Bird bubbler

I shouldn’t have stopped by Lowe’s last weekend, but I had a sudden urge to buy another birdbath. I have one out front, and two more on the lower level of the back yard, but I can’t see any of them from my favorite chair on the back porch, which is a higher elevation than the rest of the garden. And I spend most of my time in that chair (lazy gardener). I wanted a birdbath with a bubbler since moving water attracts more birds. Lowe’s just happened to have this one at half-price, $27.49. I couldn’t pass that up.


This small terrace is the view from my chair. Now I don't have to crane my neck to see birds drinking.

These are my customers. Their feeder is about 3 feet away from the birdbath. Sometimes it takes birds awhile to get used to something new in their environment. I watched and I waited.

Finally, here he came!

Moving water apparently attracts the neighbor’s cat too.

A couple of days later, the hibiscus bloomed again. Three blooms at a time is about as good as it gets, and makes a nice frame for the birdbath fountain.

Aren’t they exotic? I think they’re a nice complement to the pink flamingo of my previous post.

While my daughter was visiting, we waited and waited for the Stargazer lilies to bloom, but they decided to open the day after she went home.

And this photo is for my darling daughter, who just lost her 10-year-old Manx cat. If there’s a heaven for cats, it must be a garden. And Hades, despite his name, is free to roam in it forever.

I Couldn't Resist

So the other day I was reading Gardening While Intoxicated posting on Garden Rant and found that Elizabeth, who is a serious gardener, sheepishly admitting to owning a Pink Flamingo. Apparently it’s not her idea to have it in her garden, but she’s been overruled. So when I, a frivolous gardener, stopped at a garage sale Saturday morning and spotted this garish pink metal one that lights up at night, I knew it would be perfect for my back porch.

There really isn’t anything else to say about this, is there?

Except see how brightly it glows at dusk?

Also see how expensive it was? Could I resist this at $4.00? No. Well, maybe I should have!

At Home > Home Accents > Tabletop Accents & Figurines
Seaside Treasures® Animated FlamingoPrice: $69.99, Sale Price: $48.99

Book club

My Summer in a Garden, by Charles Dudley Warner, the June/July gardener's book club selection, shown on my unmade (of course) bed, where it resided for the months of June and July.

I indicated to Carol that I found this book to be a snoozer. And it was - in a good way. The flowery prose of the late 19th century inevitably makes our 21st century text-messaging, keyword-searching brains rebel. But once into the flow of the tale of a summer in Charles’ garden, the rhythm was easy to pick up, the long (and longer) paragraphs easier for the eye to scan. I felt right at home in that garden, and the comfortable, inexorable cycle of gardening is what lulled me to sleep each night as I read this book.

Didn’t it seem like a curmudgeonly old gent wrote this? He hated children, his neighbor’s cow that often wallowed in his garden (imagine that!), cats and chickens, and he belittled his wife. In fact, Warren was only 41 years old when he wrote this, which gives credence to my theory that people used to behave (and look) much older than they actually were. 60 may be the new 40 now, but back then a 40-year-old could easily pass for a 60-year-old codger. But since most of the book was written tongue-in-cheek, the reader has to assume that this book was meant to be read then as we’d read Dave Barry now.

I guess my favorite part of this book was Charles’ hatred of “pusley”, “a fat ground-clinging, spreading, greasy thing” which I can only assume is purslane. It’s nice to know some things never change, while others did. His antiquated views on certain topics are merely something to wonder at now, but a fact of life in his day. And his way with a phrase is what kept me engrossed and occasionally laughing out loud, such as “the cucumbers cumber the ground – great yellow, over-ripe objects” which put me in mind of May Dreams’ squash, as did Charles’ raptures over his new hoe. There were lots of other great passages but I couldn’t highlight them since I got this book from the library and they probably wouldn’t appreciate it. I don’t want to go back and re-read the whole darn book to find them again, amusing as it was. I’ll just finish this with Charles Dudley Warren’s observation that “a garden is an awful responsibility.” But he found a most amusing way to deal with it.

Here's my own summer-in-my-garden latest photo, the Rose of Sharon, which decided to bloom just in time for my daughter's visit.

It has an abundance of pretty little flowers, in pink of course. I have friends who've recently planted the blue ones, but I haven't seen any pictures of theirs yet and of course their plants are still quite small.

Not like this behemoth that would like to reach the height of the now-defunct basketball hoop. My neighbor's house in the background is higher on the hill than I am, and you can just see the roof of my garage on the right to get an idea of the height. I've had to trim this bush to the ground several times over the years because heavy snows tend to smash it flat and then the limbs grow all twisted instead of springing back into shape.

While I was waiting for my daughter to get off the plane, I took this shot of the greeting area at DIA. Nice fountain under the "circus-tent" roof, and a long line of variegated something-or-others all lined up in their pots. Charles Dudley Warner would be amazed.

Tagged

Bev in Colorado tagged me for a meme - 8 random things about me. But first here's a picture of my 6-year-old granddaughter touring the garden today. She found a paper parasol on the porch and decided it would be perfect for a stroll.

Now for the meme:

· There isn’t a day that I don’t eat chocolate.

· I’ve been going to the same dentist since I was 18 years old. I’m now 60.

· I love music but it makes me sad – I rarely listen to it.

· I worked in a carnation greenhouse when I was a teenager. Nowadays when I order an arrangement of flowers for any occasion, I always specify “no carnations”.

· I’ve read thousands of books in my lifetime. I generally have two or three going at once at any given time. I get worried if I don’t always have a supply of books and I tend to stockpile them.

· I can’t find anything in my house unless it’s something I use every day. This is one of the great frustrations of my life. I’ve lived in this house for 30 years and things rearrange themselves when I’m not looking.

· One dark and rainy night about 10 years ago my daughter and I experienced a “raining frogs” phenomenon. Hundreds and hundreds of them hopping across a mile-long stretch of interstate outside Tulsa. We couldn’t avoid them and the highway was slick with squished frogs. We’ve never convinced anyone that this happened.

· I have 317 species of birds on my life list. The thrill of seeing a new bird always stops me in my tracks, but my favorite bird is in my own backyard – the ubiquitous American Robin.

My backyard birding companion - the neighbor's cat - watching himself for a change instead of my birdfeeder.

My daughter is coming for a visit. I need to find the vacuum cleaner, take the Christmas tree out of her room, and do a bit of "light housework". So I won't be posting for the next week or so but I'll be checking in occasionally to keep up with what everyone is doing. Oh, I'm supposed to tag 8 other bloggers to post 8 random things, so this means you!

Then and Now....Shade and Sun

Now...
I love Lavatera. This one is in the back yard and I can't remember its name. I call it Pretty Pink Eye (not cunjunctivitis). It's from the mallow family, which also includes Rose of Sharon, hibiscus, and hollyhocks. You know I love hollyhocks.
Then...
July 2006. Do you see a giant hollyhock? I don’t either. There is a little wimpy one barely visible in front of the purple liatris. It had been attempting to bloom for a long time in the shade of an overgrown upright juniper.

Then...

A month earlier I'd had the juniper taken out. The bare dirt shows how much area it took up. And it was taller than the house.

Now....

The hollyhock took full advantage, wouldn't you say?

Then...

See the feverfew in July 2006? (the white clump behind the geese). You can’t see the pink lavatera but it’s visible in the second picture above, at the front edge of the bed, seeking one of the few sunny spots the juniper didn't hog.

Now...
Look at the lavatera this year. It spread back into the feverfew because….there's sun. (The purple verbena didn't magically appear, I yanked out last year's Yellow Archangel -nasty stuff- and planted Homestead Purple this spring).

It was fun to compare pictures from last year to this year. I also solved a mystery. Every time I look out the living room window I wonder what the funny looking clump of grass is under the giant hollyhock this year. After viewing these photos I see that it's last year's purple Liatris clearly visible in the second photo. Good thing the camera remembers, I sure don't.

Shooting stars and a savage garden

I missed the fireworks tonight but I have my own starburst display in the front yard. The Whirling Butterflies (gaura) are shooting out right and left, reminding me of those cool starburst fireworks that rain down from Fourth of July skies.

The slightest breeze sets the blossoms fluttering on their long, wand-like stems, imitating a cloud of white butterflies flitting across my yard. This guara is called Geyser White.

What do you do with a day off in the middle of the week, with two days of work behind you, and two more to come? A holiday in the middle of the week doesn’t lend itself to serious pursuits like heavy-duty gardening chores. No, much better to fritter the day away, which I did, with this book.

A Savage Garden? How can that be? Finding the answer was a pleasant summer read - a delicious trip through a mysterious 15th century garden (which is much more than it appears to be) in the heart of Tuscany. Complete with a 400 year old mystery, a World War II murder, and a young scholar trying to unravel numerous threads; it was like reading The Da Vinci Code, only without the religion, and with a garden as the main character. I liked it.

Occasionally I got up and wandered around and pulled a weed or two, and petted a neighbor’s cat that prefers my back porch during the day. I was treated to the sight of four fighter jets flying in formation overhead, and later the deep boom of fireworks. I can no longer see them from my back porch as well as I could 30 years ago before the trees got bigger. Just a hint of shooting stars overhead.

Green light, glowing flowers

Do you get those late afternoons when the setting sun’s rays seem to cast a green glow over everything? It reminds me of photos people take while scuba diving (not me) when they aim the camera up through the green depths toward the sun. There must be a name for it but I don’t know what it is. Actually, when I mention this to people, no one knows what I’m talking about so it may be early signs of glaucoma, but it sure is ethereal-looking. Anyway, we had an evening like that last night, after a blistering 100 degree day. The colors of the flowers were pretty much glowing so I took some photos of my giant hollyhock.

This hollyhock was a spindly creature for years, (yes they self-sow everywhere) growing in the shadow of an enormous upright juniper. The overgrown juniper dwarfed the house, and tried to lay claim to the driveway space too, and when I could no longer get the car in the garage without scraping the sides, the tree man came and took the juniper out. I should have done it years ago. Now there's a baby flame maple there, which isn't big enough to cast much shade.

The hollyhock breathed an almost audible sigh of relief, sucked up all the sunshine, and decided to reach for the sky. This year it’s 7 to 8 feet tall with the girth of a mighty oak. My neighbor was over the other day, did a double-take and said "what the hell's that giant thing?" as if I had surreptitiously planted it under cover of night. Really, it's hard to miss.

Half the fun of hollyhocks is seeing what color they will be when they bloom each year. It’s never the same in my garden. Most of them (planted years ago as a mix of white, pink and red) turn out a deep maroon color which I’m not crazy about, but my brother-in-law in the desert thinks they’re fabulous. I always hope for pink, and a cherry pink as long as I’m hoping. Hoping and wishing seemed to pay off this year.

Another stand across the yard shows definite apricot tones, with a few white ones thrown in.

These remind me of the flowers we used to make in school when Sister wasn't looking. We used a couple of pieces of kleenex, though I don't think we had apricot-colored tissue back then.

In the back yard, this hollyhock obligingly self-sowed in just the right spot. Ooh, cherry pink! In the next few weeks, the leaves will be full of holes (earwigs and such) and rust will take over. I'll cut them down to the ground and a fresh green rosette of leaves will soon appear and there will be a second blooming, but nowhere near as glorious as the first.

This evening, no green glow and the temperature plummeted to 80 today so I could get serious about prying the weeds out of the cracks in the driveway. This job requires my favorite gardening tool - the kneeler. A beer helps give me a bit of a glow too.

Blogiversary

In the fifth grade, Sister Mary Ethelburga came to class one day with a list of other 10-year-olds from around the country who wanted like-minded penpals. A penpal! What a thrill. We could find out how other kids lived in faraway, exotic-sounding places like Indianapolis, Yuma, or Baton Rouge. I’ve heard stories of people who remain penpals for life but I think my penpal lasted about 6 months. I’m sure that writing a letter was low on my list of priorities (after bike riding, reading Nancy Drew, and playing dolls) but Sister thought it was important to learn how other people lived and letters were a good way to share experiences with others. If only Sister Mary Ethelburga could see the blogging world today!

A year has gone by since I discovered garden blogs and began my own. I can’t remember how I found out all you people were out there talking about gardening (without me), but my best guess is that I probably Googled something that brought up one of your sites. Tentatively, I put up my first post the last week in June, and was thrilled when a few people started leaving comments. At first it was mainly Carol at Boxwood Cottage who kept me going, then Salix Tree joined in followed by Annie in Austin and then suddenly there was a whole community of gardeners I could visit with and view their photos of triumphs and tragedies. Gosh, this is fun, and no postage required!

When I joined AOL in the late ‘90s, I quickly found a gardening chatroom and learned I needed something called a screen name. I’d just read Thomas Christopher’s ‘In Search of Lost Roses’, and that seemed a natural for a “garden name.” Others in the chat room thought it meant my roses had died and that was okay since it was true some of the time. My participation in the chatroom was even shorter-lived than my penpal correspondence. While the topics were occasionally on gardening, most of the people who dropped in had the same question, “Uhhh, how do you grow pot?” While it might be a valid question, my interests were a bit more varied. And that’s where you all come in. Now, in the evenings after work, I can drop in on my blogging friends from around the country and around the world and take a peek into what they did today. You never fail to amuse, enchant, and inform me. Thank you all for being in the blogisphere!
Lost Roses in Mexico in February 2007.

Wicked, wicked ways

"A squirrel leaping from bough to bough, and making the wood but one wide tree for his pleasure, fills the eye not less than a lion, is beautiful, self-sufficing, and stands then and there for nature." - RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Not in my yard. These wicked little boogers irritate me no end. Fox squirrels are the largest North American tree squirrel and in my eyes, the most destructive. Why do they want to break my bird bath? I liked that birdbath. It had acanthus leaves on it and some other cool motifs. And they broke my favorite blue birdbath last summer.

Once they empty a feeder, they start chewing on the metal, glass, wood, or whatever it's made of. On this one they chewed the solder strips holding the panes together. What's up with that? My trusty roll of black duct tape bolstered the seams for awhile but the whole feeder is bent and chewed, metal and all, so I'm going to get rid of it. Besides, I need the duct tape to keep the passenger window in my car in place.
A friend sent me this big old goldfinch feeder for Christmas. Okay, it's not the most tasteful feeder I've owned, but it was quirky and bright and see how its stomach held the seed? Clever, huh? Well, first the squirrels disemboweled it.

Then they chewed its eyes out, and most of the face, with a few blows to the body and tail for good measure. I hung this feeder on a Monday and by Friday they'd done all this to it. I know that eating ornamental plants is common squirrel behavior, but what's with eating the garden ornaments? When I was a kid reading the Old Mother West Wind books by Thornton W. Burgess, I never noticed Happy Jack Squirrel and Chatterer the Red Squirrel acting like this. Come to think of it they didn't have bubonic plague either, which has been found in squirrels in Denver.

Well, I'd rather not think about that so here are couple of photos as requested by Zoey who wants to see just how scary the orange zinnias and the hot pink Zepherine Drouhin rose look next to each other.
A bit jarring, don't you think? I don't hate this, but it's not my favorite view. When I get tired of being unsettled each time I look at this, I'll move some purple and white containers in front of Zepherine instead. Or not. I am a lazy gardener when all is said and done. I wish the squirrels had as little energy as I do.

Other people's gardens

In Colorado, June is the month for garden tours. And Saturday was my husband’s birthday so of course I took him out for a day of doing what I like – visiting gardens. We started at his house where his main pastime is mowing the lawn - he grows Kentucky bluegrass and little else but doesn’t mind seeing what other people are doing even if he doesn’t agree.

Our tour took us to an old Victorian-era neighborhood in Denver, where the lots are small and the houses quaint. It’s one of those areas which used to be an iffy place to live but in recent years has become gentrified at a rapid pace. The current trend among homeowners there is to replace all the grass with a patchwork of plants and shrubs which are hopefully low maintenance and drought-tolerant. I don’t think I can be convinced that maintaining 100 plants in a postage stamp-sized area is easier or more water-wise than having a lawn, but that’s just me. The house above was not one of the gardens on view, but was next door to one, and its "painted lady" architecture overshadowed our interest in the neighbor’s garden. And it had grass, which my husband approved of.

My husband does like ice plants (delosperma). He remembers being wowed by California’s abundant use of them on the sides of the highways in San Diego years ago and has been fond of them ever since. He doesn’t want to grow them, but he likes them. So when we saw this huge circular bed of them in a minimalist Japanese garden he wondered how a southern California plant could grow so well in Colorado. I told him that was thanks to Panayoti Kelaidis (a renowned plantsman at the Denver Botanic Gardens), who collected seeds from South Africa about 10 years ago and hybridized them into an ice plant that survives Zone 5 winters.

Never mind that I’ve had a patch of them growing in the front yard for several years, he was suspicious of my explanation so he asked the homeowner how she could grow ice plants in this climate. She said, “Oh, that’s because Panayoti Kelaidis introduced them here.” The dubious gardener and I continued our tour.

These folks claimed to have an all-edible front garden. How’s this for creeping thyme? The gardener had two huge patches of these, one on each side of his front walkway and as we approached them the thyme appeared to be buzzing and humming. It was. There were hundreds of bees swarming over the blossoms, belying the “vanishing of the bees”, at least in this garden. The description of the garden mentioned recycled rain barrels in the backyard but someone must have given him the heads-up that it’s against the law in Colorado to collect rainwater because they were nowhere in sight.

I really enjoyed the above garden. There’s nothing like a bright blue stand of Bachelor’s buttons to catch the eye, and flanked by a patch of Sweet William in varying colors, it was a pretty sight. Colorful poppies added to the mix. This garden also had a lot of the small yellowish-orange California poppies which had self-sown in every nook and cranny. The dubious gardener wondered what they were and when I identified them he said, “Looks like onions to me.” Actually he was looking at a patch of onions. We make a habit of misunderstanding each other. He liked this garden too except for the fact there was no grass.

Having been fortified by a quick beer at a metal sculpture garden (no pictures of that, the beer went to my head) we soldiered on to garden number 12, or 13, or 14. I couldn’t remember by then. But it had lots of roses. Apparently north Denver got even more rain than we did, because the plants are taller and the roses huge. Or maybe they just have more sun or are a bit more disciplined about fertilizing.

I liked the placement of this dwarf Blue Spruce in a green-glazed pot which was a nice complement of colors. The homeowner apologized for having very few flowers to show because her new puppy had spent the morning biting the heads off them. No problem. The dubious gardener admired her nice swath of lawn and complimented her on her good taste, and then, tour done, we headed back to our respective houses to - what else? – mow our lawns.

Great expectations

Pretty little thing, isn't it? This is Paul's Himalayan Musk, one of the great rambler roses.

See how tiny this fully opened bloom is in my hand? See how badly I need a manicure? (I think I had once for a wedding in about 1990). See the roses threading their way through to the top of this pine tree?

1990 is about the same year that I planted Paul. I was swept away by Wayside Gardens' description that it was not for the faint of heart. They claimed it produced small, fully double, apple-blossom pink blooms on thin stems....so far, so good. They went on to say it blooms in great clusters on this huge rambling rose. Does this look like great clusters? Granted, I probably shouldn't have picked a pine tree for Paul to ramble through. What grows well at the foot of a pine? Vinca, I suppose, but not Paul's Himalayan Musk.

My rose above (at dusk), and Wayside Gardens rose below. Hmm, I see a big difference! Well, it's only been in the ground for 17 years, maybe a few more will do the trick.

Oh well, gardening is all about great expectations, isn't it?