the garden

I'm beginning to think I should split off this garden stuff into its own blog... There's certainly a lot of it, at least in the spring and early summer.

Yesterday was like the first day of summer--in the 80s, muggy, buggy, and miserable. (Summer is NOT my favorite season.) Today the humidity is still high, and the sun is comng and going, so it's still fairly steamy out. I went out briefly this morning to pick up dog poop, and saw that the first roses are out!

This is Auguste Renoir--at least, that's what I think it is, although Auguste Renoir is supposed to be medium pink and very fragrant, and mine are always this pale pearly flesh pink and not very scented. It is, however, a healthy, enthusiastic bush that blooms on and off all summer. I've got a dark crimson rose, Othello, in the same bed, and plan to try Fair Bianca, a white, again. They're surrounded by lavender to the east and north, with Russian sage at the west corners--not the best choice, but I keep cutting it back and forcing it away from the rose bushes so they can breathe. In the front of the bed are double tulips in the spring (Angelique and Maywonder), and speedwell as a groundcover; it blooms a lovely pale blue in the spring. Back when Papa's used to have nice annuals, I would put pink pentas, Persian shield, and (I think) pink nemesia in it for the summer. This year I haven't put anything there, and I need to because nature abhors a vacuum and those spaces are being taken over by weeds. Dianthus. I've seen a number of varieties of dianthus, they'd go with the color scheme, I guess, though I'd still lack the accent of the Persian shield (one of my favorite plants). There's also a Jackmani clematis on the trellis between the front of the bed and the rose bushes, and a blue sort of bush clematis I have planted on the slope to the west. I'm thinking of getting another one to plant slightly lower down, closer to the street, to fully cover that strip of ground.

Apparently I slept through quite a lot of rain last night, since it's very wet out. When I stepped out the back door, I saw the giant hosta all covered with raindrops.

And here are some more pictures of my white Henryii clematis. It is glorious, particularly when you consider how little sun it gets--a couple of hours in the early morning and a couple in the evening. Look at how it flowers from the ground all the way up.

It shares the arch with a St. Swithun's rose. St. Swithun's isn't supposed to be a climber, but mine's gone up the trellis and over the top and may wind up tangled in the stems of the clematis. It's also getting ready to explode into bloom--in this picture I counted 18 buds. The picture below it is of most of the bush--I didn't get the top of the arch, but still, you can imagine it covered with white roses. St. Swithun's is a David Austen rose and is another that's supposed to be scented but isn't to my nose. They say you lose your sense of smell as you get older...

Another wonderful thing: this beautiful wisteria-blue iris. To appreciate how wonderful it is, you have to realize that it's almost 5 years old. I was walking puppy Taenzer around campus one day and a man was setting plants in pots out all over his driveway. I stopped to talk to him, and he gave me several. I can't remember what the other ones were, I'm ashamed to say, but I remember this iris because it was about an inch tall, in the tiniest little plastic pot. And there it stayed for two years, because I couldn't decide where to put it, somehow living through the summers and winters with no attention from me at all. When I had the raised bed by the driveway built, I put it there (my "problem" bed--everything I didn't know what to do with went there). It grew and grew and and last year had some very strong-looking fans but no flowers. This year is the first year it's bloomed, and it turns out to be this incredibly beautiful blue self (i.e., all the same color).

Here you can see the siberian iris off to the left of the german iris (it's got some buds on it, too), some salvia really going to town, and the petunias I planted, what, a week ago? They're still sulking, not at all happy with their new home.

The branches you see in the pictures above and below are the rest of the stuff from the dog pen. The guy hauled some of it, but not all of it, and I got tired of having it in the pen, so I dragged the rest out myself. There's some logs back in the back, but I don't mind them so much, and they give Taenzer a chance to pay attention to what her back feet are doing (as far as Taenzer is concerned, she doesn't have any--just front feet). Anyway, I hope he comes and collects the rest of this stuff soon.

You'll need to click on this for the large size to see what's here: magenta spiderwort, what I think is aquilegia canadensis, and ageratum, planted at the same time as the petunias but settling in a little better.

Another rose bush. This one is very special to me. The older of my two brothers gave it to me as a birthday present about 25 years ago. It's been moved about 4 times. Every single year I think it's died, and every single year it comes back and grows like mad. I keep thinking I'm moving it to a place where it will get more sun, but I always seem to be wrong. This year I'm cutting back the peonies after they bloom so they won't crowd or shade it and see if that helps. It's Sterling Silver, first introduced in 1957, first of the "lavender" roses; the current version is Stainless Steel, I think. This one tends to bloom pink rather than lavender, a result of both the humid summer and the minimal sun it receives.

This is just that little collection of blue and yellow violas I got a couple of weeks ago. Cheerful-looking, aren't they?


I dropped my camera. The door that holds the batteries in broke. I can still sort of take pictures if I hold the battery door shut with my thumb, but it's not easy. I don't think I'll be taking any action pictures of the dogs for a while. *sigh*