After The Dry Flood

It started raining an hour before the flash flood watch ended and has been raining off and on since.  It has been the definition of widely scattered and the rain hasn't amounted to more than heavy humidity when it does fall. It's a dry rain.

Further south where most of my work is, it was a wetter more consistent mist and rain. Enough for me to call it quits and go home where I have a blooming meadow to look at. I have a slightly cleaner house now too.

Rattlesnake Master in the Tall Flower Meadow.

This is Joe Pye.

Another key player in the Tall Flower Meadow is Boneset, Eupatorium perfoliatum. Once there were a couple of them. Opening up space with editing has increased their numbers dramatically.

Take a walk on the wild side.

The Goldenrod has started. One species of Goldenrod, I have four, Solidago canadensis, is determined to take over the entire meadow. I am going to have to put a halt to that. I'll worry about that after the show is over.

Now is the time to sit back and enjoy.

Still Standing

This has been the absolute driest flash flood watch. We got a dash of spit and much later a minute and a half of semi hard rain. The watch is over at midnight. I suspect we will get some actual rain tomorrow when we return to our regularly scheduled forecast.

Water did fall elsewhere. The radar showed water all around us. The river was up and muddy. I'm sure someone's creek did rise. I'm just happy the Tall Flower Meadow is still standing.

The butterflies have arrived to dance above Joe Pye. That works better and looks better when it is still standing.

Last year the meadow was squashed just as it was about to hit peak bloom. I was not happy. It never really recovered. It needs to be upright and perky for maximum bloom impact.

The white Boneset and yellow Goldenrod are starting to join in. The asters come later.

I will do another mowing of the paths and Great Lawn before the year is over. I am considering an open garden day if things don't get squashed. That would have to be planned for before or after the pre and stroll days of the West Asheville Garden Stroll. I'll have to see how the meadow blooms in the next two weeks.

Rumbly Thunder

The atmosphere is unsettled. We are under a flash flood watch until Tuesday morning. So far there has been a lot of rumbly thunder and passing black skies. There was a short moment of spit. That was it.

The Tall Flower Meadow was looking good this morning.

If the radar is to be believed it has been raining for the last three hours one valley over. Hence the flash flood warning. The diagnosis suggested these thunderstorms could get stuck on the higher ridges dumping large amounts of water in concentrated locations.

I hear thunder. I smell rain. The sky is black as can be. No water has come of it. I think it is stuck. A little rain would be nice. A flash flood worthy rain would be wrong. I want my ironweed to remain standing.

This is a perilous time for the meadow. Big fat flower heads on Joe Pye add weight to tall skinny stems. Torrential downpours and strong wind gusts can wreak havoc. That would be wrong.

Tall Ironweed and Joe Pye try to invade the roadside vegetable garden. Bare and fluffy mulched ground makes for excellent germination beds. My efforts to weed it out are half hearted.

The meadow is a lot shorter on the other side of the driveway. Full sun and less fertile ground changes who germinates and lives.

Yes there is a vegetable garden in there, a garden that could use some rain.

All I got was a lot of rumbly thunder. Given a choice between torrential and possibly damaging rain and dry rumbly thunder with a perky meadow, I'll take the perky meadow.

The Tall Flower Meadow was looking lovely this evening. I think it even has a hint more color than this morning. Now it just need to get through tomorrow's flash flood watch without getting squashed.

That Time Of Year

It is that time of year when the Lush has reached its full height and stature.

The Tall Flower Meadow begins the month long process of coming in to full bloom.

It is also the time of year when some damn varmint starts digging big holes in the garden. June is fireflies. August is katydids and the big hole digger. It's like clockwork.

I suppose I should be grateful. The big hole digger is after underground yellow jacket and wasp nests I have been blissfully unaware of while I rummage through the garden. These wasps start getting real cranky towards the end of the season and are far more likely to attack from even a slight disturbance now. A dug up and et up nest is a very good thing.

Bears, skunks and raccoons are the main suspects. If it is a bear all can say is it is quite precise in its digging and very tidy about it. One would think an animal of that size would squash everything in the near vicinity.

Some other damn varmint has decided flower petals are quite delicious. Lucky I have plenty to share.

This mystery melon has a most unusual shape. So far there is just the one. By now I know which squashes and melons will be making fine produce. The cantaloupe aren't happening. The chances get slimmer with each passing day. I can only hope they will still surprise me.

It's that time of year when having a wild meadow garden is worth the wait.

And I wait a little more as each passing day draws closer to the big blooming extravaganza of chaos.

A Sack Of Fine Produce

Anything that hasn't bloomed yet is budding out. The big end of summer show approaches.

I have some mighty big Joe Pye. It is one of the first to bloom.

The bloom period is quite long and the flowers age beautifully. Joe Pye maintains its presence quite well until the last aster blooms.

The often towering Ironweed is right behind Joe Pye.

It's favorite home is in the middle of the roadside vegetable garden. I have only had the heart to thin it out a bit, thinking of it as a seed source for spreading to the meadows. One day when the meadows have more ironweed, I will have to remove it from the vegetable garden. A plant that tall is a sunlight robber.

No matter. I get plenty sun. Late summer is also harvest time and I have been pulling sacks of fine produce out of the roadside vegetable garden. This year we are having a glut of cucumbers and I have been taking full sacks of them to the soup kitchen.

I know what I am having for dinner tomorrow.

A bumble rests on the side of the vegetable garden. I should follow its example.

Love And Angst

Is your garden supposed to take you on an emotional roller coaster ride from sublime joy to helpless overwhelming despair and back again with a full range of feelings in between?

Mine does. It may have something to do with the difference between my days spent in well tended gardens with proper beds and the rest of my time spent managing chaos on the edge of the wilderness.

There are moments of awe transfixed by raw beauty and thoughts of what a rat's nest looking at the same scene. It could be all about the lighting. The time of year and what is in bloom may also have an effect.

Day by day and year by year the garden is in constant motion. It is forever changing. I am not in control of most of what it does. All those well tended gardens with proper beds don't generate near the same amount of volatility.

I can walk through chaos and feel the most profound meditative calm.

On a different day, oh Lord what have I done? I need to rip all that out before it takes over. When? How? Is it even possible? Oh Lord. My decrepitude approaches.

I wait in anticipation for a Tall Flower Meadow to produce a riot of color with baited breath that it isn't flattened now by a crushing storm. The really big show is late summer into fall. The rest is just a warm up.

Maybe it is just me. Can a garden really toy with your emotions?

Who Is In Charge

It all started with the dead hemlocks. Once a mighty grove of forest giants spread from where my little cabin sits, down the slope, across the stream and half way up the next ridge. A tiny little bug sucked the life out of them. They were no more.

Sunlight that had been held high in the treetops crashed to the ground. An explosion occurred.

Let's just say growing a whole new forest from scratch is not a tidy process. Then add in dead giants that one by one are falling down.

The fast and aggressive are the first to take hold. I am lucky that on this mountain top that does not include a host of non-native invasives like bittersweet vine, kudzu or wild rose. Plenty of native plants are quite capable of filling that role though.

The gardener did not want more of those. There are plenty of tulip poplars, birch and black locust already. Blackberry is just plain mean.

Hiding in the tangle was a plan B forest. The gardener decided to edit for that. I have not seen Aralia spinosa anywhere in my travels. It is viciously thorny, but since no one else has it, I should have it in my garden. It stays.

Underneath the thuggish was a proliferation of magnolias. I will be having a big leaf Magnolia fraseri forest. I have also found Magnolia acuminata, Chestnut Oak and Sourwood. The new forest will have trees that are less represented in the current forest.

The gardener will make it so.

At least the gardener likes to think he can make it so.

The dung piles of squash have taken off. The butternut squash are doing great. The mystery melons all appear to be ornamental pumpkins, gourds and probably luffa sponge. The only way those could have gotten here is through the back end of goats. I had nothing to do with it.

Now the plan was for dung piles covered in the most delicious cantaloupe ever. They are still thinking about it. It's August 1st today. Time is running out. The plan for cantaloupe may not pan out.

Vegetables are weird. This year I am being over run with cucumbers while the yellow squash sulk. Most years it is the other way around. Maybe this is an off year for cantaloupe.

I call it the Garden. I am not sure it is convinced of that.

My control over the Tall Flower Meadow is limited at best. Veto power is all I can legitimately claim and that only as time and energy permit. What I plant can only be considered a suggestion.

Some suggestions do settle in and many quickly go feral. That may be what it takes to live in the wild cultivated gardens.

Joe Pye went feral fast. I'm good with that. It is a major player in the Tall Flower Meadow.

I did sit for a very brief moment after editing for hours in the new forest.

The gardener sets things in motion, but who really is in charge?