Flower Power

Every year at this time there is a sudden profusion of potted chyrsanthemums on my neighbors' doorsteps, usually dozens of pots that are paired with pumpkins and the occasional corn stalk or scarecrow.

Daisy-like mums, 2018 (Margo D. Beller)

This is part of the annual suburban fall ritual, along with taking kids apple-picking at the closest farm, using a leaf blower to push off the few leaves on the patio and having tailgate parties before the local football team plays.

Usually in October most flowers are fading and the only color seems to be the tree and shrub leaves or these potted mums on the doorstep. Usually. This year, thanks to all the rain and the sudden return of summer-like weather after a few weeks of cool the trees are mainly green. There are still roses and the annuals that have been out all season still blooming away.

In my yard, most of the plants bloomed and busted and have been cut back except for the late plants: pink flowers on the sedum and the Rose of Sharons, purple flower spikes on the liriope.

Mums are deer candy, so I can't understand why so many people are anxious to feed the critters. But I did have a mum once, when I was new to the neighborhood. I went to a nearby farm and bought a mum with an unusual flower - more like a daisy than a pincushion, with a yellow center and orange petals. I kept that "annual" going for years because I would bring it inside and let it winter on my enclosed back porch. Come spring, the plant - far less full than when I bought it - would go out front and bloom orange and yellow again in the fall. Two years ago, it finally bit the dust.

When I've looked for a replacement I've only found the pincushion variety of mums, which are sold by the gross at supermarkets, garden stores and the big-box appliance places such as Home Depot, usually two or three for $10. No one seemed to grow the daisy type.

Purple aster (Margo D. Beller)

I've also looked for another fall-blooming flower, a purple aster. When I created my garden after we had major work done on this house I put in a lot of plants and learned they should've been avoided. I had a number of asters and quickly found rabbits eating the foliage. So I put in a low fence to keep them from this particular garden plot. Then I discovered the shrubs behind the asters were being eaten from the top. That's when I discovered deer. I've been improving on my fencing ever since.

Once better protected the asters lasted for years until they, too, died off. Even perennials don't last forever. But when I have gone hiking I have seen and admired the pale purple New York asters or the deeper purple New England asters and thought I'd like to have at least one aster again.

Asters are not as popular as mums or even "ornamental kale," the version people put out front rather than the type they don't enjoy eating though they are told it is good for them. If I found them at all they looked anemic or were planted in fancy pots with other flowers. I could not find what I wanted.

Until last week.

There is a garden store with the grand name of The Farm. MH tells me it once was a farm - a turkey farm. But that was a long time in the rural past. it has been much, much more successful as a garden supply store catering to those with money in this particular part of Morris County, NJ. I used to buy things from here because it is not far from where my in-laws once lived. Then I discovered a lot of the same stuff could be bought cheaper closer to home.

Wild asters, Morris County, 2018 (Margo D. Beller)

But last week I decided to visit because it has been known to have plants I couldn't find elsewhere. There, to my astonishment, were two "white mums" of the daisy variety and deep purple asters that, while not wild, was close to what I thought would be nice to have again. I bought one of each. I have kept both in their pots, for now, in my garden behind the netting. They nicely color the space created after I cut back my spent perennials. They have already drawn bees and small butterflies.

The aster will be planted before winter and the mum will come inside and, with luck, bloom again in future years. Unlike many of my neighbors, the plants will be watered and not left to nature to take care of them, and they won't be thrown in the trash when the Halloween ornaments are taken down and the Christmas inflatables go up.

I am happy to finally have these plants again, even though I feel strange for giving in to this suburban ritual.

The Danger Time

Canna, with bitten foliage, 2018 (Margo D. Beller

In my yard, September going into October is a dangerous time to be a plant.

There are many resources that will tell you which flowers, trees and shrubs are resistant to browsing by deer, but if they are honest they will tell you that a hungry deer will try eating just about anything.

Take my cannas. This is a tropical plant grown for its foliage. As an extra gift it sends up spikes of red, trumpet-like flowers that have been known to draw hummingbirds. Cannas are considered "very resistant" to browsing, according to New Jersey's Rutgers University.

Dahlia, in its new spot after deer "pruning" (Margo D. Beller)

That is not completely true in my yard. Because cannas are tropical, if you put them in the ground they must be pulled out, wrapped and stored before the winter cold can kill them. After the first year, I stopped doing that. I keep them in big pots and then cut them back in late fall and store the pots in the garage. Last year, a deer came to one of the pots and chewed off the flower stalk. The plant did not bloom again.

This year, I put the pots within wired fencing to create a cage. I also put in a dahlia, a late-blooming, flowering plant that must also be stored for winter. Both pots of cannas had lots of flower spikes during the rainy, hot summer.

Then came September. One morning a couple of weeks ago I came out to discover a tall stalk of dahlia flowers had been chewed off and left on the ground, the flowers I'd waited for gone. Then the deer decided to try for the canna flower stalk. It could not reach it. As compensation it took several large bites out of the foliage it could reach, leaving some of the leaves in tatters. I moved the dahlia pot and recently saw new growth and flower buds resulting from the unintentional pruning by the deer. The cannas, however, are still in the cage and every so often another bite or two is taken when the deer comes looking for that dahlia. Soon enough the foliage will be cut off and the pots put into the garage

Rose of Sharon flowers (Margo D. Beller)

Deer are threatened at this time of year, too. Perennial flowers they like to eat have died back. People, or their lawn services, have mowed their grassy lawn to within an inch of its life, leaving nothing for the deer to graze. So this is why they start hitting the shrubs such as the euonymous (the one known as Burning Bush is a particular favorite, if my neighbor's is any indication) and the yew hedges. I've put double netting on to protect the plants in several beds because deer have either eaten through the single netting or have somehow managed to slice a big hole so they can put their heads in and eat unimpeded.

Also at this time of year, there is bow and arrow hunting of deer allowed ahead of the annual November shotgun hunt, coincident with the time when mating generally takes place. So deer are on the move and when not looking for love they are looking for greener pastures. Literally.

Pink sedum and purple-spiked liriope (Margo D. Beller)

Meanwhile, back in my garden, the Shasta daisies, joe-pye weeds and goldenrod that I've had damaged by deer before (and which are now better protected) are no longer blooming. These have been cut back. What are blooming are the purple-spiked liriope and the pink sedum, both behind double deer netting. The rose of Sharon is fading, as is the butterfly bush. The leaves of the ferns, peony and astibe are browning. I'm counting down the days until I can cut back the last of the perennials and put burlap on the evergreens that will be the only thing available to the deer.

There are few in my area who go through this winter preparation. Then again, many of my neighbors' houses are landscaped with plants designed to be "carefree" and easily replaced when the deer inevitably come to eat them.

Soon the seed and suet feeders will be back up and I will enjoy watching the hungry birds. The deer, however, are on their own.

Make Way for the Monarch

Birds are not the only creatures heading south for the winter. Monarch butterflies are filing the skies, heading to winter grounds in central Mexico. The changing colors of the tree leaves get most of the attention of travelers in late September into October, but for those with the patience to stop and look around comes the reward of seeing the majestic orange and black wings of this large butterfly as it stops at fall asters, sunflowers, goldenrod and other flowers for food to power its trip south.

Biddeford Pool, Maine, Sept. 2018 (Margo D. Beller)

Think about it: This butterfly, which weighs next to nothing, has to travel thousands of miles if it is going to live to fly north in spring, find plants suitable for laying eggs and then die. The travel is treacherous. Winds blow them off course, forcing them to use precious energy to keep going. I've seen monarchs traveling over water as they hug the coast, such as the dozens MH and I saw along the coast of Maine, undeterred by strong northwest winds pushing them from the side.

Monarch and bees on sunflower, Morris Townwhip, NJ, Sept. 2018
(Margo D. Beller)

They must avoid other hazards - hungry birds, spider webs (I've saved many a monarch from a web laid across a thick bush of dune rose. Have you?), careless humans accidentally or intentionally catching and killing them. Like the birds, they keep going. They are programmed to do this. If you provide them with suitable plants, they will stop in your yard and then continue. I've seen monarchs take advantage of all the flowering autumn mums currently offered by garden centers for suburban front doorways, for instance.

We hear about the importance of milkweed to the life cycle of monarch butterflies and other pollenators, and I've been seeing more and more of the plants growing in local parks and roadsides. But the flowers still blooming at this time of year - coneflowers, butterfly bush, asters, goldenrod - are, to me, just as important because without them the butterfly would not be able to travel far and would be killed by the inevitable cold weather.

There are many other butterflies, of course, but monarchs are threatened by habitat loss in Mexico. Up here, in my part of the world, unless you have planted many types of flowers to draw butterflies, you won't see them much if you have the usual kinds of nonflowering shrubs planted to make it as easy on the homeowner (and landscaping crew) as possible.

(Margo D. Beller)

This year's weather was not kind to my butterfly plants, which is why I have seen few monarchs in my yard. The spring rains washed out a lot of the soil where the joe-pye weeds grow, resulting in few, spindly plants and fewer pink flowers. The orange butterfly weed - a type of milkweed - bloomed and busted earlier still. I no longer grow asters - something I should rectify - and the type of goldenrod I grow did most of its blooming in the heat of summer.

Luckily, I have seen many other flower gardens elsewhere that have been drawing monarch butterflies, and for that I'm grateful.

Like a Goat in Clover

Goats at work (Margo D. Beller)

There was a time when New Jersey's trees were felled for settlements. White settlers brought flower seeds from the old country. When the flowers bloomed, they eventually went to seed and some of those seeds flew off miles away thanks to wind or birds. These now-wild flowers were joined by those tougher plants we now consider to be weeds, growing wherever they had access to water, sun or, in some cases, shade.

As farms were laid out and fenced, cattle, sheep and goats would roam the pastures. They would graze on grasses and weeds. But as farms have been sold and become housing developments, farm animals no longer grazed, to be replaced by Canada geese despoiling lawns and walkways, and deer browsing store-bought and native understory plants, allowing invasives to thrive.

Pretty goldenrod surrounded by not-so-pretty ragweed
(Margo D. Beller)

When you find yourself with an overabundance of weeds, there are several things you can do. If you have a small bit of land, you can pull out the weeds or use a hoe or shovel to bring them out. But weeds are tricky. Many of them will come out with the roots attached but many more break off, leaving roots in the ground to create another plant the next year. Getting them out takes time and toil, and even then many weeds need disturbed ground to germinate. So pulling out garlic mustard in the spring will likely allow ground ivy or Bermuda grass to thrive in summer.

If you have a larger property, or don't care to spend the time and effort, there are plenty of chemical poisons to buy. However, a sloppy user may kill off good plants along with the bad, including your lawn grass. Weed killer on pavement leaves behind the shriveled remains of the plants, which you'll have to pull out anyway. Worse, the next heavy rain may wash traces of the poison down to sewers and then out to sea.

Weeds along the electrified fence (Margo D. Beller)

If you have more of an ecological bent and a very large piece of property, you can do a controlled burn to eradicate the invasive plants. But you will need a permit, experienced firefighters and just the right weather conditions - dry but not too dry, no wind, It will take many hours for the fire to do its work and you will be left with scorched earth. When the land recovers you will have to plant your natives quickly before the weeds can come back.

Then there's the old way - let the livestock eat it.

Lying in a pasture, surrounded by tall weeds, wildflowers, and staghorn sumac and ailanthus trees, four goats quietly chew. An electric fence surrounds them, protecting them from predators. There is a hut to shelter them, if needed. They hunker down in the weeds or walk around or climb up against a tree trunk to gnaw at the lower leaves. 

All they have to do is eat. It is an easy life. It is also their job.

The four goats from Antler Ridge Wildlife Sanctuary are in their four-acre enclosure just off the parking lot at the Land Conservancy of New Jersey's South Branch Preserve in Mt. Olive. They are tasked with taking down any weed found in their patch, be it the pretty, yellow-flowered goldenrod, the sneeze-inducing ragweed or others including mile-a-minute weed, mugwort, autumn olive, multiflora rose and oriental bittersweet.

According to the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, generally 10 goats will clear an acre in about a month. So you can understand why the Land Conservancy is hoping the four goats can clear four acres over the next three years.

Look closely to see the goats in their element. (Margo D. Beller)

Watching the goats can induce calm and pastoral thoughts. That these thoughts come in one of the fastest "developed" parts of Morris County, NJ, where motels, residences and commercial strips have sprung up like weeds in the past two decades is no small irony. 

To be sure, even on the South Branch property there are still more than enough weeds that could take a goat or 20. Ragweed and goldenrod and Queen Anne's lace are among those standing sentry in front of the fencing, making it hard to see where to step if you want to get a better look at the goats. Along the property's hiking trail, native grasses, brown-eyed Susans, purple liatris and milkweed mix with blue chicory, globe thistle, wild asters, crown vetch and ground ivy. 

If you agree with Ralph Waldo Emerson that "a weed is but a plant whose virtues remain undiscovered," this is a pretty wilderness. Weeds are fighters that had adapted to modern life. But if you want native plants to thrive, the "weeds" are the bad guys and must be destroyed to eliminate the competition for water and light.

However, if you're a goat, you don't care either way. You just eat.

Bugged

If there is one thing I dislike more in summer than heat, humidity, weeds and deer, it is insects.

The huge amount of rain that fell in August spawned a bumper crop of mosquitoes that, along with the biting flies, hornets, gnats and no-see-ums, make walking difficult, even without heat and humidity. I walk in the bedewed grass in the morning and I come to the porch with bare ankles burning from bites. I walk along my favorite path and where there is standing water a cloud of mosquitoes follows, biting my arms despite flailing them around, or swarming around my knees, smelling the blood from veins near the surface.

State bird of New Jersey (a free picture courtesy of Pixabay)

The estimated ratio of insects to humans is 200 million to one, say Iowa State University entomologists. In the United States, the number of described species is approximately 91,000, according to the Smithsonian Institution. One site that catalogs the bugs found in New Jersey says there are 584. They include the pretty butterflies, the not-so-pretty cockroaches, beetles, spiders, the aphids that will suck the life out of your plants, the ladybugs that will eat the aphids, the almost prehistoric-looking praying mantis and the ticks that are the bane of hikers who go off-road or travel through long grass and rough terrain. The cicadas call during the hot days, the katydids during hot nights and the crickets at all times.

There are also the many types of wasps, hornets, yellow-jackets and bees plus the midges known as no-see-ums, sandflies and chiggers. Travelers to the shore must contend with biting green-headed flies, whose numbers can force birders to look from inside their cars, windows rolled up.

When it comes to mosquitos we are told to remove all standing water. In my case that means frequent changing of the water in the dish I keep out for the birds, the ant moat that keeps insects from covering (and drowning in) the hummingbird feeder and emptying out the excess water from saucers underneath potted plants. But the other bugs I can't see or hear are worse. I push aside the large leaves of the potted canna to water the soil and something bites my arms. I walk in the grass to pick up brush and something bites my ankles. I cut back the overgrowth of the multiflora rose or a vine and something bites my elbow. 

Yes, I know, bugs are part of the circle of life. They are food for birds. While some have been cutting chunks out of the leaves of my plants and shrubs, others have been eating the offenders. Many pollinate the flowers. A bite once in a while I can tolerate, but the increase in the number of bites I am finding on me (some of which don't start getting very itchy until hours after the fact) is, with the intense heat, forcing me indoors more than I'd like, and that has me bugged. 

MH rarely wears short-sleeved shirts in summer. He usually wears long sleeves to protect his arms, particularly when he mows the lawn and disturbs the many insects in the grass that don't appreciate the intrusion. Many of these insects also hide in my garden plants, such as the hornets I discovered using my pot of perennial geranium for their nest last year when I attempted to water it. 

So when the next cool-down comes and it is time to start cutting back the garden - very soon, I hope - I will have to do more to protect myself, too.

Why I Don't Like Cowbirds

It is the Sunday of Labor Day weekend and I am far from laboring. There is a large spider on one of the poles holding netting in front of the hummingbird feeder, taking in some sun. The squirrels don't seem as active in the trees. As usual, people are not rushing around in their cars or with their lawn mowers. There is the faintest tinge of red in the leaves of the dogwood, another signal that summer is ending, the days are getting shorter and soon I'll be closing up the garden and taking in plants for winter.

Male cowbird, Cape May, NJ (RE Berg-Andersson)

Birds should've ended their breeding and raising of young by now. Many birds are on the move southward, taking advantage of those recent cooler days when the wind comes from the north to give them a push along.

However, amid this sluggishness I hear a high-pitched chatter I recognize. Then I see them, the male cardinal flying across the yard with a begging, scolding, badgering cowbird chick close behind.

It has been some time since I've seen this. Cowbirds are a peculiar species, at least to me. The only way the species can continue is the female - a drag brown, easily overlooked or confused with something else - drops one of her eggs into another bird's nest. The egg hatches, usually ahead of the bird's own eggs, and the chick is usually bigger too. To make sure it gets fed, it can push the other eggs out of the nest, monopolizing the parents. This is what the cowbird chick in my yard was doing with the adult cardinal pair.

And yet, somehow when the chick grows to maturity it knows it is not a cardinal, a robin, a Carolina wren. It flies off and joins with other cowbirds in large flocks, frequently joining with even larger flocks of grackles, redwinged blackbirds and starlings in winter as a way of finding food and protection.

When the adults pair, they are not monogamous and the female can lay eggs from a number of mates in the nests of more than 220 species of birds, according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. (Yellow warblers have been known to recognize cowbird eggs and build a new nest and lay a new clutch of eggs over the old. Other birds toss the cowbird eggs out. Cowbird eggs placed in goldfinch nests don't survive because goldfinches eat only seed rather than the insects a cowbird needs.)

Male cowbird flock, Cape May, NJ (RE Berg-Andersson)

Some people find the male cowbird handsome but I do not. These birds were once found solely on farms, following cattle (hence their name). However, according to the bird people at Cornell, once the open grasslands became towns and suburban developments, the birds spread. Now you are as likely to see them at your feeders. I try to chase them off mine whenever possible.

I pity the cardinal. This species seems particularly vulnerable to the parasitizing of its nests. It does not see a cowbird when the bird begs to be fed, it sees young and must feed it. The adult bird is programmed to do that. It does not "see" that this is not a cardinal. In fact, both parents are "blind" to that fact. All they know is the bird must be raised to fledge and then fed until it can take care of itself so it can mate and continue the species next year.

Luckily, cardinals, unlike several other types of birds whose numbers are down because of the cowbird as well as habitat destruction, are far from endangered. They will have several broods a year. There are many cardinals. They will come to my feeder and I will keep it filled for them. 

Unfortunately, cowbirds aren't endangered either. For now, I will have to put up with hearing the continual, annoying, badgering, high-pitched begging whine until something in the cowbird's mind tells it it's time to go find more of its own kind.

In the Weeds

"In the weeds" definition: "A colloquial expression used when persons are near or beyond their capacity to handle a situation or cannot catch up."

It is one of those rare summer mornings when you get a break from the heat and humidity. It is Sunday so the neighborhood takes its time waking. As I sit outside on my patio enjoying the cool, dry breeze I hear only the whirring of insects and the occasional bird call. It is so cool, even the cicadas haven't started calling yet.

Apple tree losing its leaves, Aug. 26, 2018
(Margo D. Beller)

The apple and pear trees have been losing leaves for weeks, although the other trees are still leafy and green. A catbird quietly flies to the apple, perhaps curious about my sneezing. There have been no hummingbirds yet but the squirrels have been active. The rain-like sound I hear are pieces of acorns being dropped as the critters use their sharp teeth and strong jaws to crack into the nut. The squirrels are jumping rather acrobatically from tree to tree, searching. At some point they'll stop eating and start storing, and that is when I will find holes in my lawn.

But for now it is a solid carpet of green MH mowed the other day for the first time in two weeks. I am thankful he did it because he lopped off the weeds as well as the long grass. There have always been weeds in the grass, and over the years I've learned the names of some of them:  ground ivy, wood sorrel, crabgrass, locust seedlings pushing up from the long tree roots I know are spreading under the turf. But this year I have been finding other things I've learned to identify to pull them up before they spread: poison ivy, Virginia creeper, Rose of Sharon, many raspberry seedlings and even a few poplar trees, the latter particularly strange because there are no poplars in my immediate area.

As MH mowed, I completed my third straight day of weeding, taking advantage of the relative coolness and the decrease in humidity.

Ground ivy and other weeds (Margo D. Beller)

I don't know why I am compelled to bother. The weeds are everywhere, this year even more so because of all the rain. The trenches I dug last year kept down, but not out, the ground ivy but the Bermuda grass was everywhere. Bermuda grass, unfortunately, is a perennial and it is one of those weeds that you have to use a spade on if you have any hope of getting out the whole plant. Just yanking on the leaves won't help you get rid of the plant although removing the long foliage will allow you to see the other plants you want to keep.

You might ask, why not use weed killer? Because using such poison indiscriminately will kill your garden along with the weeds. And there are some good weeds. The clover and the marigolds draw bees. Sometimes I find a flower growing in a weed pile and dig it up and plant it elsewhere. Recently I pulled up a raspberry cane and put it near the compost pile to see if it will grow and give me berries, if I can get out ahead of the birds. (Canes are thorny, like roses, so deer shouldn't be a problem.) 

Flowering ornamental onions (Margo D. Beller)

I don't mind the weeds in the lawn. They keep it green in hot weather and the purple flowers of the ground ivy are quite pretty in the spring. MH will put down fertilizer for the grass, which is why we still have most of it in the lawn despite the weeds, but putting down poison that can run off in heavy rain down the driveway and into the storm drain just hurts the environment. I see neighbors getting their lawns treated - the company has to put in a flag to warn people to keep their kids and dogs off the grass - and yet there are still weeds. 

So I'm out there pulling.

Some weeds let you pull them out completely. On the first of the days I spent weeding, I was pulling out a type of grassy weed that comes back every year. I pull and it comes out easily, in large handfuls. I filled a pail going along the area between our yard and the next house, an area falsely called "the dead area." This dead area has all sorts of weeds, but removing this thin, grassy stuff allows me to see the wild strawberries and any fruits I can pick. These are not the large, cultivated, sweet berries in the grocery stores. These are small and dryer and not very sweet but quite edible.

This year's weeds atop the compost pile. (Margo D. Beller)

The next day, even dryer than the first, I pulled out weeds from the area where I have three ornamental grasses, many daffodils and ornamental onions including two plants that flower in the fall. I remove the weeds as best as I can so I can see the other plants and remove some of the competition for moisture. I also get an idea how much room I have in case I follow through with a plan to divide the astilbe that has not flowered for two years.

The last day, as MH mowed, my plan was to put the coneflower I'd bought into the ground. I did so, dislodging eight daffodil bulbs I then had to plant in front of it. Then I started pulling weeds from the plot and saw the encroachment of the Bermuda grass under the rhododendron. Then I saw it all over the plot at the side of the house, under the andromeda bushes and around the ferns. I had a bigger pail with me and it, too, got filled to the top as I worked my way along other parts of the back yard.

At the end of those three days my compost pile had a hefty pile of green on top. When more of the leaves fall and we start raking, a layer of brown will go on top of those weeds. But for now, with the return of summer heat and humidity forecast, I can take a break from these garden labors and wait for the next spate of cool weather to cut down what's done for the year and prepare the garden for winter.

But the weeds will keep growing and next year, as usual, I won't be able to keep up.

Update: Today, Aug. 29, the New York Times has announced, in its food section, that weeds are the new big deal in food and flower arrangements. Really? How nice of the Times to inform me of something I've known for years. I still find weeds a pain, however.