Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

One way or another, he’s a liar.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

The unpunished coup was a training exercise.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

Mediocre white men think RFK Jr’s pathetic midlife crisis is inspirational. The bar is set so low for them, it’s subterranean.

Museums are not America’s attic for its racist shit.

Every decision we make has lots of baggage with it, known or unknown.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Democracy is not a spectator sport.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

Rupert, come get your orange boy, you petrified old dinosaur turd.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

Consistently wrong since 2002

In after Baud. Damn.

We can show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

If America since Jan 2025 hasn’t broken your heart, you haven’t loved her enough.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

People are weird.

You are here: Home / Garden Chats / Sunday Morning Garden Chat: WaterGirl’s Summer Vistas

Sunday Morning Garden Chat: WaterGirl’s Summer Vistas

by | 94 Comments

This post is in: 

From our own indefatigable and ever-obliging WaterGirl:

Spring flowers are long gone, but summer has arrived!

Top pic: This is the round bed in front, and this picture was taken a few weeks ago. It will be a couple of weeks before the bed is showy again with hydrangea and coneflower blooms.

Favorite Pink Peonies

The peonies you see are gone, but here they are in a vase. I almost could have had a Martha Stewart look for a minute, don’t you think?

But no, my white cotton pandemic gloves were in the picture – on the floor of the porch, no less! They had been in quarantine on the porch – and they had apparently blown onto the floor. This is why I am a terrible photographer; all I see if a sweet pup or kitty, or a beautiful flower, and everything else is invisible to my eye. But not to the camera lens, of course.

We always get a big rain on the day after all the full peonies come into bloom. This time I was at least smart enough, first thing in the morning after a nighttime of rain, to cut a bunch of the stems that were dragging to the ground, weighted with all the rain, so I could enjoy them in a vase. Next year, I hope to be smart enough to cut them right before the rain starts, because I think the cut blooms will last longer if they haven’t been beat up by the rain.

Painted Fern & Blackberry Ice Huechera

My painted fern is happy again this year, and I always try to pair them with the blackberry ice huechera, for what I hope are obvious reasons. Two years ago, after being in the ground for at least 5 years, it suddenly got very unhappy, and it looked like it wouldn’t make it. I dug it up, figuring I would pot it for a bit so I could move it to the convalescent area on the patio until it recovered. Everything loves that side patio area that gets dappled sun. But it fell into 4 pieces when I tried to move it, so I ended up with 4 pots. They all did really well, so this one (the biggest piece) got moved back to the original location, and all is right with the world again.

Blushing Bride Hydrangea

My blushing bride hydrangea has 2 blooms so far, hopefully with lots more to come! If the color came through in the photo, you’ll see that it’s called blushing bride because the flowers are white, but with the palest pink blush. That’s one of my favorite colors in the garden, as you’ll soon see.

Mandevilla

I don’t know the exact name of this mandevilla, but it has the same blushing color. The flower starts out the palest pink, and then turns to white with a yellow center.

Double Impatiens

And again, these double impatience might look white at first glance, but it is also the palest pink color. I don’t do much in the way of annuals these days, but I always have this tiny pot of blushing white double impatiens in the chair.

And I always plant a big pot of double impatiens in this same brown pot. That’s how I get my dose of the showiness you get with annuals.

Sundrops / Buttercups

These sundrops originally came from my mom, who has been gone for 35 years. My mom called them buttercups, but the Google calls them sundrops. I have had them in multiple locations over the years. I have them in 3 different spots, just so that if something goes terribly wrong in one spot, I can always have them. Always. (You know what they say about IT people, they were belts and suspenders.)

My sisters and multiple nieces have gone home from my house with a freshly-dug batch so they can have my mom’s flowers at their houses, too.

White Bleeding Heart Vine

I bought 3 of these plants in 2-inch pots in 2016. It was very slow-going at first, because they were advertised as full sun, and that was a total lie. I nursed them along that first year, totally boring, just tiny little green plants with no flowers, and gave one of the plants to my best friend to bring in over the winter. Hers didn’t make it, but my two did. In 2018, after two different failed locations, I finally moved them to their current location and they started to flower. I LOVE this plant. It has to be overwintered, but it’s totally worth it. The same is true of the madevilla.

Purple Coneflower, Lilies, Black-Eyed Susan, and Allium

This is the main section where things are happening in my backyard at the moment. Though I do have fire & ice hydrangea, veronica, bee balm, and more that will have their own time to shine as the summer goes on.

Clematis

This clematis was here when I moved in 35 years ago. It’s one of the classic varieties – Jack Something-or-Other. The previous owner had it growing on a piece of chain link fence that was hung in front of the window. Not exactly picturesque! I managed to salvage enough for it to survive when I got rid of the hanging fence, and I replaced the fence with the crisscross wood lattice that you see everywhere. Many years later, that broke in a storm, and I spent many hours untangling the vines from the lattice. But it was worth it. It blooms every year, peaking just in time for my birthday. This is the view from outside, at its peak. It’s always my first Happy Birthday of the year.

Ferns

We had a photo of the ferns in the Spring Unfolding Garden Chat, but they are even taller now, so I thought you might like to see them.

***********

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

Reader Interactions

94Comments

  2. 2.

    WereBear

    But no, my white cotton pandemic gloves were in the picture – on the floor of the porch, no less! They had been in quarantine on the porch – and they had apparently blown onto the floor. This is why I am a terrible photographer; all I see if a sweet pup or kitty, or a beautiful flower, and everything else is invisible to my eye. But not to the camera lens, of course.

    But it makes such an evocative picture, does it not?

  8. 8.

    Mary G

    Wowser! That looks like a magazine spread! Love the peonies in the blue vase, and would never have seen the gloves until you pointed them out,

  9. 9.

    satby

    We’ve had a break in the hot, dry weeks of weather. Yesterday mid-80s after a good soaking rain a day before, today will be lower 80s, lower humidity, and we had a light rain this morning. Such a relief for the humans and the plants!

  11. 11.

    evodevo

    Hostas!  I could never get the variegated kind to work in my shady yard – they always remained puny.  The regular kind have almost taken over …I have to weed eat to keep them in their place.  I always wondered if it’s due to the lack of chlorophyll compared to regular green leaves.  My painted fern didn’t make it, and I’m wondering if that was it’s reason also…I’ll have to research that.  LOVE your flowers.

  12. 12.

    Mousebumples

    Beautiful flowers! I have multiple bleeding heart bushes (pink or white hearts) which make it through the winter great (Wisconsin weather) and prefer shade to part shade. The blooms are long gone on those, by now, though. So fun to see different versions of a plant I have!

  13. 13.

    WereBear

    Heads up since the overlap between gardeners and pets is so big:

    We had to rehome one of our cats.

    Stress just piled up on him, like all of us, but now that he’s grown, we are not the right home for him.

    He’s destressing at a local shelter, where our vet, who concurred with our decision, is watching over him.

    Yes, I’m sad, but also glad. He’s sweet, gorgeous, and marked as an Only Cat, so he should be popular and moving on soon.

  16. 16.

    Argiope

    Ahhhhh…..pink peonies in blue glass.  I’m fairly sure these flowers have cured my Hysterical COVID–you know, when you wake up not quite feeling exactly right and think “this is it…and I’ve been so careful”.  The clematis is stunning!  And the perennials look plenty showy even without the annuals, but I’m wondering if that vague sense that something could be added to my garden for better effect is related to my lack of annuals.  It’s really an art, composing a wowzer garden, and I’m still but a dabbler.

  23. 23.

    MomSense

    Beautiful garden, WG!

    I’m going to take my coffee out to the back deck and enjoy the breeze this morning.

  24. 24.

    debbie

    Beautiful! How is not tending your yard a full-time job???

    Are your hydrangeas the ones that turn pinker as they age? There are a few of those around here and they are lovely

     

    ETA: Also, the hydrangeas around here are going crazy this year. You will probably be very happy with yours in a few weeks.

  25. 25.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @WaterGirl: Oh you know, the person with the wonderful house and beautiful gardens that everyone walks past with envious eyes and makes all their houses look like cookie cutter shacks in a wasteland of mono tonal fescue.

  26. 26.

    WaterGirl

    @MomSense: Afterr 3 weeks of 90+ weather, we finally got a breeze and lower temps on Friday.  I watched the leaves swaying and I thought “oh, a breeze, I remember what this is!”

  29. 29.

    WaterGirl

    @OzarkHillbilly: Ha!

    I have the smallest house on the block, and my lawn is abysmal, more weeds than grass, so that keeps me humble.

    Every year I look at my weed/grass mixture and think that maybe next year is the year I work on the lawn, but it never happens.  Flowers first, at my house, and there’s always plenty to do.

  31. 31.

    Jeffro

    Heading up to NoVA today for a family get-together with my dad and bro…I’m sure the temptation to gloat over trumpov’s/the GOP’s fortunes will be overwhelming, so I’m just going to try and keep my mouth full of bbq.  =)

  33. 33.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @debbie: Nobody can see mine unless I allow them on my land, like the mailman or the UPS driver. No Jehovah’s Witnesses allowed. My now ex neighbor has been allowed to see it.

    @WaterGirl: and my lawn is abysmal, more weeds than grass, </blockquote>

    Those aren't weeds, those are wildflowers. It's the grass that is your problem. ;-)

  34. 34.

    WaterGirl

    @debbie: Last year was amazing for hydrangeas here, it would be amazing to get that 2 years in a row.  Crossing my fingers.

    My hydrangeas don’t get darker pink, but they do change color and they have a different look as they age, but they are still pretty, so I leave the faded blooms on.

  38. 38.

    WaterGirl

    @OzarkHillbilly: If only there were wildflowers in the grass!  Violets I can live with, but I hate the dandelions, and I literally have weeds growing in the lawn, nothing flowery about them.

    And creeping charlie everywhere.  Way more creeping charlie than grass. It’s impossible to kill without massive amounts of chemicals.

    Creeping Jenny?  That would be fine, but Creeping Charlie is awful and it gets into the beds and tries to choke my flowers.  I fight it in the flower beds, but have given up in the lawn.

  42. 42.

    oldgold

    Jean-Paul Sartre is sitting in a French cafe along the Left Bank in Paris, revising his draft of Being and Nothingness.  He says to the waitress,

    “I’d like a cup of coffee, please, with no cream.”

    The waitress replies,

    “I’m sorry, monsieur, but we’re out of cream. How about with no milk?”

    Weeds must exist.

  43. 43.

    WaterGirl

    @Argiope:

    I’m fairly sure these flowers have cured my Hysterical COVID–you know, when you wake up not quite feeling exactly right and think “this is it…and I’ve been so careful”.

    Hearing that makes me very happy!  And what a great name for that feeling, which we all know so very well.

  44. 44.

    WaterGirl

    @oldgold:  That’s a great story, I’m going to assume it’s true and I don’t want to know if it isn’t.

    Somehow it reminds me of the old joke: “Have you heard of the bilingual illiterate?  He’s illiterate in two languages.”

  45. 45.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud: My flowers are what is keeping me going / keeping me sane in this time of COVID.

    I have the feeling that winter in the time of COVID will be quite bleak.  But for now, seeing flowers and plants is my happy place.

  46. 46.

    Miki

    Beautiful gardens! Love, love, love the combination of Painted Fern & Blackberry Ice Huechera. And the sundrops. And the double impatiens. And the white bleeding heart. And, and, and ….

    Oh – the clematis is Jackmanii – I love them!

  48. 48.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @WaterGirl:“Have you heard of the bilingual illiterate? He’s illiterate in two languages.”

    Sadly, it’s not much of a joke when it’s true. My wife can barely read and can’t write in her native Mallorcan because Franco banned everything but Spanish. Her family kept speaking it and she is quite fluent in it, but to write it? Uh uh.

  49. 49.

    FelonyGovt

    Your garden is beautiful, WaterGirl!

    I’ve gotten the bug. We have a large back yard where the grass died long ago so it’s mostly dirt and weeds, but with birds of paradise, rosemary and other thriving plants around the perimeter. . We’re going to be planting shrubs, herbs and vegetables.

  52. 52.

    MomSense

    @WaterGirl: 
    We may have to teach you how to knit, crochet or needlepoint! Plus with needlepoint you get to stab the fabric thousands of times. Very cathartic.

    In the good news category, I found a Bosch 100 series at the local appliance store on sale and they gave me an added discount so it’s even cheaper than the back ordered one at the big box store.
    I’m so sick of washing dishes and having a broken, wonky dishwasher with a door that blocks the drawer from opening.

  54. 54.

    waratah

    @WaterGirl: my mother had big beautiful pots of double impatiens. Friends, neighbors and strangers would stop to look at them. She started small pots by breaking off a piece , no fancy root stimulator just stuck in the soil. These she would give away so others could enjoy them too.

  55. 55.

    Kattails

    Just gorgeous, I wish my peonies would do that! Beautiful selection of colors and shapes, love the way the ferns and heuchera look together.  That would make a great combination next to my Japanese maple! I love how nature can paint with iridescence.   The yellow flowers are Oenothera, I know them as evening primrose. I had some surviving in an old bed that had to get dug up when the septic tank got put in years ago, was just about to transplant them into the upper bed I’ve been resuscitating, but looked out the window and they were gone– deer, dammit.

    Got a wonderful book by Erin Benzakein, Floret Farm’s A Year In Flowers, it’s designed around flower arranging but her color choices are stunning and she names names, using a huge range of annuals, perennials, shrubs, leaves (like your ferns and heuchera), foraged material.  Fun to look at for materials for planting. If you like blush tones you will drool, get your bib out. She’ll do a whole two page spread of, say, sweet peas in lavender/violet tones with names like Oban Bay and Wild Swan.  She has another book on cut flower gardens which I’ll probably cough up the money for.  Nice website.

    There’s a lower area here that I actually want to turn into  lawn, because there are several mature oaks and the leaves are like leather, don’t decompose, smother ground covers, and are a haven for the #!!*// ticks. So mowing to keep it cleaned up would be easier than trying to rake the whole thing. Unwilling to cut more oaks unless really necessary, I cried when the last two came down, still feel guilty.  Ents, dontcha know.

  56. 56.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @WaterGirl: Oh, I don’t want you to stop telling the joke, it’s funny. I certainly don’t take any offense. It’s just kind of sad too. That is so with a lot of jokes.

  57. 57.

    WaterGirl

    @MomSense:

    Plus with needlepoint you get to stab the fabric thousands of times. Very cathartic.

    That was laugh-out-loud funny.  We may indeed have to teach me something because without the porch and the flowers, I suspect I will be in trouble.

    Congratulations on the dishwasher!  Can you duct tape it closed or something so your mom can’t get into trouble with it?

  61. 61.

    J R in WV

    Wonderful garden, great pix.

    You know you could trim those gloves out of the picture, if you really wanted to, don’t you?

    We have some Japanese painted ferns in two spots… our space can’t be a yard, too steep and rocky, is woods, not yard. Very shaded in the past, we have lost some trees lately so part shade plants my start doing better. Everything looks naturalized, ’cause it is. We plant it, water a bit, then it’s on its own, deer, dogs and all.

    Though the dogs never damage the plants, they have so much woods to dig in, with more interesting smells than around the house. Thanks for sharing the wonderful plantings!!

  62. 62.

    MomSense

    @WaterGirl:

    Yes, unless it’s a high traffic area.  Grass mixed in makes the “lawn” more durable for foot traffic.  There is micro blade clover now, too which is even softer than clover under foot.

  63. 63.

    WaterGirl

    @MomSense: Sounds like I could get away with just clover in the front, but in the back with the dogs, and gardening, I would need a mix.

    I think i would have to kill what I have now though, because otherwise I would never get a lawn instead of mostly weeds.  Plus it’s so uneven!  I would need to even it out; I don’t think even a century of rolling the lawn could do that.

    I twisted my ankle 2-3 weeks ago – the one I broke and had a lot of soft tissue damage on along with the break – so I am currently very aware of just how uneven it is.  That’s part of the reason it took me so long to get back into the yard after the break.

    Maybe I could try re-doing the front as an experiment?

  64. 64.

    WaterGirl

    @J R in WV: I couldn’t believe how much my back yard changed after the huge tree fell 7 years ago.

    Stuff that wanted more sun than it had been getting doubled and tripled in size just in that first summer.

    Other stuff that didn’t like the new blistering sun got moved to the round bed in the front.

    And then, of course, your neighbors can put up a fence, or plant a tree, or take down a tree and you have to adjust again at your house, because that can change everything.

    Those of you who live out in the country don’t need to worry about that last part!

  65. 65.

    Cowgirl in the Sandi

    I love your garden – lovely pictures and flowers.

    My hydrangeas are toasting – I have them on the north side, which is the shadiest, but as summer goes on and it’s 103 degrees, they wilt and toast (East Bay CA).  But previously, there were profuse and I love them.

    Most everything is wilting in the heat here, but the heirloom tomatoes are becoming available in the farmer’s markets, so there’s that to enjoy.

  66. 66.

    MomSense

    @WaterGirl:

    Taproot magazine is wonderful – advertisement free and showcases a lot of small farmers, writers, artists and makers. I used to go to their craft nights and I really miss it.

    They have an online shop with goods from the people they feature in their magazines.  This is the link to the craft page.  If you pick an  embroidery kit, the designer Leah Thibeault has a website with instructional videos.  Youtube is also full of videos.

    taprootmag.com/collections/craft

  67. 67.

    frosty

    @MomSense: You could plant clover and have a “lawn” that is beneficial and low maintenance.

    That’s apparently what I’ve done by doing no maintenance for 18 years. Well, clover and wild strawberry, with  a little grass mixed in. I am that guy sending weed seeds downwind to the Chemlawn lawns of my neighbors. But I can watch the bees flit around the clover just before I mow it all back.

  68. 68.

    WaterGirl

    @Cowgirl in the Sandi: I read earlier this week that you’re supposed to plan hydrangeas in full sun, but that is not my experience.  Maybe to them full sun = x number of hours of sun.

    But full sun, with no relief?  Doesn’t work with my hydrangeas.

    I have one in the back yard that was there before the tree fell, so it got some shade.  Now it’s in full blazing sun and it seldom flowers, and it wilts, even with water.

    Same thing with my bleeding heart vine.  Sometimes they are just wrong in what they tell you.

    I am resigned to having to move it somewhere with some shade in the fall or the spring.

  71. 71.

    J R in WV

    @WaterGirl:

    Last summer we had a huge (4′) beech tree taken down out back, and a smaller but still big (18″) sycamore in front that was growing at nearly a 45 degree angle. So canopy removed out back, native ferns of several types kind of sad.

    Canopy reduced out front, I can’t tell what impact that will have on the variety of native and planted nearly native stuff out there.

    And then tree fell at the end of April onto the front door, also an 18″ black oak. Imagine if we had only had that taken down last year!?!!! But who knew, it didn’t look frail, was solid looking, but hollow inside actually. Oops! So canopy reduced up there too…

  72. 72.

    Geminid

     

     

    @WaterGirl: “Artisanal” covers a lot of ground, and sounds better than “terrible.” And the word suggests a certain cachet. People might even think you leave stuff in the picture on purpose.

  74. 74.

    Geminid

    @WaterGirl: Clover thrives in “sweet” soils, so pelleted lime is a good soil amendment when growing white clover in a lawn.                 Creeping red fescue is a good low mow or no mow groundcover for shade and semi shade lawn areas. It is fine bladed and tends to lay down when it grows out.

  76. 76.

    Redshift

    @frosty: I have a good amount of clover mixed in, which I like. I also have a large patch that’s mostly chickweed, which I remember my dad working hard to pull out of our lawn growing up, but to me it’s green and looks just fine.

  77. 77.

    Bookeater (formerly JosieJ)

    Thank you for the peonies!  They’re my favorite flower (although I prefer the white ones), but they peak way before my birthday in June, so I never get treated to them!  Non-professional photographer that you say you are, that particular picture was very evocative–I could almost smell their sweet scent!

  78. 78.

    dnfree

    @WaterGirl:  Creeping Charlie! Substance of my worst nightmares! We had a lawn full of it when my eldest daughter was so young that I always had to be out in the yard when she was out. Every day that summer I pulled bags and bags of it. The lawn looked like bare dirt. Eventually I got rid of most of it (I’m sure it’s back now). But it left me with a compulsion to pull it, even on someone else’s lawn. I remember reading at the time that it has three ways of reproducing—seeds, runners, and I forget the third. But it is tenacious.

  83. 83.

    Emma

    If anyone knows a solution to stopping my lady’s mantle from taking over the entire patch of soil (besides planting more plants, I know), I’m all ears. It’s been in my garden for years and years, but it’s only this summer for some reason that it’s decided it’s strong enough to take over everything. I’ve been ripping out bits here and there to let smaller plants get sun, but one day soon I think I’ll just have to order some plants, rip out a ton of lady’s mantles, and quickly plant the new stuff.

    Beautiful garden, WaterGirl, my mom would definitely enjoy talking to you about gardening! You have so many of her favorite plants. I love peonies, and your blooms are gorgeous! Also, apparently sundrops are one of the names for evening primroses. Learned something new. Unfortunately for your mom, I’m pretty sure buttercups and sundrops are in completely different families.

  85. 85.

    MizPurple

    Adding to the chorus of clover recommendations. Drought tolerant, dog pee resistant, shades out weeds, supports pollinators, needs only infrequent mowing. And good for the soil/microorganisms. I just oversowed my crappy lawn with clover in the early spring and late fall and it eventually took over completely. The only thing I didn’t like was its tendency to sprawl over where I wanted to have a neat edge.

  86. 86.

    oldgold

    I mix my clover with crimson as suggested by the Shondell Garden Center. For the best results you have to seed it over and over.

  87. 87.

    stinger

    What an absolutely gorgeous garden, WaterGirl! I too love pale pink. I’m making a note of painted fern/H. ‘Blackberry Ice’ for next year. And I have to laugh at the garden store sticker still on the pretty pot — looks just like my place!

  88. 88.

    WaterGirl

    @SWMBO: I did trim Henry quite a bit, but I stayed away from his face because he is such a wiggler.

    I finally took him to the groomer on Jun 18, 5 months since he had been there.  So he’s short again, all over.

    I wasn’t entirely comfortable about taking him to the groomer, so after I picked him up, we came home, I carried him straight into the bathroom, stripped and we got in the shower together.  I shampooed him again and then showered myself and tossed my clothes in the washer. :-)

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