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Not so sure

Out in the pool area my frustration grows. When we first put the pool in , I swore there would be no gardens inside the fence that surrounds it. The pool was a place to swim, sit, relax and enjoy, not weed, water, and dig. There is no irrigation system out there either, so any watering requires several hoses to be linked together dragged through the gate .

For a long time there were only 12 large juniper bushes (6×8 ft) that lined the fence so it wouldn’t look so overwhelming fence -y . Then we needed to re-claim some space for the hammock, and 5 of the junipers came out. In went a clematis vine(‘snow queen’) and hosta (‘sum and substance’ and ‘blue angel’). Slowly after that initial garden bed was put in the urge to “pretty it up” out there has taken over and stomped on my reslove and more garden spaces have been added.(like the one below)

The only place left with just the evergreens was the left side, until last week. The junipers have grown by leaps and bounds, which is astonishing given that they are growing in pure sand topped with gravel and never watered or fertilized. Navigating the walkway on that side of the pool was getting tricky and the children were annoyed that any ball or pool toy that got errantly tossed there was essentially gone forever because the bushes were touching from top to bottom making an impenetrable hedge that as a bonus caused an allergic rash when touched, (especially painful to someone in a skimpy bathing suit) .

Because they were thriving despite lack of care, I decide to leave them, only radically prune them up. I even called it bonsai hoping a fancy name would help in my acceptance of the new design. Yesterday I added lots of ground cover plants ( you can hardly see they are still so small)and LOTS of soil ammendments too. Overall, I have to say….I am not so sure I like it.

I am going to be patient and see what happens in the spring when the newly planted and divided plants fill out and the juniper pruning gets tweaked. Then maybe rip it all out and add more cement.

… a little aside….when we bought the juniper bushes , all 12 of them were marked ‘Sea Green’, an upright form that grows 6 ft tall and arches out 8 ft. As time went by it became apparant that one was an imposter. All these years I have left it there as a reminder that plants are mis labeled ALL the time and you have to be ever diligent. It was funny and a sort of poke at the seriousness I sometimes have in the garden, but lately it is annoying me and may be the next thing to go.

Who says a September Garden is a Yawn??

Funny, in the past week or two I have extended an invitation to several people to come see the garden and they have all replied the same way..”ooooh , I’d love to , but September probably isn’t a great month to view your garden”. Well, that is just flat out wrong when it comes to this dessert location. First off, I have just as much in bloom, berry and color as I do at any other time, AND you can enjoy it in the beautiful gentle September sunlight (that would be unlike the July sunlight that here in The Burrow could incinerate you in a matter of seconds).

Here is a photo ( or 40 lol)

Joe -pye weed Eupatorium “Gateway and black eyed susans co-mingle

Asters growing in pots to save them from the rabbits are starting

this large sunflowery plant whose name I do not know is lovely

red velvety snapdragons beg to be touched

The dahlias are in full bloom everywhere. I just read today that the double forms lost their nectar forming parts(?) in an effort to super size the flower and are therefore useless to bees. Next year it is back to the single forms for me.

This sunflower came from a mixed seed packet and I really don’t care for it’s droopy petals, but here it is alongside a hyacinth bean vine .

Rudbeckias add so much to the garden in September. Here is “Denver Daisy”

These tiny inconspicuous flowers on the calicarpa bush mean a great show of vivd purple berries is in store for the winter garden

I grow lots and lots of sedum. This is an’ Autumn Joy’ paired with a ‘Brilliant”. The bees go nutso like wacky nectar addicts looking for a fix when the sedum is in bloom

Rosa’The Fairy” goes all summer long, right up until frost

I let the amaranths self seed wherever they wanted to this year, and only ended up pulling a few. They really add a lot of color and drama in a very effortless lazy way.Here the green and burgundy seeded next to a rose bush

This new mum, ‘Centerpiece’, is growing next to salvia ‘Royal Crimson Distinction’ . The salvia has been one of my star performers this year. It has flowered for great lengths of time, been cut back, and reflowered 3 times already with hardly any break. The mum came from Faribault growers in MN. In spring (which is when you should plan the hardy mums they are trying to sell you now) I ordered quite a few of them from this grower I heard of from a fellow blogger . many of them are in bloom now, and I am hoping many overwinter (crossed fingers)

Here is one called ‘Red Daisy’, in it’s handy dandy rabbit fence enclosure

Rose of Sharon adds lots of punch to the late summer border without taking up lots of real estate. I grow quite a few new cultivars, but here is an old standard pink that is just as nice

and this verbena called “Annie’ came from High Country Gardens.It blooms non-stop from probably late May until frost and is hardy here in zone 5 and gently spreading. Awesome groundcover plant!

The paniculata forms of Hydrangea all have the first pink-ish tinge on their white flowers, and soon will be cut to dry for arrangements and wreaths.

Rosa ‘Carefree Spirit” is still going strong

and the perennial geraniums are in their second flush of blooms after being cut back in late July

Caryopteri ( Blue Mist Shrub)s is alive and humming with polinators, who can’t seem to get enough of it

The Butterfly bushes, this is ‘Pink Delight’, are also humming with bees and butterflies all day (and Pumpkin who is fascinated by them and wandered into the shot)

This Sedum, a new one called ‘Hab Gray” is lovely both in foliage color, and it’s interesting pale yellow flowers. After it bloomed I left it uncut and the wind knocked it over. In a first for me with any sedum it flowered again all along the top of the stem that was facing the sun (like climbing roses do). Interesting, and a new thing to remember for future years.

The Heptacodium Miconoides tree is blooming for the first time this year.

The catmint has been going like gangbusters all summer, with little sign of slowing down.

The clematis vines that are done flowering are sporting their funky little seed heads all over…they are so fun to look at and great to press.

The new Drift series of low growing roses from the breeder of Knockout have performed wonderfully here all summer and look great now in the front gardens. The darker pink has a lovely light fragrance to boot.

Every year I grow a bunch of different annual vines. This year my fav has been the love in a puff cardiospermum halicacabum . The delicate foliage and flowers are crazy adorable, and the little puffs are beyond cute. When the puffs are dry you pop them open and the seed inside has a cool heart shape on it, hence the name. It is a viscious weed elsewhere in the country, but is not hardy or a nuicance here. Lucky us!

My standard fav annual vine is , hands down, the hyacinth bean vine lablab purpurea. I hand out seeds to anyone who will take them, and like Johnny Appleseed (Cheryl beanseed ??) , hope many get planted and enjoyed. This year I planted them along the new fence, and WOW do I like the effect. The really come into their own in late August and throughout Sept-Oct, at a time the garden yearns for color. They are so easy to grow, too, needing nothing but sun and a little water to get them going.

Another beauty in the climbing department is this Thunbergia called ‘Blushing Susan’

Add in clematis vines: ‘Gravetye Beauty’, ‘terniflora’, ‘Pope John PAul II’, Comtesse de Bouchard’, ‘Rosea’, and Betty Corning’. Salvia ‘White Sensation’, Geum ,turtlehead , the pink and red Knockout roses, the end of the coneflowers, Roses Seafoam, New dawn, Golden Celebration, Magic Carpet, and my unknown red climber; the awesome berries on all the viburums, hollies,and snow berry bushes (symphoricarpos the species and ‘Amethyst’), massive colorful hips on the rugosa roses and rosa glauca, thesweet pink flowers covering the bushcloverlaspedeza t. yakushimaNora Leigh and Franz Schubert phlox, ‘Annabelle’ hydrangaes, both yellow and pink potentillas, mallows, the fragrant hosta ‘Fragrant Boquet ‘, gallardia, lonicera ‘Major Wheeler ‘ the two trumpet vines, the heavily loaded pearand apple trees and heritage raspberry canes,

then add in the annuals; nasturtiums, nicotianas,cosmos, verbenas, sweet peas, osteospermums (in purple, yellow and orange), torinia, and probably a dozen things I overlooked, and that DOES NOT add up to a yawn. I LOVE the September Garden

Happy Bloom Day!!!

Gardening with Gram

My grandmother was one of the most kind hearted and simple souls to ever work the earth. She lived her married life in a very small house with a very big yard that was once part of my grandfather’s family farm. She raised six kids , all of whom adored her, in the most modest fashion. They had what they needed and nothing more, and were all the happier for it.

Her gardens , just like her, were lovely,simple and just perfect. She grew Siberian iris, daylilies, and a handful of other common perennials. She had a hedge of snowball viburnum, and an old apple tree with a bench under it. In the front of the house was an old fashioned rambling rose that bloomed it’s head off for a few weeks a year and could stop traffic. It was a gift from her mother, and became her signature plant. Cuttings from it live here, at my sister’s house, and my aunt’s in CT.

As she grew older and less able to take care of her yard, I became her gardener. It was a blessing I will treasure always. No matter what I planted, she not only loved it, but would call with daily updates to tell me what was blooming. Each tulip that opened, every daylily that began it’s bloom, every blossom gobbled by the nefarious gophers, would elicit an excited phone call always peppered with plenty of praise for my efforts.

For several years I planted some annuals in containers outside her front door. It would take her several trips with paper cups from the sink to water them sufficiently through the summer, but she did so religiously.They bloomed and bloomed, and as her house was on a busy street , she would field complements on them on her daily outings from passers-by.She would constantly remind me throughout the winter, that she wanted those same exact plants next year, and make sure I still remembered what they were and insisted she had the money already set aside for them.

Last week as she lay in her bed at the nursing home( where she has been for the last 5 years) , on morphine for a fractured vertabrae and suffering from congestive heartfailure, she whispered the reminder to me again.

“Remember the yellow daisies, the ones that bloomed right up until frost, those are the ones I want again this year. Don’t forget, you need to plant them by the front door for me again, Everyone loved those, ” she said.

I promised, through tears, that I did remember, and I would make sure, leaving left unsaid that the house has long been sold and I have not planted daisies there in quite a while.

So much of what I love in the garden comes from her . The old fashioned plants, the cottage feel, gardening around the many play spaces purposely left for the children, all have roots in her yard.

Her siberian iris live here, her lily of the valley, daylilys , and of course, her rose. Even though she left me ,left all of us , this weekend, so much of her is here. Here where she is able to walk around, surveying and taking lots of pictures of my first gardening efforts. Here where she was always quick to help me diagnose plant problems and solve them easily. Here where she could over see the placement of the many plants she bought me. Here with me grumbling along about the rabbits and the gophers and the beetles and a sympathetic soul in my battles.

She was so proud of me when I became a Master Gardener and speaker, and she made sure everyone knew of my accomplishments. I and was never more proud than to be able to count her as my greatest fan.

Fear and Loathing in Jefferson

I may have mentioned before my absolute and completely consuming fear of S-N-A-K-E-S. Irrational seems like a good word to use here, as do obsessive, hysterical, and neurotic.

Just to give you background on how bad it is……..

When we moved in here we planted a hedge down an entire very long side of our yard. A friend gave us these black soaker hoses that lay flat on the ground and are punctured along their whole length to drip irrigate them. They were highly effective……. except for the yellow stripe.

I could have mentally blocked out a black S-N-A-K-E mimicking hose easily . Because it was such a dark color ,unless I was right next to it I would not have seen it. But for whatever reason , the hose manufacturer addded a sporty yellow stripe down the middle of it, and now it was ,to me, a S-N-A-K-E.

Around here if you look like a S-N-A-K-E, even if you are just a dried daylily leave or a hose, you are a S-N-A -K-E until a poke with a very long stick proves otherwise. Every frickin day I would get startled by that darn hose, and just to be sure, I would have to get a shovel and smack in it’s general direction in case it had somehow morphed into S-N-A-K-E since the last time I smacked it. See, irrational.

The hose eventually went in the trash so I could garden over there in peace.

I also used to trail run ( like in the woods), and my favorite route took me around a 5 mile loop that ended in a little bridge over a fast river . On lovely spring day, as I approached the bridge which is at that end of the loop and about 1/4 mile from the car, I found a large black snake stretched completely across the trail, head on one edge, tail on the other.

I froze, he froze, and realizing it was get him off the trail or run back the 4 and 3/4 miles I just finished, I proceed to throw sticks and rocks ( from a considerable distance mind you) , but to no avail. He refused to move. So I turned around and re-ran my run helped by lots of adrenalin, and now I run on a a treadmill.

About 2 weeks ago, the S-N-A-K-E that was living under my potting bench was on the walkway when I came outside and in an effort to escape me , slithered into the bulkhead. YEEE-IKES! I quickly retrieved Bill ,the great white hunter, who opened the bulkhead and shot it. So there.

It should have been clear to me then that the bulkhead was an issue, but I was just happy it was dead.

This morning I was just puttering around, and decided to use my time wisely and start to bring in some outdoor decorations and furniture that could get damaged in Hurricane Irene, which is headed toward us. Needing a box for some of the birdhouses etc, I headed down cellar to fetch one and stopped cold on the last stair.

My daughter’s flip flops were right at the bottom of the stairs, and to the right of them was a very odd long rope-y thing, and I am grateful that in my head the old “If it looks like a S-N-A-K-E then it is a S-N-A-K-E” alarm went off. A rapid jaunt to the top of the stairs to get a stick and a quick poke later, and I am a hysterical mess as…. it IS a SNAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!

Screaming like a banshee I fly up the stairs again to find the most completely useless tools I can to get said thing out of my cellar: a bamboo stick used for garden staking, an orange plastic beach pail, a piece of cardboard, and Erin.

Erin claims she is not afraid of these nightmarish creatures, and to my horror has even held a few, but today seems oddly useless. Maybe it is because I woke her out of a dead sleep and would not let her even pause at the bathroom as I frantically dragged her down the stairs babbling.

Anyway , the plan is to get it in the bucket. We bring the dogs down with us in case it has fled and we need to find it, and she with her bucket goes to the right, and I with my stick go left. The useless dogs can not figure out what the heck we want them to do, and are whining because they know they are not allowed in the basement, so we let them go back upstairs. I decide I am going to block the stairs while she looks under the nearest chair , and as I go to move Faith’s flip flops out of the way, discover in a very screaming sort of way that under the flip flops is where it was hiding.

Erin comes over with the bucket and puts it over the now coiled bastard. But the basement is plush carpeted, so of course the monster is able to start poking it’s head out. More screaming ensues. I yell at her to push the bucket down harder and head up to get a shovel, which is what I use to kill them outside and should have grabbed in the first place.

Now the S-N-A-K-E is half under the orange bucket, and half under the baseboard , so I wedge the shovel between the two and try to hold it there while she tries to get it in the bucket.

We are at a standstill here, so it occurs to me that what we really could use is some tongs. So I hold the shovel which is holding the almost bisected you know what, and Erin heads up to the kitchen to get the salad tongs. The bugger is now all writhy and squirmy, so it takes her a lot of effort but finally she has a firm enough grip that I can be be convinced to let go of the shovel.

Erin puts it in the bucket and with me following after her, heads outside. From my yelling point on the deck I keep making her walk further and further away before I finally stop and let her dump it.

Afterword, when I finally calm down, I know who is responsible for this trauma……CJ had opened the bulkhead door to sneak out a forbidden guest…and let in the you know what. I am dreaming of ways to make him pay , but since his bedroom is down there, I think having to sleep down there knowing he may not be alone will be enough punishment.

Meanwhile, I have been unable to do a thing since then, suffering as I am from post traumatic stress disorder. I am walking around in a daze, staring at the ground, and thus bumping into furniture and such. I googled repellents and traps and exterminators, but get no sense that any of the aforementioned will help at all. I may have to move, although Siberia can get a little chilly I hear.

Barefoot in the Garden

So why, you must be asking yourself, are you looking at my feet??? Whether it is age, or idiocy, I have decided to embrace my wierdness and twirl around revelling in my odd world and you can come along if you want to , or leave screaming if it is all too much for you.

I garden barefoot. On the odd day I might don a classy pair of flip flops (hence the ever so lovely flip flop tan lines that grace the top of my feet and are impossible to hide in real life lady sandals), and on really tough gardening days like hard digging or sod removal I will force myself to wear real shoes, but really mostly barefoot. And, in case you didn’t notice it, my feet are pretty darn ugly.

Bill, who after a long string of losers wrapped in tin foil rode into my world as a bonafide knight in shining armour , and loves me unquestioningly head to ankle, HATES my feet. They were almost the deal breaker in our relationship because any offspring we had we likely be encumbered with them, but he overcame his revulsion and now just generally ignores them, although I do occasionally catch a glimpse and grimace from his direction when they are propped on a coffee table .

As the summer goes on I get “Indian Feet”, a condition that sounds nostalgic and all but really translates to super tough callouses and the ability to walk on any surface no matter how uneven, rocky, hot cold, or uncomfortable it may be. They also take on a dark as mud color due to the sun, and to be honest probably some mud too.

When I have to wear “girl clothes” in the summer, it all comes down to how to mask the feet, and the angst of it makes me want to stay home and skip the wedding, graduation or whatever all together.

When I garden for others, I am forced to wear shoes, and all I can think of is Hank Azaria in the Birdcage when Robin Williams character makes him wear a tux and dress shoes. I plod about and walk in the garden like I had 10 pounds of wet trout growing out my ankles. (FYI Unlike Hank I would NEVER sport shorty short cutoff jeans because there is a definite limit to my indecency).

So there it is, true confessions of a barefoot gardener.

My first barefoot walk out out this morning was awesome, the grass was wet and cold and delightful, you can feel fall moving in ………… I wanted to grab a photo for you to cleanse your mind of the first offending one and end on a happy pretty note!

Late Summer

EEGADS>>>late summer already? Today I started a list of to-do s for fall planting, transplanting, and winterizing projects. It was adreary day, so meloncholy was an acceptable mood, but the reality that school starts in 17 days and the nights have certainly been a little chillier and all the harvest fairs are all starting, yikes!!! I can’t bear it!

But I have a secret happiness in late summer ; one that takes the edge off that frantic-time is going by too quickly feeling; and that is the August border ,( AKA the Dog’s Garden).

The Dog’s Garden was designed specifically to come into it’s glory in mid August (even though the dogs could care less) and continue until late fall. It all started with 3 old fashioned Rose of Sharon bushes that are virtually invisible with their narrow vase like form all summer until they expode into bright pink and purple bloom in the late summer. They were part of an old garden near the house that got moved to a new location when our addition went on, and they became the jumping off point for the border.

Among the first plants to join the hibiscus girls in their new home were the clethras (‘Ruby Spice and the white species clethra alnifolia) also known as summer sweet. Their fragrance is heavenly and they are staggered along the back of the border Just opening the porch door invites in the sweet smell of summer. To finish out the larger plantings I added, two Hydrangea Paniculata ‘Limelight”, Heptaocodium Minocides ( seven sons flower) and several blue spruces including a dwarf one that always grows lopsided.

Near the walkway are lined up a handful of red knockout roses that bloom without break all summer, and a David Austin rose ‘Christopher Marlowe’ that has an intoxicationg fragrance and is never without buds and blooms from June through September.Behind them is another long bloomer called ‘carefree spirit’.

Here is the’ Ruby spice’ summersweet and hydrangea’ limelight’

and another with one of the Rose of Sharons

the white summer sweet grows next to a butterfly bush called ‘Pink Delight’…which is….delightful!

An interesting native called symphoricaros alba (snow berry), blooms literally all summer but the flowers are so small you would b=never know it except for the constant hum of the bees who adore it. this time of year it develops it fat white berries that are so fun to look at. The birds don’t seem to care for them, although I have heard grouse love them, ( we seem to be grouse free here). This year I also added a new hybrid called ‘Amethyst” that has pink berries.. An interesting fact about the snowberry and the summersweet is that they both tolerate a wide range of conditions from full sun to full shade, dry sand to heavy clay, and don’t mind wet feet either. Add in the fact that they are bee magnets and they are true garden lottery winners.

in this garden I let several annuals seed wherever they like and am always happy with the results. Here is some nicotiana in front of sedum reflexum ‘Blue Spruce’

this border is also home to Faith’s fairy garden, and the corresponding fairies which reside here but are afraid of the camera . Below is a known fairy resting spot.

Amaranth is a very cool plant that will shoot up to 5-8 feet in a heartbeat, and works well with lots of other perennials. In this garden it is the burgandy one called amarantus hypochondriacus I let seed. You can eat the seeds and the leaves in salads if you are so inclined. It has sprouted this year all around the tomato plants and looks awesome there, a combination I wish I had actually thought of myself!

Nasturtiums are planted behind the white bench on the top of a little berm that I hope by next summer will also be draped in clematis . This clematis, c. x ‘jouiniana ‘Mrs. Robert Brydon’, has large fuzzy leaves and small pruple and white flowers and does not twine making it a great choice for hills and slopes (and berms!) The cutting I planted there is doing well and will really take off next year.

I had planted 4 caryopteris bushes when the garden was installed, but over the course of a few years have lost them all except for one very happy one.I think it is ‘First Choice’ , but I am unsure.

Also behind the bench are a stand of Joe Pye weed (Eupatorium ‘Gateway’) and sunflowers. Unexpectedly, they are getting too much shade which NEVER happens around here and I may need to rethink their placement.

Two of the latest blooming daylilys for me, Franz Hil (photo) and Lime Frost, live here.

as does one of only two ornamental grasses I like, Panicum Virgatum ‘Northwind’ which stays neatly clumped and rigidly upright. ( the other is variegated miscanthus in case you are curious)

In front of the grass are a few late blooming penstemons

The large black seedpods of false indigo(baptisia ‘twight prarie blues’ here) are an added bonus to a great plant that boasts spotless foliage, and early pea like blooms.

This cute climber is thunbergia alata ‘Blushing Susie’ , really takes off in late summer.

As does the purple hyacinth bean vine, lablab purpurea, and must have for any garden of mine.

Clematis texensis ‘gravetye beauty’ flanks the entrance arbor to the dog’s garden , and a few others (belle of woking’, Dr. Ruutel, and ‘Rosemoor ‘ will continue to bloom here for a few weeks .

Yet to even start their part of the show are the heptacodium which will flower all over in creamy white pannicles, and follow that display with cherry red sepals AMAZING! , the various mums including the oldies but goodies sheffield, and ‘copper penny’; the tall sedums ‘Autumn joy’ ‘Frosty Morn, and ‘Brilliante”, and the Japanese anemones.

All this definitely soothes my anxiety for the winding down of the gardening season. After I get over the hump of september, I am always ready to put the garden to bed and dream of next year while I rest my aching hips and knees.

Head over to Bloom Day at www.maydreamsgardens.com to see what a bunch of othe bloggers all over the country have going on!

July In Pictures

Morning Glories

Looking back , and I mean waaaaay back, to my life as a child, I think there were always voices in my head telling me what direction my life should take. For years, like the rest of small beings, they were drowned out by the well meaning intentions of my parents and teachers, and later on by my own misdirected and hormonal voices that as a know- it- all teenager could have drowned out a jet engine.

Now, as a all-grown up adult, I can hear them loud and clear, and I as I think back I can see they what they were telling me when I wasn’t listening.

Ask any of my siblings (2 sisters and 1 brother) about their childhood and they will wax on about childhood friends, neighborhood kickball games, and the veritable zoo of pets that and any one time resided within our walls. My younger sister has a phenomanal memory of places and people and astounds me with her recall of events long forgotten by me 5 minutes after they happened.

If you were to ask me about my childhood home for instance, I will struggle to tell you what color it was ( maybe blue maybe green, maybe both although I don’t ever recall it getting painted), what the front steps looked like, or even they layout of the inside rooms. It is all very fuzzy and located in a place in my brain I apparantly do not have good access to.

But in full technicolor with oflactory back-up I can walk you around our yard. As you came down our dirt driveway the left side was bordered by a lilac hedge that belonged to the neighbor, and was glorious in the spring. The hedge was on the far side of their house, so picking was always an option. At the termination of the hedge, and now in our yard, was a giant horsechestnut tree. Those massive leaves, the incredilble inflorencence, followed by what every kid dreams of; free stuff from nature that can be used as weapons. The mace like seed pods of the chestnut provided many a colorful word when stepped on, and lots of battles pitching them at each other.Fun stuff indeed.

Straight on from there you were looking at the front of the house, where to the right loomed an easlily 100 foot pine that shaded the whole driveway. To the right of the pine was a little raised bed my Dad sometimes grew strawberries in.

To the left side of the house was another evergreen, probably a spruce as it’s branches remained all the way to the ground. In back of that was a skinny maple that was always ringed with pansies my Mother planted. To the left of the maple was an old cherry tree that my Dad (?) built a landing/treehouse in. The tree’s trunk separated into three parts only a few feet off the ground making it very easy to climb.The cherries were never edible, but as a loookout perch it was ideal.

In the “back” yard next to the white house with the very nasty dog, my Dad had enclosed an area with wire fencing and often grew vegetables (tomatoes, cukes, green beans, and oddly I recall rhubarb but can’t remeber if that is where it was planted).

Behind our clothesline, was the back end of our neighbor, Mr. Burke’s, property. His land was shaped like a very long rectangle, so although his house was further down almost on Main Street, his backyard was way back here abutting ours. In this peice of land that was un-tended to , grew all sorts of fun stuff including raspberries and blackberries we could pick and eat while standing there looking furtively about in case he was watching. At the edge of his land and separating us from another house was a large hedge that I would swear was privet, but I remember it being very tall, which may not be the case as I was little. We had carved out a little opening in the bottom so you could squish down and actually get into the hedge and hide.

If you went to the end of our road you would enter a wood, ownership unknown, where there were lots of trees to climb and trails to follow until you hit the railroad tracks, an area I think we were not supposed to be in.

All in all, I think our yard was pretty small, but it held such wonders for me. I remember raking leaves (fondly ,which I know is odd ) and making up many games in and around yard. I remember the earwigs that inhabited the veggie garden, and got on the laundry when it was hung on the clothes line to dry.

It is telling that my fondest memory is that skinny maple ringed by pansies, and I am guessing that the flower gardener in me was focusing on the one area in the yard that was adorned. There was also magically ( or so I thought) a perfectly true blue morning glory vine that appeared there eevry summer twinning up the tree and blooming that odd and mesmerizing color. This year I have purchased seeds, which I started indoors in May of that same vine, ipomoea violacea .I have done this in the past, with little success, usually by the time the vine gets big enough to flower the first frost hits the next day, and they are trash.

But this year the morning glories are , in a word, GLORIOUS! Ahhhhh memories.

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.