A Finished Bauble

The service entrance also leads down to the basement patio.

Now that it is an official destination and the threat of frost better be past, it was time to finish the new bauble. One Ponytail Palm was planted in the spray painted metal pipe section.

One more touch of greenery for the patio.

When that was finished it began to rain. I did not move. I just sat there. That Joe Pye in the planting pocket is going to change the feel of things quickly.

Eight Years And Ten Months Later

I sat down in the basement patio.

And it was good. I did not want to get back up.

A table and chairs have come to live there. It is no longer a pass through space. It is a fully functioning destination. The purpose is to sit, relax and enjoy the view. It will make a fine place for al fresco candle light suppers and morning coffee.

I will blend in to the scenery and watch the traffic pass me by. And it will be good.

The south west exposure could prove a challenge for a few hours of the setting sun. I may need a pair of shades, for my eyes, not the patio. I don't want to mess it up with blinds.

The new furniture is completely mobile. It can move with the sun or shade, rain or clear skies. I'll set there and see what happens. I have a functioning basement patio and bird's eye view now to watch the Lush explode.

Meanwhile at the Posh Estate, Lorelei has arrived.

The Mother Iris

Like many plants in my garden, the purple iris currently blooming in my cabin side bed came from another garden. Here it blooms where I found it.

All of this came from divisions I pulled from the single original clump. Today I was asked to spread it farther. The original clump is getting shaded out. The whole thing can be divided and moved.

That means this must be the Clothesline Iris. I will be visiting its original home on Saturday and will see if it is blooming or even still there.

This is new. I have never seen a trillium do this before. The white ones do age to pink, a uniform pink, never a tie dyed pink. There is another just like it on the slope below the scenic byway. It if goes tie dyed too, I could have something special.

The Yellow Lady Slipper got a second shot of hot pepper. Last year some damn bug burrowed in and ate one of the flower buds before it came close to opening. I wanted to prevent that. I may have been to late. There was a suspicious hole in the terminal end of one stalk. I made sure to get some hot pepper in there.

One stem went to two, then to three for the second year now. I want six stems. I want seedlings. I want the bugs to leave it alone.

The pink azalea is looking nice.

Nature can be cruel and be kind in the same year. Nature can be strange and odd and unpredictable. Nature can be intense and amazing. Up here I have come to expect change and variation. There is no single way of doing things. There is no regular, only a continuum on which to plot an average.

Side by side along a path in the sunny utility meadow are two flower forms of Golden Ragwort, Packera aurea. It shouldn't come as a surprise that I have a tie dyed trillium.

On A Summer Day In Spring

It may be another four years before I see these iris again.

Best I get a picture now in case I ever need to remember what they look like.

The white Dwarf Crested Iris, Iris cristata, was the first to bloom. They bloom every year, sometimes thick and sometimes thin.

That is Mt. Sterling in the GSMNP out there.

It's like a swarm of pink butterflies.

Anticipation. The Yellow Lady Slipper is up.

This is what a deciduous azalea does when you don't hack at it to make it fit. I suppose in more sun it would be more compact.

There 's still no luteum in my trilliums. I can handle it I guess. Three other store bought trilliums have gone missing. The uvularia is a no show. I will have to dig some more. Some damn bug ate one of my emerging Aralia cordata 'Sun King'. I think it can be salvaged with a shot of cayenne pepper.

In a world of Lush the bugs go after my cultivated plants and there are people out there who will insist that bugs only like and are adapted to locally native things. Hog wash.

In Gardens Today

An iris blooming for the first time in four years.

It must be the spring without knock down freezes.

These were at work today, planted last fall.

Nice tree peony. First time I have seen the bloom.

Looking for varmints in the sunny utility meadow. I found more cow tracks down there. It is a wonder the beast did not fall through a hole over the stream and break a leg. That would have been truly ugly.

The Lush begins.

Fothergilla by the front porch.

Yes, the Lush Begins.

The pink azalea blooms.

This is my favorite of the deciduous azaleas. Of course I have no idea who it is.

Yes, we have bluebells.

Celandine and Lunaria.

The flight of the pink azalea through the spring forest.

It Is Done

The redo is done. A new paver walkway was set in the gravel in the Fountain Garden. May it last long and wear well.

I saw a fresh mole hump when I arrived this afternoon. May the mole crash head first into a heavy cement paver and be rendered senseless. Damn varmint!

This will be much better for travel than the too thin flagstone no matter what the mole decides to do. It will also be much easier to sweep to tidy for each new event.

I moved a Hydrangea paniculata that was already crowding the path while I was there. Best to do it now before it became a real problem. The time for flower filler in the beds is fast approaching. The Agastache and mums did not fare well over the winter. The beds need more flowers and less mulch. Several things are still in the waking phase so it will continue to fill in over the next couple of weeks.

Unlike my garden where I could use more mulch and less wild flowers. There is no bare ground in my garden. Is is filled. The Lush is coming.

Counting Cows And Chickens

I was engrossed with editing today. Slow and leisurely, round and round, I am well on my way to eliminating the annual Cleavers or Velcro Weed, Galium aparine, from the garden before it has a chance to set seed. That just leaves the sunny utility meadow and ridge top garden to edit.

It was a most beautiful day and traffic on the scenic byway was buzzing. I don't pay much attention to the motorcycles and all the other noise as it thunders by. What was that?

Who cares. The Fothergilla is blooming nicely.

There is a bumper crop of the biennial Angelica gigas in the sunny utility meadow this year. If that all blooms it is going to be quite the show. If. It still has to make it past out average annual last frost date unharmed which is still three weeks away despite the summer like temperatures. If we have another hard freeze now it will be ugly. Everything is too far along for another freeze. I shouldn't count on a stellar bloom hatching just yet.

I did get two angelica to take in my garden. They should bloom this year. I will let them go to seed and spread about the garden. That is the plan anyway.

What was that noise? Look Miss Collar. See that cow. Look. There is a black cow on the scenic byway. So that is what I heard earlier that sounded different. Mooo.

Absolutely not. Do not come down my driveway. Shoo cow. Shoo.

I made it up to the roadside vegetable garden to chop down a dead rose and do a touch of weeding. I was so engrossed in editing, I had no idea a black cow was in the vegetable garden mooing. Do you know how deep a black cow can sink in fluffy soil? At least the tracks said it was a single round trip.

I called the cow people. My regulars would not claim it. It must have come from the Kingdom of Madison. The last I saw it, the cow was on a fast trot back to Madison with a line of motorcycles behind it.

One of my cow regulars did stop by just to have a look and be safe. We talked story a bit, ramps and wild pigs. The pigs were getting in his pasture. Did I see those ladies parked below coming out of the woods with sacks stuffed full of ramps?

Wild pigs, loose cows, ramp rustlers, root and tuber eating varmints. I was glad to see my Clintonia umbellulata lilies had come up and had multiplied.

While I edit I see what is missing, what has multiplied and what I plain forgot about. I found a Fly Poison I didn't remember planting. It was looking good. I don't think I planted this trillium. I know they can spread by seed on their own. What was that seed I gathered and planted last fall? I thought it might be Doll's Eye, Actaea pachypoda. It was still green when I picked it. It will be years before it would bloom and make eyes if any of the seeds germinate. By the time that happens, it will be a complete surprise. Where did that come from?

The Redo Is Almost Done

Much progress was made today on setting the pavers for the walkway redo in the Fountain Garden.

It's almost ready for a fresh layer of pea gravel.

It will be lovely.

The moles will hate it, at least one can hope.

This will be much better and more stable for heavy traffic.

Unfortunately I was five pavers short of a full walkway. The completion date is now set for Monday afternoon.

I was done anyway and way out beyond that highest peak on the right in the far distance another garden was calling.

The world is turning green.

I bought two Shredded Umbrella Leaf, Syneilesis aconitifolia, at the same nursery on the same day. They are two very different plants. This one is coming up as a solid clump and has thicker segments between shreddings.

This one is coming up as a ring. I hope it doesn't mean some damn varmint ate the middle out of it. It is much more finely dissected with thinner segments between shreddings. The flowers are different also. One is more an umbel while the other is a spike. This is unusual for a nursery bought plant.

I'm guessing the pretty pink trillium I saw yesterday was a Nodding Trillium, T. cernuum. Mine are turning pink.

Trillium grandiflorum also turns pink as it ages. I have been most pleased with the progress of these since their relocation out of the deep forest. They are multiplying. That is what I want.

I have a new pavement of Mayapples. It looks like they are about to rush right into the garden, but that is it for the year. They come up and go no farther. The invasion is happening below the ground.