Nursery Overgrowth

The nursery always looks terrible and this year is no different. It is completely overgrown. I can never keep up with the weeds and rarely even try. It is a big space that is contained on all sides by bush, fench, drive and a retaining wall. If it ever gets weeded, it all has to be done by hand, without shovel.

2 reasons why are shown in the photo. The delphinium and knautia will all get moved into the garden somewhere. What you don't see in the photo is 3 more reasons at the foot of all these weeds: orange viola, forget-me-not and variegated white lamium. That particular lamium is slow spreading so I am always happy when I find a volunteer. The solid orange viola has not made an appearance in my garden for 2 years now... until this one showed up.

The first 2 years we were here, the nursery was a temporary spot for everything I brought from my city garden. Long enough for the self-seeders to take hold and the bulbs to have very tiny babies. Tulips and lily randomly show up every few years. There are early orange in the nursery now that need moving. My only 'Pheasants Eye' Narcissus are in the nursery. I lost track of them before I got them moved this year.

Usually, I pull a path through to whatever I am moving. Dig it up to move and that is about all the weeding that gets done. I keep saying one of these years I will clear it out but it seems that is one of those things I like to talk about doing but am never actually going to do.

My Favourite Lily: Madrid

I am a big fan of Lily. Every time one opens in my garden I think, hmmmmmm, that might be a favourite. Then midway through lily season 'Madrid' opens and blows them all away. I am instantly reminded why she is and remains my favourite lily.

Her flowers are huge and there are always a lot of them. They open tall, almost eye level. She is a hot, bright orange that is translucent and neon all at once when the sun shines through her petals. She catches your eye in the garden no matter how far you are standing from her even with the myriad of colours she is competing with at that time of the season.

I have her in 2 spots now and I have already scoped out the third. If I am really lucky, when I dig and divide, I will end up with 4 or 5 spots!

Like Mother.... Like Daughter?

This is Moe Moe. We took her in when she was in need of a home and I could tell you all kinds of wonderful things about Moe Moe but this post is not about her. It is about her daughter, Nazareth - and maybe my catmint.

When we got a call that Moe Moe's daughter needed a home, we didn't hesitate. She was Moe Moe's daughter - our granddaughter! We were going to pick her up.

We were told her name was Nazzy, which I did not like at all but she was likely too old to change it. Dogs are easier that way, they don't care what you call them. A few days later, we found out it was Nazareth, which I like much better.

This is Moe Moe's daughter, Nazareth. Turns out it didn't matter what her name was because I almost exclusively call her 'fat girl' or 'baby girl' because she squeezes herself between me and the keyboard and coos at me which of course necessitates that I talk baby talk to her.

Miles alternately calls her 'fat girl' or Garfield because she has a lot of very Garfield-like attributes. Every once in a while, one of us will call her Nazareth just so she doesn't forget her name.

In reality she is a dog-like cat. She does not care what you call her. She will sit with you when you sit, follow you when you move around and talk to you the whole time. We have all experienced the joy of having her here and only the catmint has suffered. All the cats like to roll in the catmint patch but none of them can flatten the middle of it in quite the same way. The catmint patch has been in this spot for 11 years and has survived many cats. I would not be surprised if I have to buy catmint to fill in next year. She is worth the effort though.

Like No Other

 Heliopsis

Last year, Nyla asked me to dig a Heliopsis out of her yard. Not the kind of thing I would have bought for myself. The foliage, which is all I could see when I dug it was weedy looking to me. The description of 'daisy-like' flowers was appealing but not very exciting. I like daisy though and I love a lot of the 'daisy-like' flowers... Osteospermum comes to mind. Plus, I have too much space and not enough budget to just turn things away. So I dug, drove it home and planted it toward the firepit from the 'Therese Bugnet' rose bushes. Then I forgot about it.

I had 'Loraine Sunshine' and I love it so I had an idea of what to expect. Of course, I wasn't expecting anything as showy as Loraine.

 Osteospermum

What a wonderful surprise it was to find out that it is showier with bigger and more flowers that last forever in the garden! Weedy foliage indeed! That hardly matters if the foliage is going to be absolutely covered in flowers for the whole season.

This is just the first year in my garden for this division. I can hardly wait for year 3 when it comes into its' own. There are a lot of annuals that fill with flowers like this for ages in my garden, Gazania comes to mind. But no other perennial gets this full of flowers from the start of the season all the way through.

Gazania

Centerpiece

This year we got to pruning, trimming and cleaning up the centerpiece, vastly improving our view from the house. Before we did that, it looked like one great big tree that grew to the ground instead of three trees and a shrub. What I didn't discover until we were done is that it vastly improved the views from the centerpiece itself. The Elderberry really gave us a show.

Roses, Roses

I have a lot of roses but most of them struggle to get full size. Aside from the ever rampant 'Therese Bugnet', none of my roses have reached full size. Many of them are climbing and lack something to climb on. My fault. Some of them are in spots that are too dry or have too little sun. My fault again. None of them get fed enough. Oops, that's my fault too!

My roses survive in spite of me.

Yet, survive they do. For 11 years here since they were the first plants I put in. They always bloom which is nice because most roses are long blooming. They smell great... not as good as lilac but close. They do last much longer than lilac though so I suppose its all a trade off.

Days End

The daylily are finishing here. A lot can be said about 'Stella D'Oro', much of it not nice. I regularly talk about how reliable she is but the other great thing about her is that she is long lasting. The first daylily to open in my garden and still going strong today. Through the bloom times of all the others, she is still blooming strong with the last of them.

I would love to divide and move her to spread around her good cheer but my Stella is interplanted with

'Autumn Red' and separating them seems like a challenge for another year. Maybe I will just move a patch and see what I get. Plant it somewhere where it won't matter if it is both... or either.

I don't have a favorite new one this year because there are so many new ones that are stunning. But if I was forced to pick a favourite, I would have to consider the unknown red from Heike's garden.