Fourth of July rolls around once again, and the Season officially begins. Fireflies spotted here on June 18. Midsummer and June’s last weeks were struck by July-like heat and humidity; there were some showers and windy days to moderate it.
Matches won’t light, coffee beans and pepper mills belong in the Brisker, and the saltcellars are nasty. Vehicle owners with dogs especially appreciate parking under the solar panel structures at Cronig’s, a good argument for civic planting of more shade trees. Many more shade trees, casting deep, dark, refreshing shade!
Ticks
An up-Island friend exclaimed, “Four people I know have alpha-gal, and now you are the fifth!” There are a lot of us, Island-wide, learning firsthand the intricacies of the diet/tick interface.
Repeatedly advising “tick check every night” does not ensure absence of the so-called “seed ticks,” the infinitely small, larval lone star ticks. They are nearly impossible to check for. Almost invisible, they bite and depart, leaving their infernally itchy, chiggerlike bites as evidence.
Tiny as these newborns are, nonetheless they are apparently able to transmit pathologies such as alpha-gal mammalian meat allergy. Use permethrin or picaridin sprays on footwear and apparel. Practice stovepiping your trouser legs inside your boots: ticks’ instinctive behavior knows “up,” but not “down.”
Inside out
Most houseplants, with very few exceptions — gesneriads such as gloxinia and African violets — appreciate time outside over the summer.
But what of the large plants that are quite an undertaking to move? Your weighty heirloom crassula or Christmas cactus appreciate the wind and rain and genuine sunlight, like the rest of us.
Plant dollies are available in differing styles, and some plants might just live aboard a plant dolly permanently. The fig tree I roll into and out of the barn, spring and fall, lives year-round aboard a large dolly my husband built expressly for it.
A skidder, a sort of lightweight sled that takes the place of a wheelbarrow or hand truck in moving heavy objects, is another tool. It even goes down and up steps (sort of). It came from A.M. Leonard, which calls it the GardenGlide. Couldn’t be happier with it. It can handle 200 pounds, it saves a lot of carrying; it moves heavy things around easily on hardscape (peastone, brick, and bluestone), or turf and soil.
Amaryllis care
The amaryllis (Hippeastrum) that gave so much pleasure over the holidays and winter months now languish in their pots. What to do? My Dutch relative (assumed by me to know everything there is to know about bulbs, being Dutch) does the following: “After they’ve bloomed, I cut all the leaves back to about 2 inches over the soil line. I let them dry out in the sun, so they are dried thoroughly. I then roll them up in the newspaper and store them in the shed until November, for an Xmas bloom.”
Clematis: Perpetual pruning questions
A wider range of large-flowered clematis and their hybrids is available than ever before. These vines are in bloom now, and are seductive in their flowers’ sheer improbability. Who would not want one or more, bedecking an arbor, walkway, or pergola?
Clematis grow easily, if requirements are met: fertile, well-drained soil and a site that allows shade for roots but sunlight to climb into. The drawback is pruning them correctly, to achieve that floristic promise. Incorrect pruning deprives the eager gardener of the flowers.
Previous “Garden Notes” have stressed: Save the pot tag, or take note of cultivars, so you know what, or which, pruning category your clematis is! Here, to square things away, is a PDF with straightforward instructions of the four pruning categories: bit.ly/ClematisPruning.
Garden allies: Hunting wasps
I spotted a grapefruit-size white-faced hornet nest hidden in a nearby shrub as I was, rather belatedly, planting dahlias. Around the Island, it seems, all that is needed to be Halloween-scary is to utter the words “white-faced hornet,” and the accounts of attacks, fierceness, and stings of Dolichovespula maculata will tumble out.
Usually constructed in a semi-protected area of shrubbery or a building’s overhang, these nests are egg-shaped and constructed literally of papier-mâché. The wasps construct them from wood pulp gleaned from shingles, fence rails, or trees, mixed with their saliva. Eventually the nest may be larger than a football. Moisture is their enemy, and the insects become extremely irritable during rainy weather.
I turned to Wikipedia (bit.ly/Wiki_WFHornet) and to Frédérique Lavoipierre’s “Garden Allies” to learn more about the niche these and other hunting wasps occupy. The proximity to the vegetable garden of the nest I spotted makes sense: The white-faced hornet is a predator of insects.
Caterpillars, yellow jackets, spiders, cockroaches, flies, ants, and termites constitute their larvae’s fare. Adults sip nectar. (If only we could train them, as Lavoipierre wishes, to focus more on Cabbage white’s caterpillars!)
The upshot is that white-faced hornets are garden assets. Leave them alone if nests are in out-of-the-way locations. I regret that, close to a walkway as it is, the nest I spotted may have to go, a nighttime operation involving a bucket of soapy water.
In the garden
The beginning in a piece about great British growers in the June edition of the Royal Horticultural Society’s the Garden is “Gardens and conservation should work together, not fight each other.” The longer we garden, and the more time we spend in gardens, this is where many find themselves headed.
Reset mower-blade height to cut grass longer during hot weather; the higher the turf, the more developed the roots will be. Foxgloves may bloom longer if deadheaded. Bush beans, lettuce: Make smaller, frequent sowings of these. Keep tomato suckers pruned if adhering to that culture technique. Harvest garlic once it is yellow and go over. Hill potatoes.
