Bugs, sweat and tears

"Mosquito is out,
it's the end of the day;
she's humming and hunting
her evening away.
Who knows why such hunger
arrives on such wings
at sundown? I guess
it's the nature of things."
- N. M. Boedecker, Midsummer Night Itch

This post comes with a warning. Do not read while eating. The photos below could cause serious digestive problems.

I hate bugs that eat me and my plants. The tipping point has almost come. The weeds can grow tall, and the Japanese beetles can get fat, I'm sealing myself inside away from the biting bugs. I can't stand to douse myself down with oily, stinky bug spray one more time. Earlier in the spring it was the gnats, swarms of them everywhere. You couldn't speak without swallowing several. Now its the mosquitoes, and they are especially blood thirsty this summer. This weak and listless feeling must be because I'm low on blood;)

It seems the Japanese beetles are expanding their menu every year. At first it was just the roses and the grapes. Then they discovered the coneflowers and the red clover that the Monarch butterflies depend upon. Today I see them devouring a clematis.

Before

After

Roses are of course the special favorites of the beetles. This is why I have a short rose season. On July 1 the hordes arrive and the roses are cut back to make sure they don't bloom. Not until mid September will these unwanted guests be gone and I can enjoy a few late blooming roses before the October freezes.




Here comes the tears part--well, maybe not tears just disappointments. Below is Moses' Fire. Last year was the first year it bloomed after planting the summer of 2007. I was very disappointed in it then and am not much happier with it now. The red seems muddy and too orangey, not bright, clear orange but dull, drab orange. It might improve if I could just find the perfect companion bloom that would compliment the color. I'm partial to lots of petals and ruffles and it does fit that criteria. No such thing as too frilly in my garden.



Still more tears;) These tomatoes have been sitting here with big green fruit forever. They should have been ripening weeks ago. There must be some kind of color deficiency in the soil that is preventing them from turning red. Or maybe it's the sunflower-- that might be inhibiting the ripening process;) I do have a few tiny Super Sweet Hundreds that are ripe and I've been making the most of them, but they just aren't the same as a huge, juicy Kellog's Breakfast or Black Krim. I'm hanging on to my fried green tomatoe recipes.


Mr McGregors Daughter invited us all to review our annuals and comment on the best and worst of 2009.

Cosmos were a success but not the ones I sowed myself. Tina of In the Garden was kind enough to share cosmos and nigella seeds. The cosmos did not survive long enough to be transplanted outside (sorry Tina). The nigella is growing but not blooming. Anyway back to the cosmos. I was determined to have cosmos after seeing them in everyone else's gardens and blogs so I took myself off to my local greenhouse and bought several flats. I won't be without them again no matter what I need to do to get them growing. Keep them deadheaded, the plants I neglected did not continue to bloom.


California Poppy--pretty but the blooms are small, few and far between. This probably isn't a good year to judge these poppies since it has been unusually cold and wet. If they selfseed, I may have a better idea next year. These plants are meant to grow in the heat and drought of California.



Victoria Blue Salvia, how well this does in the northern garden is proportional to how large the plant was when set out. Three of the plants I bought were over a foot tall when I got them. The smaller pants are very slow to establish and bloom. Again, this may not have been the best year to judge a plant that loves heat, sun and dry conditions.


Salvia Lady in Red, not showy enough to warrant planting here and truthfully, not showy enough to warrant a photo. I thought it would attract butterflies or hummers but other plants including perennial salvias and agastaches have proven much more attractive to insects and hummers than Lady in Red.


I always plant a few nicotiana in hopes of luring some sphinx/hawk moths to the garden. This is the low growing variety that comes in reds, pinks and whites. It always performs well and provides late season color in shadey spots but has no fragrance. Next year I want to try the tall white nicotiana .


Old faithfuls that add much needed purple and silver and never fail. I wouldn't be without these fillers stuck anywhere a patch of soil can be seen.

The telephone rings, It's the call of the wild

A brief departure from the usual topics of gardening and wildlife. Went to a concert the other night-- my all time favorite band, Mark Miller with the group Sawyer Brown. I've seen them perform dozens of time over the last 20-something years and always had a fantastic time. This was an outdoor concert and the lightening was difficult so regretfully, I didn't get any really good photos.

Betty’s out being bad tonight

Betty and her boyfriend had a big fight

Well I ain't first class
But I ain't white trash.
I'm wild and a little crazy too.
Some Girls don't like boys like me
Aww, but some girls do.

~~~~~~~~

Monica, at Garden Faerie's Musings, had a good idea when she originated her Mish-Mash Monday posts. That's what I have today, a collection of unrelated thoughts and photos.

First of all a view from my back yard. Everything is lush and vivid green. The rain and record breaking cool temperatures have affected our corn crops. Many farmers were a month late getting their corn planted. Driving to Monroe Center last week I noticed several large fields that never did get planted, some still have standing water. On the other hand, we are growing a world class crop of mosquitoes. I'm buying enough Off spray to keep our economy healthy;)


Erigeron or Fleabane hitchhiked in on a plant purchased at a plant sale. I know nothing about these--have never grown them, but there are some species plants in the fields around the farm. It seems like it would be a nice little filler plant if it doesn't surprise me by doing something completely obnoxious;) Anybody who has grown it, please let me know if I should leave it in the garden or rip it out. The airy little white blooms are kind of pretty, like a early blooming aster.



One of my hybrid tea roses, Heirloom. This rose is the prettiest lavender color and smells nice too. Like the corn, my roses got off to a late start this spring so their season was very sort. Thursday I'll post an explanation of why everblooming roses have a 'short season' here.




Along the drive this bed is seriously neglected. The Tall Bearded Iris, purple coneflower and Siberian Iris are overrunning it and needed to be divided and moved last spring. My number one priority this fall or next spring is to thin these beds and introduce a little more variety.



The lovely Tiffany, many people will tell you this is one of the very best roses for fragrance. It's an older hybrid tea like Heirloom. For me scent is important. Isn't it just natural to see a lovely bloom and bury your face, feeling the silken texture and inhaling that warm, sweet smell? By the way, all the rose photos you see on my blog were taken prior to July 1.



Exquisite Peace with it's wonderful story of war and peace. This rose is loved by most everyone, including me. The blending of pastel colors and the sweet fragrance make it a must have for rose lovers.



Will be back Thursday with another post. Meanwhile, I'll be visiting my blogging friends for updates on what's going on in your gardens;)

A flower's appeal is in its contradictions

... so delicate in form yet strong in fragrance, so small in size yet big in beauty, so short in life yet long on effect. ~Adabella Radici

(Cherry red and very tall)

Plant of the month. Thank you Tina at In the Garden for suggesting this topic. Usually it would be impossible for me to choose only one plant for an entire month. Not so this year. The daylilies are really outdoing themselves in this unusually wet July. I may regret this choice in a week. My volcano phlox is about to bloom and I can't say enough good things about this phlox. Toward the end of July another phlox, David, should be covered in snowy blooms. If at the end of July you see another plant or two spotlighted as the plant of the month, don't be surprised--I'm fickle;)

(One of my favorites this deep wine colored small plant.)

June has fled, but this year the weather remains relatively cool and wet. Record rainfalls recorded for the month of June and we experienced a record low temperature on July 7 when the thermometer stalled in the mid sixties. Unusual weather for a prairie state but beloved by almost every plant in my garden.


Many years ago I ordered a 'collection' of daylilies from Gilbert Wild. It contained about 15 varieties, pinks, peachy blends, purples, yellows, deep burgundies and cherry reds. Over the years they have been moved around and divided and their names are lost in the mists and the mud and the winter snows. These are all older varieties that don't rebloom. Even so, for a few weeks in July they take center stage.

(Kwanso with its triple tiered bloom)

Occasionally I'll give away daylily plant or division. Usually I just dig up another patch of grass and plant the surplus daylilies that have become too crowded. They are much less trouble to tend than grass, they have no serious pests or disease here. Breaking off the hundreds of spent blooms is the extent of the care they require.



The daylily season really starts in June with golden Stella outshining the summer sun and continuing well into July. Siloam Double Classic follows in mid June and it too blooms on into July.

(Siloam Double Classic)

(Prairie Blue Eyes)

In the last five years, I've begun to lust after the newer doubles and pie curst edged types, all rebloomers. First I added Siloam Double Classic, which is a fantastic bloomer. Night Embers and Moses' Fire came three years ago. The last two are red doubles and disappointing in my garden. Neither has a high bud count and the flower color is muddy on both.

I just placed my 2009 order with Wild for three new plants:

An almost white
single, Joan Senior,

(Gilbert Wild photos)




a bright yellow
double, Siloam Peony Display,

and Sabine Baur, a gorgeous peachy cream with a deep purple eye and heavy purple pie crust edging. Isn't she pretty. (Gilbert H. Wild Photos)


I'll have to wait until next July to see these bloom in my garden.

Last and certainly least, is my very own daylily born and bred on my farm. I'm not a daylily hybridizer, never even thought about trying to create a new variety. This was just one of those things that happen in the garden. In the midst of my Kwanza patch, where no hybrid daylily has ever been planted--up popped a creamy white single bloom (similar to Joan Senior which I ordered last week and never grew before). This has to be a daylily that started here from seed and wasn't noticed until it bloomed. So, since it's my very own, original daylily I'm going to name it Plain Jane;)

The countless wings that from the infinite Make such a noiseless tumult over it... ~ Robert Frost

I stepped into a patch of purple milkweed (Asclepius purpurescens) to get a few pictures and then stood absolutely still as its wonderful fragrance rose up around me. It must have been a trick of the weather, just the right humidity and temperature, but it seemed the entire field was fragrant with the sweet smell.


These plants can grow as tall as six feet but seldom reach that height. Along the roadsides and in fields, mowers at some point always cut them back. The one above in my pasture is about four feet tall now.



I've decided to grow a few of these in my gravel garden. I wouldn't recommend anyone turn them loose near a group of perennials. They have a very long taproot and also spread by horizontal roots which could cause a problem if they aren't isolated. On the other hand, friends of mine grow them in a butterfly garden with mixed perennials and annuals and they remain quite polite and get along well with their neighbors. They would certainly work well in a bed with mostly annuals.



The flowers are really lovely and did I mention the fragrance, sweet, intense, maybe a hint of honeysuckle and vanilla.

On my farm, the pasture and hedgerows have many milkweed plants but in urban areas where there are few, growing a couple plants in your yard will likely bring you monarch butterflies. Milkweed (there are over a hundred native species) are the only plant the monarch lays its eggs on. You may well find yourself the host of monarch caterpillars (which will eat the leaves of the plant but not kill it). Bees, butterflies and approximately 400 species of insects use the common milkweed as a food source, so planting a few should make your yard a very popular dining area.

I've read that dead heading the blooms before they set seed will cause the plant to produce more flowers, perhaps as many as three flushes in a season.

I'll direct sow seed this fall where I want the plants to grow. With the long taproot, milkweed resents being moved. The seed needs a period of cold weather before it sprouts so planting in the fall will work very well, otherwise I'd have to put the seed in the freezer for a couple months. I have an excellent, sunny location where the plants can grow and be enjoyed, but they can't get tangled with the perennials.

From somewhere
a froth of seeds drifted by touched
with gold in the last light
of a lost day, going with
the wind as they always did.
~ Philip Levine's poem Milkweed

Asclepius tuberosa (above) is another form of milkweed and one that grows well with other perennials. It requires well drained soil and full sun but does not spread beyond a tight clump. It grew very easily from the seeds I purchased and started indoors. Some I transplanted near a patch of yellow daylilies and others went near some nepeta. I've read that the tuberosa is the variety preferred by butterflies. I've also read that it is short lived but self seeds if allowed.

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: Matthew 6:28

I haven't done a Skywatch for a long, long time. (Click on the link above to be transported to some of the world's lovliest skies.)

Last week our skies were dark and ominous but there is a lot of color and movement in skies like these. Gray skies make for good photographs. Not just cloud photos, the colors on any photo are truer and detail isn't washed out by the bright sunlight.

For two weeks I have been assigned the task of medicating my sister's cat while she and her family vacation. Kitty has to have a daily dose of Prosac and she doesn't like it. Since I'm the bringer of the nasty stuff, she doesn't like me either;)

Driving the 15 miles to Monroe Center everyday might have been a tedious chore, but in fact I've really enjoyed these trips. The countryside is lush and green, beautiful houses, scenic views and wild flowers everywhere. Who knew there are so many pretty back roads all going to tiny Monroe Center?


As far as I could see down this little country road, tawny daylilies blanketed the fence row. What a lovely sight. Some folks call them ditch lilies, but whatever you call them it was a pleasure to see them there. I always wonder how they came to be in the fields. Perhaps some farmer's bride brought them from her mother's garden. A dependable flower to begin her own garden in a new home.

When I first moved into my farmhouse there were patches of daylilies dotting the hedgerows and fencelines. The ones on my farm were a little unique. The flowers were doubles and triples, amazingly beautiful. I dug clumps and brought them home to start my gardens.

(Kwanso from 2006 photo)

Siloam Double Classic is one of the daylilies I grow in my own garden today. Hybridizers have made some wonderful strides with daylilies. Almost every imaginable color, diamond dusted, doubles, spiders, and ruffled edges like old fashioned crinoline petticoats.

Double Classic is one of my early bloomers right behind Stella d'oro and Hyperion. The display goes on for weeks well into the heat of July. No pests or diseases and SDC increases fairly quickly. The flowers are variable and some of the first few are singles. Delicious peachy color, ruffled edges and a glowing yellow throat are some of the things I love about SDC. If the beauty alone isn't enough, she has a sweet fragrance.

Have a great weekend. Heres hoping everyone of you turn a corner and come upon a field of wild flowers to brighten your day.

White ... is not a mere absence of colour; it is a shining and affirmative thing... ~ G. K. Chesterton

Way up here in the frozen north I get a bad case of zone envy from time to time. Seeing all the crepe myrtles, lace cap hydrangeas, China roses, and azaleas on garden blogger's sites makes me nostalgic for the years I lived in northern Alabama and grew those wonderful plants.

Not being able to grow the different hydrangeas is especially frustrating this time of year. I have the lovely Annabell and she is beginning to bloom, still a little more variety would be nice. Then, coming home last evening I caught a glimpse of the common elderberry that makes it's home in pastures and in hedgerows all over our county. This is as nice as any lacecap and it blooms at approximately the same time as many hydrangea. Elderberry blooms may not come in pinks and blues, but the flowers are as large as my hand and they have the added attraction of producing fruit for the birds.




I believe these will serve the purpose nicely and carry me through until Annabell blooms. Maybe this year I'll even grab a few berries and try making a pie.




I'm considering adding one of the hybrid elderberries to my yard. Sambucus Black Lace would be a good choice with its finely cut black foliage to add interest even when the shrub is not in bloom. Black Lace will also do a nice job substituting for the Japanese maples I can't grow. If anyone of you grow any of the Sambucus in your garden, please let me now what your experience has been.

A little folklore about he elderberry. In ancient times the elderberry was considered charmed and anyone who burned its wood would be plagued by bad luck. Children whispered stories of unlucky folks who fell asleep under the elderberry and were carried away to the realm of the faeries. Flutes made from the wood created enchanted music and charms worn round the neck would ward off evil. Sounds like a useful bush to have, just don't set your lounge chairs beneath it or you could fall asleep and wake up with the faeries:)

'Tis the star-spangled banner - O long may it wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave. ~ Francis Scott Keys

The original Star Spangled Banner, battered and burned after the battle of Ft McHenry. This is our original flag that inspired Frances Scott Keys to write our beautiful anthem. Everybody have a happy and safe fourth of July weekend.

Well, it was June 25th when I wrote this post and took these photos. It will be July when it publishes. I can't believe how the season is flying past. I had dozens of goals I sincerely meant to accomplish but it is looking like many of them will never happen. As we get older the seasons get shorter. It's a shame because we appreciate them much more in our later years than we ever did when we were young. In my youth each day was spent anticipating an event or a thing that would come tomorrow or next week or next year. Now I enjoy today and look back on all those yesterdays and wonder why I squandered so many.

Any day the Japanese beetles will be here so I must treasure my roses up until the last moment.


The Austin rose Graham Thomas was the first Austin I added to my garden many years ago. The pale yellow blooms look nice with the vivid gold Stellas behind.



When it first opened on a cloudy morning, Graham was a lovely deep color but he quickly faded to a buttery yellow after a few hours in the blazing sun.

Another yellow flower, but his one so very delicate.





It's late for columbines but I found this blooming at my favorite greenhouse. It was purchased as a gift but I couldn't resist getting a few photos while it sat in my garden waiting to go to its new home. What a beautiful, ethereal bloom. Hopefully I can get a few seeds to bring home to my garden.




Below is Double Delight, the most photographed rose in my garden. No two blooms are ever alike.



The red on the petals is akin to suntan. The more/stronger the sun, the more and darker the red. In addition to the beautiful colors , this is a very fragrant Hybrid Tea hence the name Double Delight.




This trellis holds two clematis, Multi Blue and the Comtesse de Bouchaud. The Comtesse is an older variety possibly bred as long hundred years ago. A strong grower and she blooms for an extended time. Multi Blue was a disappointment. Alone on the trellis he was wispy and stingy with his blooms. Together they make a pleasing combination.



From William Radler, the man who brought us the Knockout rose, this is Carefree Sunshine. I like it better. Very disease resistant, and always in bloom. On mine the foliage has an ever so slightly bluish hue. In this photo the rose is growing with a unnamed purple clematis.


So as Robert Harrick reminds us in his somewhat cruel poem.

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying.