September 30th, 2006

From: Caroline
Sent: Saturday, September 30th, 2006 11:25 AM
Subject: September 30th, 2006

For those of you who have grown tomatoes, you must have met the green tomato hornworm. Not a very pleasant sight but bearable. Well, have you ever seen black ones? I had an infestation on some flowering plants in the nightshade family and they were truly horrible. I carefully tapped them into a plastic box with some damp grass and called the butterfly farm to see if they would like these dreadful creatures. The answer was no, because they turned into moths not butterflies. So I asked if I would be creating an environmental faux pas if I killed them. The answer was yes, they made a great feast for birds, so I dutifully put them back on the planter where I had found them. Of course they ate every green leaf of their chosen plants and then had to crawl across a very exposed deck. I hope the birds gobbled every single one of them.

The annuals seem brighter than they have all summer and now is the time to take stock of what you want to do next year. I have a new system where-by I staple the empty packets onto my seed order. Then I can write “never again” or “plant more” or “this seems to be a biennial”. The male gold finches on the other hand are fading rapidly. They seem to be losing their black caps and patches of creamy beige are taking the place of their bright yellow feathers. I guess they don’t have to attract the females any more now that nesting time is over.

Even on a cloudy day the fields seem sunlit with masses of golden rod still in vibrant bloom. In the “back forty” there are a few columns of deep purple asters – planted by birds or the wind - certainly not by me. Every year there seem to be a few more and they must be full of nectar because now you can always find them covered with Monarch butterflies. I like to think that these are the last of the summer hatchings and that they will soon be the ones making that perilous journey to Mexico. They fatten up just like the humming birds who have already left.

For years I have noticed that in the late afternoon any pink or red flower seemed to glow with an intensity not seen during the day. I finally asked a science teacher about this. His explanation – and forgive me Andy if I don’t get this right – was that by late afternoon the atmosphere was all riled up and only the red rays were getting through. That’s why we have brilliant sunsets and fairly faint pinkish sunrises. I had a textbook illustration of this the other day when I asked some friends to come and look at my lovely, goblet sized Colchicums (aka autumn crocus which they aren’t). They are growing in a shady garden and I thought would be perfect for their wooded site. They come up without leaves on long slender stems and we decided they looked like pale lavender ghost flowers. We sat and chatted and had tea and about a half hour later that westering sun had turned them pinky-purple. It was like a magic trick.

September 10th, 2006

From: Caroline
Sent: Thursday, September 10th, 2006 8:48 AM
Subject: September 10th, 2006

I really love this time of year. The tangles of trees and shrubs along the stone walls are so thick and green and now they are laced together with wild grape vines. The meadows are full of tall wildflowers and in the back 40 there is a huge patch of Joe Pye Weed -- during bright daylight rather a muddy dark lavender -- but if I remember to look through a slot in the trees in the late afternoon those slanting rays of the evening sun turn that patch into a glowing pink. Those rays also make a spectacular show of the little orange jewelweed flowers with their charming freckled lips, which seem to be all over the place this year. Behind the garden fence there are three big stands of brilliant yellow wild sunflowers. These are very unlike the cultivated ones, in that they have yellow centers, slim petals and long wiry stems. They move with the slightest wind on this, my hilltop, some going north some going south all at the same time. Calder would have been envious.

Its not that I am unmindful of the Equinox just around the corner. I have already heard a Blue Jay and there are Chickadees trying out the Niger seeds that are out all summer for the Goldfinches. So the bird feeders are getting scrubbed and disinfected because soon migrating birds will start coming through and as they travel at night, they stop to rest and feed during the day.

Some of the houseplants have been repotted always a messy process as there is more to it than just putting them in a bigger pot. Julie Morris at Blithewold showed me how to do this and I call it the “Julie Morris Torture Method”. You start out by getting as much earth off as you can, then pulling the tangle of roots down with a comb or chopstick, cutting off the bottom third and trimming back the top the same. Then you can put it back in its same pot with fresh potting soil. It sounds drastic but the plants thrive. Trust me. You can tell if plants need this if the surface is firm and you have to water them every day.

One of my readers asked me to address the problem of Loosestrife, so unless you are concerned, just skip this last paragraph. I am talking about the pretty purple Loosestrife that is choking streams and wetlands in all of New England and has just finished blooming. NOT the native yellow Loosestrife, which is short and blooms earlier in the summer. The Latin name is Lythrum salicaria and it was introduced from Europe in the early 1800’s for medicinal and ornamental purposes. (Re the latter, a cultivar called Morden’s Pink used to be for sale, but I checked the web sites of a number of perennial plant growers in the N.E. area and no one carries it any more.) The problem with it is that not only does it invade streams and wetlands, but also it displaces more edible types of grass and plants that are used by wildlife. A grown plant may have thirty flowering stems and 30 million seeds in one year. It also reproduces vegetatively which means that the roots are capable of sending up flowering shoots. If you are not averse to chemical sprays you can use Round Up on small areas of plants in meadows or Rodeo where the ground is wet. Gary Plunkett, an authority on meadow management, suggests aggressive mowing for three years where there are large patches. This of course should be done before they flower. A patch at Pardon Gray Reservation in Tiverton was eradicated in this way. So don’t even think of transplanting one into your garden, you’ll be very sorry.