iris

Finding Time For The Garden

Now that the spring semester is over, we've been able to make some time for the garden -pulling weed sprouts, moving some volunteers to bare spots, and soaking up the good weather. The front garden has changed fast with the growth of the Zelkova trees. Our garden was a full sun planting but now it is ninety five percent shade. The lilies, the phlox, almost everything is stretching for what little sun passes between the trees. Since we are unsure of our future here it is hard to make the decision to replant. It is also interesting to watch plants on the move. The phlox have moved eighteen inches to the east, doing a number on the asters which I wouldn't have previously thought possible (the asters are pretty tough). The climbing 'New Dawn' can tolerate some shade, but it also will need to move by next season. 


The carpenter bees are spring active, and deliriously hug the bleeding hearts, poking holes in the tops to extract something sweet. Below the telltale marking of the male between the eyes.





These geraniums are in the new shady zone, and will need a new home by next season.


Johnson's Blue geranium is on the corner, in a spot that gets the most sun, maybe four to five hours at this time of the year.


The iris, too, gets some sun under the yew tree at the back of the side yard.


The mayapple, Podophyllum peltatum, with bloom under it's green umbrella, below the yew tree, surviving and moving ever so slowly to the corner's minute of sunlight.


Tradescantia, or spiderwort, blooms in the front yard's pocket of sun, but also made its way to the side yard, growing confidently between the paving slate.


And this hitchhiker, the star of Bethlehem, Ornithogalum umbellatum, finding a pocket of sun between the ever enlarging Dicentra eximia and another geranium in the side yard.



Delicacy


I've nowhere well-lit, particularly on these darker, cloudy mornings to place a vase of flowers for a photograph. The kitchen stove always fares best as a table, and even then on top of a cast iron dutch oven. The light streams in from the window beside, a faint rectangle on the vase.


The leaves of the crimson Salvia elegans blacken at the freezer's edge, so I cut it. But the chrysanthemums, or what are they called these days (when I purchased one it was Chrysanthemum "Sheffield Pink"), are hardly not hardy. They will droop with the sop (that which makes it sopping, no? I will use it anyway), but afterward perk up. I've seen them through several snows. 


The irises, however, are delicate in cold and rain. I went out late last night to cut for the vase and now they glow and perfume our indelicate place.


Iris



A bunch of November irises can hardly conceal the dirty pans of busy days.

Ever notice outdoors the sparkling flecks of flower petals?

Or wrap your eyes around the folded bloom?




No News Is News



Very little to report, although many hot evenings have been spent at the beach farm. Tomatoes are now bird-netted. A handful of gardeners still don't believe it's birds, yet I haven't lost any since the netting. Not only that, but on Friday, at dusk, there were nearly 20 birds trying to figure out what has changed in our plot that made those ripe orange cherries and pixies unavailable. 

Yesterday evening, we arrived to find our garden plot neighbor watering our plants (overhead, ack). There was a starling on the net exactly where he was watering. The bird did not move. I said it was caught in the net. He said no. The bird then jumps down to the ground. My neighbor sprays it with the hose -not hard pressure, just the arcing glops of watering you expect from typical hose watering. The bird doesn't move. It just takes it. Never seen such a thing.

We had about 25 blossom end rot cases on our young plum tomatoes. I picked them all off. The same plants have leaf curl -environmental stress.  These plums were planted two weeks after all the others and may have taken longer to settle in.

The cukes are producing now so that we have three or four every other day. The beans are finally up and running. Chard cut hard. Carrots going for the final thinning, with edible results. Transplanted carrots look not so good. Bare spot waiting for fall broccoli probably could have been planted with carrots or beans. Peppers look mature. Same for eggplants -harvesting one or two every visit.

I am eyeballing two plots that the Fed gives me the runaround on. I may just work them this fall, or sooner, and see what happens. Meanwhile, my other neighbor's plot looks like a bunch of weedy burial mounds.

I met one of the chain link gardeners yesterday. He needed advice about his tomatoes -blossom end rot. Grapes definitely eaten by the birds, but he resists on the tomatoes. The space in that cage!

Late-leaving hipster asked where the nearest bathroom was. After a joke about the beach (see here), I sent her to the porta-potty about 150 yards away. Boy, she was disappointed. By the way, have you ever noticed the name of the porta-potty Royal Flush? Yeah, I think that's funny, so I came up with a new name for their competitor: Queen of Hearts. Say it fast and you'll get it.

At home, the yellow iris is blooming again with several buds. It smells wonderful and has been surprisingly resistant to wilting in the heat. Little else is going on, except that I wish it would rain. And isn't it lovely today after all that heat?


Addendum: Wish granted.

Opening Day



It was opening day yesterday, as all the neighborhood stopped to chat while I was out cleaning the garden. I even got to crane my neck chatting it up, old style, with my neighbor upstairs (ack, apparently the window affair will be starting up again).  It was time to open up the garden to air and light, removing leaves and litter, and open up some new possibilities.

I raked leaves that never had a winter's chance to blow into corner catches, matted under the all-winter snow, creating a comfy, never did freeze environment for over-wintering perennials. I hesitated for just a second, thinking there's well enough time for a long, hard freeze for these newly exposed leaves. But then I wanted to rake, to clean, and did a cursory job, leaving some for later. I also pruned out all the lower branches of the climbing hydrangea, in hopes that they will not catch trash and to minimize the privacy so many neighborhood cats find under there.

I could have photographed all the bulbs coming up, but after three years blogging, who needs more of that? I was impressed with the greenery of the Aconitum, or Monkshood, that was just a few days ago covered in a pile of snow.

You may or may not remember that I had some late, late irises in December. While cleaning the iris bed out, I found some stalks that had budded, but ceased to grow, remaining under snow for most of winter. This one I had cut and peeled open, revealing no sign of rot. In fact, the bud seemed perfectly healthy and ready to shoot up this spring. Unbelievable. I left another intact, just to see what happens.

I've started some snap peas in bond paper tubes and every quick glance makes me think I'm seeing chocolate cake.


Iris



I'm very happy to see that the iris is blooming indoors. Did the right thing -cut the stems because of my nagging frosty sense. I waited, waited, waited, because too soon and the buds would not have been developed enough to flower. If you're wondering, scented slightly citrus, less robustly than out of doors in spring.

The others, pincushion or Scabiosa columbaria and 'Sheffield Pink' Mum or Chrysanthemum koreanum, Chrysanthemum x rubellum, or Dendranthema, that have taken to vase life high above the feline.

Oh, one more time.