September Terrarium

The most beautiful terrarium I ever possessed has been waiting for me in the woods behind my tool/rabbit shed.  I made my first terrariums in 1992 with my class of seventh graders and for twenty two years since I have been buying attractive glass containers and experimenting. I have bought books, I have Googled, I have done this and that and the other thing. I estimate I have created or supervised the creation of  more than thirty terrariums, less than seventy five. Most of them have turned into a bottle of wet dirt or a bottle of grass. Then this afternoon I was collecting moss for entirely another project and discovered this glass bottle with soil, moss, and ferns inside - one frond emerging from the mouth of the bottle. Perhaps I should have left it in the woods. But for just a little while, I have brought it indoors where it perches on a north facing windowsill. It stuns me.

On the other side of the garden,  a neon pink aster is blazing forth. You can read about it at http://www.abnativeplants.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/plants.plantDetail/plant_id/96/index.htm
I just call it Glamour-ata glamour-ata, love the color, loves the bees upon it, love the contrast with the zinnias nearby, love the fact it blooms when everything else other than black-eyed Susans are well past blooming. My September was full of ignoring but enjoying the garden. The sulfurs (yellow butterflies) are here, the wild asters and goldenrod abound but I have done very little to support the garden other than water the rhododendrons and think about the to-do list come hard frost. How lovely that the flowers thrive and surprise me nevertheless.

August, Come and Gone

I spent the majority of August traveling, first to Atlanta and then to Portland, Oregon. Beyond my Abuela Adventure, I saw a lot of personal gardens and I visited the Atlanta Botanical Garden and returned to Maine and visited the Coastal Maine Botanical Garden. I was most impressed by the horticulture mosaics and reminded that gorgeous plants and gorgeous plantings take a veritable army of gardeners to create them and maintain them.

Therefore, when I take note of my soil which still needs much amending and my lack of underground irrigation and the fact that my army of gardeners consists solely of ME, I am satisfied with the profusion of flowers that exists. Currently, there are zinnia, cosmos, rudbeckia, gallardia, echinacea, native bee balm and several varieties of goldenrod hosting fritillaries, red admirals and white admirals. It's my kind of jungle.

Happy Birthday to Me

I had a handful of Lowe's gift cards which I traded in for peat moss, pearlite and three berry-colored Echinacea. There were nine Fritillary butterflies on the plants while they sat in my driveway. Now that the plants are "installed," there is an absolute flock of butterflies. Plus one end of my garden is changing from white to yellow while the Bunny Barn end is turning pink. I find it difficult to capture the butterflies in a photo but they are there:

Then I went treasure hunting to my favorite antiques shop -  West Bay Antiques -  in Gouldsboro. The crab basket I spied last spring was still waiting for me. Now it is ensconced near my old compost pile, ready to serve as a base for the cucumber volunteers. Or are they squash? I'll know by September. The citronella geranium which I can't seem to kill sits on top of the crab basket. I love how this plant smells but I have not yet been able to train it into a pleasing shape. Its current form is what shot back up when I hacked off all the winter sprawl. "Hacked" is probably not the best garden verb. I believe "coppice" means the same thing and conjures up an image of me with a lavender floppy hat and flower trug vs. the reality of my blaze orange sweatshirt.

Hypertufa

I had a combined Mah Jongg-Hypertufa party on July 1. My buddies made planters while I made a tabletop. I did try to make a planter following a Martha Stuart recipe because I wanted a large planter with a basket weave surface: I bought an old wicker hamper at a yard sale and wrapped it with duct tape and created a foam insert as a form. It was difficult to make the walls uniform as I pushed the cement/peat moss/perlite mixture around the hamper interior. Although I know the curing of cement is a chemical process and cement can cure underwater, I saw a marked difference in the curing of the planters vs. the curing of the duct tape-wicker-foam sandwich. End result is my hamper planter never attained any robustness and crumbled into bits. But my table top is fairly gorgeous and I hope the edges grow moss. Actually, I may attempt the yogurt moss blender method to expedite the growing of moss. Of course, that experiment has never worked for me the past five times I have tried it, but garden hope springs eternal.

Butterflies!

Yes, there are many bees and wasps and other miscellaneous pollinators in my garden, as well as a lady beetle (Did you know there are hundreds species of lady beetle in Maine? I have a poster in my classroom I can check tomorrow for the exact large number...). But these are the butterflies, my favorite visitors this week, aside from a spotted fawn. This is why the milkweed and the goldenrod and mint are invited to come and stay.

In order of appearance below: American Beauty, Fritillary on zinnia, Fritillary among daisies, Monarch on milkweed and Summer Azure on forget-me-not. Summer is very sweet for all of us.

I Can't See My Feet

I'm not complaining, I'm just saying: I can't see my feet, there is too much happening. Myosotis is blooming bright blue between the stepping stones along with white alyssum and I am careful to step over both. The Alaska daisies are four feet tall and white seems to be the current predominant color given all the daisies, yarrow, feverfew and chamomile.

Yes, there is also Rudbeckia, Artemesia, lambs ears and lavender, but it is the color white that repeats itself throughout. I took this next picture by the rain barrel just to indicate the height of it all. Two days of heavy rain and high wind has slanted quite a few stems in a catty-wompus fashion but the pollinators don't care. They enter the blooms from whatever direction necessary. You can also see the "garden" at the back of the house adjacent to the wild side which begins with a field of Comptonia.

My thrill for the coming week is to watch the Unknowns bloom and then identify them. I did sow at least ten packets of seed last May. I have come to believe the geese ate all the marigold seedlings but what about the cockscomb? the zinnia? I wander around spying clenched flowers buds with hints of color within and I think: "What are you?" Next week, I'll know.

Name This Plant

Buddies and I were walking in Fort Point State Park in Stockton Springs July 8th when we happened upon this plant which reminded us of Queen Anne's Lace on steroids. We tried using the Audubon New England Nature Guide App to identify the plant to no avail. We then tried the simple key on https://gobotany.newenglandwild.org/ and no items matched our description. Then we googled the phrase "giant Queen Anne's Lace." Aha! We made an immediate match - our plant is giant hogweed. Heracleum mantegazzianum, also known as  cartwheel-flower, giant cow parsnip, hogsbane or giant cow parsley is a plant in the family Apiaceae.  It can grow up to 14 feet high and have flowers that measure a foot across. The plant can cause painful irritation, permanent scarring and, in rare cases, blindness. It is phototoxic which means if you get the sap on your skin  and then expose the skin to light, you may have a  response resembling a third degree burn. Giant hogweed is on the federal invasive list. Next step is to call  the cooperative extension so the plant can be treated by professionals.