From the Dog Days of Summer to Joie de Vivre

August 22, 2022

Are those steamy, sultry “dog days of summer” for real? Where does the term “dog days” originate? After googling my questions, I found that historically, these days are the period following the heliacal rising of the star system Sirius, which in Hellenistic astrology is connected to heat, drought, sudden thunderstorms, lethargy, fever, mad dogs, and bad luck. This year, the Farmer’s Almanac says that dog days occurred from July 3 through August 11, soon after the summer solstice. No wonder August came heavy this month. It’s all in the stars! 

I languished as I lugged four hoses around our acre of land and repositioned each of them four times. I was tired of watering, tired of deadheading, and tired of wishing for rain. At Northern Bliss, those sudden thunderstorms described by the Greeks arrived with threatening clouds and a fury of wind. But despite all that commotion, they typically dropped a meager centimeter or two of rain and then slinked off, leaving a green smear of algae on our shoreline.  

About mid-August the heaviness lifted. Northern Bliss received about one inch of rain and another inch the following week—not enough to break the drought or green the lawn, but sufficient to give us some relief. The cooler, fresher air lifted my mood, and I became myself again. My energy returned, and I looked forward to receiving visitors. 

This brings me to the big news at Northern Bliss. In this, our tenth summer here, we decided to install an irrigation system using water from the lake. The installation was completed last week—with six watering zones and 43 sprinkler heads. This frees up to three hours per day, which will allow me to pursue my creative projects while sparing my neck and back.

This morning as we sipped our coffee, read the newspaper, and planned our day, Gunter and I realized that our joie de vivre had returned. Consumed by To Do lists, we’d let that precious enjoyment of life slip away. We recounted all the experiences that had brought us joy in the past two weeks and realized that they were the little things. It was the lifting of our spirits that had made the difference.

I’d had a medical procedure performed that required two days of rest afterwards. For the first time all summer, Gunter and I spent hours on the patio reclining in our Zero Gravity chairs, laughing at the antics of the squirrels and chipmunks and listening to birdsongs. Toward the end of that week, my two adult granddaughters came over for a day to work on our custom recipe books. We searched the internet and printed out new recipes, deciding which ones would fit the criteria of “healthy” and “yummy” (not always the same). 

Two young families—each with two girls ages one and three—visited Northern Bliss during the last two weekends. What a delight small children bring to a home! They have a sense of wonder, intensity, spontaneity, and joie de vivre than we tend to lose as we age.During each visit, I taught the oldest girls how to pop a balloon flower. That kept them busy for at least 30 minutes before they wanted to go onto the next new thing. Riding the painted concrete turtle which sits on an old tree stump was another activity they loved. Every time they skipped down the flagstone path to the edge of the gardens, they stopped for a turtle ride. Climbing the boulders near the rain garden provided more excitement. And of course, both families enjoyed the pontoon ride on White Ash Lake.

Designing a fairy garden was their favorite project. They helped me unpack the figures stored in a box in the garage. One by one, we placed houses, stones, roads, animals, and all kinds of fairies into the red wagon and pulled it over to the old, leaking birdbath. Then we added a layer of moss and went to work. It didn’t take long for the girls to catch on. Soon they were rearranging homes and roads and adding blue stones for lakes and ponds.

In Wisconsin the last two weeks of August, followed by September’s Labor Day weekend, herald the end of summer. Lakes take on a greenish hue. Hostas turn brown at the edges and succumb to worms and bugs. Lilies lose their crowns of glory and stand naked and brown as vitality returns to their bulbs. The pastel colors of spring—pale yellows, lavenders, pinks, and whites—had changed into the bright, jewel colors of summer—red, blue, orange, and wine. Now all those splashes of color have begun to fade. My garden looks rather drab.

But wait! Tiger and “ditch” lilies are still hanging in there. Zinnias—outrageously colored in bold patterns of red, and orange and yellow—continue to blaze away. Gold and purple garden mums are blossoming.  Goldenrods, their heads clustered in lacy yellow panicles, line the roadsides. Hydrangeas are coming into their own—showing off varying shades of green, pink, burgundy, and white vanilla. My rain garden is coming alive with black-eyed Susans, deep-red cardinal flowers, wine-red swamp milkweed, and seven-foot tall stands of lavender Joe Pye weed. Bumblebees and monarch butterflies work the garden as if there’s no time to waste.

Next to spring, autumn is my favorite season. So my personal joie de vivre is the anticipation of fall. I realize that the dog days of summer are a necessary transition from tending the earth to harvesting what it has produced. Now, luscious red cherry tomatoes fill bowls on our kitchen counter while green, beefeater tomatoes ripen on the vines. The broccoli plants have produced little balls of green. In the orchard, our apple trees bow with partly-ripened fruit. And in the Veg-Trug, most of the herbs have bolted. Appreciating the cooler nights, I planted a new batch, looking forward to adding them to autumn soups and stews. 

I know in my head that August is the end of the growing season. But my heart wanted to experience that thrill of growing one more time. So after I took one last trip to my favorite nursery to buy the herbs, I searched for some tasseling burgundy grasses. They would look nice in that imitation log planter I didn’t use last spring. I took them home, along with a couple of gold-and-brown “Susans” to plant on either side. Today, while writing this story, I look out the window to view that arrangement sitting on the patio wall. Autumn is coming and it’s okay.

About the Author: Lois and Günter Hofmann lived their dream by having a 43-foot ocean-going catamaran built for them in the south of France and sailing around the world. Learn more about their travel adventures by reading Lois’s award-winning nautical adventure trilogy. Read more about Lois and her adventures at her website and stay in touch with Lois by liking her Facebook page. Lois’s books can be purchased from PIP Productions on Amazon and on her website.

 

Legends of the Joe Pye Weed

I have wild and nursery-grown Joe Pye Weed blooming in the naturalized section of Northern Bliss gardens this month. Despite the recent drought in the Midwest, these plants are taller than ever. The only differences between the wild Joe Pye—which has grown in the same spot for years—is that the nursery variety has a more intense color that doesn’t fade as fast.

One stem of Joe Pye Weed at Northern Bliss Gardens.

Joe Pye weeds (Eupatorium) are native essentials for any pollinator garden. These plants are attractive because of their hardiness as well as their popularity with butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds. There are several species; all have tall leafy stems with flat or rounded heads of small-but-bountiful, showy flowers. Because they can rise to 6-8 feet tall, I keep them confined to our lot border near the Rain Garden, and also behind a couple of tall boulders. Joe Pye is a tough perennial that loves moist conditions but can withstand high summer temperatures. The flowers bloom bright purple-pink in August when most perennials are fading.

Nursery-grown Joe Pye Weed (eupatorium purpureum).

Wild Joe Pye forms a backdrop to Black-eyed Susan, Swamp Milkweed, and Cardinal Flower.

 

What’s in a name? When my friends and family tour Northern Bliss Gardens, they ask,” Why is this called Joe Pye? Who was he?” The story begins with an Eastern Algonquian Indian medicine man named Zhopai and is set in the area around Stockbridge, New York (east of Syracuse). His name was anglicized to Joe Pye. When a typhoid epidemic struck the area, Joe successfully treated Indians using two plants of the genus Eupatorium, “Joe Pye” and Boneset. Legend has it that a white man from a neighboring town had befriended the local Indians while repairing their plows and harnesses. He begged their medicine man, Zhopai, to cure his two young sons who were dying of the fever. “You can see that I’m an older man, I probably will have no more children,” he said. “Save their lives and I will give you everything I have—including my farm.” Because the white man had done a lot for his people in the past, Joe turned down the offer but agreed to help the man’s sons. He treated them with Boneset and “Joe Pye.” Miraculously, they lived!

Later, the Stockbridge Indians were forcibly removed to Wisconsin to make more room for European settlers. They were taken to Wisconsin in the dead of winter and deposited on land belonging to the Menominee people, who pitied them and even gave them part of their land. This band is still in Wisconsin, where it is called the Stockbridge Munsee.

Zhopai stayed behind with whites in New York State, but as his family left, he gave each of his grandchildren a bag filled with Joe Pye seeds. “Scatter them on your journey, whenever you pass a wet or swampy area,” he said. “When I’m well enough to follow you, I will know you passed this way.” The old man never made the trip; however, Joe Pye Weed, his legacy, is indeed scattered all the way from the eastern U.S. to Wisconsin. Source: Plants Have So Much to Give Us, All We Have to Do Is Ask, by Mary Siisip Geniusz.

A second legend: Another version of the Joe Pye legend was told to me by a nursery worker: In this story, the medicine man, Zhopai, used a brew made from this plant to cure the blacksmith’s two sons of typhoid. Because of this, the father’s lifelong dream was to spread Joe Pye from east to west. His sons heeded the call, “Go west, young man!” and prepared to take off to settle the new land. Their father was too ill and old to make the trip, but asked his two sons to spread the seeds along ponds and marshes as far west as they could go. They stopped in Wisconsin, and that’s why Joe Pye Weed is sold as a “native wildflower” here.

The facts as we know them: My curiosity drove me to dig deep into research, where I unearthed archives of The Great Lakes Botanist, Vol 56. The year Joe Pye Weed entered the English language was 1818, according to Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. It gives the origin of the name as “unknown.”  Popular literature on native plants associate Zhopai with the colonial days of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, specifically to English settlers from 1628-1691. Some records attribute spectacular success to Zhopai’s treatment of typhus using the plants that now bear his name, even to the extent of the saving an entire colony of early settlers. Other stories (with no sources cited) portray Zhopai as a traveling salesman with a horse and wagon! Another claimed that he traveled around the Northeast peddling medicines around the time of the American Revolution. Some insisted that he came from the Carolinas. As recently as 2011, Joe was considered to be a Caucasian “snake-oil salesman.” There are also discrepancies about whether Zhopai used the leaves and stems of the plants or the roots. 

Legendary expansion, as it is called, is a phenomenon quite familiar to folklorists and historians. The Botanist found no evidence to support the statements that Zhopai was Caucasian or that he was a peddler or showman of any kind. I prefer to believe the first legend and that’s the one I plan to tell. Meanwhile, I’m enjoying the exuberance of Joe Pye Weed blowing in the wind at Northern Bliss.

Rain Garden backed by Joe Pye Weed.

Other stories about Northern Bliss:

How to Drain a Wet Lot https://sailorstales.wordpress.com/2014/09/29/how-to-drain-a-wet-lot/

I Never Promised You a Rain Garden https://sailorstales.wordpress.com/2015/08/26/i-never-promised-you-a-rain-garden/

Returning to Northern Bliss: Fifty Shades of Green https://sailorstales.wordpress.com/2016/06/15/returning-to-northern-bliss-fifty-shades-of-green/

A Winter-Wonderland Holiday in Northwest Wisconsin https://sailorstales.wordpress.com/2021/02/14/a-winter-wonderland-holiday-in-northwest-wisconsin/

Wise Old Oak https://sailorstales.wordpress.com/2020/11/13/wise-old-oak/

The Miracle of Autumn https://sailorstales.wordpress.com/2020/10/25/the-miracle-of-autumn/

April is the Cruelest Month https://sailorstales.wordpress.com/2020/04/25/april-is-the-cruelest-month/

Tornado: Disaster at Northern Bliss https://sailorstales.wordpress.com/2019/08/16/tornado-disaster-at-northern-bliss/

Recovery from Natural Disasters https://sailorstales.wordpress.com/2019/09/28/recovery-from-natural-disasters/

About the Author: Lois and Günter Hofmann lived their dream by having a 43-foot ocean-going catamaran built for them in the south of France and sailing around the world. Learn more about their travel adventures by reading Lois’s award-winning nautical adventure trilogy. Read more about Lois and her adventures at her website and stay in touch with Lois by liking her Facebook page. Lois’s books can be purchased from PIP Productions on Amazon.

 

Egyptian Papyrus Paper and King Tut Plants

What a coincidence! I have two framed Egyptian papyrus prints on the walls of my home. And now I have Egyptian papyrus plants in my Rain Garden at Northern Bliss.

The papyrus plant is a reed that grows wild in marshy areas around the Nile River. One of my favorite excursions when I visited Egypt during our circumnavigation was our boat trip down the Nile River. How I loved to see those papyrus plants swaying in the breeze! During a cultural show, we learned the process of making paper from papyrus. First, the inside of the stalk was peeled into long strips. Then these strips were spread out in two layers, one horizontal and one vertical, and pressed and dried to form a sheet. The sheet could be used by itself, or individual sheets could be joined end-to-end to form a roll. Natural gum held the sheets together, so no glue was required. A roll was usually about one foot in height and could be up to 100 feet in length.

I never knew that papyrus was offered by nurseries in the USA until I built my Rain Garden at Northern Bliss. I had researched the process in sustainable landscaping books and websites and diligently followed the instructions using native Wisconsin plants with deep roots. All of the natural flowers worked well in heavy rains except for the blazing stars planted in the center, the deepest part. They just drowned.

So the following spring I decided to try something else. But what?  Dale, my gardener with Lake Services, just happened to notice a group of tall papyrus plants in the back of a pick-up truck leaving a nursery. He stopped the driver to ask questions. And then we considered our options: Papyrus is a non-native plant, but because I’d seen it growing wild in the Nile, I knew it had to have deep roots to soak up excess moisture in my Rain Garden. But, because it’s a tropical plant, we’d have to replace the three plants every spring.

We went ahead and I certainly don’t regret it. This year, we’ve had lots of rain and the system works: My Wet Lot drains like it’s designed to do and the three King Tut papyrus plants stand tall and majestic, swaying in the breeze─just like their ancestors did in the Nile.

 

Monarch Migration

 

I have magic memories of my childhood in the Midwest. In school, I studied the transition of egg to larva (caterpillar) to pupa (chrysalis/cocoon) to a gorgeous adult butterfly with amazement. Then as the autumn days grew shorter and the temperature dropped, I marveled at flocks of Monarch butterflies migrating. “Look at those flying flowers,” I exclaimed as they took to the sky en masse. Those large flocks are no longer here; monarch populations have dwindled from billions to mere millions. But something can be done.

Monarch butterfly on Swamp Milkweed

That such delicate creatures weighing less than a gram can fly over 3000 miles—often to the same tree from whence their ancestors came—never ceases to amaze me. In the Monarch’s summer territory (which includes most of North America) butterflies may mate up to seven times, all living from two to six weeks. Then, signaled by the lack of light (shorter days) the new non-reproductive butterflies hatch. (Reproductive butterflies do not migrate south, however, and the migratory ones do not reproduce until the following year.) The creation of these creatures required a lot of planning!

Migration Map

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Agency provided $2 million this year for “on-the-ground conservation projects.” A mad rush ensued to plant milkweed along the I-35 Monarch corridor, which extends 1,500 miles from Minnesota to Texas and provides spring and summer breeding habitats along key migration pathways. Conservationists had successfully lobbied transportation departments and utilities to reduce their use of herbicides and to encourage milkweed to grow along the roadways and powerlines. Great! This was one government project I could believe in! Monarchs depend on milkweed; it’s the only plant they eat and lay eggs on. And milkweed populations had dropped 21% between 1995 and 2013 due to increased development and herbicide use. But what happened to the I-35 Monarch migration pathway? Chalk it up to big government ineptitude! This summer, the right hand didn’t know what the left hand was doing, so the Transportation Department came and mowed the new milkweed plants down. No one informed the drivers of the trucks, and their job is the mow the weeds!

However, those living near this corridor can make a difference, says our local paper, called The Laker. If you have a sunny patch of land, you can mix and match flowers to build your own butterfly garden.  Start with basic host plants such as swamp milkweed, broccoli, and bronze fennel. Then choose from perennials, which often reseed themselves, or nectar-rich annuals. Some choices are: butterfly weed, oregano, lantana, purple coneflower (Echinacea), blazing star, black-eyed susan, pink everlasting (sedum), and Mexican sunflower. I had already designed a rain garden last season so it was easy for me to plant what the monarchs need. My question was, “If I plant it, will they come?” The answer: “Yes!” My Wisconsin garden is now part of the Midwest migration path.

About the Author: Lois and Günter Hofmann lived their dream by having a 43-foot ocean-going catamaran built for them in the south of France and sailing around the world. Learn more about their travel adventures by reading Lois’s award-winning nautical adventure trilogy. Read more about Lois and her adventures at her website and stay in touch with Lois by liking her Facebook page. Lois’s books can be purchased from PIP Productions on Amazon and on her website.

 

I Never Promised You a (Rain) Garden

“I never promised you a rose garden

Along with the sunshine, there’s gotta be a little rain sometimes…”

–Lynn Anderson, 1973

The sun’s not out yet after three days and three inches of rain, yet I’m humming this song as I stroll past the rain garden I developed last year and completed this spring. It’s working!  All that run-off is draining from the hilltop and orchard into the dry creek and on to the rain garden as intended. I’m pleased that finding a practical solution to draining our wet lot has led to such beauty. (See How to Drain a Wet Lot).

Dry leading to Rain Garden

A rain garden is a plant bed that collects rain runoff and holds water for a short time, usually less than twenty-four hours, while it absorbs excess water into the soil. If planted with native species, it should never require fertilizer or pesticides to thrive. In fact, the plants purify the water before it slowly drains into the nearby lake.

The diagram shows a shallow depression dug with an inflow and overflow designed for three moisture zones. The tall plants selected for Zone A need to tolerate periodic standing or flowing water. Mid-height plants that like average soil conditions may be used in Zone B. Zone C plants should be able to tolerate average to dry conditions and tend to be shorter plants.

“Rain Gardens: Sustainable Landscaping for a Beautiful Yard and a Healthy World,” Lynn M. Steiner and Robert W. Domm

Saturations Zones A-C showing inflow from the dry creek and overflow into a natural area and lake.

I tried blazing stars for my tall plants in Zone A last year; unfortunately, they did not withstand periodic water. This year, I used three papyrus plants instead. So far, they are holding up well, with strong roots that absorb water well. I used black-eyed susans, cardinal flowers, swamp milkweed, and turtle-heads last year for Zones B and C. This spring, all these perennials came up again. They are now in full bloom. Swamp milkweed plants perform double duty: they provide a migration path for monarch butterflies. I’ve seen a few already and expect more in September.

The Rain Garden in action.

A Monarch Butterfly alights on a Swamp Milkweed blossom.

To make the transition to the “natural garden” next to the lake, I planted Joe Pye weeds, a wildflower that grows naturally in Wisconsin. All in all, I’m quite satisfied with the result.

Swamp milkweek at the perimeter of the Rain Garden leads to a natural planting of Joe Pye weed.

 

How to Drain a Wet Lot.

I returned to San Diego to find brown lawns and wilted trees. Obviously, my readers in the U.S. southwest do not have a problem with excess rain runoff. What a contrast to Northern Bliss, our summer lake home in Wisconsin, where too much rain became a major challenge in developing the cabin lot we had purchased last fall. During the month of June, we received 9.5 inches of rain!

Preparing the lot.

I’d always wanted an orchard. So I devised a plan that included a row of evergreens near the lot line for a windbreak (to dampen the effect of cold north winds), winding paths and flower beds, and half a dozen fruit trees—apple, cherry and plum. But after those June rains, I realized that what I had was better suited to developing terraces of rice! Those precious fruit trees would drown in that wet clay.

Tree Planting rig.

Before I could plant anything, I needed to bring in two semi-loads of fill to bring the lot up to road level, followed by a layer of topsoil. Then I had to devise a drainage system that would somehow divert the excess rain runoff into the lake, keeping it off my neighbor’s yard. I thought of the dry creeks often seen in desert landscapes and experienced an aha moment: how about a creek that winds around spruce trees and into the lake?

With the expert help of Lake Services Unlimited, 5 gorgeous Black Hill spruce trees were delivered, one by one, from Cotter Tree Farm. We arranged them in a zigzag pattern to save space and to make a more pleasing arrangement than all-in-a-row. Next the creek was dug, lined with landscaping fabric, and filled on the bottom and sides with a single layer of medium-size boulders. At first, the creek looked quite artificial. But after we added other sizes of stone, topped it off with pebbles, and mixed up the rocks, it looked natural. The final touch was bringing in seven boulders for the property. The truck dumped them all at the edge of the lot. “Where do you want them?” asked the driver. This is not like rearranging your living room furniture! I knew I had but one chance to get it right. We put one boulder at the head of the creek, another among the trees, a third at the middle bend in the creek, and three for “seating” overlooking the rain garden. The final boulder was left for seating next to the cabin overlooking the lake.

Two trees planted; plywood planks prevents rig from sinking.

Five trees planted and dry creek prepared.

Placement of second boulder.

Dry creek landscape from road.

We planted two groups of Siberian iris in the mulch surrounding the spruce and added lime creeping jenny to spread around a gray boulder. I purchased a few dozen day lily plants—six varieties to bloom from spring to fall—that now span the entire lot at the roadside. Lilies grow like weeds in Wisconsin; fortunately, they resist road salt, wind and extreme temperatures.

We extended an existing lakeside path to circle around the rain garden, dry creek, and orchard.  We added a wrought iron bistro table and two chairs (half-price in September!) A final touch—next year—will be a bridge over the creek so that we can access the spruce on the other side. I’ve learned that some folks with absolutely no landscape drainage problems build dry creeks just because they like the way they look.  How I love turning problems into opportunities!

Landscaping completed.

Bistro in center of orchard.