Gathering our garden 'shrooms

Our shady gardens have no shortage of leaves, and mostly with the help of the leaf shredding elves (for hire), they get mulched.  After all how else do you keep woodland plants happy?  So while our examining our gardens for flowering events, TPP's keen eye spots a mushroom in the leafy mulch. Mushroom hunting in forested areas is quite the big deal here in the Midwest, and on a few lucky occasions TPP has done OK in the mushroom gathering department. In this case the mushroom was a morel.  And it wasn't alone!  No one stops there; of course you're going to wander around and examine the rest of the estate. And somewhat to our surprise another species of morel was discovered. 

The first one was what is called the black morel, Morchella angusticeps (used to be M. conica), and while this species hasn't been a problem to my knowledge, this mushroom always comes with warnings about toxicity. Supposedly morels are foolproof in terms of ID (at least to genus), but TPP has had to warn people about eating the "giant morels", so big they made the local news, that were clearly Gyromitra, although you would never mistake them for black morels, however Verpa bohemica, is another matter and a mistaken identity and upset GI tract would not be a surprise.  The  other species was a very easy ID, a gray or white morel, Morchella deliciosa, which may also just be an earlier appearing variety of M. esculenta.  Both specific epithets say if all.  Suffice it to say, they were all good. 

Spring cleaning

One problem with herbaceous perennials is the spring cleanup. Most herbaceous perennials need to have last years aerial shoots pruned off before this season's new shoots really get going. This process is complicated in our gardens by all the leaves collected by all of last year's shoots. The amount of plant litter that needs to be removed and gotten out of the way is quite voluminous both because of the number of herbaceous perennials, the size of the gardens, and the amount of leaves particularly those dropped only recently by our uncooperative oaks. Other artifacts are uncovered: very much used tennis balls from the golden retrievers next door, a short soaker hose for watering what was a newly planted tree about 12 years ago, some perviously useful pruning shears. And the work has only just begun. Part of the problem here is that until April 15th Mrs. Phactor hasn't got any time for gardening. This clearly demonstrates that the IRS is not very supportive of gardeners. There actually should be some major deductions for gardeners to encourage gardening and make the world a better place, but instead the deductions primarily benefit bad-hair plutocrats.  It's all about priorities. This was a pretty mild winter so the gardens don't seem to have suffered any serious losses. It was also time to take the straw mulch off the strawberry bed, and good thing they were so mulched because the particular freezing and thawing this winter resulted in considerable amounts of heaving to which strawberries are particularly prone. Most of the woodland perennials handle a leafy mulch without much help. The wild ramp in particular, as well as the bluebells (of the borage sort), have the ability to push up though a massive mulch of leaves. So no rest for the wicked. Wicked?

Putting the gardens to bed for the winter

Since the leaf elves have come and gone, and some hard freezing temperatures are on their way, only a few more things need to be done to finish up the fall gardening. The fountain pond must be emptied and covered for the winter. The lily pond still needs to be de-leafed by removing the leaf catching net and sucking up the leaves around the margins. Then the filter system and cascade pump will be turned off for the winter and drained. The compressor keeps going. Some beds will need to be mulched with the chopped leaves left by the elves. Some herbs will be harvested for later use, and the parsley will be mulched. Some beds, for example all the rhododendrons still need to be fenced to keep the bun-buns from girdling their stems. Same too with various shrubs here and there; this chore is almost done as many cages are in place simply transferring them from delicious herbaceous perennials to equally delicious shrubs. Such is life with a wildlife friendly property. Some foxes have been seen and the bun-buns seem a bit less frequent, but the spring will start with woodchuck in place that wouldn't cooperate with our relocation plan. Lastly if the weather cooperates because you need a mild day but after when you are pretty sure no more warm days will occur to spray a protective wax coating on broad leaf evergreens to limit winter desiccation, and it you didn't know this before, hear me now, the most damaging aspect of winter is how dry it is. In particular this spray protects rhododendrons and mountain laurels and others of a similar nature. This is one of those practices that TPP wishes he had better data on; it seems to work, but it is a tad expensive, just not nearly as expensive as replacing big old shrubs. As an additional hint, the Phactors usually buy their holiday tree at the end of November when they show up, put them in a bucket of water, and then spray them with the waxy spray to reduce transpiration and needle drop; this certainly works. Remember, those cut trees don't get any fresher.