Yardening August 2015

There is one of the most lovely areas on the Outer Banks N.C. It is called Southern Shores. The town/area of Southern Shores runs from the Beach to the Sound. On the Sound side there is just the most wonderful area of lovely homes on wooded lots. I would think Maritime Forest maybe developed Maritime Forest. There is low areas with sound access that could flood but much of it would not. There is a honey comb of protected waterways to keep a dock and boat with access out to the sound. These are not rental houses they are homes, you don't even feel like you are at the beach in that area but just up over the hill and probably only a mile you are at the beach. If you want to look on line look for Outer Banks Southern Shores "west" properties. Some of them will be in the more open area so you want to look for woodland in the description.

Good info, Holly. Sounds very nice. I will check that out ! :)

A question to David--our sage of all things gardening.....
I, kind of, think I know the answer......

We carried several interesting varieties of Cone Flowers at HD.
The fool I am--I tried to collect the "gone-to-seed" heads of some of them.
One I really liked was the "Double Scoop" one. Red with a tufted upper part.

Just now--I was trying to see if i could get some seeds from this one--but there
were none--just chafe. I know...........I know............they are fancy hybrids that
have been created to sell to the masses...SO pretty!

http://www.burpee.com/perennials/echinacea/echinacea-double-scoop-raspberry-ppaf-prod002502.html


This message was edited Aug 12, 2015 7:25 PM

Gita, it is a hybrid, so it may be sterile. If it does set seed it would likely not come true, especially when flowering with other Echinacea species/cultivars nearby. Vegetative propagation is probably the only way to produce more, and since it is patented, requires a license.

Can't get enough of katydid songs. I hear at least two kinds, and it seems what I have always called a katydid may be a 'false katydid' or anglewing
http://songsofinsects.com/false-katydids

Sally--
Are you talking about the all day songs by the Cicadas?
They sure are loud all day long.

What does a katydid sound like? G.

BTW--you never told me WHEN you need the plants for the Library thing.
I will, probably, just bring them when I come for the swap.

Hope you were kidding ??? that you may not get there until 2PM????
That means we all (your riders) will get there 4 hours late...

Hope you can work on this..... G.

Katydids sing at night.

My garden thing at work IS on the morning of the 19th.

And sorry but no I am not kidding. That Saturday is my usual rotation and we are not allowed to take unlimited Saturday leave. I have yet to get approval to leave work early, after finishing my duty with the Master Gardener. I am sorry that I am not free as usual for the whole day, but--it is only Frederick, not planet Jupiter....You guys know how to contact each other, and you may use my house as a meeting point if it helps.

SO??? How--and when--can I get these give-away plants to you?

We could meet half way somewhere.....WHEN?

I may have more that 24 plants....since i rooted some new ones instead
just getting rid of what i had. Like--Wandering Jew--Inky fingers--Swedish ivy, etc..
Needed a bit of variety....

g.

This hasn't been a fun summer of yardening.

I've been dealing with a pretty severe vole infestation. There are vole holes right at the base of some shrubs/perennials, and some pretty obvious vole damage to the hostas, ajuga, hydrangea, etc.

And I'm spending hours weeding and pruning because my neighbors' virginia creeper, blackberry, wild grape, locust tree, and bindweed keep encroaching into my yard.

And my one surviving rhododendron is showing signs of photophthora. It was a variety that was supposedly resistant to it. Ugh.... My front yard is now full of dead and dying plants. It just looks sad.

In addition to the sick rhodie, I've lost a large noid non-native azalea in the front yard and Mt. St. Helens azalea in the back yard. They started looking sad in June, and by July, they were completely brown and crispy.

Yes, Gita, I have to come up there or something...

So sorry ssg!!

This message was edited Aug 14, 2015 8:34 PM

Most of the gift plants are all set to go. I just have to look through some of my
CC's and add those as well. I will have name tags in all of them. Common names....

Any day would be OK. We can do lunch? Go to buy some Mums at the Wholesale place...
Go to Richardson farms....whatever.

Reminder--I CAN be scheduled to work either Tuesday or Wednesday--but not both.
Meager hours!!! Disgusting!!! I always work on Sundays.

LMK. G.

SSG, So sorry, I well remember your beautiful garden. I am sure just like me you tend to see what is wrong and anyone else that would come by would think how lovely it looks.

Oh SSG, so frustrating!!! I know how you feel. I've got extensive deer damage this year - not a hosta left to speak of, and they ate so many other things too. I've been slowly accumulating toad lilies to have some fall bloomers - not this year as they ate all those. Hydrangeas, garden phlox, geranium maculatum, oriental lilies, and even the prolific campanula 'Elizabeth' were deer candy. It does get so discouraging.

Oh wow SSG, that's terrible! What do you think happened to your Mt. St. Helens?

Aspen and ssg, so sorry to hear about your garden woes!

SSG.... so sorry to hear of all your troubles. Voles can be so destructive. I've had them eat Allium "Globemaster" bulbs. Those things are big enough to feed a family of 20 voles but in the matter of one summer, at about 8 bulbs. Not to mention all the furrows the made in the yard. Tried to kill them for three years, never did. Wonder if the new owners of the house ever got those little bastards.

I tried fox urine and a device similar to a guillotine that you put at the entrance of a furrow but nope, never got them. Hope you have better luck !

The fig (gotten from Critter) last year wasn't doing any thing this Spring and I wasn't sure it was going to come back but it did and now I have several small figs on it. WooHoo.

Thank you for the support, everyone! I think it would look better if I pulled up all the dead plants, but I'm kind of hoping some of them will come back to life. Kind of like Holly's fig tree! Yaya!

Seq, I had also lost a Pieris japonica in the same spot where the Mt. St. Helens died. The azalea bloomed beautifully but didn't really leaf out after blooming. It didn't look happy even with all the rain in June, then it turned crispy. The clematis and candytuft are also dying in this area. I guess there's something wrong with the soil? Weeds seem to grow fine, though.

Btw, the zinnias I got from you are the only healthy looking plants in the front yard. For some reason voles don't seem bother with their roots at all.

Cam, that's so strange. I thought voles didn't like alliums!

Aspenhill, did the deer spray stop working? I can't believe they ate all of your beautiful hostas!

Those zinnias are pretty tough plants. All of ours are looking gorgeous and are gigantic.

If it makes you feel any better the three exbury azaleas I have, including the Mt St Helens, have not leafed out very well this year. I'm not sure the problem. Perhaps they have too many other plants around them. Maybe you do have something in your soil. What caused the Pieris to die?

Voles can be a scourge! I've caught them in mouse traps at times. I've used mouse bait pellets, dropped in holes but fear that a cat would eat that vole and get sick. I've had them eat the roots of a sapling oak I was letting grow, and the hosta is candy, parsley roots they ADORE. one person swore that daffodils repelled them, not here!

My Swiss chard was looking fabulous this spring, finally, I cut it once for a meal and then it turned crispy. Something here Swiss chard needs and doesn't get. I couldn't believe Ric's ginormous swiss chard. I meant to buy Azomite this spring and forgot. (mineral supplement)

I want to plant some fall greens like kale but with a full week of sunny dry weather, I think I'll hold off. Or sow seeds but not water them in.

I have NO idea if I have voles! Can't say I see any signs--but my beds
are all so full of plants--maybe I am just missing seeing holes...or whatever.

I hope I do not have any........hope the black snake I saw in my shed is still around....
It is totally welcome in my yard.

G.

Gita, if you had voles, you would know it. They would leave raised rows of grass or mulch beds wherever they furrowed.

SSG, if Voles don't like Allium then I either had weird voles or some other vermin because I dug up chunks of the bulbs that were obviously chewed. Maybe it was my neighbor, he was a bit odd. LOL

Seq, I have no idea what happened to the Pieris, but it had similar symptoms. It seemed to be doing well, but it started looking "droopy," even when well-watered, then it turned brown.

I just remembered that I also lost a Sky Pencil holly in that area, with similar symptoms.

My neighbor, just on the other side of the fence, tried for years to plant a shrub there, but they kept dying for her, too.

There was a tree nearby that was cut down. I think there might be some allelopathic compounds in the soil. Maybe juglone or something similar?

About juglone:

"Many plants such as tomato, potato, blackberry, blueberry, azalea, mountain laurel, rhododendron, red pine and apple may be injured or killed within one to two months of growth within the root zone of these trees. The toxic zone from a mature tree occurs on average in a 50 to 60 foot radius from the trunk, but can be up to 80 feet."

Cam--

I have never gotten to mulching anything. My 3 bags all are still sitting there...
Shouldda done it before the beds all became stuffed full.

I only had one measly Allium (out of 3) come up and bloom this spring.
They are/were planted right against my house on the S. side bed.

LOL, Cam!

Sally, daffodils don't work as a deterrent for me, either. I have daffs everywhere!

Moles produce the raised ridges one sees in their lawn and gardens. Voles generally produce tunnels unexpressed at the surface. When there is a layer of leaves or other cover one may find a series of runs when the cover is removed. The primary indicator of vole presence is numerous holes, usually around your favorite plants. Unlike moles, which are after grubs in the soil, voles eat plant material. One may discover that a plant like a hosta has mysteriously declined, and when the plant is handled it is discovered that the crown is sitting loose on the soil surface without a root system, having been eaten from below. Moles are a nuisance due to the ridges they make, voles destroy your plants.

Then I had moles AND voles, David. Thanks for the info.

Cam, I hear voles take advantage of the tunnels that moles make.

Some pictures of the vole holes and vole damage.

Healthy ajuga next to dead ajuga. There's a hole in the middle if the dead foliage.

More vole holes.

WOW! I don't think I have voles...looking at these pictures. G.

SSG... have a shotgun ?

LOL! I hear they're really hard to eradicate via firearms, because they're so small and fast. And numerous!

I'm also a terrible shot and live in a densely populated area. A very bad combination.

Traps are recommended, but they apparently don't eat apples/peanut butter in traps when there's so much good food all around the yard.

So the remaining option is poison, which I'd hate to use. I see HUGE birds of prey in my neighborhood (no idea what they could be). I'd be so sad if a bird died after eating poisoned voles.

I used to have a "death trap. It had four prongs that, when the voles/moles ran through their tunnels, they would trip the prongs at great force and boom... dead vermin. I never got one but maybe it would work for you.

Oooohhh. That sounds great, CAM! What is it called?

There are several on the market. Here's a video that may be helpful...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0k4KVEJApZk

When I use a poison for voles I use this product https://www.southernstates.com/catalog/p-299-bonide-moletox-ii-mole-gopher-killer-1lb.aspx . It reacts with stomach acid when eaten to produce phosgene gas which gasses the rodent from the inside and dissipates. The reaction renders the material non-toxic so there is not residual poison to affect whatever consumes the expired critter.

Find a Black Snake and bring it home.

Several, they don't eat every day.

thx, greenthumb!

critter damage here, too, but less overall impact than some of you are dealing with.