We’re squeezing a lot into this Spring finale.. grateful for all the rain this season, and also for the breaks in between.

This spring has seen a curious and concerning wilting phenomenon throughout the garden, affecting various but specific woody plants from different plant families. The Yellowroot (Xanthorhiza simplicissima, Ranunculaceae family — below top right and bottom left)) leaves started displaying this symptom a year or two ago, but it hadn’t affected any other plants. The big Ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba, Ginkgoaceae family) was most noticeable this year, with the loudest, largest statement, but all 6 Ginkgos in the garden are displaying it (below, bottom right, are curled ginkgo leaves in the Aphrodisia plot).  We also noticed that the big Cucumber magnolia (Magnolia acuminata, Magnoliaceae family — below, top right) below the pond is affected, along with several other large trees.  If you know what’s causing this symptom or who to ask, please let us know!

Continuing my inventory of who the deer are chomping, I’ve snapped a lot of pix of their choices throughout the garden. It’s common knowledge that wildlife tend to preferentially consume species that they’ve established cross-generational food relationships with, and that’s a large reason exotic plants often proliferate in novel ecosystems — the local fauna aren’t accustomed to consuming them and may not be well-adapted to overcoming the self-defense mechanisms they employ. Unchecked deer populations tend to apply heavy herbivory pressure to native woodland species in our area, but many gardeners also note them eating garden vegetables and landscaping plant choices.

Some of their native snack choices are pictured above, clockwise from top right:
* Solomon’s Seal, Polygonatum biflorum, in the Holding Plot — this is really the only upsetting damage this season. Most of the deer nibbles are on widespread, prolific, or “weedy” species, but Solomon’s Seal is a standout native woodland edible and medicinal plant that’s under-represented on the property overall and which we’d love to be able to harvest and use and share for food and medicine. It’s also gorgeous. Nearly every stem in the Holding Plot was chomped, and we don’t know if the roots’ll have it in them to send up another flush.
* Sweet Cicely, Osmorrhiza longistylis – every leaf munched from this specimen that self-sows around the shady parts of the garden
* Ground cherry, Physalis spp. – I’ve never seen these chomped before, but in this plot every seedling was beheaded
* Goldenrod, Solidago spp. – various Goldenrod species throughout the garden have had their growing tips nommed 
* Honewort, Cryptotaenia canadensis – a native woodland plant not indicated in any garden plots but welcomed in the Heart Disease plot as an edible native and host plant of the Black Swallowtail butterfly. As pictured below, most plants indicated for this plot have been shaded out over time by the giant Ginkgo that’s become a standout feature of the Garden, with mainly Sweet Woodruff (Galium odoratum) proliferating lushly and the Peony (Paeonia lactiflora), Motherwort (Leonurus cardiaca), Blessed Thistle (Cnicus Benedictus), Dan Shen (Salvia miltiorrhiza) long gone. The treasured Sweetgrass was floundering here as well, but as you’ll see a bit further down, has responded vigorously to a change of place.
* Fleabane, Erigeron spp. – though not planted in the Garden on purpose, many native species in this genus have both medicinal applications and wildlife benefits.

More native plants the deer have sampled pictured below, clockwise from top:
* Wild Yam, Dioscorea villosa – though it’s on United Plant Savers’ At-Risk native plant list, this species proliferates in the Garden and grounds here.  This arching specimen in the Holding Plot has had every leaf munched from the 2 nodes pictured, though the leaf stems (petioles) still show the rare whorled (more than 2 leaves emerging from a single stem node) leaf arrangement of this species.
* Sochan, Rudbeckia laciniata – this plant is a traditional food of the Cherokee and other Turtle Island Indigenous peoples, the right to harvest which on their ancestral lands, as maintenance of their traditional life-ways, has only recently been restored to them in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
* Carolina Rose, Rosa carolina – those thorns deter me from even touching these stems, but the deer may have caught them at a soft enough stage (like I do sometimes with Tear Thumb/ Mile-a-Minute, Persicaria perfoliate, leaves that have a line of prickles running down their medial vein!)

My favorite native deer choice to watch and study is the Mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum), whose toxicity is well-known, and which many gardening resources will claim deer “don’t eat.” For the past few years, the deer have pretty reliably been munching the young Mayapple leaves around the Goldenseal patch in the Leukemia plot, which delights me so much as free, collaborative Garden maintenance!  As you can see in the top photo below, the Goldenseal leaves (bottom) and Mayapple leaves (top left) & plants share a LOT of characteristics, from height to plant structure — 2 palmate leaves of similar size forking from a stem about 1′ off the ground.  The deer “weeding” the Mayapples out of the Goldenseal patch helps us in our educational mission to teach people about these and other plants and their uses.

Below bottom right and left are just more photos of just how much deer “don’t eat” Mayapple ;). I think it may still be valid to claim that the plant is “deer resistant,” though, because they really do only sample it, relative to the size of the patches. This plant is colony-forming, and spreads via underground rhizomes, which are not eaten in the deer’s browsing, and can send up more shoots later.

Though they inarguably do prefer natives, the deer sample plenty of exotic species as well, including as pictured below, clockwise from left:
* Damask Rose (Rosa damascena) – it’s this plant’s second season in the garden and we’re thrilled it survived the move and the winter.. hopefully the deer browse doesn’t set it back too far either.
* False Hawksbeard (Youngia japonica) – though not grown in the Garden intentionally, this plant is both edible and used in Traditional Chinese Medicine
* Hawthorn (Cretaegus laevigata) – this poor tree has been hit SO HARD by rust (Gymnosporangium sp. fungus) in the past several years that we thought we’d have to take it down, but it may have decided to fight for its life. It seems to have skipped blooming this year and looks minimally affected by the fungus this season, so perhaps it diverted that energy into chemical defenses?

And of course, there’s plenty going on in the garden that’s not got to do with fungal infection and deer.. here’s a selection of Spring treats, below clockwise from top left:
* Black Walnut (Juglans nigra) seedling emerging from Black Walnut
* (bird?) egg – anyone know whose?
* False Unicorn Root (Chamaelirium luteum) blooming – this native species is on United Plant Savers’ At-Risk plant list, with “Critical” status. We hope to learn how to propagate and share it, because it’s not made any babies here on its own.
* native Cinnamon Fern (Osmunda cinnamomea) and Royal Fern (Osmunda regalia) by the pond showing off their colorful fertile fronds
* Milk Thistle (Silybum mariana) blooming in Terrace A, always a show-stopper

And finally!  I’m pretty sure this is the youngest Poison Ivy (Toxicodendron radicals) plant I’ve met, popping up in Terrace A under a Viburnum (below, top left).

Common Milkweed (Asclepias Syriac) buds (below, top right) are one of my favorite wild forages – in our Foraging Walk tomorrow we’ll discuss ethical and sharing considerations for folks aware this plant is important for Monarch butterflies. At bottom right below is the first Monarch (Danaus plexippus) egg I’ve spotted this season. Humans and monarchs (and aphids and Milkweed bugs and more) can all share in the bounty and blessings of this plant — and have done so in this region for millennia!

As promised, below at bottom right is the Sweetgrass (Hierochloë odorata) colony now flourishing in Terrace B.  As Robin Wall Kimmerer explains in Braiding Sweetgrass:

“Grasses are beautifully adapted to disturbance—it’s why we plant lawns. When we mow them they multiply. Grasses carry their growing points just beneath the soil surface so that when their leaves are lost to a mower, a grazing animal, or a fire, they quickly recover… harvesting thin[s] the population, allowing the remaining shoots to respond to the extra space and light by reproducing quickly.

With a long, long history of cultural use, sweetgrass has apparently become dependent on humans to create the “disturbance” that stimu- lates its compensatory growth. Humans participate in a symbiosis in which sweetgrass provides its fragrant blades to the people and people, by harvesting, create the conditions for sweetgrass to flourish.”

To honor the plant and its relationships with and interdependence with Indigenous cultures, we want to offer divisions of this Sweetgrass to community members from those cultures. If you are or know such a person and want to grow Sweetgrass, we’d love to care for our patch by sharing it with you; please reach out!

We’re super excited to offer our first child-centric public event next weekend, Children’s Day Extravaganza!  Coming out for this month’s Herbal Medicine-Making class (currently 3 tickets available) will score you several infusing culinary preparations to take home.  We’ve also expanded our Scholarship program and implemented an “early” registration policy, in hopes of making our offerings accessible to more people.  Please check it all out, and feel free to reach out with any questions, concerns, proposals, or offers to support our work!

All images the creative works of Veri Tas