Spruce Asks Another Question

The other morning I was putting out the bird feeders. As I shook out the large white plastic bags the feeders were in, the nearby Blue Spruce called me over. 

"Margo," said Spruce Bringsgreen, "I have a question."

"Again?" I said, smiling.

The porch plant, with Spruce watching from
around the corner (Margo D. Beller)

"I've been watching you putting feeders on those poles for years. Why are you now bringing them out in bags?"

"You are very observant," I said.

"Well, I am very tall and I can see quite a lot," he said modestly.

So I explained about the gnats I had been removing from the enclosed porch in one way or another since early August, how I had found the containers of sunflower seed to be infested with them, prompting me to put the seed outside in a trash bag, which squirrels soon discovered. So I bought a large plastic pail with a lid that locks to put the seed. My plan had been to keep it outside until all the seed was gone. Then I went out one morning to find it on its side - my guess is a raccoon could smell the seed and knocked the pail around to get the lid to pop off. (At least it wasn't a bear.) Since then I've kept the seed pail indoors.

I bring the feeders in nightly because of that possibility of a bear passing through the yard. But I knew from taking the lid off the pail that those gnats I had seen had laid hundreds, if not thousands, of eggs, and now the worm-like larvae were on the move. Every time I unlocked the lid I'd find them crawling on its underside as well as up the sides of the pail - where I also found spiders helping me out with webs that trapped them. I would wipe out the larvae and the webs but find more of both the next time I took off the lid a day or two later.

Gnat larvae on the underside of the seed pail lid, some of
them in spider webs. (Margo D. Beller)

But that also meant there were likely larvae in the seed in the feeders. Hence the bags to keep larvae that get out of the feeders from crawling around the porch and getting into the one source of soil still available - the big plant.

"Yes, I can see Brother Tree from here," Spruce said, referring to the plant that had started life small and I allowed to grow so tall it needs an upside-down tomato cage and support poles to stand. "I hadn't seen him for a while."

Well, I told him, I had to make a decision on what to do with the plant because it was too big and unwieldy to take it from its pot and replant it in fresh soil. So my husband (MH) and I used the hand truck to put it outside on the patio, leaning against the house. It was there when I bombed the porch with insecticide. It was there when the overnight temperatures dipped into the 40s. 

Finally, realizing I could not bring myself to kill it, and once the smell of the spray had dissipated, MH and I brought the plant back inside. It now stands in the far corner of the porch where it can get two hours of morning sun, which is how Spruce sees it.

"And what about when winter comes?" he asked.

Well, I said, MH and I are getting too old to deal with bringing the plant over the step from porch to house, then rolling it to the sunny front room and then up three steps to put it into position, all with the plant falling back like a ragdoll onto my shoulder and back. The porch will keep the plant sheltered and a few degrees warmer than the outside air but it won't keep it warm when the temperatures fall below freezing. 

(Margo D. Beller)

So it either lives or it doesn't, I said. I still find the occasional gnat on the porch, most of which come in when I go out. The yellow sticky tapes have trapped gnats and I spray the soil with hydrogen peroxide to kill any eggs. But I can do no more for this plant.

"That's a shame," said Spruce. "At least it's alive."

"Yes," I said. "We'll see what happens to it - and the gnats - once winter comes."

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.

Chemical Warfare

 "It became necessary to destroy the town to save it."

-- Comment by an unnamed major to correspondent Peter Arnett after the battle of Ben Tre during the Vietnam War.

The war against the fungus gnats is over. I hope.

The remaining houseplant was put outside, minus the small cups that held the vinegar traps. I put my unused plant pots in a corner and covered them with a sheet of thick plastic. Items I didn't want contaminated were covered or taken into the house. 

I pulled out the vacuum cleaner to go piece by piece through the items on the top shelf of the wheeled stand where the seed containers had been. I sucked up living and dead gnats and years of soil, seed and other mess. Many things that should've been thrown out years ago were dumped. Then I pulled the stand aside and vacuumed the bottom shelf and all of the carpet. My vacuum cleaner doesn't use bags so I took it outside to pull out the container. There was one living gnat. I dumped the contents into my compost pile.

(Margo D. Beller)

Then I put on my hazmat suit - two masks, bandana, old rubber raincoat with hood up, rubber gloves - and got to work.

The Raid container said "outdoor scent" but the spray had a nauseating lemon chemical smell. One gnat that flew up dropped like a stone when sprayed. I sprayed everywhere I had seen gnats, which was just about everywhere. I had many windows open wide. Then I retreated inside for a while and washed raincoat, mask and rubber gloves.

I thought of the jungles of Vietnam as Agent Orange was sprayed on crops, foliage and people. I thought of destroying the porch to save it. Maybe I was overreacting but I could not let these insects contaminate my houseplants. 

Later in the day I put on a mask, went on the porch and put the floor fan on high. I could smell that "outdoor fresh" and wondered how long it would last. Later, I closed some windows and put the porch items back out. That afternoon we discovered at least three gnats in the den that had gotten in and were drawn by the light of the television.

Of course there were. I shut the two doors to the den and we again killed gnats.

I left the porch windows open all night. In the morning, when I put out the feeder, I closed a few of them but put the fan on.  We had planned to grill that afternoon and MH discovered dead gnats in the grill cover and some live gnats, which then tried to get back on the porch. A few succeeded. So again I was killing gnats. I thought I was finally done with it all until one came on the porch for the night when I came back inside with the feeder. 

This morning the gnat flew straight at me. It was easily killed.

So today was the first time in weeks when I did not have a gnat buzzing around me. If I think about it I smell the spray. I wasn't wearing a mask. 

And yet, things now feel strange. The porch seems emptier after the cleanup. No plants, no bird seed. I have a continued dread a gnat I somehow missed will suddenly appear. There's a tickle in my throat and a heaviness in my head that could be an after-effect of the spray itself or the stress I've felt for the weeks I've spent battling this infestation. 

War is hell.

Meanwhile, an assortment of birds continues to mob the feeder despite all the gnats and other insects flying around the yard. At some point, when it finally gets cold, I'll have to make that final decision about the houseplant now outside. 

Winter can't come fast enough.

A Life or Death Decision

Believe it or not, the plant pictured below was once small enough to sit comfortably on a desk. When the person who had that desk left the job, she left the plant behind. My first mistake was I took it home. My second mistake was putting it in a bigger pot. It grew and grew.

When it got bigger I wondered if pinching it would make it bush out. So I cut the top. Boy, was I wrong. It created a two-headed monster that got bigger still. Eventually I cut off the weaker of the two heads, but that created a long, skinny plant that needed to be braced in order for it to stand upright.

(Margo D. Beller)

Getting it into the house before winter and getting it to my enclosed porch before summer has been an increasing hassle as I age. To move it now I have a small handtruck with bungee cord, the best $29 purchase I've ever made, But even here I still need my husband (MH) to hold the pot as I pull it either up or down the step from porch to house and the three to the front room where I keep my plants in the winter.

Why do I mention all this? Because of the fungus gnats, which have continued.

When enough adults and nymphs got stuck to the yellow sticky traps I decided the time had come to do something radical. I bought potting soil. I spread a tarp on the porch and dumped old soil from five of the six plants into a styrofoam box, then repotted the plants in fresh soil. I quickly took them into the house and even put some yellow sticky traps in them in case I missed a gnat.

At that point, with the table I keep out there empty of plants, I pulled up the half-filled bag of sunflower seeds - and discovered it full of gnats.

Some people would've fainted at the sight of this infestation. Some would have screamed for help. I grabbed the bag and pulled it outside, then opened and started kicking it to get gnats to leave. Then I checked the old coffee containers holding seed. More gnats and a lot of rot. Out they went. The bag of seed is in a trash bag. The seed in the containers is in a garbage bag. Both are now on the patio. The box was taped and put near the compost pile until I decide what to do with it.

One of the containers and the seed in it were clean. The other containers had to be washed for recycling. I put three of them, empty, back on the porch for possible use. I'm hoping some of the seeds in the bag are clean enough to use until I buy a fresher - smaller - bag of seed for the feeders this winter.

That leaves the big plant. It is too big and trussed up for me to pull out of the pot easily to put in new soil. For now, I have a time-released water feeder in the pot so the majority of the top soil can stay too dry to support eggs. There are yellow sticky traps and vinegar traps in the pot and both types have been effective. 

Sticky traps, vinegar traps in the cups (with clear wrap
on top) and glass water feeder.
(Margo D. Beller)

I still find the occasional gnat and there is always the fear one will get into the house and infect the plants. So I have to decide: somehow pull out the plant, change the soil and bring it inside; leave the plant either outside or on the porch over the cold winter and watch it fade and die; or cut it down now, dump out the pot and hope my gnat problem is finally over.

I hate the idea of killing a living plant, especially one that I've had for at least 14 years. It wasn't its fault that when I gave it suitable conditions it went from a desk plant to a tree. Over the years through trial and error - mostly error - I've learned which plants to pinch, which to keep moist and which to leave alone. Like my evolving outdoor garden, my indoor plants have changed over the years. Some die, some are replaced. 

I've never intentionally killed a plant but whether I leave this one out in the cold to die slowly or hack it down now, that is looking more likely. 

No red-bellied woodpeckers at the feeder yet, but one will surely come.
(Margo D. Beller)

Meanwhile, I took seed from the one container that had no rot or gnats and put it in the house feeder. I put the feeder outside. Since then it has drawn cardinals, chickadees, titmice, white-breasted nuthatches, jays, a goldfinch and a house finch. Normally this feeder would've gone out in September (and my plants taken inside in October), but we've had September-like weather this week. Maybe now the feeder will draw some southbound migrant birds I wouldn't have otherwise seen. 

The birds are providing an unexpected benefit from what had been an unmitigated disaster.

On Insects

"The Creator has an inordinate fondness for beetles."

-- J.B.S. Haldane

In suburbia we do a lot to protect our homes. We cut down tall trees before they can fall on them. We put in lights along the front walk, the garage and the front door to deter (or blind) any potential burglar and increase curb appeal in case we want to sell them. We put up fences to keep children and pets in and strangers out. We mow our lawns within an inch of their lives and then use our leaf blowers to get every last speck of substance off our property and into the street, where it miraculously disappears.

Lethal method 1: yellow sticky strips in the house plants
(Margo D. Beller)

Inside we clean germs - real or imagined - from surfaces. And if we see insects, we want them out ASAP.

That can be a tall task because there are a lot of insects.

According to my copy of the "Kaufman Field Guide to Insects of North America," there are over 24,000 types of beetles in 113 families in North America north of Mexico alone, so Haldane knew what he was talking about. They include leaf-cutters, ground beetles, ladybugs, dung beetles, scarabs, water beetles and long-horned beetles, among many others.

There are other insects including wood borers, wasps, bees, butterflies and moths. Some insects are beneficial, such as aphid-eating ladybugs and pollenator bees and butterflies. Some are bird food, such as the carpenter ants favored by pileated woodpeckers. 

And then there are the flies. Kaufman says there are 17,000 types on this continent, and they include pesky gnats, mosquitos and maggots. 

Lethal method 2: extension dust mop
(Margo D. Beller)

There are companies that make their living killing rodents, spiders and insects. There are also a lot of products homeowners can use to kill mice, spiders, flies, cockroaches and other space invaders, including ways that won't make you sick using them. 

Two years ago, during a drought, we were faced with an invasion of carpenter ants that had somehow gotten into one of our bathrooms. To get rid of them my husband (MH) went to a big box store and bought traps that contained poisoned sugar water. The hungry/thirsty soldier ants took the bait back to the queen and fed her. She died. Soon the colony started dying. Problem solved.

This year we have had lots of rain but we've also had another type of bathroom invader - drain flies. I would find what looked like a small fly hopping around the sink or on the wall. MH looked them up and we learned about drain flies, which, despite the name, are in the flea family and feed on organic matter in sink drains. (Organic matter? In my sink?)

Getting rid of them was as easy as using drain cleaner followed by pouring in a pot of boiling water. Problem solved.

But when it comes to insects the battle is never really over, it just moves elsewhere and with a different combatant. Currently, it is on the enclosed porch against fungas gnats.

"Fungus Gnat - Rondaniella dimidiata, Woodbridge, Virginia"
 by Judy Gallagher is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

I'd be having my morning coffee on the porch and something would flutter by. It would land on a surface and I'd catch it in a container and put it outside. Soon I started to see more of them, which is when MH again looked it up and I learned the name of this invader. (I'm guessing eggs had been laid in a plant I had outside and then moved to the porch.) I've since learned watering my plants has made the problem worse because wet soil helps them breed.

So I've stopped my catch-and-release policy and and have taken to elimination with extreme prejudice.

To my shame I first considered the flying insect spray we had in the garage, but that might (or might not, depending on the website article I read) harm the plants (and me). Then I went to the big box store and bought some yellow sticky strips to put on posts placed just above the soil in the pots to catch any adults. I'm letting the plants dry out and will then soak the soil with hydrogen peroxide to kill any eggs or larvae. I've also put out vinegar traps.

I hope all this works because winter will be here soon enough and the plants will have to go back inside. But so far I have found no dead gnats and the live ones are still flying around on the porch. 

My friend the spider caught at least three gnats. I'm hoping it gets more.
(Margo D. Beller)

So now I've gotten back to basics: smashing them with an extension dust mop. It gives me reach, exercise and the illusion I am doing something about the problem. 

I've also discovered I have an ally - spiders. Yes, those same critters others want to kill and get out of the house are spinning webs on the porch and catching some gnats. According to Kaufman there are 4,000 types of spiders in North America and I have found many of their webs in the house, on the lawn, in the trees and in various areas of the porch.

I am not crazy about spiders in the house because their webs show me where I have been lax and really need to clean. But they are catching insects, and on the porch spiders are more than welcome to spin their webs and gather as many gnats or anything else as they want.  

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.