bagging them. They make the case that leaves make a nice mulch, and and are a source of nutrients. After all, that lovely humus in the woods builds up naturally; it doesn’t come out of a plastic bag!

So last year I raked only our small patch of grass, and left the beds pretty much alone. This year I’ve heard another good reason to let the leaves remain: they are protection for overwintering insects, including caterpillars. OK! Good enough for me.

I do keep an eye out to make sure there aren’t too many maple leaves mounded around individual plants, as they have a tendency to form a dense wet mat. And I probably should have thought sooner to scoop up the leaves off the little patch of erstwhile lawn that I'm trying to convert to moss. I'll keep sweeping leaves off the flagstone front path, so it won't get slippery with leaves when it rains. Otherwise, no raking.

And here’s a link to a beautiful blog on leaving the leaves, as well as on different styles of gardening: http://www.ecosystemgardening.com/leaves-in-wildlife-garden.html

Certified Wildlife Habitat

2010-10-28T20:54:00.000-04:00

Photo by Rachel Shaw

This summer I decided to look into getting my yard certified as wildlife-friendly through the National Wildlife Federation. I'd seen the occasional "Certified Wildlife Habitat" yard sign, and thought it was pretty cool. Plus, the entire City of Rockville, MD, where I live, is trying to get certified, so I thought I'd do my part.

Photo by Rachel Shaw

Certification, it turns out, is not that hard. It is a self-certification process, relying on you to honestly report whether you meet certain criteria. These include such things as providing sources of food, water, cover, etc.; there are various ways you can meet these criteria. There is a $20 fee for certification, and a $30 fee if you want the standard yard sign. To me it was well worth it, just for the value of being able to say, yes, this is important to me; I want my yard to be a haven for wildlife.

a white loblia

2010-10-10T21:18:00.000-04:00

My blue lobelia, Lobelia siphilicata, has always seemed a rather raggedy plant compared to the Lobelia cardinalis, or cardinal flower, which the hummingbirds love. By mid-summer the blue lobelia looks a bit dried up and not terribly attractive. Perhaps, I thought, it's less robust than the cardinal flower, which seems to handle drought pretty well for a water-loving plant.

While the cardinal flower happily seeds itself in throughout the yard, the blue lobelia has not reproduced at all...until this year. I was actually on the verge of pulling it out, when I discovered a flock of low growing, flowering new lobelias around the mother plant. Not only were they quite pretty, they also included some white flowers as well as the usual blue.

I realized that what I seeing must be the result of a mutation. Now I'm fascinated. What will happen next year? Will I have more white plants? And is the much shorter height also a mutation? I don't recall that in its first year of flowering the parent plant was short like these. For now, the blue lobelia stays!

Bottle gentian and bees

2010-10-04T08:00:00.001-04:00

The bottle gentian, Gentiana clausa, is a fall-blooming plant; the deep blue flowers provide a welcome splash of color as the summer-blooming plants die back Also known as closed gentian, the mature flower looks like it is about to open but never does.

I wondered how such a flower was pollinated, and read that it is done by bumblebees, the only pollinators strong enough to force open the flowers. So I started watching. I had assumed that the bees would force the flower open from the top. But from what I observed, the bees clasp the bottom of the flower, facing downward to get pollen from the base. Fascinating!

Last Monarchs of the season?

2010-09-23T08:32:00.001-04:00

I was excited to see Monarch caterpillars chewing on the leaves of my newest milkweed, Aesclepias incarnata, or swamp milkweed. I have several other swamp milkweed plants, which have seeded themselves in from one I bought at a garden center several years back. But those other plants are cultivars of Aesclepias incarnata, probably 'Ice ballet.' The flower of this cultivar is white, whereas my new plant is the straight species, with pink flowers. There is always the question with cultivars of native plants as to whether wildlife, especially insects, will be be able to feed on them. I'm for the true natives when possible, and perhaps the caterpillars felt the same!

Several days later, I saw a lovely chrysalis hanging from one of my tomato cage supports. The Monarch chrysalis, with its beautiful jade color and delicate threading of gold near the top always makes me think of stunning piece of jewelry. In the photo you can actually just make out a bit of the colors of the caterpillar from inside the chrysalis!

Not too many days later there was just a papery empty shell left. Hopefully there's one more lovely Monarch flittering about, or perhaps heading down to Mexico. Here's a neat link with some information about the Monarch lifecycle plus video of one emerging. http://www.monarchbutterflyusa.com/Cycle.htm

Ruby at Rest

2010-09-14T22:15:00.000-04:00

OK, I finally got a hummingbird picture where the bird is at least visible. Next goal - Ruby in motion. I talked to someone recently who is an international birdwatcher and photographs all the birds he sees. He explained that to capture a hummingbird in motion, try using the sports setting on a digital camera.

Tomatoes, tomatoes

2010-08-15T07:33:00.002-04:00

The tomato harvest is coming in nicely. Patience is probably the key; they do seem to stay at the hard green stage for quite awhile, but once they start ripening it is pretty steady. We've been having lots of good salad, sometimes using lettuce that we've grown indoors on our Sunstation.

For eating fresh, the Brandywine is still my pick for the best flavor. The yellow pears are tasty and are low in acid. Brown berries are an excellent cherry tomato. The Cherokee purple are a bit of a disappointment, not terribly productive, especially after one of the main stems broke.

An interesting new one for us is a patio tomato with the uninspired name "Patio hybrid" from Totally Tomatoes seed company. The tomatoes felt so firm that we wondered if they were ripe, even when bright red. However, they sliced well, without the hard white core that the heirlooms are inclined to, and proved quite ripe and nice for sandwiches.

Last week we decided to try making tomato sauce.This was so much easier than I had imagined: dip the tomatoes in boiling water for 20 seconds, and then put them in a bowl of ice water. The skins really do slide right off! Our recipe was simple: garlic, onions, fresh oregano and basil, and our secret ingredient: ground buffalo meat. I don't know if it was the buffalo that did it, but the sauce was fabulous! A later batch made with ground beef was not remarkable, though other factors such as cooking time and the amount of fresh herbs added may have been in play.

The garden at mid-summer

2010-07-20T22:19:00.000-04:00

It's been a very hot and dry summer here in Maryland, but a few replenishing rains recently have helped. The front garden, a mix of native and non-native, is doing well. Now that my rain barrel is full again, I can give the plants supplemental water without guilt.

The big stories of the moment - hummingbirds and tomatoes. On Sunday as we were getting out of the car I saw that the cardinal flowers in the front garden were starting to bloom, and I wondered when the hummingbirds would show up. No sooner did I have the thought than two appeared, one hovering over the cardinal flowers, the other perusing the purple blossoms of the chaste tree. Last year I had a female virtually living in the yard for much of the summer -- I wonder if she is one of the two? So now, the quest for a really good photo of a hummingbird begins anew.

The tomatoes have puzzled me for awhile. All have had clusters of green tomatoes for weeks, and none seemed to be ripening, although now the Brown Berry, the Yellow Pear, and the Costaluto Genovese have begun. But the Brandywines and other large tomatoes remain resolutely green. I googled "tomatoes not ripening" and came up with 3 pieces of advice: 1) be patient, 2) cut back on water, and 3) fertilize. It had never occurred to me that it would be possible to water a potted tomato too much, and I'm still not sure about this, but I am cutting back just a bit. I sure want those big green softballs to fulfill their delicious potential.

The Driveway Garden, Year 2

2010-07-05T14:15:00.001-04:00

This is my second year of growing tomatoes and other vegetables in pots. So far, this is looking like a banner year. Last year's results were not all that impressive, though the attempt to grow cantaloupe and watermelon in large pots was fun and seemed promising at first.

This year, I've limited myself to the more traditional tomatoes and peppers, along with an okra and plans for a cucumber. The tomatoes look healthier and more productive than last year, and there are probably several reasons why.

First, I started out with better transplants. Last year the plants I started from seed were pretty lanky by the time they got into the big pots. I let them sit outside in part shade, hardening off in small pots, while I got around to buying the large pots and preparing the soil mix. This year's plants got out sooner, and had sturdier stems to start with.

Second, I've been better about removing the suckers - the new leaves that start to grow between the main stem and a branch. Suckers left to grow turn into stems, which means more energy diverted from the growing plant. I try to get them when they are tiny, so as not to damage the plant. Last year I did some more vigorous pruning of larger stems, which my plants may not have appreciated.

Third, I mixed some fertilizer in with my soil mix, which was a blend of potting soil and compost. I'm not always so great about making sure my vegetable crops get some fertilizer.

Finally, I've been careful about giving them a good watering every day. It's been essential, as we've had many days with temps in the 90s.

All my plants have healthy looking tomatoes, though none have ripened yet. I'm growing mostly heirlooms: Cherokee Purple, Brandwine, Yellow Pear Cherry, Brown Berry, Amish Paste, Costaluto Genovese. I'm also growing a couple of hybrids: Micro Tom (a truly tiny plant with tiny tomatoes), and another patio variety called Container Choice Hybrid. Peppers are Poblano, Mohawk (supposed to be an orange bell pepper), Rainbow (also bell), and Salsa Mix (we'll see what that is.)

A jaunt to Maryland's Eastern Shore

2010-06-16T08:19:00.000-04:00

From the DC area it's only a couple of hours to the little town of St. Michaels, on Maryland's Eastern Shore. John and I headed over on a weekday, to avoid traffic on the Bay Bridge. We needed a mini vacation, and I thought a short trip to someplace on the water would be nice. St. Michaels is a pretty little town, and quiet on a Thursday. We enjoyed wandering around the town, and spent a peaceful half hour in sunny, nearly empty restaurant on nearby Tilghman Island, overlooking a little fishing harbor. Here I learned from John what a skipjack is - a fishing boat with one far forward mast, unique to the Chesapeake Bay.

I also wanted to visit Environmental Concern, a non-profit native plant nursery specializing in wetland plants of the Chesapeake region. They are housed in St. Michaels, and our trip was planned around their twice-yearly native plant sale and open house. Turned out we were a day too early for the open house, but we were kindly allowed to wander around the campus, after promising we wouldn't actually go in the greenhouses. We enjoyed hanging out at the freshwater and saltwater marshes.

We kept an eye out especially for turtles, one of my favorite animals. We didn't spot any in the freshwater marsh, but found quite an impressive specimen on the grass nearby!

Our visit the next day to Adkins Arboretum was an unexpected bonus - I knew about this native plant arboretum, but hadn't realized it was only a half hour or so from St. Michaels. What a delight! The marshes near the nature center were teeming with sounds and sights - bullfrogs, snapping turtles, dragonflies, redwing blackbirds.

The meadow path was thick with common milkweed, and we saw many zebra swallowtails feeding on their nectar. There are several miles of trails, through meadows and woodlands, and we're looking forward to returning for more exploration.

More bees

2010-06-05T14:36:00.004-04:00

It did indeed prove too late for the bee tubes I set out. I brought them inside so they'll be fresh for next year. I'll plan to set them out early next spring - March, I guess.

In the meantime I've turned into a bee watcher. I don't see many butterflies in my yard, but I have lots of bees! When my Penstemon digitalis started blooming I began to notice that there were always bumblebees hovering over the white tube-like flowers. I began watching more closely, and saw bees disappearing into the flowers, emerging a few seconds later to fly on to the next flower. It became a sight that delighted me: the glove-like fit between the flower and the bee, the idea that each is benefiting from the bee's visit.

Of course, I wanted to get the perfect picture, of a bee just about to enter a flower. This proved to be about as challenging as my attempt last summer to get a really good hummingbird picture. After many tries I've gotten a few that I like, but the quest continues.

Helping out the bees

2010-05-12T22:38:00.001-04:00

I've been hearing a lot about solitary bees lately. Unlike honeybees, they're natives, they don't make honey, and seldom, if ever, sting. The females make nests in twigs, reeds, holes in wood, or tunnels in the ground. They'll lay an egg, put some food in with it, seal it off in its own compartment, lay another egg, and so on. The new bees emerge the following spring.

I'm for doing everything we can to help pollinators. So when I read about setting out tubes for the bees to use as nests, I decided to try it. (Paula Shrewsbury's description and photos in the Maryland Cooperative Extension Weekly Integrated Pest Management report really got me going; see p. 6.) Here's what John and I came up with.

I ordered the tubes online (basically they're just straws made of heavy paper.) The instructions are to place the tubes off the ground and protect them from rain. John made a nice sheltered holder for the tubes out of a plastic container, and nailed it to the side of our shed. I tied up two sets of straws with cord, and we snugged them tightly into the container.

There are plenty of places that sell the bee tubes, as well as more substantial nesting materials such as wood "houses" with holes drilled in them. Some people just drill holes of different sizes in a piece of firewood. Overall, the tubes seemed quick and simple. (Well, simple now that John has the structure in place!)

The only thing is, I think we're a little late for this season; it sounds like the egg-laying is usually in March and April. But we just put out our setup out a couple of days ago, so we'll see. Meanwhile, I've got a lot to learn about bees. A source that looks interesting: the Xerces Society of Invertebrate Conservation.

A sneak attack: lesser celandine

2010-04-27T08:35:00.002-04:00

I was happy last year to see the early blooming, cheerful marsh marigold, Caltha palustris, coming up in my garden. I remembered it with pleasure from my years living and hiking in Michigan, where it was one of the earliest wildflowers to appear in the woods, along with skunk cabbage. My new plant was next to a stepping stone, which must have kept the ground moist enough for the marigold.

Except it wasn't marsh marigold, it turns out, but a look-alike invasive known as lesser celandine, Ranunculus ficaria. I got the bad news via a short article in the Washington Post. I then googled lesser celandine, and came upon a great article that helped confirm what I now suspected: http://www.earthcaretaker.com/alienplants/mondaygarden/159/SS159lessercelandine.html

In addition to photos, the article lists some ways to distinguish the two plants. I dug up a bit of my plant, and sure enough, it had underground tubers, characteristic of lesser celandine.

The name celandine also applies to another cheerful yellow flowered plant, celandine poppy, Stylophorum diphyllum. Some of my master gardener friends suggest referring to it by its other common name, wood poppy, to avoid confusing it with the invader. Celandine poppy, though native, is considered by some to be somewhat invasive. It has been well-behaved for me, and I have it mixed in with the lovely native Virginia bluebells, Mertensia virginica.

Native groundcovers for the Mid-Atlantic

2010-04-07T22:11:00.001-04:00

I've been trying various groundcovers, mostly those native to the mid-Atlantic region, for different parts of my yard. One of the tough spots is on a slope under a large silver maple. It gets some eastern sun in the morning, but is mostly dry shade. The Pennsylvania sedge (Carex pensylvanica) I planted a couple of years ago is doing well and starting to spread. It is a pretty little grass-like plant that grows about six inches tall.

Last year I added Sedum ternatum, also native around here, and it has come through the winter well.

At the native plant sale at the National Arboretum, I picked up some Pachysandra procumbens after one of the vendors told me her sister had good success growing it under a large tree. I believe it is native a little further south than where I live in Maryland, but it will sure beat the non-native pachysandra, which I have plenty of in other parts of the yard. It's still dormant right now, so I'll have to see how it does.

Lahr Symposium on native plants

2010-03-30T06:12:00.000-04:00

The annual Lahr Symposium on native plants was held this past Saturday at the National Arboretum in Washington DC. I've gone for the last couple of years, and for more years than that to the native plant sale that accompanies it. It's a great event, and it's held at a great time of year - when spring is just getting underway. I always look forward to seeing the massive cherries in bloom at the Arboretum. Yes, I know they're not native, but aren't they magnificent?

This year two of the speakers, Darell Morrison and Bill Cullina, spoke about aspects of designing with native plants. Morrison, a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects, talked about some of the large-scale projects he has designed using natives. Cullina talked about different botanical features of plants such as color, form, leaf variegation etc. can be used to advantage in the garden.

The third speaker, Kim Winter, talked about attracting wildlife to the garden. It was particularly interesting to me that she mentioned solitary bees. I had just recently read a short article about using small cardboard tubes as nesting cavities for these bees, and so it was already on my mind. She gave a link to a website I'll be exploring: pollinator.org.

I also got to go on a guided wildflower walk at the Arboretum's newly renovated Fern Hill wildflower garden. It was a chilly but sunny day, and many things were just starting to poke out of the ground, while a few things were already blooming, including Dutchman's breeches, trillium (the red one, I think commonly known as wake-robin), and one of my favorite shrubs, spicebush (Lindera benzoin) which has little yellow flowers and emits a spicy smell when the bark is scratched. Wish I had a place in the yard for one of these guys!

Tree Repair

2010-03-24T21:30:00.001-04:00

We followed advice from the arborist and bolted the fig tree's torn limb back onto the main trunk. It required my handy husband drilling a hole through the limb and the trunk, and then fastening the bolts on while I held the limb up as tight as I could against the trunk. It looks pretty good! My only question is, as the trunk grows, do you need to remove the bolt, or do you just let the trunk grow around it? Perhaps it's just like a human having a piece of metal holding a knee or shoulder together.

More snowstorm damage

2010-03-03T22:46:00.003-05:00

As the snow has melted off, more of the damage to trees and shrubs has been revealed. A large branch on my fig tree was ripped nearly off, and now I can see that the wound is pretty deep into the main stem. We've called an arborist to see if the tree can be saved.

And there's the arborvitae. I didn't know that they are often multi-stemmed - the one I learned in my woody plants class had a single stem. At any rate, the multiple stems all sagged in different directions under the weight of the snow - something not so dramatically evident till the snow was mostly gone.

The upside to this destruction is that I have more and more excuses to go shopping for native plants as replacements!

Big snow - the aftermath

2010-02-22T20:05:00.003-05:00

We are still living with mountains of snow, albeit no longer the beautiful white fluffy stuff, but dirty old snow. As it slowly melts, damage to trees and shrubs continues to be revealed. My fig tree took a hit; one large branch is broken though still attached to the main trunk. We may have the tree service prune the limb off neatly when they come for other cleanup.

I'm happy that some of my less loved shrubs may be damaged after resting under heavy snow and ice for some time. I'm hoping that storm damage will make it easier to kill these non-natives off: nandina, privet, burning bush. The nandina was encased in ice for awhile that dripped from large icycles. That seems to have melted, and I'm afraid it looks surprisingly perky under the snow. One can only hope it may be weakened, at least, and a little easier to take out.

Way too much winter

2010-02-08T17:55:00.044-05:00

Our front walk - before shoveling

We don't live in the Midwest, but it suddenly looks like it. A couple of feet of snow very effectively shut down the Metro DC area, starting Friday when the federal government closed early in anticipation of this mammoth storm. Today is Monday and everyone is still digging out, with more snow expected tomorrow night. It's nice to be forced to slow down -- watch some movies, sleep in, enjoy watching the snow pile up, and figure you're not going anywhere for awhile.

Oops

It's been pretty fun, except for the discovery on Saturday afternoon that three trees bordering our driveway had come down. One is resting on a powerline, one on the tail end of our car, and one along our neighbor's walkway. Amazingly, the powerline was not brought down, and we think the car may be undamaged. The neighbors were able to move the tree on their walk enough so they can get in and out of their door. So we're just waiting for the power company to move the tree off the line; then we can get a tree company to clear away the other two trees. The trees, I've found out, are Leyland Cypress, and they have a bad reputation for growing very fast, being shallow rooted, and coming down in storms. Indeed!

One way to "green" your driveway

From seed to seedlings

2010-02-02T22:34:00.006-05:00

Since my last post many of the seeds have become seedlings. On the tiny side: the rosemary and lavender. On the towering side (relatively speaking) the okra, now about 5 inches tall. And most amazing, each of the dwarf pea plants has a single white flower bud. What do they think they're doing?! Are they going to produce pea pods that are bigger than the plants themselves?

Jan. 17 - Okra (foreground), Cilantro (back left), Basil (back right)

Jan. 28 - Okra; Peas

John and Rachel's funky seed starting process

2010-01-10T21:27:00.008-05:00

We have experimented with many methods, and various soilless mixes and seed starting mixes, in our adventures with seed starting. Now we are using what are called "Park Starts" from Park Seed Company. They are little plugs of sponge-like material. They are designed to go in a tray holding 60 of these starts. That assumes you'd like a rather large quantity of something, or several somethings, like lettuce or other greens, to set outdoors. But we've found that Park Starts work very well for starting almost any seed, and John has engineered a method for starting small quantities of seed using these plugs and the plastic containers which are used for Chinese takeout. He punches 4 holes in the plastic lid, and the plugs rest in these holes. They are very easy to transplant into a 4 inch or larger pot later on. A plastic cup can sit on top as a humidity dome and is removed when seeds germinate.

On January 7 I started several sets of seeds using Park Starts. I put 2-3 seeds per Park Start into the little hole in the center of each plug. The only exception was the peas; with such large seeds, I only put one seed per plug.We give each plug one teaspoon of water to start with, and check daily. You want the plugs barely moist, but not too wet.

Already the peas are starting to unfold as seedlings - amazing. The others seeds: peppers, rosemary, cilantro, lavender, dwarf okra, will take varying amounts of time to germinate. I have started all of these seeds indoors before, using a bit more traditional methods, with the exception of rosemary, which I believe can take quite a long time to germinate. We'll see.

John started basil seeds on January 3, and the little seedlings have already got their seed leaves. In a few days he will choose the strongest seedling and carefully snip the stems of any other seedlings sharing the same plug. Basil has turned out to be an amazing indoor plant; John harvests it regularly from his tabletop growlight system at work.

The last rose of winter, and the seeds of spring

2010-01-07T22:25:00.008-05:00

Winter came hard and fast, with 21 inches of snow in the DC area right before Christmas. It had been fairly mild up until then, and this rose had managed to unfold. Then, kaboom.

My potted blueberry plant ended up with quite a load of snow!

Indoors, there are still many pots and plant trays that need to be washed, and we've only managed to transplant a couple of peppers and eggplants into bigger pots. But the holidays are past; no more excuses. Time to get busy.

We need to get some seeds going, as we're planning to have a booth at the DC Home and Garden Show in March. We'll want to have plants in various stages of growth in order to display how our system works. If I were starting these for outdoor transplanting, I'd wait a bit. For most plants, especially warm weather crops like tomatoes and peppers, starting from seed this early would mean enormously overgrown plants by the time the weather is warm. But for indoor growing, anytime is a good time to plant seeds. So I'm starting okra, peas, lavender, peppers, rosemary. With the next post, I'll show exactly how we do it.

Turning now to indoor gardening...

2009-12-13T17:54:00.002-05:00

We finally got the hoses coiled up and put away, and the outdoor water turned off. (Thank God I'm not the one who has to go down in the crawl space to do that!) Not long after came the first snowfall - a swirl of lovely big flakes on a Saturday morning, transforming the landscape but not sticking to the road, an ideal snow. (The only thing better is a weekday snow that shuts down work.)

So now it's official - the outdoor gardening season is pretty much over. Nothing much to do until February, when it's time to think about pruning. Or rather, nothing much to do outdoors.

Indoors, as always around our house, there's much to be done in the way of gardening. Major transplanting is needed! The peppers and eggplants we started from seed a couple of months back are doing amazingly well, given the small 4-inch pots they've been confined to. All of the pepper plants have peppers on them. We have bell peppers, poblanos, and sweet banana peppers. The eggplants are at the blooming stage, with lovely pale purple flowers. All these plants are amazingly forgiving, but they really, really need to be in bigger pots! And now that John has a new Sunstation design, we can better accommodate those plants that need a lot of growing space. Sadly, we will never have enough indoor space for all the plants we've started, once they're approaching maturity. So some winnowing, as well as transplanting, will have to be done.

The driveway garden revisited

2009-11-14T09:01:00.009-05:00

So how did the driveway vegetable garden fare? Reasonably well. The tomatoes were tasty though not prolific. The crop was certainly much better than if I had tried to coax them along in the part-sun of the backyard. The peppers were quite happy, continuing to produce right up until last weekend, when I decided it really was time to start dismantling the driveway garden.

As for the watermelon and squash, that little experiment was less than successful. Each plant produced two fruits. The watermelons grew to a decent size for a "personal" watermelon. However, when cut open both had mushy inedible flesh. And the squash, while they appear well-formed, only grew to about 4 inches long - hardly enough to bother with, though I suppose I should at least cut them open and see what their interiors look like. I guess there is a reason people don't grow these viney crops in containers! Although the squash blossoms were so pretty earlier in the season, perhaps I will just grow squash as an ornamental until the flowers fade.

Next year I'll do tomatoes and peppers again for sure. I'll try some of the tomatoes that are bred to be container size, but I'll also continue with heirlooms. This year my heirlooms started out leggy, having sat for too long in partial sun before I got them transplanted into their big containers. Next year I'll start with sturdier plants, and pinch and prune before they get out of control. And I'll think of something new to try in the driveway garden. Maybe sweet potatoes. Or...?

The mystery plant identified!

2009-11-02T21:55:00.002-05:00

It was a shock to discover that the plant I had thought was a sunflower was no such thing. When I went to cut it down, I discovered it was a woody plant. Something in the back of my mind said Paulownia. It's not a tree I'm familiar with, but I thought I remembered reading that it had big leaves and was invasive. I looked it up, and sure enough, that's what it was: Paulownia tomentosa, a native of China, common names royal empress tree. princess tree, dragon tree, etc.

Image: Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources - Forestry Archive, Bugwood.org

Even though this tree is considered to be invasive, most of the web hits I got touted its beauty, quality of the wood, and rapid growth. Many mentioned that it is highly valued in Japan. The fact that it is fast growing makes it attractive for some purposes. It also has attractive flowers, and the leaves are indeed impressive. For a different take, see the Plant Conservation Alliance Alien Plant Working Group fact sheet on Paulownia - it makes their "least wanted" list.

In my book, anything that grows something like 8 feet in 2-3 months is almost by definition invasive. And the damn thing is firmly rooted. I've wrestled it part way out of the ground, but I'm going to need help getting those roots to let go. And it is reputed to sprout easily from roots, so I need to get it out of there.

The vegetable garden: winding down

2009-10-27T07:38:00.004-04:00

I grew scarlet runner beans for the first time this year, and only a couple of plants survived the repeated nipping by rabbits. Fortunately, the survivors made a beautiful display earlier in the season, with lovely flame-colored flowers.

I had read someplace that scarlet runner beans are edible, but the large fuzzy pods didn't look that appetizing, and I didn't have enough to make it worth drying them just to get a handful of dried beans. Then I read a Barbara Damrosh article in the Washington Post about cooking beans, including scarlet runner beans, fresh from the pod. She claimed that fresh shell beans, as they are called, are a treat, and she was right. Once you pry the pods open, the beans inside are a stunning bright pink, mottled with purple-blue. I cooked them until they they were white with a touch of blue remaining - about half an hour. I had just enough for a bit of lunch, delicious with a little butter, salt, and pepper.

Right beside the scarlet runner bean is an enormous plant which I assumed must be a sunflower planted by the birds at the nearby feeder. If so, it never bloomed. Not enough sun? Or not a sunflower? I have no idea. I'll cut it down soon.

Elsewhere in the yard, the kale plants that I set out a month or so ago are doing reasonably well. The peas, unfortunately, have mostly succumbed to the rabbits. I kept row cover on them for quite a long time, but finally took it off. Now only some little nubby plants remain. I rejoice that I don't have a deer problem, and in the past was glad that the rabbits were quite well-behaved, only nibbling a bit of this or that, and not systematically taking out entire crops, as they have done this year. Of course, it's possible squirrels have been the culprits - they delight in destruction just for the sheer sport of it. Their usually modus operandi is to dig things up and just leave them lying about, however, and most of my stuff appears to have been chomped.

Daylight Design at the Green Festival

2009-10-13T21:43:00.001-04:00

The Green Festival was fantastic! It took us most of Friday to get the Sunstations, plants, and display materials packed up and hauled to the DC Convention Center and then get everything set up. Starting Saturday morning, it was pretty much non-stop traffic through the booth for the two days. By Saturday night we both had sore throats from talking so much. People were drawn to the booth by the beautiful eggplants we were growing under lights. A common comment was "is it real?" (One woman kept insisting they could not be.)

There was so much interest, including from a couple of educators who could see the benefit of having our grow light system in classrooms, and someone who thought they'd be good in a friend's coffee house. Lots of condo or apartment dweller loved the idea of being able to grow some vegetables indoors. The local news filmed some footage, and Voice of America interviewed us! (They said we'd hear back from them when it's going to air - we'll see if it actually happens.)

I wish I'd had more time to view the whole show. There were lots of interesting booths, and I made it to a few, but didn't really have time to walk the floor, nor to see some of the outstanding speakers. I've enjoyed previous Green Festivals as an attendee. Last year's festival seemed so cramped that it was hard to see a lot, but this year the layout was better and I think there was more space. People who go to Green Festivals are such a neat crowd - wanting to do the right thing, interested in innovation, and very friendly, and we had so much fun talking to them.

I can't imagine how it must have felt to John to hear over and over things like - how ingenious; great idea; so simple; great design. Any doubts I had about whether this was worth all the hours of our evenings and weekends he has spent to follow his dream are gone. I'm so proud of him!

Cooking With Dirt

2009-10-09T21:09:00.003-04:00

This has been a typical scene at our house for days now. A bowl full of dirt on the kitchen counter, bags of dirt on the floor, pots being washed in the sink. We've been starting seeds, transplanting plants to bigger pots, designing a flyer, taking many photos, updating our website. We're busy preparing for our premiere - the launch of our business, Daylight Design.

This venture is John's brainchild, with some contribution from me. He's been living this evenings and weekends for several years, while I've helped here and there. Of course we've both been living with the fact that our house has increasingly become a greenhouse/warehouse, with less and less room for its occupants. John rented some office space about a month ago - in walking distance and not too expensive. That's rapidly filling up as well.

We had a very late night of preparation last night, and a very long day today, setting up our booth at the DC Green Festival. It's very satisfying that our display looks quite professional and is attracting a lot of attention from other exhibitors. Tomorrow comes the public...

Gardening for the insects

2009-10-06T22:15:00.003-04:00

image courtesy Mary Vardigan

Gardeners tend to think of insects as the enemy. It's natural - we spend time planning and tending our gardens, and when we find something munching away on our plants, it's annoying. We know pollinators are good, of course, and we want to see bees and butterflies in our gardens. We probably know that beneficial insects like ladybugs and lacewings may prey on some of the insects we consider pests. Still, the urge to get rid of a particularly troublesome insect can be compelling.

I have to admit to doing some pretty stupid things myself - like hand picking off the caterpillars eating my parsley. Anyone who know anything about butterflies knows that those were nascent black swallowtails. Mea culpa! I'll never squish anything again without knowing exactly what it is.

What really changed my whole view of gardening was hearing entomologist Doug Tallamy speak. Tallamy is an entomologist at the University of Delaware, who is passionate and articulate on the critical importance of native plants in supporting the food webs we all depend on. (I've gone to hear him give essentially the same talk five times now, and I'd go again, so you know he's compelling.) The bottom line is, native insects are a major food source for birds and other animals. And it turns out, most native insects are adapted to eat only the native plants with which they've co-evolved. Many of our non-native ornamental plants are simply inedible to these insects. No food for these insects, and food webs will begin to collapse.

I needed no convincing about planting natives - I was already doing that. But seeing my plants as food for insects - in a positive way - that was a new idea!

Tallamy focuses a lot on butterflies, since most people love them and would like to have more in their yards. But to have butterflies you've got to have caterpillars, and something for them to feed on. Caterpillars are also major food source for birds and for their young. In his talks and in his book, Tallamy's photos of weird and wonderful caterpillars are fascinating.

If you can't go hear Tallamy in person, buy his book, Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife With Native Plants. The book, and his website, lists the plants (mostly trees, with oaks at the top of the list) that support the most lepidoptera species. Visit http://bringingnaturehome.net/. You'd have to have a heart of stone not to be convinced.

Can you spot the hummingbird?

2009-09-15T21:34:00.005-04:00

It wasn't until I uploaded photos from the camera and got a good look that I realized that I DID get a photo of Ruby. She's pretty hard to spot in this smallish image, especially as her coloration very much blends in with the leaves and ground. She's between the cardinal flower and a seed head of the anise hyssop. Can you spot her?

The transition season

2009-09-06T22:24:00.009-04:00

It's the tag end of summer, for me an odd season in the garden. I've given up on my annual goal of REALLY getting control of the weeds. It's not that long till some heavy frosts will take care of them - for a few months.

Once again I'm gearing up for fall planting, something I really haven't gotten the hang of yet. It always seems too early to be planting for fall in the blazing heat of early August, and by the time I really get going on it, it's usually too late. Last year the turnips and rutabagas I planted, probably right around this time, overwintered and started growing again in the spring. They rather quickly sent up some tall yellow flowers - something I certainly didn't expect from a turnip. They never really did get much of a root.

This year, at least, I have some kale and other cole crops started indoors, ready to be planted out. And over the weekend I planted peas - snow peas and sugar snaps. Their respective seed packages say that the sow peas don't really care for cool weather, but the sugar snaps do. So I'm hedging my bets - maybe at least one of the 2 will do well.

The truth is, I'm usually happiest in the spring garden, with all its promise. I think of the late summer garden as full of lanky old timers, quite able to take care of themselves. Yes, I'm happy for the bounty of tomatoes and peppers, and eager to see how my watermelons turn out. But the summer garden is about expectations fulfilled (or not), with a hint of autumn melancholy.

But this year, the frequent presence of the hummingbird (now named Ruby) has made the transition season a time of anticipation and joy that is usually reserved for spring. Will she be back next year? Will she bring friends? Where else will cardinal flower show up in my yard? Ruby has brought a whole new dimension to my summer garden.

Hummingbird update

2009-08-22T23:18:00.002-04:00

I see her all over the yard now, and it's a thrill every time. (She's a female or a juvenile; no red throat.) Most frequently she's sampling the cardinal flowers, but I also see her perched on the blueberry plant or the privet, or exploring the rose-of-sharon. She's certainly skittish, but sometimes when she flies off it turns out she's only gone as far as the front yard.

I'm always looking when I pass the window or step outside, in case she's about. If I see her my instinct is still to grab the camera, but so far all I've recorded is the blur of tiny wings. I'm trying to remind myself just to watch and enjoy. And to reach for the binoculars - the up close view is sensational.

The driveway garden

2009-08-12T07:54:00.008-04:00

The potted plants in the driveway are thriving. The squash plant has been putting forth beautiful blooms every day, and at last some little squash are starting to form. (You can just barely see one at the base of the flower in the picture.) Every day they have grown visibly, which is fun.

The tomatoes in pots are much happier than the few that I planted in the ground in the backyard. Planting tomatoes in pots wouldn't be my first choice, if I had more sun in back. But there are some advantages. It's fairly easy to make sure that they get a steady supply of moisture, which tomatoes like. And it's easy to provide good soil - I used half finished compost and half potting soil for mine. Fresh soil means there's less likelihood of fungal diseases that affect tomatoes. These can remain in regular garden soil over a period of several years, once tomato plants have been infected. The recommendation for in-ground gardens is to plant in different locations from year to year, but that can be hard to do with a small yard.

One downside of pots is that tomato plants get so big! They always sneak up on you too. One day they're well-behaved little things, and suddenly they're sprawling giants. Kind of like kids, I guess. I'm using tomato ladders to support mine, which is working fairly well. Next year maybe I'll test some more docile patio-sized plants to see if I can find some tasty varieties. But for now, I've got the real thing - 3 varieties of heirloom indeterminate tomatoes that keep growing like Jack's beanstalk!

Hummingbirds visit

2009-08-04T21:44:00.009-04:00

Lobelia cardinalis , or cardinal flower, really is a hummingbird magnet. This patch of cardinal flower came from a single plant I started indoors from seed several years ago. I planted my original seedling near a downspout, since cardinal flowers love water. They flower in their second year, after spending the first year as a rosette growing low to the ground.

My lone plant, when it bloomed, was unusually tall and robust - a small shrub. The next year, a few plants seeded themselves in the front yard. This year the original plant has been replaced by many offspring - a little jungle of cardinal flowers. It probably didn't hurt that I sprinkled seed from the parent plant liberally. Plus this year's plants must have loved our rainy spring.

Last week I had a brief sighting of a hummingbird on the cardinal flowers at the front of the house. Yesterday came the real payoff. A hummingbird landed on the top of my scarlet runner beans. He actually sat still for a few seconds, then flitted over to the black-eyed Susans, and on to the cardinal flowers, where I had the great treat of watching him sip nectar from blossom after blossom. After that he found the rose-of-sharon, where he blended in so beautifully it was impossible to track him further. I'm determined to get a picture of him, even if it means sitting quietly in wait for him with my camera in hand, while the mosquitoes feed on me.

Growing peppers indoors

2009-08-02T21:13:00.004-04:00

Tonight John made one of our favorite dishes, beans and greens. We often include greens we grow in the garden - usually kale or collards. But this is the first time we have used peppers that we grew indoors! The Nardello peppers have done beautifully under lights. I harvested the largest ones, and left the smaller ones to mature.

Watching the watermelons grow

2009-07-28T21:39:00.000-04:00

Aww, aren't they cute? Baby watermelons, growing in a big pot in the driveway. Lots of room to sprawl on the gravel; lots more sun than in the back garden. This heirloom variety is called "Moon and stars" because the skin develops yellow spots on a dark green background. The leaves are speckled also. Supposedly they're a small melon, though one website mentioned 25-50 lbs. (Kidding, right?)

Will they make it to maturity? Stay tuned!

Little House in the Suburbs

2009-07-26T21:17:00.000-04:00

Shortly after John and I met, he said he pictured me in a yard filled with butterflies and a goat or two. Six years later we don’t have the goats (yet), but we do have butterflies, bees, and birds. For the last few days, the goldfinches have been making merry in the yard, feasting on the seedheads of purple anise hyssop flowers outside our window.

Inside the house live our seven “indoor birds” – five cockatiels and two parakeets. Our indoor vegetable gardens are thriving. John is growing pepper plants under lights. The bell peppers are a little small but healthy looking, and starting to turn red. The nardello peppers (mild sweet chilis) are gorgeous. We’re trying out dwarf eggplants – what a coup that could be – eggplants without the annoyance of flea beetles!