Red Blooms

 Still blooming in my front yard, roses and chrysanthemums. I have a predilection for red blooms!

Lilies

 The glory of my June garden is the patch of lilies i planted in the fall of 2018. It was a set of 25 bulbs sold by White Flower Farm called Strawberries and Cream. (WFF are masters of marketing.) They bloomed for the first time my first month of retirement, June 2019. Sadly, in 2020, I had to dig up most of them because of the gas company requirements. I put them back, and most but not all survived. I missed the peak this year by being away the first 10 days of June. They were still lovely!

I decided to refresh the patch with an infusion of new bulbs- again, the same mix from the same source. The bulbs arrived today, and went into the ground right away. I often aspire to this promptness, but rarely execute it, so yay me! Here’s hoping for a great display next year!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unintended Consequences?

I love my fence and how it’s enabled my garden to thrive in the absence of deer and greatly reduced rabbits. It’s even possibly reduced the number of cats visitors, which makes the birds happy. A lot of the fence’s effectiveness at its specified role of “deer-out; dogs in” comes from having closed up the gaps along the bottom. 

Bixby's first turtle

The very first time little Sadie came over after the fence was built, she squeezed under it and was off like a flash! The day Bixby came here to live, I spent a lot of time reviewing the bottom edge of the while fence, plugging gaps with rocks, logs and soil. The fence is built on my sloping yard, so there were sometimes sizable gaps, too small for clunky Rocky but plenty small enough for an eight-pound dog to fit through.

So maybe I was too effective? Bixby has found turtles, or possibly a turtle, on and off all year. He found a smallish one back by my shed—the closest corner to the park and creek below. It was gone in a few hours.  All summer, he has found one in my shady and damp front yard, excellent box turtle habitat. When he spots a turtle, he barks at it, jumps forward and back near it, but I never saw him try to touch it with either his paw or nose.

Dogs just wanna have fun!

This week, he spotted one cruising the perimeter fence heading in the direction of the creek. But as I watched the handsome fellow, he seemed to be foiled by the fence. Finally I picked him up and cruised the whole edge. I never found a place I was sure he could fit through. So I went around to my neighbor and put him down just outside the part of the fence he had been cruising, facing in the same direction. I’ve read that turtles have a strong urge to go where they want to go, so if you rescue one crossing a road, for example, you need to put him down on the side he was heading to. Otherwise, if you put him back where he came from, he’ll just venture back across. Hopefully, this guy will get where he wants to be. 

What a handsome fellow!
But apparently stymied by the fence

 

More Plants!

 

I took my girl plant shopping for her less-than-2-weeks-away birthday. I ended up with a sizeable haul myself! Everything needs to be repotted and then I need to find places for them. I'm pleased! More green! Bring that outdoors in!

Needle Drop

In the last 48 hours all the brown needles fell off the white pine at the end of the driveway, leaving an inch of debris in a big circle around the tree.

This almost looks like a brown snowfall.

Vacation is Over

My morning room

I woke up yesterday to a temperature of 48 degrees. I knew it was going to get cold, but I thought I had a few more days! Fifty degrees is my cutoff for the summer vacation for my indoor plants (and that is pushing it). I just remembered I go warmer for putting them outside in the spring, more like 55 or 60, and it seemed to take forever to get there this year. I think it was May before they went outside. But as always, they really thrive when out there in the warm weather.

With the weather forecast stay as cold or colder for the next week, yesterday was devoted to bringing in the jungle. I expanded my houseplant collection last winter, so I had to spend some time deciding where these plants would go.(I did lose a couple as well.) I didn't have stands or places for many of them. 

I decided to put most of the plants into the TV room (formerly known as the dog's room, sometimes referred to as the South Wing), rather than scatter them throughout the house. This is a small room off the main house with big windows on three sides. I had to wash several outdoor pieces of furniture, and even saw off the feet of several small wooden Ikea tables that had rotted a bit from sitting on damp earth. Several of the plants also needed repotting. So this turned into a most-of-the-day project, not a bad way to spend the day. And I think I like the idea of a garden room. I've noticed the increased light in there from lower angles and fewer leaves, and I gravitate towards it.

The South Wing

Now, I think I need more plants! There is a hip spot in downtown DC for houseplants I could visit. There is the internet. But I think I may start with Home Depot and Lowes. As I recall from this spring, Lowes had better plants, but Home Depot had wider choices for pots. 

I had been very big into palm trees when I first got the house and realized the possibilities of my TV room. Here's a moody photo taken from inside November, 2001.

November 2001

Opening Up

There is an extra satisfaction in garden clean-up in the fall because plants are done growing for the most part, so things pulled out or cut back stay gone. My front entrance was way overgrown. It wasn’t possible to get to the front door without brushing against some plants. This included long tendrils from a thorny rose bush! 

I like having a wide, easy-to-navigate entrance, so I spent a couple of hours on this. Here are before and after shots. It’s honestly kind of subtle, but it creates so much more of an open and welcoming feeling. Bonus: it’ll be easier to shovel snow, without the plants growing over the sides, should that become necessary.