Many years ago I found the most adorable little concrete bird bath at, of all places, Walmart. Yah, I spend way too much money there, but I digress. It was time for a new bird bath after our old one tipped over, got a split in the molded plastic, and was leaking more than could be reasonably fixed. I bought the little version because it was just so cute, and because my neighbor was delighted with hers.
All these years later, it still makes me smile, but … bird baths get gross. Like slimy green gross. So to fix that issue, one day my wandering mind came upon an idea. What if I could find a bowl that could fit in the bird bath, and be replaced, say every week? Well, at first I used those waxy paper bowls. They used to last about 5 days before disintegrating, and I didn’t feel environmentally unconscientious because they literally decomposed in as many days. That worked for quite a few years, and were even pretty, but the last batch I bought, even though the same brand, was much flimsier. So, sadly I have gone to styrofoam. They stay clean for about a week. I have noticed that with the cleaner water I am getting a lot more “sippers” than ever before.
Because we live in a townhome community, there is no growing vegetables in the ground. In the early years here, I purposefully bought humungous plant pots and planted large breed tomatoes and green peppers and jalepeno and habenero peppers. Nowadays I buy those at the farmer’s market and stick to our daylilies, hostas, asian lilies and sedum plan. Ocassionally, however, I “stumble” into something I may or may not give away.
Last year our CSA gave chives in one of our first weeks and we really enjoyed those. If you know chives, though, it’s probably a good thing it stayed in a plant pot! This year I found a new way for tomatoes. A co-worker’s daughter is in robotics (yeay, girls in STEM!) and they were doing a fundraiser. I bought a ‘Sweet and Neat’ pre-potted tomatoe plant. It came highly recommended, and wowser! it did not disappoint! On this little plant I have already had about 70 large cherry tomatoe sized fruits, and now in the past couple weeks it has grown more! Definitely a good choice this year.
My father (unknowingly at first) got me going on hostas. I was at their house, doing “garden stuff” and he decided that he wanted to remove the over-crowded orange daylilies from the side of the house. We dug them out, gave them to the neighbor (who made a wonderful experience planting them with their young daughter) and we were cleaning up when I saw a few tiny hosta bulbs. I admit, my huband had just declined free hosta plants, but I couldn’t resist. I thought I could just do an “experiment”. You know, just see if they grew in our garden. So I tossed them in one of the plant pots my Dad was giving me. And I brought them home. And I planted them. The next spring – Lo and behold! – hosta plants came up. 😍
My husband was skeptical. No, more accurately, he was a tad concerned. You see, at our house in which we raised our children, I was known to create a new garden area at will … sometimes against his wishes … while he was out with our children … buying my Mother’s Day gift. So he was rightly concerned. We now, by intention, had a very manageable (town)home and yard and garden. But the garden was growing.
The spring after we moved into our current home, I petitioned the association to be able to “improve the property” by putting in some bulbs. We got approval. I proceeded to do that abundantly. A few years went by, and I, with the agreement of my husband, petitioned the association to expand our garden. My petition was approved and we proceeded. (We used the contractor who was familiar with our sprinklers … so no problems there.) The next year, the lawn service was chewing up the trunk of our Linden when they weed whipped, and making ruts in the lawn around it with the mower. I, with the agreement of my husband, petitioned the association to expand the garden again, to go around the tree and farther out into the yard. We got an immediate approval, and during the work, the association president came over and said it looked very nice. And my husband said … “Now you are done expanding.” Why? Well, not all those gardens that I created at the house we raised our children in were well maintained. I loved them. I had every intention of keeping things under control. But we had children, and activities, and dogs, and jobs, and …. They got away from me.
So back to Dad’s hostas. They flourished, and I fell in love. Soon I was adding carefully to our garden, ones that had meaning, ones that were meant to be smaller (I have an entire “ring” of ‘Blue Mouse Ears’ – I love love love them!) I found out about the Hosta of the Year and bought some of those. (Oops! some are quite big!) My Dad met a Hosta Masta (Master) and bought me a couple from his annual sale. The next year we toured his garden and I was in awe! It was incredible!!! And he had very tastefully integrated daylilies in with his hostas. So … I started an “experiment” of my own … We already had a few daylilies up close to the house, but what if I added some throughout the garden. And that is where I still am still today. To keep things simple and under control, we have hostas and daylilies and asian lilies, and sedum (but that is a blog for another day).
That is the story of how Dad’s few little hosta bulbs greatly influenced the garden I have today.
My husband is now the association president (not kidding!). He will not approve any further expansions. So I give divisions to my friends and family and neighbors. It’s all good!
Last fall and winter we had a squirrel who was coming to eat who had a gorgeous tail. Obviously well fed and good genes. We assume he has expired because he has not been around for quite a while. But he has a protege 🙂 A beautiful (and well fed) one.
I have a quandry. Two days ago I still had flowers on our Aureomarginata hostas. I don’t collect hosta seeds because I don’t generally want the hostas to put any energy into seed production AND (and this is a big “and” – my husband is not in agreement with any more expanding on the garden). I think he’s right because in the fall I hand cut everything back, and it takes time and energy and multiple trips to the compost site. But … today I looked at the Aureomarginatas and they have seed pods already. Last weekend there were no seed pods, but today there are.
Oh bother! 😏 The bees certainly did their job. Is this a case where doing nothing (letting them finish seeding) leads to a wonderful something?
There is so much going on at once right now in the garden. The last cream daylily bloomed today.
“Twins” are abounding. (More about that and pics in days to come). I saw a very young (probably a baby) cardinal in our Linden tonight. Both white squirrels showed up this morning. (I only could catch one in the pic below, through the foggy window this morning.)
The last bloom of the two ‘Just Plum Happy’ daylilies in one area bloomed today. (Still more blooming in another area.) The ‘Patriot’ hostas have finished blooming. Some of the daylilies have started to set seed. (More about that in an upcoming blog, or two.) The Weigelia is reblooming.
But the best part of today was that it was my Mom’s birthday. I took the day off work and we spent the day together – coffee and pastry at Caribou, shopping, a movie, more shopping, and dinner. The movie we saw was Christopher Robin. We both absolutely loved it. It brought back so many memories. And the line we both loved most was “Because sometimes doing nothing leads to the best something.” That’s how a good garden day feels. Just enjoying “being” in the garden, and then you see this, and that, and putter around, and before you know it you are quite content.
Yesterday two of our few remaining red daylilies bloomed. Today our last one bloomed. I bought them about ten years ago, and honestly, they took a while to get established. But now they sit as as a beautiful backdrop for the more showy and the shorter daylilies (and hostas) in that part of the garden. Their show goes on for about a month. At the end of the day, when the sun comes around through that part of the garden, they are magnificent! It is especially wonderful when a number of them bloom all at the same time.
I don’t even know their proper name, but I think it might be ‘Autumn Red’. They remind me of unsung heroes.
Tonight I was going around the garden, and I noticed what looked like grass growing in the rock. So I pulled it out. Oops! Upon closer examination, I think it was a volunteer from the ‘Marque Moon’ daylilies. Cool, but bummer! I couldn’t bear to toss it out, so I planted it again, but in a better spot 😍 We’ll see what happens.
Quite a few years ago I bought a couple of those little shamrock plants they have in the grocery store around St. Patrick’s day. They grew and grew. The larger of a plant pot I gave them, the larger they got. We stopped at this size because we have to bring them in during the winter. About 6 years ago I put gladiolas in when I gave it a new pot. The tall leaves are the remnants that come back every year. The green shamrock in the background was the other one I bought. I have shared both many times, and still they fill up the pots every year.
About a month ago we found a new baby bird in there. Apparently the shamrock was a soft landing place. It eventually jumped out and we watched it learn to fly. That was kind of neat too.
Today we were away from home most of the day. When we got home close to sunset we saw this guy. He turned around mid-meal for this “pose”.
Yesterday a neighbor couple came over to see the garden. They asked how we keep the squirrels off the feeders. When Sandy isn’t visiting, clearly, we don’t 😏 One feeder is closer in to the tree. Most of the time the birds have both feeders, but when one of the squirrels comes by, they almost always stay to the back feeder.
“Twins” are abounding. (More about that and pics in days to come). I saw a very young (probably a baby) cardinal in our Linden tonight. Both white squirrels showed up this morning. (I only could catch one in the pic below, through the foggy window this morning.)
