This Week in Iowa Nature

Migrating painted lady butterflies swarm across fields and roads; they can overwinter in sunny, warm places.

The Iowa Nature Calendar, by Jean Prior and James Sandrock

Gardening in November

Wednesday, November 1

Now for the first times in five months, the poles are down and the fruit is completely harvested -- twelve dozen Enchantments and four dozen Big Beef slicers sitting on the back porch, to be ripened on shelves in the basement. And now as I look out my window in the late afternoon, all I can see in that once abundant spot is the pile of dead pepper plants and tomato plants waiting to be bagged up for the refuse, and a ghostly white row cover along the front of the bed, protecting the radishes and green onions. But I can still remember how it looked in high summer -- tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants pendant on all the vines and bushes.

Carl H. Klaus, My Vegetable Love: A Journal of a Growing Season

Tree of the Week

Ohio Buckeye, Aesculus glabra Willd

DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS: Leaves once-pinnately compound, opposite; leaflets 5 to 7 in number (usually 5), 3 to 6 inches long, elliptic to slightly oblong, gradually tapered to both the apex and the base; margins finely toothed. WInter twigs stout, red-brown to gray, glabrous; leaf scars rather large, half-rounded to shield-shaped, bundle scars 3 or in 3 groups. Buds ovoid, light brown, with 5 or 6 pairs of dry brown scales, the terminal 1/2 to 2/3 inch long. Flowers yellow-green, perfect or imperfect, irregular, in panicles, appearing after the leaves in spring. Fruit a nutlike capsule 1 to 2 inches in diameter with 1 or 2 seeds; capsule wall thick and leathery with deciduous prickles; seeds large, dark shiny brown, with a single large, pale spot (hilum). Bark ashy gray, separating into scaly plates divided by shallow furrows.

SIMILAR TREES: Common horsechestnut, our only other tree with palmately compound leaves, has white flowers and obovate, coarsely toothed leaflets abruptly tapered to the apex. Several shrubby species of Aesculus are planted. In winter, horsechestnut has dark, sticky buds.

IOWA DISTRIBUTION: Native south of a line extending from Mills County northeast to Boone County east to Clinton County. Planted throughout the state and sometimes escaping.

Forest and Shade Trees of Iowa (Third Edition), by Peter J. van der Linden and Donald R. Farrar

Scarth Exhibit

If you’re in the Baraboo area tomorrow, come check out Linda & Robert Scarth’s DEEP NATURE: PHOTOGRAPHS FROM IOWA (as well as some of their other work), which will be on display at the Aldo Leopold Foundation’s Art Discovery Day. Hope to see you there!

October Gardening Tip

As the frost kills plants, remove them. Annuals should be dug up or pulled out by their roots. Perennials, except for roses, should be cut off an inch or two above the groud. Put undiseased plant material in a compost pile, chopping up large pieces. If plant material is diseased, put it on a special, seperate pile to prevent disease from spreading.

-- Veronica Lorson Fowler, Gardening in Iowa and Surrounding Areas

Gardening in October

Wednesday, October 25

To wrap or not to wrap. That is the question I was suddenly pondering in the clear, crisp air of the setting sun, the needles of the bald cypress glowing gold just a few feet away. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous weather, or to take cloth against a sea of troubles and by opposing block them, at least for another week or so. Balmy weather back in the forecast after tonight's cold snap. Not much time to ponder, so I went with my deepest instincts. Wrap for the night is coming wherein you cannot wrap. Then I hustled around, harvesting the last of the pepper crop and a few zucchini still blossoming and fruiting under four layers of cloth. On the way in, I picked out three bright red Enchantments from the table of green and pink tomatoes ripening on the back porch, covered the rest with some old bed sheets, and then set out to make something of all my summer vegetables.

Carl H. Klaus, My Vegetable Love: A Journal of a Growing Season

Tree of the Week

Black Ash, Fraxinus nigra Marsh

DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS: Leaves once-pinnately compound, opposite, 12 to 16 inches long; leaflets 7 to 13 in number (usually  9 to 11), oblong lanceolate, 3 to 6 inches long, not stalked, conspicuously toothed, glabrous except for tufts of orange-brown hairs where they join at the leaf stem. Winter twigs moderate to stout, gray, glabrous; leaf scars half-round to nearly-round; bundle scars numerous and close together, forming a fine curved line. Buds similar to green ash but usually black. Flowers very small, polygamous or dioecious, apetalous, appearing with or before the leaves in spring; staminate in short, compact panicles, pistillate in open panicles. Fruit a paddle-shaped samara 1 to 1 1/2 inches long, often persisting in winter; wing notched at apex, surrounding the flat, indistinct seed cavity. Bark gray, scaly, becoming shallowly and rather indistinctly furrowed on large trees.

SIMILAR TREES: Green and white ash have stalked leaflets, brown buds, and samaras with distinct seed cavities that are rounded in cross section.

IOWA DISTRIBUTION: Native as far west as the Des Moines River Valley. Not commonly planted.

Forest and Shade Trees of Iowa (Third Edition), by Peter J. van der Linden and Donald R. Farrar