Late Lupin

I love so many things about Lupin. The way their umbrella leaves fill the space in my garden. The bottom up opening of the flower petals. The colour change the flowers go through from opening to seed. My favourite characteristic of Lupin has to be the way one or two will pop up at the end of the season just when I think they are finished. Two seasons ago, a friend brought me a small tray of unlabelled Lupin she rescued from a compost heap. She thought one might be yellow and one might be purple. All my Lupin to that point were varying shades of pink. This is the first of her gifts to bloom. It looks white but I think I can see a hint of yellow there. I hope it has enough time to go to seed before frost. Lupin are slow to get to the dry seed stage. Probably their only flaw.

This Year's Starring Couple

Last year, Nicky phlox was my perennial pick of the season.  This year, it's grown taller and pairs up beautifully with my Opus One Oriental lilies.  These lilies are over my head!  And the scent of these two together is awesome - spicy and sweet.

Dog Proof

Today I replaced the winter-killed Heuchera 'Key Lime Pie' with the division of Heuchera 'Lime Rickey' from Linda's garden. They are so similar that the colour combination will be perfect again. In my never ending quest to keep the dogs from digging up everything new I plant, I found yet another solution. The dogs only dig where I have just dug. Once a plant is in the ground for a few days, they do not bother it. Right after I plant though, I need to protect it from them. Usually, I use anything that is handy and free. Most often that means willow cages. The willows are a good walk from the garden though and you can only cut what you need to use immediately because if they dry too much they don't bend. So I will often use anything else that is handy like the odd metal chair or rocks, although they can be heavy to move around. Today I was stacking plastic pots in the shop and I found two old wire hanging pots. Along with a couple of tent stakes I had instant plant protection!

A Lily Plan

My 'Stargazer' Lily is just finishing up for this year. This is its' second season in this spot and it seems happy in front of the ninebark on the lower level of the bird sanctuary. Not far from it is a 'Navona' Lily in white. This year, I decided that I would add the pale pink of 'Renoir' to this area with them. I think it will really make the 'Stargazer' shine next season.

Hens & Chicks Again

I love groundcovers of all types, especially sedums. Of all of them, my far and away favourite is hens & chicks. Any variety will do but the larger the better and if they are bicolour green/red I tend to gravitate to them first. Of course, my favourite would also be the one that is the most challenging for me to grow. I did manage to find and save all three of these this year. Their reward for resilience will be a more protected spot for next season.

First challenge is that they are small. Small can get lost in my garden and sometimes be found too late to save. I have more than one day a season that I look out the kitchen window and wonder if I am growing a weed garden or a flower garden. Worse still, I can't even try to call it a wildflower garden because thistle and goldenrod do not a garden make. Under any definition.

The next and biggest challenge can be summed up in one word... animals. From the crows that peck them up every spring to the dogs that seem to live only to paw them up out of the dirt and baby hammy who likes to take them into the tree to munch and then spit them out - animals of all kinds love hens & chicks. Many days I can do my garden walk-about to find hens & chicks sitting root upward, smiling at the sun. The afternoon sun here is hot. +35 and dry today. An afternoon of that would kill most plants. Not hens & chicks. I pop them back in and they always recover. Always. It is one of the many things I admire about them. This week, I need to find all three of these a new, permanent home. They are currently in temporary spots. I am determined to have their roots in the earth by the end of this week!

Mowing and Mulching

Last summer Kelly and I were trying to figure out what to do with the west side of our property along the other side of the driveway.  I knew it wouldn't be a good place for gardens because of the shade trees.  But it was a royal pain to mow around hostas and trees and I wanted a tidier look.  This year, Kelly cut out all the sod, we put down landscape fabric and mulched all around the bank edge and tree line.  Looks so much better now and easier to maintain.

Patience Rewarded

Isn't she pretty? Three years ago, I planted 6 bareroot poppy. Three were 'Royal Chocolate Distinction' and three were 'Miss. Piggy'. They were planted together and I am sure would have looked awesome blooming side by side. It was the last year that I planted bareroot plants because even as I dug and buried, I had very little hope I would see plants. They were really such pathetic little things, as were the coneflower roots that I planted the same year. In all, I planted 15 bareroot plants that year and I have yet to see any of them with this single exception. She popped up out of nowhere this year and I immediately cleared everything away from around her in an effort to save her. Although I would say she was well worth the wait, I am still not planting anything bareroot. It was a long wait. My next thought, of course, is that I hope her seed is not sterile...look for the update next season.

Coincidence Gone Right

Sometimes Linda and I think the same. This red daylily came from her garden, a division I brought home last year. I had thought I brought one red daylily from her garden but as it turned out, there were two varieties that were red. Since I thought I only had one variety that was red, I expected this to be 'Stella D'Oro'. I planted it with my other 'Stella D'Oro' in a patch. My first stroke of luck was that I planted the two of these at the back of the patch since they are taller than 'Stella D'Oro'. My second stroke of luck was that the golden yellow in this variety matches the 'Stella D'Oro' quite nicely. Apparently Linda thought so too because a few days ago I noticed that one shoot coming from the middle of this plant clump was, in fact, a 'Stella D'Oro'. When I mentioned to Linda that I have no idea how one got in the middle of the other she told me that she knew how... they are planted together in her garden too! I must have gotten a bonus root piece.

Deadheading

Normally, I am quite good about deadheading... honestly. Even in this year of mayhem for my garden, I have managed to keep most things deadheaded. Of course, the reward is more flowers and a longer blooming season. I missed shearing down this patch of pinks when the first flush was done. As you can see, I still got a second flush of flowers but look at all those seedheads. The reward for not deadheading is more plants next year. Funny thing is, I can see myself standing in this very spot next year asking myself where all the pinks came from!

Lily

It has been a rather interesting year for my lily... and Linda's yard. Last fall in anticipation of our move, I sent Linda some of all my lily. In fact, I sent whole gardens of lily! Kelly planted them in a temporary place where they all came up and many of them bloomed. They were crowded but from the pictures I saw, they also looked happy. What it meant for my garden was that there were very few lily left. Although my orange lily garden was still big and beautiful, this 'Acapulco' was the only pink lily that came up in what was the pink lily garden. I moved it into the garden proper since the pink lily garden is now lawn and it didn't miss a beat. It was full of blooms on only two stalks, reminding me how much I love lily in the garden. I can't wait for more variety next year. Linda shipped me lily this week and it should arrive today. Now, where to plant...

My Grandmother

We have been picking raspberries for over a week now and the rhubarb is ready to harvest as well. As soon as the heat wave breaks, I will bring it in and turn the stove on. Whenever I bring food in from the garden, I think of my grandmother. Her name was Myrtle but everyone called her Myrt and Miles had a 'Myrt's Cafe' sweatshirt when we were younger that she found a delight. It was appropriate because my grandmother ran a canteen for years at a local bakery. When I think of her, I think of warm blankets, soft pillows, sheets that smell fresh from the line and food. Mostly food. When I was young, I would visit her in the summer and spend everyday with her at the canteen. When we were not there, we were in her kitchen making homemade soup, pies, tarts, buns and anything else she was serving that week. Saturday's were always pies and tarts. All the kitchen counters and the table would get cleared, cleaned and promptly filled with flour. Flour everwhere. Her hands, her hair, her apron, the floor and my face. It seemed that flour was always flying as she rolled, flipped and rolled the dough again. By early afternoon the house would fill with the smell of apple, cinnamon, cherry and lemon eventhough the pies were always a little shorter on filling when I was visiting. One the of the best parts of Saturday was taste testing and then, of course, licking the spoons! My grandmother gave me the gift of appreciation for food fresh from the garden.

Our Garden Rocks

Yes, we actually had more rocks delivered to us so we could complete the front garden.  The strip between the garden and the road has always been so unruly.

This project cost us quite a bit in money and in Kelly's sweat.  We bought the best landscape fabric we could find and even recycled an old carpet.  The load of river rock was close to $300.  Here it is from a different angle.