From irreplaceable garden commentor Marvel:
The lupines are positively ROCKETING into bloom!
***********
Here north of Boston, we’re at peak rhododendron/azalea bloom — lots of fuchsia in people’s yards, because rhodies love our acid soil. The iris season seems to have been brief and abortive; guess they didn’t like going from 70F-degree days to frostbite to 90F-degree days to a month of cold rain. Even our unkillable purple species irises, which have been known to flower as early as mid-February, put on a short and scanty show this year…
The rest of my mail-order tomatoes arrived, so I’ll be spending today (and probably the rest of the week) transferring 32-gallon bags of fresh potting mix into 15gal rootpouches, mixing in fertilizer and SoilMoist, and planting out my ‘bounty’. Yes, it takes longer because I’m old and fat and have a bad back and a bum knee. Good news (I keep reminding myself) is that it’s easier than ever to be a gardener today, even with all my physical limitations.
I did finish cleaning out one flower bed, and transplanting annuals to edge it. But now I can’t put down new mulch until the rose bushes I want to bed out there (because hope springs eternal) show up from the Oregon grower. They were supposed to arrive no later than last Friday, but that’s when the big tomato order showed up, so I didn’t get around to complaining yet…
What’s going on in your garden(s) this week?
piratedan
our Saguaro cactus are blooming, will try and get picks because they usually don’t last more than a day…
Big R
I try and keep werewolves out of my garden, man.
Currants
Gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous, Marvel! My lupines are just starting to bloom too (though at this point they’re all blue…cross-pollination over time, I guess). And I’m just enough south and west of Boston that my iris are just beginning to open–guess my micro-climate is just enough different from AL’s for that to be possible, although her description of the weather is exactly the same as I’d use for ours. I’ve been trying to harden off tomatoes, tomatillos and a sole ground cherry for over a week now–it’s kept being too cold to follow through. But the morning glories had a good start–in transplantable pots outside–so they’ll go in the ground this weekend before my mail-order tomatoes arrive.
OzarkHillbilly
I leave for Boundary Waters on Wednesday. So of course I finally got my plant order Friday: 2 dwarf hazelnut, 2 butterfly bushes, 6 butterfly weed, 12 golden sedum, 6 english lavender, 6 carolina pineberry, a couple catmint, and a bunch of periwinkle that I’m rethinking. The good news is that I did manage to finish planting the herb garden before the rains moved in for the rest of the day yesterday. The bad news is that in addition to planting all that I also have to finish putting up my tomato and pepper trellises as well as weed them.
Gonna be a long day.
JPL
Beautiful pictures.
I woke to stormy weather. Since I lost power overnight for several hours, I assume there was an earlier wave of storms also. Today I was planning on mowing the lawn and cooking out. As of now, both are doubtful.
Morfydd
What lovely lupines! My white one is just starting. I also picked up a few red(!) ones, but they haven’t started yet. The roses and peonies are about to pop – otherwise the only color comes from those %!@&@ buttercups.
Morfydd
And when I get off my backside and get to work, there will be 2 dozen pepperplants, a bunch of herbs, and a lot of kill mulching to do. And I get to play with my new rocket stove!
Quinerly
@OzarkHillbilly:
Don’t know if you have heard, Mark O’Shaughnessy died last night around 7:00. Don’t know if you hung around with him over the years. Owned BB’s. Lived upstairs. Great loss for St. Louis.
OzarkHillbilly
Also, beautiful picture, Marvel.
HeartlandLiberal
We had a day without rain in south central Indiana, at this point, the exception the past few weeks. Wife, son, and I went to breakfast, then the farmers market. Bought two dozen tomato plants, about a dozen pepper plants, and four lacinato kale sets. I supervised while my son stuck them in the ground, since I am still wearing a sling after surgery and under strict orders not to do anything that would risk ripping the rotator cuff repair job back open. Still forbidden to drive for two more weeks. Today we are going to plant several rows of bush bean varieties, and get some sunflower and wildflower seeds for one big area. That will be it for the garden this year. The flower beds are getting overgrown and are a mess, but they will probably have to wait maybe two months before I am cleared to dig in the dirt with both hands. But I was thrilled to get the tomatoes planted, and hoping they will do as well as last year. Because of the surgery and rain delays, I had not gotten my favorite pots of purple flame grass, which is not winter hardy here, but I plant six spots every year. When I called the nursery that sells it, they had sold out. Sigh.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ???
raven
@piratedan: Amongst the Sagauro’s, 73.
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
rikyrah
White House omits name of same sex spouse in picture of G7 spouses.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/27/white-house-photo-caption-same-sex-spouse-luxembourg-pm
JPL
@rikyrah: Of course they did.
Good Morning!
Jeff
After the 4.5 inches of rain the other day the yard is happy. One tomato plant put in a few weeks ago has the first tomatoes forming. My neighbor gave me two watermelon plant plus four cucumber plants. I’ve never had any luck with watermelons. Not expecting much from them. I had started small sweet pumpkins. The idea is they will cover the yard freeing me from having to deal with it.
OzarkHillbilly
@Quinerly: Sorry to hear that. I knew him, not to say I knew him well. Been a long time since last I’d seen him.
Was actually up in town yesterday. Visited with Red for a bit. Met Annie and the Furtrappers for a little bit of “1950s New Orleans jazz”. They were good, all acoustic and Annie has one hell of a voice, unmiked. Dogdamn do I miss live music.
Raven
@OzarkHillbilly: Athens is such a hotbed of live music but,for th most part, they start really late so we rarely go out.
Argiope
Something is eating up the beans I carefully bathed in inoculant and planted in the raised bed. The goal was to raise nitrogen; my tomatoes had brown spots on their bases last year which I gather is a sign the soil is officially depleted. Peas didn’t even make an entrance–sparrows? Squirrels? Yesterday I gave up and just threw some more herbs in there to accompany the thriving oregano, chives, lavender & strawberry—the unknown pest doesn’t like those, and they don’t seem to be bothered by the low N situation.
Also, clearly I need to put in some lupins. WOW.
Quinerly
@OzarkHillbilly:
Love Annie and the Furtrappers! Glad to see they are getting more gigs. I found them at a little club on Cherokee a year plus ago (club since closed, short lived). I’m assuming this was all of a sudden with Mark. Someone said 2-3 years ago, he had become rather reclusive (except for an almost addiction to FB). Go to his Book of Faces page. Tributes pouring in. Also, great RFT article on Bob B a year plus ago with a lot of Mark quotes. No Post Dispatch article so far. I’m on the road back to St. Louis Monday. Great surprise awaiting me. Our Red has finished my first floor bathroom that she started around Christmas! I’m so stoked!
OzarkHillbilly
@Raven:
I have the same problem. For Saturday happy hour at the Venice they always have a band so if I’m in town I can catch that. Up in Washington MO, they have regular early evening outdoor concerts featuring a variety of different music. I’m going to try and catch some of that this year. Around here tho, there just isn’t any kind of regular event and the bar scene is just “let’s get drunk and screw”.
satby
@rikyrah: Good morning ?!
Woke up expecting more rain but it’s gloriously sunny out. So I have to assemble my electric mower that was delivered a few days ago and mow my overgrown lawn. Then find places for the nine tomato plants that arrived in Friday. The kid ended up getting overtime this weekend so he didn’t come visit (?) so I can’t pawn the lawn stuff off on him. Mixed blessing, because the farmer’s market kicked my ass over the last three days so I hadn’t put that bed together either.
OzarkHillbilly
@Quinerly:
A nice homecoming present :-)
Betsy
My perennial garden always struggles along in the “green zone” between the glory of iris and dianthus season in April, and the early summer flowers that begin in mid-June. So while I wait on the purple and yellow coneflowers, balloon flowers, and bee balm, there’s not a lot of blooms to gaze on. A few spots of purple and blue from Mexican sage, Brazilian verbena, and lavender.
Suggestions for flowers for very late spring / earliest summer? That’s late may here in zone 7.
I do see roses and rose campion blooming in other people’s yards.
satby
@Argiope: If you can find it, buy worm castings (worm poop). Sometimes farmers markets have organic farmers selling it. It will help enrich the soil without risking nitrogen burnout. And if you get some hoops for the bed you can throw netting over the whole thing to protect the plants from pests eating your stuff. A lot of work to set up, but once done it saves a lot of aggravation. My beds have chicken wire enclosures to keep the bunnies out and hoops to put netting on, though there isn’t a need right now because they’re full of blooming irises.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby:
How’d you do? You were complaining about just breaking even the other day.
satby
And Marvel, gorgeous photos of your beautiful garden!
Raven
@OzarkHillbilly: The Geogia Theater is awful for that. Years ago the Cowboy Junkies wales off the stage because people wouldn’t shut the fuck up during their set .
This 1973 interview if Gregg Allman by Cameron Crowe is good.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: Thursday was terrible, I walked away only $2.00 up for the whole day. Friday was better, cleared about $50. Saturday was amazing, did almost $200. But those are gross profits, looks way worse if you calculate the net. Still, soaps already made anyway and it gets me out of the house and meeting new people. And immediate feedback on what scents click with people.
Edited to add: the kick my ass part is hauling totes full of product and standing for the whole eight hours.
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
Good luck not screwing up your shoulder.
The Pale Scot
Lupines!
Morre: Shut up! It’s a hold-up, not a Botany lesson. Now, no false moves please. I want you to hand over all the lupins you’ve got.
Squire: Lupins?
Moore: Yes, lupins. Come on, come on.
Parson: What do you mean, lupins?
Moore: Don’t try to play for time.
Parson: I’m not, but… the *flower* lupin?
Moore: Yes, that’s right.
Squire: Well we haven’t got any lupins.
Girl: Honestly.
Moore: Look, my friends. I happen to know that this is the Lupin Express.
Squire: Damn!
Girl: Oh, here you are.
Moore: In a bunch, in a bunch!
Dennis Moore, Dennis Moore,
Riding through the night.
Soon every lupin in the land
Will be in his mighty hand
He steals them from the rich
And gives them to the poor
Mr Moore, Mr Moore, Mr Moore.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLkhx0eqK5w
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: Good to hear that you got some cash coming in. It’s a start, hopefully one you can build on.
@debbie: Too late, their both shot.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: thanks! SS is kicking in for me this summer if the Repukes don’t screw it up first, and I think the long financial nightmare is over. No mortgage thanks to my late mom, so things are stable on my income. I’m going to have to get scheduled off on Saturdays though, that’s THE day for market here and equals two days pay at my regular job. I could have sold more, but I ran out of my goatmilk hand cream!
OzarkHillbilly
@Raven: Heh:
debbie
@satby:
Can you switch to working Thursdays instead for the summer? That’d help the finances.
Another Scott
I cut the grass yesterday and may spend part of today and tomorrow hacking back the ivy on the back fence (I hate ivy…). It’s been very wet and cool here in NoVA. Yesterday I noticed our basement dehumidifier died (it runs but isn’t pulling any water out of the air – it was only a couple of years old, but these things seem to be disposable these days). That coupled with the relatively low temperatures means that the AC rarely comes on and the humidity in the house has been creeping up. It was kinda unbearable yesterday (52-55% in the family room), so I got a couple of dehumidifiers at Lowe’s. (They’re having a 10% off sale through the 29th.) . It’s making a big difference – I can’t stand feeling clammy especially after working outside.
Have a good weekend, everyone. Rest up. More battles are ahead this week.
Cheers,
Scott.
satby
@debbie: We have a new woman, a young single mom who doesn’t want Saturdays off because she needs to work as much as she can. We usually rotate, but I told her she could talk to the office manager about switching her weekend off to me, or at least the Saturday and I would work the Sundays. Thursday is also a market day, so I want to keep that day off too.
satby
@Another Scott:
I’ve been at intermittent war with the ivy that took over this whole place while it was vacant: brick walls, gutters, fences, and everywhere else it gets a toehold. I’m about to go to chemical warfare.
SiubhanDuinne
@JPL:
@satby:
You both say “pictures” or “photos,” plural. I see only one photo (gorgeous, but solitary). Is there a hidden link to additional pictures my bleary early-morning eyes are missing?
Another Scott
@satby: I tried Roundup on some in our front yard when we bought this place (it covered ~ 25% of the yard, was up ~ 20 feet in a big maple, etc., etc.). It didn’t seem to do anything (it was in the summer – maybe too late in the year). I ended up digging it all up by hand over a few months. It was brutal, but it effective, but it’s trying to come back under the azaleas…
In the back, I’ve let it go too long. I had it all cleared out about 15 years ago, but the birds seem to reseed it or something. And once it gets too thick, then poison ivy ends up getting mixed in. And the mosquitos seem to love ivy, also too (the leaves trap water). Just an all-around bad situation (especially with West Nile and Zika and all the rest trying to get a foot-hold).
It really is a horrible plant unless people are willing to keep it in check. (There should be a special circle in hell reserved for whoever it was that decided that ivy was “low maintenance”.) An old neighbor had some twirling around a lamp post like the Cape Hatteras Light and kept it trimmed, so it looked nice. But it’s far too much work for me. (I noticed that the new owner ripped it out shortly after they bought the place…)
Good luck with your battle! And continued success with your farmers’ market sales!!
Cheers,
Scott.
Kathleen
OT but here are links to GoFundMe page for the Micah David-Cole Fletcher, the young man who survived stabbing on Portland train (apologies if someone else has already posted)
:https://www.gofundme.com/tri-met-hero-recovery
And page for Taliesin Meche and Ricky Best:
https://www.gofundme.com/tri-met-heroes
satby
@SiubhanDuinne: no, only one. Autocorrect strikes again.
SiubhanDuinne
@satby:
Okay, thanks. I just hated the thought that I was missing out on more beauty!
Oldgold
This week, panicky and desperate, I removed the most ineffective edifice ever erected east of Eden. Even without the fence, my formerly reliable rabbit feeding zone remained rabbit free. Drat. Frighteningly, kale is the early star of this year’s unexpected green nightmare.
Svensker
How do you have rhodies there when they just whither and die in Toronto? What zone are in you in?
opiejeanne
@Argiope: Here, 12 miles east of Seattle, I had that problem with bunnies last year but didn’t know until I caught them mowing down my peas and my corn. I thought it was slugs or some insect that didn’t hang around when the sun came up. Duh. I need to get the fencing up around several beds today because the corn is mostly up as are the beans and cucumbers. We planted late this year because it would not stop raining. We raised three of the eight 4X5 raised beds even higher so that we won’t have to kneel to work in them. They are now full of seedling carrots and peas and spinach.
My lupines are just starting to bloom and all of them are blue and white. I don’t remember if I ever planted any other color but they didn’t like where I planted them originally and have migrated out into the pea gravel walkways. I’ve left a big clump in one area as well as several clumps of chives just blooming their heads off.
The Columbines are mostly doubles now but I didn’t plant doubles. They are very odd looking and the flowers are small but the plants are gigantic. Delphiniums and crane flowers are starting to bloom, and the centaurea (giant cornflowers) have been putting on a show for a couple of weeks now, as is one of the clematis. I spotted one rose in bloom but it was a pathetic effort, and we have got to get the buttercup out of that garden pronto because the rose bushes are struggling and it’s choking the lavender border around that bed. We lost a few roses over the hard winter because we didn’t bury the “nut” early enough. The peonies are about to start their show, the small rhododendron is just about past and it looks like the big one at the driveway will not have many blooms this year. Not sure why.
We are cursed with luxuriant buttercup and have been digging it out of the flower beds; we’re about half finished now when we normally have it under control by mid-April. It’s been sunny for more than two weeks, that bright, blinding, sunshine that only occurs where the air is clean, and the past couple of days it’s been too hot to work past noon and even that had to be done in the shade.
We don’t have a wedding pending for this summer so maybe we need to slow down a bit. The moles have returned to the front lawn but in fewer numbers and I don’t feel like fighting them.
opiejeanne
@Svensker: They wither and die in Toronto? I would think they’d love it there, although maybe it’s too many days of weather that’s too cold?
Oldgold
@Svensker: “What zone are you in?”
This year:
It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. It is an area which
we call the Twilight Zone.
opiejeanne
@Oldgold: Is that like the Convergent Zone? An area where no weatherman can tell us what to expect?
Svensker
@opiejeanne:
There are a few gardeners who try, but the rhodies are always small and spindly and pathetic. I was very surprised, because they are luxuriant in NY and NJ.
Svensker
@Oldgold:
:)
satby
@opiejeanne: I used this last year when I had moles getting too close to the house. Worked immediately and was easy to scatter around.
Laura
Marvel, your garden is a riot of shape and color. Thank you for inspiring with your pics!
The younger roadie brother had gone on tour working as production manager for Greg Allman and really, really liked him. After the wild years, his touring companion was a small, sweet dog. Another voice silenced.
The spouse and I are going on an annual neighborhood bike ride organized by the local bar. Theme is “Nautical by Nature” we are going as the Captain & Tennille. Spouse will be sporting a giant faux porn stache and I snagged a 70’s nylon jumpsuit. 5 stops at homes within a square mile for food beverages and fooforah. Done by 1:00. Nap in the hammock by 2:00.
Whee!
debbie
I know nothing about lupines. Is there a reason the one on the upper right is S-shaped and not as straight as the others?
Steeplejack (phone)
@Another Scott:
Also in NoVA here. I’ve had the windows open all week, but last night I closed them and ran the air conditioner just to dry out the air. Windows open again today.
The weather has been beautiful this month, even with the rain, which doesn’t bother me. Had a couple of days up around 90°, but other than that it has been balmy. Mostly mid-70s.
Gelfling 545
My front yard is abloom with columbibe Irish Elegance. Lovely little white bonnets with a sightly green tinge. These have been self seeding for about 10 years yet always bloom true which is unusual for self seeded columbine. They do, however plant themselves wheresoever they will. So far this has not been a problem. My redbud tree is looking slightly less moribund after 2 solid days of rain. I’m debating removing the sod from the area arouns the tree and moving some of the prolific vinca minor to the spot to avoid mowing problems.
Anne Laurie
@Svensker:
Zone 6, give or take. I’m told it’s our acid, clay-ey soil that makes the rhododendrons flourish; unlike most garden plants, they like the pH under 7.
Argiope
@satby: A belated thanks for this! I’ll go look around for worm castings and see what I can do with some netting.