The recent trimming of our roadsides, giving them a landscaped look, gives additional visibility and lead time, maybe just nanoseconds, to avoid a deer collision. Nightfall comes earlier, and as we head homeward at dusk, please be aware this is white-tailed deer mating season.
Use the high beams, and be alert to evade and avoid deer hits. Two deer crossing the road often mean a third one following.
It is also time to place trunk protection around saplings and smaller tree trunks, typically 2½ to 3 inches in width, to protect them from buck rubbing. This is when bucks attempt to rub velvet off their newly sprouted antlers by hooking them around a small tree trunk and vigorously rubbing; this can lead to the complete girdling of saplings, and failure to survive.
Signs of the season
Sparkling days, spared by frosty nights and tropical storms (so far), and celestially, the aurora borealis and a comet: Island October has been rewarding.
It appears to be developing as a great fall color year. Now, skewing the adage slightly, we enjoy seeing “the forest and the trees”!
Yellows and golds provide contrast, offsetting the deeper reds and russets, just as a red swamp maple is notable against a duller oak backdrop. Trees and shrubs change their foliage colors on differing schedules, allowing for far more attention individually than when all vegetation is uniformly green. Reds are breathtaking, but take time also to appreciate yellows and golds!
Witch hazels, birches, and pignut hickories turn deep gold. They are frequently found growing near fiery beetlebung, and their coloration is a nice contrast. Sassafras often spend a phase in yellow before glowing pink and red.
Native sumacs and highbush blueberries add blasts of red, as do heavily berried aronia and the often reviled Virginia creeper. However, this plant, Parthenocissus quinquefolia, in the right garden setting — like goldenrod — is as decorative as anything you might buy at a nursery. Ferns, as they fade away, are tawny and also decorative. Montauk daisies provide gardens’ last hurrahs.
Hickory
Speaking of pignut hickory (Carya glabra), it is worth getting to know this species, and preserving its seedlings and saplings where they occur. These towering, stately trees are golden beacons, shining currently in Island woods.
I cite pignut hickories because Island beech, a major mast tree in the food chain, appears to face eventual demise, and may be unable to continue to grow here for much longer. Two pathologies afflict both the native Fagus grandifolia, and the European, F. sylvatica: beech bark disease, and beech leaf disease. Up-Island especially, they are affected to a tragic degree.
An entire hierarchy of wildlife depends upon mast of beechnuts, acorns, and hickory nuts, from deer to squirrels, to flocks of migratory birds. Unless cures are developed, with these two diseases, the demise of beeches here seems certain, along with their crops of beechnuts. Acorns and pignuts must bridge this gap in the mast food chain.
A germinating pignut spends an inordinate amount of growth energy on putting down its taproot. The deep-rooted characteristic makes pignuts a good choice for hotter or drier climate conditions. Once it shows only a few of its compound leaves, the pignut seedling is already committed to staying put.
These trees, while native and plentiful on the Vineyard, are difficult to transplant or to cultivate in nursery settings, due to that strong and early taproot growth.
If your place includes areas of natural habitat, be on the lookout for gold-leaved pignut hickory seedlings and saplings. Mark them, and let them develop into what may be a crucial component of future Island woodlands; moreover, Carya glabra is a handsome addition to any landscape.
Native Plant Trust
Native Plant Trust has published its Fall/Winter catalog of programs. Membership entitles one to discounts on educational programs throughout New England. There is much on offer among courses in “Art and Nature,” “Botany and Conservation,” “The Herbaria Series,” “Field and Landscape Studies”, and “Horticulture and Design,” the majority offered via Zoom or online. Check it out and register at nativeplanttrust.org/education.
In the garden
Dried-off amaryllis bulbs have been repotted, and are resting for root development.
Top of the list should be locating and digging existing spring bulbs in need of division, or ordering and planting more bulbs for next spring.
Squirrels and voles will probably find most of your tulip and large-flowered crocus bulbs, and deer eat the tulip flowers unless grown in a fenced-off spot. Among deer- and squirrel/chipmunk-resistant bulbs are snowdrops, alliums, hyacinths, scilla, camassia, fritillaria, muscari, some species crocus, and narcissus.
Planting for spring bulbs can be in beds, or naturalized. Previous gardening advice was to plant bulbs with bone meal to get them off to a good start. Forego this; it often results in bulbs being dug up by hungry varmints attracted by the bone meal.
Once dormant, plants and garden beds can receive a blanket of mulch, compost, or in some instances, manure. Unless there is a killing frost very soon, however, dormancy in Island gardens is not imminent. Be wary of smothering crowns of perennials still in growth. Leave three to four inches of space around tree and shrub bases. No mulch volcanoes: The root flares need to breathe.
Although leaving garden debris as shelter for arthropods and pollinators is the eco-gardening way of garden management (70 percent of North American bee species are ground-nesting), cutting back and clearing away understandably permits seeing the layout better. Supplying a pollinator hotel is one possible substitution.
Compost all the debris from garden cleanup. Jack Youngman’s little garden handbook declares, “A compost heap is like money in the bank.” To have the most productive garden soil, it is necessary to renew and restore it, year after year. Composting is the most economical way to do this.
