Planting the Memorial Maple

I've been mowing a great wide boulevard out to Bill's resting place since late April. I want to make it easy and inviting for us to get there. Bill didn't mow much in the last couple of years, and the shining sumac has taken over. If the meadow is going to have to be three years overgrown for awhile, at least the central path will be navigable.

The coneflowers and liatris I planted on his grave burst into joyous bloom in mid-July. It was fantastic. I had simply taken the liatris from my north bed, where it was getting too much shade, thanks to my now-huge liberated bonsai Japanese maple! The liatris never missed a beat, and took off. Prairie plants are like that. They're deep-rooted, willing to wait for their window.  (We should all aspire to be more like prairie plants.)

Aged cow manure mixed into the grave's topsoil didn't hurt. If you're going to bloom, you have to eat!

I visit Bill's grave in all weather, at all times and in all light conditions, but this dewy July 25 morning was the best of them all. Native plantings don't get much better than this. There's an understory of showy (pink) Missouri primrose that's going to be fantastic next spring.

Curtis, of course, always accompanies me. We "go see Daddy." Man, Bill loved this dog. And Curtis understands the import of this spot. He was there for the burial, led the funeral procession out, walking slowly so as not to outpace Elsa, all of his own accord. Someday I may be able to write about that, but probably not anytime soon. It was something to witness.

 

So now fast-forward to August 19, and the flowers have faded, though they're still trying to bloom a bit. It's time to plant the Memorial Maple. The Bonsai-no-more. It's the last day I can do it and have both kids here for the ceremony. Liam leaves at 1 pm.

I'm blown away by the beauty of the meadow on this fine hot morning. And I decide to put off having it mowed until everything's done blooming. Heck with it. So what if it's bare over the winter; I cannot stand to mow these wildflowers down in full bloom. I've never seen Joe-Pye weed in the meadow before. Amazing things happen when you let meadows go. And then not-amazing things happen, like losing the meadow to a steadily growing over-your-head sumac forest. That I don't want. Hence the mowing plans. But not now. Not now. Phoebe pleaded with me, like Snow White and the forester, not to fell the meadow, and I heard her. Its beauty took me away. (It was Snow White, wasn't it? Who was the girl in the fairy tale who begged the forester not to cut the trees?)

I've gotten up super early to dig the bonsai hole, before the blazing sun glares over the pines.  I'm grateful for this sandy loam, that presents nary a rock to my poacher's spade. Too well do I remember trying to plant trees or anything in Connecticut and Massachusetts. Good luck digging a big hole all by yourself. Here in Ohio, it's possible without hiring help or deploying TNT. It isn't all that hard.

 

I finish digging the hole, and I decide to dig out some poison ivy that keeps coming up at the head of Bill's little plot. "No poison ivy on Bill!" I growl. (I now have gigantic crazy itchy blisters between my fingers thanks to that little moment). I send the spade in and turn up the earth.

 And under the clod I turn up there is Something. I freak allll the way out.

 How perfect is it, that a box turtle has laid her eggs right over Bill's head? How amazing is it, that this nest, unlike all the others I've found dug out along my Boulevard of Broken Dreams, has somehow survived the skunks and the coons? 

Here's a hen box turtle starting a nest on the Boulevard in the first week of June. Yep, that's Curtis, bombing in more ways than one. Almost all of the nests I saw being dug along the Boulevard were predated by skunks and coons within a few nights. I tried so hard to find them and cage them before it happened, but I couldn't do it. Every time I thought I had one, it turned out to be a partial attempt. I pray some made it through.

There are four eggs on Bill's grave. I find one in the tailings and return it to its depression, hoping I haven't ruined it.How incredible that my spade has not harmed these precious, mostly-incubated eggs? It is perfection. I was meant to find this nest, to protect it. More on that later. We have a tree to plant.

Curtis leads the processional again, with all due gravitas. Liam has taken time from packing his last items for his return later this day to West Virginia University, to be my mule, hauling the tree, some cow manure, and 15 gallons of water out to the gravesite. Phoebe brings up the rear. We are making our own ritual.

 Some great Curtis Loew side-eye in this shot if you click on it.

 

First, we mix manure and potting soil with the loam I've dug out, and make a nice bed for the tree. Liam waters it until it's swimmy.

 

We lower the tree into the hole, face it the best way, and fill around it with a mix of manure, potting soil and native loam. Then we drown it with 5 gallons of water. 

  

Curtis gives Phoebe a kiss as she sits by the newly-planted tree. It doesn't look nearly so tall now that it's out with its feet in the big meadow. 

My idea was to have a shady place to sit when we visit Bill. It will happen. I will be old by then, but it will happen. It's mostly for the kids.

 

Curtis isn't a mad dog, nor is he an Englishman. 

He ain't sitting in the noonday sun. He won't be called out of the shade, either, not even for a photo. That's a cur for you. They have their own minds, are dripping with common sense. We laugh at how different he is from Chet, at how flagrantly self-centered Curtis can be. Of course, we love him for his  fiercely independent mind. We love everything about this dog.

I am grateful to have had this beautiful summer with both my kids. It has been a gift beyond measure to know they are asleep in their own beds right across the hall, that they're being nourished by the food I have grown and cooked for them, that my girl can cut the flowers I planted for her and prowl the milkweed that's grown for her. That we can go out and squeeze the kiwis and pick the golden raspberries and tuberoses every day. These are the things that matter. It seems so simple, but it's not anymore. It is everything. I know there will come a time, perhaps next summer, when neither of them will come home, and that is as it should be. We will all adjust, because adjusting is our only option, and it will continue to be good.

 The little ceremony we made, of planting this venerable tree nearly twice their age, by their father's grave, to honor him and remember him, is everything, too. Ceremony, ritual, tradition: we don't need to rely on society's customs. As a family, we make our own, doing what feels right and salutary to us, what fits. We're a small family now, but we are all the tighter for it.

Bill was, I think, too big for his pot here on earth.  Certainly one of the most expansive people I've known. Maybe he needed to be set free, to another life we can only guess about. And the little tree, 37 years in a pot, is sending feeder roots out as I write, exploring the good Ohio loam

and waiting for the rain.

Fresh Pond Native Plant Party

Red Admiral, Sweet William and Queen Anne—all the celebs are making the scene at Fresh Pond Reservation this morning! It’s a quietly riotous party. 

The robust shuttlecocks of purple coneflower ought to be festooned with butterflies by now. Not sure where they all are, but it seems we have more swallowtails and admirals in Ohio right now than I'm seeing in Massachusetts. 

I’m surprised to see Joe-Pye weed already in bloom. It has yet to come out at home, though we’re considerably farther south in latitude. 

Much as I love its wifty plumes and the way it sings with chicory, white soapwort and QAL, I can’t say I was happy to see the first early goldenrod coming into bloom. My associations with goldenrod and autumn are far too strong. I sigh and decide to accept it, if not celebrate the headlong rush toward the end. After all, September and October are among my favorite months.

I’m happy to see the yellow buttons of tansy teaming up with chicory and QUAL for another salute to Sweden. Tansy is a pretty plant, and smells so good when you rub it on your arms. It’s said to repel ants and mosquitoes. We don’t have it in Ohio. Whoops, Googling it on a slight suspicion that it's not native, I find it's considered yet another noxious weed from Eurasia. Gawrsh. All three of these are considered such. 

Sometimes I wonder when we will just lie down and accept that we have a global flora, a global fauna. Even as I fight tooth and nail against Miscanthus grasses and Japanese stiltgrass, wisteria and ailanthus and Japanese honeysuckle, garlic mustard and creeping Charlie. Never, I guess. I freely admit to a bias for the pretty ones. I'm dumb that way.

Hodge and I find four young Canada geese stranded and looking longingly out at Fresh Pond from behind a low chain link fence. The gate is closed and locked or we’d open it for them. A terrier mix, running off lead, rushes in and starts to snap at their tails, totally ignoring the yells of his owner. Hodge and I rush to stop him. Grrrr. Come on, woman, get control of your durn dog. The geese seem unable to fly over the three-foot fence; perhaps they’re in molt. Their wings look fully feathered. Hmm. Perhaps they’re just having an attack of the dumbs.

photo by K.H. Macomber
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 I sidle up, stand next to them and make clear pictures in my head of me helping the geese over the fence. I ask their permission to help them. The nearest bird allows me to reach down and grab it with little protest. I hoist it up over the fence and toss it into the air, expecting it to plane down into the water, which is about 3' below the concrete berm on which they stand, gazing out longingly. Then, I figure, I'll quickly toss the other three over the fence to join it. It flies out over the water and immediately doubles back to land with its friends again on the wrong side of the fence. Thank you, but no thank you; I don’t want to go without them. Because there’s no way I can catch and toss all four at once, I give up. We go inside the nearby visitor’s center and Hodge leaves a sticky note for the park ranger, asking that the gate be opened for these poor, seemingly witless birds. Knowing how intelligent Canada geese are, I can’t help but think that there’s something going on here I don’t understand, something to do with the fence height and the fact that the water level is too far below the berm for them to feel comfortable dropping into it. Much as I want to help them, I can't.

I like the little lost mateless shoes. Liam left a trail of those as a babe.

 Thus ends our visit to the spectacular native plant showrooms of Fresh Pond Reservation. Workers and volunteers, I salute you! Thank you for showing us what a moist prairie meadow looks like. We’d almost forgotten.

Fresh Pond Reservation: Native Wildflower Showcase

Handy by Cambridge in Arlington, MA lies Fresh Pond Reservation, a reservoir of drinking water ringed by a tonsure of forest and flowers. This is just one of myriad places that has changed immensely for the better since I left in 1981. A vigorous effort to restore this place to native vegetation is underway, and on this bright twenty-third morning in July 2015 I am floored by the results.

My first sighting is of a black French bulldog wearing a life jacket, and that kicks the walk off to a charming start. Though his deep chest, short legs and shorter face would normally keep him from being able to swim at all, he is swimming with the big dogs. He seems to know that this is a very special thing, and joy shows all over his face. Mine, too.

Hodge and I walk on to a spectacular show of Bidens cornuta and Daucus carota, tickseed sunflower and Queen Anne’s Lace, respectively. You’re never going to get rid of all the non-natives, and I have to say that they are additive here, the lacy doilies of QAL waving prettily amongst the stouter stems of tickseed sunflower.

A bumblebee snores on a buttonbush inflorescence. Cephalanthus occidentalus (the genus name means "head flower") is a nice wetland native shrub that you don't see all that much. I like to find bumbles before they go to work in the morning, sleeping off their nectar drunk like insect winos.

Ratibida pinnata, or gray-headed sunflower, has charmingly reflexed petals, making the happy pale flowers look like they are blasting off to a distant galaxy.

At this point we are behind a retirement home. I have to think that it’s cheering to look out on this head-high mass of beauty. I’m not sure what they’re feeding these coneflowers, but knowing Cambridge, there’s probably some community composting going on. Wow. They’re well-nourished and thick as thieves.

Same goes for the wild bergamot, Monarda fistulosa. I feel like rolling around in the tangy, turpentiney scent of its leaves. It’s hard to convey the masses of bergamot they’ve planted here. The pale lavender doesn’t carry well in photos.

And the entire field of bergamot:

I play with my iPhone6 and am astonished again and again at the way it handles brilliant sun and shade, somehow managing to strike the correct balance so that shaded flowers in the foreground show up in their true colors, and the brightly lit sky and forest background are treated fairly as well. I remember my frustration with my Canon AE1 film camera. I despaired of capturing any shaded foreground color or detail if I exposed on the clouds and sky, and the sky was burned white if I exposed on a shaded foreground. Somehow the iPhone6 figures it out, and I am forever grateful for that. It seems to see such scenes just as my eye does. To me, who struggled with film cameras for years before digital swooped in and saved me, and then having found the iPhone6 camera to be quantum leaps ahead of any digital camera I've had, this seemingly simple feat is every bit as amazing as putting a man on the moon.

 

Feral chicory cuddles up to native coneflower. I say you GO, girl. I do not begrudge you a square inch of American soil, if you put on a blue like that. And may I say that the iPhone has captured your blue? Who can do that? Who has ever done that? Only my favorite blue in the world.

Speaking of begrudging space…Silphium perfoliatum is a native prairie plant commonly called cup plant, for the water reservoir made by its perfoliate leaves.  Perfoliate means "punctured by the stem." It is a plant of titanic proportions; these were easily 10’ tall and still growing. I do not think that I would necessarily have chosen to plant it here, where space is a bit limited. 

It’s spectacular, but it seems to me it is taking over. I’ve been offered cup plants by native plant gardeners who’ve found themselves overwhelmed. My rule of thumb as an older, wiser gardener is not to take free plants unless I already want them and know their disposition. Usually, you’re taking extras of something that’s proven itself an invasive thug. Beware the garden club plant giveaway! I’m digging ditch lilies and blue hosta out of my front bed this fall, by gum, making room for things I like better. Like Lucy’s bleeding hearts.

Homage to Sweden—chicory and tickseed. This color combo makes me think of my dear friend Ann from North Dakota, and a certain wedding a few summers back.

Red Admiral, Sweet William and Queen Anne—all the celebs are making the scene at Fresh Pond Reservation this morning! It’s a quietly riotous party.

I recorded these images, and looking at them I can't quite believe I saw all that. The blue sky, the crisp unbelievable colors. But I did, and I had to share them with you.

Baker's Balloons

Chet Baker loves to accompany me to the mailbox, which is about a quarter-mile from our house. It is a most agreeable walk, being shady and studded with purple coneflowers. Fourteen years ago, we planted these gorgeous things, just raked seed into fresh earth, and it is clear that they are happy in the light shade along our driveway. They are spreading like something nonnative might spread, but whee!! They are native.
I love the wild type coneflower, with the retrose shuttlecock petals. The cosseted plants I bought to put in my garden beds are nowhere near as hardy or lovely as these, grown from Vermont Wildflower seed. Pretty much everything in that seed mix has died out except these, and they look like they mean to go on forever.I just can't stand what the plant breeders are doing to this noble gangly plant, dwarfing it, making it dibbly-double; making it orange and white and yellow and mango colored. OK, I'd take a mango-colored one, but don't show me those darned ucky frilly gnomish monstrosities.Eccccchinacea (my spelling) "Razzmatazz." Well named, at least. It's less than a foot tall, and there's no way for butterflies to access nectar, even if there were any, because the nectiferous cone is all covered with petals. Please. You take one of the most useful plants in the garden, full of nectar for leps and seeds for goldfinches and buntings--and you remove everything that makes it useful, ergo everything that makes it beautiful. And just for good measure, you dwarf it. Yeah! That right there is Improving on Nature.

This time of year my tall natural beauties--chest high to me-- are alive with fritillaries and swallowtails. I've counted more than twenty butterflies at once on one stand of coneflower. We have four stands, all along the driveway, so that's a lot of fritillaries.
On our last walk, Chet found a cluster of balloons that had doubtless been released at a baby shower or wedding. Mether. If ever there was a perfect thing for a Boston terrier to bring home, it is this. It is lightweight, and very very shakable. Listen. It goes wubba wubba wubba when I shake it. I will take it home with me.
Well? Are you coming with me?
Carrying these balloons home is nothing for a dog like me, who once carried a basketball named Scooby all the way around The Loop. You must, must click on the link to see me, Chet Baker, as a baby.

And once I get them home, I rip them up, completely. This picture shows my brindling very well. My father, Peanut Brittle, is a bright red brindle. I am a seal brindle, the best kind.

Because KatDoc will scold us otherwise, we have to say here that Mether took the balloons away from me as soon as I started shredding them. And it is true. Most good things must come to an end, and one of them is blue balloons. But wild purple coneflowers go on forever.