Author: susansdailygarden

Cardinal love

We really enjoy watching the local cardinals. Right now we are seeing some cardinal love. Right before this pic I watched from my office as the male fed the female. We think, are hoping, all indications are, they have chosen the big pine for their home.

They are super skittish, so I have yet to capture their feeding ritual on a pic. I am practicing my stealth skills. Hopefully soon.

Early morning

May is here, and with it, hopefully, more patio time at the townhouse, and camping time up north.

The snow up north has returned to it’s liquid form, allowing tulips to start showing up.

Now, admittedly, those, like the tulips I recently planted at the historic cemetery, were forced bulbs from years past, and have never bloomed up north, that I know of. But just having the greens is an improvement from waist-high snow. It was a very long winter.

The past couple mornings, at the townhouse, I had an “opportunity” to go outside at 4am, courtesy of one terhuahua named Sandy. The moon was full and … the birds were singing. At 4:09 am.

Funny story time – the new bird bath

A month ago during a bad ice and snow storm we lost the front Amur maple. The association contracted for removal and that happened a couple weeks ago. My husband was really missing watching the birds in that tree, so I bought a new bird bath to put in the rock. Well, it catches us both off guard all the time. The two birds – one on either side of the bowl – are just at the window height, and we end up thinking the birds have finally found it. So far, no real birds though.

The daylilies, on the other hand are LOVING all the new sunlight. Rethinking that cherry tree idea. Turns out they are pretty from afar, and a royal mess when close to a sidewalk. Whodathunk????

The clematis, and trimming the historic cemetery garden

The Bluebells clematis is budding out in front. This is one I learned needs to not be cut back. The new growth buds out of last year’s vines.

Out back the clematis is just waking up.

It was a super windy day today, so not much gardening.

Yesterday was much more fun. I went to the historic cemetery and worked on spring trimming the fence garden. Like at the historic mansion, I am just learning what all is in there. So far I can see tall sedum, stonecrop, phlox, some hostas, black-eyed Susan’s, and yarrow. I trimmed all except some stonecrop. I will go over some night this week and trim those, and also put some coffee grounds along the base of the hostas.

I am exceptionally happy to see there are some hostas. To be sure, they are small, but if they survive, yahoo! They can meet some new “friends”! (I can then divide some hostas here this fall and see if they do well over there.)

The duck people have arrived

The year after we moved into the townhouse we drove down to TX and adopted an Irish Terrier rescue. Darby got to keep his rescue name. It so suited him. An Irish guy 😊

Darby experienced ducks for the first time here that spring. He did not care for them. Not one bit. And he let everyone in the area know. “Some duck people have arrived. Be on high alert!” In dog language, of course.

Every year since then, the first time we see the ducks fly in to the green space, we say “the duck people have arrived!”

They “arrived” the other day, very early in the morning. I saw three fly in barely at dawn. Later that morning they came back. Sandy was very aware and concerned. But he was glad they at least weren’t up on the roof top. Whew! Dodged that one. The last time they did that, Darby was in charge, and alerting for that type of “invasion”. Would have been very big shoes to fill.

The second rain garden

At the historic mansion site, the second rain garden is also a registered butterfly sanctuary. I had seen it on my personal walk-through a week ago. Yesterday it was confirmed as both the south rain garden and the butterfly sanctuary.

I spent hours yesterday evening pouring over a treasure – the schematics from the initial planting of the rain gardens, as well as the initial inventory/buy list. That was done in 2005, when the city took over the site, a new roof was put on the mansion, and the parking lot was put in. Makes sense – add a parking lot, offset runoff of that hard surface and potential chemicals, with rain gardens.

What went into the rain gardens was, as I expected, a lot of sedge and grasses. Other things too – honeysuckle, daylilies … From outward appearances it looks like the sedge and grasses have been very successful. Some research on sedge and other grasses yielded information that it is not just nectar that is needed in a butterfly garden. Caterpillars use the sedge and grasses environment. I need to dive a bit deeper on that to understand – should I then trim the sedge and grasses? They do seem a bit voluminous, but then maybe that is exactly what the caterpillars thrive on.

I fought myself on where to start, as the south rain garden/butterfly sanctuary is the closest to the entrance, but I really do want to see what survived in there for the butterflies before I start trimming there. It also looks like a lot of daylilies might be in there.

So the north rain garden gets a haircut first. The goal will be to start on the edges and gradually move in.

This will be a long-haul project, with layers of understanding and discovery. Perfect!