I'm declaring war

I've wanted a Redring Milkweed (Asclepias variegata) in my yard ever since I first saw one in the wild.  

I've tried to start some from seed but haven't had any success.  Some say these seeds have a low germination rate, and my guess is that because I didn't know what I was doing, I probably didn't cold/moist stratify them properly.  I thought I would give it another go, but "winter sow" the seeds in a milk jug this time.  I thought I had a good understanding of how to get them started.  All I needed were some seeds.

The plants in The Barber field didn't set any seeds again this summer (maybe too hot and dry?  maybe they didn't get pollinated?) and I never even saw the plants that used to grow in the woods at the top of that field.  I thought I'd try to see if the patch I had photographed back in 2014/2015 in The Carey woods had any.

The Redring Milkweed patch in The Carey woods.  Notice the two little cedar branches sticking up behind the plants, and the persimmon tree in the background.  Those were "markers" that I used to find the spot where the milkweed grew.

I hadn't gone walking much at all in the past few years, and I expected things to be as I remembered. But when I walked down into the woods to look for the milkweed, it was like I had walked into a place I had never been.  I didn't recognize anything anymore.  

When I started walking with my camera a few years ago, I remember being annoyed by the Japanese Honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica) and what is probably Chinese privet (Ligustrum sinense) growing in the woods down by the creek.  My annoyance at the time was selfishness - those two plants were everywhere and that meant that I wasn't seeing any new and interesting plants!

But as my understanding has grown and my relationship with nature has evolved, I've come to understand that the reason for my annoyance - that those two plants were everywhere - is the very thing that makes them so devastating to our native plants and insects.  Where there is a privet shrub, there is no room/light for the American persimmon (Diospyros virginiana) seed to sprout and grow.  Where there is Japanese honeysuckle, the Blackhaw (Viburnum prunifolium) is dragged down and smothered out by the vine's aggressive growth.

Simply put, because these plants evolved in another part of the world, there's nothing here that has co-evolved with them to keep them in check.  They're like misbehaving children turned loose in a candy store.  

In spring of 2019, a severe thunderstorm tore through The Carey woods, taking down a big swath of trees.  Many more came down in storms that rolled through the next summer.  And when the tree canopy was gone, the population of these invasives and the aggressive natives in The Carey woods exploded. 

Back to my search for the milkweed...between the tangled mess of tree limbs blown down by the storm, the privet that had been growing unchecked ever since then and the tangle of Saw Greenbrier (Smilax bona-nox) and Japanese Honeysuckle strangling the trees, I didn't even know where to look anymore.  I used to come into the woods on the east side, walk up the hill along the downed pine tree, and go straight to the little opening between the limbs of a dead cedar tree and find that little patch of milkweed every time, no matter what time of year it was.  But not anymore.  

Parts of The Carey woods are completely overtaken by privet, honeysuckle, brier and rose.  This is bad, but it's nothing compared to other areas.

I went back several times, wandering up and down the hillside, trying to find the little curved cedar branches and the persimmon tree that was in the background of the photos I had taken.  I even tried coming in on the east side like I used to, but I couldn't even find the dead pine log that used to lead me up the hill to the milkweed.  There is Chinese privet, Japanese honeysuckle, green brier and Supplejack (Berchemia scandens) everywhere.

I want the woods to be as I remember them before the storms came through.

My motivations were again selfish.  I wanted to be able to find the milkweed plants -- if they hadn't been smothered by a fallen tree.  I started researching ways to control Chinese privet, and all I can say is what I've learned has been disheartening and really quite scary.  I knew the problem was bad, but I really had no idea just how bad.

Dr. Don Steinkraus, professor with the University of Arkansas Entomology department, gave this sobering assessment of the problem to the Wild Ones - Ozark Chapter.

He closed his presentation with these words.

The war is on.  The battles are everywhere.  No place is safe, not even the Buffalo National River.

The warriors/workers are few.  Most people are blissfully asleep, unaware.

Our native plants, butterflies, moths, birds, bees, are depending on us.

Our tools: our labor, chainsaws, scythes, hands and knees, burns, education, herbicides. 

Herbicides.  As much as I hate the thought of using them, given the limited time I have, I'm not sure there's a way to get fight this battle without them.  And it is a battle I'm going to fight.  

I bought a pint of Killzall glyphosate concentrate from Amazon and a foam dispenser and dye from Green Shoots.  The dispenser and dye came in the mail today.  

My war on these invasives has started.

December 23, 2022 Gardening Journal

It's just plumb COLD.

The temperature here when I took Mo around the yard yesterday morning was 41° F, but as we finished making the rounds and headed back into the house, it had already started to mist, signaling the arrival of winter storm Elliott.  Within 30 minutes the temperature had dropped to 39° F, and the mist quickly turned over to sleet and snow as the temperature continued to drop like a rock. 

We didn't get much snow out of this system, just a dusting.  By late afternoon, the clouds were already clearing out, and the sun even made a brief appearance right before sunset.  The cold was relentless seeping in through the cracks in the house - the windows on the east porch had already frozen over by the middle of the afternoon and the water on the shelf in the south window had ice on top.  Before nightfall, we tried to secure everything as best as we could...unhooked the water to the washing machine, drained the drain hose and put a couple of lights inside; left the water trickling in the kitchen sink; moved all of my plants into the living room (except for the ginger, which is in a pot that's too big for me to move in here); stuffed towels and blankets into some of the drafty cracks in this old house; then settled in for the night under a heavy layer of blankets.

My dad said the low last night was 0° F, so not quite a cold as the night of December 22, 1989 when my older sister got married.  She had said this might be the year when we broke that record of -4° F, but IMHO, thankfully that record still stands!

It was 4° F when I took Mo out this morning, and we didn't dawdle today.  He did his business and we came right back in.  With northwest winds around 20mph, I'm not sure what the wind chill was, but even Mo wanted no part of it!

My rain barrels are probably frozen solid, and the IBC tote might be.  I just hope they don't bust.  I probably should have drained them, but since the cold isn't supposed to last too long, I hoped I might get away with just leaving them filled up.  If they do bust, I'll be very sad, but will have learned my lesson.

The ginger froze, so once the stems and leaves go all brown, I'll dig it up.  Hopefully the roots are still ok and I can replant some of them in the spring.

It has warmed up a bit this afternoon.  The temperature is now showing to be 18° F but we're still under a wind chill advisory until mid-morning tomorrow, when the temperature is supposed to make it to just above freezing.  Our low tomorrow night is supposed to be right about what the temperature is now.  That's the start of a slow warming trend going into the last week of 2022.  

December 19, 2022 Gardening Journal

Saturday was a good day to work out in the garden, albeit a bit cold and windy.

But Sunday was a much nicer day, and I spent a good part of the day working on yet another thing on my too-many projects list...the raised beds around the storm cellar.

I built the part of the raised bed on the west side of the cellar last winter, and finally bought some lumber to start on the east side.  The dirt on that side wasn't piled out quite as far, so I've ended up making the entire bed only 48" wide, rather than having a lower section that was about 62" wide.

Unfortunately, I once again struggled with the "why didn't you make it square?" problem.  I did get the corner where the two boards on the bottom layer joined together square.  I even double-checked it!  But what I failed to do was make sure the structure itself was square against the cellar!  So while the front board for the second layer was cut at 48", the opening it was supposed to cover was more like 50".  The third opening was probably 52".  Sigh.

I was prepared to just leave it like that, and try to plant something there to cover the gaps.  I just didn't feel like digging all of the dirt back out to try to move things around.  I guess I will see if it can be done, but if not, I may just do what RAF suggested and cut new boards to the right length and use the 48" boards somewhere else. 

My square but not square to the world raised bed.  I ran out of boards, but the top layer will have one more row of boards around it.

Regardless of whether or not the thing is square, I am pleased with how it's turning out.  I have decided to put my lettuce, radishes, green onions, etc. in the east bed.  I don't think the rabbits will climb up there to eat them! 

And speaking of rabbits....  

I found evidence in the yard yesterday where a rabbit met an untimely death:  bits of hair; the contents of its intestine; a bit of blood on a leaf.  And about 30' away, an owl feather.  Probably not a coincidence, right?  RAF and I did see a Great Horned Owl in the yard late one evening last June, I have seen a barn owl in the hay barn, and we've heard screech owls calling in the woods.  So maybe the owls are going to help me solve my rabbit problem.  While I feel somewhat sad for the rabbits, I know that's just nature's way, and I'm glad for the owl.

December 17, 2022 Gardening Journal

It sounds like we're in for a very cold stretch of weather to end 2022.

The weather wasn't that great today...the temperature was in the mid-40s but the wind....  Oh my, was it COLD!  Sustained winds of around 15 mph, with gusts up to 30 mph at times made for a really unpleasant day to be outside doing anything.

But I had it in my head that I needed to get something done outside before the cold weather gets here, so I bundled up and headed outside around 9:30 am.

First thing that had to be done was empty my little garden cart.  It was full of the last of the composted cow manure from last winter.  I ended up just carrying it into the garden one shovel-full at a time (because my rows are too close together for my cart to fit).  I had enough to put a layer about 2" thick on about half of one row, along the south side of the cattle panel the cucumbers were on, and in a few spots at the end of that row.  So now the compost is gone.

The last of the composted cow manure has been put out on the garden.

Once the cart was empty, I used it to haul in two more cartloads of very fresh cow manure and added it to the compost bin, layering in some newspaper as my "browns."  I know that bin doesn't have nearly the right ratio of greens to browns, but it just is what it is.  The last time I checked, the temperature wasn't going up really at all, so I don't know if the pile just wasn't big enough or if it was too wet.  I didn't even bother to check it today.

The last thing I worked on today was a Hügelkultur row that I have wanted to add to the west end of the garden. That part of the garden was just so dry this past summer that I didn't have luck growing anything there.

I've seen several YouTube videos that talk about how great this works, and if I want to have that row ready for summer, I needed to get started on it ASAP.  (One of my favorites is "Hugelkultur in the Home Garden" from Growfully with Jenna!)  So I brought in a couple of logs that were about 24" long and 8" around, plus one "chunk" of a log that was already starting to get soft, then dug a trench about 12" deep, 3' long and plopped the logs in.  I filled in the gaps around them with sticks, topped that with some of the dried Sorghum Sudan grass I had cut last fall, put a layer of fresh cow manure over that, then finally covered the whole thing back with about 8" of the dirt.  A light coating of partially rotted straw finished it off.

Now I only have about 30' more to go!  

My first section of Hugelkulture bed in the west row of the garden.  It looks very tiny for the amount of work it took to build it!

December 4, 2022 Gardening Journal

It's the first week of December, and I'm feeling pretty defeated in my "cuttings" project.

I waited almost two months on my first spicebush (Lindera benzoin) cuttings, and I couldn't resist trying a few gentle tugs during that time.  Some of them felt like they were holding on when I tugged, and that had made me hope that those were starting to put out roots.  

But as the days went by, those little cuttings started looking dried up and brown.  I decided to just have a peek to see if any of them were showing any signs of root formation so I took a popsicle stick and carefully started lifting them out of the pot one by one.  Not a single one showed even a hint of a root. 

In hindsight, I think I made a few mistakes that doomed those cuttings.  First, mid-fall might not be the best time to take spicebush cuttings.  I have since read that one would have more success with cuttings taken in early summer, in the June-July timeframe.  Second, since these were probably semi-hardwood cuttings, I don't know that they needed to be in a plastic bag -- especially since I had cut the leaves off anyway.  Because the humidity in the bag was so high, and it was still quite warm, the cuttings were all quickly covered by mold.  I ended up taking them out of the plastic bag but I'm pretty sure the damage was already done.  And third, I don't think I cut the stems off right below a node.  Instead, I probably left about 1/2" to 1" of stem below a node. The nodes are apparently where most of the rooting action takes place, and by leaving that much stem, the cells in the nodes probably weren't stimulated to put out roots.  Those are my theories anyway.  

For now, I've just buried the poor little spicebush sticks back in their soil.  I hope I just got impatient and didn't wait long enough.  But I don't think so.

As for the rest of the cuttings, I know for certain that two of my fig cuttings have rotted.  They had started to look shriveled and brown and when I tugged on them, there was absolutely no resistance to the tug at all.  I went ahead and pulled them out, and the lower part of each cutting was soft and slimy.  Out of the five that are left, there are only two that still look "alive."   Maybe the others are too, because I guess it's hard to tell anything on those with the very woody looking stems.  I just hope that at least those two best looking cuttings will go ahead and root.

The second batch of spicebush cuttings doesn't look very good anymore either.  There are a couple that still have a greenish color and look somewhat fresh, but many of the others are starting to take on that "I'm nothing but a dead stick" appearance.  I had such high hopes for them.  Maybe I can find some female plants this spring and put seed collection bags on some berries to collect next summer/fall.  And I do plan to try some softwood cuttings this coming summer.  I'm not ready to give up and buy plants just yet!

The blackhaw (Viburnum prunifolium) cuttings have probably dried out too, although they don't look quite as bad as the spicebush cuttings.  It's hard to know by looking at the buds if they're still viable because I don't know what the dormant buds are supposed to look like.  So far I've resisted the temptation to check them for roots!  But it's very tempting.  Patience!  Patience!

The flowering dogwood (Cornus florida) cuttings were all what should probably be considered hardwood cuttings,  as were the ones from the American persimmon (Diospyros virginiana), the Possumhaw (Ilex decidua) and the American bladdernut (Staphylea trifolia).  I really don't expect the dogwood, persimmon or possumhaw cuttings to root, but I am still holding out hope for the bladdernut since those trees are kind of short-lived and suckering anyway.  I think they're another one of those plants that will put out roots from a limb that gets bent down and touches the dirt.  Finger crossed, because my little American bladdernut tree out in the yard just didn't look very good this summer.  I'm not sure if it was from the drought or from being planted under the black walnut tree.........

There is one bright spot though.  I had taken some cuttings from our native honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens), and it looks like two of the three cuttings might be going to survive.  Those both have new leaves starting to put out already.  The fourth "cutting" is a cheat, but it is looking really good.  (I call it cheating because it was taken from a vine that had already started taking root where a node was buried in the dirt at the base of the parent plant!)