Meditation On The Basement Patio

Button is almost ready for his after dinner nap. He was nodding off. It's just hard to leave all those varmints alone.

The nap won out. He came in to bed.

Portulaca in a pot. I make every effort to have potted plants that don't need regular watering. Who has the time for that?

In the land where the chicory blooms.

In The Time Of Vegetation

The dry spell ended and the wet has returned in abundance.

It is a Lush green world out there, growing and growing some more.

While wandering doing some half hearted editing; there comes a point of why bother, much to my shock I discovered a seedling white flowered Spirea japonica.

How dare you. I spent weeks with my plant dealer trying to track down a quantity of the white Spirea japonica 'Conspiyet' for the Wedding Cake Garden. The Yeti™ it turns out was a myth.

Of five blooming stems, one had a few remnant pink flowers. How special. I should just propagate my own™. This spirea will be given a skylight and some elbow room for sure.

Out there in the Lush you never know what you might find.

Some places stay dry in the wet.

The wet pounded today. Culvert Falls roared like never before scouring the earth until the garden calmed it down.

The waters rose up yet again.

All the way to the firepit bindi for the second time this year. I am beginning to wonder. What forces are driving this change? Has my neighbor across the byway done anything to alter the flows above? Is this going to be the new normal?

The garden grows on no matter. Aralia cordata 'Sun King' stands unfazed, directly in the path of the flow.

Baby Gardens

At the end of spring number two, a garden planted quite late in the year, early winter of 2017, is showing signs of more robust growth. In this climate you have to wait a full year or two for that kind of stirring.

The good news is I have found the majority of clients love their gardens the most during the baby years. When things really start to grow and the plants begin to touch each other, the thrill of it all begins to dissipate. Panic can set in.

I think a lot of people like showy expanses of mulch. This garden was planted with a number of groundcovers as a dominant element that will eventually fill in completely and eliminate the need for mulch entirely. Kind of like an abstract quilt. That is the plan anyway.

The majority of shrubs are smaller dwarf forms. That will slow things down a bit. The baby phase should last a bit longer. This was also a big attempt to keep a garden as low maintenance as possible.

The Japanese Maple is the only thing that remains from the original landscape.

Eventually the AC unit and backup generator will be hidden from the curb appeal view.

Elsewhere, a new roadside bed is taking shape. Two years of wet and a mega wet spring revealed all kinds of drainage issues in long ignored pipes all over the county. A clogged buried culvert was replaced with an open rip rap ditch. This road is a mishmash of buried culverts and open ditch.

The long talked about berm for the new circular drive is advancing into reality. I was given a pile of dirt and a load of rocks. Make it pretty they said.

Do those rocks look familiar?

Today 'Brilliance' Autumn Fern was planted on the backside.

I'm waiting for my plant dealer to get me some Cephalotaxus harringtonia 'Prostrata', Spreading Japanese Plum Yew for the front side.

They call it Stonehenge. That is not what I see.

June Bloom Day

It was a lovely sun shiny day. I got to stay home and move slowly. Doing. There was a nice nap. Before it was all over I went for a Bloom Day walk about. There is a lot going on and June is the bloom lull high on the low spot in the wild cultivated gardens.

Rose Campion

The native Smooth Hydrangea

A few of them want to be lacecaps.

In a wall of hydrangea I did not plant.

All kinds of small grasses are blooming.

Spirea japonica, a bit of a self sowing pest.

The last of the Black Gamecock

A Filipendula

The Carrion Flower goes to seed

Thermopsis caroliniana

Queen Anne's Lace with bugs

Ox-Eye Daisy

Fleabane

A lily that fell out of the ground and followed me home many years ago blooms for the very first time.

The Meidiland rose

The first of thousands

I spent most of my day doing in the roadside vegetable garden.

One full month past the average annual last frost date and the garden is finally fully seeded and planted. I planted the fall vegetable garden early.

My vegetable growing season is so short up here that is pretty much all I get anyway. Things are looking good. There will be some fine produce.

The vegetable garden is surrounded by wild.

And the leftover parsnips are allowed to bloom.

Spigelia marilandica

A white iris on the Great lawn

Common Milkweed just waiting for caterpillars.

The Lush out by the roadside

With asters I expected to be taller and bloom in the fall. Hopefully they will get their act together once they settle in.

It was a most relaxing Bloom Day. Miss Carol at May Dreams Gardens will have more.

There will be plenty more in the Lush of the wild cultivated gardens. The time of vegetation is just getting started.

Ready For Inspection

The garden selection team for the 2020 Haywood County Cooperative Extension garden tour is stopping by for a visit tomorrow to see if they want our two next door gardens on the tour. We were last on the tour in 2014. Much has changed since then.

I have a lot more bling. Still, I thought a little civilized would be helpful.

A full mile of pathways through the Lush were weed whacked.

I did more in one evening after work than normal, but it was something I do routinely this time of year anyway. Besides, I am quite fond of a good mow job myself.

One of my clients will most likely be on the tour too. That will make three garden tours where capital I have gotten other gardens ready for show.

That always makes getting the three acres of the wild cultivated gardens ready for show easy by comparison. The clients tend to get stressed and a bit wacky. They aim for perfection. I just go about my gardening as normal and give the gardens, even the roadside, a good mow job the week before show time.

That is pretty much all I can do. This time of year the Lush is in control in the wild cultivated gardens.