Old Friend

I Get Confused…….

My friend Serendipity has not got involved in the blog this week, but let me introduce you to another character, the late great Rocky, our previous dog. The possessor of long legs and good lungs, Rocky needed plenty of exercise. (After he died, I calculated that I had walked somewhere between 3,000 and 4,000 miles with the dog. Thanks for that, old pal.) I digress. One of our regular walks was in Fleming Park, now a public park, previously a golf course, and prior to that the grounds of a stately home (North Stoneham Park) with extensive landscaping by Capability Brown.

I would entertain myself by looking at the trees, some familiar, some exotic, while the dog was doing disgusting dog things. In the winter there was one tree that was remarkable for the amount of mistletoe it supported, much more than any other specimen in the park, and I was puzzled as to why that should be. What was the reward for mistletoe that it thrived so well in this particular tree? Anyway, without leaves, there was no way I could identify the species, so I had to wait until spring. I forgot of course, but Rocky inadvertently reminded me the following year when he led me to that particular corner and was snuffling around in the undergrowth. Following him, I came across flowers I had never seen before in patches all round the trunk of this tree, pale strange flowers with a purplish tint. I identified them when I got home. Toothwort is a great name, but totally outclassed by its delicious nickname of corpse flower, so-called because of the belief that it only grows from corpses.

It's another parasite, which takes all its nourishment from the roots of other plants. It needs no chlorophyll, so has no green parts, just ghostlike pale flesh and flowers, very spooky. I have found it nowhere else in the park. So what is this tree which carries a heavy parasite load on its high branches and a heavy parasite load on its roots – and yet looks in such good condition? Well, before I try to answer that, let me digress again….

I have done quite a lot of work with solitary bees in the USA. I recall one year being advised that a particular bee would be active ‘when the box elder is in flower’. That was a new one on me, so I asked to see such a tree and it sure was neither a box tree nor an elder. It is in fact a maple (Acer negundo) which was given its name because the leaves look like elder (a bit) and the wood is used for making boxes.

Leaves of silver maple Acer Saccharum

That was one confusing maple. Back to England, I checked my books and reckoned that my mystery tree is Acer saccharinum, going by the deeply serrated leaves Ha! I said, leaping to unjustified conclusions, obviously the sugar maple which gives us maple syrup, and clearly the reason why the parasites thrive on it – the sap is high in nutrients. Well, the second conclusion may or may not be true, but the first isn’t. The maple tree in North America which is harvested for syrup is in fact Acer saccharum. Saccharum, saccharinum? I expect I shall forget the distinction as soon as I close this laptop. Anyway, here is a picture of Rocky’s tree, otherwise known as silver maple.

Thriving silver maple, despite parasites above and below ground

But what about bees? I hear you ask. Let me update you on this year’s nesting of mason bees and leafcutter bees in the various nests we put up. Despite having some locations with great results historically (such as Granny’s garden in rural Suffolk), and despite ‘seeding’ the nests with plenty cocoons due to emerge bang on time, we had very poor results, the worst for sure in years and years of this work. I estimate we have about 5%, if that, of our normal population. I am not clear why, but I have just loaded the car with nests and will be examining the contents in the next month. I will share my conclusions. In the meantime, let’s enjoy the last of the summer ……..

Tales from the allotment

My achievements down at the allotment are modest compared with some of the retired enthusiasts who devote many hours to their plots each week. Nevertheless, I get a lot of fun from it, along with abundant fresh fruit and vegetables. Each year there are successes and failures – this year I was so excited to be growing cauliflowers with heads bigger than table tennis balls, but in the last week, the heads seem to be rotting away, all blotchy and grey and brown. Huh! Maybe next year ……

Anyway, I get plenty pleasure with or without the cauliflowers, watching the visitors to the plot. There are always slow worms in the compost heap, and the ornithologists a few plots along point out any unusual birds. And of course there are always plenty bees. We inherited a fine bed of globe artichoke. I like artichokes, but have to admit that it is a lot of work getting the edible bit to the table, and as for the blackfly – quel horreur, mes amis! But the real payback comes with the flowers, which are the most glorious and stately thistle-type purple blooms. They are a magnet for bees. Sometimes you will get ten bumble bees on the same bloom, burrowing deep into the flower head to get their reward, a sight that I look forward to every year.

And as usual, my friend Serendipity injected an extra note of interest this year when the tenancy of an adjacent plot changed. Our new neighbour is Chinese, with interesting ways of gardening and novel plants. For instance, he grows bonsai trees on the allotment – true – and explained in detail the difference in philosophies between Chinese and Japanese bonsai. (I didn’t point out that this year I am specialising in bonsai sweet corn.) I also remarked on a fine bed of evening primrose on his plot, and asked what he used it for. Nothing, was the answer, he just likes growing it. And so do I. It grew more or less wild in our garden for years, and on summer evenings as the sun was going down, I used to wander down the garden to watch the flowers open. The flowers are big and yellow, and during the day are rolled up like little umbrellas. As the evening approaches, one by one the flowers unravel and open in front of your eyes. You can easily watch the whole process in a few minutes. It’s fantastic. Bees will visit it, but it is a moth-pollinated plant, and the pollen is not bee-friendly. It comes off the stamens in sticky hairy strands which the bees really struggle with.

You can see how easily distracted I am. Instead of seriously tackling the bindweed a few days ago, which was my intention, I had more fun with a swarm. I know what you’re thinking – bees again – but no. This wasn’t my bees about to move into a neighbour’s chimney, or someone else’s bees moving into some equipment of mine. These were ants. It was the shimmering that caught my eye. The nest was under the well-trodden pathway where winged males and females were crawling to the surface, having a few minutes crawling in the grass then taking to the air. Unlike bees, this is not a colony moving en masse to a new home, but rather it is the emergence of a sexual generation, a mass mating flight. Successful females will shed their wings and found new colonies; successful males have done their work and will die shortly afterwards. And life on the allotment continues its cycle……….

Next year will be my cauliflower year.