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.