August prescription: Pause. Find a shady spot in the garden to while away the heat of August afternoons and watch the garden drama unfold.

A burl adorns an old sugar maple. The wood grain in this George Raeder bowl was a wonderful surprise.

photos by K Edgington and E Barth-Elias

On a walk through an old-growth forest, a tree lover stopped to admire a stately, old maple. Her admiring glance swept up the broad trunk, but paused at the sight of a large, bark-covered growth on the upper trunk—a burl. What is that foreign-looking growth? Will we lose this tree? What can we treat it with? 

While scientists are still working to understand the mechanics, they know that, like galls, burls are the result of a change, or “hijacking” of the growth cells in the cambium region of the tree, the region where trees grow new xylem (water and mineral transport) and phloem (food transport) cells. Burls are initiated by bacteria, viruses, insects, or fungi, or perhaps an injury to the tree trunk. The cause can be hard to detect—by the time the burl is formed, the culprit may be long gone. Burls can be compared to a slow-growing, benign tumor in a human. They grow as the tree grows, and can eventually reach several feet in diameter. While a startling sight, burls are rarely lethal, and for the most part do not affect tree health or longevity. In most cases no intervention is recommended—the wound from their removal puts the tree at much greater risk than the burl itself.  Burls can grow on any tree species—cherry, walnut, elm—but OSU Forestry Program Director Kathy Smith notes that she most often sees them on maples and oaks.

Woodworkers approach burls from another perspective, prizing burl wood for its interesting, contorted grain which may include “birds-eye wood” (wood from aborted adventitious buds—buds emerging in an abnormal location). Local master woodturner, George Raeder, tells us that burls can be tricky to work with, but their swirling wood and voids can create extraordinary wood bowls and other pieces. He notes that you never know what the wood inside a burl will look like until you open it up, making woodworkers cautious about purchasing them. It’s a bit of a gamble: there may be beautiful, patterned grain inside or large voids and marginal wood.

Watching trees grow is one of the sweet rewards that accompany the passing of years. Burls grow with the mother tree, becoming more interesting and distinctive as they age. Observe and enjoy these mysterious structures on your hikes through woods or neighborhoods.  Look Around!

K Edgington

The flowers, foliage, and seeds of a Talinum paniculatum.

photos by K Edgington

Do you want something a little unusual, dare I say exotic, to spice up your garden in the hot August sun? Jewels of Opar (Talinum paniculatum) is just that, treasured for its easy care and unique ornamental qualities. The name conjures up locales first imagined by Edger Rice Burroughs (of Tarzan fame) when he wrote of the fictional lost city of Opar in his novels. Both the delicate flowers and the ruby-red seed pods must have inspired the naming of this jewel of a plant.

Also known as fame flower, Jewels of Opar is a great plant for fresh or dried bouquets and tolerates hot, dry sites. This low-growing ground cover explodes with tiny airy pink flowers in August and September just as other annuals (and perennials) lose their oomph in the heat of summer. The delicate flowers form a cloud of color as they dance above the leaves.

A relative of portulaca, botanists debate Talinum paniculatum's origins, claiming Africa, Thailand, North and South America, Cuba, and the Caribbean. However, we do know that it thrives in all those places now. Sometime described as a succulent, it functions as a perennial in zones 9 and 10, sometimes in zone 8, and an annual in zones 7-4.

Not easy to find in your local garden center (most likely because it is not in bloom at planting time), Jewels of Opar is simple to grow from seed. Start it 6 weeks before the last frost or direct seed after the soil has warmed to 60 - 68°. Come late summer, you will be rewarded with petite pink flowers on 2’ tall red stems that, once picked, last a week or more in a vase. The plant will continue to produce blooms for about 6 weeks, ensuring guilt-free harvests. The flowers eventually form ruby-colored bead-like seed pods that are also attractive in flower arrangements and wreaths.

There are three varieties of Talinum. Limon, the most common, has bright chartreuse foliage. Kingwood Gold (first discovered at exotic Kingwood Center Gardens in Mansfield, Ohio) is more gold-hued and self-sows freely. Difficult to find but exquisite is Variagatum, with variegated green and cream-colored leaves and gold seed pods. This variety typically does not self-sow.

Jewels of Opar leaves are edible and have a mild flavor similar to spinach.  Like spinach, they can be eaten raw or cooked. Although high in calcium, vitamins, and antioxidants, eat in moderation, as it can cause digestive side effects.

Want to find a spot for some of these charmers in your flowerbeds? Look for a sun or part-shade area with well-drained or sandy soil. It works well in borders, cottage or rock gardens, containers, and even fire remediation sites. It will self-sow, but removing the seed pods will curb their proliferation.

Enjoy these tough but winsome beauties now but don’t forget them in the spring. That’s when seeds are sown for an August reward of floral riches. Dream on…

J Gramlich

Dragonflies up close are winged magic.

photo by Sander Meertins

There’s something magical about dragonflies—shimmering, iridescent creatures zipping through the garden. But appearances deceive—dragonflies are actually ferocious carnivores. The tiny dragonfly is arguably the best hunter on earth, with a kill rate (hunts ending successfully) of around 95%. Great white sharks have a 50% kill rate, lions just 20%. So how does the glittery dragonfly outdo all those teeth and claws?

Dragonflies (Anisoptera spp.) have been around for 300 million years, a long time to perfect hunting skills. Their fossils have wingspans of over two feet—one big bug. Dragonflies and damselflies both belong to the order Ordonata (“toothed one”), which refers to the mandibles (jawbones) they use to crush prey. Dragonfly eyes are bigger than damselfly eyes, and there’s no space between them. See HERE for other ways to tell the two apart:

Truly built to hunt, dragonflies are incredible aerialists—watch HERE. They’re so good at flight, engineers study their techniques for use in drones and robots. Watch THIS. Dragonflies can fly in six directions, hover, and pivot with amazing speed, because they operate each of their four wings independently (most insects move their wings as a unit, by flexing their thorax).

Dragonflies pick a single target out of a swarm, focus on it, predict where it’s going, and adjust their flight to intercept it. They capture the doomed fly, mosquito or midge using their six legs as a “basket” and will gobble it up mid-air. They have voracious appetites, eating at least 20% of their body weight daily (for a large dragonfly about 80 mosquitoes), but can consume much more. There is one limitation on the otherwise endless eating. Dragonflies only catch prey while in flight—so bugs on the ground are safe.

Devious dragonflies also hide in plain sight by using “motion camouflage”. Choosing a flight path between the target and a point behind the dragonfly allows it to look like it's remaining still even as it is closing in on its meal—a technique used by human hunters.

Finally, dragonflies have eyes in the backs of their heads—almost. Their huge compound eyes contain 30,000 lenses that provide 360-degree vision, except for a single blind spot directly behind their head. LEARN how incredible their vision is. Scientists believe they may see colors we cannot. THIS describes the amazing process of “fixation” —how the dragonfly brain passes information from the eyes to its wings, making capturing prey a simple reflex.

Even baby dragonflies are excellent hunters. Eggs are laid in or near water, hatching into nymphs (dragonfly larvae). Dragonflies sometimes lay eggs on a car hood or other dark shiny surface, mistaking it for water. The person filming THIS VIDEO doesn’t realize the dragonflies are laying eggs, but the car hood definitely resembles water.

The nymph’s totally aquatic existence is the longest stage of a dragonfly’s life, lasting months or even years, depending on the species. Nymphs jet around their watery homes by expelling water through their rectum, using a flexible mouth part (labium) to snag prey like tadpoles, water insects, and even small fish. For more about nymphs click HERE.

Dragonflies go through incomplete metamorphosis. Nymphs rise to the top of the water, switch to breathing air, crawl onto a plant, shed their skin and take to the skies. The best hunters on the planet then have only another few weeks to two years, depending on the species, to terrorize the skies…

If you’d like to learn more about these beautiful, deadly creatures watch HERE and HERE.

THIS video lists the ten most beautiful Odonatas in the world.

C Christian

Designers of New York City's High Line built beauty and low maintenance into their trails.

Photo by Olga Kaya

If you’ve been gardening for a long time you know a lot. Certainly, if your garden(s) have been successful, your mastery of soil chemistry, garden design and plant selection is impressive.

But do you know about KNOW maintenance?

Not an acronym, KNOW maintenance is a gardening philosophy that aims to create beautiful planting sites requiring minimal effort. Garden designer and plantsman Roy Diblik has honed this practice since the 1970s. His 2014 book, The Know Maintenance Perennial Garden: Knowing your flowers means less work, outlines the principles at the heart of his design goals. It’s all about how well you know your plants.

His credentials are impressive. Owner of Northwind Perennial Farm in southeast Wisconsin, he supplied the 26,000 plants used by designer Piet Oudolf’s Lurie Garden in Millennium Park in Chicago. His own designs replicate many of Oudolf’s, particularly the use of grasses for the High Line Garden in New York City and the bold design of the Great Dixter garden in England.

Diblik uses perennials because he knows their growth habits and likes their adaptability and diversity. They have many different kinds of flowers, structure, foliage, stems and roots. To Diblik, plants are “living art.”

In a 2014 interview with Joyce Newman of the New York Botanical Garden, he admitted the impressionist color palette inspires him. He chooses colors and shapes to evoke the flow of color in paintings by Monet, Cezanne and Van Gogh. The changes in color tone help him determine the percentage of plants in the overall design, and he knits the plantings together with short grasses and sedges.

His book includes some of his own designs, which help eliminate the confusion over plant selection. So many plants are chosen for color and bloom time, he observed. These “fashionable” plants are short-lived and often must be replaced. He suggests gardeners take time to “know” their plants and use that knowledge to develop healthier relationships between plant communities.

Part of that healthier relationships includes using plants that are already adapted to their environment, particularly native flowers and sedges. For example, gardeners who want more native plants would not plant moisture-loving Cinnamon fern ((Osmundastrum cinnamoneum) or Swamp milkweed (Aesclepias incarnata) into drought-prone flower beds.

His interest in sedges lies in their ability to grow in dense groupings, eliminating the need for wood mulch. This living mulch needs to be mowed only once a year, and flowering plants can be introduced when time and money allow.

Diblik recalls planting kohlrabi with his grandmother, saying a child’s knowledge of gardening is as important as math, science and technology. It helps the child develop an understanding of the relationships of plants to the natural world, explaining that humans need contact with the natural world as much as they do one another.

Diblik’s book ends with a chapter about nine gardeners he says use design not just to showcase plants but to involve, educate and engage people. He emphasizes the tie these gardens have to the wider community, showing visitors or casual observers the important role beauty plays in everyday life.

Knowing plants involves more than learning about species and growing conditions. Knowing plants lights the way to a world of community, interdependence and beauty. That’s a path worth following.

PLANT TALK: THE KNOW MAINTENANCE PERENNIALS GARDEN: New York Botanical Garden

S Vradenburg

Three moss gardens

photos by K Edgington

The subtle shades of green and soft textures of moss on a forest path, stream bank, or rocky outcropping soothe the senses on a hot summer day. As we enter the gardener’s “August pause”, bring a bit of that ahhh-factor to your shady nook, that spot where a cold beverage, a summer read, and a view of your beautiful garden can be found. This moss planter is a breeze to assemble, and makes a charming centerpiece or garden gift. 

You’ll need:

• A flat-ish container. Most anything will work but think about what blends with the natural moss or perhaps creates a striking contrast: raised-edge trays, flat bowls, squat tins, old silver pieces, etc. You might consider a footed, flat-bowled container—beautiful!
• An assortment of mosses*
• A fern or like accent plant (optional)
• Soil or soilless mix. I opt for garden soil in order to duplicate the growing conditions of my mosses.
• Aggregate such as pea gravel or turkey grit
• Accent pieces: rocks or stones, lichen-covered bark (Lichens add great color contrast and interest—I highly recommend using them), rust-covered doo-dads, shells—whatever strikes your fancy
• Bowl and trowel or spoon for mixing the soil
• Watering can with small spout or rose (the perforated watering can attachment that creates a soft shower of water) and spray bottle of water

* Moss cannot be collected from parks, public, or private spaces without permission. Use a trowel or spatula to scrape a sheet of moss from the ground or object, including a thin layer of soil, and keep damp until planting. An assortment of mosses can be purchased online at reasonable prices. Did you know that you can freeze moss for later use? Layer sheets of living, damp moss in a ziplock bag, seal, and pop in the freezer. Make sure to label and date---confusing your moss stash with pea soup can be a bit disconcerting!

DIRECTIONS:

1. If your container does not have a drainage hole, use a drill to create one. HERE'S a good tutorial on drilling a drainage hole in pottery or ceramics.
2. Gather your materials in a shady workspace.
3. Mix your soil with some aggregate, about two thirds soil to one third aggregate. The aggregate creates excellent drainage. Add water to dampen the mix. (This will allow you to create “hills” and other contours.)
4. If your drainage hole is large, cover with a piece of coffee filter, hardware cloth, or window screen to keep soil from escaping. Make a plan by placing the accent pieces and fern in your container and reposition until you have a pleasing arrangement. Remove them and start building your moss garden by adding the soil mix, mounding as desired to create dimension. 
5. Add the accent pieces, seating rocks in the soil, rather than on top.
6. Plant your accent plant if you are using one. Just the suggestion of a fern or like plant will enhance the vignette and create the illusion of a mossy glade.
7. Top all bare soil areas with moss, tucking the edges under the container edge and against accent pieces.
8. Water well with your watering can. If needed, use a spray bottle to clean off rocks and accents.
9. Place in a shady area, and water when dry.

Moss is a resilient plant, and can take some drought, but watering when dry will keep your moss garden at its greenest.  When winter days arrive, place your container in a sheltered outdoor location, and water during prolonged dry weather. Enjoy this homage to a mossy enclave as you celebrate the August pause!

 K Edgington

August Checklist

• Rejuvenate tired annuals by deadheading and fertilizing. REVIVE ANNUAL FLOWERS: Purdue University
• Reseed turf by late August so it has time to establish before cold weather.
• Water the garden if there has not been an inch of rain in the previous week.
• Fertilize roses for the last time.
• Clean up and deadhead perennials to prolong blooming. 
• Cut down raspberry canes that have already produced fruit.
• Maximize your garden’s bounty by freezing or canning fruits and veggies and drying herbs. Sow leftover lettuce, radish, kale, and carrot seeds for a fall harvest.

J Gramlich