Why exactly am I away from here during perhaps the busiest time of the year for landscaping and gardening? At least there are two other people here to intercept the bulb order! And no trees this year. Probably wise.
In the last few days, an entire garden bed has been reworked and a temporary garage built; I can’t take credit for either of those. I have, at least, been running about a bit watering things.
See you after the weekend 🙂
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gardening and Modern Photos clematis, gardening, photograpy 12:01
Taken much earlier this year, clematis ‘Mayleen’ of the Montana group. A very happy plant, only in its first full year, it has sprawled over about 20 feet. This photo is taken from underneath it.
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gardening and Landscapes 14:06
The right tool for the right job and all that…
Probably one of the most useful tools, in fact an indispensable tool, for how we are maintaining much of the house lot: i.e. moderately open mature woods with certain types of underbrush/ground cover, is our trimmer.
Our landscape is actually not in equilibrium, it is always trying to fill in with brush and saplings. Because we do not have a particularly severe deer problem here (thank you, George!) and I don’t think the fire department would approve of an annual burn (the other way to have an open understory) it has to be cut. But because we don’t want an entirely open understory, but rather one filled with certain plants only, it is a matter of selective editing. I cut the area once a year, at the most, and have to go around volunteers we want to encourage, cut the innumerable Norway maple seedlings, excess goldenrod, briar, wood aster (in the right place I want them, but not every where), etc. I need a tool, in other words, that can go through something an inch plus in diameter without slowingg, but has the accuracy to come within centimeters of a baby holly, dogwood, or viburnum. It is over five acres, so doing it by hand…not happening! I do it in the fall because the spring plants/ferns can tolerated being walked all over at this point. If I squish some aster or goldernrod it isn’t a problem. If I do it too late though, all the leaves are off the babies and I can’t tell a Norway maple from a Sugar maple from an oak.
The answer is a Stihl FS130 professional trimmer, with the brush knife essentially permanently attached. The brush knife is the rather nasty thing that resembles an oversize three pointed star. (The whippy little string head is a useless gadget as far as I am concerned).
(yes, I am pretty good at the memory game, I know where almost all the babies are!)
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gardening and Modern Photos asters, gardening, native plants 13:53
Seeing as I natter on about it so….
Here is one patch of it: this is the most recently created one, we simply stopped mowing the stretch between the Douglas Spruce and the Copper Beech because it was all moss. One year later, this is the result.* Wood aster is a takeover specialist.
*For scale, it is an easy 15 meters between the two trees.
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gardening 20:30
An ecosystem, when in the course of getting a few carrots you disturb: one toad, one leopard frog, multiple little tree frogs (the really tiny guys who had previously been hanging out in the peach tree) and several tiger swallowtail caterpillars.
Who is the garden for?
Esperanza and gardening and Genealogy and Historical Events botanical drawing, gardening, genealogy 14:42
Again from the guestbook, this time by a cousin. I use the term loosely, I have yet to understand how all the Smiths relate to the Palmers relate to the Websters relate to the Ellsworths relate to the… Is Julia a closer cousin to Morris Smith than to William Webster Ellsworth? Possibly, possibly not. In any event the genealogy is not my forte; I do know that there were any number of cousins living in NYC. It is somewhat interesting to note; until recent times* Esperanza has been solidly Hartford/NYC/Hudson River/Adirondacks in orientation. The 1870’s-1930’s group has not the slightest interest in points further south on the coast nor on points further north. They are quite happy to jump to New Orleans, California, Europe, North Africa….but Boston and Washington D.C.? Different planets.
Anyway, botanical art:
*recent = last three generations.
gardening and Modern Photos gardening, photography 17:40
September probably has the highest flower count here: if you were to count each individual aster, lobelia, etc.? Hundreds of thousands easily. Spring and fall are the two growing seasons for New England, summer is survival against the heat and winter is survival against the cold.
The white wood aster, by the way, (which is in this photo) actually is fragrant: a very subtle floral scent on a good dry day…at least when one is standing in a patch several hundred feet square!
gardening and Modern Photos gardening, photography 16:25
Heart leaved wood aster, or white wood aster, is a native flower (sort of in the aster family)*. It blooms in late August through to frost. The flowers are small, white, with purple or yellow centers. It adores dry shade, but is equally content in full sun (though the leaves get burnt). It spreads by runners and will outcompete most garden plants. We have a lot of it. The old tennis court is covered with it. Last year we gave up mowing the mossy area underneath the big Japanese Maple, the Douglas Spruce, and the Copper Beech. No point in it, it is very dark and composed mostly of blanket moss. Or was….It is now a gorgeous carpet of white, looking for all the world like a massive drift of snow, beneath the purple leaved trees. Quite impressive!
*The botanists are having too much fun taking this family apart and putting it back together, a group of frustrated divorce lawyers!
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Esperanza and gardening art, botanical drawing, gardening 09:46
Acair Fearann 