rent-a-goat...

Scared of poison ivy, chiggers, and spider webs? Need to use less gasoline for cleaning up your lot?

Today's post at Bull City Rising breaks some wonderful news....

heirloom oranges?

This is a picture of fallen fruit from an Osage orange tree at the Stagville State Historic site just north of Durham. This tree is native to some areas of Texas and Oklahoma. It became a popular planting throughout the southeastern United States in the 19th century.

When kept short and bushy, Osage oranges are covered with thorns. In rows, they made an excellent fence for keeping livestock in (or out) of particular fields.

These tennis ball colored "hedge apples" are the product of mature trees that are still alive at this former plantation. Wood from Osage orange trees was also prized as a rot-resistant choice for building fence posts in later decades after the invention of barbed wire erased the need to grow spiky barriers of severely pruned Osage oranges.

I think the fruit is only enjoyed by squirrels, but I haven't scoured the web for other uses. I have heard that their mashed up insides offer up a natural insect repellent.

butterfly seed

Asclepias tuberosa or Butterfly Weed is a great native perennial. Mature clumps do not need any coddling once established. These seedpods are striking but it is prized, of course, for its Monarch attracting flower clusters.

Starting them from seed is not a bad idea since their long taproots make them resistant to transplanting.

Hibiscus mutabilis

Here is a large flowering shrub at Sarah Duke Gardens. Commonly called a cotton rose or Confederate rose hibiscus, it can grow over eight feet tall and wide in the summer. This is an old-fashioned favorite that will die back in the winters around here. But it springs back like a perennial. Late summer and fall blooms are always a premium in my book and this giver is just getting started.

a contract with contractor's shrubs

Last Tuesday I trolled the parking lot at a home improvement super store. By the curb a lawn and garden sign advertised: CONTRACTOR’S SHRUBS. For less than $10 a pop you could walk away with some smallish evergreen bushes—it seemed like a good deal. But the buyer should beware.

A lot of these hollies and cypresses and boxwoods get stuck next to foundations and walkways and parking lots at new construction sites where you have to wonder if anyone is thinking ahead. For example, a Buford Holly (Ilex cornuta Bufordi) will grow up to be a small tree if you let it. I should know. Under my home’s front windows is a collection of decades old bufordis that have to be kept in check almost weekly from May through September.

The result are tiresome green lollipops that are forced to grow no more than five or six feet tall. If I gave up and let them go? They would each look like this specimen on Duke’s campus, probably planted outside the North Building in 1958 when the structure was newly built.

By the way- if you are interested, there are dwarf versions of Buford Hollies and other evergreen bushes out there.

Radio Skywriter

Tune in tomorrow from 11:30am-12:00pm to Radio Skywriter on WNCU 90.7 FM to hear pat murray and I talk gardening. Our guest is Michelle Wallace, consumer horticultural agent with the Durham County Cooperative Extension Office. If we fail to comment on the tropical rain from Hannah, it is because we taped it on Thursday.

On a related note, Bull City water restrictions have eased a bit due some recent and forecasted rain. Here is the official word from City Hall