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Saturday, October 18, 2003
Bird-feeding tip
To foil the squirrel who eats a weeks worth of bird seed in an hour or so, Gardener's Supply suggests mixing the seed with hot pepper powder. The birds don't taste it at all, but the squirrels will avoid it like the plague.
Alternatively you could spend $60 on a squirrel-proof feeder ;-)
And if you happen to have a swimming pool on your property, as nearly everyone in Texas and California seems to, you can avoid having little animals fall into it while seeking water by providing for them elsewhere on the property. Check out the animal water jug 
Pamela Shorey
3:26 PM
Thursday, October 16, 2003
Post heat wave: the Euro weather report
A friend living in the second smallest independent state in the world writes:
After Europe's Heat wave which, from a gardening point of view only, destroyed baclony plants, window boxes and gardens and their shrubs, some of those poor plants are struggling to come back to greenery and flower.
Now - in the middle of October. Plants which should have currently been becoming leafless are now sprouting new greenery and also bursting into flower. The Season is crazy: anemones and daffodils are also already putting forth their preliminary greenery. They should be sprouting only After Christmas. Something very peculiar is going on.
:-)
Big M.
Pamela Shorey
6:13 AM
Thursday, October 09, 2003
OctoBrr
October is full upon us and the leaf fall is going on in earnest. we've ahd some very crisp cool nights. Two of our cats, the adult ones, prefer to stay out overnight now.
Surprisingly (to me) my tomato plants, which I staked up better and added dirt to about 5 weeks ago when it first began to cool off, have been doing quite well. Honestly, they could use restaking adn the new fruits are small and slow, being as how they arenot getting hot sun any more. But lined up out there with a vivid pink geranium, some chartreuse sweet potoato vine and an attractive yellow-orange chrysanthemum, they look rather nice! All the plants are green and quite lush looking.
Pamela Shorey
4:02 PM
Thursday, September 18, 2003
Mole infestation
We visited some real estate yesterday and noticed the lawn was riddled with mole trails, far more than I've ever noticed on a property. I wonder what causes such a great outbreak. According to a Ohio State University Extension fact sheet on the toic, it's not caused so much as revealed:
Over-watering your lawn can bring soil invertebrates and moles closer to the ground surface, making tunnels more visible. Reducing the amount or frequency of watering may help temporarily. Reducing the amount of turfgrass on your property will also reduce the visible signs of damage. In the long run, converting lawn to gardens, paths, hedgerows, or other more natural habitats can save you time and money as well as provide habitat for beneficial birds and butterflies. -- University of Ohio Cooperative Extension bulletin The place where we visited had had a great deal of rain lately, and on the shady side of the house, the back step was covered with moss.
Another source notes the contribution of rain and shade:Quality habitat for feeding and constructing permanent runways must be available for moles to become numerous. They rarely exceed a density of 3 moles per acre. Permanent burrows and nests are usually located in areas protected by trees, stumps, fence rows, buildings, or sidewalks. Although moles may tunnel anywhere, feeding grounds are often shaded by trees, with cool, moist soils near the surface. Burrows made while searching for food tend to wander in no apparent direction and appear on the soil surface as raised ridges --University of Nebraska Cooperative Extension bulletin
Pamela Shorey
5:21 AM
Monday, September 08, 2003
Invention of wilderness
Famous American photographers like Eadweard Muybridge, Ansel Adams,and Edward Weston created beautiful images of a pristine wilderness in the early 20th century, providing us --says current day photographer Rebecca Solnit -- with a mistaken idea of what was there.
The thing that was there, and which the photographers and naturists like John Muir (founder of the Sierra Club) preferred not to see, was people. The glacial Lake Tenaya in Yosemite National Park is such a place and the black oak forest near it was discovered in the 1800s to have an appealing park-like appearance. What she found was a view of nature, expressed in writing and photographs, that did not include people. And that, she wrote, is how Americans have come to think of the natural world. There is a small problem with this view. When white Americans first encountered Yosemite, it was a well-peopled landscape. It took soldiers to un-people it.
The Yosemite Valley and the area near Lake Tenaya were home to the Ahwahneechee Indians. But the gold rush was on, the future beckoned, and Indians did not fit in. ( Read more...)
Soldiers killed some Indians and moved the rest away. Guess what, says Solnit. You take the Indians away from their Yosemite home and the scrub fills right in again. They had been using controlled burns to keep down the scrub and saplings, so the oaks would produce a good crop of acorns.
She has published two books, 'Savage Dreams: A Journey Into the Landscape Wars of the American West'and 'River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West' in which she addresses the question of what exactly is wilderness.
Sounds like some excellent observations. I hope they're not just an excuse to put oil wells on the Alaskan slope and a MacDonalds at every bend of the trails in national parks.
Pamela Shorey
5:31 AM
Thursday, August 28, 2003
Shelton Trails
Another good place to visit for a weekend jaunt Shelton Trails - hiking, strolling, etc.
Pamela Shorey
8:13 AM
Tower Hill Botanic Garden at Boylston, Mass.
I want to have lunch at the Twigs Cafe in Boylston, MA some weekend very soon! And, of course, tour the gardens.
Directions - the pertinent part, for those of use who sometimes drive from CT to ME: Worcester. Take Route 290 east. Follow through the city to Exit 24, Church Street, Northborough/Boylston. Follow to Boylston 3 miles. Entrance to Tower Hill is on right; dark red sign designates entrance. This sounds like it's about 50 minutes from here. A good trip for a Saturday or Sunday (or this weekend, for Monday!)
Pamela Shorey
7:31 AM
Gymnosperm and angiosperm
Conifers and Ginkgos are among the most ancient seed plant representatives. They belong to the gymnosperms (plants with naked seeds) which date from around 250 million years ago. The remainder of the Arboretum comprises examples from the angiosperms (plants with seeds enclosed in an ovary) which have dominated the world´s vegetation for the last 150 million years. This clearly offered distinction is from the website of Botanischer Garten und Botanisches Museum Berlin-Dahlem, Freie Universität Berlin (botanic garden and botanic museum, Berlin)
[ Thanks to Dan at Flower Delivery for the link - you will find other garden links at his site ]
Pamela Shorey
5:55 AM
Sunday, August 17, 2003
Fall flowers
I went to my local garden center this morning and got a few pots of crysanthemum. I've been seeing them elsewhere covered with blooms- far too early! The ones I bought have zero to to a few small buds on them, that's all.
Pamela Shorey
4:56 PM
Bleeding heart
There is a lovely photo of bleeding hearts at the Travelling eGarden Journal. Kate's "travelling garden" refers to the fact that she has started a garden, then moved, then started a garden, then moved again-- and again. Just recently she bought a summer cottage in Maine and it's all hers, to do with as she likes. But she carries all the other gardens in her heart, so the bleeding heart is a good plant for her.
Her bleeding heart is the large, cutivated variety. I have some sort of uncultivated ones, or possibly what I have is an old fashioned variety -- I recall the same thing in my grandmother's garden in the 1950s.
Pamela Shorey
12:19 PM
Saturday, August 16, 2003
 I have mowed the lawn twice in the past week and a half. The first time, I thought it had dried up enough, but found grass clippings clinging to the wheels of the mower (and deduced it was also clogging the blades). I got the worst of the scraggly grass out front mowed, then quit.
Yesterday afternoon I was determined to mow around the wooden tubs near the parking area that I have planted with basil, dill, tomatoes and cucumbers. I hadn't mowed there for two weeks and it showed. I moved some of the tubs, the smaller ones, out of the way, and a few pots that were collected there. There was a hill of gravel where the plowman last winter had been digging too deeply, hoping to reach asphalt (he's only been here in a snowfall, so perhaps the landlord never told him it's not a paved driveway.) The gravel hill was impossible to mow over, but I tilted the mower up a bit and ran it partway up the mound.
When I was done, it looked better, but far from perfect. My daughter remarked encouragingly: At least you can tell someone lives here now!
Pamela Shorey
1:40 PM
Sunday, August 03, 2003
Frowsy
We had rain the other day, and we needed it. But the humidity is so high that it hasn't dried up enough to mow.
The garden is no longer in the blush of first youth and resembles the woman in the Degas painting The Absinthe Drinker
[looking for a link to that painting, I found several more Absinthe Drinkers by Picasso, Edouard Manet , Honore Daumier, Francis A Wiley and the enterprising Valery Milovik, who promises to do knockoffs of his first work for any additional takers. A popular topic! ]
The lawn, such as it is, is getting scraggy looking. The hosta and day lillies are beginning to peter out and look tawdry. Even the annuals are scruffy looking despite my frequent dead-heading.
I guess it would have been a good idea to have planted some late-season flowers like zinnias and chrysanthemums.
Pamela Shorey
10:12 AM
Tuesday, July 29, 2003
Cute headline, K
I just saw this great headline on one of K's blogs, the Travelling eGarden Journal Raked, Gravelled, and Rolled, an entry from May 21, 2003, describing laying out a flower bed by the car headlights after work. (I Love puns).
K also has a blog relating to her camp in Maine "I see the Pond!"". Check out the stunning foxgloves, in pinkiest pink at a webshots page
Pamela Shorey
6:24 AM
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