Yesterday’s nod to Hemerocallis Fulva, notwithstanding, my floral fondness for Papavers is an open secret. Who am I kidding? It’s no secret at all! So I brimmed with jubilation when Pam surprised me today, with our first poppies of summer. I was euphoric!
Pam Offering the First Poppies of Summer (Photo: Geo Davis)
And so a spontaneous haiku was born…
Summer’s First Poppies
Summer’s first poppies: petite preemies, delicate, fuzzy, threadlike stems.
Perfection at quarter scale. Stems almost too slight to support the floppy blooms. Vulnerable. Durable. Both.
First Poppies of Summer (Photo: Geo Davis)
I remember a previous pensé on poppies and haiku. It perfectly applies to these first poppies of summer.
Almost ephemeral brevity, stark minimalism, and — at best — a tingly eureka moment overlap haiku’s distinctive hallmark. Delicate. Vigorous. As unlikely a juxtaposition as poppies. Exuding a fragility and sparseness, but remarkably robust and resilient, the poppy is the haiku of flowers… (Source: Poppy Poems)
Hallelujah! The daylilies (Hemerocallis fulva) are blooming. That, THAT is the color and exuberance of early summer. Sometimes known as Fourth of July Daylilies because their bloom time (in the northeast) roughly corresponds to Independence Day, Hemerocallis fulva have begun to erupt into spectacular fireworks-esque blossoms about a week ahead of schedule. Must be the intermittent but persistent rain.
Hemerocallis Fulva (Photo: Geo Davis)
Daylilies Abloom
Although my floral polyamory (flower zealotry?) is wide ranging and broadly inclusive, summertime vibes are captured in a quasi Norman Rockwell way when Hemerocallis fulva joins the fête. What?!?!
No, that wasn’t a challenge — can you work, polyamory, zealotry, inclusivity, and Norman Rockwell into the same sentence? — but I concede a slightly self indulgent surrogate *MAY* have hijacked the keyboard. But I’m back at the helm. Back to basics…
Hemerocallis fulva, the orange day-lily,[3]tawny daylily, corn lily, tiger daylily, fulvous daylily, ditch lily or Fourth of July lily (also railroad daylily, roadside daylily, outhouse lily, and wash-house lily),[citation needed] is a species of daylily…
A daylily by any other name. Hemerocallis fulva by rights (but least applied name.)
Just beginning to bloom in the last couple of days. Should be a tiger orange riot by Indepence Day. And then a chance to gather the expired blooms for a meal or two.
What?!?!
Hemerocallis Fulva (Photo: Geo Davis)
Daylilies are not only edible, they are spectacular…
Let me start by saying that edible daylilies are the common daylily, Hemerocallis fulva, as well as its various Hemerocallis friends and relatives…
Perfect. Hemerocallis fulva is exactly what we have in abundance at Rosslyn, so I declare a feast. But how?
According to Shaw, the best way to dine on Hemerocallis fulva is to sauté the unopened flower buds in butter and salt.
Delicious. Briefly cooked, the buds have a bit of knacken, a German expression meaning a “pop.” Yet the insides reminded me of squash blossoms. The taste? Green, with a whiff of radish and a dash of green bean. Honestly, I’d eat this as a side dish any day, any place. It needs nothing else.
That’ll be clarified butter (aka ghee) for me in order to juggle my lamentably dairy free diet. I’ve also read that the post-bloom flowers are tasty, especially when dried and added to soups and stews. Time for a little experimentation…
High Tunnel Tomato Plants, Take One: Frost Damaged Tomato Plants, May 18, 2023 (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
Sometimes, when I’m trying to explain the many merits of gardening, I describe the cultivation of plants as a quasi-religious force in my life. Sincerely. Hyperbole? Perhaps, but there’s much in the practice of planting and sowing, cultivating and composting, even weeding and pruning and grafting that underpins my worldview, informs my optimism, and provides a circular and self sustaining system of belief and practice. What constitutes a religion is a debate for another blog. But tossing this into the mix may help contextualize the significant ache I was veiling in my recent High Tunnel Hubris post.
I tried to remain matter-of-fact, sidestepping the debilitating discouragement that sidelined me for a day or two after a severe frost shocked dozens of the plants that I’d helped transplant.
High Tunnel Tomato Plants, Take Two: Suckering Back to Life? (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
So… when we jumpstarted our spring starts in the high tunnel, I was fueled with fervor and faith. We’d have tomatoes by the end of June!
But a severe frost reminded us that BLTs and gazpacho aren’t a matter of pipe dreaming alone. Yes, nature humbles.
High Tunnel Tomato Plants, Take Two: Suckering Back to Life? (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
No blame, except my own optimism. I understood the stakes. I understood the risks. And I understood the consequences. Although the perspective is pretty bleak, at this point, I’m tentatively hopeful that some of the tomatoes may recover. If the soil was warm enough, the roots may remain vital. If a sucker shoots in, we can cultivate it into a new plant. The prospect, of course, for tomatillos is less good. But I’m not prepared to give up yet. The possibility of new growth might yet eclipse the discouraging dieback we’re now witnessing. After all, I’m not aware of anyone who has ever died of optimism! (Source: High Tunnel Hubris)
And so I fell back on optimism. Pollyanna optimism. We left the cold-shocked tomato plants in the ground. And little by little *some* regrowth has occurred. A minority, but an inspiring minority of our zapped tomato plants have rebounded, sending up new growth as “suckers” that we’re endeavoring to cultivate into new stems, new productive tomato plants.
High Tunnel Tomato Plants, Take Two: Suckering Back to Life? (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
It’s still early, as you can see in today’s photographs. They may endure. They may thrive. They may produce a robust tomato crop. Or, they may not. But we’re tending them. Loving them. Believing in them. We’re fertilizing these resilient tomato plants with optimism. If fortune so chooses, we’ll have learned from our hubris *AND* we’ll be able to celebrate our wisening with the sweet tangy sacrament of Black Krim and Green Zebra tomatoes!
Have you ever ever heard of an Eastern massasauga rattlesnake? Or a Sistrurus catenatus?
Me either.
Until recently.
I’ve just come across notes that I scribbled almost three years ago on May 15, 2009 after seeing a large, unfamiliar snake behind the carriage barn. I tried to identify the exotic serpent but never solved the mystery.
My sleuthing was reinvigorated this afternoon, leading me to a new possibility. As unlikely as it may seem, I now suspect that I may have spotted a massasauga rattlesnake with markings totally unlike our local Adirondack timber rattlesnakes.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. First let’s take a look at my old notes:
After gardening, while watering transplanted tomatoes I saw a large snake with unfamiliar coloring/markings. I described it to naturalist John Davis (@trekeast), conservationist Chris Maron and Essex Farm guru, Mark Kimball. No consensus. Perhaps a copper head, a northern water snake or an adder. I poked around the web looking at photos and reading descriptions. It was not a Northern Water Snake. The Northern Copperhead photo could be a match, and the description fits quite accurately. And this photo of a copperhead looks similar. Actually, most photos I find online of Northern Copperheads look similar:
Some other possibilities include Eastern Fox Snake, Northern Water Snake and Corn Snake. In fact, it looked an awful lot like a, Anerythristic Corn Snake (Elaphe guttata), but we’re definitely not in their natural range. Here’s a photo of a baby corn snake that is much smaller than the stealthy serpent I spied, though otherwise very similar. And here’s another corn snake. This photo of an Anerythristic Corn Snake is a dead ringer for the rhubarb runaway.
That was my thinking three years ago. But I’ve changed my mind. If only I had a photograph…
At the time I called my bride on my mobile phone and asked her to bring my camera so I could take a picture. “Come quick. I don’t want the snake to get away!”
A brief, anxious verbal volley later the snake had vanished into the deep grass around the rhubarb patch. No photograph. Though the image of the snake — pale yellowish tan background with brown and black foreground markings — lingered in my mind, the length of the snake grew longer with each passing minute.
The timber rattlesnakes that live in the Adirondacks are dark, almost black with only a faint pattern visible in certain lighting situations. This snake was not a timber rattlesnake. And I never saw a rattle. Nor did I hear a rattle.
And yet when I stumbled upon the photographs of the yellow rattlesnake above, I instantly recognized the snake that vanished in the rhubarb patch. We had a Sistrurus catenatus, yellow massasauga rattler in Rosslyn’s rhubarb patch!
Or did we?
What if the assumption that all Adirondack timber rattlesnakes living in the Split Rock Mountain Forest area are brown-black is erroneous? What if some of our local rattlers look like the yellowish tan snakes in this video which was ostensibly filmed in New York Sate?
The photographer/videographer who shared that dramatic footage was prudent not to disclose the location of the snakes, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they were right here in the Champlain Valley. Those pale snakes, especially the rattlesnake with the pale yellow head are extremely similar to my rhubarb patch mystery serpent!
If you’re a wise herpetologist with a knowledge of the Adirondacks’ Champlain Valley maybe you can help solve my snake mystery…
Updates
June 27, 2012: Perhaps Bill Brown (and many others) are relying upon empirical evidence about the Split Rock rattlesnakes that is changing?
Bill Brown, an expert on timber rattlers… said the Split Rock population is unusual in that all the specimens are black. Except for a tiny population in New Hampshire, other populations in the North are made up of black snakes and yellow snakes (with crossbands)… A biologist who has studied timber rattlers for more than three decades, Brown attributes the uniformity of the Split Rock population to the “founder effect.” It is supposed that all the founders of the population were black, and no yellow snakes contributed to the gene pool. (Adirondack Explorer)
July 17, 2012: Seems that we need help identifying another mystery snake in the Adirondacks.
Recently I was contacted by a herpetologist here in NY studying the Massasauga who was interested in my observation. In our discussion he mentioned this:
It is common for Milksnakes to be identified as Massasaugas. The belief is that Milk snakes have evolved to mimic venomous species in their area, and in eastern states are known to be EMR mimics. Is it possible what you saw was a Milk Snake? ~Alexander Robillard of SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry
So, it’s quite likely that I saw an enormous, beautiful milk snake. I’ve seen no similar snakes recently or ever. And given the fact that our local population of rattlesnakes (Split Rock Wilderness) are apparently all blackish, this suggestion seems the most likely.
After the rainiest spring/summer in years, the summer of 2012 appears to be one of the driest, and Rosslyn gardens have mostly profited. Time for an update on our mid-July veggies, plus an important question about squash blossoms at the end.
Lake Champlain water levels are plummeting (waterfront/dock/boating update soon) and lawns are either crispy, crunchy or perpetually showered by sprinklers. With the exception of new grass we’re starting as part of ongoing repairs to the damaged waterfront, we’re trying to minimize our environmental impact by letting the lawns dry up but drip, drip, dripping the vegetables, herbs and orchard.
Eggplant and Blossom, Rosslyn Gardens
It’s a curious twist of fate that we were just beginning to repair our waterfront from flood damage at this point last year, and this year we’re experiencing a sustained drought. But we’re taking advantage of the heat for lots of Lake Champlain watersports and Adirondack Coast bike rides. Life is good!
What about that mid-July veggies update I promised?
So far, the drought winners in the vegetable garden appear to be the zuchini and yellow squash (Are they are channeling their “inner tropics”?!?!), Imperial Star Artichokes, eggplant, peppers and tomatoes. Although I keep expecting the watermelons and cantaloupes to explode, they’ve been sluggish. Bizarre. Many years our seasons are too short for them, and yet when we blast them with dry heat day after day, they get logy. Why?
The leeks are also struggling. I suspect they need even more water than they are getting… Will try to keep them wetter this week. The pumpkins and cucumbers are also way behind where they’d normally be at this point in the summer. I’d hoped to trellis the cukes this year. Never done that before, but intrigued by the smaller plot and self-shade possibilities as well as the opportunity to keep the cucumbers up off the earth so they’ll be less vulnerable to pests. Unfortunately the plants are still so small I haven’t been able to train any of them up onto the cedar trellises yet. Soon, I hope!
Zuchini Squash Blossom, Rosslyn Gardens
The good news is that we’ve been devouring radishes (see French Breakfast Radish) and greens for over a month. Already finished with the first radish and lettuce patches and making good headway through the second patches. Will plant more lettuce this week along with beans and another squash crop. No more radishes. I think I’ve already hit my limit.
Why so much squash? Yes, we too get sick of squash, but each year I plan to harvest and prepare squash blossoms. But so far it’s never happened. This year I’ve vowed to learn several good ways to prepare squash blossoms. I have some interesting recipes, but would love to hear your favorite way to prepare squash blossoms. And I need to figure out the best way to clean the squash blossoms before cooking. Seems that ants in particular love to get inside. How do you prepare your squash blossoms?
Thanks to Sacha Marcucci for her tasty sounding recommendation:
@virtualDavis one of our favorite restaurants stuffs them with ricotta, then lightly batters and frys (fries?sp.) them. delish.
Poppies aplenty summer through early autumn (Source: Geo Davis)
Poppies aplenty! A gardener can never grow too many poppies in my estimation. Biased? Yes, unabashedly biased when it comes to Papavers, I’m afraid. (The oriental poppies that we plant at Rosslyn are in the genus Papaver in the subfamily Papaveroideae of the family Papaveraceae. No worries, you won’t be quizzed later.)
So smitten am I with this almost impossibly perfect pairing of sensuous and carefree, delicate and robust, that I’ve gathered a passel of poppy poems as a rainy day elixir. Feel free to avail yourself of this sure cure if you’re stuck in the doldrums and need a boost. I can’t guarantee that the poems pack the euphoric punch of actual poppies, but they just might remind your heart and soul how to conjure these beguiling beauties out of your own memory.
If I could grow poppies year round, I would! (Source: Geo Davis)
Bloom Where You’re Planted
The advice, “bloom where you are planted,” apparently owes it’s pithy endurance to the Bishop of Geneva, Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622), but my first point of reference was different. It was 1999, and I had just relocated from Santa Fe, New Mexico to Paris, France. I received a book in my workplace welcome packet that had been compiled by the FACCP Franco-American Community Center of Paris. The title was Bloom Where You’re Planted: Tips for Living and Thriving in Paris.
Although I grew up admiring poppies that my mother grew in the Adirondack’s Champlain Valley, there’s no doubt that visits to Normandy where poppies still dot green fields, and teaching John McCrae’s “In Flanders Fields” to my students at the American School of Paris deepened my connection to Papavers. Somehow the helpful manual provided to me in my late twenties became connected with the poppies in my memory and in my gardens.
This morning’s poppies and the lovely reminder from Saint Francis de Sales and the good folks at the FACCP Franco-American Community Center of Paris coalesced for a fleeting moment, and the first semblance of a new poppy poem unfurled its still wrinkled petals. Not sure where it’s headed, if anywhere, but here’s where it stands today.
Bloom where you’re planted, where the wind blows you, where you are needed. Bloom when conditions are perfect and when they are not. Bloom.
Might need to let it rest a bit, and possibly, hopefully resurface anon. After all, I surround myself with poppies aplenty, so perhaps this poetry seed will germinate some day in the future, a reminder that preservation by neglect applies not just to orphaned buildings and blog posts, but also poems.
It must be spring! Sometimes affectionately cooed (by nobody ever) and sometimes disparagingly grumbled (almost always), “mud season” has rounded the proverbial corner. Dun and drab are giving way to brilliant white and violet and — as soon as the daffodils and dandelions bloom — vibrant yellow.
¡Hasta la vista, winter! Spring has sprung.
Crocus (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
Crocus & Dwarf Iris, Haiku
Crocus, dwarf iris dabbed from pigmented palette, early blooms unearthed.
Nature is the original artist, liberating all manner of magical blooms from the earth where only weeks ago it seemed unlikely that this theatre would open on time. But it does, year after year. And this is and a small part why I consider gardening to be the very fountain of optimism.
Dwarf Iris (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
Bulbs Now, Buds Soon?
Once bulbs begin to push their green shoots up out of the damp earth, it’s easy to let optimism run away with us. The daffodils and the daylilies are pushing up as well, although we’ll need to wait for a while longer before the day lilies bloom.
This exciting succession of blooms inevitably primes my Pollyanna pump for other blooms, especially bud burst in Rosslyn’s orchard. Talk about theatre!
The high tunnel is now officially planted for the 2023 growing season. Hurrah! And the first plants in the ground are a pair of Green Zebra tomatoes (aka “Green Zebras”), a personal favorite that boast tart flavor, unique color, exotic pattern, and a tendency to ripen early. Win, win, win, win!
Green Zebras 1st in High Tunnel (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
This will be our second season high tunneling, but it’s our first opportunity to jumpstart planting (by about two weeks). Last year we received the high tunnel shipment damaged and missing parts. It took most of the spring to receive the missing and replacement parts, so we forfeited the benefits we’re hoping for this year.
High Tunnel Almost Ready for Planting (Photo: Tony Foster)
We kept the high tunnel covered all winter which accelerated warming of the ground over the last couple of months. Tony has been pampering the soil: supplementing with composted manure and other organics, tilling, and preparing beds.
Tony has done a remarkable job of preparing the high tunnel for early season planting. And check out that solar gain on a freezing day! (Source: Synchronous Progress)
Pam has already planted the first succession of spinach and French breakfast radishes, but those are in raised beds outside the high tunnel. I’m hoping to see signs of germination soon. And the asparagus bed should be waking up any day now. But these precursors to summer invite heady hopes for a robust early bounty, especially tomatoes, the crown jewel of our vegetable garden. So we’re tempting fate by leapfrogging the typical Mother’s Day planting date, crossing our fingers, and imagining tomatoes by the 4th of July. We’ll observe these two vanguard tomato plants and — if they thrive (or at least survive) — we’ll progressively transplant more over the coming days. With luck others (eggplant, tomatillo, peppers, broccoli, cucumbers, etc.) will join them soon.
Here’s willing juicy tomatoes by (of before?!?!) Independence Day!
I apologize in advance for bypassing several timely updates on the icehouse rehabilitation progress. Sorry. I promise that they are coming soon. But there’s something about springtime, about gardening, about the promise of colorful blooms and produce that I’m finding too tempting to resist. And so I share with you what I’ll call a “Giebel garden flashback” from last summer, August 10, 2022 to be exact. Taken by dear friend Brian Giebel and pushed out to the world via Instagram, I revisit it now with all the enthusiasm and optimism of an almost 100% planted garden. May 2023 be as abundant as 2022!
Giebel Garden Flashback (Photo: Brian Giebel)
Thank you, Brian, for capturing this outrageous sunset (and my embarrassing posture). And thank you for reminding me what I’ve garden looks like in high season so that I may gird my angst about the two upcoming frost warnings.
I’ve learned again, and again that worrying about the weather is an unhealthy and unhelpful practice. So I won’t. Or, I will try not to worry. Nature, benevolent nature, will offer us what she considers right.
Artichokes Ready to Transplant (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
And in the meantime, we’ll postpone planting 18 newly arrived artichoke thistles. They look robust and healthy now, so we’ll try to keep them that way until the risk of frost has passed. Then, into the garden, they go!
Artichokes Ready to Transplant (Photo: R.P. Murphy)
Once those artichokes are planted, we will be almost finished. Today we offer an especial thanks to Pam for rounding up the artichokes (the last available from our supplier), and the Amish family who helps ensure that our seeds are in the freshly filled ground and the transplants are well tended. Thank you!
Giebel Garden Flashback (Photo: Brian Giebel via Instagram)
And to you, Brian, thanks for this Instagram post nine months past that fills me now with hope for our future harvest. Soon we will be feasting once again!
Springtime is tulip time, a dramatic chapter in gardners’ succession blooming cycles. With snow drops, hyacinth, and daffodils fading, colorful tulip blooms take center stage. And this year’s tulip time does not disappoint.
Tulip Time (Photo: Susan Bacot-Davis)
Signs of springtime are abundant lately. It’s asparagus time. Also ramps, apple blossoms, dandelions, fiddleheads, tulips, nettles,… And lily of the valley unfurling dramatically. An entire army of terpsichorean twirlers synchronized, slowly unfurling, mesmerizing. (Source: Lily of the Valley Unfurling )
With especial thanks to my bride Susan Bacot-Davis for her moody photos, I offer you three intimate portraits of our current tulip time. Like festive gala gowns these goblets of pigmented petals dazzle and dare us to imagine springtime maturing into sizzling summer soon…
Tulip Time (Photo: Susan Bacot-Davis)
So much confidence and coquetry in these precocious summertime previews. And yet these blooms are delicate, susceptible to swings in temperature and downpours.
Tulip Time (Photo: Susan Bacot-Davis)
The tulips make me want to paint, Something about the way they drop Their petals on the tabletop And do not wilt so much as faint… (Source: A.E. Stallings, “Tulips”, Poetry Foundation
Signs of springtime are abundant lately. It’s asparagus time. Also ramps, apple blossoms, dandelions, fiddleheads, tulips, nettles,… And lily of the valley unfurling dramatically. An entire army of terpsichorean twirlers synchronized, slowly unfurling, mesmerizing.
Lily of the Valley Unfurling (Photo: Geo Davis)
Lily of the valley (Convallaria majalis)… is a woodland flowering plant with sweetly scented, pendent, bell-shaped white flowers borne in sprays in spring. (Source: Wikipedia)
Lily of the Valley Unfurling (Photo: Geo Davis)
It’s still too early for the perfume that this ground cover will waft across the deck and into the screen porch, but anticipation smells almost as sweet! And the vibrant pageantry, Nature’s unsubtle choreography, is enchanting, even slightly hypnotic. Believe, these sylvan dervishes chant, believe and spring will swirl into summer once again.
An ancient and neglected apple tree. Actually some sort of crab apple tree with fruit the size of golf balls. Large golf balls that were tart but delicious. Griffin loved to scarf them up when they carpeted the lawn in autumn.
Doug Decker cleans up ancient crab apple tree after hail storm hits Rosslyn on May, 16, 2012.
For six years I pruned and nourished the crab apple tree back to health. Aside from a largely rotten trunk. Nevertheless, each spring the fruit tree filled with blooms which by summer’s end had become much fruit.
More pruning. Another spring; even more apple blossoms. The hope of fruit.
Yesterday, May 16, 2012 the skies blackened too early for night and then the clouds erupted in a short but angry tantrum of driving rain, mothball-sized hail and driving wind. When the hail and rain stopped and the fog cleared, the crooked fruit tree had fallen, snapped off at her stem.
