Friday fabulous flower - Fall color

Flowering has just about ended in our gardens, but the fall color has just started, so here's a view of the tiptop of our 100'+ sugar maple as it just begins to color up. This is pretty much normal except about two weeks later than usual.  The weather has flirted with frost, a couple of overnight lows in the 36-37F range, but now the weather has warmed and the lows are expected to be 10 degrees warmer through the end of October. It's very rare to end October without a frost. Thank you global warming.  Word of warning: water, water, water, especially any new plantings, i.e., any added this season. Our fall drought is upon us, and plants should enter the winter well watered because winter is not so much a season of cold as it is a season of drought.

Essentials of growing grass

The essentials for growing lawn grass are no different that for growing any other green plant: water, soil, mineral nutrients, and light. Basic botany, right? So when people are missing one (or more) of these essentials, no amount of the other two will compensate, and the grass won't grow. This lesson has been lost on person not too distant from TPP's neighborhood. As you can see here, some sparse newly sprouted grass is populating the shade under this tree, but in spite of adequate water (note the sprinklers and rain gauge) and presumably enough nutrients, the grass in this location is not going to grow into a thick, lush lawn; it will remain very sparse until some shade-loving weeds invade (Hello, creeping charlie!). Have you identified the species of tree yet! Well, you should have because it's one of the worst in this area for grass growing. It's a sugar maple, and they are handsome trees; some even have purple foliage. But sugar maples can make both sun leaves, bigger, thicker leaves on the outside of their crown, and shade leaves, somewhat smaller, thinner leaves adapted to the shady inner crown. As a result of this efficient light harvesting the mature crown of a sugar maple can intercept over 90% of the sunlight (figures of up to 96% have been cited) that falls upon the tree. Step under the crown and look up; what percent of the sky in view do you see? Bottom line: your grass won't grow because it is lacking an essential, light. You have no idea how often this turns up, and still sugar maples are touted as a good lawn tree. If you like your sugar maples, and you didn't prune the limbs up high enough to let in some light from the sides, you might as well give up and plant ferns or woodland wildflowers, and even some of them can't deal with shade this dense. Sorry, for the bad news; get over it. And get over the idea that lawns are just grass. If you'd asked 30 years ago, maybe you would have made another choice.

Maple syrup, the waffle antibiotic

Here's a research news report from McGill University touting the antibiotic properties of maple syrup. This is not surprise to TPP because honey has long been used as a wound dressing, but here probably it's the osmotic properties of honey that probably fight infections. Perhaps that's why the study found that maple syrup worked best with other antibiotics, enhancing their affect.  Most people have no idea what real maple syrup is, or how good it tastes. "Pancake syrups" these days don't contain any at all, and while some use an artificial maple flavoring, it's awful. The Phactors are pure maple syrup people; yes, it's expensive but you don't need to use all that much and we just don't eat waffle, pancakes, etc. all that much either. Of course in the process the F1 was spoiled. And we've converted a number of German students who often return home with maple syrup as gifts for family & friends, at least that's what they claim. On the bad news side, this is another nature friendly product that might become way more expensive because of global warming affecting the distribution and growth of sugar maples.

Golden rain and fall color

Fall color this year is varied and very good this year, but as always fleeting. The area immediately behind our house is under the canopy of two sugar maple trees, one large and one huge, and the light especially in the late afternoon is just perfused with a completely lovely golden glow. And as a bonus, the weather was warm enough to sit on the patio and enjoy the light with a glass of wine.  But then it started to rain, not water, not cats and dogs, not frogs, but leaves, and it

rained for 3 days burying the entire area with inches of golden orange maple leaves.  Several other species have contributed to the fall color too: yellow - bottle brush buckeyes, orange - sumac, red - dogwoods, pinky orange - black haw, red-orange - black gum, and variously peachy yellow, orange, and red - Japanese maples making bright dabs of color here and there in the gardens.  This one (Acer japonicum 'aconitifolium') is fairly new, but what a beauty, what color.

Deforestation and clear cutting

TPP is basically opposed to deforestation and clear cutting.  It's basically a rape nature with a bulldozer mentality. However at times drastic action is needed, and in this case it was lawn that needed mowing, and it involved clear cutting and deforestation. The massive sugar maple had a good crop last year and this year the number of maple seedlings sprouting virtually everywhere is astounding. So simply mowing the lawn amounted to clear cutting of a very young forest. Wish the forest trying to take over our gardens could be removed as easily. To continue the theme, TPP had to patrol the western front of our estate to destroy an illegal immigrant: garlic mustard, which is kindly grown by a neighbor especially for export purposes. Fortunately garlic mustard does pull fairly easily. A visit to these distant regions did reveal that a fringe tree somewhat surrounded by ever embiggering conifers was in glorious full bloom, a delight to both eye and nose.