Ready to Pop
Hanging By A Thread
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
Monday, August 6, 2012
The Wild Time
By this time of year the battle feels like it is over. Fatigue sets in. Weeding seems pointless. The wild things have won and will now have their way. Many of the wild things are desirable like the Boneset and this unidentified species of Goldenrod.
There are at least four Goldenrods up here, maybe more, some more desirable than others. This one by the front porch I don't recognize as being common. It seems new. Maybe I just haven't looked close enough. I like it better than the more common one though. I can always weed my way to the preferred species.
Maybe there will be more spurts of weeding before it is all over just to stop the unwanted from setting seed, but you can see it is a major editorial task. I can also see my efforts have already made a difference. The face of a tall flower meadow is changing.
But there is a lot of ground to cover. A large dose of gardening insanity says it just may be possible to drastically alter the species composition of what will largely remain wild.
I hear a voice that says tend to the baby shrubberies, open the paths one more time, but just let it be. Let it finish the summer the way it wants to.
I have more civilized areas to keep weeded and a basement patio that needs to be re-civilized. There are no shortage of chores. I could let the garden becoming just be until spring.
I could, but what are the chances of that happening?
There are at least four Goldenrods up here, maybe more, some more desirable than others. This one by the front porch I don't recognize as being common. It seems new. Maybe I just haven't looked close enough. I like it better than the more common one though. I can always weed my way to the preferred species.
Maybe there will be more spurts of weeding before it is all over just to stop the unwanted from setting seed, but you can see it is a major editorial task. I can also see my efforts have already made a difference. The face of a tall flower meadow is changing.
But there is a lot of ground to cover. A large dose of gardening insanity says it just may be possible to drastically alter the species composition of what will largely remain wild.
I hear a voice that says tend to the baby shrubberies, open the paths one more time, but just let it be. Let it finish the summer the way it wants to.
I have more civilized areas to keep weeded and a basement patio that needs to be re-civilized. There are no shortage of chores. I could let the garden becoming just be until spring.
I could, but what are the chances of that happening?
Sunday, August 5, 2012
Looking Into The Future
I had a leisurely morning in the roadside vegetable garden digging potatoes and carrots and seeding lettuce, radish, kale, cucumbers and sweet potato squash. When I delivered my harvest to the chef this evening she said I was overwhelming her and she was going to make a visit to the Open Door soup kitchen. See what happened when I evicted the sunflowers from the roadside vegetable garden.
I know the freezers are close to full with peppers and zucchini soup, probably some tomatoes too. I plan to start picking green beans soon.
I really need to relearn how to cook. My chef is not all that adventurous. She says after 56 years the thrill is gone.
I grow the food. I harvest the food. I wash the food. I eat the food. Then I wash the dishes and cleanup the kitchen after. I don't want to cook it too. This will have to do for now. I need that leisurely morning. I am at the point with work kind work where the next potential client that approaches me the answer really should be no.
I had a leisurely afternoon deep in the forest. I went to harvest seed of the plant that dare not speak its name. Last year the varmints got all the seed. This year I was going to beat them to it. Not. The varmints got to them first. I got about a dozen green seeds.
It was like looking for a needle in a haystack. I imagine most of them had already gone dormant, but I finally found a few seedling plants. All I wanted was the leaf to compare them to what I thought were seedlings of the plant that dare not speak its name where I have been seeding them within easy shotgun distance from the front porch. I decided to dig them instead, fearing if I broke off the leaf it might kill them. Better to transplant them.
Yes I do believe the seeds I have been planting are germinating. The process takes two years and nature is found of repeating the same form in numerous plants. They look identical. I also saw the turkeys had been through my seedling area doing a heavy scratch and peck. Damn varmints!
Well it will be another decade plus before I will need to supplement my meager gubmnit check by selling mountain medicinals at the roadside possum stand. It takes a decade for the plant that dare not speak its name to reach a harvestable size. And it's no wonder they are so rare. The germination rate in the wild must be pitiful. The varmints eat all the seeds. I saw a deer deep in the forest while I was back there. It was not happy and kept barking at me.
These little seedling are two, possibly three years old.
In another decade the plant and floral display should be so extravagant that the plain green leaves that look like so many other things of the plant that dare not speak its name will hopefully go unnoticed. They are not being planted in a part of the garden I plan to cultivate anyway. It's in a nice part of the forest where I may do a little tidying and want to put a tea house/shotgun firing platform/meditation pavilion.
I'm on the ten year plan. I must keep reminding myself of that. A plant that takes that long to grow from seed is a good reminder.
I know the freezers are close to full with peppers and zucchini soup, probably some tomatoes too. I plan to start picking green beans soon.
I really need to relearn how to cook. My chef is not all that adventurous. She says after 56 years the thrill is gone.
I grow the food. I harvest the food. I wash the food. I eat the food. Then I wash the dishes and cleanup the kitchen after. I don't want to cook it too. This will have to do for now. I need that leisurely morning. I am at the point with work kind work where the next potential client that approaches me the answer really should be no.
I had a leisurely afternoon deep in the forest. I went to harvest seed of the plant that dare not speak its name. Last year the varmints got all the seed. This year I was going to beat them to it. Not. The varmints got to them first. I got about a dozen green seeds.
It was like looking for a needle in a haystack. I imagine most of them had already gone dormant, but I finally found a few seedling plants. All I wanted was the leaf to compare them to what I thought were seedlings of the plant that dare not speak its name where I have been seeding them within easy shotgun distance from the front porch. I decided to dig them instead, fearing if I broke off the leaf it might kill them. Better to transplant them.
Yes I do believe the seeds I have been planting are germinating. The process takes two years and nature is found of repeating the same form in numerous plants. They look identical. I also saw the turkeys had been through my seedling area doing a heavy scratch and peck. Damn varmints!
Well it will be another decade plus before I will need to supplement my meager gubmnit check by selling mountain medicinals at the roadside possum stand. It takes a decade for the plant that dare not speak its name to reach a harvestable size. And it's no wonder they are so rare. The germination rate in the wild must be pitiful. The varmints eat all the seeds. I saw a deer deep in the forest while I was back there. It was not happy and kept barking at me.
These little seedling are two, possibly three years old.
In another decade the plant and floral display should be so extravagant that the plain green leaves that look like so many other things of the plant that dare not speak its name will hopefully go unnoticed. They are not being planted in a part of the garden I plan to cultivate anyway. It's in a nice part of the forest where I may do a little tidying and want to put a tea house/shotgun firing platform/meditation pavilion.
I'm on the ten year plan. I must keep reminding myself of that. A plant that takes that long to grow from seed is a good reminder.
Saturday, August 4, 2012
Chicory Chop
A butterfly on Joe Pye
It was still blooming blue, but the tall old stems were turning brown. All the chicory got chopped down.
I might get a shorter in height brief re-bloom with the chicory, but the main idea was to clean out this bed for the fall showing of the grasses and the Sheffie Mum. In these parts gardening has a more demanding seasonal clock.
The Japanese Blood Grass has grown more in three months since I moved it to a wet spot than it did in all the previous four years combined when it was planted on a steep dry slope. We'll just see if it can out compete my weeds. The Ground Ivy, Glechoma hederacea is no slouch in the competition game.
All my weeds seem to be thuggish by nature.
So imagine the effort it will take to organize my chaos into some semblance of a garden overflowing with color from spring to fall. Add good things. Subtract annoying things. Create large drifts. Accept that mingling will occur and plants will move about with and without my help.
I think the key to this chaos is going to be respectable paths that lead you on to discovery.
Like a butterfly on Joe Pye
It was still blooming blue, but the tall old stems were turning brown. All the chicory got chopped down.
I might get a shorter in height brief re-bloom with the chicory, but the main idea was to clean out this bed for the fall showing of the grasses and the Sheffie Mum. In these parts gardening has a more demanding seasonal clock.
The Japanese Blood Grass has grown more in three months since I moved it to a wet spot than it did in all the previous four years combined when it was planted on a steep dry slope. We'll just see if it can out compete my weeds. The Ground Ivy, Glechoma hederacea is no slouch in the competition game.
All my weeds seem to be thuggish by nature.
So imagine the effort it will take to organize my chaos into some semblance of a garden overflowing with color from spring to fall. Add good things. Subtract annoying things. Create large drifts. Accept that mingling will occur and plants will move about with and without my help.
I think the key to this chaos is going to be respectable paths that lead you on to discovery.
Like a butterfly on Joe Pye
Friday, August 3, 2012
Joe Pye After A Downpour
I can't complain about the rain too much. Rain is good and our supply of it has been ample. It has been coming more often than not in one and two inch increments in an hours time though.Gully washers are the norm. I can't tell you how many tiny streams and storm drain channels I have seen gully washed and scoured clean. At least these downpours don't take up the whole day and my work is not affected much
There is a lot of annoying perennial floppage going on from these heavy rains. Joe Pye at least continues to stand tall.
Tuberose blooms on the porch. A summer tall flower meadow that can use larger drifts of color takes shape behind it. Joe Pye is seeding abundantly, just not where I want them. Everything wants to flow down hill. I want Joe Pye uphill. Joe will have to be transplanted up there at some point.
But tomorrow I think I will dead head the chicory. It is done with the major bloom for the year. The roadside bed needs to be readied for the fall showing of the Sheffie Mum and Pink Muhly.
There is a lot of annoying perennial floppage going on from these heavy rains. Joe Pye at least continues to stand tall.
Tuberose blooms on the porch. A summer tall flower meadow that can use larger drifts of color takes shape behind it. Joe Pye is seeding abundantly, just not where I want them. Everything wants to flow down hill. I want Joe Pye uphill. Joe will have to be transplanted up there at some point.
But tomorrow I think I will dead head the chicory. It is done with the major bloom for the year. The roadside bed needs to be readied for the fall showing of the Sheffie Mum and Pink Muhly.
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Rose Rosette In Haywood County, NC
The roses at the posh estate where I work have always looked bad. They were always having aberrant leaf drop and many had disfigured new growth. I thought they were being sprayed to death. The symptoms looked like a phytotoxic chemical burn to me. I fussed at them for spraying too much.
When Dee at Red Dirt Ramblings posted about Rose Rosette disease a couple of times it caught my attention and made me wonder. I started looking closer and did some more reading. It didn't look good for the roses at the posh estate.
The wild multiflora rose is a dominant species in the forests of NC. The woods around the posh estate are choke full of them. I started looking closely at them and wasn't finding any symptoms. Then the lawn mower dude told me he read about a rose disease in the paper and had seen some weird looking wild roses on the property. He pointed them out. Oh crap! Rose Rosette was definitely present in the wild roses.
A large number of the cultivated roses at the posh estate are infected with Rose Rosette. There was no longer any doubt.
I had been watching a hillside of shrub roses looking like crap and slowly dying in a neighborhood on the opposite side of Waynesville all season.. Today I was next door and stopped to have a closer look. All the pictures here are from that one planting. They are in the advanced stages of Rose Rosette and are being decimated by the disease.
Rose Rosette disease is in Haywood County, NC big time. I doubt most people even know what it is at this point. This planting is well on its way to being dead. On another slope on this same property all the roses were already completely dead.
I have five clients in this neighborhood with roses in their gardens. I have very bad news for them. I have worse news for the posh estate. They are already infected.
I'd say landscape roses are soon to be toast in these parts.
The sweet pea Cupani was enjoyable. Let's have another look at that. It survived a pretty intense aphid attack. I kept ignoring it. One day I saw a lady bug there. Two days later all the aphids were gone. A couple torrential downpours may have helped too.
The hemlocks are gone. Roses may soon follow. It's a bit scary, but gardeners will adapt. The gardening must go on.
When Dee at Red Dirt Ramblings posted about Rose Rosette disease a couple of times it caught my attention and made me wonder. I started looking closer and did some more reading. It didn't look good for the roses at the posh estate.
The wild multiflora rose is a dominant species in the forests of NC. The woods around the posh estate are choke full of them. I started looking closely at them and wasn't finding any symptoms. Then the lawn mower dude told me he read about a rose disease in the paper and had seen some weird looking wild roses on the property. He pointed them out. Oh crap! Rose Rosette was definitely present in the wild roses.
A large number of the cultivated roses at the posh estate are infected with Rose Rosette. There was no longer any doubt.
I had been watching a hillside of shrub roses looking like crap and slowly dying in a neighborhood on the opposite side of Waynesville all season.. Today I was next door and stopped to have a closer look. All the pictures here are from that one planting. They are in the advanced stages of Rose Rosette and are being decimated by the disease.
Rose Rosette disease is in Haywood County, NC big time. I doubt most people even know what it is at this point. This planting is well on its way to being dead. On another slope on this same property all the roses were already completely dead.
I have five clients in this neighborhood with roses in their gardens. I have very bad news for them. I have worse news for the posh estate. They are already infected.
I'd say landscape roses are soon to be toast in these parts.
The sweet pea Cupani was enjoyable. Let's have another look at that. It survived a pretty intense aphid attack. I kept ignoring it. One day I saw a lady bug there. Two days later all the aphids were gone. A couple torrential downpours may have helped too.
The hemlocks are gone. Roses may soon follow. It's a bit scary, but gardeners will adapt. The gardening must go on.
It Takes Me Away
There is a single form tuberose blooming on my front porch right now. They also come in a double petaled form. The scent is intoxicating. I inhale and am transformed back to Maui, a lei around my neck. I can detect a faint scent of the ocean and feel the cool trade wind breezes. It takes me away. Thanks Deb.
Just off the front porch the hibiscus have started to bloom. Two decades of memories wash over me like an incoming tide.
The scent of a flower has unusual powers.
Just off the front porch the hibiscus have started to bloom. Two decades of memories wash over me like an incoming tide.
The scent of a flower has unusual powers.
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Fishing For Outrage*
My anonymous interlocutor in the sticky glue trap mess has been as busy as the vermin forever trying to gnaw their way into my house. No one had expressed the proper rage about my devilish behavior in the original post, so by god, it was their duty to have some delivered.
It started in a 4chan.org forum on Saturday, July 28th. No one replied or commented to the post there and it has already scrolled off 10 pages of posts. It took me some time to figure out how that forum worked.
Well that wasn't satisfying enough even though foul comments had begun to arrive at my blog post from there. Next a post was made at the Dragon Cave forum. The post there only generated one comment and is now on page 10. What does a person have to do to get people outraged? By then I had switched commenting to moderation to screen out the filth.
My second post on this sticky wicket on the 29th in which I attempted to set some guidelines coincided with a third posting in a third forum under a third name by my determined interlocutor. Finally, at StarDestoyer.Net a conversation on my evil ways took off. This forum says it is the place to get your fill of sci-fi, science, and "mockery of stupid people." Well I can't fault them for that. Often, much to my dismay, I find myself mocking stupid people.
Sadly, by the second page the conversation at StarDestoyer.net took a turn into philosophical babble. The outrage dissipated. My poor interlocutor.
Sitemeter was having a meltdown on Sunday while all this was happening so it was hard to track where all this was coming from. I feel confident though that the vermin lover is in Australia.
By the end of Monday the 30th the righteous indignation was petering out. I was tiring of the whole thing and set new comment guidelines. My interlocutor sputtered and whined under a new anonymous name. In reality not many more indignant comments were even coming in.
Tuesday the 31st only brought in a few anonymous profanities, nothing of substance like I had asked for. My poor interlocutor.
Not a single one of these people who felt the need to castigate me had the balls to leave a link to their real online identities. They scurry around in the dark crevices and caves of the world wide web, places I have never been, like so much vermin, afraid to show their true faces. Their behavior towards me is so acceptable, their righteous indignation so superior that they will anonymously stand by their right to rage.
I do have to wonder too how many of these anonymous were actually the same person.
Hey you in Australia, you feel so strongly about this, why can't you tell us who you are?
Or are you "a true coward"?
This morning I woke to see post number four in a fourth forum was bringing traffic to view the sad plight of vermin at the hands of a monster. Same interlocutor, fourth forum, fourth name being used. The Big Footy forum is in Melbourne Australia. It looks like it is for soccer fans, but a nice conversation was started on my lack of empathy for vermin.
Obviously something needs to be done. It is time for a Mini Mouse Auschwitz. If I am going to add killing to the process it will need to have factory like efficiency. It just so happens I got two more mice in my truck last night. One was already dead. The other one was only half stuck, so I made a Sticky Mouse sandwich to secure it in place and headed to the factory.
I give you the Killing Pool. Happy now?
* Real live mice were executed for this blog post.
And I still don't give a rat's ass about how they feel.
It started in a 4chan.org forum on Saturday, July 28th. No one replied or commented to the post there and it has already scrolled off 10 pages of posts. It took me some time to figure out how that forum worked.
Well that wasn't satisfying enough even though foul comments had begun to arrive at my blog post from there. Next a post was made at the Dragon Cave forum. The post there only generated one comment and is now on page 10. What does a person have to do to get people outraged? By then I had switched commenting to moderation to screen out the filth.
My second post on this sticky wicket on the 29th in which I attempted to set some guidelines coincided with a third posting in a third forum under a third name by my determined interlocutor. Finally, at StarDestoyer.Net a conversation on my evil ways took off. This forum says it is the place to get your fill of sci-fi, science, and "mockery of stupid people." Well I can't fault them for that. Often, much to my dismay, I find myself mocking stupid people.
Sadly, by the second page the conversation at StarDestoyer.net took a turn into philosophical babble. The outrage dissipated. My poor interlocutor.
Sitemeter was having a meltdown on Sunday while all this was happening so it was hard to track where all this was coming from. I feel confident though that the vermin lover is in Australia.
By the end of Monday the 30th the righteous indignation was petering out. I was tiring of the whole thing and set new comment guidelines. My interlocutor sputtered and whined under a new anonymous name. In reality not many more indignant comments were even coming in.
Tuesday the 31st only brought in a few anonymous profanities, nothing of substance like I had asked for. My poor interlocutor.
Not a single one of these people who felt the need to castigate me had the balls to leave a link to their real online identities. They scurry around in the dark crevices and caves of the world wide web, places I have never been, like so much vermin, afraid to show their true faces. Their behavior towards me is so acceptable, their righteous indignation so superior that they will anonymously stand by their right to rage.
I do have to wonder too how many of these anonymous were actually the same person.
Hey you in Australia, you feel so strongly about this, why can't you tell us who you are?
Or are you "a true coward"?
This morning I woke to see post number four in a fourth forum was bringing traffic to view the sad plight of vermin at the hands of a monster. Same interlocutor, fourth forum, fourth name being used. The Big Footy forum is in Melbourne Australia. It looks like it is for soccer fans, but a nice conversation was started on my lack of empathy for vermin.
Obviously something needs to be done. It is time for a Mini Mouse Auschwitz. If I am going to add killing to the process it will need to have factory like efficiency. It just so happens I got two more mice in my truck last night. One was already dead. The other one was only half stuck, so I made a Sticky Mouse sandwich to secure it in place and headed to the factory.
I give you the Killing Pool. Happy now?
* Real live mice were executed for this blog post.
And I still don't give a rat's ass about how they feel.
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