On The Final Day Of August

It is not the rare Blue Mum on the final day of August two thousand and twelve. It is however more orange now than the very yellow mum I remember. There must be something in my soil.

There is a burgeoning crop of blooming weeds in my soil that is for sure.

I will continue to edit and curate them. Wild asters will mingle with the civilized mums.

So that the ends of all Augusts will be a cacophony of colors as a prelude to the fall.

Signs Of Progress

The leaning towers of Cleome. This is the second year of annuals in the cabin side bed. Last year's zinnias were showier. The cleome had to fight off a bountiful population of slugs and there are fewer of them. Perhaps I need to chop off their heads and get them to branch out a bit more. There will be plenty more seed for next year at least.

The service entrance bed has gained a bit of substance over the summer. The morning glory is more vine than bloom. I may have over fertilized it. The yellow Sheffie Mum is budding out and preparing to bloom. The self planted Boneset is looking stately. It is proving to be a rampant self sower. Soon enough I will be able to pull them out when they show up in the wrong place.

Do my eyes deceive me? The crease in the sunny utility valley is looking almost garden like. It is certainly a big improvement over last year's abandonment. For comparison, the untouched part of the tall flower meadow this year is below the Creation, top right. The main players in that patch are New England Aster, Elderberry, Blackberry and Clematis. I think next year that section is gonna get whacked.

There are signs of progress in the garden becoming.

Mum and Joe's Hibiscus

I have no idea what kind of mum this is. It is happy that is for sure. It blooms a full month earlier than the Sheffie mums from Tennessee. I think it is even a different color yellow this year. It will need to be spread around.

Giant hibiscus flowers on plants that never get more than a foot tall. What's up with that?

Good ol Joe Pye.

Another giant hibiscus flower on a tiny plant. I grew these from seed that had been sent to me. Maybe they need to be mulched and some more elbow room to reach full sized plant status. They might also need the heat I hardly ever have. My okra has stopped growing, it has been so cool of late.

August has actually been freakishly cool, rarely getting above 80 degrees high on the low spot. Normally August is our warmest month when the peppers finally start to grow. The peppers are just sitting there now after a bountiful early crop in the heat wave.

Does this early cool mean anything? Is it an omen? I'll find out in due time.

Morning Glory

Things You Might See On A Garden Stroll

Literate Faires

Sitting Squash

Big White Dahlias

Multiple Suns

Purple Sheds

small gods

Appalachian Chicken Shacks

Children Flying

Art left out in the open

Mysterious Paths

Guardian Hounds

Open Pollination

The color pink

If you go on the forth annual West Asheville Garden Stroll

Tinged With Blood

I did say something a while back about letting things be for the rest of the season, but we all knew that was not going to happen. You can't just pull one weed. Once I get started I become a man possessed.

The good news is I am closing in on eliminating the tall fescue grass on the slope below the cozy cabin. By spring I will be able to get rid of the remnants. That bare soil makes for good germination of my other preferred weeds. I even found my first baby Clematis stans while clearing this section of the slope.

Bird deposited blackberries also find bare ground good for germination. I am doing good when the blood loss is minimal.

The bottom crease got some weeding done and a thicket of elderberry where the green fringed orchids grow got yanked.

This is where a river of red blood grass will begin to flow. Where will it flow to? Should I fill the inner eye of Creation with Blood Grass? I just might do that in time if this grass proves as vigorous as people say.

I look up from the bottom and waves of color greet my eye. My editing, add and subtract, is having an effect. Without the three main thugs; New England Aster, Elderberry and Clematis virginiana that binds it all together in a big giant hairball, the other more colorful denizens of the tall flower meadow can take hold.

Now I'll see if I can get a river of blood to run through it.

A bonus, a brand spanking new butterfly drying its wings. The color will even float through the air above the tall flower meadow.

I am making up the garden as I go along, editing. There is a theme in my head with no real specifics. I see no reason why I can't have nice blooming weeds to enjoy as the garden becomes.

All I have to do is weed out the pests.

What It Really Looks Like

This is the time of year when I tell myself there is a garden hiding in there some where.

Where The Weeds Bloom

Eupatorium perfoliatum 

Ratibida columnifera

Clematis stans. I'd trade this non-vining shrub clematis for Clematis viginiana any day.

The newly Eutrochium, purpureum perhaps.

The weeds are blooming.

My Nemesis Blooms

August is proving to be a showy time in the garden becoming. There is quite a bit going on. The first of the mums, an unknown fell out of the ground and followed me home mum, with a bug attached is ready to burst into bloom.

Cleome cast out as seed in the spring have been blooming for quite some time. The purple dahlia is having a second flower. Gardy don't dig no tubers. This dahlia will have to survive winter on its own merits.

One of the other Ironweeds that was already here in the crease of the sunny utility valley aims towards peak bloom. It is going to make a lot of seed. I have already found a few of its progeny poking up through the Lush in this part of the garden.

This is also the time when my nemesis, Virgin's Bower, Clematis virginiana blooms. The damn thing is quite lovely. The seeds are that fascinating clematis fuzz. Millions and millions of seeds that make a vine that climbs by tendrils up everything and can turn a garden into a tangled interconnected mess of steel cables. It will smother anything in its way. It roots where ever it touches the ground with a vise like grip. I hate it. It's lovely and I hate it.

It will take years of weeding to be rid of it all, if ever, and it can always sneak back in on the wind. It is more smothering than Virginia Creeper, worse than Poisoned Ivy, more annoying than Blackberries, a faster spreader than Elderberry. Clematis viginiana is my garden nemesis. We will do battle.

Colors Of The Tall Flower Meadow

Ironweed purple

Joe Pye deeeep pink

Boneset white and Goldenrod yellow

More Ironweed is always good.

Orange and yellow Rudbeckia, Ratibida and mums

Pale pink asters

More ironweed is always good.

Pay Back

Clan Raccoon has gained another victory in the ongoing skirmish. They invaded the sweet corn patch again last night and ate another half dozen or more of the best ears. They only go for the highest quality ears of sweet corn. They leave the little ears for me.

This is pay back for me decimating their numbers. It must have been a sizable clan. This is not the work of a lone raccoon. I know two more were seen on the deck at the capture of number four. Then again, a whole other brigade could be living in the territory across the scenic byway.

I can't stand the mess and cleaned up after dinner like I do every night. The fall garden is germinating in those bare rows and I can't have corn carcasses sitting on top of sprouting seedlings.

There will be no sweet corn for me!

A wise man would stop growing corn. Considering where I live and every things that is out there, it is a wonder I get any produce at all from an unfenced garden in the wilderness. I just don't get any sweet corn.

I do get all kinds of flowers. The Clematis stans is blooming nicely. The plant is terribly hard to photograph. The tiny, pale lilac flowers don't show up well in pictures. In person it is quite showy.

Corn B. Maybe I enjoy the challenge or the drama. Maybe I just have too many seeds and enough space that needs filling. Maybe I need to get a gun.

Maybe next year I will plant sweet potatoes.