false start

It really was my intention to start blogging again. I even took pictures (with a real camera, not my iPhone!) of things I wanted to blog about. For instance:

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Two weeks ago, it was astoundingly nice — 21 degrees Celsius and sunny, as though the world felt a little guilty about the horrid winter and late spring, and had decided to give us a little early summer. (And then, as it does, decided that perhaps that would spoil us — spoil everything — and rescinded the offer, which rather explains why the tulips are surrounded by snow.)

And then the weekend ended, a week passed, then another weekend, and oops. All I can say is that this whole blogging while parenting thing is a work in progress.

The gardening while parenting thing, though, is working a little better.


This reminds me of a story that a family friend told me recently: apparently, when they were younger, their family had the most beautiful English wildflower garden. They lived in the country. The kids (there were three) would get home from school and their mother would just set them to work weeding. And it was more than beautiful; it was practically Platonic: the physical manifestation of a page from a gardening magazine, with wildflowers waving in the breeze and masses of butterflies.

Then the kids graduated from high school and now that garden is essentially a meadow. I visited it the other day and the grasses were literally taller than me.

This makes me feel better.

I am hoping that this year I might actually get to garden. It's early days yet, which means that I still have hope. The Spanish Inquisition is starting to show signs of interest. She's a bit young for weeding but apparently I now have free toddler rake labour. We'll see how that bears out.

weekly bloom: rose in bloom

Last week was a wash, literally: so wet and wild that there was no gardening, nor gardening pictures, to be had.  All that rain destroyed the Oriental poppies, which had just started to bloom:


Poppies are not terribly robust flowers (though the foliage is fine), so the plants were flattened and pushed by the rain. This was the best picture I could get, and you see, it's lying on the ground. All of the other blooms have been smashed to pieces by the heavy rain. It looks like there may be a second wave of bloom, a very small one, in the next few days — but they'll be done for the season after that, I'm afraid. Which is a pity. Otherwise I'm very pleased, though; they're exactly what I wanted: white with deep purple streaks.

There was another peony, too, on the second shrub — the one I planted last year — and it was of generally the same shade and size as the first. I'm surprised at how well they match, and very pleased that it bloomed the first year, even if it's just one. The garden is fast establishing itself, finally.

Speaking of which: roses! The backbone of the front garden are the roses, which hem it on two sides. (The anchor is the serviceberry tree, which I can't do anything about. And I don't know what to call the lavender — carpeting, maybe? Filler?) I planted them in the spring of 2012, three species: 'The Fairy,' which are miniature pink roses, maybe a foot or two tall; 'Amber Sun,' which are slightly bigger and vermillion, and 'Graham Thomas,' which is the most traditional of the three, with big, robust flowers on a six-foot shrub. The first two roses took to their new digs like ducks to water, but 'Graham Thomas' merely sent out one lonely (but beautiful) bloom before dormancy in October.

It's still a bit too early for 'The Fairy' — although I can see the buds forming now — but both the 'Graham Thomas' and 'Amber Sun' shrubs burst into bloom this week. I was so excited that I ran outside and took some quick pictures yesterday, despite the dreary weather:





The 'Graham Thomas' roses are the most perfect buttery yellow, and there are oh, so many of them, and the 'Amber Sun' roses are as adorable (and prolific) as ever. And the best part is that they are both repeat bloomers, which means now that they've started, they're liable to keep going until fall. Which, again,  is just about perfect.

weekly bloom: at long last

I'm a little late posting this. This picture was actually taken last Thursday and, given the heavy rain we've had since, this particular bloom is no more. It bowed more and more throughout the week, until one day I came home and the petals had exploded away.

Still, though. A peony! This one came from a root I planted three years ago, which originally came from my father-in-law's garden, and it's a complete surprise: one, because the dratted plant hadn't bloomed yet, though it had grown foliage every year (this year was its Last Chance; I said this year I would replace it with a rose if it didn't bloom; perhaps it heard me); and two, because it came from a clump of peonies my father-in-law had divided, no one had any idea what colour it would. It could conceivably have been white, pale pink, or this, a deep magenta.

There's another peony that I think is about to bloom; it's the one I planted last year and it's a singleton, as well. I suspect it's also a dark magenta. I had to admit that I am partial to pale pink peonies myself, but I'm quite fond of the magenta, too. Also: it's a peony. There's nothing not to love. Maybe next year there will even be more.

It's been very dreary and rainy (and relatively cold!) this week, so I haven't really worked on the garden or taken any pictures. The Oriental poppies are starting to pop up, and the irises have come and are thinking of leaving. On the weekend, I planted a large hosta (to replace the one that hadn't made it through the winter), an alpine anemone, and some lovely blue delphiniums. I don't think the delphiniums are going to take, though. I may have been a little too rough on them during transplant — we shall see. But they are so lovely that I may just swallow my pride and get more.

weekly bloom: interregnum

It's an odd time in the garden right now. Everything is very much growing — no massive die-offs yet! — but we're in that in-between time where the tulips are spent and nothing else is quite ready to take over. There are a few days like this every so often — gardening being far from an exact science.

The garden, this week:

 The theme this week is "anticipation." I have no actual full-throated blooms to show you. The roses don't bloom until June-time, and the coneflowers until the height of summer. The poppies aren't here yet. But there are some indications that a flower show is coming. The columbines are the furthest along:


I remember there were masses of them last year, in the back yard, and I was planning to some of them to the front yard come spring. Well, they forestalled me. I'm actually not entirely sure how. The front and back yards are not physically connected by any strip of soil.


I really think I am going to get a peony this year. Just one. But that's more than I've gotten any other year, so far.

You'll have to look closely, but there are several flower buds in this Oriental poppy:


 And finally, the irises are getting ready for their debut:


The other thing that I did last week, which I forgot to write about (or take pictures of), is put invasives into the front part of the garden. Yes, I planted lilies-of-the-valley. I do love them (despite their tenacity), and the front garden is fairly isolated — they couldn't go far even if they tried (and I have no doubt that they will try). They can duke it out with the periwinkle. I figure, by the time all of the groundcover get established, I will never have to weed again.

weekly bloom: tulips ahoy

No gardening this weekend. We were away on Saturday, and Sunday was just indescribably wretched: sporadic rain and hail. Luckily, the garden is relatively maintenance-free right now; I should probably weed a little bit but the situation isn't dire.

The whole thing is in full spring growth mode now, which is a little worrying because there's a frost warning tonight, but what am I supposed to do about it now? Not only have the roses been pruned, but they're also sending out crazy growth; I can't stop it now. In fact, it looks like the garden got through the normal Canadian winter just fine; as far as I can tell, the sum total of the winter casualty list is a small hosta. (I think. I am certain that I had three hostas, and now I have two, but I need to wait until they leaf out before I can determine which two. Also, one of them is awfully skinny, and so its survival may be more tenuous than not.)

I forgot to take an overall picture of the garden this time, but here's a ground-level one of the stone path:

The tulips are "Carnival de Rio," late-spring bloomers, once they're gone tulip season in my garden will be over. On the right are the coneflowers I mentioned above; I think they were white and label-less when I planted them; I'll need to check my notes to make sure.* And behind those, with the fern-like leaves, are Oriental poppies, two of them, also hopefully white — I bought them in the midst of high summer last year, well after their blooming season (and thus got a great deal for them, too). I wasn't sure they would come back, actually, so this is particularly gratifying.

I had declared that, if we did not get any peonies this year, I would tear out one or both plants and replace them with roses — I had even gone so far as to decide which ones — likely Morden Blush or Morden Sunrise. So, of course, one of the peony plants — the older one — is finally budding. About darn time, I say. The thing has been sulking in the ground for three years, sending up a single shoot that leafs out far too short and too early, and breaking my peony-less heart in June.

*Haha. I like to pretend that my notes are precise and thorough, as opposed to being either a) the dates of old digital photos, or — better yet — blog entries, or b) the giant pile of discarded plant tags on the window sill by the kitchen sink.

weekly bloom: the start

The  hellebores came back! They are a little bit more scraggly, a little less well-formed than when I bought them last year; I have left them entirely alone to get established. It seems to have worked. I believe the cultivar is "Ivory Prince," which is one of the commercial hybrids that has upturned, rather than the usual downturned, flowers. (I know: the traditional hellebores are lovely, and getting "Ivory Prince" is sort of akin to getting those black violas, or things-that-look-like-other-things — of course you can do it, but why? But hellebores are so beautiful that I do want to see them, and I am not really a foliage kind of girl.)

The mid-spring tulips have also sprung. These are 'Banja Luka.' This photograph doesn't quite capture their lurid garishness in full sun (they look quite reasonabl here, in fact), but trust me: they are the plastic flowers of the tulip world. The Spanish Inquisition loves to look at them.



I finally laid the path down in the garden weekend before last. The previous owner had had the pavers down, but after I moved almost all of her plants (she had had a thing for shrubbery and 'Roxann' geraniums; I don't, particularly the geraniums), it didn't make any sense. We did want a bit of a path, though, to give the garden a bit of contrast, so I made a winding sort of path that also gave me some natural boundaries to work with.

I made the plan last year, and tried to execute it — but the first round of flanking plants perished the the Great July Die-Off of 2012, and the wooden stakes I had used to mark the tulips' locations disintegrated, so some plants are little closer to the path than I would like. It's a bit raw right now, but after some rain and some growth I'm sure it will be just fine.

The garden two weekends ago:


And the garden yesterday:


You can see that the heat wave we've been having has done wonders for the growth. The mid-spring tulips are blooming now (see above), the chives have gone haywire, as they are wont to do, and the roses and peonies have started leafing out. I may put mulch down soon, around the roses and perhaps the path. I was going to leave everything else — there's periwinkle groundcover by the lavender and patches of violets — and let it all grow in, naturally, but last year taught me that that is just an open invitation to weeds. I'm still mulling it over.

I also pruned the roses in the back garden this weekend, but no photographs of that: that place looks like a wind storm swept through. I only had an hour or so, so I didn't do much, just the pruning, by which I mean I took down seven- and eight-foot long canes. (In some cases, I even yanked them out of the grass, where they had tried to root.)

I'm starting to think that those scabrosas might be climbers.

weekly bloom, redux

I never meant to leave for so long. Actually, I had a whole post written in mid-April, but for some reason I didn't publish it, and then it fell out of my brain and now it's too old. It's the first of May, though, and it's 20 degrees outside, so it seems like a good time to bring back the weekly bloom, doesn't it?


The Giuseppe Verdi tulips have been blooming for almost two weeks now — since the last week of April. This is almost precisely when they bloomed in 2011, as well. (They bloomed a full month earlier in 2012, but we all know that 2012 Does Not Count.) They're almost done, but the mid- and late-spring tulips are springing up right behind them.

I know that often tulips don't act like perennials, but I have to say: this is the third year they've sprung up, and I've only ever planted them once. The lazy gardener (oh, what an apt name) in me is very pleased. I don't know that they've multiplied, exactly, but they've been very dependable for the last three years and I am grateful.

More later. I actually spent almost two hours in the garden over the weekend, cleaning up, and now it looks much tidier and less ... neglected. The roses all seem to have survived, the Oriental poppies are staging a comeback, and there's even a chance I could get peonies this year.

hope

I want to show you something.

 This is a hellebore. It lives in my front garden, close to the house.




It was -18 Celsius when I left the house this morning, it's still dark when I get home and in my heart I'm not convinced that I will ever feel warm again.

But now, at least, I have hope.

but what about the kitchen?

I have a small tradition of gardening on Remembrance Day (or, this year, its weekday substitute). I get the day off, and because it's not a family-themed holiday — usually, not even a long weekend — I have no plans except puttering at home. (This isn't a problem. I quite like puttering.) So, gardening.


It's mostly just a matter of raking up the leaves from the path (I leave the leaves to decompose over the winter in the garden itself) — our neighbourhood is full of mature oak trees; absolutely lovely in the summer, but it's paid for in the fall — and weeding. A couple of years ago I planted the spring bulbs, but this year I was not nearly that organized and so, no bulbs. I neglected the garlic, too.

But what about the kitchen? you ask.

Did I mention that the roses are still blooming? The yellow 'Graham Thomas' has come and gone — it was lovely, perfect, bowl-shaped like a peony, which of course meant that I loved it — but 'The Fairy' and 'Amber Rose' are still at it, despite my ceasing to deadhead sometime around September.


They are so lovely, and so surprising, that even Pd has commented on them. Not that he doesn't notice them in August, say, but they are so exceptional right now, in this cold, that they drove him to comment.

And the kitchen? you say.


Also, I've been knitting. I finished my cardigan; it hasn't been blocked but I've worn it at least a dozen times. (I finished it right before a cold snap, so it got pressed into service right away. I'm too impatient for blocking; what if I want it, and it's still wet?) I made little striped leggings for the Spanish Inquisition.

They were leftover yarn from the stash — the white is Debbie Bliss baby cashmerino, and the grey is (I think) some BMFA Woobu in (again, I think) Valkyrie. Anyway, they are soft, lovely and warm, and you have to imagine them slipping over little black boots; they are absolutely adorable.

And yes, that is absolutely a (defunct) cell phone in her wee little hands. She kept trying to grab ours, and playing with them, so in the end we gave her one of Pd's old ones that was going to go into the donation bin. She is perfectly happy with it. She's too young to actually play on the smartphones, so she just likes pressing the buttons and holding it up to her ear; the lack of interactivity doesn't faze her. It does make me wonder, though, if we spend too much time on the phone with her around.

 And what, you say, paragon of impatience that you are, about the kitchen?

What, the adorable picture of the baby wasn't sufficient distraction for you? (Obviously not.)


I was going to blog about it, but then things got busy, and complicated, and tiring. We've been working on it on weekends and most weeknights. It's amazing: what feels like a treat at the beginning (take-out every night!) begins to feel more like an interminable purgatory of the stomach (oh God, please oh please can't I just cook?). I can't wait until 100% of our kitchen appliances are inside. Right now we're running about 50-50: the fridge and the dishwasher are in, but the stove and exhaust hood are not. (And in case you think we prioritized the dishwasher — well, yes, we sort of did, but also mostly because it's one of those built-in ones, and so we had to build the cabinets around it; it couldn't wait until we were done.)

The tentative schedule was this:

Week 1: Demolition (of everything — cabinets and floors)
Week 2: Tiling (and between weeks 2 and 3, grouting and sealing said floor)
Week 3: Construction

There were small things in between, like electrical work and painting. We didn't finish sealing until the last day of week 2, but that still hewed to the schedule. And then, I figured — how hard could it be to build Ikea cabinets? We're pretty handy and can run up a Billy bookcase right lickety-split. So how hard could it be?

In case you ever need to know this: Ikea cabinets are not Billy bookcases. Billy bookcases, for example, do not need holes for plumbing. Also, the ease of building a kitchen is directly proportional to how straight your walls and floor are. This is not a problem in condos, or new builds, or old houses that have been taken down to studs and then rebuilt. Unfortunately, our house is none of those. We did think about levelling out the floor — but then, as Pd pointed out, our walls would look crooked.

As for the timeline ... we are currently in week five. Week 6 starts tomorrow.

one last hurrah

This morning it really felt like fall — not even early fall, but fall fall. I love early fall: the cool, crisp mornings, the earlier nights, that feeling that you're stealing time when you stay out, trying to catch that last light.

I hate actual fall. It's cold and dreary and I can never find anything to wear. I've dug out my wool socks but it's too warm for sweaters, too, so I freeze in my t-shirts (even the long sleeved ones), or boil in my t-shirt-plus-jacket. This morning I woke up before the dawn, and when I left the house I saw leaves — note the plural, not the singular — drift to the ground, and when I got to work I was still cold, and so: it's fall, actually fall. Unhappily so.

In any case, I really wasn't expecting to post about the garden again. I mean that in a good way: I have, as mentioned before, nothing that is an autumn bloomer; everything is supposed to go into dormancy soon. I suppose the cooler (but still sunny) days were good for them, though, because the garden has actually been blooming: one last hurrah before winterfall.



The 'PowWow Wild Berry' echinacea. Two blooms means that it's not a fluke, I think. It's not as wild and fervent as it would be at, say, the height of August, but then, what in the garden is? The echinacea is a repeat bloomer, and can bloom into October — but generally only when it's established. So this is a good sign.

And the 'Amber Sun' roses, after a period of dormancy — I had stopped deadheading because I wanted the bushes to start preparing for winter — well, they had a little resurgence, too.



And so did 'The Fairy' roses, which haven't bloomed consistently since late July, but now have masses of buds.



And finally, I saw this on the last remaining rose, 'Graham Thomas.'



I took this picture last week, and the bud hasn't opened, so I hope I'm not counting chicks prematurely. This rose is the only one of the five that didn't bloom, which is already a much better average than I could have hoped for. It still seemed reasonably healthy, though — and it has a branch — vine? — that is reaching near five feet, its nominal grown-in height, so I think it will be fine. But flowers would be lovely. They are — they should be, I am hoping that they will be — a buttery yellow.

weekly bloom: into the fall

I'd meant to post at least once more in August, but last weekend (and then this week) has just been a mess of epic proportions — personally, professionally, emotionally — so, no. (Not to fret; everyone here is healthy and hale. And the storm has blown over, more or less.)

Since the last "weekly bloom" post (which was, eek, much longer than a week ago), nothing much has happened. The good: all of the plants I bought in the second round have survived, even thrived. The mystery orange coneflowers have even re-bloomed. The purple echinacea have not, but there is lots of new, vigorous growth — I didn't deadhead them, because I actually want to encourage seeding for next year, and it looks, at the very least, that the two plants are well established and will come back. Even the Oriental poppies have been throwing out new growth, and one of the hellebores, which looked like it had died in the July drought, has come back. So the garden is good.

But nothing is blooming, per se, except for the 'Amber Sun' roses (which went through yet another round of profusion a week ago. I am deeply in love with these roses). So you haven't missed much.

This is what the garden looks like now:
Unfortunately, a lot of that greenery are weeds. I'd meant to do some weeding on Tuesday, but the torrential rains put a stop to that. So the garden is a little bit scraggly, a little bit neglected — but nothing is dead, and it's easier to subtract than it is to add. In gardening, I will take my victories where I can get them.

This is going to be the last weekly bloom post, though. The garden is pretty much at the end — some of the echinacea are holding on, but there's a crispness in the air now, and it won't be much longer before the garden dies back. (The only fall-bloomer I had planted were the Japanese anemones, and they did not, unfortunately, survive the drought.) There will probably be some more sporadic gardening posts, but I think the beginning of September is a good time to put the weekly gardening post to bed for a while. And it's fall, and there are so many other things to write about; I've already started my fall knitting. For example. And isn't it the perfect time to start writing about cozy things?

Thank you for sharing my garden with me.

weekly bloom: gladiolus

It is raining — finally. The garden badly needs it. I did get out, earlier this week, to put some of the new plants into the ground, and I have watered, faithfully, every day this week — but still, the ground is so dried and hard that the water just pools, and I wonder how much of it is actually penetrating to root-depth. And when I dig the holes to plant, it's just dried and sad, all the way down. I've been amending as I go, but without water, none of this is going to work.

Last year — spring, 2011 — I planted a bunch of gladiolus bulbs along the border of our fence. (The fence is actually mostly decorative; it's about two feet high and so far I have seen the irises and poppies propagate freely right under it. Luckily, we get along well with our neighbours.) I admit that I had no clue what I was doing. The plants did send up shoots, but no flowers — which was a pity, I thought, because supposedly gladiolus are not winter hardy in this zone. Something, somewhere, suggested that I dig up the bulbs at the end of the season, store them in my basement, and then replant them in the spring.

... Ha. Like that was going to happen. I didn't even do that to my calla lilies, and I loved my callas. (And sadly, no, they didn't come back ... although I suspect that might be because I'm fairly certain I dug at least one of them up while preparing the new herb garden. An accident.)

At any rate, despite my not-so-benign neglect, and thanks I suppose to the unseasonably warm winter we had, the bulbs flowered this year.
I alternated the coral colour with the salmon colour. (I don't remember the "official" names of the flowers; it was too long ago.) The salmon bloomed first; three or four stalks last week, and the corals bloomed yesterday or the day before.


Unfortunately, they're not doing so well; twice this week I've come home to stalks that have fallen. Whether it's because of their weight or because they're being knocked over by something — our neighbours' walkway is right next to them, on the other side of the fence — is hard to say. I don't have great hopes that all of the remaining stalks will survive the thunderstorms tonight.


I'm not sure if I like them, particularly. I planted them because I love gladiolus as cut flowers; they're so dramatic and give such wonderful height to an arrangement. But what's lovely in a vase is overblown in the garden; the large blooms look out of place next to the miniature 'Fairy' roses and too fusty compared to the carefree echinacea; the colours are too garish. I love vermillion, but this is the wrong shade; it clashes horribly with the 'Amber Sun' roses. And even the height is wrong; the stalks are about six feet tall, and look ridiculous next to the little two-foot fence — particularly as nothing else in the garden (except the tree and) is even half that height.

So they may go next year. I am going to leave them in for the time being. It feels wrong to pull something that I've successfully planted, even if it's patently in the wrong place — like I'm thumbing my nose at my good luck. It just feels risky.

the new garden plan: round two

I had meant to skip last week's "weekly bloom" post, but I had also meant to replace it with something else. And then Life got in the way, as it does — the Spanish Inquisition has started daycare! She spends most of her day not napping, plotting dire recriminations against her cruel parents; I know it — and that got pushed back. As things do.

In any case, I had decided not to bother with a post because this extreme heat and drought have essentially dessicated the garden. No — wait; no "essentially" about it; it simply has. The roses are loving it (but even they are getting somewhat bleached) —


The lovely vermillion-pink colour is visible only close to dusk, when the flowers are closing up; during the day, they open a pale yellow, almost white. I have been deadheading — more or less — and they have kept in bloom; lovely.

The other things though — not so much. The hostas seem to be doing fine, in the deepest shade of the garden (which, even then, is only dappled shade; our tree is little, and doing the best it can). One of the two hellebores seem to be making a stand of it. But everything else — I believe the technically term is 'pfffffft.' — except for the weeds, which are endemic.

So! New plan. Yesterday we had a quiet day — astoundingly — and I went to our neighbourhood garden centre. East of Eliza is literally five minutes away from our house (which can be construed both as a very, very good thing, and a very dangerous one), so I took our little red wagon behind me, spent too long in the secret garden deciding on measures, and then returned, little red wagon laden with goodies, in the space of under an hour.

What is there? The splashiest, the bright purple-pink echinacea, are E. purpura 'PowWow Wild Berry." It's a ridiculous name, I know, but the flowers themselves are adorable. It's a relatively recent cultivar, but I've been seeing them everywhere lately, and I just couldn't resist. There's another coneflower in the wagon, too, a smaller burnt orange one at the back; it had lost its tag, unfortunately, so I don't know the cultivar.

The white ones are shasta daisies. I have a weakness for the daisy form; can you tell? Shasta daisies were not in my original garden plan; I forget why. I think I didn't want to overdose on daisies, and there's something so simple about them. They're almost too sweet, I think. But right now, my actual garden is dead and I need plants, and a daisy is a daisy, so in they go.

The small, low-leafed things are Oriental poppies, white ones. They're past their bloom time, but still throwing out new growth, so I am hoping that I will be able to establish them for next year. I love poppies, particularly Oriental ones — one of the earlier victims of the drought was a purple Oriental — and they were on sale, so I'm willing to take the risk.

And finally, there's a peony in there somewhere. A dark pink one, if the picture is any indication; the tag says, simply "garden peony." They also had some 'Duchesse de Nemours,' which is a very old white from the 1850s, with a beautiful form — it was one of the ones I was considering, in my original garden plan. But it's crazily hot right now, and the sun is searing, and in this light I can't abide a shrub full of big, bright white flowers; it's too glaring. I rejected the 'David' phlox (which I had also considered, back in April) for similar reasons.

I will be moving these into the ground throughout the week. (What with work, and bedtime, and dinner, it's not going to be possible to do everything at once — and we're out of town this weekend.) Wish me luck.

weekly bloom: rose gardens

Late again. This whole weekly blogging thing doesn't seem to be working great, does it? (Okay, when I wrote this post, I wasn't that late; I wrote this on Tuesday. Double oops.) In my defense, it was a super busy weekend: the Spanish Inquisition had her first birthday party (meaning that it was her first birthday, and also that it was the first of multiple parties), and both Pd and I were completely knackered afterwards. It's amazing how tiring a baby birthday party can be. And we are still doing the work-home-work thing to bridge the time until daycare; she goes in next week. So I went to work the first two days of this week, trying frantically to do in two days what should be done in five or seven (Not Going to Happen), and trying not to fall asleep — the Spanish Inquisition having relapsed slightly wrt the sleeping through the night thing, and my back has been hurting enough, lately, that it's hard for me to fall back asleep quickly. My body likes to be ironic about things like that.

So! the garden. Which is not going so great, really, except for the roses. It's been so hot and arid this summer; the roses are loving it, but everything else is parched. Something Will Have To Be Done, but what remains to be seen.


The 'Amber Sun' roses are living up to their promise of continual bloom, and I still love them. They start out that lovely bright vermillion color, and quickly get bleached by the sun to an almost butter white.




'The Fairy' roses have also been blooming like gangbusters. They are not really anything to look at, individually, but the amassed effect is lovely.

Sadly, the 'Graham Thomas' ones did not bloom this year. Bu the plant seems to be vigorous nonetheless, so I live in hope.

In the back: the scabrosa, which is turning into the Plant That Ate Everything — one has essentially crushed the columbines, and the other has chased the rhubarb away by turning what was hitherto the sunniest part of the garden in deep shade. (The rhubarb has tried to move into an empty patch that once had geraniums, but as it must navigate between the Scylla of the strawberries and the Charybdis of the main scabrosa to get there, I consider it essentially a rearguard action.)


Can you see how the bunches of bloom are so heavy, they literally weigh everything down?








The mystery double roses, which I still love, although they are essentially done for the season.


And my least favourite roses, the rugosas. The colour isn't really my thing. But it is so hot, and most of my new plants have died, so I can't complain, really. I haven't been able to deadhead them because I haven't been able to reach them — they are behind the scabrosas, and I prefer my skin to be unscratched — so unfortunately they do start turning into a mess as the heavy blooms dry up.


It's odd. I had thought that the roses would be the hardest thing in the garden plan; I paid a lot of attention, tried to some research, and then prayed that I wouldn't kill more than one or two. (This, I am told, is usually called the "learning curve.") But they've been so accommodating; meanwhile, I think I may have killed even the Japanese anemone. And I may have accidentally transplanted my herb garden into deep to partial shade (rather than full to partial sun, as intended). It's a little like knitting, I guess — I was horrible at knitting scarves, I never pay attention and something weird always happens, but I specialise in intricate, cabled socks. My brain requires a challenge, apparently. Either that, or I should just learn to give things my full attention instead of attempting to coast.

weekly bloom: transients and the dearly departed

I had nearly forgotten the post for this week! Long weekends are confusing that way. Also, this week I am off work, to bridge the gap between the end of parental leave and when the daycare will actually have a spot for us — so the calendar feels a little more mutable than usual. Funny how dependent one becomes on the nine-to-five for timekeeping.

I am also keeping really busy with crafting this week; more on that later.

So! Gardening! Is maddening. The garden looks about as much as it did last week, except significantly more ... parched. I am of the belief that one does not water the garden unless absolutely necessary, because that way the roots will dig deep and become more drought resistant ... this only works with lawns, I've realised. A. And b) it doesn't work with plants that you have just planted and have had absolutely no chance, or rather, only a snowball's chance in Hell (this summer, quite literally), to establish themselves. And yes, that was rather an expensive lesson to learn.

This week, some things that have either come and gone, or are about to do so.

Columbines (left), bloomed late May. They lasted until June, when the scabrosa came into bloom and essentially crushed them. (I think they were just about done by then, though.) I loved these so much that I am letting them volunteer as much as they like, with the intent of moving half of them to the front garden next year.

Poppies! Which I love. They started about three weeks ago, and are still going, off and on — the blooms only last for a day or two, but they are vigorous enough this year that each plant has two or three secondary blooms. I try not to love things that are so transient, it's too sad, but these are just too lovely.



Daylilies, started about two weeks ago. Still going, but even they are starting to wilt in this heat.

And finally, last but certainly not least, the 'Rainforest Sunrise' hosta:


The hostas (three of them; two 'Rainforest Sunrise' and one 'Stained Glass') are the new plants that I did not kill. Part of it may be that they like dry shade, or maybe I just lucked out with drought tolerant varieties. The two 'Rainforest Sunrise' plants sent out blooms about a week and a half ago; they had already been in the process of blooming when I planted them, so it might be residual. Unfortunately, these ones have no scent.

Next week, we'll go back to the roses.

weekly bloom: Provence (in absentia)

Just a quickie, this week.




I don't know the cultivar, although I suspect that this is probably English (rather than French) lavender, likely 'Munstead' or some other, very hardy, easily over-wintered thing. I have never done anything other for it other than cutting it back in the spring (and honestly, I only did half the job this year), or pulling its many volunteer shoots. This mild winter was excellent for it; I'm not even sure if it died back.

I love the roses, but honestly this is more emblematic of my gardening philosophy in general: the lavender is messy, uncontrollable, and half-feral; if not pruned aggressively, it would take over half the front garden. All I have to do it leave it alone, more or less; it is well-nigh unkillable, and the rest takes care of itself — perfect.