Plans!

Beautiful day, summery and warm, in the mid 80s, but with a refreshing breeze.

Jane came over for coffee and a garden tour. A nice visit, and her suggestions and critical eye got me thinking.

And one thing led to another, and soon, I had . . . . .
     . . . . . plans!

Here is the list of what needs doing this fall and next spring.

I can't wait to get started, and the unusually cool August weather has me ready to start digging.

TO DO 2013 (& Spring 2014) 

FALL: MOVE

1. Move one carpet rose to East Side under sweet autumn clematis
   
2. Move second carpet rose in front of variegated sweetgum in Drive By garden (and move the corylopsis there to ___??)
   
3. Move rosa glauca to dry stream bed where salvias are
   
4. Move Mt Airy fothergillas to Drive By garden along back side
   
5. Move rhus aromatica crowding doublefile viburnum in Drive By garden to spot in front
   
6. Move trumpet honeysuckle to Northern Exposure to climb sweetbay magnolia (after
   taking out carpet roses. Open framework of magnolia will be good for it to climb)
   

FALL: TAKE OUT (& replace)

1. Remove hybrid daylilies in Chevron garden & replace with divided ditch lilies
   
2. Remove groundcover willow yezoalpinas along east side & replace with Nikko slender
   deutzias in a long swath along foundation (put groundcover willows on back of berm)
   
3. Remove creeping thyme by driveway (and build low wall). Replace with ___??
   

FALL: ADD

1. Daffodils (The Works) on back hill
   
2. Iris reticulata under lamp post *
   
3. Kintzley's Ghost honeysuckle in front garden!
   

SPRING 2014 --- TO DO, TO PLANT

1. Expand foundation garden along east side for depth
   
2. Put Black Beauty dahlias where carpet roses were in Northern Exposure.
   
3. Get more Chocolate cosmos and plant everywhere!
   
4. Cut & Come Again zinnias around patio wall, in Birch garden
   
5. Nicotiana alata flowering tobacco in Birch Garden in front
   
6. Build low drystack stone wall at top of driveway. Can I do it myself?
   

* Iris reticulata ­ add bulb food after flowering. In summer lift to divide bulbs & replant. Plant deeply. * Put divisions (or add new) under lamp post so there are purple irises on both sides of front walk. 

Wet Conditions

The oddly cool August weather continues. Last night was not as chilly, but with overnight temperatures  in the low 60s, it was great sleeping weather. Days are getting a little muggier but are still unusually pleasant for late summer.

The porch is nearing completion and just needs some stain on the walls and ceiling. I love it already.

I have noticed differences in some plants due to this year's wetter conditions. One big change is that the fleeceflower, Persicaria officinis 'Dimity', is doing much better. In the past three hot, dry summers they did ok, but formed big gaps where they did not spread.

Under the blackhaw viburnum they got destroyed by voles one winter and that left huge gaps.

This year they look great, have filled in, and have been blooming all summer. They definitely like wetter conditions than I had thought.

The cardinal flower, Lobelia cardinalis, also wants it pretty wet. This year they have formed a nice stand in Meadow's Edge and have been blooming for a long time.

But the Ruby Slippers lobelia by the patio wall has not done much this year for some reason. It is only just now starting to bloom. I like the velvet purple flowers next to the hardscape of the wall and birdbath, and in combination with the sunny Black eyed Susans.

Ruby Slippers in prior years was very tall, flopped, and kind of overwhelmed the area. This year there are just a few of them, they are shorter, and seem to be reluctantly blooming.

Lobelias are short lived. Are they just in decline?

Or is the river birch, newly planted in that spot, taking all the water and making this patch of lobelias drier?

A lot of other plants seem to be thriving this year. Most of that is due to maturity -- things have been in the ground now for three or more years in some cases. And the wet conditions help.  But the fleeceflower and lobelia are the two that really seem to have come into their own with more moisture than they got in previous years.

Crazy Cold

It's August and the weather is weird. Very cold at night, in the low 50s, and then although it gets to the low 80s in the daytime, it's breezy and pleasant and actually a little cool in the shade. This is mid August for crying out loud. Crazy, crazy cold for the dog days of summer.

I got back from my whirlwind trip to Colorado and California, and as always, I loved every minute.

Greg and I went up to Ft. Collins to get the Kintzley's Ghost honeysuckle I wanted, and we drove around, had coffee, had some nice dinners out, etc. Lots of talking and chatting. We went to a concert at Red Rocks, and enjoyed the opening act, an edgy bluegrass band, but left shortly after the main attraction came on with all its psychedelic overkill.

The best part at Red Rocks was the lightning and rainbow and dark stormy clouds that stretched across the horizon to the east!

Then on to L.A. and I met Z. We all had a great time at brunch, and out to dinner for my birthday, and we had a surprisingly entertaining hike through the Hollywoodland development with the famous sign. It was not what we expected for a guided tour, but it turned out to be a lot of fun, and a lot of stairs to climb (861 in fact).

When I got home, progress had been made on the porch remodeling, and it will be done by this weekend! Jim and I will need to stain the new beadboard paneling on the walls and ceiling. It's turning out really nice.

August so far has been exciting -- trips to far away places, some really great times with both boys, new remodeling, and crazy cold weather.

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.