What is wrong with this wren?

Don't be alarmed. He isn't sick or injured. This photo is just for fun.





Has he been partying all night?
Is he staggering home at dawn with a terrible hangover?

Is he crying?
Has his wife just thrown him out.
Are the kids driving him nuts?
Does he have the worst headache ever?
Did his girlfriend dump him for a more stud-ly wren?



Probably none of the above. He was scratching his head on the rough bark of that limb when
I caught him with the camera. Actually, I think he is enjoying a good scratch. You have to admit he looks pretty silly. The photo just seemed to need a moral story to go along with it;)

Everyone please have a great weekend.

The homeless Chickadee

In mid April I noticed him in the wood pile. A tiny chickadee, busy popping up and down in the crevices between logs. He was there again the next day, working among the logs in the same spot as the day before.

I was curious so I walked over to see what the little chickadee was up to. The wood pile is only a couple feet high, just a few old logs I use as photography props. As I approached the log pile, the chickadee scrambled out of a hole in the top log. Scolding me with loud dee-dee-dee-dees, he flew into a nearby tree.

The chickadee had indeed been busy. He had hollowed out a hole in the soft part of a rotten log. He was building a house for a new family, but in a very dangerous place. The log he had chosen was accessible to raccoons, squirrels, and worst of all Toby the Terrible Tabby. It was certain the chickadee family would not have survived a week in that spot.

It broke my heart to destroy his hard work, but I shifted his log so that he couldn’t reach the hole. I hoped he would find another place high in the trees to make a new nest. Unfortunately, he didn’t do that. This little guy had no sense of danger or maybe just no common sense at all. He was so desperate to have a home, he was making some terrible decisions.

The next day he and the missus were in and out of a decorative log cabin birdhouse that hangs in an amalanchier tree outside the dining room window. In the 5 or more years that little decoration has hung there, no birds have been foolish enough to try to nest in it. This little house, although cute, has a gaping hole that would have allowed squirrels, raccoons and both the dreaded house sparrow and European starling easy entrance.

I could not bring myself to take another home away, but I couldn’t let him stay there and be killed by a house sparrow or a starling. So, off to the wild bird supply to pick up a nice cedar nest box. It took me a long time to get it ready, add a 1.25 hole reducer, and properly mount it on a pole. A handy man could have had this house up in half an hour. It took me 4 hours. That’s how clever I am with tools.

The next morning before sunrise, the little log cabin was whisked from sight into the garage. I was pretty sure the chickadees would find the new cedar house very quickly.

When I got home from work that evening, Chickadee and the missus were both excited, flying in and out of the new post mounted, absolutely safe, cedar dwelling. I had located the new house in a scenic spot with a view of three Austrian pine threes and a lovely rugosa rose.

I kept an eye on the pair as they furnished their new home with a deep layer of soft green moss. On top they laid a fluffy blanket of cat hair (donated by my house cats). When they finished, it was as cozy as it could be. One by one eggs appeared in the hollow of moss until there were five. Whenever I checked, Mrs Chickadee had covered her eggs with the warm layer of cat fur before leaving the box.
All the eggs hatched and Mom and Dad made endless trips to bring the tiny hatchlings back food. I was concerned toward the second week. The house wrens had arrived. House wrens have a horrible reputation for breaking eggs and killing the young of other birds. The hole reducer that had kept the sparrows from entering the new house would not stop a wren. Either good luck or good vigilance on the part of the chickadee parents prevented disaster and all the babies thrived and left the nest to begin their new lives.

So the story of the homeless chickadee has the best possible ending. I would like to believe the entire family will remain in the area visiting my feeders. Come next spring, I will be ready with more nest boxes in case any chickadees find themselves homeless.

For more information on helping cavity nesting birds here are two sites to check out:

Gardening for Wildlife

Sialis

Phlox

A new addition to my garden about this time last year, Volcano purple. It was quite small but blooming when I brought it home and planted it. This year it has tripled in size. It bloomed about three weeks earlier than my David and my tall pink garden phlox. I deadheaded it and now it is covering itself with bloom for the second time. Although I didn't keep a record like I should have, it bloomed for a considerably longer period than David.

Volcano is about half the height of David, approximately 18-20 inches. It is about two feet wide in its second season. In my garden there is no mildew on Volcano.

Below is a photo of David. This has been a superb bloomer in my garden. No special care or watering. No pests, no disease.

I would highly recommend both of these if you have a spot for them.
~*~*~*~*~
A question for other bloggers. Are you having trouble uploading photos? I'm getting really frustrated. Today 'Blogger' would not upload anything larger than 350 x 300 which is tiny. I know some of you upload large files that can be seen in their original size by clicking on them. What is the secrete?

LILIES

Some of my lily collection including Orientals, Asiatics and a couple daylilies.

Mona Lisa, so beautiful and delicately colored.

A red Asiatic lily.

A pretty red daylily covered in raindropsI love the melon color on this Asiatic.Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin. And yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.Creamy yellow Asiatic Lilies.

Stargazer
The only negative thing that can be said about this lily is that it doesn't bloom long enough.

LILIES

I have been thinking
about living
like the lilies
that blow in the fields.

They rise and fall
in the edge of the wind,
and have no shelter
from the tongues of the cattle,

and have no closets or cupboards,
and have no legs.
Still I would like to be
as wonderful

as the old idea.
But if I were a lily
I think I would wait all day
for the green face

of the hummingbird
to touch me.
What I mean is,
could I forget myself

even in those feathery fields?
When Van Gogh
preached to the poor
of coarse he wanted to save someone--

most of all himself.
He wasn't a lily,
and wandering through the bright fields
only gave him more ideas

it would take his life to solve.
I think I will always be lonely
in this world, where the cattle
graze like a black and white river--

where the vanishing lilies
melt, without protest, on their tongues--
where the hummingbird, whenever there is a fuss,
just rises and floats away.

~ Mary Oliver

Playing with combinations

I try to make groupings of plants that look especially well together. Sometimes the effect is very pleasing and sometimes not.

One of my favorite combinations. Lots of color and texture, each complimenting the others.

An interesting combination, but not my favorite. The Dr Rupel clematis and Eglantyne rose are both in one large pot set amongst other perennials. A darker clematis would probably have looked better with this pale rose. (All the associated hassle of keeping perennials in a container summer and winter wasn't worth it anymore, so I gave the pot and plants to my sister. )

I like this combination of shape and color.

I showed this pair earlier in the spring. It was a happy accident that the iris picked up the chive color and that they bloomed at the same time. A photo from June. Clematis look good with roses. I bought several to plant beside roses and let the vine trail around and through the rose and nearby perennials. In some cases it was too messy, but this pair looks good together. Keeping the vine where you want it is a challenge. Both these flowered haevily through June.I wasn't thinking when I put yellow yarrow beside a pink rose. It turned out better than I could have ever hoped for. The yarrow compliments the yellow center in Peace and they look good side by side. The yarrow's ferny silver foliage helps by makeing a nice contrasty texture. Lambs ear (at the bottom) is great with pink.

This isn't my favorite combo but it's not horrible. It needs something more, but what? Maybe it would look better if I added another daylily the same wine color as the eyes.

Silver lambs ear and May Night just don't make a pleasant combination. Both the colors and the shapes just aren't complimentary. It needs something added to make this pair look their best.

This looks even worse in the garden than in the photo. In my defense, I didn't expect them to bloom at the same time. Thought the sea holly would bloom later. If I replaced the liatris with some darker oriental lilies might work better.

I like these two daylilies together. The deep wine color is perfect with the yellow and gold . The dark daylily is almost black when it first opens and fades to a pleasant red/purple later in the day.

Annuals

I think of my annuals as the real work horses in the garden. In May I start searching for old favorites and if I'm lucky find something new and striking. It's usually possible to find some already blooming plants so there won't be any surprises in color. I'm lucky to have a greenhouse near me with a really good selection. I'm not fond of bare ground around my perennial plants so I tend to stick an annual anywhere there is a space in my perennial beds. I try to select annuals that aren't bothered by insects or disease. The ones that go into the ground have to be drought tolerant.

Below, heavenly scented heliotrope is one of my favorites. It looks good with any yellow blooming plants. Pictured here with old fashioned marguerite daisies.





Same thing here with some purple petunias and of course Thumper.













I like these creamy yellow petunias around the base of yellow or orange roses. Roses have gorgeous flowers but the shrub itself is ugly. Anything bushy and blooming that covers the straggly rose canes is a plus.
Below petunias with Autumn Sunset rose.




My favorite petunias are these two- toned purples. They are great with yellow blooming flowers and silvery foliaged plants. There is some dusty miller planted among these and some Achillea 'Moonshine'.















Cleome below. Plant it once and you will have it forever. In the spring the seedlings come up thick as moss on the ground. It gets tall so I put it behind medium height plants. I like it at the base of shrubs like viburnum to add some color long after the vibernum has bloomed. It grows up through the shrub branches and looks interesting. I tried the smaller cleome 'firecracker' in pots but wasn't happy with it. (Warning, pulling up all those extra seedlings can be annoying.) Cleome is quite drought tolerant.


Rudbeckia hirta is an annual for me. Every now and then one will return or reseed, not often.

Double Daylilies

Doubles are my favorites.

I started with Siloam Double Classic, in my opinion the best double ever. Last summer I ordered two new ones: Night Embers and Moses' Fire. These are blooming for the first time this year. I have to admit a little disappointment in Night Embers. The color is dull and fades quickly. The white outlined edges are nice. Moses' Fire is much more orange than the catalog pictures and Night Embers isn't as dark. LOL, why am I surprised that catalog photos aren't accurate.

The first photos are of a daylily growing wild on my farm. When I first found it, I thought it must be rare and unique. Perhaps a sport or mutation of the tawny daylily seen on old farms and along roadsides. Actually, it's fairly common, but no less spectacular. Fulva Kwanso with a triple bloom. This has to be the most elegantly made daylily in existence. Unfortunately it's sterile so hybridizers won't be creating its lovely form in other colors.





Below is Night Embers, a dark and dull red with a white outline around each petal. As with most dark daylilies, the color rubs and washes off easily leaving a blotchy appearance.



Moses' Fire isn't the bright, true red promised in catalogs. When it begins to open, the petals have more red but they soon fade to a spotty orange.





Siloam Double Classic--the gold standard in doubles (in my humble opinion). The first year it bloomed, it was a clear pink. The following years it has displayed a more coral color, perhaps the result of different soil, I really don't know. Double Classic increases quickly in my garden and the single plants have become large clumps. The first photo shows the color the first season. The last photo is this years color. Based on the clear pink color I planted it among pink roses. This year the combination is not pleasing. It needs to be moved into an area with no pink and more blues and purples to look its best.

The photo above shows the color in relation to a truly pink petunia.