Morning Walk

Unbelievably, the temperature was 51 degrees when I woke up this morning. The past few days have been spectacular and cool, chilly at night and refreshing during the day.

Bees asleep on the clethra in early morning

It's August! How can we be having such delightful weather -- and for days now?  Yesterday was a top 10. It was the perfect balance of warm sunshine and crisp breeze. It never got above 75 degrees.

I don't know if it's the cool, still air in the morning, or the two Advil I take when I wake up, or if the gardens have just matured to a nice level of interest finally, but when I walk around before breakfast everything is so perfectly beautiful.

I put my high rubber boots on and spend a long time walking the dew-wet paths in the meadow checking on things, and I find much to interest me. 

Early sun makes a scene of Queen Anne's Lace all sparkly. New weeds I haven't seen before catch my eye. The usual thugs are doing their thing and my saplings surprise me with their growth. It is all still an overgrown weedy mess, but it actually looks good. 

I love the paths Jim cuts for me -- they are no longer a utilitarian scar in the meadow to get to things, the paths now are inviting and intriguing and I walk them slowly with my cup of coffee as I would wander the walkways of an arboretum. Yes, really.

I just admire what I see. It has to be partly a result of the Advil. I always get a sense of well being when I take it, not euphoria and not just pain relief, but a noticeable aaaah of serenity. Everything looks balanced and nice. 

The clethra is spicily fragrant and so pretty

But it also has to be the gardens and meadow in maturity. They simply look wonderful. Better than I could have imagined as I looked at them over the past few years in their developing, unsatisfying forms. Now much has filled in. 

There is shade and sun and dappled light, rather than just open space. The saplings have height now and many tower over me. The flower gardens are colorful and lush. The overall design is no longer emerging, it is present and visible and pleasing.

A weedy mess, but somehow pleasing in the early sunshine

It also has to be this weather. So still and settled in the morning. So crisp. Dewy. Everything, even the noxious weeds, looks healthy from all the rain we've had this year.

Everything looks good. The cardinal flower has made a big stand this year, with many more yet to bloom.

The anemone is blooming beautifully. Love those silvery buds.

Background shrubs, like the bayberry at the back of Meadow's Edge, are suddenly big lush plants with some height and presence.

This is the time of year when the bush clover, lespedeza, looks its best. Early in the season it is just re-emerging from the roots, and later in the season when it is blooming it can be a haystack sort of shape, but right now it is just right.

And the clethra, which looks so awful all winter and spring, and even into early summer. Finally in mid summer it becomes a pretty shrub. The smaller white one is Hummingbird and the pink is Ruby Spice. So lovely.

Saplings Among the Weeds

Lovely weather, cool at night, sunny and warm and pleasant, in the 80s in the daytime. Lovely.

The contractors came back, the delay was only two days. The new windows are in on one side, and what a difference the depth of the taller windows makes!

Being able to see out into the yard is such an improvement. The deck and trees and greenery come right into the porch now. And I like the grids better than the utilitarian look of the ungridded short windows before. Here you can see how the new and the old window sizes compare.

Just 18 extra inches at the bottom gives the porch a dressier sunroom look, with better proportions.

A couple days ago I went out into the meadow and hacked back the six foot tall goldenrod stalks that were engulfing the newer saplings at the edge of the woods. I had to use loppers because the woody stalks were so thick, but what an effort to cut each rather than shear them with clippers -- and my forearms are sore!

Now I can see the new trees there.

This is the best looking of the three sweet birches (Betula lenta) that I planted right in front of the taller maples. The debris is the goldenrod canes that I chopped and left to decay on the ground.

A skinnier sweet birch is struggling near the cauldron. I left the jungly cuttings all around the ground here too.

Now, with the tall weeds cleared away, the three small sassafras saplings are also open to sunshine. They are all from previous plantings that I thought I had lost. They disappeared in prior years, eaten to the ground or just lost. All three have resprouted from the roots and are making small trees now.

The three newly re-emerging sassafras lined up in front of the taller trees are all similar, with large leaves that have a reddish tinge when new.

A fourth one that I planted nearby in a more open area looks very different, with dark green, glossier narrow leaves.

It is bushier and just looks very different. I didn't realize there were different kinds of sassafras.

One benefit of doing work out in the meadow is that I have to walk back and forth to get there, right past the gloriously spicy scented clethra that is blooming now! Mmmm, love that fragrance.

Stalled

Nice, summery weather, not too humid. In the 80s and sunny, but rain is expected later today.

Such great weather these past few days to enjoy the patio or even the porch.

But in the way of contractors, after two days of work dismantling the porch, they have now disappeared for the past two days to do another job and we are left with an unusable porch, construction stuff in the yard and even the patio is not usable with the chairs pushed aside and lumber stacked on it.

I am not worried -- they will be back. And they have been neat, and not terribly disruptive. But why does remodeling always have to stall at the initial destruction phase?

There was no perfect time to do the porch, but right in the middle of the summer season when we most want to use it? Stalled at the point when we want to go out the back door the most often?

So predictable.

The contractor is very nice, does good work and he will be so utterly apologetic about the delay when he comes back at some point.

So sorry about this, I had to do (blank) and I just couldn't get back and the other project took too long, etc.  

Etc.

It's no problem, but I just had to observe that we are predictably stalled on our porch project right now.

Day One

A lovely day today, with temperatures in the 80s, but humidity in the 40s. What a difference that makes. Sunny, breezy and summery, but when the humidity is below 50% it feels so much better.

I always make a note of the temperature here in my journal, but that has so much less impact on how it feels than the moisture level.

This was Day One of the porch remodel. A lot of tearing things up and laying in materials, like all the new windows and lots of sticks of lumber.

Long way to go yet, but they have really started.

Voices in the Garden

I say there, what a lovely summer day. Jolly fine temperatures today and some sunshine. Quite pleasant here in the herb bowl.

Yes, indeed.

Mmmm, so calm, no breeze, just perfect for a pink anemone to open. I am the first. There will be others, but I am the first and I am perfect.

Yes you are.

Would you all be quiet? I am trying to nap here on this daisy. White moths flitter and flutter, but I am resting now.

Shhh.

Well, I'm busy. So much to do this summer. So much to do today. While the sun shines.

Gotta go now. I'm off.

We only get one day each. One single day to show off, and then . . .  But it's a perfect day today and we're happy enough and others will be by tomorrow.

And then more the next day and the day after and for days after that. We're daylilies and we're pink, aren't we?

We're getting the party started. August can't arrive until there are Black Eyed Susans and hamburgers and lemonade. Nothing says summer like . .

 . . . us.

We Have a Dumpster

It was cold and damp this morning -- not just a cool summer morning, but really cold and damp, in the low 60s with rain. It was jeans and sweater weather! We got a third of an inch of precipitation. By afternoon it had cleared off and was in the 70s, pleasant but muggy.

Yesterday, before any rain and while the air was so cool, I got the geraniums cut back.

They were still blooming profusely, but many had gone by, and last year I waited too long to cut them back and they never filled in again before fall. This year I hope they fill in, re-bloom and then have great fall color.

I also used the cool weather yesterday to do some clean up around the line of Tide Hill boxwoods. I took out and moved a bunch of the strawberries, then added mulch to keep this area more open, and cleaner looking.

I trimmed back some of the fothergillas too. Should I move them? They really will get far too large there, and the Drive By Garden could use some shrubs.

All the little boxwoods need a trim, they are getting a little shaggy.


We have a dumpster!

The porch is finally getting its makeover! Monday the contractor arrives. Today a dumpster showed up in the driveway, proof we are about to start our project.

I have never known what to do with the porch. We aren't changing the footprint, so it will still be small and narrow, but with deeper windows going down to a kneewall just above the floor, it will feel like a porch and not so much like a walk in closet.

The vinyl siding will go, replaced with wood that we will stain or paint. And a brick floor (actually brick tiles) will replace the utility carpet. Those two cosmetic changes will completely upgrade the feel of this place.

(Vinyl siding is ok on the outside, seen from a distance. You don't focus in on the fake joints and trim or see the faux grain in the plastic when you see it from afar, even though you can clearly tell the difference between a vinyl sided house and wood clapboard. But up close, in a room enclosed in plastic, it is really, really cheap and ugly. The metal strips that finish the edges are bent and look bad, and the fake plastic takes on a dirty pink hue inside.)

How much richer the dark brick and real wood will look.

And how much more open to the back yard and garden it will be with deeper windows. I will be able to sit on the sofa and look out instead of being hemmed in by a wall topped with windows.  Can't wait.

Can This Be?

When I woke up this morning it was 58 degrees outside. After all that heat and humidity over the past weeks, it is not just cooler now, it is cold!

Great sleeping weather with the windows open and the quilt on.

When I took my coffee outside to sit and drink a little, I was chilly. There is a breeze, and the air is nippy. I had to go back inside.

Can this be?

Summer can be variable and storms can move through and change conditions rapidly, but the change between our heat wave and this is crazy.

One thing I have noticed lately is the new growth on the variegated sweetgum Silver King. It had struggled so the first year, and then this spring we moved it, and the leaves continued to be small and stunted and brown at the edges.

Then the heat hit and they browned even more. But look now --- how healthy and big those new leaves are!

I am pleased with how this tree is looking, and I think it will fill the area nicely.

Here's the newly planted one I saw at Hollister House Garden in June. They had left the tag on it. It's in more shade than mine.

Impressions of My Morning

Cooler, in the 70s early this morning, but humidity is rising again.

This morning I took a cup of coffee out into the yard and walked around.

Garden shoes covered in dewy wetness.

A damp breeze.

A moment of surprise as I walked around behind the bottlebrush buckeyes, and was struck with the explosion of blooms on the backside of the hedge.

Blueberries right off the bush, popped into my mouth. These are the big sweet ones from the mid-season shrubs in the meadow.

Japanese beetle damage on the sassafras saplings, but not too bad.

A moment of worry. The pagoda dogwood by the dry creekbed has yellow dropping leaves. Did it suffer when the temperatures skyrocketed? Does it need more water? I have watered it. I'll watch it.

Love those rich dark chocolate cosmos. Plant more next year.

Rose of Sharon is blooming, just a few so far.

Black eyed Susans are opening. Not as big and showy as Goldsturm, but nice, and the foliage stays healthy.  Butterflyweed calls for my attention.

Summery, wet, sweet air.

Cold coffee.

Little silver berries on the zenobia. I never noticed those before.

No urge to weed, although I see a few and pull a few.

The air conditioner roars as I sit in the gravel garden. Very annoying. A relief when it chugs to a stop with a clank that sounds like it just broke, and quiet returns.

Later I go in and have breakfast, then go back out before it gets too warm and deadhead the Becky Shasta daisies. I chop down all of the Alba Luxurians clematis. It was finished blooming, the lower stems were browning, and based on last year's experience, the whole vine will regrow vigorously and rebloom by the end of summer.

Temperature Malfunction Mode

Still oppressive and in the 90s, with the heat index going over 100 degrees. It is supposed to break today, with some rain- producing thunderstorms, but so far it hasn't.

We could use the rain. It's been over a week, and the sunny hot wind has been hard on the plants. Containers really struggle despite soaking them every day.

If I go out in the morning and work very slowly, I can get a few minor things done before I am drenched. I just never remember having such trouble with heat when I was younger. Now, in my 60s, the least effort on a humid day means I have sweat streaming in my eyes, water running from my nose, soaked clothing, hands too wet to hold tools, rivulets running down my cheeks.

I remember being hot and sticky in summer, but nothing like this, ever. Of course I never had hot flashes and night sweats before either. My whole body is in some kind of water and temperature malfunction mode. None of the dials work, and all of the regulators are gone haywire.

So here is what I did get done while the cloud cover and a damp wind made things a little more tolerable this morning.

I cut back all the nepeta. I like the blowsy spread of the plants as they flop over and wiggle into the junipers nearby. But the blooms are gone by, the forms are messy and they need the chop.

I also dug up and moved a few pink Cut & Come Again zinnias to the empty spot in the front center of the Birch Garden. There is always an empty spot there, I never seem to find anything to fill it. Even all the tall Nicky phlox plants did not fill that space, although they help immensely with their deep pink at this time of year.

I took the Black & Blue salvia out of the pot as I had wanted, and put it at the edge of the gravel garden near the smokebush. It's a filler, holding the empty spot where the aurinia was. Then I dug up the little plumbago to put in the pot. The plumbago looks better already. It was doing nothing by the side of the arbor, and although it had one sky blue bloom, it wasn't growing. Better out in the open in the container.

Still need to cut back the drumstick alliums and chop the big patches of geraniums back, but the morning's easy work was too much. Soaked, I came in, ate lunch and then slept the sleep of the dead in an after-lunch nap. I really think the little bit of movement out in the humid air makes me so sweaty and I lose so much water that I get dehydrated, or something. I mean, I slept.

What a surprise the blackberry lilies are this year, the orange ones forming a big stand at the back, and the wine colored 'Sangria' lilies forming a stand at the front. I haven't seen them so prolific before.

The weird thing in the Birch Garden this year is that the evening primrose never spread, and only a couple pretty pink blooms remain in a small area. It had previously been a worry for being rampant.

And the big wild stands of yellow coreopsis have not materialized either. Last year they took over the back of the Birch Garden. I loved them, the sunny yellow flowers on tall floppy stems were nice. But this year the little patch you see above is all there is. I don't know where they all went.

I have decided the lone rogue bottlebrush buckeye in the hedge is bothering me a lot, now that all the others are so big and blooming so profusely. It sits there, not ready to bloom for another few weeks, right in the midst of a line of big flowers.

It. Is. Driving. Me. Crazy.

Dog Days

It's been too hot for words for days now. Every day in the 90s (101 in the sun today) and the humidity is high and the sun is strong.  A high pressure sits over us, and has blocked rain or any change in weather for a week now.

They happen every year, these dog days of summer, and they keep me inside, where I do crossword puzzles and nap and think about what needs doing in the garden.

I go out and water at night. There are some changes I'd like to make -- I think this is the last year I will try to grow Black & Blue salvia, it just never looks like anything. I am getting a few blooms, but not much. It's all light green foliage.

Instead I want to take it out of the big navy blue pot and put the little struggling plumbago in there.

And there are plants I want to move, and containers I want to change, and . . . . .

. . . . it's too hot.