Subtle changes are evident as leaves are beginning to change. Most of the garden is tired, the energy is directed towards seed, unless you grow a few select salvias. Another spin around the gardener's clock brought me back to Salvia mexicana and S. leucantha, two that grow and grow until the days shorten in fall before they even consider blooming. I bought three of each and watered them this summer, even though they come from a place where a dry season would have occupied much of their growing days. In this spoiled state they have grown to eight feet and five feet with an almost equal spread, swallowing all around them, to the delight of hummingbirds.
Salvia mexicana is barely beginning, this snapshot gives only a hint of the show that is about to begin. The deep blue flowers emerge from a bright green calyx. With eight foot floral stalks, it will be incredible!
By chance I found a polyphemus moth building a cocoon one day on a small maple. It takes only two weeks for the adult to emerge and within that same day, the female emits a pheromone to lure a male. Their life cycle is about five days, with much of that time spent laying eggs. As I kept an eye on the cocoon, I was fortunate enough to find the mating pair shortly after she hatched. In moth size, they are huge. Sadly, I also watched her die in a time period that was less than a week. Hopefully, if all goes right, I will see many more emerge next year from maple leaves that will fall to the ground for winter. Another reason to keep your leaves where they fall, late in the season.
September also included participation in the Virginia Native Plant Society's Annual Meeting in Harrisonburg, VA. A three-day event, fieldtrips to rare habitats included Cowbane Prairie, a nature preserve in Stuarts Draft, Virginia. Portions of the preserve are wet prairie, home to Filipendula rubra or Queen of the Prairie, we were greeted by waves of goldenrod with a few surprises tucked between, it was too late in the season for the Queen.
The primary pollinator of closed gentian are bumblebees, which buzz loudly as they struggle to open the flowers. The lure, the reason to even attempt entry, is for the sugary nectar.
Our next fieldtrip was to the Mount Joy Pond Natural Area Preserve in Raphine, Virginia. A very rare sinkhole and home to some rare native plants. Our guide was John Townsend, a senior botanist for the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation and he knew the site well. After a recent burn and targeted logging, the sassafras trees were responding to increased sunlight and just beginning to turn color for fall, they were gorgeous.
The primary focus is on restoring the pond, which has dwindled due to an overabundance of maples, which are essentially sucking the area dry. The fires have no effect on the oaks and help pinecones open to drop seed. This preserve is home to a rare sneezeweed (currently endangered), Helenium virginicum, which had finished flowering, but we did find a small, late flower.
complete with a small crap spider
To understand the practice of botanizing, it helps to see the scale in which one might be working. A very small dodder (which is a parasitic vine that sucks nutrients from surrounding plants without ever rooting into the ground), was found on site as it wrapped around a Stachys hyssopifolium or hedge nettle. The tiny flowers are from the dodder, which number 9 species in Virginia. And clearly one that is very, very small.
The weather forecast is for a week of rain, which I'm sure will help a bit on this site. Just prior to this trip I planted 2 plug trays of natives in my own front field (100 plants), so there will be no complaints about the rain. Especially when I was shoveling directly into shale. Good luck guys!