THE GARDEN IN MAY - JUNE

THE MOST AMAZING thing about the garden in early June is the fragrance. I won’t bore you with pictures of the honeysuckle, we have all seen more than our share of honeysuckle, I am sure. In the winter, on warmer days, I can spend hours pulling it out of the camellias, off of trees, out of the gardens. It truly grows like a weed here. But, depending on the severity of the winter (northern people – stop laughing, right now!) the world smells so wonderful starting usually the beginning of May with Honey Locust, the Fringe Trees, honeysuckle and magnolias. What a joy it is to step outside on a still cool morning and breathe in the sweetness of the southern air. I realize every morning of my life how blessed I am to not be in a city, not be caged in an apartment, to be free to walk on my small acreage, fill my eyes with the beauty planted there and to even enjoy the weeds – or at least the weeds we call honeysuckle. Better than that, I have the joy of growing my own food and each day I love to go out and see how much bigger this is or that… maybe pick some strawberries, blueberries, or later on, some beans, cukes or tomatoes. It doesn’t get better than that.

This year i decided to indulge myself with some plantings I normally don’t have the time to mess with… i doubt they will winter over in my little greenhouse, but who knows? Every year is a new experiment. Here are a few of my plants and a lot of my weeds.

 

This hosta is so big, a neighbor argued with me and insisted it is an elephant’s ear. That is a yard stick  standing in it… so it is nearly 4 feet tall. Behind it is a blue hosta which is almost as big, but not quite.

Right in front of that hosta are these plants and the new birdbath. i finally found a couple straggly strobilanthes… that’s it behind the pink Astilbe and Heuchera.

In the back yard, flowers grow in and around the veggies. On the left, just below the Adirondacks, are some potato bags. All the way on the right is a 4x4 space with cukes and tomatoes.

potatoes (in the pots) tomatoes, basil, peppers, and pansies. Qwan Yin and geraniums are tucked in the huge English Daisy plant. Who’d believe I cut that better than in half a2 years ago. On the right, potatoes (redskins), miniature roses, violets, iris, pansies and dianthus.

 

From the other side, this shows the clematis. Finished blooming under that is a deep red peony and not blooming yet, phlox. Out in the side yard, a rhododendron is in bloom.

Out front, the window boxes have impatiens that wintered over, geraniums (ditto), new coleus, and a couple new blue things – i can’t think of their names. And a close up of the mountain laurel.

I have a hanging petunia and a hummingbird feeder (being filled) in front of Rusty’s bedroom window to keep him occupied when he isn’t watching puffins or hummers on the computer. Pix of that on the next posting!

Hope you enjoyed my garden, disorganized as it is… but it is fun and something in bloom in every direction. Yes, it is a lot of work for me, but I can’t describe the joy I get from it. The lilies are just starting to bloom!

A NOT QUITE SUMMER MORNING

The calendar tells me that it will soon officially be summer. The thermometer says it is here and has been for a week. The refreshing chill of the morning is history, it seems. I miss needing long sleeves first thing in the morning. My world, so drab not too long ago, is now a contest of greens – each plant is trying to out-green the other. This is about as green as it gets – the end of May. It does not take long for the heat of the summer to dry things up, coat the leaves with dust and make folks grateful for their air-conditioners. I have a love/hate relationship with my air conditioner. I am grateful for the comfort it brings, but I hate to have to use it. I long for my Pocono summers and dream of the Maine island summers of my youth. I have been so fortunate to have spent my summers sampling the climates of many different areas. How lucky is that?

The desert areas of Turkey are about to go back to being deserts. They have been blooming like crazy this year, so I have been told. It is a long, long time since I lived in Turkey, a long time since I saw the beauty of the desert in the spring. Interestingly, I did not mind the dry heat at all, so different from the stifling humidity here. The normally dead looking brown earth gets covered in blankets of beautiful colors and delicious fragrances. If you have never had a bit of desert experience, you don’t know what you’ve missed. Ok, backing up – I am not talking about what my father called “the serious desert,” the sand deserts, the huge blowing, shifting dunes, but the miles and miles of “scrub or barren” land, land that looks like it would not grow anything most of the year… land with cactus, sage, the tumbling tumbleweed type of landscape. Oh, but that month in the spring, sometimes it lasts a bit longer, but that month of awesome flowering, of color, is a month of pure magic.

Here, far from the desert, the air is heavy in the morning with fragrances from so many sources. A visitor once said it felt like you had to push your way thru the sweetness in the air just to get to the car. We have magnolias in bloom, honeysuckle, and the locust trees are just finishing. Even holly trees are fragrant during most of May as they pollinate and make new holly berries. The air is also heavy with the sounds of birds, baby birds begging to be fed, parents fighting to protect their nests, robber birds like crows scouting around to steal eggs or even unguarded babies. Then there are the grackles, the noisy, noisy grackles squawking at each other in the mulberry trees, bragging about what ever grackles brag about – or perhaps they are complaining. Is that what it is? Their noise sometimes grates on my nerves; I hate to admit it.

The grass is wet with dew; strings of pearls hang from the bushes as the spiders wait for breakfast to blunder by. My shoes get soaked as I wander thru the yard in the morning looking at all the beauty around me… late peonies, irises, roses. Even the honeysuckle, a truly invasive “weed” in most cases, is beautiful in the early morning light. Delicate. Beyond fragrant.

The Mountain Laurel has been blooming. I am always amazed that it has survived another year. Friends laugh as I have brought rocks from PA to put around them to make them feel more at home. (We have NO naturally occurring rocks here on the shore. But you can now buy them at garden centers!)

The garden is coming along. The bees are having a good time with all the flowers on the squash, zucchini and cucumbers. I spotted my first cukes of the year this morning – about the size of a kosher dill. They will be ready to pick later this week. I have my first tiny tomatoes, not much bigger than a pea, but there they are. I can almost taste them. I ate my first homegrown lettuce the other day. Best salad I ever had! And we cooked MY peas for supper. I wonder why that gives me such a high!

I guess it is good that having this garden does give me a high, because the work is almost too much sometimes. But I keep in mind the fun of going out and picking enough beans for dinner. And then picking beans (or cukes, or tomatoes) to share with others. And folks covet my produce. They know I do not use any chemicals – no pesticides, ever!

This morning, when I opened the back door, can of Tuna in my hand for Punkie and Spook, I was hit with the almost over powering scent of almost summer. I had to walk out into the yard and just breathe the smells in. I thought of folks in cities who breathe in the fumes of vehicles, exhaust, garbage, that tarry smell of black top in the sun… I thought about the sounds that they hear as I listened to my birds fussing, begging, or just singing their morning songs. Are they thanking their idea of god for another day? Did someone just say thanks for the drink in the bird bath out in the yard?

Then I heard another noise… a soft leaf rustling sound and the snapping of tiny branches. I quietly walked out a bit further. There was a doe standing on her hind legs pulling a branch down from the mulberry tree, chomping down as many berries as she could while the birds fussed at her for eating all their berries – like there isn’t a whole tree full? Or maybe even several trees? The mulberry trees are so heavy with berries this year, I actually had to cut some branches off where they were hanging down into my garden. I stood there, barely breathing, glad the wind was blowing in my direction watching the doe eat when I noticed movement closer to the ground. She had her fawn with her. At first I thought it was my cat, Punkin … no wait, it WAS Punkin, oh where is my camera when I need it! Punkin sat there and watched the doe eating from the tree, the fawn eating (?) the berries that had fallen to the ground.

The bad news is that this year’s new supply of mosquitoes has arrived. I am SOOOOO allergic to bug bites. I hate using sprays, but I pay a huge price. Yesterday, I tried working out in the yard in long pants and a long sleeved shirt. I didn’t last very long. I had to wait until around 7 to go back and cut grass and finish my chores.

It is hard to believe that there is still over 100 inches of snow on the ground in some mountainous areas out west. From my CoCoRaHS coordinator this morning:

As of a few days ago we still had some CoCoRaHS volunteers with snow
left on the ground. Two of our stations in CA, where snowfall had been
so great that it buried residential power lines, still had over 100" of
snow remaining on the ground earlier this week. Here in Colorado we're
waiting for the warm weather to finally arrive and when it does later
this week -- look out. We have huge amounts of snow left in our
mountains -- from 25 to as much as 90 inches of snow water equivalent
(SWE) still up on the slopes in the northern portion of our state --
much, much more than usual. With the sun nearly overhead and the summer
solstice right around the corner, the snow will be melting fast (1-2" of
SWE per day when it gets warm) and the rivers surging.

Friends out in the Midwest can’t even get into their gardens – the land is just too soggy.

Here on the Shore, we are in a state of moderate drought. We don’t need the floods others have been having, but we sure could use some rain. Go figure. How is your garden growing? Still have snow? Is your garden under water? Or do you have to go out there and water every day?

A BUSY TIME AT POSSUM LANE

IT’S A BUSY TIME AT POSSUM LANE

SPRING IS ALWAYS a busy time. Just some years it seems busier than others. This year, it is with huge amounts of gratitude that I report that I am getting some stuff done. I, as in ME! So far this spring, my friends have not been up here bailing me out, doing my chores… one has called twice asking if there was anything I needed him to do – plow the garden, help lay stones on my patio… but I know he has tons to do for himself. How many times have I mentioned the wonderful friends I have? May I do it again????? And I do thank you guys. I go to sleep with a sense of security knowing I have you for neighbors and if I ever need you, you will be there.
Again, my apologies for not being on here… but every spare moment I have has been outside trying to get caught up.
Years ago when I first decided to “build” a patio – or at least do something to keep my ancient Adirondack off the ground (this chair is over a hundred years old – it is one of the few things I brought down here when we had to dispose of the little house in the Poconos…) I basically just plopped a bunch of square cement blocks down… and the number grew, I added another chair… and a Beautyberry Bush… Well, the Beautyberry bush, in spite of being cut back severely, GROWS so much each year, it would come out and hang over the chair. So, now that I am better able to DO THINGS for myself, I decided to redo the patio idea, moving several rows of stones from the southern end to the eastern Buddha-side. Better than that, I decided to actually do it with the ground cloth and sand to make it level, due to all the moles that seem to like this place and have tunneled under the stones.
I actually had to go to Salisbury to buy decent ground cloth. The stuff being sold today is like gauze. No one has the good old heavy stuff of just a few years ago around here. Sam’s had 4 foot rolls of the good stuff. That should last me a few years. I found Roses had 50 lb bags of sand. I figured I could handle 3 bags at a time. Truth is, it was a little too much for me. But, I managed. I figured I would need 9 bags – 3 trips. However, I made a mistake, I told a friend the sand was on sale, and he bought it all, so I was 3 bags short. The good thing is, our local building supply place had sand, bigger bags, so much heavier, but better quality sand – the weight was in the sand not the moisture IN with the sand like the stuff from Roses – and the best part – they deliver – FREE! So I got some 4x4s that I needed that won’t fit in my van, some metal fence posts I need for a friend’s garden, and I did not have to beg someone for the use of their truck, and I got another 200 lbs of sand.
The “patio” is far from perfect, still not as level as I would like it, but no blocks uneven enough to trip over – that’s a plus! And I also picked up a plastic Adirondack style yard chair that is light enough for me to move easily, versus the old one that takes a strong man or a steady wheelbarrow. At any rate, I am as satisfied as I am going to be. The cats love sprawling out in the middle of it and it is comfortable for several people to sit and have a glass of tea.

Probably the other big news is my hair “cut”… a friend is undergoing chemo and a bunch of us promised her that when she lost her hair – we would shave our heads in support of her. Well, I did not SHAVE it, but it is beyond just short! We left a little fuzz in the front because I get a rash from synthetics touching my skin – like the threads they use on the binding on hats – so we left a little buffer for that. The back did get shaved pretty close… fortunately it grows back in fast, so it doesn’t really look as bald as it is. I was shocked at how dark the back is – the hair around the front is white! Go figure! Bald heads are cold!

There is much gardening going on here. Beans are thru the dirt in the Stand Uppity garden. Other things are potted waiting to germinate, or in little pots waiting until we are sure of no frost. The strawberries are in full bloom, the asparagus is slowly popping thru the ground – so far never enough for one meal at a time. Onions are up about 5, 6 inches.
The azaleas have opened this week. In another couple of days they will all be open and magnificent. I wonder how many people will stop and tell me how much they enjoy driving past my little acreage? I think that is so cool. Makes all the work worthwhile. I usually offer them a job weeding. So far, no takers.
The lilacs are beautiful this year. How I love to smell them. I planted one bush outside my bedroom window. It has been a long struggle, but it survives. I do believe it is my favorite fragrance. I told that to one of my tiny visitors one year. She said it was nice, but not as good as chocolate. The Bleeding Hearts made it thru the winter. This is the first year for the white one on its own. I planted it last year. The redbud was a bit pitiful this year, not nearly as full of blooms as in years past. Probably so much wind damage over the winter – the little twigs and tiny branches were all over the ground.
It is grass cutting season – though I must admit, it is more like weed mowing and driving over huge patches of moss. But, we have had an almost dry couple of weeks and so it no longer squishes when I walk in the yard, and the Deere no longer leaves ruts in some places. I am hoping I can get some mulch moved this week and use the tractor, not a wheelbarrow.
If you are in the area, come by and have a sit down on the patio… have a glass of tea… enjoy the quiet serenity of the Buddha and the beauty of the flowers. Soon I will be able to share some veggies with you – Inşallah!

THE SMELLS OF SPRING

SNIFF, SNIFF

Some of us LOVE the fragrances of late spring. Then there are those of us who spend this season with a kleenex in our hands. I am glad I do not fall into that category! As I go out the door, the heavy scent of so many blooming things just hits me. Not far from my back door I have a number of holly trees. Have you ever smelled a holly tree in bloom? Awesome. The woods are full of wild blackberries. And if you look up, you might notice the blooms on the honey locust trees. Sweet! I have discovered many people have never seen a fringe tree. Well, if you ever see one in bloom, go stick your nose in one... well, actually, it is so fragrant, you don't have to even get closer than 10 or 20 feet!

Even my irises are fragrant. OK, I planted the Iris while most of the rest of the things came up naturally here.

The rambling Rose grows wild around me and in the woods. I found another one yesterday while cutting along the bank on the John Deere. Reminds me of the way roses USED to smell! One thing you won't find in my yard is Wisteria. It overpowers me. Wisteria and Gardinias... they take my breath away, literally.

The honeysuckle is just starting to open. Soon the world will be bathed in the fragrance of their tiny sweet yellow and white blossoms. The poor butterflies won't know which way to turn! And just starting, the magnolia! Magnificent - or is it Magnifi-scent?