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*
Daily Archives: June 23, 2007
Just Stuff
I love rainy Saturdays. Actually, I suppose I love any kind of Saturday.
It’s overcast this morning, and we’re getting occasional showers which we really need. Because the back half of our house is surrounded by trees and shrubs, there’s a very green cast to the light. The leaves look refreshed from their showers, and the grass or ground covers are all perking up, showing dozens of shades of green. It has the feel of a secret garden.
Our household is off to a quiet start. Dear Husband had to drop off some materials at a job site before he left to sail, so he was up at his usual 4:30 a.m. He’s been gone for hours. Elegante Mother was also an early riser. She’s listening to the local jazz station on the radio, reading the newspaper. StepSon2 is snoozing. He’s a night owl and tends to sleep through the morning. Even Ed (Edward Scissorhands, to you), our cat, is napping.
I’m contemplating all the things I’d like to get done, trying to decide just what to start on. I need to do some more hand quilting. I’d like to cut up a batt for four small quilt tops that I made last summer, and create the quilt sandwich of the top, batt and backing. I’ve started cutting out a very simple quilt, and I could lay out the center blocks to be sewn today.
I have all the fabric for the quilt after that. I’m ready to cut out the patches for that quilt, but I just discovered that the patches are 4.25″ x 2 13/16″. It takes precision cutting to cut fabric to sixteenths of an inch. I’m capable of it, but I’m not sure that I want to start that project today. I haven’t added up the number of pieces that have to be cut, but I think it might be a thousand or more. (I’m contemplating making two of these quilts, one to give and one to keep.) Perhaps I’ll cut just enough for the first quilt.
I’ve shared the story of the clematis in past blogs (May 6, 2007 archive). I have a jackmanii clematis on an arbor at the north end of the herb garden. It’s bloomed well for years but several years ago, the leaves began to drain of their glossy green. I’d get a funny yellow leaf with prominent veining. I researched the problem, and thought I needed to add iron to the soil, which I did. That helped, but last fall it looked as though the plant was giving up the ghost. I cut the canes back to the ground, prepared to let the ground go fallow for a while.
This spring, we were surprised to see healthy starts shooting up out of the soil! I guided them up the arbor on lengths of twine, and this is the result:
What a Cinderella story! This turned out so well that I plan to cut back the rugosa rose at the curve of the drive. Bogie tells me that she cuts hers back regularly, and I think this rose will respond just as the clematis has. By the way, that lone little yellow bloom in the bottom left corner is NOT a dandelion. It’s one of the few Yarrow that returned this year. Usually there is a big display of yellow blooms against the green and purple of the clematis, but the winter was hard on this particular perennial.
So, we’re having a quiet Saturday at the Arrrgh!! household. Mother Nature has spared me from weeding and watering today, so I’m going to take advantage of play time. I hope you all have a good day, too!