The Garden Thread that two people wanted

[LilyBLily]

 

[Jeff Tanyard]

Lol... mystery fruit!   

On a related note, I think I might have some wild black cherries this year, assuming I've correctly identified the tree.  Stay tuned.

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

Is it a cucumber? Is it a cantaloupe? Is it a watermelon?

Looks like a water melon to me 

[Vijaya]

Lol... mystery fruit!   

On a related note, I think I might have some wild black cherries this year, assuming I've correctly identified the tree.  Stay tuned.

Ooooh, black cherry ice cream!!!

[Maggie Ann]

Is it a cucumber? Is it a cantaloupe? Is it a watermelon?

Looks like a water melon to me 

Me, too. And notice the out of stock tag on the top box that's clearly full. 

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

This ponytail palm also grows in our village but seems to have a different sort of flower  . We had a pink flower on one of the palms, which indicates it is female. The flowers lasted for weeks.

[Maggie Ann]

Such wonderful landscaping you have in your village.

Did you ever get the trenches filled in?

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

Such wonderful landscaping you have in your village.

Did you ever get the trenches filled in?

Been busy making a new rockery. Must take a pic.

Yes, eventually got the trenches filled. But we still seem to have water leaks  The plumbers who did all the work seem to have vanished.

[Maggie Ann]

Such wonderful landscaping you have in your village.

Did you ever get the trenches filled in?

Been busy making a new rockery. Must take a pic.

Yes, eventually got the trenches filled. But we still seem to have water leaks  The plumbers who did all the work seem to have vanished.

Typical plumbers

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

Yes, eventually got the trenches filled. But we still seem to have water leaks  The plumbers who did all the work seem to have vanished.
[/quote]

Typical plumbers
[/quote]
 

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

Our 'lace trees' (not sure of their actual name) are in flower throughout our retirement village. They look like nothing without their flowers for most of the year, but when they are in flower they make a lovely display and people are going round looking for young ones shooting up next to the parent plant. Those in pots have to be guarded 

[Maggie Ann]

Stunning!!!

[Matthew]

We had some strange weather around here with a frost in early spring. Killed one of my Azaleas and slowed my poor Easter lily and hydrangeas. Somehow my Asiatic lilies are doing better than ever, and my rose bushes aren't doing too bad. I'll probably replace the Azalea since it was doing fine for years. Haven't decided if I want to add any more flowers during the summer or wait until next Spring.

[LilyBLily]

We've had almost no rain lately after a winter of no snow and the ground is dry, dry, dry. I foolishly dug up some plants from the yard of a friend who is moving, and this is hardly good transplant weather. Additionally, I started some grass seed to patch the lawn a couple of weeks ago. To my shock, it has sprouted. Now my task is to keep it from burning out.

[Jeff Tanyard]

Black cherries are ripe.  Did a little picking.





Due to the tiny size of these things, it's a lot of work for a little bit of fruit, so this might be all I decide to collect.

I'm thinking about trying to make some jam.  Haven't decided yet.  Slicing and pitting these things would be a lot of work for what would probably end up being no more than two-pieces-of-toast worth of jam.  The only reason to do it would be so I could put "I've made jam before" on my list of accomplishments.

I've eaten a few of them as is, and they're slightly tart and not really sweet at all.  They're certainly palatable, though.

Some of the cherries are already starting to get wrinkled and/or mushy on the tree, so I've concluded that the optimum ripeness window only lasts a week or two.

In any event, this has been a new experience for me, so it's been a worthwhile endeavor just for the novelty and educational aspect.

[Vijaya]

Oooh, lovely! I didn't realize they'd be so small. Yeah, it'd be too much work to pit them. Maybe boil them with some sugar and then strain them through a sieve that will allow the pulp and juice but retain the seeds. But I'd collect a whole lot more. It'd make a tasty compote.

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

Oooh, lovely! I didn't realize they'd be so small. Yeah, it'd be too much work to pit them. Maybe boil them with some sugar and then strain them through a sieve that will allow the pulp and juice but retain the seeds. But I'd collect a whole lot more. It'd make a tasty compote.

That sounds like a good plan. 

[LilyBLily]

I've never heard of black cherries. Where can they be grown? In the east, we can't do Bing, my favorite. I had some other kind of cherry tree in my yard at the previous house and the way I knew they were ripening was seeing the birds grab them all. I tried harvesting them once, but then realized I don't really like any cherries but Bing. (I even try to palm off the cherries in fruit c*cktail to other family members.)

What I'm harvesting now are wild black raspberries. I have a dedicated spot where I let them do their thing. This year, despite the drought we've had, there are too many for me. Of course the nicest ones are always just out of my reach unless I press into the bramble and risk picking up ticks. An endeavor filled with tension. I don't make jam; I freeze the berries.

[Jeff Tanyard]

Oooh, lovely! I didn't realize they'd be so small.

Yeah, they're less than a centimeter in diameter.  They're about the size of holly berries.  It took me about an hour to collect what you see in that photo.  The reward/labor ratio is very small.

But I'd collect a whole lot more.

Easy for you to say.  You're not the one doing the work.  ;)

I've never heard of black cherries. Where can they be grown?

According to the map on the Wikipedia page, they grow almost everywhere in the eastern U.S.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prunus_serotina

[Jeff Tanyard]

Well, I've decided against making jam.  Trying to de-pit these things is way more trouble than it's worth.  The mass of the pits is at least the equal of the mass of the flesh, and that simply isn't worth it when you're talking about a fruit the size of an English pea.  Also, the cherries don't "keep" for very long after being picked.  They get mushy fast.  I've concluded that the only sensible way to eat these things is as raw fruit right off the tree, so that's what I'll do going forward.

[Vijaya]

Good plan, Jeff. When you get hot working outside, it's nice to pick berries. Once my girlfriend and I took an impromptu hike on our way home after a weekend camping trip and I was so tired and thirsty, I sat on a rock and ate huckleberries and salmonberries while she explored farther. Enough to revive me for the walk down to the car.

[LilyBLily]

Mulberries are ripe here on the east coast. I had some yesterday. They're very mild. 

[Jeff Tanyard]

And... they're gone.   

It was rainy for most of this past week, so I didn't go outside much.  It wasn't until Friday afternoon that it was sunny enough and dry enough for me to attempt to pick some more black cherries.

To my surprise and dismay, the tree had been denuded of fruit.  I can only assume the birds and forest critters discovered it while I was stuck inside due to the weather.

Ah, well.  Easy come, easy go.   

[LilyBLily]

Wineberries are just about to begin. They're the wild raspberry and not my favorite at all but family members like them so I finally decided to let some grow on our property. Previously, I had ruthlessly removed them--but since they are wild, more blew in. Last year I got at least a couple of pints from a very small group. Thorny plants!

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

My tillandsia (air plant)  has finally flowered  I've got lots in my garden, and there are many around the retirement village, but it's the first time I've seen mine in flower.

[Jeff Tanyard]

Pretty neat.  Reminds me of the flowers produced by Christmas cacti.

[Vijaya]

Lovely, Jan! I've never seen an air-plant flower.

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

Pretty neat.  Reminds me of the flowers produced by Christmas cacti.

Yes, they are similar. 

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

Lovely, Jan! I've never seen an air-plant flower.

Quite a few people here have the same plant but have never seen them flower, yet others have. It might be where they are placed. I have mine on a gate. The whole gate is covered in them, but the one that is flowering is shaded slightly by the larger leaves of another type of air plant.

[Jeff Tanyard]

Last year, it was in August that the Joro spiders suddenly appeared from nowhere and proceeded to try to cocoon my entire home in their webs.

It's now August again, and while I've seen a few Joros, they're nowhere near as numerous as last year.  They're also not as big.  Perhaps they'll grow rapidly over the next few weeks or something.

One of them still managed to annoy me, though.  I was sitting outside, watching the hummingbirds battle and basically just enjoying the outdoors as best I could in the oppressive heat, when I suddenly felt something crawling on my elbow.  I looked, and it was a Joro spider.  I let out a yelp, frantically brushed the spider off, and leaped out of my chair as if electrocuted.

I wasn't bitten, and I'm not anachrophobic.  I don't react well, though, to being startled by a spider on my skin.  That gives me the heebie-jeebies.

I didn't kill the offender.  I relocated him.  Hopefully he'll build a new web in an out-of-my-way location and help put a dent in the local insect population.

Ordinarily, finding a spider on my skin isn't something worth mentioning.  It happens from time to time, and it's no big deal.  These Joros are different, though, because they're a non-native species that only arrived a few years ago, and it's still something of a mystery about how well they'll adapt to the region and how the native species will adapt to them.  The novelty of them is still fascinating to me.

[LilyBLily]

I googled a photo. Joro spiders are huge! And very colorful. Looks like, similar to Daddy-long-legs, their "mouths" are the wrong size to bite humans. Good to know.

All summer, we've had a few teeny tiny little white aphids. Enough to notice but by no means an infestation. They're called (surprise) woolly aphids and up close they look like what the Victorians imagined fairies to be. From a distance, they look like floating bits of white fluff--and they showed up three months early. I wonder if this means we'll have a genuine deluge of them in September?

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

Last year, it was in August that the Joro spiders suddenly appeared from nowhere and proceeded to try to cocoon my entire home in their webs.

It's now August again, and while I've seen a few Joros, they're nowhere near as numerous as last year.  They're also not as big.  Perhaps they'll grow rapidly over the next few weeks or something.

One of them still managed to annoy me, though.  I was sitting outside, watching the hummingbirds battle and basically just enjoying the outdoors as best I could in the oppressive heat, when I suddenly felt something crawling on my elbow.  I looked, and it was a Joro spider.  I let out a yelp, frantically brushed the spider off, and leaped out of my chair as if electrocuted.

I wasn't bitten, and I'm not anachrophobic.  I don't react well, though, to being startled by a spider on my skin.  That gives me the heebie-jeebies.

I didn't kill the offender.  I relocated him.  Hopefully he'll build a new web in an out-of-my-way location and help put a dent in the local insect population.

Ordinarily, finding a spider on my skin isn't something worth mentioning.  It happens from time to time, and it's no big deal.  These Joros are different, though, because they're a non-native species that only arrived a few years ago, and it's still something of a mystery about how well they'll adapt to the region and how the native species will adapt to them.  The novelty of them is still fascinating to me.

Sounds nasty - and a bit scary 

[Vijaya]

Interesting, Jeff. I didn't know Joros were an invasive species. I generally like spiders because they eat a lot of nasty bugs. And aphids--hate those things. Calling all ladybugs!

[Jeff Tanyard]

I googled a photo. Joro spiders are huge! And very colorful.

They're similar to our native black-and-yellow garden spiders.  Big and colorful and scary-looking, but basically harmless to people and beneficial so long as they're not in your way.

So far this year, I haven't seen any big ones yet, just quarter-sized ones.  Maybe they grow rapidly during August and September; I don't know.

Sounds nasty - and a bit scary 

It's definitely disconcerting to find one crawling on you.   

Interesting, Jeff. I didn't know Joros were an invasive species.

They only first arrived in 2013, presumably on a shipping container from Japan that arrived in the port of Savannah.  They were first spotted here in Georgia, but they've already spread to neighboring states--including your own--and are expected to become a permanent feature of the whole Eastern seaboard.  If you haven't seen one in your backyard yet, it's only a matter of time until you do.

They're orb weavers, but while most orb webs are just a single plane of web, the Joro's web has a three-dimensional aspect to it.  It's like an orb web inside a separate cage of silk.  I think this unique design is something that the local insects aren't adapted to avoid very well, and I think that's why Joro webs tend to be full of captured-bug trophies.

Joro silk is yellow, and it shines like gold when direct sunlight hits it at the right angle.  It's also stronger than usual for spider silk; it takes some effort to knock the webs down with a stick.

They're fascinating creatures, and I'm perfectly fine with them hanging around so long as they don't build their webs in my way or crawl on me.

[Vijaya]

Thanks Jeff. I'll keep a lookout for them. They sound lovely--spun gold! Charleston is ground zero for hive beetles--also brought from a shipping container. This year, when our bees split, the remaining ones didn't do so well and it got overrun with those hive beetles. Our bees didn't even have a chance to make a new queen. Sigh.

[Jeff Tanyard]

Thanks Jeff. I'll keep a lookout for them. They sound lovely--spun gold!

There's definitely a bit of elegance about them.  It's easy to see why the Japanese are fond of them.

[Jeff Tanyard]

I took this photo a few days ago.  One of the local Joros munching on a winged insect:





You can see what appear to be a cast-off exoskeleton in the web from when the spider last molted.

You might also notice that the spider's trophies and old skin are on a separate plane in the web, not the same plane as the spider itself.  That's the web's three-dimensional aspect I mentioned earlier.

[Jeff Tanyard]

I apologize for filling this thread up with spider stuff, but these Joros have fascinated me.  It's not every day that I get to play naturalist and study a new species.  Is this how John J. Audobon felt all the time?  It's exciting.   

The yellow color of the Joro's silk isn't always apparent.  In fact, their webs often seem like the same white color as other spider's webs.  To see the yellow, I've found that I need to view the orb from the side.  That way, all the strands are bunched up in my field of view, and my retina picks up the color better.  I suspect that the yellow coloring will get stronger as the spiders mature and the webs get bigger and have thicker strands, but that's just a hypothesis on my part.  We'll know in a couple of months, I guess.

In the photo below, the web is viewed from the side, making the yellow color of the strands more apparent than it would be otherwise.  Hopefully it will be visible on y'all's computer screens or devices.

[djmills]

That spider is beautiful. And the yellow web.

[Vijaya]

The natural world is filled with delights. Grateful for people who share beauty--I've always loved spiders and their webs. And that pretty yellow is visible in your picture. Spun gold!

[Lynn]

I started practicing exposure therapy for my fear of spiders some years back. There was a time when even seeing that picture would have made my stomach quiver and my heart thud. I can now zoom in and stare at them to see the details. Tennessee isn't that far from Georgia so I'm going to keep an eye out for them.

Orb weaver spiders love my door frames. One year, all summer long, I had to open my front and back door cautiously and look around before I stepped outside, because they would make a web and sit right in the middle of it. That was when I started the exposure therapy lol. I almost knocked myself out trying to knock down one of the webs with my broom. The spider came flying at me because the silk stuck to the broom. ;D

[Jeff Tanyard]

Tennessee isn't that far from Georgia so I'm going to keep an eye out for them.

They'll be in your neighborhood sooner or later.  When they arrive, you won't just see one or two.  They'll pop up everywhere.  Start looking for them in August; that's when they've grown big enough to actually be noticed.

...they would make a web and sit right in the middle of it. That was when I started the exposure therapy...

It's a good thing you've already gone through that, because you'll need it.  I had to knock down some Joro webs last year because they had barricaded me in my home.  They're harmless critters, and I enjoy looking at them so long as they're not in my way, but they eventually did get in my way.

The good news is that they eat a ton of bugs.  Their webs are constantly full of trophies, and whenever I go outside to take a look at them, I usually find at least one spider actively munching on something.  This land is just one big smorgasbord for them.  They're probably kicking themselves for not immigrating to the New World sooner.

[LilyBLily]

With zero snow last winter, we've had an invasion of bugs this year, so anything that eats them is welcome. Unless it's Dracula's assistant.

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

Had a lovely crop of papayas this year. This is one of the last ones. It weighs 2.4 kg and measures 37 cm. The tree popped up on my compost heap a few years ago and has been giving some delicious fruit. Have to pick them before they are properly ripe in case the monkeys get them

[LilyBLily]

Looks good enough to eat!

[Jan Hurst-Nicholson]

Looks good enough to eat!

 

Very nutritious.  Will have to wait a while until it ripens. Will be sharing with neighbours and freezing some. 

[Jeff Tanyard]

A few new gardenia flowers have blossomed recently, presumably as a result of the substantial rains we had a few days ago.  The hummingbirds are still swarming impressively, and they sometimes poke their noses into the gardenias.  I also sometimes poke my nose into the gardenias because those flowers are one of my favorite aromas.

The weather forecast for the next few days is supposed to be sunny and pleasant and about as perfect as weather can be, so let's hope that actually happens.

I'm pretty burned out on yard work.  I did a lot of it this year, and I'm ready for the dormant season.

[Vijaya]

Gardenias!!! Oh yes! Our hummers have been in our okra--such pretty flowers. It's been gorgeous in Chs too! Loving it. And my kids are home with their friends, so all is well in my world.

[LilyBLily]

During our drought, my window hummingbird feeder was mysteriously knocked down on three successive nights. I decided something was thirsty, and I put water in the birdbath that usually holds none. Saw a cat take a drink there a day later. The culprit? It's not a feral cat; it has a collar and I believe belongs to near neighbors, but it is a roamer.

I've been taking the feeder inside after dark, but I fear some damage was done. It's only plastic. (Glass would have broken on the pavers below.) Wasps have been all over it for days. I tried washing it thoroughly and the situation seems better, but this exact feeder is no longer being made. If necessary, I'll use Krazy Glue to fix the cracks over the winter.

Meanwhile, the hummingbirds are still fighting each other over the feeder. They utterly refuse to share. It has been so dry that few other flowers are available for them, although the next door neighbor has multiple feeders so mine isn't the only one around. These are all females--probably pushed away from those other feeders by the males.

They'll leave soon. They usually vanish when the weather gets a little colder.

[Jeff Tanyard]

Gardenia flowers:







Hydrangea is also putting out new blooms:

Meanwhile, the hummingbirds are still fighting each other over the feeder. They utterly refuse to share.

Unfortunately, that's simply what they do.  No matter how much food you put out there for them, they're still territorial about it.   

The ones here are fickle and skittish.  One moment, they'll be territorial and running each other off, but the next moment you'll see two drinking from the same tiny hole in the feeder.  They go from friends to enemies and back to friends in the blink of an eye.

They're basically the bird equivalents of meth-heads.

These are all females--probably pushed away from those other feeders by the males.

It's also possible the males in your area have already flown south.  The males migrate earlier than the females; they're the first to leave in the fall and the first to arrive in the spring.