I Love Fall

I just wish the leaves would hang on a little longer....

Autumn Splendor

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A quick post, after a long silence, to share a couple of autumnal photos taken the other day.


First, a peek through the dead or dying trees on my property's edge to some gorgeous fall foliage in the borrowed landscape beyond:


We have a tendency to think of October as being the big fall-foliage month, but really, for central Virginia, early-mid November is the better time for peak leaf color. And frankly, many trees hang on to their leaves until late-December/early-January, at least around my yard, which makes raking in time for the municipal leaf pickup a challenge. Last year the giant leaf vacuum machines showed up on the day after Thanksgiving, which was a total waste of time and a huge frustration for me and my neighbors. If ever there's a good time to rake (or use a leaf blower, if so inclined), it is during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend when folks have an extended amount of time at home during daylight hours. So, the city workers showing up on Friday morning before folks have had a chance to rake is as frustrating as houseguests showing up for a party a day early, before one has had a chance to cook or clean. This year the city has apparently wised up and they're waiting a week or so....

In addition to the changing and falling leaves, I've enjoyed the annual return of my little crop of autumn crocuses, with their tantalizing saffron-coated stigmas:


I never have the heart to disfigure them by removing the stigmas, even though saffron is worth its weight in gold. I suppose if I were a gourmet cook I'd feel differently.

It's raining today, moisture that is definitely needed to help refill our parched aquifers after the summer drought, but it makes for a dreary Monday, and will no doubt hasten the descent of red, orange and yellow leaves from branch to ground. I'm always sad when there is no more color on the trees.

But I do like snow. Here's hoping we get some this winter!

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Skylight Gardening

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The garden blog has been quiet for a month -- we must be in the throes of a late summer heat blast.

When the weather gets like it has been this past week, (highs > 100°F, lows barely less than 90°F), I tend to hibernate inside the house, and let the garden fend for itself, for better or worse. I did harvest the few remaining 'Sweet 100' grape tomatoes on the shriveling vine, and they were delicious, if sparse. I think I'll plant two or three of them next year.

Since I'm currently working from home, I can go days without leaving the house. Who wants to walk out into that blast-furnace of heat and humidity? Not I.

Mercifully, today is much more moderate -- temps only in the mid-80s. A welcome break of blessed relief.

When I am working from home, sitting at my desk I do have a nice view:

-Various swaying trees, including a Mimosa, which is in bloom right now.

If I zoom in, and in, and in and in:

I can see Mimosa flowers from the (dis)comfort of my desk chair. And sometimes I even see hummingbirds flitting from one fuzzy flower to another. And the occasional hummingbird moth. All without having to open the front door or even get out of my chair.

I love my skylights.


Casey says:

"Wake me up when summer is over!"

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Lake Landscaping

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Last week I went away for a few days for the holiday, down to my brother's weekend house, which sits on a lake along the Virginia/North Carolina border.

If you're familiar at all with the mid-Atlantic region, then you know that our soil is predominantly red clay, a particularly unforgiving dirt.

So, if you have a home you only visit on weekends, with a yard that's 100% red clay and sits in blazing sun and gets very little summer rainfall on its fast-draining, very steep, 30º slope, what do you plant in this difficult landscape?

Why, ornamental grasses of course:


They planted this yard about five years ago, and it has filled in quite nicely, I think. In and among the grasses they also have Knock-Out Roses, Stella d'Oro daylilies, Cannas, Crepe Mytles, Buddleia and a Japanese maple. When it's all in bloom, it's really quite lovely, but even when all you see are the different greens of the grasses, shrubs and trees, it's very pleasing to the eye.

My brother and his wife are close friends with a couple who own a garden center in Cary, NC, (just outside Raleigh), and their friends laid out the design and picked the plants and helped them put it all in one weekend. I wish I had friends like that, (but perhaps a little closer to home)!

When we take the pontoon boat out around the lake and look at what other people have done with their steep slopes, you see a lot of expensive retaining walls, many of which are nothing short of butt-ugly. We're talking $100K eyesores. Those folks hired contractors with little sense of design, which is a shame when you're spending that kind of money.

Probably the loveliest landscape I saw last week was this very Italianate planting:


These folks obviously hired an incredible designer. I really love the contrast between the tall evergreens (reminiscent of Italian cypresses), the shorter, heavily pruned shrubs, and the graceful rounded forms of the grasses. Nicely done. That's what good landscape design is all about.

Next time I'm at the lake, I need to remember to take pictures of the eyesores, to better illustrate my point.

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Heat Wave

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I went away for a few days, and came back to a heat wave, not knowing what I'd find in the garden when I returned.

I did find more ripe tomatoes:

lunch!

More bloomin' daylilies:

And Black-eyed Susans:



Crinum buds:


And the bumble bees going crazy over the chaste tree:


It's very hot and dry, but life goes on.

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Happy Independence Day!

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...brought to you courtesy of the red, white and blue!

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Happy Daylilies

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I don't remember planting these, have no idea what cultivar they are, and frankly, the color is a bit blah to my eye, but this thing is blooming like gangbusters, so I'm not going to complain!

Bloom on, pale daylily!

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Today's Bountiful Harvest

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They were delicious.

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Second Tomato

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Today, since I showed no such restraint for the first one, I took photographic proof of my second ripened Sweet 100 cherry tomato:

before I promptly ate it, (the top one).


I then strolled around, taking pictures of what's blooming today:

"New Millennium" Delphinium

Daylilies

Bee Balm (Monarda sp.)

Orange Daylily
(I'm not a big fan of orange, but who could hate this cheery bloomer?)

And tomorrow, this guy is MINE!

yum
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Hurry Up and Ripen!

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Momma's hungry!

In the meantime, I will feast mine eyes upon this:

Chaste Tree
Vitex agnus-castus

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First Tomato

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And there's a blatant lack of photographic evidence to prove its existance, because I ate it right off the plant while standing outside in the 99ºF heat, moving a sprinkler from one part of the garden to another.

And it was good. Reeeeeealllllly good. Delicious, in fact. Warm and sweet and so much more flavorful than anything you'll get in a grocery store. Well worth sweating in the heat for. I'm so glad I got to it before a bird or squirrel did. I will need to monitor that plant closely for the next couple of months, and grab the ripe ones as they emerge.

As a rule, I don't grow vegetables, because the amount of sunny real estate I own is just too small and precious, in my mind, to give up for anything but flowers, food for my soul. And let's face it, vegetable gardens require a lot-lot-lot more work than a perennial bed. Definitely more work than my lazy self is willing to commit to in the heat of a Virginia summer.

But every few years I'll stick a cherry tomato plant in the ground, usually of the very delicious "Sweet 100s" variety, for the sole purpose of eating the ripe ones right off the vine, while out in the yard for some other purpose. And I'm always glad I did. Rarely do any make it into my kitchen, but for the time-honored practice of standing-in-the-garden-and-eating. Yum.

I will try to do better in upcoming weeks about getting a picture of a tomato, before I actually eat it.

No promises, though.

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Plants like this...

...are what keep me coming back to gardening:

Hibiscus syriacus 'Blue Bird'
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More pretties....

My Garden in Pictures

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A few things growing and blooming in my garden today, (enlarge any image by clicking on it):

Pulmonaria sp.
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variegated Solomon's Seal
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periwinkle embraces an oak tree knot
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A couple of Campanulas
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Black-eyed Susans
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I cannot remember what this is or when I planted it, but I like it!
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Shasta Daisy
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Daylily
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Daylily 'Destined to See'
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Hydrangea 'Nikko Blue'
(pink, no doubt, because of container soil's neutral pH)
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Hollyhock
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And finally, I've got some kind of huge, freakish fungus growing in my oak tree bed:


It would be pretty, if it weren't so creapy.

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Pleased and Proud...

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...of how well my front flower bed is looking at the moment, through almost no recent effort on my part, save a little weeding and pruning. Everything that is currently blooming was planted several years ago or was self-sown from last year. Gotta love perennials and self-sowing annuals!

(^ click for big, and please ignore the weeds!)
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Those reddish roses in the foreground used to be blue-ish colored hybrid teas, (I wrote about them several years ago), but they've reverted back to their humble root stock, and I haven't had the heart to replace them when they're such happy bloomers. Maybe this fall....

These peonies have performed fantastically,
ever since I first planted them about 7 or 8 years ago.
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After being moved three times, my false indigo, (Baptisia australis),
is finally happy where it gets the most sunshine.

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And my birdhouse may be getting a tenant:

(^ click for big)
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Papa Bird came by and inspected each apartment, and then called for Mama Bird, who remains to be seen....

The ever-present tall purple bloomers in that bed are Dame's Rocket, (Hesperis matronalis), which make a ridiculous amount of seeds and self-sow everywhere. They're about the same color, grow taller, spread better and bloom longer than money plant, (Lunaria annua); therefore I highly recommend them for a cottage or wildflower garden.

The 32 Delphiniums I planted two weeks ago seem to be taking hold. I water them every few days, and although they haven't started to shoot up yet, they're surviving and growing new leaves and not dying, which is all I can ask for, at this point.

I still need to plant my recent plant sale purchases, and perhaps Sunday might be the best day for that, weather-wise. It's only supposed to get to 72ºF, whereas the rest of the week will be in the 80's. I just need to be able to extract myself in a timely fashion from the Mother's Day visit at my parents' house. And at some point I need to put in my mother's annual flower bed, which I often do on Mother's Day, but it may have to wait until next weekend. We'll see.

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Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden Spring Plant Sale 2007

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I suppose it's a good problem to have, when you're a multi-hobbyist and two big events for two of your favorite, but very different hobbies fall on the same weekend.

One of those big events is the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden spring plant sale, which, conveniently for me, is held Thursday through Saturday, allowing me to attend it on Thursday so that I can spend the rest of the weekend at the other long-anticipated event.

It does pose a dilemma for me, though. My mind is definitely conflicted, as I walk from vendor to vendor, admiring table after table of beautiful plants, and the voice in my head says, "You're leaving town tomorrow for three days. You won't have time to plant everything you want to buy. Keep it simple." The little voice tends to win, especially if I have only my two arms, rather than a big cart to carry my purchases.

There are other things I tell myself, to keep from grabbing every pretty thing I see. Such as, "You've planted that before. It didn't last more than one season."

Or, "You can buy that at a local garden center."

Or, "Just admire these for inspiration. Keep them in mind to purchase later, when you have the time to really put more effort and plants back into that flower bed."

And finally, "Just take a picture of it. You don't need to own it to admire it."

So that's what I did:

Spectacular flowering maple (Abutilon sp.)
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Foreground: "Knock-out" Roses.
(Note to self: buy these at local garden center.)

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It seems every vendor had a plethora of Heucheras and Tiarellas
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Pretty purple columbines
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I love this guy's birdhouses, which he makes out of scrap wood and old garden tools:

He sells them for dirt cheap, too. I don't think anything was much more than $20. I own two, but would have bought more, except that all of the really tall ones were already gone.

Anyone in a serious plant-buying mood should go to the Recycled Plant Tent first, as you can find many items there for about half of what the other vendors are charging:


I didn't leave the plant sale completely empty-handed, but I was a very good girl and came away with just a few purchases, albeit ones that make me very, very happy.

First of all, I got a Dappled Willow (Salix integra 'Hakuro Nishiki'), which I've wanted for ages, but wasn't willing to pay Jackson & Perkins prices for it. I got mine for less than half of what J&P charges for it.


And I bought two 'Nikko Blue' Hydrangeas:

to replace the ones that died during the summer of hell. I vow to try to do better about watering them this summer, even if it means another feeble attempt at drip irrigation.

Finally, I broke down and bought this Gardener's Pouch:

but it's not for me. It is for my friend Susan, a rabid Arkansas gardener who raises dogs and cats and goats and chickens and miniature horses and cattle. She's always talking about how much weeding she does around her garden, and how her animals love when all the fresh green weeds are thrown in their pens, so I thought this just might help her do the job. The girl selling these also had a booth at last Saturday's Herbs Galore, and I figured if I see something twice in one week, and both times it makes me think of how much another person would like it, then I'd better just go ahead and buy it for that other person.

I will pop it in the mail to her tomorrow. Hope she likes it.

Looks like I've got some things to plant when I'm back in town next week! Here's hoping the weather is nice.

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Maymont Herbs Galore 2007

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Today I went over the river...

Nickel Bridge
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and through the woods....


and around the lake...



and beyond the Nature Center...


to the Hampton Street entrance:


to partake in Maymont's annual Herbs Galore plant sale on the Carriage House lawn:



And this was my modest haul:

Stevia (3 plants)
Lemon Verbena (3 plants)
Sweet 100s Tomato (1 plant)

I might have purchased more, but I'm still sore from Thursday! (Oh, my aching hamstrings!) Definitely too sore to plant those right away, and next weekend I'll be out of town, so they will just have to wait a bit. They should be fine, as long as I remember to water them!

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Ouch!

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As in, I'm sore!

A week ago, the New Millennium Delphiniums I ordered from Graceful Gardens arrived, and yesterday I was finally able to get them in the ground.

But before that could happen, the ground needed preparation, and so there was much weeding, followed by soil turning, followed by the addition of soil amendments (composted manure, leaf mold and a granular high-phosphorus fertilizer), followed by more soil turning.

It was an absolutely perfect day to work in the garden, as the temperature stayed around 65ºF and overcast, with a chance of showers later in the day. So after all the digging and bending and stooping of bed prep, I was able to plant 32 Delphiniums, 10 Crocosmia corms, 5 orange daylilies mailed to me by a gardening friend in Arkansas (she calls them "ditch lilies"), and a recent impulse purchase from Lowe's -- a bronze-colored New Zealand flax.

I watered everything in well, and then last night Mother Nature was gracious enough to water everything again, and she's continuing to do so, today. Perfection.

Despite my aching everything, it feels good to take control of my flower beds once again, after several years of letting weeds and drought and neglect win the day.

And I'm more than a little excited (absolutely thrilled, really) to finally be growing some of Terry Dowdeswell's much-heralded Delphiniums. I feel like Terry is an old friend, although we live half a world apart and have never met. But we both belong to the same Delphinium Lovers Yahoo Group, where those of us who adore that plant can talk about them unashamedly and ad nauseum. I fantasize about someday combining a New Zealand vacation with an internship at Terry's nursery, with the hope of gaining expertise in growing his Delphs, so that I might possibly start a little Delph nursery here in the U.S. mid-Atlantic region. But first I need to see how well the plants do during our hot, muggy summers and schizophrenic winters. Terry's Delphs are supposedly much more heat-tolerant than the Delphs that are typically sold at garden centers here in the U.S., so I will be evaluating them closely. Our Virginia weather will prove their worthiness.

Dowdeswell's Delphiniums

I've also been able to weed my oak tree flower bed twice in the last week -- this is the bed where poison ivy has established a foothold, but I am determined to get rid of it, once and for all, this spring. It's a tricky endeavor, as I can't use herbicides in that bed, for fear of killing of the desirable plants. And so the poison ivy must be hand-weeded, which is dangerous, as you might imagine. After last years's attempt at weeding, my good deed did not go unpunished. But I've got a new strategy this year. I wear disposable latex gloves on both hands, and have a garbage bag draped over my right hand and arm -- which I then use to pull up the poison ivy, which is then put in a garbage bag held in my left hand. As long as I'm careful and don't touch any exposed skin with what I've pulled before putting it into the garbage bag, I remain virtually rash-free. After I'm through weeding, the gloves and the right-arm protector/bag are carefully placed into the left garbage bag, which is then thrown in my supercan for the trashmen to pick up on Tuesday. And then I go inside and wash my arms and hands thoroughly before continuing to garden. I keep a close watch on my hands and arms over the next few days and if I see even the tee-tiniest rash begin to develop, I quickly attack it with Zanfel. So far, so good. If Zanfel doesn't stop the rash, I know I can use Colgate's Octagon lye soap to control the itching and blisters. But I'm thinking (hoping) we won't get to that stage this year.

After the drought of 2005, I lost my Hydrangeas in that same oak tree bed and was heartbroken and very discouraged. But I think I'm going to try planting new ones this year, and do a better job of watering them. Hope has been reborn!

Something else that is currently thriving in that bed is this wild Oxalis:


Several years ago, I saw it blooming on the little pie-wedge half-lot behind my property, and dug it out and replanted it in the oak tree bed. It has returned faithfully ever since, getting bigger and showier every year. I paid for my plant thievery, however, with -- you guessed it -- a mean bout of poison ivy, which grows over much of that lot. (Perhaps that's how the poison ivy got into my oak tree bed in the first place? Wouldn't that be an ironic twist of fate.)

That little half-lot where the Oxalis originally grew has been a thorn in my side for much of my time in residence here, and has a frustrating saga all its own.

But that's a story for another day.

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Bitch-slapping Mother Nature on Earth Day

As with many, many homes across the country, mine came with the requisite builder-grade shrubs, poorly selected, too large and planted too close to the house.

I've been battling one particular red-tipped Photinia for all of my 13 years in residence here, and at this point, the outcome is a draw.

Why is this shrub lop-sided?
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Today was beautiful, sunny and warm, and I spent all afternoon outdoors, in the yard. One of the many tasks I decided to tackle was the onerous, semi-annual chore of pruning back my red-tipped monstrosity to a reasonable size. I came at it from all sides, with hand pruners, loppers, and a pruning saw.

When I first approached the shrub and started sawing on my first branch, I startled a robin somewhere within, and she flew away. Oh, well, I thought to myself. There are lots of robins in this neighborhood, and lots of birds rest in my Photinia, waiting for me to fill the feeder near it. I'm used to startling birds who rest near the porch -- happens all the time.

After several vigorous, (perhaps overzealous?) branch amputations with the pruning saw, I happened to look down at the base of the Photinia, and saw this:


And my heart lurched.

And then I looked up and saw this:


And peaked over and saw this:


And I am heart-broken.

I extend my deepest sympathies to Mother Nature and Mr. & Mrs. Robin for the loss of their child, and my most sincere and heartfelt apologies for my part in that awful outcome. There will be one less baby robin born in my neighborhood this spring, I'm terribly sorry to say.

Which is why I can't bring myself to prune that lopsided branch on the top-right:


where the nest still sits. I know that there is slim-to-no chance that the robin family will return or that any bird family will reuse that nest, but I just can't bring myself to tear down their home so soon after I caused the loss of their child.

My neighbors must think I'm a complete idiot for pruning that shrub into such a bizarre shape. I don't really care, though. I'll go back and finish pruning it in a few weeks, once I'm sure no one else has moved into the nest.

But not today.

Later, as I ambled from one gardening chore to another, I spotted this bumble bee buzzing from flower to flower and plant to plant, among the many self-sown Dame's Rockets that crop up every spring:


Assuring me that, despite setbacks, Mother Nature continues on her merry way....

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Happy Crocuses

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I still need to upload photos and a description of last week's flower show, but in the meantime, feast your eyes upon these spring beauties:


It's been in the low 40's and blustery-windy today, so it doesn't feel much like spring, but, I'll take a patch of blooming crocuses any day!

Oh, and I took the plunge and ordered the New Millennium delphinium plants I was thinking about.

I ordered:

• 8 Passion Purple
• 16 Royal Aspirations
• 8 Millennium Mix (open-pollinated, random colors)
  

from Graceful Gardens. They're due to arrive in mid-April, which will be perfect planting time, I think. I just need to get that bed prepared, in about a month's time.

Crossing my fingers for a cool, wet summer.

(A gardener is nothing, if not hopeful!)

:-)

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Just a tiny taste...

Today I spent a large portion of my day downtown at the Convention Center, attending the Maymont Flower & Garden show. Here are just a few images I captured while there:





Actually, this last picture is from my own humble flower bed:


I took lots of pictures today, and want to write a lengthy review of the event here, but the extended report will have to wait, because I leave town tomorrow for three days. Full disclosure will be given sometime next week.

Happy Gardening!

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Edited 4/28/07 to add:

I never did get around to writing a detailed review of the flower show, but I did upload more pictures to Flickr - click here to view them.

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Signs of Spring?

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Hellebore, aka "Lenten Rose"
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inside the Hellebore
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A momma squirrel nesting, perhaps?
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(More of my "Squirrel Hollow" pictures can be found here.)

Not that I'm eager for Spring just yet, when we haven't yet had a good snow around these parts this winter. But, it's always nice to see things blooming.

Next week is the 18th annual Maymont Flower & Garden Show, and Spring won't follow far behind that event. If all goes well, I'll attend and take some pictures to post here. Stay tuned!

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Is this all we're gonna get?

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Will this be the year?

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Happy 2007. My first post of the New Year. I wish it felt more like winter, but it's been unseasonably warm 'round these parts, for the most part. I'm guessing Al Gore is chuckling up his sleeve 'bout now, whispering to himself, "told ya so". I hate the thought of his being right that this planet is getting hotter, but it's hard to ignore the mounting evidence. Anyway, here's hoping we'll get one big snowstorm before this winter is through. I sure hope that snowstorms for the mid-Atlantic states are not a thing of the past. That's an utterly depressing thought, which leads to other thoughts about moving to Maine. Or Canada. Or Alaska.

In the meantime, as much as I love winter, (and I really do), I've started to think a little bit about spring. What has prompted this is an email I recently received from Graceful Gardens, one of the few growers in the U.S. that sells Terry Dowdeswell's New Zealand "New Millennium" Delphiniums as seed-grown plants.


Is this the year I take the plunge and buy a flat or two of them? I really would like to try them again. I grew Delphiniums about 10 years ago (has it really been that long?), and they were spectacular -- the highlight of my garden.

In fact, here's a picture of them, mixed in with larkspurs, in all their glory:


But they were not Terry's Delphs, and they did not last past that one season. And I've just never had the time to grow them from seed, as much I'd love to try that sometime. So, I'm thinking I may buy a bunch of plants, and make a concerted effort to really improve the soil in a large section of that now-neglected, overgrown flower bed, so they'll grow and thrive during our typically wretched summer. And maybe they'll even come back the following year. Ya never know.

Hope springs eternal in the heart of a gardener.

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Don't you just love this time of year?

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It is quintissential autumn 'round these parts. Temperatures are hovering around 48ºF at midday, with a soft, but chilling breeze. Skies are crystal clear and stunningly blue. And we're having a banner year for leaf color, thanks, in no small part, to the abundance of rain that fell during Tropical Storm Ernesto in September and an an unnamed but powerful nor'easter in October.

I still have several things blooming around the garden. The occasional rose. The late season zinnia. An ambitious Salvia. The ubiquitous fall-blooming Eupatorium coelestinum (perennial ageratum).

Here's a jaunty zinnia:


that's become a resting place for an immobilized bee who I'm hoping was just caught off guard by the chill and is taking a nap before warming up and moving on. Wake up, little buddy! I'll check on him tomorrow.


This ailing maple tree's days are numbered, unfortunately, so I will appreciate it while I can:



And below, the fall leaves are reflected in the storm glass above where my Ali-cat is sniffing the autumn air:



More of my autumn leaf pictures can be found on Flickr.


To see them, click the above mosaic and enjoy! (I prefer the "View as Slideshow" method, myself).

Happy Autumn!

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Autumn Flowers

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Seems I'm only inspired to update my garden blog when the weather is nice, and I suppose that makes sense. These days I tend to avoid the outdoors in the heat of summer, and in the dead of winter, there's not much to photograph or talk about, unless we have a snow or ice storm. So, this may be my last post for 2006, unless Mom Nature prompts me otherwise.

There's a surprising amount of things blooming in my garden -- you'd almost think it was Spring. And speaking of Spring, I even found an abandoned nest the other day, between a window shutter and my porch wall:

I'm thinking this was probably a purple finch nest and egg.
I'm sad it never hatched.

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This has been another neglectful year for my garden. I'm thinking that my passion for gardening has waned a bit, but I'm okay with that -- it was more of an obsession at its height, and obsessions aren't healthy, so I'm told. But part of me misses the fervor I once held for all things green and blooming. And I'm a bit sad at how many botanical names and how much horticultural information I once had memorized, but have since forgotten. I'm nothing, if not a fickle hobbyist.

Because of this benign neglect, what blooms I do have are just forlorn and lonely representatives of their species. Rather than robust and plentiful displays of color, I have just a spot here or there of pink or blue or purple. But at least there is some kind of color. And what I have this year is far better than the death and destruction from drought I experienced last summer and fall.

So I am grateful for perennials that refuse to die, such as:

Autumn Crocus.
(I'm just wild about saffron...).
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Eupatorium coelestinum
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Bonica Rose
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Rose
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Zinnia
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Creeping Plumbago
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Verbena 'Homestead Purple'
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Salvia
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Oxalis
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Zinnia
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Zebra Grass
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Hey -- it's still Autumn, after all....
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What's Bloomin'?

Something Blue

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And a few other pretties

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I have finally jumped on the Flickr bandwagon and have uploaded a few flower photos there, (what you see in the above collage, which, incidentally, was made here). I have hundreds of digital garden pictures taken through the years, so I hope to upload some of the better ones to Flickr as time allows. I've also added a Flickr badge to my blog's sidebar.

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Gardening Widower's Lament

She dug the plot on Monday
The soil was rich and fine,
She forgot to thaw out dinner
So we went out to dine...

She planted roses Tuesday
She says they are a must,
They really are quite lovely,
But she quite forgot to dust...

On Wednesday it was daisies
They opened up with the sun,
All whites and pinks and yellows
But the laundry wasn't done...

The poppies came on Thursday
A bright and cheery red,
I guess she really was engrossed
She never made the bed...

It was violets on Friday
In colors she adores,
It never bothered her at all
All the crumbs upon the floors...

I hired a maid on Saturday
My week is now complete,
My wife can garden all she wants
The house will still be neat!

It's nearly lunchtime Sunday
And I cannot find the maid,
Oh No! I don't believe it!
She's out there WITH THE SPADE!

Author Unknown

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I thought that was cute. Fortunately, (or unfortunately), I have no lamenting spouse, although it would be nice to have a maid!

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Pink things

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Rose - 'William Baffin' climber ***

Peony - can you see the ant? ***

Rose - 'Double Delight' hybrid tea

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And for some not-so-attractive pink things, if you're feeling brave you're welcome to view my latest bout with poison ivy. Click here to see my unblemished left arm for comparison, and then my hideous right arm by contrast.

A couple years ago I waxed eloquent about the benefits of the very expensive Zanfel for poison ivy treatment. I've been a bit frustrated with it this time, and have resorted to a more homeopathic home remedy that my sister taught me about -- lye soap, in the form of Colgate's Octagon bar soap, which can be found in the laundry aisle at my local supermarket. You lather up with it and then let the lather dry right on the affected skin. It seems to stop the itching fairly well, and although it doesn't cure the poison ivy immediately, (nothing can), it does seem to help dry up the blisters some, stop their weeping, and help stop new ones from forming. Another thing that helps with itching -- put affected skin under the hottest running water you can stand for as long as you can stand it, without burning yourself. That takes the itch away fairly well and it stays away for hours.

File my latest poison ivy bout in the "no good deed goes unpunished" category. Serves me right for actually getting in the garden and doing some weeding. At least I wore gloves this time so that I didn't get the poison ivy on my hands. Next time I think I'll wear garbage bags on both arms, with gloves on the ends. I'm not kidding.

***

Inspired

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I took this picture back in June of 2004, but am inspired to post it today in honor of a local knit-blogger I read regularly named Courtney, who recently taught herself how to dye yarn. Her latest attempt is just beautiful, and inspired me to look through my garden pictures for something reminiscent of the colors she used.

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I believe that's Baptisia australis, or false indigo with perhaps some black-eyed Susans in the background.

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Nice job, Courtney!

The plant sales are here! The plant sales are here!

As any dedicated area gardener knows, there are two precious spring plant sales in Richmond that no gardener worth their salt would miss. And they usually fall on adjacent weekends. We wait with baited breath all year for these plant sales. And they are so worth it.

Today's sale was the always-fantastic Maymont Herbs Galore. Tons of vendors, many selling the same things (basil after basil after basil). But there's always some treasures to be had.

I do my best to not go crazy at the Maymont sale. Normally, Herbs Galore is the weekend after the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden Spring Plant Sale. This year their schedules flip-flopped, for whatever reason and Maymont's was first. Anyway, I normally go hog-wild at the LGBG sale and get at least one, if not two carts full of plants, and then am more restrained the following weekend at Herbs Galore, and settle for just one flat of plants. It was harder to be restrained today, since it was the first sale of the season. But I stuck to my guns and only bought what I could carry. It was tough walking past the hydrangeas, though. All three of mine have died a horrible death due to last summer's drought. Heartbreaking, really. I may get their replacements at LGBG next weekend. (Actually I'll be going either Thursday or Friday, since I'll be out of town the rest of the weekend).

Lots of fun is to be had at the Maymont sale. They usually have a gourd orchestra up on the stage, which is so goofy you can't help but enjoy them. There's interesting food and drinks, classes to take and places for the kids to play. And lots of vendors selling plants of course, but lots of other stuff, too -- books, candles, soaps, lotions, gift items, jams & jellies, hats, bags, birdhouses, birdfeeders -- you name it. And for the past however-many years I've been going (almost ten now, I think), the weather has been perfect, and today was no exception -- pristine. A pleasure to be out among all those plants and trees on the lovely grounds of that beautiful estate.

I really need to go to Maymont more often than for the annual plant sale. They have wonderful wildlife & nature centers with some way-cool animals. Until recently Maymont was home to a couple of black bears -- you may have heard about that scandal. Supposedly a new bear cub could be on its way there as soon as next week -- here's hoping.

But, I digress. Where was I? Oh, yes - the plant sale. Without further ado, here's today's haul:

Counter-clockwise, front to back:

(1) two Morning Glory 'Heavenly Blue' vines

(2) three Lemon Verbena ( world's most mouth-wateringly-lemony herb)

(3) one Purple Hyacinth Bean vine

(4) one Mexican Bush Sage (Salvia leucantha)

(5) two Russian Sage (Perovskia)

(6) one very tall Salvia guaranitica 'Costa Rica Blue'

(7) one Salvia guaranitica 'Black and Blue'

(8) one Stevia (supposedly nature's sugar substitute)

There's a predominance of sages in that list, I know. I have a soft spot for them. There's a funny little guy who comes to Herbs Galore every year and that's all he sells -- every kind of sage you can imagine. His prices are kinda high, but he's a one-man operation and I picture him working out of his basement, so I always buy at least one thing from him. This year it was the Costa Rica Blue sage.

There's also quite a few things in that list that I could have acquired more cheaply if I had the time and space to grow them from seed. I learned early on that I don't have the space for that, and since I travel fairly regularly, I don't have the time for it either, unfortunately. So, like everyone else, I gladly pay a premium for plants that someone else propagates by seed or cutting.

Here's hoping I'll have time to post again after next week's LGBG haul. No promises though....

Spring has Sprung and I'm not ready!

It's another near-80-degree day and things are starting to pop up in the garden and I still haven't raked out the flower beds -- yikes! This week, for sure!

Cast your eyes upon these lovelies:

Lovely purpley spring crocuses

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A close-up

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Hellebores, (Lenten Rose), back better than ever
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Iris reticulata -- so tiny but such a gorgeous blue

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Veronica "Georgia Blue", also a tiny-but-lovely blue

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I also have some blue periwinkle that's starting to bloom a bit, but not enough to be photo-worthy today.

My yard is wreck right now -- if I lived in a snootier neighborhood, I might be getting some nasty comments or notes in my mailbox. I may still. My yard guy is supposedly coming next weekend to help with the raking. I needed him here about two months ago. Oh well. Sorry, neighbors!

A snowstorm and a flower show

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If you live in central Virginia, you know the routine. We go through it once, twice, sometimes three times a winter. Weather-persons on the local news fall all over themselves to gush about it: "Winter Storm Advisory!". "Heavy Snow Accumulation!".


We should know better, but we always get excited. We raid the supermarkets. We stock the fridge. We put on a pot of soup. We hunker down. And we get a whopping 2 inches, which mostly melts by lunchtime.


It was pretty while it lasted:

View from my front porch

A copper sprinkler I have not yet put away for winter - do you think it's time?

A birdhouse purchased at last spring's plant sale at the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden.

***

I didn't make it to this year's Maymont Flower & Garden show until today, the last day of the event. There's a risk in waiting until Sunday -- as flowers and displays can look drooping and spent by the end. Despite that, the displays seemed to have held up fairly well.

Here are a few of my favorites:

A display by the kids at the Chesterfield Technical Center, which was my favorite of the entire show.

A very interesting and unusual "Snake & Glass" display.

Some stunning tulips. (Click picture for larger image)

Some very impressive miniatures.

What was surprising to me was what seemed to be a lack of vendors as compared with years past. Maybe it's just the spaciousness of our new & improved Convention Center. Maybe some vendors pulled out early yesterday in anticipation of our so-called "blizzard".


Or maybe there really were fewer vendors, for whatever reason, which seems silly -- gardeners are always chomping at the bit to spend good money on garden-related items. There weren't many folks selling plants, which isn't so unusual at this time of year, but it was hard to find anyone even selling seeds.

I was good this year, and only bought:

an issue of the creme-de-la-creme of gardening magazines, and

three jars of yummy wild blueberry jam from Maine - one for me, two for other family members.

I'd say I escaped without too much damage -- more money saved to spend on plants at the spring plant sales!

What was more disappointing to me was the lack of interesting speakers, which is normally the highlight of the show for me. Yes, they had a full slate of speakers, and even had some on Sunday this year, which is a nice addition to the schedule. But the topics were all very ho-hum. Same-old, same-old. Not worth my time or money. And in my opinion, not up to par with speakers of past garden shows.

Last year a wonderful presentation was given by Norie Burnet, (the "Moss Lady"), a Bon Air gardener whose entire "lawn" is moss. She's been written up in several gardening magazines, and pictures of her moss lawn are a feast for the eyes. Her talk was interesting, her slides fantastic. At the end, she expertly answered lots of questions, and even had a "show-and-tell" of living examples of different kinds of mosses that grow in our area. Moss is a topic near-and-dear to my heart, as I, too, have lots of it growing in my yard, and I love it. (One of my all-time favorite gardening books is Moss Gardening by George Schenk.) I always have to chuckle when I get a flyer from ChemLawn in my mailbox telling me they can help me get rid of my "moss problem". Thanks, but no thanks!

Inspired by Norie's talk, I came home from the garden show last year and took some interesting pictures of my mosses, and I really should get out and take some more right now, as it's looking especially green and healthy. Perhaps I'll do that this week and share some in my next post, as there is nothing else flowering or exciting happening in the yard, now that the snow has melted.

Stay tuned!

***

More surprises....

What's this??

Something purpley bloomin' in mid-November?

A closer look....

Ahhh.... Lovely....

Somehow some (wild? weedy? did I plant these?) asters found their way into my garden, once again proving that I shouldn't give up on it. A nice little autumn surprise in the near 80-degree Indian Summer weather we've been having! [I just ask that you ignore the actual weeds in the first picture, which accusingly convict me of my longstanding neglect.]

Oh - and they smell nice, too.

A few more autumn crocus pics

Just when I'd completely given up...

...on my garden, this pops up:

My little autumn crocus bulbs (corms) I'd planted probably 7 or 8 years ago, (which I'd completely forgotten about and was sure had long since bitten the dust along with everything else in my wretched garden thanks to the worst drought on record), they're showing their lovely heads this week, just to prove me wrong.

This is why I love to garden - the lovely little surprises when you least expect them.

More pictures:

If I were any kind of gardener (or perhaps, any kind of cook), I'd be harvesting all those stamens for saffron. But, as is no surprise to anyone, I'm no kind of cook. The saffron will wither on the vine (stem).

I may be inspired to do some actual yard work, however, now that temperatures have cooled down quite a bit and it's actually pleasant outside. Now where is that rake...?

Dry as tinder...

No real update on this blog since May - that's really sad. But that's when I started going to California every week for work, and ended up on the world's most wretched project there ever was. This project was so wretched that I ended up, ultimately, quitting my job over it. I don't like to think of myself as a quitter, but I was ripe for it and the timing was right. My consulting firm, which I've loved ever since I joined it and which has been incredibly successful for the past few years, (record growth, national awards, etc.), was bought out by a VERY LARGE, OLD and WELL-KNOWN U.S.-BASED INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION, which shall remain nameless, but which I refer to as the BIG BORG, (resistance is futile. you will be assimilated). The firm I loved has all but disappeared in the absorption process that has followed the acquisition, and my loyalties diminished to the point where they were almost non-existant. All that being the case, however, I still would have stayed but for the wretched project on the opposite coast, where they planned to keep me for the next three years. Expressing my misery to upper management fell on deaf ears, and so I did what I had to do to keep my sanity. With no real prospects, I left, expecting to be spending the next 4-6 months looking for work again. I really wanted to find some work locally and get off the road and perhaps start the nursery business my brother & I talked about, but that process required finding the local work, and that has not happened as of yet. Therefore, I decided that from now on I would work as an independent consultant, where I could say "yay" or "nay" to projects as I see fit, and turn down the horrible, life-sucking commutes to the west coast. Being so picky, I knew, would mean I might have gaps of several months where I wasn't working, but I was okay with that. I was so burnt out from the west coast project that I was ready to do NOTHING for a couple of months -- I looked forward to it! But the break was not to be -- within two weeks I had an offer for a gig to subcontract as an indy consultant. I turned it down. It sounded too much like what I had just left, and it would mean being in the southeast in August - I sweat just thinking about the southeast in August. A week later they called me back and begged me to take the project. They offered more money. I reconsidered. So, I've been working in the southeast (in August, in September, soon to be October, November....), ever since. In my particular niche of expertise there is a lot of potential work coming down the pike in the next 5 to 10 years, so I think I made the right move, ultimately. We'll see if I'm singing that same song after I finish this project and am looking for another one. But from all the emails and phone calls and contacts from colleagues I've received, I think there's going to be plenty of work out there. It just makes it that much harder to wean myself from the very good pay and settle down locally. I do really miss being able to take classes and join clubs and work in my garden every day and belong to things and meet new people. What personal life I had when I worked locally has all but dwindled down to nothing. Sure - I have friends all over the country now, but where are they on a lonely Saturday night when all I have to comfort me is the Andy Griffith marathon on TVLand?

Okay, how about a little cheese with my whine?

Seriously, though, let's get back to the topic of this blog, which is gardening. There has been none. Nada. Nothing. Zip. Zero. Zilch. Nein. I haven't put spade to dirt in about five months. I've watered once all season. And, after the two previous record-breaking wet and rainy summers from which we became royally spoiled, we are now in the midst of the driest month ever recorded. (Well, that was yesterday, when it was September. We'll see what broken records October has to offer). So everything, I mean, EVERYTHING is shriveled up and brown and dead. It looks horrible. Even my Eupatorium coelestinum (perennial ageratum), which grows literally like a weed is nowhere to be seen. ....sigh.... So discouraging. Makes me question my gardening abilities. I surely haven't been in the mood to tend to anything, with the weather having been so hot and humid and rainless this summer. And now that Autumn is closing in and things should be perking up a bit before winter, they're dying back, instead. So discouraging. This may be my last gardening post of the year, unless I decide to post some pictures of my dead or dying garden.

I've since taken up a new hobby - knitting, and may start a new blog for that, just so I can keep track of my projects and the yarns and needles and stitches I've used on my projects. Might also be fun to track progress as I graduate (some day) from scarves to something more complicated....

So, it may be awhile before I post to this blog again. Perhaps not 'til spring is sprung, grass is riz, etc., and things are new and blooming and worth photographing and discussing again.... We'll see....

Long time, no blog....

Hello, my dear old blog....

It's been a loooong time since I've posted anything, and I have a lot of great excuses -- nothing to write about during the winter; busy working and traveling this spring, etc. Lame excuses, really, but life happens. I blog when the mood strikes. Don't want to make a chore out of it. I own the blog, the blog doesn't own me. Yadda, yadda, yadda.

My garden is looking nice these days -- I have a ton of Lady's Mantle blooming, which is quite striking. Irises are looking nice as well. My climbing William Baffin roses are also blooming. I added a couple of really cool birdhouses to the yard, one which is built on top of an old pitchfork so that you can plunge it into the garden soil. I have lots of buds on the hydrangeas, which is nice -- will have some big blue blooms come July.

I found a new yard service to cut my grass, (I know, what kind of gardener am I if I don't cut my own lawn???). I tell ya, that's the most hated chore I can think of, and I'm happy to pay someone to do it. I hate the smell of gasoline and exhaust that a lawnmower makes, and it just brings back sweaty memories of when I had to cut my parents yard as a teenager. So happy not to have to do it as an adult. Anyway, these guys are great -- cheaper than my old lawn guy, and they do a very good job, and reliable - they come every ten days or so without me having to call them. They did whack part of the clematis growing on my mailbox, but I swear I go through that every year with every yard guy -- they think it's a weed. Oh well - I made sure they knew about it today....

I am on a new project at work, and it is horrible -- it's on the opposite coast, so I'm either traveling there, or I'm working from home but on west coast time, which means I'm working at least twelve hours a day. The work itself is also wretched, and the project is unorganized and poorly managed. I'm about ready to quit, and this is a company I used to LOVE. I'm actually ready to do something new and completely different. I was moaning about it at dinner tonight with friends, and later when my brother came over. My brother is in a similar predicament, (we're both in I.T. and sick and tired of it), and so we got to talking and threw around the idea of going into some kind of business together, perhaps even a nursery or garden center! He already has a little side business raising trees to sell wholesale to nurseries. Man, I think that would be way cool! I've recently thought it would be nice to become a local grower of Delphiniums, my very favorite plant, as they are hard to find around here. The California or English kind don't grow all that well in our heat and humidity, but Terry Dowdeswell's New Zealand Delphiniums are reputed to do well in the American South, so that might be a niche we could fill. I love the idea of it, and it's something I'd be willing to pour blood, sweat, tears, (and money) into. We'll see....

My friend Linda has a son and a son-in-law in Iraq right now. Her husband is also in the army and is scheduled to go there in June. I don't know how she keeps her composure. (Well, yes I do. She's a strong believer and gains a lot of strength from her church, from friends, from her prayer group, etc.) Anyway, in response to my complaining about work, she suggested that I talk to her husband -- perhaps he could find me something to do over in Iraq. You know, the way I'm feeling about my job today, if a military recruiter would have walked into that restaurant, I would have signed up right then and there, and said, when can I go? And then I'd have woken up tomorrow morning and said, "WHAT HAVE I DONE??!!!???". It's important not to make hasty decisions! What's the old saying -- "H.A.L.T." -- never make a life-changing decision when you're Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired. And so I will ponder all of these things in my heart, and pray about them, too....

If I can get my camera all charged up, I will take some garden pictures and perhaps post them this weekend, (maybe).

Next weekend, (YAY - a holiday!), I'm going to my brother's lakehouse -- can't wait!

Happy Memorial Day (ten days early)!

Roses are Blue...

Rose - 'Blue Girl', photo taken in my garden, May 2003

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Up until this year, the rose in the photo above was the "bluest" rose available, and, as you can see, calling it "blue" is a bit of a stretch. There are definitely faint tinges of periwinkle/lavender on the edges, but really, any normal person taking a quick glance at that rose would call it pink. You have to look really hard to see the "blue".

There's a very "purpley" rose called 'Rhapsody in Blue' that's been available in the UK for a few years and is being tested by AARS in the US right now, and as gorgeous as it is, I think the average layman would still call it purple. That won't prevent me from including it in my garden though -- I love the color. I've read it will be available for retail sale in the US by 2006. I can't wait!

I do have another "blue" rose that grows next to 'Blue Girl', called 'Lagerfeld', (both are Hybrid Teas), and it is even less "blue" than 'Blue Girl', but since blue is not a color natural to roses, beggars can't be choosers.

Until now.

There has been some recent, ground-breaking research in the area of blue roses, and we could see them in florist shops as early as next Valentine's Day. (Wouldn't that be an interesting message to send your loved one -- a bouquet of blue roses!) A biology/biochemistry/botany geek might appreciate a more scientific explanation here and here.

I, for one, cannot wait until such a true-blue rose is available to purchase as a shrub to be planted in my garden!

Second Spring

Early-to-mid Spring (mid-April to mid-May) is always the prettiest time in my garden, with all the bulbs and irises and azaleas blooming, but now, in late-Spring-early-summer (mid June), the garden is in its second flush and there's lots blooming today.

My Vitex agnus-castus (Chaste tree) is blooming beautifully, and my Hydrangeas ('Nikko Blue') continue to bloom in all their sky-blue glory. Daylilies are opening all over the place, and my Monarda (Bee Balm) is looking great. Additionally, there are Echinacea (Purple Cone Flower) and Rudbeckia (Black-eyed Susans) looking great in my "sun bed".

I also planted a new Canna ('Red Fortuity') in my sun bed to add some nice color in the middle with the dark red foliage as well as the red blooms. What I didn't notice until after I planted it and read the tag was that it only grows to a maximum height of 30 inches, and I really needed a taller (~ 4 feet) Canna in the middle of that bed. So, I will most likely move this small guy to the edge, and get another, taller one in there, if I can find one locally (or perhaps buy one off the internet). In any case, it's blooming today, and I must admit that I didn't used to be a fan of red anything in my garden, but this Canna has a really pretty colored bloom -- a blue-ish, rather than orange-ish, red. I've also added a purple sand cherry (Prunus cistena) in the middle, and planted three purple fountain grasses (Pennisetum setaceum 'Rubrum') in various spots of that same bed, again to add more punches of color, so that when nothing is blooming during the heat of summer, the bed won't look like such a weedy unkempt mess.

Lots to do tomorrow, and alas, none of it is gardening related. I have several errands to run, in addition to visiting mom & dad for Father's Day. I also need to do laundry and pack, as I am now back on the road again for what looks like most of the summer. At least this time I'm going North (to New England) for the project, but that didn't help me this past week -- it ended up taking 14 hours to get home on Thursday, what with all the travel delays due to thunderstorms in the Northeast. Spent two hours sitting on the runway in Hartford, and then six hours waiting at the gate for our plane to arrive in Philly. Ahhh... the life of a consultant. Thank God I had my DVD's with me -- they saved my sanity. Right now I'm in the midst of PBS' "Forsyte Saga" and am really enjoying it. I'm dying to watch the last two episodes, but don't have any more DVD's to take with me for next week's travel, so am trying to make do with !#$%^&* that's on tv this weekend. I may just have to up my Netflix membership after all, so that I won't run out of movies on the weekends!

Okay, enough blathering. If all goes well and I find a pocket of time tomorrow, I'll upload my latest gardening pictures that I took today. (I'd do it tonight, but the camera is charging).

What Gardeners Want...

Well, I had a mildly scary thing happen to this blog the other day. I was editing the template, and went to preview the edits, and the preview page hung, so I closed it and when I went back to editing the template, most of the HTML code was gone except the first few lines. So, after the blog was published again, it was essentially blank, except for the ad at the top and the green background. I sent a couple of "Help!" emails to Blogger tech support, hoping they could help me figure out how to find my lost code, but got absolutely no response, so decided to just re-select the same template from the choices offered, knowing that all my edits would be gone. (They were probably gone forever, anyway).

So, now I'm back in blogness, but I need to add back the Links for the side panel that I had added to my edited template, which means I need to actually remember what those links were, and find their URL's again. This then led me to an attempt at organizing my gardening favorites in MSIE, which is not as easy as it could be -- I think this is definitely something that Microsoft could improve on in their next version of Internet Explorer -- they need to make a click-and-drag option, and the ability to select multiple links to drag into a sub-folder, much like how one can organize files in Windows Explorer. Anyway, so, in my effort to organize my gardening links into sub-folders, as well as get rid of old, dead links, I have done a lot of surfing on gardening websites in the last two days.

Which leads me to the subject of this post -- What Gardeners Want.

As I surfed gardening cyberspace, I stumbled upon an interesting website for a botanical reference library or master gardening website, (I didn't save the URL and forget which site it was now), but which had a list I thought was interesting enough to save to a text file. They describe their list as "What Gardeners Want: What information do gardeners seek? Our reference logs reflect their most common concerns". Basically, it's a list of the main categories of reference questions that the group receives from gardeners who call, email, or come in looking for information. I thought it would be a good list for me to have, in order to find and post what I consider the best internet resources for each of those needs.

Here is the list of information that the typical gardener seeks for their most common gardening concerns:

1) Diagnostic — something is wrong with a plant. Need to identify pests, diseases, environmental situations, and recommend solutions.

2) Plant identification — what plant is this?

3) Right plant, right place — gardener needs plants appropriate for situation, i.e., shade plants or seashore plants or plants for slopes, etc.

4) Cultivation information — how to grow, care for, and propagate the plant.

5) Where to buy plants — especially ones not locally or easily available.

6) Garden travel — which gardens to visit and best time to visit.

7) Where to learn more — where to take classes, attend lectures, join a plant society; book recommendations; Web site recommendations.

8) How to research historic landscapes — user needs period garden designs and plants.


I will do my best to find at least one good website that represents each of those gardening information needs, as well as a few other excellent websites thrown in for good measure, and post them over on the right in my sidebar, under the Links heading. Stay tuned....

One other thing I noticed as I've been surfing quite a bit these past two days -- there are an awful lot of disappointingly dead website links out there. I guess every website has a lifespan, and some have shorter lives than others, especially if they're not maintained. One of the most disappointingly absent websites, in my opinion, is Barbara Barton's Gardening By Mail,a directory of mail-order resources for gardeners in the United States and Canada, which used to be hosted here, and then here, but both sites no longer exist. Gardeners' Supply Company now owns the Virtual Garden domain, and Time-Life owns the Pathfinder domain, but neither hosts the Gardening By Mail website any longer. The website(s) came after the books she published, and her Fifth (last) Edition is still available for purchase at Amazon and other booksellers. As time marches on and no new editions come out, and there's not a dynamic website that is maintained and updated, the information in her book is becoming increasingly obsolete, but at the time it came out, (1997), it was a golden resource. I suppose she and her website have hit a "publish or perish" phenomenon.... Here's hoping she'll publish a new one, and/or that someone else will take on hosting her website, since Time-Life dropped the ball. So for now, if you're looking for a particular plant, maybe your best option is to Google it....

Gorgeous weather these past few days, so what am I doing inside? Later!

What's Bloomin'...?

This photo and the ones beneath it show what's blooming in my garden today. I love when the Hydrangeas are at their peak, and the daylilies are blooming. I can't wait for my Bee Balm to start blooming, which should be any day now....

Daylilies, Queen Anne's Lace, and Hydrangeas
blooming in my oak tree bed

Daylily

Daylily

Yet another Daylily

yet another daylily

Hollyhock - Pink & White

Pink & White Hollyhock

Hollyhock

Hollyhock

Hydrangea 'Nikko Blue'

Hydrangea 'Nikko Blue'

You get this color blue when your soil is acidic. The blooms will be more purpley, or even pink, if the soil is alkaline. I try and put Espoma's Hollytone (good for acid-loving plants) around my Hydrangeas and azaleas every spring and fall, which seems to help keep my Hydrangeas this clear blue color.

Ahhhhh... Zanfel

Well, I'm convinced -- this stuff does work for poison ivy relief. Four days ago I had ever-increasing blisters doing a blitz-krieg march across my hands, my arms, my stomach, my legs, and the itching was driving me to distraction. Today I am in healing mode. The blisters have gone down, there are no new "outbreaks", and the terrible, endless itching was gone pretty much after the first use of Zanfel. I do still have some minor itching, but that is the healing-skin type of itch, and I can definitely live with that. I don't need to wear bandaids anymore, which is also a bonus.

A friend told me recently that her "miracle-cure" for poison ivy is that stuff called "Icy-Hot", which you can find at the drugstore on the pain-relief aisle with the ace bandages and what-not. I may give it a whirl after my next bout, but I do like my Zanfel now. I found it for half-price on ebay, so I bought three tubes of it and am ready to strike, early on in my next inevitable poison ivy outbreak.

Poor, poor pitiful poison ivy

As mentioned in a previous post, poison ivy always gets worse before it gets better, and this time is no different. Today, after running out of the umpteen bandaids I use to cover it up, and finding limited relief from hydrocortisone cream and ointment, it was back to the drugstore for more options. I started stocking up on everything they had, and found something on the shelf with the calamine lotions called Zanfel, which claims to basically cure you of poison ivy, at any stage of the reaction, and often with just one use. I thought, I've got to try this stuff, and then I looked at the price.

Forty dollars.

For one ounce.

I bought it anyway.

Their website, www.zanfel.com, has several impressive testimonials, and it is also recommended on this other, noncommercial site, http://poisonivy.aesir.com/view/zanfel.html, with numerous ringing endorsements.
The Washington Post reported on it back in 2002: A Rash of Endorsements for a Poison Ivy Cream.

As a woman of science and logic, I will perform my own product testing with myself as guinea pig, and report back on the results after I try it.

Stay tuned....

Brrrrrr... June?

Yes, it's June 5th, in Central Virginia, and our high temperature today is a balmy 60 degrees. It feels and looks like Seattle out there today. But this is typical, schizophrenic Virginia spring weather, where we'll see temps in the 90's in April, and then in the 60's in June. I won't complain, I won't complain, I won't complain.... Pretty soon it'll be July and these cool wet days will be long gone, so I need to appreciate them while I can. Suffering from this poison ivy makes me want to shirk the garden, for the time being, until it heals. I really need to wear gloves out there all the time, especially when weeding.

One of my guilty pleasures on Saturdays is to watch the gardening shows you can find on various channels, my favorites being: Victory Garden (PBS), Gardening by the Yard, Spring!, and Gardener's Diary (HGTV). So I spent most of the day inside, since weather and poison ivy are against me, and enjoyed my shows!

I have added links to my sidebar, to some good gardening and botanical websites, and a few other websites I have. Happy surfing!

Rain, rain...

It's 64 and rainy today -- not so good for gardening, but God is doing all the watering that I had planned on doing out there today anyway, so really, He took over my garden chore for the day -- thanks God!

In the meantime, I'm calling painting contractors to schedule estimates -- the house hasn't been painted since I bought it ten years ago. So far, my first estimate was way high, and the second one was not much better -- I hope some of the others are lower. I tell ya, dealing with contractors is a crap-shoot. You call twenty, 5 call back, three show up, and the one you pick doesn't return your calls after he's supposedly "finished". Lesson learned: don't pay these guys until after you've inspected the work thoroughly. Also -- you can look up their contractor's license on the State's website, to see if they're legit, and if they have any complaints against them.

I've spent quite a bit of time at home these past months, for various reasons -- unemployment, employment-but-no-assignment, etc., and it has definitely given me more time to garden, which is good, but I'm paying for it now -- I have poison ivy all over my hands, and I somehow got it around my belly-button, don't ask me how! It's a miserable condition, one that always gets worse before it gets better (can take me as long as a month to heal), and those of you out west who don't have the stuff, I envy you!

I bought myself a DVD player last fall and promptly joined Netflix, which I'm loving, although lately there's been a real slow-down in delivery, and I can't tell if it's the USPS to blame, or Netflix, or both. Perhaps I'm noticing it more right now because I'm right in the middle of watching all the Sex and the City DVD's, and it's killing me when I can't pop in the next one when I'm done with the last one. I could always up my membership to have 5 or 8 movies out at a time, but, really, that's just decadent, and normally, when I'm busy and working, that's not realistic anyway. I'm almost done, anyway -- up to Season 5, disk 2 (hopefully arriving tomorrow). That's one of the things I miss about not being on the road -- I don't get HBO at home, although, now that Sex is off the air, what do I care? I liked Six Feet Under, and can't remember if I heard they're bringing that back or not. I'll have to add their latest season to my queue....

I'm going to end this post, for now, so as not to bore the poor reader to death.

A gorgeous blue...

Siberian Iris

This Siberian Iris grows in what I call my "oak tree bed" near the front of my house. I planted it at least five years ago, and it comes up reliably every year.

Welcome!

I've decided to create an on-line gardening journal, of sorts, after I found this exceptional blog site. I hope to be able to post some pictures from my garden, describe my plants and plantings, rave over successes and moan over failures, and perhaps share links to great gardening websites I run across.

Thank you for reading my very first posting!