(Published in Jacksonville's Times Union Wednesday, September 1, 2004)

Southern bayberry rescue

By Ginny Stibolt

How different can it be? Maryland is the northern part of The South being just below the Mason-Dixon Line and Green Cove Springs is in the northern part of Florida. The summers can be hot in Maryland, but not this hot. Not all the time… not 90’s everyday. So the adventure begins. We just moved from a 75-year old house on 1/10th of an acre with gardens and tiny lawn that pretty much tended themselves to a two-year-old house on 1.5 acres that backs up to Lake Asbury with a lawn of St. Augustine grass that reaches your knees three days after it’s mowed.

Even though I have a masters degree in botany (Plant Taxonomy: the study of identifying and classifying plants-not stuffing them as some of my elderly neighbors thought. Tough to use those glass eye balls in a preserved plant.), it doesn’t mean that I know what I’m doing here. I may have more reference books and more familiarity with the terms, but this knowledge doesn’t necessarily translate into gardening success. So my purpose in writing about my gardening adventures is to share with you my frustrations and joys as I try to figure all this out. The house is only two years old on a lot carved out of the woods. How much damage could the previous owner have done in this short time? More than you can imagine.

Here’s one of the first projects. I was happy to see that a clump of wax myrtle or southern bayberry (Myrica cerifera) that had been spared in the clearing process. I threw away that old box of bay leaves that I use for making soups, because now I can pluck fresh bay right out of the yard. I probably won't be collecting its wax for candles, though. I'll leave the berries for the birds.

It had been poorly trimmed and mulched to a fair-thee-well. It was covered with poison ivy and three species of catbriar: we only had one type in Maryland. After pulling off the poison ivy and the catbriar vines, I cut to ground-level the trunks that had been hacked off at three to five feet that had produced veritable brooms of twigs at these cuts. Ideally, I should have left an odd number of trunks for the best visual effect, but ended up with four good trunks.

Then I started removing the mulch-about 10 inches of the stuff by the time I got down to its natural soil level. It had been mulched out to a 4’x6’ oval. I can’t believe that trimming all around this oval was easier than trimming closer to the shrub. We’ll see what happens; meanwhile the grass is free to move into this virgin territory.

Lessons learned:

1) Air-layering works! There were many roots throughout the mulch layer-most with their own spouts pushing through. The photo shows just one.

2) I needed to re-cut those trunks again because ground level was not what I thought it was.

3) 10”x6’x4’ equals eight wheelbarrow loads.

4) Work in the cool of the day, cause it’s too darn hot by 10 a.m.

5) Watch where you step or fire ants will inject poison into whatever body parts are handy.

More adventures to come.

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Ginny Stibolt is a naturalist with a Masters degree in Plant Taxonomy. You may contact her with a gardening question you'd like to see covered here or read more of her articles posted on her website: www.TransplantedGardener.com