A Dull Boy

May30

We are just wrapping up Memorial Day here, so a three day weekend of remembrance and outdoor eating has come to an end and tomorrow is back to work. Going back to work might be a bit of a relief since I’m tired and sore and could probably use some time at a desk rather than behind a shovel, but this time of year there’s always more to do in the garden than time to do it. At least I got to play a little on Saturday when friends twisted my arm for a garden visit and afterwards we took a spin out to the local garden center to see what’s new.

With an introduction date of 1992, the iris ‘Ominous Stranger’ seems like a newer one… until I do the math and realize that’s 30 years ago! This smoldering color looks fine close up but in the garden competing with yellowing tulip foliage, it gets lost.

Of course garden friends always bring a few goodies, and I may have bought a few more on our excursion, but in the grand scheme of things a few more treasures to plant is just a drop in the to-do bucket. Kind of like blogging, and with three weeks since my last post you can guess where that ranked on the list 😉

To me the 1950 iris ‘Port Wine’ seems old enough to qualify as historical. It’s shrugged off our late freeze, moody temperatures, and lack of rain and is making a bold show in the front border.

I have been somewhat busy but a dry May really de-motivates me, and with about four weeks since the last real rain I would say this qualifies. The bearded iris shrug it off but other plants are wilting and the grass is turning brown, and I guess I could continuously complain but what would be the point to that. Years back I planted with summers like this in mind but then a couple rainy years rotted all my iris and turned my cacti into bacterial mush so I changed course. Boy will I feel stupid again when I rip things out and replant the iris just to have them rot again.

Here’s the historical iris ‘Elsinore’, a special thing with some unique coloring that dates from around 1920. Of course it’s a favorite. I’d have more planted around but it tends to over-bloom, with all its growth fans sending up flowers rather than multiplying for next year.

Feeling stupid is nothing new, so I’ll just keep chugging along, stuffing the wrong plants in too closely, letting the weeds explode everywhere, and focusing on things which might just be a waste of time. Speaking of ‘wastes of time’, I guess an update on the earth moving is in order.

The back of the new addition has been dug to the level of the rest of the yard and I’m happy with the progress. Please ignore all the other dirt and rocks which still must go.

So before the update, let me just say that some people spend all day baking bread from scratch, or hours over a stove making tomato sauce. Both can be purchased for under $5 in the store. Some people spend months knitting sweaters and socks when they too are available for much less than your time is worth so let me just enjoy my dirt-digging waste of time thank you very much.

The slope up to the daylily farm has also been graded and I’m excited to say I have found plenty of rocks along the way. Never mind that the one in front is too heavy for me to budge, I can always rearrange the garden around it.

Maybe the eye rolls on top of the lack of rain is making me a little sensitive but I doubt it. Lifting shovel after shovel of dirt is far more useful than lifting weights, and the sideyard is much more pleasant a place than the gym. Also if you notice the damp soil in the last picture it’s because I washed off the wonderful rocks I found, all just to admire them more closely. Try doing that with the weights at the gym and I suspect someone would put a stop to it rather quickly.

The best part of all the shoveling is I’m finally bringing the back of my yard up to a level grade. It’s terribly rocky and poor soil, but at least it’s not clay or pure sand, and eventually mulch and compost(and water) will make a garden out of it.

So iris, dirt pictures, and complaints about a lack of rain. Hopefully it isn’t the same story all summer since I am planning on planting a few annuals and will end up resenting them if I have to water all summer. Maybe if I start really small I can ignore the dry ten day forecast and pretend that watering them in really well will be enough.

With all the amazing plants for sale, you wouldn’t think marigolds would find their way onto my cart but here they are. I’m quite pleased and they’ll go in the potager to fill up the space that should be filled with vegetables if I were one to enjoy vegetables.

You never know. Maybe we’ll get a string of thunderstorms and June will turn into a gray, humid mess and we’ll all have something new to complain about. Actually since I just ordered new pool filters and a couple billion other accessories there’s a strong possibility the weather will change just to derail my summer plans. Replanting iris would probably seal the deal, but even if it doesn’t I still like to remind myself it’s not January.

Have a great week.

Behind on Everything

May14

Happy Mother’s Day! Here in the hill-like mountains of Eastern Pennsylvania the sun is out and there’s promise of another beautiful day, and I hope yours is as well. It’s been staying cooler and I’ve much enjoyed it, but the strong sun and a decent rain have everything sprouting and growing and of course have put me way behind where I should be. Right now it’s looking like a season of repairing the garden from construction rather than a season of getting everything planted and weeded, but we will see where the energy meter goes to. We’re currently at ‘moderate’ but sadly that means energy for painting and closet building with an occasional break to dig and move tons of dirt, and not weeding and planting, but at least the very last of the tulips are still in bloom… and the Motrin and Tylenol supply is well stocked 😉

The “broken” tulip “Insulinde” is still holding strong. I love it this year, even with a subtle dark and dusty look, the swirls and patterns can draw anyone’s attention.

Nearly all the tulips in the Potager are dead-headed and focused on fattening up bulbs for next year, and even if that sounds sad remember that this weirdo looks forward to digging the bulbs and seeing how well they bulked up. I’ve set some old wooden pallets and wire mesh aside and hope to throw a few bulb racks together for drying… so that’s one more super-important thing added to the to-do list.

Another tulip who’s coloring has been “broken” by virus is ‘Mabel’, an antique dating to 1856.

We will see if that happens. Iris season is coming, and the first of my favorites began to open yesterday and I forgot how fragrant some of them are. The scents of grape and lemon are drifting through parts of the garden, on top of the last of the wisteria and lilac aromas. It’s a nice break from the diesel exhaust and asphalt odors which you run into just down the street.

One last one. ‘Black and White’ goes back to at least 1920 and to me is somewhat similar to ‘Insulinde’, especially when the latter is short on its yellow base color.

Totally without scent, there’s one more cool thing to share this morning. A mystery seedling on the side of the house has revealed its identity when the poppy-like buds finally opened up into bright red blooms. For the past year I’ve been watching fuzzy foliage rosettes grow in this bone-dry, hard packed spot in full sun, and have suspected the gardener threw seeds of something odd here and forgot or didn’t even expect them to grow, but here they are.

The blackspot horned poppy, Glaucium corniculatum, is an European annual or biennial which is probably a weed most everywhere else, but here I’m pleased to see it. ‘Poor to moderate, dry soils’ describes its preferred growing conditions so it’s likely to seed around here… until we get a monsoon year and they all rot, devastating the gardener…

So I bring you more virused tulips and horned poppies this week. With all the beauty of spring I feel peonies and clematis would be more welcome but I’m sure Instagram is full of that, so maybe this is more refined? I doubt it, so thanks for reading anyway and I hope you have a wonderful week.

A Week of Flowers-Day 3

Dec2

My mother’s family is all centered in Northern Germany in the city of Osnabrück, and my mom would tell stories of their summertime beach trips cross the border to the barrier islands off the coast of the Netherlands. It’s really not all that great a distance and to be honest if someday some genetic testing finds a bit of that Dutch-tulip-loving DNA in me I would not be surprised. To me tulips are nice. Obsessively nice, and if someone were to say to me ‘but they’re so much work’, I’d have to point out that my kids aren’t exactly a picnic, and if you’re looking at dollars I would guess one Christmas’ worth of either child’s presents is probably more than I’ve ever spent on tulips… Hmmm. Guess who just had that “what is Santa’s budget this year” discussion?

Tulips in the potager. They’re dug and dried for the summer and replanted in the fall after the tomatoes and peppers freeze off.

Let me just quickly add that in my garden we rarely have tulip-eating vermin such as deer, the rabbits are quite lazy (or full of other plants), and the tulips seem to just like the soil here, enough so that they usually perennialize even when not dug. I know that’s not the case for everyone so please let me enjoy this one success!

Darwin and Triumph tulips mixed into the front perennial border.

A garden filled with tulips and daffodils is one of the best announcements of spring’s arrival.

These are a few of the antique broken tulips of the earliest days of the Dutch tulip industry. I’m still trying to find a spot they like here, for me they’re not nearly as vigorous as the newer types.

Fortunately tulip season is followed by irises and peonies and clematis and a billion other amazing spring flowers. If that wasn’t the case I’d probably need medication and a few days in a dim room by myself in order to recover from the high.

Tomorrow will be a quick post. It’s hard to move on from tulips. Thanks Cathy for giving me the excuse to revisit one of my favorite times of the year, and if you’d also like to revisit more floralific seasons give Words and Herbs a visit for more of Cathy’s Week of Flowers

May I say Amazing?

May27

As we approach the end of May I’m pretty sure things couldn’t be better. There was a moment (actually quite a few) when I was sitting in the backyard, looked about and thought to myself, ‘wow, this is friggin awesome’. It wasn’t just one thing or another, it was the warm breeze, the scent of iris blooms, birds chirping, the wind rustling fresh foliage, flowers here and there, it was all that and it just feels great after months of seemingly endless cold.

Three warm days and a few rain showers ended tulip season and moved the garden into it’s blue phase with iris and aquilegia.

To be completely honest there were a few days in there when the heat was almost bad enough to say something mildly bad about too much heat, but then a quick sit in the shade fixed things. With enough rain and sun you can almost hear things growing, and I like that.

When they were bulldozing the coal wastelands to build the industrial park behind our house I came across and saved two columbine plants (Aquilegia vulgaris) by digging and bringing them into the garden. Ten years later they’ve self-sown everywhere, creating a nice blue haze.

There used to be a lull in flowers between the last tulips and first iris and roses, but by carefully buying too many plants each year for the last few years I’ve ended up filling that gap. I shall try to keep up that effort and see what else wonderful results from overplanting. Maybe it’s the secret to thicker hair or longer life, you never know, better to err on the side of caution since I think I saw something once about a lack of new plants being linked to excessive weight gain and cognitive decline. Be careful is all I’m saying.

The yellow of King’s Spear (Asphodeline lutea) is back after a couple years of too much rabbit nibbling and columbine crowding. I like the spikes of bloom and will try and give it a little more space again.

This talk of new plants has me a little worried because work and a pile of mulch to spread has kept me too busy for my usual nursery runs. I did manage to finish off the front yard mulching, but after bailing out eight or nine bucket of water out of the basement Saturday I told my contractor he owed me another load of mulch. He agreed. A new roof is nice, but when all the water is now directed to a spot just above the basement door, and the gutter is missing, and you can see water flowing into the house it can be discouraging. Good thing mulch makes me happy.

All the early corydalis and scillas are yellowed and gone and with new mulch spread it looks almost suburbian neat in this garden.

Plenty of other things make me happy as well, and since many of the plenty are things which bloom in May, even the latest round of water in the house can’t dampen my spirits.

Amsonia hubrichtii is care-free in full sun and only needs a wack back to half it’s height in June to keep it from sprawling everywhere.

Even though the rain doesn’t need to fall in downpours of one or two inches it’s still worth it to have a green lawn in May rather than the beginning of drought. Everything seems happier after a good soak, provided there’s some sun and warmth afterwards… rather than endless damp and grey.

With all the other blue a new blue lupine was probably unnecessary, but I wanted something to go with the red one… and of course now the red one’s not flowering…

You may be wondering how the construction is going if all this rain and water is still getting into the house, and I wish I could say we’re almost there, but we’re not. Things are crawling along but with a contractor who is often a one or two man show, crawling is as good as it gets. Good thing we like him and it’s always (eventually) a job well done 🙂

With much of this end of the border bulldozed down, the weeping white spruce (Picea glauca pendula) has a chance to get the space he deserves. Maybe the fresh mulch will keep the bulldozer from coming back!

So bit by bit I try to bring back the parts of the garden ‘touched’ by construction. Areas are looking better but the pond was one spot I’d given up on. There are large rocks and nearly a foot of dirt which have fallen in, but just last week everything changed. I heard frogs singing, and then I heard more. In the muddy, murky waters I see many frog eggs and suspect this corner of PA will soon see a tree frog population explosion. I’m already trying to figure out what I can feed them with since I can’t imagine there’s enough whatever in this pond to feed so many future tadpoles.

There are hundreds of frog eggs in here, and those are just the surface ones which I can easily see!

So if all goes well this summer shall again see an abundance of baby gray tree frogs entering the garden. Perhaps that will make up for the missing garter snakes.

The stone wall is about as good as it gets. In a moment of brilliance all the potted succulents ended up on top of the wall rather than on the deck steps. I think I like it but it’s hard to level a pot on such ramshackle construction.

For all the rocks which came up out of the construction hole, I’m a little disappointed by how short a rock wall I was able to build. People who garden on rocky sites are likely rolling their eyes and saying we have plenty, come get a few, but nearly all my rocks are covered by shale and fill and would require a little quarrying to get to them. Hmmm. I’ve heard of people who have done as much and according to my book, if someone else has tried it maybe it’s not so crazy. Maybe I could start a ‘small backhoe campaign’ and start talking about backhoes enough that eventually someone will say ‘just get the stupid thing if that will shut you up’. That could be fun 🙂

The new wall makes a nice divider between the lawn and the meadow… otherwise known as where I mow regularly and where I don’t…

Having a backhoe BEFORE I moved several tons of rock by hand would have been a smarter move, but if the early settlers were able to clear a field by hand and build miles of wall I think I should be able to handle a few feet.

The succulents will spend all summer out here, unwatered for the most part and maybe here and there a splash of liquid fertilizer will land in their pots. Also maybe I’ll pot up another dozen or so other succulents I happen to have laying around. If 20 pots look nice wouldn’t 30 look nicer?

So what other silliness has been going on around here… the entire winter garden is out of the house but bags of canna roots and pots of caladium corms are still waiting their turn. Many of the deck planters have been planted and overall it’s nearly all overwintered things and not much new. That’s good for the budget but at the moment the repotted mandevilla vine looks like a whole lot of dead, and not quite the highlight of any summer display, so maybe it will still be a few weeks before I share photos of that.

The potager is remarkably under control for May. Garlic and onions are growing, tomatoes have been planted, and I suspect there’s another bunny nest in the tulips. Baby bunnies are too cute to resent. I will tell them to keep away from the lettuce.

In some parts of the garden I think I’m overcompensating for the construction destruction. The guilt of bulldozed and buried plants has me trying to make other areas extra-neat as I try to balance those out with areas I’ve abandoned.

btw chives (Allium schoenoprasum) might be my latest, latest, latest obsession. Here’s pink ‘Forescate’ with white ‘Album’ behind. I might have a lead on a darker variety and when I pair those with the regular lavender sort I think it will be quite nice. Oddly I can’t rememebr the last time I ate a chive, but whatever.

Speaking of abandoned areas, the snowdrop beds are all on that list. Maybe I’ll weed and divide things this summer, or maybe not. These days I can call it a wild garden and don’t think anyone will judge me too harshly, plus it’s always going to be much more interesting than mulchbeds and lawn, even though 90% of my neighbors would much prefer mulchbeds and lawn rather than the excessive plantings which find their home here (the other 10% are undecided).

Weeds amongst the snowdrops. A few nice things but I really need to remove the mugwort and powerwash that birch trunk!

Honestly sometimes I’m undecided if all these questionable plants and sweaty labor are changing things here for the better, but when the tadpoles come I will know they are. Actually every new thing which comes up has me convinced it’s all for the better… except maybe poison ivy seedlings. I can do without those.

Enjoy these last days of May, they pass far too quickly!

A Good Soak

Jun7

A strange thing happened about two weeks ago. Without any warning or cause, the gardener here snapped out of his lazy spell. I think it started out of necessity, with plants that were purchase for next door… and weren’t all that cheap and had to be planted before the heat and forgotten waterings took their toll… but then it took on a life of its own. Weeds were pulled, lawns edged, trees pruned, plants planted. You’re probably thinking to yourself ‘well of course, I’ve been doing that since March’, but here that hasn’t been the case. Here neglect was creeping in. Here they’re hoping this new gardener stays on and the place is brought back to halfway decent shape.

The potager doesn’t look too impressive with its beds of yellowing tulip foliage, but the most rank weeds have finally been pulled and a few legitimate plantings have taken place. There’s even a nice supply of lettuce coming in as a first harvest.

I’ve noticed that the gardener’s ambition rises and falls with the weather. Last weekend was cold, and for as much as everyone else was full of complaints and misery, the gardener here was reinvigorated. “How long have you been out there? Your cheeks are freezing” was the question, and “all day” was the response. Even when the rain was pouring down the gardener was dragging out (way too many) stored bulbs, potting up (way too many) purchased caladiums, and starting (way too many) unnecessary seeds. I think the gardener knows that there are few if any empty spots to plant, but he doesn’t seem to care.

The nicer end of the potager where the gardener would often sit rather than work. ‘Purple Splash’ is finally settling in and will hopefully scale the arbor, but as of this week the gardener still doesn’t like it. He claims it’s very nice, but it’s not “beautiful”, and all roses should be beautiful or at least movingly fragrant.

Even if the gardener is getting some work done, he’s still just as easily distracted as ever.

Calycanthus x ‘Aphrodite’ is more beautiful in a sculptural way than many roses, but like ‘Purple Splash’ also lacks a decent scent. It looks like it should be wafting a fragrant cloud across the pepper and tomato plantings, but sadly the gardener smells nothing.

Roses have been a distraction, and even the lazy version of our gardener was spending a good amount of time planting the new ones and fussing over the older bushes. He misses the scents of iris season, but now when the fruity fragrance of rose drifts by it’s not as bad.

‘Westerland’ is beautiful. I love the color and am thrilled it see it settling in.

The gardener is hoping that 2021 will be his first exciting rose year since the small cuttings and bareroot plantings of the past two years are finally beginning to amount to something. I’ve told the gardener that some regular fertilizing and water would do the roses wonders and probably have them topping arbors within a year, but the gardener is stubborn on top of lazy, and the roses are raised “tough”… which you probably know isn’t a thing, it’s just an excuse for them not growing as well as they could.

The first strawberry foxglove (Digitalis mertonensis) is the one that planted itself right on top of a snowdrop clump. Foxgloves were one of my first plant fascinations btw.

Not to get distracted yet again but the foxgloves are coming, and although they don’t do well for me, even a poorly grown plant looks exceptional.

The first common foxglove (Digitalis purpurea) to survive to blooming in years has me excited, so of course I was crushed to see the wall of foxgloves a friend was enjoying this year… but if seeing nicer gardens is really discouraging I would have quit this years ago!

Of course one lone foxglove in bloom had me imagining all the amazing things the gardener could do with foxgloves so that brings me to the reason I’m enjoying rain while the rest of the country bakes under a bubble of heat. I was distracted. I was fantasizing about the latest offerings from the little Rhode Island Nursery known as Issima. They had a common D. purpurea but with cool grayish foliage and a light fuzz to it, and I hemmed and hawed over D. purpurea ssp. heywoodii long enough that it sold out (which happens rather quickly to this ’boutique’ nursery) so of course I bought other stuff instead.

So I blame indecision for the reason this post has been in progress for four days now. That and a party at our house for a dozen teen and pre-teen girls and of course other stuff. There’s always other stuff and it’s usually good, but not always.

Hope your other stuff is good this week 🙂

Start Your Engines!

May26

Something odd got into me last week. After what has probably been months of the usual laziness I started a few tasks. Then I went on to new ones. Before I knew it I was being productive, and although I feel more sore than accomplished, I do feel like I finally made a little headway.

I took a break on Sunday from porch cleaning to get a few photos. Here’s the front border with the pale yellow, single blooms of the rose ‘Aicha’ mixed in with the blue of colombine (aquilegia)

This weekend I spent Friday digging trade plants and opening the pool, Saturday traveled on a gardening adventure, and then Sunday tried to make the yard more summer-friendly since it was awfully hot and that seemed the right thing to do. Monday it was lawn mowing, trimming, watering… and I even started to pickaxe a few holes into the berm for more arborvitae plantings. Finally today I finished the planting (just four bushes) but it felt like a major accomplishment since the hard-packed, rocky “soil” fought me all the way.

‘Aicha’ is a beauty. I hope she gets just a little taller so I can thread a small clematis through her for the ‘off’ season.

Tomorrow I’m home for a “Dr’s appointment”. I’d also like to spend some time outside and see if I can get the vegetable garden moving, but we will see if new ambition beats the forecast heat. In theory I could spend the day by the pool with just a few breaks to admire the iris, but for now I’m hoping ambition wins, since wouldn’t that be just terrible to waste a day off swimming and doing next to nothing?

The historic iris ‘Sunol’ (1933) growing in the foundation beds. Usually it has a bronze flush to the falls, but perhaps that faded this year in the heat.

Speaking of the lure of sloth, last summer I had hoped to reclaim some of the front border for more iris plantings but once things filled in it was a struggle to find open spots and as usual I resorted to edge planting. Edge planting lets me shoehorn in a couple more plants along the outer fringes even if the outer fringe looks better empty. If never looks that great having plants hanging off the edge of the bed like that, but when the place is filled that’s as good as it gets.

Historic iris ‘Romeo’ (1912) has a cool look to the falls which is different from the others I grow.

So (again) the plan is to clear a few swathes where iris can go. It’s been dry, which is good for bearded iris, but if the summer turns wet this gardener might be tempted to fill in with all kinds of annuals and various other showier things which are great in the fall… but are not iris.

‘Elsinore’ (1932) is another somewhat unique historic iris which I like very much 🙂

Regardless, I have faith that a few iris will again fill a sizeable chunk of the border. I may have to resort to a few of the hardier ones which don’t mind some summer shade, but it needs to be done since a May without an overload of beaded iris is completely unacceptable.

‘Indian Chief’ (1929) is not my favorite color, but the plants handle competition and some shade quite well, so of course it gets an invite.

So iris are on the to-do list… somewhere… and in the meantime I need to focus on planting and watering…. and weeding of course, but I think you know how I feel about a strong commitment to weed-free beds vs saving a few of the more interesting ones 🙂

A big Scotch thistle(Onopordum acanthium) has come up in a spot reserved for phlox and snowdrops. It’s as prickly as it looks and of course I love this (listed as noxious in several western states) weed.

Even if the weeding doesn’t happen, hopefully I can at least show off a respectable vegetable-filled potager in another week or two.

From a distance of greater than 20 feet, much of the garden doesn’t look bad. I just wish it passed the five foot rule!

Wish me luck. I’m already thinking that the best plan is to head to the nursery in the AM and start the day with new vegetable transplants… and likely a few more flowers… Obviously deep down inside I know buying more plants doesn’t help the four new rose bushes, various overwintered tropicals, trays of sprouted seedlings, and the haul from last weekend’s rock garden society sale that are sitting on the driveway, but it’s more fun and I’m always up for that.

Hope you have a fun week 🙂

A Bit of Botanizing

Jun10

After twenty years in the state of Pennsylvania I suppose it’s time to recognize that I might be settling in for a longer haul. A job originally brought me here but my wife grew up in the area and now as my kids become older they’re about at that point where they will forever wear that label of being ‘from here’. So I guess it’s time to start learning the lay of the land. The lay of the local land that is, not the hours long journeys, just the trips up the street and into the woods. This morning was beautiful, I had a few hours free, I knew a place where lady slipper orchids grow.

A dirt road puddle with some tadpoles.

It was too late for the lady slipper orchids so I headed up into the mountains looking for mountain laurel (Kalmia latifolia). Too early for them. No problem. I took the long way home and stopped to explore a clearcut area. I had planned on going a little further and making this a plant tour, but a few tadpoles stranded in a mudpuddle on the road distracted me. The pond I filled last fall is still disgustingly empty of amphibians, so in a bid to rescue the from their rapidly evaporating home (and bring tadpoles to suburbia) I picked up some roadside trash and began filling it with tadpoles.

Tadpole rescue. About two dozen came home in my cup holder.

On the way out I also managed to find a few plants worth photographing. They’re not lady slippers, but Pixterbloom Azalea (Rhododenron periclymenoides… I think) are nice enough as well. My research to identify them came up with the word “common” but that shouldn’t matter. They’re amazing, and the color and form are perfect, and for all the work I do in the garden these plants just spring up on their own and it’s a little humbling.

Pinxterboom Azalea? (R. periclymenoides) doing well in a damp area. They had a nice sweet fragrance, and the scent carried quite a distance.

The azaleas seemed to be enjoying the full sun of the recently cleared area. I know people love trees and trees do a lot to bail us out of our global warming future, but some sunlight on the ground is good too and these plants seem to appreciate it.

For a minute I thought of coming back for seed and starting a few at home but then laughed at my delusional ambition. Enjoying them in the mountains will be just fine.

There’s another park I haven’t been to in a while that has been doing some burns in order to increase the plant diversity. Maybe I should add that visit to the to-do list.

The beautiful day was almost as nice as the azaleas. It’s good to know these things still go on year after year in spite of us.

So it was an entirely unsuccessful botanizing trip. Maybe I’ll catch the lady slippers next year and the mountain laurel in a few weeks, but in the meantime I have tadpoles to watch. That’s not bad either, and it’s a good distraction from the endless daffodil digging and trudging around the garden with a water hose… rain would be nice just about now.

Have a great week. Mine has started out just fine, but I can’t help but laugh at the fact that no one questioned me about being gone for hours and returning with a dirty cup full of tadpoles.

Suddenly June

Jun7

The deck was cleaned and ready just after Memorial day. Considering how much extra time I supposedly have that isn’t much different than a “normal” year… and by normal I mean getting all the summer stuff up and running a week or two or three after everyone else does. Things just run late here, and I’m starting to see that maybe it’s more than just basic laziness. Maybe it’s laziness plus plain-old slow thats effecting how things run around here.

I did manage to do a front border cleanup of old tulip foliage and baby weeds, and at least that part of the garden looks promising.

Slow is just fine with me. A more generous person might say I’m not, and that I just overthink things, but unless your idea of overthinking includes an ADD journey of the mind then I don’t think it’s that either. Maybe it’s something else…. someone else accused me of being a perfectionist, but that’s clearly not what’s going on either and I gave a little laugh when they said it. One look around the garden really settles that point.

Iris ‘Demi Deuil’, an old, smaller iris with a cool pattern to it.

The garden is only now coming back into rights after the cold spell we went through in May. Iris season has been disappointing with many freeze-deformed and aborted flower stalks and blooms, and only a few of the amazing clumps which usually celebrate the finishing up of spring. Two years of excessively wet summers didn’t help as plants were rotting left and right, but I know they’ll be back. The bigger uncertainty is how many more I need for next year in order to fill this emotional void. I suspect there is some transplanting and dividing in store… maybe a few new ones as well 😉

A new allium this year, A.nigrum ‘Pink Jewel’. The white, straight species is so reliable I thought it was time to try one of the pinks. So far my impression is lukewarm but I’ll give it time.

Although thoughts of dividing the iris have already sprung up, there’s so much more to do first. Tulips and daffodils need digging, snowdrop seeds need sowing, weeding is endless, and the lawn always needs another cut. I should mulch as well, plus the potager re-design needs finishing up before the growing season rolls over into 2021. I should really give an update on that, but just a few more finishing touches before I bare my soul on that one. In the meantime at least the foundation beds are taking care of themselves…

The relaxed and overfilled foundation bed is completely unlike what a front foundation planting “should” be, but there are too many interesting plants out there to waste time on yew meatballs and few azaleas in a sea of mulch.

What might be the most anticipated plant of the year (possibly only by me) is the huge self-sown verbascum sitting right there in front of the house. It’s a weed. I know. But also so lush and promising, and I’m hoping it’s something just a little fancier than the regular run of the mill mulleins. I’ve let both grow here in the past, so it’s a crap shoot as far as seeing which one this will be, but it’s huge, so I love it.

Johnny jump ups trying to outgrow the mullein.

What I don’t love is weeding and planting the tropical garden. In a no-excuses gardening year I’m stuck weeding it properly and not doing the old throw-it-all-in-and-eventually-it-will-all-look-ok planting method. I don’t like it. It’s work, and I think the tropical bed’s days are numbered. We will see, but as of today a swath of sundrops (Oenothera fruticosa) which was slated to be removed, has been left, and although I never planted it there, leaving it in place sure is easier and a spot of low maintenance doesn’t sound bad today… even if that means a much smaller spot of the tropics.

The tropical garden in progress. Who doesn’t like a hit of bright color on their way to enjoy a day at the pool next door?

There will be other things to keep me occupied. Right now for some strange reason the wild back of the yard is my favorite spot to be occupied. I barely lift a finger there but love to watch the bugs and birds and see what all can happen on its own.

Tent caterpillars used to disgust me but once lily beetles, gypsy moths, and Japanese beetles moved in, these little tents of silk barely register. Maybe the birds will enjoy a snack, the apples off this tree are overrated, and there are still leaves on the tree, so it seems everyone wins a little when they stay.

I spent some of the first quarantine days digging various tree seedlings and shrub transplants into the berm that stands between us and the new Industrial park behind our house. They don’t look like much at all but in a few years…. maybe….you never know how well these things will do. In the meantime they’re alive, and some of the rooted rhododendron branches which I butchered off their mother in April are actually alive enough to bloom. Alongside the clovers and mustards and daisies it’s quite the show, but I’m not sure everyone around here prefers lively flowers over neatly mown embankments. Let them mow it themselves I say.

I’m endlessly fascinated by these new weedy little meadows alongside the berm. I don’t think it’s normal to be this obsessed, but who cares? So what if I get overly excited for a new weed showing up or a new wildflower opening, I think it’s grand, and all I have to do to enjoy it is mow a few walking paths.

I hate to leave you off talking about weeds, but after being covered in smartweed last year the berm has now transitioned over to all kinds of clover and grass. I don’t know what triggered the change but I suspect there was some fertilizer spread when they first seeded the slope, and now that its run out the smartweed is not happy.

Hopefully the red buckeye (aesculus pavia) can tolerate the full sun and dry soil of the berm. I’d like to see it expand into a nice sized shrubby tree.

So I could talk for a while about the types of grass, the relative attractiveness of their seed heads, the spreading daisies, the annoying crownvetch and mugwort which I still need to eliminate, the rudbeckia yet to come, and all the topsoil building which is taking place, but I’ll spare you. My fingers are sore from weeding and sanding and chiseling mortar and the typing isn’t helping much so you’re off the hook and I’ll just wish you a happy Sunday.

Let it Grow, Let it Grow, Let it Grow

Jun12

I really can’t complain about too much for the 2019 gardening season. Actually I really don’t have much to say at all about the 2019 season other than I still seem to be in my gardening funk. Last year all the gloom and rain did me in, but so far this year I haven’t been able to shake it (in spite of marginally less downpours and fewer rained out weekends). Don’t get me wrong, I’m still out in the garden any chance I get to check on what’s new and what’s grown, but overall it just seems like a lot of work to me. Maybe I’ll just end up taking a sabbatical this summer and see what fall brings.

What doesn’t help at all is that my work schedule has been really interfering with my garden time. May is a busy time to get planting and staking and I was stuck in Michigan for a week. June is a time to weed and watch things fill in and I’m stuck in Missouri for two weeks. Fortunately things should clear up by next week and garden projects can get going… or things can not get going. We’ll see.

At least I got back from Michigan in time to see the last of the iris in bloom and pull out some of the biggest weeds. Bigger weeds are much easier to find and pull when they get to the two foot stage, so I guess that’s a plus.

The front street border is well on its way to becoming the usual thicket with shrubs starting to crowd out the perennials. One of my favorites is the yellow ninebark (Physocarpus opulifolius ‘Aurea’) in the back.

In the weekend before I left again I tried to triage my way through the garden, chopping what I could, pulling what I should, and planting anything that wouldn’t survive two weeks of neglect (the family is completely unreliable when it comes to watering and such). To be honest I was more than a little sore as I stepped out of the car at the airport Sunday night. I lived though, and hopefully when I return this weekend it doesn’t look too much worse than when these last pictures were taken.

Let’s continue the farewell garden tour along the front foundation bed. Here the plantings are mostly lower maintenance and that’s a great thing this year.

The blue fescue border has come back enough to look acceptable (but a better gardener would probably still dig and divide the clumps to freshen them up). As the plantings settle in here, I’ve finally reached the point were I don’t not like the colors in this bed.

I am a little excited about one of the things in the front. The sweet william seedlings I’ve been nursing along for three years have finally bloomed, and although they’re much too dark to be showy I think they’re absolutely cool.

Dianthus barbatus ‘Sooty’, a dark red selection of the old fashioned biennial sweet william.

We’ll skip the just-planted-the-day-before-I-left-again tropical garden and go right over to the back of the yard. Here the weeds and grass seedlings have covered up the mud and muck of all the construction and we can finally just stare at our row of wind tossed Norway spruce. There will be plenty of time later to complain about how dull and lifeless the new barrier is, but for now I’ll just stick to complaining about how much more grass there is to mow back there. At least the chainlink fence is gone and the area looks neat… maybe too neat… how boring…

You’re looking at all the fill I was planning on using to level my own backyard. It’s all been covered nicely and seeded to lawn and I don’t think my mother in law would appreciate me bulldozering a few yards of it over into my low spots now, so guess who is out of luck…

With the completion of the berm we have far less dust and noise and lights streaming into our yard. Those are all pluses which I need to remind myself of as I contemplate a fast-growing barrier of evergreens sapping the light and view from our back yard. But it does look neat and tidy I guess…

More ninebark (Physocarpus opulifolius ‘Diablo’) in bloom. I love the foliage and shape of these shrubs, and if the garden was bigger I’d add a few more. Hmmmm, maybe the berm could use a couple 🙂

Iris are about the only other thing worth noting in the back. Last year’s swampy soil killed off nearly all the modern hybrids, but the older cultivars just kept doing what they do, and have me considering devoting more real estate to iris again.

The historic iris (these are mostly from the 40’s and 50’s) held on while their modern neighbors turned to mush. Obviously a better spot with improved drainage would be another option, but I like the less is more approach 😉

I guess it’s only been a few years since the last time I decided to devote more property to iris. Things go like that around here, but unfortunately in between planting passions other amazing ideas come up and things get crammed in all over.

This was a decent iris spot a few years ago but plant a shrub or two, some colchicums, some climbers, build a support for the climbers, and before you know it the iris are struggling along in the shade.

Replanting a few iris this summer should be do-able even if it means time away from the pool and a little kick in the butt motivation. Deep down inside I know it will be worth it next June when they crowd the borders with brilliant color.

Now if I can only first manage to get the deck planters planted.

The last bits from under the growlights. There was an abyssmal lack of seeds sown this winter, but for some reason I needed the orange Ornithogalum dubium bulbs, a dozen canna seedlings, and one cool little pink and white alstroemeria seedling that looks dissapointingly similar to her parent.

Who am I kidding. Instead of planting the deck containers I took another round through the garden to make sure nothing new happened without me. The sweetshrub is giving me its first year of decent bloom and I think the flowers are particularly cool.

A hybrid sweetshrub (Calycanthus ‘Aphrodite’). A scent would be nice, but for now the flowers are just fine.

If worse comes to worse I’ll just spend this summer wandering the garden, smelling flowers, and contemplating the life cycle of weeds. New plants are still going to be added, that’s a given, but maybe there’s just going to be a lot more mulch this year. I like mulch so. Mulching can be very zen 🙂

And Then It Was Summer

Jun9

Well now it’s official, the first roses are in bloom.

Rose, possibly ‘John Cabot’, opening up at the far end of the front border.

I don’t think anyone out there dislikes roses. They might not like growing them, but to dislike them or harbor worse opinions seems out of the question and even borderline suspicious to me. There are a few roses around here but I’ve tried to hold back. Rose Rosette Disease is in the wild roses all around us, and I’d hate to see it jump into the garden and decimate any big plantings I might end up putting in. Unless they’re irresistibly fragrant of course. The workhorses I have right now are barely fragrant, and at the start fo each summer I always give a little thought to adding something with a fierce perfume. This year I’m thinking rugosas, and we’ll see if I can hold strong or not.

A surprising return from last year, ‘Red Rum’ lupine. I still think it’s amazing and of course want more.

The front border along the street is still riding high with the last of the iris and alliums and a returning lupine star from last year. I was sure the lupine would would be a one and done wonder but here it is in year two looking even better. Between the lupine and some new allium schubertii I’m really pleased how it looks. Usually the iris are followed by a lull, but not this year!

A closer look at Allium schubertii. Not super showy, but definitely super cool.

You may have heard it mentioned that someone here is going through an iris phase. It’s true, and I guess it’s been building for longer than I’d care to admit. Two years ago ‘Bayberry Candle’ was added, and this year I’m seeing how a flower which is not bright nor flashy, can still be rich and amazing.

Iris ‘Bayberry Candle’ (1966)

It’s possible there have been other iris as well. ‘Gerald Darby’ was showing off his purple foliage earlier in the year and now has sent up several purple tinged flower stalks topped with several elegant (purple of course) flowers.

Iris ‘Gerald Darby’ in bloom.

These later iris are part of what I call the ‘water iris’ group. That term would likely make a more knowledgable iris grower cringe, but for me it’s one of the beardless iris which do well enough in occasionally soggy, and my always clayish soil, even to the point of sitting in water. I put the invasive yellow flag (Iris pseudacorus) in this group, and although it’s a little too sloppy for me I do have the brown veined ‘Berlin Tiger’ version which will hopefully not seed around and spread as much as the standard variety. This one has the distinction of being one of my most expensive iris, since even though the original plant was free from a friend (thanks Kathy!) I may have been tempted to search out similar varieties, order them from far away, and then add other things just to round out a decent order…. and I’m still thinking I should add a few more this summer…

The finely veined flowers of iris ‘Berlin Tiger’ are pretty darn interesting.

Moving out of the iris world it’s also peony season. On the plus side my garden is too small and this gardener is too fickle to invest in bunches and bunches of these. I’m counting that as a good thing since if it weren’t set up that way I’m sure I could devote quite a few beds to these opulent flowers and surely I’d go overboard.

Peony ‘Do Tell’ wallowing in a weedy side bed. I hope you believe that it’s been cleaned up since this photo was taken 😉

At this time of year the gardener is spending most of his time weeding and mowing, but what he really needs to do is finish planting. Last weekend overwintered bulbs went into the tropical garden, and in an attempt to buy some time from the weeds the lawn clippings were collected and spread around as a mulch.

Not the most attractive soil cover, but it sure beats an ocean of verbena and prickly lettuce seedlings. In a few weeks you hopefully won’t even notice it under all the new growth.

I do prefer thick perennial plantings as a way of crowding out weeds rather than the trouble of mulching and cultivating, but a full bed in June doesn’t leave much room for all those annuals I’d like to still add. Hopefully this doesn’t become a regret in August.

Amsonia hubrichtii in front with its oddly icy colored pale blue flowers, and Allium nigrum rising up in the center. I’ve been warned that the allium will be impossible to get rid of, so I pretend to be happy with its multiplying and just let it be.

Maybe I will whack a few things back today and sneak a few castor beans and cannas in. I also have a few orange marigolds which should really class things up, so maybe this weekend… In the meantime here’s one more picture of my little darling ‘Red Rum’ lupine, I honestly look at this plant a million times a day.

One last view of ‘Red Rum’. The color is exciting, just try to avoid spelling the name backwards.

All the best for this weekend. Hopefully you are either well into it or have already had an excellent time of it, I know I plan to 🙂

I just have to avoid the temptation of nursery hopping this weekend… in the hopes of finding some fragrant rugosa roses. We’ll see.

sorta like suburbia

more than you ever wanted to know about my garden

Category Archives: late spring