The towering catalpas are in bloom in older Island neighborhoods. These magnificent native shade trees are worthy of notice, and yes, of planting.
Older places also sport the gently clashing colors of prolific tawny daylilies and rambler roses. Their bloom always seems to coincide with the Fourth of July, along with the flowering of privet and hydrangea.
The pink rambler is ‘Dorothy Perkins’ and the cerise is ‘Excelsa.’ More rarely seen is a white rambler, possibly ‘Evangeline.’ The ramblers were bred locally, in Woods Hole, and more of the two dozen or so of Michael Walsh’s Rambler introductions may be growing here on the Island.
Crazytown
An Island wag quipped years back that the only excuse for speeding on M.V. was to make the boat.
The bumper sticker says it all: “Slow down, you’re not off-Island anymore.” Thousands more people and vehicles arrive here as the season commences, chasing a couple of bucks, or a good time. Island roadways are small and overcrowded. Please, observe speed limits and stop signs. Traffic accidents are real vacation wreckers.
Swinging into summer
We enter a new season, and warily welcome a dry summer. The light shifts as Earth angles away from the sun: ornamental and food plants receive this information and shift their functions. Reproduction and ripening are what plants are now attempting.
There are just a few more days for last-minute pruning of summer ornamentals that bloom later, such as rose of Sharon and clethra. Wait too long, and bloom is sacrificed. Now is also time to prune spring bloomers, such as azalea, which now form next year’s flowering wood.
Carthusian pinks
Years ago, a far more evolved gardener friend gave me Carthusian pinks (Dianthus carthusianorum). I had grown up with something we called “pink-eyed grass,” to differentiate it from “blue-eyed grass” (Sisyrinchium), so was not sure what to make of them. I planted them anyhow.
Little did I know at the time that these seemingly unpretentious little spreaders were a thing: knitters and weavers, color at the very tops of slender, threadlike stalks two to three feet high that form tapestries in and among the rest of the plants in a bed.
What is lacking?
The home garden I work has many, many pollinator-friendly plants, annual, biennial, and perennial. What it lacks this year is pollinators.
Unlike prior years, when this garden buzzed with insects at solstice, this year it is mighty quiet — a few bumblebees in the foxgloves. The February valentine I sent myself when I sowed annual poppy seed on the snow, has yielded lots of poppies, but few of the bees that should be collecting their ample pollen.
Is there too much shade? Are there too many birds (no nesting flycatchers this year, first time in four decades)? Is there too much spraying?
In the garden
There are so many tasks begging to be carried out at this time of year it is hard to know what to prioritize. Triage is inevitable.
Hold onto your Easter pansies. Trim them back, or repot even — they have surprisingly large root balls — and place in the shade. Many revive nicely at summer’s end.
A new month, a new round of side-dressing roses. Give them one to two cups of low-number organic soil food monthly, and deadhead them. Cutting back to the second five-leaf branchlet is the usual advice.
Self-cleaning Knockout types are said to require no deadheading. However, their appearance is improved by doing so. One inch of water weekly helps to keep roses healthy and blooming.
The above-mentioned Ramblers are once-blooming. Cleanup, if in a spotlight location, can be quite a job! Find and train next year’s canes, and deadhead the passé trusses. If there is no time for this, do not worry. These hardy roses carry on, regardless.
Not so hardy are the many roses around the Island that suffered in last winter’s weather, such as our ‘Westerland,’ losing the graft and reverting to the understock. This is typically ‘Dr. Huey,’ a dark-red, hardy bloomer — not unlovely — extensively used as understock material. Keep as ‘Dr. Huey’ if you do not mind this inadvertent substitution.
Otherwise, if replacing, read the information provided by RHS at this link: bit.ly/RHS_ReplantDisease. “Rose replant disease” is a soil-based problem that may stymie efforts to replace one rose with another. Mycorrhizae are claimed to help establish the replacement.
Warm weather makes cucumbers, and beans in their great variety, happy. Bush beans are so prolific that only a short row, five to 10 feet, may be needed for a typical family. Sequential sowing may be good in their case, removing the plants after the second flush of pods, replacing with lettuces and other greens. Pole beans yield over an entire season.
Chipmunks and their friends are burrowing into hilled potatoes to beat us to the harvest, and were also a real nuisance with strawberries this year. I am using Bobbex’s Animal Repellent with fingers crossed.
Drought conditions are possibly exacerbating problems with thirsty animal life. Keep birdbaths clean and full.
Weed the beds of June-bearing strawberries and reset runners, if plants are reaching the drop-off in production that happens after three or four seasons. Remove runners from everbearing strawberry plants, as the runners drain off their energy; weed them as well. Consider what replaces garlic crops after harvest frees up that space.
Asparagus beds
Asparagus season closes when June does. Treat the hungry crowns to compost if you have it; or another organic product that supports the soil and the immense output the crowns make for dinners.
Let them fern, and take the opportunity to feed the bed. A nicely timed fix is to clean your henhouse — wear a mask — before fly season hits. The litter/manure combo is perfect for feeding asparagus beds.
Tick check: Inspect yourself, children, and pets frequently.