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!

Still Dull

Jul29

Here in the sorta mountains of Eastern Pennsylvania, summer has taken a turn for the wet. I always prefer wet to dry, but others are complaining about bad pool weather and an endless train of cloudy weather that seems to be tracking here. Honestly I’m not sure what they really want though, because yesterday when it was over 90F (33C) and humid they complained about the heat, so maybe they shouldn’t talk about their dream of moving to Florida.

Fortunately the garden doesn’t go on and on with complaints. A once-over to remove the browned stems and shriveled dreams of a dry spring and we’re back in business, with lush flowers and even lusher weeds.

The front border is at a summertime peak with the yellow lily ‘Conca d’Or’ taking center stage.

I will also try not to dwell on complaints. Summer is going too fast, not enough is getting done, and I don’t have enough space for my daylily farm, but at least I’ve finished clearing the dirt away from the side of the house.

All the dirt has been removed, now it’s on to doing something with all the stone, and then figuring out the grass path which will lead around the corner.

To celebrate this dirt moving milestone I decided to tackle the mass of concrete down by the street and finish cleaning up the front of the yard as well. It was as much fun as you can imagine. At first I thought I was overdoing it by bringing the jackhammer back, but when the concrete turned out to be a foot thick in spots I guess the pickaxe wouldn’t have been enough.

All the concrete has been broken up and the chunks are ready for hauling away. They’re bigger (and heavier) than the photo suggests…

Don’t let the pictures scare you. Last week I not only moved the concrete out of the way, I also graded the path, but in a few stones, seeded grass, and planted out a tray or two of coleus cuttings. It looks much nicer and I hope to share those photos as soon as I get out there and take them…

Enjoy the weekend! I’m hoping for enough of a break in the rain today to fit in a garden visit and a daylily farm trip with friends. I guess it’s not all work and no play in spite of what I like to pretend 😉

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.

Before the Rain?

Jun27

Three weeks is a long time to go between posts, especially if you’re one of those bloggers who keeps saying they’re going to step it up this year with a flurry of uplifting, timely and engaging content that… I guess I say that every year… June is a busy time, and sometimes things get done and sometimes nothing gets done, and both take time. Time that you think you’ll have back in March, but when summer rolls around she always proves you wrong. Better to just move on and give the usual apology for ignoring many and hope that July will be different, which is usually not the case 😉

Let me again brag about the delphinium patch. In spite of the drought they came up well and now that they’re entering their most fragile state the forecast will obviously call for severe weather. This always happens. My fingers are crossed this week’s staking efforts will be enough to keep them safe.

So the last post on this blog was a depressing litany of drought, smoke, hopelessness, and most of that was accurate, but as any good gardener will do you assess and move on. Sometimes moving on means a big icecream and lots of pool time, but this June the weather was more campfires and sweatshirts so I was at a loss. Turns out cool weather and dry soil is an excellent combination for bulb digging, and if I can’t have a nice garden at least I can try for neat, so many bulbs are dug and much of the potager is an empty yet well-kept space, and most of the garden is in fact somewhat weed free and waiting. Waiting for the rain I guess, since nothing much happens when it’s dry.

I was seeing photos online of Crinum bulbispermum in bloom and mine was not, but now it is. Within days I went from calling it lazy to calling it amazing as three stalks came up on this one and two on the other. The season is short, but the flowers are worth it.

So I had a plan. Neat was in and after putting in the work I decided I loved the look even if the grass was browning and the perennials were yellowing and wilted. I even spent an afternoon weed wacking the berm which usually doesn’t happen until August, and honestly that looks much better as well.

A neat yet somewhat empty potager. A few tomatoes went in as well as beans, but no masses of self-sown flowers since the soil is too dry. There is a little color though, last fall larkspur seedlings filled in the edges of the tulip beds and are now putting on an awesome show.

As is always the case as soon as one thinks they have a handle on things, the path changes. This week the forecast is filled with rain and humidity. We’ve had rain over the weekend and cloud bursts here and there, but so far none of the amounts have lived up to expectations, and they’re still far short of what we need but they’re enough to bring weed sprouts up in the neat dust, and triple the size of the innocent weedlings which two days ago looked as if they were too small to bother with. I suspect even the lawn will need mowing again if the forecast holds up.

Clematis ‘Venosa Violacea’ has been getting some water and is completely worth the attention. Clematis are amazing and I’m worried about all the cute little ones I keep looking at and wanting 🙂

If this summer turns into a good-for-growing summer my earth moving projects might take a hit. So far cool weather and a few bug-free hours in the evening are revealing new planting areas up along the addition, and new level ground back behind the potager. It was a big day when the leveled areas were up where they were supposed to be and the first new paths were raked and seeded with grass. There’s suddenly hope that the garden will return to something more attractive than rubble piles and trip hazards and that’s a great thing.

The area behind the potager is where all the construction fill is moving to. It used to slope down to a low spot but is now mostly level, which is quite an accomplishment considering that the area around the white bucket was about three feet lower when I started this spring. The tan section going back to the berm, between the buckets, is where grass seed has been put down and it’s an extension of the path which runs through the potager.

All the dirt moving is a win-win scenario. As the back of the yard fills and levels off, the area surrounding the new addition is also coming back to a finished level. Soon I hope to put grass paths back in where concrete trucks once stood, and work something out with all the rock I’ve dug up. Give me another two weeks for this part of the garden and I promise a better scene, although I can’t make a similar promise for the foundation. It might be a year at least before the brick situation is figured out.

The area to the side of the house is almost fully graded and the plan is for the grass path continuing all the way down. I had been thinking of a sand path where all the weeds are coming up on the right of the picture, but I think it will also be grass again, so there will be two strips of grass leading down to the back.

Wow that all seems like a lot of work. I better wrap this post up before I start thinking too hard on what all needs to get done before I can do even more of the stuff which needs to get done. Fresh mulch would be nice. That would be even more of lots of work, and clearly not better than pool time, but at least it keeps me off the streets and out of the gym.

The deck plantings are one thing which is looking nice this year. The drip irrigation was set up earlier than ever and this has been my escape from the mess in the rest of the yard. Surprisingly most of this is from dried plants which came back to life once I drug them out of the garage. The large pot of pink and purple was supposed to be an overwintered rosemary, but calibrachoa seedlings took over and I don’t even care if the rosemary comes back or not. I found it very interesting that calibrachoa roots can survive more drought than rosemary, and from now on I might be throwing them in the garage as well to overwinter.

Thanks for making it this far. It’s still gray and gloomy outside, but I might brave the gloom and take a second coffee outside to see how things are going. It would be nice to get two more days worth of shoveling in before the the rain brings on an explosion of weeds and the lawn gets out of control, but as always it’s still better than snow and ice 😉

Have a great week!

The World is Burning

Jun9

Just to let you know, there’s nothing nice in this post. A few flowers, but mostly a miniseries of complaints and disappointments and all the bumps in the road which gardeners imagine won’t happen this year, but then happen. I guess the most obvious place to start is with the smoke. It was noticeable earlier in the week, eerily oppressive mid week, and then apocalyptically thick yesterday. The smell of smoke was everywhere, and I can only imagine how it’s like closer to the source. My thoughts go out to the firefighters and residents who are out of homes and in fear of their safety and wondering when they’ll get a reprieve.

About four in the afternoon, looking out beyond the berm towards the industrial park. Visibility is less than a mile.

Fortunately, although the woods are dry and a good wind has been blowing, local brushfires have been relatively quiet. About a week ago we had a half inch of rain, which was enough to take the most desperate edge off for a few plants, but of course it’s nothing close to what we need. I think for May this area came in as the driest May since 1901 and the soil is already taking on that deep-dry that usually doesn’t set in until August.

The front yard isn’t a desert (yet) but most of the lawn is crispy and I’m not even going to bother planting annuals. Maybe it’s a good year to open things up and create some mulch patches.

Earth moving is now on pause due to rock-hard conditions. It was hard enough working through the rocky-compacted-subsoil before, but once it dries to the concrete stage even I have second thoughts.

The weeds were thrilled with the brief shower we had and perked right up. It’s a sad year when you end up relying on crabgrass, mullein, and oxeye daisies for a garden high point.

Most of my plants know they’re somewhat on their own in the dry. I hate watering and only do it as triage to keep the most desperate treasures alive, and it takes a real dramatic shriveling, dry look to guilt me into attempting a save. Usually it’s just in time, but I’m afraid our one rain event tricked me into thinking I could take a couple days off. As a result there’s a good chance I lost two newer dogwoods, a couple struggling rhododendrons, a witch hazel or two, and a few seedling pots. I’m sad about it all but only really upset about the one dogwood. It was a special gift, can’t easily be replaced, and I suspect when the dust of this season clears it will bother me even more.

Maybe a just in time watering saved this witch hazel for another few days. Maybe. There are long, likely-dry, hot months ahead and I don’t expect this missed watering to be the last.

Dry weather is nothing new, even if it comes at a time of year which is normally the most perfect gardening time of the year, but this year it’s on top of one of the latest freezes ever, and the garden is still trying to move on from that. Browned new foliage is still trying to grow out on magnolias and willows, only to advance right into wilting stage due to the lack of water.

I was so excited to see flower buds all over the rambling rose ‘Wartburg’. Its clusters of pink roses should look nice with the first flowers of the clematis ‘Venosa Violacea’… until they didn’t… I only just realized that this whole side of the rose is more exposed and was likely more damaged by the cold. I’m seeing stunted roses on some of the other bushes and of course am hoping that next year they’re perfect again.

The freeze damage could also be worse, and up in the mountains it was. The beech forests were really hit hard, worse than I suspected even just a few days ago. Patches along the road are all browned and whole trees have their new foliage burnt. That’s annoying, but not really as bad as it looks. The trees will recover if not for the other thing going on. I’m seeing large swaths of beech forest infected by Beech Leaf Disease… much much more than last year and it looks severe on a few trees. Beech trees are a big part of the canopy in some areas and with a six to ten year fatality I’m not looking forward to adding stands of dead beech trunks to the dead ash trees from borers and the bleached oak skeletons from prior spongy moth (gypsy month) infestations. The forest needed a break, not a new pestilence.

Plants in waiting on the driveway. There’s a backlog in moving things out into the soil of the rock-hard garden and that’s probably a good thing, since they’re likely better off here. The amaryllis are definitely happy here!

Did I mention it’s also cold? Normally Canadian air brings bright blue skies and cooler weather, but it was in the 40’s the other morning and that’s terrible to have the week after you open the pool(which of course has a leak on top of everything else). I was digging tulips in a sweatshirt rather bathing suit and thats not normal.
See? I promised a post full of complaints, and I believe I’ve delivered. Everything seem to be going in the wrong direction without an end in sight, and I guess I should be more miserable but I’m not. Bulb trays have been built, tulip are being dug, and I’ve fallen back to the potager, daylily farm, and anything the drip irrigation lines can be hooked up to. The deck containers look nice, a few day lilies are sending up bloom scapes, and I spent twenty minutes this evening watching baby bunnies nibble weeds and chase each other around the lawn. Spring still has a few good things tucked up her sleeve and as long as I can putter in safety I’m grateful. All the best.

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.

On the Eve of May

Apr30

I hope no one is expecting the entertaining, witty narrative which usually accompanies these posts. It’s been raining all day and the gloom has me drowsy, plus hours of inhaling varnish fumes this weekend probably killed off more brain cells than I can afford, so be prepared for a somewhat dull post.

The potager last Friday. The cool weather has been good to the tulips, but wind and rain is starting to take its toll.

As the first order of business I want to reassure everyone with the announcement that I have resolved my overabundance of yellow tulips problem. They were looking a little tired Saturday so I just yanked a good amount of them and tossed them on the compost. Sure they’ll probably show up everywhere now, as the compost will be contaminated by bulblets, but today I’m pleased with myself. Never mind that it took me weeks to come up with this solution, despite the fact many people pull their tulips after bloom, but in this garden I celebrate where I can.

My only 2022 tulip purchase, ‘Tom Pouce’. Five bulbs purchased, one came up yellow, but I love the other four for their delicious yellow with pink frosted colors.

So in a moment of distraction I started wondering who Tom Pouce was, since there’s also a pink and yellow lily, and pink and yellow daffodil named after him, and to have three flowers carry your name must count for something impressive, so off to the library I went.

Or Google… and then Wikipedia… “A tompoes or tompouce is a pastry in the Netherlands and Belgium. It is the local variety of the mille-feuille or Napoleon, introduced by an Amsterdam pastry baker and named after Admiraal Tom Pouce, the stage name of the Frisian dwarf Jan Hannema”. Apparently it’s a pastry taken seriously in the low countries. Color may stray, the pink and yellow may change based on national holidays or serious sporting events, but you don’t mess around with either shape or ingredients. It sounds like a pastry I would enjoy getting to know, although there also seems to be a little bit of a quandary on how it should be correctly eaten. I believe that discussion is outside the scope of this tulip post, so I’ll stop now and wonder about Frisian dwarves all on my own 😉

Not named after a pastry, ‘Insulinde’ is an example of one of the virused ‘broken tulips’ which are a virus risk, but just amazing enough to try growing anyway. This one dates back to 1915.

Soon the tulips will be a thing of the past, and just like snowdrops and daffodils it will be another 12 months before they return, but at this time of the year it barely matters. There’s so much coming along that even on a miserably rainy and dark Sunday you can’t help be a little excited. In the potager the wisteria is blooming again, and although it should only be a year since the last time, it’s really three since late freezes have done it in for a couple seasons. The scent of the flowers fills the potager air, even stronger than lilacs and probably just as sweet.

This wisteria only looks like it is supported by the pergola since I wouldn’t dare release it onto crushable aluminum supports and a frame of mere two by fours. Once a week for the entire summer stray tentacles of vine are cut back to a leaf or two to keep it under control. This plant is a beautiful monster.

There’s more blooming and growing out there, but I’ll spare you all except this last peony. Paeonia daurica subsp. mlokosewitschii is a mouthful so most refer to this plant as ‘Molly the Witch’. I did want the pure yellow version but when my seedling finally bloomed it showed to be a pale yellow with a pink tint, which is also within the range for this species. I love the foliage but to me the bloom is relatively small and somewhat mild mannered. Time will tell if it keeps a spot here in the garden, but even if it doesn’t I’m sure some gardening friend would take it in for me.

A nice pink tinted version of Paeonia daurica subsp. mlokosewitschii.

The rain is coming down strong again and it’s getting late. There’s work tomorrow. Ugh. I think I need something sugary and fatty or just plain greasy, because I feel like Monday has already arrived and I’m not excited. Enjoy your week at least!

Tulips

Apr24

It was warmer than expected and most of the garden’s tulips opened for the weekend. That sounds good but it was hotter than they like and a few fried up, and then the wind picked up and they took another beating… and then we had a downpour…so today they look a little tired, but the cooler weather in this week’s forecast will be perfect to keep them fresh looking for another week at least. It’s not botanical garden glorious, but I’m quite pleased with it, and also grateful that a couple friends were able to stop by and take a look as well.

Mixed Darwin tulips in the vegetable garden beds.

Some ‘Spryng Break’ lined out with the others

Another view of the potager beds

Honestly it looks much better in the closeups. From a distance you can see all the “works in progress” around the yard and these beds look more like some maniac just stuffed too many flowers into a tin can vase, but again I’m pleased with it and wondering if I have enough beds of tulips yet 🙂

Some of the tulips out front. Like everything else they need dividing but with a gardener who just waddles around the beds smiling at each new bloom there’s only a slight chance that could happen.

Originally the mix came around when I collected stray tulips and wasn’t sure what they were, so just planted them all together. There have only been a few times when I wasn’t happy with them all together, and when that happened I just pulled out the offenders and all was well, but this year I’m wondering if growing a few as separate color blocks might be fun. I’m envisioning a Dutch bulb field look with rows of color, and since I think I have too many yellows anyway as long as I’m separating those out might as well separate a few other colors as well, right? -I can almost hear you saying obviously…

I like them. I think I need a few more still. We all have our weaknesses.

Marking and sorting out tulips sounds like a lot of work. I may have to plant them with some better spacing so they can sit where they are for two seasons rather than being dug each summer, and I think if I keep them along the edges of the beds there will be room for zucchini or whatever and hopefully the extra watering won’t bother the dormant bulbs. I always miss a few anyway, and they do fine so in theory this should work.

So much color

In any case I know I’ll have plenty more tulips next year. These will likely double in number for next year and my friend Kimberly at Cosmos and Cleome will hopefully 🙂 offer me her leftovers again when she ejects her own tulip patch to make way for the season’s next show… I’ll gleefully add them somewhere here to grow on until they’re big enough to bloom again.

An old bulb bed where a few tulips still come up through the grass and weeds. Even with the potager beds packed and in full bloom, a trio of flowers in the weeds is still amazing.

Sorry this post is just the ramblings of a tulip maniac. To make it somewhat useful I guess I should reveal all my secrets about growing tulips so here they are. Wait until frost kills off whatever is in the vegetable bed and remove the dead vines and stakes. Grab a shovel and dig a shallow grave. Dump a reasonable amount of bulbs in and to make yourself feel like you’re putting in some effort, space them somewhat evenly and turn them pointy side up. Fill the grave with the dirt and old tomatoes and rotten peppers and whatever else you were too lazy to cart off to the compost. Cover the beds with a good inch or two of chopped leaves so that no one can see how poorly you prepared the bed. Wait for spring.

I think my reputation is established enough that no one expected the “work” involved here to be anything special. I have plenty of other jobs to kill myself with here so no sense letting the tulip planting have the upper hand, but it surely helps that I love digging them up again to see how well they’ve grown. Tulip flowers are nice enough, but sacks of tulip bulbs curing in the garage must really thrill the dormant prepper in me, and make me feel like I’m more than well prepared for any civilization crumbling tulip-shortage that could happen at any moment. You never know. It’s always good to be prepared.

April in Bloom

Apr21

We had our earliest 90+ degree day ever last week (33C) and I was unimpressed. Daffodils melted and hyacinths fried and the gardener turned on the air conditioning and did nothing in the shade. Three days later he froze standing around at a track meet with a brisk 41F (5C) breeze and the occasional snow flurry. Such are our springs. As usual things are busy and people are probably relieved that photographing snowdrops had to take a back seat to work and trips and home repairs, but I did take a minute Sunday to photograph a few things. Lets start at the end… the end of snowdrop season 😦

Here’s the double snowdrop ‘L.P. Short’ holding on to a last bloom while a sea of Spring Beauties (Claytonia virginica) bring on the next show.

Galanthus ‘Narwhal’ is still hanging on in spite of all kinds of weather and me stepping on him at least once…

Of course the end of snowdrop season is always a sad time, but at least there are plenty of distractions to ease the trauma. Actually as things come on so fast and furious it will be at least another month or two before the reality sinks in, and by then I can start digging a few bulbs and buying a few new ones, and dreaming of next season 😉

I might have added an Epimedium or two over the last few years. Shade tolerant, drought resistant, deer and rabbit resistant, nice all summer… I’ve been avoiding them for a while, but what’s the harm in adding another two or ten? This is ‘Purple something’ since I lost the tag and possibly didn’t write the name down anywhere…

As trees grow, this full sun garden is becoming shady in spots and I kind of like the early flush of spring bloomers.

Some dogtooth violets (Erythronium americanum) a friend gifted me a few years back. I was shocked to see them blooming this year, I thought for sure the cool speckled foliage would be all I’d ever get in this crappy, rooty, dry as a bone all summer, growing location.

From far enough away the somewhat-shaded part of the garden actually looks nice.

Shade is nice, but full sun is still something I treasure most. All kinds of bulbs are now filling in the beds and it’s awesome to see the return of color and growth, even if at times it seems to move along too fast.

The grape hyacinths are absolutely common, and somewhat weedy if not dead-headed, but the blue color is perfect and lasts a while.

For all the treasures I see in the garden, most of the people coming and going from this house don’t mention a thing about the garden. You can imagine my shock then when not one, but two people commented on the ‘pink tropical looking flower growing alongside the porch. Species peonies are nice enough but two people? Honestly I think they’re just messing with me, but when they immediately lost interest upon hearing the blooms only last a week or so, I knew they were authentically interested… even if it was only for a minute…

Peonia daurica by the front porch.

No one mentioned the dandelions, not even the fancy white Japanese version I’ve been pampering along in the front border. I wish it would seed around a little, that would surely draw more attention.

It’s a favorite of the rabbits at least. Taraxacum albidium must have a better flavor than the regular dandelions since I practically have to cage it to keep the bunnies off.

The daffodils might draw attention even if it’s never mentioned by anyone. I need more, and I need to move a few bunches back into full sun since they’re sulking in the shady spots I tucked them into. They’ll bounce back, but I was so proud of myself when I found all that room under the trees along the side of the yard. I guess there was a reason for the empty spaces since apparently nothing really wants to be there including the daffodils.

Narcissus ‘Bravoure’ front and center near the door. It’s very nice and refined and I can’t find a single fault other than I’m not so crazy about it. Maybe it’s too stiff. I really shouldn’t try and find faults.

Narcissus ‘Stella’ aka Kathy’s Sweetheart is not too stiff. She nods and sways and has joyfully twisted petals which fade from cream to white and I’m surprised how she’s grown on me. I was trying to be a show-daff kind of person but I guess I’m not.

This one just showed up. It doesn’t match anything which used to grow here yet I’m pretty sure it had a name at one time and I either never knew it or lost it. It’s a keeper though, I like how the color of the trumpet bleeds into the petals… something which I believe show-daff people frown upon…

Newer, fancier daffs which are not doing as well in the ‘terrace’ as I thought they would. It’s frightening to think how these should also be moved to a better spot.

I don’t remember ‘White Collar’ from last year, but this year he’s living up to the name and I definitely approve. Behind him is ‘Bronzewing’. Bronzewing is again amazing.

To be honest the shaded daffodils escaped the worst of the heat and are still somewhat nice when compared to the fried daffodils in the main beds. But what fries the daffodils grows the tulips, and from here on it’s the tulips which will shine.

Darwin tulips in the front border.

Years ago I took out the double tulips, but I must have missed one and over the years the one bulb has been clumping up nicely. I suspect it’s the tulip ‘Abba’.

Most of the tulips here come and go as I add new ones or accidentally dig up and then divide old ones, but the potager is filled with the tulips I intentionally dig and divide each summer. There are a couple hundred and although I planted them too thickly (entirely because I was too lazy to plant them properly), they still seem to be coming along nicely. There’s no room for lettuce or onions but by the weekend all I’ll care about is how amazing it looks.

More (mostly Darwin) tulips in the vegetable beds. Another warm day and the main show will start.

Honestly the tulip show is nothing when compared to the big shows where bed after bed is filled with a curated display of color echoes and blends, but I like it, and on a beautifully sunny day all the color is just a celebration of spring.

One day I’m telling my sister in law that this is one of the less-interesting, sloppy forms of tulip, and then two days later I think it’s one of the nicest in the garden. ‘Orange Emperor’ has a delicious color and I like the touch of green on a few of the blooms. Thanks Kimberley, I like it!

There is a little bit of a stink hanging over the display. The pear tree is covered in blooms and without a freeze in the forecast I’m anticipating a good deal of pears this summer. Fortunately this ‘Bartlett’ pear doesn’t seem to stink as much as the yucky stench of those Bradford pears planted all over the place. This one only comes on as a wiff here and there, the Bradfords stink up your whole car if you drive by with the windows open.

Plenty of pears to be.

While on the topic of flowering trees, the magnolias were amazing this year, but the heat pushed them over far too quickly. I’ll have to get photos next year of two new ones but for now the new standard magnolia ‘Ann’ is still putting on a great show. New flowers open for a while and the fruity fragrance always wins against the stink of a pear.

‘Ann’ will never be more than a small tree, and that’s a perfect size for this side of the yard.

The side of the yard where ‘Ann’ is planted is somewhat mucky in spring when runoff works its way down from the yard next door and the front of this house, and for a while the spring muck followed by summer drought rejected pretty much everything I planted here, but finally two plantings are doing well. Spring snowflakes (Leucojum vernum) and Snakeshead fritillaria (F. meleagris) rebel against good drainage and don’t mind sitting in water when water sits. Both are actually happy enough to seed around.

Fritillaria meleagris seedlings are blooming here and there below the magnolia and my plan is coming together perfectly except for the fact you don’t notice the purple flowers under the purple magnolia. Hmmm. But at least they’re happy 😉

Plenty of things don’t work out to plan here, and plenty more things don’t work out without a plan so miss-colored fritillaria are one more thing which needs moving but will probably stay put for decades. I’m fine with that. The thing or two which do work out keep me happy enough and for the next couple weeks I’ll be swimming in tulips and that’s more than plenty.

A mess of tulips

I hope your spring is also filled with plenty. Have a great weekend!

sorta like suburbia

more than you ever wanted to know about my garden