Clivia ‘Good Hope’
My Return to the Garden
All my preparations for me absence paid off. Only a few plants died and nothing was eaten. Hooray! I am very pleased to learn I can leave for a week without a disaster.
Most of the calla lilies are up and budding or blooming. I am still waiting for the yellow to show. Hot Chocolate is my most requested calla. It is tall and hardy. I love the clear spots on the leaves.
Another popular calla is Captain Romance. Its buds have an interesting gradation of color that is not as visible in the blooms.
Captain Romance is shorter than Hot Chocolate.
I will also show off the first hibiscus bloom.
This red flower has a beautiful back as well as face.
More blooms to come. I am tired of typing with a bandage in my fingertip.
FLOW BACK HOME
More Beheadings Overnight
I admit it. I cried. The herd is one step ahead of me. The Easter Lily buds were eaten along with Strutter’s Ball buds and even one Tiger Lily.
I will show you my “Moving Rings” method of protection. This requires proper timing. Too late is too late.
In early spring the rings are low. To protect the tender new shoots as they emerge. Deer do not like putting their head inside a ring.
As the bloom stalks rise, the ring must rise higher. I place a stake against the ring and hang it around the buds.
A lot of trouble you say? Yes it is. I was here before the deer. I would never have knowingly planted a “Deer Delicatesan” had I been aware of their presence.
I will be moving my favorites, like Nutmeg Spice (below) into the safety of the bunny yard without bunnies.
Poles and rings are everywhere. Not the scene I had envisioned. Ghetto Gardening is my name for it. I am not too proud to use junk to save my treasures.
We must all adapt as changes come.
FLOW
P.S. Local gardeners: I have been trying to hire a garden concierge to help care for my gardens. Hip surgery may be in my future.
If you know of a young, energetic, quick learner, please show them this blog.
That Fuzzy Face
This Verbascum is dreamy. I want to make its blooms into jewelry and wear them.
It is not just the colors that get me, although I find the dusty plum and creamy peach delicious.
Its the little, fuzzy faces that make me want to wear it. Like a delicate corsage close to my face or in my hair.
When I spied this plant in a pot I grabbed it up and did not let go. Sometimes you just know!
FLOW
Leaving the Garden
Next week I will be leaving the garden again. It is much like leaving pets. I circle the yard thinking of the future.
Will this pot be too small by next week? Will this stem need a stake as it grows? Will there be rain?
The deer have all ready be-headed a daylily I failed to fence in. Some roses have black spot. Many amaryllis bulbs have not bloomed.
Which brought me to this morning’s epiphany.
I caught myself saying, “They are too tired to bloom.”
I am too tired to bloom, too.
My garden has good bones. My plants have been planted and cared for properly. It must survive my absence while I rest and recharge.
I trust my work to endure.
FLOWER
The First Monarch
I watch every spring for the first Monarch. I know they will come. I have prepared a place for them.
I have scattered Butterfly Weed/Asclepias among the weeds on the bank across the drive, where the wild and hybrids battle for space.
I can always find wildlife among the weeds. This is where I belong really, in the unkempt zone of life.
Where life does its thing without boundaries; no judgement, no primping, no pruning.
Just growing under the sun with the wild ones.
FLOW
Rose’s Lilies
My daughter, Rose, loves Asiatic lilies.
Her garden contains only lilies and roses.
She waits for them to bloom and tiptoes out in her bare feet to photograph them.
She loves her small garden full of her favorite flowers.
I love my Rose.
FLOWER/Seizure Mama
A Gorgeous Menace
I fell in love with Fallopia’s variegated leaves. The white splotches on bright green were irresistible. I put it in a featured location so I could see it from all angles.
The red twigs, with bright white and green are gorgeous in any light. I loved its tiny, white, aromatic blooms covered in bees during June.
I did not know I had allowed in a menace for several years. The first problem was the Japanese Beetles. They prefer these leaves to any other plant in my garden. I do not like to provide food for pest, as you know. So each summer when the beetles arrived I simply chopped down the stems and burned them.
But the something else occurred. I kept finding those beloved leaves in miniature away from the parent plant. Further and further away. I put the parent plant in a pot and buried it. This has slowed down the appearance of escapees.
If you look up Fallopia japonica ‘Variegata’/Japanese Knotweed. You will see it is a menace in the south. A gorgeous menace.
FLOW didn’t know!
Sly Foxgloves
Digitalis purpurea is one species of plant that is unpredictable. It changes location and form. Just when you think it is in the right place in a border, it moves or changes height or color. Then you have tall plants in the front and short plants in back.
Where you planted a soothing white ends up hot pink with spots. I will not complain simply because I love them any where they show up no matter the height and color.
I did count on a white version called Dalmation to brighten a shady spot, but pink has been just as nice.
The blooms are magical to me. The ones with the pointed bottom lips remind me of elf hats and the ruffled blooms look like fairy bonnets.
It is one plant I intend to have in my garden forever. Shifty and sly as they are, they are still one of my favorite flowers.
FLOW
