Tuesday's Morning with Monday's Photos

So, here's the rest of the photos Blogger wouldn't let me upload last night. Nothing especially new and spectacular, just a few shots of yesterday's morning in the garden. That's the red dianthus, above, making an August return following deadheading.

To the right is the agastache I showed you a few weeks ago, with the licorice-y flowers and leaves. It's become a tidy little plant this summer, but I wonder just how tall it will become before we wrap for the season.

In the distance there, you can see the pale purple thistle flowers. I've mentioned before how I dug the seedling of this wildflower out of a railroad right-of-way...but I'm pleased with it in the garden. It's populating an area of poor soil other things might fail in and I just love those little flowers. Plus, it's turning out to be a good trellace for errant morning glories.

(Actually, apologies are offered...now that I'm looking at this post on a properly-colored monitor, I can see it's not that good a photo...you should see it in just blue, yellow and black...)

I've had lots of compliments and kind words from the neighbors on Not Wisteria Lane this summer. You can imagine they are mostly happy to have the colorful show on what was previously a bare split-rail fence. But the other night, one of our neighbors - in his 80s, we believe - walked over and grabbed hold of one of the branches of this wild thistle and said "What the hell is this?" (yelling more because of deafness than anger, I think...) I replied it was wild thistle. "You planted this? It's a weed!!" I tried to explain about a plant out of place, but that generation knows a weed must be eradicated. He shook his head in something like disgust and walked away.

Ah well, you can't make everyone happy.

It's a beautiful day this morning. There's bright sunshine from a brilliantly blue sky, with an assortment of white puffy clouds here and there overhead. The temperature is an even 70 degrees, but there's not a hint on humidity in the air.

In fact, it feels a little like September.

Her Own Affairs

It appears that my timing in rearranging the morning glories was quite good. Today was the heaviest blooming I've yet seen from them.

As you can see, it was delightful, and probably just a prelude of things to come. I also noticed that one of the several strands of three vines I'd untangled from around the bigger flag had already re-wrapped itself, loosely, around the flag again.

But just look at these guys. How can you fault that kind of enthusiasm?
(Oh, Java love, it occurs to me I forgot to mention not to fertilize those morning glories we were discussing. That'll actually give you tons of beautiful leaves, but fewer blossoms.)

I'm a little sorry that I never got around to picking up one or two of those pale blue morning glory vines this spring, only because their flowers are, I think, a little bigger, and it would've been fun to see that color cavorting with some of these others.

Ah, well...there's always room for a few more morning glory seedlings in the garden budget for next year! And while I'm at it, I have always wanted to try those red Scarlett O'Haras, which would be fun, too, I'm sure.

Fiddle dee dee.


Moonflowers would've been fun, too...especially if they were blooming alongside the Casa Blanca lilies, which are gleaming in the moonless night tonight, their seductive scent wafting amongst the many vines and stems all along the fence.


In the Three Sisters garden, all of the zucchini plants began flowering heavily today. I swear, I like the vegetable well enough (especially in tomato sauce with gooey Mozzarella cheese...), but damn, I just love growing the vines for their fantastic blossoms.

One year we had a pumpkin vine (the off-spring of the previous autumn's jack-o-lantern, actually), which joined a vineful of blue morning glories to climb up the front of the house and over the front door. It was quite a site.

This is the first year I've grow so many of them, and I can finally allow myself to imagine this concept of fried squash blossoms (With fewer plants in the past, I've always hesitated to sacrifice the fruit.). I'll have to look around for a recipe. I imagine a simple light batter would do the trick...but of course, I know little of those, except where cookies and cake are concerned.

The Sweet 100 cherry tomatoes are also ripening up en masse now. I'm sure it'd be nice to clip the whole little vine branch when they are ripe...but I've already munched up half of them. They are delightfully sweet...and I just couldn't resist a few as I examined the rest of the garden's offerings for the day.
All things in mode ration, of course. I've heard tell of stomach acid imbal ances from too many all at once. It's easy to see how that could happen, really, they are so tasty. But there's only the two plants here, so the danger is not so great.

I just love the gradation of color on these guys, from the dark green of the newly formed to the perfectly red of the fabulously-ready.

Heh...of course, since uploading the pic from my camera onto the computer...they are all green and yellow to me, as the monitor is still, as they say, uncooperative. As they also say, dying.

Hey, but check out this newly-opened sunflower, ready to welcome the first day of August.

It's funny how it seems to happen all at once, but it's August 1st and the roads around here today were suddenly JAMMED with cars full of impatient people who have appointments with the beach. Hey buddy, you honkin the horn like that isn't gonna make the sun shine.

Patrick, is there anyone else left in Manhattan besides you, or have you been charged with shutting the door and turning down the lights when you wing off for home?

But August also brings the sulphur cosmos and today, the wind had subsided enough to allow me to catch this nice cosmos porn shot.

More of them are appearing all along the fence, since I also planted these guys in two successive waves. They should bloom merrily well into September, unless Mother Nature has other plans.

Their cosmos cousins, the seashell blossom variety, grow taller by the minute, but have yet to begun producing flower buds. I continue to expect them any moment. I haven't grown this variety, so you may note with assurance I'm a little eager to see how they turn out.

The zinnia seedlings are substantial enough to mention now, and only a little shorter than the ones I saw beginning to bloom in a roadside garden on the way to the bank this morning.

These are the California Giants, and really get to growing quite tall and flowering abundantly as August comes and goes. I very much look forward to that.



The bachelor buttons continue to charm and delight me, as they flower a little more heavily each day or so.

Daisies are reblooming, the Queen Anne's lace holds forth, embracing all of its neighbors in its elegantly wild chaos.



"Let us a little permit Nature to take her own way, she better understands her own affairs than we."

-- Michel Evquem de Montaigne

July's End

Here's a special treat unique to this morning: the Casa Blanca lily has begun to bloom. Regrettably, the plant has been a little overtaken by that very first sunflower, which is still blooming like crazy. I planted it there before realizing that the lily would also be rising there.

The lilies were about twice their height at the old location (check the Casa Blanca tag for last year's amazing show), but that was after two years of putting out some nice deep roots. This year, they're recovering from the move and now a little overshadowed by those upstart sunflowers.

But the show's still a lovely one...you just have to go looking for it. The scent is still heavenly...very light this morning, as is its custom. Tomorrow morning the air will be heavily scented...especially if it's kind of foggy and moist like it was this morning...and as it has become again this evening.

Weird computer thing going on here...it appears that my monitor is beginning to give up the ghost. As I posted this morning's entry, the red cones in the monitor seemed to fail, as everything became a sort of pale blue instead of white...and all red tones disappeared.

I think I was still able to develop these photos as I otherwise would...I'm just not seeing the final true colors as you are. Ah, well...it was a second-hand monitor when it came into my possession and truthfully, it's lasted longer than I'd expected at the start of our acquaintance.

I wonder how much longer before it totally gives me the finger. ; )

In other news, as I was tidying up the garden yesterday, I remem bered Butch's advice from back when the sunflowers first began blooming. At the time, he suggested tying the spent flowerhead onto a tree branch, as a feeder for the birds.


So, as I deadhead the smaller sunflowers which had passed, I bundled the seed heads together into a sort of bouquet, and then lashed it to the tallest tomato plant stake.


As you can see, I've left the largest seedhead hanging from its own stem for now. It has the look of a carnival ride and I know the goldfinches will be able to get under there for the seed just fine.

The goldfinches were all over the seed bouquet this morning, as well as nibbling or nectar-sucking from the fresher flowers.


These shots aren't as clear as I might like...they utilize both the fast setting and the digital zoom, as I was shooting through the glass window of the front door.

Fun to watch them flit and flutter around. They are wild little birds to study, fast moving and all over the place...and so light, they can perch on the side of the thinnest plants without bowing them to the ground.

Plus, they are like flowers with their bright yellow and black coloration. Flowers that have come to life and left their stems to take to the air, cavorting with butterflies and bees and all.

Yesterday afternoon, I saw a blue dragonfly a couple of times. It kept landing on the flagstone walk in the sun, but never remained long enough for me to train my camera on it. I have high hopes for the hot afternoons of August, when they seem - as do we all - a little lazy about accomplishing anything more than sitting around in the afternoon sun for a little while.

Today was a bit cooler than we've enjoyed recently, the temperature only climbing into the mid-60s. It was a mildly overcast day and the fog - which never seemed to recede entirely - came rolling back as afternoon became evening...looking like smoke drifting over the neighborhood rooftops.

Lily's Last Stand

Our last glimpse of the Casa Blancas for 2005. 

Lily Pollen Legwarmers

 

Big surprise: I don't know what kind of beetle this fellow is, found wandering around inside the Casa Blanca lilies. I know he's not a lily leaf beetle...and judging from his appearance, he may be doing some good, as regards pollination. Or he might just have a sweet-tooth for lily nectar. In any event, there he is.

Perhaps its due to strength in numbers, or maybe its the morning's rising humidity. But mingled with the scent of sea salt is the heady fragrance of Casa Blanca lilies, as we welcome blossom #4. 

Cool Morning

 

This morning I'm pleased to report that the thunderstorm which passed to our north last evening, and brought us some welcome rain (tho not very much at that), has also had the delightful effect of taking away the humidity which yesterday weighed so heavy on us and lowered the temp a little.

The Casa Blanca lilies continue to open...two more this morning...but I'm a little suspicious of their true identity. As lovely as they are, they seem to have very little of the rich scent I associate with them. Still, they're easily the star of this Act of the garden's Vaudeville Review, backed up by a happy chorus of giant bellflowers and assorted other players.

Casa Blanca Morning

 

We enjoyed a cool night last, and so I slept without a fan on. This meant that I knew before I open my eyes how right the forecast for high humidity would be for today. I was happy to get out to the garden with my first precious cup of coffee and discover there was a lovely breeze to provide some relief. But as the morning has continued, you can tell it won't be much help in a little while.

My favorite of all the lilies, the oriental Casa Blanca began blooming this morning, a lovely thing to behold, despite some damage due to the much-discussed lily leaf beetles. The striped stamens are especially something on this one. As much as I understand the need to trim them off to prevent pollen stains when cutting for arrangements, it'd be a sad thing to emasculate this massive beauty.

With such a hot day on tap, I doubled the watering this morning (Rain in the forecast? Don't make me laugh. They say maybe next week.) and also took care of some much-needed dead-heading duties. Having started so early, there was plenty of time, too, for just stopping and looking, really the best part of being a gardener, if you can make yourself stand still for a moment or two. It was a nice morning for sitting and listening to the birds waking up (even they seem slow to start on this humid day).

Eartlier this week, I started loosening the sod for a new bed in the back garden. This will be where I move all the rootbound irises from various gardens around the house, as I divide them, in hopes of seeing some blooms next spring. But that's definitely not hot weather work, so I'll let the sun dry to soil there a bit, which will make the task a little simpler when I do get back to it.