From commentor Melissa M:
We recently went to New Hampshire for a wedding, then down to Cape Cod for three days to see an old friend who is doing some life cleaning of his musical instruments (anyone want a baroque viol, hit me up!).
He lives in the home that’s been in his family since around 1900 (original house built in 18th century?).
It’s on a pond which I found utterly peaceful and would just go and sit and watch the lone cormorant fishing or the heron come in and go fishing or osprey, etc.
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Lovely photos… I can almost hear the cicadas singing!
What’s going on in your gardens, this week?
VeniceRiley
Lavender is flowering. Roses still banging out. Dog still trampling things. Have some lovely orange poppies and a pink thing. Got some butterflies and blackbirds, and a wood pigeon that struts the patio like he owns the place. Waiting for the budlia to bloom soon.
sab
I have been watching latest season of Outlander, currently set in North Carolina and filmed in Scotland. The contrast is hilarious. They sent Jamie’s son to the Great Dismal Swamp on the border of Virginia and North Carolina. Filmed in Scotland it was very lush and green and covered with moss growing on the tree trunks. Every once in a while a tree had some spanish moss hanging down, just to indicate that they were indeed in the American South.
Summer in Wilmington NC and Jamie is quite comfortable wearing a knee length leather coat over his wool shirt and trousers.
JPL
How lovely.
mrmoshpotato
Caped Cod – The Scaley Superhero
mrmoshpotato
I can definitely hear you stretching the definition of “singing.” 😁
Dracula: Listen to them. (Like you can shut out the noise!) Cicadas of the night. What a damned racket they make! STFU!
Anne Laurie
Well, ‘I can almost hear the mosquitos swarming’ just didn’t have the right romantic tone…
Jeffg166
I am ripping out the spring flowers in front of the porch to plant zinnia, cosmos, balsam, and calendula seeds. They should flower by September.
Ken
I’ve been weeding at church. There’s a strip between our parking lot and the neighboring one that was sadly neglected during covid and is now full of weeds, including some tree-of-heaven (Ailanthus) and my nemesis, trumpet vine (Campsis).
It’s kind of a treasure hunt; I’ll be ripping out swathes of morning glory or whatever, and find lavender, or sedum, or other original plantings still struggling along underneath. I am leaving some of the weeds, though. There’s a lot of milkweed though I don’t see any monarchs using it, and I found a volunteer blackberry.
CCL
Finished harvesting the peas – both edible pod and shelling – yesterday. Watercolor dahlias we started from seed are starting to bloom so we can now identify color for planting next year.
Deadheading.
Negotiating with rabbits and deer about what we meant when we told them they could have the leftovers.
OzarkHillbilly
You do Monet proud with these pics, beautiful.
Ken
Oh my, sudden childhood memory surge. I haven’t read Rabbit Hill for ages. I should find a copy.
OzarkHillbilly
My zinnia, cosmos, and calendula are just beginning to bloom right now. They do so brighten my heart with the first blossoms.
We are in extreme drought conditions right now. The rain we got last week with the big winds that took out our power for 60+ hours amounted to only a 1/2″ even tho the NWS said we got 1.5-2″. The storms that rolled thru Friday night only gave us a 1/4″. That’s about all we’ve had since May. I’ve been watering the hell out of all my gardens but it’s hard to keep up with which needs the most attention the soonest. The flower bed at the head of my driveway island has definitely suffered.
JeanneT
my garden is a disaster, full of weeds, boards falling off the raised beds…. BUT driving around yesterday I saw the garden centers are still full of plants and this week the weather is going to be normal summer temps for this area. I think I have a week of grace to clean up the beds and plant some annuals and quick growing veggies. Wish me luck!
JeanneT
Also, I love those photos from New Hampshire!
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: I’m late to this thread, but I second OH, Melissa M! You have a great eye for composition, and I felt myself relaxing just looking at your photos. Beautiful spot.
satby
@JeanneT: Your to-do list matches mine. I have the yard guys scheduled for a heavy clean-up, but heat and rain have put him at least a week behind schedule. And the weeds are outta control! AND, my weed-whacker broke, or the battery isn’t holding a charge.
Van Buren
If you’re fond of sand dunes and salty air…
mrmoshpotato
@Anne Laurie: Fair enough. :)
CCL
@Ken: If your volunteer blackberry is like my volunteer blackberries, they have deep roots and spread. They were setting up robust colonies in my front garden and I used to collect the berries for jam. Even the deer left them alone and the rabbits were useless.
I lost my tolerance last fall and am now waging war on them digging them out when I can.
Mousebumples
Great (and relaxing) photos – thanks for sharing!
I’m planning to do some wedding today. We might get some rain later this week, too! 🤞🤞
Our lilies and roses are blooming. Harvested a handful of strawberries and raspberries yesterday. The raspberry bushes are back on our berm – and I’ve got a bunch of weeding to do back there too…
O. Felix Culpa
@OzarkHillbilly:
We too are in drought and an enduring heatwave. Not quite as bad as Phoenix, but our temps are supposed to be in the 100s next week. Thankfully a dry heat. :) Although I’ve been able to keep most plants alive so far and looking relatively healthy, a number of my veggies have stopped growing. I wonder if that’s a self-preservation response to the heat?
Gvg
It’s hot. I bought plants yesterday at the sale I lucked onto….new native plant university program so kind of inexperienced and only had one cashier and few workers in a town which used to have big native plant sales that stopped because all the growers got too old and couldn’t find youngsters to take over. I think they were mostly old hippies. Anyways natives were big and popular, and some of the growers were selling to big box stores even but they were also retiring every year and suddenly no big festival sales. The University started a native nursery program last year. This is the first sale I have seen. Even with little advertising there were lots of people in the hot sun. Waiting a hour to pay in line. Then go home, cool off and plant them.
I wish it would rain. Good plants though. They need to get better at signage though, and planning events.
Jeffg166
@O. Felix Culpa: Lots of things stop growing in heat. The lack of water also does it.
MelissaM
Wow, thanks for the photo appreciation! As for bugs, there were very few while I sat, which made it easy to sit and stay a while. Also props to our friend and his sons, who are working with some neighbors to keep the pond healthy, not an easy task since no property on the pond is on the city wastewater, so all their shampoos, laundry soaps, etc. get dumped in the pond (after sorting through the septic system.)
As for my own garden, I’m happy to report we’ve gotten rain! I’m in the vicinity of Watergirl, and we had a derecho storm that caused major outages and damage, but it sorta started things and we’ve been having a bit more rain since. I don’t think we’re out of “drought” levels yet, tho. Also it’s brought mosquitoes. Nice thing about drought – very few mosquitoes.
Jeffg166
@OzarkHillbilly: I like to plant seeds now for a show into the autumn. Most flowers are spent by September. If the seeds planted today come up there should be a colorful display out front when everything else is burnt out.
BenInNM
Got some rocks yesterday to finish off a dry creek bed. Need to place them before it gets too hot but so far coffee is winning.
Kristine
Beautiful photos–many thanks!
Over the last week, NE Illinois has enjoyed actual rain. We avoided the torrential downpours and flooding that hit the city–according to my rain gauges my yard’s received a couple of inches, which is great. Some of the astilbes and monarda are winding down already, the wild hydrangea is lit, and the sem ash spireas are just getting started. Liatris and kalm St John’s wart still at the green bud-formed stage and the goldenrod is just plain green.
Lovely day today, 70s and sunny. A bump-up to the high 80s tomorrow, followed by storms/cooling. We’re finally entering a wetter period, which I hope signals an end to the drought.
O. Felix Culpa
@Jeffg166:
I’ve been target watering my veggies and hoping that the drought-resistant perennials live up to their name. So I’m thinking that heat is the primary factor retarding veggie growth.
TerryC
Fruits and nuts!
So far this year we have harvested and eaten (at least some if not a lot) of domestic and wild mulberries, black raspberries, red raspberries, wild apricots, tart cherries, haskap, and apples, including crabapples. Wild blackberries ripen soon and then domestic thornless blackberries. Then come the domestic and wild pears, wild plums, gooseberries and domestic peaches followed by Rainer cherries and more apples and autumn berries, as well as paw paws, and wild grapes.
And if you count mushrooms as fruits we have harvested wild oysters, pheasant back, and morel plus dead-stump “planted” chicken of the woods.
Nut-wise it is an exciting year because one of the 25 or so burr oaks I planted 7-8 years ago is producing its first crop of acorns, lots of them, and our shellbark and shagbark hickories are loading up this year, too!
Also, fall of 2021 was a HUGE black walnut crop and in two springs I have now located and saved more than 1,000 baby walnut trees that our four kinds of squirrels planted in spots where I already did really want trees!
I tried my hand at grafting this spring and have several successful domestic apple and pear grafts onto crabapples and callery pears, and one (1) success putting domestic tart cherry on top of wild plum. None of my other stone fruit grafts worked but I did them in late February, next year I will wait until a bit later.
Whew! Ten years of nurturing and planting 16,000+ trees – in and around my two private disc golf courses – is paying off! The nuts just take longer. I’m 75 so I may not see many of them produce.
OzarkHillbilly
@Jeffg166: Here in the Ozarks my zinnias and cosmos will bloom all the way into autumn (there may be some lessening of blooms but I have to admit I never pay that much attention). I love calendulas and have always had difficulties with propagating them. This year I planted 3 or 4 different patches and so far only one has come up. :-(
laura
Everything is slowly growing in the backyard. We’re getting another extreme temperature spell, so I’m going to get some stakes and shade the mj’s and the digitalis monstrosa and the salvia chiapensis is finally sending out some hot magenta blooms. Watering and weeding- and deadheading the geraniums and the gardenia which is having a very prolific bloom year. I’m trying to time when to plant the calendula and marigolds for max fall splendor for the (fingers crossed) return of the dia de los muertos shindig that’s been on hiatus since 2020.
munira
Drought here in the Pacific Northwest, too. My garden partner and I are installing an automatic drip irrigation system. Lots of work since we have a big garden but it’s been fun figuring it out – I like doing stuff like that.
Shana
Hubby now in retirement has taken over yard duties from the company we used to pay to do the work. He’s loving it and has purchased electric battery powered lawnmower and other tools. He’s on a mission to eradicate invasive species and replant with natives which gets him out of the house and keeps him from hanging around in front of whatever kitchen cabinet or drawer I need to use.
We’re surrounded by huge oaks so have very little sunny spots but have a small vegetable garden. Our lettuce is done for the year but our beans are doing great and our tomatoes are starting to ripen.
Marigold
@TerryC: That’s so cool! I’m just taking my first steps in that direction on my barely quarter-acre. I have 3 Nanking cherries, 3 haskaps, 3 hardy kiwi for the chain-link fence, and I should be getting a couple hazel bushes in a couple weeks.
When I ordered them, I was so sure that I would get their permanent homes prepped and ready to go this spring! …Yeah, not so much. They seem fairly happy in pots for now, at least.
StringOnAStick
@O. Felix Culpa: Maybe try a little shade cloth to cut the intense sun on your veggies? I use mosquito netting because I had a bunch but there’s different levels of shade cloth. Plants tend to have a hard time above 100 degrees and they can’t get up and move to the shade like we can.
StringOnAStick
@TerryC: You are my hero! What an amazing project!
StringOnAStick
@munira: Drip is the way to go, especially the stuff that is 1/2″ tubing with emitters already installed. Lay it out in a grid for new gardens and as you can by working around the plants in an existing garden, use a hold down stake every foot, then mulch it keep the expansion from sun heating it up and it working its way up to the surface. Uses a lot less water than sprinklers and doesn’t encourage weeds like sprinklers do either. I’ve been installing drip irrigation systems in every house we’ve lived in for 30 years after learning how by working for a landscaper friend for two years when my first career got eaten by the 1993 recession.
StringOnAStick
I guess I’m just talking to myself at this point, but I harvested a huge batch of Roma green beans, the shelling peas are at full stride and the snow peas are about done. First tomatoes showing some color, tiny cucumbers are visible, and the Triple Crown blackberry I planted last summer is blooming. The heavy restorative pruning of the neglected blueberries cut the crop, but what there is are quite large and next year they will produce more. The heavy prune on the tart cherry plus a late frost reduced that crop but what remains are twice the size and I seemed to have gotten ahead of the spotted wing drosophila that has hit cherries very hard after being accidentally imported into the US a few years ago.
StringOnAStick
@Melissa M: I loved the red boat edge in the photos, maybe even a bit more of it in the frame would be really nice with the water lilies.