The Garden Buzz

The Dew Before the Frost

Yesterday I awoke to a John Milton poem; the morning, "glist'ring with dew, fragrant the fertile earth, After soft showers..." I grabbed my camera and headed outside, while Henry, my doodle dog whined inside at being left out of the excitement.

This was no ordinary dew, it was to paraphrase another poet, a world molded of fire and dew. The lower autumn sun illuminated the hedge while streaming through the woods, iconic rays beaming like a bad Easter card.

Dew on arborvitae hedge The Garden Buzz

Strange that we now build rain gardens to filter water back into our concrete-covered earth. (It reminds me of the email forwarded among gardeners that tells of God being confused and amused by the mortals raking up the fallen leaves, and then in turn, buying and heaving bags of mulch to dress their gardens.) 

During ancient times in England they built dew ponds on the highlands, collecting the precious moisture to water their cattle. Shallow saucers were dug, then lined with straw, clay, chalk and soot, creating an impervious and insulated basin that once filled, according to legend, never ran dry

I had heard of the dew ponds before and doubted their existence or at least, efficiency. Really, dew drops? But brush against that sparkling evergreen and feel your pajamas sag with the heaviness of the liquid. Apparently it is possible to harvest atmospheric humidity from rivers in the sky, just google air wells and fog fences.

Dew on Picea (Tollymore)    The Garden Buzz   

Henry meanwhile was pillaging the house; chewing up keys, discarded DQ cups and what's left of his bed. When he bounded outside he pushed his snout to the lawn and like a Hoover, vaccuumed the dew from the grass. I bet it tasted sweet.

Hey! Gardeners! Leave Those Seeds Alone!

I mean seed-heads and seed-pods and such.  But then the Pink Floyd reference doesn't work nearly as well. And I haven't even got started with all the "dead head" stuff. I could go on.

Regular deadheading and trimming through the growing season promotes flower formation and gives the garden a tidier appearance. But as the season wanes as well as the gardener, it is time to let those plants achieve their genetic destiny; the production of seeds. Even Tracy DiSabato-Aust, the author of The Well-Tended Perennial, who practices deadheading and disbudding like the making of art, suggests leaving the last vestiges of vegetation as winter approaches.

Seedheads appear in sculptural forms; plumes, starbursts, whorls, spears, and more. I love the brown buttons of Black-eyed Susan, the burnt toast color of yarrow umbels, the mops of Annabelle hydrangea.  They provide interest and architecture once snow falls, and then stays in the case of my Minnesota garden.

Birds, bees, insect larvae find shelter and food among these remnants of summer, miniscule eggs rest in tiny nooks of seeming debris. It is not unusual to see swarms of finches, nuthatches or chickadees feasting from the spiky remains of echinacea, or purple coneflower.

Seeds that fall to the ground may show up as free plants some spring. No law says that they have to grow where they germinate, they can be transplanted and rearranged to increase plant numbers. Leaving basal foliage also helps to protect plants from winter injury.

Finally, what a great excuse to avoid those dreaded fall chores.

Edible Gardening; Made in the Shade

Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it. When I was a little girl I harbored the horsey dreams of many little girls. I wished often that I could live where cowboys (and hopefully cowgirls) rode and roped all day. I didn't realize that my SoCal beachy childhood was the stuff of others' fantasies.

Later in life, I had gardened in Kansas for more than a decade, in the face of grueling summers where I coaxed and cajoled an abundant kitchen garden from hot clay soil, before I realized my wish had been answered. Driving through the tallgrass prairie of the Flint Hills one day, I spotted three Stetsoned-men on horseback working cattle from one verdant pasture to another and thought, "Oh, yeah". 

Still every summer I would wish I lived somewhere with tall trees, and cool water lapping my toes. So why was I surprised to find myself in Minnesota, where I cuss the shade and pine ( yes, I see the irony in my choice of verbs) for my heat-loving herbs.

Using slivers of sunlight, editing my plant choices and working the microclimates; I find it is still possible to grow enough goodies to satisfy that need to feed oneself from the garden.

Even before I was deprived of flat ground and ample sunlight I had a simple rule; grow what the grocery store can't do better. This year I found that pole beans will make do under the dappled shade of mighty cottonwoods. Tenacious cherry tomatoes will produce plenty enough in a pot with morning sun on a blue slate patio. Alpine strawberries are happy with half a day of sun. Even English peas will pod up below a warm stone wall. 

Sweet 100 Cherry Tomato    The Garden Buzz

In spite of a pitched roof and surrounding woods, mixing edibles into the landscape worked well . Utilize natural and man-made heat sinks, reflecting walls and sporadic sun exposure. Choose plants that tolerate a little shade like parsley and cilantro, lettuce and other greens. Herb containers can even be mobilized to catch the sun, if the effort is deemed worth it. For all else, there's always the farmer's market.

 

Be a Part of the Miraculous Monarch Migration

Monarch butterfly numbers are alarmingly low in my garden and in others across the country. Lots of factors such as weather and habitat loss are to blame. As days shorten and temperatures drop, the Monarch butterfly prepares for the arduous journey south. Many obstacles come between them and their destinations in California and Mexico. Planting their larval host plant, milkweed (asclepias tuberosa, acslepias incarnata, etc) in your garden is the best thing you can do to help these beautiful creatures.  Right now many nurseries have milkweed and other native varieties on sale at great prices. Next summer the Monarch will eat and lay her eggs on the milkweed you plant now. Consider planting at least 10 plants and you can register your garden as a Monarch Waystation through the University of Kansas-based program, Monarch Watch. Learn more about Monarch Butterflies through www.monarchwatch.org

 

 The last generation of the season is physiologically different from  previous ones, and do not reproduce, but return to the wintering grounds to complete the life cycle.

Home is where the habitat is...

Since the automobile was invented there have always been boys bent over the hood, tweeking and tinkering. At the same time there have always been girls sitting in rusty lawn chairs watching with dewy-eyed adoration, just to be in close proximity. And before I am accused of sexism, I am sure that nowadays this situation is done in reverse.

When these boys grow up, some of them keep their cars in something called a motorplex; a series of upscale garages where they store their toys and maintain their "man-caves". Now, the now-wives visit and murmur encouragement and summon up enthusiasm for the collections of cars.

When I visit the motorplex, my favorite thing is to walk through the area that hasn't been developed yet, and gaze at the geese and other waterfowl down the hill in the pond. From a distance it seems a wasteland, a wild and scrubby, weedy field circled by the beginnings of a road and a few utility tie-ins poking from the ground.

As my dog and I ambled along, the field erupted with finches and waxwings that had been feasting upon browning thistles. Clover and Culver's root, ironweed and goldenrod, bustled with bees and buzzing insects. White butterflies fluttered haltingly as they do.  And I realized that this hardscrabble lot was habitat; a place where flora and fauna make do, adapt.

It would be gone by next year. How many seeds and tiny eggs would be lost under the concrete? What would the birds and bugs do, but look further afield. Not to single out the motorplex, this happens hundreds of times every day. But habitat isn't something over here, or way over there. Habitat is everywhere, right here.

I gathered some seeds from a purple legumy-like plant to scatter somewhere else, someplace safe. The case for planting native plants in our backyards, our front yards, our ditches; suddenly a lot more real.