Fun indoors on a rainy day

How do you amuse yourself when you can't work in the garden? I have been getting a flood of catalogs from nurseries and garden supply companies. Most of what they're pushing are holiday arrangements and house plants and garden tchotchkes. I'm waiting for the real garden porn to arrive, the nursery and seed catalogs. I love to sit with tea and catalogs and try to figure out where I can squeeze one more plant. In the meantime I will make do with what's on the web.

The owner of a Hometown Seeds sent me this link to their garden seed website. It's a nice looking site and they have a good inventory of annual, perennial and vegetable seeds. Go take a look and then leave me a comment with your favorite sources.

October

It was too cold and raw to work outside today - strange for the middle of October. I took a quick tour and took a few photos.

A few late roses. This is Buck's Earthsong, the only one of his hardy roses that has done well for me. The rest seem awfully susceptible to black spot.

From TTH200910

Minou in her favorite lurking spot. The neighbor's wood pile is on the other side of the fence and the Chief Rodent Control Officer will sit here for hours waiting, waiting, waiting.

From TTH200910

The front bed, replanted last fall about this time. In the back corner I added a fothergilla to replace the dead Franklinia. There's a mix of evergreen and deciduous shrubs: Winterberry 'Red Sprite' (Ilex verticillata), Inkberry 'Shamrock' (Ilex glabra), Leucothoe 'Girard's Rainbow', Abelia 'Kaleidoscope'.

From TTH200910

From TTH200910

I spotted this variegated version of a blue holly called 'Honey Maid' on a recent trip to the nursery. I had to have it even though I wasn't sure what I would do with it. I've decided to extend the back shrub island into the side yard, tie it in with the lone dogwood and plant the holly in the middle. That will also give me more room for azaleas next fall.

From TTH200910

The blueberries have finally taken hold and grown. These are Sunshine Blue, a southern highbush variety. It's supposed to be more tolerant of less acid soil so I tried them near the house. I have 3 or 4 other varieties at the back of the yard so they can all cross pollinate each other. Sunshine Blue is a nice landscape plant with blue green, semi-evergreen foliage and rather showy pink flowers. I had planted two sourwoods to give some height. One survived and is doing well. One died so I replaced it with a white fringe tree. My neighbor has one that's doing well and it's lovely when it's in bloom.

From TTH200910

Meadow in July

This is the second full growing season for the wildflower meadow. I had imagined it as a swoosh of native grasses studded with flowers. Instead I have a 5 to 6 foot high, solid wall of blooming forbs. I'm not complaining mind you but I'm still trying to revise my expectations. The bees, butterflies and birds give it top marks. Here's what it looked like last year and the year before.

From 200907

From 200907

From 200907

From 200907

From 200907

May by Guest Photographer

My friend Karen is a much better photographer than I. Happily she came to visit when there was lots in bloom and took these photos for me.

Mountain Laurels

Snowdrift, I think. I wish I didn't always lose the plant labels.

From Karen200905

From Karen200905

Meadow about hip high

From Karen200905

Coral bells in the front bed. I grew these from seed labeled Heuchera americanum. Since the native has non-descript whitish flowers and these range from pink through salmon to red, I got duped. Still, these are pretty.

From Karen200905

Herb bed with chive blossoms

From Karen200905

Roses

Westerland, gaudy but one of my favorites.

From Karen200905

Autumn Sunset, a sport of Westerland. These are both Kordes roses. I have very good luck with them, hardy and though they get some blackspot, it doesn't seem to incovenience them.

From Karen200905

Summer Wine and Siberian Irises

From Karen200905

From Karen200905

I've kept planting climbers along my neighbor's board fence. This fall I dug out Rambling Rector, an alarmingly vigorous white one and moved it to a friend's yard. In its place I planted an Alchymist, another Kordes rose.

Either Morning Has Broken or Sunsprite - whichever, it's a cheerful color.

From Karen200905

The Impressionist -
Once in a while Heirloom Roses produces a new rose that makes it worth doing business with them. They send pathetically small, barely rooted cuttings and the shipping from the West Coast is staggering. I had to have this and it has fulfilled it's promise. It's getting some size and will be trellised to my front wall. I think one of the parents is Distant Drums, a really ugly rose.

From Karen200905

May 2009

May
The first flower on my pawpaw. Maybe next year the smaller tree will bloom and I'll get fruit. I finally got to taste one at a garden festival. It's creamy, sort of like banana but with a hint of something else. The blossoms are rather erotic looking, like something Georgia O'Keefe would paint.

From TTH200905

From TTH200905

Some of the established native azaleas:

From TTH200905

From TTH200905

I wouldn't stake my life that these are straight natives but instead are some of the commercially available hybrids:

From TTH200905

Azaleas

Two winters ago I planted a bunch of seeds of east coast native azaleas. These are deciduous and fall into two main color groups: pink to white and yellow through orange to red. I joined two azalea societies so I could buy from their members' seed exchanges and staff from a couple of arboretums kindly shared some seeds. I've written about the perils and plagues of the seed starting elsewhere. These have been in trays or pots through two seasons. I wintered them over in the basement last year and ended up with 18 well rooted, well grown 1 gallon sized plants and 10 more smaller ones.

From TTH200905

The runts are in the basement under lights again but the larger ones are planted in Hagen's Woods, a large island of trees and shrubs in my backyard.

From TTH200910

The small things in the foreground are azaleas. There's also a Franklinia alatamaha to replace the one in my front foundation bed that struggled and died.

From TTH200910

I still have to make more chicken wire fences to hold off the rabbits. If I don't protect young trees and shrubs they will eat them to the ground during the winter.

Basement Light Cart
This is a shelving unit I bought at Lowes. Shelving.com sells the same sort of shelving in any dimensions you can think of. I added wheels to this set and for now am using some honking big compact fluorescents. I bought a bunch of long 'shop light' fluorescent fixtures and tubes and when I have time will hang those instead.

From TTH200910

From TTH200910

From TTH200910

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day 4/15/2009

Today is actually very dark and rainy so I'm going to cheat and show you the flowers I cut and arranged on 4/12 for Easter dinner. Except for the daffodils these are all still in bloom in the yard today. The bluebells have filled in beautifully this year. They look best when they are massed. I didn't think they would last as cut flowers since they are rather floppy in form to start with but they did very well. They started dropping flower heads this morning so I tossed the arrangements when I got home.

Visit May Dreams for more Bloom Day

The last of the daffodils and some sorta species tulips

From TTH200904

Bluebells and serviceberry blossoms for the kitchen table

From TTH200904

Bluebells and pieris blossoms for the dinner table

From TTH200904

Other things blooming in my yard:
Plum tree
Apple tree is in bud
Spicebush is just finishing
Wood poppies are starting

In the Shenandoah Valley the redbuds are in full bloom. The woods edge along the highways looks like someone took a broad paint brush and painted swathes of pinky purple.

April finally had some showers

We got some very welcome rain and the effect is very visible. Grass is green, violets in bloom, redbuds all along the highway are in the deep purply stage.

I mowed the wildflower meadow and there is lots of new growth starting. Last summer this just swarmed and hummed with bees, butterflies and hummingbirds.

From TTH200904

I have daffodils massed in the long bed by the board fence. This bed cycles through daffodils, Siberian irises and daylilies with tall climbing roses at the back. One of the roses, a hybrid musk called Rambling Rector is becoming a monster. I have an Alchymist on order that I'll grow in a pot this year. If it prospers I may look for a new home for Rector.

From TTH200904

Cats contemplating daffodils

From TTH200904

The front bed has mostly spring ephemerals. And cats.

From TTH200904

Dutchman's Breeches

From TTH200904

From TTH200904

Bluebells went from this

From TTH200904

to this

From TTH200904

Shooting Star (Dodecatheon meadia)
I planted a dozen of these last spring. So far I've counted 11 up this year. I love these. The flowers look similar to cyclamen flowers in colors from white through pink to purple.

From TTH200904

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day March 2009

Head over to May Dreams to see bloggers reporting in on Bloom Day, the 15th of each month.

In my yard:

Crocuses in the rain

From TTH20090315

From TTH20090315

From TTH20090315

Cold wet daffodils

From TTH20090315

From TTH20090315

Hazelnut catkins

From TTH20090315

Mountain Laurel buds

From TTH20090315

Pieris just about to bloom

From TTH20090315