h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I don't like cold weather.

Warm weather is a different story. The last few days have been lovely, and I've been outside a lot. The other day I transplanted a couple of azaleas and Coreopses.

Today I raked leaves off the Coneflower beds so my plants won't have to work so hard to get up into the sunlight. I also cut away some of the dead stalks from last year. The asters grew six or seven feet tall last year, so there was a lot to cut away. Once those tall stalks were gone, I could see, down at the roots, a lot of new green shoots poking up.

Some things seem not to be coming up at all, though. My shade-loving sunflowers aren't showing any new growth. Maybe it's too early to expect them, or maybe they weren't supposed to be long-lived. We'll see.

Problem: I filled four bags with leaves and broken stalks. They weren't leaf bags, those, as those are all sold out at the garden center. They've ordered some more, sop I will need to visit occasionally to see if more bags have come in.

Many problems that I mentioned six days ago have resolved themselves. The shade-loving sunflowers are up in droves, just not where I expected them to be .

I picked up some more leaf bags a couple days ago.

Three of the May apples have come up. They look like little green umbrellas or mushrooms.

All the azaleas and blueberries are showing new growth.

There's growth on the Blue Cohosh and Waterleaf plants. A few of the Canada Mayflowers are up.

On Saturday, I went along the entrance ramp, cutting away last year's dead stalks and putting wooden markers in the ground with the names of the plants on the markers.

One of the bare-root wild roses I planted last Fall is showing new growth. A Virginia Rose that I ordered a few weeks ago arrived Friday, and I promptly planted it.

"The shade-loving sunflowers are up in droves, just not where I expected them to be" [paulh]

Might they be related to bananana-herbs? They have a habit of moving around:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZabqakBJEM

watch till the end!

http://quizzclub.com/trivia/can-banana-plants-walk/answer/112704/

It seems that banana plants really do move, but it takes six or seven months to move to one side or another of the original stem.

Another plant that seems to move around is Virginia Bluebells. They have underground rhizomes that fan out horizontally. I have some bluebell patches, and I never bother to put markers next to where they came up *last* year, because *this* year they may be nowhere near last year's shoots.

Some other perennial plants that send up shoots wherever their underground roots travel are: May Apples, Canada Mayflowers, many native ropes, raspberries and blackberries, and Japanese Knotweed.

Shoots from a Japanese Knotweed root can come up 40 feet from the nearest plant.

When you're dealing with plants that have such wide-roaming roots, you must concede them the upper hand.

The shade-loving sunflowers have come up with a vengeance.

They're about as unpredictable as any woodland plants can be. They refused to come up where they came up last year, but there are dozens and dozens of them 15 to 20 inches away. The ones that are right up against the side of my house are going to be fine. They won't shade out the plants around them. The others can be deleted, or dug up and put in a large container for some future time when they are needed for restocking the yard.

The Canada Mayflowers were late in coming up, but when they *did* come up there were dozens of leaves from every pot that I planted last year. The leaves are only about three inches tall, and most of them are single leaves, but in time they will mature and put forth actual stalks, with a few leaves on each, and some cute little white blossoms.

There are many, many shy plants that live in the shade, and form large webs of connected roots. One Canada Mayflower plant can expand underground to fill twenty square feet or more.

http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/canada-mayflower-maianthemum-canadense.html

How can such tiny plants make such a magnificent display when blooming together around the base of an evergreen tree?

A few weeks ago, as I was clearing the last leaves of the autumn from a flower bed, I found a stick. Pretty straight, nearly 11" tall - and quite firmly attached to the soil.

That flower bed sees a lot of acorns, horse chestnuts and peanuts nesting for the winter - - - should a black squirrel need a snack.

Now known as Cousin Stick, it had many teeny leaf bud starts. But it may have got too presumptuous too soon, and returns to seriously frosty weather have entirely browned the top 3". How-ever, the remaining 8" or so is sporting atleast 6 really green little budlets. Two of them looking to burst fully open any day now.

Go, Cousin Stick, go !

In Ireland if you find Japanese knotweed, you are required by law to get professional exterminators in to remove it. You're not allowed to do it yourself, as digging out a Japanese knotweed plant causes the tiny bits of root left behind to each grow into a new plant and you'll have 10 where you had only one.

How well do I know the perils of that noxious plant!

I get my revenge by eating any new shoots I see. I've warned the people who have bought the two lots next door to our park. The previous owners neglected the property, and the knotweed exploded there. Now the new owners will have to pay plenty to get rid of it, and we have made it clear that there are laws regarding its disposal.

Some of the stuff comes up on our side of our entrance ramp. Those little red shoots make a nice tangy snack, though.

I have some recipes for making knotweed into tasty desserts.

(We also have garlic mustard. I've read that it makes delicious salad greens. In places where people eat it, it doesn't get out of hand)