Each Little World

IVOM: Before the next rain storm

Suddenly the house was empty of flowers and yet another rain storm was on the way. So I went out to see what I could find. 

The Martagon lilies were on the downside but I brought a few indoors anyway. The Alliums were also past their peak. I don't have many, but as they no longer provided a worthy note to the garden scene, I clipped them as well.

The Heuchera flowers were just starting. I love this unknown variety with long stems and lots of flowers. They made the bouquet for me.

The fact that the lilies started dropping petals almost immediately proved their sad condition. 

A rainy week

Ran out between the raindrops to pick some herbs for dinner — and snap a few photos. Nothing like the sheen of rain water on the garden.

When the sun comes out again, I should have a nice crop of daylily blooms.

Win some, lose some

The early warmth followed by frosty nights put paid to the flower buds on my lovely swath of Lilium martagon 'Mrs. R. O. Backhouse.' Only two stems are blooming out of that big patch in the garden on the south side.

The same patch last year. 

But L. martagon 'Claude Shride', along the driveway on the north side, are looking as good as ever.

When FaceBook is fabulous

Some time ago, the Wisconsin Hardy Plant Society decided to have a FB page. Initially things were posted by a group of "administrators;" I was one of them. But once we opened posting to the full membership, it started to take off.

Now that WHPS has had to cancel all their meetings and garden tours for the foreseeable future, the FB page has become the replacement. It is the place to share images of our gardens, to ask for plant identification and design advice. Now there are weekly "challenges," inviting members to show their native plants, their garden paths and currently, the art in their gardens. 

LINDA LEE WOOLBRIGHT: GARDEN ART/MARQUETTE COUNTY

I find I am visiting the site constantly to see what's new, who's commenting, and on and on. I've been blogging for a dozen years but nothing has been as much fun or as social as this site. Maybe it's because many of the gardeners posting know each other from WHPS meetings and have visited each other's gardens on various tours. Or maybe it's just because, as members, we are mostly all Wisconsinites, and are curious about gardens in other parts of the state and want to share our experience and expertise.

JOSEPH SMOOT: PASSION VINE

All the gardeners I know will admit that our gardens — as sources of both respite and activity — are helping us to cope with our stay-at-home lives. I can only add that the WHPS Facebook Page is equally helpful. It's a place where we can be social, at a distance but without masks, and revel in the beauty of nature and everyone's gardens.

PAMELA SMITH: CAN SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME WHAT THIS PLANT IS?

If your garden club or hort society does not have a FB page like this, convince them to start one. You won't regret it. 

IVOM: Garden clippings

Carex muskingumensis (palm sedge) is way too happy in my bog garden. Lest it try to take over even more space, I pulled all the seedheads off. In fact, I pulled most of them before I thought to take a picture of what a "waving wheat" moment they offered in the early  morning sunlight. 

Looking at my handfuls of lovely seedheads, I decided they should get their moment to star — but in a vase rather than the garden. 

I set a jam jar full of water inside the pot to keep them looking good as long as possible.

I paired them with the dried up foliage of a stem from my Rhododendron yakushimanum 'Yaku Angel'

Shadowy perfection. 

Wordless Wednesday

June is busting' out all over

I did not publish this yesterday on June Bloom Day as I took these photos a week ago. Hot weather, wind and rain has brought an end to most of what you see here. Our late frosts seem to have put an end to the buds of many of my lilies, so the garden is not as floriferous as I was expecting it to be. 

Roses and no bugs so far. I grow this mainly for the foliage, but it will be fun to have rose hips come autumn. 

 A once in a life time event: Flowers on my Helleborus foetidus. Not as dramatic as the photos I always see; but I'm not complaining. 

Alliums under a golden Dawn Redwood. These have unexpectedly reappeared after an absence of many years. 

This Iris was planted by the family that built our house in the 1950s.

An Iris that doesn't mind its feet getting wet. 

Clelmatis 'Guernsey Cream'

Peony 'Golden Angel' has golden early foliage and pale yellow flowers but these have faded to white. 

Peony 'Burnished Bronze' had a record number of buds which opened in 24 very hot hours. And then were dispatched by heavy rains. 

We had a bout of cooler weather so I have been digging up, moving, adding and rearranging in the garden. Lots of fun and a great way to take a break from the world. 

IVOM: A neighborly flower

My neighbor's beautiful Clematis is growing through the fence that separates our gardens. 

It was too beautiful to resist cutting what was growing on my side.  

I'd been looking at one of my Ikebana books and saw an arrangement with a piece of bark. Since I'd just found such an item in the garden, it all came together quickly and rather nicely to my eye. 

More than a little wet

We got .96" of rain overnight Tuesday. The garden needed it and looked better for it in the morning, despite some downed branches landing on plants in bloom. After it stopped raining again yesterday afternoon, I checked the rain gauge to discover 1.18" had come down in about half an hour. Our gutters were overflowing as they were stuffed with Maple tree seedlings and debris. Then it started to rain again. This morning we had another inch in the gauge. So we got a little over 3 inches of rain in not much more than 24 hours. This seems to be one of the aspects of climate change that we've been experiencing for the last few years. Not a change for the better. 

 

 

Color coordinating

Yes, I really did plant this daylily to echo the gold lichens on this rock. 

But the chives and Thalictrum color theme is a happy accident.