There Is A Pumpkin

In my third attempt at pumpkin growing one has finally set. It's already cantaloupe size and slowly enlarging. This is the Red Warty Thing from Botanical Interests, some of the seed swag from Asheville Fling 2012. There are even four other smaller potential pumpkins that look like they have been pollinated and are ready to go.

After two failed attempts is it possible I could end up with a bunch of pumpkins?

You know how seed packets are always saying make a mound and plant three seeds per mound, blah, blah, blah.

Well they neglect the fine print which is the mound should be three feet tall, ten feet long, five feet across and composed entirely of dung. That is how I got my pumpkin. And a whole bunch of zucchini, who knows how many butternut squash, they are setting like crazy, and maybe a sack of cucumbers if they don't get consumed by the pumpkin.

I think I like dung pile gardening.

I know these pink lilies came from the discard rack, but how did they end up pink? I don't think I'd buy pink lilies even at the discard price. Oh well. Pink lilies are better than no lilies and lilies are challenged up here by a number of pests and varmints.

I had some beautiful white lilies last year. They came up this spring big and fat and were promptly consumed from the inside out. All that's left are remnants.

This year at least it's looking like there will be pumpkins.

It's In There

There is a very productive vegetable garden in there. I swear.

The wild flower surround just has a bad habit of stepping inside the bounds. Then I am not ruthless enough to yank a perfectly good wild flower. Maybe I'll get around to transplanting them. Maybe I'll collect the mature seed for flinging. Maybe.

There are vegetables in there with all those flowers. I swear.

The roadside vegetable garden blends in nicely with the sunny utility meadow. It is a near seamless transition.

I just need to get all those Rudbeckia and Vernonia out of there and down in to the meadow. The easiest way is by seed.

They won't transplant well like the grasses. I'll just have to collect the seed. Then I have to get ruthless.

In West Asheville

Preparing for the upcoming West Asheville Garden Stroll on Saturday, September 13th.

Like This

I went to work with the truck loaded like this

And came back home with two Aralia racemosa in a sack

Which is how I end up with a garden that looks like this

And is filled with all kinds of things like this

There is something to be said for gardening with divisions, gifts, discards and findlings.

Summer Bloom In The Sunny Utility Meadow

Summer Bloom At Client #1's

Torrential

Every other rain has been a gully washer. I've lost count of how many times we have gotten an inch plus of rain in less than an hour. Culvert Falls has been flowing so regularly I was forced to finally and permanently divert the flow to where it needed to go.

But rain makes Lush even in the shade. My bold foliage additions in the shadier parts of the garden are doing fine in all this wet.

Big foliage like the Rodgersia have are critical to breaking up the little leaf syndrome and saying garden in the wild Lush that grows in the shade.

Big drifts of one thing also make a statement in all this space. One of this and one of that will only get lost in the green monotony.

The Lush is still standing pretty straight and tall considering. There is all kinds of budding going on. All that green will soon burst into bloom. The exuberant chaos of late summer is coming.

Joe Pye is leading the way.

Leaving Blue

If I didn't have to leave for work. If it wouldn't appear too odd. I might park a chair at the top of my driveway and watch the chicory until it closed for the day.

It is spreading by its own means and at its own pace. My seed flinging has been to little effect. I need chicory I can see while sittin' on the front porch. I'll fling some more seed.