A dilettante's guide to garden planning

Roses are red, violets are blue.  I love gardening, do you?

As much as I love actually gardening, I love garden planning almost as much. It is a gardener's winter therapy.  The new plant and seed catalogs are piling up on my desk, full of picture-perfect flowers and bright promises of warmer months ahead.  (Okay, so it's really just daydreaming and doodling, but it's with a purpose.)

I especially love planning when I have a blank slate to work with, like I do now.  First up on my to-do list is to create a potager-style vegetable garden with raised beds.

And my heart's desire:  a long sweeping border full of flowers for cutting.

It would be easy to dive into a planting frenzy - so many plants provide gorgeous bouquets.

But instead of buying and planting willy-nilly, I have a method for designing these beds that will look thoughtfully landscaped, but not formal or boring, offering an evolving sequence of blooms from spring to fall.    It's cottage gardening with some self-control.  If you follow this method, you'll never wind up with a tall plant squatting in front of a delicate, diminutive one, or loud heavy orange blooms squeezing up against a froth of lacy pale pink petals.  Unless you want to, of course.

Step 1:  Determine the size of your bed (it can have curves, but this scheme works best with oblong or rectangle beds. Planting schemes can be adapted for island beds in round, kidney or square shapes - we'll talk about those in a future post.)

Step 2: Plot the bed on a rough grid of 12-inch or 18-inch squares (curves and bends are easily accommodated:  you can drop a plant out, squish it in closer, or ease it to the left or right instead of being perfectly gridlocked.)  Big grids or little grids?  Personally, I plan - and plant - on a 12-15 inch grid for a fuller look.  But I have been known to regret it when a plant sprawls larger than I anticipated. Huge plants and shrubs can be given a double or quadruple spot on the grid.

The top/back row is plotted (left-right): Tall/Early, Tall/Mid, Tall/Late, Tall/Early, Tall/Mid, Tall/Late...repeating as many times as needed.

The middle row is plotted as Medium/Late, Medium/Early, Medium/Mid, Medium/Late, Medium/Early, Medium/Mid....

And the front/bottom row is plotted as Short/Mid, Short/Late, Short/Early, Short/Mid, Short/Late, Short/Early...

Step 3: Choose your plants.  Depending on the size of your space and your sensibilities, you can choose one, two or three different plants for each height and bloom season.  (Fewer choices will give you more repetition and a more formal, polished look. Choosing more varieties will give you a fuller, freer look. However, if you go with more than three different plants for each height and bloom period, try to make sure each plant is included at least 3 times and choose plants that are similar in color and/or texture to provide visual continuity.)

Below is what my planting scheme looks like for each season (each block of color represents a specific plant's bloom color; the green blocks are the foliage on adjacent plants when they are not in bloom at that time.) Each of these plans represents an area 3 feet by 12 feet - I'll just keep repeating it down the fence row, stretching approximately 16 feet on each side of a wide gate.  I'm using two plants per height and bloom season; 18 different plants will be repeated every 6 feet.

See how the flower colors start demure and pastel in spring and become more vibrant in summer and blazing hot colors in the fall?  It's almost impossible to find screaming orange blooms in early spring (except tulips), or muted pastels in the fall, and I think it's easier and more natural looking for your colors to to work with Mother Nature than trying to fight her.

E=early/spring flowers

M=mid/summer flowers

L=late/fall flowers

By staggering your plants by their peak bloom times, you don't wind up with a bunch of competing (or clashing) blooms lined up in front of one another.  Instead, each season builds to a peak, then  gradually gives way to the next. By designating each plant as tall (I classify anything over 4 feet as tall), medium (2-3 feet) and short (under 2 feet), you ensure that the tall ones are always in the back.

What about the advice of planting your perennials in groups of 3s or 5s and creating big swaths of color for impact?  The ugly truth is those swaths tend to turn into huge voids when the bloom season ends. By repeating the plants every second or third spot, you get rhythm and continuity without "busy-ness"  and the entire bed looks fresh and full of blooms from spring to frost.

If you like this idea, you're welcome to borrow it and apply  your plants to it; please send pictures and bragging tales of your success stories!

If you are interested in having a planting scheme and nursery shopping list created for you, please contact me.  I create custom plans based on your climate, sun and shade environment as well as your personal plant preferences, for a small fee. The plans include a planting chart and specific plant recommendations, plus mail order sources for varieties that may not be available in your area.

It's way too soon to get planting, but now is the time to get planning, especially if you are ordering any plants for spring delivery.

Happy gardening,
.

Inheriting a garden

Moving into an existing house means inheriting more than a floorplan, paint and carpet colors.

What happens when the last resident was a gardener and you inherit their plants and planting schemes?

If you're not a gardener, you probably don't give the green stuff much thought - it either gets ignored until it turns into brown stuff, or it gets mulched or mowed down.

If you are a gardener, it is a mystery to be solved.  It can be as frustrating as teasing apart a knot, taxing your patience and persistence.  As each new plant sprouts up, you peer closely; is it a weed to be yanked or a plant to be nurtured?  What color will it bloom?  Is it situated properly for its sun/shade and moisture requirements?  Does it need to be fertilized or pruned or just left alone? Common wisdom says to let the garden have four seasons to unfold before you make radical changes.  That gives everything time to make an appearance, and gives you time to decide if you like the landscaping, or if you want to overhaul or tweak it.

When we first toured this house, it was December (our anniversary, to be precise).  Not a good time of year to know what might by lying in dormancy in the garden.

The roses had been severely pruned in the fall, but I knew from the real estate photos they were red Knockout roses, and the pruned canes and grafts appeared to be healthy and vigorous.   True rosarians will snub these as too commonplace, lacking scent and their stubby stems too short for bouquets.  But as a landscape shrub in the south, they are tough to beat - they bloom repeatedly, are not prone to blackspot and they appear relatively immune to attacks from the Japanese beetles.  (I picked off a few the other day, but nothing like the beetle orgies I have encountered on my Old Garden Roses in the past.)

Throughout the spring, peonies, bearded irises and Shasta daisies have popped up and bloomed, and even snapdragons and morning glories have put in an appearance. Some hibiscus are ready to pop open, and I'm on pins and needles to see what color they'll bloom.

In the back yard, a few hostas and daylilies struggle in some tough-to-grow spots.  I've moved the hostas to a shadier bed (out of the path of the lawnmower and weed whacker); the daylilies will get moved to a sunnier location along with some clumps of my faves I moved from our old house yesterday.

I know I should wait until at least fall to plant anything.

I know full well this is the worst time of year to plant, let alone transplant perennials - even with copious quantities of water, they will struggle with the incessant heatwave we call July and August around here.

And yet....

It's hard (okay, impossible) for me to not scratch this gardening itch.

A few days ago, a ginormous Helianthus 'Lemon Queen' and variegated meadowsweet came home with me and they now flank the 'Chocolate' eupatorium on one corner of the pond.   Here's hoping the soil will remain moist even if the pond dries up.  Some additional marsh and swamp plants are on their way - my one and only mail order plant purchase so far in 2011.  (There's always spring bulb orders...and fall perennial sales.)

The blank spot left by the dearly-departed clematis was so forlorn, right there as you rounded the corner of the walkway.

I just had to fill it with something.

Something like a tuteur...with a patina-ed spigot on top to keep it from seeming too high-falutin'.  And a pretty new clematis (non-thuggish) to clamber up the structure.

I'm pretty sure my fig and some other shrubs, the variegated vinca, native pachysandra and a few heucheras are going to find their way from old house to new house over the next week or so.  And then I'll just have to keep them tended until temperatures cool and the fall rains come.  At least the toad house won't require any nurturing.  I may have to sort out squabbles among would-be tenants though.

Inheriting a garden is a bit like the parable of the talents.   There's a balance to be struck somewhere between honoring the gift given to you and your desire to put your own imprint on everything.  And of course, in this application, it IS prudent to bury everything - it's the only way to get an increase.

Happy gardening,

Getting my gardening groove back.

Summer is officially here and so is the urge to garden.  Actually, the urge started last weekend, along with rain in the form of intermittent downpours.

A dedicated gardener gardens in the rain.  A delusional gardener is surprised when she gets dirty or wet while doing so.  But it takes a heaping helping of insanity (and a wellspring of optimism) to create a new bed where Bermudagrass recently grew, and hope for anything other than a really nice stand of Bermudagrass to grow.

I did all three last weekend - which probably qualifies me for a 72-hour stint in the mental ward (and if they'd let me sleep in, I might sign up for a long weekend.)  But planting in the rain is great for plants, even if it's a soggy proposition for the planter.  Saturday's 20% chance of rain turned into an all-afternoon rain-a-thon; when the rain let up every so often,  I scampered outside to plant and transplant things. And was repeatedly surprised to find myself soaked and my shoes and shovel covered in mud and muck. Duh.

With Middle Son's help, I divided my water lilies into half, and planted each in a nice big tub, and sunk them in the middle of the pond.   (When I say help, I mean he watched from the bank, and asked me if I had seen the snapping turtles - yes, plural - or water snake.  He's helpful like that.)  Now I will watch and wait for them to grow and bloom and beautify our pond.  Several pots of purple irises now grace one steep corner of the pond; dozens of Louisiana irises were installed (with bona fide help from that same son) around another long stretch of pond bank. That will make Mr. Official happy since he won't have to mow the steep patches.  My gratification is delayed until next spring when they bloom.

While moving things from there to here, I tucked in Heuchera and several hosta divisions in a new shady bed that middle son and the Mantis tiller created for me, then edged them with caladium bulbs sent to me by Bill at CaladiumBulbs4Less (thank you Bill!  Pics coming as soon as these pretty plants are up and flourishing!)  The area had some straggling Bermudagrass before it was tamed by the Mantis, so we'll see - I could be dog-cussing this decision the rest of the summer.  But it is just a temporary bed; it needs to be deeper and swoopier (if that's a word) before I will call it a real border.

Two hydrangeas (a new dwarf oakleaf and a deciduous hydrangea) are  now installed along the new fence row; the remainder of the perennials I acquired back in April are planted under an oak tree near the driveway - again, they're in a holding pattern.  The bed has potential but needs some serious rearranging in the fall.

After a few years' abstinence from any serious or heartfelt gardening, it feels really good to throw myself into digging into the soil and tucking plants into new homes here at our new homestead.  Need more proof my gardening mojo is back?  Look what we brought over last week:

Little Dog isn't so little anymore...

I might just have to bring the fig and lilac that flanked it at the old place. (One was historically accurate: lilacs were planted for odor control back when an outhouse was really an outhouse.  The fig just seemed like a good choice - you never know when you might need a fig leaf for something or other.)

Happy planting,

Ze pond! Ze pond!

Some (okay, MOST) of you are probably too young to get that pop culture reference to the late 1970s show, "Fantasy Island." But Tatto's famous words came to mind when I looked at our pond yesterday and could finally see the little fishing dock and the rocks that are supposed to ring the edge of it. They've been hidden under at least 15 to 20 inches of water for months now. Since we first toured the house in December, I don't think we've ever seen the rocks when they weren't submerged - until now. But that means some edge-of-pond landscaping can begin. Perfect timing: my Louisiana irises are through blooming for the season (as skimpy as their blooms were in their present dry abode.)

So this Memorial Day weekend will find me and my trusty little shovel digging away, getting some things planted. And hoping that we get typical summer rainfall all summer long, so the pond doesn't completely dry up.

Happy ponding!

Containing the chaos

When I get in a garden center, my sensibilities tend to take flight and leave me wandering around dazed and confused.  I love plants, and all those rows of beautiful blooming bedding plants are as tempting to me as a candy store is to a kid.

I buy plants on a whim - some of these, a few of those.  I have no plan, no list, no vision for how I'm going to use them.  So when I get home, my purchases typically look like this:

But several years of frenetic plant shopping have taught me a few things, like:

1. Buy plants in pairs.   I can at least create symmetrical containers.  (Or in threesomes or foursomes if I'm doing baskets or a trio of planters.)
2.  Consider shapes.  Like people, plants come in all shapes and sizes.  A good mix of tall spiky and trailing stuff will offset all the bushy plants.
3.  Double-check sun/shade requirements.  Neither parched, scorched plants nor lanky, anemic-looking plants are attractive for the long haul of summer.  Fortunately I have lots of both sun and shade.

I tend to gravitate toward purples and oranges (often at the same time), with lots of chartreuse foliage thrown in for good measure, but I know eventually these colors can and will be separated into groupings that won't assault a visitor's senses when they approach our doors.

After a little arranging and rearranging, the chaos starts to shape up into this:

Caladiums, orange Diascia and burgundy spikes

 

More caladiums, purple shamrocks, lilac ivy geraniums

Plectranthus, Streptocarpellas, fiber optic grass & another Plectranthus

And here they are, all lined up and waiting to be slipped into their containers.

The plants in front are for a trio of deck containers...

And...a few days later, here they are in their new homes:

Trio on the back deck

Two more on the back deck, catching some morning sun

Two new containers flanking the dining room doors

Closeup of one of the two pots next to the front door

Over the next few weeks, with plenty of water and warm temps, they should plump up and fill out their containers.  Chaos is under control once again.


Happy planting,

Moving: Uprooting the plants

Despite the dearth of gardening activity at our home over the last few years, I am at my core, a gardener. And I have a slew of perennial plants around here, many of which will stay, but a few are going to make the trek to the new house in the next few weeks.

Among the take-alongs are my water lilies and Louisiana irises. Poor babies, the Louisiana irises have stayed a little too dry in their current home under a huge magnolia, but I suspect they will love being at the water's edge of the pond when I move them (as soon as they're through blooming.)

The new hanging baskets

I'm also taking some hydrangeas and shade plants, plus a peony or two to add to what's here. The rest of the plants will stay where they are unless/until we sell or rent the house and then I'll take one last trek through the beds to see if there's anything else I want to dig and take.

In the meantime, the porch was crying out for hanging baskets, so I took some time on Saturday to put together new baskets with plants I bought in Jackson the week before, and got them hung. They will be full and lush in a few weeks, I hope! Several containers will move into place this week.

Mr. Official is also determined to move the greenhouse. It needs new doors; well, it really needs a whole new front unit. It was a casualty of our sidewalk construction around the same huge magnolia tree a few years ago.

(For the record, in a contest of greenhouse versus skidster going full speed in reverse, the greenhouse will lose. Every time. Especially the second and third times.)

It will be nice to have the greenhouse when we move, but taking down and putting back up?  Not so much fun.  Hopefully we can get it down and then wait until fall to rebuild it.

Happy (trans)planting,

Spring (or planting!) fever

Every year for four years, a group of men and women from Mississippi, Arkansas, Kentucky and Tennessee mark their calendars for one Saturday in April, and agree to meet up at Rita Randolph's greenhouses in Jackson, Tennessee.  We do our best to clean out her inventory (don't worry - she's got plenty more where that came from...we think!), and we giggle and gossip and snatch plants left and right.  After we all tally up our bills (we usually don't compare notes on spending.  What happens at Rita's stays at Rita's), we head over to Casey Jones restaurant to continue the fellowship over a leisurely lunch before reluctantly parting ways.

You may be wondering, WHY?  We all have nurseries and garden centers much closer to our homes - we probably all drove past one or more on our way.  So why drive for hours to this one nursery?  Is it that special?  It's true that Rita has some of the most fabulous container ideas around.  But more than that, it's an excuse to visit and catch up with each other.  Some of the travelers make plans to stay overnight and visit several more nurseries before heading home.  (I've been known to haul unsuspecting passengers through extremely rural parts of Dickson on our way back from Jackson, in search of Marianna's tomato plants.)

You may also be wondering how we know each other.  High school or college? Nope.  Work? Nope.  Sports? Still nope. Church? And no again..  Give up?

What brought us together was a website called Dave's Garden.  Over the years, we've shared gardening tips and tricks, recipes, ideas, and recommendations.  We've also shared stories about our lives, weathered many storms, from Katrina to last year's Tennessee floods, and more tornadoes than we can count.  Always, there's someone in this group making sure everyone in an affected area is okay.  What started out as online acquaintances has deepened into abiding real-life friendships.  I rarely mention my day job here because I try to keep work and blog separate, but I've been privileged to be able to work for this website for several years, as well as be part of this vast but tight-knit community.  What a treat it is to work with and for such a great group.  And get to see some of them at least once a year, and ooh and ahh over gorgeous plants all ready to be tucked into containers to  welcome visitors to our homes and greet us on our decks and back porches.

This year's trip is tomorrow.  And it has an added benefit:  it gives me an opportunity to get away for a day before we start moving next week.  I have already vowed to not buy as many plants as usual, since we're going to be betwixt and between over the week. But those plants have a siren's call that is difficult to ignore.  So I will probably come home with plants a-plenty, as always.  The containers are ready and waiting at the new house.  An advanced thank-you to Rita for her graciousness in letting us use her site for our annual soiree.

Happy planting!

Moving: into high gear

I've circled May 6 on the calendar as our targeted move-in date.  Between now and then, there's a lot to do:  painting, putting up window treatments, cleaning and of course moving in and organizing a new home.

How many times do we get to watch someone else agonize to organize? Or see real-life do-overs on rooms, rather than the magical makeover that happens in a single 30-minute segment of HGTV?

Well, here's your chance to peer over our shoulders and watch our progress as we paint and pack, and repeatedly answer the question, "what am I gonna do with THIS?" (whether it be a location that needs a little something, or a something-or-other that needs a spot to call home.)  All those questions of what-goes-where in the new space must be answered.  Your input is - of course - welcome.

So stay tuned. Starting today, bedrooms are changing colors.  Later this week, the dining room is going to get a color transformation, too - red walls and green-ish window treatments are just not me, and definitely not a good backdrop for my violet china or my good dishes.

In the meantime, the bathroom shower has already gone from fiberglass and peeling paint to stud walls:

Later this week, if all goes as planned, it will be finished in tile and stone.  

Next week will be the all-important arranging of the kitchen, moving my beloved Fiestaware, figuring out a new (smaller) pantry system, and generally getting kitchen and bathrooms in working order.  Then there will be decisions on furniture placement for the living areas and bedrooms.

Last but not least is the conversion of the bonus room into a bona fide University of Tennessee man-cave, and picking out a sectional sofa and other accouterments after we get fully moved in.

The scene still makes me shudder...

And at some point, we will have to deal with the wire closet shelving in the closets. (If they were filming Mommie Dearest in 2011, I suspect Faye Dunaway's character would be screaming "no more wire shelving!!!" and worry about those wire coat hangers later.)


Not to mention getting my greenhouse taken down, put back up, and new gardens and plants installed in the landscape here.

Yeah, this is gonna be a fast, furious and fun few days.  Strap in and hang on tight - it could be a bumpy ride but it promises to be a pretty fun adventure!


Happy home-making,

My grandma's portulacas

My grandmother was the best grandmother in the whole world.  (I'm sure yours is/was wonderful too, but really - mine was the best.)  This unflappable, indefatigable woman could turn a bare pantry into a hearty meal for droves of road-weary adult children and their spouses, plus ravenous grandchildren and great-grandchildren.  She did it with a smile because she loved her family and nothing gave her greater joy than to have us all under her roof.  (I suspect she also relished the peace and quiet after shooing us all out after a long holiday, though.)

She had a quick, dry sense of humor, and sometimes you'd have to think about what she said in order to get the joke, but she'd wait for you to catch up to her, always with a twinkle in her blue eyes.

Her life was modest.  She was a wife and mother to seven children, raising them in a two-bedroom house.  She survived the Depression and the infamous Dust Bowl.  She worked as a cook for a while, but most of her life was spent tending her home and family.  She buried two of her sons: her youngest and then her oldest.  Those losses exacted a toll on her, but somehow she endured and found a peace that passes understanding.

She was a gardener.  She grew vegetables out of necessity and flowers for herself;  gladiolas that she carefully dug and stored each year to protect them from the brutal Midwestern winters.  And each year, she planted portulaca, which have the sunniest flowers ever.  This summer I planted an old canning kettle with these pink portulacas and they've cheerfully bloomed all summer, with little care or encouragement from me.  I can't pass by the garden without smiling at these tough, resilient plants that my grandmother had such a fondness for.

My grandmother had a stroke in the summer of 1992, and on September 5 of that year, she went home.  I am so grateful I had an opportunity to see her on her last birthday.  My parents and my family converged on her and my grandpa's house in late March.  I gave her and my dad each an 'Eden' rose bush as birthday gifts, and planted a third one in my garden.

I deeply regret that I let so many opportunities to write, call or visit her pass by.  I was busy being a young wife and mother, but she could have taught me a lot about life and motherhood, had I taken the time to seek her wise counsel.

If you still have your grandmother with you, cherish her.  Ask her to tell you the stories you've heard a hundred times.  Make new memories with her.  If you're like me and your grandmother is gone, I hope you look for her when you see her favorite things.  She'll be there.

Everything old is new again?

Recently, my mother-in-law regaled us with stories about a rolling store, a peddler in a converted bus that traveled through rural areas, bringing staples and what-nots to those living in remote areas.  With a twinkle in her eye she sheepishly bragged that she was a little miserly  with the gum she was able to buy from that rolling store, only giving half a piece to classmates who asked her to share.  Times were tough and money was scarce; I'm sure she didn't get "gum money" very often, so it was a precious commodity on the playground.

Back when personal transportation was extremely limited, mail order was another way to obtain things you needed or wanted but couldn't get locally.  My grandparents' generation treasured the Sears-Roebuck catalogs (and recycled them when rolled toilet paper was a luxury few could indulge in.)

1966: Bet I had this dogeared

As a child, I remember anxiously awaiting the arrival of the Sears Wishbook catalog each fall, poring over it to make a list for Santa.  It mattered little if I got any of the specific items I picked out...it was indeed a book for inspiring wishes and dreams.

With our first home, I fearlessly forayed into gardening.  But I quickly realized the local stores' selection of plants and seeds was pretty limited.  So I visited the Tulsa Garden Center Library and jotted down addresses to send away for catalogs.  Ever since, I have been rewarded with a steady stream of gardening catalogs in my mailbox. Like the old wish books, they're filled with photos and tantalizing descriptions that inspire hopes and dreams, especially in the dead of winter.

When we prepared to move into this home, one of the first to-do's involved removing old carpet and replacing it with hard flooring.  I had researched hard wood vs. laminate, and given our budget and age of kids, I opted for laminate flooring.

The only sources of laminate available were flooring showrooms and big box stores with a limited selection of pricey laminate.  And...I had the Internet.  My husband's family thought I was crazy, but I happily hopped online and ordered hundreds of square feet of discount flooring, going on nothing more than a description and a website picture.  I'm happy to report that ten years later, the floors have withstood traffic from skidding kids, cats, dogs and daily living, and look great.   If you think that my purchase was crazy, let me introduce you to my better half, who has bought BMWs and a hot tub on eBay!

Ten years later, I still love ordering stuff, and it keeps getting easier.  Boxes with books, plants, dishes, purses, pots and pans show up on my doorstep.  The mail carrier might wonder what I do with all that stuff from Oriental Trading.   (I teach 3rd grade Bible class - do you really need more explanation than that?)  This method of buying is really nothing new; the concept is at least as old as those old mail order catalogs and peddling buses.  It's just a little easier nowadays to search to the ends of the earth for what your heart desires and have it delivered right to your door.

Surprise!

Surprise lilies are not so surprising around here, but it's always fun to see them pop up in the middle of summer.  The pink ones are botanically known as Lycoris squamigera and are hardy to zone 5.  We also call them naked (or in these parts, nekkid) ladies because they have no foliage to go with their blooms - the strappy leaves springs up earlier in the season, then dies back before the bloom stalks appear.

Their red-blooming cousins, Lycoris radiata, should put in their annual appear soon - they're barely hardy in this area, but I think I saw their foliage this spring, so I'm hopeful they'll be along shortly.

I've had these bulbs in place for several years, but it's only been in the last few summers that they've bloomed.  I paid penance for transplanting them at the wrong time (they can sulk for a long time if you move them too much or at the wrong time.)

The bulbs are planted beneath a [expletives deleted] silver maple, amid a swath of hardy plumbago (Ceratostigma plumbaginoides, which is a mouthful!)  Unfortunately, the hardy plumbago usually waits until after the ladies have come and gone before it puts on its full flush of electric-blue blooms.  So much for my attempts to orchestrate mother nature.

The fish are growing - I think they've at least doubled their size since we brought them home.  Of course, they should be growing, as much food as they devour each day!  I could be wrong, but I think one of the shubunkins is preggers.  Guess we'll know soon enough.  There's also a tiny frog that lives somewhere close to the pond.  I hope he finds himself a good place to hang out for the season - we could use his help controlling the mosquito population.  The toad hut went unrented this season...maybe next year we'll have tenants.

Around here, we celebrate birthdays - with or without you!

Today is oldest son's birthday and it was also his first week in a new job.  Hooray for both of these milestones!  It's definitely time to celebrate!

He had other plans for this evening, but that didn't stop us from enjoying a celebratory meal of  Chicken Bryan (just like Carrabba's, but a word to the wise if you try the recipe:  ease up on the sun-dried tomatoes and amount of goat cheese, and layer the basil on the chicken instead of sauteing it.)  I served it with a side of parmesan-garlic noodles, a fresh garden salad, garlic toast, and a honeybun cake.  Even sweeter: we were able to dine on the deck tonight, since it's now finished and sealed for the season.  See whatcha missed, birthday boy?

He turns 25 today.  Or put another way, he's a quarter of a century old (insert evil chuckling here.)  When I was just a few years older than he is now, he made me feel ancient by comparing my age to his freshly minted Kindergarten teacher, Miss Beeson.  (He loved Miss Beeson and everything about Miss Beeson was simply amazing.)  When she celebrated her 24th birthday that year, he rushed home to tell me all about her party (they had cupcakes), and he asked me my age and then looked up at me with his huge brown eyes and said - with complete sincerity - "Wow, mama.  You are REALLY old!"  I've fought the urge to park myself in a rocker ever since.

The isolated thunderstorms were isolated to other parts of the midstate; no rain here today.  Just sultry.  Again.  While my better half and the pooch toiled away on the landscape, I escaped to the air-conditioned indoors and made sure all the classrooms are ready for the start of the third lesson (the flood), which begins tomorrow morning.  Our Summer Bible Vacation (aka all-summer VBS) is now at the halfway point - just 6 more weeks and we'll be wrapping it up.  Wow - it has really flown by quickly! When I got home this afternoon, I ventured out long enough to stain the bench, so it's ready to be parked next to the hot tub and hold our towels once again.

If the weather holds out, tomorrow afternoon will involve another pass through the daylily bed, pulling out the depleted stalks, fertilizing, weeding and mulching as I go.  I made a crockpot of brisket this afternoon, so tomorrow's lunch or dinner is "in the bag," so to speak.

Happy birthday to my "Baby Shea"  (You'll never be too old for me to still call you that, you know!)

While watering...

I had a deep thought today: 'If some of my roses were puny because they were waterlogged, how come they're not growing like gangbusters when they're dry as a bone?'  Sigh...

I also ruminated on why perennials should be planted in the spring or fall, but not summer.  At least I did get my cheap plants planted, but now they are pitiful, needy little things...always looking parched and whimpering for a drink of water.  Unlike their established counterparts who might flag a little in the heat of midday, but perk right up once evening comes.

So, my second gardening resolution for 2011:  just like mulching, I should only buy and plant perennials in months beginning with Ma and Ap.  Or Se and Oc.  But never in months beginning in Ju or Au.  (Except for the box of daylilies that arrived today from Gemini Garden.  Hmmm.  Guess those might go in after tomorrow's rain, when I can dig and lift the clumps that I want to remove and pass along.)

Our water bill was atrocious this month (but honestly not as bad as I feared it might be.  Then again, it was June and we were still getting rain - there's no telling what July and August might bring.) The weather forecast says there's a 60% to 80% chance of thunderstorms tomorrow, so I'll water today just to be sure.  (If I don't, it won't. Murphy's Law and all that.)

The pond plants got treated to some fertilizer today - a little overdue, but better late than never, right?  I was a little smarter this year...I only bought a small container of fertilizer tablets.  In the past, I've bought bigger bottles because they're cheaper, ounce for ounce. But I finally got it through my frugal head that their shelf life is limited, and buying a two-year's supply is not a money saver if I have to buy replacements the next year anyway.  I have just enough tablets to treat the waterlily to a second round of fertilizer late next month, and that should be all these plants need to get them through until fall.  So far, two of the new goldfish have decided to do the eternal backstroke, but the shubunkins and remaining goldfish seem content and happy to hang out in their new home, and are starting to associate my appearance with food.

Speaking of which, tonight's dinner is definitely going to avoid using the stove as much as possible...grill, here we come!  The only good thing about traipsing outside periodically to move the sprinkler is that a 78 degree house feels really cool when you've been out in upper 90 degree temperatures  (Yes, it's a heat alert day.)  Hope everyone stays cool as a cucumber.  Hey look - are those storm clouds on the horizon?

P.S. The watering ritual worked - it's thundering and sprinkling.
P.P.S. Yes, I'm playing with my blog's background and header.  Let me know what you think!

A holiday (?) weekend

Light on holiday, heavy on work, the weekend consisted mainly of mulching, weeding, more mulching, planting, watering, even MORE mulching and lots (and lots) of perspiration, a few sweat bee stings, and a bit of sunburn.

The weekend inspired my first gardening resolution for 2011:  I resolve to put down mulch only in months beginning with Ma and Ap.  As in March, April and May.  There should be no mulching done in months beginning with "Ju" (you know, like June or July.)  Or months that rhyme with AUGUST.

Hoo boy was it ever hot out there.  Six scoops (roughly 3-4 cubic yards) of shredded mulch, plus a half-dozen bags (maybe more...I lost count) of soil conditioner (aka pine bark fines) were applied to the perennial border and vegetable garden paths.  It will probably not look this good again the rest of the season, so I'll relish it now.  This is the shot from the southern approach to the garden, showing off a new perennial salvia blooming its head off, and my 'Herbstonne' rudbeckia getting tall and ready to bloom.

The second shot is from the opposite end, where the 'Jacob Cline' monarda is in full swing, full of fat bumblebees stumbling from one bloom to another. The spiky echinops in front is a fun steely blue flower...well, it's fun until you have to weed around it, and then its thistle-esque leaves make me wish I had considered another plant. But it's fairly deer-proof, so it does have that going for it.  Knock on wood: thus far my nutty neighbor has only sprayed his Roundup vitriol about one foot inside the fence (it is his fence, and is about a foot inside his property line, so he apparently feels entitled to zap anything I plant in that 12 inches.  After finding my beautiful perennials turned extra-crispy, I have learned to simply leave the DMZ area void of planting.)

In case you're wondering, indeed that is an outhouse in the picture. Well, okay - not a working outhouse, but a potting shed meant to look like an outhouse.  Snicker.  For years I fantasized about making said neighbor a little nutsy by placing a real-deal outhouse in my garden.  The fantasy evolved to the point where each year I get an outhouse calendar for Christmas, which is proudly displayed on our refrigerator.  It's amazing how many outhouses are still photo-worthy year after year.  A couple years ago, my husband (I love that man) called me from our local  Tractor Supply Company to inform me they were selling potting shed kits that were a full-scale replica of an outhouse.  Tin roof, half-moon on the door, everything except the one, two or three holes.  We wasted no time - we bought it that day, assembled it and plunked it front and center where the neighbor and his guests could admire our new potting shed.

I know it's not my best character trait but to be perfectly honest, I adore my potting shed for its form and function...and its exquistely redneck design. And knowing it makes this neighbor just a tiny bit nutsy - errr, nutsier - is icing on the cake.

So here's the garden in its fully manicured splendor. Peppers, tomatoes, melons, okra, cukes and zukes are all nestled in their beds.  I am capturing this for posterity because it will probably not look this good again the rest of the season.   (July is hot, but August is hotter.) The grape arbor in the background is loaded down with muscadines...still green but soon will turn purple and be ready to pick and process into grape jam.  Nothing beats muscadine grapes for pucker power...they're nature's own "Shock Tarts."  And wonder of wonders..next to the potting shed, I discovered my fig tree is still alive and kicking..hidden under a 5-gallon bucket I apparently upended to protect it last winter.  Poor thing...I fertilized and watered it and hope it continues to grow.

Lest it appears we merely toiled the weekend away, we did enjoy the holiday.  We watched the 'boro's fireworks last night; today we and the boys went to Memaw's to swim and eat some good home cooking..   (Youngest is away at Bible camp this week.)  It was fun watching my "boys" and our nephews romp and roughhouse as only boys (of any age) can.

Red, White and Blue...and Brown and Green?

The day started early...and seemed even earlier because my head didn't hit the pillow until after midnight.  I chauffered DH around early this morning (he was multi-tasking, so I picked him up from the tire store and dropped him off at the barber shop.)

While he got a trim, I came home and removed a dead mole from Big Dog's jaws, rewarded her with puppy treats, washed my hands and made up a batch of blueberry and strawberry scones using this recipe.  Hence the red, white and blue.

The scones were pretty AND delicious - as anything with 3/4 of a pound of butter and a cup of heavy cream should be - and we now have a huge bag of them tucked away in the freezer to savor one-at-a-time.

After picking him up from the barber shop, we hit the grocery store and then Lowe's (it wouldn't be a holiday weekend if we didn't patronize at least one of the big box stores); then back to pick up his car and set into a day full of chores: he hooked up up a new heron spitter for the pond and worked on the lawn, while I cleaned the outdoor rug, then turned the power washer on the garage siding and windows and the sidewalk that runs between the garage and deck. 

Most people go to the pool or lake when they want a bit of water fun.  Me?  I get hold of a power washer and act like the Terminator. By the time I was finished, I looked like a moss-and-dirt covered creature.  Since I was grubby, it was off to the garden for some weeding and planting.  A brief rain storm finally forced me indoors long enough to shower, take youngest child to get a few things for Bible camp, then back home to face a truckload of mulch, delivered by my thoughtful husband.  (Hence the brown.)  I got the mulch down just as the sun was sinking and there was only enough daylight left to tie up the tomato plants, which turned my hands a beautiful shade of....green.

Tomorrow promises to be a continuation of the same:  after the youth group heads off for camp, it's time to put down more mulch, then more watering and weeding.  Maybe Monday will be an actual holiday, when we can kick back and relax.  (I did pick up the fixins to make homemade ice cream, so there is always that!)  I hope everyone has a safe and happy Independence Day weekend!

One fish, two fish...

I see YOU, fish! 

(I love Dr. Seuss and I firmly believe no one can ever outgrow "One Fish, Two Fish.")

I got the urge this week to restock the pond with heron snacks.  Err, I mean fish.  Cheap fish this time.  (I'm not paying for your $15 entrees anymore, Mr. Heron.)  Five fish: two shubunkins, three goldfish, $5 total.  They're small, but they're agile and fast.  Maybe they won't attract the attention of the heron like the big fat ones did last year.  This is not the best shot of one of them (did I say they were fast?)  They are starting to come up when I feed them already, so that's good.  (Never could get the last batch to do that...I think they hid better from me than from the heron.)


The pond is battling string algae again this year (like most years), so every few days, I get to clean it out - again.  Oh well, at least it's not the big pond of our past, so the cleanout is much easier.  (Originally we had this small pond in another location, and a larger pond occupied the space where this one now resides.  I'm downsizing as I get older.)

Old Time Pottery is having a sale on their red clay pots...I may have to swing by there and see if I can find some new pots to replace the   pots in the pond, which did not fare so well with last winter's snow-and-more-snow routine.   I perused the daylily bed today and just had to snap a photo of my favorite cherry red daylily; it's a no-name variety, and is among those bringing up the rear of the annual daylily parade, which was pretty impressive this year.  Lost a few, but those that survived are doing much better with the sprinkler system delivering regular moisture.  (The spring fertilizing and weeding didn't hurt anything either.)  Gemini Garden is having a buy 2, get 1 free sale on their daylilies, so I've ordered some replacements for the no-shows and to replace a few no-names that I've still got too many of.

As I headed to the vegetable garden for some overdue weeding duties, I heard the squawk of some blackbirds.  Harsh and critical words like raucous and cacophony immediately sprang to mind.  And then I wondered why we characterize the chatter of the the bluebirds, whippoorwills, even the morning doves' calls as lovely and melodic, but we scorn the banter of the crows, bluejays and blackbirds? They're all just trying to talk.  Are we guilty of doing the same thing to people around us?  We love to hear the voice of a friend, while a question or greeting from  others are sometimes met with thinly veiled derision or merely dutiful replies, or even tuned out and ignored if we think we can get away with it.


I wonder how our voices sound to God?  Are some of us His songbirds and others His blackbirds?  I sure hope not...

Rose pruning 101

Question: "When is the best time to prune a rugosa rose?"

Answer:  "Anytime the pruners or loppers are in your hands." (Just don't prune immediately before first frost, or you'll risk new growth being instantly killed.)

This was my poor overgrown 'Sarah Van Fleet' before:

And this was her after: 

I quickly discovered that bees (yay) Japanese beetles (yuck) and yellow jackets (yikes!) all like her, so as I lopped and pulled off each branch, I had to contend with her extremely sharp thorns, and also with the swarm of flying things that came out with the branch.  Fortunately I suffered no stings and only one gash on the thigh for my efforts.

There's also a lesson in there about heeding the available horticultural information before planting.  She's a big girl and most references say she gets at least 4-8 feet tall and a good 4-5 feet wide.  I put her in a position where she can only get about 3 feet wide (We were easing around her to get into the garden.)  And for aesthetics, I'd rather keep her at a 3-4 height.

Fortunately, rugosas have two things going for them:
1) they can be severely pruned just about any time of year; and
2) they are disease resistant, so her crowded quarters had not led to a nasty outbreak of blackspot.

Lesson learned:  From now on, I will prune her each spring on to avoid  having to do that again.

The worst part of the exercise was the extreme humidity.  My clothes were DRENCHED in minutes, even though the work was not exactly strenuous.  After I got the rose trimmings hauled off to the burn pile, I worked on my daylily bed for a bit, where at least it was shady.  That bed is now in a little better shape (I am not a fastidious gardener, sad to say), and some Crocosmia bulbs have been planted among the daylilies.  I don't know if they'll bloom yet this year, since they were planted so late - but we'll see.

A late afternoon storm blew in and knocked out power to almost all of the 'boro.  There are 25 stoplights between here and Oakland High School, where the daughter was swimming before the storm.  My fellow 'boro residents have no idea how to proceed through an intersection without a functioning traffic light, so it was a lesson in frustration.  At least it was temporary - by the time we headed for home the lights were back on.

Smells of summer

This morning saw the husband and daughter head off to go white water rafting.  (My hernia problems have kept me from joining them for several years now.  Bummer, but it beats having a second hernia surgery, which the surgeon warned would not be as quick or easy to recover from as the first.)

As soon as I got them out the door and finished a cup of coffee, I poured a second mug to go and headed to town in search of anaheim pepper plants.  Three nurseries later, no anaheims, but amazingly, my car was full of plants, wheat straw...and a cantaloupe.  The aroma of wheat brought back memories of riding in an un-airconditioned pickup as we bounced along rutted dirt roads and fields, to check on the guys in the field, harvesting the wheat or baling hay.  I remember those trips as hot, dry, dusty and I was probably cranky and whiny.  But the smell of wheat brings back a flood of good memories.  Long days, when the sun didn't set until after my bedtime, and when I was the one asking "what's for dinner?" instead of the one answering.

The cantaloupe smells luscious...we'll see if its taste lives up to its smell when I slice it for breakfast tomorrow.

The additional tomatoes (2 Health Kick and a Black Prince), a hot chili pepper, plus zucchinis, cucumbers and pole beans are in the ground, and everything is mulched with straw.  It was tremendously hot and muggy work, but middle child helped, so the job went much faster than it would have otherwise.  Thunder grumbled a few times while we worked, but it held off while we broke for lunch.  As soon as I began setting out the bedding plants and perennials, the rain began in earnest, so I took it as a sign to break for a while.  Hopefully it will clear off and I can go back out and finish up everything today.  But in the meantime, my desk is going to get a deep cleaning and the card table that has been set up for VBS activities will be tucked away in its rightful home.  Order WILL be restored to my workspace today.

Daylilies: here today, gone tomorrow

We created the bed alongside the driveway 8 years ago by my guess-timation.  The guys laid the landscape timbers to my specifications, we added leaves and compost that fall, and I covered the mess with plastic for a little natural radiation treatment on the bermudagrass.

The following spring, we removed the plastic, and I introduced about 150 daffodils bulbs.    I then drove to a private residence  on the north side of Knoxville and helped myself to daylilies from the friend who lived there.  I distinctly remember planting them because that was the year I broke my great toe on my left foot.  I sat on the ground, squatted on an upturned bucket and contorted my body to baby that toe as I dug hole after hole for the clumps to fit in.  The friend has since relocated to the Houston area, but her daylily divisions remain part of my landscaping - the daffodil/daylily combinaton is something I saw touted in Southern Living many years ago.  Over the years, I've divided and shuffled my own daylily clumps, trying to get a better blend of colors and blooming times down through this very long bed (the driveway stretches about 70 feet through here before widening in the turnaround area adjacent to the garage bays.)  I've also added a few dozen varieties, thanks to plant sales and eBay.

The introduction of a sprinkler system last year has helped the plants in this bed tremendously.  The bed is located under a couple (beautiful) sugar maples that suck the nutrients and moisture from the soil every chance they get.  My efforts at keeping the bed watered with a hose have always been hit-or-miss, so now they're responding well to the more regular waterings thanks to a timer and pop-up head sprayers.  The daffodils are probably saying a silent prayer as they recover from their late winter/early spring display.  That's okay - they can thank me by showing off next spring.

For the next few weeks, the daylilies will be on parade, with one after another blooming until they're all spent.  The purple ruellia I dug up out of the cow pasture behind us has finally settled in and filled in some of the blank spots, so it will provide some color after the daylilies are gone.  If I had room, I'd introduce some crocosmia to the bed, just to keep the color going into early fall but I think this bed is near capacity.  And in case you think I can't mix colors, check this out.

Put on your sunglasses for indeed, it is a combination of bright yellow (I love the spider-y dayliliies) a vivid cherry pink, right in the middle of pale pink, lavender with a splash of red and orange thrown in for good measure.  Subtle and demure are not my strong suit - at least when it comes to flower colors.  What can I say? I live in a state that thinks orange looks good on all skin tones!

June is the dangerous season

It's the perfect storm for any gardener who also happens to be a bargain shopper.  The nurseries start slashing prices on their remaining spring perennials, just to move them out of the way so THEY don't have to water them all summer.  (That should be a clue right there.)  And I always have a few bare spots that need a little something, and an urge to fill them with something new and fun...and cheap.

So the markdowns beckon.  Sure, they're a little shopworn, lanky and in need of TLC, but they're cheap.  Dirt cheap.  Enticingly cheap....so I take a few (?) home with good intentions of planting and nursing them.  It's hot outside, and there's plenty of other things to do today, and tomorrow, and the day after that. Sometimes my "foundlings" sit in their pots, slowly declining until they're finally brown and crispy and they get pitched when fall cleanup time rolls around.  Or I actually do get them planted, but then forget my promise to water them and keep up with them all summer.  So when the frost comes, they go to that great compost heap in the sky, never to return.

I know all this, in my head and in my heart.  And yet I am fighting the urge to just go SEE what the nurseries have left in stock.  My optimistic side is telling the rest of me that this year can be different - this is the year I will keep them watered all summer.  Sigh... When will I learn my lesson?

In other news, I discovered that I do not care for whole-wheat sourdough bread.  The wheat and sourdough flavors fight each other and nobody wins.  Next time we'll try half white, half wheat.  But at least my sourdough starter got a much-needed feeding.  The honey-lime glaze on the salmon went over well with the men in the family; I thought it was okay, but not as good as the chili-lime sauce for chicken.  And my salmon grilling skills need some work - it always winds up just a little dry.  The only thing to do is just keep trying, I guess!  Today I've got a crockpot of Kim's baked beans going for a pre-Bunco picnic buffet.  It ought to be a fun night, and it'll keep me from moping around while the youngest is away at swim camp.  I hear-tell she's having a great time, although she hasn't called to tell me personally. See my lip quivering?  Hmmmm?