Actea, Butterflies, Cimicifugas: My ABC's

Monday, September 17, 2007

Just after 8 PM and now 44.6 degrees here on the mountain above Peacham Pond. It was a glorious day and although I was in central Vermont most of the day, the bright sun made my meeting times speed by, nudged along by the thought of getting home and into the garden. Gail and Liz were in the garden when I arrived and they had 8 crates of daylilies prepared for planting. The process has been working well and although I am the lonely planter at the new site, there is a tranquility to the job that is satisfying. People honk as they go by or stop to chat for a while as Arthur did today on his way home from an environmental consulting job in Maine. I kinda like it!

I loaded up the truck and was about to shove off when the large Cimicifuga atropurpurea caught my eye. This is the plant we love so much even though it has been reclassified as Actea. Plants should have the correct classification and it seems the quite often now, plants, like people, are renamed. I am growing more tolerant of the new plant names but the same people with new "people" names still kind of gets to me a bit. Today a Karen who was then a Karin is now a "Car-in" kind of Karen. You've got me............ I'm still just plain George.

This particular Cimicifuga was originally in a gallon pot for sale until Gail decided it would accompany some daylilies and other plants in a 30" clay pot. This whole affair started 3 years ago now. At the end of the first year the plants had to come out of the clay pot so it wouldn't freeze and break. It was the end of the season when even good gardeners grow tired of digging holes and Gail planted the Cimicifuga right next to where it rolled (not easily!!) out of the pot. At the end of the following year Gail tried to coax me to dig up the giant and move it but I said I'd only be involved if she bought me a tractor with a backhoe. She bought me the tractor this year but without the backhoe and the Cimicifuga, now well over 9 feet tall, is a giant and still planted in the same place.

Today the plant was an obvious magnet for butterflies and bees of all sorts. I don't recall seeing the monarchs fly to it as they did today but they were not alone. The plant is so tall and the scapes so long that it waves in even the most gentle of winds so getting a good picture for a non-photographer like me is a challenge. As you click on these pictures to enlarge them, you'll have a good opportunity to see the beauty of the flower scapes. The flowers are often described as bottlebrush and it is an appropriate characterization.

>The monarchs are feeding heavily as they are about to shove off for points south. There is an especially good hatch of late and earlier this week just before I mowed along Route 2, there were a dozen or so "newborns" fanning their wings to straighten and dry them. This is really interesting if you've never seen it before. At one point I couldn't stand it any more and I got off the tractor and let one climb on my finger so I could watch it closer. I read in the Sunday paper of a group that was netting and tagging monarchs. If I owned a day stretcher I'd probably have time to give this a try too.

Next year when you visit Vermont Flower farm at its new location, looked down at the west fence. You'll see a couple clumps of Actea that by September 2008 should be 10 feet tall. Since that fence is bounded by a field of wildflowers, my guess is that it would be worth a walk down to count the insect varieties including butterflies. If you're a photographer too, take a camera and see if you can help me with a good shot of what you see. In the meantime, stop by Peacham Pond Road. You can't miss this year's Actea in bloom!



Writing from the mountain above Peacham Pond and waiting for Gail to return from an autism forum in Montpelier. The night is still, except for the call of the invisible but very nearby barred owl.

Great gardening!

George Africa
http://vermontflowerfarm.com
http://thevermontgardener.blogspot.com

6 Feet and Rising

Thursday, July 12, 2007

A beautiful day today but not so beautiful yesterday or even this morning. The rains have been falling for several days and last night around 4 PM the skies opened. At a little after 5 PM I put a water glass on the outside railing and at 6 PM, some 50 minutes later, the glass had well over 1.5" in it. Now understand me, this is no expert metering device but it helped confirm the +6" of water in all the 5 gallon watering buckets this morning.

I've had a bad time in my life with water. There's either been too much or too little. When we moved to Vermont in '52 my dad forgot to tell us there was no running water at the house. That took him 3 years to remedy. Once in Shelburne I came home from work and opened the cellar door to find a swimming pool lapping at the top step. The hot water heater had sprung a very big leak. Then back in the early 80's I was asked to help with a FEMA family relief program after several counties were ravaged by a flood. Since then when it rains heavily, I wake up and listen for the phone to ring with someone asking for help. The phone didn't ring last night, but I still layed there thinking it would. Conditioning is an interesting thing.

By daybreak I could wait no longer and I got in the truck with a fresh coffee and headed for our property to check things out. Karl the wonder dog does not like rain and he buried himself in the quilts on the couch and wished me farewell.

I had left the tractor parked on high ground but "high" can quickly become "low" in terms of floods. It was a 100% humid and foggy morning and the rivers along the way already looked as if they were receding. There was instant relief when I reached the property. The Winooski River had not breached any of the banks and the tractor and implements stood tall on the high ground. I drove down to the front corner near the river and looked both ways. The water had risen more than 8 feet but it appeared to be leveling off. I don't know when the rain stopped but typically the water rises for some time after the rains cease and then the flow catches up with itself and recedes.

The grass squished as I walked along and it was clear that we were now a week away before we could work the land again. The 24-50'X12' plots I had repeatedly rototilled looked very clean and neat and the new grass looked more like uncut lawn that the hayfield it was a couple months ago. Progress is slow and interruptions such as this rain storm will delay our planting a bit.

I returned home and prepared for a trip up north. I expected to see places where the storm's influence had messed things up and I was not disappointed. Farming is difficult work and the best of days are often followed by troublesome times.

During the next few days I'll be installing the deer fence around the perimeter. I bought a gas operated earth auger and will use the pressure treated 4" X 4" X10 ' s. I need a gate by the river and another one half way up the river side; then there are the double wide 12 foot gates on Route 2. I have offers to help with the installation so for a few bucks and a lot of sweat, I can get the fence up and then monitor the land for a couple weeks for deer and bear infiltration before the planting begins.

It feels like I have been working on this land forever. Today in the mail was the first tax announcement. The Town Clerk called yesterday to report that someone had forgotten to send our bill out so we had two weeks to appeal the decision of the appraisers. This is something to keep in mind when you buy a piece of land for a business. We paid $49,900 for the land, cleaned up a major amount of brush and dead trees and added a $4600 entrance road. The appraisers listed it at $32,000. Without additional information, I don't know how this figure was arrived at. I'll catch up with one of the clerks later this week but I think the decision is fine where it stands.

If you are en route to the Groton State Forest or want to stop by at Vermont Flower Farm, take a quick look at our property and you'll begin to visualize the new gardens. They will be special. If you get to Peacham Pond Road, you'll notice that the hostas are glorious with all the rain and the hundreds upon hundreds of daylilies are bursting open in abundant color. Liliums, especially the martagons, Asiatics, and LA hybrids are in bloom in the gardens and in the pots and they will catch your attention. If they don't a few short Oriental lilies probably will. And if you want to see a neat plant, look at the cimicifugas, renamed actea. We have Atropurpurea, Pink Spike, Hillside Black Beauty and a couple more. I'm tired and am blanking on the names but the beautiful foliage remains clear in my mind. Once you see them, you'll want to give them a try. Need other recommendations? Give Gail a call or send her an email lilies@hughes.net She loves to garden and she likes helping other gardeners too!

From the mountain above Peacham Pond where a large willow, now prostrate, floats limbs and leaves in Fr. Lively's pond waiting for me to fire up the chain saw and clean up the mess. But that will have to wait for another day.....

George Africa
http://vermontflowerfarm.com
http://thevermontgardener.blogspot.com