Roses, and the Death of Chuck

Yep.  The boybarian of the house got him.  I didn’t see it first hand, but the versions I heard from his sisters included the words, eye, shot, blood spurting.  I did a happy dance.  The boy then had a dream  that Chuck came back, ate of a certain poppy in the garden, grew to a gargantuan size, went into the boy’s bedroom and attacked him.  Also Chuck was sporting an eye patch. 

On a completely different note, the roses are blooming.  Hurrah!  We had a short but mean rainstorm this morning, so New Dawn is a bit droopy, but it smells divine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Uninvited Guest

He looks pretty darn happy doesn’t he?  Just taking a stroll through his new digs, not a care in the world.  That’s our groundhog, Mr. Chuck.

A friend suggested her builders method.  Trap them in Havaheart traps and then shoot them.  After a week of this, it seems like a sensible idea.

The Garden of Eatin’ featuring Friar Chuck

He ate the daisy buds.  He ate the white conflower I started from seed last year.  He ate every single pansy blossom.  He ate the lupines, the lettuce,  and the asters.  And while I am surveying all this damage, my fragmented brain is thinking, how can he be so fat eating all these greens?  And where is the baseball bat, ’cause I’m putting an end to this business.  And then after drinking all the water in the fountain, he looked around him and saw that it was good and dug a hole under the front porch.  A hole exactly where I put my foot when I come down or go up the porch a bazzillion times a day. 

On Wednesday my lupines looked like this,

on Thursday this is what was left.

 Tomorrow I hope to write, that Friar Chuck has moved on, to the great groundhog in the sky.

 

Whistling pig my patootie.

 

First Lily (day) of the Season

Happy Returns the cutest little day lily of them all.  First bloom peeked out yesterday and from the look of the many buds this will be a good year for her.  I transplanted these from the very shady neglected backyard to the somewhat more sunny front yard, last year.  It’s actually growing rather than surviving, and I get to see it everytime I go in and out.  Brings a smile to this gardeners face.

I lifted this from the American Hemerocallis Society’s page.  Do you think their members carry cards announcing as much?  Anyhoo I found it interesting.  My daughter’s pet peeve is people (her mom?) who spell lilly with two L’s.  The  AHS people are very clear that daylily is indeed one word.  Just in case you’ve been losing sleep over this matter.

The scientific name for daylily is Hemerocallis, most recently considered to belong in the plant family Hemerocallidaceae. Previously, many older works placed daylilies in the Lily family, Liliaceae. Notice that the preferred spelling is “daylily” as one word. Many dictionaries spell it as two words. The word Hemerocallis is derived from two Greek words meaning “beauty” and “day,” referring to the fact that each flower lasts only one day. To make up for this, there are many flower buds on each daylily flower stalk, and many stalks in each clump of plants, so, the flowering period of a clump is usually several weeks long. And, many cultivars have more than one flowering period.  

An Unwelcome Visitor

 

Olivia has named him Friar Chuck, and he is the cutest little thing, but he and his friend must go!

Light

The light was good on Saturday morning, this is nepata, catmint.  Can’t remember which one.  Do you want me to look it up in the book?

Light near the tree house. 

Lilac.

Visitors

Yesterday I found this little guy in the garden amongst the angelina.

Here he is in a puddle on the rock, before I scared him into the angelina.

And today I was went down to the garage, getting stakes to secure the lilies, and found this beauty.

A Luna moth.  Seems to be missing part of his wings.

Lupine Patrol

I sat down in the garden the other day and was thrilled to see buds on the lupine.  

 

Same lupine only a day later!  I love sitting here each morning and marveling at the changes.  Everything grows so fast this time of year.

For whatever reason I feel the need to report the daily progression!

TA-DA!  I missed photographing a day in there.  Anyway, it has been brutally hot here in northeastern PA, with temps. in the 90’s, and rain, making for a jungle like feeling out in the garden.  The crazy weather has also made the plants grow like mad, I think this lupine stretched nearly two inches in one day.  The weeds are growing like, well, like weeds.  I’ll have to be getting up early if I want to be out before it gets too hot to work.  Which is about 70 for my Nordic genes.

This should be the last pic, unless I document the wilting too.

A friend once described coming upon a meadow filled with lupines up in Maine.  That is something I would like to see.  It must have been breathtaking, considering how ga-ga I am over my tiny planting, an entire field would tip me over the proverbial edge.

 

 

 

 

The Littlest Veggie Patch

Lacking room & sunshine I have what must be one of the tiniest vegetable gardens around.  This year we have onions, garlic, various lettuces & spinach, plus beans and the usual assortment of herbs.  I tucked a couple of tomato plants and an eggplant in with the flowers this year.

That was a week ago, we’ve harvested our first batch of greens since then, and an early garlic because I was too impatient to wait.

Did you notice the coffee cup in the background?  I left it on the rock wall.  I’m sure I forgot all about it and left it there until I went out the next day.  I do that frequently.  My dad did too, I when I was growing up.  Except with the good china cups.  We’d walk into the garden and find a good china cup & saucer sitting on the fence post.  He said the coffee tasted better out of china. 

Attack of the Alliums

I like alliums, and was blessed with an abundance of bulbs last Fall.  It was a great surprise when they burst forth this Spring.   Despite taking notes, I forget between Fall planting and Spring blooming just how many of the litter buggers I stuck in there.

 

There are some in the middle front bed, peeking out from behind the grass.

Bottom by drive and middle bed.

They are even cute before they bloom.

 

New front bed alliums.

Alliums in the distance.

alliums falling from the sky.