Each Little World

Wet weather continues

While much of the country is suffering from record high temperatures, we are making up for all the rainstorms that passed us by in April, May and throughout most of June. It rained last Thursday, Friday, Saturday and slowed down with mere drizzles on Sunday. The garden is perking up, but it's too wet to work or add all the plants that have been waiting to get in the ground.

The good news is that most of the rain has been slow and steady with no excessive downpours. Tuesday's 1.04" gave us a total of 2.03" in a little less than a week. Enough to keep the deck wet so that the soles of my Naot shoes make a decorative pattern every time I step outside. The rain has the weeds popping up everywhere, so I will try and get them under control today if it doesn't rain again.

 

Garden Girls

Like most gardeners, I love my own garden the best. Part of that is the fact that I am the designer as well as the one who decides which plant and where and who actually puts it in the ground. It is that familiarly that breeds contentment.

Not long ago I realized I have three gardening friends who all live on my side of town and whose gardens I have visited enough to be quite familiar with as well. I decided we should form an informal group to visit each other's gardens, talk gardens, get in-person advice and share books, information and ideas. But no set meeting schedule, no projects, no fees or obligations.

We've met four times and have seen all the gardens but one. At our last meet-up we all brought books, computers, 3-ring binders and talked about how we keep track of our plantings and how effective each particular system is working for each of us. One person even brought a beautiful piece of stained glass she'd just made that she later installed in her garden. When we're not meeting, we're emailing each other with reminders of events, questions and links to articles, plant lists and Youtube videos.  

I'm sure that this desire to hang out with fellow gardeners in person is a lingering result of our year of living COVIDLY and mostly gardening via Zoom. Though I am a long time member of Olbrich Botanical Gardens and the Wisconsin Hardy Plant Society (and am on their excellent FB page many times a day), nothing has proved as much fun as getting together in living color with this like-minded group. 

Lichen love

We love wooden garden furniture that gets a lichen-covered patina with age.

We saw this lovely little Leopold bench on a visit to the farm of friends recently. This simple construction is named after Wisconsin's great naturalist/conservationist, Aldo Leopold. It is a piece of furniture that one encounters everywhere you go in Wisconsin.

Here's the backstory on the famed bench. 

Speaking of ferns

I did not pay attention to the names of the first couple of ferns I planted in my early gardening days. They are absolute workhorses, producing offsets, standing tall and never being bother by pests or disease. Below are a few of my current favorites to whose names I now pay attention. 

Cheilanthes lanosa 'Mighty Tiday' aka hairy lip fern. About 6" tall and planted in the rock garden in the sun.

Dryopteris felix-mas 'Linearis polydactyla'. This is big, lacy and can take dry shade. I bought one in 1995 and another in 1997. Since then I've cut off divisions to create clumps of this fern all over the garden.

Adiantum venustum aka Himalayan maidenhair (bottom). Fancy Fronds says "rip 'em apart for propagation and that's just what I do.

Adiantum x tracyi. I have had great luck with the straight Maidenhair fern and so am trying others in that family.

Adiantum aleuticum Imbricatum aka dwarf Western maidenhair. The rabbits ate one of the three I planted a year or so ago, this spring. Luckily it seems to be reviving. 

Polystichum makinoi (Makino's holly fern)

Polystichum retrosopaleaceum aka narrow tassel fern

I seem to have the right condition for the basic Japanese painted fern as it tends to seed around the garden. When I am happy with where it plants itself, I let it grow on. This is a moist location with a Larch and new primroses. I am planning on having an almost solid fern ground cover here. 

It rained!

The lightning was so constant that I got up around 1:30 a.m. Friday morning to be sure there wasn't a police car parked on the street out front. The thunder was so far off the two things didn't seem to be related. I was afraid yet another storm was about to pass us by.

But this one hit us with wind dashing rain again the house so fast and furiously that I got up to look out to the back garden to make sure the gutters were OK and then I checked the basement. Lots of noise but no problems as three or four storms seemed to move through during the rest of the "night."

We got 2.28" which was less than I anticipated but enough to make a big difference in the garden. It's raining again as I write this late on Sunday afternoon. Not having to water the garden means I can actually get some planting done. I feel as if I've been holding my breath waiting for a break in the the weather. It is lovely having clouds and gray skies instead of incessant sun. 

We drove out to the Flower Factory Sunday afternoon to pick up my last order from them. We had a chance to briefly chat with owners Nancy and David Nedveck which was a treat. I didn't get any new and different plants, just a few old favorites: A cinnamon fern to add to a pair to make it a threesome, an Apple Blossom primrose to add to all my red flowered ones and Bird's Foot violets to make a nice patch when I add them to the couple I'm already growing. 

I also got another Parsley fern. I'm growing two and really like them. They are neater and more compact than a number of my other ferns. You can never have two many ferns for my taste. They are a great way to cover ground and reduce maintenance in my garden. Rain and more plants. What a perfect way to start the week.

Luck with lilies

Back in 2006 I saw Martagon lilies in a local garden and fell for them. I bit the bullet and bought three bulbs of 'Mrs. R. O. Backhouse' from Klehm's Song Sparrow Nursery. They cost a whopping 3/$56.00 and I was very nervous at spending that kind of money on plants, let alone bulbs.

But Mrs. Backhouse has been a workhorse since the day she arrived. I now have a huge sweep of them. Some time ago I moved two groups of bulbs onto the slope below the Tea House. They have done so well that I dug them out yesterday. Both groups were planted near little trees which have now engulfed them. It's had to believe that the almost invisible little Hemlock by the lilies in this photo is now a bigger presence than the bulbs.

I assumed that the plants looked so tall because they were growing on a slope above me. Nope. They are easily 5 and a half feet tall. They are going over quickly in the heat, so I didn't feel too bad about digging them out.

But I was surprised to discover one of the bulbs had sent out bulblets and the whole thing had grown together in a huge clump of six connected stems. I am going to replant them in the Tea House garden but in locations where they hopefully won't have to get moved again. 

GBBG: 6.15.2021

Our prolonged hot weather has meant that many flowers are blooming together which do not usually appear at the same time. I've been cutting them to enjoy indoors rather than let the heat do them in as soon as they open. Thus I am combining my vases with Bloom Day. 

Itoh intersectional Peony ' Border Charm' with Heuchera flowers

Peonies are satisfying at every stage from emerging foliage to seed pods.

I moved the vase away from the gold Japanes screen on the wall to get a photo of the true color. 

This is a Victorian brass vase on a stand, probably Chinese. I thought it was a good match for the flower which has a bit of an over-the-top Victorian flavor. 

Heuchera flowers don't make much of an impression in the garden, but I love them in a bouquet. 

Allium 'Forelock'

Lilium martagon 'Claude Shride' in the red room. Another impossible location to take a good photo. But I can never resist the red on red effect. 

This glass vase by Richard Jones of the late Studio Paran has different designs on the front and back.

Both sides, however, have a thin red line which makes this my go-to vase for red flowers. 

A Peony whose petals are gone and is quickly turning to seeds in the center. Love this moment with Peonies. 

Pond-redesign update: The little gravel garden goes away

Garden projects like re-doing the pond are never quick or easy. They also create related projects that need doing at the same time. That's the case with this secondary project that we finished last week. This shows the area as it looked in the early years as you came around the house to the back garden. The old is deck on the left and the pond on the right. 

In 2008 we decided to turn this discreet area into a raked gravel garden to relate it to the one out front. Mark removed the grass, made a sinuous rock wall and put down weed barrier. 

It got topped off with fine gravel, raked and looked perfect. 

Thirteen years later, it is less than perfect with construction debris — limestone pieces and an old wood bench — taking up space. Both shrubs had seriously deteriorated from bad winters and bad bunnies. Mark and I decided that this raked gravel garden made no sense if we were turning the big pond into one as well. This smaller one would detract from the pond re-do, so it had to go. To revert this area back to a planting zone, meant that everything that had gone into its creation now had to come out.

First Mark removed the best gravel off the top and added it to the front gravel garden. The rest went into the pond (below) as filler. 

Then he pulled up all those pieces of weed barrier to reach the soil level.

But before we could add more dirt, we had to pull out the stone wall. 

Despite being smallish stones, they were heavy and not easy to just grab and pull out. I know since I helped on this part of the project. 

As stones were being pulled out on one side of this slope below the Tea House, they were being used to create a new wall on the other side. Previously logs delineated the path. 

First load of soil goes down just before the mostly dead shrubs were removed. The one on the left is a Burning Bush so I was fine with seeing it go.

Glad I left the flags in place as I never would have been able to figure out where my spring ephemerals were planted once the rock wall was gone. 

A second load of dirt and the area is ready for me to plant. The rock piles on the back right are for a different project. 

I used two bags of our chopped leaf much to keep the dirt from blowing away. 

I more or less have a planting plan; I just need to get up and out early enough to have energy to do the work. 

Overwhelmed by weather

We've pretty much gone from endless frosty nights right into high summer. We had our first 90°F. (32.22°C.) day on May 1st and we're currently in a cycle of extremely hot days with no rain in sight. The garden is bone dry having barely gotten 5 inches of rain since April 1st. I know that sounds wonderful to some of you (like Kris Peterson in Southern California) but it is definitely not our normal. Nor are these temperatures.

I am a woman who is happy at 75° and starts fading fast when the temperature moves into the 80s. We had such cold temps in May that I put off planting many of the things I got online and even some local purchases. Now with the hot, dry weather it looks like I have my own nursery there are so many potted plants wanting attention. 

We are moving forward with our garden projects, but the weather makes everything a slog. I am out before 7 a.m. watering and then working in the shade to the degree possible. 

I've been using all my energy to plant and keep the garden watered. And to help Mark when he needs it. This is all a long-winded way to explain why I haven't been blogging here or commenting on your posts. Hoping to get this gorgeous Buttonbush planted today. It has grown at least five times the size it was when it arrived from White Flower Farm. Very excited to add this native shrub to the garden. 

Wordless Wednesday