Wimps And Monsters

Summer and fall, the wild sumac, Rhus glabra, growing along the roadsides is quite attractive. It has showy flowers and great fall color. The pinnately compound leaves are a nice contrast to the much more common simple leaves of the deciduous forest.

Sumac was on my list to get for the garden. When a volunteer showed up in the dung department it was moved to where I wanted it on the slope below the scenic byway.

I must have transplanted it three seasons ago because it is now in the leap phase. Other than some hail damage, it is looking good. Maybe it will even bloom this year. I hope it is female. They have the showier seed heads.

I knew it was a suckering, colony forming shrub when I planted it. I expected and wanted that. This is definitely the leap year. It has suckered like mad sending up more than a dozen new stems up to ten feet away from the original plant.

Have I planted a monster? I see annual removal ahead of unwanted shoots to keep it contained to the allotted space. This year it is free to roam.

I planted some rated to zone three, common as dirt cultivar of arborvitae on this same section of slope for some evergreen winter interest twice. They have been killed outright and severely damaged by no where close to zone three cold both times.

When I saw how much the sumac was trying to spread, I just thought, screw the arborvitae. They are in the sumac's way. Well it seems there is a little life left in the ones I planted too early this spring. I will weed around them for one more season.

This is it. Life or die. Wimp.

I planted another alleged monster on this same section of slope, the Plume Poppy, Macleaya cordata. In it's first spring it has gone from one stem to four well spaced stems. That is certainly a sign it wants to multiply and move. It would look nicer if it had not been pulverized by hail.

I might worry more about aggressive plants if the garden was not already full of them. The Goldenrod surrounding the Plume Poppy is just one example. Wimpy plants just can't compete.

That is why it makes me happy to see the Kousa Dogwood growing robustly. That just isn't the case with so many things I have planted. There is a lot of slow and steady from battling the elements and competition. There is also a lot of death and disappearance.

My elements are more extreme at this elevation. Most years the peppers biggest hurdle is the cool. Highs in the upper 70's most of the summer isn't quite to the peppers liking for producing fine produce. I usually get one good harvest though.

This year the peppers were punctured by hard pellets of hail and have to start over. My poor peppers.

Have you ever seen parsnips bloom? They are eight feet tall and over my head. They must have thick skin because the hail didn't bother them.The stems are dinged and bruised, but the plants are standing tall.

For now the parsnips are the monster in the roadside vegetable garden.

Bent But Not Broken

There are survivors. Firmly closed with pointy tips facing up, this orange lily deflected the onslaught of torrential hail.

My found Goat's Beard in the future garden expansion is bent, but not broken. There was an inch and three quarters of rain that also came with the hail in a very short amount of time. It was like being hit by a big wave full of beach pebbles.

In some ways it is surprising the carnage is not worse. The Ox-Eye Daisies are standing back up and resuming their cheery dance around the garden. I don't plant these. My observation is that they act like biennials more than anything else. Because of that they are never in the same place from year to year and some years have more of a showing than others.

A wild garden is starting to shake off a wild ride. It will take a couple of weeks no doubt for most of the damage to fade away. The hosta and a few others will remain shredded. They will remind us of that vicious assualt by hail.

Hail Plop

The damage is done. The garden will grow on. From a distance it is still lush and green.

The remnants of the hail plop that were washed through the culvert under my driveway were still melting this morning. It was piles like this that were stopping traffic yesterday evening and sending snow plows out in June.

The garden looks like it was hit by an explosion of flying glass. Shredded is the best description.

Bruised and scratched works too.

Hosta and hail do not mix.

Some fared significantly worse than others. Tree cover and leaf quality are contributing factors.

The hosta are shredded for the rest of the year. They will not grow new leaves or repair the damage. We will just have to live with it and let them photosynthesize and store food with what they have left. To remove the mess would weaken the plants.

The Shredded Umbrella Leaf looks completely unscathed. It must pay to come pre-shredded. I will say pinnately compound leaves seemed to have fared better than simple leaves.

This is the big bold foliage of the mighty jungle after an elephant passes through.

Iris really is not supposed to have this fine textural detailing. It does now.

I look at all the broken tops and wonder, will the Tall Flower Meadow have an extra abundant bloom this year because that other gardener decided to pinch out the tops and force them to branch. It is certainly early enough in the season for that to happen. It could turn out to be quite spectacular.

How the Kousa Dogwood managed to remain  near perfect is a mystery.

The garden will grow on.

The gardener will keep pedaling.

Well Hail

Might as well be considered snow in June. It is frozen and very cold, possibly even super chilled. Who knows what layer of the stratosphere it fell from.

You could call it really fat sleet.

A quarter inch of hail fell in ten minutes along with an inch and three quarters of rain to wash it all down.

It piled up in drifts. Some were so big it seems, the traffic was stopping on the byway to gawk. Then after supper I saw the snow plow drive by. Yes the snow plow. I know what it looks like.

The wild cultivated gardens were thrashed mercilessly. So much for bold foliage. It will remain holey for the rest of the season.

Culvert Falls was roaring and for the first time the water flowed all the way down the hill to the center of Creation before vanishing into the ground.

Well Hail!!

These were squashes and cucumbers.

This was the roadside vegetable garden Tossed salad anyone?

Things were going so well and looking so perky. Now there will be a period of adjustment. Good thing I have faith in the power of the Lush.

Earlier today on the other side of the universe, where please, have mercy, I hope it did not hail, the flagstone gravel path in the Fountain Garden was finished.

It rained almost the entire time I was washing six bags of sand into the gravel to give it more cohesion and stability. Not fun. I was hosing in the sand during the sprinkles between down pours.

The Lady of the House gave it a two thumbs up.

It does look sharp. Now the durability test can begin.

Here's a gratuitous mermaid shot. I hear tell from a very reliable source that people have been gravitating to Twin Falls Pond and not wanting to leave. That is high praise indeed if it is winning out over the world class view from the front veranda.

Amazing what a few fancy thirty five dollar fish can do.

Incoming

This has been happening quite a bit in the last week. I read this afternoon that we should be expecting more in the next couple of weeks. The jet stream has shifted.

And that is how I end up with this. Plenty water makes for a big Lush.

The Mighty Jungle

I'm not missing the toucan.

It grows and grows. It grows so fast the annual plague of grasshoppers can't chew holes in every leaf.

Then it rains and rains some more. The slime brigades of slugs and snails try mightily to consume everything in their path and fail.

Ruins of old would be completely consumed if I ignored them for too long.

The Lush leaps up reaching into baby trees.

The Tall Flower Meadow is growing taller by the day.

In the shade Bold foliage punctuates the chaos.

Where there is sun there are more flowers. More flowers will keep coming.

I live in a temperate jungle.

Where Carrion Flowers perfume the air. I live wild.

And work civilized. The flagstone gravel path in the fountain garden is almost done.

I am floating the stones in the tan pea gravel on top off a thin layer of paver base. Stone by stone I am making the walkway level and as flat as a pancake.

It feels comfortable to walk on already, but some of the stones are pretty thin and are bound to move with traffic. After it is set, settled and topped off with more pea gravel where needed, I plan to brush, then wash in a light layer of sand to help lock the gravel in place.

Then I am going plant shopping. There is a lot of mulch to cover.