Baby steps towards the future gardens of Beebe

[Gothichome]

Lily, happy to hear your butterfly rescue are going strong. We don’t get many monarchs fluttering around in our area, all the land is under the plow, the milk weed is confined to the drainage ditches. And not much of it there either. We do see lots in the spring and fall do to being in their migrational path.

[Lily left the valley]

Lily, happy to hear your butterfly rescue are going strong. We don’t get many monarchs fluttering around in our area, all the land is under the plow, the milk weed is confined to the drainage ditches. And not much of it there either. We do see lots in the spring and fall do to being in their migrational path.

Farmers and Monarchs have definitely had a shakey history of late, in large part due to a certain company that produces herbicides and just so happens to also offer herbicide resistant food crop seeds. They (the company, not the farmers who got duped) are much to blame for the west North American corridor being decimated so badly.

Ron, if you have a local golf course, see if they are part of the Monarchs in the Rough program. That's one stop gap that's a fairly new effort to help bolster Monarch migration corridors. If they aren't, forward the site to them. They just might join. There are also some communities that are working towards bolstering the corridors through joint efforts of public and private land owners where they give a certain allotment to overall pollinator friendly plantings.

Locally, this year has actually been a bit concerning. When I let my mentor know of my initial spotting of adult and eggs, she was thrilled because in her area they've had zip so far, and I was the first of her Guardians to report back anything positive. (She's much further east and south.) Since then, I have seen zero, and found only one new egg the day after the others in a different patch on our property.

What's worse is that the three that I previously posted hadn't hatched yet and the last egg found didn't make it. I suspect their demise was from either Pseudomonas (a bacteria) or Nuclear polyhedrosis virus (NPV, aka The Black Death) both because the eggs eventually turned all black (as opposed to just the black dot of the young caterpillar's head), and what happened to most of the hatchlings. They turned black, stopped eating, then died. I am now down to three that have grown to second instar and so far seem healthy. Given how unusually hot and humid is has been the last few weeks, I'm leaning towards Pseudomonas which thrives in such conditions. Even if I knew which of the two it was, it's not like there's a treatment available to Guardians. If such existed, same would be widely discussed on various Guardian sites.

Because I've had such a high percentage of early death, I am super grateful that I have been keeping each egg in its own incubator container. Last year I did not, and one batch in particular also had a lot of die offs quite young. Some could also have been caused from healthy cats being too near infected cats because I had so many then. I don't even want to imagine what might have happened this year had I not separated them. I'm still nervous for the three still living, yet hopeful because they've made it this far.

[Lily left the valley]

I just thought to check my garden blog to see where I was compared to last year. My July 11th post said I only had two eggs, but did see more adults about.

I also mentioned that in 2018, I didn't find any eggs until July 21st. Curiously enough, only two then as well.

[Manalto]

I just thought to check my garden blog to see where I was compared to last year. My July 11th post said I only had two eggs, but did see more adults about.

I also mentioned that in 2018, I didn't find any eggs until July 21st. Curiously enough, only two then as well.

As you make your property more attractive to pollinators and other beneficial species, I'm hoping the critters will respond by making an appearance. I enjoy having reason - beyond simple aesthetic value - as the motivation behind (at least some of) my choices for the garden.

[Lily left the valley]

We definitely are not short on insects of a wide variety, both in the welcome and the "ah well, the beneficials need something to eat" categories.

I have been trying to work on the variety of offerings, because some species are very picky. The bee bath seems to have helped, and I'm working on two more to add around the property. (It's not just used by bees, but the images I tried to take the other day with other visitors aren't worth the bytes they would eat up in storage. ) Each year, a bit more get added by us, the wind and the critters themselves.

Today, as if it somehow read my mind, along came another Monarch...


Our local wildlife as well as our diets continue to include a daily supplement of black raspberries from out back. We're average picking a bit more than a cup a day of late. It could be more, but we didn't spread out the new canes via transplant this spring so it's a bit too prickly to reach some in the back even with full coverage clothing--more for the critters anyhoo. The boysenberries and red raspberries are not far behind in development. I'm not sure how the blueberries will fare this year, especially since we have two new transplants (one of which came with a few clusters of fat berries that promptly mummified). Last it will be time for the blackberries.

From further research, it seems we might have two types of wild strawberries, Frageria virginiana along the driveway and Frageria vesca in two spots on the west side of the front slope. We've never managed to pick the very small strawberries from either before the critters do, but we deliberately don't net them either. Next year we plan to get a cultivated variant that is more human bite sized, and those we may net.

If I'm correct in my ID, virginiana is to the left, and vesca is to the right.

[Lily left the valley]

Posting the dragonfly picture in the everybody's garden thread reminded me of something.

The first year we lived here, we only knew the property came with four types of berries. However the second year, a creeper that is abundant in many spots of our back yard actually started to produce small fruits that the granddaughter of the former owners ID'd as boysenberries. I believe the last time I mentioned our berry cycle here at Beebe was around the time I thought, "You know, I should really double check on if they are boysens."

The ID has bugged me because the fruits on ours never seem to take the shape boysenberries are well documented to have even when their cultivars escape to the wild. So after I delved further down the rabbit hole, I learned there is a wild creeper blackberry known as Northern blackberries, Rubus flagellaris, or sometimes called Northern dewberries (wiki doesn't even mention the blackberries moniker, which makes sense given the shape of the berries really. I think the former common name is more a localized thing.) There are now cultivated hybrids as well. I've no idea if ours is the wild or one of the lower creeping hybrids, but given the berry size I think it's the wild.

They are definitely small fruits, and not as sweet as our other berries. We eat them just the same when we can get them. Since they do grow so low, local critters often beat us to them. This is also the ones I have tried unsuccessfully to trellis up so I could enjoy the flowers and berry color from my office window. This year I finally conceded the most it will tolerate is between 1-2 feet vertical. Then it starts dying off or plain old stops growing.

This is also the main culprit that has spread over time to coat the garage bed as a ground cover, as well as what I have had on my list to transplant to our front slope as a ground cover as well. This year, it already made its way to a few spots (likely thanks to critters), but we have heaps and heaps in the back still I can easily dig up and move forward this year as I work towards roughing out the front yard regrade.

Speaking of spread, when I did check wiki, I found some great news. This species is great for native bees, as many shelter in/around them or make shelter from bits of them. The nectar of the flowers is also favored by adults of the endangered Blue Karners (remember those being mentioned in why lupines turned into a headache for me?)

[Lily left the valley]

I tried using Photoshop to start plotting out the regrade and overall plan for the property, but despite my years of working with the program for design purposes, I feel oddly more comfortable working with scale drafting by hand. I'm glad we got that small drafting table last year I think it was, as that makes the process easier. It took me a while to realize my brain's preference, but now I'm slowly working on it when time allows with a lot less frustration. I think in no small part, I like being able to have all my sketched notions up on the wall at once where I can compare them without them being tiny zoom downs to fit on a screen or flipping through a slide show.

I am concerned about our purple Monarda (bee balm). I thought it was growing again, and now I don't know what's going on. Maybe I should have divided it. I'm keeping an eye on it, but will dig it up come fall either way to get a better look at it and see if it needs dividing. The purple Iris in the garage bed also desperately needs dividing. We only got a single bloom this year where we normally get at least a handful.

Two of the four dusty millers we picked up last year seem to be soldiering on, which makes me laugh like crazy. Between the millers and the ornamental sage that also came back I continue to be astonished.

After last year's debacle trying to move a volunteer wild grape, we're leaving the recent discovery near the compost be. A neighbor not too far off has a very thick stand (?) of them supported by a part of their fence. So we may yet get more volunteers and eventually both genders for fruit.

Between Sean's work schedule and his still not quite right shoulder, nothing has been done to wrangle in the blackberries. Some of the black raspberries have also set up a small unit in that corner, which we may keep there just for this year since they are fruiting.

I need to heavily clear a few beds that have been overrun to do some second planting and fall cool crops. Today's heat was unbearable, but we're supposed to be lower 80s the next few days so I should gain some headway on that.

After long consideration, we have decided to get rid of many of the daylilies by this fall. I've given some away in the past, but we still have soooo very much more, and most desperately need dividing so right now they're 90% leaves. I'll continue to give more away as I find takers, but beyond that they'll be composted.

As to the Hostas, I found a New England Society of Hostas where I might find homes for most if not all if I can't give them away here in town. We may keep some another season if we can't get our hands on the shrubs we want to put in their places out front. Various ferns and other woodland plants will go in the back.

I'll also be seeking a home for our bleeding heart, since we'll be replacing that with native dicentras, starting with dutchman's breeches Dicentra cucullaria and when budget allows, squirrel corn Dicentra canadensis and turkey corn Dicentra eximia too. The only one of those three that is pink-ish is the turkey corn, but it's nowhere as deep or consistent as the bleeding heart.

I'm still polishing off our bulb purchase list for the year. I keep forgetting the name of one, and always end up distracted when I try to look it up so I forget to write it down.

I've been playing around with a few walkway ideas. My Floor Manager has been making me nuts over this because he doesn't have strong opinions, but I fear whatever he wants me to decide he'll later be all, "Well, in hindsight...".

I hope to finish the first stage plant list for the front rain garden sometime in August. I should have a clear idea by then of how big it will be and how much of which water depth type we'll need.

We may not get to all of this, whether due to time or funds. There are many other projects I'm already knowing will get pushed off again, but every year we get a bit more done and for now that's enough.

[Lily left the valley]

Compared to recent weeks which were hotter than average even for July, the weather the last few days has been positively blissful with at least a few hours of breeze.

My Monarch Guardianship this year has been rough going, but from reading other Guardians' posts, it's bad in a lot of places. Their numbers are way down this year, which isn't a shock considering how low the winter count was in Mexico. Although there are ebbs and flows, this year has been dire--and many are concerned they may be on a path toward extinction for them again if we don't turn this around to get back in the range previously recorded as recently as the late 90s.

One often pointed at cause is Glyphosate, aka "Roundup". Other countries have banned it since it was put on the market in 1970, but when Monsanto introduced genetically engineered crops near to the turn of this century, use exploded in America on farms, especially BigAg commercial farms. If you look at the graph on the first link, you can see the corresponding population drop that never goes back to even prior average around that time. Of course, habitat loss is also a problem, further compounded by property owners because many see the various milkweeds as weeds, and refuse to allow them to live in their gardens. Milkweed is the only natural food of young Monarchs. No milkweed, cats can't survive without food. (Near adult transformation stage adults can eat some other plant based foods as some Guardians have discovered if they find themselves short on milkweed, but Monarch cats do not know to look for them in the wild if they are even available because they evolved to only eat milkweed, much like milkweed tussock moths which don't have quite the same issue because they do migrate as Monarchs do.)

Out of my first gathered ten eggs, none made it to a successful adulthood. All died at stages ranging from egg to the only one of two that made it to chrysalis that did eclose dying shortly after. I'm fairly certain 9 are the bacterial black death related, but the one that did eclose I'm not as sure because it never turned black before expiring though it's likely its weakened state could have been due to it as well. The high heat and humidity we had in July likely helped the bacteria thrive, and there is nothing Guardians can really do to prevent that. We're only just beginning to figure out ways to curb the spread of OE, another common foe of theirs.

The hopeful news is there have been more sightings and egg gathering up here, as reported by my mentor. From my own later gathered eggs, I currently have one Monarch which has been doing well and went into chrysalis over night, and the three eggs I gathered end of July just hatched today. The one that is currently transforming into an adult is much closer to the size one expects of a fifth instar, unlike the two that didn't make it from the first clatch.

More on pumpkins and such later. Sean just got home.

[Lily left the valley]

Sooooooo...we finally had a healthy adult Monarch that flew away all on its very own, and a female to boot.

Given last year we had almost five times more to release compared to the year prior (our first), I was on with that successful jump up in count. Then the first clatch of eggs disaster happened this year.

So to have one that made it and off it went today...huge relief. We still have five from the second round of egg collecting, all hatched and now at various instars. So hopefully these will make it just as well. Unless I find more eggs (unlikely by this date), even if all our current make it, that will still be less than my first year. Yet I know it's been tough all over, which although that sort of makes me feel better, it also makes me worry more about if the Monarchs will bounce back.

In other news, the heat started rolling back in and I'm doing whatever I can when I can around the heat and rain, which we've also had a fair share of recently. We've had some late bloomed surprises, thought we're not certain they'll bear fruit in time. (e.g. Hello, third pie pumpkin plant. What have you been waiting for all this time?)

I finally had the funds to order my copy of "Native Plants for New England Gardens". It might be here sometime this week. Time will tell. I've mentioned it here before, I think. I first found it at my local library. After reading it, I knew I had to add it to our home library because it's something I'll want to refer to for many years.

[Lily left the valley]

I so envy folks like you and James who have the knowledge and wherewithal--not to mention the green thumb--to make your little corner beautiful. Not only do I have a black thumb, I'm also suddenly and severely allergic to poison ivy, of which a large percentage of my back yard (mostly wooded) and part of the front is comprised. I can't even get out to pull weeds without getting into it.

I like to read about your thoughts and plans for your yard, Lily, even though most of it sounds like Charlie Brown's teacher to me: "Wa-wa, wa-wa-wa, wa."

Ok! I'm finally going to respond in full on this. I kept meaning to, and kept failing to make time for it.

Firstly, James is much more knowledgeable than I. My thumb is maybe yellow at this point, compared to his true verdant green. Sean warned me from the get go that his is as black as black gets. He doesn't even like putting seeds in starter pots because he's terrified he's doomed them from the beginning.

In truth, Bonnie, most of my knowledge is recent. Despite growing up in a multi-generational two family home of my maternal grandparents where they had a huge kitchen garden and lots of beds with so many different shrubs and flowers, I retained very little from that time. I could recall the names of a handful of what they grew outside their kitchen garden. I could maybe name a few really hard to mix up with something else birds even.

As an adult, I did want to someday have a forever home with gardens like theirs, but my career paths and many moves prevented me from doing more than house plants which frequently did not like moving so much and died in protest; one summer growing a cherry tomato plant when I don't really eat them (I know that makes no sense, yet I did it because everyone says they're so easy to grow.); and planting a lot of annuals and the rare perennial (usually a bulb type flower) at various rentals...choosing them by looks alone.

Once we had Beebe, I had GREAT PLANS spinning through my head about how we would transform our yard from an overgrown neglected lot with typical Gardner Standards to something amazing and perfectly complementary to our working class bungalow. Despite knowing in the past I have killed far more plants than I have grown, I was all full steam ahead, with only our meager budget to curb my enthusiasm.

Trouble was, I couldn't even easily identify most of what we had here once the snows finally stopped hiding it all. And we did and still do have lots growing here, partly thanks to the Bedards (original owners), and later renters that added things here and there. I would be remiss not to mention the volunteers thanks to critters and wind as well. We honestly haven't added much in the perennial sense so far, mostly annuals, food or otherwise.

So I did what I do kinda well...I started a sort of haphazard path towards learning about gardens. Library books, websites, listened to podcasts, watched videos, etc.--whatever was freely available and of course bought a Farmer's Almanac each year too. I also dug out some old books I had gathered over the years from their moving boxes.

I had done such research casually in the past, but now I was a woman with a mission. Each thing I read led (and still leads) to more questions, and more research. There is a lot I thought I was once certain on before I started down this path, that now I question daily. I also have learned that anything can lead you down a rabbit hole you didn't even know was there. Suddenly something I thought I'd check for a quick reference then turned into I'm still on the web chasing info at 4:30am with a rash of new bookmarks haphazardly added to my web browser as Sean walks into the office asking, "You still reading about {topic I was looking up as he went to bed}?"

The more painful truth is a lot I have studied slips through my sieve of a brain. Sometimes I read something thinking it's the first time I've learned it, only to later realize I had learned it before but forgot and also forgot to bookmark/make a note so I wouldn't have to figure out how to make the quickest trip down the rest of the rabbit hole to find what I more specifically seek. Sometimes I even learn things wrong, because I mix up similar whatever--recommended practices for X plant, companion and enemy plants, bug identification, etc. Yet some things do manage to stick. (Not the plant name hosta though. For some reason my brain always makes me work to remember that simple word is hosta, not pothos which I have no idea why my brain decided to mix those two up--and we discuss the hostas often because we have so darn many here.)

And even when I think I have all the info I need, the weather doesn't cooperate, Sean hurts his shoulder, life happens. In 2019, we started seeds indoors too early which doomed them because we could not afford the sorts of things that would help them from getting scrawny leggy. This year, we waited too long and ended up not even planting a quarter of what we did in the kitchen garden because we knew there was no way some things would mature in time before the frosts would kill them.

The worst is when I learn something, only to find out it's old info...and there's a much better whatever related which is often completely different from what in the past was accepted as correct. Fortunately, this doesn't happen that often.

Organizing it all is one hurdle for me. Making decisions based on my disorganized mess is another, and probably the bigger I think? I do keep all the seed envelopes, and have tiny notes scribbled on some of the store bought and envelopes for seeds gathered here. Just my garden bookmarks on my browser are a mix of two different organization schemes (one by type, the other by location we wanted it to be). I've slowly been deciding which of the two is best, and also did similar split thoughts when I started learning about the various critters too.

Even though Sean and I have an agreement about "acceptable losses" and "budgets", I still agonize over a lot because funds are tight, and I don't want to inadvertently do something that later will kill said plant or worse...I have to yank out because it's not what I thought it was (lupinus albus--I'm looking at you). I do try to find the non invasives we want to get rid of homes through the usual free channels, but since many are Gardner Staples, into the compost or weed baking bin they go when I muster the courage to do so.

Speaking of the Latin names...once I decided to embrace the idea of going native for everything other than kitchen staples (not quite willing to go that far), that's when I started learning that Latin matters. Fortunately, none of my mistakes in that department were that expensive, but Sean has learned to look me in the eye and say "no" when I start picking up stuff that isn't on my list. (More than once I was soooo close to getting the right thing, but my brain failed me and I bought a non native.) It's one of the reasons I prefer seeds over starters--they're cheaper if I make a mistake.

And it wasn't just learning the Latin that helped...before I thought all you needed to know was if a plant grows in sun, partial shade, shade for a plant. Oh no, there's soil types and variant moisture needs to consider too! Then there's the zones upon zones wayyyyy beyond "Plant Hardiness Zones". I won't even get into plantings to help endangered species come back; or how to deal with introduced species (flora or fauna) that are invasive headaches or have at least partly caused some fauna/flora to head towards extinction because a hybrid or "right hardiness zone" + "more desirable flower colors" couldn't feed or crowded out the locals. I did find one book (The Two Hour Garden Plan) that is right up my alley, but it turned out most of the plants were not native to here, and not ideal for even our Hardiness Zone, forget all the other possibles. So starting last year because that's when I decided we'd really lean into natives, I looked for alternatives that would fit the purpose but would be local. I have meant to start making a book for myself, but really the closest I've come to record keeping is my blog which this year has slipped right into nothing because this year has just been so darn nuts.

There's also so much information available about ways to do things. "Here's a plot for a pollinator garden!" "Here's the best way to grow strawberries!" "The best 40 cottage garden landscape ideas."

Then there's the scores of saved pictures in a folder marked "The Yard" too as a loose idea book sort of thing.

I do manage to whittle stuff I later realize I have better/no use for, but that takes time too.

It can be overwhelming. BUT...it's exciting to learn so much, and with what little we've already done (and in no small part due to what we were lucky enough to inherit with Beebe), we're already seeing results in the direction we've been meandering towards. Budget restraints have forced a slow but steady path, which, honestly, I'm so grateful for!

Lastly, I should say as I have before that I am SUPER happy we don't have HOA minded neighbors, because part of what I've been allowing to happen is I let volunteers grow until I can learn if we want them or not. This does mean even the front yard can start looking a bit unkempt as I wait for things to go to seed so I can plant them in a fashion more "aesthetically pleasing" in the future.