July's Half-Way

Ahh, morning breaks. With coffee in hand, I head out into the front yard. I didn't hear it rain again in the night, so I'm watering as usual...about ten to fifteen minutes of deep soaking from the soaker hose, and then some careful above spraying with the nozzle for the spots outside the realm of the buried soaker.

In their hanging basket under the eaves, the fuschia ballerinas dance in dawn's early light.

After I connect the soaker hose and turn on the water, I wander along the border, sipping my coffee and looking to see what the morning reveals.

For not the first time, I wonder about the true identity of the two or three plants I've been referring to as rudbeckia. The thing is, I dug these out of the meadow at our old place when they were single flowered seedlings, so they didn't come with a nursery tag.

For the last three years, I've started off the season referring to them as rudbeckia, but then, as I watch the flower petals take on a droopier form, I wonder if they aren't something from the coneflower family, instead. But a flower by any name is still a beautiful thing to behold, so not being a botanist, I don't worry too awfully much.

However, as a garden blogger, I really ought to be telling you the right names for things, so I'll try to be diligent and do some further research to see which family of plants these guys are most similar to. Rather than find yourself troubled by this whole identity crisis...take a look at that sunflower upstage. That one's also as tall as me now.

Now, I'd been watching the bachelor button seedlings carefully, and noted a day or two ago that the first buds were forming. So this first blue blossom today was not truly a surprise, but still. I just love these flowers. They are so simple and old fashioned and delightful and blue.

I'm pleased to have so many of them, as I think they will bloom throughout the summer if I can keep up on the deadheading. Of course, if I can't, I know there's a host of little birdies in the neighborhood who'll happily munch on the seedheads as the summer progresses.

So captivated with this first blue beauty was I, that it was a complete surprise to see that Joan Senior, my white daylily, was blooming for the first time today. It's not one of the tall daylilies and so this plant had sort of gone into stealth mode as the rest of the garden grew up around her.

This morning's buttercream blossom was completely unexpected. I knew there were two of these plants somewhere in the border, but to be honest, I really wasn't sure just where.

Here's that sport of the other "rudbeckia" or coneflower...whichever they turn out to be.

I noticed only in "developing" the photos this evening that this first blossom has suffered from some chewing of the petals, probably from some insect or caterpillar.

Fortunately, I don't get myself too worried about that. After all, I'm not using any kind of pesticides in the garden and if the plant provides some nutrients for something, then there's a natural reason for that and I've no business messing in the process.

Anyway, the first flower would've concealed the second flower too much if it'd still had those missing petals.

The garden is a real joy this time of year. Things that were dry little seeds in my hand not at all long ago have burst forth with these little green miracles everywhere I look. The second and third waves of sunflower seedlings look even more robust than the ones currently blooming, having done all of their growing outside in the heat and the sun.

The first class of cleome are coming into bloom all along the fence. In other places, a second wave of them are growing a few weeks behind. I noticed tonight that some are taller than others, as they are shaded by things which will pass as these continue to grow around them.

All of the cosmos plants--there are a couple different varieties, all told--are getting bigger and bushier every day and I'm sure before long they will join the fray. There's an assortment of seashell cosmos, as well as at least one plant of the regular variety. I also planted a whole packet of sulphur cosmos seeds, which should add a taller note of orange and yellow to echo the marigolds down below.

These cherry tomatoes are showing the first signs of coloring up nicely. I can't wait to pop the first sweet one into my mouth so morning not far off.


And I must sing the praises of the Pansies once more. They are, especially in the summer heat and bright sun, some of the hardest working plants I've got out there this year.

I can't believe this blue variety, which Coop loved so back when we were celebrating Spring, Glorious Spring, are still doing so nicely this far into July. I'm absolutely thrilled, though, since they are my favorite of the lot of them, too!

That said, I can see that some of the pansy plants will require a somewhat severe cropping back to help them continue on into August. I also try to slip them a little extra water via watering can now and then. It's really the least I can do for such an effort.

The morning glories are continuing to offer their cheery trumpets every morning, tho I am amused by the fact that I either grouped all of the same colors together on each post, by chance, or else some morning soon, I'll come outside to find that the other vines have joined in the show and brought the rest of the color range in the packet to the table.

The vines are growing like mad lately. Every day, sometimes morning and evening, I have to carefully peel them off of whatever errant place they have decided to explore, and cautiously weave them through the string trellaces I laced up the fenceposts in the spring...or more often lately, as they become more overgrown (which I mean in the best possible use of the word), I simply weave and braid them around the other stems. The leaves almost entirely conceal one or two of the posts, and in a few cases, the twining stems have tried to work their way up assorted little flagpoles.

The colors on this lantana are so hot I'm having trouble getting just the right picture of them. This is the first one that I've been happy enough with to share with you, and even here, I had to remove about 50% of the color saturation before you could look at the image without burning your retinas.

Which is funny, because I could look at the actual flowers with their variegated tones all day long. I hoping that some hummingbirds will feel the same way, too.

Morning Discoveries

I'm no morning glory. It takes only the first glimmer of morning sun on the horizon to get them to unfurl their petals and turn to golden glow in the east. For me, it really takes at least one cup of coffee...and this morning, it wasn't really anywhere near dawn, thanks to the cat curled comfortably on my feet and the cool morning air coming in the bedroom window.

After a few slugs of coffee and a one-eyed squint at the online weather forecast to see if there was any chance of rain(none, a cloudy morning followed by sunshine), I stumbled out into the yard, cup in hand, to get the soaker hose connected and turned on.

That done, I wandered out around the fence in search of the morning's new offerings.

There were more of those blue morning glories quietly blossomed in the lush leaves of the vines on the first post. I was admiring those when I heard something down by my feet.

Mine was sort of a delayed reaction and I suppose my sleepiness may have contributed to his mediocre reaction. Generally, the bunnies are just wary enough to not let you get all that close. This little guy, however, is apparently too young to know that yet.

I'd spotted him last evening, as Em and I were finishing our walk. She, as usual, was oblivious, despite my circling her around for another look at him, over the fence in Sophie's yard across the street. The Little One didn't move, nor did he seem particularly frozen with fear.

This morning, I think I nearly stepped on him and that only caused him to hop away a foot or so, before finding a fresh patch of plantain and clover to nibble on. He's the only one of a new generation I've seen so far.

He's got a lot to look out for in this little world of his. I've heard that feral cats in the neighborhood killed an entire litter of rabbit kits earlier this spring and the hawk was big news amongst the birds just a few nights ago. Practical Gardener wants to make a little noise, scare him off, to make him a little more wary of people. They aren't all like me, after all, and he ought to know the difference.



But Practical Gardener comes into conflict with Poet Gardener, who's actually already wondering about what his little life entails. Is he part of a larger family group? Is he off on his own, already, looking for a territory to claim, and where will he meet a doe? And of course, he's already wondering if "Clover" or "Hazel" would be a good name for this little guy.

Naming wild creatures is always a bad idea, says Practical Gardener. It would be hard enough to find his little carcass without it having a name. But Poet Gardener isn't even listening anymore. He thinks this bunny looks more like a "Henry" somehow.


As you can see, those two lilies which began blooming yesterday really are nestled pretty deeply in clouds of allyssum, which are concealing even more fully a drift of yellow and orange marigolds in the distance. Also, anyone who worries about not having time for weeding may embiggen this to take note of the witch grass and wild oxalis I'm turning a blind eye toward in this part of the garden.

Meanwhile, the tiny thistle seedling I dug out of the edge of the CSX Railroad right-of -way in Austerlitz NY a few years back has become a rather large and happy plant in this new location.

It straddles the line between good dirt and the clay soil in that last section of the garden bed, where I've planted more wild things.

Recently, it's branches had grown so large that they were laying down across other things in the garden, like the purple allyssum at the feet of red rose Mister Lincoln (seen here in the lower left)and falling out the front of the garden onto the grass.

Last evening, I wove a pair of bamboo stakes around the sturdy stems of the thistle, raising them back up in the air again, to give the understory plants a chance to thrive. I'm kind of excited by how hard to spot the stakes are now, and just look at the shape of that "little" thistle plant now. Just wait 'til it starts blooming.

I've noticed that these yellow rudbeckia flowers are starting to develop a little of that darker color at the insides of their petals. I wonder if this coloration is a product of soil nutrients, as the color of hydrangeas is often dependent on the amount of aluminum in the ground. Still, they have a long way to go to catch up with the orange and brown flower on the far side of the plant.

Speaking of hydran geas, the one under my bedroom window turns out to be one of those lace-cap varieties. As you can see, it's developing a lovely shade of blue.

I believe there is another hydrangea plant nearby, though to be honest all the plants against the front of the house are seriously bound up with bindweed, which I will have to address shortly.

That other hydrangea is a bit crowded between the azalea and evergreen on either side of it, and really deserves to be dug up and given some space to do its thing unfettered somewhere with a little elbow room.




Hanging from the eves of the porch is the little fuschia plant I bought last week. The variety is called Winston Churchill.


No cigars or speeches from this pretty little plant, though. Interestingly (considering its namesake), its white skirts change to purple as the blossom ages (perhaps J. Edgar Hoover might've been more appropriate), creating some nice variety on just one small plant.





There's a little traffic down at the bottom of this sky shot. Not at all the focus here, as it was moving briskly and no troubles to speak of. No, it was the clouds that caught my eye here, as I headed off to work this morning.

There was plenty to hold my attention in the office this afternoon, with a few new events popping unexpectedly onto the horizon, while details for other upcoming parties began to fall into place.

At day's end, though, I was happy to detour down to the beach parking lot for a look at how some people were whiling away their afternoons. Really, I just wanted to see the sunshine on the water for a few minutes before turning to head home.