Barberry, Deer, Mice, Black-legged Deer Ticks, and Lyme Disease

Barberry, on the left, are a common shrub in many central WI foundation plantings.  

Under the category "It's Always Something!" add barberry as a host for mice and in turn black legged deer ticks with mice as a vector for Lyme disease.

In an area where it seems more often than not that the USDA's horticultural zone chart is a big lie, where extremes in weather are the norms not the abnormalities, and where a broad base of plants which are "tried and true" is a dream more than reality; this latest news just sucks.

Between invasives other undesirable herbaceous plants, planting could get pretty thin here. We have lost a lot of our white pines in The Drought of 2012 and The Brutal Winter of 2013. My garden is in recovery mode. Slight snow cover and a very cold drop in temperatures this past winter again tested the hardiness of many plants in my garden. My one privet  hedge is very much in recovery. I lost a Sweet Autumn clematis (who can kill an established Sweet Autumn?) Roses of all sorts beyond rugosas and the native wild rose and rosa carolina, have taken a hard hit. Arborvitae are nothing more than deer browse. Spruce and spruce tip blight are nearly synonymous here in the village.

So my sister from PA visits.  She is much more wired in to east coast research than I.  She tells me about this latest UConn study.  There are 40% more black legged deer ticks in areas of uncontrolled barberry (Japanese-- thunbergii) than in areas where there are no barberry. In areas, where the growth of barberry are controlled (foundation planting in landscaped areas). there are a quarter as many as uncontrolled, but significantly more than in areas where there are no barberry.

Now, barberry are not browsed by deer, but loved by mice who like to gnaw on them throughout the winter months. Barberry also do better with a bit more moisture. Ticks like moisture. It is easy to see where ticks, mice, barberries, deer and Lyme disease begin to all share the same habitat are are part of the same nature web.

Barberries are spread by birds making them invasive. It is easy to see where an increase in deer population and their increasing incursions into urban areas has aided Lyme disease and its spread.

Put another "tick" mark in the "bad" column for ornamental barberries.

Best Idea for a Walk Way

There was not a lot to interest me on this year's Outagamie County Master Gardeners' Garden Walk. This garden feature takes the prize, however, for creativity, originality, and repurposing. Not only was the pattern beautiful and unique, the use of the Neenah Foundry-produced iron work nearly sets itself apart as a piece of art. The Neenah Foundry may be one of the last bastions Old World craftsmanship more commonly seen in buildings built early last century.

The gardener in this garden had retired from the foundry and has a brother still working there. Neenah Foundry is known to ex-pat Wisconsinites as the sewer cover manufacturer for the world. I have had the unusual experience of being far from home and look down at my feet to find a manhole cover stamped "Neenah". I would venture to say most people have no idea what a "Neenah" is. The "Neenahs" have their own FaceBook page.

While many covers are purely utilitarian; some are highly ornamental, and chances are made at the Neenah Foundry. Along with municipal street tree tree guards, they do a job...beautifully. 

These inground tree guards, officially named tree grates by the foundry, in this case are three inches thick about 3' by 4' and weigh 425 pounds. Tree guards are the upright structures. Unlike cement sidewalks and stone pavers, tree guards purposed in this way are highly permeable. Meant to have consecutive ring knocked out as the street tree grows larger, many start as half or a quarter of a rectangle or square with a small curved corner.

This is such a good idea. 

The homeowner told me because they are a dark cast iron they are sort of a heat sink in the winter accelerating the snow melt. Yet, in summer, they have not been too hot for bare feet, at least so far.

Poppies and Clematis

I think these particular pink poppies are from the seed I was given by Jason who writes the blog Gardeninacity.

Still haven't dug out that tag, although it could be 'Ramona'. Finally, 'Hagley Hybrid'...

Love the effect of the airy quality of the 'Elijah Blue' blue fescue, catmint 'Walkers Low' and this pink poppy. 

"Attack of the Gnomes, Dwarves, and Other Creatures"; or the "Garden Walk that Wasn't"

On Saturday, I did the Outagamie Master Gardeners' Garden Walk. Typically, this group puts on a good garden walk with great gardens, each with some unique flavor the home gardener is willing to share. I take lots of pictures and come home inspired to weed better, mulch, or change up my garden. 

This year, all I could say was, "Meh!" My mother who went with me was similarly unimpressed.

Only five gardens were offered, two of which were public properties. One of the others had text in the pamphlet stating the only parking was on the shoulder of the busy county highway, where I felt cars were zipping along at possibly 65 mph. After parking, a hike up a dirt trail possibly a quarter mile long was required. This was not difficult for me, but was quite taxing for my mother, and I would expect some of the other garden walkers, too. Each of the garden was probably five miles from the last. My GPS did not even properly locate one of the properties, because it used the fire number which was part of the address and came up with a township while the mailing address was Appleton. Having stopped for lunch and gotten away from the printed directions, and getting a couple "that address is invalid," responses out of Siri, frustration with being GPS-enabled and hunting far-flung addresses did not add to the charm of these gardens. (I navigated through Budapest in the 1980s long before GPS, reading road signs in some Cyrillic dialect just fine, thank you very much; I do not typically get lost, nor do I become frustrated when I do.)

So after finally arriving at my destination and touring the garden as I pasted this tree underplanted with ho-hum hostas infested with gnomes, I could not help but feel very witchy b.......,

"Mirror, mirror on the wall, whose garden is the fairest of all..."

Tomorrow, tomorrow I promise I will have recycled my ire and will post something more upbeat!

More pictures from the non-garden follow.

For All the Mosaic Garden Artists

This was created by laying stone into a form in the shape of a humming bird which was first filled with a couple inches of wet cement.  The stone was pressed into the cement before it dried. I do not think this is the final look as the stacks of stone chips were sitting off to the left of the piece. Currently, it is about 2-3" higher than the surrounding pea gravel, which could be filled into level the height.  I wish I could say it is my work, but it is not.  I captured this image at a local independent nursery, Russell's, just west of Plainfield, WI. The spaces between the stone were not filled with any material at this point, but I would think that might be a likely next step.

A beautiful project!

Views of the Long Border

It may always be a work in progress; just not quite "there". Each  year I tweak it here, tweak it there. I try to remove the quack grass and June grass, it seems to little avail.  Voracious ground-chomping plants eat up the real estate. This is a predator-prey environment. Eat or be eaten. Filipendula, sundrops, phlox, beebalm, geraniums, trandescantia, rudbeckia, asters, chrysanthemums, and heliopsis give no quarter.

I weed out enough flowering plants for more than a couple gardens each year. I pinch and prod others to play nice. It is easy to lose yourself whether you are plant or gardener. It gobbles up garden tools set down for a moment, leaving gardener vowing to paint each and every tool handle a shocking RED.

Animals have crawled in to die escaping more blood-thirsty predators of the four legged kind. It sports habitat for giant larva of untold insects and even a moth as big as my fist a couple nights ago. Hummingbirds attempt to chase me from in it July when beebalm begins to scent the air. The neighborhood bees smile and are as busy as...bees... working over the population of the long border.

Blooming Mid-June in Central Wisconsin

Wild roses

Clematis, I know the tag is by the root, but I will need more digging to get to the cultivar name

Clematis 'Blue Dancer' looks good out of bloom.

Close-up of the "hidden tag" clematis

Persicaria

Geranium, an alba

Lamium, 'Purple Dragon'?

Clematis Roguchi

Clematis 'Etoile Rose'

Geranium 'Tiny Monster', "Red Zinger' pinks, and a pink soapwort

Lots flowering, and it it time to weed!

Ah, Peonies...

Do I need words?

Dappled Willow, One Year After

At about 3 1/3' tall and wide

As gardeners, we are sometimes confronted with the "do I or don't I" prune it to the ground scenario. After a couple bad winters sandwiching a drought of nearly epic proportions, my dappled willow had about 2/3 of it severely damaged by pests. Nervously, I trimmed it to the ground in late summer. This picture was taken yesterday about 1 1/2 years later.

For those of you considering such actions and wish you had the benefit of someone's experience, here you go. 

I will add dappled willow enjoy their water, but after establishing themselves do well with a lot less. They are also know for their rampant growth and benefit from heavy pruning as the spring color is the result of new growth. 

For previous images of my willow, please use the search tool on the right side of my blog.

Close-up of the "bloom"