Garden In the Rain

At the end of what was a somewhat rainy and not overly-sunny week, the heavens opened up and the skies poured down with rain last night.

At one point, Em indicated a need to go out and when I opened the back door, we listened to the steady rain and she looked out, and then up at me with a "hell no" all over her face and went back to the couch to wait it out. Eventually, we tried again and only when I agreed to go out first and get wet with her did she quickly tend to her business. Then towels all around.

This morning I woke early to the sound of a renewed downpour, stronger than the night before and coming in the windows now. I got up to shut them and snapped a few shots before climbing back into bed.

There are, after all, few comforts nicer than being in your warm bed with the sound of the rain outside, especially when a cosy kitty curls up against your legs.

But this was not the sort of rain that's especially kind on gardens. There was a surplus, which tends to collect out front before soaking in...but a hard rain is also tough on delicate plants and causes everything to droop and bend and look pretty awful.

Okay, well, not necessarily awful...but besodden, bedraggled and forlorn, at the very least.

A morning rain does cancel the morning glories, who just sort of sag and droop without unfurling, their potential for brightening the day called on account of showers.

All the Queen Anne's lace hung heavy with raindrops. There will be much deadheading when all these wet flowers have dried in the sun.

The coneflowers were hit especially hard, some of them falling down flat as their roots loosened in the soaking soil and were particularly sad looking.

Of course, the flood waters were at an all time high, as you can see. The boat shoes were more like U-boat shoes this a.m. Perhaps they will have dried out in a day or so.

But I knew the coneflowers would be fine if I got them support right away, so I waded in to rig some loops of twine off the fence to hold them upright.

Only one stem had broken off, and it's good sometimes to have a reminder to bring some flowers inside. All too often I forget to do that.

Things looked a little better when I'd tended to that, though it would still be a little while before the rain tapered off to nothing and the excess began to soak in...which took a few hours more.

But as it was going, there were new surprises. This lavendar beebalm (monarda) has begun its serene display today...and not far from there I discovered a stalk that's suddenly leaped out of a low rosette of leaves. I'd been watching it to see just what it was going to be, and it appears I'll have some bellflowers/harebells to enjoy in a day or so.

And just a little further down from there, the first flower of the Stargazer oriental lily had sprung open in the rain.

So it's not all bad.

"The thirsty earth soaks up the rain,
And drinks, and gapes for drink again.
The plants suck in the earth, and are
With constant drinking fresh and fair."
- Abraham Cowley

Hopes and Challenges

I spotted this snail outside the window yesterday morning, when I pulled back the curtain to check the weather. It wasn't raining yet, but the skies were the most promising they'd been all week.

I'm not entirely sure what this plant is the snail is enjoying so, but I have strong suspicions it may be some variety of honeysuckle. It's growing out of the bed of vinca which surrounds the feet of the tall arbor vitae by the gate to the backyard.

In the border, the columbine plants are joining the ranks of those who are beginning to sport tiny flower buds, giving me hope for the the days ahead.

And that lily I showed you earlier in the week has now double in height. Here's a second one which was out of the frame in the other shot...as well as a small cluster of leaves between them, which I'm pretty sure is a bit of that Oregano I brought from Eastham.

Behind the house, the apple blossoms have become to open and the oriole wasted no time in coming by to drink the nectar of those first flowers.

I didn't get to post last night, as we had a big night at work and I was a bit tired and uninterested in cyber-things when I got home. The late afternoon and evening had brought us a nice steady, but not heavy rain, which made me smile, since I'd been hoping for some all week.

In the earliest hours of the morning, there were a few rumbles of thunder and a single flash of lightning...and the rain grew a bit heavier. A comforting sound on the roof as one is drifting off to sleep...as long as you don't give too much thought to what else might be going on as a result.


I was recently com mended for my posi tive out look and upbeat perspective on life and gardening.

This morning, I pulled back the window, saw the newly-flooded garden and couldn't help but feel a little bit like a liar.

As you can see, the garden is flooded worse than I've seen it, except maybe for back in the dead of winter. It seems that all the extra soil I've brought in this spring has settled down and has been for naught against the sort of heavy rains we saw last night, and which appear to be in our forecast from now through Wednesday.

So here's the angry and frustrated gardener, supposed to be marking two weeks without a cigarette (excepting a cheat puff here and there), trying to smile when he really wants to smoke half a pack or more before starting to pot up the whole damn garden to move to some higher, drier, less expensive yard somewhere.



There's over an inch of water out there in some places, as you can see. That little oregano plant and assorted others are nearly completely submerged, the feet of all the others wetter than they ought to be.

For now, I'm not seeing any ill effects and I do know by now that the water will drain off fairly quickly...but at some point, certain species are going to start dying out in this location, so I will have to come up with some alternate plan.

Meanwhile, it's time to go to work.

Nature Handles the Watering Today

It was already raining lightly when I awoke this morning, so I lingered over coffee a little before heading out to do some planting. The forecast showed a big storm bearing down on us, with serious rain and high winds coming for us into Saturday morning.

With that in mind, I didn't dally too long before heading out.

The first to be planted were the new single-flowered marigolds. Aren't they lovely? You just don't see this simple variety often enough and I just love them.

Here's my tip about buying marigold sixpacks. Marigolds tend to seed easily, it seems, and I find the individual cells of a sixpack often have more than a single seedling, their roots all tangled and grown together by the time I purchase them. The trick is to take the time to tease them apart...so you ended up getting more plants for your plant dollar.

This really works best with the shorter marigolds, as they have sturdy little stems that aren't likely to bend or break while you are tugging on them. The trick is to grasp them carefully but firmly as close to the base of the stem as you can, first loosening the roots wound around the bottom of the soil cell, and then steadily, but not sharply, pull them apart.

Or you can just slide them into the ground as is and let them take their own chances, I suppose. I like getting a few extra plants by giving each one the room to thrive...plus it makes the garden look a little fuller for less money.

I also got the snapdragon seedlings planted, trying to give some thought to what colors they were and what colors would be present on the perennials they were being planted near. Of course, one packet of snaps is to be assorted colors, so it's still something of a crap-shoot.

Once the plants were in the ground, I planted some seeds...more sunflowers in assorted locations, some misc wildflower seeds on the side of Mount Dump-it out back and some seashell cosmos at the far end of the garden out front.

The rain got heavier as the afternoon wore on and I moved on to other things, like the trip to Eastham for banking. Today, I also combined that with lunch at Wendy's and a visit to Cape Cod Bay, where I collected some old salt hay and seedweed to spread over the future vegetable bed. When I'm ready to plant, I'll turn it under.

The rain's continued to intensify and the flooding out front, despite my efforts to raise the level of the garden, is nearly as bad as ever...but we have had a LOT of rain, so I guess it's to be expected. The rain's supposed to subside by morning, so hopefully it won't sit there in the garden for too long.

I'd been wondering if the winter flooding had killed the lilies, as I'd sort of expected them to be up and out of the ground by now. The first nub of one appeared just a day or two ago, though, so faith is still a worthwhile endeavor just now.

The wind is picking up now and you can hear the occasional spatter of rain against the side of the house and the windows. They say we may have gusts of up to 50 miles per hour. Wee...

Floating Garden

Rain overnight has brought fresh flood waters to the garden bed out front, making yesterday's new crocus look a little more like a water lily this morning.

I'm happy to see that it's less of an issue than earlier in the year, thanks to my efforts to raise the level of the garden a little...but I can see there's still a section that needs work.

Even if I raise the bed level, there's still the issue of the flooding in front of it. This could work to actually water the garden, I suppose. Many of the plants here had relations who grew nicely in the meadow in Eastham, which flooded every spring...so I might not have too much to worry about, in regard to loss. But there are a few things which could suffer, so I'm hoping to find time to address this issue soon...especially with a month of April showers potentially stretching out before us.

One idea I'm considering is running gravel-lined channels diagonally through the bed, which might serve the garden, irrigation-wise. We'll see. I'm not settled on a plan yet, and I am still waiting to see where certain plants emerge as spring progresses (I didn't have time to diagram where everything ended up in the fall)...and the flooding issue does make it hard to think about installing the soaker hose I'm intending to utilize here.

There was a big Crow Council Meeting in the trees out back late this afternoon, despite continuing shower-y-ness.

I could hear both red-winged blackbirds and crows in the mix, and who knows who else might've been in attendance...it was hard to see them clearly.

I can't help but wonder what it is they discuss. Weather forecasts, windspeeds, where the new bird feeders and bird baths are this year, if something can be done about the gulls and the hawks...who knows?

In any case, the meeting broke up before long, perhaps due to the brown dog barking in the yard below. I'm impressed to see that there are nearly a hundred or maybe more birds in the cloud they made as they took off. Maybe the birds have Town Meeting, too.

Silly birds, everyone knows it's impossible to have an even-slightly productive meeting late on a Friday afternoon.

My guess is they were just meeting up to head off to the local watering hole for Happy Hour at the end of a long bird week.

After The Rain...

The Incredible Floating Gardens of Not Wisteria Lane.

A Garden Floods

Ah, there's nothing like winter to test a gardener's faith.

While so much of New England was shoveling out from some serious snowfall, here on the Cape, we saw a day of heavy rains, with only the lightest of snow at the start and finish of the day.

However, as you can see, the rain all seemed to collect in the new garden beds. I'll have to raise these up as soon as spring allows, but for now, I can only hope the water all drains off (there's a lot of sand down deep) before we get another heavy freeze.

After the Rain

After a day of torrential rains, causing what they innocuously call "localized flooding" in the weather report, I can report that our day trip to Boston was nearly twice as long because flooding, bridge closures, car breakdowns and accidents (neither ours, thankfully), all related to the great storm that crossed over eastern Massachusetts today.

We had a great radio station (WBOS, 92.9 FM)to help pass the time, but there was still plenty of time to watch the water rushing by our stopped vehicles on the highway, and to wonder what it was like to evacuate before a hurricane, or what it must have been like to learn there was no home left to go to.

We did make it home safely and were grateful for that. The gardens, along with the rest of us, are well-watered, right on schedule. And there's more due for each day of the weekend, should Ophelia finally begin to move north from the Carolinas.

Meanwhile, just a few minutes ago, I spied this little frog enjoying the evening's high humidity on the shores of our little plastic pond. The fresh rainwater added to the pond today seems to have enlivened our two remaining coy, as well.