The curcuma gingers are about to be liberated from the sun. I spent the weekend clearing the vines from around them. Tomorrow and Thursday I will trim them back and dig the rhizomes and store them in a light wrapper in a dark place for transport to their new shadier homes. Some of them are going to my school for Beautification Day this weekend and some are going to my colleague who is a master gardener.
The process of clearing the vines has been different this time. Last summer and the summer before, I was clearing the other side of the yard, where the vines were wild grapevine, Virginia creeper, and Carolina jessamine. On the side where the gingers have been growing in the shade of the lost linden oak are the Singapore skunk vine, Virginia creeper, wild clematis, and a pea-like vine. First I mowed around the gingers with the lawn mower on its lowest setting. Then I used the Lawn Shark tool to cut a section around each clump of ginger. With a three pronged cultivator, I pulled off the surface growth of vines left by the lawn mower, and then the root pulling began in earnest. As each root junction came up, I felt I really could take back my little piece of garden from the jungle.
Tuesday, September 23, 2014
Saturday, September 13, 2014
Mid September
Mid September is neither summer nor fall. A couple of mornings about a week ago, we felt a drop in the temperature, but the trend did not continue.
The summer has been so wet that all the plants are thriving. The sandy bed out front has two saw palmettos that are now looking well established. Early in the spring I seeded the bed with coontie seeds, layered live oak leaves on top, and marked the coontie nurseries with small bamboo stakes. A neighbor passed by and looked at me quizzically just as I was sticking the bamboo stakes in the bed. I explained that I was planting natives, and in about ten years this would look like something. Then the oak tree fell right across that bed and all the way to the rose of Sharon and Rosie Meyer daylilies on the other side. The tree was taken down while I was out of town, so when I returned I looked at the wreckage and discovered a wonderful thing-- the coonties were beginning to sprout. Now there are a couple of dozen coontie seedlings scattered around the bed.
The surge of monarch activity has subsided and the milkweed has put out new leaves. I just saw a newly hatched monarch fluttering around the front flower bed milkweed.
On the side of the yard where the passion flower vines grow up through the sasanqua camellias, this morning there were probably thirty or forty zebra longwing butterflies hovering around the vines.
Citrus trees and camellias have doubled in size. The branches of the citrus trees are loaded with tangerines and beginning to sag under the weight. And finally, after two weeks of rain, today there is a dry day to mow and clean up a little around the garden. The driveway, for example, has that covering of pine needles that drop at this time of year. It looks like a path through the forest instead of a driveway. With a little raking, I'll have some mulch to add here and there.
Today's meditation is from Hamlet, "how weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world." While it is true that some human affairs get me down, I never feel that the world is weary and stale when I look around the garden, listening to the hummingbirds chatter as they fly up and seeing the new leaves on the holly tree. Hamlet might have felt better if he had taken time to pull the weeds he saw in his garden, not just use them as metaphors all the time. Maybe he could have gone kayaking instead of moping around the castle. However, if he hadn't been talking to Horatio instead of going for a walk in the woods, he would never have realized that "there is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow," and I take comfort in that thought every day.
The summer has been so wet that all the plants are thriving. The sandy bed out front has two saw palmettos that are now looking well established. Early in the spring I seeded the bed with coontie seeds, layered live oak leaves on top, and marked the coontie nurseries with small bamboo stakes. A neighbor passed by and looked at me quizzically just as I was sticking the bamboo stakes in the bed. I explained that I was planting natives, and in about ten years this would look like something. Then the oak tree fell right across that bed and all the way to the rose of Sharon and Rosie Meyer daylilies on the other side. The tree was taken down while I was out of town, so when I returned I looked at the wreckage and discovered a wonderful thing-- the coonties were beginning to sprout. Now there are a couple of dozen coontie seedlings scattered around the bed.
The surge of monarch activity has subsided and the milkweed has put out new leaves. I just saw a newly hatched monarch fluttering around the front flower bed milkweed.
On the side of the yard where the passion flower vines grow up through the sasanqua camellias, this morning there were probably thirty or forty zebra longwing butterflies hovering around the vines.
Citrus trees and camellias have doubled in size. The branches of the citrus trees are loaded with tangerines and beginning to sag under the weight. And finally, after two weeks of rain, today there is a dry day to mow and clean up a little around the garden. The driveway, for example, has that covering of pine needles that drop at this time of year. It looks like a path through the forest instead of a driveway. With a little raking, I'll have some mulch to add here and there.
Today's meditation is from Hamlet, "how weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world." While it is true that some human affairs get me down, I never feel that the world is weary and stale when I look around the garden, listening to the hummingbirds chatter as they fly up and seeing the new leaves on the holly tree. Hamlet might have felt better if he had taken time to pull the weeds he saw in his garden, not just use them as metaphors all the time. Maybe he could have gone kayaking instead of moping around the castle. However, if he hadn't been talking to Horatio instead of going for a walk in the woods, he would never have realized that "there is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow," and I take comfort in that thought every day.
Friday, September 5, 2014
The holly girl
The East Palatka Holly settled into her new ground quickly. She has put out new leaves continually and, beginning a week ago, new flowers. She already had berries. I did not fertilize her, just added a large quantity of composted live oak droppings to the planting hole. I think the acidity of her new ground may be appealing to her more than the nursery soil mix, however excellent, that was in her liner.
Meanwhile, the shade-loving plants that had lived in the shadow of the linden oak are either rejoicing or suffering and shrinking in the hours of sunlight they are receiving now. A row of curcuma gingers are going to be dug up and given away to shadier homes. That will make room for butterfly plants on that side of the garden.
Meanwhile, the shade-loving plants that had lived in the shadow of the linden oak are either rejoicing or suffering and shrinking in the hours of sunlight they are receiving now. A row of curcuma gingers are going to be dug up and given away to shadier homes. That will make room for butterfly plants on that side of the garden.
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