Baltimore Orioles

A couple of Baltimore Orioles flew out of this lovely crabapple. I attempted to take a picture of them as they were hopping around in the bushes but all I got were flashes of orange in leafy green. It is interesting how you can see things much more clearly in real life than in a photo. It isn't just a matter of pixels, "seeing" is more interactive than "looking". You change your focus of attention, you use your depth perception, you move your head to parallax shift thing that are in the way, all in order to construct an image in your mind of the item that has attracted your attention.

I've been noticing these violets along my path for about a decade now. The mowers abandoned their strip around the 1995 planting area over 5 years ago, and now the sumac are starting to overgrow the path yet the violets persist. The trilliums and bloodroot I planted that are a few steps away from these violets inside the forest are still there. They have hardly expanded there presence. I think there were 6 trilliums this year, before the rabbit tax. Time moves at a more sedate pace for plants.

Last Leaves

Red Oaks seem to be the last trees to let go of their leaves. This oak tree is getting to be a really handsome tree.

We got our first snow and first proper freeze-up last week. I put the seven bitternut hickory nuts I found along the beaver trail in the ground just in time. I hope I have better success with these nuts than I did with acorns last year. I suspect the acorns I planted might have been eaten by squirrels so I hope planting these hickory nuts just before the ground froze gives them a chance.

Pumpkin Harvest

It seems a bit late to be harvesting pumpkins for Halloween, but the farmers across the road were busy today bringing in their pumpkin harvest. I only mention it because of the curious sounds coming from across the road this fall. I have been hearing what, to my inexperienced ear, sounds like a shotgun coming from the fields of the experimental farm. I don't think it is an actual gun as it happens too regularly each evening and I don't believe guns are allowed inside the greenbelt. My speculation is that there is some sort of noise maker on a timer set up to scare off the geese from the field of pumpkins.

Under the old oak tree

As you can see in the above picture, the grass grows very poorly under the oak tree. The red oak has created a semi-circle of bare earth where nothing much seems to grow. The problem isn't uniform; it is mostly on the south side of the tree, which also happens to be the downhill side of the tree. Even though this lawn area has full sun for much of the year, moss grows on the bare patches of earth. Most mosses like acidic soil so the tree is most likely somehow making the soil acidic. It is striking that it is only on one side of the tree. The mower prevents leaf litter from accumulating below the tree and what acorn, leaf and twig litter that does fall from the tree should equally impact the lawn on the north side of the tree where the grass looks healthy. Therefore I don't feel it is the organic matter added by the tree that is causing the soil to be acidic.

The bare earth semicircle is most pronounced around the drip line of the tree where the tree roots would be sucking the most moisture from the soil. An alternative theory is that it is a lack of moisture that is preventing the grass from growing on the sunnier side of the tree. A third theory is that the acidity comes from the rain dripping off the leaves and branches and running down the hill. The bare patch close to the trunk might also be explained by this theory since the rain water hitting the west side of the trunk would tend to leach into the soil right where the bare patch is: down-slope from the west side of the base of the trunk. Perhaps both theories are contributing factors and it is a combination of acidity and dryness that prevents the grass from growing on the south side of the tree.

Brown roll-rim (Paxillus involutus)

On the north east side of the oak tree where the grass is greener there is a whole bed of large brown mushrooms poking out of the grass. They grow to about 4-5 inches wide. They initially are paler than in the above photograph and have a pronounced rolled rim. I don't know much about mushrooms but after looking at various guides and searching on the web I'm fairly confident I've correctly identified these mushrooms as the common generalist fungi: Paxillus involutus. This is a deadly mushroom that was considered edible until a German mycologist ate one too many plates of them. It seems that after multiple exposures these mushrooms can trigger an immune response that causes your body to attack its own red blood cells.

Scales on a Red Oak

One of the oaks from the 2009 planting is heavily infested with some type of lecanium scale. The red ants(Genus Myrmica) that seem to be common on the site are feeding off the honeydew these scales excrete. The local Macoun Field Club has a fascinating write-up about an infestation of these scales that occured in 2006 and 2007.

In Bloom:
Stitchwort
Indian Paint Brush
Buttercup
Daisy
Chickweed
Philadelphia Fleabane
Forget-me-not
Blue-eyed Grass

Preparation for new planting

As part of the preparation for the new planting on May 8th I spent some time tagging the small trees with bright orange tape so that people can see them more easily.

I took a bit of an inventory of the trees and shrubs that survived from last year. I may have missed a few or double counted a few but by my count the survivors are as follows:

- 3 Pagoda Dogwood (had a lot of die back)
- 11 Red Osier dogwood
- 8 Speckled Alder (vigorous)
- 3 american elderberry
- 12 staghorn sumac
- 3 chokeberry
- 4 unidentifiable bushes
- 32 Red Maple (stubby red bud)
- 26 Sugar Maple (long narrow greenish brown bud)
- 14 tamarack (deciduous conifer)
- 6 white spruce
- 12 trembling aspen
- 5 white pine
- 3 colorado spruce
- 4 white cedar
- 2 hazelnut
- 2 basswood (tentative id )
- 8 oak (red oak? the oaks were a favorite of the voles)
- 2 black spruce (tentative identification, these did not survive transplanting well as several others went brown last summer)
- 15 bushes tentatively identified as service berries
- 5 unknown trees/bushes of very slender fragile twigs with pale drooping leaves. Buds are very slow to develop and more of the ~20 that were planted may have life in them yet. (Very tentatively identified as hackberry)
- 9 unidentified trees (most small twigs with buds only slowly developing)
- 47 white spruce seedlings

A total of 232 trees and bushes survived the first year. We were supposed to have planted 350 last year so about 66% survived. Some trees didn't show any signs of life after being transplanted. They may not have survived the previous winter or may not have been able to handle the shock of transplantation. More than a few bare twigs were planted that never developed a viable bud. A few only had one or two buds that developed. A few of the spruce trees turned brown over summer. A few of the aspens lost all of their leaves mid-summer. Some of the seedlings didn't survive transplantation and some got covered up by the summer grass. Some were chopped down by the mower last summer. The major culprit, however, was winter and rodent damage. At least half of the oaks that were planted did not survive the winter. The service berries received a lot of damage as did the sugar maples, the sumac and the hackberries. Some of the bushes were munched right down to their base and are unidentifiable. Some of the trees lost all of their roots to the rodents and toppled over. Some of the trees that are still alive are not likely to survive the summer because the rodent damage is so extensive around their base. But where there is life there is hope.

On Monday evening at dusk while I was taking inventory of the surviving bushes I noticed several bats swooping around over the 2009 planting taking insects on the wing. It is good to see bats as I don't often see them around Manordale.

In flower:
dandelion
common speedwell
garlic mustard
violets
forget-me-nots
yellow rocket
creeping charlie
serviceberry
crabapple
elderberry
canada plum (? back north corner)

Witch's broom on the oak tree

In 1995 a single oak tree was planted in the triangle area along with a couple of dozen crabapple trees. These trees have had to put up with the mowers and the pollution from the road. Some of the crabapples have perished leaving gaps in the grid pattern in which they were planted. Others have suckers growing up from the base which is I believe a sign that the tree is under stress. The single oak tree has survived, and as it was more mature when it was planted it is now the most prominent tree in the area. The tree has to contend with the salt from the road and it is always very late in leafing out. The limbs on the bottom half of the tree have a growth pattern named witches broom where multiple small branches or twigs all come from the same spot on a larger branch. The upper part of the tree has a much more natural growth pattern where the limbs become progressively smaller out to the last twig(see picture). This is probably due to the salt damage from the road.

The oak tree before the leaves appear. The lower branches have the appearance of witch's broom while the upper branches appear to have a natural growth pattern.