It’s Only Natural

Over the next 26 posts, I’m going to talk about various flora and fauna in the outdoors in depth and alphabetically! 

 I truly enjoy my birds, my toads, my flowers, my veggies… and I hope to inspire you to do the same.  Do you live on several acres?  In an apartment?  Either way, I hope something I’ll say will inspire you to add a little beauty to your environment.

If you have any suggestions for a featured creature or plant, let me know.  If you have any questions about how to grow something, or nurture the wildlife in your yard (whether urban or rural), let me know in the comments. 

In the meantime, sit back, relax and learn the ABCs of Nature.

I have several birdfeeders in my yard and thoroughly enjoy watching all the various birds feast.  They all have different personalities — from the shy Hairy Woodpecker to the gutsy Chickadee. 

 I am, of course, partial to the flashy birds and was thrilled to have a few Baltimore Orioles at my feeder all summer.  But we’ve had our first hard frost here in the northeast, and it’s time for a change.

The orioles have gone, as have the Robin Red-Breast, the Rose-Breasted Grosbeak and others.  But coming back to visit from Canada I’ve gotten Dark-Eyed Juncos and wrens… lots and lots of both. 

 During the summer months, even the woodpeckers prefer to eat seed and not suet, though they will occasionally indulge in the fatty stuff (and the Hairy Woodpeckers teach their children how to eat off the feeder — one of the highlights of mid-summer for me).

But in the winter… all the birds have a suet snack.  I’ll find the chickadees, the nuthatches and others eating suet, and the woodpeckers — all the different types — will almost exclusively eat from there.

Yesterday, I received a big thrill.  My cardinal pair has returned.  They have been MIA since mid winter last year, and I was certain something had happened to them.  But yesterday morning I heard the peep-peep sound they make and looked out to see both a male and female (they seldom some separately, except during nesting season).  I’m so glad they’ve come home.

Do you enjoy birdwatching?

I’m not a big fan of high-maintenance plants. I love perennials — plant them and forget them (well, sort of!) and they just keep growing. But, I make an exception for dahlias.

I think they are just lovely!

So, when we were hit with a hard frost a few days ago, I hurried out to dig up my dahlia tubers, so I can plant them again next year. If you live in an area where the ground freezes, you’ll need to do the same.

Here’s what you do:

1. Dig them up carefully so as not to break their necks. And remember, even the small tubers are most likely capable of growing next year.

2. Remove the greens down close to the clump.

3. Wash all the dirt off and let them air dry for a couple of days.

4. At this point you can either store them as a clump (that’s what I do), or separate them — When you divide clumps, save all tubers with eyes because, as I mentioned,even small tubers grow well.

5. Store them in sawdust or sphagnum moss at about 40 degrees F, with some humidity. They need to breath, but not get dry. If they are too warm and wet, they will rot. If they are too cold they will freeze and rot. A box lined with a breathable plastic liner layered with clean peat moss, fine sawdust (pine works well), vermiculite or clean potting soil, then covered to prevent evaporation works well. I keep mine in my unfinished basement (near my Swallowtail butterfly who is overwintering as a pupa — which is another story).

Once the danger of frost is over, you can plant them outside — I’d recommend in places with shorter growing seasons (like my lovely state of New Hampshire) that you start them indoors early, in order to enjoy the gorgeous blooms for a longer time.

Yep… I’m talking about worms.In my garden, I do my best to grow everything organically.  This means I compost, but it also means I’ll take help wherever I can get it.

When I first started my garden here, nearly ten years ago, the dirt was awful.  The contractor must have buried all his garbage where I wanted to plant, so I spent most of my first year digging up bits of wood, branches, and a LOT of rocks.  New Hampshire isn’t called The Granite State for nothing… we grow a great crop of rocks.

Despite the work I put into the garden, a few years ago I knew it needed even more.  So I bought worms from Biconet (as well as Praying Mantis, but that’s another story).  I only put them into my garden, but I’m considering building a worm composter someday soon (though the worms are clearly thriving — they are as big as small snakes, and frequently startle me when I’m weeding or planting!).

Worm composting uses worms to recycle fruit and veggie scraps (as well as other garden leavings, like grass or leaves) into vermicompost, or worm compost. Worms eat the scraps, and – like magic! –  compost exits the worm through its’ tail end.  It’s a very valuable addition to your garden.

Of course, if you simply put them in the garden itself, they also help keep the soil loose during their travels.One of the best articles I’ve found on worm composting can be found here.

Good luck with your worms!

The leaves — the gorgeous and brilliant foliage that only a few days ago decorated the trees outside my home — have, for the most part, fallen to the ground.  They were aided in their task by a storm yesterday:  rain and wind tugged the leaves from their hold on the branches until they littered the ground.

I love green, growing things, so the autumn season is difficult for me.  I try to adjust my thinking from “Everything is dying” to “The plants are going to sleep”.   This was made easier today by the leaves… they’ve made a heavy blanket over the plants that are beginning to nod off and have tucked them in for the long winter ahead.

I hope my plants — my green, growing friends — I hope they are dreaming of what they will become in a few months.  I hope they are storing up strength to grow bigger, greener, stronger than they were even this past year.

Despite the beauty of the earth’s blanket, I am already looking forward to spring.

Thirteen Flowers I Grew In My 2008 Gardens

13. Dark purple hollyhocks

12. Bright red Bee Balm (hummingbirds LOVE this)

11. Scarlet Oriental Poppies (very Flanders Field, yes?)

10. Dark pink Rhododenrons.

9. Candy Cane Portulaca

8. Pale pink Azalea

7. Blue and pink Forget-Me-Nots (coming up amongst the milkweed in my butterfly garden)

6. Orange and black Gazanias

5. Pink Creeping Flox

4. Pink Bleeding Heart

3. Blue perennial Bachelor’s Button

2. Yellow tulip (one of the few that came back this year… thanks to my vole infestation)

1. Pink and white English Daisy.

I love flowers… don’t you?

Leave a comment and I’ll add your link to this post!

This week’s theme/prompt is:
HEADS - Anything that starts with the letter G

When I think G — I think gardening, and even more, I think of the show I used to watch religiously every weeknight… my favorite gardening show ever: Ground Force.

Though I’m not typically a fan of reality shows or “make over” shows on TV, this particular show was a font of information AND of humor. Alan, Tommy and Charlie just clicked so well together and kept me both interested and in stitches for each and every show. I was terribly sad when the show ended in 2005, and I watched re-runs for months afterward, until they were no longer broadcast.

Here’s a taste, for those of you who have never seen it (which is probably most of you, since the show aired on BBC America). Embedding was disabled, but here’s a direct link.

CLICK HERE FOR GROUND FORCE VIDEO!

Makes me miss it all over again.

It’s fall here in New England.  I know, that’s not exactly news, but I struggle to enjoy it, even when the weather is lovely like it is currently.  We’re in the midst of a truly amazing Indian Summer and I want to get out and soak up the sun and the warmth while I can. 

The problem is, I don’t really have any gardening to do. My veggie garden is all put away, most of my annuals are dead from the light frosts we’ve had from time-to-time, there is nothing to plant and little to weed. 

Few things are blooming, so even the joy I feel in observing is diminished.

Today, though, I went on a treasure hunt.  And a found some remarkably gorgeous sights.A lone dahlia in my flower pots, still struggling to survive.

My gaillardia, still blooming – one of my favorite perennials, because it does bloom nearly all summer, much like an annual.

  A clump of wildflowers:

Here in New Hampshire, we’re blessed with an abundance of water. Wetlands are common and the humidity is high. This moisture is probably the reason why the flora is abundant and grows quickly and easily. In fact, I spend most of the growing season here trying to keep the woods from my garden! Weeding is a daily ritual, and even then I can’t keep on top of it all.

So, I look at our creek, and I smile.

It’s fall in New England, and folks have scheduled vacations to come “leaf-peeping” out here.  My husband, a New England native, really doesn’t understand what all the hoop-la is about:  “Leaves change color everywhere.”

Sadly, peak foliage time only lasts a week or so.  But while it lasts, it is truly incredible.  A gift.  The leaves are burning.