Posts Tagged Black Walnut
Flower Power
Posted by piedmontgardener in Favorite Plants, piedmont gardening on May 17, 2014
Tradescantia ‘Sweet Kate’
Twenty years spent packing as many wonderful plants as possible into five acres is starting to pay off big time, especially during spring blooming season. I truly cannot keep up. The plant above grows in my front garden, and those pops of purple against chartreuse leaves are too eye-arresting to miss. But other plants sited in more out-of-the-way corners of our yard sometimes manage to finish blooming before I notice. My umbrella magnolia did that to me this year.
A recent heat wave required me to pay careful attention to the lovely bearded irises in my yard.
A soft yellow.
A deep purple.
And a gorgeous coppery orange.
The black walnut trees are some of the last native trees to leaf out in spring. Their dangling flowers are usually still clinging to the branches as the leaves emerge.
Black walnut flowers with emerging leaves.
The terrifying enthusiasm of blooming poison ivy in my yard this year leaves me itchy just thinking about it.
The scent of poison ivy flowers makes my throat itch.
Already here when we moved in 25 years ago, the Rhododendron catawbiense exploded in blooms this spring. All parts of this shrub are poisonous, and it’s kind of tricky to grow here, but the specimen we have is thriving.
Evergreen Mountain Rosebay
I can’t close without mentioning the deciduous magnolias. The Ashe Magnolia is blooming prolifically. I expect the Bigleaf Magnolia to follow suit in a week or so.
Even the buds of Ashe Magnolia have wow power!
Of course, there’s more, but I have to give you a reason to come back, right?
Autumn’s Fruits and Nuts
Posted by piedmontgardener in Favorite Plants, Native Wildlife, piedmont gardening on October 7, 2012
Autumn is only a few weeks along, but the occupants of my yard and gardens are progressing toward readying themselves for winter. For example, the lovely mushrooms in the above photo are sprouting up beside my driveway in growing numbers. As they grow from button stage (far left) to middle age (far right) and full ripeness (center), zillions of mushroom spores are readying themselves for release from the gills under the caps. Many colors and shapes of fungi are currently taking advantage of the cooler, damp weather here.
The Black Walnut had a very productive year. Hard hats to defend against falling nuts are no longer required when walking beneath it, but now one must watch every step to avoid slipping on the yellow-green orbs hiding in the grass.
The squirrels wait for the outer green husks to soften before they start working on these nuts.
The Red Buckeye had another bumper crop year. These nuts are poisonous, but the squirrels can’t resist carrying them all over the yard and burying them.
The outer husks crack open and drop the buckeyes to the ground. Some folks think these fruits are good luck.
The Beautyberry shrub and the big Hearts-a-burstin’ flourishing on the upper floodplain both had very productive years.
Even in deep shade, these colorful berries glow like Christmas ornaments.
Breaking hearts abound.
The Asian kousa dogwoods were also very fruitful. The evergreen one tended to produce fewer, fatter red globes like this:
The deciduous kousa dogwood must have been very thoroughly pollinated this year — yet another autumn beauty that seems to be vying for Christmas tree status.
This Cornus kousa dwells beside our back deck. Its leaves are just beginning to turn lovely shades of orange.
This recent visitor below was neither a fruit nor a nut, but it was so gorgeous that Wonder Spouse felt obliged to take its picture, and I’m glad he did. This was a new insect for us, a showy member of the dung beetle clan. Truly, if someone made a jeweled pin based on this creature, I would proudly wear it.
Meet a male Rainbow Scarab. The “horn” denotes its gender.
And here’s more of a side view:
Note the bit of spider web tangled in its horn.
This fellow was walking around our back deck. We suspect it stunned itself on one of our windows, staggering about just long enough for Wonder Spouse to document his visit. He flew off ten minutes later.
I’ll close today with a few more nuts — the animal kind. We seem to have a bumper crop of Green Anoles this year, perhaps the result of behavior like what I documented here. The front of our house faces west. Warmth from late afternoon sun combined with a flourishing front garden seem to have produced ideal anole habitat. One afternoon last week, I caught four basking on various parts of the front of my house — some large, some quite small.
The first one I saw was a large brown lizard that had trapped itself between my front door and the outer storm door. When I opened the inner door to go out, it frantically beat itself against the storm door until I could get it open. Here it is glowering at me as it recovers from its self-inflicted trauma.
Undamaged, but unhappy.
After taking that one’s picture, I noticed a small one basking on the front wall.
It was about six inches long, but quite skinny.
Then I spotted this green one hanging out around my bedroom window. It actually climbed the glass and seemed to be trying to peer inside.
I tried to persuade it that it will be far happier outdoors.
Finally that day, I spotted another green one below the bedroom window on the wall behind an overgrown rosemary shrub. It was more shy than the other three.
This rosemary started blooming last winter and only stopped during the July heat wave.
These anoles were all out on a very warm day. We had a string of 80+-degree days ahead of a cold front. I think perhaps they were all trying to soak up as much heat as they could before retiring to their winter slumber spots. I’m wondering if perhaps their abundance is making it difficult for them to all find cozy winter quarters, because of what I observed yesterday.
Yesterday was the last warm day before the arrival of a cold front that has dropped our temperatures about thirty degrees. And it was yesterday that Wonder Spouse noticed that a brown anole was actually on the inside of the window beside our front door. It must have slipped inside when one of us opened the door. It may well have been the same one that I caught between the two doors the day before.
Fortunately, it was quite cooperative about its relocation to the outdoors. We used a butterfly net, intending to scoop it up gently. But it chose to perch quietly on the rim long enough for us to escort it back outside to the garden, none the worse for its adventure.
Late yesterday as the sun was setting, one of the anoles did something even more unexpected — nuttier, if you will. I always leave my hummingbird feeder filled until the second week of October, or until I don’t see any hummers for a week or so. Yesterday when I checked the feeder before going inside, I saw this:
Yes, that’s an anole head peeking out from the middle. It’s curled up in the center cup where one can put water to deter ants.
I imagine the surrounding sugar water was quite warm from the late afternoon sun, and this little one thought it had found an ideal hangout. Of course, the water doesn’t stay warm at night, and any hummers trying to drop by wouldn’t know what to think, so we gently lifted down the feeder and encouraged the anole to return to the garden.
It really didn’t want to leave its cozy spot, but I think it was probably for the best.
I checked the front wall today without expecting to see any anoles. One brown one stuck its head out from behind a gutter for just a moment, then disappeared. Given our drizzly, chilly day, I was surprised to see an anole at all. I hope they are all settling down for a long winter’s sleep, along with all the other plants and animals that share our five acres of North Carolina Piedmont.
All Fall Down
Posted by piedmontgardener in Favorite Plants, piedmont gardening on November 13, 2011
Golden leaves of Halesia diptera carpet the ground
It happens so fast this time of year. One moment the forest is ablaze with vivid leaves that dance in the lightest breeze. The next moment the color moves from branches to forest floor, leaves settling at the bases of parent trees, creating patchworks of color for feet to kick up during crisp autumn walks. But the bright leaf carpet is fleeting, quickly morphing to browns and rusts, as if to match the starkness of bare branches above.
Different tree species move through this cycle at varying rates. Leaves of Ashes and Black Cherries in my yard go from green to brown and abandon their branches in mid-September, seemingly eager to begin their winter rest. Tulip Poplar leaves turn bright yellow next, and begin to drift to the ground (along with thousands of seeds) about the time the Red Maples and Sweet Gum leaves are painting themselves gold, pumpkin orange, and garnet red.
Some trees drop their leaves over the course of several weeks. Some seem to receive a signal (perhaps the change in daylight?) that causes them to shrug off their leaves all at once, leaving carpets of color at their feet. That’s what my Halesia diptera did a few days ago, as you can see in the above photo. Wonder Spouse used the opportunity to create a new fall header for my blog.
The Sycamores (Platanus occidentalis) that grow along my creek recently cast off their gold and brown leaves simultaneously, creating quite a colorful, crunchy carpet on my floodplain as you can see here:
Sycamore leaves carpet my floodplain
I love these trees best in winter, when their magnificent trunks glow in weakened sunshine.
The compound leaves of the young Black Walnut (Juglans nigra) on my hill turn a sickly greenish yellow mostly; their weight causes them to stick close together near the base of the tree like this:
Black Walnut leaves tend to collect near the base of the tree
Here’s a closer view of some of the leaves:
Yellow-green compound leaves of Black Walnut
Sweet Gum leaves end up blowing everywhere, mixing in with the leaves of other species. Here are a few examples that turned my favorite rich garnet hue:
Garnet Sweet Gum leaves
Finally for today, I want to show you autumn leaves of three of my deciduous Magnolia specimens. First up, the fallen leaves of Umbrella Magnolia (Magnolia tripetala). This native of moist forests of the Piedmont and Mountains grows along my creek. I rescued it from a similar setting on a friend’s land that was slated for the bulldozer. Although its leaves are not as large as Bigleaf Magnolia (M. macrophylla), you can see how the Umbrella Magnolia leaves dominate the forest floor:
Tobacco-gold leaves of Umbrella Magnolia
My two cultivars of Cucumber Magnolia not only bloom at different times, they also drop their leaves at different times. Leaves of M. acuminata var. ‘Butterflies’ turn briefly pale yellow, then brown and fall quickly in mid-October, sticking close to the base of the tree, as you can see here:
Fallen leaves of M. acuminata var. ‘Butterflies’
The older cultivar of this species that I grow – M. acuminata var ‘Elizabeth’ — not only blooms later, but also retains its rich gold-and-brown leaves much longer. As I type this, Elizabeth has not yet released her bright cloak of autumn color, as shown in this close-up of a few branches here:
M. acuminata var. ‘Elizabeth’ still retains her autumnal splendor
Always the last to relinquish their hold on autumn are the native oaks. They only began to color up a couple of weeks ago, and only a few of their leaves have fallen. It will be late November, some years even mid-December, before my mighty oak canopy trees stand starkly naked against a wintry sky.
That’s OK by me. It gives me a reason to postpone raking. After all, there’s no reason to do it more than once, right?
Piedmont Gardener 