Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

In my day, never was longer.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

Not all heroes wear capes.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

How stupid are these people?

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

Republicans do not trust women.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

The willow is too close to the house.

Not rolling over. fuck you, make me.

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

I am pretty sure these ‘journalists’ were not always such a bootlicking sycophants.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you do not.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

The current Supreme Court is a dangerous, rogue court.

You are here: Home / Garden Chats / Sunday Morning Garden Chat: Back from the Damage / E-Mail Change

Sunday Morning Garden Chat: Back from the Damage / E-Mail Change

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First of two posts from faithful commentor WaterGirl:

I love my anemones [top pic] – they are such happy flowers. So simple but they are some of my favorites.

The day after the huge tree fell on my house (just passed the 4-year anniversary on 5/31) a friend brought over a cherry tree for me to plant because I had told her once that I always wished I could have a sour cherry tree but I had nowhere to put one. I had about a dozen cherries the first couple of years, then none last year because we had a cold snap at the wrong time, but you can imagine the thrill for me when my cherry tree decided that this was the year it was really going to take off! One photo shows the flowers earlier this spring, and I took the other photo about an hour ago before I started round one of picking my cherries.

This was my first spring for my Jane tulip magnolia (not sure what the proper name is) and like everything else, it was so lovely but seemed to last only about 45 minutes. Everything was 2-3 weeks early this year but didn’t seem to last very long. What global warming, you say?

***********
Speaking of damage — although on a much less grand scale — Verizon’s ‘migration’ to Aol borked my contact link here. So I have a new email address: [email protected]. And while I’ve still got everything sent before June 11th, I’m afraid that anything you may have sent me since that date has been etherized… sorry I didn’t post about this sooner, but my Tech Guy (aka, the Spousal Unit) kept holding out hope for a miraculous recovery.

What’s going on in your garden(s), this week?

Reader Interactions

86Comments

  1. 1.

    Keith P.

    I’ve got a couple of sunflowers that popped up in my yard last year. I assume some bird dropped the seeds since they go nuts for black sunflower (ditto for the squirrels). This year, one of them is already about 10 feet tall….it’s ridiculous. Doesn’t have the huge flowers that I remember as a kid, but it’s still impressive.

  3. 3.

    joel hanes

    birdseed/oilseed sunflowers have small heads with very dark seeds
    most of the bigheaded sunflowers have larger, ligher-colored seeds with less oil content

  6. 6.

    OzarkHillbilly

    We had a late hard freeze and it got nearly all the blossoms on my (domesticated) flowering trees so I never had a chance at my cherries. Not that it matters, I never get any anyway. Some kind of fungal infection rots them all on the tree every year. I like your anemones too, WG. Beautiful.

  7. 7.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Oooopps:

    On 6 May, a man was found dead behind a Verizon store in Fountain Valley. Frank J Kerrigan, 82, of Wildomar, said he called the coroner’s office and was told the body was that of his son, Frank M Kerrigan, 57, who suffers from mental illness and had been living on the street. When Kerrigan asked whether he should identify the body, a woman said – apparently incorrectly – that identification had been made through fingerprints.

    “When somebody tells me my son is dead, when they have fingerprints, I believe them,” Kerrigan said. “If he wasn’t identified by fingerprints I would been there in heartbeat.”

    Kerrigan’s daughter, 56-year-old Carole Meikle of Silverado, went to the spot where the body was found to leave a photo of her brother, a candle, flowers and rosary beads. “It was a very difficult situation for me to stand at a pretty disturbing scene,” she said. “There was blood and dirty blankets.

    On 12 May, the family held a $20,000 funeral that drew about 50 people from as far away as Las Vegas and Washington state. “We thought we were burying our brother,” Meikle said. “Someone else had a beautiful sendoff. It’s horrific.” The body was interred at a cemetery in Orange about 150 miles from where Kerrigan’s wife is buried. Earlier, in the funeral home, the grieving Kerrigan had looked at the man in the casket and touched his hair, convinced he was looking at his son. “I didn’t know what my dead son was going to look like,” he said.

    Eleven days later, Frank Kerrigan got a call from a friend. “Your son is alive,” Kerrigan reported the friend, Bill Shinker, as saying. “Bill put my son on the phone,” Kerrigan said. “He said, ‘Hi Dad.’”

    Can you say “Lawsuit”?

  10. 10.

    HeartlandLiberal

    Planted weeks late, because of shoulder surgery. But beans and tomatoes were taking off. Looked out windows 6:15 am this morning, a deer was helping itself to the beans. Stepped on deck and yelled, it sailed over the chain link fence into the neighbors yard like it was not there. Agile buggers. We had not gotten the water scarecrows up, yet. Guess what we will be doing this morning?

  14. 14.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @HeartlandLiberal: Rabbits got 29 of my 30 sweet pepper plants while was in MN a couple weeks back. I’ve got 2′ of chicken wire all around the garden now. First time I’ve had rabbits here in 7 years, and they eat everything except the weeds.

  15. 15.

    Argiope

    Everything is sore this morning. First day back in the yard after almost 4 weeks of traveling + work catch-up, and I got a little over-ambitious. Weeded All The Things (4 wheelbarrows’ worth), dug out sumac from side yard, went to nursery, replanted side yard with coneflowers & daylilies, planted and hung flower baskets on the porch, and threw 3 more basils and a rosemary into the herb garden. I’m moving like the last time I had minor abdominal surgery, but it was worth it. Will outsource the mulching to the spawn. Today: making sour cherry gelato from our similarly surprising tree, assuming I can get someone to lift the mixer for me. Great photos, Watergirl!

  16. 16.

    Jeff

    I bought a dwarf sour cherry about 17 years ago to make my own cherry pies. Turned out not to be a dwarf tree. The first time it got to be 14′ by 14′ I cut it back. The second time it got to be even bigger I cut it down. Twice I picked and pitted 25 quarts of cherries. Other year I didn’t get as many. I’m over sour cherries.

    It continues to rain regularly in Philadelphia PA. I expect it to stop any day now.

    This morning I planted foxglove, galardia and columbines seeds for next year and some tithonia for late in the summer this year.

  18. 18.

    satby

    I have to now the lawn after work this evening. Got a surprise when some Gaillardias popped up that transplanted along with the iris from my old place, so that was nice. I forgot I had ordered some astilbe too, and haven’t planted it yet because I don’t know where, but I’m finding a spot tonight. Oh, and the previous owner had calla lillies that are coming up and look beautiful, too bad that’s where I planted the asparagus and trashed most of the bulbs. Guess I’ll be moving the asparagus and redoing that spot back into a flower bed.

  22. 22.

    Argiope

    Anyone have any good garden design websites to share? I have a smallish mostly shady area that needs actual plants instead of weeds. Maybe with some stones, a statue, bench, etc.

  23. 23.

    bemused

    Love seeing the garden photos.

    It’s a race to pick cherries before the birds get them. Same thing with grapes.

  26. 26.

    JMG

    Sour cherry gelato! Gosh that sounds good. We have an ornamental but fruit-useless apple tree, but no cherry trees. Since it’s the first day in about four where it’s not too humid to move, my “gardening” (shouldn’t be dignified with the term) is cutting back some of the waste trees of the woods that want to overtake the lawn and indeed the house.

  27. 27.

    opiejeanne

    @bemused: I sat and watched a squirrel eating the cherries on the big old cherry tree that was here when we bought the place. The cherries are only fair.

    The cherry trees we planted are just about ready. Hope they ripen before we leave on vacation.

  28. 28.

    Immanentize

    I am avoiding weeding my veggie garden. Plants look great — especially this year the Rutgers tomatoes and the tomatillos plants. My Kousa tree is in full “bloom” this year and is gorgeous. Like Satby I got some neat new plants when we put in a new fence. Seems I captured some of my neighbor’s roses in the process.

    And did I mention that I really need to weed?

  29. 29.

    opiejeanne

    @OzarkHillbilly: $20k for a funeral??? Even in Orange County that’s outrageous. They must have up-sold them like mad. I have more experience with this subject than I like and recent enough that I know that wasn’t the result of inflation.

  31. 31.

    opiejeanne

    @Immanentize: I need to weed too. The corn patch is being invaded by morning glory and the charming corn poppies need to come out because they’re starting to crowd the corn. I planted the corn later than usual and the poppies were up earlier than usual. Maybe I’ll tackle that before breakfast. My husband’s asleep still so I don’t think I’ll wake him just because I am up.

    It’s 5:45am and the sun has been coming up since 4:30, and I’m awake so I might get up and water the stuff we missed last evening. Going to be 96 today, quite a shock to some of our plants if they don’t get a little water this morning.

  34. 34.

    debbie

    Beautiful pictures, WaterGirl!

    My grandparents had a huge sour cherry tree in their back yard. We picked tons of cherries, and that was just a fraction of what was on the tree. I ate an awful lot of cherry pie growing up. I’m not much of a fan of sour cherries, but compared to the goop that comes in cans, the pies and crisps were delicious!

  35. 35.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @opiejeanne: If I could have my way they would just dump my body in a river or field when I’m done with it. As Josey Wales once said, “Buzzards gotta eat too.”

  36. 36.

    JPL

    The orange cheetos is tweeting. Hillary is the one who colluded.

    Hillary Clinton colluded with the Democratic Party in order to beat Crazy Bernie Sanders. Is she allowed to so collude? Unfair to Bernie!

    I guess in an interview with Fox and Friends, Trump admitted to using the term “mean” to describe the house bill, and Obama stole his term. wtf

  37. 37.

    Immanentize

    @satby: And yesterday, because my son is in Baltimore at a robotics competition, I had to mow the lawn! Weeding and mowing. The worst of both worlds.

  39. 39.

    bemused

    @opiejeanne:

    Birds can strip a tree or vine in no time. My husband was going to pick the grapes off the old grapevine but didn’t have time that day and planned to pick the next day. The bulk of the grapes were gone by then.

  40. 40.

    Betty Cracker

    We’ve got tons of peppers growing and have already made one batch of hot sauce. it’s already too hot to grow anything else.

  42. 42.

    satby

    @JPL: one of my conservative acquaintances in FB is starting to feel the stress of trying to justify the cray-cray. She asked me why I don’t post any pictures about my kids or (foster) grandkids [instead of the constant sharing of the bad shit the Republicans are doing]. I told her I post the political stuff FOR the sake of my kids and grandkids. But the need to defend the indefensible, especially when they’re starting to suspect they’re going to be victims too, is wearing on them.

  44. 44.

    Hal

    Ok. This is odd. Or maybe just an odd coincidence. But if Mike Pence ends up President I won’t be surprised.

    http://abovethelaw.com/2017/06/guess-who-james-comeys-godchild-is/

    But other parts of his resume attracted even more interest. For three years, Cullen worked at a Richmond law firm with a central figure of the Russia investigation: FBI Director James Comey, who was just fired by Pence’s boss, President Trump.

    And not only is Cullen his “close associate,” as news reports described, but he is also the godfather of one of Comey’s daughters.

  45. 45.

    chris

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Some kind of fungal infection rots them all on the tree every year.

    Too late now but have you tried dormant oil? It solves a lot of problems for fruit trees and it’s relatively benign.

  46. 46.

    opiejeanne

    @OzarkHillbilly: You can donate it to that research place on the island.. can’t think of the name of it. Referred to as The Body Farm in more than a couple of mystery books. They lay the bodies out in various environments and let them decompose in order to study decomposition. The info is used by crime labs.

  49. 49.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @chris: No I haven’t, thanx for the tip.

    @opiejeanne: It’s in Tennessee. And yeah I could, but what happens to my body after I’m done with it won’t matter in the least to me, I’ll be dead. It might matter to the ones I leave behind (if my wife is survives me, she definitely cares) so I’ll leave that choice to them. I am thinking of getting a prepaid cremation so that if they are OK with that, at least it won’t cost them anything.

  51. 51.

    D58826

    OT and having nothing to do with gardens but sometimes an ‘outsider’ (in this case immigrants or children of immigrants) can bring fresh perspective to the current American scene. The NYT has an article about the reaction of immigrants living in Houston to current events. What makes it interesting is they ‘have been there and done that’ in a way no American whose immigrant past is several generations old. They are horrified at the Trump cabinet kiss up meeting. That is the way Dear Leader governments back in the old country. On the other hand, they find hope in James Comey calling the most powerful man in the world a liar before a national TV audience AND living to tell the tale.

    Maybe we all just need to take a step back and trust that our institutions are strong enough to survive even Der Fuhrer. Hopefully the optimists in the immigrant community are right

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/24/us/trump-houston-immigrants-scandals-.html?&hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

  56. 56.

    satby

    And Watergirl up top again: that’s the kind of magnolia I wanted to plant, so now I’m going to look up “Jane magnolias”. Thanks, all the pictures are beautiful!

  57. 57.

    D58826

    President Trump will reportedly receive a report about the Israeli-Palestinian peace process following a “tense” meeting between White House senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner and leaders about the issue.

    The London-based Arabic daily al-Hayat reports that Kushner’s meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was “tense,” according to a translation from the Jerusalem Post, and Abbas was reportedly furious at Kushner relaying the demands of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

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    Israeli newspaper Haaretz also reports that Palestinian officials were “greatly disappointed” by their meeting with Kushner and Trump’s Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt.
    “They sounded like Netanyahu’s advisers and not like fair arbiters,” a senior Palestinian official told the newspaper. “They started presenting Netanyahu’s issues and then we asked to hear from them clear stances regarding the core issues of the conflict.”

    Hmm maybe it is complicated after all. But I guess the boy wonder was surprised that Abbas did not give him the same tongue bath that Bibbi did.

    http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/palestinians-disappointed-after-tense-meeting-with-kushner-report/ar-BBD76nw?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=iehp

  59. 59.

    satby

    @satby: woo-hoo, my local big box has a Jane magnolia in stock. Now, where to put it…..
    Edit: oh, never mind. Out of stock. Next year garden goal.

  60. 60.

    Gelfling 545

    @JPL: Is he asking if the Democratic candidate can work with the Democratic party? Also, someone should send him a memo. The election’s over.

  62. 62.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Pence was in charge of the transition.

    Which means either he knew about all the Russian shenanigans or he was absolutely incompetent. Sadly, for Republicans rank incompetence in govt is a virtue.

  68. 68.

    Kay

    @D58826:

    Trump said during the campaign that it would take “two weeks”. I laughed because every shady contractor I have ever not hired says “two weeks”. It’s always “two weeks”.

  70. 70.

    Kay

    @JPL:

    Trump wasn’t the only one who believed the Democratic Party was a government entity during the primary. A lot of Democrats apparently believe that. It’s crazy how many category errors there are- people don’t know what a thing IS -they have to start with definitions. “What IS this thing?” Start at the beginning! Go back! You’re way off track!

  71. 71.

    MomSense

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    There was that report about unnamed transition officials taking classified documents out of the scif which caused the Obama admin to change protocol and location of the classified briefings. And it was Manafort and the Kushner kids who insisted on Dense. Trump wasn’t so sure about that pick and floated his qualms to the media.

    Kinda makes ya wonder.

  72. 72.

    Oldgold

    Yesterday, at the crack of noon I trudged up to West of Eden to weed. A task I had effectively eschewed since early in the Eisenhower Administration. The plan was to clear a path for the rabbits to the Killer Kale.

    Just before making my first scratch in my foresaken pea patch, I saw something that explained the mystery of the missing ravenous rabbits and Deedee Plorable’s missing cats.

  75. 75.

    Marvel

    Beautiful flowers! Beautiful pix!

    http://imgur.com/a/VqAIw

    Over here it’s apples, artichokes, asparagus, beans, beets, blueberries, broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, corn, cucumbers, garlic, grapes, kale, leeks, onions, pears, peas, peppers, plums, potatoes, strawberries, tomatoes. Oh, and basil, chamomile, chives, dill, mint, oregano, rosemary, thyme.

    Plus, in good measure: weeds, weeds, weeds, weeds, weeds, weeds, weeds and a large & spreading bunch of white clover (this year’s can’t lick ’em/join ’em groundcover — it kills weeds and the bees love it).

  77. 77.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Oldgold:

    Just before making my first scratch in my foresaken pea patch, I saw something that explained the mystery of the missing ravenous rabbits and Deedee Plorable’s missing cats.

    Inquiring minds want to know…

  79. 79.

    D58826

    @Kay: Yep. I guess they are surprised that the Palestinians would not jump at the chance to move into a 1 room 8th floor walkup just because Der Fuhrer offered to throw in some drapes he stole from a goodwill barrel.

  80. 80.

    JPL

    @MomSense: Rubin did also, when she said if the exchanges are in a so called death spiral, then fix them. Why cut funding to Medicaid, which is a separate issue.

  81. 81.

    kindness

    It’s so nice seeing these pics. Ahh the memories. Out here in the Central Valley of CA our seasons are accelerated over these by a couple months. It’s full on summer here now w/ 100+ degree days. Spring started in February here. We got cherries for the first real time this year, it was so nice. We planted the tree about 7 years ago and it had fruited previously but the birds had always eaten cherries before we could pick them, so we netted the tree. You should have seen how pissed some of the neighborhood birds were. We got about a month of cherries and then took the net off and let the birds finish ’em.

  82. 82.

    WaterGirl

    Late to the party. Thanks to all who commented on the flowers and the cherries. I realized this morning that I always send Anne Laurie close-ups, partly because I love to see the flowers close up, but also because I’m not a very good photographer. Next time I will send some photos that give the bigger picture, but you’ll all have to be gentle about my lack of photography skills. Maybe we can just agree up front that I am just not aphotographer.

    It’s funny how fast the cherry tree moves. One day this spring the cherry tree looked green as always, and the next day (literally, I mean really the next day) it was white and totally covered with flowers.

    Same thing with the cherries themselves. Day after day they weren’t anywhere near ripe, and then one day I looked out the window and there were red cherries everywhere. Good thing I was paying attention and got the net up the next day because the birds didn’t get a single one of my cherries.

    Okay, full disclosure, on the last day I picked cherries I left about 5 or 10 cherries just to give the birds a treat.

  83. 83.

    WaterGirl

    @kindness: Our comments must have crossed like ships in the night.

    I was SO grateful that I never saw a single bird try to go after the cherries after the net was up because I am sure I would have felt terrible.

    For my blueberries, on the other hand, I really resented the birds who ate half my crop last year – not very large to begin with – so I have no qualms about having netted my blueberries and will take great pleasure in knowing the birds won’t eat all my blueberries this year. If that makes me a bad person, I can live with that.

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