Japan – Tendrils

Hosta

Hosta (Hosta) can be a beautiful addition to your garden if you don’t have it already. Hostas are herbaceous perennial plants that are native to China, Japan, Korea and the Russian Far East. They produce attractive clumps of leaves each summer which are topped with blooms that are either white or lavender. But a word of warning. The Hosta is a plant that I’ll avoid. The fact that the plants are not native is one strike against them. I find a need to encourage fauna that are attracted to native plants. But the big factor that negates any chance these plants have — they are like candy to deer. Rabbits, slugs and snails also eat the leaves and roots. Rhizomes are eaten by voles but deer are really something that I don’t want to encourage. Without a doubt.

Blackberry Lily Revisited

Wow! She’s about to go into second grade. But even as a toddler, she’s always wanted to help me scatter the Blackberry Lily (Iris domestica) seeds.

Those seeds reveal why this plant has its name. But the name is a bit misleading since Blackberry Lily is not actually a lily at all but a species of iris. And a word of caution, those seeds contain toxins. Beautiful, but don’t eat!

Thomas Jefferson was smart to bring this plant with its striking flowers to his gardens at Monticello. It’s native to eastern Russia, China and Japan.

A well behaved resident not only of Monticello’s gardens, but also my gardens. The plant grows from rhizomes and the seeds that we enjoy scattering together, but it’s not at all aggressive in its growth.

Japanese Beetle

A dear friend this morning at yoga asked me if I had anything good to say about Japanese Beetles (Popillia japonica). After giving it some thought, I can say, yes indeed. They sure are pretty!

The Japanese Beetle is a species of scarab beetle, native to Japan where they are pretty well behaved or at least kept under control by natural predators. Here in North America it is a different story, as you probably know. I was quite surprised when I moved to the mountains of central Virginia to find that these beetles eat what seems like, most anything. Not just fancy garden plants such as roses. Their larvae feed on the roots of many types of grasses. But the adults delight in eating plants in the garden such as beans, strawberries, tomatoes, goldenrod, milkweed, peppers, corn, pea and okra. Trees are another popular item, eating a broad range – sassafras, black walnut, cherry, plum, pear, peach, red oak, magnolia, pine, holly and red maple. And some three hundred other species of plants.

When the pretty little iridescent critters go after plants, this is what they leave behind. Just the veins. First discovered in the United States in 1916. Now most states east of the Mississippi are troubled by these beetles, and there is a USDA quarantine to protect the western states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Washington.