The Oaks

Yesterday was a final goodbye to summer -- a warm, still, sunny day full of bright fall colors and sweet air. Today we are back to November, with temperatures in the 40s and part sun, part clouds, and gray skies.

One thing that concerns me is the swamp white oak in the meadow. It is Quercus bicolor, and has been looking fantastic since I planted it in spring, 2009. I got this nice specimen from Bosco's, spending way more on this tree than any of the Lowe's and Home Depot specials I put in the meadow.

Here it was in mid May this year, and all summer it caught the afternoon light in the meadow, looking fine. The leaves are glossy and large, with the characteristic whitish undersides. This year was the first I noticed acorns.

In past years it has developed some fall color, not very intense, but some orangish russety colors. It does hang on to its leaves through winter as oaks do.

But this year its leaves suddenly turned completely brown and crispy when we got a frost last week. Annuals and tender hydrangeas got zapped by the frost, but it was not that severe. But the oak went from green to dry brown all over, overnight.

A nearby sweetgum also got hit hard. One of two, it was the sweetgum that had been decapitated in 2011's snow storm, and had been regrowing its top canopy again. The new growth got totally blackened by the frost, quite badly, and only the tender top part. The rest of the tree, and the second nearby sweetgum were untouched.

And this oak seems to have been vulnerable. For whatever reason it thoroughly succumbed to the frost.

I also noticed that the bark is peeling away all up and down the trunk. Research says that swamp white oak gets platy, scaly bark, but this seems extreme. It is coming off in strips. Is it ok?

Concern for this oak led me to take a tour of the meadow and check the other oaks there. Several are volunteers that are popping up and some are large now, and looking great. Mostly pin oaks I think.

Then there are the couple pin oaks I planted, also putting on size and looking great, showing nice fall color. The volunteer one I transplanted ripped up from the back hill and put behind the bottlebrush buckeye hedge is topping the weeds now.

The oaks are all very hard to photograph, with nothing but dried weeds surrounding them and no background or structure for reference. Pictures don't capture any of them well.

The transplanted volunteer pin oak behind the bottlebrush buckeyes, looking back toward the yard

A wild seedling, looking like another swamp white oak maybe?

The pin oak I got as a small 5 gallon container tree from Lowe's, planted by the road cut in 2007

I am worried about the extreme reaction the swamp white oak had to the frost. It doesn't seem normal. And the peeling bark looks odd, although it doesn't seem diseased or injured. I'll need to keep an eye on this tree next spring.

Meanwhile, winter beckons.

Today it is 18 years since I had to tell my young sons that their father had died. Eighteen years ago today . . . I am amazed.

Warm Wet Wind

The past days have been gloomy and darkly overcast, and damply chilly. I had a head cold, and stayed inside. We didn't even turn the lights on for Halloween, and bought no candy.

This morning a warm, wet wind gusted through, bringing a quarter inch of rain, much needed but not enough. Then the sun came out, and the afternoon was breezy and in the high 60s. Very pleasant suddenly!

The maple in Meadow's Edge turned red over Halloween. The other one is in the process of turning, but isn't quite there yet.

This year the paper birches look great, and have lots of golden yellow color.

The dogwood by the garage corner is deep crimson now, and has tons of berries.

The amsonia on the front walk is fluffy gold, just as pretty coming . . .

. . .  and going.

I despaired last year about the dwarf fleece flower, but this year it looked good all summer and now has great red fall color.

I always like the allee look down the walkway at this time of year, when the red maple is the focal point.

And the paperbark maple is starting to turn. I love the asymmetrical lumpy blue spruce at the corner.

A look out into the yard is a nice vista as the clouds break and the sun shines. The grass is still jewel green, but the trees are starting to look bare in the far background.

A Four O'Clock Walk

Cold, in the 50s, and a very dreary overcast day today, until about four in the afternoon. Then the sun came out, and the air was still, and I took a walk around.

The fothergilla nearest the garage is turning kaleidoscope colors. The other one by the cellar door has not changed much yet.

The red colors on the blackhaw viburnum are subtle. I am struck with how this shrub finally looks like a real tree. Gangly, but tree like.

The stewartia monadelpha is turning rust red, very dark, and hard to see. The first year it was such a bright red, but it hasn't had that color since. It's more brown than red.

The same thing is true of the other stewartia, S. pseudocamellia. It is turning a very dark brownish red. It too has had years where it was fiery scarlet, but it seems to be darker each year now.

The Sheffield mums surround the gravel garden and are the prettiest things in fall.

And Raydon's Favorite aromatic aster is also pretty. I will need to divide these three clumps next spring.

There are berries on the hollies, both the meservae blue hollies and the Ilex opaca. Kind of Christmasy on a fall day at four in the afternoon!

Campfire

Last night we had a fire in the fire pit and sat around it drinking ice wine. A delightful little bit of camping. Wish we had marshmallows.

It was really very nice. But cold. It was 41 degrees and the small fire gave off little heat.

By the time we went in, I was pretty chilled, and my hair and clothes smelled like smoke. Still smelled like smoke today! But it was a beautiful evening interlude by the fire.

This morning another frost covered everything again.

Today Jim put all the outside furniture away for the season.

I watered, at least what I could of the newest trees I had planted this season, and the new little shrubs just planted. Everything is so dry.  It's been three weeks without a drop, and everything is going into winter thirsty.

While the plants look fine now, if the roots are not well watered for winter, trees and shrubs can be susceptible to drying winds that may cause damage to buds next spring. That has me worried. I can't really soak the larger things very well, and can only hand water the smaller, new plants.

The blackhaw viburnum by the bathroom window is coloring, a subtle, light red. It's the first time I have seen fall color to speak of. And it has dark blue berries for the first time too.

The blackhaw out in the open in the blueberry garden has not really colored, and the frost has now turned its leaves brown.

It was cold, but perfect today to do the kind of work that needs cooler weather, so I dug out some edges to expand where plants had spread over the border's edge. A good day for that. It's easier to edge in the fall when I can see the full spread of plants and what needs expanding, rather than in the spring when all the plants are still small.

The soil was dry as a bone, of course. But the little bit of edging was easy enough to do.

Winter is on its way, but don't tell the happy mums.

Overnight Frost

Goodbye to the hot pink zinnias

When I woke this morning the annuals were black and the hydrangeas were all limp. The first frost of the season settled last night after yesterday's breezes. Today is sunny and in the low 50s.

So this morning I took out all the zinnias, nasturtiums, the red salvia and the pots on the patio. Everything looks cleaner and neater. The hydrangeas perked back up a little.

It was time for those hot pink zinnias to go anyway. They were clashing with all the fall foliage.

I had to take out the long blooming chocolate cosmos that I liked so much. It didn't look as bad as the other fried annuals, but it was time to go.

In the spot that was opened up where the cosmos had been, I transplanted the gray dogwood, Cornus racemosa, from the meadow.  Actually, I had to move the Blue Velvet St. Johnswort over, then plant the gray dogwood, so it was a bit of maneuvering.

You can barely see the leafy little gray dogwood in front of the tuteur. The hypericum is now to its right.

I have not had much luck with Hypericum, so who knows if moving the Blue Velvet one will do it in now.

And I hope the little dogwood takes. I will want to limb it up quite a bit for this space and keep it from getting weedy and rangy as it wants to do naturally. Here is what a limbed up Cornus racemosa looked like in very early spring at Berkshire Botanical Garden. This will take some work.

In early spring you  can see the pruned and limbed up shape of this gray dogwood.

As I walked about the yard doing chores I got a distinct whiff of burnt sugar. The new katsura? But it has lost most of its leaves already. Could it be?

It was noticeable near the berm, but not near the katsura itself. But it might have just been the general smell of decaying things from the sudden frost. I smelled it later out in the meadow too.

But it was a real cotton candy smell near the berm. I swear it was those few remaining leaves on the katsura.

When I went out to get the paper early this morning, multiple contrails were shooting upward in a V from the east. To the right of this shot there were three more, exploding out from the rising sun. I couldn't even begin to get a picture looking straight into the sun, but what a sight the morning sky was today!

Whooosh

Cold air came swooping in last night and the wind came blustering in with it.

The temperature was 31 this morning, but there did not seem to be any frost and no tender plants were hurt. I think the gusty wind kept the frost away. It barely made it to 50 degrees this afternoon, although the sun was out all day.

I need to wait for a killing frost and then give the Black Beauty dahlias a week after that to ripen before digging them up. One is still blooming gamely in front of the Blue Ice amsonias that are just now lightening up.

In the early mornings, with the golden October light, the buckeyes are beautiful. They glow.

The Sheffield pink mums are looking nice now all around the gravel garden.

The Henryi clematis in front carries on with its late season re-bloom.

The hubrichtii ammonia is turning. I wonder if it will be the startling bright yellow that it was in 2010, or if this softer green gold is its typical fall color.

This was an indoor day. The wind and whoosh of sudden cold were too much.

Here are a couple nice views of the yard. The sourwood shining behind the umbrella really has turned that pink.

It's Getting Weird

Overcast and gloomy today, and quite chilly, in the 50s.

The dank light made the fall colors look kind of garish. But in any light, it is getting downright weird out there. The colors are going nuts.

Bluebird hydrangea going all purply.
I won't do a ring of alyssum underneath again, that just looks dumb.

A riot of clashing colors. Yikes. The Gro Low Rhus aromatica has gone from beautiful red to eye hurting cerise.
The hot magenta zinnias are too much. Check out the purple oak leaf hydrangea at the lower left.

More gaudiness. Thank goodness the witch hazel is not bright yellow yet, although it's turning.

Look at that Gro Low sumac. It really is that pinky red.

The dark ninebark is really goofy with the increasingly fire colored Gro Low sumac

This is a little better view -- rich mahogany doublefile viburnum and golden buckeyes.

And I like the garnet itea with a little bit of Orange Dream Japanese maple behind it, all tempered with clear white Montauk daisies.

All of the colors this fall are quite impressive, but some of my combinations are too weird to look at.

Two Plants for Next Year

Tom is 33 today. I am flabbergasted, and unable to figure out how that happened. Happy birthday, kid!

Fall is upon us and the weather is cool. It's been sunny and dry.

Is it too soon to be thinking about next year? Here are two plants I want to keep in mind:

1. Plant more of the annual Chocamocha chocolate cosmos

What an absolute stunner, blooming heavily all summer long. Still blooming, no let up. It never took a break. The velvety rich red color of the blooms never faded.

It stays low, only a foot high, and the three plants sprawled out nicely to cover the area. Next year get many more and spread them around in any spot that needs filling.

I got these three from Avant Gardens, one of my new favorite online sources.


2. Try Mountain Mint (Pycnanthemum muticum)

In the empty spot at the back of the Drive By garden (where the stand of tall zinnias are now) I think a stand of Mountain mint would look good. A filler, silvery colored to catch the eye, and needing little care.

I saw clumps of them when we went to visit James Golden's garden last weekend and liked them.

It wants partial shade, but can be in full sun if kept moist. In the back of the Drive By garden it will get some shade from the other plants and from Gwen's trees nearby, but it will be exposed to western sun for part of the late day.

The write ups say it is pretty tough and blooms a long time all summer.

Forest Management

A mostly sunny, breezy day in the mid 60s. It was supposed to rain last night but didn't.

It's been 11 days now since we got half an inch of rain, but when I test around the new katsura or where I transplanted the dwarf deutzias on the east side, the soil is still damp.

I wandered out onto the back hill today, unprepared, just wearing my deck shoes and no gloves. I did have the pruners with me and thought to clip a few stray things, but instead I got totally immersed in forest management.

When I went just a little way into the stand of trees it was evident that bittersweet was choking everything. You don't see it from a distance, but once in under the trees I can see it is everywhere.

I scrambled around in the dense brush and cut off the vines and pulled down what I could.

The right way is to cut the vine and then paint Vine-X on the cut to kill the root, but in all the tangle out there I can't do that.

I can barely move, and I need the pruners at each step to clear what wraps around my feet as I step.



Here are my methods of forest management as I try to control the competition of vines, weeds, and the trees I am trying to grow:

Constantly cut and chop each vine. 
In spring and in autumn when it is cool enough and the bugs are not so bad, I need to go out there and cut the vines off the trees.

Just chop away. I have no chance of real control with Vine-X or by uprooting the vines, so it's the constancy of repeated chops that are a way to keep the worst at bay.

They come back, and I'll never eliminate them, but I can keep the vines off the trees if I repeatedly get out there with the pruners.

Walk around and flatten the weeds. 
I found that I can keep a sunny, open area around saplings by simply tromping around them and flattening the weeds with my feet. It's easy enough to do, no tools, no weedwhacker, no effort. Just walk around the area by each tree.

If I do that several times early in summer, it does hold the weeds down. They don't overwhelm the area and bury the plants I'm trying to encourage. By opening up around them I can keep an eye on the smallest saplings.

If I make an effort to get out there with the pruners more often in spring and fall, and if I remember to tromp around in the areas I want to open up several times in the summer, I feel I am managing my forest.

Here's another issue I need to manage in my forest: the cottonwood that was barely my height when we moved in 9 years ago is tall and skinny and is dominating the back hill now. This photo shows it in late September.

It needs to come down. Not only will it get even bigger and messier and more dominating, but it is growing out at an angle on the steep hillside. It is weak wooded, and at its tilted pitch, I can see it falling over in a storm.

It needs to be removed now while it is still skinny. That's going to be an issue.