Monarchs On The Move

I've begun seeing monarch butterflies scooting around the yard this last week. It's something I always look for in late summer. To see a monarch swooping and dipping through the flowers on a sunny day puts me in mind of the way little girls will sometimes dance to invisible music - twirling and skipping in total abandon - as if no one was watching (and not giving a rip even if they were). It's pure, wholehearted joy on the wing, and for me, summer just wouldn't be the same without them.

An Embarrassment of Basil

What was I thinking when I started the seeds of 23 (yep, you read that right) different varieties of basil? I guess it was just this year's Big Thing. I got interested when I tried about 3 kinds last summer and made pesto with 'Poppy Joe's" from Seeds of Change. It was the first time I'd ever made pesto, and I was hooked. Well, thought I, if 3 kinds are good, 23 just has to be better. Well, yes and no. First off, I'm completely perplexed. This summer has been what I would consider a less than optimal growing season for basil. June and July were below average temperature and rainy to boot, yet my basil is all flourishing. I have it scattered around my property, in beds and borders, in the vegetable garden and (prudently, I think) in pots on my patio. The potted ones by and large are exuberant to say the least! I'm currently experimenting with both making pesto from different varieties and drying for winter use, to see if there are noticeable flavor differences. The most recent batch of pesto was made from 'Poppy Joe's', a huge, glossy leaved variety with that unmistakeable Italian flavor. The next will be from lettuce leaf basil. Most of the remainder is grown for use in bouquets. Top choice for that purpose is usually purple leaf; it combines beautifully with shades of orange, peach, lighter purple and rose/fuschia. I have a plant of the variegated 'Pesto Perpetuo', but it's a very small-leaved variety, better suited as a specimen plant or a topiary. Still, it literally is an "embarrassment of basil" when you find yourself constantly answering the question of what plant is that with one word: "Basil"!

The Queen of Unfinished Projects Returns

Well, I see it's been nearly 2 months since my last post. Medical problems and other trivia kept me away from the blog all this time, but things finally seem to have settled down. Today, in between thunderstorms, I began an undertaking that I've been wanting to do for some time now - I have begun to catalog my perennial plant collection! Working from memory (and occasionally running outside to peek at various beds), I have counted 110 genera. At some point, I'd like to catalog it by species/cultivar, but I almost think that needs to be done beginning in the spring as things appear.

It may not seem like a particularly Big Thing to a lot of people, but you have to consider that when we purchased the house 17 and a half years ago, almost no landscaping existed. All that was here was: 3 big yews and 3 small azaleas across the front of the house, 1 arborvitae on the west corner of the house, 1 small azalea and 1 euonymus shrub beside the garage, and a large island by the street (this was once the model home for the tract) with barberry and juniper. That was it. In the intervening years, I have planted everything else. I suspect the dollar figure for all this supplementary landscaping would make me blush........