Sunny with a few fluffy clouds. Reseeded the greens that didn’t come up the first time; don’t know if they didn’t come up because the seeds are bad (they shouldn’t be; they are new) or if I let them dry out at some point. We shall see. Also seeded three kinds of sunflowers and some Pinwheel zinnias. Did some heavy duty weeding- grass in the perennials and roses- and some pruning. Started a few weeping willow and dappled willow cuttings. The blue Arctic willow cuttings seem to be doing well; at any rate, they are leafing out and not dying. Even though I didn’t really get that much done, it feels more rewarding than a lot of days.

Little Banshee was out for quite a while; he wasn’t up to really walking around so he got tethered to things and laid in the grass. He didn’t want to be too far from me; every time I’d walk off to empty a bucket or something he tried to get up and follow me. He ate this morning but is very droopy. I wish he didn’t need such a high dose of meds, but droopy is safer than status epilepticus.

Now to make the bed (also did laundry), make out some bills, and package up a few things for the post office tomorrow!

It’s amazing how lovely dandelions look with the grape hyacinths. I think I’ll use that as my excuse for having so many of the things in my yard!

A Dreary End to August

It is not quite September and I am about to put the winter blankets on the bed, because I’ve spent the last two nights shivering despite having the electric blanket on high all night. It’s almost gotten down the freezing on those nights, but so far no damage to the tender plants. I’d be quite upset if, after the late, late spring we had, we had an early frost, effectively making our summer less than two months long this year. No, ‘quite upset’ doesn’t cover it. ‘Seething ball of anger and frustration’ would be more accurate.

We never got the hanging baskets made, so I am finally putting those petunias into the garden. Seems silly, but they’re pretty tough. I’ve had petunias blooming on Thanksgiving before, so I could conceivably have three months of bloom from them. I’m assuming we won’t have three feet of snow in October, but after the earlier part of the year, nothing would surprise me.

I didn’t get anything entered in the fair this year because I didn’t read the premium book and they moved the entry day from Tuesday to Sunday. The fair people *never* do anything on Sunday, because the churches complained about it the one year they did. I discovered this little fact about ½ hour before entries closed. Bah. I have some consolation in knowing that I wasn’t the only one who got surprised by this and missed the boat. No one had any jewelry entered. There was a lot less needlework entered, and there was only about ½ the amount of art there usually is. Disappointing.

This is the clearest picture I was able to get of this Guinea hen. Her head just never stopped moving.

This was my favorite quilt at the fair; I voted for it for people's choice. I love the Japanese crests appliqued on it! 

And the Heat is Upon Us

As expected, the weather went from constant rain to over 90F with little in between. There has been a frantic scramble to pull weeds and plant things- a scramble that is still not completed. I'm not sure we'll ever catch up this year. It's overcast today and we have the day off, so I'm hoping I can get most of the remaining annuals in and a lot of the weeds out. The weeds are so bad this year that by the time I get around the house weeding, the spot where I started is overgrown again. And with this heat, they are all going to seed.

Most of the roses look shabby right now, although some are starting to rebloom. The delphiniums are ragged; not quite done with their first bloom so I can't cut them back yet. The daylilies are what look best right now.

 This is "Double River Wye"- I think. I bought it as an orange double, and this was the only yellow double the vendor had at the time, so I made that assumption. I've gotten many, many misnamed plants from that person, and I never seem to find out until quite some time later.

We've been dividing iris like crazy; the other day we were at a job dividing iris when it started to thunder. We ignored it. Then the sky just opened up. It poured rain, it hailed huge nuggets, the dog ran, we ran under the garage lean to (with a pile of iris, so we could keep working) and waited it out, not that we could have gotten any wetter than we already were. It rained so hard on the metal roof that we couldn't hear each other talk, even yelling at each other. Even though it was still above 70F, I was shivering from being wet. Extra bonus: because we left the windows open when we left for work, everything by the windows on the west side of the house was soaked. Including a box of fabric. Yippee.

They cut the hay and got part of it baled today before it started raining- again. Now hopefully my allergies will back off!

They Have a Name!

I have just discovered that the violas that I got, years ago, from an old, old garden, are Bowle’s Black. These little darlings aren’t quite as black as the modern black pansies, but they are dark, rich purple except for a very small eye. I like them much, much better than the regular Johnny-Jump-Ups. They suit my dark sensibilities better. But they are every bit as prolific as the JJUs- the entire garden is a carpet of their cotyledons. I wish full size pansies would spread like this!

It's sunny, and we have our first outdoor blooms of the year. This is about a month early for our area; last year we were still buried in snow.


Also, some of the heucheras kept their leaves over winter. These three plants are seed grown from either Dr. Sitar's Hybrids or Dale's Strain; sadly, I don't remember which! They are almost identical in color to Ring of Fire, except they don't get the orange outline in fall.


Lots of the roses have leaf buds that are nearly bursting. Most of the perennials are coming up- one of the dwarf perennial peas is about to bloom. Sadly, it looks like my beautiful pale pink digitalis did not survive the winter, and I don't know if any seedlings will sprout for next year bloom. I hope so; I love that color!