Garden 6-8-2015

Just a quick walk down to the garden this morning. Pardon the photo quality. The battery in the camera I would normally use is kaput and the spare battery and charger are at the cottage. 

(If you have two houses most of the things you need most seem to be at the "other place".)

Notice the size of the hostas flanking the bench!

One can spend quite a lot of money on pre-potted plant arrangements at the local nurseries. Unless you are either incredibly lazy or incredibly wealthy it seems like a waste of money to me. I spent a fair amount of money on the dark blue pots, picked out a few plants that seemed interesting to me and potted them up. Both of the pots have a Heucherella in them which are perennials. One can never have too many Heucherellas in their lives, so this Fall I'll stick them in a corner of the garden to surprise myself next Spring. One of the advantages of being old and forgetful.

Be well, G.

Oakwood Spring 2015

Oakwood, Early Autumn

The color pallet of our garden has shifted away from the primaries of high Summer to more tertiaries, not quite Fall colors yet, but moving in that direction - except for the four pots of Coleus around the bench which are really spectacular as they have increased in volume throughout the year.

New this year is the rock garden with dwarf hostas, low sedems and tiny iris, guarded by the tin bird and birdbath outside the Growlery door. The bird needs a name. Next year, with the help of Lorna's friend Kendra, a water specialist, I am planning a stream snaking down the hill along side the path and falling over the rocks into a small pond surrounded by the hosta Krossa Regal. Should be nice. I have noticed I acquire plans faster than I have time to execute them. Gardens are supposedly "finished" the year after the gardener dies or moves - neither of which is in my immediate plans, but the garden is still progressing. 

1410 June Garden In the Pink (and Green)

I took these shots this afternoon. I posted them as a bad storm came ripping through - high winds, rain and hail.

Life Lesson No.17:  Life is not just a bed of roses.

We will see how it fared in the morning.

A Break In the Action

It rained buckets last night. My next door neighbor Judy said it was 5" in her gauge. I don't know how much it was; I do know it came down fast and hard enough to wash part of the hillside down onto my brick walks. I went out this morning to take pictures because there are more thunderstorms forecast for this afternoon - actually for the next five days. It could be worse - the farmers are really hurting.

The darker roses are William Baffin, the small single is Nearly Wild. The double pink rose is one single plant that is enormous. I've tried to I.D. it because it obviously loves my conditions, even posted pictures on a garden sites. Those old rose people are as wacko and opinionated as the old bicycle people, but still didn't come up with anything definitive.

Up Beat Garden

This is a bit of a repeat of yesterday's posting. I had to. Tree peonies. These plants are so beautiful they just make me ache. The flowers are 6" to 8" inches across, but are still light and graceful. I have five plants, all subtly different, but still similar because I bought the plants I liked. I'm in a floral rut. 

They will all be gone in a week.

Beat Down Garden

Weather wise, the garden Winter and especially the Spring was a real bitch. The rabbits stripped the bark off of a lot of the roses and apple trees (my fault), two large Italian terra cotta pots crumbled because they still had dirt in them (again my fault). The Winter lingered on for an extra month (not my fault). A late foot of exceptionally heavy snow snapped off oak branches, slammed perennials into the ground and crushed shrubs Such is the way of gardening in the Upper Midwest - "once-in-a-hundred-year" storms, floods, droughts and high winds are the norm. Periodically, a corner of the slate gets wiped clean and I get to start over again. 

Compared to the gardeners, the plants are amazingly resilient. The tree lilac in the fourth picture was 180'd; the heavy snow bent the top right over to the ground. I shook off the snow, propped it up with a forked branch and now it's as good as new. The arborvitae hedging didn't fare so well. They lost about five feet off the top. Right now they look like hell. Most broke off, but those by the Growlery just bent over. It was an opportunity - I tied a couple of them together. Now I have an archway over the garden entry. Lemonade. We'll see how it looks in a year.

Some of the tree peonies had branches crushed to the ground. I was going to tie them up after they were done with their show, but I kind of like the Japanese look. Fitting I suppose, as they are originally Japanese plants.