A Telling Time for Cottonwoods

One of my simple pleasures in spring is sexing the cottonwoods I see as I drive. (Yes, I know I'm weird.) Only female cottonwoods produce cotton, so it can be useful to figure out if a tree is a male or a female...and it's VERY easy to tell (if the tree is big enough) at this time of year.

You see, cottonwoods are in bloom right now and cottonwoods, like people, come in male and female models. Male flowers are colored red, while female flowers are yellowish green. Cottonwoods don't start blooming until they are at least 15-20' tall, and they tend to bloom only in the upper parts of their canopies, so most people don't notice cottonwood blossoms at all. Once you know what you're looking for, though, they are easy to recognize.

One of my favorite finds is multitrunked cottonwood trees where part of the tree is male and part of the tree is female. These grow where several seeds sprouted in close proximity to each other, giving the appearance of a single plant. In this photo of an example east of Clearwater, you can tell there are two trees, but the canopy melds together into one whole. The male tree is on the left and the female tree is on the right.

If you watch the ground under cottonwood trees at this time of year, you can see the blossoms up close after they fall from the tree - especially the males. Here is a bloom that I found just this morning on a walkabout in the back yard. It's about 2 1/2" or 3" in length overall.

I love cottonwood trees. Their shining, dancing leaves rustle in the slightest breeze and seem to cool me during the summertime with both their motion and their gentle whispers. The trees grow rapidly and are wonderful wildlife habitat, attaining a stature in the landscape that really satisfies me here on the prairie.

Cottonwoods have received a lot of bad press lately, though. My personal opinion is that the quest for a "cottonless" cottonwood is greatly to blame. Obviously, for a cottonless cottonwood, all you need is a male tree. The current crop of selected cultivars, though, does not seem to do well in the Wichita area past about 15 years of age...which means that just as the trees are looking like true trees, they get infested with cottonwood borers and die.

My solution? Learn to live with the cotton. It's really quite beautiful during its season, and several bird species use it to line their nests. If you accept that cotton is a part of life on the prairie, you can simply transplant seedling cottonwood trees with local genetics and enjoy this graceful, giving tree for many years. Who knows? In 15 years, you might even discover that you got a naturally cottonless male!

Monarch Watch - And a 1-2-3 Recipe to Aid Recovery

Buried in a small article in the paper this morning was a very sad news article: monarch butterfly populations have declined to their lowest levels in decades due, in part, to winter storms that took out an estimated 50-60% of the wintering populations in Mexico. ("Monarch Butterfly Population Plummets" The Wichita Eagle, Friday, March 19, 2010, p.2A)

The breeding population that is flying northward will therefore be the smallest known since 1975, when the overwintering grounds in Mexico were discovered.

There IS something we can all do about this, though. First, we can plant milkweed plants in our gardens this year - common milkweed, butterfly weed, swamp milkweed, and any other milkweed we can come across. The photo below shows a monarch nectaring on common milkweed blooms; the photo at the start of this blog shows a monarch nectaring on green antelopehorn, another milkweed that is common here in Kansas.

Second, every monarch caterpillar we come across should be a cause for great celebration.

Third, to aid in the growth and health of both the adults and the caterpillars, we can avoid spraying insecticides in our gardens...and even avoid releasing Bt in their immediate vicinity. Butterflies are insects and can be killed by insecticides; monarch caterpillars are caterpillars and will be stricken by Bt just as surely as loopers or cutworms.

This is one sad environmental story that we can all help turn around in our own yards and gardens. Our parts can be as simple as 1 - 2 - 3. Won't you join me this year?

Heirloom Crocuses

I'm starting to reap the benefits of last fall's frenzied rush to get my heirloom bulbs in the ground.

The first of the heirloom bulbs to bloom this spring were Snow Bunting crocus. Unfortunately, I don't have any good photos of those, as the rabbits ate the two biggest clumps just as they were getting showy and the dog (or an armadillo?) partially dug out the third clump. I think they'll all survive, but they sure aren't pretty subjects for photographing right now, due to no fault of their own.

The other two heirloom crocuses that are blooming are Cloth of Gold crocus (introduced to "the trade" around 1589) and the unfortunately named Negro Boy crocus (introduced in 1910). I bought all of these bulbs and many more from Old House Gardens Heirloom Flower Bulbs, if you get inspired to get some for yourself.

This dark purple beauty is the Negro Boy crocus. Note that the rabbits got to these guys too, but, fortunately for me, the flower buds were still buried deep in the crown when the leaves got so thoroughly trimmed. These beauties are quite large for crocus blooms, larger even than my modern mixed crocuses.

The golden "stars" to the left and below are Cloth of Gold crocuses; this variety dates from before 1600, so it was introduced to the European horticultural trade very early. The blooms are not quite as large as modern crocus blooms, but the crisp shape of their petals and bright gold coloring helps them shine out in the early spring landscape.

Being caught up in the romance of historical plant varieties that are in danger of being lost from modern gardens, I often give little notice to modern ones that are easily available. However, these purple crocuses that were in our yard when we bought our home 3+ years ago are absolutely stunning this year...so I want to share them too. Who knows? Someday they'll probably be the historical variety that's in danger of being lost.

I have one more heirloom crocus variety that hasn't opened its blooms yet, so I'll have to save it for another post. So far, though, I have to say that I'm very pleased with my foray into the world of heirloom bulbs.

Spring Cleanup

With snow on the way tomorrow, I gambled and decided to clean off the remnants of last year's growth from the front garden bed. It's amazing how much the appearance of the bed changes just by that simple process. And doubly amazing to think of what it will look like this September!

It's times like this, though, that I'm especially glad to be primarily working with native and hardy plants. The snow and mid-20's cold shouldn't bother them much at all.

While I was working, I came across several centipedes, a couple earthworms, 2 cicada shells from last summer, and a spider or two. Good to know that I've got a start on this season's bug control and fertilization schedule.

Waste Not, Want Not

I was reading through this spring's issue of OnEarth from the Natural Resource Defense Council over the weekend and came across an environmental topic that rather floored me: food waste.

I know that we (as in Prairiewolf and myself) waste a ridiculous amount of food and I have felt bad about that for years, but I've felt bad in a budgetary sort of way, not in a "what am I doing to the Earth?" sort of way. This article caused an internal shift, though, in how I see this supposedly personal problem of ours.

Some statistics:

The USDA estimates that 30% of all edible food in this country is wasted. Two other recent studies (one from the National Institute of Health and one from the University of Arizona) estimate at least 40% of all edible food is wasted. That's the equivalent of 1400 calories/day/person, or about 2 full meals.

That means that 25% of all freshwater and 4% of all oil consumed in this country is being used to produce food that we simply throw away!

Each year the municipal waste stream in the U.S. contains enough food thrown out by restaurants and homes to feed all of Canada. (And we have starving people in this country?!)

When foood rots, it produces methane, which has 20 times the global warming potency of carbon dioxide. Rotting food, according to the EPA, may be responsible for about 10% of the human-caused methane.

In thinking about all of this, my mind keeps going to a scene in Anne's House of Dreams from the Anne of Green Gables series by L.M. Montgomery. In the scene, Marilla (Anne's stepmother) is looking into Anne's scrap jar to make sure that there's nothing in there that shouldn't be. She's basically grading the new housewife on how well she's doing, because a lack of unnecessarily wasted food was one of the most important signs that a woman knew how to run the house well. When I read this passage, all those years ago, I remember thinking how old-fashioned an idea that was. These statistics, however, make me think that the old fashioned housewives were right. At this point, I'd have to give myself a D for my ability to avoid wasting food (and we simply won't go into my other housekeeping skills at all!).

So I've got a new goal for myself: waste not, want not...and save money and the planet while doing it. Maybe making proper food preparation, use and storage a more "noble" goal will help me put a higher priority on it and thus help me get better about doing it well. As my self-inflicted grade shows, I don't think I could get a lot worse!

Confessions of a Plant-a-Holic

Sometimes I feel like a huge imposter when I call myself a Master Gardener. This afternoon is definitely one of those times....

You see, late last summer I got swept away by heirloom bulb frenzy. The catalog was full of gorgeous pictures and even more seductive descriptions. To make it even more irresistable, all of the varieties offered were antiques - varieties that had been brought into the trade as early as the late 1500's. I made myself a list of all the ones that sounded too good to pass up, gulped when the tentative total was well over $800, and proceeded to rigorously scratch off the ones that seemed just great rather than totally and utterly awesome.

I still ended up with an order that was embarrassingly large. I'm not going to cop to the total dollar amount (although it WAS less than $800!), but when I was done, I'd ordered 45 crocus bulbs (of 4 different varieties), 31 daffodil bulbs (of 6 different varieties), 50 grape hyacinth bulbs (of 2 different varieties), 23 hyacinth bulbs (of 7 different varieties), and 26 tulip bulbs (of 6 different varieties). A grand total of 175 bulbs. I knew I was pushing it a bit, but my fall wasn't looking all that busy.

I placed the order. Before. Before we had made definite plans to visit our son in Germany for a week at the end of September. Before I had agreed to help with the spring garden tour write-ups that had to be done by January or, preferably, earlier. Before I found out that a friend really needed help wrapping up her mother's estate because the house had sold. Before I realized my folks were going away for 3 weeks and I needed to drive up daily to care for their ancient cat. Before we signed the contract to have a front walkway and steps put in. Before...before...before....

You get the idea. Of course, the bulbs arrived the day before we left for Germany, complete with admonitions to get them in the ground RIGHT AWAY. Yeah, like THAT was going to happen!

When we got back from Germany, I religiously put "Plant spring bulbs" at the top of my To-Do List every day. I got the grape hyacinths in. I got the crocuses in. I got the tulips in. I got about half of the daffodils in...and then I stalled. It didn't matter how much I promised myself I'd get those bulbs in the ground, something more pressing always seemed to come up.

Finally, about Christmas time, I gave up and moved the box of unplanted bulbs from the "I-can't-overlook-them-here" position on the kitchen counter to the "at-least-they'll-get-some-chill-hours" spot in the garage, where they've remained for the last 2+ months.

Truthfully, I did kind of forget about them. Until Friday. As I was pulling together my "show & tell" items for a talk at the Lawn & Garden Show, I stumbled across the half empty box of bulbs, sitting patiently in the cool dark. With the talk that afternoon and a virus threatening to make my life miserable, I still couldn't do anything about them that day.

On Saturday, the threatening virus hit with a vengeance and I spent the entire day dozing in the recliner, despite temperatures in the 60's. ("Bulbs? What bulbs? By the time this virus kills me off and anyone realizes the bulbs are there, they won't have a clue how long they've been sitting there. Meanwhile, I'm doing well just to reach over to the end table and grab another tissue to cough into....")

Needless to say, I survived the virus despite myself and my personal pity-party. I'm still feeling ragged, but this afternoon I suddenly realized that it's due to rain tomorrow. And it's spring, which means the rain may come at inconveniently frequent intervals that make planting bulbs impossible. So I hauled myself outside and started looking for places to drop the remaining bulbs in.

Rereading the instructions, I realized one reason why it had taken so long to plant them last fall - all of the remaining bulbs were supposed to be planted at a depth of 6-8", which meant they each needed a fairly significant hole. Plus they needed spots where I could "guarantee" they wouldn't sit in water for too long...or dry out too thoroughly, either. I planted the first group of 3 hyacinths in a flower bed and then I just said, "Screw it."

Rather than scouring my flower beds for other perfect spots, I went into the vegetable garden, pulled up a couple of last year's tomato plants, and stuck the rest of the bulbs in the ground. I should have done that last fall - the beds are raised, so the bulbs won't be sitting in soil that's too wet, and I can transplant them later this spring when I see where I need some extra color.

Now I'm keeping my (sadly greedy) fingers crossed. I'll be surprised if a couple of the hyacinth varieties come up at all, as the bulbs weren't looking or feeling too healthy, but the rest didn't look as bad as I expected them to look.

As I planted, I recited a mantra to myself, "This is the LAST time I'm going to buy more than I can plant. This is the LAST time I'm going to buy more than I can plant. This is the LAST time I'm going to buy more than I can plant."

And if you believe THAT, I have a bridge.....

Season of Red-Wing Song

There are certain times of the year that beg to be recognized for the natural energy pulsing through them, and this feels like one of those times. It's the time of the red-wing song. As the flocks head north and the males start feeling the spring tides move through their bodies, I start hearing their song, "Oga-leeee!!!! Oga-leeee!!!!!" sounding from every direction when I step outside.

"Oga-leeee!!! Oga-leeee!!!!" says one in the remnants of last year's cattails.

"Chuck! Chuck! Chuck!" grumbles another one from a little farther down the draw, before he too breaks out into a celebratory, "Oga-leeee!!!! Oga-leeee!!!!"

From a nearby tree-top, I hear a third male throw his verbal hat into the ring, "Oga-leeeee!!!! Oga-leeee!!!!" Really, there are too many joining the verbal joust to figure out where each call is coming from.

I'm starting to hear a few other birds chorus too, like the killdeer I heard overhead early this morning when I went to pick up the paper, or the eastern meadowlark that was half-heartedly whistling his "Spring of the year!" melody when I walked in the back prairie about an hour ago, but the main soundtrack from dawn until dusk these days is provided by the red-winged blackbirds.

"Oga-leeee!!! Oga-leeee!!!!"...."Wake up!!!!! Wake up!!!! It's still gray, but Spring's here!!!! Spring's here!!!!"

A Scary Thought

In an Organic Gardening magazine I was thumbing through recently, I came across the following statistic:

If a single aphid lived her full lifespan, including 21 birth-giving days, and all of her offspring lived and reproduced at full capacity too, when the original aphid died at the end of those 21 reproductive days, she would leave behind 1,099,511,627,775 descendants. That's over 1 trillion aphids!

Sure makes me glad that I don't kill off my aphid-eating armies of predator insects by using bug spray!

Life, Death, Love and Pets; or The Hawk and the Turtle

I've been a bad blogger. A very bad blogger. It's been almost 6 months since I last posted. For better or for worse, though, I'm back. The outside world is waking up, and so am I.

Yesterday was a curious combination of chained-to-my-chair frustration (putting together a presentation on a computer that wasn't quite working right) and yes-it's-really-spring excitement. I was working on my laptop at the kitchen table where I can watch the birdfeeders, since I was also doing a FeederWatch count for Cornell....

At one point when I looked up, all of the birds were gone. Not too unusual, actually, but this time when I scanned the yard, I noticed a big blob under the lilac bushes. It was a Cooper's hawk, and it was standing atop some poor, unfortunate sparrow-sort which it was holding in its talons!

The hawk looked around a bit, then proceeded to start ripping feathers off the head of the sparrow. I watched for a bit, then gave myself a dope slap and got my camera. Even with a 10X zoom, the hawk was a bit far away for a great photo, but I did the best I could, taking a large series of photos, almost all of which are about equally blurred. While I stood in the kitchen window and snapped away, the hawk would look around for a bit, then bend down to his task for a while, then stop to watch again. After 10 or 15 minutes, he flew away, taking his meal with him.

What hapless bird did he catch and consume? While I was first watching and trying to identify the hawk's prey through my binoculars, it looked perhaps like the head of an adult Harris sparrow - black with a pink beak. Later, after the hawk had flown, I went out to look at the feathers. The hawk had taken the body; the remaining feathers appeared to be slate gray and white. Just looking at the feathers, I would guess that it was a junco that got eaten. Even with photographic and physical evidence, I don't think I'll ever know.

An hour or so after the hawk incident, I idly noticed our hyperactive cat Ranger batting at something under the lilacs. It didn't appear to be a bird, so I didn't pay much attention at first, but then something clicked and I decided to go out and actually investigate. Lo and behold, it was a box turtle emerging from below ground!

The temperatures are still falling to around freezing every night and only getting up into the 40's during the day; I was amazed to see a turtle emerging already, but there he was. And if a turtle is emerging already, spring can't be too far away.

I'm not the most observant person in the world, but I'm learning to pay attention to my pets when they are nosing at something. They've made some great discoveries for me: an emerging cluster of garter snakes, a pair of box turtles mating, a below-ground egg nest that had been dug up and eaten. Now that the weather's warming up, it's time to be extra vigilant (at least about watching them!) again.

Solely Solidago Again (or Glowing Goldenrods, Part III)

At last we're getting to the goldenrods that are currently in bloom.

The classic one is Canada goldenrod, Solidago canadensis. It's big. It's bold. It's beautiful. It's...vigorous. In fact, lots of people don't like goldenrods because they assume that all goldenrods are going to act like Canada goldenrod, which likes to expand its territory by sending out horizontal rhizomes. Lots of horizontal rhizomes, from which come tall, vertical stems. One plant rapidly becomes a large clump of many plants. (There are some hybrid cultivars of this species available now, selected often for both smaller size and less invasive tendencies. They are gorgeous, well mannered, and they make excellent garden flowers.) Canada goldenrod can be wonderful in the wild, though, where large swathes of it create golden pockets along the roadsides and in the fields. Its glorious yellow blossoms seem to support an entire community of insects...but that's a good subject for another post.

Another goldenrod that is currently in bloom is stiff goldenrod, Solidago rigida. When both the common name and the scientific name agree on a characteristic (in this case, stiff or rigid), it's a sure bet that something about the plant will be obviously described by the characteristic mentioned. With stiff goldenrod, the stems are very upright, the flowers are fairly flat-topped, and the leaves are particularly stiff when you feel them. The whole plant screams rigid, in fact, especially when compared to a looser textured goldenrod like the elm-leaved goldenrod. Whether this seems like a Type A plant or not, it's showy, well-mannered, and fun to include in the flower garden. I have a few in the front flower bed, and one lone plant in the back five acres.

The last species I'd like to talk about in this post is Fireworks goldenrod, Solidago rugosa 'Fireworks'. Fireworks goldenrod is one of those plants that you can't forget if you've ever seen it in bloom. It works best in masses, I think, but it takes special placement to make it seem graceful, rather than overwhelming. This photo isn't from my yard, but I think the homeowner (a landscape architect) has used this plant particularly well, wrapping it around the base of a redbud on a slope where it seems to spiral upwards, leading you along the path and providing movement to the planting bed. Solidago rugosa, wrinkled leaf goldenrod, is actually not native to Kansas, but is native in Missouri and further east. Fireworks, however, seems quite at home in this area, both culturally and aesthetically.

Don't all of these gorgeous, sunshiny yellow blooms just lift your spirits? Goldenrod is a great plant!

Solely Solidago (or Glowing Goldenrod, Part II)

I warned you that I love goldenrod and would be posting more about it. Well, this is that dreaded post...because now is goldenrod season. In fact, had I waited much longer, goldenrod season would be officially over.

Actually, I've cheated you somewhat. One of the species I want to talk about is done blooming. It was the second goldenrod species to bloom in our yard this year, elm-leaved goldenrod (Solidago ulmifolia).

I'd guesstimate that this species stayed in bloom for about a month, beginning in mid August and finishing about a week ago. One nice thing about elm-leaved goldenrod is that it prefers at least part shade, making it a nice pop of color in sometimes dark areas of the garden. It's also very hardy and, so far at least, has had very good manners. I've not noticed any unwanted "children" springing up, nor have I seen evidence of the vigorous suckering that can make some goldenrods seem rather thuggish. I'd highly recommend planting this goldenrod, too.

The next goldenrod coming into bloom was in the natural areas. Missouri goldenrod, Solidago missouriensis, is a rather short goldenrod. It's one of the first to bloom in the prairie. While it will form colonies, they are quite open and not intrusive at all. My only beef with this guy is that its bloom season is too short for me, lasting just a couple weeks.

Due to Blogspot's dislike of my photo file sizes, I'll continue this subject in another post....

They HAD To Exist....And We Proved That They Do!

Prairiewolf and I actually found a mythical creature the other day...and I have a photo to prove it.

All our lives, we have found adult box turtles, but we've never found a baby. We knew they had to exist, but after over 100 years between us, we'd never seen one and they were taking on mythical status.

No more. Driving down Tyler Road last week, we both saw this tiny little silhouette at about the same time. Prairiewolf screeched to a halt and backed up. Sure enough, it was a tiny little box turtle determinedly crossing the road from a plowed field to a large mowed yard. Since neither habitat was optimum, we picked the little guy up and brought him home, photograhing him quite a bit, before releasing him out back.

I thought this photo of Ranger checking him out was fun because it shows the baby's size so clearly. Ranger, by the way, is quite small for a full grown male cat. (Sorry my exposure is so lousy. I seriously need to learn to use PhotoShop Elements more efficiently.)

I felt a little worried as I walked off, after releasing him. He was so small and there were so many big things that could hurt or kill him. At least we tried to increase his chances by bringing him to a location that isn't plowed and where habitat is plentiful.

Hopefully we'll see him again, well on his way to adulthood, one of these days!

Words Worth a Thousand Pictures

I'm reading William Least Heat-Moon's latest book, Roads to Quoz. Normally I wait until I finish a book before I do a "book review" here on the blog, but I'm enjoying his use of language so much that I have to share at least a few snippets here and now, when I'm barely one fourth of the way through the book. (I have a little bit of an excuse: it IS a long book, having 562 pages, not including the "Valedictories.")

Describing his English lit profs as he worked towards his "Phud," many years ago, at the ripe old age of about 30: "If any youthful moisture of soul remained in them, it had turned to mildew. The range of their dry-hearted, withered passions ran only from annoyance to worry, with every petty stage between and nothing beyond." (p. 163)

Descriptions from the Gulf Coast of Florida....

"The old cafe, its floors showing more relief than the surrounding land, had commensurately undulating wooden walls and ceiling,..." (p. 173)

"Sagging down like a line of wet laundry, old U.S. 98 followed the curve of the Gulf about as closely as a road could, the sound of the waves sometimes overcoming the hum and thrum of auto tires." (p. 176)

"The difference between the water on the roof and the humid air under it was distinguishable largely by the noise [of the hard rain coming down]." (p. 179)

A philosophical comment about memories from prior trips while traveling, "As dyspepsia is to a diner, so personal nostalgia is to the traveler." (p. 177)

And Heat-Moon's vocabulary! I rarely run across books where I have to look up words with any frequency at all - but I'm finding the need to keep a dictionary close by with this book. Not in a bad way, mind you, but rather in a "richness of the English language" sort of way. Without giving away the secret of which words I didn't know, here are a few that caught my attention in the same 3 short chapters from which I took my several quotes:

costive-spirited
sciolists
convivium
nimble conspectuses
tarradiddle
piscatorial prophylaxis (describing mullet fish dip)
"third places"

Let me leave you with two more quotes. The first is describing the geography of Florida, and the second was the response of an oysterbar owner when asked if the humidity bothered him....

"While not hollow, Florida a few inches down is as porous as a weathered thighbone you might find in a High Plains pasture.... [Florida's] a piece of loosely stuck geology not so much affixed to the continent as merely anchored for the night." (p. 168)

" ' You know why little old ladies come here?' To find little old men? 'They come here to rehydrate their skins. Get one of them good and damp, and she can shuffle off ten years. Who wants to feel a dry sponge when he can have a damp one?' ...'Ever been to Arizona? Have you seen those old gals out there? The short ones turn into raisins and the big ones look like prunes. No Georgia Peaches in that desert.' " (p. 179-180)

On that colorful, if misogynistic, quote, I will end for now. I'm ready to get back to reading!

The Battle for Life and Death in a Blue Haze

When we left off our last post, we had introduced a dead monarch butterfly at the base of a Black Adder Agastache and at least one wheel bug hiding in the leaves every time I looked closely at the plant....

That first morning, I noticed a wheel bug moving. Relocating, so to speak, to better hunting grounds. It delicately walked from one stem to another, going across a bridge of leaves. Then, while I continued to watch, it settled into a spot on the underside of a leaf, in the shade. (Menacing music commences.)

I got distracted by other photo opportunities and soon left the area.

That evening as I walked by the plant, I noticed a hapless Delaware skipper caught in the wheel bug's embrace, kicking feebly as its life was literally sucked out of it.

When I checked tonight, the wheel bug (or another just like it) was still there, walking majestically around its plant kingdom. There were now 4 carcasses below the plant: the monarch, 2 Delaware skippers, and an orange sulfur. Who knows how many other remains are there, camoflaged against the brown of the mulch.

Who knew organic gardening could be so vicariously violent? It's a sobering reminder that life isn't always pretty, even the life of beautiful, "harmless" animals like the monarch butterfly.

Bending My "Rules" a Bit for Blue

In my front flower garden, I've been evolving a policy of "natives only." I'm not completely sure why I picked that bed to be so rigorous about, but it has to do with the bed having a relatively sunny location and with my not wanting to have to water it a lot. There's also the challenge of using primarily natives, grown organically, to make a strong cottage garden effect that looks good. I'm especially aiming for a cottage garden look that doesn't scream "Natives here, folks! Grown organically! Only scaggy plants need apply!"

I'm not as hardcore about using just natives as my instinct tells me to be. As Prairiewolf is apt to note, I can be a little unbending when it comes to that and to gardening organically. In point of fact, though, I have MANY horticultural varieties and cultivars that aren't of local source in this bed and I have even planted a few species that are found in nearby states but not in Kansas. (My backyard "courtyard garden" is where I tend to site my non-native species. I'm not enough of a native snob that I don't love my peonies, iris, and Knockout roses.)

All that said and put aside, I've bent my newly developing front garden rules to include a hybrid that is basically a bicontinental freak of (non)nature: Black Adder hyssop (Agastache 'Black Adder'), a plant that is half northern North American and half Korean in parentage. It's proving to be as attractive to the insect life in the yard as it is to me visually.

I'm a sucker for blue flowers, especially gorgeous spikes of rich blue flowers, and since delphiniums turn up their noses (and toes) at our surroundings here, I have to look beyond the obvious to satisfy my cravings. So when I saw this tiny little seedling in a 2" pot, offered at Dyck Arboretum's spring plant sale, and noticed the blue flower spikes shown on the plastic label, I gave in to temptation. Just one wouldn't be too obvious....

Of course, then I went and planted it front and center in the garden, a spot it seems to enjoy inhabiting. It has done extremely well and has been blooming for quite a while now. (Luckily it is supposed to be sterile, being a hybrid, so I shouldn't have to be plucking out seedlings by the gazillions.) For kicks and giggles, a few days ago I photographed a few of the insects I saw around it.

It was morning and the weather was relatively cool for August - in the upper 70's to low 80's. Skippers, especially, were enjoying the nectar feast. I don't know my skippers well at all, but I think that the orange one is Delaware skipper (Anatrytone logan) and the brown one with a big white spot on its hind wings is the silverspotted skipper (Epargyreus clarus). Both make sense as inhabitants of this yard, as the Delaware skipper's larval food is bluestem grasses and switchgrass, and the silverspotted skipper's larval food is black locust, honey locust and false indigo (Baptisia sp.). We certainly have lots of larval food for both species around here!

There was a dead monarch below the plant (more on that in the next post) and an orange sulfur butterfly (Colias eurytheme) flitting around. I was able to capture the sulfur feeding....

Since then, I've started watching this plant particularly. There are always insects on it. Fritillaries, painted ladies, monarchs, bumble bees, wasps, and skippers, skippers and more skippers. It's definitely not a sterile place holder in the yard.

Every time I look, I see at least one wheel bug on it too.

But, again, I'll leave that for the next post....

Tallgrass Time

It's the month of tallgrass lengthening. The big bluestem (Andropogon gerardii) has shot up and its flowers are open on the tall spikes.

The Indian grass (Sorghastrum nutans) is beginning to open its flower spikes too.

As I walk through the prairie pastures on the paths that Prairiewolf mows for me, the bluestem is at least head high, sometimes higher. Suddenly the paths feel enclosed, and I can't help but think back to the settlers traveling across the prairies. It's only been about 150 years, but what a different landscape experience they would have had compared to our modern experience of open, plowed fields, mile-gridded roads, and soldierly hedgerows marking the horizon.

What will be here in 150 more years?

The Harvest is Pouring In, Part 3

So that leaves us with the squash, the potatoes and onions.

The squash is actually a summer squash called Costata Romanesca. I planted all of my squash late (the July 4th weekend); this is the first one to produce fruits that I can pick. The vines and leaves of this squash are HUGE. The leaves are about 2' across, the vines are short and tightly packed with leaf stems, blossoms and fruit. We've eaten one of these squash, which I prepared by slicing, then sauteeing with onion in butter. It was excellent.

Knock on wood, so far planting the squash late has worked very well this year. I've had much less trouble with squash bugs than usual. We'll see if I get any winter squash, however. They take longer to mature, so they may or may not produce well before frost.

I've left the center plate for last. The onions on it are not unusual - just yellow and red onion sets from the local grocery store. I don't know what I'm doing yet with onions, so the bulbs are very small. I'll figure it out one of these days.

The potatoes are different, however. Like the tomatoes, squash and Italian sweet peppers, they are all heirloom varieties from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange. The big, yellow potatoes in the back are Yukon Golds. I planted them in late May but, despite their late start, they did quite well. I started with 2 1/2 pounds of seed potatoes, which I cut into 11 pieces/plants. I harvested about 14 pounds of potatoes, and they are wonderful - blemish free and so tasty!

The rosy red potatoes are Red Cloud and I planted them (and the last variety, Rose Gold) VERY late - sometime in early-mid June. They didn't do very well as far as potato production went before the black blister beetles basically brought their life cycle to an end. The Rose Golds seemed like the most attractive to the blister beetles of all 3 varieties and they were stopped in their tracks very early, leaving me with a fair number of very small little "fingerling" size potatoes that don't amount to much. I've been debating replanting both of these last 2 varieties as a fall crop, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.

So that's my mid-summer harvesting so far. As far as producing the most poundage, the winners right now are the Yukon Gold potatoes, the Garden Peach and the Arkansas Traveler tomatoes, the Costata Romanesca summer squash, and the jalapeno peppers. Now I have to get very busy canning and storing all these wonderful gifts from the garden!

The Harvest is Pouring In, Part 2

Continuing around the tabletop display, the next tomato to the right is Old Virginia. This is another new variety for us. We have 2 vines planted - one is looking great, the other is browning out badly. The flavor of the fruits is excellent. I don't know if the little bumps on them are typical of the variety, or if this type is attracting some bug (that I'm not noticing) that's feeding a bit on the fruit. I suspect the former, although the description in the catalog said nothing about them.

The last of the heirloom varieties I tried this year is the one fruit perched on top of the jalapeno peppers in the next bowl. This is Granny Cantrell's German. I've got 2 vines planted - one has never done well and has no fruit set on it at all. The other vine is growing reasonably well, but hasn't set many fruit and is browning out badly. I haven't tasted the fruit yet - this is the first one that has been produced. Unless the taste is truly incredible, I have to assume that I won't grow this variety again. It may be fine for Kentucky (where it originates), but it doesn't seem to like south-central Kansas.

The last type of tomato I'm growing is Rutgers, a typical hybrid that I was given by a friend. Interestingly, it was the first vine to set a fruit, but that first fruit ripened after the first Green Grapes, Garden Peaches and Arkansas Travelers. The vine has browned out as badly as any of the heirloom vines, so if this variety is supposed to be resistant to anything, I'm not impressed. The few on this plate are the sum total of fruits that I have harvested so far, so I haven't taste tested any.

Sharing the plate with the Rutgers tomatoes are Jimmy Nardello's Italian sweet peppers. While the bushes aren't as prolific as the jalapeno bushes, they are doing very well and producing quite a few fruits. Raw, the peppers taste very much like thin, sweet green peppers. I haven't experimented much with them yet, but they are fun to see in the garden.

One more post should finish up my explanations and descriptions for now....

The Harvest is Pouring In

I'm having a grand time taste-testing all of the different vegetable varieties we've grown this summer. There are several new ones and a couple tried and true. Here's a photo of the variety that we've been getting lately....

All but one variety of the tomatoes are heirlooms from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange. In fact, I guess we got all of our heirloom seeds there this year, including the squash, peppers and potatoes in the photo too.

It's an interesting summer as far as tomatoes go. I got them in the ground somewhat late this year (about May 20th, if I remember correctly). They didn't start producing for quite a while, and I only got my first ripe tomatoes about a week ago. Until a couple weeks ago, the vines looked healthier than I've ever seen tomato vines look, but once they started actually producing fruit, about half of them started browning out VERY badly. Instead of losing a few leaves from the bottom up, they've lost most of the main leaves on the vines. The fruit seems fine, however. Anyway, on to the descriptions....

The sunshine yellow tomatoes are called Garden Peach and they have an interestingly soft but thick skin. I only have one vine of this variety planted out and it has produced more, so far, than 2 or more vines of each of the other varieties. However, it is browning out very badly this year, so I don't know how long it will continue producing. The taste is very good, although the soft, thick skin can be a little disconcerting.

Next to them on the right (I'm moving clockwise) are the pinky-red Arkansas Traveler tomatoes. We grew these when we lived north of Topeka and they were one of our favorites there. They still are a favorite, even down here. Arkansas Traveler tomatoes continue to set in higher heat than most tomatoes and they are incredibly flavorful. I have four vines of this variety this summer - 3 look very good, while the 4th (which started producing earliest) is browning out badly.

The yellow-green cherry tomatoes next around the circle are Green Grape tomatoes, another of our favorites from years before. Another that is still a favorite now. In fact, the reason the Green Grape bowl has so many fewer tomatoes than most of the other bowls is not because the vines are producing less, but rather because they are so perfectly sized to pop in my mouth that I can't resist doing it on a regular basis. I have 2 vines of Green Grape this summer - one is looking great; the other is browning out very badly.

I'll continue this in another post, as it's easiest to identify each of the types of tomatoes and so forth by highlighting the photos.

Serendipity in Stone

While shopping at an estate sale last week, I noticed this little stone bench almost hiding in the ivy. It wasn't priced, but I asked and they were willing to sell it. I think it had been waiting for me!

Not wanting to ruin either Prairiewolf's or my back, I hired a moving company to get it home; Tony and his helper very kindly even positioned it for me, out under a black willow by the draw. Prairiewolf has been mowing a wonderful round area for me there, where I can look across the draw underneath the canopy, but I had no where to sit down...until now. (Since the area floods during heavy rains, putting wooden or plastic chairs under there wasn't a viable option.) The stone bench works perfectly.

Here's my view in the late afternoon....

I'll let you know when I see anything exciting down here!