Author Archives: Cheryl

just in case you thought this looked easy…..

Looking at gardening magazines, blogs, and websites it is easy to believe that there are those “green thumbs ” out there that are just kickin it better than you , and causing you intense feelings of inferiority and failure.

But , upon closer inspection I belive you may find that it ain’t all easy street over yonder and the failures mount up as fast as the successes, some of us  just know how to aim the camera right  or downplay the mess with clever distractions  and handy container plantings.

This week I thought for a little reality check  as well as a well deserved humbling, I would post some photos of some mighty bad gardening going on here in the Burrow.

We start with a scented geranium that is obviously getting the wrong treatment as it has been suffering yellow leaves no matter how I adjust it’s watering schedule. It sits on the steps with 9 others, all green leaved and blooming.Sigh, you just can’t make everyone happy.

Right next to the geranium pots lives a rose who for some reason this year got affected by black spot so horribly it is entirely leafless. Four other roses are within 10 feet, all fine.

On to the clematis whose ugly brown lower  leaves( that typically appear on this cultivar) should be hidden by a bluebery bush growing next to it, but obviously are not , the blueberry looks like crap.

Next to the blueberries and clematis lives an azalea that is finally happy after several moves, but the loosestrife planted beneath it has been attacked by the biggest slugs you have ever seen, apparantly I need to pay better attention to this front garden. Suprisingly , this loosetrife which is variegated ( and now very holey) will only stay variegated here in slugville. Elsewhere in the garden it has reverted back to green and remains intact and slug free. Harumph.

Moving toward the new border you can see  this array of annuals on which some leaves appear to have gone missing making a very ugly display.

Over by the fence this poor mallow had so many leaves and stalks missing and broken down to the ground for easier eating that it is now caged and will hopefully recover (unlike the rabbit who was snacking on it “insert evil laugh here”)

Next you can feast your eyes on what should be a stunning display of clematis’Dr. Ruppel’ and pink threadleaf coreopsis. Where is the clematis? you ask…. it got wilt ..I answer …with a supressed sob.

Moving on to more foliar diseases we can discover a clump of bee balm (monarda’Marshalls Pink’) that has powdery mildew like no ones business, although all other clumps of the same variety are chugging along mildew free…

then this very large very old mallow that has suffered two years in a row from whatever this is (could be a fungus could be possibly mites.. I am not sure). It has been cut back and will be shovel pruned later this week. Sad goodbye to an old friend.

It would not be a typical garden year here without some loss to the dreaded Japanese Beetle. This Cpt, Sam Holland Rose is getting the brunt of their muching this year. Someday some bird is going to figure out they make good eating and save us all from their destruction

And now a christmas fern who,like it’s broithers can’t seem to grow enough for the rabbits to ever leave it alone

new this year, the Japanese Beetles are also  eating my ferns? Say what?

This new rhodie is part of a group of plants that are in terrible shape because unbeknownst to me, the fence installers broke an irrigation  line, and the plants in that area  have been getting zero water. I got that fixed last week but they will all need to time to recover.

This clematis durandii has been around for 7 years and only bloomed a handful a times. I should be able to solve this one, yet despite my best efforts, nada.
And to wrap it up Mother Nature has escalated the season all over the yard , as demonstrated by this caryopteris that should provide LATE summer and early fall bloom, but is blooming now along with a few Rose of Sharons. Waaaaay out of line my friends!

There it is , the garden in all it’s non-glory. There is no more frustrating , humbling place than a garden, but also no place I would rather be 🙂

Snapdragon carnival

Just a quick posting with some July photos…

We had so much snow cover here this past winter that the snapdragons not only survived but seeded everywhere. There are many interesting colors now but this grouping is by far my favorite. The pink ones were planted in this locatio last year , along with a stray yellow not too far away. Now parent plants and seddlings are all blooming together in a great carnival of colors that I could never have hoped to put together any other way. Amazing.

The first dhalia bloom of the season

sweet peas and shasta daisy

coneflower and daisy

clematis ‘ernest markham’ growing behind a window box of torinia and moss rose

City Boy

Last weekend Bill and I hosted a large fundraiser for The Pan Mass Challenge( which supports the Jimmy Fund Clinic at Dana Faber) and thus had a crazy few days leading up to the event on Friday. Saturday  morning we left at the crack of dawn for New Jersy to go to  a family graduation party. On Sunday we drove home and Bill got out of the car and onto the lawn mower because he was leaving for Florida at 4 am Monday, follwed by a flight out to Monterey CA wednesday (to see David graduate from the Defense Language Institute) and would be gone a total of another 7 days which is too long to go without mowing.

After a long week that ended with getting stuck at LAX for 14 hours, then a delay in Chicago for 5, Bill crawled home and into bed Suday afternoon exhausted but thankfully having the 4th and 5th off to recover. The big holiday plan was to get in  a lot of R&R  , grill food and consume lots of adult beverages around the pool. BUT, we all know how these things work out here…..

There is a birdhouse mounted on a pole of the fence inside the pool area, and since April there have been two barn swallows that are living in and around it. I have been checking constantly for eggs and nestlings but so far: nothing. The running joke around here is that they are our resident gay couple, and it’s nice to have a little diversity in the yard. I felt bad for them as they were REALLY REALLY trying to have babies but something was obviously awry. Well, a few weeks ago a third barn swallow joined up with them, and voila! Baby birds!

Now, against all laws of nature, the three of them guard the nest and happily feed and tend to their brood. …..and guess what?…..we are in their  way.

Usually no one nests in that particular house after the pool is opened. But now that these swallows waited so darn long, we are trying to frolic where they are trying to run a nursery. In their attempts to get us to shove off, they repeatedly swoop down at anyone who is in or around the pool.

City Boy (aka Bill) is not happy. When we went out early on the 4th, he watched with horror as the birds were diving at the girls in the pool. I had already ventured past the nest and was seated on a chaise lounge near the deep end and was only getting occaisonally swooped. He yelled out to us that he was not coming out to the pool and we reassured him that although they did come awfully close, they did not hit you or peck at you so you just ignore them. He was in no way convinced and ducked and ran swearing all the way out to the chaise lounges.

While trying to relax and read my book, I was constantly peppered with his comments and ramblings regarding the birds.

“I didn’t ask to live in a frickin arboretum”, …..”You and your GD gardens and birdhouses, how did we ever end up married ? “…etc etc. Then had to fend off threats. “I am going to take that birdhouse down right now” … followed by..”I am going to get the gun”….which he did.

I begged and cried, and told my city boy to please just sit, which he finally  did , but  he continued to rant on about how he wanted to cement over the whole yard, how he hates wildlife, and how I am ruining his  precious few days off with my birds.

I tried to explain to him how it was only temporary , that I had peered in and the nestlings were almost ready to leave and after they did I would re-locate the birdhouse promptly. He was unconvinced. Eventually I got up and moved all the furniture  on to the deck away from the birds where he continued to sulk until he had enough alcohol in him to settle down.

Today the girls were out swimming  and I had them try to distract mama papa and “uncle” bird so I could see how close the birds were to leaving Bill in peace, but when I  opened the box too fast one of the babies fell out and mayhem ensued. After much squawking and swooping and attempts at actually hitting me, I had to go in and get a golf umbrella to hold over my head while I tried to rescue the baby from under the hosta. Unfortunately the baby is old enough to flap and attempt  to fly so I could not catch it, but  it is still not strong enough for take-off from the ground. Crap. Now the girls are horrified that it probably will not survive .

City Boy is going to be very happy when I tell him, one down, three to go.

“uncle”making sure no one even tries to swing in the hammock

If you look closely you can see baby right in between two bottom petunia blooms

Where mama and papa have stood since the incident

I like Plants

Over the horrible rainy and cold weather last week when I was forced inside , and especially while I was chaperoning 15 teenagers at my daughter Erin’s end of school party, I killed lots of time going from website to website, blog to linked blog ,enjoying gardens from a ll over the country and a few in Canada and England too.I thoroughly enjoy seeing how excited people are with the success of their gardens. 

Photos always accompany the stories, and some are amazing in their clarity, detail and lighting, and some (like my own) very amateur and pedestrian. Sometimes the writing is top notch, sometimes not, but I find all the stories endearing because of the love we gardeners and garden bloggers all share for our gardens and our plants.

What I quite frankly do not like, in even the tinniest way, are plant snobs. One website I visited this weekend infuriated me in such a way that I felt inclined to post nasty comments, or even better try to spam his site. He goes by the name Renegade Gardener and honestly, his opinions are full of self-important egotistical hogwash. (He is not alone in his poorly thought out comments , I just was angered at his conviction and nastiness ).

We all want to be better gardeners. I define that as being someone who seeks to better the land space around them, in a way that suits them, causing as little damage to the world at large as possible, and who  is always seeking better and  more efficient ways to grow the plants they love.

See that, the plants THEY love, not the plants YOU love. This guy basically slammed anyone who dared to grow a daylily, or aspired to have a beautiful hedge of arbovitae, or basically anyone who wanted to garden with common plants.

 I do not know how to type the “raspberry” sound or I would give it to him. I enjoy a daylily, and love a deep green hedge of arbs as a background to a flower border.  There are a plethora of  plants I do not care for at all……structural plants like agave and yucca make me wince, hostas bore me because , like many foliage plants , I fail to grasp the pleasure of minute variations of detail in a leave. I am a flower chick.

 BUT I can tell you how fully I appreciate a garden lovingly planted and tended with them, or any other plant for that matter.  The list of stuff I grow here would be an embarrassment to type so I won’t, but suffice it to say, I grow an overused plant ( or 20 ) and totally without apology. On the flip side i have collections of certain plants that you will hardly ever see anywhere else.

 There are many “rare” and or “must have” plants for “serious” gardeners you will never ever see here.  Among them :

Spring ephemerals  (too small, bloom time waaayyy too short),

Plants that push my hardiness zone (here that is a just setting up a date with failure and disappointment )

Large foliage plants like Rodgersia or Castor bean or elephant ears, I have even banned canna ( I get the willies thinking about the rain forest and or jungles, and it is so windy here the leaves tatter so I would not use them even if I loved them , OCD you know)….but as an exception I have ‘sum and substance’ hosta which is huge and grown for foliage, and I like it and that is that.

But YOU can grow them all you want, lots of them. I will tell you how lovely they look in your yard and probably take lots of pictures.

The whole point of any gardening is to take a space and transform it into something you enjoy, so  if you want an acre of daylilys….have at it!  Ignore anyone who tells you your efforts are not good enough, or your taste too simple. Or cheerfully point out their inadequacies and harp on their trend- following- keep up with the joneses- mentality, you’ll feel better.

Moss Phlox: ubiquitous, boring

Bridal Wreath Spirea : Nauseatingly common

Whats wrong with this picture? : apparantly the arborvitae is unnacceptable

Daylilys: Not only orange, but the roadside ditch variety too! BAH!

Guess I need to re-do the whole garden……….    lmao, not a chance!

….and speaking of roses

Tonight I am giving a lecture on “Easy Care Roses” at the Blackstone Public Library, so while I was out cutting some roses to bring along, I took the camera out and snapped some photos.

June is when the roses come in to their own and start what for many will be 5 months of bloom. That is a lot for one flower to give.The secret to a long bloom time, not having to  spray for foliar diseases, and NO DEADHEADING (my least favorite chore in the hot summer garden months) is the selction of the right cultivar, and that is what I will be speaking about.

I cheat a little here  and grow a few roses I would describe as anything but easy care, but I am weak sometimes, and their beauty and fragrance drew me in, and now I am a slave to their whims . But most I grow are super easy and put on a spectacular show all summer.

This is an unknown red climber given to me by my mother. It looks lonely today because it’s companion plant , a Betty Corning clematis, was looking very funky lately and got sent off to UNH Plant Diagnostics Lab yesterday.

This next one is a rose I can no longer find in cultivation from a series named after National parks and landmarks, it is called the Canyon Rose and is a large shrub, or as grown here, a short climber.

Not yet blooming, but loaded with buds (in this photo) is the rose we call Grammy’s Rose. It was grown from a cutting taken in my grandmother’s garden from a old fashioned rambler that was a gift from her mother in the 1930’s. It gets black spot like nobody’s business, and often powdery mildew too. It is thorny as all get out and blooms only once a year for five minutes (well really about 3 weeks. ) Here it is in bloom  so you can see why , besides sentimental reasons, I keep it around.

This pretty pink is Capt. Samuel Holland, one of the Canadian Exporer Series, I grow it as a standard…

and this is another climbing red(name unknown) growing on the arbor leading to the newest gardens.

The knockouts, pink hereand red are two of my favorite shrubs. They bloom like crazy.

Rosa Gluaca has just about finished blooming but it’s foliage will serve as the backdrop to my perennials in the back 40.

Flower carpet is amassed in bloom near the end of the boxwood walkway…

and New Dawn is just getting it’s act together after some horrible encounters with the rabbits.

Christopher Marlowe is my favorite David Austin rose, I love the color……

the pink rugosa is loving life where I planted way out back so it can run to it’s hearts content without having to be thinned which causes  me incredible pain since it is so thorny.

The Fairy rose is just starting to open for its summer long show

and yet to even open are Golden Celebration (another David Austin), Climbing Iceberg, Don Juan, and Carefree Beauty. I am glad they are not flowering yet, as it can get a little garish here at times, plus I like to extend the show as long as possible.

After they are finished blooming , many of them have beautiful hips (the seed capsules or “fruit” of the rose) of which RosaGlauca’s are my favorite. They are just starting to form now. Wish me luck tonight!

Myrmencochory

Although I could not pronounce it to save my life, myrmencochory becomes the very bane of my gardening existence here in the sand box from late May until October.

Myrmencochory refers to the phenomenon of  seed dispersal by ants. Theory is, some  plants evolved to have seeds with an extra ‘food body’ on them that is attractive to the ants, who carry it down to their nest, feed the nutrients from the food body (called an elaisome) to their larvae then discard the seed itself  from the nest where it germinates and grows. This saves the seed from predation and ensures succession of the plant species. What frickin ever, to me it just means more work weeding.

Only certain plants have this symbiotic relationship with ants, I think the other million seedlings they cause are due to their constant  tunneling .In the gardens here ,everything under a few scant inches of improved soil  is sand, therefore the digging is easy. Their massive  nests have taken down entire sides of raised beds, recycled whole areas of gardens so now the sand is on top and the soil is under, and given me hundreds of hours of extra weeding.

Bill calls them “nature’s farmers” which is a better name than they derserve. I call them” milions of creepy soon to be dead crawlies” ,and do not appreciate their farming efforts at all.

All the beds here are either raised up with local rocks, or edged with them , and when they disturb an area enough to knock the rocks out of place and I have to re-place them, I enevitably get bitten by the stupid things whenI  absentmindedly kneel down and pick one up. It hurts like H-E double hockey sticks and then itches like crazy .

While I apprecaite the scientists who study such things to give us a better understanding of the world around us, I also apprecaite the scientists who work for Ortho and give us fancy  ant bait stations to kill the little suckers.  When we moved here not even one living thing greeted us in our yard upon arrival. I think the ants moved in first and started a chain of followers and interlopers  that have conspired to undermine my beautification work and thwart me at every turn.

 Maybe I am paranoid, maybe just a-noid (couldn’t resist…sorry), maybe I should be more tolerant. Sigh.

Comfrey

Not many people I know grow comfrey, an herb well know for it’s thug like behavior in the garden. It can grow up and into even the most densely rooted plant and will spread underground taking over any open ground and trampling any plant in it’s way. When you attempt to weed it out, any little molecule left in the ground will form a new colony by the time you get to the compost pile. The species self seeds crazily so defines the word garden pest. So……… why grow it?

Well, a well know fact to most European gardeners  is that comfrey leaves make unbeatable fertilizer. The plant acts as a miner, pulling out nutrients from deep in the soil and storing them in it’s leaves. You can put the leaves as is in your compost for a nutrient boost, or put them in a container to decompose,( a little smelly so put your bucket far away from the windows) then dilute the thick black liquid they form with water to make a foliar fertilizer. Recipes are  here http://www.howtodothings.com/home-garden/how-to-make-comfrey-fertilizer and here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRbHqz1m7kk although I just use a 5 gallon bucket and a brick . The fertilizer is totally organic and totally  FREE!

I could say that is why I grow comfrey, but I think that may come off as , well, the bold face lie that it is. I grow it for the amazing color show. The buds of comfrey when they are all tight and closed have a surreal pink glow to them, especially against all that dark green foliage. Then they open to the most beautiful blue,yes blue, true blue, not a purple masquerading as blue or an if I squint my eyes that resembles blue blue, but real honest to goodness blue. AND they bloomfor a looooong time. I pea stake them or use a cats cradle set up in the spring so all that blueness rises above the other plants near them ( they will flop without it) and I enjoy their show.

When they go wayward, I spade out the offenders and compost them or add to my bucket of leaves . Thug or not, I would not be without it, and when I leave this world it will be a race between the comfrey and the trumpet vines to see who takes over this little acre first.

It’s A Purple-y Day in the Neighborhood

Welcome to the only brief time when purple is the dominat color in my garden. It was not done in any way intentionally, just the timing of what is blooming early, before the show really begins around here.

Of course there are the several cultivars of liac (other than Miss Canada which blooms pink), bearded iris, the opening spires of baptisia, salvia, the johnny jump ups and pansy I let seed at will, the ajuga that covers all the bare ground I have not planted yet,the spurs of columbine, nepata ,jacob’s ladder(‘stairway to heaven’)  and my earliest blooming large flowered clematis called’ Elsa Spath’. This year the blooms on Elsa are HUGE and it is windy and they are being difficult to photograph in all their expansive flowery-ness. ( I gave it my best shot)

 Anyway, I will enjoy the purple while it lasts,it may not be my favorite color but it beats the heck out of the dreaded yellow time that comes during the late summer lull.

The edible garden?

Up until yesterday, I have always been able to say that if there was something edible growing in this yard it was by accident or coincidence. I have never planted vegetables here, and had no desire to cater to their whims as there is a perfectly wonderful farmers market here in town where the produce is cheap, and I also have friends who chase me around with zucchini and green beans that I think they would pay me to take off their hands becuase  they are so inundated with them and feel guilty composting that which they have worked so hard to grow.

Then, my sister in law had a conversation with my daughter Faith, wherein she explained the unbridled joy of harvesting and eating  your own corn…. and I got that look we mothers are so often greeted with when our offspring realize that there is some fun in the world we have been expressly keeping from them, and the pressure to have a veggie garden was on.

The other part of my reluctance to plant vegetables here stems from the fact that other than Faith, (who will eat corn and broccoli) no one here eats them but me. Occasionally I have stuck a single cherry tomato plant in a porch on the deck and along with the gifted produce  that has been more than enough for my personal consumption. But now, my cutting garden, the source of my beloved zinnias, Bells of Ireland, sunflowers, stock, and endless summer flower  arrangements, will yield corn, Kentucky wonder beans, and cucumbers instead.

In the small plot there was already standing a willow tee-pee that I grew bottle gourds on (for birdhouses and decorations) so the bean seeds went in at it’s base. Then we tilled and mounded and made 5 rows and dutifully planted a seed every few inches down each one. A  little area toward the front has cucumbers that are suppose to grow in a bush, but I am skeptical because I am aware of their vining take over the world nature, and will believe it when I see it. Faith made labels to mark the rows, and last night mother nature watered it for us (yep, more rain) so I hope to see seedlings soon.

But…it doesn’t end there. This past weekend was my garden club’s plant sale and in the odd fit that often grips me at such events I bought something I did not intend to re-plant in my yard: strawberries. Last year it was Heritage raspberry canes which in a fit of a different kind centered around yet another kind of guilt, I planted way way way out back , under a white pine where there is no sun or irrigation , and they have languished since.

Buoyed by Faith’s enthusiasm for the vegetable garden, I mentioned the strawberries, which were greeted with wide eyed wonder and a cheerful willingness to keep gardening with me. So I got out the strawberry pot, which up until now has always grown thyme or sedum , and we planted our new strawberry plants.

On a roll now, I went out back and rescued the poor raspberry canes, a move I know I will come to regret deeply, and moved them to new spaces along the fence near the road. As they take over the world that is my front yard, I am hoping they can repay me for all the expensive real estate I am giving them by using their thorny canes to stop Tigger from charging the fence every time some poor soul tries to walk by with their dog.

We will see what comes of all of this. My experience thus far in life with blueberries, broccoli(at my last house) and even my apple trees , is that the food I am trying to grow  is for the critters, and I am their personal produce provider. The cutting garden is fenced in, so that may deter the rabbits, but the birds are another story, and who knows what else has been anxiously awaiting my foray into edible gardening. At the very least , if we get to enjoy even a few ears of corn, which is Faith’s favorite, I will deem it a success.

Rain Rain go away….

Without tempting the unniverse to go sahara  on my a**, could it just be sunny for a little bit? Or maybe just a few degrees warmer so the word “raw ” can be excused from my weather vocabulary for a while? I have things to do, and the garden waits for no woman , what needs doing needs doing now.

My pants are wet, my sweatshirt is so wet it weighs about 40 lbs, my wellies have been keeping my feet dry , but muddy-ing up the deck and walkways, the soil is saturated and the plants are drooping and can I mention wet mulch=heavy mulch and it is much too dificult to spread.

It rained yesterday, the day before that it poured, it rained off and on today and when it was not raining there was a fine mist in the air being blown about by the wind which is highly uncomfortable to be outside in. It will rain tommorow, and the day after that, and maybe even the day after that one too.

I think back to another May we had like this (2004?), that year it went into June the same cold wet  way.  Plants just rotted in the ground and fungal diseases abounded .The poor things  had no way to escape the water and they just turned to mush and there was nothing I could do about it. Frustration ensued and that is just  not pleasant to be around, trust me.

I also can’t  take any decent pictures, but I will post what I have taken so far. The crabapple trees all looked incredible this year, and the lilacs are starting to bloom. The spring blooming shrubbery was unstopable, going for days longer than it ever has. The magnolia never got nipped by frost, the forsythia and azeleas are still in bloom, and three clematis that never bloom this early are all budded out.

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This is usually a great time to show off the garden, but no one wants to be outside and that counts for my worker-bees too. CJ has taken to doing inside chores (folding laundry, vaccuuming etc) so he won’t have to get soaked and chilled to the bone anymore. Our first cookout of the year( in honor of his college graduation) is this weekend.

 I will take partly cloudy, passing brief showers, threat of afternoon quick passing storm, or even  morning rain if it is followed by a sunny afterenoon. I will not accept  any more day long rains with temps in the 40’s and low 50’s .

 The end.

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