Easing into autumn

After fall-like weather in August, it feels more summer-ish in September. But the sun is at a more southern angle, the sky is a paler shade of blue, and the nighttime temps are in the 50's and 60's, so it feels rather delightful. Not knowing how to dress is an issue I can live with.

The yard is easing into autumn as well. The lack of rain is causing some leaves to fall from dryness, and the lawn is on pause. The riot of summer is over, but a few things bear observation.

The Canada geese are migrating.

I love a parade!

Despite my neglect, this sweet potato vine is hanging in there.

Goldern arches

'Blue Muffin' continues to disappoint, but 'Chicago Lustre' is making up for that this year.

Bird food

I can barely get through the areas north (hostas and goldenrod) and south (norther sea oats, bee balm, goldenrod, rudbeckia, unwanted lambs quarter) of the house. I can't view the north side from inside the house (it runs along the garage), but I look out on this mess from bedroom and bathroom windows.

Bee Alley

Today's "word of the day" is "pensive" - and that is how I'm feeling.

A maple is a maple is a maple... or not

Good news and bad news.

The good news (at least, for me) is Norway maple leaves can be used to dye yarn (which I will do sometime, using leaves from the 'Crimson King' in my front yard). The bad news is Norway maple trees (which includes 'Crimson King') are a non-native invasive species.

(Commentary: It is difficult for me to imagine 'Crimson King' outcompeting other maples as it is the s-l-o-w-e-s-t growing tree I have ever owned. Also, no seeds I've ever noticed, an observation supported by this site. The roots don't seem to be invasive, either. But some experts disagree with me on all three counts.)

If you are looking for native maples, choose black maples and/or sugar maples. Red maples are also native. (Silver maples are native, but I hate them. The trunks split, which makes them dangerous in high winds. The roots are shallow and can be invasive. Also, the 'helicoptor' seeds (samaras) clogging my gutters. Thanks, neighbors.)

To read about the differences between Norway maples, black maples, and sugar maples, go here.

But after perusing this site, I'm not sure I would ever choose to plant a maple of any kind in my yard. They all seem problematic in one way or another, at least for homeowners. It's another thing if one wants to develop a sugarbush.

My 'Crimson King' came with the house. Trees take a long time to grow, and this one is finally throwing some shade (after more than 35 years of growing). If it were to die, though, I would replace it with a native, but probably not a maple of any kind.

Around the yard:

'Marguerite' sweet potato vine and 'Hells Heat' petunia:

Leafing out of hickory tree - I didn't see how the tips formed, so not sure what we're looking at here:

The honeysuckle vine that ate New York:

Up close:

Latest yard art, a gift from my son and his girl friend:

'Amethyst Kiss' spiderwort:

The forecast for the coming week is cool temps, perfect for transplanting. I moved an aromatic aster today, from the front bed to an area in the backyard. They spread via seeds, so if I want to control them, I need to deadhead them in the fall, before the blossoms form seeds. That sounds like a lot of work. I also transplanted a coneflower from the front to the back. And then I sprayed some weeds and mowed.

I was hoping the yard would become easier to take care of, and in some ways, it is. BUT my energy is not keeping up. "They" say we age in stages, and I think I have reached the afternoon-nap stage.

August isn't over yet

The temps have been rather mild lately, but that won't hold through the week. One more hot and dry spell and we might be done with August. Maybe since school starts earlier and earlier each year, the weather is adapting to match.

To take advantage of the relatively nice weather, I spent some time handweeding the beds in the front yard. Getting down low and up close at the same time brought me almost nose-to-nose with the seed pods from wild-ish violets that I let grow in my yard.

Seeds still in the seed pod

An empty seed pod and one that hasn't opened yet

Here is another reason to not feed birds in the summer: a carpet of sunflower seedlings under the feeders.

How about a brief walk around the yard?

Something ate one of my tomatoes. I'm guessing a raccoon. The rest are okay, thank goodness.

These late blooming hostas are overwhelming the earlier blooming ones in back, the ones my daughter keeps saying she wants to transplant to her yard.

The sunflowers are almost done. I stopped putting out sunflower seed, letting the birds forage a bit instead.

Of all the sweet potato vine plants I put out, this is the only one to do what I expected them all to do: vine. (I call this photo "Self Portait ala Vivian Meyier".)

And that is about all the garden news there is this week. Time to hunker down.

I'm back

My SO and I spent the past week in the Hudson Valley, our first major vacation since the pandemic. We thought about flying, but since we can't get a direct flight from here to there, I worried about getting stranded somewhere along the way. So we drove. And drove and drove and drove. There is a LOT of golden rod between, but not too much of anything else. On the way home, we saw the trees were just beginning to turn. In a couple of weeks, those hills will be ablaze with glory.

Now it is back to mowing and watering and weeding. While we were gone, about 1.25" of rain fell, so none of the new plants suffered. But the sickly Canadian hemlocks are definitely done. The landscaper is going to replace them.

One of the aromatic asters, the one that gets the most sunshine, is blooming its little heart out. I sniffed the blossoms, thinking that is how it got its name. Nope. The common name comes from the balsam-like fragrance it gives off when you crush the rigid stems.

I was beginning to wonder if the Clematis Paniculata was going to bloom at all this year, but it was just taking its sweet time. All the blossoms are at the top where I would need a ladder to get a decent photograph. Some pollinators are enjoying it.

The sweet potato vine 'Marguerite' I planted in containers in the backyard really took off for an end of summer burst of color, overwhelming the geranium. Next year I plan to plant it in hanging baskets along the fence. That should be quite a show.

I am very tired of watering all my new plants, but if I hadn't been watering, I wouldn't have seen these two guys munching on the butterflyweed. This photo is from a week ago, and there is no sign of the caterpillars anywhere now. A younger caterpillar I spotted yesterday is already gone, too. Monarch eggs and larvae are mostly a food source for other creatures.

Have a munchie good week.

IMHO part 2

I've been a (mostly) organic gardener for (most of) my adult life. Managing weeds organically requires a variety of methods and tools, and a lot of diligence. Between my hip replacement and shoulder replacement, I just could not keep up with the mechanical and manual efforts of weed control, so am now resorting to herbicides, to protect my investment in the new landscaping. I've made my peace with this change.

To save money, I have resorted to concentrates. These require a sprayer of some sort, and every time I want to use an herbicide, I have to mix some up. When I have just a bit to treat, though, I am not above applying the concentrate directly from the bottle, using a small brush. This method is actually recommended when treating something like grape vine or mulberry: cut back the plant and apply the concentrate directly to the cut stem.

Now I have a lot of areas to treat, to keep ahead of the weeds. For convenience sake, I have been purchasing ready-to-use Roundup, which comes with a variety of application methods. The first one I tried required pumping air into the container to create enough pressure to spray the herbicide. This is how my sprayer works, so I'm not unfamiliar with this kind of operation, but for some reason, I could not get much pressure built up inside the container. The second bottle of Roundup I purchased came with a battery operated sprayer. Using this one was much easier and effective. This is going to be my go-to method unless I find something even better to use.

I was hoping the sweet potato vine I planted on the front porch would climb the trellis there, but it only went so far, despite my efforts to direct it upward. My neighbor across the street reported similar frustrations with her sweet potato vine not vining very much. Next year I'll try something else in this location, but may still use some sweet potato vine in hanging baskets.

The black eyed Susan along the fence on the south side of the house is trying to choke out everything else growing there. I hope to rescue the few surviving coneflower plants; I think the ironweed can hold its own for a while, not sure about the aster. Susan is such a thug, something gardening catalogs don't usually point out. To be fair, ironweed can spread aggressively as well.

Lately, I've been experimenting with what I call Bento dishes - bento box meals served on a plate. Sometimes all I need for a particular recipe is a small handful of, say, green beans, but finding a place that sells loose green beans is a challenge. Farmers markets are also a challenge when it comes to timing and parking and crowds. So, after years of not growing vegetables, I have the urge to return to growing some of my own food. But in much smaller amounts. In containers. This will require some research and experimenting, two things I love to do.

About the only birds I see at the feeders these days are sparrows. There is the occasional housefinch, goldfinch, cardinal, blue jay, etc. but otherwise, not much diversity. I think I saw a northern mockingbird one day, and one of the landscape guys swore he heard cedar waxwing. Papa wren scolds me and Finn whenever we exit the front door, as there is a wren family in the house hanging in the maple tree. I'm looking forward to migration season, which may be closer than one thinks: a flock of geese flew overhead today, presumably heading south.