Eight-Legged Garden Helpers

Don't worry! There aren't any images of spiders in this post.

It's okay. They make me squirm, too.

I've always been a little afraid of spiders. I know they're not really dangerous (most of the scary stuff I've heard about spiders is actually bullshit). Spiders just give me the willies.

Since I bought a house, though, I've been working hard to control my fear. In fact, I'm pretty sure the spiders are all a lot more afraid of me than I am of them. The bigguns just make me ... uncomfortable.

The thing is, there are just so many thousands (hundreds of thousands? millions?) of spiders living with me on my property that I always run into a few or a few dozen when I'm outdoors doing yardwork (or indoors in August while the male house spiders are feeling bold and looking for loooove). So, I feel that I ought to get along with the little buggers and appreciate the pest-control work that they do in the garden.

Today I came across a big ol' web in a sunny shrub bed where wood mulch, rocks and a few applewood logs are haphazardly arranged below my 'Bloodgood' japanese maple. I had to relocate part of a small orb-weaver's web in order to get close enough to photograph this one. I have to do that a lot. Those little orb-weavers are such opportunists. Their beautiful, wheel-shaped webs get in my way all the time. They don't seem to listen when I tell them to go weave elsewhere.

This web stretches a couple of feet from a small terra cotta pot sitting on a rock down into the rarely-used gravel and urbanite path below. It also attaches to a young azalea shrub and some heavy rocks. I think my eight-legged buddy must have been pretty happy with this plot to have invested so much sweat equity in its development. It appears to be the web of a funnel-weaver. I find their webs frequently in the lawn. They look pretty on a dewy morning. This one, though, is so large and contains so many delicate layers of scaffolding that I don't think I've ever seen any others in the yard quite like it.

Here you can see the funnel entrance between the rocks. The nocturnal resident of this web was undoubtedly chillin' in its shady retreat while I was taking real estate photos of its place. I didn't see any tasty buggies tangled in the strands, so I hope somebuggy's feet get caught up this evening when the spider comes out expecting to have a bite.

Grass spiders, garden spiders, house spiders ...
Brown ones, orange ones, green ones ...
As long as they stay out of doors to weave their webs and chomp down insects, we mostly get along okay.

Sometimes, when I am working where there are piles of wood and dead leaves, I accidentally spook the shit out of a very large brown spider and, in its panic, it either freezes out in the open like it's hoping I can't see it if it doesn't move, or it runs for cover as fast as its eight legs can carry it. Unfortunately, it always puts itself right where I don't want it to be.

Like the little, velvety brown spiders that just love hiding under smooth river pebbles. As soon as I uncover their sanctuary, they always run toward my work area instead of somewhere that's actually safe from my spade and my gloved hands. Have you ever tried herding spiders? It is not easy. They do dumb things when they're panicked. And they never listen. Even when they're headed in the proper direction they don't move very fast, so I end up waiting around awhile. I'm just trying to give them a chance to get away, the silly things. I don't like to squish somebody who doesn't mean me any harm.

How do you get along with your eight-legged garden helpers?

April ... Flowers!

It's well and truly spring here in the Pacific Northwest. Have some flowers!

More blooms after the break!

Garden Therapy: Japanese Maple Edition

... And then something lovely happened.

I was standing under this Bloodgood japanese maple when it decided to say hello. A breeze was blowing through, rustling the canopy and pulling invisible strings to animate a low branch. First the branch gave me a soft pat on the head, which caused me to look up. Then it stroked my face, making me smile. Then the breeze gained strength and the branch began to dance, leaves tickling my face and making me laugh.

Japanese maple tickle therapy. What a wonderful world.

This japanese maple's story of rebirth

I guess the Bloodgood has forgiven me for being a crappy caregiver last year. It was a poorly thought-out Home Depot purchase. Overpriced and under-cared-for, poor thing. The branches were all twisted around each other and heading for the sky in an unattractive way, like it had been crammed in so tightly with other nursery stock for so long that it hadn't had room to stretch and spread and acquire that graceful shape that these trees are known for. Quite a bit of dead wood, too. Plus, I didn't keep it adequately watered through its first summer in the ground. Amateur mistake. This tree had a lot to overcome.

A couple of weeks ago I squished my way across the yard to this maple with loppers in hand. I had no intention of pruning any living wood. The tree was leafing out nicely and it was easy to identify all of the dead wood. That was the stuff I was after. The thing is, there was so much dead wood that by the time I was done, the canopy was only half the size it had been previously. Woah. The poor tree had really suffered last year.

I even had to figure out how far back to cut a branch that was thoroughly orange and dry with death, but had completely fused itself to a living branch that it was crossing. I ended up making the cut an inch or so above the self-grafted point, and at a clean 45-degrees to help water run off instead of sitting and soaking into the dead wood. I have no idea how quickly the remaining dead wood will rot, but I hope very much that the living branch it's stuck to will continue to thrive anyway.

After all this tree had suffered, I'd figured it would take many long years before it could develop any kind of grace. But you know what happened once all the dead branches were gone and I stepped out from under it to have a look?

The tree was beautiful.

The remaining branches were few, but they were the ones that had managed to stretch and spread in that classic japanese maple way. The multi-tiered structure that just wasn't there before had suddenly been revealed. From the ashes of a winter of abuse and struggle, this maple had sprung ... into brilliant life and loveliness.

Fucking phoenix, this tree.

Garden Anxiety: Japanese Maple Edition

My Sango-kaku (coral bark) japanese maple appears to have a couple of bleeding cankers near the base of the trunk. The blood started flowing weeks ago and I have been making worried faces at it ever since. The bleeding has since stopped, but I still worry that the wounds are being invaded by evil buggies, or that said wounds are just symptoms of some much more terrible malady that will end up killing my beautiful little tree. Beyond frowning a lot, I have no idea what to do. It's likely there's nothing much that I can do, anyway.

There's that worried face, again.

Also, the Sango-kaku's leaves seem reluctant to unfurl completely. Related issue? Or am I just being impatient and paranoid? This tree gets more shade than my other japanese maples, so perhaps the slow-motion leafing-out is to be expected. Yeah, that's probably it.

But maybe it's something else. The Tamukeyama is out in the sun and it too is being a bit slow to leaf out.

But maybe that's because this is the Tamukeyama's first spring in the ground.

But the Bloodgood and the Viridis are having their first spring as well and they're fully leafed and dangling little flower babies and everything!

Aaaaauuugh!

... And where the hell is my new issue of Garden Gate? I need garden porn therapy and I need it now, dammit!

Bring Out Yer Dead!

Something is definitely wrong with this poor little tree. The branches are all brown near the trunk.

Shall we have a closer look?

Bleaugh! This tree is diseased! The needles look all rotten and they're actually turning black—oh my god, it has the plague.

... Aaaaand it's attracting flies. That cannot possibly be a good sign.

Oh, holy hell. This fly has fucking DIED. Is my tree toxic to FLIES now?

This fly is still alive and it looks EVIL.

That's it. I'm cutting it down and tossing it in the trash.

... Later

Fortunately, I had a brain wave and grabbed a large, stiff plastic shopping bag and upended it over the tree, then severed the trunk just above the soil level with my loppers. Floomp! Over went the felled tree onto the pavement, still neatly contained in the plastic bag. Nice and impersonal. I didn't even have to touch it. I tied off the bag and dumped it directly into the garbage can, then swabbed my loppers with rubbing alcohol. When you get the plague, you gotta keep it contained. Too bad the garbage truck has already come by today. I guess the corpse will just fester in the trash can for the next week. Poor plague-ridden thing. It had been one of two cute little blue spruces planted in urns that flank my garage door. It's a shame to break up the set, but if I hadn't disposed of the mostly dead one, whatever nasty disease that was plaguing it might have spread to the other tree—or worse!

Ah, well! Shit happens.