Arrrgh!!!

For the past month, every other word out of my mouth has been "wedding." It's not even MY wedding, and I'm overloaded with chores in preparation. Thank GOD for my sister, who kindly invited my mother to visit her for a week. We've been busy doing fourteen years of Spring cleaning while she was away.

My stepdaughter is getting married in ten days. Her wedding is at noon and the reception is not until 5:00, so we are opening our home to out of town guests for the afternoon. There is NOTHING like having strangers coming to your home to make you look at it critically. I made a three page list of chores to do, have added most of a fourth page, and have slowly been working through them. I got to the gardens yesterday and today.

You know, before you go out and weed and plant your gardens, you really should exercise for a few months! I weeded yesterday for almost three hours and another two hours today, and I can feel muscles I never knew existed! The up side of all this work is that where I've worked it looks beautiful! The iris are just starting to open, and they should make quite a display for the wedding. I've mulched and planted about a third of the new plants, and most of the containers have been filled. I have the rest of the plants to set in, and a lot of mulching to do.

I finally realized today that I could only do so much. If I don't get everything on my list done, that's okay. I don't want to go to the wedding worrying about what people will think of my home, but enough is enough!

By next week, I should be in great shape, but I need my bed.......NOW! I hope you all have a great week. I'll catch you later.

Gardening. I spent five hours on my hands and knees today, weeding and planting my herb garden. When I have pictures, I'll nag Red Eagle to show me how to post some of them.

The herb garden is my special garden. My mother has had a hand in most of the other gardens, so this one is mine to design and direct. Last year I joined an on-line herb group and under their influence I dedicated a wing of the garden to lemon scented plants.

Last fall they encouraged me to store the scented geraniums bare rooted, in the garage. I planted them today, and I don't have terribly high hopes that it worked, but the attempt to revive them is interesting. If I don't see some evidence of growth by the end of June, I'll get some new plants.

So...in the lemon garden, I'm growing verbena, grass, balm, savory, thyme and scented geraniums. If I come across a lemon basil, I'll add that later. I also planted a citronella plant. I had some lemon colored marigolds left over from another section of the garden, so I tucked them in, too.

I figure I have about 75-80% of the garden done. I still have to weed part of the chat walkway, and I plan to renovate one five foot wing. The garden is almost ready for the wedding now.

Tomorrow I have to pick up weeds that have been pulled, plant the tomatoes and a shrub, three roses and a couple of buddleia bushes, and that will be the last of my gardening for the week. I've been longing to be out in the gardens all spring, and in the past week, I figure I've put in about 20 hours.

I HOPE the iris will last until Saturday! They are stunning this year.

Okay.....if you've gotten this far you know just how dull I can be.....but I sure enjoyed my day in the gardens. :-)

I haven't talked much about the fact that I am interested in herbs. I have a lovely raised herb garden that DH made for me the year after we built our home. I've always used culinary herbs, and now I'm learning medicinal uses as well. I moderate an herbal group on YahooGroups, and they have been teaching me fascinating things. Red Eagle has given me instructions on how to share pictures with you, so I hope to post some of them in the coming week.

Despite the fact that I have a fifteen pound black cat by the name of Ed.....my gardens are the home of endless chipmunks. Right now, they are making a home beneath my thyme and sage. You'd think with Ed, and the neighborhood cats, and the dog, and an occasional hawk, that my gardens would be safe, but that's far from the truth. One year, the chippies gathered up seed from dill plants that I had allowed to go to seed in the veggie beds, and they transferred them to the flower beds along the front walk. Since then, I have had annual infestations of dill!

This week, we pulled 90% of the volunteer dill from the flower beds and brought it into the kitchen. I stripped off the leaves, and we culled the leaves from the stems. Then I minced the leaves and spread them over two jelly roll pans. I heated the oven to about 110 degrees and let the dill gently dry for several hours. If the dill has been in moist ground it might take 4 to 6 hours to dry it out. I have three bottles of dill stored away now, which will easily keep me for the next year, and I still have fresh dill to put in my salads.

It gives me a great sense of satisfaction to be able to grow and store my own herbs, and Dill is the easiest of those I work with. Look for a recipe using dill in the next post.

Culinary oddities is another subject I'd like to blog about. My family is particularly fond of a grilled peanut butter sandwich with sweet relish, or what we call "picalilly." A number of people have wrinkled their noses and gone "Eeeeewwwwww" when they heard the combination (Most notably Dear Husband). On the other hand I was reading Pobricito's blog, and I discovered a discussion of pilchards and marmite. There's an awful lot of odd things that human beings are likely to be found eating.

Imagine the guy who discovered that you could eat snails! "Yep....not bad, but they'd be great with some garlic butter!" I figure you had to be hard up to eat snake or octopus or raw fish, too. And spare me tripe or chitlins. Give me apple crisp or cherry cobbler any time!

I was visiting Bogie's blog, trying to catch up on some of my reading. Things have been hectic here so I'm several days behind on blogs. I was delighted to discover that she is a gardener. She's farther north than I am, so she's begining to get her gardens ready for winter. I have about a month to go before I start putting the gardens to bed. We'll be having a bridal shower here a week from today, and I want the grounds to look their best, so I've been spending a lot of time weeding, watering, feeding, pruning and generally cleaning up the grounds.

I have a friend in the Fort Worth area who is a superb gardener. She's always researching ways to have healthier soil and stronger plants. We've had many a conversation about the use of compost. She feels that it should be incorporated into the top three inches of so of the soil to make the best use in feeding plants organicallybecause the plants feed mostly in those three inches.

I've read somewhere that double digging is the best way to prepare a new garden, adding compost in as we turn that soil. My friend is trying to persuade me not to disturb the soil, but to add compost on top.

She has also taught me about corn gluten meal, and alfalfa.

It seems that if you put alfalfa on your iris in the fall you'll have huge numbers of blooms in the spring. You can use pellets, meal, or hay to achieve this. I'm going to try it. I'll let you know in the spring how it turned out.

If you've tried this, I'd like to hear from you.

The herb list I belong to has chatted about "Lasagna Gardening" in the past, and I've always thought it sounded like a great concept. The idea is to layer four to six inches of compost or layers of material over a spot where you want to make a new garden bed. If the area is in your lawn, the layers will kill off the grass and the bed will be ready for planting without having to use harsh chemicals.

Oddly, I found a note about this method in the "Real Simple" magazine, November, 2003. They suggest mowing an area you wish to dedicate as a bed next spring, and then putting down four sheets of newspaper, and a four inch layer of shredded fall leaves or bark mulch. Hose it down and let it sit for the winter.

I think I may try this on a section of my formal garden that has been infested with grass. I plan to put down layers of newspaper, chopped leaves, shredded paper from the office, compost and grass clippings. What better time to renovate a bed than in the winter, when nothing is going on?

If you're interested in this technique, you can read more about it in " Lasagna Gardening: A New Layering System for Bountiful Gardens: No Digging, No Tilling, No Weeding, No Kidding!" by Patricia Lanza, et al You can buy the paperback new for $11.17 at Amazon.com. What have you got to loose?

About six weeks ago, I had the opportunity to visit a Restoration Hardware. I want one of everything! I came across a wonderful product that appeals to me on several levels. It's a bottle of beach glass that has been scented with lavender. Herbs and recyling are a big part of my life.

There's been talk of Iris at Bogie's blog. She's blessed to have a mother who shares her plants. This Spring Cop Car will visit and they will plant iris descended from plants in Bogie's grandmother's garden.

I couldn't resist sharing a picture of my iris. I counted last year, and there are more than twenty varieties.

The HUGE white tree/shrub at the house is a viburnum. The landscaper SWORE it would simply fill up the space between the windows. Much to my disgust, we'll have to have it taken out.

About ten years ago, Dear Husband turned to me one day and said "I like what you are doing with the gardens, but I'm not going to garden any more." I was dumbfounded! I didn't have a response. I couldn't think of anything to say. (No snide comments from the peanut gallery!)

There wasn't any question of simply shutting down the gardens, so I kept on by myself with an occasional hand from DH moving a full wheelbarrow. Gradually things began to run down. There are too many gardens here for one person to care for, unless that is the only thing she does. To make matters worse, my mother would buy plants and hand them to me and ask me to make room for them in the gardens.

My office window looks south over the lawn toward the road. The house sits higher than the road, and there's a raised area and then a gentle slope down the lawn. In that raised area we've planted a forsythia bush and a star magnolia.

For some reason, they have been slow to bloom this spring, despite the fact that we had a reasonably gentle winter. But today.....they are both starting to show their glory! I plan to take my trusty disposable camera out to record some of that beauty, so perhaps I'll be able to share it with you before Spring is over.

I guessed right. The patch of lovely blue bell-shaped flowers on short plants that have expanded in my grove are Siberian Squill (Scilla siberica ) . This website has pictures of squill: http://plantsdatabase.com/showpicture/16390/

Hopefully, I'll have pictures of my squill for you soon, so you can see it in it's natural habitat.

The violets have started to bloom!

Part of our lot was once a horse pasture. There are trees that divide it into sections, making it almost look like it has rooms. The part that is south of the house has areas that are totally covered in violets. There's a patch of trillium that Dear Husband has been told not to mow down, a section of trout lilies that he insists on mowing, and a stretch of May apples growing among the trees on the east edge of the property. Soon we'll see naturalized phlox blooming there, too.

When I first started my gardens I left the violets because I didn't have enough plants to fill the space. Then it became a contest to fill in around them. Now, I rip them out of the gardens with abandon, because I know that we have violets all over the place! Still.....it's a special time when their deep purple, or blue or white flowers open up and cover the ground.

The heat has killed off the Ice Follies Daffodils today. And the Darwin tulips are just about shot, too. It seems that each year we get a taste of summer just in time to kill off some of the spring plants.

I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in
order.
- John Burroughs

I'd like to be out working in my gardens now, but it's a cool, gray day under threatening skies. And, too, there is still work to be done in the office.

There are times when I drag my feet about my gardening chores. Usually that tends to happen when we are in the high heat of summer and the mosquitoes are out in force. But usually, after a good session playing in the dirt, I'm revigorated. The pleasure of gardens that are once again neat, and of a job well done always soothes my soul, and it's worth the achy muscles.

My father visited his fruit trees and vegetable garden each evening during the growing season. I thought it odd that he wanted to see them each day, until I became a gardener, too. Now I understand that he was seeking to put away the difficulties of the day and bring peace to his mind. Most likely, he was also giving thanks for the joy of having a garden.

Some of you lead such fast paced lives that you don't have the time to garden. I've been there, done that. When you find that pace to difficult to maintain, or when it fails to keep your interest, think about gardening. There's everything to be gained: the delight of growing your own food, or the pleasure of creating a beautiful landscape that reflects your personality.

For me, summer is wasted unless I have the chance to eat a tomato warm off the vines in my own garden. Nothing tastes as good as homegrown tomatoes!
And color has a huge influence on my life. This year I plan to plant verbena along the walks and paint the landscape with a beautiful hue of purple. If scent is important to you, walk through my herb garden, brushing the plants with your finger tips. Inhale. I not only get to perfume the outdoors, I can bring the scent into my home.

Gardens soothe the soul, delight the eye, and bring order to our lives. Go plant some seeds, and if you have children, teach them how to plant seeds. You'll both be better for it.

Dear Husband let me sleep in today. In good weather, usually I do that service for him on weekends, but somehow we swapped roles. I think it must have been about a quarter after seven when I rolled out of bed and dressed. I made the bed, unloaded the dishwasher, reloaded it, started some laundry, folded laundry and moved it to our bedroom, bleached the counters, watered the houseplants, feed the birds, had some toast and read the funnies and then ironed the curtains for the garage and hung them.

By then, Defer's eyes were beginning to roll with the need to go out for a quick visit with the grass, and I was ready to get to my gardens. There was too much to do to accomplish all of it in one morning, so I started with the gardens that edge the sidewalk to the front door.

Last year I planted several collections of lilies on either side of the sidewalk, near the front door. Several of the lilies in the bed on the north side were killed off, either by ground squirrels, raccoons, or by a heavy footed dog or cat. I planted easily a dozen lilies this morning, and 6 crocosima, and then I started the first weeding of the year. I got MOST of the beds at the front of the house done. I deadheaded the daffodils, and pulled thistles. I plan to paint the thistles with Roundup this year and be done with them, but I'll have to catch the next batch that come up. By then we will be in drier weather, and the Roundup will work more effectively.

It looks like we may have lost two tender rose plants that made it through the winter. I uncovered the roses about a month ago and they looked fine, but since then, they have faded to dead twigs. I'll wait to see if there is any new growth as we get into warmer weather, but things don't look good.

I've ordered my first hydrangea, and I plan to buy a buddlea to join the one I wintered over. We enjoy attracting butterflies and hummingbirds, so my goal is to keep planting things that will draw them in.

I worked for about three, maybe three and a half hours this morning, enjoying the heat of the sun on a chilly day. The sky was a deep blue and cloudless. We expected a storm this evening, but it may have by-passed us.

Tomorrow, if it's not raining, I'll take Mother to the nursery, and pick up the first round of plants. We'll make several visits over the next six weeks. My goal is to get everything that I buy into the ground! No waste this year! Our frost free date is May 15, so for the following thirty days, it's plant, plant, plant!

I can't resist. I need to bable about my gardens.

Do you find that dozens of ideas for your blog pop into your head when you are doing something that keeps you from writing them down? I thought I had the solution to that with a hand held tape recorder. I could use it in the office, or in the car. But there are times when your hands are full, or you're in the middle of shaping hamburgers, or in the shower, when that won't work for you.

So, we're relying on my incredibly inept memory today. Let's see....

We had quite a rain yesterday, and the Arr!! has now disappeared down my drive. I plan to weed and plant, weed and plant.

I have five Homestead purple verbena, five pots of ornamental grass, three butterfly bushes, five dahlias and five Joe Pye Weed to plant.

It's time to do the container gardens, and I have WEEDS to pull. There's quite a stand of Snow on the Mountain to be ripped out, and I need to kill off the soapwort that has invaded the center of my garden.

Lots to do! I hope you all have a GREAT weekend!

When was the last time someone gave you the favor of time? It's a rare gift these days, and all the more precious because so few of us have time to spare.

Today, my oldest sister gave me the favor of an entire day. Yesterday, she helped Dear Husband put the boat in the water. It was her first trip on the Arr!! and it was a major success! She enjoyed the trip up the river, the experience of going through a lock, and motoring to the mooring. She ate the wonderful catered meal, and was so relaxed, she fell asleep on the deck!

When they came back from the lake, she called her husband and announced that she was staying overnight, and would be home late today.

My Iris are just astounding this year. A friend told me that if I put some alfalfa around them in the fall, they would bloom heavier this Spring, and she was right!
I bought a bag of alfalfa pellets and scattered them around the corms. I was probably a bit heavy-handed, but the plants seem to have done well. It doesn't seem to matter which form of alfalfa you use, but the pellets were the tidiest for our gardens.

I plan to take pictures of the gardens with my trusty disposable camera this week. When the pictures have been developed, I'll post a few here. At least you'll be able to see the big picture.

I have one deep purple iris that has done poorly for the past three years. Last year I had one bloom stalk on the plant and the dog snapped it off when he tumbled into the plant. This year, I think there may be six bloom stalks, and I can't wait to have them open! Some of my newer iris are blooming this year, too. Usually I have good luck with blooms the first full season, but I moved these, and then they were heaved out of the ground with the freeze and thaw.

It looks like garnet, or burgundy is my favorite color for iris, but we have yellow, bronze, purple, and blue varieties getting ready to open. One of the most beautiful pale varieties is a delicate ruffled peach called "Infinite Grace."

I was going to dig up and dispose of a pale lavender iris this year, but I may save a few pieces of it and plant it where it will contrast those stronger colors.

Yup, I'm iris happy. Come visit me this time of year, when my gardens are at their best!

We had a quiet Memorial Day. I was rained out of the gardens yesterday, so I needed to get the herb garden cleaned and ready for some herbs that have been sitting in the garage for more than a week. I needed to weed the chat pathway, and parts of the beds, too. I started at the South end and got about an hour's work in before the first downpour hit.

I stopped and had some breakfast while it rained, and then headed back out as soon as the storm had passed. I got in about thirty minutes or so, and was caught in the next downpour. I left everything, and came in for another short stay. BY the end of my final session I managed to get somewhere between a third and a half of the garden weeded.

I still have the rest of the herb garden to do, herbs to plant, herbs to harvest, tomatoes and zucchini to plant, and weed eating to do around the edges of the lawn and gardens. I think this is a labor of love, and a project that is going to be done a little at a time. It's SOooooooo much more satisfying to stay until the job is complete!

Our little area of the world has been in a drought for the past two years. We went almost through the month of April before we had rain the last day or so. By the 15th they were saying it was the driest April on record. One long day of rain gave it the appearance of being almost normal in rainfall. Statistics lie!

On the other hand, May has been soggy in comparison. Each time I plan to get into my gardens, Mother Nature lets loose. We have water standing in the swale near the road and the sump pumps have been working for several days.
Worms and the perennials I've planted have been happy campers, but soon the iris and lavender are going to be dying off from all the rain.

At least I'm not schlepping hoses around and paying a humongous water bill!

Dear Husband took off for the lake this morning, and I pulled myself together, had a cup of tea, answered a bit of mail, and then headed for the herb garden. So many things have required my attention elsewhere, that the herb garden is the last to be planted. I'm fully a month late getting the herbs into the ground.

My lawn thinks it's a hay field! It's masquerading as a harvestable crop, and it rained today. I can hear it growing out there!

I've mentioned in a previous entry that I was filling in as the lawn mower of record for DH and managed to do something to the mowing deck. It absolutely SHUDDERS when I try to engage the blades. So, we contacted the dealer to make arrangements for them to come get it for repairs.

It seems that I am not the only person who has run into things, because we had to wait approximately TWO WEEKS for them to pick it up. And, now that they have it in their clutches (no pun intended), I don't expect to see it for a week or more at the very earliest. I think I'm in the wrong business. They charged $40 for pick up and delivery, and another $30 to just look at the darned thing.

The dealer was upfront about the delay, so we bit the bullet and bought a self-propelled walk-behind mower. Unfortunately, we will have to walk behind this thing daily to keep the grass to a level the mower can deal with.

Last Saturday, two of my younger nephews came for the day and gave me some help with the yard. The youngest one, who is ten, helped me dead-head the peonies, and water the container garden. Then he walked part of the lawn, picking up downed branches so that his older brother could mow. Their father took pity on them and brought his mower over to give them a hand.

It is never possible for me to adequately explain how grateful I am to have help in the yard. The boys saved me from disaster. I have a bad back, and I suspect that I don't have enough strength to make the pull start on the mower work. I would have obsessed about that growing grass if they hadn't come to help. Now, we have it down to a level I can manage.

Dear Husband has a summer cold. He came down with a doozey today. So, tomorrow night, when he gets home from work, I'll have him crank up the mower for me, and I'll go mow for an hour or so.

Ah....the joys of summer.

My chore for today was weeding. While we were away last week, my gardens exploded! I don't know how they did it, since everything was so dry, but they simply doubled in size.....the weeds too!

Sunday, I'll have to continue the job I started. Actually, I'll have to weed or do maintenence on a daily basis for the forseeable future; there's just too much yard for one person.

The best part of today was walking through the herb garden, to determine what needs to be done. Everything needs a haircut......maybe even a buzz cut! The basil is just coming to the point where I need to do a serious harvest. If I top the plant, I should get a bushier plant, and I might be able to delay its flowering. Most culinary herbs need to be harvested before they flower to have the best flavor.

One of the first things I posted when I started blogging was a recipe for Farmer's Tomato pie. This is a rustic pie made from fresh tomatoes and cherry tomatoes, and topped with torn basil leaves. It tastes like summer, melting in your mouth. The recipe is posted here on May 16, 2003, in case this link doesn't work. Give it a try....it makes a wonderful simple supper.

We feed the birds all year long. My mother enjoys watching the birds and animals that come to our feeders, and it's a simple enough thing for us to do. Filling the feeders is part of my early morning list of chores, and I enjoy the quick visit out of doors before I start my day.

I've been watching the fruits of my efforts. We have a clutch of tiny goldfinches who like the chipped sunflower hearts that I put into a dark green silo feeder. The brilliant goldy/yellow of the bird's feathers shows up elegantly against the green feeder. The little birds jostle for position as they wait their turn at the feeder, and when they have finished, they fly over and cling to the brick on the side of the house.

This morning, I watched a male downy woodpecker put himself into position to eat from the feeder. That's no mean feat, because the perches are meant for small birds, but a woodpecker can go just about anywhere he wishes!

Black capped chickadees have made their appearance. Can fall be far away?

It's a gray rainy day, today. I've had the pleasure of working at my sewing machine. I've answered e-mail and lazed through the day.

I was standing at the kitchen sink, and I could see the pile of cedar mulch waiting for me. I noticed it looked a little worse for wear.

As I watched two chipmunks and a grey squirrel made their way over the pile, and burrowed in, apparently leaving stashes for the winter.

Won't THEY be surprised when they come back.

Hmmmmmm....maybe I will be too, once that mulch is spread! *G*

This is a view of the garden at our front door. The sidewalk is brick, and the verbena and ornamental grass must love the heat it retains, because this year they are trying to meet in the middle.

It won't be long before this will all be taken by frost, and I'll have to cut it back for the winter. The mats of verbena will last the longest. Lilies have already gone.

In the center of the picture, if you look closely, there are dahlias. We have Victoria Blue salvia, chrysanthemums, lavender, several kinds of ornamental grass, a Palace Purple huchera, one poor dying rose, LOADS of iris, coreopsis, vinca, day lilies and several other things I've planted that I can't identify! This garden is at it's best in late May, but it's not too shabby this Fall.

Closer to the door, there are a dozen pots of plants. I've encouraged my mother to take over the container gardening, so that she can keep her hand in as a gardener. I have a pot of herbs, and she has filled the rest with Million bells, snapdragons, coleus, sweet potato vines, small mums, petunias, straw flowers, geraniums and a dozen other plants.

Variety is the spice of life! We may not be elegantely coordinated, but we certainly enjoy the variety.

...in the gardens.

Today, one of my nieces gave me an afternoon of help out doors. Last weekend, when I should have been out doing yard work, I was inside. So this week, I've been playing catch up. I've planted four of the six dozen tulips, and now I'm running out of space. If I can find two matching containers that are not terra cotta, I may try planting the last two dozen in pots to be set out on the sidewalk next spring.

My niece raked the small lawn at the front of our house while I cut back the peonies, removed their supports and covered the stalks with compost. The compost helps to insulate them over the winter, and gives them a slow release feed that makes the peonies glorious in the Spring.

My attempt at lasagna gardening last year was quite a success. I managed to reclaim a long stretch of garden that had been over taken by grass. I added two more small sections of lasagna garden today, and hope to do one more small area before we quit for the winter. Normally, a "Lasagna" garden is created by putting down layers of wet newspaper and then layering "browns" and "greens" over it. "Browns" are dried leaves, shredded paper, straw or leaves. "Greens" are hotter materials like manure, kitchen scraps, or grass clippings. You need to make a stack six inches or higher to get an effective compost pile. I cheated. I laid down a heavier layer of paper, and then we put ready made compost over it, to hold it in place. That will deprive the grass of light, and kill it off! YEAH!!

Then, my niece moved a bale of hay to the covered area at the front door, and we decorated it with a potted mum, pumpkins and gourds. We cleaned up the leaves that had blown in, and either cut back or removed spent plants. I have to make room in the garage for several plants that will be wintered over, but things look much tidier now.

There are a number of plants in the gardens that edge either side of the sidewalk that are still going strong. I refuse to kill off something that has that kind of heart, so I can expect to be out in freezing weather cleaning up the rest of the gardens. I hope that they don't all die the day before Thanksgiving!

It was chilly this morning, but I was comfortable as I ran errands in a heavy sweater jacket. Then the wind picked up, and as we worked we could feel the temperature drop. By the time I went in for the day, my fingers and toes were really feeling the cold. Dear Husband and I collected two tarps of leaves for the compost pile and called it a day. My niece and her boys joined us for dinner, and it was nice to end the day in their company.

I still have 50 crocus to plant. It will be worth it, when they bloom next spring!

I'm trying something new this year in the way of seed starting.

I've had the chance to be out in my garden once this year, but tomorrow.....ah, tomorrow.....I'm going to have the entire morning out there.

I still have some clean up to do from last fall. I cleaned out about half of the garden at the sidewalk last week. I want to finish that work, so that the daffodils and tulips will be able to look their best this spring.

I was checking out the herb garden this afternoon. I need to cut back chives, feverfew, oregano and yarrow. There are two chrysanthemums in that garden that need to be pruned, along with the winter savory, the sage, and a clematis that climbs an arbor at the end of the garden.

Chipmunks are the bane of my warm weather existence. They taunt my cat and eat the tulip bulbs. They filch my crocus bulbs and deposit them for future meals. The following two pictures are of crocus that have been deftly removed from my gardens and replanted along a path next to our property. I was out walking and the blooms caught my eye.

I guess at heart, the chippies are exterior decorators. They wanted to share my gardens with others, the little buggers!

Or, she's getting ready to. We've had unusually warm weather for April. I'm sure the Cubs are thrilled to be playing in warm weather, but the results for some of our plants could be disastrous.

I see that tulips I planted last fall are up and ready to bloom, but today we are supposed to slip into the 50s as a cold front passes, and by the end of the week, we'll be flirting with freezing weather at night. I hope the tulips can deal with it. They never last long here, so I'd like to have at least ONE season of bloom.

It's time for violets and lilacs!

Our yard is full of violets. There are places where it's only violets! We have traditional purple violets, and white ones and pale blue ones. There's one stretch of what is laughingly called "lawn" that I'll have to ask DH not to mow until the violets are gone.

The viburnum growing where the drive meets the road is in bloom, and the scent is heavenly! The cold/cool weather has prolonged the tulip season. I'll have to make note of where they are so I don't kill anything off when I reorganize the gardens this summer. We still have a few daffodils, and the clematis is trying to work it's way up the arbor. I'll have to go out to set up the twine that encourages it on it's way to the top.

I forgot to check my winter sown seeds, and the heat got them all one fine day. I've just about decided where I want tomatoes and lettuces to go....and I'd better get that lettuce in NOW!

YEA, SPRING!!!!

The apple trees, and pear trees have been beautiful this year, covered with masses of blossoms. We had quite a heat spell early in April, but the last 10 days of the month it's been unusually cool. The tulips are gorgeous, and the lilacs have been holding their bloom unusually long.

Today, the wind is whipping the fruit trees, and we have petal snow.

I noticed, as we returned home today that the lilies of the valley under the birch trees have materialized! I think they must be easily six to eight inches tall, and there was no sign of them a few days ago.

I suppose that telling you I was on my hands and knees for more than five hours yesterday may create an unfortunate image in your mind, but it brought me a lot of satisfaction. It was a glorious day, and I spent that time weeding!

In just two weeks our Red Hat Society ladies will be coming for a brunch. I've started making lists mentally of what has to be done before they troop up the sidewalk. Of course, part of that has to be the preparation of the gardens.

I was driving home last Thursday, and came around the corner onto the street where we live. There are subdividion signs on either side of that corner, and the landscapers had decorated them with banks of yellow tulips.

It has been incredibly windy for the past few days, and the tulips on the north side of the street had been totally stripped of their blooms. Those on the south side had a six foot block sign protecting them from the wind, and were still blooming.

As we traveled to Iowa and back, we saw similar examples of the wind's power. I'm ready for that part where "April sighed, and said goodbye, and along came pretty little May!"

As the ladies of my quilting bee left on Friday night, I heard one of them say that it was like walking through a meadow. A friend took this picture of the flowers at the sidewalk a week ago. The ox-eye daisies are all volunteers. I grew them in the center box of the herb garden on the north side of the house, and the chipmunks felt they�d look better at the front door. Each year they come up in new places. I rip them out, and they come back. A friend was horrified to hear me say that I planned to rip them out when I divided the iris. I couldn�t convince her that we�d have a full crop again next year.

Leucanthemum��.ox-eye daisy�.about15-18 inches tall�.very hardy, deals well with dry, clay soil. Buy one packet of seed and you, too, can have a meadow, forever!

I am SO proud of myself. Each year I buy plants, and I loose some of them because I don't get them planted within a reasonable period. This year, as in past years, I fell prey to that "I HAVE to have one (or three) of those" compulsion, and I filled up what passes for a trunk in our SUV.

I unloaded the plants, and some of them went directly into containers for my mother, and others were left in the garage, temporarily, or so I thought. They were there at least a week before I moved them outside so they wouldn't die of lack of sunshine.

Remember the picture of the meadow? Scroll down and take a look at it, because I just spent an hour pulling most of those daisies out of the garden.

I've probably waited too long. I can see seeds on the sidewalk, so no doubt the daisies will be back again next Spring. I've also ripped out the volunteer Dame's rocket, and cut back some of the iris stalks.

The ground is sere. We have had the threat of isolated thunderstorms, but no rain has materialized. I have to water the container garden daily, and I may need to consider watering twice a day. The raccoons are sucking the bird bath dry.

Before I can start dividing the iris, I'll have to run the sprinkler. The ground is so dry that trying to lift the plants now would harm them. It's so dry that I'm not getting the roots of the daisies, so I'll have to go back and root them out once I've watered.

It's interesting how much cooler the garden feels now that it's not overcrowded. Now the lilies and Peace rose aren't fighting for some sun, and the miniature day lilies will be more visible. I planted Homestead purple verbena, and I hope that we'll see a carpet of purple again this year. I'll add purple fountain grass for height and drama.

Back to the garden to finish up, and move all the dead plants!

Dear God, if it's not too much trouble, Sir, could we have a little rain, please??

PLEASE, God....Please! Couldn't we just have an inch or two of rain this week....and next??

It is SO dry here that we need to worry about the jerks who will shoot off fireworks during the week of the Fourth of July. Everything will go up like tinder.

I'm yet living. All the usual suspects here are doing well, despite the horrible heat and humidity.

We have reached the point this summer where I'll have my ten and fifteen year old nephews each Wednesday. I can't begin to tell you how much help they are.

MY WEEDS ARE WILTING!

Does that give you an idea how bad things are here?

We're running sprinklers on the gardens at the front door and hand watering the herb garden and containers, but everything else is being left to the whim of the weather. I have some tall weeds at the edge of the grove to the north of the house, and yesterday I realized that the weeds are wilting. I have never seen weeds wilt before.

On the news tonight, they announced that we are in the worst drought since 1988. In the period from March 16 to July 16, the Chicago area has received 9.09 inches of precipitation less than the norm. I suspect that our little area is further in the hole than that. We are just north of a freeway, and there is something about those ribbons of cement that detours the rain clouds.

I'm going to look up the instructions for rain dances, and encourage all my friends to pray for RAIN! Please! I need a week of gloomy, gray, drippy days. I promise I won't complain.

Wednesday, the boys came to us later than usual. I had an audit, and went to pick them up about noon. After lunch, I helped them get started on the project for the day. I had to run three errands before I could join them.

As I gave them the last of the instructions, I realized that a thunderstorm was flying toward us from the north. We covered the lawn mower and they headed inside. I thought I could out run the storm and get my errands done. HA!

We had three or four isolated thunderstorms that afternoon. In each, we had 10-20 minutes of hard rain before it cleared off. You could hear the ground go Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!

I don't know how many days it had been since we had measurable rain, but those brief showers weren't enough. We're still in drought, and will be for a while. Sunday, the weathermen are predicting that we will hit 100 degrees or more. We can only hope that the cooler weather next week will bring us some relief.

This morning I was out at 5:15 in the morning, setting up the hose to water the gardens at the front door. Before I went back into the house, I decided to fill the bird feeder and birdbath.

I posted that we finally got rain last week. This week, on Tuesday afternoon and into the evening we had wonderful, gentle rain that soaked in. It wasn't all that we needed, but it was a step in the right direction.

Wednesday dawned cool and clear. It was beautiful in the morning, and I managed to get in an hour's work before a nurse came to visit Elegante Mother. I was trying to tidy things up before she arrived. She was early! I got caught in my gardening gear, looking ratty, and had to make the best of it.

I've been pondering for some time the amount of time it takes to maintain all the gardens at Chez Buffy. In particular, the herb garden has been on my mind. I've worried that I should consider closing it down because it's a good sized drain on my summer hours.

My youngest sister came to visit for two days and joined me in the gardens on Friday morning. I had several chores that needed my attention and the purpose of her visit, in part, was to give me a hand. It was also a chance for us to chat and catch up before the school year claims all her time.

I have to do some work on my raised veggie beds, so I'm not growing full sized tomatoes this year, but I have a cherrry tomato plant, and two miniature pear tomato plants growing in the herb beds. They've been producing regularly, and this is one day's harvest.

In the middle of winter, I long for the scent of summer tomatoes. I love the warm, ripe texture of a summer tomato. There is no taste quite like it. The next best thing is the taste of a cherry tomato....that burst of flavor that pops in your mouth as you bite into them.

These cherry tomatoes are Sweet 100, but next year I'm going to look for a variety that has more acid, and is marginally larger. Yum! I can hardly wait!

I wanted you to see the ornamental grass that grows at the corner of the house. It's been there for years, and is the most modest of plants until about the third week of August, and then it just explodes, covering the sidewalk and anything near it.

We had a little visitor who was hiding in it. It never occurred to me that it might provide a highway for small animals who need cover as they travel through the area. I'll have to watch to see if Ed sits and watches the grass.

It seems to me that I read something recently that suggested that some plants winter over better if you wait to cut them back in the spring. I've made it a practice to put the gardens to bed for the winter by cutting everything back and raking up any rose debris. I have a number of plants that get wintered over in the garage in large pots. The one rose that's left in my garden will be trimmed back, mounded with dirt to protect the graft, encircled with a cage and covered with shredded leaves.

I need to surf to see what I can find about waiting to cut the plants back. It seems to me that chrysanthemums were included in that list, and maybe iris, but I can't remember the others. I want to check on daylilies, clematis, ornamental grasses and several herbs.

As you well know, it's November. We've had another mild, warm October, so my gardens still have things growing, when in past years, it would be chilly, damp, perhaps even frosty out there, and the growing season would be over.

I got to play in the herb garden today.

Today was the first day of 2006 for hands and knees weeding!

I pulled out about 90% of the volunteer vinca to give the emerging lilies a better chance to get a healthy start. I gave one of the ornamental grasses a haircut, pulled most of the verbena, and clipped back the chrysanthemums at the sidewalk. I'm addicted to Homestead Purple Verbena, but it isn't perennial in zone 5, so I have to replant it each year.

I brought the bucket of gardening tools upstairs, as well as an unusual device for gathering clippings. It's a tube of plastic with a bottom, and has a spring that spirals from the bottom to the top. When you aren't using it, it flattens down, and there are loops and toggles so that you can store the container in about a four inch wide space. When I need it, I undo the toggles and it springs up to about the size of a garbage can. I seriously overfilled it with grass stems, but the load was light enough not to do any damage.

I used the Christmas wreaths to protect a Peace rose for the remainder of the winter. I removed the wreaths and pruned the canes back. If we get back down to freezing, I'll have to put a bucket over the rose to protect it.

So.....I've had my first two hours of gardening. YEAH!!!!!!!!!!

The pear trees are in full bloom. We've had a week of warmer than normal weather, so the daffodils have almost run their course. Usually we would have their blooms into May. The forsythia is shifting from bloom to green, and the star magnolia blooms are gone.

Most of the plants that I moved into the garage for the winter have made it. I thought the shrub rose had died, but it finally began to leaf out this week. The Peace Rose, in the ground, made it through the winter, despite the fact that I didn't give it the traditional protection for our winters.

The Darwin tulips have come and gone. The yellow Appledorns decided it was too hot to stick around. I have six or eight pods of tulips that I planted a year and a half ago. I was surprised to see that the chipmunks hadn't gotten to them yet. One that has opened reminds me of a pink Oriental poppy. It has pink petals with black inside at the base of the flower.

I need to renovate the garden across the east face of the house. Dear Husband cut down the viburnum that used to spread over half the wall. Elegante Mother was complaining that she couldn't see out the windows any longer, but the kicker was that the raccoons were using the viburnum as a ladder to the roof.

I will either have to have someone come and professionally remove the stump, or we will have to work around it. I want to plant a specimen tree forward from the stump about six feet, and then fill in behind and to the sides with perennials.
I want to look at weeping cherries, or something that has a weeping shape, so that we don't risk offering the raccoons another ladder.

I have to dig up the Japanese Iris and replant them. There's a ring of green leaves, and a bare center, where the plant has died out. Poison ivy is trying to encroach, so I sprayed it today. There's a Lady's Mantle that will miss the shade of the Viburnum. The face of the house, and Elegante Mother's rooms will be warmer this summer without it's shade.

The viburnum at the end of the driveway is in bloom. It has a lovely pale pink blossom with darker pink buds, and a lovely scent. Between the hyacinths, the pear tree and the viburnum, the air is fragrant.

I sprinkled cinnamon around the roses today. A friend on the herb list told me that cinnamon is an anti-fungal and will help keep black spot at bay. I figured it was worth a try, and have started early enough this season to give it a chance to work.

I pruned back the winter savory today, and discovered that a sage plant in a wonderful terracotta planter made it though the winter. I'll have to put it on my list for regular watering. The rosemary in that same pot died, but that didn't surprise me. I have dreadful luck wintering over rosemary.

This week, I plan to cut back a tree and some honeysuckle that has encroached on my raised vegetable beds. I want spinach and lettuce and more room for tomatoes!

Now, do you see why the gardens are getting to be a bit much??

It was gorgeous today!

Last night we had frost warnings for new plants, and today the temps slowly raised into the lower sixties. We were away from home all morning, so I headed out to the driveway garden in the afternoon. You can walk past a garden and make note of changes that need to be made, but you don't realize the depth of the work until you get down and begin working the soil.

The driveway garden has never been edged, so I've had a constant battle with grass trying to creep into the bed. Beyond that, when I first planted the garden, I thought something called "Bouncing Bet" or "Soapwort" sounded like a lovely plant to add to my collection. If someone tries to sell you one of those plants, RUN THE OTHER WAY! It's one of the most invasive species I've ever planted. I find it creeping through out the lawn, and making its way up the driveway!

I am a bear of little brain, and a creature of habit. Each year I have walked down to that garden, and started at the northern-most end of the bed, on the driveway side. And, each year, I have run out of cool weather and steam while still on the driveway side. THIS year, I've managed to get work done on the west side of that bed, and I've done it while the soil is still damp enough to work. There is NOTHING harder to do than pull grass from dry clay.

I sprayed several patches of soapwort with Round-up. I tend to be an organic gardener, but I'm going to kill off that damned stuff yet! I used a spade to begin loosening patches of grass, and I pulled down dead stalks from last year's flowers, and deadheaded daffodils.

I dragged Dear Husband out with me for another half an hour of work after dinner. He collected branches from the lawn and took them to the mulch pile. We have a chipper shredder, and I'll have to get busy soon to make the mulch that will cover this bed. Beyond that, if we didn't pick up the twigs and branches, he'd mow over them and dull the mower blades. While he collected branches, I raked the southern end of the bed, and collected all the weeds and grass that I pulled out this morning.

I have some serious renovation to do on this bed. The center section is ready to replant. This time I plan to plant masses of Perovskia (Russian Sage), and Rudbekia. I'm debating whether I want to put something slightly taller in the center of the bed as a focal point. Today, I realized that I'll need to rework the southern end of the bed, too. Purple coneflower spread and edged out the Obedient Plant, and now weeds have edged out the coneflower, except along the edges of the bed. Dear husband will have to help me remove some volunteer shrubs, and then I'll divide and replant the Hostas near the Bleeding Heart that caught my eye today.

It's a start, and a good one. Let's hope for more cool weather with occasional showers to keep the soil workable.

...just weeding in the rain....

(sung to the music of "I'm Singing in the Rain.")

Yup....that's what I was doing earlier today. Dear Husband was going to work on the engine of his boat, but some work done at the yacht yard stymied his plans. I had finished with morning errands and chores, and was on my way down to the driveway bed when I found him collecting the dried material I had pulled from that bed last week. I had planned to hook up the John Deere mower and trailer to make short shrift of that cleanup job, but I was delighted to have the unsolicited help.

As he passed me on the way to dump the weeds and cuttings, DH said that he was going to go inside. There was a sprinkle or two of rain, and I said I'd be in in a bit. That bit lasted almost two hours before I was rained out.

DH gave me a hand marking off a line along the west side of the driveway garden. We put in two stakes and ran a line, so that I could see where I needed to spade away encroaching grass. I managed to hand weed the upper third of the west side of the garden. This next patch will be the easiest. It's part of an attempt at "lasagna gardening," which cleared an invasion of grass and soapwort out of the garden two years ago. I've left the bed lying fallow all this time, when I COULD have planted it last year. I hope to get it planted in the next two weeks with perennials, and then mulched with wood chips from our own cuttings and downed branches (another project to finish).

I was telling my sister that I'd had been thinking about how a landscaper would have done the work differently. As I was lifting out the chunks of grass and dirt, and shaking the soil from the roots, I was thinking that they would have used a shovel to lift the clumps of grass, toss them into a trailer and dispose of them. Then, they'd bring a load of compost or garden soil mixed with compost to fill in the area that had been excavated. It would have taken them a third of the time. What in the world was I doing on my hands and knees, shaking dirt out of grass roots??? I wish these epiphanies came BEFORE I started a job like this!

The gentle rain that had been expected, saved me from too much gardening the slow way. I headed in about 2:00 when the rain became cold enough to give me the chills. We're still playing catch-up on precipitation, so I won't complain, although I'd have liked to have finished the job. The rain was God's way of reminding me not to overdo!

..should be the word of the day.

This morning, around 6:30, the herb garden looked mysterious and very verdant, much as I think a secret garden might look. The shadows, dissipating as the light grew, outlined the leaves, and heightened the darker colors in the garden. The lighter lamb's ears glowed against the darker background.

Its cold and rainy in Chicagoland. We are not likely to see any sunshine today. But, the view out our windows is amazing. Everything has been responding to the cool, wet Spring weather. The chives are almost ready to bloom. The herb garden has gone from slowly waking up to looking almost mature in the past week.

The green leaves of the day lilies seem to be jumping out of the ground in their haste to grow. We won't see blooms until June, but the greens are full and tall. Almost everything has come back in the herb garden except two pods of thyme that I'll have to replace. I've never seen it die back like this, and I can only assume the mild winter, coupled with the drought, finally did it in.

Two of the iris are open! "Infinite Grace" and "Rare Wine" are the two along the brick wall of the garage that are the first to open. Most of the rest of the iris are showing buds, even the one which I know will be last to bloom.

The stump of the viburnum has STILL not been pulled. I think I am going to ask them to wait until next week, because I feel that it is important I be here when they pull the stump, and then plant the redbud. I've been told that the root system is as deep and wide as the tree or shrub was tall, so there's a whopper of a root to pull out. I'm concerned about the extent of the damage to the existing garden, and I don't see how they can avoid damaging the lawn, after all this rain.

Dear Husband gave the lawn it's first rough cut about a week or ten days ago. He's going to need to hire a fleet of mowers, the way the grass is growing! We can hear the grass calling to him at night....and the dandelions have a nasty laugh, rather like Peter Lorre in the "Maltese Falcon." (Heh heh heh)

To recap, the gardens are astonishing this year, there's a lot of work left to do, and DH gets to mow. Don't you LOVE SPRING??

Well, the landscaper showed up this morning and took out the stump of the viburnum.

I was at the salon, and my mother called to say that the landscapers had arrived and were busy taking out the stump. They were originally supposed to have done it last Tuesday. It was rescheduled to Friday. No one showed up.
I talked with the landscaper's wife and told her that I didn't want them to work on the stump unless I was around. So much for communication.

So, when I got home, they were about two-thirds of the way done. I watched as they took out the rest. Unfortunately, I had to point out an arm of it they had missed, and you know that if I was able to see that one arm, there are others just below the surface that I missed.

I plan to add LOT of compost to the area, working it into the soil. Once the area has been cleared, I'll plant new perennials and then mulch everything. Can you envision Bluebeard, Russian Sage, Sunrise Coneflower, and Homestead Purple Verbena leading from the brick walls out to the edge of the garden?

The last thing the landscaper did before he and his crew left was to plant the new redbud. We agreed on how far forward of the house the tree should go. We have the species that has just one trunk, rather than the kind that grows multiple trunks. It's just a baby tree. It will be a long time before it fills out and shades the area again.

I've wanted a redbud for a very long time. Cop Car tried to help me out by transplanting several of the seedlings from her lawn, but we lost them over the winter. We'll have to hope that this one lasts.

I'm NOT a failure. I discovered today that I have NOT been a failure for the past SEVENTEEN YEARS!

When we first moved here, and I started the gardens, I tried to grow morning glories, so that they would grow up over wild shrubs and give us more color during the summer. I scarred or cracked the shell of the seed. I soaked them overnight. I tried strewing seed in November so that they would start naturally in the spring. Nothing I did seemed to work.

I assumed that I had done something wrong. Not once in all that time have I been able to get morning glories to grow in my gardens.

Well, this year, I bought two pots of them, already started. One was a smaller plant, the other was a 6 or 8" pot that had several plants started. I took them out to the east driveway garden and planted them. Both had something to climb, and lots of mulch around them. I watered them every other day.

Today, as I drove by on the way to the garage, I looked over at the garden and something was missing. The supports were all there. The mulch was there.....
But, where there SHOULD have been two healthy growing morning glories.....NOTHING!

Some wretched furry creature has eaten seventeen years of morning glories right to the ground! Some miserable varmint had himself a great salad last night! There's NOTHING left....of about six plants.

I need to think about this. I wonder if there's anyway to get around the darned critter? At least now I know that I am not a failure as a gardener!

We live on top of the mother lode of CLAY!

It's a lovely dark soil when it's moist, but when the heat of midsummer comes along, it becomes a grayish cement!

I was moaning about the clay across the front of the house, and complaining that I needed to amend the soil so I could plant the perennials this week. A good friend told me that his mother swears by "Clay Breaker," and I said, "What's that?"

Well....there are several varieties of this product, and it seems they are all produced and sold in either England or Australia. I checked at Google and the first two pages of listings were all from those two countries. Luckily, one of the entries talked about how to improve clay soil. Rather than searching for the clay breaking products, it told how to use sand, organic matter and lime or gypsum to improve the soil.

Dear Husband and Second Son spread sand, gypsum and compost for me last week. We had a good rain over the weekend, which made the soil easier to work. The next step is to incorporate all this into the top 8-12 inches of soil.

Sharp sand will improve the drainage and aeration characteristics of the soil, and encourage strong root formation. A good "grit" sand will have a reasonable amount of tiny pebbles in the 3-6mm range. These are sometimes called a "concreting" or "Horticultural" sand. It is NOT the soft, fine sand that builders use.

Organic matter also aids drainage and aeration, but it will also add to the fertility of the soil. Well-rotted compost, spent mushroom compost or well-rotted leaf litter are excellent choices. You do not want to use green organic matter, or partially rotted compost as it will feed from the soil to aid decomposition, rather than feeding the soil.

Both lime and gypsum (calcium sulfate) work to aggregate the clay particles in clay, to make it more permeable. Gypsum accomplishes this without raising the soil pH.

My information, and a great deal more, can be found at this site: Improving Clay Soil FAQ.

If you've been battling clay soil in your gardens, this site has loads of information about easy ways to improve the soil. When it comes down to it, grit sand and well-rotted compost in large quantities are the cheapest way to improve the soil. Good luck!

...to the quality of work I was doing in May and June that the gardens have survived so well with so little attention since June 10th. Before I hurt my knee the gardens had never looked better. In all fairness, the gardens are at their best in May and early June, but the weeding, mulching, fertilizing, and planting of new plants was coming along very nicely. My sister, Nan, helped that plan along by getting the last of the plants that I had purchased in May into the ground for me. The perennials have a nice start, and thanks to heavy mulch, there isn't a horrible amount of weeding to be done.

Today, was the first time I have been able to get into the gardens to weed. I worked around the edges of the garden at the front side walk, pulling out crab grass, trimming back iris and coreopsis, and pulling elm tree seedlings. I tried kneeling on my left knee with my right leg extended to the side, but that was uncomfortable, so I tested my weight on the outside edge of my right knee cap. With a foam kneeler, some Advil, and very judicious movement of my weight, it worked. I weeded for an hour or so in the morning, and another thirty minutes this evening.

I wear latex gloves when I weed. I took a plastic grocery bag out and used it as a barrier over my arm to pull a poison ivy plant that had taken hold in my favorite iris. I'll have to be cautious for the rest of the year, because it's likely that the iris leaves have traces of the oil from the poison ivy.

It seems that we are expecting rain off and on this week. The lawn has been grinning at us and waving. Soon we'll loose small children in it. Dear Husband has used his spare time this week to cut down the trees that fell over last week, so the mowing has gone wanting. I asked my stepson to fill in with an hour of mowing today, and I used the walk behind mower to trim the north lawn around the herb garden. I still need to use the string trimmer, but things are looking MUCH neater. It's satisfying to see these chores done.

I used a watering wand in the herb garden tonight. It's time consuming to do the job right, but it gives me the time to see things up close.

The volunteer day lilies are blooming. When I looked out the window this evening five small birds were resting on one of the stalks, waiting for their turn at the bird feeder.

In early May, I severely trimmed one half of my sage plants. I wasn't sure that I wanted to prune them that early, so I stopped halfway through. It's been interesting to see the results. The unpruned half is quite large, and bloomed early in June. The leaves are a rather sickly yellowish green, with spots that could be insect damage. The pruned half is more compact (and pleasing to the eye), the leaves are healthy, and the color is the true sage green. SO...a note for my garden journal: prune the sage!

I have one cherry tomato plant and one miniature yellow pear tomato plant in the herb garden. I've had the first fruit of each, and I'm eager for the rest to ripen. There's nothing like a homegrown tomato!

At the north end of the herb garden I've planted several lavender plants. Imagine my surprise when garlic appeared next to them. I thought I had harvested all the garlic last year, but I have a good stand of it. The garlic has gone to bloom. It won't be long before I can try, once more, to dig it out.

The yarrow blooms have all begun to turn brown. I never remember to deadhead to keep the plant blooming through the summer. The clematis that climbs the trellis just behind the yarrow may be dying. I've talked with the county extension master gardener without getting a definitive answer on what's happening. From what I've read, this could be a fungus, and the solution is to cut the infected canes at the ground. Unfortunately, I think all of the canes are infected. I'll cut them back to the ground this fall, but I don't expect to see new growth next spring. Too bad....it's been a lovely plant.

The mat of thyme is growing back nicely. The lemon balm is very fragrant, as is the scented geranium. The new apricot-colored small rose is not doing as well as I had hoped. The Scottish spearmint needs to have the flowers pinched off, to reshape the plant. The silver and gold thyme at the south end of that section have grown nicely this year.

The winter savory is beautiful! The plants are nicely shaped and healthy. I'm SO glad Nan questioned my instructions to dig it up last year! Thank you, sis!
The oregano got leggy, and I let her have her way with it again this year. This time she surprised me by trimming it back less than last year! *G* I know....I'm never satisfied! If you haven't seen my sister's blog entries about her garden efforts this year, be sure to go visit and see what she's been up to.

The chives are healthy, as usual, the basil seems to be going great guns. The Italian parsley tried to set blooms, and I trimmed the bloom stalks back. The rosemary plants are still tiny. I don't know why. The dill needs to be ripped out. It's going to seed, and we don't need any more volunteers. The purple coneflower is thick, and lovely. I hope the stand of yellow coneflower in the front gardens will be as vigorous.

And that's the herb garden news that's fit to print.

I think it's safe to say that Fall is upon us. We haven't had the scent of burning leaves, or the crispness of an early morning yet, but you can see the changes just starting in the plants.

Our road has fields of soybeans on either side of it to the east. About a week ago, I noticed the very first signs of change of color in the field. It was subtle, but yesterday it had become more pronounced. Those particular fields must have had enough rain to make it through the summer. The plants were vigorous, so I think this is most likely not a response to drought, but rather, the end of the growing cycle. The field is mottled with dark green, and shades of lemon yellow to tan sprinkled throughout.

We have a tree that lines several of our streets. I don't know what tree it is, but it looks like it could be related to aspens. These trees are beginning to drop their leaves. Last week the dead leaves were dancing across the road as the wind from the coming cool front moved in. Tomorrow, they'll be glued to the ground from the rain.

We have black walnut trees that line the eastern edge of the property. The walnuts have begun to drop. I suppose you really need to wear a helmet to walk near them! *G* The leaves have been on the ground for several weeks. They are the first sign of impending weather changes, to me.

It's raining today. Should I count that as another sign? We haven't had the burning drought we had last year, but I suspect we are behind in precipitation. EVERYTHING says "AAAAhhhhhhhh" when we get the least bit of rain.

I'm ready for cooler weather, but I can't help wondering where the entire year has gone. Elegante Mother is correct when she says that the older you get, the faster the time flies.

I love to collect dried plants for fall decorations. I've been keeping my eye on several plants that are growing along the edge of the road, or the bean fields. I need to wait a bit to go harvest them.

There's a stand of milk weed at the edge of the field to the east of us. Once the pods split open, the plant can be cut and dried. They provide wonderful interest for a dried arrangement. My mother and I have spray painted milk weed pods gold to use in Christmas arrangements and package decorations, but they are beautiful in their natural colors.

Teasle is an invasive weed that gows in great clumps in our area. It has a wonderful, prickly head at the top of a tall stalk. You can make very dramatic arrangements with them. If you can harvest enough, you could bundle them together, rather the way you would make a bundle of corn stalks. (Check out the teasle in the basket at this site.) But, you have to be sure to use heavy leather gloves when you work with them, because sharp spines cover their stems.

There's a plant that we used to call "Indian Tobacco," when I was a child. It's real name is "Curly Dock." When it dries, it has a deep brown, seedy look, that contrasts the form of the other weeds, and adds more color to the arrangement.

I tend to suppliment what I find along the road with dried botannicals from places like Michael's and Hobby Lobby. One of my favorites is the dried lily pod.
You can see a wreath that uses the dark brown pods at this site.

It's almost time to harvest. I have several five gallon buckets in the garage, and as I harvest, I'll stand the plants in the buckets to finish drying. Before Thanksgiving, I'll create bouquets, tie them with twine, and then add raffia or a wide ribbon. Mother Nature sure gives us some lovely decorations.

It was a glorious day for yard work. It's been chilly for this time of year, but mostly clear. I've been looking out the north windows in the kitchen, looking over the herb garden. There's a little pocket yard there and it looks like it hasn't been mowed for two months or so. *G* It's amazing what a little rain can do for grass!

We expect to have scattered showers from tonight thru Monday, so I started my day by assembling a brand new weed eater, and trimming around the herb garden and the North yard. In about half an hour, I'm going to try to mow the rest of the grass. It was too wet this morning to even consider mowing. If I wait to mow until next week, the grass will be too wet and ten feet high!

Dear Husband has purchased cedar timbers to re-frame part of the herb garden. It's an ongoing chore. He replaced about five of them two years ago, and six more are disintegrating and have to be replaced. I'm not sure when he hopes to do the work, but I vote for this fall! I saw dozens of things I could work on, near him, while he worked in the garden. It would be really pleasant to share a few afternoons outside.

About two weeks ago I worked like a demon, cutting back offending volunteer trees and shrubs at the front and south side of the house. I want to make a pathway for the meter readers through the front garden, so things aren't trampled. I need to get stepping stones to finish the job. I pruned back the junipers and shrubs, and cleared a path. Now I want to set stones as a walk way, and then heavily mulch around them. This is the perfect weather to get it all done.

The need to weed is abating. I'm looking at the gardens and thinking about structure and spring blooms, and spreading compost and mulch. We'll let the season ease out with mums, Victoria Blue salvia, Homestead Purple verbena, rudbeckia and Bluebeard, and work on design for next year. Oh....and it's time to rip out the poison ivy in the front garden! Little kids will think I'm the Halloween mummy if they see me dressed up to ivy hunt!

Do you recall that about ten days ago I wrote a note to a nearby gardener to congratulate him on what lovely gardens he had? Well, today Elegante Mother and I got to walk through those gardens.

My gardening friend called when he received my note. He invited us to come see them first hand, so this morning I called to be sure that it was convenient. The day has been gorgeous, one of those beautiful, warm days with intense blue skies, and it was perfect for strolling through the gardens. We went to visit at 1:30, and were there for 90 minutes.

My note to my Gardening Friend (GF) came about because I had watched him create a shade garden under some pine trees over the last decade or more. I wasn't prepared to find that in addition to that splendid garden, he also had 90 varieties of roses, two kinds of raspberries (BIG beds), rhubarb, and tomatoes. And about a million other plants.

I didn't know that you could grow holly here! Or bamboo!

I saw plants I recognized, and plants I'd never seen. I saw plants that looked familiar, but the names wouldn't come to me. I discovered that there is a variety of lily in the valley that blooms pink, and found out that I'm not the only one who has trouble with beetles eating the leaves of the hollyhocks!

GF is 84. This is the first year that he's hired a lawn service, and had them edge the garden for him. I was astonished at the amount of land he has under cultivation that was 99% weed free. It seems we like the same plants and shrubs, but he's much more focused on his gardening than I am.

I asked if he gardened every day, and he shrugged a shoulder and said he got out when he felt up to it. He must put in 8 hours a day 7 days a week! His gardens are fabulous! We've been invited back to see them at their peak.

I can't begin to tell you the names of all the plants, but the variety was incredible, and GF mixes shrubs nicely with perennials and annuals.

I didn't expect to have such a pleasant afternoon as a result of writing that note, but I sure did!

Susan, I need some particulars about where you garden to be able to make suggestions about shade loving plants. I need to know what zone you are in. Instead of announcing the town where you live, you can tell me what state, and upper or lower half, and I should be able to determine the zone for you. OR... go to this site and clock your cursor where you live to determine the zone number.

There's a wonderful little book called "Taylor's Guide to Perennials for Shade," published by Houghton Mifflin, which I would recommend to you. It will give you basic tips for preparing your soil, and when to move plants into and out of your garden. There is also a companion book on ground covers that would be very helpful.

The following list of plants are hardy to USDA Zones 5 or 4, unless noted. Taylor's guide shows a picture of, and describes all these, and as many more plants that I won't mention here. You need to choose by height, season, and also by type of shade. Most of these plants will grow in partial shade. If you need information for DEEP shade, let me know, and I'll see if I kept the websites that might help.

Bugleweed
Lady's Mantle (I have one, and it sends out runners to make more.)
Anemone (Zones 4-6 depending on the variety)
Columbine (Spring bloomer)
Goatsbeard (a shrubby perennial that grows 4-6 feet. I want one!)
Astilbe
False Rockcress (a mat-forming plant for edgings)
Siberian Bugloss
Bellflower (dozens of varieties and sizes)
Leadwort (zone 6)
Lily of the Valley (This spreads nicely, and smells wonderful)
Bleeding Heart
Dutchmen's Breeches
Foxglove
Shooting Star
Leopard's Bane
Sweet woodruff (I've used these under taller plants)
Hellebore (I've never grown these....the Lenten Rose)
Cranesbill
Coral bells (I love the "Purple Palace" variety)
Hosta (Francee is my favorite....a creamy stripe down the center of the leaf)
Blue lily turf (The book says this is zone 6, but I grow it in zone 5.)
Blue Lobelia
Lupine
Creeping Phlox (beautiful at the edge of a garden or base of a tree)
False Dragon Head (This is a good tall plant for the background of a garden)
Chinese Lantern Plant (Very invasive. Grow it in a pot for dried arrangements)
Jacob's Ladder
Solomon's Seal
Primrose
Stonecrop (Sedum) I have "Autumn Joy" and one other
Snow Trillium
Violets (which will spread all over the place, if you let them)

I hope this list gives you a jumping off point, Susan.

I have an amazing star magnolia outside my office window. I thought they were small, shrubby plants, but this one is more than twenty feet tall, despite having been hit when a neighboring tree fell on it.

What's drawing my attention today is the color of the leaves. As the weather turned cooler, the leaves went from green to a warm gold. This tree would do a Tuscan courtyard proud! Today, it is much colder than it's been. I believe we were below freezing last night, and the leaves on the magnolia have taken on a faint burgundy cast over the gold. What a treasure this plant is: beautiful blooms to start the growing season, glossy green during the summer, and then glorious color before leaf drop. I spend my late winter days watching the swell of the bloom pods, waiting for the first to open. I couldn't have asked for a better companion outside my window!

I had a list of chores that needed to be done outside to put the lawns and gardens to bed for this year. Usually I start working on them earlier, but weather and other obligations have kept me from getting to them. Last week, we had a stretch of three days with temps in the sixties. You can bet I made use of that time to trim things back and weed. I pulled spent plants, and got rid of a few unwanted plants.

Today's work was more along the lines of cleanup. I needed Dear Husband's help, but it turned out that he had his own list of projects, so I carried on without him until lunchtime. Then I asked my resident StepSon to give me a hand. I got an early start, and the guys helped me the last hour or so of my time outside. By 2:30 I was MORE than ready to come in.

I tidied up the mulch pile, moving part of it off the grass. (DH moved the pile with the snow plow. I wouldn't call a snow plow a precision tool. Some of the mulch ended up on the grass, which bothered me, but not DH.) I mulched the day lilies in the herb garden, and the sidewalk garden. I mulched the clematis, and put rings around the two roses that are in ground. I raked the north yard, and then mowed part of it. I moved mulch to the southeast corner of the house and set in stepping stones to make a path to the gas meter for the meter reader, and I raked birch leaves out of the junipers.

SS moved compost for me, and covered the peonies, roses and iris with compost. (My iris are trying to grow over each other. Some are completely out of the ground, so we covered them for the winter). He raked up everything that I cut out of the driveway garden last week, and took it to the north end of our lot, and finished the raking I had started on the front lawn.

Dear Husband moved the timbers I wrote about, that looked like pick-up sticks in my herb garden. He set them atop the raised veggie bed so that water would drain off them during the winter. DH caulked the soffit at the living room cathedral window. He had to tear it out earlier this year to remove the bees that had nested, and was just getting around to caulking the replacement. While he was there, he decided to caulk the center panes of the window.

I had forgotten that my favorite painter was visiting this morning to do some touch-ups. Before he left, I asked him how warm it needed to be outside to paint trim. He said that today actually was warm enough, but that it was supposed to be warmer toward the end of the week. You all probably know that it's best to paint between 10 and 2:00 this time of year. Dear Husband and I agreed that we could put off the last of the trim painting until later this week, so the scaffold remains under my living room window. I hope that warmer weather doesn't necessarily mean wet weather or that scaffolding will never be down in time for Elegante Mother's Open House!

Dear Husband and I were running out of steam when it came to the last of the chores. He and SS moved the piles of leaves I'd gathered to the compost pile. I set rigid insulation on the floor of the garage and DH helped me move some of the plants into the garage to be wintered over. Then, I swept off the sidewalk, and fed the birds.

Elegante Mother put a beef roast in the crockpot this morning. I contributed roasted potatoes seasoned with Lipton's dry onion soup mix, and steamed broccoli with white cheese sauce. It was a surpisingly easy meal, and tasted good.

Are you tired, yet? I certainly was. I need a new body. Every time I sit still for a bit something hurts! I spent some time in the office this evening, and I'll need to put in more time tomorrow I have a punch list of things to be done inside tomorrow, but that's another post. *S*

Bogie responded to my comment about trying to get some bulbs planted last minute. I've had this terrible cold for a week or more now, but yesterday it was FIFTY DEGREES here! Normally by now our ground would be frozen hard, and I'd have to save the bulbs by planting them in containers, but I could hear the garden calling to me.

There's just something about early bulbs blooming in Spring that is so comforting, and I HATE to waste things. Those bulbs had been talking to me for the past two or three months, asking when I was going to make time for them. So, despite my cold, I bundled up, and headed out.

First, I fed the birds. Then, I collected the wheelbarrow, a shovel, my tool bucket and the new trowels the kids gave me for Christmas.

I have a narrow spot, the width of the garden, between two pods of iris that was perfect for these bulbs. I started shoveling the soil into the wheelbarrow. Then I heard this sound. The shovel was hitting something. NO.....it couldn't be!

A number of years ago, too many exactly for me to remember, I decided I would outwit the chipmunks, and planted tulips in a wire cage. Unfortunately, the tulips were short-lived, but the wire cage was still there, in great shape.

What should have been a twenty minute chore, ended up being more like 75 minutes. I couldn't dig the cage out, because part of it was sitting under iris that need to be relocated. The iris are more important to me than the bulbs.

So, I decided to cut the top off the cage, plant the new bulbs there for this winter, and then dig everything up next summer after the iris have bloomed. I went inside for the wire cutters and wire by wire clipped open about two thirds of the lid. I've promised myself that I will go back and dig the cage out next summer, so that no one will get hurt on the remains of the cage.

I got most of the bulbs planted. I even replanted some crocus that I inadvertently dug up. I think I killed off a tulip or two that was planted just past the end of the wire cage. I'm going to have to pull together Spring pictures into an album, so that I can remember what I've planted, where.

One of my favorite signs in Elegante Mother's collection of garden decorations, is a little medallion that says, "I don't remember planting that there!"

It was good to get out, despite the fact that it took longer than I had hoped. It was good to get the bulbs in. I still have my cold, but it doesn't seem to be any worse than it was yesterday, so the exercise and the chance to play in the garden may have helped. YEA!! Now I can stop feeling guilty about the bulbs!

The forsythia is in bloom!

And the star magnolia buds are swelling, but it looks like a lot of the buds were killed off in the three weeks of below-freezing weather we had in February. Too bad, it's really a beautiful shrub.

If you are not familiar with the early spring perrenial called "Squill," please go to this link for a picture of what's growing in my garden.

http://www.twofrog.com/images/squill28.jpg

Google Images has a number of pictures of squill, but this one is the closest to what has volunteered in my yard. It's spread nicely over the past 15 years, and continues to move it's way across the grove floor. The chipmunks have moved some of it to my sidewalk garden, the herb garden and the grass on the north side of the house. The leaves are a bit darker and "strappier" than grass, so you can see the contrast.

Squill is well worth adding to your gardens for contrast with crocus, and the blue would be lovely mixed in with daffodils.

Speaking of chipmunks.....the little rodents are up and around and making themselves known. I saw two of them doing the "Oh NO I WON'T....Oh yes you will" dance earlier this week. You know, they must keep their babies in the burrows until they are almost full grown. I don't think I've ever seen a baby chimpmunk!

Chimpmunks and mosquitoes....two things I could really do without!

At long last, I've had the chance to spend my weekend in the gardens. It got off to a slow start on Saturday. Dear Husband rebuild the sieve that fits over the wheelbarrow so that I could empty the sidewalk containers and sieve the soil. In some of the largest pots I use a layer of plastic shipping peanuts to lighten the load, so I need to catch the plastic as I break up the soil and remove spent plants.

The sieving and refilling of the pots took longer than I had anticipated. I moved the pots onto the sidewalk near the front door and Elegante Mother played with the collection of plants that we bought earlier in the week, working out combinations which pleased her. Rather than planting all the pots in an identical range of color, each pot has it's own personality. I know that's unusual, but it's what makes EM happy.

I think we filled seven pots with annuals. Elegante Mother was playing with plants the way she might sweep watercolor over paper. This container is a wrought iron basket lined with coir.

Supertunia Priscilla (lavender), Colorburst Melon Calibrachoa, "Peter’s Wonder" Coleus,
“Lemon Symphony” Osteospermum hybrid, Madeira Violet Argyranthemum. and
Red Snapdragons.

“Gay’s Delight” Coleus (Lime green with red-violet stems), “Happy Violet” Exotic Geranium, Dracaena marginata “magenta," and “Merlin’s Magic” Coleus fill a gray-green container.

Elegante Mother used the same coleus in this pot, with a different, lighter look:

"Gay’s Delight" Coleus, "Colorburst Chocolate" Calibrachoa (deep rose), "Needlepoint" Coleus (cut leaf with lime green, cream and scarlet), Ipomoea “Blackie," (dark sweet potato vine) and
“Snowstorm White” Bacopa.

And one more that I like for it's simplicity, and for the interesting pot:

I think I used Bacopa, with a dark red petunia, and a lighter coleus. I can probably look up the plant names if you need them.

So, the containers have been planted for the season. I have a couple more pots that are basically research. I've planted two small poinsettias that have carried over from Christmas, and another pot that has overgrown calla lily greens. I don't know if they will make it, but it was worth a try.

Dirt. I actually had dirt under my fingernails! (goofy grin).

The past few years my clematis has been suffering. It's a wonderful jackmanii that is covered with deep purple blooms in the spring. Its leaves were loosing their dark glossy green color. I did some research on-line and decided that it needed chelated iron. I found a source and gave it a dose and the leaves looked better the following year.

We repeated that scenario, but this time the plant began to look really sickly. I read further and found that there was something contagious going on. I decided that I was going to give it one more shot before planting something else in that spot. I cut the canes to the ground and disposed of them. I pretty much figured that would kill the plant off, but I was very surprised to see it growing this spring.

I started my day in the gardens by creating guidelines for the clematis, to help it up and over the arbor. I used hemp twine, anchored on either side of the plant, and wrapped around one of the upper horizontal bars. I used one more length of twine to keep the plant upright, until it grabs onto the vertical lines on its own.

I have high hopes for this plant. If it makes it, I'll post a picture when it blooms.

I spent a large part of my day renovating a small portion of the NE wing of the herb garden. I've had a section of lamb's ears in this part of the garden for years. I don't know if lamb's ears can strictly be considered an herb or not, but I like the pale gray-green color contrasting the darker leaves of the thyme. Lamb's ears has a way of escaping and moving to other parts of the garden. It seems to really like the chat walkway, and I like how it looks there. I probably need to cut back some of the growth in the walk, but today I focused on the lamb's ears in the bed.

Unfortunately, it has become infested with crab grass. I started work, and realized that the soil was so dry that I was never going to get all of the roots. Dear Husband said, "Either you water, or you wait." He's really good at cutting to the chase. I didn't want to wait, so I hooked up the hose. I watered that section of the bed, and while it percolated through the soil, DH and I dropped a car off to be worked on tomorrow.

When I returned, the soil was ready! I used a shovel and lifted huge chunks of the garden out onto black plastic trays from the nursery. When I had grass and plants, and dirt removed, I ran my hands through what was left, to be sure that I wasn't leaving a nest of roots behind. Then, I separated the grass from the soil, put the soil back, and replanted the lamb's ears.

There are several areas in the thyme to the right of that area that will need to be replanted. I'm going to transplant one section later this week, and may find a few more crab grass roots to remove.

I think I may put lemon-scented geraniums in that spot, or perhaps lemon verbena. A good part of that arm of the herb garden is devoted to lemon scented plants.

The really healthy plant at the bottom of the herb bed is a perennial salvia. Just past it, in a terra cotta furnace flue, is Scottish spearmint. There are two small lavenders. (If they don't do well this summer, they'll be transplanted.) There's a miniature rose just past that, in a ring of hardware cloth. I uncovered the rose today and found very tender growth on it. I protected it from the sun (and will have to continue to protect it for a while till it hardens up), and left the ring to protect it from hungry bunnies. The lamb's ears are just past the rose. You can see the clematis at the arbor, just north of the bed.

I know, I know.....too much detail. I had a wonderful time in the garden. I quit before I was overwhelmed. I left enough time to clean things up and return my tools to the garage. Dear Husband cooked dinner tonight, so I got to come in and loaf. It was a fabulous day, and I'm SO pleased to have gotten a start on the gardens!

I received a call last night from the nursery, to let me know that the Homestead Purple Verbena was in, and I had twenty-four hours to pick it up. Doesn't that seem like a rather short time frame?

At any rate, I wanted to return a clematis and pick up the verbena. I stopped at the checkout, and explained that the tag in the pot of clematis said "Nelly Moser," but it was labeled differently on the outside of the pot. I wanted to make an exchange. They told me to leave the pot at checkout and look for the "Nelly Moser" that I wanted. Of course, they were out.

So, I started working my way through the nursery toward the annual section. Along the way four little pots of basil, and two more of lemon verbena grabbed my arm as I went by. I rounded the corner at the veggies, coming into the stretch, when two pots of tomatoes jumped out in front of my cart. I HAD to rescue them.

While I was there, I thought I might pick up a morning glory that was already two feet tall, but they were out of that, too. This beautiful cardinal vine tempted me instead.

I FINALLY got to the annual information desk, and asked for the verbena. Neither of us could count. I'd ordered nine and came home with seven. BUT....while I was waiting, I found the morning glory I wanted! *G*

Some days ya just have to go with the flow. I've got a LOT of planting to do, and I'll have to make at least one more trip to the nursery. Do you believe that I walked out of there without any dill seed!??

Yes....I have poison ivy in my garden. Woe is me. This morning I rose and donned clothing that I wouldn't mind throwing away: long socks, long pants, a long-sleeved mock turtleneck, and an old bandanna. I carried another bandanna with me to cover the lower half of my face, in case the ivy juice became airborne as I pulled out the roots. I wore two pairs of latex gloves.

At first I thought this was going to be easy. I should have known better. The root making its way across the ground was roughly half the diameter of my little finger. I should have watered before I weeded. I might possibly have gotten ALL of the root that way. As it it, I think I left some small suckers. The poison ivy had twined itself around and through a pod of Dutch Iris that I've been meaning to replant.

I got most of the root, except any that grew through the roots of the iris. After they've bloomed, I'll dig up the iris and re-plant them, checking for poison ivy roots as I separate them. For some time to come, I'll have to be careful when kneeling and planting and cleaning up in that area. The irritant (urushiol) from the poison ivy is likely to taint the ground and plants for some time. Luckily, I've gotten into the habit of wearing gloves when I work in the gardens, but I'll still need to be careful.

I had a great morning. I got two thirds of the outer bed at the front of the house cleared out of old plants. I was able to see what made it through the winter and what needs to be replaced. The Russian sage is coming back nicely, and I pruned away the dead wood. The two French lavenders didn't make it, but I was surprised to see that there were starts of Homestead Purple Verbena, which is usually an annual in this area.

I hope to do a little early morning gardening before we go to brunch for Mother's Day. And, there may be time in the afternoon, too. It's time to put plants into the ground! YEA!!!

3 Homestead Purple Verbena
4 dark ruby petunias
1/2 a packet of Rose Queen Cleome seeds
1 purple calibracoa
6 sweet basil
1 purple ruffles basil
2 curly leaved parsleys
2 flat leaved Italian parsleys
2 upright rosemaries
1 tricolor sage
1 cilantro
4 lemon verbena
1 large fever few

As usual, I have loads left to plant, including tomato plants. May 15th is the last frost date for this area (Zone 5, Chicago suburbs), so I could have planted them today, but I held off for two days to let a storm system go through. It seems that all around us are getting rain, but we've just had a sprinkle or two.

I need to have Elegante Mother choose more pots to plant. As usual, she bought more plants than needed. Perhaps I can send a planted container to one of my sisters, when EM goes to visit at the end of the month.

I still need to find a Bridal Wreath shrub (spirea), annual purple fountain grass, Goldsturm rudbekia, Victoria Blue salvia, Bluebeard shrubs/perennials, and more Russian sage. I haven't planned what I want to add to the little garden across the driveway, yet. And, I'm waiting for Dear Husband to move the dingy so that I can plant the south raised box of the veggie bed.

Ya know....I'm glad I live where the snow flies part of the year. I don't think I could keep this up year round!

I have had the most satisfying day!

We went to bed at 9:00 last night. I fought the urge to watch a little more TV or read another few chapters in my book. I hit the sack and slept soundly until about 5:45 or so. I was ready to wake, as the light was changing, and felt, at last, that I had gotten a decent night's sleep.
I left DH sleeping soundly, and had a cup of tea and some toast, before going to the office to work for an hour.

By 8:00 a.m. I was out in the gardens. I had planned to tidy up the driveway garden. It's the first garden you see as you enter our grounds. The peonies bloom there (or will very shortly), and there are some iris, perennial salvia, day lilies, bleeding heart, hosta and a lot of purple coneflower in that bed. I wanted to trim the edges of the bed, get one area ready for some rudbeckia, and pull a little grass that thinks it should live there. Instead, that work has been delayed until early tomorrow morning. Today, I worked on the north side of the house.

I have two areas of ferns on the north side of the house. The biggest bed really gets too much sun, and it's surrounded by brick on two sides, so it's probably too hot, too. But, the ferns have come back year after year. They have been spreading out into the lawn. I decided to dig the volunteers out of the lawn and replant them into one end of the bed that looked a little bare. Then I weeded most of the bed, and moved a timber over to create a finished edge to the bed.

I watered the ferns, and the herb garden, and then mulched around the ferns and watered them again. Then, I cleaned out a tiny garden box to the right of the back garage door. I'm going to try rudbekia there. It may like the heat.

And, I took a break!

When I went back out, I moved a chunk of English thyme, planted two silver thymes, a lemon basil, an Angelica (something new to try this year), and planted six tomato plants. I like the miniature yellow pear-shaped tomatoes for salads, and the Sweet 100 Cherry tomatoes. I planted a good-sized Early Girl bush tomato, and a Better Boy (I think..).

By 2:00 there was nothing more important than my date with the shower! I'm feeling (and looking) more human now, and I'm VERY satisfied with the work I finished. (Pictures soon, just for Janet! *G*)

I hope to get in another long day in the gardens tomorrow. I have to make a short trip to the bank, and to the nursery tomorrow morning, but the rest of the day I can focus on the gardens. I planted several containers today, rather than pitching out the extra plants. I still have a few more plants that had been intended for containers, and Dear Husband says that I should plunk them in the garden, where ever I have the room. It could make for interesting gardens.

I hope to weed for two hours very early in the morning, run my errands, and then come home and put more plants into the ground. Things look amazingly good so far, but there's still a lot of work to be done. The 10:00 news just reminded me that we are on cicada alert, but the ground was cool last night, so that might delay their visit. Apparently, the ground needs to be 60 degrees or warmer for the cicadas to make their appearance. I hope that they stay dormant until I get all these plants into the ground! *G*

We did a little mowing, and Dear Husband spent most of his time readying the Arr!! for the trip to Lake Michigan. Boys and their toys. He's just like a kid! He'll be gone all day, and I'll be in the gardens.

I've been holding off using the air conditioning. I figured it was just May, that I didn't need it, but they are talking about some really warm weather coming up. We'll have to see how things turn out. Perhaps, with all the windows open, we'll be able to bear the heat.

Here's hoping for a cool evening, a good night's sleep, and a safe and productive day tomorrow!

We've been absorbed with counting the egrets and herons we see as we drive to exercise or to the grocery store. We're well into their season now, and we've seen groups of them congregating where they "fish" for food. Normally, both the herons and egrets are very solitary birds while hunting, but they must have a social side we've never seen before.

Elegante Mother pointed out a new bird at the feeder. We both thought it was a woodpecker, but it turns out it was a Northern Flicker. I checked Sibley and read the description out, and this bird fit it to a T. They have an interesting little black bib, and are larger than most of the woodpeckers we see here. I hope this flicker will become a resident. He/She is a fascinating bird to watch!

At least we HOPE wet weather will becoming this way. We're supposed to have scattered showers over the weekend, and it should be overcast for the best part of a week.

My immediate goal is to work in the gardens at the sidewalk. Quilting Bee is tonight, and I'd like for the entryway to look nice as the ladies come in.

I think we have a quiet weekend ahead. I want to putter some more in the gardens, weather permitting, but I don't have any hard and fast plans. I might even check the paper to see if there is anything I want to see at the movies!

I hope you all have a great weekend.

Each year I have volunteers in my garden. The chipmunks have seen to it that I have a steady crop of dill to be found in a number of the beds. One year Cleome took over half the sidewalk garden. Despite that, I'm thinking about sowing Cleome when I move the Dutch Iris this year.

Out in the herb garden, I've grown a number of things in the center of the center box. Some of those things are herbal, and some are just for color. The annual poppies have decided that it's their turn to volunteer.

If you can see the picture above, there are Ox-eye daisies (which have volunteered now for about 16 years), and the red poppies. The salvia is a perennial. I was thinking the other day that we almost have Red, White and Blue going on, if you overlook the purple-ish cast of the salvia.

The walkway of the garden is supposed to be covered with a very white "chat" or tailings, or screenings. It's a very tiny limestone particle. We had intended to settle brick into the chat to make a brick walkway, but we haven't gotten there yet. I like the look of the volunteers in the chat, but it's been so disturbed with the rebuilding, that I may have to dig things up, lay down more chat, and maybe even lay the bricks. Right now, in addition to a few weeds, we have garlic chives, fever few, lamb's ears, the poppies, ox-eye daisies and thyme on the walk.

I'm frequently of a mind to let volunteers grow. God's surprises can make for interesting gardens. I purchased a pack of wildflower seeds, intending to have DH rototill an area for me, where I could strew the seed. I don't think we're going to get to it, so I might strew the seed on the edge of the property where we don't mow. I wonder if we will see visitors and volunteers for years to come, or whether we will be simply providing appetizers for the chipmunks?

"Bloom where you are planted!" Is this the lesson of the day, or is my mind just absorbed with the gardens? *G*

I rolled out of the sack before six this morning so that I could deadhead the peonies before I had to go to exercise. The driveway garden looks better for a little trimming back. I carried rings of hardware cloth down to the driveway garden because bunnies have been at work. The wonderful orangey-red lily that I planted as a focal point in the long driveway garden was stripped of it's leaves and flowers, and the stems have been pulled from the ground. I set rings around the rudbeckia, because the bunnies were testing the flavor of the leaves. I didn't want to drive past and find them eaten to the ground!

When I got back from exercise I pulled the hose out from the area where it nests and watered the herb garden, the ferns and rudbeckia, the plants waiting to be planted, and the containers along the sidewalk. Watering is the perfect time to take stock of what needs to be done.

I haven't quite gotten everything planted yet, even though it's almost mid-June. I'd like to get the last of the plants into the ground and then start trimming back or harvesting some of my herbs. The chives all need to be severely cut back, and the oregano should be harvested. There are areas in the center box of the garden that need to be dug up, to remove weeds and get more things planted. I'd like to see if nasturtiums will grow starting this late in the season, and I'd like to get a little more dill planted..

Three of the tomato plants need either to be staked or caged. The construction debris in that section of the garden still needs to be removed, and I'll have to weed the walkway once the poppies stop blooming. I hope the guys will help me add more chat to the walkway.

It's time to pull out the spent blooms of the ox-eye daisy, and I need to unearth several iris that are having some kind of problem with rotten stems. I think I can save the corms if I do it soon. And, I have several iris to divide and share.

There are ALWAYS things to do when you are a homeowner, and a gardener. These lists are reminders to me that I need to get these things done, and a way to look back over the years to see how little things change. I bet I have at least one, or more likely MANY entries just like this for each year I've blogged. Sorry for the repetition. *G*

It was a good start to the week.

I have spent the past few months trying to get gardens cleaned up from winter, and getting the new plants into the ground. Then, we reach a point where peonies, iris, poppies and lilacs are in bloom, and we sit back and enjoy the view. At that point, there's another flurry of cutting back and cleaning up. I've been waiting for the daffodil leaves to ripen so that I can pull them out. We're just about there.

At the same time, everything in the herb garden has been growing like crazy. I SHOULD be cutting back chives and harvesting sage and oregano, but we're having a lovely rainy Saturday. Cutting back will have to wait until tomorrow or Monday. I plan to share some of the harvest with my friends at exercise.

I wanted to show you a picture of the overgrown herbs before we get to the mid-summer trim:

The chives and oregano are so wooly that you can't even see there's a center box in the garden just beyond them. St. Francis is in that center bed, and you can just see his head and shoulders. This year all that oregano will be shared, rather than going to waste. YEA!!

I plan to throw in a little catnip, too. NO, I won't mix the two together! *G*

It's summer, what can I say??

I had a lovely time in the garden on Sunday. Usually I go out early in the day, between 5:00 and 9:00, but I overslept last Sunday. I went out at 10:00 and worked for three hours. By the time 1:00 rolled around, I was more than ready to quit, but I'd had a very satisfying morning.

I went out this morning to take pictures to make it easier for you to understand what I'm writing about, and discovered the battery on my camera was dead. I prefer early morning for herb garden pictures because you aren't distracted by shadows and the colors are gentler. It just wasn't to be. Maybe I can get the pictures later today.

I finished cutting back the chives, and I'm halfway through the oregano. I clipped off the top of the basil to keep it from flowering, and brought the leaves in to make pesto, and I harvested the first of the cherry tomatoes.

I also cleaned out the east walkway inside the garden. If you wet the chat down first, it's not a bad job. I left one of the poppies and two other groups of volunteer plants that are growing in the walk, at least for now..

Since I never remember to take before and after pictures, I left the west walkway until I could get a picture. There's still some work to be finished from this Spring's renovation, but it's minimal. Eventually, I hope to add more chat to the walkway, and we might even consider laying the bricks that are supposed to cover the chat.

Once I've finished the weeding, I need to mulch the herb garden. It will help to keep moisture in and may save a plant or two if I fail to water regularly.

The chipmunk that lives at the back door decided he didn't like the rudbeckia that I had planted above his home. He burrowed around two sides of it, and it was in pretty bad shape, so I moved it into the herb garden. I have two lavenders to plant, as well.

I suppose when you look at the list of things I've been doing the word "WORK" floats through your mind. Well, it IS work, but the grounds look so nice once it's done that it seems like a worthwhile way to fill my time.

I have been so busy this week, that I haven't had the chance to get out into my gardens. From the kitchen I could see that there were cherry tomatoes ripening, and we're having salad for dinner tonight, so I made the trek out to harvest a few of them.

Some rotten little rodent, or bunny or deer is taking one bite out of the bigger tomatoes. I doubt seriously that we will have more than the three we have managed to collect so far because they are just too tempting. Maybe I can find a strip of hardware cloth to wrap around the tomato cage. That might protect them from the livestock.

As I walked back through the herb garden, I brushed the basil, and its scent filled the air. I stopped to pinch off the tops of the plants, to try to keep them bushy, and to delay the flowering. Basil tastes better before it's energy goes into flowering and making seeds.

We've had light showers the past two days. The water has helped everything, but we need still more. We seem to be in a pocket of drought that has hung over us for at least three years. I know that friends in the East and in Kansas are worried about flooding, and can't wait for things to dry up. Send that water this way!

If it's not raining early tomorrow morning, I may have the chance to get into the gardens again. We can hope. The worst of the week will be over tomorrow morning, and working in the gardens would be a lovely way to wind down the week.

Soon it will be time to make "Farmer's Tomato Pie." I'm just waiting for the home grown, or local tomatoes to ripen. Yummmmmm!

If you haven't already divided your tall bearded iris by now, it's time to get it done. I live in USDA Zone 5, and my iris need the last of the warm season to get settled in to their new homes

Dig up the clump and separate the rhizomes by slicing them apart with a sharp knife. Disinfect the knife between cuts by dipping it into a 10% bleach solution (one part bleach, 9 parts water). Keep the rhizomes that are at least three inches long, have good roots and a fan of leaves. Cut the leaves back to about eight inches. Throw away any rhizomes that are shrunken, have holes or mushy parts. Dispose of the unwanted material in landfill rather than composting it, to avoid spreading disease.

Those rhizomes you choose to keep and replant should be briefly disinfected in the bleach solution and then left to air dry for a day. When you replant the iris, be sure that the top of the rhizome is just at the surface of the soil.

My iris tend to rise up out of the soil over the winter. I think the solution is to water well and press down around the rhizome to be sure there are no air pockets when you replant. If a rhizome still looks like it's riding a little high on the ground, I might side dress it with compost before winter sets in. Be sure not to bury the rhizomes in the compost.

I meant to get out to work on the gardens at the entrance to the house this morning. We have had a phenomenal growing season, despite the fact that storms have been few and far between, and it's quite a jumble of incredible plants and more incredible weeds.

Unfortunately, we are still in the grasp of a major heat wave. I think I heard that we were at least 20 degrees above normal yesterday, and the heat has been here for several days. We're supposed to get rain early in the coming week, followed by more realistic temperatures....in the upper sixties. So, I'm sure that I will be doing a LOT of gardening in the next three weeks. By the end of the month it's time to put the gardens to bed for the winter.

I suspect the family of chipmunks that has made it's home in my mulch pile is going to be TICKED!! I'll be using part of that pile on the front garden, around the new redbud, and more of it on the fern bed and herb garden. There goes their new condo! I bet I'll find black walnuts buried in the mulch.

Well, I've stalled as much as I can. I have to go to the grocery store. Normally, it wouldn't be an issue, but this is Sunday. The entire world will be there by now. Have a good day, all! I'm off and running!

I've laughingly filed this under "In the Garden," because that's where these will end up. I wanted to get a picture of the sprinkling of nuts from one tree. Our lot line is covered with these husks, each of which hold a rock hard black walnut. My Dad would have loved them! So do the squirrels! *G*

I've laughingly filed this under "In the Garden," because that's where these will end up. I wanted to get a picture of the sprinkling of nuts from one tree. Our lot line is covered with these husks, each of which hold a rock hard black walnut. My Dad would have loved them! So do the squirrels! *G*

It amazes me to step out my back door and see catnip, oregano and feverfew greening up. THIS IS JANUARY!! The plants are amazingly hardy in our cold weather, but truth be told, the weather has been incredibly warm for the season. We've had snow, and we've had a few days of deep cold, but we seem to be going through an unusually early warm spell

The wildlife is happy not to have to deal with brutal snow. It's easier for them to get to the seed that falls to the ground, rather than trying to dig through layers of snow to find the dropped seed. I leave a piece of plywood at the base of the feeder to catch the spill. Right now there's about half an inch of hulls littered over the board and ground. I've seen cardinals, blue jays, mourning doves, blackbirds, a horde of sparrows, juncos and chickadees. I'm not sure we have nuthatches this year. Perhaps they are there, but have moved further away from the house as the trees have died and been removed. We've been enjoying the deer at bedtime. I've been putting out corn while they were short on forrage.

I shouldn't be surprised to see the catnip and oregano greening up. They are both members of the mint family, and mint is incredible hardy. I've sequestered chocolate mint, and pineapple mint in large plastic containers that look like clay pots. I know better than to plan a mint where it might spread! I have so much oregano that I gave away bunches of it to the ladies at exercise last summer. Oregano, any one?? *G*

Since the day before Easter the inside of our house has been filled with beautiful blossoms, but the outside is sadly lacking. We've had three little crocus appear near the front door, and we have about three or four inches of daffodil greens showing around the yard, and the leaves for one early blooming tulip (the name of which escapes me at the moment). I'm guessing that it will be a month before we see much of anything. We'll have to be content with magnolia and redbud and lilac buds swelling.

My knee has improved, but I haven't tested it to see if I can kneel on it. I'm desperate to get out into the gardens and clean things up. Wouldn't you know that the one day in the 50s that is supposed to be dry is Wednesday, the day I'll be chained to the office for an audit! How UNFAIR!!!

Well....soon. I'm sure I'll be outside soon.

You know....the WARM, SUNNY, DRY weekend that lets us know that it's not going to be winter forever. I won't be so rash as to say that spring has finally arrived, but the weather this week was exceptional, and I spent part of each day in the gardens, clearing off the spent plants and even pulling up crabgrass and poison ivy stems.

When your nose is within a foot of the ground you see all sort of things that you might otherwise miss. I realized that the dead stems of the purple fountain grass were covering a pod of daffodils and tulips, so I started there on Saturday morning, digging up the dead annual. It was covering some of my favorite daffodils, the Ice Follies, which are usually the first to bloom. This year they will loose the race to the traditional daffodils that are planted along the front of the house.

I saw fever few, sweet woodruff, crocus, the tips of Dutch iris leaves, a volunteer vinca that I should exterminate, and tons of iris. I have one pod of iris that is next to a downspout and I can see that I'll have to move them this year. There are four other HUGE pods of iris that will have to be shifted this year. I meant to get to them last year, and it just didn't get done. If I wait any longer, they'll die off for lack of good soil and overcrowding.

I didn't get everything trimmed, but I made a good start. I can tell that I'm not a kid any more. I can't work for twelve hours on my hands and knees and still get up and walk away. I need to be more careful with mulch to keep weeding down.

Dear Husband, super guy that he is, took a little time away from varnishing the boat to prune the old shrub rose for me. Following information from Bogie, he cut it back severely. This rose blooms on new canes, so we are encouraging it to put up new canes, while we get rid of the brambles. I hope it makes it. This was one of the plants growing on the grounds when we bought the lot 19 years ago.

Each day that is dry, I hope to put a little time into the gardens so that I don't have to devote entire weekends to weeding. I'm SO glad we had warm weather. It felt as though I'd been given a treat after a difficult week, and it was lovely to have some time outside. And, YES.....I wore a hat! *G*