Sunshine and Vitamin D - Still Good for People. Crepe Myrtle and Temperatures

Keeping people indoors has been a mistake, as Sassy and I would definitely argue. We are out twice a day, sunshine or light rain. I do some work in the garden, the time spent in inverse proportion to the real feel heat index.

Besides that, Team Jackson enjoys eggs (vitamin D and iron);  Mrs. Ichabod drinks Boost. I favor Geezer vitamins, which are good for a panorama of the usual stuff, plus the micro-nutrients.

A horrid winter killed this Crepe Myrtle down to the roots. Often they die above ground and spring up from the roots.

Crepe Myrtle

Our fabulous mother-of-all-myrtles died the previous winter. I wondered how that happened. Myrtles also seemed to die this last winter, including all four on the south border of the Rose Garden. I was unhappy and wondered if lawn chemicals were involved.

I noticed the myrtles at the home of the morning coffee drinkers ( I nickname them for Mrs. I) were also gone. Then my border myrtles came back with tremendous growth, and the distant neighbors' plants popped out of their lawn.

I concluded that Crepe Myrtle was unusually sensitive to winter temperatures. There is a bug and temperature swing to be noted as people move South. We have more heat and more bugs, both of which increasing southward. I used to hear from Notre Dame religious who went to the New Orleans university for events. They called it the buggiest place of all and always took a can of Raid for their rooms and suitcases.

The least damaged myrtles were the ones sheltered in the back yard. Mrs. Gardener wondered why I moved the roses from our common fence. I pointed out the march of Hostas from her yard to ours, so I now have plants more aggressive than the Hostas on my side. Besides, I found that caring for roses in two areas was a chore, for one will love one and hate the other location.

Plastic Plant Collars, Coffee Didies

I buried most of the coffee didies under some cardboard and mulch in the backyard garden (Chaste Tree, Helianthus, Butterfly Bush, Poke).

Yes, I put a collar on Poke Weed  and mulched it for fun. Do you have a bird-feeder that grows for free and provides fruit for 63 different species of birds? I thought not.

I have some new roses in the back (ignore the paragraph you read above). They have collars to prevent clumsy gardeners and guests from stepping on them. The collars are great places for the coffee didies. Each didie one has moisture, paper, and nutrition for the plant. Yes, coffee grounds are very good for the soil.

 Poke berries forming.

 Poke buds

Those Clever Gardening Catalogs - Fall Bulbs Entice as Spring Blooms Fade

Nothing sets up fall ordering like the fading of the spring, hardy bulbs.

The rain began dripping down yesterday as I went out to empty some rainwater storage. Do not laugh (followed by even more laughter). I put rainwater on the new Joe Pyes because so little rain was coming down. I also did an audit. One was missing entirely - not crushed, not chewed, just gone. Rabbits? Birds? Sassy? The garden police are divided, which means, I do not know. That is a price we pay when planting.

Norma Boeckler said the deer got her Little Joe Pye plants, and Alicia said the deer eat everything outside, especially the deer-proof ones.

The gardening crew told me the flowers and bulbs I shared were growing. They looked for some of the oriental lilies they planted in our yard, and were pleased to see the stalks up and leafed out. We compare notes on roses, lilies, whatever is shared.

I told them, "This year - estate planting!" I figure daffodils are the best candidates for a large bag of them planted all over the front yard. For those with front yards in grass, daffodils can be planted in the lawn, bloom and fade before the first lawn-mowing.

Daffodils do not taste good to critters but they are great in the yard and in the vases.

 Grape Hyacinths come in varieties of blue, white, and mixed colors.

Tiny bulbs like grape hyacinths (neither grapey nor hyacinthy) are very inexpensive in small or estate orders. They can be placed in groups or planted near the daffodils as markers. They seem to last for many years, unlike some other tulips.

Roses and Roots

Easy Does It bloomed before the wild roses, and now the wild roses are competing with dark red and bright red blooms. I was eager to dig up all the wild roses, but they have blended into a wall of Mountain Mint and Spirea bushes, both having grown beyond belief or foresight.

Crepe Myrtles grow rather slowly.

So much has happened quickly that I have to catch up with pruning the non-glamorous plants. Myrtles still have seed pods on them. Removing the pods will help the plants bloom this year.  I counted one row of them dead, but they began to grow from the ground up again. Another row, along the Gardener fence, has three colors of inter-twined Crepes planted together, so I should get some interesting displays in time.

One farmer group convinced me that deep roots really matter, even when the original plants are removed later. The roots account for 75% of the nutrition added to the soil, so deep roots break up the clay soil and add organic matter without kudos or expense. One way to use - and not be bullied - by a deep rooting plant/weed is to cut it at the base to end its meddling or at least to slow down its above ground growth.

Floral Fireworks for the Fourth of July - Crepe Myrtle Loves Attention

We arrived in Springdale with a scraggly bush growing near the mailbox. Crepe Myrtle grows anywhere, but thrives in the sun. The plant is drought tolerant, but like cactus, thrives with more moisture.

 I put prunings on the base to fed the soil, plus wood mulch,
mushroom compost, and clumps of grass. The base is much larger now and packed with companion plants.
I put a pyramid of leaves under
the Crepe Myrtle for the fall and winter.
They are composted into the soil by late spring.

I addressed the top, the middle, and the foundation.

1. The top needed severe pruning to activate the roots and promote blooming, which arrives a bit late but lasts most of the summer. CM can re-bloom with a second complete pruning. I half-pruned last summer to spare the Cardinals nesting there, and we had a spectacular second bloom on the pruned portion.
2. The middle needed all branches trimmed back to the stems, so the plant could show off its legs. LI laughed at the first version but said "Wow!" when the bloom arrived in full force. As rosarians know, pruning concentrates energy on the parts we want to flourish.
3. The foundation is the soil, always the most important. Blessed with red wigglers, the plant received many bags of wood mulch, mushroom compost, and piles of leaves and grass. The base seemed to devour all the organic matter left around the base. This year I have Lily-of-the-Valley, Caladium, and Buckwheat growing around the base. I treat the plant as a rose, not as a cactus, and it already glows and dominates the block and larger neighborhood.

People insist that gardening is a lot of work, especially when growing roses. That may be their reason not to try, but I find it a weak excuse. They have been pummeled by the experts who repeat the advice of other experts, all designed to promote the industry rather than the soil. 

One Forbes article opened my eyes about gurus when they wrote about wine experts who are thralls of their industry. Rave reviews are sales pitches, paid ads with the pay under the table. Our favorite drink is Walmart private label water - 12 cents a bottle.

The Crepe Myrtle is still opening its enormous flowers. Because of pruning, the branches arch upwards, like the best July 4th fireworks, but lasting far longer. Bees are already working to turn the flowers into large seeds enjoyed by Cardinals and other birds. Imagine how they must feel when nesting there - "Are we going out for lunch or staying in and having Crepe Myrtle seeds?"

 Norma Boeckler's Butterflies.

Pruned Roses Are Doubled Roses

My favorite part of each day is pruning roses for someone. We have one neighbor with serious health problems, another neighbor who regularly takes roses to the graves of his mother and step-father. Others go to medical staffs and others we see in the region.

Pruning roses and other flowers is a natural way to get even more flowers. I prune the Spirea, the Shasta Daisies, and a few other flowers. The German saying is literally "a divided joy is a joy doubled," based on the word for cut. So, when I cut roses, I make them healthier and more eager to bloom. I remove deadwood and crossing canes. The end result is a vase of perfect roses, usually long-stemmed. 

Everyone wants to enjoy the fragrance of roses, so I include the best ones in each arrangement, tastefully popped into plastic cups, which are often returned to me. 

One Easy Does It stem, on the altar yesterday, had 10 flowers and buds on it. That is now next door, cheering up Mr. and Mrs. Gardener. 

I pointed out the rare, healthy John Paul II. The white rose is a magnet for aphid attacks early in the season. Those plants are fore-ordained to be the food base for beneficial insects that live from aphids and other pests. To keep the pest-eaters happy and living local, I let the rose pests munch away, which alone is enough to call up the troops. 

The John Paul II are sickly and sapped, literally, at the moment, but they will be great displays the rest of the summer, when the spiders, Ichneumons, Flower Flies, Pirate Bugs, and Tachinids have established their families. Many times I have cut a perfect rose with a solid spider web at the base of the long cane. No insect got past Shelob's lair on the way up, and if pests landed on the bud, beneficial insects took care of the villains.

Because the creatures and plants respond according to the rules established by the Creating Word, John 15:1-10, there is relatively little work involved in a flourishing garden.

Recent study showed me that while organic matter was crucial for good soil, most of the increase came from living roots. I had been emphasizing organic matter added on top of the soil - no mixing is needed. That is still an ongoing effort. 

But now I see how the tremendous energy of the roots is even more important for 

1. The fungus-root network, 
2. The softening of the soil,
3. The infiltration of rain and snow-melt,
4. The feeding of all the soil microbes and creatures. 

The gloomy browns of early spring - no front-yard grass - have given way to the almost unlimited bloomy colors of roses, companion plants, and cover crops. The roses bloom in red, orange, yellow, and white. Companion plants are the Spirea pink bushes, the purple Cat Mints, the white Mountain Mints, and a few others. Cover crops in the rose garden are Buckwheat with white blooms, Wild Strawberries with tiny white rose blooms (same family), Borage (pink and blue), and a few others. 

Some experimental plants are Hidden Lily and Joe Pye Weed. Hidden Lily (aka Wild Ginger) is neither a lily nor a ginger. The tuber grows like a weed, blooms like Cana, and is winter hardy. Joe Pye is a weed if someone insists, but it is more of a tall herb that butterflies love. 

Clethra are just starting to bloom.

Groundhog Day - Crepe Mytle

Queen's Lace Picotee -
Crepe Myrtle.

Mrs. Ichabod loves Crepe Myrtle (also spelled Crape Myrtle) - and so do the beneficial insects and the Cardinals. The Cardinals nest in the tree and eat the seeds in the winter.

The company above had an offer on these, and sent a free one besides.

I treated the plants like roses. I soaked them in rainwater overnight, planted them with special soil - no fertilizer added - and watered them with more rainwater from the barrels.

The destruction of the front lawn is now complete. The future Butterfly Garden is completely mulched. One section of the front lawn is mulched over and waiting for the last few new roses.

The West side of the rose garden needed a more prominent natural fence, so Mrs. Ichabod picked that area for a Crepe Myrtle fence. Remaining grass will be composted by covering the area near the Crepe Myrtles with cardboard and that held in place with shredded wood mulch.

 The base of the Crepe Myrtle is a cupboard full
of pruning scraps, dead leaves, twigs, mulch,
mushroom compost, lumps of dead wood -
a haven for soil creatures and spiders.

Crepe Myrtle is a Southern favorite, blooming for months, loving sun, and tolerating drought. We had a straggly one near the mailbox, so I made a point of studying them on the Net, feeding the base with organic materials, and pruning.

Now the pink Crepe Myrtle is the talk of the neighborhood, nine feet tall and loaded with lush blooms last year. Underneath we planted a few matching Caladiums. Last fall I added some Lily of the Valley.

Feed the Plants
This only makes sense for Creation Gardening. The soil feeds the plant roots, and the sun feeds the leaves. Each plant has an incredibly complex arrangement for blooming and setting seed.

I do not add chemical fertilizer because those man-made nostrums only reduce true nutrient exchanges, which take place through root fungus, bacteria, earthworms, and other soil creatures.

The car shows how large this Cat is,
but the ratio of moles to bacteria is far greater,
and bacteria do all the digesting for earthworms.
Fungus? Human hairs are much thicker.

Last year a mole created a food tunnel under the bush, a perfect circle. Was I upset? No, because he was harvesting insect larvae and worms, mixing the soil as only moles can do. A mole is the Caterpillar of soil helpers, a giant in the world of tiny creatures - largely ignored and frequently abused by gardening fads.

Knowing the bush needed food, I began adding mushroom compost, lawn lump droppings from the mower, leaves, and wood mulch under the Crepe Myrtle. The bush seemed to devour the food set on top, but the soil creatures were eating fast and converting their food to serve the bush's roots.

When I piled up autumn leaves into a pyramid, under the bush, the entire pile composted down and disappeared - bacteria, fungus, mites, earthworms and other creatures raking the leaves down to the roots, not into plastic bags.

I also pruned the bush so the legs were bare - a custom in the Crepe Myrtle community. Little Ichabod laughed at it. Later, when the bush was in full bloom, like nothing he had seen in town, he said, "Wow."

We want to feed our children the best food for their growth and their health. When boys reach their growth spurt, they will empty a kitchen of any spare food, before or after the main meal. We used to leave leftover things out for friends' visits. "Are those for us? Thanks." Gone.

 I pruned the lower half of the Crepe Myrtle,
sparing the area where the Cardinals were nesting.
Readers can see the reblooming.
On top the early blooms are going to seed.

The soil creatures are just as eager for good food.

But denominational leaders, crack-heads addicted to Fuller Seminary recreational drugs, want to market their addiction to others. The only growth they see from this is the growth of problems, debt, and sullen conflict - because no one dares to speak out anymore.

Solomon learned from ants, so perhaps the great and wise who pretend to follow Luther will learn from him. It is obvious they have not done any gardening.

Southern Pruning - Called Crepe Murder. No Wonder the Cardinals Nest in the Crepe Myrtle Bush

This is our Crepe Myrtle in full bloom,
a straggly and neglected plant when we moved in almost four years ago.

This kind of pruning is called Crepe Murder,
sometimes an entire row is topped off this way.

Saturday's paper included a column on the Southern habit of Crepe Murder, the practice of removing all the branches from the plant. This is so established as a custom in the South that pictures and articles denouncing it are numerous on the Net.

Google is my guide, because most gardening books are photo extravaganzas with little information, apart from the trite advice. When I inherited a dispirited Crepe Myrtle, I looked over what we could do for it. My first impulse was to feed it with manure and mulched, and water it every so often. The famous Cactus Park in Phoenix waters their plants, so I figure a drought tolerant bush could use some extra help.

One large Southern garden advocates no pruning, no watering, no extra anything, but that strikes me as the other extreme.

Two years ago I pruned all the flowers early to create a re-bloom, and that worked great. All the other bushes were done when ours burst into bloom again. I let the flowers turn to seed for the winter birds.

Last summer we pruned too late and did not get the re-bloom desired.

We get gigantic blooms from extra watering
and year-around mulch, plus moderate pruning.

The newspaper article made me stop in mid-pruning. Cardinals love the seeds formed by the blooms. No wonder I have Cardinals nesting there.

I needed to shape the plant, since it overlaps the mailbox and the sidewalk. Pedestrians should not need to duck under undisciplined plants, and the mailman does not need to reach the box through flowers and hovering bees.

I will leave the entire top in bloom to create a fine set of seeds for the birds. Moderate pruning will shape the plant and encourage roots, branches, and blooms.

Mulch Feeds the Plant
Long ago, as a beginner, I joined the crowd in raking leaves from under the bushes, little realizing how much food I was taking from the plants.

In Springdale I started adding mulch or manure to the base of the plant every time I had a new supply. Each time the food disappeared into the soil. When I piled up leaves under the plant - for the winter - they also disappeared by spring. Once we had huge blobs of grass and clay from under the mower blades. I piled them under the plant and saw them disappear, as soil creatures turned nitrogen rich grass into usable nitrogen for the roots.

The newly pruned blooms go onto the mulch, adding a festive pink decoration for a few hours, and a few seeds for the ground feeding birds. The layered mulch is a food bonanza for all of God's workmen, from the spiders eating the insects to the birds harvesting bugs from the mulch.

I dasn't water the flowering part of the bush now, as I did in years past. The nestlings need to remain dry and secure. Instead, I soak the mulch, which decomposes better with moisture added and holds the water in for the benefit of the plant. None of the actors think about what they are accomplishing together - they just continue their lives and their agendas, the divine. management system already in place.

In the early spring, the entire mulched area took on a new look. I noticed that a mole made his feeding tunnel go under the bush in a perfect circle - following the area of greatest bug, larvae, and earthworm concentrations. Do I mutter against the tough little diggers? No -

• Moles stir and mix the soil.
• They  eat the pests when the pests are still grubs, like the hated Japanese beetles.
• They eat the earthworms they find, but rich soil will refill the supply immediately.

The real feel is 100 or higher today. Would you dig in heavy clay soil today or let the moles and earthworms tunnel as part of their daily feeding schedule? Rains are coming, and the rainfall will be more effective for having the soil opened up and mixed in advance.

The soil creatures do not turn the soil upside-down and inside-out, as rototillers and plows do - they gently aerate and mix, as they were created and engineered to do.

The Sower and the Living Seed of the Word - by Norma Boeckler.

So Much Like the Divine Work of the Word of God

All of this gardening parallels the Holy Spirit's work through the Word of God. We get to enjoy a part in what God does - simply by 

1. sharing His Word, 
2. broadcasting His Word, 
3. teaching His Word, or
4. encouraging those whose primary work involves the Word.

The Word belongs to God alone, which is intimately connected to His Creation. If we cannot see His work in Nature, then we can see it in how He works through the Means of Grace. 

Like most gardeners, I would like to plant asparagus crowns one year and harvest them the next. I would love to have full-grown sunflowers a few days after planting the seeds, which the squirrels consider their stored food. My eyes are on some white Calladiums, waiting for them to unfurl and contrast their snowy leaves with the red Calladiums near them.

The Word grows in the same way, never as fast as we want, but slowly as God wills.