Studiology

We Have Monarchs

While weeding my way through the garden I discovered monarch caterpillars, yay and yipee! Despite my repeated planting of Asclepias curassavica or the Mexican milkweed, I had not a one monarch baby last year, this year there's scads.  

What this means is a cease and desist on any more weeding to protect larvae that have moved onto the chrysalis stage. From this generation, the fourth and last one to mature (in September), we will have the monarchs that fly to Mexico as adults and live over winter. Fortunately the Mexican milkweed will seed and volunteer itself, a good thing because I suspect that I will need every leaf to feed these hungry hoards. 

New Art Delivery

Tomorrow, Thursday the 28th of August, I will be delivering new art work to Art A La Carte. The new sketch book holder is titled "Let the Good Times Roll" or "Laissez les Bon Temps Roulez". I wanted a worn wood look, light on the paint, heavy on the crusty. 

The interior and back are covered in tapestry fabric.

The new altered Pez dispenser is Frankenstein. I'm working on his wife.

And lastly are these new talking heads, made of various materials including ceramic, some have glass eyes and all have a string that works the mouth. They're great fun to play with, perfect for expelling frustrations. As assemblage art, this technique is Michael deMeng inspired.

 

TV Show and Free Lectures

Starting in September I will be giving a few lectures at Merrifield Gardens. Here is the schedule, these are free with no registration requirements, classes begin at 10:00 AM. 

September 6

"Annuals and Perennials for Fall" at the Gainesville location. 

An hour long presentation with show and tell to better your fall garden. I will talk about putting plants together in the garden based on some of my own winning combinations. 

September 13

"Fabulous Fall Container Gardens" at the Fair Oaks location.

As many of you know, I put together many of the containers at the Fair Oaks location. I take great pride in the results and will share some techniques for different containers and exposures for fall  and winter.

September 27

"Photography and Flowers" at the Gainesville location.

This hour and a half presentation is designed to give you creative ideas for photographing your garden and flowers. If you like taking pictures this is a must see lecture. 

The Merrifield TV show airs every Saturday morning at 8:00 on Fairfax Channel 8. I will be a guest speaker August 16th with an entire show on pollination. The highlight of this show is my night garden and this August has been the best month I've ever seen with spectacular blooms. If you are unable to pickup channel 8, click the link to see past shows.

On August 30th I will return to show fall flowers with a special focus on dahlias, which ones to buy (for heat tolerance) and how to store them for winter. 

Angel's Trumpets

August has been a very good month for angel's trumpets or brugmansia. Within in the next couple of days I may have over 100 flowers on one plant, something I've achieved only once before. Our cooler  summer temperatures are part of the reason since brugmansias prefer temperatures between 60 and 75 degrees to produce buds. The other reason for this bonanza of flowers is the age of my plant, saved from last summer, it's every bit of 5 feet tall and wide.

My particular plant is Brugmansia 'Frosty Pink', a single pink and white that is floriferous and relatively easy to find, often sold as a generic pink. Each flower lasts a couple of days when temperatures are warm, as long as a week when it's cooler. Like many of the new hybrids, the bud may begin as yellow or white and change to pink as it opens. I find that this particular hybrid is from Brugmansia versicolor, one of only seven species and native to Ecuador. All seven species are native to South America, tropical and therefore happiest with daily watering's (and feedings) in the summer months. 

Best growth is often achieved when they're planted in the ground. Truth is they are very top heavy in a container. My plant is in a raised bed, four feet wide, filled with rich compost. When it comes time to save my plant for next year, which should be done when temperatures dip into the the high 40's, I will cut back the branches and pot it directly into a large tub. Brugmansia can be stored in a dimly lit room, watered occasionally and checked for bugs. With minimal leaves, brugmansia can survive enough to plant again come late spring. I say minimal leaves because they tend to draw white fly and aphids, so instead of spraying, I just remove leaves that show signs of bugs.

Brugmansia is closely related to datura, both are poisonous, datura more so. The most obvious difference between the two is how the flowers are held. Brugmansia holds its flowers down, datura up. We have a naturally occurring datura, D. stramonium which has many common names,  Jimson Weed, Hell's Bells and Devil's Weed. The flowers are white flushed purple, small, not nearly as showy with subsequent purple, prickly, seed pods. It's been said that jimson weed is a derivation of Jamestown Weed, from early settlers ingesting the plant and suffering from hallucinations.

For me the joy of brugmansia comes from the strong night fragrance which is best in August, the month with the most flowers. It's the time of year when our gardens can be tired and dry, matched only by our own desire to see summer come to an end. For me, summer could go on and on because each night gives me a reason to celebrate.

Two Bad Summer Bugs

With the colder than average winter, I thought maybe some bug populations might be down. That was especially so when I saw the Japanese Anemone develop buds and maybe bloom after years and years of decimation by the blister beetle. Well, they're back!, and eating like there's no tomorrow. 

Clematis are their other favorite and feeding occurs on the underside of the leaf, so it's often hard to find blister beetles. They can cause a blister if squashed on your skin but I will add that after years of dealing with them, I haven't ever been blistered. 

The species that feeds here in Virginia is Epicauta funebris or the margined blister beetle. Not entirely bad, the larvae feed on grasshopper eggs. There are well over 350 species of blister beetles, many with red coloring and much nastier blisters. One of my favorite summer sports is snipping them with my clippers which is A: very difficult, therefore, B: fun. If you are really good and can snip their heads off, death seems to be instant, which is difficult when their usually hiding on the undersides of leaves. And I swear they do some kind of little beetle scream, warning the others because after the first one, it gets harder and harder. Their favorite survival technique (to avoid the snippers), is to drop to the ground. Based on this I developed my second favorite way to kill them, a bowl of water mixed with something a little caustic, like strong soap and slipped under the plant. If you just shake the plant, they drop. It's not possible to kill them all, but a reduction certainly helps out the other plants. 

The other summer pest is sawfly. First appearing in late June, the larvae prefer to feed on mugo pines but will attack numerous other needled plants. The culprit is the European Pine Sawfly which is actually the larvae of a non-stinging wasp. 

It's not unusual to have plants stripped in just a couple of days. I have found that June  and early July is the first period to look for them and late summer is another. A very good product for treatment is anything that contains Spinosad, which is a bacteria that effects them and nothing else. Spray the needles that they will be feeding on rather than the larvae itself. 

The colder winter did effect some bug populations, one of which is the stink bug. Unfortunately they are busy making up for the loss as I have seen lots of young ones. For that we need more answers!

New Collage Work

I'm delivering some new art to Art A La Carte which will include these small 6 x 6" collages on wood. Most of them are kind of garden themed (no surprise), and I'm really happy with how they came together. 

In the mean time I'm working hard on some really cool stuff for September and October. I'm planning a whole new kind of thing in September so stay tuned.

Reasons to Love August

August is the best month for the night garden followed by the second best month, September. In the night garden the flowers open as the sun sets and all are powerfully fragrant, more so as the night progresses. I plant every night scented plant I can get my hands on, so August nights are pretty spectacular. This past week the show really started as tuberose, acidanthera, and moonvine joined the others with summer flowers. There's literally so much fragrance at night that it lasts well into the morning, wafting about and reminding everyone that August is grand! 

As each evening begins with new flowers, I have been testing the various fragrances. My testing is from about 8:30 to 10:00 P:M, a better test would be at 3:00 A:M. Maybe one night I'll be out there in my PJs for a more official scent test. In the meantime I have made a little list of the fragrances, mind you I'm not an expert, but they are definately very different. If I had to live with just one, it would be the tuberose. Magnificent only begins to describe the fragrance which is so heady, it stays with you as you walk away. I prefer the single tuberoses only because they are so simple and elegant in flower. The tuberose is indeed a tuber, a native of Mexico, in our climate you have to dig them up and store them dry. 

Acidanthera is a corm that goes by many names. In the gladiolus family, it can be found as Gladiolus murielae and the peacock orchid. Very inexpensive, buy 100 and you will have flowers all summer. I occasionally dig them up in fall to store and replant the following year. The fragrance is sweet and light.

Datura is closely related to brugmansia, in this case the flowers are held upwards. Datura metel is the most common species, reseeding from year to year. It can become a pest but a thick layer of mulch will inhibit it. I find the fragrance lemony, like citrus.

Brugmansia becomes a shrub. I dug and stored mine from last year and it's five feet tall and wide this August. Commonly known as angel trumpet, deadly poisonous (hence the name), like datura. There are many, many hybrids, even a few with flowers that last for more than one day/night. My plant is Brugmansia 'Frosty Pink' which opens white and turns pink the second day. The fragrance is sweet in a heavy way.

Nicotiana alata is my stalwart. A happy reseeder or volunteer, as long as I don't lay on the compost too heavy or cover with mulch. Over the years I have nicotiana return in the hundreds. The fragrance is spicy and sweet, just luscious!

Moonvine is a tropical vine that loves summer waterings. When it's happy, there is massive growth, I suspect it could reach twenty feet high. The flowers have just begun and has summer progresses there will be more and more. Each flower can be five to six inches across and the fragrance is heady and sweet. 

Very easy to grow from seed, and I mean VERY easy. Just provide a large support or fence, maybe  not too tall so you can get close and personal with the flowers. 

So there's six reasons to love the August garden, plant them all and it's the best month of the year.