Happy Naked Gardening Day! And May Day, and Beltane! So many opportunities to celebrate the height of Spring 🙂

In the Garden Terraces, Crampbark (Viburnum opulus), Hardy Orange (Citrus trifoliata), and Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) have finished blooming. Leaves of biennials that overwintered as little basal rosettes, like Milk Thistle (Silybum marianum) and Mullein (Verbascum spp,) have grown by a factor of more than 10x.  Solomon’s Seal (Polygonatum spp.), Lily of the Valley (Convallaria majalis), and Sweet Woodruff (Galium odoratum) are in full bloom, and the biggest perennial shoots (eg, Carrion Flower – Smilax herbacea, top left below) are now erupting. Meanwhile, Hops (Humulus lupulus) bines* are pushing 6′ tall (top right below), many Alliums are blooming and already approaching their dormant phase, and the Roses are starting to come on.

Also pictured below (bottom, left to right):
Bee Balm (Monarda didyma) in our area is often infected with Powdery Mildew shortly after its bloom time, which makes harvesting its foliage undesirable for food or medicinal uses. A member of the mint family, this native grassland and edge species spreads laterally by underground rhizomes and branches at each above-ground node, so it can bounce back from numerous harvests. Though the red pom-pom flowers it will soon produce are a delight to work with, the leaves themselves are very flavorful and delicious as well, and now’s the best time to harvest them to beat the mildew.
Our Fairy Wand (Chamaelirium luteum) buds are preparing to erupt. This herbaceous native is dioecious, meaning individual plants tend to bear only either male or female reproductive organs, not both like many plants folks’re familiar with like Tomato and Tulip. This native plant has historical medicinal applications for the female reproductive system but can be challenging to propagate. In the Garden it’s a specimen for honoring and appreciating, but not harvesting.
To our surprise & delight, a small flush of Oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus ostreatus) has already emerged from a log inoculated at a Workshop last fall now living (well, the fungus is living — the log of course has died) in Terrace B

* That’s right, the twining stems of the Hops plant are called bines, not vines, which climb using tendrils, suckers, or other appendages. Hops bines have only stiff hairs and the twining action to accomplish their ascent.

Even though specimens or populations in certain locations have been threatened or harmed by deer browsing or competition from other species, we’ve been delighted this season to spot a lot of native plants in the woods that are either new or had escaped our notice in previous years. My photo attempts didn’t turn out great, but I’ve been especially gratified to notice many Greenbriers (Smilax rotundifolia), whose absence I’d lamented for several seasons, as I love nibbling their nascent leaves and stems as they grow. I do suspect they’ve been there all along, but it took me awhile to become attuned and familiar enough to notice them.

Pictured below, clockwise from top right:
* Wild Yam (Dioscorea villosa) bears stunningly elegant leaves in a whorled pattern around the stem
* Wake Robin (Trillium erectum) – Tbh this one’s a recent rescue from another garden, but none the less worthy of celebration for it!
* Black Cohosh (Actaea racemosa) proliferates in the Menopause and Tinnitus Garden plots where it’s grown intentionally, but hasn’t historically been well-represented in the woods onsite. This year we noticed this one nestled under some monstrous Ostrich Ferns (Matteuccia struthiopteris) right alongside a path.
* Jack-in-the-Pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum) As a long-lived perennial of over 20 years, I expect to see these plants make their appearance year after year, but some of the several champion specimens from previous years may have passed on. This one I hadn’t noted prior is a stunner, to be sure!
* Foamflower (Tiarella cordifolia) We’ve planted and tended a few of these over the years, but none of us remembers this one that grabbed my eye this season! Exciting to think maybe it chose to live there on its own.
* Solomon’s Plume (Maianthemum racemosa) Most explanations you’ll find point out the difference in the inflorescences of this plant and Solomon’s Seal (Polygonatum biflorum) as the key to distinguishing them, but of course they only bear flowers (and then fruit) at certain stages of their lifecycle. I find the signature zigzag — graceful and delicate yet uncompromising — of Mainthemum’s stem more than sufficient to discern it from Polygonatum, which works any time beyond their emergent shoots!

I always watch with interest which plants the deer & other herbivores are chomping. Hostas are a well-known deer favorite among gardeners, but at the GFG this year they were hardly touched. Funnily enough, we saw numerous different fern species that Had been munched, despite ferns typically being considered deer resistant plants on the whole.

Pictured below: two ferns around the pond showing browsing damage, and, top left, one of the only Solomon’s Seal (Polygonatum biflorum) shoots we’ve seen in the woods, nibbled straight through to the flower buds nestled within the emerging leaves.

Unfortunately our May Foraging Walk had to be cancelled for both personal and weather reasons this weekend, but in addition to Monarda, Milkweed shoots are a wild food we’d recommend trying this month – especially if you’ve got a patch you already steward for the Monarchs!

Densely erupting Milkweed shoots like those pictured above can be thinned to give individual stalks more space, without harming the spreading underground rhizome network. Depending on the specific conditions surrounding them, stalks packed in this tightly may even fall over as they grow to full height, as they spread out diagonally trying to get their own space. As all gardeners learn, plants spaced too closely are also more susceptible to fungal infections, as crowded foliage inhibits air circulation and thereby water evaporation.

Having evolved to survive life on Earth, plants employ a wide variety of strategies to withstand and recover from all sorts of injuries including browsing, rubbing, lightning strikes, tree-falls, disease, and more. As Indigenous scientist and author Robin Wall-Kimmerer explains in her book Braiding Sweetgrass (published by Milkweed Editions!), harvest by humans can be done in ways that support the long-term health and well-being of the populations of other species with which we relate. In her words, perennial plants (she’s referring to Allium tricoccum, in the chapter “The Honorable Harvest” quoted here) can “tend to become crowded in the center of a patch, so I try to harvest there. In this way my taking can help the growth of the remaining plants by thinning them out. From camas bulbs to sweetgrass, blueberries to basket willow, our ancestors found ways to harvest that bring long-term benefit to plants and people.”

I look forward to sharing more Foraging considerations and resources with you, visiting many forgeable plants common in our region, and preparing for the onset of BERRY SEASON, at our June 2 Foraging Walk.  This month, we hope to see many of you for the Annual Tropical Plant-Out!

All non-logo images the creative works of Veri Tas