Nature

The thing we have a lot of on Glen.

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More Flower Power – Our Virtual Garden Tour

This is an update on what’s blooming on Glen Road.  The big news this week is that it is peonies and roses that have opened their buds for all to see.  While there are a few other bloomers out in the garden, it is easy to lose track of them due to the utter beauty of the peonies and roses.  This year there are more peonies open than ever before and the roses that we have are full and lush in their blooms.  So sit back and take a virtual garden tour with us and take a look at what’s blooming in the gardens here on Glen Road.

Hope you enjoyed our little virtual garden tour.  The weather is very hot here in Connecticut now so it is time to start watering during the early morning and later evening hours.  Even then it is hard to keep everything looking so fresh and lush.  Let’s hope we can squeeze a few more days or weeks of beauty out of these gorgeous peonies and roses.  It will be a shame if we can’t.  What’s blooming in your neck of the woods?

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Tulips In A Tree

This is one of our favorite trees on Glen Road.  No picture can really do it justice in showing its height and how majestic it stands.  The tree is a Tulip tree, Liriodendron tulipifera.  It is also called a yellow poplar, tulip poplar, tulip magnolia or a white wood.  The Tulip tree is native to the eastern U.S. and is the state tree of Indiana and Tennessee.  Here on Glen Road, our Tulip tree stands very straight and very, very tall, until you get to the top.  At the top of the tree, there is a spot where the main trunk has a bend in it before it starts to grow straight again.  We have been told this is most likely where the tree was struck by lightning.

The Tulip tree is one of the tallest trees in the forest.  It may live 200 years.  The tree is deciduous, meaning it loses its leaves on a seasonal basis.  The Tulip tree is usually 70-90 feet tall.  However, it has been known to reach more than 180 feet tall.  The large, cup-shaped flowers don’t appear until the tree is between 15 and 25 years old.  The flowers are hard to see when in the tree because they grow high above the ground.  It is only when the wind blows them down that we are able to get a close-up view.

The Tulip tree leaf is simple and is shaped something like the outline of a Dutch tulip.  It is bright green on the top and paler green underneath.  In the Fall, it turns pale yellow.  The flower is perfect.  This means that it has both male and female parts.  It has green petals with orange splotches at the bottom.  The flowers appear in late May or early June.  In the Fall, the tree will drop its fruit.  The cone-shaped fruit is made up of clusters of samaras.  Each samara holds two seeds.  When the fruit dries and opens, the samaras scatter, carrying the seeds on the wind.

Tulip trees are very weak-wooded.  This means the limbs often break during ice and wind storms.  It is a good thing that our Tulip tree is near the end of the driveway and not near the house.  The wood is light yellow and very easy to carve.  That is why the wood is used today for crates, musical instruments, toys and roof shingles.

As we’ve said before, we love to grow unique plants here on Glen Road.  While we didn’t plant our Tulip tree, we are so glad that it is here.  Do you have any interesting trees or plants growing on your property that you can share with us here on Acorns On Glen?

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Flower Power

This is an update on what’s blooming here in the garden on Glen Road.  It seems the early Spring bloomers are already spent and so now it is time to move on to our early Summer/late Spring group.  This group is led by the beautiful peonies that are just starting to pop open after some warm weather and plenty of rain early in their growth.  There are also some plants that are blooming that we can’t name.  They have been here at Glen Road longer than we have, so if you know what they are, let us know.  So sit back and enjoy our gallery of late Spring bloomers.

We hope you liked our little garden tour.  Seeing these beautiful blooms makes all the effort seem worth it.  Again, we wish someone could invent something that makes these flowers last year round.  Seems like such a waste for them to be around for such a short amount of time.  What’s blooming in your neck of the woods?

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A Snake Sighting And Then A House For Sale

This was my surprise waiting for me in the garden.  Every time I screamed, it would slither off into the woods.  I would then run into the house, gather my courage and slowly go back outdoors.  There it would be–back in the same place in the garden.  We completed the same screaming, running, returning cycle about three times.  Remember, I don’t really like critters.  Remember the beaver, the chipmunks, the birds?  Why is God doing this to me?

I finally decided to be a man and go out and garden and pretend it wasn’t there.  I would even take pictures of the garter snake (see, I knew what kind of snake it was).  I would name it.  Lenny, that’s a good name.  I’ve read that if something has a name and a face, it is less threatening.  I decided I would even do some research to find out more about my reptile friend.  Here is some of my research:

The Garter snake is a Colubrid snake genus (Thamnophis) common across North America, ranging from Alaska and Canada to Central America.  It is the single most widely distributed genus of reptile in North America.  The garter snake is also the Massachusetts state reptile (I no longer like Boston).  Garter snakes are widespread throughout North America.  The common garter snake (Thamnophis sirtalis) is the only species of snake to be found in Alaska and is believed to be one of the northernmost species of snake in the world.  The genus is so far ranging due to its unparticular diet and adaptability to different biomes and landforms, with varying proximity to water.  Garter snakes, like all snakes, are carnivorous. Their diet consists of almost any creature that they are capable of overpowering:  slugs, earthworms, leeches, lizards, amphibians, birds, fish, toads and rodents (thank God that Yorkies weren’t on the list!). When living near the water, they will eat other aquatic animals.  Food is swallowed whole (similar to how several of my friends eat).  Garter snakes often adapt to eat whatever they can find, and whenever, because food can be scarce or abundant.

By the end of the day, Lenny had slithered off and I didn’t see him again.  I know he is out there, but I haven’t seen him.  As long as he is out there eating mice and bad bugs, I’ll get used to knowing that a garter snake slithers among us here at Glen Road.  I don’t like it, but I’ll get used to it.  I mean, it’s not like Mother Nature issues restraining orders.  I’m calm now.  I’m going outside to pull the ‘For Sale’ sign out of the front lawn.  Do you have any ideas on how to keep snakes as far away as possible from you, your house and your garden?

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Espalier Haircut Event

This is another story about our espalier apple grove…all two of our trees.  Earlier this week, we wrote that we noticed that our Malus ‘Liberty’ was looking a little overgrown compared to its new cousin Malus ‘Gravenstein’.  In other words, we noticed that ‘Liberty’ needed a little haircut.  So a good pruning was in order.  Our research had said that the espaliers should be pruned when dormant.  However, since we are new to the pruning process, we decided to wait to see what was growing in a crazy manner and then cut it off.  We just didn’t want to take a risk of cutting something out and realizing later that we had made a bad mistake.  You can see the finished job in the picture above….haircut complete.

When we started our pruning job, we paid close attention to ‘Gravenstein’, which was pruned already, and compared it to ‘Liberty’, which was not.  Notice in these pictures below that ‘Gravenstein’ has leaves that are close to the branch and spurs on the branch and there are no long vertical growths coming out.  If you are asking what a spur is, the best way to describe it is a very short piece of branch where the apple tree flowers and sets fruit.  Pruning encourages the tree to grow more of these fruiting spurs by removing competing suckers and unproductive wood.  A sign of  a well-trimmed espalier is the close-growing leaves without any vertical growth.  ‘Gravenstein’ looked like this.  However, ‘Liberty’ was not in such good shape.  You can see it better in these pictures.

See the growth coming out of the ‘Gravenstein’ spur and main branch?  The leaves are close to the spur and branch and never more than about two inches long.

Here’s crazy cousin ‘Liberty’.  See the vertical growth coming out of the branch.  We pruned all of these vertical baby branches out and only kept close growing leaves near the spurs and branches to promote fruit growing.

Another close up of the foliage on ‘Gravenstein’.  See how tight and close the leaves are?

Another shot of ‘Liberty’.  It doesn’t take much of an expert to see the long growth that needs to be cut off.  Fortunately, none of the growth that needed to be cut off had any baby apples attached.

After pruning all the vertical growth off of ‘Liberty’, both espaliers looked pretty much the same with some beautiful leaves growing not more than two inches off of the main branch or growing spurs.  All it took was some patience, some pruning shears and a barber-like mentality.  No blow dry was necessary.  Are you in the process of pruning any trees in your yard? 

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News From The Garden

This is the progress in the vegetable garden this weekend.  Not much went on, but with all the rain we have been experiencing, a little bit of work is a lot.  We had laid a tray of vegetable plants out last week that were grown under our grow light in the basement, but the rain stopped us from putting them in the ground.  This was probably a good thing as it gave the young plants some time to get used to the weather outside and begin to adapt to the new environment.  Little did the young plants know that they were acclimating to a monsoon-type environment given all the precipitation that occurred last week.  Finally, there was a small break in the weather and we rushed out to put the plants into the soil.  Here is a little taste of what went into the ground.

First, a little cabbage.  We love cabbage and have a great soup recipe that is simple and delicious.

Let’s not forget our cauliflower.  Lots of cauliflower macaroni for our Brooklyn Italian Grandmother to cook.

Are we the only ones that like brussels sprouts?  Boiled and then mixed with salt, pepper and butter.  Simple heaven!

Last, but not least, a spindly looking eggplant.  Hope it makes it!!  We have so many eggplant recipes it is crazy.

The rest of the garden is doing well.  We couldn’t believe that some seeds that we planted last week were already sprouting.  Here are the turnips peeking their heads out of the dirt.

Here are some beets that shot up too.  These are the golden variety.  Does this mean they are tougher than their dark red cousins?

Our lettuce is almost ready for some picking.  If we get a little hot weather, it should grow quickly and be in a salad bowl in no time.  Doesn’t it look good with the raindrops stuck on the leaves?  A little vinegar, some oil and a fork….that’s all we need when the lettuce is ready.

So not a great week for gardening-flowers or vegetables, but we guess Spring is known for lots of wet weather, right?  The only thing that really benefited from all this rain was our newly seeded front lawn.  So there you have it…we’ve found at least one benefit from all this crazy weather.  For all of you gardeners out there, isn’t it a great feeling to see all your hard work finally grow into something edible?  To see our seeds sprout or our grow light plants get put into dirt is a very proud and satisfying feeling.  It makes all the hard work seem worth it.  How is your garden growing and did you have crazy weather that set you back a bit? 

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Espalier Support Group

This is the new support system for the espalier apple trees.  Remember the first time you met the espalier apple trees?  A lot has happened since that time.  First off, we noticed that one of the apple trees, Malus ‘Spartan’, did not fully come back this year from the hard winter we experienced.  Although one side of the tree grew leaves, the other side had died.  We then made the painful decision to take the tree out and replace it with a new one.  However, when we went back to the nursery to buy a replacement, the nursery said the tree was guaranteed for a year and we received a free replacement.  How cool!!  So meet our new tree, Malus ‘Gravenstein’.

Gravenstein is a variety of apple native to Gråsten in South Jutland, Denmark.  The variety was discovered in 1669 as a chance seedling, although there is some evidence that the variety originated in Italy and traveled north.  The Gravenstein was introduced to western North America in the early 19th century, perhaps by Russian fur traders, who are said to have planted a tree at Fort Ross in 1811.  The Gravenstein apple has a sweet, tart flavor.  It is picked in July and August and is heavily used as a cooking apple, especially for apple sauce and apple cider.  It does not keep well, so it is available only in season.  In addition, their short stems and variable ripening times make harvesting and selling difficult.  The skin is a delicately waxy yellow-green with crimson spots and reddish lines, but the apple may also occur in a classically red variation.  Our older tree, Malus ‘Liberty’, is proud to meet its younger cousin.

The other change in the espalier apple tree grove is that we began to realize that Malus ‘Liberty’ had branches that were beginning to bend.  If you look at the picture above, you will see the bottom limb is bent or crooked.  In order to fix this, we worked with a landscaper to embed two granite posts on either side of the trees.  Although not completed yet, we will be running wire from one post to the other in three separate rows and tie each of the limbs to the wires for support.  During the summer, we will tighten the ties that will move the limbs closer and closer to the wire and therefore making each limb straighter and straighter.  The granite posts also give the area quite an architectural look and feel.

So a lot has been happening in the espalier apple tree grove….if you can call two trees a grove.  We noticed that Malus ‘Liberty’ needed a little leaf trim so that will need to be done.  After that, we will wait it out and hopefully get a few apples from the trees later in the Fall.  Let’s keep our fingers crossed.  Do you have any fruit trees in your garden and how do you care for them? 

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Luna Moth Or Not – You Be The Judge

This is what we saw out of the upstairs window.  Stuck to a piece of the house facing North.  It appears to be a Luna Moth.  Does it look like a Luna Moth to you?  It was also one of those full circle moments as well.  First a little about luna moths.  Actias luna, commonly known as the Luna Moth, is a lime-green moth in the subfamily Saturniinae.  It has a wingspan of up to four and a half inches,  making it one of the largest moths in North America.

Based on the climate in which they live, the Luna Moths produce differing numbers of generations.  In Canada and northern regions, they can live up to 7 days and will produce only one generation per year. These reach adulthood from early June to early July.  In the northeastern United States around Connecticut, the moths produce two generations each year.  The first of these appear in April and May and the second group can be seen approximately nine to eleven weeks later.  In the southern United States, there can be as many as three generations.  These are spaced every eight to ten weeks beginning in March.

When my brother and I were little boys in Iowa, my parents used to take us camping every weekend.  We had a nice fold-down camper and used to rent a space at a place called Roberts Creek.  Lots of families in their campers meant lots of fun for us over the weekend.  There was boating, there were bonfires, there was fishing and then there were the Mason boys.  The Mason boys were older and obsessed with butterfly and moth collecting.  My brother and I helped them catch butterflies and moths so they could mount them in shadow boxes.  They had quite a collection.  To this day, I remember my parents letting us stay up late so that we could rub sugar water all over walnut trees and return the next morning hoping that the area would be infested by Luna Moths.  To our dismay, there wasn’t a Luna Moth in site, but I never forgot the Mason brothers stories and pictures of these magnificent moths.  In fact, their stories made the moths sound so big that we were a little afraid of what we might see if they had come that sugary and cold morning.  I never saw one then or ever…until today.  It’s taken 40 years for one to show itself to me.

This is another example of when Nature does something that you never saw coming.  You have to really be in the moment to catch something so spectacular sitting on your house siding.  The Mason brothers would be proud.  I’m glad I can finally say I have seen such a magnificent moth.  Do you think this is a Luna Moth and, if not, what is it?