A New Face in the Crowd

I am excited...as I was touring my "weed garden" late this afternoon I discovered Lavendar Hyssop was starting to bloom! This is a new wildflower for me and it is even prettier than the photo of it in Prairie Nursery's catalog. (You will have to take my word for it - this is not the best picture). In my older established prairie garden, the smooth asters are starting to bloom, on the sunny side of the garden. My orange Butterfly Weed is loaded with Monarch catepillars and my Canadian Anemone which blooms in the spring is starting to blossom again. Every thing looks much, much better this week than last.

Where did I put my sunglasses?

Wow, after almost two weeks with very little sun and lots of rain (over 20 inches to be exact), the sun finally decided to come out. I woke up yesterday morning and announced to anyone listening, "the sun's out!" My gardens were looking so bad from the constant pounding of rain. They didn't have the opportunity to dry out at all before the next round of storms would come through. When it wasn't raining it was so humid that everything stayed wet - for two weeks! I didn't have any flooding, but many people did. Record floods. When I drive out in the country and see the washed out roads and crop damage, I consider myself fortunate to live on high ground. It is amazing the damage flash floods will do.
As I walked around my gardens today to access the "conditions" I was pleased to see several shoots of Sideoats Grama (Bouteloua curtipendula) popping up through the weedy mess that is my new prairie garden. There is hope yet for that 50'x20' experiment! Plus, as everything else is starting to look summer weary and washed out (in more ways than one) my New England Asters (Aster novae-angliae) and Smooth Asters (Aster laevis) are starting to bud out...something fresh and new to look forward to.

Professional Help

A garden has a curious innocent way of consuming
cash while all the time you are under the illusion that
you are spending nothing.
- Esther Meynell

I am meeting with a landscape designer to discuss a garden for the front of my home. Our front yard is a pretty typical small town yard. Just grass and a few requisite foundation plantings. It is boring. Since it is the front (I would prefer to keep my mistakes hidden in the back) I decided to look into working with a professional. Ina Lucas is her name. She is a cute, bubbly, thirty-something who I instantly liked the first time I met her. I attended a gardening class at her perennial nursery "Blooming Valley Perennials" (see the link on the side bar). I could tell how much she loved her gardens by the way she caressed her plants as she gave the class a tour of her gardens. She would say "this is my favorite....." about almost every single plant. I know just how she feels - I have so many "favorites" also - my grasses especially. Even though I won't start working on the front yard until spring...I am excited. It will give me something to look forward to during the long winter.

The Guilty Party

Here he is. The enemy combatant. The recent deluge of rain managed to knock down a block of bird feed I had hanging from my birch tree. Look at how he's loading up those cheeks. Perhaps he will feel a bit bloated after eating all that fiber and pass on my flowers for a change. I have noticed my campanula rotundiflora looks like someone has been snipping the blossoms off of each plant. I will do my own deadheading, thank you.

Chipmunk's Breakfast

Apparently Chipmunks like Malva. The bottom third of this plant has been pretty much stripped of its leaves. I think I know the culprit. He lives under my deck and looks cute and innocent, but looks are deceiving. At least he can't reach up to the top of the plant to eat munch off the beautiful blooms. I guess he must be leaving them for the deer.

Mosquito Invasion

I guess there is something to be said for a long dry spell - no mosquitos! I forgot about those annoying creatures until last night when I went for my evening garden walk. The rains we received over the last several days have produced a bumper crop. No sitting on my bench and watching the bees and butterflies. Not without properly dousing myself in repellent (which I refuse to do). Hmmmm.....

I started this blog as a garden diary of sorts. Besides photos and general observations, I will from time to time post poems, quotes or just about anything I find interesting and worth while (to me anyway). I tend to be big on ideas and short on time, so be patient if it takes me a while to get this up and running.

Yesterday was an exceptional day in the garden, one that inspired me to blog, since I really didn't have anyone to share it with, that is, anyone who would find it as enjoyable as I did. While sitting on my deck relaxing, I had the pleasure of watching a Eastern Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly, a pair of Gold Finch hanging out on my downy sunflowers, a ruby throated hummingbird who mistakenly thought the floral pattern on my shirt was real, and the highlight - a clearwing sphinx moth.

Kiss of the sun for pardon.
Song of the birds for mirth.
You're closer to God's heart in a garden
than any place else on earth.
- Dorothy Frances Gurney