Thursday, August 16, 2012

Another Day Another Garden





















Where I found rose rosette on the climbing rose and two Sourwood trees whose trunks had been completely girdled at several intervals by some boring insect.


























Gardening is a constant confrontation with pestilence.




















The average client tends to think there is some spray, some potion, a fertilizer, a chemical treatment of some sort that I should know about that will fix things. A lot of times there isn't.

I thought I would be getting away from the annual plagues caused by newly introduced insects and diseases when I left Maui. Not. There are times I think I need to get out of the gardening business before the environment goes completely haywire.


























At least we will always have the weeds...er wildflowers. I hope.


8 comments:

Dianne said...

I wonder if there were always pests...just different ones.
And, please tell me why your Joe Pye is such a brighter pink than mine? I do have butterflies though, so they do not seem to mind.

Lola said...

Oh my, seems as tho there is always something to worry us gardeners. I like the second garden too.

Christopher C. NC said...

Dianne there is some mention of pestilence in the Bible. That's a fairly old book. This particular Joe Pye came from Fairegarden in TN so I am sure it is a select cultivar. Our truly wild Joe Pye up here goes from almost white to a pale pink. I do see plenty of much darker Joe Pye along the highways though.

Lola it's always something. Right now it's the racoons in the corn again.

Lola said...

Maybe the trap by the corn. Have you tried it?

Fairegarden said...

I think you are on to something about the weeds/wildflowers, Christopher. This isn't England and the way the climate is changing, we should be taking notice of what is thriving. It is usually things, in my own garden, that I used to pull as weeds and now allow to grow. I know you have the same thing going on in your garden only on a much larger scale. Sometimes I see our weeds featured in the UK gardening magazines! Knowing the names and traits of these hardy plants helps us appreciate them. I believe we should try to get the word out about them.
Frances

Barry said...

From Gene Logsdon's blog, a fellow sez, "Marshmellows". Or is it marshmallows? Don't rightly recall.
I guess those sourwood trees are goners, but that must be a bad bad beetle to do that. Or could woodpeckers do that?

Fairegarden said...

The Joe Pye is the cultivar 'Gateway'.

Christopher C. NC said...

Thank you Frances. I wonder if it will still be 'Gateway' when it breeds with the local inhabitants? So far the seedlings are all pretty dark.