Summer is Here!

I say this even though the high temperature yesterday was only in the mid sixties.  But it is supposed to get warmer soon.....

Here are some shots of what's going on in the yard right now.  My neighbor and I have both been allowing milkweed plants to grow all over, and she found about 10 monarch caterpillars on some of her plants.  So we each took some in and kept them fed on fresh leaves until they formed their chrysalises.  About 10 days later for each a beautiful monarch butterfly emerged.  They were set free in the yards and we see them all over now.






Watching for more caterpillars, but haven't found any yet.  They say that 90% of those sheltered in this way survive, vs. 90% being eaten if left outside.  We're doing our part.

We were gone for 6 days in late June and that meant we came home to massive overgrowth of shrubs, weeds, etc. that needed tending.  But things are looking much better now.


 
The monarda plants are beautiful now, and the coneflowers and daisies are spectacular.  We spent the last week and a half spreading 8 cubic yards of mulch and are very tired of that.




 

 This year I've been trying to convert places with invasive, difficult to manage plants like wild geraniums into easier to maintain plants like hostas, heucheras and astilbes.  It's getting harder to keep up with all this.

A Long HOT Summer

It’s been really hot all summer, and very dry.  Hardly any rain in June or July.  Many of the perennials were looking pretty shabby, until a recent rainfall did some amazing things.  I have never seen anything like this.  The purple coneflowers throughout the yard began sprouting new growth from the spent seedheads.  They are actually quite beautiful. 

Pretty much every clump of them has at least one head doing this.  I’m not sure what they will do next, whether those are flowers or new plantlets.  But for now, pretty special.

First cold and wet, Now hot and dry…

Seems like there should be some sort of in between with our weather.  The yard got off to a slow start, then got soaked with cold rain.  Now, its hot, and it hasn’t rained for over two weeks, at least not meaningfully.  We were supposed to get an inch today, but it pooped out after only about four tenths.  Hardly enough to wet the deck, though it was so hot and humid that things actually stayed damp for hours.  Still a chance for the next few days – let’s hope.  I would hate for everything that is so beautiful to just wither away. 

Got a new camera this week and took a bunch of photos this afternoon to see how it works.  Don’t think I have it figured out quite yet, but it does do some neat things.  Here’s a gallery of what’s going on in the yard right now. 

 

Another week with no rain (or very little...)

We still have been missing all of the good rainstorms here.  10 miles south they got soaked the other day.  And farther north the rain has been regular.  But the Appleton Gap has persisted, perhaps even expanded.  All of the big weather systems seem to split at about this latitude.  And we are still very dry. 

The creek is still running, and I do remember summers when it was dry by this time.  It is difficult to know if this is unusual or if dry summers are the norm for these parts.  Must consult the record, I guess.  One thing I've noticed is that there really is a "microclimate" effect.  Our yard has about a one or two week shorter growing season than the yard we had in the city.  We are low here, and we get the first and the last frosts of the season.  And there is not as much thermal mass (streets, sidewalks, roofs, etc.) to keep the heat on a close to frost night.  It's better since we have more trees.  

This week the daisies and blanket flowers are declinin g, the coneflowers are at their peak.  The hydrangeas are coming into bloom, and the hardy Hibiscus is making nice looking buds -- I hope for something spectacular in another week or so.  The Monarda are lovely, the Gooseneck Loosetrife is blooming.  The Ligularia are beginning to bloom nicely.  Dahlias all over are blooming.   The Butterfly Weed is perfect as usual, and the Joe-Pye Weed as well.  Cannas are gorgeous, though I have to water them daily and they haven't begun to flower.   Annuals are coming into full bloom and giving the yard color. 

We had the first couple of tomatoes from the garden last weekend, and we've had jalapeno  peppers for a few weeks. Raspberries are coming in strong, we've had at least a pint a day and sometimes more for the last week or so.  There is a nice looking zucchini out there, and the onions and leeks and potatoes are maturing.  We pick broccoli once or twice a week.  Summer is good.  Even though we love to ride down to the farmer's market every Saturday, there isn't much we need to buy.

September Must Come

There is an amazing transition right after Labor Day. It seems as though Summer has a firm hold, and the weather is still hot and dry. But the Tuesday after Labor Day it is Fall - no matter what it might feel like. Kids are around in the morning finding their new bus stops, and everyone gets "back to work," leaving the leisure of the summer behind.

The garden is tired, and mostly spent - though the glory of Fall is yet to be seen. T he tomatoes are ripe on the vine and abundant, the potatoes are ready to be dug, the peppers are heavy on their plants, and the sorry eggplant has yet to produce its second fruit. Sunflowers fill the garden, even though this year I swore they would not.

We are planning how to expand the beds, and when to purchase the mulch to do it with. We want to make the pond larger and deeper, but I still haven't figured out how to do that and preserve the ligularia and the lilies that are on the southeast side where the expansion would be most likely.

Next weekend I must think about taking things inside for the winter. That means the first of probably two or three sprayings of insecticide. I really don't want whiteflies in the house this winter, and I struggle with whether that means spraying heavily or just letting things die outside. And also with whether to try to take in whole plants or just cuttings. The hardest choice will be with the Rex Begonias. For several years I have dug them and put them in pots and kept them through the winter in the light gardens downstairs. This year I took a few leaf cuttings a couple of weeks ago from which I hope to grow new young plants. But I know that I will have to confront the choice of letting the beautiful adult plants on the front porch either die in the frost or be dug and brought inside. I think I will likely dig at least some of them. Maybe this year I'll cut them back heavily when I bring them in.

Other choices: do I bring in the geranium that has been the sentinel plant in front of the garage for many years or let it finally slip away? I really don't like it's color there, but it is so hardy and dependable it is hard to let go of. Also, the two hibiscus that I bought this year were pretty lame. But I cut them both back heavily and the new growth that came was shiny and beautiful. If they can be brought in and protected from the whiteflies that seem to inevitably attach them in late February or March they would be lovely next year.

But the job of keeping things alive and thriving over the winter is not trivial. We'll see.

Pictures for this week are about the light and the structure of the garden.

Robins in the Dogwood

The fruits on the Pagoda Dogwood bush on the south side of the house are ripening. And every year the robins find them around now. They continue to eat them until they are gone, much later in the fall. I suspect that by September there is some sort of intoxicating effect. But now they are bringing the young ones to the bush and teaching them how to get to the berries. Each bird lands on the roof nearby and moves over to the gutter just above the shrub. They look around, then jump, leap, fly, whatever over to a branch that still has unconsumed berries and begin to gorge themselves. If disturbed they fly away quickly. As we sit out on the deck, we hear each feeding attempt as a rustle of leaves and branches, often punctuated by the chirp of a robin - the clown bird of the yard right now.

Over the weekend, while I was weeding in the front of the garden, a red-tailed hawk swooped down and grabbed a baby rabbit just 10 feet away from me. It was spectacular.

Pictures from this week follow. This is the height of maturity for many things in the yard. At the Gala at the Gardens of the Fox Cities last weekend we bought a garden armillary that was donated to the silent auction by old friends John and Lee Parker. It will make a nice addition to our garden, and we hope they are happy that it has a good home.

The planter is doing very well, and becoming the overlowing wonder that it usually does. I should really restrain myself a little more than I do, because things really do become overwhelming by this time of year. I planted some Queen Alberta salvia just because I though the display might need a vertical element. But now, they are almost disruptive and I think I'll actually remove them even though they are the nicest salvia in the yard. Maybe I'll try to transplant them, but I doubt they will make a successful transition.

The Joe-pye weed is spectacular right now. And there are more mature plants around the yard than ever before. Maybe too many once they really get established. I hope I never come to regret the addition of this plant.

Summer is in full Swing

It was a beautiful morning today (writing on Sunday evening), despite the fact that I have come down with a cold and that Smoke is dying. He has stopped eating and drinking, and is just stopping everything. Doesn't seem to be in pain, but it is hard to watch him and be so helpless.

We expect some rain today or tonight or maybe tomorrow, and we really need it. Yesterday, driving down to Baraboo to meet friends Tom and Bea, we saw the damage done by flooding all over the middle of the state. There were empty lakes, overfilled rivers and streams, barren fields, piles of gravel and sand where they didn't belong, and long detours. But we need rain here - we are seeing almost the same dry July that we've had for several years. It would be nice to have a summer of adequate moisture.

The clematis on the gazebo is blooming beautifully right now. It makes a pretty view from the deck. And the Heuchera - Coral Bells - beneath the front yard birch tree is lovely. Much of the rest of the yard is coming into its full growth, though a little rain and some real heat would really push them into full growth.

Blooming this week for the first time: Shasta Daisies, one Purple Coneflower (despite the fact that they are in bloom profusely all over the city,) Gloriosa Daisies, butterfly weed (Aesclepsis), Coreopsis (maybe they were starting last week..),the new hydrangeas on the east side of the house, Monarda, hostas, Tiger Daylilies, ajuga, and more that I've probably forgotten. In full glory are the Stella d'Oro lilies, various clematis, most of the annuals, delphinium, heuchera (but not the red ones leading up to the front door), margaurite daisies, and, again, some I've likely forgotten.

5 days away and what a difference...

We left for a conference last Wednesday and left the yard well tended and in the care of neighbors. It never fails to amaze me how much and how fast things grow at this time of year. In the winter we can go weeks with no real change, but in June things change almost before your eyes, and certainly a great deal is different when you go away for 5 days and come back.



When we left we had just gotten everything planted and settled in. Now it seems to be well established. The tiny rabbits that seem to be all over the yard are consuming things every day, but even they can't keep up with the amount of growth that is going on.When we got back the grass needed cutting, and I had a pretty full day dragging the compost container around the yard and filling it over and over with the spent flowers of the columbine, the fully blooming flowers of the lambs ears that needed to be removed before they set seed, and various other things gone past their prime. Almost all the tulips are ready to be plucked out, the terrible weeds are few and easily identifiable.



A technique that I use to identify the weeds easily is possibly indicative of my personality: I scan the garden I'm working on and hope to find perfection. Inevitably, something that just isn't right sticks out and becomes all I can see. It is usually a weed, and I can take care of it. This tendancy leads me to be pulling and cutting out weeds pretty much any time I walk around the garden seeking perfection that is never quite there. But it serves me well in getting closer and closer.