More pocket meadows

I'm been on the lookout for informal plantings of native grasses and forbs (herbaceous perennials) --- these are the pocket meadow plants and plantings that I'm wanting to promote in an upcoming talk. 

More expansive meadows (at least in the eastern U.S.) are hard to manage, as they want to become woodlands and forests (natural succession at work).

But smaller 'pocket meadows' -- more like informal native perennial borders-- are a lot more satisfying, promoting pollinator visits as well as providing habitat for seed-eating birds like goldfinches, in the fall.

Here are some wonderful examples in the parking lot for the Botanical Gardens of Asheville and the adjacent greenway plantings along Weaver Blvd. (in Asheville, N.C.)

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Interesting daylilies

I'm not really a daylily person, much preferring plants that are covered over with pollinators and flower visitors of various sorts. But a daylily farm, in a valley outside of Weaverville, NC was quite the site this morning.  I was tagging along with a friend who's writing an article about the farm for a regional gardening magazine, but was totally impressed by the scope of the daylilies -- they were all shades of peach, orange, red, and yellow.


And as a display, quite extraordinary in their diversity.

Just a tiny view of the spectacular display

And there were other interesting perennial beds, too.

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"It Raineth Every Day," Wm. Shakespeare

Tropical Storm Debby

Our wet season has started early and furiously!

May's 30-year average rainfall for Jacksonville is 3.48"--we received 10.58".

June's 30-year average is 5.37" and it is the start of our five-month wet season (and hurricane season). So far we've had 21.25" with 12.5" in the last three days from Tropical Storm Debby. (This is the first time since they started keeping records of named storms that there have been four before July.)

The weather forecasters originally plotted Debby's path to go westward toward Texas, but she did not listen to their predictions and just sat there in the Gulf of Mexico for days and days. Finally, she turned east rumbled her way across northern Florida. Fortunately, she did not bring too much wind (except for a few tornadoes), but so much water has caused flooding, sinkholes, and slumping of whole roadbeds.

A swale in a neighbor's yard allows stormwater to soak in, but this swale would be more effective if the turf was replaced with rain garden plants.

As gardeners we must make adjustments and plan for better drainage to absorb future storms.
I've written extensively about rain gardens and I'm happy to say that ours have worked well. I'm especially pleased with our expanded downspout rain garden with its built-in drainage to a drywell. We all need to make more effort to keep as much of our rainwater on our properties as possible. It's better for our aquifers, which did not recharge enough after three years of drought, and it's better for our waterways, because any stormwater that travels across lawns, driveways, and roads will be carrying an excess nutrient load and various other pollutants.

For more details, see my article We All Live in a Watershed! that I wrote for Blog Action Day 2010 on The Florida Native Plant Society's blog.


Other rain-related problems or events: 

The squash plants are not doing well with the constant rain. Yes, they need plenty of water, but their leaves need to dry out between the rains.


Since the rains have stopped, the butterflies, wasps and bees have been thick on our native flowers, the beggars' ticks (Bidens alba) in particular.

From "The Twelfth Night" by Wm. Shakespeare:
The clown ends the play with a song including these two verses:

When that I was and a little tiny boy,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
A foolish thing was but a toy,
For the rain it raineth every day.

For the rain, it raineth every day.
A great while ago the world begun,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
But that's all one, our play is done,
And we'll strive to please you every day.

And so we gardeners carry on the best we can given the hand that Mother Nature hands to us. I hope that you are safe after the storm.

Green Gardening Matters,
Ginny Stibolt

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A firefly June

We've seen almost as many fireflies this year than we used to see in the summers we spent as (young) researchers near the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, many years ago.

They're flashing again tonight, at all canopy levels.  It's probably the tail end of the mating season; they're definitely not as as abundant as earlier in June.  Fireflies are a seasonal component of living in the eastern U.S.  -  special, to be sure.

It's certainly been a firefly June in the mountains of western North Carolina!

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Garden tours

I've been going on garden tours the last few weekends. Totally fun and often inspirational.

I love seeing how gardeners create their gardens.  Everyone is different -- what plants they like, how they maintain their gardens, what sorts of elements they include, etc., etc.

This pot vignette was a highlight from last Sunday's tour.

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Coral honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens)

Lonicera sempervirens

Normally, Lonicera sempervirens (coral honeysuckle) flowers heavily in the spring, sporadically (one or two periodic flower clusters) through the summer, and then a bit more in the fall.

This plant is looking fabulous in late June -- practically in spring form! I imagine the cool temperatures in May and through much of June (it's warm and humid now) have been encouraging this.  Regardless, the flowers are lovely -- I just wish I could see them better from my studio/sun room windows (the windows on the right). The flowers are facing the opposite direction.

But, it just gives me more incentive to stroll around the house!

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We have Met the Solution and It is Us

"We have met the enemy and he is us."



Pogo's wise words (via Walt Kelly) have been repeated
often in environmental circles, but have "people" been
listening?? I hope so.



I agree with Pogo and one of the reasons that I continue to write about green gardening and environmental issues is to convince others that each of us can make a significant difference. And when many people change the way they manage their own landscapes and lifestyle choices, the difference is huge. Mother Nature might be able to breathe a sigh of relief.

Please see the Resources Page for further information on many of the green topics I've been concerned about over the years. There are so many ways that we can make a difference.

Here's an example of a lifestyle choice that will save a lot of money and help the environment at the same time. I posted this on my Facebook wall and Sustainable Gardening page, because I really do not understand the bottled water frenzy--it seems like such a rip-off.

Originally posted on EPA's Water is Worth It page.

We have Met the Solution...

I was pleased to see the opinion piece in the New York Times, We have Met the Solution and It is Us by Frances G. Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, and Trip Van Noppen, president of Earthjustice. They attended the Rio+20 Earth Summit this year and observed that while the main document finally agreed upon by all the countries was so watered down that it is unlikely to have much effect, but they said:

It did offer some bright spots—such as progress on protecting the high seas from pollution, overfishing and acidification—although it left other dire threats unaddressed. Chief among these was failing to negotiate a treaty to protect ocean biodiversity. But what we must remember is this: Rio+20 is not just about a document. Rio+20 is a catalyst. It is the starting point for change, not the finish line. It is a call to action for all of us who now realize that we can’t just rely on government negotiators or verbose and hyper-compromised documents to save our planet.

We must do it ourselves

What Rio+20 did was shine a spotlight on the environmental and sustainable development issues we all know we must address. For at least a few days, it forced us all to pause, take stock and think about the legacy we’re leaving our children.

Now that the speeches are done and the negotiations are over, and the world’s leaders are heading home, it’s time for the rest of us to take action.

Individually, we must be efficient with the energy and the natural resources we consume and be ever cognizant of what the decisions we make today will mean for our children’s planet tomorrow.

Collectively, we must force our government leaders and our corporations to do what is right for our planet and its resources. We must press them to implement the commitments they made at Rio+20, and the commitments they made in other international agreements as well. And we must hold them accountable when they don’t. As we learned at Rio+20, government negotiators and thick documents can’t save the planet. But as we also learned, we can, and we must do it now.



Well said! (Emphasis is mine.) 

Okay, now I'll step off my soap box for now. 

Green Gardening Matters,
Ginny Stibolt

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