Dead and dying

There is not a lot happening in the yard these days. No rain, so I have been watering. Too dry to mow, although the 'Crimson King' maple tree in the front yard is dropping its leaves. (I mow leaves instead of raking them.) Yesteday was the first day of autumn, but the weather is not cooperating.

Dry or not, dog poop still needs to be picked up. While completing this task, I came upon a dead chipmunk, literally belly up. No apparent trauma, but then I didn't inspect it closely. It could have been the victim of two critter-chasing dogs, or maybe a hawk dropped it.

Then, while filling up one of the birdbaths, I noticed a young raccoon lying on the brush pile in the corner, dead. The dogs killed a young raccoon earlier, which I found traumatic - the thing screamed like a cat - but those two can't reach the area around the brush pile. Maybe an owl dropped it? Some vultures were checking it out the other day, but it's still there. I'm letting nature take its course.

(I am of two minds regarding the dogs killing trespassing wildlife. On the one hand, I wish they wouldn't. On the other, without their vigilance, my property would be overrun by vermin.)

That houseplant I showed you a couple of weeks ago, the one that supposedly needs very little care, made a liar of the seller. The poor thing looks a bit bedraggled. Crassula 'Buddha Temple' succulents are prone to root rot, but they *do* need to be watered periodically. I hope the good soaking I gave this guy revives it.

Not everything is dead or dying around here. The aromatic asters are coming on strong, attracting pollinators and even a few butterflies.

I haven't planted the new asters yet - the ground is so hard and dry - but I may not be able to wait much longer. Even though I keep them watered, they won't last forever in their current state.

Memory lapse

It's bacon-lettuce-tomato season, with fresh tomatoes from the garden. I sent my son a pic of a sliced tomato, and he asked about the variety. Um, good question. Usually, I blog about plant varieties when I purchase them, but not this time. Since I bought them from a local nursery, there is no email confirming my order. I did manage to find one plant tag - 'Early Doll' - but it was on the ground and not in the pot, so while I know one variety, I'm not sure which plant it goes with. Very unlike me.

I don't want to repeat that mistake, so here is a photo of the asters I plan to plant with the goldenrod on the north side of the house. The variety is Aster 'Eventide'. The tag also says "Michaelmas Daisy". Not sure what that is about. They are from Bluestone Perennials.

It's been a bit dry around here lately, but the temps have moderated. I haven't run the furnace, even though the house is a bit chilly in the morning. I also haven't started switching the bedding to winter mode yet, which I do in stages, as the forecast is predicting some 80 degree weather later in the week.

Not so hot

I'm hoping last week was our last hot spell for the season. The forecast looks promising in an early-fall kind of way. This wonky weather has left me feeling off balance, like I can't count on things moving forward in a logical meteorological way. A single outfit doesn't last the day.

A little catch-up: a better photo of the goldenrod and a pic of the lavender colored aster that I think is smooth aster, a.k.a. aster laevis.

I had the landscape guys cut down a volunteer redbud that grew too close to the house, but it's ba-a-a-ack. I plan to try to prune it to a (mostly) single leader, to see if that helps keep it from becoming a nuisance.

Art fairs seem to be the hot thing right now. Some of them are meh, but my SO and I attended a couple of small ones yesterday. I could not resist purchasing this little fellow.

The seller couldn't tell me its name, but I think it is a Crassula 'Buddha Temple' succulent. Apparently, they require very little care, which is my kind of houseplant.

Have a carefree week.

Water! Water!

We are having another HOT spell, and dry. One of the ninebark shrubs looked *really* thirsty, so I heavily watered all three of them, plus the Canadian hemlock, tulip tree, Japanese maple, and container plants. I'll repeat that protocol tomorrow. I don't water the lawn, though, and it is looking rather dormant.

The tall goldenrod on the south side of the house is blooming. I searched my emails and this blog for references to goldenrod and can't find any indication that I planted this variety. It is a welcome sight, nonetheless.

And some asters have survived. I believe this is New York aster, and there is some other variety of aster nearby, with lavender blossoms.

I have spotted a monarch butterfly or two recently, but that is about it. Maybe next year I will (deliberately) plant some milkweed, or the milkweed that is in the yard will spread.

HOT

We had some brutal days this past week. Nothing like other parts of the country (and world) have been experiencing, but definitely too ick to spend much time outside. So today, partly cloudy with a high of 80, I took advantage of the lull and cut down all those sunflower plants. Now the yard doesn't look anything like the picture at the top of the blog. Since some of the heads had not yet been picked clean by the birds, I hung them over the privacy fence for final feasting.

One of the replacement Canadian hemlocks is looking a bit peaked. I moved the tree waterer to give it a good drink, hoping to stave off its demise. Technically, it is not covered by a plant warranty since it is a replacement, but maybe I can talk the native plant guy into it since I questioned the use of Canadian hemlocks in the first place.

I am eagerly awaiting the blossoming of the goldenrod. Too bad the rudbeckia choked out the asters on the south side of the house. I ordered some asters for the north side and am hoping they won't be overrun by the goldenrod there.

Today I also mowed and trimmed. Or rather, trimmed until the Ego trimmer ran out of power. Now I can't get the battery pack out of it. My hip is fixed, my shoulders are fixed, but I am now troubled by wrist and thumb issues. It's always something.

Have a painfree week.

August isn't over yet

The temps have been rather mild lately, but that won't hold through the week. One more hot and dry spell and we might be done with August. Maybe since school starts earlier and earlier each year, the weather is adapting to match.

To take advantage of the relatively nice weather, I spent some time handweeding the beds in the front yard. Getting down low and up close at the same time brought me almost nose-to-nose with the seed pods from wild-ish violets that I let grow in my yard.

Seeds still in the seed pod

An empty seed pod and one that hasn't opened yet

Here is another reason to not feed birds in the summer: a carpet of sunflower seedlings under the feeders.

How about a brief walk around the yard?

Something ate one of my tomatoes. I'm guessing a raccoon. The rest are okay, thank goodness.

These late blooming hostas are overwhelming the earlier blooming ones in back, the ones my daughter keeps saying she wants to transplant to her yard.

The sunflowers are almost done. I stopped putting out sunflower seed, letting the birds forage a bit instead.

Of all the sweet potato vine plants I put out, this is the only one to do what I expected them all to do: vine. (I call this photo "Self Portait ala Vivian Meyier".)

And that is about all the garden news there is this week. Time to hunker down.

Non-natives killing the earth? Mea culpa

A columnist on the Washington Post claims that non-natives are "killing the earth". I can think of many other things that are more culpable than non-natives when it comes to ecology, so I was happy to find a post on the Garden Rant blog that rebuts the writer's broad condemnation.

There are all kinds of opinion wars about gardening. I recall being chastised for planting butterfly bush instead of butterflyweed because the former does not provide habitat for butterflies, only nectar. But don't they need nectar, too? And, so far, I have not had much luck with butterflyweed in my yard.

I tried growing a (native) oak leaf hydrangea, but the rabbits ate it. The 'Limelight' hydrangea thrives here, despite being native to China and Japan. What to do? I planted the 'Limelight'.

The "foreign" goutweed growing under the hydrangea is another issue. I wanted a groundcover that could withstand trampling. It can be invasive, but so far, the dogs are keeping it in check. Also, I cut back the seed heads.

At least I am not growing purple loosestrife, like a certain master gardener I know.

Let's leave that topic and look at some bugs!

I don't know what that bumble bee is doing in the video, but he looks busy.

Rethinking bird feeders

The recent newsletter from Riverview Native Nursery pointed to several articles about the pros and cons (mostly cons) of using bird feeders. (The articles may be found here and here.) This information has provided food for thought regarding my backyard habits.

In the past, I rarely fed wild birds through the summer. Instead, I would wait until after Thanksgiving to put the feeders out, figuring that those that were going to migrate had left by then and those that remained behind could use some help. It turns out this is not wrong.

The other thing I have tried to do is provide plants that provide bird food: serviceberry, oak tree, coneflower, monarda, viburnum, winterberry, crabapple, hawthorn, honeysuckle vine, hosta, and (especially this year) sunflowers.

What changed me into feeding during the spring and summer was the sparrows eating the leaf buds from the Japanese maple, preventing it from fully leafing out. I started putting out millet for them, and it escalated from there.

The result is I have a ton of sparrows and a ton of starlings, but practically no other birds. I enjoy watching the behavior of all kinds of birds, but this monoculture has been disappointing and disturbing. The bird feed industry also encourages year-round feeding by providing products such as cylinders of nesting foods. I put the cylinder inside a cage so that starlings could not get at it, but the juvenile sparrows just sat inside that cage, gorging themselves on easy pickings.

So now I plan to segue into feeding them only during the winter and early spring months. Some exceptions: mealworms for the bluebirds and wrens; millet in the spring for the sparrows, at least until the Japanese maple leafs out; oriole nectar in April and May; and hummingbird nectar in June. I hope that will lead to a more balanced avian population in my backyard. (It will also save me money!) The bird baths will stay, of course.

Yesterday we got a goodly amount of rain, and more is promised. The hot weather has abated and we are having rather mild temps for August. We'll see whether that holds through the month.

We spent some time in Chesterton yesterday and (among other places) visited the Chesterton Feed and Garden Center. It has quite the varied and extensive product line. I picked up a doohicky that will help with the watering of the tulip tree. I can attach a hose to it, and it will spray the whole root zone under the tree.

My attempt to grow bush beans in a rather shallow container did not work, so I purchased this milk crate liner so that next year I can provide more depth for the roots. (I already have a couple of milk crates.) We'll see how that works out.

Here are the aster blossoms I mentioned last week. The plants, Symphyotrichum oblongifolium 'October Skies', are like small shrubs. I expect them to provide some much needed color for the front yard.

In the bed on the south side that the rudbekia and ironweed have apparently taken over, there is a patch of something. I couldn't identify it as either friend or foe, so I let it grow. It is now over six feet tall and showing its true colors: I think it is goldenrod, a welcome newbie. I don't think I planted it, but it can definitely stay. And we'll see how it fares against the thug plants.

Have a surprising week.

End of July but it feels like August

The hot weather finally reached us, but it really wasn't all that unusual other than 90-degree days usually arrive in August, not July. When I was a kid in a previous century, we did not have air conditioning, just fans to sit in front of and hum into. I remember laying on my bed, reading, sweat running into my training bra, but not really feeling uncomfortable. Usually I spent my afternoons at the pool or the library or in the lower level of our split level, watching Cubs games. Now, hot and humid weather leaves me almost comatose. I am so soft.

I've concluded that the unidentified bird I posted a pic of a couple of weeks ago is a juvenile starling. Same general body shape but a bit slimmer, dusky colored instead of black, dark beak instead of yellow, but just as much of an a$$hole as the adults.

As I had hoped, goldfinch have made an appearance in the yard, sometimes at the monarda, sometimes in the sunflower patch. More house finches hang around as well. There are still too many sparrows, though; four immature ones chased away a swallowtail butterfly the other day. Jerks.

My next door neighbor had a tree removed from her backyard, one that hung over her house and lost a branch last summer, damaging the roof and taking out the electricity. Friday night we had a windy storm that dropped a lot of branches in the neighborhood - in fact, I could barely get out of the addition Saturday morning - and I'm guessing she is glad that tree is gone.

Saturday I attended a natural dyeing workshop where most of the dye materials came from the garden by the parking lot. The hibiscus was particularly impressive. And it dyes yarn an impressive color as well.

I talked to the native plant guy who installed my landscape last year. The missing plants will be replaced, per the warranty. He also did not like how the hairy beardtongue (Penstemon hirsutus) looked, flopping over in search of the sun that is blocked by the Japanese maple. So he wants to replace that with something more shade tolerant. I'll move the hairy beardtongue somewhere else - don't want to discard perfectly good plants. All gratis.

A blossom finally appeared on the Buddleia 'Purple Haze'. A couple of aster flowers have popped (too early!) The three clumps of nodding onion out front are at their peak.

After previously complaining about the lack of bugs in my yard, I am disconcerted to find something is biting me out there, something invisible that does not leave a mark. At least there is a chorus of cicadas to remind us that tomorrow August starts.

Enjoy the sounds of summer... while they last.

Bugs

Sometimes, when the morning light and dew are just right, the invisible becomes visible. In the past, I have found the front lawn completely covered in spider webs. That hasn't happened lately, but the other day, I did find a couple webs in the backyard, evidence that bugs still live on my property.

One blog I follow is called Garden Rant. They recently featured an article by Susan Harris about the Bee Lab, or more precisely the Native Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab, in the Putuxent Research Refuge, between Baltimore and Washington, D.C. This is the place to go for everything you ever wanted to know about native bees, with links hither and yon. And if you go to Pollinators.org, you can find out what plants and shrubs to plant in *your* area to help native bees.

Of course, I had to check out what my bees like, and sunflowers are one of the best sources of pollen for them. Good thing the local squirrels planted those last fall and I let them go wild this summer. I enjoy this wall of sunflowers so much, I changed the photo at the top of my blog.

I love standing out in the sunflower patch and watching the different bees. I expecially like seeing full pollen sacs.
Interestingly, while milkweed is great for monarchs, it is of no use for bees because the pollen is out of reach for them. And some of the items on the list do not excite me, like iris. But as I adjust the plant population in my yard (I just ordered asters to plant with the goldenrod), I'll keep in mind what the bugs favor.

So far, we have escaped the horrid heat that is tormenting the south and southwest portions of this nation. It looks like our respite will end next weekend, when highs will be in the 90's. Not as horrible as 110, but still a good reason to stay inside. It will also be dry, so I will continue to water the tulip tree, as it hasn't given up yet.

When there is a storm that includes thunder, all four pets hang out with me, as shown below. A short while after this pic was taken, I abandoned them for a safer spot than by the picture window because the tornado siren went off. Fortunately, no local damage occurred.

The yard is still full of birds and their young. The babies haven't figured out that the reflections in the windows are NOT trees and shrubs they can land on. One would think from the number of window hits I hear each day that the yard would be littered with dead birds, but I haven't found any. I think they don't hit with enough force to do any real damage to their fragile little necks.

An aside: While I am very happy that I had my landscape redone last summer, I have to admit that the results are not very showy. Right now, the only things blooming in the front yard are a clump of nodding onion and one butterflyweed plant that the monarch caterpillars didn't destroy last year. Meanwhile, "my" areas, the ones I asked them to not touch, sport monarda (which is fading), ironweed, and rudbeckia on the south side, a sea of hostas plus in the future goldenrod and aster on the north, and honeysuckle vine, daylily, and sunflowers in the back. I can see me adding more perennials over the years because, frankly, I like to look at pretty flowers.

Grrr!

This past week, a sales rep from Greenix rang my doorbell. He rattled off the names of several neighbors who had recently procured his services. When I realized he was an exterminator, I told him that was the opposite of what I want in my yard. It's a granular application, so he claims it does not kill bees. We got stuck on the bee issue, but as it always happens, later I thought of more arguments against his product. One is, without bugs, what are the birds to feed their young? Hummingbirds may dine on nectar, but they feed their babies protein in the form of insects.

Then - and I don't know why solicitors do this - he asked for a bottle of water. I just laughed and said I don't buy bottled water. So in his mind, am I not only a crazy bug lady, I'm a crazy bug environmentalist.

And then I received an email from a fiber friend who helps maintain a colonial garden at one of the local parks. She had bedstraw to give away. The roots of this plant provide nice reds when dyeing yarn, BUT it is also a non-native invasive. No way am I going to introduce that into my yard. I could offer to dig up some roots in the fall, though.

And THEN, while mowing, I found a mousetrap in my yard with a bird leg in it. Who puts mousetraps outside where non-mouse animals and even children can find them? Grrr!

Speaking of birds, does anyone know what kind of bird this is? It looks like a streamlined mourning dove to me, but I can't find any matching photos online.

The rudbeckia and ironweed on the south side of the house was fairly upright this year, until it rained. I keep adding sections of this no-dig fencing to help keep it out of the way, as I have to drive through that area with my mower. I've been adding some fencing to the bed opposite the privacy fence as well, as the milkweed and monarda also flop.

Meanwhile, the summer blooms are starting to pop.

Daylily

Butterflyweed

Coneflower

Rudbeckia

Only a couple of butterflyweed plants survived from last year. I contacted the native plant installer for replacements. He came up with a list of quite a few MIAs. I'm not too concerned that there may be two columbine plants missing, as that plant reseeds itself abundantly. He claims a dozen sedge plants are also gone. He sounds dissatisfied with the overall design and wants to make some changes. We'll see what he comes up with... and how much it will cost.

Few bugs anywhere

We enjoyed a picnic, swim, and hike at Metea Park on Independence Day. The pond was a bit shallow despite the recent rain, but I managed to do the breast stroke hither and yon, supported by a couple of pool noodles. (For some reason, I have no buoyancy.) Then we took a hike in the woods. We didn't need the bug spray I brought along, as there were basically no bugs. No mosquitoes, no deer flies, nothing besides a few gnats. I frequently lament the lack of bugs in my yard, especially pollinators, which I blame on lawn treatments, but it looks like it is an area-wide issue? Or not, as mosquitoes found me while I was visiting with the neighbors across the street in their backyard. They also have moles, while I do not. Go figure.

Eastern tiger swallowtail caterpillar at Metea

Coral fungus at Metea

The monarda on the south side of the house has brought out the bees, which I am happy to see.

The common milkweed in the same area is starting to bloom. Smells so sweet! I haven't seen any butterflies to speak of, but those red milkweed beetles are around.

The ironweed is just starting to bloom, so the rudbeckia can't be too far behind.

The blossoms have popped on the Buddleia 'Pink Microchip'. This little shrub likes growing in a container.

Besides the holiday, this week was week two of colorguard camp, so I was again busy chauffeuring my granddaughter. She won an award for being the hardest working "cadet". We watched her perform in the Three Rivers Festival parade yesterday, which marks the end of camp. Whew!

Have a festive week!

Nothing like a good rain

Last Sunday, we received 1.75" of rainfall, then another 0.25" on Monday. Just what all the plants needed. I've been watering through the dry spells, but there is some kind of magic in actual rain.

Just as I hoped/predicted last week, a few things are blooming. There is one blossom on one of the potted butterfly bushes, but more are on their way. The honeysuckle vine has been blooming all along, but after that rain, it really popped.

And the menarda is joining the pretty party.

The zinnias (my favorite annual) are in pots, but that didn't discourage them from expanding their blossom count after the rain.

My dream of green beans is off to a slow start, but at least I will have tomatoes.

All that moisture has also brought out the fungi. These little guys are popping up all over the yard.

Every year volunteer sunflowers emerge, thanks to the bird feeders. This year is no exception, but what is unusual are the clusters of sunflowers, presumably the result of chipmunks or squirrels burying mouthsful of seeds. I've been letting them grow, as I'm hoping it will attract the goldfinch that seem to be MIA this year.

Speaking of birds, there are baby bluebirds in the nesting box. Squeee! When mom or dad come to feed them, they chirp, chirp, chirp. Sparrows are nesting in the Goodwill sign.

The rainfall revealed that some of my gutters were plugged up, so I tackled that chore this past week. My dad lived in his house into his 90's by slowly outsourcing chores, from snow removal to housecleaning. I think gutter cleaning may be my first chore to be outsourced. At least, my new shoulders can now haul the ladders around.

Due to the wildfires in Canada, the air quality has been rather poor this past week, so I spent a lot of time inside. This is also week one of colorguard camp for my granddaughter, and I've been helping with transportation. And then there are the fireworks, which my dogs hate; they want out to chase the squirrels, then frantically scratch at the patio door to be let back in when one of those big booming ones is set off. Keeps me hopping.

Have an independent week!