SHRIEK! Invasion of the Cave/Camel Crickets

From In the Garden

Shriek! Scream! Help! Can you hear me now? Perhaps not but if you had been any where near my little town in Tennessee you may have heard my shrieks when I encountered some cave crickets in my outside storage shed. It wasn't so much the cave crickets themselves, but the fact that when I ventured to move this axe they were resting on they jumped-at me and everywhere else! Panic! I am not normally a squeamish type of person-hey I've been to Iraq where the guys caught scorpions and centipedes and let them fight it out in an 'arena' and it never bothered me. I squish grubs bare handed and have run into many insects in the garden that usually have no effect on me but these prehistoric things creeped me out.

Mr. Fix-it helped me to identify these crickets. At first he thought they may have been mole crickets; which would have been just as bad. Upon further research we have identified them as cave/camel crickets. Cave/camel crickets like dark and damp areas. They do not chirp and can barely see-figures since they live in caves. My outdoor building is similar to a cave since it is dark and damp due to all the recent rains. In fact the shed was so dark I did not know what kind of insects these really were until my flash caught their mugs. The cave crickets must find the area to their liking because there were quite a few of them. Each time I would open the shed door I would hear a rustling and some movement-creepy. I just chocked it up to the field mice because we also have them in the shed. Nope, not on this day. It was the crickets and my oh my do they ever scuttle and make some intimidating noises! And don't disturb them-if you do be prepared to shriek and run because it is not a pleasant sight to have these ugly things jumping at you....

in the garden....I'm still shaking from my encounter! Grasshoppers have nothing on these fellas! But hubby says they would make good fishing bait. Perhaps he'll go take them away?? Nah, he's busy in his gargage-no crickets there:)

Too Many Straight Bladed Plants-Time for a Redesign & Blue Star Memorial

From In the Garden

Too many straight bladed plants? Can you have too many? This is how my 'Rear Sidewalk Garden' looked in May of this year. It is not too bad really, but when you look at it now can you see the problem?

From In the Garden

You don't have to look too hard to see it, that's for sure. The issue is with all the straight bladed plants-too many of them so there is no contrast and interest in this garden and other plants are crowded. Back in May the straight bladed plants were well behaved and actually did not look half bad, but now they don't look so good. They've had a really good year and have grown beyond their bounds and are crowding one another and other plants in this garden. Believe it or not these are not all the same types of plants. Starting from the left next to the peony there is a mystery iris, then gladiolus, scads of 'Lucifer' crocosmia, and finally an ornamental plume grass. Too much straight blade overload for me so it was time for a rework. I will not even tell you the story of how this mess occurred but it had something to do with trying to plant the right plant in the right spot-namely a sunny area. I forgot about the surrounding plants being the same type:( Fortunately the situation can be fixed rather simply.

From In the Garden

I dug divided and replanted the irises a bit further away from the peony. I'll be posting on them Monday because I need some help identifying them. I completely removed the glads and the crocosmia. They have found homes in pots for the time being. I then added a catmint plant and stood back to look at my work. I like it so much more now that most of the straight bladed plants are gone. I did leave the ornamental plume grass as a focal point in the center of the bed as a divider. This garden looks completely different on the other side of it but we'll perhaps save that picture for another post.

From In the Garden

What you don't see are the pink lady bulbs under the soil. If you look in the first picture you can see the foliage that looks pretty nice in May. The picture above actually shows the pink lady bulbs in bloom in July. They are a bit crowded and lost aren't they? Yes, it was indeed time for a rework and redesign in this 'Rear Sidewalk Garden'. Now that the straight bladed plants have been removed all the remaining plants have some breathing room and room to shine....

in the garden....

Any gardening design issues you are working on this fall?

Remember when I posted on the Blue Star Memorial Marker in January? Monday marks the dedication of Clarksville's very own Blue Star Memorial Marker. All three garden clubs will be represented. The bugler and color guard from Fort Campbell will also be present. As a veteran of three wars and a member of one of these garden clubs (Beachaven) I am most proud this dedication has come to fruition. Many thanks to all who worked on the project in all three (Beachaven, Clarksville, and Les Candides) garden clubs. As a personal note I'd like to thank Peggy, Lola and Sandy for working on the project as part of the committee to plan the dedication. I'd also like to thank Lola's husband (Harold) for getting the bugler and color guard to participate. Hope to see you all there, Monday 10:30 at the Montgomery County Courthouse. Come show your support for the veterans AND the gardeners (us!) just in time for Veteran's Day.

Speaking of veterans, it is with great sadness we learn of the shootings at Fort Hood. I remember when this happened at Fort Bragg in 1995 (one killed and 20 wounded) and I can tell you it is a terrible thing for soldiers everywhere to think they can be targeted while on base and doing normal everyday activities. It is an especially horrific thing for these days in this time of war. Such a senseless loss for us all.

Periwinkle and Vinca

By Skeeter

On Tuesday, I talked about my Volunteer Periwinkle. I made the mistake of calling it Vinca Minor. If you go to this Web Site, you will see why I called it Vinca Minor. This site's Classification reads,

Genus: Vinca L - Periwinkle
Species: Vinca Minor - Common Periwinkle.

This site also says this is a vine plant. I do have the vine plant of Vinca in my Georgia Gardens as you can see in the above and below pictures. Now, if you go to this Web Site, you will see that Vinca Major seems to be the same plant as Vinca Minor! The classification reads,

Genus: Vinca L-Periwinkle
Species: Vinca Major-Bigleaf Periwinkle.

And notice this is the same source Web Site! Are you as confused as I now? I have since removed the word Minor in Tuesdays posting.

The Blogger "How It Grows" was the first one to step in with assistance on this issue. Second came "Mothernaturesgarden" with only writing the words, Catharanthus Roseus. I finally found time to search Catharanthus Roseus and this site reads,

Genus: Catharanthus
Species: C. Roseus
Synonyms: Vinca Rosea
English names: Cape Periwinkle, Rose Periwinkle, Rosy Periwinkle and Old Maid.

Okay are we straight now? Ha, I am now more confused then ever but as with all plants, I know there are more then one called the same thing. The tag on the plant that I purchased says, Periwinkle/Vinca for the continuous flowers plants. There was no tag for the Ground cover plant I have as it was taken from my parents house and they told me it was called Vinca. So to keep things straight in the future, I will call my Catharanthus Roseus, Periwinkle.

In the above pictures you see the Vinca which is a ground cover creeping all over the place in my shade garden. I have planned a posting for it for months but it keeps getting pushed back for other topics. I had planned to get a topic on it today but since the confusion and my research, I decided to once again push that topic aside for now. I will get it up soon though...Here is how my Periwinkle got started as Volunteers in my gardens. I had thought this planter had been talked about at In the Garden but when looking back to link it, I did not find one. Ha, I sometimes wonder how I manage to keep a household running smoothly when things such as this happen. This area in the corner of my yard was bare and a pain to keep mowed so a planter came to mind. Free Bricks from a construction sight work well as planters. This picture was snapped after planting my first Periwinkle in April 2005. I count 15 plants which was way more then this planter needed but it was my first planting and I learned my lesson. Two months later, they were filling in for me. I don't have another picture of them that first year but they outgrew the planter!
Here is a close up of the Pink and White blooms.
The following year, I planted Red Periwinkle in the planter. The white and pink you see are from self seeding.
The color Purple was added on another year.
And here is another planter full of Volunteer colors as Red was the color planted that year. This planter was cleared of Periwinkle for new Castle Rock sides and to become my Pepper Planter this year. We had some yummy peppers but I missed the flower blooms. However, I had plenty of blooms from the seeds that jumped outside this planter.
Here are the results of some of those jumping seeds from planters onto the ground. OJ kitty enjoys them with me.Back to the Triangle Planter, you see this years growth. Only the dark pink Periwinkle were planted by me. The remainder of the seedlings you see are Volunteers from self seeding from years past plants! I keep telling myself I am not going to plant any new slips but they are so slow to pop up for me and I want color sooner then the seeds please me. Maybe next year I will not plant any new slips and just be a patient gardener.
Look at how thick they were. I had to take out many seedlings and toss them into the compost pile as I had no more energy left to transplant them in the Georgia heat! They may be slow to get from seeds to seedlings but once that heat gets to them, they grow really fast.

Look at the shapes of the blooms in these two pictures. the one on the left looks a bit pointed at the ends while the one one the right looks more fan shaped. Different flowers but are they the same flowers? Hum, did you understand the question? Same Species or not? Here is a closer peek at what I am talking about. The smaller pale pink looks pointed as does the bloom below it while the white bloom on the top and very bottom look fan shaped. And I never planted a Pale Pink Periwinkle. I think the dark and lighter pinks cross breed so I made my own pale pink flowers with the help of bees and butterflies!
Looking at the wider picture, maybe my eyes see the new blooms standing tall and pointed while the older blooms are starting to curl, thus loosing their points. Hum...
Here you see Bright Pink, Light Pink, White and Purple blooms happily together. Only one color was planted here, hum, which one? I am guessing the Bright Pink as those blooms are larger then the others. Wrong! These are all self seeders!
Here is a pretty good example of the glossy green foliage of the Periwinkle.
And here is a picture I snapped yesterday of the planter! Way over loaded with plants after having many plucked, transplanted and tossed.
Look at the color remaining in my corner planters on November 4. I have a mirror image of this planter on the opposite side of the house front. I am not looking forward to our first frost as they will all go bye bye then. They should still be with us a bit longer as the little pods have yet to pop open and scatter seeds for me. On a happy note, I know they will return again next year!

I enjoy my PERIWINKLE AND VINCA, In the Garden...

Note: Thanks to "How it Grows" and "Mothernaturesgarden" for the information and getting my brain to dig deeper...

Lightening Struck Tree Trunk and Seed Swap

From In the Garden

I posted about my 'problem trees' on Monday and spoke of a tree we thought got hit by lightening. I have been trying to figure out if that was indeed the problem with no luck. All the information I can find on lightening strikes says the liquid inside of trees is instantly heated to an extreme temperature that usually causes the tree to explode in some manner or form. This was not the case with this tree. No instantaneous loss of limbs or explosion or even loss of bark occurred in a sudden manner. The tree did lose limbs and bark over a period of about two years but the first thing that was noticeable was the sudden browning of the full canopy of leaves. I just assumed it died due to the drought of 2007.

When the tree was finally cut down though I noticed an awful lot of charring in the center of the tree. It would appear the tree did take a lightening hit that traveled down the core of the tree to its very roots. What do you all think?

in the garden....

Dirt Princess at Trials and Tribulations of a Southern Gardener is hosting a seed swap. She is asking us to post on the seeds we have to swap then link the post back to Mr. Linky on her blog. I have the following seeds available to swap: cleome, nicotiana, orange cosmos, purple columbine, tall maroon hollyhocks, pink 4 O'Clocks, annual red salvia, and perhaps a few more I am not sure of right now. Sorry. I really need to label better. So if you all want to participate-all are welcomed not only bloggers-go check out Mr. Linky. My email address is located on this blog if interested in these seeds.

Volunteers

By Skeeter

I love Volunteers in my Georgia Garden! Not Volunteers such as a person helping me pull weeds, as I don't have any of those Volunteers. I have Volunteers in the form of Flowers which pop up without me planting them. From my office window, you can see such Volunteers in my Butterfly Bush Island.
Every one of these Periwinkle, Vinca flowers popped up on their own from reseeding themselves in another planter within my yard.
I simply plucked a few of the slips from that planter and transplanted them here and look at the show! I will allow these to reseed in this spot next year and provide me with an abundance of color all summer long until the first frost!

The perfect continuous blooming flower for me and nothing beats a VOLUNTEER, In the Garden...

Problem Trees Coming Down and Limbing Up

From In the Garden

Trees in the garden are a must for me. I thank my lucky stars every single day that Mr. Fix-it and I were able to find a home with mature hardwood trees on the property. We are blessed with oaks, black gums, eastern red cedars, maples, a hickory, dogwoods, and wild cherries. I have also planted many other trees on the property that include: crabapples, crepe myrtles, redbuds, a spicebush, viburnums, Japanese maples, and a silverbell. Did I say we have only one acre? It is a small lot for all of these trees to be sure but I have worked very hard to balance the taller trees with the understory trees. All the trees I have planted are smaller trees and mostly understory trees so the tree situation works fairly well. I am finally getting to a point that I can say I am mostly happy with the mix here at Tiger Gardens but with all the trees we have here it is inevitable some will have problems. To fine tune the mix of trees and take care of the problem trees we recently hired some professional tree trimmers. What is the issue with problem trees? And why should they be tended to?

Taking down mature trees is never an easy thing to do, but when you have a tree that has damage or has died it should come down. Additionally, if that tree is likely to hit something (target) when it falls it should be removed immediately. It is much better to spend the money taking the tree down on your terms than on Mother Nature's terms. Now on to my problem trees.
Moving into this house eight years ago we could barely find the ground let alone trees or even our way out of this jungle. The house had been empty for four months during the growing season and had not seen any maintenance in that time. If that wasn't bad enough, the previous two homeowners were not gardeners. Oh sure there were a few perennials here and there (hostas, daylilies, irises, lily of the valley, and sedum to be exact) but the homeowners never seemed to have cut the lawn or maintained the trees. The place was a mess and had at least three dead trees and many more saplings growing everywhere when we first moved in.

The first order of business was to remove all the small saplings we were able to remove on our own. Mr. Fix-it must have cut down a hundred large and small trees himself but some of the trees were beyond his capabilities. We hired a professional tree trimmer and had half a dozen more trees cut down over the years. This included the dead trees and some other trees that were growing in the wrong spot or too close to more desirable trees. Tree trimmers charge a pretty hefty fee to cut down trees so we had to be most selective with which ones we cut first based on our budget.

One tree I failed to have taken down was a black gum (Nyssa sylvatica) that had been infected with flathead borers. We discovered the borer damage when all of the bark began falling away from the tree trunk soon after we moved in. The damaged trunk is pictured above. I treated the borers by peeling away the bark and physically removing all flathead borers and destroying them. The tree seemed to recover as evidenced by its bark growing back along the edges of the wound, but never fully regained its glory. It became a problem tree and had to be removed.

Since this black gum was within 10 feet of Mr. Fix-it's garage and in and amongst many gardens it had to be limbed prior to it coming down. Removing large limbs is a must to ensure a smooth drop into a small area. Here is our tree trimmer (Dan) in a bucket truck safely removing the limbs for the gum tree. The huge tree fell perfectly and is now gone. This was not a job we could safely do ourselves. I can't stress enough that safety if vitally important when dealing with large trees on a property.
Another problem tree was a mature oak tree that we think got struck by lightening at some point in 2007. I don't know when that could have happened though since that year we saw a severe drought and not too many thunder and lightening storms. Ironic huh? It completely died and had lost almost all of its limbs over the past two years. We are most lucky if did not come down before now. It had to go because it was a problem tree. It too was limbed and then dropped right between the gardens in front of you.

The last thing we had done was to get some trees limbed up. I am a big proponent of limbing up. There is nothing worse than walking or mowing your lawn and running into tree branches. A bit of ducking out of the way while driving a riding lawnmower does not make for a happy camper. My neighbor does it every time he cuts his yard and it is kind of amusing for me but probably not for him when he is getting whacked by low limbs while mowing the lawn. Anyone else have that problem? Ducking and bending to avoid low tree limbs?

I have a chainsaw 'on a stick' and I spend a lot of time during the winter limbing up trees so I don't have to duck and dive while walking or mowing the lawn. I am always sure to cut all the way back to the tree trunk and I make sure not to cut into the tree trunk when I cut limbs. When the cut is clean and done properly the tree heals the wound by growing bark over the opening. It takes a period of a few years but it does happen. I had gone as far as I could go with my chainsaw on a stick with these mature oak trees on the southern side of our property. I now needed some professional help to take off some heavy limbs. The tree trimmers worked in a tight spot to make sure the limbs did not hit the wisteria arbor or my chain link fence on the other side of the arbor. I am so thrilled with the change! The garden can now get more sun, no one will be running in to limbs, and the beautiful views are opened up. I think the trees actually look better and are happier as well. I can tell you some of the limbs that were removed were interfering with my neighbor's parking area and still others were hanging close to our power lines.

The trees are all much happier losing some of those lower limbs and what a difference limbing up has made for the garden and light in the garden. Removing problem trees was also a very smart move because they were problem trees....

in the garden....

P.S. We had four trees cut down this time (including one in the neighbor's yard that was threatening our garage) but I have to admit (gladly) that I recently planted four more trees-though not gigantic monsters like cherries, gums and oaks. Cut a tree-plant a tree is my motto.

While cutting trees the butterflies were flying like crazy despite it being the end of October. I asked Mr. Fix-it which butterfly picture he liked best. I guess I should not be surprised he likes the long pictures 'because they show the big picture'. He chose the first picture showing two butterflies along with the lantana and beautyberry in the background. I have tons of monarch pictures I am just itching to post so expect more in the future. The garden is still green here and butterflies are still around. Fall is taking a long time to settle in to my area here in Tennessee-a good thing!

Watch Out for Those Creepy Crawlies...

From In the Garden

Watch out for the creepy crawlies while you are enjoying your Halloween....

in the garden....

P.S. I have tentatively identified this grasshopper as a two banded grasshopper. If anyone knows something different please do let me know.

W2W in Florida has done a much better job of identifying my grasshopper than me. I now believe it to be an American Bird Grasshopper thanks to her information. Thanks W2W!