Trudy Taylor was a multitalented artist of living — fierce and contrarian in her beliefs, and entirely unique. Matriarch to her large biological family and to many more whom she mentored, Trudy, well known to Islanders for her love of gardens and passionately-held beliefs about them, the nature of change, human folly, composting, and a thousand and one other subjects, died Saturday at her Stonewall Pond home, aged 92.
Dorm proctor? Self-appointed manager-bird? The bluejay’s harsh call wakes up the surrounding woodland, the first birdcall of these darker mornings. Then the rest get going, chickadees and sparrows, jetting in and out of the evergreens.
Migrating blackbirds sweep in with a thunderous whooshing of wingbeats, a mix of starlings, grackles, and cowbirds, to alight on the canopy of beech and oak and gobble this fall’s mast. Fragments of shell rain down, littering the ground, while dislodged acorns ping the vehicles parked below.
I was rummaging around in the earthworm-casting-rich soil beneath the straw mulch in the ‘Keuka Gold’ rows, thinking, as one does, about the difference in growing potatoes the way I do and growing potatoes as the forebears of Irish Americans did, and what would it be like to be dependent upon that crop for one’s family’s sustenance over the coming year. It is a heavy thought, and one most of us are fortunate enough not to need to experience directly.
Is there anyone (apart from maybe a child laborer from a past century, forced to labor all day in the potato fields of Presque Isle and Aroostock County, Maine) who has not likened digging potatoes to digging for treasure?
The concepts of food security are bandied about fairly innocently in this era of mostly well-nourished Americans, it seems, compared to the experience of those in war zones, in chronic poverty, or in areas of desertification.
The school garden programs here and elsewhere are a means for young Americans to gain awareness of what it might take to feed themselves. Insect damage? Weather woes, such as three-day nor’easters? Happily, we can always go to the store.
Micro habitats
How life on earth lives and flourishes is understood, increasingly, as minute pieces of unknown or barely understood puzzles that we humans painstakingly pore over in an effort to see what makes them tick; and, in too many instances, how close we can cut it and still retain a semblance of what we know as a habitable planet.
After the storm last week, which left five and a half–plus inches of rain in the rain gauge, I was looking around for “my” three bats. Since last summer I had been observing them with great pleasure most evenings at dusk.
White nose syndrome
Press coverage of “white nose syndrome” (See Wikipedia: bit.ly/wikiBats) in bats has done a good job of consciousness-raising about the decimation of bat populations throughout North America and Europe, and about the key role that bats play in insect control, which benefits agriculture and tourism alike.
But now, same setting sun but no bats. Then, a few days later, I noticed that a large dead “habitat tree” on neighboring land had crashed to earth, most likely due to the storm.
Habitat trees are by now a well-recognized ecological concept, protected in many states in the U.S. and European countries, although local pressure to eliminate so-called dangerous trees and fire hazard remains strong. From the article “In Focus — Managing Forest in Europe”: “They are defined as very large, very old, and dead or living microhabitat-bearing trees. They are of prime importance for specialized forest flora and fauna.” The entire document may be read here: bit.ly/habitat-trees.
It is likely that “my” bats roosted by instinct in cavities or crawled under the bark of that tree to shelter themselves and their young. When it fell, they must have had a parallel instinct for surviving the blow-down and finding another suitable tree. I hope so, as bats have low birth rates and populations are vulnerable.
Dahlias for pollinators
To dahlia lovers, all are wonders in themselves, and worth waiting for. ‘Daydreamer’ entranced me this season. When all else is coming to the very end in the fall garden, dahlias bloom in a dramatic finale. Under observation, toward the end of August many previously doubled dahlia blossoms tend to single, showing a prominent pollen center beloved of bumblebees, small bees, and hover flies. Seed ensues.
Although not all pollen-gathering insects pollinate (some are pollen thieves), if pollinator habitat is one of your garden goals, there are dahlias that cater to it. Several strains of dahlia exhibit this pollen-center trait from the beginning of bloom. The ‘Bishops’ strain, including famous blood-red ‘Bishop of Llandaff,’ as well as ‘Bishop of York,’ ‘Bishop of Leicester,’ etc., have dark foliage and open flowers that are attractive to pollinators. The different ‘Bishops’ form a range of attractive colors, and there is even a popular seed dahlia strain known as ‘Bishop’s Children.’
Verwer-Dahlias, of Lisse, the Netherlands (verwer-dahlias.com), produces a number of successful dahlia strains, including the bedding ‘Gallery’ dahlias, the ‘Classic’ strain, and the ‘Karma’ dahlias, bred for good cutting stems. All are great performers, but it is the ‘Classic’ strain that has the pollen-rich open flowers. I grew ‘Classic Elise’ this past summer, a lovely honeyed-apricot with dark stems and leaves that was never without bloom once it began to flower.
Try seed strains such as the ‘Figaro’ and ‘Caruso’ strains, many of which start as double dahlias but eventually single.
Rogue asparagus
Eleanor Perényi, in her classic “Green Thoughts: A Writer in the Garden,” advises on asparagus: “Notice … which ones produce berries. They are females, whose sprouts are skimpier than the males’, and they will self-sow, crowding the bed with still weaker seedlings. Pull them out.”
One of my seed-sown asparagus crowns is berried. Ironically, this plant happens to be my earliest, sturdiest, best-producing crown.
