Month of June 2022: Ecology

“Planting Noah’s Garden: Further Adventures in Backyard” by Sara Stein (1997)

“I know my land will pass into the hands of strangers; even so, I owe them its future.” (p. 59) I love this!

We’ve moved around a lot because of my husband being in the Coast Guard, and I have always left our piece of rent property healthier than when we moved in. I was green and organic way before it became so corrupt and politicized. And when we moved here in 2004, I had my husband purchase a huge 50 pound bag of clover seeds to throw all over the lawn. Call me crazy!

PLANTING NOAH’S GARDEN (1997) is becoming quite the elusive book and hard to find because I believe they are no longer printing it. Abebooks.com currently has 8 copies left, from $10.52-$23.97. I got mine from Thriftbooks.com for $6.89 in May 2022. They only had the one copy. None on Amazon nor at my local library.

This is part gardening memoir of the author’s experience in establishing her own native landscape (a.k.a. heritage landscape) and part gardening reference on how to create your own natural native landscape, whether on a small lot or a huge meadow. The principles are the same. Just work it in small sections at a time, connecting them with paths as time goes by. Her and her husband worked on theirs for years and years. She gives specific step-by-step instructions, and is especially helpful in plant selections if you live up north. She is from New York.

I appreciate and admire her love and obsessive desire on this subject, but, her style of writing was really hard to get through. It seemed too dreamy and, at times, rambling, sometimes even hard to understand where she was coming from. She uses botanical names to properly identify a plant because the common name could be used for more than one species. I spent the time to look up a lot of the plant names she threw down, which was a HUGE amount throughout this book, just to see what she was talking about. Still, I looked forward to getting back to this book each night. She changed my perspective!

One main point she tried to get across to her readers was that wild plants have companions. For example, you will never see a wildflower just growing all alone in dirt. It will be surrounded in a grass. What grass? What kind of dirt? Rocky? Sandy? Wetland? Sunny spot or shady? Near woods? Or on the side of a highway? She then took a sample to research and find the name of the wild plant, grass or flower, then located a nursery or agricultural extension who sold specifically native plants. She took all of these things into consideration before choosing them for her own piece of property.

She has a bit of a sense of humor about herself with some “faulty” gardening skills that resemble my own….like watering….and like actually getting the plant in the ground after it arrives.

She’s just like me in that she has gazelle focus intensity when it comes to researching a new plant out and finding everything she can about it! She spent months and months researching purple lovegrass. Scouring through books and magazines. She finally found a nursery across the U.S. who actually sold it and purchased some. Planted it. Her dream was finally realized. Then...it died…because she didn’t water it. Ha!

She would also order native seeds with good intentions of planting those seeds, but never did. I came across an unusual plant, the morenga tree, and researched it to death. I found that the leaves are super healthy and good for making teas. I said to myself, “I’ll have a small morenga tree orchard. I can dehydrate the leaves for teas. I’ll be healthy and get my greens in.” I ordered me a packet of seeds from far off. This year, Spring 2022, going through my seed packets, I pulled out a package of morenga seeds dated 2015. I decided to plant a few in small pots, watered them for a couple of weeks, then didn’t water them. They are still under the carport…the soil hard as a rock. Ha! But, of course, that’s not “native” to Southeast Texas. So NOW my focus has changed to strictly native plants and trees. I just ordered a packet of Red Mulberry seeds.

Planting native trees, grasses, flowers, etc:

1. Notice what is growing wild along your drives in the area that draw your attention.
2. What is it growing along side of?
3. What kind of soil?
4. How & where would such a plant fit in your landscape?
5. Does the plant thrive in alkaline or acidic soil? WHAT IS MY SOIL?

MISCELLANEOUS NOTES

OAK TREES

Oak leaves make the perfect mulch because they are porous, unlike maple tree leaves, which crust as hard as cardboard by the time spring rolls around. Not much can be planted around the maple tree because of its shallow surface roots sucking up all the moisture and nutrition from the soil. Thank God I have nothing but oak trees!

Oak trees grow easily from acorns. Collect and place in baggies with moist peat moss in the fridge. Once one acorn sprouts, remove it and split the root. Place in container where the roots only get air…no dirt. The tip stops growing and a more fibrous root system develops. When oak seedling gets 6”, then transplant to “browserproof, hothouse sort of commercially available translucent plastic tube called a tree shelter”. [What’s this?] p. 209. By end of summer, the oak is 4’ and can be planted in yard. Okay….so I don’t understand this at all, but just encase one day I do get it, then it is right here.

WEED KILLER

I have discovered kudzu growing here on Hoo Hoo Acres in the back five, covering a hill of elderberries, for the first time ever this year (2022). This definitely has to be taken care of.

Unfortunately, Glyphosate (Roundup) is recommended for those highly invasive weeds, vines and trees. BUT, there are other ways to use the weed killer than just haphazardly spraying it everywhere. For large vines and trees, I can actually cut down the vine or tree and paint the weed killer directly onto the fresh cuts. NOTE: This works ONLY with fresh cuts. Do this at the end of the growing season, just before dormancy for the winter, because sap will be heading to the roots instead of up through the vines. OR, I can cut the large vines back now, during height of growing season, and allow new leaves to form at lower level and closer to the ground, then spray the foliage. In this case the foliage absorbs the chemical and feeds the vines, killing it. This second procedure may have to be repeated a couple of times to fully kill the invasive weed.

POISON IVY

When we first moved here, I spent hours and hours pulling down Tarzan vines of poison ivy out of all my trees, and later spent miserable weeks and weeks caring for blisters all over my body. We did this year after year until it was all gone. Now, I learn that poison ivy does not smother and kill trees and are super beneficial for migrating birds. The vines climb upwards in a forest, or up a tree, because they cannot create berries or blossoms until they get to the tops of trees and make contact with light. Migrating birds depend on these berries and blossoms as they are migrating back down south. Not only that, down here in Southeast Texas, where we hardly have a colorful fall, poison ivy leaves trailing up evergreen oaks provide the most beautiful yellow, orange and red fall colors.

AN OUT-OF-PRINT BOOK THE AUTHOR LEARNED A LOT FROM

“Seed Germination Theory and Practice” by Norman Deno (1993). No longer in print. Can be downloaded free from Garden Fundamentals website:

https://www.gardenfundamentals.com/seed-germination-dr-deno/

OTHER BOOKS BY THIS AUTHOR

“My Weeds: A Gardener’s Botany” (1988)

"Noah's Garden: Restoring the Ecology of Our Own Backyards" (1993)...Yes! I ordered through Thriftbooks.com for $5.99. It's on it's way! ( )

The author travels beyond her own garden to report on the many ad diverse ways i which people in all parts of the country are working to undo the damage and help restore their backyard ecosystems. First half of book provides inspiration, the second half provides very specific descriptions if the ways they can take the steps to transform their own gardens and landscapes..