The Orchid Seed Pod Opens!

Orchid seed pod maturing.

Orchid seeds are notoriously slow-growing. With so many other lovely spring and summer flowers and gardening chores, photographing the developing seed pod had fallen off my radar since last March. By August when I took this photo, the pod was noticeably longer and fuller. Surprisingly, bits of the tepals (petals and sepals together) and column structure are still hanging on. Herb asked me how much longer it would be before it opened, and I had no idea, it could be a month or several, or even a year?

About two weeks ago the seed pod began to turn yellow and shrivel. A few days later I noticed a crack along the side, and some hairy stuff inside became visible.

I presume the tiny seeds are somewhere in there. A week later the pod has continued to open more by twisting itself so that the opening in now facing downwards--to facilitate the seeds dropping?

And here's what the inside looks like. I don't know what function the hairy fluff serves--does it protect the seeds, does it help propel them like parachutes? I don't have the ability to grow orchid seedlings, as they need a very particular sterile environment and mycorrhizal fungi from the plant's roots, but observing the whole process from fertilization to seed has been a fascinating study.

Looking inside the seed pod.

Asters and Mums

Asters and chrysanthemums.

The morning was noticeably chillier, a presage of the coming equinox next week. The days have been getting shorter--dusk around seven-thirty, pitch dark by eight PM, and that means less gardening time in the evenings. And with so much planting to do! The three new roses I had ordered back in August arrived yesterday, the other shrubs and trees are bound to ship in the next week or two. I have a lot of work to do to prepare the new sites.

Marigolds and chrysanthemums.

This year the magenta aster that was so spectacular last year has not bloomed well. The buds formed way too early, probably because of the cool weather, and I pinched them back, but the new buds formed thinly and dried out quickly in the heat. The mums also budded out early and were pinched back with better results. Part of what I love about gardening are the unplanned color combinations that sometimes just happen, like this orange-red marigold with the dusky pink mum, or the lovely pink and lavender asters above with the yellow mums. It inspires the artist to be bolder experimenting with color.

The star of my garden this year has been the red coleus I took as a cutting from the landscaping at my old office two years ago. I planted the rooted cutting in a sunny bed and took cuttings from that to keep it alive through the winter. This spring I took cuttings again and set them out under the shade of the cherry tree where they make a stunning display.

The hardy begonias introduced from my old garden seem to have finally colonized under the tree, they came back stronger this spring than the previous year. With luck, they will continue to spread and form a large clump.

Hardy Begonia (Begonia grandis subspecies evansiana).

On the Last Day of August

Wildflower at Hog's Wallow overlook.

On the last day of August Herb and I took David and his girl for a drive along Skyline Drive to celebrate the holiday weekend. Native wildflowers abound on Skyline, but we had not visited the park this late in summer before, and it was fun to see so many colorful wildflowers everywhere-- in banks along the road, and masses in the open spaces. We stopped at some of the many scenic overlooks to catalog the flowers as we watched a summer storm building up across the valley.

Reaching Hog's Wallow overlook (around 3,000 ft. elevation) we could see an expanse of wild sunflowers (Helianthus spp.) growing side by side with Joe Pye weed (Eupatorium spp.) and black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia hirta.), with boneset (Eupatorium perfoliatum) and white and lavender asters at the shadier edges of the forest.

Red clover and wild phlox with Goldenrod in back.

At other overlooks we found wild phlox, red clover, queen anne's lace, knapweed (Centaurea), milkweed (Asclepsias syriaca) and tall goldenrod about to bloom. A stray monarch butterfly visited the milkweed and David managed to get a photo, but the butterfly spooked before I could get shot of it. We stopped at Hemlock Springs to see if any orchid seed pods could be spotted, an impossible task as the banks were overgrown with many other lovely flowers, some of which I had not seen before. Among these the most unusual was the Turtlehead (Chelonia glabra), forming dense mounds about 3 and a half foot high. Clumps of jewelweed (Impatiens capensis) with boneset and Joe Pye weed completed the artistic arrangement.

Turtlehead and jewelweed with boneset and Joe Pye weed in back.

Close up of Chelonia flowers.

Jewelweed, sunflowers and boneset.

We drove south as far as Skyland, one of the two hotels in the park. The cool breezes at this elevation were a welcome relief from the heat and humidity of the valley, signalling the thunderstorm was rapidly approaching. .

David and  Lili at an overlook.

After a short break we started our drive back and not a moment too soon--tiny drops of rain soon built up to a nice summer shower.  The brunt of the storm, which passed over the ridge just to our north, seemed to miss us. After the rain passed we stopped at a couple of overlooks to take in the dramatic views to the east. We could hear the distant rumble of thunder and saw a few flashes of lightning. Plumes of cloud rose from the folds of the hills.

When we got home I was happy to see our rain gauge showed that we'd received a half inch here in Front Royal--thank you, Mother Nature, for watering my garden!

Patiently Digging My Garden

While most vegetable gardeners are currently celebrating the season's bounty, this year I'm still digging up holes for trees and flower beds in mid-August. My rocky soil makes for harder work than I'd ever imagined, but this summer's cool weather and well-timed rains have been a real boon. Herb removed the stakes from the trees we planted our first fall here, and with almost two year's worth of growth the front is finally starting to look a little fuller.

The front garden.

By the garage.

The area by the garage looks better now that the bed has been expanded to include two small hollies, lavender and other perennials. I love the red barberry bush with the yellow leaf edges. To think I almost pulled it out this spring believing it had perished during the harsh winter! Good thing I noticed the roots were alive when I started to dig it up.

There's a lot more work to be done in adjacent areas, not to mention the entire empty back yard. With three new roses on order for fall, I started digging up a new bed behind the three pink bush roses I put in last fall. Two tea roses and a red 'Simplicity' will need lots of tilling and soil amendment for their new home. I wonder how many buckets of rocks I'll have to dig up?

Coreopsis and blue salvia.

The flowers I put in last year on the west side of the house are flourishing, so I added three 'Sky Pencil' hollies (Ilex crenata) between the ink berry bushes for more greenery. Somehow, we started referring to the row of arbor vitae out back that divide our property from the neighbors' as "The Ten Little Indians," after the wonderful Agatha Christie mystery I so loved as a girl. These were pathetically small and neglected when we moved in, not to mention numerically wrong--in landscaping as well as art, groupings of even numbers are a particular no-no unless one is dealing with formal elements.

 The Ten Little Indians.

After two seasons of tender ministration the Ten Little Indians are starting to show marked improvement--this fall I'd like to add one more tree to take the curse off the even numbers. Last year I added a few perennials in front of the row, and this spring the bed was expanded further with some Japanese hollies and a prized variegated boxwood variety called 'Elegantissima' that I got at discount from Virginia Boxwood Co. after working at their booth during the Arboretum's Mother's Day plant sale. I learned so much about boxwood in one day! A particularly attractive plant for this area, deer don't find it palatable and leave it alone.

Small boxwood  'Elegantissima' (with whitish leaves) and Japanese hollies.

The east side of the house presents a bigger challenge, because of the bay windows, the steep hill and utility lines buried underground. Every time I want to dig I have to call Miss Utility to mark the lines so as to stay away from them. But I managed to get in a few more plants in early summer. A taller holly, perhaps a Nellie Stevens, might be good to mask the downspout and unsightly pipes here, though that will make it necessary to eventually move the smaller plants in front. Oh well, it's a work in progress.

Gaillardias and a dahlia with flame azalea and viburnum.

Hydrangeas and False Holly under Herb's office window.

My latest acquisition was this Japanese false holly (Osmanthus heterophyllus 'Goshiki') planted under Herb's office window to grow between the two hydrangea cuttings I brought from our old home in Columbia. There our hydrangeas were nearly eight foot high and their blossoms a beautiful sky-blue, indicating an acidic soil. Here, the lace-cap hydrangea (on the right) has not bloomed to date, but the re-blooming variety on the left has pink blossoms, a sign that this soil is quite alkaline. The soil acidifier I mixed in does not seem to have had any effect yet.

Redbud and Dogwood saplings.

Next: what to do with the empty expanse of back yard? Last year I planted these saplings at the edge of the slope, and they have been making progress (I fear the deer will take their toll, as they did last year, unless I install another electronic deer repellent). Perhaps a water feature as a focal point, maybe a waterfall with a stream? A pond or bog? It's fun to have so much space to deal with!

Engineering an Air Conditioner

Model of an air conditioner.

Another view of model.

My last post on Ice Mountain was about a place where an unusual geologic formation had created natural air conditioning on a hillside in West Virginia. In this week's post I wanted to show this really nifty model created by one of the young mechanical engineers I work at JMT, my new employer. Wafic Omran built this nifty contraption out of plastic trays and copper tubing for a career day at an elementary school in northern Virginia, to show kids how an air conditioner works. Many adults don't have an idea of the principles involved either, we just know that we'd be miserable without it during the summer, as mankind was for all the centuries before its invention.

Cool water is pumped from the lower tray up to the upper tray by an aquarium pump. As the water flows down through the copper pipes, a small fan aimed at the copper tubes cools the air as it passes between the pipes and as a result, the air temperature drops on the other side. A thermometer clipped to the plastic jar shows that the air has been cooled about 2 degrees with this simple apparatus. I couldn't resist showing this really cool demonstration of how an air conditioner works!

Ice Mountain

Twin flower (Linnaea borealis) and partridgeberry (Mitchella repens).

A few Sundays ago I visited a most unusual site with the Piedmont Chapter of the Virginia Native Plant Society (VNPS). Ice Mountain Preserve in West Virginia, now owned by the Nature Conservancy, is one of the weirdest places around--a naturally-occurring refrigerator! At the bottom of an algific (cold-producing) talus slope, air is drawn in thru vents, and insulated by a layer of very thick sandstone blocks underneath, the air is cooled, causing ice to form inside small cavities on the side of the hill. The cold air flowing from these vents creates a micro-climate on one side of the trail, where plants normally found in sub-artic regions such as northern Canada can flourish. This site has been designated as a natural heritage site; access is restricted and arrangements must be made to visit with a guide.

Our group met at the Old Inn in North River Mills, a small town that used to number a few hundred back in the 19th Century and gradually depopulated until only one inhabitant remains at present. Our guide and docent, Kristin, told us that back in the 19th Century the local inhabitants used to gather the blocks of ice during summer to cool drinks and make ice cream. Unfortunately this practice depleted much of the ice in the crevices, but some ice can still be found.

Ice inside a cavity at Ice Mountain

Storm clouds had been gathering as I drove to the site. As we were starting out on the trail, a peal of thunder warned of the storm's approach, and our group decided to return to the inn and wait until it had passed. A wise decision, as we would have been completely soaked had we continued. Kristin entertained us with stories of the inn, and we explored the interior while waiting for the skies to clear.

Eventually, the rain stopped and we started out again. The path led up a hill, and through woods carpeted with understory plants such as bedstraw, black cohosh, southern beech fern and maidenhair fern, some of which I recognized from previous encounters, but many plants here were new to me, such as this Appalachian wood fern.

Appalachian wood fern (Gymnocarpium appalachianum)

The Cacapon River

As we descended the other side of the hill and rounded a bend, the path began to parallel the Cacapon River. We were asked to walk single file on the trail, in order to protect the fragile vegetation. Wending our way through a forest of huge Rosebay rhododendrum (Rhododendrum maximum) which would probably not bloom until July, the temperature became perceptibly cooler as we reached the talus slope.

Hiking through a forest of rhododendron.

Ice Mountain mist

Mist wafted from the cavities along the base of the talus slope. One of the group had brought a thermometer which we placed inside one of the small cavities. It was about 80 degrees ambient that day, but inside the cavity the thermometer read 38 degrees. Ice could be seen inside one of the larger cavities.

Ice Mountain crevices

The rare plants began to appear on the side of the trail with the crevices: Bunchberry (Cornus canadensis), Canada Mayflower (Maianthemum canadense), Minnie-bush (Menziesia pilosa), Nannyberry (Viburnum lentago), Late low blueberry (Vaccinium pallidum), and many more that I missed, being too far behind our docent. The range of botanical oddities was impressive.
 

Bunchberry (Cornus canadensis)

Canada mayflower (Maianthemum canadense)

Late low blueberry (Vaccinium pallidum).

We came across the lovely twin flower (Linnaea borealis) growing in amazing profusion over just one section of the trail. This low creeper grew intertwined with Partridgeberry, Canada Mayflower, Bunchberry and mosses along the ground. A lone specimen of the Prickly rose (Rosa acicularis) was so precarious it had been protected from browsing animals behind a small fenced enclosure.

Twinflower grows profusely over the rocks.

Prickly rose (Rosa acicularis) behind fence.

Our docent Kristin told us that genetic studies of the boreal plants at this site revealed that this group of plants were likely the remnants of vegetation left from the last Ice Age that retreated about 10,000 years ago. Unlike we humans, who can only inherit one set of chromosomes from each parent (haploid), plants, particularly ferns and other flowering plants are capable of inheriting more than one set of chromosomes from each parent to become polyploid. This process happens as plants reproduce over a number of generations, whereas early generations tend to have only two sets of chromosomes, which the plants here were found to have.

Beyond the patch of Twinflower we came across a flowering clump of Northern bedstraw (Gallium boreale), Skunk currant (Ribes glandulosum) and Horsetail clubmosses (Equisetum arvense). The afternoon was waning, so reluctantly, our group started the trek back to the inn. I would have liked to climb up to the top of the hill to observe the ravens nesting there (I had seen them while driving in) but by then my feet had given out. It was time to head home.

Northern bedstraw (Gallium boreale)

Horsetail clubmoss (Equisetum arvense) and witch hazel seedlings.

Skunk currant (Ribes Glandulosum)

I hope to eventually find time to paint the tiny and exquisite Twinflower, so unique and beautiful!

Galearis Field Sketch

Galearis spectabilis orchid, colored pencil sketch, 10" X 8".

This is a small sketch I did about a month ago as a color study of the Galearis spectabilis orchid when it was about to bloom at Thompson Wildlife Management Area. The flower buds had not opened yet, and the leaves still had the classic vase-shape of a young plant. As the plant matures, the leaves will flatten out and spread wider.

My 60-color set of Faber-Castell 'Polychromos' pencils does not have enough color range to render the actual colors of the plant. The leaves are not that yellow-green, and the flower buds are a paler mauve, but it was still a fun opportunity to study the contours of the leaves using line-work, and enjoy the lovely spring day outdoors.

Lake Waccamaw

Lake Waccamaw State Park rangers guide the NCNPS group.

The following morning the North Carolina Native Plant Society (NCNPS) group met at Lake Waccamaw State Park for a tour of the trails surrounding the Visitor's Center. Covering 36 acres, Lake Waccamaw is the largest of North Carolina's "bay lakes," a term for this type of oval-shaped fresh water lakes. On Friday evening, the Head ranger had given the group a talk describing some of the theories about the formation of these unusual lakes that occur in certain regions along the eastern seaboard. I remembered reading one theory in a National Geographic article years ago about a prehistoric meteor strike leaving these craters which later filled with water and developed certain type of ecosystems, but evidently this theory has now been dismissed as unlikely. The most plausible theory seems to be that the lakes formed as a result of a combination of the massive land and ocean processes that took place during the Pleistocene era, when this area was submerged. The lakes in this area all seem to have a high limestone shelf on their northwestern rims and sandy shores on the southeastern portions, and three varieties of bay trees predominate: sweet bay, red bay and loblolly bay.

Loblolly bay (Gordonia lasianthus), the leaves have crenulate edges.

As we began our walk, the Rangers explained that the park had recently begun to use managed burns to control the undergrowth and try to restore native habitats. The fire doesn't damage the established trees, and improves the overall health of the forest, but the rangers were of the opinion that a successful controlled burn is very much an art, and the precise weather conditions need to be taken into account if the fire is not to get out of control.

Prickly pear (Opuntia humifusia) growing among bracken ferns.

Pink spiderwort (Trandescantia virginiana)

I was surprised to see Prickly Pear blooming among the bracken ferns near the Visitor's Center, and was assured that these cacti are actually native to the entire east coast from Florida to Connecticut--I had always thought they had been introduced from the southwest and naturalized. We also came across a lovely pink-flowered Spiderwort --I've only seen the blue Spiderwort (Trandescantia virginiana) before.

Fetterbush (Lyonia lucida) growing under turkey oaks.

Honeybells (Zenobia pulverulenta) with Fetterbush  in back.

The forest floor was carpeted with bracken and other ferns. Flowering native bushes such as Fetterbush (Lyonia lucida) with small pinkish bells and the sweetly scented Honeybells (Zenobia pulverulenta) bloomed below the shelter of the turkey oaks. I spotted a tiny-leaved plant on the forest floor and was told this was Pixie Moss (Pyxidanthera barbulata)--it could make a lovely ground cover in the right garden.

Pixie Moss (Pyxidanthera barbulata)

All these were a completely new community of plants to me, a fascinating environment to be introduced to. There were also many birds here: a number of warblers, mocking birds, and brown thrashers were spotted by the bird-savvy among the group.

The time for our departure came much too soon--Linda and I needed to start our 7-hour trip back by noon in order to get home at a decent hour, so we said goodbye to our new-found friends in NC around eleven and started walking back to our car. One lone wild turkey crossed our path, and Linda lingered to identify an indigo bunting along the way.

I wished we could have stayed one more day--despite our precautions, we still encountered a huge backup on I-95 after we passed Richmond this Sunday evening, and spent almost an hour fighting the traffic to reach our exit. The sun was just setting on this beautiful spring day as we returned to the Shenandoah Valley.

The forest at Lake Waccamaw.

For more photos of our walk at Lake Waccamaw State Park and the Green Swamp see my Flickr album here.