Gardenig on a budget

Gardening doesn't have to be expensive.

Tiffany purchased bagged and bare root two years ago from Home Depot for about $3.00. If you have a cutting garden these inexpensive roses are perfect. I grow a huge variety for bouquets and didn't spend a fortune. Hybrid tea roses bloom from late May until October freeze.

Unknown white (purple tinged) clematis. If anyone can identify, please let me know the name.
Home Depot purchase last spring for under $4.00. Early in the season HD often has dozens of clematis in small 3" pots. Clematis are tough little plants, mine have done well planted directly into the garden in early spring. I bought several to let ramble among my perennials. They will bloom the second year in the garden.

Stargazer at Menards about $4.00 for a pack of 6 bulbs. Blooms the same year planted.

Siloam Double Classic from Gilbert H. Wild & Son about $2.50. Most of my daylilies are from Gilbert Wild. Over the years the folks at Wilds have been so helpful and supplied large plants in excellent condition. They arrive mid summer and will bloom the following year.

Blue Chips from Home Depot about $3.99 for a 6 inch pot blooming. I never find rare or unusual plants at HD but they are large and often in bloom. I like to be sure of what I'm getting both color and health.

Stella D'oro from Gilbert Wild about $2.00. Stella is a quick multiplier and soon produces an abundance to give to friends or replant in other locations. Stella blooms all summer.

Sunflower from bird seed. Free. Just like the Master Card commercial;)

A small garden for $20. In these days of economic uncertainty, who doesn't love a bargain? (Apology for the discussion of budgets but I'm an accountant, it's to be expected;).

Often I'll take a chance or push the zone on a bargain plant. That way if I made a mistake, I learned a lesson but didn't lose much money.

I live in a small town, we don't have large, exciting garden centers here to choose from. If I lived closer to the wonderful garden boutiques in the Chicago suburbs, I would be bankrupt, homeless and living in the garden. Now that I think about that option, how bad could it be. With a splendid garden fountain (to shower in), cushy outdoor furniture (to sleep on), and a host of garden statues to keep me company, who really needs a house.

I should mention the early and late season sales at Blue Stone Perennials . It's a good source for hard to find plants. Their plants are very small but usually do well and bloom the second year. I have gotten a few cooked perennials (probably stayed in transit too long). Not the fault of Blue Stone but disappointing all the same.

Singing the blues

I've got the blues--at my feeders.


Blue Jays announce their arrival with loud screeches that scatter the smaller birds. They don't remain long--grab a peanut and fly off. Jays are a little like squirrels. They carry their peanuts off and hide many of them to eat later.

Attracting them to your garden is as easy as putting peanuts in a place where they can be seen from above. They also eat sunflower seed. Jays are large birds and prefer to eat from a platform, the one in the photo hangs from a branch or bracket, but a bench or picnic table would be perfect too.

The beautiful blue bird below is and Indigo Bunting. They don't remain in my area all season. This one was passing through on his way farther north where he will spend the summer and raise a family. Indigo Buntings will stop at feeders filled with Nyjer (often spelled differently) thistle or white millet. The tube feeder in the photo contains a combination of proso millet, peanut pieces, sunflower seeds, and safflower. It is a favorite in my garden. The birds prefer it 3 to 1 over plain sunflower.

There is nothing in which the birds differ more from man than the
way in which they can build and yet leave a landscape as it was
before.
~Robert Lynd

I found a great website which lets you listen to and download brief recordings of birdsong. These are primarily birds found in the north central US. It's been very helpful in teaching me to identify birds by their calls even if they can't be seen.

After downloading, I choose the folder option to play all the mp3 recordings one after the other. It's relaxing to listen to an hour or so of bird songs on days when you're cooped up inside. Another plus, this is very entertaining for my cats who run around searching for birds in the house.

http://www.uwgb.edu/birds/wbba/speciesaudios.htm

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I realized that if I had to choose, I would rather have birds than airplanes.
~Charles Lindbergh

Use what talents you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.
~Henry Van Dyke

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I hadn't heard of Sky Watch Friday until this morning.

Check out Wigger's World

for more info.

A hint of blue. A dramatic sky after last night's thunderstorms.

Have a great weekend everyone. Enjoy the birds in your gardens.

Wishing you all a beautiful sunset.

Golden Moments

Some small bird with wonderful forethought
planted a golden sunflower among the blue
catmint. I left it to grow there, tall and solitary.

A goldfinch watches the sun rise.




Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
~Robert Frost

More Rose Parade

Hybrid Tea Roses

Double Delight lives up to the name. Wonderful fragrance and incredible color. Instead of fading in sunlight like most roses, DD gets darker. This one is covered in rain drops from an afternoon shower.

Day Breaker, pink with yellow accents. Long lasting blooms both in a vase and on the bush. I've seen Day Breaker used as a hedge--breath taking.

Another Double Delight. Every bloom is different, they become more red as they are exposed to sunlight longer.

Heirloom, an oldie. Very, very fragrant and more lavender than the photo shows.

Mr. Lincoln, another oldie. One of the top reds, very fragrant.

Tiffany, another super fragrant rose. Large pink blooms with a golden heart. A prolific bloomer.

A Tiffany closeup.

Peace. Fragrant, beautiful.

An old photo of Peace bloom. The colors have faded to a cream and pale pink and yellow. Stunningly beautiful in every stage of bloom.

Another old photo. Chicago Peace--a perfect rose.

Coming soon, the shrub rose parade.

Tomatoes

Decided to take a break from roses for a while and talk about something else near and dear to my heart.

The photo is from Burpee's website featuring their catalog covers over the years. Their hand painted pictures are beautiful. Makes you want to run out and order a couple packs right now;)

This morning before leaving for work I stopped to check my tomatoes. They are just not doing well this year. Late frosts and heavy rains delayed planting this spring. The entire month of May and the first half of June were unseasonably cool. The tomatoes grew very little. Now, almost the first of July, it's finally getting hot and humid and they are just starting to put on growth.

This year I planted two each of Cherokee Purple (my favorite), Black Krim, Brandywine, and Sweet Million, and one each of Big Boy, Better Boy, Early Girl, and Beefsteak. If you have never tried Cherokee Purple or Black Krim you are missing a great tomato experience:)

I love to have friends over and serve a variety of tomatoes, fresh baked bread, and maybe some cheeses. It's fun to compare the different flavors of the heirloom tomatoes. We have tomato taste tests at work. We try the different heirlooms and hybrids and pick our favorites. I'd love to hear from tomato lovers. What's your favorite tomato? Have you had success or failures with the heirloom varieties?

There are some great stories to go along with some of the old heirlooms. One story goes like this: Radiator repairman Charley Byles (who knew nothing about tomatoes) managed to cross several varieties and create an outstanding plant. Radiator Charlie sold the first seedlings of his new tomato in the 1940's for one dollar each to customers who drove up to 200 miles for his famous plants that bore tasty tomatoes averaging two and a half pounds. With these sales, Charlie managed to pay off his $6,000 mortgage in only six years, and so the tomato was named Mortgage Lifter.

If you garden in a cold zone like mine, you know that the tomato season is very short. This year it looks like it will be a whole lot shorter. Very depressing.

Everybody have a great weekend!

"What is a weed? A weed is a plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered." -- Emerson

More Parade of Roses

I went through a period of obsession with roses and collected quite a few. I love the bloom, the fragrance and the romance. It started with some antique roses. Next several of the Canadian roses and rugosas hybrids were added. Then came hybrid teas. When the English roses were developed, I had to have several of them too.

Roses are a lot more work than many perennials. It's difficult to grow them well without chemicals. You have to really love them to spend the extra time involved in caring for them.

This post is for my old garden roses. Most of these roses bloom a little earlier than my hybrid teas. They are also tougher. Not so disease prone.

First my favorite Paul Neyron is an old hybrid perpetual. This rose produces huge blooms 6 or 7 inches across. A fat pink cabbage of a rose with lovely fragrance and a thorn free bush. Paul blooms off and on all summer. He can be a little temperamental, but I'm happy to give him whatever he wants .

Grus an Aachen is small. Both the bush and blooms are petite. A very pretty little rose for the front of the garden. Grus is another repeat bloomer with a nice fragrance.

This is an old once blooming rose whose name I've forgotten. Lovely fragrance pretty cup shaped blooms.

Another of Grus an Aachen. Early in the season it has more pink. Later the blooms fade to almost white.

Reines de Violettes (Queen of Violets) another hybrid perpetual that repeats through the summer. Flowers not as large as Paul Neyron, but there are many more blooms per bush.
Nice fragrance, no thorns.

Thanks for looking at my rose parade. Hybrid tea photos coming in a few days.

The Parade of Roses

Leading the parade we have the antique Rose de Rescht

Next the lovely French rose Peace with it's message of world peace and hope.

Double Delight very nearly perect.

A beautiful Buck rose Honeysweet.

Saving the best for last, my favorite Buck rose Golden Unicorn.

More rose parade coming soon.

Simple Pleasures

A sunny window
A soft quilt
Contentment

Breathing in the frangrance of perfect

Breathing in the fragrance of perfect.

Last night I woke to a lovely fragrance filling the bedroom. The Japanese Tree Lilac outside my window was in full bloom and the damp night air carried the wonderful scent into the house. A scent completely unlike the common lilac, but very pleasant, sweet and smoky.

I can't imagine why Syringa reticulata is such and underused tree. Smallish, very well behaved and manageable. The flowers are a delight. Big, billowy puffs of creamy white. Far showier than its cousin the common purple lilac.

My mistake was planting a white blooming tree in front of a white house. Still, I'm not sorry when the wonderful fragrance drifts into my room and wakes me. (When the purple lilacs bloom it is far too chilly to have windows open at night.)

I lay there in bed last night and thought about planting one outside every window;~) .
(Thank you Joshua Pilger for the phrase I used as a title.)

Country Things

Moss on the roof, vines covering the wooden siding. The only creatures using the old barn are swallows. The windows are gone. Old harness hangs on a peg, left long ago when the horse teams were replaced by a tractor.
















One of my favorite Robert Frost poems:

The Need Of Being Versed In Country Things

THE house had gone to bring again
To the midnight sky a sunset glow.
Now the chimney was all of the house that stood,
Like a pistil after the petals go

The barn opposed across the way,
That would have joined the house in flame
Had it been the will of the wind, was left
To bear forsaken the place's name.

No more it opened with all one end
For teams that came by the stony road
To drum on the floor with scurrying hoofs
And brush the mow with the summer load.

The birds that came to it through the air
At broken windows flew out and in,
Their murmur more like the sigh we sigh
From too much dwelling on what has been.

Yet for them the lilac renewed its leaf,
And the aged elm, though touched with fire;
And the dry pump flung up an awkward arm;
And the fence post carried a strand of wire.

For them there was really nothing sad.
But though they rejoiced in the nest they kept,
One had to be versed in country things
Not to believe the phoebes wept

Advise from Julie Andrews

Remember in Sound of Music when the thunderstorm was crashing around the castle and everyone was singing My Favorite Things? I love that movie. Anyway, last night as the thunderstorms crashed around my not-a-castle, I was processing photos (I know, dumb to be using the computer in a storm). I had taken several photos of roses covered in rain from an earlier storm so that song just popped into my head and would not stop.


Photos of Distant Drums (my second favorite Dr. Griffith Buck rose) and Toby.

Raindrops on roses...



















...and whiskers on kittens.
















These are a few of my favorite things.

Seeing things through new eyes

As I've gotten more interested in photography, I find myself seeing things differently, or maybe more clearly. I've always appreciated the beauty of a sunset, the intricate patterns of clouds, and the changing light at dusk and dawn. Now I spend more time studying these things. Composing photographs in my mind even if the camera isn't there. I notice tiny drops of dew on delicate flower petals. Mentally I wonder how best to capture the prisms of reflected light. I look at things from different angles viewing the changes in shadows and light and deciding which will give the best contrast. Reflections in pools of water have become treasures to be marveled at.

I'm always looking up. Looking for colors and shapes. Seeking beams of light shining like spotlights through clouds.


(Photos: The sun sets at the end of my road as I arrive home from work. Ominous clouds roil above the pasture.)

No matter what a realist I consider myself, it’s hard not to let the mind wander to fae things when I see a lovely stand of foxglove.

Foxgloves are deeply steeped in folk lore. Some say the origin of the name is folks gloves (folks referring to faeries or magical creatures). Nordic legend has the faeries teaching the fox to ring the fox bells as a warning when hunters approach.

To cut or damage them is to bring bad luck, but to plant them around the door yard will keep the faeries from stealing your children.

WHERE dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water rats;
There we've hid our faery vats,
Full of berrys
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim gray sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scare could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

Away with us he's going,
The solemn-eyed:
He'll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal chest.
For he comes, the human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than he can understand.

...Yeats

Give us pleasure in the flowers to-day

A Prayer in Spring

Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.

Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white,
Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;
And make us happy in the happy bees,
The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.

And make us happy in the darting bird
That suddenly above the bees is heard,
The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,
And off a blossom in mid air stands still.

For this is love and nothing else is love,
The which it is reserved for God above
To sanctify to what far ends He will,
But which it only needs that we fulfil.

...Robert Frost

Above Shirley Temple peony.

Left unknown silvery-blue clematis.

Below Goldfinch on a thistle sock.











Tiny splashes of sunlight flying about the garden.


They seem to prefer this sock to any other of the thistle feeders I've tried.

Peonies

This morning the green fists of the peonies are getting ready to break my heart as the sun rises.


(I love that line from Mary Oliver's poem--more below.)




This week the peonies finally make their long awaited appearance. They usually bloom about two weeks earlier just after Memorial Day.

They are so very welcome whenever they choose to bloom.


Last year I added two Shirley Temples to my collection. Most are older varieties. They were planted on the farm before I moved here.
I love the huge doubles, the ones packed with so many petals you can't find the centers. The ones that smell so cloyingly sweet they scent a room when you bring them inside.

The heavy rain and high winds were wreaking so much havoc on the blooms, I cut most of them to enjoy inside. My house is full and so is the office.

Festiva Maxima above white with the red highlights is one of my all time favorites. The dark pink is an old unknown variety. The white below is probably Festiva also.

This fall perhaps I'll research some early bloomers and add them. It would be nice to extend the season a little longer.


I added this yellow iris to mix in some color. I'm not sure of the cultivar, maybe Pure and Simple. It's a stunner with the sun-bright yellow and the graceful ruffles.

















Peonies by Mary Oliver

This morning the green fists of the peonies are getting ready
to break my heart
as the sun rises,
as the sun strokes them with his old, buttery fingers
and they open ---
pools of lace,
white and pink ---
the flowers bend their bright bodies,
and tip their fragrance to the air,
and rise,
their red stems holding

all that dampness and recklessness
gladly and lightly,
and there it is again ---
beauty the brave, the exemplary,

What's blooming today and a really good book

Hopefully today's blooms will still be standing after last night's storms. It never fails, when the peonies and iris bloom, we always get rain, hail and high winds. Those huge, heavy flowers fill up with water and topple over onto the mud.



I've had this yellow iris for years. One of my favorites.




Below: A photo from some time ago. These tough little columbines will grow anywhere. They have such a delicate bloom but they are tough, drought tolerant very cold hardy.




























Here are a few iris that survived the rain and wind.

A lucky accident that the iris just happen to blend so well with the chives.




This weekend I'm rereading Virginia Lanier's first book Death in Bloodhound Red. If you are a mystery reader and/or a dog lover, you will want to read this wonderful series. Lanier's character, Jo Beth Sidden, is a professional dog trainer who contracts with local law enforcement to search out people lost in the near by Okefenokee Swamp. Her search and rescue missions are usually harrowing. Avoiding quicksand, poisonous snakes, and her murderous ex-husband Bubba are among the challenges she and her dogs face. You will also learn a lot you never knew about tracking with dogs. Sadly, Virginia Lanier passed away a few years ago so her novels are all the more precious because there will never be any more.