By June many of us have hit our gardening stride. Weeding, watering, watching the amazing growth of sun-fed plants. Life is good in a June garden. |
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This well-worn snag welcomes hawks, songbirds, and a host of other animals.
photo by K Edgington
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Gardeners tend to be fastidious. They make quick work of a stray seedling or sprouting weed and know the tricks to keep them at bay. Fallen leaves are raked or blown to a disposal site. But neat little rows and pristine beds can fall short. A bit of garden duff and areas of intermingling native weeds create great nesting and feeding sites for a host of insects and other animals. A case in point: tree snags, those dead, standing trees whose canopy is long gone. Lightning, storms, disease, insects, drought, flooding, and cultural factors can mean the death of trees, but the life they generate goes on. Birds nest, forage, perch, and roost in snags. Primary cavity makers, such as woodpeckers, excavate nooks for shelter and food, sometimes taking a week or more to hollow out each cavity. Secondary cavity users like opossums, squirrels, bats, owls, and songbirds take up residence after woodpeckers depart. Hollow snags provide homes for porcupines, raccoons, and other mammals.
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Hawks, eagles, and owls appreciate the high perch to scout for potential prey. Snags are also a preferred perching site for songbirds, hummingbirds, swallows, and pigeons. As insect magnets, they house spiders, bark beetles, termites, and ants, among others, and provide a multitude of creatures with a high-quality diet.
Snags are like tall condominiums, providing refuge and shelter for a host of animals. And this condominium has an awesome food court, where insects, spiders, lichen, fungi, and moss provide a smorgasbord of delicacies. Check out the mini mart – caches of nuts and other foods that have been squirreled away for a less abundant time. Like any good residence, this condominium recycles – decomposers such as bacteria, fungi, and insects are on the job, and bark and bits of wood are shed, providing nutrients and organics to soils.
The National Wildlife Federation notes that “By some estimates the removal of dead material from forests can mean a loss of habitat for up to one-fifth of the animals in the ecosystem.” Snags provide a critical service in our home landscapes as well. As populations grow and development expands, it becomes ever more important to recognize the value of snags and protect them. When safety is not an issue, become a landlord and let these high functioning condos populate your landscape, where they will provide habitat for countless creatures and an opportunity to observe the complexity and beauty of the circle of life. Look Around!
K Edgington
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Bartzella Itoh Peony
photo by E Barth-Elias
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Oh, the flowers! Most of us love gardening because we love flowers. Yes, plucking a ripe tomato off the vine is nice, too, but we just love a gorgeous, fragrant, eye-catching bloom. The Itoh peony does not disappoint but for the more science-minded, it has a great back story too.
The Itoh peony (pronounced ee'-toe and also known as an intersectional peony) is still somewhat unfamiliar, but worth getting to know. A cross between an herbaceous perennial peony (Paeonia lactiflora) and a woody tree peony (Paeonia lemoinei), it is a welcome addition to any garden.
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Itoh peonies have been around since being first hybridized by Dr. Tiochi Itoh, a Japanese botanist, in 1948. This was no small feat, since herbaceous and woody peonies are fairly dissimilar genetically and bloom at different times. After thousands of attempts, Dr. Itoh was successful, but decades passed before Itoh peonies became commercially viable. Originally, they had buttery yellow blooms but now come in a rainbow of colors including pink, coral, lavender, and apricot.
Like a perennial peony, the Itoh peony dies back to the ground in the winter. In spring it emerges with a mounded growth habit and forms large 6-8" blooms that are quite prolific. Like tree peonies, Itoh peonies don’t require staking. Foliage is similar with abundant lobed dark green leaves that remains attractive into autumn. Itoh peonies begin flowering as herbaceous peonies are wrapping up. After the first flush of spectacular blooms, the plants produce flowers from the secondary buds that form below the first flowers. This bonus gives an extended flower show totaling 3-4 weeks and up to 50 blooms per plant. When planted among traditional peonies, that’s about 6 weeks of bloom time!
Like other peonies, Itohs require full sun but will tolerate light shade. They have extreme longevity, living 50-100 years with proper care. A tap root makes it difficult to transplant or divide so choose an appropriate site, one with well-drained soil, neutral soil pH and plenty of space to avoid crowding. Container plants or bare roots can be transplanted in spring or fall using a low-nitrogen fertilizer at the beginning of the growing season. Be forewarned, you won’t see blooms the first year. Itoh peonies thrive in zones 3-8 and don’t require a period of cold to flower. Disease resistance is better than other peonies and the deer tend to leave them alone. While not native, the nectar attracts bees, butterflies and ants.
Because the Itoh peony is difficult to propagate, and requires 3-5 years to mature, it can be a bit pricey at the garden centers and online. Prices range from $50-$100 for a container-grown plant, depending on the variety. Bareroot plants and micro-propagated plants (grown in a lab from root pieces) can be less expensive but are typically smaller. Collectors have jumped on the bandwagon, forcing the price upward of $1000 for certain sought-after varieties. This is changing as more plants reach maturity and become available (and people come to their senses).
If you’re in the market for one, here are a few of the many options: ‘Bartzella’, a vibrant yellow with red markings at the center is probably the most well-known of the Itoh peonies. ‘Hillary’ has large, multi-toned rose-pink blooms with yellow centers and is a winner of the American Peony Society’s Award of Landscape Merit. ‘Keiko’ has large double blooms that are dark lavender, fading to pink over time. What fun to watch.
June is upon us and if you see these gorgeous flowers in full bloom, know that you are witnessing the grand finale of the peony season as the legacy of Dr. Itoh lives on. Enjoy!
J Gramlich
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Creature Feature - Bullfrogs |
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Note the tympanum. or external ear, behind this bullfrog's eye.
photo by E Barth-Elias
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I am, at best, ambivalent about amphibians. So when my dear editor asked me to write about the North American bullfrog, I decided to focus on the interesting in the absence of the endearing.
Bullfrogs have an interesting diet. They are nocturnal “gape-limited predators,” which means their menu is limited only by what they can fit inside their quite large mouths. This can include snakes, birds, bats, turtles, fish and small mammals—one bullfrog was discovered to have ingested an almost 3-foot-long garter snake. Horrifyingly interesting.
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They are cannibals, eating each other and tadpoles. Which is interesting, if somewhat disconcerting. As is THIS VIDEO. Interestingly, tadpoles normally eat plant matter but will snack on tadpoles of other species.
Bullfrogs are BIG. Big cookies are good, big, aggressive carnivores are interesting. Rana catesbeiana or Lithobates catesbeiana (both names have been given to the species), is North America’s largest true frog, measuring 8 inches or more in body length (not including the legs) and weighing over one pound. True frogs have moist skin, powerful legs and webbed feet. Other frogs in the Ranidae family in Ohio include the wood, pickerel, northern and southern leopard and northern green frogs.
Bullfrogs have smooth, brown or greenish moist skin, with areas of darker colors on their backs. Tongues are located at the front of their mouths to help capture prey. You can tell males and females apart by the tympanum, their external ear, which is a round circle located near the eye. In females the eardrum is the same size as the eyes, in males it is much larger. This is not that interesting, honestly. Males have smaller bodies with yellow throats, females are white.
Bullfrogs live in freshwater ponds, marshes or lakes and are native to the eastern U.S., ranging from Novia Scotia to Central Florida. They were introduced to the western U.S., southern Europe and South America, and are now considered invasive in many areas. Interestingly, Mark Twain’s The Fabulous Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, written in 1865, is evidence that frogs were in California at that time.
“Fabulous jumping” is accurate. Bullfrogs can jump 10 times their body length, easily 6 feet. Watch THIS. The record jump at THIS COMPETITION inspired by Mr. Twain’s story is over 21 feet.
Bullfrogs live 7-9 years, hibernating in mud during cold weather. They breed May-July, and males become loud and aggressive at this time. Guys looking for love set up and defend bachelor pads located throughout a body of water shared by others. Territory is important as this is where the ladies will lay their eggs. Normally solitary males gather in large groups and compete for the girls by their signature bellowing, which also serves as a “Back off!” “Who’s gonna make me?” type dialogue with the other guys. Ultimately this can devolve into testosterone-fueled grappling. (Sound familiar?) Watch HERE.
Some say the male calls sound like a bull bellowing, hence the name “bullfrog.” Others say they are repeating the phrase “jug-o-rum.” LISTEN and decide for yourself. Fittingly, a group of male bullfrogs during breeding season is called a chorus.
Females lay thousands of eggs at a time (estimates range from 2,000 to 40,000). After 4 days tadpoles emerge, and take about 3 years to reach adulthood. Go HERE for a summary. Adults are very hands-off parents (as noted above, even munching on their own little darlings)! (However, the African bullfrog male is a great dad – WATCH THIS ONE ensure his kiddies survival.)
Bullfrogs were generally imported to other regions as a human food source—those meaty legs! Once the population is established they are nearly impossible to get rid of (as you might imagine). Their large size, huge appetite, and ability to eat a wide variety of prey has a significant impact on native species—they eat natives and compete with them for food. Utah’s Division of Wildlife Resources has made THIS post on how to cook frog legs in an effort to encourage hunting them.
Another interesting fact—bullfrogs carry chytrid fungus, which causes chytridiomycosis, a deadly skin disease that is believed to have been responsible for the loss of 100 species of frogs over the past sixty years. Read about it HERE.
Finally, Jeremiah was not a bullfrog, despite what THE SONG says. The word “bullfrog” was a nonsensical placeholder in the opening line of the Three Dog’s Night 1971 song. Interesting that this didn’t prevent the song from becoming a #1 hit…perhaps it helped?
C Christian
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The queen in this group of worker honeybees, larger than the others, is marked with a white dot on her back.
photo by S. Vradenburg
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As we know, pollinators are essential to many of the foods we eat on a daily basis. Native bees quietly go about their business flitting from flower to flower, picking up and depositing pollen, collecting nectar as they go. When we think of bees, however, most often we are thinking of honeybees, pollinator workhorses that are used widely in agriculture and backyards across the county.
Beekeeping has become a popular pastime. There are more than 400 registered apiaries in Summit County, according to Master Gardener Randy Katz, who keeps several hives at his Copley Township home.
Randy got into beekeeping about 10 years ago, he tells us, after seeing a display at a local home and flower show.
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He said he thought it looked like a fun hobby, “something to keep me busy.” He bought Beekeeping for Dummies and hasn’t looked back. He is now Summit County’s Bee Inspector, responsible for making sure hives are maintained and healthy and offering guidance on issues ranging from honey production to pests and diseases. He also teaches the basics of keeping hives.
It takes several steps before neophyte beekeepers can start hives. First, they can take a class that Summit County Beekeepers Association (SCBA) teaches on the basics of beekeeping. Needed equipment ranges from a light-colored suit with a zip-on hood, to a tool that separates the frames and enables them to be removed during hive inspections, to a bellows that spews smoke to calm the bees. Randy estimates the startup cost is about $400, which includes a suit, tools, hives and the first box of bees.
Once equipment is in place, the next step is buying a hive kit, which contains about 10,000 bees and a queen enclosed in a tube sealed with edible fondant. The worker bees eat their way into the queen capsule and release her. At some point she leaves the hive to mate with drones, and then returns to the hive where she will remain for the rest of her life, producing eggs to populate the hive. Randy notes that the typical worker bee born in the spring lives for 30-40 days. One born in September will live through the winter with thousands of her sisters, beating their wings to keep the hive at 96° F. Spring bees' lives are shorter because they forage 2+ miles/day and wear out quicker.
Because so much depends on the queen, it’s important to a hive that she is healthy and well-mated. She is noticeably larger than the worker bees, with an abdomen that extends past the tips of her wings because it is swollen with sperm. A queen can carry up to 5 million sperm.
Why would anyone want to raise bees? The answers are about as varied as the people who keep them. There is simple curiosity, wanting to watch how these tireless creatures work. When most people think of bees the first thing to come to mind is honey. It is a sweet treat with many other uses. Mead is a fermented liquid made with honey, yeast and water. Honey also has medicinal uses, possessing antibiotic and anti-inflammatory properties. Research has found honey effective in treating wounds, helping with digestion, and fighting bacterial diseases. Honey has been traced to ancient Egyptian, Greek, Roman and East Indian cultures.
Honey is only one of the products produced by honeybees. Others include beeswax, honeycomb, and propolis (a substance collected from flowers that bees create and use to cap individual cells in the hive). Lip balm is made from beeswax. Raising and selling queen bees, themselves, can be profitable.
Honeybees give us many things, but we know them best as pollinators. Randy’s 3+ acre property is slowly being converted to flowerbeds from which he will sell flowers to people and businesses in the area. Having several hives within 2000 feet of the flower beds can’t be a bad thing.
S Vradenburg
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Little Devil ninebark stars in this container, supported by a Burmuda Beach petunia, Honeyberry calabrachoa, Purple Queen tradescantia, and Goldilocks lysimachia.
photo by E Barth-Elias
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What stops you cold on a walk or drive through new territory? For me it is eye-catching, beautifully put-together containers. A combination of arresting colors and textures provides the kind of eye candy that I want to linger over, photograph, and duplicate. I’ve played with annual combinations, perennials, and tropicals, but of late am particularly drawn to pots that include a shrub or small tree for structure. A Japanese maple, dwarf hydrangea, Japanese pieris, or elegant false cypress makes a perfect base for the addition of annuals and perennials. the shrub or tree is the thriller when using the common but oh-so-useful thriller-filler-spiller strategy. |
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When including shrubs in mixed containers consider the following:
- Choose a container that is large enough to accommodate a growing shrub’s root system as well as those of surrounding plants. A root-filled container in August means very frequent watering. Your container must have a drainage hole.
- As with all container planting, use a good quality planting medium. You may choose to mix some good garden soil with a potting mix because potting mixes tend to acidify as they age. The garden loam buffers the mix, and will not break down over time (which causes shrinkage). One-third loam to two-thirds potting mix is a good ratio.
- Choose plants that have the same water and sun requirements. Succulents and most herbs do not mix well with water-loving plants, such as ligularia. Shade-loving tuberous begonias do not mix well with sun-loving sedums.
- Add a shallow layer of organic mulch to containers that will bake in the sun.
- Water when the soil an inch or two below the surface is dry until water runs out of the drainage hole in the pot bottom. Use pot feet or rocks underneath the pot to elevate it for unrestricted drainage.
- Use slow-release fertilizers when planting, and then fertilize lightly monthly. Let the plant vigor and color be your guide – shrubs that are over-fertilized push out excess, tender new growth. Discontinue fertilizing in late August to allow the shrub to harden off for the winter.
- Prune out crossing, dead, or diseased branches and prune to maintain the desired height if required.
There are many shrubs that are well-suited for container groupings:
- Shrubs like spiraea and boxwood make great pot companions.
- Small or miniature versions of your favorite larger shrubs or trees, such as Fire Light Tidbit hydrangea, Pee Wee oakleaf hydrangea, Spilled Wine weigela, and Tiny Wine ninebark work well.
- Some shrubs, such as Lemony Lace elderberry, boxwoods, and many conifers can be pruned to stay small.
- If your pot allows, go for the big guys – viburnums, dwarf fruit trees and crabapples, flowering dogwood, arborvitae and such.
- Features to look for include flowers (hydrangeas), berries (viburnums), fall color (maples), and pollinator servicing (weigela).
At the end of the growing season shrub containers can be deconstructed and the shrub popped into the ground to overwinter and use next year. Or, if the shrub is hardy to two zones lower than yours and the pot is weather-proof, the container can be moved to a shady spot for the winter. Containers left in the sun are prone to freeze/thaw cycles that can be damaging to plants. Overwintered pots should be watered as they approach winter and then watered monthly when there are dry and above-freezing conditions. An antidesiccant sprayed on evergreens in the late fall can help protect from drying winds.
Assess the shrub’s growth next spring to determine whether removing it and pruning out up to a third of the root system is warranted. Replace annuals or spent plants and you are ready to enjoy another season.
Adding a shrub or tree to the mix can take your container to the next level.
K Edgington
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Don't forget to purchase your tickets for the
The Summit County Master Gardener Tour of Gardens
featuring a tour of six Gardens of Distinction
plus our "must-visit" Posie Shoppe
Mark Your Calendar For
Saturday, June 24th, from 9:00 a.m. through 4:00 pm
General admission tickets are $25.
Sponsors, with tickets available at varying levels,
are recognized in the tour booklet and may attend a catered
pre-tour breakfast and enjoy early access to the Posie Shoppe.
Tickets must be purchased in advance and are available at: Dayton Nursery, Suncrest Gardens, Graf's Garden Shop, The Bird Store & More in Fairlawn, Canton Road Garden Center, Lepley & Co. (Furnace Street, Akron) and on the Summit County Master Gardener website. Tickets may be purchased with check or cash, and by credit card on the SCMG website.
Don't miss this premier event!
Visit our website for further details and updates.
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More learning opportunities:
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In June as many as a dozen species may burst their buds on a single day.
No man can heed all of these anniversaries; no man can ignore all of them.
Aldo Leopold
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The Root of It staff: Karen Edgington (Editor), Emma Barth-Elias (Photo Editor), Carolyn Christian, Jennifer Gramlich, Sarah Vradenburg, and Geoff Kennedy (Technical Advisor)
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