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Fungus: A Fairy Tale

I am as tired and headachy as you are about trying to put together a holiday season inside and out, so I thought I might write about a different topic.  What about the garden?  I have a dead willow in the back of the property being colonized by bracket fungus.  Fungus?  Any gardener’s relationship with fungus is a potentially stressful one.  The black spot fungus on my roses is unwelcome, and uncalled for.  I feel bad for Buck, the day the fungus appears on the roses.  It makes me very grumpy.  Black tar fungus plagued all of my maples  all summer long.  I had leaves dropping all summer long. The mildew on the dahlias and verbena bonariensis is especially annoying.  Trouble to come from fungus is in the air, and in the soil-unseen. unanticipated. And definitely unwelcome. 

I am not particularly knowledgeable about fungal bodies, but the topic interests me.  This is my fairy tale version.  The kingdom known as Funghi is separate from the animal, the plant, and the bacterial kingdoms.  Scientists believe they are closer in genetic makeup to animals, than plants.  It is easy to not know much about them.  Their spores live and thrive on decaying matter, wood and bark.  They only make themselves known via their fruiting bodies. 

 

Mushrooms are among the most recognizable forms of funghi.  Mushrooms have beautiful and instantly recognizable shapes.  I see garden sculptures of them all the time-and am drawn to them.  We have felt and fabric mushroom garden ornaments in the shop now.  What is the allure of the mushroom?  They populate the forest floor-in those moist and mossy spots that have that primeval atmosphere.  They arise overnight under mysterious circumstances; one can take spore prints from the tops.  This picture of a pair of the deadly poisonous Amanita mushroom came from Alaska-In-Pictures.com-they are beautiful.

  This photograph of a pair of giant mushrooms came from Wikipedia Commons.  They have a ghostly and ancient appearance.  Rubbery, yet fragile.  Their stalks glisten; for all the world, it looks like the undersides of the caps have gills that are breathing?  Could they be breathing?   They smell like dirt, and decaying organic matter.  Earthy.  Earthy-anything coming from or smelling like the earth-sign me up. This is my most favorite scent-the combination of shade, moisture, compost and soil, with a dash of the spa of an ancient forest-sublime. 

I eat mushrooms; I love their musty taste as much as I love a port that tastes like the inside of an old trunk, or a cheese of similar age. I am neither a hunter nor a forager of these funghi, but my parents were.  I have memories of visiting relatives in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan during Morel season.  I cleaned many a morel-for breakfast with eggs.  The morel lunches-I cannot remember what they were, exactly.  I was probably 10 years old.  The morel endowed dinners-my family lived for this yearly event.  This photograph is from activerain.com-and was taken in Michigan.

 Why fungus?  Why now?  Thanksgiving Day I came to the shop to write a quote for a design I had done that was long overdue. I took plenty of breaks, outdoors,  with Howard and Milo.  We walked out to the willows, to see what was going on.  The second trip, I took my camera. 

I planted these willows 15 years ago; I bought them from Bordines nursery in late fall.  How they have grown.  Their bark is amazingly textural.  They grow so fast-everywhere I see what seems like growing pains in the pattern of the bark.

One of these willows blew over in a bad storm 2 years ago.  Though we uprighted the tree,  and cut the top back severely, it is close to dead.  What is living?  The bracket fungus that have taken up residence, and are thriving.  A colony of fungus.  Should I be happy, or should I be horrified? 

This is my take.  Nothing about nature is necessarily happy, or horrifying.  There is a process going on, given a  grand plan.  Peeling away a piece of bark on the dead willow reveals this “structure”; what is it?  Another piece of the process to learn about-that’s what it is. The funghi, they have their place.  I am part of that place-this feels fine.       

 

Posted on: November 26, 2011 6 Comments
Filed Under: The Natural World Tagged With: , , ,

This Year’s Ghoulishness

This year’s Halloween was slow early on, but picked up speed later.  I closed the door at 8:20, with 2 of the 40 pounds of chocolate we had bought left over.  A good time was had by all, myself included.  There were lots of hellos, Happy Halloweens, and thank you’s-the kids were great.    

Posted on: November 1, 2011 Leave a Comment
Filed Under: The Natural World, Holiday Tagged With:

Pink Frosting


Rob and I had a contest going on by 8:45 this morning-he sent me his photographs of the effects of the first frost-and I showed him mine.  We were both out early; it was 29 degrees, and there was plenty to see.  I told him my pictures were better-but that is not really the truth.  His pictures are beautiful, moody-atmospheric.  Mine are pink.  I will post his pictures, but since I am the keeper of this blog, I get to go first. To follow-some pictures of pink frosting.

I have a few frilly pink and red cabbages left from my fall plantings-they were exquisite this morning- touched, encrusted, illuminated and extraordinary, given the frost.  Today-a sure sign that that nature means business about the change of the seasons.  I had frost on my windshield at 6:45 am; heavy fog descended once the sun came up.  Am I ready for all of this change?  No.  As for the pink, I like the look.         

I have no plan to write about the mechanism by which moisture in the air condenses on surfaces today-this is a discussion best left for January, when all any of us have to think about is ice.  This morning’s temperature dip was just a promise of what is to come.  The cabbages readily handle the insult.  Their leaves are very thick-weather resistant.  The kales and cabbages-they buy me the time it takes to get used to the idea of winter.        

 Plenty of plants still look fine.  The roses and anemones still have lots of color.  I planted some Geranium Rozanne in my new perennial garden this spring; they are full of blooms.  My beech ferns and European ginger look as good as they did in August.  Most of my trees still have all of their leaves.  Lots of my landscape is evergreen.  This time of year I and thankful for that. Once the butterburrs get cut down, I top dress them with ground hardwood bark mulch for the winter.  It looks good now, and will be entirely decomposed by spring.  I did the same for the snakeroot, and brunnera; they gave up the garden several weeks ago. 

The limelight hydrangeas are a deep shade of rose pink, and the yellow magnolia leaves are starting to turn.  But the kales and cabbages are just hitting their stride.  Cold temperatures bring out the color. These pale pink leaves-wow.  No other plant, no other season, no other plant does pale pink quite like this.  As delicate as the color is, these leaves will shrug off the first frost as soon as the sun warms them.   

The sun made quick work of dispelling the frost. But it was beautiful while it lasted.

Posted on: October 29, 2011 2 Comments
Filed Under: The Natural World, Garden Design Tagged With: ,

Drenched

There is no other word for it-my world is drenched.  We have had steady rain 4 days out of every seven the last few weeks. We may have as much as 2 inches of rain before this day is over. No doubt this is wreaking havoc with the fall landscaping season.  Too wet to plough describes the situation  perfectly.  Soil that is sopping wet is too wet to work-unless your idea is to make clay pots. Clay mixed with water, and wedged until there is not one molecule of air left inside-perfect for making pots, but  terrible for planting.  The property has been driven over by all manner of trucks and equipment necessary to the building phase.

The compaction of soil by machines makes for a most inhospitable home for plants.  The roots of plants need oxygen.  Just walking on drenched soil is enough to squeeze all of the air out of it.  In the spring, I am really careful not to walk the garden until the winter snow and ice has drained out of the soil.  Any plant placed in heavy wet soil that has been compacted by footsteps or machinery will have a tougher time getting established.

That said, I have a project that needs a lot from me before the season closes for the winter.  As with many projects in a garden, the waiting can take just as much time as the work.  This project may be on hold for 3 or 4 days.  Judging from the look of the rain soaked land,  friable soil is a good many days away.

I need to finish grade this property before I can even think about planting. Sculpting soil, whether with a bulldozer or a grading rake is the foundation upon which the landscape will be built. It is very tough to sculpt soup.  Our first move with this new landscape-planting 12 six inch caliper Bowhall maples.  We bulldozed 2o yards of mud out of the area, to get down to dryer and more stable soil.  Setting big trees at the proper grade is critical to their survival.

 It does not matter if it is a big or a small landscape project, any installation needs to be staged.  This comes first, this comes next, this comes in the middle-and that comes last.  These giant trees needed lots of working space, and a big machine to get them planted.  There is one more tree to go in the ground.  Once it is planted, we will be able to work our way out from this end of the yard to the street.

I need for Scott from Albaugh Masonry to cover all of the porches and terraces with bluestone-he will need to move stone via loader to wherever he needs it.  He did get a large planter box blocked up; we have already planted it with five katsura espaliers.  The box will be finished in the same stone as the exterior of the house.  He has also blocked in some short walls with pillars that will be capped in limestone.  This will give the drivecourt a sense of enclosure.    I am used to this-a new house landscape means that my work comes last-in whatever days are leftover. The finishing touches on this part of the landscape I do not expect to accomplish until spring. 

I do hope for a much drier and companionable November.  I may get that-I may not.  We have had years when the ground froze solid in mid November-this makes me wince, just to write about it.  So many things in the landscape revolve around a situation over which I have no control. 

       Steady fall rains are not all bad.  My dogwoods set their flower buds in the fall-regular rain encourages a heavy spring yield. All three of my kousas are loaded with buds now.

Evergreens photosynthesize all winter long, on what energy they have on reserve from the fall.  Before the ground freezes, any evergreen greatly benefits from regular rain-even if that rain comes from the end of your hose.  Rain-whether there is lots, or a little, or enough, or none-the garden revolves around it.  I am happy to report that all of my tulips are in the ground, and getting a thorough soaking.  Were I to step on this gound now, I am sure I would be over my ankles in mud.  I am hoping for drier weather, soon.

Posted on: October 20, 2011 1 Comment
Filed Under: Landscape Design, The Natural World Tagged With: ,