Before You Garden...

2015-01-11

Snowy details in the garden

We had several snow falls this week accompanied by bitter cold. Trips to the compost heap were about all the garden visiting possible until today when the temperatures have risen to around freezing. The winter garden is shades of sepia and white. The tiny details of old plant stems are outlined in relief against the…

2015-01-01

Happy New Year

Happy New Year. A new year brings another year of expectation in the garden. We always hope that this gardening year will be better than ever! At least this year we are not submerged in snow like last year. Winter is still young, we will see what nature has in store for us.

2014-09-09

The poisonous caterpillar gets attacked

The Saddleback Slug Caterpillar featured in the previous post now has troubles of its own. It was attacked by a female parasitic wasp which laid eggs on the caterpillar. The eggs hatched and ate the insides of the caterpillar. The eggs were present inside the caterpillar in the previous photographs, we just did not know it. The young parasitic wasps (in their pre adult form) have emerged as little oval cream colored pupae all over the back of the caterpillar. The pupae will hatch out and will have changed (undergo metamorphosis) into adult parasitic wasps and the cycle will start again. It is a rather gruesome sight that seems stranger…

2014-09-06

Do not Touch! The scary pretend face of the Saddleback Slug Caterpillar means beware

At first sight this weird caterpillar looks like an odd gum wrapper with its bright green color and four brown horns sticking out of the ends. It actually sticks to objects like gum, but there the similarity ends. This is more of a Harry Potter type of beast, it looks fun, but it is nasty.…

2014-08-21

Cutting a Dahlia flower nearly needs a stepladder

Cutting this dahlia nearly needed a stepladder. The flowers are held at over eight feet high on smooth dark stems. The flower color is almost impossible to describe, as the petals shade from a light creamy orange to a spicy darker center; sort of Cafe au Lait meets Orange Creamsicle. The center of the flower…

2014-07-24

Weird parasitic plant – Thyme Dodder

I found an unusual plant called Thyme Dodder (Cuscuta), in the Sunset Garden today. It is a parasitic plant that has no chlorophyll and so relies on getting water and nutrients from its host plant, which in this case is a thyme. I remember this plant from childhood holidays at an English pebble beach in…

2014-07-21

Ladew Topiary Gardens, Monkton, Maryland

The gardening world is firmly divided over the question of topiary. Should you prune a tree or shrub into a shape to resemble another object or shape, or should you leave the pruning shears safely in the shed? This type of garden decoration has gone in and out of fashion many times in gardening history,…

2014-07-17

Eastern Cicada Killer wasp drags Cicada into burrow

Of course it is right by my door. An Eastern Cicada Killer wasp has just dug her burrow between the paving slabs by the front step. The female Cicada Killer is aptly named as she catches and stuns a Cicada, and carries it back to the nest. The wasp then drags the Cicada underground, into…

2014-07-17

Lovely Larkspur

Larkspur (Consolida) flowers in that rare shade of blue and purple, that is so beloved of gardeners, are one of the joys of the self sown garden. Rising gracefully to 2.5 – 3.5 feet, larkspur plants are perfect to mix and mingle in the flower bed, as they take up very little horizontal space. After…

2014-07-14

Ladybugs – an insect eating machine

This year at Northview there is a heavy infestation of aphids on the cup plants. Aphids are a type of insect that can reproduce asexually and reproduction is rapid. They insert their sharp proboscis into the phloem (the vessels carrying plant nutrients) and suck food out of the leaf. The aphids are clustered on the…