Each Little World

Caging season

Last fall, my gardening friend, Ruth, and I visited Ken Nordlund's beautiful garden. We bombarded Ken with questions, including wanting to know how he kept rabbits out of his mostly unfenced garden. His plants did not appear to have been randomly munched as in my garden.

He took us inside his garage to show us his plant cages. While I was spending lots of time hooking cut edges of wire together to make round cages, Ken slipped a pair of bamboo stakes through the coasted material he used to bind his cages together. Then he pushed the stakes into the ground. When he didn't need the cages, he flattened them and piled them up in the garage. 

Ruth and I both went right out looking for material similar to Ken's. I bought a small roll of plastic poultry netting. I already had a stack of old bamboo stakes. As it was the end of the season, I didn't make any cages with this new material last fall. When I discovered rabbits had already munched on the emerging foliage of a trio of Viola 'Irish Elegance,' I grabbed my green netting and went to work over the weekend. 

The net is 2' wide and I cut it in half as that's much taller than I generally need. The cut edges are still sharp but I put that end on the ground, since most of the cages had a smooth edge as well. 

I made five cages in two sizes in nothing flat Saturday afternoon. I made a few more yesterday as I saw Tulips and Fritillaria thunbergii pushing up. I know those plants are rabbit candy. I am thrilled at how quick and easy it was to make cages using Ken's method.

I used sod stakes to hold the other edge of my cages securely to the ground as I have lots of those. At this point the green cages are much more visible than my old wire ones. But that means I can see them, so I am less likely  to trip over them. I'm hoping they will be less visible as bigger green plants grow up around them. Truthfully, these were so much easier and quicker to make, that it is unlikely I'll go back to making wire cages. Thanks again Ken for showing us your cages. 

Good-bye Gypsy Moths

Well, not the moths. Just their name. 

According to an article in the Tree Health Management newsletter (the company that takes care of our trees), the Entomological Society of America announced last summer that they have removed the common name — Gypsy Moth — of this critter because of its derogatory nature. The ESA has introduced the Better Common Names Project to get community suggestions and input for new names. 

You can send your ideas for a new name for this pest here.

Pond re-design: Back to the beginning

Once the Upper Pool was turned into a gravel garden, Mark could seriously begin work on deconstructing the big pond. It was a complex project that was made easier by the fact that Mark designed the pond himself and was an integral part of the construction team. Here is a brief description of how the pond was built, which will make it easier to understand how Mark took it apart this summer. 

. . . 

Mark did numerous drawings for himself and also to explain to me how everything would work when we originally built the pond. The first two images picture the slope behind the pond with the rocks, pond wall and "shelves" for water plants. (Double click to enlarge images).

This is the view from above with the pond wall, boulders, the shallow pebble beach (at the bottom of the drawing) and the shelves where we set potted water plants like lilies. 

In order for the John Deere trackhoe to make it into the back garden, Mark took down a 40-year-old Arborvitae tree. Its matching partner is still growing at the other end of our house. This was a huge project in itself and much more work than I think Mark anticipated. 

The equipment just fit between our house and our neighbor's fence to the left. 

Here we are at the end of the first day standing in the rough hole which will become the pond. We were so freaked at the mess and so nervous about the whole project we went out to dinner so we didn't have to look at this view. I told Mark if we decided we'd made a big mistake, it was only a hole in the ground and we could always fill it back up. Obviously that's exactly what we're doing — 24 years later!

Large boulders have been set on the hill and the retaining wall has been started. The cement blocks are being used to built the pond retaining wall. The big pile of them are at the foot of what will be the stream to the upper pool. The wheelbarrow is standing on the first "shelf" layer. 

It was a very rainy summer which kept putting us behind schedule waiting for the pond to dry out. 

We sodded the hills to control erosion during the rainstorms and put down wood chips on the path between them. At this point, the pond has been lined with two different colors of old carpet to protect the rubber liner from being punctured by tree roots. 

The pond was double-lined with EPDM roofing rubber. Mark talked to an engineer at the production company to be sure it was fish safe. The roll of rubber weighed over 500 pounds and took 14 friends, relatives and neighbors to lift it and spread it in place. 

Setting the big rocks inside the pond.

An early photo of the finished pond and early plantings. 

A view from a year or two ago before I started replanting the hills with native Carex pennsylvanica to replace the weedy dying grass that had been shaded out over the years. 

We eventually gave up on having fish as they drew raccoons to the pond and the raccoons, in turn, tended to mess with the potted water plants. 

The real losers in our redesign project are Fred and Ethel. They — or their progeny — have come to the pond every spring since 1998. They usually were gone by the 4th of July, but they were an annual treat for us. We loved their antics in and out of the water. When they arrived on March 21st this year, we told them about our plans, but I don't think they believed we were serious.

We're very happy with our big change in the garden, but we will miss this duo. 

Pond re-design update: Our new water feature

When you embark on a major garden re-design, you suddenly discover all sorts of areas that need smaller changes to accommodate the big garden changes. For many years, this area on the east side of our property was a moss garden. It was created when we put the pond in in 1997/98 and I wasn't allowed to plant anywhere else in the garden as it was almost entirely a construction site. So here I sat, pulling out grass to reveal the moss hidden underneath it. Fast forward 20 years to the realization that this was a labor intensive little spot, given our whole property was now under cultivation. 

When we had the boulder wall, stone steps and paver driveway done in 2015, I needed to quickly find a big holding area for all the plants that lined the driveway. If I wanted to keep them, everything for two feet deep along the drive had to be dug up and put in temporary homes. Using the moss garden to solve this problem made it easier to say goodbye to that early garden. 

Once all those plants had been put back along our redesigned front drive, we decided to take advantage of this now empty spot. We moved the bench that had been on our deck out under the old apple tree and created a path that directed you to it off the main gravel path.  

For the first time, we had a spot to sit and view the garden down the length of the pond to the Tea House. Until this moment, we'd always sat on the bench on the deck and looked across the width of the pond to the hills behind it. 

Once we decided to leave this new seating area, I began to plant Yew (Taxus) shrubs that I planned to eventually prune into globes. 

I planted Maidenhair ferns and Hakonechloa macra grass, intending to fill the space between the shrubs with those two plants. 

Eventually I gave up on the Japanese forest grass as the rabbits would not leave it alone. I concentrated on the ferns and added two tiny Acer pseudosieboldianum (Korean maple) trees. I didn't get very far with this replanting plan last summer, when all the debris we discovered buried under our old deck was shifted over here.  

All of that broken concrete was put in the bottom of the empty pond this summer as Mark progressed on his big project. This unplanted area turned out to be the perfect location for our new water feature: The metal endcap of a tanker truck that is 39" in diameter. It has a valve on the bottom to release water when we want to clean it out. 

I've planted Carexes, Hellebores and Geranium phaeums around it. After I did that, I discovered why bird baths are raised off the ground: Birds kept trying to land on the ferns and all the plants. I'm waiting to see if the plants can solidly fill in to a degree that will keep the critters off of them. 

We are both thrilled with this new water feature that was found for us by a friend who is a retired metalworker. 

On a recent visit to Olbrich Botanic Gardens, we discovered they are trying to keep all their garden debris on site. They are finding all kinds of visible, often decorative, uses for logs and tree branches. We decided we would do the same with one of the logs we had from last year's tree removals. 

While the birds initially drank from the tank edges, the addition of tree branches extending into the water resulted in an explosion of avian visitors. Sometimes it looked like they were lined up on a runway waiting their turn to taxi down to the water.

We needn't have worried that removing our 7,000-gallon pond would result in a loss of birds and wildlife in the garden. 

One last season

Sunday morning Mark remarked that we should start watching for Fred and Ethel, our ducks, since the ice was almost gone on the pond. He barely finished the sentence when he realized they were already here on day one of their annual visit.

The swam around a while and then spent most of the day napping on the back edge of the pond where they were almost invisible among the rocks.

We hadn't the heart to tell them that this is the last year they will be able to visit this pond. In fact, they only have a number of weeks before it will be emptied and torn up to create a new landscape that will need less work and no supplemental water. 

It's come to this

The rabbits have eaten all the special plants in the garden. They're now reduced to sitting on the deck outside the living room windows and munching on fallen locust leaves.

IVOM: Clippings

The Hellebore leaves are full up and covering the fading flowers. But I can never just cut those stems and toss the flowers onto the compost pile; thus this vase. Most of these blossoms are H. 'New York Night'. I always thought the color and the name were the essence of big city sophistication. These days it just sounds doleful.  

The tall greenish flower with red edges is H. "Jade Tiger' and the shorter green blooms are H. niger.

But it is the two-toned grape hyacinths (Muscari latifolium) that bring it all to life. 

We have a rabbit family living under our deck and my attempts to trap them have not yielded anything. So I cut these tulips as soon as I saw them to save them from the bunnies. I don't know when I've brought tulips into the house that they did not suddenly open widely. So this vase this morning is much more restrained than I expected it to be. 

Linking to Rambling in the Garden, who hosts this most enjoyable Monday meme where you can see all sorts of spring garden flowers in vases. 

A note of normalcy

At 5:43 p.m. Friday afternoon, our pair of Mallard ducks flew in. Fred and Ethel, as we call them, typically appear the minute our pond is iced out enough for them to land. This is the 22nd year they have visited our garden.

Given the typical life expectancy of ducks which are not in captivity, this is probably not our original pair. Since we did not "band" them, there is no way of knowing for sure. 

But we prefer to think that they are our first Fred and Ethel, behaving as though the world was its normal, old self.

Gather

I dreamt we could all

stand together

Nothing grand, like a rally,

fireworks, a graduation

 

Just watching something,

a concert,

a politician,

a sunset

 

And then I woke to

the calling of the crows

 

Today, I will wave to

you from my tree and

maybe we can

sing

Everywhere I look friends are emailing poetry or posting it on FB or writing it themselves. "Gather" is another poem by Madison poet, photographer and musician Katrin Talbot. Though I don't know Katrin well, her work always resonates with me.

When I first started gardening, I used to worry that a crow would land on me; on my head to be exact. Now I've leaned to appreciate what smart and social creatures they are. Their presence in the garden at this moment is definitely joyful and much appreciated. 

Poem by Katrin Talbot; drawing by Linda Brazill

The splendid and the vile

The Splendid and the Vile is the title of Erik Larson's new book about Churchill and the London Blitz. It also seemed to be an apt description of what I saw when I took a stroll through my garden yesterday, just before it began to rain. First the splendid:

This is the moss on the ground next to the lichen-covered stepping stone path. 

A rock whose mica chips have disappeared over the years as lichens and mosses have made a home there.

. . .  and now the very vile! Our Picea omorika 'Bruns pendula' with its beautiful weeping branches in an early snowfall last October. Note those broad branches spreading right down to the ground. 

All gone. Something, most likely rabbits, ate the bottom 1/4 to 1/3 of the branches. This tree is 5 and 1/2 years old and has never been touched by critters or disease of any kind. 

I realize it is ridiculous and selfish to complain about my garden not looking perfect when the world is in crisis. But it is easier to think about problems in the garden than what might happen later today or tomorrow; given the fact that the news keeps getting worse. 

It's cold, gray and windy here but snowdrops are coming up as is the first Hepatica.

It was a pleasant change to come indoors and wash my hands — only because I had garden dirt under my nails. 

Stay safe and keep washing those hands!