Native viburnums bloom alongside the road and in gardens where native plants have a healthy presence. Once pollinated, the flowers evolve into umbels of beautiful blue fruits, appreciated by many birds and other wildlife. Kousa dogwoods (Cornus kousa) are lighting up gardens and shady corners with their brocaded branches of showy bracts. Commonly called flowers, the actual dogwood flower is the little button at the center of the bract.
Daylilies are in bloom. They present a new shot of color and a different palette from the springtime one, lots of orange and shades of yellow, clashing flippantly with the deep cerise ‘Excelsa’ rambler roses spilling along roadsides and walls; but a healthy dose of mophead hydrangeas (H. macrophylla) can tone down the most colorful, exuberant garden scheme.
Gardenias are blooming, a long-awaited moment. They are a fantastically fragrant adornment to any porch or terrace, and are available now at garden centers.
True lilies, such as regals and Asiatics, are blooming too. They arise from large bulbs to a height of from three to even five feet. They are true lilies, Lilium, unlike daylilies, which are Hemerocallis.
I found this three-branched tiger lily (L. tigrinum) in my garden. It looks like Neptune’s trident. A bulb-lily belongs in a plant category, or clade, known as monocots; they usually have one, unbranched, leafy shoot arising from the bulb’s fleshy scales, topped by an umbel or raceme of flowers. This trident lily, structurally weak, will present a unique look, if it blooms despite the usual garden threats and heavy cloudbursts.
Small reptile
I was raking leaf litter in the vegetable garden near the rhubarb when I spotted a flash of blue-gray and orange coiling in the debris. Luckily, I had my phone on me, and snapped this shot before it burrowed away. Indoors, I consulted Audubon’s “Field Guide to North American Reptiles & Amphibians,” finding a match in the ringneck snake. According to “Island Life” (Keith and Spongberg), ringneck snakes on Martha’s Vineyard are rare and local. Cornell’s “Wild Things in the Woods” page (bit.ly/Cornell_WildThings) has more to say: They are nocturnal and seldom seen, so are actually more common than thought. They are found at woodland edges, near stone walls, and in leaf litter — exactly where I spotted this one — and prey on salamanders, earthworms, slugs, and other soil-based fauna.
I was excited to observe something new that I had never seen before, right in my backyard! Contrary to common, instinctive, negative reactions to snakes, they are a major benefit around the place, and especially in gardens. They are major predators of rodents, the biggest problem in every garden we work in.
Hydrangeas: Go-to plant
Hydrangeas appear to have replaced roses as the objects of desire in Island gardens. How many thousands of hydrangeas have moved through Island garden centers and landscapers’ hands?
The harsh temperature-drop events in the midst of generally mild conditions over the past winter decimated the bud set on last season’s canes. It demonstrates the value of the breeding program of the ‘Endless Summer’ types that set flower buds on new canes. The Endless Summer program added ‘Pop Star’ this season, for a compact, fast-reblooming plant, suitable for smaller spaces and containers. Look for it at garden centers.
The recent weather story: soggy and muggy. It envelops the whole Island, unlike the spotty rainfall that happens “here,” but not “there.” It encourages kvetching; and also slugs, foliar issues such as powdery mildew and rusts, and splashes of fungal growths in exotic shapes and colors on soil surfaces. It enervates humans and pets. However, the rains were needed and welcomed, at least by me.
Beech outlook grim
It is looking very grim on the north shore of the Island, as large stands of American beech stand gray and ghostly, vainly attempting to put out a few tattered and distorted leaves. Rain is what many of us hope will help the Island beech population withstand the double-barreled assault of beech leaf disease and beech bark disease.
Any rainfall we receive will help these woodlands to withstand the stresses being imposed upon them by the two disorders. However, it is a dire situation, not only here but throughout the industrial Northeast, where native beeches have been decimated, starting from Ohio, since 2012, as this link from the University of Rhode Island describes: bit.ly/URI_Beeches. Track the bad air and the spread of the diseases.
I use the term disorders intentionally, because to me — no scientist obviously — these kinds of problems represent disorder in the natural world, collapse of earth systems. It is hard to grow and be healthy in an environment very, very different from the bulk of the Holocene Era, in which our familiar world, and all it contains, evolved.
Healthy ecosystems, however, are better able to withstand these sorts of events. The vectors and pathologies that are the manifestations of environmental stress appear often from far away; in beech bark disease’s case, Europe, and in beech leaf disease, Japan. Or consider the varroa mite that decimates honeybee colonies. (Our U. S. Customs and Border entomology and customs inspection service has been underperforming for years.)
Coincidence is not causation, as those who eschew action routinely claim. Under continuous environmental stresses, however, we see these disasters unfold: pesticides such as neonics for honeybees; air and water pollution; changes in atmospheric composition; and drought for forests. Eventually too, humans’ health is affected.
How much can we lose? The loss of key forest species (many others too, of course, including birds, reptiles, amphibians, arthropods, and mammals) coincides with the age of exploration and the Industrial Age. American chestnuts, American elms, Eastern hemlocks, native dogwoods — all going the way of the dodo bird, their disappearance undermining the carbon cycles of large parts of the continent, and destroying critical food webs.
Hydrangeas are nice, but plant more trees. I am looking at pignut hickory (Carya glabra) and white oak (Quercus alba) for woodland naturalizing, and beetlebung (Nyssa sylvatica) where it can flourish; catalpa (Catalpa speciosa), linden species and cultivars (Tilia), yellowwood (Cladrastis kentukea) and Kentucky coffeetree (Gymnocladus dioicus) for street and shade-tree planting.