Thursday, May 31, 2018

The Maintenance Gardener Needed A Fix

In all this wet, mostly dry is an opportunity. Mostly dry is good enough to whack and the maintenance gardener was beginning to chafe at the monsoon growth while strolling the garden. I got home a little earlier today after my client's open garden day.




















On the way home I passed through a traffic scattering torrential downdraft wall of water. The clouds had parted a half hour before and closed back a half hour after the garden tour. The weather was perfect for the tour. Then it got ugly.

There was only evidence of a light rain back home. It was mostly dry. Who knows when some spare hours and mostly dry will coincide again?




















It was time to get whacking while I had the chance.




















Would I make it to the Great Lawn for its first haircut before another wall of water landed on me?




















The first haircut is always the hardest. So much potential bloom is sacrificed to the gods of civilization. But in the big picture, the majority of a Tall Flower Meadow remains. The maintenance gardener was pleased. There is definition.




















It is hard to enter a wild place. A nice open path says welcome. Walk this way. Once comfortably inside, that wild transformative magic can take place. Even the varmints prefer using a nice mowed path.

The maintenance gardener knows.


Wednesday, May 30, 2018

Lots Of Raindrops

It's mighty wet out there. Things are beginning to rot. I see leaf blights.




















Blindness may have had some advantages. No leaf blight.




















In a garden, it's always something.




















I never know what is going to have a good year or a bad year or get smacked by some weather condition at any point in the cycle. They are purple in the rain.



















I set my new head on the front porch and it started to get filled with fog. It is thick heavy glass and weighs a good four pounds. Must be a weather head.




















Sister #2 thought I could use a place to keep what's left of the rest of my mind. I'll take it.




















Out there in the wet I saw my first bear up here high on the low spot.




















Knowing it and seeing it are two different things. There is a bear out there.


Sunday, May 27, 2018

I Can See Raindrops

The cleaning gods ruled yesterday. Today the resting gods were in charge. At least they ruled after work both days.



















A client is having an open garden day next Thursday. That involves me. I was there until the rains came again.




















The rain followed me home, insisting. It is moist out there. I was already tired and dirty and covered in house scum. No need to get wet too. I opted to sit and rest a spell.




















That is when I saw rain drops, individual raindrops. I even saw mosquito larvae in a still fountain today.




















It's like voodoo learning to see again.


Friday, May 25, 2018

In The Time Of Rousseau

Slide Show. You're on your own. I need to clean something. Anything.































Monet is still in here.


Thursday, May 24, 2018

A Walk Through An Improper Garden

It has been a long week back to work and it won't be over until June sometime. And sometimes you just have to put down the gloves and try to walk through the wild cultivated gardens and do nothing but look. At least you have to try.



















A good path mowing will make me feel better. Or should I clean the house?  A little. Sister #1 has booked my luxury couch accommodations for a couple nights this coming week.




















Now I must rest. It has been a long week with a completed set of new eyeballs.




















Take a walk on your own in the improper gardens. The slide show option is good. Just click on a picture.


























It's alive! And I have high hopes for its twin, even though it hasn't broken bud yet. Yes, the new growth is supposed to be that color well into the growing season.


Sunday, May 20, 2018

The Purge

It was a mad house on the scenic byway yesterday morning with a bicycle ride that took two hours for all the riders to pass, a huge number of motorized support vehicles, regular motorcycle rally and rubbernecker traffic and a live auction of good country junk just down the road. A mad house.

I edited while the world rolled by.




















This is the year. No more thinking about it. A purge of the more aggressive goldenrods is well under way.




















Left alone the goldenrods will dominate the Tall Flower Meadow at the expense of so much else by stealing all the sun. Their numbers are being drastically reduced. It is simple enough. I grab individual stems close to the base and pull. Maybe I get a little root, maybe I don't. I have set the plant back big time by stealing all the energy that stem represents.

Now another plant, hopefully an aster has the chance to shade out the stunted goldenrod crown. That is the theory anyway. One thing I know I don't need is a lot of bare ground. That is the favorite haunt of thuggish first responders.




















My aim is not perfection or total elimination, it is to nudge the meadow in a new direction and away from a one note golden domination. The Tall Flower Meadow is filled with a huge array of characters just waiting to be featured.




















My big bold foliage plants are getting bigger by the year.




















I prefer they be shown off to best advantage and not ensnared in a clump of smothering goldenrod.




















The skylight making for the planted plants of the Under Garden is easy and ongoing. Now I just grab lots of goldenrod as I make my rounds.




















My eyeball surgery induced staycation is over. Time to go back to paying work. It was nice while it lasted.




















I'll be ready for the debris flying path whacking next week. By then my eyeball shouldn't be half bloodshot. The time to whack the Great Lawn into appearance is near.