Sorry for the blog inactivity

Sorry about being inactive in responding to comments and posting for the last couple of weeks….I had to make a last minute trip to visit family and haven’t had regular Internet access. I’ll be back in Rhode Island in the next couple of days and will make a longer post then.

May is not New England’s best month, so it’s a good time to be gone. I’m enjoying the sunny, 70-80 degree days, completely green trees, and flowers in full May bloom here in NC. (Although yesterday we had a uniquely Southern hailstorm and a tornado touched down 5 miles away!) When I’m back in Rhode Island I’ll start planting my new garden plot and write a longer update.

Take care all!!

Plot 94

I’m so excited because over the weekend I was offered a plot in a local community garden. I was waitlisted at three gardens and had pretty much given up hope of getting a plot this late in the game. But it turned out there were some openings at Foxpoint Community Garden, so I showed up this morning, plunked down $25 and claimed Plot 94, the most beautiful 8 ‘ x 4′ -ish patch of dirt that you ever did see.

Happy Earth Day, Mother Earth

Oh, mother earth,
With your fields of green
Once more laid down by the hungry hand
How long can you give and not receive
And feed this world ruled by greed

Oh, ball of fire
In the summer sky
Your healing light, your parade of days
Are they betrayed by the men of power
Who hold this world in their changing hands

Oh, freedom land
Can you let this go
Down to the streets where the numbers grow
Respect mother earth and her giving ways
Or trade away our children’s days

Credits

• Mother Earth (Natural Anthem), copyright Neil Young, 1990
  
• Image courtesy of NASA.

Native & invasive ornamental grasses

Landscaping and gardening with ornamental grasses is hot. Ornamental grasses provide home gardens with nesting sites, food, and cover for birds and other animals; pleasing and unusual texture and dimensionality; and garden interest in all four seasons. Some varieties can be used to plant lawns that require less mowing and water.

Global warming legacy???

I’ve been trying not to blog about politics but every now and then I succumb to the odd irresistible headline. Today’s NYT science blog, Dot Earth, headlines with this jewel that nearly made me choke on my tea: “President Appears to Seek a Warming Legacy.” (registration might be required for the NYT.)

Wait, wait….as in GLOBAL warming? Doesn’t he already have a global warming legacy? As the president who approached global warming discussions with hostility and distrust, as the world leader who backed out of the Kyoto Protocol, as the president who forced his government agencies to suppress science supporting climate change, as the president who said in a 2002 speech in Trenton, New Jersey: “We need an energy bill that encourages consumption” ?

THAT global warming legacy? Har har har HAR!!! I guess he’s gotten worried that his “Iraq legacy” isn’t looking so good so he’s going to try to be remembered for a positive “global warming legacy,” if that’s possible with less than a year left in his tenure. God help us all!!

EFG Most Wanted: Queen of the Prairie

There’s something I love about Queen of the Prairie (Filipendula rubra), but I can’t quite put my finger on it. An often wild and unruly-looking member of the Rosaceae (rose) family, the Queen has airy pink sprays reminiscent of cotton candy and ferny-looking leaves. The native North American plant can be found throughout eastern Canada, the northeastern and central US, and as far south as North Carolina and Missouri.

Skunk cabbage

Skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus) is staring to leafing out in wetland areas so I know that spring is really here. Pretty soon, the ground in swampy areas will go from brown to green almost overnight as the skunk cabbage leaves unfurl.

Skunk cabbage leaves are pretty cool–big & wide, deeply veinated–but it’s the blooms that get most of the attention. It’s the first plant to flower in many areas. Skunk cabbage blooms before it leafs, as early as February even in cold areas. Its dark red spathe covers its spadix like a hood, similar to a jack-in-the-pulpit.

Tree of the month: sugar maple (Acer saccharum)

Though I technically missed March, my tree of the month for March is the sugar maple (Acer saccharum). March is maple sugaring month here in New England–maple syrup being one of the main reasons that the sugar maple is worthy of being named tree of the month.

Seed & plant finding tool from Mother Earth News

I just learned about the Plant and Seed Finder from Mother Earth News. It’s a Google-based search tool for 150+ online plant and seed catalogs–simply type in the specific name of the plant or seed you’re looking for and you can quickly find all the different online suppliers. Very handy indeed this time of year.

Finally, spring

Happy spring!

I’m in North Carolina visiting family, so please excuse these short posts.  More regular blogging by the end of March.

Variegated leaf porn

Whenever I put the word “porn” on my blog I get lots of hits. I need all the help I can get, so as a sort of follow-up to my post on the science behind variegated leaves, here’s some variegated leaf porn from Roger Williams Park Botanical Conservancy in Providence.

Science lesson: variegation

Variegation is when plant foliage, stems, or flowers have more than one color. It’s most often found in leaves. The most common leaf variegation colors are white, cream and yellow, but there are many others, including pinks and purples.

Cats can also be variegated, but I’ll leave that phenomena for the pet bloggers to explain.

Caterpillar food plants

I’ve been reading a bit lately about butterflies and how to attract them to your yard and garden. It’s important to plant flowers whose nectar attract butterflies, but don’t forget the larvae (caterpillars). Many butterfly (and moth) caterpillars only eat specific plants. The best known example is the monarch butterfly caterpillar, which eats only the sap from Asclepias species, or milkweeds, including butterfly weed (A. tuberosa) and swamp milkweed (A. incarnata).

(Author’s note: At this point let me acknowledge that it is a cheap ploy on my part to publish butterfly photos with this post. I should be posting caterpillar photos, but really….who wants to see those.)

Second incarnation

Remember how I was making fun of the amaryllis’s puny leaves? Look at them now that the blooms are gone….which, by the way, was kind of depressing to watch. As Curt put it, the flowers were really beautiful but they died a horrible death.

Now, however, I feel like the amaryllis is in its second incarnation. A little more boring, perhaps, than when it was in all its finery, but still inspiring as winter ever so s-l-o-o-o-o-w-l-y creeps to a close.

My favorite gardening tool, the soil knife

I was thinking about garden tools because as part of your blogger profile, Blotanical asks about your favorites when you sign up. This made me think about how much I really do love my soil knife.

I’m not doing an advertisement for anyone, so I won’t say the brand, though you can probably see the logo if you have good eyes. I think that everyone who isn’t using an old steak knife probably has this same tool!