Life has been complicated for all of us over the past three years, but we’re hoping to create some new content for our readers.
Until we can share some original insights, here are a few links from other sites.
First, Holden Arboretum is hiring! The Horticulture & Collections department seeks a Director of Land & Collections Management. The Director of Land & Collections Management is primarily responsible for performing a variety of functions related to proper land care and environmental management of Holden Arboretum’s Living Collection trees, grassland & meadows, trails & fence, waterbodies & irrigation. This role combines practical hands-on groundwork and core safety values while also providing management and supervision to teams to achieve agreed goals. Other positions include seasonal and garden positions, as well as several internships. View the full list here.
Next, we wanted to share some information BUGS! ODNR recently published an article asking arborists, gardeners, and hikers to report sightings of the Hemlock Woolly Adelgid. HWA poses a significant threat to eastern hemlocks forests as feeding by HWA at the base of hemlock needles depletes the trees’ stored energy, causing decline and eventual mortality after several years. Elsa also wanted to warn readers that the Baslsam Woolly Adelgid may be moving into our area due to climate change.
Finally, we came across this Permaculture To-Do List and thought our readers would also appreciate it. There’s a Stewardship through the Seasons chapter in Dani Baker’s book Home-Scale Forest Garden excerpted on Practical Self Reliance. It breaks down what gardeners should do each season. Hint: Winter includes more than sitting by the fire, watching it snow!
If you’re missing warmer weather, we’ll soon be sharing a piece by Elsa about her September trip to Ocean Isle Beach in North Carolina. We hope you stay tuned!
GardenWalk Cleveland Heights is a free, self-guided tour of 60 gardens throughout Cleveland Heights on the weekend of July 17 and 18 from 12 to 5 pm each day.
A guide to the gardens and access to a map, you can download, can be found in the July edition of the Heights Observer or on the website www.GardenWalkClevelandHeights.com starting July 7.
GardenWalk Cleveland Heights is free, no reservations or tickets needed.
Gardens on the tour range from large, landscaped vistas to small pockets. You can rest in an adult treehouse, explore the concept of a co-housing cooperative, see a permaculture edible garden or marvel at the variety of perennials, yard art, water features, vegetables and child friendly spaces in the gardens.
This spring the Nature Center at Shaker Lakes will be holding their 39th annual plant sale. It’s a major fund-raiser for the center, and every year there’s a stronger emphasis on native plants. This year the catalog will be only online, and you can find it here. Orders can be placed until April 17, or until their inventory is sold.
One of the popular activities in the sale has been the “homegrown” section. Local gardeners contribute plants from their own gardens. Last year, and this year, because of conditions imposed by the pandemic, we have offered this as a separate event. This year it will be on Sunday, June 13, from 11 AM to 3 PM, at the center. Sale day will be conducted according to US and Ohio public health social distancing guidelines.
We’d love to see you all there that day. In addition, we invite you to join other area gardeners in dividing and donating some successful perennials from your own garden for this year’s homegrown sale!
We particularly
seek donations of plants that have done well in your yard without being
invasive, including:
Native or non-native flowering perennials
Ferns and other foliage plants that do well in shade
as well as:
Small shrubs or trees
Edibles
Houseplants
The Nature Center reserves the right to discard plants known to be invasive.
Donated plants should be potted up far enough in advance of the Sale to avoid transplanting shock. A supply of empty pots is available for your use behind the Pavilion at the Nature Center. Potted-up, sale-ready plants can be dropped off at the Nature Center Pavilion on Friday June 11 & Saturday June 12, from 9AM to 6PM.
We encourage you to contact us beforehand to discuss your donations. It would be most helpful if you could provide us with an emailed or written list of what you plan to donate, so that we can prepare appropriate labels. Please contact Dick Obermanns at 216-752-9776 or obermanns@aol.com. Thanks for your support!
Plant sale at the Nature Center at Shaker LakesPlant sale at the Nature Center at Shaker Lakes
Steve is a local photographer and birder. His work can be found at his website: http://www.stevecagan.com
The Audubon Society published a Survival by Degrees report in 2019, and recently reminded Gardenopolis of its Birds and Climate Visualizer component. Type in your zip code and see how climate change is predicted to affect your area and the birds that visit your backyard.
Rising temperatures mean that many birds will lose habitat and struggle to survive. Gardenopolis supports efforts to slow climate change and preserve habitat for wildlife.
Save the date! The City Nature Challenge will be held from April 30 – May 3, 2021.
Cities around the world compete to see who can document the most biodiversity in a single long weekend. The number of observations, the number of species identified and the number of people participating are shared and compared.
Good poet, I must beg to differ, Especially in this year when our lives became More dangerous than even we could dream.
Dawn has turned my yard to monochrome, The snow from yesterday pocked by clumps Of leaves that form the surface of a moon. But more than season speaks of waiting.
In this long year of loneliness, my lover Metamorphosed to a stone of now That one might touch yet never reach, Dark magic with no “true apothecary.” My friends die off like ancient trees Snapped at last by living’s winds, marked In some accounting book I cannot see.
And yet, last week I watched three horses Turned to pasture. At first, they sprinted each To corners of the field, then slowly drifted Toward a center, as if remembering themselves. They nickered, pawed, and shook their manes. And then these strong and fearsome animals, With happy teeth and lips and tongues, Began to groom each other’s heads and flanks. It seems that only creatures can speak tenderness.
Within a night of sleep, a dream of stone and snag, I watched again my father climb a ladder, stringing boughs and lights for our whole town. In those auras he looked down at me. Catch a snowflake on your tongue And you will have it all your life.
Twenty years ago in Michigan, I watched A townsman hanging lights upon a bridge That crossed the Looking Glass River And penned these lines: “Father, do we go To Heaven/Or does it come to us?” In that dream he thought it was a prayer.
Now I sense that prayer is more A trade of breaths than pleading of desires. Hier bin í. Da, bist du.1
As the sun begins to lift a little, and The world brings color to its frames again, Drawing near such scenes that I can add To memory—seeking there my hopefulness. Here I am. It is enough.
1 These words (“Here I am./There you are.”) appear in Randall Jarrell’s poem A Game at Salzburg, in which he casts them as an exchange between ourselves and God. Make of that what you will.
Update! Event has been postponed due to power outages. It has been rescheduled for December 10.
Join Dr. Jim Bissell, Director of Natural Areas and Curator of Botany at The Cleveland Museum of Natural History, for a discussion on the North Kingsville Sand Barrens and the importance of wildfires to the ecology of the land. He will talk about the similarities between the sand barrens and the lodgepole pine forests in the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone National Park. View unique specimens; hear stories about Dr. Bissell’s work; and learn about the various plant species that have adapted to wildfires, including Bicknell’s geranium, racemed milkwort, and native lupine.
Talk is Wednesday, December 2, at 7 pm. Cost is $10 for Museum members, $20 for non-members.
The weather has turned autumn cool and moist, so many tree planting opportunities are coming up. Here are a few. Please lend a hand and your expertise if you are able and want your hands in the soil. Please remember to wear a mask to any events you attend.
Saturday, October 3 10:00AM Canterbury and Bradford, Cleveland Heights Royal Heights neighbors are working to improve landscaping along the Bradford Rd cinder path. They are working from Canterbury towards the west while Peggy Spaeth and John Barber are working from Taylor Rd eastward. Trees will be planted this Saturday and the neighbors reached out asking for help from Heights Tree People. Check out the rebuilt historic WPA stone pillars that mark the pathway at each street!
Monday, October 19 1:30 PM Washington Blvd, CH We have requests for 7 trees to be planted in the block of Washington Blvd from Lee to Cottage Grove. It seems like a great opportunity for a HTP to plant together. These trees will all be planted on private property, not treelawns.
We have begun planting! Last week Margy, Kathy, Bill, and I worked with Western Reserve Land Conservancy to plant 17 treelawn trees on E130 street between Shaker Blvd and Larchmere. In addition, Bill and I have planted several trees in Cleveland Heights in the past week.
Over the summer we accumulated a list of about 50 trees to plant this fall. In addition, I am working with the City of Cleveland Heights to get permission for us to plant a tree on vacant lots in the City; there are 177 vacant lots, not all are appropriate for a tree, however most are. If you want to join us to plant, please let me know your availability and we will welcome your help.
I could also use a second person to help do a tree inventory of Taylor Rd between Cedar and Fairmount. The Cleveland Heights Transportation Advisory Committee (TAC) is about to recommend that the speed limit on Taylor Rd be reduced and consistent at 25 MPH. One way to reduce actual car speed is to have fully planted treelawns. The TAC requested I count availability of treelawn tree planting sites.
If you know Heights friends and neighbors who want trees, please get them to sign up for one. The best way to do this is to have them contact me at this Heights Tree People email address. (heightstreepeople AT gmail DOT com)
Important Late Summer and Early Fall Plantings to Aid Pollinators and Migratory Species Presentation given by Judy Semroc at the bi-monthly LEAP meeting https://vimeo.com/458967411/a07cd72ee0
I asked our writers/editorial staff to choose a plant they like and write about it. So here is Lois Rose (our Master Gardener) on Abies koreana ‘Horstmann’s Silberlocke’, a lovely silvery evergreen tree, and her Ohio citrus, hardy orange. Lois is followed by Ann McCulloh (once upon a time with the Botanical Garden before its merger but long since moved on), who writes radiantly about Oenothera biennis. Next is our permaculture expert Tom Gibson’s take on little-known gem Indian Pink. I thought I knew what plant I wanted to write about, but then found (sorry!) I couldn’t choose just one. So – here we go:
Lois Rose on Silberlocke Fir:
Silberlocke fir, Abies koreana, is a truly wonderful plant discovered in Germany by Gunter Horstmann. It is a very slow growing conifer, 3”-6” a year, eventually getting to 15 feet. It has fantastic curved upright needles with white undersides. When it is good and ready, it might produce upright cones near the top. I loved it at first sight, and have watched it grow in full sun, very slowly. It is visible from a distance, with its striking undersides and I am honored to have it in my garden.
Silberlocke fir
Lois Rose on Hardy Orange:
This unusual shrub is Poncirus trifoliata, hardy orange, which I have been growing for over a decade. It produces little round oranges, fuzzy at this stage but then less so as they ripen in the fall. They are bitter beyond imagining as they come off of the tree. No, even bitterer than that. And they are filled with seeds, little pulp, little juice. But there are advantages. In England they are used as hedges because no self respecting animal would try to cross through the half inch thorns that are everywhere on the bush. The root stock, being hardy, is used in Florida and other growing areas for more normal oranges because it will not die during a hard freeze. My oranges are now taller than I am and have grown to make a mini-hedge about five or six feet wide. Processing them takes some effort, yes. For example, you place them in the microwave in boiling water, then change it out six or seven times to erase some of the bitterness. One of the recipes calls for doing the boiling seven times, then adding a ton of sugar, and then–putting the resulting marmalade as far back in your cabinet as possible and forgetting about it. I have solved some of this problem by making the recipe with half Poncirus and half normal sweet oranges. Nothing bothers these plants–not disease nor insect nor critter. Dare you to try one.
Hardy orange, Poncirus trifoliata
Ann McCulloh on Common Evening Primrose:
Silky soft yellow flowers open in the late afternoon at the crumbling edge of my driveway. Nobody planted this 3’ tall plant, but I’m notorious for letting weeds grow, at least until I know them better.
I recognize it as a species of Evening Primrose, but the ones I was most familiar with have smaller flowers. (Oenothera cruciata) Hoping to discover that this one, too, was a native species, I first pulled out my well-thumbed copies of Newcomb’s Wildflower Guide and Peterson’s Guide to Wildflowers. I confirmed that this was most likely the Common Evening Primrose ( Why didn’t I already know this???) Apparently there’s a lot of genetic variation in Evening Primrose, enough so that they’ve been the subject of much study.
On to Google to learn whether this charming plant would be a good addition to my pollinator gardens.
Common Evening Primrose, Oenothera biennis
Hooray! Thanks to North Carolina State Extension I learned that Oenothera biennis is a biennial plant widely native in North America. It supplies nectar and pollen to some cool nocturnal hawk moths and native bees, birds eat the seeds and it’s a host plant for the primrose moth and the white-lined Sphinx moth. It readily grows in many types of soil, and is quite drought tolerant. It can seed prolifically, but I prefer that to plants that require babying.
I will be collecting seeds and scattering some this fall and others in spring. I’m delighted to find another showy native summer flower for my wildlife buffet!
Tom Gibson on Indian Pink:
My favorite plant is one I have never seen outside my own yard! It’s Spigelia marilandica, or “Indian Pink,” and it arrived by accident from a Kentucky native plant nursery. (At least I don’t remember ordering it.) My Indian Pink loves a wet, shady area of my native plant garden and produces long-lasting red and yellow bicolor blossoms in June. Whenever I see it and its unusual shape, I’m surprised it isn’t a standard in more conventional gardens. Isn’t one of the most commonly asked questions of garden columnists: “What can I plant in wet shade?”
Part of the reason may be that it has not grown natively much or at all in Ohio. Map. It is officially a plant of the American southeast—including such nearby states as Indiana and Kentucky. Yet with climate change and Northheast Ohio’s ever warming weather it seems like the perfect plant to anticipate our future. It’s been trouble-free for me and even attracts hummingbirds.
Indian Pink, Spigelia marilandica
Elsa Johnson on Phlox divaricata:
I love our native Phlox divaricata, the fragile, delicate woodland phlox that blooms in open moist woodlands in spring, and because I’m partial to blue, I especially like ‘Blue Moon’. The front third of my front yard has three small multi-trunked serviceberry ‘trees’ (tree being a misnomer) close to the sidewalk, and under them grow ferns, soft grassy carex pennsylanica, oenothera speciosa (more on that in a moment), Solomon seal, and Phlox divaricata ‘Blue Moon’, which grows here and there in small clumps. The plants and flowers look like a strong wind would dissolve them, but the flowers actually last several weeks. It’s taken a while to get established, I’ve had to nurse it along, but at long last seem to have gotten past that hurdle.
Phlox divaricata; Wooster Memorial Park, Wooster, Ohio; April 2016. Credit: Wilson44691 / CC0
A little further away from the serviceberry ‘trees’ grow clumps of Oenothera speciosa, another in the evening primrose family, also a dainty looking plant, with small elongated leaves, and flowers the same shape as the yellow flowers on the Oenothera biennis mentioned by Ann, but in a lovely, lightly veined pale pink. Supposedly it is a robust spreader, though it has not been for me, but again, finally, seems to be getting happy. I am not fond of the red splashes that appear on the leaves as the summer wears on, but I’ve learned to live with that. If not fussed with, this plant reseeds, and sometimes re-blooms lightly in the early fall.
Elsa Johnson on Amsonia hubrichtii and Pycnanthemum muticum
There are two more natives I especially like. The first is Amsonia hubrichtii (native, not native to Ohio), for the soft cloud-like texture created by its thread-like leaves which turn marvelously gold in the fall. Plant en-mass for best effect, but be patient; this is another plant that at first is slow to develop.
Amsonia hubrichtii, Sedum spectablis, and carex
Then there is Pycnanthemum muticum, our native mint, which contributes a silvery tone to the garden. Although it is not aggressive like so many other non-native mints, be prepared for it to wander.
Pycnanthemum
Pycnanthemum is a great pollinating insect attractor, which brings me to what I was originally going to write about, the non-native Oreganum laevigatum ‘Herrenhausen’. This small, low growing, robust (i.e. – spreading) oregano is a magnet to a multitude of small flying insects. When I say small I mean as in, if they were any smaller, I wouldn’t be able to see them. And also small bees – honeybees, and others even smaller. On a warm day this little patch is buzzing.
Oregano Herrenhausen
Which brings me back to native phlox, this time to Phlox paniculata, of which I have much, and at this time of year, in full bloom, it is much visited by big black-butt bumblebees (probably carpenter bees) and Monarch and Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterflies.
Our 55-gallon rain barrel is my gauge for how long it has been since it rained. A good thunderstorm or two fills it. I dip out watering cans full as needed, when the container garden gets droopy, and to water my various recent transplants. It seems like lots of water for the first few days I use it, but after a week of dry weather, I start handling the watering can with care, trying not to spill too much. Nine or ten days and I am scrapping the bottom of the barrel.
This is a bit of a game, since we have city water and I could easily use that. I am no farmer, and, when the barrel runs dry, we are not in danger of starving or dying of thirst. Still, it is satisfying to get full use of our roof water, and it is good for us to remind ourselves how precious water is. My grandparents, and my wife’s grandparents, just a few generations back, experienced dry wells and needed cisterns, and prayed for rain to save crops. All over the world people live with extreme water anxiety, living where you can’t go down to the corner and buy a Slurpee when you get hot and thirsty.
When my son was in college, a couple decades back, he volunteered at a national monument in Arizona, where I visited him. We walked into the ruins of the Anasazi villages near Flagstaff. I remember an archaeologist telling me about their farming methods. Instead of one big field, they had little fields here and there, scattered over a wide area, so that some might catch one of the fickle scattered showers. This is a region where you can go a whole season without a drop while your neighbor gets flooded. The Anasazi also built tanks: rock cisterns in little mountain gullies to catch the rain off a hillside the way my rain barrel catches the water from our roof. It is easy to romanticize the past, but when you see the abandoned rock shelter and cornfields, like the played out farms of 1930’s American dust bowl, you get a sense of how marginal life can be, how much we humans, like all living things, are subject to chance variation and shifting long-term patterns of rainfall, snow, and temperature.
Ohio, where I am writing this, is blessed with plenty of rain, but it does not always fall when you want it to. In July, with the late spring soaking rains over, the thunderstorms can be fickle too. It clouds up for a few days, and you even hear thunder, then it rains just north of you, or just south. THis can be annoying at first, when you are hauling buckets of water to thirsty plants beyond the reach of the hose. But, when this goes on for days, you start to wish and gesture and pray and WILL the clouds to let loose above you.
The rain dance is, perhaps, part of that overly romanticized past, or worse, a racist trope, something done by primitive natives, ignorant of science and ruled by superstition. I think we hang on to the notion of dancing for rain because we all secretly believe it deep below our rational minds. We see clouds gather and pass us by and we try to bargain with them, pull them and influence them like ball players waving at a long foul ball, trying to make it fair, to wrap inside the foul pole for a home run. We may be lucky to have clean water piped into our homes, but we still feel that need to influence the heavens. If butterflies can start earthquakes, why can’t we bring home the rain?
