A Heavenly Weekend

Aren't three day weekends the best? Working full time, the weekends are usually a rush to squeeze in as much gardening as possible before the work week begins again. This time of year, dinner is resented as the thing that means I have to come in from the garden and, gulp, shower. That doesn't leave much time to sit next to the pond or on the porch. The power of the three day weekend lets me garden 'til I drop AND spend some time enjoying what I have sown.

What I Accomplished

The long weekend was a great time to get the last of the seeds (well, most of them) in the ground.

Herbs and Companion Plants in the Kitchen Garden

Basil with the tomatoes and on the left side of the edible herbs garden

Calendula, gazania and 'Bright Lights' cosmos with the peppers. I realized later that I should have done the calendula much earlier or in the fall.

Nasturtiums with the tomatoes and on the right side of the edible herbs garden.

The soil still wasn't up to 70 degrees for planting melons and squash, but if this weather keeps up it shouldn't be long.

Cutting Garden

A variety of sunflowers

The typical Sensation mix cosmos and a really pretty one called Seashells from Burpee that I'm trying for the first time.

I also moved some of the many daisies from below the deck into the bed I set aside for "cutting" perennials. They are not happy! They can't possibly be that finicky can they? They're daisies for goodness sake! I don't know if it's because I was a little rough digging them up or because I didn't give them enough water. I'm trying to keep at least some of them alive.

Lower Patio Bed

I moved out the daisies as mentioned above and gave some to my mother and sister-in-law. I found two more suckers, I mean takers (sorry Caroline!) at work. Martha are you my next victim? Really, they're not that bad as far as invasiveness. I just found them uninspiring.

Some much needed weeding was done here and, head hung low confession time, I got the leaves out.

The hostas are looking beautiful again. I had a temporary moment of insanity when I considered moving them into the newly cleared woods. While they may indeed be happy there, they're so exquisite where they are I figured why mess with beauty? Plus, when the deer start knocking again at least they'll have to work for it a little bit by walking up the slope into the yard. Yeah, that'll show 'em.

Other fun

Simon loves willow trees and while I see the appeal I know they're weak wooded and messy and not exactly recommended. Of course, all of that was ignored and last Spring we bought a Salix alba 'Tristis' and planted it just in time for the drought. I'm not very good with watering and unfortunately the lack of rain didn't change my inate habit. At one point we thought we'd lost her, but she came back! A couple of the lower branches had died as well as some of the upper ones. I pruned those off this weekend, watered and mulched well. She looks so much better! The final step--a vow among the family to take better care of Simon's tree.

I also weeded under the Japanese Maples in the front yard. These are not my favorite trees as they are not what I typically think of when I think Japanese Maple. That is, they're not gracefully shaped with exquisite leaves and beautiful branching. They have red leaves which I am NOT a fan of and most of their branches are straight. I also find the red trees jarring against the soft creamy yellow of the house. However, I can't cut them down (yet!) because FDR had a Japanese Maple near his front door in Hyde Park (my husband.) So, twice now I have pruned them judiciously removing any "boring" branches in favor of those with sweeping arcs. Slowly I am begining to find them more tolerable. Plus I'm really tuning my pruning skills and have found I thoroughly enjoy the effort. I realize this probably isn't the best time to prune, but I couldn't help myself and they look much better!

Unfortunately, I can't show you any pictures because I couldn't get any decent ones with my smartphone. Frustration has finally won over common sense and even though I had absolutely no business doing it, I ordered a new camera today. Bear with me decent pictures are coming!

Black Rat Snake

Saturday morning Mike and I were heading up the deck stairs when I saw this...

A gorgeous black snake had come from the drainage hole under the porch to enjoy the sun! His head rested on the trunk of the lilac and as we watched he began to climb higher.

We spent about half an hour observing him until he returned to his hidy hole. Here's one last shot of his head as he descended.

Snakes all over must have come out to celebrate the holiday; my parents had one in their back yard and their neighbors had two.

Name Change

It's so subtle you probably wouldn't even notice if I wasn't using it as an excuse to post. I'd been thinking about doing it for a while, but last night what I suspected became crystal clear. I was looking at other garden blogs and noticed on skippy's vegetable garden (another Blogger site) that he used labels, a feature I had previously ignored. I loved the way it let you look at all posts on a related subject at one time and think it's a great feature to have in a garden record. It will be so easy next year to see when the blue birds arrived in 2008. I'll only have to click on the "Birds" label rather than search several clicks through the archives. Henry Mitchell would be so proud. Anyway...once I labeled my past posts I saw that as many dealt with the amazing creatues of my garden as with the garden itself. Hence, from this point forward, this blog will no longer be The Dad House Garden, but merely The Dad House! So much drama for so little impact.

Anyone? Anyone?

This plant bloomed last year on the patio side of the garden. It's back there this year, but now it's also on the driveway side as well. Any idea what it is? Mom thought maybe some kind of violet because of the leaves. If memory serves, it only bloomed in the spring.

Early Morning Dance

Raucous chirping brought me to the window this morning, but I didn't expect to see anything. I figured there were babies somewhere and just wanted to get an idea of the nest's direction. Instead, in the kitchen garden, I saw a bizarre house finch mating ritual. The male was hopping around in the beds searching the ground and two females were bevvying for front position. When they got there they would fluff their feathers, jump up and down, and wriggle their bottoms on the ground. They pursued him through several beds before I returned to getting ready; when I looked again they were gone. I read on a Web site that "the female House Finch usually solicits food from the male," which explains the behavior, but the site doesn't say anything about two females vying for a males attention.

While I was trying to identify my birds I found a great site "WhatBird" which has a search feature that allows you to choose multiple characteristics and provides several possible results. You have to carefully read the three portions of the screen figure it out, but if you do that it works well.

Last Weekend

We have gates! Dad came over Saturday and we made two gates for the kitchen garden out of the last piece of fence (the inexpensive wooden fencing we used didn't come with a gate option.) Unfortunately, it wasn't as simple as merely cutting the piece in half. In order to keep the pickets symmetrical, we had to remove them and then reattach them; let me just say there was lots of math involved. Luckily Dad is as good with figures as he is with carpentry, electrical work and basically everything else. We need to do some paint touch ups, but I think they look great! It's so much fun to walk through one one gate and go out the other; I do wonder though how long that will last. It's such a cozy enclosure now though. Pre-gate the deer hadn't found their way in, but a rabbit had; I haven't seen any sign that it's found its way back in yet.

While working with Dad in the driveway, I had plenty of time to stare at this problem area. I decided to move the iris' from in front of the brick wall to the other side of the butterfly bush. I planted the spiderwort I bought at a downtown church fundraiser with the one from Martha's garden, which is a descendant of Cheryl's grandmother's garden. I love pass-along plants with history! I also finally moved the salvia or veronica from the old house, out of the patio bed and by the driveway. It's already draping nicely over the railroad ties. A couple of more are needed; I wish I knew exactly what it was so that I could get some.

The second best part of the weekend though (the gates were the best) I had my first honeysuckle of the year! This is probably one of the most beautiful things in my garden and it's proof that Joe Eck knows what he's talking about, nature created it and its the kind of design most gardeners only wish they could do. A wild rose has climbed a staggered series of saplings that have become completely irrelevant except as an arbor. Interspersed thoughout, honeysuckle that blooms slightly behind the rose. It's an incredible display that I first discovered last year by its scent. When Dad and I were trimming the woods, I made extra sure this arrangement was protected. I waited all Spring for it to bloom again so you could see its beauty here. The first weekend the rose bloomed, my camera died. I've done the best I can with my cell phone camera, but it's a pathetic shot. Oh well, there's always next year.

If Rome had been built by finches...

it would have been built in a weekend!

My husband told me not to use that title, but I couldn't resist.

Last Thursday, I had a scare, our purple finch nest was gone! The only explanation I could think of was that one of our recent bad storms had blown it from its perch. My first thought was the babies. They had been getting so big they barely fit in the nest, but as far as I knew they had yet to fly. I searched, but found no sign of them. Research showed that they can leave the nest as early as 15 days; my blog showed that we saw the babies as early as 14 days before it was gone. We probably didn't see them the day they were born so I can only hope.

Saturday morning, my husband told me the parents were back and starting from scratch. We watched this weekend as the pair flew back and forth, the female's beak filled with Mike's freshly mown grass. The male empty-beaked. She would work head down, taking her time to construct carefully; he would sit on the rooftop and sing. Off they would fly again to repeat the process; her working, him singing. Occassionally, he would hop into the nest and wriggle his bottom around before flying off after her, but that seemed to be his biggest contribution to the project. That's okay though his song was beautiful and she obviously didn't need his help. The nest is beautiful without it!

Chicks and Seeds

We have babies! The bluebird babies in the bluebird house are very noisy and their parents are very busy flying back and forth to feed them. I don't begrudge a single worm they take from the garden for their hungry hatchlings. Next to the porch, on the gutter, we have four finch babies. These chicks are very quiet, and very cute! We have a great view of them; looking around inquistively as they wait for their parents, mouths wide open as they hope its their turn to eat. If you look to the left in the picture you can see a little head looking back at me through the screen. Their parents aren't as busy as the bluebird ones and that's partly our fault. If we're on the porch and move when they're on their way in they do a quick about face and head to the safety of a tree.

This was a big planting weekend in the kitchen garden. I put in the tomatoes and lots of seeds. Lettuce, carrots, spinach, corn, pole beans, borage, basil and dill. Some I'm afraid I've put in too late for the hot weather we've been experiencing (lettuce, spinach); some too early if we experience one more frost (corn, tomatoes.)

The asparagus is doing great! Some of it is almost as tall as the fence already (4 ft tall!) Pretty impressive for a 3 week old! I planted them in a trench as I was told, but was confused about when to backfill. Most of what I read said you do it over the developing fern, but I didn't exactly have ferns at first, I had asparagus spears that were shooting straight up and then developing thin little leaves. Was that what I should be backfilling? Finally, I confirmed that yes, that was it. Hopefully, that's right.

Friday night, Simon and I spent some time watching the snake; seeing him swim is really cool! As you can see, I got a new picture. He was very entertaining, much more so than the fish. They were friendly at first, but then our part Labrador dog who thinks the pond is his playground, scared them into a seemingly permanant hiding. If they don't start coming out soon, we may decide to keep the snake no matter how big he gets!

Saturday, we woke up to find frog eggs in the pond! Thank God! While I've been very supportive of their efforts to find love, they're so noisy about it. We tried to have the patio door open the night they finally found it, but we couldn't hear the TV over their song.

Mike and I finally moved that boxwood! He dug out the yucca that was on the corner of our front bed and just didn't fit with the plantings of boxwood and holly shrubs. Digging out the boxwood wasn't too bad. I think Paul James' trick worked for getting the roots adjusted to rootball size, but getting under the shrub was still hard. Lifting it was the worst though; it took both of us to lift it into the wheelbarrow. Hopefully, it will be happy in its new home. It sure looks great there! No picture I'm afraid...the camera died.