When My Heart Breaks

... I gave tours of my garden with a large map outlining all its contents posted on the patio.  The certified wildlife garden signs were secured on a tall post facing the street with a small overhang that sheltered the laminated map of the front garden, labeling all its contents.

It was also home for an outdoor brochure holder that once held quarterly

handmade newsletters on wildlife gardening, free for the taking.  After a few years, it became home to a colony of ants.  Need I say more.

So, what really matters?

The indifference to our environmental problems seems to be overwhelming where I live.  Maybe I’m a little unfair, but if you say you are worried about the environment, then you had better be someone who has started the change in your own yard or balcony.

Protecting invertebrates and their ecosystems is becoming a passion with me.  Big word for all those small  creatures without a backbone. Without all these creatures;  spiders, worms, snails, lobsters, crabs, and insects like butterflies, fireflies, hover flies, bees, dragonflies, lacewings, ambush bugs, and much more, our environment would most likely collapse.

Much misguided hatred against the unpretty of these creatures of our world.  One would think they were cousins of the sharks.  Powerful feeling isn't it, spraying that bug spray and your problem is solved; but, of course, it isn't in the bigger picture.

Everything has its good side.

Ants:  eat tiny and larger than themselves insects, aerate the soil with their tunnels,  fertilizee the soil with their stored food - 

Cockroaches: are food for many species, but also eat what other organisms leave laying, breaking it down and increasing the amount of nitrogen in the soil.   -

Spiders:  primary controllers of insect, are successful at eating many different types of insects-

Flies:   act as scavengers consuming rotting organic matter to get rid of rubbish and dead animal carrcasses - 

They all have purposes we don't always understand.

And, after you spray...

Those pretty insects you don't mind living with, that are also beneficial to plants and wildlife.  The tiny ones not noticed, the ones hiding, the ones hunting for prey, the ones resting, unseen, and the ones that came by later before the spray had dried... 

Dead.

One could go on, but why bother.

Not many seem to want any individual responsibility in the transition to environmental sustainability, where humans and nature exist in harmony to support their well-being. 

Sad, that many have fallen prey to the hypnotic persuation created by pesticide manufacturers proclaiming these so called pests our enemy.  I was surprised to find one exterminator's ad proclaiming hover flies as pests.  So rediculous, but I imagine many people are not even acquainted with hover flies.

So... spray that pesticide, SPRAY!  Yah!!!  Kill them little buggers, because you refuse to think they are here for any other reason than to torment you.

I'm here with my own little monster, which I was told is a cat; but, you know... I'm beginning to have my doubts.

On to our garden, where we provide equal opportunities for all invertebrates who chose to come by for a visit or stay.  You matter, as our helpers to create a beneficial ecosystem, but if a cockroach tresspasses into this person's house, we usually don't catch them in a glass and release back outside.  Sorry.  (not really)  

I guess both of these are Dryope flaveola, 

even though they look different from each other.

 Echinacea purpurea, Eastern Purple Coneflower

Common Grackle in tall Juniper tree.

Joe Pye Weed leaves unfurling and flower buds being exposed.

Clematis viorna - host to Plebian Schinx Moth

Hibiscus moscheutos, Swamp Rose-mallow flower buds'

Plants are grown in 20" diameter pots on patio.

Clethra alnifolia, Summersweet

Spider Daylily, "Aabachee"

Callicarpa americana, American Beautyberry flowers

Wild Petunia amongst Lyre-Leaf Sage seed heads -

Below it is Euphorbia cyathophora, Wild Poinsettia,

an annual wildflower.

New Jersey Tea (Ceanothus americanus) 

The last one in the garden, planted approximately 30 years ago.  

The ones that received part shade and more water grew huge, 

but eventually the ash tree shaded them too much and they died.

Grey squirrel heading towards the bird feeder pole.

Bombus griseocollis, the brown-belted bumblebee

on Echinacea purpurea, Eastern Purple Coneflower

Shrubby St John's Wort, Hypericum prolificum

Yellow flower amd brown dried flowers ready to fall to the ground, 

leaving the seed pods.

Phlox paniculata ‘Jeana’

Planthopper

Monarda fistulosa, Wild Bergamot

It’s been a long June month filled with heat and humidity.  One rarely goes into the garden in the afternoon these days.  This early evening, as it nears closer to dusk, the heavens rumbled with steady thunder, and rain fell to cool the earth.  A nice way to end the day.

We scheduled an early visit with the manager of the company that works with our trees, to discuss our white ash tree.  There was a time before the Asian emerald ash borer appeared in the United States, when our ash tree supported many insects and their young, and the spiders that moved into the tree canopy to take advantage of this food supply.

It was mesmerizing to shine a flashlight into the ash tree canopy at nighttime, to discover what seemed like thousand of spider webs glistening in the beamed light.  It wasn’t always that way, though.  In the beginning of our time here, we had lots of green inch worms dropping down by silk threads from the canopy like Christmas tree ornaments, after they had chewed their fill of leaves to pupate. 

It was not a balance ecosystem, so I mail ordered thousands of Lacewing larvae, and placed them on all the leaves on the bottom branches of the ash tree.  Several years later, the inch worms on silk threads were few, and those pale green ethereal beauties, Lacewings, were seen often in the garden.

It’s been a beautiful love affair with this ash tree, but the garden around it holds no insect life these days.  Every other year, poison is injected into the trunk to poison the sap to kill the emerald ash borer.  The process has also carried the poison to the leaves, so anything that eats the leaves dies.  As the leaves fall to the ground and compost, the poison is transferred to the soil.

It’s a terrible price to pay for keeping an ash tree alive.  We are having ours removed later this summer at quite a hefty price tag.  I will miss it greatly, but it is time to let it go.  The empty space it will leave, well… I don’t even want to think about it.  No doubt the dogwood will die, and the wild garden beneath it that holds the trilliums and other spring ephemerals will suffer.

The stump cannot be ground, because of all that is in the area, but we have been assured that if we can find a space between the tree roots to plant another type of tree, it should do fine.  Hopefully I can find a space big enough for at least a gallon size.  We shall see next year.  One must not dwell on the negative when it comes to these matters.

I’ve had a rough day, decision-wise, and would like to drift without a thought for the rest of the evening.  I plan to chill with the air conditioner upped a notch until I am freezing, then back down a notch as I climb into bed and bundle up tight.

I'm tired—

Tired as the lazy stones

That are always sitting down,

Most tired as the sky

That stays up all night and day

Whether it's early with spider-vines

Or late with frogs singing.

~Gertrude Louise Cheney, "Drowsyheads"

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Saturday's Critters

The Odds and Ends of any June Day

 

Glistening metallic,

Your colors like an aurora

Of emeralds and gold

My tiny gossamer creature.

A lover of daisies

Of the fleabane type,

From one happy flower

To the next you fly

Gorging your belly

On pollen and nectar.

I’m not quite sure

Of your origin, my friend,

Being you are

So delicately small.

At first,

I thought a bee,

But further glances,

Just a fly.

An ordinary fly…

A little pest

By some accounts.

I kid you not -

Going about business

As you were meant to be,

With impeccable tastes

I must say:

After all -

You stopped by my garden.

Need I say more?

JUNE

June, thy beauty is a snare,

To waste time in visions rare;

Of vain dreaming, oh, beware!

~ Caroline May

The frogs are chirping

In the heat of day

Try to guess where

I am

I am

I am.

 

I water the pots

Filled with spicebush

And wild bergamot.

 

The frogs wait

For the rain

To reach them

As it travels

The parameter of pots

One

by one

by one.

 

Then again…

perhaps they are eager

for the dusk before dark

to travel the coolness

and munch on roaches…

One can only hope.

From the genus Malachius, a soft winged flower beetle

on Lullaby Baby Daylily

Above: Baptisia tinctoria - Yellow Indigo

Not enough of the black bee to identify it.

Above: Bush Honeysuckle, Diervilla lonicera

Below: Hover Fly on Thuja/Arborvitae Northern White Cedar

A Dwarf Sport, but not sure which one. 

Ruellia humilis, Wild Petunia

Dried Ash Tree leaf with raindrops.

Bumblebee on Echinacea purpurea, Eastern Purple Coneflower

Aster 'Paten' Growing in the crack of steps.

The flower is the poetry of reproduction. 

It is an example of the eternal seductiveness of life.

 ~Jean Giraudoux

There once was a quiet space, where I chilled.

I brushed the collection of cobwebs from its existence and brought in an armful of positivity to freshen the place up.

The gate keeper has orders that no one but me, myself and I may enter this sanctuary; but, of course, something always tries to hitch a ride in, only to be promptly removed.  I have a gate keeper worth their weight in gold.

Oh, drats!  Cat Austin’s at the gate complaining about being excluded. (sigh) The Gate Keeper reminds me that their union always allows cats, in order to cut down on the hospital expenses of their members.  Makes sense.

Just me, myself, and Austin sitting on a flat boulder by a gentle brook meandering out of the forest into the meadow of wildflowers.  Bird song in the air, with sun drops twinkling on the crest of currents around and through the water rocks, and tiny blue butterflies flitting here and there among the grasses…

It doesn’t get much better than this.

*

*

*

*

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A tick?

This can’t be!

GATE KEEPER !!!!!

Robin in Birdbath

Orb Weaver of some type

Spins a messy three dimensional web.

Through the window - Female Cardinal

Earwig

These are beneficial insects, so quit trying to kill them.

I plant with biodiversity in mind,

so I never see much damage from the many in my garden.

This one was found under a rock placed on the table at some point in time.

It had dried out and died.

 Earwig nests are a short tunnel in the soil, 

usually next to a rock or other object. 

The female earwig lays her eggs and then spends all her time 

with them to prevent mold from killing them. 

She eats the mold off of her eggs to keep them clean.

Failure to launch.

I think that having a garden I no longer can work in is a fate worse than death, until I actually do try to work in it and find out what a fate worse than death really feels like.  When will I ever learn.

Anyway, I’m on a task to find a hassock that will work outside to prop my feet onto, as the doctor orders, for the rest of my life. 

I’m also wearing compression thigh highs for eternity, and going to bed has never felt so good with those compression stocking laying over the back of my chair, liberating my legs.  Better than being in my happy place.

Charlotte was given a new toy by the kitty fairy, and as I laid on my cold gel packs to keep my tailbone chilled out before bedtime, I heard the weirdest muffled crunchy noise echoing throughout the room.

At first I thought it was the noise of a big cockroach.  Let’s just leave it at that.

Then I thought Charlotte, who is known to sleep under my bed at night, was playing ‘let me bat you around, my little cockroach friend, until you commit suicide’.  Don’t ask me why.

Lastly, I thought maybe a kitty paw is batting a ball around the track in one room over… but, then again, the sound does seem to come from behind the closed doors of my closet, or maybe under the foot of my bed, or maybe... 

The cockroach theory still sounds mighty plausible.

The timer beeped, gel packs pulled out from under my butt and tossed to the floor, music turned on by remote, and I’m so darn comfortable, I’m going nowhere.  So much for getting up to check out the noise. 

So why can’t I go to sleep?

A cool breeze brushing against my face – it’s so sublime sitting amongst nature with the persistent chirp of a robin in the background of neighboring trees.  Having escaped my house for an afternoon of sweltering weather, or so the news last night declared of how today would unfold, I am pleasantly surprised by the gusts of gentle coolness against my body.

Background chatter of noisy cars, sirens and obnoxious lawn mowers… no matter, because the chirping gives me comfort from the staleness of my indoors.  A slight rustle of dried leaves behind me reveals, from under my umbrella shelter, the feet of a squirrel in the gutter.

It seems I am left to my own devices on procuring methods of still enjoying my garden, so off I am on an adventure to see what I can come up with.  Never let it be said that I have ever given up.

It’s a bit mesmerizing to watch a leaf softly drift to the earth on the wings of an angel, or so it seems.  I’ll just dream away, as I look up into the azure heaven above my head in the cool of shade. I could stay here forever, but the take a pill alarm has been beeping for the last fifteen minutes… so irritating.  I’ll be back in just a minute.

*

Here I am…

Drats! 

Forgot the ice water. 

Be back in two shakes of whatever they say.

*

*

*

There… all settled in.

I never realized how much mildew has gathered over the years and dried, as I look up at the dappled shaded umbrella fabric stretched overhead.  Not the best inducement for writing, yet here I am, writing about it.  Go figure.

The birdbaths on this side of the house have seen quite a bit of business since I came out here at lunchtime.  Cardinals, grackles and robins - it has never stopped from the time I sat down until now.

 

A thin sheet of transparent clouds has sneaked in overhead, and there goes a jet trail traveling across the sky with its tail fanning out and creating curves in the air currents like a snake slivering through the tall grass. 

Peeking out from under my umbrella, through the shrubs, then tall trees to the quarter area of a circle my house allows me to see of the sky overhead, it’s such a small world I see this afternoon.  A propellered airplane is heard overhead, drifting farther and farther away until it is gone.

A cardinal has flown in to partake of a bath, the flys have appeared to make a nuisance of themselves, and the mosquitoes are dropping by with their friends for dinner.  I’m out of here!

Until Next Time

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My Corner of the World

Saturday's Critters