My Garden Is Not Normal

It was a most excellent day in the garden. I got everything done and then some except for sowing my squash and melon seeds in trays of four inch pots. I'll get to that.

There was no rush at any point. I moved leisurely through the day. It took me two hours to pick up the trash along the scenic byway because I was botanizing the entire way.

I did the second more extensive mowing when I got back just because that little bit of tidy makes the garden look so much better and more like an intentional garden than the wild thing it is.

The new pots were made yellow

And set into place. I'm thinking big begonias for foliage or I could go tropical.

I can stare at the garden for hours. It is so not like any of the gardens I tend all week long. My garden is not normal.

With planting, editing and time, the textural complexity is beginning to really show.

The weed whacker is the chisel for this sculpture. It defines lines and edges normally done with mulch and barriers. Here height alone shows you were to walk. All the beasts that wander through actually prefer to use the paths.

I was not ready to mow the Great Lawn. A path will do for now. I have seeds ripening on my blooming weeds. The Mayapples are still fresh. This morning dozens of butterflies were nectering on the lawn. It was buzzing with all kind bugs and bees. My lawn was seething with life. I can't mow it now.

The reality of this garden is that I have paths through one giant flower bed. The Great Lawn is merely an aneurysm.

In my garden, the wild orchids bloom.

There Was A Sign

I was attending to the planned work activities for the day. There it was, a sign that said, Native Plant Sale, with an arrow. I knew the garden where that arrow pointed. There was a very good chance they would have something I needed. When pre-work activity step one was completed, I turned around and followed the signs.

They took me to the Corneille Bryan native plant garden in Lake Junaluska as I suspected and yes indeed they had things I needed. I even knew two of the volunteers working the sale. I'm kama'aina now.

I acquired Goldenseal. I tried growing that from seed and failed. I got some Jacob's Ladder. I bought some cultivar of this and it died. At the native plant garden it runs rampant. I want rampant. I was told the secret is getting the real native, not a west coast kind. The third item I bought was Elephant's Foot. It's a bizarro aster relative not likely to be found anywhere else anytime soon. I didn't have that.

I already had a list of activities planned for tomorrow. I need to paint my pots and place them in their final homes. I want to sow my squash and melon seeds in trays of four inch pots. The roadside vegetable garden can use a bit of weeding and prep work for the planting of fine produce coming up. I am determined to pick up the trash along the top section of the scenic byway. It's piling up and making me crazy.

Now I have a few items to plant. Is there any room for them out there in the Lush?

Location matters. I need to find the right places to put them so they will live long and multiply. I can think on that some.

If any time is left over, I might even get some editing in. I have decided it is time to stop ignoring the Poisoned Ivy. I attacked a big patch of it when I got home this evening. There is plenty more.

I'm Thinking Yellow

It was one of those houses in the mountains with a steep driveway and nothing close to an adequate amount of space to easily turn around at the top. She wanted to replant them. He grumbled about her scratching up the cars all the time coming and going.

I said I could make them disappear and suggested smaller round plastic pots as an alternative. He leapt at the opportunity. I either saved or ended a marriage.

They came home with me. I could find a safe place for them somewhere. Where? So I thought about it. Top of the drive? No. Bottom of parking lot? No. Just more junk there. In the garden? Sure, but where and how do I get these very heavy pots down there?

I drove them down there that's how. Now I am thinking yellow. They can be painted yellow and tucked into the Lush.

After they get painted bright yellow, they will be moved two feet back and spaced about ten feet apart. One will mark a path intersection. Then I can plant something in them. What?

Yellow is a small theme color right now. Yellow will flow with daffodil season as well.

The new big heavy pots will be behind the bold foliage department. I'm still waiting for the Darmera to wake up. The fern fronds are taking their sweet time.

I could fit a half a dozen cats in one of these pots.

Lush.

The Lush can swallow anything so I am not worried about big yellow pots in the garden looking out of place. I have ample room.

If you are horrified by the idea of me painting such classic styled pots yellow, don't be. If nature can turn a tree stump neon orange, I can have yellow pots.

I have a few more pots that will get painted.

Bright yellow pots will be visible from my front porch at least until the Lush grows tall. They are all freshly scrubbed and drying. I can paint on Sunday.

A little more color in the garden will be good. It can't hurt a thing.

The Trouble With Trilliums

One

Two

Three

Four and Five

Six or a larger version of five.

So six or seven. Two, maybe three are not shown so that makes eight or nine, maybe ten kind trilliums. Does that make sense. I sure get confused.

There are big petaled and skinny petaled pure white ones. The white ones can age to a deep pink. There is one oddball that does tie dye. The cream white ones can open with a pink blush and even have freckles. There is a smaller sideways blooming red one and a big black red one that hides under the leaf. Got it? How many species of trilliums do I have?

The luteum is beginning to show now in Trillium luteum.

The fern fronds are still unfurling. There are unfurling fern fronds all over the place. I have four or five species of ferns I can think of off the top of my head. There could be more. There is. I just thought of another one.

There is more than one kind Uvularia, but I just have three patches of the one species. So far.

Lots of trilliums.

The False Solomon's Seal is coming up.

Puff

Pink Puff Darmera peltata.

Have I mentioned the Bluebells?

My trilliums probably don't stick with their own kind. The subtle variation is a taxonomic headache. The solution of course is not to worry about it. All the gardener needs is for my trilliums to look like this.

Deep in the forest they are busy doing what they do. All the kinds of them all mixed up.

I'll have to look this up later, but I think it is called Twisted Mandarin and there is more than one kind, a large, much showier flowered version and the small one. I have found the small one in several locations. I need to find the big flowered kind. Then I need to move some into the garden.

I could also start work on clearing a trail and tidying the forest to make visiting the wild things easier. It's on the list.

Bluebells with Moby Rock and white blooming Sedum ternatum on top.

That's life in the wild cultivated gardens.

Post Dinner Weed And Stroll

The rain finally stopped and the sun came out. That meant a post dinner stroll in the ridge top garden. I stroll with gloves, weeder and clippers just in case. Like I am not going to find something that needs to be pulled. Ha. Velcro Weed is my chosen target for these kind strolls. I always find something else that needs to die.

Miss Dinah comes with. She is happy the rain finally stopped too.

There is a nice little colony of the native Delphinium tricorne next door. I need to collect seed or move plants and get some going in my garden, This spring wild flower does fine in the shade of the forest.

 Some woodland phlox and a few bluebells.

A few more bluebells. That is a path through the middle.

Actually there are millions of Bluebells in blue, pink and white. Millions. Beware the Hyacinthoides hispanica.