Category: Garden

The sedum is blooming in the backyard!  It lures me out like a beacon of joy as I face the prospect of catching up with a backlog of weeding.

The cooler evening temps, and some much needed rain, have revitalized the front yards as well. 

A few faded annuals have been replaced, but there are still quite a few gaps to be filled.

But it is the little gardening surprises that catch me off guard, and continue to steal my breathe away, For example, this lovely burgundy Coleus was purchased for one of the planters, but ended up being one plant too many. Its place in the flower bed was an afterthought, and yet it has stolen the limelight. 

Confession:  I slept in this morning, slept until nearly 7:30, a full 40 minutes after sunrise.  Although the sleep was wonderful and I have no idea why I needed it — I am not complaining about sleep.  Being able to sleep in occasionally, or take a nap, is one of the joys of retirement (or vacation).

But otherwise, Yuck.  Although the temperature only read 74 when I went out for my morning walk, the air was thick with humidity and high fog and the air felt like it must be at least 80 or higher — to high for 7:40 AM, in my humble, I-don't-really-love-hot-weather, opinion. Oh well.  I am here, and life is, generally, good.

This week in the garden the daylilies are continuing to bloom, and the greenery is looking more vigorous too, as if they are finally settled in and comfy.  The lily bulbs I planted are also doing well, despite my initial doubts.  A couple are blooming now, and the others all have buds, so there will be more lily blooms in the future.  This is particularly exciting as I never saw a lily blossom in my  Hyde Park garden.  Just-about-to-open lily buds were quite a delicacy to the resident deer population, and living next to a national historic site, it was a battle I never won, despite heavy investment in deer repellents of every known variety.

I have rabbits and foxes, and crows or ravens although I've never paid enough attention to tell which. 

Again, I'm not complaining.

I did climb up the hill behind the house this morning to take a photo looking down at the house and the back yard. The large stones on the left side of the walk in the photo above were just uncovered yesterday, and although I am not as happy about the way that part of the walk looks, I continue to have hopes of getting it right.  I think I will be sitting in the gravel shifting stones come cooler weather and fall..  There are also still plenty of areas to plant.  The beds at the base of the hill stay pretty wet, so choosing plants for that area has been a little tricky, but I think I have a rough plan now.  More on that later.

This is the hydrangea on the far right in the picture above, at the back of the house, I love the remnant of foxglove peeking out under the hydrangea blossoms.  Another bit of excitement is that the Angel's Trumpet on the patio is about to bloom.  You can (barely) see a small patch of yellow next to the house in the pile of greenery beyond the table and the tilted chairs.  A little yellow beacon of promise.  The thrill and excitement, the pure potential, the risk, the sheer audacity even, of gardening always makes me catch my breath with unbounded joy and anticipation. It is an anticipation tinged with a hint of fear, but anticipation nonetheless, and the uncertainty of it only serves to make the pleasure all the greater.

I've been remiss in my early morning gardening of late.  It seems that by the time I return from my morning walk with Tikka, the heat and humidity are rising and we are both ready to settle down for a rest, Tikka with a dental treat and me with a second cup of coffee.  I do however often take that coffee on the back porch where I can admire the garden.

Yesterday morning the fog was heavy in the valleys of my neighborhood, and the weeds were thick as well, so I decided to forgo the walk and spend the early morning hours communing with the dirt and greenery.  It was a thoroughly enjoyable experience as I was in no rush, really, and there is a certain meditative quality to mindful repetition.  During that first hour, when even in the close space of the backyard, occasional wisps of fog lingered the morning air seemed magical, even mystical and I would lose myself in whatever small piece of earth and greenery was in front of me, occasionally pulled out of my reverie by the soft snuffling of Tikka sniffing in the grass, her soft ears brushing against my face or hands.

The two foxglove plants that had been crushed under large rocks by absent-minded workers are recovering nicely, and even blooming.   The Echinacea are blooming nicely, and even a few bits of new green leaves are coming up from the former stands of Siberian and Louisiana Iris that were scalped by an over-eager member of the maintenance crew for the neighborhood association.  He was not supposed to cut anything in marked beds, but I am sure he meant well, and couldn't tell the difference between the long fine iris leaves and grass.  It is too late now anyway, and I am thrilled to see a few tiny new shoots of growth in the otherwise bare ground.  Those two beds have been a bit of a failure from the get-go, plants left too long before planting, repeatedly trampled, and generally never really getting a good start, so perhaps the weed-whacking was just the final straw before I committed to re-digging and starting over. In retrospect I think this bed is a good reminder of the bad habits I did not want to repeat in this new garden: buying plants before I had ground ready so that they could be planted and buying more plants than I could reasonably plant in a couple of days.

 Anyway, there are other successes and surprises.  The daylilies are thriving and blooming and the lily bulbs I planted have buds so I should have flowers before long.  The blueberries have fruit, and every evening Tikka and I romp in the grass and I finish of the day with a small handful of berries. And the beautiful hydrangea in the front yard, the one that started out icy cool and refreshing,  is fading into the most interesting soft soothing shades of pink. 

As for the pots, they seem to thrive in the heat and humidity and have suddenly become full and lush and vibrant. The ferns that languished when it was cool and damp, and again when it was hot and dry, are now thriving. The front planters too, seem to be bursting with exuberant color. Mid summer is here and I can sit back and just enjoy the verdant lushness of it all. 

Yesterday I noticed that another one of the new daylilies was in bloom so I took a little time to play with my camera. 

As this is its first season, and there are still lots of empty spaces… or is it just that I prefer overstuffed gardens (and understaffed interiors).  Anyway, I am at this point more interested in the close up shot, and it is something I struggle with.

My brothers would probably not be surprised at this.  During our teenage years, when they were fascinated with photography, they refused to let me borrow their SLR cameras as my photos were always blurry.  I know now that my eyes don't track together well, and that I am better focusing at an angle than straight on.  But I haven't yet figured out how to translate this to taking photos with manual settings.

It is quite possible that my photos will simply be better if I let the camera make the decisions, but I still feel driven to make the attempt to learn how to use the camera, even if that knowledge proves to be more intellectual than practical in my case, and only leads me to further appreciate the work of others, and the automatic focusing ability of my camera.

But then again, if the old adage that "everything worth doing is worth doing well" is to hold true, we must also remember than anything worth doing usually has a learning curve, and long before we get to "doing well" we must suffer through the "doing badly" part.

The crape myrtle and roses are blooming, and happy as I am with the white flowers of the foundation shrubs in front, which allow me a far greater latitude in choosing annuals, I am thrilled at the pink crape myrtle in the side yard and the possibilities for greater color chaos in the more private spaces.
 

Mom and Tikka have been offering supervisory support while I have been out in the garden in the early mornings, shown here in a photo I posted to Facebook a few days ago.  In fact, I am appalled at what a wimp I have become, and after a week of early morning gardening sessions, I am declaring the remainder of the week garden free. Well, planting free.  I enjoy a bit of a morning putter, I enjoy time on the screen porch, I certainly enjoy dreaming about the garden's future and what to put where.  I even enjoy digging and planting, although in moderation.

Mom's first day we went out to Oakes Daylilies, where I picked up the 38 daylilies I had ordered, except that it ended up being 45 daylilies, because I forgot about the "bonus" daylilies.  A dozen of them went into the front beds, along with another couple of dozen plants, large and small. You can't really see the daylililes in the photo below, mostly because they aren't in bloom yet, and they are mixed in with the daffodil foliage, which has not yet died back.  It is much easier to plant daffodils amidst daylilies, I have learned, than vice versa. The front beds are by no means finished, but they look good enough for now.

It wasn't the planting that did me in, although I am out of practice, It was probably the two loads of clay that got piled up on my Louisiana Irises when the sprinkler system was repaired, the two loads of clay that I dutifully dug up and hauled away to save my precious green sprouts, and my dreams of more flowers.

But the repair to the sprinkler system meant that paths in the back could finally be finished, and the back yard transformed from a sea of red clay mud to something both useful and potentially beautiful..  I've contributed nothing to the above scene except for the dirt on the table, and the two potted plants:  a bay leaf and an angel's trumpet.

Oh, and this pot, the one most responsible for most of the dirt on that table outside.  I brought the pot in to the screened porch, but delayed washing the dirt off the porch until the digging was complete, which I suppose means today.

I slept in this morning, meaning I slept until 7, unusually late for me.  I suspect yesterday's labors, and a couple of late nights over the weekend took their toll on this lark.

I didn't have time to finish the post I had started yesterday, not enough time to write and take Tikka for a walk, and be home in case the sprinkler system people show up early, so I thought I would entertain you with a few photos instead. The photos were all taken yesterday, and there is nothing particularly special here, just a few little bits that bring me joy.

I did get all the pollen off all the furniture etc. on the screened porch and the patio outside, washed the grill (yuck) and so forth and so on.  The upholstery covers are holding up well after three summers, but the pillows inside are just beginning to show signs of disintegration and this may be their last season.  Not bad for the cheapest set at Lowe's, and they remain incredibly comfortable.

I still need to fill a few pots with flowers.  And the two small plants in front of the screen, a bay leaf  that survived the winter with a few scars and a brugmansia, need to be potted. But these are small tasks. The two white Panton chairs and the small greenish-blue table will move, possibly to the lawn.  They were too crowded on the small patio, where there is a table that only really needs two chairs.  The lawn is a possibility, but I will need a place to move them on mowing day. These were more decisions that I was up for handling last night and I was happy to procrastinate.

Actually my happiest moment yesterday came when I noticed that the lilies are finally coming up.  I planted them a month ago, and had about given up hope.  You probably only see the one green tip, but there are actually three or four more little brown sprouts poking up, and I am sure they will be green in a day or two. Such a simple thing, putting a seed or a bulb in the soil — but the joy in watching new growth seems to know no bounds.