Garden in the rain

 

I'm not sure how I ended up with only pale yellow irises (I used to have white and pale blue ones handed down from Bob Taylor via Mom), but they are abundant. Here's the first bloom, despite two straight days of rain.

 

Susan Hepler may not know there's a peony named after her, but there is in my garden! She gave me two plants several years ago and one of them has buds for the first time. I can't wait to see what it is - it might be a pale pink?

 

This 'Paul's Glory' hosta is doing just what it's supposed to do - growing up to hide the dying daffodil foliage in front of the trellis.

These next two pictures are exciting because they come close to capturing the blues of the tradescantia and the purples of the columbines and sage. My camera has never done this before, but I've never used the Manual setting before. Maybe one day I will understand... Anyway, the front garden is primarily blue right now, until the irises and peonies take over.

 

 

Gullywasher

Last night, 2.5 inches of rain fell on Ferry Farm. Hurrah! Luckily, we avoided the tornado that hit England Run. All I found was a piece of insulation (I think) and a roof tile (not mine so far as I can tell), plus a few oak twigs. May the rain continue!

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."

The June Garden

It's been dry, dry, dry, Dulles reporting the least rainfall ever for the month of May. I've watered the front gardens and the white garden although I feel guilty about it, but I have to keep that bloodroot alive!



Here's a piece of garden statuary that finally has a home on the weathered fence.

And just across from it is the oakleaf hydrangea 'Snowflake' that has traveled around the garden - first under the oak tree, then along the fence in the white garden - until finding its final resting place (I hope) next to the back door. It's drooping just a bit, so I may sneak out and give it a drink later today.


Thunderstorms are promised for Sunday, but what we really need is a good, soaking rain. * which we got all day on Sunday, thanks to tropical storm Barry. 1 1/3 inches!

Nor'easter of Ought Seven

We needed the rain...but then the garden floods. I'm thinking about a dry stream bed to border the white garden and somehow lead out the gate to the path.


The back corner always floods.

Here's where the dry stream bed might go.


There needs to be some way to drain the path.

Another spot for the dry stream bed (and that door could use some work!).

What's in bloom today

Another cool week, so the tulips are lasting and lasting. This picture was meant to show how the Corps de Ballet tulip mix from WFF included some orange tulips that really didn't work, but as a bonus you can see that the white water pipe doesn't work, either!

A nor'easter promised for tonight and tomorrow, and we do need the rain. At the moment, the azaleas are starting to come out,

and the Solomon's Seal is slowly emerging from the leaf litter.