Approaching the Crest

Sneak Some Zucchini Here

2011-08-08T11:50:00.000-04:00

According to Wellcat.com, today, Aug 8, is "Sneak Some Zucchini onto your Neighbor's Porch" Day.

Apparently, by the second week of August, most zucchini growers are so sick of the stuff they must resort to underhanded techniques to rid themselves of the excess. Well, you successful zucchini growers are welcome to leave all your unwanted squash on my porch, no sneakiness necessary.

This porch needs zucchini!

Why? Because my squash plants fell victim to the squash vine borers this year, same as last year. I started with four plants, pulled out the worst two about a month ago, and thought the remaining two might be able to make a go of it. They produced flowers, but had no energy left to actually make squash. They were just trying to stay alive. The plants (leaves) looked healthy, until one looked closer at the stems to see: emptiness.

A few days ago I went out to pull the remaining two squash plants. When I got to the garden I saw this:

New sprouts at the base of the plant, presumably below the borer damage. Smart plants! (But why didn't they do this a month ago?) So I cut off the plants above the new growth. We'll see what happens.

There's already a male flower bud on one of the new plants, but I'm a long way from squash. So leave some zucchini on my porch, would ya?

Surprise!

2011-07-28T12:28:00.000-04:00

Nearly every year my "Surprise Lilies" (Lycoris, "Naked Ladies", etc.) really do surprise me. The leave die off in the spring, but the flower stalks don't emerge until July. Mine are planted on the side of the house I visit the least often, so I often miss their emergence. This year I was still mulching in July (bad me!), so I saw them coming.

Beans

2011-07-22T23:26:00.000-04:00

I braved the midday, record-setting heat to harvest a few veggies. Some cukes, the first of my beans, and one Sungold tomato.

The tomato went straight from vine to mouth, so no picture. It was tasty. I steamed the beans for a late lunch. The cukes will go in salads and tzatziki.

Cucumber

2011-07-19T22:41:00.000-04:00

My veggie garden hasn't produced much this summer, but I have had a few cucumbers.

I planted three varieties this year: Marketmore (my tried-and-true) and Poinsett, both of which I started form seed; and one plant I got in a swap this spring. It was labeled white something-or-other, and I was instrigued that if might be white-skinned.

I picked the first two cucumbers last week. The "white" one is the larger, and the other is Poinsett. I picked a Marketmore a few days later, but no picture.

They are all yummy. I'd say it was a waste to plant the extra non-white cucumber, but that one vine is larger than all the others combined. I think it may be the one to keep me in cukes through the summer.

July 2011 Blooms - The Front Walk

2011-07-15T15:45:00.000-04:00

Rudbeckia steal the show in the summer. Along my front walk, five varieties are blooming today.

Annual rudbeckia:

Perennial Rudbeckia:

Goldsturm, I think

Rudbecki triloba

Rudbeckia 'Henry Eilers'

Keeping them company, some other annuals I started from seed this year. I'm not very good with annuals, so these have been scrawny and slow to bloom. But, finally, I have:

Melampodium


Zinnia

And here's the whole thing:

For more July blooms, head on over to May Dreams Gardens, where Carol hosts Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day on the 15th of each month.

Birthday Blooms

2011-07-10T21:41:00.001-04:00

Thanks, M&M, for the pretty birthday flowers yesterday!

Water Lily

2011-07-03T22:22:00.000-04:00

A few years ago I got a water lily in a plant swap. The lilypads were just what I needed to fill the little concrete fishless fishpond at the bottom of the terrace garden.

This post was going to be a question: Why aren't my lilypads laying on the surface? Some are, but most are standing straight up. Is this ok?

But as I took the picture above yesterday, so I could make my query/post, I saw something I'd never seen before:

A flower bud! Three years, and I finally have a flower.

Here are some pictures taken this morning:

So now this post is about showing off my first ever waterlily flower. But if you have any insight into the leaf questions, I'm still interested.

June Blooms, part 2

2011-06-27T01:40:00.000-04:00

Finally showing off what was blooming in my yard on June Bloom Day, the 15th of the month.

In the upper garden: stokesia, butterfly weed, baptisia seed pods, rudbeckia

Upper Garden

Rudbeckia in the upper garden

There are different Rudbeckia along the front walk. Last year I wintersowed a whole bunch of different types and planted them in various spots on the garden. I have no idea what's where anymore.

Rudbeckia along the front walk

Also in the front are some very tipsy glads:

Gladiolus

Over in the side garden, a yellow flower I wintersowed last year. I think its a heliopsis, though it might be a helianthus. I really have no idea.

Heliopsis?

Around back, I have last fall's mums in a pot. They are blooming already.

Mums!?!?!?

In the garage garden, the "Easter" lilies are brightening up the corner, while farther down 'Franz Schubert' is the first of the garden phlox to bloom. This was a plant I 'rescued' off the clearance table a few years ago, and it has limped along ever since. I am happy to see it bloom.

"Easter" lilies in the garage garden

Phlox 'Franz Schubert'

Completing the circuit, some coreopsis on the terraces:

Zagreb coreopsis on the terraces

Whew! Finally done.

Interlude

2011-06-25T01:54:00.000-04:00

I still haven't put up my Bloom Day pictures! What am I waiting for? I have no idea, but this post isn't it. This week I was in Monterey, California, and it was a good time to stop and smell the roses at my hotel:

June Blooms, part 1 (cont) - Larkspur

2011-06-17T11:16:00.000-04:00

I missed a very important bloom in yesterday's post of early June blooms: larkspur.

I've never had larkspur before - I was pretty sure it would be unhappy in the hot, humid summers. But I was given some seeds last year, which I wintersowed. I planted out a few seedlings along the front walk. They didn't do anything last year, so I forgot about them/assumed they didn't make it. Then this year: flowers! They are/were so pretty, I hope they reseed well.

June Blooms, part 1

2011-06-16T20:21:00.000-04:00

It's been so long between flower-photo postings, I'm going to have to divide up this post. First off: what WAS blooming in my garden, back in late May/early June.

Lilies:
I have a few white asiatic lilies interplanted with the daffodils. But I think the increasingly crowded daffodils have outcompeted the lilies. There are only a few left.

In the Upper Garden, Stella is always the leader of the dayliliy parade. Ditch lilies are not far behind.

Behind the daylilies, in the mostly natives bed, I've been trying to grow Thermopsis caroliniana (Carolina bushpea). I started with two plants; one didn't survive the first year. I keep replanting the second one, and it keeps dying. But the remaining original plant keeps on going:

Also, Erigeron:

The patio garden (aka the native overflow) was filled with penstemon and Virginia sweetspire:

That all started as 'Huskers Red' penstemon, with white flowers, but I see a purple-flowered stalk in there now.

Up next: What's actually blooming now (the Bloom Day post)

The Veggie Garden in June

2011-06-14T23:18:00.001-04:00

So I fell off the map for a while. I wish I could say I was too busy in the garden to sit in front of a computer, but that was hardly the case. My garden is feeling very neglected. Between traveling, extreme hot weather, more traveling, and more extreme hot weather, I've spent very little time with my plants.

Speaking of hot weather, we just came off a hot streak of multiple consecutive 100+ days. While I'm not positive it was the longest 100+ streak I've endured, I am sure it was the longest I've ever seen in JUNE.

Despite all that, the veggies are growing. As expected, those peas didn't survive the hot spells. I pulled them out and sowed beans in there: romano and french filet.

Surprisingly, I still have greens. The lettuce never did much,

but at least it hasn't bolted. It did make a tasty salad the other night, and I think there's enough left for one or two more.

And there's still kale:

(I don't know why that uploaded sideways. Tilt your head, or the screen, if you don't mind)

I made more kale chips tonight. A crowded cookie-sheet worth, and I ate them all in one sitting. No, that's not right - I don't think I ever made it to sitting.

Last year I planted some garlic but never got around to harvesting it. So this year the bulb's cloves sprouted, grew, and formed new bulbs. Kinda looks like and exploded garlic bulb:

These were not the scape-producing garlic. Instead, some have made bulbils partly up the stem:

The other (this year's) garlic isn't quite ready yet.

Last year I also tried red onions from seed. I wasn't very successful, partly because I planted them in some very hard clay soil. I dug up and ate the best bulbs (by best I mean 1-1/2 inches in diameter!) last year, and left some in the ground. I have no idea whether second-year onions are any good, but I figured it would be kind of like planting onion sets, right?

This year the tops grew very large, and flowered:

I didn't know if onions were like garlic where the flower stalks should be cut off, so I cut some and left others. Today I dug up one whose flower bud I had previously cut:

It looked nice from the top, but once I dug it up I saw that it was flat on the bottom. I guess that clay didn't get any softer over the past year.

The summer veggies are on their way. I planted 10 tomatoes and 7 peppers:

(photo from three weeks ago)

There are flowers on some of the peppers and the tomatoes:

Across the garden, the cucumbers and squash are flowering, too:

(another sideways picture! sorry.)

Nothing much to report on the fruit front. There was a blackberry ready yesterday. I decided it was going to be my treat after planting the beans, but then I forgot it. It was missing today. Oh, well, there are many more to come. I never built cages for the strawberries, so they are feeding the wildlife. I'm ok with that - they were mostly for groundcover. I'm not even going to mention the plums and blueberries.

~~Tomorrow~~ Next Up: flowers!

Eating Green

2011-05-28T20:50:00.000-04:00

My harvest this evening:

Garlic scapes, more peas, and kale.

Last year I grew curly kale. This year I grew "Early Curled Siberian Kale," a Christmas gift from sis and BIL, from the Thomas Jefferson Center for Historic Plants. I'm a TJ fan, so I had to grow some of his plants. But I don't know why this kale has "curled" in the name: the leaves are pretty darn flat.

They are also much thinner than last year's variety, which means they cook up into kale chips much quicker (and that's a good thing!). This batch of kale chips is spiced (inspiration from here). I left out the sugar, and tossed the kale with oil and vinegar before sprinkling on the spice mixture (because I can't imagine kale without vinegar, even for one second). Result, yum!

I turned the garlic scapes into pesto, just like last year. This year I had twice as many scapes (14), so I got twice as much pesto (~1/3 to 1/2 cup):

I didn't do anything to the peas, except eat them:

Almost Summer

2011-05-27T22:09:00.000-04:00

I picked a mess of peas today:

It is so hot, the vines are nearly done. My experimental row of direct-sown seeds isn't going to amount to much, I'm afraid.

I brought the peas to a picnic this afternoon. They didn't last long.

Garlic scapes are ready now, too:

I'd wanted to bring garlic scape pesto to the picnic, but the day got away from me. On the agenda for tomorrow.

The girls and I had a nice picnic in the sculpture garden, though it was very crowded for the first jazz night of the season. A thunderstorm eventually chased us away, but I got home to find total dryness. Boo!

As I took a late-evening walk around the yard, some of the plants seemed to be glowing. The neon-yellow of the Oenothera missouriensis is much more palatable post-dusk:

Nearby, the kousa dogwood lights up the back corner of the house:

And in the front, the shrub rose does the same for the other corner:

I see the daffodil foliage is finally succumbing to the heat.

It's about time: I have things I need to plant there.

In the side garden ,the first daylily opened today:

I also saw my first fireflies (they're not very photogenic). Summer's here!

Peas Are In!

2011-05-23T21:41:00.001-04:00

My ~~first~~ second pea pod (I already ate the first one!)

More are on the way:

Roses, part two

2011-05-20T17:24:00.001-04:00

Here's another reason I don't feel the need to grow roses. When I want to see roses, all I have to do is look over the fence to my neighbor's yard:

When I first moved in, my neighbor introduced herself, saying, "My name is easy to remember. Just look at my yard." That's right, Rosie!

Sunsprite

2011-05-18T18:57:00.002-04:00

I don't grow roses.

But three roses came with the house.

This free-flowering beast with cute little white roses adorns the front bed. Not really the best place fore something that grows wildly out of control, but it was there. I don't have any better plan for the space, yet, so it stays.

Smack in the middle of the side yard (looking very out-of-place, until you realize it is where there used to be a fence dividing front from back), there once was a rose. I don't know what it was - the rose died before I moved here, leaving only the rootstock.

I haven't bothered to dig it up, so I have some ratty-looking red roses over there.

In the terrace garden was this:

A Floribunda rose called 'Sunsprite'. Now, yellow roses are my absolute favorite. I don't wear yellow (don't have the complexion for it). I don't decorate my house with yellow. But I do love yellow in the garden (daffodils, anyone?). It is just so cheery.

Sunsprite is not just a yellow rose, it is a yellow rose with the sweetest scent. In flower, I can smell it all over the garden. So many roses have had the smell bred right out of them, but this one is perfect. Not that any rose is perfect here in humid Virginia. Black spot is a real problem, as are Japanese beetles. But when this one is happy (in my yard that is rarely), it is perfection.

My yellow rose was very old. 'Sunsprite' was introduced in 1977, but I'm pretty sure mine wasn't that old. My terraces were installed about the early-mid 80s. It is possible this rose dates to that time. It was a tree rose, and the stem was thick and gnarled.

In 2007 I was away for about a year. There was also quite a drought that summer, and much of my yard suffered, including this rose. It survived, barely, and limped along for another year. A hard winter ended its suffering. Like the rose in the middle of the yard, I haven't dug out the rootstock. This one is especially happy growing and flowering, so much so I even showed it off in my Bloom Day post.

(note the old rose trunk on the left)

But I miss 'Sunsprite'. Last year I looked for a replacement (even though I don't do roses), but couldn't find one locally or even reasonably-priced mail-order. I did come across one when I was in Wisconsin last year, but it was too big to take on the plane. I started looking for substitutions. I was leaning toward a 'Julia Child', which is very pretty, even though I knew the scent wouldn't be the same. But I didn't get around to buying one.

Then on Sunday I just happened to walk by a parking-lot plant sale. I smelled it before I saw it, and knew it had to be mine. So much for my plant-buying ban. Welcome home, 'Sunsprite'!

(oh, how I wish this were a scratch-and-sniff blog!)

May 2011 Blooms

2011-05-15T22:00:00.001-04:00

I think May is my most crowded bloom day post. While the garden is calming down a little bit (new things to see every day rather than every hour!), there's still plenty to show off. I'll try to limit my photos today to three sections of the yard.

The Garage Garden (aka the herb garden, though it is less and less so as time passes) is no longer the Purple Garden.

There's still lots of purple in the form of columbine, but the front section is now yellow with potted iris and rue. The clematis add a vibrant red-violet. And toward the back, some new flowers this year.

I started a bunch of seeds last year, then did a plunk-and-run into a bare-ish spot of the garage garden. This year they are crowding each other out. The tall plants above are not what I thought they would be.

I think they are valerian. I don't like them, so out they will come. Making more room for:

Pink penstemon. This one got really crowded between the valerian and all the columbine. I've removed some of the offending columbine already.

Over to the terraces, the Neglected Bed (formal name: Right Lower Terrace) has all sorts of color going on:

some Iberis (candytuft) hanging on in front. Then, the rather vigorous rootstock from the Dead Rose is all abloom:

Further along, some iris I dug from my cousin's yard several years ago. They bloomed for the first time last year.

And just in case there wasn't enough color already, the Gaillardia have joined the party:

(I consider these a Summer flower - what are they doing up so early?)

Back across the yard, the driveway bed (now blackberry bed) is blue. But I'm not sad about it.

The grape-scented iris seem to be more blue than purple this year. They match the flax (Linum perrene ssp. lewisii) down the row a bit. Beyond the flax, not visible from the previous photo, is mom's geranium:

I wonder how much of this will last once those blackberries (also flowering now) take over?

Two more photos to show off today. First, the peonies are blooming!

Peonies always seem to pick the day before a rainstorm to open. Hard rains last night, a storm today, and more to come over the next few days mean I probably won't get to enjoy them much.

Finally, my favorite flower of May, for the promise it brings:

Peas are coming!

To see what's blooming in other gardens, visit Carol over at May Dreams Gardens.

also blooming today:
front - virginia sweetspire, pansy, coreopsis
side - bearded irises, Dicentra spectabilis, Dicentra spectabilis 'alba', Dicentra eximia, rose campion, heuchera
patio - virginia sweetspire
upper garden - Baptisia australis, Tradescantia, Sedum ternatum
shade garden - Chrysogonum virginianum, hellebores

An Unexpected Find

2011-05-14T17:24:00.001-04:00

I went to a plant swap today.

No, I still haven't finished planting all the things I've bought this year (which is why I wouldn't let myself got to the Green Spring Plant Sale this morning), but a swap is different: I get to find new homes for all my babies that have outgrown their space. If I happen to also bring home a few new things to try, well, that's just a bonus.

I brought to the Mid-Atlantic Gardeners' Spring Swap: Echinacea pupurea, balloon flower (these both were reseeds that I dug out of the walkway), Eupatorium coelestinum (mistflower), double purple columbine, Euphorbia myrsinites seedlings, and assorted tomato seedlings. There was so much more I could have given away, but I didn't have a chance to dig it up and pot it. I really meant to thin out the Solidago 'Fireworks', but completely forgot about it until I was on my way this morning.

I brought home: bleeding hearts, green-and-gold, hardy begonia (with bonus hellebore), red hen-and-chicks, tomato seedlings (Sungold and Sungold Select - yay!), a white cucumber, sage, a sedum I didn't have, some more white iris, a huge hunk of canna, catmint, and some other plants that were thrust into my hands as I walked by.

But the best part of today was not the plants. Or the great potluck lunch we all shared. The best part was a complete surprise: my cousins were there! Second cousins on my Dad's side, who I never see even though they live 1-2 hours away. The oddest thing is that we've all been attending this swap for several years, and had never run into each other before today. We had a weird moment of recognition and then lots of catching up over lunch.

When you go to a plant swap, you never know what you'll find.

While I Was Gone

2011-05-10T21:49:00.000-04:00

… is, coincidentally, the name of the book I was reading while I was gone.

While I was gone, I intended to keep up with blogging. I took lots of pictures before I left, and had several ideas formulating. But a hectic schedule left me very little down time. So no blogging while I was gone.

While I was gone, May was in full swing in my yard. The first thing I did when I returned was rush out to see what I had been missing.

New iris, of course. Here's a bicolor yellow and peach. When it first started to open, I thought it was a bit drab. Then the sun hit it, and it glowed:

Here's a medium sized iris in front of the sedum bed:

And finally, an heirloom iris from my sister's godmother (by way of my mother):

I was never particularly fond of this one, because the falls appeared brownish. But this year they are a vibrant burgundy, so striking I wonder how I could ever have shunned them.

Pink bleeding hearts! Pink bleeding hearts! Pink bleeding hearts opened while I was gone!

They were so far behind the white ones (2.5-3 weeks) that I didn't think they'd bloom this year.

And blackberries:

At the front of the side garden, here's a shrub I've never identified. It didn't bloom the first few years I lived here, but now it does. But that hasn't helped me to figure out what it is. It's flowers started to open while I was gone:

Along the front walk, the pansies are still cheery:

But wait! While I was gone something new started blooming in there:

Coreopsis! What a summery way to welcome me home from the cold northern climes.

(What didn't happen while I was gone? The mulch pile didn't get any smaller. But I moved eight cartloads when I returned, for a running total of 22. I think I'm about halfway through it now.)

May Day Vines

2011-05-01T22:39:00.000-04:00

I don't have a Maypole in my yard, but I do have a trellis. Clematis is celebrating May with five new blooms:

Another vine celebrating Mayday is Carolina Jessamine (Gelsemium sempervirens). I've had this vine growing along the veggie garden fence for a few years now, but this is its first ever flower.

It has a lovely fragrance, too. What a way to ring in the new month! I love this time of year - each day brings something new to admire.

Plant Sales

2011-04-30T22:38:00.000-04:00

I was supposed to work today, but I rearranged my schedule to have the day off. Partly because the weather forecast was for perfect gardening weather, and partly because today was the spring native plant sale at Parkfairfax.

I love this sale, and I go even if there's nothing I need. I always find something I can't live without. Even when I have a box full of plants at home that still need to be planted, I find more to buy.

Speaking of plants needing to be planted, I've been on a bit of a buying spree this spring (ok, it happens every spring). I've been to three garden centers in the past 10 days, and have planted less than half of what I've bought. Sometimes I buy plants just because I like them, not having any idea where they will fit in the garden. Other times I have specific plans for the plants, but they space they are to occupy isn't prepared yet. And sometimes I'm just lazy. I've killed more plants just because I don't get around to planting them than for any other reason. I'm determined to change that this year. (By the way, I'm wearing one of my favorite T-shirts today: "Procrastinators Unite! Tomorrow.") But I bought more plants anyway.

Here's what I got at the plant sale today:

On the left, two plants that came not from the plant sale, but from a community yard sale I passed on the way home: Geranium maculatum and a variegated Carex. They will go in the north side garden, once I clear a space.

From the plant sale, in the back is palm sedge (Carex muskingumenses). I've never had carex before, and now I have two. This one likes moist-wet conditions, and I have one spot in my yard that stays pretty wet. Problem is, it's not a garden bed (yet). So I have to figure out something to do with this until I make a new bed.

Back right is an Amethyst Falls Wisteria frutescens. Yes, I do have a plan for this. A long-range plan, but that's ok; this is a pretty small vine right now. I'll repot it and let it grow while my other plans come together.

In the front are two pots of blue-flag iris (Iris versicolor). No plan for this yet. I just felt like I needed some non-bearded iris.

Next to this iris is a lupine. I've wanted one of these for a long time. It will go into the side garden, between the rows of non-flowering daffodils (I think).

Front right is Allegheny sedum (Sedum telephioides). It is similar to the ubiquitous 'Autumm Joy', but much more interesting. The leaves are greyer, and very thick. And guess what? I've already planted it! It has a new home in the lower front garden, along with some 'Walker's Low' catmint I bought last week. The greys complement each other. (Oops, forgot to take a picture)

At the community yard sale I stopped at on the way home, I also made a non-plant purchase for the yard: new chairs!

They need to be sanded and stained, but they are exactly what I've been wanting for the deck. I've been holding out buying them new, because I figured I'd come across used ones eventually. Today was my lucky day!

In other news, I moved 6 more cartloads of mulch today. That's a running total of 14, and my car almost fits in the driveway. Yippee!

Iris and Mulching

2011-04-29T21:32:00.001-04:00

More iris are blooming in the side garden:

On the left, some solid lavender.

On the right, another white iris. This one is Snowbrook, and has bright orange beards.

It was a passalong plant I got two years ago, but it didn't bloom last year. I think I'm obsessed with white iris this year. I like this even better than the white/yellow iris from last week.

Finally, the most unique iris in my collection (I think). Lavender petals, golden beards, and zebra-striped falls that transition to a majestic purple.

When I'm not out admiring iris, I've been mulching. I've done eight cart-loads so far (2 Wed, 2 Thurs, 4 today), but it is slow going. Every year it seems to become a more difficult chore. Part of the "problem" is that my gardens are finally filling in. In the past I could run the cart right into the garden, dump out the mulch, then spread it around. Now, there's no open space to do that. So I'm doing bucketfulls or handfulls at a time.

Above is an example. What used to be an open space in the daylily bed has been well-colonized by mistflower (Eupatorium coelestinum). I'm very happy about that, but how do I mulch it?

The Mulch is Here

2011-04-27T18:55:00.000-04:00

My city provides a nice service: in Fall, they suck up all the leaves people rake to the street. They compost it over Winter and provide leaf mulch free to residents in Spring (pick up yourself or pay a nominal fee for delivery). They started delivery later than usual this year, so I didn't get mine until today. But here it is:

I'd hoped the truck driver could put the pile off to the side, so I could still access the garage (off to the right in these pictures). As you can see, the truck barely fit in the driveway at all, so there was little option about where to put it. He really tried to put the pile up close to the garage, so I could at least pull the car into the bottom of the driveway, but the utility lines overhead caused interference with the lift. So I'm stuck with this pile and an inaccessible driveway until I get the pile moved.

Last year it was 2.5 months before that was done. Any bets on how long it will take this year?

I started moving mulch this afternoon, but it was really slow going. I loaded up the cart and wheeled it to where I wanted the mulch. Looked at the garden bed and saw: weeds. Everywhere. I'd weeded (almost) all the beds in March/early April to remove the leaf debris and winter weeds. But now several weeks later, without mulch, the spring weeds have arrived. So I had to do some weeding before I could spread the mulch. Looks like this will be the process for every cartload. I only got two loads moved before the storms came today.

Happy Easter

2011-04-24T22:35:00.000-04:00

Happy Easter!

(Don't those look like Easter lilies? No? That's because they naturally bloom in June. Silly name.)

A (really bad) Garden Limerick

2011-04-21T22:38:00.000-04:00

There once was a shrub named Nandina.
In my garden, she was the queen-a.
But truth be told,
She was rather old,
& I'd much rather have a hydreengea.

Nandina was a pest, that's for sure.
Rabbits have nothing on her.
Those bright red berries
That seem so merry
They sure make the species endure.

I'm tired of weeding I say,
I want her out of my garden today
So I called my friend Rob,
Said I've got a job,
She's yours if you haul her away.

Rob dug and he pulled and he frowned,
But that queen would not heave from the ground,
She was determined to stay
It was just her way
of saying "Don't you push me around!"

Poor, tired Rob said "I know just the thing!"
"Why don't I just take the offspring?"
(some were seven feet tall)
(and he didn't get them all)
Someday one may even be King!

What to do with Nandina instead?
I didn't want to do this, I'm feeling the dread.
But the time is nigh
To say with a sigh
If you won't leave alive, you'll leave dead!

Right Before My Eyes

2011-04-21T21:55:00.000-04:00

I'm always amazed how fast some plants grow once they wake up in Spring. I feel like if I ever sat still I could actually watch them grow.

Yesterday morning I went looking for iris buds in the side garden, and saw a few. By mid-afternoon, there were two more, looking like they'd always been there. I know I hadn't missed them in the morning.

And my garage garden has filled in so fast! Columbine leafed out seemingly overnight, covering most of the bare patches. And the moss phlox are spreading more each day.

See this Sempervivum in the face pot?

All Winter, and into Spring, it was laying next to that lavender moss phlox. Next to. With bare space in between. (You'll just have to trust me. Turns out I don't have any pictures of that.) It didn't move, but now it is nearly invisible.

I guess it needs a new home now.

More Iris

2011-04-20T21:57:00.000-04:00

Two more iris opened this week.

First, another miniature bearded iris. I don't remember the name of this one. It is not my favorite - I think the colors are washed out and a bit dingy.

Here's a new iris I got as a passalong plant last year. It is supposed to be a rebloomer. We'll see. Even if it's not, I really like it. I haven't had a white iris before.

I'm making an effort to show more long views of the garden. Closeups are great to see the details of a particular plant, but they don't show how that plant fits in the overall landscape. Problem is, I never feel the gardens are cleaned up enough to be picture-worthy. I need to get over that.

Here's the garage garden. The miniature iris is in one of the pots in the foreground. (I really need to get prettier pots.) This bed is mostly purples in the spring. The muscari and anemone I showed previously have been overshadowed (quite literally, you can't even see them anymore) by the columbine just now starting to bloom. You can see one of the columbine flowers by the clematis trellis.

Here's the side yard, with the white iris on the left about a third of the way down.

I finally moved the sticks that had been blocking the path for the last month, just so I could take this picture. Still needs some cleaning up, though. I think those are Echinacea seedlings growing in the path.

April Foliage

2011-04-16T18:23:00.000-04:00

The day started out gray and dreary. Then the rains came. Then the wind and storms. I've been inside being lazy all day. It has been so dark I've had to have a light on the whole time.

It is Spring; I want to be outside! I want to look at the trees putting forth their new leaves. I want to watch plants emerging from last year's debris. And I want to show them off for today's Foliage Follow-Up.

I'll just have to content myself with looking at pictures from earlier in the week, like these:

Soft leaves are beginning to show themselves on the weeping Japanese maple.

I didn't have my camera with me when I first spotted these. They looked just like asparagus to me. By the time I remembered to take a picture, they had started to leaf out some. You don't get the whole asparagus effect, here, but maybe you can imagine:

They are really not asparagus, but balloon flowers.

Yesterday I showed off the Pasque Flower. Nearby is this similar plant, the native Anemone patens. I've had it for several years now. I do love the foliage, but it has yet to flower.

I also showed my white bleeding heart yesterday. In the background was this:

Mertensia virginica, Virginia bluebells. If these were going to flower they would be doing so now. But this plant has had a very hard life, and I'm just really happy to see it return at all. We can wait another year for flowers.

And here's something I was not at all happy to see. Several years ago I had a horrible tree-of-heaven taken down. Why is it so horrible? It grows super-fast and procreates like crazy. The entire root of the young plants must be removed, or the trees just grow back. Like this one:

Because it is buried in my out-of-control rosemary, the original seedling got a really good toehold in that spot before I pulled it out. I go most of it, but apparently not all, because it is back again this year. And once again it's had a chance to spread its roots before I noticed it in there. I'm hoping today's rains make the ground nice and soft so I can pull it out tomorrow.

Go see Pam at Digging for links to some more great foliage!

Blooms Away! (The April Bloom Day Post)

2011-04-15T18:39:00.002-04:00

I love this time of year, when every day brings something new in the garden. Just two days ago I shared a bunch of flowering plants, but don't you worry! There's lots more to show off today.

First, in honor of Bloom Day (hosted by Carol over at May Dreams Gardens), my first bearded iris of the year opened this morning:

It is a miniature bearded iris called 'Cherry Pop' (I think - labels tend to move). This one seems very early - only a few others are even starting to show flower stalks.

Also in the back, the phlox are in full bloom now. I have lots of moss phlox in various colors, but I especially enjoy the airiness of my one creeping phlox plant

In the upper garden, 'Little Lanterns' Aquilegia are shining:

In the side garden, I can see a new bloom race starting. Last year I planted two bleeding hearts (Dicentra spectabilis), one pink and one white. They are both up this year, with the white one winning the first annual competition:

Around front, the Pasque flower is doing its thing amidst the daffodils:

Skipping to the back alley for just a moment, here's something I don't have in my yard. I don't mind, because I can see it just fine across the alley: Lilac!

Several folks thought this lilac was the subject of my header picture this week, but it is not. Moving back to the front yard, we find one of my favorite spring blooming trees:

Redbud! (Cercis canadensis) Yes, it is still bent from last year's storm damage. But looking cheerfully springy anyway.

Also blooming: white daffs, pink and red tulips, muscari, geranium (one flower), violets (everywhere), candytuft, pansy, anemone (almost done), rosemary, blueberries

My friend Merf, a new and fascinating lifeblogger, created a new link party today: Friday Favorites. What are my favorites this week? In spring, that is easy to answer: whatever is blooming!

Dont Tread on Me!

2011-04-14T21:28:00.001-04:00

I was starting to clean out the last garden bed on the terrace a few weeks ago. I found an uprooted plant tag from the new peony I planted late last year. Now, where did I plant that peony? Did it survive my neglect after I planted it?

I didn't see any sign of it where I thought I'd put it, so I kept on weeding. When I stood up, I realized I'd bee nkneeling right on top of it! Unfortunately, it had already started growing, and I'd broken off its two emerging shoots:

Oops! What are the chances it will regrow?

...

Pretty good, it turns out. Here's what it looked like this evening:

Whew!

I doubt it will flower this year, but at least it is alive. Hopefully it will gain some strength this year and give me flowers next year.

Declining Daffodils

2011-04-13T18:05:00.005-04:00

My daffodils are declining.

Not just because it is mid-April and their peak bloom time has passed. I mean I have fewer of them. Lots and lots of foliage, but not a lot of flowers.

See all that beautiful foliage? Those few flowers in front are all I got.

Have the bulbs increased too much and crowded each other out, not allowing bulbs to form large enough to flower? Have the increases gone ever-deeper into the soil and prevented blooms? Is there some other problem?

I think I need to dig them up and divide them, I just don't know when to do it. I don't think I should do this now, that would stress them too much when they need to be storing up for next year. Can I divide them in early summer after the foliage has faded? That would be the best time for me, as I'd know exactly where they are, and they will still be on my mind. But new bulbs are planted in mid-late fall, so is that the best time to divide as well? Probably.

So I'll try to remember to do that in the fall. The bulbs will already be formed at whatever size they are going to be, so I doubt I'll get many flowers next year, either. But I have to start somewhere.

I started cutting the faded flowers in the side garden today, for my great daffodil count (which won't be so great this year). Today's cuttings: 80. I've gotten most of the yellows and the early whites. The later whites along the front walk are still going strong.

Why are these spread out and full of blooms? Because every time I plant something in this bed I accidentally dig up a bunch of bulbs and have to replant them. So they've been accidentally divided many times over the last few years. I even moved some to below the wall. They are in too much shade there, but many are blooming.

So I think I have an answer to one question: divide those daffodils!

4/29/2011 update
Final 2011 daff count: 175
2010: 282
2009: 347

Thriving on Neglect

2011-04-10T22:20:00.008-04:00

So I didn't get out to the yard much this weekend. The poor weather Friday and Saturday (combined with working) meant I got into some indoor projects. While it was warmer today, the forecasted sun never materialized to beckon me outside. I managed to drag myself out there this afternoon to take a look around. Guess what? Spring is springing even without my help.

Here's my garage garden, in various shades of purple

There's moss phlox, anemone, muscari, creeping phlox, violets, and a very early geranium bloom.
Here's a closer look at that far end:

A few struggling tulips in the side garden

A few tulips and moss phlox, with some leftover crocus, on the patio terrace.

Blueberries!

This one could be problematic - the other blueberries haven't opened their buds yet, so I don't know if this plant will get pollinated.

I haven't even started the spring cleanup in the right terrace bed (I always seem to leave one part of a chore undone), but the Iberis (candytuft), Euphorbia myrsinites, and moss phlox are putting on their spring show anyway.

Yes, my garden thrives on neglect!

Snow Foolery

2011-04-01T23:08:00.007-04:00

My parents live in New England, where they've had a great deal of snow this winter. Even more than normal. To give some perspective, here's a photo from their house in January, the day before another 10" of snow fell:

By late March, the snow was finally melting. There were even swaths of bare ground in the sunniest spots. Then Mother Nature played an evil April Fool's trick. Here was the scene when my parents awoke this morning:

Back in northern Virginia, it was a cool but (fortunately) dry start to April. But just last Sunday we had our own dusting of snow. I'd thought it was safe to put away the winter gear. I was wrong.

The snow was already melting by the time I went out to take pictures, and was all gone my mid-morning.

Organization

2011-03-20T20:35:00.009-04:00

Organization is a wonderful thing. Too bad I'm not very good at it.

I spent most of last spring and summer not being able to use my garage, due to a project I'd started (and not finished) that took up much of the interior space. Since I couldn't put the car in, the garage became a repository for a lot of other stuff. So even when I eventually cleaned up from the project, I still couldn't put the car in.

My parents visited for a few days in late summer. While I don't always intend to put them to work, they are good at finding projects. We started off doing something else (I don't even remember what, now), but ended up spending two days cleaning out the garage. By the end, not only could I put my car in, but some junk that I had moved from the last house and thrown in there was gone, too. And nearly everything had a place, thanks to Mom's organizational skills.

Fast forward three seasons. Here I am, doing spring clean-up in the yard. I've cut down the Buddleia (further than I've ever dared cut it before, btw).

Now I need to tie up the twigs to go out with the trash. The city requires <4 ft length, <50lb bundles, tied up. Off to find some twine. I think there's some in the garage.

Oh, look! A box labeled "Rope and Twine" - I wonder if there's any twine in there?

There is!

I love organization.

Spring Stats

2011-03-20T20:09:00.017-04:00

When I started this blog, I didn't do an intro post about the blog, my motivations for starting it, what I hoped to accomplish, or anything like that. I just dove right in. Like much in my life, doing is preferable to planning. So I did.

A year and some later, it's time to highlight one of the things this blog does for me: it is a repository for my meager record-keeping. But without it, I'd have even less in the way of records.

One fun thing I can do now that I have a little bit of history, is compare signs of Spring in the yard. Last year, I posted that on the first day of Spring my first white daffodils opened (yellow had already started), the first dandelion bloomed, and the mint appeared. Oh, and there was one lonely moss phlox flower.

This year, I've had daffodils for over a week already (both colors), I first saw the mint sprouts nearly a week ago, and I've been picking off dandelions for 2-3 weeks. (No phlox, but that was an oddity last year) So is my yard ahead of schedule this year (I think it is), or was everything late last year? With only one year of history, I don't really know (I just have a feeling, but that's not very scientific). So I'll have to keep this blog going long enough to make another comparison next Spring.

Meanwhile, let's look at what's noteworthy on this year's first Spring day. Since Spring represents the promise of things yet to come, here's what's about to happen in my yard:

Virginia Bluebells are emerging from the ground in the side yard.

And next to them the bleeding hearts are coming up, too.

There are reddish buds on the redbud.

This is the week I call the plum tree the Popcorn Tree:

Pop!

Happy Spring, y'all!

Sprouting Peas

2011-03-16T08:27:00.005-04:00

Peas are my favorite spring vegetable. My parents started me early. When they worked in the garden when I was very young, they taught me how to pick and shell peas. I kept busy, and out of their way, eating fresh peas while they worked. I still love peas, as long as they are fresh and raw.

Unfortunately, my climate is not conducive to growing peas. Sugar snap peas, maybe, but shelling peas just don’t like it here. Spring just isn’t long enough - it gets too hot too fast. Fall is supposedly a better season for peas here, but that means planting them toward the end of summer, and I never seem to have free space in the garden then. So I plant spring peas, and do what I can to cheat. Peas grow just fine in cool, even cold weather. Frosts are no problem. But they sprout better when the soil isn’t frigid. So I sprout them inside, then plant out into the cold in mid-March.

I put some peas on a moist paper towel, cover with another moist paper towel, and put the whole thing in a recloseable plastic bag. Set it on top of the fridge for a week, and they sprout. The trick is in the timing, and here’s where I have trouble.

I did the paper towel thing with the peas on March 1. Then I went off to Phoenix for 5 days. When I got home, the peas were just starting to sprout. Another 2-3 days would do it. Then it rained. Then I was working late. So it was Sunday, March 13 before I had a chance to put them in the ground. Here’s what they looked like after 12 days in their “sprouting chamber”:

Those are some long roots! And the leaves are emerging. I don’t think I’ve planted them with leaves before. I was unsure how deep to plant these. Peas normally go 2 inches down. Would that be a problem to bury the emerging leaves? Should I keep them closer to the surface?

I decided to go with the 2 inches, give or take. Planting seeds is easy: dig a trench, drop in the seeds, cover the trench. But planting sprouted peas is a bit tedious. These must be planted one-at-a-time. I stick in my skinny trowel, move the soil enough so these super-long roots have a place to go, and drop in the peas root side down. Sometimes I dig too far, and the whole pea falls in. Then I have to fish it back out, trying not to break the roots. But all that labor is worth it when I can eat fresh peas in late spring!

I planted three rows (my rows are short, 4-5 feet) this way, then sowed a fourth with unsprouted peas. Just to see if my method really gains my peas some springtime coolness. We’ll see.

March 2011 Blooms and a Brand New Bloom (for me)

2011-03-15T16:18:00.011-04:00

Bloom Day* has rolled around again, and my yard is finally starting to wake up and embrace the oncoming Spring.

Hellebores that were just emerging last month are now in bloom. Here is the white one:

Lavender and purple hellebores are also blooming.

Crocus have gone through their bloom cycle

And are wrapping up their color show. My first Spring in this house (5 years ago), I was delighted to see crocus popping up in several places in the yard. Last spring I actually planted some more. Now I have some white ones to go with the yellow and purple blooms:

The early daffodils are brightening up the front:

The ones in the side garden are waiting for Spring. I’m ok with that. I want as many daffodils for as long as I can get them!

New this year: Anemone! I’ve planted these bulbs several times over the last few years, and never had any results. Last fall I planted them in four different places, hoping they’d like at least one. Whatever I did this year worked, and they’ve all come up.

I thought I’d planted mixed colors, but all the ones in flower are blue. I’m ok with that: I never have enough blue flowers. (Trust me, these are blue. My camera just doesn’t like to photograph blue things, especially blue things in sun.)

The only problem is, these plants are small. Since I’d never had them before, I didn’t really know what they’d look like in the yard. I think now I should have planted all 30 in one spot so maybe a mass of them would be visible. Right now you can only see them if you know where to look.

Time to go see what's blooming in your yard!

*hosted by Carol over at May Dreams Gardens. Thanks, Carol!

Daffodil Wars

2011-03-09T20:49:00.006-05:00

I've been eagerly anticipating the first blooming of my daffodils for a week or two. I saw some others in town the other day, so I knew mine would be along soon. The clumps in the front of the house always bloom first.

I like to pit my daffs against each other. White versus yellow. To bad they don't know they're competing.

The returning champion yellows are coming out strong. Any day now.

But look here: a solitary white, nearly hidden under the nandina, is OPEN!

White wins!

The Scariest Weed I Ever Did See

2011-02-27T15:43:00.011-05:00

It's a warm, dry weekend, so I've started cleaning up some of the garden beds. Winter weeds are appearing. I try to get them before they go to seed, and I'm making progress on reducing their numbers. But this year they are blooming early! I don't think I'll get through the garden before they start setting seeds.

This is the most prevalent winter weed.

I learned its name once, but I've long since forgotten. I just call it The Spitter, because it spits its seeds several feet away when disturbed. I have to wear safety glasses if I don't pull it up before it sets seed. Fortunately it hoes up easily.

Here's another one:

I don't know what it is, but those pretty blue flowers are its best defense. How can I destroy something so pretty?

This afternoon I was clearing leaves out of the path in the upper garden. I brushed aside some leaves, and saw The Scariest Weed I Ever Did See. Seriously. This is an attack weed of the most vicious kind.

Here is probably a good place for a confession: I'm an herbiphobe. (OK, not the proper term: I made it up. But it fits) That's right. I'm scared of plants. Not all plants, just the scary ones. Mom blames it on me watching Little Shop of Horrors as a kid. She might not be wrong.

But hey, if you saw this in your path, wouldn't you be scared, too?

Yes, those are big, scary thorns. On the leaves. Here's a closeup of those thorns:

Those suckers are sharp, too!

Now, the old me would have dropped everything and run far away. But Garden Therapy has been good for me, and I'm learning to face my fears. I pulled on some heavy-duty gloves and grabbed my trowel. I would beat this thing. Out it came.

Uh-oh, this thing has a tap root. And it broke off. Time to go digging further. I don't want it to regrow.

Success!

I don't know what it was, but I hope I never see it again. STAY AWAY, killer weed!

Purple

2011-02-18T18:29:00.002-05:00

Purple crocus emerged today:

And so did the purple hellebore buds:

The lavender hellebores are just starting to come up. They aren't picture-worthy ... yet.

February 2011 Blooms

2011-02-15T22:36:00.009-05:00

So January's Bloom Day was a bust for me. Is February any better?

I'd hoped to have some hellebores. Not yet, but I have some buds.

I don't see any buds on the purple ones yet. Strange.

The warm weather over the past few days has revived some of the long-suffering pansies. Look: Blooms!

Lots of crocus foliage coming up. No crocus yet. Oh, wait! I see one:

And what's a wrap, folks. Think Spring!

Weekend Cleanup

2011-02-14T20:05:00.003-05:00

Ahh, Spring. Why do you tempt me in mid-February?

I took advantage of the Spring-like weekend to do a few chores around the yard.

My big maple tree lost yet another limb in January's ice storm. The limb sat in my front yard for weeks: it was too cold to even think about going out to chop it up. Saturday I finally did. I think the neighbors were pleased. Midway through sawing off the branches I realized I hadn't taken any pictures. That's ok, I thought, we all know what a maple limb looks like sitting in the front yard. So I didn't rush back inside for my camera. I wish I had, because a few minutes later I saw a bald eagle soaring overhead, playing in the breeze. It made several laps around the yard; I was glad to take a break from sawing to watch it.

Sunday was less interesting. Time to tackle some of the leaves in the side yard that I never got around to cleaning up in the Fall. Let this be a lesson: rake leaves before they get packed into the ground by snow. These didn't care to budge. I toiled for an hour or so, then got bored with the task. So there's an area of the yard that still looks like November.

There's a chance next weekend will also be Spring-like. Maybe I'll finish the Fall chores then.

Some Heat in the Cold of Winter

2011-02-04T13:54:00.010-05:00

Even though the garden has been dormant for a few months now, I'm still reaping the fruits of last year's labors.

Peppers have never done well for me. I know they need a long growing season, but if Dad could get peppers in NY, surely I should be able to get peppers in VA. Two years ago I learned starting early is not necessarily the answer. I set them out too early, and the cool temperatures stunted the plant growth. They never really recovered.

So last year I babied the seedlings inside until it was nice and warm out. Set out the plants, put the soaker hose around them, and watched them grow. And grow. And grow. And not produce any peppers. Then, finally, I had some. The peppers were small but plentiful. Thin-walled but tasty.

Except for the Habaneros. A new pepper for me; I planted it on a whim. I didn't have space in the pepper bed, so it didn't get as much water where I planted it. The plant didn't get huge, and it didn't have peppers until very late. Like October, or even later. When I was cleaning up the garden this fall (a chore I never finished), I decided to try moving the Habanero plant to a pot. I didn't have a lot of time that day, so I yanked it out of the ground, stuffed it in a pot, and threw some soil in around it. Set it on the back porch to shelter it from frost. And forgot about it.

Pepper plants need water, and this one didn't get any. So it died, as unwatered plants do. But not before growing and ripening those little Habaneros.

I finally harvested the peppers from the dead plant:

Now what? I didn't really feel like having a dinner of hot peppers. My BIL suggested drying them. Hmmm...no food dehydrator, no warm sun, maybe the oven? My new gas oven has a minimum temperature of 170, and I thought that might cook, rather than dry, the peppers. Then I remembered: I have a warming drawer! That was just the thing. I left the peppers in overnight, and in the morning they looked like this:

After about 14 hours, I took them out and ground them up:

Now, what do I do with 2 tsp of Habanero powder?

2/14 edit: Why isn't my habanero powder spicy? Oh, it turns out what I'd planted was Zavory Habanero: the citrus flavor without the heat. This will be great on jicama, I think.

No January Bloom Day

2011-01-15T23:16:00.002-05:00

Happy 15th, the day everyone shares what's blooming.

I searched indoors and out. No blooms. But what should I expect? It is January.

I leave on travel/vacation tomorrow, to places with blooms. Yay, me!

*Back-posting on 1/26/2011 for continuity.

A Gardener's Christmas for a non-Gardener

2010-12-26T22:31:00.005-05:00

It seems friends and family consider me a gardener. At certain times I consider myself one, too. Winter is not one of those times. I have not dutifully put the garden to bed. I'm not drooling over the latest seed catalog. No, I'm pretty much ignoring the world outside my door, and focusing on indoor pursuits.

Holiday decorating. Cooking and baking. Making scarves, mittens, and blankets. These are the flowers and produce of my December. I haven't even been reading many garden blogs. I'm drooling over crochet patterns instead. It's ok: the first sign of spring will lead me back out to the garden, and my house and its contents will be ignored for the following many months.

But back to gardening for a moment, as that's why I'm writing this. It seems friends and family consider me a gardener. This was evident when I opened my Christmas gifts yesterday. Sis and BIL gave me a heat mat for seed starting! And seeds! And Wicked Plants, Amy Stewart's book that I've been wanting to get my hands on!

They are wonderful gifts. And in about 3 months I'll be very happy to have them.

*While the post date is 12/26/2010, I'm actually posting this well into January 2011. Back-posting for continuity.

Snow

2010-12-16T22:47:00.004-05:00

Snow today! Not enough to bother shoveling, but it did cover the ground.

It gave my artificial decorations an air of reality:

And decorated my shrubs in a way I could not have done:

The ivy fence looks much better when it is partially hidden:

Do you think I should post a "thin ice" sign for the critters?

*While the post date is 12/16/2010, I'm actually posting this well into January 2011. Back-posting for continuity.

December Blooms?

2010-12-15T22:18:00.005-05:00

It's tough to participate in Bloom Day in Winter. Everything outside is crispy, and I don't do houseplants. Rather, houseplants don't do my house. I try (sort of) to have some greenery inside. Sometimes I remember to water them, sometimes I don't. Some plants limp along, others give up the ghost.

I've had a couple of plants survive for many years. I don't know how. Sometimes they even bloom. These two were a bit early for Bloom Day, so I'm catching the very tail end, and they don't look so hot. But they are blooms!

First, a Christmas Cactus:

And an African Violet, hiding behind the leaves:

That's all, folks!

*While the post date is 12/15/2010, I'm actually posting this well into January 2011. Took this pics on time (well, almost), but never made the post.

Decorating

2010-12-05T21:30:00.004-05:00

For the last few years I've been decorating for Christmas by hanging wreaths in the windows and putting a giant wreath on the chimney. Today was cool and windy, but I knew I had few daylight opportunities to do the outdoor decorating, and the temperatures were predicted to plummet, so I braved the weather. I hauled the Great Big Ladder (also known as the Insanely Heavy Ladder) over to the chimney, and wrangled it into position. I climbed, shakily, up the ladder, toting the wreath over one arm. I positioned the wreath on the brackets, but didn't get it quite right. In trying to free the now-stuck wreath, I managed to knock the top bracket down to the ground.

Replacing the bracket, and the wreath, would mean two extra round trips up the GBL, which I REALLY did not want to do. So I returned to ground level, got the GBL(IHL) back to the ground, and stowed it away. Then I had another idea. I got out the shorter ladder, grabbed my kayak tie-down straps and the wreath, and headed up onto the roof. (It was even windier up there - glad my roof is shallow-pitched.) I slung the straps, and the wreath, around the chimney. With no spotter on the ground, I had to do the positioning blind. It is off-center and about two feet lower than it should be, but at least the wreath is up!

I really with I had brick-colored straps!

Happy December!

2010-12-01T21:18:00.001-05:00

December First. The first day of meteorological winter. And my kousa dogwood is celebrating ... by blooming?

Thanks, Dad

2010-11-26T21:14:00.002-05:00

Every year on the day after Thanksgiving, my Dad brings me my first Christmas decoration of the season:

Thanks, Dad!

Fall Foliage

2010-11-18T15:32:00.000-05:00

November is the month of LEAVES! And I finally have them. I had originally designated last weekend for leaf clean-up, but most hadn't fallen yet. Guess what's now on my agenda for tomorrow?

Pam at Digging hosts Foliage Follow-up on the day following Bloom Day. Since my Bloom Day post was two days late, so is my foliage post. It's my first, too. What a way to start....

And since I'm so late, I can't show off what I'd intended: my glorious maple in the front yard. Well, I can still show it off, you'll just have to look on the ground to see the pretty leaves. Monday it was beautiful. Then we got a huge storm Tuesday night. So now I'm left with:

Work for the weekend! There are actually a lot fewer leaves, since I lost about 1/3 of the tree in the August storm.

In the back, the weeping maple is in full color, with all its leaves. You can see it was damaged in the same summer storm. This is the first year the area under the tree has been visible. That area was covered in ivy until last weekend. Now I'll need something new to plant there....

In the side yard, the flowering pear is providing another dose of red:

In a yard full of red, the balloon flower plants on the other side are making a shocking display of yellow:

Stay tuned for a future post (if I get around to it) on what happens to all these leaves.

Mid-November Blooms

2010-11-17T21:43:00.013-05:00

Once again, I've missed Bloom Day. I forgot to take pictures on Sunday (the 14th), then was working until after dark (silly time change!) on Monday. Rain yesterday, so I finally got the photos today.

That means I don't get to show off my pretty nasturtium that bloomed over the weekend. Trust me, it was a nice summer surprise in mid-Autumn.

As for the rest, it's almost a repeat of October. Let's see, what did I show off last month?

Mums: my mother's white mums are done now, with just one bright flower hanging on. The Pink mums in the garage garden are still going strong, though:

Gaillardia: last month I showed off the burgundy ones in the garage garden. Those are still blooming, along with some yellow ones in the terrace garden:

Summer phlox: Yes, surprisingly, there are still some flowers hanging on. Two more repeat-bloomers are lavender in the front and rosemary on the side. What mixed-up blooms I've had this fall!

Dahlia: This thing shines in the fall. I really wish I had more than one. I'm just so bad at overwintering them. I had five in storage over winter. Two were still viable in spring, one of those made a tasty feast for some critter, and this yellow one has done all the work:

Goldenrod: nearing the end of its bloom period, but still a pretty yellow in the back corner.

Rudbeckia: I've been showing off the ones in the upper garden, and they are still going strong. But this months surprise is the one along the front walk. These called it quits a few months ago, but one enjoyed the cooler weather enough to give me one more flower:

Edibles: The blackberries are still coming, a few at a time. A special treat for when I take a break from fall clean-up:

Sedum: are just a bunch of seed-heads now, but they are almost as pretty dried as in flower. Now the Nandina berries are adding color to that side of the yard:

I have a love-hate relationship with Nandina berries. I love the bright color that persists all winter. They look especially great with a dusting of snow. But in early spring I have to go cut them all down, otherwise I'll have hundreds (thousands? it seems) of Nandina babies by summer. I always miss some berries, and some fall before I cut them down, so I still usually have several dozen babies to pull. I keep looking to replace these shrubs with something less vigorously reproductive, but I haven't found winter color to compare with what I have. Suggestions are always welcome.

Visit Carol at May Dreams Gardens to see who else has shown off their blooms this month.

Garlic Surprise

2010-11-14T21:22:00.003-05:00

Uh-oh. I planted my garlic a few weeks ago, and it's already sprouted. And about 5 inches high.

Is this going to be a problem?

Scanning, take two

2010-10-21T20:59:00.012-04:00

My second attempt at scanning the garden bounty. A slight improvement over the first, but I'm still not happy. Have I mentioned I don't do flower arranging?

Here we go. A single dahlia.

Ok, I can do this. Time to add more flowers.

Oops, I left the lights on and got a "ghost scan". Maybe more appropriate for Halloween next week. Let's try again, lights off.

Ok, but my black-eyed susans didn't like sitting out for 2 hours and got wilty.

Let's cluster all the flowers I picked, really fill up the space.

Much better. This will be my 'Picture This' contest entry on Gardening Gone Wild.

Still playing around, I found some grasses. Does that help?

I'm not sure; now it looks a bit frantic on the edges. Let's try this one with the lid down, pressing flowers to the glass and using a white background.

Well, that really squished the dahlia. I don't like it. For comparison: a red background, courtesy of my placemat.

The dahlias are looking tired, but I do like the burgundy background matching the burgundy gaillardia. Maybe next time I'll try the red-on-red earlier in the process. If there is a next time. I'm not sure this scanning thing is for me, and I don't seem to have a good scanner for the job - it still blurs out anything not setting directly on the glass. Makes it tough to have a multi-dimensional image.

What's Up, Doc?

2010-10-17T21:20:00.005-04:00

I dug up my carrots yesterday. I didn't have to dig far to find them, because they didn't grow very far. They just grew wide. Very wide.

The largest measured just under three inches in diameter. And not much longer.

I haven't tried eating them yet - I think they may require cooking.

October Blooms

2010-10-15T22:30:00.016-04:00

I haven't spent any time in the garden in nearly two weeks. So much else going on in my life of late. If it weren't for Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day I probably wouldn't have made it out there today, either. Tomorrow, dear garden, I promise we'll spend some time together. Meanwhile, thanks, Carol of May Dreams Gardens, for the inspiration to get out there today.

Meanwhile, here's what's blooming, without any help from me:

Along the driveway are the mums my mother accidentally gave me. They were so much bigger last year. I have no idea what happened this year, but at least they are still alive and flowering. These are my favorite mums, white with a yellow center:

My only other mums are ones that came with the house, in the garage garden. When they bloom in late summer, they are pale and washed out. Not pretty at all. But the fall version is surprisingly striking, with varying degrees of color:

Also in the garage garden, my burgundy gaillardia have put out a new flush of blooms:

And behind the mums, some garden phlox think it is still summer:

Heading to the terraces, my lone dahlia has survived all sorts of abuse this year, including hungry critters and fallen limbs, but it keeps on blooming:

In the upper garden, Solidago 'fireworks' fills the back corner:

And my wintersown black eyed susans brighten the shady middle:

The ones I planted in the full-sun front are long done.

Along the side garden, Sedum 'Autumn Joy' has gone through it's full range of color, now a deep brownish pink:

Also of note, two edibles:

I picked and ate my second blackberry today:

Yum! There are more coming along, but I don't know if they will have time to ripen:

And in the upper garden, I let some passionvine do its thing this year. One fruit is ripening. I've never actually eaten one. Usually I rip out the vines because they are so weedy. I wonder what I can do with a single passionfruit.

I hope it's good. I know next year I'll regret having let this vine spread its roots this year.

Cobbler, Anyone?

2010-10-02T22:27:00.003-04:00

I harvested and ate my very first homegrown blackberry today. There's one more coming along, too. Maybe someday I'll have enough for a cobbler.

Happy New Year!

2010-10-01T23:57:00.002-04:00

Many organizations follow a fiscal year that begins today, October 1. In some ways I feel like this is the start of a new year for my garden, too. After a very hot summer with very little rain, my yard was parched and in need of renewal.

Yesterday brought five (yes, FIVE!) inches of rain, washing away the last of summer and allowing the "new year" to start with a clean slate.

Scanning, Take One

2010-09-29T18:51:00.009-04:00

I've entered a few GGW photo contests, and they're fun. I enjoy the critiques from the monthly judges. But next month's theme has had me worried: Bloom Scans. Until I started following GGW, I'd never heard of, or thought of, putting flowers through a scanner. But people apparently do it. I'm worried because this concept involves more than framing a picture. Now we're getting into floral arranging, something I've let Nature take care of until now.

Second problem: I don't have a scanner. I'm picturing snipping a bunch of flowers early in the morning, carting them to the office, and tying to look nonchalant while monopolizing the office scanner. Nope, that's not going to work.

I used to have a scanner. It still technically works, I suppose, but it is so old it is not compatible with my current computer operating system (which is itself several generations old). I also used to have a printer, a hand-me-down from my little sister. That one, too, still technically works, or would if I spent $70+ on new ink. I can buy a whole new printer for that price! One that uses cheaper ink.

So I did. I'm now the proud owner of an all-in-one device. I can print, copy, and scan. Wirelessly, too. Oooh, I'm caught up with the times now! First I made a print of one of my favorite pictures, the spring peas I posted back in January. Then I scanned a calendar photo I've had hanging on my fridge for years.

Then I went out in the rain to pick flowers.

That's when I realized the other problem with the Bloom Scan project: I need blooms to scan. My garden is looking a bit sparse right now. Should have bought that printer/scanner thingy months ago when I had lots of flowers. But I found some wilty morning glories and some boltonia. Here are my first two scans:

Yes, they need some work. And I need to learn something about display arranging. One thing I don't know how to fix: the parts pressed against the glass are in focus, but the rest is blurry. Any ideas?

Harvest Time

2010-09-21T22:17:00.010-04:00

Gardening Gone Wild challenged us to submit harvest photos for this month's Picture This contest.

Harvest photos? I don't have anything to harvest!

I am very proud of my few Sungold tomatoes - this is the most I've had ripe at one time, nearly enough for a snack for one person:

Unfortunately, my sparse tomatoes are hard to pick out in that busy background. A closer look didn't improve things much:

Next, I trotted of to the Sunday market. There's a place for harvests!

I came home with a bag full of apples, but not many pictures. I did see a warty pumpkin that made me smile:

and a basket full of hot peppers:

But I'm guessing the entries will be full of pumpkins and peppers, and my photos aren't good enough to stand out.

I had lunch at the Nature Conservancy. The park was full of winterberry holly waiting to fed the birds in the coming months. What makes foraging different from harvesting, I wondered? It didn't matter, the light wasn't right.

Home again, still with no usable photo.

Then I saw all the critters: bees, moths, and butterflies feasting on my Autumn Joy sedum. Now they were busy harvesting! But they wouldn't stay still long enough for documentation.

This bee on a purple coneflower did. I think he was having such a good time bathing in pollen he didn't care that I was so close. I hope he got some in his sacs so he could go home and share his harvest.

So this bee is my entry.

(I did have a somewhat-brilliant inspiration strike me this evening, but it was already too dark to execute. I may go out in the morning to try it anyway, just for fun.)

Delayed September Blooms

2010-09-15T15:24:00.003-04:00

OK, I'm so very late making this post that I had to backdate it. I didn't miss Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day by a day or two, but by nearly a week. I took the photos on time (the evening of the 14th), just never posted. I've been an anti-blogger lately. So here I am posting on the 21st (the last full day of summer) and pretending it's still the 15th.

On with the show! (What show there is, anyway)

I'm tired of having to show macro shots of my flowers. I want to have that sort of garden that I can show off in it's entirety, or at least in sweeping views. I'm not there yet. It's either bare, weedy, overgrown, dead, or all of the above.

Here's one view I can show. You still don't get to see much of what else is around, but at least there are multiple plants in the shot. Yes, it's the required Sedum 'Autumn Joy'. What September bloom post would be complete without it?

Moving down the side yard, here's a Helianthus bloom. They really brighten up the area:

Oh, yeah. I'm back in for the closeup. That's because this plant just doesn't behave. 8 ft tall spindly stems. Or would be 8 ft tall, except they flop all over the ground. Here, let me show you:

Across the path from the Helianthus, in the iris/daylily bed, are the mistflowers (Conoclinum [or is it Eupatorium?] coelestinum). These are suffering a bit for lack of water, but they spread nicely this year to help fill in a bare spot. I just hope they are well-behaved enough not to run my irises out of town.

And lest you think my only fall blooming plants are in the side beds, let's move on to the upper garden. Here the white (light pink?) Boltonia asteroides are a billowy cloud. They are sandwiched between the Thermopsis seedpods in the foreground and the Asclepias seedpods (producing their own puffiness) behind. Another floppy plant, I think the Boltonia would be better behaved if they were in full sun. Instead they lean toward the light.

Thanks for indulging me with my late, late post.

Nine O'Clocks

2010-09-13T22:06:00.005-04:00

They claim to be four o'clocks. I don't know anyone who has had open blooms at four o'clock in the afternoon. Then again, the name is not specific to afternoon. Perhaps it refers to 4am. I've never gotten up at 4am to see if the flowers are still open, but I bet they are. Mine seem to open after dark, so photography is difficult. This photo was taken one evening shortly past 11pm.

This is my first year with these plants. Mine are kind of spindly, but then I did plant them in the front border, where they get sun, sun, and more sun, and very little water or attention. The flowers are smaller than I expected. They may be hibiscus-shaped, but they are not hibiscus-sized. If I could get the plants to be bushier and full of blooms I think they would be nice, though. I've read that these form tubers that can be dug and stored over winter. I've not had much luck overwintering dahlia tubers, but maybe ~~four~~ nine o'clocks will be more forgiving.

Mid-August Blooms

2010-08-18T15:45:00.014-04:00

When I returned home from the river last evening, I immediately grabbed my camera and headed back outside. Time to see what's blooming in mid-August. Too late for an official Bloom Day post, but necessary for my personal record, since I missed the fifteenth.

The first thing I noticed was that I was being eaten alive. The rains over the last few weeks produced a lot of standing water. With the dry start to summer, I'd gotten out of the habit of checking for such things. Time to remedy that!

As I swatted my way around the yard, I found very little to make me smile. The coneflowers are looking peaked:

Black eyed susans continue to brighten the semi-shade in the upper garden:

But the ones in full sun out front have had enough.

The pinkish mums that came with the house are starting to bloom. Their lack of color disappoints me every year. Why do I still have these in my herb garden?

At lease my dahila, blown over in the big thunderstorm two weeks ago, is putting out new growth and new flowers:

Seed pods are adding interest in the upper garden:

On the left are ripening Asclepias tuberosa pods. The ones in the center have split open, letting the tufted seeds take to the wind. On the right the Baptisia pods continue to add purple color to the garden.

Also in the upper garden, my chelone has buds. It struggles all year with lack of water. I always wonder if it will have enough strength to bloom.

And out front, the white rose has come back for another round of blooms:

Around the north side, one of my hosta is flowering. I usually ignore hosta flowers, but these are quite large and such a pure white I actually enjoy them:

So maybe I did find a few things to smile about.

Thanks to Carol at May Dreams Gardens, whose monthly GBBD is the only reason my photo log is remotely up-to-date!

River Blooms

2010-08-15T21:59:00.011-04:00

I'm hanging out at the family cottage at the river for a nice relaxing long weekend, so I'm not home to see what's blooming on Bloom Day. I'd intended to snap some photos Friday before I skipped town, but I was running late and there was rain. So lets see if I can find anything here at the tip of the Middle Peninsula.

We come here to chill and enjoy the River. There is no garden and very little landscaping to speak of. No one person is here often enough to take on the responsibility. We get most of our color from sunsets, beach toys, and kayaks.

August is a rough month for blooms in this part of the country anyway, but in a place with no garden? A real stretch.

In the back yard are a bunch of crape myrtles, still blooming bright pink:

On the west side of the house is a reblooming daylily and the last of the spirea:

And on the east side, also almost finished, is the mimosa. Such a weed here, but when this thing is in full bloom you can barely see the flowers for the butterflies.

I wonder what's blooming at home?

A Tree Grows in Virginia

2010-08-10T13:23:00.008-04:00

Last fall I planted a young redbud (Cercis canadensis) in my parking strip, to replace and old double-flowering cherry that fell down the year before.

It survived Snowmaggeddon and Snowpocalypse. It flowered beautifully in the spring. It didn't care much for the hot, dry summer we've had, but soldiered on anyway. I love this tree.

Then we had that great thunderstorm last Thursday. The one where a big maple limb fell across my front yard and into the street.

Right on top of my redbud!

Can you see it in there? Let me point it out to you:

I did what I could to free the little tree. It looked like it was all still in one piece, hallelujah!

After the maple limb was removed, I could properly assess the damage. Nothing broken. I'll just have a "weeping" redbud for a while, until it straightens itself out.

Powerless

2010-08-09T15:16:00.015-04:00

Have you been dreaming of rain this summer? Bowing your head in a little prayer? Perhaps turning your eyes to the sky in anticipation? Me, too. And the heavens delivered, just not in the manner I would have preferred.

Two short but powerful storms rolled through on Thursday afternoon. Wind gusts at the high school less than ½ mile from home were recorded at 73 mph. I was at work beyond the reach of the storm, but heard news reports that my neighborhood was badly damaged. What would I find when I got home? Would my 40-50 ft maple in the front yard (the one that loses a branch in nearly every storm) still be standing? Would my house be unscathed? Note that I didn’t ask myself if I’d have power. I knew that was a near impossibility.

I arrived home Thursday night to have my questions answered:

Whew! The tree is still standing. About a quarter of it came down, but luckily fell to the east (into the road) rather than a more damaging direction. The house was safe! Road crews had already cleared the road, and piled the branches onto the sidewalk; I just had the bulky part to deal with. (And no, I didn’t have power. The whole neighborhood was dark)

By the time I got home from work on Friday, there were no fewer than six cards from tree services (and random guys with a chainsaw and a truck) stuck in my door. And more guys in trucks cruising the streets. So cleanup was easy, if costly. Still no power.

Friday and Saturday evenings I walked around the neighborhood to see how others fared. I consider myself very lucky. Here was the scene just one street over:

Ouch! Fortunately the tree fell just behind the neighbor’s house, wiping out the back deck, but doing only minor damage to the roof.

Three doors down, the scene was repeated, but without the car in the driveway.

Two blocks away, another lucky house. I count at least three trees in the front yard, nearly obscuring the house, but none on the house:

Another view, showing downed power lines:

I returned to this house on Saturday, to see cleanup nearly completed:

Continuing down the hill:
There are two condo buildings that face each other, separated by a courtyard. They were very lucky.

The next building was not so lucky:

That’s a lot of wood to chip!

On Saturday afternoon, 48 hours after the storm, neighborhood streets still looked like this:

No wonder I still had no power.

Thursday night it was pretty cool after the storm, so I didn’t mind having no AC or fans. By Friday night I had to retreat to the basement to stay cool enough to sleep. Saturday was worse. I had many offers of places to stay, and decided to take one friend up on the offer of dinner and a spare bedroom. Shortly after ten pm I made a call to my house, and was greeted with the sweet sound of my answering machine. Power! Thanks for the hospitality, but I’m heading home to sleep in my own bed.

Now it is Monday, and the sounds of trucks and chain saws still fill the air.

Leaving the Garden

2010-08-02T14:09:00.004-04:00

I left the garden to fend for itself for a while and headed to the river. Beautiful weather and a relaxing long weekend.

(photo courtesy nutmegholler)

I picked a bunch of cucumbers right before I left and had more waiting for my return.

At the cottage, I served some of the fruits of my garden. Dishes included roasted kale chips and gazpacho.

Gliding

2010-07-23T14:55:00.008-04:00

My grandmother had an old metal glider on her porch. It was always my favorite place to sit when I was a kid. I've long wanted one of my own. But first I needed a place to put it. My patio has been in shambles for as long as I've been here, and I really wanted to have it redone before I got all furniture-y. Then there's the whole issue of coordinating the pieces when I do get around to outfitting the space. What kind of look do I want there? I have no idea; I'm no decorator.

As a result, I've had zero outdoor furniture since I moved here 5 years ago. What had been a patio table and chairs at the old place has been my (well-used) sunroom furniture here. I rarely spend time just relaxing outside - is that because I always see something else that needs to be done, or simply because I've had no place to sit? It's time to find out. So much with decorating, I need to sit down!

For my recent birthday, I picked out a glider of my very own. Shipping time was perfect and it arrived on the special day. Shipping itself left something to be desired:

I hope all the pieces are still there!

"Some assembly required."

Fortunately furniture assembly is a bit of a specialty of mine (just one of my many oddities), so I thought this task was a fine birthday gift.

Ta-Da!

(pardon the weeds, but they do make a nice blanket over the uneven patio bricks)

New Blooms

2010-07-20T12:51:00.008-04:00

This week I've spotted three never-before-seen blooms in my garden. Not that they are rare, they are just new to my yard. Very exciting (to me) all the same.

In the upper garden is Joe-Pye, which I installed last fall. I didn't expect it to bloom so early. I don't know whether this is normal or if it's being early like most everything else in my yard.

I'm very happy with it so far. It doesn't have much room to spread where I put it, but I have other places it can go when (if) it outgrows this space.

Also blooming for the first time is Rudbeckia 'Henry Eilers' in the front walkway bed:

It's not fully open yet, but you can see it has really skinny petals. Not at all like the other rudbeckia I have blooming:

And here's a coleus on the patio terrace. I've never had coleus before, but have admired the brightly colored foliage. I had no idea it would have pretty flowers, too!

It's been a floral week here at the Crest!

July Blooms

2010-07-15T15:09:00.008-04:00

Mid-summer is the time my garden stalwarts shine: echinacea, rudbeckia, gaillardia. Why now, when they bloom all summer? Because just about everything else takes a break in the heat of the summer. Oriental lilies are just finishing, daylilies are done, save a few rebloomers to come, balloon flowers are nearly finished popping, butterfly weed is showing off its seed pods, .... But the steady three keep on going in summers heat. You've seen them all before, so what's left?

I've always thought coreopsis should be the fourth leg of the summer table, but as I posted last month, they just don't return. They are beautiful for a year or so, then disappear. Here's a courtesy shot of my 'Zagreb' - still beautiful because this is its first year in my garden:

Isn't it pretty with a backdrop of curly kale that I really should have harvested weeks ago?

I do have one coreopsis that has not only survived, but thrived. This is its third year here, and rather than shrinking it has actually expanded (a little). Could this be the one to prop up my summer garden? Introducing Coreopsis rosea:

And a closeup:

Thanks to my color-altering camera, you can't see that it is actually quite pink, with lavender undertones. The centers match perfectly with the neighboring orange butterfly weed, tying together two plants I wouldn't otherwise want to put so close together.

Heres hoping I can still sing the praises of C. rosea next year!

To see what is blooming today in other people's gardens, visit our lovely hostess Carol over at May Dreams Gardens for links to more Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day posts.

Birthday Blooms

2010-07-13T16:07:00.010-04:00

My very first daylily, purchased ten years ago and labeled simply "Orange", is still my favorite. Partly because it was first, partly because it is orange, partly because of its large blooms. But also because it blooms on my birthday. Every year.

This year I was concerned because all the daylilies were blooming 2-3 weeks early. Would "my" daylily, which usually starts blooming on my birthday, last that long? It did. It saved the very last three blooms (I only got 2 in the picture) for my special day:

Also blooming on my birthday (last week, by the way) - my first dahlia of the year (and likely the only, since something chomped the other one down to a stalk yesterday):

Balloon flowers full of bees:

Stargazer:

Glads - I love this white-trimmed purple one:

Also the usual echinacea, rudbeckia, tradescantia. Coreopsis rosea is in full swing, a few butterfly weed still hanging on, some geranium, asters(!), assorted cucurbits,...

And inside:

Sunflowers! From my sister and BIL. The florist had to come find me in the backyard to deliver them. He almost didn't walk around, but I'm glad he did - he wouldn't have left them out in the heat of the day.

I love flower-filled birthdays!

The Harvest Page

2010-07-06T09:39:00.004-04:00

I picked my second cucumber last night (just as yummy as the first), but didn't think cucumber #2 warranted its own post. What to do, what to do? Aha! I decided to make use of the blogs "pages" to make a harvest list. I hope to remember to keep it up with a list of what I pick, when I pick it, so next year I'll have a point of comparison. Let's see if I actually remember to keep it updated.

Garlic Breath

2010-07-04T09:09:00.012-04:00

When I got home from work on Friday, I noticed the garlic in the the herb garden (producers of the great garlic scapes) had turned completely brown.

Wait, wasn't I supposed to harvest this when it was only half brown? Well, it turned brown in a hurry, so I figured it would still be okay. The danger of leaving garlic in the ground too long is that the heads will split. I think the garlic would still be edible, it just wouldn't keep. I have only 7 (was supposed to be six, but one clove must have planted itself) heads of garlic here in my first, experimental, garlic bed, so I'm not planning to store them.

Out they come!

I brushed off the dirt and set them in a shady spot in the porch to dry. I set aside the best-looking one to plant again in the fall, and chose three to prepare immediately. I had an hour or so until a friend's cookout, and I knew exactly what I would contribute: roasted garlic spread with a baguette.

I peeled off the outer (dirty) layer of skin, making sure I left enough to keep the head together. I cut the tops off, low enough to expose the cloves.

I drizzled olive oil over the tops and wrapped each clove in a double-thickness of aluminum foil.

Roasted in a 375-degree oven for about 45 minutes. Here's what a head of roasted garlic looks like (I've already split it apart):

Pretty much like a raw head, but a pretty golden color. It's deceiving, though, because those cloves go to mush at the slightest touch. I like to see how may cloves I can extract whole, though one can just squeeze the garlic out of the head.

I mushed up this garlic and mixed it with olive oil and freshly grated parmesan.

I took it to the cookout with the baguette. It was a hit!

Warm as a Cucumber

2010-07-04T08:50:00.005-04:00

Cucumbers are my favorite summer vegetable, but I have difficulty growing them successfully. Either the vines wither and die from this disease or that pest, or the fruits are so bitter even I won't eat them.

This years cucumber vines are looking pretty good so far, though the lower leaves are yellowing, which makes me think they may be short-lived this year. Fortunately there are lots of little cucumbers growing, so maybe I can get my fill before the plants give up the ghost. I have the vines growing up my new trellis arbor into the upper garden. The vines on one side are almost to the top, and the ones on the other side are runts.

But I have cucumbers!

Yesterday I declared that the one in the back was ready to pick, so off it came. It's a beauty:

I took it inside, wiped off the spines, and began to peel. I started to get nervous - we've had some hot, hot, dry days lately, and I haven't been home to water. Would it be too bitter? No, it was perfect. But warm! The first taste of cucumber always surprises me. I think of cucumbers as being cool and refreshing (others must, too, since someone out there coined that "cool as..." phrase). But a cucumber straight from the hot garden is warm. Still refreshing, but warm. Makes sense, but it gets me every year.

Staking

2010-06-28T21:30:00.003-04:00

It rained this afternoon. A brief but very hard rain. The rain gauge showed 1-1/4 inches - but I think it came so fast that much of it was runoff. I didn't capture any in the rain barrel - I'd used up the remaining water yesterday watering the tomatoes through the drip line, and forgot to close the valve afterward. So the rain went into the barrel and out through the drip line, into the tomato bed that was getting deluged with rain from the sky.

Several tomato plants, that had thus far been standing tall under their own power, were bending low to the ground after the storm. Four of seven bell pepper plants were laying prostrate. This spring I planted bell peppers from two different seed packs. Other than that the treatment was the same. One pack's worth of plants (3) all have flowers on them already. They also were the ones still standing straight after the rain. The other plants, not blooming yet, collapsed in the rain. I wish I had marked which plants were from which seeds!

Even after the rain, temps were still in the 90s. So I waited until late evening to go out to cage the maters and stake the peppers. Three-quarters of an hour later I was dripping with perspiration and chased in by darkness. I got all the plants supported, even those that had not fallen, because I know they will all need it eventually. The garden always looks awkward a this time of the year. Plants that had looked large before caging are now dwarfed by their cages. If I didn't know better I'd wonder if this was all really necessary. But I know those tomatoes will soon be outgrowing their confines.

Daylily Dilemmas

2010-06-25T11:12:00.005-04:00

I have daylilies in three parts of the yard, and they are abloom. Ditch and stella (ok, the stellas peaked about 3 weeks ago and are just about done their first bloom) in the upper garden around the plum tree, assorted reds in the side bed, and last year’s trades in pots in the herb garden. Here’s one from the herb garden:

I have the name somewhere. My plan was to eventually replace the ditch lilies in the upper garden with the potted ones; I’ve put some there already. But I’m enjoying the view of these in the herb garden. They are just outside the back door, so I see them every morning and evening. And I’ve really enjoyed the ditch lilies this year, more than usual – they are so spunky. Did they know I had plans to rip them out? Is that why they are extra showy this year?

I’ve taken out a bunch already – they all go to my friend Stacey who is making a daylily border all the way around her back yard with the ones I give her.
I’m tempted to leave some in, but I know they will crowd out the others, which I don’t want to happen. So I’ll have to decide soon.

June Bloom Day

2010-06-15T16:40:00.000-04:00

Hooray for June, when there’s something blooming in just about every corner of the garden. At least that’s the goal; reality may not be there yet. The front yard is still pretty bare. Daffodils are the star in early spring, then the peony, then, well, I don’t have much else. Except lavender. Severely squished by the winter storms, it doesn’t care. It is taking over my front walk and blooming away:

In the side yard, I’ll have to leave daylilies and Echinacea for another post, in order to get some variety here. I previewed my Asiatic lily yesterday. Moving around back, here is my “Easter” lily:

I don’t know why it is considered an Easter flower when it never blooms until June. It came with the house, and is right where I hang my string trellis. They don’t really interfere, as the climbing things (pole beans this year), don’t really take off until the Easter lily has done its thing. Here you can see some beans climbing up the lily instead of the trellis.

Staying in the herb garden, one of my Phlox paniculata is blooming. This one is ‘Bright Eyes’. The others don’t even have buds yet.

Coreopsis verticillata in the herb garden is blooming, along with Gaillardia ‘Burgundy’.

I don’t know why I have such a hard time with coreopsis, but they are very short-lived for me at about two years. Three years, tops. Over in the terrace beds I have an ‘Early Sunrise’ that has been blooming for a few weeks and a ‘Zagreb’ full of flower buds. The Early Sunrise was from a trade last year, and the Zagreb came from the spring plant swap this year. I have my fingers crossed that they will stick around.

I don’t know how long Monarda ‘Raspberry Wine’ has been blooming in the upper garden. I just saw it yesterday. My neighbor can see it, but it is hidden from my view by my Solidago, which got very tall very early. I think I need to swap those guys so I can see my monarda!

Also in the upper garden: Stokesia ‘Klaus Jelitto and Spigelia marilindica

I just love that Indian pink. It will keep blooming for another month or more. I’m still waiting for it to fill in more, so that it has a presence in the garden. Right now I have to be up close to really notice it.

Moving over to the veggie garden, these are not Queen Anne’s Lace, but a close relative, carrots:

I left them to flower this year, just to see if they really do look like their cousin, and they do! I’ll have to pull them out soon.

I planted nasturtium to guard my squash and melons this year. I’m especially excited to see the first bloom, because this is the first bloom of all the many flowers I started from seed this winter/spring:

And on the other side of the veggie garden is the flower I’m most thrilled about: the cucumbers are blooming! Hooray for my favorite summer vegetable:
cucumber
Also blooming: kousa dogwood (still, though it is very nearly done), hollyhock, buddleia, rudbeckia, dianthus, cupid’s dart, gaillardia, ....

Thanks to Carol at May Dreams Gardens for hosting another fun Bloom Day!

Rain-Soaked Flowers

2010-06-14T23:02:00.008-04:00

Three separate storms rolled though here this afternoon/evening, dropping 1.6" of rain. Total rain time was about 40 minutes, so much of that water was runoff. My clay just can't absorb that much water in such a short time.

Meanwhile, the rain affected my flowers in some interesting ways. I was out between rains two and three to take some photos for tomorrow's bloom day post. I'll show some here early.

My white asiatic lilies have been blooming for about two weeks. Here's a flower pre-rain, photographed June 4th:

And here's a post-rain flower. The pollen all washed onto the flower, making it yellow. The yellow/white combination reminds me of a plumeria (aka frangipani), even if the flower is a completely different shape:

I have some daylilies blooming, too. In my yard are three unnamed red ones, numbered one through three, for lack of any better id. I forgot to note which one this was then I took its picture on the 4th, but there's a chance it is Red #1 (could be #2, definitely not #3):

A Red #1 bloomed today. I didn't get to see it before the rain, but here it is after, looking very water-soluble:

I love how the garden can change in an instant, or in a downpour!

Scapes!

2010-05-30T21:58:00.007-04:00

I planted garlic for the first time last fall. I have no idea what variety I have; it is whatever hardneck garlic I bought at the Clarendon market last year. I saved some of the cloves and planted them. They grew. And now I have scapes. Seven of them. It should have been six, but an extra clove must have ended up in the ground.

What to do with scapes? I've never had them before, so I asked around. Should I even cut them off? "Yes!" was the resounding answer. Not only are they tasty, but the garlic will bulb better if it isn't trying to flower. Good, that makes me feel better about taking them. As for what to make, responses varied, from adding them to stir-fry to chopping up and putting them on salad. But the most common answer was pesto. I love pesto, but I generally stick with the basil variety. Pesto seemed like the easiest solution, especially since I didn't have anything else to put the scapes on.

So I cut the scapes and brought them inside.

I chopped them to fit in the food processor.

I put in some sliced almonds (note to self: use slivered almonds next time, to avoid the brown almond skins). Recipes I found suggested pine nuts, walnuts, or almonds. Almonds are what I had on hand. I grated some Parmesan and added that. Processed a bit to get everything roughly the same size, then added the olive oil. Once I added the oil I had to keep stopping and scraping the sides so the pesto would continue to mix. With this small amount, my mini-chopper would have been the better implement to use, but I've misplaced the blade.

All finished:

It isn't very much, but it is yummy. I'll stop by the bakery in the morning to buy some rosemary bread, then this will be my post-paddle picnic contribution for tomorrow's Memorial Day gathering. I have some store-bought basil pesto to supplement, since I don't think this will go very far.

Black and White

2010-05-29T14:43:00.008-04:00

Two plants I put in last year are blooming for the first time this week.

I bought this Echinacea 'Finale White' last year. The plant was big enough to divide, so I sent some to Denise in a plant swap. Her half bloomed last year, but mine did not. Now I finally know what it looks like!

In return, Denise gave me some black hollyhocks. My red hollyhocks from previous seasons did not return or self-seed last year, so I was without their beautiful papery flowers last year. I've been eagerly awaiting the flowers on these new ones, because I've never had a black flower. I love it!

And yes, the black and white are right next to each other in the same bed. I didn't plan it that way, but now I may have to rethink what else is in that bed, and make my first color-themed garden. What do you think?

Spring Fling

2010-05-25T22:03:00.016-04:00

"Spring Fling" is the theme of the May Picture This photo contest over at Gardening Gone Wild. We are to find occurrences of "whimsy" in the garden. I looked around my yard, and didn't see much frivolity. Now I know I need to work on that. Instead I'll share some photos from my annual spring trip to southeastern Wisconsin, the land of whimsy.

We passed this barn on the way to lunch one day, but my camera wasn't convenient. I made sure I had it at the ready for the drive back. When I stopped to take the picture, my hostess told me, "Oh, yeah, there are several painted like that around here." Well, this is the only one I saw, so I think its something special. And it certainly made me smile:

And check out those Wisconsin-perfect clouds!

Next we went to a farm stand, so my traveling companion could buy some morels. This farm stand sits at a crossroads, but the entrance doesn't face either of the main roads. Don't worry, they are still good at advertising their product on the road-facing side. We were searching for mushrooms. Do you think we found the right place?

I realize those aren't really garden photos. So, finally, back in town, is my GGW photo entry. After my rant on lawn ornaments, I can't believe this it what I found to submit. But I've never seen cuter pink flamingos. All decked out for the spring rains, from hats to galoshes!

I hope you enjoyed my whimsical tour of Wisconsin.

Postscript, Saturday, 29 May:

My photo won! There were two winners, one for photo quality, and one for subject matter. No surprises that I didn't win on quality, but I'm glad I made one judge smile (or wince, actually, at the sight of so many garden flamingos)! Here's my award:

Not in the Garden

2010-05-18T21:55:00.002-04:00

I haven't spent much time in the garden for the last couple of days. Why? This pile of leaf mulch that arrived in April:

The pile has shrunk a bit since then, but is still of substantial size. I've run out of weed-free places to put it, and I haven't been in a weeding mood. I can get the car mostly in the driveway, but not into the garage:

This leaves the garage free for some woodworking:

I originally bought the lumber so I'd have something to do on a "rainy day." But, as usually happens, the excitement of a new project led me to cast aside others and get started on this one. What am I building? So far I have a few nearly-squares:

What will they be? You'll have to wait and see.

May Blooms

2010-05-15T21:25:00.020-04:00

(or, Procrastination Pays)

The fifteenth of May, time for Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day, sponsored by Carol at May Dreams Gardens. I'm glad I made my Iris post yesterday, as the iris are done today. just a few purple ones left.

Meanwhile in the garden, shrubs and trees are blooming. Here's the Kousa dogwood, aglow in the side yard:

The Virginia sweetspire that I got as a twig last year is blooming, too:

Several flowers have appeared in the last several days. Here's goatsbeard, blooming in front of Amsonia hubrichtii:

Gaillardia:

Here are the mini blooms of the white rose in front:

And the rootstock of the dead rose in the side yard. The rose was dead before I moved in, so I never knew what it was. But I like the simple red flowers that remain:

All this has been a teaser, my peony is the main attraction today:

The geranium has been blooming for a while, but it is so cheery I have to include it here:

And the Centaurea montana is hanging on:

I have edibles blooming, too. Here are the peas (yay!):

Even the back alley is full of blooms. Honeysuckle is pretty uncontrollable here, but this time of year I don't mind, it's scent is intoxicating:

I don't know what this is, blooming outside my neighbor's fence, but I like it:

And on the other side of the alley, another unidentified flower:

Now, to address that subtitle, Procrastination Pays. I took most of these photos this afternoon, but didn't make the post then. Then, when I was cleaning up at sunset, I saw a new flower, Missouri Primrose, blooming for the first time this year:

I hope your May is full of blooms, too!

Iris

2010-05-14T11:24:00.013-04:00

For the last few weeks the irises have stolen the show in my yard. Though not as much as I'd hoped they would.

Up until last year, I had one kind of bearded iris: the wonderfully scented purple tall bearded iris that came from my sister's godmother, via my mother.

I had it at my last house, and moved some of it here with me. I have two good sized clumps, plus some more I got from mom two years ago. The new ones I planted in a row of ten, and for the last two years only two of those have bloomed. Possibly because they are in a rather shady spot, in front of the ivy-covered fence and between the Buddleia and a tree. But the clumps that bloom are profuse. And floppy. I do my best to tie them up, but they still flop over the path. I think it's their way of saying "Look at me!" "Don't I smell wonderful?" As if I wouldn't notice anyway.

Last year I traded for a whole bunch of new bearded iris. I think I counted 20 new varieties in my gardens. Some are named, some came just with a bloom description, and one bunch was just labeled "mixed". Of those 20, six bloomed this year.

The "mxed" iris (I have three) all bloomed, and bloomed the same scented purple I already have. That's ok, I put them in the blackberry bed, so I've enjoyed having purple flowers in a new part of the yard this year.

The first bloomer of the spring was a dwarf, Pilgrim's Choice, that I kept in a pot all winter (Blooming April 12, long before I expected to see any iris). Eventually I need to find a place for it in the yard, but I'm afraid I'll trample something so small.

Here's a bicolor purple, Wabash, blooming April 30. I love it!

Next up is "Honorabile", blooming in front of the sedum.

Magenta and butter, blooming on May 8. Stunning.

My favorite of the year is Snowbrook. I missed the first bloom while I was out of town. It hadn't quite opened when I left, and was finished by the time I returned. I had to wait patiently for the next bloom (OK, I wasn't very patient.) Here it is on May 8.

I do have some other iris in the yard. Four years ago I dug a clump of Siberian iris out of my cousin's front yard. They grew here, but didn't bloom. Last year I finally had one flower. This year I'm up to six. A much better show:

I also acquired two types of water iris last year. No blooms this year.

Rain

2010-05-11T22:13:00.006-04:00

The rain came today. Not a lot, kind of misty, but cold, cold, cold. The cold came in Sunday, and should leave tomorrow. The rain is going to stick around for a while. Maybe all week. Even though it wasn't actively raining when I got home today, I used it as my excuse to not go out to work in the cold.

I did start a few new pots of cucumbers, for a friend who just discovered she does have rabbits. My own cucumbers are still just sprouts in the ground. I did see a new pole bean sprout today. Tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, and melons are still on the porch waiting to be hardened off. I started over the weekend, but kept them inside once it got cold. Except I forgot to bring them in Sunday night, so they got to experience some 40s then. I hope that doesn't stunt the growth too much.

The Audacity of the Robin

2010-05-09T21:22:00.001-04:00

Today while I was planting some Angelina sedum and Coreopsis 'Zagreb' I brought home from yesterday's plant swap, a robin approached. I had just dug up one of the small terraces and was adding some of the composted manure from Professor Dirt's truck. I stopped to watch the robin, who was being very bold, hopping to within 3 feet of me. As I stood still, he hopped even closer. Two feet, then one. I could have reached out and touched him. Then he hopped into the small terrace, right next to my shovel, pulled out a worm, and hopped away. I couldn't believe it That was a brave, stupid, or very hungry robin!

MAG Plant Swap

2010-05-08T21:49:00.002-04:00

Today was the Mid-Atlantic Gardeners Spring Plant Swap in Burtonsville. Due to my hectic travel schedule, I didn't start preparing anything until Thursday evening. Even so, I managed to unload a few smallish Nandina (yay!), Helianthus, oregano, thyme, Tatarian aster, columbine, mums, lamb's ear, rose campion, and tomatoes. I even got rid of the one maypop that came up last week, and Madeleine was so happy to get it. I wish her luck with it (though not too much luck, or she'll be overrun like I was.

We had beautiful weather and a plentiful potluck. I got to see some people I met last year and meet some new gardeners. Always a fun time!

I brought home some daylilies, two kinds of iris (a white/yellow and a reblooming, my first of those), great Solomon's seal, a light pink hardy geranium, pink obedient plant (am I nuts? probably), cuttings of climbing hydrangea and carolina allspice (which didn't enjoy being in the hot car all day and probably won't survive), angelina sedum, a beautiful Coreopsis 'Zagreb', ostrich fern, calla sprouts, and some coleus. Four buckets of composted manure, some plant pots, and a net to skim the algae from the pond. I've already put that last one to good use. You wouldn't believe what came out of that pond!

Got a few things in the ground this evening. The wind is doing a number on the solomon's seal and I had to hold it down with a brick. I'll do more tomorrow. I'm determined to avoid colonizing a new pot ghetto! I still have a few things from last year's swap that never got planted out.

Maypop

2010-05-03T22:07:00.007-04:00

When I first moved in, the upper garden was covered with Maypop, Passiflora incarnata. I'd never seen such an unusual flower before, and it took a little while to identify it. The flowers led to fruit, which I never had the nerve to try (since then I've gone so far as to sample dogwood fruit, but I was chicken back then). A pretty vine, but oh-so-aggressive. I think it outcompeted the ivy that also dominated the landscape. It definitely beat back the mint and oregano in the old herb garden.

I pulled it all out, but it came back. That plant will grow from just a piece of root. One spring dad and I dug up most of the upper garden and sifted through the soil to remove the root pieces. We didn't get them all, and every May I get a few sprouts. But I can handle a few sprouts of just about anything, and pull them like weeds. It might be nice to keep one, but I'm afraid one will lead to many, so I don't.

Like all the plants that know when it is spring, Maypop always knows when it is May. Specifically, when it is the First of May. Seriously, on April 30 there is no sign of it, then May 1, there it is! This year I forgot to look for it on the first (too busy with my rain barrel, I suppose), but on my garden walk this morning, before leaving on yet another trip, I saw it!

Just one so far. I didn't yank it out, because I know a Gardenwebber who might want it.

6/24/10 Maypop update: I had a whole colony growing around one of my melon plants. I dug them up and gave them away. I missed one growing up the rose of sharon. Now that it is fully entangled I'm just going to let it be for a while - it's been a few years since I saw those odd flowers. I'll probably regret letting the roots get so well established.

Now I Need Rain

2010-05-02T14:05:00.004-04:00

I am now the proud owner of a rain barrel. It is made from a repurposed olive barrel. I picked it up yesterday from ACE and installed it today. I had trouble installing the flexible downspout I bought yesterday, and the barrel is rather precariously perched on some blocks on my very uneven patio bricks.

Now I just need some rain to try it out. It is supposed to storm tonight, lucky me!

April Blooms

2010-04-15T20:00:00.010-04:00

Bloom Day! The early spring bulbs are done, but lots more flowers have taken their place.

In the front, the Pasque Flower is nearly done

But it is making beautiful feathery seed pods:

Spanish Bluebells are opening up all over the yard. These up against the house are the farthest along:

My first iris of the season opened on Monday. A dwarf bearded iris I received in trade last year, I've lost the name:

Candytuft (Iberis) in the old rose bed:

Native columbine (Aquilegia canadensis) are in full bloom. But the colors seem more washed out than I remember from last year:

The double purple columbine are farther behind. I gave away so many of these last year, I think I only have a dozen or so left. But they'll make more. Here's the only one that's open now:

Centaurea montana has a few blooms:

My Weigela was being obstinate and didn't bloom in time. I'm including it anyway, because it is so close:

And the plant providing the most color to my garden isn't even blooming quite yet. But the chartreuse new leaves on my honeylocust trees really light up the side garden:

Thanks for checking out my mid-April blooms. And thanks to May Dreams Gardens for hosting another great GBBD!

Leaf Mulch

2010-04-12T21:33:00.000-04:00

My leaf mulch has arrived! Free from the city. I used to go to the facility and bag it myself. A tedious, back-breaking, time-consuming process, that left mulch all over the inside of my car. And I never had enough. This year I paid the city to deliver to my house. Delivery is the same price for a full-, half-, or quarter-truckload. I went with the half load. It arrived while I was at work today. I think it will be enough to keep me busy for a while.

I estimate it to be about 3 yards. I can move about 4 cu. ft. at a time in my garden cart. I started spreading it this evening, 3 cart loads of the stuff. At that rate it should take me just over a week until I can access my garage again. Until then I'll have to park on the street.

One Crazy Tulip

2010-04-12T21:21:00.000-04:00

I only have a few tulips this year. Most of my old tulips put up foliage that was rather deformed looking, but no flowers. I did get two red/white tulips of the 6 I used to have.

Last fall I planted three new tulip bulbs, in the patio terrace. They are beautiful, especially with the moss phlox in full bloom. The solid one got lopped off by a critter before I got a good photo, but it put up a baby, too.

But what I want to show you is the foliage of one of those striped tulips. Here's the flower:

Notice the leaf? Here's a closeup:

It looks like it got confused about whether it was supposed to be a leaf or a flower. The purple part even has the texture of a flower, not of a leaf.

I think it's pretty. More tulips should consider adding decoration to the leaves - then maybe I wouldn't mind letting the foliage hang around after the flowers are done.

A New Garden Bed...Again

2010-04-04T21:45:00.005-04:00

The foundation bed on the right side of my house has long been neglected. I've spent so much time in the back and side gardens, and I've never really known what to do with foundation plantings. The left bed has lots of shrubs, so it pretty much takes care of itself (it needs work, of course, but isn't as desperate as the right bed).

There used to be Aruncus and Astilbe here, but they didn't do well with the southeast exposure, so I gifted them to Mom. They like summers in Massachusetts much better than the Virginia version.

There are two little boxwood that came from my grandfather's yard. Many decades ago he took cuttings from boxwood on the Lawn at the University of Virginia. From those cuttings he created a mini box farm at his house. As the shrubs matured, he created shrub-lined walkways though the backyard. He kept up the box-farm, to have shrubs to fill any holes if some planted-out ones didn't make it. Before his house was sold, I rescued these two from that area and put them in my front bed. They've done pretty well there, despite the mistakes I've made. The one on the right I planted directly under the drip line, so if you looked at it from above you'd see a gap right there. The one on the left has done pretty well - not grown as big, but always looks healthier. Until the great snowy winter we just had. Not only did it have many feet of snow crushing it, but also all the snow from the front porch that I dumped right on it. (In my weak defense, it was already buried in snow, so I forgot it was there.) I hope it recovers.

In early spring there are crocus here. More crocus in the grass than in the bed, but that's not the fault of the crocus. Because I've neglected this bed, the grass has encroached. The crocus area used to all be garden bed. In the back are some giant alliums that I got in a trade last year. I've never had Allium before ,but they are looking healthy and just starting to send up flower stalks.

This year I acquired lots of seeds for wintersowing, both perennials and annuals. Some will help fill in this area. So today I decided to dig it out. The original bed was outlined in white brick set flush with the ground, so all I had to do was dig down to find it, then pull out all the grass between it and the house.

But I didn't like the squareness of that line with the retaining wall for the front walk. So I dug out a little more to make a transitional curve.

Now I just need plants to put here. I'd been thinking four o-clocks and cosmos, but I haven't gotten around to wintersowing those yet. I'll need some more shrubs for structure (I expect those box will be dwarfed by the flowers), but haven't decided what to put there yet. I think it will have to be structure-less for another year.

The Great Daffodil Count

2010-04-04T21:36:00.005-04:00

My paternal grandmother had daffodils. Lots of them. In her last year she had 880 in her yard. How do I know? She counted every one. Now, in Grandma's honor, I do the same every year. I've never planted them - there were a lot in my yard already. I have had to re-plant some as they seem to work their way to the surface during the summer. It is fun to see them increase in number each year.

This year, I'm not sure they increased. The flowering in the side garden has looked a bit sparse. Perhaps I need to divide them? I don't really know.

Here is Grandma's simple rule for counting dafodils: count as you cut. That way you don't double-count, and you don't miss any. In March, before I had any daff blooms, I visited my sister and soon-to-be brother-in-law in Portland. BIL was showing off the yard at their new house, including the blooming daffodils. "There are 35," he said. "I counted them because your sister told me about your grandmother and said they had to be counted."

"So you've already cut 35 daffodils?" I asked. "I only saw a few in the vase in the kitchen."

"No," he replied. "I counted the ones in the yard. The ones in the vase came from a neighbor." So I had to explain Grandma's rule: no counting until you cut them. "So right now I have zero daffodils?" he asked, while pointedly looking at all the daffodils blooming in the yard. Yep - zero daffodils. Until you cut them.

I cut my first daffodils today. 87. I'll update here with the count as I cut the rest this spring, so I have them all in one place.

Friday, 4/9/10: The excessively hot weather over the last week did a number on the daffs. They're done. Cut most of them today - running total is 270, though I think there are only about a dozen remaining.

Last year I finished cutting April 25th, with a final count of 347. Why so few blooms this year?

Wildflower Wanderings

2010-04-01T22:06:00.000-04:00

After my sister's wedding last weekend, I took a few days to wander the Ozarks in southwest Missouri. Still very early spring there (there was snow just a week earlier). I saw some wildflowers I didn't recognize.

Along the side of the road:

In a dirt/gravel parking area:

More of the same in the parking area:

Along a walking path:

If I figure out what these are I'll come back and add labels.

Spring!

2010-03-20T13:32:00.006-04:00

Hooray for Spring!

Lots of plants seem to know just when it is spring. While I had yellow daffs a few days ago, today the white ones opened, too:

I have a single bloom on my moss phlox:

Even the weeds know it is spring. My first dandelion (of many, I'm sure:

Now, I'm probably the only person on the planet that can kill mint. But I do have a history of doing just that. I acquired more last year (people are always willing to give it away!), and put it in a pot in case I didn't kill it, to keep it from spreading. But the summer heat kinda fried it, so I wasn't sure if it would come back. I checked yesterday and there were no signs of life. But today, sprouts galore! One more plant that knows it is spring:

Celebrating Green

2010-03-17T20:38:00.007-04:00

Here's my way of celebrating St. Patrick's Day. Not by wearing green, but by showing off the green emerging in my yard:

Daffodils getting bigger

Tulips pushing up foliage

Spanish Bluebells coming up through the grass:

Sedum returning

Happy St Patrick's Day!

Daffodil!

2010-03-17T19:20:00.005-04:00

The sun came out today, and ushered in some warm weather. That must have made my daffodils happy, because one bloomed today:

I can't help but smile to see this harbinger of spring. Several more look like they will open tomorrow.

March Blooms

2010-03-15T21:24:00.012-04:00

Here it is, my first time participating in Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day, hosted at May Dreams Gardens, and I feel like nothing is blooming! Oh, and it's been raining for four days, so that doesn't help much. Daffodils are popular with GBBD participants today, but mine are still about 5" tall and several days from blooming. I have crocus:

Rather, I had crocus, last week when it was sunny. Now they are tightly closed, fending off the rain.

Hellebores got smushed by all the snow in February, but they are blooming anyway:
Here's a close up of the pretty purple one:

That's it for flowers so far, but I do have some trees in bloom. Not the fruit trees yet, but I do have maple:
and willow:

Happy Bloom Day, and thanks for visiting!