Trellis

I had a litlle extra fun in the yard and garden this weekend. What do you do when: a road crew chops down a stand of bamboo and your spouse trims the monster wisteria? You make a trellis for your volunteer passion flower vines! I made a simple tripod shape, wound and wove some pruned wisteria about it in three layers (for the middle and bottom "loops", I made two wreathes, one smaller than the other, put them one the tripod and tied them into place) and voila! A trellis for the wayward passiflora!
Happy gardening!

Yellow Jackets: Not a pollinator

Yellow jackets are a type of wasp and are not pollinators (they eat fruits, flower nectar, and tree sap and chew up meat to feed to their larvae). These yellow and black wasps are mistaken for bees, which they are decidedly not. They nest in the ground and can be a nuisance, not to mention a menace, if they sting. Last night, my son ran over a yellow jacket nest with the lawn mower and was rewarded with a few nasty stings (they can sting more than once, unlike bees). My solution, that I have done in the past, is wait for the wasps to subside and, at dusk, pour a pot full of boiling water right down the entrance hole (not hard to find if you look for it during the day- you will see wasps entering and leaving- make sure to mark the spot or remember it). One time I needed to apply a second pot of boiling water the next day. Be careful, don't trip while carrying that pot in the dim light (I did once- ouch! My poor foot). As for my son, a thick paste of meat tenderizer applied to the bite marks did the trick.
Be careful out there! Happy gardening!
For a video of a yellow jacket stinging a human (ICK), go to (no endorsement intended):
http://allfloridabeeremoval.blogspot.com/2009/09/free-florida-yellow-jacket-and-ground.html

National Pollinator's Week 2011

[photo of bee on salvia by SRV]

Thanks to Betsy Franz for the reminder that this is National Pollinator's Week: see: http://www.pollinator.org/pollinator_week_2011.htm

What have you planted for your pollinators lately?

Happy gardening!

Evergreen Dogwood

Mid- to late June and a dogwood is still flowering in central, piedmont Virginia? I really like dogwoods (though, full disclosure, I seldom meet a plant I do not like). I also like the idea of having an extended bloom time of dogwoods and was lucky to receive as a gift this evergreen dogwood, Cornus capitata. This is not a native dogwood, which bloom here in April to May, but is an Asian import. The 4- and sometimes 6-petaled flowers have pointed ends like all Asian dogwoods that I know of and are resistant to anthracnose, a scourge of the native varieties. They are also more resistant to native bugs (though this has a down side- poor native bugs don't get to feed on yet another plant). It is "evergreen", that is the leaves do persist, though this is not its finest feature- the leaves look a bit ratty as the winter progresses and do fall off in spring. This tree takes very little care, and I did nothing special when I planted it (other than cross my fingers!) It is nice to have a pretty dogwood bloom later in the spring and I recommend it!
Happy gardening!

Thanks to Betsy at Metro DC lawn and Garden Blog for her link to the online guide to native plants. Her blog entry is at:

http://www.metro-dc-lawn-garden-blog.com/2011/06/17/new-native-plant-database-online/

The portal to the guide itself is at:

http://www.nativeplantcenter.net/

Happy native gardening!

Recent Beauties

Some recent beauties from my garden...

More robins....

I don't like to suggest that animals are not intelligent. I think animals are as intelligent as they need to be, for the most part, and are smart enough to make the optimal use of the ecological niche in which they reside (the exception might be man: we are too darn smart in some areas, but not so intelligent in others). However, we have had a series of robin pairs (or maybe the same couple for a few years) who have nested in what seem to me to be bad places: the precarious light fixture over our frequently opened garage was one I documented last spring. Then, a pair nested in the crotch of our apple tree- this might seem a good location, except the crotch of the tree was about two and a half feet from the ground, pretty well open and easily accessible by our dog, who did indeed "access" it. This year, these little babies pictured above, are on on a branch of that same apple tree, at chest height, right at the entrance to our vegetable garden: this branch is way too easy to crash in to while going into the garden (yes, we have to bow under the tree as we enter) and is in another high, foot-traffic area.

Then I got to thinking, maybe they aren't so dumb after all: we did stop using the garage last spring until the babies fledged, and now I am climbing over the fence at a different entry point to avoid that branch. Hum, who has the upper hand here? Who is smarter?

Happy gardening!