Tangled Branches: Cultivated
happenings in and around my zone 6b gardens in northern Virginia and in central Virginia
Monday, February 08, 2010
A Winter to Remember
Normally, about this time of year I begin tormenting northern gardeners with pictures of snowdrops or crocuses or maybe even an early daffodil. This is not a normal year.
That's my deck at Tangled Branches North yesterday morning.
You may have heard about our recent snowstorm. I think it was on the news. But you may have forgotten about the similar storm we had in December. Coming so close to Christmas, I didn't write anything at the time but I did post some pictures on Picasa.
That's the same table on December 20. We guesstimated that was about 20 inches of snow, but after the recent storm we actually measured.
That's a patch on the driveway. About 24 inches of snow. It took the spouse and I three or four hours of shoveling, but we finally broke through to the street yesterday. And we don't have a long driveway.
This is what we saw when we opened the garage door Saturday afternoon.
That is not a snowdrift. That's flat accumulation of snow.
This is after the first shoveling session.
There is a similar-sized pile of snow behind the photographer. The blob to the left of the pile is a Japanese yew that I've hated for years. I think nature may have helped rid me of it. I brushed some of the snow off, but it's quite bent.
There's a lot of tree and shrub damage with this snowstorm. This is a small oak tree in our wooded backyard.
The white blob to the left of that is my favorite holly tree. You win some, you lose some, but I'll take steps to try to save the holly.
This is the neighbors' detested (by me) Bradford Pear. There was a low branch that protruded over the sidewalk. Nobody but a small child could walk under it. That branch is lying in the street in this picture.
Normally, I don't post wide shots of the backyard because I find few angles that don't include the neighbor's woodpile, compost pile, shed, swingset, garbage cans. As I say, this is not normal. The snow airbrushed out all the uglies.
Well, I think you get the idea, but it really was a storm for the record books:
PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT...CORRECTED REAGAN NATIONAL INFO
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE BALTIMORE MD/WASHINGTON DC
1030 PM EST SAT FEB 06 2010
...PRELIMINARY SUMMARY OF TWO-DAY STORM TOTAL SNOWFALLS EXCEEDED IN THE BALTIMORE-WASHINGTON AREA...
THE 32.4 INCH TWO-DAY STORM TOTAL SNOWFALL RECORDED TODAY AT DULLES INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT EXCEEDS THE PREVIOUS TWO-DAY STORM RECORD OF 23.2 INCHES ON 7-8 JANUARY 1996.
THE 24.8 INCH TWO-DAY STORM TOTAL SNOWFALL ESTIMATED TODAY AT BALTIMORE/WASHINGTON INTERNATIONAL THURGOOD MARSHALL AIRPORT EXCEEDS THE PREVIOUS TWO-DAY STORM TOTAL SNOWFALL RECORD OF 24.4 INCHES FOR BWI AIRPORT FROM 16-17 FEBRUARY 2003. THIS WOULD ALSO BE THE 2ND HIGHEST TWO-DAY STORM TOTAL ALL-TIME SNOWFALL FOR BALTIMORE RECORDS WHICH DATE BACK TO 1871...BEING SECOND ONLY TO THE 26.3 INCHES WHICH FELL 27-28 JANUARY 1922.
THE 17.8 INCH TWO-DAY STORM TOTAL SNOWFALL RECORDED TODAY AT RONALD REAGAN WASHINGTON NATIONAL AIRPORT IS THE SECOND HIGHEST TWO-DAY STORM TOTAL RECORD...SECOND ONLY TO THE 18.7 INCHES FOR NATIONAL AIRPORT FROM 18-19 FEBRUARY 1979. THIS WOULD ALSO BE THE 4TH HIGHEST TWO-DAY STORM TOTAL ALL-TIME SNOWFALL FOR WASHINGTON RECORDS WHICH DATE BACK TO 1871...BEHIND ONLY THE 27-28 JANUARY 1922 KNICKERBOCKER STORM WITH 26.0 INCHES...THE 12-13 FEBRUARY 1899 STORM WHICH PRODUCED 19.0 INCHES...AND THE 18.7 INCHES WHICH FELL 18-19 FEBRUARY 1979.
AS WITH ANY MAJOR CLIMATE RECORD ACHIEVEMENT...THESE PRELIMINARY RECORDS WILL BE QUALITY CONTROLLED BY NOAA'S NATIONAL CLIMATIC DATA CENTER OVER THE NEXT SEVERAL WEEKS.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Winter Orchid Foliage
Couldn't think of a catchy title.
What does this look like to you? A pile of sticks? (Say yes.)
But let's look more closely.
There's something green and growing beneath the sticks.
It's a Downy Rattlesnake Plantain orchid, or Goodyera pubescens to its botanist friends. The pile of sticks is my doing. In the fall of 2008, I found a single Goodyera pubescens in the woods. When I went back a few days later to look for it, it was gone. Deer? I don't know, but the deer are getting all the blame for any missing plants lately. So this fall, I was surprised and happy to find two plants nearby. And wondered how best to protect them. Well, maybe not best, but adequate. So my reasoning was that a loosely woven cover of sticks might hide the tasty plants from any casually-nibbling herbivores, but let in enough light to keep the plants alive. So far, it seems to have worked.
A story of mistakes.
My fingers almost cannot help typing Goodyeara instead of Goodyera, and that is what I did when I wrote about this plant over a year ago. The genus name has nothing to do with tires, but is instead named for John Goodyer - an English botanist who lived from about 1592 to 1664. You can read all about him on Wikipedia or elsewhere on the internet, but a lesser-known fact, I think, is that the naming of the genus was a mistake. It seems that Robert Brown (famous Scottish botanist), wanting to name a plant after Goodyer, assigned the name Goodyera repens to an orchid found in the north of England and in Scotland that he believed was the same as an orchid described by Goodyer which is found in the south of England. His reference for this belief was Gerard's Herbal, which had been revised by a friend of Goodyer's (Thomas Johnson). Johnson erroneously attached a drawing of Goodyera repens (the northern orchid known to Brown) to a description of Epipactus palustris (the southern orchid known to Goodyer).
My typing mistake could have a basis in fact however. It seems that the surname Goodyear, forever linked with tires in my mind, is probably the same as the surname Goodyer. Charles Goodyear may or may not have invented the process of vulcanization, whereby natural rubber is converted into a material suitable for tires (and other things), but one of his relatives writes the following in a genealogy of the Goodyear family:
But back to winter orchid foliage.
Lately, I've been finding more and more Cranefly Orchid (Tipularia discolor) foliage in various places in the woods. I stumbled across this single leaf while out with the camera a week ago, far from any previous discoveries.
Way back last summer, I meant to post something about the flowers of the Cranefly Orchid. The patch I found a couple of winters ago bloomed, and the flowers were not eaten, this past August but I had a terrible time trying to get a good photo. I never did get a good photo, but these are some of the least bad.
Well, it is an orchid - I think you can see the family resemblance - but very plain compared to many of its cousins. The flowers are practically invisible due to their size, coloring, and habitat. They're so perfectly camouflaged in the woods that if you didn't know to look for them you probably wouldn't notice them.
Maybe next summer I'll have some pictures of the flowers of Goodyera pubescens as well.
Friday, January 15, 2010
GBBD
Garden Bloggers' Bud Day?
'Rijnveld's Early Sensation' narcissus will be blooming soon.
'Jelena' witch hazel thinks it's still too cold.
Garden Bloggers' Bug Day?
Some type of stink bug? Found crawling on the floor this afternoon.
Garden Bloggers' Bird Day?
My little chickadee.
Nuthatch with prized sunflower seed.
Shy cardinal.
Garden Bloggers' Blue Day?
Sweetgum seed balls against the deep blue sky.
How could I be blue with a gorgeous sky, plenty of twittering birds, and today's spring-like temperatures? No blooms for Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day, that's how! But soon there will be flowers. Maybe even for February's GBBD. Stay tuned.
Some flowers from previous Januarys:
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Big Bird
While tethered to the computer slaving away at end-of-the-year bookkeeping, I heard the unhappy sound of a bird hitting the patio door. Must have been a big one, I thought.
Bigger than I imagined. When I first laid eyes on this, my brain couldn't reconcile the songbird I expected to see with the large brown creature I actually saw.
I didn't want to disturb it while it was still stunned, but I wanted a photo. And I was troubled by the sight of its extended wing and wondering how to contact a wildlife rehabilitator. I got close enough to the door to take a couple of good pictures and then...
Oh no, it's headed right for the door again.
It corrected its mistake at the last minute and headed for the trees instead. I didn't see where it went, but felt relieved that it could fly.
I think it's a juvenile Red-Tailed Hawk, but I'm no expert on big birds. Anybody else have an opinion?
Labels: birds
Friday, December 18, 2009
Garden Bloggers' Bud Day
Taking advantage of the lull before the storm, I'm here to report that I had no flowers in bloom for Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day earlier this week.
But there are buds.
This is one of 3 such buds on a Camellia japonica, newly planted this spring. I cannot believe that I lost the label already. Its neighbors, with no buds, still have intact labels. Why?
I hope those buds survive to make flowers for a future GBBD, but today it sure feels like we're in for a long cold winter. I'm a novice camellia-grower, but I think the japonicas are less hardy than the sasanquas? But that one is still a very tiny plant, probably less than 12 inches tall, and if we get the foot of snow that's predicted it will be totally covered up and well-insulated. (I first typed insulted instead of insulated; hmmm.....)
Labels: camellias, in bloom, weather
Thursday, December 10, 2009
December Tomatoes
Did she say December tomatoes? Yes! But it isn't like they came fresh from the vine today. This one has been "ripening" since mid-October when we frantically picked all we could before the frost. I think it may be the variety 'Persimmon', but in our haste we didn't bother to sort the tomatoes by variety - just dumped everything into any container we could find. We'll call it Persimmon. Or maybe Kellogg's Breakfast. Or maybe even a Virginia Sweets. One of the big yellow ones anyway. But I think it's Persimmon.
A good many of those hastily harvested tomatoes never "ripened" but this one did and we ate it for lunch today. It wasn't the same as a mid-August tomato, but it wasn't bad either. I scrounged a small amount of coriander/cilantro from the garden this morning, but unless we get a heat wave, that will be all until spring.
Earlier in the week I made a sort of pasta all'Amatriciana with some other varieties of tomatoes that had "ripened" off the vine but those weren't as good as today's.
With all the precipitation of the last few weeks the garden is sloshy soggy. The deer have been making their presence known by eating almost every green thing left in the garden, and now they're wading ankle-deep in mud to do it. Well maybe I exaggerate a bit, but the hoofprints are quite deep. And they've been eating things they are reputed not to like. Onions for example. So it's just as well that I didn't get my fall onions planted. The ones the deer are eating were the perennial types that I left in.
I'm content to just let the garden go for a few months. I like vegetable gardening, but it's very time-consuming. So time-consuming that I didn't write half the blog posts I had planned. Maybe I can make the clock run backwards, writing up the garden events in reverse chronological order. By the time I get caught up, we'll be back to spring and time to begin again.
Labels: coriander, deer, tomatoes, weather
Friday, November 20, 2009
Southern, Downy or Plain?
Most of the year this Viburnum sits quietly at the edge of the woods blending in with the greenery in the summer and the bare branches in the winter. But it has brief moments of glory twice a year. I love the way the pleated leaves unfold in the spring. And in fall, it does this:
This is a wild plant, by which I mean that I didn't pay for it or plant it. It was just there at the edge of the woods at Tangled Branches North. Early on, I thought I had identified it correctly as Arrowwood Viburnum (V. dentatum) and that was that. Oh, but things are rarely that simple in plant taxonomy and this innocent little plant is a good example of just how complicated the business of assigning names can be. Our taxonomic frenemies have split the one species - Viburnum dentatum - into several botanical varieties. Why botanical varieties and not subspecies? Good question. I quote from the abstract of a paper titled "IMPLICATIONS OF THE EQUIVALENCE OF SUBSPECIES AND VARIETY, AND OF THE IRRELEVANCE OF FORMA":
Subspecies and varieties are theoretically and practically indistinguishable, but both are currently used; and the choice relates more often to the geographic origin of the taxonomist than to the biology of the plants.
Glad we cleared that up.
Further, some plants which were formerly known as botanical varieties of Viburnum dentatum have been promoted to separate species. My plant may be one of those. The Digital Atlas of the Virginia Flora says that a botanical variety named Viburnum dentatum L. var. lucidum Aiton is present in Fairfax County. But wait, the USDA Plants database says that Viburnum dentatum L. var. lucidum Aiton is a synonym for Viburnum recognitum, its true and proper name. Then they go on to list four other synonyms. By the way, I think that the variety name "lucidum" is a hoot, considering the tangled taxonomic mess we find ourselves in. Well maybe we could just call it Southern Arrowwood and be done with it. The USDA says that's the common name for all the plants in question here.
Unless it isn't one of the Southern Arrowwoods. Maybe it's a Downy Arrowwood (Viburnum rafinesquianum). I was browsing the catalog of Gardens North (on a tip from Kate) when this description caught my eye: "...this shrub also has outstanding fall color ... a dazzling display of golds, pinks, and reds". And they say it will grow in dry soil, which is where mine is. Duke University says V. rafinesquianum is similar to V. dentatum, and their photos look a lot like my plant.
So I don't know. It's a pretty plant and I like it and I wish to address it properly. I haven't found a key or guide to distinguishing these species, subspecies, varieties...whatever. If you know of one, please leave a comment.
Back to The Digital Atlas of the Virginia Flora, we learn that Viburnum dentatum is a "... variable species; several varieties have been named based mostly on the distribution of various types of hairs. Their occurrence and distribution in Virginia are perhaps worthy of study." They could come to my house to start.
Labels: viburnum
