You wouldn’t be wrong to assume that because things are quiet here on this blog that I’ve been dull-eyed lazy and nothing at all has been accomplished here all summer.  My YouTube brush with fame did kind of go to my head, but when the movie deals still didn’t come through eventually I came back down to earth and sort of got back to work.  Life as a daylily farmer is a gritty life and this farmer here had a whole farm to rebuild, so from my hair and makeup days…. or maybe just a shower… it was back to the dirty, sweaty, buggy grind of digging and then sitting around wondering what I’d done.  That happens more than I care to admit and it becomes somewhat obvious when you look around the place.  I’m a grown man with little to no adult supervision, so when a few rocks sit around for a few days obviously that’s reason enough to build a rock garden even if the world would be better served with a nicely washed car or a painted basement.

When the daylily farm was dug up I asked them to save any cool rocks they came across.  Naturally the middle of the front lawn was a good place to throw them.

There was a little concern about the rocks on the lawn.  Concern and suspicion which I guess is justified, and when I said they’re for a rock garden that didn’t exactly smooth things over.  A plan was requested.  I just nodded because she knows as well as I do that there’s never really a plan, it’s usually more of a rock on a slope which starts sliding and dislodging more rocks and before you know it there’s a landslide.  So I went and ordered plants instead.

An online order of mixed hens and chicks (sepervivum) from Petal Pusher Nursery might have been one of the top five highlights of the summer.  They’re awesome.  They deserve their own garden.

So 36 sepervivum, four rocks and then the township finally dumped some topsoil to rebuild the farm.  It was more than enough for the farm plus something, so clearly that something was another reason to build a rock garden.

Cut a circle, lift the sod along the edges, bury the lawn and crabgrass with topsoil… move all the rocks again because they probably shouldn’t be in the way like that… 

A funny thing which happened a few weeks before this was that a friend said to me “at least you’re not into rock gardening” while we were touring her garden.  Apparently rock gardeners are not just a little nuts but a lot and are some of the worst plant growers and killers and collectors out there but I digress, and just laughed off her comment since I knew plenty of people who were far crazier yet don’t even have a rockery, and I for one also was lacking.

Dirt mounded, rocks in position, a few random ‘not rockgarden’ plants in there just because.  

Just for transparency, I may have been collecting rock garden plants for a while but just killing most of them because the other beds here are just too rough and tumble, and poorly drained, to please most of the tiny things which shine in a rockery.  Actually, not to spotlight my own stupidity again, but one of the plants I’ve been really successful in killing have been the same hens and chicks which I built this garden around.  Friends have gifted me them.  They die.  I give spares to someone else.  They thrive.  Whatever, maybe fifth time is the charm and they’ll explode into growth and reach even higher levels of amazing!

The topsoil has been covered in about two to three inches of sand, in this case a coarse concrete sand, which will hopefully drain well enough to keep things happy.  

Just like every other new garden bed here, it’s somewhat disturbing how fast it fills up.  The sempervivums are tiny compared to the size of the bed and didn’t take up much room at all, but every walk around the yard had me returning with yet another little thing in hand which was supposed to be for the rock garden that I didn’t have.  Also there were a few little things in pots which I grew ‘just in case’ or brought home on a ‘maybe’…  I always say better safe than sorry.

Happily planted.  Everything doubled in size when watered, except for the dianthus which was immediately mowed down to numbs by the rabbits.  It had been safe covered in weeds elsewhere, here out in the open it must look more like a buffet offering.

And then my friends intervened.  Off to Longwood we went to check out the finally re-opened waterlily garden.

One of the newly replanted areas near the fountains has been filled with hydrangeas and white annuals.  Quite a statement. 

The waterlilies were amazing.  This has always been my favorite part of the gardens and I’m happy to see its return as a focal point of the conservatory rebuild.  

The color borders are always fun even on a hot day and it makes me realize that annuals are worth the work.

The rose garden might be my new second favorite part of the gardens.  It’s interesting and more subtle than the masses of color in other parts of the garden.  Less grand, but I like it!

Okay back to the home garden.  The crowning glory of the new rock garden arrived in the mail and for about $150 and a little assembly I have this pretentious armillary with Atlas holding up the globe.  Atlas is a little flat, but I won’t complain.  I love it out there but don’t love that his price appears to have gone up at least $40 since the summer… even though it’s made in Massachusetts… but apparently the metal was not…

The finished rock garden on a smoky summer morning.  I still need to set the time, and Atlas could really use a more formal pedestal but that may be a next year thing.

So for now the rock garden is as complete as anything in this garden.  Several plants will become too large for the space but I can easily put off that tomorrow problem, and tomorrow may come faster than you’d think since last weekend’s trip to the NA Rock Garden Society’s Adirondack chapter plant sale may have added even more plants to the garden.  There’s even a daphne.  I’m overly excited about that one and I hope it settles in since I can already picture a super fancy and refined mound of shrub that covers itself in bloom and drifts fragrance across the garden.

Other parts of the garden.  The waste area looking more refined this year although the 7 foot shrub behind the fire pit is actually just pokeweed (Phytolacca americana ‘Sunny Side Up’), but the privet cuttings are beginning to make an enclosing hedge and that should fancy things up.

While I dream of lazy days surrounded by fragrance here’s some other summertime summaries before summer officially ends.  The waste area is becoming daylily beds, the deck has become a tropical oasis, and the potager is still in need of first aid.  Houseplants have all multiplied.  Someday I hope to add more and perhaps share pictures but I think you know how that will go.

It has not been the year of the potager.  The beds need organic material and fertile goodness and my autumn covering of chopped leaves just isn’t enough.  Fortunately a sunflower fell over onto everything and has covered many a sin.  

Actually, speaking of going I don’t know where 90% of the summer went.  I need a do-over but that’s unlikely especially when a week of September cool at the end of August hits and reminds you that this is in fact a temperate climate and there’s a new season on the way.  Maybe this holiday weekend will be the turning point.  Two big projects await and even if they didn’t happen in the last three weeks, maybe the next two days will be what was needed?

Red lobelia and a project on the horizon.  Maybe this will be the weekend the kid’s old plastic playhouse finally metamorphisizes into its destiny as “Begonia House”.

Don’t let my gloom of undone projects and a fading summer get you down, there’s still a weekend in the garden on the way and whether it’s productive or not it should still be better than a week at work and I’m looking forward to it.  We could use rain, we could use less bugs, we could use lower prices but sometimes you get what you get and sometimes you get a new rock garden and a visit from Atlas.

Enjoy!