Puffballs from Mars

My youngest isn't convinced about
this Giant Puffball's tastiness

What a surprise!  A couple of weeks ago (beginning of October) after many days of rain, rain and more rain, strange luminous round things  were found lurking in my woods.  Giant Puffball Mushrooms from Mars!  (At least that's what they looked like...alien beings.)

Turns out Giant Puffballs are found all over southeastern Wisconsin and they are edible!  Well, they are edible when they are firm and solidly white on the inside.  If they are green or yellow on the inside, they are no longer edible.

My parents were visiting at the time and my father came in from the yard all excited, with a white mushroom the size of a volleyball in his arms.  It was the biggest puffball mushroom I had ever seen (turns out that it actually wasn't all that big compared to some of them) and I watched with skepticism as my dad proceeded to slice it up and fry it with some butter in the pan.

Before he was able to eat it, I quickly checked on the 'net to verify his claim that giant puffballs really were edible.  "Dead Dad" wasn't the souvenir I wanted from their weekend visit.  (We've already had the "Mangled Dad Taken To Emergency Room" visit.)

Looks like tofu...

It had the consistency of tofu and a very mild flavor.  We all liked it except my husband.  He ate some of the raw mushroom by mistake and didn't like it.  He didn't care much for the cooked version either.  He's a Morel man through-and-through, I guess.

Anyhow, having another edible mushroom on the property was exciting for all of us.  A nice surprise.

Also a surprise this Fall were some perennials in the yard.  I never noticed this in catalogue descriptions but my "Fireworks" goldenrod turned out to be fragrant.  Not smack-you-upside-the-head fragrant like a lilac, but scented enough that my whole prairie patch smelled faintly like vanilla.  All sorts of insects swarmed its blossoms while it bloomed.  In fact, I'm going to have to move it next spring because it got so tall that you had to move its flowerheads out of the way when walking on the path near it.  A scary proposition when the flowerheads are covered with various bees.

Snakewort: also a woodland native
but this particular plant is a cultivar

It's late October now and my Snakeroot is still in full bloom.  In my shade garden, it's a really late bloomer and I love it's small, fuzzy white flowers.  That's another plant that was literally covered with insects.  I guess they love the flowers too.

My blue-stem goldenrods bloomed very nicely; I tried to bring some into the house for a vase but they didn't work very well.  Better for vase-work were my marigolds and zinnias.  They've been looking amazing this fall.  My nasturtiums are just gorgeous right now too.  Their variegated foliage and yellow, orange and red flowers look wonderful surrounded by falling leaves.

Yummy and beautiful!  What more can you ask for?

I used to grow nasturtiums in Pardeeville, several varieties in fact.  Those flowers tended to have a peppery taste.  The ones I grew this year have a distinct radish-y taste.  They sure look pretty in a salad but, Wow!  Strong!  Unfortunately, these are from seed leftover from years ago and unlabeled so I don't know the variety.  "Alaska" maybe?

Still going strong in the back yard are my maidenhair and robust male ferns, my sweet woodruff (still putting up new leaves, despite some COLD weather) and, strangely, my variegated solomon's seal.  The native solomon's seal are looking ratty and going dormant.  I wonder if it's because the natives set fruit and the variegated kind didn't?

After a week's plus worth of rain, the deer came through and cleared out my hosta, lady's mantle and wild geraniums.  They must have been hungry because they also nibbled my pulmonarias, which surprised me.

Another nasty surprise was how bad my spruces were affected by rhizosphera this year.  I had read somewhere that it would be a bad year for foliar disease due to the cold, rainy spring we had but I was totally unprepared for how much needle loss there was.  I had the kids sweep up as many needles as they could and I limbed up many of the spruces to increase air flow.  Once winter comes, I'll lay down a thick layer of mulch; hopefully that'll help.  I know that the spruces need to go (the wrong trees planted the wrong way in the wrong spot) but so many birds and critters depend on them!

Blue Stem Goldenrod: a woodland native

The same goes for that cedar in my front yard;  the cedar waxwings, robins and yellow-rumped warblers are on the move now and they swarm that tree every year.

The front yard would look better if I took it down but I don't have the heart to do so.  Even though my front walk is covered in little frosty blue berries that stain the cement green.  Even though I have to cover my windows on the outside with papers to keep those stupid waxwings from hitting the glass.

All the other birds can see the window clings that are normally present on our windows (we use the black hawk clings and the clear, frosted clings) but the waxwings obviously don't get it.  They try to fly past them; they do it to the papers too.  We look like a family of pyschos with our windows covered up like that.  I need a better idea; if you have a suggestion I'm all ears...of course, looking like psychos isn't a bad thing with Halloween coming 'round the corner.  Maybe I'll have the kids cut the papers into the shapes of ghosts or something.  Call it my holiday decorating effort!

One of the critters that loves our spruce trees
(uh, that's not a spruce tree in the picture though)

Anyhow, hope you are all done getting ready for winter.  I haven't even planted my fall bulbs yet.  Actually, I haven't even purchased my fall bulbs yet.  Maybe this week...

Kids are back in school and I'm back in the garden!

The gray headed coneflowers
are getting pretty floppy now

Summer vacation may be over but the temps are still pretty steamy around here.  Not really the kind of weather I like for working outside, so I've been cruising the various nurseries looking for bargains on perennials and woodies.  I picked up some nice-sized panicum "Prairie Sky" at Menard's for 50 cents each.  I don't always have luck planting grasses in the fall but figured I'd give 'em a shot since they were crazy cheap.

It blows my mind that more people don't do fall planting.  (About the only stuff I don't fall-plant are plants that are at the edge of hardiness in my zone.)  There are lots of deals out there right now so I've got quite the pile of plants that need to get in the ground as soon as possible.  In the mix are some Kerria shrubs I found at Piala's*.  I'm nervous about planting them now because they are hardy only to zone 5 but I spent all summer trying to find a place that carried them so I am going for it.  Wish me luck!

Despite all the hot and dry weather,
my Diane Claire pulmonaria are still looking great

I sure hope they survive.  The plant man told me that they were all the rage several years ago because Oprah had some. Obviously they didn't retain their popularity.  I'm guessing that people were putting them in full sun and so they didn't do well, or maybe it was their suckering habit.  (I've found some forum threads discussing how aggressive kerria can be.  Since I garden on a hillside and have the space, I don't think I'll mind the suckering.

I'm still pulling new garlic mustard seedlings.  It sucks 'cuz I found several that went to seed over the summer; not sure how I missed them while weeding.  They sure are hard to weed out now.  The stems get really dry and thin above ground once things get drought-y and they tend to break off easily.  Still, I feel like I've made real progress in the back yard. I now even have a planting plan and have a very specific shopping list.  Very happy about that!

My front shrub border a few weeks ago

Saw so many butterflies this summer.  Whites are still checking out my nepeta daily.  It seems to be their fav.  The goldenrods are blooming now; they are so pretty!  I don't know what kind they are because they just sort of showed up in my yard.  They look like fireworks.  Japanese beetles have been awful lately; I've been squishing them with my foot but there are just too many.

The kids went back to school today so I'm hoping for a couple of weeks of awesome gardening weather so I can get the rest of the back yard beds mulched and do some shuffling around with the plants in my front yard. I want to hit the ground running next spring.

Sammy Russell daylilies are almost
done now but they did well this year

*Piala's is just outside Waukesha and had a nice selection of trees and shrubs.  I thought they were a bit pricey but it was still fun looking around.  I was just there earlier in the week and they had peacocks and chickens running around.  The peacocks even had chicks with them.  Cute little fluffballs!

Tall Thimbleweed and Carrionflower

I just sent in some plant samples to my UW extension office for identification.  I first try to use the 'net and my plant books to figure it out myself but sometimes I get stumped and need help. 

There are several Carrionflower vines on my gazebo;

I didn't notice any smell when they were in flower;

guess I'll have to check into next June when they bloom

For the last couple of years, I've had several weak vines popping up in my back woods and since most things in my yard turn out to be invasive and nasty, I figured it was too.  I reviewed the Wisconsin DNR's invasive plant list.  Nada.  Then I checked out some of the invasive plant sites on the 'net but couldn't find it there either.  So I sent in a sample and was told it's Carrionflower (Smilax).  Sure enough, it's on the Illinois Wildflower website.  (I swear I checked the Illinois Wildflowers site and some other wildflower sites but didn't see a match.  Why I didn't find it when I searched, I don't know.) 

I'm told it's native and not invasive so I've decided to keep it.  Hopefully that decision doesn't backfire on me.  A couple of days ago I was hacking through the undergrowth that has taken over my gazebo and I found it swathed in Carrionflower vine.  I wish I had found it when it was in flower!  I want to see if it really does smell like rotting meat.  If it does, it'll have to get moved.  I don't think it would be pleasant sitting in teh gazebo drinking tea and scarfing down cookies while bathed in the smell of roadkill.  On a tangent, I've recently found another plant that smells that same way but I think it's just a nasty non-native weed (I can't remember the name though.)  Another internet search to do and hopefully not another sample mailed to the UW!

Tall Thimbleweed in flower; once the white petals fall off,
the head elongates a bit and looks like a thimble



One plant I figured out myself is Tall Thimbleweed (Anemone Virginiana), a native perennial.  I believe Prairie Moon Nursery in MN carries it.  As far as I can tell it's not aggressive and I like its pretty palmate leaves.  Reminds me of a big wild geranium or even a masterwort leaf.  The flowers aren't anything exciting but I was happy to find a plant in my yard that isn't bent on world domination.  (Of course, I just noticed this plant this year.  I'll have to wait and see what it does.)

Last month I also found a Masterwort in my backyard that may have come from a "Sunnydale Variegated" masterwort (Astrantia) that I moved around a few times.  That's the only explanation I can come up with.  I'm pretty sure it wasn't there when we moved in.  However, the flower color isn't right and its not variegated.  Hmmm...

The Masterwort bloom is the purple-tinged flower
with the palmate leaves; in front of it is sweet cicely (I think)
and there's false solomon's seal in the upper left corner

Well, you must be thinking, "How bad is that woman's yard that she's finding full-grown mystery plants just popping up out of nowhere?"  I'll tell you; it's pretty bad.  I haven't done a good weeding since it got hot.  People who don't mind a bit of chaos look at our back yard and say, "Cool, it's like your own little forest preserve."  Neat, orderly people, however, gasp in shock and ask why I don't just hack it all down and put in a lawn.  It's a jungle, that's for sure, but I kind of like the wildness and disorder of it all.

So, anyhow, I still have some money budgeted for plant IDs from the UW, which I plan to use this fall on a plant all over my backyard that is tall and aggressive with unimpressive yellow globelike flowers that bloom in September.  I was thinking it might be some type of loosestrife.  I hope its something native and benign; I've already got enough plant invaders to deal with!

Yeah, I don't know what it is
but I know its aggressive enough
to choke out garlic mustard

Hope the heat isn't getting to you!  It won't be long before it's all snow and ice again.

Creature Feature

Happy summertime to you all!  It's been hot and dry for a while now so I was glad to see some rain this morning.  Just wish it had waited until I had taken our tent down and brought in the bedding we had drying out on our deck (we had been camping over the weekend and as usual it rained, leaving me with a big wet mess to deal with when we got home.) 

While camping, we got the chance to care for a baby cedar waxwing that the storm had knocked out of its tree.  We had it just long enough to warm and dry it off and feed it some grape bits before we got it back to its tree.  It was a cute little bugger, full of personality.  Made me think of other critters I've run across over the years in my garden.  The ones that made an impression on me or my family. 

My previous garden was an acre of grass in full sun and sandy soil with only a couple of trees.  Over the years I added a wide assortment of perennials, trees and shrubs, including a bit of prairie.  It wasn't long before we had lots of critters visiting the garden. 

There was a hummingbird who thought he was the king of everything and would harass anything that got close to his favorite plants.  There was the little gray-green tree frog who would cling to our windows at night to eat moths attracted to our lighted interior.  One time we accidentally brought him inside on the back of a chair cushion.  It caused quite the commotion when it panicked and started jumping on us instead of trying to get away, which made us scream and jump in panic!  We finally calmed down enough to get him safely back outside but it was all my kids could talk about for days. 

There were the sandhill cranes that came every year; they are SO scary up close.  You don't realize how big they are and how sharp their beaks look until you are face-to-face with them. 

There were so many animals and birds and bugs, but it was a couple of our snake residents that really stuck out.  I'm not into snakes.  They freak me out, especially when you are weeding under a large hosta or shrub and a snake zips out from the plant you have your hand under.  That'll make anyone jump!

Still, I figure that it meant I had a healthy garden going if snakes were there and so I decided to leave any snake found to go about its business in peace.  There was one snake that really made me laugh.  The kids and I found a eeny-weeny green grass snake in our garage one day.  Oh, how it hissed at us as we tried to scoop it up with a dustpan to put it back outside.  It had the tiniest little head with the tiniest little mouth and an itty-bitty hiss.  It was trying so hard to look mean and fierce!  Adorable! 

I will never know if it was the same one but a couple of years later I was weeding among my daylilies and I saw an adult grass snake.  It was staying very still but when it realized I saw it, it started gently waving its head so it would look like a blade of grass blowing in the wind.  I laughed so hard! It really did have the movement of wind-blown grass down perfect!  I decided to take a break from weeding and went inside for a cup of chai.  That would give the snake time to find a better hiding spot.

I haven't seen any snakes in my new garden but we have at least one tree frog who likes to sit on our window at night to catch a snack.  And the first sound I heard when we got home from camping was the sound of cedar waxwings in our trees out front.  I hope I can provide a safe haven for the critters that live here (but they better not eat my plants down to the ground!  Bambi and Thumper, I'm talking to you!)

A gift from the storm

(NOTE:  This post was started over a week ago but I forgot to post it.  Since I first wrote this, it's been hot and dry. That's WI weather for you.)



'Hummelo' in bloom



Hey!  It actually felt like summer today!  And the mosquitoes have finally arrived.  It's weird; others in our town have been complaining about the mosquitoes for weeks and weeks but we didn't really see any until a couple of days ago.  Probably due to the cold but I'd like to think there are additional reasons.  Maybe my organic gardening methods have increased my amphibian population and that's why we  haven't had many mosquitoes?  Or maybe the rotting cupola on our garage has a new bat family in residence?  Whatever the reason, I am very thankful for the respite we had from those bloodsucking pests!

We are also thankful for a gift from the storm that blew through last week.  Last year, the top half of an aspen was knocked over by another storm and got hung up in a maple tree.  It was just out of reach on a steep slope and it was going to be pricey to get it removed.  It was pretty darn scary weeding under it, let me tell you, as it creaked and groaned in the slightest wind.  Well, our latest storm took it down from it's lofty perch and laid it out on the slope <i>perfectly</i>, avoiding every plant and shrub we didn't want it to hit.  Yay!

It was supposed to rain again today so I decided to transplant some sweet cicely to one of my shade beds.  The woods is once again full of garlic mustard.  We had just finished bagging up what we pulled a couple of weeks ago.   Ugh.



Maidenhair fern with Sweet Woodruff
at its feet: both Wisconsin natives



On the bright side, my 'Hummelo' betony is blooming and its reddish purple blooms look so nice with the variegated 'Goldwell' veronica near it.  I've never grown 'Hummelo' so wasn't sure if it would do well especially because it started off so slow.   It's leaves aren't felty like regular lamb's ear.  I like it alot and plan on adding more.

 

Another plant that has me clapping in admiration is maidenhair fern.  Now that it is settled in, it's looking really good.  Of course, we've had a really wet growing season so how it will look in a droughty year has yet to be seen. 

 While clearing out some space in the back yard for a lawn I found a shrub that I had overlooked last year.  After some digging on the 'net I think it's an elderberry, specifically Canadian Elderberry.  It's actually kind of pretty, although I suspect it suckers.  I hope it's the edible kind of elderberry...

Could this be Canadian Elderberry?  What a nice surprise if it is!

A Sumac Surprise

Tiger Eyes sumac: Beauty or beast?

Planted one sumac the summer of 2009;
it didn't sucker in 2010 but is on the move now

There's a corner of my yard that I don't see very often.  It's a sliver of flat yard behind my shed that ends in a sharp slope down to my neighbor's and farther down still to our back yard.

There were two huge box elders on the slope that we had an arborist remove because they were hollowed out and leaning over our house.  That left an exposed slope that needed shoring up and fast.  I planted one Tiger's Eye sumac and 2 Gro-Low sumac.  I left them to their own devices and they not only survived but thrived in their new steep but sunny home.

Tiger's Eye is a type of staghorn sumac, which is on Wisconsin's invasive list, despite being a native plant.

So, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised to find that my Tiger's Eye, which isn't supposed to sucker as aggressively as the species (according to the sales spiel), has spread out down the slope with at least 4 new sprouts, a couple of them about 10 ft away.  Oopsies!

Another plant that seems to like its new home is my Caroline Moonlight baptisia, which I wasn't sure was going to do well.  Surprise, surprise,  while weeding in my mini prairie, I found baptisia seedlings.  Carolina Moonlight won't come true from seed so I'm curious to see what color flower the seedlings will produce.



Carolina Moonlight Baptisia: It didn't bloom for long
 but I really like those mellow yellow blooms



Buggy about Buglossoides!

2 Sahohime and 1 Hanakisoi blooms perfume the kitchen

You know the excitement you feel when a perennial blooms for the first time and it's a plant you've never grown before?  Well, I got a double dose of that excitement this week when both my tree peonies and Buglossoides (Purple Gromwell) bloomed.

I'm guessing you've heard about tree peonies.  I've got two in one of my perennial beds.  One is Sahohime and it has large bright pink blooms that are pretty but not very fragrant.  The other is Hanakisoi with flouncy pale pink flowers and lots of scent.  I love the scent of peonies; they are one of my favorite plants and I was waiting all year to see if these newcomers to my garden would flower this spring.  (I've grown herbaceous peonies for years but this is the first time I've tried tree peonies and I heard that it can take several years for them to start flowering.)

I had been watching and waiting as the peony
buds fattened but was still surprised once they bloomed



The other surprise bloomer is one that I doubt you've heard of.  I know I had never heard of it until I asked a worker at Flower Factory in Stoughton for a list of deer, shade, drought and alkaline clay tolerant plants.  You can imagine that the list wasn't very long.  On it was Buglossoides.   I thought the name was weird and decided to give it a try.

If only they lasted a bit longer!

I planted it below a group of spruce trees where there's lots of root competition and it's

pretty dry.  The first year, my two clumps didn't do much other than put out some thin vine-like shoots, hugging the ground and not looking particularly vigorous.  I noticed that the foliage didn't go fully dormant over winter but was totally crispy and dead-looking by spring.  I was worried it had died.  But surprise!  Not only did the foliage emerge later looking happy and lush, there were now four clumps instead of two. 



This was when my buglossoides first starting blooming;
there's a lot more flowers now
(but I can't get you a picture 'cuz I can't find my camera)

 And another surprise!  Buglossoides just bloomed and the blooms are bright blue.  True blue, not that purple that some catalogs call blue.  (I think we've all been taken in by that at some point or other in our gardening careers.) And it's a really bright hue, that blue.  (Geez, now I'm sounding like Dr. Seuss.)



Anyhow, now I'm wondering how long it'll bloom for and if it will put out vines again like it did last year.  It'd be great if it kept blooming until the yellow daylilies and sundrops bloom.  Here's hoping!



Flowers that are blue, not purple, folks!