Tangled Branches: Cultivated
happenings in and around my zone 6b gardens in northern Virginia and in central Virginia
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Subtle Things
Or maybe this post should be titled On Closer Inspection. 
Most of the time moss makes a nice green carpet in the woods, but lately it's sprouted hair. Well, not really hair, but that's how it looks. And when the light shines through it, it glows.
These are spore-bearing structures, and if you'd like to know more the Ohio Moss and Lichen Association has a nicely illustrated page explaining how mosses make more mosses.
At the edge of the woods we have clumps of bluets (Houstonia sp.). They're small flowers on small plants, sort of a pale indistinct blue in color. Up close, the tiny flowers have a tiny yellow star in the center, which I think is charming.
Throughout the woods are various species of wild blueberries (Vaccinium spp.). This one grows quite tall, and is one of the first plants to flower in the woods. Again, these flowers are small and not especially showy, but apparently very attractive to insects. If you click through to the picture in Picasaweb and zoom in, you can see tiny holes in the flowers.
And lastly, dandelions are so common that I think not many people ever look closely at one. The feathery achenes are arranged in beautiful symmetry...
...and shimmer in the sunlight
Labels: mosses, weeds, wildflowers
Saturday, December 06, 2008
That's a Wrap
I think it's pretty much over until spring.
The vegetable garden, that is. I went out this morning and found that the kale and sorrel had been eaten. The radish foliage has been eaten several times. The carrot foliage is nibbled on. The ground was frozen hard. Wonder if the carrots are still any good? Dunno, because I'm not in the mood to chisel them out of the soil. The weather got so cold so fast this year. I just wasn't prepared.
But, hey, that should be good for the persimmons, right?
Weeellll.....I plucked the one in the lower right hand corner. The pulp was a mushy sticky mess - very sweet, but still had that puckery astringency near the seeds. Maybe I should plant a cultivated variety for myself and leave the wild ones to the wild critters. Speaking of, a rabbit and I startled each other while I was looking at the persimmons, and I blame it and its family for eating the kale and sorrel. The work was too neat and dainty for a deer to have done it.
So, what's left to talk about until spring? Birdwatching, stargazing, garden catalogs, and frosty moss-scapes.
Oh yeah, and complaining about the weather.
Labels: critters, mosses, persimmon, vegetables
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
Primitive Tapestries
It's December. The leaves have fallen, the snow has had not, and the woods look gray and brown.
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| The view from the deck, Central Virginia |
A closer look, though, is rewarded. Nearly every tree has draped about its base a green tapestry, self-woven by mosses and lichens.
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| An especially varied example |
Even closer inspection changes the tapestry into miniature landscapes.
I'm no closer to knowing the names of these primitive plants and lichens than I was last winter, so you're own your own as to the IDs. I think for the time being, I'll just enjoy looking at them and not worry about their names.
I got a little carried away with the photographs and narrowed it down to just a few here, but the entire collection is in my December Picasa album.
