Month: August 2011

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Butterflies in High Line Park

Butterfly on a yellow flower by tanakawho

Whenever I see a butterfly, I get so excited, I am like a child. What is the wonder of butterflies that make them so magical?  Bear with TheGardenLady as I share a favorite poem or skip to the bottom to read about Manhattan’s newest park.

“To A Butterfly” (1801)
I’VE watched you now a full half-hour;
Self-poised upon that yellow flower
And, little Butterfly! indeed
I know not if you sleep or feed.
How motionless!–not frozen seas
More motionless! and then
What joy awaits you, when the breeze
Hath found you out among the trees,
And calls you forth again!
This plot of orchard-ground is ours;
My trees they are, my Sister’s flowers;
Here rest your wings when they are weary;
Here lodge as in a sanctuary!
Come often to us, fear no wrong;
Sit near us on the bough!
We’ll talk of sunshine and of song,
And summer days, when we were young;
Sweet childish days, that were as long
As twenty days are now. 
________________________

STAY near me–do not take thy flight!
A little longer stay in sight!
Much converse do I find in thee,
Historian of my infancy!
Float near me; do not yet depart!
Dead times revive in thee:
Thou bring’st, gay creature as thou art!
A solemn image to my heart,
My father’s family! Oh! pleasant, pleasant were the days,
The time, when, in our childish plays,
My sister Emmeline and I
Together chased the butterfly!
A very hunter did I rush
Upon the prey:–with leaps and springs
I followed on from brake to bush;
But she, God love her, feared to brush
The dust from off its wings.

By William Wordsworth (1770-1850).
_______________________________

Today I saw the second Monarch butterfly this summer. I wasn’t certain the first butterfly I saw yesterday was really a Monarch because it flitted away from me so quickly. Then I spoke to a friend who saw a Monarch flying when she was walking on the High Line in Manhattan a few weeks ago. So I knew that the Monarch butterflies are starting to migrate in my area.

090610 High Line Park 017 by joevare

If you don’t know about the High Line and love walking in gardens then you are in for a treat if you visit Manhattan. It is the newest park. Located on Manhattan’s West Side, it runs from Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District to West 34th Street, between 10th & 11th Avenues. Section 1 of the High Line opened to the public on June 9, 2009 and the rest just opened June 8, 2011.The park is filled with native plants. Check out their website where you can get a list of the native plants they planted and which plants are in bloom each month.  See here.

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Herb Information: Check Out Jekka’s Herb Cookbook

Besides gardening, reading is one of my passions. My reading preference is non-fiction which includes cookbook reading. Reading cookbooks is my relaxation reading; I often do it while watching TV. Even though I rarely cook these days, I still enjoy reading recipes. I have a huge bookcase filled with cookbooks. I also have saved all my Bon Appetit and Gourmet magazines. In spite of all the cookbooks and recipes I own, and in spite of all the recipes that are online, I cannot resist going to the cookbook section in our local library and checking out all the new cookbooks.

Today I found what looks to be a interesting and fun cookbook to read because it not only has recipes using herbs, it also has herb information. It is called “Jekka’s Herb Cookbook” by Jekka McVicar, a Firefly book publication that came out this year, 2011.

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Amazing Mazes

Sunflower maze by Need A Haircut

Do you like mazes? Or do you feel that you will be trapped in one forever?

When I received notification of the world’s largest sunflower maze, I felt that I had to add another post to my weekly blogging because this Thursday, August 25, 2011 is “New Jersey Audubon Day” at the East Coast’s Largest Sunflower Maze at Augusta, NJ Farm. The maze, located at 553 Ross Corner Sussex Road, Augusta, NJ will be open daily through this Sunday, August 28 from 9 a.m.– 6 p.m. Admission to the maze is $8 for adults and $5 for children.”  See here.

I thought it would be fun to check out some other mazes in the US and around the world.

People lost in the corn maze by E. Bartholomew

More and more corn mazes are appearing in corn fields. Apparently these mazes are a popular family fun time because I found some great corn maze sites.

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Plants that Attract Bees

bee on mint flowers-1 by Mr Po

One comment TheGardenLady received was from a beekeeper who was delighted that she has mints growing in her yard because they attract so many bees. I agree, my mint plants attract a lot of bees as do other plants and herbs that are in flower as well as the many flowering plants that are in the mint family, Lamiaceae or Labiatae, such as plants in the Agastache genus, most commonly called Hyssop. (Remember to feel for the square stem to know the plant is in the mint family. And do remember that these plants can become invasive. )

Agastache plants which bloom almost all summer long not only attract lots of bees, they attract butterflies and even attract hummingbirds but deer won’t eat them. At least two of the Agastache plant species are referred to as Hummingbird mint.  See here.

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Dwarf Crape Myrtles

 

Lagerstroemia Indica (I) by .Bambo.

I love Crape Myrtles Lagerstroemia indica (the American Horticulture Society spells it Crape ) and they love hot weather. With the weather we have been having this summer, they have been in their glory. Another good thing for Crape Myrtles is these dry summers; because once established, Crape Myrtles tolerate some drought. In fact when Crape myrtles were brought to the States from China, they were happiest in the South or USDA Hardy Temperature zones 7 through 9 or perhaps 10 or 11. They didn’t bloom in cooler climates.

Fifteen years ago, I don’t remember seeing many Crape Myrtles in Zone 6. Those few who had them seemed to grow them outdoors in sheltered areas or else they overwintered them in greenhouses. But these days I see Crape Myrtles perennially growing in many yards all over my area. Crape Myrtle breeders had been busy at work creating the Crape Myrtles for Zone 6 so that now everyone in zone 6 seems to have a Crape Myrtle decorating his or her yards.

My Crape myrtle is a baby from a friend who has a Crape Myrtle in almost every color in her small, but very lovely garden. Crape Myrtles have so many seeds from all the flowers, that if you have the right environment, even if you are not a plant hybridizer, you may find new babies in your yard from your main Crape Myrtle.   See here.

Dwarf crape myrtle by Gardening in a Minute

When I visited my friend’s garden most recently, I saw her newest Crape Myrtle acquisition flowering in her garden. It was a charming dwarf Crape Myrtle!

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Nature’s Garden in Ansel Adams Wilderness Area (Photos)

Two readers of TheGardenLady blog are avid hikers who say they are attempting to hike every trail in the Sierras as well as other California trails. Every weekend they try another trail or part of a trail. They love the native flora and fauna they meet or see on these trails as well as the spectacular scenery.

Their most recent hike, on the weekend or August 13, 2011, was in the Ansel Adams Wilderness Area, which is located in the Inyo National Forest (see here) near Mammoth Lakes, California in the Eastern Sierra. Hiking from Agnew Meadows to Thousand Island Lake, where they camped for the night, the trip was an approximately 16 mile loop, taking the River Trail there and returning along the High Trail (aka Pacific Crest Trail).

They sent all the photos that you see on this to share with all the readers.  Enjoy.

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Trying to meet the challenges of gardening

NOT ME!! I DID NOT EAT YOUR FLOWERS! by Snap-Smith

Gardening can be a serious challenge for the gardener.  Consider the weather.  Who knows what to do in a profound drought like the one the MidWest experienced this summer? You cannot water plants when the water level goes down too low. Who knows what to do in extensive floods like the ones the MidWest experienced earlier in the late spring/early summer? Consider the insects.  They either go after the garden, like Japanese beetles do, or they go after the gardener, like the mosquitoes or gnats.  Consider the wild animals.  Everyone knows about the problems caused by deer or rabbits.

But we humans are the smart creatures on this earth who should be able to solve these problems. Aren’t we?

We have had dry weather where I live, so I water my flowers daily. I am religious about this job. But the next day after I water my plants, they still look wilted and sad.  I tried holding some basil between my lips as I was told that Italian farmers did to prevent mosquitoes. I wasn’t bitten by the mosquitoes, so maybe the basil helped. And I sprayed my flowers with Liquid Fence to deter the deer and rabbits. But they, too, want what I plant.

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Turkey’s Botanical Treasures

Flower bed at Topkapi Palace, Istanbul by John Picken

In spite of the number of lovely flowers that I have already growing in my garden, this GardenLady always dreams of more flowers. Which ones should I add to the garden when I divide and transplant or give away those that have overgrown their stay? As I have been going through some catalogs deciding on some more bulbs that I want to add to my garden, I realize that so many of my favorite flowers come from Turkey. For example, tulips are native to Turkey as are some of the fall blooming crocuses. See here. Now that Liquid Fence stops deer and rabbits from eating my tulips and crocuses, I am ordering more of both of these bulbs.

When this GardenLady traveled through Turkey in the early 1970s, especially driving through the eastern part of that beautiful country, I was amazed with the number of wild flowers I saw there. They were so many wildflowers, that I decided I would concentrate on seeing how many different flowers of one color that I could find each day I traveled. This was not a difficult undertaking, the wild flowers were so prolific. I had a cup holder in the car and I would fill a cup with a different color of flowers daily.

Though cutting the flowers does not hurt the plants, since this is what one does when one dead heads to encourage more blooms, if everyone did what I did, there would be few wildflowers for others to admire. Though I did this before this type of thing was prohibited, we know better these days and I would never recommend picking wildflowers. I recommend just looking and photographing the flowers. I wished I had a book with me for identifying flowers so I could know what the names of those flowers were. These days, I wonder if there are good books in English on the names of the Turkish flowers.

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More about the farm TheGardenLady grew up on

Bell pepper, with both green and red colors, natural color by Martin LaBar

My parents’ farm was small. They raised the usual crops that everyone in the area who wasn’t a chicken farmer raised. And some of the chicken farmers also had small farms that raised the usual crops – tomatoes and strawberries were the basics for sale. These were called truck farms because farmers could truck the produce to the big cities- in our case it was Manhattan or Philadelphia- to try to sell. Or we would truck the produce to the canneries that were in our county. Ritters and Seabrook Farms were the two big tomato purchasers. These companies made ketchup and canned tomatoes.

Canned tomatoes by Unhindered by Talent

There were a lot of truck farms. That was why New Jersey was given the name The Garden State. Competition was fierce so the prices for the harvest was usually low. If everyone raised tomatoes and the season was good, the tomatoes were plentiful and the price the farmer got was low. Those years we had tomato fights. My mother canned a lot of tomatoes.

strawberries by Donald Lee Pardue

My mother started her own farm stand. Mostly she sold strawberries and flowers. Neighbors copied her. There were so few cars on the road in those early days that the farm stand did not bring in much money. What little was brought im, though, was greatly needed and appreciated. What didn’t sell became strawberry jam.

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TheGardenLady’s Parent’s Farm

Lenni Lenape dancer by impulse2c

As a child, I wished I knew about the original people who lived on the land that my parents’ farm was on. I wanted to know about the Lenni Lenape Indians that preceded my family to that area. But there were few books in our local library- and very few books on the Lenni Lenape.

I spent many hours of my childhood poring over the ground looking for Indian artifacts. Findings were best after the fields were plowed. It seems that each time the field was plowed it turned up more Indian artifacts. My sister and I, trailed by the family dogs, would slowly go up and down the field looking. We children found lots of flint and arrowheads or pottery shards. (sadly my collection was stolen when I took it to school) We also found clam shells. The closest clams were about one hour drive away from the farm, yet there were clam shells in the fields. So I imagined that the Indians had Pow Wows where they ate clams. But what else did they eat that they found in the area where the farm was?

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