Rainy Friday

It's a rainy morning here, which is fine by me, since I've got a long list of other things that need accomplishing today. Most important is the tracking down of some antibiotics, but there's also banking and a day in the office to boot, so I'll keep this brief.

I'm happy to say the sunflowers out in the garden all survived the night well, and are no doubt happy for this morning's rain. It looks like they might even have grown some since I put them in the ground, though that could be my imagination.

It looks like the jalapeno spray I made is keeping away the bunnies, as we have some tulips that might actually get to put on a show in the coming week. I didn't save the package, but I believe these will be purple. You may recall that I didn't get to plant them in the fall, but did take advantage of a January thaw to drop them in the ground, which doesn't seem to have harmed them in the least.

Sunday Garden Report

Off the back porch, this bleeding heart plant just gets prettier every day. I've always enjoyed the uniqueness of this particular plant, the sentimental look of those dangling hearts.

The bleeding heart is joined in that location by an assort ment of older hyacinths.


There are fewer flowers on these than the younger, pink ones out front, but these blossoms are considerably larger and just as sweetly scented.

Here, it is complimented by the purple-blue flowers of money plant, so named for the silver dollar seedpods it forms as summer comes on. It's also known as lunaria, or moonwort...or honesty. Whatever the name, I like the simplicity of those four-petal blossoms. And those seedpods are pretty cool, too.

The star-gazing last night was phenomenal. To the east, some low clouds were backlit by the late-rising moon. But overhead and in all other directions, the skies were crystal clear. It was chilly, to be sure, but it was one of those nights when you can see the pulse of the stars' light and really understand what the first person meant who suggested that a star could twinkle. I even saw a shooting star, which is always sort of thrilling.

Clouds moved in during the night, however, and this morning there was a dull grayness to the sky. I was pleased to see that we are very likely (100% chance, they say, which sounds like a guarantee to me) to have rain tomorrow and Tuesday, which isn't a bad thing at all. Watering with a hose just isn't the same as the rain that falls from the sky.

April showers, after all.

To take advantage of that forth coming natural boon, I planted some white and purple allyssum seedlings this morning. I've put them along the outer edges of the front garden, being careful to work between the just-emerging allyssum seedlings I scattered seed for a while back. Eventually, they should all grow together and create nice drifts of tiny sweet blossoms to carpet the front edges of the bed.

It was very quiet this morning, save for the insistant clucks and tuts I've come to expect from the blackbirds in advance of weather changes. There was a brief outburst of activity from the house sparrows, and the distant sounds of other birds but it was generally still.

In the distance was a dull roaring sound which is easily mistaken for the sounds of distant traffic. Only after a while do you realize that it's actually the ocean. Even after ten years, this never fails to surprise and delight me.

(An unrelated sidenote here: speaking of delight, Amy Lemen, where are you? I hope you Google yourself and find this blogpost. I miss you!)


There was a brief shower this afternoon (in Orleans, anyway...) and some of the brighter stars are still visible through the thin cloud cover overhead tonight. Our temperature's at 45 now, which is actually the warmest it's been all day.


Meanwhile, another variety of cherry tree has begun blooming outside of work.

Earth Day Weekend Garden Report

The violets of our old house are not numbered amongst the plants who made the trip with us. I was just starting to feel a little badly that I hadn't brought at least a single clump of them...when these pretty little things suddenly began blooming out in front of this house.

As the Full Frog or Planter's Moon made our evenings glisten and gleam this weekend, grape hyacinths have begun springing up along the outer edges of the front garden. Here, a pair of them frame a columbine plant and one of the pink Dutch hyacinths.

In fact, all of the Dutch hyacinths I planted in the fall have turned out to be pink, which makes me grin. I'm a bigger fan of the purple/blue ones, but these smell as lovely.

This weekend, Somewhere Joe pointed out that spring has made me prolific, and the season is certainly inspiring. Not only are new green things appearing in the border daily--old friends like moonbeam coreopsis and purple coneflower and assorted phloxes--but I also have a lot to get done when spring arrives. It's the nature of my job that I'll be busy at work when June begins busting out, and I like to head off to work in the mornings then knowing that all's well in the garden.

Toward that end, each morning this weekend I've been working on finishing off a little more of the front garden bed. Particularly, the far end where I wanted to get a nice big birdbath installed. We have so many birds around that I know it'll be popular...and it's always fun to watch them.

I had dug out this bed and broken all the sod into squares back in the fall, but had run short to finish the project then, with the moving and winter bearing down on us. So at least that tough part of the job was done...all I had to do was seperate all the dirt from the clumps of grass, which were just beginning to green up again.

By late this morning, I'd finished off the bed and was ready to embed some stepping stones and also the birdbath itself. Yah, I know the path of stones isn't exactly level, but they are reasonably secure, and water won't pool on them on very rainy days.

Here's a close-up of the birdbath, which you'll recognize from last summer in the old orchard garden. The stones in front are mica-flecked or have crystals in them, so they really catch and play with the sunlight.

They look a little stark here, but I hope soon to have them planted with some dianthus and creeping phlox, which ought to thrive on the spillover water from the birdbath and the full sun.

I'm glad to have this section finished off. It will be at least partially a vegetable bed, with some tomatoes and another go at the Three Sisters Garden.

Here's my next target: the section around the lamp-post. It will be slower work here, owing to both underground electric (danger Midnight Gardener, danger...)and an overgrown clematis vine I don't want to damage. But I imagine about the time I've finished that, the lilies should have begun to emerge, and then it will be safe to install the soaker hose throughout the whole layout.

Not all of us were hard at work this weekend. Em just loves to lie in the sun and bake her head, occasionally looking up as I dash past to the shed for some tool or other. It takes quite a bit of coaxing to convince her to come inside when its time to head off to work.


Owen's also been busy around the house, not only scraping off old exterior paint and re-glazing windows, but also replacing the old landscape timbers that line the backyard gardens with some of the new rocks we recently acquired.


It was while he was on a ladder working on the former project Friday afternoon, when he overheard two of the neighbors talking about us...one of them's a bit deaf, so it wasn't difficult. The reviews are good, though: sounds like they are very impressed with the work we're doing to clean up the place...but he also heard one of them refer to me as "the young one."

It's not untrue, four years seperate us in my favor, so I got a bit of a giggle from it all. He, on the other hand, is taking it a little more seriously. Meanwhile, Em's trying to convince him that they might think he's younger if he also took her for a walk around the block every day.

I was out examining newly sprouted things when this robin came bobbing along to inspect the new garden. I was happy to watch him try out the vantage point from each of the taller rocks in the edging, before hopping up to survey things from the fence. The sun was already sinking, so I wasn't disappointed that he didn't visit the birdbath. I imagine it was a little chilly. But I'll be watching for him in the morning sun.

Working In the Garden

Ah, a gorgeous day in the garden today. It was cool this morning, but we eventually had 63 as a high temperature.

A delightful day for working outside in the garden. My back's sore this evening, so I know I accomplished something.

By the end of the afternoon, I'd raked out all of the beds in the back garden, as well as some other areas I'd not yet raked in years past. Every year I expand the reach of the garden a bit...bwa ha ha!

I was feeling brave and strong, and so I decided to take on the wilds of the raspberry and blackberry canes. It was definitely a case of "This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you", as far as the relationship between me and the thorny bastards. But I think I made some progress.

I also got a yucca plant transplanted, and then, so it wouldn't be lonely, I planted some creeping phlox at its feet and a nice big columbine plant nearby. All three were the first to be planted into a bed I still have to properly dig out...but having jumped in to do this corner will now (theoretically) encourage me to get the rest of it in shape.



Here's a nice look at that new orange-cupped daffodil out there.

Towards the end of the afternoon, I discovered that the fruit trees I gave a hard pruning to are all doing very nicely and starting to bloom, too.

I'd thought this one was a peach tree. It hasn't done much in our two years here, so I'd only be guess. It sure was nice to see the blossoms today!

But the peach tree is also coming into bloom today, and the blossoms aren't the same...so now I'm assuming the one above is a cherry tree.

In any case, all the blossoms are beautiful...and the peach tree is about to be covered with them. Perhaps we'll have a nice crop of juicy peaches this July!

Full Flower Moon

Once again, we began our day with a nice heavy rain shower. It didn't last long, but gave everything a nice soaking. But it turns out that everyone, including this ostrich fern, thinks a drink is a good way to start the day.

Bloody mary, anyone?


Opting instead for coffee, I enjoyed my usual prowl, enjoying the latest featured players, like this pretty pink primrose.

And I made some mental notes about some of the things I wish to accomplish with the upcoming day off. There's plenty of raking to do, but the gardens out back are also begging for a little more attention, to clear away some of the old growth from last year's end-of-season wildness.

I did also get some of those foxglove seedlings transplanted this morning!



Hey, the comments and mail I've received about last week's Hunt the Peeper game has been so astounding(not), that I thought I'd revisit the notion again today, in a new game I like to call Can You Find The Chickadee?

There was plenty of activity from these little birds this morning. The woods around the back gardens were echoing with their two-note love calls. It seemed like just about everyone was paired off, as is often the case this time of year...except this little one, who chose instead to perch in the pine bough and keep an eye on me.



However, the sun was behind him, so a better shot was unlikely and anyway, I had eyes mostly for the latest blooms... and parti cularly, my favorites, the grape hyacinths.





This shy daffodil is also joining the rest of the gang out there. I look forward to a better look at it tomorrow, when hopefully it will turn its face toward the sun (and my camera). Meanwhile, after the morning's rain, the hyacinths were scenting the air quite nicely.



It's hard to believe another year's sped by (especially considering how long some of those winter days and nights seemed to be), but here we are, back at the Full Flower Moon again.

I snapped this shot as I dashed to the car after work this evening, eager to capture the seeming giantness of the moonrise this evening(in "person", it appeared to be about two to three times the size of the streetlamps)...but also eager to get myself home in time to watch LOST.



And a most interesting episode it was this evening, too. About time.

When it was through, I was drawn back to the moon (also known this month as the Full Corn Planting Moon, or the Milk Moon) and I snapped this shot, as the Phoebe's Orb attempted to get into the house through our back window.

A Golden May Day

This first morning of May was a most lovely one, warmed by that golden orb of Apollo. To greet to the new month, the yellow tulips in the back garden opened quietly, grape hyacinths clustered at their feet. Always love the pay-off to those April showers!

A random related tip: a well-known nursery is offering a magnolia tree with blossoms in that tulip color. It's called Butterfly Magnolia and you can see it here. Wouldn't that be a lovely tree?


I had thought the tiny daffodils I'd featured earlier were small...until these latest itty-bitty things opened up yesterday and today. The sweet little blossoms of these new arrivals are only about an inch across.

The forsythia are blooming like mad now, big beautiful splashes of yellow on our recently gray and brown
landscape...and I couldn't resist sharing a bunch with you.

But I also took this pic(above, right) to give kudos to the cherry tree in the photo: we last saw this happy little fellow in bloom on January 5th of this year. Again so soon! Who's not impressed...?

And speaking of magnolias...they have also come into full bloom over the weekend, and they are just beautiful, as you can see, so no need of me writing sonnets to them. It was enough that the sight of them put "Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans" into my head for the day.




And now, with no further delay, the Forsythia Show.

Two Years Later

It's sort of a big occasion around here at the Midnight Garden, as we celebrate my second "blog-o-versary". I'm opting away from environment unfriendly balloons and streamers, though, and just going on giving you plenty of the latest bloomers!

Two years of blog postings, two years of living in this particular place...two years of gardening and watching and exploring. Long enough to have gotten to know these gardens, their rhythms and attractions, and long enough to have done something to encourage them.

Of course, these yellow primroses need no encouragement, coming on with their show whether I pay attention or not...and to be honest, I'd almost forgotten to look for them, tucked against the foundation of the house. Glad I did though.

Tonight I spied about a dozen new columbine plants in various gardens, the result of my spreading around the seed of a few large and floriferous plants in the back garden.

In a vaguely related note, I've come up with a plan to bring a bunch of the foxglove (it's legion out back...) up to the side yard, along the driveway, along with a bunch of the violet from the back house garden, and then later I'll scatter some columbine seeds in that part of the yard. I have a feeling they'll all take nicely there.

With another variety having joined the club, here's a class photo of some of the daffodils in the garden under the bedroom.

Not far from the daffodils are a few Money Plants (lunarius biennus) just coming into bloom. I had been mistaking them for dames rocket, until I compared foliage in some online photos. Dames rocket (hesperis matronalis) has a narrower leaf.

This is the stuff that makes the big round flat white seed pods later in the season, thus also earning it the names Silver Dollar, Bolbonac, Moonwort, and... interestingly enough... Honesty. There's some more in the front driveway garden, as well.

Near the daffs and honesty, there's a small stand of red and white Trillium, also known as Wakerobin one of my favorite springtime plants. I hope to carefully transplant this to a part of the garden which will showcase it a little better. At the moment, its humble nodding heads are almost lost behind the others. As it is, this photo was taken with the camera sitting on the stone path beside it.

Here's the view of our meadow, recently mowed for the season's start. If the last two years are any indication (not to mention the current level of the pond) this area should be flooding in soon. I look forward to that, since it might mean the return of the green herons I spied out there our first year in residence.

You can see another fantastic forsythia on the far side of the pond, glowing bright in the gathering gloom. The showers forecast for today never materialized. But it was sort of an overcast day here anyway.

Here's some more of my favorites, the grape hyacinths. These are coming up at the feet of some curly ornamental grass in the back garden, which I've not yet cut down from last year.

For a grand finale this evening, I present to you an interior view of one of my early species tulips. Quite something, hmmm?

Thanks to all those who've been visiting the blog these past two years(even if you don't always leave a note to say you've done so)--It's a pleasure to share the garden with you!!