Kathy's Garden Journal ...and Musings

31 August 1998 - Do you notice that entries have been rather sparse? That's because August is the month of survival and tolerance in the garden! You water to keep things alive until the shorter days and cooler temperatures come to the rescue...not to mention a bit of needed moisture? My focus this month, during those fleeting moments when I had one, was to groom and get some of the hopeful beds ready for fall and prettier times. The Ash bed has had unwanted weeds removed and foliage of tired plants mercilessly cut to the ground. Daylilies get pretty worn out by this time, but many of them are starting to send up some fresh new leaves. I lop off their heads to about half their original height and then groom out the totally brown or yellowed leaves. Bearded Iris need some attention in the same way and browned margins on the tops of the fans are removed and old crispy leaves at the base carefully pulled off. I have also managed to groom in the white bed and did that on one of those days where one walks out to look at something and an hour and half later, has actually gotten quite a bit done (in night clothes...always!). The Oak Bed is partly finished and the next area I'll address whenever I get back outdoors. The weather has been a bit hot and this morning I picked up 8 boxes of Elberta peaches for canning, so that will be the major focus during the next ten days. School is about to start and canning will probably commence the same day. Don't despair...I'll probably not do more and a box and a half in one day. Constant sorting and prioritizing of peaches takes place throughout and I only do the ones that have just gotten ripe enough but not too soft. They are SO good during the winter, and one of the only fruits I've been canning during the past several years.

The fall bloomers are starting to make their entrance onto the garden stage. Colchicum ("Autumn Crocus") is blooming in the back bed. There are a few more planted near the deck, but the "groundcover" of Rosemary is becoming taller than I'd hoped, so I don't know how long it will take the Colchicum to get their heads above all those stems. I took a couple of pictures of the ones in back and hope that at least one turns out. My Colchicum are not as huge and happy as some I've seen, but they come back anyway...tough little critters! The Cyclamen hederifolium are blooming under the Dogwood tree near the front entry. I don't have lots of them, but they are still charming in shades of white and pink. The pink ones were carefully dug from the lawn of a rental my sister and her husband lived in just prior to his untimely death. I will always think of him when I look at those plants. The leaves will follow and be beautiful until the early summer, when they begin to go dormant.

While working in the Oak Bed cutting back daylily foliage, I kept picking up the most delightful sweet smell...different than I'd noticed in the yard during the earlier part of the summer. It turned out to be the Artemisia lactiflora which is mostly hidden by a clump of Echinops ritro. The Artemisia is different than its siblings in having green foliage, white Astilbe-like flowers and liking moisture. Mine doesn't get as much moisture and feeding as it would prefer, but it still comes back. Also blooming presently in the Oak Bed is the clear blue Caryopteris (which would also look better with more water) and a Crocosmia variety called 'Emily McKenzie.' Emily is a bit on the tender side, but has the biggest flowers of a Crocosmia with a beautiful marking in the throat...if you can manage to lay on your stomach and look up into the flowers!

The Asters are all LATE this year and my 'Professor Kippenburg' is still not in full dress! I wonder if he'll make it before fall. Sedum 'Autumn Joy' is starting to turn from green to pale pink and will get showier as the season progresses into fall. If we have any honeybees, they will go to this plant. I just saw my FIRST honeybee for the season during the past week. Mites have almost decimated our honeybee population over the past several years. Thank goodness we have the dependable and tireless Bumblers to do the job of pollination.

We have a couple of Heathers (Calluna vulgaris) blooming near the entry. One is an old standby called 'H.E. Beale' (sure hope I got the initials right!). It is a soft blush pink double and will be attractive into winter even after the flowers have gone brown. The other is a prostrate variety in a darker pink and I've forgotten the name (if I weren't so lazy I would comb through my lists and find it...something I might do later). Also providing late summer color are a number of hardy Fuchsias, and of course the tireless Dahlias and Roses.

As I was sprawled on the front sidewalk trying to take a photo of a small flower on the Ajuga growing nearby, I thought how this time of the year is the season for "closeups" in the garden. You have to look pretty close to see something pretty and block out all that tired, brown and tattered stuff! In May you can stand at a distance and be smitten by a multitude of colors. We will have those moments briefly in the fall when nature becomes a tapestry of warm and cool...ruddy and jewel-toned. What a way to go out!

9 August 1998 - On a foray to Eagle Hardware in search of a new shower for the basement, I came home with three gallon sized Echinacea 'Magnus.' They were just starting to bloom and were irresistible! I had some Echinacea on the West side in the messy area, but don't know if it has survived being overrun with weeds and grass. They don't like to be crowded and I've lost them before. It is interesting to study the shapes of the flowers, since they were all tagged the same. One had drooping rays, another had a lesser count but the rays were larger and a bit deeper in color, and the third had lots of rays in a slightly lighter shade of mauve. I could have selected some that looked the same, but liked the slight variations. Someone on the Garden Web Forum recently asked about getting the Echinacea with drooping petals and how to do that...I guess you just have to select them when they are in bloom, or get a species that tends to droop most of the time, since the hybridizers seem to want to rid them of that charming quality. I planted these in the back where we've gotten it weeded and barked. Near them will be a Perovskia and a Caryopteris. If the Coneflowers do okay, they should be even better next season.

The rhodies that were cut back severely on the north side of the house are showing signs of growth. R. 'Hurricane' actually has lots of leaves now and the other one only teeny little buds starting to break (it was a later variety). I was a bit concerned that they might not respond to such extreme measures, but am glad to see them coming back. I fear they will come back sooner than I'd prefer!

The weather has been warm but the nights are starting to get cooler. Sometimes in the evenings it almost feels like September, which I love. It gets me pumped to get outside and do more before winter and make the yard look pretty in the fall...which it can. Grooming is everything this time of year.

6 August 1998 - Not a lot has been accomplished in the garden the past two weeks, except a bit of grooming and watering. My back is still kind of tight, but I will probably try to do some tidying up tomorrow in beds that were weeded this year. There are still grasses coming up where I thought I had taken all the runners out...an almost impossible task! Fortunately, some of the perennials are almost as persistent and I've been surprised at what is coming back up where it appeared there was nothing. Today I saw some Alstroemeria foliage just peeking above the bark where I had my last weeding session about a month ago. I was thrilled because this was such a pretty plant...one of the smaller pink varieties more like what you get at a florist. There are also a couple kinds of Phlox coming up where it should have died by now, but I find that Phlox is very tough stuff...especially the old variety that I mostly have left. The piece in the ash bed that was a surprise is 'Miss Lingard,' if I'm not mistaken ( or is it... "Miss Lingard, I presume?").

The foliage on many of the spring and early summer bloomers is quite tired by now and would benefit from cutting back. As far as what's new...as of the last couple of days I've noticed that the Aster divaricatus is open and there are a few Cyclamen hederifolium up and open. To me they are the forerunners of fall. Sedum 'Vera Jameson' has buds that are just beginning to have a tiny flicker of color showing at the tops. Other surprises in the garden are finding volunteer plants that seized the opportunity after weeding happened...things like snapdragons where there used to be some a couple of years ago. Two of them have bloomed in the rose frontal and they are almost identical to the original pink and white miniatures that sired them. A couple sprung up in the ash bed and the original plants were a really bright orange/bronze. I don't know yet what the offspring will look like. Perovskia is open, hardy Fuchsia, and Rudbeckia 'Goldsturm' is beginning to show some color. The old fashioned Crocosmia crocosmiflora is now open...on the heels of the larger types.

The garden is producing Zucchini and green beans...also new potatoes and a few tomatoes are ripe enough to bring in. There are weeds out there, but we will eat a lot out of that space before it goes down to frost. Blueberries have been out for a bit but the birds don't share very many. Just as it appeared we had enough to pick that were actually ripe, either birds or kids moved in and cleaned them in one day! (We really could declare this place a bird sanctuary. There are so many species and just high numbers.) Wild blackberries are in full swing, but my days of picking and making jam are about over. There is a ton of it in the basement that we haven't used and the kids don't use as much as they once did.

Speaking of kids (and especially those that still like jam), Robert is in Europe today. He should be in Amsterdam for a couple of days before going to Berlin. We may not hear anything for awhile, but hope he is okay, having a good time, and finding places to sleep at night! It will be a three week vacation for him and then he comes home to start looking for work in art design.

23 July 1998 - Been a bit under par for the past two days, but my headache is lifting and I'm starting to be able to walk normal again! Too much grooming before bedtime set me up for a stiff back (look pretty funny when I walk!). All I've done today is set the sprinkler in a couple of places and do some grooming in the driveway bed. While grooming the Ash Bed the other night I noticed that the deer had nibbled one of the smaller hardy geraniums that I was hoping would recover from transplanting so I just sprinkled blood meal over it. Should have done that sooner. I have a lovely little color clash in that bed that will pass in about a week. There's a beautiful Crocosmia that is a large orange with a bit of a pinkish overtone that is hovering over a rich deep purple Supertunia petunia...yow! Now that I've cut off the old yellow Achillea flowers in that spot, it isn't quite as bad...more low key. I love the yellow with the Geranium psilostemon when it is in bloom, but after they are out for a long time the Achillea flowers take on mustard tones with a bit of brown that is pretty ugly! New silvery foliage is nice however.

We have a nest of swallows over our front porch that are creating quite the mess. They usually try to nest there and since the year that we watched the babies succumb to heat one by one, I've tried to knock it down before they got serious. This season I didn't get it done soon enough and thought maybe the height of the Dogwood tree would provide more shade to that spot. The sun still beats down on the roof and they just get too hot, so every day since our weather has warmed up, we've been putting a fan on the porch to keep the little guys cool (usually from about 11:00 to 5:00 in the afternoon). I think that they will be fledging in a few more days, and we won't have to drag the fan out there anymore. Today, one of them is sitting outside the nest and that's usually something that happens as they are preparing to test their wings.

We are approaching my least favorite time in the garden, but there's still a lot to enjoy outside. The daylilies still have color, but will probably be nearly over in another week. They were more brightly colored today and some varieties that are kind of ho-hum, were really glowing with new tints! It's because we had a warmer night last evening after having a 90 degree day. This is why many varieties don't look as good in the Northwest as they do in the catalogs...we usually don't have the night temperatures they get in the Midwest, where many of the growers are located.

The later Crocosmia varieties are opening and I particularly have my eye on a seedling in the oak bed. It came from the C. 'Lucifer' plantings but is more orange and has a showy yellow throat that is fairly large with some little orange markings on the lower petal. I'll try to get a good picture in another day or so when more flowers are open. The lavenders are at their peak and I'd forgotten how wonderful it smells outside when they come out. It's not a scent that really identifies itself when you pick it up at a distance, but it speaks late summer and fall to me! The Nicotiana alata is really wonderful at night, but the plants are getting quite floppy and will need some hacking pretty soon. I hate to do it because the little hummingbirds really love those and they will still be blooming when some of their other favorite plants have finished (Dierama and Crocosmia). The cat managed to do a little pruning in her attempt to catch a hummingbird (I hope she failed...I've been chasing her when I see her laying in wait). She mostly munched a stand of Borage and there's more where that came from, but it kind of squashed the Aster frickartii 'Monch' that is just starting to open (one of my favorite perennials). The other Aster in the yard that is beginning to open is 'Professor Kippenburg.' It usually opens a bit sooner than this, but we've had lots of cool cloudy weather in the early summer that retarded its development, but provided lots of moisture so that it will really be beautiful! I love to sit next to a clump of Aster and watch all the little bees and Skippers (a small butterfly) and occasional large beautiful butterfly that will visit. If you wave your arm over the plant, a huge cloud of pollinating insects will disperse (I don't do it too often and they come right back)!

I've decided that I'm just not going to make a lot of headway in the back right now where all the grass is growing. If I wait a bit longer, it will not only be cooler, but I can cut back things that are currently in bloom and reset them. I just hope I can get through it all before winter.

13 July 1998 - Things are slowing down here as far as yard goes, but progress is still happening. I usually don't work much on the heavy stuff during the summer and prefer to water and groom, but it's necessary to keep pushing toward finishing in the back by this fall, so I make myself go out and work (and get all gross and sweaty!). I can't remember all the plants that used to grow and are no longer there, but have been pleased to uncover some more that I was sure had gone by the wayside. Hopefully, they'll fill out now that they have more light and less competition. An aster 'Patricia Ballard' still had some life in it and I also found a small fragment of a pretty Thalictrum dipterocarpum. It really would prefer a moister environment, which I don't have, but maybe it will respond to some alfalfa pellets and added humus in the soil. Sadly, quite a few pieces of Anemone 'Prince Henry' have gone on the compost pile. It runs and had grown into the path and across on the other side. I saved some a couple of weeks ago and potted them up to eventually give to my physical therapist (I need to get back in!), but didn't want to fuss with these and they don't like being disturbed very well anyway...if I could find someone to take them they would have to baby them along for awhile since it's getting hot out.

The buddleias are in their full glory and it's a pleasure to work in back and be able to enjoy their fragrance. Buddleia 'Pink Delight' is in full bloom and has really large spikes. Yesterday I saw a Swallowtail butterfly working them over. He was missing one of the ends of the back of his wings...probably from a bird trying to use him for lunch. Today, I saw my first Painted Lady. There have been other sightings this past couple of weeks of Swallowtail and Admiral butterflies.

The Crocosmia 'Lucifer' is fully open and the clump in the oak bed is flopping all over its neighbors. The hummingbirds go wild for this plant and I get a kick out of them fighting and chasing each other around. There were three little guys in dispute over who had ownership of that bed a couple of mornings ago. Near the pink buddleia in back is an Acanthus spinosus. It is still not really an established large clump, but it has the best bloom spikes so far and the subtle pinkish mauve on the hoods of the flowers echo some of the pink of the buddleia flowers nearby (hopefully, one of the pictures I took will turn out). Another buddleia which I love... B. 'Lochinch' is fully open on the north side of the arbor. It is flanked by seeding grasses and gasping perennials, but is glorious! That is probably my favorite of all because of its prolific soft lavender/blue flowers and silvery foliage. It takes up a fair amount of room but is nice and full with yearly pruning.

Two clumps of dahlia are rewarding me for weeding around them and giving them some organic feeding. In the past few days they are opening with beautiful flowers. I think this is their best year. One of them is 'Alfred Grill'. I got it from Dutch Gardens and it is a nice blend of soft yellow and peach/pink. I wouldn't want to collect tons of dahlias, but they can really perk up the perennial beds. One of my favorites that I will probably have to replant (don't' know if it's alive still) is 'Park Princess.' It's a wonderful warm pink spider and a manageable height to mix into the perennial bed.

Kids and gardens can sometimes be in conflict and we just had an incident about an hour ago. Our oldest son let a friend back up his truck so that he could take off the canopy and leave it next to the bark pile in back. From inside we heard a rather loud crashing noise (a slow speed type) and looked out to see that they had hit a red oak tree that had been planted in its spot for about 6 or 7 years. It took a piece of bark out of the trunk but I don't think it actually broke anything. There was a bit of a leaning problem after impact, however, and I had the boys do some filling and tamping on the South side of the hole. I think they sensed my displeasure when I came back and shared my feelings about their lack of attention! (We already completely had a young tree sheered off by same son when he was a bit younger. He came up the driveway rather "quickly" after a period of rainfall and tried to make his usual turn on the hillside near the barn. The car got away from him and mowed over a maple. It might have made it if he'd gotten out and checked before backing up the car!) This tree should be okay. Maybe I should tie some yellow ribbons on it so they can see it better! :-)

2 July 1998 (Happy Birthday, Catriona!) - We're still inching our way through the West Perennial Bed. It's pretty awful where the weeding hasn't happened because of the tall seeding grasses, which are now starting to lighten in color and dry out. Without mulch, I'd have a hayfield later for sure! The daylilies are really going strong and the true lilies are opening. The agapanthus is starting to pop, the buddleias are beginning to open (with their root beer-like scent) and there are more flowers coming on the penstemons. Hardy salvias have enough heat to do their thing by now and the Salvia hians in the back is fully open and providing drink for the hummingbirds. It is a blue-violet color and has tall branching stems. The leaves are huge and hairy and if crushed have a pleasant fruity aroma.The best part of the garden at this time is the FRAGRANCE at night! I had forgotten how much magic the garden held for me in the evenings until I was weeding the other night around 8:30 and was treated to the waftings of Nicotiana elata that grows near the rosebed. To add to the Nicotiana are the dwarf oriental lilies which have a heavy and slightly similar scent. With all the smelling and then running around taking pictures, I didn't get as much weeding done as I'd hoped!

Ah! There was once a beautiful perennial border in front of this fence. This was one of my favorite spots in the summer. You can only partly see how much grass has crept in here and I haven't gotten to this patch yet (It's on the view side of the arbor in the back). I was thrilled though, when I saw that the Alstroemeria was still alive and actually bloomed! I know the roots go really deep once it gets established, but since I loved the color so much, I figured it was a goner (I've gotten cynical)! Hopefully, in another month I will have crept along to this point in the border and by next spring it will be beautiful again.

This is a little hard to make out, but hiding in the boughs of this tree is one of the reasons I get woke up before my time every morning. We had crows build a nest in a rather small fir in back and there are two offspring being raised there. They are flying (rather clumsily) now and constantly squawking to be fed. I really hate that!

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