Good idea, Sequoia! I don't think there's anything much in terms of understory yet behind Sally's "Bubby Bush" (which is near the front of the border, with 'Chocolate Chip' Ajuga around it).
In addition to the War on Poison Ivy and the Construction Desolation behind us, the other reason I have room for so much additional "understory" is that I've been cutting back and/or getting rid of the honeysuckle bushes that were so thick back there.
They're good for screening and for wildlife food, so I'm not just going to clear them out wholesale, at least not while the construction is going on. I've been cutting them back severely and planting "good" shrubs near them... once their replacements start to grow, in a couple of years, out they'll come.
FALL FOLIAGE AND BERRIES END OF SEASON PICS!!
The buckeye nuts I planted last year on November 11 are rotted empty skins today- just checked. I put six new ones in new pot, just to see if I get any. This years buckeyes did dehydrate somewhat in a few weeks off the bush and on the deck.
This message was edited Oct 29, 2014 4:51 PM
There's that crazy lady at it again ;-P
This message was edited Oct 29, 2014 10:04 PM
Hmmmmmmmmm.....I'm going to edit my last post to remove amusing but possibly embarrassing choice of words..!
I'll take some Bottlebrush Buckeye seeds or rooted stems, VV....and since you know a lot about such things, I have some questions: According to the "Plants for a Future" database, Bottlebrush Buckeye flowers "are hermaphrodite (have both male and female organs)", so I take it that all Buckeyes have nuts. Should we still make room for at least 2 shrubs to ensure good pollination and lots of nuts for our critter friends ?
Hmm, I wonder if I could sneak a couple in to whatever landscaping they're putting around the stormwater pond... I'm going to try doing that with a bunch of stuff, actually... hoping they keep it a little "wild" around the edges so I can get milkweed etc. going, but if not I'll still put some things in, I'll just mulch around them and maintenance crews will think they're supposed to be there. Guerrilla gardening!
Lol! I never get why retention ponds need to have ugly grass all around. What a great opportunity to plant stuff! Nevertheless, people think they need to be covered with boring grass and then someone has to mow it. I'd say through a couple Bald Cypress in there and other water loving trees like American Sycamore and Dawn Redwood along with some water loving shrubs and perennials and you'd have yourself a nice little area over time.
Its amazing how many water loving plants will find those areas on their own. But I'm for helping it along. I can supply Sycamore seeds.
Walked in a park along Patuxent, noted a planted Sycamore with the plastic tube, almost next to plenty of wild Sycamore and their mature Sycamore parents along the river bank. Somebody's tax dollars...wild stuff does pretty well on its own, if you keep the invasive out of the way.
wow, leaves are turning and falling fast. Golden Hickory, yellow redbud, red dogwood....
I snapped some pics last night around the yard.
Toad lilies strutting their stuff.
Japanese anemone honorine jobert? This is the first bloom!
Hamamelis intermedia Arnold's Promise
Katsura tree
If you have sycamore seeds handy, Sally, that would be great! Otherwise, I'll keep an eye out... with that distinctive bark, should be able to spot parent trees & saplings even in winter...
I should see if I can find out the "plan" for that area. I'm just so grrrrrr at the construction company; hard to put on my "concerned & civil" hat.
beautiful, Jeff, look at those toad lilies. I had no idea they flowered so much.
Jill, some day this winter I'll have piles of sycamore seed blow against my driveway edges and I can scoop a ton for you. Otherwise, it is common along riverbanks, the seed balls will hang up there into wintertime. I'm seeing many in commercial and roadside landscaping too.
I wish I knew who could inform me as to the logic behind the maintenance of stormwater ponds.
Still, around here the wet centers quickly grow up with cattails and all kinds of wild stuff.
I guess in PA the maintenance crews aren't allowed to cut down cattails because wherever they are, it's usually mowed around them.
I am surprised at those toad lilies too Sally. This is their best year yet. They were bare roots in '12 when they were planted.
As I mentioned once before--the area I live in (White Marsh) IS a marsh area.
There has been a lot of construction in the years I have lived here--so there
are drainage ponds all over the place.
However--because these places are around pretty high end things, likw a Mall,
Business Parks, Medical complexes, a Hospital, and new developments,
the drainage ponds are pretty attractive.
The one in the business park has a black iron sculpted fountain in the middle.
Many of these water drainage ponds have become homes to a lot of Canada Geese
They are beautiful--but they also are a hazard, of sorts. They walk across roads--
feed on the road medians--gather around roadsides,etc.
They are beautiful--and I seldom see them-- as I don't go to the Mall a lot.
Gita
Seq, I would have never guessed that was a Toad Lily; I thought they looked quite different. I like the color of your Hamamelis.
Edited to replace the link.
About the logic behind stormwater basins: I don't have any personal experience with them, but maybe this will answer some questions: http://water.epa.gov/scitech/wastetech/upload/2002_06_28_mtb_wetdtnpn.pdf
This message was edited Oct 30, 2014 6:22 PM
thanks Muddy. It supported and extended some of my guessing about the ponds having more than meets the eye. And explains maintenance including mowing is needed to see that it still contains sediment during storms for example.
I've noticed they have ramps going into the pond, which would be for driving down in and digging out buildup of sediment.
You're welcome; I'm glad it helped. Effective drainage solutions aren't always easy, that's for sure; there's so much that can go wrong.
These are photos of 2 different Aronias: #1 is Aronia melanocarpa with berries that are becoming darker; they will turn black if the birds don't eat them first. #2 is Aronia arbutifolia 'Brilliantissima' showing some nice color, but no berries.
Those aronias look great Muddy!
Thanks! It would be nice if the 'Brilliantissima' produced berries, but it is surrounded by 3 A. melanocarpas so I think the birds will have a good supply of berries anyway.
Why wouldn't the Brilliantissima produce berries?
It might be one of those shrubs that needs to have another nearby for cross-pollination. I thought that having the Aronia melanocarpas nearby would be enough, but maybe not.
When Greenthumb came by yesterday to pick up a hosta, I showed him the gorgeous brugs and also how disappointed I was that there was no fall color on the blueberries at all.
Then he noticed that I had buds on them! My blueberries are about to bloom! ¯_(ツ)_/¯
yay for you ssg!
I'm not sure that's correct. I was pretty sure they were monoecious. Perhaps it's too young? I have 4 A. Melanocarpas and none of those have berries but they are only about a foot tall. Here is a link to a Google book about them and it says they are monoecious.
http://books.google.com/books?id=sVquOFHBY2UC&pg=PA514&lpg=PA514&dq=aronia+arbutifolia+brilliantissima+monoecious?&source=bl&ots=zY8O4f1ady&sig=pUNz6wiM0ag43LSeFVcI4H480qY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=RnRTVMmJG8WvyASinoGIAw&ved=0CDsQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=aronia%20arbutifolia%20brilliantissima%20monoecious%3F&f=false
I figured stormwater ponds were like rain gardens but on a larger scale... didn't think about containing sediment. That should help keep lawn chemicals out of the Bay, too, maybe. thx for the link, clicking it now...
You're welcome, Critter!
SSG, my blueberries haven't started to change color yet either, and I've had them for 7 years so I know they will, and they'll be gorgeous when they do.
I can't wait for the blueberries!
I don't get much fall color at all. All of my japanese maples get mildewy at the end of the season and just turn brown and fall off. The viburnums don't get much fall color, either. For the first time ever the crape myrtle is looking pretty. But that's about it!
This is my first year with a native azalea and it's just turning brown. Do they generally have nice fall foliage?
Seq, my 'Brilliantissima' isn't young; it's at least 5' tall. It just occurred to me that perhaps this year's flowers were killed by the late cold snap, which would explain the lack of berries of course. I looked at some at a garden center today, and they didn't have any berries either.
Alright Muddy, that makes sense. I think a lot of my buds were frozen because only the top 1-2' had leaves. They were new this season but we'll see how they do. A lot of my berries are dried up but some are bright red and nice looking. Where mine are planted they have pretty heavy root competition from a neighboring Norway Maple that like so put its feeder roots up into my bed. Oh and I barely water them....
I gathered a pile of dried berries pods off of a BIG, red Crepe Myrtle "Tonto"
at HD the other day. Just for the heck of it.....like always..
Seems whatever seeds are inside the dried berries are thin and flaky.
I have not sat down yet to actually see what they look like.
Anyone interested? G.
No, but thanks anyway. I actually have 2 Crape Myrtle volunteers I'm going to dig up and give away if they survive the winter - the one in this photo and another 1/3 its size. http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1379881/
Here's some fall foliage from my "foster forest". It's hard to tell from the photo, but this Sumac is growing on top of the roots of a fallen tree. It's about 4' above ground level, which is why deer haven't destroyed it. I could tell by the hoof prints that they tried to reach it, but they seem to have given up.
I just love this Sumac's "spunk". I'm going to try to transplant 2 volunteer Sumacs from my yard to this stump.
What kind of sumac is that? How can you tell it's not poison sumac?
Yep, Crepe Myrtle seeds are little nubs within a round thin flake, loads of them inside each "pod." The finches are big fans... fun to watch them pecking away at the seeds on the tree by our deck.
I picked up a red twig dogwood, trying to figure out where it'll show off well, since I figure it'll have nice fall & winter color. I love the deep red of regular dogwoods, might have to try again to grow some of them from seed.
Hard to beat maples for fall color, of course. Mom has a bunch of volunteers flagged for me... hopefully I can get a few dug the next time we're in PGH. I know Holly wanted one or two if I have extras... anybody else?
Poison Sumac (Toxicodendron vernix) has reddish stems and the leaves look different: http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/showimage/79300/
II didn't take a close look at this Sumac, but I think it's either Rhus glabra (Smooth Sumac) or Rhus typhina (Staghorn Sumac). I'm leaning towards Staghorn.
Jill, I'll try to pot some dogwood babies for you. I get volunteers all over. Them and maples, so keep your maples...
Seq- too many leaflets for one
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxicodendron_vernix
Poison sumac is not common, and is a swamp plant. "Poison sumac grows exclusively in very wet or flooded soils, usually in swamps and peat bogs, in the eastern United States and Canada.[3]"
Thanks, Sally! Multiple babies in a pot would be great... I'll give them their own "digs" in spring, then plant them out when they have a bit more size to them. Did you see your redbud in my front yard? It took off this year, practically twice the height of the 2 little dogwoods planted with it. I actually limbed up all 3 of them recently... guess that means they're not "toddlers" any more. The reblooming azaleas around them are finally starting to look like something, too.
I noticed your Redbud and Azaleas - that was an attractive grouping.
Thanks! Now that the trees are getting big enough to start overlapping some branches, the spacing makes more sense... until this year, they just looked like I'd planted them too close to one another! It started as 3 dogwoods, 2 white and 1 pink, close-planted so their branches would intertwine almost as one tree. Then I lost 1 of the dogwoods but figured that was a great spot for Sally's redbud baby.
Redbuds grow quickly too, as I recall. I used to have one but cicadas killed it.
I think we have seven more years till cicadas again.... My redbuds lose branches to canker.