spider, feather, frog: 3 little notes on gender (and wonder) in nature

New Trees: Recent Introductions to Cultivation by John Grimshaw, Ross Bayton and illustrated by Hazel Wilks. Amazon

Some trees are named to confuse. The Indian Bean Tree is not from India and it doesn’t grow beans. As a native of north America it is named for a North American native Indian tribe. The seeds are produced in long bean like pods.

Ornamental Japanese Maples are widely available for planting in your garden. The autumn colouring makes these trees spectacular when planted en mass in a woodland or Japanese garden setting.

Red, White and Blue the patriotic colours of the Hydrangea are augmented by pinks and purples like H. Ayeshia above as a variation on those themes. Flowering from mid-summer these shrubs give a magnificent display with very little effort. Did you see Hydrangea maritima on seaside holidays in large displays of sugary pink and sometimes blue.

Some Camassia species were an important food staple for Native Americans and settlers in parts of North American

One of my favorite childhood memories was watching the first spider lily (Lycoris radiata) bloom spikes magically appear in late August or early September in my parents’ garden. It was a sure sign that fall was on the way. Bulbs collected from my parents’ garden and ruins of my great-grandmother’s garden have been planted in my landscape. My grandchildren now get to experience the same joy in spotting the first blooms.

Big, yellow spiders, anyone? South Carolina has them, and as summer heats up, they get more and more noticeable. One of these spiders is the Joro spider, a non-native species first found in northern Georgia in 2014. The Joro spider is now present in the Upstate and parts of the Midlands in South Carolina. These spiders can be nearly 3” across with their legs spread.

Hover flies, aka syrphid flies, are a common sight in the garden. Of the 900 or so species native to the United States, most are mistaken by many gardeners as being a bee or a wasp due to their mimicking coloration pattern of black and yellow stripes on their abdomens. But these stingless imposters are important beneficial insects in the garden that feed on the likes of aphids, thrips, immature leafhoppers, and other small, soft-bodied plant pests. They are one of the first beneficial insects to become active in the spring and get an early start on helping to suppress those early aphid populations on certain ornamentals and vegetables.

Icon of the southwest, organ pipe cactus (Stenocereus thurberi) is one of the best known species of cacti in the United States.Reaching up to 26 feet in height and 12 feet wide, this slow

Since the book “Planting in a Post-Wild World” came out in 2015, co-authored by Claudia West with Thomas Rainer, I’ve been gradually studying their ideas and starting to have some light bulbs go off, on how to be inspired to put plants together in the ways that nature does, in layered communities.Claudia joined me on the July 17, 2017 edition of my public-radio show and podcast to about some of the practical, tactical aspects of plant community-inspired designs that we can app

Lee’s tips for growing pawpaw or American persimmon couldn’t make it sound more appealing, or simple:“Plant it, water it, and keep weeds and deer away for a couple of years, and then do nothing,” he says. No fancy pruning (like those apples crave), no particular pests–and a big, juicy harvest. More details on how to choose which variety to grow are included in the highlights from the April 29, 2013 edition of my public-radio show and podcast, transcribed below. To hear the entire interview, use the streaming player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on iTunes or Stitcher (and browse my archive of podcasts here).growing ame

A PPARENTLY HIS ENGLISH UPBRINGING didn’t prepare him for our American mania for mowing. Andre the now-Nebraskan doodler, who recently became a homeowner with a yard of his own to tame, seems to be feeling a little, shall we say, agitated.