Doing Something Right!

 

Here's a view of our Long Border. I admit to yanking a few deceased annuals from its ranks and I think Bob chopped down a couple of Eupatorium (Joe Pye Weed) stalks that had fallen over, but it's pretty much left to it's own devices until next early spring. I always allowed for a certain gardening laziness that creeps over me by late summer. Early September finds me shrugging and suggesting it's too late to prop things up or edit and reorganize. 

Yup! That's me casting a long shadow on a kind of unsightly aster clump (the cultivar "Purple Dome" a half tall variety.) And while I admit to an unwillingness to walk back to the house and get pruners to remove the desiccated remains I also suspected that the seeds were possibly good food for birds. And I was right!

I just read an article in The Connecticut Gardener (#1) that confirmed my thoughts and applauded my laziness. The authors of the article in question averred that insects (hopefully beneficial) nest in the hollow stems and birds do indeed feed on seeds left behind. 

(This grass (Miscanthus sinensis) makes me look tiny; it IS tall and the inflorescenses look good all winter- until an ice storm beats them down!) So I've been vindicated in my waiting 'til next spring to clean up. Yes, sometimes when we get a warm February day, Robin the Good and I get out and start cutting down things that look particulary rough. Some plants don't age gracefully!

Here's another very poofy grass; I think this is one looks rather nice with the late day sunlight hitting the tufts. So... lesson learned: don't be in such a big fat rush to tidy up. There's plenty of time ahead to do that and the birds and bees will thank you!

(*1) The Connecticut Gardener is a really good resouce for all manner of garden information. Please consider subscribing! And I don't just say that becasue I write the occasional column for it!!

More Medieval Farm Fun!

 

Isn't it amazing that this lovely, halcyon woodsy vision is on our property? Is it any wonder that our friend the bear chose to stroll through, no doubt enjoying the view? This break in the trees leads to our stream which we are so fortunate have because it's now how we're watering our gardens. As I referenced in an earlier post, our well was presenting with low water pressure and we are being conservative with the hose watering.

Here's Bob down by the stream ready to dip in and fill the buckets. It's really quite pretty here... if one scares the bears (and coyotes and bobcats and probably a few stray mountain lions!) away. (*1) Anyway, this has become a daily event in our modern efforts to re-create how our medieval ancestors lived. Some things never change!

Fill those buckets! Tote that weight! And then we schlepp them up the hill to the awaiting water cart and pour the water into the bigger buckets. Bob is much stronger than me so he carries a couple of buckets at once; I can only manage one. But who's counting? It's all in good, clean medieval fun!

And then we push that cart up the hill (of course it's a hill!) and through the gate and away across the lawn to the various containers and vegetables that need refreshment. But all our hard work is paying off as nothing has died despite the continued drought. In fact the vegetable garden is really productive, serving up a bounty of Swiss chard, okra, lettuce, parsley, squash, peppers and the first tomatoes. (Soon to come: hazel nuts, grapes and beans.)

(This is a picture from earlier this year because I'm too lazy to go out and re-photograph the vegetable garden. It's too hot and I'm hungry. And I guess too honest.)

(*1) Not to mention watching out for ticks and leeches and variously infected mosquitoes... scary world we live in!

Gardening Like There's No Tomorrow

So it's started: that mad scramble to buy, assemble and compose, feed, and plant. This part of Spring is so incredibly busy... that's MY excuse for not having posted sooner. I take my vocation as a "life style coach" VERY seriously and it's on me when I neglect my hungry followers. I apologize! But sometimes, living that heady, fast paced life style precludes the reporting on it.
So the picture at the top represents my initial foray into container planting. It's so much fun gathering all these colorful and seductive annuals and arranging for them to spend the summer together. Sometimes my head spins with the possibilities. Here's a shot of some of my raw material:

These are some of the plants I kept having to move out of my studio and back in every night when the weather was still chilly! It became quite the ordeal. Now I'm of the mindset that if we get a cold night- too bad! And that's only a fraction of what I've already planted.

Here's a shot of the amazing tulips that we obtained through our friend Hanneke who works at a tulip importer called ColorBlends. We can't say enough good things about their bulbs! Spectacular! So much better quality; the tulips and daffodils bloomed longer and were altogether bigger and more vibrant. Our Spring displays were amazing. Of course the irony is that few people got to see them as COVID 19 has put a cabosh on visitors!

Here's another tulip bed. These were inferior "Big Box" tulips and are already gone by. They also did not stand up well to the harsh weather and winds we experienced. I sound like an advertisement but boy there was a noticeable difference. I'm planting this bed in with cannas and zinnia linearis. That will be posted soon enough!

And Bob has been busy in the vegetable garden. We have been devouring salad after salad of wonderful delicate little greens.This is the same bed I featured in a previous posting. You can see how much these seedlings have grown. And take a look:

Bob meticulously transplants all those individual plants so they have room to grow. We eat the thinnings... I'm so lucky. Nothing I like better than tiny tender lettuce!
So forgive me if it's another few days before I post again; we're both busy in the great outdoors. We've also started grass seed in the horse field, mowed the lawn, Bob's planted his birthday present azalea (Delaware Valley White) and peonies (Festiva Maxima, Scarlett O'Hara and Do Tell) in a completely new display garden by the driveway. That way, when people pick up their metal plant supports (mostly peony rings!) they can see his work in action. It looks terrific! No wonder we're tired!

Smashy Smashy Bang Bang!

That's me photobombing my own creation.. Round 2 of mosaicing the tree! I had so much fun smashing all those plates! Thank goodness that I work at a facility that not only breaks its share of plates in the moving part of the job, but receives a great deal of already cracked, chipped and busted crockery. The pile I have at home is being sorted...
There are so many small details that accompany this project: assemble all tools, turn on the hose, smash plates (yes, wearing eye protection and gloves and covering plate to be deconstructed with a piece of cloth), sort plates into color coded piles, etc etc. I'm learning so much as I go, too, like smaller bits work much better. On the flat surface of the walk way, larger pieces were possible as they didn't have to defy gravity. going up the side of the tree- and around the curved surface!- presents a whole slew of logistical issues. I'm having fun!

Here's a closer read of the color. As noted previously, this particular tree will be in the reds/oranges/pinks range. The yellow above is actually gold from the rims of some really nice dishes- extra glittery! Trying to keep the integrity of the plate design has proven challenging. I'm happy with the abstracted quality as I'm not looking to be pictorial but some of the plates seem to expand on application and the image gets a bit diffuse. Luckily, my early efforts are at the base of the tree and will be semi-obscured buy the asters that grow in this particular garden area. But it all looks pretty great!
For those additionally interested in my inspirations, you only have to look up Antoni Gaudi, Park Guell, Watts Towers, Maison Picassiette, or Le Palais Ideal. Amazing!!

New (Garden) Rules!!

Echoing the phrase "My House (or Barn or Studio or What Have You) My Rules", I am hereby asserting "My Garden, My Rules". There are only a few- and they are simple- but from here on in, these are the Rules:

1.) Please do not visit my garden and point to my Tithonia, (or Brugmansia or Cimicifuga et al) and say, "Gee I have that but it's three times bigger!" It's like penis size; make no comparisons. Maybe my insects are bigger than yours.

2.) If you spot a weed, please don't tell me. Chances are I know it's there and simply haven't removed it yet. Or, feel free to pull it up and compost it yourself. I appreciate the help.

3.) If some poor plant looks parched and in need of water, again, please don't moan to me about it. I  am probably tired of tripping over and dragging that hose (it weighs more than I do!) around the yard. Or I have become thirsty myself and put my needs before the plants. There are plenty of watering cans available and a deep well. Water that thing yourself.

4.) If there are holes in the leaves of my plants, please (again ad nauseum) keep it to yourself. Yes, I probably have some bugs and slugs but I refuse to spray and I hand pick as much as I care to- which may not be as often as you and your higher standards demand. Holes can be a decorative addition (or subtraction) from a leaf and just think of it as filigree.

5.) And finally, ENJOY my garden as just that- MY garden. I think it's super and while I may not do things the way you do, you needn't worry about it. You can admire mine for what it is (or isn't) and then go home to your garden and admire that, too. It's great that we all do things differently and have different standards; it's what make me me and you you.

The Biggest Tree We'll Ever Plant

Just be glad that I didn't write the blog I was starting yesterday! A hint: the title was "A Bad Mood". Enough of that! Today was great and my mood matched it because Bob and I bought a tree! That's it, wrapped up looking like some giant dildo and eliciting stares as we drove home.

 I have been researching and shopping for a clump of birches, partly because I have always admired them and partly because we have all this empty space cheerfully provided by that tornado that visited. We needed shade and a feature to partially block our neighbor's house and a focal point. I wanted something jazzy that had several seasons of interest. I really like the very white birches but have been warned that they succumb to all kinds of borers and leaf miners and they're brittle and they break. So I turned up several cultivars of Betula nigra (River birch, more familiarly) with the varieties "Duraheat" (lousy name!) and "Cully's Heritage" being recommended as particularly attractive with extra exfoliating bark- bronzey golden brown that peels to reveal salmon pink and creamy under bark, with foliage that turns vivid yellow in the fall. After many trips and phone calls to nurseries, I found what I was looking for...

It was a lovely day, we took a pleasant drive to one of our favorite nurseries and... they didn't have the size we were looking for, despite it being mentioned on a "specimens list" that had been emailed only the week before. All that was available were gigantic and twice what we were looking at spending. Alas! But another employee at the nursery checked and located one that was about to be "upgraded" and graduated to more expensive status as it had grown so lustily this year. She sold it to us for the lower price (literally like 1/2 the price!) Hooray!!!

They wrapped this cluster up and helped to load it and suddenly it appeared like twice as big as it had. I was shopping for a (hahahaha) five or six foot individual and we got us a ten foot tree at a bargain price and I started thinking, "And now we have to get this sucker home and plant it". I'm certain Bob was having similar thoughts. It just looked bigger and bigger and bigger.
As you can see in the above pictures, it rode home quite happily and we got it off the truck intact- or I should say, BOB got it off the truck with ropes and gently inching it towards the planks he posted at the rear of the truck and slid it down. I dutifully held ropes and pulled on my side but nothing budged; I tried.
But I sent Bob into the house after he wrestled the tree onto the ground. He needed a rest and I could handle the next phase: digging the biggest hole I've ever dug. I have graduated from annuals to perennials to shrubs and bushes and small saplings to trees! (But I assured Bob: this IS the biggest tree we will ever plant.)

And here's my lovely assistant Robin, ideally suited to helping me dig. She did a marvelous job of loosening the soil so that I could shovel it onto the pile.

The pile got even bigger than that! Bob is going to finish the hole tomorrow and then we're going to plant. I'll post additional pictures of that Herculean task. But in the meantime, take a look at the detail of this bark. This particular clump is nice, too, as it has four trunks and will create a really remarkable presence in the vast empty wilderness left by the tornadoes destruction. Why, it will probably look like it was always here. Let's see if our friends notice it the next time they visit!

Enough! Enough!

On my way out the door to work this morning, there was a gigantic swooooosh! noise which startled Bob and me and Robin. We glanced out the back door but saw nothing and figured it was probably the town crew as they're delivering dump trucks full of gravel to the excavation at the end of our road. I didn't think any more about it.
But about an hour later, Bob called me at work to explain that he had figured out the noise. As if we hadn't had enough tree damage, the second half of a giant oak that had been damaged in the tornado (remember that episode) let loose. That was the giant swoooshing sound.

The final punchline to this new and updated disaster is that the tree catapulted earthward crushing another section of our fence and landing smack in the middle of my Shade Garden. This is the very Shade Garden that I strolled by yesterday- while swatting gnats and mosquitoes away- admiring just how nice it was and thinking how lucky that at least one part of our property had been spared in the tornado! Hahahaha! The joke is on me!
So Bob sprang into action and sawed up most of the large pieces before I got home so that we could correctly assess the extent of the devastation.  Here's Robin looking for bodies: (You will notice the bent and mutilated fence behind Robin. Bob straightened it so Robin can't escape but it's nicely twisted!)

Fortunately, while there is crushed foliage and general chaos, none of the rhododendrons or oak leaf hydrangea were totaled: just wrecked enough that they'll look awful for the rest of the season. And there are plenty more twigs/sticks/branches/leaves to pick up! Oh joy! Just what I wanted to do! More clean up! (And don't even ask about the leafy juicy things like hostas...)

I'm not kidding: I didn't need more restoration work! This part of the garden had been my solace after the other parts spent the early summer being cleaned and returned to "normal". I guess I have to be grateful that Bob or Robin or I weren't standing underneath when that half a tree let go. But can we please have an end to tree destruction?!?!!?

The Tree Guys Cometh

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayy!! The tree guys finally came to liberate the house from the precarious leaners and to cut down several other potential threats. They wedged a large truck in between the house and the vegetable garden- a tight fit!- and went to work. We found this most exciting!

This is from a slightly different angle, safely out of the way, showing the trees still on the roof and the other ones standing. (I'm inserting more pictures than typical in this post as how often do you have men in buckets swarming your house and trees??!!)

Here's a reminder of how dangerous these things were.

Going up! There were two tree guys: one went up in the bucket and hauled all the aerial stuff down. The other guy admitted to being glad he no longer went up in the bucket as he was afraid of heights; he has company there!

You couldn't pay me! Especially wielding a crazy chain saw!

They had to work together to rope and brace the tree that was leaning on the roof to the other tilted tree and cut off and lower chunks down (carefully!). They were really good at this. Only a modest chip happened to the end of our walkway and no shrubs or trees were harmed (A couple of perennials got driven over but there was no way to avoid that. And a whole lot more damage would have occurred if those trees had fallen on us or the garden!) I mean, this is a heavily gardened area and I'm relieved that I can get in there and weed and plant.

Half gone! You have to appreciate that that bucket is a good twenty feet up! Yikes!

Here they are from the other side, attacking the dead/dying row of pines and spruces. Yes, they were cool trees- looking all skeletal and "Californian" but they did prove dangerous.

Last one standing!! Our house does need a repair. (That's the next project...) It only took a couple of hours total and everything looked...

Oh no! It looked just like after the tornado!!

And... everywhere you look... more branches! More limbs! More cleanup!!!

And with all that work to look forward to, I don't know what Bob was so happy about! (Probably the very excellent fact that we no longer live in danger and we can get the house repaired and WE didn't have to remove the trees and risk life and limb!!)

We felt like such "homeowners", an unusual feeling for us. We traditionally do all our own work; quite interesting to be on the other end and hire people. I could get used to it! (Hahhaahha!!)

A Little Tornado, Anyone?

Yes, just your average glance out the studio window to see how Mother Nature has arranged your yard and trees in a charming- and unexpected- manner! This is just the first picture and posting of many to come, that document how messed up life at the BobnRita Ranch are.
Fortunately, Bob and I and the Dog and Pony Show are all fine. Robin thinks the backyard disaster is sorta fun (lots of trees to jump over/climb on/root around under) but Maggie seems exhausted and still freaked out (she was outside during the storm and was lucky to not get crushed by falling trees! Her barn was spared but she didn't want to be inside.)
More later, but that'll get you started. Hint: this is no where near the worst of the damage. I can't even look at the rest of the pictures now. Our garden is somewhere under a pile of giant trees.

There's a Garden Under There Somewhere!

I started cleaning up the garden this afternoon. So late in the season! Sometimes, by the very beginning of March, all the beds are raked and expectant. However, this winter will not leave and it's late. I got two beds cleaned; perennials and tall grasses cut down, leaves removed... just a rough, first clean up. It was overcast and not especially warm, but I needed to be outside.

Here's the initial tarp filling up. That's the hard part, dragging it all away into the woods. Somethings can be composted, but this debris is full of sticks and grasses and tough oak leaves. they take a while to break down. It's better to just dispose of them in the woods.

Maggie looked unimpressed but Robin was eager to jump into the middle of my leaf piles and chew on twigs. Very helpful! It's hard to believe that we have had Robin the Good in our lives for a little over two years. She's still really hard to photograph; as I lift the camera thinking she looks particularly cute, she immediately moves her head...

And what's that white stuff? I am ignoring the right hand side of the garden. The glacier is receding  but there's still too much snow for my liking. I'm ignoring it! But wait! There's more!

It's going to be a while before I get to clean up the Long Border. It's still buried. But I have plenty to do on the left side of the yard. And there are tulips emerging! And daffodils! There will be a garden after all!.

Our Little Oddball

Leave it to us to have a slightly weird dog. Robin is just great: beautiful, funny, smart, talented and very fast... and probably a slew of other things I am forgetting to mention. But she's also a bit, well, unusual.
For example, she's left handed. (Or make that left pawed.) I discovered this fun fact while we were enrolled in that doggie obedience class last summer. During one particular exercise, the instructor pointed out Robin always went for the treat in my left hand first and was therefore demonstrating her dominant side. I then observed that she often gallops across the yard with (mostly) her left paw extended first- like a horse being on its left lead. A little canine leftie! (Must take after Bob...)
And last week, I had Robin rolled over on her back and was scratching her belly. She loves this; possibly most dogs do. But then I was sort of being silly (not too hard to achieve) and was running my fingers down opposite sides of her body, matching up her nipples. I kept coming up one nipple short of her lower abdomen, kind of across from where her navel is. Sure enough, a through investigation through her fur revealed... she's short one nipple! She has an uneven number of nipples; in this case, nine. Weird! I started worrying that possibly she had an "undescended teat" or some other medical paradox.
I resorted to the Internet and discovered that while it's uncommon, this does happen and there's nothing wrong with having an uneven number of nipples. Leave it to our dog. Here's our little odd ball in action:

Well... I was attempting to prove that I'm an "old dog" capable of performing new tricks but my nifty video of Lil' Robin the Good doesn't seem to be coming up. Not sure why.

Anyway, here's a lovely still photo of Robin out surveying her empire:

The end of the day light was so nice and just touched the tops of everything. Robin thought I was wasting my time with the camera instead of kicking that nice ball for her to chase.

And I haven't been able to post a blog recently as our trusty camera decided to up an die. Not sure what happened, but it seems to have had some sort of permanent lens error. I took these pictures with my old work camera, which I borrowed for the weekend. I am antsy to figure out what to do as I am approaching my 500th blog posting and am not ready to give up yet! Another 500 posts are probably in the works!

Late Summer Color

There's still some color happening in the garden, despite the sudden onset of that slightly sad end of summer feel. Lots of things are simply falling over and imploding; lots of smells of vegetative rot. But there are still some good moments to be had, like the above border nearest the horse barn.
The small zinnias, specifically Zinnia linearis in a nice mix of orange, white yellow and golden are just great this year. In fact, all of the Zinnas were terrific. I was waxing super enthusiastic over Zinnia "Benary's Giant" that I planted for cut flowers. The plants are big and clean (like no mildew) and just keep producing nicely formed flowers in good clear colors. Spectacular in a vase in the house! And I can't help but love how the big stripey grass (some variegated Miscanthus) is a foil for the chunky canna foliage. You can't really see but there was a nice Veronicastrum to the left that had another type of white spire-like bloom. I've been very happy with this bed.
A couple of close-ups:

Yup, there's those nice small Zinnias. You don't even need to dead head them. This hot dry season has suited them perfectly; they'll sulk during cool, wet summers. And here's a shot of the arbor that is in behind the grasses and cannas.

It's funny because these were supposed to be the variety "Blue Star", and yes, there are a few. But most of these seem to be "Tie Dye"; that would be the darker blue, striped ones. You never can tell what you'll get. I think there must be the occasional mix up at the seed companies! I'm not complaining as they look pretty good and are blooming like crazy.