Happy Birthday, Bizi!

Fiona is 8 or 9 years old today! And to embarrass both of us, and to be fair to James' earlier outing, I'll share all of her nicknames. I should note I don't sit around trying to think these up; they just come to me. Much like Fiona did!

I first met her on July 4, 2002, and since she's pretty independent, it makes as good a birthday as any. I met her as a stray abandoned pet, and she quickly adjusted to the rhythms of her new home. The vet says her coloring is dilute tortoiseshell and that she was 1 or 2 years old when she found me.

Her full name is Fiona* Prudence**, and I most frequently call her Fiona, Bizi (pronounced "Bee-zee"), or Bi ("Bee"), but she's also Bizi Bi, Bizilini, Bizilini Beanie, Bizi Boo, Boo, Boo Boo, Bizi Nell, Bizi Nelli, Bizi Nelli Boom Boom Nelli, Brownie, Brown, Browners, Fi, Fizi, Pecan Pie, Tiger Bites, Sugar Bites, Sugar Beets, Girl, Ba'y Girl, Girly Meow, and Girly Mau.

Please join us in some birthday tuna and fireworks to celebrate!

*Incidentally not named after the Shrek character; I didn't see the movie until after I named her and I've always just liked the name.
**Not named after the Beetles song, but just because she is. (Prudent.)

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Out on the Streets: June 2009

Today (while there's still June left!) I'm participating in VP's Out in the Streets: June 2009, a project to showcase public plantings in your local area (in my case, Ann Arbor, Michigan).

The first photo shows the plants in a median on Homestead Commons Drive, a cul-de-sac (that's French for dead-end) that leads to the Mallett's Creek library branch and Homestead Commons apartments. This is a mile wst from me, and I regularly visit the library on foot, by bike, or by car. The library has a rain water garden surrounding the parking lot as well as a green roof, but this median planting is maintained by the apartment complex. Notice all the water-smart plants! The photo immediately above shows the length of the median.

My friend Peter lives a mile east down the street from me on Pittsfield Blvd., and there is a small traffic circle on that street. It is planted and maintained with all kinds of annuals and perennials by the condo association. In fact, there are lots of little flower plantings on corners and throughout the complex.

The traffic circle includes many of the usual suspects, but also yucca and helenium, two of my favorites! (It was very very bright and very, very windy when I took this photo.)


Speaking of bright and windy, this is a planting along a road at Detroit Metro Airport (in Romulus, 25 miles east of Ann Arbor). You can't stop there to take the photo and despite doing two roundtrips to reach this spot, this is the best photo I got. You'll just have to trust me when I say it looks nice in person, possibly because the rest of the airport is largely concrete and unplanted.

I'm working on other posts on a garden walk in Canton and a trip to Greenfield Village... Happy Monday!

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Willy-Nilly Wednesday

Another mish-mash post!

Jimi
James has been under the weather, but is getting better. I think it was something he ate. I was up every hour or so with him the other night, but he did the same for me a few years back.

In the Garden
I know I've been going on a bit about it having been a cool, cloudy spring (check out the cool mushrooms on my tree stump, for example!). But now summer is here and it's hot (high of 90) and very very humid. This makes it hard for me to work in the garden, though I have a lot of clover to pull.

I just love gaillardia and I love my camera's macro feature.


Things are looking pretty colorful here at the moment, and that's the way I like it.

The tiger lilies are just starting to bloom...

...as is lavender...

...and creeping thyme. I'll take a wide shot once the whole carpet is in bloom.

I liked how ox-eye daisies inserted themselves in between the evening primrose.

The veggie garden is making overall slow progress, except for the zucchini which has two flowers!

I was amused to find both fuchsia and white blooms on one plant of rose campion. They must hybridize!

The sweet William catchfly (Silene armeria) are the runaway winter-sown plant winner in that they are all blooming their hearts out. I love this annual and it looks really nice near the bright yellow of my yellow chamomile (Anthemis tinctoria) (a perennial winter-sown in 2007 now really coming into its own).

I just love love-in-a-mist, both the flowers and the seed pods. Marnie asked how I plant them, and I literally just sprinkle the seeds on top of the mulch and they do the rest. This grouping sowed itself, even.

Last year I was so excited when my yucca bloomed for the first time since I planted it three (or four?) years before. I know some plants don't like being transplanted and/or take a long time to bloom for the first time. Gardeners are patient. But I assumed it would rebloom every year after that, but it turns out, no. Yucca only bloom from new rosettes every three years or so. I have two plants but they're both on the same cycle, so I won't see blooms again for a while. Bananas!

Wildlife Update
I almost cried when I saw dozens of echinacea buds all over my garden today. Seriously. Over the past two years, the groundhog ate them off so they never bloomed. This year (knock wood) I haven't seen the groundhog much, and I'm really hoping the echinacea will all bloom (knock wood). I did see a young groundhog the other day, about the size of a fox squirrel, and dagnabbit if it wasn't just so cuuuute! I know if I see a baby, an adult is nearby but I think (knock wood) they're living down the street a bit, instead of in my yard. The two-layer (wire mesh and plastic lattice) fencing my handyman put all around my deck and porches earlier this spring seems to be working (knock wood). I've never minded sharing my garden with wildlife, and in the beginning the groundhog and I had the agreement that s/he could eat a little of everything but not all of anything. And that worked fine until s/he discovered echinacea, which s/he really, really liked.

I haven't seen the turtle since my last post. I'm guessing she laid her eggs in the nature area bordering my house. However, I have seen a deer in my garden a few times since. In the middle of the day, which is odd because deer are crepuscular.

Parkathon Progress
You may recall I decided to visit all of Ann Arbor's ~160 parks this year. I'd done about 50 and then got off course. The other night I visited Lakewood Nature Area as part of a tour. It was a nice forest without the shrubby undergrowth most forests have. You can see a bunch of jewel weed (native) on the ground. These are also called touch-me-nots; not because they're poisonous, because they're not, but because their seeds explode and shoot all the heck over the place. (Which of course makes me want to touch them, but, whatever. No one ever asks me when naming things!) They bloom in orange a bit later in the season.

Unfortunately, my camera was acting up and the rest of the photos from that day look like this. I really need to buy a new camera!

I learned that the burrs of the burdock plant were the inspiration for Velcro and that swallowtail larvae eat only the leaves of prickly ash (Xanthoxylum americanum), and I heard the song of a red-eyed vireo.

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Mish-Mash Monday

Today's topics include: a new wildlife visitor, visiting others' gardens, and visiting new blooms in my own garden. And... we're off!

Snappy Visitor
Imagine my surprise the other day when I saw this large (shell over a foot long) common snapping turtle (Chelydra serpentina) sunning itself in a narrow strip of sunshine in my backyard.

Now, some people freak out at garden snakes, and I don't. I think they're cute. But there's something about this turtle that freaked me out in that kind of a way. I dunno why. Maybe because it walks almost upright on much longer legs than I imagined a turtle to have--it didn't crawl (as one might guess from the photo of it lying down), it really walked on upright legs with the shell kind of swaying back and forth, and at a pretty good clip, too. (The association of slow with turtles wasn't based on this species, I can tell you!)

I like how the tail looks prehistoric and kind of Stegosaurus-like. You can tell two things from this photo: 1) My back "lawn" has a lot of clover in it, and 2) I had no idea this was a snapping turtle when I took the photos or I wouldn't have gotten this close to it!

Update, 8:54 a.m.: I found her again this morning digging in my front veggie bed--those are baby leek she's taken out (behind her) and horseradish in front of her, and a tiny tomato still standing to the left of the green stake (whew, so far). She's probably looking for a place to lay her eggs (if snapping turtles are anything like painted turtles, which I know more about), but my garden bed, especially with it being right near my driveway and not too far from the street, is not a good place. My backyard, bordered by trees and a creek, would be a way, way better location (my personal interest in tomatoes not withstanding). There's a particularly nice area near my beauty berry bush. I went out and presented this argument to her, fairly convincingly I thought, but 10 minutes later and she's still there. Update #2, 9:40 a.m.: I found out snappers lay up to 30 golf ball-sized eggs (eep! larger than I expected) and the process can take 24 hours. But, the large, loud trash truck (complete with the high-pitched beep-beep-beep backing sound as I'm on the end of a dead-end street) scared her off quickly, before she laid any eggs. It's nice to know that a middle-aged woman wearing a robe, with crazy hair and eloquent arguments, is not as scary as a trash truck! Update #3, 6/16, next morning, 7:30 a.m.: Now she's sitting underneath my car! Update #4, 7:49 a.m.: Now she's sitting on my front walkway. I confirmed shell measurement at just over 1', provided tips on suitable places in flower beds for egg laying, and repeated rant on unsuitability of veggie beds. She didn't look like she was taking any of it in, but I'm sure my neighbors think I'm nuts by now! Update #5, 8:40 a.m.: She looked like she'd settled on a space along my walkway--hooray! But minutes later I saw her heading back to my front veggie bed. Now, I'm honored she likes my garden and I think it's cool if she wants to lay her eggs here. But my tomato seedlings are my eggs, as it were, and I'm protecting them. Remember that double-wire fencing I put up last year to dissuade the groundhog (who is keeping an oddly low profile this year; perhaps he made a shared land rights deal with this turtle?)? Well, I put it back up around the front veggie bed. It was hard because the two layers were still attached and it was hard to bend it into shape, especially with a snapper sitting inches away at times... but I think it will work. She's now under a large section of Japanese anemone, and that would be an ideal nest--out of the way from predators and affording her some privacy. But what do I know? I'm only human.

Ann Arbor Garden Walk
On Saturday, Carole, Amy, and I attended the 19th annual Ann Arbor Garden Walk. Of the seven gardens on the tour, five were home gardens and two were community gardens. Most of the home gardens this year were very large and very impressive:




I love the use of the blue and white salvia near this tremendous stone, plus there's an iron bench hiding between them and the huge decorative pot in the background.

I admit I'm not automatically wild about all weeping forms of trees, but this larch did speak to me. (What it was in fact saying was "Pssst! You there! Take me home!" but I pretended not to hear this.)

I loved these stepping stones (which were sending off similar messages)...

...and this tri-color beech. Noogie!

All the photos so far were of one garden. I told you they were huge! Here now are more shots from other gardens:

One garden had this amazing small tree--maybe 6 feet tall and maybe 4 feet wide. It had pure white, drooping buds, that looked like eggs.

The flowers were pale rust/peach and also drooping...

...with a really cool pistil and stamens.

No one knew what this tree was, though some suggested magnolia. I'm not aware of a magnolia with drooping flowers, but I'm sure one of you will surely let me know if you recognize it.








Yep, those gardens sure were impressive and grand, but the chance of me ever having anything even close to that expansive in my lifetime is illustrated by the little figurine to the bottom right of this photo.

In case you couldn't see it, here it is!

My favorite garden wasn't as expansive and doesn't look as panoramic in photos. But it was a joy to be in, with colors all around and no lawn whatsoever, not in the front or back yards!

See?

The homeowner is a painter and glass artist. You can see her work all around the garden.

The glass is used in the walls and pathway of this fairy house, and in the tiny blue Chihulyesque sculptures that pop up in the fairy garden.

My favorite glass work was this multi-colored bowl/flower that fits in so well with these gorgeous coral bells. Noogie! Noog! Noog!

The homeowner's son makes metal sculptures, both free-flowing like this cool zig-zag column...

...and this swirly whirly thingamado (and check out the mirrors that add depth on the fence! Clever!)...

...and in animal form like this cool dragonfly...

...and these neat ostriches. I love how the plants color-coordinate so well with the artwork!

I had the chance to compliment the homeowner, a gracious and vivacious lady in her 70s who clearly got great joy from her garden and her art.

The non-home gardens included the Tappan Middle School Agrarian Adventure Garden:



...and the Growing Hope Gardens:



The hoophouses at both locations were built from the proceeds of previous garden walks. Project Grow sells its produce at a farmer's market on Tuesday afternoons in the parking lot of Key Bank (SE corner of Hamilton and Michigan Ave. in downtown Ypsilanti).

More Garden Faerie Blooms
We've had quite an overcast spring, but things are growing and blooming, by and by. A few things blooming or just starting to bloom since my last post include:

Edelweiss and...

Thyme.

Also, I discovered the other day that Jimi likes eating my native grass, little bluestem. So that explains why it never gets as tall as I've seen it elsewhere!

Penstemon 'Husker red' (and Jupiter's beard) is fully blooming now too!

...And a fuchsia/lilac shade of perennial Centaurea has its own special visitor.

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Fun-in-the-Field Friday

"The caterpillar does all the work, but the butterfly gets all the publicity."
— George Carlin (via Rambling Woods)

Yes, it's another mish-mash post, but things are somewhat related. Sort of.

First, here's a cute photo I meant to include last time: a tiny cosmos, maybe 2 inches tall and the flower is well under an inch in diameter, that self-sowed itself in my front veggie bed. I liked how the rain collected in it and I left it, despite thoroughly weeding and planting the bed.

Frogs!
As you may recall, my friend Peter and I are doing a frog and toad survey for the city of Ann Arbor. We did our last run the other night and Peter managed to get an excellent recording of gray tree frogs (Hyla versicolor or Hyla chrysoscelis; you'd have to do DNA testing to tell them apart!), which we nicknamed stepped-on-monkey frogs due to their call.

We also got a recording of northern leopard frogs (Rana pipiens) earlier in the season, but they sound like background noise to the very loud spring peepers in our recording. Their call is often described as "a low croaking snore," but to me it sounds more like those metal Chinese relaxation balls rubbing together. You can get a better feel for their call in this recording from National Geographic.

Again, we do the survey after dark so we never actually see the frogs (and they're pretty elusive, anyway), but, man! I have to say the northern leopard frog is one cute amphibian! And check out the cool "suction cup" toes of the tree frogs.

Flora Field Survey
Last week I volunteered in a survey of plants in a natural area on private property in far western Ann Arbor as part of the Huron River Watershed Council's Bioreserve Project. A year or so ago, I took part in the first part of the project, which was taking photos of areas and answering a questionnaire about the plants growing there, as seen from the road. From this info, the HRWC decided which sites might be worth exploring more in depth. That's what this second phase in about: actually getting into the site and filling out a more detailed description of the plants. (Official name: rapid ecological assessment of natural areas.)

We parked at the Stokes Nature Reserve and walked into the site. Unfortunately, we were greeted with a stand of invasive dame's rocket (Hesperis matronalis) in the lot.

I know it's cute and looks like phlox, but it's not. Note it has four petals, not five. It's very invasive and squelches spring ephemeral wildflowers. Boo!

As we entered the site, we also noticed a carpet of invasive garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata). Also boo!

The site was in a low-lying area near the Huron River, meaning it was a floodplain forest/wetland. You can probably make out the skunk cabbage and irises on the riverbank...

...and check out the moss on this rock.

There were also a lot of grasses and sedges. I liked that the trees were not dense and there were few invasive shrubs, giving the area a broad, open feel.

We saw some meadow-rue (Thalictrum dasycarpum) with buds but no blooms...

...and some Jack in the pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum). I'm purposefully showing the leaves here because post bloom, trillium and Jacks can look similar. But notice how Jacks have a ring or border all around the edges of their leaves. ID'ing made easy!

By and large, the area was very undisturbed by humans, but something had happened here... Eep!

Other plants we noted included burdock, cattails, cottonwood, creeping Charlie, ferns, forget-me-nots, honeysuckle, hop hornbeam, motherwort, multiflora roses, red maple, shagbark hickory, silver maple, spotted jewelweed, stick-tights, viburnum, Virginia creeper, walnut, wild raspberries, and willow.

Wholesale Nursery Trip
Last night, in a light rain, I joined the Wayne County Master Gardeners (for locals, I'm in Washtenaw County but got a special invite) for a behind-the-scenes tour of Christensen's, a wholesale nursery not normally open to individuals.

They had quite a few perennials, but many many more shrubs.

I really love shrubs and was happily touring row after row under my umbrella.

I was a little bummed they carried landscape varieties of invasive buckthorn and honeysuckle, but was glad to see this cultivar of a native sumac. (And another mini rant: Once we create a cultivar from a native plant, that new cultivar is no longer native, so let's not pretend it is! I don't care what you plant, but let's get the terminology straight. Ahem.)

You probably won't be surprised to learn I didn't purchase anything. My garden is pretty set and I'm pretty cheap. A trollius and 'Marmalade' coral bells caught my eye, but they cost more than I wanted them. I was also sorely tempted by tree peonies, but I really don't have enough areas with full sun left.

I'll be going on the Ann Arbor Garden Walk tomorrow--report to follow. Happy weekend, y'all!

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Blooms!

Today I thought we'd take a little tour around my garden to see what's been blooming lately. Let's start with this really cool bearded iris. Its color is a very pale yellowy-gray. It's hard to describe (it's less yellow in real life) but I really like it. And do you see Fiona in the background? She's a bit gray herself!

Here are some striking purple and white irises, which I got from the same gardening friend who gave me the peonies.

The little cat garden is in full bloom with valerian, as well as catmint. James and Fiona approve.

Here's the valerian close up. Birgit had mentioned valerian pillows, little fabric squares filled with dried valerian, that are made for cats in Germany. I'm going to save the leaves and borrow my friend Aunita's sewing machine (and, most likely, her leftover bits of fabric) to make these this fall.

I have two fairly large "wild beds," to the north and south sides of my backyard. They both have been overgrown with buckthorn, despite my best efforts. This is the eastern end of the north bed, looking a bit more under control these days. I put pine needle mulch on them in the last year and that really seems to help keep the weeds down. (But not the poison ivy, alas!) Apparently pine straw is a popular mulch in the south but here in Michigan it's rare and expensive. Fortunately my mom has several huge red pines and a lot of patience for raking up their fallen needles! Contrary to popular belief, this mulch doesn't acidify the soil (only slightly over time as the needles break down but they take forever to break down, which is what makes them good weed blockers!).

Jimi enjoys rolling on the cement pavers and fitting in between two sets of tiny leeks. This is my front vegetable bed before I weeded the center and planted it yesterday.

Voila! I know it doesn't look like much from a distance, but it will fill in, trust me. You can see horseradish to the top left and the four baby leeks along the bottom left. That's a mum at the bottom right (it had nowhere else to go!), plus three tomatoes at the stakes, a dahlia at the wooden stake, marigolds at the right, interplanted with onions. We've had an unusually cool and cloudy spring, which has somewhat stunted the growth of warm-weather veggies.

I have very few areas that get full sun, so this strip along the driveway is ideal. Here is one of the tomatoes, Gajo de Melon, close up. Also in this bed are Big German Pink and Ladino di Panocchio.

I also created a second veggie bed along the southeast corner of my house. I had to dig up a whole bunch of artemesia first, which took a really, really long time (and various choice curse words) and I'm sure I still didn't get all the roots. I planted three heirloom tomatoes I winter-sowed: Ukrainian Heart, Olga's Yellow Round Chicken (I love that name!), and Red Russian. Upfront are banana peppers and 'Mini Fingers' eggplant; in containers are zucchini and beans (hopefully out of groundhog reach, but who knows).

Here's Ukrainian Heart up close, it's the largest mater I have so far. (I mentioned it's been a cool, overcast spring, right?!)

I also lost some tomato seedlings in a frost, which I've reseeded but which are too small yet to plant out (cool overcast spring blah blah). They are: Avivvi (see Debbi's blog for what they'll look like as fruit), Azoychka, Bisignano #2, Canestrino di Lucca, Caspian Pink, Gillogly Pink, and Turk’s Mutts. (I got all the mater seeds from Royer Held, a local heirloom tomato guru.) I also reseeded green and jalapeno peppers. I'm going to need to expand the beds to plant them!

I also planted garlic (no photo) and a few things in containers. My lettuces are coming along nicely: the greener leaves are Asian Baby Leaf Mix, the redder (and harder to see) leaves are Merveille De Quatre Saisons.

This is chard 'Bright Lights' (in pot and up high to outwit wildlife) and chives (in jail).

And here, in pots in the garden, are garlic chives and rosemary (the former to contain it, the latter because it has to come in over the winter). Just out of view is flat-leaf parsley.

Moving onto flowers, my baptisia is blooming. I love its vibrant, saturated blue (and Jimi's ears!).

Speaking of vibrant blue (that the camera didn't capture, unfortunately), one of my three spiderworts is blooming.

Blue-eyed grass is also one of my favorite blue plants.

And although much paler blue, I still love the nigella as well.

Moving to yellow, I have some really cool creeping sedum that bloom yellow.

And some nice yellow alliums nearby.

My ninebark 'Diablo' shrubs are huge this year, at least 6 feet tall and 4 feet wide, despite generous pruning last spring. And look at all these blooms. Noogie!

Here's another shrub, 'Little Henry' sweetspire. It's been struggling for years, is maybe only a foot tall. I think I've found (after several tries) a good location for it, and it's sending up flower spikes!

Here's the path to my front door, looking south. If you come and visit, that's what you'd see heading for my front door.

I never think of myself as liking pink, and yet Jupiter's beard and coral bells are two of my favorite flowers. (Yeah, I do have about 100 favorite plants. So?!)

Here's Jupiter's beard close up. It will bloom again later in the season after I cut back the first spent set of blooms.

And, finally, in the good news/bad news/good news again department, you may recall that I bought two red yuccas (Hesperaloe parviflora) last year after being so taken with them on a trip to Colorado to visit my niece. They are rated for zone 6 and I'm zone 5. I planted both in what I considered protected, microclimate locations and made sure they were covered in as much snow as possible (insulation). They both looked great until about March when we stopped having snow and they looked dessicated and brown. One died; it detached from the roots when I gave the shriveled foliage the slightest pull. The other looked just as sad but seemed attached firmly to its roots. I removed the dead leaves that easily pulled off and left two that wanted to stay attached. Later I noticed they had grown a green base. I cut off the brown part and hoped for the best. Then I got distracted and forgot all about the plant. The other day I noticed the old stalks had grown and a few new ones had come up. The plant is still small, but it's alive. Yay! Please send good thoughts its way, as I'm sure we'll need to get through another winter before it decides to bloom.

And the other good news is, I'm going to Colorado again in July for my niece's renewal of wedding vows.

And I almost forgot to show you these cool garden boots! My Spring Fling swag bag had a gift certificate for gardenshoesonline.com and I ordered these boots and some hiking socks. Fun!

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Peonies!

You were probably expecting the regular Mish-Mash Monday post today and, frankly, so was I! But I just have waaaay too many photos so I'm sticking to one topic for each of the next few posts. (I know!)

I have three peonies, all divisions from a gardening friend. The one in the sunniest location had just started blooming while I was in Chicago.

Here's one of the big, poofy flowers in bloom.

And another bud about to open. (The rain droplets almost make me look like I know what I'm doing with the camera, but that's sheer coincidence!)

The second peony, at the north side of my house, is now opening, too. The burgundy irises look so nice next to it, a wonderful color contrast, but I find it difficult photographing dark and light things together. You'll just have to trust me when I tell you how great it looks!

My third peony is in one of my wild beds. It gets the least amount of sun, and the fewest buds, and hasn't started blooming yet.

But wait! We're not done with peonies. Not by a long shot. We're off now to visit the Peony Garden at the University of Michigan Nichols Arboretum (that's where the daffodil line was, too).

The garden has 230 kinds of peonies, arranged in three rows of nine beds each (making 27—it's Monday Maths without a drawing!). Each bed has about 30 plants.

Yep, that's my mom. She's joining us on our walk.

I was happy to see some single peonies, like this grouping of a light pink variety. (Even though each bed had a laminated sign with plant IDs, the colors were faded from the sun and it was hard matching the photo to the live plant. So we'll just enjoy the pretty colors and textures.)

And this nice darker pink variety.

And this white kind.

I was also fascinated by the bud colors. My own peonies have buds with burgundy and white striping/splashes. They are very striking and remind me of a Monet painting. So I was surprised to find solid-color buds, like this one in vibrant pink...

...and this one in white.

I also really liked this variety with red stems.

Speaking of red, peonies tend to be shades of pink and white, so I was surprised to find red and burgundy peonies in this collection. This is the darkest peony I've ever seen, a true burgundy. The camera didn't capture the color precisely correctly; it was even darker and deeper than this!

I was amazed at how red this peony was. It looks more fuchsia in the photo, but was truly red in real life.

My mom and I both loved this fringed peony, Lois Kelsey (its unique leaves made it easy to pick out on the laminated ID sheet!). Isn't she cool?

And, finally, I love the textures and colors of this grouping. The buds and young flowers are pink, the older flowers white, the stamens yellow, and the pistils pink. Cool!

Well, I hope you enjoyed our little peony walk. Now let's go to lunch!

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