Can you identify this bird? The photo was taken in Colorado during the month of August. The answer will appear next week.
Getting Established
You’ve read the instructions; I’ve used them frequently here in my posts. “Drought resistant once established.” Sounds good—we’re always trying to save water—but how should you water these plants to start with? And what does “established” mean?
There are a lot of misconceptions about xeric plants. Our landscaper (who was much better at dealing with hardscapes than with living plants) thought that our xeric shrubs and trees needed to be sopping wet for the first few years, until they were “established.” Dead, more likely. (I’m already having to replace some fernbushes that were growing in muck, and we lost the top half of our oak tree in the first few months.)
Can You Find the Hidden Ptarmigan?
Last week I mentioned that we’d spent four days at Rocky Mountain National Park. One of the species all birders hope to see there is the White-tailed Ptarmigan. But unlike the Clark’s Nutcrackers, which happily pose at Rainbow Curve, ptarmigan are darned hard to find.
It’s not that they aren’t around. I’m sure there are plenty of ptarmigan on the alpine tundra or hiding in the willow carrs. The problem is that you can never see them—even when looking straight at them!
Who Ate My Plants?
Your carrots have finally reached harvestable size—you can tell from the broad shoulders slightly protruding from the soil that the crop is going to exceed expectations. Excitedly, you bend down and gently tug on the feathery green leaves. Pop! Up come the leaves and the top of a carrot—but wait! Where’s the rest? All you’re holding is a quarter inch of orange. The rest of the carrot is missing! Confused, you stick your shovel into the soil to bring up the next root, but it suddenly plunges downward, encountering no resistance. There’s a tunnel under your carrot bed. Grrrrr!
Rocky Mountain Nature-ing
Where do you go birding in the middle of the summer? With highs at home well into the 90s, Pete, our friend Debbie, and I headed up to Rocky Mountain National Park for four days of cooler temperatures in a spectacular setting.
Colorful Columbine
Envision a woodland garden, and nodding columbine are one of the first plants that comes to mind. With their intricate shapes and rainbow of colors, columbines are deservedly popular perennials.
The original North American columbine species (Aquilegia viridiflora) crossed the Bering Strait from Eurasia, migrating across the land bridge that once connected the two continents. From there, the plants expanded into new territory, evolving into new species as they moved southward. Now there are columbines adapted to every habitat from cool, high mountain meadows to burning deserts. This diversity is a boon for flower lovers; no matter where you live, there’s a columbine for your garden.
July Quiz: Answer
To refresh your memory, here is the photo from July’s Bird Quiz. The bird was seen in Colorado during the month of July. Don’t read any further if you want one last chance to identify this bird.
Garden Advice: Marigold Myths
It sounds too good to be true. Not only are marigolds pretty, but growing in your vegetable garden will protect your harvest from nematodes, beetles, hornworms, whiteflies, squash bugs, thrips, hornworms, and even rabbits. I know it must be so, because I read it on the internet:
- “French marigolds repel whiteflies and kill bad nematodes. Mexican marigolds are said to offend a host of destructive insects and wild rabbits as well.”
- “Annual Marigolds can be used anywhere to deter Mexican bean beetles, squash bugs, thrips, tomato hornworms, and whiteflies. They are also known to repel harmful root knot nematodes (soil dwelling microscopic white worms) that attack tomatoes, potatoes, roses, and strawberries.”
- “Marigolds also repel pests, including beetles and nematodes.”
Gee, if it’s that easy, why not? Marigolds are easy to start from seed, grow quickly, thrive almost anywhere, and produce tons of sunny yellow and orange blooms all summer long.
July Bird Quiz
Can you identify this bird? The photo was taken in Colorado during the month of July. The answer will appear next week.
Weird Spruce Growths
“My spruce tree has brown things all over it! Is it sick?” The caller was quite anxious. He had a beautiful Colorado Blue Spruce growing in his yard, and now it had some sort of weird alien growths at the ends of all the branches. Was it going to die?
Over the years that I volunteered at the master gardener help desk, we would often get calls like this. No, the caller’s tree wasn’t sick, not exactly. Those prickly, cucumber-shaped growths that show up on spruces from time to time are actually galls caused by an insect. They might look peculiar, but they weren’t going to cause significant harm to his spruce.
Mountain Plover 