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July

Gardening is a challenge this year.  Drought, chipmunks, rabbits, heat…the list goes on.   We were away for 2 1/2weeks (trip to Ireland) so the garden had to fend for itself.  Now that we are back I have been watering, fencing off some areas and otherwise letting nature take its course.  Many plants are stunted or were eaten or succumbed to the heat.  The rabbits did not eat the daylilies though and they are in their glory now.

Early morning after a shower

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Summer colors

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“Matt”

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“Flamenco Christmas”

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“Barbara Mitchell” and a photobomb from “Gentle Shepherd”

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“Glistening Bouquet”

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“Bold Marauder”

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And the bold marauder himself!

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Stokesia with “Rhinestone Kid”

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Lavender in a pot by the back door

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June

Rabbits are everywhere.  They are nibbling every night. I have tried fences, sprays, granular stuff, and I have a dog.  The rabbits don’t care.  Here’s what is surviving. I hope they don’t eat the daylilies.

Columbine

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Columbine and poppy

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Azaleas

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Iris

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Peonies

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Pink and white gas plant from friend Peg

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Mom’s gas plant

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Bush Clematis from friend Peg

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Globe Allium

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Allium bulgaricum

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Allium bulgaricum and Heuchera

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Lupine in the meadow

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Saxifraga in a trough and Baptisia

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May…

Posting has been light due to many other obligations – chairing our garden club plant sale, organizing and hosting a baby shower for my grandson-to-be, helping our son and daughter- in-law move into their first home, and breaking my kneecap.  I managed to take a few photos of the garden and finally downloaded them.  The cool spring has allowed a long season for the early bloomers.

Trillium pusillum is a miniature trillium

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Iris koreana

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Epimedium

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Primrose

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and other spring beauties

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The bog I planted last year did well over the winter, and I was delighted to see the Butterwort – Pinguicula primuliflora blossoming.  This is the plant with the lime green leaves and purple flowers. I saw it growing wild in Scotland and fell in love with it.   When I saw this plant at Cady’s Falls Nursery in Hyde Park, VT last summer, I had to have it.   Here it is with a beautiful Epimedium  – ‘Wildfire’

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These pansies reseeded themselves in the front walk .  They had been planted in pots by the steps last year…

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I’m battling rabbits and chipmunks at the moment… but the rock garden is looking pretty right now.

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Assessing the damage

“April is the cruelest month” said T.S. Eliot.  This year my garden concurs.  I returned Saturday afternoon from a three month hiatus in the south.  The forecast was for snow and cold so I went out in the garden with my son, and we covered as many daffodils and budding plants as we could with wastebaskets, pots, laundry baskets etc.  Here is the garden before the snow.

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The new daffodils I planted last fall were beautiful.

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The snow came and with it two nights of temps in the teens. Darth Vader invaded the garden.

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Pots over plants

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Some flamingoes showed up.  They don’t look happy either.

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The snows have mostly melted now, and this morning I uncovered my treasures.  The daffodils I covered are fine .  The hyacinths were not covered and are mush.  I covered the Mukdenia but it still looks terrible.  Epimedium buds froze whether they were covered or not.  They were my favorites.  My tree peony was covered but looks terrible. The plants will probably make it, but I will miss those lovely spring blossoms.

Gardening in New England is always a challenge.  I guess I’ll just have to see what Ma Nature decides to do now.

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A visit to the Getty Center

Last weekend I went to Los Angeles for a family wedding and visited the Getty Center.  The museum was amazing, of course, but the gardens were also magnificent, and I thought I would share some photos with you.

Bougainvillea growing over rebar forms

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Entry pavilion with pollarded sycamores and white wisteria

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Cactus garden

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Succulents

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Water feature

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Poppies

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Views from the lower garden

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and finally from inside the museum – Van Gogh’s “Iris”

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Hello from Florida

Blogging has been sparse but there is a reason.  The garden is resting for the winter while the gardener has gone south.  I never thought being a snowbird would be appealing but it is!  I hope to do a little blogging from here to showcase some of the plants.  We are on Pass A Grille beach in St. Petersburg.  There are some interesting plants that grow in the dunes.

The large plants in the background are Sea grape – Coccoloba uvifera.  There are some dune sunflowers and a succulent type with bright red flowers and grasses.

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Air plants – Tillandsias – grow in the Live Oaks in some of the neighborhoods not far away.  They fall out of the trees after a big windstorm.  There are two in this photo nestled in between the orchids I brought south for vacation.

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The shells have been amazing here due to some big winds and waves.  There is something about the patterns that reminds me of flowers.  I experimented with making some “floral designs” from shells.

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The tubular ones are actually called banded tulips…

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Palms at sunrise

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I’ll post more flowers and plants later.

 

 

 

 

 

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Light

I crave light this time of year.  We are in the time of the least amount of daylight so I create extra light everywhere I can.   I put up what I call a sparkle tree in the beginning of December.  I got the idea from my sisters Pam and Amy who make these with horizontal branches.  Mine is vertical.  Apple or crabapple branches make the best trees but any branch will do.  This year I am using stargazer lights… they are light weight and have thin wire so the branch is not so weighed down. I need to buy some more though.   I put only glass, white, silver, copper or gold ornaments and icicles on the tree.  It stays up until mid-January.

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I also like to make milkweed lanterns.  These are made by placing milkweed in a mason jar and lighting it from the top with a “tap” or “puck” light.  They are even prettier in the snow.

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I also like to light the garden.  Last year we replaced the low voltage lights with LED.  They give off more light and I love the shadows they create too.

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I love to use my old timey giant colored lights on a few shrubs at Christmas time.  I decided to add more lights in the garden this Christmas.  I made some trees out of upside down tomato cages wrapped with lights.  Its a dark world.. time for more light.

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Hoarfrost

We had a hoarfrost this morning.  The definition is: a grayish-white crystalline deposit of frozen water vapor formed in clear still weather on vegetation, fences, etc.  The crystals disappear as soon as the sun hits them, so this was one of those mornings when I grabbed the camera, pulled on my boots and ran outside in my bathrobe to capture the beautiful frosting before it was gone.

Lambs ears

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Allium

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Echinacea

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Gasplant

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Stokesia –  looks like a snowflake

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Some ice in the birdbath

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Dragonfly watering wand

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Primrose with her frosty edging

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The snow will come soon….

 

 

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November – winding down

November is almost over, and I can’t believe I haven’t gotten around to posting.  We did travel to Texas for a week so that interfered a bit.  I got a lot of gardening done too.  The weather was pretty nice so many of the chores I had been postponing actually got done.  Every spring I think I will dig out the mass of asters, rudbeckia, thistles, phlox and evening primrose that have all grown together in front of the back fence.  This year I actually did it and moved all the plants to areas where they can happily spread.  I planted 100 daffodils out near the road, dug up and moved the amsonia, and moved a bunch of other tall asters.  Can’t wait to see what it all looks like in the spring.

In the meantime, the beautiful leaves are gone and its a bit bleak outside.  The fog the other day cast some lovely light though.

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Esther likes this weather

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Here’s some Texas for you.. this is at Enchanted Rock State Natural Area in the hill country near Fredericksburg

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More shapes at Enchanted Rock

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Sage

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And a yellow rose of Texas for you Barbara S-W

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Happy Thanksgiving everyone.  I am always thankful for my garden.  It provides a place for inspiration, frustration, solitude, deep thoughts, beauty, food and digging in good old fashioned dirt.