Tales from the Microbial Laboratory

~a backbone of live oaks~

I've been looking at my garden differently this summer.

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There are plants growing that are from my Mother's garden - I find myself giving them first priority when it comes to care - I find myself with an almost frantic need to keep them happy - and they are.  (Or, at least I think they are.  But who am I to know such things?).

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Otherwise, I've been thinking more about the backbone of my garden - and how it will change when a new home is in place.  I'm not so much focused on details, have found myself not planting the summer annuals that I like to plant - and not filling in holes in the perennial border - but instead I look at my garden through slits in my eyes, as if the limited view (and perhaps unfocused one) - will help me see my garden's backbone. 

Huge live oaks.  Six of them.  Three large bald cypresses, and one large (really large) southern magnolia.  They are what you encounter first as you enter Pamdanistan.  Then there is a river birch, leyland and greenspire cypresses, two large Savannah hollies - and a large fig tree (that is rounded and really quite beautiful in shape, in summer and winter).  There's lots of other stuff too - a lowquat, spring-blooming magnolias and dogwoods and a redbud and crepe myrtles and a large tea olive and a texas mountain laurel...but there are six huge live oaks. 

A number of years ago now, I started writing a novel (you know, in all of my spare time) and because I can't imagine that this novel will ever get put together into one cohesive document that anyone would ever take the time purchase, much less read - I'll spoil it for you here, and give you the last paragraph.

Finally, I sat down in the middle of the circle of live oaks, wondering if I believed in God, wondering if people were looking down on me from heaven, wondering if this was some kind of positive negative in disguise.  My life had been filled with so much craziness for so long that the simplicity of it all sort of calmed me down, I might get used to not owning anything or having a roof over my head.  I laid down in the grass, the ground still soft from the storm surge and littered with small branches, covering it like a snowfall.  I looked up and saw the branches of the live oaks, stripped of their leaves, forming architectural shapes that architects have been trying to mimic for generations, and I thought how strange and perplexing a place the world was.  But I also felt a sense of optimism creeping in that only comes when one has a view of a clean slate, and when one has a piece of land blessed with a circle of live oaks that sits beside the coastal marshes of the Atlantic Ocean.  And as I lie there, a sense of holiness blanketed the place, like a fog bank on a day when the air temperature was so much warmer than the water temperature, that all the air could do was simply float.

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So there you have it.  My garden has a backbone of live oaks.

A Late Evening in Mid-July (in Zone 8b)

The mid-summer southern garden:  the gardenias and chaste tree flowers of June are long gone, the daylilies and rose blooms are sporadic now as the heat builds - but other blooms happily take center stage.  Black-eyed susans are everywhere, the zinnias are happy (even sprouting new plants as the flowers themselves fade), and the hydrangeas, while fading, are doing so with grace.  The backs of the african foxgloves are exquisite, seductive even - as if in competition with the sweetness of the ripe figs and sungold cherry tomatoes.  The oregano ignores the on-going competition, happy in it's porous concrete pot (and blooming for the first time) - unlike the crinums, who have been blooming away for over a month now, shouting 'look at me! look at me!'.  The flowers of the bronze fennel are relieved that the caterpillars of the swallowtails haven't devoured their foliage (just yet) - as the daisies reach toward the sun, simple, dependable, ever elegant flowers that grace the summer garden.   And the sunflower - one of the many that reseeded in my garden this year - begins to unfold it's petals, as if waking up after a night of perfect rest.

Happy Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day to all.

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~the figs are ripe so it must be summertime~

The figs are ripening.  Many are already ripe.  I don't think I would have noticed them if I hadn't decided to water the new viburnums this evening - and it was the mockingbirds that caught my eye, not even the figs themselves.  During fig season, I can enjoy figs for breakfast if I want, even lunch - anytime really.  I have one large fig tree - and another smaller one (and the small one is now no longer small) - and enough figs to feed anyone that happens to stop by.  When I noticed that they were ripe it stopped me cold:  figs start ripening around the 4th of July in my garden, and it wasn't possible that it was already July.  I know - I do really know that it is July - mid-July even.  But emotionally I missed spring this year - and so it's hard to accept that summer is here, in all of it's ripening.  I couldn't deny summer, standing there, staring at all of those figs and the mockingbirds flying in and out of the fig tree.

There's already been a hurricane out in the Atlantic, and the figs are ripe - so that must mean it's summertime.

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So I stopped watering the viburnums (storm clouds were gathering anyway, I was hopeful for a rain that even now, as I write this, hasn't arrived) and wandered the garden.  The garden didn't check-out during the springtime like I did - no, it had a bit of rain, much more than last year - and it has grown in that way that a southern garden grows, reaching out in every direction, soaking up the humidity, relaxing in the sun.  The Hydrangea macrophylla 'Lemon Daddy' has grown - it was unhappy in my Mother's garden a few years ago, and she thought that I should try it in my own - and yes, it has grown, but there is no sign of a flower (while it's close relative, 'Big Daddy', is flowering away nearby).  It doesn't matter, the foliage is more than enough to earn a bit of attention in my garden.

Actually, it doesn't take much to earn attention in my garden.  An interesting leaf, a color, a varigation - oh, sometimes just growing is enough.

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The vegetable garden has been neglected.  Badly so.  The strawberries are still bearing, potatoes need to be dug - and the onions have done about as much as they will do.  The garlic is already in the kitchen, drying - and the eggplants and peppers look a bit unhappy, although I am unsure of why.  The tomatoes are doing what tomatoes love to do in July:  ripening at a rate that I can hardly keep up with.  If I find the time (time?) I'd still like to plant some okra (mostly for the flowers and foliage) and then I think I'll fill the rest of the garden in with sunflowers.  I've got seeds for about 10 different kinds, and I think I'll plant them in rows - careful to not have the taller ones shade out the shorter varieties.  One can never have too many sunflowers in the garden in late summer.  Which suddenly reminds me of one of the reasons why I love gardening in the south:  I can still plant zinnias.  And I think that I will - but not this week, this week is already too busy, already too scheduled.

I need to find a way around this crazy work schedule.  I know, I could just go through it - but in reality, I think I need to find a way around it.

~~~~~

I submitted a revised manuscript today - it is one that has been essentially accepted for publication, but just needed some revision - which the former student from my lab did a really good job of completing.  It felt good (it always feels good) to get the revised manuscript submitted.  I need to submit another one this week (a first submission) - and there's a pile of them floating around in my head and on pieces of paper that need to get written.  Tomorrow I'm sitting down with the homemade eclair-baking postdoc to outline even more manuscripts.  I'd like to declare that it is the 'Year of the Manuscript' - but I'd hate to jinx it, when I'm only just getting re-engaged and ready to attack them all.  It would be nice to look back though on this year - with not just sadness, but with a sense of moving forward with the sadness as a necessary companion.  That I can accept.

Last week was the three month anniversary of my Mother's death.  Three months.  I've never gone more than a week without talking with her - mostly it was days, and during her last year, it was several times a day.  Now it's been three months - and I wonder where I have been storing all of the things that I used to tell her.  My one-sided conversations with her are piling up somewhere, out there, somewhere. 

~~~~~~

The rain has finally arrived.    

~we'll see~

Crinum 'Regina's Disco Lounge'  (ordered from LushLife Crinum Nurseries a few years back).

~~~~~

Off to Ft. Lauderdale.  Might take a break from all of this, but I'm taking my camera - and I imagine I won't be able to resist the plants down there.  We'll see.

Have a good week.

~Hydrangea paniculata 'Limelight'~

I planted a small Hydrangea paniculata 'Limelight' in my garden last fall, in an area under the live oaks that is filled with camellias, azaleas, hydrangeas and gardenias.  And here it is - it's first summer - and it's in bloom.  The flowers are a pale green, and I read somewhere that the flowers are greener in more northern zones (and I also noticed over at Dave's Garden that it's hardiness ranges from USDA zone 3a to 8a - and I'm an 8b moving closer and closer to zone 9, so we'll see how it goes - I am hopeful).

The garden is smiling tonight - or perhaps dancing, or making a toast with wine made from the backyard raspberries - because I am happy to report that tonight is the 4th consecutive evening that my garden has received measurable rainfall.  Inches of rain, rain that according to my see-how-much-is-in-the-bucket gauge suggests that we have had at least six inches of rain since Friday evening.  Wow!  The trees are even smiling about that, and as I look out (it's even raining now) - I feel as if the live oaks are reaching further over the fence, that the eucalyptus tree has inches of new growth, and that the new 'Purple Passion' asparagus plants are a foot taller - as if they are racing to catch up with the older, more mature asparagus plants.  Can a garden smile?  Yes, I think so. 

After last year's uncomfortable and persistent drought - the past four days are something we haven't experienced in sometime.  It's wonderful.

Hydrangea arborescens 'Annabelle'

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I do believe that this hydrangea, that I previously pondered about, is indeed Hydrangea arborescens 'Annabelle'.

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My Mother brought this one down to my small piece of the South Carolina coast a few years ago - and she didn't know then what it's name was.  There is still a small stand of these in her Virginia garden - and now there is a clump growing contently in my own garden.

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I was thinking today that I'd like to get them started across my front fence, on the outside by the road - where they can slowly transition from green to white to green - a transition which is quite beautiful I think.  This will have to happen after the new place is built and after the front fence is replaced (it is desperately in need of serious repairs or a complete re-do).  Yes, then - perhaps a row of H. arborescens 'Annabelle' , propagated from the ones that my Mother passed along to me, would be perfect for the narrow space along the front of the fence.

~~~~~ 

   

~Cycas revoluta~

My sago palm (Cycas revoluta) is rolling out beautiful fresh new leaves this week, perhaps in celebration of the past few weeks of above average temperatures.

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I didn't know this plant was in the ground for the first few years I lived here (and you might ask yourself, how could she have missed it?) and unintentionally, I kept mowing it over.  It's resilience won over though - and during a summer season when I was deliquent in my mowing habits, it sprouted a rosette of new leaves - and ever since I have left it alone.  I was never someone drawn to this gymnosperm (it's not a true palm) - but I've grown somewhat attached, and now enjoy the dark green, rigid leaves that contrast with just about everything around it.

~~~~~

 

According to The Cycad Pages:

"Historical notes: C. revoluta was the second species of Cycas to be recognised, described in 1782 by Swedish botanist and physician Carl Peter Thunberg. No type was cited. The `Tessio' of both Kaempfer (1712: V,897) and Rumphius (1749: I,70,t.24) were included as synonyms (Thunberg 1784). Reference was also made to cultivated plants, which were probably collected by Thunberg in Japan in 1775-1776, specimens now in UPS. Of the three sheets of C. revoluta present in the Thunberg herbarium, this sheet was chosen as lectotype because it was the only sheet annotated `e Japonia'."

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Latin revolutus, for the rolled edges of the leaves.

 

An Early Morning in Mid-June (in Zone 8b)

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It's June, which means two things:  daylilies and hydrangeas.  Oh, there's a roses and gardenias and salvias and alot of other things blooming out there, but it's the daylilies and hydrangeas that are clammering for all of the attention this morning.  Perfect timing for May Dreams Gardens Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day.

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I love daylilies.  They start blooming here as it starts getting hot, as some of the earlier bloomers start to fade - and I can't resist their explosion of color in the middle of all of the heat and humidity.  Most of the red ones in my garden are affectionately referred to as 'Ed Browns', because they were bred, grown, and passed along by a former colleague and friend that no longer lives in Charleston.  Others have been added to my garden every few years - orange 'roadside' daylilies given to me by my Mom, 'Starburst Susie' evergreen daylily, others whose tags have been placed in an envelope that I don't have the energy to go through this morning - including the solid light yellow one that is a favorite.  The daylilies are hanging out with the hydrangeas, blooming in numerous shades of blue - and this morning I noticed a few clumps of daylilies that need to be brought further out into the sun, since the branches of the live oaks and bald cypresses have extended their reach over the past few years.

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This is the garden's first season graced with a small (3') Cornus angustata 'Empress of China' dogwood.  I must say that I am thrilled about this little tree - and fascinated too.  It is considered an evergreen dogwood here in zone 8b, and yes - last winter it's leaves remained (it tends to shed older leaves in early spring, when new leaves come out).  What I am most impressed with, which is something that it is advertised for - is that even the younger and smaller trees are covered with flowers, and I can happily report that this is indeed true.  What is also interesting is how the four white petals emerge - it is much less an unfolding, but a gradual lengthening of the tiny petals into larger, creamy flower petals that are just beautiful.  Mine came from Wayside, was a bit pricey - and according to their website, is for zone 6-9 gardens (although I think their zone information is often not so reliable).  I can't wait until mine gets some size on it.

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So...what else is in bloom?  The gardenias are still in flower, with new and fresh white blooms mingling with the older, yellowing, and faded blooms.  The fragrance is still wonderful - making time spent in the front garden, under the live oaks, a treat.  Yes - a few of the leaves, especially on the north side of the two plants, have sooty mold - a result of a fungus that grows on the sugar exudates of white flies.  It's a burden one must bear, and gladly - to have these beautiful flowers and their fragrance permeate one's garden.  I don't treat mine, it has never gotten that bad yet - and this morning I was thinking that I might need to prune back the two 7' tall gardenias that I have, and I might need to read up a bit on that.

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There are a few roses still in bloom this morning - after an earlier flush of growth and flowers in early spring, with another to come within a month or so.  This one is 'Golden Showers' - a climber with sweet yellow flowers that is the last rose that I need to move from the side of my current abode in order to prepare for the demolition.  I'll move it later today, in the evening when it's a bit cooler.  This rose is a sporadic bloomer, it doesn't have a flush of blooms in the springtime that knocks you over, but mine instead seems to have a bloom here and there, now and then - always a bit of a surprise, which is nice.  It is such a nice, bright yellow rose, that I easily forgive it for it's less-than-exuberant blooming habit.

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While I'm on the subject of my home's demolition, I have to mention my chaste tree.  Right now it is in the front of my home, in the corner between the front deck and the steps up to the deck (remember that my house is on stilts) - it is in a sensitive location with respect to both demolition and building activities - but my architect and I are both hopeful that we won't have to take it down.  I've pruned it back some (I did this in late winter) - and I do hope that it makes it.  Last evening I took down a 10' peach tree in the back garden that is where my back stairs will be in the new place - I didn't feel so bad about taking that tree down, since it has been infested with borers from day one, and in order to keep it healthy I would have to treat it many times a year with pesticides.  I just wasn't up to it - so the time had come.  However, the chaste tree is happy and healthy - and when it blooms, irresistible - so we are going to try to do what we can to protect it.  Cross your fingers (and toes) on this one.

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There are many other blooms in my garden on this Father's Day morning - zinnias and marigolds, bee balm, butterfly bushes, hydrangeas (and more hydrangeas), foxgloves, salvias (and even more salvias) - but perhaps today I'll end with my neglected vegetable beds, in honor of my Father.  Each year my Father has a vegetable garden that could grace the pages of any gardening magazine, and when I spoke with him this morning, he told me about the yellow squashes that would be ready to pick by the time of my next visit ( he doesn't like yellow squash, but he knows how much I do), and how he had frozen some sugarsnap peas so that he could use them in stirfry.  This year his garden is a bit sad and lonely for him, in the absence of my Mother - but he is nonetheless out there each and every morning, checking out the sugar corn, the peppers and romas, the beans and cucumbers.  Alot of folks have been fed by my Father's vegetable garden each summer, and later by the jars of tomato sauce and tomato juice and pickles and salsa.  This summer I will go to Virginia to help him can his vegetables, something that I haven't done in quite awhile myself, but it won't matter, because he could do it without looking.  As for my own vegetable beds, they are my big project for this fall and winter after I move into the Airstream:  I plan to add several more beds (one just for herbs, another for annual cut flowers, another filled already to the brim with 'Purple Passion' asparagus, another filled with blueberries - so lots of beds) - but my big job is to get rid of all of the grass in this area.  I just want mulched paths between the beds and around the two figs and the mandarin satsuma and the bay - and I want this area to become a vegetable garden that even my Father might be proud of.

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On this Father's Day, I am so grateful for my Dad's presence in my life, and in the lives of my family.  He cared for my Mother over the past year with such grace and compassion - and now in her absence, he is working hard to move forward in a way that pays respect to both her memory and passions.   

And he's learned how to make brownies.  Brownies! 

~mowing grass~

This is why we like our hydrangeas down here - since many of them bloom like this one, Hydrangea macrophylla 'Blaumeise', for weeks on end during the summer (I've mentioned this one before here).  This one sits at the entrance to my place, just inside the gate - and it greets me each time I return with wonderfully large lacecap flowers of cobalt blue.  The lower branches are rooting, and this fall I will transplant some of them to other areas which also benefit from the shade of the live oak trees. 

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I woke up this morning feeling a bit (actually, more than a bit) overwhelmed by my life at the moment.  Yesterday my day got a bit distracted by a car that wouldn't start first thing in the morning - and a tow truck ride and a few hours later, it had a new starter - so I do have a car for the weekend.  But you know how one little thing, amidst awhole list of things, can just overwhelm you in an instant?  That is how I felt yesterday, as I thought about the mountain of things ahead of me that I need to accomplish.  My architect was out at my place yesterday morning, dropping off the 'builder set' - the set of plans that will go to three different builders by Monday, with bids due back to us by the end of June, in just two weeks.  My architect thinks that the demolition of my place is possible within 4-5 weeks.  Then - there is work and the lab - with five presentations by members of my group looming for a meeting in early July, contigs from a genome trickling (aka pouring) in, manuscripts to submit, manuscripts to write -- and for that matter, to review, edit, you name it!  I've promised a group that I will write four this summer - one on a collaborative dolphin project, and three on our work from the USS Arizona (the latter of which are long overdue, for articles that should be fun and a bit exciting to get 'out there').   There's also a mini-symposium to plan, finding funding for, etc before early September. 

Yes, this morning all of these things were swirling around in my head all at once - which rarely results in anything other than - swirling - and so perhaps I need to just start somewhere.

~~~~~

So - I think I'll go and mow the grass.  Mowing grass is therapeautic - you mow, the grass is mowed.  There is little middle ground, no edits or review process required (or at least I certainly hope not!), and as long as the mower starts (and it should), there should be no major impediments to the process.         

Actias luna (still hanging out on the banana leaf)