In A Wild Garden

I wander. Maybe for an hour or so I will forget. Click on a picture for the slide show and enter the first ever super bloom of liatris.

A Bloom Day Walk About

By the middle of July two plus acres of sunny utility meadow and roadside vegetable garden are looking like a glitter bomb has been dropped in an ocean of green. The glitter is in constant motion piling up and washing out with more being added all the time.

Closeups of everything that is blooming seems like an impossible task. Even with new eyeballs that can clearly see individual flowers, the long Winter of Monet has trained my mind to see things differently.

The big picture of a living community of plants firmly connected to the earth and posing as a garden makes the flowers less important than the colors they bring.

I see brush strokes in form, texture and color. The other Tall Flower Meadow is now under going a second cleansing and sculpting.

In the beginning several seasons were spent removing a smothering layer of Clematis virginiana vine just to be able to see what else was already there. Bulbarella and nature followed right behind me adding more of everything they possibly could.

Nature's replacement for the smothering vine was the thuggish Solidago canadensis. It wants to rule the entire domain. It was time for it to go. I have been pulling that particular Goldenrod all season. I've made some big dents along the edges, but this too will be a several seasons long project.

There are no doubts Bulbarella and nature will follow right behind me trying to fill every bit of new open space. I'll keep the good stuff and remove the pests.

I have a lot of ground to edit when the entire three plus acres of wild cultivated gardens are taken into account. So it's ok with me that the leeks went wild in the roadside vegetable garden.

It's all like arranging bubbles in the wind trying to pose wild nature and plants that must be half wild to live here as a garden.

I might find some fine produce in there this year. I am content with a glitter bomb too.

Last year my Feather Reed Grass did not bloom. I was hurt. I was most happy to see a very good show this year.

Nature does some unknowable things. I planted liatris corms from stem to stern and tossed out copious amounts of seed to little effect. I was not impressed. This year the liatris is having a super bloom. The vision in my head of long ago is coming to life. I have no idea what set it off or if it will ever happen again.

Shade glitter is different and comes a bit later in the summer.

The slope below the cozy cabin is also under going a Goldenrod reduction program. I want more asters please.

Looking at the pictures as a slide show to better see all the glitter can be done by clicking on any picture. That happens in my browser anyway. Does that work for you?

July Bloom Day for 2018 will go down as the year of the super bloom of liatris. I have something to look forward to in the years to come. It could happen again. Maybe.

Our Bloom Day walk about comes to an end in Paradise Parking Lot where some voodoo is happening. Go visit Carol at May Dreams Gardens for more flowers, more gardens and more Bloom Day fun if you can.

High on the low spot of a North Carolina mountain top, in summer meadows glittered with bloom, that's where I'll be out walking while nudging nature in a new direction. More asters please.

The Bug Garden

It has been five years or so since I planted this garden for a retired entomology professor. He sure knew his bugs. He didn't know squat about plants. A few seasons in, that led to a garden rending moment of exasperation executed with roundup from the evidence I saw.

I have been maintaining the garden for the last two years since he had a life altering gardening accident of another sort.

It is finally becoming the wildflower meadow and bug magnet he requested and that I anticipated. I let nature take over and repair the damage.

I'm beginning to think it takes a real plant whisperer to pull off a site specific, living in the flow of nature, meadow garden.

There really aren't many working gardeners or garden owners who can successfully not maintain a garden enough for it to look good naturally over time.

It was planted to provide bug habitat and year round interest as a front garden for a country home.

The professor did some of his own plantings in the years before his unfortunate gardening ending accident. Very nice. Most everybody can understand how a flower bed like this works.

It takes a different kind of gardener to make a garden made for bugs look pretty.

A Walk Along The Byway

I have been taking plenty of pictures. The gardens are looking most fetching, but when I sit down and try to write something, no words want to come out.

I slip further away in the In Between Time.

It is easier to walk along the scenic byway being absorbed in an explosion of colorful life than to think or speak of all the forces pressing down.

Uncle Ernie could use a fresh coat of paint. I wonder how I ever had time for such things.

There is more than one reason why the roadside vegetable garden was allowed to go feral. I blame it on time.

A wild garden soothes me because it does not demand time so insistently.

A wild garden is content on its own.

This year's contentment is a super bloom of liatris.

I have no idea what caused it.

I was formally unimpressed, imagining the liatris was not liking its new home. It was in there. It bloomed a bit. Nothing special. This year is special. I have no idea what set it off.

Maybe it is best if I have no idea.

And walk deeper into the In Between Time.

The forces pressing down are lighter there.

Paradise Parking Lot

Where voodoo happens.

In The Jungle Heat

My fireflies go to bed shortly after dark which is rather disappointing. I'm ready to sit and watch after dark. Could be the bats.

It's a jungle out there.

I have the rocks to prove it.

The garden continues to be an amazing feat of horticulture.

The 'aina did not come and won't willingly stay this way. The 'aina never stays. It flows.

Horticulture moved in with a living jungle and learned to live in the flow.

While I was turning cold blooded.

The Inbetween Time is still the best light for strolling the gardens and by then a proper cool may have returned to the air.

This is the feral attempt to grow some fine produce. It has been so hot I seeded some okra while planting a few cucumbers. Off to a very late start, the melons have yet to be put in the ground.

Eighty two is entering the danger zone for a cold blooded person. By 85 I am beginning to melt and lose volume. I have melted down to 144lbs. This is a new record of skinny. Cake is not working. I'm giving bread a try.

I come home and wander three acres of mountain top meadow with a one hundred foot elevation change from top to bottom after climbing hot mountains all day loosing volume all along the way.

It's an amazing jungle out there doing its round about the 4th of July peak bloom, just one of many such peak blooms. I must see it, so I wander.

It is a shame more plant nerd kind people don't see the gardens.

One plant nerd will be out there in the cool of the Inbetween Time when the glitter of fireflies come out.