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...........