This time of year can be a bit hectic, whether you’re a farmer, a landscaper or a gardener. There’s so much, almost too much to do. Once the students (at least those who don’t take summer classes) have set off on their summer adventures and most of what needs to be transplanted is finally in the ground and growing, it will be time to take a breather…but not yet.
The Sun Tzu eagle commanded the skies over the herb garden for about a month, as the heron chicks were quickly fattening up in their high perches in the nearby rookery. The action was fully visible from the west end of the garden.
Sun Tzu, the bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) who ate all of the heron chicks (Ardea herodias). After a couple weeks of masterfully probing their defenses, this big bird finally struck the heron rookery in the trees of Island Grove, adjacent to and north of the Medicinal Herb Garden. The attacks lasted several days, leading to complete abandonment of the rookery.
In other bird news, Wilson’s warblers (Wilsonia pusilla) have lingered in Cascara Circle. It’s possible they are nesting in the thicket west of the stream. The barred owl (Strix varia) has been scarce in recent months but at least one Cooper’s hawk (Accipiter cooperii) is around.
Something happened here and it could have involved a hungry Cooper’s hawk.
You might have to crane your neck to see some of the flowers this summer.
It has taken the better part of twenty years, but the sotol (Dasylirion wheeleri) is sending up a flower stalk in section C. I’m not sure how tall it will get but I’ve seen pictures of them over ten feet tall.
Nearby, also in section C, the sacahuista (Nolina microcarpa) is flowering once again.
Closeup of its flower buds before they open. When they do open they will be covered in bees of all kinds but especially honeybees if there’s a nearby hive.
In the next bed over are more plants from drier climates, Mexican cliffrose (Purshia mexicana) surrounded by narrowleaf mule’s ears (Wyethia angustifolia).
Nearby, why are the horned poppies (Glaucium flavum) on the right so big compared to those on the left? Look closely.
Horned poppy is a member of the poppy family or Papaveraceae.
The smaller plants with similar foliage are nougd (Anvillea garcinii), a desert plant native to northern Africa through the Middle East to the Arabian Peninsula. Nougd is in the sunflower family, the Asteraceae or Compositae, and has been used to treat digestive disorders among other things and has shown itself in recent testing to have hepatoprotective effects similar to silymarin, the flavanoid extracted from milk thistle seeds (Silybum marianum). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21375515
If you refer to the previous blog post you can see that we got some real winter weather. Some of the less hardy plants didn’t do so well.
This Australia tea tree appears to have survived…barely. Several others are doomed unless they manage to regrow from the base of their trunks. The good news is that they will often grow back from the trunk, right at the soil line. The damage from a cold winter isn’t always immediately obvious so there could well be other casualties that will slowly fade away this season. That’s gardening.
The Australian tea tree (Melaleuca alternifolia) near the fig tree was utterly blasted by our cold winter, so I cut it down. Slowly, over the next few weeks, its neighboring manuka, seen here, (Leptospermum scoparium) has presented dead and dying branches. It’s putting up the good fight but it might be on its way out. This is in section B by the fig tree, but less than 100 yards away in section E…
…this manuka specimen is completely undamaged. It’s hard to say what combination of factors makes a specific spot the right place for the right plant. This site probably gets a bit more winter sun and protection from wind…or whatever.
This ashwaganda (Withania somnifera) is quite large considering it is usually transplanted as a seedling from the greenhouse to the garden in a four inch pot in the middle of May. But this ashwaganda came back from the base of last season’s plants. The same thing happened with the yi yi ren or Job’s tears (Coix lacryma-jobi) a couple of feet away in the same bed. Both are often tender enough to die in our winters.
Indian teasel or fuller’s teasel, (Dipsacus sativus) in section C is a biennial. It was planted last year and stayed low to the ground, storing up energy in its roots, then sprang into action in May, quickly sending up flower stalks. The dried seed heads were once used to raise the nap on cloth made of wool.
Flowering now in the Cascara Circle bog are two of our more charismatic northwest wildflowers, umbrella plant (Darmera peltata) in the foreground and western skunk cabbage (Lysichiton americanus).
Recognize this weed from your garden? It’s petty spurge (Euphorbia peplus) and it has been and is still used to remove actinic keratoses from the skin. The caustic white sap is used. Be sure not to get any of it in your eyes while weeding. Though it grows wild all over the garden it has been honored with its own bed and plant label this year.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21375515
Last year the rabbits (Sylvilagus floridanus) ate the little sassafras plant (Sassafras albidum) to the ground. If all goes well it will get big enough to be out of the reach of rabbits.
Luckily for them, the nibbling little rascals have found a plant that we can all agree needs some grazing. The vigorous Chinese ground orchid (Bletilla striata) spreads by rhizomes and seems to do fine being grazed by the rabbits who help to keep the spreading clumps in check. They leave a mess on the ground but that’s ok.
Rabbits or no rabbits, Bletilla striata endures.
The new look is not so bad. This year you will notice lots of hardware cloth exclusion fences encircling plants that rabbits like to eat. That’s the best solution for now and the only thing that seems to work. This photo is looking west from the east side of section A.
More of the same in section D. The coral bells (Heuchera sanguinea) in the foreground had all of their flower stalks lopped off by rabbits last year.
Section E has enough challenges with deep shade and tree roots hampering plant growth. Rabbit predation wasn’t helping matters. There’s no shortage of rabbit food on campus. Never fear, they will survive.
Section F in all its fenced-in glory.
The mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum) in a formal bed in section E is dwindling but this little colony in the woods north of Cascara Circle is thriving. Like so many plants that naturally spread and run, they suffer when confined by borders. Maybe this will be their official home now. The low and dense shade from the hawthorns (Crataegus spp.) and the red oak (Quercus rubra) bordering section E have presented challenges for plant selection.
Garden visitors in early spring.
One was shy and left, but this one was unwilling to go until it had finished with some sort of urgent business involving the water. It must be a pretty good life for raccoons (Procyon lotor) on campus. Crossing Stevens Way (whatever happened to the 20 MPH speed limit?) is probably their biggest risk.
That’s the belated spring news.
who can say for sure
when the sotol will flower
it’s flowering now
See you in the garden.
How did I only today find this blog?
I really really love it. Thanks for all of your work with the space and keep posting!
– frequent herb garden visitor (PhD student at the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences)
Thanks, Sara. I’m so glad the garden has frequent visitors. Like Heraclitus’s river, from visit to visit the Medicinal Herb Garden is never the same for those who look closely.