Planting the Seeds for Next Year's Garden

For several weeks now, the seed catalogs have been arriving in the mail. First to show up was old reliable Thompson & Morgan, followed quickly by most of my other standards: Nichols Garden Nursery, Pinetree Garden Seeds, Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, just to name a few. Because of the Christmas rush, they've been stacked up in the conservatory. There they sit, speaking softly but persistently, just waiting for the holidays to end so that I have whole days to wallow in them.

And wallow I always have, unfortunately letting what my husband refers to as the "gimme-wants" dictate my purchase lists. There at least, I've been able to exercise some discipline. It's a ridiculous exercise, but eventually it works. I go through each catalog, damn the torpedoes, and put everything that catches my fancy make the initial list. Then, I go through a second time and whittle it down considerably. Once round two is done, I start comparison shopping, making sure to get the best price I can on everything I want. Only then do the orders get placed. Regrettably, my garden record-keeping skills have been lax over the years. However, I finally got tired of wasting time and money buying seeds that a) I didn't need or b) didn't perform as well as I would have liked, so last year I got serious about documentation and now I'll be able to order wisely. In fact, I got so serious last year that I gave my husband a good laugh one morning - he saw a list on the conservatory table that was captioned, "DO NOT PURCHASE THESE SEEDS. NONE. NOT ANY." I told you I was serious.......

Seaon's Greetings!

All I have to say is this:

"Holly and ivy, box and bay
Put in the church on Christmas Day"

-15th century Christmas carol

A Merry and blessed Christmas to all, and a green New Year as well!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Where do I begin? So many things to be thankful for (in no particular order):

I have FINALLY finished all the outside work. All that remains is cutting back and covering the roses.

I rediscovered the healing power of a soaking bath, and I no longer crawl around in pain for days at a time after a marathon gardening session.

I was able to go outside here in zone 5, on Thanksgiving Day, and pick my own lettuce and herbs for our meal.

The voles seem to have vacated the premises, for now at least.

My husband still seems to be crazy about me after 25 years of marriage.

The seed catalogs have begun arriving in the mail. No rest for the wicked.

Have a Happy, everyone!

Winding Down

This has been a most annoying autumn for me. I'm trying desperately to get all the outside cleanup work done before winter finally hits, and I just can't seem to catch a break on this score. Whenever I've had free time to work outside, it's been rainy/freezing/windy/all of the above. Whenever I'm tied up elsewhere, the weather is stunningly beautiful. Like today - we finally had a sunny, windless day with temps in the low 60's, and did I have time to work? Nooooo. If I could have had today, I think I could have gotten most, if not all, the remaining chores done. Now I'll probably have no choice but to freeze my hindquarters off, working outside, in a race to beat winter to the punch. Bitch, bitch, bitch.....

Voles - More Tales from the Dark Side

They're baaaack.......
One day last week we had some very mild weather for the end of September, so I decided to eat my lunch out on the patio with my fountain turned on to provide a soothing background. Well....the minute water started to bubble up in the urn, a really nasty stench permeated the air. I can only compare it to an ad I saw on TV a few years back - I don't remember what the product/service was, but a guy comes out of what's clearly a bathroom, waving a newspaper behind him and saying, "I think we can consider this wing of the house closed!". That kind of odor. The kind that means the voles have returned to use my fountain's catch basin as a toilet. My comments ran along the lines of "!@#$%^&***"!!! I then unplugged the fountain, waited for the aroma to die down, and consumed my lunch in gloomy silence. At this point in the season, I saw no reason to go to the trouble of cleaning out the catch basin for the third time this year; I'll just wait a few more weeks and do it when I dismantle the fountain to put it away for the winter. Sigh.

A Grand Evening Out

I really need to keep up on what's happening at my alma mater! I just arrived home a short while ago, having had the unexpected and tremendous pleasure of hearing Amy Stewart speak. A short sidebar notice in the local paper the other night was how I found out that she was appearing at the college. For those who may not be familiar with her work (and if you like reading and gardening, you need to remedy that), she's written several best-selling books: "Flower Confidential" (a thorough exploration of the cut-flower industry), "From the Ground Up" (a memoir of the first garden she ever made) and her most recent book, "Wicked Plants" (anecdotes and information on poisonous plants). She is also familiar to legions of garden bloggers as part of the great "Garden Rant" blog.

Amy gave an overview of her books, but also discussed writing in general, which was wonderful. She's a natural speaker - energetic, funny, and passionate. She's also one of those fortunate writers who manages to tackle a subject head-on, acquire mountains of data, statistics and interviews - and then manages to distill it down into an informative book that doesn't read like a textbook. I don't know how she does it, but she does it brilliantly. If she wasn't such a nice person, I'm afraid I'd have to be bitterly envious of her! If you ever have the opportunity to hear Amy Stewart speak - do yourself a favor, drop everything and go. Definitely time well spent!

Flower Arranging in the Time of Dahlias

Even though it means that winter is inevitably, inexorably creeping up on us, I do love fall (before frost, anyway) for one particular reason - my dahlias are blooming, and oh, the colors! The shades of dahlias, even the most pastel of them, are at once subtle and intense. I've gotten several new ones this year, and at least a couple of them are heirloom varieties from Old House Gardens in Michigan. Two of them appear in this arrangement I quite literally threw together this morning.

The dark maroon dahlias at the base of the arrangement are a newer cultivar called 'Nuit de Ete'. The larger dark pompom type is called 'Karma Choc'; a luscious dark shade that would work well in a chocolate-themed garden. The multi-colored pompom is one of the Old House Gardens heirlooms, 'Kaiser Wilhelm'; the multiple colors make it very adaptable to different companion flowers as well as containers. The other Old House offering is the hot pink-shaded dahlia 'Winsome', a dahlia I fell in love with a few years ago when visiting Stan Hywet Hall in Akron, Ohio. The large, dinner-plate type at the top of the arrangement is another new one for me this year, called 'Vancouver'. It's an indescribable garnet/fuschia shade with vague white edges on the petals - it's a prolific bloomer, and it will be back next season. As an aside, the other flowers appearing here are a couple of small double 'Pamina' Japanese anemones and an aster that I found in a vacant lot in my neighborhood. I have no idea whether it was an escaped garden variety, a chance seedling or what. I just liked the color: petals of a pale blue/violet with a pink center. It plays well with anyone you pair it with, so at this time of year, it's one of my "indispensables".

Sedums Great and Small

Now that the sedums are in their full glory, I'm amazed at the variety of the genus. I have probably half a dozen different ones, ranging from the dainty cauticola to a new one this year called 'Postman's Pride'. Beginning at the tiny end of the scale, there's Sedum cauticola; small and almost perfectly formed, with blue-green leaves and bright pink flowers. It's no more than about 4" high, and it cascades ever so slightly - really lovely. I also have Sedum rupestris 'Angelina', with its starry yellow flowers and ferny green stems, as well as a sprawling groundcover sedum that I haven't bothered to identify. It blooms infrequently, but when it does it sends up a stalk about 8" high in midsummer topped by mauve flowers. Of course I have 'Autumn Joy' (who doesn't?), but I also bought Sedum telephium 'Matrona' several years ago, and I like it better every year. This elegant sedum has maroonish stems and leaves, and pale pink blooms. An added bonus is that it stays very erect even under wind and rain - pity the same can't be said about 'Autumn Joy', which flops all over the place when the weather is bad. My latest acquisition, 'Postman's Pride', promises to be quite a sight. It does look a bit lanky this first year, as it spent the better part of two months in its shipping pot, on a shelf on the patio - it ended up with curvature of the spine. The color is fantastic; a deep, dark wine red with sort of orange-red flowers. I've not seen anything quite like it, and I'll really be interested to see it next year.

As I've mentioned in a previous post, I have begun to acquire plants with cultivar names that have the names of family and friends, and came across a sedum last year called 'Carl', which also happens to be the name of a very dear friend. It has a rather different growth habit than many large sedums. The stems, rather than having sets of large leaves, have many smaller leaves all the way around. I especially like the flowers on 'Carl' - they're as dark as "Autumn Joy', but a much more intense fuschia color. It's a living reminder of my friend, and it has the added benefit of being a nectar source for the butterflies. A satisfactory plant, indeed!

In or Out - Make Up Your Mind!

Today is a gray day. Sullen clouds drift across the sky, occasionally spitting rain out as they pass. It's not the kind of day for working outdoors, even though I have a boatload of weeding to do. Of immediate concern is weeding underneath the pergola. I want to get this done before the sweet autumn clematis draping it bursts into bloom. It's safer that way - it attracts so many bees that being around it is like sitting in front of a stereo with the bass cranked up. The clematis is a stunning sight in bloom, if I do say so myself. All those masses of starlike white flowers give the vine that blow-your-eyeballs-out quality of June bloomers. It's been there for 6 years, and it now covers nearly the entire length of the pergola.

I still have my doubts as to whether it actually is Clematis terniflora/paniculata. All the reference books say that sweet autumn clematis has a delicious fragrance, and mine has none whatsoever. I'm inclined to think that it was mislabeled, and in reality is Clematis fargesioides ('Paul Farges'), also sometimes referred to as 'Summer Snow'. That variety isn't listed as being fragrant, but the two look nearly identical and bloom around the same time. Still, fragrant or not, it's a sight to see in the fall when everything else is dead, dying or gone. And goodness knows, here in the Northeast, those days are fast approaching. Uncomfortably fast......

Maybe working in the conservatory would be more productive today. I think I'll haul out the BotaniWipes and clean up the Christmas cacti (a constant battle with the mealy bugs), then clear off the counter and put them there, out of the light, so that they can begin setting buds for the late-fall display. As my late mother was fond of saying, "It'll do you some good besides helping you!".

What to do on Labor Day

Well, here we are at Labor Day - what the TV weathermen annoyingly refer to as "the unofficial end of summer". Changes in the landscape, albeit subtle, are cropping up daily - tons of goldenrod blooming, here and there the odd maple beginning to color up. It really is a bittersweet time of year, and because we elected to spend our holiday at home rather than at my sister's in Pennsylvania, I'm nagged by the thought that time for planting and transplanting is rapidly evaporating. You're home, you should be out there using the afternoon to start getting the Big Dig plants back into the ground - that's what the gardening side of my brain keeps saying to me. However, the hedonistic, indulgent - all right, LAZY - part of my brain is saying, "Screw it - it's a holiday, you've been goofing off all weekend, why stop now?". The lazy side is very persuasive; plus, I just checked the radar and there's rain heading this way. The problem of what to do on Labor Day has now been solved!

The Finishing Touches on the Big Dig

Today, I finally FINALLY got the plants replaced along the new front walk!! Things weren't looking too optimistic initially - I had to dig up 6 peony divisions before I found two with eyes. I was a bit surprised that out of 6 plants, that few had eyes. It makes me wonder how many of the dozen or so pots sitting in the vegetable garden are worthless..... Anyhoo, once I got my peonies reinstated along the walk (I had replanted the roses a week ago), I then dug up the spiraeas and put them in. Last were 2 sedums, one on either side of the dogwood. One sedum is special - a cultivar called 'Carl' that I bought in honor of a very dear friend. I started buying plants named after family and friends the year after my mother died. For her, I bought a hardy lady's slipper called 'Hilda', which sadly didn't make it. Crocus 'Dorothy' for a "second mom" and narcissus 'Dottie's Dream' for an elderly relative followed. Hence, the appearance of 'Carl'. There are still many people who need to be represented in my garden, and in time to come I hope they will be. For the time being, my front walk is itself again (all save bulbs), and that feels good. Very good.

Death Before Lunch - Epilogue

There were good things and bad things about finishing up the replacement of the fountain pump. Before I went in to lunch, I loosely put the basin cover and the screen over the basin to try to keep the water clean. I came back out, removed the cover prior to putting in the new pump, and what do I see? Yep, you guessed it - one of the little buggers was scooting around the rim of the basin. Bad thing. I chased him/her out, then got back to work. Good thing: the new pump works exactly as it should, the mellow sound of gently splashing water is once again heard on the patio. Life is good. For now.

Death Before Lunch

This morning, I undertook a task that I've been putting off for too long. I knew weeks ago that the !@#$% voles were mucking about around my water feature on the patio. I have a large, cobalt-blue ginger jar urn that sits atop a basin holding a pump - this becomes a small fountain, very pleasant to sit and listen to while enjoying a glass of wine. The pump has never been what you'd call energetic, and this spring when I set things up, it was positively anemic. So I purchased a new pump, and this morning I began to dismantle the whole set-up.

Now, I knew going into it that I'd undoubtedly have to clean out the basin, because when the voles muck about, they literally muck about - there would be mud and small stones in the water. Oh, and they also seem to use it as a toilet. It's tons of fun. Anyway, I got the pavers out from around the edge, only to find a very flat, ossified vole. It had been dead for a bit. OK, fine. Then, I took the cover off the basin and started bailing out the bilge. When I was down to about 2 inches of water, what did I find? A bloated, dead baby vole floating around. Lovely. I quickly disposed of the corpses, finished cleaning out the basin, covered it up to try to keep the water clean, and then (amazingly) came in to eat lunch.

Now that lunch is over, I am preparing to go out and put everything back in place, with the sincere hope that the new pump will A) work and B) pump vigorously. I take this opportunity to announce that if neither of these hopes are realized, I will be officially honked off. That is all.

Farewell to Sweet Peas

Today began rather sadly - I finally made myself yank out what was left of the sweet peas. Now that the weather has cooled somewhat, I've been getting some sporadic flowers, but most of the vines were dry and brown. I cut the two flowers that were open and proceeded to yank. Once they were gone, and the pea fence removed, things did look better. Two rows in the back garden were now open, so I planted more lettuce. Pluses and minuses, as my husband likes to say.

On a really positive note, the Great Replanting along the new front walk has begun. After lunch, I went out and started transplanting the three rosebushes that I wanted placed there. First to go in was 'Gertrude Jekyll'. 'Gertrude' has spent the last two months out in a huge pot in the back garden, and my task now was to somehow maneuver her, first out of the fenced enclosure and into the wheelbarrow, then out to the walk. The first part of this didn't go quite as easily as I'd hoped. Recent rains made for a VERY heavy pot; heavier than I'd expected. Long story short, I was on the verge of caving in and begging my husband to help me out when I suddenly remembered that I had one of those Potlifter gadgets! I brought it out, slipped it over the pot - and after an inordinate amount of huffing, puffing and swearing got it into the wheelbarrow. The only casualty was my left knee, which sustained a good bruise, so on the whole I did all right. 'Tiffany' and 'Nancy Reagan' (yes, I was so taken with this rose that I temporarily abandoned my anti-Reagan scruples) followed quickly. They've promised rain tonight, and I'm devoutly hoping for it. After all, nature does a far better job of watering than I can do. Peonies will begin following the roses tomorrow. Onward!

Go, and Let Us Have Done With You!

Why won't they just go away?

I speak, of course, of the ubiquitous vole. Apparently they had a lot of hatchlings over the last few weeks, and now I'm running into the little buggers all over the bloody yard. Scurrying hither and yon, they duck under low-hanging plants and scuttle across my patio. They scoot under the downspout trays and they've worn a track in the grass along the raised bed out front. They are EVERYWHERE.

Of course, it doesn't help that I'm behind in my weeding in every area of the yard, thus affording them ample cover. I'm usually a staunch advocate of keeping cats indoors, but this is almost enough to make me wish for a few good barn cats - they'd make short work of the little critters. Come to think of it, so would some dogs. We had a dog when I was a teenager that was forever bringing dead moles up on the front porch. (My mother, like Queen Victoria, was not amused.) However, I lack any outdoor animals that could take them on. I guess that I'll just have to endure until I can finally get the beds cleaned up and then lay down a veritable snowfall of Shake Away granules. In the meantime, I can only echo the words of Oliver Cromwell: "Depart, I say. Let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!"

Goin' to the Chapel.....

I just returned home from delivering the flowers I did for a wedding in Rochester, at the Colgate Divinity School. Wedding flowers are a hobby for me, something I just sort of fell into years ago. I started out doing silk flowers, then progressed to fresh after working for a florist for a couple years. I love working with fresh flowers; particularly coordinating shades and colors. The right combination of colors makes an arrangement simply sing!

Today's bride chose light and dark purple, with touches of blue and white. I made hand-tied bouquets with the two colors of lisianthus, light blue delphinium, small white asters, all centered around a large light blue hydrangea. The interplay of light and dark hues was striking, and of course, the hand-tied assembly gave the flowers the appearance of just having been picked from the garden. The bride was immensely pleased, so - job well done!

Corn Season

Well, it's been a while since my last post, but I've been busy with a wedding I booked earlier this year. It takes place tomorrow afternoon, Friday the 13th. (When I asked the bride how many people had given her a ration because of the date, she replied that her fiance wanted a date that would make their anniversary easier to remember! Nice touch.) I've done the flowers for the wedding; in fact, putting those together is how I spent my day today. The results are, if I do say so myself, pleasing. However, working intensely like that means that I'm not much interested in cooking anything elaborate. And now that it's corn season, I don't need to! Herewith is one of my favorite corn recipes. It originally comes from the New York Wine and Culinary Center (I've streamlined it a bit), it's dead simple and it's delicious. You can make it year-round using BirdsEye Steamfresh corn - no need to thaw/cook first.

Roasted Corn

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Cut corn off the cob (as much as you need to supply your particular number of people). Put in a bowl, drizzle lightly with olive oil. Add ground thyme to taste, lightly salt and pepper. Stir to coat corn. Turn out onto a baking sheet and spread in a single layer. Bake at 375 for approximately 10 minutes.

Enjoy one of the best things about late summer!

Of Critters and Creepies

They're baaaack...........the voles, that is. The little buggers are popping up everywhere now. Under my water feature, out in the front beds, you name it, you'll see them there. And apparently, some of them are newbies from litters - I saw one out the kitchen window the other afternoon scutttling out from under said water feature and parking itself on the lawn. I ran out stomping vigorously, hurling imprecations, and it just looked at me and said, "What...?". So that means I'll have to dismantle the fountain and evict the squatters, in addition to clearing up weeds and debris in all the beds, and then start sprinkling Shake Away madly around the landscape. Sigh.

And if that wasn't bad enough, we're now entering spider season. I grew up in a drafty, leaky old house and have suffered from severe arachnaphobia my whole life. As I've grown older, I've grown bolder and I can deal with small to moderate sized ones on my own (for the most part). But the thing I hate about spiders is that they're quiet and they're sneaky and they startle the bejesus out of me when they appear. One day last week, I opened the door to the shed to get a tool out. Two fortunate things occurred - I had my big old work boots on, and I looked before I entered. The sun was shining directly into the doorway, and I looked down and saw a funnel-type web on the floor beside the wheelbarrow. I shivered involuntarily, because I particularly detest those types of spiders, and as I did, one suddenly leaped out, planted all 8 legs down firmly and pretty much said, "You want a piece a dis? Hah?? Bring it on!" Well, I brought it on - right down on top of him and he went SPLAT. I was quite proud of myself, and so was my husband when I told him at dinner.

Spiders and I are sworn enemies, and I still do need occasional spousal help in besting them. One Christmas a few years ago, I was decorating my small tree in the conservatory when I saw one of those fat, furry black spiders that you see outdoors here, but that sometimes find their way into the house. I let out a shriek, my husband came running and we tried to find it. I thought that I had smacked it and smushed it, and we couldn't see it anywhere, so my husband went back to work and so did I. I reached into the ornament box, turned to face the tree - and there the little bugger was, sitting on top of the tree like an ornament. And if spiders had middle fingers, that one would have been upraised. Leaving nothing to chance, I called for my husband again, he came in and disposed of the monster. Speaking of ornaments, I have actually seen some spider Christmas ornaments for sale. Those people are sick........

Big Dig Accomplished

Well, as of about 1:00 p.m. today, the Big Dig project is finished. At least the construction phase is. We now have a stylish front porch with new stone steps and a herringbone-patterned front walkway - nice! The builders didn't disappoint in terms of execution, and they were immaculate; every bit of debris and mess has vanished. Other than the fine veil of concrete dust on the adjacent grass, you'd never even know they were there at all! It all looks amazing, and I'm already visualizing my containers back in place, and seasonal decorations in the months to come. Best part - they did it all in 3 days. I owe my neighbor 2 doors down a big shout-out for recommending these guys - many thanks, Phil! Your plate of cookies will be arriving shortly........

Just When You Thought It Was Safe

I know that in a previous post I said that I was now beyond surprise when it comes to the strange gardening year that this has so far been. Belay that - it just got stranger today. I came back from the grocery store this morning and parked next to my magnolia. When I opened the door, I came face to face with not one, but two magnolia flowers. In July. At the end of a week that saw record high temperatures. I am NOW beyond surprise.

Hot Stuff

This week has been brutal. The 4th of July dawned hot, and has grown steadily hotter ever since. Every day this week was at least 90 - yesterday was actually 95; the heat index was nearly 100! And the amazing thing about it is that, while the humidity naturally increases at night, daytime humidity levels (with the exception of a couple days, today included) have been almost desert-level. Yesterday was like a blast furnace - clear, sharp blue sky without a hint of haze, and relative humidity of 36%. Amazing.

As you might expect, the poor plants are suffering mightily. I've been watering morning and evening, but only the things in pots; the perennial beds have to fend for themselves, unless I see someone in undue distress. I just don't have the time, as I have about 3 dozen pots penned up in my veggie/cut flower garden in back, plus all the mail order plants that I haven't had the space or the opportunity to plant yet. Just watering those alone takes nearly an hour, much less everything else in this yard. Dear God in Heaven, I am tired of watering....... On the plus side, the front porch/sidewalk rebuild is (allegedly) to begin Monday morning. Once that's done, I'll be able to start replanting a lot of the aforementioned pots. Now, if we can just have some rain to soften up the ground so I can weed so I can plant!

The Evil Lily Leaf Beetle

I don't know if these little buggers exist in other areas of the country, but we here in the Northeast are plagued by the Lily Leaf Beetle. Small and red, easily mistaken for ladybugs at a distance, these pests literally devour Asiatic and Oriental lilies, laying waste to entire displays. The lilies end up looking as if someone set them on fire and then had a change of heart. I have so many gorgeous lilies, and now half of them are in tatters. Asiatic lilies seem to fare the worst, followed by the Orientals. Thankfully, the magnificent tall trumpet lilies seem immune to the beetles. It's really maddening; you see your lilies opening up one day, and by the next they're a sorry mess - petals chewed within an inch of their lives, leaves (what's left of them!) covered with beetle exhaust and the whole plant generally looking like hell. What should be a stunningly beautiful time of year in the garden becomes a wasteland......

Honestly, some days it's just not worth chewing through the restraints........

And Furthermore.......

A couple of other items of interest today, in the seemingly endless saga of "Weird Stuff Happening in the Garden This Year":

- I cut my first sweet peas this week. I've never had any until after the Fourth of July before.

- I saw my first Japanese beetles this week. Again, never seen them until July before.

- The tawny daylilies of the roadside have been in bloom for over a week now. Ditto, never before July.

It's going to be a long, green summer......

Pushing the Envelope

While working on the Big Dig (which is now, mercifully, finished), I made a couple of discoveries that amazed and delighted me. It also convinced me once again of the value in pushing the envelope in terms of plant material. The first thing was finding that the phygelius 'Cherry Ripe' that I planted in two spots "front of house", as they say in the restaurant trade, had not only survived but thrived. This South African native is only supposed to be hardy to zone 7, and while its location here is full south and full sun, we still have serious winters here in western NY. My other nudge to the envelope flap turned out to be a complete surprise. I had purchased a blue tweedia at my favorite unusual plants nursery last year, and put it in the same area as the phygelius. Much to my astonishment, I have a small plant about 6" high and quite healthy (hopefully the uprooting and potting won't do it in). The real surprise here is that tweedia hails from Brazil and Uruguay, and is only hardy to zone 10. I am zone 5 - I don't care what the zone map claims - and that shouldn't have lived to germinate. Amazing.

I've pulled this off a couple times in the past as well. For instance, several years back I planted a calla lily at the back of my house, which is mainly shade and faces north, with no protection from the nasty winds we get in winter. That fall, I got busy with other things and neglected to dig the bulb up. Imagine my surprise when the silly thing came up and bloomed not once, but 3 years in a row! It was fun to beat the system, as it were, and I think everyone should try it at least once.........just because you can.

Still More Madness

As I've noted before, this year has been one for the gardening record books. More evidence that the garden has gone mad:

- I noticed one day last week that I have a Phlox paniculata in bloom - one that typically doesn't show up until the end of July at the earliest.

- I cut my first sweet peas yesterday. I have never had sweet peas blooming before about July 10.

- The red hot pokers (Kniphofia) have come, and are nearly gone. Again, typically never showing up until early July.

- The tawny daylilies by the roadsides are already in full bloom. Ditto.

- Hostas are fully budded out and in some cases, in bloom. Usually appearing mid to late July.

The list just goes on and on. Not to sound like anyone's great-grandmother, but I have never seen the like.,,,,

The Big Dig

Well, the Big Dig has officially started here at the homestead. We are having our front "porch" and sidewalk from the driveway redone, and the long and the short of it is that every single plant along both sides of the walk has to be dug up and stashed somewhere for the duration. The fun began by digging up the 3 rosebushes. The 'Angel Wings' rose, which I grew from seed, got potted and put in the back vegetable/cut flower garden. It's looking pretty peaky, so I'm hoping that the stress hasn't killed it already. It's not that I particularly admire the rose, but I did grow it from seed, and everyone who hears that is impressed as hell. For that reason, I'd kind of hate losing it. Time will tell, I guess. Next were the two hybrid teas, 'Fragrant Memory' and 'Gertrude Jekyll'. 'Gertrude' went by the garage, replacing 'Peace'. ('Peace' gave up the ghost this year; I suspect the voles spent the winter snacking on it and killed it.) 'Gertrude', I regret to say, is not looking well either. 'Fragrant Memory', on the other hand, is looking quite robust, and I think that will do just fine.

After the roses were dispatched, I started in on the peonies. Let me tell you, peonies that have been in the ground and undisturbed for nearly two decades have hellacious roots. I got about half of them out, and I was done in at that point. Unfortunately, since I'm doing this at the wrong time of the year, I just have to hope that I've got some good eyes on the divisions. I would be vastly annoyed if this turned out to be all for naught, and I lose all those peonies! Especially because they were passalongs from a very dear, now quite elderly (93) friend of mine. That would hurt.

No work will be done tomorrow, as the forecast is for a high of 90, with oppressive humidity and thunderstorms. Also because I have fibromyalgia, and I'm still hurting from yesterday's exertions. Work resumes on Sunday. Hopefully, I'll be able to finish up the peonies, and at least begin on the spiraeas. Once I get that done, the rest is a piece of cake. I just hope that the contractor isn't swamped, and will be here sometime in July or early August - and then I can put everything back again! What can I say.........it's a sickness!

"Peas" on Earth

Happy, happy, joy, joy!! My peas have begun to produce! I was out after dinner this evening cutting flowers, and I happened to glance over at the pea section - lo and behold, a dozen or so fat little green pods. I grabbed them all, came inside and began sampling. Is there anything in the vegetable world as sweet and luscious as the first garden peas? These were like tiny bites of candy, or eating sugar cubes. Delicious. Of course, it immediately occurred to me that I need to pick and segregate so that I can trial them and decide who makes the cut for next year, and who isn't worth bothering with. But that will be for next time. For the moment, I let greed take the helm. After all, I think I planted 8 or 9 different varieties, and the season's just beginning. Plenty of time and opportunity coming to be scientific about it all. Let there be peas on earth, and let them be in my mouth!

Outside Cleanup Aborted - Inside Cleanup Begins!

Well, it started out being a lovely day. After nearly 2" of rain yesterday, today was to have been sunny, mild and windless - ideal for the group of garden clubbers who came over to get some free plants. We dug all morning, then had lunch on the patio. And it WAS sunny, mild and windless. Until just about the time we finished eating and I looked over my shoulder and said, "Hey, it's not supposed to rain today - but those sure look like rain clouds". Sure enough, about half an hour later it got dark, windy and it poured for five minutes. Pure lake effect.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the phenomenon known as "lake effect", herewith a short primer. Basically, it's this - the cold air aloft moves over the warmer air of the Great Lakes (Ontario, in my case) and gives you boatloads of snow in winter and wave after wave of brief but intense rain showers at this time of year. So, having been driven indoors by the certainty that this would just be an endless feedback loop all afternoon, I turned my attention to the conservatory. This has been a total rat's nest for the last 2 months - dirty vases, empty pots, packets of seed everywhere. Now, I can look at a mess for a long period of time and it won't trouble me at all. But there comes a point in time where it's all suddenly a burr under my saddle and it has to be dealt with NOW. Tomorrow won't do. Next week won't do. Next.......well, you get the idea. I rolled up my sleeves and set to. By dinnertime, I had all the clutter off the floors, all the vases were washed and put away, and the first batch of pots was washed and set to dry. Phase One will be finished tomorrow. And then it's onto the Next Big Thing - back outdoors to begin the Big Dig. We've contracted to have our front porch and sidewalk replaced, and that means that I have to dig up every single thing along both sides of the front walk. All of it. By myself, unless I can rope in some unsuspecting friends......

Ode to the Waterbabies

One of the delights of June (albeit early this year, as we've discussed in previous posts) is the Oriental poppy. Actually, I love all poppies; Oriental, Iceland, Shirley, what have you - but the most striking are the Orientals. Big, sometimes gaudy, always striking, the show they put on at this time of year makes me forgive their utter lack of usefulness the rest of the season. Matter of fact, in the interval between the end of their blooming and the disappearance of their tatty foliage, they're downright ugly. For now, though, all is forgiven for my 'Waterbabies' are blooming their fool heads off.

'Waterbabies' is a strain that I purchased from White Flower Farm a good 10 years ago, and sadly they no longer carry it. They come in an astonishing array of shades: watermelon-colored, carnation pink, pale grape, a deep, almost wine color. They're totally unlike any other strain I can think of, and I wish to goodness they were still available! Six years ago, we had our patio and a pergola installed, and all the plants in the bed where the pergola was going had to be moved. Now, most gardening books and authorities will warn you that any attempt to transplant an Oriental poppy with its monstrous taproot will only create much wailing and gnashing of teeth, ending in the loss of said poppy, so it was with great trepidation that I dug the 'Waterbabies' up and potted them. I held my breath that whole summer, because of course the foliage wouldn't reappear until autumn. You can imagine my jubilation when I saw the new leaves start popping up in the pots, because by then they'd disappeared from the WWF catalog, so if I lost these, I was SOL. They then went back into the bed under the new pergola, and they've been thriving there ever since. I think this year I'll try to save some seed to start next winter, because nothing lasts forever, and June simply wouldn't be June without my "babies"!

And The Madness Continues.....

Today is May 31. I emphasize that date, because this morning, I drove by my favorite farm stand and saw that they are open for business - selling strawberries. STRAWBERRIES. I have never in my life in the northern US had local strawberries before early June. Never. This is another one for the record books! As if that wasn't goofy enough, I also noticed that I have a fiery orange Oriental lily open along the front of the house. I've never seen one of these blooming in May that hadn't been forced in the greenhouse. However, I was gratified to notice that it was blooming alongside my 'Kopper Kettle' Itoh peony, with a blue delphinium poised to open in the middle of the other two - a handsome color combination if I do say so myself. And if I don't, who will?

The Madness Continues....

I am, as the Brits like to say, gobsmacked. I was doing a turn around the garden this evening, and to my shock I discovered that I am likely to have lavender blooming before this month has completely ended. Lavender in May - that's one for the books. As if it wasn't weird enough to have roses blooming before the end of May (that's at least happened before in very warm years) and possibly having delphinium blooming as well, now I have lavender??. If this keeps up, my garden won't have a bleedin' thing in bloom by the end of June. I've never seen the like. Now what was that about global warming being a myth?

A Grand Day Out

This morning, I invited members of a garden club near Lake Ontario to head down south here to my place. The lure was plant shopping at a very fun little nursery about 10 miles from here. I had given a program for their club last summer, and told them about Good Earth Greenhouse. The woman who owns it grows a lot of unusual annuals and herbs from seed, along with perennials and sells them from her side yard. Her prices are reasonable, the quality is excellent, and it's stuff that you just won't find anywhere else. Plus she hands out a free baby plant of some kind with every purchase. The ladies were all for it, and they arrived here about 11 a.m. After a tour of my yard (my iris and peonies are spectacular right now, I must say - and if I don't, who will?), we headed over to Clifton Springs, stopping first for lunch at Warfield's Restaurant, which none of them had ever been to. A fine lunch was had by all. Several of them took my recommendation of Caesar salad with buttermilk-fried shrimp (to die for, trust me) and were very glad they did. They also insisted on buying my lunch, which was lovely of them. Then it was off to buy plants. As if any of us really need more plants. And the irony here is that pretty much everything I have needs dividing, and I offered to share many of the plants they admired at my house - so they're coming back in September for a work party to score still more plants. What can I say - it's a sickness. But I digress. The bottom line was that the ladies were enchanted with Good Earth, several of them intend to go back before she closes for the season, there is such a thing as a free lunch, and every one of us bought more plants. What more can you ask from this life?

Spring Days, Summer Flowers

I had roses in bloom this morning. Roses. It's not even June quite yet - this has to be the earliest I've had blooming roses in the 18 years we've been in residence. 'Burgundy Iceberg', 'Fragrant Memory' and 'Carding Mill' were open today. "Gertrude Jekyll' and 'Nancy Reagan' are not far behind. 'Peace', alas, has gone to its reward. There are only a few anemic leaves coming out, and those not more than a couple of inches high. My guess is that the voles in that area must have munched on the roots over the winter. Possibly over the last few winters - it's been struggling and declining for a while now. I know, I know - another one is easily come by, but this hurts. It was my late mother's favorite rose, and the first one I purchased for my home. Ah well......

What an extreme spring this has been here in western New York! Everything is pretty much 2 weeks ahead of normal. For instance, my delphiniums are probably a week or less from opening. Typically I don't see flower stalks until the second week in June. I wouldn't be surprised if local strawberries come into the market in the next 10 days (one hopes - yum!). Meanwhile, the iris and the peonies are emerging in all their glory. There's a farmer about 25 miles from here, down a country lane, who sells (and hybridizes) iris and peonies; a great lot of them. Looking at his fields this time of year is not unlike looking at a land-based rainbow. My gardens are graced with many purchases from Mr. Borglum. Every year I say I won't go out there this year. Then it becomes, "Well, I'll go but I won't buy anything". Once I get there, it all goes to hell in the proverbial handbasket and I arrive home with multiple bags of iris and peonies. Some of my favorite iris are simply admired for what they are; the cultivar name is long forgotten. There's a magnificent mahogany-colored one, about 3 feet high with huge, broad flowers. An equally huge, batik-style one in a rich shade of raspberry/grape. As for peonies, I have two beauties. 'Etched Salmon' looks like a David Austin English rose - bright strawberry pink with an almost imperceptible dark pink edging. The other is 'Nancy Nora', a blush-pink bomb type with the light, sweet fragrance I recall from a peony in my parents' yard. It's Borglum's fault. You go out to the beds, point out the clump you want, and he digs it up. If he gets some of the adjacent clump along with it, he'll toss it in. I ask you, how can you turn that down? Stop me before I spend again..........

And so it begins.......

This week has been a fabulous one. Our best friends arrived from Ohio last Saturday for their annual visit. We celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary in awesomely grand style on Monday, the rest of this week has been spent in pursuit of nothing but total fun and frolic, the weather has been superb - life just doesn't get any better than this.

It is, however, an unwritten rule that one does have to pay for one's pleasures. And so I will, beginning next week. We contracted to have our front step and sidewalk redone, and said area is just crammed with plants. Unless I wish to very cavalierly toss aside a wealth of bulbs, perennials, passalong plants and roses, I have to get my hindquarters out there and start digging. Pronto. When we signed the contract at the end of April, I asked the guy when he thought he'd be starting work. "Mid-May" was the reply. I blanched and promptly said, "NO" (that was "Hell, no" mentally). If he had selected just about any other point in the calendar year, I'd have been good with it. But with housecleaning, Mother's Day, our friends arriving for our milestone anniversary and mail-order plants multiplying on the patio, he picked the single worst time of the year, bar none. He agreed to push it off until June, but as that's only 2 weeks away, I guess that means I have kick into high gear, grab a shovel and a couple of long-suffering garden friends and have at it. Whether I'm still alive, and more to the point - whether I get done before he arrives - will be the subject of future posts. Stay tuned.......

Gone With The Wind. I'm Not Kidding.

What a day Saturday was! We had our Master Gardeners' annual plant sale in the morning, and were on pins and needles waiting to see what kind of weather would greet us. There was a high wind warning out, and the temperature was supposed to start dropping as rain moved in. Whew - we caught a break. The sun came out, and while the winds were gusty, there was no rain until mid-afternoon. But when the rain arrived, oh boy - we had sustained winds of about 40 mph, with many gusts of 50 and 60-plus mph! Today my back yard is littered with broken off lilac flowers, and tomorrow when the wind finally dies down, I'll have to go out and do a thorough clean-up. I'm ever so glad that we took down 7 silver maples a couple of years ago - this might have been the storm that sent them into the house. Still, it could be worse. I remember a Mother's Day several years ago when we had half a foot of snow on the ground. I feel for the planners of Rochester's Lilac Festival, set to begin next weekend. Between the abnormally hot weather we've had and yesterday's windstorm, I'm betting there won't be much to see in Highland Park this year...........

Weird Weather

Today was one of the strangest days in what's so far been a very strange spring season. I awakened about 5 this morning to the booming sound of high winds - a cold front was coming through. When I got up, it was gloomy and getting steadily darker. While eating my breakfast, I had the misfortune to glance out the window - it was snowing. Like blazes. It looked like the kind of wind-driven, blizzardy snow squalls we usually have here in December. It was a bizarre sight to look out at the crabapple in full bloom, at all the tulips, narcissus and violets and see something like that! We had squalls off and on all morning. I kept throwing middle fingers up into the air, but the cats were delighted. Snowflakes apparently ROCK, and my housework was accompanied by the sounds of the cats pounding on the sliding door, smacking at the flakes as they hit the patio. I'm glad someone was happy about it - it sure as hell wasn't me.........

For Love of Sweet Peas

I began spring planting today, and the first thing to go in was my beloved sweet peas - 10 varieties all told. I must have sweet peas, the more the better. On offer this season: 'Streamer Chocolate', 'King Size Navy Blue', 'Rhapsody in Blue', 'Horizon Mixed', 'Tall Mixed', 'Mollie Rilestone', 'Nellie Viner', 'Zinfandel', 'Blue Ripple' and my all-time favorite, 'April in Paris'. 'April' is without a doubt the most fragrant sweet pea I've ever known, and it's lovely to look at, too. A bicolor, it's vanilla cream with a lilac-colored edge. I won a blue ribbon in horticulture at a flower show a few years ago for this sweet pea. In fact, some of my garden club were so infatuated with it that we grew it for our club hort project last year.

My love of sweet peas led indirectly to an opportunity to have a brief conversation with the late illustrator Tasha Tudor. In the summer of 2002, I attended a "Day With Tasha Tudor" (or something like that) in Vermont, at the Adams Family Farm. The big event of the day was afternoon tea with Tasha herself. There was a reception line, and there she sat (she was beginning to be frail by then) with a huge bouquet of flawless white sweet peas. When my turn came, I admired her sweet peas and said that mine were just beginning to bloom at home. She smiled and said how much she loved the flower, and asked me how many varieties I planted. I don't often get worked up over the great and famous (unless they do something asinine, of course), but I have to say, that was a thrill for me. And all because of a love of sweet peas.......

The First Real Rainy Day of Spring

We've been a tad on the dry side the last couple of weeks in my region. The unbelievably hot weather over the weekend helped fuel the outbreak of a number of brush fires, and when it's been breezy, dust devils could be seen whirling across the road. So I was grateful for the promised rain that fell this morning. A pause this afternoon allowed me to go out and do a few necessary tasks, and now it's begun to rain again - this time with occasional rumbles and mutters of thunder; the first of the season. I used to be terrified of thunderstorms as a child, but not this kind - the deep, almost imperceptible drumroll that your ear picks up at intervals. A favorite children's book of mine, in describing a first spring thunderstorm, referred to the sound as "the good-natured roar of a well-fed lion". Well put. And a comforting, comfortable sound when you're indoors with a cup of tea.....

The Rites - and Wrongs - of Spring

The last part of last week was a headlong leap into summer here in western NY - both Friday and Saturday we reached a high of 86 degrees, which broke a record each day. As you might imagine, it kick-started everything into growth and/or bloom, and the yard is beginning to have spots of color everywhere. Most of the minor bulbs have come and gone; however, glory-of-the-snow and striped squills are flourishing. Now the hyacinths and daffodils are beginning to burst into glory, and the forsythia is opening as well. Seeing the landscape change day by day, running around outdoors pruning, cleaning and seeing who's coming on next are all cherished rites of early spring that are a tonic after a long, mean northern winter. Spring isn't all beer and skittles, however. Some things can be utterly and absolutely wrong - even when you're doing something that seems so right. Case in point - Friday night I yanked the cover off the gas grill in high anticipation of the season's first cookout, and got a nasty shock. Upon opening the lid, I was confronted with a mouse nest - no, wait: a mouse condominium - about the size of a 6" flowerpot! Mercifully, it was absent any tenants, but my word - I was not expecting that. After gingerly removing the offending object and doing some requisite cleaning, the cookout went off without a hitch. I did take the liberty of dumping the mouse exhaust that I found during cleaning onto the adjacent flowerbed; I figured, what the heck - manure is manure, big or little. It certainly can't hurt.......

Wee Wonders

We had some achingly lovely spring weather last week, that has unfortunately deserted us for the short term. Today it's in the 30's with a chill rain, and the flowers that opened and sunned themselves then are now either closed up tight, flattened, or both. Most depressing. However, I wanted to share a couple of happenings last week that, frankly, startled the bejesus out of me, they were so unexpected. Delightful, but unexpected.

First of all, I have a pink-flowered Cornus florida by my front walk. Underneath it, at least 15 years ago, I planted a clump of Iris reticulata, a dark purple - I've forgotten the cultivar. This clump stopped blooming about 2 or 3 years after I planted it. The leaves always came up like clockwork every spring, but nary a bloom. Imagine my surprise, then, when I looked down to see one lonely, brave flower where none had been seen for more than a decade. In searching mind and memory for a possible reason, the only thing I could come up with is that typically, I don't bother removing the fallen dogwood leaves over the winter, and for some reason I did so last fall. Perhaps the extra light exposure did the trick? I don't have a clue.

The other unexpected happening was that, for the first time in eons, none of my crocus were molested by the bunnies! Every single clump was lush, full and unmunched. Again, why? Best guess is that because the crocus opened up a good two weeks earlier than normal, the bunnies weren't out and about to do damage. But that's just my best guess. On both counts I was, as the Brits like to say, gobsmacked.

It Was The Best of Times, and The Worst of Times....

Best: The weather this week has been sublime. The snow has been melted and gone for nearly 2 weeks now. As I write this, it's 64 degrees, sunny, we've got the front door open to blow all the winter stink out of the house. I now have winter aconites (nearly done, with this warmth), snowdrops, crocus and a few 'Rosina' violets open. Tulips and daffodils have been growing by inches each day. Pussy willows are out. The frozen custard stand by the lake is open, and while I was out this afternoon, I treated myself. Chocolate, in case anyone was wondering. In short, a perfect nearly-spring day!

Worst: Now that the snow is gone, I'm seeing what the voles hath wrought, and it ain't pretty. Those little - blighters - were everywhere, and they were industrious. There are spots in front and in back that look like a relief map. And it looks even worse from the upstairs windows. I have a great deal of work to do. As if that wasn't bad enough, I went out and pruned back some clematis yesterday (another superlative day), and found a dead mouse on the patio steps. Fortunately, I had my gloves on, so I was able to pick up the ex-mouse and fling it out into the field behind my house. Talk about adding insult to injury........

A Little Ray of Sunshine

It seems incredible, but after being buried under a foot-plus of heavy, soaking wet snow a week ago, I now have 4 winter aconites by the front walk. They've got their little heads thrown back and are smiling up at me - what a welcome sight! I always love seeing the aconites pop up unexpectedly like this. Before the snowdrops, before the puschkinia (or whatever it is that the taxonomists have decided it should be called this week), before everybody decides to show themselves, there they are, bless their little yellow hearts. I've always been secretly envious of a house in this area - some homeowner many years ago planted a swath of aconites in the front yard, and the colony has grown immensely over the years to cover the entire yard! Oh, it's a glorious sight right now - and a happy and welcome one too.

This is not the earliest I've ever had aconites, though. The February that my mother died was an exceptionally mild one here in zone 5. She died on the 4th, and we returned from her funeral in Pennsylvania on the 9th. On a trip out to the car to get a forgotten item, I suddenly noticed that there was a small clump of aconites blooming profusely by the driveway. It may sound sentimental and mawkish to some, but I really felt that it was my mother's way of sending one last, loving goodbye to me. You see, my earliest gardening memories are of me at age 3, toddling around our yard toward the end of March, holding her hand as we looked for signs of spring around the house. "What's this, Mommy?" "A violet." "What's that one?" "A daffodil." In later years, when I was grown with a garden of my own, I would always, always call her to tell her what was coming up, and we'd eagerly compare notes. Spring is wonderful in some ways, difficult in others - the joy in seeing the world come alive once again is tempered by the knowledge that I can't call Mom to share that joy. But every time I see a new spring flower open up, I can't help smiling, and thinking how much I owe to my mother for making me a gardener all those years ago.

EEEK! A @#$% Vole!

It was one of those "I did not see that coming" moments. I went out back to fill up the bird feeder this afternoon, and as I returned to the garage, I went to take a step just as a vole popped up out of the snow! Not what I was expecting. I squealed and leaped into the air (no doubt to the amusement of my neighbors) - and hotfooted it back into the garage and put the door down in one heck of a hurry. What we don't need is to have the little darlings in the garage. Bad enough I can't seem to get rid of them no matter what I do. My husband's take on all this was, "You should have stepped on it!". Um, no - I think I'd have been traumatized for some little while, and it would have taken the edge right off of Valentine's Day weekend.....

Dreaming Green Dreams

Well, the mountain of catalogs has now been sorted (Dear God, how our mailman must hate us!) into seeds and plants, and the arduous process of ordering has begun. This is not something that is accomplished easily - there is method to the madness. First I go through every catalog and write down anything and everything that catches my fancy. Nothing is off limits; budgets do not apply. It's the grownup equivalent of a kid's list to Santa. Then, after the initial frenzy, I go back through as an adult and start reconsidering, comparing prices, etc., etc. - and driving my long-suffering spouse nuts with my breathless updates as to how much I've managed to whittle down the cost per catalog. (His view runs along the lines of, "Just buy it, for God's sake".) After much dithering and gnashing of teeth, the seeds are purchased - and then it starts all over again with plant catalogs. Right now, I'm about halfway though the seed catalogs (Phase 1), but I got slowed down looking through Nichols Garden Nursery catalog and their impressive selection of herbs. The basil section did me in. I love basil, and they have so many different kinds this year! I started visualizing pots of basil, basil among the borders, basil in bouquets (Purple Ruffles) - in short, I spent half an hour just dreaming green dreams.