Fiddling around the edges

Really, I don't mean to whine but - record numbers of 90-degree days? Drought followed by just an inch of two of rain here and there? Asian tiger mosquitoes undeterred by any bug spray you can name?


It's been a miserable month in the garden, I'm afraid. To add to this litany of disasters is the demise of the Sweet 100 cherry tomato. I thought this was an indestructible variety, but somebody came along and ate all of its leaves, so I ripped it out. Could this be the culprit?

 

The eggplants were attacked by flea beetles, and I have only one tiny yellow (huh?) eggplant to show for it. The beans and the zucchini are starting to produce now, but only in the most modest way. Here is today's tiny little harvest. I'm saving the zucchinis in hopes that they will grow more than two inches long.

 

Beyond that, I decided this morning that I could garden for more than thirty minutes if I wore long pants and long sleeves. Feeling a bit like a beekeeper, I succeeded in working for an hour and a half before the heat drove me indoors. Planted the kerria Judy gave me, two pieces in front of the compost trellis and the other next to the yellow kerria along the fence. The compost trellis is a difficult spot - the soil was dry as a bone, plus it's in shade. Will see whether the kerria will survive there or not.

Moved the 'Strawberry Candy' daylilies from the front garden, where they never bloomed, to the walkway bed. Mulched several beds and weeded here and there, which always helps things to look better. Ripped out scads of perilla along the walkway, revealing two almost-hidden day lilies and the nicotiana I started from seed. Perhaps we'll have a bloom or two before summer is over, and with any luck the nicotiana will self-seed there.

Finally, I am starting small with the new shrub and perennial bed in front, beginning by throwing down two bags of mushroom compost. I think I'll start with just a few things and expand the bed over time. I was inspired by Biffy's beautiful raised bed by the terrace to add some grasses.

 

Isn't this beautiful? Her lavender is gorgeous as well, and she attracts all kinds of birds and butterflies. Note to self: add lavender and rosemary to the list...

p.s. On the brighter side, I haven't seen a single Japanese beetle all summer long!

July is finally over, and it's time to garden again - maybe

What happened in July? Drought, that's what happened. We had the hottest July on record, many days around 100 degrees, and approximately 1.1" of rain for the entire month - that's all! It was terrible, kind of like being stuck in the house during a snow storm. Too hot to go out, way too hot and buggy to garden, and meanwhile everything was dying.

Trying hard to be a responsible gardener, I do most of my watering from the rain barrel and from gray water saved from the kitchen sink. But this month I did do some deep watering with the hose and sprinkler a couple of times. How long can you watch your viburnums and hydrangeas curling up and gasping for breath without rushing to their rescue?

But, just like a snow storm, a long, hot summer gives you a chance to dream and plan. So here are some thoughts on moving things around, plus lessons learned from the raised bed. Caution: some of these images may be disturbing.

To be moved:
The American ginger in the shrub border - it gets too much sun and not enough water. Moving them under the oak tree will solve at least the first problem. Here they are all splayed out. Horrible, isn't it?

 

Itea - I have two in the shrub border behind the house, but for whatever reasons, this one suffered terribly in the drought while the other one did fine. I think it's time to move it (where?) and substitute an evergreen that grows 6-8' tall and can hide the rain barrel from view.

 

Tithonia - now that I know what this plant actually is, I would mass them some place where they get good sun and enough water. Not sure where this would be, but I'm working on it.

Tiarella - the sole survivor in front is dwarfed by a Siberian iris that throws its blade-like leaves far and wide and smothers the poor thing. Time to move the iris.

 

To be improved:
ALL the soil in the gardens, but especially in the side cutting garden. Most of what's there are annuals, so this fall will be a good time to dig up the dry, hard clay and add as much of that great compost as I can spare. See how awful it is now?

 

Raised bed area:

The eggplants have been attacked by flea beetles; the pepper was eaten by whatever creature has been eating my plants; the parsleys were discarded and new ones planted but they are tiny because of the drought; the cleomes and cosmos are okay. Putting bird netting around some of the plants seems to have averted the creature (birds? woodchucks??). Only the tomatoes seem to be somewhat successful. I always like cherry tomatoes, but I would not plant Siberia again. A short, cool growing season is hardly one of our problems.

The cardinal climber vine is more delicate than I expected - maybe because of the drought? - and does not have the presence needed for the arbor. Next year, either another year of annuals such as hyacinth bean, or take the plunge and plant roses and clematic.

 

The beans were attacked and replanted and have been sulking a bit. I'll give them another week and then I'll rip them out and plant for the third and last time. The zucchinis are doing okay but not setting much fruit. I may be the only gardener in the world who is not inundated with zucchini this August.

But am I daunted? No, I am not. It takes only one day like today, everything sparkling with the less-than-1/10-of-an-inch-of-rain we had last night and low humidity, for me to think that all things in the garden are possible.

Late summer survivors

The wet spring turned hot and dry, with barely any rain for six weeks in July and August. Who survived? This begonia ('Bubbles'?), a bit odd-looking but with this darling hidden bloom. Planted in a clay pot but never showed any sign of drooping.

 

The hostas did just what they were supposed to do. As summer marched relentlessly on and the summer sun beat down, they became more golden. They're particularly beautiful in the early morning or on a cloudy day, when their ripening foliage glows.

 

The volunteer morning glories did extremely well this year, I can only think because they had sufficient moisture in the early months, for once.

 

 

Who had trouble? The new hydrangeas, of course. 'Little Lamb' has some crispy leaves, but I think it will do fine next year. 'Annabelle' was kind of a mess - big and droopy and suffering terribly from the drought. I hope these were not a mistake. The kirengeshoma kept promising to bloom, but when I looked at it yesterday, even the last few days of rain couldn't save it. It's lost most of its leaves, and the promised buds are now tight little dried-up husks. Here it is in its glory days in mid-July:

 

And here's how it looks after a drought:

 

Sad, isn't it.

A few others that didn't make it: two of the tiarellas that I loved so much this summer. At first I thought they were drooping from lack of water, but I soon realized that the evil voles had been at work again. When you pull up the plant, you get nothing but dead leaves on the top, and no roots. Death to all voles! Here are the horrible remains.

 

After all, not everything in the garden is beautiful, not by a long shot...

Two point two

2.2 inches of rain! And it's still drizzling, with forecasts of another band of heavy rain coming up from the south this afternoon. May it rain on all the newly planted pansies, tulips, hakonechloa, hostas, scillas, lilies, sweetspire, baptisia, aster...

Immeasurable rain

"Immeasurable" can mean impossible to measure or beyond computation. In that case, the rain we had last night was immeasurable, in that it was such a small amount that it was almost impossible to calculate. It dampened the roads and amounted to perhaps half a centimeter in the rain gauge. But, amazingly, it provided three watering cans full and counting from the rain barrel!

The August Garden

On the last day of August, I'm cheered to see what really is in bloom right now. The drought and heat were so enervating that I just gave up on the garden for a while. But today, having just cut the grass for the second time all month, I realized there are quite a few things happening after all.

 
I should grub out these self-seeded morning glories, but then they curl charmingly around the fence and I'm glad I haven't.

 
This is one of those quietly satisfying plantings (though not the best picture of it). Instead of plopping some geraniums in this pot, which lives on the steps at the end of the driveway, I planted some modest bacopa. It is restrained yet endearing, with its tiny white flowers that just keep on blooming.

 
Garlic chives (Allium tuberosum) are a sign that summer is fading. They self-sow everywhere, and again, I should really grub them out, but I like them so much. Here they are adding an architectural element to the front garden. Okay, I really will try to weed them more mindfully once they stop blooming.

 This little stand of Boltonia asteroides is in the front garden, offering a tiny cloud of airy white flowers at this time of year. It would undoubtedly be more abundant if it got more sun, but it persists here happily enough.

Tony Wrenn wrote about British soldiers, aka naked ladies, resurrection lilies, and spider lilies (Lycoris squamigera), in the Free Lance-Star recently. And lo and behold, they are rising up in my garden now, too. I never planted them, they were either planted by the previous owners or just blew in on the wind. See a favorite picture of them from several years ago in my very first post here. I like the tidy little row that popped up in stairstep order in the front garden.

 
For some reason, I haven't had the enormous, fragrant nicotianas self-sowing around the compost pile this year. But here's one peering from under the aucuba in back. Perhaps it will bloom before frost.

 
It takes only a drop of rain for mushrooms to show up. These orange ones are everywhere in the lawn right now.

Dog Days

It's been hot, hot, hot and dry as a bone until the last week or so. Finally, we got half an inch of rain, followed by 2.75 on Monday night - I could hardly believe the rain gauge. Then another crashing thunderstorm last night left another inch. We're still at a deficit, but in much better shape.

This is the time of year to regret your choices and mourn the jobs not done (planting beans, for example). But there are still a few garden joys.
 
The morning glory is terribly puny because there's not enough sun back here, but I love the single blooms that do appear. I think this was a mixed batch of Heavenly Blue and some others.
 
The front garden was gasping, too, but the - I always want to call it phlogiston for some reason - Physostegia virginica or False Dragonhead - is starting to bloom now. I don't know how much I love this, but it does offer some late summer color that's not orange for once.

 

The Black-eyed Susans just keep on going, though I notice that mine are stunted compared to those in my neighbor's well-irrigated garden. Clearly, the lamb's ear also loves this dry weather. (A better gardener would have placed the lamb's ear in front of the Susans, but maybe this fall I'll be moved to move them.)

The best thing to do right now is weed after this rain (which I won't do much of, because it's still hot and humid) and work on fall bulb orders.

Whole lot of nothing going on

Our drought has been so bad that even the hostas were drooping, and the hellebores had apparently just given up and splayed out on the ground. Then we had a ferocious thunderstorm last night, just about four-tenths of an inch of rain, and everybody's sitting up and taking nourishment again.

However, there's not a whole lot to report. I walked around early this morning and saw that the liles are almost at an end,
 



the black-eyed Susans are still puny but no longer wilted (another sign of how bad the drought was), the perovskia is still in bloom, etc.

The balloon flowers (playtcodon) have been in bloom for a good week. I like the lower height of the ones I pruned a month or so ago and will remember that for next year. For some reason, they turn their sweet faces away from me, and I have to climb into the garden to enjoy their blooms: white, blue, and this interesting bicolor one.

 

Shade vs. drought

I am constantly whining about my shady setting, but a couple of blog postings, combined with Adrian Higgins' article about wet gardens, are making me re-think the problem (if there is one). After all, if a sunflower can flourish in partial shade, and the black-eyed Susan is happy in the shade of the compost pile, while the astilbe struggles and the impatiens chokes in the dust, perhaps it's drought I should be paying attention to.

I was particularly struck by one blogger's list of what did and didn't work for her in dry conditions. Here's what does well:

Shrubs: aucuba, nandina, Heleri holly, junipers, spirea, euonymous 'Emerald Gaity', weigela, bottlebrush buckeye, Meidiland rose 'Alba', and oakleaf hydrangea (in full shade).
Perennials: hosta, sedum, Russian sage, daylilies, ornamental grasses, liriope, carex, solomon's seal, garden phlox, euphorbia amygdaloides, purple coneflower, aster, black-eyed susan.

Then she rants about rhododendrons, which I am coming to agree with, and astilbes, which I love but that sit there gritting their teeth and shriveling up in high summer. As a Maryland gardener says, "And the biggest wuss, in my experience, is astilbe. They do nothing for me in summer except threaten to die."