More Winter Color

The bright red berries and leaves of many trees and shrubs are one of the highlights of cold weather. Hollies, Nandinas (pictured here, Nandina domestica), even the invasive Japanese Bush Honeysuckle produce many berries.
The burning bushes are fading, but here's a flowering dogwood (Cornus florida) looking brilliant.

Some Fall Color

I went hiking and climbing last week, at a bluff overlooking the Cumberland River, in Clarksville Tennessee. Here are a few photos of some wildflowers.
I like how these find niches in the rock where a little soil has collected and grow right on the rock face. There are tons of Columbine as well, but they are not in flower right now.

Foamflower (Tiarella), Autumn leaves, Aster

Good Plant, Bad Plant

If you could read one article that thoughtfully covers the topics of invasives, monocultures, ticks, and poop counting .....why would you seek further entertainment? So read on... and find another reason to dislike Lonicera mackii (invasive Japanese bush honeysuckle):

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101011173245.htm

A shorter and more academic version is at:

http://esameetings.allenpress.com/2008/P13016.HTM (Ecological Society of America meeting abstract)

The gist is that it seems Japanese bush honeysuckle creates a dense monoculture, providing a chateau of choice for deer. The deciduous leaves emerge earlier and cling later than any other native (or exotic) understory plant, allowing the deer to nest/rest more during the times of year that tick larva emerge.

For those who don't already have Japanese bush honeysuckle on their NIMBY list, there's basically a big discussion among horticultural nerds (I say that in front of the mirror) about native plants, and invasive exotics, and who should be allowed over the fence.

The flash card version is that there is a debate about which plants should go in our yards. On one end of the continuum you would only choose plants native to your area.....native since when? How about before people started importing plants from other countries, which probably started before the Mayflower, the Vikings, and all the other immigrants...hmmm...when there was no country called the USA.....OK back to the sentence, that we should plant only natives when possible, for biodiversity and ecological balance. A lot of plants imported for landscape use and for agricultural purposes have no natural controls and tend to take over a landscape driving out a lot of other plants. Think Kudzu, think Burmese Pythons in the Everglades. There is real harm done and the 'downstream' effect can harm wildlife as well, because shelter and food options change. Heck, invasive insects might even affect the trout fishing industry if you can believe that, but I don't have that reference to cite at hand.
But if we only planted natives we would have a lot less color and shape and choice in our gardens. No roses for example. No tall bearded iris.

Another end of the continuum in this discussion have us saying "Bring it on, we are the masters of our little acre." Euonymous fortuneii Winter Creeper is such a useful plant, year round evergreen ground cover, it really serves an important purpose in the home landscape. Great weed suppression. Maintenance free. Sounds good to me.


So narrowing down the difficulty...let's try to avoid invasive exotics, plants which are so fast to multiply, have zero local controls, and are rapidly displacing important medicinal, habitat, agricultural, and wildflower features. But be thoughtful about what other plants we put in the ground. Hollies? Laurels? Butterfly Bush? Lavender? Many of the varieties are not native per se. But they stay where they are put, a lot of the time. So use them, just find out a little more before you plant. Just because it's for sale doesn't mean it doesn't have some 'side effects'.

My personal list, plants that are not my friends: Winter Creeper (Euonymous fortuneii) , Japanese Honeysuckle (Lonicera mackii) , Chinese yam (Disocorea opposotifolia). A lot more on invasive exotics at:
http://www.tneppc.org/pages/initiatives

So much for flash cards, sometimes stuff takes a little explaining

September Wildflowers

Goldenrod (Solidago, various species) and Ironweed (Veronia)






















An unidentified tall flower, white blooms.


JoePye Weed (Eupatorium purpureum)



and Ragweed (ironically its genus is Ambrosia).




Most of these were seen at Radnor Lake State Natural Area in Nashville.

Community Supported Agriculture and a Farm Dinner

Community Supported Agriculture

CSAs are local farmers providing food to local communities, typically on a subscription basis. The benefits to the supporters are fresh food delivered weekly; the farmers benefit by being able to practice smaller scale and sustainable growing practices, the environment benefits because your food is shipped a very short distance. Local products are generally shipped under one hundred miles from farm to market. 'Conventional' food products (typically found in grocery stores) travel over 1000 miles from source to market, and that is only including domestic products.*
Fresh food likely keeps more of its nutritional value than products transported for a week or more. Less gasoline and other resources are used and local people benefit from the jobs generated.
http://nashfof.wordpress.com/csa/ has a list of Nashville area food providers.

Fresh Harvest LLC a cooperative of organic family farms in the Nashville area is hosting their first Farm Dinner. A fully prepared dinner, made from locally produced products, follows a tour of Turnbull Creek (organic) farm.

Saturday September 25, at5:30
Visit http://freshharvest.locallygrown.net/weblog for details

*http://www.leopold.iastate.edu/pubs/staff/files/local_foods_HEN0604.pdf

A Perennial Lesson on Annual Vegetables

Most of our summer vegetable gardens are filled with annuals, plants that begin and complete their life cycle in one year. A seed germinates, sprouts, grows, creates flowers, which become fruit, which produce seeds, and then the plant is spent. But it has produced progeny and someone saves the seeds and sells them or puts them up in a jar or they fall to the ground. And they start again in the next spring as new sprouts. We buy seeds or seedlings or get volunteers. Tomatoes in particular seem adapt at reseeding and 'volunteering' in the garden.








Most years I have a small vegetable crop and it almost always includes tomatoes and basil. Then I have an inspiration for variety and try something new or neglected, like peppers or okra. I am almost always pleased with the tomatoes and basil and I have been perpetually disappointed, for as long as I can remember, with squash. I love to eat squash, of any color and kind. But when I plant it, the results are always the same. Sad wilting plants with strangled stalks. Squash borers. Tunneling through the once sturdy vines. One of the worst displays of vegetable destruction there is.
Of course I could use controls, mechanical or synthetic or whatever, but I have had years where I dutifully picked off insects, larvae, etc. by hand....and still they burrow. And each year that I try to grow squash I vow to never grow it again.
Due to life circumstances it's been 5 years since I had a veggie plot, but this spring I had beautiful soil and some spare time to dig out a bed and promptly planted tomatoes, basil, cilantro, marigolds.......and squash (I got starts, didn't grow from seed).
The tomatoes have been fantastic, the basil is overflowing, the marigolds are a great ground cover. And the squash looked fantastic until a week ago.
The pictures above show my successes and below, well, are my disappointments.
Caution: photo of actual squash borers, which are NOT attractive.










By the way, you can get in some fall veggies if you start now...........greens spinach beets and so on.

Atlanta Botanical Gardens, part 3

I left my friends in the conservatory and made my way to the color sections, through several nice annual plantings, and some great color borders. Check out this island, with Joe Pye Weed, hibiscus, cannas and more






The Succulent Garden included this Century plant (Agave americana) which blooms 'once in a lifetime' according to the tag (I am not sure if that is once in its lifetime or once in ours?)

Lastly, we enjoyed the Canopy Walk, a raised walkway through an undeveloped area of hardwoods which leads to at trail of understory plants. Here is a Big Leaf Magnolia (Magnolia macrophylla);(you can see many of these and their cousin Magnolia tripetala, in our Tennesse woodlands, especially along the Fiery Gizzard Trails).












http://www.atlantabotanicalgarden.org/