Another Autumn, Another Fall

 Spring is the inspiration, fall the expiration. -- John Burroughs

The cast on my wrist came off October 1. The next day, after occupational therapy (OT), my husband (MH) drove me to the local Agway. I had hoped to buy a black-eyed susan plant. I had tried growing one some years ago but it didn't take.

I did not find it, but I did find two plants I've always wanted to grow plus one, a lavender, I planted in my ornamental grass garden years ago but it didn't survive the invasive roots of the ash tree, which has since been cut down. This time I decided to grow the lavender in a pot I put by the front door. It is a plant deer don't browse for the same reason people buy lavender products - the scent.

Potted lavender, 2025 (Margo D. Beller)

The other two plants I bought are autumn growers - Japanese anemone and a New England aster, which I've seen growing tall in fields, its purple flowers usually hosting bees.

So a few days later I spread my tarp on my enclosed porch and worked. It was a joy to be working with plants, My wrist, thanks to OT, was much stronger but I was still careful when it came to moving a bag of soil, filling a pail with some of my stored compost and then putting in the plants. Then I managed to get the aster into the ground behind the deer netting, put the lavender in its pot by the door and put the anemone into its pot behind the netting.

I shook out the tarp over the backyard and then took to folding it.

That's when I stepped backwards at the edge of the patio, lost my balance and fell on my butt.

My head survived and my back was jarred but they had fallen on soil, not the patio blocks - a blessing considering falls are a leading cause of death for seniors, which I reluctantly acknowledge being. I retrieved my glasses. This time my wrists weren't involved, my hands being in front of me holding the tarp.

Again? I told myself. I had been so careful with the soil, the pots, the planting. All I was doing was folding a tarp. But falls can happen at any time, in the house or outside. I've had both. They are not fun.

Carefully, I finished folding the tarp and went in to tell MH of my latest fall. 

Potted anemone. The wiring around this and the lavender is to 
keep out digging chipmunks. (Margo D. Beller)

The immediate consequence was a pain at the top of my left leg that was so bad I could not stand, much less walk. Pain makes me a snarling beast, and that scared MH. But after a few days of heat and rest that pain diminished and then went away. So did the lower back strain although there is still one area - either the sacrum or the hip - that I have not helped by hiking around during a period when high numbers of birds have been migrating south.

These pains used to be gone in a day. But that was when I was much younger. 

The plants are thriving, especially the lavender. My wrist improves, allowing me to finally drive solo and spare MH being my chauffeur. I've also had to move the anemone pot under the overhang so it wasn't drowned by our recent nor'easter, tho' our area wasn't hit nearly as hard as the Jersey Shore. My wrist reminds me when I've gone too far.

When OT ends next month I am sure my wrist will never be 100%. I will have to live with that, along with the other aches and pains that have dogged me in recent years. It won't stop me from birding areas where the migrating birds are. It won't stop me from going out to listen for birds on the back patio with Merlin. Nor will it stop me from writing this blog, which I'm doing wearing a compression sleeve and a wrist brace.

It beats the alternative.

An Exercise in Futility

Few tasks are more like the torture of Sisyphus than housework, with its endless repetition: the clean becomes soiled, the soiled is made clean, over and over, day after day.

--Simone de Beauvoir

The author of "The Second Sex" was not a gardener. If she was she would've said "weeding" instead of housework.

I, however, am a gardener. With a three-day holiday weekend all but assuring me of lots of people on the trails I walk to listen for birds, I took one of those days to bring my pail, bench and spade to the ornamental grass garden to get at the weeds that have run rampant thanks to heat, rain and lack of attention from me.

An assortment of weeds including milkweed, wild strawberry, 
ground ivy, oxalis and others I can't identify.
(Margo D. Beller)

Weeding is the last thing I want to do on a hot summer morning, but this holiday weekend was blessedly less humid and a tad cooler, allowing me to gird myself for battle. And battle I did.

I can identify many, but far from all, of the weeds I was pulling. There are strawberry vines, a clover-like plant called oxalis, my old nemesis the ground ivy, wild violets, dandelions. There is also lawn grass that has gone feral and moved into the plant area. 

On another cool morning I had spent several hours pulling oxalis that had grown so tall it was obscuring the plants in the sunny front plots. This time, however, the oxalis was more spread out, in some areas almost like a vine, somehow growing behind the tall ornamental grasses in much less sun.

Milkweed has shown up in this area, but because it doesn't get much sun it hasn't grown the flowers that benefit monarch butterflies. But the plant spreads through underground runners, so pulling up what is above the ground doesn't stop what is below.

The sharp blades of ornamental grass.
(Margo D. Beller)

I have to tip my hat to weeds and their methods of survival. Oxalis and the other weeds I was pulling from behind and beneath the ornamental grasses get only a small bit of sun, usually in the early morning and late afternoon, but it is enough for them. With a spade oxalis comes up easily but it is also fragile and will break. You grab a handful, pull it out, then see you left some behind. Even if you get these there may be more under the soil surface.

Some of the weeds I pulled were growing next to stones, which makes the plants hard to get with the spade. They also grow next to plants I don't want to uproot, which means I have to be careful with the spade not to take out a lily of the valley, for instance.

If the weed has a taproot, like the dandelion, I can dig down but rarely pull up the entire root. Usually some is left behind, assuring more to come later. One of the weeds I can't identify could grow into a small tree if left alone, so I try to pull it out or at least take off the foliage to slow the growth.

Ornamental grass (right) and prickly yew (Margo D. Beller)

In this particular plot, there is no netting. That is because I put in plants deer don't tend to browse, in this case three large ornamental grasses that grow after the daffodils are finished and shelter some smaller plants including a bleeding heart. So the weeds grow among the grasses and get wonderful protection. I have to be careful not to get cut by the knife-like blades as I move next to and beneath the grasses.

Also, there is a yew - taxonomy unknown - that sprang up from someplace else, filling a space when several scotch broom shrubs died from the effects of too much snow and too much cold wind one winter. Deer don't eat this yew, unlike the yew hedge nearby, because the leaves of this particular yew are prickly and have a strong scent. I can tell you these leaves scratch as much as the grasses.

Perhaps the greatest protection the weeds have is their sheer number. Eventually, they wear me down. I fill two loads in my large pink pail for the compost pile, and then I look at what is left and feel despair. 

I try to comfort myself by thinking, well, I heard lots of nice birds - house wren, catbird, chipping sparrow - and spent time outdoors in nice weather. I tell myself that at least I made a dent in the weeds - though deep down I know that by disturbing the soil I have created space for more of them to later take root.

And in the end, it's all compost. (Margo D. Beller)

It is only later I feel the mental and physical exhaustion and find the bites from insects that didn't like having their homes uprooted.

Sliding Into Summer With the Wrens

The year has been going quickly. On the cusp of Memorial Day the daffodils and very early blooming flowers in my garden are long done. When I pushed down the daffodil foliage I exposed the other plants that are now growing thanks to all the rain we've had lately - butterfly weed, liriope, purple coneflower, sedum. The azaleas bloomed nicely, as did the hellebore. The flowers on both are fading but the foliage is growing. 

(Margo D. Beller)

The rhododendron (above) is now flowering the best I've ever seen it and all of the potted cannas are growing lush foliage behind the protective enclosures used to thwart the deer.

The migrant birds I had heard in my yard are mainly gone now, taking advantage of the north wind lessening to go elsewhere. I can still hear plenty of birds during the day but they are no longer setting territory, they are quietly building their nests and creating the next generation of birds.

One of those birds is what is now known as the northern house wren.

(Margo D. Beller)

Sometime in mid-April - unfortunately I did not note the day - after reading reports house wrens had returned to my area from their wintering grounds to the south, I hung the wren box (above) in the dogwood tree. I was hoping to draw a breeding pair for another year.

On Monday, April 21 - which I noted - a house wren was singing from the locust tree in the front yard closest to the driveway. I had taken out the garbage pail so the bird was over my head. I knew to start watching for action.

Nothing happened for three days. Then, on April 24, I saw a pair of house wrens investigating the nest box. They looked inside and outside it like any couple investigating a prospective residence. Then they left. It did not take long before they started bringing nesting material - twigs - to the box. 

The activity brought a pair of house sparrows to the dogwood. Sparrows will nest in anything - any opening in a street light, for instance - and they will also try to take a nest away from another bird, in this case a house wren.

The wooden nest box was made with a small opening to let in a house wren and keep out a bigger bird like a house sparrow. After a few attempts, plus my going outside to chase them off, they stopped bothering the box. That is when the nest building began in earnest.

After my husband and I returned from a family visit the second weekend in May I sat on my porch and watched the nest box. I noticed the male would sing from a nearby shrub. The female would come out of the box. Was she sitting on eggs? Very likely. To me the wren call was the same as the "this is my territory" call but apparently the female heard something different. He would call, she would fly out to get food and then return to the box. 

A few days later I noticed she was making more trips out of the box and then flying back with food. If the Cornell bird people are right about the timing, the eggs likely hatched. Mom would fly in with food, then maybe brood her young if it was cold out. Sometimes the male flew to the box and gave the female food, presumably to feed a chick. He would fly to another branch in the dogwood or a nearby shrub and sing, presumably letting his mate know he was watching for predators.

One of the parent wrens, as photographed from
my porch chair through a screen.
(Margo D. Beller)

House wrens are tough little birds when it comes to protecting their territory. When another house wren was in the yard it was quickly chased off. When a gray squirrel climbed the dogwood looking for something to eat, the male wren flew at it, pricking the much bigger animal with its sharp bill. The squirrel left in a hurry. The wren chased off any downy woodpecker using the tree as a staging area before flying to the suet feeder. (I've since put all the feeders away.)

Some birds it left alone because they have no interest in baby birds - the yard robins and catbirds, which flew to the dogwood to scan the lawn for something to eat or bring back to nearby nests. The wren would fly to a nearby branch and watch until the larger bird left. Then the wren flew off.

Today I noticed from the porch that both parents were bringing food and going into the box to feed a chick. When they left they would take a small amount of poop to keep the nest free of bacteria. At this point the young - two or three chicks, I'm guessing - are still small. In the next two weeks the baby birds will get so big their parents won't be able to get into the box. These birds will be hungry and loudly begging when a parent arrives. The chicks will jostle each other to get to the front and grab the meal. If a chick can't fend for itself it will die.

The nesting period is 15-17 days, according to Cornell. That means at some point in the next 10 days or so, likely when I'm not on the porch watching, the male will call to the young and draw them out. One day the young are squawking in the box as usual, the next I can tell by the silence the birds have flown. Maybe for a few days I will hear the young begging for food as they follow one or the other parent around the fringes of the yard. Then they will be gone, maybe to start their own broods. The parents will go their separate ways, unless they decide to have a second brood in the nest box. At the end of the summer the birds will face the perils of flying south again.

When hot, humid summer comes I try not to do much in the garden aside from the necessary weeding. The perennial flowers and shrubs I planted will take care of themselves with little assistance from me until it is time to cut them back for the winter. 

At this point I will acknowledge that, once again, another year is ending and take the nest box out of the dogwood.

March Madness (Margo's Version)

March Madness means different things to different people. For most, it means collegiate basketball. For me, it is the start of the spring cleaning period when I must get my garden cleared of leaves, pods and other winter debris before the bulk of the flowers start blooming.

This year, however, was especially mad because instead of mid-month the unusual February warmth started the daffodils in my front yard blooming two weeks early and the plants were surrounded by, or growing through, leaves. Another problem: Periods of rain expected in the coming days meant I had only two consecutive dry days to get as much done as I could.

And so it began:

Day 1

I got out later than I should've to cut back the ornamental grasses on what turned out to be a sunny, April-like March morning. These grasses, maiden grass as I recall, I planted at the same time the garden center guys planted Spruce. They are in a plot not protected by deer netting because deer don't eat these grasses with their knife-like foliage. Ornamental grasses come in various colors and grow to various heights. Mine are somewhat stunted because of the network of roots the now-departed ash tree put under them. 

One of the ornamental grasses flowering last year, at its peak.
(Margo D. Beller)

In late summer these grasses throw up plumes of reddish seed heads; in autumn, if conditions are right, the leaves go from green to gold (last autumn was one such year because of all the rain we got, and maybe because those ash roots are no longer growing).

About the only problem with these grasses is they eventually become piles of dry straw and have to be cut back in the spring so the new shoots can come up and allow the process to begin again.

The same grass, far from its peak,
before its haircut. (Margo D. Beller)

I started with the smallest of the grasses, the one closest to the edge of the property and which takes the brunt of the cold northwest winds each winter. Lawn services have the tools to cut a nice even edge. I use my long-handled lopper. The results are not the neatest but it gets the job done. As I worked I had to make sure my bench was not resting on one of the daffodils or other plants just starting to come up. (The daffodils in this area always bloom later than the ones in front, which get more of the sun.) 

The next two grasses were progressively larger and thus took longer to cut, but eventually it all got done with a minimum of damage to the green shoots coming up or the flowers growing near them as I moved my work bench or my feet around to get at the straw.

The day ended with my cutting back the butterfly bush in the front yard, which had already started leafing out. My upper back needed a good rest.

Day 2

Day 1 was a Sunday - sunny and warm, bringing out a host of neighbors, their kids and, unfortunately, their barking dogs. Usually I go inside when it gets too noisy but I had a time constraint and work to do Sunday, so I ignored them and hoped to outlast them.

Leafy liriope and the pink flowers of sedum.
(Margo D. Beller)

By contrast Day 2 was a Monday - cloudy, cooler and a work/school day. I got out by 6:20 a.m. to start raking leaves out of one of the front garden plots where there were spent liriope and sedum foliage to cut back. Both plants flower in autumn. Bees love the sedum. Unfortunately, so do the deer. That's why I had to pull down the netting as far as I could without ripping it or breaking the support poles and lean over it to do my work. As usual there is always one pole where the netting won't move smoothly either up or down. Also as usual, I wished I didn't have to do my gardening this way.

Monday turned out to be a busy day after all, but with a particular type of bird.

Cleared front area, allowing the daffodils to be seen. There
will be many more types of flowers blooming here
as the season goes on.
(Margo D. Beller)

The singing birds I expected - robins, cardinal, Carolina wren, among others. What I didn't expect were the waves of migrant Canada geese taking off from ponds or fields and heading north over my yard to their breeding grounds. They were so loud I could hear them coming long before I saw the skeins, some of which had hundreds of birds. I always stop to watch for them because the large, uneven Vs look so impressive as these families make their way, calling constantly and shifting positions every so often so a different bird could lead from the V's point. The last skein I saw must've had at least 300 birds.

(One woman coming along my street as the geese flew over was doing what must've been her morning power walk. She was talking on the phone as she walked. That must've been an important conversation for so early in the morning. She missed a fine show.) 

My work station as I cut back the grasses.
(Margo D. Beller)

I finished my chores by removing burlap and clearing debris in the backyard plot where yews are protected by netting. The geese must've known something because the first of several expected rainy days began Tuesday.

As you might expect, this annual madness took a toll on my body, but it couldn't be helped. Too-early-blooming flowers and an expected week of rain were beyond my control, so I had to work within the time I had. My reward, once this long and tedious job is done, is being able to enjoy the flowers in my garden without leaves or overgrown old foliage getting in the way.

Which reminds me, I need a haircut.

Oh, Deer!

My brother-in-law lives in a rural part of New Hampshire. When we visit in winter his feeders draw a number of birds. Winter can be harsh up there, climate change notwithstanding. Sometimes the feeders draw something unusual - common redpolls or a flock of wild turkeys, for instance.

(Margo D. Beller)

Recently he announced the feeders had drawn something really unusual, at least to his yard - deer.

Welcome to my world.

In the past, hunting or natural predators have been very efficient in keeping down the deer population in his area. But now there are more homes being built on his road, and those neat parcels of lawn are very enticing for deer. Hunting season is apparently no longer enough up there.

All this, including hunting in restricted areas, has been going on in my suburban New Jersey neighborhood for decades. I've learned the hard way what happens when you grow plants that are not only attractive to you but to wildlife.

First it was the rabbits that nibbled at the asters. I put in a small fence that discouraged them. But it did nothing to stop the deer eating the asters or the euonymous shrubs or the lilies or the sedums. So I put in metal fence posts and hung deer netting. The fence posts would not stay in the ground so eventually they were replaced by thin, plastic-coated metal posts I could more easily hammer in, and on which I tied the netting. 

Protecting the evergreen euonymous
(Margo D. Beller)

Then I learned a hungry deer that was desperate enough would grab the netting with its teeth or use the strength of its hoof to rip a big hole. At first I used burlap to cover the netting on two front plots in winter, but the flapping and tearing caused by the wind had a neighbor complaining. Now I double a piece of netting to make it that much thicker, and I cut back the evergreen euonymous plants as winter approaches to make them harder to reach.

Like my brother-in-law I learned a deer will knock feeders around and eat the spilled seeds. One morning I saw an 8-point buck eating from the house feeder. Not wanting to be gored I banged on the enclosed porch's glass. It looked at me and ambled away. Another reason to take in the feeders at night. (I'd been taking the feeders in at night ever since the first bear attack, except when we've had heavy snow.) 

I learned a fawn could get behind the netting from around the corner if I didn't block the space with folded metal fencing. I learned there are plants deer are less likely to eat, though a hungry deer will always take a bite out of something (such as a canna leaf or a hot pepper) and then learn not to eat it again. (Of course, if enough deer take a bite, you have a dead plant.) 

(Margo D. Beller)

If I had known about deer over 25 years ago when I put in the plants what I have since learned, my garden would look very different. No azaleas and more daffodils, for instance. More ornamental grasses, fewer sedum. 

With Spring coming on I am already dreading the annual hassle of pulling the netting down so I can position myself as close as possible and then lean over the net to remove leaves or stray locust pods and get the beds ready for the season. Every few years I have to pull out the posts and replace the netting. (Last year I did this with the two front beds in a marathon session. Once netting comes down it can't be left that way because of the deer threat.)

Backyard burlap protecting yew plants I learned are
particularly attractive to deer. The backyard
neighbor doesn't seem bothered by the burlap. (Margo D. Beller)

Every year I say to hell with it, I'm taking down all this damned fencing. Then a herd of two to eight deer passes through and I remember why I struggle with this damned fencing.

My brother-in-law doesn't have to worry about this in his rural Eden, at least not yet. For now he'll be taking the feeders in at night, until the bears come out of their dens and he stops feeding the birds for the season anyway. 

Dark in August

 If a story is in you, it has to come out.

-- William Faulkner, author of "Light in August"

August is not my favorite month. 

I've written of this before. I still feel the need to complain, especially this year when we are going through a prolonged drought (after a year of too much rain) and the garden I've worked so hard to make beautiful is suffering. (It does not help when the leaders of this country can't come to anything resembling agreement on climate change, much less any other issue.) 

Lots of reminders of death come to me in August, even in good garden years. My favorite grandmother and one of my good friends died in August. My mother, gone these many decades, was born in August. The days are becoming visibly shorter - by this time next week, the sun will set in my area before 8 p.m. Already the sun is rising later in the morning each day.

Flowers from my fading garden,
likely my last bouquet this year.
(Margo D. Beller)

August is when my family would take a vacation during a time when it seemed everyone was taking vacation, so my father could close his medical practice for two weeks. But we knew when we returned we'd have to start getting ready to go back to school after Labor Day, at the beginning of September. From there it would seem like no time at all before the end of the year and the need for a new calendar.

Drying dogwood leaves (Margo D. Beller)

At my age, August has become a time of suffering, particularly this year.

Last year at this time, my cancer treatment made me so sick I could barely function. There was also so much rain that even if I had been able to spray the weeds growing between the paving stones on my front walkway I could not. And so they grew, so thickly you could not see those stones.

Weeds between paving stones. At least
you can see the stones. (Margo D. Beller)

This year has been the complete opposite.

We have already suffered through several heatwaves. The last one was from late July into early August, then we got a few days off. Now another one has started. Worse, we have had no significant rain for some time. I gambled, based on last year, and did not have the sprinklers turned on. Now my grass, like most of my neighbors', is brown and dormant. The trees that would've also benefited from a deep lawn watering are showing the effect of the drought, and that makes me feel very bad. 

Drying butterfly bush leaves. (Margo D. Beller)

The apple and pear trees have been shedding leaves for weeks. Half the dogwood leaves are dried and brown, tho' still attached to the branches. There will be no red berries this year - putting out fruit takes too much energy. The viburnum did form berries but they are still green and the ripening seems to have stopped. Shrubs are wilting. The ferns have dried to a crisp. 

The heat has kept me inside most days, except for the early morning when I can sit on my porch and listen to the yard birds. As I've said before, they can do very well without my help (tho' I do provide a water dish) and, judging by the young I've seen and heard, have been very successful this year, despite the conditions.

Drying canna leaves. The plants should've
flowered by now. (Margo D. Beller)

Even the weeds have stopped growing, at least in those areas where I pulled them when we had a couple of cool mornings. However, in the areas behind the deer netting they are very much alive and in some places close to obscuring the perennials I have tried to water every so often. The butterfly bush has flowers but the leaves are showing brown. The cannas in their pots have brown edges on the foliage and have not flowered. (Plants in pots need more water than plants in the ground.)

The daisies bloomed nicely but now they
are ready to be cut back. (Margo D. Beller)

I know, this is not the first dry season we've had but it feels different. Some parts of my state have been inundated with rain. Mine has not. And most of the country is dealing with some level of drought as waterways dry up and fires rage, including in some of our most famous national parks. 

The world is warming by a few degrees each year. The summers are hotter and drier. While I complain in New Jersey, other areas in the western part of this country are being consumed by forest fires sparked by years of drought. (Meanwhile, others are literally drowning in rain.) 

The peppers are now doing well in the heat. 
So are the basils nearby. (Margo D. Beller)

So I get it. And even in my yard some things are doing well in the heat, as long as I water them. The bugs that beset my pepper plants are gone so the plants have recovered and are finally going to provide me with some vegetables. There have been no white flies this year so the basil plants are growing extremely well, the best since I started growing basil in pots. The many sedums I have growing - daughter plants that have been rooted from the original plant, all behind netting I reinforced to keep out the deer - are starting to put out flowers, right on schedule. (These plants are succulents, so they retain moisture.)

But those are the exceptions. Otherwise, I am surrounded by death and dying and I have resigned myself to waiting for the next cool morning to cut back the perennials and then hope conditions are better next year for them to grow and thrive. 

There are berries forming on the viburnum but
they are far from ripe. (Margo D. Beller)

That is the main reason why I dislike August. I can't stop it. 

August is inevitable. Its heat and humidity sap my strength. The weeds and dried-out plants make me feel I can't keep up with the needs of my garden. The song says, who'll stop the rain. I can't start it. The darker early mornings will return and make it harder to get up and do what needs to be done every day. Soon it will be winter and I can only hope we have some rain by then, and even some snow (but not too much, please).

Ultimately, August reminds me of my mortality. 

A Hot Time in the Garden

“Summer’s lease hath all too short a date.”

-- William Shakespeare

I went looking for a summer quote to start this blog post, and this one of the Bard's was the closest to what I feel about summer. It is all too short ... but not short enough.

Spider mites (Margo D. Beller)

Most people love summer for the heat, being out of school, time down the shore. Not me. The overabundance of heat, humidity and insects tends to keep me indoors if I can help it. 

I don't need to look for birds now. The birds can get along without me quite well, and there are plenty I can hear in the early morning cool from my porch - robins, catbirds, cardinals, mockingbird, the occasional house finch, flicker or goldfinch. (The house wrens are silent, however, making frequent trips to the box to feed their young.)

Overgrown apple tree
(Margo D. Beller)

But with summer comes too many garden chores, and if I don't work in the garden on a regular basis - heat or no - I have big problems.

The flowers are lovely, yes, but the weeds are also growing - everywhere, including behind the deer netting. Last year, when I was sick, I could do nothing in the garden. As a result, there were so many weeds everywhere, including growing between the paving stones on the front walkway so you couldn't see the bricks. This year I've been out frequently with a spray bottle of vinegar and salt to keep that from happening again.

Overgrown cedar (Margo D. Beller)

There are, as usual, too many insects. They feed the birds but they also attack garden plants and sometimes me. The red spider mites showed up earlier than usual to attack the yellow daisies. For these pests I use a spray bottle of water and, wearing rubber gloves, carefully run my fingers up the stem and crush as many of these pests as I can (and then rinse the red residue off the gloves).

In some areas of the yard, my pulling weeds angers the resident no-see-ums, which bite me so fiercely the affected areas feel like they are on fire. This is despite my wearing coverings from head to toe and going out early to work when it is cooler and shady.

And don't get me started on mosquitoes.

Overgrown pear tree (Margo D. Beller)

The ground ivy grows everywhere, no matter how much I pull up. Its more noxious cousin, poison ivy, has been coming up in nearly inaccessible places, such as under the hedge. I can yank up handfuls of ground ivy but for poison ivy I need to cover each hand with a plastic bag to pull the stuff out without giving myself a rash, and even then I make sure to wash my hands and lower arms with cold water and soap as soon as possible.

The blue spruce is tall and stately, but it is in an area of the yard where it does not affect the house. The dogwood that was planted nearby at the same time as the spruce has reached its full height, but it is a runt compared with the tall oak trees overhead. But other trees should've been pruned years ago. The arborvitae (white cedar) planted near the front door is now so tall I could reach it from my second-floor office window. The pear tree grew so tall its fruit-laden upper branches were resting on the porch roof. The apple tree is in dire need of a haircut, too.

Ground ivy on the wrong side of the fence
(Margo D. Beller)

Yesterday, an unusually cool and windy day, I took my 14-foot extension lopper and cut down as many of the pear branches as I could reach. But the other pear branches plus those of the other too-tall trees will need professional help this year. As will the house, which needs washing and gutter clearing. And there's that deer fencing I must re-do when it gets cooler so I can get at the weeds, put down mulch and dig a new border to minimize the mess next year (I hope).

Summer can't end soon enough.

 

Resurgence

Life is what happens to you while you're making other plans.

  -- John Lennon

The blue iris that suddenly appeared. (Margo D. Beller)

Hello! It has been a while. Time has a way of running away when you're not paying attention. In my case a combination of Covid prevention, cancer treatments and work stress had kept me occupied and not in the best state of mind. But today, Memorial Day, I have gotten my weekend chores out of the way and I'm not working - perfect for gathering my thoughts and catching up.

Azaleas 2022
(Margo D. Beller)

Since I last wrote we had a less snowy but very cold winter followed by a bit of spring when the trees started to bud and the grass started to go green. Then, in late April into early May, it was damp and chilly, which was good for the outdoor plants but not for me, who was itching to put out my pepper pots before the little flies killed them. The same with my canna pots, covered in the garage. The cannas went out first - a month late - while it was still in the 40s overnight. Finally, around the time we went to visit family for Mother's Day, I put out the peppers, two types of basil I had bought at the local Agway and the pot of coleus I kept over the winter. All are enclosed in a wire cage, of course, because we still have plenty of deer. 

What we didn't have were migrating birds. By the time I took the feeders in for the summer, the migration radar I look at showed the strong winds out of the north and northeast that brought the cold and rain had detoured the birds coming up on the southerly  winds into the midwest. Then, many of them hung a right and flew over the mid-Atlantic region where I live and, eventually, into New England and beyond. 

Columbine, behind the deer netting. 
(Margo D. Beller)

Once we returned from New Hampshire (where we didn't have much in the way of warblers except for the pine, one of the earliest migrants) the heat came at us - midsummer heat in May with strong thunderstorms. The weeds started to grow in the front walkway and in the garden beds. If I wanted to walk it had to be early. One such weekday morning I went to Greystone as the sun was hitting a tree near the back path where I walk. It was filled with calling birds. I had a few such mornings, when I could force myself out of bed at first light so I would have time before work. 

The day after I should have put up the wren box, a house wren appeared at the water dish when we happened to be sitting on the porch, and then it flew off. The box went up (my husband spotting me as I went up the ladder at the dogwood tree) but no bird has come. Same with the hummingbirds - nothing, despite my feeder and the pink flowers of the geranium and coral bells in back, the red azeleas in front and the purple columbine everywhere. (Usually I start seeing hummers in June but I start putting sugar water out in May because, as they say, you never know.)   

By the time we took our annual trip to Old Mine Road to listen for the territorial calls of breeding birds (in the ridges near the Delaware Water Gap) I knew migration was just about over. This was the point when I started doing garden chores, including using my edger around the ornamental grass garden and lugging soil and mulch to the area behind the porch where the heavy rains had eroded the dirt and left it muddy when I'd go out with the feeders. Now, no more mud (but no more feeders either, until maybe Labor Day).

Lenten rose 2022 (Margo D. Beller)

There have been birds around my yard, singing as I have worked or sat on my porch - red-eyed vireo, titmouse, chickadee, cedar waxwings, various woodpeckers and what I call the Big Four of robin, catbird, cardinal and song sparrow. (The juncos and white-throated sparrows are long gone.) There has also been a mockingbird that does a very good imitation of a Carolina wren, so good that when a real wren was singing I had to listen hard to make sure of it. We even had some warblers passing through including an orange-crowned that spent the day calling from a neighbor's bush, a Nashville (my 100th yard bird) whose large eye ring makes identification simple and a few blackpolls, whose call I associate with the end of migration (this bird has one of the longest migration routes).

Peonies, again behind deer netting.
(Margo D. Beller)

The snowdrops, crocus and glory of the snow started the growing season. Then the daffodils, which did very well this year, as did the azaleas, the irises and the hyacinth. The columbines in front and back decided to flower, the peony finally opened its big, red flowers and the rhododendron is tall and healthy with pink flowers that bloomed as the azaleas were fading. As usual, I was relieved when the sedums, the coneflower, the rose of Sharon and the liriope started growing again and now the peppers (including one I bought to hedge my bets) are showing signs of life.

There were also some surprises. For the first time in many years, a blue iris appeared in one of my garden plots, in the same spot as last time. I still don't know where it came from but I welcome it. I also discovered a jack in the pulpit under my hedge among the usual weeds - this is one plant I am not touching as I yank out the others. One sunny day I found a garter snake in one plot, and I am hoping it sticks around to keep down the chipmunks. The Lenten rose, which at one point I thought had been killed by the cold, bloomed profusely and only now those flowers have faded and been covered by large, green leaves. 

Another surprise: Last year there were three milkweed plants that suddenly appeared near the lilacs. This year there are eight. I am hoping that this year they bloom and help the endangered monarch butterfly population.

The area behind the porch where 
I put down heavy buckets
of soil and mulch.
(Margo D. Beller)

There have also been weeds, of course. One early morning I took out the lopper to get at the ones I could not reach because of the deer netting. The bigger ones I could reach over and pull out. I could easily identify ragweed and garlic mustard but another one looked like it could be a wild sunflower. However, when it is in the wrong bed it is still a weed. I found more of them in other areas and pulled them out, except for one in a place where it doesn't threaten anything so I can leave it and see what it becomes. 

The weeds made me despair, as usual, but this year I've decided to put down sheets of black garden fabric (weed block) to kill those near the compost pile (which finally got turned and the rich soil removed), in an area erroneously known as the "dead area" but is anything but. We now have someone to cut and edge our lawn regularly, and that not only makes the grass look better while keeping down the ubiquitous ground ivy but it makes me determined to do something with those areas not mowed.

Also sprouting: fences. Neighbors on either side of me decided to put in solid, white, vinyl privacy fences. To do that, one neighbor cut down the bush that worked very well as a privacy fence and also fed the local deer. (I can only wish I had a fence to block the goings-on of the neighbor along the long side of my yard, who hacked down the forsythia and other plants that had obscured our yards a few years ago.)

The fence replacing the bush: vinyl on 3 sides, wood in back.
The wood has since been painted white.
(Margo D. Beller)

This need for privacy comes out of the violent times we live in, and perhaps the lingering coronavirus. The younger people now living on my street want to keep their families contained and thus "safe" from the outside world. They do not seek me out; nor do I seek them out. I keep to myself. I try to be friendly but I frankly do not understand a lot of what is considered "modern" nowadays, and perhaps that showed. When my cancer treatment was at its worse during the summer I stayed indoors and the weeds ran rampant, including along our front walkway. This year, I am well enough to regularly spray my walkways with a cocktail of vinegar and salt - easy to make and not lethal to birds while it kills the weeds. 

There is much more that needs to be done - gutter cleaning, power washing, cutting back some overgrown trees - but not today. For today, at least, I can enjoy the early coolness (before the expected July-like heat) and the quiet (before the inevitable suburban cookout gatherings) that come with a work holiday.