Tangled Branches: Cultivated

happenings in and around my zone 6b gardens in northern Virginia and in central Virginia

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

The Inadvertant Nest Box

The old gray grill, she ain't what she used to be. In more ways than one. Now she's a nest box.

We haven't used the grill at Tangled Branches North yet this year. I opened it up this afternoon to see how big a cleaning job awaited me, and it was bigger than I thought. About half the grill surface was covered with a nest which I first took to be a mouse nest (we've had those before), but then in the center of the loose mossy nest I noticed tiny heads and open beaks. Oops, sorry, I'm not your mama, and I don't want your mama mad at me. I closed the lid. Yesterday and today, I had seen a Carolina Wren carrying food across the deck and I didn't think much about it except that there must be a nest close by. Later this afternoon, we watched the wren carrying food again, but this time we saw it enter the grill through the hole for the rotisserie.

I'll take a picture of the nest after the babies have flown.

We're going out for dinner.

Labels: birds

Monday, May 05, 2008

More Natives: Salvia and Chionanthus

Over the weekend I noticed the ditch near the road had turned blue. I don't know how I missed these last year because the entire roadside is covered with them.

A few minutes with the wildflower books told me that they're Salvia lyrata, maybe a bit weedy (but native!) and hummingbirds will sip from them. And while I was sitting on the deck looking this up, a hummingbird came by to investigate some arugula that had started to flower but soon left in search of something better. Wait, wait, I do have something better! So I dug up a few Salvia plants from the ditch and moved them to the edge of the woods - one group where I can see them from the deck and one group in front of the house.

I thought the Salvia might look good next to this - another thing I missed last year - Fringe Tree or Chionanthus virginicus.

I feel sure that it didn't bloom last year and that's how I overlooked it, because it's right at the edge of the woods very close to the house. It's only about 3 feet tall now, but through my Gardeners' Glasses I visualize it as 15 feet tall and covered in white fringe.

Here's another curiosity at the edge of the woods - fuzzy oak galls. They look like some craft project from the 1960s involving spray paint - mostly white but just tinged with pink or red.

If anybody knows what they are, please tell me. A few Google searches didn't give me an answer, but I can tell you that the first hit for "fuzzy oak gall" is this post from Ki last fall. Not the same thing, however.

I hope to keep exploring the woodland over the summer and not ignore it when I get busy with the kitchen garden (like I did last year). Purely by chance yesterday, I found some foliage that looks very like orchid foliage. No photo yet, but I have high hopes.

Labels: chionanthus, hummingbirds, oak galls, salvia

Saturday, May 03, 2008

Garden Bloggers' Hoedown

There is an embarrassing lack of hoes at Tangled Branches. Well, I do have one, but it's stashed behind some other unused tools and I didn't feel like digging (sorry) it out.

That doesn't mean the garden is total weeds though. I just like to get personal with my weeds - face-to-face sort of thing. So, to join in Carol's Garden Bloggers' Hoedown, let me introduce you to my weeding tools.

Clockwise from top-right, we have a cultivator-mattock thingy (Does this have a proper name? I don't know it.); an asparagus knife, aka dandelion digger (The catalog called it an asparagus knife, but this one is very different.); my old trusty trowel; and my new favorite, the Hori-Hori knife. My biggest weeding tool covers the background of the photo - mulch!

Now, a good gardener would have taken one of those tools in hand and dispatched that poor dandelion immediately. Me, I went in the house to see how the pictures turned out.

Labels: tools, weeds

Thursday, May 01, 2008

Last Day of April Pictures

April is one of the best months for the northern Virginia woodland garden. We began with daffodils and the little blue bulbs I love so much, and now we finish with azaleas and dogwood and more.
Azalea 'Herbert' blooms along the back of the lot.

The Spanish Bluebells have been outstanding this year.

Pink tulip-of-the-woods.
Unlike the red one, I remember planting these at one time.
I don't remember planting it in the woods, however.

This old dogwood was here
at the edge of the woods
when we bought the house.

The coral honeysuckle is finally climbing
through the viburnum as I always thought it should.

Not all our azaleas are elegant.
This screaming coral-pink-red one is in front of the house
right where the builder put it.
Most of the houses here have similar ones.
It's been with us so long now I can't think of getting rid of it.

Labels: azaleas, bluebells, dogwood, honeysuckle, tulips

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Firsts

There have been a lot of first-of-the-season events over the last week.

First dragonfly. Same kind as last year.

First hummingbird. It buzzed right by my head on its way to __? Somewhere else.

First singing wood thrush.

I think - think - I head the kowp-kowp-kowp of a yellow-billed cuckoo on Saturday morning, but it was hard to be sure with the flock of noisy blue jays all around.

First time I noticed the lovely scent of 'Rainbow Loveliness'. I decided to pick a tiny bouquet for the house before the rain ruined the flowers, brought it up to my nose expecting a spicy carnation-like scent, and instead got .... lilacs? That's how it smelled to me anyway. Not at all dianthus-y, but sweet and strong.

First bizarre-o insect of the year. Moth larva? I have no idea.

Labels: birds, dianthus, insects

Friday, April 25, 2008

Too Much Wisteria?

Looking at these photos, it's easy to understand how the anti-invasive plant folks can get worked up about Wisteria, but you have to admit that it's eye-catching.

This is blooming along I-64 near Charlottesville. I don't know which species this is and I'm not inclined to scramble over the guardrail to find out. I was hoping it might be domestic (and therefore OK), but apparently that one flowers later in the spring.

Labels: wisteria

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Still Blogging After All These Years

April 23, 2003: First blog post.

Blogger has changed a lot since then. There was no easy way to display photos, no provision for comments, and all blogspot-hosted blogs carried advertising.

And the blogging community has grown from a tiny hamlet where everybody knows everybody into a huge metropolis where you don't necessarily even know your near neighbors. I'm finding it hard to keep up with lately. If blogging and blog-reading occupy more time than gardening, what will I write about? Does it matter what I write about if nobody else has the time to read it? Or would that be a good thing, because then I could go back to just chronicling the days' events without trying to make it interesting to others? Will people still be blogging five years from now?

But I'll tell ya one thing that hasn't changed in five years - real-life Neighbor C is still a thorn in my side. Just when my rhododendrons had grown large enough to hide most of his kids' swingset, he moved the swingset.
Note the rhododendrons to the ~~left~~ right.

Labels: blogging

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