Staying the Compass

Today, I  set aside the day to have fun with my fellow Noble Circle Sister, Dallis Hardwick.  Dallis doesn't live too far away, but we don't see each other that often, which is a pity as she's really fun and wonderful to talk to....stimulating because she uses big words too. ;)  She's also an ardent beader...making woven bead necklaces and items... She also has a cool accent as she's from Oz.

We had lunch at a local restaurant called the Tin Roof.  Housed in  the 1930s boat house on city land which is in the area known as Treasure Island, it boasts a wonderful view of the Miami River and pretty good food as most of it is made on site (especially their baked goods which we didn't partake of).  If I would have had my head on, I would have taken a picture...but I didn't.

Dallis is another Stage IV breast cancer survivor and she has been on Xeloda, the drug I am on for over a year and has been remarkably stable, even doing away with the liver metastases, so I look to her for advice on the side effects, even though she is following a slightly different protocol than I am.


After lunch, we drove over the see the Aullwood art quilt exhibition....which once again was really wonderful. Small, but wonderful.  I am gathering permissions to post the pieces so we will start the tour as soon as I hear from folks....


Tomorrow should be a fun day too as the Miami Valley Art Quilt Network is having their annual picnic....now I just have to figure out what I'm going to bring! I keep changing my mind.


The photo shows"Compass Plant" (Silphium lanciniatum)  growing outside the Aullwood Nature Center.  I actually took this shot at about the same time of year in 2010.  This year, they are very short (only about 4 - 5 feet instead of the 8 - 9 feet these were) and are ill looking. The surrounding area is all brown....the drought has taken its toll.  These cool, hairy leaved prairie plants are natives, and get their common name from the fact that the plant aligns it's leaves north/south in order to present the least amount of  surface area to the hot summer sun.  They have a tap root which grows up to 14" deep, usually making them resistant to drought...but even so, they are not as vigorous as usual. 


Native Americans used the plant to rid themselves of worms and as a treatment for asthma and coughs. 

Dappled

I'm madly stitching on my K.I.S.S. quilt and I'm on the home stretch. Just the hand stitching with pearl cotton and binding to do now... as soon as I get the go-ahead, I'll share as it is pretty cool, even if it isn't much like I usually do, but hey, expansion, as long as it doesn't apply to my hips, is good.

I love lilacs. Growing up in Michigan I lived on farms with ancient lilacs. Great purple behomoths which had been on the site for ages...the farms I lived on had houses from the 1850s, 1880s and 1890s. The sweet heady fragrance was lovely on soft, warm nights. We usually had the light purple, the violet purple, white and a very dark blue-violet which I have not been able to find in any nursery, and only once did I see it growing in Connecticut. No pinks, but that's ok as I find them smaller and sort of namby pamby compared to their full cousins. I regret that I can't find the dark one anywhere, and I don't know who to ask of the people who still live in the towns I grew up in.

Lilacs take up a lot of space and for most of the year are dull and boring green. Great for playing under with Barbies, but not so great when they get powdery mildew. For the most part, I didn't plant them in Connecticut because I didn't have a lot of space...until I found this variagated beauty. The variagated leaves made it a summer time interest long after the flowers faded. This is Syringa vulgaris "Dappled Dawn" . I found it at the Variagated Plant Nursery in Connecticut and never saw another until much, much later. Needless to say, this plant journeyed down with me. It is earlier than my other lilacs and doesn't sucker as much.


Additional evidence of my favoring variegated foliage is this cultivar of the native solomon's seal (Polygonatum odoratum 'Variegatum') . The cream margins are gorgeous and it seems to like it in the shade as well as the sunlight...it is running out from underneath a rosebush...A bit of root got transplanted and it has established itself nicely even though common garden wisdom marks it as a shade lover.

Good plants to grow.

Natives

Spring is fleeting. Indeed, these native wonders have actually already passed and are busy now making seed before they slip away. I've often wondered why the Dogtooth violet (Erythronium americanum) is so named. This particular yellow beauty is a cultivar named "Pagoda." I try to only obtain plants which have not been collected from the wild, but come from reputable nurseries.

Like so many of my plants, I brought this down from my garden in Connecticut. I wonder if any of them survived the new people there? Probably not. My neighbors tell me that it is gone, but since this was in a shady border there, there may still be hope.

At any rate, they seem to like it here and have been wandering even though this is only the 5th year they've been in. Another name for them is trout lily, although what we called trout lily has smaller, speckled leaves.



Ephemeral spring. Certainly here in south west Ohio that is the case. It seems like we go from having snow on the ground and very cold temperatures to several days in the 60s and 70s....and this spring, even into the 80s.

Another native, the pristine white of the bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) is another of my beloved spring natives. When it first pops up, it is closely wrapped in it's leaf. If you think the broad green leaf to the right of the flower belongs to this white beauty...think again. Look just beyond the flower and you can see the edge of the lobed leaf. The leaf will wrap around the flower to protect it should the weather turn cold. If you dig the plant and cut the root, it exudes a red sap, from where it gets its name.

Just a short one..I'm working madly on the garden and a couple of quilts, but I wanted to keep in the practice.

Going Native

When I moved here to southwest Ohio, I came to a 3/4 acre lot, almost three times the size of the lot I had in Connecticut. Virtually, nothing was there. There were a few trees (some of which I had to remove because they were place in the wrong spot). I also had a luxury that most people don't have. I discovered we were moving in the fall of 2004. My husband was going to commute, and my daughter and I would follow after she finished her year at school.

Therefore, I was able to pot up divisions and some things from my garden and take them with me. As long as they were gone before we put the house on the market, then it would be fine, and I have a bad habit of putting too much in too small of a space.

Where I can, I like to use native plants, but I'm no plant snob. However, many of the trees and shrubs I have put in are wonderful and under utilized. Using natives also gives the added benefit of usually requiring less care than using a non-native plant as well as providing good materials for cover and food for local fauna.

Ohio is known as the Buckeye state. Above, you'll see a small tree or shrub I was delighted to locate and put in my yard. It is the Aesculus pavia, or red buckeye. The buckeyes the state is known for is a larger tree, the Aesculus glabra or Ohio Buckeye. I like this little tree. It only grows about 10 -25 feed tall, and likes wet soils... I planted it at the back of my property which remains wetter than the rest...the land slopes back to a creek, and I suspect that there is quite a bit of underground water. The clay soil doesn't help much. The fall color isn't a biggie, but the flowers are great! Hummingbirds like them, and the seeds are a gorgeous golden brown which the squirrels and chipmunks make short work of.



I have many viburnums which I planted. This one is the Arrowwood viburnum (Viburnum dentatum). Guess what! The long, straight stems on this shrub were once used for making....arrows! It has creamy white flowers in the spring and provides good cover for birds. The flower doesn't smell as good as some of the other viburnums, nor is the fall color as great, but it is still a useful plant.

Without a doubt, one of my favorite (and underused) shrubs or small tree is the fringe tree (Chionanthus virginicus) also known as "Old Man's Beard." It grows to a height of 10 - 20 feed with about equal width. The fall color is yellow.

They are fairly slow growing. I looked for years to be able to find one, and in 2003, I finally found one in a small nursery in Connecticut. I had this at my house there, and I dug it up and brought it down. It was about four feet when I moved it and I'm happy to say that it is about 6 - 7 feet now.


I really wish that there were "smell-o-vision" on computers. The threadlike blossoms have a sweet, wonderful scent. The flowers are threadlike, hence the "fringe", and flutter in the breeze.

Another, more showy tree is the Sweet Bay magnolia (Magnolia virginiana). The flowers are about three to four inches wide. The scent is lemony and absolutely wonderful. This will grow about
20 -60 feet tall (if I'm lucky and certainly not in my lifetime) and about 8 - 20 feet wide. It blooms sporadically through the summer, and the leaves are not as big as many of the other native magnolias such as the Bull Bay, or southern magnolia.

Most people when they visit my garden are sort of dumbfounded that I planted this one here. I guess they tend to like acid soils, and mine is more alkaline. I need to have soil tested, but it seems to be doing OK.

Lest you think that I only plant native trees and shrubs, here are a couple of native plants.
Here's the wild Canadian columbine (Aquiligia canadensis). It likes to have a bit of shade and has the typical columbine leaves. It is a woodland plant and likes to live on the edge. It seeds itself well, but isn't one which will take over your garden. The pointy thingy at right is the seedpod. It will get dark brown as it ripens.

I was pleased to see that this Jack-in-the-pulpit managed to make it down here to Ohio. I dug up several of my shade plants, and the seed managed to hitch a ride with a hosta and established itself here.

It is a shade loving plant, and you can see Jack standing in the pulpit. the "hood" over the top of the "pulpit" is representative of the "sounding board" which often hung over the top of 18th century (and earlier) pulpits and allowed the voice of the minister to carry out over the congregation. These pieces were used in the 19th century as well, but I think by the 1850s were pretty much out of favor.

This particular plant "mother" was one which I got from a seed in a garden at the Pardee-Morris House in New Haven, Connecticut (which I wrote about in another post). I don't advocate "wild collecting" any plants, but the Arisaema triphyllum readily reproduces by seed and I don't know if the "mother plant" in this case was one which was planted there or arrived...it did live in the shade garden there and in all probability is gone now. Look for plants which are labeled as cultivated rather than wild collected.

I'll end with this handsome Louisiana iris. It is a marginal and can do well in a pond. In fact, I bought this one several years ago to put in my pond, but in the fall I was nervous that it wouldn't overwinter so I stuck it in the ground next to the pond and there is has sat ever since.

I'm sorry about the color on this photograph, it was getting a bit dusky out when I snapped it.

I expect I'll take you on some more explorations of the native plants in my garden as time goes on.