Odds and Ends

I spent some time yesterday and this morning pottering in the garden.

I'm really liking how this pot off the mudroom porch came out this year. The Rock and Blues salvia is really budded up, so it should show a lot more of the blue soon. I put an optical grass in the center front, but it's being swallowed by the alyssum.

 This pot is also looking nice, after sitting in a dormant state before I realized how much damage the ant colony had done. The plants are now growing.

Yesterday I transplanted the clethra shrub from the north porch garden to the new dragon garden. This is the fourth year I've had this shrub, and it actually looks worse than last year. It is so hard to grow things in the north bed. 

I ordered some little blue stem grass plugs to try in there. Supposedly it stays shorter in very dry soil. I also ordered some spotted monarda, and I was thinking of putting it in there as well, but I do wonder if it will get too tall? It would need to be near the front to get enough sun.

I watered a couple of pots yesterday as well --specifically the two with the sweet potato vines. Those really suck up the water!

Today I put the north drip on in the north garden for 1.45 hours. I did some deadheading, brought in another two Early Girl tomatoes (had the last two for breakfast before going out!), and laid a strip of cardboard and mulch along the area in front of the mudroom deck. We tried to straighten that area the last time we had Hertzog's mulch the area, but even though Rob had killed the grass, the guys just followed the old edge. I sprayed some round-up, laid down some thick cardboard from a double-walled box, and put down three bags of mulch. I've got a bag in reserve in case the cardboard starts to show.

Interestingly, I could only get two bags of hardwood shredded, so the other two bags (I can only fit four in my car) are brown dyed mulch. I don't like it at all --it's not shredded, so much bigger chunks. I'll definitely try to avoid that in the future!

NW Corner Garden

 This garden area had a major edit about three years ago. For a long time there was a large area of dark pink New England asters in the back, and every year they would flop all over the place. And they were slowly expanding, taking over the bed. 

I removed the asters and a lot of Siberian iris. I moved some large dark blue bearded iris to the corner of the woodshed. That opened up a lot of space, and my first choice was a dwarf butterfly bush. It arrived barely rooted in to its pot, and even though I babied it through the summer (shading it and watering it well), it didn't return the next spring. It was probably for the best, because I think it was going to be too short for that back right space. 

That fall I added in a clematis (Hudson Blue), and lots of Asian lilies and daffodils. I also divided the orange/red daylily that I love because it had gotten too big. Unfortunately, one group of lilies are really too tall to be in the front area of the bed, so they'll need editing as well.

I'm really loving the thyme in front --there's creeping thyme and wooly thyme. The creeping thyme blooms purple in the spring. 

I moved some Stargazer lilies and another shorter oriental lily to the back. That summer was incredibly dry, and then the next summer (last summer) I was non-weight bearing for six weeks after my peroneal tendon ruptured, and the drought was even worse. That has slowed things down a bit.

I'm most disappointed with the clematis. I don't know if it gets enough sun. It came back well it's second year, but was eaten up by earwigs. The same thing happened this summer. The foliage doesn't look good, and there's at least one brown branch. I've given it quite a bit of organic fertilizer, although it has been a balanced one, so maybe I need something different. Weirdly, the nepeta (Cat's Pajamas) that I planted under it isn't really thriving either. I don't really get why. 

Things to do in this bed:

• Move the tall Asian lilies, either to the back of the bed, or to another bed.
• Add something shorter --perhaps dwarf Asian lilies to that spot.
  

Rebooting

I believe I'm going to reboot this blog, as a way to keep a personal record of changes in the garden.

The last several years have seen a few major changes, including the creation of a new garden area, new plant additions, and some major editing of existing beds. Last summer I had foot surgery, and it was the 2nd summer of a two-summer drought, so I have enjoyed being able to garden this summer, and while the weather was nice, we have both enjoyed sitting out under the maple trees and enjoying the blooms. This summer Rob was diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer, so we are experiencing the journey of chemotherapy. It is very much not fun, but the garden does bring some solace.

So, July 14th might be an odd time to start this, but I think it will be helpful to be able to look back. 

Earlier in July, we had the mudroom porch replaced.  We widened it slightly, and had a larger deck area at the bottom put in. It's nice and solid, and we're happy with it.

We were actually thinking of adding a pergola, and we had that originally priced. When we got an estimate from the first guy, we asked to break the job up, so the pergola would be done next summer. After weeks of not hearing from him, we reached out to a guy who bills himself as a handyman (Reece's Handyman Services). After seeing some of his work posted on FB, we got a (much less expensive) estimate from him, and he built this later that same week. Eventually it will silver up to the same color as the boardwalks Rob created years ago.

Next up, some new and edited gardens :-)

Art Charm Auction and Reveal!!

Today was supposed to be the first day of the Art Charm Auction, where the proceeds go to a wonderful children's charity called Beads of Courage. It's an organization for "arts in medicine" that helps children who are seriously ill. This auction is organized by a lampwork artist, Jen Cameron of Glass Addictions. However, there has been a last-minute hiccup with whether Ebay (the auction location) still works with Beads of Courage.

The auction and reveal have already been delayed a bit due to Jen's hectic schedule this summer (getting her son off to college in a different country!), but we're all ready now, and hoping that the issue with the auction will be resolved quickly. I'll update this page as necessary. In the meantime, here is how it works, and what I created.

Each participating artist creates a set of 11 charms --and then we swap ten of them (Jen does the work for this) and the 11th charm is auctioned off to raise money for Beads of Courage. I've participated in this art charm auction and swap four times. Last year we raised over $1000!

The overall theme for this year's auction is Fairy Tales. The theme is intended to help with inspiration and focus. There are many shared characteristics of fairy tales, but one that stands out for me is the common transition from gardens to woods. Initially I was thinking of creating polymer clay charms that were little wooden doors or gates, which might lead from a garden to the woods. But I had trouble keeping my designs small enough to be charms.

So I continued to mull over the theme, and settled on a representation of stones and flowers: a vine covered boulder. In miniature, of course, since a boulder would be a bit big for a charm.

I added on a jump ring and wire-wrapped crystals in a coordinating color to finish them off.

I received so many gorgeous charms in the swap. Below are a few pictures, but I would encourage you to check out all the charms created for this auction, by using the list of links below the photos.

We would all love it if you'd visit the auction page as well, and bid on some of these beautiful charms! Beads of Courage is a fabulous organization, doing important work, and well worth your time and money.

Art Charm Swap And Auction Blog Reveal Participants:
Alenka Obid

Andrea Glick

Angelique Gentry

Brooke Bock

Caroline Dewison

Cassi Paslick

Catherine van Alphen

Charlene Jacka

Helena Hatten

Jen Cameron

Jenny Davies-Reazor

Kathy Lindemer

Leona Smith

Lesley Watt

Lori Anderson

Marianne Baxter

Melissa Trudinger

Michelle McCarthy

Patty Miller

Shai Williams

Sheila Prosterman

Susan Kennedy

Terri Del Signore

Vanessa Gilkes

Jeez it's been ages!

Summer is officially over this weekend. Emma started her sophomore year of high school last Weds, and Rob and I start teaching this Monday. I'm always ready for the routine to begin, just as I was ready for the routine to end in the spring.

Emma has her learner's permit, and is getting pretty confident driving us around to run errands. Her first few days of school went well, and while she and her best friend are not in the same school districts, they are taking many of the same subjects, and are already planning how to work together on homework. It's nice to have the transition of freshman year over with, and have Emma enter this school year with more confidence.

I found these photos on my phone. Emma has been trying to teach Rob how to take selfies, but I think we have a way to go.

Rob and I have continued our dive into meditation and minimalism, and we're enjoying our practice. Our time to actually read and discuss will now be drastically curtailed though, as we start teaching again. We've been reading Dan Harris's 10% Happier, and it's been interesting to see how his journey to Buddhism unfolded. (The 10% Happier app is the one we started mediating with, which is what made us interested in his book. That makes it sound like we are somehow meditating together, but no, and that would be weird.)

I'm also reading a book my dad recommended and is also currently reading. My dad's field is philosophy, so many of the books he reads are unintelligible to me. However, this one, called The Big Picture, by Sean Carroll, is a mixture of language philosophy, quantum mechanics, general relativity, etc. So it's somewhere between my science background and his philosophy background. We're both struggling, but with different aspects, I think. There was one chapter on entropy that I found so fascinating AND dumbfounding that I decided to read it a second time through, but this time out loud, to Rob. It made more sense for me the second time around, and I was able to share just how mind-boggling it was with Rob. Win-win. I learned a lot more about entropy in that chapter than I ever did back in the physical chemistry class I took in grad school!

If you all remember, I am participating in an Art Charm Exchange and Auction to raise money for Beads of Courage. The auction and blog-reveal, which were originally scheduled for mid-August, have been rescheduled to mid-September as of now, because our host, Jen of Glass Addictions has had such a crazy busy summer.

Also, waaaayyy back in spring, I transplanted a clematis that had basically never really bloomed for me. I'm so excited to see it start blooming now! I don't know if this is its regular time, or if the transplant shifted it a bit, but it's obviously much happier in it's new spot. So I sent Rob out to take some photos, since he's much better at it than I am. This is a fairly small-flowered clematis, so I was excited to see more buds coming on.

The flowers are a bit larger than a quarter, so quite small. But lots of lovely detail and color. I'm so happy to see it doing well.

I hope everyone else is having a nice late-August!

An Ode to the Daylily

I have been buying daylily hybrids since I started gardening. I think I probably received a Roots and Rhizomes catalog in the mail, and bought several page collections. I'm terrible at remembering the names, but they thrive in my sandy soil, and add so much color in July.

I have quite a few yellows.

This tiny yellow came from a friend.

I have some fabulous orange to reds. The two photos below are of the same lily, and they look more orange in real life. These attract Baltimore orioles to the garden.

This one is more red, but sometimes the flowers get kind of spotty. This is a rare nice-looking bloom.

This is the most red lily I have, with a lovely green eye.

Same lily as above.

Then there are the peaches, some of my favorites.

I have one creamy white as well.

Back to orange again --a spider variety, and my very favorite because it adds the most amazing color to the garden.

One of my first daylilies, and really the only one I remember the name of, is a pink called Strawberry Candy. But I don't have any blooming this year because I had to move and divide the enormous clump it had become. I now have 8 divisions in various places, small but thriving.

Late June Blooms

For the garden, it's been a great June. Just enough rain so I don't have to water. Enough sunshine to dry things out in between.

I stuck an extra tomato plant into this sunny pot. I think I'm going to regret this :-)

Perennial foxglove in the shade garden.

I have these two astilbe growing right next to each other, but they are such different sizes! I obviously wasn't paying attention to height when I ordered them.

I moved the remaining bee balm last fall from a garden I've abandoned, and they are doing nicely in their new spot.

One of the containers in the shade on the back patio.

I'm loving this bed --it has tomatoes, basil, cilantro, marigolds, a small leaved/flowered clematis, and then a corn and pea plant that Emma started in her biology class in cotton balls in the fingers of a latex glove :-) The corn is astonishingly big, and pea plant is climbing the tomato trellis and has flowers. We might get some peas!

I also finally got an ID on a vine that grows behind a bed of species-daylilies. I've posted about it before:

Turns out it's called "smooth carrionflower". I don't know why it's called that, but it was nice to get an ID. Now when I pull it, I know what I'm pulling :-)