Ambassadors Bearing Gifts

The beauty of the applied Fibonacci Sequence

As Winter has determined Spring's arrival will be on pause...

Sweet Autumn clematis trapped in ice

Not only trapped in ice, my Lapin cherry is suffering peculiar tortures all its own to conform to my evil designs.  See the strings? E-s-p-a-l-i-e-r...

As the Ruler of my own little part of the blogosphere, also the Head Gardener, Chief Cook, and Dog Walker of the Kingdom of Talking to Plants (because frankly there is no one else to talk to and nobody listens anyway...),  AND IT IS TRYING TO SNOW AGAIN!!!

(Jason, You need to up the Gardener Suicide Watch you have secretly implemented on my Kingdom.  Be sure all the hori hori knives, dibbers, and pruners are accounted for and in a safe location.)

During these overcast and cold days of Sprinter (a new season we have here in the Kingdom of Talking to Plants, declared by the Ruler when we are already six weeks beyond meteorological winter...and our forecast and environs look more like smack-dab in the middle of Winter, except for terribly random minutes of sunshine--which should be announced with the fanfare of those long trumpets (with no keys requiring a lot of lip work to play)-- so no subjects of the Kingdom miss even one errant minute of sunshine, because we are decidedly UV light-deprived as well...

So during these sad times here in the Kingdom we have used this rectangular Magic Looking Glass thingee to visit other kingdoms far and wide in the World of the Blogosphere. 

We have seen corpse flowers in bloom, flowering cherry and almonds, hellebores (all you gardeners who can grow hellebores-- of the non-foetid sort-- may rot in hell), dogwoods, women who recklessly run with delphiniums (!), other nearby kingdoms also caught up in the chilling grip of Sprinter,  and the cheerful and joy-filled daffodil watchers of the kingdom to the north. 

Additionally, Ambassadors from other lands, blue jays, robins, and the like (in addition the the Crown Prince Handsome Son and his Fair Lady) have been visiting the Kingdom of Talking to Plants.  The aforementioned Ambassadors have been treated to two beautiful, dried head of sunflowers, a collaboration between the Head Gardener, Baby Gardener, and Gardening Twins and Our Kingdom's Math Department. 


1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,55,...

You get the idea...

The jays are the first I have seen this Sprinter, having been absent all Winter. They showed off their colorful finery to the amazement of the subjects of this grey Kingdom.  A group of 3 (5? very rowdy, spurious, and frenetic) male robins have also provided entertainment in the form of a joust over the wing of a rather dowdy lady robin, however, she seemed to have chosen a choice nesting spot just off my deck.

So entertainment for sunflowers seeds, a fair exchange.  (The Crown Prince desired more substantial fare.)

So reading on the travails of other parts of the Blogosphere, I sometimes desire to reach out and hand another kingdom either this seed or that, or a division of a hosta, or a piece of a clematis.  An ambassador bearing gifts, in the form of pass-along-plants.  Looking around the Kingdom, I realize this has long been a tradition amongst gardeners.

I am open to any and all suggestions for exchanges amongst the Kingdoms of the Blogosphere. 

So what are we gardeners still looking for this Sprinter?  Hankering for seeds of native plants (penstemon digitalis, ligularia dentata or japonica, clematis heraclifolia, etc.), extra heirloom tomato seeds from that packet (because God knows you probably don't need to plant the entire packet-- and like the growing season is even going to be long enough to ripen tomatoes anyway!), a division of a neat-o hosta (should they actually poke up their pointy eyes), a cutting from Clematis Josephine (or any others), some of The Fairy rose?  Something else, piece of a sedum (I think I need to do a feature this next week on the many sedum I have! Check back!)?

Anyone?  What are you looking for?

An Ominous Crackling

With each small breeze an ominous crackling is heard.  Sometimes it is a whoosh, as ice slides off a tree and hits my roof or a neighbor's.  Even my fairly juvenile sugar maple as branches clack-clack sounds ominous, like skeleton clinking its boney hand across the the fencing of the cemetery as you pass.

There is no quiet.  Just clack, clack, clack...

Ice Storm...Continued

These frozen clusters of pine needles shattered into two and three inch-long sections per needle when they came down and hit the ground spraying across the sidewalk.  They looked more like broken glass than anything organic.  You should click on this picture and take a good look.  I have never seen anything like this.

Getting out and about today, I was appalled at the number of white pine of any size which have been re-sculpted. Mostly white pine were hit hardest, but I also saw branches of oaks, maples and box elders that had also suffered.

The ice makes for some beautiful picture opportunities.

This is a climbing rose that is not supposed to survive in central Wisconsin. It is 'Eden', also sold as Pierre de Ronsard.  Hopefully, this is not the year all the rose reads all that literature!  This rose's bloom is featured in the header of my blog.

Isn't my seedling art all happy and spring-like?

 

My topiaried balsam spruce, it Frasier neighbors are about 20' tall.  I keep this poor guy chopped to a demure 7' tall to build some depth at the end of the alley border.

Our 2011 Labor Day Weekend Storm took out a lot of the trees in poor conditions, particularly those anywhere near power lines were removed by the power company restoring power over the next couple weeks.  That next spring they also made a trip through the area and followed up on anything in areas that had not suffered damage or interrupted power.

I started to think about how we have had three bad April ice storms in the last four years.

When I came home tonight I could see two blocks away, from Main Street, the top of my pine where I left it this morning.  Mother Nature and Father Physics had not seen fit to redecorate in my absence.  As I sat a safe distance from my pine (at my mailbox) and in the safety of my car watching it sway, it brought to mind the beginning of the "Jabberwocky". 

"Twas brillig, and the slithy toe-rags
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe."

Particularly the gyre and gimbling in the wabe part because gyring and gimbling describes that pine's top to a tee.  If there is anyplace the borogoves are all mimsy, it's central Wisconsin.

I was heartened by pockets of ice-free trees on my seven mile drive home this afternoon.  A lot of the village trees are presently free of ice.  My poor little birch seen tipped to the ground were surprisingly upright, as if the last 24-hours had not brought them literally to their knees begging the Ice Princess for their very lives.  That clump birch was  was upright and cheery, unlike the young birch trio on Main Street that appears to have lost its Tenor.  Most of the trees and shrubs in my yard have stopped their raths outgrabe.

I can only hope.

I did see the northeast side of the white pine up at the very top looked to still be covered in ice like something out of "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Warlock."  I also noted, should it break free, it will most likely come down on the street, probably taking out the electricity line, too (but missing my house by probably a safe margin, but that could depend on the wind).

Today, I was talking to some students, one whose parents made them sleep in different rooms from normal toward the back of their house and away from a tree also precariously perched over their house last night.  Confirming the student's tree was also a white pine, I asked if the student's parents were now considering removal.  They were, but they, like me had considerable angst over the decision.

I commiserated explaining how my pine and house had been together for about 150 year; how I have seen this picture of my house in like 1901 with this spindly 6' pine out in front and how whoever planted it could hardly image the 100' monster it is today.

(To this next part, I can only give you warning about how young teenagers actually are...)

Another student, listening in on the conversation, "You have a picture of your tree and house in 1901?  How old are you?"

(Duh!)

"Yes, child, and I took it with my digital camera in my iPhone and posted it to FaceBook."

Teenagers.

So young.

May the Jabberwockies and frumious Bandersnatches stay far from your gardens.

Have a frabjous day!

Extreme Weather: Garden Like You Live in Wisconsin

The ice-covered crabapple 'Red Jade' makes beautiful color contrast against the downed limbs from my white pine.

When not grousing about our long winter, I sometimes dream of gardening again in my yard.  Jason (GardenintheCity) from further south admonishes me that someday spring will come for me like a mother telling her wallflower daughter that someday her prince will come, too. Until then, of course, I think he has me on some sort of gardeners' suicide watch.  DebiO (DiaryofaMadArtTeacher) from farther north tells to to hang on, and of course find "joy".  Being EVEN FARTHER north than I and following her blog, I realize she has had even more cold and snow than I; I attempt to woman up and stand shoulder to shoulder, Wisconsin gardener to Wisconsin gardener.

My Austrian black pine that has been attacked by my neighbor towing his ice shanty, pre-fence, and sap-suckers since.  Now, ICE.

My wine grapes which should be pruned at the end of March.  I'm glad I have been waiting.

And then I had a thought.

And, all of you cheerful types out there, already able to get out into your gardens and work in your yards, that thought was this:

This (right here in central Wisconsin) is what gardening looks like for all of us in the future, a future that has global warming on all of our plates.

Stop and think about what I have been talking about over that last year or so.   Read some phenology reports.

Extreme weather events like bona fide spring in February, followed by a year with snow and freezing temperatures in June. Temperature swings of 60, 70, and 80 degrees from one day to the next.  Six or seven months in a row where the red on the thermometer barely creeps above freezing. Strange insects, mass migrations of unusual birds, infestations of fungii suddenly making news.  Follow that with by temperatures in the 80s and 90s and multiple 100 degree plus days in a row, with NO rain.  And when it does rain, HUGE hail stones.

We don't even get hurricanes in Wisconsin, yet.

Last October's tail end of Sandy actually reached Wisconsin.  It made for some good surfing action on the western shore of Lake Michigan, all you Wisconsin surfing clubs take note.

So I sit here in my dining room, and contemplate the bang and rattle, followed by several more, which awakened me (at 4:32 AM) from my weird dreams of alligators who are really tigers who can breath underwater, who have spots like cheetahs, and live in schools, kept by miscreant janitors and/or students on the down low (the allitigertahs, not the janitor/students).  The bang and rattle, not quite earthquake-like, was a huge chunk of my majestic white pine breaking loose and hitting my house to roll down the corner of its steep like a witch's hat roof and land in my front yard carefully missing my quaint front porch and the armillary poised on a stack of bricks.  That's a space of about 9 feet.

Following it were two more additional, equally large limbs between then and now.  (You know I know because Faithful Companion, and ultimate protective dog, Cinnamon,would not let it rest until we went out and surveyed the scene, in the dark, in the wind, and freezing rain, at 5 AM!  Of course, a nagging part of me also thought maybe she had a dog's intuition and thought we should both get out of the house before the whole damn tree fell on it, smishing us flat like the snake who met a car and was found by the Twin Gardeners who along with their Poppa gave it a proper funeral and burial.

And,  now I contemplate cutting down my majestic white pine.  The white pine that has been in marriage with this tiny pink house for about 150 years.  Why?  Because this morning I heard a sound I have never heard in my home before-- the sound of giant scudders brushing back and forth  like my house was moving through the White Pine House Wash.

Now, I will tell you, my white pine is in fine fettle.  It is not like those feral white pine, or white pine allowed out without leashes like so many white pine in our area; many which appear to be dying due to the extreme drought and heat of 2012.  Mine is given adequate water and a bit of compost. Last spring after a similar, although not so severe ice storm, I had a tree trimmer work under my guidance trimming off branches growing out over my home, taking out dead limbs, and cleaning up broken ones. 

There were no branches even close to brushing my house.

So I sit here wondering whether I should ASAP get a tree removal person here to remove my white pine in a preemptive strike ahead of the inches of snow forecast for this evening, or ride it out, hoping the temperatures will moderate during the day, casting off the ice, lightening my tree's load?  Or the weather munchins have it all wrong.

The unusual angle one of my neighbor's cars is parked suggest how they would vote, given a ballot.

In the back of my mind, I think this ice will surely be gone helped along by a warming trend and the venting of my house's heating system by the afternoon.  Surely my house and this tree have co-existed for many decades without severe repercussions.

But my little drama only further illustrates what gardeners should consider and what our landscapes might be like in the Time of Global Warming and Severe Weather Extremes.

I'm afraid to contemplate the condition of this 'Crimson Frost' birch.  Having a bit of pendula in its bloodlines I had it firmly staked until last spring.  So glad, it had starting standing on its own or its staking would have probably caused it to top itself.  I fear, however a return to staking for the summer, if only to allow proper backing up of my vehicle.

Looks innocently beautiful, huh?  The Princess of Ice and Snow is working overtime this year.

Extreme weather will take large trees from our landscapes.  It will make it more difficult for gardeners and homeowner to plant new trees.  It will change what we can plant.

It will change us.

My Handsome Son, always thinking ahead, on drooling trips to stores selling fine hand-forged gardening implements always considers their potential in the event of the Zombie Apocalypse. (He got me a very fine pruner with a nice sharp point to drive into the middle of a zombie's brain should I have such need for my birthday this year.)   I think gardening in the Time of Global Warming and Severe Weather Extremes may hold other challenges.

Please think very warm thoughts today for the sake of my majestic white pine.