It has been a long summer of too much stalled traffic, too many monster trucks on Island roads, and general exhaustion of people who must put up with bad air, overtourism, and disruptions that are more serious than “mere inconvenience.”
Trees and heat islands
Mercifully, rain and temperatures are falling. A stately oxydendrum graces an Island road. In a month or more, it will become a towering pillar of scarlet and crimson. Do other people look at trees? The way I do? I hope so. We need to start caring and thinking a lot more about trees and why they matter.
Trees mitigate heat everywhere, while at the same time absorbing pollutants and carbon dioxide. Trees help water to infiltrate soils to replenish wells and aquifers, and through evapotranspiration return cooling moisture to our surroundings. How to achieve these benefits? Very obvious measures are tree planting, and woodland and forest protection.
Before a serious heat wave or forest fire occurs here, such as in the American West and in Europe during the summer of 2026, we and our policymakers need to pay close attention to what has happened elsewhere. Not after, but before it happens here.
Martha’s Vineyard is an island — but it would be erroneous thinking to suppose that being an island surrounded by water, Martha’s Vineyard could not become a “heat island.” Urbanizing — permitted land clearing and development — proceeds here at a rapid rate. None of this is a positive trend in a warming world.
Concrete, asphalt, heat-emitting traffic jams; these all contribute to degrade a destination whose attractions are clean air, clean water and beaches, and absence of the daily trials of mainland “heat island” life.
Elsewhere, where intolerable conditions have already prevailed, plans to mitigate or reduce paving, increase rainfall retention and infiltration, wholesale municipal planting of suitable tree species, and limits on development have all been implemented successfully.
The New Yorker article linked to here, bit.ly/TNY_EndOfEuropeanSummer, describes at length measures taken in other tourist destinations. While Martha’s Vineyard still has the attributes of a livable place, we must be proactive in taking steps for it to remain that way.
Crape myrtle
Crape myrtle, Lagerstroemia indica, a small shrub or tree of gardens in hot Southern climates, is now successfully growing here. The flower colors are enticing, and come in a color range of quiet and pastel to hot, hot, hot.
Crape myrtles have many attractive attributes that have caused Northern gardeners to desire them over the years, including the wonderful flowers, brilliant fall foliage color, and attractive trunks with mottled bark that stand out all winter.
The height ranges from dwarf, ground-hugging forms to fairly large and spreading, such as the white crape myrtle at the North Tisbury bank branch. Depending on cultivars chosen, crape myrtle is suitable as an attractive hedge. Many are grafted for greater hardiness; pay attention to planting depths.
In the kitchen
Summer winding down, more rainfall and release from the heat, garden harvest picking up, preserving some of what is plentiful at the moment: Here is “Garden Special,” from “The All-New Fannie Farmer Cookbook.” It can be canned or frozen and used in any number of ways.
Put in a deep kettle:
6 sweet peepers, green or red, cut in pieces and seeded
1 qt. diced onions
1 qt. celery, coarse leaves and stalks included
1 qt water or tomato juice
Cook for 20 minutes. Add:
4 qt. ripe tomatoes peeled (optional) and quartered
3 Tbsp. salt
2 Tbsp. sugar
½ tsp. pepper
In the garden
Already too much of the morning has passed pruning, staking, and tagging dahlias. How can one perform mundane tasks, like house cleaning, preserving and cooking, sowing, and transplanting, when these garden sirens call for attention?
Harvesting of garlic, onions, squash, and potatoes includes a curing period. Leave the vegetables in a well-ventilated, dark place for a couple of weeks: “Curing involves placing vegetables in a warm, dry, and well-ventilated area for a few days to allow their skins to toughen and minor wounds to heal. This process helps extend their shelf life and preserve their quality after harvesting.” –Chelsea Green
Winter squash and pumpkin vines are capable of spreading far and wide. Gentle training or pegging them down keeps neighbor plants from being swallowed up.
Beautiful platycodon and phlox are having their moment. Deadhead to keep bloom coming and to prevent unwanted phlox “mutt” seedlings.
Hydrangea crowns have received their top-dressing of compost here at home. We have a longer window here on the Island, but in general, late summer and fall mophead cleanup consists of removing or shortening back woody or dead canes.
Unless the hydrangeas are cultivars of types that form flowers on new wood, let old papery flowers remain. These flowers provide the often-cited protection of old-wood.
Doing all the spring cleanup in fall may appear to be labor-saving, but can be costly. Polar vortices are violent, increasingly common weather extremes that may catch borderline-hardy subshrubs, such as mopheads, at times when they have started out of dormancy and into growth.
The time to split and replant yuccas and other perennials with similar offset structure is now. More even conditions arrive in late summer, making the transition easier. Cooler temperatures make this a propitious time for transplanting.
Are we nuts?
Heard on Main Street: “Humans buy a piece of earth, remove almost everything that naturally grows there, replace it with one species of grass, then spend the rest of their lives stopping that grass from doing the one thing that grass does: grow.
“We water it so it grows. Fertilize it so it grows faster. Then every weekend we drag a machine across it because it grew.”
Tick check every night.
Loved the last few lines re. lawns! It keeps people employed, but destroys the natural environment and is offensive to our neighborhoods, not to mention the leaf blower ban!! Plant for our environment and not for your vanity!!!!! Richard Toole