June issues forth

Roses (or Rose, as the case may be)

After a spell of crazy hot weather, the garden is now licking its wounds, and, thanks to plenty of rain and a dose of nice weather, doing okay. (I know how concerned you were.) It's June again in Brooklyn, and that means roses.














[Click on any image for a magnified view.]

The first bloom of roses, which was plentiful and luxurious, got scorched. This time around they're holding back. There is only one rose right now.



Oh ye of little faith!

Admit it, you thought that the dogwood was a dud. You thought it was DOA and would end as expensive compost fodder. Not so fast, sister!





















Maybe it was just waiting for that wave of 99-degree weather before coming into its own. If so, it will be quite happy in our Brooklyn backyard. We get lots of that 99-degree weather, just usually in August, not June.







* * *


Personally, I had no idea what mullein was capable of. I'm pretty impressed! It's got to be about five feet tall now.


















Another mullein plant is a bit behind, but looking nice as well.


















Gaura and friends

I didn't even know that gaura existed until Robert gave me this plant last year for Mothers Day or our anniversary or something.















This variety is called "Ballerina" and Robert picked it out for me because at the time, I was finishing up a book about ballerinas. (Ballerina Dreams: A True Story, published by Feiwel & Friends). I really like it -- sort of wild and refined at the same time. It has just started blooming.

Other friends are still getting warmed up. The hollyhock is stretching up and soon it will bloom for the first time -- I only planted it last year.

















And then there is the Mystery Plant #2. Its buds are starting to form. I keep expecting to have my memory jogged -- after all, I am the one who bought it and planted it -- but I'm still at a loss.

















They call me spready ...















Ah, lamium. It never holds back, it just leaps at life, and anything else it encounters. Usually I pull some out every other day or so, but I left it just so that I could take this photo and write about it here. (Pathetic, I know.)

This is what it was doing a few weeks ago. Actually, I weeded it heavily after this photo; since then it's come back, and then some.
















Jolanta is my dear neighbor who first gave me a little clump of lamium a few years ago, duly warning me of its homesteading tendencies. Jolanta, if you are reading this, please don't take my good-natured rants personally. Do forgive me, as I have forgiven you. ;-)




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Aha!

Mystery Solved!

Well, one mystery solved.

I have identified Mystery Plant #1. It is Pulmonaria, aka spotted lungwort. I'm not sure exactly which variety this is, but it's one with very muted speckling on the leaves, making it atypical.



















The other plant remains a mystery:




















Thanks to everyone who is visiting. A special hello to visitors from Japan, Hong Kong, Brazil, Peru, Norway, France, England, and Canada.



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Sunny morning after rain

Though presumably I have more important things to do, the sun was shining and I just had to go out and take a few photos. And I just had to post them. Forgive me. I promise to get to work soon.

[Click on any photo for a magnified view.]

More columbine in bloom.

It's interesting trying to photograph things in the garden as I really see them. The camera sees too much. When I look at this spot through my eyes (and mind and heart) ...













... I don't see the mess of dark fencing against the gray rooftop of the garage below. (The blocks here are terraced, so the back neighbors are below us.) I don't see the chain link fence. I see the glowing petals, the delicate tails of the columbine. Getting up close and managing the background help, even if it does mean twisting myself into some weird, barely-balanced positions. Here the camera's image is more along the lines of what I see:































It's all very interesting, at least to me!




A moment for poetry.

Flower, bee, ant, dew ... didn't Issa write a haiku about that? Or maybe I'm thinking of Emily Dickinson.





















Bee, oh bee,
how do you do
that bee thing
that you do?






Mystery plant #1.

This plant has some distinctive characteristics that should make it easy to identify. But I am still stumped. If you are having one of those aha! moments, please share. Thank you.
































About which I will have more to say later.

This is lamium.













It's very pretty, it has very pretty flowers and the leaves have an interesting scent. Also known as spotted deadnettle. I will have more to say about lamium later (see under "spready").


What happens when you rake up a mess of fallen leaves, twigs, and scattered dirt, which happens to contain seeds from last year's morning glory vine, and let it mellow in the rain for a while? This is what happens.

















I will have more to say about morning glory later (see under "spready," "tenacious," "dear but only to a point").



A lady at her leisure.

The sun feels good to us earthlings.

Warm spot No.1.













Warm spot No. 2.




















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What's New in the Garden?

Hi, everyone! Here are some pictures of what's going on in our Brooklyn backyard garden.



















Okay, this isn't our backyard, this is the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, but it got your attention, didn't it!


Now to my garden. Here are some wide-view shots of the whole thing, such as it is. Not much in bloom yet, but things are filling in nicely! (Click on photos for a slightly bigger view.)


































After a pathetic show last year, our dwarf azalea really went all out this spring.





























Our latest addition to the family: a dogwood tree. Doesn't look like much, I know. It's 2 years old and about 2 feet tall. But just you wait!

We had a maple tree there, but common sense finally prevailed, and we took it down. The dogwood should be just the right size for our mini backyard.



We have two mystery guests this year!

I lost the labels for some of my plants and I don't know what they are. Do you?

Mystery plant #1:

I have 3 of them. Pretty, but what are they?















Mystery plant #2:


I have only one of these. From where I placed it, I'm guessing that it will grow tall flowers. Any ideas? (Click on photo for a bigger view.)



Now on to some old friends.

The last of the iris.

















The first of the columbine (aka aquilegia for you Latin lovers).



























I love this Cranesbill, also known as native geranium or hardy geranium. Tucked nearby is a creeping phlox and, behind, bugleweed. Once the butterfly bush gets into gear, the bugleweed will thrive in its shade, though the cranesbill will suffer. (Click on photo for a bigger view.)



What else?














You can see that the back border is starting to fill in nicely, in an English cottage garden kind of way. (Finally!) Moving from front to back, there's creeping Campanula (bellflower), columbine, daylily, hollyhock, and one of the mystery plants. To the left, the iris keeps spreading like nobody's business. To the right, I'm going to be cutting the lilac way back, to encourage new growth deep into the corner of the fence. (Click on photo for a bigger view.)

That lilac must be at least 50 years old. Our neighbor Ruth, who used to live two doors down in #21 , gave a shoot from her own lilac to Mary Brown, when she was raising her two boys in our house, #17. Ruth sold her house the year we moved to the block -- Robert helped her to clean out the basement, and I helped her to attach a new toilet seat. She was impressed that I was so handy! Now she's living in the southwest with one of her daughters. We still have her Christmas cactus.




I bought a few Verbascum plants last year --- one died, the others didn't do anything. But this year, we'll be getting some blooms. I can't wait.










The hanging planter you see is a combination of petunias and some other things that is doing poorly (already?!), so it's back here in the plant hospital. Once it's looking decent again, I'll hang it out front.
















This year I tried to start a number of things from seed. Not everything was successful. The morning glories, which I will train up the ugly laundry pole, all sprouted, but there's nothing remarkable about that. I'm happy that some of the sweet pea plants are thriving. Here is my sweet pea patch ... er, pot.















I also planted some nasturtium seeds -- Owen helped me. Now it's time to thin them out and transplant most to other spots. My neighbor Joe will take a few. How about you? Both the leaves and flowers are good in salads (so I've read).



In case you haven't seen our screen door and back steps lately, here they are, in all their painted glory. (With requisite junk underneath.)



























Of course, everything displayed in this post really belongs, in her opinion, anyway, to one very special feline: Mitsie. Sometimes she is just too interested in challenging the bees, but so far, no stings.














More later!

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