Gardens Central

Very quiet here this morning.

A gentle mist hangs over the gardens, raindrops still clinging to everything, remnants of last night's showers, such a welcome replenishment from the heavens above which has given our small parcel of this great Earth, a refreshing renewal.

I imagine the birds, having woken to this scene, deciding to sleep in a bit, while waiting for the sun's rays to soak up the excess moisture. The crickets, on the other hand have not. This morning there is a cacophony of crickets, lulling the senses with their incessant trilling undersong. Interesting how this is the first morning that I have even noticed the crickets. The bird symphonies just over shadow their recurrant chirping.

Just stepped outside to listen again. The crickets are less intense, the birds beginning to wake, one here, another in the distance, certainly not a full chorus yet, leftover raindrops cascading from the branches overhead, adding to the drenched, plush green growth below.

So here, in Marna's Gardens Central, is where it all began, at my computer.


Such a tiny, cramped space in which I have been blessed with the wherewithal to be able to create this world. Another view of the full room, with my companion of the weekend, Riley, my granddog, visiting while Paula is in Maine for the weekend.


Always a problem when I head to the garden, camera in hand. Ran out to get a Black Eyed Susan to try for my little caterpillar friend, saw such a surprise - had to go back for camera. Almost an hour later, I'm finally back in ready to proceed with this post!! Can't tell you what I saw, that'll be another blog!

Got real busy with the cookout, blog and gardening over the weekend, and went to check on this little fella, (see picture below) and he looked dead. (I had forgotten to keep an eye on him. Having recently lost 2 other caterpillars due to heat build up in my sunroom, I was quick to take action)
He had fallen off the flower he had been perched on, and had no life in him whatsoever. Well, if nothing, I'm persistent. I placed him on an Apple leaf, another potential source food, as was indicated in my reference book, and later when I went to check him, he had become re-energized and was now atop the Apple leaf!

Not one bite taken, thus the trip outside this morning. If he doesn't get eating, he won't survive, so I must find the right variety to spark his taste buds, thus the Black Eyed Susan, which is what I had found him on. I put the new flower in with the Apple leaves, and we'll see what he does. This looks to be a continuing saga.


Also found 2 more caterpillars yesterday, both on the same Spicebush leaf, which is highly unusual, especially since one was not even a Spicebush Swallowtail caterpillar! It was a tiny little lass with possibly black, white striping. It was way too tiny for me to determine what it was, and it was late in the day, so I set it in the aquarium with its companion, the Spicebush Swallowtail caterpillar, to be identified the next day.

Couldn't put the little fella above in with them as different species don't always mix well. Some years back I had put a smooth caterpillar in a container with a bristled one, and found them later on, the bristled one just fine, but the smooth one had burst just as if it were a balloon pricked by a pin!! Oh, well, lesson learned!!

So all set, safe and sound for the night. Imagine my surprise when I checked on them this morning and couldn't find my new little lass! Well, too much to do today, no time for a hunt. Grand nephews coming, today, perfect quest for them!! Got pics for you of the one still on a leaf, will get the other nomad when found.

This is what the leaf looks like on a Spicebush when there is a caterpillar to be found.


You open the fold over and this is what you might find, or not as was the case with about 4 other leaves on the same branch. It's impossible to know if the folded leaves were from this little guy, or from others who had been preyed upon by other insects, as is often the case.






This is how I keep the stems fresh for some caterpillars. You can get the holders from a florist.




Then I put the holder in a small vase inside a large aquarium.

I have a screen cover that goes on top of the aquarium, but as I have had caterpillars crawl through it in search of the perfect place to hang to form a chrysalis, I have to use fine screening under the cover. Had help in the gardens yesterday. Worked on clearing the new path of weeds and errant plants, which were all adopted by Joyce. Thank you for your help. This it the area where many of you dug up plants in order to help me to reclaim my pathway! I got some great path stones from a fellow freecycler, which are fitting perfectly into the space. My son-in-law recently brought be a truckload of loam, (Thanks, JD!, such a great birthday gift, which he had to load himself to get over here) which we started using to fill in the spaces where plants were removed. Lots of threatened Smooth Rock Cress in the area, so it was slow going to preserve all the little ones coming up.


Also weeded behind the garage with Sandy. Thanks Sandy. (oops, forgot to get pictures!)

While sorting through pictures for this morning's post, I came across these two which I will be adding to the post on Queens Anne's Lace. These show close up views of the flowers. Look at all the tiny individual flowers within the blossom, each one a perfect specimen of nature's perfection!

Moved my seed operation from the garage to the sunroom yesterday. Just way too hot and humid out there during the day. Today's project is to get the seeds out of the bags and into envelopes, to make it easier for seed pickups.



Here is my seed collection process.
I cut the stems with seed pods when they are sufficiently dried, bring them into the garage and put them in paper bowls, bags or boxes to process depending on whether they need to dry more or need work done to cut away excess leaves, stems, etc.

This box is full of Forget-me-not stems with seeds still attached, waiting to be cleaned up. Also waiting to find out if my Forget-me-not is the one that is listed on the MA Prohibited Plant List.


The following are various specimens of seeds waiting to be cleaned up.

It can be a very time consuming process, so I am taking one variety at a time, and trying to do the minimal prep work, as would be done if these seeds were being processed for mass marketing.


When you come to get seeds, you do the envelope labeling here, and I put the seeds in while you are here.


I do not prepackage any seeds, unless they are being mailed.


Foxglove has just been added to my list of available seeds.
As you can see these are so very tiny, as are other varieties. They are not easy to work with, and take a lot of time to process. One my age definitely needs glasses or even a magnifying glass working with these.
On a sad note, I went to give some red Poppy seed to one of our gardeners. The seed pod was barren. There will be no red Poppy seeds from my gardens this year, as there was only the one blossom. There are salmon Poppy seeds, but not nearly as many as I would have expected from the number of pods I harvested. A fellow gardener told me many are finding a problem with the Poppy seed production this season. Luckily there is always next year!! I need to move the red Poppy to a better location to see if that makes a difference for its flower production. After cleaning up most of the stems and leaves that came in with the seed pods, I put them in a labeled bag, for the seeds to finish drying. Then you shake up the bags to remove the seeds from the pods. And we will see how that process goes today.


Then I'll need to put the contents of the bags individually in a paper plate, to separate out the seed, get it into pre-labeled envelopes, with both the common and technical names, and then get the envelopes alphabetized, and into large glass jars with silica gel at the bottom to keep them good and dry. Then they will be ready to keep throughout the rest of the season. The final item in my sun room is this bucket which contains four perfect and one near perfect snapping turtle eggs which are in the process of incubating. Supposed to take 60-90 days. We are at 46 days and counting. This is the adjunct to Garden Central, our garage office/workshop.



Official Certification of Wildlife Habitat


Sign to be posted And that's the post for today, folks . Enjoy your day!