From commentor Max:
I had some wildflower seeds that I threw into a transplant pot just for the hell of it. It dried out so much in September that they didn’t look too hot, but it rained all last week, so I got this picture. Freeze coming, so they’re gone with the wind.
Not a garden picture per se, but this young lady was hanging out on the guide rope along one of the visitor’s paths at Harper’s Ferry. (Praying Mantii are good for gardens, since they eat crop-destroying pests.)
***********
Because it’s the season, at least for root-pruning, the Washington Post has a fascinating article on transplanting trees and shrubs.
There’s a couple philadelphus (mock orange) bushes which are badly misplaced in our front yard — the Southern mailorder company swore they’d mature at around 4-6 feet, but they’ve shot up to twice that height even after being hacked back to the ground…. twice. They’re crowding out the lilacs on either side, and unlike the lilacs I never get more than a token random spray of blossoms from the blasted things, because of course it takes years for them to bloom after pruning. But it makes my back hurt just to think about hacking into those roots, and I’ve gotten so irked by the bloody things I’m not sure I’d even bother replanting them if I did.
What’s going on in your gardens this week?
raven
Funny, the un-openable pictures I sent were of wildflowers the princess threw out on the mudhole that is our back yard during the addition/sewer nightmare. We had an awful couple of days after I contacted the city water-sewer guy and asked about where we stood after 6 months. His reply was “I’m on vacation, let’s talk on the 29th”. We’re feeling more and more like they were just playing us and not really going to relocate the damn thing. Yesterday, after the dawg debacle, we went to a art sale at a friends and one of the city council members was there. We told him about our problem and he was very sympathetic and said “you’ve been put on the back burner but I can help with that”! He’s a really good guy that can be seem out with his kid picking up trash on the street, fully committed to the community. So we hope there is hope for the yard and the addition!
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: A buddy of mine up in St Louis has an old abandoned sewer line in his back yard that is collapsing. Half his yard is gone and MSD says, “It’s not our problem.” Some folks in Bourbon have a storm sewer line that began puking thousands of gallons of water into their backyard (and basement) every time it rained about 2 years ago. The city says, “It’s not ours.” They can’t even say where it is coming from or where it is supposed to be going.
Either that or they just won’t.
JPL
@raven: That’s a good development. Resend the pictures because we want to see the mud hole. I have a mound of gravel waiting to be moved. Your pictures remind me that it could be worse.
haha
OzarkHillbilly
Nothing going in the garden this weekend. Had some old buddies and their wives out for a float trip yesterday. Then made some jalapenos stuffed with cheddar, cream cheese and wrapped with bacon, smoked some baby back ribs and did up some frozen green beans from the garden. After all that we proceeded to argue politics.
They both profess to be independents. But when one started to tell me how some inmates are collecting unemployment…. I knew they had been listening to too much RW radio. It went down hill from there, tho not all the way down. I was able to call BS on several of their talking points (and they listened) but so much of the discussion was just on the visceral “gut feeling” level that I was not able to make all that much headway. Oh well.
Today my little brother is opening his very own restaurant on the S side of St Louis, and I am heading up there for the inaugural ceremonies. He is half scared to death, but he and his wife have been successfully catering for almost 10 years, so I have hope.
HeartlandLiberal
My wife was up at 3:30, woke me as she stood looking out the door onto balcony from the bedroom. She was enjoying the bright moonlight. I asked her what she was doing, and she told me she was watching a half dozen deer in the yard, who, when they realized she had seen them, floated across the yard and over the chainlink fence, which is four feet high, like spirits in the night, dancing over the fence as if it were not there.
I turned off and dismantled the water scarecrows three to four weeks ago. I guess I will go out later today and see if the deer like lettuces, beet greens, collards, kale, cabbages, all the late crop stuff.
HeartlandLiberal
Oh, and the next two weeks are peek Fall here in South Central Indiana, so we are about to leave the house to drive east to Brown County State park for breakfast at the Abe Martin Inn, and a walk in the fall foliage.
It is a beautiful, large state park, the biggest, with rolling hills, completely wooded, having been allowed to restore back to woodland after being stripped to a great extent in late 18th century. I take my camera every Fall and usually end up with a few hundred pictures of nature it all its beauty. If we are feeling particularly fit, we will hobble up the preserved fire tower near the main ranger office, which is usually open, for a fantastic panorama of the whole park and hill country.
T.C. Steele, one of the most famous of Indiana’s artist colony painters end of 18th into 19th century, lived on a hillside east of the park. Now it is surrounded by forest. The guides at the T.C. Steele memorial, which preserves the barn that was his studio and his home, always point out that when he lived there, he could step outside and see Bloomington, 10 – 15 miles to the west, because all the trees had been cut down.
WereBear
Sounds like it was amicable, at least.
What is weird is that these folks are right… they ARE being “ripped off.” That is an accurate gut check. They just NEVER get the perpetrators right.
Plantation mentality, it’s called. They can’t think badly of the Overlords… they might know…
JPL
@HeartlandLiberal: Send a few pictures to Anne so she can post them. The Sunday morning pictures brighten my day!
Hillary Rettig
I saw a preying mantis for the first time in my life a month ago; also a ton of lightning bugs for the first time since I was a kid. I’m hearing other similar anecdotes from others around the country.
Anyone care to explain, or speculate convincingly, on whether there’s an insect revival?
Linda Featheringill
My green tomatoes are FINALLY getting ripe!
And the cabbage I planted in September looks happy. That whole bed is an experiment. We’ll see how it works out.
The best producers from this year’s garden were the tomato plants I started from seed. So I guess I’ll do something similar next year. Peppers and beans, not so much. Hmmph. And I thought that beans were unstoppable. Maybe they need more space and less competition. [reaches for graph paper and pencil]
Punchy
“Incidental glory” sounds like a euphemism for a nocturnal emission.
JPL
Weather.com has the Wednesday and Friday low at freezing. ugh.
@Linda Featheringill: My peppers and beans were slim pickins this year also.
I have kale and arugula growing in one of my boxes. The other boxes I am going to line with paper and cardboard in preparations for the cold season.
MomSense
The hydrangea tree in the side yard is covered with blossoms that have turned the most gorgeous color of cream to deep rosy pink. I still have a ton of roses on the rise bushes that I almost lost to heat and Japanese beetles and the montauk daisy plant is outrageous right now. It is just covered in flowers and somehow the shape if the plant is just perfectly round. There are still enough blossoms on the sedum and nepeta to keep the bees happy which makes me happy. I really miss the noise those visitors make in the winter. We had a huge spruce in the front yard that was making me nervous. It towered over the house and was turning more brown than green. The tree surgeon came over and said it had a fungus and needed to be taken down. So we did. We have much more light now and I won’t worry so much when we have our next blizzard. Today I am going to do some fall clean up and just enjoy being outdoors. I’ve been working far too much lately.
OzarkHillbilly
@WereBear:
Things heated up on an occasion or 2, but we have been friends for nearly 40 years and our shared experiences are many and varied. Also, both share my antipathy for the Tea Party. They may be more conservative than they want to admit (“Both Sides Do IT!” they like to say) but they certainly aren’t stupid.
tt cews
Yes, praying mantis’ eat crop destroying insects. But that’s because they eat ALL insects, regardless of whether they are harmful, beneficial or benign. If they can’t find anything else, they will eat each other. They are pure predators. So they are great when you have beetles munching away at your cucurbits but not so hot when they eat all the lacewings.
Southern Beale
First frost of the season last night. Will probably have to pull up a bunch of stuff this week.
WereBear
This is a most welcome development!
I didn’t mean anything bad about your friends… or racial about anybody…
Plantation Mentality is now an academic term!
JPL
Today’s talk shows have a wide range of guests from the GOP. The new leader Ted will be on ABC and CNN while the old leader McConnell will be on CBS. For those needing a McCain fix, they will have to tune into CNN.
David Gregory’s show sounds tame because Lew will be speaking about the effect of the shutdown on the economy.
OzarkHillbilly
@WereBear:
Oh, I didn’t think you did. I just wanted to give you a more complete picture. I am a dyed in the wool liberal and make no apologies for it. I find it interesting when time and again I hear people say, “I’m not a conservative.” and then recite the latest talking point from Hannity or Limbaugh.
Karla
I finally planted my garlic yesterday – just nine cloves of Georgia Crystal, an experiment – and will be harvesting my red cabbage today. There have already been nighttime freezing temperatures, and a whole week of them is predicted to be coming up, so things are definitely winding down.
Jerzy Russian
@OzarkHillbilly:
With me it is people who claim to be “independent” almost always are clearly conservative. I guess they are a bit ashamed, which is a start.
stinger
I planted my mock orange wanting them to reach 12-15 feet, for a screen. They’re only 2′ high so far, but actually had several blossoms this year. I really planted them for their famous fragrance, and it wasn’t disappointing! Can’t wait until they’re mature!
stinger
@OzarkHillbilly: What’s the name of his restaurant? I get to St. Louis now and then and would be happy to try it out!
max
@Hillary Rettig: Anyone care to explain, or speculate convincingly, on whether there’s an insect revival?
Depends on where you are. If it’s been rainier that it has been where you are, you’ll get lots of grass and lots of small insects, which means lots of large insects. Could be climate change, could just be a random long-term weather shift.
@tt cews: Yes, praying mantis’ eat crop destroying insects. But that’s because they eat ALL insects, regardless of whether they are harmful, beneficial or benign. If they can’t find anything else, they will eat each other. They are pure predators. So they are great when you have beetles munching away at your cucurbits but not so hot when they eat all the lacewings.
True, but generally, they’re so large that there aren’t enough of them to wipe out everything. They’re allies, generally (since they pick average out taking out more bad bugs than good bugs), not blood relatives.
Which makes them entirely unlike caterpillars.
Now I gotta go outside and move pots around pre-freeze.
max
[‘Sunny day.’]