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!

AN IMPOSSUMBLY LONG WINTER

Where is Spring, you say! Here we have daffodils, pansies, even the forsythia is opening… the late camellias are starting and I swear I saw a little color on a couple early azaleas. I did! But if you listened to that dumb groundhog up in Philadelphia, well, I am sure you must be disappointed. You can see a picture of this liar on this blog: http://thefrogandpenguinn.blogspot.com/2013/03/dont-shoot-piano-player.html.

Very possumly Phil should be retired – a suggestion that he can’t refuse, kind of retirement… I, the Onley Proud member of the Possum Prognosticator’s Club, President of Possum Patrol (always on the lookout for lying muskrats), and possumly the most accurate Predictor of a Pussumly early spring… I got laughed at, guffawed at even, when I said Spring would indeed be late this year. HA! But who gets the last chortle? MOI! As I curl up all warm and toasty in my heated nest down the street from those nasty muskrats, snug but not smug… Oh, no, not me… I remember the disbelief when I saw MY shadow and ran for dear life back into my snugness on the carport Pledging not to come back out until spring really arrives… or some delicious cat food gets placed in the dish a couple feet outside my door. Whichever comes first. We possums may get blinded easily by headlights but we’re not fools! My human CO (Can Opener) still has her snow shovel out just a few feet on the other side of the heated water dish. She even has a de-icer in the ground level birdbath, yes indeedy.

But I digress… Just how accurate is that dumb groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil? According to StormFax Weather Almanac, Phil has been right 39 percent of the time since 1887. It is amazing that he still has a job. I, on the other hand can never be replaced. Not only is my Prediction record Perfect, but where else can you find an animal this cute who eats copperheads for snacks, catches mice and rats and all sorts of buglies and does NOT ever get rabies? Can you beat that with a stick? Impossumble. 

In spite of all the wet weather we have had here, and I do mean wet – I mean, look at the yard! In the summertime this is where grass gets cut! We would need pontoons on the mower to get thru here! Or, maybe we could sell it to some unsuspecting Yankee as waterfront property, huh? No?

My human will tell you, “It always snows on the daffodils.” I bet you can check back to March of each year and find a picture of some bright yellow beauties bowed over with a layer of snow. My human also says, “Count your Cards,” to see how long winter will last. Translation: the more Cardinals at your feeders, the longer the winter. Unh huh, check it out. I taught her all these things. I did. She is not as impossumble as most humans. I am right Proud of her. Pay attention to Nature I told her. The more berries, the colder the winter.  Then there is the nutty predictor – the more nuts, the worse the winter will be, or the thicker shells, or the fatter… you name it.  Whatever. They are talking about edible nuts, aren’t they? Not humans… most of them are nuts, it seems. The point is, it is 4 days after the vernal equinox, and if you look real hard, it is snowing. Either that or these trees got dandruff!

(If you were a possum you would find that hairlarious!)

OK, so it is only 5 snowflakes an hour right now. Hang on. Just wait! You’ll see!

FRUSTRATIONS

FRUSTRATIONS... oh shame on me for being frustrated with this computer. This will not be much of a post, mostly it will be to see if I have loaded my photo programs right... I gave all my discs to the computer dude down the street - he makes his living doing this stuff, drives a new Mercedes to prove it - but things are still never quite right. None of my photo discs got installed, for example, and that is just the tip of the iceberg. So, to see if things were working, I went out and took a picture of the pot of pansies (aren't they beautiful? Especially to those of you buried up to your knees in snow or ice today?) I got from Bobbie yesterday... and a shot thru the door of the greenhouse with its heating system on - the brooder lamp on a bucket of bricks. Hey! It works! The ordinary incandescent bulb heats up the metal and the bricks - the bricks retain the heat... and it keeps the greenhouse in the 40s or 50s depending on how bad it is outside. Here on the shore, lots of folks keep their pumps from freezing in the winter just with one incandescent bulb. So I figure if it will keep a pump from freezing in a pump-house outside that is as big or bigger than my little greenhouse, well, it ought to keep my geraniums toasty and my impatiens from freezing... and my other plants and cuttings, too.
Did you notice the size of the daffodils next to the pansies? They are up about 8 inches. This may be a year when they bloom in mid-February.
But, back to the shame on me part. Living in this country, we tend to moan and groan over the most trivial things. OK, let me rephrase that - I tend to moan and groan over stuff that is merely inconvenient at the moment, and forget how darn lucky I am. Here I am complaining about having to load a couple photo discs so I can download pictures from either of my Nikons, and for the moment not thinking about the millions of people who still live without electricity, let alone computers and cameras. Yes, it is hard to believe that such people exist, but they do. Believe me, they do. We are so spoiled here. Even the poor in this country somehow manage to have cell phones, and other devices even tho they do not have decent food on their tables. So, I am ashamed of myself for grumbling about having to install a bunch of discs myself. But then, I paid someone else to get this computer back to where it was - minus the virus - and, well, it isn't. Hard to believe that the old computer was 8 years old before it had to get wiped clean and this one was but 8 months old. So much for McAfee.
I know I am going to have to change my ISP, and I so dread that... mostly I dread trying to wade thru the crap on the phone with Verizon. You would think the phone company would have an easier system to access. Oh how I long for the old days when there was an office down on the corner where I could go and pay my bill in person, add a phone, a new phone line, change a listing, put a phone in another house 40 miles from here, and get a nice visit with the real person doing all this for me. Often Progress ain't! Yet, there are those who have to travel over 100 miles to get to a phone or to a service if they have a cell phone. So, here I am grumbling again in a house with so many phones I can't count them. There is usually one in reach wherever you are. Spend some time in a wheelchair or being unable to get up and walk and you will understand.
So I guess I need to do a gratitude list... not just that my brain worked well enuf to install the photo programs... not just that I own a computer that is working (more or less) - and a camera or two... but that I do have electricity, heat, a roof over my head, food in my tummy, managed to get myself dressed, fed the cats, and got outside to take these pictures. Then I must add that I have a wonderful friend that gave me these pansies... and I can go on and on.
Like I said, shame on me for complaining.

IT ALWAYS SNOWS ON THE DAFFODILS

I HAVE PROBABLY POSTED THIS TITLE BEFORE – because it always snows on the daffodils, and  that makes for some fun pictures. In PA where I went to college, this is called the Onion snow, because onions sets are usually in the ground by now. These are my onions, I put them in last week. 

But, here in VA, when it snows in the end of March, it snows on much more than the onions, or daffodils, but the good thing is, the snow does not hang around. Often it barely covers the ground. So, I have learned to grab the camera early because sometimes the snow is gone by the time I hit ‘publish.’ So, I will share a bit of last snow beauty.  

It is the time when many of the camellias are in bloom. Pink Perfection is probably my absolute favorite and I don’t remember seeing it in the snow before.

Red Emperor… Pink Precious… One of my own hybrids…     

White on white (this is a 12 footer)… Snow on the forsythia… See the peonies coming up? Pansies…

Know what this is? Snow on the PussyWillow, up about 15 feet. The Redbud is starting to bloom, these will be flowers next week. And I love the pattern of snow on these branches.

When we flew our first flights over Libya, I bought a new Peace Rose bush as my prayer for Peace. I hope it does not fall on deaf ears.

The snow filled Buddha’s lap as he sat out back and reminded me to think thoughts of love and compassion, and it fell on St Francis as he watched over Spook taking a drink from the slightly slushy birdbath.

May thoughts of Peace and Compassion fill your heart this spring day. (Guess what? It is all melted – just that fast.)

The JOY OF A SUNNY DAY!

It managed to get up to the low 50s today. The sun was bright and the winds were minimal. What a joy to be able to be outdoors for a couple hours and not be frozen half to death. We did start out cold, 28 degrees and a heavy frost. You can see the frost on the azaleas in the background, and if you look even further, you can see snow in the field on the other side of the trees across the street, in the picture of the hawk looking for breakfast this morning.

The cardinals, finches, and sparrows hid out in the thicker bushes until he left, as he has learned to dive bomb the camellia next to the feeders out front. He usually starts swooping the ground to get a sparrow or a junco. But, after about a half an hour, the little guys get brave and come back. With 13 feeders in one area, the Bird Restaurant is quite a popular spot. See the bright copper tray behind the feeders? It is a hanging birdbath. The first year I had one, I tried it as a feeder, but I soon discovered the moisture seems to do something with the seed – there is NO drainage – and the copper tray soon “rusted” into a mess of heavily corroded metal. I have no doubt it was probably pretty toxic and even the birds stopped eating out of it. I guess they figured it out, too.

Also, birds need to drink. Imagine that! So, every morning when it is real cold, I go out and flip the tray over and refill it with fresh water. I am barely back in the house before the little guys are in the water getting a drink. On slow days, they sit and peck at the ice. Nothing like making a body feel shamed, right? So, out I go with fresh water.

The littlest birds seem to prefer the tray to the bigger ground level feeder out back.  Maybe because Spook likes to drink out of it, too? However, the larger birds, like Robins, prefer the ground level feeder.

The best shot I never got (the one that got away?) was of a pair of cardinals drinking out of the Buddha birdbath. Papa sat on the rim and watched while mama cardinal had a nice long drink. By the time I got the camera, well… you know – they were gone.

The snow is still on the ground in places. I love to see the pansies peeking thru the snow. The Color Purple…

The boys spent a little time out in the sun, but napped back in their box. I opened the flap door to the cat’s box, but dropped it again as the sun went down. In spite of the warmth of the day, the boys still chose to spend much of it stretched out on their heating pad… I think they really love the bigger one where they don’t have to curl up on top of each other, tho they still do at night. They have slept that way for years.