Changing Weather

The rainy night passed and morning came to Not Wisteria Lane. It was not a sunny morning, but there were blue patches of hope appearing amongst the lingering cloud cover. While the garden is looking a bit overgrown and now a little bedraggled and rain-battered, there were still plenty of surprises and discoveries.

First, allow me a moment to crow about the corn in the Three Sisters garden. It's at least as tall as me (5'11") now and the beans are nicely working their way up the stalks. One of those stalks is actually a few inches around. I am totally impressed.

I wonder where the credit is due, but there are so many factors. First, we must not discount the position of nearly full sun. This patch is actually seriously shaded in the morning hours, but gets strong sun from about 10 a.m. to about 6 p.m.

Second, there's some nice soil in that part of the yard, plus it was supplemented with a big harvest of seaweed and saltgrass and other shoreline debris I collected at Rock Harbor and spread over the top back in April.

Third, there's the soaker hose weaving its way just underground through this bed, which has resulted in it's having been well-watered down at the roots where it counts most for a plant.

Fourth, in addition to the seaweed and all, the corn has also received a feeding or two of organic fertilizer pellets over the season and is additionally receiving the benefit of the nitrogen which its bed-mate, the pole beans, are fixing in the soil as they grow.

I also wonder if the corn being planted in raised mounds has an impact. No doubt, such a situation seems like it would cause the soil to heat up and encourage hearty root growth. Like I said, it's probably a convergence of all those things.

I do see a few ears forming here and there, which is kind of exciting. That sort of balances out the fact that I went looking for zucchinis this morning and couldn't find any. After the great rush of flowering last week, I'd have hoped for something...I wonder if my bunny friends have been nibbling on flowers again.

The morning glories are continuing to be a fun and ever-changing show in the early hours of the day, especially as the later plantings begin to bloom and different colors mingle together.

These new purple ones--there seems to be just one vine of this particular shading--aren't flowering heavily yet, but I still get excited seeing them. What a color!

One of the larger sunflowers with the giant drooping faded flowerheads has now decided to present a few smaller side blossoms and the first one unfurled this morning.

On a gray day like today especially, it's easy to see where they got their name. It almost seemed the flower was coaxing the sun to come out of the clouds.


Although the clouds were thinning out, there was still a lot of darkness in the sky to the north.

The storm we'd received the severe warning about on TV last night actually moved north across the Upper Cape, around Sandwich area, so we only saw some distant flashes of lightning...and there were a few showers on and off throughout the night.

Since I had noted the direction of the storm on radar (I'm such a weather geek, eh?), I didn't shut down the computer, as I said I was going to do and would probably have been a smart move, just the same.

While mostly sitting back and enjoying the late night Olympic coverage [oh, man! I'm watching tonight as I blog, too...and swimmer Micheal Phelps just won his tenth-ever gold medal!! Woo hoo!], I was also keeping an eye on the radar. It was fascinating to watch the storm (even in the limited color range my monitor currently allows) pass over land and then blossom into a much bigger business as it crossed the waters of the bay.

On the animated radar map I was watching, you could see little bits of storms swirling in a larger funnel pattern, all centered around the Cape, with that intense storm at the heart of it.

By the time I woke this morning, it had all solidified into a large storm over the waters north of the Cape and it looked like it might actually swirl back down over us again. That didn't happen; it went north to Maine instead, but the dark clouds in that direction made it seem a little uncertain early on.

There's a long shot of that hanging basket of lantana. I really way the tiny flowers change colors as they mature, so that their compound flowerheads are ultimately patterned with different colors. I gave them a sniff last night, after some discussion on the subject in comments. I don't find they have any particularly rich or notable fragrance...just a sort of pollen-y pungence, if that makes any sense.

I've always been quite comfortable admitting to you all that I don't know lots of things about plants and gardening. One of the persistant mysteries of the last few years of gardening (and actually most of the three year history of this blog) was the identity of the white flowered plant below.

I had discovered it in the meadow at our old house, where it's seedling self was growing shoulder to shoulder with the coneflower rudbeckias, then also seedlings and some purple siberian iris (which the bunnies mowed completely this spring).

It looked like an interesting plant and in the orchard garden's partial sun it grew to astonishing heights. True, it's tiny white flowers were a bit of an anti-climax, but the butterflies loved them and I thought they might have been Joe Pye Weed, if not for the color of the blooms. Now I have learned the two plants are indeed related.

Today I learned this is called common boneset, or eupatorium, and it is an important species in the butterfly life-cycle, so I'm glad that I've welcomed it and taken some "on the road" with me.

I have a newly-discovered fellow blogger to thank for the information, as well. Recently I joined Blotanical, which is a sort of MySpace for garden bloggers. You may've noticed the widget in the right column that links to random other garden blogs out there on the internet.

I haven't had as much time to explore the whole community as I might've liked so far (but limited exploration has brought delightful discoveries every time!), but today discovered some lovely photos at Nature Remains, where Nina had captured one of those unexpected Cycle of Life moments in the canopy of this plant, which she called boneset. I won't give away what she saw...you can check that out for yourself.

Plus, there's a blackberry cobbler recipe!


The agastache has grown into a tidy little plant this year, about two feet tall, its flowers wonder fully purple and long and attractive to some industrious bumblebees.

Here, the agastache - or hyssop- is joined by some allyssum, marigolds and a single pink bachelor's button.

It's doing very nicely in this location and looks like it will remain sort of tidy this year, though I imagine next year it will get very tall, if it continues to be happy with its accomodations.



Everything in the garden is looking a little wild these days, owing to the queen anne's lace and evening primrose I've given free reign to. The queen anne's, at least, I planted as close to the fence as I could. They tend to have a bit of a boarding house reach, though.

The evening primrose actually seeded themselves in, growing often in the front areas of the garden, where it might be tidier to have lower growing plants (although the allyssum, at a foot tall, are barely cooperating with that plan, either).

Second generation daisies on weaker stems lean over into the picture, with a variety of marigolds rising from the chaos of the nearly-hidden floor of the jungle. And out of the chaos appears a crazy tangle of super-producing cherry tomatoes!


In another part of the garden, this plant of white garden phlox has begun to bloom.


Hey, since I know you're just dying for an update, I'll let you know it's now been 25 days (20 hours, 54 minutes and 5 seconds, but who's counting? Not me. QuitNet does that for me.) since my last cigarette. I remain grateful to the makers of both Altoids and pretzel rods.

According to my habit before quitting, I have not smoked 388 cigarettes...and have now added nearly three days onto my life.

Eccentric Old Gardener of the Future, here I come.

I went to work via Brewster this morning. Since it was a gray and spattery morning, it seemed not unreasonable to think I might be able to actually approach the shoreline and that proved true. I was, in fact, easily able to find a spot to park at Linnell Landing's small permited lot so I could take a look at the storm clouds over the bay.

The air was sharp and salty with the sea as I stepped out of the car, the bay churning with chop from the storm moving off to the north. God, I love that smell...

An intrepid bunch of beach and boat-goers were clearly not going to be deterred by a little spritz of rain, as you can see. As the day went on, their faith was rewarded, as the clouds did clear away leaving a beautiful afternoon behind.

This north-facing beach looks into the curve of the Cape's landmass, toward my more usual stomping grounds at Skaket and First Encounter Beaches and Rock Harbor, so it offers an interesting perspective.

This wonderful place is cleverly called Linger Longer and is a private home located just to the west of Linnell Landing. They must have had a most fantastic view of the storm as it moved across the bay late last night. Sunrises and sunsets and even the Cape's most dismal days must look beautiful from there.


Sometimes I wonder if I wouldn't cheer on the wholesale collapse of society for the opportunity to live in such a place.

As I said before, the sun burned through the clouds which didn't drift off on the breezes and I found a great day just beginning to fade as I left the office around dinnertime.

Naturally, I couldn't resist a drive-by Rock Harbor and watched for a few minutes as the tide rolled into the harbor and up the boat launch ramp.

This evening, I spotted a blue heron in the pond at the end of Not Wisteria Lane, as Emily and I enjoyed our night perambulation, but was camera-free at the time.

Then, as we passed around the loop that brought us facing to the west, Emily put on some speed (she likes to get past Snoopy the noisy Min-Pin's house as quickly as possible) and only because a neighbor called a warning did I realize how close we came to colliding with one of the broods of turkeys who were crossing the road just ahead of us.

Em seemed not to notice them, as further along, a terribly portly black pug we'd never seen before came out of his house to bark at us as we passed. But we only missed the mama turkey and her six youngins by about a foot! I went back with my camera when we'd finished our walk, but they were long gone by then. The heron, too.


Here's another look at my favorite, the marine heliotrope. Oh, how I wish I could figure out some way for you to smell it through your computer. It is just amazing. Perhaps its just my memory, but I am thinking that I can smell it drifting through the open window on the night air...and its just heavenly.

So the day turned out pretty right, after all. In fact, as I finish this (11:54 pm), the moon is setting in the southwest and it looks like it may be a nearly perfect night for some Perseid meteor gazing and just in the nick of time!

Here's another one of those orange sulphur cosmos flowers. That towering monster in the background is one of the latest sunflowers, climbing toward the sky and currently topping six feet.

Weekend Garden Update

Saturday morning was nice and sunny, with temper atures quickly rising into the 80s, as I listened to reports on the Weather Channel of big storms approaching Manhattan and also sliding across the state in our general direction.

As you can see, the corn in the Three Sisters garden is doing quite nicely, even tho it is shaded in the very earliest part of the day. I've never had such success with as I have this year and it's lots of fun to watch as it grows taller all the time.

The pole beans are merrily twining up the vines, according to plan and at the feet of all that, the zucchini plants are blooming heartily. So that's all working out pretty nicely.


Couldn't resist a few more morning glory shots for you, as I know much you enjoy them. These two, with a few drops on them from the morning watering were especially sweet looking.


More cherry tomatoes are ripening every day and they are a nice addition to my morning breakfast routine.


There must be twenty or more house sparrows (and a few catbirds) who call the great mass of tree and shrubs next to the Three Sisters garden home. Some mornings, I don't see a single one, but can hear a great chattering and tweeting from inside. Other times, I walk near and they all fly off at once...which is a little startling, but pretty cool.



Here's another one of those evening primrose blossoms. Every morning, I see a few new ones, freshly opened from the previous night's dusk. Every now and then, I come out in the morning to find they are sparkling bright yellow all up and down the plant stalks.


Similarly, a few more sulphur cosmos are blooming every morning. With the evening primrose, they are working together to levitate the colors of the various marigolds which are blooming down below.


And the Queen Anne's lace is delightfully out of hand.

By evening, the storms had arrived for us and we saw some nice heavy rains, which had tapered off by the time I was leaving work.


This morning, this little bunny was munching in the grass when I came out the front door. He turned to move away and stopped for a moment, surveying the garden to see if he could find a way through the border. Eventually, he opted to dash off to the side yard, instead.


Today, we attended the birthday celebration of our friend Sebastian's eighth birthday. I forgot to take a photo of the birthday boy, but I did capture this shot of the delightfully big and squishy ugly rubber bugs I found as a gift for him. (That's a standard sized highlighter included in the shot for perspective.) He was thrilled.

I was a little concerned that his Mom and Grandma might not share his enthusiasm, but by the time the party was over, they both had designs on using them to have some fun with unsuspecting friends and co-workers.

On the way home, I spotted these wonderful clouds over the bay, and stopped briefly at Rock Harbor to capture this shot of the cloud-obscured sunset.

Discoveries, Some Unpleasant

Morning came a little suddenly this morning. It was a day off and an overcast one at that, so I had designs on staying a-bed a little later this morning, enjoying the cool feeling of the pillow against my face as I dozed a little longer. But there were dreams bizarre (Years ago I kept a notebook beside the bed and would write down all I remembered the moment my eyes flicked open. It was always amazing to re-read them later on, when the thin memories would be gone like morning mist. I always recognized my handwriting when I'd read back that night, but the dreams recorded were brand new to me by then. I must start doing this again.) and an over-eager neighbor's car horn, which conspired together to have me awake by 7:14. Sigh.

Fortunately, there was one of those blue morning glories I like so to greet me out on the fence.

Here's another glimpse of these pretty purple flower stalks known alternately as gay feather or blazing star (liatris spicata).

This was a plant which pre-existed us here. I haven't grown this before, but I do like what it's doing so I think I'll make an effort to always have some in the future.

Plus, gay feather? Between that and the purplyness, clearly, it belongs in my garden. It is, by the way, related to the sunflower, 'though you might never guess.

After a little watering and the usual review of the garden, I had an enjoyable long distance "cawfee tawk" call with Mom, in which we discussed the house she and Dad are buying in Connecticut and what new gardening possibilities it may bring, among other things.

While we were chatting, a hummingbird made a quick visit to the lantana hanging overhead on the porch. But the camera was deep in my pocket, so that'll be an image for another day.

Our corn stalks are all growing steadily. A few of them shot up their tall flower tassels last week, and this morning, the first wild spray of silk appeared lower on the first of those cornstalks.

It's always such a cool sight, but I'm not sure I've seen reddish-pink silks like this before. I just love the chaotic beauty of it, all these different varieties of plant sex to admire. : )

Owen's got a vegetable patch going strong on the side of Mount Dump-it. I've been remiss in sharing photos of it, but there are wonders to be seen. The Roma Tomatoes are pacing the still-green Early Girls in the front garden. Squash and zucchini vines (nursery purchases) have already begun producing fruit and the eggplants are starting to do the same.

Most remarkable, however, are the watermelon vines, where already three or four golf-ball sized fruit have appeared.

Here's that morning glory vine that escaped from the fence post and is rambling its way through the garden. It's made a nice trellace of a pair of shasta daisies, but it will be disappointed when these flowers are dead-headed before long.

Down at the "wild end" of the border, where more native species are planted, the first of many delicate thistle blossoms opened this morning.

Aren't they lovely?



As I mentioned yesterday, the dianthus are returning for another round of flowering in the lower front edges of the fence garden. I just love this pink flower. At a distance, it doesn't look so remarkable, but when you get up close and look at the detailed pattern, it's just a little amazing.




Of course, I think that about these red guys, too.

Down below is my tiny agastache plant. It's actually a side shoot rescued from a much older plant, now deceased(we bow our heads), which I bought about eight years ago.

These guys are related to mint, I believe, though share none of that plant's aggressive nature. The leaves and flowers are scented of licorice and the bees just love them.

When this plant's ancestor was fresh from the nursery, it grew to an astounding and unexpected height of about eight feet. I don't think I have to worry about such from this young-in for another year or so. But I'm pleased to see it doing so well.


I enjoyed the day off, getting to spend a little extra time tending to the garden and some house chores, as well as just relaxing and reading a little more.

It was, by the way, Day Five of the no cigarettes thing...and while I had an urge or two, they were easily pushed aside and it was another good day in that respect.

A sign of the time of the year, there was still plenty of dead-heading to be done today. I cut out about a third of the daisies, which had passed their prime, among assorted other things.

But it was careful work, since I was getting to do so around mid-afternoon, when I am usually at work, and the garden was just swarming with pollinators of all shapes and sizes. I think that's a wasp on the daisy there, but I'm not entirely sure from the angle.

This pair of flirty frittelaries fluttered a pas de deux all along the fence and through the breeze-bouncing blossoms there.

I saw a monarch butterfly, but he didn't stay very long, perhaps because of the breeze...but it could be he was just casing the neighborhood for the first time, too. I imagine he'll be back on a less breezy day.

There were bumblebees everywhere. They are quite fond of the sunflowers, and there seems always to be at least one of them on each of the current flowers.

At one point, a large sphinx moth flew up from the grass near my feet and zig-zagged his way through the fence, landing briefly on a sunflower before darting off into the sky.



This wasp (or is it a hornet?) was eager to taste some of the cone flower's wares, but seemed to know that the bumble had been there first and it's always polite to wait your turn.

And then, as I bet over to trim a few faded pansies, I heard it.

It's funny, you don't realize how well you know a particular sound until you haven't heard it in a while...but my ear keyed in on the different sound right away and I was quite happy to spot what turns out to be the first honeybee I've seen in this garden, who was happily drinking of these tiny wild mustard flowers.

The Queen Anne's lace, as I mentioned last night, has really come into its own this week, with new flowers appearing daily on plants that grow fuller each day.

Their delicate-looking flowers are always a great addition to my chaotic border, being so different from everything else there. If you want some, they are easy to welcome--just cut a few of the challis-shaped fading flowerheads from roadside plants and drop them into the bed where you'd like them.

It's really that easy.


"...so the Mole drew his arm through Toad's, led him out into the open air, shoved him into a wicker chair and made him tell him all his adventures from beginning to end, which Toad was only too willing to do. The Mole was a good listener, and Toad, with no one to check his statements or to criticize in an unfriendly spirit, rather let himself go. Indeed, much that he related belonged more properly to the category of what-might-have-happened-had-I -only-thought-of-it-in-time-instead-of-ten-minutes-afterward. Those are always the best and the raciest of adventures; and why should they not be truly ours, as much as the somewhat inadequate things that really come off?"

--Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows, copyright 1908, 1999.
Tonight, I feel like I need to offer a disclaimer. When I started this blog, I really didn't know much about "blogging" or exactly what I was hoping to do. I knew I wanted it to be about my garden...and so I started there. Back then, any personal content was minimal, since I'm not a plant and so didn't quite fit my own initial criteria for blog-inclusion.

But to think that a blog about the Garden wasn't also about the Gardener was really sort of silly, I've discovered...and as little bits of me have crept into the narrative, I find it's become more enjoyable to write. And so you know plenty of assorted things about me and my life (although only one of you has ever noticed or at least mentioned that I failed to include a #26 in my Hot 100 List!).

But I also still believe you come here for the garden and so I try not to wear you down with too many of the assorted less-than-rosey things Life tosses my way (as it does to each of us). After all, we all have our own reasons for what draws us to the Garden. I spend a bit of time "developing" the pictures, to make sure you get the best photos...and the garden provides the rest of the good stuff.

But no one's life is all rose-scented air and fluttering daisies, and like Mr. Toad, I may sometimes exaggerate a little for the sake of entertainment, or occasionally gloss over (or omit out of hand) the annoying or unhappy bits.

But I can assure you that all I have presented is more or less accurate. These are pictures from today, not last year...and not someone else's blog. The morning glory is really blue, the lightning really was purple. The sun truly was a fleeting visitor today.

I was sadly informed by a fellow blogger this evening that "Nicky Cooper" of the blogs Cooper's Corridor and more recently Nico's Niche, has been plagiarizing content of another blogger...and boy, is she pissed about it. And understandably so.

I will admit there were times, reading both of Nicky's blogs, that the whole business felt "too good to be true" somehow, and I found myself involuntarily wondering if it wasn't all a fiction. And you know, if it had all been entirely made up, I'd have been okay with that. I'm all for creative writing. But there are few things I find more heinous than stealing another writer's ideas and words...and photographs...and claiming them as your own. Anyone who comes by them honestly knows how difficult and precious it can be to tease just the right ones from one's mind...and to do so before you've managed to miss an entire night's sleep for blogging.

But you see, more than angry for being played the Fool (along with others), I'm a little sad, because Cooper's Corridor was a gateway for me to a host of wonderful bloggers who feel to me at times like some sort of extended family...and I think I wasn't alone in feeling like Cooper was the hub of our wagon wheel. The optimist in me believes that the internet has the potential to make our Big Bad World a smaller and friendly place...and getting to know so many of these people bears that out.

And I'm sad because I think (tho I also concede that in light of all this, "Nicky Cooper" may, too, be a fiction) at the heart of the re-constituted material was a real guy, with real heart who loves trees and the natural world...who didn't realize that we might've loved him for who he was, and for what he chose to write about from his own life.

If he is a real person, then real, original and sincere apologies are owed(even tho it must be assumed that some if not many will question that sincerity)...first and foremost to Kate at Sweet/Salty, but then also to the many loyal readers who regularly clicked in to visit his world and so vehemently defended him in the face of faux bullying last winter. And one last apology is due, to Joe.My.God, for letting him believe that a post on his blog had been responsible for the cancelling of Cooper's Corridor.

With all this on my mind, I found myself at First Encounter Beach this evening, hoping for perspective as I walked the shore in the burning rays of the setting sun. Ah, well. It's a beautiful a spot even on an overcast evening. If you "embiggen" this, you might be able to find the one tiny patch of orange light in a sky of gray.

Summer Days

Well, the days certainly slip by quickly here in July. I never got around to posting yesterday. My computer sort of reminded me recently that there are other things to summertime life besides blogging. You see, I have this CD burner that is usually pretty reasonable, but every now and then, the software that came with it doesn't recognize the burner...and the best bit is that it usually decides not to see the hardware exactly the week that my photo files start to clog things up and need to be burned to disc. The Laws of Murphy are strong in this one.

Finally, after much futzing, I got the burner working and spent some time burning discs--two of them for the first three quarters of June!!! Anyway, now my hard drive's all freed up and running a little more smoothly...but between this issue and the connectivity thing, I found myself with that time I was looking for to dive head-first into the Wind in the Willows, as inspired by both Cooper and Patrick...and I just never want to stop reading it now!! Blogging, what's that?

I can't remember when I read this book, but it was a terribly long time ago, and so this feels like a brand new thing for me, while also an old friend. You know, you read a book as a child and you take it in on a much simpler level...and then you come back to it later, and you see a completely new pleasure, informed by the years you've lived, experiences you've had, knowledge gained and people you've known. I don't think my pal Bob would mind or disagree with the assessment that he is not unlike Toad in many ways, for example.

I find it's a difficult book to read late at night, not only because it keeps hitting me in the face when I fall asleep, but also because, when I'm not tired from a long day, I'm laughing right out loud almost constantly and I'm a little concerned I'll wake everyone up laughing so heartily. Anyway, if you haven't read this book recently, get a copy, read it for yourself. Read it to your kids. You won't be sorry.

Ahem. Okay, hopping down from my Read a Book soapbox, let me show you this beautiful evening primrose that's starting to strut this week. I didn't plant these guys, though I may have transported the seed in soil from the old garden.

They are sort of wild and weedy in these parts, but I find them pretty well behaved (and easy enough to yank up if you don't like the spot they've chosen) a wonderful bit of height and color in the summer garden, so I'm happy when they show up here and there.

As the name suggests, the new flowers open up as the sun is setting. Yesterday morning there was one, but I noticed around 10 or so last night (by flashlight beam) that these four had opened, sending their scent out across the night air, teasing night time bugs and moths to come taste...which in turn brings the bats out to swoop around.

Ah, nature.

In the interests of full disclosure, not all of the photos to follow were taken today, but rather, they represent a melange of garden activity during the last thirty-six hours. Like you care.

I don't know about you, but I can't look at these portulaca flowers enough. Each day there's a new array of assorted colors. I'm so glad I didn't end up with the pack of all one kind of flower that was originally in my hand at the nursery. I'd much rather have all these colors in a random collection.

I'm also sort of tickled to point out a small hedge of about four cleome seedlings in the background, still fairly small, which were born of a second seeding with the remainder of the packet somewhere around mid-June.

While the first flush have yet to actually bloom yet, it's nice to know this second wave will be coming along to bloom much later in the season, possibly as the early guys begin to fade. I've always enjoyed this plant, but haven't had the conditions to grow it well for a few years. It's nice to have it around again.

On the Produce of the Future scene, the Three Sisters experiment is going quite nicely. Here's one of the best hills, featuring a good balance of corn, beans and squash all growing together. You may also note that I should spend some time this weekend doing some weeding around these guys.

You may recall I was eight days late after the Full Corn Moon planting my corn seeds this spring...so it shouldn't be any surprise that it was five or six days after the Fourth when my corn plants began to reach that knee-high benchmark you're supposed to have hit according to the old saw about corn growth, Knee-High by the Fourth of July.

Also, while the title seems a shade dubious, the "Early Girl" tomato is making some promises for a first harvest of fruit sometime fairly soon...but not really early by most measurements.

Now, I try to be good about admitting mistakes, and I am reasonably assured that this lovely red rose which I've been touting as the return of the often-dead Mister Lincoln tea rose, is not at all that plant.

You see, in Spring of 2007, I bought two rose bushes rather inexpensively at the Ocean State Job Lot. One of them died over the summer, but the other did pretty well, though never bloomed to cement it in memory.

This is that second plant, which I think may have been called Proud Nation, or Proud Land, or something like that, and if I recall(or stumble across the label, which I did tuck into some book or other for safe-keeping. Hopefully it was actually a garden related book.), it's actually supposed to grow into a serious bush of such blooms. This would be wonderful, as right now it is rather small.

Now, not only did I recently recall that purchase and the survival of the rose, but also Wednesday, this other, smaller red tea rose began to bloom down at the other end of the fence garden, and I realized that this, indeed, was the real Mister Lincoln standing up.

But sadly, Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.

I found this lovely purple hydrangea blooming under a tangled clutch of bindweed this evening, which I tore out by the handfuls to reveal this lovely flowerhead. This plant is badly crowded by an azalea and a juniper bush and needs to be transplanted to a location where it can thrive a little better.

Also, it's past time to address the bindweed, which is a little seductive with its pink flowers, but will wrap itself around me and my coffee cup, if I sit for too long in one place. It weaves through all the foundation plantings around the house and will probably completely cover the house one day if left unchecked.

Check out this massive spidery-looking sunflower head. This plant is now just a little taller than my five foot and eleven inch height. I just love the crazy way it looks. This is definitely one of the Russian Gray "giants" who love to get so very tall. Can't wait to see how high we can go with these!

Along the inside of the fence, another shade of African marigold has begun to bloom. These guys (there are also some in a canary yellow color in the cleome bud photo earlier this week) will eventually get to be about three feet tall themselves.

I like this color. It's not that pale bright yellow, but it's not the neon orange. It's a nice golden cross between the two...and a real bridge between all the other shades of marigolds in the garden.

Here's one of the gardens down around the bend here on Wisteria Lane. It sort of amuses me, as I think from a distance that this is a statue of Saint Francis, who welcomed all the animals of the world to him. And the garden in his honor, properly fenced to keep the animals out.

I wonder if this bunny was thinking something similar.

I think I'll post this picture over at BugGuide.net, to see if it's clear enough for anyone to identify the species of pollinator seen here. I don't think there are bees with green heads. It would be a real lesson for me to accept the evil Greenhead Flies (of the painful bite) as beneficial to the garden in the absence of more bees.

[EDIT, 7/12/08: First response to my posting at BugGuide suggests this is a halictid bee...which I'd never heard of before. They are also called sweat bees, which I have heard of previously. Other photos I've now seen indicate their entire bodies are green, sometimes. Join me, won't you, in a brief education on the subject (and some much better photos) here.]

I did see a nice group of honeybees flitting about the roses outside the bank in Eastham the other day and that was a bit of a relief for me. I've still not seen a single honeybee in Harwich. Have you seen this? (Thanks, Curt!)