Is this Indian summer?

The weather continues to confound. We still have not had a killing frost, or any frost for that matter. I think of Indian summer as the time after a killing frost but before temps stay frosty in preparation for winter. I think of Indian summer as days that are sunny but crisp, breezy enough to bring down the leaves, a delight. Today was pretty delightful but not quite what I would call Indian summer because everything is still so *green*.

My SO and I continue to work on the fence, stapling hardware cloth around the bottom. Hopefully, this will keep most critters out (still need to figure out something for the gates) and maybe even keep my indoor/outdoor cat from wandering. I have yet to witness him scaling the wall, but if he is getting out, he is also getting back in.

I have been covering the hardware cloth with some mulch. I am not a fan of the mulch available around here, all of it dyed. How weird. This is "rustic" pine bark, purchased by the bag at Lowes.

On a separate topic, I received 101 free tulip bulbs from Colorblends, a sponsor of the Garden Bloggers Fling. I'm not much for tulips because of my awful clay soil and equally awful critters that chomp the blossoms, so I almost did not send for mine. But through the magic of the Internet, I have learned they can be grown in containers. I decided to give that a try, relying on instructions found here. If this experiment works out, I may invest in more attractive containers.

My son and I helped plant trees at a nearby city park yesterday. As a reward, we were offered a Blue Spruce seedling. I was tempted to to take one (FREE TREE!) but where would I put it? Also, there are plenty of Blue Spruce in my neighborhood, even next door. I think I will save my yard for something less common but native.

Now you sedum

I divided and moved some of the 'Autumn Joy' sedum earlier this summer, and am pleased with how well it is doing. So pleased that I am going to move it again next summer.

The plants I moved get more sun. Also, I learned I can control their height by pinching them back. So now I am envisioning a cascade of 'Autumn Joy' from the top tier, over the castle block, to the bottom, where it will flow like a river of sedum across and down the bed by the front sidewalk.

There is a white version of the same type of sedum that will be integrated somehow, plus the low growing sedums that creep along the ground.

I will also divide and move 'Zagreb', the last of the coreopsis, to sunnier locales, and will probably suppress the calendula that is establishing itself in this bed. Instead, I want all sedum, all the time. At least, that is the plan for now.

Please fence me in

Having been on a couple of garden tours in recent years, I was struck by how well a privacy fence can visually enclose space and provide a neutral background to whatever is planted in front of it. My yard is large and flat and exposed. The idea of wrapping a privacy fence around it really appealed to me.

Also, my solitary nature causes me to favor privacy as a general policy. While my neighbors are imperfectly nice people, I would prefer to hang out in my backyard without necessarily interacting with them or their children or their dogs. The installation of an above ground pool on one side and the new neighbor's yappy rat terriers on the other only added to my resolve.

North side of garage (hosta bed)

Of course, when I approached the neighbors about installing a fence, I used the factors in paragraph one above, then added how *they* would benefit from the fence ("more privacy for your pool guests" for the neighbors to the north and "make your house more sellable" for the previous neighbors to the south). I also spoke with the neighbor behind me, in case they were interested in removing the privet hedge between our lots (he is but his wife is not). At any rate, no one objected. Not that that would have stopped me.

South side of house (prairie sampler)

I thought about putting all the vertical boards facing out, but changed my mind when I learned the rat terriers are cat-hating canines. I'm not sure if Finn can get over the fence but if outside the yard, he may need to insert a clawhold into the horizontal runners to get back in. And since it is *my* fence, I chose to look at the aesthetically more pleasing side. (The only exceptions are the gates facing the street.) Another good decision was to move the gates from the back of the house to the front; to the south, the fence may help dampen the rattle of that neighbor's heat pump. I also like how it opens up the accesses to the backyard.

No more pool!

The fence was finished by noon today and I am *loving* it. It *does* visually enclose the backyard and it *does* block the view into my neighbors' yards. My yard feels more cozy, too.

No more yappy dogs!

I elected to use pressure treated pine since cedar would have doubled the price. Right now the boards have a greenish tint to them, which will fade to a rosy tan, then in several years the fence will turn weathered gray. I thought about having it stained, but from eyeballing others' fences, the stain obviously needs to be renewed periodically. With all my shrubs and perennials, current and future, that would be a problem.

There are a few candidates waiting on the deck for fall planting. But first, since I told the installers to make the fence even at the top, there is much unevenness at the bottom to contend with. The gaps are large enough that I want to wrap the bottom of the fence in an "L" of hardware cloth, then pile on wood chips.

I cant' believe how excited I am about this new improvement!

No frost yet, maybe tonight

I'm sure I am repeating myself, but if I could plant just one flower, it would be zinnias. They bloom and bloom and bloom, and this time of year, they are the nectar plant of choice for butterflies, or so it seems. If I want to see a monarch, I just look to the zinnias.

(Although there are no butterflies in these pics.)

Every time I look at the garden, I want to take more photos of the zinnias, especially of the red ones and the orange ones.

And the Mexican sunflowers.

What's your favorite flower?

Got floppy grass?

The other day, my SO and I visited Metea County Park to look for fungi. While exiting the nature center, I noticed that the grasses along the sidewalk had been tied up in neat little sheaves. How cute, I thought, but necessary? Then I realized that they had solved the problem of floppy ornamental grass!!!

Do your switchgrass and northern oats flop like this, threatening those approaching your front door?

And does your pampas grass sprawl, poking the resident lawn mowing son in the eye as he rounds the corner?

Well, grab some twine or yarn or, if you are really crafty, long dried blades of grass, and round 'em up. Tie the sheaves with a little bow and it looks quite festive. If the grass continues to flop, tether the sheaves to a pole sunk in the center of the clump.

Even the pampas grass can be brought to attention without looking too unnatural.

What do you think? Will this solution work for you? Try it and see if you like it.

Purple asters big and small-ish

Last fall I planted a prairie sampler on the south side of the house. Amazingly, I have lost very few of those tiny starts (which are still in the "creep" phase). I also transplanted some established plants into that bed, to round it out and fill a few empty spaces.

The shorter New England asters are 'Purple Dome', but I have no idea what the big and tall one is. At one point, I thought the pollinators were favoring the big one over its little cousins, but today I observed the bees were searching out flowers with still-fresh yellow centers. Apparently, the blossoms on the tall one peaked earlier than on the short ones.

I'm contemplating rearranging all these asters into one big showy clump, the tall one in the back and center, surrounded by the shorter ones. I'm hoping my pink 'Wild Romance' aster crops up somewhere, as it would add a nice splash to such an arrangement. I'm not sure what happened to it, but I suspect wascally wabbits are involved.

Another quandary

At the banquet for the Garden Bloggers Fling, the centerpiece at each table was an Encore Azalea plant. I like azaleas as much as the next person, but they don't grow in my zone. Nobody at my table wanted it, even the person who "won" it, as they had flights to catch and preferred to do so sans horticulture, especially those from Toronto (pesky customs!) So I adopted it on the spot.

Did I mention that azaleas don't grow in my zone?

This one is called Autumn Amethyst. Its coldest zone is 6A. I am in zone 5B. No, wait, according to the government, I am now in zone 6A, but just barely. According to the Encore Azalea website, this azalea *should* grow here (with some winter protection). Huh.

My original plan was to keep this baby in a pot and tuck it away in the garage for the winter. Now I'm not so sure that is a good idea. If I were to plant it in the ground, where would it go? It needs 6 hours of sunshine, preferably in the morning, until around 2pm, then light shade. That spells "front yard" or way in the back of the backyard, in my yard. It also can grow to be 4'x4'. That is kind of big, so I can't just tuck it in somewhere.

This I will have to ponder.

A quandary

I short while ago I happily reported caterpillars on some milkweed in my yard. There were only a few milkweed plants in this particular location, along the south side of the house, where I have been establishing a prairie sampler. I wondered what the caterpillars would do, once the milkweeds were decimated.

Bye-bye, butterfly weed

Apparently, they crawled down the bed and proceeded to decimate the butterfly weed as well. There were only three plants to begin with. Now all I can find is this one, stripped of its blossoms and leaves. I hope the roots survive the winter and it (and its brethren) return next year.

I can't fence out the moths and butterflies, but I do discourage the rabbits with hoops of poultry netting. Otherwise, this is what happens.

Smooth move, aster-loving rabbit

Smooth aster must be particularly yummy. I protected the other asters, but missed this one.

The switch grass had flopped over my new oakleaf hydrangea. When I went to check on the situation, I found that the hydrangea was GONE. I'm not sure if the culprit is a rabbit or the resident woodchuck. I've never had to worry about the Limelight hydrangea, so I assumed this one was safe. The joke is on me.

The case of the disappearing hydrangea

My yard is not designated a backyard habitat for nothing, but I admit to being rather peeved when the denizens of that habitat do more damage than I deem acceptable. I'm not the only one to suffer the ravages of wildlife, but at least I don't have a porcupine to deal with. Or deer. At least, not yet.

I'm bugged

August must be the month for bugginess in the garden. Pollinators seem to be at their busiest, including bees, of course.

I don't know what these orange and black beetles are, but they are everywhere.

Although I do not have photographic proof, I am 95% sure I saw an Eastern Tailed - Blue (Everes comyntas) on the Joe Pye last week. We'll have to settle for this white cabbage butterfly (Pieris rapae) which is omnipresent each year, all summer long.

At least I found a monarch, on the zinnias and not the milkweed, nectaring and not laying eggs. Maybe some other summer we'll have caterpillars.

There are lots of other little insects of one sort or another, not inclined to sit still and be photographed, let alone identified. I accept their presence as a good sign, that my yard welcomes all bugs, as long as they stay out of the house proper.

Art in my garden

On the Garden Bloggers Tour, I saw a lot of garden art, but cannot envision much of it working in my yard. While cleaning out the garage, I almost threw out a wire sculpture my daughter made in high school, of a ballerina. Why not hang that in the garden?

Unfortunately, she looks too much like something hung in effigy. I plan to reposition her arms and find a better location than the bird feeding station. Hopefully, she will withstand the elements, at least during the summer.

Not a monarch, but still a caterpillar on milkweed

There were hornworms on the tomato plants. My son picked them off and threw them over the fence before I could get a look, so I've been on the lookout for more. Then I took a tour of the yard. The aphid-infested milkweed host a variety of insects - ladybugs, wasps, etc. - AND some caterpillars!

These are the "other milkweed caterpillar", larva for the milkweed tussock moth, a.k.a. milkweed tiger moth, more specifically euchaetes egle. I trapped one and brought it in for my g'daughter to see. After learning the chrysalis must winter over, I decided I will return it to its natural environment, then try to remember NOT to clean up that small stand of milkweed this fall, ugly as it is.

Also in the yard was this very cooperative swallowtail, enjoying the zinnia.

The Mexican sunflower finally bloomed, much to the delight of this bee, also a cooperative subject.

What's "bugging" you in your yard?

Viewpoint

As I wandered through blogland, I read about a gardener who was getting a new window over her kitchen sink. She was naturally concerned about what the view through that window would be. The view out my kitchen window is a bit limited, but I began to consider just what people see when they are in my yard.

Just as one doesn't always see the household clutter or dust except through a visitor's eyes, I don't really SEE my yard. So I strolled around with my camera, taking shots looking this way and that. This exercise was quite revealing - things look worse than I realized.

For one thing, there is clutter born of convenience: garden hoses laying across the lawn, a potting table piled high with empty plastic containers, garden carts hither and yon, etc. While individual plants or small groupings of plants look fine, the lawn looks rather horrible, the beds look rather horrible, almost everything looks rather horrible when taken as a whole.

So I've been considering some improvements. As an example, here is the north side of the house, where the hosta bed grows. (Please excuse the crudity of my illustrations. I'm sure there is a tool somewhere than can do what I am trying to do with Paint.)

Not bad, when one's eye focuses on the hostas. BUT what if I mixed in some different plants, like black cohosh along the siding and a shrub at the end of the bed. Would a privacy fence help frame the view? And let's get rid of the forsythia just opposite the gate.

This looks more inviting to me. Garden art or planted pots could be hung on the fence. I don't want to get too fancy but maybe an arch over a gate of wrought iron would work here? And a suggestion of a path using flagstone?

Opinions? Suggestions? Low interest loans?

Uggy muggy

I'm reading Lab Girl, by Hope Jahren, in which she states plants love humidity. Their pores relax and they breathe in the moisture. Not so us two-leggeds - that humid air seems particularly devoid of oxygen. The rhododendron appears to be an exception to the rule, curling its leaves against the heat. This dense gardener finally got a clue and watered the 'PJM' today.

Indian hemp seed pods

This is the time of year when I am a little sick of gardening. The heat index has been around 100 lately, so I've been sequestered in the house, not even venturing out to water. Maybe because of the humidity, most plants are fine with my neglect, but not the annual vines that were supposed to cover the pergola. They failed to do so, so I lost interest in keeping them alive. Oops!

Cardinal vine at top of redbud tree

Cardinal vine, up close

It's too late to start anything very ambitious and too early for fall planting. There are always weeds to tackle, but other than beheading the Queen Anne's lace, I'm not motivated. I can think of things to do - transplant iris, order in some wood chips, call around for shrubs I want to plant this autumn - but all I do is think about it.

Identified: Berries of Solanum dulcamara

Next week the temperatures are supposed to be more moderate, plus it might actually rain significant amounts. Sounds like a good time to broadcast the mini clover, plus address those tasks rummaging around in my brain (see above).

Bumble bee on Joe Pye

Meanwhile, I think I'll take advantage of these lazy hazy days and just relax. Inside. Where there is AC. And iced tea.

Not hip to be square

I recently checked out a satellite shot of my property from Google maps. The last time I looked, it showed the raised beds being constructed in the middle of the backyard. Now those all are done. There are a few things missing, like the newest trees, but all in all, this is a fairly accurate snapshot.

I am very left brained, and my mind favors grids, square corners, symmetry, etc. (The concrete guy who poured the driveway had to talk me into adding the swoop to the front walk.) Yet when I consider the many gardens we saw on the Garden Bloggers Fling, rarely were these design concepts employed. Instead, there were curved beds and meandering paths and visual surprises. Stuff was layered - plants, hardscape, houses. The gardens looked both deliberate and casually constructed.

I also have a tendency to position plants in a patchwork of singles (maybe because of quilting?) In the Fling gardens, I saw instead groupings of odd numbers along side the larger singles. A designer from Toronto (sorry! I am so bad with names!) explained that with singles, there is no place for the eye to rest, whereas groupings and masses draw the eye.

My yard includes almost all these plants, but not arranged like this.

When I saw the sedum below, every which one I have, I immediately wanted to drive home and rearrange the plants by the front walk.

When I did get home and looked at that bed, I made some interesting observations: the Dragon's Blood had migrated to one end of the bed and some of the Purple Emperor looked great while other plants struggled (the bed gets variable amounts of sun), the Autumn Joy and Lemon Ball were positioned willy-nilly, the coreopsis did not "work" with the sedum, etc. I didn't want to risk moving plants in the midsummer heat, but I'm making mental notes for next spring.

I've also been looking at garden design books from the library. These are visually frustrating, as the photos show what one can do with ACRES of rolling countryside. I find it difficult to translate the sweeping vistas to something I can use in my rectangle of a yard. But I am picking up some useful knowledge. We'll see how it manifests on my third of an acre plot.