Commonweeder

Hellebores in mid-April on the Bridge of Flowers

H is for Hellebores. This spring  the time came for me to add hellebores to my garden. I had  the perfect new space – a new wooden fence  that made  two new planting beds. One side provided  sunny space for new roses, and a shady side for epimediums and hellebores.

A friend’s hellebore on April 10,2020

A friend invited me to see her hellebores, of which this is  one. It is inspiring to think about adding hellebores to the new planting bed.

A friend’s Hellebores still blooming on June 2,  2020

Hellebores welcome the shade and are still blooming in June,

My new hellebores on June 2, 2020

Here  is my new shade garden bed with (L-R) epimediums, astilbe, my new hellebore, another astilbe, and a hint of another non-blooming hellebore. There are two more hellebores to the left. Of course, you will also be noticing lots of violets by the fence  too. This bed still needs lots of organizing, but it will look very fine next spring. I think.

Hellebores are not fussy. They do like soil that is enriched with organic compost, The soil should be neutral; it does not like acidity. Water when there is a dry spell.

The Greenfield Garden Club Garden Tour has come and gone. This was a wonderful event – even though we all had to be aware of Covid 19. We all wore our masks, including the very youngest set who had some fun on the curves of our strolling garden. Social distancing was quite well followed. There was a holiday feel about the day and I am grateful that the Greenfield Garden Club gave us this day of pleasure.

The wonderful thing about gardens is that every single one is different. The tour gave us 10 gardens, each unique, each offering something to learn.

Dotty Janke’s Garden

Dotty Janke

Dotty Janke bought her Greenfield house in 2002. She knew she wanted a beautiful garden, but wasn’t sure how to go about gardening in a 5B climate zone. She began her education by attending workshops and lectures. She read books. Hardy Trees and Shrubs by Michael Dirr, Wildflowers by William Cullina and The Well-Tended Perennial Garden by Tracy DeSabato-Aust are books that cover a lot of ground for all gardeners, novice or experienced.

She had the invasive Norway maples removed and replaced them with beautiful river birch, stewartia,  amelanchier (serviceberry) and other trees and shrubs. One side of her house is a long bank designed as a shade garden with azaleas, low bush blueberry, mayapple and ground covers like lady’s mantle with its bright green foliage and flowers.

I walked along the paths through the garden with Janke, past the burbling solar fountain til we got to a special bed that included vegetables, kale and tomatoes, with pollinator flowers. This is a reminder that we should never limit ourselves to standard arrangements. Even a small garden can include edibles as well as well as ornamentals.

Flowers and veggies in one bed – a great combo.

A gardener welcomes a rest in the shade

Mary Chicoine and Glen Ayers Garden

I have visited the Mary Chicoine-Glen Ayers garden before, but like all gardens it is ever changing. At the entry of the garden is a riot of blooming pollinator plants, coneflower, native bee balm, Culver’s root and more flowers than I can possibly name. Then we come to the serious vegetable beds. I have never seen such a beautifully organized vegetable garden. Some tomatoes climbed up twine, some lived in a plastic tunnel. Some vegetables grew in neat rows out in the sun.

Vegetables outdoors and in the hoop house

In addition there are strawberry beds, and blueberry bushes inside a wire tunnel. I thought that was a genius idea. I fought with nets for years in my blueberry patch up in Heath.

Some vegetables grow in rows outside

I asked Chicoine what they did with all those vegetables. Did they eat them all themselves, or did they give them away?  She said, “We preserve a lot of food for the winter months – canning, freezing, drying and dehydrating. We make pasta sauces, salsas, pestos, ratatouille, pickles of all sorts, jams and jellies, and dehydrate or freeze tomatoes, peppers, beans, berries, greens, etc. And we still have a lot to share as well.”

A pond in the shade for tranquility

What an inspiration! And yet, as industrious as they are, there two small ponds, and places to sit and relax in the sun. And in the shade.

Ilene Stahl’s Garden

Entry through kiwi-draped cedar lattice arbors

Ilene Stahl’s garden had surprises, too. Lilacs, azaleas and shade loving perennials bedeck and welcome visitors in front of the house. To the side of the house are beautiful kiwi draped cedar lattice arbors that mark the entrances to the main garden. Just inside one entry is a large and graceful Japanese threadleaf maple that almost fills one garden bed. Opposite that beautiful maple, and next to the door of the house, is a bed that includes herbs, flowers and vegetables Some plants are put in the cobalt blue ceramic pots that Stahl loves. This is a handy spot for the cook, who likes flowers on her dining table.

Ilene Stahl by her beautiful shady fountain

Shrubs in shades of green and gold hug the sunroom. Then a path took me further into the shade and a beautiful bubbling pond. The pond was built with the help of David Sund. I liked the cobalt blue ceramic stool (not shown) where one could sit and enjoy the gentle splash of the little waterfall. Stahl and I chatted and laughed in the shade to the music of the waterfall.

Flowers, herbs and vegetables by the back door

Peggy Pucina and Clara Lopez

Peggy Pucino and Clara Lopez have an amazing garden filled with a riotous mixture of flowers, vegetables and fruits. I was particularly enchanted by some really old fashioned pink hollyhocks. Some vegetables grow in circles, while others are set in straight lines. There are so many ways to organize a garden for ease of harvesting, or just for fun.

A merry-go-round vegetable bed

One large section of the garden includes perennial edibles like asparagus and berries. Nobody in this house is going to go hungry.

Peggy Puchino and Clara Lopez

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This year’s Greenfield Garden Club Garden Tour was possibly the most well attended ever. On one hand everyone knows we have to stay away from crowds. On the other hand we all want to see a little more of the world than our back yards. We want to see different scenery, and maybe even different people. We want to see new colors and shapes. We want to have fun!

Next week I’ll give you a trip through three more of the tour gardens.

Between the Rows   July 25, 2020

My husband Henry on a stroll path preparing for garden tour

The Greenfield Garden Club is holding its Garden Tour today July 12 – and my garden is one of the ten that will be showing off all kinds of flowers, shrubbery, and trees.  I am very excited, and I have been thinking about whether a garden is a natural thing. Or is it a construction?

Our small garden is celebrating its fifth birthday. This was a very new experience for us. In Heath we had acres and acres. In 1980 I was passionate about vegetables. We plowed up a too-big vegetable garden and thus began our adventure of joyfully making mistakes. We planted here, we planted there. We planted everywhere we had a plant and an empty spot. We looked beyond our garden, such as it was, to the wild fields that circled us. This was no longer a natural space, but neither was it skillfully contrived.

In May of 2015 this is where the garden began. We have not yet learned the full extent of flooding

Our backyard in Greenfield, was not large, about 66 by 80 feet. The minute we signed the documents that made the house ours, we started planning what we wanted to do with that blank space. First we took into account the limits of the space, and my age. I was 75 and no longer gung ho about spending hours and hours trying to make a welcoming and beautiful space. My husband made his demand that he would never mow another lawn.

I was beyond putting plants here and there, but unsure of how to make a plan. Happily I had recently been on a Garden Bloggers Tour and met Julie Moir Messervy, a skilled and wonderful garden designer whose business was just starting to have an on-line arm. She asked me if I would like her to use my garden as an example. Yes! I said. I gave her lots of information about the site and our desires, and limitations. She gave us The Plan.

We took the plan out in the backyard and looked around. We looked at the plan. We looked at the expanse of grass. We gasped.

We laughed. We went back in the house and had tea and cookies. This was going to take work, even with a professional plan. To let our neighbors know we were friendly gardeners we created a flowery hell-strip for  the pollinators.

In 2016 we were understanding the breadth of flooding

We could never complete our plan in one season, but we began by planting three panicle hydrangeas, a lilac and seven roses, and plants we brought from Heath. The South Shrub Border was begun.  We also planted a River birch. Shade was needed.

By the end of 2016 we could see the beginnings of the essential beds that would give us our Stroll Garden.

By the end of 2016 we also knew a lot about the drawbacks of our garden. It was very wet. The soil was dense. A neighbor told us our yard, and others on our side of the street, were at the edge of the Pray Brickworks. That explained why a shovelful of our soil looked like wet cement. We have been helping keep Martin’s Compost Farm in business ever since we got our first load of compo-soil in 2015.

One year after beginning beds are planted, and the hugel logs are in place

We were using Julie Moir Messervy’s plan to a great degree. However, because we were not knowledgeable about the site ourselves we never told her about the quality of the soil and the regular floods. We met those challenges by making raised beds. We also begged all our Heath friends for old logs. We decided a hugel would help manage the water.

Hugel is a permaculture term. First we had a low stone wall built. We took all those collected logs and put them at the wet back of the yard. Then we covered those logs with eight yards of Martin’s soil. Those logs do soak up the water in that wet space. We then planted ground covers and small shrubs on our hugel.

June 2019 and the stroll garden is nearly done.

The grass in front of the hugel was not handsome. It looked forgotten. Our friend Walt Cudnohufsky suggested a pea stone ‘patio.’ With a garden table and umbrella we now feel very cosmopolitan.

In May 2020 we can see the peastone patio, table and umbrella.  Time to plant annuals.

Spring would not be spring if new plants weren’t added. This year we added five new roses, Lady of Shallot, Gruss an Aachen, Quietness, Carefree Beauty. I have already mislaid  the name  of the fifth rose. No matter. We now have a mini-rose walk.

The raised beds got larger and larger, planted with shrubs and perennials that would attract pollinators and birds. In some sense we can now say the garden is finished. Of course, a garden is never finished. There is a saying about garden plants, the first year they sleep, the second year they creep and the third year they leap. We are in the leaping stage. Riotous growth! Pruning! Some plants need to be divided and moved. Some plants need to be removed.

Our garden is not natural. But like any natural landscape it changes from year to year because of wind, weather and plant growth or decline. Because we love Mother Nature we have included many native plants, the kind of plants that will support the butterflies, bees and other insects, and birds that are a part of the natural world.

We are looking forward to sharing our garden on the Greenfield Garden Club Tour today. Masks and social distancing are in order. Tickets, $10,  including the map are being sold at the John Zon Community Center from 9:30 to 1 p.m. Tour ends at 4 p.m.###

Between the Rows  July 11, 2020

Female Cecropia moth

The Greenfield Garden Club Garden Tour has been postponed to Sunday, July 12, 2020 due to the weather. Tickets and maps for the tour, $10, are available Sunday morning from 8:30am  to 1 pm at the John Zon Community Center on Pleasant Street. Ten beautiful gardens will be on display. Hope to see you  there  with  your masks. Social distancing required.

The importance of pollinators in our own gardens, and in public gardens like those at the Energy Park and the John Zon Community Center cannot be over estimated. Pollinators are vital to a healthy environment. However, I am now learning about a beautiful moth, Hyalophora cecropia, that is not a pollinator.

The Cecropia moth is the largest native moth in North America. It is a member of the giant silk moth Saturniidae family. They get their name from the silkiness of their cocoons. Like many creatures they are endangered; it is important that we all become aware of the importance of protecting native creatures, and plants.

This year’s Cecropia eggs

I was introduced to these beautiful moths by my friend Susan. She has an expert, Cecropia-loving friend who mailed her approximately 25 Cecropia eggs in late May of 2019. Most of those eggs hatched and the tiny caterpillars began the cycle of eating apple leaves from a tree in Susan’s yard and growing through five stages of development called instars.  I was fascinated when Susan told me Cecropia caterpillars are called ‘gregarious’. “Sometimes three to five caterpillars may feed closely on the underside of a leaf.  They seem to seek each other, to be close to each other,” she said.

Cecropia caterpillars are sometimes ‘gregarious’

She invited me to visit with my husband this June. We started at the wood, screen and hardware cloth box that her son made. The box was built to keep the caterpillars safe from predators. We saw several branches with cocoons that were attached to the inside of the box. I was confused because I thought the cocoons were dried leaves because of their irregular shape and  color. They had been there all winter. The Cecropia moths were hatching, a few every day – first the males, mostly, and then the females. Male moths emerge in the morning and early afternoon and by dusk are ready to take flight. One cocoon had just hatched and we saw the new Cecropia moth pumping up its wings.

Two Cecropia caterpillars at two stages, instars, of development

Susan explained that in the fall Cecropias go into the cocoon phase which is called diaphase. Inside the cocoon, which is constructed to hold on a thin branch or other support. A change occurs that morphs the caterpillar in a pupa. The cocoon, which has three layers, protects the future moth from the brutal temperature and weather (winds and ice) of winter!

One cocoon had just hatched and we saw the new Cecropia moth. I had never seen a Cecropia which has such beautiful and unusual coloring of white and gray and reddish brown.  I was surprised by how fuzzy it seemed.

One pair of Cecropia moths are mating while another female is waiting below. Look closely to see their body parts touching.

Then we went to her special hardware cloth mating cage and saw a female moth. Susan said the females are docile. “They will emerge from the cocoon, pump up their wings, and wait patiently for a male, sometimes for more than a day.” The female moth’s pheromones, emanating from a retractable protrusion at the end of her abdomen during the dark hours from dusk to dawn, attract a male who fertilizes her eggs. Males have large antennae that sense pheromones. Males usually arrive near dusk or before dawn. When they arrive they connect onto a female for up to 24 hours and then they will leave.”

This Cecropia moth died in its cocoon.

By mid-August, each caterpillar reaches a point where it finishes eating plant material and starts to construct a cocoon from which it will emerge as a moth the following  spring. The sole purpose of the adult stage is to mate and lay eggs. Adult moths cannot eat, so if a bird doesn’t scoop them up, they will die within two weeks.

Susan is very aware of her surroundings, the plants she tends and the creatures that visit her garden. She does not use chemicals of any kind. She mentioned that other caterpillars, such as black swallowtails, may be found on parsley and dill in the garden, but they do little damage and should not be killed. I understand her reminder. Swallowtail butterflies are so beautiful that I have always been willing to share my parsley and dill with their caterpillar form.

Since people are becoming more interested in pollinator plants and pollinator insects I think we will become more aware of the benefits and the beauty that that many insects bring to our gardens, and to our environment.

EXTRA PHOTOS

Third instar – the caterpillar is shedding it’s skin and eating it.

Cecropia caterpillars

Photo of the Cecropia moth with a clear view of its body

Between the Rows  July 4, 2020

Writing Wild: Women Poets, Ramblers, and Mavericks Who Shape How We See the Natural World by Kathryn Aalto

WRITING WILD by Kathryn Aalto

Writing Wild is the thrilling and inviting title of Kathryn Aalto’s book about 25 Women Poets, Ramblers, and Mavericks Who Shape How We See the Natural World (Timber Press $24.95). She begins with Dorothy Wordsworth, sister of poet William Wordsworth, who succinctly described herself as a “mountaineer, diarist, poet.”

This first section sets up the design of the book. First there is a bit of unexpected (in many cases) biography focusing in some way on the natural world, then an additional list of women who have similar interests. Wordsworth called herself a mountaineer; other mountain lovers were British Dorothy Pilley (1894-1986), Helen Mort who is described as “a dazzling British poet” who has won many awards; and the more familiar Cheryl Strayed who wrote Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail.                       

Other writers come at the natural world in different ways, some familiar and some not. Susan Fenimore Cooper beat Henry David Thoreau by four years in writing the first  book of American nature in 1850. That book, Rural Hours, has recently been incorporated in a book of her writing, Susan Fenimore Cooper: New Essays on “Rural Hours” and Other Works. Surprisingly, that book is published and for sale in England.

I am familiar with many of the women portrayed including Rachel Carson, Mary Oliver, Annie Dillard, Rebecca Solnit, and Andrea Wulf. I love Wulf’s engaging books, The Brother Gardeners, and The Founding Gardeners: the Revolutionary Generation, Nature and the Shaping of the American Nation. The founding gardeners are our first four presidents.

I was not familiar with Carolyn Merchant, ecofeminist philosopher and science historian. I was not familiar with Lauret Savoy who lives nearby and teaches at Mount Holyoke College. Her book is Trace: Memory, History, Race and the American Landscape.

I was not familiar with Robin Wall Kimmerer, a botananist and professor of plant ecology whose new book Braiding Sweetgrass was just published. But more about that later. I will be learning more about all these fascinating women.

Writing Wild is just full of tempting bits of poetry, of literary biographies, and travel essays. I suspect it will send many readers back to the bookshelves to read Elizabeth Rush’s book Rising: Dispatches from the New American Shore, or Helen MacDonald’s book H is for Hawk.

Just as these women have gone from insight to insight, to new understandings, we are going to be sent from writer to writer.

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

In fact, I went from this book to Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants (Milkweed editions ($18. paper) by Robin Wall Kimmerer, botanist and professor of plant ecology. She is the SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology. She is also the founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment.

Like many of her indigenous people, Kimmerer did not grow up speaking the Potawatomi language, or learning all the stories of the plants that her people used in so many ways. Now she is able to share the stories with us, stories about the reciprocity between plants and people.

Her love of plants began when she was just a child. She filled shoeboxes of seeds and pressed leaves for identification. She was looking to identify plants and their habitats. She thought she was ready when she applied for the forestry department at college. There she learned that what she knew about plants, was not what the college wanted her to know. And so she studied the college way, earned a PhD and began to work at the college. But she came to learn more through her own curiosity, the stories of her people, and the ways that plants work with each other.

Kimmerer shares her stories with us, and gives whole new views of what plants give, and what the plants need from us.

I am entranced by the stories she tells us about why and how the Maples gave the people sap to turn to sugar, to keep them from starving in the early spring. I am as stunned to learn that sweetgrass survives better if it is harvested, while leaving half. If people think they need to leave whole patches without taking any harvest, that sweetgrass will fail. Gifts of nature are given in many ways, and we need to learn to understand what is required in turn, if we are going to make our world healthy.

Kimmerer explains some of the mysteries of plants, the gifts they give us and what we owe. She gives us scientific facts, but it is almost like reading poetry. The Allegiance to Gratitude chapter has given me a lot to think about as I work in my garden, and in my everyday life.

Every page of this book brings us to intriguing lessons of how the natural world works. We need those lessons as our planet is becoming warmer, as storms become more violent, as the air has become polluted, as water needs more protections.

Kimmerer is an amazing teacher who is much needed, and it is a joy to be her student.

Between the Rows   June 17, 2020