WILDFLOWER / WILD FLOWER

            “A plant in the wrong place” is probably the best thumbnail description of a weed I’ve come across, avoiding as it does the whole value-judgment, hierarchical, holier-than-thou vortex. Let’s put this weed identification series to rest by looking at some plants that flummox any such neat categorization attempts.

            I’ll provide minimal commentary. You judge for yourself. There are no right answers.

WILDFLOWERS

            Here are nine specimens that grow wild—meaning without any initiation or intervention from me—in our yard or in the vacant lot next door. Most are well-behaved, and stick to their niches. Usually. (Click on the pictures to enlarge them.)

Bushy aster (Aster dumosus)

I like this white-blooming perennial, but have a soft spot (and a collector’s eye) for all asters. I’ll probably do a whole post on the genus come September. But I won’t call them Symphyotrichum, even if the Taxonomy Police show up at our front door.

Butterfly pea (Clitoria mariana)

In my book, most members of the leguminous Fabaceae (pea) family are garden-worthy. This one’s quirky beauty has to seen up close to be appreciated.

Goldenrod (Solidago speciosa)

A classic fall perennial, and with good reason. The wild version flowers more prolifically and returns more reliably than any hybrid I’ve tried.

Sundrops or Cutleaf evening primrose (Oenothera laciniata)

Blooming from early to mid-spring, annual evening primrose’s cup-shaped lemon-yellow flowers are a welcome sight. But I wouldn’t have its pushy pink perennial cousin, showy evening primrose (O. speciosa), in my garden on a bet.

  

Prickly pear cactus (Opuntia humifusa)

Cactus aren’t my thing, even perennial natives like prickly pear. The leaves—because that’s what the pads are—don’t rock my boat. But I waver when flowers and fruit appear. Still, not a good choice for barefoot gardeners.



Prickly pear pads and fruit



Prickly pear transformed



Purslane (Portulaca oleracea)

Succulent purslane is the wild cousin of the highly hybridized bedding plant, portulaca. Both are annual; purslane is by far more understated. Thanks to my friend, Chuck, for the picture of his marigolds overtaken by a stand of purslane.

 

Marigolds overrun by purslane

 

Understated purslane flower



Slender bush clover (Lespedeza virginica)

This native relation of Chinese Lespedeza thunbergii (see “Enter Field Notes,” posted June 12, 2011) produces poufs of white-and-lavender flowers in its leaf axils beginning in late summer. Personally, I’m a fan of all things lespedeza.

Sneezeweed (Helenium amarum)

Sunny annual cousin to the many hybridized sneezeweeds. Clumps of low-growing, taprooted, golden yellow flowers appear on road verges in July, and continue blooming into October most years.



Wild jessamine crowns my wisteria

Carolina jessamine (Gelsemium sempervirens)

This evergreen native vine threads its way up trees, cunningly climbs fence posts and snakes along the ground for hundreds of yards (it seems). I snip off terminal ends and pull out runners that make forays into my yard, but glory in the cascades of yellow trumpet flowers produced in late winter and early spring in the vacant lot adjoining our property.

WILD FLOWERS

           

Moving right along, I offer eight cultivated perennials that have weed/wildflower parents whose wild origins and habits have not been reliably overcome.

Tickseed (Coreopsis grandiflora, C. lanceolata)

You can generally count on coreopsis hybrids to be well-behaved, but watch out for the straight species. My experience has been that their seed-germination rate is in excess of 100%.

Bee balm (Monarda didyma)

Whiskery flowered bee balms and their cousins, the eastern horsemints (M. punctata var. punctata), have well-deserved reputations for spreading by rhizome far beyond their allotted spots in gardens. At least you can contain them by planting in  sunken pots.


Eastern horsemint, a.k.a.
wild bergamot



Monarda didyma, parent of most
ornamental bee balms











Hardy or Texas ageratum (Eupatorium coelestinum, now called Conoclinium greggii)

A perennial lookalike of annual floss flower, this autumnal blue-bloomer also spreads aggressively by rhizome, something I didn’t know until its second season in my garden. Took me two more years of grubbing out shoots to eradicate it completely.

Spiderwort (Tradescantia virginiana)

Spiderwort’s another candidate for planting in a pot to contain its propensity to wander. The volunteer shown here descended from a gold-foliaged T. x andersoniana ‘Sweet Kate’ that reverted to its T. virginiana parent-type. It’s nowhere near the original plant.

Carolina petunia (Ruellia carolina)

This sweet blue flower hides a megalomaniacal secret: it’s out to conquer the world by seed as well as rhizome. After six years of trying to keep it where I wanted it to stay, I’ve given up and let it naturalize throughout the yard.

Japanese knotweed (Polygonum cuspidatum)  

This clump-forming thug came home with me, at great cost, from one of Plant Delights Nursery’s Open Houses. I keep it in bounds (barely) by whacking at it constantly during the growing season, using lots of masons twine, and trying to remember to deadhead before seed-set. Why do I keep it? Tim loves the flowers.

Trumpet creeper (Campsis radicans)

This smothering native beauty grows with wild abandon in the woods and waste places of southeastern North Carolina; but every ‘Madame Galen’ hybrid I’ve planted on purpose has died. It’s comforting, in a way, to have proof that not everything bends to man’s will.

Maypop (Passiflora incarnata)

I have to confess that I love this native annual vine. Like wisteria, to me it’s worth the trouble it causes. But if you opt to install passionflower in your yard, you should know I’ve pulled up 175 volunteer seedlings so far this season, mostly from our yard, but also from the neighbors’. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.


Why I put up with maypop



Three of this year's 175
seedlings (and counting)



           

            Okay, kids, I’m tired of talking (and talking and talking) about weeds for a while. I know there's a useful book in all this verbiage: nonetheless, we’ll change the subject next time.

            Thanks for dropping by.

                                                                                    Kathy

VINES WE LOVE TO HATE... OR NOT

The amorphous malaise continues. Maybe I’ve developed a sensitivity to increased atmospheric carbon dioxide. Regardless of what my problem is, burgeoning CO₂ levels makes vining plants very happy indeed. In 2007, USDA scientist Lewis Ziska published a study in Weed Science saying that, since the 1950s, vines grow more vigorously and spread with devil-may-care aplomb; they’re harder to kill; and, most ominous of all, the effects of the itchy-rashy substances in the skin-irritating ones are magnified.  If you’ve battled any of the following in your yard, you know he's right.

Poison ivy counts as the worst offender by my reckoning. Urushiol, the chemical that causes the irritation, rash, blistering, oozing and itch, is present in the leaves, stems, woody parts and roots. It remains active even after the plant dies. Some hyper-sensitive unfortunates even react if exposed to the smoke of burning poison ivy, developing lesions in their mouths, noses, throats and lungs. Can you imagine?



Poison ivy, with leaves of three
Toxicodendron radicans

            Growing up in the swamps of southeastern Virginia provided opportunities aplenty for close encounters: Girl Scout Camp Skimino was redolent with the appropriately named Toxicodendron radicans (the genus translates to “poisonous wood”). My dearest childhood friend, Ginny Black, had only to pass within 30 feet of a strand to start scratching. Because children are cruel, all of the urushiol-invulnerable Scouts giggled at her misery. In those days, I could roll in the stuff and suffer no ill effect.  The day I turned 50, however, my immunity switched off. If balance exists in the universe, as I believe it does, Ginny’s curse disappeared around the same time, and she gets the last laugh. Fifteen to 30% of people are completely immune: the rest suffer at differing times in their lives (like Ginny and me) and with differing intensities.



More deeply lobed poison oak leaflets
Toxicodendron pubescens

Regarding poison ivy, our Scout handbook taught us the ditty, “Leaves of three, let it be.” This is sound advice for the fearful, akin to “Better safe than sorry.” One of life’s little ironies, it’s easier said than done for those gathering wood for the campfire, and for those laboring in gardens of their own or others. Learning to recognize plants that contain urushiol is the best defense. The three commonest offenders are poison ivy, Atlantic poison oak (Toxicodendron pubescens), and poison sumac (T. vernix). I include pictures of all of them here, and links to websites with more information.



Poison sumac doesn't follow
the "leaves of three" dictum
Toxicodendron vernix

Southeastern North Carolinians only need worry about the first two: mercifully, poison sumac doesn’t grow here. I say “mercifully” because the “leaves of three” dictum doesn’t apply. Poison sumac looks like, well, non-poison sumac. Poison oak is indigenous to the south, ranging from New Jersey to Kansas, and south to Florida and Texas, except for Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky. Go figure. Poison ivy is native to all of North America east of the Rockies plus Arizona, but not in New Mexico, North Dakota, Newfoundland and Labrador.

Why is there poison ivy? Non-human animals seem urushiol-proof: many eat it with gusto, and the berries are a great favorite of many birds. Another sorrowful mystery for the books. For rash palliatives, go to December 10, 2010's post, "Stuffing Stockings." 

I’m starting to itch, so it’s time to move on to less painful but just-as-vigorous vining plants liable to turn up in your yard.


Virginia creeper creeps
up a tree in a vacant lot
Parthenocissus quinquefolia

Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) often gets mistaken for poison ivy because seed leaves have three leaflets instead of the characteristic five of older foliage. Native to eastern and central North America, it can actually be purchased and planted on purpose as an ornamental vine, mainly due to its brilliant red fall coloration. A vigorous climber—up to 30 feet—it attaches itself to supports by means of flat discs at the end of its tendrils. The problem with creeper is that it pops up unbidden EVERYWHERE in my neighborhood. And while it doesn’t strangle the trees it obscures, its exuberant growth tends to smother them to the point of inhibiting photosynthesis. I’m just sayin’.

            Kind of like kudzu. Kudzu (Pueraria lobata) is the poster child for non-native invasive plants. (The whole native/non-native, invasive vs. biodynamic issue will be the subject of a future post.) We don’t see a lot of it very near the coast—salt may affect it adversely—but it’s certainly ubiquitous inland, where it out-competes anything else, including slow-moving creatures. Kudzu is probably the reason there are no North American sloths. It primarily spreads by shooting out above-ground stolons and sub-surface rhizomes. I include a picture of its pretty though inconspicuous flower. Allegedly, the fruits make scrumptious jellies, and fragrant soaps and lotions. Originally imported from Japan as a fast-growing, adaptable bovine fodder, when agribusiness decided to start raising cattle in concentrated feedlots and force-feeding them grain instead of the forbs they’d rather consume, there weren’t enough pasture-raised cows left to eat what kudzu had been planted. The rest—along with mad-cow disease and rising growth-hormone levels and antibiotic resistance in humans—is history.


The lovely kudzu flower



Kudzu doing its thing
Pueraria lobata



 



Another rampant vine of southeastern landscapes is the scuppernong grape (Vitis rotundifolia). The oldest cultivated grape in the U.S., the 400-year-old “Mother Vine” still grows on Roanoke Island, NC. A variety of Muscadine, scuppernong can be found in the wild all over the South. I transplanted a specimen from the vacant lot next door to our outdoor shower, hoping for future harvests. Scuppernong grapes are an acquired taste, as they have seeds and bitter skins. Scuppernong grape vines are notoriously difficult to get rid of once they establish a foothold where you don’t want them. The woody vines don’t pull out easily, and the roots of all of them, it’s rumored, extend back to the mother plant just outside of Manteo.



Transplanted scuppernong vine
takes hold on our outdoor shower



Scuppernong grape vine
making itself at home
Vitis rotundifolia







 



Bramble blackberry vine in situ
Rubus vulgaris



You can’t catalog miserable vines with edible fruits without mentioning good ol’ Rubus vulgaris, the bramble blackberry briar. Bramble blackberry is a weed of cultivation, appearing in disturbed soils. Spreading by rhizomes to form impenetrable thickets, it guards its delectable fruit by skazillions of evilly hooked thorns. I know of a large patch (the location of which I reveal to no one), and am willing to accept the blood-sacrifice required to harvest the small, intensely flavorful berries. This is not a plant I want in taking hold in my yard, however. Intruders get summarily yanked out as soon as I spot them, such as the one pictured here.



Close up  of bramble blackberry vine
at left, pulled out of the ground







Cat brier,
a.k.a roundleaf greenbrier
Smilax rotundifolia
(Note lack of thorns and
 heart-shaped leaves) 

Cat briers get the same treatment, only with less happy results. Sometimes known as greenbrier, Smilax spp. is a native of southeastern and central states, roughly similar in range to poison oak. Its most common name derives from the cat-claw-like thorns clothing the stems. You can also call it carrion flower, because, dependent on flies for pollination, its blooms stink like, er, dead things. Fortunately for us, they’re inconspicuous. Familiar species include S. bona-nox (saw greenbrier) and S. rotundifolia (roundleaf greenbrier), pictured here.  Cat brier’s apparent immortality arises from the woody tuber at its base. These tubers, notoriously difficult to dig out given their propensity to intertwine with the roots of desirable plants, can reach the size of russet potatoes. Tim and I knew a guy who carved whimsical animals and such out of them: he certainly didn’t have to worry about running out of raw material. (There's a good picture of a typical tuber at http://www.davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/94170. Click to view all nine photos at left; click again to enlarge the shot by Podster. I can't use it without authorization, and I don't want to piss Dave off.) The more enterprising among you may be pleased to learn that Smilax tubers are the source of sarsaparilla (not “SASS-parilla,” as I’ve always heard it said), if you want to go to the trouble of excavating them. Some Smilax species have smaller thorns, or none at all. These latter occasionally turn up in the trade as an ornamental vine. I can only shake my head in disbelief.

   

Cat brier,
a.k.a saw greenbrier
Smilax bona-nox
(Note thorns and
 silvery blotches
on arrowhead-shaped leaves)



 And no, I don’t know why it’s spelled “brier” instead of “briar.”

To rid your landscape of any of these vines, I recommend pulling. And pulling. And pulling. None of them have roots that pop readily out of the ground, so what you’re trying to do is starve them to death by depriving them of the ability to photosynthesize. It takes a while, but it works. It is also the most sustainable and environmentally responsible control method out there. Roundup doesn’t work on woody plants (regardless of what Monsanto may have led you to believe), so don’t bother.

The problem with vast empty spaces has raised its ugly head again. If anyone knows how to fix it, or avoid it, please clue me in.

Well, that’s enough for today. My deepest, sincerest apologies to the Sondeys, in whose yard we were supposed to be working today. I swear, we’ll be there tomorrow.

To the rest of you, thanks for dropping by.

                                                                        Kathy

JULY WRAP-UP

            As the final straw breaking the back of that undignified camel called July, poison ivy blisters dot my arms, neck and face, itching and oozing. Aah, it’s a lovely feeling; ooh, it’s a lovely sight. Feeling perversely relieved—the poison ivy rash marks the third bad thing, after heat exhaustion and food poisoning—I am drawing a line under the seventh month of 2011, bidding it good riddance with a series of random thoughts (and accompanying links), starting with the hectic and unpleasant and gradually mellowing out.

            My ‘Lemon Queen’ sunflowers did bloom on time for the Great Sunflower Project’s Great Bee Count of July 16. I participated, perspiring profusely as I stood beside the patch for a quarter-hour, and counted bees: to be exact, nine sweat bees, one each bumble and carpenter bee, and a reddish wasp I don’t know the name of. No honey bees. Tim forwarded me a snippet from Inhabitat with a possible suggestion as to why. Seems the ubiquitous cell phone plays a part in the demise of the species. How? Signals emitted by phones in use—and this includes text transmissions—confuse, dismay and disorient honey bees, prompting them to leave their hives and follow erratic paths to who-knows-where. Think about that the next time you can’t possibly wait one more second to share the excruciating minutiae of your life with someone as obliviously glued to their instant-communication device as you are.

            Sorry. Did I say that out loud?



The narrowing food tree graphic,
top half

            Okay, that’s it for cell-phone bashing (for the moment). On to my next favorite love-to-hate hobby-horse, Monsanto. Appears diversity in the seed world is getting quite a bit less, um, diverse, thanks to the proliferation of patented organisms and agricultural monocultures. Check out this graphic portrayal of a global tragedy in the making. Think it doesn’t matter that we’ve lost 516 varieties of cabbage? Better think again. Diversity is our only hedge against catastrophic crop failures.

            I did mention I was starting out hectic and unpleasant, didn’t I?

A jellyfish crafted
from beach garbage

            Do you recycle? The Fitzes do. Our two-person household produces only one 13-gallon Bio-Bag of garbage-garbage a week. Everything else we compost and recycle. I insist on using cloth or paper bags for groceries and sundries, reducing by a skillionth of a percent waste plastic slowly choking land and seas. Tim started out rolling his eyes a lot, but humored me. Now he participates of his own volition, even forwarding me an article entitled “Washed Ashore,” about artworks created entirely out of trash picked up on Oregon beaches. Now on exhibit at the Marine Mammal Center, Fort Cronkhite, Sausalito, California (through October 15, if you’re headed that way), the art makes any inconvenience involved in our “Reduce, reuse, recycle” lifestyle seem niggling indeed.

            For locals only: the Verizon Wireless Call Center at the corner of Shipyard and Independence Boulevards in Wilmington is collecting unwanted electronics and small appliances (coffee-makers, can openers, toasters, etc.) for recycling on Thursday, July 28. Don’t let all those devices sit around taking up space—dispose of them responsibly.

            Moving right along… Here are some thought-provoking statistics for you. In the June 2010 issue of American Nurseryman, Maria Zampini cites National Wildlife Federation’s Kevin Coyle’s presentation of “…some unbelievable—more like disturbing—figures about how kids spend their time nowadays:

·         unstructured outdoor play=30 to 50 minutes per week;

·         organized sports=four hours per week; and

·         indoor ‘screen’ time=53 hours per week.”

Do you read books?
You're in the minority.

Maria goes on to say that Kevin claims this lack of “face time” with other people creates children with stunted social and interpersonal skills. It also figures in the disconnect from nature afflicting youngsters that some schools are starting to address.

            Do a kid a favor: unplug whatever machine he’s currently staring at, and take him out in the garden with you.

            And, after perusing the “Who Reads Books?” factoids linked here, do the same kid another solid and take him to a library to check out a volume, even if it’s about electronics.

           

           



Joshua Bell and his Strad

              You’re a gardener, right? You appreciate beauty, and try to make some in your own space. But would you recognize beauty should you happen on it out of context? How about if, on your way to work one morning, you stumbled upon Joshua Bell playing Bach on his priceless violin in a subway station? Check out “Do You Have a Moment for Pure Genius?” to learn how 2000 Washington, D.C., commuters reacted. (Teaser: what little kids did is instructive.)



The mystical kneeling trees of Poland

           Okay, we’re rising out of the murk of July and heading for the unsullied possibility that is August. See these crooked trees? Aren’t they cool? No one knows why this particular patch of Polish pines does that kneeling thing. I’m not at all religious, but the trees make me think of the best part of church.

            Back in May, I started a post called “Penny Wisdom” (May 4, to be precise), about the folly of stinting on things that are good for your soul, with the story of Tim’s reluctance to buy himself the David Sorg easel he really wanted. Not too long ago, I found him (Tim, not David Sorg) on the floor in his studio, measuring a piece of tempered glass salvaged from our old refrigerator. “Whatcha doin’?” I asked. “My palette’s too small,” he says. “I’m going to find a Wal-Mart table to fit this glass on so I can mix colors on it. I’ll get one with drawers so I can lose that plastic kids-stuff bin I’ve been using.” “Uh-huh,” I reply. “Didn’t you mention a really nice taboret [see picture of smiling Tim] you found on the Internet a while back?” “Oh, I can’t get that. It’s too expensive.” “Look,” I urge him. “Order the damn taboret. You’ll jury-rig something that won’t do at all, and you’ll hate it. Just leave out the whole unsatisfying middle part, and order your taboret. Please. For me. Besides,” I said, “I like to sing it,” breaking into a chorus of “Life is a taboret, old chum, just buy the taboret!” (“Taboret” rhymes with “cabaret,” in case you didn’t know.)



Smiling Tim
in his elegantly equipped studio
(taboret at left)

             So, probably to stop me massacring the entire score of “Cabaret!” (“Money makes the taboret! The taboret! The taboret!”), he ordered it. His hand shook as he hit the “submit order” tab, but he did it. It’s a beautiful piece of honest-to-gosh hand-made furniture, and Tim hasn’t stopped smiling since it arrived. (For all the gardener/painters in the market for a primo piece of studio equipment out there, do go to Casey Childs’ website.)

            Why do I include this story? Because what lifts Tim’s spirits lifts mine, and, as I said, we’re rising into August.



The totally uplifting
gravity marimba

         Lastly, please take time to view this lovely video of a painstakingly constructed gravity marimba playing Bach’s “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” as it wends its way through an ancient Japanese forest. Yeah, it’s a commercial, but remember about stopping to appreciate beauty in unexpected places.

           

            Thanks for helping me lift myself out of the gloom and drought of July to Zen serenity reborn. And thanks for dropping by.

                                                                                    Kathy