Author: lwcmartin@bellsouth.net

As temperatures finally begin to drop and fall is in the air, the trees are responding with their annual display of vibrant colors. Dogwood is turning that beautiful, subtle dark maroon with accents of bright red berries. Tulip poplar and oaks are sporting golden yellow while the maples are beginning to show their brilliant orange.

Of all the fall trees, though, I perhaps appreciate the sourwood most of all. One of the first to show color, you can pick out a sourwood tree from a forest of green at quite a distance.

This is an all-season tree. In addition to the stunning fall foliage, it has beautiful delicate flowers in mid-summer, interesting bark and a great silhouette during the winter months and light yellow-green leaves in spring.

Sourwood (also known as sorrell tree) is so named because of the acrid or sour taste of the leaves. They’re apparently edible, though I’ve never tasted one. Wild crafters and foragers will use them as flavoring or steep them in hot water to make tea. Native Americans used the leaves as both flavoring and medicine.

Perhaps sourwood is best known for the honey that bees make from the flower nectar. The blossoms last only three weeks during summer but bee keepers and probably the bees too celebrate this season. The honey made from sourwood blossoms is considered some of the finest. Sourwood honey won three out of the last six world honey championships.

Sourwood honey is a very light amber color and, according to the honey experts, has a “soft anise and spice” flavor. Reading about different honey flavors is somewhat like reading descriptions of wines. Tulip poplar is “dark, bold and minerally.”

Sourwood trees are understory trees and provide an important layer in an ecosystem. They are native from Pennsylvania south to northern Florida and west to Illinois. But, like many of our native plants, sourwood populations are declining. The trees have been weakened by periodic droughts and extreme temperatures and many have been lost due to development.

Because it is such a lovely tree, you should plant one in your yard. It likes full sun but will do fine in partial shade. It will benefit you – and nature!

I’ve been waiting six months for my dahlias to bloom and finally! hallelujah! they are putting forth the most incredibly beautiful flowers in the garden. I don’t know why they took so long to bloom. Maybe because it was an unusually wet summer? Maybe I had them planted too close to other plants? I’ve never grown dahlias before so I’m not sure.

But unfortunately, after waiting all this time, I’m finding out the my double-flowered beauties are just another pretty face in the garden. I spend a lot of time gardening in the front where the dahlias are planted so I have ample opportunities to see which plants the pollinators love (black and blue salvia is the TOP winner.)

I watched carefully as the dahlias came into bloom and nary a single insect landed on the blossoms. Of course not! There’s no pollen in most of them and the others are packed so full of petals that the bees can’t find the pollen. Remember that old commercial about the hamburgers, when the guy says, “where’s the beef?” That’s what I imagine the bees are saying “where’s the nectar?”

This does not mean that all dahlias are completely useless to pollinators. It just means that the double varieties that I planted in a less-enlightened time of my life (last spring) provide no value to the ecosystem. Open centered dahlias, with simpler flowers are actually fairly decent as pollinator plants.

Most of us by now know that by far the best pollinator plants for native insects are native plants. Not only can the pollinators “find the beef,” but also the plants and insects also evolved together so that the insects instantly recognize them as useful plants.

Does this mean that our beloved ornamental plants are of no value? No of course not. I value my dahlias simply for their beauty. But I also have to take into consideration the carrying capacity of my yard and how many plants I can support when considering space, water and mostly my own time and energy.

I think it more important to choose plants that provide both beauty and value to nature rather than to just plant more pretty faces. We are at a juncture where we all need to help nature in whatever we can. By providing a diversity of flowers useful to pollinators, I feel that I am making a contribution to the greater biodiversity of the planet, which I consider a worthy goal.

(note: I’m currently scheduling spring speaking engagements. If your group or organization is interested in having someone speak very enthusiastically about the wildflowers, email me at Naturebasedblog@gmail.com. I love sharing my passion for native plants. )

After a long, hot, humid summer, I’m sometimes tempted just to shut down the garden, cut everything back and mulch over the whole mess. But when I venture out, I realize just how important my fall garden is to late pollinators.

Although it’s critical to provide for native pollinators during the year, it’s particularly important during the shoulder seasons of early spring and late fall when plants are not as profuse as they are in summer.

When I took time to look I realized that there were still a lot of things in bloom and that most of them were covered with bees and butterflies. My number one, very favorite pollinator plant is the Black and Blue salvia. From a strictly aesthetic point of view it has a few drawbacks, mainly that it’s big and gangly and has a hard time standing up straight (sounds like my 14 year old grandson. Just kidding.) But the pollinators absolutely don’t care and it is dripping with bees and wasps and hummingbirds and butterflies as long as it’s in bloom, which is a long time! This began blooming in May and is still going strong. I highly recommend it!

Goldenrods, too, are pollinator magnets. I planted some miniatures this year, called ‘Little Lemons’ and the bees were on it as I was planting it. I hope these new plants will grow and multiply and fill a part of my yard with golden wonder.

I had to replace my coneflowers and put the new ones in a different spot as my old Echinacea developed a bacteria called yellow aster which causes the blooms to be distorted and sprout green ray flowers. There’s nothing to do about it except remove the affected plants and start over in fresh soil somewhere else.

Another happy autumn pollinator plant is aster. These are readily available at nurseries. Asters are particularly important as larval food for the silvery checkerspot butterfly but also provide nectar and pollen for many species of native bees, wasps and flies.

So, don’t give up on your garden yet. Leave the seeds on the stalk for the birds this winter and leave every last available blossom for the pollinators. They need it!

Though there are many cultivated garden plants that are good for pollinators in the fall, such as lantana, zinnias and sedum, the native plants are much more likely to attract native pollinators – always a good thing for nature!

Well, to be perfectly precise, as of this afternoon, my okra plant is exactly 9′ 3″ tall – but check in later today for an update because this sucker continues to grow and tower over everything else in the garden.

I’ve had tall okra in the past but this has exceeded my expectations – by several feet. Okra is one of those plants that gets a slow start in the spring – it LOVES hot weather and warm soils. But, once it begins to grow, apparently nothing but frost will stop it. I’ll have to admit, there are days that I pray for frost.

It is definitely a conversation starter in our neighborhood. A lot of people stop and stare and ask what in the world is it? It’s way too tall now for normal people to see the very attractive bloom and the delicious pods. So people just see this tree-like structure growing in the corner of the yard and think what-the-heck? It doesn’t really look like a tree, it’s just the same size.

Needless to say, this has been a prolific plant. It has matched in fruit what it has attained in height. We have had a lot of okra this summer – roasted, in stews, fried with cornmeal, in little pancakes – we’ve had it all. Fortunately, my husband and I are both native Southerners (actually native Atlantans) who grew up eating Southern stapes such as grits and okra.

Okra is in the mallow family and the blossom look like hibiscus and cotton. All three plants are closely related. Okra probably came to the United States from Ethiopia where it has been cultivated since 2000 BC. Okra is muscilaginous (i.e. a little slimy) and makes a good thickening agent. For this reason, it was often used in stews. The Bantu word for “okra” is ochingombo. Stew with okra in it eventually came to be known as gumbo.

I’d love to stay and regale you with stories about okra but I have to go. Something is suddenly blocking out the sun. I think it might be my okra tree.

Imagine, if you can, a woman living in the wilderness of Alaska at a place so remote that the only possible way to get there is by bush plane. Imagine this place and you would probably conjure up images of bleak glaciers and dark evergreen forests, of glaciated braided rivers and of tundra vast enough to boggle the mind. And your conjuring would be, up to a certain point, quite accurate for the wilderness of the Wrangall St. Elias National Park is all of that.

But this woman of the wilderness is also a gardener which means that in addition to the unbelievable expanse of wild, achingly beautiful land, there is also a tiny spot of gentle beauty that feels like home.

Donna Claus is a remarkable woman. She and her husband, Paul, an Alaska bush pilot and climber of great renown, created a lodge in the wilderness so that ordinary people, like me, a soft and green product of the sweet and sultry American South, could come and safely experience for a few days what wilderness really feels like. Visiting with Donna and talking to her was a stark and wonderful reminder of why we garden.

Before you begin to pigeonhole Donna as just a “friendly innkeeper” let me add a few nuggets of information that I mined from her in the precious few days I knew her. She’s a pilot. And a climber. And explorer. I don’t even know a fraction of Donna’s life adventures but when I say this is a tough woman, I say it with a great degree of certainty.

When I sat and talked with Donna, we quickly found the common ground of interest in gardening. I asked her why she gardened when there was so much natural beauty around and she answered, “The wilderness can be overwhelming. You fly hundreds of miles and see all kinds of things every day but the sheer magnitude of it all can make you feel pretty insignificant. So when the guests get back from a day of flying and hiking on glaciers, I want them to feel welcomed and at home.”

And walking up to the lodge (Called Ultima Thule, which means “beyond the end of the known world”) after a day of adventuring in the wild, I realized how successful Donna had been – and how important her vision was. When I saw old familiar friends in the pots of colorful flowers, I began to settle back down into a more familiar perspective. A dahlia blossom is both stunningly beautiful and comforting at the same time. It looks like home. It is beauty that I can appreciate without over – extending my senses.

I’m sure that doing technical climbs to summit mountaintops and walking 30 hours UNDER a glacier to get back to civilization is incredibly difficult but after listening to Donna describe what it’s like to garden at the edge of the world, I suspect that gardening must rank among her greatest accomplishments.

Imagine this: Temperatures that can dip as low as 78 degrees BELOW zero. Trying to garden in a place where every single bit of equipment, from the trowels to the seeds to the bulldozers, have to be brought in by plane. Months of wind and dust that can leave 1/8 to 1/4 an inch of silt on every surface every day. Seeing “terminator dust,” the first snows on the surrounding mountaintops that signal that winter is just around the corner. And then composting everything. Everything. She starts the garden from scratch every year since nothing survives the winters. Let me hasten to add that Donna’s garden is not small. She says that every year she plants approximately 20,000 plants in pots and beds.

Along with the many challenges, though, Donna does have a few advantages. For one thing, she gets amazingly rich topsoil straight from the mountainside behind the lodge. And she has sunshine. Lots and lots and lots of sunshine during the summer. She says that the rate of growth is astonishing. Things will double in size overnight.

Being in Alaska and talking to Donna about gardening was a surreal experience because everything was so different and somehow seemed magnified many times over. It is not a place where I could live or garden for I don’t have the skills for either one. But as different as Donna and I are, we found instant companionship and friendship based on our shared love of digging in the dirt. And this is why I garden, not only to plant things that are beautiful but because I love being part of a community of people with this shared passion, wherever their dirt might be.

If you ever watched a Bugs Bunny cartoon, you’ll probably remember Yosemite Sam yelling, “there’s gold in them thar hills!” although I never remember Sam actually finding gold.

Perhaps Yosemite Sam would have had more success had he been looking for Goldenrod rather than the hard to find but obsessively sought after precious metal. These days all our hillsides are beginning to turn gold with the blooms of this autumn native.

You can find goldenrods throughout North America. There are over 125 species native to the United Sates. These interbreed easily and it’s often difficult to determine exactly which species you’re looking at. But, it’s easy to tell when you’re looking at some kind of goldenrod. They have tiny, daisy like flowers clustered together on a long stalk and almost always, the flowers are a golden yellow color.

Goldenrods are short day bloomers, meaning no matter what the temperature, when the days begin to shorten, these are going to bloom.

These plants are essential to pollinators such as bees, flies, wasps, butterflies and beetles, especially the goldenrod soldier beetle. The leaves are used by many different butterfly species as larval food.

Western settlers made a tea from goldenrods and used it to treat kidney stones, toothaches and sore throats. Salves were made and used topically to treat sores and infections.

During the Revolutionary War, after colonists dumped imported tea into the Boston Harbor, many plants, particularly goldenrod were used to make a substitute tea called “liberty tea.” It was probably stronger on patriotism than it was on taste but it was a valiant act of liberty.

Contrary to commonly held beliefs, goldenrod does not cause hay fever. The culprit is ragweed, which blooms at the same time. Goldenrod makes a lovely cut flower and is a welcomed addition to any fall bouquet.

To see a world in a grain of sand,

And a heaven in a wild flower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand

And eternity in an hour. William Blake

My mom, Lois Coogle, was never much of one for “store bought.” She was a firm believer in making it yourself whether it was furniture or clothes for her four daughters. My brother, Lee, seemed exempt from homemade clothing. Lucky Lee. Mom was better with a paintbrush than a needle.

Not spending money was just one of the reasons Mom liked to do things herself. The other was that she had an incredible and impressive ability to see potential in things other people would either ignore (at best) or throw away (more often.)

As a child, I hid my head in embarrassment more than once as my mother stopped to go through the neighbor’s trash piled on the street. Inevitably she’d drag out something – a broken chair or an old lamp – and bring it home. As soon as she walked in the door, she’d call out “Ken! (my dad) Ken! I have a little five minute job for you!”

My dad, probably the most patient man in the world, would take her trash and make it functional and then she would infuse it with creativity. She’d clean and paint it a plain color then add beautiful designs of fruits or flowers. And then she’d sell it, making a tidy profit from things other people had thrown away.

Mom’s trash – to – treasure attitude extended to flowers. I never remember her buying flowers for anything. “Why would you?” she would ask, “when the garden and the woods are full of things you can use.”

For decades she took “flower” arrangements to her Sunday school class at Peachtree Road United Methodist Church. Every Sunday. When the garden was in bloom, it wasn’t a problem. Daylilies and phlox, roses and daisies went into her arrangements.

In the dead of winter, though, her arrangements became more creative. Nothing was without potential. She never saw weeds, she only saw wildflowers. Dried grasses, bare twigs, autumn leaves, pine branches…..she could somehow make them all look elegant and beautiful – or at least interesting.

If anyone could see “heaven in a wildflower” I’m sure it was my Mom. We never talked about grains of sand, but I am completely confident that in them, she could see an entire world.

I am so grateful for this legacy, so proud to be her daughter. Every time I write a line or paint a flower, I think of her, but perhaps I miss her most when I pick a clump of weeds and call them wildflowers. I imagine her in heaven, picking weeds and painting something beautiful on the pearly gates.

The weather-person in Atlanta said the other day that being outside was like walking into a dog’s mouth. Heat and humidity are taking their toll both on humans and the garden. It’s a great way, though, to separate the men from the boys, the women from the girls, the survivors from the victims.

I have to give pink (and an occasionally white) phlox the highest marks. This has been in bloom for about 7 weeks now and still looks good. It is native and spreads easily. Some may call it an aggressive grower but because it’s native and really doesn’t choke out other plants, I just call it “an enthusiastic grower.” Not only does it look good for a long time period, it’s also an excellent cut flower and pollinator plant. The butterflies just phlox (oh sorry, flock) to it! It WAY outperformed bee balm, which only bloomed for a few weeks and never attained the brilliance that I’ve had in years past.

Black-eyed Susan used to be a no-brainer for my garden and I have extolled its virtues many times. And it still is one of my favorite summer standards. But this year, small black glossy bugs ate all the buds! off the plants in the back. The front yard “Susans” seemed untouched. I carefully shook off as many as I could and sprayed the plants with insecticidal soap a couple of times, all of which I think had little effect. I also clipped off all the mostly eaten buds and hoped that they would survive and maybe even bloom again, which they did! Not as prolifically and beautifully as other clumps, but I do have a nice smattering of flowers now.

I usually plant a long row of something along the street in the front. I like to put in white flowers since I have such a cacophony of colors that appear at various times in the garden. I’ve tried all kinds of things including petunias and vinca but have found that pentas (which are white-ish) not only survive but look the best for the longest time – going on 4 months now.

Even though it gets HUGE every year without a tremendous number of flowers, I always make room for blue salvia in the front because of the hummingbirds. It is truly better than a hummingbird feeder and I can sit and watch the little creatures dive and flit and fly and occasionally fight one another over a particularly tasty blossom.

There are definitely empty spaces in the garden as things wax and wane and It takes tremendous self control to not fill up those spaces with something stunning and colorful and impressive. But I’m trying to learn patience and just give things room to grow and develop and bloom. It’s much like when I started playing the piano again after taking a few decades off. It was really difficult for me to give the rest notes their full count. I wanted to fill every moment with beautiful sound. But I learned that music – and the garden – is not just about the notes and the flowers but about the empty spaces in between, which give you a place and a time to breathe and appreciate .

So………I’m…………trying……….to…………..leave………………..more……………………….empty………………………..spaces…………………………in……………………my……………………life.

Happy Gardening!

You know that feeling you have when you look in the mirror and think, “I have to get a hair cut. Today. Right now. I can’t stand it any longer.” That’s the same feeling I got this morning looking at my garden. I have to do something about this. Today. Right now.

I have had the same list of excuses everyone else does to avoid weeding the garden. It’s too hot. There are too many bugs. It’s too hard. Nobody will notice anyway. I don’t have my shoes on.

But finally, I just couldn’t stand it any longer so, donning long sleeves and a hat, I whistled for my faithful dog, Sadie, and headed to the back, bushwhacking my way through the weeds.

I weeded for a while, and got into the rhythm of the “grab, pull, toss.” And, once into it, with plenty of time to think, I realized that there was a parallel list of good reasons to weed.

1. No one bothers you. Not my husband or a grandchild or a grown child. They all realize if they stick their head out the door to ask me something, there is a very real threat they will get roped into weeding. So, I repeat, no one bothers me.

2. With so many weeds to choose from, I don’t have to move around a lot. I can stand or squat in one place for a long time with plenty of weeds to keep me busy.

3. There is a satisfyingly large pile of weeds to look at, providing evidence of how hard I am working. (It also provides evidence of how long I’ve neglected the garden but we won’t talk about that.)

4. Then, there are the obvious reasons. Removing all those weeds actually gives the garden plants room to grow and breathe and even spread. AND, an added benefit, I always uncover things I forgot I planted, such as the azalea shrub I put in last spring. I knew it was there someplace!

Different people have different methods of weeding based on personality type. My sister, Sharon, I’m sure is a slow and meticulous weeder because that’s how she does everything. Other people are slap happy, let’s get this over with, grab as many as you can in the shortest time possible kind of weeders. Guess which I am?

Being a fast weeder has a lot of advantages (as in you finish sooner!) but you will also inevitably have an “oops” moment when you look at a fistful of weeds only to discover that you’ve pulled up your prized…..something!”

My Dad used to have a T-shirt that said “Weed them and reap,” clearly a play on the poker saying, “Read them and weep.” But when I inadvertently pulled up the small dahlia that I’d been nurturing since last spring, I thought it should probably read, “Weed them and weep.”

I try to plant the garden so that there’s not much room for weeds but inevitably, they find their way in and around and sometimes through the garden plants. But I don’t really mind. Weeding makes me feel as if I have just a little bit of control over something in life! Even if it’s temporary.

Whether you say tomahto or tomayto, baysil or bahsil, the fact remains that the twin gifts of summer are home grown tomatoes with some spicy green basil on the side.

For me, it’s a constant challenge to get to the tomatoes before the squirrels do. I’ve tried all kinds of things – fencing, netting, different locations and on and on but somehow those pesky little creatures always seem to wiggle their way in and eat about half of my tomatoes. I don’t mean half the crop, I mean half of each tomato. Arghhhh.

It does help to pick them before they’re all the way ripe. Though I lose some flavor, at least I get some tomato. This year I grew Roma tomatoes which have produced magnificently.

I tried growing different basils from seed this year and had good success. My favorite cultivar is called “Cardinal.” It has dark red, sturdy stems and though it doesn’t seem to be quite as abundant as the classic basil, the taste is absolutely fantastic. It has a more robust flavor, with a bit of a kick to it. I don’t think even I could eat an entire plate of it, but tossed in with other greens or in a caprese salad, it is wonderful.

Perhaps my favorite way to use the summer garden gifts is to make up a large batch of tomato basil soup. It’s fast, easy, healthy and delicious. What more could you want? Just halve the tomatoes and roast them for 40 minutes, add (a lot of) basil, sautee onions and add seasonings. A few minutes in a super blender, such as a Vita-mix makes it unnecessary to peel and seed the tomatoes ahead of time (hallelujah!)

There are endless variations. If you want a richer, creamier soup, substitute half and half for the milk. If you’re vegan or vegetarian, use vegetable broth instead of the chicken broth and milk. For an extra kick, add some of your favorite hot sauce. You can serve it warm (my preference) or chilled and can top it with avocado cream, a dollop of sour cream or some shaved Parmesan.

Anyway you do it, this is a great way to take advantage of summer’s bounty. Enjoy!!

TOMATO BASIL SOUP

3 pounds Roma tomatoes, halved

6 tablespoons olive oil, divided

1 tablespoon salt

1 1/2 teaspoons ground black pepper

2 cups onions, (Vidalia, if possible) chopped

6 garlic cloves, minced

2 tablespoons butter

1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

1 (28-oz.) can of plum tomatoes, including the juice

4 cups basil leaves, packed

1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves (or 1/4 teaspoon dried)

1 teaspoon fresh oregano (or 1/4 teaspoon dried)

3 cups chicken broth or vegetable broth

1 cup milk (or half and half, or more broth)

Slice the tomatoes lengthwise, toss in 4 tablespoons of olive oil, add salt and pepper and roast in a roasting pan at 375 degree oven for 40 minutes.

In a large stew pot, sautée garlic and onions in the butter and remaining 2 tablespoons oil. Cook until soft and beginning to caramelize. Add red pepper flakes, basil, canned tomatoes, thyme, oregano and broth. When roasted tomatoes are done, add them to the mix. Cook for about 30 minutes.

Allow to cool, then adding a bit of milk (or additional broth) to each batch, process in the super blender until smooth. Makes about 7 – 8 servings. Yum.