Spring Wonders

In the small gap between the winter's foot of snow and the advent of unusual April heat in my part of the country, we had spring.

In early March the weather warmed enough to melt the last of the snow, including what was piled at the top of the driveway. The crocus bloomed, the snowdrops struggled to bloom and the daffodils started growing through the winter debris. In the space of two days I could finally clear the front garden beds and cut down the dried ornamental grasses so the daffodils growing in this area could be seen. Six months' worth of collected brush was put at the curb.

Dogwood buds, before they opened and the leaves appeared.
(Margo D. Beller)

I had time to again marvel at how my perennials are able to survive an unusually cold and snowy winter to grow again in the spring without any assistance from me. Then the temperature again became very cold.

That did not stop the plants from growing or the birds from singing in the early morning. The robins, Carolina wrens and jays were particularly active. Woodpeckers proclaimed their territories by drumming against trees. Despite the cold I went outside with Merlin to do a census of what was in the vicinity. (Two days ago I saw the first report of house wren in the area. My husband helped me put up the nest box. A wren came to investigate a day later and I heard one sing this morning.)

Slowly the temperature warmed. The maple tree flowered. The viburnum and pear tree started leafing, as did the lilac. At the very end of the Lenten period there were flowers on the Lenten Rose (hellebore). The dead, brown leaves started falling off the euonymous shrubs, revealing the fresh green and yellow foliage the deer will try to get at through the fencing.

Spruce continues to stand tall and, once again, has put out cones. He hosted some unusual winter visitors this year - a pair of red-breasted nuthatches. I stand in awe of him, seeing how much he has grown since he was planted in late 2007.

However, the other tree planted at that time, the dogwood, continues to concern me. Ever since having more than half of the dogwood cut down I wait to see if the remaining live half will bloom and leaf out. This year I could see flower buds but would they open? Thanks to the heat that came upon us during the last week and a couple of brief but heavy rain showers, the buds have started opening and the leaves are growing.

The apple tree starting to show leaves. It now is covered in blossoms.
(Margo D. Beller)

And then there's the old apple tree. Last year the tree leafed, bloomed and then one big branch went dead. As with the dogwood, I had the dead part cut down. Would the tree survive?

So far it looks like it has. The tree started growing leaves and, as of today, there are blossoms. Each flower is a potential apple. But I am still watching to see how the tree progresses as the season continues. The pear tree, meanwhile, has many flowers in the upper branches I can't get at to cut back. I hope the squirrels get to the fruit because, as I found out years ago, the branches of the pear can't withstand the weight of a bear.

After all the snow the plants appear to be doing quite well despite the current heat. The azalea buds are about to open. The grape hyacinth is thriving in a way I have not seen in years. The lilies and peony are growing so fast I've had to put in supports sooner than expected. 

The New England aster I planted last year is leafing but I am not sure if the lavender has survived, or if I killed the anemone. I've put the anemone in a different pot with fresh soil in what I hope is a better place in the yard. I will be watching for signs of life. If it is alive it won't flower until autumn.

By which time the spring wonder of my garden will have long been replaced by the tedium of weeding and thoughts of putting the garden to bed before another winter.  

Spruce Loses His Winter Coat

I was in the backyard the other morning, checking to make sure the woodpeckers had not finished all the suet in the feeder, when Spruce Bringsgreen called to me.

"Look, Margo, my winter coat is gone!"

Sure enough, Spruce, whose boughs were heavily laden with snow for what seemed like forever, now showed their usual blue-greenness. 

After our late January foot of snow, followed a period of intense cold, the slowly warming temperatures started working to melt the white stuff until I could not only see a good swath of the front and back lawns, I could carefully walk in the two inches or so of remaining snow to get to my compost pile and find just enough thawed area to dump several weeks of coffee grounds and other worm food.

Then, a month later, we had another foot of snow. This time, however, there was no deep freeze to follow but very warm (for February) temperatures.

Spruce in the winter coat he has finally shed.
(Margo D. Beller)

As Bernd Heinrich points out in his book "The Trees in My Forest," conifers including firs and spruces have boughs that point downward. When covered with snow the boughs are pushed against the trunk and the snow slides off ... eventually.

"I am so glad to be rid of that coat," Spruce said. "Yes," I replied, "I am getting tired of all the snow, too. It gets depressing after a while to always have to put on my boots to take out or take in feeders. The sun never gets to the area behind the enclosed back porch that I have to walk, and with all the recent melting by day and freezing by night it can get rather slippery."

"Didn't I see you putting down some gray stuff before?"

"Yes, that was some old cat litter. It helped after the first storm when there was ice, but when the melting started it became mud and left quite a mess on my boots. This time I am leaving that area alone and walking very carefully so I don't fall again."

"I will be glad to get rid of those juncos," he said. "They've been hiding out in my branches but they seem to be anxious to leave, and there are so many they are annoying some of the other birds I've hosted such as the red-breasted nuthatches and chickadees."

Over the past week there has been an increase in the number of birds singing territorial songs or drumming on trees to warn potential rivals away from a preferred nest site. A Carolina wren showed up in the yard for the first time in weeks. Canada geese have been getting restless to move now that lakes and rivers are nearly free of ice. Daffodils have started growing. So have the weeds.

"Don't worry," I said, "the juncos will be gone soon and they'll be replaced by catbirds like the one that screamed at me when I got too close last summer. There must've been a nest nearby, perhaps in you."

"Not me," he said, "tho' I don't mind catbirds or even the robins that build nests in my upper branches they don't always use. What I do mind is when a hawk that goes after your feeder birds hides in my branches."

He meant the accipiters, specifically the small sharp-shinned hawk. Accipiters are accomplished fliers. If they aren't strafing the ground looking to pick off a bird or squirrel they are diving into bushes or trees to catch a meal. The larger accipiter called the Cooper's hawk is another hazard to the feeder birds.

"Well, Spruce, considering the number of birds that are in decline because of climate change, pollution, the destruction of forests for more residential houses and agriculture, I can put up with the occasional hawk in the yard. I'll just make sure one doesn't set up housekeeping in your branches."

"That would be fine," he said. "Is the snow done for the year?"

"Gosh, I hope so," I said. "Maybe the occasional snow shower. But the forecasts I see are mainly for higher temperatures. Anything from the sky would be rain."

"That means when the snow is all gone you'll soon be cleaning up the winter mess in your garden, right?"

Alas, yes.

Autumn Garden Colors

 I've written before about the flowers I have seen during autumnal hikes. Yellow goldenrod, pink joe-pye weed, and purple asters are favorites, as is the humble snakeroot, a white wildflower blooming now that I've allowed to grow in profusion in a corner of the garden. 

The other morning I went outside to cut a couple of purple coneflowers to add to a bouquet and realized just how many of the plants blooming now in my garden are varying shades of pink and purple. 

In spring the dominant colors in the front yard are yellow and white - daffodils, crocus, snowdrops - with a little blue from glory of the snow. Then come the deep pink of the rhododendrons and lilies, the reds of the azaleas, the white of the daisies and the yellow of the coreopsis.

In the back, meanwhile, these colors also include the pink of bleeding heart, ornamental onions, coral bells and perennial geranium. There is even some purple from columbine.

But those flowers are all gone or soon will be gone, and now the dominant color is pink or purple. (All pictures by Margo D. Beller)

It took several years of trying before I succeeded in growing purple coneflowers. The plant would grow and then some sort of fungus would turn the leaves black. But this one has grown well for years.

We had a wonderful landlady at our first apartment and she, like just about everyone else in the area, grew Rose of Sharon. Hers were purple. When I put in new plantings I bought two to frame the bay window. When they bloomed they turned out to be a very pale pink with a mauve center. One of the plants didn't last a year but the other one spawned a daughter plant behind it I dug up and moved to replace the other one. This one is the original.

I once had a friend who, for various reasons, had to break up her urban garden. She begged me to take in some of her plants, which I did. Of the plants that are still around is this liriope, which I've since divided into three plants, all of which produce spikes of purple flowers in autumn. The plants have lasted longer than the friend.

Sedum is a succulent that produces clusters of pink flowers that attract the bees. It is also a favorite of deer, which is why it is behind deer netting. It is also very easy to root - if I break off a piece by accident I can put it in water and have another plant, which is why I have a number of sedums in two netted areas in the front yard. The pink on this plant will get deeper as the cold sets in.

Also blooming pinkish purple now are the Russian sage and the butterfly bush, the latter now considered an invasive plant. But I keep it anyway, cutting it back before winter snow can bend a branch low enough to affect the netting.

Of course, there are also plenty of blooming weeds around the garden and soon enough the trees will turn colors and drop their seeds and leaves. Then it is time to close up the garden for the winter.

Beneficial Friends

It is a great help to have friends in the garden, even if I am the only one working here.

One such friend I rediscovered during the worst of the fungus gnat invasion was spiders. I've always known their webs catch all sorts of flies and other unwanted insects that get onto my enclosed porch, but many of the gnats were also caught. Unfortunately, I did have to eventually spray and I hope I didn't kill the spiders at the same time. 

But there will be more spiders as long as there are bugs, so I know they will be back.

More recently I found another friend - an American toad.

Usually I find one of these on the patio, hiding behind the cover of the charcoal grill or behind the large composter. That is how I found this recent one, when I moved the grill to make room for the large container I bought to protect the bird seed that didn't get invested by gnats.

American toad (Margo D. Beller)

The toad didn't seem to be in a hurry to leave. After being scared away from the grill it sat behind the composter for a long time, probably making sure I wasn't going to bother it. Then It came out, which is when I photographed it. It was facing the netted garden and I wondered if it was heading back there. I thought I knew why.

Every so often I'd see shiny lines on the paving stones. Then one day, after I'd run the sprinkler overnight, I found what seemed like a parade of slugs - think snails without shells -  slowly making their way from the lawn to the netted garden. Some of them were very large. Slugs will do a lot of damage to leafy plants such as hostas, two of which I keep in the back of this area so the deer can't see them.

In two days I must've caught nine of them, scraping them off the paving stones with a plastic container and then dumping them down the sewer. Then we had the lawn mowed and I didn't see them again - until last week when I saw more trails. And suddenly here is a toad - which eats, among other things, slugs.

Enjoy the feast, friend.

Garter snake (Margo D. Beller)

I'm still waiting for another old friend, Mr. Slither the garter snake, to come by and keep the chipmunks away. At this time of year chipmunks and the squirrels are looking for places to store nuts. Chipmunks can easily get behind the deer netting and the big pots of plants I have there are particularly inviting. They dig and the plants get uprooted. (Chipmunks will also dig up my plants in the spring, looking for the nuts they stored.)

Like the toad, snakes aren't the prettiest creatures and we humans are taught to fear or abhor them. Yes, they also eat bird eggs and can be a menace to the creatures I like. But if they eat the pests in my garden they are more than welcome to hang around a while.

Raking

(This post was from 2011. I am reposting it with a fixed link and a picture.)

Despite nearly 20 years in suburbia I still find the leaf blower to be at best a necessary evil and I try to use it as little as possible.

The first time I go out after the leaves start to drop I use the lawn mower to mulch them. The next time, after more leaves are down, I convert my electric leaf blower into a mulching vac and crunch up as many as I can stuff into the compost pile.

But after the pile gets filled I must use the blower to herd the leaves closer together to save some time and energy before I use my rake and tarp. 

Unfortunately, I am in the minority. Most of my neighbors have lawn services that use leaf blowers, huge fans and tractors to shove the leaves into huge piles at the curb. The din is painfully loud and the gas smell pervasive. At least they finish quickly.

Those doing it themselves have their own blowers and fans that are just as bad and take longer to finish. My neighbors must work when they have free time and if that means going out as night is falling and working in the dark, so be it.

When I pull out the rake I am purposely slowing myself down. I can go out early and work quietly. I am not wasting energy but I am getting needed exercise. I can listen to the birds. 

Also, I get time to think. Here are some things I have thought while raking:

1. I always know where my neighbor’s property ends and mine begins during leaf-blowing season because he will not go one inch further. 

Pods I raked to the curb. (Margo D. Beller)

2. A pristine lawn won’t last more than a day before leaves come back on it, even if using a lawn service. So why fuss about it? “Let’s not finesse it,” my husband often tells me as we work.

3. Speaking of MH, raking is a nice way of bonding with your spouse. Every year MH and I start by getting in each other’s way but without saying anything we develop a pattern: he makes smaller piles, I sweep them into the tarp. Then we lug the tarp to the curb. The job goes faster and we rejoice in its completion together. 

4. The birds aren’t happy when I work near the feeders but they are very happy when I clear the big leaves and uncover the bugs.

5. If you stop every so often you might find something interesting. One year it was a brown creeper heading up a tree. This year it has been a redtail hawk being harassed by crows and 15 black vultures circling over the house.

6. You can see how the lawn is doing up close, including where the mushrooms have come up, the ground ivy has taken over and the skunks have been digging for grubs. 

7. Wind is the ultimate leaf blower. If I go out on a windy day I figure out the direction and rake accordingly. It amazes me how someone will try to fight the wind, wasting time and energy. Life is too short.

8. I would love to meet the person on the Shade Tree Commission who decided having locust trees on my street would be a great idea. Locust leaves are too small to be effectively blown or even raked, and the female trees usually have hundreds of hanging seed pods that fall and blacken the lawn. Luckily, this year was the one in three when the female tree on my property produced only a few pods. I would like to punch that commissioner in the nose.

9. Why don’t more towns require leaves be bagged? It’s hard enough driving on leaf-clogged streets, harder still to walk on streets without sidewalks where leaves on both sides make a two-way road into one lane. In the years I would walk home from the train every night I feared the oncoming car at my back that wouldn’t slow down. Luckily, I lived to tell the tale. When my town comes through the crew leaves almost as much behind as it picks up. I would think collecting ecologically approved brown bags of leaves would be more efficient and quicker.

10. You are going to see your neighbors and they are going to see you, whether you like it or not. So wave and be friendly. It might be the last time you see them until next fall.

Of Apples and Wren, Again

Early June. It is cloudy, cool and breezy on the porch this morning, a relief after the heat and humidity of yesterday when I was walking in a fog all day and had trouble breathing. Today, though damp, the coolness gives me more energy.

Not MH, however. It is the season of the long grass and it has been too wet for him to use the mower. He is waiting for the grass dry out a bit but in doing so we have the beginnings of a deer meadow. I am watching for deer dropping any newborn fawns in the grass, or eating the foliage of the shrubs that have enjoyed all the rain and humidity. The trees have leafed out and everything in the backyard looks very lush.

The porch window is open and the apple tree says, "Come see me. I am fertile and magnificent."

Apples in the making, 2018 (Margo D. Beller)

And she is! All the flowers of a few weeks ago have disappeared and in their place are tiny, growing apples, hard to see among all the leaves until you get close enough. The squirrels are already going into the tree, as they do every year, looking for an apple to provide moisture on a hot day, even a hard, small one. They go into the tree and, in the process of moving around, knock small apples to the ground for the deer to find. I don't feel like searching in the long grass. It will be enough of a struggle to pick up larger, partially eaten fruit and toss them into the corner for the deer while picking what apples I can for this year's sauce and pies.

This year's house wren sees me near the nest box that hangs from this tree and starts singing insistently from a nearby oak. The song is his territorial song and must also be a warning because soon his mate flies nearby. The singer is a plain little bird, brown except for the tan of his breast and belly. He looks strangely green in this cloudy morning light when surrounded by all the leaves. He sees me looking at him and flies to a higher branch of another tree. I wonder if there are eggs in the box and, if so, when they will hatch.

I take another step closer to the tree and the wren flies nearby to scold. "Go inside. You're disrupting things," the tree tells me. I step away and sit inside. I watch the wren fly to several places around the yard to sing or find food.

Apple tree with wren box at the bottom, summer 2018 (Margo D. Beller) 

Aside from the cardinal pair that still comes to the empty feeder pole looking for seed, the call of a distant chipping sparrow and the chattering catbird flying from its nest in one bush to another bush across the yard and back, the house wrens are once again the extent of my summer birding unless I see something in passing during my travels. At this time of year, I must take advantage of these cooler days to keep the ground ivy and other weeds in check and have no time or, on hot days, energy for birds. On hot, muggy days, I stay where it is cool. The birds can't do that. They must hatch and feed their young and teach them how to fend for themselves and maybe even have a second brood with another mate before the days shorten and instinct tells them it's time to fly south.

Meanwhile, also as usual, the apples will get bigger on the tree. This tree is rather odd, putting out a Mcintosh-like apple in June and July rather than in the fall, as other apple trees do. But the fruit is sweet, and that is why I will be racing the squirrels (and perhaps bear?) to pick as many as I can for approximately three weeks once the apples start to ripen.

I am hoping the house wrens will have had their brood and flown off before the squirrels and I disturb the tree too much with our picking. It works out that way each year and, barring a catastrophe I can't foresee, should happen yet again.

Too Much of a Good Thing

Where do the natives of Tahiti go on vacation?

Our dry, cool, sunny un-August weather in New Jersey is like paradise after our recent, normal heat and humidity, but it may be too much of a good thing and it has me concerned.

Gift tomatoes (Margo D. Beller)

At some point during the expected 10 days without rain, I will have to go out with the hose and the sprinkler so the plants and the lawn don't die. There are two water dishes out for the birds (and the squirrels), and they've been visited frequently.

The peppers prefer heat, not evenings that fall into the 50s, as we've been having out here, so I am not sure if the fruits will ever get big or change from green to their expected ripe colors. 

The people who like the beach had a fine weekend (until the traffic home) and those who stayed home and have a grill and/or an outdoor fireplace enjoyed stinking up the neighborthood using them, too.

We aren't beach people but we did visit friends near the Brooklyn waterfront the other day and the wife's small garden put me to shame. Various tomatoes, cucumbers, ginger root, melons, coneflowers, sunflowers, herbs, all in a space about the size of a postage stamp. 

Like other gardening friends when the harvest is coming in, I got gifts to take home because they had too much of a good thing. That happens this time of year. I've had garden plants foisted on me because they'd otherwise be thrown out. One friend claims he will put a zucchini in every unlocked car he finds in his neighborhood, and I've been given zucchinis that look like green logs. A relative complains she doesn't know what she is going to do with all the fruit and vegetables she's picking. (She is a good cook and canner so I am not worried.)

My produce, in pots rather than in the ground, have it a little tougher because the roots are limited in how far they can grow. Some friends are using the new type of mesh pot that supposedly allows for greater air circulation for the roots and creates happier, fruit-bearing plants.

Gift cucumber, nearly 14 inches long
(Margo D. Beller)

Will my peppers ever grow to the right size? One friend in Delaware complains that all the rain she got this summer created a terrible harvest for her cucumbers and tomatoes. The farmers I've talked to in New Jersey have said the same. Too much rain is as bad as to little.

And yet the farm markets are full of peaches, corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and other produce. Some people are obviously doing a lot of things better than I am.

Meanwhile, our good thing in the northeast is balanced by too much of a bad thing in the rest of the country.

In California. there are major forest fires. In Texas, Hurricane Harvey strengthened into a Category 4 hurricane thanks to the abnormal warmth of the Gulf of Mexico before slamming into the barrier islands, which should've limited the damage but there are people living on them, and so there is damage. The continued rain has devastated Houston. The rain in Texas is being measured in feet, not inches.

Too much dry, sunny weather in NJ, a mega-hurricane flooding Texas. Global warming? You tell me.

A Second Chance

Nature has a way of correcting Man’s mistakes when Man doesn’t stack the deck against it and throw things out of balance.

A few years ago, my friend in Bernardsville, NJ, decided I needed an orchid. A moth orchid, to be precise, the one you are likely to see for sale in supermarkets, Home Depot and on windowsills or tables in Chinese restaurants.

My friend has been growing orchids for years and has several. She keeps them on a shelf over her sink where the humidity is high and the light through the window behind them is bright but not direct.

Orchids, Duke Farms orchid house, June 2012

They’re easy to grow, she said. You’ll enjoy it.

I know there are people who are obsessed with orchids. Books have been written on the subject.

I am not that person.

I like to think I have a green thumb. I grow flowers and vegetables around the outside of my house, and have had flowering or leafy indoor plants for even longer.

But the orchid was different. My kitchen doesn't have a lot of light and, this plant coming to me in winter, I needed to buy orchid food AND a humidifier.

Worse, the plant wasn’t in soil. The peat it grew in seemed to be wet all the time, even after two weeks without water. (The pot had a plastic liner.)The beautiful flowers lasted over a month and when they dropped off I cut the plant back, as directed.

Instead of the expected new set of flowers on the stem, it grew new leaves. I had helped create a baby orchid.

Then the plant seemed to stop growing altogether.

I thought it had rot and so dumped the peat it was in, trimmed back the roots and put it in a bigger pot with bark.

I nearly killed it.

Orchids LIKE all that moisture. They thrive on it.

When Doris Duke decided to open a small part of her estate to the paying public (including me) to view her exquisite indoor gardens, one of the biggest hits was the orchids. Now, Doris long gone and the battle over her estate (including what to do with the Hillsborough, NJ, property her father - JB Duke of Duke tobacco, Duke Energy and Duke University - built into a huge self-sustaining farm) settled, nearly all the NJ property (except the mansion where Duke lived) is open to the public as a lovely, free park (which is very good for birding, by the way).



The Duke mansion, as reclusive as its owner.
June 2012

 The only part of the old indoor garden kept (but moved to a different part of the estate and into a more energy-efficient greenhouse) is the orchid house. You go in and it is very humid and warm, although not uncomfortably so. The orchids attached to the trees seem to be holding on by the most spindly of roots.

Just like the ones I’d cut back on my orchid, thinking I was helping it.

I am happy to say that despite my mishandling, the orchid stayed green and did not die. I did not give up on it and it did not give up on me.



Hanging on by the most delicate of roots.
Duke Farms, June 2012

 I put it back in its original lined pot and the bark remains wet. I cut off the stem with the baby orchid and put it in a vase. They’ve been out on the back porch since mid-May in the heat and humidity.

I feed both of them and now both appear to be growing again - a new root and leaf on the parent and, incredibly, a tiny root on the baby. When the baby’s root gets big enough I can take the plant off the rotting stem and put it in a small pot of bark and hope it attaches itself and continues to grow.

Maybe they'll even flower again.

A couple of times, before I put them out on the porch, I admit I came close to dumping the orchids into the compost pile.

That might not have been as cruel as it sounds. In early spring I divided two pots of cannas, planted what I wanted and put the rest - dead matter, I thought - into the compost pile. After weeks of rain and warmth and being left alone, I discovered quite a few growing canna plants. I've since pulled them up and planted them elsewhere.

The orchid might have done better - in the compost pile or on my table - had I just left it alone and not messed up nature's balance and nearly killed it.

I’ve been given a second chance so I’ll try to do better.

(Early) Spring Cleaning

Meet the reason I have to
put up with fencing.

I don’t know about you but I am neither mentally or physically ready to start gardening.

Last year at this time, according to the garden diary I keep, we had just gotten rid of the last of the heavy pile of snow that had blanketed the yard all winter. I was newly unemployed and eager to get out and get the garden ready, to welcome spring and the warmth and pretend the snow had never happened, like a bad dream.

This year we haven’t had any sizable snow since Halloween. This has been good and bad. Good for me driving to work, bad for my plow guy having nothing to do. Good that I haven’t had to shovel. Bad that the lawn and yard plants did not get the moisture from any melting snow, just a few heavy rainstorms.

And yet, here are my crocuses in full bloom, several weeks early. Here are my daffodils coming up, a few even flowering, and here are the tulips and iris coming above ground. All were surrounded by last year's tree leaves and debris.

When I went outside this March morning, only planning on putting a now-spent snowdrop plant a friend had given me into the ground, I wound up, as usual, doing three more things I didn’t expect to do. The liriope, which blooms in the fall, had to be cut back or no one would be able to see the daffodils just coming up. There were swirls of early weeds that had to be removed so the snowdrop wouldn’t be overwhelmed. There were leaves to scoop up and put into compost.

And, of course, to get to these things I had to pull down the deer netting.

There is an art to gardening with deer netting, and someday I must think about what I have learned to do and not do and write it all down. I am sure I am not the only person who has had to garden this way in the suburbs. Had I known 15 years ago when I was putting in my garden what I know now, the garden would look very different. No azaleas. No tulips. No euonymous bushes. All are behind deer netting now as are the small yew bushes in back.

Little by little I put in “deer-resistant” plants but have learned from long and painful experience a hungry deer will take a bite out of just about anything. So almost everything is behind a net, except the large ornamental grasses, onions and daffodils that are unfenced in a plot in the back where I once had an apple tree.

The thin plastic poles I put in to hold up the doubled netting (because a deer can easily chew or put a hoof through one layer) have worked better than metal poles the deer could use to support its weight as it tried to get to the plants. But the plastic poles shred easily, catching the netting in the breaks. I discovered quite a few poles with this problem this particular morning, making a hard job harder.

Luckily, I was able to work in relative quiet. No dogs in the dog park at what was once Greystone. No neighbors’ dogs chained in the backyard barking to be let in or defending a territory five times bigger than you or I may think it should be. I could listen to the birds already singing their territorial songs including cardinals and chickadees and titmice.

I’m sorry but after a week in a noisy, crowded newsroom I enjoy quiet on the weekends. It is why I moved to the suburbs. (My husband likes to remind me the noise level in our old city apartment was far worse than anything the neighbor’s dog can do, and he‘s right. Car alarms and bullets are worse.)

Once I was done I felt a sense of accomplishment, as well as the pain in my knees and shoulders.

But I also saw there is so much more to do now that the mild winter has prompted premature growth.

My butterfly bush,
as it will look later
in Spring.

Soon the grow-through rings will have to be put around the plants that would otherwise flop over. Soon the butterfly bush will have to be cut back (half of it was already cut back in November after the Halloween storm when I anticipated another snowy winter - which didn’t happen this snow-free winter). Soon I’ll be fighting squirrels for the apples, putting up the house for the visiting wren and taking in the seed feeders.

There will be more daylight, more noise, more chores to do.

This is as it should be. I would rather be achy and active than one of those people whose idea of spending a weekend is in front of a videogame, or playing virtual sports rather than real ones. I also prefer landscaping that is creative and pretty and not just the same old ilex or barberry that can keep its shape and requires the homeowner to do nothing.

I see lots of that kind of landscaping in my town and when I drive through the streets of much wealthier Englewood Cliffs to get to work. The huge homes now there (where once there were smaller dwellings) take up almost all the lot and the front “yard” is cut through with a circular driveway, the better to park your Mercedes or Lexus or BMW and show everyone how well-off you are. The yard services show up every week, whether the little bits of lawn need it or not. Plants are replaced with the season and deer netting is not necessary.

Thus I can have a “care-free” and sterile garden where I never have to come outside or I can continue to plant my vegetables and different types of annuals and perennials, even if that means having to do so above, below or behind deer netting.

I guess you’ll be seeing me outside, achy knees and all.

A change of scenery

Nothing like a sudden autumnal chill to remind you how much there is left to do in the garden before winter.

I had a lot left to do.

The back, shade garden needed major plant trimming, the fence posts needed resetting and the deer netting had to be replaced. The posts holding up the compost fencing were falling every which way. The top of the pear tree would allow an enterprising squirrel access to the screened-porch roof. A scotch broom in the grass garden had to be pulled up, providing I got something to put in its place, which I hadn‘t done.

I looked at what I had to do and took my husband as far as I could from the house Saturday.

We went to central New Jersey, the town of Allentown, which has a lot of preserved sod farms on which American golden plover and a variety of sandpipers that prefer uplands to beaches had been reported.

When we were on vacation in Maryland the other week we had heard of sightings on a sod farm in the town where we stayed and met a couple there who said this is the time of year to seek out these plovers and “peeps” on sod farms as they head south. The couple, with spotting scopes, not only gave us fine views of the unfamiliar birds but identified them for us.

So, eager to improve our sod farm birding, on Saturday we headed south and at our first stop we found three killdeer - a more common land plover - and seven of its cousins, the American goldens.

We spent the rest of the day birding and going to bookstores and enjoyed ourselves. It was nice to have a change of scene.

Now it’s Sunday. I sit on my screened porch, watching the birds at the feeder, thinking of those autumn chores. I look at the joe-pyes, bent over, flowers spent. The sorry scotch broom. The compost pile. I get depressed.

As my neighbors ride their bikes with their kids or mow their lawns, I feel overwhelmed, unable to keep up with the little I do. MH doesn’t have this problem - despite the many things he is supposed to be doing in the yard his attitude is more relaxed, perhaps because he works at home and has more opportunity to do it when he feels like it than I.

I sit a long time. But after finally going in for coffee and breakfast I get dressed and get at it.

Pulling out netting is much easier than trying to carefully work around it. Once it was off and the posts pulled out, I could easily cut back the yews, joe-pyes and dead matter on the other plants, put compost down, weed and even help out MH by getting rid of the mildew on side of the house behind the plants.

It was nice being able to move freely and do away with over 15 years of experiments in putting up netting to hinder the deer. It was calming to cut back, neaten, rearrange, even dig up a plant - a bleeding heart - I realized would sit very well where the scotch broom sat and put it in the ground, pruning the broom and putting it in another area to see if it would thrive again.

It was even good putting the deer netting back. It may be a pain but it protects my plants.

I pruned the pear tree but the compost pile will have to await another day. So will all the other pre-winter chores. I may not be able to keep up but I can at least pace myself.

It is therapeutic to tackle problems rather than run from them and change the scenery for the better.

A few words about weeds

I don’t know about you, dear reader, but for the last few weeks, maybe even months, I have not been in the mood to work in the garden.

It has either been too hot, I’ve been too busy elsewhere or it has been raining buckets.

While I was making excuses, the weeds were taking over.

The ones at the edge of the front garden were bigger than the salvias, which were also in desperate need of deadheading. (So were the butterfly weed, the daisies, the Jupiter’s beard and the coreopsis.)

Thus today I was outside for several hours before the next deluge and before it got too hot, doing hand to hand combat with the weeds.

I must give them credit, they know how to survive. Some grow between the cracks of the paving stones where it‘s hard to get them out whole; others thrive hidden under other plants; still others grow in plain sight in the middle of the lawn, hogging whatever bit of sunlight they can get.

Some won't budge without a lot of effort. Some give easily - too easily, leaving behind a root or small tendril that allows the weed to continue growing.
Some are wonderful mimics. One looks like a mum before it flowers, one looks like the leaves of a daisy and others seem like grasses except they grow a little too tall, too fast.

A weed can be defined as a plant growing in the wrong place, but some of them can be useful. The stand of Queen Anne’s Lace in the far corner of the yard is pretty and I leave it alone. Wild rose can be invasive and you have to be careful pulling it up, but if allowed to flower it provides fruits for birds. Thistle seed heads feed goldfinch families. Orange trumpet vine flowers draw hummingbirds.

Catbirds love inkweed berries like the ones above, but the one time I found a small plant in the garden I pulled it out because if you let it dig its taproot in you won’t be able to get it out without a lot of hard labor.

Butter and egg is a nice little yellow wildflower that becomes a pervasive weed unless kept in check. There are a lot of nasty weeds, such as crabgrass and ground ivy, that have to be yanked out with extreme prejudice.

And the deer assuredly do NOT eat them.

Every year I take one or two days to pull up, dig out or mow down the weeds. But I know it is an exercise in futility.

MH sprays the ones between the driveway paving stones but they are soon back. I pull out plants, including the roots, but I know somewhere down deep is a section I have missed and it will grow again. I have smothered weeds with mulch only to have squirrels dig and provide enough space and light for the weeds to come back.

The irony is, the more you disturb the ground removing weeds, the greater the chance you’ll have new and/or different ones soon.

There certainly are enough varieties. I have a Reader’s Digest book that identifies the weeds and gives their good and bad points and how best to rid your yard of them. That’s how I learned some weeds are edible - purslaine and lamb’s quarters, smaller dandelion leaves and wild onion.

But most of the time I pull up the lot and throw it in the compost pile.

As I was yanking out the weeds and cutting back my tattered perennials today I thought of a scene in a movie I saw long ago.

I like Len Deighton’s novel “The Ipcress File” with his nameless spy. Parts of the book were changed when it was made into a movie with Michael Caine. The first and most important change was the spy got a name, Harry Palmer.

But at least one other scene I don’t remember from the book is when Palmer visits his boss at home and the boss is in his English garden. All the plants are weeds.

If I remember correctly the gist of the explanation is that since they take over anyway, he might as well grow them.

Now there’s an idea for a sale pitch: Weeds, the ultimate in deer-proof plants! They take care of themselves no matter what the weather! Buy one, get a yardful in two years or less!

Well, maybe not.