Northern Gardening

This has been a strange winter here in Minnesota. Here it is the middle of January and we still have no snow on the ground. We have had some snow fall here and there, but then comes a day like today where the temperature is over 32 degrees and what little snow we have disappears.

It looks like spring outside, so I got the itch this afternoon to go out and see if anything was going on in the gardens.  While looking for rabbit damage, I noticed that there were still some freeze-dried blossoms hanging on the Little Mischief rose.  That reminded me that I had taken a photo in early November of the Bailey Easy Elegance landscape rose because it was still producing new blossoms and adding color to my fall garden.  What a trooper!

I became disenchanted by most of the shrub roses in my gardens when I discovered what a magnet they are for Japanese beetles.  In fact, I removed all but the Dwarf Pavement from the Fragrance Garden after they were all decimated by hoards of JBs.  I left all of the Easy Elegance roses nearby hoping that they weren’t as attractive to the voracious pests. They aren’t. I found maybe two or three JBs all season on the Easy Elegance roses as opposed to the JB Blossom Buffet  [AKA the Dwarf Pavement rose] I did leave in the Fragrance Garden.

Disease-resistant, long-blooming, they usually stay under two feet tall and they don’t attract Japanese beetles.  I’m sold.

Little Mischief landscape rose still blooming November 5th

I was deadheading the Dictamnus (gasplant) in my fragrance garden last week when I found two really ugly looking things eating the leaves. They were so homely that at first I thought it was mulberry bird poop, which is not an uncommon sight in my gardens. After closer inspection, I discovered that the bird poop had legs so I knew it was alive. The two wormy things did not look like the caterpillars I’m used to here in Minnesota and I was tempted to just throw them into the basket with the spent flowers I had just cut off the gasplant and let them fend for themselves in the brush pile.  I thought better of it though and left them there until I could do a little research indoors.

Giant swallowtail caterpillar on gasplant (Dictamnus)

The first thing I did when I got inside was a Google search for caterpillars on gasplant. Bingo! Right off the bat I came up with Dictamnus as a host plant for giant swallowtail larvae. I immediately got out the excellent my friend Nancy had gotten me for my birthday and looked up the giant swallowtail caterpillar. Bingo again! Just to make sure, I looked them up in the National Audubon Society and it still looked like they were giant swallowtail larvae, but there was a problem. I had recently read a by Jeffrey Hahn, U of MN Extension Entomologist, on giant swallowtails in Minnesota and he stated in the article that giant swallowtail have been seen recently in our neck of the woods, but that they do not reproduce in MN because we don’t have their citrus larval host plants.

Very disappointing; however, I decided to go to the man himself and sent Mr. Hahn an email message and photos of the caterpillars. Here is his reply:

Yes, that is a giant swallowtail larva.  It is true that the larvae will [also] feed on prickly ash which is part of the citrus family.  I was basing my statement that they don’t overwinter on information that Dr. Susan Weller provided me.  After my article, I have received a number of reports from people who said they regularly see the adults.  You are the first to say that you have seen the caterpillars.  I need to get a clarification from Susan on this.  It could be that they can mate, lay eggs, even produce larvae but perhaps they just are unable to survive MN winters.  Or maybe they do.  I will have to check.  Thanks for your report! Jeff

So I’m the first to have reported finding the giant swallowtail caterpillars in our area to the Bug Guru of Minnesota Extension. Whoo-hoo! I will let you know more, when I know more.

Giant swallowtails feeding on Verbena bonariensis in my MN gardens

We recently returned to Quebec and visited the Montreal Botanic Garden. I was very impressed with how much there was to see and would heartily recommend the visit to anyone.  The gardens are expansive covering over 190 acres and include 22,000 plant species and cultivars, 10 exhibition greenhouses and thirty thematic gardens.

One of my favorite themed gardens was the Crevice Garden. I had never seen one at a botanic garden before and I thought it was a great idea. We all have nooks and crannies in walls or pathways that we would love to fill with the perfect tiny plant.

I have more photos of the Montreal Botanic Garden HERE.  They are just the tip of the iceberg though.  You will have to visit the MBG yourself to see how much there is to discover including the nearby Biodome that we never got to on this visit. Next time?

The Crevice Garden at the Montreal Botanic Garden

Last year I tried living with the moles and not trapping them. It didn’t work. See last season’s article for why I quit trapping and also the photos of the debacle, but the bottom line is that I am back trapping and I already have eight moles under my belt this spring. I am truly the “Mole Assassin Extraordinaire”!

How did I get so good at trapping moles? Well, several years ago I hired Mike the Mole Man to come and get rid of the multitude of moles that had taken up residence in my yard and gardens. Mike is legendary and killing moles is his bread and butter. He charges 35 bucks for each dead mole and he is happy to show you each and every one of them before you pony up the dough.

Needless to say, by the end of the summer I had paid Mike almost $500 for dead moles. That was with the discount Mike gave me of only $25 a mole after I hit $245 when Mike was feeling a bit sorry for me. I consider it a great investment though, because I watched the master at work and I learned.

Not that Mike isn’t crafty. He knows that if homeowners learn how to catch the moles themselves he’s out of business, so he steals in at dawn or when he thinks you aren’t there and sets and empties his traps. He even turns his back to the windows of your house so you can’t see what he is doing. I was craftier though. When he didn’t know I was home I was watching from my upper level window to see what he did differently and why he is the best mole killer around.

His biggest secret is that he uses a scissor trap rather than the normal plunger or hoop traps that most of us try and then fail with miserably. I couldn’t find the same traps locally, but eventually found the same ones he uses at . I bought six of the traps and went to work.

A Set Scissor Mole Trap

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Does washing and drying your gardening clothes kill ticks that have hitchhiked into your home? In a word–no. I recently read that ticks will not die when run through the washing machine, but that 30 minutes in the dryer will kill them. Not so. I opened the dryer door a few days ago to remove my gardening clothes and what did I see crawling around on my jeans?  A deer tick alive and well and ready to get to business on me.

In the future I will use the sanitize feature on my dryer for my gardening clothes and hope that cremates the nasty little arachnids.

I have never seen a year for ticks like this one. I try to be as conscientious as possible and always leave my gardening clothes outside so I don’t bring the ticks in with me. As soon as I am inside, I head straight into the shower and use a washcloth to make sure I have rubbed off any ticks that might be trying to attach themselves.  I even use rubber bands around the bottom of my jeans so they can’t crawl up my legs. All that, and I have still had four ticks attach themselves this spring. Four ticks!

I can only surmise that my puppies are bringing ticks into our house and when I have them on my lap the ticks are finding a more amenable host. It sucks–literally! My plan is to wait until I no longer find ticks roaming around the house then visit my doctor for another round of antibiotic. I have heard too many horror stories from other gardeners who ended up with a host of horrible and permanently debilitating symptoms after years of having Lyme Disease without knowing it.

I guess I will also have to bite the bullet and start with a tick repellent that contains Permethrin before I head out into the gardens.  I might even spend the extra bucks and get the apparel that is treated with Permethrin that stays in the garment even after 70 launderings. Hey, ya gotta do, what ya gotta do.

For more info on tick prevention, visit . Read more about my trials and tribulations with ticks HERE.

My worst deer tick bite