Digging RI

In one of my posts after Tropical Storm Irene, I included photos of my smashed garden. The plants did look pretty sad, so a few days ago, I went in there with my sleeves rolled up, prepared to yank out the dead stuff.

New growth emerging

I was just about to pull the beaten-up morning glories.  I actually had my hand on a stem and I was starting to pull… when I took the trouble to look at what I was pulling. Lo and behold, there were new leaves sprouting all up and down the stem! So I apologized and moved on.

Another survivor

The zinnias took quite a beating, and the foliage is admittedly quite yucky, but how can I pull out something with a flower like this? They’re staying.

Echinacea "Virgin"

This echinacea “Virgin” is a tough little plant – in my humble opinion, a vast improvement over “White Swan.”  The flower is slightly tattered, but it’s still a flower, and there are more to come.

Rudbeckia "Henry Eilers"

And my new rudbeckia “Henry Eilers” is coming back beautifully. As with the other perennials, I cut off the dead stems and staked it. It looks a bit weary, but it’s covered with new flowers.

Verbena bonariensis

And the verbena bonariensis, on the windward side of our house, was completely covered in salt spray. Now, there are new flowers emerging from what I assumed were dead stems.

If there are lessons to be learned here, they are:  patience – something we gardeners do not always have enough of – and looking carefully at your plants to see what’s really going on. It took about a week for the plants to show signs of revival, but a revival it definitely is.

That giant thing behind the feeder is a neighbor's burning bush. It has since been removed.

Some of you may have already heard the earth-shattering news: a plant scientist at the University of Connecticut has come up with a non-invasive Euonymus, aka “Burning Bush.”

OK, I get the part about how great it is that this new euonymous will be sterile, solving the problem the previous cultivar had, namely producing thousands of seeds that germinated, grew, and crowded out other plants.

The article I read put the total annual sales of the nasty invasive Euonymus alatus at $38 million. They don’t even sell it in NH and MA. People just looooove that red fall color, but they usually don’t bother to keep it in check, resulting in the monster in the photo above.

If the new sterile cultivar sells, UConn and Dr. Yi Li, the scientist who developed it, stand to make a bundle, since they hold the patent.

As I have evolved as a gardener,  I have come to the point where I am trying not to plant shrubs that just look nice and don’t provide anything to wildlife or pollinators. You won’t see me buying one – even the non invasive cultivar –  anytime soon.

A deer tick, just waiting to make you very sick indeed.

Rhode Island is about as close to the Lyme disease epicenter as you can get, just a short drive from Lyme CT. Unlike doctors in other parts of the country who dither for months before zeroing in on Lyme, doctors here have become very adept at diagnosing it, simply because it is so common. Lyme disease is transmitted by the deer tick, Ixodes scapularis. In early summer, when they are in the nymphal stage, they’re  so small it’s ridiculous – the size of poppy seeds.

We gardeners are particularly susceptible, of course, and no matter how thoroughly you check yourself after you’ve been working outdoors, you can still wind up with the disease without seeing a single tick or even the signature “bulls eye rash.”

Lately, cases of another scary tick-borne disease, babesiosis, have become much more prevalent. Babesiosis can be a lot more serious than Lyme Disease, especially in people with weakened immune systems.

So it’s agreed, then, that ticks are a huge drag on every level, and we should do our utmost to keep them from biting us. One tick control product I like (and no, they’re not paying me to write this) is the Damminix “Tick Tube,” because it doesn’t involve spraying your property with chemicals, and it precisely targets the source of the problem – mice. Ticks do not get the Lyme disease they in turn transmit to us  from deer. They get it from mice.

The tube system is simple. Cotton which has been treated with the tick killer, permethrin, is stuffed into cardboard tubes. The tubes are placed around the yard, in places where mice like to hang out – like stone walls. The mice grab the cotton and take it back to their nests. The permethrin gets on their fur and ticks that bite them are killed.

24 tubes, enough to protect about half an acre, cost just under $80. This system doesn’t harm the mice, or any other animals or birds in your yard, but it kills ticks. I like this concept.

For all things “tick,” the University of Rhode Island’s TickEncounter Resource Center has lots of great, up-to-the-minute information on ticks, the diseases they cause, where ticks are most numerous, and even  their life stages at any given time. The Center’s website also has plenty of advice on how you can protect your family, including your pets.

The one thing I must disagree with the Resource Centre on, however, it its endorsement of “Frontline.” I used it for years on my dog with increasingly diminishing results, until she got a massive flea infestation, just a week after a Frontline application! It just wasn’t working anymore. I talked to the vet about it, and she said that both ticks and fleas were rapidly developing an immunity to chemicals in this product.

So what could I do? Well, given that my dog was old, and I really didn’t want to be applying chemicals to her anyway, I just stopped using Frontline, and guess what? She’s had far fewer ticks this year that she ever had when I used the product. No fleas either.

The curled, crispy leaves of this Japanese maple are ready to fall.

Our power came back on Thursday evening. We were without electricity for five days.  I am only now beginning to realize how stressed out I was last week. I had to work from assorted cafe’s, shop every day for our supper (I know they do this in other countries and it’s no big deal) and remember to buy fresh ice every night to keep our stuff cold in its little coolers.

Evenings were spent sitting outside hoping the neighbors would turn off their incredibly noisy generator soon, enjoying the rare darkness, or reading while wearing a battery powered headlamp. There was extensive cell phone use, and accompanying  neurosis about running down the battery and when and where I’d be able to charge it again.

The leaves of many of the trees around here have turned brown and crispy and have simply fallen. I think the salt blown onto them by the high winds is the main culprit. The conifers are showing some yellowing on their windward sides as well. The trees will be fine, of course, but this year’s fall color – not so much.

The neighbor's Norway maple dropped almost all its leaves.

After spending many hours cleaning fridges and freezers (YUCK) I am going to just relax for a few hours,  listen to the crickets, and send positive thoughts to those people in Vermont and elsewhere who endured such horrendous flooding. All in all, we came through it just fine.

Yes, we are still without power, so I am once again writing from a cafe in town.

I had a chance to take some photos of my post-hurricane garden, and I am sharing them with you. What’s most interesting about this experience is seeing which plants survived and which ones didn’t. This depended a lot on where they were planted, but it also depended on plant type. The fleshy ones seemed to be more vulnerable.

Can you ID this plant? It's morning glory, pulverized by the wind.

And here’s my Joe Pye weed – flattened.

Joe Pye Weed is now Joe "Bye" weed

The Tithonia is barely recognizable, but it still might bloom.

Now for the good news:

The zinnias weren't completely destroyed.

The eggplants are OK, too.

And finally, the tomatoes. Before the storm, I pulled all of them out, along with their stakes, except for a single plant – “Great White.” This I allowed to sprawl naturally, as a kind of experiment. Check out the photo below. Maybe I should have done this with all my tomatoes…

My "Miracle Plant"

I must get into the garden this weekend and do a clean-up. I guess I’ll plant some carrots where the beans used to be.

The fire department came to pass out evacuation notices.

As many of you know, we live on the south coast of Rhode Island, not directly on the ocean, but close enough – close enough to have received a mandatory evacuation notice for hurricane Irene.

We, and most of our neighbors decided to stay. If it had been a category 2 or higher, we would have left. Anyway, as I write this early Sunday morning, Irene has arrived. I took my dog out, hoping to avoid the bad stuff that’s coming, but already it is so windy that she was nearly blown over.

We dismantled the birdbath, too.

Yesterday, I took out all stakes and garden supports that would become projectiles. That meant more or less destroying the tomatoes and the beans are history. I picked everything that was remotely ripe and brought it inside. I guess the bright side is I’ll have less clean-up to do in the fall.

Not much left of the vegetable garden. Note how dark it is - in the morning!

My beautiful Joe Pye weed, the helenium and the sunflowers that looked so great yesterday are already being smashed. And forget the zinnias. I cut two giant bouquets yesterday knowing they would probably be my last.

So much for the perennials

I had to take down the hummingbird feeders, of course, and this morning there was one desperately looking for food. I put up one in the most sheltered part of the deck area, but I can see it blowing around and I’ll probably have to take it down soon.

The salt pond is already looking like a giant lake. The timing of the tide isn’t helping either.

The salt pond will likely be breached today. The open ocean is just on the other side.

I guess the most important thing now is to have all our emergency supplies ready and be thankful we are safe.

It sure is dark right now, though — as dark as night.

Update: 10 am

Windier now. The salt pond is churning with whitecaps. We still have power, though – for now.

I have left the one hummingbird feeder up on the lee side of the house and believe it or not, they’re feeding!

Tough little thing

Update Sunday, 8 pm: The hummingbirds continued to feed until about 7:30. After watching them today, I respect them even more.  The wind is still screaming and whistling, and I am sick to death of listening to it. We have been without power since this morning and we may not get it back for days. Our land line phone is now officially out. I’ve been thinking about our thin veneer of civilization, and our little tech toys and how pathetic they are in the face of nature.

I will try to post tomorrow, but it will depend on my “tech toys” and whether I can keep them charged and running. I promise to stay in touch as best I can.

I made a stir fry on my camp stove tonight and it was delicious.

Update: Tuesday, 8:30 am: Sitting in a cafe in town, trying to charge all the gadgets at once. Still no power at home. Last night, I cooked rapidly thawing steaks on our charcoal grill, with the eggplant I picked from my garden before the storm. It was a delicious dinner, and we ate outside, enjoying the sight of our neighborhood in complete darkness. No annoying streetlights to interfere with the stars! This morning, I made coffee on our camp stove.

I have never seen as many hummingbirds as I had at the feeders Monday morning. They were swarming! I still can’t believe they continued to feed throughout the storm. They are so hardcore.

The Quonset Business Park

Once again, the so-called “authorities” are doing something unbelievably short sighted and stupid. Rhode Island is home to the Quonset Business Park, which has so far enjoyed some success, particularly as a port for the transport of cars.

Until recently Quonset also boasted about 400 acres of forested, mostly public land. But then someone decided the park would be so much more attractive to prospective businesses if they clear-cut the whole shootin’ match and replaced it with grassy  “pads” and those pathetic little trees that landscaping companies always plant badly and end up dying.

Was there any permit required to destroy hundreds of mature trees? Nope. Does the state of Rhode Island even have a forest conservation plan? No. Is there any guarantee that once all those trees are gone and replaced by grassy “pads” that businesses will rush to set up shop there?  Of course not, especially in the current economic climate.

So this tiny state has lost yet more precious forest – carbon-absorbing forest – and a few tree cutters made some money.

Does anyone care about a few hundred trees? I do.

For more on this latest environmental travesty, click here.

Editor’s note: We are standing by awaiting the arrival of Hurricane Irene. If you don’t see new content early next week, it’s because we had to evacuate. I will try my best to keep you all posted, and wish me luck!

Last week, my collaborator, “partner in crime,” and friend, HerbDoc, had a serious stroke. We were all pretty worried for a while, but she has now gone home to continue her tough road to recovery. That’s very good news, but  it’ll be a while before her interesting and informative posts grace this blog again.

As my fellow bloggers know, it’s not always easy finding stuff to write about. I don’t want to let my readers down by publishing too infrequently,  but I don’t want to bore them with drivel, either. HerbDoc’s posts are always so interesting and fun. I especially love her musings on the animals and birds that visit her garden. And of course, as her tag implies, she knows a great deal about herbs, and shares that knowledge freely on this blog.

I am assuming she’ll be back writing with me, sooner rather than later. I hope those of you who have enjoyed her contributions will join me in sending her healing vibes in whatever form you choose.

Get well soon, Kathy! I miss you already.

HerbDoc's Ligularia "Bigleaf Goldenray"

Here’s HerbDoc with a plant suggestion for that shady spot:

Ligularia is a handsome plant which is cultivated for its showy flower heads and in some cases, for its variegated foliage.  This is another one of those swap plants which I couldn’t resist and have come to love.

One plant has huge kidney shaped leaves which remind me of pond lilies; the other has the same shaped leaves but they are half the size.  Leaves are alternate and long stalked.  The flower heads are arranged in racemes with the rays being yellow and strap shaped.

These plants are easy to grow in a cool, shaded, moist garden.  I noted that even with plenty of moisture and shade that the plants appear to wilt when the temperatures climb into the high 80’s or above.  They recover quickly in the late afternoon however.

Ligularia is truly a stunning plant whether it’s in bloom or not.  Try one in a shaded spot in your garden; you won’t regret it.

Editor’s note: I love the impact of the dark purple foliage of the cultivar “Britt Marie Crawford.” Some gardeners cut off the yellow flowers when they appear so they don’t detract from those gorgeous leaves. Make sure to give this plant plenty of room because it’s kind of wide.

Kind of scary!

When I was in Maine visiting the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, there was an ecological market taking place on the grounds. I happened upon a stand run by a woman who makes wonderful soap, including the one in the photo above, which is especially for gardeners. Deb Robbins took a loofa and simply filled it with soap. The result is a terrific (and weirdly cool-looking) way to wash your grimy hands.

Deb makes other soaps, too, under the name of Dr. Dandelion. She says the only animal she tests her products on is her dog, Bea, when she gives her a bath using her olive oil soap. Another thing to like about this product!

I have a thing for natural, “artisan” soaps, so I bought a few bars to take home. I love how they look, too – kind of like maple fudge, don’t you think?

If you’re interested in finding out more, click here.

Yum!