High floppability

The natives planted along the fence on the south side of the house are blooming... and flopping. I like them tall but not when they lean across the path I take with the lawn mower. The ironweed plants have inverted tomato cages to keep them somewhat upright, but the coneflower and rudbeckia need some help. There is a new edition of Tracy DiSabato-Aust's book The Well-Tended Perennial Garden; I have an older copy, maybe should check out what's new. Perhaps the pruning techniques will help. If not, a fence of some sort, one that won't obstruct?

I took advantage of the lovely weather this week to finish edging around the shrubs and the hawthorn tree out front. While I was at it, I removed the protective hardware cloth, snipped suckers, pulled weeds, etc. I also propped up the false indigo just in time for the lawn treatment guys. Then there was the pruning of redbuds and viburnum. My SO helped with the latter, thank goodness; my shoulders won't let me operate the lopper.

The mid-to-late summer perennials are going at it. I *love* the cup plant patch, as do the finches. The plants are at least ten feet tall.

In front of the cup plant is a clump of silvergrass with the additions of coneflower, rudbeckia, daylily, and aster.

Volunteer sunflowers mingle with rattlesnake master and big bluestem.

Besides volunteer sunflowers, there are some volunteer morning glories growing in containers. Some vines that I thought were morning glories are something else, bindweed or something like it, so those have been eliminated. I'm trying to help the actual morning glories with a trellis; it's too short, but that isn't stopping them.

Does anyone know what is wrong with this clump of aster? I think the browning of the lower leaves can occur when there is too little rain, but we have had plenty of that.

Another problem we have had plenty of are Japanese beetles. I plant hollyhocks as a trap crop, but this year the little buggers have ignored the hollyhocks in favor of coneflowers and zinnias. Boo.

I hear cicadas, have found one husk and seen one flying around, but we must not be Brood X country. My son lived in Bloomington IN during the last emergence and says they were quite the nuisance down there. What's been your experience?

Deja vu all over again

For long time readers of my blogs (at one time, I was trying to maintain four) may recall I took a fall about seven years ago, then again about five years ago. Third time's the charm? My falls are not balance related but dog related. I don't trip on the dogs themselves, but the tripping occurs in relationship to something to do with them. This time my feet got tangled up in the dog hammock and I flew into the dining room, clunking my head on the dining room table.

This mug shot looks worse than the original injury, which is on the right side of my forehead. The proverbial goose egg developed there; over the course of the next couple of days, the fluid and blood from that flowed downhill to the soft tissue around my (raccoon) eyes. I think this is the worst it will get; yellow and green will follow the purple and red. (BTW, my SO came and drove me to the ER for an exam and a CT scan, so no worries.)

SO. I have not been doing much in the yard since this happened (Wednesday afternoon). Which is too bad because I was on a roll. As I continued to clean out the bed by the front sidewalk, I debated on whether to move some of the 'Autumn Joy' sedum to the area under the 'Golden Spirit' smokebush. As I dug at the weeds, I disturbed the sedum so much that I decided I might as well move it. So now there are eight divisions around that shrub. I left some in the sidewalk bed, plus a grouping of them in the bed above, in front of the Japanese maple.

Today was the first day I felt like doing much of anything besides lay on the couch or piddle around the house. Still cautious, I limited myself to cutting down the common milkweed. I also tore down the morning glory vines because I am tired of the trellises blocking my view of the backyard. My SO had provided me with some seed from his morning glories, which I am guessing are Grandpa Ott's as they reseed themselves every year and they are a gorgeous blue purple.

Elsewhere around the yard, the smooth asters are blooming with other varieties right behind. My SO cut down the volunteer mulberry trees last weekend. And some stinkhorn fungus popped up in the new pea gravel mulch. I like mushrooms but these are kind of gross looking.

The birds have discovered the relocated bird feeders, but so far no squirrel sitings except on the telephone wire along the utility easement (much barking ensued).

What's in a name?

There is a clump of some kind of grass next to the big blue stem that I don't recognize. While perusing garden pics in an effort to identify it, I came across one of what I referred to last time as little blue stem. Well, I think that is wrong. I think it is prairie drop seed. Oops!

This isn't the first time I have misidentified a plant or shrub in my garden. For example, I kept calling the silver grass 'big blue stem' even though it looks nothing like that native. Since I rely on my blog to keep track of what's what, this bad habit is very unfortunate. I hope you will forgive my errors.

I've been digging this past week, literally. I moved some of the northern sea oats and switch grass (at least I *hope* that is switch grass!) to the south side of the house. Today I capped that effort by hacking at the remaining plants in front of the house; tomorrow I will mulch that area.

The house faces east; the bed I am working on is at the south end, by my bedroom. Currently, the bed contains an overgrown purple leaf smoke bush, several 'PJM' rododendron, and a clump of pampas grass. The PJM has not done well lately, and now that I have cleared out the forest of northern sea oats, I can see why: the smoke bush is infringing on its territory. If I want the rododendron to recoup itself, something will have to change.

Here is a pic of the 'Scarlet O'Hara' morning glory. So far, there have not been many blooms on the vines. Since this is my first time growing them, I don't know if this is normal and I just need to be patient, or if the plants are not getting enough sun. The zinnias that share the morning glory pots are spindly, a sign of insufficient sun. The vines have reached the top of the pergola, which gets lots of sun, so we'll see if that makes a difference.

(Blogger has updated its user interface. Ugh. I like to compose in HTML, but apparently the HTML view does not recognize touch screen input. It's back to using the arrow keys because I don't have a mouse and I hate the touch pad. Some editing options are no longer available in the HtML view (or I can't find them), so I have to bop back and forth between views, then remove the extraneous HTML that the 'compose' view inserts. The photos may not fit into my template, either. Wah, wah, wah.)

Share and share alike

My neighbor across the street, the one who blows my driveway and lends me his truck, asked for a rhubarb plant since he knew I was downsizing the garden. I was happy to oblige and threw in a dozen half-pint canning jars to boot. He responded by giving me a jar of tomato powder. He has made good use of the dehydrator I gave him several years ago (I used it maybe twice), and that includes the reduction of tomatoes to dust. It's a good way to add some tomato flavor and a thickening agent to sauces, or so he says. I'll have to try it out.

As promised last time, I hung out the hummingbird feeder, but only after spotting a hummer in the front yard. Deciding on a location was tough - sun vs. shade, less than 5' from a window vs. more than 15', viewable or not, etc. Initially, I hung it near the compost bin, just outside a window I can view while on the computer. That might have been too hidden, plus sometimes my indoor/outdoor cat perches on the bin. (Sorry for the reflection in the window in the pic below.)

I moved it away from the house but that was too far away, plus the view was blocked from just about everywhere. Now it is under the elm tree. I can watch it from the deck or the "exercise room" (spare bedroom where I do my physical therapy exercises), far enough from windows to discourage collisions, in an area more open but not too open. I don't usually see many hummingbirds until June - that one last week may have been an outlier - and it has been cool lately. Hopefully, they will come soon.

Several (20+) years ago, I laid a clear plastic tarp on the lawn, ostensibly to dry it out. Within a few hours, it had nearly killed the grass. So when I edged a bed along the fence on the south side of the house, I figured clear plastic tarp would be helpful in eliminating the grass and weeds growing there. NOT. Instead, the plastic is acting like a greenhouse. I'm guessing the sunlight is not intense enough to overheat the contents. I will have to switch to black plastic. Or dig out the grass and roots by hand, something I was trying to avoid.

I am amazed at how fast morning glories grow and provided them with a little help by placing trellises nearby for them to climb. Besides the 'Scarlet O'Hara', I planted seeds from my SO's morning glories, which are the traditional blue. I hope they climb all the way up to the top of the pergola.

I have never grown strawflowers, so decided to see what they are like. These are Mohave Dark Rose Bracteantha, or something like that. 'Mohave' is trademarked.

I also planted some sweet basil and English thyme. My cooking has become rather basic for the most part, but I still like some fresh herbs now and then. Also in this pic is a volunteer silver maple seedling. I have been toying with planting it in the backyard but for all the negative aspects of this native tree. Even though it is a fast grower, I will probably be long gone before it becomes a real problem, but STILL. I hate to create a problem but I also hate to throw away a perfectly good plant.

Today I started some zinnias and sunflowers in a tray of peat pots. The zinnias are Cut and Come Again Mixed Colors and Big Red, the sunflowers Mammoth, all from Burpee by way of Home Depot. We were properly masked while there and found the masks to be uncomfortably hot. Can't wait for July and August.

Oh, and I was wrong about being wrenless. The bird house is occupied.