Confronting the Vines

Another result of our rain-soaked summer became clear to me this weekend as I sought to clear out some vines that were threatening to overtake our two cute silver palms in the front yard, a job that took about 4 hours.

I try to keep an open mind. Plants do what they need to do to survive. An oak tree will shade out and kill a whole village of its neighboring plants once it gets big--I won't hold any ill will toward it. But let a skinny, pipsqueak vine attack one of these giants and I am outraged.

The picture above was taken midway in the process, after I had pulled the vines from the palm but before I went after the heavily-laden Cherry Laurel tree on the right. These vines (there are about 4 varieties of them) pop up in so many places that I can imagine the vast underground net of roots, as dense as a seine.

I punish them and cuss them. I pull up their roots. I taunt them and embarrass them and belittle them. But they don't care. They have no real defenses at all. They have a vicious grip on their host plant--some of them grow to the very top of the oak trees--and yet they are as easy to cut as a stem of asparagus. There's a lesson here somewhere...

A Load of Fertilizer

As a rule I shy away from seminars, classes, meetings and all forms of regimented assembly. And certainly I steer clear of any clubs or groups that would, as the saying goes, accept someone like me as a member. Yoga class is the one exception.

But this weekend Cheryl and I were drawn to a local plant nursery where a plant guru was scheduled to speak about Florida native plants that thrive in the shade--just exactly what I'm interested in.

We gathered outdoors in the perfect weather, sitting in a grove of oak trees (a place that I learned is called a hammock because of its slight elevation above a neighboring marshy place). About 30 people were assembled--granola crunchers with assorted khaki hats and hiking boots, serious tree-huggers. The popularity of Florida native plants is growing, mainly for all the right reasons: to reduce the use of herbicides and the drain on the water supply. These were my people, for sure.

I learned lots of things: the crinkly leaf ground cover in our yard is called basket grass, and it is a native. This gave me a warm fuzzy inside, and I was tempted to raise my hand (like in grade school) and tell the class that I have basket grass all over the place. In fact, I felt compelled to make them all like me, if only I could think of a way.

After about an hour I noticed that no one had asked a question about fertilizer yet. If I asked a good question, I reasoned, then everyone would like me. Timing is important. And just then the instructor mentioned the anise plant. My hand shot up, and I asked "What kind of fertilizer should I put on my new anise plants at home?" explaining how they were deep in the shade, etc.

"A very good question," he answered. Home run. "Very soon," he said with the most serious tone, "we will be forbidden by law from putting anything except a few types of chemical fertilizers into the earth."

Uh-oh.

Not a single person would look at me as he listed off the evils of fertilizer, even swatting down my attempt to weasel out and claim that I, of course, only meant organic fertilizer. But it was too late.

Cheryl, who had the good sense to wander around the nursery instead of sitting through the speech, laughed when I told her what happened. She asked, "Did you tell them that your favorite plant is a Chinese bamboo?"

Damn! I should have...

What I Don't Know

Our friend Suzanne gave us a cute little beautyberry (Callicarpa) plant that I put into the ground out front near the thriving wild coffee bushes and under the lesser oak tree, though while doing so I failed to notice that I had placed it on a slight hill, making my attempts to water it a chore since the water just runs off and onto the sidewalk if I'm in hurry, and I'm always in a hurry.

I don't have any water lines out there, so what to do? The little guy needs water for the next few weeks or it will pucker up and blow away.

Then it hit me: I could fill a plastic bag with water, punch a tiny pin-sized hole in the bag, and just let it run out. Preliminary testing at the kitchen sink found this to be a deliciously successful idea (how could I be so smart), so I set out the bag early this morning. It went drip, drip, drip, just like I hoped.

Except just now I went out and found the bag still full of water. What happened? Like many other concepts that I should have learned at school, this one is a mystery to me. Even so, my mind believes that it knows why the water stopped dripping out. My mind believes that the minerals in the water are clogging up the hole.

Pathetic. I am incapable of just saying I don't know.

No I'm not.

So I punched a bigger hole. Meanwhile, in the backyard, I am drawn to this milkweed plant, the host plant of the Monarch butterfly, with the prettiest reds and yellows I've ever seen (though i can't seem to get my camera to believe it). If I were a butterfly, I would squat all over this.

Toast and Coffee

Today Willow and I are exploring the simple perfection of toast and coffee. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays (the no-Berkeley days) I fix a piece of wheat toast with my second cafe con leche, take it up to my office, and tear off pieces of bread--one for her and one for me (she loves bread).

Now that I think about it, this sounds pretty much like prison food. Oh well, we like it.

On Tuesdays and Thursday, we have a different, more puppy-centric routine. No toast. And definitely no coffee for Berkeley, who could probably fly after a nice latte.

I am, however, sharing some coffee with my new anise bushes, which are hungry for organic matter, so says the nursery guy, who squinted at us with some doubt when we bought the plants last week, as if he suspected we weren't responsible plant owners, which we probably are not. So I save up the grounds and each day I pour them on a different plant.

Also, when no one is looking, which is every day in our backyard, I have a brief coffee-chat with that anise plant, just getting familiar and keeping them in a positive frame of mind (not that there's anything weird about that). After the spectacular failure last year of our verbena plants (all but two of which are dead and gone, and the those two are sad little dwarfs), I'm taking no chances.

Note to future self: I'm not actually talking (out loud) to the plants, at least not yet. But stay tuned.

Yellow Anise

There are places in our yard where Cheryl has never been, not because the yard is so big, but because it is, in a few places, overgrown and dark and long-since surrendered to the whims of nature, with twisted vines, rotting tree trunks, whispering leaves and sad amphibians who may have evolved into a new species after generations in the never light.

Our idea is to introduce yellow anise (Illicium parviflorum) as a border shrub to screen the neighbor's garage and guest house, now hidden by the dark wilderness. If it works, we can reclaim this part of the yard--bring it back into the real world.

And yet, as I looked at the pretty and sweet smelling shrubs, a sense of guilt came over me. Sure, these plants love the shade, but what could possibly live in that dank overgrowth other than a few desperate ferns, would-be saplings and some psychotic squirrels?

I planted seven of them yesterday--three more to go. For each hole I had to cut through a maze of roots and knotted undergrowth, an inch at a time; I have a sharp-edged cutter just for this purpose (reminding myself not to get my foot in the way). Sweat and dirt, nasty shadow bugs warning me to leave. Ha.

And I still need to run water lines to give them a chance to establish. After that, may the gods have mercy on them...

Back in the Green

The wind was blowing just so today, just in the right direction to peel back the canopy and expose the new culms that are stretching into the sky, now just bare stalks, OK (it seems) and alive again (after scaring me last week). The green is back. My lesson is learned: too much water can hurt these bamboos. Just give them some fertilizer and stand back.

The patch is doubled in size this year--at least 13 new culms, and the fattest ones yet. I don't know why this plant captures my attention so much. If our entire yard was covered in Bambusa Oldhamii I would be thrilled. In a year or two I'll start harvesting some of these to create new patches of green here and there.

Also, one of Cheryl's friends gave up a new planter of black bamboo--I've got it in the ground near the palm trees out front. Its culms are green at first and then turn shiny black after a couple years--sweet.

Who knows how high these new culms will get. Probably not much higher since they are starting to feather out at the top. I was hoping for some skyscrapers this year but am happy just for green.