Morels Found!

I cleared one tiny section of the hill-
still alot of garlic mustard to kill

Yikes, it's been a hectic month around here!  Excitement!  Exasperation!  Extreme muscle fatigue!  With each day that I accomplish something in the yard, I feel a bit less stressed and panicky but there's still SO MUCH to do!  

I continue my battle with garlic mustard.  By this time last year I had my yard totally cleared of flowering GM. Due to all the rainy days in April this spring I am barely getting started.  This past Sunday my neighbor came out and helped and having that second pair of hands really helps.  We were both excited to see how much our Mayapple patches have expanded.  It's amazing what a difference clearing out weeds has for the native plants.  We also found morel mushrooms.  Turns out my neighbor didn't know there are similar looking mushrooms that are poisonous (false morels) but the ones we found were the real deal: the right kind of cap and pitted texture, and hollow on the inside.  Yay! 

Yesterday I took a break from the GM and trimmed dead branches from the cedar out front, put more soil on my asparagus trenches (oh, their little thin stems are so cute!), weeded dandelions out of my little front lawn and then mowed and fertilized it with corn gluten.  If this stuff does what it says it does, I'm in heaven.  An organic nitrogen source that also kills any weed seeds that dare germinate in its presence?  Wow!  It's a good thing too because the dandelions are out in full force this week.

Amber Queen Epimedium

Yes, I ran the range of emotions yesterday.  Happiness (when I found my Amber Queen epimedium in bloom for the first time.  Fear (when I accidentally knocked over a metal trellis I had pulled out of the shed and it whacked me hard on my face (I haven't looked yet but I'm hoping I don't have a black eye.))  Frustration (when I found that those naughty chipmunks had dug out every melon, squash and cuke seed I had planted out in containers on my deck. A 2nd-story deck!  Seriously?)

I was also embarrassed.  A couple of my kids brought home pine tree seedlings from school for, I don't know, Mother's Day or Earth Day or something.  They were pretty much dead, I think, but about a week ago I dutifully spent a morning ripping out buckthorn so I could plant them.   Some of the buckthorn I just threw back into the woods but the bigger ones I left out in the ditch by the side of the road for "processing" at a later date.  Turns out I missed the email about yesterday being our city-wide brush pickup day.  I'm sure the city workers were not happy as they dug through the mess of thorny branches sticking out every-which-way.  Sorry, city workers!  That wasn't my brush for pickup!  Still, they did get it removed so one less job to do for me.  Thanks, city workers!  I promise to pile my brush more carefully in the future, just in case you stop by to grab it.

Anyhow, since I'm still experimenting with what plants will survive in my yard, most of my perennials are new to me and a bunch of them are in bloom now.  I'm really digging native Creeping Jacob's Ladder with its cute little blue blooms but despite reports of deer resistance, something decided to eat one down to the ground.  Add that to the spray list!  

Yum!  Morels!

Oh, and I doubt I'll add it to the spray list but something's been working over some Sweet Cicely.  That's also a native and it has a distinctive anise (licorice) smell when the leaves are messed with.  That's why I find it surprising that deer would munch on it; I thought they don't like smelly foliage.  I had to send this particular plant in for identification at the UW extension but I like its ferny leaves.  I don't, however, like it's long spiky seedheads and I noticed it seeds itself liberally.  Very liberally.  Still, it was a native plant that I didn't have to buy and I've never have to water, so it works for me.

Speaking of native plants, we went looking for morels at our local state park and I noticed that I have many of the same woodland plants in my yard.  One thing I don't have is Large-flowered Bellwort (uvularia grandiflora) which was blooming all over the place at the park.  It's got a wilty look to it that I'm not sure I find attractive but I've added it to my to-get list for next season.

My Frohnleiten epimedium is also blooming and it's flowers are so different from Amber Queen it's hard to believe they are the same type of plant.  Frohnleiten has sunny yellow shooting-star-type flowers and its foliage is glossy green whereas Amber Queen has these funky jester-hat-shaped flowers and red-mottled foliage.    So far, nothing has eaten either so they are both on my for-keeps list.

Frohnleiten Epimedium

Also blooming for the first time is my "Little Lanterns" columbine.  It's like our native columbine but in miniature.  I picked off the blooms because the plant itself is still so tiny.  Turns out there's sweet nectar in their blooms too.  When I was a kid I'd pick columbine blooms and suck out the nectar.  I can see why hummingbirds like them.

Nothing touches the Mayapple, Wild Ginger or Sweet Woodruff and the ferns haven't been messed with either.  Gotta love that!   I noticed there wasn't any Wild Ginger or Sweet Woodruff in the state park.  They prefer a more acidic soil than what our area has.  They seem to be doing fine though and it's been a couple of years now.



Creeping Jacob's Ladder

Yesterday I put out my tomato and pepper plants and my tropicals so of course we had a frost warning last night.  It's a good thing my spouse turned on the news.  11 pm and we were out in the back yard, putting blankets on everything tender.  I need to get a light out there.  Stumbling over things in the dark is not much fun.

Anyhow, today I'm going back to the garlic mustard weeding.  And maybe moving mulch.  (Did I tell you my mulch story?  Did I ever mention that Murphy's Law is a force alive and well in my life?  I ordered 6 yards of mulch from the city and specified on the form that I didn't want it where I had it delivered last year.  I even drew a map of the new location where I wanted it dumped.  Later, I got a phone call verifying that I wanted the location changed.  The day the mulch was to be delivered, I got another phone call to confirm that I wanted it dumped in a new location.  So, I'm out back clinging to my hillside so I don't fall to my death as I weed GM and I hear a truck.  Hmmm....wonder if that's my mulch delivery?   Then I realize that the truck sounds were coming from the wrong side of the house.  Noooooo!!!!   I rush as fast as someone clinging to a steep hillside can rush to the front to find my six loads of mulch dumped smack dab in the middle of our 2nd driveway, exactly where I told them NOT to dump it.  I have one week, maybe two to get it all moved before my patio contractor needs to use that driveway.  I can NOT win!  Ever!)



Wild Ginger foliage

 I found another tag for a long-gone perennial.  It has me worried.  I keep finding tags in the dirt for perennial plants but no plants.  I wonder why they are gone.  Was it the dang wildlife?  Was it the clay soil?  Did the previous owners not realize that liberal applications of mulch on a yearly basis is a must-have soil conditioner when you've got clay soil?  I wish I knew why they focused on annuals and why so many perennials are MIA.
Still, today the sun is shining (we haven't seen that too much this spring) and I've got a bird with an orange belly singing a beautiful song in the trees.  Perhaps a baltimore oriole?   I've got a cup of hot chai in my grip and a tasty peach muffin in front of me.  Have a happy day, ok?




Eternal Battle Against Woodland Invaders



Yep, all that green stuff is garlic mustard
(this is a photo taken summer 2009, 
when we moved in to our house )

 Yes, the mighty warrior is hurting mightily today.  Every muscle and joint in my body is sore...I can hardly move. Yesterday I decided I'd engage the enemy and renew my seemingly eternal struggle for woodlot supremacy against that infernal invasive, garlic mustard.  After two summers and one spring of fighting a rampant garlic mustard invasion in my backyard, I feel like I'm finally starting to win.

It was relatively warm and the ground was soft due to a recent rain...a perfect time to weed.  I like early spring weeding because the bugs and spiders aren't out in full force yet.  (Nothing creepier than sticking your hand in the crevice of some rotting wood to get a stray weed.  You just KNOW your fingers aren't alone in there.)  Also the mosquitoes aren't out yet so it's actually pleasant to be outside.

Despite reducing the garlic mustard's overall numbers and managing to retake some of the yard, it's still pretty ugly out there.  So, after an initial rush of gut-wrenching panic,  I calmed down and decided to just pick a spot and start pulling.  (I don't want to use herbicide because the garlic mustard is intermingled with native plants I want to keep.)   

This is what Motherwort looks like in April-
when the DNR said it's invasive, they meant it. 
I let one plant go to seed last year
because I thought it was Common Mallow 
and now its EVERYWHERE!

I worked all day (not even stopping for lunch) and was thrilled to see that I only filled one garbage bag of mature plants.  (I also pulled any motherwort and brambles I found but those went into the compost pile) Last spring it was five bags for the same section of yard.  (I'm a big believer in composting, but in the case of garlic mustard I burn it or put it out for the landfill even if it hasn't flowered.  GM is allelopathic and affects soil microorganisms, which wrecks the soil. One study found its negative effects lasted for at least 2 years after it was removed.)




Here is a medium-sized garlic mustard plant (leavs and root). 
They can get MUCH bigger and can flower with only a couple of leaves on them. 
If you look hard you can see all the garlic mustard seedlings around it.

  Unfortunately, I also saw thousands of healthy green sprouts with purple stems everywhere.  EVERYWHERE!  Garlic Mustard seeds can stay alive and dormant in the soil for several years.  So even though I worked tirelessly last year to make sure no GM seeded, there are still plenty of existing seeds in the seed bank.  I plan to hoe down those little guys tomorrow when I'm not so sore.  I was also thinking of trying some GM sprouts in my salad; after all they were originally a food crop.

I also had to stop and think for a moment; GM is a biennial and dies after its second year, so how did I have so many fully mature plants this spring?  Did I really miss that many during my GM-pulling campaigns?  If you don't pull them at the right time (just before they flower) and don't get all the roots, they regrow.  I'm wondering if they are like a biennial salvia I used to grow.  As long as you didn't let it flower and set seed, it acted like a perennial and I had the same plants come back year after year.  Maybe this explains the very fat and healthy GM I found yesterday.  Either that or I'm a sloppy weeder.

Can't wait to see this Hellebore flower

So, anyhow, the battle against GM has started anew and I'm hoping I have the physical prowess to finish the fight.  I'll take this rainy day as a rest day and plan my attack for tomorrow.  Besides, I have some other things to think about.  Like, why were there two wood ducks sitting in a tree in our back yard this morning?  We aren't that close to water. 

How did I manage to plant most of my shrubs in the front yard right on the utility line?  Why didn't I call Digger's Hotline before I planted them?

Also, one of the hellebores I planted last year has some flower buds on it.  When will it flower? I'm pretty excited; I've never seen a hellebore in flower before (except in magazines). 

And, there's new activity in a burrow that we found in our yard last year.  I saw something big out of the corner of my eyes zip into it the other day.  I was pretty sure it was a groundhog (I saw some cream-colored fur) but yesterday I smelled skunk near it.  I hope it's a skunk.  Woodchucks are bad business when it comes to gardening.

A bit of green for St. Paddy's Day

Garlic Mustard-not the kind of green I wanted to see on St. Paddy's Day

A shadow lurks over my garden, and its not the rainclouds that we are expecting later today.  It's reality, smacking me upside the head.  Now that the snow cover is gone, I can see just how much work I have cut out for me this year.  Garlic mustard is rampant throughout my yard, despite my heroic eradication efforts last year.  It's just a big mess everywhere I look.  Last night I couldn't sleep well because I was just so overwhelmed by it all. 

American Heuchera-either 'Dale's Strain' or 'Green Spice'

So, today, I grabbed my notepad and just started looking around.  I quickly realized it wasn't all doom and gloom.  I was cheered to see some snowdrops getting ready to bloom.  Seriously, those little beauties just glow with happiness!  Most perennials turn to mush over the winter but I saw some green that wasn't my dreaded arch-enemy, garlic mustard.  I saw some epimedium, hellebores, sweet cicely, male fern, lungwort, thyme and 'Angelina' sedum that looked like they were ready for spring.  My new favorite plant, American heuchera, was looking quite well too.  I even saw fat red buds on my two tree peonies (this was their first winter) which put a big smile on my face to know that they made it.

Snowdrops-ready to bloom

My kitties are ready for nicer weather too.  I let Teddy out on his leash and he found a rabbit pelvis bone with two leg bones and furry feet.  He played with it for a long time, tossing it into the air.  When he saw me coming to let him back in the house, he grabbed it and brought it to me, tail held high, excited to bring the nasty plaything in the house.  When I foiled his awesome plan for indoor fun and wouldn't let him bring it in, he sat by the door, pitifully meowing, trying to get me to let him back out to get his grisly new toy.  I finally had to pull out the kitty treats to distract him.