Sunday, August 26, 2012

After the Rain


Weather: Last rain 8/23/12; 13:08 hours of daylight today.

What’s blooming in the area: Hybrid perpetual roses, buddleia, bird of Paradise, silver lace vine, trumpet creeper, red yucca, rose of Sharon, datura, Heavenly Blue morning glory, sweet pea, alfalfa, Russian sage, purple garden phlox, single sunflowers, zinnias.

Beyond the walls and fences: Leatherleaf globemallow, ivy leaved morning glory, white and pink bindweeds, white sweet clover, silver leaf nightshade, knotted spurge, prostrate knotweed turning red, goat’s head, yellow and white evening primroses, a few bee blossoms, pale blue trumpets, pigweed, ragweed, Russian thistles, snakeweed coming into bloom, Hopi tea, gum weed, horseweed, wild lettuce, golden hairy asters, Tahoka daisies.

In my yard, looking east: Bouncing Bess, Jupiter’s beard, hollyhock, winecup mallow, large flowered soapwort, Autumn Joy sedum.

Looking south: Rugosa, floribunda and miniature roses, Dutch clover.

Looking west: Caryopteris, Siberian and Seven Hills Giant catmints, calamintha, leadplant, David phlox, perennial four o’clock, sea lavender, ladybells, Mönch asters, purple coneflowers peaked.

Looking north: Larkspur, California and Shirley poppies, nasturtium, chocolate flower, coreopsis, blanket flower, black-eyed Susan, Mexican hat, chrysanthemum, yellow cosmos, bachelor buttom.

Bedding plants: Petunia, nicotiana, snapdragons, sweet alyssum.

What’s blooming inside: Zonal geraniums, aptenia.

Animal sightings: Rabbit, small brown birds, geckos, bumble and other bees, hornets, harvester and small black ants; several different large flying insects on the prairie I don’t recognize.


Weekly update: We’ve had two weeks of off again, on again evening rains, beginning with one a week ago Thursday that caused the far arroyo to roar. I had thought then about getting in the car, and driving over the new bridge to see what could be seen. But, at heart, I’m not a wet water creature. This Friday, I finally walked out.

The sands had not been disturbed much since the last rain, and the ground was still wet. It was possible, not just to see how the water had moved, but more important, how the water’s movements feed the vegetation.


The center was still wet, where chamisa takes root and forms islands. The edges were also damp. Between the areas the soil looked drier on the surface. However, this wasn’t because there had been less water, but because these are the main paths, the lower channels, that become covered with gravel and lighter colored sand from upstream.


The water reached at least a foot along the far wall, and in a few places washed out some of the bank. In other places, it left series of water marks.


The islands are scoured, only deeply anchored trees and shrubs remain. The tamarix provides shade for annuals and shrubs which germinate in the mulch of its seeds and branches.


Those seeds are gone, washed downstream where they may start another copse. Bare sand reamins.


Down stream, water apparently washed over the edge of the arroyo bank, or rushed down breaks made by ATV tracks. But that annual fall of water has carved a basin, so the water washing off the prairie does not reach the arroyo. Instead, it puddles,


and creates an environment where most of the bottomland ephemeral plants grow


Photographs: All taken in the arroyo, 25 August 2012, except the tamarix island taken 19 July 2012, and the last one, taken 19 May 2012.

Sunday, August 19, 2012

Apples


Weather: Severe late afternoon storms three days in a row; the far arroyo ran Thursday; 13:21 hours of daylight today.

What’s blooming in the area: Hybrid perpetual roses, buddleia, bird of Paradise, silver lace vine, trumpet creeper, red yucca, rose of Sharon, datura, Heavenly Blue morning glory, sweet pea, Russian sage, purple garden phlox, single sunflowers, zinnias, Sensation cosmos; pods on honey locust; berries on pyracantha.

Beyond the walls and fences: Leatherleaf globemallow, bush and ivy leaved morning glories, white and pink bindweeds, white sweet clover, silver leaf nightshade, knotted spurge, prostrate knotweed, goat’s head, yellow and white evening primroses, Queen Anne’s lace, pigweed, ragweed, Russian thistles, gum weed, goat’s beard, horseweed, wild lettuce, golden hairy asters, Tahoka daisies; showy milkweed pods splitting open; Virginia creeper berries ripening.

In my yard, looking east: Bouncing Bess, Jupiter’s beard, hollyhock, winecup mallow, sidalcea Party Girl.

Looking south: Rugosa, floribunda and miniature roses, Dutch clover, Illinois bundle flower.

Looking west: Caryopteris, Siberian and Seven Hills Giant catmints, calamintha, leadplant, David phlox, perennial four o’clock, sea lavender, Mönch asters, purple coneflowers.

Looking north: Nasturtium, California and Shirley poppies, larkspur, chocolate flower, coreopsis, blanket flower, black-eyed Susan, Mexican hat, chrysanthemum, yellow cosmos.

Bedding plants: Petunia, nicotiana, snapdragons, sweet alyssum.

What’s blooming inside: Zonal geraniums, aptenia.

Animal sightings: Rabbit, hummingbirds, small brown birds, geckos, bees, hornets, harvester and small black ants.


Weekly update: Apples are having a bumper year. Everywhere you look trees are covered with ripening fruit. Next year, no matter how great the spring, there may be nothing.

Apples produce in two year cycles. First the branches send out small thin spurs, which produce buds that take a year to mature. The following spring there will be two types of buds - the ones that will bear that year, and the ones that will bear next. A good spur will elongate and produce for ten years.

For the past two springs, late snows and cold killed the fruiting buds, but left the less vulnerable future buds. Then last year there was the drought. Trees tend to respond by conserving their resources; they selfishly send energy to their roots, preventing viable buds from developing. This reinforces the tendency of trees to become biennial, because those undeveloped buds will emerge the next year along with the ones scheduled for the next year.

Commercial growers, of course, can’t afford trees that don’t produce one year and overproduce the next. Much of their pruning in January and February is done to interrupt the biennial tendency.

The fruit appears in closely spaced pairs. Where apples touch, blemishes appear which don’t affect the fertility of the seeds, but make them less marketable. In addition, when they are closely spaced, none can get very large - again, something that concerns the grower but not the tree which wants to perpetuate its species with as many seeds as possible.


At one time, growers manually thinned the buds in late spring, hoping they were preserving the ones most likely to produce good fruit. Now, chemicals have been developed which do the thinning for them, eliminating pairs and leaving widely spaced buds.

This year, it’s obvious there’s another reason growers need to treat their trees. With the accumulated effects of the drought, trees not only are producing heavily, but what they are producing is heavy. The ripening apples are pulling down the valuable spurs.


One person went out Friday and propped up his branches his planks. Another did not, and Saturday a branch had pushed down his fence and was protruding into a road at a point where it was already difficult for two small cars to pass. It hadn’t broken, but someone with a short temper was going to do something if it wasn’t removed.


It’s usually easy to tell the men who care for their trees from those that don’t. They have the orchards that produce every year on properly spaced trees with some kind of mown grass beneath to keep in moisture and keep out weeds. This year, it’s even easier, for their trees have only a few spurs dense with fruit, while the neglected trees are fountains of bent branches.


One problem for those people is, at some point, that fruit is going to have to be picked, if not from the trees, then from the ground. If they’re not removed, they will attract insects, and rot. Next year, the other growers will have to spray more to protect their trees from the consequences of these neighbors’ poor sanitation habits. I could already smell the apples at one place I passed on Friday.


The other problem is that when apples do decide to fruit, they expend all their resources of begetting seeds, and neglect the accumulation of food reserves they need to survive the winter. Those trees that are overburdened now may have serious problems this winter. It’s likely the fact they are bearing so heavily is evidence the roots were already damaged by the drought, and this is their last attempt at self preservation. A bough has already come down on one man’s tree.


Such abundant trees fit some satisfying image of the bountifulness of nature for us, but it’s the trees which are bearing lightly that are the healthiest.

Photographs:
1. Well maintained apple orchard, 17 August 2012.

2. Storm Thursday, 16 August 2012. The reason I indulge that black locust tree is it can survive such winds.

3. Apples growing in pairs, 17 August 2012.

4. Spur bending out from young tree in generally well maintained orchard, 17 August 2012.

5. Trees branches propped with plants in another maintained orchard, 18 August 2012.

6. Neglected, overbearing tree, 17 August 2012.

7. Fruit falling from overbearing tree in a neglected orchard, 17 August 2012.

8. Broken branch in moderately maintained orchard, 18 August 2012.


9. Small tree bearing sparsely in well maintained orchard, 17 August 2012.

Sunday, August 12, 2012

Seeds


Weather: Afternoon clouds bring humidity and thunder; last rain 8/5/12; 13:50 hours of daylight today.

What’s blooming in the area: Hybrid perpetual roses, buddleia, bird of Paradise, silver lace vine, trumpet creeper, red yucca, rose of Sharon, datura, sweet pea, Russian sage, purple garden phlox, single sunflowers, yellow flowered yarrow, zinnias, Sensation cosmos.

Pepper roasters are in business in the local grocery parking lot.

Beyond the walls and fences: Leatherleaf globemallow, bush morning glory, white and pink bindweeds, white sweet and white prairie clovers, silver leaf nightshade, buffalo gourd, knotted spurge, prostrate knotweed, goat’s head, Queen Anne’s lace, gum weed, goat’s beard, horseweed, wild lettuce, golden hairy asters, goldenrod; buds on Tahoka daisies.

Few native sunflowers and little áñil del muerto up yet.

In my yard, looking east: Bouncing Bess, Jupiter’s beard, hollyhock, winecup mallow, sidalcea Party Girl, California and Shirley poppies.

Looking south: Rugosa, floribunda and miniature roses, Dutch clover, Illinois bundle flower.

Looking west: Caryopteris, Siberian and Seven Hills Giant catmints, calamintha, leadplant, David phlox, perennial four o’clock, sea lavender, Mönch asters, purple coneflowers.

Picked the unripe peaches before the tree bough guillotined me.

Looking north: Hartweig evening primrose, nasturtium, chocolate flower, coreopsis, blanket flower, black-eyed Susan, Mexican hat, chrysanthemum, yellow cosmos.

Bedding plants: Petunia, nicotiana, snapdragons, sweet alyssum.

What’s blooming inside: Zonal geraniums, aptenia.

Animal sightings: Rabbit, hummingbirds, small brown birds, geckos, bees, hornets, harvester and small black ants.


Weekly update: Seeds have always been a mystery - not in any mystical way, mind - it’s just they don’t grow for me. Didn’t in Ohio, didn’t in Texas, didn’t in Michigan, and don’t here.

I look with envy on those who, year after year, dry, wet or in between, succeed. Despite this year’s bad spring, I see ears on corn stalks, large green tomatoes and two foot high zinnias that have been blooming for a month.

I take no pleasure in watching others who expend a great deal effort to put in a vegetable garden, only to have the corn rise unevenly and the tomatoes struggle. I wonder at those who do succeed their first year and never try again. But then, maybe they do, but they’re only allowed one good year to lure them into years of frustration.


This year, after I’d done all my planting, I hired a man to expand my driveway so I could turn around without jockeying. He was good, but it is no more possible to convince a man with a backhoe that you’ll will not soon pay someone in relandscape his damage than it is to tell a barber “just a little.”

In June, I was left with strips three to six feet wide beyond the drive that were going to sprout weeds - and have. Prostrate knotweed is growing luxuriously where I put down a soaker hose, but, like cheat grass, it will eventually die and leave unsightly remains. Every day I find more goat’s head and Russian thistles.


To try to contain the damage until the time when I could put in new grass or clover seed, I planted some trees and used my left over seed. It was neither the time to buy nor to plant trees, but something had to be done.

This year I tried something new. Instead of watering them from the base like you’re told to do, and which has failed for me more often than not, I went out every afternoon when the sun was the hottest and turned on the sprinkler. I knew I’d put water in the ground, but I also knew this spring was abnormally dry, with extremely low humidity levels. I simply wanted to cool the leaves, to somehow counteract the effect of the heat.


The trees have made it - though I won’t know until next spring if they really have survived. But, surprisingly some of the seeds, I put in, a month too, late are blooming. At one end of the drive, I transplanted some seedlings that had come up too dense, then stopped growing in May. The California poppies are blooming, as are a few Shirley poppies [above pink] and some larkspur. [section head] In the original bed, a few Shirleys have been putting out small flowers on short stems [above coral], but the larkspur never materialized. The only California poppy that’s blooming is from last year.


At the other end, some cosmos and morning glory plants are thriving - not blooming mind, but producing leaves. One’s even engulfing a small tree I planted in June.


How was I to know? My other morning glories are maybe a foot long and weakly climbing.


In one place, prairie coreopsis [top] and bachelor buttons camp up. I didn’t deliberately plant either, but I did sow one of those seed mixes companies send as free gifts. They’ve come up downstream from where I think I planted them; they apparently washed around when I was giving some struggling trees some help in June.


I’ve tried and tried, and failed and failed, with bachelor buttons, and there they were - for about three days. I’d never even risk a prairie coreopsis and only hope it can self-seed.

I don’t know if I’ve finally found the secret - that when the package says uniformly moist it means drenched every day - or if this is another case of first year luck. I won’t know until next year, when, like anyone lured by the occasional, unexpected success, I’ll gamble again.


Photographs:
1. Prairie coreopsis, 16 July 2012.
2. Blue larkspur and unopened California poppies in new location, 11 August 2012.
3. Shirley poppy in new location, 7 August 2012.
4. Shirley poppy in usual location, 9 July 2012.
5. California poppies in usual location, 25 April 2012, with some invading winecup and volunteer garlic chives.


6. California poppy in usual location, 9 July 2012.
7. Heavenly blue morning glory in new location, 21 July 2012.
8. Scarlet rambler morning glory in usual location, 7 August 2012.
9. Bachelor button, 27 July 2012.
10. Open California poppies and larkspur in new location, 7 August 2012.

Sunday, August 05, 2012

Goldenrod


Weather: Rain; 35:57 hours of daylight today.

What’s blooming in the area: Hybrid perpetual roses, buddleia, bird of Paradise, silver lace vine, trumpet creeper, red yucca, rose of Sharon, hibiscus, datura, sweet pea, alfalfa, Russian sage, purple garden phlox, single sunflowers, yellow flowered yarrow, zinnias, Shasta daisies.

Apples so laden branches bending; fruit beginning to drop.

Beyond the walls and fences: Leatherleaf globemallow, bush morning glory, white and pink bindweeds, white sweet and white prairie clovers, silver leaf nightshade, buffalo gourd, knotted spurge, prostrate knotweed, goat’s head, pale blue trumpets, Hopi tea, gum weed, goat’s beard, horseweed, wild lettuce, golden hairy asters, goldenrod.

In my yard, looking east: Bouncing Bess, Jupiter’s beard, hollyhock, winecup mallow, sidalcea Party Girl, California and Shirley poppies.

Looking south: Rugosa, floribunda and miniature roses, Dutch clover, Illinois bundle flower, scarlet flax, Sensation cosmos.

Looking west: Caryopteris, Siberian and Seven Hills Giant catmints, calamintha, leadplant, David phlox, white spurge, perennial four o’clock, sea lavender, Mönch asters, purple coneflowers.

Peach bough that normally reaches down to my forehead, is now shoulder high with fruit.

Looking north: Hartweig evening primrose, nasturtium, chocolate flower, coreopsis, blanket flower, black-eyed Susan, Mexican hat, chrysanthemum, yellow cosmos.

Bedding plants: Petunia, nicotiana, snapdragons, sweet alyssum.

What’s blooming inside: Zonal geraniums, aptenia.

Animal sightings: Rabbit, hummingbirds, small brown birds, geckos, butterflies, bees, hornets, harvester and small black ants.


Weekly update: Goldenrod has gone from being a sentimental favorite to an enemy through no real fault of its own. It’s simply too successful at being a member of the composite family.

The problem isn’t that the roots are too aggressive, which they are in areas where they survive; my yard isn’t one of those places, but the ditch banks around the village are.

The problem isn’t that it produces too much pollen. This isn’t a tale of a late allergic reaction. Besides, I believe the people who say it’s the late summer blooming, inconspicuous ragweed that’s the instigator of hay fever.

The problem is that its nectar is too alluring. If you ever try to get near a patch, you’ll keep your distance. Bees and hornets swarm around it. I’ve also see large flies, things too tiny to identify and some rather large insects with some red parts.


But they aren’t my enemy. It’s the locust borer, Megacyllene robiniae, a creature with red legs that tries to pass as a hornet. Its dark brown back has yellow strips that are horizontal on the upper part of the body and chevroned on the longer lower section.

The locust borer feeds exclusively on the nectar of goldenrod, then lays its eggs in fissures in the bark of a black locust tree. The young hatch within two weeks and bore into the bark where they go dormant for the winter.

When weather warms in the spring, the larvae resume boring into the trees, reaching the heartwood and leaving a trail of sap and sawdust. They pupate in mid-summer and emerge as adults in August when goldenrod is blooming.


When I first saw a pile of sawdust a few years ago, I called a tree specialist who told me there was little I could do. He said that people who grow commercial stands, harvest the trees which come back from their roots. The locust, Robinia pseudoacacia, is a legume.

He didn’t want the job of cutting down my tree, but sent one of his laborers to do it as a side job. The problem is they left me with the dead, insect infested trunk. I’ve been through the cycle four times now, and my biggest problem has been getting someone to understand the key to breaking the cycle is to remove the diseased wood before the adults emerge.

He took the presence of the insects as fate. There’s no truly effective chemical on the market. As the borer followed the tree west of the Mississippi, it moved beyond the reach of its natural predator, the woodpecker. The only woodpeckers I’ve seen here not only are a different species than the red-cockaded ones in the east, but dumber: they’re always banging away on utility poles.

This year when the tree blew down, and they always do blow down, I did find someone to remove it in the short period that remained before the goldenrod started blooming. My plan was to take a strong mix of a chemical that could handle some kinds of borers, and paint the trunk and pour the remains through the holes in the top, to kill whatever was there. That operation was completed two days before rains came. Fate indeed.


Even if I can do nothing, I was curious why so many older trees near the village aren’t damaged when they’re closer to the patches of goldenrod. This spring, when they were blooming, I drove around. The largest trees had a lot of dead wood at the top, which more likely came from one of the droughts.

The man who cut my tree down, though, did say he had been getting more calls than usual to remove trees, especially those near houses. I had decided to keep mine, which are on the other side of the drive, because they can take the worst winds that come. Also, they are fragrant when they’re blooming.


After he took away my diseased wood, I started haunting a goldenrod patch trying to spot the insects. The plants are on the other side of a formidable barb wire fence, so I couldn’t get as close as a near sighted person must. And, I must admit, I have an inbred disinclination to get close to anything that resembles a wasp. So I don’t know if I’ve actually seen one of the critters or not, but I’ve seen something that looks close.


Notes:
McCann, James M. and Dan M. Harman. “Avian Predation of Immature Stages of the Locust Borer, Megacyllene robiniae (Forster) (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae),” Entomological Society of Washington, Proceedings 105:970-981:2003.

Photographs: The best photograph of a locust borer is on the myrmecos.net website.

1. Goldenrod growing along bank of a ditch under a cottonwood, 4 August 2012

2. Bee on goldenrod, same patch, 2 August 2012.

3. Unknown insect on goldenrod, same patch, 4 August 2012.

4. Evidence left by locust borers on my parent black locust tree, 8 June 2008.

5. Locust borer damage done on grown sucker of above tree, 9 July 2012.

6. Damaged black locust tree blooming, 12 May 2012.

7. Insect on same goldenrod patch, 4 August 2012, either a hornet or a locust borer or something else. I’m not an entomologist, but I thought it was a hornet at the time.


8. Black locusts growing down the road that have been able to get tall, 3 May 2012. The one has been trimmed on the left; since it’s in an open field with no utility lines, I assume the branches died from something.