Last year I didn't know what these large round and white aphids were. I thought that they might be aphids that were transforming into the flying variety and naively I removed them. They are aphids that have been parasitized by wasps. The wasps lay eggs in them and the wasp larva eventually come out to parasitize more aphids. Now that the wasps are out and active I've found I haven't had to work to control the aphids anymore as the large flying aphids are getting picked off before they can multiply. The short message is don't squish these!
If you live in New England and are a gardener, then there is a good chance you've been visited by one of these fellows. The three lined potato beetle first made an appearance in our garden on the ground cherries that volunteered by the side of our shed. These infested the plants and because of that I've been waging war against the ground cherries this year. That hasn't stopped them from making the jump over to other plants in the garden, and since I'm growing potatoes this year they have been their favorite target.
I spent the morning looking under the leaves of all of my potato plants for these little orange eggs. I removed close to a hundred of them in about a dozen eggs clusters. They scrape off the leaves easy enough and will pop if enough pressure is applied. Your hands will be orange until you wash them though, so it is not an approach for the squeamish.
I would have never noticed this guy except that it moved while I was examining the underside of the leaf it was on. I didn't know what it was at the time so it didn't get squished, but after identifying it as a three lined potato beetle larva they won't get a free pass in the future. I was really shocked to find out it wasn't something more exotic, it looks like it belongs in a coral reef not my garden.
I took this shot at the Macro's minimum focal length to try and get more detail. That pile of stuff on top of him is actually his own poop. They use it to discourage predators and to make gardeners think twice about picking them up and disposing of them. They've done a fair deal of damage, but nothing fatal, I'm going to keep controlling them through manual removal for now.
Two years ago we had our front walkway, stoop and patio replaced. We were thrilled with the job done by the masons. I immediately planted up one section with shrubs but left the large portion open because of drainage problems we had with a basement window well.
I tried to find a photo of the area but of course I never took one because it was horrendous. Two years of no plantings and just weeds, made it the ugliest spot in our garden and of course, it was right next to our front door!
Any photo I took in the area I cropped so that you couldn't see the mess but if you peek at the right here, you'll see a little.
This weekend we finally decided we couldn't take it any more and attacked the spot. I really didn't want to spend any money on the area, we already had a Pieris japonica in a pot for a year that I wanted planted there.
The Cotoneaster at the bottom of the photo was there too, we just needed something else to fill in and give us year round foliage.
In the very back of my garden, in total shade were five Korean boxwoods (Buxus microphylla var. Koreana). These had been little slips given to me by a woman in my garden club. Over the years they grew to a nice size but they were in a spot where nobody could see them.
They turned out to be just right in this little front garden.
Now I have to bite the bullet and take out the Echinacea that seeded itself next to the Japanese Maple.
We are also going to mulch well with shredded leaves so we don't have to weed this garden. In the fall I'll add some early spring blooming bulbs.
How nice to have a neat, clean garden in this spot.
The garden is doing well overall with the last two days having partial sun and warmer weather. The tomatoes are responding very well to the warmth and have been growing several inches a day. The Oregon Sugar Pod Peas at the front of the bed are massively productive and are definitely on my list for next year. The Alaska peas in the middle produced a large bowl of peas once shelled and may have another in them before they're done. The Mammoth Peas at the end of the row are amazingly tall, unproductive, and diseased. The green bean patch is an insane jungle, and the inter planted beans elsewhere in the garden are also doing very well. Watching the potatoes grow I can hardly wait to dig them up!
They shot up to the top of the tower and tumbled off it to the side. I think the combination of wet and aphids set them up for a bacterial or viral disease. I'm not sure if that reduced their ability to flower, but this variety has produced maybe one twentieth the peas the Oregon Peas have.
I haven't identified the exact problem, but I did end up pulling the tower this afternoon. I cut them off at the ground to make sure these were left behind...
I didn't innoculate my peas, but they all had the nitrogen fixing rhizobia nodules on them. Hopefully through rotation I'll avoid the problem bacteria/virus in the future. The other varieties have so far been unaffected.
This past Thursday was not the first time I've visited the Horticulture gardens at SUNY Farmingdale. I've been there well over a dozen times so it was most surprising to me to find myself in love with an area that didn't excite me too much on previous visits.
The difference wasn't in the garden itself, the difference was me, my taste and desires in gardening right now.
The Rockery (as Dr. Iverson called it) begins at first with a small rock courtyard showcasing a few shade plants that have charmingly worked their way into the cracks and crevices of the stone walls and floor.
A few steps later though you come across the most wonderful, secret, shaded grotto just filled with a treasure trove of shade plants.
The predominant color here is green and yet it was as exciting to me as the long perennial border and the riot of color in the summer garden.
The day was damp and cool (what else has been new this season) and the plants were in prime condition.
I didn't think to take an overview of the whole area but it wasn't much larger than what you see here in this photo. The contrast of the Hakonachloa (forest grass) against the gravel was magnificent.
There were lots of large rocks that you would swear were put there by Mother Nature and not by the diligent staff and students at the university. More plants were showcased in the cracks and crevices. I just loved seeing the Asarum europeam (European Ginger) in the garden. It's become a big favorite of mine.
Look! I did find a flower, although the garden would have been awesome even without this little beauty.
The perfect garden needs the perfect ending. How's this as the path to take you up and out of the rockery and back to the "real world".
The raspberries are starting to ripen. Even though they are more tart than I like, Gabe loves them. I guess he takes after his Dad when it comes to tart berries.
The strawberries, sadly, are being devoured by some critter. I suspect chipmunks.
One of our neighbors has mulberry trees, which have been covered in ripe fruit. If you aren't familliar with mulberries, they look like blackberries, but don't have the tang. Many folks find the flavor insipid. I prefer them to all but the most perfectly sun-ripened strawberry.
Gabe could eat mulberries until he pops, I think.
Speaking of mulberries, the bunnies (or some other critter) have helped themselves to the mulberry seedlings in Gabe's Garden, as well as my nasturtiums and violets. I may transplant the larger volunteer mulberry tree to where one of the chewed seedlings is, and then put a cage around it.
The nasturtiums are largely a lost cause, but the violets will recover.
Welcome and Happy Fourth of July. One of my good customers lives on Balboa Island and commissioned me to paint a "summer" painting for her home. She loves red, roses, sunflowers, flags and summer porch living on the island. Put on your walking shoes and join me and Bentley for a little walking tour of Balboa Island looking for summer inspirations for the painting.
Bentley my "studio assistant" is anxious to get started.
Balboa Island is one of my favorite places to walk Bentley looking for inspiration for my art. It is a small island on the Newport Bay located about half a mile from the beautiful Pacific Ocean in Southern California. Most of the cottages are reminiscent of the cottages on Nantucket and Cape Cod Islands.
Finding inspiration . . . . . . . .
Lovely porch with lots of red.
Sunflowers
Here . . . . . Red roses
There . . . . .
Vintage Picnic basket with flags and red geraniums
Everywhere . . . . .
We found lots of inspiration on our walk for the summer painting - flags, porches, roses, sunflowers and wicker furniture. My customer has brown wood paneling in her cottage and I decided to paint the porch floor brown in order to tie the painting into her home and bring harmony. I liked the browns in the vintage picnic basket with flags and also added a brown basket of purple flowers in order to bounce the brown around the painting. I also added Catalina Island to anchor the browns ( Catalina Island is a lovely island about 27 miles from Balboa Island in the Pacific Ocean and also a favorite destination of my customer).
The completed summer painting.
Have a bang up fourth.
Thank you for visiting my blog. I love hearing from you and it means a lot to me that you have taken time to leave me a comment and to follow my blog. Please leave me a comment or send me an e-mail if you have any questions or would like to see me paint something special.
A big thank you to everyone who participated in the scarf project to help raise money for abandoned dogs.
I talked to the Commission last Thursday (6-18) and they all thought that the best thing to do is just to let path and turtle/frog pond return to their natural state. Just let it be and do not try and keep it accessable. There will be no fine as long as you just stop trying to keep it up. If this is OK with you then we are all set - if not then we will have to discuss permitting options - but I do not think you will be able to get a permit to do what you did. It just is not a good idea to do things like that in wetlands.
Let me know if there is anything else I can do for you in the future. Your lot has a large area of wetlands behind it and if you want to do anything that envolves moving dirt or cutting of wetland veg. you will need a permit.
Take care, (our friendly Conservation Agent)
I am deeply relieved not to be socked with thousands of dollars in fines, and I am deeply sad at having to let the path revert back to its original state. But I support the laws that protect our wetlands.
If possible, I do want to maintain a path up to the edge of the wetlands so that I can still get close enough to look at what lives there. I have continued the permitting discussion with the agent to find out what is permissable. The thought of living on the edge of such beauty - that I own - and not being able to see it has still got me in quite a funk.
Today I met a few women from my garden club and we were treated to a tour of the horticultural learning gardens at SUNY Farmingdale University.
This first shot was taken at the entrance gate.
Although we were there for a short time, I think I'll break down the visit into three posts. This first post is just to share some of the awesome images I brought home with me.
The plant material was grown to perfection, even with the never ending rain we've been getting this season. I love this combination of the dwarf Aruncus athusifolius and the Pulmonaria 'Mrs Moon'.
I didn't take a photo of the name tag for this so I'm not sure if it's a Heliopsis or a Helianthus (I always get them mixed up). Behind it is Physocarpus (Nine bark).
Another combination that blew me away is Astilbe 'Deutschland' and the variegated Symphytum 'Axminster Gold'.
Sheer luck! How's this for a shot of a butterfly on Stachys bloom? I can't believe it came out this clear as it was in constant motion.
Centaurea macrocephala is something I've tried by mail order but I need to get myself a large one of these so I get to see it grow in my garden.
Papyrus in the entrance garden. This garden is planned to peak in late summer, I hope to get back and see it then.
Clematis and a Rose, sheer heaven.
Finally, the blue on this little bulb Brodiaea laxa 'Queen Fabiola' is just Fabulous! I think I'll be looking for this beauty for my own garden.
The next post will be either about the structure in the garden or the shade rockery. Both were just awesome.
Last year I didn't know what these large round and white aphids were. I thought that they might be aphids that were transforming into the flying variety and naively I removed them. They are aphids that have been parasitized by wasps. The wasps lay eggs in them and the wasp larva eventually come out to parasitize more aphids. Now that the wasps are out and active I've found I haven't had to work to control the aphids anymore as the large flying aphids are getting picked off before they can multiply. The short message is don't squish these!
