How does your garden grow?

One of the problems with having a big garden is that it is a hand full for some one to babysit any time the Phactors are away, especially if things are a bit dry.  Our trip to Savannah was just 10 and a half days long and yet it seemed we were absent for weeks. Several things are clear at this point, this year has been just about perfect for crab grass. It's luxuriant and it's everywhere. While commuting to work yesterday by bicycle, it was also clear that the giant ragweed crop will be monsterous. Beware if you suffer from its pollen.  Several new additions to the garden were in serious need of water, but it looks as if all will recover. As the F1 pointed out, "you guys plant so many things in so many places no one but you know where they all are".  She is quite right. And  even if you had a map then either carrying water around or dragging hoses becomes quite a chore.  She did get steamed crabs and Savannah beer.  May have to see about getting a garden sitter in the future, especially if we are going to be away for a longer period of time.  Even  after just 10 days the kitty-girls act as though they were over-fed and starved for attention. 
The kitchen garden delivered some cucumbers, some tomatoes, a not too big zucchini, and sweet peppers.  Eggplant may yet recover enough to provide more fruit. Soon the beans will be producing and time to plant fall lettuce and bok choi is approaching.
To be completely fair, the same weather that is producing the crab grass and ragweed has also produced a huge display of naked ladies (and here too), and we has us hundreds.

No, no, no, no, no - Goldenrod doesn't cause hayfever!

The fall allergy season is here, almost. The harvest season kicks up lots of dust and mold spores, and ragweed comes into flower soon. The local newspaper had a nice sidebar article about allergies and they mentioned all of these factors, BUT then some moron put a picture of goldenrod in bloom above the article! Now maybe they think goldenrod is ragweed, or that goldenrod causes allergies; wrong and wrong. Here's the problem: they both flower at about the same time, and most people see and recognize goldenrod, but they don't see or recognize ragweed. This is because goldenrod is insect pollinated; you should know this because the flowers are showy to attract pollinators. Ragweed flowers are green and seldom noticed as a result, but the plant is wind-pollinated so it must make a lot of pollen to blow around. Once again, TPP only wishes they would check with their friendly neighborhood botanist before doing such things; he doesn't charge much.

Good year for haploid males

Enough about the weather, but since it is late summer, we must post on a topic TPP has visited before. This will be no surprise for people who suffer from hayfever, but this has been a very good year for haploid males, not all haploid males, but certainly those being dispersed by common species of Ambrosia (ragweed).  The giant ragweed around here, and in one location it borders a jogging/walking/bicycling trail so thickly it's a wonder anyone can survive this pollen gauntlet, has done very well in spite of the drought.  So for all you hayfever sufferers, it's looking like a bad season as the ragweed begins to flower and disperse it's tiny wind-dispersed males (pollen).  Of course, many people here abouts blame goldenrods for their hayfever because they flower at about the same time as ragweed and having colorful flowers, they are noticed.  However, colorful displays means they are attracting insects to disperse their pollen, and it isn't blowing around on the wind to be inhaled.  The only thing that still puzzles TPP, and the answer has eluded me for years, is why were ragweeds named after ambrosia, something delightful to taste and smell, unless this was Linnaeus' idea of a joke. 

Hay fever - It's ragweed, not goldenrod

At least once every late summer/fall season, TPP has to explain that it's ragweed that aggrevates your allergies, not goldenrod.  Funny though, don't think it ever was in one of my blogs.  Wonder why?  No matter, the Annotated Flora has done a very nice job of explaining about this complete with pictures, but probably, someone will still ask.  The general rule is simple: if something is gaudy enough for you to notice the flowers, then it isn't engaging in wind pollination and the pollen isn't getting into your nose.  The same problem occurs in the spring because some people are allergic to pollen from trees with inconspicuous flowers and they bloom at the same time as black locust trees.  But those big masses of white flowers are to attract insect pollinators, so unless a bee flies up your nose, black locust pollen isn't causing your hay fever.

Friday Fabulous Flower - Stiff Goldenrod

Fall in the midwest and on the prairie is mostly about what we used to call SYCs, stinking yellow composites, an equivalent of birder's LBJs, little brown job. And yes, it takes a bit of work and experience to get beyond the it's a composite (aster/sunflower family) and yellow stage. Today's fabulous flower, flowers actually, is a favorite fall SYC that deserves to be in any perennial garden, the stiff goldenrod (Solidago rigida). The leaves of this plant are quite stiff with a rough surface, one of the many stiff, rough, prickly sort of things so abundant on the prairie in the fall. But what makes this goldenrod's floral display so fabulous are the ray flowers, which are only found in a handful of the 50 or so species in northeastern N. America. For those uninitiated to composites, each "petal" is actually a flower whose short tubular corolla has a single strap-like lobe. The corolla of the central disk flowers has five small lobes. In some of these little heads the disk flowers have yet to open. Lots of goldenrods flower this time of year, and because they are conspicuous, they often get blamed for causing people's fall-season hayfever, but because they are conspicuous they don't. Such conspicuous flowers are insect-pollinated, so the pollen doesn't end up inside your nasal passages, but the wind-pollinated ragweeds, also composites, with their very inconspicuous flowers are flowering at the same time.