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January 15, 2026

Talbot Spy

Nonpartisan Education-based News for Talbot County Community

Food and Garden

Adkins Arboretum Mystery Monday: Guess the Photo!

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Happy Mystery Monday!  Can you guess what is pictured in photo #1?
The answer to last week’s mystery is magnolia, Magnoliaceae, pictured in photo #2.

Magnolia is a large genus of 210–340 species of the family Magnolioideae. They’re a native evergreen tree or shrub with a straight trunk, conical crown, and very fragrant, large, white flowers. Their flowers are waxy and their oblong leaves are shiny and green with silvery undersides.

In cool locations, the sweet bay magnolia is usually a deciduous shrubby plant with multiple stems, while in warmer zones it tends to be an upright tree that remains evergreen.
Magnolias, especially Southern magnolia, produce seeds that are rich in fats and energy, making them a valuable food source for many animals, including wild turkeys, mockingbirds, and robins, as well as small mammals, like squirrels and opossums. The dense foliage of some magnolia species provides year-round shelter for small mammals and nesting sites for birds, offering protection from predators and harsh weather conditions.
Magnolia flowers produce a sugar-like substance that attracts pollinators. The flowers of many magnolias are considered edible.
Magnolias are an excellent plant for boggy locations or clay soils.
Mystery Monday is sponsored by the Spy Newspapers and Adkins Arboretum.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Second Wind Planting by Nancy Taylor Robson

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Yes, it’s July, and it’s hot (it’s summer after all), but we’ve actually had rain (she half-whispers lest the mention jinx it). So, the ground is friable and a young gardener’s fancy turns to MORE BEANS! And other stuff. You know, the mid-summer renewal for fall harvest.

“A lot of people think about ‘getting their garden in’ once in May and that’s it,” says Jon Traunfeld, Director of the Home and Garden Information Center at University of Maryland here. But there’s a second planting time that can be just as rewarding as the first if we take advantage of it. “There’s still plenty of time to plant warm season crops,” he says. “Bush beans, green beans, cucumbers, squash. Also in late July, there are the fall crops. People can sow seeds for things like beets and kale and mustards, radishes, directly in the ground.”

For those of us who are less than perfect gardeners (sigh, we know who we are) that second shot can be a big help. The extended harvest offers maximum return on investment of money (plants and seeds) and time (all that weeding and worrying), and maybe we’ll also have something to ‘put by.’ Yet even if there’s not enough to freeze or can, fall harvest can be a very satisfying time. But it takes planning – and planting – now.

“I just seeded some more green beans and wax beans this week,” says Theresa Mycek, Production Manager at Unity Nursery nursery in Church Hill. “We also just put some zucchini and yellow summer squash seeds in the high tunnel.”

Even without the protection of a high tunnel, Traunfeld notes that the changing climate has altered our gardening parameters. 

“There’s so much opportunity,” he says. “That’s one of the upsides of warming weather. You can plant things through mid-to-late August. And we may be able to overwinter things like arugula, spinach, and kale, and sometimes collards. With a single row cover [to protect them from frost] they come back gangbusters in early spring.”

“When I worked at Colchester,” agrees Mycek, who for 13 years was the grower and manager of a five-acre Community Sustained Agriculture (CSA) project in Georgetown, MD, “starting in August we’d direct-seed radish and fall brassicas. So, if you want to do Pak choi, turnips, radish, watermelon radish, broccoli rabe are all good seeds to put straight into the ground now.”

Even things that we think of as early spring crops can keep producing, especially if protected. “A lot of these crops – kale, lettuces, spinach, the Asian greens – will take a heavy frost and will overwinter,” says Traunfeld. 

While the luscious but delicate butterheads of spring can’t take much heat or cold, there is now a tougher i.e. more resilient lettuce variety, Batavian summer crisp, which has slightly thicker, more water-retentive leaves that do well at this time, and also does well in summer.

 “I saw some in a community garden yesterday [July 16th],” Traunfeld says. “They’re big and ruffly, and they will grow in warm weather and can really take the heat.”

You can also start transplants of some of the brassicas now for harvest next spring. Traunfeld says that a former colleague used to start broccoli seedlings in early August each year.

“She put ‘em out in the garden in September,” he remembers. “She just wanted them to get well established but not put on a head. And they came to life in spring and had beautiful heads.”

Starting transplants in mid-late summer means paying attention to soil temp. Instead of it being too cool as it can be in spring, now soil can be too warm for some of those seeds to germinate. Seed packets usually specify a variety’s optimum germination temp.

“The leafy greens, lettuces, you can’t germinate them easily in heat,” Traunfeld says. “You may want to germinate it inside or outside under something [like row cover or in shade or indirect sunlight].” The difference between soil temperature in direct sun and shade can be as much as 10 degrees Fahrenheit.

When you plant out your seedlings, mulch them to mitigate soil temps and retain moisture for roots. Row cover can do double duty to help prevent moisture loss in their leaves and to hide new seedlings from pests. Then remember to keep them moist but not sodden.

 “[The starts] can tolerate the heat if they’re young,” Mycek says. “But you have to be on top of watering.” 

When planning late-summer seeding of any kind, bear in mind the waning light. Most things require specific amounts of daylight to reach maturity. 

“If they are planning to sow beets, for example, which have a 55-day maturity date, and you’re thinking: when should you plant before frost? you’d count back from frost,” Traunfeld says. “But we’re going into a period when sun is diminishing, so you’d plant two weeks earlier than you’d think – middle-to-end of July.”

It’s all work, but it’s rewarding. In addition to the satisfaction of fall harvest, the second planting is something of a reminder about the fact that food does not grow in the grocery store or on autopilot. It takes attention and care.

“When you grow your own food, you think wasting food is a sin,” says Kent County Master Gardener, Barbra Flook, who grows greens for the table nearly year-round. “And there’s something [empowering] about knowing what it takes to produce it in a relatively safe manner.”

And it’s satisfying. There’s nothing quite like going out to the garden on a cool misty November day to cut kale for the soup pot or pick the last of the haricots verts (slim little French beans) for dinner. Lovely.

True Leaf Batavian Lettuce

Heat tolerant lettuce mix

Johnny’s Summer Crisp Lettuce

University of Maryland Home and Garden Center

 

Longtime journalist and essayist Nancy Taylor Robson is also the author of four books: Woman in The Wheelhouse; award-winning Course of the Waterman; A Love Like No Other: Abigail and John Adams, a Modern Love Story; and OK Now What? A Caregiver’s Guide to What Matters, which she wrote with Sue Collins, RN. 

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Adkins Arboretum Mystery Monday: Guess the Photo!

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Happy Mystery Monday! Can you guess what is pictured in photo #1?

The answer to last week’s mystery is blue dasher dragonfly, Pachydiplax longipennis, pictured in photo #2.

 

The blue dasher dragonfly is one of the most common dragonflies in North America and can be found at most still, calm water habitats within its wide range.

Blue dashers are small skimmers. Mature male blue dashers, as pictured here, are chalky blue with a dark abdomen tip, white face, and turquoise eyes. There is a wedge of rust color on each side of the abdomen, behind the wings. Female blue dashers are a little less colorful and have red eyes, as opposed to blue.

Some dragonflies perch with their abdomens pointed upward as a means of thermoregulation. The position is typically used for cooling, lowering the amount of body surface exposed to the sun.

Mystery Monday is sponsored by the Spy Newspapers and Adkins Arboretum.

 

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Adkins Arboretum Mystery Monday: Guess the Photo!

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Happy Mystery Monday!  Can you guess what is pictured in the photo below:
The answer to last week’s mystery is blue-eyed grass, Sisyrinchium angustifolium, pictured in the photo below.
Blue-eyed grass is a tiny, but mighty flower that is native to 60% of the United States and the eastern half of Canada. It thrives from Maine to Texas. Blue-eyed grass grows in woodlands, forests, meadows, sand hills, and swales.
Despite its name, blue-eyed grass is not a grass, it’s a member of the iris family. Its stiff, narrow, blade-like leaves form a fan shape, similar to other plants in the iris family.
Noted for its violet-blue flowers with yellow centers, the long-lasting blooms measure 1″ in diameter. In late-Spring, the flowers develop into seed heads shaped like round balls that hold several tiny seeds. The black seeds can be carried short distances by wind. When conditions are just right, blue-eyed grass will happily self-seed, but it also spreads via underground rhizomes.
Mystery Monday is sponsored by the Spy Newspapers and Adkins Arboretum.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Adkins Arboretum Mystery Monday: Guess the Photo!

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Happy Mystery Monday!  Can you guess what is pictured in the photo below?
The answer to last week’s mystery is poison ivy, Toxicodendron radicans, pictured in photo below:
Poison ivy is native to every State except California, Alaska, and Hawaii. It can grow as a small plant, a shrub, or a climbing vine and it is resilient! It thrives in soils of all textures, including clays, silts, loams, sand, and more.
All parts of the poison ivy plant, including the stem and roots, contain and secrete a nonvolatile, colorless oil, urushiol, that affects the skin. According to the American Academy of Dermatology, about 50 million people get a poison ivy rash each year, making it one of the most common allergies in the United States.
If a rash doesn’t occur with first contact, it likely will with second contact. In addition, the body doesn’t build immunity to urushiol. The more times the skin is exposed to it, the worse the break out.
Urushiol oil is very durable, lingering for five or more years after the poison ivy plant has died. Inhaling urushiol oil from the smoke of burning poison ivy likely means a trip to the ER.
Poison ivy flowers are rather inconspicuous and usually not noticed by gardeners, but they also carry urushiol oil. The subsequent fruits are smooth, greenish-white berries that form in clusters about the size of currants. Birds and other wildlife eat the berries and spread the seed in their droppings, spreading poison ivy just about anywhere.
Poison ivy has compound leaves with three leaflets, giving rise to the old saying, “Leaves of three, let it be,” although the leaves are more accurately described as leaflets.
In vine form, poison ivy sprouts thousands of brown hairs that grasp the bark of its host tree. As the vine climbs toward the canopy and matures, the stem gets woodier and increases in diameter.
Mystery Monday is sponsored by the Spy Newspapers and Adkins Arboretum.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Adkins Arboretum’s Mystery Monday: Guess the Photo!

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Happy Mystery Monday!  Can you guess what is pictured in photo below:
The answer to last week’s mystery is arrowwood viburnum, Viburnum dentatum, pictured in the photo below:
Arrowwood viburnum is a native deciduous shrub that can be found from Maine to Florida, and westward toward Iowa and east Texas. It thrives in open woods and streambanks and most commonly occurs in partial shade but can tolerate full sun.
Arrowwood flowers from May–June and fruits from August–November. The shrub’s non-fragrant white flowers form flat-topped corymbs. The showy flower clusters give way to blue-black, berry-like drupes which are attractive to birds and other wildlife.
Thanks to vigorous and sturdy growth, arrowwood can be used as a hedge, screen, specimen, or in mass plantings. While the shrub’s growth habit is an upright oval, the older branches arch with age. Suckers also develop with age and are easy to transplant. Next season’s blossoms appear on old growth
Native Americans reportedly used the straight stems of this species for arrow shafts, hence the common name.
Arrowwood viburnum is the host plant for various species of moths and butterflies, including two specialist moth species: the brown scoopwing moth and the marveled wave moth. It’s also a host plant for Spring azure butterflies. Arrowwood provides nectar for pollinators, including native bees, and food and shelter for birds. Arrowwood is deer resistant.
Mystery Monday is sponsored by the Spy Newspapers and Adkins Arboretum.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Adkins Arboretum Mystery Tuesday: Guess the Photo!

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Happy Mystery Monday!  Can you guess what is pictured in the photo below?
The answer to last week’s mystery is deerberry, Vaccinium stamineum, pictured in the photo below:
Deerberry is a very common, native deciduous shrub that grows in sandy, well-drained soil and xeric communities such as dry oak woods, pine barrens, savannas, dry pine ridges, sparsely wooded bluffs, sand hills, thickets, and clearings. It often grows in conjunction with rhododendrons and azaleas, which share similar acidic soil requirements.
Deerberry’s nodding, bell-shaped flowers produce from April–June. They’re greenish-white and pink tinged. The stamens are prominent, as indicated by the Latin name stamineum. The fruit of deerberry dangles in loose clusters. The berries are sour and largely inedible for humans, unless they’re sweetened. The berries ripen from late–Summer to early–Fall and are enjoyed by birds and mammals.
Deerberry and blueberry are both members of the same plant family, ericaceae, and share similar characteristics, but also have key differences. For instance, deerberry fruit is typically larger and has a more tart flavor than blueberries.
Deerberry’s foliage turns a variety of colors through the seasons.
Mystery Monday is sponsored by the Spy Newspapers and Adkins Arboretum.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Adkins Arboretum’s Mystery Monday: Guess the Photo!

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Happy Mystery Monday!  Can you guess what is pictured in photo below?
The answer to last week’s mystery is Copes gray treefrog, Hyla chrysoscelis, pictured below.
Cope’s gray tree frogs are native to North America, and are especially abundant in the southeast. They are adapted to woodland habitats but will sometimes travel into more open areas to reach a breeding pond. These frogs inhabit all elevations of wooded areas near temporary and permanent waters, such as swamps, ponds, lakes, old fields, thickly wooded suburban neighborhoods, farm woodlots, and mixed or deciduous forests.
Variable in color from mottled gray to gray green, the skin of Cope’s gray tree frogs resembles bark. They typically measure 3.2–5.1 cm long. As a member of the genus Hyla, they possess advanced toe pads, allowing them to adhere more strongly to vertical surfaces, like glass, metal, and primarily tree bark.
Cope’s grays rest in damp, rotten logs, or hollow trees, emerging to feed. Tree frogs tend to be “sit-and-wait” predators, consuming caterpillars, beetles, flies that wander by. Tree frogs produce mucus secretions that are foul tasting and cause burning sensation and inflammation. While these secretions are thought to be anti-predator functions, it is possible that they also function as antimicrobial agents.
In Winter, Cope’s gray tree frogs hibernate on land, and may be found under woody debris logs, roots and leaf litter. When gray tree frogs hibernate, they appear rigid. They have a high freezing tolerance due to glycerol in the blood. During hibernation, 80% of the body freezes and the eye becomes opaque as breathing and heartbeat are temporarily suspended. Their high tolerance for freezing temperatures has enabled gray tree frogs to expand their territory northward towards higher elevations. Cope’s gray tree frog can survive temperatures as low as 18°F.
Mystery Monday is sponsored by the Spy Newspapers and Adkins Arboretum.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

What’s Native? The Battle over Been Here/Come Here By Nancy Taylor Robson

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Leslie Cario, Adkins Arboretum

What’s really indigenous to a place? We’re talking native plants here. (And ultimately: does native really matter?). OK, first, what’s native?

“If it’s from Asia or South America, it’s not native,” says entomologist Dr. Doug Tallamy, author of Bringing Nature Home. Lonicera japonica or Miscanthus sinensis tell you by their names that they are not from the Delmarva Peninsula. (It won’t necessarily tell you whether it’s invasive, but that’s a different question).

Human beings have always been about “Oooo! New and shiny!” Our peripatetic species has been hauling botanical specimens home for millenniums to add to our gardens, pharmacies, and tables. Thirty-five hundred years ago, Queen Hatshepsut of Egypt dispatched plant hunters to search for a little something new for the royal gardens. Her plant squad dug, balled, and lugged home 32 incense trees. Tulips from Turkey, potatoes from Peru. We’ve had several thousand years of globalization, so what constitutes ‘been here’ versus ‘come here’ is not always a simple question to answer.

The USDA defines native plants as those that “are the indigenous terrestrial and aquatic species that have evolved and occur naturally in a particular region, ecosystem, and habitat. Species native to North America are generally recognized as those occurring on the continent prior to European settlement. They represent a number of different life forms, including conifer trees, hardwood trees and shrubs, grasses, forbs, and others.”

To determine indigenous North American species, many in the US look to the plant catalogues compiled by 18th century Philadelphia botanists John Bartram and his son, William. Lewis and Clarke added to those lists during their years-long exploration of the continent following the Louisiana Purchase in 1803.

It’s a big country, and there are lots of species native to big chunks of it. For example, the white oak (Quercus alba), Maryland’s state tree, is native from Minnesota and Maine to Texas and northern Florida. But will a white oak seedling whose ancestry is in Sheboygan thrive in St Michaels?

“It’s not just: is the plant native to North America?” says Lois deVries, founder of The Sustainable Gardening Institute and The Sustainable Gardening Library, “but: is it suitable for your ecoregion?”

“What’s most important is matching the ecotype provenance,” agrees Tallamy. “It’s native to your region because it’s adapted to your region.”

Sara Tangren at Chesapeake Nurseries

Years ago, during a drought, Dr Sara Tangren, founder of Chesapeake Natives Nursery (now Coordinator for National Capital Partnership for Regional Invasive Species Management), noticed the striking difference in ecotypes of the same North American Aster species in her nursery.

“The ones from New England struggled but the ecotypes from here in Maryland were thriving on only the morning dew,” she noted. “That’s ecoregion adaption at work.”

Maryland is blessed with a variety of ecoregions that include several different soil types, which also (obviously) affect the plant colonies that have developed. De Vries, who lives in New Jersey, sees this distinction daily.

“The Great Limestone Valley is right across the street from me,” she says. “That’s a very limey gravely area, and very different plants thrive in that. I’m on Martinsburg shale here, which is very different acid soil with completely different plants.”

But if we’re only looking at plants and soil, we miss the additional connection of animals who are dependent on specific native plants, (we’re talking food web), which is a big reason why native plants as the foundation of the food web matter a lot.

“Some of it is based on the lens we are looking through,” says Leslie Cario, Director of Horticulture and Natural Lands at Adkins Arboretum. Adkins has long been focused on native plants, yet it’s always been in conjunction with the whole ecology of the area. “The people from The Biodiversity Project came out to catalogue what’s here, so it wasn’t just plants; it was insects, and different types of animals. So, it also depends if you’re focusing on conservation or restoration or gardening.”

Deborah Barber. cellophane bee specialist on native Coral Bells (Heuchera)

For Tallamy, who has long promoted the increased use of native plants as a means of restoring shattered biodiversity, it’s ultimately about a plant’s function in a whole community. White oak, for example, supports about 400 different animal species, a huge return on investment (to say nothing of how beautiful they are). So, ‘native’ has to do with a kind of ongoing reciprocity.

“A plant is native when it shares an ecological history with the plants and animals around it,” Tallamy says. “Native plants function better with the things they co-evolved with. It’s how it functions in the environment.”

But it doesn’t mean that all come-here’s are anathema. Come-here’s, when they contribute to the whole, (rather than take over as invasives) are welcome.

“Some people are really strict [about only natives],” notes Tallamy, who is more interested in collective citizenship than in purity.  “I have wood poppies in our yard. They are not strictly native to southeast Pennsylvania, but they function as a native. The deer love them.”

So, it’s complicated. And yes, ultimately, native plants matter enormously. They are vital components of a resilient, healthy (and beautiful) food web, landscape, home, and garden. Some may feel as though native plants restrict their garden choices, but Cario suggests that different individual aesthetic visions can easily dovetail with increasing native plant communities since it also enlarges the total gardening experience.

“Consider your gardening an act of altruism,” she says. “So, we’re not just doing it for ourselves, but to support wildlife around us. Even starting small will make some difference, so people should just try something and replace over time as they find out what works for them and what they enjoy. And I think people, who are looking, will enjoy as much the things coming to visit their garden as they are enjoying their garden.”

 

Resources:

Sustainable Gardening Institute

https://www.sustainablegardeninginstitute.org

Adkins Arboretum

https://www.adkinsarboretum.org

Chesapeake Natives

https://www.chesapeakenatives.org

Homegrown National Park

https://homegrownnationalpark.org

Maryland Native Plant Society

https://www.mdflora.org/plant-id

https://www.mdflora.org/chapters

 

National wildlife website

https://www.nwf.org

 

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Adkins Arboretum Mystery Monday: Guess the photo!

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Happy Mystery Monday!  Can you guess what is pictured in the photo below?
The answer to last week’s mystery is pinxter flower azalea, Rhododendron periclymenoides, pictured below:
Pinxter flower azalea is native to the Eastern United States, from Massachusetts to Alabama. It is one of several azaleas native to Maryland. An understory shrub, pinxter azalea is dense and bushy, typically growing 2–6′ tall. Pinxter azalea grows naturally in mixed deciduous forests, along streams, swamp edges and ravines, where they can form dense thickets.
Pinxter flowers open in mid to late Spring, and are often mistaken for honeysuckle blooms. The flower colors vary among species populations from white to dark pink. The open petals curve back to show off the long extended stamens and styles. Pinxter flowers begin to open before leaf expansion, drawing many pollinators, including hummingbirds, bees, and butterflies. The flowers are fragrant, and have a light spicy scent.
Maryland’s native azaleas host at least 50 species of native caterpillars, including hairstreaks and brown elfins.
The common name “pinxter” means Pentecost (the seventh Sunday after Easter) in Dutch, in reference to the bloom time for this shrub.
Warning: Rhododendrons contain poisonous substances and should not be ingested by humans or animals. All parts of the plant are highly toxic, even honey made from the flowers may be dangerous.
Mystery Monday is sponsored by the Spy Newspapers and Adkins Arboretum.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.