gardening nation

mobile blog post from snow garden

2010-12-19T13:22:00.000-08:00

Testing mobile blogging from snowy mountain place

trying to post again

2010-08-30T11:55:00.001-07:00

from my mobile

task 3 an attempt to post from mobilw browser

2010-05-30T22:24:00.000-07:00

here I go again trying to post to a blog from my mobile phone

REGISTER

2010-05-16T19:49:00.001-07:00

Tesat postr

2010-04-11T16:21:00.001-07:00

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http://learningdesign.ca

Update on native breakaway

2008-07-02T12:36:00.002-07:00

My breakaway native garden has rooted itself and flourished. I'm especially overjoyed that the skunk cabbage is so happily getting bigger and bigger every year. The flowering current and salal is also expanding. And a small holly has voluntarily taken root under the hemlock.

My garden

2008-02-27T09:51:00.000-08:00

is covered with winter and has gone underground, troglydism, can I crawl under too?

Fledglings

2006-06-30T09:55:00.001-07:00

We had a robin's nest underneath our balcony. We watched the adults build the nest, worried that they would fall victim to what happened to the last pair who tried to nest, their eggs were eaten by crows. But we didn't interfere and eventually, through the boards of the balcony, we could see three neat blue eggs lying so vulnerable in the nest.

The eggs hatched and three tiny pink creatures lay wound up tight in the nest, their bodies heaving with each breath. But they grow fast, and within a week, they were covered with feathers and their beaks were long and hooked. We covered the balcony boards above them with cardboard boxes, just to make that much more difficult for the crows to find them (that's how we discovered how the crows discovered the last nest: we found a crow standing on the balcony peering down through the boards).

Then, two days ago, I had gone out into the backyard to have lunch. There was a lot of noise coming from the nest and I heard the caw of a crow. I ran over, but what I saw was the three chicks jumping out one by one. The noise I had heard was the first making the leap, and a crow interfering. The crow left when I arrived. The chick, now fledgling, sat in the middle of the lawn, with its mouth agape. The second one leapt from the nest, crashed through the rosemary bush and disappeared into the long grass at the side of the house. And the third literally plopped itself down onto the trellis and tumbled down through the honeysuckle. From one nest, they had managed to end up at opposite ends of the garden.

The crow was hovering around the one in the middle of the grass. So I went inside and grapped a chair and put the chair overtop of it. The chair also protected it from the midday sun. It wasn't trapped at all, just not easily visible from above. When I went to see what had happened to the other two, I couldn't find them. They had completely disappeared. It was puzzling.

When I stood out in the middle of the grass, a crow that had been perched at the top of the chestnut tree yelled at me. It circled above, paused mid-air directly above me, and then dived. I moved my work out onto the balcony and kept my eye on the fledgling in the grass. I worried about what would happen when I left to pick up the children. But I didn't have to. After about an hour and a half, one of the parents appeared at the nest, mouth full of insects. It flew over to the fence and started to sing. Immediately it was answered by the fledgling in the lawn as well as the ones who were somewhere on the other side. The one in the middle of the lawn stood up and ran to the hedge at the side. It was amazing! It scurried in amongst the daisies and lemon balm and then disappeared completely.

That evening, an adult was sitting at the top of tree next to the hedge, singing madly. I went outside to see what was going on. Then another was making violent chirps in the chestnut tree. Below, playing with the woodchips, was a raccoon. The raccoon saw us on the balcony but wasn't interested. It lumbered along the side of the hedge, until just before my compost box. There it disappeared into the hedge.

I haven't seen any of the fledglings since, but I have heard them once or twice. I hope that at least one of them makes it.

This helpful resource: Encounters with Breeding says that only 25% of chicks make it to adulthood.

Pernacious native rose

2006-06-01T22:49:00.001-07:00

While I have pulled out two of the three native rose bushes I originally planted, little "volunteers" are popping up everywhere. The nootka rose send out roots in all directions and I thought I had dug them all up. But now that true spring days have arri ved you can hear the garden growing. Even if it was only a small twig of the former plant, it is sending up shoots.

And in my far end of my native garden, I've got another variety growing, another volunteer. I have no idea how it got there. The leaves are much smaller and the thorns are much thinner than the nootka rose. Coincidently, it happens to be in the same area as where I threw down some native seed last year - I think the seeds were supposed to be for the arbutus tree. Like the lily of the valley/chocolate lily mix-up, could it be that instead of a much-desired arbutus tree, I've got more native rose?
[nootka_rose]

Dogwoods

2006-05-02T14:20:00.000-07:00

This is my neighbour's tree - it's gorgeous. And native! It is a western flowering dogwood. I've never seen one growing naturally in the forest but according to the map in Pojar and MacKinnon's in Plants of Coastal B.C. it grows very close to coastlines here in the southwest corner. Since this area is the most heavily logged and most densely populated, I expect that all the dogwood's native habitat's have been destroyed.

I would like to plant one in my garden, but I don't have enough space. My front space is so shallow and these trees can reach up to twenty metres. With the south-westerly winds that pick up, I wouldn't want my house to be in the tree's fall line. Perhaps in the back corner, if I ever get up my nerve to create the forest I've been wanting: dogwood and silver birch would be lovely together.

The dogwood blossom is also the provincial flower of B.C..

False Positive

2006-04-21T10:52:00.000-07:00

Last year I had spread a package of Chocolate Lily seeds amongst the shady and protected areas between the ferns. The Chocolate Lily is a very native species to the west coast and very difficult to find. So I was very excited when I discovered a sprikle of shoots popping up all around last year's dead fern fronds. But now that the leaves have spread out, they are not the wisps of the Chocolate Lily, but the broad and flat panels of False Lily of the Valley.

I really shouldn't complain, because a garden can never have enough lilies, in my opinion. But False Lily of the Valley? They're just so...common(!). Big sigh.

Rufous Hummingbird

2006-04-13T12:21:00.000-07:00

A rufous hummingbird visited the red-flowering current breifly today. It's a cold and rainy April day, the grey skies making the bright pink flowers attractive. It landed on a branch for a moment and then took off.
It came back minutes later and got busy with the flowers. Then it whirred off.

It's a windy and blustery day. It feels as though the hummingbird got blown in a little earlier than it expected. But the expert sources I consulted (BC Royal Museum) assures me that it's just the right time for the females to be showing up, arriving here on the coast 3 weeks later than the males, who arrive in March. I wonder if this one is a male, considering it's dark red crest?

Skunk Cabbage

2006-04-11T13:19:00.000-07:00

The boggy wetlands of the westcoast are marked by the musk of skunk cabbage (Lysichiton americanum) in the spring. In the soggy and darker parts of forests and in the shaded estuary sloughs, the tiny yellowy-green flowers cover a spike that is enveloped by a bright yellow bract.

I bought these three plants from a fund-raising Native Plant sale at the Richmond Nature Gardens five years ago. I planted them in the wettest and shadiest part of the garden. A couple of years ago, my kids thought it was best to pick the flowers as soon as they opened so I was never able to enjoy them. And then we had quite a dry period last spring so that the flowers dried out and died off quickly. They are doing well this year.

I laid stones on top of the soil to improve the retention of moisture. Actually, I'm really not sure if the stones work, I was just copying the ecology of where the plants grow in nature and it seems to work.

Degrees of Nativity

2006-04-05T09:59:00.000-07:00

I've just pulled out two native Rosa pisocarpa, or at least that's what I was told they were, because they had taken over the tiny space in the front and were extending their long arms into the pathway of unsuspecting pedestrians. I felt like a traitor. I did leave a much slower growing, very compact Rosa nutkana though.

This experience makes me wonder about purity and native gardening. I'm thinking of replacing the two with a rugosa, which originates in North Asia. In fact, I'm lusting after a rugosa, its scent is heavenly and attracts swarms of bees. I guess I'm not a purist when it comes to native gardening. Perhaps I should change the title of the blog?

I can approach this issue from different angles: if we want to protect the diversity of local ecologies, we have to allow them to thrive and restrict the introduction of harmful foreign species. However, if we want to encourage the evolution of diversity, the introduction of the foreign species allows for mixing. I think it's when we push monoculture, when we suppress native species, promote introduced species, and allow those introduced species to replace the native species that we run into danger. Large agrei-businesses see that they can dominate by heavily marketing a certain aesthetic, and that aesthetic works its way into the common vocabulary so that it seems 'normal'. It's 'normal' that roses no longer smell, that they grow in neat bushes, and that they require a great deal of pesticides in order to thrive.

I guess I'm a liberal gardener - I'm working native plants into the mix but also diversifing with plants that also fit with the natural ecology of my garden (acidic, sandy and boggy soils, soggy winters, mini-droughts during summer).

Upstairs view

2006-04-03T11:35:00.000-07:00

I was sitting at my kitchen table which is on the second floor of the house. A top branch in the cedar hedge that seperates by house from Jim's was moving in the opposite direction as the others. An extremely localized micro-climate? A bird, maybe? The branch waved back and forth vigorously. And then it stopped. After some minutes, it started again. I moved to the window above the kitchen sink which was directly across from this strange branch. A nose needled its way amongst the branches. A blur of brown and black fur. But I didn't think that the lazy cats in my neighbourhood, the ones that don't even bother to bury their mess but just dump it on top of my bulbs as if waiting for some congratulatory praise, I would never have thought that this lazy bunch would have made their way up such a dense and dangerous hedge. But I was mistaken. The tell-tale fuzzy brown and black striped tail whipped across amongst the branches. I clapped my hands and it stopped and peered across at me for a moment, while it listened for the source of the sound. Funny raccoons!

I wonder if it was making a nest there. Jim told me that he found a huge wide nest last year at the top of his back hedge, and guessed it belonged to the raccoons. I thought that raccoons preferred more hidden locales. I suspect that it might have been raiding a bird's nest however. I'll keep my eye out for it as I wash the dishes.

pathways

2006-03-30T12:48:00.000-08:00

Taking a stroll around the backyard, I've discovered a narrow path in the grass. I suspect its the raccoons who've trod it.

It's the end of the March and I am refusing to mow the lawn until the calendar says April. But with all the rain and the last couple of days of warmer temperatures, the grass is bursting out.

I've considered the big cedar hedge a part of the "wildways" that would allow wildlife to find their way amongst the houses and the school behind us without being seen. I know the raccoons hang out inside the hedge. One afternoon last month while I was digging in the vegetable garden I heard growling. I thought it might be dog on the other side, the school side, of the hedge. After some minute, out popped two raccoons, clearly in the throws of mating season. Giving me a scowl, they continued on in the grass towards the back, climbed the old chestnut tree and scooted across to my neighbour Jim's cedar hedge that extends from the chestnut tree.

But the path in the grass means that in quieter times they prefer the lawn to the hedge. I don't blame them either. The hedge is dense and cedar makes my skin itch.

One troubling item is that the path goes around the compost bin. We must take care to secure the scraps inside the bin.

coastal truth

2006-03-21T14:53:00.000-08:00

"No more shovelling snow"
is their excuse
to uproot
from 'back east'.

But while they sleep 'out west'
a pacific front meets arctic outflows.

Snow blows
March cherry blossoms
in the dreams of a lotus-land night.

Red-Flowering Current

2006-03-15T14:22:00.000-08:00

I took this photo last week the day before we had snow. (March 9th) It is the first to flower in my native garden, and tells me that Spring will soon be here.

I bought two Ribes sanguineum plants from a Native plant sale at Richmond Nature Park in the spring the year after I planted my salal twig. One plant died off after the next winter, but the remaining plant has spread nicely. About two years ago, I pinned down a twig and covered it with soil so that a new bush would take root. And it did.

The flowers are a strikingly bright pink and hang in lovely chandeliers. Last year was the first year I found berries but I didn't try them. The Nature Park encourages the planting of red-flowering current because they attract wild birds like our local Rufous Hummingbird. Sure enough, a hummingbird whirred around here, although it seemed to be more interested in the purple flowers of the sage plant in my herb garden then it did anything in my native garden.

Update:
It's now April 6th and my current is in full bloom. As I sit at my desk inside directly across from it, I've seen the first of the giant bumble bees visiting it. Welcome friendly bees!

Recolonization begins

2006-03-09T11:14:00.000-08:00

Not long after I moved in, we took a weekend jaunt up the coast. Trundling along the backroads in our station wagon, we found ourselves in the middle of a clearcut.

The politics of clearcuts: On the one hand, they destroy an entire eco-system in one fell swoop, they generate a great deal of waste in the form of wood that is not ultimately marketable, and they are ugly. On the other, because much of the forests are inaccessible because there are not any roads, cutting everything in sight appears to make it economically viable (?-this logic has yet to be proven to me).

Imagine: you're driving through lovely Nature (yes, driving!) and feeling very in touch with your inner Pan. The trees are tall and green and provide a dark and mysterious shade to what may lie beyond. It feels pristine, idyllic, Edenic. Untouched by the corrupting hand of Man, of Civilization, of Commerce. You round the corner. It is tight and rocky (it's a former logging road, afterall) and you come upon a clearcut. It's a real shock. Exposed land means no more mystery. The land is scarred and blighted. Scraggly. Yet also very neat. The borders of the clearcut run straight and correspond with the maps that determine where the logging companies' leases extend.

So there I was, standing on the side of a gravel berm that seperated the road from the clearcut. At my feet there sprouted a bunch of salal seedlings, volunteers ready for recolonizing action. One of the volunteers was struggling, looking parched. I scooped it up and placed it in a yogurt container. It's roots were too shallow for the deep gravel.

I feel guilty, of course, for taking a native plant out of nature and I've never done it again. This is wrong, especially in a clearcut. But it was going to die anyhow. I suppose if I had left it, it would have died, decomposed and created a small humous groundcover that would nourish the gravel. But I doubt it. It was too close to the roadside and would have gotten squashed by the logging trucks.

When I got home, I dug up a clump of grass in the shadiest part of my garden. This area is on the northeast side of my house. It only gets the sun in the late summer afternoon. It remains wet for 50 weeks of the year. I planted the salal.

And this small seedling became the start of my native garden. The photo is of the salal bush now, six years later.

Six years ago, my garden....

2006-03-08T12:35:00.000-08:00

I moved to this garden 6 years ago. The house was 24 years old but it had been rented for the previous ten. What existed of the garden had been neglected.

In the backyard, previous gardeners had planted a back hedge of cedar and it had grown enormously tall and thick out of neglect. At one end of the hedge, there is a giant chestnut tree and at the other, a bed with a red gangly rhododendron (like griersonianum) and a sickly aspen. Two old apple trees were covered in moss and full of suckers. The front door was blocked by a bed of white rhododenron, piersis (formosa forrestii) and a sad boxwood. That was it, except for the thick carpet of mossy lawn.

There was no fence in the front yard between our lawn and the neighbours. Because we are in a corner, the combined lawns gave the appearance of grandeur. However, within the first month, I noticed that the neighbour used the lawns to back his truck over in order to access his backyard. There were deep tire grooves in the parts where the truck needed traction. I mean, if he had asked for permission, I guess I wouldn't have gotten so uptight. But when I happened upon the truck in my frontyard, I decided on the stop to fill the space with as many plants as I could.