Amy Batog
21.07.2023 - 22:40 / awaytogarden.com
NO MORE “S” WORD, as in snow—the last tenacious piles finally relented overnight Thursday-into-Friday with a warm rain. And though some fleeting sleet is forecast (please stop!) the new “S” word of the moment is shoots.These little discoveries are what keep me going as I crawl around, teasing fallen twigs and leaf litter from among the bulb foliage, cutting back perennials and generally trying to make order in the post-winter chaos. Because so many things pop out of the ground tinged pinkish or purple, it’s like an Easter egg hunt. Each colorful prize unearthed beneath the detritus is a cause for glee.
There are a few new birds, too, to likewise encourage me this last week: Hello, phoebe, with your distinctive, eponymous song. Welcome back; my porch is your porch, so nest away.
Not new, but lately bolder: A trio of crows watches each morning as I hang the bird feeder, apparently having caught on to the handful of extra seed I scatter beneath it that they swoop in and have at. They look so big up close, but they are crows, not ravens. (Crow versus raven questions, or want to know why the Corvids are so damn smart?)
Mostly, though, it’s those shoots that have my attention as I eagerly get reacquainted while at once taking care not to harm them with my rake, or feet. The annual April guessing game of mentally matching emerging spikes and knobs to images of what they will become delights me—a sort of before-and-after visualization drill for an aging brain.But why do soon-to-be-green plants pop up other-than-green, in reddish-pink or purple (colors we typically associate with fall foliage, not earliest spring)? This last week, two species peonies strutted their rosy stuff: Paeonia ostii (a shrubby “tree” peony, above) and
As native grasses such as little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium and cvs., Zones 3–9) and prairie dropseed (Sporobolus heterolepis and cvs., Zones 3–9) increasingly gain traction in gardens, exotics such as miscanthus (Miscanthus sinensis and cvs., Zones 4–9) are losing favor because of their invasive tendencies. But not all exotic grasses are troublesome and need to be avoided. Feather reed grass (Calamagrostis × acutiflora and cvs., Zones 5–9) is a natural hybrid of C. arundinacea and C. epigejos, which are both nonnatives and prolific self-sowers, but the hybrid rarely sets fertile seed—a major plus for an exotic grass, right? So why are other reed grasses—‘Karl Foerster’ aside—so underused? To answer that question is to understand the phenomenon of ‘Karl Foerster’ feather reed grass (C. × acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’).
Georg Arends was a German nurseryman who bred many perennial plants. His business was successful until the second world war and has been regenerated to be one of the oldest in Europe. It still remains within the Arends family.
What is the collective noun for a group of dandelions?  A drift or adrift in my garden!
“Of all the flowers, methinks a rose is best.”
I have a collection of heirloom German flag iris from my mother’s garden along with shared plants from aunts and good friends. The cultivar names are unknown, but the memories of the people who shared them with me abound every time I see the irises bloom.
A Stroll Around Crooked Trail Farm This Week
“April hath put a spirit of youth in everything.”
“Though she be but little, she is fierce.” ~William Shakespeare~
Are you looking at plants in your garden and wondering why they aren’t flowering?
“Like the week in Lake Wobegon, it’s been mostly quiet,” says Ellen. “For the most part, the birds have stopped singing.” Turning their attention away from establishing territories, finding mates and having families—what the songs were mostly about—they’ve shifted focus. “Some birds even lose the ability to sing after the breeding season is over,” she adds (learn more about that in this BirdNote show and transcript).In the Q&A that follows, Ellen’s answers contain green links to audio files from BirdNote’s archive that you won’t want to miss. A recap of earlier stories in our series is at the bottom of the page, along with information on how to get BirdNote daily.the midsummer bird q&a with ellen blackstoneQ. So what are the birds doing as we enter midsummer?A. Many birds–wrens, robins, and others–may raise more than one brood in a breeding season. Depending on what part of the country you call h
I sat in wait, determined to find out. The answer was a bit of a surprise:It was a blue jay. And a few feet away, watching from a branch as the first bird chipped paint off a column on the porch, three companions cheered her on, as if awaiting their turns at bat.But why? Maybe Google will know.Though the original articles it refers to—from “Bird Watcher’s Digest” and Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s former me