Arborvitae: Worrying About That Which You Can't Change

About a week ago, I was out watering and walking in my garden. Yes, we have had patchy frost here, and for all intents and purposes the gardening season has come to a halt for us, but until the ground freezes and I turn off my outside water faucet, I continue to water. This is especially important when we have received less and a couple of inches of rain each month since May.

The entire quality of the soil has changed, even in my yard where I have watered regularly. I don't think a day has passed all summer when I haven't watered some part of the yard. I don't know how long it will take for the soil to regain its tilthe and friability. It is almost like the living things in it have been burned out from our heat and lack of moisture.

So I am out watering by hand with my 100-foot hose, and I actually see my arborvitae. It has noticeable brown patches. Now, although your typical non-gardener gets excited the first time they notice an evergreen looking like it is shedding its "evergreen"; looking at my arborvitae, I am thinking back on past years. I couldn't help but think the percentage of brown a tad excessive. For the most part, I tend to ignore these two arborvitae that came with my lot when I bought it more than a decade ago. They're 50-75 years old if they are a day.

My big white pine gets a lot of attention because it is so iconic. I water the hosta beneath it, getting twice the bang for my watering buck. The arborvitae, I tend to ignore, not that they haven't received water, not just the copious amounts my white pine probably sucks up.

That my arborvitae might be contemplating throwing in the horticultural towel and calling it a day leaves me flummoxed when juxtaposing it with the upcoming July 2013 garden walk. And if, I have trees dying in my yard, how many other trees might be dying of which the less-empathetic homeowner is oblivious?

So all of you out there, keep right on watering until the ground freezes, if you haven't gotten rain. And, also a warning to anyone contemplating burning leaves this fall-- DON'T! I hate to think of an errant spark. And you hunter's leaning against a tree and thinking about lighting up, reconsider. (Those big bucks can smell that, and we don't need any forest fires; and beside, it's not good for you either!)

Pictures From Our Sunday Drive.

More money than sense, we saw this huge metal sculpture of a raptor on a pole. It needs some landscaping, or something.

A second beautiful, blue day with low humidity is today. It is a day where I don't have to be anywhere in particular. Yesterday, my Handsome Son and I took a Sunday drive, although he cautioned me about the wisdom of such a quaint action given gas prices at nearly $4.00 a gallon.

These are pictures from our drive.

You can tell my son is from Wisconsin; he is the King of Cheesy Expressions. I've asked him when he will shave and get a haircut. He replied, "The cows don't care Mom." He's working this summer milking cows for my Dad.

The covered bridge in the background was built over the Pine River to replace a cement bridge in 1997 by my father and other volunteers from the town of Springwater.

This is a better picture of the Springwater Volunteer Covered Bridge.

People with much more money than I built many houses like this the last decade around our beautiful lakes.

The property values around our lakes belie the high unemployment, low wages, and aging population of the rest of our counties here. It is difficult to find well-paying jobs without traveling 50 miles or more. This year driving around and seeing the crispy, brown lawns, and dying trees outside the oasis of my watered yard and the family garden, I feel worse times coming. Times where a lot of the cattle herds and animals will be sold off. Family pets will be sold because people can no longer fed them (I saw a small herd of Tibetian yaks listed on the Appleton, WI Craigslist on Saturday, as well as a beautiful black Arabian mare.)

The high temperatures, almost more than the drought, have been oppressive this summer. And this morning, a mutual friend's friend FB entry told of the suicide of the husband of a childhood neighbor's husband.

My father asked, "Was he a farmer?"

Portage County Master Gardeners Garden Walk: Whitefeather Organics, LLC

I am deeply interested in organic farming practices and sustainable food. So when the Portage County Master Gardeners Garden Walk included a business, Whitefeather Organics in their gardens to visit, I was so there.

I have to hand out kudos to anyone trying to live the life, walking the talk of sustainability and organics. Farmer Tony confided to me that he is certainly not getting rich doing it, and that he works three jobs in the winter to make this work.

During my two conversations with him about his lifestyle, project, and his goals, I didn't tell him I blog about gardening, that I am the daughter of a local dairy farmer (who is far from sustainable), nor that I dabble in landscaping, native plants, and propagation. All of this does help me analyze exactly what he has going on at Whitefeather Organics.

Tony Whitefeather (Until I read his brochure I totally missed that the name of his business could be his actual name! As they have a huge mock feather at the entrance to the farm and there were numerous feathers strewn about, no doubt from the free-range white chickens, I just assumed...) and his family and business are if not off the grid, VERY close to it. They have solar panel on their barn, house, by their sand point for their greenhouse. As they have a fairly large commercial walk-in cooler, I would assume for food safety reason, they cannot be totally disconnected from the grid. Those things pull down some current, and if your are doing solar and have to make assurances of food safety, you just can't totally disconnect, not on dark, rainy days in fall, not if you are selling chicken, eggs, and pork.

Farmer Tony, as his marketing refers to him, has been part of a cadre of like-minded farm to market growers who pushed for an EBT at the Farm market at Stevens Point, WI. He has also lent his expertise to the Central Rivers Farmshed Organization. He also is not just pesticide and herbicide-free, but is running through the hoops of being certified organic.

But sustainability is much more the focus of his farm. As his marketing brochure points out, "Sustainability for the community is the goal of our farm, and we keep that in mind in every aspect from where we get our energy to how we build our buildings."

He goes on to talk about his crops and his compost, about which he waxed almost poetically about how he has pictures of the steam coming off the pile as he turns it that almost obliterate him and him tractor. When I asked him he said the temperature of his compost reaches about 160 degrees (Fahrenheit), a feat I thought nearly impossible in central Wisconsin. (Of course, this summer, that's only 60 degrees above the ambient temps!)

Of his crop practices, he says, "Crop rotation and garden separation are used to control disease and pests. For soil nutrition we use intense cover cropping, grazing, and a large farm-based compost." Even the feed he feeds to his animals is organic and locally ground.

Still, with my experienced eye, I can see Farmer Tony has his challenges each and every day.

Pretty to look at, cabbage butterflies are the parents of cabbage and broccoli worms! UGH! As his cabbage and broccoli did not appear totally overrun with the worms,he must be using Spinosad, which is certified for organic use, but which I am holding back on using.

The heat and drought are not doing Farmer Tony any favors.

One thing I noticed, with all his composting and good soil practices, his soil is very poor in regards to incorporated organic material. My sister-in-law's and my family garden is growing on my better soil, right from the get-go. Farmer Tony has been working on this soil since 2006.

One of the two herbs I could see being grown by Farmer Tony, lemon grass. Basil is the other.

Plugs for fall harvest in flats.

Basil growing in the greenhouse.

I enjoyed speaking with Farmer Tony and am rooting for him and his many endeavors.

Garden Walks: Ripon Twilight Garden Walk and Waushara Master Gardeners Walk

One well-grown specimen can make a garden. The bark on this clump birch certainly adds that over the top feeling to a garden. This bark was on a birch. I hesitate to identify it as 'Whitespire' simply because their were too many wonderful cinnamon shades to its peeling bark which reminded me of a black river birch, yet it was too white. There are a lot of birch hybrids out there. One of the predominant birch hybridizers is located in Door County Wisconsin. I know they have been crossing European, white, and river birch for over 30 years in an effort to come up with a beautiful birch which is also resistant to pest and disease, primarily the bronze birch borer. I have a 'Crimson Frost' birch which I hope will develop this type of bark as it matures. Mine has deep burgundy leaves, the color of which it retains even in this summer's heat.


I have to hand out the kudos to anyone with the gumption to put their garden on display on a garden walk. When I lived in Illinois, a garden on display could expect 3,000 to 4,000 visitors. I am sure there have been walks where there have been even more.

Talking to the gardeners afterward, has always given me a healthy spot of respect for any garden displayed for the masses anywhere. They have talked about having to replace sod, re-lay pavers, prized plants destroyed or picked. I have personally seen bored teenagers dragged by their parents through the gardens with flowers from that garden stuck in their hair. Unfortunately, I have even heard of small statuary or garden features being stolen.

So like I said, I respect these gardeners a lot. It takes a special sort of courage to put your garden on display in the middle of a drought which has been accompanied by 95-plus degree days, and I'm not talking about one or two, but a string of a couple weeks of them.

So one of my goals this summer has been to visit as many gardens as possible. Saturday I managed eleven. Five out of five in Waushara County in the walk put on by the Waushara Master Gardeners (my home county) and six of eight on display on the Ripon Twilight Garden Walk.

First, I'll give you a little background on each of these walks. The Ripon Twilight Garden Walk is the only walk I am aware of that takes place in the evening. This walk takes place on what is typically one of the hottest weekends here in Wisconsin. Traditionally, it was from 4:00 to 8:00 PM. Gardens were decked out in their twinkly lights, candles, torchieres, featured wine and cheese, and hey! COOKIES! (Ripon being home to the Rippin' Good Cookies-- think, those windmill cookies!) Ripon is a small very ivy league-like college town with lots of college professors living in historic homes clustered around the campus which is downtown. Harrison Ford, and not a few other Hollywood types went to school here. The Ripon walk has always had an ambiance all its own, and has always been one of my fav garden walks. (Pictures and more on this garden walk in my next post.)

The Waushara County Master Gardeners is a fairly new walk. They only do it every 2-3 years. The owner gardener is typically on hand to answer questions, and these are typically never "hire a landscaper"-type gardens. These are typically gardens of actual accredited Master Gardeners. These are the folks that answer questions on garden hotlines. If they don't know the answer to a garden question, they sure know where to go to get the answer. I have to say, though, one of the gardens which was on a golf course sure looked like the hand of a landscape designer had been at work, sometime in the garden's past.

I am not a Master Gardener. I think they are a great organization. I'm just not sure it is an organization for me, my personality, or gardening style. Because I got into gardening in a big way when I moved back to central Wisconsin from Illinois to the point I started a very small nursery business and started selling plants (which I have not really done at all this year because of teaching summer school); I am known by most of the Master Gardeners in Waushara County, even if I don't "know" them.

So I guess it didn't surprise me too much that these gardeners I didn't really know addressed me by name and asked me my opinion on their gardens. This is the sort of thing that can get someone like me in a lot of trouble. I pretty much call it like I see it, but at this point, in my gardening life; it is only the things outside the bell curve of gardening seen on a garden walk that really interest me.

So here goes! And, before you flame me, if you are reading about your garden, go back and read the first four paragraphs. Remember, I respect you, your nerve, and your garden, a lot. I, on the other hand, have never placed my garden on a formal walk. Some gardens either designed or planted by me have been on walks, but never my own garden. I just don't have the balls.

I have to say due to the drought and heat, there was not a garden that didn't have dead plants, shrubs with drought or heat damage, or even dead or dying tree. This is a first, but I saw the same thing on the Ripon walk. Also, a lot of them had very nice looking vegetable gardens, but again because of the heat, pollination is not happening, so I saw very little in the way of fruit or vegetables on the vine. Also, only one garden out of eleven I saw Saturday that didn't have a fully dormant lawn, and that lawn I thought was going that direction. It made me appreciate my soft green, lush lawn paths when I returned home!

The Master Gardeners must think you have not arrived unless you have a Japanese maple growing in your garden. As pricey and borderline as these are here, they all had at least one.


Other than the garden originally designed by a landscape designer, the gardens could have been improved with the use of nicely cut bed line, or well-delineated path materials, at least a couple feet wide.

Once you get past pathways, framing the shot or creating a view is something on which I think gardeners should focus. These beds were not that terribly composed, once you got past the "borrowed view". The plants tended to be well-chosen for their site, but I was totally distracted by the stuff going on in their neighbors yards, which on this particular weekend included the Blackhawk Folk Music Fest, a wedding, and an anniversary.

This gardener also over-accessorized,and without any sort of scheme or plan. Beyond that, some sort of color planning would have bee great. Part of this gardener really likes that spot of red, but the other bit of him says matchy-matchy pink and limey green because my building are cornflower blue.

The red, white, and green combo while packing a lot of punch says Christmas for me. How about you?

There were garden crafts being sold throughout this walk. I had a hard time deciding whether the ornamentation was actually planned (badly) or was on display to be sold. From birdhouse, to welded iron hangers, to wooden bird perchy and twirly beady things, I just couldn't figure it out.

I also saw some plants that I don't typically see growing in this area; climbing hydrangea, rogersia, and some really BIG hosta. I also saw a buff-colored rose with an unable to be recalled name.

Some of my favorite photos of scenes from this walk:


I would have like this sculpture/fountain if it had been placed with a nicer background.





This ceramic dish displayed as a bird bath or feeder (no water or seed) was gorgeous/. Maybe it was for the birds to only admire as well.


The gardener growing this dark sambuca confided she didn't like its growth habit unless she cut it back each spring, sacrificing its flowers.

It's So Hot and Dry That...

Drought

Drought.

Drought that has been worsened by our near 100-degree temperatures of the last ten-plus days is what we have faced here in central Wisconsin.

Yes, here in my garden and at the family vegetable garden we have access to lots of plentiful ground water to pump and water as we please. My garden pictures are lush, and my lawn is green. I still mow it when the temperature get below 90 degrees and it gets to an appropriately long height. Yet, there is a darker side to our weather pattern this growing season.

Drought is not just here in my village, but a larger area across much of the bread basket of the United States. Here, my village sits right on spring-fed aquifers, groundwater is close. I joke I could dig a well with a spoon. What we call "sand points" are common. It is a very basic well someone drive in, typically less than 20' and attached a simple above ground garden pump to water a vegetable plot. People pull the pump in the winter to avoid it freezing. They are not so common as my youth, the DNR has all sorts of issues with possible ground water contamination from backflow, because our water table is right here at hand. I remember helping to pound a sand point as a teenager and hitting water somewhere between 8' and 9', attaching a hand-pump, priming it, and having running water in minutes.

Yesterday, I went for a drive with my son and as we got out of our own little "swamp land" it became very apparent how the hot temperatures and lack of rain were affecting the area, an area not listed as severe drought in the NOAA chart linked above.

There were many, I repeat, MANY mature trees dying.

Dying.

Right in the front yards of home owners, their mature trees were dying. Boxelders, birch, maples, pines, and spruce were leading the list, but fruiting and flowering ornamentals were right there on the casualty lists, as well.

Are you oblivious?

People! Water your trees! Please! Trees are one of our best defenses against a whole list of ecological disasters from dust bowls to scorching heat. They take decades to replace.

It is not just your lawn out there, turning brown.

Water your trees. They are shouting at me! I'm talking to you...