Around our (Maryland) Yard in December 2012

Maryland in December is the time for the trees to take on their winter starkness. All the leaves are gone from the trees in the forest and the sycamore in our garden.

The dried hydrangea flowers have lost their pink color.

More of the onion seeds have been rattled out of their pods.

The shelf fungus on the oak stump looks a little battered

And the forsythia at the edge of the forest is a bit confused - blooming in the fall rather than its usual spring cycle.

Celebrating a Sycamore

Sycamores are often awkward looking trees. When they are young their trunks are skinny and their leaves look too big. The young trunks often redeem themselves with their flexibility. The one that came up on my back flowerbed - which I have been cultivating the past few years - survived both the derecho that came through our area last July and Hurricane Sandy more recently.

The leaves keep growing for the whole season and are quite tough. They don’t decompose as easily as many other leaves. When I cleaned out my garden at the beginning of the summer there were some brown leathery sycamore leaves that appeared as intact as the day they fell from the tree.

But this particular tree has made up for is awkwardness by holding onto its leaves a little longer than many of the other trees this year. Their fading of green to yellow to brown - the combination of points and curves - fluttering…they are the holdout of the season right now. It is the last hurrah of summer.

The tree in my garden is not old enough to have the white bark that would make it so easily identifiable in winter. It takes years for a sycamore to become a ghost tree.....perhaps more than I will live in this house. 

Around our (Maryland) Yard in November 2012

Maryland in November is the time the raking of the leaves peaks. The leaves on our sycamore have stayed on longer than I thought it would since we already had a few of them falling in early October.

The hydrangea blossoms have deepened their color as they’ve dried. I am considering bringing some inside for a dried flower arrangement. 

The seeds for next year’s crop of onions are ready to fall in the garden.

And it’s definitely time to rake the leaves into mounds to they won’t kill the grass. The maples and tulip poplars are the most prevalent in our yard.
 

Leaf Etchings

Have you ever made leaf etchings? They’re easier to make with crayons than with a pencil. The trick is to hold down firmly and complete each section completely before moving on. No going over the leaf a second time since it generally shows that the leaf has moved slightly.

Can you name the trees from the etchings I show below? They are all very common trees in Maryland.

<< Tulip poplar'

Sycamore (just one edge because the leaf was too big for the paper) >>

<< Maple

Oak >>

….Another way to celebrate the ending of the summer….the beginning of fall.

Garden Weeds

I feel a lot like Kate Greenway - “I can really boast with truth that we have larger and more varied weeds in our garden than you have in yours - in fact, our garden has forgotten that it is a garden and is trying to be a field again.” The garden patch at the corner of our house is totally overgrown. I took a picture of it a month ago to use as a ‘before’ because I was going to start working on it (photo on left). I made a valiant start but got busy preparing for our house painting so the ‘after’ picture is not much improved (photo below). I’ll start work again this coming week.

This garden started out quite well with large flat pavers outlining it and bricks making squares for herbs. Some of the herbs survive - the chives, the mint, and the lemon balm (particularly the lemon balm). The day lilies have not done so well the past few years because there is too much competition from other plants. The hydrangeas are holding their own but could be tremendously more vigorous if they didn’t have so much growing into them.

The biggest culprits (weeds) that I can name are the honey suckle and blackberries. I dislike the blackberries the most because they have thorns. They could redeem themselves if they had substantially sized berries but they don’t. There are a lot of other things growing in the bed that I don’t know what they are but I know that I didn’t plant them. I am going to be quite ruthless about cleaning it out and then plant some other things there. When the mint was vigorous it kept out a lot of the other plants and I like to have the mint to cut up for making herbal tea. This year I’m going to cut the lemon balm more often to eat in salads so perhaps it won’t be so out of control. If it isn't allowed go to seed, it may not be quite so thick next year.

There is a sycamore tree at the edge of the garden furthest from the house. When it first came up, I kept cutting it off at ground level but then decided to let it grow. It is becoming a nice tree and should get tall enough to shade the west facing dining room window; it's a full story above ground so it will take a few more years of growth to shade the full window. I'll have to move the day lilies that like full sun but the hydrangeas should thrive in the shady space under the tree. Some gardening is all about control over plants; other gardening is about appreciating the serendipity of a tree coming up in a good place for a tree!