I’ve been busy. 🙂 A lot of the “busy” has been in garden maintenance. Once we got past the brutal heat, then we had torrential rains. Which led to an abundance of weeds. Although my netting has worked wonderfully to keep my plants safe from deer and ground hogs and other critters, it makes weeding a task that needs to be scheduled, as opposed to a “pull a few here, pull a few there” activity.
mandevilla and tithonia
I have my yearly “wall of yellow” as one neighbor described it – my wonderful rudbeckia laciniata hortensia – the double-bloom rudbeckia. I analyzed past years, where torrential rains beat down and broke many of the stalks. I added some loose cord to give the stalks some support without unduly constricting them. It seems to have worked. We had heavy rain last night and no broken stalks to date.
rudbeckia – not sure the variety
I think that filling in the area around the RLH with tall plants is also working in its favor. the tithonia (Mexican sunflower) and the Bolton’s Aster (False starwort) also provided cushioning in the rain and wind, without choking the RLH.
hibiscus (uneaten because of the deer netting 🙂 )
Back in June I noticed a LOT of weeds in my flower pots. The weeds looked a lot like tomato plants but I did NOT plant tomatoes in my herbs or my flowers. Tomatoes get their own pots. I even pulled one of those ‘weeds’. Well. *laughing* I finally figured it out. All of those volunteer tomato plants are in the pots where I used our compost.
I have volunteer tomatoes all over the place. I have pulled a few of them that were interfering with what was MEANT to be the star plant in that container but many of them are producing tomatoes. They make me laugh. The volunteers are doing as well if not better than the ones I planted intentionally. 🙂
orange/red gladiolas
I have one tomato plant in a raised bed. It is so healthy looking! HUGE! Easily 3 inched in diameter. But it’s been GREEN forever!!!! Our friends told me that it will begin to turn once we have a few cold nights. I’m afraid it will be pumpkin-size before then. 🙂
big huge green tomato
I do love gladiolas. While the red ones in the front bed were beautiful, the salmon ones between the sidewalk and street are gorgeous.
It’s already beginning to give hints of fall in the air. While today is hazy, hot & horribly humid, the temperature at night has been delightful cool. The crickets are LOUD – definitely growing into their September sound. The other day the air smelled like September as well.
rose mallow – looks as if only one of my 2 rose mallows survived, but this one is thriving
I need to keep reminding myself that for me it no longer matters if September comes. I’m not going to school, I’m not at work where all my colleagues are returning from vacations and we’re all rushing to get things closed before the end of the year. I’m retired. I can savor every moment of summer all the way until the autumnal equinox on September 23. 🙂
potted flowers both known and unknown. 🙂 plus a weed. or maybe 2.
After weeks of no rain we now have a week of rain and thunderstorms. Of course we are lucky here in my little sliver of NJ – we are NOT getting tornadoes nor power failures nor hail. This week is proving the old adage of “when it rains, it pours”. And I don’t mean Morton Salt. 🙂
look at those green peppers!!!! they are REAL!
The green peppers are doing wonderfully. I’m not sure when I should harvest them. Will they get wider or just longer or start to rot on the branch?
cherry tomatoes – at least according to the label in the pot
I have 3 types of tomatoes growing but apparently the labels I thought I placed in each pot have vanished. I have cherry tomatoes (those I can identify) and Rutgers and Big Boys growing.
the tomato on the right is being guarded vigorously by a mint plant. 🙂
The mandevilla is doing well. I’m not thrilled with the 2 hibiscus bushes however. They get sun, I water them, they are not being eaten, so I have to hope that it’s been a matter of temperature. They are ‘okay’ but not spectacular.
mandevilla – it’s in a very large pot on the ground, in the midst of the goldenrod
I’m also not thrilled with 2 of my canna lilies. I bought 4 of them at the same nursery. They were all supposed to grow to 4′. Only 2 of them have flowered but they are NOT 4′. The other 2 are not only not growing but have shown no sign of flowering or growing taller. I LOVE cannas so I’m unhappy that I switched from my usual (expensive) source of cannas to this much less expensive source. I guess you get what you pay for. (The 5th was from an expensive nursery, was much larger, and is doing wonderfully.) As I typed this I was reminded of a cartoon my mother kept pinned in her kitchen: A woman berating a plant in a pot “Grow darn you or I’ll replace you with a a plastic one!!” 🙂
the bronze leave cannas (4th one is to the left of this photo) are showing no signs of any growth. 😦
You’ll notice a lot of weeds in my photos this year. There are 4 reasons for that. The first is the deer netting. While it works beautifully to keep my garden safe, it also means I need to un-clip the netting to weed and then rehang it afterwards. I’m a bit lazy by this point in season. 🙂
I love my daisies. I used to have so many I’d give them away. Now I’m down to this handful and 2 others. Apparently they are a big deer favorite. Now that I’ve screened them in I seem to have daisies again. Tons of mint and catnip on the ground below.
I read 2 articles that have also changed my mind about weeding. One of them talked about how the weeds that grow tell you what nutrients are lacking in your soil. I suspect I’ll never care enough to do all that analysis but what I took from that was that the weeds are not necessarily a horrible thing.The other article talked about bare ground and rain runoff. The barer the ground, the more runoff, the less water that gets to the plants. As long as the weeds are not interfering with the growth and display of the flowers, and they are not hideously ugly weeds (think thistles), they can stay.
Zinnias, some gladiolas, volunteer common mallow, butterfly weed, a weed with no flower, lysimachia ciliata (brown leaves), canna lily, rudbeckia laciniata hortensia
The 4th reason has to do with my not being able to tell for sure what’s a weed and what’s something I have planted in the past. For instance the larkspur and the pink mallow – did I plant them? Maybe, maybe they are volunteers. Whichever, they are pretty and they can stay. In the past I’d have pulled them because they are NOT my beloved rudbeckia nor the hyssop.
so what IS this??? It’s in with one of my herbs. The plant finders guess that it’s a tomato plant. I don’t think so. If it’s not a marigold or rosemary, I didn’t plant it
I mentioned before that of my 4 lettuce experiments only one is thriving. The celery seems to be doing quite well also. 🙂 Maybe in a few weeks I’ll have grown a salad? Lettuce, celery, tomatoes and peppers? I know – that’s extremely optimistic.
celery
One of my other ‘enhancements’ this year has been to confine the grasses that grow between the sidewalk and the street. My husband parks his car there and hates both the grass and the metal fencing. In the past I’ve cut all leaves that break the curb line but this year I’ve also confined them on the other side as well. I wanted to make sure the rudbeckia had room to thrive. When I did that, I had a big bare spot between the grass and the rudbeckia, crying out for some tall colorful plant.
L to R: rudbeckia, cosmos, rocket larkspur (volunteer) tithonia, weeds, rudbeckia with grasses in thebackground
I took some of the tithonia and cosmos I’d grown from seed and put them in that spot. Because the grasses are restrained, the seedlings DO seem to be getting enough sunlight to thrive.
L to R: goldenrod, thithonia, sun flowers, cosmos, gladiola (?), hibiscus rose mallow
Speaking of the tithonia, they are doing well in their “traditional” location in the front garden. In addition the sunflowers seem to have recovered from their groundhog attack and they are growing as well. 🙂 I can’t wait to see if they make it all the way to flower. August maybe? I’d have thought July but getting munched is a severe setback.
Thwarted!
My neighbor Stephanie and I appear to be winning the “munch wars”. Every morning I see the bunnies breakfasting on the clover in my lawn. But the deer appear to be thwarted, even as they show no fear of humans. I came out the other day and couldn’t tell if the deer were IN Stephanie’s front garden or next to it. While I positioned myself to get a better view a woman came walking down the sidewalk. Walked right past the deer only a few feet from the sidewalk. They looked at her but never moved. *shaking my head* It’s still pretty amazing to me that the deer just saunter down the sidewalk themselves, hardly breaking stride unless something is coming right at them. I’m sorry they are so hungry, but I’m very glad that they are not eating my garden!
a very happy Brunnera macrophilla ‘Jack Frost’. thankfully the deer don’t appear to appreciate it
Isn’t that the way cruise ships and resorts talk about the day’s events? 🙂 Perhaps I should view retirement as one long cruise. *laughing* As If.
plants that wintered over – dianthus and something. i thought it was vinca. but maybe not.
I’m still transitioning from career-life to retirement-life. Still don’t miss the job at all. 🙂 Isn’t that wonderful? I really don’t think about the work or the people. And that IS a relief because despite my long, 3-month transitioning while employed, I was concerned that I’d miss it. Nope. Cross that one off the list.
happy chives, with lemon balm to the right, and probably lots of dianthus or maybe verbena as well
Yesterday was about getting new eye glasses and meeting with my financial advisor. I find it both interesting and comforting that the projected monthly cash flow we drew up in January is still fairly accurate here in May. Even with the unexpected expenses (car deductible for having the car hit at the concert, having to pay 4 months of CMS medicare payments to start, and other expenses like that) we’ve managed to modify our extravagant, thoughtless ways and stay on course. 🙂 Kudos to us!!!! I’m still not 100% sure that “this” is all going to “work out” but at least my inner 6-year old has stopped screaming daily. As a matter of fact, I treated myself to a gardening present.
first clematis and alium flowers, lots more buds
Last year I had to devise a see-through fence to keep my flowers safe from the deer. We have rabbits, ground hogs, skunks and possums as well, all of whom seem to think that my garden is the local buffet. To be fair, not just my garden but I only worry about mine. I had a very healthy pot of echinacea that wintered over wonderfully. I moved it to the side of the house in a sunny spot. Yesterday I noticed something had bitten the tops off of everything there. 😦 One of today’s activities will be to toss some netting over that pot.
once i was a real echinacea plant
I’d like to grow more vegetables and/or herbs without having to worry about spraying hot pepper or chili over them. The afternoon sun is on the driveway side of the house, which means I have nowhere to plant there. So I treated myself to a 2nd raised bed (2nd because a few years ago my brother-in-law built me one out of some leftover wood he had). I couldn’t resist Home Depot when I saw this raised bed. It was almost everything I wanted (it doesn’t have wheels) including a trellis back AND it was 20% off. That trellis back means I can attach netting or screening to it and drape it over the plants to protect them from the Hungries.
doesn’t this look great??? wonder what it will look like when I try to build it. 🙂
Unfortunately the garden bed does NOT come assembled. 😦 That is something I will have to do (unless by some miracle the person who is SUPPOSED to be replacing boards on the deck actually shows up this week). The box came yesterday. Today’s adventures will include unpacking it and seeing if it’s easy to assemble (pre-drilled holes and such) or if I’m going to need “Someone with Tools”. In either case I’m actually very excited to have this for this year. 🙂
my poor willow. 😦 i really loved this bush – white & pink & green
Other chores involve cutting down my poor willow bush. 😦 I don’t know what happened to it. It was fine last year. But this spring it’s dead. No question about it – I gave it a few weeks to see if it was merely ill or slow but no, it’s definitely not coming back. I don’t know what happened to it. We had such a mild winter. That might be the answer – maybe cold winters kill off whatever killed off my willow. I also lost a small Japanese maple tree in my back yard. That was a cutting from my tree in the front of the house, before it starting failing and we pulled it. Taking that down is much less pressing as it’s not as large and it’s in an out-of-the-way spot.
The plants I’m growing from seed are doing very well for the most part. You can see that there are a few empty containers. I wanted to move them outdoors last weekend, let them get used to real life and light. This past weekend was 3 days of rain and this week the temperature is 10 degrees below normal (in the 50s, not the 60s) so I’ve not moved them yet. I’m not 100% sure those containers would drain properly in heavy rain.
My rudebeckia laciniata hortensia is coming back, as is the anise hyssop. I don’t know why the rudbeckia does not spread more. I’ve dug up and pulled out everything that is not that, trying to leave it room to spread. RLH just wants to head towards the sidewalk. I also seem to be inundated with lots of white snake root, which is a weed I don’t want (you can see at least 2 of them in the photo below). I seem to only have 2 anise hyssops coming back and I’m fairly certain I had 3 originally (pushed up against the barrier at the bottom of the photo – again – why do they grow THAT direction???). I ordered 2 more this year from my favorite online garden shop – Heritage Flower Farm.
i had to undo the screen this morning and shove 2 health RLH plants back into the enclosure. look at all that empty room I’ve made for them. and they want the sidewalk.
I’ve been doing a lot of reading about native NJ plants and invasive perennials. I went to a seminar at the library and they listed some nurseries that specialize in NJ plants. I’m hoping I can get to one of them this weekend. Every year I try to get more perennials planted. The reasoning is two-fold. I’d prefer not to keep spending hundreds of dollars every spring buying plants. I’d also like to minimize how much bending and clearing and planting I need to do. I will probably keep buying tropicals to put in the big planters I use to line my front walk, but it would be helpful if most of the permanent beds were perennials.
Under the heading of “can’t beat ’em, join ’em”, I’ve given up on trying to have creeping thyme between the front bed and the lawn. It didn’t seem to work as I hoped. This year I am digging up the little violet plants from the beds and planting them in the lawn in front of the bed. I don’t care about grass. The only saving grace about grass is I don’t have to care for it the way I do flowers. 🙂 I also took one of the clover plants and stuck that there as well. That’s another “weed” that seems to have inundated one of my garden beds. Let’s see how well it thrives when I WANT it to grow and spread. 🙂
I’ve already posted that to me it feels like this week was the actual start of retirement. Passover and paperwork took over the prior 2 weeks. This week, however, I’ve actually sloooooowwweeed down. Oh, I’m still doing ‘stuff’ pretty much all day. The difference is mentally & emotionally. Most of my family and friends will tell you that I am somewhat driven, frenetic, obsessed with details, and somewhat like the Energizer Bunny. (Moi?????) Behind that description is the steady drumbeat in my mind about time, time, time, time. Not enough. Deadlines. Must do. Time. Fit it ALL in. Never stopping, always moving, always checking things off The List – this was me.
a very happy andromeda bush, with the Eastern Redbud behind
Those last months of 2022 at work coincided with the second phase of the renovation, which was beginning to seem never-ending, and with WC’s failing health. It wasn’t a great time. I stopped exercising and started eating quantities of comfort food. So here I am ready to rock-n-roll but my body is not quite with the program. The good news is I have the time to do the gardening SLOWLY. I’ve gone out each day this week and spent 2 to 2.5 hours doing cleanup and preparation. I’m hoping this gentle approach will remind my knees of the concept of “bend”. 🙂 I’m also hoping that being out in the sunshine and digging in the dirt will restore my taste for salads. My mother used to have an ash tray – maybe my sister has it now. I never understood it when I was younger. But oh does it resonate now!! It shows a few people lounging in comfy chairs and the caption is “Next week we’ve got to get organized”.
wintered-over succulents and chives. bulbs & perennials coming up behind
Ever since I decided last year to retire, and then topped off with Covid in the summer, I found that I wasn’t as driven to “get things done NOW”. Part of that is that there is just SO MUCH cleanup and reorganization from the renovation that there is no way I could “get it done” in a weekend or two. And it’s always been getting things done in the weekend. Vacations were for doing things that were NOT getting things done. Because my super power is worrying, I have worried that not being pressured for time would make me ineffective and lazy. Oh – my secondary super power is the ability to be very hard on myself. 🙂 The corollary worry is that Covid sapped my inner strength/energy. It’s not that I’m choosing not to push myself, it’s that I CAN’T push myself. I’d guess many of you could understand why not having the choice is an unhappy realization.
Now add more boxes between the treadmill & the bookcase, and MANY bags/boxes tossed on top of the stuff that is already on the couch (hidden below that black heating unit)
What is the big deal about cleaning and reorganizing from the renovation? Well, when you empty the 2nd floor of the house, the stuff needs to go somewhere. We didn’t toss/donate everything. We were extremely naive and uninformed and we stored a LOT of boxes up in the attic. We didn’t realize that the attic was going to be turned into the alien abode of the central air conditioner. The a/c crew took most of what we stored in the attic and moved it to the basement. Besides all the things they added on the “playroom” side of the basement, the laundry side also has a row of boxes. The photos here do not truly display the disarray after the a/c installation began. On the other hand, central air means I now can see out of 3 of the bedroom windows that used to be blocked by window units.
I can see out my bedroom window – No a/c unit!!
BC is trying to teach me the Tao of Retirement. I’m not sure if that’s because she’s trying to be helpful, or if it’s because she has become very very needy since WC died. The latter I suspect. BC follows me pretty much everywhere and most of the time needs to be ON me as well. She’s in for a treat surprise. We are going to get her a kitten once the basement is navigable. Yeah, she’s going to hate it. But then we think she’ll start liking it. Remember that we rescued her when she was only a few weeks old and brought her into a house with 3 other cats and a dog. We think she’ll adjust. She will have to adjust. Because the next step after the kitten will be a puppy. 🙂 That’s part of my big retirement plan.
The gardening so far has been mostly weeding, pruning, and cleanup. I’ve written numerous times about my beautiful Rudbeckia Laciniata Hortensia. They need a lot of support. A few years ago I began adding screen material to the iron border fencing in an attempt to keep the plants from growing out through the fence into the sidewalk area. I took down all the old screens this year to try to make them more aesthetically pleasing and to get a better fit on the street side, where the grass insists on poking out into the street. I fix the bottom with the garden staples but the top is trickier. In the past I used wire ties – poked them through the screen and twisted. This year the proverbial light bulb went off over my head. I’ll sew them on!!! Pull them tight, do a running stitch and have a snug fit. It worked, but it reminded me how much I loathe working with fishing line (or whatever that plastic thread is called). I used a sail needle so that it was large enough to hold and to punch through the screen. I cannot say that it was a pleasant experience but maybe it will work as expected and last for more than one year. 🙂
As a reward, and because my inner 6-year old has been screaming “save $$, don’t spend $$, AAACCCK” I decided to try growing some of my usual flowers from seed. I’ve done this in the past but always by sowing directly into the ground once we are past the last frost date (mid-May). This time I decided to see if I could have actual flowers to plant in May. I’ve saved half of each packet so I can do the direct sow as well. I’ve moved the succulents out of the kitchen and outside (I’ll cover them if we have a frost warning) and I’ve put TWO trays under the grow lights in the bay window. That window gets a lot of sunlight as well as the grow lights. I did the first tray 5 days ago and I have seedlings!!!!! I did a second tray yesterday. I have no idea if I’m doing this properly or not. I can’t be bothered to do research. I had a package of seed starter material and that’s what I used. Even if I only get what I’ve got showing now, I’ll be ahead of the game.
Angelica Gigas with Rudbeckia Laciniata Hortensia behind
Angelica Gigas – I went to elementary school with her, right? No that’s not it. Hmm – camp maybe? No, no, still not right. Ah!!!! A surprise gift from my friend Betty at Heritage Flower Farm!!!!
The first bud – see the leaves coming out of the bud
Last year I’d ordered several perennials. I ordered my plants in March as I usually do. In 2020 I placed my order at the start of the first ‘lock down’ for Covid19. I don’t think that impacted what I ordered. I’ve been planting native perennials that attract pollinators and butterflies, with a few other fun items tossed in. The plants ship as bare-root plants. That means Betty doesn’t send them until the end of April at the earliest and I need to get them in the ground as soon as I can. I use May 15 as my “frost” date. I only need to keep those plants going for a few days.
I’d ordered a few new things – a bleeding heart vine and swamp milkweed. Imagine my delight to find tucked in with my order a gift from Betty – 2 Angelica Gigas plants! Her note said that the plants were looking so spectacular that she just had to share. 🙂 I’d never heard of these plants so began my research on the HFF site and then to Wikipedia and other garden sites. I confess that I still don’t quite understand “biennials”, but AG is a biennial. I planted them in the front, in a very sunny spot, at the end of my row of Rudbeckia Laciniata Hortensia. 🙂 They didn’t do much to impress me other than stay green and survive.
This year, however, was obviously their biennial year and their year to shine. I say “their” but I believe only one of the 2 survived. It’s a bit crowded in that corner so I’m not quite sure if there is another AG in there. First there was a whole crop of big green leaves. I had to keep tying them back to let sun shine on the other plants and seeds I had going there.
Then the buds started. The flower buds are so different than any other buds that I’ve seen. I’d look at them trying to figure out where/how there was going to be a flower. It looked like a leaf was sprouting from the bud and I was extremely confused (not an unusual condition for me with my garden). It was fascinating to watch them open. The plant is still going strong. It started putting out buds in July, and is still blooming here in late August. I’m not sure if it will flower again next year, or if I have to wait 2 years, but I know I’m going to be happy to see it when it blooms again!
I am still lacking many butterfly sightings. I saw the monarch butterfly one more time a week or two ago. Last night I saw the blue swallowtail as I watered the plants. Other than that, mostly moths. 😦 All my butterfly-friendly plants, and so few butterflies. Yesterday I was gazing out the front door and saw movement in the hyssop. It was a goldfinch. Can you see it there, all the way on the right? Not a butterfly, not a hummingbird, but still a joy to behold. 🙂
Isn’t that what you say when you cover your ears so you can’t hear what someone is saying to you? La la la la la la la. I do NOT have the energy today to deal with macro issues: return to school? presidential election? senatorial elections? college football? eating out? La la la la la la. The first sighting of the mushrooms. They look harmless, don’t they?
Unfortunately for me, my little micro concerns were also difficult this week. Sigh. So no cat pictures today – still a little bit too sad about GC for that. Which leaves me only the garden and yard for an escape. Oh – and food. There is always food, right? crustless vegetable quiche
Let’s do food first. My husband has been cooking. His new obsession is making pot stickers from scratch. I can assure that yes, you CAN get bored with eating pot stickers. The last two times he suggested it I vetoed the idea. That got me homemade pasta with sauce (oh yum yum yum) and a delicious flatbread pizza. I also got a crustless quiche. You can tell from the photo that he LOVES cooking tomatoes. I’m not as fond of cooked tomatoes as he is but at the moment they are still preferred over yet more pot stickers. The night he made the pasta he made a tandori sauce to go on it. Out of this world delicious. Remember Snuffles, the treat loving dog from Quick Draw McGraw? That describes the 4 of us having dinner. My brother-in-law is usually the bread baker, as I’ve told you. His breads are beyond compare. He was busy all day, however, so baking the challah fell to me. It was good, but it convinced me to get myself a bread thermometer. I worried about it being under-baked so I gave it more time than I thought it probably needed. I’d rather have it that way, even though over-baking means leftovers dry out faster. That is a 5-strand braided challah. Haven’t done one in years and so my strands were not as evenly thick at the end of the braiding.
The local news reported today that July was the hottest month on record for New Jersey. As everyone commented – tell us something we DIDN’T know. When I was a young lass, maybe all the way up to my 30s, NJ summers were my favorite weather. Hazy hot & humid did not faze me. Now that I am older, I have more empathy for those who complain about NJ summers. The humidity wipes me out. I learned in Arizona that temperatures above 100 are probably more heat than I enjoy, but I can go up into the 90s and have no problem if it is dry. I finally understand the phrase “it’s not the heat it’s the humidity”. Yes, it’s the humidity. And the dratted no-see-ums that are eating me alive every time I water the plants. My legs are covered with scratched bites and scabs. My legs look like the legs of a grade schooler (if there were still such a thing as grade school – oh wait – do NOT go there). My wonderful husband heard me moaning every night after watering the plants and bought me mosquito netting pants!!!! They do work! The problem, I think, for me is that I sweat so heavily from the humidity, that it is still attracting them through the pants. The number of bites is greatly reduced but I still got bitten the other night. I think I’ll try spraying the pants with insect repellent and see if that makes any difference. I could try to get up early when there are fewer bugs about but mostly I get up that early to make sandwiches. You may laugh but everyone who has seen them or heard me talk about them has asked where they can get them (search on mosquito netting pants)
I came home from making sandwiches yesterday and went to pull into my driveway. And I stopped. There was a man from the utility company walking out of my driveway and 5 orange cones IN my driveway. I rolled down my window and looked at him, and asked “What are you doing?” He explained that he had cleared it with the man in the house (*grin* I said – my husband, he said – I didn’t want to presume, I said – wise approach these days). The apron of the driveway was damaged when we got the new gas and electric to the house back in February or whenever it was. They are finally getting around to repairing it. He said we couldn’t drive on it for 3 or 4 days. That means no convertible – it is in the garage. Too bad, because the temperatures are only supposed to be in the 80s for the rest of this week. Of course, the humidity is also supposed to be in the 80s. It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity.
Last year I mentioned that I should plant lots and lots of canna lilies because the butterflies seemed to really enjoy them. I have only seen 2 butterflies this year so far. I showed you the monarch butterfly on the butterfly weed. There has also been a black swallowtail I’ve seen periodically. The swallowtail seems to check out everything but the things I planted specifically to make butterflies happy. It seems to really like the echinacea. I saw it today checking out the herbs, tomatoes and superbells, but it flitted away before landing anywhere. Camera-shy I guess. Black swallowtail butterfly
I planted 2 gardenias this year – one in a hanging pot and one in a pot along the front walk. I believe that the one in the hanging pot was burned out by the hot weather, after managing to produce 2 flowers in the late spring. The one along the walk has produced one full bloom. It does smell heavenly. Gardenia
Not only has it been humid, we’ve gotten a lot of rain. The fun part is when it rains in the evening so I don’t have to brave the no-see-ums and can skip watering the plants. Apparently it has been even wetter than I realized. This week my neighbor’s lawn has sprouted mushrooms. Every day they have gotten larger and larger. There must be a good story to write there but at the moment I only have the illustrations. 🙂 If they get much larger they are going to cross the line from impressive to creepy. okay, a little wider, but still not too creepy
Then of course there are the canna lilies. The “rescued” cannas have been thriving in the pots along the walk. FINALLY one of the ones I planted has begun to bloom. I get very impatient in the spring. Even knowing things will grow, I don’t want a lot of empty space that needs weeding and looks neglected. I cram way too many plants into one area. I have this gorgeous stupendously tall canna right smack in the middle of the lawn garden. Beautiful. BUT – crammed in that spot are 2 Rose Mallows, perennials that are in the hibiscus family. One of them was doing quite well before the canna began shooting up. The other is nestled under a canna leaf. When I can brave the biting-bug-filled lawn to go there, I rearrange it to be in front of the leaf. But somehow it always resets to under and behind. I hope it is sufficiently rooted to survive. There are actually 5 of these things in the yard. These 2 are about 6 inches across at a minimum.
I like so many flowers, and I’ve now got so many perennials. I want MORE rudbeckia laciniata hortensia, but I’m not sure where I can put them. I will have to pull out the firecrackers or chop down the variegated grass. Or pull out the rudbeckia laciniata (single bloom rudbeckia). That might work, except I also have the goose neck flowers there and I added the swamp milkweed as well. Sigh. Maybe I should put a border garden along the walk? That gets lots of sun. Rudbeckia laciniata hortensia after the rain. do you see the HUGE mushrooms?
Whatever it is that snuck into my planters now has flowers. I can’t wait to see what I’m growing. I thought that purple-edged leaf vine was a sweet pea vine – that’s what I was calling it in my head. But it’s not, according to my search. According to my search I have no idea what it is, other than beautiful. I also have no idea what to tell the lad who cuts my grass. I’m tired of moving pots and putting them back. I think I’ll tell him to just ignore the grass under the vines. *laughing* There isn’t really any grass, is there? My lawn is really nothing but weeds. 🙂
I started my one week vacation at 5:36 pm Friday night. *grin* That’s when I posted my last document to the team and signed out of all my applications and shut down my computer. Ahhhhh. We headed over to my sister’s where my brother-in-law had made the PERFECT Shabbat dinner: chicken, broccoli, potatoes, challah and SALT STICKS!!!! Oh my, his bread is absolutely amazingly delicious. As was the entire dinner. I drank too much white wine but I kept toasting “To Vacation!”. lovely color for the gladiola
We came home, STILL running the air conditioners. Maybe that doesn’t sound odd to you folk who live in modern houses with central air. I live in a house that is nearly 100 years old. MY air conditioners are all window units. I hate the sensation of being locked into the house. I love open windows, fresh air, fans moving the air. We’ve had the a/c going for 8 days straight. That may be a record. Looks like this canna lily will be the first to bloom. surrounded by Bolton’s Aster (False Starwort)
It was Friday, I was on vacation, I was a little tipsy, and I was not in the mood to watch TV or read. What to do? Second Life. 🙂 I logged in. An “old” friend was inworld – I’d not chatted with her in at least 8 years. I pinged her and we had a lovely, lovely chat. We caught up on life, life under the pandemic, and then had a WONDERFUL time chatting about our cats and cats in general. 🙂 I also chatted with another “old” friend – one with whom I’ve maintained contact over the years. I know that some people do not feel as if this kind of connection is ‘real’. I’m sorry for those folks, because in times like this pandemic, for those of us who believe in social distancing, the ability to be together virtually does wonders for my emotional health. I’m looking at scenes that tell my brain I am out and about and interacting with friends. It really works for me. I only wish I could reconnect with some of my friends who are no longer in SL – Dale, Zha, Chestnut, Honour, Jessica, Oura, Svea, Alem, Fricker Fraker, Winston and all the rest. We had such fun back in the day. I seem to be growing a squash of some sort. It snuck in with the flowers
Now here I am, the first morning of vacation. I treated myself by staying in bed an extra 90 minutes. BC was obliging. She did jump onto the bed after the first 60 minutes, but settled in when I began rubbing behind her ear. 🙂 She often prefers love to food. When I finally went downstairs and outside to bring in the newspapers, I discovered that the temperature and humidity were at a reasonable summer level. I opened ALL the windows. Yet another pleasure on this first day of vacation! Just LOOK at this bug. It was huge. I have no idea what it is
I’m very proud of myself. I finally tamed (mostly) the side garden. I had to hunt for a photo to show how bad it was because I have very carefully NOT been taking pictures of that disaster. 🙂 All I have is a cropped piece of a photo from April. Trust me – it was a lot worse by the time June came around. About a week ago I couldn’t stand the sight of it anymore and began tying back the forsythia and yanking weeds. There were flowers in there once, I know. The problem is that the weeds look exactly like the flowers I plant. I never know if what I’m looking at is weed or flower. And of course there was the incident of the weed that was pretending to be rhubarb. Before (April) – Peonies just beginning, forsythia just ending, lots of dead brush
I took a few hours one morning and began the cleanup, so I could transfer some flowers to the side (mostly peppermint and my borage). That involved cutting back a good part of the rhododendron, and hacking out some very deep-seated weeds. The white azaleas need to be hacked back as well, but I couldn’t do it all in one day. Once the azaleas are cut back we might be able to see the hydrangea that is there. I need to find either a good ladder or a brave soul so the top of the rhododendron can be cut back. I don’t really need it reaching the roof, and that’s where it seems to be heading. After (June) – Borage transplanted nicely – will have blue flowers, you can see the ferns and the variegated whatever.
There are some plants that are well behaved and still contained, playing nicely with each other. The lilies look great next to the gaillardia. I’m hoping the mandevilla that is just sneaking in at the side of the gaillardia (you can see 2 partial leaves) will make it this year. Either I bought an unhealthy plant or I’ve been over-watering it (my guess) or it got sick, but its leaves keep turning yellow. 😦 There are flowers and new shoots on it, so I’ve decided to leave it alone for a bit and see how it does. Benign negligence. Those 2 are in the front garden. The shot below is part of the bed between the street and the sidewalk. It’s almost rudbeckia time!! I finally looked up the yellow flowered brown leaved perennial: lysimachia ciliata ‘Firecracker’. What the description doesn’t say is that it is nearly indestructible! Yellow flowered lysimachia ciliata ‘Firecracker’, mandevilla’s white flowers, variegated grass, rudbeckia laciniata hortensia (not yet blooming)
The best part of the side garden is that one of my canna lilies from last summer wintered over, and is coming up! This is incredibly exciting for 2 reasons. First, just the fact that something that wonderful wintered over thrills me. 🙂 Second, they cost SO MUCH per plant. This one is saving me at least $25. 🙂 That is ALWAYS appreciated. Grow, canna lily, Grow!!!
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