Starting Seeds

Prairie Dropseed

Prairie Dropseed in autumn

Cleaned off former aquarium table in studio/backroom which was a project onto itself especially with all the help I get from Pearlie and Patsy. Got set up for starting off some seeds. I don't know if I'm late about doing this....?? I figure the ground isn't going to warm up very soon after the winter we've had. !! Seedlings get leggy and can suffer damping off disease. Best to start too late than too early. If you've ever lost your pampered seedlings, you know exactly what I mean.

Little Bluestem grasses

I have added in the Pearlie and Patsy factor but am puzzled how to keep them out. Scolding will only make the table more interesting... This will get figured out.

I'm starting Virgin's Bower,Clematis virginiana , a native climber in the Clematis family.

http://www.ct-botanical-society.org/galleries/clematisvirg.html

I tend to burn up clematis but this is worth a try.. with firm resolution not to let that happen--again.

This will cover the arbor I plan to put in the front as a privacy screen from the guys across the street with "King of the Hill" syndrome. Attention guys over 50 :drinking beer to excess with your buddies in some guy's garage all the time DOESN'T create a romantic bad boy image.

Next, Prairie Dropseed which I plan to use to help me overcome the challenge of this little pain-in-the-#$%^& hill on the alley.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sporobolus_heterolepis

I found a beautiful photo of it in autumn. So gorgeous.

Here's a good link on where to see native prairie lands in IL:

http://www.inhs.uiuc.edu/~kenr/prairiewheretosee.html

Which leads to the next item to be seeded here at my house: Little Bluestem.

http://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=SCSC

This doesn't solve a problem, I just want to try it and may even give it away.

Last but not least, Swamp Milkweed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swamp_Milkweed

I saved my seeds from last year so these will be especially close to me. The bees and butterflies go NUTS for this stuff. They also lay eggs on it. I haven't experienced that yet as the mature patch I have of it is in the sun in a high traffic area. However, I've started a refugium on the east side of the house where I started young plants last year in hopes of enticing monarchs to lay there this year. My next door neighbor had all kinds of monarch caterpillars going into the J position which they do before morphing into a chrysalis. Exciting stuff.

On a lighter note, for fans of Bevo, he will be moving to a 10 gallon tank very soon. I have it set up and added in some Bio-spira to cut down on cycling. He's simply gotten too big for the blue Bevo bowl so now will have alot more space to bubble up.

P.S. I'm sorry the photos on this page are so.... .....challenged. Not good at arranging things yet.

Songs/Poetry

Someone recently suggested that the lyrics in my other blog is poetry. (click on the title to view it) I guess I thought that most people who were aquainted with music knew the words from these wonderful old standard type songs.

"Crazy" by Patsy Cline. My fave by her is actually "Sweet Dreams". She's a country cabaret singer with all the articulation and flow of a Billie Holliday or a Judy Garland don't you think? Such a vast native talent and without formal schooling. I like her so much I named my cat after her. (I've also had TS Eliot, Elizabeth I, and Willa Cather--all three, people of note!) There will only ever be one Patsy Cline.

"My Kitten the Folksinger"--a play on an Allan Sherman LP--another fave... "Twilight Time" which I know best as performed by The Platters. A tune without equal.

Marlene Dietrich--the dispassionate lament "Falling in Love Again". Mel Brooks did a spoof on it in "Blazing Saddles". Funny.

The Three Silly Kittens is a childhood favorite. I'm sure my mother got tired of reading it over and over. She probably had it memorized by the time I got tired of it.

I found it kind of amazing that these could be mistaken for my writing but I can't accept the compliment. So now there it is! Sure wish I could claim them.

COLD! and Bevo, the Betta Boy

Not just some cold but damned cold!

Two weeks ago my ferns were beginning to sprout and there was a little bead-like spider spinning a web by my mailbox. If she had been bigger maybe I could have brought her inside into a terrarium or something.... Maybe she's found a warm corner to wait for the real deal.

BEVO! is doing really great. I'll post his photo. In the odd event that Gavin T. should ever read this... I'm taking very good care of him for you. He even knows his name... It's not one I would have chosen but it's short, sweet and he knows it most importantly. What a good boy he is.

The famous Texas A&M mascot Bevo.

Basement Experiments

Since I already have the spores..... I'd sent off for some cushion moss spores hoping to create/begin a nice shade garden in the tiered garden on the alley side... Along came a big ol storm and took down part of my neighbor Frank's tree and there went the shade. So after the garden became a full sun place...

I'll be taking those spores down to the basement to play around with transplanting and growing moss. I found this great website and sent off for their booklet written by the senior member of the team who started Moss Acres, David Benner. http://www.mossacres.com/ Fascinating stuff. I'd tried to transplant it over at my other house but with no luck. Not knowing what I was doing at that time, I failed to use the right medium to mix in with spore. This will be purely experimental for me ...

About a year ago, I read a book about moss by Robin Kimmerer and then went to hear her speak at Severson Dells. She disputes the fact that moss CAN be transplanted.... Her book "Gathering Moss:A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses" is a great read. Besides being descriptive of the species, it also contains some good reflections and how things in life tie in together. She's also a good speaker and a friendly open sort of person.

http://www.amazon.com/Gathering-Moss-Natural-Cultural-History/dp/0870714996/ref=pd_bbs_4/103-2067497-5845454?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1193879724&sr=8-4

The enclosed photo comes from the Moss Acres. Beautiful and exotic although the materials are so common and people actually buy herbicides to kill this stuff in their lawns!

Gardening Buddy

My yard and best gardening friend Willie and I are closing things down for winter in the garden. It's been so warm here that the leaves are just beginning to fall now. I bought an electric leaf chopper/mulcher gizmo on ebay. We'll use that to chop up a nice leaf mixture to put on the front garden, keeping some oak leaf mulch aside for our "experiments" in the basement.
Since the plants are less dense, she likes to creep in among them for whatever reason... Occasionally I catch her starting to prey on the birds as she casts looks back to me to see if I'm looking. She has her "wilding" facial expression so I know something that humans usually don't approve of is about to happen. Yes, I DO correct her. She IS on a leash too.
Otherwise, the birds don't pay her much mind. I've had whole flocks of dark-eyed juncos (quite possibly of different "races"), the neighborhood red-bellied woodpecker and hairy woodpecker, white and rose-breasted nuthatches both male and female ,hundreds of goldfinches,white-crowned sparrows passing through like visiting royalty among the house sparrows, purple finches,cardinals:male,female and an immature male,black-capped chickadees, blue jays looking for peanuts and etc etc.
Willie and I find it immensely satisfying to observe their comings and goings.

Shameless Book Promotion

It's not my book so get off my back. This is "Insects-Their Natural History and Diversity" by Stephen A Marshall. It's a bit pricey for the budget-minded but it's the book you can land on without having to buy others.
The photography is excellent aiding easy identification. Defining characteristics of families and subfamilies are compared and contrasted. It's LARGE, beautifully bound and a visual delight.

The F Word

FROST! For cryin out loud, I've gotten about 10 emails from the local TV station weather people about frost warnings. I say "Bring it on!"-NOT.

I'm already starting to wonder how I'm going to make it through the winter without driving myself nuts with garden fever. I need to clean out the former platy tank to aquascape it. It is really sweet to be planting up an aquarium in the very dead of winter. And this tank will be solely plants so I can focus on design rather than balancing a tank for the sake of fish.

Enclosed is a photo of some Carpenter Bees happily at work on oregano in my garden. I initially thought they were bumblebees but after more reading, I learned that Bombus have furry hindquarters and these do not. I went out to the telephone pole on the alley to see if there were any of the Carpenters coming and going but I didn't see anything. That pole is so chewed up and full of all kinds of insect holes, I'm betting at least some of them live in it.