A Tale Of Two Bloom Days

I am a day late for Bloom Day. I ran out of energy last night and nothing would come out once the pictures were uploaded. I have been picking up branches and sticks since Tuesday afternoon after Irma was done doing the deed.

I took a few pictures in a client's garden that was completely spared the wrath in case the Tall Flower Meadow wasn't up to Bloom Day.

Here we have asters and ageratum.

It is amazing what a proper bed in a proper garden will do for asters.

There are pink anemones

And white anemones. If any plant could get wind whipped it would be anemones. I don't understand how we got beat up on one side of the county and on the other it was just a couple of nice rainy days.

Does this hydrangea look like it got hit with high winds and steady rain?  That thing should be shredded. Less work for me, so I am certainly good with it.

The Tall Flower Meadow blooms on. Considering how much crap fell out of the forest trees, the meadow stood up pretty well.

I've been picking up sticks since Tuesday afternoon and making piles in the pathways for later removal. There are stick piles all over the garden.

Most of the hosta survived intact. One group was a bit mangled from the big branches that landed on top of them.

I still have plenty of bloom in the meadow although it is way less perky and does not show as well from above.

The white snakeroot and snapweed, the native impatiens, will just have to finish things up slightly bent. Most things won't be standing back up. The may rise a little. That is the best I can hope for.

Some things flop hurricane or not. The New England Aster here is quite lovely. It just falls over the moment it goes into bloom. At five to six feet tall that is a problem. I pull it relentlessly. The supply is endless.

I prefer the Blue Wood Aster. It is a bit less floppy and at three feet tall more acceptable in a leaning position. Plus it prefers growing in the shade of the forest. That is a big plus in these parts.

The Tall Flower Meadow really does deserve some credit for remaining mostly intact. I have seen it get flattened even worse in a bad thunderstorm

It's current state could best be  described as tangled. The untangling and fluffing has started now that most of the sticks have been pulled out of it. I'm not sure that is going to help much, but why not try as I wander through.

As of the end of today I am ready for the blue asters. The sticks have been picked up, packed up and burned up. My part of the wild cultivated gardens is done.

All that is left to tidy is the roadside vegetable garden that was basically flattened. The sunny utility meadow which looked relatively fine. The back end of Bulbarella's ridge top garden was a disaster. That is going to take some time to tidy.

Something bad happened right over the Madison county line that is her garden's border. I drove a mile into that county this morning and the forest at the top was beat to crap. Massive trees were blown over or busted in two. The guardrails along the byway were marked with orange paint where trees had bent them when falling. It was a mess.

We got lucky. Irma left us with a pretty good Bloom Day.