Seven Sons Tree

It is fall and many things are blooming away... away being the operative word. To add a little Spring excitement, I am going to try to cultivate a little 7 sons tree/ shrub available from Parkseed.com. It sounds like this will grow 15'x10'... Blooms in August & then red calyxes form.. In some ways, it sounds much like my Henry Spice Itea... colorful right now in shades of orange, brown, & reds, but has fragrant white flowers in the spring. Everything likes full sun.. and I fear by the time I finish planting for full sun... I'll end up with a very shady yard :)

An early evening storm to remember

This storm swept in over a mere 10 minutes and began waves of heavy rain & hail & wind. How eerie to have the sky totally blackened by this huge cloud. When it was over, the western sky was bright yellow and a double rainbow emerged, around 9 pm. 10 miles away in Crystal Lake, the sky turned blood red and lightning streaked horizontally across the sky at this same time.

The garden alive!

Here it is, mid-July... and the flowers are blooming robustly! Time to take pictures to help dictate what gets moved and what stays where next spring. My Rozanne geranium plants turned out to be larger than I imagined... rising about 18" and spreading about 28" across with large flower heads and large well defined leaves. Now that the roses have slowed in their bloom, it is nice to see this little "pond" of purple flowers, but I have lost that "tailored" look I was trying to cultivate.

The dwarf buddelia bushes much prefer where I have moved them and they are now blooming prolifically. That back flower bed just doesnt seem to sustain much of anything, although the Russian Sage seems to have taken to being transplanted there. Maybe just put the lilies all over back there & be done with it?

bunny deterents?

I read in Birds & Blooms some people were successful with keeping bunnies away from their yummy flowers by using Geese decoys! Apparently, geese & bunnies do not eat eye to eye. So off we trundled to Cabela's to see if we could find just the right menacing looking decoys, which are not inexpensive, btw. The clerk kept telling hubby on the sly, "get a gun; it's cheaper" Anyway, home we came with decoys on sale.. 12 for $70... designed to look like sitting geese in a field to attract geese to land but hollow shells with a variety of heads. I set out 6 to begin with, pounding the stakes thru into the ground... and then it was time to wait... for Bunny. And you can see for yourself how totally menacing the goose is and how totally terrified the Bunny is!

Live & Learn

Hummingbird elixer

Everyone probably knows the recipe for hummingbird elixer... 1 cup hot water & 1/4 cup sugar... and to clean & change the feeder every 3 days or less

We have just one little pair of hummers who visit our window view and make our cats chitter with excitement. Perhaps the spring and its cold, wind, and rain have kept the hummers in a warmer part for a longer time. From my notes last year, it was just about now, mid-June, when we began to have a lot of hummer activity, plus we had indigo buntings, red breasted grosbeaks, and an occasional oriole.

blues

Something about the shade of blue and purple in a garden creates a calming effect. These lovely spring fashion shows are now making their exit and the brighter more lively hues of summer are presenting themselves.

These irises did not flower last year, their first year up. There were 4 blooms on each of 3 stalks. 7 plants had leaves but we'll wait til next year to see if they will flower. The salvia above is actually bright purple next to violet cranesbill.

MoonTiger - a nearly full moon and a sleepless night

Moon Tiger

The moon tiger.
In the room, here.
It came in, it is
prowling sleekly
under and over
the twin beds.
See its small head,
silver smooth,
hear the pad of its
large feet. Look,
its white stripes
in the light that slid
throught the jalousies.
It is sniffing our
clothes, its cold nose
nudges our bodies.
The beds are narrow,
but I’m coming in with you.

- Denise Levertov

What a lot of rain can do...

Everything has a jungle quality. I found aphids on my brown eyed susans, brown toadstools in the lawn, and a funny mosaic on the nasturtium leaves. My Harry (Lauder's walking stick) seems to have some signs of crisping leaves. I am going to use dish detergent & wash them that way. I read aphids & mites can be eliminated this way.

Today we had a small but adventurous Swallowtail butterfly flitting around my red roses. The morning glories have secondary leaves... the Stella D' Oro day lilies are going to be standing VERY high.. maybe 32 inches up from the ground!!! Bee Balm is a lovely bully... I've moved some already, but after the rain, it's like the plants have "spread muscles"... I paired red geraniums with dusty miller & royal blue lobelia... very patriotic... by the garage / sidewalk. Very pretty, but the dusty miller loved the rain and the geraniums look beaten up by the rain. The elephant ear palms are not sprouting new leaves as I thought they would. drat! The schefflera is doing well on the Casey plant.. but the orig might need to be cut down to the bottom & we hope to start over again. we'll see.

My lettuce is coming up for a second time.. the 5-6 plants that were not dismayed by the mulch yielded delish leaves the other nite. the parsley and oregano are starting to germinate. Basil.. same. The bush beans are up and looking healthy. Such a teensy spot for a garden.

The Siberian Irises are done and I am waiting for them to create seeds to try to start myself. LOVELY blooms when they were. The other Irises were nice but so short lived.

A lovely summer day is a beautiful thing. May I always choose to be outside not in when it occurs.

The tree swallows in June

The 5 eggs turned into one baby who was hairless for about the last week. Now he is feathered and the about 1/3 the size of his parents. when I open the top of the bird house, he does not look up, but I have to becuz the parents are buzzing just over my head at an incredible rate of speed & chirping a definite warning sound. I looked for "remnants" of the other 4 babies and I dont know if they were eaten or pulled from the house & then scavenged by other birds like the black birds. The female will just poke her head out of the hole & for some reason she reminds me of a killer whale's profile. she will gobble bugs as they go by, watch me warily as I mow the grass or pull weeds, and probably just get a much needed mother break. The father is never far away and during all this stormy weather, it appears both parents are in the nesting box with the baby. The nest itself is a warm inviting circle of soft feathers atop dried grasses and day lily leaves. These are very good parents... very attentive & protective. The daily drama of who will be in the box is long gone.

We are finished, I think, with our spring planting agenda. We have decided the rabbits will win the race after all, so we have put in plants they "supposedly" find distasteful: zinnias, irises, silver mound, cranesbill/hardy geranium, purple dome aster, day lillies, roses, delphinium, lobelia/cardinal flower, cosmos, marigolds, and autumn joy sedum and angelina sedum ground cover. Oh.. and bee balm! Add dianthus, Russian sage, nasturtium, morning glories, wave petunias, blue victoria salvia, geraniums, and dusty miller and hardy mums as well. a bit of everything. Now to wait to see how it all congeals & blooms. The flower pots look nice, although I would like to begin to replace the plastic pots with classier ceramic/ glazed pottery.

My thoughts for next year's focus: the north side of the house near the garage... hostas are nice before the hot weather... I like spring mound spirea/ bridal wreath... Or... since it is so shaded, I could try to create a little shade garden with ferns and impatiens...I would like to get a little hosta called mouse ears.. it's a mini.

on the south side, which gets a lot of sun, my garlic is growing wildly and my 2 blueberry bushes look to be thriving. I've added some bush beans, leaf lettuce. That sunny side seems to be my "food garden location"... I'm not sure I'll plant garlic again next fall.. we'll see how this turns out first.

The baby tree swallows have arrived

There were 5 little eggs... we peeked & saw one was pushed aside & dead but 3 little hairless heads about the size of a small fingernail were cast upward & had their mouths wide open for bug formula. One little egg was not cracked open.... yet. The parents are so busy back & forth, we do not want to disturb them, although they seem pretty comfortable being just a few feet away from us.

An article about Who Was Harry Lauder

Harry Lauder's Walking Stick posted by
A Garden Exempt from Public Haunt
The thyme of an ancient gardener.


As I sit and look out at the cold January landscape and plot my return to gardening, one of the plants that will be added to the yard will be something called a "Harry Lauder's walking stick" (Corylus Avellana 'Contorta'). It looks like something that was a prop out of a Harry Potter movie or the result of a poorly-aimed bolt from Gandalf's staff. It is a twisted and gnarled little tree that is unremarkable when green but very interesting in winter.I've liked the look of Harry Lauder's walking stick for some time as I want a garden that has interest to both an adult and a child. But as I can't do more than plan (at the moment), I thought I would try to find out a little more about this Harry Lauder. And -- through the wonders of the internet -- I found out quite a bit.In most descriptions of the tree, Lauder is simply mentioned as a vaudevillian who would take the stage with a gnarled walking stick. He was quite a bit more than that. Lauder was born in Portobello, Scotland, into a family of eight. His father, a miner, died of pneumonia when he was 12. Harry, the eldest child, did what he could to help provide for his family by going into the mines but his call was to the stage. Even in the mines, Lauder found opportunities to perform.Eventually, Lauder found a way out. His caricuture of a miserly old Scotsman walking with a crooked stick became (humorously but unfairly) a national icon. However, Lauder's fame found its way to shine his humanitarianism.In 1917, while preparing for a show in London, his only son was killed in combat in France. Lauder cancelled the show and rushed home to grieve. Convinced by his wife that his grief was no reason to cost others much needed work, Lauder returned to London to perform for "the show must go on". His selflessness became a standard for actors around the world.A few weeks later, he volunteered for service to take his son's place. Thwarted from this effort on account of his age, Lauder then volunteered to go overseas at his own expense and make the burden of the soldiers "a wee bit lighter" with a joke or a song. No one had ever done this before Lauder and it was his example that began the efforts of Bob Hope and other USO entertainers performing before the troops.Upon his return, Lauder continued his extraordinary work by raising funds for the wounded soldiers who needed assistance. Lauder was knighted for life-long efforts and continued his work through World War II. So at some point this spring, I look forward to planting a Harry Lauder's walking stick and recalling the selflessness and humanitarism of Harry Lauder.

The Tree Swallows

This summer we have been gifted with a pair of tree swallows who have taken up nesting in our new Blue Bird box. Every day there is drama of some sort with 2-4 other swallows who seem to be vying for the house or the "girl". There are 2 little eggs inside the nest which was made with long pieces from last year's Siberian Iris leaves and a lot of interesting feathers, some geese, some doves, 1 definitely is a downy woodpecker's. They sing a merry little song and do not mind me around them in the yard, but do not like anyone near the nest box, of course.

An alternative to mulching

Angelina Sedum is such a beautiful plant. It is drought resistant, disease resistant, and I'm hoping they are telling the truth when it is also deer & bunny resistant. On the Proven Winners website, there are oodles of pics of this plant also featured as the "spill" in the Thrill, Fill, Spill recipe for great container displays

Midnight Musings - 5/19/08

The moonlight is resplendent tonite, illuminating everything and yet casting shadows to alter the entire look of my garden. I wonder if moonlight has any effect on the plants ~ like sunlight does.

I once had a "moon garden" in which I planted all white or light pink plants, like impatiens, balloon flower, dragon's wing, petunias, and moonflower morning glory. The fragrance brought bats which ate the bugs, but on a night like this one, it would be positively glowing. When I drove by that house years ago, the current owners opted for grass. Oh what they miss!