Monday, May 26, 2008

Another day at the Garden

I've been working on the garlic mustard in the bog at the Garden for several days now, and am pleased to see progress.
Once I ignore the reed canary grass in the foreground, I can feel good about this space. Before my labor, it looked like this:


Today was especially gratifying, because I liberated a large patch of Solomon's seal, and I think it will be visible from the trail - although it would be worth liberating for its own sake. We have been finding that the seed bank of native plants is not affected by the garlic mustard infestation, and that once the garlic mustard is gone, the native plants come storming back.


The cranesbill is densely blooming.
(Geranium maculatum)

As are the white and yellow violets.


And the Swamp buttercup:

(Ranunculus septentrionalis)

Up and coming are the highbush cranberry:

(Viburnum trilobum)

And the Red osier dogwood:

(Cornus sericea) Cornus, from the Latin, cornu, "horn, antler" and sericea, from the Greek, serikos erikos), "of silk." Right after they are grown each year antlers are covered with tissue that is bright red from the veins running through it. As it dries, the animal scrapes it off, and it can sometimes been seen draped from the prongs, like silk.

In this location, there will be tall pink turtlehead, annointed with bees of all stripes, like last summer:

(Chelone iyonii) The dried stalks are last year's flower stalks. By bloom-time, the bridge will be obscured.

Don't I wish this pretty plant wasn't next on my hit list:

Dame's Rocket
(Hesperis matronalis) Very pretty, but dreadfully invasive.

And then there is honeysuckle. We have native species, but they can't compete against the non-native:


I don't know what variety this is.

The most fun thing about the day was coming across the Glenwood Marsh, and noticing that 3 green herons were hanging out in the tallest snag - no picture, though, since I was wearing blaze orange for my weeding detail, and they bolted. Then, when leaving the garden, a beautiful red-belied woodpecker was drilling for ants on a rotten tree:

I'm going to figure out how to align my camera and scope so I can get better bird pictures. This was taken with my Canon G5 alone. I get extreme vignetting when I try to digiscope.



2 comments:

Sel and Poivre said...

'Love the latin names - 'such a great way to understand plants isn't it?

beegirl said...

I agree! The roots of the latin names help me learn more about the plants I love.