August Doings

More action in the garden, in spite of the heat. We've had high 80s, sometimes 90s, with high humidity, for what feels like weeks and weeks. I think it has been weeks and weeks. Today, at least, is truly lovely -- 82o, very low humidity. Thank you, all buddhas and bodhisatvas in the ten directions!

[Click on any image for a magnified view.]

The clematis has now bloomed. One bloom. That's all. Did I do something wrong? I don't know. Everything is blooming less than it has in the past. I'm going to blame it on global warming, pandering to the uber-rich, and the war in Iraq.














Speaking of wars -- are you in the CLEMatis or the clemATis camp? Fine Gardening magazine says CLEMatis is correct. The dictionary (and the staff at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden) say both are correct. I'm following Fine Gardening, because I am a fine gardener, n'est-ce pas?

Other new faces:

Toad Lily (Latin Tricyrtis). This is one of my truly exotic plants, as it is native to Japan. Hence its placement near the fountain. I moved it forward a bit, and it seems to relish the extra light. I plan to save the seeds and see if I can get more plants going next year.

































Also newly blooming is the Liriope, aka Lilyturf. Apparently it is an aggressive spreader. That's why I put it amongst the lamium. They can fight it out. (Sorry for the combative subtext in this post. What is that about? Hmmm.)
















The nasturtiums are struggling along, blooming and then getting blasted by the heat. I've moved most of the plants to shadier spots. The flowers have an interesting structure.
































The fountain grass is blooming. I am probably allergic to it. Oh well.














A bloom emerges:


















Lost in a fountain grass world:















The daylilies are still going strong.



















Each flower lasts for one day. In the morning, I go out and pull off the finished blosoms. All that photosynthesis, osmosis, respiration, transpiration, and what-not, for a day's bloom.


This is what the butterfly bush looked like in May:



















This is what it looks like now:



















This is what it's all about:
















The fig tree next door also has grown quite a bit. Soon we will have ripe figs.



















And how is the morning glory doing? Just fine, thanks.



















We have a new addition to the hardscape. Someone down the street is cleaning out their garage and discarded this ladder. I've leaned another part of it against a wall of the house. Not sure what I'm going to do with it. Robert suggests using the two halves to build an arbor. I might just let a clematis or climbing rose have its way with it. Still thinking.



















Finally, sunflower siblings.
















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Of Cups and Roses

About four years ago, I planted cupflower (Nierembergia) under the forsythia. Since then, it has hardly ever bloomed. Last year, I don't think it bloomed at all. It has not exactly manifested as "rapidly spreading low plants, smothered in upward facing, cup shaped white flowers all season long," as promised. I'm not sure if the problem has been too much or too little, or of what. Sun? Water? Nutrients? Working in organic fertilizer didn't help last year. Doing nothing seems to have done the trick this year. (And cutting back the forsythia.)














Cupflower in its proper glory (just the beginning, one hopes).

[Click on any image for a magnified view.]

Meanwhile, the roses are starting to do their thing. (In truth, these photos were taken almost a week ago, at the end of May, and their thing has since come along a bit.)















I always like to document the First Rose of Summer. It's always on this bush, which has particular meaning to me. When we bought this house five years ago, we closed on October 30, right before Halloween (and a week before my 40th birthday). When we got back from the closing, even though it was very late I went over to the house with the key to take a proprietary look around. After taking lots of photos of the fake-wood-paneled, shag-carpeted, suspended-ceiling-hung interior, I switched on the backyard light, waded through the chest-high weeds, and came to this rose bush -- or tree, since it was almost ten feet tall. I was amazed to see (and smell) a number of pink blooms and some buds as well. In fact, it bloomed into December. (Then it abruptly stopped, as one of the coldest winters in a long time settled in. With all those old, drafty windows, it wasn't only the roses that shivered that winter.)

Of the original eight rose bushes we inherited with the house, we now have only two, the pink and this yellow one. It blooms later and less, but the scent is so lovely. Here, it needs another five days or so to start opening.

Our neighbor's roses are already going gangbusters.
But we're not envious. Not a bit.

On the other side, our neighbors have a stunning fig tree. It produces more figs than the bunch of us can keep up with. However, the squirrels are happy to do their part.


















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