It was a banner moment, a rite of passage, spring bowing out to summer — though also earlier than usual, at least in my garden.
I am referring, of course, to the very first sighting of what is now commonly called The Dread Japanese Beetle. JB, to those who’d rather not dignify the monster with anything beyond an acronym.
I was deadheading my Pavement rugosas when I saw it. Faithful readers will remember that because I grow roses and lots of them, JBs love my garden. Their FIRST love is Pavement, a German rose whose name belies its beauty. It is the opposite of asphalt.
In fact, it happens to be one of many horticultural wonders created by Germans. Another was the Victorian bedding garden, in which flowering annuals were grouped by color to create images of flags, lions, states, and so on.
Our own Como Park was renowned for such marvels when it was under the care (“rule” is more apt) of an autocratic German floriculture genius named Frederick Nussbaumer.
He was lured from England’s Kew Gardens to the American tundra by the great Horace Cleveland, landscape designer of both Minneapolis and St. Paul.
Nussbaumer’s designs adorned not just the park’s horizontal spaces but vertical ones too, including the entry arch to the park itself.
These have given way to more “natural” designs meant not to celebrate man’s superiority over all other species including plants but rather our appropriate place in what, as Darwin himself tried to explain, is not a hierarchical arrangement but a vast ecosystem in which species are all equally vital to the greater good.
It’s ironic that this 21st century desire for a wild garden (even lawns are going out of style) that invites even bees in, is growing by leaps and bounds just as the Anthropocene Age is dawning.
That term refers to the geologically vast timespan when Homo sapiens would be fully in charge of the planet.
We’ll see how that goes.
I am human myself and ought to be preening like a peacock at this promotion.
Quite the contrary.
As much as I dread The Dread Japanese Beetle, I do not intend to unleash a barrage of chemicals to hasten its extinction.
JBs were perfectly content in their native country. We brought them here, probably on some container ship.
They have come to Minnesota because of chemicals. Petrochemicals.
Carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are turning our planet into a greenhouse.
I’m a gardener. I’ve always wanted a greenhouse. But do I want to LIVE in one?
Like it or not, now I do.
And yet we wonder why we see so few Monarchs and fireflies … and so many Japanese beetles.
Our perplexity is what perplexes me.
As to solutions, I suggest planting a decoy rose like my Pavement. When the beetles pile on to simultaneously feed and fornicate, this is your cue to creep up quietly and whisk as many as you can into a bucket of water and watch them drown.
Or add a poison of some sort to the water and put a lid on top.
The warming trend that brings nuisance bugs has the same effect on weeds.
Lambs’ quarters, I learned, are edible and quite nutritious. So are dandelions. As to the lawn wreckers, crabgrass and plaintain and the like, a pre-emergent herbicide is the usual method, but a lawncare specialist I know applies pre-emergent only when replacing an all-weed “lawn” with turf grass. After that the lawn is on its own, with a little help from the lawncare specialist.
Or the homeowner.
OK, lots of help.
Hand-weed after a hard rain when the soil is slippery. Deadhead before the flowers can produce seed. Fertilize with compost.
The key is to create such a dense and deep root system that weeds don’t have anywhere to go.
Underneath those roots will live colonies of earthworms. I’ve described before how they aerate and feed the soil at the same time.
But alas, now they are imperiled too.
The so-called jumping worm is invading American forests and will make its way to our gardens as surely as the JBs and the stinkbugs and the emerald ash borer have, and for the same reasons.
Climate change and global trade.
These worms can potentially destroy our earthworms, just as the ash borer is destroying our ash forests. Many earthworms are nonnative, and arborists lament their deleterious effect on forest soils (they make them too rich). But for the most part they do play nice with native and nonnatives alike.
Jumping worms do not play nice. Their “take no prisoners” mentality is not unlike that of The Dread Japanese Beetle, not to mention Homo sapiens.
Winner take all.
On a lighter note, I must share with you the joys of discovering some new plants. And plug my favorite hobby while I’m at it. I mean, compare gardening to golf. Once you’ve shaved your handicap to zero and you know you’re not getting any younger, what else is there? But with my hobby, the fun grows exponentially over the years. Learning is forever.
People who stroll by my garden often pause to check out a plant. What is that? they ask.
Yesterday someone wanted to know the name of the powder blue flower that looks like a petunia but closes its petals at night.
Wild petunia (the Latin name is Ruella humilis) is no relation to the wildly popular annual. It self-seeds prolifically. I never know where it will turn up. It is now competing for attention and space with the California poppies, which have the same survival techniques (species survival, that is) and just happen to have golden yellow flowers that are delightful against the petunias’ powder blue.
I have planted more edibles this year. “Mini Thumb Watermelon Fruit” promises miniature cucumbers so small you can pop them in your mouth like a cherry tomato. They do look like tiny watermelons.
A hydrangea I was sent to trial two years ago is making a case for itself and then some: Its mophead blooms emerge on tall stems that if contained in a tomato ring create a statuesque focal point. It’s called Incrediball Blush.
The mophead flowers do seem to blush, thanks to the flowerets’ varying shades of blush, from gold to rose pink.
Just as pretty is a reblooming mountain hydrangea called “Tuff Stuff.” The craze for ever-bloomers began with a big leaf, the Zone 4 hardy mophead Endless Summer. Then came a lace-cap version. Then came “Tuff Stuff,” which spawned “Tiny Tuff Stuff.”
Mountain hydrangea also blooms on new and old wood. My hunch is that in our region H. serrate will indeed be tougher.
Endless Summer promised too much. H. macrophylla flower buds are often nipped by untimely cold weather.
The much coveted “blue” color is another complication. The flowers will remain obstinately pink unless you acidify their soil.
Plants seldom do precisely as we wish them to, and this is precisely why I love them so much. I seem to lack the “control freak” gene.
Is it a guy thing?
Such quandaries make life interesting. All those unanswered questions.
That we’ve been asking the same ones since the dawn of human time should make us a bit humbler with respect to our qualifications to reign supreme over all other living things, shouldn’t it?
You tell me. I love hearing from you.
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June 27, 2021 at 03:35AM
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Bonnie Blodgett: Humbled by the Dread JB (and many other things) - TwinCities.com-Pioneer Press
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