Garden Club

Last night the garden club met.  I'm not sure what purpose the club serves, and I am having a hard time staying interested in it.  The people I want to see are the ones in the garden bookgroup (Peggy, Jane, Cheryl, Betsy), so I see them already.  The other members I don't get any connection with, gardening or social.  The business meetings seem to be about nagging people to go weed the little garden strip on Loeffler Road.  They do arrange tours of gardens that I should take advantage of.

The group is all women my age, no men, no younger gardeners, and there doesn't seem to be much real plant knowledge.  They seem to have mostly perennial and flower gardens.

Anyway, Kevin Wilcox from Farmington Valley Nursery was there to talk about trees and shrubs, and although all of the plants his slideshow presented I already knew, I did learn the following:

When pruning a cut back shrub like Cotinus smokebush, or Lupulus golden hops vine, root prune it as well in early spring.  Otherwise, the roots get very large and store enough energy to fuel too much growth as it leafs out and it gets too big even in one season.

(Cut the new growth of the smokebush back a second time in spring when it has leafed out to about three or four feet high.  Cut the newly emerging rowth back by about a third then.)

So it was worthwhile after all.

Plans

Absolutely beautiful day today, not humid, in the high 70s and sunny.  Just the slightest breeze, and it brings the spicy sweet fragrance of the clethra blooms to me on the deck.  Wow.

Makes me want to spend time outside, plan new gardens, think about changes!

Plans

1. Install Pam's patio garden
2. Plant the doublefile viburnum rooting that Cyndy gave me
3. Take out the knockout roses finally (move one to Pam's)
4. Move the smokebush over toward the center a bit
5. Put in a rosa glauca?  Maybe?

The smokebush will be large, even if I coppice it each year.  This is the one in Mann's garden.

I can just let it grow in and enclose that left corner of the pavers, put in a rosa glauca to its right.  But perhaps I can move it toward the center enough that I could still walk by it to the left, to get into the secret garden.  Let it be the screening plant where the roses were, and don't plant the rosa glauca there after all.    Hmmm.

Rosa glauca gets leggy.  It's a nice vase shape, but I may need something under it for screening (small dwarf itea 'Sprich'?)

Here's one we saw on the Wintonbury garden tour, and another one on a tour in Simsbury:

They seem to want to lean out.  Graceful.

So. . . . should I take out the knockout roses, and just move the smokebush over to be the screen in that area at the top of the pavers?  Will that do?  Or include the rosa glauca underplanted with a small itea?

Much Needed Rain

It was getting awfully dry again, but on Monday night a thunderstorm came through and dropped over half an inch (.67) of wonderful precipitation.

Everything looks better.

Front Lawn

We fought the lawn and the lawn won.

Even after fixing the sprinkler heads, pruning the willows that were blocking the irrigation stream, and even with cooler temps at night now, we have a disaster of a lawn.

Observations

Another sunny, warm but beautiful day, in the low 90s.

Some random observations about the garden:

• the hostas by the lightpost and under the dogwood are teeny this year.  They are about a third of the leafy size of prior years.  I think it was the drought last summer, as they really crisped and had to be cut back then.
• the buckeyes are flowering wildly!  All but the second from the left.  It was always behind the others in growth, and seemed to take longer to establish.  It has immature spikes, but no bottlebrushes yet.  But the others, wow:

• I lost a Montauk daisy at the back of Meadow's Edge.  It got eaten by rabbits, then had too much shade to grow back.
• Voles everywhere!!!  They run around in broad daylight.  I put out traps and got two so far.
• I love the way the plumbago teepees are flowering now.  This is the look I want when I put in the two large tutiers and some clematis at the "entrance" to the secret garden.

And some more random summer shots, including the first flower on the anemone, and the red salvias under the hummer feeder.  The annuals along the new strip border of the secret garden look nicer now.

End of July

Clear blue sunny skies all day today and a warm breeze.  Comfortable, although a little too much sun and too hot to work in the garden.  But a great day for lounging!

Yesterday was spitting drizzle and gloomy, and very, very humid.  We moved Pam into her new condo in Glastonbury.  Forest Lane is no more.  She has a patio at the walkout basement level, partially covered by a deck overhead, and partially in the open.  She wants me to landscape it after she gets a new paver patio installed.

(Hmmm, shade plants.  It is shaded by the building itself, and by tall overhead pines, although it faces west.  I'll have to start thinking!  There is an old tall limbed up rhododenron already there and a few puny hostas.  It's a tiny space, but I'm thinking a small Japanese maple, climbing hydrangea to go up and over the deck, astilbe, hakonechloa, heuchera.... that should be enough to fill either side of the small patio!)

Peggy Stanwood came to visit my yard earlier in the week, and genuinely seemed to love everything I have done here!  She was impressed.

In all the terrible heat and dry stretch in mid July we lost patches of lawn.  There is a big brown patch smack in the middle of the front yard slope, and several around the gardens.  Nothing to worry about, with enough water and cooler temps it will recover, but it looks so awful that I don't even want to go out and fuss in the gardens.  It all just looks bad.

Jim got the sprinkler guy here and he fixed one broken and some misdirected heads.  It was a terrible time for water to be missing these lawn spots. . .  when the heat hit some areas weren't getting watered at all.

More Rain

Another half inch of rain today when a strong thunderstorm rolled through!  Temps behind the storm are in the 60s.

I finally ditched the black & blue sage (Salvia guaranitica) I had wintered over that refused to bloom. 

Then today I found two great looking, blooming, big black & blue sages at Lowe's.  They are a little bedraggled after the storm, but great, full plants with gorgeous blooms.  Yay.

I also got a Nandina domestica 'Firepower', a dwarf heavenly bamboo for a filler plant along the front walk.  It stays small (2 feet wide, perfect for that narrow space), and it gets great fall color.

But . . . .
 . . . .  it is hardy only to zone 6!  Will it be warm enough along the walk with the southern exposure, heat reflecting walk and heat absorbing brick wall?  Zone 6?  We'll see.

I Did Not Water Today

We got four tenths of an inch of rain, the first of any precipitation in 16 days. Temperatures were in the low 70s.

Another Scorcher

Another hot one, dry and sunny but humid air.  No records were set today, we only got to 98 degrees.

I watered and watered more today, but the high temps have burned some leaves.  The yellowroot, so full and lush, has curled brown leaves.

The birches look terrible, and are dropping leaves.

The new oak out in the meadow is really brown, but may survive. 

Everything looks awful. 

Of course on Thursday I had the garden bookgroup over and it was the first time they have seen my garden.  We took a tour around in the awful early evening heat, and they were complimentary and said nice things, but really, it all looked so awful.  But they of all people can sympathize!  Their gardens are wilted too, and they are struggling with watering like I am.

By the way, remind me not to plant white nicotiana next to a stand of white Shasta daisies.  Too much white, especially as the daisies brown and fade.  I like both, but they need to be separated.

Record Broken

Staff Reports The Hartford Courant

4:40 p.m. EDT, July 22, 2011

HARTFORD ——

The temperature reached 103 degrees at Bradley International Airport on Friday, the highest temperature ever recorded there, as searing heat roasted the state for the second straight day.

The previous record at Bradley for July 22 was 101 degrees, most recently recorded in 1926.

The 102-degree mark was hit on a number of dates in the past, most recently on July 6 last year.

I watered.  And watered.  In 103 degree heat and sun.  It's been 14 days since we had less than half an inch of rain.

The plants in containers are pffft.  One of the new trees planted in the meadow this spring is now brown.   The annuals were dry and keeled over.  I got all of the back of Meadow's Edge well soaked, and the Birch Garden.

Still need to get the new trees in the meadow, and plants along the east side.

103 ---  yikes.

Jim and I tried to go to the Manchester band shell for an outdoor concert tonight (Little Big Band) but it was canceled due to heat.