Flock Finger Lakes Visits

Aug17

Given the choice I will always turn down the stage and hide on the sidelines, but not everyone thinks that way, and where I naturally hate speaking in front of people, they do not. It amazes me to see this and to see people on stage, out front, capturing people’s attention and engaging an audience with ease and doing things like creating YouTube channels and traveling all over the world exploring places and talking to people. I met two of these people a few weeks ago, Summer Rayne who you’ll meet and Sander behind the camera, and they put together a video which I think is pretty cool. I’m sharing it here in spite of the fact I really prefer to feature plants instead of myself but I guess it’s one of those moments when I have to pull up the pants and be a big boy. Not bad for someone who not so long ago thought having a hand as part of a picture on this blog was too revealing… now there’s a whole ‘me’ on this blog, talking as well, complete with ratty t-shirt, who-knows-what hair and an old man scowl but whatever… I’ve already overthought this too much. >here’s a link<

So there you go. I hope you enjoyed the video as much as I did, they did an amazing job directing and keeping me on track, and Summer Rayne’s interest and enthusiasm really keeps the video fun. Biscuit helps as well, he’s got quite the stage presence and I hope he remembers us when Hollywood comes calling. In all I’m surprised at how well it turned out, the garden looks much better and more interesting than I see it on the daily, and at one point I turned to my daughter (we had a viewing party) and told her I wished I could visit that place. It was magical. Surprise and magic, that’s my attempt to turn things back around to plants, because late August is the start of Surprise aka magic lilies season…. also known as hurricane lilies or naked ladies but perhaps those are two things we shall not bring in to today’s post.

Pink magic lilies (Lycoris squamigera) are probably the most common magic lily to show up in the north. They seem to do best when abandoned and neglected so here they are amongst the trash and stored debris of the compost pile.

Things can get a little tedious mid August, as the heat and rain/not-rain drag on, but magic lilies can break that up nicely. Out of nowhere stalks shoot up and burst into bloom all in a matter of days, and it really can be a surprise to see them out and blooming… unless they’re not. The not-part is where the disclaimer comes in. These plants can be jerks. They can sulk, fade away, take a year off, they’re not like Biscuit, all excited and anxious to please, they’re more like cats and don’t really care about what you want. Sun? Not that sun, I want shade until it’s too much shade. Feed me but not that food, but I know I’m hungry… Here are more flowers than you can imagine, no wait… I’m not feeling it this year…

Lycoris sanguinea, the orange surprise lily is apparently feeling it this year. It’s in a terrible spot but I don’t dare move it since there may be another four year gap in blooms as it works through whatever insult it feels.

The magic lilies don’t last all that long, but there are (hopefully) a few more later varieties yet to bloom. If you can drag yourself out through the humidity and bugs at least they give something new and exciting to see each morning before the heat drives you back inside. Magic lilies aren’t really true lilies, but there is a true lily I’d like to add in here as another reason to brave the outdoors. The Formosan lily (Lilium formosanum) blooms now as well, and this flower is Biscuit-approved. Not for eating of course since I think they might be toxic, but for something cool to admire in mid August this lily is… dare I say, easy? There is a dwarf form, but the ones growing here are the tall form and usually manage five feet but this year with all the rain seven plus feet is not unheard of. Fragrant, perfectly formed, like a giant easter lily (which some people don’t like, so if that’s the case skip this one) the Formosan lily can grow to blooming size in its first year from seed. I of course could never care for a plant that well, but even here they’re in flower the second year and they do seed around the garden if their seed can ripen before the first real freeze.

Pure white, fragrant flowers is what Lilium formosanum offers. Just watch out for those disgusting red lily beetles since they’re about the only thing which can bring this giant down.

I think you’ve heard enough from me today so I’ll just add one more thing. A trumpet flower, but not a lily, Brugmansia suaveolens is hitting its summer stride. This angel trumpet is a tropical shrub so I have my favorite local nursery to thank for a decent-sized plant, but I hope to overwinter it and have an even better show next year. They’re another easy to grow thing but just ask for endless water and fertilizer in order to look happy, and usually I slack in this regard but since I paid for this plant I’m really making an effort. It’s possible someone has already given me a cutting for a pink version, and perhaps I can round up a white and yellow cutting before next year and perhaps this means I’m obsessing about angel trumpets again but who’s really keeping track. It’s basically a zucchini, if you can grow that you can grow these, just without the fear of missing a harvest and ending up with a caveman club in your veggie bed. I guess I should mention that although I’m replacing zucchini plants with brugmansia in the potager, don’t nibble it during the garden tour since it’s quite poisonous.

Brugmansia suaveolens with canna ‘Bengal Tiger’ planted too closely. As long as it feels like the tropics here we might as well enjoy the look as well, and the fragrance too since the brugmansia is very fragrant once night falls.

So that’s a somewhat rushed summary of the garden. There’s more going on here and I’d like to go on about it but I’ll guess that this rambling on and a pretty long video are plenty so perhaps next post. Obviously that could be a while, this appears to be the ‘keep up with nothing’ summer and not the ‘finally post regularly, visit all my blogging friends, keep the weeds back, finish the projects’ summer which I always imagine but it’s still pretty good, even with someone needing senior pictures this afternoon rather than help with her scooter and I don’t know how that came around so fast either.

Hope you enjoy the video and the upcoming week.

The Livin’ is Easy

Jul31

This summer is going by way too fast and I am not liking that. Just a day left in July and then it’s August and once August starts my summer days are numbered, and it seems particularly frantic because I still have tulips and daffodils and snowdrops which I’ve been meaning to dig since June as well as a bunch of potted things which I’ve been whispering apologies to all spring and summer as I keep putting off that job as well. Don’t even ask me how the drip irrigation is going. It’s been raining enough that watering has rarely come up on the to-do list, so of course repairing the drip setup keeps getting knocked off the top of the list, and I mention that one in particular because I had to go around this morning and save wilted things since of course I don’t water until it’s too late. Have I mentioned in the last few breaths how much I hate watering? Probably, but let me say it again. I’d rather risk heatstroke weeding in the sun for a couple hours dripping sweat and covered in dirt rather than drag that stupid hose around.

The front border is lush and overgrown due to this summer’s steady rains. Even I think it might be a little “much” for along the street, but better too much than too little is what I say. This is lilium “Scheherazade” doing well, and also not on the lily beetle menu (yet) so that’s also good.

Risking heatstroke and actual heatstroke aren’t separated by much, and with our third day over 90F (32+C) I’m trying to walk the line and avoid drifting over to the actual part. Despite my love of lawn chairs and pool floats I’ve been far too busy outside feeding the gnats and losing water weight as I toil in the fields. Maybe that’s not the worst training considering our potential future, but for now I do it for the fun of gardening and imagine Martha and Monty just as sweaty and disgusting in the heat of summer when they have their own daylily farms to rebuild.

A daylily farm is rising from the ashes. I’ve regraded and seeded the grass path, and as of today I’m happy to report a green shimmer as the seeds begin to sprout.

My gosh, please skip ahead if you want to avoid the complaining, but it all started when I called the town a few days into staring at the bulldozed remains of my daylilies. ‘So what’s the plan?’ I asked… and then entered into a discussion which became quite vigorous after I realized they thought I wanted to do all the repairs myself. I did say that at the start when a hole at the street meant putting a few rocks back and maybe replanting a ninebark, but when the bulldozer and destruction moved twenty more feet into my yard and left a swath of raw shale and compacted topsoil, I assumed they might be able to spot me a little topsoil and mulch, even if they didn’t replace the farm or do any of the actual work. A meeting was set up. In the meantime I got to work.

First try to save a few things. About half the daylilies were left with crowns so I uncovered them and gave them a little feed. A few other things were uncovered along the street, and there might be hope for them over the next few weeks. All my stones were buried, but one of the backhoe operators set aside a few new ones he found, and I got brave and split a bigger one to end up with two big stepping stones along the street. The basketball hoop went back and then I regraded my little grass path. In all I probably pickaxed and hauled off about 20 wheelbarrows of stony, shaley dirt to lower the grade and then tried to spread whatever topsoil they left into the beds. That was awful, backbreaking work but then because I like a nice edge to a new lawn path, I dug up turf from in back and used it as sod to line the sides of the path. Then the easy part of seed, topped with lawn clippings to keep the seed damp long enough to sprout, and then wait. As of today, about a week later, the daylilies are sending up new growth, the grass seed is sprouting, and I’ve even popped in a few odds and ends like a new daylily or two, and some spare cannas and elephant ears to make it look less depressing.

There’s hope.

Since I took these photos, the town has come through with some mulch and topsoil, so more blood and sweat was shared for that, and we will see about the rest of the deal. Hopefully the next farm report will be overwhelmingly amazing. I have put some mulch down so I know at least that will be nice, and I’m in the process of picking daylilies to move in…. but enough of that… let’s look at where the rest of the garden is during these last days of July.

The agapanthus are blooming, and over the years ‘Blue Yonder’ has become a clump. I love it.

I have nothing bad to say about the agapanthus this year. They get no special attention yet are covered with blooms and have been perfectly hardy here for a number of years, with winter lows down to about zero and no protective mulch or sheltered location. It looks like a few have enjoyed all this year’s rains, but even in dry years they haven’t seemed to complain too much. I guess they’re as easy as daylilies, so I wonder if I can divide ‘Blue Yonder’ (my absolute favorite) and line out a row in the farm…. which would be awesome…

Some agapanthus from seed. These are A. campanulatus forms, the seeds of which were coincidentally saved from the bulldozers during the last sewer incident.

I guess I need to mention that not all agapanthus will be as hardy. If you’re in a northern area, check up on the hardiness rating before you plant it, out in full sun of course and then never do another thing for it other than admire the blooms and bask in the compliments.

A dwarf white form given to me as seedlings from a white Seneca Hills Nursery(Ellen Hornig) selection.

Here’s one more look at ‘Blue Yonder’ 😉

‘Blue Yonder’ has a richer color and flower heads packed with later flower buds, giving it a longer bloom time than some of the others.

I don’t know if I’d consider the agapanthus to be borderline hardy in my zone, I guess only a truly brutal winter would settle that, but I do consider some of the Crinum lilies I have planted to be borderline. Two other forms are less than enthusiastic about life here in NePa but ‘Cecil Houdyshel’ increases in size and puts out a couple flower stalks each year so we shall only talk about that one.

Crinum ‘Cecil Houdyshel’ in front of the dark foliage of ‘Royal Purple’ smokebush, alongside the driveway. Very elegant in my opinion.

As you would suspect, I don’t give this one any winter protection, and after our normal lows last year I was a little worried, but slowly he came back to life. All the rain and humidity and heat must really have him feeling at home this summer, so hopefully there will be several more bloom stalks to come.

Cecil has a decent form, not as sloppy a mess as some crinum like to be but that’s just my opinion based on one plant and almost no other crinum experience.

Seems like we’ve left the daylily farm for a Southern excursion, so here’s another thing from down South. Standing cypress (Ipomopsis rubra) is a native to Southeastern North America, or plain America as we in the US like to say, and it’s a cool thing. The hummingbirds agree, and they’re aways buzzing this part of the garden when it’s blooming. Two things though. Everywhere I see it referred to as a biennial or short lived perennial and that’s fine, these plants are from a new seed source and they grew fuzzy rosettes last year with a five foot stalk erupting this summer, but the ones I grow from another source are strictly annuals and never form rosettes and never live beyond year one. Who knows. It’s above my pay grade to wonder if they are all the same species but these are the curiosities which live in my brain so I’m sorry to put it in yours now.

Ipomopsis rubra, paired with the lovely neon green foliage of pokeweed (Phytolacca americana ‘Sunny Side Up’)

The potager is another curiosity. I wonder if I can still call it a potager when 90% of the plantings are not-vegetables, but can’t quite bring myself to admit it’s become another flower farm. Perhaps there’s an authoritative number listed somewhere in France for potager percentages but do supposedly-edible dahlia roots and figs-which-will-never-produce-figs count as veggies and fruit?

Cannas are blooming quite well in and around the potager. This is ‘Cannanova Rose’, an easy, quick to bloom selection which even comes true from seed.

Whatever. Potager it shall remain. If I can get away with calling a couple rows of daylilies a farm than I can stick with potager for this.

My little tropical hiding spot in the potager. Bananas are totally edible and potager approved even if there’s next to no chance I’ll ever see fruit, but the foliage makes up for any missing banana harvest.

I refuse to share a photo of my pathetically anemic tomatoes or the deer-chewed pepper stubs but I will share a single phlox photo. Only one because the rain-fueled hydrangeas have crowded nearly everything else out, but one should get the point across.

The garden phlox are a little late due to an early season deer pruning but they’re finally making a show.

Can I put in a good word for pears? As of today the tree is overloaded with a heavy crop, and although the gardener should have thinned them out for better quality (and to save the tree from collapse) my hope is that a few escape the deer and squirrels and chipmunks and make it to the dinner table. A bushel of Bartlett pears will really put the potager accounting into the black in a way that 3 raspberries, 7 gooseberries, and a half handful of blueberries will not. Someone really should have netted the berry bushes rather than continuously hope the birds ‘miss a few’.

This year’s Bartlett pear crop, heavier each day and hopefully not too heavy.

Maybe the berries didn’t go far in feeding the household, but they did contribute to a steady stream of fledglings coming out of the garden. I don’t really mind the loss, and actually resist netting the fruits since the dopey youngsters tend to get tangled and I prefer a fruitless pancake over a traumatic bird un-netting.

Yet another robin leaving the nest.

So that’s where we’re at. A lot of rambling so I’m wondering if perhaps the heat got to me more than I care to admit but hopefully there was something of interest in there. In spite of all the work summer is still quite excellent and so is the air conditioning when the heat gets to be too much so I really can’t complain. Enjoy your week!

A Clean Slate

Jul23

Well here’s a first. I had photos and a post started, with the usual apologies about the delay and how the pictures were already outdated, and promises to do better next time, and how this would still be the year things turn around completely and I bringing timely posts and amazing content, and then I deleted it. Not through some silly mistake, but because things changed here so much that none of it mattered anymore, and all that anticipation for the daylily farm season became pointless. I liked my daylily farm. It was fun. You may have already noticed the past tense.

I shouldn’t like all the soft colors and fancy ruffles on this Brookside Beauty seedling but I do.

So let me start the story by saying the farm was amazing a week ago with overcrowded plants blooming at their peak with more buds than ever before. It was a garden filled to capacity and I was almost willing to say it looked perfect… except what gardener ever thinks their garden looks perfect… but it was closer than I usually get so things were quite pleasing. I could almost finish the entire morning coffee in the daylily farm alone, and outside the dog becoming bored stuck in one place so long it was the place to be.

I’m starting to like the browns and smoky colors as well. They’re not as showy but…

I even reached the point were I said I really have to do something here, they’re getting crowded and it’s time for a few to move on. Some pictures were taken. A marketing and sales plan was put together. The daylily farm was about to become a cash cow I’m sure 😉

Another pale, yet simpler bloom, ‘Bus Stop’ calms the morning sun on a day which breaks humid and hot.

‘Lake Lurie’ has a paler eye zone and guess what? I’m really starting to like these as well

Here’s one last picture of the daylily farm. I took it with the intentions of posting a sale for anyone local who was interested in helping me clear the fields. Notice the backhoe near the street.

One last farm picture. Peak bloom. The grim reaper sits at the street, slightly hidden by the golden ninebark.

That photo became the before picture for when I needed to show the township just how much was lost. A sewer issue for the house next door warranted a hole near the street for repairs. They told me what needed to be done and I said no problem. “We’ll fix it back as good or better” was the promise, and there was the possibility they’d go as far as five feet in from the street and I might possibly lose the yellow ninebark which blocks some of the excavator from sight in the before picture.

Destruction. The whole daylily farm is bulldozed as well as the lawn and some of the front border.

I was home at the time and had checked in after they dug down to the sewer line. I saw the ninebark go and was a little sad but that’s fine, I was warned. Of course the air conditioning broke that same day so when the repairman came by and we walked out there to check on the unit I almost went into shock when I saw how far things went. Some of the line was damaged during digging, some of the hole collapsed in from under the street, the holes go down at least ten feet and we needed a bigger hole and that’s a lot of dirt and it had to go somewhere. The destroyed daylilies were one thing but snowdrops were also in the area, and it’s not promising to imagine a tiny bulb an inch or two down in the soil being able to stand its ground against a four ton excavator. The daylilies I can replace but the snowdrops not so much. Of course there were a few real expensive ones planted on the edges of the farm beds and around the weeping spruce.

Welcome to Garret Hill Daylilies, a real daylily farm. Where better to go when you’ve lost nearly 100 large, blooming clumps!?

Fortunately the trials of this garden are all manageable. Things could be much worse and most importantly my mom was able to visit just the week before when everything was much cheerier. I’ve already started the repairs, and no, they’re not doing them I am because I want it just so and their version of landscaped might not match mine. I can’t really fault them. Things happen, they could have let me know when they were coming so far onto my property, but when you’re ten feet down in a hole which could collapse around you I understand that’s a little more important. We’re still working out the details of what will make it right again.

The dust is still settling and I’ve already picked up three new clumps to ease the pain! Money can’t buy happiness but it can buy daylilies at least and that’s a start.

So I visited my local daylily farm, Garret Hill Daylilies in Honesdale Pa and started the unnecessary task of finding replacements. Yes I need replacements and they have so many cool varieties available but who among you thought I wouldn’t have a few backups around my own garden? I do and they need moving and more room but I think the healing process should include daylily farms and even more new daylilies 🙂

This one could be divided and for some reason I really like the wide open flowers even if I can’t remember the name at this moment.

The one downside is I’m repairing the damage and creating nearly the same garden as I had before and that’s totally not how I like to roll. Deja vu should be a mysterious feeling, not the realization that I did this all two years ago when my own sewer line was dug for different reasons. I’m building back better which is good, but I wouldn’t be doing this if I had the choice.

Daylilies in with the tomatoes? A good excuse to not plant as many vegetables, but these guys really deserve more room and their own space.

So that’s where I’m at. I get new plants and just have to ignore bulldozer tracks, crushed plants, deer visits, lanternfly plagues, gnat swarms, too much lawn mowing, too much container plant watering, and all the other surprises which a gardener deals with each year. It’s what we sign up for so please don’t feel bad for me, I’m really not upset about it anymore and the only thing still annoying me is the mud and waiting for mulch to arrive.

Hope your July is far less dramatic and you’re enjoying summer as much as I am! …hmmm, reading that back it sounds mildly sarcastic, but summer really is pretty excellent even when you’re losing shoes in the mud and the sweat is running down your face. There’s always the pool and a drink followed by lightning bugs and a fragrant night blooming daylily and you can’t get that in November. Have a great week 🙂

Pineapple Season

Aug9

It’s pineapple season here at Sorta Suburbia, and that would be the bloom season of sorta-pineapples, aka pineapple lilies, aka Eucomis in case you were wondering. Eucomis are an easy to grow South African bulb which I’ve recently discovered are hardier than you’d think.

eucomis oakhurst sparkling burgundy seedling

‘Oakhurst’ is a form of Eucomis comosa which comes up with dark purple foliage and and stems. This seedling comes up dark but fades a bit in the heat and dry of July, but I suspect its named parent would do the same here.

The first bulbs which I risked leaving in the ground year round were a bunch of ‘Sparkling Burgundy’ seedlings which just came out of nowhere one year. Actually I sowed the seed two years before so it was entirely my fault they were here and I had more than I needed, but from my experiences they sprout easily from seed. Mine were sprinkled into a pot one January, covered with a thin layer of grit and thrown out onto the sidewalk next to the garage to sit until the freezing weather until spring when they sprouted. Simple enough, right? I’m sure you have your own methods but sometimes I feel people are too impressed when I say something was grown from seed, so let me just say don’t be. Plants do it all the time, and I find the biggest struggle is getting the gardener to actually get them in the dirt.

Seedlings of Eucomis ‘Sparkling Burgundy’ planted in too much shade near the house foundation. They would likely be darker and less-floppy in more sun.

Once you have the plants going there’s not much else to do. Mine are in full sun to part shade, decent soil, ok drainage… they’re not difficult. Since this is not always a well-cared for garden I can say with authority they don’t particularly like really poor soil or a real hot and dry location, but a little attention to watering and feeding in your own garden would fix that.

Eucomis bicolor after its first winter in the ground. The speckling on this plant is a nice touch.

The first experimental plantings of the E. comosa seedlings is now pushing probably eight years with no fussing on my part and not a single plant has been lost. Our winters can dip below zero (-18C) as a winter low and the ground freezes deeper than the bulbs are, so I’d say they’re pretty hardy. Silly me to not think that any of their pineapple lily cousins would also be hardy, but it took a friend showing a photo of his plantings online for me to get that message. I left my E. bicolor bulbs out last winter and they were also fine. Our winter was extremely mild so I can’t personally say these are also exceptionally hardy, but word is they can be.

The flower details on the blooms of Eucomis bicolor are always cool. Maybe a few more seedlings and a bigger patch of this could be justified.

I’ve also been told there’s a really good chance my dearest pet of a Eucomis could also be perfectly hardy. ‘Freckles’ is smaller growing hybrid of E. vandermerwei that has been enjoying the potted life here for at least ten years. Pot goes out in the spring, pot goes into the garage in the fall, and sits in the dry dark for six months until the process repeats. It’s a no-brain process, but some would suggest I have too many plants in pots, so perhaps this will also break free of the potted life either this summer or next spring.

Eucomis ‘Freckles’ is a lower growing plant which shows the cool purple mottling of the species E. vandermerwei. It’s a late summer bloomer and is just starting to send up its little ‘pineapples’.

Two weeks ago the gardener here was looking for empty terra cotta pots and there was nothing to be found, so he decided he was bored with his last Eucomis, E. autumnalis, so he tossed it onto the compost pile. So much for that. After all these new thoughts on hardiness he has gone through the compost, found the roots, and given it a spot in one of the beds. Autumnalis looks a little worse for wear for its ‘adventure’ but in this garden that barely stands out.

Eucomis ‘Freckles’ from a prior year. Quite an adorable little thing in or out of bloom.

So that’s it for my pineapple lily sales pitch. One disclaimer is that the bloom stalks often flop after a couple weeks, but you’ll have to see for yourself if that bothers you or is worth staking for… and you can guess what my opinion on that is… and the final fun fact is that Eucomis can be somewhat easily propagated via leaf cuttings. If you’ve never done it give leaf cuttings a try, to me it’s one of those odd things which shouldn’t work but it does. Chop a leaf into two inch sections, stick them right side up into some potting soil and wait. Small roots and eventually bulbs will form and there you go. Snake plants (Sansevieria) will also work this way, so if you’re out of pineapple lilies try a snakeplant for now.

All the best for an excellent weekend. We are weathering the downpours of tropical storm Debby today which will be followed by cooler, dryer weather and I’m not sure how I feel about the cooler part. Low 80’s is entirely seasonal but after a stretch of 90’s it sounds almost chilly and makes me think of what lies in store. Hopefully a few days of sunshine which doesn’t make you melt can make up for that. Enjoy!

Less Work

Aug6

Every August there comes a point when I realize the garden is a lot of work, and as I stand there with itchy bug bites, sweat running into my eyes, and dirt all over (with a little blood here and there too) I realize it’s not always fun either. To that end I told the boy that on second thought he’s got to take out a bigger loan for college, and I was going to go ahead and use that budget line to buy some mulch after all. Mulch is a labor-saver, it looks neat, saves on watering, and keeps the weeds down and would be an excellent way out… until it was dumped in the driveway and someone had to spread it. More work, and the boy was oddly standoffish when I suggested he help.

Agapanthus ‘Blue Yonder’ has survived transplanting and division, and I was even able to split a bit off for a friend… although deep down I still wanted to keep it all to myself since it’s such a cool plant!

So for the last week there’s been more sweat and blood given for the garden, and again I’m wondering why I’m allowed to make these decisions without any real adult supervision. It’s obviously my own fault, but in the meantime there’s been more rain (and a relentless blanket of heat and humidity) and even with additional purges for the mulch to go down the garden does look pretty good and at least now the suffering isn’t all a wasted effort.

Holy color! My latest crape myrtle addition (Lagerstroemia ‘Tuscarora’) has burst into bloom and I think it’s the greatest thing. Southerners will yawn but I’m quite pleased. Fingers crossed it can overwinter decently enough to bloom again.

Besides making my life easier by having a well-mulched garden, I’ve also continued on my quest to add an increasing number of border-line hardy plants which will need more coddling than usual in order to do well, and obviously this goes against any less-work initiatives. “Zone Pushing” is what some people call it, but I’m going to go all silly on you and claim it’s just me getting a jump on global warming. Argue any point you’d like but when each ski season is worse than the last I would suggest the zones are creeping North and sooner or later will match my horticultural hopes. Agapanthus have been doing well for a number of years (hardy deciduous forms, not the evergreen types), hardier forms of Crinum lilies have had no problem overwintering for three years, and now I’m trying Crape myrtle again. The ones I planted years ago at my parents’ house on Long Island used to freeze back regularly but are now taking on tree proportions, so I think I can at least get away with them being root-hardy if not top-hardy. The two dwarf ‘Barista’ series shrubs I planted last summer are back this year and full of buds, so there’s hope.

Our hot and dry stretch has singed most of the lawns, but for a sunflower in a crack at the end of the driveway? No problem. I’m stupid for not just growing a yard full of sunflowers.

Something which seems like it should be a lot of trouble and work, but really is not… and is also absolutely hardy as well… are the Cyclamen purpurascens which are coming into bloom now. Unlike the other species of winter-growing hardy cyclamen, these tend to be evergreen and will bloom in August over a nice cover of patterned foliage. I’m tempted to go on and on about them but I’ll spare you the rambling and just say give them a try, and if they’re not happy try them somewhere else since these took a while to find their happy place. The best patches are under the carpenter ant infested cherry tree where it appears the ants have tossed the seeds they collect after they’ve eaten off the sweet coating at the nest, and the seeds happily germinate and grow in what would seem like a terrible spot.

Cyclamen purpurascens coming into bloom in the shade of a weeping cherry. They should continue flowering for several weeks, regardless of drought or heat or humidity.

So that wasn’t bad. I was barely distracted by the first cyclamen coming into bloom, and I also didn’t even mention that I’ve been digging and examining and dividing clumps of snowdrops as I mulch my way through the garden… but I will mention the waste space instead. The weeds were neatly mown for June’s graduation party and then mown again… and again, alongside the rest of the lawn since I guess that’s what one does when you’re trying to keep things neat, but of course that’s boring. And work, and it being work isn’t a deal breaker, but when it’s also boring and pointless as well, then I must object. Better to pickaxe a shallow hole in the horribly poor soil and throw in a few pumpkin seeds. Or ‘maybe-pumpkin’ seeds since they’re seeds which have been sitting in cups on a garage shelf for years and I can’t remember which amazing pumpkin or squash or gourds contributed the seeds several autumns past.

The waste space is now a pumpkin patch. If the rains and heat keep up there might still be enough time for some kind of late season squash to ripen, and if not… squash are always fun to watch grow.

Starting a pumpkin patch wasn’t much work at all but then when the anonymous seed actually started to grow, I felt guilty that the soil was so bad. When it dried out, any attempts to water would just run off, so maybe a mulch of free municipal compost could help. Then another two runs for compost happened because there’s no sense in being skimpy with free compost… and might as well scratch in a little 10-10-10 since this is all just construction fill and even maybe-pumpkins need some help to not look anemic… and then when you’re not mowing the weeds they grow tall and might shade the maybe-pumpkins, so better pull a few… and here we are. I don’t suggest you reduce your workload by starting a pumpkin patch.

And with a pumpkin patch to distract, and maybe even a few more spur of the moment crape myrtles ordered and in need of planting, you can see how well the mulch is reducing my workload this summer. Tomorrow marks one week of it sitting in the driveway and all I did yesterday was buy another bromeliad, and all I did today was repot a begonia. I guess I’ll have to get back at it tomorrow. Or not. There are just a few more snowdrops to attend to before I can mulch, and snowdrops can’t be rushed. It will all be worth it though, no more weeding and I’ll finally be on easy street… right?

Oh those lazy days of summer. I hope you’re enjoying them as well!

Love and Hate

Jul25

We went on a little trip a few days ago and were gone for barely two days and the garden fell apart. It was mostly the fault of the weather as temperatures sat in the mid 90’s each day (35C) but it didn’t reflect well on my plantings and I was generally disgusted to see them all go to pieces in such a short time. This post would have had a much more one-sided title had I put it together that next day, but fortunately things move slowly here and I’ve had a few days to reflect and recover before putting things into words (and pictures). Plus it rained. A summer rain storm can change everything, and between that and some directed culling and chopping and fertilizing, there’s a slight air of positive vibes drifting through the yard again.

Pots of succulents can withstand quite some abuse, so are perfect for the roadtripping gardener. Tools scattered about can also make things look busier than they really are… until someone asks when the last time they were used was…

As usual much of the problem is the gardener’s fault. Normally drip lines on a timer nurse nearly all the potted plantings throughout the summer, but “I think I’ll just rip them all out since I should probably re-think the layout” happened when the deck was worked on, and re-thinking doesn’t really get water to plants as well as a drip line does. So once the gardener chose to continue gardening for the year, the first thing on the list was watering containers. It should have been repair the drip lines, but it wasn’t, and it also wasn’t the second thing. The second thing was to either cleanup, repot, or toss any of the succulents which weren’t already out on the summering wall. I’d been holding quite a few back because they weren’t quite display-ready, but after seeing how they were the only things not complaining about summer I decided to reward them with a little attention. It worked, and things look better, and best of all anything which looked sad or filled with complaints was tossed. My theory on the last succulent pots was the same as what normal people apply to their wardrobe. Anything you don’t use or love or haven’t worn yet this season goes on to the ‘goodwill pile’ and gets recycled as compost 🙂

The sloppy little stone wall is again topped with various potted succulents and somehow I’m short on pots again. That could be an easy fix but the gardener is not allowed to visit the terracotta isle any more.

Purging the pots was a relief, and then trimming the box hedge and mowing the lawn were also excellent jobs for improving the gardener’s outlook. The lawn doesn’t really need mowing, but the weeds in it do, and trimmed up they look so much better.

Then I looked at the flower beds and purged them as well. Mid summer should be a lush highlight for the garden, but the heat has taken a toll and in the mood I was in there was no room for tired plants. So now I have empty spots and need mulch, but who doesn’t like spreading mulch in the middle of summer? Fortunately that same day we also opened the envelope containing the bill for the boy’s first year of college, and seeing that ‘realigned’ how much of the budget was going into mulch purchases!

Tulips (and plenty of weeds) finally came out of this bed early in the month and all the leftover cuttings and roots and tubers from the garage went in. There is a new crape myrtle, and it’s so full of buds I don’t even care if it’s hardy or not!

Summary so far: Most of the garden has been composted, but at least it looks neat. A good rain has helped.

A few of the ‘toothy’ daylily seedlings which have been added to the garden. They’re interesting and I think I like them, but I’m more of a craftsman style, and less Louis XVI.

The gardener should stop complaining. Flowers abound, the pool is perfect, the agapanthus are starting, and nearly every evening is filled with fireflies.

A few seeds were collected off the hardy agapanthus a few weeks before they were bulldozed into oblivion and now two years later we again have blooms. I’m quite happy with them.

Maybe now we will finally get to the stupid drip irrigation. It’s not hard at all to set up, but the gardener hates crouching under the deck to run the lines, and he knows he has to do a nice job this time since everything else looks halfway decent and a bunch of lines thrown around would not show well.

Have a great week and I hope your summer garden is doing well. If not I suggest a purge, a little mulch, and maybe a new succulent and things may improve immeasurably 🙂

The Daylily Farm

Jul7

Summer is going swimmingly, and although it’s been hot we’ve been fairly lucky with rain so the plants are holding up well and the gardener is glad he doesn’t have to drag a hose around any more than he has to. Not that he would, since our gardener tends more towards lazy than to ‘an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure’, but he does feel guilty every now and then when the same plant cries out for help each time he passes and he has to mumble a “sorry, I know this wasn’t part of the deal when I brought you home”…

The daylily farm

One plant which does seem to take all the neglect in stride is the daylily (Hemerocallis). Like dahlias and cannas, they’re not everyone’s cup of tea, but since the gardener is a coffee drinker anyway, it was just a matter of time until problems developed. A visit to a real daylily farm two years ago triggered the problem and of course with no friends willing to step in and squash it, things escalated. Actually friends suggested more visits, friends dropped daylilies off, friends invited the gardener over to ‘dig a few’…

Some goodies in the beds of the daylily farm

A few friends shook their heads and recommended counseling, or more finishing up of home improvement projects, but the gardener enjoyed visiting these daylily farms and with new plants rolling in left and right it seemed only logical to start his own. Sensible people pointed out there’s no room for a farm. The gardener laughed.

A friend gave me ‘Hawkwoman’ and she’s a star. A heavy bloomer with flowers nearly a foot across!

So now I have a daylily farm. A friend implied madness when confronted with several beds of daylilies filled with dozens of varieties in a garden which recently held only three, and I had to somewhat agree although he’s not one to talk with his house full of thrift store finds. Mine is clearly a business venture, so it’s ok. Small businesses are ok and so are entrepreneurs, and although the flow of daylilies is still only a one way stream into the garden I’m sure it will be turning a profit in no time. Think of how many farmers you know buzzing around in expensive sports cars and sipping lattes all summer. That could easily be me.

‘Nona’s Garnet Spider’ in one of the production (not sales) beds.

But until I decide to sell something the ‘sales beds’ are still just an excuse to line out daylilies in big blocks just because it’s cool as well as the other big plus. Having a daylily farm in your very own yard also keeps the gardener in the garden, since apparently it’s frowned upon for him to be off visiting other daylily farms every weekend in July.

‘Cosmic Struggle’ is another reliable, heavy bloomer who reblooms later in the season.

Maybe I will have a sale day this summer. Even after just two years they’re multiplying and maybe I don’t love every one as much as the next or I don’t need a row of ten plants of the same variety. It would be nice to have visitors at least since they do look nice this year and I think other plant nuts would enjoy it. In the meantime here are some more pictures of the madness. Not to single anyone out, but a blogger in Germany who might be named Cathy may have said they would welcome photos of daylilies a bit more than snowdrops and I didn’t know how to take that. How can you compare the diversity of shapes and colors and inherent grace of the snowdrop to that of the daylily? I don’t get it but here are a few more daylily photos with a little less babbling.

From a local breeder, ‘Brookside Mystery Date’ is a good growing, shorter plant with deliciously colored and textured blooms. I begged a friend to stop by the grower on their last open weekend to grab it for me since I was tortured by regret over not buying it earlier in the year.

Also from a local breeder, one of the unnamed Brookside Beauties which the farm offers. They’re seedlings they chose to leave unnamed, but couldn’t bear to toss out onto the compost pile.

For local people, the Brookside hybrids are the work of June and Dick Lambertson of Lambertson’s Daylilies. They were the farm which (unknown to them) started this all, and as they move into full retirement, Joann and Brad Lamberton (a coincidentally similar name but not related to the Lambertsons) of Garrett Hill Daylilies are picking up the legacy. And just to support my main supplier and dealer, I’m glad Garrett Hill has taken this on. They are building a beautiful spot and although I’m sure they question jumping in with both feet like this (on top of their day jobs!), a visit to their farm outside Honesdale Pa is a treat worth the trip.

Unnamed daylily seedlings purchased mailorder from Petal Pusher Daylilies in Fort Wayne Indiana. Some really cool forms came in my mixed box!

Green throated flowers are always interesting. Also an unnamed Petal Pusher seedling.

And “blue”? I’m not sure how I feel about this type since the color varies so much depending on the weather, but on this morning I was a fan!

One last unnamed seedling, possibly my favorite from Petal Pushers.

I could go on but I shall not. Just two final daylily confessions, the first being the Facebook page which was created to pollute the internet with even more daylily photos straight out of the farm here, and the second being the fact I’ve grown a few of my own seedlings here just to see if I could. You’re more than welcome to ‘like’ the Facebook page but the seedlings thing is a shady endeavor. With just a small patch of seedlings in bloom I realize I lack the vision and passion to produce anything which amazes anyone but myself, and of course I’m pleased with them, but they’re nothing special. Good news for the farm I guess, since it lacks the room for rows of seedlings, but on the down side it doesn’t stop me. I have dozens of new seedlings which need planting out this summer and I’m already eyeing pods forming on this year’s stalks 😉

One of the Sorta Suburbia seedlings

Gosh did I go on this morning, and still the house is quiet and breakfast has not been served so here’s the rest of the garden:

The potager is looking inviting and even a little under control. Vegetable plantings are sparse this summer, but you know something is always brewing 😉

The entry arch has clematis ‘Sweet Summer Love’ in full bloom. I was lukewarm the first year, but now that it’s hit its stride I’m a fan

I’ve finally managed to get a few nigella (aka love in a mist) seedling going, I don’t know why it took so long but I’m liking the airy look and the interesting seed pods which follow the bloom. It should be an easy reseeder now.

Blue hydrangeas are in bloom everywhere this year, since the non-winter failed to kill them back and a lack of late frosts spared the flower buds, This is hydrangea ‘Tuff Stuff’ which claims hardiness but has never bloomed like this before. I wouldn’t mind if this happened again some time.

The meadow garden is too shady now that the Aspen suckers have grown, but the rudbeckia is having a good year regardless. This area will be mown in August and kept cut until the fall.

I’ve been dabbling in red hot pokers and finally have a few which bloom reliably and for more than a week or two. Kniphofia ‘High Roller’ is just starting with several later buds still to come for an extended show.

The oxeye daisy season is getting a little messy and floppy, so out they come. The mower will take care of this mess, and hopefully the lawn can overwhelm the seedlings which this mess shall produce.

Still no sounds in this house, so I’ll end with just one more photo. The gardener added a few concrete blocks to the deck supply delivery and now it looks like there will be no new raised beds, rather a set of steps leading up the berm. That of course will involve more blocks, more leveling, more digging, and far more work than the gardener will consider on a day of rest but it’s going to sit in the back of his mind as a new source of guilt over an unfinished project which wasn’t even a project the week before. I’m sure it will be an excellent way to reach the top of the hill for weed control purposes.

That hill isn’t even safe. You almost broke your ankle last time you were strimming it.

So that’s pretty much the update from here. I shall now make some noise so someone feeds me and then spend the rest of the day either immersed in cooling water, hidden in the shade, or comfortable in the embrace of an air conditioning vent. Summer is pretty good and I wish it didn’t race by.

Enjoy your week!

Welcome August

Aug7

After a rough start to the year the garden is about where it’s usually at. I’m glad for that since in June it looked like a year of brown lawn and wilted flowers was ahead, but now things are mostly ok. I’d say totally ok, but when things dry out so much it takes a couple days straight of rain to really get into the soil, and in spite of frequent storms there are plenty of sloped and harder-soiled areas where things are back to wilting. Regardless, things look good enough and I’m happy with that.

The front border along the street is reveling in a full-summer show of perovskia and coneflowers, but sunflowers haven’t seeded in like they normally do. I blame the dry spring.

I’m also happy I put off planting annuals this spring. First of all there’s barely any room in the front border where I normally plant them, and second of all even with the rain here and there I’d still be watering them. One less job fits into my schedule perfectly!

I do like a woolly thistle (Cirsium eriophorum) here and there in the garden. Most visitors would accuse me of letting a weed grow, but I’m sure they’d understand when told it was planted here on purpose.

Maybe someone at some point said a dry summer would be the perfect time to ‘thin the flock’, create some space for mulch, spread some iris around, create a generally less cluttered and wild planting… but I think you know where that idea has landed.

Klasea bulgarica suffering along in a less-fertile and less-watered spot in the border than it would like, but it’s still a cool thing, even at five feet rather than seven.

It would be fun to complain endlessly about jobs not done and tasked shelved for the future, but let me first share a somewhat finished photo of the former construction road alongside the house. Something did get done this summer, and even with its lack of mulch (still hoping to get to that this fall), the emerging grass makes for a more inviting path than an uneven landscape of dumped concrete and roadside weeds.

I’m not sure anymore what the arc of stones was supposed to convey but it’s done and will likely stay this way for years, but at least the new grass makes sense, and will lead visitors up past the new daylily border, and allow them to oooh and ahhhh on their way to the daylily farm fields.

Since I think I heard someone ask why I wasn’t posting enough daylily photos, here are a few still in bloom this weekend. Late bloomers and rebloomers is how it is since the bulk of them wrapped up the show a week or two ago.

One of the nicest ones is this gift from my friend Paula. In theory I should divide it for the farm, but ‘Websters Pink Wonder’ might be something I need to hold on to for “evaluation” until I have a huge, huge, huge clump of it!

Also a gift, from another friend, is ‘Apricot Peace’. As other parts of the garden look a little worn out from the summer, this flower is as refreshing and delicious as any sun-riped summer fruit.

Since daylilies aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, here’s a break to look at the tropical garden. This end of the yard suffered through a lot of neglect as the gardener raced past this construction-ravaged part of the estate to go stick his head in the sand elsewhere, but after some time, rain, and lots of weeding, trimming, and rock-picking it’s at least less than a complete disaster. Actually it was Verbena bonariensis which saved the day. Its pollinator-filled haze of lavender-purple flowers covers up many of the sins of this season even if it does obscure the daylily flowers more than I’d like.

The tropical border. You may notice that the huge mound of yellow pokeweed (Phytolacca americana ‘Sunny Side Up’) is way to big for its space and way too much yellow, but I just don’t have the heart to trim it. You may also notice a lack of tropicals…

If I had to summarize for a sure-fire way of saving the late summer (full sun)garden, I’d say Verbena bonariensis, Hydrangea paniculata, and cannas. The three of them just ask for a little water and maybe some fertilizer, and BAM you’re a gardening rock star. Sadly I didn’t take a photo of the hydrangea this week, but how about this color from the cannas?

‘Cannanova Rose’, one of the newer seed strains of cannas, is disease free and flowers all summer and into fall if you just keep snapping off the seed pods. A plus for growing it in the North is the lack of canna roller caterpillars destroying the foliage, since they (and the cannas as well) can’t handle our winter cold.

What? More daylilies? You’ve got it.

‘Chama’ is a later daylily with a long season and big flowers. I’d say seek it out but with all the hundreds of other yellows out there I’m sure you could find something similar which is just as nice.

This Brookside Beauty seedling is not quite as average as a yellow. I picked it up this summer at my new favorite local daylily farm, Garrett Hill Daylilies, and maybe it’s too much of a lot of things but I’m quite happy with it.

It’s not all rippled edges and intense color. Here’s the more simple flower of a species daylily, Hemerocallis altissima (probably). Fragrant, tall, elegant, opens in the evening and then closes for the heat of the day, this daylily has a lot to offer as well.

Ok, let’s keep moving. The potager is beans, tomatoes and… daylilies now… I was fairly good for three years with my vegetables only policy (plus a few tulips), but that ship has left the pier. The beds are now filling with things like witch hazels and marigolds, cannas and phlox, and quite a few daylilies as well. It was a valiant fight but vegetables really are a lot of work, and the farm stand does it much, much better, so…. maybe we don’t need to grow our own cucumbers just in case we feel like eating a cucumber or twenty.

One of the few sunflowers to seed out this year… and a little short and small… but I’ll take it, as will the goldfinches I’m sure.

Right over the boxwood hedge of the potager is the stone wall which I went on and on about last year. It’s still there and it’s still the summer home for a few succulents, except for as hard as I tried there seem to be even more this summer. Someone will point out that I bought a few more .99 cent treasures on a summer plant trip, as well as a tiny box of cuttings and living stones last winter, but these aren’t even out there (they’re just too cool to put so far away), and all of these are just repots and divisions and cuttings. Someone needs to stop this ‘let me just take a few cuttings’ thing, just like the rabbits stopped the living stones thing. Had I known that the rabbits would consider the pots of living stones to be tasty little green jellybeans perfect for nibbling, I would have put them somewhere out of reach, but I didn’t and now they’re gone. Hmmmm, come to think of it my last living stone was the victim of a chipmunk attack. I guess they’re tasty little things and I should have known better.

Some of the old standbys which are apparently less tasty than living stones (Lithops).

So I guess I killed off the living stones through my own mistake. Actually the bunnies pulled a “propeller plant” off the wall and destroyed that, as well as a “lobster claw” which was also apparently too tasy to resist, so they’re not as cute and innocent as I like to think. Maybe I’ll just accept that and reconsider my succulent vetting process to include ‘easy to overwinter’, ‘thrives on neglect’, and ‘is not yummy for bunnies’ and move on. Trust me that any roadblock to the succulent collection growing is probably a good thing, especially when fall turns to winter and all those clay pots need lugging in.

Further down the wall. It doesn’t look too bad until you do a pot count, and it’s pretty much every last terracotta pot I own so another roadblock I set up is ‘no more terracotta pots’… unless it’s a really good sale… or they’re free… or it’s a really amazing pot…

Maybe you noticed the tiger lilies back past the succulent wall? They’re the double kind (Lilium lancifolium ‘Flore Pleno”) and I suppose I do like them in spite of their messiness, but what I don’t like is the arrival of those bright red lily beetles which eat more lily foliage than they should and produce entirely disgusting young who hide underneath a slimy, wet, bubble of poop as they also overeat their share of lily foliage. Because of the lily beetles I’m phasing out some of the clumps and trying to figure out which ones I can’t live without, and so far it’s the Asiatics, Martagon, and a few of the Regal lilies… only because they don’t handle late freezes well and have died back two of the last five years.

Lilium lancifolium ‘Flore Pleno’ spreading quite well in spite of the beetles and a good amount of shade.

Speaking of supporting more wildlife than I’d like, our ‘Liberty’ apple tree has set a decent crop of fruit this year and just about everyone seems to want a taste. When people ask questions like what to plant for wildlife I always think of things like apple trees, which seem to be under attack from every insect, disease, bird, mammal… it’s amazing they can survive from one year to the next. I wanted to try one though, and in an effort towards compromise chose a variety which was supposed to give the gardener “Freedom” from endless fussing and spraying. I guess nothing but bad taste will keep the animals away, but I think my photo does a good job at representing the cost of freedom.

Not spraying or putting in much effort at all does not produce the best foliage or fruit on an apple tree. How do they say it? Freedom does not come free? Definitely true in the case of this tree, but I think I’m fine with a handful of wormy apples to cut up and eaten outside versus bushels of fruit to deal with.

With an image of a diseased, nearly leafless apple tree I guess it’s not a stretch to go back behind the potager into the waste area. The grass which was seeded for new paths is coming up but only the weeds in the grass need mowing since for some reason the microgreens of the lawn are just one more thing which the rabbits cannot resist. They mow down the grass and leave the weeds. This isn’t how it was supposed to work but whatever, most of the weeds are Verbena seedlings and recent studies have shown there’s a 99.9% chance the gardener would rather have impassable paths of flowering verbena than neat grass.

Entering the waste space. Yeah that sunflower also came up where the path is supposed to be…

Change in plan is more the rule than the exception here, so besides grass paths turning into verbena fields you may recall there was a $3 box of canary seed thrown around back here in order to start a millet patch. Apparently what looked like millet wasn’t actually all millet and when some cabbagey stuff started growing I did some investigating and found out canola is also a seed birds will eat… and if anyone actually read the label they’d see canola right there after millet. So now there’s a millet and cannola patch in the waste space. Two fun facts I discovered about canola when I did my after-the-fact investigating were that 1. ‘Canola’ is short for ‘Canada oil, low acid’, a relatively recent Canadian plant creation of low acid rapeseed which became suitable for edible oil uses rather than industrial, and 2. Canola greens are much sought after by deer… which does not help at all as far as making my yard less-deer friendly.

The waste space has filled in quite quickly with weeds, canola, and millet, plus a bunch of barrow fulls of yard waste which were easier to dump here than on the compost pile. I guess it’s all about bringing life to the sterile fill, and sometimes life is messy.

So here I am talking about growing weeds intentionally again when I really should focus on my garden-rebuilding. Someday I’ll get it. Maybe. At least the waste area takes care of itself, which allows me to return to stone moving and construction repairs. Finally the pond area has been cleaned out, the path behind it returned to passable, and all those stones picked out of the earth-moving process are being put to use… for better or worse…

Shoddily stacked garbage stones line the arc of the curve which will take a grass path around the side of the new addition. I think it looks good enough and hopefully the freeze and thaws of winter don’t rip it apart before it has a chance to settle. More larger stones would have made it more weather-stable I think but you get what you get.

My fingertips are aching from all the stone grabbing and wedging and twisting and I’m glad to say the wall is as done as it’s going to get and only about ten stones remained as extras. These walls soak up a lot of rock so hopefully I have enough left for a few more questionably interesting constructions around the yard 😉

The back deck refuge from it all. I try to give the pots a little liquid feed once a week (and I never manage to keep to that schedule) but other than feeding, the drip lines and a timer take care of all the watering and leave me with nothing more to do than a little puttering when everything else seems like so much work.

I feel like I should be further along with everything but now that we’re into August I’m declaring a pause on projects and a rescheduling of fun. A few gardens have been visited, children have enjoyed day-trips, some lazy pool days are scheduled, and tomorrow myself and my plant squad (or more officially the Plant Posse… a possibly eye-rolling name given by a member’s daughter) are off for a day at Longwood. Severe weather alerts blanket our travel zone for the day but thoughts and prayers will guide us, and hopefully between the four of us the more reasonable will herd us out of the way of tornados, find shelter from strong winds, and a safe spot against hail, lightning , and thunder! Any day with the Posse is usually an adventure 😉

Hope you have a great week with an aggressive scheduling of fun!

Of Waste Places

Jul9

I remember seeing an exciting new bird the second summer after moving here. It was an Indigo Bunting, and the all-blue plumage on a blackbird sized bird in the back of the yard was quite the sight in my young garden. Surely this was a sign that all kinds of wonderful new things would be showing up as the garden grew and developed, and not just people but also wildlife would appreciate my masterpiece. I rushed inside and grabbed my bird book (this would be 15 years ago when books and paper and such were still a thing), and when I found the entry for my new friend it was the phrase “of waste places” which really stood out. Waste places! It’s a good thing that wasn’t the day I named the gardens or this blog, because I’d probably reconsider or regret it some days, but it was a good reality check on my gardening ambitions.

The rains have returned and the lawn is again in need of mowing, but the borders are still sparse owing to the dry May and the resulting lack of self-sown treasures or motivated planting.

In the between years the garden has filled in more but I have yet to see a second bunting, and that’s a relief as far as creating a ‘waste place’, but somewhat sad since Indigo Buntings are quite cool. In hindsight when it happened they had just recently bulldozed down the woodland and shalebanks behind us for the industrial park, and I suspect the acres of weedy and seedy re-growth had more to do with luring in new birds, but to this day I sometimes look around and think ‘what a waste place’.

Maybe a waste place, but at least a boldly colored one with the bright red of crocosmia ‘Lucifer’.

Actually it’s not that bad since the rains came back. Things are growing again and since someone mentioned daylilies let me start with those 😉

Daylily ‘Brookside Sparkle’, a souvenir from one of last summer’s daylily farm visits, and so much better than a t-shirt.

The daylily farm is doing well but ten out of ten people have suggested that I make it bigger, even if the suggestion was more of a nod when I said I was planning to make it bigger… and it was more like one person and not ten, but statistically that’s 100% of the people surveyed and why bother doing customer research if you’re going to ignore it? To that end I have budgeted $60 to buy more daylilies this summer, and also as any wise investor will do I’ve taken inflation into consideration and will be willing to raise that limit to $75 if things go that way. Now I just have to pickaxe a few new planting beds.

I’m committing to no more heavy equipment in the yard and will finally level and plant this access area by the street. It needs to be lowered a few inches and dug up for compaction and rocks… and about 25 square feet of concrete I uncovered for which I’ll need to drag out the jackhammer again…

So dirt moving and daylilies. That seems to be the theme for 2023 and I hope you can see a little progress in the next few photos.

Along the side of the house the grade was brought down a few inches, leveled, rocks were dug and finally, now that it looks like rain might be a thing again, a grass path has been seeded between a new bed and the old cholchicum bed which runs alongside the house foundation. The daylily farm is visible on the right… isn’t it beautiful?

Nearly all the tons of soil alongside the new addition have been wheel-barrowed to the low spots behind the potager in the back of the yard. Many rocks have been uncovered, some barely movable but mostly small, and these will go into lining the path of grass which will be seeded and extend down to the back of the house. As you can see the house foundation is still waiting for the masonary fund to mature, and might have to wait a year or two especially if the daylily fund keeps taking precedence.

Excavation piles are finally gone, and you can again see through to the pond and potager. One last section of soil to move, and then it’s on to wall building, final grading, and then grass-path seeding. The area in front is the already-seeded path which runs alongside the house.

Seeing the garden slowly uncover has been a relief, and each new section replanted has been one less weedy mess to ignore on the daily garden tours, but the real excitement has been seeing the level areas beyond the potager grow wider and wider each week. There is grass coming up on the new paths and whenever I get a minute in my mind I’m planting and replanting the open sections of the new flatlands. One day it’s filled with pumpkins, the next it’s daylilies, then tulips, then daffodils, then a new greenhouse, then a snowdrop farm… I think you get the idea, but right now it’s sterile, rocky, dries-like-concrete fill and even in my most optimistic minute I know I don’t have the time or energy to do anything with it this year, so I’ve decided it’s going to be my new waste place.

To shade and hold a bit of moisture in the “soil” I’ve started throwing weeds down and any other trimmings and organic material that usually gets thrown in the compost. I’m letting weeds come up. I’ll probably let them go to seed and then regret it when I have even more weeds, but whatever. I’m hoping the birds and other wildlife will like it, and to help that along I picked up a $3 box of finch and canary seed from the petstore to throw around. It’s basically pure millet and I think the sparrows and doves will enjoy it if they mature into a seedy mess, and hopefully I don’t regret a millet field in the back of my yard…. and now with that in print I’m thinking I should have at least looked up what millet looks like or done any kind of research, but…

My better half asked what the plan is for this back area. I thought it better to say ‘I’m not sure’ rather than explain how it was to become a ‘waste place’.

So we will see where this ends up. The birds and rabbits seem quite pleased by the general weediness of the yard, and I’ve never seen quite the procession of baby rabbits coming out of the flower beds as I have this year, but there has been one uninvited guest who I do not appreciate.

Deer tracks in some of the freshly leveled soil of the back 40

There is a single deer who has begun to make a habit of visiting the garden. One deer who has walked through perhaps four times and I’m already nearly apoplectic over the damage and I can’t imaging people suffering through local deer herds in their neighborhood. I thought our visitor was a large doe with a fawn hidden nearby, but Friday afternoon showed it to be a he as the nubs of developing antlers were visible when chasing him out of the yard. Maybe I can convince one of my friends that begonias and geranium adds a special flavor to the sausage, and one of them will be willing to stake out my yard come November… assuming I can make it that long… but in the meantime a minefield of fencing seems to be entertaining him, even if not really slowing him down.

Something random. My first flower on this cobra lily (Aarisaema fargesii) and it has a cool way to it, but I still think it’s the tropical foliage that impressed me more.

Typical. He plants for wildlife and then gets upset when wildlife shows up. Maybe all the digging is going to my head, as well as the heat and humidity, so today’s day of rest is probably a good thing.

Hope you have a great week.

A Week of Flowers-Day 5

Dec4

I’m taking it easy on day five of Cathy’s Week of Flowers celebration. I guess I don’t party like I used to. Today with a single photo I’m celebrating the heat of late July and the entire month of August, and the hot red flowers of Lobelia cardinalis. This moisture loving North American native plant finally settled in just off the back porch in a somewhat shaded and often damp corner of the house. While the cardinal flowers are in bloom, hummingbirds run a near constant turf war with guards and hit and runs and and the constant chatter of chases and aerial combat. A gardener who sits nearby to enjoy the shelter and shade is guaranteed a face-to-face barrage of insults from some tiny hovering pint-sized fighter pilot. Hummingbirds seem so tiny and cute, but in reality they’re little flying honey badgers.

Cardinal flower filling the end of the shade garden.

Hope you are enjoying your weekend, it’s a beautifully sunny morning here and although it’s also on the cold side, the rest of the week looks tolerable… and by tolerable I mean good shipping weather for a little box of succulents…

Merry Christmas to me!

sorta like suburbia

more than you ever wanted to know about my garden

Category Archives: summer