GGG

Granvil le Gardeners Gazette Promoting Education and Recreation through Gardening Activities

Oxford, North Carolina ___ May 2019, Volume IX, No. 5

THE COVERED DISH SOCIAL THIS YEAR WILL BE A GRANVILLE GARDENERS

AND GRANVILLE COUNTY BEEKEEPERS

PICNIC!

SUNDAY, JUNE 9 AT NOON

Cedar Grove Acres, 3123 Brassfield Road, Creedmoor, NC 27522

Bring a covered dish and beverage (beer/wine/mead are welcome) as we join the Granville County Beekeepers for an afternoon of socializing, fun, and food.

• Outside w/ covered space.

• Tables and chairs are provided. • Fire pit for s’mores!

Extra Added Attraction: Chinese Auction!

Here’s how it works: Bring a plant, the more desirable the better, and put it on the display table. Each person is given a number. The rules are announced, a random number is called, and that person chooses a plant. When the number of the next person is called, he or she may take the plant already chosen or may choose one from the table. And so on. The chosen plants can be snatched only 3 times. This game is fun and entertaining, and it brings out the plant lust in everyone, so bring a plant and join the fray!

President’s Notes First of all I would like to say thanks to Brenda LaFayette for an outstanding job planning and organizing our successful herb and plant sale. Her skills are definitely noteworthy. Many thanks to all the members -- and you know who you are -- for stepping up and being there for whatever help was needed to make this a great event for The Granville Gardeners. Next year should be really awesome. I look forward to seeing you at the May social on June 9 at Cedar Grove Acres. Start pondering what plants/bee items you will bring for the Chinese auction. It will be loads of fun. Until then, I bid you adieu. Cindy Keith, President

Brief Natural History Notes from 1587 and 1709

Excerpts from John Lawson’s Natural History of Carolina, 1709 And

Observations from Thomas Heriot’s Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia, February 1587

The Panther is the May choice in “A Companion to the 1985 Eno River Calendar:”

Caunerex Tuscarora for “Panther-skin.”

The Panther is of the Cat’s kind; abut the height of a very large Greyhound of a reddish Colour, the same as a Lion. He climbs Trees with the greatest Agility imaginable, is very strong-limb’d, catching a piece of Meat from any Creature he strikes at. His Tail is exceeding long; his Eyes look very fierce and lively, are large, and of a grayish Colour; his Prey is, Swinesflesh, Deer, or any thin he can take; no Creature is so nice and clean, as this, in his Food. When he has got his Prey, he fills his Belly with the Slaughter, and carefully lays up the Remainder, covering it very neatly with Leaves, which if any thing touches, he never eats any more of it. He purrs as Cats do.

A great many People eat him, as choice Food; but I never tasted of a Panther, so cannot commend th Meat, by my own Experience. His Skin is a warm Covering for the Indians in Winter, though not esteem’d amongst the choice Furs. This skin dress’d, makes fine Women’s Shooes, or Mens Gloves --John Lawson

To-Do List • Put out hummingbird feeders if you didn’t get them up in April. Fill with a solution of 1 part sugar to

4 parts boiling water. There is no need to put in red food color. • Azaleas, climbing roses, camellias, rhododendrons and other flowering shrubs/trees can be pruned (if needed) after flowering • Fertilize crepe myrtles with an organic fertilizer for abundant summer blooms (pruning hard in early spring DOES NOT encourage more and/or heavier flowering and is harmful to crepe myrtles). • Plant heat loving vegetables (green beans, squash, cucumbers, field peas, butter beans, tomatoes, etc.) • To help prevent blossom end rot, mulch around tomatoes and peppers, and keep soil evenly moist. • When cool season vegetables (broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, and green peas, sugar snaps, and snow

peas) begin to mature, harvest every couple of days for best quality. Hot weather can cause these crops to be over mature very quickly.

• Plant tender warm season bulbs like canna, caladium, gladiolus, and dahlia now • Fast-growing clematis should be pruned and trained to prevent it from becoming an unmanageable

mess • Cut back plants not cut back earlier because of danger of frost, including: caryopteris (blue mist plant), perovskia (Russian sage), large salvias; any others with hollow stems or that are susceptible to frost damage. • If you haven’t been mulching all along, prepare for dry weather by putting down mulch now. • Plant Bermuda, centipede, St. Augustine, and zoysia grasses now. • To keep annuals blooming all season, deadhead after blooming. To-Do List compiled by Marty Finkel .

Did You Know? Did you know that bumblebees, cicada killers, and European hornets are sometimes mistaken for honey bees? As noted last month, we continue with profiling these stinging insects.

Eastern bumble bee Cicada killer

European hornet

Bumblebees: Probably everyone can recognize them because of their relatively large size. There are three species that are most commonly found around our gardens, the Eastern bumblebee Bombus impatiens, the American bumble bee Bombus pennsylvanicus, and the Prairie bumble bee Bombus griseocollis. They live in the ground in small colonies of up to 200. They have hairy abdomens whereas carpenter bees have shiny abdomens. They can’t fly very fast and are often clumsy around flowers, but they are important pollinators of crops, garden flowers, and wildflowers. Males don’t have stingers and have rounded abdomens. Females are not aggressive and don’t sting except in self defense. A colony has a queen, female workers, and males, and they all die in the winter except reproductive females. In the spring, they look for new places to start a colony. Although bumblebees prefer abandoned animal holes in the ground, they will nest in rotten tree cavities, stump holes, and used bird houses. The bees collect nectar and store it in one or two small sac-like “honey pots” they make from wax and pollen. Workers enlarge the nest, and by mid-summer, the colony will have 20 to 100 of them. In late summer the colony produces new queens and males, and they leave the nest to take mating flights. The mated queens fly to the ground and hibernate 2 to 5 inches deep in the soil or logs. This is the end of the colony. The next spring the queens leave their hibernation to complete their life cycle.

Cicada killer: Cicada killers (Sphecius speciosus) are wasps and are closely related to ants, bees, and others in the family Hymenoptera. They are very noticeable because of their large size, and they prefer to hang out in habitats such as yards and lawns. These black and yellow wasps are from 11⁄8 to 15⁄8 inches long and have small yellow markings on the thorax, plus six yellow markings on their large abdomen, three on each side, and their heads and wings are a reddish color. They are solitary wasps and overwinter as pupae underground in tunnels dug by the parents in the summer. They hatch out in June/July and mate in designated mating areas where the males gather. After mating, the female starts looking for a place to dig her burrow, usually near the edges of woods where they can find cicadas. They often choose lawns adjacent to woods, and after finding a nest site, the female begins to dig a burrow. The burrows are usually not deeper than a foot but can be up to 3’ long. When the female hunts down a cicada, she grabs and paralyzes it, then drags or slowly carries it back to the entrance of her nest. She lays an egg on the second leg of the paralyzed cicada, and the developing wasp larva eats it alive. It stays alive so its insides do not spoil. The larva hatches, finishes off the cicada, and then pupates over winter. It emerges the following summer. The adult wasps eat sap and nectar. Sometimes she drops the cicada because of its weigh and the distance to the nest, and it is left on the ground, unable to move yet still alive. Most of the time these paralyzed cicadas are eaten by ants and birds. European hornets: The European hornet (Vespa crabro) was first reported around 1840 in New York, and they are now found throughout the eastern U.S. It is the largest true hornet found in the U.S. Adults look similar to yellow jackets but are much larger – about 1.5 inches. They are brownish-red and have a dull yellow abdomen. Queens have more red than brown and are larger than the workers. Nests are most often found in hollow trees but can also be in barns, shed, attics, and wall spaces of houses. The colony isn’t usually noticed until it becomes large, and if in or near a house can be a problem since the hornets are defensive. Rather than being found deep within a cavity, the nest is built at the opening. The outside of it is covered with a thick, tan material made from decayed wood fibers which the female chews up and mixes with saliva to make a pulp. She layers the nest with this pulp, and if the nest is built in a wall, an unpleasant odor may be noticeable. The queen emerges from hibernation in the spring and after building a nest, finds food to feed the larvae, and defends the nest. When enough workers have been produced, they take over these duties and the queen stays in the nest producing more hornets. The workers continue expanding the nest until fall when there can be 300-500 workers (and up to 1,000). They mostly eat large insects such as grasshoppers, flies, yellow jackets, and raid honey bee hives for dead or weak bees. Male and female hornets are produced well into fall. They mate and the females will be queens in the spring. As winter comes on, the workers die and the future queens leave the nest to look for protected areas such as under loose bark, in rotting stumps, and in other hollows. When their hibernation is over in the spring, they look for new nest sites -- they don’t reuse old nests. Most stinging insects don’t fly at night, but European hornets do. They are attracted to lighted windows and may repeatedly fly into the glass with great force. Porch lights also attract them. Hornet workers are sometimes seen chewing bark from thin-barked trees or collecting sap oozing from trees. By Marty Finkel from information contained in the NC State Extension Publication “Non-Honey Bee Stinging Insects in North Carolina” by David Tarpy, Joseph Flowers, and Michael Waldvogel, all authors in NCSU Entomology and Plant Pathology

Plant of the Month

Calycanthus floridus

The fragrance of this shrub suffuses the southern landscape every May. This native plant has many common names: Sweet Betsy, Sweet Shrub, Carolina Allspice, Strawberry Shrub, Bubby Bush, and Florida Spice Bush. It is a dense, rounded deciduous shrub that grows 6-9' (less frequently to 12') tall with an equal or slightly greater spread. Easily grown in average, medium, well-drained soil in full sun to part shade. Features very fragrant, brown to reddish-brown flowers (2" across) that bloom at the ends of short branchlets in May. Flowers give way to brownish, urn-shaped fruits (seed capsules) that mature in fall and persist throughout the winter. Lustrous, dark green (pale beneath), ovate to elliptic leaves to 6" long turn golden yellow in fall. Leaves are aromatic when bruised. It is best to purchase this plant when in flower because the quality and intensity of the fragrance can vary widely.

Also in Bloom This Month

Note that bloom times vary, depending on climatic and meteorological conditions, and many plants bloom several months in a row (and sometimes rebloom). These are in bloom at the Raulston Arboretum.

Astilbe Bear’s breeches Bottlebrush Calamint Cape Jessamine Columbine Common butterfly-weed Common yarrow Deutzia Dianthus Dogwood Foxglove Garden amaryllis

Giant catmint Hydrangea Heuchera Jack-in-the-pulpit Japanese snow-bell Japanese yellowwood Mock-orange Mariposa lily Ozark blue-star Prickly-pear cactus Spirea Sweet Betsy Viburnum

Photos of Some of the Plants in Bloom This Month

Deutzia glabrata Dianthus

Garden Amaryllis Mariposa Lily Bear’s Breeches

Calochortus superbus

Astilbe Jack-in-the-pulpit Giant catmint

‘Deutschland’ Plant of the Month and Also in Bloom compiled by Ed Neal